The random political thoughts thread (Part Deux)

[innerSpaceman]

Ok, I'm confused. The tax decrease had an expiration date. One which Congress decided to change, but it still had an expiration date when it was passed. Are you now saying, scaeagles, that it's an exception to your 3-posts-earlier statement that an expiration date included with the initial tax change was the deciding factor for you?

Huh?

[Ghoulish Delight]

Originally Posted by innerSpaceman

Ok, I'm confused. The tax decrease had an expiration date. One which Congress decided to change, but it still had an expiration date when it was passed. Are you now saying, scaeagles, that it's an exception to your 3-posts-earlier statement that an expiration date included with the initial tax change was the deciding factor for you?

Huh?

I know this wasn't addressed to me, but obviously Leo and I are arguing similar things (hell, frozen)

Originally Posted by Ghoulish Delight

...if there's a built in expiration date and it's a matter of renewing it or not, then no, I would not necessarily label it a tax raise.

Sweet, left myself an out!

This one's borderline for me and does get into the area where duration and expectation of permanence (or structural permanence, in the case where letting them expire is politically undoable and thus any expiration date's approach is purely perfunctory, waiting for the inevitable extension) begin to matter. Since we're talking semantics and splitting of verbal hairs, there's bound to be some gray hairs.

Really, the only way it even matters whether it's called a "tax increase" or not is in the fantasy world the Republicans like to try to create where "tax increase" is automatically a bad thing. So I couldn't really care less whether it's technically a tax increase or not.

[scaeagles]

Originally Posted by innerSpaceman

Ok, I'm confused. The tax decrease had an expiration date. One which Congress decided to change, but it still had an expiration date when it was passed. Are you now saying, scaeagles, that it's an exception to your 3-posts-earlier statement that an expiration date included with the initial tax change was the deciding factor for you?

Huh?

I think it is a semantic issue.

The only reason I would regard it as a tax increase is because it is an actual increase in the tax rate. In my attempt to answer what Alex asked, I tried to explain that while yes, it is a tax increase, I wouldn't regard it the same as a new tax. It would, and does, have a different....feel?...to it because it is the elimination of a temporary reduction. I can't blame the existing congress or Obama should it expire - I can only blame those that originally passed and signed it to be temporary.

It is completely different than , say, creating a VAT or increasing the gas tax or raising rates beyond what they were in 2001.

Hope that clears up my reasoning a bit.