Proposed budget gets a surplus without cutting entitlements

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I just refuted your whole argument that the top two tax cuts have any significant effect on job growth or revenue for the economy, regarding small busineses owners that file their taxes as individuals. It is evidenced from the article you presented and hard, cold, math, of the reality of what it would really mean in dollars to a small business profitting close to half a million dollars a year; $250 per month

Can you provide any objective evidence that letting those top two tax bracket cuts expire is going to have any real impact on jobs or revenue to the economy? You haven't provided it yet.

So far, your evidence has only refuted it, per the article you provided in the other topic on the tax cuts, for businesses in 2003, as opposed to the tax cuts of 2001, the bracket cuts, that created no significant job increases or revenue for the economy.

And just as further evidence that there is no causation that jobs were increased because tax cuts were extended as boehner is claiming now. Here is a link from the Bureau of Labor Statistics that shows that the Job recovery began in March 2010, right after healthcare reform was enacted in law. Now I'm not going to say that is the reason, because if I did, I would be putting causation ahead of correlation. Many more jobs were created in October at the height of uncertainty over whether or not the whole tax cut package would expire, than in November when the Republicans took office and than in December or January.

We have increases in February and March that Boehner is now claiming are a result of the tax cuts being extended, but you notice that the administration didn't make a ridiculous claim like this when jobs increased after healthcare reform was enacted last year as evidenced by the graph.

The graph is on page 24.

http://www.bls.gov/opub/mlr/2011/03/art2full.pdf

It is also total BS to imply that the average small business owner makes anywhere near $250,000/year.

PayScale shows a range of $24,017 - $152,580 in total pay with 1,089 reporting. Note, not one single income came anywhere near the $250,000 mark.

CareerBuilder reports the average small business owner salary to be $44,576.

For more information, here's a fascinating article about who is really making $250,000 and who is not. It's a few years old so I posted the updated numbers above. The numbers have not changed significantly and I was rather surprised at just how little the arguments have changed (just substitute "Ryan" for "McCain").
http://money.gather.com/viewArticle.act ... 4977453286

Thank you, the final and conclusive argument with the public scare tactic on tax increases for those with a 250K+ AGI and the fewer jobs created by small business. The overwelming majority of small business owners get to keep all the tax breaks and receive even more incentives under Obama's plan. And, for those individuals like Doctors and lawyers that make that much money, it's not a signficant impact. The math doesn't add up.

There are advantages for companies to file corporate income taxes, but there is one big disadvantage — major shareholders are subject to being taxed twice, first on the corporation’s earnings and then on personal income taxes after dividends are distributed to the owners.

So smaller companies, as well as partnerships, sole proprietorships and some limited liability companies, organize themselves differently. The companies themselves do not pay taxes; instead, the earnings or losses are passed through to the shareholders, who then are taxed at the individual tax rate.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fac ... _blog.html

As far as Boehner's claim on the tax cuts being extended there is more to it than that. What businesses like is certainty so they can plan ahead, not knowing whether or not their taxes are going to be hiked throws a wrench into planning things out.

Yeah...because every small business sells shares like Goldman Sachs and AIG.

He claimed to be an "almost" history minor, and to have been a former engineering major before he couldn't handle the required math.


Ok... that's not what this budget did, though, so your comment is irrelevant. You could also cut entitlements to 0 and still have a deficit, so your continued claim that entitlements are the beginning and end of our fiscal problems is utterly ridiculous.


Increasing tax revenue won't help decrease the deficit? In what f*****g universe?

Now, I know you don't know how to read, but try for a moment here: I'm not saying that increased taxation alone solves the problem. But it is a part of lowering the deficit.

You make yourself a corporation to protect yourself from lawsuits, small businesses usually go the LLC route.

That article you presented is a fact checker article for the Washington post. It got one pinocchio because the statement by Camp and Romney was a little misleading when they suggest that half of business owners income is affected by the increase in taxes, when those business owners comprise three percent of small business owners.

I'm not sure why you presented that excerpt above from the article; it is not associated with your point on small businesses that file individual tax returns.

An interesting note was presented at the bottom of the article that hiring is a cost and is not taxable, but a deduction, so higher taxes can be seen as an incentive to hire more employees, because it is a way of avoiding taxes.

The notes went on further to explain that people don't consider taxes, in their hiring practices, they are business based decisions on supply and demand and how well the economy is doing in general.

The more information you present, the weaker the argument is getting that losing those tax increases is realistically going to significantly impact job creation.

97% of small business owners have nothing to lose with Obama's plan; they keep their tax breaks; that won't have a negative influence on anything.

As per the referenced notes in the article you presented, a possible hike in tax rates, has little to no effect for a business in regard to it's hiring practices. Therefore, Boehners suggestion that the fact that the tax hikes weren't enacted caused big increases in job creation, is at least a little silly in regard to facts, but business as usual for politics.

You would think that healthcare reform would present a larger problem for businesses in forecasting their expenses in determining future healthcare costs; but we've had a job recovery since healthcare reform was enacted; just another correlation that uncertainty over future costs does not impact the present activity of business in a significant way in regard to job creation.

And, health care reform industry is the fastest growing segment in creating jobs in our economy; the healthcare reform act as more of it is instituted, will only enhance this factor.

Thsi is more good news for the future of our economy and people looking for healthcare jobs. Our only problem is we might not have enough people to fill the needed jobs, once healthcare reform is fully enacted. Of course, this will determined by whether or not the healthcare reform act survives Supreme Court scrutiny.

Seems timely again.

And in consequence, they are entirely irrelevant to an assessment of revenue as a function of business tax policy. Then they gain no benefit from tax cuts for business, nor incur penalties from tax increases on business.

It has been demonstrated time and again that tax cuts are the least effective way for government to spend tax room. There is nothing wrong with cutting taxes when there is fiscal room, but cutting taxes during a slack economy is the least effective way for government to use the tools at its disposal. Trickle-down may be an article of faith among small government conservatives but there is no evidence that it can actually work as an engine for economic growth.

Businesses are the backbone to the economy, not the government. Businesses are the instrument through which money is earned, governments do not earn their own money but demand and take that money which is earned by others. Levying higher taxes during a recession is a great way to place even more stress on an already terrible situation.

That sounds lovely, but I wont be joining up because I don't feel like killing people that would be involved in the well deserved rebellion against that.

This is how democracies and republics die, when people realize they can start voting themselves money from the treasury.

In all honesty, the problem is entitlement spending, and really I don't give a damn what the Democrats say, because Reid's plan is full of accounting gimmics and Obama has no plan.

In fact the CBO does not score speeches.

wrt the OP: Yes!
I've heard this mentioned a couple of times on various talk shows by callers, and even relatively liberal hosts have a sort of, 'huh?' response. It's like no-one has even heard of it outside of Democracy Now or Counterspin.

It's a bit surprising. You'd think people would be all over a plan that gets us to budget surpluses without gutting major social programs.

Gone - Mod edit