Clinton rates 1998 top 1% paid 34.75% of total income taxes. top 5% paid 53.84%, top 25% paid 82.69% 1999 top 1%-36.18%, top 5% 55.45%, top 25% 83.54% 2000 top 1%-37.42%, top 5% 56.47%, top 25% 84.01% Bush rates. 2006 Top 1%-39.89%, top 5% 60.14%, top 25% 86.27% 2007 top 1%-40.41%, top 5% 60.61%, top 25% 86.57% 2008 top 1%-38.02%, top 5% 58.72%, top 25% 86.34% FY 2007 Revenue was $2,568 Trillion and FY 2008 revenue was $2,524 Trillion. The two best years of revenue in US history. Here we have a Democrat president with a Republican Congress. A Republican president with a Republican Congress, and a Republican president with a Democrat Congress. And we have higher, then lower rates in each bracket. And we have higher and lower unemployment, but none equal to what it is today. Not shown is that the lowest bracket share of total income tax went down from 4% to 2.7% All that is seen is that the rich have paid a greater and greater share of our income taxes not matter what administration/Congress was in power. The economy is driven by private enterprise. The government can only force minor changes to the economy, most of them BAD! The best thing a government can do for an economy is do nothing to hurt it. Our present idiot incompetent incumbent is doing exactly the opposite of that.
Of course, increasing taxes creates new jobs. You have to hire more tax collectors and auditors. As the taxes become more oppressive and people work harder to avoid paying taxes the ratio of citizen to tax collecter drops drastically and even more new jobs are created. Then there is the employment opportunity not just in federal prisons but in state prisons, too. And the enforcement officers to keep citizens from fleeing the country. My god, if taxes go high enough we'll have full employment of everyone not in prison.
Hey, if we want full employment, why don't we just have a draft? After 3 weeks of unemployment, you're drafted into the military... We'll have full employment in 3 weeks!
NO! PLEASE NO! I have enough work trying to get quality performance from personnel who joined voluntarily. I can't imagine how tough it is to get performance out of a bunch of conscripts.
But... full employment! We need full employment! (I'm just joking, by the way. I sure hope nobody would actually agree with that nonsense.)
Taxes are designed to give the goverment money to pay for Infustructure, Social Security, Health, Education and Defense so yes it does create jobs!!
I dont believe taxation creates jobs, at least not ones that are likely to be sustained after the tax money runs out. But I dont quite agree with what most others are saying that consumption is what creates jobs either, at least not in the context that people seem to be talking about. From what I can gather: People think domestic consumption is what will create jobs (because the question is related to DOMESTIC SPENDING). But, as this may have been the case 50 - 60 years ago and before, in my opinion, it is not the case now. This is because it is a GLOBAL economy. What does this mean for spending? Demand is not only confined to domestic barriers! Yes, there must be demand for products to create incentives to invest, but what happens when the consumer in the United States goes broke (like it is now)? We must rely on consumers from the rest of the world! In this sense, it is correct that consumers are the sole creators of jobs and investment, but it is not correct to conclude that we must rely on domestic consumers to create domestic jobs. In my opinion, production is the only way a country, such as one in the position of the united states can create jobs. But, we would not produce in markets over saturated in other countries but to be in demand here. The only way jobs will be created is if we take markets that are over-saturated here, and produce those products for countries that are just now emerging and have a demand for the products we take for granted. For instance, every home in the US has a decently nice flat screen TV. Wouldnt you think through this experience, the US could potentially have a highly competitive TV manufacturer who could come up with market competitive ideas, provide a competitive price (high unemployment means people will work for less than average), and be able to provide highly competitive service standards. Just my thoughts, because I think the US's main problem is not being globaly active in many business markets, letting asia monopolize on these things. Well their cost is getting higher, and the US's unemployment ratings means we could potentially compete in manufacturing as long as unions dont drive cost up.
But you must maintain a constant taxation/consumption rate to avoid the problems we have today. Also, as we will see in the coming future, the baby boomers will suck social security and medicare/medicaid dry (Rightly so because they funded it by large). But at that point do we raise taxes to promise the rest the same benefits? Or do we let people with jobs who have been long reliant on government spending to stay in business lose their jobs? Of course not all government spending is bad, thats total extremism, but the sole purpose for taxation was never to stimulate or create jobs, it was to provide for a functioning government. I think there is a very dangerous notion that now, we can openly discuss how we are going to regulate the taxation based on how job growth performs. I think that indicates that the government has far exceeded its original responsibility and gotten too involved in the economy.
I agree with you completely that people have became to over dependant on the Govt. through Social Security we have the same problem where the "Y" Generation has baby's and cannot sustain a full time job or finish tertiary education so they have to leach off the Tax-Payers to sustain their own "Drugged up" Lifestyle and neglect thier kids, Social Security is flawed if it is not regulated as well as our Un-Sustaniable Lifestyle its affecting the Financial Sector as well As the enviroment! But then again our current situation is not due to Social Security being a problem , its also due to preisdents de-regulating the financial sector, Extreme spending on departments such as homeland security as well as Military and Tax Cuts that favoritised the rich, in the Bush Administration he brought upon Three Major Tax Cuts! An example: The US as of 2010 spent a total of $698,105,000,000, which is 4.7 % of GDP compard to Australia only spending $26,900,000,000 of 1.7% of our GDP Mandatory spending: $2.173 trillion (+14.9%) $695 billion (+4.9%) Social Security $571 billion (+58.6%) Unemployment/Welfare/Other mandatory spending $453 billion (+6.6%) Medicare $290 billion (+12.0%) Medicaid $164 billion (+18.0%) Interest on National Debt Discretionary spending: $1.378 trillion (+13.8%) $663.7 billion (+12.7%) Department of Defense (including Overseas Contingency Operations) $78.7 billion (−1.7%) Department of Health and Human Services $72.5 billion (+2.8%) Department of Transportation $52.5 billion (+10.3%) Department of Veterans Affairs $51.7 billion (+40.9%) Department of State and Other International Programs $47.5 billion (+18.5%) Department of Housing and Urban Development $46.7 billion (+12.8%) Department of Education $42.7 billion (+1.2%) Department of Homeland Security $26.3 billion (−0.4%) Department of Energy $26.0 billion (+8.8%) Department of Agriculture $23.9 billion (−6.3%) Department of Justice $18.7 billion (+5.1%) National Aeronautics and Space Administration $13.8 billion (+48.4%) Department of Commerce $13.3 billion (+4.7%) Department of Labor $13.3 billion (+4.7%) Department of the Treasury $12.0 billion (+6.2%) Department of the Interior $10.5 billion (+34.6%) Environmental Protection Agency $9.7 billion (+10.2%) Social Security Administration $7.0 billion (+1.4%) National Science Foundation $5.1 billion (−3.8%) Corps of Engineers $5.0 billion (+100%-NA) National Infrastructure Bank $1.1 billion (+22.2%) Corporation for National and Community Service $0.7 billion (0.0%) Small Business Administration $0.6 billion (−14.3%) General Services Administration $0 billion (−100%-NA) Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) $0 billion (−100%-NA) Financial stabilization efforts $11 billion (+275%-NA) Potential disaster costs $19.8 billion (+3.7%) Other Agencies $105 billion Other Taxation TOTAL $2,674,007,818,000 305,562,616 $8,528.22 (US Avg.) Sources http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxation_in_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_United_States_federal_budget http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures
