Tax cuts and Republican leaders
CBS News reports:
Wallace asked Kyl on “Fox News Sunday”: “At a time Republicans are saying that they can’t extend unemployment benefits unless you pay for them, tell me, how are you going to pay that $678 billion to keep those Bush tax cuts for the wealthy?”
Responded the Arizona senator: “[Y]ou should never raise taxes in order to cut taxes. Surely Congress has the authority, and it would be right to — if we decide we want to cut taxes to spur the economy, not to have to raise taxes in order to offset those costs. You do need to offset the cost of increased spending, and that’s what Republicans object to. But you should never have to offset cost of a deliberate decision to reduce tax rates on Americans.”
And just when you think it was simply a rash statement, along comes the back up:
Now Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell is backing up Kyl’s position.
“That’s been the majority Republican view for some time,” McConnell told TPMDC. “That there’s no evidence whatsoever that the Bush tax cuts actually diminished revenue. They increased revenue, because of the vibrancy of these tax cuts in the economy. So I think what Senator Kyl was expressing was the view of virtually every Republican on that subject.”
McConnell’s argument is that even though the government would be forgoing hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue by extending the tax cuts on relatively wealthy Americans, that loss will be more than offset by the growth spurred by keeping the money in taxpayers’ pockets.
But wait . . . there’s more!
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/07/its-unanimous-gop-says-pay-for-unemployment-benefits-not-tax-cuts-for-the-rich.php
America the Stupid!
Disclaimer: I’m not picking on this guy because he is black, if a white person said this I’d be mocking them too.
Union official believes depreciation and interest are not business expenses!
“There might not be any losses at all. It depends on what accounting procedure is used. If you decide you don’t count interest and depreciation, you already lop off 250 of the 370 million dollars,”
http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=5380427
This is another installment in America the Stupid!
Circular logic, missed that in the discussion of framing arguments, make a statement then appeal to higher authority like Ronald Reagan or Laffer. Work best on rubes you are plundering.
The discretionary part of the 2011 US budget is close to a Trillion bucks, 35% of the spending plan; easy just cut that by $700B.
All that would end would be:
The wars $180B.
Then cut $200B maintaining the the useless weapons, justified to perform WW II tactics against non existent WW II enemies, weapons that that do not work anyway, are not worth the taxpayers’ or bond buyers’ dough.
Then cut $125B by not buying any more useless stuff that is shoddy and drags on maintenance. That are not worth the taxpayers’ or bond buyers’ dough.
The rest comes from cutting off money for moon walks and oil sudsidies.
No problems.
Then roll back OASDI payroll taxes for SS surpluses not needed for tax cuts by 2% of first 60K annual income.
While doing this establish a direct line of credit from Ben’s helicopter to folks like me so I can borrow fresh money at no interest and stimulate the economy in my area where the defense welfare ending means I need to help out.
Perspective on discretionary spending: UK defence obligation authority is 6% of their budget, in US it is 21%. That ratio in the US would pretty much pay for keeping the Bush tax cuts.
And the Brits are cutting airplanes and the Royal Navy!
None of this will happen, the beneficiaries of the tax cuts bond buyers are also invested heavily in war machine pillaging the US.
Yes, but he isn’t a member of Congress. It’s like comparing apples and toothbrushes.
I note, too, that in a world in which investors, CEOs and radio celebrities to lay claim to authority say things equally stupid every day, you’ve decided to cite a union leader. Racism is not the only form of bias.
Of course the Republicans and Democrats are united in the belief that the solution to a bad economy is throwing money at the problem. They only differ on who and how. The Republicans throw money at the well off through tax cuts, and the Democrats throw money at wage earners through transfer payments. But there’s always broad bipartisain support for throwing money to corporations and their employees on critical pork barrel projects in their own districts.
Obama and the democrat spending bills are not effective stimulus to the economy. Their spending based on taking out for now zero interest borrowing does add to GDP for the duration or the spending. However, when the spending stops the stimulus stops. When the economy is underperforming generally it needs to readjust and restructure itself to conform to underlying changes in consumer needs and tastes. Its hard to know exactly what type of change is needed to facilitate this change. Conservative free market republicans say we don’t know exactly what this change is but we’ll lower taxes and regulation to stimulate innovation in the private sector to figure it out by trial and error. On the other hand you have the democrats trying to hand pick chosen industries based on politically pleasing themes such as producing batteries for electric cars, regardless of the economies desire for these items. This is about as useful to the overall economy as when candidate Mike Dukakis urged Iowa Farmers to grow Belgian endive as an alternate crop popular to very small Yuppie market that he was associated with. You also have the administration providing massive stimulus to their political allies in labor and the teacher unions. The democrat plan is not working, they have wasted our nations resources.
When Obama complains about the way we did things before he is trying to blame Bush for his troubles. But the American economy under Bush pre-dates Bush and an attack on the economy over the last 8 years is an attack on America’s free market traditions. This administration does not know what it’s doing, It came in with a flawed model of what makes the economy tick and has not shown the ability to make adjustments in the face of their failures.
That is a hoot!
“Free market”, what free market?
It is free hoarding and free money for wall st.
Franklin said about the US republic…………”if you can keep it.”
It has been lost.
The winners: standing armies and banks………….as Jefferson warned.
Free market is not a pure market.
Free market is ideo-speak, minitruth circular logic to cow thinking people.
Small wonder Tx BoE had Jefferson taken out of the textbooks.
Link to the cut you pasted, Hoot.
ilsm,
What about providing stimulus that creates an incentive for the economy to readjust? That was my point and if you want to respond to it then take a second try.
You can’t fix stupid.
Where did you get that paste?
Why should poor people subsidize the more well off?
My favorite plan to get economy to readjust is end all coal, gas, oil subsidies and raise the “tax” on imported oil to pay cash for the war machine (adds about $40 bucks a bbl imported).
Tariff Chinese goods to average out their monetarist ploy.
Cut the war machine it is diversion of resources that raises prices all around the economy and takes away from productivity.
That would make energy cost at point of use about even to total price. Would stimulate new energy and make a lot of sense from a global warming perspective.
But it would not be easy and it would not come fast but it would be adjustive.
Texas didn’t take Jefferson “out of their textbooks”. Talk about cow thinking people.
Ilsm,
Poor people don’t pay fed tax…remember the Bush Tax Cut eliminated even more from the bottom end from paying taxes…..it wasn’t just a tax cut for the rich, it was a tax cut for everybody?
“That would make energy cost at point of use about even to total price. Would stimulate new energy and make a lot of sense from a global warming perspective.”
You and your Ilk show us the path how to actually make that work, without taking us into collapse, and you’ll have all of our full support……but you can’t…..so it’s Utopian Day Dreaming…It’s crap and helps solve not one problem.
Owl, “What about providing stimulus that creates an incentive for the economy to readjust? That was my point…”
And pointless it is. The only proper incentives to any market economy is to pay workers adequately and to invest one’s money in productive economic activities. Government incentives are never free of subjective analysis of bvest use with biggest donators appearing to be the focus of attention. That’s the money begets money phenomenon. A good iinvestment will always pay off and fair wages will spur the economy in the most efficient manner. The producer can’t sell to market participants that don’t have the income to spend.
And pointless it is.
Obama is investing our money in Battery factories. What do you think about that? I see it as evidence that Obama is a leader without a point.
Please, did you object to all the money pissing that George II was doing for the eight previous years? Did you object to George II, and his alter ego Ronnie the Adleminded,
investing in the wealthiest sectors of our citizenry? Do you really hold Obama out as some different kind of President? You can’t be that blind. Stop being an ideologue and recognize that both political parties represent the right side of the center and favor the wealthiest people and their corporate partners. In Europe governments have been taking over failed corporations for years. Sometimes it helps. Sometimes it doesn’t, but the idea remains the same. Generate jobs that pay a reasonable wage to a great many people. Give people a way to earn enough so that they can spend enough to keep producers in a production mode.
Maybe the best thing would be to close the casinos. That way the wealthy would have to invest rather than gamble. The problem is that the casinos have been run as a stacked deck for certain participants. For them its not gambling because they’ve got an insider’s perspective. No need to invest in production when you can gamble in a rigged game.
If I want to hear a congress critter making stupid comments I just google search “Maxine Waters”. It never fails.
I had to throw the comment in here, because there will NEVER be a post on this site that criticizes unions.
right good thing you showed up to fill that missing gap. kudos!
Jimi,
Very interesting statements. No truth but it is you jimi after all.
I never heard how good W Bush was for the poor, did he ever take credit? Got some links as to how much wealth trickled down to the lower barckets from their tax cuts? Please provide.
Then explain how the poor garnered less of the nations wealth rather than more from your version of history on Bush tax cuts.
A little reality here.
As to oil consumption, change will make it different, but in the long run all are better off. Except the polluters and war mongers.
Your post is basically malarkey which is Irish for bull feathers.
Ilsm,
Ahhhhh?…how is taking more off the bottom end from paying taxes making it more difficult on the poor? The people who are actually fronting the tax burden in this country are not from the bottom end?
No……If your memory was short, let me help you out, Bush’s agenda in the beginning was to find a way to maintain growth during recovery (i.e the origin and reason for the tax cut), from the 2001 recession, then 9-11, and I think we as a country were a little pre-occupied with War to address the poverty and middle class issue.
To put the poverty and middle-class issue on Bush’s plate rings hollow, and I think any reasonble non-partisan would have to agree, the issue was around well before Bush.
“As to oil consumption, change will make it different, but in the long run all are better off.”
Fine…..I agree, but just always when we get into the specifics of what needs to happend, all we get from you and your ilk is emotion…..where’s the plan backed by facts? As I said…you provide it, make us believe it will work, and you got our full support…anything less is some of the same ole-same ole…..just “Bull Feathers” as you like to say!
But you can beat into submission!
It looks like the Hollywood liberals are really good job killers.
http://www.thewrap.com/movies/article/hsx-tk-18948
Bait the liberal…it is in the training manual.
Shorter Jay: “I ain’t a racist, I just use examples that happen to be black folk”
Dude did you invent the telegraph? Or just perfect it?
jimi,
I have hardly been poor, so I do not know what you might see they got from Bush tax cuts..
I was a militarist, made my pensions, and networth thank you very much, survived the wars and avoided the draw downs. Never RIF’ed, I have it made.
The poor paid my way, I could have built things that were for the people. Instead, I helped pillage and ignored the thought what we were taking away, and not giving back. I heard Ike’s speech, but I was making a living.
I am now aware of all that, and I have seen the waste and abuse of the war machine first hand.
It took years, to figure it out.
I expected the peace dividend in 1991 would end my gravy train. It did not.
One of the thing GHW Bush did was try to rein in the war mongers, he killed the Navy fighter, it got the US Clinton.
What W. Bush did……………………
Greenspan teaching Ben to dump ink wet greenbacks from the helicopter.
Flood wall st. End the regulation.
Drive up bubbles, call irrational housing infation growth.
Only thing growing in 2006 was the militarist waste.
I was there consulting grabbing my take.
What Bush did.
You tell me what came of the years before 2009, aside from a massive destructuion of the US economy.
And the poor paid for it all.
So tell me what money the poor got from tax cuts and what it did aside from sending jobs to the Pacific rim?
I can criticize the rich because I know the things they sold, and they are in the soul.
In the Tao it is said to be compassionate to yourself……………..
Jay,
Is there some significant point you’re trying to make concerning “liberal” ideology that has any validity. Is Cantor, Fitzgerald or any of the corporate film industry (that’s the Hollywood liberals
you reference in your inane comment) some how an example of liberal action. Or are they two competing business entities trying to out fox one another and earn a few extra million bucks for themselves.
No-No….We were implanted with a chip….to much imformation to be out on paper.