BTW, the S&P 500 fell by 6.66% today!

[Lagboltz]

(patiently)

Google "historic marginal income tax rates" (without the quotes).

Please go do your homework.

http://www.taxfoundation.org/publications/show/151.html
They have an exls file, but you will have to scroll down.
The following has a graph that matches mine for the years I gave.
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2011/07/tax-rates-deviations-from-average/

 

[Pandora]

You missed the major point, I said the higher the taxes, the higher the GDP, not the higher the revenue. Why do you want to counter my post. I'm including both parties in the long span of the graphs. I am not laying blame on any party. I'm just trying to show that trickle down theory has not been substantiated.

I would gladly vote for lower taxes if I thought it would bring more revenue but it doesn't always work that way. You can see that the GDP is rather wavy, so the graph proves nothing in the short term. But long term shows the trend.

My attitude for progressive taxes is to boost the GDP in declining America. It seems that the rich don't care. To me the question (I'm oversimplifying) is who does the poor and middle class want to survive - America, or the wealthy. Sure it's unfair to them in a number of ways, but we have to do what is needed so we don't become a banana republic. Please look it up so you will know what I'm talking about.

I don't want to personally counter your post but hope that someone who disagrees with you will counter it. I learn best from seeing both sides of something. Sometimes I side with one side or the other but usually I find my own belief that is right in the middle of the two sides. Ugh! That makes me sound like a fence sitter and really I don't think I am that either.

But this topic is really hard for me to understand, I have tried to read the various posts over the years on the topic but really I have never been at a full understanding on it. I am better with black and white issues, moral issues exc... Those things I can find truth easily. This is far more complicated.

 

[Lagboltz]

I don't want to personally counter your post but hope that someone who disagrees with you will counter it. I learn best from seeing both sides of something. Sometimes I side with one side or the other but usually I find my own belief that is right in the middle of the two sides. Ugh! That makes me sound like a fence sitter and really I don't think I am that either.

But this topic is really hard for me to understand, I have tried to read the various posts over the years on the topic but really I have never been at a full understanding on it. I am better with black and white issues, moral issues exc... Those things I can find truth easily. This is far more complicated.

I am a scientist and I feel that I don't have a right to believe anything unless I understand it. I had been been on the board of a non-profit organization that was promoting fiscal responsibility in the government. We saw the fiscal crisis years before it really became known to the public. It was active for four years, but dozens of board members quit due to infighting. I was the last to quit, which caused the foundation to disband. From that group I learned the fiscal crisis is really not a partisan issue because it was caused by lack of economic foresight on both sides.

Congress is trying to make it a partisan issue, and like them, this forum creates a deep rift. You will never understand anything reading this forum where people here like Acorn challenges even government data. Often when I meet their challenges they simply abandon the thread and go someplace else to argue. It seems that arguing is the main interest of a lot of people here rather than trying to understand what each side thinks. Please don't form an opinion from anyone here - left or right, simply because they shout the same abusive posts over and over.

 

[GenSeneca]

Actually, to be fair, I made an unwise cause and effect error.

You are still making the same error in claiming that higher taxes cause higher GDP.

 

[Lagboltz]

You are still making the same error in claiming that higher taxes cause higher GDP.

My correction was,

"the conclusion should be that the graph shows the economy will not grow if taxes are lowered"​

You are mistaken. Your statement is quite different than mine. I am simply saying that the causality of trickle-down has not been proven. I am not saying that one thing is causing another.

 

[Little-Acorn]

http://www.taxfoundation.org/publications/show/151.html
They have an exls file, but you will have to scroll down.
The following has a graph that matches mine for the years I gave.
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2011/07/tax-rates-deviations-from-average/

(sigh)

Would anybody like to look at the data contained in lagboltz's links - either one of them - and inform him of whether they agree with the lies he posted here?

Apparently he will neither take my gentle hints, nor even examine his own links. I am at a loss to understand why not.

Yet he has a vote.

 

[Lagboltz]

(sigh)

Would anybody like to look at the data contained in lagboltz's links - either one of them - and inform him of whether they agree with the lies he posted here?

Apparently he will neither take my gentle hints, nor even examine his own links. I am at a loss to understand why not.

Yet he has a vote.

Can you give me a link that shows the tax data is different than what I posted?

 

[Openmind]

Can you give me a link that shows the tax data is different than what I posted?

Don't bother, Lagboltz. You'll never get through!

But here is another interesting graph with a clear analysis that certainly demonstrates what you are trying (in vain, I must say) to show.

Here is the link to the site:

A Few Graphs on Real GDP Growth Rates versus Taxes and the ...
www.presimetrics.com/blog/?p=312 - Cached-Not helpful? Jan 30, 2011 – The top marginal tax rate is positively correlated with

This site has several more graphs that might be of interest to you too, including Government GDP with and without the defense related GDP. I'm afraid I don't know how to get the graph itself to show, though. Could you explain that to me in a private message? I would appreciate it.

A Few Graphs on Real GDP Growth Rates versus Taxes and the Size of Government
On January 30, 2011, in Uncategorized, by Mike Kimel ....This post has a few simple graphs showing the relationship between the growth in real GDP and a few other variables: the top marginal tax rate, spending by the federal government as a share of GDP, and non defense spending by the federal government as a share of GDP. I also plan to link the three graphs together into a bit of a story, a story which extends from my recent posts, and which I intend to build on over the next few weeks.

One note before we begin – all of the data in this post comes from the National Income and Product Accounts (NIPA) tables which go back to 1929, or the IRS (tax rates go back to 1913), so the graphs will all begin in 1929.

Figure 1 shows the % growth in real GDP from one year to the next on the primary vertical axis and the top marginal income tax rate for that year on the secondary vertical axis.


Figure 1.

A couple things to notice… to the naked eyeball, there doesn’t seem to be all that much of a relationship between marginal rates and growth, despite the commonly accepted story line about how higher marginal rates lead to slower economic growth. Making matters worse for conventional wisdom, the correlation between the top marginal tax rate in any given year and the growth rate from that year to the next has been positive for every time period in the little table that is pasted in the graph. In other words, for all the years for which official data exists, higher tax rates have been accompanied by faster economic growth and lower tax rates were accompanied by slower economic growth. (Regular readers know this also applies at the state and local level.) Anyone telling you that lower tax rates lead to faster economic growth in the U.S. either should begin by explaining why this time it’s different or has nothing useful to say about the subject. (And I guess it is becoming a tradition, but let me ask – please don’t bother me with Romer and Romer. It doesn’t say what you think it says. It doesn’t even say what Romer and Romer think it says.)

Now, the American mythos circa 2011 also tells you that that the bigger the government, the slower the economic growth. (Note – since the tax rates I showed are federal tax rates, I am going to use the federal government here rather than “total” government. If I went with the entire government it wouldn’t change all that much of the verbiage below.) Figure 2 shows the % growth in real GDP from one year to the next on the primary vertical axis and the size of the federal government relative to GDP for that year on the secondary vertical axis.

 

[clarkatticus]

I was watching the news a few weeks ago and the congressman from IL was on talking about the debt ceiling (Walsh?). The breadth of his ignorance scared the crap outta me so I took my entire 401K and put it in a New York Life Secure Value Plan that they garantee a positive gain (right now 2.02%) the next morning. If anyone in the GOP is going to blame Obama on this debacle on Wall Street they are either being obtuse or just plain disingenious. The was the stated result from the very beginning of the debate that was denied by the tea party nutcases and called "terrorism" by bachman. You guys lost the debate, we are right no matter how you try to spin it. My advice? Quit pandering to extremist nutcases with no understanding of finance. The GOP platform of small government and lower taxation is a reasonable issue and can be compromised on, plenty of people will agree with this and you will get more in the long run if you stop using stupid people to hijack the debate.

 

[Little-Acorn]

Can you give me a link that shows the tax data is different than what I posted?

Here are two.

http://www.taxfoundation.org/publications/show/151.html

http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2011/07/tax-rates-deviations-from-average/

Both of them show maximum marginal income tax rates quite different from your lies.

Now, PLEASE, do your homework.

Please.

(Did some squawker mention "never getting through" to him?)

 

[Openmind]

Here are two.

http://www.taxfoundation.org/publications/show/151.html

http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2011/07/tax-rates-deviations-from-average/

Both of them show maximum marginal income tax rates quite different from your lies.

Now, PLEASE, do your homework.

Please.

(Did some squawker mention "never getting through" to him?)

Thanks for the link (the rithotz.com) which wasn't very useful, as the graph ONLY showed tax rates, and no one is argueing (are we?) that the marginal tax rate today is one of the lowest in the last 75 years at least. . .

To be useful to this discussion, we need graphs that show both the historical marginal tax rate correlated with the historical GDP. . .just as Lagboltz provided.

I do thank you for the link you provided because it actually took me to a new link that provide a MEANINGFUL graph that shows the historical marginal tax rate WITH the historical GDP. And this is a small paragraph:

it's obvious that there is no correlation between higher marginal tax rates and slowing economic activity. During the period 1951-63, when marginal rates were at their peak—91 percent or 92 percent—the American economy boomed, growing at an average annual rate of 3.71 percent. The fact that the marginal rates were what would today be viewed as essentially confiscatory did not cause economic cataclysm—just the opposite. And during the past seven years, during which we reduced the top marginal rate to 35 percent, average growth was a more meager 1.71 percent.

I'm pretty sure you won't bother. .but here is the link!

ebunking the claim that higher income-tax rates reduce GDP. - By ...
www.slate.com/id/2245781/ - CachedSimilar
Tax Fraud. Debunking the claim that higher income-tax rates reduce GDP. By Eliot SpitzerPosted Tuesday, Feb. 23, 2010, at 3:39 PM ET ...

 

[Lagboltz]

Don't bother, Lagboltz. You'll never get through!

But here is another interesting graph with a clear analysis that certainly demonstrates what you are trying (in vain, I must say) to show.

Yes, that is the same type of data. But now I remember what I did. I copied the data from a gov website and put it in a spreadsheet, but since the GDP was so erratic, I did a moving average to smooth it out so you could see the longterm GDP trend more clearly. The website you show didn't do the moving average but the conclusions are still valid.

This site has several more graphs that might be of interest to you too, including Government GDP with and without the defense related GDP. I'm afraid I don't know how to get the graph itself to show, though. Could you explain that to me in a private message? I would appreciate it.

OK I will send that to you.

 

[GenSeneca]

I am not saying that one thing is causing another.

I based my observation on the following statement of yours:

You missed the major point, I said the higher the taxes, the higher the GDP, not the higher the revenue.

If you were not suggesting a causal link between higher taxes and a higher GDP, then what "major point" were you trying to convey, why plot the two different things on a graph?

 

[Lagboltz]

If you were not suggesting a causal link between higher taxes and a higher GDP, then what "major point" were you trying to convey, why plot the two different things on a graph?

As I said in post #35 my "major point" is trickle-down has not been proven.

 

[Openmind]

You are still making the same error in claiming that higher taxes cause higher GDP.

I disagree. I don't think lagboltz is implying that there is a causal effect, but that there is a correlation. . .and that is easy enough to see.

Whether you like it or not, the graphs, every graphs that provide both the historical marginal tax rate and the historical GDP clearly show a correlation. . .but there isn't enough data that shows the causation.

But, if anything, it seems clear that the period of high taxes showed a rise in GDP, and the periods of low taxes showed a deep in GDP, rather than the reverse. . .as the GOP is trying so hard to pass as a "fact!"

If you have factual data that show the reverse trend, I'll be happy to look at it and read the analysis.