Minnesota would benefit from expiration of Bush tax cuts

Talk about a misleading title. . .
The added revenue that would result from this is happenstance compared to the larger issue of whether or not we should be raising or lowering taxes/raising or lowering Government spending.
MN is a <$1 on the dollar return-from-federal-taxes-state, so should we give away more federal money if it will also result in the state government getting more from its constituents?

This is a rare case where gridlock is good. Let all the cuts expire, and then use the additional revenue to create jobs as quickly as possible. The quickest way to stimulate the economy is to take the most direct course to putting paychecks in otherwise unemployed hands, and that means hiring them directly or contracting for projects with contractors who will have to hire.

Hi Eric,

I’d say it’s more important to consider the best way to stimulate the economy not the quickest. From there I’d say the best way to stimulate the economy is to create value. Pretty abstract, sure, but we can simplify this question for the sake of the question of government spending. — Is creating value something the government (state or federal) is good at? —
Simply paying unemployed people to dig holes and fill them back in isn’t the kind of stimulation we need.

According to an article from the AP today, ending Bush’s “tax cuts for the rich” will mean “a typical family of four with a household income of $50,000 a year would have to pay $2,900 more in taxes in 2011, according to a new analysis by Deloitte Tax LLP, a tax consulting firm. The same family making $100,000 a year would see its taxes rise by $4,500.”

Families who earn between $50-100,000 will have from $242 to $375 a month taken out of your paychecks after the first of the year. Think about that for a minute. Can you afford that? Do you really think cutting people’s pay that much will help the economy?

Gee, Dennis, did you really think nobody would fact-check your BS?

Let’s take a look at what the article REALLY says:

“If they don’t reach agreement on extending soon-to-expire Bush-era tax cuts, nearly all their constituents back home will get big tax increases.

A typical family of four with a household income of $50,000 a year would have to pay $2,900 more in taxes in 2011, according to a new analysis by Deloitte Tax LLP, a tax consulting firm. The same family making $100,000 a year would see its taxes rise by $4,500.”
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/09/16/us/politics/AP-US-Tax-Cuts.html?ref=politics

The article was talking about ALL the tax cuts expiring, not just “tax cuts for the rich”, as you specified.

Your pants are on fire, Dennis. You might want to avoid that in the future.

Let’s try and make progress on the foundational issues of government revenue and spending rather than nitpicking how people use the ambiguous term “tax cuts for the rich”.
Does it matter how much money is going TO the Federal government when there’s so little thought put into how much money is being spent?
Concerned about balancing the budget? Look up H.R. 4336. This bill would cut congressional pay when they run a deficit. That would do a whole lot more to fix our national debt than squabbling over 36% vs 39.9%.

I checked out HR4336, along with all the other similar bills. HR4336 was one of the worst of the lot.

There were a couple of others with hidden time-bombs written in, but the rest mostly fell into a few categories:

1) permanently remove the automatic adjustments.
I never liked that provision anyway.

2) cancel the automatic adjustment for one year.
Just a worthless bit of grandstanding.

3) the ones that just said “don’t pay it” without specifying the code to change or what to change it to.
Very dog-ate-my-homework/grade school social studies.

The ones I thought had the most promise went after the annual office budgets too.

The ones that legislated House and Senate rulemaking went too far from a process standpoint.

The ones that required new reports to Congress seemed overly bureaucratic.

Hi Zera,
Thanks for the response!
I’m not sure what you mean by “hidden time-bombs”, could you explain further?
It does make sense to reduce annual office budgets as well, ‘s a good idea I hadn’t heard yet!

From what I was able to find on other bills, HR4336 seemed pretty good; why do you say it was one of the worst? It’s definitely better than your #2′s and 3′s.

I really like the spirit behind these bills, even if they are a little unrefined still. The only thing that makes me wonder if they’re worthwhile is that most representatives are probably wealthy independent of their federal income so, is a 5% pay cut really going to put much pressure on?

Thanks,
Les