Taxes
To help eliminate our budget/debt problems, the debate includes taxation, increase taxes or decrease taxes the left and right will say respectively. Both will say we have a need for a new tax code, but will not agree on a proposal for a new code. Everyone who manages a checkbook has seen budget problems before and knows how to correct it - reduce expenses and increase income. Everything else we here about this subject beyond these two facts is just noise and should be ignored. The political left and right cannot agree on how to correct this problem. Doing something is also better than doing nothing, which is what this stalemate is giving us now. The left's solution to our problem is to increase taxes on the rich to increase income. Currently the top 20% of income earners pays 80% of the federal tax burden. So do we want them to pay 100%? 110%? 120%? Maybe just write the check every year for the entire cost of government, whatever it is? Clearly this is not the solution. You have also heard that in the booming 1950's the top tax rate was 90% so decreasing taxes for growth is false. First, it is true that in the 1950's top tax rates were 90%, but no one paid it. Second, marginal tax rates are a better comparative statistic and are much higher today than in the 1950s. Third, the statement is oversimplified, incomplete and the conclusion is wrong, as proven in the 1980s. The left also consistently disparages the Bush Tax Cuts, as causing income inequality and the deficits we currently enjoy. Yet these tax policies actually reduced taxes at all income levels. Plus, when faced with a chance to end them, the left extended the cuts as a positive factor on the economy. The right wants us to reduce spending and taxes, which is also a poor solution in a recessionary economy. But the truth is we must do both (reduce expenses and increase income), we must do it now and it will not be easy. Untouchable entitlements are the problem and must be restructured. Adding another entitlement, Obamacare, to this mix just makes the problem worse. All the political hot air outside these facts is simply a distraction from the difficult but obvious answer. As to a new tax code - a must. The current tax code is over 60,000 pages long! A 2012 report estimated that it took 6.1 billion hours preparing taxes. What a waste. See the 2017 Income Tax tables for your information.

Anything we can spin negative, we will

11/18/22
from The Gray Area:
11/18/22:
The Washington Post writer Glenn Kessler revisited an issue from 2017 to take a swipe at Donald Trump in 2022. Trump, in his announcement of his 2024 presidential campaign Tuesday night, made reference to his tax cuts in 2017. He called them, as he does, the largest in the history of the US. He is prone to exaggeration we know. But, is this statement really false? No.  Is this a 'fact check moment'?  No. The Washington Post's Glenn Kessler, decided though, again, to call that statement 'false,' it was not the largest in history, referring to a 2017 WaPo article on the subject. Was Trump's tax cut huge or not?  Yes.  Was it 'one' of the largest in history? Yes.  Does it matter so much how a politician exaggerates a statement as to be 'fact checked' by the media? Apparently yes, unless you are Barack Obama, Bill Clinton or Joe Biden.  Then craziness is allowed to stand.  So, to be consistent, media, the answer is no. And, if you do fact check a statement, you should at least get it right! It was an historically large tax cut. Stop gaslighting, we all know it was. Here is the quote from the transcript of the Tax Cut in 2018. President Trump’s tax cuts are the biggest gross tax cuts in American history, cutting over $5.5 trillion in taxes over ten years. The President’s tax law included substantial reforms to make taxes simpler and fairer, which helped offset the cost of the tax cuts and thereby limit the net tax cut to $1.5 trillion. So, he did have the largest 'gross' ($5.5T) tax cut in history and the largest business tax cut in history. In his speeches he leaves out the word 'gross'.  Oh, gee, sorry. That means the tax cut doesn't count I guess? No, it means he is a liar! No, it doesn't. It means he exaggerates like all politicians.  Some actually do flat out lie. This is not a flat out lie of any kind. But, it needs to be spun as one by the media to support the political narrative that Trump is a serial liar. And, the business tax cut was the largest. Crickets on that point...... The BBC also got into this act in 2018 and identified what was true and what was spin. In honesty, Trump did have the largest tax cut in history, as he said, in 'gross' dollars, $5.5T.  Using the 'net' number of $1.5T, and that is the number used for comparison to other tax cuts in recent history, it was not technically the largest. The BBC says using the net number against the GDP, it was only about 6th or 8th largest. The BBC said; "Interestingly, President Trump might be half right: it seems that corporations will have plenty to cheer this tax day  ... Most analyses suggest that in absolute terms, this year's reduction of the US corporate tax rate from 35% to 21% is the biggest corporate tax cut in US history. It beats that corporate tax cut passed under former US President Ronald Reagan, which lowered the rate from 46% to 34%." If Trump were a Democrat, WaPo would have agreed with him on this claim and highlighted the business tax cut's position in history. But, since he is a Republican and they have such TDS, they have to take whatever he says and spin it negative. The point of his claim, is that he had an historically large tax cut, in gross dollars the largest, and the largest by any measure in business tax cuts. And those cuts, as we know in reality, had a tremendously positive impact on the economy and continues to generate more tax revenues than anyone expected. Fact checking Donald Trump is a business in itself.  When you read those fact checks, you can see how lame they are. They say things like true, but. And, that statement is technically accurate, but, he left out the following. Using that standard every newscast every day should be fact checked. Fact checking Trump is the media trying to spin his statements so they don't place into question any Democrat political narratives, which themselves include more spin and incorrect statements by far than this one by Trump. Fact checks of Donald Trump should either be ignored or read carefully beyond the hyped headline statements. And, vary your news sources! More From BBC:


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