Americans Paid $90 Billion MORE In Taxes After Republican Tax Cut

[Flash]

Because you're moving the goalposts on "wealthy" to include anyone in the top 20 percentile.

I did not move any goalpost because I simply said the "wealthy" are responsible for 60% of spending. I did not attempt to define who is included.

I notice you are again diverting from the topic of who accounts for the most consumer spending. The article also says the top 5% accounts for one-third of consumer spending. Are they "the wealthy."

When facts prove you are wrong you shift to another argument or revert to trivial differences. If I had said the top 5% account for one-third of consumer spending you would also have said "bullshit" and asked for a source. Then, when I provided it, you would have found something else to dispute.

I notice you still have not admitted consumer spending and disposable income has been increasing even after the tax cut--because that shoots down your claim that tax cuts do not give taxpayers more money to spend.

[LV426]

I did not move any goalpost because I simply said the "wealthy" are responsible for 60% of spending. I did not attempt to define who is included.

Exactly. You didn't define it so you could shift the goalposts later on.

Total bad faith move.

I wouldn't consider someone making $80K "wealthy"...certainly wouldn't group someone making $80K with Lebron James, would you?????

BTw - average median household income in the country is $71K.

So I guess the average median household income is "wealthy"-adjacent?

[Flash]

The Russia Tax Cut you support is not deficit neutral because it's weighted at the top and among corporations.

Tax cuts have to go to those at the top--that is who pays most federal income taxes. The bottom 40% pay -106% in federal income taxes--you can't cut them.

Where do you think corporations get the money to pay their taxes?

Why does Russia want a tax cut for the U. S.?

[LV426]

I notice you are again diverting from the topic of who accounts for the most consumer spending. The article also says the top 5% accounts for one-third of consumer spending. Are they "the wealthy."

Yes, top 5% would be wealthy.

And while they account for 1/3 of consumer spending, what is their share of the income gains?

If it's more than 1/3, then what does that mean?

Have you done this homework? Of course not. You just post things to try to elicit an emotional reaction out of people while planting soft goalposts that you shift and move.

[LV426]

When facts prove you are wrong you shift to another argument or revert to trivial differences. If I had said the top 5% account for one-third of consumer spending you would also have said "bullshit" and asked for a source. Then, when I provided it, you would have found something else to dispute.

So you shifted your definition of wealthy from the top 20% to the top 5%.

So that's a goalpost shift.

So, OK...so if the top 5% account for 33% of consumer spending, what % of income are they also taking?

If the share of income is higher than the amount they're spending as consumers, what does that mean?

This is why critical thinking skills are so important.

[Flash]

Exactly. You didn't define it so you could shift the goalposts later on.

Total bad faith move.

I wouldn't consider someone making $80K "wealthy"...certainly wouldn't group someone making $80K with Lebron James, would you?????

BTw - average median household income in the country is $71K.

So I guess the average median household income is "wealthy"-adjacent?

You don't think those in the top 5% are wealthy or you don't think one-third of consumer spending is significant? You avoid the main point that the wealthy are responsible for a lot of consumer spending.

[LV426]

I notice you still have not admitted consumer spending and disposable income has been increasing even after the tax cut--because that shoots down your claim that tax cuts do not give taxpayers more money to spend.

Well, no, you are the one who posted numbers in a vacuum without proper context.

And you didn't even post the numbers from 2018 alongside 2016 and 2017 which were still under Obama's tax rates.

This was you, wasn't it, who posted this:

Consumer Spending (percent change)
2016: 2.4%
2017: 4.8%

How can you say tax cuts continued the increase in consumer spending when the tax cut didn't even start until 2018?

You do that all the time; you post things outside of context so we have no frame of reference if what you're posting is "good", "bad" or somewhere in the middle.

Sloppy, sloppy work.

Then you post this shit, again, unsourced and without any context for comparison so what am I supposed to take away from this? And those personal consumption expenditure numbers seem awfully low...one of them is even negative! And where's January? Why are you leaving information out and not even providing the links?

Your activity on this thread is the best example of bad faith anyone could hope to find.

Disposable Income (increase from previous month)
Feb/2019: .05
Mar/2019: 0.4
Apr/2019: 0.4
May/2019: .03
Jun/2019: 0.4 ($69.7 billion for June)

Personal Consumption Expenditure
Feb: -0.1
Mar: 1.0
Apr: 0.6
May: 0.5
Jun: 0.3 ($41 billion for June)

[LV426]

Tax cuts have to go to those at the top--that is who pays most federal income taxes.

But wait - they are the ones taking most of the income gains, though.

The bottom 40% pay -106% in federal income taxes--you can't cut them.

Because you already did. You've already cut their taxes. You're the ones who did that, remember?

So you cut taxes, which increases the tax burden on the wealthy, and then you complain that people don't pay enough in taxes, so your solution is to...cut taxes?

What a dumbass.

Where do you think corporations get the money to pay their taxes?

Many corporations don't pay taxes...like Apple and Netflix and Exxon.

Why does Russia want a tax cut for the U. S.?

For one, to walk away with more money from their operations in places like Kentucky, where Conservatives like you are welcoming them in with open arms.

They also wanted the tax cut to destabilize our budget, increase our deficit, and provide peacocks like you with the justification you need to further attack the social institutions in this country to which you are fundamentally opposed.

[LV426]

You don't think those in the top 5% are wealthy

Hold on, Flash. You said that the top 20% was wealthy. That's what you were arguing. If you're moving that to the top 5% now, fine, we can talk about them.

I'm not entirely sure if the top 5% is "wealthy" because it starts at income in the $230K range, but goes all the way up to Lebron James and his $35M a year. This is why I support adding in another bracket, probably in the $1M range, and setting the rate at that bracket at 70%. In fact, that's what Sanders, Warren, AOC, and other Dems have proposed.

you don't think one-third of consumer spending is significant?

It depends on how much income that top 5% is taking from the pie as a whole. And raising taxes on the wealthy is going to result in them spending less, how? What do you mean? Fewer foreign-made boats? Fewer car elevators? What consumer spending are we talking about?

Starting to realize "consumer spending" is another goalpost you're shifting to mean...what?

You avoid the main point that the wealthy are responsible for a lot of consumer spending.

And there's no evidence that raising their taxes will result in them spending any less, since wealthy people existed and consumed in this country during periods where the top tax rate was 70-90%.

Was there no consumer spending from 1947-1980 because the wealthy had higher taxes?

[PoliTalker]

Hello Flash,

I don't accept your belief that this waste does not matter because it adds to the GDP. Keeping taxes lower and letting American workers choose how to spend that money also adds to the GDP but in a way that helps them.

But in a way which still results in a lower GDP.

We don't collect enough revenue because we spend too much. Look at the history of spending and revenues and you can see that spending increased faster than revenues

I look fondly at the time in history when the deficit was completely eliminated and we had a surplus. And at that moment, your argument was rendered moot.

When so much of that spending is unnecessary and unproductive we could make big cuts without hurting anybody that needs it.

Except everybody who would get laid off as a result of those cuts. All their spending would be subtracted from the GDP, and so would the revenue generated from them paying income tax.

Government funding often rewards more spending and punishes saving--doing nothing to make the country great.

All of those functions provide some part of what makes America great. We study, we learn, we regulate, we manage our society to make American lives better. It would be absurd to expect each measure to benefit each American, but the overall effect is positive.

I certainly agree about Trump, his spending is irresponsible but illustrates what I have been saying. Those spending increases helped him get members of Congress to support those spending bills. Give them some money for their district or state and they will support anything.

Then end earmarks.

If a member wants some project for their district the others don't question that project because they don't want their projects questioned. The surest way to get a new weapons system passed is to have parts of it made in 435 different congressional districts.

Agreed so let's find a way to address that problem besides causing a recession with an approach that is like trying to kill mosquitoes in the glass shop with a sledge hammer.

[LV426]

xcept everybody who would get laid off as a result of those cuts. All their spending would be subtracted from the GDP, and so would the revenue generated from them paying income tax.

A very salient point that never gets the credit it deserves.

If you subtract government spending from the economy, what are you replacing that spending with? Conservatives seem to think that it's 1:1; that somehow, magically, consumers with their tax cut will fill in the demand that is lost from the cutting of government spending (which is $3T of a $20T economy).

If you're not replacing the government spending with an equal amount of "private" spending, then you're contracting the economy.

[PoliTalker]

Hello Flash,

Consumer spending is the biggest part of the economy and the wealthy are responsible for 60% of consumer spending.

I'd like to see some supporting data for that if you have it. It was my understanding that most consumer spending is generated by the not rich.

One day people are claiming the wealthy don't spend their money and the next they are criticized for buying another new car or house.

I think the claim was that most of the money the rich earn is not spent, and is instead saved, but the poor spend nearly 100% of what they get, and are unable to save anything. This effect is the justification for preferring to get money into the hands of the poor over more rewards for the rich as a more effective means to stimulate the economy. It has often been said that the easiest economic stimulus would be raising the minimum wage.

[LV426]

Government funding often rewards more spending and punishes saving--doing nothing to make the country great.

Except that the personal savings rate drops every time taxes have been cut since 1980:

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So by "letting people keep more of what they earn", they actually end up keeping less, and/or going into debt.

That's what the data shows!

[LV426]

I'd like to see some supporting data for that if you have it. It was my understanding that most consumer spending is generated by the not rich.

What Flash is doing is moving the goalpost of "wealthy" to include everyone who makes at least $80K a year (the top 20th percentile).

When I called him on that, he shifted the definition of "wealthy" to mean anyone in the top 5th percentile, though that would lump in someone who makes $230K a year with Lebron James, who makes $35M a year. When comparing $230K vs. $35M, $230K looks less like "wealthy".

The top 5th percentile, according to him, represents 33% of consumer spending. Which would mean his original point, that the wealthy make up 60% of consumer spending, sophistry. Flash made a deliberately false argument and shifted the goalposts in order to make an increasingly weaker point about how unfair it is that the wealthy, who have enjoyed all the income gains since 1980, have to pay higher taxes.

[Getin the ring]

Taxes were cut but we paid more in taxes?

Iwould say that's almost magic in poetry.

Trump is genius when it comes to numbers and business