Question: What would be a quick and easy way to simultaneously:
- Increase the taxes on most middle-class household incomes
- Decrease federal tax revenues
- Slow the stock market down even further
No, no, not CAFTA. CAFTA’s a Bush thing (I think – the Clinton’s seem split over it, so I guess many Democrats are too). That’s a whole nother animal – too complicated for me.
Answer: Raise the tax on capital gains. WHAT A STUPID IDEA! Nothing more than faux class warfare dressed in jeans and a t-shirt. Oh, yeah, soak the rich. What rich? Forty seven percent of households that paid some sort of capital gains tax in 2005 had incomes under $50k. Double that income to where most of us mid-century two-income types have settled out and participation is seventy nine percent. And is this supposed to help anyone? In ’97 and ’03 when the rates were reduced, capital gains tax receipts went up, not down. Way up. As you’d expect. Profits were not so artificially held down and the markets got more active, is one way to look at it. Stock market picked up, too, future value projections now being higher. Not to mention foreign investment was less discouraged.
See, though we need government, and we need various means to pay for it, taxes are never the less a burden on any economy. Lessen the burden, and the economy picks up. Right, some taxes can encourage economic activity, it’s true. Investments in infrastructure are particularly good, be they roads and dams or schools and hospitals (yeah, I’m a public school supporter and leaning towards public medical too). But come on. Taxing capital gains made sense in the 1930s when no one had any but the fat cats who were riding their Duesenbergs past bread lines and saying there but for the grace of grandpappy go I but it makes no damn sense today, not when more people than ever own homes and participate in the stock market, one way or t’other, and small businesses are being started up and sold and started up again faster’n you can say Quicken and Turbo Tax.
Obama would double the capital gains tax rate. Clinton’s a little more agnostic but would certainly allow the Bush tax cuts to sunset (arguably his greatest if not only success). So yeah, no one’s perfect. But do they have to be so obvious and partisan about it? Along with many other sometimes well-intentioned attempts at social equalization, raising the capital gains tax is a classic example of what George Orwell called, "an idea so stupid only an intellectual could have conceived it."
This rant brought to you after listening to this on NPR on the way home form work.
And NO! this doesn't mean I support McCain. There's plenty to complain about all around, this is just one of my hot-button issue button thingies.
Next-day follow-up: Not meaning to over-bash Obama. He's been getting a lot of grief for his guns and religion remarks and maybe I'm a little too San Franciscan at heart but I didn't see anything bothersome in what he said, just empathy and understanding. From a high altitude.
19 comments:
I don't know anything about it, but I would believe an engineer before I believed a politician.
It seems to me that if the Republicans could even TRY to live up to the hype about how they're so fiscally responsible, we wouldn't need to address this issue at all. This is the second time in my life so far that we've had multiple successive "conservative" administrations that didn't act conservatively at all. Then, when tax hikes get put on the table, it's because of "tax & spend" Democrats, not because of the mess created by the Republicans who went to town in the past few years.
If taxes are raised, I won't blame the "tax and spend" Democrats, I'll blame the "spend money we don't have like Paris Hilton on crack in a shoe store and let the next generation deal with it" Republicans.
Agreed, Joe, the Republicans have been hard at work digging this hole we're falling into. But since a campaign is all about (and only about) words, at least this is one place the different playbooks are easily differentiated.
A sodden thought: Since in action neither party has seen fit to tighten things up, and even if someone like the Libertarians got into office they'd find ways to make it worse, I wonder if we've entered a declining stage in our existence where the powerful are now just impulsively carving up the beast and doling it out, rather than saving some for next winter as used to be the case.
Maybe so. I see Bush's rebate and tax cuts as totally irresponsible at a time when we're spending like mad on the war and stuff.
The tax cut shortfalls are gleefully being made worse by the no-holds-barred loophole factory that is Congress (both sides). If I were cynical I'd expect the Dems to use the Foreclosure Prevention Act etc. etc. etc. to further starve government and make the tax cuts look like they actually did some harm. But I'm not cynical. No one would do that any more than they would cut funding to the troops in order to reduce the chances of success and thus justify an anti-war position. Besides, GOPpers are in on the fun too, cause they, also, have lots of silk-suited friends in the home mortgage business. Yeesh. Good thing most politicos are smart enough to understand that keeping taxes low improves business conditions and leads to increased revenues (not to mention a decrease in the need for many of the programs they fund). Wait, I forgot, this is the real world, none of them understand that. Sorry, my bad. :)
The controversy over Obama's comments was created by Hillary's campaign and the main stream media in their slobbering lust for something controversial. In fact, I heard not one quote from any Pennsylvanian until Sunday when I heard someone from Altoona tell a repoter that he wasn't offended at all, and that Obama is right. Polls out today show that it's a non-story.
I still don't understand how Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy have been any kind of success. If our economy was really oh so great, why have they mortgaged our future to the Chinese and the Saudis to pay for their hopeless war?
Further, a percent or two more on the capital gains tax might not hurt someone like you or me that much, but would result in some significant revenue from the capital gains of your friendly neighborhood CEO who made millions in capital gains on top of his golden salary, and would hurt that person even less. What's the big deal? We need to pay some fuckin' taxes to rebuild this place.
Whatever that beady-eyed sot of a president has been doing the past seven and half years has not been a failure, except for the exceptionally wealthy.
Honestly, we could probably finance everything with just another percent or two against the profits of the oil companies.
Ooops. I meant to say that the efforts of our presient the past seven anad a half years HAVE been a failure.
a percent or two more on the capital gains tax might not hurt someone like you or me that much, but would result in some significant revenue from the capital gains of your friendly neighborhood CEO who made millions in capital gains on top of his golden salary, and would hurt that person even less
Won't hurt him at all. Especially if, because of this change in the tax structure, he decides to sell a lot less, or different things, than he would have. Every situation is different, but point is, such taxes do more harm than good, and yes, an extra point or two will hurt you and me, and what the hell's the good in that? Now I feel like posting about the stupid way we have to write off capital losses.
I'm ignorant as to how our beady-eyed sot of a president has been a particular boon to the wealthy. It seems no matter who does what, the wealthy gain advantage. That comes with being wealthy. Who he's been a boon to are, as you say, the Saudis and the Chinese, that's who. Meanwhile, unemployment rates are still lower than the average over the past several decades, though the current trends aren't so great.
We need to pay some fuckin' taxes to rebuild this place.
No we don't, we need an expanding economy.
I thought you were from Berkeley.
Born and raised. I was the eighteen year old who voted for Ford.
Annie, Don is the result you get when you fuel the fires of a knee-jerk contrarian with shovel-full after shovel-full of Berkeley rhetoric.
I feel compelled to add a smiley face. Maybe two or three.
:) :) :)
No smileys required, that's exactly right. If pot were legal, I'd want it outlawed. No, wait, that's going too far.
I thought pot was legal in Berkeley?
No?
Who cares? Who can tell? It's the rest of the world I'm concerned about.
Anyway, yeah, contrarian. I'd probably be more of a liberal if I hung out with conservative bloggers. I blame Berkeley and its fine public schools that went and taught us kids to think for ourselves and question everything and stuff.
I'm thinking of my son's fifth grade teacher during parent orientation, saying she regarded discipline in the classroom as more important than education. In that regard, my son was a poor student. He learned to think for himself, though, and they didn't like it one bit.
"I'm ignorant as to how our beady-eyed sot of a president has been a particular boon to the wealthy."
The Beady-eyed Sot in Chief saw to it that his minions in Congress cut taxes for the very rich. They didn't exactly need the help.
We do need an expanding economy, and we aren't getting it, unless it's expanding away from us. A few more taxes here and there, on even a minor scale wouldn't hurt anyone that much and would pay for a lot of things that need fixing.
Economic ideas holding sway for the last 8 years have failed us.
By the way, I voted for Ford also.
A low-tax, business-friendly set of policies is what we need, and we haven't had that, because this country is ... Let me put it this way. I know people who consider Bush a socialist, and they're gay-friendly gun-owning dope-fiends just like me.
OK, I overstate the case, but point is, those tax cuts were pretty much the only right decision amongst many bad ones. And they've helped, no mistake, there's just a lot of other crap that's made things worse again.
I guess I just don't care how the rich do, so long as whatever's done encourages investment in the U.S. rather than in China. They need to come up, no mistake, but you know I been over there and it will take a generation for wages to equalize, so for us to just keep telling business around here to shove it is a real good way to make desperate measures (i.e. more needless wars) more and more politically likely over the long term. (I'm skipping steps but basically, downturns --> populism --> war-mongering).
BTW I'm all for taxes that rebuild our school system. Let's start by shifting existing revenues away from I dunno, certain welfare programs. And lower wages for senior administrators. If they're so hot they can go work for Halliburton, F'em.
And I never knew you voted for Ford. Do you s'pose them other Berkeley radicals we know (i.e. just couldn't go Democrat or Peace & Freedom like the rest of the crowd) did also?
hi again...
guess who i voted for in 1976?
nope, not carter. benjamin spock. (i kid you not) i was then living & working on the north shore of tahoe, what the hell did i know? cripes.
"Won't hurt him at all. Especially if, because of this change in the tax structure, he decides to sell a lot less, or different things, than he would have."
So because a person would have to pay a higher percentage on his gain, he'll simply FOREGO the gain entirely? I guess everyone has the right to spitefully shoot himself in the foot. Even with a higher percentage taken, a gain is still a gain, and this money doesn't actually require an output of labor, so that seems pretty silly to me.
"A low-tax, business-friendly set of policies is what we need, and we haven't had that"
Oh, we have CERTAINLY have had that for the oil, pharmaceutical, and munitions industries, the industries that lobby with lots of bucks and that the people in the administration have connections to.
"those tax cuts were pretty much the only right decision amongst many bad ones."
It's difficult for me to see that. We both agreed that the Reagan/Bush years were not conservative, and dug us into a hole. Then taxes were raised, the budget was balanced (with the federal government shutting down for several days - I loved that!) and we ended up with a surplus. Then, before the war, the surplus was gutted and taxes were reduced despite the war, which people support as long as they don't have to pay for it themselves. Now we're in a much bigger hole than we were before. I just don't see how that was wise.
"BTW I'm all for taxes that rebuild our school system."
Bridges that don't collapse in sunny weather would be nice, too.
"Let's start by shifting existing revenues away from I dunno, certain welfare programs."
Which ones in particular? We've already discussed letting children suffer for having the wrong parents. Good schools don't work if the kids are hungry, for ex.
I didn't vote at all in 1976. Then again, I was only ten years old.
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