Today’s Q for O’s WH — 2/23/2009

jpt quotes Gibbs:
“Well, I — I think the president talked about this extensively in the campaign. I…”
These guys don’t have a clue what they’re doing, do they?
Lord knows The CHANGEling continues, and continues, to talk extensively, AND to campaign, and to contrive a lot of showboat appearances on teevee, but … there really seems to be no there there.
This is sort of like the fall of the Soviet Union … no one watching the coverage of the “fiscal responsibility” summit can possibly doubt it.

So, everyone that earns over $250,000 a year earned that much in 2001 and 2003?
Mr. Gibbs that isn’t true. So, in the interest of fairness, if I can prove to you that I didn’t partake of the tax cuts (“great benefits, huge benefits”) in those years, will you go easy on me now that I have finally, after ten years of working 65 to 80 hours a week in my own business, broken the barrier into what you misclassify as “rich”? It’s only fair.
For most people their income level is fluent. It changes from year to year. How ’bout finding a way to tax those who don’t think they pay enough taxes like Soros, Buffett, Gates and that idiot Michael Moore?

Is it my imagination or is Gibbs actually improving?

Good job Jake. Please continue to hold them accountable even if they are not straight with their answers. We need more reporters to hold the pols feet to the fire.

I don’t understand this “fairness” mantra. George Lucas, to name one Obama supporter who paradoxically prefers some aspects of a free market, didn’t become rich by having the government give him money. He got rich because he convinced lots of other people to each give him a little money. I gave him several movie tickets’ worth myself. I did it freely. Why is it unfair for him to keep the vast amounts of money people gave him of their own free will, while I get to keep the relatively tiny amount of money I’ve been able to convince people to give me?

I remain unconvinced the latest action regarding taxes was a “tax cut”, as Gibbs said. As I understand it, it was a withholding change, but the amount of taxes people will pay remains unchanged.
JustSayin’ has an excellent point. There is no reason to assume the same people making $250,000 in 2001 are the same people now. Some people are just finally out of debt- as the Obamas themselves once were- and trying to calibrate what they can afford in the face of housing equity declines, college saving account declines, and retirement saving declines.
How are people supposed to budget and plan if they don’t even know what their future tax rates are going to be, and their cushion has been reduced?

If we’re going to bring up tax fairness, can we please be given a flat tax, which would be fair to all. The same percentage out of everyone’s paycheck. Couldn’t be fairer.

Jake: you still pushing “trickle-down” economics as a valid theory?
We just spent eight more years trying it.
IT DON’T WORK.

The never ending campaigning is becoming a national joke. That sound you hear each time Mr Gibbs or President Obama appear on television is the sound of millions of ‘mute” buttons.
The only thing refreshing about any of this is Mr Tapper asking questions millions of Americans would like to ask, but can’t because they didn’t “win”.

We did not just spend eight years of trickle down economics unless you are time travelling back to the late 80′s. Bush was no trickle down economist. He was a spend and spend middle of the roader.
Ownership. The theory goes that when someone owns something, rather than rents of borrows, that someone will take better care of this something because he owns it.
Taxes. If we all paid our fair share of taxes, say straight across the board 13% then all Americans would take pride in ownership of our government. Why shouldn’t the lower 50% be able to contribute to living in this country. Why shouldn’t they feel the pride of ownership of America?

Tom, from Sept 2003 through Dec 2007 over 5 million jobs were created. We actually had record federal income tax revenues–which was unfortunately offset by the huge increases in federal spending.
The top 1% and top 5% of the nation’s wage earners actually saw their share of the total federal income tax revenues INCREASE as a result of the Bush 2001 & 2003 tax cuts.
In 2000 the top 1% — 21% of the total income — accounted for 27% of the total federal income tax revenues; and the top 5% — 35% of the total income — accounted for 56%.
In 2005 the top 1% — 21% of the total income — accounted for 39% of the total federal income tax revenues; and the top 5% — 36% of the total income — accounted for 60%.
The bottom 50% of the nation’s wage earners account for only 3% of the total income tax revenues (the bottom 40% pay no federal income tax).
SOURCE: Treasury Department, October 2007.

Let me guess… Jake makes at least $250,000 a year?

We cats have forecast during the democratic primaries that the biggest plan of PB0′s, then CBO’s, is to creat a common wealth, a commune, of “fairness”, and the best way of achieving economic and financial equality is to tank the stock market.
When the Dow goes down to zero, the poor and rich are fully equalized, and PB0′s good friend Buffet has essentially the same value as you have (well, depending on how much solid god he has under his bed).
Now, PB0 has helped achieving his goal of economic equalization in the US by 65% since he started talking.

James – interesting numbers… I’ll take your word that those are accurate.
A couple of thoughts…
1. I’m in that tax bracket that pays the highest rate.
2. Just because 5M jobs were created from 2003-2007 does not mean that was an increase from what would have existed WITHOUT said tax cuts.
3. I’m not advocating for the repeal of the “Bush Tax Cuts” due to some concept of fairness, or flattening.
4. My use of the word “DECLINED” should have been more that we “REMOVED” $1.2T in revenue from the federal budget. I’m not sure that you can make an argument that if that money had stayed in the budget, as revenue, it would have offset any extra spending, creating a net positive of $1.2T.
5. Even with those tax cuts still in effect, the amount of jobs have steadily declined over the last 18 months.

“that these are the people who will invest to create the new jobs and, at a time of recession, taking their money and giving it to the government or giving it to other people actually could impede the cause of job growth?”
Does anyone remember the primary fight between George H.W. Bush and Reagan?
I do. Our buddy, 41, called this concept “Voodoo Economics” and he was absolutely correct.
It’s a faulty predicate to present during an argument. Reagan raised taxes under his term several times, and workers “real wages” dropped… the “investor class” made out, and the rest of the country didn’t go along with the ride… definitely not a case of “trickle down”.

“Voodoo Economics”
This time around, it looks like the Voodoo politicians are creepily eager to sacrifice real humans, instead of chickens and goats and whatnot.
Time to retire … all of them, unless they come up with something actually useful, such as nationalizing the hotels for the homeless and near-homeless, issuing debit cards to the fundless, and declaring National Health, with remedial care for the poor.

I’m not DrJohn, but I’d like to answer. When we got married the only thing my husband and I had in common were student loans. I earned well below the poverty line in the last year my husband finished college. We lived at or below our means for most of our lives. We never used public assistance though we most likely qualified. We used credit only when absolutley necessary.
The truth is, with hard work and sacrifice people can and do move up and out of poverty and through bad circumstances people can and do move down the economic ladder, too. I knew a trust fund baby who snorted his inheritance and is now broke. Que sera.
No one is in an immoveable caste in America. Slumdogs can and do become millionaires. It’s called the American dream and it happens all the time.
Old money isn’t touched by Obama’s plans. New money, the kind that people earn through hard work, ingenuity and sacrifice is what is talked about when Obams says he is going to tax the “rich”. Literally, taxing and discouraging success, hardwork and the true sacrifice that he says we all must make.
Fair is a funny word. Mathematically, fair should mean that everyone pays the same percentage. Those who earn more will automatically pay more. But, people like to entwine emotions like jealousy, revenge, pity, mercy and greed into what is “fair”.
The exactness and precision of an equal percentage for all is ultimately the most fair but politicians rarely want what’s fair. Politicians covet power which comes from controlling other people’s money.

Why stop at raising income taxes on those making $250,000 or more?
How about when they purchase something they pay a higher sales tax? Or the tax on their gas is determined by your income.
All taxes and fees are!
Or get a new drivers license or have to pay some other government fee – if you make over $250,000 you pay more!
And why stop at $250,000? Scale all taxes and fees based on income. The more you make, the more you pay, sucker!
In the end there is no reason to succeed and make more money – the country withers and dies away.

No one with Obama’s education could possibly be this clueless about the economy.
This has got to be done deliberately to undermine capitalism. Obama is a socialist who admitted in one of his two autobiographies that Marxist professors were his favorites in college.
None of this is a surprise to me, but I can see some of his supporters are starting to wake up to the fact of what they’ve done by voting for this man.

As Oklahoma Republican Senator Tom Coburn has written, “the stimulus is a step toward a Soviet America.”
Or, as Lenin said, “The way to crush the bourgeoisie [the middle class] is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation.”

CEOs have agreed to $1.00 a year, Other salaries being cut, most investors and corporations will have losses. The amount to be generated by higher taxes is steadily going down.

Whoa -
I called someone in DOD whom I trust and they told me the Directive is designed to keep the uniformed force fighting, and to focus the restoration and nation-building efforts on civilian “experts” rather than leaving this task to the military.

In response to Tom at 4:20:11 PM:
Your “simple economics,” are a distortion. But even if what you say were true, you’ve failed to refute the assumption behind Jake’s question.
The argument against raising taxes is not merely the flip side of the argument in favor of cutting taxes. The problem with raising taxes on the investor class is that it reduces the incentive to invest. If you have $1 million, and you have a chance to invest it and either make $200,000, or lose the whole $1 million, the calculation of risk to reward becomes less favorable the more the government plans to take from your winnings. One might be willing to risk $1 million to clear $140,000 after taxes, but if the government takes much more than that, the investor’s response would be to pass up making the investment. Well, that investment might equate to a job or two.
The worst thing Obama’s doing, however, is threatening to raise taxes at this time. What investors really need is certainty and predictability. The Bush tax cuts were muted in their effect because they took place against the backdrop of the dot-com crash, 9/11 and the fact that the cuts were all temporary. For Obama to go out there and simultaneously try to talk up the economy and tell investors they might as well sit on the sidelines because any success they might have will be taxed in the name of fairness is self-defeating.
The time to raise taxes, if they must be raised, is in boom times. Right now Obama should be forswearing any tax hikes until after the recovery begins.