The CBO released a report saying that increasing taxes or cutting revenues right now would send us into another recession.
The budget needs to be balanced, but it needs to be a gradual process.
ThinkProgress got their data from the Congressional Budget Office, but they cherry picked one figure, when corporate taxes are calculated individually depending on industry. This is the latest study they have put out:
http://cbo.gov/sites/default/files/
In the three major scenarios they put forth, they get the following tax rates.
Figure 2-14: 23.6%
Figure 2-17: 22.1%
Figure 2-20: 41%!
The Tax Foundation link I put up shows an average of 27%, which it lists in the top 5, but that was before Japan lowered its tax rate. Looking at averages though can be misleading. Some industries can enjoy a tax rate up to 30% less by moving out of the US.
Honestly, a little simplification of the code wouldn't hurt :)
Yes. Mitt Romney understands what businesses need to succeed. He knows what is good for them and what obstacles they face.
He understands that the US Corporate tax rate is too high, so we can't compete with other developed countries. The effective tax rate on new investments in the US is 30%, while the average of OECD countries is 22.5%. People who are looking to invest in an economy or business on the international level are taking into consideration the extra 7.5% taxes in America(let alone the fact that some individual countries have a tax rate that is 17% lower than America's).
If we remove the obstacles to businesses, they will do the hiring. Unemployment will fall, and tax revenues will increase again.
I would like to point out that ThinkProgress is not a tax group, and does not specialize in taxes. Their sources are buried in linked stories.
The 13.4% figure cited is a combination of corporate income tax and corporate investment tax. A simple average of the two doesn't provide the correct picture, as corporate investment income is a small fraction of total corporate income. My sources linked at the tax foundation examine hypothetical corporations in different industries, as the tax rates change from industry to industry.
An interesting note for you Ben, Mitt Romney closed corporate tax loopholes as governor of Massachusetts.
The U.S. has the highest marginal corporate tax rate among all developed countries[1]. Not only that, but the U.S. has one of the highest effective corporate tax rates among all developed countries, ranking in the top 5[2]. Companies have to pay more of their profits here than in other countries, and this is a factor when people and corporations decide where to invest their money.
The average effective tax rate among other nations is 20%, where the US's is 27%. From another perspective, the tax on new investment is 30%, which is 7.5% higher than international averages[2].
In other words, if a wealthy person is considering investing in a company, they will have to pay 7.5% higher taxes if they invest in a U.S. based company than a foreign company, and in some countries they can pay a tax rate as much as 17.8% lower than the U.S. tax rate.[3]
If you were a business person, and your goal were to maximize return on your investment, would you rather be taxed on your profits at 30% or at 12.2%?
This is why the US is struggling with jobs. We aren't competitive on an international level. Investors can keep more of their profits by investing outside of the US.
[1]http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/
[2]http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/
[3]http://www.kpmg.com/Global/en/
Let me describe a hypothetical situation: Person A uses borrowed money to take over Company B. Company B is heading towards bankruptcy, and all of Company B's workers are in risk of losing their jobs. Person A works to turn Company B around. Person A consolidates operations, closes down some of Company B's locations, lays off some workers, and cuts wages to remaining workers. Now, Company B is turning a profit, providing job security to the remaining workers.
This situation describes Romney's work at Bain Capital. Sometimes jobs were cut, sometimes pay was cut, but the vast majority of the time, revenues and profits increased. Companies that were heading for or starting bankruptcy were saved. I assert that Romney's actions helped the workforce tremendously, as it is better to save 80% of jobs in a company than to lose them all.
Before any Anti-Romney people start rebutting, consider this. This situation also describes the auto bailout. GM was saved with government money(taxpayer funds). Operations were consolidated, plants were closed, jobs lost, and wages cut. Yet now, GM is profitable. Ironically, I hear people demonizing Mitt Romney for turning around companies while praising Obama(or Bush, or both) for saving the US auto industry.
It is fairly clear that if a company is failing, it's a good thing for someone to step in and turn things around. Sometimes it's like surgery. It hurts, and it takes time to recover, but it's better than dying.
The same way people get anything else that is illegal. From illegal sources. Off the street, from dealers, black market, etc...
The only real difference, is we won't have honest citizens who can stop them anymore. The Department of Justice did a study and found out that guns(citizens) are used between 1.5 and 4.5 million times a year to stop a crime.
I don't see anything wrong with it. People eat in restaurants before paying, and skipping the bill isn't a huge problem.
I have a young child who can get fussy in a crowded store, he doesn't like having that many people around. If he behaves, we reward him with eating a snack while we shop, we'll often let him pick his snack off the shelf. I can guarantee the managers prefer that over him screaming at the top of his lungs for 30 minutes.
Guns should not be prohibited. They are used far more often to stop a crime than to perpetrate a crime.
Prohibition doesn't prevent those who want to get their hands on something from getting it. Alcohol was prohibited, and the mob made crazy amounts of money smuggling it. Drugs are illegal, and 20 million pounds cross the US-Mexico border every year.
If we ban guns, only criminals will end up having them.
Average Median Compensation has increased 26% from 1980 - 2003.
Your figure of 5% comes from one study that only considers hourly wages, and doesn't take into consideration the value of benefits.
Table 3 in my link.
The fact that people work for her company means she is not self-made. Without those workers, she would not be a millionaire.
That's the definition of self-made. If someone makes a company, they are self-made. If someone is given $50 billion in trust funds as a baby, they aren't self-made. Self-made means you made your condition. Creating a company and hiring employees is the action of Sara Blakely, not the action of her employees. Employees don't create jobs.
Oh, I suppose Warren Buffet and Bill Gates are her factory workers...
What does that have to do with anything? There is more demand because of her company, so more jobs. It's not a punishment to those who work for her.
I know EXACTLY what the difference is. Unless you arguing to argue the rich pay MORE now in taxes (as a percent of income) than 30 years ago, you don't have a point.
No, they don't, but living conditions for all Americans are better now than 30 years ago. My point was that nobody paid the tax rates you claim.
And corporations have record profits, more than any time in history. And you are digressing from trickle-down tax policy to corporate taxes. This issue has nothing to do with corporate taxes.
They go hand in hand. Trickle-down refers to tax breaks, it doesn't specify individual or corporation. Many individuals pay their business tax on their personal rate, so both rates matter to businesses.
Correlation does not yield causation.
You are the one who brought correlation into the argument.
What are you talking about?
Sorry, I thought your graph was about net wealth instead of income. It was very small, but I thought I recognized it.
The amount a company pays you has nothing to do with your spending habits. Only the inverse is true.
Really? So if someone gets fired and has no money, their spending habits won't change? If someone gets a 50% raise, their spending habits won't change?
You have now gotten completely away from the point and onto a regurgitation of conservative rhetoric.
Again, I thought your graph was showing wealth instead of income. The standard of living has increased dramatically since the 70s, including income. Those % statistics are misleading because the same income brackets will fall into different % groups from year to year.
To say that trickle-down doesn't work is to say that companies and individuals do nothing with their money. The truth is, their money goes directly into the economy. VERY little of it is saved. Most goes into investments, which helps the economy just as much as spending money. Rich people end up financing the jobs of the people underneath their bracket, and those people finance the jobs under their bracket.
Seriously, think of it this way. How many jobs would we have if the government taxed all corporations at 100%?
No self made millionaires?
It happens all the time. Here, take Sara Blakely, who made Spanx. She started with her own $5,000 investment, and now her company is worth billions. Everybody who works there works there because she came up with a good idea, and made enough money to hire new people.
She didn't get rich 'on the backs' of the poor and middle class. She made a product that people wanted, and those people who bought it got a product they like. It's symbiotic, both sides win. Every employee of the company wins. This happens all the time.
As far as your tax rates and unemployment, you are cherry-picking data, and you also don't understand the difference between marginal and effective tax rates. When the marginal tax rate was 70%, the top effective tax rate was only 40%, and only those making millions per year hit that rate. The vast majority of top tax returns fluctuate between 20%-40%. However, the more you take from corporations, the less money they have to spend on payroll, benefits, and expansion. If you take all the money from a company, it will go bankrupt. Companies must have money to create jobs.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_8UVGnCIfOVk/
If you look at unemployment compared to corporate tax rates, it is clear that the unemployment rate generally fell after lowering the tax rate in the 80s. You simply chose the best number from the 70s to compare to the worst number of the 2000's.
As for income growth, there is a very good reason why the bottom 90% haven't gained more wealth. Credit and debt. The average family now has a large mortgage, high car payments, and high credit card balances. Many families have negative net wealth, but this has more to do with personal responsibility than anything else.
The newer generations live a life of entitlement that no generation before has experienced. Now it is expected to have a mortgage right out of college, where people used to save to buy a house. Now people buy with debt, before people bought with money.
Maybe it wasn't a Republican. Maybe someone didn't like how you claimed the evidence shows the opposite of what I said, without providing any evidence?
What evidence?
Have you ever been hired by a poor person or a bankrupt company?
Look at any job, I don't care what it is, but look at any non-governmental job. Who is responsible for that job existing?
Sweden was struggling tremendously in the 1990s, with one of the highest tax rates in the world. Suddenly, they had an idea to lower taxes, and now they are one of the strongest economies. Go figure, letting people keep their money means they have money to spend. Money spent is money circulating, and money circulating is what creates demand.
Can you show me how jobs and demand are created without using money?
I want one.
I want one that looks like a puppy.
I want one that looks like a Rottweiler(get em Killer!)
I want one to do my grocery shopping.
I want one to do my evil bidding and take over the world.
Let's look at the money.
You have a group of rich people. They decide to start a business, and employ 100 people, and pay them all $1 million/year. Those 100 people have jobs because of the money the rich people have.
Those 100 people with jobs now have money, lots of money. They don't shop at Wal-Mart, they shop at high end stores and restaurants. These stores and restaurants make more money, and hire more people, because of the increase in demand.
So, the workers in the shops are making $200,000/year. They shop at Macys and Dillards, and eat out at Applebees. Their business helps those stores and restaurants, and helps them to hire more people.
So, the workers at those stores make $50,000/year. They shop at Walmart and Target. Their money pays for the minimum wage, and slightly above jobs at those stores.
Demand is all about the cash flow. The more money people spend, the more it circulates through the economy. There is more demand, so more jobs, and more wealth for everybody.
That is how money 'trickles down'.
You should stay away from processed foods as much as possible, and stay even further away from fast-food.
Here's a little story.
I grew up on fast food. All through middle school and high school I always had fast food for lunch. When I was 19, I got very, very ill. My body had developed allergies to almost everything I was eating; wheat, dairy, and certain components even of fruits and vegetables. It took me years to figure out everything that was wrong, and for some of those years I was bed-ridden.
It turns out, your body can learn to refuse to fully digest foods that are stuffed with chemicals and preservatives, or even develop an allergic touch reaction to it.
Food like McDonalds will ruin your health and shorten your life.
I appreciate the discussion. My knowledge of Latin is nil, and my knowledge of Hebrew is close :)
The problem is, the scripture doesn't say 'No man can see my face', but that 'No man can see me'. Just as the NT says 'No man can see God and live'. There are several verses where people saw Yahweh, and others where people saw God Elohim. It's an interesting topic, but I consider the Bible to be slightly corrupted by man, both accidentally and purposefully.
I agree about Wikipedia. I only use it when I need to get a list of sources quickly. I used to have tons of material on these subjects, but now I just have to go off of memory.
There is no more important struggle than the struggle for survival.
If you compare two people, one who is stressing about how to feed his family, and another who is stressing about how to feed his family at the Ritz, the severity of the first person's situation is much greater.
A wealthy person with a steady income doesn't have to worry about how he would feed his family if he lost his job tomorrow. A poor person with a steady income might not be able to buy food in a week if he lost his job tomorrow.
I'm not saying that being poor and happy is impossible, but a happy poor person will be more happy if they can overcome those struggles to survive.
At this point, absolutely.
First, consider the alternatives. To match the output of one two-core nuclear reactor(2300MW), we would need to construct and place over 2300 3MW wind turbines, as wind turbines only operate at 30%. This would require 3 rows of turbines spanning the entire coast of South Carolina.
To match the same output with solar, we would need a solid sheet of solar panel larger than Brooklyn.
On top of that, nuclear is reliable. Wind and solar can spike and fall in production, and having a national grid based on a fluctuating production would lead to massive brownouts and blackouts.
Additionally, nuclear creates more jobs than alternative sources. There are more than 10 times as many man-hours required for nuclear than the equivalent of wind-power, meaning more full-time jobs for our struggling economy.
http://www.nuclearinnovation.com/pdf/
1 - Firstly, I apologize. It is not Elohim, but Yahweh which the Old Testament states can't be seen, and has been seen, not Elohim.
2 - Exodus 33:20 "And he[the LORD] said , Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live .
1 Kings 22:19 "And he said , Hear thou therefore the word of the LORD: I saw the LORD sitting on his throne, and all the host of heaven standing by him on his right hand and on his left."
These verses are from the KJV. In both cases, LORD is translated from Yahweh[1] and see/saw is translated from Ra'ah[2].
[1]http://www.biblestudytools.com/
[2]http://www.biblestudytools.com/
The latin is not needed, as the latin was translated from Hebrew, and the English was translated from the Hebrew.
You can research yourself the origins of different translations. KJV has roots in the Hebrew Rabbinic Bible by Daniel Bomberg, as well as the LXX.
This really doesn't matter, as this message is common across all translations. The earliest fragments of the Bible are found in the Dead Sea Scrolls from the 2nd century BC. We also have Greek manuscripts of most of the Hebrew Bible from the 1st century BC. If you want to learn more about early versions, I could suggest you start with these references(7-10):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Also here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
The discrepancy is clear, No man can see Yahweh and live, yet many people saw Yahweh in the Old Testament, and lived.
Whether or not there are any doctrinal errors is more of a dispute, but as far as scribal errors go, there are a few. I'm not saying the Bible isn't inspired, I'm just saying that it does have errors.
How can the KJV be perfect when it has two different ages for when Azahiah became king?
There are errors in the oldest manuscripts we have as well. In the Greek, the price paid for the field is different. In the Hebrew, we have scriptures which say Elohim can't be seen and Elohim has been seen.
