Obama XVII: Do You Take Your Tea Party with One Sugar or Two?

[Patman]

Re: Obama XVII: Do You Take Your Tea Party with One Sugar or Two?

Cause those Bush Tax Cuts have been a great boon for the economy, the job market, the opening of new markets, the rebuilding of America's infrastructure, etc. etc. etc.

And don't forget deficit reduction. Tax Cuts cut the deficit.

Well, we could argue that tax cuts do have a multiplier effect which tends to aid government pockets... but that's mostly due to the velocity of money and people spending it more efficiently than the government.

But in general, since the Obama administration just landed 600 Billion worth of inflation on our heads we ought to try to pay that off first so we don't have to have nearly as high inflation as we'd otherwise observe.

 

[LynahFan]

Re: Obama XVII: Do You Take Your Tea Party with One Sugar or Two?

Nobody is talking about getting tax cuts right now. Its simply extending the current tax rates. I would argue that nobody should have their taxes raised right now.

Tax cuts, shmax cuts. Extension, shmextension. Potato, Potahto.

Bottom line: deficit projections looking forward have been done based on the assumption that tax rates were going up next year. If they don't go up as scheduled, the deficit will be worse than has been projected.

 

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: Obama XVII: Do You Take Your Tea Party with One Sugar or Two?

Well, we could argue that tax cuts do have a multiplier effect which tends to aid government pockets... but that's mostly due to the velocity of money and people spending it more efficiently than the government.

But in general, since the Obama administration just landed 600 Billion worth of inflation on our heads we ought to try to pay that off first so we don't have to have nearly as high inflation as we'd otherwise observe.

During the height of the Bush Tax cuts the economy was running entirely on money borrrowed from real estate. The Bush Tax cuts weren't driving anything. Thus they failed at the two things they were supposed to do, drive the economy, and lower the deficit.

 

[LynahFan]

Re: Obama XVII: Do You Take Your Tea Party with One Sugar or Two?

During the height of the Bush Tax cuts the economy was running entirely on money borrrowed from real estate. The Bush Tax cuts weren't driving anything. Thus they failed at the two things they were supposed to do, drive the economy, and lower the deficit.

Hear, hear.

 

[walrus]

Re: Obama XVII: Do You Take Your Tea Party with One Sugar or Two?

The more things change the more they stay the same.

You really weren't expecting anything else, were you? He only cares about getting reelected. Spineless comes to mind

 

[MinnFan]

Re: Obama XVII: Do You Take Your Tea Party with One Sugar or Two?

Tax cuts, shmax cuts. Extension, shmextension. Potato, Potahto.

Bottom line: deficit projections looking forward have been done based on the assumption that tax rates were going up next year. If they don't go up as scheduled, the deficit will be worse than has been projected.

I'm more concerned about the next 10 years. Revenue into the gov't historically is 19% of GDP regardless of tax rates. The only way that the gov't gets more money is for the economy to grow. The more you tax people the less they have to put into the economy. Ifyou tax the people who are able to invest and increase productivity you are going to hamber economic growth even further.

 

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: Obama XVII: Do You Take Your Tea Party with One Sugar or Two?

I'm more concerned about the next 10 years. Revenue into the gov't historically is 19% of GDP regardless of tax rates. The only way that the gov't gets more money is for the economy to grow. The more you tax people the less they have to put into the economy. Ifyou tax the people who are able to invest and increase productivity you are going to hamber economic growth even further.

Well, then we're ****ed cause those folks have had more money than they had in the '90's for 8 straight years and the economy sunk to the lowest ever (exception being the Great Depression) and is having the slowest of recoveries.

You better come up with some other economy driver cause your tax cut mantra is a FLAT OUT FAILURE.

 

[Foxton]

Re: Obama XVII: Do You Take Your Tea Party with One Sugar or Two?

Well, then we're ****ed cause those folks have had more money than they had in the '90's for 8 straight years and the economy sunk to the lowest ever (exception being the Great Depression) and is having the slowest of recoveries.

You better come up with some other economy driver cause your tax cut mantra is a FLAT OUT FAILURE.

Hold on, I think I have an image for this...

 

[MinnFan]

Re: Obama XVII: Do You Take Your Tea Party with One Sugar or Two?

Well, then we're ****ed cause those folks have had more money than they had in the '90's for 8 straight years and the economy sunk to the lowest ever (exception being the Great Depression) and is having the slowest of recoveries.

You better come up with some other economy driver cause your tax cut mantra is a FLAT OUT FAILURE.

So you're saying if we had higher taxes somehow we would be in better shape today? If we had higher taxes the gov't would have changed it policies and we wouldn't have the housing bubble? If we had higher taxes we wouldn't have out of control entitlement spending?

Tax cuts didn't cause the deficit

 

[ScoobyDoo]

Re: Obama XVII: Do You Take Your Tea Party with One Sugar or Two?

So you're saying if we had higher taxes somehow we would be in better shape today? If we had higher taxes the gov't would have changed it policies and we wouldn't have the housing bubble? If we had higher taxes we wouldn't have out of control entitlement spending?

Tax cuts didn't cause the deficit

No, what I'm saying is the two things those tax cuts were supposed to do they didn't. They're failures.

You need to come up with something new.

And that article does not address what I'm talking about. Try again.

 

[Kepler]

Re: Obama XVII: Do You Take Your Tea Party with One Sugar or Two?

The more you tax people the less they have to put into the economy. Ifyou tax the people who are able to invest and increase productivity you are going to hamber economic growth even further.

Completely depends what you're spending that money on. Let's take the reductio ad absurdum -- zero taxes. No free schools, no opportunities of any kind unless you already have money, no social mobility, immense wasted human capital, the downward spiral of any country with a high Gini (and ours has grown since the late seventies until we're right back to the wealth stratification of the 1920's).

There's certainly wasted spending -- pretty much all entitlements above means-testing levels. But the money you spend to invest in valuable things private capital will not cover, like equal opportunity to allow the society to benefit from a true meritocracy rather than the accidents of inherited wealth, is far better spent from a societal point of view.

There's a balance point, as always, that simplistic ideological statements can't reach.

 

[sagard]

Re: Obama XVII: Do You Take Your Tea Party with One Sugar or Two?

From the top ten recommendations:

Cut 250,000 non-defense contractors: There are simply too many government contractors (2.4 million added between 2002 and 2005), according to Bowles and Simpson. Cutting 250,000 jobs would save an estimated $18.4 billion.

Those 250,000 are going to be po'd. Imagine losing your almost $750,000 per year contract given to you by your buddies, simply because the deficit is now being attacked by your buddies.

 

[St. Clown]

Re: Obama XVII: Do You Take Your Tea Party with One Sugar or Two?

Tax cuts, shmax cuts. Extension, shmextension. Potato, Potahto.

Bottom line: deficit projections looking forward have been done based on the assumption that tax rates were going up next year. If they don't go up as scheduled, the deficit will be worse than has been projected.

Those projections tend to be faulty. When cuts or raises to taxrates are proposed, the CBO (or whichever agency, I forget at the moment) makes predictions without taking into consideration how economic activity changes due to changes in rates. Truthfully, at a higher rate, I may do less things. What's gained to the Federal govt by increasing my income taxes will likely be 100% lost to the State of MN because I'm not spending. Increases to the public coffers are offset by economic activity, which in turn offsets receipts either to other levels of govt or to that same level, dependent upon who's levying the tax. And the thing is that that nobody can know with absolute certainty what the change in behavior will be. We know that individuals will decrease either their consumption or investment/savings when they have less disposable income, but we don't know the magnitude. And again, how will that get offset by reduced tax collections elsewhere?

 

[unofan]

Re: Obama XVII: Do You Take Your Tea Party with One Sugar or Two?

Tax cuts didn't cause the deficit

They may not be the cause, but they don't help it, either.

This isn't exactly hard. The deficit is the difference between revenue and spending. Lower taxes means less revenue.

Lowering taxes while fighting 2 mid-scale wars is just asinine. Neither one "caused" the deficit by themselves, but you can incrimintalize all spending away in that manner. As the saying goes, a billion here, a billion there, pretty soon we're talking real money.

 

[pirate]

Re: Obama XVII: Do You Take Your Tea Party with One Sugar or Two?

It is impossible for the elimination of tax cuts to impact the economy unfavorably. Those who would get them would only hoard the money, piling it in the room with the other money they roll around in every night. None of them are working professionals, small business owners, families with children etc. They are only tweed wearing trust funders who, when they long for autumn, have the servants spread $100 bills on the lawn and pretend they are leaves. Only to rake them up and count them lest any of them blow into someone else's yard.

Since they would not take 100% of the money and spend it, the money should be given to the government because the government will spend 100% of it....heck, they'll spend 110% of it...that would be more now, wouldn't it??

 

[Kepler]

Re: Obama XVII: Do You Take Your Tea Party with One Sugar or Two?

Cut 250,000 non-defense contractors: There are simply too many government contractors (2.4 million added between 2002 and 2005), according to Bowles and Simpson. Cutting 250,000 jobs would save an estimated $18.4 billion.

As with any cut, this is really easy to say until we see what services will be affected. The trouble with those evil non-defense contractors is they tend to be working on things people like, like health, schools, infrastructure, public safety, etc.

That's not to say it isn't a good idea, but it's easily exploitable as a talking point when not backed up by consequences.

Interesting too that it specifically exempts defense contractors. If we're cutting, let's cut. If the wars mean we can't cut defense, end the wars.

 

[Kepler]

Re: Obama XVII: Do You Take Your Tea Party with One Sugar or Two?

Those projections tend to be faulty. When cuts or raises to taxrates are proposed, the CBO (or whichever agency, I forget at the moment) makes predictions without taking into consideration how economic activity changes due to changes in rates.

The part in bold is actually incorrect. CBO and OMB projections take everything you can think of into account, including how the economy reacts to policy changes. Projections aren't "faulty" any more than weather predictions are -- they imply dispersion around a central tendency, like any prediction.

OMB projections can be biased in favor of the president's policy preferences -- OMB is a political animal, and certain administrations have tended to play loose with the truth (cough Dubya /cough). CBO projections don't have a systemic political bias (though obviously there could be patterns of over- or under-estimation if the models are wrong) -- the CBO is actually fiercely independent and the career economists who do the actual work within the CBO regard the politicals as Down's kids playing with dynamite. There have been notable cases of both Dem and Republican presidents, SMLs and Speakers trying to put a thumb on the CBO scale, and the CBO politely telling them to go soak their head. Unfortunately OMB doesn't have that kind of institutional and historical independence. They're trustworthy at day-to-day stuff; Big Picture... it's a crapshoot combination of how craven the D/OMB is and how mendacious the administration is.

An essential fact of how the government actually works that eludes people outside the Beltway is that the party differences are virtually zero at the level at which work is actually done -- the people who actually change the oil have seen enough of both parties to realize party platforms and "principles" are a dash of delusion in a broth of self-interest. The public figures who proudly wear the D and R on their shirts are preening beauty queens riding down 5th Avenue on a parade float thinking they're running the city. The police and firemen and sanitation guys let them think that, because it keeps the celebutantes from throwing a fit and embarrassing themselves.

 

[WeWantMore]

Re: Obama XVII: Do You Take Your Tea Party with One Sugar or Two?

Hey look, Michael Steele said something stupid.

But last week, in a radio interview with Rev. Al Sharpton, Steele ratcheted up the rhetoric, appearing to agree with Sharpton that if he is not reelected as RNC chairman, it will be because the GOP is racist, making “the brother take the fall.”

First of all, Al Sharpton? You really want him in your corner Mike? Second of all, it has nothing to do with race, it has to do with you being a buffoon.

 

[Kepler]

Re: Obama XVII: Do You Take Your Tea Party with One Sugar or Two?

Second of all, it has nothing to do with race, it has to do with you being a buffoon.

I am looking forward to a new reality show with Steele and Terry McAuliffe. Each week they will compete in events like opening a door (declared a tie after 3 hours -- the trick was it opened inwards).

 

[ScottM]

Re: Obama XVII: Do You Take Your Tea Party with One Sugar or Two?

Hey look, Michael Steele said something stupid.



First of all, Al Sharpton? You really want him in your corner Mike? Second of all, it has nothing to do with race, it has to do with you being a buffoon.

Perhaps they can finally collaborate on that new rap album. And Steele is as much a buffoon as Sharpton.