Tax Cuts explained

[and-justice-for-all]

http://www.whitehouse.gov/issues/taxes/framework/?utm_source=site&utm_medium=banner&utm_campaign=taxcutwhiteboard

[T Wolf]

1. Playing the "numbers" game can lead to false conclusions, but I'll play...

Basically, this chart shows that in return for tax cuts to the wealthy ($114 billion),

Obama got a $112 billion hit on Social Security that will further enable those (him?) who want to kill it.

I am not impressed except by his duplicity.

[hfojvt]

2. Explained? Or just lied about?

Since when is a payroll tax holiday a Democratic priority? And equipment expensing? That doesn't sound like something on a Progressive's Christmas wish list either. Much of the child tax credit goes to people making much more money than me. And the payroll tax holiday is skewed towards the wealthy. Make $15,000 like I do, and you get $300. Make $150,000 or $150,000,000 (including $106,000 in wages) and you get $2200.

Then there's the other $500 billion that is not shown on that chart. The total package is $858 billion (does that include interest?) and that chart only shows $352 billion. Who gets the other $500 billion in tax cuts? Could it be the wealthy getting most of them? You know damn well it is.

And for another thing. Didn't we hear that the tax cuts for the wealthy were going to cost $700 billion over ten years? Isn't that $70 billion per year? So how is it that this surrender goes for two years and only costs $91 billion instead of $140 billion?

Something does not add up. But there is nothing like a spoonful of dishonesty to make the poison pill of surrender go down in the most delightful way.

[whosinpower]

4. Exactly true

PAYROLL TAX HOLIDAY IS A REPUBLICAN'S WET DREAM POLICY. And the absolute final betrayal is the constant spin spin spin that this has ever been a democrat's goal.

But - you know if a person were to point that out - that person is a "purist".

I'll tell you something - I'd rather drink PURE water - than mud. And the muddier it gets, the harder it is to DISTINGUISH BETWEEN DEMOCRAT PRINCIPLES AND REPUBLICAN ONES. Drink mud - yeah that is the ticket......

If they pushed 10 percent as hard on the middle tax cut only as much as they are pushing this MUD, it would have been a done deal.

Ifthey pushed 20 percent as hard on the unemployment extension as much as they are pushing this MUD, it would have been a done deal.

And we would not be forced to drink mud and say - yum it's earthy flavour is so satisfying.

[hfojvt]

5. I got a chuckle out of that closing line

"yum, its earthy flavour is so satisfying"

[golfguru]

6. Trickle down economics?

The person getting $2200 SS tax holiday will spend much more than
your $300 thereby churning wheels of economy 7 times more. What
else can the thinking be in their heads?

[T Wolf]

8. Uh-huh, what you said. when the true numbers are compared, the "deal" looks even worse.

But they know that we, the people, do not really know how to wrap our minds around huge figures like billions & trillions and concepts like multiple-year projections & all the other financial bullshit double-speak they use to deceive us.

Thus, this simple (and untrue) chart from the WH showing how well Obama did.

[Larkspur]

3. Where's the billions for the 99r's?

They got NOTHING.

[golfguru]

7. 2/3rds of 99'ers have already found jobs

at least that is what I keep hearing in media, that 2/3rds
of people whose unemployment is about to expire find jobs.

[Larkspur]

9. That sounds like pure propaganda to me.

Considering that companies have been sitting on trillions of dollars of cash, I don't see jobs.

I have a contract job, not a full-time employment job, and I'm still looking for a job in my profession, but still haven't found any to submit a resume to. FYI, I only got my contract job because,the H-1B contractors from India were incompetent in taking care of the environment I once managed. But my old company has a hiring freeze on, at least for American workers. If I didn't have this contract job, i would have become a 99r in January 2010.

If I can't find a job in my profession, I can't imagine 99r's having better luck.

[golfguru]

10. I don't think that news report said the 99'ers are finding

jobs for which they are qualified. They may be working in less qualified
jobs, but the point was they did find a paycheck of sorts.

In the long run, unemployment extensions will not create better jobs.
Only way we get better paying jobs is expanding the economy. However no
one should have to be without food and shelter in this country.

[ProudDad]

15. "Only way we get better paying jobs is expanding the economy"

That hasn't worked for the last 30+ years...

WTF do you think is going to make it work now???

:eyes:

[Dawgs]

11. Payroll tax holiday is NOT A DEMOCRATIC PRIORITY.

WTF!!

[hfojvt]

13. I guess it is now, and it;'s totally progressive too

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/hfojvt/135

[ProudDad]

16. Neither is "Expensing Equipment"!

[TheKentuckian]

12. You still haven't convinced me that the next 18% or so are the "middle class"

and failing that the "middle class" tax cuts lose a lot of truth.

If I then point to the budget for the bottom 60% you get close to a joke. When you look at the real hole in the demand and focus on the bottom 40% who have been hammered and are losing their homes rather than buying and paying taxes then you'll realize as you did a few years ago that the whole thing sucks ass and what we need is much more targeted relief to those with about 7% at the most of the pie despite being 2/5 of the population and if you look close the next 10% or so could easily join them (maybe more since the wealth in the middle fifth of earners is probably fairly top heavy with power couple lites representing most of it) in a half ass attempt to make up for the loss of increases in pay and/or lack of credit.

You add in the big chunk that is defunding Social Security and replacing it with money from the general fund that will be hard as hell to ever restore without vetoing a "a bill to prevent a tax increase".
That is not a Democratic priority or policy, it has been a Republican grail for my lifetime or most of it at the very least.

Why are we pretending this is at all a sound policy and a ideological priority? They made that shit the fuck up.

I see this as somewhere around like borrowing 800k plus interest to get 300k plus interest worth of value and 500k worth of waste and drag, plus interest.

I think the deal is not as good as treading water. Doing nothing trumps a negotiation on how much worse to make things, even when you accept nothing will make things worse too.

[Hello_Kitty]

14. John McCain ran on doubling the Child Tax Credit in 2008. The GOP loves it.

They love accelerated depreciation and the payroll tax too. Republicans don't mind the EITC because it's a subsidy to low-wage employers. Have you ever seen them make a big issue of cutting or ending it?

So basically, the only concession they really made was UI.

[Life Long Dem]

17. Tax Cuts explained

It's your money you earned.