Tax cut myths debunked

a reply to: JBurns

They are a Soros front

I wonder how many billions of dollars he will get to keep under this new tax bill?
I wonder what soros will do with all that extra money?

a reply to: ManFromEurope

I'm in the center.

If we are talking about the senate tax bill than I like more of it than I dislike.
The house bill is garbage.

originally posted by: scraedtosleep
a reply to: JBurns

They are a Soros front

I wonder how many billions of dollars he will get to keep under this new tax bill?
I wonder what soros will do with all that extra money?

Ugh. Not the attacks against Soros again. He is not the Koch brothers, which I deem much more negative influencing the coverage of media in the USA right now with their buying the Times including radio stations..

Nobody still had any arguments against Soros presented to me besides that he made capitalist things which were and are not illegal, just not to your or your personal media-outlets liking..

originally posted by: scraedtosleep
a reply to: ManFromEurope

I'm in the center.

If we are talking about the senate tax bill than I like more of it than I dislike.
The house bill is garbage.

Then you are one of the "newcomers" although you are most certainly not. You are just not on the "Reps vs. Dems"-attack threads on this board, or just not so visible to me like carewemust who fills a page of every thread about this topic on his/her alone.

a reply to: ManFromEurope

I don't care about soros one way or the other.

But most of the people arguing for the tax bill do see him as the boggyman.
Just curious about how they feel about him getting all these tax cuts.

originally posted by: seasonal
a reply to: Vector99

I hear people say they can't pay off a home either.

It takes great leadership and fiscal responsibility. Keeping wars down to a minimum is a must too.

No, I mean it's literally impossible. As long as the federal reserve exists, debt will exist.

originally posted by: ManFromEurope
I found it interesting that there are on one side of this thread are "newcomers" or people who are not always on the train for anything "GOP vs. DEM".

And on the other side ("This tax cut is good!") we have the usual 3 or 4 candidates: Carewemust, RazorV66, Arnie123 and Metallicus. You are loud and seemingly the only persons who WANT the tax cut. Or anything what makes Trump look shiny. Do you realize that you have about NONE backing by other people? You seem to be in your own echochamber, getting fed useless stars and think that your opinion is rich. Maybe that is not the case.

We stopped taking taxation advice from Europe in 1776. If you want more taxes and anti-business policies I am sure your government will be happy to oblige. I prefer to keep my earnings.

a reply to: Metallicus

And I didn't even mention US-American taxes!

*pfft*
*spits on the ground*

THAT much do I care about your taxes. Stop spending them for wars, problem done.


BTW: Will the bill pass the senate or nay?
Bc right now it seems it was postponed to 16:00 CET.. The senate seems to be too scared.

originally posted by: 3daysgone
a reply to: AboveBoard

but will it matter when the housing market starts tanking due to lack of mortgage deductions for the average person?

The base deductions have been doubled for the average person. No problem there.

Thanks to the GOP your health insurance is going to keep going up and up with this bill

You mean thanks to the one's that passed Obamacare to begin with. That is what started all these healthcare debacles. Put the blame where it belongs.

and to claim they are being "fiscally responsible" they will cut Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

Social Security is going up by 2%. How is that cutting it?

You forgot, the definition of a "cut" by liberals and their media is not adding whatever % they initially request. So if they want a 10% add to social security, and it ends up being a 2% add, then you "cut" it by 8%. Even though it's growing by 2%. Welcome to liberal math.

I like how y'all believe that by making the super rich even richer, it will somehow put money in your pockets. It would seem the republican prerogative of eliminating education goes hand in hand with a compliant base of low income folk who believe in working their whole lives to enrich their capitalist masters.

a reply to: Wayfarer

Trump’s election has already made me 100s of thousands. My portfolios are up over 20% on average this year so he has already made me money. People don’t understand that what is good for business is good for the economy as a whole.

Oh, and more Americans are invested in the markets than not through IRAs, 401ks and other retirement vehicles. Many people are living off their retirement funds. This is good for Americans.

a reply to: JBurns

I have some problems with your source. It seems to be HIGHLY manipulative.

Let's start with "myth 1". Here is how they disprove the accusation:
First they start with character assassination of where the claim came from.

What the Democrats don’t mention is that the Tax Policy Center is a project of the left-wing Brookings Institution and Urban Institute, funded by donors like George Soros who want to disrupt President Trump’s agenda by any means necessary.

Then it follows up with this unsourced claim

In reality, the tax bill would provide significant relief for the middle class by doing the following: doubling the income threshold under which families pay no taxes at all to $24,000; doubling the child tax credit to $2,000; and eliminating the 15 percent tax rate in favor of an expanded 12 percent rate, among other provisions.

It never mentions that the middle income tax rates will expire in 10 years though.

Moving onto "myth 2". It's hard to know where to start with that analysis. At least I can say they used sources for it, unlike the previous debunking. This analysis homes in on small business savings, but fails to bring up the pass through provision that is being shown to directly effect small businesses.

Fox News may not see a problem here, but The Hill does.

Moving on to "Myth #3"
This analysis isn't disproving the debt increase at all. It is basically justifying it by saying, "Well Democrats didn't care about deficit hikes in the past, so why do they care now?" Good question, but that isn't proof this claim is a myth. Then finally it concludes with the fuzzy math that this bill will pay for itself. No sources or actual math backing that claim up though.

Here's a fun fact for you. Our economy is nearing its theoretical maximum. That means that growth beyond it is all bubble.

Note that the last three times the economy ran above potential, it was followed by a recession.

"Myth 4"
This just assumes that because tax cuts created growth in the past that they will result now. Too bad correlation does not equal causation. AGAIN the economy is nearing its theoretical maximum. Fox News brings up Reagan's cuts, but it didn't mention the recession he was trying to fix when he did it. It should be noted that Reagan's cuts had bi-partisan support and weren't passed along partisan reconciliation rules.

"Myth 5"
This just shows a severe misunderstanding of how health insurance pools work. Of course there are no sources backing up anything said either.


OP. Your link is a GREAT link for the gullible, but this is ATS. Let's deny some ignorance here. This is link is trash in its reasoning. Most of the "myths" it "debunks" Fox News doesn't even back itself up with sources.

a reply to: scraedtosleep

This ^^^ is the best post in this thread, in my humble opinion. It encompasses exactly my disgust with the entire process. The entire tax system is ridiculous. How about the government tells us exactly, in plain language, what it is taking instead of all the exemptions and deductions and credits. How about getting rid of all loopholes and convoluted junk that makes tax legislation absolutely incomprehensible to the average person, upon whom the burden is primarily felt? How about we strip the tax legislation down to simple sets of tax brackets for individuals and businesses, with no deductions and nothing else?

Or would that be too much transparency? Would then the citizenry - both individuals and businesses - see exactly how much the government grabs from their income and demand some accountability? We don't need MORE tax law, we need LESS.

I don't want to work for the government. I want to work for my family and to help people in need in my community.

Ugh. Sorry for the rant.

a reply to: Metallicus


That is exactly right

Look at our amazing stock market, leftists. Our current stock market/total GOP control paradigm absolutely and definitively discredits decades of wasted Dem economics.

Looks like the right did in fact know better all along. Too bad so many people only recently started listening to us, or we'd probably have that debt cut down (through deep cuts to government/spending) and paid off (by having more of said money available)

originally posted by: Metallicus
a reply to: Wayfarer

Trump’s election has already made me 100s of thousands. My portfolios are up over 20% on average this year so he has already made me money. People don’t understand that what is good for business is good for the economy as a whole.

Oh, and more Americans are invested in the markets than not through IRAs, 401ks and other retirement vehicles. Many people are living off their retirement funds. This is good for Americans.

Same, my defense stocks are showing great growth and my investment in cryptocurrency is seriously paying off. I have made a considerable profit in crypto. BTC cost less than $150.00 when I started buying, and is hovering between $9500-$11000 now. I just sold off xx BTC during the 11k peak, and bought them back when it dipped down to ~$9500. Made tens of thousands right there alone! Will probably use the money for my gun hobby, or maybe a car for my daughter. Maybe even a heater under my garage floor for the winter. The defense contractors I own stock in have also shown major growth (Northrop Grumman, Boeing, Lockheed, Raytheon and UTX)

Raytheon, for example, was around one hundred dollars per share when I purchased. It is hovering near $190 right now

...figured if we had to be perpetually at war, might as well make some money back from all the taxes I am forced to fork over.

I won't even say how much I've made in cryptocurrency, since no one knows how many I've got but me I will say this, though. Offline wallets are the way to go. Buried in water tight tubes is even better.

a reply to: Wayfarer


They are not eliminating education, they are reducing the impact of ineffective public education. Private schools and charter schools are still going strong - which is the way to go if you don't want your kids being held back by the lowest common denominator in their classes.

Home school is the best option, of course. Since the parents can craft the education program to fit their cultural values and societal ambitions while still maintaining a high state wide standard.

Public school is a farce, however. It is designed to make children obedient, and subservient to special interests. It pushes very specific and highly tuned agendas, teaches the wrong moral values and generally fails at producing exceptional students (it usually produces students according to a mould, not encouraging individual progress and achievement like they should be doing). So many public school students simply do not want to be there, and their lack of attention is a distraction to good students that want to learn. Private school doesn't have as many people like that, since you're paying to be there and because private schools aren't forced to fill quotas or engage in "no student left behind" type activities. If they don't want to be there and make something of themselves, cut them loose and stop interfering with the actual students.

Another aspect of the budget deficit I haven't seen mentioned here much is that the CBO projection was based on an assumption of 1.9% growth. We're growing at well above that. As the article noted, just averaging 2.5% would offset that projected shortfall. The last few quarters we've been up around 3%.

a reply to: seasonal

I was listening to how much this tax bill will add to the debt about 1.4 trillion. This is not good. But I also heard that there is already about 9 trillion in debt baked into the next ten years. I often wonder how or even if we are ever going to get out of this conundrum these yahoos put us in.

originally posted by: Tarzan the apeman.
a reply to: seasonal

I was listening to how much this tax bill will add to the debt about 1.4 trillion. This is not good. But I also heard that there is already about 9 trillion in debt baked into the next ten years. I often wonder how or even if we are ever going to get out of this conundrum these yahoos put us in.

Look at the post above yours. It will only add $1.4T if our economic growth over the next 10 years averages 1.9%. That's highly unlikely. The part about the $9T in debt already baked into the rest of the budget is true. This is why we need to cut spending. You could tax the rich at 90% and it wouldn't pay for all the spending we do.

a reply to: Krazysh0t

Let's start with "myth 1". Here is how they disprove the accusation:
First they start with character assassination of where the claim came from.

Really? Like attacking sources as biased isn't what both sides have been doing since forever?

Then it follows up with this unsourced claim

T he Source.

Section 1002 specifies the new standard deductions.

Sub-Title B specifies the new child credits.

It never mentions that the middle income tax rates will expire in 10 years though.

Show me one tax bill in recent history that has made middle-income tax rates permanent.

This bill also increases the bracket rates as well as the standard deductions by annual COLA adjustments... much better than what we have now.

Moving onto "myth 2". It's hard to know where to start with that analysis. At least I can say they used sources for it, unlike the previous debunking. This analysis homes in on small business savings, but fails to bring up the pass through provision that is being shown to directly effect small businesses.

Yes, that's a issue. I happen to be very familiar with it, as I used this loophole back when I ran my design firm. Now, how would you suggest fixing it?

Moving on to "Myth #3"
This analysis isn't disproving the debt increase at all. It is basically justifying it by saying, "Well Democrats didn't care about deficit hikes in the past, so why do they care now?" Good question, but that isn't proof this claim is a myth. Then finally it concludes with the fuzzy math that this bill will pay for itself. No sources or actual math backing that claim up though.

It does use standard economic theory principles that indicate that the economy will grow at a rate commiserate with the amount of disposable income. If taxes decrease, that equals a disposable income increase, which then flows into the general market and stimulates production. I can only assume that Fox assumed that those interested would actually understand something about economics.

I'm glad you find economics fuzzy, though. Perhaps that will equate to comforting at some point.

Here's a fun fact for you. Our economy is nearing its theoretical maximum. That means that growth beyond it is all bubble.

I disagree. The idea that the economy was as large as it could get has been around since we were colonies. It was wrong then, too.

"Myth 4"
This just assumes that because tax cuts created growth in the past that they will result now. Too bad correlation does not equal causation. AGAIN the economy is nearing its theoretical maximum. Fox News brings up Reagan's cuts, but it didn't mention the recession he was trying to fix when he did it. It should be noted that Reagan's cuts had bi-partisan support and weren't passed along partisan reconciliation rules.

Correlation does not prove causation, but neither does it disprove it. It indicates that causation is possible.

Are we not coming out of a recession now? A longer-lived and deeper one than Reagan had to deal with.

Since when does the economy respond to who voted for a bill?

You're really grasping at straws here...

This just shows a severe misunderstanding of how health insurance pools work. Of course there are no sources backing up anything said either.

Actually, it shows a great deal about how insurance pools work. They work by increasing costs to the consumer. As insurance in an industry becomes common, rates go up because people are willing to spend money out of the insurer's pocket more than out of their own. The insurers simply renegotiate their own rates down and then pass the higher costs to the consumers, which makes consumers more willing to spend the insurer's funds, which cause price increases, which increase costs, which cause price increases... and the whole time the insurers are still negotiating lowered rates for themselves and leaving the uninsured out in the cold... which becomes a nice selling point for new policies.

Only the last few years, they haven't needed a selling point. It has been illegal to not buy their product. This bill removes that problem at least.

Again, the link to the actual text of the bill itself. You're right about one thing anyway: this is ATS. Read it yourself.

TheRedneck