Paying for the jobs bill

[verytwistedmind.livejournal.com]

Hello talk_politcs people! I’ve missed all of you! Even you crazy nut job liberals!  I got a new job and in six months was promoted, so life’s been too busy to argue politics.

I have still been keeping up some, still a great group and I’m proud to see that. Enough niceties, on to the harsh area of ideas!
The topic I want to present to you is: Paying for The Jobs Bill.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid proposes a 5% increase on income tax on all who make over $1,000,000 a year to pay for this bill. The problem I’m seeing is, that doesn’t’ pay for the bill

So as I used to, I’m coming to the council of the wise and asking you to check my math

http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/09in11si.xls <- this link is a list of all those who made over $1,000,000 a year.

I took this information and optimistically increased each group to it’s maximum. Meaning, if it was 1 million to 1.5 million I took that to mean that everyone in that group made $1,499,000 and calculated how much tax revenue. And I came up 54 Billion short, over ten years.
I’m asking the Council of the Wise to check my math. Clearly a man as powerful as Harry Reid is smarter than I am. I’m asking for education, not ridicule.
($1,499,000 x 108,096 (number of returns) ) x 0.05 = $ 8,101,795,200
($1,999,000 x 44,273(number of returns) ) ) x 0.05 =  $4,425,086,350
($4,999,000 x 61,918 (number of returns)) ) x 0.05 = $15,476,404,100
($9,999,000 X 14,322 (number of returns)) ) x 0.05  = 7,160,283,900
($10,000,000 x 8,274 (number of returns)) ) x  0.05  =4,137,000,000
Total taxes usurped  $39,300,569,550
Total taxes usurped over ten years $393,005,695,500.00
Total cost of the Jobs Bill $447,000,000.00
Total shortfall -53,994,304,500

Am I way off? Is Sen. Reid optimistically expecting more millionaires in the near future?  Could those making more than $10 million be so much more than $10 million that it compensates for the $39 million annual shortfall?

Also, recommend a post for me, something I might have missed in the six months that I really should read.

Comments

[soliloquy76.livejournal.com]

You also have to remember that taxes are being cut for the lower brackets and small businesses, so they'll need even more income than they'll get from the 5% increase on the rich.

I haven't been paying attention to the dialogue, but I'm guessing the upcoming cuts are being factored in as well. Or maybe this 5% increase will be coupled with removal of some loopholes and/or deductions? Or perhaps they're anticipating the creation of jobs to generate more tax revenue.

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

I believe that those tax cuts are part of the "cost" of the bill.

[soliloquy76.livejournal.com]

Ah, yes. You're right.

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

Tax rates are marginal tax rates.

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

Also, there will be more millionaires in 5 and 10 years than there are today.

[verytwistedmind.livejournal.com]

I don't understand your comment 'marginal tax rates' the tax rate for $1 million or more is 35% and will go up to 40% if we pass the Jobs Bill as Reid has re-written it.

How manym ore millionaires will we need in 5 to 10 years to cover a $54 billion deficit?

Doesn't that seem like a bad gamble? Would you, as a law maker, make the same gamble?

[notmrgarrison.livejournal.com]

My guess would be that the extra 5% is only charged on the income exceeding 1 million, in which dace you'd need to subtract $50,000*total number of people on list.

Also, some of those people are making far more than 10 million.

[oportet.livejournal.com]

It's sad that you figure out the plan is going to come up 54 billion short, and I think that really isn't bad for our government. With the streak of incompetence they have going, small fuck-ups now seem like successes.

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

His numbers have nothing to do with anything. They're just a nice set of nonsense posing as data. There are answers, and you could go ask the CBO or something, if you wanted to know how they calculate these things. Or we could just come up with our own ass-brand math and revel in our idiocy.

[geezer-also.livejournal.com]

When it comes to economic math I revel in our government's idiocy!

[verytwistedmind.livejournal.com]

$54 billion is a small fuck up? 12% of the cost is an okay oops? If i lived by those numbers... okay that's a dumb statement no one can live like the government.

This is awful though. It can't possibly pay for itself just on the backs of millionaires.

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

Dude, you don't even have your fourth-grade math straight in this, so hold your horses for a friggin' second before we go wailing at the wall of political fatalism. For Pete's sake, even in basic percentages, you can't just take 5 percent more of X and add it to itself and then say that accounts for an X percent increase. Christ, seriously, just be quiet for one second. You're pouring a pool of shit in a mud-infested well already.

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

It's nice that we're at least drafting legislation that at least attempts to pay for things we want to buy. The alternative is, of course, the entire run of 2000-2008 where we naively decided that the natural increase in GDP and collected taxes will cover all our new costs.

Anyway, people making over $1m probably have a lot of investment income which is taxed at a special rate. That should be increased alongside this general income tax one and then we're all set.

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

I'm not even sure we're short with the current plan. Apparently the genius OP thinks that 10m+ people pay nearly 4 times less in taxes per year than people who made half as much (or even a lesser fraction since 10m+ people aren't just at the 10m mark). His own links shows that the average taxes paid for the 10m+ people makes all their under-10m buddies look like a joke.

[kylinrouge.livejournal.com]

I mean, the link shows that the 10m+ people pay more in income taxes than all the other under-10m people combined. Times two.

Your math looks more and more disgusting the more I actually look at your source, which actually tells you the correct way to do this.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

Clearly a man as powerful as Harry Reid is smarter than I am.

ROFL

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

First, you shouldn't have used the arbitrary top of the range, you should have used the average dollars they give you in the spreadsheet. Second, you have to subtract out the $1M that isn't getting the increase in tax. Here is your real calculations:
($204,015 x 107416) x 0.05 = $1,095,723,762
($719,969 x 44015) x 0.05 = $1,584,471,776.75
($1,955,302 x 61535) x 0.05 = $6,015,975,428.50
($5,807,231 x 14236) x 0.05 = $4,133,587,025.80
($28,022,708 x 8211) x 0.05 = $11,504,722,769.40

Which gives us a total of $24,334,480,762.45 as a result of the 5% increase.

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

The biggest thing you are missing is if we get our economy back on track everybody is making more money and therefore there is a lot more tax income.

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

How is this not the same as the Republican canard that if we cut taxes, it will pay for itself?

[notmrgarrison.livejournal.com]

His statement is "obviously" true (meaning it should be obvious), whereas the second is a maybe.

"cut taxes = good" is just as dumb as "the smaller the government, the better". Well, not AS stupid, but close. There's too much, there's too little, there's just right, though I doubt "just right" is a fixed amount for all time, it seems it could vary. And it seems there could be more than one level that is just right (not all graphs have just one high point).

It should be obvious that 0 taxes is bad, (and so at that level they need to be raised), and 100% taxes is bad (and so at that level they need to be lowered. The same is true for 1% and 95%, and probably 2% and 90%. So what is the right amount? Is it more than what we now have, or less than what we now have?

[nevermind6794.livejournal.com]

Well, a substantial portion of our recent deficits is due to decreased revenue as a result of the poor economy, high unemployment, and poor stock returns. It stands to reason that an economic reversal would also reverse those trends.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

Basically, everyone agrees that the economy should be brought back on track, the disagreements start when asking the question "how".

[mikeyxw.livejournal.com]

The tax increase is a political stunt. It is very unlikely that someone sat down, did some math, and figured out that the cost of the bill would be paid for by taking the income of over exactly $1,000,000 by 5% more... not by taxing income over $1,010,394 by 5%, not by taxing income over $1,000,000 by 6.1%, but by taxing income over exactly one million by exactly 5%.

It will of course raise some money, but why not just raise the top bracket rather than creating a new, unwieldy one... oh yeah, tax brackets are stuff that other people thought of, Mr. Reid wants something new and shiny with his name all over it. While it is a lot less efficient to implement, it makes for better stumping to say that you added a millionaire's tax instead of that you raised the rate on the top tax bracket. The former sounds like social justice, the second is just a bureaucratic adjustment. This is why the US has the most screwed up tax system in the Western world.

[notmrgarrison.livejournal.com]

rather than creating a new, unwieldy one

How would "income 1,000,000 gets taxed an extra 5%" be unwieldy?

[eracerhead.livejournal.com]

The calculations aren't that simple. You also need to take into account the proposed reductions in spending, then you have to make validated assumptions about expected federal income in the out years.

The biggest problem is that we aren't getting enough revenue to support the existing level of government. Whenever you cut something you are goring someone's ox and so we can't agree on what must be cut. Further eliminating waste fraud and abuse will require an increase in spending for government oversight, so that won't work either.