Rolling Back the Bush Tax Cuts: Helping the Poor?

[Godwynn]

Ah, that's not the case. No the Republican party has beinfets for all people! The poor stand to gain somthing becuase they know that the American dream is a right and at the same time don't have to be reliant on government handouts. The rich also stand to gain from the Republican party because we can use our money that would have gone to social security to buy ourselves mega mansions.

First of all, the American Dream is not a right. It has to be earned.

Secondly, the rich must not be buying mega mansions. I vaguely remember hearing something about a housing crunch.

 

[skadistic]

First of all, the American Dream is not a right. It has to be earned.

Secondly, the rich must not be buying mega mansions. I vaguely remember hearing something about a housing crunch.

Thats a regional crunch. So places are still rolling like it was nothing ( my house hasn't lost any value and the home in the hood tend to go in a week or two). Some places had a small bump and some like Miami had a bursting bubble.

And you're very right the American dream only comes to those who are willing to work hard for it.

 

[Godwynn]

Thats a regional crunch. So places are still rolling like it was nothing ( my house hasn't lost any value and the home in the hood tend to go in a week or two). Some places had a small bump and some like Miami had a bursting bubble.

And you're very right the American dream only comes to those who are willing to work hard for it.

Thanks for correcting my skadistic. Unfortunately, we have not seen half of what the housing meltdown will bring. No doubt that some areas will remain unaffected, but that number will continue to shrink as mortgage rates reset well into 2008 and 2009.

Oh wait, the housing crunch was caused by those damned capitalists!

I would like to see the Democrats raise taxes in early 2009 if the meltdown continues or accelerates. If we aren't in a recession by then, we sure will be soon after.

 

[Whomp]

Interestingly enough, the biggest problem in the tax code isn't the marginal rates. It continues to be the AMT and it's most prevalent in the blue states. Should be fun watching this play out...

The numbers....
In 2007, unless Congress acts, 23.4 million taxpayers will be affected by the AMT. In 2006, only 3.5 million taxpayers will owe the tax because of a temporarily higher exemption, which expires at the end of the year. If the 2001-2006 tax cuts expire as scheduled at the end of 2010, 39 million taxpayers (more than one-third) will be hit by the AMT in 2017. If the tax cuts are extended, the number jumps to 53 million taxpayers (about half).

I'm pretty sure other things like capital gains/dividends will most definitely be raised.

 

[emzie]

Downtown wins this thread.

 

[FriendlyFire]

John Kerry of Massachusetts, with a net worth of at least $164 million.
Herb Kohl of Wisconsin, with a net worth of at least $111 million.
John "Jay" Rockefeller of West Virginia, with an estimated net worth of at least $82 million.

Top 3, all Democrats.

Kerrys worth includes hes wife ?? I read it was around just $2 Million

 

[amadeus]

Not if they were coupled with reduction of government programs aimed at helping lower class people. If I lower your taxes, saving you 1,000 a year, but cut programs that increase your medical costs and college tuition 3,000 bucks...have you helped the poor?

Do government programs help the poor? How many programs from Chairman Johnson's Great Leap Backward have been dissolved due to lack of need?

A good government program shouldn't be designed to get the most people enrolled, but to get the most people to not depend on that program anymore. But, unsurprisingly, the political-bureaucratic establishment doesn't it when they find out their job is only supposed to be temporary.

 

[JollyRoger]

Most of the proposals I have seen them talk about with specificity involve rolling back the cuts on the top brackets. Bush's massive $300 tax cut to Joe Six Pack stays in place.

 

[Merkinball]

Most of the proposals I have seen them talk about with specificity involve rolling back the cuts on the top brackets. Bush's massive $300 tax cut to Joe Six Pack stays in place. - JollyRoger

Which brackets? It'll be interesting to see if when Hillary is elected, just how high taxes go to pay for universal healthcare, $5,000 dollar bonds for every baby born, multi-billion dollar programs to help people keep their houses, government run day-care centers, so on and so forth.

 

[JollyRoger]

Which brackets? It'll be interesting to see if when Hillary is elected, just how high taxes go to pay for universal healthcare, $5,000 dollar bonds for every baby born, multi-billion dollar programs to help people keep their houses, government run day-care centers, so on and so forth.

The top one or two, depending on the candidate. As for Hillary, she could afford her programs for the current costs we are wasting off-budget in Iraq. However, I don't trust her on Iraq and I expect that if she is elected that we will still have at least 50,000 there at the end of her first term. Nevertheless, she won't get many of her social programs, at least not to the extent she wants them - too many lobbyists with a grip on Congress for her to get it done.

 

[Merkinball]

I'm sorry, I don't buy it. I antincipate tax raises back to the way they were, then extended taxation to the top 2 beyond the old rates.

What evidence do you have that Hillary doesn't have the support for these programs? Republican's have blown government spending out of the water with plenty of support from Democrats. To think that the capacity doesn't exist for extended further spending with a Democrat president doesn't seem too foolish to me.

 

[JollyRoger]

I'm sorry, I don't buy it. I antincipate tax raises back to the way they were, then extended taxation to the top 2 beyond the old rates.

What evidence do you have that Hillary doesn't have the support for these programs? Republican's have blown government spending out of the water with plenty of support from Democrats. To think that the capacity doesn't exist for extended further spending with a Democrat president doesn't seem too foolish to me.

It's the kind of spending that Hillary wants that is the problem. Bush got his spending through because, in general, it benefits the groups with heavy lobbyist support. Much of Hillary's proposed spending is a threat to many powerful groups. Did her 1993 health care package make it through the Democratically controlled Congress? Her 2009 package might have parts passed, but not nearly to the extent that she is proposing.

 

[Merkinball]

Hillarycare didn't get pushed through because it had no support from the people. The climate is much different these days. If a program like SCHIP can get approval from the insurance lobbyists, than why not universal healthcare? Especially with the way that Hillary's reformed Hillarycare is structured.

 

[Bill3000]

The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.

 

[JollyRoger]

Hillarycare didn't get pushed through because it had no support from the people. The climate is much different these days. If a program like SCHIP can get approval from the insurance lobbyists, than why not universal healthcare? Especially with the way that Hillary's reformed Hillarycare is structured.

Last time I checked on SCHIP, the lobbyists still had Bush summoning the courage to find his veto pen and still had enough Representatives voting against it so COngress would not have a veto-proof majority.

 

[Merkinball]

Last time I checked on SCHIP, the lobbyists still had Bush summoning the courage to find his veto pen and still had enough Representatives voting against it so COngress would not have a veto-proof majority.

I don't think so. I don't want to take this off topic, so I'm just going to post an exerpt. This is from NPR.

On Saturday, the president said the compromise bill is not only too expensive, but "would move millions of children who now have private health insurance into government-run health care."

"Our goal should be to move children who have no health insurance to private coverage — not to move children who already have private health insurance to government coverage," he said.

But the leading trade group for the private health insurance industry does not think that would happen and has endorsed the bill.

So has the Healthcare Leadership Council, which represents private health-care providers that normally side with the president. At a news conference Monday, council President Mary Grealy singled out a provision of the compromise bill for praise. It would allow states to use their government SCHIP money to help low-income parents pay for their children's' health care through their employer-provided insurance.

"With this provision, we will see families that can be under the same (health care) plan and with access to the same physicians and hospitals," Grealy said.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=14682003