Monday, September 24, 2012

"The Laffer Curve"

The myth goes something like this; "If you lower taxes revenue will increase, counter-intuitively." If we doubt our intuition, we need only look at the facts and figures. 

The thing about this myth is that it isn't historically demonstrable.  Following the Kemp-Roth tax cuts in the early 1980's the revenue fell and didn't surpass (in CONSTANT dollars) the level of fiscal year 1981 (Carter's last) until FY1986,[1] even as population grew by 10.7 million during that time. Obviously, the early 80's recession had some effect on this (though it was largely over by mid FY1984) after this, revenues grew gradually until FY1987 when the income tax code was flattened while payroll taxes were raised.[2]

To illustrate more clearly, I put together a Top 25 list of all-time yearly individual income tax receipts (in millions) [3] all converted to constant 2005 dollars[4]:

2000: 1,145,731

2001: 1,106,296

2007: 1,093,694

2008: 1,038,661

1999: 1,028,151

2006: 1,008,022

1998:   982,202

2011:   947,048

2002:   939,622

2005:   927,222

1997:   882,559

2003:   846,612

2004:   838,821

1996:   802,074

2010:   800,989

1995:   738,519

1994:   698,014

1990:   682,579

1989:   671,827

1993:   667,382

1991:   650,121

1992:   640,081

1987:   632,137

1988:   627,041

1981:   597,029

Note that fiscal year1981 was under Jimmy Carter's tax policies, and surpassed the revenue of 5 of Reagan's fiscal years. Considering that there is practically an entire ideology built around this one myth, the subject is deadly serious.  But if it wasn't, I'd consider it a laugher, for sure! :-P


[1] [4] http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=200

[2] http://www.ssa.gov/oact/progdata/taxRates.html

[3] http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=203

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

"47 percent of Americans are entitled victims"

"There are 47% of the people who will vote for the president no matter what.  All right, there are 47% who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to healthcare, to food, to housing, to you-name-it... These are people who pay no income tax." -- Mitt Romney




This hot story is nothing so shocking to those who follow politics.  After all, numerous right-wing talking heads have regurgitated this number, apparently citing a study that predicted that 47% of "tax units" would pay no income taxes in 2010.  That prediction did not however come to pass.  According to IRS data there were 144,002,309 tax returns filed in 2010, and 93,798,331 of those paid some income tax.  The number of "tax units" not paying any tax (and presumably, most getting something back from Uncle Sam) then came to just under 35%.[1]

Now it may be posited that the above remarks were supposed to refer to potential voters.  Even assuming that voter participation was as high as in 2008, that would calculate to only around 140 million voters, so we are back to a similar calculation of percentages as before.

But beyond the wanton recklessness with facts, Mitt reveals something ugly that could hurt him in this election and perhaps even in more personal ways.  You see, demographics are not as cut and dried as he seems to believe.  In fact the wealthy and the upwardly mobile are not demonstrably more conservative than the poor or the mediocre.  People of all strata are drawn toward ideologies based on the values they perceive there, more than by self-interest.  And there is a considerable block of the conservative base that is not terribly wealthy and may have considerable deductions that they may write off on their taxes.

To demonstrate this, I picked a solidly Republican state with a very white population, that ranks highest in charitable giving at 10.6% of their Adjusted Gross Income [2] and has a larger than average household size. That state is Utah.  It seems that when we examine the IRS date for that same year of 2010, we find that of the 1,134,626 tax returns filed by Utahns, only 699,598 payed any income tax.[3]  That comes to 38.3%, or 3.4% more "entitled victims" than the national average.

Now this latest mouth-dump won't flip Utah to the democratic side, but if it could have a chilling effect on the Santorum crowd.  And then there are the neighboring swing states of Colorado and Nevada...


[1][3] http://apps2.irs.gov/taxstats/article/0,,id=171535,00.html

[2] http://abcnews.go.com/Business/generous-states-charities-lean-republican/story?id=17030246#.UFjS9qDu1xU

Saturday, September 1, 2012

83% of doctors will quit because of ObamaCare

So, a right-wing medical association ( http://www.doctorsandpatients.org/who-we-are ) run by this lady



...SPAMed the fax machines of 16,227 doctors with this survey:

http://www.doctorsandpatients.org/images/files/DPMA_SurveyResults.pdf

Unsurprisingly, of the 699 who took the time to respond "Most are in solo or small group practice (81%) and office-based (89%) versus hospital-based." and "2 out of 3 say they are JUST SQUEAKING BY OR IN THE RED financially" which explains why they have time to take a spam fax survey.

 83% answered the question "How do current changes in the medical system affect your desire to practice
medicine?"  with "Makes me think about quitting" rather than "I'm re-energized" or "Unsure/no opinion"

But, when it came to assessing blame for "current problems" by choosing THREE out of ten choices...

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