Warrenistas make low-budget video, embarass selves

[progree]

80. Yes, and we should look at 4 years of reduced taxes for working class folks under Obama

Last edited Sun Apr 19, 2015, 10:05 PM - Edit history (2)

[font color = blue]>>Should we also include changes to estate taxes<<[/font]

Good point. Yes, he kept that Bush gift to the top fraction of the top 1%. So I misspoke when I said in #78,

"and let them go up for the top 1% back up to the level they were under Clinton"

which definitely implies that all taxes on the top 1% went up to the Clinton levels, not just the income taxes (and beyond with the 3.8% Net Investment Income Tax (actually a surtax), and the 0.9% Medicare tax surcharge)

[font color = blue]>>and the end of the reduction on payroll taxes? <<[/font]

Obama reduced the payroll taxes as a temporary stimulus measure, and agreed to end that after 2 years. They are no higher under Obama now, than they were under Bush or Clinton. Meantime we had 4 years of reduced taxes for workers under Obama, when we include the Making Work Pay tax cuts from 2009 thru 2010. You should give him credit for that, it was a considerable reduction, even though it didn't last forever.

When saying who ended that tax reduction, intellectual honesty requires mentioning who started that tax reduction as well. The Making Work Pay and the Social Security partial payroll tax holiday tax reductions were done by Obama. (and, yes, ended by Obama). Rather than implying it was a Bush tax cut that Obama ended.

[font color = blue]>>77. allowing Republicans to keep 82% of the Bush tax cuts.<< [/font]

You were talking about changes to Bush's tax cuts. Well for 4 years we had a reduction of taxes below even the Bush levels, and those reductions mainly benefited the bottom 99%. That's a bit of context I think that is called for, rather than making Obama sound like Bush lite or some pansy who gave away 82% of the farm to the Republicans (when most of the 82% of the kept tax cuts went to the bottom 99%).

[font color = blue]>>And that the capitulation on restoring revenues is cause for the "need" (claimed by Republicans/Third-Wayers) to cut Social Security benefits?<<[/font]

And the Social Security Administration and the Social Security Trustees and the CBO and every reasonable person agrees that more expenditures going out than revenues coming in is unsustainable, particularly as the ratio of retirees to workers grows and grows (do you have other demographic projections?). The Social Security trustees project a 2033 trust fund exhaustion date, at which time, unless the law is changed, Social Security benefits will be reduced by about 25%.

There is another problem with the Social Security payroll partial tax holiday -- we defenders of Social Security have long argued that it is a separate program fully funded by a dedicated stream of revenue -- our payroll taxes -- and is not the cause of a dime of the national deficit. But that purity of dedicated funding was broken during the 2 years when general revenues were used to fill the gap to make up for the reduction in the S.S. part of the payroll tax from 6.2% to 4.2%. Because of that general revenue funding, we can no longer argue that all of Social Security was ENTIRELY funded by our payroll taxes, nor can we argue that S.S. is not the cause of ANY of the national debt.

Yes, there are better ways to keep the Social Security system solvent, like get rid of the top income cap.

Keep in mind that Obama and Reid are not kings, under our constitution. Obama had a filibuster proof majority in the Senate, as well as a House majority for something like 24 days. Can't get it all done in that amount of time.