The Lowest Federal Tax Rate in 60 Years Says Reagan Advisor

With extreme leftist wing nuts saying everyone is in for paying more taxes, one has to set the record straight as you did this morning - no one likes paying taxes, and no one wants to pay more.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8URYPna1lhw

The polls show a large majority of people are for a compromise position that raises revenues and cuts spending. No one likes to pay taxes but most mature people understand their necessity and a majority are certainly comfortable with cutting the debt by raising taxes on the wealthy as well as cutting spending. And most economists will tell you that there is no other way to cut the deficit properly without doing both. You dont have to try and twist words. Its a very simple propostion and one which i have demonstrated that the polls agree with.
I think you are being just a tad silly here dont you?


Maybe i will post it one more time for you to read.

This is from Politifact.com . Its a well regarded fact checking organization. Check it out some time.


"Eighty percent of the American people support an approach (to federal budget problems) that includes revenues and includes cuts."
Barack Obama on Friday, July 15th, 2011 in a press conference

Barack Obama said 80 percent of Americans favor both spending cuts and tax increases to address budget problems,


As President Barack Obama and Republicans in Congress continued their high-stakes stand-off over raising the debt ceiling and other budget issues, Obama held a press conference to press his case that he's a reasonable guy.

One of the main points of contention is whether an agreement should include tax increases of any kind, such as closing tax loopholes or tax increases on the wealthy. Republicans oppose raising taxes.

During a press conference on July 15, 2011, Obama was asked if the negotiations would be going better if he had started making his case to the public months ago, pushing a proposal that included tax increases and spending cuts. Obama rejected the premise.

"You have 80 percent of the American people who support a balanced approach. Eighty percent of the American people support an approach that includes revenues and includes cuts. So the notion that somehow the American people aren't sold is not the problem," he said. "The problem is members of Congress are dug in ideologically into various positions because they boxed themselves in with previous statements."

We won't weigh in on Obama's diagnosis of being dug in, but we were interested in the poll numbers on whether the public supports a balanced approach or not.

The most recent poll we found largely supported Obama's statement. A Gallup poll conducted July 7-10, 2011 posed the question this way:

"As you may know, Congress can reduce the federal budget deficit by cutting spending, raising taxes, or a combination of the two. Ideally, how would you prefer to see Congress attempt to reduce the federal budget deficit: only with spending cuts, mostly with spending cuts, equally with spending cuts and tax increases, mostly with tax increases, or only with tax increases?"

The answer "only spending cuts" got 20 percent. The other answers were "mostly spending cuts," 30 percent; "equal spending cuts and tax increases," 32 percent; "mostly tax increases," 7 percent; "only tax increases," 4 percent; unsure/other, 6 percent.

We'll note that Obama counted in his favor people who favored only tax increases or who weren't sure, so he wasn't completely accurate. If you deduct those groups, only 70 percent support the balanced approach. But the poll did support his overall point.

Other polls also showed support for Obama's statement, but not quite at an 80-percent level.

A poll from Quinnipiac University conducted July 5-11, 2011, asked: "Do you think any agreement to raise the national debt ceiling should include only spending cuts, or should it also include an increase in taxes for the wealthy and corporations?"

In this case, 67 percent favored including tax increases, while 25 percent favored spending cuts only. Another 8 percent were unsure.

In June, a Reuters/Ipsos poll found that most people, 46 percent, favored a combination of cuts and tax increases, compared with 26 percent who said cuts alone and 13 percent who said raise taxes. An ABC/Washington Post poll from April found the number was higher, at 59 percent.

We reviewed polls and consulted experts a few weeks ago for a fact-check on whether people support tax increases or not. Karlyn Bowman, a senior fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute who studies polls on taxation, told us polls usually show support for balanced approaches, particularly if people don't have to pay the higher taxes themselves.

"Generally, combinations of tax hikes and spending cuts are most popular. It seems fair to most people. Spending cuts are favored in the abstract. Tax hikes are favored as long as they don't affect me. Generally, people don't think anybody should have to pay more than a quarter of their income in total taxes," she said.

Finally, a few other cautions on poll numbers.

Pollsters have long noted that when you ask questions with different wording, you get different results. All the polls we looked at phrased the question slightly differently.

A few recent polls also suggested that people find the whole debt ceiling debate confusing, or they aren't following it very closely. A Pew Research Center/Washington Post poll from May asked people how well they felt they understood what would happen if the government does not raise the federal debt limit; 47 percent said "not too well" or "not at all well." And the July Gallup poll found that 42 percent of respondents were following the issue "not too closely" or "not at all."

Getting back to Obama's statement, he said, "You have 80 percent of the American people who support a balanced approach. Eighty percent of the American people support an approach that includes revenues and includes cuts." Even the best poll doesn't show support quite that high -- he would more accurately have accounted for the small numbers that support only tax increases or were unsure, putting the number at 70 percent. But his overall point is correct that polls show most Americans support a balanced approach when given a choice between cutting spending or raising taxes. So we rate his statement Mostly True.

The rich are getting richer. Their effective tax rate, in recent years, has been reduced to the lowest in modern history. Nurses, teachers and firemen actually pay a higher tax rate than some billionaires. It's no wonder the American people are angry.

Many corporations, including General Electric and Exxon-Mobil, have made billions in profits while using loopholes to avoid paying any federal income taxes. We lose $100 billion every year in federal revenue from companies and individuals who stash their wealth in tax havens off-shore like the Cayman Islands and Bermuda. The sum of all the revenue collected by the Treasury today totals just 14.8% of our gross domestic product, the lowest in about 50 years.

In the midst of this, Republicans in Congress have been fanatically determined to protect the interests of the wealthy and large multinational corporations so that they do not contribute a single penny toward deficit reduction.

If the Republicans have their way, the entire burden of deficit reduction will be placed on the elderly, the sick, children and working families. In the midst of a horrendous recession that is already causing severe pain for average Americans, this approach is morally grotesque. It's also bad economic policy.

President Obama and the Democrats have been extremely weak in opposing these right-wing extremist proposals. Although the United States now has the most unequal distribution of wealth and income of any major industrialized country, Democrats have not succeeded in getting any new revenue from those at the top of the economic ladder to reduce the deficit.

Instead, they've handed the wealthy even more tax breaks. In December, the House and the Senate extended President George W. Bush's tax cuts for the rich and lowered estate tax rates for the wealthiest Americans. In April, to avoid the Republican effort to shut down the government, they allowed $38.5 billion in cuts to vitally important programs for working-class and middle-class Americans.

Now, with the U.S. facing the possibility of the first default in our nation's history, the American people find themselves forced to choose between two congressional deficit-reduction plans. The plan by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, which calls for $2.4 trillion in cuts over a 10-year period, includes $900 billion in cuts in areas such as education, health care, nutrition, affordable housing, child care and many other programs desperately needed by working families and the most vulnerable.

The Senate plan appropriately calls for meaningful cuts in military spending and ending the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. But it does not ask the wealthiest people in this country and the largest corporations to make any sacrifice.

The Reid plan is bad. The constantly shifting plan by House Speaker John Boehner is much worse. His $1.2 trillion plan calls for no cuts in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and it requires a congressional committee to come up with another $1.8 trillion in cuts within six months of passage.

Those cuts would mean drastic reductions in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. What's more, Mr. Boehner's plan would reopen the debate over the debt ceiling, which is now paralyzing Congress, just six months from now.

While all of this is going on in Washington, the American people have consistently stated, in poll after poll, that they want wealthy individuals and large corporations to pay their fair share of taxes. They also want bedrock social programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid to be protected. For example, a July 14-17 Washington Post/ABC News poll found that 72% of Americans believe that Americans earning more than $250,000 a year should pay more in taxes.

In other words, Congress is now on a path to do exactly what the American people don't want. Americans want shared sacrifice in deficit reduction. Congress is on track to give them the exact opposite: major cuts in the most important programs that the middle class needs and wants, and no sacrifice from the wealthy and the powerful.

Is it any wonder, therefore, that the American people are so angry with what's going on in Washington? I am too.

http://sanders.enews.senate.gov/mail...g_linkid=19320

Mr. Sanders, an independent senator from Vermont, is a member of the Senate Budget Committee.

Gross says taxes hikes on Corporations are necessary. Take a look at the video.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/0..._n_917012.html

Bill Gross: Economy Is At The 'Tipping Point' Of Recession
The Huffington Post Alexander Eichler First Posted: 8/3/11 10:05 AM ET Updated: 8/3/11 10:05 AM ET

The economy hasn’t slipped into recession yet, but it may be at a “tipping point,” according to Bill Gross, co-chief investment officer of the financial services company PIMCO.

“We are at what we call a stall speed, in which corporate profits don’t grow, jobs aren’t created and therefore the economy sinks,” Gross said Tuesday in an interview with Bloomberg Television.

Gross’s comments echo those of Harvard University professor Martin Feldstein, who told Bloomberg Television in a separate interview Tuesday that “this economy is really balanced on the edge” and predicted “a 50 percent chance that we could slide into a new recession.”

A recent series of discouraging economic reports, including low GDP for 2011, bloated unemployment figures, lackluster manufacturing performance, and dwindling consumer spending, as well as the protracted debate over the debt ceiling and the threat of a U.S. credit downgrade, have stirred up a new round of speculation about whether the country might be heading back toward recession.

Although the government has undertaken stimulus efforts, Gross said, they have been flawed because they largely emphasized consumption, which amounts to “Chinese production as opposed to U.S. production.”

Any future stimulus programs, he said, must promote jobs and infrastructure and allow the U.S. to begin exporting again.

“At the moment, we only import something from the global economy, and that’s one of the problems that we have,” said Gross.

In the interview, Gross also spoke about the Tea Party, the limited powers of the Federal Reserve, and the contractionary effects of the debt deal.

Watch Bill Gross's segment on Bloomberg Television here:

Nah. We don't need no tax hikes on corporations; who cares that no jobs are being created; who cares that we don't make much in this country anymore; who cares if we have another, bigger recession; who cares that Wall Street crooks have not paid for their fraud, greed and the wrecking of the world economy; who cares that millions are out of work PERMANENTLY; who cares that social programs for those in need are being cut; who cares that the obscenely wealthy don't have to pay more; who cares there is no deficit problem if we get out of wars, raise taxes on those who can afford it and get people working so they can pay taxes again; who cares that Social Security which has never added a penny to the deficit is STILL being touted as a problem to be 'fixed' to lower the deficit; who cares we have a conservative republican president that will not fix problems because he is a phony and sold many on his 'progressive' instincts; who cares that global warming is a fact but no one will talk about it - or do anything about it; who cares a legal procedure, abortion, cannot be provided to women in need because of insane religious idiots who hate rather than think - and kill those they disagree with; who cares that these same people want to also eliminate contraceptives; who cares that there are no moderates in the republican party anymore because right-wing lunatics have pushed them out; who cares that there is a 'network' that hates this country and is doing everything in its power to bring it down - and the leader, and his associates, are currently being shown for the assholes they have always been; who cares medical practioners, like pharmacists, don't have to fill a RX if it 'offends' them; who cares that the msm is not interested in rocking the boat so you never hear anything important on it - just 'entertainment'; who cares that the party that has the power, given to them by spineless democrats, has always said they hate government - now they own it; who cares that conservative assholes have lied about the debt crisis - the debt ceiling was raised 7 times under Bush - 18 times under Reagan; who cares that the cuts that will likely be made as a result of unnecessary and phony concern about our deficit will affect food, water, health, transportation, the environment and other safety related agencies - because conservatives live by the slogan - YOU'RE ON YOUR OWN MF'ER!

Who cares about any of this and the many, many subjects I didn't mention?

Almost no one does.

Just as the markets took an unexpected tumble today, despite the debt deal, another unfortunate announcement for the economy. Layoffs in previously strong sectors like pharmaceutical and retail passed the number of government jobs cut.

From Reuters, today:

The number of planned layoffs at U.S. firms rose to a 16-month high in July as sectors which had been seeing fairly few layoffs unexpectedly bled jobs, a report on Wednesday showed.

Employers announced 66,414 planned job cuts last month, up 60.3 percent from 41,432 in June, according to a report from consultants Challenger, Gray & Christmas, Inc.

July's job cuts also were up from the same time a year ago, rising 59.4 percent from the 41,676 job cuts announced in July 2010, and recording the largest monthly total since March, 2010.

Progressives have been warning about the recovery not being so much of a recovery for months, and these numbers seem to back it up.

John A. Challenger, who is CEO of the consulting firm told Reuters that "a casual observer certainly might conclude that the wheels just fell off the recovery wagon."

Meanwhile, Larry Summers wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post today with a similarly grim prognosis: "the economy is effectively at a stall..." he wrote, adding that "the economy has at least a 1-in-3 chance of falling back into recession if nothing new is done to raise demand and spur growth

By Sarah Seltzer | Sourced from AlterNet

http://act.alternet.org/go/9801?akid...18.hP9eBJ&t=11

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Don't worry, folks. Everything is under control. Conservatives know just what to do.

F*** up some more things and blame others. It works.

It appears that politics are ruining your day. You may want to consider changing your name to Apolitical or you can move to Iceland?

There's still time to invest in gold or pick up a short ETF.

What I can tell you from the factory floor is that orders are still strong, and our machines are running.

1 AT 04:00 PM PDT
The New Class War: Wealthy paying 25% less in taxes since 1990s
byHunter
Reposted from Daily Kos Labor by Laura Clawson
CAP has a graph showing how tough wealthy Americans have it these days:


(Center for American Progress)
America’s millionaires won’t be asked to contribute a single dime [towards deficit reduction]. That’s unfortunate because they certainly can afford it. Not only have their incomes been skyrocketing but data released this week by the Internal Revenue Service reveal that their tax rates have plunged over the last two decades. As a percentage of their incomes, millionaires are now paying about one-quarter less of their income to federal taxes than they did in the mid-1990s.
So what’s causing the tax bills of the wealthiest to drop? The average millionaire will pay $136,000 less this year because the Bush tax cuts are still in effect, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. The Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 lowered the top marginal rate from the Clinton-era 39.6 percent to 35 percent. They also dropped the rates on capital gains and dividend income to a historically low 15 percent. (Capital gains rates had already been cut from 28 percent to 20 percent in 1997.) [...]

And it was a super-boon to mega-millionaires and billionaires. IRS data show that the tax rates of the richest 400 Americans declined from 29.9 percent in 1995 to 18.1 percent in 2008, largely because that exclusive group derives two-thirds of its income from capital gains.

Why, oh why, have our deficits been ballooning? Perhaps we should ask a bunch of Bush-era hacks about that, and what they think we should be doing about it.

Oh, wait. That's exactly what we've been doing. And the answer always comes back "cut aid to poor people."

This is just a random thought, but it's sure been a long time since I heard the phrase "compassionate conservatism." Now it's all about hurting people so that the rich can collect even more of that cash.

"Stupid, naive, and proud. That describes our uber-class. They create nothing and want us to bow down to them. Guess what, the TAX RATE IS the DISCOUNT RATE FOR INVESTMENT AND HIRING. Low taxes allows our overlords to cash out with few costs, meaning revenues that should otherwise go into investment and hiring is squandered. High Taxes encourage businesses to engage their money into the economy. You can't expect to drain them dry, but you can drive them to put their money into action.

Another absurd and ignorant trope is that high taxes kill economies. How on Earth did America survive the 70-94% top marginal rates that ran from WW2 to Reagan? How has the economy fared since Reagan? Productivity and pay held in lockstep through the high tax years, where productivity gains have drifted to the plutocracy since taxes were lowered. Manufacturing has vacated the country, jobs are scarce. How can people assert that the Reagan revolution is anything but a bust?"

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/bill-...#ixzz1Uh1bDDhQ

Interesting interview with Nourel Roubini which touches on this.

http://www.cnbc.com/id/44121011