In December, President Obama said it would be "a devastating blow to the economy" to raise taxes, because the economy was so weak. What has changed since December? Was President Obama lying to us or blowing smoke up our asses? If you follow the GDP and the history of raising and lowering top marginal tax rates, it is clear that raising taxes will produce lower revenue and lowering taxes will produce more revenue, but you are advocating we raise taxes... do you surmise we need LESS revenues at this time? To increase revenues through the tax code, you must broaden the tax base and lower the rate.
The TEA Party essentially pwned the Democrats in the 2010 midterms, they ran largely on the message of cutting spending and NOT raising taxes. But even before throngs of Democrats were sent packing, they joined Republicans in overwhelmingly rejecting a tax increase. What makes you believe, in all your profound political wisdom, there is any motivation on the part of Congress to raise taxes now? They could not do this with a majority House and Senate AND the President, before the TEA Party cleaned their clocks, why do you think they can do it now?
Dixie, Dixie, Dixie. If you recall the raising of taxes was to do with the expiring Bush tax cuts which would have raised taxes on everyone and as Obama said that would not be a good idea. The current conversation involves raising taxes on the wealthy only.
So, to recap:
Raise everyone's tax = bad idea
Raise tax on the wealthy only = good idea
In December the choice was to raise everyone's tax by eliminating the Bush tax cuts or keeping the tax cuts and not raising anyone's tax. That's when Obama said raising everyone's tax would be a bad idea.
Forward six months later and Obama wants to raise the tax on the wealthy only. "Only" is the key word here.
So, to raise taxes on everyone would be a bad idea. To raise taxes on the wealthy only is a good idea. That is what Obama wanted to do in December but he ended up with an all-or-nothing choice. Either cancel the Bush tax cuts and raise everyone's tax or keep the cuts and don't raise anyone's tax.
Check out this video.
http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/oreilly/transcript/ben-stein-we-must-raise-taxes-rich#ixzz1QuadCWn8
(Excerpt) Look, it's a basic arithmetic thing; it's not an ideological thing. We are spending an enormous amount of money that we're not covering with tax revenue; we're borrowing it. At some point we're going to have so much debt that there's going to be a crisis and there will have to be austerity measures here just as they were in Greece. A simpler way would be tax people who have a great deal of money, tax them more, let them help pay down the debt. Look, if a person is a millionaire or a billionaire…who are making $20 million a year, he can afford a tax increase. (End)
http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/oreilly/transcript/ben-stein-we-must-raise-taxes-rich#ixzz1Qx48aBt2
He goes on to say there were higher rates of economic growth in the 40s and 50s and 60s and 70s when taxes were higher and the Bush tax cuts have correlated with lower productivity and economic growth so one can not correlate lower taxes with higher growth and productivity. There is no data correlating lower tax rates for the rich to higher economic growth. (5:50 - 6:05 on the video)
One can not say higher taxes on the rich are a bad thing in terms of economic growth. The data just isn’t there. (6:15 - 6:25)
That’s it in a nutshell. All this nonsense about the rich being upset and not creating jobs and higher taxes on the rich will result in lower economic growth is just that, nonsense. Decades of statistics show that isn’t the case.
It’s bogus. A lie. Pure bullsh!t. Nothing more.
Unless you have another objection to raising taxes on the rich I think we've pretty much concluded this discussion.
