Will Clinton be the last President to raise taxes on the wealthy?

[wadestock]

Kerry has promised to return to Clinton era tax rate on the upper echelon of about 39%....a rate at which the economy hummed along just fine....with 100s of Billions in revenues then becoming available....amounting to Trillions when one looks at it in the long term picture....and a realistic promise to get our economy back in order.

Kerry has been very good to underscore that returning to this more equitable progressive tax rate, only 1% of Americans will have their taxes raised. He goes on to explain how effectively the other 99% will have lower taxes and benefits when considering what will take place once the tax is realigned.

But when I think back....Clinton's big line at the time was CHANGE. He came across as progressive and electable. But he didn't get in because of any "in your face" message about RAISING TAXES. He very clever in how he played that as far as I can remember....and to avoid the republicons then playing their usual trump card against raising taxes.

It's a catch 22 in a way for Kerry now. On one hand you'd like to avoid the issue, but since Bush has made it such an issue and it is so vital an issue....it really must be taken head on. I believe in what Kerry is doing to attempt to explain the situation to people....but he has to keep at it until it hurts. That's what Perot did when he got a consensus in America that the debt was bad. Polls taken at that time showed that people were willing to be TAXED if they could pay down the debt. Such a consensus really doesn't exist anymore....although some polls do indicate some interest when the certain questions are posed a certain way.

The amazing thing about all of this is the momentum that the republicons count on when driving their tax breaks through. They bank on the fact that for every dollar they shift in our progressive tax system, it will be 100 times as hard to shift it back the other way.

That's why you have to appreciate fully just how unique Clinton was. I wasn't actually a hard core fan of Clinton until he pulled off that historic move. Although it was what could be considered a modest reversal of the huge fall in the upper rate under Reagan from 70% to 31% back to 39%...it was still ultimately a huge historic event.

I think this is also evidenced by the fact that the republicons were so pissed off that Clinton took back some of their candy that that they were determined to destroy the man. It is also essentially why we find ourselves in the situation we are today...ie their relentless pressure to get back to the 31% and even further down to 28% or even a 17% flat tax.

Unfortunately, the average American just doesn't get this simple aspect of the election and what they are voting for. We are just that close to pushing the pendulum in a way that Clinton may be the LAST modern president in the history of the US to actually raise taxes on what is the most prosperous and ever growing prosperous upper echelon of people in the world.

[TheFarseer]

1. I wish it could be explained easily

that as soon as the debt is paid off, we can have radically reduced taxes instead of paying off interest, or more social programs or whatever trips your trigger.

[Tactical Progressive]

2. Taxes on the wealthy should be kept low

and those lost taxes, as well as the debt and interest due from not paying them, should fall on the middle class where they belong.


That's the message that's been selling for a quarter century, though maybe not phrased in exactly that way.

[wadestock]

4. What?

No one has ever promoted the notion the taxes should fall on the middle class "where they belong"....not sure what you mean here.

We have a progressive tax system because it is the ONLY tax system that works with capitalism. Without a progressive tax, those at the top simply make "progressively" more and more than those at the middle and bottom....and absolute fact proven time and time again historically.

The concept of trickle down was proven false.

The only way capitalism works is with an upper eschelon rate of anywhere between 40 to 50% (as historically evidenced by the US and most other industrialized nations)...because of the way that it provides balance and overall economic health to the middle class.

As America is being destroyed like a cancer in the middle class, the business machine HAS to turn to other parts of the world. With the appropriate progressive tax....America once again gets its capitalistic "engine" back in tune.....

[Tactical Progressive]

7. Trickle-down is worse than proven false

That's what it was the first time around. Now, after having been proven false, its continued promotion is a fraud; a deliberate lie.

It's closest analogue in the physical world would be a perpetual motion machine. Economically, it is an intellectual perversion of Keynesianism, distorted in a way that only liars who don't care one whit about the truth, only getting where they want to be, would countenance.

And yet, that is the Reagan message that the right-wing have been successfully selling to middle America for a quarter century now. It didn't help that the initial infusion of debt-funded 'prosperity' was a first impression that stuck. Now it's just a matter of faith for right-wing zombie economics.

I just phrased the promotion of supply-side 'economics' in a more realistic way, in response mostly to this line of the original post: "Unfortunately, the average American just doesn't get this simple aspect of the election and what they are voting for." Just pretend you're a Republican who tells the truth when you say it. I know that's some kind of acting job, but try it. Something like this: "I'm socially liberal, but fiscally conservative, and I believe that ... taxes on the wealthy should be kept low and those lost taxes, as well as the debt and interest due from not paying them, should fall on the middle class where they belong."

That's what an honest economic Republican would say, were there any honest Republicans.

I guess what I'm saying is that explaining reality has edified as many people as it's going to. For the rest, maybe an honest pro-supply-side argument will get the reality through.

[Codeblue]

3. He will be the last

if the Bushies are elected this year. After that, dont count on another Dem ever becoming president.

[wadestock]

5. It's interesting....

I have some part of me that says people have to actually get to the point that they are hurting to care.

But we're still in an economic mode where people are living off credit and home equity loans...and there's enough work out there to make many average work dumb Americans think that maybe there's hope.

But given another 4 years of W...well the country will be in debt another 500B from the war, those home equity loans should be drying up....and jobs will be MUCH worse....so you might think that is then possibly the time for people to say perhaps we've had enough.

But will people relate the overall situation to an understanding of why we need a progressive tax rate....and why there are Trillions of dollars amassing at the top that is literally sucking the bottom ever so gracefully dry?

[pebbles1]

6. upper echelon of people, excuse me

but i was making 50k raising two kids on my own and Clinton raised my taxes. I was in no way the upper echelon of people.

[wadestock]

8. glad you posed the question....

do you do your own taxes and can you explain what caused them to go up? They shouldn't have unless you made jumps across income lines or other odd things happened. The Clinton tax increases in income taxes fell on well past your income level. You did pay more in other taxes, however, like gas tax.

I can quickly give you some data since 1995....

assume 40K after deductions

1995 single $8172 married filing jointly $6137
1996 single $8087 jointly $6004
1997 single $8003 jointly $6004
1998 single $7912 jointly $6004
1999 single $7860 jointly $6004
2000 single $7795 jointly $6004
2001 single $7626 jointly $6004
2002 single $7153 jointly $5404
2003 single $6616 jointly $5304


compare to even 100K AFTER deductions (establishes a rather comfortable zone for affluent middle class people who regularly get their tax level to after deductions)

1995 single $26,260 jointly $23,095
1996 single $26,128 jointly $22,872
1997 single $25,995 jointly $22,648
1998 single $25,855 jointly $22,488
1999 single $25,771 jointly $22,397
2000 single $25,673 jointly $22,293
2001 single $25,145 jointly $21,843
2002 single $24,308 jointly $20,789
2003 single $22,739 jointly $18,614

The democratic argument is simple....we did make some sacrifices in order to pay down the debt by 500B and get the economy back on track.
But whatever tax breaks Bush is handing out now is primarily aimed at the upper echelon. Keep in mind also that many democrats have tried to keep pace with the tax cut mantra and pushed through real tax breaks to the middle class that you're getting now.

It was a fact that during the Clinton years more tax revenues were generated than any other time in history...and don't get confused by this fact. It was getting back a lot of the money that had been dumped upwards after Reagan slashed upper rates from 70% to 31%. Most data I've seen that gives disparaging reports about how horrible taxes were under Clinton show TOTAL taxes paid in TOTAL dollars....not clearly showing that the taxes were being shifted back to a greater portion on the wealthiest Americans.

Keep in mind this was a rate shift of only about 10% and the republicons are willing to trash the country to get that back and more....