[AlanE]

Originally Posted by roflwaffle

That said the way you're framing it is a bit disingenuous. We aren't looking at taking one person's money, in fact we probably aren't looking at individuals at all per say.

Who is this "We" that you are referring to? Surely it's not Democrats and liberals. All they've been doing is focusing on individuals.

Maybe you think that corporations should get over a half trillion bucks a year in tax breaks, but my grandparents didn't and I don't either.

When was the last time that you sat next to a corporation on an airliner? When was the last time you saw a corporation driving a Ferrari? When was the last time that you saw a corporation skiing on the slopes of Aspen?

Do you have a pension plan from your work? Do you own any mutual funds? If you do, then you are the problem that you're railing against. Let me illustrate something for you. Let's look at Exxon-Mobil Corporation. The largest individual shareholder is Rex Tillerson with 1,743,864 shares. Now take a look at the institutional and mutual fund shareholders who manage your pension and your individual retirement mutual fund accounts:

VANGUARD GROUP, INC. (THE) = 200,084,278 shares
STATE STREET CORPORATION = 186,374,861 shares

Corporations DON'T PAY TAXES, people pay taxes. This has long been known by very many people which is why there hasn't been an uproar about corporate taxes coming down and yet the US corporate tax rate is almost the highest in the Western World:



When guys like you, relics of the past, advocate that the corporate tax rate be increased the real world consequences fall on the investor class and the 800 lb gorilla in the investor class are retirement accounts. The ripple effect works like this - higher corporate taxes paid means a.) less stock price growth because stocks are priced at multiples of earnings, and b.) less dividends paid. This ripples outward to pension plans which now have lower earnings per dollar invested. This ripples out to the teacher, welder, janitor, hotel maid, accountant, project supervisor and the thousands of other professions and hundreds of millions of people who are paying into pension plans who will now have to contend with the compounding effect of lower investment growth by either making do with smaller pension payments when they do retire or having to pay more from the current paychecks in pension contributions in order to balance the lower growth their pension manager is delivering due to the government taking a greater share of corporation profit via corporate taxes.

People's pensions are not magically conjured up. They are funded by corporate profits.

We could also let the tax cuts for the wealthiest expire, which would add another $100 billion/year.

Oh really? Let's go back to basic economics. Why do people advocate that cigarette taxes be increased? Why is raising such taxes considered an "anti-smoking" tactic? Here's why - when you raise the cost of taxes on an activity you will get less of that activity. Leftists seem to understand this principle when it comes to things like smoking but then they pretend that it doesn't exist when it comes to income taxation, yet the principle remains the same - raise income tax rates and you will get less activity with regards to the earning of income.

Look at what was just reported over in the UK, news that isn't a surprise to anyone except leftists:

The controversial 50p tax band is 'not working' and revenues have fallen since it was introduced, new figures suggest.

They appear to show the wealthy are finding ways to dodge the tax band levied on incomes of more than £150,000.

In January, the tax take from those who do self-assessment tax returns collapsed by more than £500million, compared with the same month in 2011. They fell from £10.86billion to £10.35billion.

Here is what happened in NY State when they raised their tobacco tax rate:

Cigarette sales statewide have tumbled by nearly a third since New York's highest-in-the-nation cig tax of $4.35 took effect on July 1, according to state tax data and sales reports released yesterday by retailers.

Combined with New York City's own cig levy, there's now a $5.85 tax on packs sold in the five boroughs. . . .

New York state sold 28.7 million cigarette tax stamps in July, down from 43.1 million the previous year, said a spokesman for the state Department of Taxation and Finance.

That translates to $125 million in cig-tax revenue last month, barely more than the $119 million haul in July 2009 despite the massive tax hike.

The numbers confirm reports from convenience-store owners that cigarette sales have dropped 25 to 35 percent since the state hit smokers with a $1.60-a-pack increase.

Retailers said sales were off by as much as 45 percent in stores bordering low-tax states like Pennsylvania and Vermont and tax-free Indian reservations in western New York and on Long Island.

In June, the Legislature approved Paterson's plan to raise the state tax on cigarettes 58 percent as part of a breathtaking $290 million levy on tobacco products meant to save the teetering state treasury.

Tax revenues from tobacco sales went from $119 million per month before the tax increase to $125 million per month after the tax increase when the wizard Democrats were expecting tax revenues to hit $290 million per month. Packs of cigarettes sold went from 43.1 million per month before the tax to 28.7 million per month after the tax.

When you increase the tax on an activity you will get less of that activity.

At that point we've pretty much erased the budget deficit, and all it took was an approach similar to what our parents/grandparents had in the 50s.

I don't know what to say here, this is such a bizarre statement that is so divorced from reality that you're either completely ignorant about what you're writing, you're engaging in wish fulfillment or you're on something.

The spending problems the US faces ARE NOT fixable by your band-aid measures. The US could implement everything you suggest and because you are working with static modeling rather than dynamic modeling, none of your predictions on outcome will have any resemblance to what will really happen. The US doesn't have a revenue shortfall problem - look at your corporate tax rates with respect to the rest of the Western World, you're just a tad below Japan's and everyone else is below your rate. Now you're suggesting that the rate be increased even further?