Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Enam Luf who wrote (614894)	8/31/2004 1:13:45 PM
From: JakeStraw	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

Would you rather fork over more money you earn to give to the gov't so they can waste it?

To: Enam Luf who wrote (614894)	8/31/2004 1:38:02 PM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

"Even if tax cuts do stimulate growth, there has never been any solid proof (theoretical or real world) that the additional revenues outpace the lost receipts (adjusted for the time value of money)." Perhaps true. (It depends on two things: if the overall level of taxation is lowered... then, whether additional revenue is returned depends entirely on where we are on the 'Laffer Curve', which, unfortunately, no one knows. And, two --- the devil is in the details --- it would also depend upon the additional marginal propensity to spend of the people in whichever tax bracket(s) gets lowered.) But, lowering tax rates does at least have the potential to return some portion, some fraction, of the revenues forgone in additional revenues... if not return all of the revenues forgone. For example: the economic analysises performed by the CBO, the OMB, and even the private econometrics firm the WH hired to use 'dynamic analysis' (specifically tasked to ASSUME that lower rates will produce additional tax revenue) to run the budget numbers prior to the State of the Union address... all three came up with the same predictions: When examining the combination of Bush's rate cuts and spending proposals, they concluded that the policy changes were a net POSITIVE to the economy in the current time frame (though only a small portion of the forgone tax revenue was expected to be returned because of higher growth), but that by MID-DECADE (2005, where we almost are NOW in the fiscal year), unless DEFICIT SPENDING WAS DRASTICALLY REDUCED, the negative effects of the deficit would begin to overwhelm the benefits of tax cuts... and that by the end of the decade the economy would be seriously worse off then if nothing had been changed at all! I.E., tax cuts GOOD, but if you pay for them with DEFICIT SPENDING eventually the deficit monster overwhelms all of the benefits, and more. Spending must be restrained at the same time. #3) On the otherhand --- aside from tax rate changes --- if the tax code were SIMPLIFIED to drastically reduce or eliminate all of the mind-numbing complexities and loopholes, we could start booking gains to the economy almost immediately... because the annual COMPLIANCE COSTS to business and individuals is around $220 Billion.