President Obama announces that an eleventh-hour debt deal has been reached

^^

What kind of revenue will that raise?

 

$100 billion a year, best case scenario.

 

Which represents about 20% of the structural deficit (est. at $500B once the economy recovers) and is would be a larger reduction in the deficit than any of the proposed changes to Medicare, SS, or defense individually. As Dems have said in the past, they would like a 3:1 ratio of spending cuts to tax increases, so this would suggest $300B of spending cuts or so.

 

The Dems may say they're willing to give a 3:1 ratio of spending cuts, but once the tax rates are raised, you can never rely on the fiscal restraint of a future Congress to actually follow through on that. The only way it makes sense is for a 3:1 ratio of structural entitlement reform (which would be harder to undo than vaguely promised spending cuts) to to tax increases.

Oh, and from the article you posted above, I think Obama has no credibility in saying "I won't budge" after the whole "don't call my bluff" thing last year.

 

Agree with the top point, but as far as the bottom, he has nothing to lose and literally has all of the leverage. No reason to doubt he wont follow through.

 

Best case. Key statement.

Closing corporate tax loop holes I'm sure would generate much more significant revenue than that messily figure.

Somehow GE generating profits of $14.2 billion but getting a $3.2 billion refund leads me to believe raising personal income taxes levels on 250k+ income earners aint gonna get it done. I bolded my favorite line:

Would love Obama, the champion of the people, to you know....maybe do something about that?

 

You could say the same about taxes - there's no guarantee Congress doesn't lower taxes in the future either. That's life in a Democracy.

Which bluff are you referring to? When he said it to Cantor last year, he was telling Cantor that he wouldn't accept a short-term solution. He didn't cave on that - he got the debt ceiling increase he wanted.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/13/obama-debt-ceiling-meeting_n_897834.html

At issue was Cantor's repeated push to do a short-term resolution and Obama's insistence that he would not accept one.

"Eric, don't call my bluff. I'm going to the American people on this," the president said, according to both Cantor and another attendee.

 

How much would it generate?

 

Well, from the same article:

Everyone talks & references America's heyday as the 50's & 60's...

Don't know where to look up federal revenue sources from 2009, but if you know where to find that, multiply it by say 4 times [just to be generous] and maybe we have an answer.

I'm simply not of the belief that corporations are people too, friend. [if they were, govt would be talking about raising their taxes too]

 

This makes two completely unfounded assertions:

1. That a % of federal revenue is the same as total revenues. Corporate taxes could have gone down as a share of revenue because other revenues went up instead of or corporate revenues going down.

2. It assumes that all of that drop is from loopholes, which is a fairly silly assertion. It could be simply that rates have changed, or that more corporate income is being earned overseas due to globalization.

 

2010 data:
3.5 trillion in spending
1.3 trillion in deficit
=
2.2 trillion in revenue

So, rough math, if we 8.9% of 2.2 tril in revenue is 195 billion
If we had a corporate tax code from 1950s where we had 30%, let's multiply the 195 billion X 3.3 and we'd get revenue of approx 650 bil, raising an additional 450bil?

I'm going with $450 billion.

 

Well sure they are fairly silly but you know what's not being discussed at all? Corporate tax breaks, rates & loop holes. That's silly. The question you asked isn't published information and is impossible to know for sure.