Cost of Tax Cuts for the Wealthiest Americans Since 2001

[WildNovember]

Money lost to the U.S. Treasury due to tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans,
enacted by President Bush and extended by President Obama.

Cost of Tax Cuts for Top 5%: $1.04 trillion

For the top 1%: $715.9 billion


Running totals of cost at link (totals keep changing, like those war death sites)

http://costoftaxcuts.com/


What about Corporate Taxes?

The official marginal tax rate for corporations is 35 percent. However, in 2010 corporations paid, on average, just 23 percent of their profits in taxes, after deductions, credits and loopholes.

According to the Commerce Department and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, corporate profits have grown as a share of national income since 1934, while wages and salaries have declined.

[Lasher]

1. Cost of Wars Since 2001

$1.28 trillion.

http://costofwar.com/en/

[WildNovember]

2. Wow -- tax cuts for the rich running a close race with war.

[Lasher]

17. The tax cuts exceed the cost of the wars.

That is, if you include all the tax cuts: Federal income tax for everyone, not just for the wealthy; inheritance tax; capital gains and dividend taxes.

I believe every single one of these tax cuts needed to expire before we started cutting any social program.

[BlueIris]

12. $1.28 trillion.

That number is almost too painful to look at.

[Lasher]

16. The major causes of our deficits are abundantly clear.

And the solutions are just as clear: End the Bush/Obama tax cuts and end all funding for the Bush/Obama wars. But our corrupt government wants to instead balance the books on the backs of the sick, elderly, and poor.

[sam11111]

3. 1981 TRICKLEDOWN idea began cutting taxes. how much has it cost in Revenue since '81?

That is the relevant stat to be talking about IMO.

17 Trillion is my estimate - any academic estimate out there?

[dkf]

4. Historical debt in 09/30/2001: 5,807,463,412,200.06

http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/histdebt/histdebt_histo5.htm

Nov 16, 2011 1:02pm
U.S. Debt Tops $15 Trillion Mark Today

Don’t look now, members of the “supercommittee” battling the national debt, but the amount the U.S. owes topped the $15 trillion mark Wednesday afternoon.

The deficit has ballooned to nearly $48,000 for every man, woman and child in the U.S. This year alone, the U.S. will spend $1.3 trillion more than it takes in.

The debt has expanded at an alarming pace, from $7.5 trillion in 2004 and $5.6 trillion in 2000. At the current rate, Debtclock.org reckons that the debt will top $23 trillion in 2015, though the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office puts the estimate at $17.6 trillion.
Back in August after a protracted fight, Congress voted to raised the national-debt ceiling by $2.7 trillion to $17 trillion, while requiring $2.7 trillion in deficit reduction by 2021.

Compared with other developed nations, the U.S. has a debt to GDP ratio of 85 percent, compared with Germany  at 74 percent and Japan at a whopping 194 percent. World debt clocks can be found here.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.

 http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/business/2011/11/u-s-debt-will-top-15-trillion-mark-today/

So George Bush's taxes and wars were a little over $2 trillion. Maybe the rest is overspending huh?

[WildNovember]

5. Gee, I wonder why Japan hasn't collapsed since their debt is 194% of GDP.

Unless you want a stationary economy, you want some amount of debt. At least under the economic system we have. And the biggest single chunk of it owed to Americans for their own Social Security payments. BFD.

Bush's tax cuts cut $2 trillion in TEN YEARS.

The total US debt is about $15 trillion & that's for the entire history of the US, with the single largest chunk being due to the ongoing (three years and counting) recession (decreased revenues and the necessity of spending to avoid collapse) plus the tax cuts and the war.

There have been very few years in the history of America that were debt-free, or in which a balanced budget was run. And those there were were followed quickly by Depression -- such as the Bush Depression which followed the Clinton "balanced budget".

[dkf]

7. Kyle Bass says Japan is next.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/kyle-bass-un-edited-buying-gold-just-buying-put-against-idiocy-political-cycle-its-simple

Watch the YouTube clip. That is where he goes into the Japan situation.

[WildNovember]

9. Most of Japan's debt is owed to its own people. If they're "next" we'll know why.

The people pushing this programme are murderers. literally.

[dkf]

15. It's their demographics that work against them which he explains.

Declining numbers buying Japanese bonds will be their problem.

[FreakinDJ]

6. Imagine that - the same amount of debt we need to cut

Would make 1 think the "Unfunded Tax Cuts" caused the whole Debt problem

[Norrin Radd]

8. kr

[B Calm]

10. E-mailed this link to all my right wing buddies

[GeorgeGist]

11. Now that corporations are persons ...

why isn't Obama ordering the IRS to require them to file personal income tax returns?

[TBF]

13. Here's a graphic version that I found earlier this month -

[libinnyandia]

14. Obama extended them so unemployment benefits could be

extended. He won't do it again.

[TheKentuckian]

18. What was the logic in doing so before that doesn't equally apply now?

We are in little less need for those benefits now, certainly not enough less to change the calculus, particularly in an election year.

If he won't now then what was the justification for doing it before and vice versa.

[libinnyandia]

19. He had to compromise but now feels the GOP won't compromise

now that they control the House.