ace...revenues from personal income taxes have decreased as a result of the Bush tax cuts of 01 and 03 that were heavily weighed to the top rates....very few credible economists dispute that fact.
Here is a fact check:
Quote:
The Congressional Budget Office, the Treasury Department, the Joint Committee on Taxation, the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers and a former Bush administration economist all say that tax cuts lead to revenues that are lower than they otherwise would have been – even if they spur some economic growth. And federal revenues actually declined at the beginning of this decade before rebounding. The growth in the past three years that McCain refers to brings revenues back in line with the 40-year historical average as a percentage of gross domestic product...
...“Federal revenue is lower today than it would have been without the tax cuts,” Alan D. Viard of the conservative American Enterprise Institute told the Washington Post last October. Viard, who worked in the Treasury Department’s Office of Tax Analysis and the White House’s Council of Economic Advisers under President Bush, told FactCheck.org that “nobody can absolutely prove that.” Proof would require time travel and a reversal of tax policy. “But among economists, there’s no dispute...
...Federal agencies have published similar statements regarding the effect of tax cuts on federal receipts. From the Congressional Budget Office’s 2007 Budget Outlook: “The expiration of tax provisions as scheduled has a substantial impact on CBO’s projections, especially beyond 2010 when a number of revenue-reducing tax provisions enacted in the past several years are slated to expire,” the report says. “Almost all of the expiring provisions reduce revenues.”
The Joint Committee on Taxation estimated that the 2001 tax legislation (the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act) would cause government revenues to be 107.7 billion less than they would have been in the absence of the legislation in 2004, 107.4 billion less in 2005 and 135.2 billion less in 2006. The committee's estimates for the effect of the Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003 were that it would reduce otherwise projected revenues by 148.7 billion in 2004, 82.2 billion in 2005 and 20.7 billion in 2006. The JCT makes its comparisons against the Congressional Budget Office's receipts baselines.
FactCheck.org: Supply-side Spin
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Beyond that, I have seen nothing to support your contention that the top wage earners would not pay more if the 01 and 03 tax cuts sunset in 2010 as was planned and agreed to in both bills by Bush and the Republicans in Congress.
How quickly some forget (McCain for one) that both bills were enacted as
short term economic stimulus packages...not permanent changes to the tax code.