This infographic is circling the web. I know exactly jack and shit about budgets and deficits and free markets and tax breaks and 10 year costs versus yearly costs and wow — my head already hurts. Economics and I don’t get along, you see. But you are an intelligent lot, so I’m hoping to learn something from you, or at least, get some insight into what I should be reading in order to learn about this stuff. I don’t even know if this chart is accurate.
Help me, help you, help me learn some shit, won’t you please?
Doug Hill
This is interesting, but I have one complaint. The $44 billion “all programs at risk” seems to be a sum of the items above whereas “extending Bush tax cuts for top brackets” seems to refer to something other than the items above, at least as labeled, although it is a number very close to the sum of the items above. Also, I thought that continuing the Bush tax cuts for those over 250K cost much more than $42 billion a year.
Yutsano
Not sure I can give much insight as to its accuracy. But it’s a decent method of showing just how fucked up most people are.
arguingwithsignposts
Shorter charts: all your money r belong to us
Angry Black Lady
My initial complaint was the second row — comparing yearly costs to costs over ten years.
Brian
Class warfare. They are winning. Lesson over.
Angry Black Lady
@Brian: totally. that’s the one thing i know.
guckertgannon
Understanding economics and politics and such is hard work, but is made much easier if you have the proper conceptual framework.
The fundamental element of the proper framework is understanding that there is more to consider than just dollars and cents.
For instance, you need to incorporate into your thinking the morality of helping the rich versus letting everybody else share in the riches our society has produced. In this regard, it is advisable to take some instruction from God.
You see, God made all those rich people rich, and while you and I may not understand why, I don’t think we should be messing with his decision. It would be terribly un-American.
PeakVT
The tax numbers all seem reasonable at first glance. The FPer formerly known as DougJ is right, though: the columns should work the same way.
Doug Hill
@Angry Black Lady:
You’re right, that is problematic too.
BGinCHI
When do the barricades go up?
I can’t hold this bottle full of gas forever.
PurpleGirl
I do think that the items they are comparing, even if the time period is off in some way or the item isn’t a true tax break itself, is very good. It’s contrasting a public good with something that is helping only a very small number of people. For example, cutting housing assistance yet allowing tax deductions for second homes.
TheOtherWA
It’s confusing that they sometimes per year costs, and sometimes 10 year costs.
But the point of the chart is to say “rich people get everything, the rest of you can bite it,” more or less.
Surprisingly, corps get to write off punitive damages? WTF? Why would that be a tax deduction? Punitive means punishment, so writing it off makes it a reward.
General Stuck
the cost in government revenue, I believe is about 400 bill per year for the Bush tax cuts, so 42 billion seems a tad low, other than that my brain is mostly turned off of politics today and anything more complicated than doing laundry.
This looks like a wingnut graph at first blush.
Omnes Omnibus
@BGinCHI: Save it. It could be your retirement fund.
TheOtherWA
@PurpleGirl: Agreed, the items they compare is quite good.
General Stuck
Correction, the Obama extension will cause that much, or about 900 billion total. But that includes all the other tax breaks, like extending the stimulus tax cuts for lower income folks
Doug Hill
@General Stuck:
That is what I believe too.
Mark S.
I’m too lazy to look it up, but I remember it was something like $700 billion over ten years to extend the Bush tax cuts to the top 2%. Now, they’re supposed to expire next year, but something else happens next year so I am 99% they will be extended again.
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
poor folks: start voting, in every election.
and by poor folks i mean everyone who doesn’t make 1 mil per year, or have 25 mil in assets stashed.
and by everyone, i mean everyone who doesn’t have a head full of other shit, when the game, is about money, and who pays for shit.
Bob Loblaw
I believe that chart is failing to portray the pragmatic wisdom of the Democratic Senate/White House in choosing the third way. Tens of billions of tax cuts for the rich AND tens of billions of budget cuts for everybody else. Why choose when you can have both?
piratedan
@Bob Loblaw: thanx Bob, that brightened my day, after all, we could have elected McCain and been firmly ensconced in an economic recovery because of a full scale world war that had us invading Libya, Iran and Pakistan by now with new orders for military hardware coming out the wazoo and no unemployment thanks to the new draft being re-instituted. Not to mention all of the new jobs created by challenging new fields like dirty bomb disposal units and nuclear waste cleanup.
Caz
First of all, nothing in the right column is a “cost.” Costs are things that require an outlay of money. Letting people keep their own money doesn’t require an outlay of money by the government, so it’s not a cost.
The government doesn’t incur any costs by keeping tax rates static, or even by increasing or decreasing costs. None of that requires an outlay of money by the government.
It’s like GM saying that they are going to increase the price of their Model X by 15%, and that’s going to cost the company billions of dollars because they could be raising the price of Model X by 85%.
Therefore, the fact that this chart doesn’t accurately reflect costs renders the whole thing invalid ab initio.
gene108
I don’t know what tax breaks oil companies get for operational costs. I mean all businesses deduct operational costs to arrive at profit. The profit is then taxed.
I’d assume well operation and drilling costs are operational costs for the oil industry.
A nice chart generally, cut I think some parts could’ve been better worded.
Oil companies got a subsidy, when oil was $10/barrel. They are getting the same tax breaks, when oil is $100/barrel. Probably a more accurate description of what’s going on, with regards to the oil industry.
Svensker
@Caz:
You and Dubya must have shared economics class. The Iraq War will pay for itself!
Citizen_X
@Caz: Christ onna crutch, are you really that dense, or just pretending? It costs us revenue.
Suppose GM cuts the price of Model X by 15% for a year-end sale, and then some marketing genius says, “Let’s keep the price that low all year!” Then, the whole Model X program, designed to produce the car at the original price point, is going to be imperiled because the discount has cost the company 15% of projected income for that car.
Fucking budgets, how do they work?
Jebediah
@Caz:
Really? That’s the best you got? That’s not even a good attempt.
Pick whatever term you like that means “revenue the governemt is giving up/not getting,” if “cost” gets your panties in such a wad.
Of course, since you are just a troll, you don’t care about what it this chart means; you just want to score a quick turd-drop on this blog. As always, go Cheney yourself.
jwb
@Jebediah: They keep sending us C and D level trolls. What are we going to do?
Jebediah
@jwb: Does that mean we are very unimportant, or that they are worried that we might tree one of their A-listers and chew him to death when the Cheeto-dust makes him lose his grip on the branch?
Either way, yeah, I wish we didn’t have to deal with the bottom of the barrel. At least this one seems to have stopped using “lol” as punctuation….
Yutsano
@Caz:
The incoherence in this sentence boggles the brain. Try harder.
Daulnay
@piratedan: We had a choice between two evils, and chose the lesser. Sure, McCain would have been worse. The Third Way Democrats of the DLC only voted for all the giveaways to the rich shown in the chart above, which McCain would have as well. We deserve a better choice. We’re not going to get one if we continue to vote in the Democratic party in liberal districts. The Dems need a challenge from the working, middle-class people end of the electorate, because right now it’s risk-free for them to shaft ordinary people in favor of the rich.
Daulnay
@gene108: The oil industry has been able, for years, to write off the investment cost of drilling a well as an expense instead of capitalizing it the way other industries have to capitalize their investments.
mclaren
The chart is accurate but selective. For example, while the chart lists a lot of giveaways to the rich, it doesn’t list the single biggest tax break in America–the home mortgage deduction. That’s close to 100 billion dollars per year, a large item in the U.S. budget.
That said, the single biggest giveaway to the superrich isn’t even listen: namely, the U.S. military budget. Billionaires disproportionately benefit from the bloated pointlessly huge U.S. military budget because billionaires who own the giant defense conglomerates and who own stock in ’em are the ones who really rake in the cash from defense contracts.
Just take a look at Dick Cheney and Halliburton. Cheney personally made hundreds of millions of dollars from his Halliburton stock courtesy of lavish military spending on cost-plus no-bid contracts. There is no better way to make money in America than a no-bid cost-plus military contract. Doesn’t matter if your product works, doesn’t matter what it costs…you’re guaranteed to make a fortune.
Bernard
oh so there is an option to vote other than Democrat or Republican? what? Libertarian, Tea Party, hmm
i must be missing something here. i can only see two party with the same goal more or less. are there any non-Democratic option that aren’t Republican in reality, no matter what they call themselves: Third way, no labels, tea party, conservative Democrat, libertarian.
must be me. i only see Republican party affiliations and the Democrats who help the Republicans screw the middle class.
Gosh i need glasses!!
asiangrrlMN
@Brian: Yes. This. I unfollowed someone on the Twitters earlier today who, a self-proclaimed liberal, said she didn’t like the class-warfare being done by the left. She supported taxes on the wealthy, but we liberals shouldn’t hate on the wealthy. The left, the have-nots, the not-wealthy did not start this class-warfare, but we are going to have to finish it.
@Yutsano: Stop playing with your troll toy. You got a wedding to get ready for, Mister.
@arguingwithsignposts: This is my takeaway from all the arguments stemming from the right.
Mnemosyne
@Caz:
Let’s try to explain this to you very slowly:
There’s a pothole in your street. You recently voted down a tax hike that would have cost you $100 per year that would allow it to be fixed. One day, you drive right into it and break your axle, causing your car to need $1,000 worth of repairs.
Was it worth saving that $100 a year if it ended up costing you $1,000?
Modusoperandi
Mclaren #33 “The chart is accurate but selective. For example, while the chart lists a lot of giveaways to the rich, it doesn
asiangrrlMN
@Modusoperandi: I know. For real. Sometimes, ‘rudeness’ (if you want to call it that) is the appropriate response to sheer greed and effrontery.
mclaren
@Modusoperandi:
In case it wasn’t clear, I certainly support the home mortgage deduction. I’m just pointing out that the list isn’t comprehensive, and it omits some of the biggest tax breaks.
The general impression created by the chart seems accurate: namely, our entire “deficit crisis” is caused by tax breaks to the rich and wild runaway uncontrolled pointless military spending.
We can nitpick with a few of the details in the chart, but the overall thrust of the thing is based in reality.
Modusoperandi
mclaren #39 “The general impression created by the chart seems accurate: namely, our entire ‘deficit crisis’ is caused by tax breaks to the rich and wild runaway uncontrolled pointless military spending.”
It’s worse than that. Any plan that doesn’t attempt to control healthcare costs isn’t serious. And, thanks to the GOP saying that “Government spending is out of control” (which attacks the Dems for increasing Medicare/Medicaid spending, ignoring of course that increasing Medicare cost is due to aging population and the farce of the at least partly unfunded Medicare Part D, and the boost in Medicaid users is because of the pop’d housing bubble/unemployment) and “Death Panels!” (which, inaccuracy of the slur aside, stops them from even considering cost controls), the public dialogue on that subject is so toxic that no serious look at the problem can even happen. It’s like there’s a big crack in the hull of State and, while everybody is pounding little corks in to the many little holes, doing anything about the giant crack (or talking about thinking about doing anything about it) makes you one of history’s greatest monsters (“Do you know who did something about the crack in the hull of State? That’s right: Hitler!”).
sukabi
@Caz: it costs the government the revenue it would be collecting if those cuts weren’t there… ie, if the current tax rate brings in 200 billion every month, but the assholes in congress vote a 200 billion tax cut for rich assholes, that’s 200 billion dollars in LOST REVENUE.
it’s a huge fucking cost… especially when they then decide they need to cut 200 billion dollars from social programs to “fix” the hole the tax cut caused.
The Tim Channel
Interesting, but needlessly long and confusing.
Rich people are actively trying to thwart the efforts of poor people to assemble unions and negotiate for livable working conditions.
I used to think I was the only person left in America who thought that the right of workers to organize was a basic HUMAN right. As I look to the proud working people of Wisconsin, I know that is not the case, no matter how hard Fox and the MSM tried to make me believe otherwise.
If you want proof of class warfare, no need to dig into the exact budget numbers (they are surely depressing, whether the examples you cite are exact or not). Just look out the window in downtown Madison. The rightwing isn’t even pretending it’s not engaged in class warfare anymore!! Some of you might be old enough to remember when they were still denying it? So it’s game on. And how can the average person ‘win’ the game? I don’t think you can.
The best I can offer as a solution is simply to opt out of “the game” as best you can. Until, or unless ‘the game’ is changed, the rules will always be stacked in favor of those who make and enforce them.
If I were King…err…President (is there really a difference anymore?) the first ‘game changer’ would be nationalizing health care. Profit margins would be set by law. Profiteering prosecuted. Health Insurance would get nationalized single payer treatment. And I would justify it all as my duty as COMMANDER IN CHIEF. It take a healthy population to fight off the evil….muslims…coloreds….mexicans…fitb
It could be done with a presidential signing statement. Instead of reading about such inspired tales of political boldness, I get to read about how Nobel Laureate Obama is allowing American citizens to be tortured by Americans on American soil (Bradley Manning).
Here’s a philosophical question for the group. If 60 percent of Americans withheld the payment of their taxes this year, would there be enough space in jail to house them all? Discuss.
Enjoy.
mutt
I distrust charts like this one. Too much background is assumed…..in definition of terms.
I do try to educate myself on such things, but Im real picky about what Ill pass along as facts.
Lies, damn lies, and statistics. The frauds in the details.
But the idea that with bi partisan support- the Republicans favoring reducing certain taxes-the Democrats in that AND cutting social programs that require a mite- a pittance! – of the blatant givaways, war profiteering, bankster-coddling that we are simply foolish enough to see as beneficial to all, each and every one of us!
No child has ever learned about baby Jeebus by means of class envy, people.
niknik
@Caz:
Opportunity costs, Caz, opportunity costs…
Chuck Butcher
The goals of the mortgage deduction has been subsumed into the subsidization of things it was never intended to do. There were two goals:
Encourage home ownership
Keep the construction industry ticking along
Building mansions or vacation homes accomplishes neither in any sort of rational evaluation of the revenue cost versus outcomes. I say this as one who benefits from that deduction. It isn’t as though it would be complicated to bring the deduction back into line with its goals.
Modusoperandi
Chuck Butcher #45 “It isn’t as though it would be complicated to bring the deduction back into line with its goals.”
I take it you’re new to America?
American Revolutionist
All of you are making valid points for your thoughts but you are all missing the point. The biggest problem we have as Americans is we have forgotten how to be Americans. We are no longer producers we are purchasers. That is why our dollar is in the tank. Why fuel is through the roof. and the list goes on. It is simple if you have the best products and you sell them only in your dollars then you have the power. But because we are a notion of liberals who feel fair is fair and conservatives that feel the strong will survive, we have lost our way. Look at our history and the things that made us great were our abilities to be leaders in innovation and production of goods. For Christ sake we pay our farmers not to grow food. Are we crazy? it is time for us to get off of our asses and work a little bit harder. The American dream was not a hand out. It was an opportunity. Everyone who comes here legally and who is born here has it. Whether born in the ghetto or the suburbs, if you want something you will get it. You just may have to work hard to get it. I know I did. I was born the son of a textile worker lived in a 2 bedroom trailer single wide and lived off of my father’s $8 an hour salary. It fed all four of us and put me through college. Not easily but with sacrifice and hard work. I now own two degrees and two companies. Not given a damn thing but something I worked hard for. If well all did that we could cut out the bullshit hand outs and debt for our nation would be a thing of the past. Wake up people until we all work hard and together, we will never stop the spend and tax practice of both dem.’s and rep.
Noneinaye
My understanding is that this tax break money is going straight into the “profit” section of these rich people’s bank accounts. Almost none of this money is going to actually maintaining or expanding the company/corporation/business itself right. They are treating it as a special bonus for themselves.
Someone please correct me if I’m wrong.
Noneinaye
@American Revolutionist:
Riiiiggghhhttt, poor minority groups are poor because they are lazy.
Dude, fuck you.
Mack Lyons
@American Revolutionist: Nice talking points. I take it your father’s $8/hr textile factory wages (and your mother was a stay-at-home mom, I assume) qualified you for student loans that you busted your ass to pay back. And your companies are taking advantage of as many qualifying tax breaks as possible without running afoul of the IRS.
My understanding is that this tax break money is going straight into the “profit” section of these rich people’s bank accounts. Almost none of this money is going to actually maintaining or expanding the company/corporation/business itself right. They are treating it as a special bonus for themselves.
Correct. This money is not being put back into the economy.