Dude, calm down.
LOLOLOL. You don't read the long version, reply to the short version, then complain I didn't explain anything or give complete arguments because you didn't actually read them in the long version. LOLOLOLOLOL.
History alone is not a good enough reason? Then what the fuck is?
Please read the longer version of the other post, explaining in detail why solutions from the 70s aren't applicable now. I already explained it. Don't listen to opinion. Listen to a rational argument and decide for yourself whether those reasons make sense. If you disagree, dispute the reasons, not the fact that it's my opinion. "Go with history" is really just your opinion, it's not objective truth. Your justification? "It's all we have". I gave you WAY more justification than that. Actually read it first.
In a nut shell: globalization, free trade, outsourcing, competition from other emerging markets (China). These factors were not present in the 70s. These factors all make it more likely for people to move operations overseas if they aren't happy with tax changes in the US. They weren't at play in the 70s. They are now. Saffron and I have also been discussing a "reverse brain drain" where American talent is moving north to Canada. FYI, this is all based on history and actual events. Isn't it reasonable to conclude people are more likely now than in the 70s to take up a leave the US in response to tax hikes?
The high tax pre-deregulation period of the 70s is your idea of economic stability? This era of the 70s also saw skyrocketing inflation, soaring interest rates, a major energy crisis, a stock market crash, slow growth in productivity, and just general economic slowdown compared to the 60s. It was considered a period of "conservatism", especially during the oil crisis. The economy was far from perfect, even with the rich being taxed. This is based on history. They weren't managing things that amazingly back then either.
There are other periods of US history where the economy thrived more and income disparity was less. Periods of the 1800s during the Industrial Revolution? The 20s? This was a period of tax cuts and protectionist policies. One could argue that history shows low taxes and high tarriffs benefit the economy, as these tarriffs protected American business interests and paid off national debt from the war. But there was also a bubble. So you could try to replicate the 60s? Policies of the 60s saw both economic prosperity and progessive social movements. The 60s were full of tax cuts, although taxes were probably higher than they are now. Business thrived and America was prosperous. And the income disparity was nothing like today. But social spending was still strong - the creation of Medicaid - and labour unions were very strong, favouring worker conditions. Would that be a better reference point?
What I'm saying is, picking the 70s is arbitrary. Yes, deregulation and systematic tax cuts started with Reaganomics, but there's plenty of history before that too. There are plenty of points in history when the American economy was stronger and the income disparity was smaller. And depending on where you look, different economic policies were in place. Idealizing the 70s and saying that is the model we should copy seems somewhat ignorant, especially given the economic instability of the 70s. And trying to apply economic policy from then may be misguided when so many factors are different now, as discussed. People are far more likely to take up and leave now. Head to China, Canada, elsewhere. It has already started happening and Americans are already losing jobs. The more it costs to do business here, the less business will take place here.
And this is based on history, as you should see. You can research and confirm facts if you disagree.
Lowering taxes on the rich was a separation from history and introduced trickle down economics.
But for some reason you're standing here defending them telling me not to look at history
When did I ever say we should lower taxes? Or defend those tax cuts? Or when did I ever use "trickle down economics" as a justification? Not once. You assumed that because I said something against tax hikes and you didn't understand what. Stop painting everything black and white. You're not even arguing with my points. You see a few words, assume I am arguing the same thing as Fox News, and are just refuting Fox News points instead. Stop lumping people in categories.
What I am saying is that, while those tax cuts may have been bad, you can't fix things by going back in time. We need new solutions. Taxes have to go up, but the problem is more complex than just using the taxation system of the 70s. The 70s kind of sucked, dude.
What are you even saying??? Taxing the wealthy at higher rates is simply the correct way to go about reducing the deficit. You don't seem to realize how much these low tax rates on the wealthy have cost the treasury and a majority of Americans.
I am in favour of taxing wealthy people. Please go back and count the number of times I have suggested doing so and ways to do so. It is a lot. I have suggested ALTERNATE taxation schemes, but they all involve raising taxes among rich people. Happy?
What really cost your treasury? Low taxes or your hyper-expensive war? The real issue was increasing spending (war) WHILE decreasing taxes. Doing both is terrible book-balancing. Now you guys need to both cut spending and raise taxes to fix it.
Nothing is punishing the 'hard-working doctors' and business owners about returning their tax rates to a sustainable level. Hard working doctors and small business owners payed higher tax rates for the past 70 or so years, the ones in this generation will survive it.
No one is being punished. Please stop using the word "punish". You don't see why people would be incentivized to leave the country if taxes increase? Global market. Easier to move now. And it has nothing to do with the "sustainable level" of taxes being a negative thing. People don't care about that. It has to do with change. People respond to change, not absolutes. If I increase your rent to a "sustainable level", you will be mad because rent is going up. Whether or not the end result is better for society on the macro scale, what you are going to notice in your microcosm is your rent going up. You won't be pleased. Esp if you are already working 14 hour days. Especially if you could move somewhere else where rent was about the same but you didn't have to work nearly as hard (Canada
). People respond to changes and incentives.
0.5%? Isn't that the same sensationalizing that you accuse people who promote the 1% statistic of doing? Are you implying that one who makes over 100 million dollars couldn't possibly have worked hard for their money?
You completely misunderstood my argument about the malleability of statistics then. Please enroll in one of my stats courses, LOL. No, the 1% stat is sensationalized because it is the only one considered. No one looks at splitting up the income pie in any other way. Someone did an analysis a long time ago that looked at top 1% because it made sense at time time, and now everyone uses it as the golden standard. Even though income distribution is continuous, and dynamic over time. A more telling statistic is "where is the median"? I.e. what percentage of people own 50% of the wealth? This number will change over time. And it's a better question, because what we really want to know is "where is all our wealth"? "How few people are holding it?". "Is that wealth concentrating into fewer hands or spreading into more?" Those are relevant policy questions. Those are answered by asking the median question. Asking "what is happening to the top 1%" is arbitrary, because asking the question presupposes that there is something significant in being in the top 1%. There's not. It implies an artificial class distinction, which the masses have eaten up. What is significant is who is controlling the wealth, which is a different question. The 1% thing is poor analysis and any statistician not on payroll will back that up. Don't take my word for it. Go ask one, please.
To fight the sensationalizing, we should consider looking at other groups of the "rich" too. What would happen if we raised taxes for the top 0.5% by 2X instead of raising taxes for the top 1% by X? What would that accomplish? (well for one the country would get more tax dollars!!) What if tax burden is applied more to investment income than salary income? If the wealthy saving is what is screwing over trickle-down economics, then maybe tax their savings more? Initiatives like this. Tax policies that worked in the 70s won't work now, so we need to ask how to apply them now. Instead of just blindly taxing the top 1%, where can we apply taxes to the wealthy that minimize economic impact while still producing the same total number of tax dollars? These are questions that should be in discourse. Because, whether you realize it or not, these are questions used to make tax policy decisions (along with bribes). So it would help to, you know, campaign for tax hikes based on the actual decisions that will need to be made.
The fundamental mechanism behind capitalism is to profit regardless of the environmental and social costs.
Supply and demand respond to both profit and costs. The problem is when the costs are costs to the commons and never reach the business. The easy fix is for the government to transfer the costs over (e.g. C02 cap and trade) so business does pay.
Small business owners care about environmental and social costs because they care about image, they care about their customers, and they care about long-term costs because they want company longevity. This is all consistent with capitalism. And ask any small business owner. The ones who don't care about the costs are big corporations. That's corporatism, not capitalism.
It doesn't matter how the wealthy whose taxes go up are affected, their decrease in taxes had a major effect on majority of Americans and drove up the national debt.
You sure it wasn't the war that drove up national debt too? How much of that spending was necessary?
And you don't care how these people are affected at all? Well some people do, you know, care what happens to people. So it's a good thing you're not making policy ;-)
