A refresher on Reaganomics

[Glass]

Quick video refresher on Reaganomics and how well that worked out.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=BUQbiMmIuDU

I find it interesting that when you look at something and it is clearly a stupid idea and it is obvious that the way it is described to work is nonsensical, impossible or delusional yet people still seem to believe that it will work regardless of the obvious.

Never could work that one out but it's a life long mystery to me.

[Joe King]

What's the mystery? If everyones taxes get cut by 25%, then everyone has that much more $ to spend, or invest or do do whatever they want with.
ie it adds to GDP

Which is what happened in the '80s
More $ got spent.

The little peoples wages might not have gone up as much, but there were more little people working doing jobs that were created after the recession.

Under the current system, if you want to create jobs now, tell every company in America that if they increase they're workforce by 5% for the next 5 years they can deduct 100% of those new workers salaries off their tax bill for the next 5 years.
ie they figure their tax liability normally and then take the new deduction.



The part I find mysterious is how can a 70% tax rate be justified on anybody?
...and then complain when their rate is reduced to "only" 50%?

I don't care how much someone makes. To ask them to pay anymore than anyone else for equal gov services is immoral in my book.

Also, why should any business have to pay any taxes at all? People pay taxes, not companies.

[Glass]

Also, why should any business have to pay any taxes at all? People pay taxes, not companies.

Sorry Joe but the exact opposite is true. Companies or more correctly Corporations pay income tax not private people. The only reason that you pay income tax is because you are operating as a corporation.

I do agree that everyone should pay the same $$ value for Government services regardless of their means BUT I also think that those costs should be to recover the cost of the service provided but not to profit on it which unfortunately is what the Govt does. They do that themselves and they do it when they sell the government franchise to a private company who then charges + profit.

[Joe King]

Sorry Joe but the exact opposite is true. Companies or more correctly Corporations pay income tax not private people. The only reason that you pay income tax is because you are operating as a corporation.
I understand that. What I'm saying is that the two {people and businesses} need to be seperated so that no business entity pays any taxes. As in 0%



I do agree that everyone should pay the same $$ value for Government services regardless of their means BUT I also think that those costs should be to recover the cost of the service provided but not to profit on it which unfortunately is what the Govt does. They do that themselves and they do it when they sell the government franchise to a private company who then charges + profit.
Agreed. There should be no profit in gov services.
...and when you say "pay the same $$ value", you mean the same exact $ amount, correct?

[Glass]

I still think you have the 1st one back the front. I think companies should pay all the taxes and people should not. That was how it worked prior to the 1930's - 1940's when they began introducing an person(al) income tax. I think in the US it started in 1946. Australia had income tax since 1913 or something but it was not person(al) until 1936. Prior to that people did not pay income tax.

If the companies paid the income tax they are supposed to then ALL governments would be operating in surplus and its possible, just a little bit possible that "the people" would actually get a return or dividend for the profit companies/corporations derived from exploiting the peoples assets. We know this because we know that corporations do not pay the taxes they are supposed to and it's easy to workout roughly how much that is. We also know that Govts run 2 sets of books so they can pilfer the profits and make it seem like they constantly need bailing out. If you always budget for a defecit then you will always need a bailout. Thats what person(al) income taxes are. They are a bailout by the people to cover the Govts repeated, annual budget mismanagement and theft.

yes 100% on the 2nd one. If it costs $100 for a DL renewal it doesn't matter if I make $1 million or $15,000. It should not cost me more than $100.

[Joe King]

I'm not talking about a tax on income, but rather a straight up $ amount so that no one person {as in people} ever had to pay more than any other person did.
ie if there are direct taxes, all the people pay the exact same $ amount...and a business, which is an on-paper entity, shouldn't pay anything at all.

The only way a business pays taxes is the same way they pay any cost. Which is by passing it along in the form of higher prices, lower wages or products of lower quality.

With any of those ways the people lose. Workers don't make as much or there are fewer workers and/or customers get cheaper goods for higher prices.
ie the people always pay all the taxes for the buisnesses no matter how they are applied.

Edited to add: So why not just charge people directly for what their government costs to operate? The alternative is to still make the people pay, but to do so in a way that hides the true cost from them so they can't really tell how much their government actually costs.
ie I want gov that's priced like a gallon of milk is at the store.

[Glass]

Edited to add: So why not just charge people directly for what their government costs to operate? The alternative is to still make the people pay, but to do so in a way that hides the true cost from them so they can't really tell how much their government actually costs.
ie I want gov that's priced like a gallon of milk is at the store.

I like this train of thought. Its clear that the Govt is a monopolistic profit driven machine in it's current form. The bona fide fiscal trustee for the people no longer exists. I think a Govt should not run a deficit or retain a surplus. A surplus should be returned to the people. The flip side of that is, if money needs to flow the other way due to deficit people aren't so keen to cough up. Even though they have been a financial beneficiary in the past. Company shareholders always have an option to pump more money into an enterprise if it has hit the ropes but they rarely do. Maybe institutional investors might with a claw back claim against future returns to ordinary (non contributing) shareholders.

Perhaps its easier than all that. The Govt just runs a 12 month tab but it has to settle at the end of the 12 months. What the short fall is, is divided up and everyone gets a bill. Fiscally responsibile types would at least have a bead on where how the $$ were looking a couple months out. Works the other way if money is left over. It seems like it would be simpler as well.

[Joe King]

Not only would it be simplier, it would eliminate the huge amounts of $ they currently collect, thereby forcing the gov to stay within its Constitutional limitations that were originally imposed upon it.
ie gov wouldn't be able to get addicted to $ in the way it has. Getting addicted to $ is what's allowed it to get as big as it has.


As far as people not being keen on "coughing up", that's the mechanism that would serve as a final "check" on govs spending power.
ie they'd only be able to charge what a poor person could afford to pay, so they'd have to be smart about what the $ was spent on because it's hard for the gov to get very much of it.

Also, this would reward and encourage people to produce more goods because after your modest tax bill were paid, {approx 5% or less than what you currently pay} everything you produce is yours to keep.

BTW, using this method would also require that a fair and honest monetary system be in place, because if you still had a federal reserve lending $ into existence, it'd do nothing but end up blowing the economy to pieces without an income tax to mop up the excess $ they would be creating.
So no fed.

[Santa]

The part I find mysterious is how can a 70% tax rate be justified on anybody?
...and then complain when their rate is reduced to "only" 50%?

If you're a CEO of some mega-corporation pulling in $100 mil a year, in effect working as A GOVERNMENT AGENT,
then I think it would be JUST and HONORABLE for you to offer 99% tribute to your master, which after all, you are completely dependent upon for your spiffy job, leaving you with less deducted take home pay than a field worker in Mississippi.

[Santa]

Ain't it a pisser to find out Reagan was a Hollywood commercial actor selling a bigger slice of fascism to the people? Lol

[Ash_Williams]

Lowering taxes often works well to increased GDP and revenues.

The problem is that whenenver GDP and revenue goes up, govt takes that as an excuse to spend more than ever.

"Revenue is up 5%... let's increase spending by 15%!"

[horseshoe3]

Reagan didn't increase the deficit with his tax cuts. He increased it with his military spending.

[Santa]

We may never be able to scrub off all the lies we were fed by Uncle Ronnie and assoc. under the name of Laissez-faire capitalism,
though he was only one in a long list going back for years.
In fact, my biggest beef with the term "capitalism" is in how useful it's been toward the spread of Oligarchic Monopolistic fascism, or Modern Feudalism, or whatever the hell it is.... Uncle Ronnie can bite me. Margaret Thatchlicker can too. Lol. Sorry...

[dys]

Most people forget that Reagan enacted one of the largest tax increases in US history. BUT he was smart about it, as it was done under the guise of 'shoring up social security'.

dys

[DMac]

Reagan - spend, spend, spend!!!

LOL!!

http://media.lclark.edu/content/hart-landsberg/files/2011/07/taxes-and-spending-past-deals.jpg

http://www.cato.org/images/pubs/commentary/hanke-globeasia-june2011-2.jpg
________________________


The Sad Legacy of Ronald Reagan (http://mises.org/freemarket_detail.aspx?control=488)


snips
(written in 1988...just from the spending section of the article, and there are others on taxes, regulation, bureaucracy and trade, destroys the idea that Reagan was 'good for the economy')



Spending

Reagan himself said, "It is time to check and reverse the growth of government."

...there are 230,000 more civilian government workers than in 1980, bringing the total to almost three million.

...in nominal terms, there has been a 60% increase in government spending, thanks mainly to Reagan's requested budgets, which were only marginally smaller than the spending Congress voted.

The budget for the Department of Education... has more than doubled to $22.7 billion, Social Security spending has risen from $179 billion in 1981 to $269 billion in 1986.

The price of farm programs went from $21.4 billion in 1981 to $51.4 billion in 1987, a 140% increase.

Medicare spending in 1981 was $43.5 billion; in 1987 it hit $80 billion. Federal entitlements cost $197.1 billion in 1981—and $477 billion in 1987.

Foreign aid has also risen, from $10 billion to $22 billion. Every year, Reagan asked for more foreign-aid money than the Congress was willing to spend. He also pushed through Congress an $8.4 billion increase in the U.S. "contribution" to the International Monetary Fund.

Reagan has tripled the Gross Federal Debt, from $900 billion to $2.7 trillion. Ford and Carter in their combined terms could only double it. It took 31 years to accomplish the first postwar debt tripling, yet Reagan did it in eight.

[Ash_Williams]

The tax cuts didn't reduce revenue though. You can't blame them for the decifit.

Revenue even went up. The idea worked fine. And then spending went to the fucking moon - that was the problem. Same as under Bush.

[Awoke]

Snip:



Probably, the most incredible example of the adhesion contract is the Income Tax system. In 1884, it was accepted that the “property which every man has is his own labor (and) as it is the original foundation of all other property, so it is the most sacred and inviolable.” Therefore, since “wages” are received as compensation for labor, it can not be legally taxed.

“Income” is the process of profiting from a business (someone else’s labor) or investments, and is taxable, as in [the case of] a Corporation, which is an artificial entity which is given the right to exist by the State. The Constitution only allows the Congress to collect uniform “excise” taxes on things involving interstate commerce, such as gasoline, alcohol, tobacco, telephone bills, firearms, and tires. The payment of these taxes is voluntary, because they are based on consumption. These funds go directly to the U.S. Treasury to pay the expenses of the Federal government.


http://philjayhan.wordpress.com/2007/04/02/the-illegal-unconstitutional-income-tax-in-america-never-ratified-by-the-states/

[Joe King]

I guess what I don't understand is why it's ok to take anyones $ to pay for that which you want?

How is it fair to tax anyone at a 70% rate?

Why is class warfare ok?

Why can't gov be priced like a gallon of milk is priced?
ie the same price for everyone?


Assuming for a minute that a highly progressive income tax is moral to begin with, how is what Reagan did in anyway wrong? He lowered everyones rate equally. How is that not being fair to everyone?

[horseshoe3]

Why can't gov be priced like a gallon of milk is priced?
ie the same price for everyone?

I made this proposal in a letter to the editor once. It was mostly tongue in cheek. The main point of the letter was that the property tax is the least fair and most regressive tax we have. The only thing that would be more barbaric is the poll (head) tax. With a federal budget of 4,000,000,000,000 and a population of 310,000,000 that means that every man, woman and child needs to pay $12903.23 to the federal government continue living in the US. Failure to pay will result in deportation or execution - your choice. I really don't care if you can't afford it, we're trying to be FAIR here.

[Twisted Titan]

Ain't it a pisser to find out Reagan was a Hollywood commercial actor selling a bigger slice of fascism to the people? Lol

Look how well he spoke out against socialzed medicine

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRdLpem-AAs&feature=youtube_gdata_player

[iOWNme]

Coming from the Leftist lips of Mr. Maddow, it is easy to see why Reagan would get picked on. Mr. Maddow is stuck inside the Left v Right paradigm, which hinders his ability to view the world.

Reagan was a puppet for the Globalist, dont fool yourself:

Here is a section from a post i made over a year ago:

http://gold-silver.us/forum/showthread.php?25066-The-NeoCon-HOAX&highlight=neocon+hoax

RED RONNIE


Remember our dear former leader Ronald Reagan? Well it turns out that Ronnie wasnt as right wing as we were told. Reagan ran as being a conservative. His views were always labeled on the right and conservative. But if one didnt decide to take a look at the facts and the history, one would be inclined to believe that. Well it didnt take long to find out what I had suspected was true. Reagan is a lefty. Lets take a quick look.....:

He was in the United World Federalist for 13 years. He was in the Committee for a Democratic Far Eastern Policy, which was associated with the Institute of Pacific Relations, (which is listed as an instrument of the Communist Soviet Union.) This guy is so far left, he makes Hitler look like a member of the ADL. Everything the media has told us about Ronnie, was disinformation. They were counting on nobody doing their own homework.

Reagan and Carter had an interesting relationship. Despite what the media would tell us, Reagan was quoted as saying this about Carter and his administration “He should be criticized for having 18 members of the CFR and Trilateral Commission appointed to key positions in his administration."

What they wont tell you is Reagan had hundreds of appointees and aides in his administration connected to the CFR and the Trilateral Commission. (Communist/Socialist)


I will give you a quick breakdown:


United World Federalist- Founded in 1947 in Montreux, Switzerland, the Movement brings together organizations and individuals which support the establishment of a global federal system of strengthened and democratized global institutions with plenary constitutional power accountable to the citizens of the world and a division of international authority among separate global agencies. In the aftermath of World Wars I & II, activists around the world were forming organizations bent on creating a new world order that could prevent another global war.

Committee for a Democratic Far Eastern Policy- Communist front was originally the term used by the Communist Party USA (CPUSA), and then later by the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) and the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee (SISS) to label Comintern (Communist International) organizations found to be under the effective control of the CPUSA, with special emphasis on those groups most active during the Great Depression of the 1930s. The term also refers to organizations not originally communist-controlled which after a time became so, such as the American Student Union.

In 1955, the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee published a list of what it described as the 82 most active and typical sponsors of communist fronts in the United States; some of those named had literally dozens of affiliations with groups that had either been cited as Communist fronts or had been labeled "subversive" by either the subcommittee or the House Committee on Un-American Activities.

Institute of Pacific Relations- Among IPR staffers identified later as Communists or collaborators with Soviet intelligence agents were Kathleen Barnes, Hilda Austern, Elsie Fairfax-Cholmely, Chi Chao-ting, Guenter Stein, Harriet Levine, Talitha Gerlach, Chen Han-seng (a member of the Sorge spy ring), Michael Greenberg (named as a source in 1945 by defecting Soviet courier Elizabeth Bentley), and T.A. Bisson (Venona's "Arthur"), as well as Kate Mitchell and Andrew Roth, both of whom were arrested in the 1945 Amerasia case.


So Reagan belonged to several front organizations for Communist activities. Declassified documents and Congressional Senate reports confirm these organizations had been infested with Communist infiltration. And we are to believe that Ronnie was just a good ole boy?

Reagan began as a liberal Democrat, admirer of Franklin D. Roosevelt, (Communist/Socialist- Roosevelt's political impact with the United Nations (Treason!) and BrettonWoods (Usurer!) are examples of his Communistic/Socialistic views) and active supporter of New Deal policies, (Communist) but in the early 1950s he shifted to the right and endorsed the presidential candidacies of Dwight D. Eisenhower (helped reform social security, negotiated with Stalin- COMMUNIST) in 1952 and 1956 as well as Richard Nixon (Another puppet 'fighting' Communism) in 1960 while remaining a Democrat.

Reagan testified to the FBI and Congress that he knew of Communist sympathizers in Hollywood. Amid the Red Scare in the late 1940s, Reagan provided the FBI with names of actors whom he believed to be communist sympathizers within the motion picture industry. Reagan testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee on the subject as well. A fervent anti-communist, he reaffirmed his commitment to democratic principles, stating, "I never as a citizen want to see our country become urged, by either fear or resentment of this group, that we ever compromise with any of our democratic principles through that fear or resentment."

[Joe King]

I made this proposal in a letter to the editor once. It was mostly tongue in cheek. The main point of the letter was that the property tax is the least fair and most regressive tax we have. The only thing that would be more barbaric is the poll (head) tax. With a federal budget of 4,000,000,000,000 and a population of 310,000,000 that means that every man, woman and child needs to pay $12903.23 to the federal government continue living in the US. Failure to pay will result in deportation or execution - your choice. I really don't care if you can't afford it, we're trying to be FAIR here.

What if you threw that 4,000,000,000,000 number into the trashcan and started over by only allowing the gov to barely collect enough to pay for it's Constitutionally charged dutys as they were defined in 1787?

It's kinda hard to have big-gov if gov never has enough $ to get big.
Or in my proposal, to stay big.

[horseshoe3]

What if you threw that 4,000,000,000,000 number into the trashcan and started over by only allowing the gov to barely collect enough to pay for it's Constitutionally charged dutys as they were defined in 1787?

It's kinda hard to have big-gov if gov never has enough $ to get big.
Or in my proposal, to stay big.

The main value of my argument is as a wakeup call to those who think the "rich" aren't paying their fair share. When people see how much their share would be if everyone was treated equally, they are suddenly thankful that the rich are paying as much as they are. Then a few minutes later they go back to normal while watching American Idol.

[Joe King]

The main value of my argument is as a wakeup call to those who think the "rich" aren't paying their fair share. When people see how much their share would be if everyone was treated equally, they are suddenly thankful that the rich are paying as much as they are. Then a few minutes later they go back to normal while watching American Idol.
Yea, I agree. It should be a wake-up call.

The reason people "go back to normal" is because they don't actually want to mentally engage ideas that come from outside-of-the-box thinking.

ie they like their nice comfortable little box where things such as these get decided for them via the regulatory system they look to for all lifes answers, because that way they get even more of their American Idol.....or whatever their distraction of choice may be. lol

[Ash_Williams]

When people see how much their share would be if everyone was treated equally, they are suddenly thankful that the rich are paying as much as they are.

No they aren't. They wave their hands and say that some people can't afford medical insurance while the rich can buy mansions.

[horseshoe3]

These are the same people who think Libertarianism is pretty good when I explain it too them. The look at Ron Paul and agree that he is the only candidate in decades who shares their core values and they think he would be a great president "if only he could get elected." Then they vote for John McCain because Hannity and Limbaugh told them to.

[osoab]

. I think companies should pay all the taxes and people should not.


Glass,

Companies don't pay taxes. There revenue/income stream comes from customers. The "tax hit" is all built into the pricing model. When taxes go up for companies, they raise prices accordingly to keep their profit margin.

[osoab]

My take on Reganomics.

Spend, Spend, Spend, then stick it to the next generation. He just happened to spend most of it on the MIC instead of creating more entitlement programs.

But hey, we won the cold war. ::)

[Joe King]

My take on Reganomics.

Spend, Spend, Spend, then stick it to the next generation.

So that's different from all the rest.....how?


The only difference I see is that back then the over-all economy had room to grow in order to meet the debt load it had been saddled with.

The problem now is that the economy has reached the point of debt saturation.


It's like the little Engine that could......but now it can't no more. The load has gotten too heavy and the track too steep.

[osoab]

My take on Reganomics.

Spend, Spend, Spend, then stick it to the next generation. He just happened to spend most of it on the MIC instead of creating more entitlement programs.

But hey, we won the cold war. ::)


So that's different from all the rest.....how?


The only difference I see is that back then the over-all economy had room to grow in order to meet the debt load it had been saddled with.

The problem now is that the economy has reached the point of debt saturation.


It's like the little Engine that could......but now it can't no more. The load has gotten too heavy and the track too steep.

Add in the rest of my quote. Ah screw it. FIFY.

[Joe King]

Again, how is it different? They've been spending on the MIC like a drunk sailor in Thailand for how many decades now?
...and yea, Reagan upped it, but so has every pres since, as far as I know.

BTW, I'm glad to see that you see the same as I do. {#28}

[osoab]

Again, how is it different? They've been spending on the MIC like a drunk sailor in Thailand for how many decades now?
...and yea, Reagan upped it, but so has every pres since, as far as I know.

BTW, I'm glad to see that you see the same as I do. {#28}


I should have added in relation to Wild Bill. Wild Bill went crazy on entitlements. I believe his overt DoD budget was cut.

[Joe King]

I should have added in relation to Wild Bill. Wild Bill went crazy on entitlements. I believe his overt DoD budget was cut.

Yes he did go crazy. But even when "cuts" are made, it's very seldom an actual cut, but rather a smaller increase next year. I think the actual $ amount spent on the MIC has increased every year. Hasn't it?

[Santa]

And so, rather than reduce the MIC's cancerous growth, the government shall now institute project "austerity" on the people.

Our next Market boom? Totalitarian Police State. TPS. It's currently undervalued.

[Joe King]

I think they look at the MIC as one of the "benefits" they provide....you wanna be safe, right? lol

Besides, they're spending at least 12,000 in your name this year as "benefit" to you. A bargain when you look at how much the average working stiff actually paid in.
....but you don't sound very appreciative of that Santa.