Word: taxed
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...detailed IRS data on this tax swing aren't out yet, but there's plenty of other evidence. For one thing, while income tax revenues are up sharply, Social Security and Medicare tax receipts have remained flat as a share of the economy. "That tells you it isn't the average wage earner whose taxes are going up," says Steuerle. Another sign is that capital-gains taxes, paid mostly by the wealthy, doubled from...
...income-distribution shift doesn't explain all the improvement in the government's financial situation: corporate tax receipts have risen a lot since 2003 as well. That gain is the result of a postrecession recovery in corporate profits, plus the expiration of some Bush tax breaks--plus, speculates University of Michigan economist Joel Slemrod, a decrease in corporate tax avoidance in the wake of the scandals of 2002. It's widely assumed that this corporate tax boom will soon tail...
...personal--income tax windfall from increasingly unequal income distribution, though, could be with us for a while. The President can even take part of the credit for it: lower tax rates on the highest earners give them less incentive to shelter income from taxes. But a similar high-income tax boom happened in the late 1990s, so Bush can't take too much credit. He might not want to: the shift in incomes toward the top may be great for the federal budget. Whether it's a good thing for the U.S. beyond that is an entirely different question...
...what is that mantle, exactly? It starts, presumably, with militant opposition to taxes. But Reagan passed the largest tax hike in California history, and then as President, raised taxes three times. Fervent opposition to abortion is another must. But as governor, Reagan was pro-choice. And although pro-life by the time he entered the White House, he enraged the Christian Right by selecting a well-known social moderate, Sandra Day O'Connor, as his first Supreme Court pick. Then there's opposition to illegal immigration, another supposed Reagan legacy. Except that in 1986 Reagan signed a law granting amnesty...
...problem is deeper than an insufficient desire to win. For the last quarter-century, national security has been the glue holding the Republican coalition together. During Reagan's first term, conservatives overlooked his tax hikes and big spending because they thrilled to his vision of an America that rolled back Soviet power. In 2004, conservatives overlooked George W. Bush's prescription drug benefit and his liberal stance on immigration, and turned out for him in record numbers, because they believed so deeply in his war on terror. Now, by contrast, right-wingers carp endlessly about his domestic spending, even though...