How does raising tax rates on the “rich” actually redistribute wealth anyway?
Randall E asked:
Total tax revenue, and spending on social programs, have both INCREASED, and increased DRAMATICALLY, under Bush.
Total tax revenue, and spending on social programs, have both INCREASED, and increased DRAMATICALLY, under Bush.
And so has the share of the tax burden paid by the “rich” – whether you consider “rich” to be the top 1%, top 5%, top 10%, top 20%, top 25%, or top 50%, the proportions of the tax burden paid by these groups have gone UP since the Bush tax cuts, to the highest levels EVER.
So, how would raising tax rates, which would reduce growth, reduce job creation and possibly reduce tax revenue, effect a redistribution of wealth?
Uh, but Caesar dude, Bush CUT taxes for them too, and their share of the tax burden went DOWN. And tax REVENUE went UP.
Fox
August 23rd, 2008 at 12:01 pm
“You cannot help the poor, by destroying the rich. You cannot strengthen the weak, by weakening the strong. You cannot bring about prosperity, by discouraging thrift. You cannot lift the wage earner up, by pulling the wage payer down. You cannot further the brotherhood of man, by inciting class hatred. You cannot build character and courage, by taking away men’s initiative and independence. You cannot help men permanently; by doing for them what they could and should, do for themselves.”
Lincoln
August 24th, 2008 at 4:11 pm
It wouldn’t. But the Obama supporters are quite sure that the rich don’t pay their fair share. The other thing they forget is that the poor and middle-class don’t create jobs. That is left up to the rich. And yet they tell us we are liars.
August 24th, 2008 at 7:01 pm
No rich man has ever given me a job. I have held numerous jobs at various levels since I was 16.
Multi-national corporations with publicly traded stock have given me plenty of jobs
Smart investors today, invest in Asian stocks. Reducing capitals gains taxes help China more than the US.
August 26th, 2008 at 6:08 am
Yes the poor and the middle class don’t create jobs. But having more money in their pockets to spend does. For every business that goes fails or moves offshore. There will be others to fill that void. If the common man and woman do not have money to spend then business fails. Taxing the poor and middle classes to bail out business clearly isn’t working either.
August 26th, 2008 at 12:06 pm
the money from theses taxes then go into poorly managed social programs which are supposed to help the poor and needy, but in actuality, many of these programs only cripple poor people further.
August 27th, 2008 at 10:36 am
Uh, no, it didn’t. Far far from it.
The Center on Budget & Policy Priorities says:
•The Bush tax cuts have contributed to revenues dropping in 2004 to the lowest level as a share of the economy since 1950, and have been a major contributor to the dramatic shift from large projected budget surpluses to projected deficits as far as the eye can see.
•The tax cuts have conferred the most benefits, by far, on the highest-income households — those least in need of additional resources — at a time when income already is exceptionally concentrated at the top of the income spectrum.
•The design of these tax cuts was ill-conceived, resulting in significantly less economic stimulus than could have been accomplished for the same budgetary cost. In part because the tax cuts were not as effective as alternative measures would have been, job creation during this recovery has been notably worse than in any other recovery since the end of World War II.
If the Administration’s latest tax proposals — which would make permanent most of the tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003 and establish new tax cuts on top of that — are enacted, the long-term results are likely to be even more troubling. Over the next 10 years, total tax-cut costs will equal $3.9 trillion, reaching nearly $600 billion or 3.3 percent of the economy in 2014 alone. (These calculations include the effects of the higher interest payments caused by the tax cuts.) The resulting higher deficits will slow future economic growth, saddle future generations with sizable interest payments, and leave the nation ill-prepared not only for the retirement of baby boomers but also for responding to potential future crises — from security matters to natural or environmental disasters — the particulars of which are unknown today.
Pressure to reduce these deficits will mount. Because the tax cuts are so tilted toward the highest-income households — and become even more so over time, as some of the upper-income tax cuts phase-in — the burden of financing these lopsided tax cuts ultimately is likely to be borne disproportionately by households who gain only modestly from the tax cuts. This will be the case unless offsetting spending cuts or tax increases are enacted that reduce benefits or raise taxes primarily on high-income households. As a result, over the long term most Americans may well be net losers from the tax cuts.
August 27th, 2008 at 9:06 pm
Spending on social programs (in real dollars) decrease under Bush. Everything went to homeland security or to the wars. Allowing the Bush cuts to expire on the wealthy (250k+) will not significantly hurt jobs and business (the wealthy and businesses want you to think this, but historically, it is not true). They paid a little more under Clinton and did great, and we had a surplus.
The reality is the government has to raise taxes to fix the mess caused by bush, and the wealth have reaped most of the benefit from the bush years while the middle class has taken to the cleaners. Get consumer confidence back (the middle class consumer spends a lot relative to other groups), spend on infrastructure improvements that have been put off for years, and keep people in their homes (not everyone, but at least the ones that can make payments if terms are made a little easier), and we’ll get through this quicker. Freeze all government spending now, shift more tax burden to the middle class who already is stretched to the limit, and do nothing to help responsible homeowners, and this could add years to the downturn.