Bush to Call for Permanent Dividend and Capital Gains Cuts

[Robbien]

Jan. 14 (Bloomberg) -- President George W. Bush's 2006 budget request will call for making permanent a cut on dividends and capital gains taxes, administration and industry officials said. The request will be part of the budget submission to Congress scheduled for release on Feb. 7, a Bush administration official said on condition of anonymity, because the details aren't supposed to be disclosed before that date.

The two tax cuts will cost the government $119 billion between 2003-2008, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. Making the tax cuts permanent may spark a battle in Congress, which will likely consider a proposal from the Bush administration this year to set up Social Security personal savings accounts that the budget office said may add up to $2 trillion to the deficit in the first 10 years.

``His math is going to be very difficult in terms of making everything work,'' Representative Bill Thomas of California, chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee, said in an interview yesterday about making the tax cuts permanent.

<snip>

Making the cuts permanent is the top legislative goal of the Securities Industry Association, whose almost 600 members include Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Wachovia Securities LLC, said Richard Hunt, senior vice president for federal policy for the Washington- based trade group. ``Investors do not invest on a year-by-year basis, they invest at least five years and longer at one time,'' Hunt told reporters. ``We are already hearing evidence from our brokers and companies that investors are now starting to ask if this tax cut will be the same beyond 2008. So we have a job to make these tax cuts permanent.''

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000087&sid=a9fTDhqpTxv4&refer=top_world_news

Five percent of the people own 87% of the US stock market, so we know who these "investors" are.

[GetTheRightVote]

1. This is just getting crazy, the country is in trouble already,

It sure can make a working class person hate the wealthy in this country, what will we do about it ??

:kick:

[pokercat999]

9. Actually

this is good news for me as I was just considering getting rich.....end of sarcasm

[Just Me]

22. Barbara told him that he was "special",....

,...bet she never figured her son to be the demon that would force humanity to take a stand against tyrants,...like her son.

She was right, though,...he is SPECIAL,...

He provoked a battle between humanity's potential to BUILD and humanity's potential to DESTROY.

No doubt about that.

[theoceansnerves]

2. in a time of war

they're asking the people who make the most out of this country to give the least. unfuckingbelievable.

[Supersedeas]

37. but the War Time President is 'rewarding' their sacrifice, you see

Oh, you don't see.

Well, give the MSM six months of endless propoganda opportunities, and roughly 51% give or take the Diebold +/-6% will see.

And that is all that matter, when 'rewarding' the rich with 'Presidential' opportunities.

[nadinbrzezinski]

3. Ah yes cheap labor conservs making sure they get their

cut... don't these greedy bastards read history and do they think they can avoid the judgement of history?

Missery index goes up high enough, all them millions or billions will not keep them alive, unless they decide to run... like many elites have done over the centuries...

[JDPriestly]

4. Permanent for the moment.

Tax law is never "permanent."

[TahitiNut]

5. The lowest taxes in history on the rich with the highest deficits

Look closely and you'll see a similar tax structure leading into the Great Depression. Never before, when America's poor and middle class kids are dying in a war (for the benefit of the war profiteers) have the taxes on the richest EVER been as low. (Dividends have NEVER been taxed lower!)

[nadinbrzezinski]

7. Properly speaking Bush is following

New Hooverian policies, just like Reagan \ Bush one but not to the extreme of causing a second great Depresion. I suspect Bush either wants a second great depresion (lord knows why, though it would help to create a new serf class) or thtey are on faith based programs, and that includes the economy.

Speaking off, some of these same polices were also followed during teh Gilded Age which also led to a small depresion in the 1890s, which led to the Progresive Era of the early 1900s...

[Pirate Smile]

16. It is very easy to find the Clinton years in those graphs. Well, thank

goodness the Republicans have had the ability to stop those fiscally responsible Democrats. We sure wouldn't want that to continue. <sarcasm>

[UpInArms]

25. here are some more stats to go with your graphs

Wealth disparity is even more pronounced than income disparity. The top 1 percent of all U.S. households own 38 percent of all wealth (property, cash, savings, stock value, and insurance policies—minus mortgage payments, credit card debt, and other debts). Wealth inequality generally fell from 1929 to the mid '70s. Since then, it's doubled.


Five percent of Americans own 59 percent of all wealth; the top 20 percent own 83 percent of all wealth. The bottom 20 percent have zero wealth. Excluding owner-occupied housing, the inequality is worse: 1 percent of families hold half of all non-home wealth.


Ten percent of families own 85 percent of financial securities and 90 percent of all business assets.


The average African American family has 60 percent of the income of the average white family. But the average African American family has only 18 percent of the wealth of the average white family.


In the U.S., 1 percent of American families own 38 percent of all wealth. In Great Britain, it's 22 or 23 percent. Until the early '70s, we had less wealth inequality than Britain.


More than 34 million Americans are officially "poor," a class including nearly 25 percent of all African Americans and more than 20 percent of all Latinos.


The minimum wage has fallen by about 35 percent in real terms since its peak in 1968.

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0501,harkavy,59767,2.html

[TygrBright]

29. Y'all just don't get it, do you...?

>>Wealth disparity is even more pronounced than income disparity.<<

This is not what modest-income GOPpie voters care about. They don't give a rat's ass that they're getting the fuzzy side of the lollipop now.

See, the thing is, pretty soon they're gonna get rich, don't'cha know... and when that happens, the last thing they want is the eeeeeeevil gubmit "stealing their money."

And since they take things like enforcing the laws and standards that ensure their own health and safety utterly for granted (not to mention the hundreds of government programs that benefit them, from the EITC to the home mortgage deduction to building roads,) they are absolutely sure that every dime the eeeeevil gubmint is "stealing" from them even now, when they can barely afford to make ends meet, is going to those undeserving neighbors of theirs. You know, the layabout welfare defrauders and the minorities getting special preferences and all.

These things are much, much, MUCH more important than the fact that they're getting assraped by a regressive, imbalanced tax structure.

grimly,
Bright

[TahitiNut]

32. Bookmarked. Thanks.

[TahitiNut]

33. One correction ... about the federal minimum wage

"The minimum wage has fallen by about 35 percent in real terms since its peak in 1968."

Actually, the current net federal minimum wage, adjusted for inflation, is 42.7% lower than its high 1968 (the Vietnam years!). By "net," I mean after payroll taxes.



The Federal Minimum Wage in 1968 was $1.60/hour. That's the equivalent of $7.92/hour in 2000 dollars. Of that, $0.35/hour (also in 2000 dollars) was taken in payroll taxes, for a net of $7.57/hour.

The Federal Minimum Wage in 2004 is $5.15/hour. That's the equivalent of $4.70/hour in 2000 dollars. Of that, $0.36/hour (also in 2000 dollars) was taken in payroll taxes, for a net of $4.34/hour.

[pinto]

6. Is that a slight wedge in the united front? Or bluff? (Thomas, R - CA)

He, Thomas, is well known in CA as a numbers wiz, and a fanatic at counting the ins and outs. Either he's floating a pr trial, or we may get a little "real time" debate on this.

Dem's need to be gunning on this and Social Security...from the costs of the Social Security changes, to the allocation of tax exempt funds for upper income individuals, to the ballooning deficit, to the open ended fiscal outlay in the Bush crusade to remake the Middle East, to....aghhhh.

[Ilsa]

8. No taxes for those that don't work for a living.

If you get your income from dividends and cap gains, you pay one-third of what someone else with similar ordinary income levels pays. At least that's what I heard on Unfiltered this morning.

[PurityOfEssence]

24. Less than that

You're absolutely right: it's aristocracy writ large. For long-term capital gains, one only pays taxes on 10% of the profit. If you make 50K a year in wages, there's FICA taken from that, and after whatever personal deductions you can cobble together, you're taxed on that. If you make 50K a year from long-term capital gains, there's no FICA or anything else deducted, and you're taxed as if you made 5K.

[VegasWolf]

10. Damn, as an investor, this will be nice for me, but as a liberal I wonder

just how much abuse of the middle class this administration
can pull off.

[Robbien]

11. Many here are investors, but if this means millions of dollars in savings

to you. . . .




come over here and sit by me and be my friend.

[nadinbrzezinski]

12. Watch that misery index rising

when it reaches 70% you will see... riots

When it reaches 90%, can you say Revolution?

And the attitude is... let them eat cake... care to tell me how that movie ended?

[VegasWolf]

14. Exactly, I've been imagining the same scenario myself, I can see

turret guns guarding all the gated communities.

[kineneb]

27. Yeah, but how much will the gunners get paid?

And will they abandon their positions and join the revolt? Remember the French aristocracy was pretty well wiped out by the end (9" shorter after a visit to Mme. Guillotine).

[Lefty48197]

13. More tax cuts for the rich? I'm SHOCKED!

Shocked, I say.

[happynewyear]

15. in the meantime ...

Social Security payroll taxes need to be raised 50%.

Talk about double-speak!

Get your priorities straight *!

:kick:

[Straight Shooter]

17. My gut response to this: Beware of a population with nothing left to lose

Don't make too many poor people, bush. They'll turn on you and they'll turn on the ultra-wealthy, without regard for politics or morals. The upper-upper class will be a convenient target for people to take out their frustrations on, and none of them will be considered innocent, because the poor will not have the patience to make such judgments, especially the poor who have played by the rules all their lives and watch their efforts go down the drain.

Anyone remember the aristocracy's fate in the French Revolution? It wasn't pretty.

[kineneb]

28. When parents arn't able to feed their children...

then all hell will break loose. And yes, the aristocracy were ALL targeted by the pesants. Starvation is a great motivator.

[HuskiesHowls]

18. Taxes are the dues you pay for living here

is something I heard on NPR a long, long time ago. Taxes pay for the infrastructure used by everyone, for the greater good.

If they were to follow this line of thinking, I wonder how long their country clubs would stay in business, without dues being paid.

Just another thought...if you drive a big gas-guzzling SUV, you don't need roads...but how do you cross a river??

[NMDemDist2]

19. wow now that I don't have any of either, they get a tax cut

could I get mine retroactively please?

[area51]

20. ``His math is going to be very diff. in terms of making everything work"

Bill Thomas of CA said:

"His math is going to be very difficult in terms of making everything work."

How about friggin' impossible. You can't keep screwing the poor & middle class while giving $$$ to the über-rich w/o a revolution.


"Prosperity is just around the corner." -- Herbert Hoover
"The economy has turned a corner." -- GW Bush

Herbert Hoover = GW Bush

Neither man cared about the Depression their economic policies created.

[Erika]

21. Yes, W can conttinue screwing the poor & middle class

You know, he's got political capitol after all. He got away with it for the first 4 years.

[superconnected]

23. Wow. Just wow.

I knew we had the most fiscally irresponsible president ever, but he keeps out doing himself.

I really believe he's trying to bankrupt the United States.

How can Conservatives be in this much denial about the mountian of debt Bush has given us, with no way to pay it off.

How can they be so stupid. I mean, it's ghastly stupidity.

[superconnected]

26. This isn't going to be taken care of until the next dem gets in

Or the next several because the debts too big for one to correct it. It's horrific.

[depakid]

30. Republicans are going to collapse the economy

as sure as I am writing this... and the media whores will never pin the blame on them either- they'll find some excuse to parrot.

[Yavin4]

31. You All Are Missing The Point - The Fascists Want Economic Chaos

They believe that they can control the population through religious institutions. They'll just tell the people that their suffering is God's testing them to see if they're worthy in Heaven. Heck, if you were really a good Christian then you'd be rich. Right?

[Kablooie]

34. Ya know, it really doesn't bother me that much ...

and I only have 200 million in savings. Not that rich. : )

[DeepModem Mom]

35. kick

[snippy]

36. His tax reform proposal in 2006 will eliminate taxes on investment income.

Republicans intend to argue that it is outrageously unfair that people with substantial investment income should have to pay taxes like people who have only wage or salary income. Of course they intend to phrase it differently and package it in lies, but an income tax on only wages and salaries is one of Bush's fondest dreams. He also wants to create an unlimited deduction for income which is invested so that the end result is a backdoor consumption tax.