I'm not seeing what the problem is. We lowered rates twice and increased revenues, why would we raise rates? Is anyone here advocating 0% Qz? Anyone? Stop making straw man arguments, or even making up arguments to prove something that nobody has advocated. It is about optimization and yet here we stand, the last two times we have lowered the rate, revenues increased. What more do you want? Shall we do it 3, 4, 10 more times before you are convinced? What will it take?

It is obvious that it is some sort of bell shaped curve for revenues (possibly two or more maximums) and we lowered rates last time to find that revenues rose...so if we are to change the rate, what shall we do this time? Travel back down the path of lower revenues to satisfy the class warfare mentality that some crave for? Shall we try to find another possible maximum that may not even exist and will reduce the economic freedom of the citizens of the United States? Or maybe, just maybe the best path is to find the lowest possible tax rates we can set that will pay for the things government are meant for and we can have some real freedom for once in a very long time.

It all funnels back to the question I brought up in the thread about tax rates a few weeks ago. What is the role of government? Is it to create an atmosphere for prosperity or equality? One cannot drag down the best of society and expect prosperity, just as one cannot create economic freedom and expect equality. One must choose and that is where we differ fundamentally in our beliefs.

qzjul - i think you are a bit full of yourself if you think politicians do not understand CGT. Conservatives do not want NO TAXES. We want no NEW taxes, lower EXISTING taxes, and make EVERYONE pay their fare share.

Alter... Almost every Republican that already has declared themselves a candidate for 2012 Pres election is advocating dropping Capital gains Taxes to zero or atleast dropping it for 5 years. I really don't see how making it tax free to sell off your assets will crate jobs. Especially after seeing how Borrowing my grandkids future income to give to the banks and investment houses has not lead to a surge in them loaning or investing that money. I would expect a zero CGT to trigger a huge increase in Unemployment instead but hay, lets reward Wallstreet and let them live completley tax free for a few years cause they didn't F.CK us all over too well already.

No, I just don't feel that returning your tax burden to its natural state is something that necessarily constitutes "lowering taxes." The US gov expanded to be bigger than its natural state due to WWI. The recession after WWI was about realigning the economy to a post-wartime reality. Since taxes were instituted to help pay for the war, it makes sense to lower them when its over. That's responsible governance, something we haven't seen since the 90s.

However, that is not the same situation as now. The US has the lowest tax burden its seen in decades, and the rich and ultra-rich have a crazy low tax burden. America is also facing the biggest pinch in their balance books ever.

Do you now see that these two things are related as easily correctable? :p

The economic problems for the US need to be solved by both raising revenue to the level required to pay for the entitlement spending, military spending and other government spending that Americans require and cutting back on those programs.
The biggest thing would just be to cut back on the US' global commitments for wars, make more stringent human rights, political and economic stipulations surrounding aid and reform many of the bloated bureaucratic institutions.

I love how Americans claim to not want big government, but realistically... when you're a nation of 300 million (and growing like that of a developing country) you need to have a large government influence so long as you continue to rely on the government for things like transportation networks, unemployment, and most importantly security. The security commitments alone means the US will NEVER have a small government. Half a trillion dollars a year is a lot of money. :p

"That's responsible governance, something we haven't seen since the 90s."

I know, Newt did a pretty good job eh?

"However, that is not the same situation as now. The US has the lowest tax burden its seen in decades, and the rich and ultra-rich have a crazy low tax burden. America is also facing the biggest pinch in their balance books ever.

Do you now see that these two things are related as easily correctable? :p"

Um, you'd better check our GDP % spending if you think taxes has anything to do with this deficit. It's not even close. If we tax the rich 100% we don't pay for what we are doing. You could check out the revenue as a % of GDP vs spending as a % of GDP. Move those tax rates as you may and revenues stay pretty level. Our spending is what has caused this entire problem, not taxes.


"so long as you continue to rely on the government for things like transportation networks, unemployment, and most importantly security."

Transportation is a miniscule amount of the budget and our military (I and think we can cut it down some) still doesn't cost what social security, medicare and welfare cost. 500 billion out of 3.7 trillion really isn't going to be the deal breaker. We would need a couple hundred billion cut to the military and it would keep us safe as well as save us money. Bring back our military from Europe and most of Asia, get out of Libya, and removing ourselves from the IMF and UN would be a great place to start. However, we still need to cut about 1.2 trillion more dollars...and entitlement is the bloated government we don't need.


"Alter... Almost every Republican that already has declared themselves a candidate for 2012 Pres election is advocating dropping Capital gains Taxes to zero or atleast dropping it for 5 years. I really don't see how making it tax free to sell off your assets will crate jobs. Especially after seeing how Borrowing my grandkids future income to give to the banks and investment houses has not lead to a surge in them loaning or investing that money. I would expect a zero CGT to trigger a huge increase in Unemployment instead but hay, lets reward Wallstreet and let them live completley tax free for a few years cause they didn't F.CK us all over too well already. "

So, now that we have confirmed that keeping capital gains taxes low will increase tax revenues for capital gains, it seems we move to how it helps the economy, even if they are set to zero.(I don't advocate 0% myself, but it would be better for the economy than raising the tax rates) Cutting the capital gains tax to zero will gain, obviously, zero revenues directly. However, the investments they make will create wealth in the economy. How it increases the unemployment...seems you just pulled that logic out of your hat. It goes back to how wealth is created, not circulated. It isn't a zero sum game so lets make a bigger pie by increasing incentive to invest. Who gets the money they invest and how is it used? They also wanted to zero out dividends taxes and lower corporate taxes as well. Making us business friendly not only for investors, but for the business owners themselves. That style of governance is what I labeled gearing a society for prosperity and not equality. You should check the government regulations that caused this meltdown before you blame wall street.

We haven't confirmed that at all!

http://curiouscapitalist.blogs.time.com/...ital_gains_tax_cuts_incr/

When you cut the capital gains tax during boom times, you can expect revenues to keep going up, like the boom; plus people hold off selling fluff if they know it's going to be dropped, and everybody knows washington mulls these proposals for like a year++ =/




Fine, why don't we just legalize slavery, that would make everybody's lives so much better. Or maybe you should just shoot everybody who doesn't make $100k, to put them out of their misery.



Yes, I agree -- It's the fault of Washington for loosening regulations on the banks, and the fault of the banks for being goddamned greedy. Regulations that are too loose allow them to bet the farm on a toss of the dice, and then we're expected to bail them out?

Why is it Republicans seem to have no problem with socialism as long as it's "socializing the losses" of a private firm; as soon as it's to help the average person, suddenly it's evil? (admittedly whats-her-name Bachman voted against that, but not very many others did)

don't have to legalize slavery while credit is around, everybody already commits to like 30 years of indentured servitude just to live in a house.

umm... defense is on par with medicare and social security in terms of size.

and my point was not that raising taxes and leaving spending intact is the answer -- the US is overspending and that needs to be taken care of, but it also is undertaxing (ie. the Bush tax cuts, the point of this thread :p) compared to the 90's when thing were balanced. You need more revenue and less expenditures. That's realistically the only way to balance the budget without absolutely gutting every social program imaginable.

I don't really care which party gets the political points, I'm Canadian... I just hope America fixes its fiscal mess so it doesn't take us Canadians down with you if things go baaaad :p

If things go bad in the states Pang.... I'm invading your house Stealing your foods.

I've already got a list of American refugees and unfortunately you're not on it :(

It's like a Noah's Ark of salvation... 2 from every state!

You know what's so funny about your source? He claims it doesn't, yet his graph shows it does. Did you see when it was cut to 15% in 2003 what happened? From going down it jumped back up...so what more is it going to take Qz for you to see what is staring you back in the face? Read the comments of that article as well and you will see that guy was full of it.



Slavery? Q, stop making up arguments against the straw man in the room. Prosperity would involve political and economic freedom. The freedom to choose what you would like to do with your life and live with the consequences and rewards. The freedom to fail and succeed. Freedom period. Slavery has nothing to do with it and actually stifles economies, just ask Alexis de Tocqueville and the south before our civil war here.



Really, you have no idea of the regulations they put on the banks do you? Lets see, imagine you are the owner of a bank. What do you do to make money? Make loans right? Ok, so we have to major events now that have happened. 1) You are forced to make loans to minorities and high risk individuals in an attempt by the government to make sure everyone has a fair chance to own a home. 2) The government in Fannie Mad and Freddie Mac now insure all your loans. So what does this mean to you? It means that you will make more risky loans no matter what because...1) you are forced to make a certain amount and 2) you have a blank check by the government for making any loans you wish. What happened? The banks made any loans they could no matter what because it was all insured and they had nothing to lose. Would you call that private enterprise? No, I would call that government collusion with business. The governments interference in the banking industry caused this mess 100%. Did they directly do it all? No, but they are the culprit.



Republicans voted like Democrats, not my problem. I am 100% against all bailouts. Always was. It wouldn't have caused a meltdown as assets would have been sold off and the banking industry would have realized they aren't given a blank check by the government. Instead we are back to square one just creating another bubble.



Yes, Newt did a great job basically shutting down the government. I don't care what party does it either, but realistically democrats are not going to do it. Votes are politicians only concerns and I am starting to believe Republicans won't do it either at the federal level. I should really post up a spreadsheet I have on another computer of mine about federal revenues and outlays since WW2, it would really shine some light on the fact that federal revenues are pretty flat no matter the tax rates(as a % of GDP). Spending literally is the only problem. Tax rates go up and down all the time over the decades and revenues were fairly flat, why is that? When taxes are high, people will spend more time avoiding them, when they are low, they won't spend as much. Sort of proportional to the rate I would think to remain so flat. Revenues have remained around 18-19% through the years with spending just above that and thus the deficit. As of the last 2 years we are now at 23% of GDP I believe. And unless Republicans hold back Democrats, it isn't coming down...

qz (and others possibly), how do you on the one hand support lower pay for government workers and on the other bemoan the revolving door between industry and the regulators watching over industry.

It seems to me that one of the causes of this is the lack of $$ paid to government regulators who can make way more in private industry in many cases.

The problem there is that buying regulators and laws etc is worth far more to companies than the public would ever agree to pay these guys. Maybe if the power were diluted by making them have 1 seat in congress per 100k people (like canada does, approximately) then you'd have less of that? i dunno







But the point is it *didn't* affect it in 1997, and it went *DOWN* in 2000, which could have been a long term effect of the tax cut for all we know; the point is, there is only one data-point in this sub 30% region that agrees, and the other disagrees. I say increase the tax rate for a decade to say 30% and see what happens




I don't see how cutting tax rates will somehow magically make things prosperous. Do the rich not have enough money to create jobs already? From what I've read, the largest companies are sitting on huge piles of assets, that they're *not* investing; and with a *lower* tax burden than ever.



Yes you're correct, these were particularly idiotic laws & regulations; but they were a result of the banking lobby + the typical meddling of all sorts of special interest groups. Just like the obama care bill started out intelligent and is now a frustrating, twisted mockery of a proper health plan, after it was sufficiently meddled with by lobbyists on all sides.


The lobbyists are the biggest part of the problem when it comes to stupid one-sided laws being passed.



So you DO want no government... heh...




Am I not allowed to exercise my sarcasm for the day? heh




I'd say we're WORSE OFF than square one, as we've *rewarded* those companies taking retarded risks; Personally, I think they should just retroactively insist on the $700B being repaid as loans with say... a 10 or 20% interest rate

urgh, you are insatiable. You ignore straight out stats that show one thing happened and try to twist them. You then agree that yes the government caused the problem, but only because business forced them to...is that backwards logic or what? The fact that the government even has the power to do what it did is the problem I am getting at. If they can make those rules, then we no longer have economic freedom. For example, how stable was our economy before the Fed was created by Woodrow Wilson? Much more stable, yet for some reason everyone thinks the Fed creates stability. They make decisions that affect everyone and when they are wrong, we all take the hit. Keep government small enough that it cannot make decisions that large except to protect us against foreign invaders and the problem is solved. Anyways, I saw Trumper put up another thread, it is useless debating you when you simply ignore the facts.

I didn't ask if I could get in :-P I was tellin ya what was gonna happen :-P

The economy was in a *continuous* boom/bust cycle until WWII when the US became the dominant... everything... So i wouldn't say it was more stable

How wealth is created.... Obviously not by Re-lining the Pockets of the fools who lost it all in the first place.

As for stability pre-fed... Almost all recessions were alot worse then this past one was, and came alot more frequently.

http://en.wikipedia.org/...ions_in_the_United_States

http://www.theatlantic.com/...ssion-of-deficits/238786/

They don't quite take into account the loss of wealth created when discussing Bush Tax Cuts do they? In other words, would you invest the same amount if you only received 50% of the rewards you currently would? Or would you keep your wealth in the United States if you knew that when you died it would be taken by the government? Or do they ever mention the tax cuts the middle class received and how it increased their buying power? No, none of that is thought of. The economy is static and wealth is circulated, not created, when discussing tax cuts.

The problem, CKHuslter, is that that's pretty much just rhetoric as far as I can tell; there's no good examples of tax cuts increasing wealth in the taxrate < 30% enough to offset the tax cuts; I would say there aren't any at all anyway, as the US has never had a taxrate as low as they have currently since the introduction of income tax.


And yes it matters what the taxrate is! Laffer curve!


You have to pay your bills, you've got to start by raising taxes! Sure you can axe social programs, but to do so responsibly would take more than a crude hatcheting of their budget.

I stated either here or in another thread...

They will end, whether controlled or not, they will end. Take a look at Greece, how's that working out for them? The money, no matter the tax rate, will never be enough to pay for the social programs we have, so they will end. It's only of matter of how and when.

No good examples? The problem when you put something in those terms is that no example will ever suffice. Would it suffice to say that America had the lowest taxes the entire 19th century and became the worlds largest producer? You'd say no. Would it suffice to say that tax rates were dropped by half and we had the roaring 20's? No, you'd say not. Would it suffice to say that Reagan's tax cuts in the 80's spurred us out of stagnation? No, you'd say no again. How about whether the Bush tax cuts somehow kept us out of a recession despite 9/11 and the crash of the stock market straight after? Again you'd say no.

There is no example that will suffice for you and thus I have no reason to try. I only have logic. No matter what tax rate there is, if I can find a better way to make money, I will do it another way. Right now businesses are leaving America for many reasons, among them regulations and taxes. For example, what tax rate did Google pay this past year? Or GE? Or what about Exxon? Chevron? Paypal? It just doesn't work to tax wealth, it will leave.

Just ask the co-founder of Home Depot about our regulations and you can see how it also stops others from starting.

http://pajamasmedia.com/...are-choking-the-recovery/

Business owners know whats going on, just like Steve Wynn from my other link. They want to get out as quick as they can to avoid any possible regulations that will end their businesses. You can try as you might, but the wealth will leave rather than fill your coffers when you punish them with class warfare taxes.

And one last approach...



Increasing the wealth ENOUGH. By that quote you admit it lowers the total wealth to pay for these social programs. Was that intentional logic, or accidental?

And one other thing irks me that you liberals can never see.

"forcing changes in society through regulation"

That would be your reasoning behind some of this stuff. Using the government as a tool for social change or engineering if you will.

Who's will decides what is best? I hate to bring up Hitler, but he decided it would be best to remove the Jews from Germany and then went further to exterminating them. That is a far out example, but is the power used any different? Is the difference between mandatory healthcare to live or EPA regulations calling CO2 any different than a ruling that Jews were harming the German economy? A law forcing cars to have certain MPG levels or unions forcing Boeing to stay in Seattle, are they any different? What about forcing health insurance providers to spend 85% of their dues on payouts(which only causes a raise in prices) when they should have no authority to control private business. What about the fairness doctrine that liberals trump up here in the US?

The problem is the power used is very similar, only the people using the power are different in this case. So lets say that the fairness doctrine is put back into play and with Obama liberals are all fine and dandy with it. So lets say next election Sarah Palin wins and decides that the liberal ideology is no longer worth the time and removes it from the fairness doctrine. Now radio stations are forced to show all views equally, but now that the common progressive(and left) view is out, we only hear of small government and smaller government. How will the left react now that the right has the person at the helm? They won't take too kindly.

In the end, it's nice if the person enacting the social engineering agrees with you, but what if they don't? You essentially are not allowed to do as you please without a penalty. And who is making these policies? Certainly not congress, it is some bureaucrat that is appointed or possibly even holds that job indefinitely. They say those working for the EPA have a better chance of dying than losing their job. Would you like some nameless person social engineering your lifestyle out of existence?

What about pushing the poor into oblivion and raising the wealthy to a high unheard of since egyptian pharaohs used their populace to build gigantic pyramids as displays of their opulence?

That's social change too.

the poor were destined for oblivion anyway. how many names of the poor were written down in the past and remembered. Oliver Twist, perhaps?

by makeing it hard on the rich you make it harder to become one of them,and far more likely thay become like you......poor thinking makes for poor living.

The goverment dosent make anything . If they wont to take more, then the people must make more to be taken or no one gains and we all become like the goverment.

Egyptians used slave labor, thus not freedom.

Pushing the poor into oblivion by not punishing another person? Wealth is not a static amount that will forever roam this earth moving from one person to another. It is created and destroyed. Freedom is not forced social change, it is simply freedom.

Lets use another example besides the fairness doctrine. How about abortion? Likely you believe women should have the right and I can see the argument, I don't agree, but I see it all the same. What if instead of the courts ruling in favor of abortion, they ruled against it? Would the same people praising the courts for legislating social change suddenly be at odds and outraged that the government would limit their freedoms? But would the courts not have just been using their power to enact social change?

What about gun control? I have no idea what you believe on that front, but it matters not. Right now the left actively pushes for control on all fronts, which impedes my freedom to own a firearm. Those on the left applaud the government for their efforts because it is in agreement with their own beliefs. What if someone suddenly had the power to push for regulations that forced every home to have a firearm for the sake of discouraging break-ins? Would those same people be outraged again? It is only using their power to enact social change after all.

Take our bailouts of the banks. Likely most here disagree with how the money was spent, but because the government took the power to give money to those they chose, they ended up wasting money on their friends. We start with the government using their power to give money to people and suddenly they can feed their friends with your paycheck. Is that enacting social change?

When the government has the power to regulate social change, they have the power to enslave the population and you can quite possibly end up with Egyptian labor. Looking back, how did the Egyptians get that labor? Israelites were becoming too wealthy and the Egyptians were jealous, thus they used the power of government to enact social change and create a slave class of citizens.

Freedom is the key to this all. Martian showed the cycle of human nature and civilizations through history and he is exactly correct. If in fact you agree with him, then naturally to reverse the flow we must tend to error on the side of freedom and push back towards prosperity. There are many other reasons civilizations fall and culture is the main culprit, but maybe, just maybe we can start with government and start the path backwards and save this armageddon we are moving towards.

well if those in Washington dont start working together to solve the problems we are facing but instead are more worried about voting down the opposite party, nothing will get done

CK passing leg to force someone to buy a gun would be almost as bad as making someone buy health Insurance.

and bailing out the banks, which are actually privately owned by those whom are common stock holders is the same as social change, its called giving the idiots who lost it their money back at the expense of the rest of the population.

Exactly!! Do you see where I was going with that then? All forced social change it bad. It stifles freedom, it stifles business, it discourages innovation, it creates resentment, it fuels rebellions, it all around is just bad for any society.