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.

Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: KyrosL who wrote (46473)	2/16/2009 2:02:37 PM
From: Sunny Jim	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 218431

Well, we're already at 35% so not a lot of room til 40%, and spending in the Clinton years was peanuts compared to what we have now. You're going to have to raise taxes a lot higher than 40% to make today's and tomorrow's deficits go away. You're making some good points but you aren't addressing the facts as they stand today.

To: KyrosL who wrote (46473)	2/16/2009 7:53:34 PM
From: Arthur Radley	1 Recommendation Respond to of 218431

KyrosL, I don't think a tax increase at this time would do any of us any good. As the math will tell you...40% of 0 is still 0! Tax increases will not create jobs, so until we can stabilize the job market and actually grow employment we are stuck in this crisis. People have to have incomes to pay taxes! People soon forget history...when Clinton made his modest tax increase it took VP Gore to cast the deciding vote......no Republican would vote for the increase. End result we got the longest economic increase in our history.......and now we have the Republican voting against the stimulus bill. What is truly amazing is that if one excludes the gain in the DJIA average during the Clinton administration and count only the Republican administration time in office since the beginning of Reagan's administration...Bush I and Bush II, the DJIA would show a cumulative loss of 15% for their time in the White House. Factor in inflation and the 20 years of 'trickle down' economics is really what Bush I said..."Voodoo economic" and just for the record, I voted for Reagan and Bush I the first time.

To: KyrosL who wrote (46473)	2/16/2009 9:33:04 PM
From: energyplay	Respond to of 218431

Three major factors in the increased tax revenue of the Clinton years were declining interest rates, moderately higher housing prices, and a soaring stock market. We won't get declining interest rates. Stocks have a lot of room on the upside. Since much of the recent Treasury bills have had low interest rates, higher taxes which could slightly reduce the Federal deficit could mean less need to sell bonds, and more retirement of the higher interest bonds. This would reduce the interest expense in the Federal budget, which could lead to a lower deficit. Right now the cost of a Billion dollars of extra current budget deficit is about 2.5% interest over 10 years. When the interest starts heading up to 5%, higher tax rates to reduce the current budget deficit will be a better choice. By the way, many of the years of those 80-90% tax rates had many more loopholes in the tax law. For one example, in the 1950s, you could buy a house and prepay the interest (just the interest) for X number of years and deduct the interest from that years income. There were also rules that allowed income averaging, so if you had a big year you could average the income over the bad years. So the effective rates did not reach 80-90% for many people for every year. I think Elroy knows about some of these tax arrangments.