Bloodless Coup

Binky,
So if tax cuts and tax hikes are irrelevant to economic performance, why not cut taxes to ease the burden on the poor and the middle classes?

Morris - Of late you seem to sound an awful lot like Ms. Coulter or Ms. Malkin in that you just make-stuff-up and try to build arguments or questions off these fantastical assumptions. For example, this link DOES NOT SAY - "if tax cuts and tax hikes are irrelevant to economic performance". I urge you to examine the English language and look up the concept of modifiers.

Bro,
What it says is that the economy recovers whether or not there are tax cuts or tax hikes. That means that there is no definitive evidence of the economic impact of either course of action, so when it comes to making decisions about the economy, they are irrelevant, because the economy will recover either way. So why raise taxes back to their previous levels and cause the poor to resultingly suffer through with less money if the economy will get by either way.

OK, AGAIN, the piece is not discussing what's generally good for the economy. It's looking at what helps (or doesn't) get you out of a weak recovery. From these numbers, tax policy doesn't have much to do with that. But that's just a single dynamic dealing with economic growth - there are lots of other economic matters tax policy affects.

As to this - "why raise taxes back to their previous levels and cause the poor to resultingly suffer" - what in the hell are you talking about? If you are talking about extending the Bush tax cuts, "the poor" have virtually nothing to do with those. A lot of "the poor" don't pay income taxes to start with, and of course in terms of overall effects the vast majority of the money that went back to the wallets of individuals did not go back to poor people, or those on low fixed incomes, or those with no health insurance - it went straight into the wallets of the rich.

If you want to suddenly advocate the extension of whatever tax cuts might have affected those making less than 50k I wouldn't have a big problem with that - but that's not the president's or the Republican's tax policy. They are shoveling money to the rich, not the poor.

Repeat after me: the truly poor, those who pay little if any taxes to begin with, are reaping no benefits from the Bush program. Those who are in the middle-class range (whom you're really talking about, unless your definition of poor focuses on someone's ability to afford the latest SUV), who collect perhaps $100 or even $500 thanks to the cuts, are losing all of that and more in social services. The actual material benefits of the tax cut fall to those in the upper middle class and above because a) they rely on government services far less than those below them on the food chain and b) more money as a percentage of their income is returning to their pockets under the Bush plan.

It's also worth noting that we ought to evaluate the tax cut in the context of its asserted rationale. Bush has paid some lip service to the benefits to the poor (without acknowledging the above manifest fact regarding the zero sum aspect of any such cash benefit) but mostly he's touted his tax cuts as salves to an ailing economy. The data doesn't support this claim, period. Every time Bush says otherwise, he's fabricating. And in case you hadn't notice, he still says otherwise.

thanks, CNN, for providing a timely source to support my observations regarding what people with normal incomes actually get out of the bush plan.

Thanks for the data Moon.

Bush is a liar and his economic policies basically give the Ken Lays and George W. Bushs of the country a lot of extra spending money (at the expense of money that could be going into the Treasury to support say, the CDC or the war(s) or the tranportation infrastructure and the social safety net, etc, etc, etc ...) - who knew?

You want to have a different argument, about what's done with the tax revenues, whether in the form of Medicaid or other social services to the poor. My point is that tax revenues have been way up since Bush cut taxes. My question goes to why we should reinstate tax hikes when removing them has been followed by increasing tax revenues. Alternatively, you can argue that the increased tax revenues are a result of a booming economy, but then you'd have to admit that you are the liars for predicting Bush's tax cuts would lead us to economic doom and gloom.

AGAIN - wtf are you talking about?

Revenues are up - so fucking what given that George Bush is spending money (YOUR money as the Republicans say) at rates that defy the wet-est dreams of LBJ or Richard Nixon? And why in the hell DON'T the Bush tac cuts lead to "doom and gloom" given that they 1) have been used as an excuse to slash funds for programs that go to the neediest Americans (say veterans or the poor) and 2) over the long-term are leading to a possible economic catastrophe.

You need to look at revenues and spending in tandem, and at spending projections over the next 20+ years to really get a sense of what Bush has done to our long-term fiscal health - and when you do it sort of seems like he's about as helpful for our health as Jack Kevorkian as been for the health of a few seniors.

just for the record, in light of this discussion i've spent extra special attention to what the administration is saying about the latest tax initiative and i haven't heard a peep about the poor. all i've heard is the same canard about invigorating the economy. still no evidence in support of that, but as we know evidence is mostly viewed by this administration as an inconvenience.

regarding the relevance of spending priorities, i think you know this, but just to be clear, if you're going to tout benefits to the poor arising from the tax cuts you have to look at the whole suite of what's come with them. what's come with them is a radical diminution in social services directed at the poor (not in spending generally, alas; you don't hear bush talk about faith-based charities in the context of defense or bailing out major corporations, but then evidently what's good for the fatted goose isn't good for the starving gander). if i've saved $100 in taxes, but $2000 less is spent on my child in public school, it costs me more to retain any sort of health care, and my wages are flat because anything extra my company is making is going into the pocket of my wildly overcompensated CEO, then i've suffered a net loss.

morris, find me any study ANYWHERE that says, on balance, the working poor haven't suffered a net loss in the past five and a half years. otherwise, to the extent you insist on supporting bush, recognize that you can't do so by reference to what he's done for the poor. he may be okay at creating irrational fears in the poor and then assuaging them (a nifty little trick the GOP is masterful at), but he hasn't done a damned thing to improve their station, or to increase the likelihood that they will change income brackets in this generation or the next. to me, that's un-American, and more to the point, BAD FOR THE POOR. no one who makes under $50K per year has netted a benefit under these tax cuts, and i defy you to show me anyone who knows anything who says to the contrary while taking into account more than some hypothetical 1040 form without regard to everything the poor have lost under Bush.

I'm on the road, so this is a hasty find and paste, but I remembered seeing this table a few days ago:

If you earn 50,000 or less per year
You will save $2 - 46

If you earn 50,000 - 100,000 per year
You will save $110 - 403

If you earn 100,000 - 1 million per year
You will save $1388 - 5562

If you earn 1 million or more
You will save $41,977 (average)

I'm glad to know I will save $2-$46 dollars. I just have to be sure not to spend it all in one place.

Total appropriations for veterans have gone up from 47 billion for the last budget under Clinton (2001), to 79 billion under Bush for 2007. Now, even if I weren't good at statistics, I could still tell you that's almost doubled in just six years. Of course, Democrats love to twist these facts, so I'll just assume you had your head clouded by their venal deceptions.

veterans appropriations are going to have to go up a lot more than that just to maintain the thoroughly mediocre status quo once all the Iraq injuries come home to roost. and i'd file this under defense-related line items anyway; the point was, if you're poor and you're not carrying an automatic firearm in a warzone, everything you count on from the government to get you through the day is either less funded or completely defunded than it was six years ago. but thanks " " for dropping by.