Quote:
Originally Posted by retmil46
I was referring to the way both political parties can "cherry-pick" the same set of data, and/or present it in a way that supports their own agenda. That's why you have one side saying the economy is great, the other side saying it sucks, and both quoting data from the same source to support their argument.
It was like the debate a few years back concerning upper end tax cuts. One side argued that the upper income brackets paid in far more in actual dollar amounts than the bottom 80 or 90 percent combined (true), and therefore was carrying an unfair burden and deserved tax relief. The other side argued that once you factored in tax shelters, the federal tax rate, etc, that as far as a percentage of their income the upper brackets were actually paying less percentage-wise than the bottom 80 to 90 percent (also true), and therefore didn't deserve squat.
|
The cherry picking is easily remedied by looking at the actual reports from the agencies responsible for the reports, GAO, SEC, Treasury, etc... All those sources have been supporting the positive direction of the economy for several years now.
With regard to taxes, isn't the goal to collect the greatest tax revenue? In which case we seem to have found a way to do that and give a tax break to middle and upper class citizens - the folks who actually do pay taxes. Sounds win/win to me. Where's the problem in that?