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

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

#51

Post by Steko »

gte910h wrote: post #44
Steko wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There's framing debates and there's Bill Clinton arguing about the meaning of the word 'is'. Sometimes you got to know when you're doing the former and when you're tilting at windmills. I also think the right's perceived advantage here is heavily overstated.

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

#52

Post by smsm42 »

gonepostal wrote: post #17
Steko wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bottom line is taxes are going up from what people paid two weeks ago. Calling that a hike is not disingenuous to me. It's a bit linkbaity, yes. The payroll tax holiday was a stimulus measure that was never meant to be permanent, yes. We should not compound the long term issues with social security by chronically underfunding it, yes. It's a hike and one I'm perfectly happy to live with. As a commenter at metafil…

The Bush era tax cuts were also never meant to be permanent. That is why calling it a tax hike is disingenuous at best.

So tax hike is not a tax hike if you plan it upfront? So if your employer says to you "you're getting a raise of $1000 for this year, but only for one year" it is not the same as getting a raise of $1000 and then getting a pay cut of $1000 next year? And the difference is... what exactly? That it was known upfront? How it makes anything different?

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

#53

Post by Steko »

smsm42 wrote: post #42
Steko wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Obama's deficits are caused by the depression bush brought us (decreased tax revenues -> deficit) and the continued unfunded wars, tax cuts and Medicare D program.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonoberholtzer/2012/02/01/obam...

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

#54

Post by jere »

smsm42 wrote: post #52
gonepostal wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Bush era tax cuts were also never meant to be permanent. That is why calling it a tax hike is disingenuous at best.

So tax hike is not a tax hike if you plan it upfront? So if your employer says to you "you're getting a raise of $1000 for this year, but only for one year" it is not the same as getting a raise of $1000 and then getting a pay cut of $1000 next year? And the difference is... what exactly? That it was known upfront? How it makes anything different?

>So if your employer says to you "you're getting a raise of $1000 for this year, but only for one year"

That's called a bonus and there's quite a difference. There's also a difference between a one year contract and getting laid off unexpectedly after one year.

You really don't get the practical difference?

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

#55

Post by smsm42 »

Steko wrote: post #45
smsm42 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Since the benefits are capped, Social Security can be fixed by raising taxes, of course. This would mean abandoning all pretense that Social Security is some kind of self-paying insurance/pension program but it is pretty much done by now anyway. Medicare is much worse - it is projected to grow to almost 20% GDP next 70 years, which means to pay for it you'd need to double the taxes - which is what I mean by confiscatory taxation levels.

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

#56

Post by smsm42 »

jere wrote: post #54
smsm42 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So tax hike is not a tax hike if you plan it upfront? So if your employer says to you "you're getting a raise of $1000 for this year, but only for one year" it is not the same as getting a raise of $1000 and then getting a pay cut of $1000 next year? And the difference is... what exactly? That it was known upfront? How it makes anything different?

>So if your employer says to you "you're getting a raise of $1000 for this year, but only for one year" That's called a bonus and there's quite a difference. There's also a difference between a one year contract and getting laid off unexpectedly after one year. You really don't get the practical difference?

Bonus is one-time and usually contingent, salary raise is increasing each paycheck and unconditional. But you can, of course, have a bonus which is unconditional, in which case it's just a pay raise.

>>>> There's also a difference between a one year contract and getting laid off unexpectedly after one year.

There is, but not in money. You could, for example, look in advance for the next gig if you knew. Since there's no way to prepare in advance for higher taxes that would make any difference (not for salarymen - for investors, they already did - tons of companies paid early dividends in 2012, sometimes borrowing to finance it), so it makes no practical difference at all.

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

#57

Post by onezeno »

abduhl wrote: post #21
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.

Cutting national defense entirely while raising taxes to 100% on the entire population would still mean a budget deficit by the middle of the 2030s due to the rate of growth of our social programs.

Do you have a source for that?

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

#58

Post by IgorPartola »

anonymoushn wrote: post #50
IgorPartola wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 u…

Right. If you ask me every day for my chainsaw and I give it to you, and one day I decide that I need it and you cannot use it, it's your issue that you can't get your project done. Your projection was wrong.

Now, if you had reason to believe (say, a contract) that my chainsaw will be available to you every day for three years, yes you can count on it. Otherwise you cannot.

Perhaps we shouldn't have "temporary" tax cuts at all. Why is it that something that was good 10 years ago is all of a sudden not good now? It's not like the "permanent" tax cuts or hikes are really permanent: the government can revise the tax code fairly frequently.

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

#59

Post by smsm42 »

Steko wrote: post #53
smsm42 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Obama's deficits are caused by the depression bush brought us (decreased tax revenues -> deficit) and the continued unfunded wars, tax cuts and Medicare D program. http://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonoberholtzer/2012/02/01/obam...

Of course Bush is to blame for everything. It's not like Obama had control over the budget for 4 years now and did nothing to reign in spending. Here I was naively hoping there's some point where blaming Bush has to stop. Of course it will never stop.

>>>> decreased tax revenues -> deficit

This is only partially true - IIRC, CBO estimates are about 24% of the Bush-era deficits were caused by tax cuts. The rest is spending increases and tax revenue falling short of previous expectations (i.e. would happen with or without tax cuts, and without tax cuts would probably be more severe as tax cuts were observed to decrease tax avoidance). The difference between 400bn and 1trln can not be explained by tax cuts.

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

#60

Post by Steko »

smsm42 wrote: post #59
Steko wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obama's deficits are caused by the depression bush brought us (decreased tax revenues -> deficit) and the continued unfunded wars, tax cuts and Medicare D program. http://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonoberholtzer/2012/02/01/obam...

Of course Bush is to blame for everything. It's not like Obama had control over the budget for 4 years now and did nothing to reign in spending. Here I was naively hoping there's some point where blaming Bush has to stop. Of course it will never stop. >>>> decreased tax revenues -> deficit This is only partially true - IIRC, CBO estimates are about 24% of the Bush-era deficits were caused by tax cuts. The rest is spe…

"It's not like Obama had control over the budget for 4 years now"

Because he's a dictator?

"and did nothing to reign in spending. "

Slowest increase in spending since Eisenhower?

"Here I was naively hoping there's some point where blaming Bush has to stop. Of course it will never stop."

Because it will never stop being true that he's responsible for the current fiscal mess? I'm sorry it's an 'inconvenient truth" for you that Bush sucked and got us in this mess.

"The rest is spending increases and tax revenue falling short of previous expectations"

This is actually what I meant by decreased revenues. My full quote as you can see is:

"decreased tax revenues -> deficit) and the continued unfunded wars, tax cuts and Medicare D program."

So perhaps that could have been punctuated better but it's not hard to see that I was making the distinction between the tax cuts and the decreased revenues due to recession/depression.

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