The tax cut was for everybody in the United States. The economy started going downhill AFTER Clinton left office, and it only got worse after 9/11. Bush isn’t taking any dramatic measures to try and improve the economy.
They already have used women and children. They used them when the United States bombed Iraq during the Clinton era. We weren’t fighting Russia during the Cold War, there was just very high tension between NATO and the Warsaw Pact.
You know what, fuck it, I don’t feel like debating politics (or facts…) with a highly biased kid who can’t even vote.
Well you are biased as well. Take that into account anytime you want to debate something. It isn’t just me that’s biased, everyone is. And why does my ability to vote matter in any way? I just want to put my opinions forth and have a friendly debate to see what and why people think the way they do.
I don’t understand how spending $187 Billion dollars on a war and then giving out tax cuts is a good idea.
Well if the the people who got the tax cuts invested it in stoks, bonds, or even bought something with it the economy would go up with it.
See, that’s not how it works though, because as long as you’re pulling so much money (in this case $187 billion dollars) out then the economy won’t prosper, regardless of how much money the people have in their pockets, the money will go towards paying off the national debt, which might I remind you has exploded to a whopping record $5 trillion.
I’m not sure, and you can correct me if I’m wrong but weren’t the tax cuts handed out 2-3 years ago? I never heard word of whether Congress voted to make them permanent or if it is still pending?
They aren’t permanant, they get handed out whenever the president wants to hand them out. I guess. I know people are still getting them though.
Anyway, the thing is, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Regan and Bush Sr. all tried the same idea (giving tax cuts so that people would have more money to spend to help the economy) and it didn’t work then either, so I’m really wondering what made Dubya think it would work now.
Well look, see…when the economy is understandably in a shitty place (like it has been in the years of Bush’s term), the average person isn’t going to spend the extra money they get from an across-the-board tax cut in the STOCK MARKET, in fucking savings bonds or whatever, probably not even on luxury sorts of items. They’re going to use it to pay the rent, pay their mortgage, or invest it in the bank where it’ll be safe, because they don’t know how secure their jobs and futures are. The only people who are going to funnel the extra money directly into extravagant things like stocks or luxury items are the upper-middle class and the really rich, because their positions are secure. So the rich people will get money to make investments which in turn make them even richer, while the average person uses his money just to stay afloat in an increasingly hostile economy, made so by a variety of reasons, some of them directly related to the lack of money controlled by the federal government, some of them related to the fact that the really rich have even more money. And like, if you’re a believer in trickle-down economics whereby if the rich people get higher standards of living, then it’ll funnel down to the middle class and lower class, then you’re totally not right. It didn’t work with Reagan, anyways, heh.
So it seems to me like the rich people get richer, and in return, they (graciously) give some of that extra money to their favorite politicians to help them out with their campaigns, while our national debt plummets and it becomes more and more expensive for the average person just to get the bills paid.
If you want the economy to improve, giving huge tax cuts to your rich friends and shafting the poor isn’t going to help. Surprisingly enough, the rich billionaires aren’t going to be funding the economy as much as… oh… you know, everyone else in the entire country?
Reagan used trickle down economics. It didn’t work then, and it hasn’t and won’t work now.
Well that’s the problem nowadays. Even with the new finance reform laws you still have many rich people and 527 groups who give insane amounts of money to the candadites that practically insure that it stays a two party system. Honestly how many billionaires has Ralph Nader got behind him?
Also I wonder how you guys feel about Flat Taxes? Forbes proposed that in '96 in his bid for the presidency and not much has been said since then. I haven’t read much about it and I wonder if any of you know if it really is a good idea?
The problem with flat taxes is that the rich elite still get out of paying a good chunk of them, as with any taxes really. They can hire the best accountants to take advantage of every single tax loophole there is, almost negating an income tax. I think more of an effort needs to be made to make tighter laws and a better job needs to be done enforcing the current ones before we worry about a flat tax.
Well yeah, but I’m just saying, giving out across-the-board tax cuts is making the situation worse, not better. I’m pretty sure that shit didn’t happen under the Clinton administration, and I think that’s why the economy prospered. So if you’re gonna say, the economy is doing better now that Bush is in office because of giving out all his tax cuts, then I just want to say that you’re dead wrong.
And yeah, Kagon is right. There are so many tax law loopholes, like, if you move your fortune/business offshore, you can get out of paying taxes on your income, but unfortunately only the rich elite have the means to do things like that. Like, the government seriously needs to crack down on the upper class, except that would limit their ability to get gobs and gobs of money, which in turn might (oh gods no!) make it highly illogical to wage lots of wars overseas. It’s really a difficult situation; we’re stuck in this shithole, and the politicians who are seriously trying to get us out of it don’t have the money or the means to do so.
You hit the nail on the head Kagon. It seems funny to me that all the lawmakers want to do is think of more laws rather than enforcing the ones we have now. And by looking at it now it does seem that Flat Taxes would be a bad idea. Common Sense is that the rich would pay less and the poor would pay more. Even though the poor in this country enjoy a better standard of living we couldn’t expect a bum on the street to just spontaneously go out and find a job. There needs to be incentive for people to get work. That’s why I think welfare reform is such a good idea.
You must remember though that a politician, whether republican, independent, or democrat is looking out for one person-numero uno. Absolute Power-Corrupts Absolutely
Well, the problem is that any politician lobbying on stricter tax laws is going to catch major, major flak. Look at Mondale- he ran under the policy that he’d increase taxes. Was it needed? Yes. Was it a disaster for his campaign? Yup. Cracking down on the elite is going to cause droves of them to fund your opponents, so most politicians wouldn’t even dream of biting the hand that feeds them.
Man he must have had balls to actually ADMIT he’d raise taxes. Props to Mondale for actually being upfront.
That’s so retarded. A politician’s job is to ensure the safety of the nation, and to uphold the principles of the Constitution. To say that “a politician is only looking out for themselves,” removes the whole point behind a republican (lower-case r) system of government. --edit-- A politician’s job should NOT be to get elected, though…I’m not sure how that can be overcome, lol.
That being said, our government is really, really corrupt and shitty. You need to know and understand this, and not assume that this is the way it’s gotta be, just because all politicians are by their very nature sleazebags. It needs to be changed. I don’t know how - this is not my area of expertise. But it can be changed - it doesn’t have to be like this, I don’t think. At least, I don’t believe it does. I hope with all my heart it doesn’t, heh.
Well I’m not saying that they aren’t looking out for there electorate, many of them are. It just seems that many politicians don’t have any morals anymore and would sell themselves out for a vote. At least it looks that way. Of course I don’t watch CSPAN a lot.