In the industries I’ve worked in, you can not just build things and hope that someone buys it.
Barges, for example. The demand precedes the construction of them.
Boiler and power production systems- same as above.
Custom frames for stained glass (cathedrals and stuff) etc.
*Robotic welding systems- this is where it becomes a little bit of a hybrid, somewhat like automotive products. The demand has been established and there was a baseline of production developed over years of meeting the demand trends, and a lot of the constituent parts of the systems don’t change much year to year. Then there was the custom application side, in which pieces were built entirely on demand.
Tree services- You do not show up and start providing residential tree services without being asked first. That would be like crazy land level shit there. “What are you doing to my oak tree?!?”
“We are abiding by supply side economics. Then when you decide that need this done, we will have had it ready for you.”
But to be clear, I’m not saying “If you build it they will purchase” is not a valid model. It does work and is required in a lot of sectors, but even then, producers closely follow purchasing trends.
It’s unarguably geared towards corporate tax reform. If you see the cuts to marginal income rates as significant then you should look back at the Reagan cuts for perspective.
I agree more could have been done to simplify, I also think capital gains cuts for lower income earners would have been beneficial but we can only expect so much.
Funny… I don’t remember hearing of either bitching over the Republicans giving handouts to their “billionaire” donors…
I’m confused, are you stating that taxes don’t have a negative impact on economic growth?[quote=“thunderbolt23, post:543, topic:235941”]
Asked and answered, multiple times. Their economic picture isn’t the same as ours. There are countervailing issues to the “hey, we’re just doing this to line up with them other countries” explanation.
[/quote]
I don’t have time to dig through hrs of text to find a half answer for this. Something tells me if you had a simple answer you would have just posted it, if not feel free to enlighten me.
What kind of evidence are you looking for? Aside from basic economic theory and previous tax cuts I’m not sure what else to say. No one is arguing that economic growth moves lockstep with tax cuts just that it moves. Like you said there are too many variables that can impact but if you were somehow able to hold those constant you would in fact see increased economic activity under lighter tax burdens. It’s simple economics…
Nope - they can, and I mentioned that above re: the JFK tax cuts. At some point tax rates can so high that they take too many dollars out of the private sector and starve the economy of needed capital to expand. But that isn’t true at every rate of taxation, it isn’t linear - for a number of reasons, not the least of which economic growth is driven by lots of variables, and dollars given to the government obviously produce some level of growth on the demand side of equation.
The answer actually isn’t simple, and that’s entirely the point - we don’t simply match our taxes to what other countries are doing. We have to consider issues those other countries don’t face - such as our unique fiscal and trade deficits. If you think otherwise, I look forward to you being consistent and calling for universal health care becsuse all the other industrialized countries have it.
There’s no evidence that tax cuts work the magic on growth you say they do. See Kansas. See also:
Yes, that’s exactly what supply siders say - that no matter the circumstances, tax cuts will result in economic growth. Empirically not true.
This gave me a chuckle. Well, we happen to live in the real world, and the other side of the public ledger are expenditures, meaning tax cuts never, ever happen in an economic vacuum, even if you could somehow hold business conditions constant, because budget deficits and/or surpluses (generated from tax rates, whichever way they go) always have the potential to economic activity.
Not sure what your point is on any of this. I don’t give a shit what it’s geared toward corporate tax reform is not the only thing it’s doing. If corporate tax reform only was the goal why the other stuff? Of course the devil is in the details on all of this. “Well it really isn’t about this other stuff” is simply not true. It’s all one piece of legislation for arguments sake.
The second part doesn’t make sense either. It’s above scrutiny because someone years ago cut it bigger? If that’s the case why not argue for double high earning income rates and say “if you think that’s significant well it used to be bigger than that!”
“According to the bipartisan and highly regarded Tax Policy Center, the Republican tax plan gives 83 percent of its tax cuts to the wealthiest one percent of earners. The poorest Americans, it is estimated, will get about $60 each, middle class will get an average payout of $930, while those earning up to $732,800 a year will get $13,480 back and the biggest tax break would go to the top .1 percent of earners who will see an average after tax gain of $193,380.“
That depends, it’s possible they could decrease, stay the same or even increase.
The underlying fundamental economic principle is however that if you hold all variables constant and decrease tax rates by $1 you will have less than a $1 drop in tax receipts.
You are then either extraordinarily charitable or misunderstanding the fundamental economics at play.
Supply side economics is not just if you build it they will buy.( although it does reward those who successfully do so which makes it ideal at encouraging technological development.)
Supply side just means you want to bridge the gap between producer and consumer.
I.E. neighbor is willing to pay $100 to cut down their tree, you think it will cost you $80. Without government this is a mutually beneficial exchange, everyone wins. If government steps in and says they are applying a $20 tax for you to cut down the tree it is no longer economically feasible and you won’t start cutting trees hence economic activity stifled…
Not sure exactly. The testing and examination of the parts and materials were to the highest standards, so it could have been anything.
The tax stuff and costing gets pretty complicated, and was left mainly to the accountants, but one thing we would often do at their advisement was buy new/more equipment, and we generally stayed in a higher end niche where money was not much of a problem.
I haven’t been following, so apologies if someone has posted about this. I’m in a SALT state, and people in my area are lining up to pay property taxes early.
I work at a mortgage company currently. The number of people calling in from all over the country to pay their taxes early is actually drowning part of our servicing dept the past couple weeks. It’s been insane.
Side note: Don’t call your mortgage company frantically trying to get your prop taxes paid 2 weeks before Xmas and bitch at people on the other end when they can’t send you your own escrow money. It’s just going to make people laugh at you for being stupid.
Agree with both of the points above. However I do see significant help to a lot of people so I’ll take a bird in the hand.
As for revenue loss, if we could cut spending I do believe this would stimulate long term growth. As noted above, despite being very far from perfect, Reagan’s tax cuts resulted in a long term boost to tax revenue…except that spending skyrocketed.
If we stop spending and just eat our damn “medicine” it might work. Any entrepreneur knows you have to watch your budget like a hawk while investment in the long term takes place. Sadly…#politics
Agree. With any giant piece of legislation typically you have some good things. Obamacare reduced the number of uninsured and got rid of the barbaric pre existing condition issue for some people. I just have issues with the total cost and implementation which is where I have issues on this bill.
A lot of normal folks (myself included) are going to see some tax relief. That’s a great thing and hopefully will stimulate the economy even more. This was actually a part (middle class tax relief) of the Obama stimulus package so hated by many as too expensive but I digress.
Apparently a lot of people who are already swimming in it are going to see a lot of tax relief. So in a time when our national debt is loaded Republicans made a point (for better or worse) to provide a lot of tax relief for the wealthiest people. I guess I just wonder what the point of that is at this time in history when the wealthiest of Americans proportionally are better off than any other time in history. For better or worse it would be hard for me to see how this part of the bill isn’t going to lead to some decreased revenues. And important to point out that the decreased revenues is not attempting to help out Joe and Jane or an impoverished family.
I also think comparing to Regan makes sense but has some caveats to point out. Tax rates at the time were way higher than now. The economy was in way worse shape and more in need of stimulating. For the most part the last few years have been pretty solid economically when looking at unemployment especially. Growth could always be higher but some of that may be the new reality in a global marketplace.
What are our tools for the next recession? We are cutting taxes significantly in the middle of good times. Not even saying on the whole it’s a bad thing but it does leave with less options moving forward. Stimulus spending and further tax cuts would need to be offset. And when the next recession comes politically “something” must be done.
I agree with the spending part but where is that going to come from? Do you see it being defense because I don’t. Trump and the GOP have that as a pet and to think about decreasing that means you hate the troops or something. So that leaves us with “entitlement” reform which needs done. But it needed done before a massive tax cut in a stable economy.
Now the hand is going to be forced more and the choices when it comes to “entitlement” (which can be a weird term when it comes to providing affordable health insurance for children and the elderly) may be more painful to average Joe and Jane. And part of that lowered revenue forcing these talks came to give super wealthy people the biggest piece of the tax cuts.
All we need to do now is cut spending is an easy thing to say. But Regan and GWB who ran as conservatives didn’t do it. Trump never ran as one. He ran as I won’t touch Medicare, social security, etc. I will bolster defense. I will negotiate on debt if we default. Everyone will have cheap health care. That’s the guy in charge of lowering spending with decreased revenues?
I’m hoping it all goes out as the best case scenarios say. But it hasn’t in the past and I’m certainly not betting on it now. Maybe I’m just biased living in Kansas and watching that shit show take place and now knowing that we are going to have hard choices moving forward for a while because of it. But hey millionaire Bill Self could just move his money so it wasn’t taxed!
Honestly this doesn’t bother me one bit. It doesn’t affect me or my opportunities in any way, and I’ve never been big on jealousy. I don’t like paying taxes and I can’t imagine people with more money like seeing so much go either. This isn’t a philosophical thing–I agree in principle that a progressive tax is a better system than others. This is very practical…I care exactly zero that people with more money than me are saving tax money.
Fair. On the other hand I would point out that pretty much ALL Americans are better off now than at any time in history (in the macro sense) by material standards. Poor Americans have iPhones, iPads, multiple TVs and computers in their house (cue Back to the Future: “oh don’t be silly, nobody has 3 TVs!”).
Do poor Americans make poor fiscal decisions? Yes, since the advent of the 40 he work week they always have and always will. Do they face unfair challenges? Again yes, always have and always will. I don’t know of any way to use Government to make everything better for every single person. Thats a fools errand, although we should try to maximize the good we do.
Fair. My take is that just as with most tax policy you won’t see the effects until years later. Short term revenue drop? Yeah, likely unavoidable. Long term drop? Not a guarantee.
Valid points.
I don’t either, but that portion was a philosophical argument…I’m not naive enough to believe politicos will actually do something about spending when they control the purse.
Agree again
Thoughtful points but I would say there is a chance you might be slightly biased–the fact of the matter is that we’ve had hard choices coming for a long damn time and nobody from either party had the balls to do anything about it. We’re now simply jockeying over who can blame who for the inevitable hard choices needing to be made…who is left with the “hot potato”. Truth is both parties are guilty as hell on precipitating the crisis… It’s grandstanding from both parties. Youve developed a good sense of who the policy “enemy” is by virtue of your living circumstances and observations–thats not bad it just IS…we all do it.
[quote=“Aragorn, post:560, topic:235941”]
This is very practical…I care exactly zero that people with more money than me are saving tax money.[/quote]
Both of you are saving tax money just they are saving a shit ton of it compared to you. It’s not about being jealous or any of that it’s about the purpose of the legislation.
Just the face value of it doesn’t make sense to me. “We wanted a tax cut for poor people that would save them around 100, a tax cut for the middle class that might save them around 900. And then we said hold on if you’re making over 700,000 let’s make that cut 13,000 and the top .1 percent of earners are going to save close to 200,000.” I still haven’t seen the reasoning behind this.
Agree with everything and yes most Americans are far better off than they were years ago. But I love this whole statement by you. Except the last part imo doesn’t jive with the bill. Is legislation that cuts the tax bill of the top .1 percent of earners by almost 200,000 maximizing the good?
For the most part I almost always agree with your thinking so I don’t have a whole lot else. I think you had told me before about living in Kansas because we had talked about that and our shared love for Lord of the Rings. If you play video games and haven’t played Shadow of War or Shadow of Mordor you need to!
Ok, because I was just unclear on what you were getting at. I’ve been running into a lot of people that are angry at the higher income people and the GoP for “giving the rich a tax break”.
Well I’m not an expert and haven’t done a deep dive into the bill substance, but remember that a lot of “high income earners” are actually running S Corp and LLCs - there are many more deductions that a small business owner can qualify for the middle and low income people can’t. But as stated above it’s really important to know that these small business types are NOT really the 1% in any case.
Also typically my experience is that the more finances someone has the more likely there are ways to use it. I don’t think it’s a “corporate” thing.
Well, honestly I don’t know, maybe not really. I’m not opposed to that line of reasoning from you in the least.
Dude, I have heard nothing but badass things about that game!! Im a lame video game nerd because I don’t have a console system any more…the last console I had was the original Xbox lol. I go hard when I’m home with friends though
This arguably isn’t about the wealth as much as it is the perceived status that comes with that wealth. Many view politics as something for sale to the rich, and in many ways it is. Being frustrated with a broken system that continues to be broken doesn’t necessarily = jealousy (while I’d admit it does for some).