In its 13 & 20 August issue (yes, this is the pseudo-European August break for the staff), Kelefa T Sanneh explains that it is really all about taxes. The writer first talks about the Roanoke speech:
Obama told the crowd about the importance of infrastructure and manufacturing, and he promised to help the middle class while reducing the deficit. He also indulged in some mockery of “wealthy, successful Americans” who overestimate their own abilities. “I’m always struck by people who think, Well, it must be because I was just so smart,” he said, smiling. “There are a lot of smart people out there.” Entrepreneurial success was a team effort, he argued...Then he mentions President Obama's response to the response of the Republicans.
...Obama hastened to explain that he hadn’t meant to call entrepreneurs undeserving of their success. In a follow-up video, he said, “Of course Americans build their own businesses”—pronouncing “Of course” in that slightly plaintive tone that politicians use when stating the obvious, as penance for having previously misstated it.And, the writer tells us, Governor Romney "concede that successful businesses don't exist in isolation.
But, the point of the article is that it is really all about taxes and the Bush Tax cuts. I did think the phrasing "Obama, seeking to repeal George W Bush's tax cuts for top earners..." was a little strange. It seems closer to the target to say that he wishes to only extend the tax cuts for those who are not top earners.
Maybe.
I would be for tax increases, Grover Norquist be damned, IF I thought that the money would go to pay down the debt, but I fear it would just encourage more spending. We have gotten used to living beyond our means and a tax increase would just extend the margin.
Regards — Cliff
7 comments:
Well...Obama et al are lying through their unflossed teeth. The so called middle class is about to get a very rude awakening to Presidential politics and get a taste of change that they can believe in....REALLY believe in.....just as soon as The Amateur "gets a little more flexibility." The middle class is about to get a tax bill that will strangle them......but it will all be the Republicans fault...well...specifically...Bush's fault....don't look for that blame object to go out of style anytime soon.
IF the bush tax cuts were repealed, the middle class would have it how bad?
Your breathyness, Neal, is telling. It tells me you are ignorant of reality.
This news comes from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, which just issued the latest update of its invaluable series on “Distribution of Household Income and Federal Taxes,” this time covering 2008 and 2009. The CBO’s statistical series now covers the 30 years since 1979.
The average rate paid by all households for all federal taxes combined — including income taxes, payroll taxes, excise taxes (on such things as gasoline, tobacco and alcoholic beverages) and individuals’ share of corporate income taxes — hit its highest rate during the period in 2000, just before President George W. Bush began signing the tax cuts that are scheduled to expire next year (unless Congress extends them again).
The all-household rate was 22.7 percent the year before Bush took office, then declined to 19.9 percent in 2007 (lower than in any year before he took office) and plunged again to 18 percent in the recession year of 2008. That was the lowest until the following year, Obama’s first, when it dropped again to 17.4 percent.
Much of the decline in 2008 and 2009 was due to the collapsing economy. The worst recession since the Great Depression of the 1930s began in December 2007. There were fewer corporate profits to tax, for one thing. And upper-level households, which pay the highest rates, also saw their incomes plunge along with the stock market and tumbling real-estate prices.
But some of the decline was also due to the tax cuts contained in Obama’s 2009 stimulus package, including a tax credit that benefited nearly all workers. Despite Republican criticisms, and Obama’s own campaign promise to raise taxes on upper-income households, the new president was a tax cutter in 2009.
But, please do go on, preaching the mindless orthodoxy. Hail Reagan!
And those Bush tax cuts were necessitated by what other darling of the Democratic party?? Wild Bill Clinton of course. And "Yes" hail Reagan....he cut the taxes and the economy soared. Gee...do you think there is a connection?? No...better to tax and spend our way to stratospheric heights, heights achieved as never before by The Amateur. Gee, I wonder if this may have anything to do with the massive entitlement growth under Obama...or the fact that the do nothing Democratic controlled Senate has not passed a budget in.....well over 1000 days. We don't need no stinkin budget....we'll just keep using the credit card. It gets more Democratic votes......
YOU are the preacher of mindless orthodoxy Jack. Not me.
Your dogma is flawed.
The first part of that path entails raising higher revenues. Everyone remembers Reagan's 1981 tax cuts. His admirers are less likely to tout the tax hikes he accepted as the 1981 recession and his own tax cuts began to unravel his long-term fiscal picture--a large tax increase on business in 1982, higher payroll taxes enacted in 1983 and higher energy taxes in 1984. A decade later, when a serious recession and higher spending began to upend the fiscal outlook again, the first President Bush similarly raised taxes on higher-income people in 1991; Bill Clinton doubled down and raised them again in 1993.
You can continue to parrot the orthodoxy that you have been brainwashed to regurgitate, ad nauseum. When Bush 41 said "Read my lips," those lips had kissed the tookas of Reagan's myth.
We know how that turned out.
Let me undetstand this. Jack is arguing that Lord Keynes is wrong. And Neal is arguing he was right? That seems kind of flipped over.
Have either of you considered that it isn't monetary and tax policy at all, but the liquidation of bad debt that has to take place to pull us out of an economic downturn?
Thanks
Regards — Cliff
I tend to think we need a tug of war between Keynes and "the Chicago School." At any given moment there must be a proper preference for one, but a hearty dose of the other.
Maybe, a see-saw is a better metaphor.
I find my rhetoric designed to counter the sloganeering of the "bumper sticker braintrust."
Tax cuts mean less "revenue" which SHOULD lead to smaller government...but it hasn't because the "government" in almost every administration simply puts it on the credit card. Now...if retiring THAT debt is what you are talking about Cliff....huzzah!! We HAVE to stop borrowing....and to do that we have to stop spending.....and to do that...we have to reduce government......the math does seem quite simple.
I am much more an Uncle Miltie......
Post a Comment