Put your party hats on and let's celebrate the 10th year anniversary of the Bush Tax Cuts!!!!

[웃 910]

Full report here

"As David Leonhardt of the New York Times aptly concluded last year:

Those tax cuts passed in 2001 amid big promises about what they would do for the economy. What followed? The decade with the slowest average annual growth since World War II. Amazingly, that statement is true even if you forget about the Great Recession and simply look at 2001-7."

The Bush Tax Cuts: 10 Years Later, Still Expensive And Ineffective

That's the conclusion of a new analysis by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), in a report released last week: "Tenth Anniversary of the Bush-Era Tax Cuts: A decade later, the Bush tax cuts remain expensive, ineffective, and unfair."

According to EPI's website, their mission "is to achieve shared prosperity by raising the economic status of low- and middle-income Americans."

In the report EPI policy analysts Andrew Fieldhouse and Ethan Pollack detail ten findings:

1) The Bush tax cuts disproportionately benefited the wealthy – The top 0.1% of wage earners (those making over $3 million) received an average tax cut of roughly $520,000, more than 450 times larger than the share received by an average middle-income family.

2) The cuts did little for low-income families – In 2010, tax filers in the bottom 20% of wage earners (those making less than $20,000) received only a 1% share of the tax cuts, and 75% of these low-income families saw no reduction at all.

3) The tax cuts never trickled down – The Bush economic expansion had the worst wage and salary growth and total compensation growth of any postwar economic expansion, and workers fared progressively worse the lower their wages were.

4) The Bush tax cuts were a poorly designed economic stimulus – Moody’s Analytics Chief Economist Mark Zandi estimates that making the Bush tax cuts permanent generates only 35 cents in economic activity for every dollar of revenue. Meanwhile, the targeted refundable tax credits included in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (the stimulus package) are estimated to generate much more per dollar of uncollected taxes, ranging from $1.17 for the Making Work Pay Credit to $1.38 for the Child Tax Credit.

5) The Bush tax cuts failed to create strong long-run growth – Between the end of the 2001 recession and the peak of Bush-era expansion at the end of 2007, the U.S. economy experienced the worst economic expansion of the post WWII era.

6) The Bush tax cuts were so expensive that they added greatly to the debt – From 2001 through 2010, the cuts added $2.6 trillion to the public debt, nearly 50% of the total debt accrued during this period.

7) The Bush tax cuts were much more expensive than advertised – The Bush tax cuts were designed using a few budget gimmicks to obscure their true cost.

8) The Bush tax cuts continue to be expensive – The extension of the Bush tax cuts as part of the December 2010 tax deal is projected to decrease revenue by $423 billion over 2012-21, adding more than $5 trillion to the debt over the next decade. This represents about half of the total projected deficits over this period.

9) The Bush tax cuts eliminated the most progressive federal tax: taxes on large estates – The Bush tax cuts repealed the tax on large estates for the first time since 1916, eliminating the only federal tax on concentrated wealth.

10) A decade of Bush tax cuts are increasing interest spending today – The U.S. government has spent more than $400 billion over the last decade in higher interest payments to finance the debt created by the Bush tax cuts.

These are just some of the facts presented in the EPI analysis which call into question the economic benefits put forth by supporters of permanently extending the Bush tax credits. At a time when the federal deficit is in the forefront of everyone's thoughts, this information needs to be considered as the nation debates ways to reduce the deficit and stimulate economic recovery.

[웃 910]

[scandal 951]

10) A decade of Bush tax cuts are increasing interest spending today – The U.S. government has spent more than $400 billion over the last decade in higher interest payments to finance the debt created by the Bush tax cuts.

Not for long. Not if we default and stiff our bondholders

[Ban Hammer 13,395]

obama renewed them, so they're the bush/obama tax cuts.

[Obama 2012 1,714]

are you done posting this ignorant garbage?

You know that the Government has won the day when you've got people spamming message boards saying that they need higher taxes.

What a lunatic land we're living in.

So ignorant, so foolish.

[LaL 418]

I have to ask LI - do you still feel the way you did in the quote below?

Just my opinion and prediction but 100 years from now Obama will be in the bottom 10 of all-time worst presidents. And 100 years from now Bush will be viewed as one of the greatest presidents in our history.

[웃 910]

are you done posting this ignorant garbage?

You know that the Government has won the day when you've got people spamming message boards saying that they need higher taxes.

What a lunatic land we're living in.

So ignorant, so foolish.

Why do you dislike facts?

First chart below is a prediction/projection made way back in 2004 (even without knowing about the recession they were still factually accurate based on facts about taxes). It is pretty amazing how accurate they are using facts, facts, and more facts about tax cuts:

Among the study's highlights:

• The average tax cut for the top one percent of households will be nearly $35,000 this year, 54 times the average tax cut of $647 that the middle fifth of households will receive. This finding is based on a new analysis by the Tax Policy Center that examines the effects of all components of the tax cuts and is the first comprehensive Tax Policy Center analysis to be based on a revised and improved Tax Policy Center model that fully incorporates the corporate and estate tax reductions.
• The tax cuts will bestow more than $30 billion in 2004 on the 257,000 households with incomes exceeding $1 million, with these households securing average tax cuts of $123,600 each. The $30+ billion in tax cuts that these "millionaires" will receive in 2004 far exceeds the total amount of tax cuts that the nearly 29 million households who comprise the middle fifth of the U.S. population will get.
• The tax cuts were not well designed to stimulate a weak economy. Only eight to 14 percent of the 2003 tax-cut package, which was promoted as being necessary to boost economic recovery, consists of high "bang-for-the-buck" tax cuts that will be provided by the end of fiscal year 2004. (A high bang-for-the-buck proposal is one that increases economic "demand" in the short term by more than one dollar for each dollar of lost tax revenue.) The tax cuts consequently have produced significantly less economic stimulus than could have been provided for the same (or less) budgetary cost. The failure of policymakers to design and enact more effective stimulus measures has likely contributed to job creation being more meager during this recovery than in other recoveries since the end of World War II.
• From 2005 through 2014, the increased interest payments on the debt that will result from the tax cuts will amount to approximately $1.1 trillion, if the tax cuts are made permanent and the other tax-cut proposals in the Administration's fiscal year 2005 budget are enacted. The interest payments would reach $218 billion in 2014.
• Without the tax cuts, deficits would be modest over the next ten years and be below $100 billion in 2014. By contrast, with the Administration's tax-cut policies, the deficit is likely to grow to approximately $677 billion by 2014.

------------

^above was written in 2004....below charts are from 2008:

Edited July 31, 2011 by Lord Infamous

[웃 910]

I have to ask LI - do you still feel the way you did in the quote below?

I am/was tempted to start a new name because I was brain washed back then..Watched a lot of Hannity and he is a talking point machine that has little regard for facts....Really didn't see the facts and light until this year or maybe it was last year?

Conservatives stand for low taxes for the rich which equals lower revenue for the government (fact)...At the same time they spend even more than Democrats (fact)...They don't believe in climate change (a fact) and many communicate with an invisible imaginary being on a daily basis (fiction)...They will speak with this imaginary being before dinner time, before they go to bed, etc (fiction).

They are not in touch with reality....

[Obama 2012 1,714]

your 'fact' charts are deluded messes.

Magically revenues increase if taxes are higher when the economy collapses?

My god, what voodoo idiot made those charts?

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

Why do you dislike facts?

Because facts run counter to his faith.

[Obama 2012 1,714]

I am/was tempted to start a new name because I was brain washed back then..Watched a lot of Hannity and he is a talking point machine that has little regard for facts....Really didn't see the facts and light until this year or maybe it was last year?

Conservatives stand for low taxes for the rich which equals lower revenue for the government (fact)...At the same time they spend even more than Democrats (fact)...They don't believe in climate change (a fact) and many communicate with an invisible imaginary being on a daily basis (fiction)...They will speak with this imaginary being before dinner time, before they go to bed, etc (fiction).

They are not in touch with reality....

Again, where are you coming up with voodoo BS.

There is no 'guarantee' in revenue with higher or lower taxes. Trends show continued revenue growth when certain taxes are lowered, but even that can be misleading if there is already growth at the time.

[Obama 2012 1,714]

Because facts run counter to his faith.

faith?

Oh you're hilarious.

Go ahead and disprove what I've been saying here. Go head, do it.

You cannot show me any factual proof that revenues in government can be guaranteed. It's just not possible UNLESS you say every man, woman, and child must pay X-amount of dollars each year period. Then and only then can you possibly assume government income.

So many people are so damn ignorant of our tax system. They want to gripe about tax cut this, or raising taxes this because of lack of revenue. Well guess what - how do you expect a government to make money when it's handing out billions of dollars of 'tax refunds' every year to people as well? What's the point of taxing people when they are going to give most of it back to the 'working class' American.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

faith?

Yes, faith. There is nothing coherent in your line of argument. I think it's clear that tax revenues are dependent on economic performance. Further, income taxes depend on income and tax rates. Now, when you lower tax rates at the top and more money goes to the top then total revenues paid at the top may still go up. At the same time, since average income now stagnates (something's gotta give for the exorbitant increases in income at the top) while exemptions are indexed against inflation, taxable average income declines and with it the tax collections from average Joe. You then created a situation where relative to the total tax burden, the top tier carries the most - a situation that you then decry as unfair because the few pay too much in taxes while the many pay too little if anything at all. In reality, all that is the case only because your very tax policies encouraged the rising income inequality that lead to this picture to begin with. And along with this rising income inequality, you also destruct the very foundation of the economy which has for decades relied on massive consumer spending. Only massive portions of consumers have nothing left to spend - not because they pay too much in taxes but because they take home an ever smaller share of the fruits of their labor. It's all very predictable and not some great mystery as you would have it.

[LaL 418]

I am/was tempted to start a new name because I was brain washed back then..Watched a lot of Hannity and he is a talking point machine that has little regard for facts....Really didn't see the facts and light until this year or maybe it was last year?

Conservatives stand for low taxes for the rich which equals lower revenue for the government (fact)...At the same time they spend even more than Democrats (fact)...They don't believe in climate change (a fact) and many communicate with an invisible imaginary being on a daily basis (fiction)...They will speak with this imaginary being before dinner time, before they go to bed, etc (fiction).

They are not in touch with reality....

Thanks for the explanation I was just genuinely curious.

[spookyturtle 9,466]

are you done posting this ignorant garbage?

You know that the Government has won the day when you've got people spamming message boards saying that they need higher taxes.

What a lunatic land we're living in.

So ignorant, so foolish.

Speak of the devil...................