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  1. SiriuslyLong is offline
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    08-18-2010, 01:23 PM #1

    Income Tax received by Bush vs. Clinton

    A Fox News Bite

    8 years of Clinton collected an aggregate $5.7 Trillion of income taxes

    8 years of Bush collected an aggregate $7.5 Trillion of income taxes.

    $1.8 Trillion more collected by Bush?? The guy spouting off says $1 Trillion of the 1.8 came "from the rich". How the fck did that happen??? Or is Fox News "lying"?? Or does the data need to be inflation corrected??

    Help me understand Lloyd.

  2. Havakasha is offline
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    08-18-2010, 01:27 PM #2
    Who said it on FOX news? If true i am sure there are some fact based explanations.
    You might have to go to another source other than FOX for the facts however.
    I smell major agenda. Could it be they dont want tax cuts for rich to expire?

  3. SiriuslyLong is offline
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    08-18-2010, 07:15 PM #3
    Quote Originally Posted by Havakasha View Post
    Who said it on FOX news? If true i am sure there are some fact based explanations.
    You might have to go to another source other than FOX for the facts however.
    I smell major agenda. Could it be they dont want tax cuts for rich to expire?
    I'm reaching out to your brilliantness to come up with "alternative facts", not to hear your conspiracy theory lol.

    As for who said it, all I can tell you it was some guy. I'll check their esteemed web site to see if I can get a link.

  4. Havakasha is offline
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    08-18-2010, 11:28 PM #4
    Just looked quickly and see nothing about it so far. I wil await the information Fox made up.
    Smile S&L.

  5. Havakasha is offline
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    08-19-2010, 01:40 PM #5
    See something here about it. What was the point the guy who said this on Fox was trying to make?

    Originally Posted by marcopolo
    George W Bush was the most prolific tax collector in our nation's history. During Clinton's 8 years, $5.66 trillion was collected. During Bush's 8 years, $7.45 trillion was collected.

    More to the point, the "rich" (top 1%) paid an average of 21.3% of their income under Bush, MORE than the 20.6% under Clinton.

    How did this happen? Lower marginal tax rates under Bush spurred economic growth--the whole pie got larger. The rich ended up paying more tax, and a higher fraction of total taxes. The lower 99% paid less of the total tax, as a percentage

    Shouldn't the tax debate--over future tax rates--be shifted to focus on maximizing average tax rates and minimizing the top marginal tax bite?

    read more at RealClearMarkets - The Hidden Truth About the Bush Tax Increases


    Read more: http://www.city-data.com/forum/polit...#ixzz0x4gzms74

  6. Havakasha is offline
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    08-19-2010, 01:48 PM #6
    Sounds somewhat simplistic. Probably other analysis. Dont have time now.
    Economic growth (job growth etc.) was pretty anemic under Bush overall so i wonder.

  7. SiriuslyLong is offline
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    08-19-2010, 03:12 PM #7
    The Hidden Truth About the Bush Tax Increases
    By Bill Frezza


    The debate rages over whether our country can afford to extend the Bush tax cuts for the rich. Progressives argue that the ballooning Federal debt is a legacy of these tax cuts.

    There is one unreported flaw in this argument. As data from the IRS show, George Bush did not cut income taxes. He increased them. In fact, Bush increased income taxes not only for the rich but for at least half of all tax filers. Only the poor paid less income tax under George Bush than under Bill Clinton.

    WHAT?

    Go to the IRS website and add up the numbers for yourself. During the eight years of the Clinton Administration the Federal government collected a total of $5.66 trillion dollars in individual income taxes. During the eight years of the Bush Administration the Federal government collected approximately $7.45 trillion dollars in individual income taxes. The rich - that is, the top 1% of taxpayers - not only forked over a trillion dollars more to Uncle Sam under Bush than under Clinton, their share of the income tax burden increased from 33% to 38%.

    But wait, there's more.

    During the eight years of the Clinton Administration the rich paid income taxes at a blended rate of 20.6%. During the eight years of the Bush Administration the rich paid income taxes at a blended tax rate of 21.3%. Yes, the actual tax rate that matters when you fill out the bottom line of your tax return went up for the rich under George Bush.

    How can this be?

    The explanation for this apparent paradox is simple. The problem is that no one wants to hear it. Not the pundits. Not the press. Certainly not the leaders of the Democratic Party. Oddly enough, even the Republicans are oblivious.
    George Bush cut the marginal tax rates paid by the rich, and everyone else for that matter. These are the tax cuts that are about to expire. The marginal tax rate is the rate you pay on the last dollars you earn. The blended tax rate is the effective rate you end up paying across all of your income. The total amount of tax you pay equals your blended tax rate times your taxable income. And it's the total amount of tax collected that finances the government.

    As hard as this is for some people to accept, the rich change their behavior when their marginal tax rates are reduced. The working rich work harder and longer. They expand their businesses, creating jobs. The idle rich shift investments from lower yield tax-free government bonds into higher-return taxable investments, the kind of investments that finance companies that create jobs. Exactly the opposite happens when marginal tax rates go up, as they are scheduled to do unless Congress acts.

    The rich do not get richer because they are stupid. Being rational people, they are usually happy to pay more taxes if at the same time they also take home more after-tax dollars. And that's exactly what they did under George Bush. The math works because the pie gets bigger.

    So if social justice is your goal, go ahead and raise marginal tax rates for the rich. Making the rich poorer will certainly reduce inequality. Why should you care if the total amount of taxes paid by the rich goes down, economic growth goes down, fewer jobs get created, and the government falls deeper into debt? In fact, this is a perfect way to create a permanent crisis that never goes to waste. As a full throated Progressive you can run for Congress claiming that you are looking out for the little guy because you are sticking it to the rich.

    Meanwhile, when you asleep-at-the-switch Republicans finally learn how to tell the difference between nominal tax rates and actual tax collections, please fess up to the real source of the ballooning national debt. Your guy George Bush was the biggest spender in American history, at least until his incompetent presidency delivered Barack Obama to the Oval Office. Bush spent $5 trillion dollars more of our money than Bill Clinton. Had Bush frozen the federal budget when he came into office he would have left Obama a surplus. One of the saddest things about our broken two-party system is that every time Republicans gain power they spend like Democrats. Understand now why the Tea Party wants nothing to do with your incumbents?

    Do these facts surprise you? Is this the first time you've heard that George Bush was the biggest tax collector in American history? Were you aware that the rich paid a higher blended tax rate under Bush than under Clinton? Since reporters seem more willing to parrot talking points than dig up facts, spend a little time on www.irs.gov and see for yourself. You can also ponder what this selective national blindness says about our dysfunctional politico-pundit complex and its handmaidens in the media.

    Bill Frezza is a partner at Adams Capital Management, an early-stage venture capital firm. He can be reached at bill@vereverus.com. If you would like to subscribe to his weekly column, drop a note to publisher@vereverus.com.


    Yeah, that's the guy, thanks for the link. Simple addition doesn't lie. Maybe his reasoning is skewed, but facts are facts. I like the guy; he takes shots at everyone.

    http://www.realclearmarkets.com/arti...ses_98625.html

  8. SiriuslyLong is offline
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    08-24-2010, 01:31 PM #8
    Does there need to be a reconciliation of the facts? The guy above says tax collections increased under Bush, and this guys says it's fiscally irresponsible to keep the "tax cuts" in place. Who's right?

    http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/23/op...an.html?src=tp

    Or does this guy simply like to whine about "the rich" and polarize the masses? Tactic or truth?

    Now That’s Rich
    By PAUL KRUGMAN
    Published: August 22, 2010

    We need to pinch pennies these days. Don’t you know we have a budget deficit? For months that has been the word from Republicans and conservative Democrats, who have rejected every suggestion that we do more to avoid deep cuts in public services and help the ailing economy.

    But these same politicians are eager to cut checks averaging $3 million each to the richest 120,000 people in the country.

    What — you haven’t heard about this proposal? Actually, you have: I’m talking about demands that we make all of the Bush tax cuts, not just those for the middle class, permanent.

    Some background: Back in 2001, when the first set of Bush tax cuts was rammed through Congress, the legislation was written with a peculiar provision — namely, that the whole thing would expire, with tax rates reverting to 2000 levels, on the last day of 2010.

    Why the cutoff date? In part, it was used to disguise the fiscal irresponsibility of the tax cuts: lopping off that last year reduced the headline cost of the cuts, because such costs are normally calculated over a 10-year period. It also allowed the Bush administration to pass the tax cuts using reconciliation — yes, the same procedure that Republicans denounced when it was used to enact health reform — while sidestepping rules designed to prevent the use of that procedure to increase long-run budget deficits.

    Obviously, the idea was to go back at a later date and make those tax cuts permanent. But things didn’t go according to plan. And now the witching hour is upon us.

    So what’s the choice now? The Obama administration wants to preserve those parts of the original tax cuts that mainly benefit the middle class — which is an expensive proposition in its own right — but to let those provisions benefiting only people with very high incomes expire on schedule. Republicans, with support from some conservative Democrats, want to keep the whole thing.

    And there’s a real chance that Republicans will get what they want. That’s a demonstration, if anyone needed one, that our political culture has become not just dysfunctional but deeply corrupt.

    What’s at stake here? According to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, making all of the Bush tax cuts permanent, as opposed to following the Obama proposal, would cost the federal government $680 billion in revenue over the next 10 years. For the sake of comparison, it took months of hard negotiations to get Congressional approval for a mere $26 billion in desperately needed aid to state and local governments.

    And where would this $680 billion go? Nearly all of it would go to the richest 1 percent of Americans, people with incomes of more than $500,000 a year. But that’s the least of it: the policy center’s estimates say that the majority of the tax cuts would go to the richest one-tenth of 1 percent. Take a group of 1,000 randomly selected Americans, and pick the one with the highest income; he’s going to get the majority of that group’s tax break. And the average tax break for those lucky few — the poorest members of the group have annual incomes of more than $2 million, and the average member makes more than $7 million a year — would be $3 million over the course of the next decade.

    How can this kind of giveaway be justified at a time when politicians claim to care about budget deficits? Well, history is repeating itself. The original campaign for the Bush tax cuts relied on deception and dishonesty. In fact, my first suspicions that we were being misled into invading Iraq were based on the resemblance between the campaign for war and the campaign for tax cuts the previous year. And sure enough, that same trademark deception and dishonesty is being deployed on behalf of tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.

    So, for example, we’re told that it’s all about helping small business; but only a tiny fraction of small-business owners would receive any tax break at all. And how many small-business owners do you know making several million a year?

    Or we’re told that it’s about helping the economy recover. But it’s hard to think of a less cost-effective way to help the economy than giving money to people who already have plenty, and aren’t likely to spend a windfall.

    No, this has nothing to do with sound economic policy. Instead, as I said, it’s about a dysfunctional and corrupt political culture, in which Congress won’t take action to revive the economy, pleads poverty when it comes to protecting the jobs of schoolteachers and firefighters, but declares cost no object when it comes to sparing the already wealthy even the slightest financial inconvenience.

    So far, the Obama administration is standing firm against this outrage. Let’s hope that it prevails in its fight. Otherwise, it will be hard not to lose all faith in America’s future.