Clark is writing too crudely. The top tax rates of the the 1960s added to the era’s prosperity. The current obscenely low tax rates on the obscenely wealthy add to the Republican-bred federal debt.
And when you do that they will no longer generate anything above the ceiling. Then what, lower the ceiling? Human nature is to produce only that which you can keep.
Ray likes the folks like the Koch brothers and Dillinger, who got off their lazy capitalist butts and “earned it themselves” , by inheritance, or with a Thompson…
I weep for the simple-minded statements from both sides. However, at least the liberal statements are not stemming from greed, self-interest and hatred.
To complain that at 35% we’re being overtaxed is simply naive. The top rate in the 1960s was 67%. Reagan reduced it to 50%. In lowering it further to 35%, G.W. Bush shifted the tax burden from the wealthy (who now pay only 15% on capital gains) to the middle class and to small businesses, who don’t qualify for the exemptions—Obama calls them “loopholes”—whereby big corporations like Cisco and Exxon pay only 11% in actual taxes.
Teapublicans credit Reagan with shrinking Federal govt. by “starving the beast,” but in fact Reagan increased govt. expenditures. Instead of collecting more tax revenues, he simply borrowed the money he needed to run a government that grows inexorably with our population.
The prosperity that Reagan started with the govt.‘s credit card (so to speak) allowed his successor to RAISE taxes. Bush Sr. and Clinton both used the new revenues to (a) pay down the debt, and (b) to EXPAND govt. services. When Bush Jr. took office, he started the new century with a surplus. He chose to use that surplus to relieve the wealthy from paying their fair share of our govt.’s expenses.
Bush sought to repeat Reagan’s trick (voodoo economics," his father called it) of borrowing to replace tax revenues. This time, the president was not so lucky. Instead of peace and prosperity, the new century brought war and recession. Still, Bush insisted on further cutting taxes on the wealthy especially. He was reluctant to take away “their” money to pay for “big government.” The deficit that had reached $250 billion in 1988 had been shrunk to just $17 billion when Bush took office in 2001. Over the next eight years, the president, by refusing to collect the taxes that have always paid for America’s growing govt., swelled the deficit to $12 TRILLION—not counting the costs of two wars.
Teapublicans want to close this deficit by cutting “discretionary spending” (govt. expenditures other than Medicare, Social Security and defense). But that would save less than $1 trillion. Similarly innumerate liberals want to raise taxes on the wealthy. But even confiscating 100% of Americans’ household income would raise less than $2 trillion.
$2 trillion is the same amount that tax loopholes cost us annually. Why not close the deficit, then, by cutting these wasteful “tax expenditures”—outlays for things like oil depletion, farm subsidies, employers’ contributions to health care and social security, or interest on home mortgages? Because politicians in both parties dare not take these expenditures away from their constituents, that’s why not.
They’d rather take away Medicare or reduce Social Security.
We will have workable society when both sides of this argument see the merits of the other side and the shortcomings of their own side. Which is sort of like the observation that “Peace will come to the Middle East when the both sides run out of rocks.”
ANQuixote over 13 years ago
Is Greediness on the disease list?
pouncingtiger over 13 years ago
Only the top 2% of the U.S. population and people who desire to be part of it.
bagbalm over 13 years ago
Why would they stick around to make the 26th million?
BrianCrook over 13 years ago
Clark is writing too crudely. The top tax rates of the the 1960s added to the era’s prosperity. The current obscenely low tax rates on the obscenely wealthy add to the Republican-bred federal debt.
radeb98 over 13 years ago
This is the true picture of the lazy liberal left that wants what does not belong to them for free. Get off your duff and earn it for yourself.
fredturner over 13 years ago
Is this how the “trickle” part of Trickle Down Economics starts?
Potrzebie over 13 years ago
Has any foundation actually found a cure?
steelersneo over 13 years ago
And when you do that they will no longer generate anything above the ceiling. Then what, lower the ceiling? Human nature is to produce only that which you can keep.
Sandfan over 13 years ago
Based on the comments here, many of you still see communism as a viable philosophy. When’s the next meeting of the Supreme Soviet?
Dtroutma over 13 years ago
Ray likes the folks like the Koch brothers and Dillinger, who got off their lazy capitalist butts and “earned it themselves” , by inheritance, or with a Thompson…
khrushchev over 13 years ago
I weep for the simple-minded statements from both sides. However, at least the liberal statements are not stemming from greed, self-interest and hatred.
cdhaley over 13 years ago
To complain that at 35% we’re being overtaxed is simply naive. The top rate in the 1960s was 67%. Reagan reduced it to 50%. In lowering it further to 35%, G.W. Bush shifted the tax burden from the wealthy (who now pay only 15% on capital gains) to the middle class and to small businesses, who don’t qualify for the exemptions—Obama calls them “loopholes”—whereby big corporations like Cisco and Exxon pay only 11% in actual taxes.
Teapublicans credit Reagan with shrinking Federal govt. by “starving the beast,” but in fact Reagan increased govt. expenditures. Instead of collecting more tax revenues, he simply borrowed the money he needed to run a government that grows inexorably with our population.
The prosperity that Reagan started with the govt.‘s credit card (so to speak) allowed his successor to RAISE taxes. Bush Sr. and Clinton both used the new revenues to (a) pay down the debt, and (b) to EXPAND govt. services. When Bush Jr. took office, he started the new century with a surplus. He chose to use that surplus to relieve the wealthy from paying their fair share of our govt.’s expenses.
Bush sought to repeat Reagan’s trick (voodoo economics," his father called it) of borrowing to replace tax revenues. This time, the president was not so lucky. Instead of peace and prosperity, the new century brought war and recession. Still, Bush insisted on further cutting taxes on the wealthy especially. He was reluctant to take away “their” money to pay for “big government.” The deficit that had reached $250 billion in 1988 had been shrunk to just $17 billion when Bush took office in 2001. Over the next eight years, the president, by refusing to collect the taxes that have always paid for America’s growing govt., swelled the deficit to $12 TRILLION—not counting the costs of two wars.
Teapublicans want to close this deficit by cutting “discretionary spending” (govt. expenditures other than Medicare, Social Security and defense). But that would save less than $1 trillion. Similarly innumerate liberals want to raise taxes on the wealthy. But even confiscating 100% of Americans’ household income would raise less than $2 trillion.
$2 trillion is the same amount that tax loopholes cost us annually. Why not close the deficit, then, by cutting these wasteful “tax expenditures”—outlays for things like oil depletion, farm subsidies, employers’ contributions to health care and social security, or interest on home mortgages? Because politicians in both parties dare not take these expenditures away from their constituents, that’s why not.
They’d rather take away Medicare or reduce Social Security.
ghretighoti over 13 years ago
We will have workable society when both sides of this argument see the merits of the other side and the shortcomings of their own side. Which is sort of like the observation that “Peace will come to the Middle East when the both sides run out of rocks.”
FriscoLou over 13 years ago
Feels more like “tinkle down”, fred.