Why is this not a surprise to me ?

Why am I not suprised that you would gloss over that inconvenient little fact? lol

We are not talking about "cuts in increases" here, we are talking about actual, real reduction in spending. It might be small, but it's the first step in that direction that we have seen in a long, long time.

If not, more so. Some 90+% of our debt came from Republican administrations. Furthermore, I think if we weren't into massive deficit spending, we'd be more likely to spend less, since Congress wouldn't be living off of borrowed money. Raise taxes to reduce spending.

it looks like the opposite might just happen and your cushy government job might just evaporate someday. In the immortal words of Donald Trump "You're fired" lmao Btw I am not a fan of "The Donald"

The difference between people like you and me is that I actually produce something of value, create jobs, and have created my own wealth. You are simply another government parasite, living off the efforts of others, and scared your little gravy train may be coming to an end.

You adimtted getting a lot of joy in the fact that I was looking at potentially having to pay several hundred thousand dollars more in taxes. I will take equal joy, when your parasitic government job is eliminated and you have to actually work for a living.

You know, for a guy who's wealthy, you seem to be pissed off most of the time. I also see no reason why you ignored my point that Republicans are just as likely, if not more likely to increase spending. Playing favorites, GaG?

Regardless of your pockets, it seems to be a rather simple concept. If you live within your means, which in the government's case is tax revenue, then you're going to be more frugal then if you're living large on borrowed money.

Therefore, if you really want to cut spending, then you should consider tax increases as a means to that end.

Below is a graph that show the debt levels as a percentage of GDP. Notice that these levels skyrocket starting in the mid 80's when Reagan slashed taxes. I would also note that despite that a far greater number of government programs were created from the 40's to the 80's then in the 80's to today, deficits still declined before taxes were lowered.

They government gets more of my paycheck than I do as it is. They do very little for me to earn it. They don't need any more of my money. If I ran my business like they run the country I would be living on the streets.

Its easier to cut middle and working class entitlements.

The real issue is who benefits from it. In the US the capitalist class gains the most and is the cause of all government spending. All it takes is a look at a list of government contractors who get over $1b from govt sales. Of course all of this commerce has to be regulated and regulation costs cash paid mostly in legal fees to capitalist's lackeys. I admit that my example is over simplified but most of you understand it.

I would welcome a tax increase. But history does not support that theory.

Plus with my surplus income I grow my business. I am in the process of expanding to a new location when done will add about 20 new jobs for people to fill. If taxes go up it will slow my growth and thus job creation.

All theres newly employed people will pay taxes and my revenue and the amount of money I pay in taxes will go up. Extra taxes will slow all of this in the end reducing over all economic growth and tax revenue. I personally don't trust the government to do the right thing.

But your right both parties spend my money like drunken sailors in a cheap whore house that happen to be dieing with no regard for the future. Bush doubled the deficit and Obama quadrupled it. Both parties are screwing us and raping our children. More taxes will just speed up the speed in which they are doing so.

When Kennedy lowered the top marginal rate to 70%, he also got rid of a metric ton of tax write offs and loopholes. It resulted in the effective tax rate going up.

1) Kennedy proposed lowering top marginal income taxes from 91% to 70%. However, top income earners were NOT paying 91%. Their EFFECTIVE tax rate hovered closer to the low 60% range due to all the tax loopholes and write offs that had been put in place since the New Deal.

Kennedy's compromise is precisely the compromise Obama offered at the SOTU. Eliminate those loopholes and write offs in exchange for lowering the total rate. That happened, and the result was that the EFFECTIVE top marginal income tax increased by nearly 10%.

That is one of the major reasons why the debt decreased. The bigger contributing factor is that the economy grew. On average, it grew more in the 60's than it did in any other decade after the Great Depression, and our economy hasn't reached that sustained level of growth since.

2) Corporate taxes are not very high in the US at all. While it is 35% on paper, there is a metric ton of write offs. 10 years ago the EFFECTIVE corporate income tax rate was around 9-11%, and some companies like GE didn't pay any taxes at all. Furthermore, the vast majority of  industrialized nations have value added taxes, the vast majority of which is paid by corporations and businesses. We have no VAT tax. The net result is that we have a very low corporate tax rate. I'd bet that the effective tax rate in China is higher.

3) In Ireland it really is low. Only 12.5%. Question: Why hasn't every business in the world relocated to Ireland? Why is Ireland now a financial basketcase?

The reason is that companies pay more in labor costs then they do in taxes, and you can hire someone in China for pennies on the dollar.

Which logically, would mean that:

4) The only way to outcompete China is for American workers to accept lower wages than the Chinese. Which, of course, is the point. If you follow this logic, all we really need to do to outcompete China is to abolish the 13th amendment, and bring back slavery to the USA. After all, you can make more profit off of free labor than cheap labor.

Since anyone with anything approaching a moral compass would view that as absurd, then the answer is not to outcompete the Chinese, but rather take the very simple step of addressing problems with our trade policy.

-- Modified on 2/7/2011 10:09:07 AM

Those spike also correspond with recessions and depressions more than tax cuts. Please notice there wasn't such a spike in the 60's when Kennedy cut taxes. The government always tries spend its way out of trouble and history shows that to a bad idea. When income goes down spending should not go up. That budgeting 101. Also note that before income tax there was little debt then boom it skyrockets. Weakening your argument more.

And the first amendment gives me the right to bitch all I want about them.

Kennedy proposed one of the biggest tax cut in history in 1963, in 1964 it passed. Guess what the debt still shrunk. Debt is mostly about spending. Cut spending cut debt. Corporate income taxes in this country are already one of the highest in the world. We can not afford to raise taxes much higher as in this global economy the rich will just move their money and their corporations out of the country and out of the tax system. It is already being done if you raise the tax rate more will do so.

where the rich move their money or corporations to. There is also the question of security and law. Imagine  Boeing being headquartered out of Havana Cuba. The US has by far the best environment for capitalism and to make sure that it remains that way the US will go to any length to create instability in all countries that compete with the US.