Oh yes. That was my brother-in-law. He has the pictures under lock and key. The fact that anyone remembers that incident warrants an elaborate heist and subsequent posting of the elusive photos.
Posted on 10/26/2004 5:03:20 PM PDT by Juan Valdez
Notice that every taxpayer earning less than $200,000 dollars received a tax cut, effectively giving them between a 1.4% to 2.6% raise in income. Remarkably, the only people seeing savings of 2% or more are those earning less than $20,000. The idea that the tax cut only helped the rich is complete falsehood.
Indeed, I was initially shocked by the data on those earning more than a million dollars (the "wealthiest 1%" of Americans are roughly all those earning over $350,000 a year). Notice that these groups are paying more in taxes under the 2002 tax code than they did in 2000! What happened to those tax breaks for the super rich?
Actually, it is a number of issues combined. It is true that the 2001 tax reform reduced the tax rate applied to almost every American. However, more and more, the richest Americans are not eligible for the same deductions and exemptions that the rest of us are. Moreover, they have a second tax to deal with, the Alternative Minimum Tax, which is becoming increasingly significant.
(Excerpt) Read more at econ.umn.edu ...
Go to the website for the full anaysis http://www.econ.umn.edu/~bplatt/Rational/TaxCuts.htm
Thanks for the ammo.
That is why Mr. Platt created this web site - good ammo for stating a rational case for our positions. He really is too smart ...
There is also a lot of sloppy thinking about what "rich" means. Income is not wealth and income taxes do not apply to wealth.People who have high incomes without much wealth are not rich. If they lose their jobs tomorrow, they are up the creek if they cannot find another job that pays as well. But these are the people who get hit with high income tax rates, often paying far higher rates than genuinely rich people.
High-tax liberals like John Kerry seldom define what they mean by "rich." When they do, it is almost always expressed in terms of income, not wealth.
The income of most Americans varies greatly over the course of their lives. Most of the people who are in the bottom 20 percent at one point are in the top 20 percent in later years.
A family income of $100,000 a year does not make you rich. A couple earning $50,000 each probably did not start out making $50,000 each. People usually work up to their peak income after many years of effort and struggle -- and they may not be that far from retirement time, when they will have to give up that income and live on their savings and pensions.
Most Americans are likely to become "rich" -- as defined by high-tax liberals -- at some point in their lives. So when liberal demagogues start talking about taxing "the rich," send not to know for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee.
I just e-mailed this to about 30 people. Take that demon-rats!
Are income taxes the only taxes people pay?
TAX CUTS - A SIMPLE LESSON IN ECONOMICS
(This story has been previously credited to David R. Kamerschen, Economics Professor at the University of Georgia, but his website states that he is not the original author, and he does not know who the author is. My mother-in-law gets kudos for forwarding it to me. --Brennan Platt) Let's put tax cuts in terms everyone can understand. Suppose that every day, ten men go out for dinner. The bill for all ten comes to $100. If they pay their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:
So, that's what they decided to do. The ten men ate dinner in the restaurant every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. "Since you are all such good customers," he said, "I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily meal by $20."
So, now dinner for ten only cost $80. The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes.
So, the first four men were unaffected. They would still eat for free. But what about the other six, the paying customers? How could they divvy up the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his "fair share"?
The six men realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being "PAID" to eat their meal.
So, the restaurant owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay. And so:
Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to eat for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings.
"I only got a dollar out of the $20," declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man - "but he got $10!"
"Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man. "I only saved a dollar, too. It's unfair that he got ten times more than me!"
"That's true!" shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get $10 back when I got only $2? The wealthy get all the breaks!"
"Wait a minute," yelled the first four men in unison. "We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!"
The nine surrounded the tenth and beat him up.
The next night the tenth man didn't show up for dinner, so the nine sat down and ate without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn't have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!
And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up at the table anymore.
We, could have used the tax cut when the wife and I were working 60 hour weeks. Still driving a 6 year old Subaru. Maybe we could have bought a send car. Didn't / couldn't with two kids in college. Personally, I think we should go back to the days when ther were no income taxes. No entitlement programs. No Social Insecurity' this country is going down the tubes faster than we can imagine. Stay tuned brothers and sisters. As my Dad used to say when I was a kid in the 1950s, "cheer up son, its' going to get worse." Sure as hell, Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society" of Medicare made it come true. Then Medicaid. The government has destroyed free-enterprise in this country. I could rant for days; so I will stop now. "Thanks for listening."
send car = second car
Good post. Let us continue to advocate a national sales tax. Such a tax would end the class warfare that Democrats have been playing for decades.
heh heh! Some of us haven't forgotten!! ;o)
Your friend who you all were trying to help wash out peanut butter and such during the camping trip.
Anyone listen to Bob Brinker? He doesn't buy the-tax-cut-for-the-rich rhetoric, but he does make a good case that the tax cut could have been better directed toward those with a higher propensity to spend.
Conspiracy theories tend to persist because there is a kernel of truth, however small. I think this is the case here as well.
thanks. This is my first post. I am still learning the ropes.
I'm all for national sales tax. Talk about simplifying the tax code!
What makes the most sense is to give tax cuts to people who will respond by imcreasing the taxable portion of their income. Unfortunately, if cutting the marginal tax rate from 50% to 33% on someone with $1,000,000 of taxable income results in them shifting their investments so as to have $1,600,000 of taxable income, liberals will complain that the measure cost even more than the $120,000 they predicted--$192,000 to be precise. Never mind that the tax cut meant the government got $528,000 in revenue instead of $500,000.
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