Senate GOP Stimulus: Lies, Damn Lies, Conservative economics

[SirNitram]

PDF Link

Let's pop this fucker open and see what's under the hood!

1) 'Defuse 2011 tax bomb'. Apparently rich people might pay more soon.
A) Kill AMT forever. Minimum taxable income for rich people can once again be zero.
B) Permenantly slash corporate gains tax to 15%, highest two tax brackets to 5 and 10 percent.
C) Permenantly kill the 'Death Tax', known to non-liars as the estate tax, for every estate under 5M, set to 15% for all above.
D) Permenantly kill marriage tax penalty.
E) Permenantly extend 1,000 dollar child tax credit.
F) Permenantly 'Simplify itemized deductions'.

Tax cuts, tax cuts, TAX CUTS! Notice how the first three are ridiculously large giveaways to the rich.

2) 'Long term broad based tax cuts'. Um. MORE TAX CUTS WHEE
A) Lower top marginal income rates to 25% from 35%. I'm unsure of tax code and flatly don't trust DeMint, but tthis is claimed to be for small business owners.
B) Simplify tax code to have only two other brackets, 15 and 10 percent.
C) Lower corporate tax rate to 25%.
D) 'THIS IS WHAT IS FAIR RAR'. Seriously. It's just insisting this is fair and has bold text.

Then there's some predictions, which I believe came from DeMint's ass.

The cost of this, given the large number of permenant cuts, is 3.1 TRILLION dollars. It gives the average CEO 300k extra a year, and the average middle class guy nada. And, well, those wondering on the economic effectiveness know the return-on-investment article I posted, so go ahead. Hint: None of the big articles here break 50 cents GDP growth per dollar spent.

[The Minx]

F) Permenantly 'Simplify itemized deductions'.

This item would be nice if it weren't an underhanded way of making the tax code more regressive (the idea that the tax code's complexity is causing difficulty for people is not reprehensible in and of itself).

They're right about one thing, though: high corporate tax rates in the US are an incentive for corporations to move investments overseas.

PS: Where did you get the $ 3.1 trillion figure?

[SirNitram]

The cost is basically done by working from existing cost numbers(Alot of these have been proposed before), and doing addition. AMT, Corporate tax, and Capital Gains tax are the huge ones, and all are permenant.

[The Minx]

The cost is basically done by working from existing cost numbers(Alot of these have been proposed before), and doing addition. AMT, Corporate tax, and Capital Gains tax are the huge ones, and all are permenant.

I got that, I was just curious to see a link to a breakdown, if you had one.

[frigidmagi]

They're right about one thing, though: high corporate tax rates in the US are an incentive for corporations to move investments overseas.

We're actually pretty low compared to Europe, Japan and other 1st world spots. 2nd world and 3rd world are much cheaper but you have to worry about other things, like the army over there deciding to play bandit and what not. So I'm not awfully worried about a corp flight (yeah sure go ahead and run to France or Sweden, that'll be a laugh or two).

[The Minx]

They're right about one thing, though: high corporate tax rates in the US are an incentive for corporations to move investments overseas.

We're actually pretty low compared to Europe, Japan and other 1st world spots. 2nd world and 3rd world are much cheaper but you have to worry about other things, like the army over there deciding to play bandit and what not. So I'm not awfully worried about a corp flight (yeah sure go ahead and run to France or Sweden, that'll be a laugh or two).

Ugh, OK I knew that. This somehow didn't connect when I read that line in the article, which is technically true from a purely theoretical standpoint. I'll go hang my head in shame now.

[SirNitram]

The cost is basically done by working from existing cost numbers(Alot of these have been proposed before), and doing addition. AMT, Corporate tax, and Capital Gains tax are the huge ones, and all are permenant.

I got that, I was just curious to see a link to a breakdown, if you had one.

A few other groups have the same number up, but I've seen no breakdowns. Deeply sorry. I'll keep an eye on the CBO website.