Quote:
|
Originally Posted by divagrrrl
I'm still so confused.... I am leaning towards rooting for abolition of federal taxes as we know them, and replacing it with a Value-Added tax like in the UK and other countries... in other words, a national sales tax.
|
A national sales tax will shift even more of the tax burden from the wealthy to
those who must spend all the money that they earn in order to live. You will
pay more tax than you do now if the republicans succeed in passing a national
sales tax. Ask yourself why they are sponsoring such a tax ? Their agenda is
to further shift the tax burden from their party's wealthy contributors, onto
the rest of us. The following quote illustrates the success that they have
already accomplished in shifting the tax burden from the richest citizens:
Quote:
Tax Burden Shifts to the Middle
Presidential Campaigns Draw Differing Conclusions From Report
By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 13, 2004; Page A04
Since 2001, President Bush's tax cuts have shifted federal tax payments from the richest Americans to a wide swath of middle-class families, the Congressional Budget Office has found, a conclusion likely to roil the presidential election campaign.
The CBO study, due to be released today, found that the wealthiest 20 percent, whose incomes averaged $182,700 in 2001, saw their share of federal taxes drop from 64.4 percent of total tax payments in 2001 to 63.5 percent this year. The top 1 percent, earning $1.1 million, saw their share fall to 20.1 percent of the total, from 22.2 percent.
Over that same period, taxpayers with incomes from around $51,500 to around $75,600 saw their share of federal tax payments increase. Households earning around $75,600 saw their tax burden jump the most, from 18.7 percent of all taxes to 19.5 percent.
The analysis, requested in May by congressional Democrats, echoes similar studies by think tanks and Democratic activist groups. But the conclusions have heightened significance because of their source, a nonpartisan government agency headed by a former senior economist from the Bush White House, Douglas Holtz-Eakin. The study will likely stoke an already burning debate about the fairness and efficacy of $1.7 trillion in tax cuts that the president pushed through Congress.
"CBO is nonpartisan, it's independent, and right now it works for a Republican Congress with a former Bush economist at its head," said Jason Furman, economic director of the presidential campaign of Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.). "There's no higher authority on the subject."
Girding for the study's release, Bush campaign officials have already begun dismissing it as "the Democrat-requested report."
"The CBO answers the questions they are asked," said Terry Holt, a Bush campaign spokesman. "To the extent the questions are shaded to receive a certain response, that's often the response you get."
The question posed was a standard request for analysis of the type members on both sides of the aisle routinely make of the CBO. In this case the ranking Democrats on the House Ways and Means Committee, the Senate Finance Committee, the House and Senate budget committees and the Joint Economic Committee asked Holtz-Eakin -- the former chief economist of Bush's Council of Economic Advisers -- to estimate the distribution of the tax cuts among income levels, and compare that to tax levels if none of the cuts were passed.
The conclusions are stark. The effective federal tax rate of the top 1 percent of taxpayers has fallen from 33.4 percent to 26.7 percent, a 20 percent drop. In contrast, the middle 20 percent of taxpayers -- whose incomes averaged $51,500 in 2001 -- saw their tax rates drop 9.3 percent. The poorest taxpayers saw their taxes fall 16 percent.
Republican aides on Capitol Hill, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the tax cuts actually made federal income taxes -- as opposed to total taxes -- more equitable. <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61178-2004Aug12.html">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61178-2004Aug12.html</a>
|
In this country we have a progressive tax system. The wealthy pay taxes
at a higher percentage rate that middle and lower class tax payers do. A
low income earner who makes $20,000 per year may pay a 10% tax, while
a wealthier income earnier who makes $200,000 per year may pay a 25%
tax. The wealthy vote for candidates who promise to lower their taxes, as
you can see from the quote above, info from a study of Bush's tax cuts,
the study shows that Bush has cut taxes for the wealthy to the point that
everyone else now pays a higher percentage of the total taxes collected.
The reason the wealthy pay a higher percentage on their income is because
there are many fewer wealthy voters than there are lower income voters.
Quote:
Progressive and regressive taxation
An important feature of tax systems is whether they are flat (the percentage does not depend on the base, hence the tax is proportional to how much you earn, have, or spend), regressive (the more you have the lower the tax rate), or progressive (the more you have the higher the tax rate). Progressive taxes reduce the tax burden of people with smaller incomes, since they take a smaller percentage of their income. This may be viewed as a good thing in itself, or it may be done for pragmatic reasons, since it requires less record-keeping and complexity by people with simpler affairs.
<a href="http://www.fact-index.com/t/ta/tax.html">http://www.fact-index.com/t/ta/tax.html</a>
|
Republicans, led by Bush, offset this reality of the demographics of the
voting population, by representing the political agenda of the welathiest, over
the interests of everyone else. Republican political strageists have ingeniously
lured lower wage earners into voting for them, luring them with religion based
issues such as abortion, gay rights, and family values, while at the same time,
demonizing Democrats as "tax and spend liberals", when Bush's tax cut impact, and a history of deficit spending over the last 30 years show the
opposite to be the case. Republican administrations have worked to shift the
income tax burden away from the wealthiest Americans, at the same time
they racked up huge federal deficits that is a bill that future generations will
be burdened by, while we pay over $300 billion per year in interest. Bush
is projected to have racked up new federal debt of $1717 billion in just 4
years:
Quote:
FEDERAL DEBT AT THE END OF FISCAL YEAR: 1940-2009
(in billions of dollars)
Federal Social
Gross Public Foreign Gov't Security Medicare
Year Debt Debt Debt Accounts Debt Debt
---- ------- ------- ------- -------- -------- --------
1940 50.7 42.8 7.9 1.7 0.0
1941 57.5 48.2 9.3 2.4 0.0 -WWII Begins
1942 79.2 67.8 11.4 3.2 0.0
1943 142.6 127.8 14.9 4.3 0.0
1944 204.1 184.8 19.3 5.4 0.0
1945 260.1 235.2 24.9 6.6 0.0 -WWII Ends
1946 271.0 241.9 29.1 7.6 0.0
1947 257.1 224.3 32.8 8.8 0.0
1948 252.0 216.3 35.8 10.0 0.0
1949 252.6 214.3 38.3 11.3 0.0
1950 256.9 219.0 37.8 12.9 0.0 -Korean War Begins
1951 255.3 214.3 41.0 14.7 0.0
1952 259.1 214.8 44.3 16.6 0.0
1953 266.0 218.4 47.6 18.4 0.0 -Korean War Ends
1954 270.8 224.5 46.3 20.0 0.0
1955 274.4 226.6 47.8 21.1 0.0
1956 272.7 222.2 50.5 22.6 0.0
1957 272.3 219.3 52.9 23.4 0.0
1958 279.7 226.3 53.3 23.9 0.0
1959 287.5 234.7 52.8 23.2 0.0
1960 290.5 236.8 53.7 23.0 0.0
1961 292.6 238.4 54.3 23.4 0.0
1962 302.9 248.0 54.9 22.2 0.0
1963 310.3 254.0 56.3 21.4 0.0
1964 316.1 256.8 59.2 22.0 0.0 -Viet Nam War
1965 322.3 260.8 12.3 61.5 22.2 0.0
1966 328.5 263.7 11.6 64.8 21.6 0.9
1967 340.4 266.6 11.4 73.8 25.6 1.8
1968 368.7 289.5 10.7 79.1 28.1 1.7
1969 365.8 278.1 10.3 87.7 31.9 2.4
1970 380.9 283.2 14.0 97.7 37.7 2.7
1971 408.2 303.0 31.8 105.1 40.8 3.4
1972 435.9 322.4 49.2 113.6 43.8 3.3
1973 466.3 340.9 59.4 125.4 44.3 5.1
1974 483.9 343.7 56.8 140.2 46.1 9.2
1975 541.9 394.7 66.0 147.2 48.2 11.3 -Viet Nam Ends
1976 629.0 477.4 69.8 151.6 44.9 12.1
1977 706.4 549.1 95.5 157.3 39.6 13.4 -Carter Takes Office
1978 776.6 607.1 121.0 169.5 35.4 15.8
1979 829.5 640.3 120.3 189.2 33.4 18.4
1980 909.0 711.9 121.7 197.1 32.3 19.0(New Debt=$288 Bln)
1981 994.8 789.4 130.7 205.4 27.2 21.8 -Reagan Takes Office
1982 1137.3 924.6 140.6 212.7 19.3 26.7
1983 1371.7 1137.3 160.1 234.4 32.0 20.4
1984 1564.6 1307.0 175.5 257.6 32.2 26.0
1985 1817.4 1507.3 222.9 310.2 39.8 32.0
1986 2120.5 1740.6 265.5 379.9 45.9 48.1
1987 2346.0 1889.8 279.5 456.2 65.4 57.0
1988 2601.1 2051.6 345.9 549.5 104.2 72.3(New Debt=$1893 Bln
1989 2867.8 2190.7 394.9 677.1 156.7 94.7 -Bush I Takes Office
1990 3206.3 2411.6 440.3 794.7 214.9 110.2
1991 3598.2 2689.0 477.3 909.2 268.4 125.6
1992 4001.8 2999.7 535.2 1002.1 319.2 139.2(New Debt=$1484 Bl
1993 4351.0 3248.4 591.3 1102.6 365.9 149.4 -Clinton Takes Offic
1994 4643.3 3433.1 655.8 1210.2 422.7 150.5
1995 4920.6 3604.4 800.4 1316.2 483.2 143.4
1996 5181.5 3734.1 978.1 1447.4 549.6 152.3
1997 5369.2 3772.3 1218.2 1596.9 630.9 151.2
1998 5478.2 3721.1 1216.9 1757.1 730.3 157.8
1999 5605.5 3632.4 1281.4 1973.2 855.0 184.1
2000 5628.7 3409.8 1057.9 2218.9 1006.9 214.0(New Debt=$1418 B
2001 5769.9 3319.6 1005.5 2450.3 1169.8 239.2 Bush II Takes Offic
2002 6198.4 3540.4 1199.6 2658.0 1328.9 267.8
2003 6760.0 3913.6 1458.5 2846.4 1484.5 275.9
Projected:
2004* 7486.4 4420.8 3065.7 1633.6 281.5 (New Debt=$1717 Bl
2005* 8132.9 4791.9 3341.1 1812.7 299.3
2006* 8726.4 5074.1 3652.2 2010.6 330.1
2007* 9317.9 5333.0 3984.8 2231.3 352.3
2008* 9931.1 5589.4 4341.6 377.5
2009* 10564.1 5844.4 4719.7 403.5
<a href="http://pw1.netcom.com/~rdavis2/debt05.html">FEDERAL DEBT AT THE END OF FISCAL YEAR: 1940-2009</a>
|
The deficits of Republican presidents Reagan, Bush I, and Bush II, have
become so large, that it appears there is some truth to the notion that they
are part of a deliberate scheme to destroy the financial ability of the
government to spend any money on anything but the military. A famous and
influential Republican strategist is quoted saying, <a href="http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=Grover_Norquist">I want to shrink government “down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub.”</a>
Now....watch divagrrrl.......my statements will be attacked by posters who
do not refernce any of their statements with links to strengthen rhetoric
which they will claim to be facts. You judge who makes the more realistic
argument of what party represents the lower wage earnings and is fiscally
responsible; Republican Bush II with his $1717 billion projected deficit in
just 4 years, or Democrat Clinton, who raised the tax burden of the wealthy
in 1993, and had a deficit of $400 billion in his last 4 years in office!