How the hell did tax cuts get to be such an issue, when so many people aren't working?

[arbusto_baboso]

I mean, honestly, a fucking tax cut makes NO difference to the person who is jobless, right?

[HuckleB]

1. Propaganda rules! Reality is meaningless.

[polichick]

2. Jobless people don't count - only the wealthy and corporations count to Republicans...

...and the Dems who would grovel to them.

[BootinUp]

3. Because they are set to expire soon?

[frazzled]

8. Bingo, you're the winner

The expiring Bush tax cuts are forcing this discussion: if we let the middle-class taxes go back up during a recession it will be rough. But the rich are doing fine, so D's (not R's) think we should cut them.

Are people having memory lapses today?

[arbusto_baboso]

9. But that is not the way the issue is being framed.

And somehow, even many of the jobless think that preserving tax cuts for the uber-wealthy is somehow going to benefit them, too.

[librechik]

4. Because long ago, Larry Atwater, inventor of the modern R said "Tax cuts is how we Republicans say

the n word" except he didn't say n.

[yodermon]

27. found it. Disgusting.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C04E6DF1E30F935A35753C1A9639C8B63

''You start out in 1954 by saying, 'Nigger, nigger, nigger.' By 1968 you can't say 'nigger' -- that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now {that} you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is {that} blacks get hurt worse than whites.

''And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me -- because obviously sitting around saying, 'We want to cut this,' is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than 'Nigger, nigger.'''

[RZM]

5. Unemployment is high right now

But it's not (yet) through the roof. But tax cuts also don't matter much to the many more people who don't make enough to pay income tax in the first place, some of which a few years ago probably WERE paying income tax.

[arbusto_baboso]

6. Another excellent point!

[Drale]

7. Because

companies are currently making record profits with the current workforce why would they and in extension the republicans want to create jobs that would lower profit margins?

[Selatius]

10. The propaganda says that cutting taxes will make the economy better.

But the reality is that no economy functions without aggregate demand for products and services.

Simply put: Producers do not invest money in expanding production or R&D or hiring if they see no new demand or increased demand for products and services they can provide. So they will not automatically do any of those things if given a tax cut.

They will only do that when consumers start spending money again. One major way FDR artificially propped up consumer demand during the Great Depression was a massive jobs program that pumped money directly into the pockets of workers who are also consumers.

[Meatball]

11. You still pay tax on unemployment benefits, though.

nt

[arbusto_baboso]

12. Ah, yes, I'd forgotten that.

and it's not withheld, either, as I recall.

Another slap at the poor from Reagan, IIRC.

[NoNothing]

28. Not to mention,

Sales taxes, property taxes, vehicle taxes, phone taxes, estate taxes, garbage taxes, water taxes, sewer taxes, license fees, parking fees, permit fees, etc. etc. etc.

[OHdem10]

13. ONE SIMPLE FACTOR. Republican Party is the party of the

affluent(does that sound less hostile than rich).
They are looking out for their constituents.

The very same reason HCR is such a controversy. The
Affluent would pay more taxes, they believe.

Just as Democrats are supposed and I say supposed to
protect their consituents(working Class) the Republicans
are fighting like hades for their constituents.

Even Tea Party Activists, fall into upper income group.
(over 75,000 annually)

[Dappleganger]

14. Because the republicans consider the unemployed as non-persons.

[RZM]

18. More like potential Republican votes

Kasich ran entirely on jobs here in Ohio. I didn't see a single ad about anything else and he won. And this from a Wall Street vet no less.

[HereSince1628]

15. It's very straight forward and it's called Kitchenomics.

It involves seeing life only from the perspective of a working schmuck trying to pay monthly bills at the kitchen table.

Everyone who is going broke knows the following

BILLS ARE BAD.
Fewer Bills requiring less money is GOOD.
Taxes are a form of BILL.
Therefore taxes are BAD and less of them would be GOOD.

If less taxes is GOOD it takes TAX CUTS to make less taxes.

THIS model of thinking is a very large part of what makes working class folks vote for the republican parties mantra of tax cuts, even as the republicans work to defeat social programs that would ease burdens on working class people.

This is also why the health insurance mandate was so very poorly recieved among working class people. If you want to help them, you must make it irrefutably obvious. You can't ;eave behind any muddling that could make it seem like you are burdening them.

[arbusto_baboso]

17. A country is NOT a household.

And why the Democratic Party doesn't make that point, I'll never understand.

[HereSince1628]

21. ABSOLUTELY!!! YOU GET IT!!!! I"ve been posting that topic all day!

Kitchenomics can't stop the death spiral of a depression cycle.

Most boomers grew up in democratic households believing in Keynsian economics because it saved their parents and grand parents' asses.

That common knowledge isn't common anymore.

[arbusto_baboso]

23. I actually got to attend an Econ 101 class taught by

JM Keynes. Most informative class I ever took.

[HereSince1628]

24. Oh, THAT would have been great to sit in on! n/t

[arbusto_baboso]

25. Yes. It made me aware as far back as Reagan...

that as a nation, we are screwed.

[slackmaster]

16. Most people are working

:argh:

[arbusto_baboso]

19. But even large percentages of working people don't make enough

to pay any income tax. Enough that if those folks had voted (or voted Dem) in large numbers, the mid-term would've been a huge success for us.

[highprincipleswork]

20. No tax cuts without jobs

I believe that no tax cuts should even be considered unless they can be proven to produce jobs.

In other words, show you have produced and sustained jobs for American workers, you can have a tax cut or tax credit, or however it is structured. In these times of high unemployment and large deficits, however, no tax cuts for any other reason whatsoever.

[Odin2005]

22. Property taxes are going up because of state buget cuts.

Of course people are idiots and do not distinguish between local, state, and national taxes.

[gkhouston]

26. Cui bono? n/t