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Do you support cutting taxes, even if it increases the deficit?

Do you support cutting taxes, even if it increases the deficit and debt?


  • Total voters
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Obviously you have fallen for the MSM lie that tax cuts are only for the rich. The top 1% federal tax rate increased from 22.2% to 26.3% . The top 50% of all federal tax payers paid 97.7% of all federal taxes while the bottom 50% paid 2.3%.
This the truth:

The reason you don't see a reduction in the deficit is because when congress (both parties) when they see extra money they spend it. But you been duped by your own party and the MSM big lie tax cuts are only for the wealthy.

With all due respect to the author of the tax foundation organization, and a writer at discourse magazine, the economics profession as a whole says this is snake oil nonsense.

This trope began in the first Reagan term when they picked up on "the Laffer Curve", a hypothetical curve that showed after crossing a certain marginal tax rate, the incentives created by reducing that rate would pay for itself, as well as produce a surplus.

This was a pivotal moment in evolution of American conservative views - the notion that balanced budgets were very important was now old fashioned conservatism. Reagan loved the new idea because it no longer required drastic cuts in sensitive programs that would cause public outrage, NOR tax increases that would alienate his voters. It was the start of fiscal magical thinking on the right, and the birth of a myth based on an idea...not on empirical proof.

Mind you no one disputes that at extremely high marginal rates, such as the 80 percent average rate once imposed in Sweden, in theory could disincentivize the economy such that a cut might create a net gain in tax revenue. But NO ONE had evidence that the US was on that side of the Laffer curve. And the experience and studies since then by economists, liberal and conservative, have only confirmed the view that this is "snake oil" (Greg Mankiw, prior Republican Chair of Economic Advisors).

As Mankiw has suggested, a tax cut most likely does pay for "part" of itself in increased GDP, but it is still a serious net loss.

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To be clear, tax cuts especially on high income earners, can stimulate growth - a useful strategy if one uses a tax cut early enough in a recession. However, whatever benefits that are derived (eg softening the bottom) isn't cost free, and will add to the deficit.

By the way, folks should note we are entering a second phase economic snake oil for "conservatives" who desire magical thinking, that of tariffs. Second wave revisionist conservatism is even more absurd than the first under Reagan; Laffer, is an ardent free traders; as such, these views are well within the mainstream of modern economics. Since Adam Smith most economists have come to believe that international trade is win-win. Unlike Trump, they reject the idea that a trade imbalance means that one nation must be the winner and the other the loser, and they supported the North American Free Trade Agreement (nafta), and international organizations, such as the World Trade Organization, that reduce trade barriers around the world.

Sadly, conservative fiscal policy informed by economics is no longer a part of MAGA conservatism. Populist magical thinking is now following two false gods: tax cuts and tariffs. And like all magical thinking (eg William Jennings Bryans) is yet another step backwards into ignorances long thought dead.
 
Why shouldn't the government budget be run like a household budget? Same principle. You have x amount of $$ coming in a month, so you can only spend so much. You can put some things on credit, but not too much, and that needs to be paid off before it gets out of hand. Alot of it needs to be spent on your kids, and maybe you have to help your disabled brother out who can't work or support himself. No spending that is frivolous. How in the hell did our country get this friggin broke?????

I think the government's budget is nothing like a household budget, and we shouldn't think of it like a household budget.
 
What kind of government services are middle-class people getting, besides basic infastructure that our taxes pay for? I'd like to know what I'm missing out on.
Turtle always used to pose that question, only he framed it for his (upper) class.

Good times.
 
What kind of government services are middle-class people getting, besides basic infastructure that our taxes pay for? I'd like to know what I'm missing out on.

I see you live in Idaho. Are you out in the sticks or near one of the bigger towns? How long is your drive to the nearest ER right now? What kind of insurance have you got? Medicaid, Medicare, job coverage, something else? Got any parents or in-laws in a nursing home that leans on Medicaid? Working, disabled, or retired? Are you working steady hours or bouncing between gigs? What’s the household take-home pay? Could you stay insured if the state boots folks from its Medicaid expansion coverage? Do you have kids now or hope to soon? Would losing local maternity care mess with that plan? Have you or the kids used Medicaid or that Healthy Connections program lately? Do any of your kids get speech or therapy at school paid for by Medicaid? And, finally, do you or your neighbors work at the clinic or hospital and what happens to the town if that place cuts services or shuts its doors?






 
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What kind of government services are middle-class people getting, besides basic infastructure that our taxes pay for? I'd like to know what I'm missing out on.

More questions for you:

Do you live out where the county still has gravel roads or closer to the interstate, and how are the road conditions? Are your kids in public school? Do you have a teenager eyeing college? Does anyone in the house depend on reliable broadband for remote work or online classes? Does your phone/cable/internet company have any plans to expand speed and access? Do you own a place in a wildfire prone area? Do you live near the Portneuf River? Do you or neighbors have jobs tied to the Forest Service, or a local school district? Are you counting on community programs like after-school tutoring?








 
I think the government's budget is nothing like a household budget, and we shouldn't think of it like a household budget.
Our government has certain things to pay for, and a certain amount of money to pay for them with. Seems pretty straightforward.
 
More questions for you:

Do you live out where the county still has gravel roads or closer to the interstate, and how are the road conditions? Are your kids in public school? Do you have a teenager eyeing college? Does anyone in the house depend on reliable broadband for remote work or online classes? Does your phone/cable/internet company have any plans to expand speed and access? Do you own a place in a wildfire prone area? Do you live near the Portneuf River? Do you or neighbors have jobs tied to the Forest Service, or a local school district? Are you counting on community programs like after-school tutoring?








Roads---paid for with taxes and DMV fees and federal subsidies/TAXPAYER dollars.
College aid/FASFA----taxes
Phone service? I pay the phone company. The government doesnt give that to me for free. The government may subsidize some phone and internet infastructure.....with TAX dollars.
Firefighters--taxes
Disaster aid/FEMA-----taxes
Forest Service----taxes
Schools----property taxes and Federal dollars/TAXES.
Tutoring??? Taxes or volunteers.

All of that is basic infastructure that taxes pay for. And the last time I checked, internet isn't free. So with all of those articles you linked, now basically what you said there is that citizens arent even getting what their taxes are paying for?
And I would still like to know about these middle class programs I'm getting that arent either locally or nationally taxpayer-funded.
 
I see you live in Idaho. Are you out in the sticks or near one of the bigger towns? How long is your drive to the nearest ER right now? What kind of insurance have you got? Medicaid, Medicare, job coverage, something else? Got any parents or in-laws in a nursing home that leans on Medicaid? Working, disabled, or retired? Are you working steady hours or bouncing between gigs? What’s the household take-home pay? Could you stay insured if the state boots folks from its Medicaid expansion coverage? Do you have kids now or hope to soon? Would losing local maternity care mess with that plan? Have you or the kids used Medicaid or that Healthy Connections program lately? Do any of your kids get speech or therapy at school paid for by Medicaid? And, finally, do you or your neighbors work at the clinic or hospital and what happens to the town if that place cuts services or shuts its doors?







We live in a semi-rural area northwest of Boise.
We have an ER/urgent care/multiple specialty medical building literally right down the street from us.
Between my wife and I, all of our parents have passed.
Our kids are both in their early 30's, successful, and we have 4 grandkids. My daughter is actually a special education teacher with a master's degree.
You dont need to know how much my wife and I make.
We have excellent insurance through the company I work for.
I really don't understand why this is important.
The U.S. has social safety net programs and also funds national, and sometimes helps fund more localized infastructure. This is all paid for with taxpayer dollars, of which there seems to not be enough. What is the controversy here? We need more tax revenue. I get it. It is my opinion that the middle class is taxed enough already. We need to find other means to both raise tax revenue and cut costs. Very simple. I am all for NOT giving rich people tax cuts.
 
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Our government has certain things to pay for, and a certain amount of money to pay for them with. Seems pretty straightforward.

Comparing the federal budget to a family budget seems "straightforward" but it hides big differences and can lead to bad policy.

A family has to live within its paycheck because it cant print money, raise taxes, or borrow forever, and its choices mostly effect itself. A goverment can create its own currency, adjust taxes, and issue bonds, and its spending affects jobs, prices, and growth for the whole country.

If our elected officials slash public spending during a recession, like a family might cut eating out when cashs tight, they pull money out of the economy and make the downturn worse.

Government borrowing often pays for roads, schools, or research that help everyone for decades. On the other hand familly debt usually covers private needs.

Because the power dynamics, goals, and ripple effects are so different, using kitchen-table type analogies for our country's finances can sometimes encourage officials to make short sighted cuts instead of smart investments that keep the economy healthy in the long run.

Let me give you some extreme examples of when huge spending is necessary. If some foreign country tried to invade us for instance, and we needed to spend a lot and incur debt to build the army required to expel the invaders, we need to spend a lot of money, and greatly increase debt, because to not do so would lead to our doom.
 
Comparing the federal budget to a family budget seems "straightforward" but it hides big differences and can lead to bad policy.

A family has to live within its paycheck because it cant print money, raise taxes, or borrow forever, and its choices mostly effect itself. A goverment can create its own currency, adjust taxes, and issue bonds, and its spending affects jobs, prices, and growth for the whole country.

If our elected officials slash public spending during a recession, like a family might cut eating out when cashs tight, they pull money out of the economy and make the downturn worse.

Government borrowing often pays for roads, schools, or research that help everyone for decades. On the other hand familly debt usually covers private needs.

Because the power dynamics, goals, and ripple effects are so different, using kitchen-table type analogies for our country's finances can sometimes encourage officials to make short sighted cuts instead of smart investments that keep the economy healthy in the long run.

Let me give you some extreme examples of when huge spending is necessary. If some foreign country tried to invade us for instance, and we needed to spend a lot and incur debt to build the army required to expel the invaders, we need to spend a lot of money, and greatly increase debt, because to not do so would lead to our doom.
cant print money
The government shouldn't do that either
borrow forever,
The government can always borrow, but at interim points it all needs to be paid back in full for a zero balance. Thus no deficit.
 
We live in a semi-rural area northwest of Boise.
We have an ER/urgent care/multiple specialty medical building literally right down the street from us.
Between my wife and I, all of our parents have passed.
Our kids are both in their early 30's, successful, and we have 4 grandkids. My daughter is actually a special education teacher with a master's degree.
You dont need to know how much my wife and I make.
We have excellent insurance through the company I work for.
I really don't understand why this is important.

Eeven if you don’t feel personally invested in Medicaid or Medicare, the cuts will still reach you indreictly . Clinics in Idaho stay afloat partly because Medicaid reimburses them, so when that money dries up, semi-rural facilities cut hours, lose specialists, or drop whole service areas, etc. hopefully this won't impact you.

Your daughters special ed classroom relies on Medicaid funds for speech, occupational, and other therapies, and deep education cuts to dept of education will also make her job much tougher and her students support thinner.

You and your wife will also be moving onto Medicare just as physician payments are shrinking, and rural doctors are warning that these reductions are already "devastating" which means that in ten years you could face longer drives and fewer options when you need care most.

The U.S. has social safety net programs and also funds national, and sometimes helps fund more localized infastructure. This is all paid for with taxpayer dollars, of which there seems to not be enough. What is the controversy here? We need more tax revenue. I get it. It is my opinion that the middle class is taxed enough already. We need to find other means to both raise tax revenue and cut costs. Very simple. I am all for NOT giving rich people tax cuts.

Well, it looks like we agree with each other!
 
The government shouldn't do that either

It depends on the situation.

The government can always borrow, but at interim points it all needs to be paid back in full for a zero balance. Thus no deficit.

It never needs to be paid back to zero balance. There is no logical reason why we can't have 500b debt, 1 trillion debt or 30 trillion debt, or a 500b surplus, or 1 trillion surplus, or 30 trillion surplus. Some particular level of debt doesnt matter, what matters is the what the debt is paying for, or how the debt constricts our future choices. But there are some times when taking on more debt is useful, practical, necessary.

I think right now the debt is too high and we need to tax rich people to bring it down rather than giving them more tax cuts.
 
Roads---paid for with taxes and DMV fees and federal subsidies/TAXPAYER dollars.
College aid/FASFA----taxes
Phone service? I pay the phone company. The government doesnt give that to me for free. The government may subsidize some phone and internet infastructure.....with TAX dollars.
Firefighters--taxes
Disaster aid/FEMA-----taxes
Forest Service----taxes
Schools----property taxes and Federal dollars/TAXES.
Tutoring??? Taxes or volunteers.

All of that is basic infastructure that taxes pay for. And the last time I checked, internet isn't free. So with all of those articles you linked, now basically what you said there is that citizens arent even getting what their taxes are paying for?
And I would still like to know about these middle class programs I'm getting that arent either locally or nationally taxpayer-funded.

So, you asked me how federal spending helps you personally:

"What kind of government services are middle-class people getting, besides basic infastructure that our taxes pay for? I'd like to know what I'm missing out on."

and so what I did was look up all the stuff the government does to help Idaho and I thought about how someone who probably making a good living and in the middle class benefits from government spending. If you dont value these things, or think state and local government should shoulder all the burden (good luck with that in Idaho! Lol), okay fine, vote for Republicans who will eleminate all this spending and give tax cuts to the rich despite our huge debt. But you asked, I answered.

The things the government does that are important are like basically insuring against catastrophic loss (FEMA), or helping people on the margins (disabled, elderly), and the government helps where it can in other ways (student loans). Or the government invests in the future (basic scientific research) in ways commercial/private industry cannot or will not. These are all useful things the government does that Republicans want to utterly destroy.
 
According to the polls, 60% of Americans support cutting taxes, even if it means higher deficit. 74% of Republicans support this. 55% of Democrats oppose cutting taxes, even if it means higher deficit. Back in 1996, only 23% of Americans supported lowering taxes, if it means higher debt.

You can watch Harry Enten's analysis below:



How about you? Do you support deficit inducing tax cuts?

I think its stupid to consider cutting taxes to be increasing the deficit. Odd scoring by CBO

That's weird.
 
good luck with that in Idaho!
Idaho has State taxes, and although the infastructure is lagging behind due to explosive growth here ( lots of people want to live here, imagine that ) it's catching up. And my property taxes just went up, and there will be a bond initiative on our November ballot trying to raise them again.
 
Idaho has State taxes, and although the infastructure is lagging behind due to explosive growth here ( lots of people want to live here, imagine that ) it's catching up. And my property taxes just went up, and there will be a bond initiative on our November ballot trying to raise them again.

Okay, I was hearing opposite. Good to know.
 
I think its stupid to consider cutting taxes to be increasing the deficit. Odd scoring by CBO

That's weird.
That is, without doubt, the absolutely stupidest post I've read today. This is, literally, elementary math. The first thing taught after addition, typically by kindergarten, is subtraction. Let me test your knowledge:

2+2=4, right?
2-2=0, right?
Now here's the tough one:
2-4=?
 
Why shouldn't the government budget be run like a household budget? Same principle. You have x amount of $$ coming in a month, so you can only spend so much. You can put some things on credit, but not too much, and that needs to be paid off before it gets out of hand. Alot of it needs to be spent on your kids, and maybe you have to help your disabled brother out who can't work or support himself. No spending that is frivolous. How in the hell did our country get this friggin broke?????
Simple: it's not. That's the source of most of the stupidity in this thread. Do you have a mortgage? I suspect that your mortgage exceeds your income. If not, why do you have one?
 
Simple: it's not. That's the source of most of the stupidity in this thread. Do you have a mortgage? I suspect that your mortgage exceeds your income. If not, why do you have one?
Eventually my mortgage will be paid off. My wife and I will be debt free very soon. Will our government even be able to reduce the deficit?
 
Eventually my mortgage will be paid off. My wife and I will be debt free very soon. Will our government even be able to reduce the deficit?
Do you have any idea whether that matters? Seriously. During the most successful three decades of the last century, we ran a deficit in 26 of 34 years, and still reduced the national debt. Your question is actually erroneous. Like many others, you fail to distinguish between debt and deficit - significantly different concepts.

Here's the reality: reducing the debt occurs when the economy grows, as it does each year. The best way to reduce the national debt is to grow the economy. The best way to grow the economy is to spend wisely and not cripple the government with idiotic tax cuts.

 
It is a mathematical impossibility to collect more of something by collecting it at a lower percentage.

It is dynamically possible to increase tax revenues by lower the tax rate as was actually demonstrated hitting double digit increases after the Gingrich/Kasich and Bush43/Rep Congress, still the subject of the thread about supporting cutting taxes. This after has been demonstrated to you over and over the Clinton tax rate increase slowed the growth of federal tax revenues. You 6th grade civics class does not serve you well.
 
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