charloscarlies
250+ Posts
Taxes as a % of GDP is not that meaningful, and the reason why is how GDP is calculated:
Taxes in US are very low
- Thread starter mcbrett
- Start date
O
Oilfield
Guest
So McBrett, for the sake of clarity, does this mean that you oppose Obama's stated goal of lowering corporate tax rates by around 8%?
For the sake of clarity- I'm showing unbiased data that points out- our taxes aren't really that high.
I would hope you Oilfield, and especially the guys like 6721 and general- will stop knee-jerking with "our taxes are so high, they should be lowered if we want to help the economy." That is patently untrue- and our economy has prospered many times over during periods with much higher tax rates.
And as I've said many times on other threads, I think we need to resolve our fiscal crisis just as the Bi-Partisan debt commission suggested- a combination of spending cuts in SS, Medicare and Defense, coupled with the repeal of the Bush tax cuts for the upper 1%.
I would hope you Oilfield, and especially the guys like 6721 and general- will stop knee-jerking with "our taxes are so high, they should be lowered if we want to help the economy." That is patently untrue- and our economy has prospered many times over during periods with much higher tax rates.
And as I've said many times on other threads, I think we need to resolve our fiscal crisis just as the Bi-Partisan debt commission suggested- a combination of spending cuts in SS, Medicare and Defense, coupled with the repeal of the Bush tax cuts for the upper 1%.
O
Oilfield
Guest
The point is finding the sweet spot with corporate taxes so that companies don't have the need to move offshore for tax purposes. Can we increase government revenue by lowering the rate?
B
bronco
Guest
The answer is allowing US companies to pay US income tax at the same rate as they they can now pay it in the country where they are operating. With a company like google, it is very hard to do that because virtually all of google is intangibles. But for companies like GE, Exxon, Pepsi, Coke, Nike etc it would generate hundereds of billions in tax revenue for the US.
Only in Mcbrettworld would someone argue that taxes in the US are very low and link to an article that is all about how companies use the tax code to avoid paying higher taxes. If the taxes were low, they companies would not be trying so hard to minimize their tax burden.
I do agree with mcbrett that the solution is a cut in spending with a corresponding increase in revenue. Reinstating the Bush tax cuts on the upper earners doesnt actually even come close to closing the gap though. The only sensible plan is to go ahead and raise the rate on the top 1% and institute a national sales tax/gas tax. But the cost cutting has to be done simultaneously for anything to get passed.
Only in Mcbrettworld would someone argue that taxes in the US are very low and link to an article that is all about how companies use the tax code to avoid paying higher taxes. If the taxes were low, they companies would not be trying so hard to minimize their tax burden.
I do agree with mcbrett that the solution is a cut in spending with a corresponding increase in revenue. Reinstating the Bush tax cuts on the upper earners doesnt actually even come close to closing the gap though. The only sensible plan is to go ahead and raise the rate on the top 1% and institute a national sales tax/gas tax. But the cost cutting has to be done simultaneously for anything to get passed.
Bronco- despite the childlike digs- you actually bring up a good point about letting corporations pay the matching rate to the US to account for other countries where they may operate.
UTChe- that's a cute anecdote, but, doesn't dispel a table with numbers. I don't care how you feel about it- table's and graphs, based on numbers, don't have political slants as you'd like to think they do when the point is upsetting to you.
I think a few of you could acknowledge, but probably never would, that when you hear a commentator ramble on about how this country is not competitive, or that jobs are not being created because of our taxes, than you see the real data, and you note that our current rates are much lower than many other previous boom times- that said commentator is full of sht- and that, as Bronco and many others have noted- the real solution is probably very close to what the Bi-partisan debt commission suggested, decrease spending, increase some revenues.
UTChe- that's a cute anecdote, but, doesn't dispel a table with numbers. I don't care how you feel about it- table's and graphs, based on numbers, don't have political slants as you'd like to think they do when the point is upsetting to you.
I think a few of you could acknowledge, but probably never would, that when you hear a commentator ramble on about how this country is not competitive, or that jobs are not being created because of our taxes, than you see the real data, and you note that our current rates are much lower than many other previous boom times- that said commentator is full of sht- and that, as Bronco and many others have noted- the real solution is probably very close to what the Bi-partisan debt commission suggested, decrease spending, increase some revenues.
PolitiFact weighs in with a different view:
Was the Reagan recession really worse than the current one?
We consulted economists and historians and examined statistics to determine if she's right.
Here are how some of the key factors stack up.
-- Length of the recession . Dating the Reagan recession is somewhat tricky. The National Bureau of Economic Research -- the official arbiter of recession-dating -- classifies one recession as lasting from January 1980 to July 1980 and a second as running from July 1981 to November 1982. The first occurred wholly on President Jimmy Carter's watch, while the second was entirely under Reagan. However, some economists contend that the two recessions actually amount to one "double-dip" recession.
The maximum length of the early-1980s recession is nearly three years, but counting the double-dip recessions together while excluding the months of expansion between them leaves 23 months of recession. That's exactly the same length as the Obama recession, which began in December 2007 and continues through today. The whole early 1980s period was longer, but the Obama recession looks likely to continue for at least a little while longer.
VERDICT: Call it a wash -- for now.
-- Economic growth or contraction . During the double-dip recession, inflation-adjusted GDP declined by 0.6 percent over the full three-year period -- far less than the 2.8 percent decrease seen in the current, two-year recession. But GDP loss in Obama's recession is pretty similar to losses in the second of the two early-1980s dips, when the economy shrank by 2.6 percent.
Viewed another way, in the worst full year of the 1980s recession, GDP shrank by 1.9 percent. Unless the economy supercharges during the final quarter of this year, there's a good chance that the contraction in 2009 will be bigger.
VERDICT: They're close, but the current recession will likely end up somewhat worse.
-- Peak unemployment . Unemployment crested at 10.8 percent at the very end of the Reagan recession, in November and December of 1982. It hasn't gotten that high yet in the Obama recession -- it's currently at 10.2 percent -- but it could well get there in the coming months.
VERDICT: Worse under Reagan.
-- Rise in unemployment . Some economists say that an even more important factor than peak unemployment is the total distance that unemployment rose over the course of the recession. By that measure, unemployment rose 4.5 percentage points over the full double-dip recession and rose 3.6 points during the second of the two dips. Both measures are lower than the 5.3 percentage-point climb in unemployment seen so far during the Obama recession.
VERDICT: Worse under Obama.
-- Long-term unemployment . Many economists believe that long-term unemployment is more worrisome than short-term unemployment, because the longer someone goes without a job, the harder it is to get back into the work force, and, in turn, the harder it is for the economy as a whole to move forward. And there's a lot more long-term unemployment now than there was during the early 1980s.
In 1982, the final year of the Reagan recession, short-term unemployment -- that is, joblessness lasting less than five weeks -- hovered around 3.7 million. That's not much different than the 3.3 million or so short-term unemployed we've seen so far during 2009.
The picture is quite different for long-term unemployment, which is defined as 27 weeks or more without a job. In 1982, the number of people who were unemployed for the long term ranged from 1.2 million to 2.6 million. It's far worse today, with numbers ranging from 2.6 million to 5.6 million. In fact, in October 2009, the average duration of someone being unemployed reached 26.9 months -- the longest on record.
VERDICT: Much worse under Obama.
-- Personal income . Personal income actually rose during the Reagan recession (up 28 percent over the full three years and up 7 percent during the second of the two dips). During the Obama recession, personal income has fallen by about 1 percent over the two years.
VERDICT: Worse under Obama.
-- Industrial production . Industrial production means somewhat less these days, in postindustrial America, but it's still a useful barometer for economic activity. Under the Reagan recession, industrial production fell by 9 percent over the double-dip recession and 8.6 percent during the second dip alone. By contrast, industrial production has shrunk during the Obama recession by 12 percent.
VERDICT: Worse under Obama.
-- The stock market . Economists disagree about the merits of including the stock market as a factor when gauging recessions, but with many more Americans invested in stocks now than 30 years ago, a downturn in stock values can have both tangible and psychological effects.
As it happens, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose during the Reagan recession and has plunged during Obama's. It climbed by 19 percent during the full, double-dip recession and rose by 9 percent during the second dip alone. By contrast, the Dow has fallen 22 percent during the current recession.
VERDICT: Worse under Obama.
-- Housing prices . The Reagan recession may have been bad for unemployment, but it was good for real estate. Over the double-dip recession, house prices rose by 11.4 percent. During the second dip, the rise was smaller -- 2.2 percent -- but still in positive territory. To be fair, that was in an era of much higher inflation. Still, during the Obama recession, house prices have fallen 5.7 percent, a decline much faster than prices as a whole. And the experience of seeing one's house value plunge only adds to the psychological wallop.
VERDICT: Much worse under Obama.
-- Foreclosures . The comparisons for foreclosures aren't exactly apples-to-apples due to changes in the housing and mortgage markets. But foreclosures are definitely up. The rate of active foreclosures in the fourth quarters of 1980, 1981 and 1981 ranged from 0.38 percent to 0.67 percent. In the fourth quarter of 2008, the rate was 3.3 percent, and in the second quarter of 2009, it rose again to 4.3 percent.
VERDICT: Much worse under Obama.
-- Bank failures . The peak bank failure years of the Reagan and Obama recessions -- 1982 and 2009 -- were almost identical in severity. In 1982, 119 banks failed; so far this year, the number is 123.
But the year isn't over yet -- and there's no certainty that banks won't continue failing in 2010 and beyond. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., which insures customer deposits, estimates bank failures to cost $100 billion from 2009 through 2013, which prompted the agency to scramble to collect accelerated premiums from the banks it insures, just to make sure it had enough liquid assets on hand to cover new failures.
VERDICT: It's a wash so far, but things could get worse in the current recession before they get better.
The one factor we've sidestepped until now is inflation. A number of the conservative economists we spoke to believe that the high inflation of the early 1980s made Reagan's challenge worse.
But we found significant disagreement with other economists about whether inflation is a good barometer of a recession. Some of them said it can be high in good economic times and low in poor economic times. So we're not rendering a verdict on it to compare the recessions. Still, we'll provide the data below so you can see how they would have compared.
They're certainly right that inflation was high. The consumer price index rose by 12.4 percent in 1980, 8.9 percent in 1981 and 3.8 percent in 1982. By contrast, inflation was actually negative in 2008, at -0.08 percent, and is on pace to be about 2.7 percent in 2009.
As Richard Rahn, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, recently put it, "Both President Reagan and President Obama inherited an economy suffering from a year of no growth, along with rising unemployment. (The numbers are almost identical.) But Mr. Reagan faced a far direr situation in that inflation was in the double digits and the prime interest rate was at 20 percent. In contrast, Mr. Obama inherited an economy in which inflation was falling (in fact, inflation has been close to zero for this year) and interest rates were very low. A situation in which the number of jobs available is falling is bad enough, but if inflation is also destroying purchasing power, the misery is compounded."
Recreating the famous "misery index" -- unemployment plus inflation -- shows higher numbers in the Reagan years, ranging between 13.5 and 19.5. The misery index in the current recession has been lower -- 5.7 in 2008 and 11.8 so far in 2009.
So back to Palin's claim that Reagan's recession was more severe. The barometers we examined aren't necessarily equal measurements of the magnitude, but collectively they paint a picture that the current recession -- so far -- is worse than the one under Reagan. Even if we had decided to include inflation as a factor, the measurements would still indicate the current recession is worse. So we the claim to be False.
Was the Reagan recession really worse than the current one?
We consulted economists and historians and examined statistics to determine if she's right.
Here are how some of the key factors stack up.
-- Length of the recession . Dating the Reagan recession is somewhat tricky. The National Bureau of Economic Research -- the official arbiter of recession-dating -- classifies one recession as lasting from January 1980 to July 1980 and a second as running from July 1981 to November 1982. The first occurred wholly on President Jimmy Carter's watch, while the second was entirely under Reagan. However, some economists contend that the two recessions actually amount to one "double-dip" recession.
The maximum length of the early-1980s recession is nearly three years, but counting the double-dip recessions together while excluding the months of expansion between them leaves 23 months of recession. That's exactly the same length as the Obama recession, which began in December 2007 and continues through today. The whole early 1980s period was longer, but the Obama recession looks likely to continue for at least a little while longer.
VERDICT: Call it a wash -- for now.
-- Economic growth or contraction . During the double-dip recession, inflation-adjusted GDP declined by 0.6 percent over the full three-year period -- far less than the 2.8 percent decrease seen in the current, two-year recession. But GDP loss in Obama's recession is pretty similar to losses in the second of the two early-1980s dips, when the economy shrank by 2.6 percent.
Viewed another way, in the worst full year of the 1980s recession, GDP shrank by 1.9 percent. Unless the economy supercharges during the final quarter of this year, there's a good chance that the contraction in 2009 will be bigger.
VERDICT: They're close, but the current recession will likely end up somewhat worse.
-- Peak unemployment . Unemployment crested at 10.8 percent at the very end of the Reagan recession, in November and December of 1982. It hasn't gotten that high yet in the Obama recession -- it's currently at 10.2 percent -- but it could well get there in the coming months.
VERDICT: Worse under Reagan.
-- Rise in unemployment . Some economists say that an even more important factor than peak unemployment is the total distance that unemployment rose over the course of the recession. By that measure, unemployment rose 4.5 percentage points over the full double-dip recession and rose 3.6 points during the second of the two dips. Both measures are lower than the 5.3 percentage-point climb in unemployment seen so far during the Obama recession.
VERDICT: Worse under Obama.
-- Long-term unemployment . Many economists believe that long-term unemployment is more worrisome than short-term unemployment, because the longer someone goes without a job, the harder it is to get back into the work force, and, in turn, the harder it is for the economy as a whole to move forward. And there's a lot more long-term unemployment now than there was during the early 1980s.
In 1982, the final year of the Reagan recession, short-term unemployment -- that is, joblessness lasting less than five weeks -- hovered around 3.7 million. That's not much different than the 3.3 million or so short-term unemployed we've seen so far during 2009.
The picture is quite different for long-term unemployment, which is defined as 27 weeks or more without a job. In 1982, the number of people who were unemployed for the long term ranged from 1.2 million to 2.6 million. It's far worse today, with numbers ranging from 2.6 million to 5.6 million. In fact, in October 2009, the average duration of someone being unemployed reached 26.9 months -- the longest on record.
VERDICT: Much worse under Obama.
-- Personal income . Personal income actually rose during the Reagan recession (up 28 percent over the full three years and up 7 percent during the second of the two dips). During the Obama recession, personal income has fallen by about 1 percent over the two years.
VERDICT: Worse under Obama.
-- Industrial production . Industrial production means somewhat less these days, in postindustrial America, but it's still a useful barometer for economic activity. Under the Reagan recession, industrial production fell by 9 percent over the double-dip recession and 8.6 percent during the second dip alone. By contrast, industrial production has shrunk during the Obama recession by 12 percent.
VERDICT: Worse under Obama.
-- The stock market . Economists disagree about the merits of including the stock market as a factor when gauging recessions, but with many more Americans invested in stocks now than 30 years ago, a downturn in stock values can have both tangible and psychological effects.
As it happens, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose during the Reagan recession and has plunged during Obama's. It climbed by 19 percent during the full, double-dip recession and rose by 9 percent during the second dip alone. By contrast, the Dow has fallen 22 percent during the current recession.
VERDICT: Worse under Obama.
-- Housing prices . The Reagan recession may have been bad for unemployment, but it was good for real estate. Over the double-dip recession, house prices rose by 11.4 percent. During the second dip, the rise was smaller -- 2.2 percent -- but still in positive territory. To be fair, that was in an era of much higher inflation. Still, during the Obama recession, house prices have fallen 5.7 percent, a decline much faster than prices as a whole. And the experience of seeing one's house value plunge only adds to the psychological wallop.
VERDICT: Much worse under Obama.
-- Foreclosures . The comparisons for foreclosures aren't exactly apples-to-apples due to changes in the housing and mortgage markets. But foreclosures are definitely up. The rate of active foreclosures in the fourth quarters of 1980, 1981 and 1981 ranged from 0.38 percent to 0.67 percent. In the fourth quarter of 2008, the rate was 3.3 percent, and in the second quarter of 2009, it rose again to 4.3 percent.
VERDICT: Much worse under Obama.
-- Bank failures . The peak bank failure years of the Reagan and Obama recessions -- 1982 and 2009 -- were almost identical in severity. In 1982, 119 banks failed; so far this year, the number is 123.
But the year isn't over yet -- and there's no certainty that banks won't continue failing in 2010 and beyond. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., which insures customer deposits, estimates bank failures to cost $100 billion from 2009 through 2013, which prompted the agency to scramble to collect accelerated premiums from the banks it insures, just to make sure it had enough liquid assets on hand to cover new failures.
VERDICT: It's a wash so far, but things could get worse in the current recession before they get better.
The one factor we've sidestepped until now is inflation. A number of the conservative economists we spoke to believe that the high inflation of the early 1980s made Reagan's challenge worse.
But we found significant disagreement with other economists about whether inflation is a good barometer of a recession. Some of them said it can be high in good economic times and low in poor economic times. So we're not rendering a verdict on it to compare the recessions. Still, we'll provide the data below so you can see how they would have compared.
They're certainly right that inflation was high. The consumer price index rose by 12.4 percent in 1980, 8.9 percent in 1981 and 3.8 percent in 1982. By contrast, inflation was actually negative in 2008, at -0.08 percent, and is on pace to be about 2.7 percent in 2009.
As Richard Rahn, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, recently put it, "Both President Reagan and President Obama inherited an economy suffering from a year of no growth, along with rising unemployment. (The numbers are almost identical.) But Mr. Reagan faced a far direr situation in that inflation was in the double digits and the prime interest rate was at 20 percent. In contrast, Mr. Obama inherited an economy in which inflation was falling (in fact, inflation has been close to zero for this year) and interest rates were very low. A situation in which the number of jobs available is falling is bad enough, but if inflation is also destroying purchasing power, the misery is compounded."
Recreating the famous "misery index" -- unemployment plus inflation -- shows higher numbers in the Reagan years, ranging between 13.5 and 19.5. The misery index in the current recession has been lower -- 5.7 in 2008 and 11.8 so far in 2009.
So back to Palin's claim that Reagan's recession was more severe. The barometers we examined aren't necessarily equal measurements of the magnitude, but collectively they paint a picture that the current recession -- so far -- is worse than the one under Reagan. Even if we had decided to include inflation as a factor, the measurements would still indicate the current recession is worse. So we the claim to be False.
majorwhiteapples
5,000+ Posts
As has been proved time and time again, lower the corporate income tax rate, it creates jobs and increases the overall Tax Revenue. It has happened under Democrats and Republicans in the past. It has been proven time and time again.
Leave my taxes alone, take an ax, not a ******* scaple, to spending. Tax everyone, you earn 1 dollar in this country you owe something. Everyone is accountable.
If you take the idiotic bubble advice that taxing the richest 1% is going to raise so much money than you are a ******* moron. Wealthy people like that will check out of revenue generating in a heartbeat. If you raise their taxes you influence behavior. You will not see very much of all that so called revenue people keep dreaming about. It is a cheap political ploy to influence the galatically stupid.
I will give you an example, you are worth $20M, you can fool around and try to earn some additional moneys and be taxed at 75% or 91%? Which level are you willing to put more risk and investment into? Most People at that level do not have to work, they do it for Ego or Power, but when they start to see even less return on investment. Unlike you and mean that can't make finanicial decisions on ROI, the wealthiest 1% can and do make decisions based on ROI. If someone does not recognize that then you really are Nicolas Cage in that movie with the trains.......
Leave my taxes alone, take an ax, not a ******* scaple, to spending. Tax everyone, you earn 1 dollar in this country you owe something. Everyone is accountable.
If you take the idiotic bubble advice that taxing the richest 1% is going to raise so much money than you are a ******* moron. Wealthy people like that will check out of revenue generating in a heartbeat. If you raise their taxes you influence behavior. You will not see very much of all that so called revenue people keep dreaming about. It is a cheap political ploy to influence the galatically stupid.
I will give you an example, you are worth $20M, you can fool around and try to earn some additional moneys and be taxed at 75% or 91%? Which level are you willing to put more risk and investment into? Most People at that level do not have to work, they do it for Ego or Power, but when they start to see even less return on investment. Unlike you and mean that can't make finanicial decisions on ROI, the wealthiest 1% can and do make decisions based on ROI. If someone does not recognize that then you really are Nicolas Cage in that movie with the trains.......
Y
YoLaDu
Guest
mcbrett i think your dad is still running that store bro regardless of that, i think if he can legally write off a ton of his expenses and end up not paying taxes and making 40,000 that seems quite fair to me. how many people are being employed due to his hard work and ingenuity? also how much is being paid in taxes on the building he has and countless other transactions? i think his net tax bill is probably far more than the pittance he gets to write off in terms of personal income tax. ,
Yoladu,
I do believe that the biggest problem facing our country is debt not taxation. Both Republicans and Democrats have failed on this issue. That said, raising taxes in the middle of a recession would be pretty silly. We do need to get serious about cutting spending though or eventually the dollar will be little more than monopoly money.
I do believe that the biggest problem facing our country is debt not taxation. Both Republicans and Democrats have failed on this issue. That said, raising taxes in the middle of a recession would be pretty silly. We do need to get serious about cutting spending though or eventually the dollar will be little more than monopoly money.
Y
YoLaDu
Guest
Y
YoLaDu
Guest
dreaded double post. my apologies.
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