Pete Du Pont has a great editorial detailed the ways in which tax cuts benefit everyone.
Mr. Bush signed the most recent tax cuts into law in the spring of 2003. In the past 33 months the size of America's entire economy has increased by 20%--or, as National Review Online's Larry Kudlow put it, "In less than three years, the U.S. economic pie has expanded by $2.2 trillion, an output add-on that is roughly the same size as the total Chinese economy."In the 2 1/4 years before the 2003 tax cuts, economic growth averaged 1.1% annually; in the three years since it has averaged 4% per year, and in the first quarter of this year it was 5.6% on an annualized basis. Inflation-adjusted per capita GDP has grown 7.8% from 2003 through the first quarter of this year.
According to the government's establishment survey, in the 36 months since the tax cuts became law, 5.3 million new jobs have been added to the economy. According to its employment survey, 288,000 jobs were added in May and 387,000 in June. The unemployment rate dropped from 6.1% when the bills were signed to 5.4% at the end of 2004 and 4.6% today, and the rate has gone down for men, women, blacks and Hispanics. Hourly wage rates for workers are up 3.9% in the past year, and they increased at an annualized rate of 4.6% in the second quarter of this year, the highest quarterly rate in nearly 10 years.
Incomes are up too. As Stephen Moore noted in The Wall Street Journal, "the percentage of Americans earning more than $50,000 a year rose from 40.8% to 44.2%" between 2002 and 2004. As for very wealthy families, the portion of total income "captured by the richest 1%, 5% and 10% of Americans is lower today than in the last year of the Clinton administration."
All this has been good news for the government. Federal tax receipts increased by 15%-- $274 billion--last year and 13%-- $206 billion--in the first nine months of this fiscal year, which, as the Journal points out, means the nine-month increases for the past two years represent the highest growth rates in 25 years. Looking ahead to the end of this fiscal year, total inflation-adjusted government receipts will likely be 23% above 2003 when the Bush tax cuts were signed into law.
Reducing the capital gains tax rate from 20% to 15% increased capital gains tax receipts by 79% from 2000 to 2004. Cutting the dividend tax rate by more than half--from 39.6% to 15%--increased dividend tax receipts by 35% from 2002 to 2004. And corporate tax receipts have nearly tripled since 2003, reaching $250 billion for the past nine months, 26% higher than the same period last year.
So why have Democrats promised to "roll back President Bush's tax cuts" (i.e., increase taxes) if they're elected in November? Because the Democratic party can only survive when people are forced to depend on the government; when people can provide for themselves, they don't need leftist "compassion". The Democrats have a vested interest in keeping as many people as poor and as dumb as possible.
If I were running for office this fall against a Democrat, I would point out those very figures. I would then note, "Because of tax cuts, people get to keep more of their own money, and government actually has more revenue. Now, Democrats say they want to roll back the President's tax cuts. Is this because they feel the government is raking in too much dough, or just because they don't want citizens to have control of the money they earn themselves?"
But of course, since simple logic is not part of political campaigning, I doubt it would sway anyone to change their mind.
Alongside of your observation, high tax rates create opportunities to create special tax breaks and exemptions that can be used to buy the allegiance of special interests. When tax rates are low, the clamor for exemptions from them is much less, and their ability to motivate special interests much less, for the most obvious of reasons.
Oh please.. people are plenty dependent upon the government under Republicans. Record federal spending and budget deficits can attest to that.
Nearly all of the initiatives thwarted by the Republican Congress and Bush have been on social issues.. but when it comes to spending initiatives, it's charge away! Spend money we don't have! Someone else will pay for it later!
Mark: Right, which is why cutting taxes is just half the solution; the other half is cutting spending. That's evne harder!
It shouldn't be that hard considering we control most of Congress now. When there was a Dem in the White House, our guys acted like fiscal conservatives and gave us the surplus. Now, I wouldn't be surprised if we raise the debt ceiling again before '08.
Of course, we know that the budget won't be balanced by the liberal Dems either if and when they come back to power, but the GOP could have at least frozen new spending on non-defense related crap while there is a war on. I'm just wondering how long the Keynesian perpetual motion machine will work before our economy starts to look like Argentina's.
Divided government is what kept spending at bay. When one party controls both Congress and the Presidency, spending tends to run rampant. Currently, it's Republican special interests and pet projects that get a blank check.
I'd love nothing more than to see the Republicans lose one part of Congress this November.. and to see divided government remain in place after 2008.
I can't disagree with you there, Mark.
Don't get me wrong... I'm not saying that Republicans are not culpable for our current bloated government spending. It's just that the counter-intuitive idea that lower taxes increase government revenue gets more credence among Republicans than Democrats. In practice, both parties will spend every cent that they possible can get away with... just on different things.
As I wrote in my posts about shrinking gvoernment, if you cut taxes and revenue goes up that means you just haven't cut taxes enough.