Financial Friday
As of January 9, 2006, the public debt stood at $8,160,257,013,544.35.
The right wing news outlets wish us to think that this debt is insignificant in terms of our GDP. In reality, the only time in our history that our Debt:GDP ratio has been higher was during World War II.
The Republican Party without a doubt is using debt as a vehicle to push out Democratic programs. We are already starting to see the rhetoric.
When Dick Cheney cast the tie breaking vote less than a month ago to pass new budget measures that would “impose new fees on Medicaid recipients, cut Federal child-support enforcement funds, impose new work requirements on state welfare programs and squeeze students lenders,” the Republicans cited their need to reduce the Federal deficit.
But yesterday at work, I received a copy of the president’s assessment of tax law reform, which is incredibly Reaganesque in appearance. Reagan shot up the national debt like no other president before or after him, and he did the most damage in his second term.
If their tax law reforms take effect, we would go from 6 tax brackets down to 3. Reagan had only two tax brackets. Squeezing the tax brackets of course helps high income earners and hurts low income Americans. The general essence of all the reforms are to decrease taxes, and I assure you that every reform measure they proposed would cut Federal revenues.
The bill that Dick helped pass would cut spending by $40 billion over 5 years. That’s about how much we spend every quarter in Iraq. But the tax reform measures that are coming down the pipe will decrease Federal revenues by significantly more. I'll try to do a better job of listing those out next week.
You’re all smart people. You do the math. Decrease spending by $40 billion. Decrease revenues by 10 times that. Yes, the Republicans still plan on increasing the national debt.
|
January 13, 2006 |
Jenson Hagen | Comments (13 so far)
| Share on Facebook |
Sponsored Advertising
Comments
Posted by: Sid Leader | Jan 13, 2006 12:48:44 PM
Is that REALLY BIG NUMBER the national debt, or the number of times DarkDick dodged the draft?
Posted by: Robert Harris | Jan 13, 2006 2:09:17 PM
Boze Noze: Did you also notice that there was record government spending for December. So isn't it obvious that the increase in corporate profits was entirely due to the increased government spending and an indication that we need to double federal programs.
Of course it could just be that the majority of economic growth has been fueled by both tax cuts and spending increases. I'd be surprised if the economy didn't grow, given the huge budget deficits our conservative President and congress have been saddling us with.
Posted by: Sid Leader | Jan 13, 2006 4:14:02 PM
Tax cuts do not grow the economy, stupid. W's led to a dead cat bounce fueled by war and oil industries.
Bubba jacked taxes and it led to THE BIGGEST PEACE TIME ECONOMIC GROWTH in U.S. history.
Remember Clinton? I do. Peace, prosperity, trillion-dollar surpluses, a soaring stock market, respect of our allies, putting AQ terrorists on death row and the creation of 22,000,000 new jobs.
W? Death, despair, drinkin' and druggin' and that's just in the Oval Office!
Posted by: Sid Leader | Jan 13, 2006 4:14:19 PM
Tax cuts do not grow the economy, stupid. W's led to a dead cat bounce fueled by war and oil industries.
Bubba jacked taxes and it led to THE BIGGEST PEACE TIME ECONOMIC GROWTH in U.S. history.
Remember Clinton? I do. Peace, prosperity, trillion-dollar surpluses, a soaring stock market, respect of our allies, putting AQ terrorists on death row and the creation of 22,000,000 new jobs.
W? Death, despair, drinkin' and druggin' and that's just in the Oval Office!
Posted by: Chris McMullen | Jan 13, 2006 5:07:12 PM
Sid, the national debt increased every year under Clinton's administration to the tune of $200 billion a year. This surplus nonsense is just that, nonsense.
Posted by: howard | Jan 13, 2006 5:31:10 PM
Chris, there were a couple surpluses in the Clinton years and the national debt did grow each year as you say. That is because Social Security tax revenues are consolidated into the annual federal budget. Social Security revenues that are unspent are then borrowed by the treasury anget added to the national debt.
Posted by: Carl PHD | Jan 13, 2006 6:46:16 PM
"Tax cuts do not grow the economy, stupid. W's led to a dead cat bounce fueled by war and oil industries."
Sid are you an economist?
Posted by: JRA | Jan 14, 2006 6:09:32 AM
I do not like tax brackets. For one, our tax law is too complicated. There are too many grey areas that result in different people paying different taxes. Those who can hire the best accountants can get away with the most. Second, I believe it is immoral to require someone to pay a higher % of income in taxes than someone else.
I would like to see us come up with a minimum level where somebody pays taxes. If you make less than $30,000 a year (to throw out a figure) you pay no taxes. If you make more - whether it's $31,000 or $31 million, you pay the same %, and that's what you owe - period. No complicated loopholes, AMT, or other confusing garbage.
Or we should just go to a national sales tax as our only method of taxation. That way we're taxed on consumption, not earnings.
Posted by: Ron Ledbury | Jan 14, 2006 11:46:44 AM
Asset inflation should be viewed as synonymous with wage deflation. Why else would one be sold as a good and the other as evil. Wage increases are evil because they lead to increases in the CPI. You see, we MUST HAVE PRICE STABILITY so as to predictably plan. And, we MUST HAVE PREDICTABLE ASSET PRICE LEVEL INCREASES or our plans for retirement expectations will all fall down.
You would need to go back to reading stuff from Veblen, in a contemporaneous critique, of Keynes to get a clue.
Full employment, as a mantra, has morphed into the notion that every state debt-slave must be put to work, always and forever slipping behind their master, but blind to the reality of their decline by the effectiveness of the PR value of exclusive focus on price levels.
Never mind that our retirement expectations have gone nowhere, as all things are relative.
Here's Newz for Boze Noze: Increased tax collections pale in comparison to the increase in money supply. It is as if the Fed dropped buckets of cash off the tops of high rises and the IRS said that the little folks must turn over 20 percent of the cash they pickup off the ground. We could not possibly tolerate such unearned gifts from the heavens going to the little folks, it might cause the evil of unpredictable CPI.
If economics were viewed as theater you could at least treat it in like manner to that of a good movie, you must fully suspend disbelief to enjoy the show.
Signed, The Wild Economist.
Posted by: Peter Graven | Jan 15, 2006 11:07:50 AM
Don't be fooled by JRA's first argument. There is nothing complicated about tax brackets. If there is anything complicated about the tax system, it is all the different tax credits and deductions. Tax brackets are easy. Anyone who actually does their own taxes knows that.
As for JRA's second argument that tax brackets are immoral, JRA contradicts that position in the next sentence.
Posted by: Sid Leader | Jan 17, 2006 6:21:27 PM
No, Carl, I am not an economist. My graduate degree is in education.
I do know that my Wall Street friends, like Ted Turner, love the Democratic party because they create jobs and profits, unlike the sad sack Repuiblicans who are forced to spy on their neighbors like goofy old Mrs. Cravitz.
http://www.slate.com/?id=2071929
History is such a b!tch!
Posted by: Brian | Jan 19, 2006 12:14:48 PM
Democrats.org has a post called "Bush Economy Benefits His Friends But Leaves the Rest Behind" that's worth checking out...
President Bush today launched a new effort to paint a rosy picture of the nation’s economic outlook. Unfortunately, the American people can already see that the picture presented by the President stands in stark contrast to the harsh economic realities facing most Americans. While the President’s policies have benefited special interests and his friends in a few favored industries, working Americans are falling further and further behind and the President’s disastrous fiscal policies have produced record deficits as far as the eye can see.
It is still the Economy, Stupid! But not the Wall Street-Corporate Cronies economy. Surprise, Surprise!! They are doing great.
But ask the average American how they are doing...not so well. Health Care, Energy Costs, Stagnate Wages, Crumbling Infrastructure, etc. America's divide of Have's and Have-Not's has never been worse.
Don't fall for Republican Lies.
Note: The presence of any individual above does not imply an endorsement by BlueOregon. The selection of faces shown is done by Facebook. Visit BlueOregon on Facebook.
Post a comment
Posted by: Boze Noze | Jan 13, 2006 10:40:40 AM
Here is a link to an article from an AP economist:
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/01/12/D8F3AUAG7.html
It seems that the Feds ran a surplus in December!
The surplus is being driven by increased corporate tax reciepts. Those evil corporations like Oil Companies, Gasp!
How in the world are we collecting record revenues after cutting tax rates? Could it be because cutting rates stimulates the economy?
I can hear Arthur Laffer laughing at you...