Usually I only get a little bit of new music each year, and usually the "new" music I get actually was released a few years ago. But this year was a big exception; I found a lot of truly new music that I really liked. So here are my top 10 songs of the year (and yes, by "best" i just mean best at being what I personally like). The rules I used are: only one song per artist, must have been on a 2012 album, and due to bias I can't list my own music :). Going from 10th favorite to most favorite:
10. St. Vincent - Grot
The background vocals throughout this song are what make it so great to me. This is really heavy without being "metal". The lyrics are cheesy but for some reason are better that way. It's a song you imagine playing while making a sacrifice to Satan - but with a smile on your face.
9. Death Grips - Lil Boy
The only hip-hop song on my list. I like when musicians get outside their comfort zone, and the drummer for this group was one I already liked from math/noise rock bands Hella and El Grupo Nuevo, so it's really cool to hear him making something completely different. But the main reason I really like them is the rapper - the tone of his voice sounds angry and insane... in a good way.
8. Regina Spektor - Small Town Moon
I still prefer her earlier music, but Regina is one of my favorite singers ever. English is her 2nd language (she moved to NY from the Soviet Union when she was really young), and I think that's part of the trick of what makes her so unique. She's American enough to be as comfortable with our language as anyone else, but because she learned English differently than everyone else, she thinks about word usage, accents, etc. differently. There's so much subtle detail and quirkiness in what she does with her voice that is so addictive to me. Case in point: "But everyday begee-IEIns the saAaAaAaAaAaAaAame."
7. Exitmusic - The Night
I'm really bad at understanding what music people will like. This song is from this band's debut album, and I would have guessed they'd get way more popular over the year (their official music video for this song doesn't even have 40k views?). It's a fairly basic and catchy song but with really great textures in the sounds.
6. Animal Collective - Honeycomb
Animal Collective is at their best when they sound like a group of eccentric, off-balanced, drugged out geniuses trying to make the music for a weird children's show. Kind of like the equivalent of Dr. Seuss for music.
5. Cloudkicker - LA After Rain
I want to be him. I bought a guitar pedal because it's one that he uses. I bought Superior Drummer to manually program drum beats because it's what he uses. Like me, he's a bedroom musician - he just makes music on his home computer and puts it online for free. He doesn't ever play shows, and he's not trying to do this as anything more than a hobby. Except unlike pretty much any other musician like that, he's making some of the best instrumental music out there. The guitar tone in this whole album is just perfect, and the last 2 minutes of this song always gives me goosebumps. For some reason, this album is especially good to listen to while driving.
4. Drop Electric - Empire Trashed
The way this song evolves from something very minimal to something very explosive is pretty much everything that is best about post-rock in 5 minutes. And I'm particularly excited about this band because this is just from a self-released 4-track "sampler platter". They've now been signed to a record label, and I can't wait to hear what they do next.
3. The Mars Volta - In Absentia
Through college my taste in music got really really narrow - I was mostly only listening to 5 bands. Then I listened to The Mars Volta's first album, and it pretty much changed and expanded my musical tastes ever since. Their album this year wasn't my favorite from them, but I really liked how it surprised me. Over the years I have listened to them so much, that even though they try to experiment a lot and change their sound, I felt like I had them "figured out". But this album was not at all what I was expecting; I really like how the guitars have become such a minor role in this album.
2. Kishi Bashi - Bright Whites
I said this earlier about Exitmusic, but it REALLY applies to Kishi Bashi - I don't know how he didn't take over the world this year. I just don't understand how anyone could not like this song. When I first heard it, I figured it'd be something that would be stuck in my head for a bit but get boring fairly quickly. But instead, the more I listen to it, the deeper it digs into my brain. And it's maybe the happiest sounding song ever.
1. Sigur Ros - Ekki Mukk
I have a theory that there are 3 types of people:
1. People who are obsessed with Sigur Ros.
2. People who haven't listened to them enough to develop that obsession.
3. People who have no soul.
As someone who makes music, I often can't help but mentally dissect any music I hear into its separate parts and think about each piece in some critical manner. But that just doesn't happen with so much of Sigur Ros's music - it's like they just make one big piece of organic something that just fits perfectly together and you don't even think about HOW they did it. And it doesn't sound like something that could be made by human beings. Nobody else could make a song that is this long and this slow that seems to take up just an instant of time.
And I also hear shades of Sigur Ros in many of my other favorite songs of the year. It's in the big guitar sounds at the end of Exitmusic's song. It's in the vocals and build-up/release of energy in Drop Electric. It's in some of the ebow usage from Cloudkicker (not in the particular song above though). And Kishi Bashi's album has a very similar feeling to Jonsi's solo album Go.
Anyway, if you think you have a soul but aren't obsessed with Sigur Ros, go spend some time listening to them.
Saturday, December 15, 2012
Wednesday, December 12, 2012
Biggest Flaw in the Democratic Party?
This is a problem that I often wonder about, but I don't know what the right answer to it is...
A big (main?) principle of the Democratic Party is to tax the rich to provide more help to the poor in our country, mostly for 2 reasons:
1. Utilitarianism: the poor can benefit more from an extra dollar than someone who is already rich. So it is viewed as an overall good thing to set up society such that the rich may not be able to afford as many vacations, but in return more people are able to have access to health care and education.
2. Fairness: your success in life isn't just a matter of hard work. Those who are born into wealthy families are much more likely to become wealthy themselves: access to better education, a safer environment to grow up in, less stress and therefore easier to do well in school, family connections in business, etc. So redistributing some degree of wealth is seen as making up for natural unfairness.
Obviously, Democrats would laugh at a proposed policy to raise taxes on those making over $250k just to give more to people who make $100k-250k. If the goal is to reduce the suffering of poverty and ease the worst cases of unfairness, obviously we should focus on those who actually need the most help.
With that in mind, how do the poor in America compare to third world countries? On a global scale, wanting to tax the upper classes of America to give more to the lower classes of America is a lot like the ridiculous case of welfare for people making $100k. From the utilitarian perspective, helping end malaria in third world countries does more good-per-dollar-spent than making sure every American has comprehensive health insurance. And when it comes to fairness: someone born in a poor part of America can complain that they didn't get a fair shot at success, but not compared to someone born in the Congo.
Democrats often accuse Republicans of failing to have a global perspective. But if your political philosophy is largely based around alleviating poverty/inequality, and your solution is to focus on increasing the social safety net of one of the richest countries in the world.... what would you call that?
A big (main?) principle of the Democratic Party is to tax the rich to provide more help to the poor in our country, mostly for 2 reasons:
1. Utilitarianism: the poor can benefit more from an extra dollar than someone who is already rich. So it is viewed as an overall good thing to set up society such that the rich may not be able to afford as many vacations, but in return more people are able to have access to health care and education.
2. Fairness: your success in life isn't just a matter of hard work. Those who are born into wealthy families are much more likely to become wealthy themselves: access to better education, a safer environment to grow up in, less stress and therefore easier to do well in school, family connections in business, etc. So redistributing some degree of wealth is seen as making up for natural unfairness.
Obviously, Democrats would laugh at a proposed policy to raise taxes on those making over $250k just to give more to people who make $100k-250k. If the goal is to reduce the suffering of poverty and ease the worst cases of unfairness, obviously we should focus on those who actually need the most help.
With that in mind, how do the poor in America compare to third world countries? On a global scale, wanting to tax the upper classes of America to give more to the lower classes of America is a lot like the ridiculous case of welfare for people making $100k. From the utilitarian perspective, helping end malaria in third world countries does more good-per-dollar-spent than making sure every American has comprehensive health insurance. And when it comes to fairness: someone born in a poor part of America can complain that they didn't get a fair shot at success, but not compared to someone born in the Congo.
Democrats often accuse Republicans of failing to have a global perspective. But if your political philosophy is largely based around alleviating poverty/inequality, and your solution is to focus on increasing the social safety net of one of the richest countries in the world.... what would you call that?
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
How The GOP Could Win My Vote
After the election, one of the popular topics is what the GOP needs to do to gain more voters. Within the Republican party, here's some of the opinions from George Will, Charles Krauthammer, and David Frum. Probably the most common idea is a more open immigration policy to win more of the Hispanic vote (even Hannity has said he's now "evolving" on that issue).
Our political parties are always changing in some ways. The one-dimensional scale of "left vs. right" is a huge over-simplification of reality, so there are plenty of options for policy changes without switching sides on that spectrum. So, as a current Democratic voter, here are policies the GOP could adopt that can remain consistent with conservative philosophy and probably win my vote:
1. Market monetarism. In my mind, the weak economy is clearly a case of low demand, and the fact that inflation remained low after our monetary and fiscal stimulus should count as proof of that. Unfortunately, most Republicans don't seem to agree that's the problem. Democrats do, and they mostly support Keynesian fiscal policies as the cure. But market monetarism is another potential cure for the same problem. It seems to be gaining a lot of support lately among economists and wonks, but not really any politicians yet. I don't know if market monetarist policies will work, but I'd be willing to vote for finding out.
2. Carbon taxes. Climate change is another area where I wish our political parties could agree on the same problem and move on to arguing solutions. Climatologists virtually all agree that global warming is real and that humans are involved. The conservative approach to this problem, which I think would be best, is carbon taxes. Basically, come to some agreement on the long-term costs to the environment from burning fossil fuels, and add a consumption tax of that amount to them. Then the free market would have the right financial incentives to pursue a path toward cleaner and more efficient energy with the right balance. To stay true to conservative philosophy, the revenue gained from that tax could all be used to reduce our taxes on income. And with a broad approach like this, we could also end all the targeted government regulations in this area like energy requirements for cars or light bulbs.
3. Consumption taxes. Conservative states generally prefer consumption taxes over income taxes. And most economists agree that is more economically efficient. So it doesn't seem like much of a stretch for Republicans to support a national VAT of some level, and they could use all the revenue to lower taxes on income (though it wouldn't hurt to use some of it for deficit reduction either). On this and the above issue though, I would want something to be done to avoid it becoming too regressive though.
4. Build on, rather than end, Obamacare. Originally, conservatives fought against Medicare, but eventually gave up. Similarly, I want Republicans to give up repealing Obamacare and instead move forward and improve it. If the private insurance exchanges+mandates+subsidies end up working well (which it already does in Switzerland, Massachusetts, etc.), then we can end the employer tax incentives for providing insurance to workers and use that for individuals themselves. Republicans don't want obstacles for starting or growing a business; and that's what our current system is. Other conservative ideas I may be able to support would be reducing the requirements of what insurance must cover and making the insurance exchanges an alternative option for Medicare.
5. Open borders. The essence of a free market is that if a person wants to hire another person for a job, at a wage agreed to by both sides, to provide something that customers want to pay for, they can do so. Strict immigration laws are nothing more than "big government" intruding in the free market with arbitrary rules. It's not at all consistent with conservative economic values.
6. Marriage equality. The fact that prohibiting gay marriage creates real harm on real people should be enough to support marriage equality. But if not... homosexuality will exist whether or not gay marriage is legal. So from a socially conservative viewpoint, even if you personally disapprove of homosexuality, you can support legal gay marriage as an institutional encouragement of monogamy over promiscuity. Besides, this is coming anyway, and the GOP will have to join the future on this issue at some point. Might as well do it now. Another alternative is to just get the government out of marriage entirely and only recognize "civil unions" as a legal issue, regardless of whether the couple is gay or straight.
7. Marijuana legalization. Nobody seriously thinks the Prohibition was good policy. It attacked people's freedoms, made criminals out of ordinary people, and empowered criminal organizations. How is our war on drugs any different? This is another change that seems to be coming sooner than we previously would have guessed. And Obama is still against it. So this is an opportunity for the GOP to lead on an issue that will embarrass us in the future when we look back on it. Plus, it's consistent with the conservative philosophy of getting the government out of people's lives. And let's face it; you'll win a lot of the youth vote. This doesn't have to mean encouragement of drug use; we could put a hefty tax on it, and use the revenue to reduce taxes on work.
I could go on with things like patent reform, filibuster reform, chilling out on military spending, etc.
Our political parties are always changing in some ways. The one-dimensional scale of "left vs. right" is a huge over-simplification of reality, so there are plenty of options for policy changes without switching sides on that spectrum. So, as a current Democratic voter, here are policies the GOP could adopt that can remain consistent with conservative philosophy and probably win my vote:
1. Market monetarism. In my mind, the weak economy is clearly a case of low demand, and the fact that inflation remained low after our monetary and fiscal stimulus should count as proof of that. Unfortunately, most Republicans don't seem to agree that's the problem. Democrats do, and they mostly support Keynesian fiscal policies as the cure. But market monetarism is another potential cure for the same problem. It seems to be gaining a lot of support lately among economists and wonks, but not really any politicians yet. I don't know if market monetarist policies will work, but I'd be willing to vote for finding out.
2. Carbon taxes. Climate change is another area where I wish our political parties could agree on the same problem and move on to arguing solutions. Climatologists virtually all agree that global warming is real and that humans are involved. The conservative approach to this problem, which I think would be best, is carbon taxes. Basically, come to some agreement on the long-term costs to the environment from burning fossil fuels, and add a consumption tax of that amount to them. Then the free market would have the right financial incentives to pursue a path toward cleaner and more efficient energy with the right balance. To stay true to conservative philosophy, the revenue gained from that tax could all be used to reduce our taxes on income. And with a broad approach like this, we could also end all the targeted government regulations in this area like energy requirements for cars or light bulbs.
3. Consumption taxes. Conservative states generally prefer consumption taxes over income taxes. And most economists agree that is more economically efficient. So it doesn't seem like much of a stretch for Republicans to support a national VAT of some level, and they could use all the revenue to lower taxes on income (though it wouldn't hurt to use some of it for deficit reduction either). On this and the above issue though, I would want something to be done to avoid it becoming too regressive though.
4. Build on, rather than end, Obamacare. Originally, conservatives fought against Medicare, but eventually gave up. Similarly, I want Republicans to give up repealing Obamacare and instead move forward and improve it. If the private insurance exchanges+mandates+subsidies end up working well (which it already does in Switzerland, Massachusetts, etc.), then we can end the employer tax incentives for providing insurance to workers and use that for individuals themselves. Republicans don't want obstacles for starting or growing a business; and that's what our current system is. Other conservative ideas I may be able to support would be reducing the requirements of what insurance must cover and making the insurance exchanges an alternative option for Medicare.
5. Open borders. The essence of a free market is that if a person wants to hire another person for a job, at a wage agreed to by both sides, to provide something that customers want to pay for, they can do so. Strict immigration laws are nothing more than "big government" intruding in the free market with arbitrary rules. It's not at all consistent with conservative economic values.
6. Marriage equality. The fact that prohibiting gay marriage creates real harm on real people should be enough to support marriage equality. But if not... homosexuality will exist whether or not gay marriage is legal. So from a socially conservative viewpoint, even if you personally disapprove of homosexuality, you can support legal gay marriage as an institutional encouragement of monogamy over promiscuity. Besides, this is coming anyway, and the GOP will have to join the future on this issue at some point. Might as well do it now. Another alternative is to just get the government out of marriage entirely and only recognize "civil unions" as a legal issue, regardless of whether the couple is gay or straight.
7. Marijuana legalization. Nobody seriously thinks the Prohibition was good policy. It attacked people's freedoms, made criminals out of ordinary people, and empowered criminal organizations. How is our war on drugs any different? This is another change that seems to be coming sooner than we previously would have guessed. And Obama is still against it. So this is an opportunity for the GOP to lead on an issue that will embarrass us in the future when we look back on it. Plus, it's consistent with the conservative philosophy of getting the government out of people's lives. And let's face it; you'll win a lot of the youth vote. This doesn't have to mean encouragement of drug use; we could put a hefty tax on it, and use the revenue to reduce taxes on work.
I could go on with things like patent reform, filibuster reform, chilling out on military spending, etc.
Friday, November 2, 2012
The Jetsons and Politics
Possibly the biggest fundamental issue dividing people politically is the question of if and how much the government should redistribute the wealth that a free market creates/allocates. On one side, you hear many people claim that redistribution is just fundamentally wrong, and a pure free market will always work best overall. On the other side, you hear many people claim that there's a fundamental right to things like health insurance, retirement, a "living wage", etc. Neither side makes sense to me, and thinking about the world of the Jetsons (and its opposite) is a good way to explain why.
First, what are the pros and cons of different sides of the redistribution scale, regardless of where you think the optimal point is?
I think most people will agree on 2 main problems with doing too much redistribution. There's the moral problem where it just feels wrong to take too much money from those who have made it. And there's the economic problem, where it makes everyone poorer by reducing incentives to work and leaving less money for long-term investments in technology and such.
Similarly, there's 2 main reasons why people get uncomfortable with too little redistribution. Morally, we want to minimize human suffering, and some amount of redistribution does that. And economically, social safety nets can encourage risk-taking, and other services such as public education enables the potential of those who wouldn't be able to afford to do so otherwise.
Now imagine a future where technology has advanced to the point where we live like the Jetsons. Robots do everything for us that we could ever need or want. There would be no jobs other than making and maintaining those robots, and we'd only need maybe 1% of the population to do that. This would be a really weird society to be a hard-core conservative. With no redistribution, everyone would be at the mercy of the all-powerful 1% that makes/maintains the robots. It's pretty clear that in a situation like that, we might as well be mostly socialist and let everyone enjoy the things that we can easily afford to universally provide.
On the other hand, if you go far back in time, or if we have some sort of apocalyptic event that takes away all our technology, it'd be very different. If we have no real health care, what does it mean to say that health insurance is a human right? If we have hardly any technology, such that we all have to work extremely hard and struggle just to survive, it's not possible to ensure food/shelter/water for those who get too sick/disabled/old to work. And it wouldn't make sense to have unemployment insurance; you can easily find a job because there's so much that needs to be done. In that kind of society, it wouldn't make sense to be a liberal. For society to continue, we would need those who are able to produce the most to flourish. And any programs to take from the better-off to help the worse-off would be taking away money that may be spent on the technological progress that would end up benefiting everyone in the future.
Neither of those two extremes may ever happen to us. But thinking about the extremes makes it clear that there's not one right answer on redistribution that can apply to all possible scenarios. No matter where you are on the political spectrum, it makes sense for government redistribution to grow as (if?) our technology and economy grows.
Sunday, October 28, 2012
Presidents & The Economy
Perhaps the most common argument you hear in favor of electing Romney is the following:
A. Obama is president.
B. The economy is weak.
C. Therefore: A must be the cause of B. We need a Republican president.
But the underlying logic to that leads to some uncomfortable conclusions for Republicans. Here is a graph of job growth/loss per month during (and a bit before) Obama's presidency:
He became president, and quickly passed the stimulus, in February 2009. Soon afterward, we went from economic free-fall back toward recovery. One thing to notice from the graph is, whenever you hear claims about the total number of job losses under Obama, clearly that's the result of those first few months. And despite what many try to imply, the recession has been over for a while. I'm not trying to claim "everything is fine!" though. Job growth has been slow, especially when you consider how long it will take to bring back all those jobs that were lost, and it's important to have real debates as a country around identifying the causes and cures of this slow recovery.
However, if your economic argument right now is pretty much the one I summarized earlier, then what does that underlying logic really say about the job chart above? Do you prefer slow recoveries or severe recessions? And if you think economic growth during a presidency is a good way to know which policies are best, then there's a lot more history to look at besides just Obama and Bush...
Before Bush & Obama, here's the break-down of how the economy has done on average under Democratic and Republican presidents. In all categories, we've done significantly better with a Democratic president.
In fact, for as long as we started officially tracking recessions, we've entered a recession in the first term of every Republican president we've elected (link). If Romney is elected, let's hope he's the very first one to break that trend.
And if you also consider congress, we've had the strongest economic growth when Democrats have both the presidency and congress (link). You also see some of that from the job chart during Obama's presidency. The employment situation improved rapidly in the early months of Obama's presidency when there was a Democratic super-majority. You don't really see great results coming from the loss of that super-majority in 2010 or the Republicans gaining the House in 2011.
That being said, this doesn't necessarily prove anything; there are a lot of factors involved in how the economy does other than the president. I don't think Obama is to blame in any significant way for the slow recovery. And I don't think the Great Recession is Bush's fault just because it happened while he was president. But if you do hold the simple view of "economy bad, Obama president, therefore Obama bad", then the last thing that analysis of the economy should do is lead you to vote for a Republican president.
A. Obama is president.
B. The economy is weak.
C. Therefore: A must be the cause of B. We need a Republican president.
But the underlying logic to that leads to some uncomfortable conclusions for Republicans. Here is a graph of job growth/loss per month during (and a bit before) Obama's presidency:
He became president, and quickly passed the stimulus, in February 2009. Soon afterward, we went from economic free-fall back toward recovery. One thing to notice from the graph is, whenever you hear claims about the total number of job losses under Obama, clearly that's the result of those first few months. And despite what many try to imply, the recession has been over for a while. I'm not trying to claim "everything is fine!" though. Job growth has been slow, especially when you consider how long it will take to bring back all those jobs that were lost, and it's important to have real debates as a country around identifying the causes and cures of this slow recovery.
However, if your economic argument right now is pretty much the one I summarized earlier, then what does that underlying logic really say about the job chart above? Do you prefer slow recoveries or severe recessions? And if you think economic growth during a presidency is a good way to know which policies are best, then there's a lot more history to look at besides just Obama and Bush...
Before Bush & Obama, here's the break-down of how the economy has done on average under Democratic and Republican presidents. In all categories, we've done significantly better with a Democratic president.
In fact, for as long as we started officially tracking recessions, we've entered a recession in the first term of every Republican president we've elected (link). If Romney is elected, let's hope he's the very first one to break that trend.
And if you also consider congress, we've had the strongest economic growth when Democrats have both the presidency and congress (link). You also see some of that from the job chart during Obama's presidency. The employment situation improved rapidly in the early months of Obama's presidency when there was a Democratic super-majority. You don't really see great results coming from the loss of that super-majority in 2010 or the Republicans gaining the House in 2011.
That being said, this doesn't necessarily prove anything; there are a lot of factors involved in how the economy does other than the president. I don't think Obama is to blame in any significant way for the slow recovery. And I don't think the Great Recession is Bush's fault just because it happened while he was president. But if you do hold the simple view of "economy bad, Obama president, therefore Obama bad", then the last thing that analysis of the economy should do is lead you to vote for a Republican president.
Friday, August 3, 2012
GOP & Govt Health Care Programs
This is something I meant to blog about back when Facebook was blowing up about the Supreme Court ruling on the "Obamacare" health insurance mandate. Aside from the legal arguments about constitutionality, I just have no idea how to understand the GOP's stance on when the government can make us pay for health care coverage.
Here are some government programs where you have to pay for someone's health care:
- Medicare - for old people.
- Medicaid - for poor and disabled people.
- CHIP - for children.
- VA - for veterans.
- Employer tax subsidies - for most businesses.
- COBRA - for temporarily unemployed people.
- EMTALA - for emergency care.
- USMS - for prisoners.
- The "Obamacare" mandate - for yourself.
The Republican party right now wants to repeal the mandate, saying it's an unacceptable infringement on liberty. But I'm not hearing any calls to end other government programs that provide health insurance. The biggest government health care program is Medicare, and only a small minority of Republicans support even making cuts to it, much less ending it completely. Pre-Obamacare, we were already close to universal health care coverage. Obamacare (mostly) gets us the rest of the way, but only on top of existing government programs that Republicans support.
So... why are the vast majority of Republicans OK with all government programs that force you to pay for health care except Obamacare?
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
Obama: Cutting Taxes for the Rich
So Obama wants to let the "Bush tax cuts" expire on the rates above $250,000, and now there's all the discussion on whether it's good/bad to raise taxes on the rich, accusations of class warfare, etc. But that would actually be a tax cut for the rich...
The "Bush tax cuts" were temporary tax cuts set to expire in 2010. If they expired, you'd pay more taxes now, but it wouldn't be quite right to say "they raised my taxes". Remember when Bush also did a 1-year tax cut/refund in 2008 to help stimulate the economy? When you didn't get that same cut the next year, nobody said "Congress raised my taxes." There's no reason to differentiate that from the bigger "Bush tax cuts." It just feels different because 10 years is a long time.
Those tax cuts did not expire in 2010 like they were supposed to. That's because Obama passed a new law to keep them in place for 2 more years, which means Obama gave all of us a big tax cut.
Now it's set to expire again, and Obama wants to pass another law to keep them in place for all income under $250,000. Again, that in itself would be Obama cutting taxes since these temporary cuts were designed to end. Understood properly, not only is this a tax cut rather than a tax hike, but it is also a tax cut for everyone, including the rich. That's because our tax rates for different income brackets are marginal.
As a simple hypothetical example: pretend we have an income tax system of 10% on income up to $10,000 and 20% on everything over that. That doesn't mean that the moment you make $10,001, you now pay 20% on all your income. It means you pay 10% on the first $10,000 of your income, and 20% only applies to your last $1. Therefore, passing a law that cuts taxes on all income under $250,000 is cutting taxes for everyone who makes over that amount as well.
It's funny actually. With the tax policies proposed by each side, both the Democrats and Republicans are trying to cut taxes for everyone. They are only actually arguing about how big of a tax cut to give to the rich.
* mostly stolen and expanded from here.
The "Bush tax cuts" were temporary tax cuts set to expire in 2010. If they expired, you'd pay more taxes now, but it wouldn't be quite right to say "they raised my taxes". Remember when Bush also did a 1-year tax cut/refund in 2008 to help stimulate the economy? When you didn't get that same cut the next year, nobody said "Congress raised my taxes." There's no reason to differentiate that from the bigger "Bush tax cuts." It just feels different because 10 years is a long time.
Those tax cuts did not expire in 2010 like they were supposed to. That's because Obama passed a new law to keep them in place for 2 more years, which means Obama gave all of us a big tax cut.
Now it's set to expire again, and Obama wants to pass another law to keep them in place for all income under $250,000. Again, that in itself would be Obama cutting taxes since these temporary cuts were designed to end. Understood properly, not only is this a tax cut rather than a tax hike, but it is also a tax cut for everyone, including the rich. That's because our tax rates for different income brackets are marginal.
As a simple hypothetical example: pretend we have an income tax system of 10% on income up to $10,000 and 20% on everything over that. That doesn't mean that the moment you make $10,001, you now pay 20% on all your income. It means you pay 10% on the first $10,000 of your income, and 20% only applies to your last $1. Therefore, passing a law that cuts taxes on all income under $250,000 is cutting taxes for everyone who makes over that amount as well.
It's funny actually. With the tax policies proposed by each side, both the Democrats and Republicans are trying to cut taxes for everyone. They are only actually arguing about how big of a tax cut to give to the rich.
* mostly stolen and expanded from here.
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