Hey Republifucks!

[prole]

Guess tax cuts really don't work.

 

From Obama, the Tax Cut Nobody Heard Of

 

HUNTERSVILLE, N.C. — What if a president cut Americans’ income taxes by $116 billion and nobody noticed?

 

It is not a rhetorical question. At Pig Pickin’ and Politickin’, a barbecue-fed rally organized here last week by a Republican women’s club, a half-dozen guests were asked by a reporter what had happened to their taxes since President Obama took office.

 

“Federal and state have both gone up,” said Bob Paratore, 59, from nearby Charlotte, echoing the comments of others.

 

After further prodding — including a reminder that a provision of the stimulus bill had cut taxes for 95 percent of working families by changing withholding rates — Mr. Paratore’s memory was jogged.

 

“You’re right, you’re right,” he said. “I’ll be honest with you: it was so subtle that personally, I didn’t notice it.”

 

Few people apparently did.

 

In a troubling sign for Democrats as they head into the midterm elections, their signature tax cut of the past two years, which decreased income taxes by up to $400 a year for individuals and $800 for married couples, has gone largely unnoticed.

 

In a New York Times/CBS News Poll last month, fewer than one in 10 respondents knew that the Obama administration had lowered taxes for most Americans. Half of those polled said they thought that their taxes had stayed the same, a third thought that their taxes had gone up, and about a tenth said they did not know. As Thom Tillis, a Republican state representative, put it as the dinner wound down here, “This was the tax cut that fell in the woods — nobody heard it.”

 

Actually, the tax cut was, by design, hard to notice. Faced with evidence that people were more likely to save than spend the tax rebate checks they received during the Bush administration, the Obama administration decided to take a different tack: it arranged for less tax money to be withheld from people’s paychecks.

 

They reasoned that people would be more likely to spend a small, recurring extra bit of money that they might not even notice, and that the quicker the money was spent, the faster it would cycle through the economy.

 

Economists are still measuring how stimulative the tax cut was. But the hard-to-notice part has succeeded wildly. In a recent interview, President Obama said that structuring the tax cuts so that a little more money showed up regularly in people’s paychecks “was the right thing to do economically, but politically it meant that nobody knew that they were getting a tax cut.”

 

“And in fact what ended up happening was six months into it, or nine months into it,” the president said, “people had thought we had raised their taxes instead of cutting their taxes.”

 

There are plenty of explanations as to why many taxpayers did not feel richer when the cuts kicked in, giving typical families an extra $65 a month. Some people were making less money to begin with, as businesses cut back. Others saw their take-home pay shrink as the amounts deducted for health insurance rose.

 

And taxpayers in more than 30 states saw their state taxes rise, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

 

That is what happened here in North Carolina. The Treasury Department estimated that the federal tax cut would put $1.7 billion back in the hands of North Carolina taxpayers this year. Last year, though, North Carolina, facing a large budget shortfall, raised a variety of state taxes by roughly a billion dollars.

 

“It was a wash,” said Mr. Tillis, the state representative.

 

The guests at the Pig Pickin’ rally here could rattle off the names of the House speaker and the Senate majority leader with ease, if with disdain, and were up on many of the political controversies of the day. They studied the campaign fliers at their tables, and pocketed the 1.5-ounce jars of strawberry preserves with special labels urging them to vote for Judge Bill Constangy for Superior Court (“Preserving Justice,” the labels read).

 

Many volunteered that they thought the Bush tax cuts should be extended for all taxpayers, even for the wealthy ones whom Mr. Obama would like to exclude. But few had heard that there had also been Obama tax cuts — which will also expire next year unless extended, but have generated far less public debate.

 

Bob Deaton, 73, who wore a “Fair Tax” baseball cap, was surprised to hear that there were tax cuts in the $787 billion stimulus bill, which was wildly unpopular with many at the rally even though roughly a third of it was in the form of tax cuts.

 

“Tax cuts?” he asked. “Where were the tax cuts?”

 

Ron Julian, 50, a Huntersville town commissioner, said he thought his taxes had gone up under Mr. Obama. And Mr. Paratore, a former Hearst executive, said he might have noticed the tax cuts if his paycheck had jumped more in the weeks before he retired last year: “I couldn’t even tell you what it was, to be honest with you.”

 

The Obama administration wants to extend the little-noticed tax cut next year. Jason Furman, the deputy director of the National Economic Council, said the administration still believes that changing the withholdings was a more effective form of stimulus than sending out rebate checks would have been.

 

“In retrospect, we think that judgment was right,” he said. “It’s harder to predict what’s good for politics. Ultimately, the best thing for politics is going to be helping the economy.”

 

But at least one prominent economist is questioning whether the method really was more effective. Joel B. Slemrod, a professor of economics at the University of Michigan, analyzed consumer surveys after the last rebate checks were sent out in 2008 by the Bush administration, and after this tax cut, called Making Work Pay, went into effect under the Obama administration.

 

After the 2008 rebates, he found that about a quarter of the households surveyed said they would use the money primarily to increase their spending. After the Obama tax cut took effect, he said, only 13 percent said they would use the money primarily to increase their spending. The Obama administration believes that people did spend the money, and cites analyses calling the cut one of the more effective forms of stimulus.

 

Mr. Slemrod said it was not unheard of for voters to miss tax cuts. Just a few years after a 1986 overhaul of the tax system made significant cuts to most people’s taxes, he said, a survey asked people what had happened to their taxes. “Most people didn’t answer that they went down,” he said. --from NYT 10/19/10

[billcoe]

Stop with the bullshit tax cuts, cut the g-damn out of control borrowing and spending. Most rational citizens were hoping that we could get that last borrow and spend Republican out of office and finally get the budget under control. Instead - it's like a rabid runaway weasel that's about to flop over dead from overexertion.

 

Stop with the massive borrowing from the Chinese and needless spending. It's not a "republifuck" or a "demofuck" issue, its an American one that's is taking our country down a toilet in a bi-partisan manner. I blame the last asshole more than this one but it doesn't change a fucking thing does it?

[prole]

Hey in case you didn't notice, it's election season! That means it's time to put your bipartisan critique aside, bust a chad, mail back the little envelope and choose the lesser of evil toothpaste/toilet bowl cleaner/carbonated beverage/politician of your choice. Didn't you go to elementary school? Don't you understand civic duty? This system works, baby! It's a marketplace of ideas and if you don't get that then just stay the fuck out of the way of this democracy train!

[prole]

By the way Bill, I'm real glad you have a slate of candidates running in your district that represent the views you've articulated above. That's great.

[kevbone]

Stop with the massive borrowing from the Chinese and needless spending. It's not a "republifuck" or a "demofuck" issue, its an American one that's is taking our country down a toilet in a bi-partisan manner. I blame the last asshole more than this one but it doesn't change a fucking thing does it?

 

[j_b]

Stop with the bullshit tax cuts

 

I knew you'd eventually understand that a balanced budget depends on revenue as well as expense.

 

 

cut the g-damn out of control borrowing and spending. Most rational citizens were hoping that we could get that last borrow and spend Republican out of office and finally get the budget under control.

 

actually, despite claims by the corporate media and their toadies, the deficit ranks quite low on Americans' concern list. Creating jobs and the economy is the order of the day for most and only government spending money on infrastructure can do it since it is also pretty clear by now that corporations have no intention of investing into good jobs.

 

Stop with the massive borrowing from the Chinese and needless spending.

 

right, let's slash the war budget, the war on drugs and the attenting jail industrial complex, get rid of tax breaks for the wealthy and corporations that don't reinvest in the economy to start with.

[rob]

 

right, let's slash the war budget, the war on drugs and the attenting jail industrial complex, get rid of tax breaks for the wealthy and corporations that don't reinvest in the economy to start with.

 

+1

[billcoe]

I knew you'd eventually understand that a balanced budget depends on revenue as well as expense.

 

I have not changed my position on this. It is perhaps the first time you have read past my first 3 words? In fact jb, when I say I want smaller government and lower expenditures, I believe that you read that to be "NO" government and you generally start your response with an insult followed by a full post of an example where gov't has done good. Not the case, never said it, don't believe that no gov't is small gov't or less intrusive gov't. Go back and read up. In fact there is nothing in your last line I disagree with. That Robert Gates can snap his fingers and yoink out 30 billion....that's BILLION dollars 30,000,000,000.00 out of the defense appropriations bill, seems to indicate that unlike Britain, which has chosen to NOT use their newest aircraft carrier to launch any aircraft but to put it directly into permanent mothballs, no one here has looked very hard at slashing anything military and that's the largest place to start. Concerning the loss of American mfg jobs, I personally see it and feel it in my bank account. I've seen bipartisan efforts at free trade agreements going back a long way, certainly Clinton with NAFTA and China agreements is in there with any repub on free trade issues. I don't know what to do about it as I generally have seen many examples over the years wherein free trade benefits all parties.

 

Moving on, as I said earlier, I am happy that President Obama has publicly announced that getting the deficit lower (didn't say balancing anything that I have seen) is becoming an issue. Hopefully the truck gets the brakes put on before it's too late and it goes over the cliff.

 

Regards to all...no matter if you voted republifuck, demofuck or libertarfuck. I've done all in my time as I've posted here previous.

[prole]

 

right, let's slash the war budget, the war on drugs and the attenting jail industrial complex, get rid of tax breaks for the wealthy and corporations that don't reinvest in the economy to start with.

 

+1

 

Who's running on this platform?

[j_b]

Nobody who is getting significant airtime that's for sure.

 

The green party has perhaps a platform close to it these days?

[j_b]

Bill - For 30+ years, rhetoric against big government spending has been the privilege of sociopaths who have plundered the treasury, and made sure that revenues weren't sufficient, in order to "drown government in a bathtub". All the while, they switched the tax burden onto wage earners while they raised local regressive taxes and pay-to-play fees. Rhetoric against "big government" spending always reaches a crescendo when advocates of social fairness try to implement measures to that effect while it hardly ever comes up when these sociopaths turn into budget busting warmongers/tax breaks for the wealthy. Reducing the deficit has become code word for slashing the public sector and social programs in order to implement the neoliberal/libertarian vision of limited government. Regressives are trying to seize the opportunity presented by this crisis to implement "shock therapy" (privatization and deregulation) that will strengthen the stranglehold of corporatism on society

[billcoe]

No question. Have you seen the recent deals that the big 4 banks have worked out? You'll see it coming up on the profit and loss statements soon. Citi just reported. The TARP money that they got from us with no interest got loaned out to overseas banks at interest and the banks are very happy at the transfer of wealth from your pockets to theirs. Once they get the wealth concentrated too much, sadly, it's gonna be a scorched earth thing as the economy tanks.

 

It's one of the reasons I'm a "gun nut" jb, because franky, I trust you and people like you with weapons and the power those weapons represent, sight unseen, more than any power hungry politician or a massive backdealing group of corporations trying to influence the politicians.

[KaskadskyjKozak]

It's one of the reasons I'm a "gun nut" jb, because franky, I trust you and people like you with weapons

 

[prole]

It's one of the reasons I'm a "gun nut" jb, because franky, I trust you and people like you with weapons and the power those weapons represent, sight unseen, more than any power hungry politician or a massive backdealing group of corporations trying to influence the politicians.

 

Huh?