Tax ? to debate Freeps before election -need HELP

[upi402]

I'm a tax bonehead and I need links and info to debate some Freeps before the upcoming election. Searching got me stuck and lost. Anyone in the know

1) Link to rightwing source(s) that shows most of the tax relief went to the rich.

2) Some of them say they pay less tax under George than Billy and the Dems are spreading lies. If true, what would be the income level? If false, any facts would help.


I have a (liberal)CPA do my taxes and my tax situation has changed a lot in recent years anyway, so I don't have a clue. And I don't wander into righty sites much anymore. But one guy is a buddy that is 100% certain his new baby will never have to pay thousand$ for the Republicans' deficit. And he says the Democrats are lying about the rich getting the Republican tax break. He's been rallying righties around the Democrat tax lie for the upcoming vote, so I guess I'll TRY to debate this to push back a bit.

[papau]

1. What you ask for is available from non-partisan sources -if the RW folks

will not accept those sources and listen only Rush and Fox - both known to lie, there is no point in having a discussion.


1) Link to right wing source(s) that shows most of the tax relief went to the rich.

http://www.factcheck.org/article145.html as to all 3 tax cuts

If you have minor children or large stock holdings, you could see a tax cut above $1,000 this year. But a middle-income couple with children in college would get only about $300. Half of all households would get less than $200, according to the Urban Institute, a nonpartisan Washington think tank. As to first tax cut

According to Urban Brookings' analysis of the tax cuts described in (2004) State of the Union address, about 53 percent of "tax units" (individuals, married couples, households, and so on) got nothing or less than $100.(this "tax units" are all potential tax paying units - and 36% of that potential do not pay FIT income tax taxes because they make too little - although they do pay the other US income tax called the "payroll tax"). -as to all 3 tax cuts.

Then there is what the Bush Government said itself:

CBO Report: Bush Tax Cuts Tilted to Rich
By Vicki Allen
Reuters

Saturday 14 August 2004

WASHINGTON - One-third of President Bush's tax cuts have gone to the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans, shifting more burden to middle-income taxpayers, congressional analysts said on Friday.

The report by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office and calculations by congressional Democrats based on the CBO findings fueled the debate over the cuts between Bush and his Democratic challenger in November, Sen. John Kerry.

Using the CBO's figures, Democrats in Congress said the top 1 percent, with incomes averaging $1.2 million per year, will receive an average tax cut of $78,460 this year, and have seen their share of the total tax burden fall roughly 2 percentage points to 20.1 percent.

In contrast, the report showed that households in the middle 20 percent, with incomes averaging $57,000 per year, will receive an average cut of $1,090 while their share of the tax burden would move to 10.5 percent from 10.4 percent.

The CBO report said about two-thirds of the benefits from the cuts went to households in the top 20 percent, with an average income of $203,740.

People with earnings in the lowest 20 percent, which averaged $16,620, saw their effective tax rate fall to 5.2 percent from 6.7 percent, the CBO said. But Democrats said that meant their average tax cut was only $250.

A nice summary:

QUOTE: "That's exactly where the tax cuts went. Most of the tax cuts went to low and middle-income Americans." --President Bush on 10/13/04

FACT: The top 20 percent of earners received 69.8 percent of President Bush's tax cuts and about one–third of the Bush tax cuts have gone to the top one percent of households. - OMB Watch
QUOTE: "Tax relief left more money in the hands of American workers so they could save, spend, invest, and help drive this economy forward."


QUOTE: "Tax relief left more money in the hands of American workers so they could save, spend, invest, and help drive this economy forward." -President Bush on 10/2/04, according to the White House website
FACT: "The Bush administration and Congress have scaled back programs that aid the poor to help pay for $600 billion in tax breaks that went primarily to those who earn more than $288,800 a year." - Detroit News, 9/26/04


QUOTE: "When you hear people say, we cut individual income taxes, or tax on the rich, really what you ought to put in your mind is these were taxes to help the entrepreneurial class of America. Small businesses benefit." --President Bush on 3/17/04, according to the White House website

FACT: Only 3.7% of small businesses are affected by the top tax rate cuts that made up the bulk of the President's income tax cuts. Most small business owners "would be far more likely to receive no tax reduction whatsoever from the Administration's tax package than to benefit." - Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 5/3/01


QUOTE: "But what the people must understand is that instead of wondering what to do, I acted, and I acted by cutting the taxes on individuals and small businesses, primarily. And that, itself, has led to this recovery." --President Bush on 2/8/04, according to a Meet the Press transcript

FACT: At the time of the President's appearance on Meet The Press, the Bush tax cuts done little for small business owners. Under the first tax cut, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reports, small business owners "would be far more likely to receive no tax reduction whatsoever from the Administration's tax package than to benefit" because only 3.7% of small business owners are affected by the top tax rate cuts that were the bulk of the plan. Under the 2003 tax cut, the Urban Institute-Brookings Tax Policy Center estimates "nearly four out of every five tax filers (79%) with small business income would receive less than the amount" while "52% of people with small business returns would get $500 or less." - Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 5/3/01, 1/21/03


QUOTE: "The reason we are where we are, in terms of the deficit, is because we went through a recession, we were attacked, and we're fighting a war."--President Bush on 2/8/04, according to the White House website

FACT: "What caused a projected surplus of $5 trillion to become a projected deficit of $4.3 trillion? Approximately 35 percent of this stunning $9.3 trillion deterioration is due to the tax cuts enacted over the past three years, making tax cuts the single largest factor" in the creation of record deficits. - Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 2/1/04



2) Some of them say they pay less tax under George than Billy and the Dems are spreading lies. If true, what would be the income level? If false, any facts would help.

Answer: "Some of them say they pay less tax under George than Billy" is certainly not false if we are talking about out of pocket money today. However the birth tax, the debt we pass on to our grandkids for them to pay off, has grown tremendously. Plus those expenditures that were cut to partially pay for the tax cuts were one that affect the under $100,000 crowd, and not the rich. The welfare for the rich that is the unneeded contracts to "privatize" government functions at a high cost to the budget than we had before the contract were greatly expanded. Those contracts for unneeded toys for the military that the rich got through their corporations made the Bush family, and the Cheney family, fortune increase by a factor of 3 in just 5 years (based on the Cheney wealth filings that he must do each year - but just check out the stock values of Carlyle and Halliburton over the period where Bush senior was on the board of Carlyle, and Halliburton stock is the basis for the Cheney fortune).

There has been a major increase in spending so as to pay this welfare to the rich, while the tax load on the rich was drastically cut - killing the surplus and giving us our dangerous current trade and budget deficit level.

But No not all taxpayers got lower taxes via the Bush income tax cuts. Many, many of those paying the payroll tax income got no tax cut. So to say that all taxpayers got at least a few dollars from the Bush Tax Cuts for the rich is to limit the income tax discussion to less than 2/3rds of the money raised via the income tax in the United States.

[upi402]

2. Thanks papau

I used the info you gave. I rewrote it into brief digest form.
The point that I made was just like you wrote, that the cost to his baby (or grandchildren by extension) would make the crumbs we got from tax cuts vanish and return in resentment.

I'll put the flameproof suit on and wait for response...

[cadmium]

3. Good for you.

I have a question about Free Republic

When I signed up with the intent of debating them they sent me the generated password to my yahoo email. It was a phoenetic spelling of my home password so just decided against doing it--It seemed too insecure.

Now is the time though. This is how you really change minds.

[Justice Is Comin]

4. And you should top off your education with

the report that the head Comptroller General is going around the country forecasting chaos to anybody who will listen if we don't make drastic changes.

It's on RawStory but there is a post up on the board now which has good snippets and you could use that.