The Party of One Idea
Now that they are no longer controlling the reins of government, conservatives and Republicans are suddenly very concerned about the size of the federal budget deficit and the national debt. They never miss an opportunity to suggest that President Obama is primarily (if not exclusively) responsible for the size of both the deficit and the debt. And careless members of the mainstream media have shown a remarkable willingness to accept this premise. But as Steve Benen patiently explains (yet again), this is nonsense:
Let's try this. Suppose that somehow, magically, the GOP found itself once again in control of Congress and the White House. Republicans could set the agenda and pursue whatever policies they saw fit. What would they do to bring the deficit under control?
Well, let's tick through the options. One idea that some Republicans have suggested (safe from their position in the minority) is to cancel the rest of the stimulus bill. The near universal consensus among economists, however, is that stimulus spending in the coming year will be crucial. Moreover, the states, including most red ones, are very much counting on this money. I find it hard to believe that the GOP--even with a larger majority--could garner anywhere near enough votes to cancel the stimulus bill. Moreover, doing so would only improve the deficit numbers for one year (after that, the stimulus spending is done). Even if it didn't harm the economy, it would do nothing whatsoever to improve the long term deficit numbers.
So what else? We can be pretty sure that there would be no tax increases. No Republican member of Congress has voted for a tax increase since the 80s and virtually all of them have taken oaths not to do so under any circumstances.
So what about spending cuts? Well, the largest source of potential spending cuts is in the defense budget, but the GOP has always been fiercely opposed to any cuts in defense spending, and it's hard to see that changing any time soon. Most of them also want to increase spending in Afghanistan, restart boondoggle missile defense projects, and waste money on fighter planes that don't work.
So that leaves us with entitlement spending. Would the GOP make major cuts to Medicare? It's possible, but they are currently opposing efforts to rein in wasteful Medicare spending and promising to protect seniors from any cuts whatsoever. It seems highly unlikely that the GOP would make any real effort to reduce spending on Medicare.
So what about Social Security? Well, for starters, Social Security is a much smaller program than Medicare, so even drastic cuts would not make much of a dent in the overall spending picture. Moreover, the last time the GOP tried to "reform" Social Security (by converting it into 401k-style individual accounts), their plan involved massive up front transition costs that were to be paid for by borrowing. In other words, if they passed Bush-style Social Security reform, it would massively inflate both the deficit and the debt, both in the short term and long term.
So what does that leave us with? Not much. Honestly, I have no idea what the GOP would do. As near as I can tell, they don't currently have a single idea, realistic or otherwise, for reducing the deficit in the long term. My guess is that if they suddenly found themselves back in power, they'd fumble around for a while and then, having thought of nothing else to do, try to pass some sort of tax cut. It wouldn't make any sense and it would make the budget situation worse, but they just don't have any other policy ideas. They are the Party of One Idea. And it doesn't matter that their one idea is the primary reason we are in such a bad budget situation in the first place.
This sounds like parody, but it's not. If journalists actually pressed Republicans to explain how they would reduce the deficit, I bet that the most common answer would be to cut taxes. Let's get them on the record.
Specifically, 40% of the fiscal deterioration we're seeing -- the single largest contributing factor -- can be attributed to Bush policies. Another 12% comes from Bush's financial rescues, while 20% are the result of the economic crisis. What's President Obama's share? Just 16% of the total, most of which is the result of new spending that was necessary to prevent a depression. Indeed, blaming Obama is backwards: "[P]roperly accounted for, the deficit actually goes down when you compare Obama's budget proposals to current policy, not up."Steve's right about all this, of course, but since most members of the media seem incapable of processing any argument involving numbers, I wonder if there isn't another way to make this same point.
And finally, let's also not forget that it only makes sense to run large deficits given the circumstances. We're dealing with an economic collapse and two wars, following eight years in which we were led by "the most fiscally irresponsible president in the history of the republic."
Bush inherited the largest budget surplus in American history and turned it into the largest deficit in American history. Obama, in contrast, found a fiscal fiasco waiting on his desk on his first day on the job. Before anyone blasts the president for the mess, perhaps they ought to grab a mop.
Let's try this. Suppose that somehow, magically, the GOP found itself once again in control of Congress and the White House. Republicans could set the agenda and pursue whatever policies they saw fit. What would they do to bring the deficit under control?
Well, let's tick through the options. One idea that some Republicans have suggested (safe from their position in the minority) is to cancel the rest of the stimulus bill. The near universal consensus among economists, however, is that stimulus spending in the coming year will be crucial. Moreover, the states, including most red ones, are very much counting on this money. I find it hard to believe that the GOP--even with a larger majority--could garner anywhere near enough votes to cancel the stimulus bill. Moreover, doing so would only improve the deficit numbers for one year (after that, the stimulus spending is done). Even if it didn't harm the economy, it would do nothing whatsoever to improve the long term deficit numbers.
So what else? We can be pretty sure that there would be no tax increases. No Republican member of Congress has voted for a tax increase since the 80s and virtually all of them have taken oaths not to do so under any circumstances.
So what about spending cuts? Well, the largest source of potential spending cuts is in the defense budget, but the GOP has always been fiercely opposed to any cuts in defense spending, and it's hard to see that changing any time soon. Most of them also want to increase spending in Afghanistan, restart boondoggle missile defense projects, and waste money on fighter planes that don't work.
So that leaves us with entitlement spending. Would the GOP make major cuts to Medicare? It's possible, but they are currently opposing efforts to rein in wasteful Medicare spending and promising to protect seniors from any cuts whatsoever. It seems highly unlikely that the GOP would make any real effort to reduce spending on Medicare.
So what about Social Security? Well, for starters, Social Security is a much smaller program than Medicare, so even drastic cuts would not make much of a dent in the overall spending picture. Moreover, the last time the GOP tried to "reform" Social Security (by converting it into 401k-style individual accounts), their plan involved massive up front transition costs that were to be paid for by borrowing. In other words, if they passed Bush-style Social Security reform, it would massively inflate both the deficit and the debt, both in the short term and long term.
So what does that leave us with? Not much. Honestly, I have no idea what the GOP would do. As near as I can tell, they don't currently have a single idea, realistic or otherwise, for reducing the deficit in the long term. My guess is that if they suddenly found themselves back in power, they'd fumble around for a while and then, having thought of nothing else to do, try to pass some sort of tax cut. It wouldn't make any sense and it would make the budget situation worse, but they just don't have any other policy ideas. They are the Party of One Idea. And it doesn't matter that their one idea is the primary reason we are in such a bad budget situation in the first place.
This sounds like parody, but it's not. If journalists actually pressed Republicans to explain how they would reduce the deficit, I bet that the most common answer would be to cut taxes. Let's get them on the record.
posted by A.L. at 11:52 AM
41 Comments:
A nit, A.L. Social Security used to be a much larger program than Medicare + Medicaid. Even most recently, the expenditures (2007) for SS: 581.4, Medicare: 436, and Medicaid: 190 (all numbers are billions of dollars) don't make Medicare "much larger" than SS.
It's only the outrageous growth in Medicare, for which no end appears in sight, together with the disparity between revenues, that is the issue (please note that, in 2007, there was still a SS surplus of 186 billion dollars).
So I think a more accurate statement would be "the projected deficit for Medicare dwarfs that for Social Security".
Pretty lengthy post to get to what we all know, that being that the Republicans are about 2 things. 1)Cutting taxes and 2)doing whatever they need to do to obtain the power to allow them to cut taxes. Which includes pretending to care about abortion and family values.
One more thing about this massive deficit. This was the final Bush budget, not Obama's first. Obama was not even elected yet at the start of the fiscal year that just ended not to mention when the budget was passed.
'It's only the outrageous growth in Medicare, for which no end appears in sight, together with the disparity between revenues, that is the issue (please note that, in 2007, there was still a SS surplus of 186 billion dollars).'
This is the problem with a successful health care program. People live instead of dying and, as a result, their costs stay in the system longer. So the existing pool of senior citizens lasts longer while existing adults become seniors at the normal pace. Because of the huge 'baby boom' after WWII, this is particularly significant for now and for the next few years. More of the generation before the Boomers is alive than would have been before Medicare and the Boomer generation is so large that many more people will become seniors at the same time than before.
It is worth noting that the panic over this is a bit manufactured. While the Boomers will also live longer because of Medicare, they had far less kids than their parents and THEIR kids had even fewer. So, post-Boomer, we're looking at steadily lowering rates of Medicare enrollment over at least two generations.
It's a problem that can easily be addressed by not starting anymore hugely expensive wars or granting ridiculous top-bracket tax cuts when the richest Americans are already the most under-taxed wealthy class in the world.
"...most members of the media seem incapable of processing any argument involving numbers..."
True enough, AL; but I think you also have to take into account that no corporate-owned 'news' source is ever going to hold any GOPer accountable for anything other than a personal sex scandal.
i have seen dylan ratigan take these fuckers to task, as well as ed shultz and rachel maddow, oh and jack cafferty.
Medicaid goes to poor people and they're not politically powerful (pace Social Security & Medicare recipients). Republicans would probably cut there.
AL: I'm a big fan of Bill Clinton, but there's alot of savvy conservatives that will claim their wasn't actually a budget surplus at the end of Clinton's administration. The public debt was in surplus, but intergovernmental debt overwhelmed the public debt surplus. Craig Steiner devoted a giant amount of bandwidth on his blog to what he calls the "myth" of the Clinton surplus:
http://www.craigsteiner.us/articles/16
the long and short of the argument is this: the surplus was created by a loophole in the law surrounding the social security trust fund that requires the Fund to purchase U.S. securities when it takes more money in than it is paying out in benefits. basically the Social Security Trust Fund "invests" in the federal government whenever it has excess money. This is done so that this money can be put towards the general budget. however, the Social Security Trust Fund is no different than any other holder of a public bond. The government is still in debt to the fund, because the balance sheets will still show that the Trust Fund has X dollars in U.S. securities on its assets, which must be paid from the U.S. treasury if they are ever redeemed. in this sense, the debt that the government has to its own institutions is every bit as real as the debt it has from outside institutions.
Personally, I am of the opinion that this is just a semantics argument; that since the government is in direct control of when that debt to the Social Security Fund gets paid off, it could, theoretically, run future budget surpluses without ever paying off that money. the money was still taken in via tax receipts, it's just a matter of what door of government it came through. however, I've had alot of difficulty creating a strong counter-argument to Steiner's analysis, as he is quite thorough, and in order to properly debunk his argument, you have to effectively trivialize the relevance of intergovernmental holdings as real government debt, and I don't believe that's a sound philosophy.
So what do you think? Do you think Steiner's argument is correct? that there was no Clinton surplus due to intergovernmental holdings exceeding the public debt surplus?
As a knee jerk contrarian, I feel obligated to say something positive about the GOP’s record on spending and the deficit. Unfortunately, I can’t think of anything at the moment so I will have to get back to you on that.
On the other hand, its not like the Democrats are covering themselves in glory on this issue. For example, although it is true that they are proposing Medicare cuts, it is only in order to spend the money allegedly saved on other things. And the word “allegedly” is appropriate, given that they are already trying to add money to Medicare (the “doctors fix”) in a separate bill so that they don’t have to count it in the cost of health care reform.
The Dems justifiably criticized Bush for the enormous cost of the prescription drug program, but I don’t see them repealing it. As we have discussed before, they aren’t even repealing the prohibition against the government negotiating for lower drug prices, which supposedly was their biggest objection to the program.
Generally speaking, of course, Democrats tend to favor government spending on policy grounds. But there are some politically popular spending programs, particularly in the area of agricultural subsidies, that many liberal Democrats oppose. I haven’t noticed any move to cut spending in those areas, have you?
As for the F-22, if you believe that this is a jet that doesn’t work, you must be outraged at the number of Democrats who are supporting this program, given that (a) Democrats are supposed to be less enthusiastic about defense spending, (b) the Secretary of Defense and Joint Chiefs are telling them it is not needed, (c) their position is embarrassing to a Democratic President, and (d) there are plenty of Republicans on the anti-F-22 side to give them political cover.
MLS,
I'm not sure why you always assume that when I criticize the GOP for something, I'm implicitly claiming that the Democrats are beyond criticism on that subject. The reality is, however, that we only have two political parties to choose from in this country. And when it comes to getting our fiscal house in order (a monumentally difficult task), you'd have to be crazy to believe that the GOP will do a better job than the Democrats. You and I both know what would happen if the GOP was back in power. They would cut taxes and not cut spending, just as they did all through the Bush years. The situation would only get worse.
Republicans have become cynical and power hungry. It's all that they can handle any more.
A satirical look at their new re-branding strategy:
http://bit.ly/fxv3G
(satire)
You know, from INSIDE the federal bureaucracy, the fundamental issue is still this - the American people expect their government to deliver a ton of services to them, from clean water to robust defense, to saving the whales. Every politician of every party wants to please both theri electorate and their donors, so they deliver on the services as requested.
Too few Americans, however, are aware of the cost involved, and none of them wants to pay what the real cost is. Politicians cater to that as well, and so we're in a spiril that will be very hard to pull out of.
That's not, FWIW, an issue of either Party.
"Too few Americans, however, are aware of the cost involved, and none of them wants to pay what the real cost is."
Good observation. Imagine how much support for the war in Iraq there would've been if we financed it with PAYGO rules instead of just tacking it on to the deficit. how long would the american people have tolerated a 1% war tax to pay for our iraq deployments? we'd probably be out already if they'd actually made the american people pay for it instead of hiding the costs from the american people in the deficit and borrowing from China.
Instead of collecting taxes, why don't the federal government send everybody a bill:
1) $2,000 for defense
2) $3,000 to keep your parents alive - Medicare
3) $2,000 to keep a roof over your parents head - SS
4) etc.
This way people will understand that they benifit from the taxes collected.
Please don't contribute to myths about Social Security. Your parents already put the money in. Reagan took it out to give tax cuts to the rich, but the government owes that money and we should get it back from the people who got it.
Also, you left out a big one - the interest we pay on the Reagan/Bush debt. That's about the same amount as "defense."
Craig,
WRT the wars - we no longer fight wars in teh classic sense. There's no rationing, no War Bonds, no redirection of our industril complex to an all out war effort. Can you imagine if we had tried to fight WWI or WWII the way we're trying to fight Iraq and Afghanistan?
Their only idea (cutting taxes) has proven to be a failure. It did not make the economy or overall tax revenues grow, contrary to the fantasy they have about it. So they have only one idea and it's lunacy.
I'm wondering, wouldn't the RNC try what is being tried by the new Republican darling Luis Fortuño in Puerto Rico, fire workers? Sounds crazy, but you never know with the RNC.
This is highly amusing. A.L. goes through a whole post about how the GOP is the "Party of One Idea". The Democrats are failing miserably, but A.L., like the Democrats, refuses to offer the solutions that would fix the economy and unemployment, instead offering only one explanation in lieu of an idea...blame the GOP.
Here's a clue to the leftists. Until the Democrats decide that maybe it's a good idea to give the private sector the means to hire workers again, this economy will stay in the toilet. Regardless of who started it (and it wasn't just the GOP), it will be the fault of the Democrats. That is the reality.
Just so you know, there is one party who knows the tried and true method of getting this done. And it ain't the Democrats.
Farrapo,
I agree that the Bush tax cuts were awful. But remember: even though left-leaning people tend to be more willing to pay taxes for the public good, there is a time and place for everything, including tax cuts. The Bush tax cuts should've been repealed the second we made the decision to invade Iraq and Afghanistan. President Bush retains the unique distinction of being the only world leader in history to simultaneously cut taxes and engage in a foreign war. Tax cuts can and should be made if we can afford them. But the Bush tax cuts were badly timed, inappropriately large, and were not repealed when we entered into a foreign war, and then again into a second one, when revenues were needed to finance the war effort. Instead, we became more beholden to China, who now can choose to pull the plug at any time on future T-bill investments and force a massive federal debt correction that will have horrible consequences for the U.S. economy. So while the top 1% bought new porsches, China's grip on our balls got a little tighter. and now that we are in a massive recession and deficit spending is necessary to prevent people from ending up in the streets, we are that much more worse off for having financed 2 wars on the Chinese dollar.
So when do tax cuts actually produce growth? consider the fact that Reagan was able to produce modest economic growth out of his tax cuts. Clinton, on the other hand, raised taxes on corporations and the wealthy, and he ALSO was able to produce economic growth with his policies. So the question then becomes not IF tax cuts create economic growth, but WHEN do tax cuts produce economic growth? the GOP folly is in believing that all tax cuts always produce growth 100% of the time, which is obviously not the case. But the economic growth that occured under Reagan indicates that there must be circumstances, perhaps in collusion with other factors, under which they are appropriate. Knowing when that occurs is the trick. Unfortunately, Bush got it quite wrong.
@SteveAR: The Whigs?
"consider the fact that Reagan was able to produce modest economic growth out of his tax cuts."
Whoa. Not long after the Reagan tax cuts came the largest tax increases in history. One was the Deficit Reduction Act and the other was shifting the tax burden onto the middle class by raising the Social Security tax. ANY growth that came under Reagan has to tax that into account.
For the rest go look at the record. The times of highest economic growth all are the same periods of the highest tax rates.
Why do you think that is? Because we invest in infrastructure and education, and because the burden on the rest of the people is lowered by high taxes at the top. Also high taxes at the top mean businesspeople have to think long term and rely on the larger community instead of just fleecing everyone around them and taking off in their jets to live on an island, as we see now. High taxes at the top make businesses rely on the health of the surrounding community because it takes a long time to build wealth.
Just so you know, there is one party who knows the tried and true method of getting this done. And it ain't the Democrats.
Pray tell then who it would be Bush/Cheney types who raped this country's middle class.
Here's a clue to the leftists.
Steve, you can't give away something that you don't have.
Until the Democrats decide that maybe it's a good idea to give the private sector the means to hire workers again, this economy will stay in the toilet.
You mean like the massive increase in hiring that didn't occur right after Bush and the Republicans passed the tax cuts?
Just so you know, there is one party who knows the tried and true method of getting this done. And it ain't the Democrats.
What tried and true method did that party (who were in complete control for the last 8 years) use to start a hugely expensive, unnecessary war, ignore one of the largest natural disasters and preside over one of the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression?
Isn't it ironic that in a comment about a post on the Republican's tax cut one-trick-pony, you offer up a solution that's… a tax cut?
Craig, thanks for your comments which are well-reasoned and appreciated, and with which I mostly agree.
My issue is with the Republican mantra that tax cuts pay for themselves by generating more revenue than they give up, thus being both stimulative and essentially fiscally free. They cite this often as gospel yet no scholarly study backs up the assertion. On the contrary, the general consensus is that tax cuts return no more than 30% to the Treasury. In that sense they are stimulative only for the super wealthy who benefit disproportionately from them. They are, in fact, mainly a mechanism for concentrating wealth and in that sense have worked marvelously (only) for the rich.
Bob Herbert has a wonderful piece in today's NYT on the subject of extreme wealth concentration. He correctly points out a related fallacy in Republican thinking ... the transparently false promise of trickle down (aka voodoo) economics. It's yet another Republican fantasy unsustained by reality. Wealth is more concentrated than any time since the Gilded Age in the U.S., but mainly pink slips and foreclosure notices are trickling down. The aristocratic notion that if we give everything to the wealthy they will take care of everyone else is false.
Tax cuts do not, in general, have validity in getting us out of a nasty recession, nor are they fiscally responsible, nor does extreme wealth concentration benefit society as a whole, nor do windfall tax cuts for the wealthy trickle down in any meaningful way. All of that is a right wing fantasy about how they wish the world worked, in other words ... lunacy.
@ dave Johnson and Farappo: all good points. I am not a fan of Reagan or the modern GOP for precisely the reasons stated. I am, however, a died-in-the-wool Keynesian, and Keynes' approach to stimulating an economy was a combination of spending AND tax cuts. enter the 787B stimulus bill. that's the only point I was trying to get across: sometimes tax cuts are appropriate, but they require the proper economic context, and by themselves they often are not effective.
The primary problem that I had with Reaganomics is that while the economy as a whole grew, the top 1% of earners saw most of the benefits of that growth. The bottom 50% saw the least upward growth. In fact, even though federal income taxes went down under his administration, payroll taxes went up, as you pointed out. Also, Reagan started the ball rolling on the Big gov't Conservatism that Bush II exemplified perfectly. Even Bush's father knew that Reagan's reforms were "voodoo economics." if revenues actually go up when taxes are cut, then it would follow that we should just completely abolish the federal income tax.
The GOP's primary downfall is that they stopped being the party of limited government when they stopped opposing deficit spending. deficit spending used to be dangerous because in order to pay for new spending and avoid increasing the deficit, you had to raise taxes, which is politically unpopular. But now that the GOP has abandoned its opposition to deficit spending and solely opposes tax increases, it has abandoned one-half of the equation of fiscal responsibility. some estimates put our involvement in Iraq as costing us 1 trillion dollars by the time we leave, and that is all pure deficit, which the GOP did not oppose in the least. Barry Goldwater would be turning in his grave if he saw what the Republican party has become: we have this screwed up neo-con ideology dominating the GOP, where government spending is ok so long as it's on defense, even when that spending is completely feckless, unnecessary, and unproductive: like trying to spend billions on the F-22 when the F-35 already serves the combat functions we need, and the F-22's we already have haven't even seen combat duty yet. and yet, when it comes to domestic spending, they fight it tooth and nail. it is apparently more important that we build an F-22 that will sit in a hangar and never be used than it is to spend those billions providing health insurance to needy families via medicaid. sadly, this is precisely what Eisenhower tried to warn us about in his farewell address. The Military Industrial Complex now provides so many jobs that even left-leaning congressmen are afraid to cut defense spending. Even with the cuts in Obama's budget, spending on defense still increased this year, despite the fact that we outspend our closest rivals on defense by several orders of magnitude.
if you want a real trip, go to DARPA's site and look at some of what this tax money is being spent on. it will blow your mind:
www.darpa.gov
Anon (10:54pm):
You mean like the massive increase in hiring that didn't occur right after Bush and the Republicans passed the tax cuts?
The massive increase in hiring wasn't needed because not nearly as many people were laid off. Prior to 2008, the highest unemployment reached was 6.3 % in mid-2003, 3 1/2 percent lower than what it is now.
What tried and true method did that party (who were in complete control for the last 8 years) use to start a hugely expensive, unnecessary war, ignore one of the largest natural disasters...
Typically immaterial. I'm talking about how to raise employment, and you want to go back to blaming Bush instead of offering something different to raise employment fairly quickly. It makes sense; you and every other leftist/Democrat have nothing.
...and preside over one of the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression?
It's Obama's administration now. And this administration's handle of economics in a word, sucks.
Isn't it ironic that in a comment about a post on the Republican's tax cut one-trick-pony, you offer up a solution that's… a tax cut?
As opposed to what, A.L.'s and the Democrats' idea for fixing the economy by endlessly blaming the GOP and doing nothing else?
re: the F-22, that Republicans oppose de-funding this plane puts the lie to their claim that govt spending isn't stimulus. They want to keep funding not because it's for defense, or because of blind fealty to the Pentagon, but because it means jobs in their district, i.e., stimulus. Ironically, funding for the F-22 does pay for health care for those workers employed on that program.
The question is, why is it not "socialism" to spend trillions on the defense industry, including million dollar salaries for CEOs, healthcare for defense industry employees, etc., but it is "socialism" to spend that money on metaphorical plowshares?
Military recruiters are hitting all their numbers for the first time in decades because of the economy.
War is always stimulus.
The massive increase in hiring wasn't needed because not nearly as many people were laid off.
So the massive tax cuts passed by Bush and the Republicans only grew jobs at the lowest rate since the Hoover administration because those jobs weren't needed? I guess we didn't need deficit reduction or to curb spending or raise real wages or do something about foreclosures or…
I'm talking about how to raise employment, and you want to go back to blaming Bush instead of offering something different to raise employment fairly quickly.
You were crowing about your party's "tried and true method". I'm simply pointing out what the results of that method were. It wasn't the Democrats who were forced to pass a bank bailout in order to stop a catastrophic slide into economic chaos.
The Republicans had the political power to finally create the economic miracle they said would result from tax cuts. And it failed miserably. And you want us to continue that failure?
It's Obama's administration now. And this administration's handle of economics in a word, sucks.
Why, because he won't continue the same failed policies that you support? I'm guessing that if they proposed even larger tax cuts, you wouldn't be happy.
As opposed to what, A.L.'s and the Democrats' idea for fixing the economy by endlessly blaming the GOP and doing nothing else?
Passing a $750 billion stimulus package was nothing? It may not have been what you wanted, but it was hardly nothing.
And speaking of "endlessly blaming", remember how 9/11 was Clinton's fault, how the Iraq war was the CIA's fault, the slow reaction to Katrina was New Orlean's fault, the election loss was ACORN's fault?
If you want to continue to post to a liberal web site about how the Republicans are God's chosen party, how Rushbo and the rest of his ilk are all misunderstood and that Democrat/leftists are the source of all our problems; it's best not to get your panties in a bunch about blame.
Anon (2:41pm):
So the massive tax cuts passed by Bush and the Republicans only grew jobs at the lowest rate since the Hoover administration because those jobs weren't needed?
Why is it that you leftist/Dems can't understand plain English? Are you a lawyer? Some of the leftist lawyers here can't understand plain English either. Where did I say those jobs weren't needed? That's right, nowhere.
You were crowing about your party's "tried and true method". I'm simply pointing out what the results of that method were. It wasn't the Democrats who were forced to pass a bank bailout in order to stop a catastrophic slide into economic chaos.
You're "results" are BS. Plus, you don't understand recent history either. Which party was in charge of Congress when TARP was passed? That's right, Democrats. Plus, those tax cuts many years earlier had nothing to do with having to bail out the banks last year or this year.
Why, because he won't continue the same failed policies that you support? I'm guessing that if they proposed even larger tax cuts, you wouldn't be happy.
Sure I would, provided he didn't add in a bunch of worthless, useless additional spending, financed by the Chinese, like he did with Porkulus. If anything, that makes Obama more of a borrow-and-spend dork like Bush.
Obama didn't actually cut taxes, by the way, especially not on businesses. Something you would never read here, but U.S. corporations pay one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world. If he had cut those taxes, companies would have started hiring again. What Obama did was provide welfare payments.
Passing a $750 billion stimulus package was nothing? It may not have been what you wanted, but it was hardly nothing.
It's worse than nothing. It isn't working. It's a disaster.
remember how 9/11 was Clinton's fault,...
I don't blame Clinton for not being able to stop 9/11. But he doesn't get a pass either; both Clinton and Bush share the blame for not stopping it (btw, 9/11 was the fault of Al Qaeda and the Taliban). Besides, the Bush administration didn't spend every other day for the 9 months after 9/11 to blame Clinton. All the Obama administration does is blame Bush; that is their entire platform.
...how the Iraq war was the CIA's fault,...
It wasn't. It was the fault of Saddam Hussein. Duh!!!
...the slow reaction to Katrina was New Orlean's fault,...
Actually, that was in response to all the lying Dems who said it was all only Bush's fault. Democrats wouldn't blame New Orleans Mayor "Chocolate City" Nagin, then-Gov. Blanco (who was also allowed to blame Bush) or the corrupt Louisiana state government for their parts because they were all Democrats. It's funny; although Blanco was (thankfully) bounced, Nagin was re-elected, and convicted New Orleans congressman Jefferson almost won re-election in 2008 (remember, Jefferson had a boat commandeered so he could get stuff, probably cover-up materials, from his house following Katrina; how many New Orleans residents were left stranded because of that do you think?).
Are you a lawyer? Some of the leftist lawyers here can't understand plain English either. Where did I say those jobs weren't needed? That's right, nowhere.
Earlier Steve -
The massive increase in hiring wasn't needed because not nearly as many people were laid off.
If you hire someone, that means you are giving them a job. A massive increase in hiring would mean a massive increase in jobs.
Plus, you don't understand recent history either. Which party was in charge of Congress when TARP was passed? That's right, Democrats.
Ah I see… so it was the DEMOCRATIC Treasury Secretary and the DEMOCRATICALLY appointed Fed Chairman who urged adoption of this plan, which the DEMOCRATIC administration of George Bush advocated and finally signed into law.
It's funny; although Blanco was (thankfully) bounced, Nagin was re-elected, and convicted New Orleans congressman Jefferson almost won re-election in 2008 (remember, Jefferson had a boat commandeered so he could get stuff, probably cover-up materials, from his house following Katrina; how many New Orleans residents were left stranded because of that do you think?).
Wow.
Why is it that you leftist/Dems can't understand plain English?
Boy, you really got us pegged there. We is just hopeless when it comes to plain English. If I were you, I certainly wouldn't bother posting here again. I know I'm not going to bother in replying to you any further.
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A Goldman Sachs adviser just said income inequality will lead to greater prosperity and opportunity for all. They just cannot abandon the slef-serving right wing fantasy bullshit.
My issue is with the Republican mantra that tax cuts pay for themselves by generating more revenue than they give up, thus being both stimulative and essentially fiscally free. They cite this often as gospel yet no scholarly study backs up the assertion.
What they cite is the Laffer Curve. Of course, in doing so they do what all good little Republicans do, which is ignore the totality of the argument and see only the portion that backs up their ideology. Relative to the Laffer Curve, that means seeing only the left half of the curve, and pretending the right half of the curve doesn't exist.
Are you a lawyer? Some of the leftist lawyers here can't understand plain English either. Where did I say those jobs weren't needed? That's right, nowhere.
Earlier Steve -
The massive increase in hiring wasn't needed because not nearly as many people were laid off.
Anonymous went way too easy on you there Steve, so let me fill in the gap.
Bwahahahahahahahahahahaha.
SteveAR said... I don't blame Clinton for not being able to stop 9/11. But he doesn't get a pass either; both Clinton and Bush share the blame for not stopping it....
Yes, as C-in-C, Clinton.... oh wait. Yes, Clinton should have warned the incoming Bush administration …. oh wait. Yes, Clinton should have acted on the Cole attack instead of handing over all the evidence so Bush could act.... oh wait.
Bush was and is blaming Clinton for the First Bush/Greenspan recession even now just as you are trying to blame Clinton for 9-11 even though both happened on Bush's watch because of his incompetence. I heard Saint Ronald Raygun blame Carter for seven years for policy results of the Raygun ideology.
These economic mess is entirely the responsibility of Republican ideology. The messed up wars are the result of Republican incompetence.
Why don't you and Bush grow up and learn to accept responsibility?
Mike
Anonymous (4:38pm):
If you hire someone, that means you are giving them a job. A massive increase in hiring would mean a massive increase in jobs.
Here is what you said earlier:
You mean like the massive increase in hiring that didn't occur right after Bush and the Republicans passed the tax cuts?
The unemployment rate by month since 1999 from the Labor Dept.
The first Bush tax cuts became law in June, 2001. Unemployment continued to go up. Then 9/11 occurred, exacerbating the recession in place since the end of the Clinton era.
The second Bush tax cuts became law at the end of May, 2003. Beginning two months later, unemployment started going down. So the idea that what Bush did was worse than what Obama is doing is pretty ludicrous, even for dumb leftists. The numbers for 2009 bear that out.
After Porkulus was passed in February of this year in order to stimulate the economy and help curb job losses, the unemployment rates show that it did neither. But instead of admitting that Porkulus is a failure and thinking it might be better for Obama to do something different (like pass a real tax cut), you blame Bush and cite all these idiotic and meaningless reasons why the successful Bush tax cuts (the 2nd one, especially) were failures.
Mike (Anonymous 11:35am),
Why don't you grow up and use your brain for something other than drug-induced rants? Maybe then you can learn about what really happened instead of being a lemming and listening to the mendacity of the leftists.
Steve,
Just for shits and giggles, let's pretend Bush's tax cuts did accomplish exactly what you say they accomplished. 2 questions.
1)Since tax rates haven't been increased, why has hiring fallen into the cave? Businesses (and investors) are today keeping the same percentage of their earned income as they were keeping back in 2004 - at least relative to tax rates. Why hire in 2004 but not 2009 with the same tax rate? Again, assuming the current tax rate inspired hiring 5 years ago?
2)Since we need to cut taxes every time the unemployment rate starts to inch up to save the world, at what point do we increase taxes to prevent what ultimately would be a 0% tax rate given your plan of tax cuts every 3 or 4 years? And i have a follow up, but i'll save it.
THe republican party like a certain person from ar hasn't wanted to have an honest conversation about these issues for a long time. It's pretty pointless to engage someone who isn't listening and uses maulkin talking points as if they had some validity outside of the right wing echo chamber.
Frankie,
Just for shits and giggles, I'll do what I can to answer your questions.
1)Since tax rates haven't been increased, why has hiring fallen into the cave? Businesses (and investors) are today keeping the same percentage of their earned income as they were keeping back in 2004 - at least relative to tax rates. Why hire in 2004 but not 2009 with the same tax rate? Again, assuming the current tax rate inspired hiring 5 years ago?
Because tax rates aren't the only indicator on unemployment. Everything, especially property, is worth less; in some cases, it is worth less than what is owed. Therefore, business costs have to be reduced somewhere. Unfortunately, the highest costs business incurs are payroll costs, hence, layoffs.
The only costs the government has control over are taxes; government can help by lowering tax rates for businesses. If they lower them enough, companies would be able to actually hire employees. It's a win-win since that will take people off of unemployment and any services that can come with being unemployed, and those now hired will be paying taxes out of the income they receive.
2)Since we need to cut taxes every time the unemployment rate starts to inch up to save the world, at what point do we increase taxes to prevent what ultimately would be a 0% tax rate given your plan of tax cuts every 3 or 4 years?
I don't see a need to cut taxes every time unemployment creeps up. But this isn't a normal downturn. It's ridiculous to expand government spending when there aren't enough people paying into the system to afford it (it's bad enough when this happens during a good economy, as it did during the Bush administration). To get more people paying taxes, businesses have to hire them. No, government hiring doesn't help because government doesn't produce anything (except cars, now); increasing government employment increases government spending, a double whammy. It's the private sector that has to be helped to get out of this downturn. But the current government doesn't have an interest in providing that help.
The GOP isn't shy about saying what they would do if they controlled Congress and the White House- they would cut taxes and do some slicing to this or that social program which they are forever falsely portraying as being the big budget items of the federal government. And then they would get us into a few more wars and increase "defense" spending and rural red state entitlements (welfare for rednecks and rotten borough states). And they would finance this all with Chinese held bank notes and printed money. That's what "conservatives" call fiscal responsibility.e
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