Nonpartisan Tax Report Removed After Republican Protest 555
eldavojohn writes "On September 14th a report titled 'Taxes and the Economy: An Economic Analysis of the Top Tax Rates Since 1945' (PDF) penned by the Library of Congress' nonpartisan Congressional Research Service was released to little fanfare. However, the following conclusion of the report has since roiled the GOP enough to have the report removed from the Library of Congress: 'The results of the analysis suggest that changes over the past 65 years in the top marginal tax rate and the top capital gains tax rate do not appear correlated with economic growth. The reduction in the top tax rates appears to be uncorrelated with saving, investment, and productivity growth. The top tax rates appear to have little or no relation to the size of the economic pie. However, the top tax rate reductions appear to be associated with the increasing concentration of income at the top of the income distribution. As measured by IRS data, the share of income accruing to the top 0.1% of U.S. families increased from 4.2% in 1945 to 12.3% by 2007 before falling to 9.2% due to the 2007-2009 recession. At the same time, the average tax rate paid by the top 0.1% fell from over 50% in 1945 to about 25% in 2009. Tax policy could have a relation to how the economic pie is sliced—lower top tax rates may be associated with greater income disparities.' From the New York Times article: 'The pressure applied to the research service comes amid a broader Republican effort to raise questions about research and statistics that were once trusted as nonpartisan and apolitical.' It appears to no longer be found on the Library of Congress' website."
Re:Did anyone get a copy first? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Did anyone get a copy first? (Score:3, Informative)
It was removed, but did anyone manage to get a copy before that was done. It would be interesting to get an independent (in relative terms) review of the document.
Reading fail - it is right there linked in the summary. Now excuse me while I walk away and hide in shame ;)
Re:Romney Kills Baby Seals (Score:2, Informative)
There's some truth to that. The fact that I despise conservative crazies doesn't mean I don't despise liberal, libertarian or whig crazies just as much. Basically, I despise any party or organization to the extent that their views deviate from provable reality. Admittedly, right-wing republicans have taken over as the top of the reality denial list of late, but that doesn't mean that any other group is getting saner.
Re:Romney Kills Baby Seals (Score:5, Informative)
Oddly, Attila the Hun was very liberal for his day, and could be considered liberal even today. Among the very progressive (for the times) things he enforced:
- It was fairly typical for him to take a city and then kill all of the political leadership, but not punish the populous. He then would let it be known that he knew who had commanded the opposition, and that the fight was now over with their disposal. Of course if anyone then tried to resume the fight he was incredibly brutal in retaliation. The idea of punishing the people responsible for war rather than the common man is something we still struggle with nowadays.
- Having been a near-slave himself early in life he abolished the idea of being born into slavery. The only people who were slaves were the people who were conquered.
- With the exception of the inherited emperorship (which was always going to go to whichever of his many children proved the most able), governmental positions were almost all by merit rather than political connection. This was virtually unheard of anywhere in the world at the time.
- Religious freedom was enforced all across the empire (because the largest in history it should be noted). In fact he seems to have enjoyed religious debate, and the most scholarly work comparing and contrasting religion of the time all came out of his capital where he brought diverse religious leaders together and invited them to debate before the court.
Most of this is from "Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World" (a great read): http://www.amazon.com/Genghis-Khan-Making-Modern-World/dp/0609809644
Other pieces from the traveling museum exhibit that it seems will next be in Chicago in Feb (I saw it in San Jose): http://fieldmuseum.org/about/genghis-khan-invades-chicago
another point of view (Score:5, Informative)
And it misses some important economic issues such as the declining value of labor versus capital (one would expect owners of capital to do relatively well in a global market with extremely cheap labor available and for that capital to move to foreign locations) and the burden of regulation (which has considerable effect on hiring people and creating new businesses, both which would favor those who own established, working capital). In other words, there are two big, contrary effects which might mask any economic benefit from cutting taxes for the highest income bracket.
As to the article being pulled, it was allegedly done at the behest of Senate Republicans who are a minority in the Senate. Why didn't Democrats block that? In fact, who actually asked for and sequestered the report? Doesn't seem to be a Republican thing to ask for stuff that might run counter to their agenda, but maybe the people who requested it thought they could bury anything inconvenient.
High salary people invest. (Score:2, Informative)
That's what I do with it. I sock it away, in stocks, bonds or other instruments. Sometimes I buy stuff--a car, a nice meal, new clothes, but mostly (~80% of my purchases) I buy paper. I'm under no illusion that this goes back somehow into the pockets of working-class folks.
Take it from a rich guy, I don't want the responsibility for taking care of every shlub in America--I've got other things to worry about. What am I going to do, get ten freaking maids to clean my house every day? I don't want to live in Mexico, or Russia. I want a strong economy built on a mix of services, manufacturing and education. That's what makes stock prices go up, and that's what makes me wealthy.
Taking care of poor people--with heath care, education and unemployment insurance, is actually a really good job for the government. They do it well, and I'm happy to contribute my bit.
Re:zero sum game (Score:5, Informative)
But tax cuts for the rich does have a higher return in terms of contributions to the GOP.
Re:Politically stupid timing (Score:4, Informative)
If you are going to pull a stunt like this, you are supposed to wait until AFTER the elections!
This "stunt" was pulled back in September as a run-of-the-mill decision. Three guesses as to why it was publicized THIS week?
Well it was September 28th, so only about a month ago, and we don't know how well the retraction was published, so it could be all the political junkies got their copy in the 2 weeks it was available and it took a while for people to notice it was missing.
Or it's also possible that whatever political operatives did notice immediately, but decided to sit on it while waiting for a more opportune time, rather than cause an early October bump that would dissipate before the election.
I think two critical questions are a) does the agency have an explanation for the retraction, and b) how common are retractions.
Re:Of course it was! (Score:2, Informative)
We basically have PAYE right now. If you owe more then $1,000 on April 15 you have to file a Form 2210, and pay a penalty.
http://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc306.html [irs.gov]
Re:Of course it was! (Score:3, Informative)
Simply saying it is non-partisan is not the same as it being non-partisan. the chief author is a substantial contributor to the Obama campaign and democratic party.
Re:Post-truth politics (Score:1, Informative)
... whooooooosh ... both candidates are advocating reallocation. romney wants to re-allocate to the wealthy through top-tier and corporate tax cuts. /quote>
*Not* taking someone's money from them, is not reallocating it to them. It's letting them keep what is theirs.
Re:Of course it was! (Score:4, Informative)
i don't know how it works in other PAYE countries, but in Australia income tax is deducted from your weekly/fortnightly/monthly pay by your employer and paid to the government.
Withheld tax is calculated based on your pay for that period, with a progressive tax scale [ato.gov.au] (the first $18,200 you earn is tax free).
You are still expected to file a tax return every year, and there are all sorts of exemptions and deductions and expenses you can claim (e.g. if you have children, and you can claim the cost of tools or education required for your work). Deductions aren't subtracted directly from the tax you pay, they reduce your taxable income (e.g. if you earn $50K and have $2K worth of deductions, you pay tax as if you earned $48K). For most people, this results in a tax refund, especially if they spent any time not working or had irregular overtime.
You're also supposed to declare in your tax return any other income you may have received (interest from investments, share dividends, capital gains, etc). For people who make significant incomes in this way, they end up with a tax bill to pay.
e.g. someone making $50,000 in a year would end up paying abut $8600 tax over that year, including the 1.5% medicare levy but not including any deductions. That works out to an effective tax rate of 17% - which isn't too bad considering that it pays for roads, schools, universities, hospitals, police, tax collectors :), army, navy, pharmaceutical benefits scheme (subsidised and price-regulated drugs - pharma companies hate it, people love it. PBS-approved drugs cost a maximum of $35 for a month's supply, but usually less - or about $5 if you're a pensioner or unemployed), infrastructure projects like the NBN, and thousands of other government services. it's not perfect, and money is wasted, and nearly everyone can think of some things that they'd rather their tax money wasn't spent on but the benefits greatly outweigh the cost.
Re:Of course it was! (Score:2, Informative)
If you payed attention during the debates, you would know his plan is mostly an outline with a few specific changes that he expects congress to achieve. He wants to largely follow the simpson bowles commission with limiting raising taxes and increasing the tax revenue by increasing the over all revenue that will be taxed.
Its no more vegue then Obama's plan is had anyone paid attention to it. The striking part of it is that he wants congress to work together on making it happen instead of putting something in front of them and saying support it. I personally think that is a good thing, perhaps it would get back to the Tip Oneal and New Gingrich style of congresses where they actually did something beneficial for the country and not a party.
Comment removed (Score:2, Informative)
Irresponsible (Score:5, Informative)
Government research agencies were operating under extreme pressure from ultra left wing political interests to generate only the results they wanted, or risk losing their jobs.
It is hard to believe how much projection there is on the extreme right. If you retargeted GOP words back on themselves, then they may well be more accurate. After-all, if you look at recent history:
+ The GOP are about big government. (Reagan, Bush & Bush)
+ They are fiscally irresponsible. (Reagan failed to balance the budget, but wasn't completely nuts. George W's own treasury secretary resigned because of his attitude towards money.)
+ They are obstructionist, but accuse Dems of not working across the table. (They will ask for the moon and more -- e.g., Debt ceiling, Eric Holder, the list is endless)
+ They believe Dems are engaging in voter fraud, and then aggressively engage in their own voter suppression campaign.
+ They believe they have the "truth" and others are just biased. (The kicker for me is that O'Reilly believes he's an independent, and his show is a "Spin Free Zone"
+ They believe their freedoms are restricted when they cannot restrict the freedoms of others. (The social conservative influence.)
There is a lot to respect about the historical GOP, but recently, they have become irresponsible. + They are disliked by about 70-80% of the rest of the world