Oh, that stupid media
The NYT on the corporate tax bill:
The Senate today approved a bill handing out about $140 billion in corporate tax breaks.
So, taking less money from corporations is a handout? Why not just call it corporate welfare?
Additionally, why do we get at least four paragraphs about sausage being made and no substantive mention of, I don’t know, what the bill actually does? Probably because 633 pages is a lot to read.
October 12th, 2004 at 12:17 pm
[…]
What that tax bill does
|By SayUncle|
This article, unlike others, actually tells us what the tax bill does. Of special note: Residents […]
October 11th, 2004 at 4:29 pm
Would you have preferred “The Senate today approved a bill that will reduce corporate taxes by $140 billion, with no spending cuts or any idea of how to finance said bill other than adding to the deficit and making our kids pay for it.”?
October 11th, 2004 at 4:33 pm
Yup. At least up until the first comma. I’m still waiting for the colossal increase in my tax burden to pay off the “deficit” from the 1980s, which strangely hasn’t happened yet.
October 11th, 2004 at 5:14 pm
You don’t “finance” tax cuts. The money belongs to the people who earned it, not the government.
October 11th, 2004 at 6:50 pm
The money belongs to the people who earned it, not the government.
The resultant debt belongs to the people.
I’m still waiting for the colossal increase in my tax burden to pay off the “deficit” from the 1980s, which strangely hasn’t happened yet.
part of it came in the Bush, Sr. and Clinton tax hikes of the early 90s. The rest will come when we have to pay back SS.
October 12th, 2004 at 12:33 am
I realize you’re probably doing it intentionally and I probably shouldn’t bother, but I feel compelled to point out that you’re forgetting your history.
When Reagan cut tax rates in the 80’s, tax revenue actually went _up_ because it significantly improved the economy.
Even though the government was actually getting more total money in revenue, they still spent more than they were getting.
We don’t have a taxes-to-low problem, we have a spending-to-high problem.
October 12th, 2004 at 12:07 pm
When Reagan cut tax rates in the 80’s, tax revenue actually went _up_ because it significantly improved the economy.
Jesse, our economy is, generally speaking, always expanding. This means that people are generally always making more money than they did the previous year and thus paying more taxes (yes, I realize you can give specific examples of your Uncle Joe, but I’m talking about the general case). So the mere fact that a taxcut yielded an increase in revenue doesn’t prove that taxcuts increase tax revenue due to economic activity. We don’t know what would have happened if Reagan had left taxes the same. Most likely, we would have seen higher tax revenue in that scenario as well. By the opposite token, Clinton raised taxes and the economy also grew.
We don’t have a taxes-to-low problem, we have a spending-to-high problem.
I don’t disagree with you. However, the current Congress/Administration just keeps raising spending at record levels and cutting taxes and its lead to the deficits we currently see. Personally, I think the only thing that will reign in spending is a Balanced Budget Amendment. If politicians were forced to raise taxes every time they wanted to raise spending, there would be less spending. The current disconnect between spending and taxes is the problem IMHO.