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Proving the Teabaggers are full of crap in a single graph

By iwog   Follow   Tue, 1 Mar 2011, 7:55am   13,297 views   239 comments
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Total US Tax Revenue as a Percentage of GDP

Graph source: http://www.deptofnumbers.com/blog/2010/08/tax-revenue-as-a-fraction-of-gdp/
Data source: http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/past_years.html

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1. tatupu70 Follow Befriend (3) 15 threads 5,641 comments

   1   9:04am Tue 1 Mar 2011   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (2)   Dislike   EightBall says In other words, if you keep shifting the tax burden up the food chain We've actually been slowly shifting the tax burden DOWN the food chain... (as a % of income)

2. iwog Follow Befriend (48) 274 threads 12,546 comments 47 male Lafayette, CA Premium

   2   10:13am Wed 2 Mar 2011   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (1)   Dislike   shrekgrinch says But if you want, we can go back to 91% rates…where the top earners contributed around 8% of total income tax revenues as well. Because there were the same percentage of ultra-rich people in 1946 as there are in 2011 right? Otherwise your comment would be complete nonsense and disingenuous as hell.

3. bob2356 Follow Befriend 2 threads 2,497 comments

   3   3:18pm Wed 2 Mar 2011   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (1)   Dislike   shrekgrinch says bob2356 says There was a long post about the bs of Hauser last year, just goes to show a bad idea never dies. Really? Because the graph Iwog posted sure does prove it. Huh? The only thing the chart proves is that when politicians lower someone's taxes they raise someone else's taxes to make up for it. Since the mantra since Reagan has been lower the top tax rate I wonder who paid more?

4. iwog Follow Befriend (48) 274 threads 12,546 comments 47 male Lafayette, CA Premium

   4   4:05pm Wed 2 Mar 2011   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (1)   Dislike   shrekgrinch says ) You simply posted that graph and said, “Proving Teabaggers are full of crap in a single graph”. No assertion is in there. Congratulations! You win a cookie! Saying Iwog is full of crap, then admitting Iwog didn't actually assert anything beyond the fact that teabaggers are full of crap makes you look kind of lame. I'm not sure, but I think you're having a heated argument with yourself on that point.

5. tatupu70 Follow Befriend (3) 15 threads 5,641 comments

   5   4:58pm Wed 2 Mar 2011   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (1)   Dislike   shrekgrinch says Nope. Not opinion. Math doesn’t lie. You know what averages are? The mean? That is what you get when you add up all the tax revenue percentages of GDP for each year and divide by the number of years. Or did you just drop out of junior high when that was taught to the most of us? Shrek-- You're not really this dumb. If I have a 91% tax rate on "rich" people and a 25% tax rate on everyone else, and then change it to 60% for everyone you might get roughly the same tax revenue. (of course this depends a lot of the income distribution). That DOES NOT prove that if I would have received the same tax revenue if I held the 91% rate and raised everyone else to 60%, now does it? Of course not. Your assertion is simply not proven by Iwog's graph. You need much, much more information to prove that.

6. tatupu70 Follow Befriend (3) 15 threads 5,641 comments

   6   5:02pm Wed 2 Mar 2011   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (1)   Dislike   shrekgrinch says You asked: “Also, have you looked at the distribution of wealth under the different tax approaches?[VAT,LVT being those different tax approaches I had mentioned]” And I responded accurately: “What does that have to do with ‘Total Tax Revenue as Percentage of GDP’? Nothing. Nothing at all.” Which is correct. Actually, it's not. shrekgrinch says The flaws in your ‘arguments’ consistently are the chronic denial of certain unalienable facts: 1) You can’t get more out of the ‘rich’ via income taxes except when utilized to promote incentives I've seen no evidence that this is true. You can keep saying it here, but unfortunately, that doesn't make it true.

7. iwog Follow Befriend (48) 274 threads 12,546 comments 47 male Lafayette, CA Premium

   7   11:29pm Wed 2 Mar 2011   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (1)   Dislike   clambo says The Tea Party are people who are concerned with too much government intervention into our lives, which would include meddling in the housing market. Not even close. The Tea Party are people who show up at rallies and wear hateful t-shirts about Obama and Democrats. Less than 50% of Tea Party members believe the movement is about reducing the size of government. They are about as unified as a dump truck full of cats. They are little more than an angry mob. A comprehensive poll about tea party members can be found here: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20002529-503544.html 59% are either outright birthers or claim they don't know where Obama was born. This means that over 50% of tea party members are so stupid they can't be trusted with any political opinions whatsoever. Here are some choice quotes from the poll article that show the idiocy of people within the "movement". "And while the vast majority opposes the health care reform bill, 62 percent say programs like (insolvent) Social Security and (insolvent) Medicare are worth the costs to taxpayers." "Fifty-nine percent of Tea Party supporters have a favorable impression of Glenn Beck. Nearly as many, 57 percent, have a favorable impression of former President George W. Bush, despite his role in raising the deficit and overseeing TARP bailout of the financial sector. " "Sixty-four percent believe that the president has increased taxes for most Americans, despite the fact that the vast majority of Americans got a tax cut under the Obama administration. Thirty-four percent of the general public says the president has raised taxes on most Americans. "

8. Leopold B Scotch Follow Befriend 2 threads 153 comments

   8   6:38am Thu 3 Mar 2011   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (1)   Dislike   wbblair3 says Here’s a graph clearly illustrating exactly who benefits from economic bubbles and how the “trickle down” theory is pure BS. Note that Reagan was sworn in at the 1981 tick (no, I’m not a Dem; both parties are corrupt beyond redemption). Yeah, but that graph also needs context what's going on there / how that happens. First and foremost, that graph is NOT the free market at work. It is our current corporatist-kleptocratic system doing what it's designed to do: SHORT-CIRCUIT THE FREE MARKET AND PUT THE MONEY INTO THE HANDS OF THE POLITICALLY POWERFUL ELITE. Yeah, trickle down has not worked, but not for the reasons many authoritarian-lefties (power to the state vs. the individual) argue. What that graph shows you is the funneling of wealth into financial asset prices, which is part and parcel of the political-banking nexus running the show in the United States. I wish more lefties could hold hands with Libertarians on this particular issue: we share a common enemy: corporatism and bankers. Lefties think that with the right people in power, the beast can be tamed and turned into the people's servant, so you want all that power to remain in D.C. and at the Fed, so you can confiscate wealth and rights for your own more noble purposes. But the problem is not your objectives -- which I think we'd agree on (Mine are at least, to have the most wealth possible among all citizens, with the highest standard of living possible, with good clean, healthy environment for us all to live, AND for us to all be freely living in consensual liberty.). The problem is your means. Using guns and threat of incarceration or death to make off with the fruits of others labor and life (without their consent) is fundamentally immoral and wrong. I don't care if it's so the bankers and their legalized $trillion dollar counterfeiting machine (money printing system at the people's expense), or their never having to have a loss when they keep their profits (forced charity for bankers and Wall Street) ------ or if its unionista welfare, or simple handouts for the poor. The means are wrong and are in the end both horribly corrupted to benefit some at the expense of others. American are generally quite charitable, including many of the Tea Partiers you and I rail against. Some may be entirely off base, but I'll not impune their motives are entirely different than yours of mine (yes, I know -- there are some massive differences), it's their means I have a problem with. There is another way. Return power to individuals and remove it from the state = true power to the people!!

9. iwog Follow Befriend (48) 274 threads 12,546 comments 47 male Lafayette, CA Premium

   9   10:39am Thu 3 Mar 2011   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (1)   Dislike   W.C. Varones says How sad. Iwog’s a run-of-the-mill leftist. Where’s the spending line? How convenient that you leave that out. The Tea Party is about spending and deficits, not taxes. And even if you took taxes back to all-time highs as % of GDP, it’s not close to covering today’s spending levels. We are running serial deficits of 10% of GDP to keep this Ponzi economy going, and Iwog would rather make a dishonest partisan point than have a serious discussion. There's nothing dishonest or partisan about what I wrote. When polled, Tea Party members show themselves to be far more ignorant and hateful than the average American. (if you still doubt this, read the article Pasadena posted) Furthermore Teabaggers want to reduce government spending, yet no one seems to be able to explain how they would balance the budget. Cut SSI? No. Cut Medicare/Medicade? No. Cut military spending? No. (in fact most want to increase) Default on debt interest? No. Default on government pensions? No. Eliminate unemployment insurance? No. There's not enough left to balance the budget. You could eliminate the entire budget of NASA and not even make a tiny dent in the deficit. The entire transportation budget to maintain roads, airports, and railroads is only 2%. It's all a lie. Everything the Teabaggers stand for is a lie. Bill Clinton balanced the budget by raising taxes and having a red hot economy. George Bush wrecked it all and brought the federal budget over $1 trillion. The result? George Bush is respected and Bill Clinton is reviled. So how's that for a serious discussion? The Tea Party is dangerous and full of stupid people who don't even understand the problem let alone offer a solution. They elect Republicans who propose $61 billion in spending cuts when the deficit is $1.6 trillion. http://dailycollegian.com/2011/02/22/gop-cuts-federal-budget-by-61-billion/ Bernanke, George Bush's appointed federal reserve chief, says the cuts will cost 200,000 jobs.

10. tatupu70 Follow Befriend (3) 15 threads 5,641 comments

    10   10:59am Thu 3 Mar 2011   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (1)   Dislike   duxbury001 says Buddy, they called it “Sub-Prime” for a reason… they were lending to people, primarily minorities. The banks were facing constant litigation.. Jesse Jackson had an office on Wall Street extorting the cash cow banks into making dumb loans. A friend of mine worked for a “black owned” firm that was making millions skimming action working with Jackson. Wall Street lives under a PC tyranny and it blew up lending standards. Bush was just as guilty letting it slide hoping to turn minorities into republican homeowners “ownership society”. fannie mae… etc… left wing corruption rackets funneling money to community organizers in big cities making loans that would never be paid back as payola. I don't want to get into this again. It's been disproved countless times. I'll just give you one actual fact. The default rate on loans made to CRA qualified areas was LESS than those made to non-CRA areas. Forget the propaganda and do some actual research.

11. duxbury001 Follow Befriend 44 comments

    11   11:16am Thu 3 Mar 2011   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (1)   Dislike   http://townhall.com/columnists/walterewilliams/2008/01/23/subprime_bailout this one... pretty much says the story. Banks had "lending affirmative action" foisted upon them and the drop out rate was much like affirmative action drop out rates at colleges.. utterly disastrous.

12. socal2 Follow Befriend 233 comments

    12   12:37pm Thu 3 Mar 2011   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (1)   Dislike   iwog said: "Only cowards use character assassination." Kind of like using gay slang to label small government activists? Nice! Your vitriol is all over the place. Are you really of the belief that our government spending is just fine and dandy and that we don't need to cut costs at all? Do we just need to keep raising taxes to keep our government bureaucrats living fat and easy lives with union protections on the tax payer dime? You were bitching earlier about no Republicans posing serious cost cutting ideas, yet the Republican controlled House just submitted $60 billion in cuts to the Democrat controlled Senate. Republican Governors all over the country (even Blue States) are trying to cut costs and wrestle free public sector employees from the corrupt union arrangements to reform education and help get their astronomical pension liablility under control. And what are the Liberals and Democrats doing? The "Fleebaggers" are actually fleeing the State as opposed to doing their jobs and honoring last November's election results.

13. iwog Follow Befriend (48) 274 threads 12,546 comments 47 male Lafayette, CA Premium

    13   12:42pm Thu 3 Mar 2011   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (1)   Dislike   socal2 says You were bitching earlier about no Republicans posing serious cost cutting ideas, yet the Republican controlled House just submitted $60 billion in cuts to the Democrat controlled Senate. Yeah, if you scroll up you'll find I talked about it. $61 billion in cuts on a $1.6 trillion deficit wont even pay for the Bush tax cut extensions for a single year. This entire charade is a joke. socal2 says Kind of like using gay slang to label small government activists? Nice! No, not like that at all. Calling a group "teabaggers" is not character assassination. Lying about pretend PR firm payments is.

14. duxbury001 Follow Befriend 44 comments

    14   12:46pm Thu 3 Mar 2011   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (1)   Dislike   I’ve heard this argument before at Pat.net, but I’ve never been able to understand it. What you’re saying is that the government forced a bank to make a handful of loans it didn’t want to. And then because they were forced to make a handful of loans against their will, they then decided to go ahead and make thousands more freely on their own? Why exactly would they do that? >>> Good question. Circa 1975 banks were rather staid. CRA, fannie, eventually banks became a plaything of the left to extort, harass, shakedown and cajole. The industry morphed over time under huge pressue to loan to minorities. Minorities default at much higher rates, but minority politicians want to extort and shakedown the banks, so banks lowered standards. http://www.libertynewsonline.com/article_301_29075.php When the housing market exploded, homes became an appreciating asset to collateralize.. so they lowered standards for all. Lowered standards became industry standard. The reason the housing market took off in the first place and became a boom was lowered standards cajoled by politicians, mortgage deduction, easy money. Regulation limited land use, boosting housing costs (particularly in california). What began as a policy to encourage housing created a housing bubble. Without CRA, fannie, playthings of the left, you would have never had a boom and never had a debauch of lending standards. When the housing market weakened, the first domino to fall was subprime... with vast numbers of minorities who got their loans in the 90's and 00's. So debauched lending helped cause the boom and the bust.

15. iwog Follow Befriend (48) 274 threads 12,546 comments 47 male Lafayette, CA Premium

    15   12:54pm Thu 3 Mar 2011   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (1)   Dislike   duxbury001 says Good question. Circa 1975 banks were rather staid. CRA, fannie, eventually banks became a plaything of the left to extort, harass, shakedown and cajole. The industry morphed over time under huge pressue to loan to minorities. Minorities default at much higher rates, but minority politicians want to extort and shakedown the banks, so banks lowered standards. No matter how much proof is presented that you're wrong, you'll never give up your religious dogma. I even told you that 50% of sub-prime loan origination didn't even come from banks, but you refuse to listen to facts. Instead you just repeat a long line of easily disproven false assertions without a single reference to back up any of them. duxbury001 says with vast numbers of minorities who got their loans in the 90’s and 00’s. Data? Graphs? Nope.......just more guessing.

16. ¥ Follow Befriend 35 threads 5,700 comments Bellingham, WA

    16   2:03pm Thu 3 Mar 2011   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (1)   Dislike   socal2 says Which in turn means lower property tax revenue coming to the State. Not when properties enjoying original 1978 valuations + 2%/yr are reassessed . . . 32 years of 2% raises have only resulted in ~80% increases in assessed value, about 40% of what inflation has wrought. Not to mention higher taxes chasing away even more California businesses to Texas, Arizona and Nevada. um, the beauty of land value taxes is that . . . YOU CAN'T MOVE THE LAND. Higher taxes on commercial property would come entirely out of rents. This is an iron law of economics, one of the more settled questions. By taxing landlords more we could tax their tenant's income less. The LVT is a beautiful thing. Waay too sensible to ever be considered any more. The entire field of economics was altered to eliminate its arguments, LOL. How much more empirical evidence do we need that simply raising taxes is not a solution? Where has it worked in recent years? Oh, the US 1995-2001, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Denmark . . . ISTM the higher the taxes, the more sustainable the economy. Funny, that.

17. duxbury001 Follow Befriend 44 comments

    17   2:39pm Thu 3 Mar 2011   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (1)   Dislike   currently your grandkids pay for it with deficit spending. leftists love big government following lenins maxim "the worse the better" ultimately exponentially exploding gov't costs, entitlements, regulatory state, trial lawyer litigation state will destroy what's left of the private sector. unions rightly view themselves as adversaries to the private sector, whom they despise ("the rich"). So they don't care if their policies are utterly reckless. as for europe, they aren't corrupt like us. american goverment is 21st in the world corruption wise (and this understates it). include collusive trial lawyer/ union rackets... we are one of the most corrupt country on earth. 4 of the last 5 governors of illinois are in jail. no other western nation can touch the democrats in terms of gangsterism. So we cant do what canada or denmark do. we are a kleptocracy, so socialism here is just an invitation to more corruption. so the US needs radical laissez faire with an emphasis on catching corruption. Higher taxes will just be squandered on rackets and hoaxes. Hence the tea party argument is correct. Limit government. No gov't in housing.

18. tatupu70 Follow Befriend (3) 15 threads 5,641 comments

    18   2:54pm Thu 3 Mar 2011   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (1)   Dislike   duxbury001 says 4 of the last 5 governors of illinois are in jail. no other western nation can touch the democrats in terms of gangsterism. Actually the only former Governor of Illinois currently in jail is a Republican.

19. duxbury001 Follow Befriend 44 comments

    19   3:15pm Thu 3 Mar 2011   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (1)   Dislike   http://seoblackhat.com/2008/12/09/4th-illinois-governor-in-35-years-headed-to-prison/ with blago... 4 out of 5. an illinios republican is a de facto democrat. illinois, like new york, detroit, cali... is just a progressive gangster state. Government spending is just a criminal enterprise that cannot be contained and voters want their free lunch. Our only hope is the tea party against the big spending corrupt politicians. Politicians get payola back on every dollar of gov't spending and handouts are a narcotic. The intellectuals are psychotic and self-destructive. We are finished and breakfast for China barring a tea party revolution.

20. MarkInSF Follow Befriend 14 threads 1,118 comments

    20   4:45pm Thu 3 Mar 2011   Share   Quote   Permalink   Like (1)   Dislike   socal2 says Dude - did you see the GAO report I linked? The fraud and incompetence in government run Medicare is 4 times higher than the top 10 biggest insurance company’s profits alone Dude, it looks an awful lot like you're intentionally cooking up some numbers to make it sound worse than it is. Funny how you chose to compare to a small slice of total health care spending - insurance company profits are just 3% of private health insurance costs. BTW, the fraud is just as rampant with private insurers, and exceeds the profits of the insurers. Still, it is bad. Thankfully the Obama Justice Department has made this a priority. A health-care crime sweep Thursday netted 114 defendants on charges related to Medicare fraud, in what Attorney General Eric Holder called the largest such takedown in U.S. history. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704657704576150293189313156.html?mod=WSJ_hp_MIDDLENexttoWhatsNewsThird