The Game They Play: Since it's after midnight, we just voted to CUT taxes

I am interested in discussing policy. You don’t discuss. You lecture. For example:

“The fact that you hate the people who, through their actions, have saved you from the reality that you never even seemed to recognize, and will now refuse to acknowledge, is certainly part of the reason that the political class isn’t responding.”

I don’t hate these worthless politicians. I want them removed form office. What exactly is this reality? Hmm? Tax cuts were passed but they could not be made permanent basis because some politicians just couldn’t bear giving a tax cut to the “rich.” I remember who they were. McCain, Voinovich, Dewine, Specter, Snowe, Collins, and perhaps a few I can’t remember. Had they been conservatives and voted for it, there would never have been any “temporary” as you say, tax cuts. No tax cut had ever before expired, or any tax increase either. I wish tax increases would expire. Many times in the last decade, votes were brought up to make the tax cuts permanent but were continually killed by democrats and moderate republicans. Because they wanted them to expire. And according to you, I am supposed to bend my knee before them because in your mind, they’re heroes who have “saved” me from a reality that they themselves brought about. Boehner and McConnell and the rest brought us to this point intentionally. Have you noticed that they keep having these things expire around the holidays, and not the Fiscal year end? And next Christmas we’ll have the same thing, with people crying about their unemployment extensions expiring. I want politicians like Boehner and McConnell removed from office. They’re schemes and manipulative games are destroying this country.

I’d discuss things, but once you started name-calling (for example “spouting off like some emotional democrat”), and then pretended that you didn’t, it no longer seemed productive.

Which seems a good choice, since now you have decided to put words in my mouth (for example,”according to you, I am supposed to bend my knee before them”), to have an argument with yourself, which you probably think you are more likely to win.

The reason the 2001 tax cuts were temporary was because the republicans didn’t believe they could get 60 votes in the Senate, which would be required to violate the PayGo rules, because they didn’t want to propose spending cuts sufficient to make the tax cuts paid for.

But I certainly don’t defend the actions of those in 2001 — I merely point out that they are a fact, a fact you certainly acknowledge. Which means that you at least intellectually understand that the bill just passed decreases the tax rates from current law, which, as you also acknowledged in your vanity (”Because technically, they didn’t”). Your mistake was to claim they “let the taxes go up” — when they passed a bill to stop it, which wouldn’t pass the senate.

You seem to believe in a magical world where democrats just do what we want.

Somewhere in all your ranting, you had a real argument — it appears you believe that there were not 218 republicans in the house who would vote for permanent bush tax cuts. Unfortunately, if that was your argument, since they actually DID vote for that, you have no evidence to support that argument. If that wasn’t your argument, then you clearly haven’t done a good job of expressing your complaint.

And my argument with your vanity post is that it is not a subterfuge. They just passed a permanent income tax cut for EVERY taxpayer (people like to ignore that even the top wage earners will pay the lower tax rate for the amount they make up to $400,000).

Sure, it would be better to have made all tax cuts permanent. Actually, we’d be better off if they had actually lowered all the tax rates further.

But that doesn’t change the fact that you just got a tax cut, whether you feel you did or not. If they had not passed the bill, you would be paying higher taxes.

And I guess you’d be railing against how they surreptitiously raised your taxes by voting against the bill.

Or maybe you wanted your taxes to go up.

You started this vanity thread calling those who voted for the bill worthless, and claiming they were sneaky and gutless.

You ignore that all of these republicans voted for a bill that would have continued the bush tax cuts. The democratic senate wouldn’t vote on it. There was no chance for them to ever vote to replace the current law with a law that made things permanent.

Then you ignore that under current law, taxes went up for everybody, and instead proclaim it “subterfuge” that they “wait” until now — when the bill they voted on didn’t exist until Sunday.

In your remaining “discussion” assuming you are talking about 2001, yes there was republican opposition, but there was also democrat opposition,

Keep sipping the kool-aid. I sincerely hope that your taxes this year are less than they were last year based on the same amount of pay. I know mine will not be. And I know who is responsible and will not be fooled by their technocratic arguments.

Your income taxes will be lower this year than last year, if you actually make the same amount.

That is because the cutoffs for each tax rate is increased each year for inflation, so a few thousand dollars of money you make will end up being taxes in one of the lower brackets.

If your pay went up by the official government inflation rate, theoretically your total income tax will remain identical to last year.

Your total taxes you pay this year will likely be much higher. First, because you are no longer getting an ineffectual “stimulus” payment in the form of a 2% tax holiday on SS payroll taxes, and second because you are likely to be hit by various taxes in Obamacare.

Further, because of Obamacare and other tax increases, businesses will be raising their prices, so you will pay more for various services and products.

But one thing is clear. Whatever you pay in taxes this year, that amount will be LESS than what you were slated to pay under the law as it existed at noon on January 1, 2013.

And I know who is responsible for that.

BTW, even if you make more than $400,000 a year, your income tax will be less now then it would have been based on the law as it existed on noon of January 1, 2013 — because while your top tax rate was not reduced, the first $400,000 of your money will be taxed at lower rates now than it would have been (unfortunately, at some point the new rules on deductions will wipe out that gain — if you make that much, then yes, your income taxes actually went up with this bill).

According to the Congressional Budget Office, the bill they just signed will increase the debt by 3.6 trillion dollars over the next 10 years. That is the amount, using static scoring, of taxes that will NOT be collected because of the passing of this bill.

I wonder — if they simply voted again to continue ALL the bush tax cuts, and the senate had again ignored it, who would you be blaming today for your much higher taxes?

“I wonder — if they simply voted again to continue ALL the bush tax cuts, and the senate had again ignored it, who would you be blaming today for your much higher taxes?”

I would be blaming those actually responsible: the moderate republicans who forced tax cuts to be temporary in the first place and the democrats and moderate republicans who continually blocked them from being made permanent.

What if that original group in 2001 had passed a bill that permanently lowered the tax rates for all the existing tax brackets, and added a new top tax rate identical to the old top tax rate, but which applied to a much higher level of income, like $330,000 instead of the $230,000 in existing law?

Would you have blamed them for not reducing it further, or would that have met your criteria for a tax cut?

Because it seems now that you are blaming the current group for permanently passing a bill that isn’t quite as good as the temporary bill that you would fault others for.

Why will you not fault everybody for not passing a bill in 2001 that set the top tax rate permanently to 30%? Or do you think that the 2001 tax rates were perfect?

Your question is irrelevent. The purpose at the time was to reduce taxes on all Americans who paid taxes.

But to answer your question, in my mind the federal government should not take any more than at least a third of anybody’s income. I would argue that it should be no more than a fourth. I remember Bush at the time wanted to lower the top rate to 33% but that was just too low for Voinovich and Specter etc. So they settled on 36%. I think that’s too high, but they got it as low as they could, though Reagan got it to 28%.