Bush’s Tax Cuts Are Dead

Mr. Gross like many other in the mass media do not understand how hedge fund and private equity managers get paid and taxed so these writers tout they pay 15% - which captures their readers but is being a sensationalist and not getting the truth across. HF and PE managers make alot of their money as management fees which is taxed at the highest rates 35%++ HF managers do take a portion of their income as an allocation of profits and your typical HF manager makes profits by earning ordinary income (ST capital gains etc) which again is taxed at 35%++. This year alot of HF guys actually will be paying an effective rate over 35% on their profits interest as they realized gains earlier in the year while they sat on some unrealized losses (non-taxable losses) at year end.

"Mike Huckabee proposed replacing the system, which favors the wealthy, with the Fair Tax, which also favors ... the wealthy."

I wonder if Daniel Gross has ever even looked at the numbers himself or if he just heard this from an angry, equally uninformed Democrat. The top 10% of earners pay 50% of all tax revenue (yes, even AFTER the Bush tax cuts). That favors the wealthy? I'd say they are getting screwed. What would this guy like to see? The top 1% of earners paying 90% of all revenue? Maybe that is his idea of fair? Ridiculous...

Joe1952 - about health care. Go read the article on MSN.com called "What to do about Healthcare". You'll understand better about the subject.

Joe 1952, lay off the Afghan black stuff (now streaming into this country). Man , what an example of the term Right Wing Nut Job. I bet you never went outside your town boundary. We need fiscal responsibility! Something Republicans continually preach about but never inact. Regan, Bush 1 and Bush 2 have put our country into more debt than any other administrations (Bush's spokesperson condemned the two former Rep Presidents fiscal responsibilities in the White House briefing). I don't care about Rep or Dem, as long as someone gets our finances in order before it's too late. Reps talk patriotism while they put foreign governments in charge of our debt (esp China). Do you understand the consequences of China holding these notes - already over a trillion dollars? As far as weird looking transexuals go - maybe Republicans should stop judging people so much. The Republicans have had more "incidents" than any group or party of people I know. Remember: the closet homosexual sleeping with the young Senate paiges? The Senator who blamed alcohol and drugs for his having an ongoing sexual relationship with a Transexual. Tom De Lay and his multitude of crimes. Libby and co's outing of a Covert CIA Operative. Oh and who can forget good old Craig and his sex with men in public restrooms? ETC, ETC, ETC. All of these same people preach religion like the Pharisees they are. I would have loved to see a Ron Paul/Dennis Kucinich ticket. Two elected officials who can truly reach across the aisle and agree on common ground for the better of the country - not for the better of themselves as nearly all elected officials do now. I'm voting for what I hope will be the next best thing - Barak Obama. I just hope Bush doesn't put us in a worse position before he leaves office.

Yeah headed for a fiscal meltdown and yet the irresponsible Dem candidates are promising 47 million deadbeats free healthcare. They want student loan forgiveness if you go to work for the government when it should be the other way around. If illegals are given legal status it will open the door to hundreds of billions in lawsuits of phony claims,closing up more doctors,hospitals and private business. Weird looking transexuals will be able to sue employers if they aren't hired...Hundreds of billions thrown at the phony issue of global warming. The bad part is all these things will happen if McCain or the dem wins.

Supply side economics is a total fallacy. Cutting taxes does not increase revenue anymore. When taxes were at 70% then, yes cutting taxes did encourage economic activity. But those days are 20+yrs ago. Cutting taxes today just lowers revenues. Revenues do go up in time because the economy grows over time. If tax cuts trully increased revenues then just cut taxes down to zero and the government should then have unlimited income! All cutting taxes now does increase the debt (9+trillion) thats $30,000.00 per person! Debts come due at some point. The mighty USA is only one bounced payment away from a banana republic. Do what Canada did in the mid nineties, BALANCE THE BUDGET! And hows Canada doing now? Their dollar is higher than a US one, need i say more?

I am a social conservative and a economic liberal. I am not apposed to tax increasesif such increases serve the national interest...even if they work against me personally. However the history seems to suggest that tax increases have the affect of decreasing revenue to the federal government. Making the assumptions that the author makes it would seem counterintuitive reinstate the pre-bush tax cuts if we need greater revenue. Even JFK seemed to realize that reduced tax burden equalled greater investment and business activity and therefore greater tax revenue. Why then would increased debt imply the need for increased tax. That makes no senses.

Deficient Spending is immoral. It is just a delayed a tax on our children and grandchildren. As an adult, I pay my own bills and do not ask my children to pay for things that might make my life easier now, but will make their life more difficult now. Why do you think that the dollar is depreciating? Supply economics does not work. It just pushes the hard decisions onto the life of my two kids.

Deficient Spending is immoral. It is just a delayed a tax on our children and grandchildren. As an adult, I pay my own bills and do not ask my children to pay for things that might make my life easier now, but will make their life more difficult now. Why do you think that the dollar is depreciating? Supply economics does not work. It just pushes the hard decisions onto the life of my two kids.

Clown show is an understatement. Candidate Bush in 2000 claimed that his tax cuts would return part of the projected surplus to the people. President Bush claimed that his tax cuts were needed to fight the recession, yet resisted any "trigger" to rescind the cuts in the event of a deficit. The predictable and predicted effect of these cuts was a structural deficit and a rolling recession as public investment necessary for growth was starved. The real purpose of these tax cuts was to ???drown it in a bath tub,??? as Bush made clear when he argued for Social Security privatization as a means of extending his tax cuts. President McCain? First, Candidate McCain, who has recanted his opposition to Bush???s tax cuts, will have to explain how he will cut $700 billion from the federal budget ??? as required to close the ???deficit??? and fight his???100 years war???for freedom in the Middle East. Talk about clown shows.

McCain has proven thorugh his actions in the Senate that he is just another Republican yes man. He voted for the war, and has supported the administration in each major war funding endeavor. He has repeatedly sided with the administration in fiscal and Iraq war issues and had endorsed a needless long term presence in Iraq at the expense of Americal lives and tax dollars. McCain is simply another republican wolf in moderate clothing. A vote for McCain is a vote for more of the same irresponsible fiscal policy and senseless loss of American lives.

Mccain is a man of his word, even stubborn about it at times. he will do everything in his power to make the tax cuts permanent. He may not have voted for them but he has never in 25 years raised taxes which would be the net result if he didnt keep with his word. Thank god that we will have a nominee that is Reagon like and not Bucannon like.

<Or will he bow to reality and let most of the tax cuts sunset, as they were designed to do?> They weren't designed to sunset...the sunset clause was the only way to get these tax cuts passed. Letting them sunset would end up costing the Feds billions. The capgains/dividend cuts alone have generated well over $200 billion in additional revenue. That is a fact!

Huckabee has nowhere to go now. He won in states that are already going to
go Republican in the fall. He broke no new ground. He is also bad at fundraising.
Huckabee is a regional candidate with limited appeal. Huckabee voters are going to
vote republican in the fall no matter what.
Romney on the other hand won in Blue and red states.
Romney won from coast to coast, and in the North where Republicans have less
appeal. Romney can raise money and has money, something McCain needs.
Conservative media likes and supports Romney, not Huckabee.
While Huckabee voters are Republican loyalists who will stay Republican, Romney's
voters are much more likely to support a third party candidate like Bloomberg.
A VP choice needs to balance and benefit the nominee; Huck does neither, Romney
does both. Romney would be a far better VP choice.

Oh, look, another journalist too stupid or lazy to accurately characterize the FairTax. The FairTax does NOT, as Gross suggests, favor the wealthy (for that matter, neither does the current system, in which the wealthy provide nearly all of the federal tax revenues and the poor extract far more in value than they put in). The FairTax completely untaxes those at the poverty level by (a) providing a monthly prebate equivalent to the FairTax on spending up to the poverty level, and (b) completely eliminating the onerous and highly regressive Social Security and Medicare taxes paid by all workers (15.3%, including the employer contributed portion). Under the FairTax, the poorer you are, the more you benefit relative to the current system.

The only people who pay more under the FairTax are the extremely wealthy who primarily live off of investment income rather than wages. They pay the 23% FairTax on spending rather than the relatively low capital gains tax Warrent Buffett has complained about. Now wait a minute, before you get your nickers all in a twist and start screaming that the wealthy don't actually spend much of their wealth and instead save and invest most of it, thereby avoiding paying the FairTax, take a breath and think it through. All wealth is ultimately spent -- not necessarily in the year earned as income, but eventually. If a wealthy person takes their income and invests it (temporarily avoiding taxes), that's only so they can receive a return greater than the value of the investment, which will ultimately be spent and taxed (perhaps after some additional investing). Of course, the wealthy person may leave some of their fotune to their heirs, but then the heirs will spend it (or leave it to their heirs, who will spend it, etc.). Money is of no use if it's not ultimately used for consumption, so it will ultimately be used for consumption, and therefore taxed. Under the FairTax, saving/investing does not avoid taxes, it merely postpones taxes. The only way a wealthy person can avoid the FairTax is to donate their wealth to charity -- but that should be at least as beneficial to society as if the government got the money (particularly since the charity gets 100% of the donation, not just the 23% the government would take).

How about a real change in our tax system. Either a national sales tax or a fixed tax rate without complicated forms, deductions etc. Anyone or family making under $75000 could easily be excluded from the tax.