Americans Paid $90 Billion MORE In Taxes After Republican Tax Cut

[LV426]

xcept everybody who would get laid off as a result of those cuts. All their spending would be subtracted from the GDP, and so would the revenue generated from them paying income tax.

A very salient point that never gets the credit it deserves.

If you subtract government spending from the economy, what are you replacing that spending with? Conservatives seem to think that it's 1:1; that somehow, magically, consumers with their tax cut will fill in the demand that is lost from the cutting of government spending (which is $3T of a $20T economy).

If you're not replacing the government spending with an equal amount of "private" spending, then you're contracting the economy.

 

[PoliTalker]

Hello Flash,

Consumer spending is the biggest part of the economy and the wealthy are responsible for 60% of consumer spending.

I'd like to see some supporting data for that if you have it. It was my understanding that most consumer spending is generated by the not rich.

One day people are claiming the wealthy don't spend their money and the next they are criticized for buying another new car or house.

I think the claim was that most of the money the rich earn is not spent, and is instead saved, but the poor spend nearly 100% of what they get, and are unable to save anything. This effect is the justification for preferring to get money into the hands of the poor over more rewards for the rich as a more effective means to stimulate the economy. It has often been said that the easiest economic stimulus would be raising the minimum wage.

 

[LV426]

Government funding often rewards more spending and punishes saving--doing nothing to make the country great.

Except that the personal savings rate drops every time taxes have been cut since 1980:



So by "letting people keep more of what they earn", they actually end up keeping less, and/or going into debt.

That's what the data shows!

 

[LV426]

I'd like to see some supporting data for that if you have it. It was my understanding that most consumer spending is generated by the not rich.

What Flash is doing is moving the goalpost of "wealthy" to include everyone who makes at least $80K a year (the top 20th percentile).

When I called him on that, he shifted the definition of "wealthy" to mean anyone in the top 5th percentile, though that would lump in someone who makes $230K a year with Lebron James, who makes $35M a year. When comparing $230K vs. $35M, $230K looks less like "wealthy".

The top 5th percentile, according to him, represents 33% of consumer spending. Which would mean his original point, that the wealthy make up 60% of consumer spending, sophistry. Flash made a deliberately false argument and shifted the goalposts in order to make an increasingly weaker point about how unfair it is that the wealthy, who have enjoyed all the income gains since 1980, have to pay higher taxes.

 

[Getin the ring]

Taxes were cut but we paid more in taxes?

Iwould say that's almost magic in poetry.

Trump is genius when it comes to numbers and business

 

[LV426]

Taxes were cut but we paid more in taxes?

That's what happened.

You paid more so Netflix could pay nothing.

Iwould say that's almost magic in poetry.

I would say it's par for the course; you promise a tax cut, but end up paying more in taxes in the end. Typical Conservatism.

Drumpf is genius when it comes to numbers and business

This isn't going to age well.

 

[Getin the ring]

you don't understand basic math and that's fine.

here I'll break it down to stupid level for you, read real slow

So our taxes were cut, cut means less than you paid before the "cut"
still with me?

But the government took in more revenue, so the additional revenue must have come from?

come on give it a try, you're not that stupid

it came from?

 

[PoliTalker]

90 Billion a drop in the bucket compared to a Trillion deficit.

1 step forward, RIGHT ON!

9 steps back.

Whoops. Bad policy.

 

[PoliTalker]

Economics 101:

A good economy should be REDUCING the deficit, not growing it.

RECESSIONS grow the deficit.

 

[LV426]

So our taxes were cut, cut means less than you paid before the "cut" still with me?

Taxes were cut nominally for most people; the average after-tax boost was $350, but that gets wiped out by the $1,000 everyone now has to pay thanks to the tariffs that you also support.

So the net effect is -$650.

Run on that next year.

But the government took in more revenue,

No it didn't. This is a lie. Not in 2018. Here's Treasury's actual statements. Show us the math where 2018's revenue was higher than 2017's.

 

[Truth Detector]

you don't understand basic math and that's fine.

here I'll break it down to stupid level for you, read real slow

So our taxes were cut, cut means less than you paid before the "cut"
still with me?

But the government took in more revenue, so the additional revenue must have come from?

come on give it a try, you're not that stupid

it came from?

You cannot fix stupid. Just saying.

 

[Truth Detector]

90 Billion a drop in the bucket compared to a Trillion deficit.

1 step forward, RIGHT ON!

9 steps back.

Whoops. Bad policy.

Trillions in deficits never seemed to bother you leftists during Obamunism. I am amused by this new concern the left has about morals and deficits. It is quite fascinating. It only seems to occur when a Republican is in the White House.

 

[Truth Detector]

Economics 101:

A good economy should be REDUCING the deficit, not growing it.

RECESSIONS grow the deficit.

Economics 101 for REAL: if you SPEND more than you take in, you have a deficit. Math is only challenging to leftist morons with an agenda. So tell me shit-for-brains; what do you think ALL the Democratic candidates policies will do? Pay down the deficit? Moron.

 

[Truth Detector]

Taxes were cut nominally for most people; the average after-tax boost was $350, but that gets wiped out by the $1,000 everyone now has to pay thanks to the tariffs that you also support.
So the net effect is -$650.
Run on that next year.

Making shit up; that's all you have isn't you brain dead, dishonest lying leftist hack?

No it didn't. This is a lie. Not in 2018. Here's Treasury's actual statements. Show us the math where 2018's revenue was higher than 2017's.

Moron:
2017 Revenue = $3.316 Trillion.
2018 Revenue = $3.330 Trillion.

 

[Flash]

Hello Flash,

But in a way which still results in a lower GDP.

Borrowing to increase the GDP provides a short-term stimulus but long-term debt.

I look fondly at the time in history when the deficit was completely eliminated and we had a surplus. And at that moment, your argument was rendered moot.

Me, too. Of course, that situation would not have lasted long because of the 2001 recession. And, the debt continued to decline even with the surplus.

Except everybody who would get laid off as a result of those cuts. All their spending would be subtracted from the GDP, and so would the revenue generated from them paying income tax.

Paying people to do jobs we could easily eliminate is not an efficient economy and leads to $22 trillion debts. A lower GDP would be temporary until those people find new jobs.

All of those functions provide some part of what makes America great. We study, we learn, we regulate, we manage our society to make American lives better. It would be absurd to expect each measure to benefit each American, but the overall effect is positive.

But it would be better if those same functions were operated in a productive manner. Productivity is an important part of a better society.

I'm surprised you are interested in a better economy since you wake up every day hoping it will crash.

 

[PoliTalker]

Hello Flash,

A lower GDP would be temporary until those people find new jobs.

And the new jobs will pay just as well or better and have better benefits with free health care and generous retirement?

But it would be better if those same functions were operated in a productive manner. Productivity is an important part of a better society.

Robots and automation are way more productive than humans. They never need a break, work 24 hours a day, and you don't even have to PAY them. Let some other schmuck actually pay workers so we can have some actual breathing customers with money for whatever the heck products we are building. Why should our business create customers? We're in it for ourselves, the investors, not THEM, anybody else.

I'm surprised you are interested in a better economy since you wake up every day hoping it will crash.

I don't want to see a crash but if that's going to happen and it means the end of Trump? Then let the crash be swift and short term. Just enough to get rid of Trump. And it looks like he will be the architect of the crash that will end him. He thinks trade wars are great and recession is just a word. No problem. He'll be fine. The rich always are. That's why he has no problem with a recession. Said so himself. If that's what we have to go through to get a better deal with China, he reasoned.

I have to ask: What good is a better deal if it hurts Americans?

 

[LV426]

Borrowing to increase the GDP provides a short-term stimulus but long-term debt.

Except that when Obama was President, he reduced the deficits by letting tax cuts for the rich expire, which slowed the growth of debt.

f course, that situation would not have lasted long because of the 2001 recession.

What a load of fucking horseshit.

Inaccurate, LAZY fucking horseshit.

Even with the MILD 2001 recession, the 2001 budget was still in surplus.

You see the Deficit/surplus number for 2001? $120B SURPLUS.

So the 2001 recession, which was so mild that GDP growth for 2001 was still positive at 1.9%, didn't result in a deficit in 2001, nor would it because the 2001 recession ended by October 2001.

Flash won't even do the bare fucking minimum anymore.

He's gone full Conservative; entitled fucking laziness.

 

[LV426]

Paying people to do jobs we could easily eliminate is not an efficient economy and leads to $22 trillion debts.

What jobs are you talking about? And when we talk about doing this for health care, you screech and scream and cry like a fucking idiot because you think private insurance companies are...not wasteful or redundant?

lower GDP would be temporary until those people find new jobs.

How would they find new jobs when you've subtracted trillions in government spending out of the economy and not replaced it with anything?

It's like you're getting dumber the closer we get to the next election.

But it would be better if those same functions were operated in a productive manner.

Look at how Flash uses the tactics of vague ambiguity in what he's talking about. He uses phrases like "productive manner" as a goalpost that he shifts depending on how weak his argument is at any given time. Ultimately, he's substituting his own shitty personal judgment as the standard by which "productivity" is determined, which is an act of whiny entitlement. Like, we must accept his definition of productive because that's the only way he can have an argument, and if we don't, then we're being mean to him and not providing him with the comfort he needs to feel secure in himself.

It's such a bad faith tactic.

Productivity is an important part of a better society.

WOW! Way to go out on a limb there.

I guess the only question is, how do you define "productivity"? You don't, of course, except for when you need to change the parameters to mean something different at any given time.

 

[LV426]

Productivity is an important part of a better society.

Why do you always work from the assumption that the government is not productive, yet private companies are?

I don't understand that bullshit.

Have you ever worked in the private sector in your life? Doesn't seem like it.

Take health care, for example...

According to CMS, Medicare spends 1% of its budget on administration.
According to a 2015 Aetna shareholder statement, they spend 17% of their budget on administration.

Both Medicare and Aetna do the exact same thing; administrate reimbursement to providers.

Yet, according to Flash, Medicare is wasteful and Aetna isn't, even though Aetna spends 15,000% more of its budget on administration for fewer people than Medicare does.

 

[Flash]

Why do you always work from the assumption that the government is not productive, yet private companies are?

I don't understand that bullshit.

Have you ever worked in the private sector in your life? Doesn't seem like it.

LV426 is arguing with a straw man, again. I never said government was not productive vs. private companies.

I talked about eliminating those jobs which are not productive or useful.

Do you favor weapons systems the military does not need, military bases that are unnecessary, reconstruction projects in Afghanistan and Iraq that are never completed but have been paid for, students getting Pell grants who never attend class and are failing, etc. etc.

These functions are not productive but the public is being forced to pay for them. Private companies also have many examples of inefficiency, but they can go bankrupt and the public does not have to spend their money on those companies.

LV426 does not care if government wastes his money because he thinks all government spending is good.