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I don't like seeing an estate tax applied on smaller things, like farms, but multi-billion dollar funds, heck yes.

The estate-tax hit on small farmers is mostly a myth promulgated by the people with multi-billion dollar funds.
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3223

I was unable to find an anti-estate tax analysis anywhere near as thorough as that pro-estate tax report, they were all pretty much smoke, mirrors and hyperbole.

Trickle down gets a bad rap, or at least the laffer curve. Consider, just for example, Reagan. At the end of his term, government revenue as a percent of gdp was lower than at the start of it. Government revenue per capita after correcting for inflation was higher. The economy did grow enough to eventually make up the difference. It's not provable whether the tax cuts led to higher growth... but it certainly doesn't support the claim that it didn't work.

I checked the number using values from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, who utterly failed to comprehend that examing what percent of the economy the government is taking is meaningless by itself. The idea of the tax cuts leading to increased revenue is to get more by taking a smaller slice of a larger pie. It seemed to take about 6 years for economic growth to overwhelm the reduced rates... so it would have taken even longer to pay off accumulated additional debt. The discussion of whether goverment policy should be centered on maximising revenue is beyond the scope of this comment.

Megan's laws (I like to call them "The Ultimate ThinkOfTheChildren Acts") pretty much make it illegal for a male of any age to get within 20 yards of a female below 18, or have to wear a virtual scarlet letter for the rest of his life.

Yes. If you don't like such socially-conservative laws, don't support the GOP.

When you have trillions of dollars being spent-- none for inarguably constitutional uses such as defense-- and a big tax hike across the board, that's redistribution of wealth by definition.

None for defense? WTF? Have you not been paying attention? Direct federal spending on "defense" makes up 20% of the budget, not counting veteran's benefits, interest on the debt rung up from war and the arms race. Add those in and the spending on "defense" roughly doubles.

Our taxes are low, both by international standards and by the standards of American history. It's well past time to restore the aristocracy tax (a.k.a. the estate tax), and raise the top marginal rates back to the 50% that was there for most of the Reagan era -- or even the 90% that curbed the extremely rich during the Eisenhower administration.

The federal government inarguablely has the Constitutional power to "to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States". Congress can buy us all ponies if it thinks it's in the general welfare. Our check on that is to elect a new Congress.

Capitalism is redistribution of wealth by definition: it takes the wealth created by labor and redirects a large part of it to bankers, landlords, and absentee investors.

Hmm.... During an election year, politicians proclaim a love for lowering people's taxes. During other years, they try to lower taxes for businesses in their areas.

Okay, the picture is definitely not as simple as I suggested it is, but in any case, I would suggest the history of corporate tax rates is not as significant as the corporate tax rates relative to other countries. Here are a few references that discuss tax rates and history:

First, A little old, but paints the current picture

Also, the ultimate reference for everything paints a bizarre picture of corporate tax rates.

And this, from the IRS, gives a long history.

Then there's this interesting article

This tax adds no value whatsoever to the economy. Like all taxes, it merely redistributes money (from the taxpayer to the public coffers), and is therefore a pure transaction cost. In theory, allocation of the tax proceeds to increase the efficiency of the overall economy (for example, by addressing externalities) can offset its cost, thereby justifying the tax. However, until we know the purpose to which the proposed tax revenues will be put, we won't know whether the overall economy will be improved, now do we?

To be less theoretical and more practical, I think this is simple a money grab by state politicians, trying to prop up their failed spending models. Only four states aren't running a deficit in 2010 (source). The current tax-and-spend model will leave us ending up like Greece, with 15% of the people working for the public sector, which accounts for 40% of the GDP (source). That leaves only 60% of the GDP coming from, you know, actually building things and creating value, as opposed to merely administering it. And look where that led them...

To the extent that current public programs (police, fire, emergency, schools, health care, etc) are over budget, the solution is not more taxes, it's less spending and more self-reliance. That doesn't mean anarchy, like some knee-jerk overreactionaries would tell you, it means bringing back common sense. Buy a fire extinguisher and know how to use it. Eat healthy foods and exercise more. Take a self-defense class. Actually raise your kids. Take responsibility for your actions. All of these things will help reduce government spending, and bring back a sense of community and self-respect that seems to be missing these days.

Uhmm, so you want the next president elected by a bunch of rednecks from Arkansas. Looks like Huckabee will win in 2012. Oh I'm sorry Alaska, Montana, and North Dakota also get to vote.

http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=711

The military is NOT the "largest entitlement program in the country." It's not even fucking CLOSE.

Maybe you should take your ignorant self over to http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=1258 and read the very simple article that breaks out the spending. The U.S. Military budget is about 20%

Except those numbers are a bit misleading. Why are benefits paid to veterans NOT included in the defense spending part of that chart? That money is certainly part of what we spend on defense. It's just a game to make it sound like less than it really is.

Your comment makes me rage. If you were close enough I kick you in the junk so hard your grandchildren would still be feeling it...if you were still capable of having them.

The military is NOT the "largest entitlement program in the country." It's not even fucking CLOSE.

Maybe you should take your ignorant self over to http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=1258 and read the very simple article that breaks out the spending. The U.S. Military budget is about 20%, Social Spending is about 55%!

So no, I'm not kicking you in the junk for slagging the military although that irritates me as well. I'm kicking you in the junk for being ignorant of the real budget numbers.

The tax code should not be "progressive" at all,

You stated that the current tax code is bad, in that it leads to "stratification of wealth and social breakdown". The current tax system, when you count all the taxes people pay, is, on balance, relatively flat. Therefore, you're arguing against flat taxation.

Your idea to tax every individual at the same rate regardless of their income is the definition of a flat tax. (Actually, since one needs disposable income to contribute it to charity, your plan is somewhat regressive.)

You're arguing both for and against flat taxation. I can only conclude that you're rather confused.

stop with the Marxist based taxation rhetoric already!

The word "Marxist" has a specific meaning. Given that the intellectual history of progressive taxation can be traced back to Adam Smith, you're apparently using it to mean "things I don't like".

Unless you're willing to put forth the claim that the vast majority of economists are closet Marxists and that every democratic nation in the world is run by secret Marxist cabals, a progressive income tax is not a Marxist idea.

The U.S. government needs to be restricted, by Constitutional amendment, to stop spending more than it is making *and* to not spend more than 10 percent or so of the GDP. Those two things are necessary and vital to the survivability of this country.

Staving off a second Great Depression was also necessary and vital to the survivability of this country. Massive tax cuts for the already-wealthy and optional military adventures abroad, on the other hand, were not. If you have a history of arguing against unaffordable tax cuts and spending increases on weapons, please do share it with me. I have a hard time believing that this isn't just the annual crop of people whining about how they don't like to pay taxes.

They are either incompetent or the financial ruin is something they are directly causing and planning to capitalize on. Which is it, smart guy?

Honestly? I think the folks who got us into this mess in the first place circa 2000 (not that the current folks seem terribly inclined to roll back the wars and tax cuts) did so out of a combination of naked self-interest and believing their own nonsense about the Laffer Curve or whatever bit of gimcrackery justified their neofeudalistic ambitions.

Of course, the game is rigged so that, without massive spending cuts (I don't think you've thought through your proposal to have millions of impoverished old people descend on their adult children for a place to live) or--perish the thought!--tax increases, for instance, to the insanely confiscatory levels we suffered through in the horrible dark days of the 1950s, we're stuck here.

I mentioned Grover Norquist before, but since you seem to have gaps in your understanding, I'll summarize his ideology, which has been shared by many of the movers and shakers on the right over the last few decades: You want to cut services, but people seem to enjoy them. So, you cut taxes and spend money, preferably on things that don't really benefit anyone (such as totally optional wars with no defined endpoint), in order to run up a gigantic deficit. Eventually, the government must spend every bit of money it can to service the resultant debt, and will, in the end, have no choice but to cut services.

So, to the extent that any one ideological group is responsible for this little pickle, I blame those guys.

I am aware of US history since the Great Depression, but I don't think you are.

Here's a chart of income inequality since World War I. Note that it begins to rise in the 1970s. Here's a chart of top marginal tax rates since the income tax was introduced. Note that the top tax on earned income drops precipitously in the 1970s.

So, yes, the current tax code is creating stratification of wealth (and therefore, societal breakdown), because it's insufficiently progressive. Your proposals make it even worse.

The U.S. government needs to learn to live on a lot less money, just like everyone else does when the economy goes sour, get it?

No. No, this is absolutely wrong. Basic macroeconomics states that the government can, when things go bad, take on debt and add money to the economy when it "goes sour", as you put it. The idea is that boom/bust cycle is smoothed out by the government filling its coffers during booms and emptying them during busts, spending against the cycle. (This is why blowing the early-2000s surplus on tax cuts for very, very rich people was a particularly bad idea.)

This is out of the Norquistian playbook--funnel cash to the very wealthy to empty out the treasury, then talk about how excessive government spending is and claim that the only solution is to cut services. An extra zero on a balance sheet is, clearly, more important than starving old people.

First, I've no interest in trampling anything, but religion is a poor excuse, and if your right to practice Scientology with all ten other Scientologists denies 45 million people healthcare, I'm all for healthcare. There's something to be said for *scale* here.

Second, we make cars safer all the time, and yet highway deaths increase because we drive more. Deaths per mile, however, decrease, whereas the number of uninsured and deaths among them is *increasing*. The problem is that we're already addressing highway deaths (though we need better driver ed) and nothing's being done about healthcare. Third, everywhere I've been it's been mandated that you have car insurance. It's effectively federal. Would you have a problem with a state mandating health insurance? As far as citizenship goes--you can leave. It's optional, though you're not going to find another similarly developed country that doesn't offer universal healthcare, so I think you're SOL on that one. But you can still go to Zimbabwe or something.

Fourth, Candidate Obama was wrong on that, and we all knew it at the time.

Fifth, about half of the legislation's $900b is going to states for Medicaid, so this isn't entirely unfunded either. And this theory that none of the cuts will stick has been debunked, as it turns out that most similar cuts in the past have stuck.

And finally, making you buy health insurance minimizes risk. This enables you to be *free* to live without the worry of someday getting hit by a car driven by an uninsured motorist and to live the rest of your life in suffocating debt. To me, that sense of safety makes me *more* free--free to leave my job, for example, and find another because I know I won't be denied coverage. Furthermore, unionization of a fraction of the population does benefit the collective. Just look at the income disparity numbers from the golden age of unions in the 50s and 60s. And with higher unionization, as union wages go, so go the wages of nonunionized workers. This is less true nowadays, but were we still more unionized, it would mean that when they renegotiate cheaper healthcare plans the higher salaries they'd exchange them for would be seen by nearly everyone.

For the record, I work for big pharma. And in the US, drugs comprise something like 10% of all healthcare spending. But that's another discussion for another day.

Actually, the people of the Bay State already *have* this system. And they like it. I should know--I am one. Massachusetts liberal to the core. And I know that this proposed system, like the one in MA, is broken. But it's far less broken than what we have, wherein we let people die.

Where else in the world is someone required to pay a tax to a corporation? Required, as in you will go to jail if you don't give a corporation money for a service you might not need or want.

You have a lot to learn about the US tax system: http://www.cbpp.org/images/cms//WhereOurTaxDollarsGo_MostOfBudget.jpg Around 70% to 80% of my taxes go to services I don't need or want, yet I am forced to pay for them. True, we don't have to pay for a TV license, so that makes it ok.

I don't recall the case, but I believe that the NY law flies in the face of a Supreme Court ruling. This article linked in the story specifically discusses California and the Kindle subsidiary.

I don't even understand why this is political, and why repubics are on the wrong side of this.

Isn't it obvious? The GOP has for over 70 years been the party for of big money and big business. They're not for "small government," they're for concentrated power. Government power over morals. Private power over individuals lives. Not empowerment mind you, but corporate power over all aspects of people's lives. This explains why when they cut taxes, its always on the wealthiest 1%, even though at the rates since 1960 you spur little or no investment by cutting it further. (Cutting the rate in 1960s was a good idea, and helped spur the Kennedy expansion.) This is why they rail against government spending, but continue to rack deficits. They claim they're for the free market, but shout about how if medicare -- the largest insurer in the nation -- negotiates prices thats "government price controls" instead of "a volume discount."

In short, they promote local optimum for the smallest group, while sacrificing the global optimum

While I agree with your assessment of the program, it's erroneous to assume that the US Government is inefficient in handing the money out. Medicare and the SSA have administrative cost loads that are much cheaper than private insurance companies. This gives some data on the subject of Medicare, which notes:

"However, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has found that administrative costs under the public Medicare plan are less than 2 percent of expenditures, compared with approximately 11 percent of spending by private plans under Medicare Advantage. This is a near perfect âoeapples to applesâ comparison of administrative costs, because the public Medicare plan and Medicare Advantage plans are operating under similar rules and treating the same population."

  This gives some information on Social Security's costs, which are a meaty .6% of the benefits distributed. Yes, that's point six percent. See Fact # 10.

Firstly, "they" pay 40% corporation tax - the second highest in the world. What more do you want?

Actually, Microsoft reported last year that they pay more like 25% and that's probably inflated since it's usually noted in the context of Ballmer threatening to move offshore, so this is their "high" number to use as a club. That they don't actually pay anywhere near the statutory rate isn't a surprise as essentially no companies actually do. In fact the effective tax rate of our corporations is a good bit lower than most industrialized nations when exemptions and manipulations to hide profit are factored in.

A good outline of effective corporate versus statutory tax rates if one is interested

"Do you really want to see the total collapse of the US economy as corporations buckle under an even heavier tax burden?"

A mentioned and noted earlier, our corporations aren't suffering higher effective taxation rates here than other industrialized nations and in many cases they're lower. Ultimately, if our infrastructure and the quality of our workforce suffer, it doesn't matter what the tax rate is, they won't locate or stay here with the skill jobs that we want. That's what taxes are for. I understand that corporations are amoral by nature and will try to externalize every cost that they're able to since their guiding force is maximizing profit. As such, they're motivated to make sure that paying for the police force, roads, education and the like is "someone else's problem".

Yes. You're right. If you want to be pedantic, income has raised a tiny bit for the middle class according to this article: Average Income in 2006 up $60,000 for Top 1 Percent of Households, Just $430 for Bottom 90 Percent: Income Concentration at Highest Level Since 1928, New Analysis Shows . Check out figure two then get back me.

If by "like 55% of the total budget" you mean "21% of the total budget," then you're correct.

This article http://www.cbpp.org/5-11-07health.pdf seems to indicate that Medicaid is about 10% less expensive for kids and 30% less expensive for adult patients in delivering health care compared to private insurance - the Medicaid administration expenses (about 7%) are about half those of of private insurance (about 14%). Any health care comparison in general between the USA and a country with a "socialized" system will show even larger differences; the US has one of the highest health care costs per delivery of any nation.

To blindly think that any one system is "superior" to another system without carefully specifying what the system goals are and how differing goals rank in importance is a problem all of us tend to have. Recognizing that for different purposes, different systems might be preferable. Socializing sock manufacturing PROBABLY is not the way to go, but "socializing" (through outright ownership, highly regulated monopolies, or some other system) for water delivery has a lot going for it.

In many sectors, a public system has some natural efficiency advantages in terms of scale, access to capitol, need for marketing, etc. There are also some obvious tendencies towards inefficiency due to in general less competition influences and the tendency of any large organization to have bureaucratic growth. Private concerns however have some negative-efficiency tendencies as well, many of which are exacerbated by the desire to increase profit, both at the company level (charging whatever the customer can pay) and at the individual employee level (thus the spiraling CEO salary effect).

In both cases, good management and planning and regulatory oversight CAN (but does not always actually DO) foster the natural advantages and hold back the natural disadvantages. Private concerns can also have the forces of competition provide incentives against some of the negative tendencies (and for that matter some competitive forces impact public systems too), but all competitive forces do not always provide societal positive benefits - for example universal standards are strongly discouraged by competitive forces to the determent of the public at large (how many different chargers do I own?), and things like pollution and energy use are often exacerbated by the "free market" in its most simple forms.

Personally, I tend to be more "socialist" in my thinking than the US average - I think that fairly strong oversight and careful design of regulatory environments and fiscal policy are the best way of providing for the whole of society, though I do have some strong desire for the utopia envisioned by the pure libertarian and recognize the potential power of enlightened self-interest to do wonderful things.

First of all -- I'm talking about illegal immigrants, not Mexicans (your word). I don't care where they're from -- my problem is that they're in the country illegally and not paying (all of) their taxes.

You know, I hear this all the time here in TN, where we have a 9.25% sales tax and no state income tax.

I'll trade you MD's 6% sales tax and 11% combined state and local income taxes for your 9.25% sales tax and no income tax (and no tax on retirement assets either). Deal?

Where is it that these illegals are buying groceries

Since when are non-luxury groceries like milk, bread, and produce taxed in most states? Even in your state of TN, they're only partially taxed.

Are they simply shopping at the same places as me, and producing an "illegal alien" identification card that lets them skip paying the taxes?

Even better than that -- they can get a (welfare) card that gets them stuff for free, even though they're not supposed to be here in the first place. Here in MD, it's ironically called an Independence Card. Other states have similar programs. Hell, in MD, illegal immigrants can even qualify for in-state tuition discounts ahead of out-of-state US Citizens! Go ahead and wrap your brain around that one for awhile.

I've looked closely many times when Mexicans were getting gas and the pump shows the same $/gallon as my pump, but maybe that's to fool me and when they go to pay the cashier knocks the tax off?

You're assuming it's their vehicle and their gas money, and not the boss's (unlikely if they're here illegally in the first place -- how would they register the car and get licensed? Or are they breaking even more laws?). Other the other hand, 1/3 of all drivers in the state of CA are uninsured, leading to huge increases to the cost of auto insurance.

Bottom line -- I don't know how it is in TN, but in CA and in my blue state, MD, illegal immigrants are treated as victims, not criminals, at a tremendous cost to our states' governments. Don't mistake people being pissed at another group thinking they're so special that they don't have to follow the rules and wait in line, for racism. I could care less what race people are as long as they follow the laws like those of us who do and pay ALL of our taxes.

"The U.S. corporate tax burden is smaller than average for developed countries.[1] Corporations in 19 of the member states of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development paid 16.1 percent of their profits in taxes between 2000 and 2005, on average, while corporations in the United States paid 13.4 percent."

He promised a tax cut to 95 percent of the population, even though close to 40 percent don't actually even pay federal income taxes.

They do, however, pay federal payroll taxes.

He promised universal coverage, and free coverage below a certain income level.

Yup - subsidized by everyone above that level. No one expects the money to appear out of thin air.

He promised not to touch Social Security, regardless of the looming financial train wreck it's becoming.

That "train wreck" is a myth.

Free energy is precisely what he promised with his pledge to spend billions of tax dollars on "free" energy sources, wind and solar.

That's pretty funny. Pledging to spend billions on energy is the opposite of promising energy for free!

Where Do Our Federal Tax Dollars Go?

42% of the budget goes to Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid, but presumably most of that money came from direct contributions not income tax.

Dividing your tax among the remainder:

• $5,700 went to defense
• $2,300 went to interest on the national debt. Thank mom and dad.
• $2,300 went to safety net programs. That might have kept a few bums off your street and a few burglars out of your house.
• $1,600 went to federal retirees and veterans. Thank grandma and grandpa.
• $800 went to scientific and medical research. That might have helped keep you employed and alive.
• $500 went to transportation.
• $500 went to education.

Yeah, I can agree with that, but considering the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities thinks that 51% of the national deficit from 2001 to 2006 resulted from these tax cuts, I would say we're on the wrong part.

That graph really should be on a log scale, and take into account inflation and population growth in order to begin to argue about causation. By your low standard of evidence, the Clinton tax hikes also increased revenue. I haven't looked over it in detail, but this analysis seems more comprehensive and appears to discount "Voodoo economics".

Robbing Peter to pay Paul is never right, and that's exactly what government does when it taxes your income.

Well, there you go. That's an axiom on which we disagree. Libertarians are opposed to the very notion of taxes; the rest of us are not.

Taxing also hurts the economy, because of taxes people can't spend as much, increasing consumer spending will create jobs.

No, it'll mainly just move jobs around. If you dismantle, say, Medicare, and divert that money into private insurance, then the people who work for Medicare (directly or as private contractors) will have to find work with private insurers instead.

Whether jobs would be gained or lost overall depends on how many employees those private insurers would need to provide the same service as Medicare. If they need more employees, then they create jobs, but that means the system is less efficient overall. Those extra salaries don't appear out of thin air; they come from charging consumers more for the same services.

With lower or no income tax, the economy would be better thus increasing people's pay. With higher pay people would be able to invest more, which would increase employment and again pay.

You're still confusing the average with the individual. Even if we assume that the economy would be "better" with no income tax -- a claim for which there's little evidence, if any -- that doesn't mean everyone would have money left over to invest, because the improvement wouldn't necessarily be distributed evenly.

Have you seen the data? How much is in Social Security? How many Baby Boomers will be retiring? How long they're expected to live? I admit though I don't recall the numbers I have seen them and Social Security going broke, without the government putting massive amounts of money in, will happen. The only question is when.

Nope - some people would you like to think the Baby Boomers retiring will destroy Social Security, but the data simply doesn't bear that out. The Social Security Board of Trustees' 2008 report predicts that even with no changes, Social Security will be able to pay full benefits until 2041 (a decade after the last boomers have retired); after that, even with no changes, it'll still be paying 75% of promised benefits in 2082.

The changes needed to keep it paying full benefits past 2041 are pretty minimal. The simplest is just to raise the cap on the Social Security payroll tax, which would also make that tax less regressive.

Bond holders are guarantied, they're guarantied to be paid before others are. However if going bankrupt is a concern then only buy AAA binds. And not just from one company, but from a number of different companies in different businesses. Or if it's that big a deal, then you can buy gold, silver, or other precious metals and gems.

Those are all fine ways to spread the risk around, but there's still a risk. That's what investment is all about, extracting profit by assuming risk; it's the opposite of insurance, which is about paying someone else to take risk off your hands. In a nation of 300 million individual investors, some of them will inevitably end up losing their investment, which is exactly what Social Security is meant to avoid.

True but more people with more money will help.

... but they still won't be able to help as many people as government-funded social programs, so no, private charity isn't a suitable replacement.

Meanwhile socialists want government to take care of everything, that people shouldn't be held responsible. Instead of turning the US into a socialist state, they can move 90 miles off the coast of Florida to Cuba. Oh darn, even Cuba has private businesses and enterprise [blogspot.com] now.

That's cute, but the only people who actually "want government to take care of e

Believe what you want, but that doesn't make it true. People have been concerned with Social Security's solvency for decades and it's really only been very recently that the private investment push has really come out.

It's not my belief that makes it true, it's the numbers. The latest prediction from the Social Security Board of Trustees is that, even with no changes, Social Security would be able to pay full benefits until 2041; in 2082 it would still be able to pay 75% of promised benefits. That's not a crisis.

People have been "concerned" for some time, but they've been wrong; whether their wrongness stems from an honest misinterpretation of the figures or a self-interested opposition to the program itself is a matter of opinion, I guess.

No I'm not. Are you saying it is impossible for the government to fail to provide enough money?

Practically speaking, yes. If the government found itself unable to raise enough money through taxation to fund Social Security or other programs, we'd all have much bigger problems to worry about, because it'd mean our economy had crashed to a halt.

But my argument is that it's less about money than actually delivering help to people. The government is moderately good at taking money from it's citizens. It's horrible at effectively putting that money to good use.

Even if private organizations are, say, twice as efficient as government programs, they still have to be able to raise at least half as much money to provide the same level of service. So why not get the best of both worlds: have the government collect the money, and then give it to private organizations who can spend it more efficiently to provide services.

You missed the my last line - the insurance companies don't have to offer it for nothing. The funding for the basic level for individuals who can't afford it themselves can still come from the government.

That's certainly one way to run a national health care system, especially if you include national funding of preventive care (since insurers have little incentive to pay for it on their own). A single-payer system would probably be able to bring overall costs down, though, rather than just shifting the cost around.

The system you suggest would just compound the problem. The current system has many flaws, but those who do have coverage typically get decent care (there are exceptions of course). Getting more people to participate in the health care system by making it affordable for all is a better solution, along with preventive care. A fee for service system is what exists right now for the uninsured, and it's one of major causes for high cost of health care. The uninsured cant afforded to pay for any services, so they allow a once easily treatable problem manifest into much larger and costlier one. Since the cost usually gets absorbed by the hospitals, it is then passed onto those who can pay. As a result premiums and co-pays increase and those who at one time could afford insurance declines. The stats I see seem to reflect this.

I don't know about everyone else, but my premiums went up 90% this year. Over the past 5-7 years they only increased by 2-10% each year.

Anyway, tying credit to health care will just make the system worse. People will be forced to put off medical procedures that will eventually cost more if they get worse.

I'll say it again, PREVENTIVE CARE!

http://www.cbpp.org/8-29-06health.htm
http://www.nchc.org/facts/coverage.shtml

The Bush Administration has threatened to veto almost all appropriations bills that provide more funding than the President has requested, such as the bill funding the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education for fiscal year 2008, which starts October 1.

Um, the Laffer curve is not an economic model. It is a tax-rate vs tax-revenue model. Even so, it is not the simplest. The simplest is the model you and other Democrats use, which is a straight line. It's the impression that the more you tax, the more you make, which is false.

Fine, the Laffer curve is about the most simplistic rate vs revenue model you can imagine. Reality is not that simple, that's why economists are able to have a discipline. Using the Laffer curve as the basis for your argument would make an economist cringe. As for the snide comment about a straight line model, you are just being snotty. I never suggested a relationship, and there are very few people who buy into such a model. I, and many others, do believe that our tax rate is lower that optimal (particularly at higher income levels, captial gains, and generally on income based on investment rather than labor).

If you are currently on the left side of the curve, then raising taxes will raise revenue. If you are on the right side of the curve, lowering taxes will actually raise revenue. Seeing that Bush lowered taxes and revenue went up, is a strong indicator that we were on the right side of the curve.

With that kind of ironclad reasoning, I can't see how anyone can argue against it. We changed one part of an extremely complex system, and on the other end something happened, so it must be that one part that mattered. I once made a birthday wish that came true...so by your logic, that's a strong indicator that my act of wishing caused the outcome. You are clearly not an economist, a scientist, or even some very familiar with logic.

Easy, there are more people in the USA then ever before.
You're kidding, right? And you claim that the Laffer curve is too simple?

Nope, I'm not kidding. Population growth is a great way to increase your tax base. This country has to *create* 150,000 or so jobs every quarter just to keep the unemployment rate the same. That is 150,000 more taxpayers every quarter. On top of this, the economy of the country grows, GDP goes up, pretty much constantly somewhere between 2-8% annually, in manner not correlated with tax increases or cuts (again, complex system). This strongly effects tax revenue. And in fact, if you use a more relevant measure, tax revenue as a function of GDP, Bush's tax cuts have had a slightly negative, if any at all.

To claim your revenue will actually go up is something so brazen that even the very conservative proponents did not (and honest ones still don't) make.
Um... tax revenue DID go up.

...

No real data? Bush cut taxes and now tax revenues are at record highs. That IS data and real world evidence. It would appear that REAL WORLD evidence supports me.

1. Only in total terms (not scaled per capita or as a function of GDP, nor in real dollars). If you are going to base your argument on absolute numbers, you are either ignorant of accepted practices, or you are intentionally trying to deceive.
2. There isn't a single non-hack economist who argues this anymore. Lowering taxes *DOES NOT* raise tax revenue. As I mentioned and linked to before, the only claim economists make is that tax cuts might increase the economy enough that the loss in revenue from a lower rate is partially offset by increased economic output.

Granted, tax cuts are not the only reason why revenue is up, but taking less out of the GDP causes the GDP to grow.

So even right here you acknowledge that revenue is up for reasons beyond tax cuts. As for tax cuts causing GDP expansion, the data is slim. The GDP has grown through tax cuts, tax increases, and static tax rates. The point, again, is that this is an extremely complex system that has tons of inputs, only one of which is the

This think tank is definitely in the business of bias. Here's one that concluded tax cuts would not primarily benefit the rich, but Congress didn't buy it. Here's one cited in Forbes saying that insurance deficiencies are due to government regulation--which Michael Moore's "Sicko" exposes as a horrible untruth. It's easy to find studies like this from IPI. They use Free Market rhetoric to influence lawmakers, but it's that variety of the Free Market that is anticompetitive.

The music industry, as everyone here likes to say, relies on an outdated business model, but one part of their business model that is quite current and up to date is how it seeks protection through government influence. Sometimes Congress likes to hear distorted studies, because it helps them to have excuses. That's the real issue here.

In short, a man was home brewing his own biodiesel from grease. (Yes, it is possible. But do not approach it lightly, as caustic chemicals such as methanol and NaOH are involved.) Somehow, the state Dept. of Revenue got wind of his activities, and fined him for not paying road tax. Alas, it is a legitimate tax, as he used his homemade biodiesel in his car.

What I will work on through the Milwaukee Biodiesel Co-op (shiny new site coming at RSN) is to bring the state tax policy in line with the federal government's. Currently, the IRS does not tax on homemade fuel produced in quantities below 500 gallons. Go over, and they want their cash. The State of Wisconsin, however, does not have any ceiling above which they tax. That is to say, they will tax any and all fuel you make. We will be working with some allies in the state legislature on this.

While I want to help my colleagues who make homebrew, at the same time, I want to help the state recover from its Thompson-legacy budget deficits. And alas, tax revenue is about the only way out of that.

(Imagine, if they passed TABOR here as the Republicans have tried and tried (and failed each time)... I would have to get a state referendum on it! blech.)

In other news, my Volkswagen Jetta TDI is the single best car I've ever had. It gets 49.9 miles per gallon on the highway! According to the trip meter, I'm at 400 miles with one-quarter of a tank remaining. And it's running 100% biodiesel -- all taxes paid. Hells yes!

For all interested, Ari Fleischer -- ex-bush press secretary -- has made a more detailed whine using this same statistic.

It is also useful to consider other statistics such as how much income the wealthiest one percent actually makes. When it comes to actually living life, 50% of hundreds of thousands of dollars to billions of dollars is much different than 50% of ten to twenty grand. It's the difference between "Am I going to be able to buy a boat upon which to stand around and drink alcoholic beverages?" and "Can I afford a place to live and food to eat?".

Ok, I Googled "US federal revenue figures 1980 1985" (without the quotes). I came up with this page which indicates that in constant dollars federal revenue fell after the Reagan tax cuts. But I think the real question is not just whether revenue increased or decreased, but what it did in relation to the rest of the economy. This page seems to indicate that, as a share of GDP, revenue fell after the Bush 43 tax cuts. So it does not seem at all clear to me that decreasing income taxes increases revenue.

Social Security isn't a replacement for your personal 401(k), it's an insurance policy in case you get disabled or old. You can also think of it as a tax we pay so that we don't have old, sick, dying people filling up our sidewalks. (Well, to the extent that we would without it--we'd have six times the number of seniors in poverty that we do now.) You can't opt out of that any more than you can opt out of coverage by your local police and fire departments.

So if I understand you correctly, you're saying "partisan partisan partisan", backed up by "left-wing biased poo-poo head!".

First: I agree, labeling a chart with "Oil Wars" reflects a bias BUT it doesn't change the data.
Second: it wasn't my chart. Remember?

On Bush's tax cuts for the rich AND their effect on the deficit (hint: they disproportionately favour the rich and it's a big effect), see here for a well-documented assessment: http://www.cbpp.org/4-14-04tax-sum.htm

On Bush's deficit projection game, the difference lies in whose projection you're talking about. Of course the CBO makes a projection and it's generally very accurate. And every year the Bush political team makes its own *very high* projection, so when the results come in, the Bush admin can claim the deficit is less than *their* projection. Guess which tactic gets the (politically-favourable) headlines?

On Clinton - of *course* government spending grew under Clinton. Once again, my point was that Clinton held spending to modest growth. And of course tax revenues grew during that time and that helped him balance the budget. It doesn't change the fact that he balanced the budget.

Bush on the other hand, has allowed government spending to grow unchecked under his watch - you'll recall I provided a couple of sources for that. At the same time, he chose massive tax cuts (regardless of who they benefit, they were a massive reduction in federal revenues). The result is a ballooning deficit, especially when you throw in the cost of a voluntary war.

Whether Bush increases federal debt by 66%, 60% or 58%, the fact is that he inherited a balanced budget and chose massive deficits. 9/11 was a factor, Katrina was a factor, but neither measures up to Bush's incredible growth in government spending nor his huge tax cuts nor his war.

Clinton: good management
Bush: poor management

And that just f*cking kills you Republicans, doesn't it?

And, like you say, the book on Clinton is closed: he won't add any more to the federal debt. Bush, OTOH, has 2 years left in which to, say, initiate a nuclear attack on Iran, invade North Korea... heck, the guy has a solid track record of pissing away money and no credibility whatsoever on fiscal discipline. The book not being closed on Bush cuts both ways, depending on how much faith you have in the man.

So aside from calling me "partisan" (which could only be considered an insult by a Republican devotee), can you address these points at all?

Oh, and BTW, "Since I am not as biased as you..."

You can just cram that. Just who do you think you are?

In the US, the tax burden is well under 50 percent. Local taxes of all kinds - income tax, property tax, sales tax (aka VAT), etc. - are around 10 percent, max of about 13 percent. It varies from state to state. The average federal tax rate is under 12 percent. The average tax burden is around 22 percent in the US.

Actually, you wrote that there was a federal program that provided health care to all Americans. You then specified that the program you were on was AHCCCS. The conclusion that you were implying that AHCCCS was available to all American students comes directly from your sloppy writing. And despite your insistence that Medicaid provides health care to everyone, there's still 46 million Americans without health insurance. Even in Arizona, apparently, 18.7% of the population doesn't have health insurance. Oh, and here's a demographic breakdown of the people without insurance.

Furthermore, you don't seem to know the difference between "anecdotes" and "evidence". Your friends, money-driven nice-people that they may be, are going to be pretty self-selectingly biased. You would only meet nurses and/or doctors who decided to emigrate. Beyond that, you're just plain wrong. Every study I've ever seen on the issue has agreed with one fact: The U.S. pays a higher percentage (16%) of it's GDP for health care than any other country in the world. FYI the number is 9.7% in Canada. Thus, your UK doctor friend is simply wrong.

As for why they don't mention AHCCCS, I would hazard a guess that they don't mention the existence of those plans for the same reason they don't enumerate the private plans that exist, the annual budget of NASA, or the percentage of people who drive cars. It's not actually relevent.

Actually, *all* corporations pay taxes. Some may not income taxes, but they certainly pay other taxes (or their members do). In fact, corporate taxes account for around 7% of the US's GDP. While that's somewhat concerning because as late as the 1960's, corporate taxation accounted for 25% of the GPD, it certainly isn't "no taxes".

Also keep in mind that the vast majority of corporations are small businesses (can't find a citation ATM). That's important because small businesses employ 52% of the workers in the US and create 65% of the net new jobs. But even if you qualify your hating to "big corporations" (however you define that line), it doesn't really advance the argument. The computer you're now using wouldn't exist without corporations. Neither would many of the other benefits modern society offers that are taken advantage of daily by the same people who criticize capitalism.

I'm not saying much of corporate America doesn't suck. I'm a former refugee myself, who's since left to run his own company. But the mindless corporate bashing that is a regular mantra here at Slashdot is just plain mental laziness.

Sources:
http://www.cbpp.org/10-16-03tax.htm
http://usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/oecon/chap4. htm
http://www.fedex.com/us/about/news/speeches/greate raccess.html

Average after-tax income gain, 1979-2000
Top 1% $576,400
Middle fifth $5,500
Bottom fifth $1,100

The estate tax is (usually) not double taxation.

Learn first, talk later.

People like Paris Hilton are why I believe the estate tax (not the death tax, thanks) is entirely fair. Take a look at this website for more on the "dire effects" of the estate tax. Some highlights include: "[T]he American Farm Bureau Federation acknowledged to the New York Times that it could not cite a single example of a farm having to be sold to pay estate taxes," and "Today, the estates of only 1 out of every 200 people who die owe any estate tax whatsoever, because the first $2.0 million of the value of any estate ($4.0 million for a couple) is totally exempt from the tax." Amusingly enough, the website linked-to above even characterizes the estate tax as the "Paris Hilton tax cut".

Tax Freedom Day is calculated using a flawed methodology and is not representative of middle-class tax burdens.

Insightful? Off-topic! and incorrect.

We don't have a Social Security crisis. It's all crap propaganda. It definitely needs to be tweaked, but the politicians are just trying to rile people up and divert attention from real issues. And they're succeeding.

We have a surplus of SS money for at least until 2040. The projections go out for 75 years and sometime before then, we start having a debt regarding SS taxes coming in and money going out. Congressional Budge Office (CBO) studies show that if we don't extend Bush's tax cuts after 2009, we'll have SS surplus until 2050. So at worst, we'd have to reduce SSI handout out if we don't increase the retirement age or increase the budget towards SS. But a temporary debt is okay because population levels fluctuates. After the baby boomers die, our SS situation will be fine again.

Including health care costs for wounded soldiers, Iraq war and occupation could top $2 trilion. How about those tax cuts? I saw a NY Times article stating CBO projections estimated a difference in revenues of $1.7 trillion over the 10 years. A San Francisco Chronicle article mentions a difference of $737 billion. The difference could be due to when the projections started and ended. This doesn't include reports of the economy improving slower then from any previous recession and being short on the administration's projections of jobs by millions (just think of the revenue difference there).

If even a portion of those funds went to social security, we would have not debt for social security for 75 years! The fact remains, the US government takes out enough money from taxpayers to pay for Social Security for the forseeable future.

The problem isn't the social security system. It's the men and women of the Executive and Legislative branch that balloon the deficit with pork barrel spending. Even if we remove the SS blanket, there's no gaurantee that these people wouldn't spend the money elsewhere. Before we talk about changing social security, we need to have people that would be fiscally responsible.

Thats billion, not trillion... and yes, it is that high. 15,000 million dollars.

2005 State Budget Deficits

And San Francisco proper is not a great "brain base". The Silicon Valley, nearby, is much cheaper. Most of the biotech in CA is already in San Diego, which is also substantially cheaper, and has regions within it that are far far cheaper than anything in San Francisco.

Doesn't work that way. It's pretty obvious that welfare programs in the US get a lot of support. Poor people do vote, and they get a lot of support from other groups. However, these programs also get a lot of opposition because they are widely perceived (whether true or not) as being unfair.

Tell that to these 13 million people.

Read the footnote:

This analysis does not take into account any changes in behavior that might occur in the absence of Social Security. If Social Security did not exist, some elderly individuals likely would have saved somewhat more and/or worked somewhat longer.

The structure of social security may encourage irresponsible government accounting practices, but the fact remains that it's the single most effective step in U.S. history toward reducing poverty among those who can't work.

I don't know about that. I'd consider the GI Bill or perhaps the Land Lease universities to be more effective programs especially by dollar amounts spent. But I can say that Social Security is the single most effective program in US history for removing people who can work from the labor pool. Recall for most of its lifetime, there was no incentive for people on Social Security to work (since you lost an equal amount of Social Security payments), unless they could earn more working than they could get from Social Security.

The thing that really bugs me about Social Security is that it is a massive drag on the US economy. Now, I realize that an efficient economy doesn't imply that US workers benefit, but Social Security hurts the worker directly while a capital gains tax might not. After all, you are taking roughly 15% of the salary cost of that worker to their employer, and putting it either into payouts to Social Security recipients or into the general Federal fund. I don't see an easy way to unravel the Social Security web, but it'll come apart as the costs of the program grow and the benefits to future workers decline.

Politics 101: Programs that only serve the poor get no support.

If we want social security at all, then we have to serve at least most of the electorate with it.

it doesn't pay enough to be useful as a retirement program.

Tell that to these 13 million people.

The structure of social security may encourage irresponsible government accounting practices, but the fact remains that it's the single most effective step in U.S. history toward reducing poverty among those who can't work.

• Budget Request is not a bill
  
• Budget Resolution is also not a bill
  
• legislative acts can drastically change expenditures thru appropriations and reconciliation bills