I’m guessing I could pay your tax bill with change from a $1.

Whether you believe or not is relevant only to you, because if you had to admit that what I’ve done, can be done, it would pretty much invalidate your excuses and your reason for hate.

Whut, I see way too many stories and posts that are ‘woe is me’. Then that crowd usually goes on to blame someone else or something else for their situation. I posted for a long time without revealing my story because I know that the natural inclination, upon finding out that I have done well, is to tune out the message. I must have been born wealthy, or I must be really lucky, or I must have taken advantage of people. The message most frequently heard, is that you can’t make it on your own. The hell you can’t. You are never too old, too young or the wrong color either. If you are healthy, can think, can set realistic goals, and are determined and flexible, you can reach those goals. I’m not just talking about the pursuit of money either. If you have a passion and become the best you can be at it, usually money will not be a problem.
Do I come off as greedy simply because I oppose higher taxes on the rich? Here’s what happens to money when it is earned by the 1 or 2%. It is either spent, resulting in jobs. It is invested, resulting in business development or expansion, which means jobs. Or it is taxed and doesn’t do either of the first two. If it is invested, not only does it work to produce jobs, but hopefully, will result in more profit which will be taxed at the top rate and the remainder used for more expansion. That is the upward expansion spiral we want.
Money taken for taxes does none of that. A portion may go to help people and the infrastructure and defense, but the majority is spent on things that will not do a single thing to grow the economy. It is a downward spiral.

I don’t consider anyone an enemy, Whut.

The data from immediately after the Bush tax cuts took effect show they did exactly that, they created a post 9/11 boom in the economy and employment.

Admittedly, we need a middle class with purchasing power. Henry Ford understood that when he devised a way to build and price his cars for the middle class and paid his workers enough to be able to afford them. Without the change in attitude that Ford created toward paying his employees well, we might well have keep the disparity that existed between company owners and employees that existed previously. That was a gigantic disparity compared to today. It wasn’t the unions that created the 8 hour work day or the 40 hour week, it was a business owner, Henry Ford. Fortunately for America, there was no competition from foreign manufacturers who could build those cars for a fraction of what Ford was paying.

So how is the middle class grown? Is it from handouts given by the government with money taxed from the wealthy or is it from businesses forming, growing and being prosperous? We will most likely never again be able to compete in the unskilled manufacturing labor market. Unfortunately, our school system has failed us in the creation of a well educated work force. Teachers go to school to learn to be teachers but they don’t major in the actually subject(s) they will be teaching. The days when we were turning out engineers in all disciplines, chemists, physicists, mathematicians, computer scientists, by the droves seem to be over. Gone too, are the Technical High Schools that created the people who keep things running. But, given a favorable environment, I have no doubt that people with ideas will be plotting the next industries. The difference between a China and a France. At this point in our history, regulations are more of an impediment than taxes, and certainly growing much faster, but taxes suck out the life blood of business.

I don’t know the answer to this question, but consider how things might be different if most of the money spent on entitlements and welfare had been spent on research and development. And what are we building for the future with our spending of over $1 trillion/year more than the government takes in?

You might notice that I don’t measure success by simply gaining wealth. That person who becomes the best that they can be, in their chosen field, will attain a joy of life and satisfaction with it. It has been my observation, that such people usually don’t have to worry about where their next meal is coming from.

If the wealthy were the primary beneficiaries of the Bush tax cuts, why then, did they wind up with a greater percentage of income taxes paid?

I find that the turning point was the election of a Democrat controlled Congress that immediately initiated new spending, and the involvement in two wars. Those two events undermined the economy that was fueled by the tax cuts.

Actually, the political winds didn’t change at all. We have almost exactly the same government we had after the 2010 elections.

Let’s say that the GOP agrees to either tax increases for the top 2% or eliminating enough deductions to create about the same revenue increase. Exactly what spending reductions are Obama and the Democrats proposing as their part of the compromise? Is it reductions to the already built-in budget spending increases, or real reductions to spending? If it is the former, I would urge the GOP not to even consider a deal.

I can also say that prior tax policies discriminated against the rich. Your perspective is largely dictated by your tax bracket.
I won’t argue the numbers for the Bush years, here they are: Overall real GDP grew at an average annual rate of 2.5%. Between 2001 and 2005, GDP growth was clocked at 2.8%. The number of jobs created grew by 6.5% on average. The growth in average salaries was 1.2%. Growth in consumer spending was 72% faster than growth in income. Investment in residential real-estate soared, growing 26% faster than average.
As far as total taxes are concerned, the increase at the state and local level hit the wealthy just as much as lower income groups. In states with income tax, the wealthy pay proportionately more. In states with sales tax, the wealthy buy more and the things they buy are generally more expensive, so their sales tax contribution is much higher. As far as property (ad valorem) taxes, the wealthy have more, larger and more expensive properties. Most likely, they also own commercial property paying taxes. The primary tax on low income earners is called, ‘the lottery’.

I hear all the time that ‘tickle down’ theories were, as you say, soundly defeated. But only progressives espouse that claim. There is a fairly simple logic at play here. In a society where everyone is poor, there is no trickle in any direction. If there is not an energized commerce society, there is no middle class. In order to have an energized commerce society, there must be people who create it. Those people are willing to take higher risks and work harder than the general populace in order to create something. As we have learned, there must be some layer of government control lest we return to a ‘robber baron’ economy, but too much government control stifles the very energy required of creators.
Keynesian works only when government has a surplus or a very small debt. Once the debt reaches a certain level, keynesian is self defeating and we have long passed the debt threshold.

I have not claimed the Democrats were ‘responsible’ for the wars, but they were complicit. In 2003, the Bush Administration attempted to create an agency to oversee Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. The bill never made progress in Congress, facing sharp opposition by Democrats. In 2005, the Republican controlled House of Representatives passed a GSE reform bill (Federal Housing Finance Reform Act) which “would have created a stronger regulator with new powers to increase capital at Fannie and Freddie, to limit their portfolios and to deal with the possibility of receivership”. However, the Bush administration opposed the bill and it died in the Senate. Of the bill and its reception by the Bush White House, Ohio Republican Mike Oxley (the bill’s author) said: “The critics have forgotten that the House passed a GSE reform bill in 2005 that could well have prevented the current crisis. All the handwringing and bedwetting is going on without remembering how the House stepped up on this. Later, when Bush finally accepted the dangers, Barney Frank with Democrats in power, thwarted new attempts to rein in Fanny and Freddie.

Again, as is Obama, you are focused on ‘tax increases’. But the key word used by the President is ‘compromise’. The biggest engine driving our economy downward is spending and tax increases at any level would not have much of an effect on the deficit and leaving the debt to continue to increase dramatically. So exactly what entitlement reform or spending cuts is the President offering as his part of the ‘compromise’? Republicans remember, all too well, the ‘compromise’ offered to Bush I when he agreed to raising taxes in exchange for spending cuts which never materialized.