From Robert Reich at HP:
During almost three decades spanning 1951 to 1980, when America's top marginal tax rate was between 70 and 92 percent, the nation's average annual growth was 3.7 percent. But between 1983 and start of the Great Recession, when the top rate was far lower -- ranging between 35 and 39 percent -- the economy grew an average of just 3 percent per year. Supply-siders are fond of claiming that Ronald Reagan's 1981 cuts caused the 1980s economic boom. In fact, that boom followed Reagan's 1982 tax increase. The 1990s boom likewise was not the result of a tax cut; it came in the wake of Bill Clinton's 1993 tax increase.
Nonetheless, while the top 1% is far away from that 92% income tax, the well-off are still whining about their poor earnings as a result of a tax increase that HASN'T EVEN HAPPENED YET.
Here's a typical buffoon responding in the comment area of that same article:
Whatever you say Berkely dude.
As one of the business owners that makes (joint income) over $250,000 year I don't care if my tax rate goes from 35% to 39.6%. Won't matter to me if capital gains goes up. Won't matter when you add another 4% on as a healthcare tax.
Won't matter when I'm reimbursed at Medicare rates for the care I provide for everyone, not just those over 65. Doesn't matter that I still have to pay ever increasing Malpractice rates and business expenses and my business mortgage stays the same
I'll just have less to bonus and pay my employees. Less to put into my SEP (and theirs). Less to put into my local community and economy.
I'll just give it to Uncle Sam, he will spend it better than me.
Not one to let a perfectly bogus claim stand, I responded as follows:
First of all, if you are making a salary of $250,000, as a business owner your gross income is more (I am a business owner, so you can't fool me there). If you're a smart business owner, that extra income is in the form of company shareholder profits or dividends (at a tax rate of 15%).
Now, you're a doctor of some sort, so the Medicare reimbursement issue is certainly a concern, but this tax increase ONLY affects your taxable income.
Furthermore, as a business owner you have expenses. Mine take my taxable rate down about 10% every year. How about you?
I'll tell you how the Bush tax cuts have affected me. It wasn't in the pittance I got back in my pocket, but the increase in property taxes in my state through the reduced revenue. What was $3,800 in 2003 is now $8,400 this year. That's the legacy of the Bush tax cuts.
As far as you not being able to pay your employees bonuses, well, that's an issue of company profits and not your taxable income. Either you know this or are trying to be deceptive. There are other factors that affect profits, but your small salary increase won't be one of them.
And that's really the crux of it. The rich will complain, even though their taxes will remain the same.
This is how my accountant assesses it:
If income taxes go up, pay yourself less. If they go down, pay yourself more.
This guy owns his own business, so he has that luxury. As a Doctor, sure, he has to deal with a decrease in Medicare payments. As an employee, he has to deal with an increase in healthcare tax. But the issue with many Doctors (particularly General Practitioners) is that the cost of business is too high to make a profit with malpractice insurance involved. In short, they can only make $150,000 instead of $200 or $300,000 or more like specialists can. Still in all, dissolving the Bush tax cuts have no effect on these problems at all.
What's lost in all of this, outside of the issue of where those government cuts went (property tax increases) are the fact that tax cuts do not create jobs. So, in short, those of us in the middle class have gotten screwed, pay more (over double in property taxes, like I have), and aren't seeing any new jobs coming from that rich 1% who are getting the true benefit from these tax cuts.
But the Republicans still push this stupidity, mainly because they have no respect for the intelligence of the American people, and their ties to business are too great to buck. Get a load of the initiative they proposed yesterday:
From HP:
The Economic Freedom Act of 2010 -- introduced by Reps. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) -- proposes deep tax cuts favoring the wealthiest in America, a reduction in regulatory oversight and the elimination of a federal tax on the estates of millionaires, which will allow wealthy investors to escape taxes entirely on a significant portion of their income.
Republicans say the bill will create jobs where President Obama's policies have failed to do so.
Michael Linden from Center For American Progress on this new act:
"This is almost five times bigger than Bush tax cuts were," Linden said. "It really represents a doubling down on Bush's economic agenda. Where he skewed his tax policy heavily to the rich, this would skew it even further even to the exclusion of the middle class."
Only idiots still believe this bullshit. And some Doctors, too, I guess.