Why should I be happy with the Bush tax cuts?

[erowe1]

And I take genuine offense to being called a statist.

OK. I've been giving you the benefit of the doubt. But this here is a flat out lie. You don't take offense to that and you know it.

 

[trey4sports]

I bolded the important part.

And I take genuine offense to being called a statist. I butt heads on every political forum I go to, unfortunately.

Ignore the ad hominems and pay close attention to the arguments we present. It might change your mind, and it might not but there is a reason we're so passionate about liberty!

 

[SWATH]

I bolded the important part.

And I take genuine offense to being called a statist. I butt heads on every political forum I go to, unfortunately.

You are always welcome here, I hope you stick around and learn.

 

[madfoot]

If that's the way you look at it, then you should be happy with the Bush tax cuts. Because after the Bush tax cuts the highest income earners bore a greater share of the total income tax than they did before the Bush tax cuts.
http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/1941.html

Did the Bush tax cuts make taxes more progressive?
http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2008/03/the-bush-tax-cu.html

When fully in effect, the tax cuts will boost after-tax income by more than 7 percent among households with incomes of more than $1 million, but just 2 percent among middle-income families... A progressive tax cut, like a progressive tax system, is one that reduces inequality. But, as these data show, the tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003 are widening the gap in after-tax incomes, which was historically large even before the tax cuts were enacted.

In 2010, when the tax cuts are fully in effect, the average household earning more than $1 million a year will receive $158,000 in tax cuts, according to the Tax Policy Center; the average middle-income household will receive $810.

The same CBO data cited by the tax cuts’ supporters show that the top 1 percent of households pay almost 5 percent less of their income in federal personal income taxes than they did in 2000, before the tax cuts. No other group got a tax cut nearly as large.

***

A progressive tax code is one that makes the distribution of after-tax income more equal than the distribution of pre-tax income.* (This definition is accepted by analysts across the political spectrum.)* Hence, one tax code is “more progressive” than another if it has a larger effect in reducing income inequality. For the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts to have made the tax code more progressive, after-tax incomes would have to be less unequal today than if the tax cuts had not occurred.* In fact, the tax cuts have made the distribution of after-tax income more unequal.

 

[erowe1]

A progressive tax code is one that makes the distribution of after-tax income more equal than the distribution of pre-tax income.* (This definition is accepted by analysts across the political spectrum.)*

Huh?

I guess I don't know if that's true. But if so, why would these analysts insist on using a definition other than what everybody else thinks it means?
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/progressive+tax
http://www.dictionaryofeconomics.co...nt&q=progressive tax&topicid=&result_number=1
http://economics.about.com/library/glossary/bldef-progressivetax.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_tax

Using the normal definition, the Bush tax cuts, indeed made the tax code more progressive. That $810 the middle income family saved was a much higher percentage of their income taxes paid than the $158,000 saved by the $1 million/year income earner. It would be impossible for any serious tax cuts to do otherwise, since those middle income people pay so little in taxes as it is. You could totally eliminate their income taxes, that is cut them by 100% (and for all intents and purposes, the Bush tax cuts did that for the lower middle class), and reduce the amount the high income earners pay by just 10%, and the high income earners would see their after tax income increase by a greater percent because of how much more they were paying in taxes before the cuts, versus how little the lower income earners paid.

 

[iprice81]

Taxation is theft. If it was not theft it would be voluntary. And if it was voluntary then you could stop paying them. But you cant stop paying so it is theft

 

[madfoot]

And socialists think property is theft. Just because it fits well on a bumper sticker doesn't mean you're going to get anywhere by repeating it over and over again. >_>

 

[erowe1]

And socialists think property is theft. Just because it fits well on a bumper sticker doesn't mean you're going to get anywhere by repeating it over and over again. >_>

Fair enough. What does the word "theft" mean?

 

[silverhandorder]

Actually medfoot hit the nail on the head. Any argument with socialists that I have boils down to them thinking claiming property is use of force and goes against NAP (Non Agression Principle). I have yet successfully convince any of them that claiming property is not a form of aggression.

 

[erowe1]

Actually medfoot hit the nail on the head. Any argument with socialists that I have boils down to them thinking claiming property is use of force and goes against NAP (Non Agression Principle). I have yet successfully convince any of them that claiming property is not a form of aggression.

That's because they just dig in and pretend to believe something they know is wrong. They don't really think property is theft and they prove that with their actions every day. It's like arguing with someone who claims there's no absolute morality. You know they don't really believe it, and they know that you know they don't really believe it. But they avoid facing the consequences of admitting otherwise as long as the outwardly insist it's so.

 

[Stary Hickory]

As a die hard progressive I guess you shouldn't. Is reasoning really gonna work here?