This is what the tea party is supposed to be about "taxed enough already" TEA. Are we taxed enough already?? I say NO.
Between 1980 and now tax rates have changed many times mostly down the top tax rate for the richest Americans in 1980 was 70% , nobody actually paid 70% after the "special deductions" for those at the top they would pay about 35% in INCOME tax. Income tax is NOT the only tax however and most people do not understand how taxes work. Most people who earn over $250,000 a year have an income that is about 100,000. Their tax accountants will advise them to invest the rest of their income and the money made from the investment is what is called capital gains. The Capital Gains tax which rarely affects working class people is only 15% so the bulk of money made by rich people gets taxed at only 15% there are loopholes in that system too, that allow for a reduction to about 6%.
This means that someone making $1,000,000 a year would pay approximately 12% (after deductions) on about $200,000 as Income Tax, then about 6% on the other $800,000. While someone making 50,000 would pay 22% (after deductions) on their entire 50,000. This is why sop many are crying "TAX THE RICH" they are way under taxed at this point.
What many do not realize is that the "Bush Tax cuts" did little to help anyone making less than $200,000 a year. In 2003 when the larger tax cut went into effect if you made $40,000 a year you saw about $8.70 extra in your weekly paycheck. If you made $200,000 when this happened you saw an extra $27,000 in your earnings.
Let us look at short term history 1980-now and see if taxes affected our economy;
Ronald Reagan took office in 1981 and put through the largest tax cut in history lowering thr top tax rate from 70% to 28%. by the end of 1982 we were in a recession. Unemployment reached 10.8% in 1983 then Reagan Reversed course. He proceeded to raise taxes 11 times in the next 6 years (see below) He signed off on 18 debt ceiling increases allowing the U.S. to Borrow 2.8 trillion dollars (More than tripling the national debt) He also doubled the size of the federal government to help ease unemployment. By 1988 we were recovering and our economy was slowly growing again. George Herbert Walker Bush promised no new taxes when he took office but seeing that our recovery was dependent on raising taxes he broke that promise and the recovery continued. Bill Clinton took office in the middle of this recovery and exploded it. Long before congress turned republican. Jobs were growing at rate not seen in 12 years and he also tweaked medicare and raised the income tax rates just a touch making the top bracket 39%. Our economy EXPLODED. Many try to rewrite history crediting the economic growth under Clinton to the republican led congress but the growth from 92-96 was just as good as the growth from 96-2000 (source: Bureau of Labor Statistics) So Newt Gingrich was not the reason it was a continuing of good policies that started in 92. George W. Bush took office in 2001 and immediately pushed through tax cuts Job growth stopped dead in its tracks As it did in 1981 when tax cuts were also introduced. In 2003 Bush pushed another round of tax cuts and job growth went down even further in Bush's second term there was 0 job growth. (Bureau of Labor Statistics) (Chart below) Barack Obama took office while jobs were being shed to the tune of over 750,000 jobs a quarter and unemployment as it did when Reagan cut taxes was again getting close to 10%. Obama tried to raise taxes to fix this but was blocked by republican filibusters in the senate. In Fact Obama has tried to push through over 225 different time tested strategies for getting out of recession but all of these have been blocked by Republicans in the house or the senate. Until the average American learns how taxes work and why they are necessary and until the T.E.A. party who claim to be taxed enough already learn that they have the lowest tax rates in 60 years already and that is what is hurting our economy we will remain on the brink of recession.
1. Reagan's 11 tax increases
| Tax Increases | Billions of Dollars |
| Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982 | +57.3 |
| Highway Revenue Act of 1982 | +4.9 |
| Social Security Amendments of 1983 | +24.6 |
| Railroad Retirement Revenue Act of 1983 | +1.2 |
| Deficit Reduction Act of 1984 | +25.4 |
| Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985 | +2.9 |
| Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985 | +2.4 |
| Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act of 1986 | +0.6 |
| Continuing Resolution for 1987 | +2.8 |
| Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1987 | +8.6 |
| Continuing Resolution for 1988 | +2.0 |
| Total Cumulative Tax Increases | +132.7 |
Job Creation by president.
?Many Americans are aware that George W. Bush has had the worst job creation record since the government began tracking these figures in 1939. But Bush's colossal failure to manage the economy overshadows a much larger story.
The record shows two unmistakable patterns:
Every time a Republican succeeds a Democrat in the White House, the job creation rate plummets.
Every time a Democrat succeeds a Republican in the White House, the job growth rate soars. Every time! No exceptions!
Over the last seventy years, the decrease in monthly job creation when a Republican succeeds a Democrat is 68,913
Considering the steady growth in population of the United States during this time frame the job creation rate should steadily increase each month (currently it must grow by 138,000 per month to keep up with population growth). This trend only manifests itself when examining Democratic administrations:
source: Bureau of Labor Statistics.
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