I think my too-clever-but-maybe-not play on the name of a certain attacking midfielder may have failed.
Can't really see her teeth in that picture. Boehner finally admitted it, "there are ways to limit deductions, close loopholes and have the same people pay more of their money to the federal government without raising tax rates, which we believe will harm our economy." http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/05/politics/fiscal-cliff/index.html?hpt=hp_bn3 It doesn't matter how much you take, it's how you take it.
I just don't understand any part of their argument with deductions vs marginal rates. Maybe it is because I am too stupid, maybe it's because I'm not ..... But how is it okay for the economy to make someone pay $5,000 more by denying them a "loophole" or by taking away a deduction - but horrible for the economy to have that same person pay the same additional $5k with a tweak to the rate. The only answer I can come up with is: We are smart enough to stop spending money on the things that you took our deductions away for and move the cash into something you added deductions or a loophole for - so you can "claim" it will raise a future $5k but I won't actually ever have to pay it, only some schmuck with a lesser-paid accountant will pay it. Which means - in reality the money will never be paid to the government. And if it is, it will only be for the first year until they can move their deductions around.
You would understand the real argument, if the Republicans were permitted to state it. Higher marginal rates will cause the wealthy to pay more in taxes. However, eliminating the deductions may not. It's one thing to talk vague about loopholes being closed; it's quite another to get bipartisan agreement on such actions, with lobbyists stirring up noise. And to the extent that the deductions *are* eliminated, it might be middle-class perks that suffer rather than the upper-class deductions.
It's the WSJ Op Ed page. They think Art Laffer is a Great Intellectual for ********'s sake. Nobody takes them seriously.
Obviously stanger has no idea what it means either because it does not mean what he thinks it does. I'd post a snarky picture from "Princess Bride" but I can't be bothered.
Only if "neo-marxist" means "almost destroyed our economy with monetarism and bamboozled Americans into thinking they could borrows their way to riches to keep taxes lower than they should have been"...
Obviously you'd have been better questioning what neo-marxism was instead of quoting a source that has no clue either. On the (very) off chance you were wondering: Neo-marxism: (ethics) A loose movement of late-20th-century political and social theorists who emphasized the humanism and idealism of Marx's early works (written before he formulated his theories of dialectical materialism and economic determinism). The neo-Marxists emphasized psychological liberation instead of political revolution and thus were closer to some strains of anarchism than to state socialism or communism. So "neo-marxism" means pretty much the opposite of what the article thinks it does. Meaning that for the author of the article "marxism" means "anything I don't like" because the author can't be bothered to look up the proper definition and assumes (correctly) that the natural audience for the article is also just as lazy and ignorant.
Agreed. The rest of it? I see some of you advocating letting us fall off the cliff. I don't see that as being an option.
Stick to estate taxes. According to the article, 55% is a neoMarxist estate tax rate. That was the rate under Reagan
Well, yeah, there is that too; but my actual mistake was wondering what Stanger thought he was driving at...
I was driving at the fact that going over the cliff will have monumental consequences. Some of you don't think so.
Because it is not a cliff.. Is more like a speed bump... Krugman has been right about almost everything since 2001... I trust the guy, you should too. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/26/opinion/krugman-fighting-fiscal-phantoms.html?hp So let’s step back for a minute, and consider what’s going on here. For years, deficit scolds have held Washington in thrall with warnings of an imminent debt crisis, even though investors, who continue to buy U.S. bonds, clearly believe that such a crisis won’t happen; economic analysis says that such a crisis can’t happen; and the historical record shows no examples bearing any resemblance to our current situation in which such a crisis actually did happen. If you ask me, it’s time for Washington to stop worrying about this phantom menace — and to stop listening to the people who have been peddling this scare story in an attempt to get their way.
Every Republican does. You think Art Laffer's a joke, I think Art Laffer's a joke, but they don't think Art Laffer's a joke, because The Wall Street Journal tells them that Art Laffer is a serious economist. The Wall Street Journal Op-Ed section is The Book of Mormon of Republicanism. Oh heck what am I saying, it's more than just Republicans - Blame the Journal. It has spent 4 years working people into a lather about DEFICITS, so as to attack Obama. Now it says the CLIFF IS BAD, so as to attack Obama. That the cliff will fix the deficits, well that tells you two things. One the Journal doesn't give a shit about the actual arguments, it just wants to beat on Democrats. And two, the Journal and its minions are quite successful at confusing the hell out of most Americans -- because people don't expect the nation's largest newspaper, funded by an enormous amount of money, to be talking gibberish.