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Originally Posted by catawba
Sorry, didn't realize we were no longer discussing the OP.
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I was discussing a tangential matter, as evidenced by the quote to which I was responding (prior to your response to that).
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Originally Posted by catawba
Why would corporate tax increase be of much concern. 60% of the corporations were avoiding taxes through loopholes anyway, with such things as the "retention bonuses" much in the news today! The concern is to close those loopholes!
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I cannot dispute your numbers; nor can I verify them.
As a right-wing populist, I can assure you that I have no love for large corporations, or for those who profit hugely from them. But neither do I care for the idea of a system that approaches the European model; which is to say, democratic socialism. (In fact, of the two, I would much prefer the former.)
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Originally Posted by catawba
Letting the Bush tax cut expire in 2010 means we return to the socialistic days of Clinton when the tax rate was 39.6 % versus the capitalistic rate of 35% under Bush's tax cut. Spin that however you wish but don't forget to factor in the real socialist part of our history when the tax rate for the wealthy averaged 80%, from 1940 until 1980!
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I have never described the Clinton-era top marginal rate of 39.6 percent as "socialistic"; so that is a red herring.
Certainly, the top rate of earlier times--which ranged between 91 and 92 percent between the years 1951-1963, and was as high as 94 percent near the end of WWII--was clearly confiscatory:
http://www.truthandpolitics.org/top-rates.php
Higher marginal rates do not automatically produce a greater revenue stream to the government. There is--somewhere--a point of diminishing returns, beyond which higher rates simply depress economic activity, and actually
reduce government receipts.
I confess that I am not smart enough to know precisely the point at which this optimum point occurs.
Nonetheless, one should be very wary about beginning with the bold assumption that an increase in rates will necessarily yield more in tax receipts.