The Wealthy Do Pay Income Taxes

Actually, it was Nixon who caused the inflation when he ordered his FED chairman to overheat the economy so he would be reelected. If you remember, Gerry Ford tried to beat Nixon's inflation with a Trumpian slogan, WIN, Whip Inflation Now, which he put on a button rather than a hat.

 

I have never really understood why people think that economic outcomes are somehow the direct responsibility of Presidents. Which means they do not understand that IF a PotUS had an inflationary period during their administration, then it was Congress also to blame - since they voted the budget.

Moreover, let's remember what inflation is, that is, how it is generated. There are three origins:
*Demand-pull instigated by excessive Consumption, that is consumers "shop-till-they-drop causing shortages in the Supply-line and subsequent product-price rises due to scarcity.
*Inordinate expansion of the money-supply, which is the fault of the FRB that effectively "prints money" thus reducing its value and increases general pricing in a economy. And,
*Cost inflation where either shortages of input materials or exaggerated wages (and less-likely shortage of capital investment) cause price hikes and therefore general Consumer costs. Who, in turn, balk at Consumption and lay low till prices come down.

Any market-economy is amazingly complex, and it highly simplistic to blame inflationary periods on a PotUS just to blame-name politicians for electoral purposes ...

 

Actually it was the Johnson Era explosion in fixed cost government spending that caused the inflation, not febrile union label deflections re anything Republicans did, but what the Johnson Administration and a pure Democrat Congress did, the worst POTUS and Congress in US history.

The Great Society and the New Deal remain most responsible for deficit spending in the US, 50-60% of the budget (maybe more today). No amount of union label lies, deflection and projection can change that simple fact. Whatever the government spends most on is what is most responsible for deficits as a matter of fact and not opinion.

The massive explosion in spending associated with the Great Society is most responsible for the inflation, fact, not opinion.

Finally, as an aside, the Great Society was just as responsible as the Cold War arms race for the deficit and debt increases during the Reagan years.

Revising fiscal history is just as transparent in the net age as revising Democrat racial history. Lead balloon. Keep trying though, every time you do, you lose the votes of more and more honest people.

 

And after WWII the top marginal rate was 92%. We then saw the emergence of the greatest economy in history.

 

And that is the real issue. The wealth gap is absurd. This was never what the founding fathers intended.

As you say, keep going down this road and the "occupy" movement will become the "beheading of the rich" movement.

That is why the uber rich are planning to live on ship cities, at sea.

 

What is with you and all this Union bile?
I guess you hate Reagan?
Here's a Reagan quote:
"As president of my union -- the Screen Actors Guild -- I spent many hours with the late George Meany, whose love of this country and whose belief in a strong defense against all totalitarians is one of labor’s greatest legacies. One year ago today on Labor Day George Meany told the American people:

“As American workers and their families return from their summer vacations they face growing unemployment and inflation, a climate of economic anxiety and uncertainty.”

Well I pledge to you in his memory that the voice of the American worker will once again be heeded in Washington and that the climate of fear that he spoke of will no longer threaten workers and their families."

https://reaganlibrary.archives.gov/archives/reference/9.1.80.html

 

Bravo, utterly and completely unresponsive to anything I've posted in this thread, and fallacy-laden to boot. Why am I not surprised (I've read your posts)?

 

Total crap. The debt to GDP ratio declined from WWII, until Reagan.

We hardly had any debt until Reaganomics came along.

 

You're wrong. The Great Society/New Deal was the single factor most responsible for the inflation, deficits and debt, still is to this day. We were still huffing the post WW2 "we didn't get destroyed advantage" fumes until the 70s when they ran out, the economy slowed as gov spending related inflation increased. You're welcome for the education!

 

A Reagan quote "fallacy-laden"?
Priceless.

 

THE MISERY INDEX

The Misery Index was innovated by economist Arthur Okun during the Johnson administration in the 1960’s. It is a combination of the Annual inflation rate and the Seasonally Adjusted unemployment rate.

It's history looks like this:


From here: InflationData.com - extract:

Given the above, neither party has anything about which to be particularly proud. Despite whichever political-party in power, the average index over time remains about the same ...

 

Assertions and opinions...no proof...ever

 

If only economics and fiscal policy were the black and white affairs that the union label claims they are in constructing its false narratives. Then we could easily prevent crashes, inflation and other deleterious effects by simply doing whatever Democrats (public unions) want and the opposite of whatever the Republicans want to do. Unfortunately, the out of context, union label placard slogan world that cherry-picks advertising soundbites for creating resentment and disinformation in its gullible blocs is not the real world. In the real world, causality is a mud puddle, and the safest conclusion is that government overall, not Democrats or Republicans, is incompetent at almost every turn.

http://www.wwnorton.com/college/econ/ecu7/section07/case-studies.htm

The above represents a simplistic summary, but basically accurate. US fiscal and tax policy is a continuum of overlapping correlations and causes, not a spigot that turns the "good" on whenever Democrats do what they do and the "bad" on whenever Republicans do what they do. The causes of the 70s-80s inflation were multiple and overlapping, and as the above source plainly shows, the Great Society government spending was a major cause.

Today, that SS and Medicare, Medicaid and transfer programs, ALL Democrat programs created by Democrat presidents and Congress, ALL nonenumerated, illicit socialist exercises of government fiat power, together with defense spending, a legitimate, enumerated function of government (although admittedly too much $$) are the overwhelming mass of the federal budget is the reality. Therefore that our massive deficit spending and debt are a product of mostly those things is also the reality.

For proof of the general claim that government spending causes inflation, simply look to the RABID, CONSTANT denials of such by the gov-edu-union-contractor-grantee-trial lawyer-MSM Complex in its constant efforts to shift blame for its myriad errors and demonstrated incompetence and take credit for things it had no or little hand in (all the while seeking to take and spend more and more to line its own pockets and keep its graft troughs overflowing). The American people are learning to take whatever the Complex says through its union, edu and MSM arms and believe the exact opposite, a wise position to take IMO.

 

But NOBODY paid 92% or anything like it. Massive loopholes, and very high bracket to hit 92%.

 

I mean, maybe it was because the rest of the world was under a pile of rubble? Did that every cross your mind?

Also, as others have stated, literally not a single person ever paid those rates. The pre-Reagan tax shelters were unmatched in history.

 

About two standard deviations above the mean (the top ~2.5%), it essentially takes over.

The problem is, it is a statistical relationship, not a causal one. The guy making $450K might be earning all of it, while a guy making $45K might be getting all of it through privilege. That is one reason broad-based personal income tax is indefensible. The focus has to be on identifying unearned income and taxing that exclusively.

 

Flat false. It is limited by extant media, for one.

You have yet to post even ONE cite that counters the facts I have identified. Nor will you ever be doing so.

The sad part is, you actually think the infinity of numbers could be relevant to the finitude of wealth.

 

I proved you wrong.

<sigh> I already told you: the CONCEPT of wealth, like all concepts, is an abstraction, but wealth itself is a tangible thing.

Right, and it is THOSE THINGS, not the class of those things, that are concretely real and not abstractions.

Not responsive.

Blatant equivocation fallacy.

NO, I understand it far better than you.

 

Don't you love it when they do the <sigh> thing folks? I hardly ever see nonleft doing that. Always a tell they are about to try to sidestep, try to slime past getting caught in a plain inaccuracy, switch goalposts, or just flat out lie.

ROFL. "I stubbed my toe on that wealth in the den floor." "Are we out of wealth again?" "Bad dog, how many times have I told you not to dig wealth out of the trash?" "Did he forget to bring the wealth again?"

Wealth is a category, a descriptor, a class that can be used to describe and categorize tangible things. It is not ANYTHING IN ITSELF, and "wealth" is NEVER a tangible thing. Only things that can be classified under the abstract umbrella of wealth are tangible. I suppose you could make a carving of the word "wealth" and claim it was tangible, but even then, the thing that is would be a carving of the word "wealth," not wealth itself.

Wealth is also subjective, as already demonstrated and not refuted by you. You look more and more foolish and ridiculous with every hidebound post as you swirl around the toilet bowl of failure on this point. Hint for you, here or anywhere else, I don't often pick fights when the outcome is not preordained.

http://examples.yourdictionary.com/examples-of-abstract-nouns.html

"Nouns can be abstract or concrete. Concrete nouns are tangible and you can experience them with your five senses. Abstract nouns refer to intangible things, like actions,feelings, ideals, concepts and qualities."

Note that not one word on this list is a tangible thing. Neither is wealth.

Run along now, digest this lesson, and come back when you are ready for more schooling.

 

Whats it feel like to exist in the era of internet and data transfer and still live mentally in the stone age

 

Your hatred of unions and by extension middle class workers is duly noted

 

When are ANY of you people ever going to figure out that a "tax bracket", per se, doesn't mean a damned thing!

For decades, both "Fat Cat Republicans" and "Limousine Liberal Democrats" have sneered and laughed at tax "brackets" because their tax attorneys and tax accountants make certain that they pay little or nothing in taxes!

You can set a top-most tax "bracket" at 99.9% and it doesn't collect one extra penny from "the rich" -- you know why?! Because the U. S. Tax Code is absolutely stacked with tax loopholes, tax shelters, tax exclusions, and tax exemptions that the big-rich can take advantage of, but that the rest of us cannot!

President Trump is rolling out a new tax code idea, but I am skeptical. He SAYS that he will eliminate all tax loopholes and shelters down to two:

1. Donations to 'charitable' institutions
2. Home Mortgage Interest deductions

Frankly, I don't believe it. Sorry. I voted for Trump (mainly to protect the Supreme Court from any more hyperliberal sewage like Obama gave us in the form of Sotomayor and Kagan). Armies of lobbyists representing both "Fat Cat Republicans" AND "Limousine Liberal Democrats" will pour into Capital now like a tidal wave, intent on making certain that their clients get to continue NOT paying anything close a "fair share" of taxation. Watch and see....

."Hi, Senator, want to see some photos we took of you and your 'aide' last summer?"

 

All your saying is that we should get rid of tax loopholes. Great.

But the fact remains when that top tax bracket was slashed in half..tax revenues nosedived/

Oh and if your argument holds water...why are so many of the rich WHINING about high tax brackets?

 

Wrong as usual.