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Originally Posted by onetime2
Now here're some questions for those who believe the "Bush tax cuts" only went to the rich:
Who is more likely to spend their tax cuts, the rich or the middle class?
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The middle class. There are far more people in the middle class and the rich are more likely to invest their money, which, as I understand the question, is not the same as spending.
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Do you think the "rich" grabbed the millions you think they got and went out and bought food, cars, homes, refrigerators, etc?
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Some of them. But most of them were not waiting for tax cuts to make purchases, as they already have money to make those purchases.
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If the tax cut was supposed to help jump start the economy, why would any President who believed this was the way to get us out of recession and cement his chances to win re-election, give the money only to the rich who aren't going to up their spending in any appreciable way?
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Because such a President has a view of economics which is questionable. If he believed that cutting taxes for the rich would jump start the economy, he would cut taxes for the rich. Whether cutting taxes for the rich jump starts an economy is highly debateable.
Tax cuts targetted for the upper class, as these tax cuts were, are intended to promote investment, not purchasing. This is trickle down economics. It is not a guarantee and we can look back over the past 3 years and see that there was no jump start to the economy. The idea is to promote investment in companies so those companies have more resources to hire, which grows the middle class. What we have clearly seen is that companies are making great strides in profits - but these increased profits are not translating into great strides in job growth. Analysis of the little job growth we have had in the past year has shown that payrolls are not increasing respectively. Tax cuts for the upper class did not result in the intended benefits to the economy because they did not trickle down.
Cutting taxes for the middle class would have been just as likely, if not more so, to promote the economy by affording the middle class the ability to make purchases that they had been putting off due to a tightening of their finances and general economic uncertainty. These purchases would then benefit the economy by placing a large flush of cash into the economy. Benefitting large companies, small companies and investors - meanwhile, the consumer confidence increases. Tax cuts targetted to the rich is a backwards method of affecting change in the economy.