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Senate-Passed Deal Means Higher Tax on 77% of Households

bloomberg.com

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Re: Senate-Passed Deal Means Higher Tax on 77% of Households

#41

Post by jonhinson »

smsm42 wrote: post #25
jonhinson wrote: post #10

The article makes it sound like the bill explicitly raises taxes on 77% of households. This would be false. The bill simply does not extend the temporary tax holiday that was signed into law at the end of 2010. The payroll tax rate goes back to the rate we've had since 1990.

"Your Honor, the prosecutor makes it sound as if I killed that man with a brick. Nothing could be farther from the truth - I just let the brick go, and some time later, completely independently from my actions and completely beyond my control, the brick fell onto the victim's skull and crushed it. I simply failed to extend my temporary holding over the brick, which I never promised to hold forever, by the way, and fu…

I was simply commenting on the semantics of the article. The wording in the title and body claims this bill is the cause of the temporary tax cut expiring. That would be disingenuous. The cause of this "tax increase" is the fact that the original legislation made it temporary. This bill has nothing to do with "...[raising] taxes on 77.1 percent of U.S. households..."

Re: Senate-Passed Deal Means Higher Tax on 77% of Households

#42

Post by smsm42 »

Steko wrote: post #5
thisisdallas wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Endlessly frustrating that there is such vindictive zeal on the left for pushing the face of the economy into the dirt by refusing to cut spending.

If only the right could control the presidency and both houses of congress we'd finally see spending get under control right?

We would probably have less rampant abuse, though if Bush times is an indication of anything, the right can definitely be tempted by debt spending also, just in less egregious quantities. But I'd take Bush-level deficits (400bn) over Obama-level (1trln+) any day.

Re: Senate-Passed Deal Means Higher Tax on 77% of Households

#43

Post by IgorPartola »

smsm42 wrote: post #14
jere wrote: post #8

Let's be clear here. The deal means the bush era tax cuts remain for most people (a 3 percentage point reduction for most brackets), while we lose a temporary payroll tax for 2%: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-11-28/breaking-down-the-c... If I understand correctly, that means taxes should still be about 1% lower than they were during Clinton. I love how every time a temporary tax cut expires, we call it a "tax hi…

It IS a tax hike. Tax rates increase. The basic fact is: now, in January, tax rates are higher than they were last month, in December. No amount of renaming and shifting blame changes this basic fact. Taxes have gone up. Yes, there were times where taxes were even higher, so what? There also were times where women weren't allowed to vote, but we don't call denying a woman right to vote now "return to Lincoln-era free…

If I lend you a chainsaw today, and tell you that I'll need it back tomorrow that's temporary. If I come to collect it tomorrow, you cannot tell me that I'm taking something that you own away from you.

If you were thinking of those tax cuts as permanent, why didn't you and your representatives make them permanent ahead of time?

Re: Senate-Passed Deal Means Higher Tax on 77% of Households

#44

Post by gte910h »

Steko wrote: post #39
gte910h wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason some people don't want to call it a hike is that the passing of the law didn't cause it, it was a sunset baked into the old law.

Arguing over labels is a red herring. Is it a hike? Maybe. Who cares? Many reasonable people might say it's a hike, so don't hide from that or try and split hairs. At the end of the day it's the right thing to do... so do it, even if it's a hike.

I think the left has taken this approach in America, and let the right repeatedly pick the worst labels for EVERYTHING from the left's perspective.

It's called framing.

Re: Senate-Passed Deal Means Higher Tax on 77% of Households

#45

Post by Steko »

smsm42 wrote: post #16
outside1234 wrote: post #12

I'll probably be unpopular, but it should be 100% of households. We are in denial that we can have all of the benefits we want and not raise taxes. The choices we have is: A) Cutting Medicare B) Cutting Social Security C) Cutting National Defense D) Raising Taxes Everything else is noise. Choose some combination of A-D. My choice is a 35% cut in C and D to cover the rest.

You did look at how fast Medicare and Social Security grows? If yes and you're still thinking they can be sustained with current growth patterns by defense cuts and non-confiscatory taxation levels, you probably have some private math where 1+1 can equal one trillion if you believe hard enough.

Here's an interactive Social Security reformer, it's a year and a half old but the basic math still holds:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405270230418640457639...

Anyone who thinks Social Security is in crisis is misinformed. It's easily fixable for the foreseeable future without touching benefits. Remove the cap for high earners but keep the current benefit limits.

Re: Senate-Passed Deal Means Higher Tax on 77% of Households

#46

Post by smsm42 »

jere wrote: post #38
smsm42 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course it's intentional. If they didn't intend for taxes to go up, they would not vote for legislation that is doing so. In fact, they did it twice - in 2010 andin 2012 - so they fully intended that there be a tax hike in 2013. >>>> do you call it a "price hike" when a sale ends? Of course. "Sale" is a marketing construct, there's no price but the actual deal price. Claiming that there's some other price, which ju…

>Of course it's intentional. If they didn't intend for taxes to go up, they would not vote for legislation that is doing so. Are we talking about the same thing? Because I thought we were discussing a law that would automatically expire without intervention. If there was no legislation being voted on right now, it would still expire.

"automatically" is bullshit - the Congress is (was) capable of stopping it at any moment if they only wanted to do so. Inaction is a decision as well as action, otherwise setting off a bomb would be an unintentional act - I just pressed a button and failed to cancel it until it exploded, but since it exploded "automatically" it is unintentional. Nobody in right mind would buy this, but you're buying the "automatically" thing for some reason.

It just makes it easier to fool people - they fooled you, for example - into thinking they had no choice because it's somehow "automatic". They had all choice in the world, and "automatic" means nothing but saying "this would happen unless we create a law to do otherwise" - which is true for 100% of laws created by Congress, they all happen unless Congress creates another law that says the contrary. They are all "automatic" and all intentional.

Re: Senate-Passed Deal Means Higher Tax on 77% of Households

#48

Post by smsm42 »

jonhinson wrote: post #41
smsm42 wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Your Honor, the prosecutor makes it sound as if I killed that man with a brick. Nothing could be farther from the truth - I just let the brick go, and some time later, completely independently from my actions and completely beyond my control, the brick fell onto the victim's skull and crushed it. I simply failed to extend my temporary holding over the brick, which I never promised to hold forever, by the way, and fu…

I was simply commenting on the semantics of the article. The wording in the title and body claims this bill is the cause of the temporary tax cut expiring. That would be disingenuous. The cause of this "tax increase" is the fact that the original legislation made it temporary. This bill has nothing to do with "...[raising] taxes on 77.1 percent of U.S. households..."

Of course the bill is the cause. If they didn't want the tax to raise in 2013, they'd make it permanent in 2010 or extended the current levels in 2012. They did not, which means they fully intended for it to happen exactly like it happened. E.g., have taxes for 77% of households be higher in 2013 then they were in 2012.

Re: Senate-Passed Deal Means Higher Tax on 77% of Households

#49

Post by hnwh »

jere wrote: post #8

Let's be clear here. The deal means the bush era tax cuts remain for most people (a 3 percentage point reduction for most brackets), while we lose a temporary payroll tax for 2%: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-11-28/breaking-down-the-c... If I understand correctly, that means taxes should still be about 1% lower than they were during Clinton. I love how every time a temporary tax cut expires, we call it a "tax hi…

> I don't see how we can ever fix the debt if no one is willing to pay more taxes and no one is willing to lose benefits.

I dunno.. maybe stop bombing every country on the planet that hates us for our freedom..? Just a thought..

Re: Senate-Passed Deal Means Higher Tax on 77% of Households

#50

Post by anonymoushn »

IgorPartola wrote: post #43
smsm42 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It IS a tax hike. Tax rates increase. The basic fact is: now, in January, tax rates are higher than they were last month, in December. No amount of renaming and shifting blame changes this basic fact. Taxes have gone up. Yes, there were times where taxes were even higher, so what? There also were times where women weren't allowed to vote, but we don't call denying a woman right to vote now "return to Lincoln-era free…

If I lend you a chainsaw today, and tell you that I'll need it back tomorrow that's temporary. If I come to collect it tomorrow, you cannot tell me that I'm taking something that you own away from you. If you were thinking of those tax cuts as permanent, why didn't you and your representatives make them permanent ahead of time?

If they were permanent, the CBO would have to make projections assuming they are permanent. It's much easier for me to borrow your chainsaw every day than to ask you to give it to me, because then I can tell you you'll have it back tomorrow.

As it is, the CBO is able to make projections involving the cuts expiring next year each year for over a decade now. This time the projection turned out to be more correct than usual, which is to say still wrong.

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