"The more money the wealthiest have, the more job-producing investments"

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

Welcome to this morning's trickle-down propaganda.

Big Gain for Rich Seen in Tax Cuts for Investments

By DAVID CAY JOHNSTON
Published: April 5, 2006

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/05/business/05tax.html

The first data to document the effect of President Bush's tax cuts for investment income show that they have significantly lowered the tax burden on the richest Americans, reducing taxes on incomes of more than $10 million by an average of about $500,000. An analysis of Internal Revenue Service data by The New York Times found that the benefit of the lower taxes on investments was far more concentrated on the very wealthiest Americans than the benefits of Mr. Bush's two previous tax cuts: on wages and other noninvestment income.

---SNIP---

The Times showed the new numbers to people on various sides of the debate over tax cuts. Stephen J. Entin, president of the Institute for Research on the Economics of Taxation, a Washington organization, and other supporters of the cuts said they did not go far enough because the more money the wealthiest had to invest, the more would go to investments that produce jobs. For investment income, Mr. Entin said, "the proper tax rate would be zero."

:spray:

Opponents say the cuts are too generous to those who already have plenty. Representative Charles B. Rangel of New York, the senior Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee, said after seeing the new figures that "these tax cuts are beyond irresponsible" when "we're in a war; we haven't fixed Social Security or Medicare; we've got record deficits."

Because of the tax cuts, even the merely rich, making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, are falling behind the very wealthiest, particularly because another provision, the alternative minimum tax, now costs many of them thousands and even tens of thousands of dollars a year in lost deductions.

[wryter2000]

1. Sheeze

Trickle-down is a sort of religion with these assholes. It's been tried twice now, and both times have been fiscal disasters.

[MercutioATC]

5. It IS trickling down. LOTS of new jobs are being created...

...for children in India...

[Frank Cannon]

9. They really should rename "trickle down"...

to "trickle out of the country". That's where almost ALL the money goes.

[azurnoir]

13. seen it as

tinkle down or tinkle on both of which are far more fitting

[wryter2000]

25. Well put!

I often point out that by definition, under "trickle down," only a trickle gets down to the people who need it.

[BurgherHoldtheLies]

14. "Tinkle down" economics (nt)

[Bozita]

18. Yes! "Tinkledown economics" ... translation: Piss on you all!

Thanks.

[Orrex]

7. "It's been tried twice now, and both times have been fiscal disasters."

Not for its advocates. For them, it's been an unprecedented windfall.

So-called trickle-down economics does exactly what it's supposed to do--put a lot more money in the pockets of the super-rich and make sure that it stays there.

Mission accomplished!

[mrcheerful]

16. Wrong, its been tried 3 times, the first was under Herbert Hoover and

we know where that went. We also know where deregulation and trickle down economics end up leaving the country, depression. Those who fail to learn from the past are doomed to repeat the same stupid mistakes from the past. Only these pukes really stuck it to the american worker because they sold out our industrial might to the lowest bidder. Stupid people will keep voting these people in because of religious dogma. This was Hoovers great experiment and we see how it works, rich get richer everyone else is left with table scraps.

[Orrex]

21. Wow! Good call!

I never would have thought of Hoover.

[RaleighNCDUer]

22. Of course, most the really rich in Hoover's day continued to

get rich, even through the depression.

Despite the cartoons of bankers throwing themselves out of windows, it was the middle-class investors that lost everything, not the rich.

[Canuckistanian]

2. "I never got a job from a poor man"

Never was able to keep one, either, after the big layoffs.

[Warpy]

3. You never got a job at all unless a poor man was waiting

for whatever you were being hired to offer.

No customers, no jobs.

They found that one out in the Great Depression. Then they tried to forget it as quickly as possible.

[laheina]

19. Right. Because if you put money in a worker's pocket,

he can't help but spend it. Look at how in debt most of us are.

And if the worker invests that money--isn't that the same thing as a wealthy person investing it?

The only difference between trickle down and trickle up is the end result: trickle down gives wealthy people not only more than their share, but they also get to retain control of that share and thereby everything else.

[On the Road]

4. This Would be True *If* There Were a Shortage of Capital

Instead, there are trillions of dollars shloshing around the world looking for a profitable investment. There is a lot of pent-up demand because consumers' wages are so low that they can't afford to buy much of what they need.

[jedicord]

6. Where are yachts built? n/t

[DUHandle]

11. Manitowoc, WI

[Ready4Change]

8. 8 years of Reagan, 4 of Bush1 and 5 of Bush2.

Those, combined, 17 years, are some of the poorest economic performances by our nation in the last century.

The ONLY thing Reaganomics does (no matter what you name it) is make the rich more powerful within our borders. It weakens our poor, it shrinks the middle class, it devours the economy as a whole, it drives up government debt, and it weakens our strength in international trade.

Anyone who does not see this is clueless.

[WePurrsevere]

10. Investments that produce jobs? Uh yeah well . too bad they're mostly....

overseas in India, etc. :grr:

The few that are "created" here are at places like Walmarts, Dollar General, McDonald's, etc. It's rather sad... I remember being encouraged by my guidance counselor and then my daughters guidance counselor encouraging kids to "go to college and get a degree so you won't have to spend your life asking 'would you like fries with that?" and yet increasingly that's the only type of job many of my fellow well educated contemporaries can find.

From what I've seen... "trickle down" never trickles down far enough and now close enough to make any difference to average American's desparate for jobs and a living wage.

edited for a typo & an extra thought.

[Bozita]

12. It's the customers, stupid! They create demand. Demand creates jobs

David Cay Johnston wrote a fantastic book in '04. He's a real truthteller.


http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1591840198/ref=sib_rdr_dp/002-2687503-3553663?%5Fencoding=UTF8&me=ATVPDKIKX0DER&no=283155&st=books&n=283155

David Cay Johnston
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

David Cay Johnston is an investigative journalist for The New York Times now focusing on taxes. He received the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for Beat Reporting "for his penetrating and enterprising reporting that exposed loopholes and inequities in the U.S. tax code, which was instrumental in bringing about reforms." He is also author of the book Perfectly Legal: The Covert Campaign to Rig Our Tax System to Benefit the Super Rich - and Cheat Everybody Else.

He has also investigated uncaught murderers, the unfairly imprisoned, LAPD abuses, Barron Hilton, misuse of charitable funds at United Ways, news manipulation at WJIM-TV, Donald Trump's net worth, and more. He has eight children and five grandchildren.

[sendero]

24. the World is AWASH..

... in dollars to invest. Adding to the heap isn't going to help.

When too much money is held by a top few, there is no consumer demand and capitalism cannot work.

[TreasonousBastard]

15. Why is anyone still listening to this bullshit...

when there is plenty of money being invested and plenty more where that is coming from?

Investment goes where the return is, and if everyone under the median income (that's half of us) had more disposable income, we'd buy more stuff and investment would be directed our way, with more jobs created.

Lower tax, energy, and housing costs for the rest of us would spur far more investment than all the tax breaks for the rich combined.

[aden_nak]

17. If trickle down economics worked, there'd have been no Great Depression.

Or, at the very least, recovery would have been swift and painless. At that point in time, a super-minority of the population controlled an absurd amount of capital. And while it's been a few years since I did that semester on FDR, it was my general impression that jobs were just a WEE BIT hard to come by at the time.

[gasperc]

20. too bad all the jobs were created in China and Mexico

better Mexico than China, but we can't say it's done wonders to the massive flow of illegal immigration

[Blue_Tires]

23. there was another column in today's times

which was puketastic (David Leonhardt's screed on why a stronger upper class is better for the economy than a stong middle class)