What they got versus what we got. The tax disaster illustrated (finally).

[ClassWarrior]

(Thanks to tomm2thumbs for correcting the one the White House is pushing.)

NGU.

[FrenchieCat]

1. There needs to be attributed as to whom put this chart together ...and sources.

Because just like when the right start passing around bullshit information just because they are on the Internet, I don't believe that homemade stuff like this is gonna help. Some of it I can't even read.....

As for the payroll tax holiday, looks like it's going by the way of conspiracy theory a la Catfood.
It's ridiculous, paranoid, and hyperbole. I'm almost as afraid of being around folks that provide this disinformation willy nilly here at DU, as I am in the teabaggers. Looks like the common purpose the two sides share is wanting to make sure that Democrats lose all branches of the government come 2012.

I am currently looking for a site where folks aren't allowed to just say any old thing, unless it is truly backed up with some verifyable facts. It's like yelling fire in a crowded room. Some people's very livelihood are going to depend on the outcome of these tax laws, so this ain't no game....and yet, some are acting like it.

[w4rma]

2. Nobody really asked for a payroll tax holiday. It is just being shoved down our throats. (nt)

[pnwmom]

4. Oh yeah, all the people making less than $100K/year will really hate

paying less Social Security tax. Right.

:sarcasm:

Lowering the rate the individual pays now is a great first step. Step 2? Make that lower rate permanent. Step 3? Lift the lid on the INCOME that the Social Security tax applies to -- currently, only about $100K. Remove it completely, if necessary. Let the millionaires pay the same rate that everyone else does, instead of a lower rate than everyone else.

This is what we should ALL be pushing for: a change in the Social Security tax that will make it more progressive and solve our budget problems at the same time. Instead, we have LIBERALS screaming that we need to maintain this REGRESSIVE payroll tax exactly as it is.

:shrug:

Obama has done his part to change the Social Security tax system. Now we need to do ours, and we have a year. Push all our representatives and make this a huge issue in the next campaign. Keep the lower payroll tax. RAISE THE INCOME LIMIT.

[Major Hogwash]

5. Damn, that's a good idea.

And considering that a lot of people never live long enough to cash any of their social security checks, this is a great way to keep from pumping money into that account when it is already HUGE!! And I mean HUGE!!!

The Social Security system is so HUGE, it has it's own zip code.

**That's a riff on "yo momma's so fat" jokes**

[DemocratSinceBirth]

7. I Can See Both Sides Of The Argument

And therefore give the president the benefit of the doubt. Most folks here stand my calculation on its head.

[Dawgs]

11. When has Obama, or almost every other democrat proposed lifting the lid on income for SS?

Your argument would carry a lot more weight if it could actually be backed up with facts.

We know now that Republicans have been pushing for the payroll tax; back when Bush was President and in this compromise (Summers comments). They aren't doing it because they want to make SS better.

[pnwmom]

27. Obama has proposed this frequently, at least since 2007.

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2007/10/28/obama_proposes_increasing_social_security_tax_on_wealthy/

WASHINGTON - Senator Barack Obama yesterday proposed raising Social Security taxes on the wealthier, saying the nation's "most regressive tax" needed to be revamped to increase revenues to the retirement fund and spread the burden of paying for the program more evenly.

"This is an issue that we've been punting, and it's going to make it harder to solve it in the long term," Obama said in an interview with the Globe before peddling the idea before a group of senior citizens in Iowa.

Obama reiterated that he would not raise the retirement age or cut benefits for what he called "the most successful social insurance program we have." But he said he would consider raising the cap on the Social Security tax - currently imposed on earnings up to $97,500 - or creating a so-called doughnut hole that would reinstate the tax once income hits a certain level, as Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards has proposed.

SNIP

[mikekohr]

15. President Obama has advocated raising the income limit on SS for a long while

and I suspect it will be a big part of his plan to cut the deficit and stabilize SS over the long term.

[Milo_Bloom]

29. It SHOULD have been part of this compromise

Once again, we gave away the farm, without getting a damn thing.

[pnwmom]

34. How do you know this isn't part of Obama's chess game? nt

[Milo_Bloom]

35. LMAO.

Could it be because it seems Obama really sucks at chess.

[JamesA1102]

33. Way to go! Raise the income limit!!! nt

[COLGATE4]

36. Did it occur to you that the reason the Rethugs are so happy

with the FICA reduction is because it will defund Social Security even more, making the argument to kill it easier?

[pnwmom]

41. Did it occur to you that Rethugs are often wrong? n/t

[ClassWarrior]

10. It says right there. DUer tomm2thumbs put it together. And the source is...

...the one the White House is pedaling; s/he simply moved the payroll tax "holiday" to the side where it belongs.

Do you want a payroll tax "holiday?" If so, why?

NGU.

[pnwmom]

42. I approve of the "holiday." It's a good first step

to making the system more progressive. Step 2, after the holiday, is keeping the lower rate but raising the limit on income that is subject to the SS tax (currently only $100K of income no matter how much a person makes). Obama has advocated for that since at least 2007.

By making these two changes we would have a system much more progressive than we do now.

[JamesA1102]

32. Well said nt

[rufus dog]

3. I will post the same thing about this chart as I did about the competing chart

For the purpose of this discussion the Payroll tax should be eliminated.


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=433&topic_id=556710&mesg_id=557907

[jeanpalmer]

6. I would also put

the renewable energy grants and equipment expensing on the right side. None of that is going to any of us. It will go to businesses and corporations like GE and Microsoft with no strings attached, such as a requirement to create jobs.

I'd like to see a chart of what they got versus what we got where "they" are Bill Gates/Warren Buffet and "we" are the average American. The right side of the chart would explode upwards and the left side would disappear.

[quaker bill]

8. Seems to be short 500 billion.

Most estimates put the total package in the range of 880 billion, not 352 billion as above.

The child tax credit is an extension of the recovery act and since only dems voted for the recovery act, placing it on the right is incorrect.

The payroll tax holiday is debatable. It was republicans who set the current rate and plundered the surplus it generated for military expansion. The two percent cut puts us back to the historic rate before republicans messed with it. The bulk of the benefits financially go to the 85+ percent of us who pay the tax on every nickel make. The wealthy also benefit, but not much, because there aren't very many of them, and they largely only pay this tax for a tiny sliver of days in January each year, many of the truly wealthy are done paying for the year before lunch on the first working day of the year. For simply who benefits the most, as tax cuts go, I would color it blue.

[fmlymninral]

9. the congress at the time

of the rate increase was democratic so to say republicans increased would be wrong. it was a bipartisan solution to save social security.

[Hello_Kitty]

18. The child tax credit is also the extension of Bush doubling it 10 years ago

Which is most of that money. You can put a small amount of it back in the blue column for what was expanded under stimulus but not that much. The GOP loves the child tax credit, as it goes mostly to middle class white people. McCain campaigned on doubling it.

Even if it mainly benefits the bottom 85%, if it's something the GOP likes you can't call it a concession.

[ProSense]

12. This makes no sense

Republicans voted against the child tax credit in the stimulus package.

Also, if they got the payroll tax holiday, there wouldn't have been any funding attached to it.

Basically, it's ridiculous to list the total of those two ($132 million, according to this chart) as something they got.

Here's the Congressional Black Caucus' position on the tax holiday:

<...>

The CBC's counter-proposal showed few signs of members giving up ground. The proposal includes a two-year extension of the Bush-era tax cuts for the middle class -- which was part of the tax-cut measure that the House passed this month -- as well as a payroll tax holiday and a 13-month extension of unemployment insurance benefits. All three components are priorities for congressional Democrats.

<...>

Trying to turn this into some sinister ploy is ridiculous.

[Hello_Kitty]

24. They expanded the child tax credit to include some more low income parents in the stimulus

But the $20bn on the chart includes the entire amount of continuing the amount of the credit set by Bush's tax cuts in 2001. The GOP supports continuing and even expanding the child tax credit for middle class parents. John McCain ran on doubling it. There is no doubt that keeping the child tax credit at the Bush level would pass as a stand-alone bill in the GOP-led Congress.

[JamesA1102]

31. This is because you have dishonest and dishonorable people

who are willing to employ FAUX news tactics to win a political fight.

[AzDar]

13. K & R

:kick:

[Name removed]

14. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[ClassWarrior]

16. It's the WH chart. If it manipulates the facts, take it up with them.

The poster simply corrected the WH's error.

NGU.

[mtnsnake]

19. Ouch!

:thumbsup:

[ProSense]

39. This is not the WH chart. It's completely dishonest. n/t

[Hello_Kitty]

17. Kick. eom

[yurbud]

20. that makes it look even more pitiful--and the payroll tax holiday is a prelude to

saying Social Security is running a deficit and therefore must be cut.

[zulchzulu]

21. A couple things that show this graphic is bullshit

So the Payroll Tax Holiday and the Child Tax Credit are not good for small businesses and families?

Add that the alternative is raising taxes for all, including the middle class AND no Unemployment insurance, Earned Income Tax Credit, Renewable Energy Grants, Equipment Expensing...

Anyone can lie with a graphic for their agenda, which appears to be sanctimonious partisan purity at the cost of the American people.

[ClassWarrior]

22. Interesting. The poster only changed the payroll tax "holiday." Which means the WH is responsible...

...for half of the "bullshit" that you identify. Because this was originally the chart the WH published.

Interesting indeed.

NGU.

[ClassWarrior]

26. What do you think of that, zulu, since you called bullshit on it?...

Just curious.

NGU.

[Hello_Kitty]

23. That's not the argument. The WH put up the original chart to show what we "got"

In exchange for extending the tax cuts to the rich. They're acting as though everything that was on the blue side (of the original chart) was a hard-fought concession. But when it's things the GOP supports - like the child tax credit and the payroll holiday - you can't really call it that. Both of the aforementioned would pass as stand-alone bills in a GOP congress next year.

[kentuck]

25. I think the Payroll Tax Holiday should be put on the blue side....

It is the start for the Repubs to dismantle Social Security. That is not a benefit for the middle class.

[lunatica]

28. It would be even more effective if they showed the number of people

in each category. That would give us even more incentive to cry.

[JamesA1102]

30. So Dems are suddenly against the Child Tax Credit?

And where are the tax cuts for the low and middle class?

[ClassWarrior]

38. Ask the White House. It's their chart. The only change has been to move the...

...payroll tax "holiday" :party: to the hostage-takers' side. Obama's crew is responsible for the rest.

NGU.

[ProSense]

40. Here is the actual chart:

The White House's case for the tax-cut deal in one graph

[Milo_Bloom]

45. The regressive payroll tax holiday belongs on the other side.

This is why the white house has lost such credibility.

[discopants]

37. $280B Middle-class tax cut doen't count for 'what we got"?

[boppers]

43. Shh! Don't disturb the narrative!

Look, there's a chart and everything!

[Milo_Bloom]

44. No, because BOTH SIDES wanted them.