Its official; Americans are going to be paying less in taxes to the federal government. In a ceremony staged in the East room of the White House President Bush signed the third-largest tax cut in U.S. history into law. Will this tax cut actually help the economy? Bush says it will. He claims, "this legislation is adding fuel to an economic recovery" (Benedetto). Bush hopes the massive $350 billion tax cuts will create jobs and heal the fraught financial system. Despite his optimism, Bush has many foes pointing out the rumored flaws in tax cuts. Democrats in congress, as well as some Republicans, are in strict opposition of the bill. They claim it will only worsen the stressed economy and leave families in the low-income tax brackets behind. Frankly, both the opposition and proponents of the bill are correct. The tax cut will, in some ways, help the economy and create jobs, but it also will pad the pockets of the rich while failing to acknowledge the plight of low-income families. Small businesses have become one of the biggest parts of American industry. The tax act includes deductions for business expenses and other tax cuts for small business owners. "By cutting individual tax rates and by delivering other incentives for investment in new equipment, 23 million small business owners will receive an average tax cut of $2,209" (Bush). This savings will allow small businesses to grow, which creates more jobs. Bush claims, "This law reflects a common sense economic principle: The best way to have more jobs is to help the people who create new jobs, and those are the small business owners of America." By starting new jobs the American economy is strengthened and encouraged to rebound. "The Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003" will also boost the child tax credit. "Altogether, 34 million families with children, including 6 million single moms, will receive an average tax cut of $1,549 per year" (Bush). With the new tax credits a married couple with two children and an income of 30 thousand will receive a $955 tax credit. A single parent with one child and the same income will be credited $400. Families with higher incomes will acquire even higher tax deductions (Benedetto). Although this credit will help millions of families, some Congressional officials aver millions of minimum wage and slightly above minimum wage families will not receive the tax credit.
Immediately after being sworn into office, Reagan implemented the first of many tax cuts. The Economic Recovery Tax Act passed in 1981 took 20% off taxes from top income levels and 25% off taxes from all lower income levels. Additional tax cuts, enforced in 1986, lowered taxes for those with high incomes by another 28% and those with lower incomes by 15%. These cuts were enacted based on the principle that tax breaks for the upper echelon of society would encourage investment and spending, creating new jobs for lower income individuals. Though these acts helped America during an economic low, they had consequences which are still being felt today. During Reagan’s presidency the distribution of wealth shifted unfairly towards individuals...
President Barack Obama signed The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act on February 17th, 2009 into law. This Act was an effort to jump-start the economy, and also to save and create millions of jobs in America. Obama selected Vice President Joe Biden to over look the application of the Act, while working with cabinet members, the nations governors, and mayors to make sure the implementation of the Recovery Act are not abrupt, but as efficient and effective as Obama intended. The Recovery Act called for $825 Billion which changed as it moved through Congress. However, in doing this it stirred up a lot of commotion with the Republicans within Congress, who favored a different approach to the economic dilemma. The Recovery Act is essentially an expansionary fiscal policy, in that it wants to increase government spending while decreasing taxes. The Act included $550 Billion to be spent within the first two years of it being implemented, much more than the government spends annually on programs. Which is not including defense and benefit programs such as Medicare and Social Security. Most of the $275 Billion in tax cuts would be going to the middle-income families in the form of $1,000 tax cuts, while businesses and other tax cuts would make up the rest. About $318 Billion would go to states and local governments facing the possibility of layoffs and/or tax increases. Another $102 Billion would be used to help victims of the recession with unemployment insurance, health care, food stamps and job training, jobless aid would also be increased by an extra $25 a week. As we can see the evidence is clear and growing by the day, the Recovery Act is working to soften the greatest economic downfall since the Great Depression and is laying ...
Whether or not to keep or discard the Bush era tax cuts for the wealthy, give tax breaks to the lowest tax bracket, and even throwing out the entire current tax code and replacing it with a simpler version, tax code and tax law has been a very controversial topic for the past few years. As it stands, the current tax code has over seventy two thousand pages, compared to the four hundred pages it had in 1913. There are many different stakeholders in this debate including taxpayers, corporations, businesses, etc. Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) is an organization that was “founded in 1985 by Grover Norquist at the request of President Reagan”(.N.p.). Their goal is to create and advocate for a simple flat tax,“...on the belief that they will provide a strong stimulus to investment, employment, and output” (Stokey 1). They promote their organization and represent taxpayers in all fifty states. Along with tax reform, ATR also advocates for individual health care, free trade, and spending transparency (.N.p.). Using very simple and easy to understand images, ATR is able to convey their goals and get information across to the general audience that visits their website.
There have been numerous debates within the last decade over what needs to be done about welfare and what is the best welfare reform plan. In the mid-1990s the TANF, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, Act was proposed under the Clinton administration. This plan was not received well since it had put a five year lifetime limit on receiving welfare and did not supply the necessary accommodations to help people in poverty follow this guideline. Under the impression that people could easily have found a job and worked their way out of poverty in five years, the plan was passed in 1996 and people in poverty were immediately forced to start looking for jobs. When the TANF Act was up for renewal earlier this year, the Bush administration carefully looked at what the TANF Act had done for the poverty stricken. Bush realized that, in his opinion, the plan had been successful and should stay in effect with some minor tweaking. Bush proposed a similar plan which kept the five year welfare restriction in place but did raise the budgeted amount of money to be placed towards childcare and food stamps. Both the TANF Act and Bush's revised bill have caused a huge controversy between liberal and conservative activists. The liberals feel that it is cruel to put people in a situation where they can no longer receive help from the government since so many people can not simply go out and get a job and work their way out of poverty. They feel if finding a job was that easy, most people would have already worked their way out of poverty. The conservatives feel that the plans, such as the TANF Act, are a surefire way to lower poverty levels and unemployment rates as well as decrease the amount o...
In the summer of 1996, Congress finally passed and the President signed the "Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996", transforming the nation's welfare system. The passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act sets the stage for ongoing reconstruction of welfare systems on a state-by-state basis. The combined programs will increase from nearly $100 billion this year to $130 billion per year in 6 years. Programs included are for food stamps, SSI, child nutrition, foster care, the bloss grant program for child- care, and the new block grant to take the place of AFDC. All of those programs will seek $700 billion over the next 6 years, from the taxpayers of America. This program in its reformed mode will cost $55 billion less than it was assumed to cost if there were no changes and the entitlements were left alone. The current welfare system has failed the very families it was intended to serve. If the present welfare system was working so well we would not be here today.
Many debates have been waged over the decades on what will be taxed, on who shall be taxed and how taxes are collected. Since the 16th Amendment was ratified in 1913, the debate has intensified, centering on how high to make the income tax rate. Most Americans were not concerned since the Amendment was sold to them as something that would only affect corporations and the rich. With ever increasing fervor these corporations created lobbyists to convince Congress to exempt them from some or all of the income tax. The big breakthrough in this was taxing the worker directly with payroll taxes during World War II. This method of collecting income tax was sold to Americans as temporary, but Congress has extended it indefinitely and the public has become used to it. The next few decades saw the debate revolve around creating tax breaks for individuals in an attempt to modify behavior or spending. This has resulted in over 67,000 pages of tax code and an entire industry devoted to tax compliance and evasion, with the unintended behavioral change of corporations and the rich parking their money outside of the United States in small island nations to avoid taxation. These offshore accounts are estimated to hold $10 trillion dollars, a number approximate to the national debt. The FairTax Act should be enacted because it eliminates all federal income taxes for individuals and corporations, eliminates all federal payroll withholding taxes, abolishes estate and capital gains taxes and repeals the 16th Amendment; thus eliminating the need for offshore accounts.
The topic that I am choosing to do is on Obama Care. I chose this topic because the idea of the government forcing people to obtain insurance is wrong in my eyes. I am interested in analyzing the validity for what has been said about this topic in order to increase my understanding about Obama Care. I am not an expert when it comes to Obama Care. I know that this is an insurance that is being provided through the government for the general public. I have read that President Obama never initially read the whole bill itself. I also know that people who cannot afford it, but make too much money to qualify for Medicaid are being heavily encouraged to get this insurance. Some of the common knowledge that I have found that the general public has about this subject is that some people are for Obama Care and think that it is a wonderful idea and that there are some people that are dead set against Obama Care. Younger adults, specifically college age and individuals that are in their twenties tend to be for Obama Care. The insurance is being forced upon individuals that may or may not want it. It also seems as though that the insurance being offered is pretty generic in terms of coverage. Some of the questions that I have that I believe will aide me in writing this paper would be the following: What are the pros and cons of Obama Care? What are the thoughts of Obama Care with the people of the government? As well as what are the basics of Obama Care?
The largest component of the bill was the $288 billion allocated to tax cuts. Businesses as w...
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, nearly forty-seven percent of all businesses employ fewer than ten employees. Small business is a vitally imperative to our nation’s well-being. Small business is responsible for creating the majority of our new jobs, employing nearly half of the American’s private workforce, and providing half of our country’s private non-farm gross domestic product (SBA 2009). Regardless of your politics, since President Barack Obama took office in 2008, an immense degree of emphasis has been placed on small business. Some of the emphasis has been positive while other parts have been negative.
Businesses will have more money, and any smart business will aim to increase their profits. The best way to do this, is to expand the business which gives them the need to higher more employees, ultimately creating more jobs. This lowers the unemployment rate, all those people who were not working, and not paying taxes are now working and paying taxes, which will be a
The symbiotic relationship between the US economy and American business is very contingent. Although different American businesses contribute to our nation’s economic growth, our economy relies heavily on the flexibility of American businesses for economic growth and the creation of more job opportunities. The economic external factors can have a major impact on businesses by affecting the patterns of supply and demand within a business. Some benefits of economic growth include greater certainty in markets, demand increasing, and the size of markets increasing. As the US economy flourishes, demand increases so that more businesses have the ability to get hire more employees. Therefore creating more supply produced. By prospering in economic
There are over 28 million small locally owned businesses in the United States and 70 % of these businesses are owned and operated by a single person. Owning a small business is not an easy task it takes hard work and dedication, Steve Jobs once said “you need a lot of passion for what you’re doing because it’s so hard”, people don’t realize
Ex. If we lower income tax rates in the U.S. next year, will the economy grow faster? If so, by how much? What effect will it have on total employment?
In the United States, small businesses play a vital role in building the economy. Today, there are over 28 million small businesses in America. What exactly is considered to be a small business? Initially, the Small Business Administration (SBA) deemed any manufacturer with 250 employees or less to be a small business, but today it considers companies with fewer than 500 employees to be small. Today’s marketplace is an excellent opportunity for the budding entrepreneur. Today’s small business owner has a wealth of opportunities to help him/her gain economic success in today’s marketplace. (SBA)
Small businesses have a clear relationship with the economy in general, and if we take an example like the U.S. where over 86% of businesses ...