Bring Back The JFK Tax Cuts!!!

[ulTRAX]

Let's try this again with out the fluff in the title...


Conservatives love to cite JFK's tax cuts as "proof" that tax cuts
stimulate economic growth. I have found no evidence of JFK's tax cut
but I assume they mean the Revenue Act of 1964.

Here's the CATO Institute from
http://www.cato.org/dailys/03-08-01.html
"Tax-rate reductions are economically beneficial because a cut in tax
rates reduces the negative effects of the tax on economic behavior. A
tax-rate cut increases the after-tax rate of return on capital
investment, on starting a business, on saving, and on working. When
you tax something, you get less of it. When you tax something less,
you get more of it. This is why every time we've cut federal tax rates
in the U.S. we've seen a spurt in productivity, employment,
investment, asset values, and output. Bush was right to invoke the
examples of JFK and Reagan. Both those tax-rate cuts were followed by
record economic expansions, namely, in the production of goods and
services."

OK... I agree, for once, with CATO. I say let's BRING BACK those JFK
tax which according to http://www.ustreas.gov/ota/ota81.pdf reduced
individual tax rates (top rate dropped from 91% to 70%) and reduced
top corporate tax rate from 52% to 48%.

If it worked then, it can work now!!! ;-)

[jab105]

1. A lot of it had to do with eliminating loopholes...

so the top rate didn't go down that much for those who were getting out of the rate that they should have been paying with loopholes...

A lot of people at the top who are paying significantly less than they were then are getting out of even more of it with loopholes...lest we forget, with people who don't necessarily work that 9-5 job for a living, its easier to "fool" the government...

[unblock]

2. lest we forget about those 'loopholes'

while a few loopholes were just slimy shelters, many 'loopholes' were actually government incentives to encourage businesses to do useful things. a modern example is credits for alternative energy research.

that helps direct the economy to grow in the right direction.

but of course, republicans objected to the government 'picking winners and losers'....

[jab105]

3. I don't consider that to be a "loophole"...

that is a way that the government created an incentive, two different things...

I was referring to getting out of paying amounts that people rightfully owe the government based on the money they made during that year...that's what Kennedy was doing...

[ulTRAX]

4. missing the point

The point of the thread was not the fine print of the so-called JFK tax cuts... but that tax cuts = economic growth is the Right's Big Lie that won't die. They should be challenged when they claim that tax rates before Reagan were oppressive and slowed growth yet also claim essentially those same rates spurred a boom in the 60's. The Right's claims on the beneficial effects of tax cuts are well into the Orwellian.