April Revenue Shower
Here’s the “surge” you aren’t reading about: the continuing flood of tax revenue into the federal Treasury. Tax receipts for April were $70 billion above the same month in 2006, and April 24 marked the single biggest day of tax collections in U.S. history, at $48.7 billion, according to the latest Treasury report.The April comparison is slightly askew because the IRS processed more returns than usual this year. But there’s no denying that Americans are sending more money than ever to Washington; revenues for the first seven months of fiscal 2007 are up 11.3%, or $153 billion. This Beltway bonanza has helped to slash the projected federal budget deficit by more than half from the same point last year. Across the past three Aprils, federal red ink has sunk by nearly $300 billion. The deficit this year could tumble to $150 billion, or an economically trivial 1% of GDP.
This revenue boom certainly casts doubt on the political wails about tax loopholes for the rich. So far this year, the taxes paid on so-called nonwithheld income, which are dollars that don’t come from normal wages and salaries, have climbed by nearly 30%. This is income largely derived from capital gains, dividends and other investment sources — i.e., the tax rates that President Bush cut in 2003. Individual income taxes are also up by 17.5% — a handsome fiscal dividend from rising wages and low unemployment.
In other good news, the pace of federal spending, which was pedal-to-the-metal in Mr. Bush’s first term, has finally decelerated. So far this year federal outlays have climbed by 3%, and, save for Medicare and Medicaid, federal expenditures are nearly flat from 2006. Spending will climb again once the Iraq supplemental passes, and revenues can’t keep rising at a double digit pace forever.
Still, you’d think this dramatic fiscal turnaround would cheer up Capitol Hill. Instead, Congressional Democrats seem to live in a parallel universe — one that they claim is starved for revenues, with a runaway deficit, and is dominated by the rich who pay no taxes at all. The reality is that the wealthy are financing Democratic spending ambitions, and the deficit could easily vanish within a year or two if Congress has the good sense to leave current tax policy in place.
Source: WSJ 5/9/07; Pg. A16
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Wow… the Democrats are wrong on taxes and the economy? I never saw that one coming! Actually, this is a good time to finally shift to the Flat Tax and eliminate 80% of the IRS. I hope that some of the Republican candidates latch on to this.
\"It\'s the Economy, stupid!\" Remember those words from candisate Clinton in the early going of the 1992 campaign? The Democrats proved during the 90\'s that they could stimulate the ecomomy for REAL. Many see the present economic surge as due to huge corporate gains not REAL growth. Republicans think that Big Business gains means the huge majority of Americans are advancing along with them by Trickle Down. Gas prices, food prices, energy costs, health care and inflation are CRUSHING the average worker. Keep your eye on the \"summer of discontent\" as Republicans crow over the Dow and the People weep over the pump and grocery store. By next fall, the true Americans will be outraged at the profits reaped by the oil industry and the huge corporations.You can\'t fool us forever!!
Wow… the Democrats are wrong on taxes and the economy? I never saw that one coming! Actually, this is a good time to finally shift to the Flat Tax and eliminate 80% of the IRS. I hope that some of the Republican candidates latch on to this.
“It’s the Economy, stupid!” Remember those words from candisate Clinton in the early going of the 1992 campaign? The Democrats proved during the 90’s that they could stimulate the ecomomy for REAL. Many see the present economic surge as due to huge corporate gains not REAL growth. Republicans think that Big Business gains means the huge majority of Americans are advancing along with them by Trickle Down. Gas prices, food prices, energy costs, health care and inflation are CRUSHING the average worker. Keep your eye on the “summer of discontent” as Republicans crow over the Dow and the People weep over the pump and grocery store. By next fall, the true Americans will be outraged at the profits reaped by the oil industry and the huge corporations.You can’t fool us forever!!
<i>This revenue boom certainly casts doubt on the political wails about tax loopholes for the rich. </i>
No it doesn\'t, that\'s a complete non-sequitur. You\'ve given no information that takes us from one point to the other. You simply proposed a blind assumption with no articulated basis.
Various reason can be the cause of the increased revenue. The fact that there\'s increased revenue doesn\'t tell us that the rich shouldn\'t have paid more now, and that they shoouldn\'t have been paying more in the past as well.
You note how much capital gains taxes increased, but give no information on how much of that increase represents the total increase. You do know that the stock market is way up this year, don\'t you; which is were captil gains taxes come from, which is taxed at a much lower rate than income is for the vast majority of people receiving those capital gains.
This revenue boom certainly casts doubt on the political wails about tax loopholes for the rich.
No it doesn’t, that’s a complete non-sequitur. You’ve given no information that takes us from one point to the other. You simply proposed a blind assumption with no articulated basis.
Various reason can be the cause of the increased revenue. The fact that there’s increased revenue doesn’t tell us that the rich shouldn’t have paid more now, and that they shoouldn’t have been paying more in the past as well.
You note how much capital gains taxes increased, but give no information on how much of that increase represents the total increase. You do know that the stock market is way up this year, don’t you; which is were captil gains taxes come from, which is taxed at a much lower rate than income is for the vast majority of people receiving those capital gains.