Who wants to defend the Federal Income Tax?

[rightwinger]

Those were problems but less thought of at the time..

I believe the founders Government was better since they did not do things at breakneck speed. We should all want a stable Government. Today all the Democrats think of is change. Suppose your wife's only thought was rapid change?

The Government formed by the founders collapsed into bloody Civil War within 85 years

We never trusted a State centric Government again

 

[Hector12]

Yes but why? Incomes rose during Reagan based on Federal reports of the 5 quintiles.

Mean incomes grew because the rich got richer. Median after tax incomes did not grow.

 

[Robert W]

The rich have certainly done very well since the inauguration of Ronald Reagan in 1981. It cannot be said that most Americans have.

View attachment 839761

Graphs are amazing constructions. You can make any point you want to make using a Graph. And even when the conclusion does not claim what you do, you still make it seem as if you won.. Amazing constructions. Suppose the Rich steadily lost money. How does that help?

Say you have two sons. First one had a Ph.D and works as a manager of a major corporation. Son 2 changes tires at Big O. Should both earn the same? Should the Tire changing Son pay the same as his brother in Fed taxes or a lot less? Why?

 

[Hector12]

The Economic Recovery Act of 1981, also known as the Reagan tax cuts, was the biggest reduction in U.S. taxes of the past 70 years, possibly even the biggest ever.1513274866098 That much is reasonably well-known.

What is less well-known is that these cuts were then followed by a series of tax increases that, if you add them all together, were almost as big as or even bigger than the 1981 cuts, depending on the measure you use.

I did not know this myself until a reader question about the source of the federal budget surpluses of 1998 through 2001 sent me looking again at the report on Revenue Effects of Major Tax Bills produced in 2013 by the Treasury Department's Office of Tax Analysis, which I featured in a column last week. The 1981 tax cut reduced revenue by an average of 2.89 percent of gross domestic product over the four years after it was enacted, according to the Treasury Department's analysis, which does not attempt to incorporate any macroeconomic effects of tax changes. When I added up the four-year average revenue impact of the next seven significant tax changes approved by Congress, in 1982, 1983, 1984, 1986, 1987, 1990 and 1993, I found that they equaled 2.98 percent of gross domestic product. Who knew?

Bloomberg - Are you a robot?

Reagan cut taxes paid by the rich. Middle class taxes rose.

 

[Moonglow]

Reagan cut taxes paid by the rich. Middle class taxes rose.

Voodoo economics.

 

[Hector12]

Graphs are amazing constructions. You can make any point you want to make using a Graph. And even when the conclusion does not claim what you do, you still make it seem as if you won.. Amazing constructions. Suppose the Rich steadily lost money. How does that help?

Say you have two sons. First one had a Ph.D and works as a manager of a major corporation. Son 2 changes tires at Big O. Should both earn the same? Should the Tire changing Son pay the same as his brother in Fed taxes or a lot less? Why?

My point, which I repeat, is that most Americans did not benefit from the Reagan economy.

We have certainly not benefited from the continual rise in the national debt that has come from continued Republican tax cuts for the rich.

 

[Robert W]

The Government formed by the founders collapsed into bloody Civil War within 85 years

We never trusted a State centric Government again

It is possible for that to happen again. And I have long criticized Abe Lincoln for his war against states whose crime was they wanted freedom.

Here is how I see this. I live in a city. It has Government. Most of my gains is from this city. I live in a State that has my kind of Government. I love our roads and wish the bridges had been built to last much longer. But this state is so well managed it has a vast amount of cash on hand. And they do work on Bridges.
We live with the threat of DC hanging over our heads.
That really bothers me. I do not want Rhode Island running this state using the feds.

 

[Robert W]

Voodoo economics.

Can you explain that like economics professors can?

Are you in this so the Feds run your life for you? I call that a dictatorship.

 

[Hector12]

It is possible for that to happen again. And I have long criticized Abe Lincoln for his war against states whose crime was they wanted freedom.

They wanted the freedom to keep Negroes in slavery.

 

[Moonglow]

Can you explain that like economics professors can?

Are you in this so the Feds run your life for you? I call that a dictatorship.

I learned how to read law many years ago and can read tax laws so I learned how to play tax avoision.

 

[iamwhatiseem]

Me…ME!

The Federal Income Tax is the best way to raise $4 trillion a year in revenue

We have nothing to replace it

Here let me fix that for you......

The Federal Income Tax is the best way to partly compensate for government waste.

 

[Moonglow]

Income was taxed during the Civil War to supplement the federal tax on booze which was the majority of revenue for the federals until the Volstead Act.

 

[Robert W]

My point, which I repeat, is that most Americans did not benefit from the Reagan economy.

We have certainly not benefited from the continual rise in the national debt that has come from continued Republican tax cuts for the rich.

Not per the economics reports. They did improve all across the 5 quintiles.

National debt is not due to too little taxes. It is caused by ripping off some classes of citizens and the rest get to try to make enough money to keep up.

Reagan devoted effort to remove waste from the federal Government.

 

[Hector12]

Can you explain that like economics professors can?

Are you in this so the Feds run your life for you? I call that a dictatorship.

The dictatorship consists of the rich and the corporations dominating the government. A better term for that is "plutocracy."

To make the U.S. government more democratic we need to end the Electoral Congress and the Senate, and institute confiscatory taxation of the rich.

 

[rightwinger]

Here let me fix that for you......

The Federal Income Tax is the best way to partly compensate for government waste.

Name a better way to raise Federal Revenue

 

[iamwhatiseem]

The income tax system is a major mess.
But that is only because current federal governance is a major mess.
The federal government is the most inefficient way possible to collect tax and spend money.
You could not come up with a worse way to fund a nation of people than the way we do it.

 

[rightwinger]

National debt is not due to too little taxes. It is caused by ripping off some classes of citizens and the rest get to try to make enough money to keep up.

It is caused by slashing taxes without reducing spending

 

[Robert W]

They wanted the freedom to keep Negroes in slavery.

That at the time, that was normal. Bad it was, but still normal. And there is no excuse for the Feds to mount an army and invade any of the states. Abe got over 630,000 able men killed due to his desire to restore the union as he put it.

 

[iamwhatiseem]

Name a better way to raise Federal Revenue

Your question is farcical.
It assumes that the federal system is the only way to collect and distribute funds.
It isn't.
It is the worse way.... CLEARLY.

 

[rightwinger]

The income tax system is a major mess.

Agree
We need to shift more of the burden to the wealthy and corporations

Like it used to be before we embraced Supply Side