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Originally Posted by aceventura3
The main point is that our most recent tax cuts did not result in lower federal tax dollars collected, tax dollars collected went up.
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But can you actually link the tax cuts with increases in tax collections? I know you know that corellation doesn't equal causation. This doesn't amount to a vindication of SSE.
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I also argue that tax cuts help economic growth.
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This is the crux of SSE, except that you have to make a distinction when you talk about tax cuts and SSE. In SSE it's only tax cuts that directly benefit the supply side, not tax cuts that directly benefit the consumers, that are supposed to help economic growth. The suppliers then use their mythical wisdom to raise the tide and the boats of all the little people. That sounds great, if you're a supplier.
If you ask me, if you want economic growth, why waste time filtering the money through the suppliers? It just doesn't seem all that efficient to me if your goal is ultimately to raise the tide and the boats of the little people. Why not give more money to the consumers and let them use the power of the dollar to decide which suppliers are worthy of more money? Why can't you give the money to the little boats and let them raise the tide? Tell me why this doesn't make sense in light of the fact that consumer spending drives our economy?
(The answer to this question probably has something to do with the fact, and i'm going out on a limb here, most proponents of SSE think poor people are stupid. I think it has something to do with some sort of fantasy involving a brilliant capitalist who has the plan and the cunning to blow the business world wide open, if only those damn tax and spenders would let him keep enough of his money to do what he has to do. Something ayn rand would write.)
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In a growing economy the "rich" do get "richer".
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But do they always have to do so at a much higher rate than the nonrich like they are right now in america? Are you looking forward to the U.S. becoming the next brazil in terms of the rich/poor gap?
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I also believe that generally all people who productively participate in the economy benefits.
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Perhaps. My problem is that with SSE, the people who benefit the most happen to be the people who need to benefit the least.
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There are exceptions, but generally everyone is better off.
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Generally, maybe. I still don't see how everyone getting more and more into debt amounts to them being better off. It is clear from the stats you posted initially that the wealthy and the corporate are better off. Beyond that, everyone else just seems to owe the wealthy and the corporate more money.
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We have gone off on a few tangents, but if focused on the core issue, I would agree that there are many variables that drive the economy and affect the tax dollars collected by the federal government. We could clearly debate that one issue alone.
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If you know this than how can you possibly make the claims you made in the original post?
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I think the most recent tax cuts lead directly to increased total tax dollars collected,
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I know you do. I just haven't heard any kind of elaboration on how.
From what i can tell, SSE can be summed up by these three steps:
1.Cut taxes for the wealthy
2.???????
3.Everyone is better off.
Until you can come up with a good explanation of step two i'll have a hard time agreeing with you on the basic assumptions of SSE. I think it could just as easily happen like this:
1.Cut taxes for the wealty
2.The wealthy then use this money in ways that have little to no benefit for society at large
3.The wealthy are much better off, the nonwealthy marginally so.
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I think complex tax laws benefit smart people, i.e. "the rich".
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Don't make the mistake of equating intelligence with wealth. I know it's an unwritten tenet of SSE that those with money are inherently more worthy of it than those who are poor, but it's not really true. Look at paris hilton. Look at our president. The accumulation of wealth has more to do with who your parents are then your intelligence.
As for complexity, do you think bill gates does his own taxes? If the wealthy benefit from complexity, it's only because they can afford to hire other people to do their taxes.