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kallend

Can pie-in-the-sky pay for tax cuts?

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Reaganomics promised to reduce the government's influence on the economy. That policy was dramatically different from the status quo. Prior presidents Johnson and Nixon expanded the government's role.

Reagan pledged to make cuts in four areas:

The growth of government spending.
Both income taxes and capital gains taxes.
Regulations on businesses.
The expansion of the money supply....

The result? The federal debt almost tripled, from $997 billion in 1981 to $2.857 trillion in 1989. (Source: William A. Niskanen, "Reaganomics," Library of Economics and Liberty.)
https://www.thebalance.com/reaganomics-did-it-work-would-it-today-3305569

So no.

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kallend


Massive tax cuts for the wealthy are to be deficit neutral because pie-in-the-sky economic growth will pay for them.

Yeah, right!

It's a article of faith amongst Republicans that tax cuts spur economic growth, and that the wealthy invariably use their tax savings to create good high paying jobs for people. Like all matters of faith, there is no actual evidence to support these beliefs, and considerable evidence that they are flat out wrong. That has never deterred the true believers though. Of course as far as Trump, Ryan, et al are concerned it doesn't help that they will personally benefit hugely from the proposed tax changes.

Don
_____________________________________
Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996)
“Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

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I know anything that I end up getting in a tax cut will not be spent for another 20-30 years since I will be putting all of it into a retirement plan. This is going to be the case for a large portion of the middle upper class, they will be using any savings for retirement savings, paying down home loans or similar debt elimination.

Looking at our corporate plans even with a massive tax reduction there are no major plans for expansion via hiring so it's likely that any savings will be put into building up a larger cash reserve than we currently have to deal with future acquisitions and dividends. Not sure how that will help spur any lower or middle class growth.
Yesterday is history
And tomorrow is a mystery

Parachutemanuals.com

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I believe that no Republicans think "tax cuts spur economic growth, and that the wealthy invariably use their tax savings to create good high paying jobs for people." That is all just fodder for the peasants.

The truth is more like "that they will personally benefit hugely from the proposed tax changes." In the realm of personally benefiting from the new tax laws or that they will continue to get huge bribes (campaign donations) from their donors.

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CygnusX-1

I believe that no Republicans think "tax cuts spur economic growth, and that the wealthy invariably use their tax savings to create good high paying jobs for people." That is all just fodder for the peasants.

The truth is more like "that they will personally benefit hugely from the proposed tax changes." In the realm of personally benefiting from the new tax laws or that they will continue to get huge bribes (campaign donations) from their donors.



Or as trump put it to his friends. "For my friends anything. For the peasants, the tax code".

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GeorgiaDon

Of course as far as Trump, Ryan, et al are concerned it doesn't help that they will personally benefit hugely from the proposed tax changes.

Don



I hate to disagree with a fellow professor, but the correct word is "bigly".
...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

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I am all about tax re-structuring, but unless they actually bring the deficit under control and the debt moving in the right direction, it is all for naught.

One of the conservative principles that conservatives are quick to forget is the responsibility to pay for the programs on which they spend.

Some pipe dream forecast that economic growth will solve it all without being able to describe in (some) detail what that economic growth might look like is inane.

I bet it passes, and I bet we all get more money in our pockets and I bet the deficit and the debt grow. And I bet conservatives do not give a fuck because they will continue to boast the economic growth (which has been happening for 8 years already) and we just need to give it more time - kick it to the next election.....

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kallend

***Of course as far as Trump, Ryan, et al are concerned it doesn't help that they will personally benefit hugely from the proposed tax changes.

Don



I hate to disagree with a fellow professor, but the correct word is "bigly".I stand corrected!

Don
_____________________________________
Tolerance is the cost we must pay for our adventure in liberty. (Dworkin, 1996)
“Education is not filling a bucket, but lighting a fire.” (Yeats)

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kallend



Funny, isn't it, how all the deficit hawks go silent when the GOP is running up the debt.



The idea is to run a shell game. They know it will increase the deficit. They want a larger deficit because then they hope to cut programs "because the country can't afford them". Straight up Grover Norquist inspired tactics.
Always remember the brave children who died defending your right to bear arms. Freedom is not free.

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kallend


Massive tax cuts for the wealthy are to be deficit neutral because pie-in-the-sky economic growth will pay for them.

Yeah, right!



there are no tax cuts for the wealthy in the proposed bill.



We need what Reagan did back in the day
"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln

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>Let me guess, you also think it won't very much benefit Trump.

===========
Trump Could Save More Than $1 Billion Under His New Tax Plan

By JESSE DRUCKER and NADJA POPOVICH
NYT SEPT. 28, 2017

President Trump could cut his tax bills by more than $1.1 billion, including saving tens of millions of dollars in a single year, under his proposed tax changes, a New York Times analysis has found.

On Wednesday, the White House announced a sweeping plan to cut a variety of taxes that would overwhelmingly benefit the wealthy. The estimate of Mr. Trump’s savings is based in part on information from his 2005 federal tax return. The analysis compares what his tax burden would be under current law with what it would be under the proposal.

Mr. Trump’s 2005 return is the most recent available publicly and was released in March by David Cay Johnston, a former New York Times reporter. The Times’s figure also relies on an estimate of Mr. Trump’s net worth, calculated by the Bloomberg Billionaire’s Index to be $2.86 billion.

“I don’t benefit. I don’t benefit,” Mr. Trump said on Wednesday. “In fact, very, very strongly, as you see, I think there’s very little benefit for people of wealth.”
==============

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We're currently having this debate in the UK as well. We have a corporate loving government full of rich people who are cutting taxes for themselves and their friends in the business world while punishing and penalising the working poor, the sick, the unemployed and the disabled. Things started to come to a head when David Clapson, an unemployed ex-soldier was found dead in his flat.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/09/david-clapson-benefit-sanctions-death-government-policies

The current government has, despite being implicated in several scandals involving offshore tax havens, consistently demonised people receiving benefits as scroungers and shirkers. At the same time they've allowed big corporations to get away with paying little, or no, tax on their earnings in the UK.
Atheism is a Non-Prophet Organisation

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rushmc

***
Massive tax cuts for the wealthy are to be deficit neutral because pie-in-the-sky economic growth will pay for them.

Yeah, right!



there are no tax cuts for the wealthy in the proposed bill.



We need what Reagan did back in the day

Your credibility was already zero, but thank you anyway for confirming it.
...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

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Here's a good example of how well Trump elites understand the real world:
=======================
Economic advisor Gary Cohn said Thursday that an American family could save $1,000 under the Republicans' proposed tax reform plan, and it could use that money to pay for a new car or a kitchen.

"If we allow a family to keep another thousand dollars of their income, what does that mean? They can renovate their kitchen, they can buy a new car, they can take their family on vacation, they can increase their lifestyle," he said. "That's what our tax plan has to do."
========================
See? For only $1000 you can buy a new car, or remodel your kitchen!

Well, OK, maybe the last time Gary had to pay for anything himself was when he was 13, and prices have gone up since then.

But at least you'll get that $1000, right? Right?

=======================
Interviewer: . . . Nearly half of the middle class families earning between $50,000 and $75,000 are actually going to see a tax increase here in New York because you eliminate the deduction of local taxes.

Cohn: Well, if you look at the reality of the country as a whole, less than 20% . .. uh, less than 25% of the families in America itemize.

Interviewer: . . . so you can't guarantee that no middle class family will get a tax increase. There will be middle class families who see a tax increase under your plan, correct?

Cohn: Well, there's an exception to every rule . . .

Interviewer: So that's a yes.

Cohn: Look, I can't guarantee anything.
========================

So you'll get $1000 and you can buy a new car! Unless you itemize. But only 20% of Americans do that. OK, maybe 25%. Or some other number; numbers are hard. And of course he can't guarantee anything, so your taxes might go up.

Unless, of course, you are rich - then you are guaranteed a massive tax cut.

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Gary can't even get his numbers right... some estimates have it at 30.1 percent of households chose to itemize their deductions (44 million returns). Also the higher the income the more likely you are to itemize: https://taxfoundation.org/who-itemizes-deductions/
Yesterday is history
And tomorrow is a mystery

Parachutemanuals.com

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