what do you expect that raising taxes would accomplish?
Do you believe that raising taxes would create jobs somehow? .. if so how.
Or do you believe that somehow the debt would be paid down ? assuming raising taxes generated more money, which it historically hasnt really shown to do
What is it that you believe it would accomplish??
avomatic
Favorite Answer
More revenues mean the government has more real cash to pay of the debts, and not have to borrow more from China.
Julie H
The raise in taxes would just be given to the bums and moochers that don't like to work. I could also expect to lose my job. The owner of my company would simply reduce his payroll by the amount of extra taxes the government would be stealing from him. I would pay with my job, not him.
Interpol
Tax cuts don't create jobs. Everyone in the world knows this, but the problem is that many Americans don't know better because they're given poor information.
The idea with Republicans is that if you cut taxes particularly among the wealthy, they'll spend and spend and it'll create jobs for the rest of the people. It's called "trickle-down" economics and it began under President Reagan. He passed the largest tax cut ever when he got into office, but then revenues went down sharply and the deficits went up because in bad times, the gov't has to be there to kick in stimulus cash until businesses get going again. That's when deficit spending is alright, because you're investing directly in the people.
So what Reagan did was raise taxes a few times after his major tax cut failed, but he never stopped spending and the country was left with over $8 trillion of debt by the time he was done being President.
Republicans say cut taxes and cut spending, that'll fix everything. Meanwhile, Democrats say cut taxes on the ones who need it the most, since those people live paycheck to paycheck, every single tax dollar that gets cut for them gets spent right away whereas the studies show that people with tons of cash who get a tax cut just save it or invest it in stocks and bonds. And then the Democrats say let the tax cuts expire on those who need it the least, and put that money directly into job creation.
Economists will always agree with the Democratic plan in bad times, because it's proven to get us out of bad times, just like how Bill Clinton did it. He cut taxes for the middle class, raised them on the rich, and spent a lot on job training, education, research and development, unemployment insurance, and direct job creation. Within a few years, Clinton controlled the budget because after he stimulated the economy and it really got moving again, that's when you start to save money for a rainy day.
The compromise plan that was agreed to by Obama and the Republicans is a purely Republican philosophy: just cut taxes and do all kinds of tax credits, and that will hopefully spurt job growth and more spending. The tab is $915 billion over the next two years.
The problem with this plan is that it both cuts taxes and increases spending, so now we're going in the completely wrong direction. If you cut taxes you have to cut spending as well, but if you want to continue spending, you must raise taxes accordingly.
The country is torn apart. The exit polls showed after election day that half the country is worried about the budget, but the other half wants spending on jobs the way FDR did it back in the day when he got the country working again. So Obama caved to everybody and is going to spend almost a trillion in tax cuts in the hopes that the economy can get going again. The problem with that however is that the tax cuts Bush passed 10 years ago created no new private sector jobs over 8 years.
Obama originally wanted to do what Clinton did, and under Clinton, the United States created over 22 million jobs in less than 7 years. Under Bush's idea of tax cuts only and mostly for the rich, the country stagnated because rich people held onto their money or put it in tax shelters.
If Obama passes this tax cut, that means the country will paying for it by borrowing more and more money from Saudi Arabia, China and Russia, in other words, communist or dictator countries. I have a problem with that, most Democrats have a problem with that, but for Republicans don't because huge foreign interests give them millions in campaign money so that when Republicans get elected they'll ship jobs overseas so that huge companies can make even more money by getting foreigners to do the work for basically slave wages.
If we just let all the tax cuts expire that Bush passed, we'd be saving $400 billion a year. With just one year of savings, we could pump that money into infrastructure jobs, education, science technology and innovation, research and development, green tech jobs, and create tens of millions of good-paying jobs over the next year or two, if we really put our minds to it.
But it doesn't look like we're going that route; instead, we're going to continue to hope that cutting taxes solves all our problems, but all they do is cut off revenue while increasing the debt mostly.
Anonymous
It wasn't about 'raising taxes', it was about not extending the tax cuts that Bush implemented. Personally I benefit by the decision, but I understand that in our current situation that someone is going to have to understand what the word NO means. Obviously the Republicans do not.