Re: 2012 Presidential Election Part II -- Charlotte, a National Treasure or sede vaca
Yes because the GOP is not banking on the same stupidity. This is the party that claims Paul Ryan is a deficit hawk and fiscally responsible (not to mention Mr. Honesty) even though he voted for all of the Bush spending actions and no ways to pay for it. (oh and he lies every time he opens his mouth, which is the GOP mantra these days 'We dont need no stinkin fact checkers!!)
Just keep telling yourself though one party is better...I am sure deep in your heart it is really true
I think you're fooling yourself into your complaints about "paying for it", because it is not a SHORT TERM way to pay for it. The budget deficits between FY 2002 and FY 2007 were approximately the same in nominal terms. If you would like to consider inflation, then the real deficit in 2007 was less than 2002.
There are two ways to attempt to increase revenue, both short term and long term. The short term is your suggestion in raising taxes regardless of present situation. Sure, the nominal amount for each individual and business goes up, but there's no guarantee that that number will remain high the next year. How is that possible? Well, for individuals, they could re-neg the source of income gain and turn to cash. The easiest way to see this is dividends and capital gains; all they have to do is sell and hang onto the cash.
The long term is adjusting tax rates to the vertex of the Laffer parabola. If you go in the correct direction, you will gain more in aggregate tax money because either more people are willing to get in with a lower rate that they'd have to pay, or you truly are gaining more in revenue by going the other direction. If your present point on the parabola is to the left of the vertex (assuming tax rate increases along the x-axis), then yes, raising taxes would be a smart thing. I don't think we're there, though, which is why you see fiscal conservatives (GOP and Libertarian) calling for decreases in tax rates. If you play around with property tax rates on Sim City, it's the same thing. Sure, it's a video game, but a pretty decent representation of a person's reaction to tax rates.
There is something that does need to be changed if we want to grow the economy, though, but it isn't something that a President can directly control, nor can he indirectly control until 2014.
