This week, I’ve asked readers to chime in on the Bush tax cuts. This guest post is courtesy of “A citizen proud to pay his fair share of taxes” (for more on the topic, see the original post):
In the 1980’s the social security fund and the general fund were combined to make the deficits look a lot less and allowed the politicians in control at the time give a tax break. Even with the funds combined, the deficit grew even bigger. After the tax cuts, President Reagan became concerned about these deficits and raised taxes ten times (one time was social security), rescinding half of the initial tax cut. When President Clinton came into power, he raised taxes again in order to close the deficit. In the mean time, the economy had taken off and tax revenue and social security funds increased substantially making the total funds look like a large surplus. This again gave the politicians ammo to give a large tax break. This tax break mainly benefited the wealthy. President Bush II also started two very expensive unfunded (and unneeded) wars and an unfunded medicare prescription plan. We asked our troops (who generally are from the poorer classes) to make the ultimate sacrifice but we do not ask our wealthier (unpatriotic?) citizens (who never see the horror of war) to make a minor contribution to fund these adventures. So the deficits zoomed. In the mean time, banking regulations had slowly been taken away (including the Glass Steagall Act of 1933 – by the Clinton Administration) and the greedy banks got into things that were banned since the great depression and guess what – we have the worst depression since then! We do not seem to have learned from history. So even more deficits develop! Although 70% of the current deficits came from the Bush administration due to these tax breaks and unfunded activities – both parties have helped get us to where we are today.
Basically the Bush tax cuts gave away our surplus social security trust fund. Their aim is to shrink the government (including tacitly getting rid of social security) but by doing this, they are also ruining the middle class and turning us into a third world country. Our economy is still very fragile, so letting all the tax breaks expire may hurt us. Almost all economists would tell you that the best tax cuts to spur the economy is the to the lower income people. That money gets spent the quickest. The influence of money on our politicians make it hard for politicians to do the right thing. So history will repeat itself, the wealthy will rule, and possibly another great empire will fall. Our leaders and the greedy financiers should be charged with treason for undermining our country. Issues such as gun control, abortions, and immigration are all subterfuge to cloud the real issue. Wake up America before they get everything and the rest of us get to pay for it.
The much repeated mantra “the Bush tax cuts only benefited the rich” is both wearisome and wrong. The reduction of the capital gains rate, as an example, was class neutral. That it benefited the rich more, is simply economy of scale, not favoritism. The ‘richer-than-you’ folks will always be, well, richer than you. Get over yourselves.
Lowell,
I don’t think the writer’s main point was to simply repeat that particular mantra (which, I agree, is wearisome). In fact, I didn’t take that away from reading this piece at all.
I believe the writer was rather trying to convey a non-partisan perspective on our current deficit situation, while tying in a brief history of where deficits have led for nation states in the past.
This comment is wrong on so many levels its laughable. For example: “Almost all economists would tell you that the best tax cuts to spur the economy is the to the lower income people”.
The opposite is true. Real jobs are created by people who have money to invest, not people who (through no fault of their own in most cases) are just getting by.
Failure to repeal the Bush 2011 tax increases is yet another hammer to the job creating sector of our economy in addition to the higher taxes, capricious new regulations, and catastrophic expansion of our insane tort liability system.
I used to think Obama was just ignorant of the private sector, but after two years it is clear he and his henchmen in Congress hate the private sector and welcome higher unemployment as a way to transfer power to themselves and their cronies.
“Real jobs are created by people who have money to invest”
Real jobs are created by people who need to expand their productivity and are unable to do it with their current number of employees. It’s been proven, time and time again, that someone making more money than they were a year ago who does not need a new employee anymore than they did a year ago will invest that money– in themselves.