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."
Wealth disparity -- more important than income ine (Score:5, Interesting)
Wealth disparity [wikipedia.org] is actually more important than income indequality, as the extremely wealthy often earn a tiny fraction of income compared to their immense wealth, while the extremely poor have only their income to rely on.
Unfortunately, wealth inequality is rarely talked about in the mainstream media. Usually it's income that's talked about, and as horrible as income inequality is, focusing on it paints an unduly rosy picture of the real economic injustice suffered in the US.
Re:Politically stupid timing (Score:5, Interesting)
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?
Dead with the Summary (Score:5, Interesting)
The plan advocated by House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan that is embodied in the House Budget Resolution (H.Con.Res. 112), the Path to Prosperity, also proposes to reduce income tax rates by broadening the tax base.
There is not conclusive evidence, however, to substantiate a clear relationship between the 65-year steady reduction in the top tax rates and economic growth. Analysis of such data suggests the reduction in the top tax rates have had little association with saving, investment, or productivity growth. However, the top tax rate reductions appear to be associated with the increasing concentration of income at the top of the income distribution. 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
Roughly interpreted: Ryan doesn't know what he's talking about, by extension neither does Romney. In fact, the only thing accomplished by reducing taxes on the rich is a money grab that increases the disparity between the 1% and the other 99%.
You know I really cannot understand why the Republicans would take issue with this report. I mean really, you'd think they'd like to know that their domestic policy is specious so that they can find real solutions. Unless, perhaps they already understood the reality of their talking point...
Re:zero sum game (Score:5, Interesting)
the elite class is the richest they've ever been.
you see a lot of spare jobs around this economy?
hmmm, we gave the rich all they asked for. they wanted this and that and we gave it to them.
have they 'created more jobs?'
yes.
in india!
fuck the rich. they don't deserve our respect. (yes, I had my job outsourced by some rich ceo asswipe. yes, I'm bitter. having to train your foreign replacement to help the ceo get a bigger boat tends to make one bitter. my company was doing very well but they wanted even better numbers, so we had mass layoffs. the rich do NOT carry their weight. they are a liability to us, more than an asset.)
Re:Wealth disparity -- more important than income (Score:2, Interesting)
name a single billionaire who earned their billions through their own labor, rather than by exploiting the labor of others
Re:zero sum game (Score:4, Interesting)
The thing about consumption is it tends to have a larger local economy element (less so than it used to though).
this means tax cuts to the poor help poorer areas get better.
investment is very global now, and has for a long time been less local, this means it will.have a broader area it improves, and less of it will go to poorer areas.
Net asset tax instead of income tax? (Score:5, Interesting)
Let me propose a radical idea to discuss: abolish the income tax and replace it by a tax on net assets. I'm not proposing any particular rate structure, but let me describe the general ideas.
Income tax has too many loopholes for the wealthy. For example, the Facebook and Google CEOs pay themselves $1 per year, avoiding any income tax and paying only the low capital gains rate when they occasionally sell some stock to finance their lifestyles. The rest grows tax-free, indefinitely, as their companies grow.
It seems to me that a fair tax would be based on a person's ability to pay it. The ability to afford a tax is much more dependent on how much wealth you have than how much income you make. Taxing the income of someone who can barely make ends meet, preventing them from accumulating any savings, doesn't seem beneficial for society overall.
It is much harder for a wealthy person to hide their assets than to exploit income tax loopholes. Of course there will always be loopholes, but most of the information regarding the ultra rich, for example, is even public, otherwise it would not be possible to compile the Fortune 400 list.
The middle class is already subject to an asset (real estate) tax on what, for most, is their primary asset, their home. So it's nothing new, and although those who pay it don't enjoy doing so of course, it's accepted and viewed as a necessary evil to finance their local community. The real estate tax is actually very regressive â" the less equity you have in your home, the higher percentage of that equity you pay, since it is based on the home's value, not your equity in it. You pay it even if your equity is negative (i.e. if the mortgage is underwater)! If both real estate tax and income tax were replaced by a net asset tax, it would seem to me to be much fairer.
One argument I've seen against an asset tax is that it would encourage people not to accumulate wealth i.e. would encourage stagnation. I disagree. A positive benefit of the real estate tax, for example, is that it discourages the accumulation of property sitting idle, but encourages the development and use of that property. Similarly, I would imagine a net worth tax would encourage productive use of the money, possibly even finally leading to that trickle-down job creation we hear so much about.
Re:Of course it was! (Score:5, Interesting)
The really funny part... this reminds me exactly of that masturbatory, dystopian, boat anchor of a book, Atlas Shrugged. 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. Any results to the contrary were buried.
Note that this one follows one of the worst financial calamities in US history, perpetrated in reality by those magnates at the top (so revered in the story), and total lack of regulation.
My irony gauge just blew a fuse.
Re:zero sum game (Score:3, Interesting)
Except starve the beast is a failure; look it up.
Re:Of course it was! (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Wealth disparity -- more important than income (Score:3, Interesting)
You want to know what would happen if you attacked that wealth? Eventually no one would be motivated to do the things that being to earn them such wealth. Progress would stop dead.
This is what randrrhoids actually believe.
The first. most blatant and most fatal flaw in Atlas Shrugged is that it assumes that all the creative people are Conservative/Libertarian. No Ted Turners, no Bill Gatess, no Warren Buffets. Even as young and clueless as I was when I first read it I knew that was nonsense, just like the "30-minute" speech that patently isn't. The first time I actually skipped over part of a book, no matter how tedious ("how dim does she think I am that I haven't gotten the point by now and if I didn't is hammering me over the head with it going to help?")
The idea that wealthy people will stop doing things that make them wealthy if you take some of that wealth away isn't actually codified in Rand's writings that I know of, but I think everyone pretty well agrees that after the first 200K or so of income you're no longer working to "make a living", you're working to Prove a Point. Money is just one of the more popular ways of keeping score. Naturally, everyone wants to be given things (like Lower Taxes Every Day [TM]) and nobody wants to have things taken from them, but it's not like anyone with a fat bank account is going to simply up and quit. Especially in times like these where the popular meme is that you become successful (implying wealthy) by doing something before anyone else does it first.
Re:What's that, Mrs. Streisand? (Score:2, Interesting)
The Republican Party has created a bubble of alternate facts and alternate narratives.
It damages their ability to govern and has destroyed their ability to compromise.
Do tell.
Reid says he can't work with Romney [washingtontimes.com]
As of August 11, 2012: '1,200 Days and $5 Trillion in New Debt Since Senate Dems Passed a Budget' [weeklystandard.com]