The Socialist Threat: Tax Day Edition

Good post MC, but as the health care “debate” showed, the way the rest of the world does things, even when (or is it especially when) it does things better, is irrelevant.

…to everyone but the thinking people. Yeah, I think it’s a side effect of the anti-intellectual, anti-”elitist” current running through conservative politics at the moment that makes using European countries as examples counter productive in an argument with conservatives.
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Rational people: “Hey, look at Europe! Generally higher taxes but generally higher quality of life and uniformly superior social services in return.”
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Tea Bagger wing-nuts: “Boo! All taxes are bad and are a tool of anti-American socialists!”
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Rational People: “huh?”
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The part I really love is how conservatives claim that raising taxes will stunt the economy but companies like GE not only pay NO taxes but get money back from the government at the end of the year. Isn’t that the definition of socialism that conservatives like to use? The redistribution of wealth? Evidently wealth redistributed from working people and given to corporations is capitalism at its finest but corporate taxes being used to pay for social services is a cancer on our society.

I think at this point we’re looking for a ‘uniquely American’ path to crumbling infrastructure. It’s what makes us exceptional.

“Only Mexico (17.5%) and Chile (18.2%) had lower ratios.”

I’ve got an idea!

Let’s send the Tea Party to their paradise – Mexico.

We’ll allow in five Mexicans for every Tea Party member!

Mexicans will be happy to work here.

Tea Party members will be happy to not be paying taxes and, the rest of us will be thrilled to be rid of the Tea Party.

Let’s call Carlos Pascual, the US ambassador to Mexico to negotiate the swap.

“Hey, look at Europe! Generally higher taxes but generally higher quality of life and uniformly superior social services in return.”

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http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/10/20/us-britain-spending-idUSTRE69J1U120101020
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“Britain slashes spending, raises retirement age”

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http://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2010/02/17/the_demise_of_the_european_welfare_nation_98348.html
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“But something deeper and more fundamental is at work which the global credit crisis has merely helped to expose. Most European countries today operate under economic and labor policies crafted during the height of the post-war baby boom, featuring middle-class entitlements like generous pension systems that allow early retirement, liberal disability programs that exempt many laborers from work, and extended unemployment systems that make going on the dole and staying there easier than in the U.S. Europeans designed these policies in an era when there were, in many European minds, too many people competing for jobs and a bulging work population to support those who were retired or on disability.
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Today, however, the demographics of most European countries are radically different. Their working age populations are shrinking, while their retiree cohort swells, placing a severe strain on government budgets and crowding out other spending. High taxes go to support this entitlement regime, and those who work are discouraged by such taxes to work harder, making it all the more difficult for countries to achieve the productivity gains that they so desperately need.
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Europe requires a very different series of policies now which encourage people to stay employed longer, which make it harder to exit the workforce on the government dole, and which allow labor markets to be more flexible. Economists and demographers have been warning of this for years. Indeed, back in 2002 the demographer Paul Hewitt predicted a steep worldwide recession exacerbated by population changes “from which no welfare state will emerge intact.” Still, winning the kinds of reforms that Europe needs is no easy task because government finds it very hard to take back the perks, once bestowed, that many Europeans now enjoy.

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Now where have we witnessed rioting in the streets again?

“Increasingly, countries have opted to reduce income taxes, which disincentivize income, and to increase consumption taxes, which steer disposable income to savings and investment and away from the relatively unproductive consumption-based growth.”
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Say what? Who does this apply too? Not anyone I know.
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This is just a nice way of saying that the rich are getting richer just for the sake of getting richer, and pushing the burden to the less wealthy.
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I don’t really understand the value added tax and how it seems to have some support across the political spectrum. Could someone, preferably from a neutral or liberal (because that’s what I identify with) perspective explain how the value added tax isn’t a regressive tax?

My read on it seems to be that the less money you have, the more will have to be spent on necessities, and then, as you have slightly more money, minor luxuries, etc., with the very wealthy having much less of a percentage of their income going to consumption and more available for investment.

Also, is anyone else unable to post comments with firefox, and so have to open up internet explorer just for Swampland?

Steven Malanga is an editor for RealClearMarkets and a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute
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…says the rhetoritician at a rightist think tank devoted to promulgating a conservative governance agenda.

What the idiotic left refuses to admit is that the OECD has taken an ever increasing bite out of GDP and are discovering country by country they cannot afford to continue to offer all the benefits they had promised. They are finally dealing with reality—a concept that is still in in big supply on the left.
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“Let’s send the Tea Party to their paradise – Mexico.

We’ll allow in five Mexicans for every Tea Party member!

Mexicans will be happy to work here.”
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And here is the stupidty that leads the left’s argument. If the high earners don’t like higher taxes leave. Bring in more people who won’t be paying taxes or nominal ones because they are unskilled or there will be no one to pay them. But let all the benefits flow.
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Delusions compounded by outright stupidity.

But in Britain, one year into its own controversial austerity program to plug a gaping fiscal hole, the future is now. And for the moment, the early returns are less than promising.

Retail sales plunged 3.5 percent in March, the sharpest monthly downturn in Britain in 15 years. And a new report by the Center for Economic and Business Research, an independent research group based here, forecasts that real household income will fall by 2 percent this year. That would make Britain’s income squeeze the worst for two consecutive years since the 1930s.

All of which has challenged the view of Britain’s top economic official, George Osborne, that during a time of high deficits and economic weakness, the best approach is to aggressively attack the deficit first, through rapid-fire cuts aimed at the heart of Britain’s welfare state.

[snip]

But in Britain, the big worry now is not tax rates. Instead, the fear is that Mr. Osborne’s emphasis on cuts in social spending — which aim to achieve an approximate budget surplus by 2015 and are likely to result in the loss of more than 300,000 government jobs — might tip the economy back into recession.

Already the government has had to slash its growth estimate to 1.7 percent, from 2.4 percent, for this year, as consumer incomes are under pressure from high inflation, weak wage growth and stagnant economic activity.

“My view is that we are in serious danger of a double-dip recession,” said Richard Portes, an economist at the London Business School. “This is going to be a cautionary tale.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/15/business/global/15iht-pound15.html?_r=1&hp

It is the alternative to the genocide the GOP wants for the poor, sick, elderly, young, disabled, of our society, truly disgusting .

“Rational people: “Hey, look at Europe! Generally higher taxes but generally higher quality of life and uniformly superior social services in return.”
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Maybe you should read a newspaper not dated in the 1970s. Europe has figured out you can’t pay unlimited benefits with a high tax rate. Only the brilliant left in the US ignore what they have found to be true

NHS is failing to meet even the most basic standards of care for older people, warns Health Service Ombudsman
15 February 2011
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THE Government is failing to meet the targets it set for improving public services – one of the central conditions Gordon Brown imposed for extra spending raised through higher taxes, according to the Conservatives.

Targets on transport, education, crime and drug use have been missed, according to a survey published by Conservative Central Office.
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France said it would cut public spending by €45 billion ($54.48 billion) over the next three years and raise its retirement age, following other European nations that have announced austerity measures.

“the genocide the GOP”
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Less than 2 days after the Empty Suit’s budget speech, the left has fallen back to its cheap fear-mongering rhetoric.
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Reminds one of the end of the world talk when welfare reform came to pass.

And here is the stupidty that leads the left’s argument.

Sarcasm is not strong with this one.

I’m not an economist (obviously) but my understanding is that you get around the regressive structure of VAT by not applying it to commodities that represent the core consumption of the poor and middle class, like food. Further, the VAT has the advantage from the progressive point of view of allowing taxation of luxury items, like say yachts or Bentleys, at more than 100%.

cheap fear-mongering rhetoric.

Compared to the right? What about death panels, terror-anchor babies, the hysteria surrounding anything Muslim, birthers, etc?
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As usual, nothing but hypocrisy.

Nothing rhetorical at all; more like the truth. You live it, you promote it, you wish it, now you live with it.

Not in our society, and you know it. Those yachts will be sold in some economic free zone someplace.

“allowing taxation of luxury items, like say yachts or Bentleys, at more than 100%.”
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Remember the last luxury tax the left tried in this country.? Remember how many middle class jobs were lost as the result of shipbuilders closing? This nonsensical view the left holds that all its takes is to pass a law and people will gladly hand over more money is tiresome. Do you ever learn?

“As usual, nothing but hypocrisy”
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I agree. The left is filled with hypocrisy and liars

The decline in real wages is lead by the fallacious policies of the left where farmland is used to propagate a failing energy policy. We use more fossil fuel energy to to corn into ethanol. Then we ban drilling and EPA extortion has halted any refineries in the country. Who pays? The poor and middle class that the left swears they will protect. With liberal friends the poor doens’t need any enemies.

Of course higher taxes will fix all of this!

Real earnings fell for the 5th straight month. Real hourly wages fell 0.6% vs Feb and fell 1% yr/yr. And this includes the 2% offset in the reduction of the payroll tax. Food prices and energy costs are soaring.

Obama finally admitting he is in over his head and has no interest in supporting the country but himself

I think that it’s important to understand the vantage point of a Senator versus the vantage point of a…President. When you’re a Senator, traditionally what’s happened is this is always a lousy vote. Nobody likes to be tagged as having increased the debt limit for the United States by a trillion dollars… As President, you start realizing, “You know what? We– we can’t play around with this stuff. This is the full faith in credit of the United States.” And so that was just a example of a new Senator, you know, making what is a political vote as opposed to doing what was important for the country. And I’m the first one to acknowledge it.

The easiest way to explain the VAT is that it is a sales tax.
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The one and only additional factor is that most sales taxes applied are done at the retail level while a value added tax would tax each step of the way. So, for example – thinking of my very last purchase – one company would buy raw coffee beans and roast them, sell them (add value added tax) to a whole seller who divides them up into small lots for resale to coffee shops (add value added tax) who then brews coffee and sells one to me (add value added tax).
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In each case the tax is based upon the difference between the prior price and the resale price.
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So, take 10,000 pounds of raw coffee beans being purchased at $35,000 and sold to a whole seller for $45,000. The tax would be against the $10,000, not all $45,000. Again, that would be resold for $50,000 to coffee shops, with the tax being against the $5,000, not the $50,000.
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One benefit is that it is anti-inflationary.
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Obviously, as price goes up the amount purchased goes down proportionately depending upon the elasticity of the good. (Elasticity is change in quantity purchased relative to price). So, raise your price 10% for the part your firm does and the buyer has to pay, say, 12% more (if it is 20% – which is a number I just made up for this example) and, therefore, you will have to deal with a drop in sale as if you had raised prices 12%, giving you a disincentive to raise prices.
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One concept I have heard is called negative income tax.
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This is where you have a VAT covering all goods and services set to the top income bracket. So, if you are Swedish, this would be 70% of your income or so going to taxes and, therefore, a value added tax of 333%.
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Then, everybody outside of the very top bracket, would, instead of getting taxes taken out of your paycheck you would get a VAT refund put in, inversely related to income.
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Advantage: Working under the table would vanish since instead of hiding from taxes by doing so, you wold be out of the reach to get your VAT refund added into your paycheck.

“Remember the last luxury tax the left tried in this country.?”
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Although the reasoning is totally over your head as to why you are correct, I can agree with you.
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It is about elasticity of demand.
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For the first 2,000 calories if the price of food doubles, people pay, say, 195% more for food (and go down, only, to 1,990 calories, not half or anywhere near close).
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The same goes for heat, the first 250 square feet of housing (for a single person – 800 square feet for a family of four, a little crowded, but survivable) and other necessities.
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Luxury goods go in the opposite direction, particularly large purchases and for durable goods. A Yacht being both, it is an extreme example where a 10% increase in price might cut sales in half.
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But overall income follows a trend more like for the elasticity of food than that of a yacht. So, if you wish to – and I know you do – want to apply this to a graduated income tax, it would not work.

“I agree. The left is filled with hypocrisy and liars”
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IOW:
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I still think Paul Rubins was way too macho to play Freak in pa’s role.

“For the first 2,000 calories if the price of food doubles, people pay, say, 195% more for food (and go down, only, to 1,990 calories, not half or anywhere near close).
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The same goes for heat, the first 250 square feet of housing (for a single person – 800 square feet for a family of four, a little crowded, but survivable) and other necessities.”
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Do you ever read the idiotic things you write or do you just puke this stuff out.

And, as usual, you completely miss the point and fall back to your tired, repeated call of “liars.”
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You really are a sad, little man.

Or maybe you should read what the results are from the austerity measures, an even deeper recession and trading markets being more skeptical about the economic future which results in lower trades. The economy in austerity plagued countries have not recovered or are in a double dip, see UK for a prime example.
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It all comes down to balance, you can’t have too many costly services because taxes will get too high which will stifle the economy, but at the same token you can’t have too low taxes because you cannot provide the services that you need.

As to the point of Obama that he has a different viewpoint as a president than he had as senator or any other sentaors will have I don’t see where he admits that he is in way over his head….. You are grasping and you come up empty.

Hmmm, so your claim is that when we dela with the ethanol from corn program and drill some more everybody’s wages will go up? I would really like to see how this direct relationship works? I don’t see it and you haven’t made it clear.

“If the high earners don’t like higher taxes leave. Bring in more people who won’t be paying taxes or nominal ones because they are unskilled or there will be no one to pay them.”
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Sir, that was sarcasm, but, your response was equally cartoonish.
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First, The Tea Party is nowhere near a majority, much less all of the high wage earners in America.
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Second, the joke is, also, on the Tea Party.
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Think of things high wage earners do:
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Medicine – far less pay and far fewer facilities in Mexico, due to the absence of government infrastructure.
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Law – practiced far differently, far less pay and far fewer facilities in Mexico, due to the absence of government infrastructure.
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Accounting – practiced far differently, far less pay and far fewer facilities in Mexico, due to the absence of government infrastructure.
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Sales – far less pay and far fewer facilities in Mexico, due to the absence of government infrastructure.
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Sales/retail/transportation far less pay and far fewer facilities in Mexico, due to the absence of government infrastructure.
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I could go on for hours, but, a significant portion of why Americans earn more is due to our governments providing infrastructure.
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In Economics, there are three significant resources:
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Land, labor and capital.
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Not all land is equal in value.
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For example, build a one hundred thousand square foot building on a piece of land on a small dirt road in rural Montana and build another one in Midtown Manhattan.
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The largest difference between the revenue you will make (close to $0 for an office building on a dirt road in rural Montana and a massively large amount of money – on average $5 million per year gross – in Manhattan) will be due to government.
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Subways, buses, an organized system of taxis and limos, roads, sidewalks. sufficient law enforcement make the Manhattan building about one thousand times more valuable.
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The value of labor is a function of education.
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Primary and secondary education are directly paid for by government. Post secondary education in the rest of the developed world is mostly paid for by government and, here, student loans are managed and made more affordable by government.
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The use of capital is exclusively the result of the investor’s skills.

While I don’t know the details of how a VAT works from the beginning as Patrick outlined, I have spent about three weeks in South Africa for the past six years and they have a destination based VAT of 14% which means that consumption of goods and services is taxed.
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http://www.sars.gov.za/home.asp?pid=194
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Everything you purchase from food to magazines has VAT added. There is also an income tax for residents. As a tourist, I get to claim a VAT refund for items I purchase and take out of the country, but not on any food or services like hotels. The govt. also charges a % fee for the refund and the bank charges a % fee to cash the refund check.
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The VAT seems to add a lot to retail prices. London’s VAT just went up to 20% after being at 17.5% for many years. It is very easy to raise the % rate and bring in a lot more money.
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One of my concerns with this tax here comes from living in a state with a relatively high sales tax. The sales tax – 6% except in Phila and Pitts where it is 7% – is not going to be eliminated if a VAT is put on, so instead of only 14% VAT, for example, I would pay 14% + 6% for anything purchased in PA that sales tax applies to. Most food and clothing is exempt from PA sales tax, but it applies to everything else.
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Start adding 20% to everything you consume and you get an understanding of the effect.

Freak,
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Declining real wages for the bottom 40% of Americans began in 1980!
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Please send a link to when Ronald Reagan cut off drilling and started using ethanol.

The apparent missing link for Freak in Pa, Swampland’s resident missing link:
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http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/04/obama_i_voted_as_a_senator_to.html
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Yes, the thoughtless American, again.
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The American Thinker is a daily conservative online magazine[2] dealing with American politics, foreign policy, national security, Israel, economics, diplomacy, culture, and military strategy.[3] The American Thinker has been mentioned in other media including Le Monde,[4] The Guardian,[5] Inter Press Service,[6] Campus Watch,[7] and the New York Times.[8] The publisher of American Thinker is Thomas Lifson, and the Political Director is Richard Baehr. Key staff also include Rick Moran and J. R. Dunn.

Writing in The New York Times, Felicity Barringer credited American Thinker with initiating a public outcry over a California plan to require programmable thermostats which could be controlled by officials in the event of power supply difficulties.[9]

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_American_Thinker
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But it could be one of dozens of right wing sources since they are all marching in lockstep.
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http://www.google.com/search?q=I+think+that+it%27s+important+to+understand+the+vantage+point+of+a+Senator+versus+the+vantage+point+of+a%E2%80%A6President.+When+you%27re+a+Senator%2C+traditionally&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a
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I am not kidding when I tell you that when I highlight and Google Freak’s sources I, often, find the same quote word-for-word in this many publications almost every time.
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Get a quote from the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Time… any mainstream media or even liberal blogs and you will rarely see even four places using the same word-for-word quote and often find only one match.
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This tells us for sure that these right wing blogs are responding to marching orders while everybody else is looking for facts.

…think we are headed for Socialism…”

Why just think…when you can be sure.

Just listen to Obama’s Socialist mantra:

“WE NEED TO REDISTRIBUTE WEALTH:

What’s to think…our fearless, glorious leader is headed there whether you want to go along for the ride or not.

When that day comesm, and we are all sharing wealth,
I would like your car and your house…OK?

Thanks…know you wouldn’t mind, after all, its your social responsibity

Don’t overlook our exports, jc. As pointed out below, sometimes the rest of the world lets us lead, when it’s good for their plutocrats.

Excellent reporting, Mr. Calabresi

“Do you ever read the idiotic things you write or do you just puke this stuff out.”
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Are you claiming that I invented the concept of elasticity of demand?
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Price elasticity of demand (PED or Ed) is a measure used in economics to show the responsiveness, or elasticity, of the quantity demanded of a good or service to a change in its price. More precisely, it gives the percentage change in quantity demanded in response to a one percent change in price (holding constant all the other determinants of demand, such as income). It was devised by Alfred Marshall.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_elasticity_of_demand
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I am not Alfred Marshall:
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Alfred Marshall (born 26 July 1842 in Bermondsey, London, England, died 13 July 1924 in Cambridge, England) was an Englishman and one of the most influential economists of his time. His book, Principles of Economics (1890), was the dominant economic textbook in England for many years. It brings the ideas of supply and demand, marginal utility and costs of production into a coherent whole. He is known as one of the founders of neoclassical economics.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Marshall
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You claimed to understand and agree with Friedrich Hayek and Neoclassical Economics.
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Demand elasticity and supply elasticity are accepted by all schools of economics but first from your favorite the Neoclassical school of Economics.
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Obviously you have no idea what you are writing about and, therefore, richly deserve the nickname Freak.

“I still think”

See that’s the problem Rev Jim you don’t think–it’s delusional & psychotic flashes

It is either you or Paul Ryan or anyother GOPturd that will take my car and house, to me who will do it is irrelevant. When dems are trying to get the middle class some relief, all of a sudden it is a move toward socialism and the governement will take everything. Let alone whether or not this is actually based in truth, it is not, you are being disingenious at best since you can make the same arguments about the repugds plans and actions.

“”WE NEED TO REDISTRIBUTE WEALTH:”
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Ed,
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First, please identify where this quote comes from.
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Second, when using a language, words are more than just pretty pictures to stare at or cool sounds to make with your mouth. They have meaning.
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wealth
n
1. (Economics) a large amount of money and valuable material possessions
2. (Economics) the state of being rich
3. a great profusion a wealth of gifts
4. (Economics) Economics all goods and services with monetary, exchangeable, or productive value

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Please give one plausible example of when the president has proposed legislation or executive orders which will:
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Remove a large amount of money and valuable material possessions from one person to another person or other people.
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Remove a great profusion a wealth of gifts from one person and to another person or other people.
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Remove all goods and services with monetary, exchangeable, or productive value from one person to give to another or other people.
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If you can’t find one then this remark – which was most likely not what the president said knowing right wing sources lack of ethics – from the president or not is meaningless.
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Learn about words before you use them.

As usual Rev Jim your Katherine Gibbs skills exceed your economic ones again.

It seems real wages fell all the way through Clinton’s 2 terms when inflation was not an issue. Of course only a econ. dropout selectively picks his data poiints. But go ahead make a declarative statement, throw up your hands and take a victory lap.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_1pb7adF2Rp0/R2FdwXzhaeI/AAAAAAAAA_M/LugijFiHW8s/s400/Real+Wages+-+Long+Term.jpg

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PS they rose under Bush

“it’s delusional & psychotic flashes”
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Content-free insult.
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You are acknowledging complete and humiliating defeat by stating this.

Forget about comparisons to Europe and look at what has happened to the United States over the years. Please note:

Corporate tax as a share of overall taxes has shrank to its lowest level in 45 years.

Taxes paid as a percentage of GDP is the lowest in 45 years.

Yet the Tea Party is screaming that our taxes are too high!

We have had the lowest tax rate in modern history. It has lead to record deficits, yet the Tea Party thinks we all should paying lower taxes.

I know, I know, it is the spending. Guess what most of the Tea Party thinks all you do is cut waste and our budget problems are solved. Voila, everyone is against waste!

However, when you realize that Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security account for 60% of our budget and when you add in Defense, that’s another 20%, we are dealing with only 20% of the budget. Even if you totally cut funding of every discretionary program, you still would not balance the budget.

Taxxes are at historical lows! When did the Tea Party start paying taxes, yesterday?

Do we raise taxes now? Of course, not! You don’t raise taxes during a recession. However, you have to decide what is the priority, jump starting the economy or getting rid of your debt. As Europe is showing right now, you can’t do both as the same time.

“I would really like to see how this direct relationship works?
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Well you have 8.8% unemployment. You begin drilling you hire people to 1) do the drilling 2) provide the raw materials like pipe and motors 3) higher demand for food, shelter and supplies.

“A driller, who has years of experience may make $7000 for two weeks of constant work and a roughneck on the rig crew can expect to make from $12 to $35 per hour plus overtime.”
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median weekly earnings were $752 in the
fourth quarter of 2010..

Yes the poor certainly needs more help from liberals

“It seems real wages fell all the way through Clinton’s 2 terms when inflation was not an issue.”
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So, once again I ask you did Carter, Reagan, Bush Sr and Clinton cut off off shore drilling and make extra use of methanol?
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No?
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Then you still have not found a way to attribute the primary cause of decreasing real wages to that cause.
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You are answering a question nobody asked.
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Clinton was as Obama has become: Mr. Compromise. He gave away a great deal to the Republicans and did not hold on to his principals.
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Conservative politics in addition to inflation contributes to decreasing wages among other things.

I see the Rev Jim nevers tire of being wrong or stupid. It was in interview with George Snuuflapagus on ABC.

You continue to test positive for stupid

“Remove a large amount of money and valuable material possessions from one person to another person or other people.”

ObamaCare or his recent budget speech.

Cripes you are dumb

Massimo Calabresi:
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You write:

“For those members of the Republic worrying that America is headed for socialism, here are some recent data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development showing relative tax burdens among its 34 member states.
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In an analysis (pdf) published by the OECD in February, the U.S. has a low overall tax burden relative to the rest of the OECD countries…”

Are you suggesting that higher tax rates in liberal economies (as the rest of the OECD have) are somehow indicative of socialism?
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If that’s your contention, was America during the Eisenhower presidency, at which time top marginal tax rates (on millionaires) was a confiscatory 90%, a socialist state?
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Here is a helpful chart, which may remind you of top marginal tax rates (the tax rate that starts on the first dollar of income a person makes after the first hundred or two hundred-fifty thousand they pull in) during the 1950s: http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4070/4552932077_7935249789.jpg
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If not, hadn’t you better correct the impression –some might say ideological premise– you may be leaving with us news users?
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Surely you don’t want readers to be left thinking that you believe that higher tax rates –at least those comparable with what works well in extremely wealthy, firmly capitalist nations of the OECD, or what used to be quite ordinary throughout the latter half of the twentieth century in the not-socialist United States– are somehow indicative of an anti-capitalist, state-owned industrial base and command economy, i.e., socialism?
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Or do you, Massimo Calabresi?

“Taxes paid as a percentage of GDP is the lowest in 45 years”
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Do you think that a recession might have had somethng to do with that. And of course spending as percent of GDP kept growing well above the rate of inflation.

But…Those darn Bush tax cuts.

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Total federal revenues grew by about $625 billion, or 35 percent, between fiscal year 2003 and fiscal year 2006.
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Revenues from corporate income taxes rose from 1.2 percent of GDP in 2003 (their lowest level since 1983) to 2.7 percent in 2006 (their highest level since 1978).

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Revenues in the first seven months of fiscal year 2007 have continued to grow faster than GDP. Overall, revenues have grown by about 11 percent compared.
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Reality never fits the liberal lies they continue to repeat

It seems real wages fell all the way through Clinton’s 2 terms when inflation was not an issue.

Did you even look at the graph you linked to? In 1993, real wages were (according to your source) barely above $16 and by 2001 they were at about $17.25 representing an increase (cumulative) of about 7.8%. That increase of 7.8% somehow represents a decrease in real wages in your mind?

“So, once again I ask you did Carter, Reagan, Bush Sr and Clinton cut off off shore drilling and make extra use of methanol?”
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Mostly because we are using ETHANOL not methanol. FActs are never an issue with you are they. You just don’t use them

Of course you economic analysis (I just threw up in my mouth) will tell us that lower taxes caused lower real wages. Although that doesn’t explain the Clinton years does it.

Quick paste something from wikipedia to enlighten us with more of your stupidity

PS Isn’t it time for your Katherine Gibbs Class?

The EIA estimated how much of the oil could be extracted both technically and in an economically viable fashion. The EIA found that access to the Pacific, Atlantic, and eastern Gulf of Mexico regions would increase domestic oil production by 1.6 percent between 2012 and 2030. Oil prices are today governed by demand and supply in the global market, and a 1.6 percent increase in the U.S. production would have little or no impact on price.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_offshore_drilling_debate#Fuel_price_argument
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As for employment in the oil industry, I could not find any numbers, just ads for how many openings there are right now if you sign up for such and such, but, with about 13 million people unemployed, the oil industry would be just a drop in the bucket.
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Unfortunately, one drop in that bucket could mean millions of gallons dumped into the Gulf of Mexico.

“Of course you economic analysis (I just threw up in my mouth) will tell us that lower taxes caused lower real wages.”
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The cause and effect have not been established with a graph since you conveniently decided not to link to any text which would explain what the cause and effect are.
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Furthermore, if a temporary rise in wages is accompanied by a worldwide financial meltdown begun in the US which could have lasted years longer than it will is not good long term policy.

I don’t know who George Stupidfag is.
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I search for a link since you are unable to copy and paste a link and you think that this makes me, not you stupid?
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Judging from his name, I would guess he is one of the Log Cabin Republicans.

“ObamaCare or his recent budget speech”
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Please send a link to the portion of Obama’s health care plan where doctors come to your home to take your wife’s jewelry, your car and your children’s toys.

“Do you think that a recession might have had somethng to do with that.”
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Since most of our taxes are regressive not progressive that is not the case.
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If I agree to give you 10% of an unknown number of dollars called X$, and it turns out X is a million dollars, you get 10% of a million dollars. If x$ is one hundred thousand dollars, you still get 10% of one hundred thousand dollars.
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Obviously you failed pre-algerbra.
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The reason our government is getting a lower percent of GDP in taxes is we have the second lowest tax rate.
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Please learn fifth grade math and then come back to post later.

BTW The individual mandate requires that one exchange money for services at that value. It is called a transaction like how the states require you to insure your car.
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It does distribute wealth upwards to doctors and CEOs of health insurance companies to some degree, but, one is not having their possessions removed without compensation.

“…state-owned industrial base and command economy…”
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You are absolutely correct.
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You, unlike Calabresi, have the real definition of “socialism”.
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He is misleading in his explanation.

I just took it as a shot at those – you know who you are – who scream “SOCIALIST LIBTARDS” every time someone suggests we might raise the top marginal tax rate a couple of points, if closing the deficit is so damned important. YMMV.

Freep,
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Cite the source of your quote, otherwise we’re forced to take you less seriously than we already to by default.
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BTW, the British know the NHS isn’t perfect but they’d take it any day compared to our employer subsidized healthcare disaster…

I actually think that is intended to be archly ironic. Or, rather, savvy.

I always figured that’s why Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, George Bush, Phil Gramm, John Ashcroft, et al dodged the draft. The US had tax rates as high as 70 percent back then. It was a socialist country not worth defending, in their principled opinion.

It’s been pointed out before; raising taxes is a tax policy and socialism is about government owning production and distribution of that production. Only dumb@ss ideologues make taxes about socialism. I’m sure rightie monarchies extorting peasants for taxes would be very surprised.

Hmmm Freeps, you might want to take a look at this one again. I posted this link yesterday.
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http://www.factcheck.org/taxes/supply-side_spin.html

I appreciate the reasoned responses (before it devolved into name calling as it so often does). I had assumed there would be some sort of credit for VAT… but I feel like for most other things, the middle class would get crunched.

We try to let the poor have whatever they have, but we don’t want to tax the rich too much… so it’s the breaking point in the middle that always has it tough. Either for income tax or this VAT.

At what point do we decide something is a ‘luxury’ and someone then has to make the point to pay more or save? It’s a choice that won’t affect the extremely wealthy, but as you go from lower to middle to upper middle class, that’s where those changes and ability to have upward mobility will matter.

And I agree, the biggest items of all, the extremely wealthy can find ways around paying taxes on them just like they find ways around paying taxes now. And if this is supposed to discourge consumption and incentivise savings, doens’t it then discourage production and then jobs?

It’s too complicated for me to have made my mind up about it, but the only system that can work long term in this country is one in which the wealthier carry a larger burden, especially as their wealth continues to become more disparate with the rest of the population and a larger percentage of our economy. A system like this, not thought out well, may change consumption and saving habits, but would not change the burden that is increasingly falling on the middle class.

Premise -”Taxes paid as a percentage of GDP is the lowest in 45 years””
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You – “Do you think that a recession might have had somethng to do with that. And of course spending as percent of GDP kept growing well above the rate of inflation.
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But…Those darn Bush tax cuts.”
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I’d like to know what the recession has to do with the fact that we pay less tax now than 45 years ago. Even before the recession started this was true. Please explain this kind of brain teaser.

Comments such as “spending in the tax code” are socialist ideas. Obama has the mind set that it’s his money not yours. Those that don’t pay taxes will have to read: taxpayer’s money.
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You will never be able to tax the rich enough to balance the budget. It’s a spending problem. And if we pass a VAT tax middle income people will be the most effected. And, you can bet that the tax rate on a VAT will continue to rise, just like it has in Europe. AND, why do we want to be like Europe? If you like Europe so much just move.
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You don’t see much of anything being produced in Europe. Most of the world’s new inventions, and products are developed here.