Thursday, June 09, 2011

Lasting Effects of the Bush Tax Cuts

Here's the charts.
Millionaires saw their after-tax income increase by 6.2%.  The middle class saw an increase of 2.2%.
In dollars than $128,832 for the millionaires, 860 for the middle class.
The Bush tax cuts are the largest contributor to the deficit.  More than wars, more than stimulus, more than bailouts, and more than the effect of the recession.
The cost of the tax cuts is roughly equal to the Social Security shortfall.
If we only let the cuts expire, our rising debt stabilizes and begins to drop.  Otherwise the debt just keeps going up.

2 comments:

Thorus said...

Sorry yet again liberals cooking books
the cost of 2010 interest:
$413,954,825,362.17
http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/ir/ir_expense.htm
the cost of 2011-2012 bush tax cut extension:
$544.3 billion
http://money.cnn.com/2010/12/07/news/economy/tax_cut_deal_obama/index.htm
I'm sorry but our projected deficit is far greater then $275 billion so I don't know how raising $275 billion in taxes is going to close a $1 trillion deficit.

Kendall Miller said...

From what I read in the Pew report, http://www.pewtrusts.org/uploadedFiles/wwwpewtrustsorg/Fact_Sheets/Economic_Policy/drivers_federal_debt_since_2001.pdf, the biggest single contributor to the deficit is reduced revenues and increased spending brought about by recession. The dot-com recession in 2001 was the first blow. That essentially neutralized the projected deficit reductions to a debt level of about 33% GDP. After 2003, the effects of the poor economy remained constant but tax cuts, war spending, and increasing interest took the debt to 37% GDP by 2007. By 2008, continued expansion in these sectors had brought the debt to 40% GDP. When the sub-prime recession took hold the losses due to the bad economy expanded dramatically and the cut-war-interest also continued a steady expansion until we are at 70% GDP today. The big problem is the economy and the best fix for that is to let the dollar continue to devalue so American goods are more affordable globally and offshore -out-sourcing is less attractive. The quick and easy thing that the government can do to stop the deficit growth is to end the tax cuts. Responsible action should also have a cooling effect on the interest rates.