Economics Questions

Re: New Congressional Report shows Tax cuts not conducive to Economic Growth

Ikki — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 17:46:17 GMT

Thanks for that, I will read it.

I was also looking at tax revenues decade on decade for the past century and it has been growing a lot. That would also explain the fact that, even with tax decreases, the rich are paying more than they did when the tax rates were far higher. I read somewhere also that the top 1% pay 40% of all tax revenues now compared to 19% of the 1970s when those tax rates were about 70%.

Re: New Congressional Report shows Tax cuts not conducive to Economic Growth

HumanActionJackson — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 14:22:12 GMT

http://www.ncpa.org/pdfs/st159.pdf

Not sure if this is exactly what you're looking for, but maybe it will help.

Re: New Congressional Report shows Tax cuts not conducive to Economic Growth

xahrx — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 14:20:24 GMT

More to the specifics of the study, how are the defining "growth"? If you include government spending as 'growth', then tax cuts will negatively or positvely impact growth depending on what the private sector does after the cut. And that as mentioned isn't so much a result of the cuts as it is what stage of the business cycle the economy is in. If the economy is going to boom anyway, the government can cut taxes and take on debt to finance it's spending with little or no percievable impact on 'growth'.

Re: New Congressional Report shows Tax cuts not conducive to Economic Growth

Bogart — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 14:15:04 GMT

Of course tax cuts don't help the economy to grow. Tax cuts do not in any long term help entrepreneurs to perform economic calculation. The money not collected comes from taking on debt through inflation. Ergo the economy simply substitutes the loss in economic efficiency from high taxes for the Business Cycle. It is the spending that is the important number as the real resources must come from someplace either taxes, debts or inflation.

Re: New Congressional Report shows Tax cuts not conducive to Economic Growth

HumanActionJackson — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 11:13:56 GMT

Tax rates are irrelevant. Tax revenues are what matter.

It's difficult for me to believe that the people who did this study simply didn't realize the mistake they were making.

New Congressional Report shows Tax cuts not conducive to Economic Growth

Ikki — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 10:53:21 GMT

The CRS has given a report saying the above. http://graphics8.nytimes.com/news/business/0915taxesandeconomy.pdf

I have always heard that during the mid 1950s there were a lot of tax breaks which essentially meant that the rich weren't paying as much as were originally stipulated for. And that now, even with top tax rates being lower that growth hasn't been visible like it was then. I was wondering whether there was a scholarly article or anyone could share more light on this?