These Tax Cuts - They don't add up - AT ALL!

[cease_fire]

I keep hearing Republican Campaign Representatives touting Shrubs Tax Cuts as the stimulus for the recent job growth that the country is reported to be experiencing.

Even though that fact is no one in the Republican camp can refute the Shrubs job loss record, they still maintain that these tax cuts are helping the economy.

Somebody help me…

How are the Tax cuts helping this economy? Not one Democratic Pundit has ever asked this question – NOT ONE!

“Tax cuts are revitalizing the e-con-onmy”..

“Oh yes? How? Let’s see the math.”

I’m a small business owner, and I’ve got a pretty good handle on cash flow issues, leveraged investment and risk management – but for the life of me, I can’t get my head around their metrics.

Honestly, I just want to understand their position so I can refute it – because it doesn’t make any sense…

Consider the following;

1) The average middle class family received approximately $1,140 in tax relief under Shrub’s new tax structure…

Fine – we don’t have to debate that. But…

The average price of gasoline has risen about 23%.

The average cost of insuring a family of 4 has risen more than 17%.

So, let’s do a little math…


Before gas prices rose, the average American commuter spent $67 a month on gas. Now they spend $83.00

Before health care rose, the average family of 4 spent about $320 a month on health insurance. Now they spend $374.

So, without altering their lifestyle one bit, the average middle class family now spends $852 a year more for the SAME basic services and commodities than they did before Shrub took office.

That leaves a net of $288 left.

$288. That’s $24 a month.

Can anyone tell me how their life has improved on $24 a month? Anyone?

Seriously.

Last month, my business shipped about 850 packages. Our normal shipping bill for that volume runs about $8,500. With the fuel surcharge because of the pump prices, it’s closer to $9,450.

Every time there’s a health insurance hike, I absorb the same amount of increase as my employees do.

I spend over $11,000 a year to for an accountant to audit my books, keep me legal, and tell me how I can leverage my cash assets to minimize my tax liability.

This year, we found no tax loop holes, no outsourcing benefits, no additional federal support.

Sure, if I wanted to spend over $50,000 on a corporate vehicle, or move my business to an enterprise zone to realize a lower my sales tax burden, I might save a few grand…

But I’ve got to spend nearly six figures to do that. That’s kinda fuzzy, eh?

The bottom line is, how is this tax cut helping the average Jane? How is this tax cut helping my small business, regarded by Dimson as the “Bedrock of America’s economy”?


I know that the Kerry campaign is dickering around with a new campaign slogan, and that a revamp of “It’s the Economy, Stupid” is under consideration.

How about “It’s the Citizen, Stupid”? But maybe that doesn’t get to the heart of the issues with Shrubby.

Maybe is should be something as simple as…

“Where’s the Beef?”


Is my math wrong? Should I buy a new calculator? Is my accountant wrong (He’s a former IRS case worker)?

What am I missing?

Or do I have it right after all?

[punpirate]

1. Average tax cuts are highly misleading...

... more advisable to look at what Repugs really mean by "the" economy.

There are two economies. One for the ordinary people and one for the wealthy. And the wealthy have been doing right well under Bush.

That's why they're saying it.

[cease_fire]

4. I appreciate the 2 economy statement

And I am squarely in the camp that will most benefit from the Shrub Tax cut.

But, the people that power my company, my employees, are not.

I am one among a dozen.

Yet, I by the same amount of soap, groceries, toilet paper - I use the same Internet, watch the same cable TV...

And as a business person who NEEDS his employees happy, healthy, well educated, and productive - how does giving me more money (not my company - not my company) improve my company's ability to be competitive?

Are they hoping that it will somehow "Trickle Down?"

LOL.

Where's the proof that these small rebates will help the average citizen?

As a successful business person (I have one up on Shrub in that department) I can tell you that disposable income in the form of better wages and reduced commodity prices will ALWAYS outpage a small scale reduction in tax liability - always.

Reoccuring costs can kill a company, especially if they increase steadily and are required to conduct business.

Last time I checked, Gas and Health Care are essential for a human to get by...

Check my logic on that one.

[punpirate]

8. Nothing wrong with that logic.

The very wealthy, who make their money with money, however, think very differently and they're the ones with clout in government.

Statistically, the top 400 families own about 30% of the stock in the country (the top 2%, about 58,000 thousand people, own 53% of the stock).

The top 1% of the country now has 40% of the country's total wealth (about the same percentage as when the 1929 crash occurred).

These people don't think like the rest of us. And they're the ones driving policy right now.

Funny thing. One of the most prosperous times in the country's history was the early `50s to the early `60s. We still had a net trade surplus, union membership was at about 33%, and the tax code helped enforce a system where there was consistent long-term investment (especially by allowing those in the 92% bracket to shelter some income in long-term investment, and by sharp penalties for taking short-term gains--taxation rates for those in the 40-48% range).

A lot of the long-term investment in that period fueled the initial research that created the technology society of the `70s and beyond.
Wages were generally good, people could buy a home, a car, live modestly, send kids to college and retire decently. That was an economy based solidly in manufacturing and fairly steady patterns of growth.

Now?

Manipulation of the tax structure has enabled that--and it began in the `80s. Not so coincidentally, so did the big deficits and the increases in the debt and debt interest payments (people simply do not realize that payment on the debt is one of the biggest drains on the so-called discretionary side of the budget).

As for better wages improving local economies, I couldn't agree more--I think in almost every locale where "living wage" laws were implemented, the dire predictions of small businesses failing did not come true--employment stabilized or improved, because there was more money being spread around--demand for goods and services went up. That's the great lesson about macro-economics and accumulation of wealth that's being studiously ignored by the trickle-down theorists. Economies do better with more money in circulation.

It's a complicated situation, but it can be boiled down to a small, set pattern of goals--the more money the wealthy have, the less that is circulated; the less money circulated, the lower government revenues; the less the well-to-do pay in taxes, the more they starve government; eventually, they hope, the government collapses, and they are free to dictate policy as they wish. It's all about power and greed, and returning the country to the days of the robber barons.

Cheers.

[mhr]

2. Your Argument Is Finely Tuned And Fettled

eom

[shraby]

3. You forgot the uptick in local property taxes,

the increased user fees for community "doings" like summer sports for kids, boat launching, etc, the increase in license fees (car, hunting, fishing, etc), new fees at school for joining sports and other events that were previously free, higher college costs, and more.

Right now we're at a minus figure in tax relief.

[unblock]

5. silly liberal! you just don't GET it!

you complain that peoples' tax cuts went to gas companies and insurance companies and so on.

well, that's exactly what was supposed to happen! they were supposed to put it back into the economy!

</sarcasm off. actually, sadly enough, i think this IS the republican response....>

[leftofthedial]

6. you are dead on right

and why the dems don't question this repeated "argument by assertion" of the repukes is beyond me.

Everything from the tax cuts are helping hte economy to I can pend my own money better than the gummint can to they hate us for our freedoms.

[telamachus]

7. WOW!!

best post I have seen in weeks!