Arthur Laffer

sickboy

Active Member
Originally Posted by reefraff
http:///forum/post/3278220
I am not in the top bracket and I guarantee you I am shifting what the government considers income into this year. I have a lot of stocks I am up on, way up on and they will all be sold this year to take advantage of a much lower capital gains tax. If a small time operator like me is doing it I guarantee you a whole lot of others, with a whole lot more money in play will do the same thing.
But, what will you do with it next year, let it sit in your closet losing value to inflation or will you reinvest it? I would likely guess the later which would not cause a double dip, just a little stock market jitter.
 

reefraff

Active Member
Originally Posted by sickboy
http:///forum/post/3278406
But, what will you do with it next year, let it sit in your closet losing value to inflation or will you reinvest it? I would likely guess the later which would not cause a double dip, just a little stock market jitter.
It will sit in cash till I figure out which way the market is going to go. If the market moves down it will be invested into a short fund I play. I just need the market to move, I make money trading if it goes up or down. It's my long term investments I am selling off this year, already sold of several, and as luck would have it I sold a couple months ago before the current drop, wish I had sold off a lot more.
 

slice

Active Member

Originally Posted by sickboy
http:///forum/post/3278182
Do you have some sort of evidence to back this opinion? If so, please provide...
Not an opinion. I'll let you do your own homework, but last I saw, a few weeks ago, we were somewhere around 47.2% and rising, the number of households getting public assistance. This is down from the all-time high of 55% during the end of Carter's term.
I should
have said "We are approaching the time AGAIN
when those who live off the government will outnumber those who pay into the government."
 

beaslbob

Well-Known Member
Originally Posted by Slice
http:///forum/post/3276783
It isn't rocket surgery, as the Ivy League professor said.

Good article, thanks for posting.
It doesn't take that much to realize that when policies work in concert with human tendencies, those policies have a better chance of working.
Which to me means the policies aren't needed to begin with.
 

beaslbob

Well-Known Member
Originally Posted by sickboy
http:///forum/post/3278182
Do you have some sort of evidence to back this opinion? If so, please provide...
I have heard there are now more families receiving tax money then paying income taxes. Perhaps other can provide data though
 

sickboy

Active Member

Originally Posted by Slice
http:///forum/post/3278466
Not an opinion. I'll let you do your own homework, but last I saw, a few weeks ago, we were somewhere around 47.2% and rising, the number of households getting public assistance. This is down from the all-time high of 55% during the end of Carter's term.
I should
have said "We are approaching the time AGAIN
when those who live off the government will outnumber those who pay into the government."
Receiving assistance and living off the government are two separate things, I assumed you meant only source of income was the gov't., but with this new definition you may be correct, though, define assistance. Tax breaks? Tax credits? Direct support? That number can be changed so many ways to suit your objective, but I guess so can pretty much every statistic...
 

slice

Active Member
Yes, there are lies, there are d@mn lies, then there are statistics.
My point is, that when the majority owes themselves to big government is some way, big government becomes indispensable. A politician cannot be the "hero of the downtrodden" until he makes sure there are downtrodden...the more the better. Many policies seem to be designed to dumb down as many of us as possible to be beholden to the government in some or in many ways.
Even my mort-gage interest deduction, which I could not do without, was MY MONEY to begin with. The government takes my money away, then becomes magnanimous when sharing a small bit back to me.
We would be much better if they just stayed out of our way. IMO, the lasting effect of big government hand outs is to keep the citizenry under thumb.
 

spanko

Active Member
Originally Posted by sickboy
http:///forum/post/3278721
Receiving assistance and living off the government are two separate things
Not sure this is a valid statement. Until govenment gets back to the enumerated powers that it is granted by the constitution, everything else is just transfer of funds from one hand to the next. Not their job. Creating a state where they tax some to give to others is not part of their power. Living off the government is assistance from my standpoint. Assistance is living off the government in my standpoint.
 

reefraff

Active Member
If the government limited it's size and scope to what is allowed in the Constitution there would be no need for income tax.
 

spanko

Active Member
There IMO would still be a need to fund those things that are enumerated,
Key Constitutional Grants
of Powers to Congress
Article I, Section. 8.
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
To borrow Money on the credit of the United States;
To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;
To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;
To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;
To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;
To establish Post Offices and post Roads;
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court;
To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offences against the Law of Nations;
To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;
To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;
To provide and maintain a Navy;
To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;
To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;
To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;
To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings;--And
To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.
So the need or a tax revenue to accomplish those things would still be necessary. However can you imagine what that rate would be? Certainly low enough to allow for a robust economy of the people spending according to their needs and desires, a manufacturing base growth to provide the goods and services that people would be looking for and yes even a philathropic explosion of people helping one another of their will and desire to do so.
 

reefraff

Active Member
We didn't have an income tax until 1916, our country ran a surplus until then, we would do just swell without it.
 

stdreb27

Active Member
Originally Posted by reefraff
http:///forum/post/3278774
If the government limited it's size and scope to what is allowed in the Constitution there would be no need for income tax.

Originally Posted by reefraff

http:///forum/post/3278782
We didn't have an income tax until 1916, our country ran a surplus until then, we would do just swell without it.
Until that time we made the bulk of our tax money on tariffs. But that kind of went by the way, when they caused the great depression...
 

stdreb27

Active Member
You know all you have to do to correlate what Laffer is talking about is look at cash for clunkers, and home sales now that they aren't offering that credit anymore. It is a smaller scale example of what he's talking about...
 
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