$$$$$$$$ Bankruptcy $$$$$$$
Paulie Brading
The anti-tax party is at it again. Gerald Seib's column in the Wall Street Journal talked about the threat of a recession and the excellent opportunity it gives the Republicans to push tax cuts to spur the economy. When the economy is growing Republicans say it shows that previous tax cuts worked. When the economy is slowing down they say we need tax cuts to fire up the economy. No matter how the economy is doing, the Republican's consistently call for tax cuts.
If permanent tax cuts are provided everytime the economy goes into a slump wouldn't the government move closer to bankruptcy? It seems like that is happening right now.
How can taxes be cut during growth years and cut during recession years no matter how massive the deficits?
The Bush administration has overseen the largest increase in spending in American history. The federal government's deficit is the highest it has ever been.
The Republican economic policy seems pretty simple, "drown the government in a bath tub."
Is Grover over?
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1:25 p.m.
Nov 28, '07
The thing about Republican's notions on tax policy and "economic freedom" is that when referring to good/bad economic climates they're only concerned with corporation's profitability. This is easily seen in how they parse numbers.
On a micro scale we see it:
We also see it on a macro scale by comparing and contrasting tax revenue as a percentage of GDP for major national economies and global economic competitiveness rankings for those same economies.
If lower taxes is supposed to be such a great contributer to a strong economy then why isn't Mexico's economy kicking our butts in the global marketplace? Why don't they even show up in listings of national economies that are the most competitive with other national economies? Because it's bogus mumbo-jumbo, that's why.
Seen on a bumper sticker the other day:
2:47 p.m.
Nov 28, '07
Gerald Seib's column in the Wall Street Journal
Care to share a link, Paulie?
Nov 28, '07
So what do you want to do Paulie, raise taxes during an economic slowdown? Nothing stopping you from writing a check to the IRS and sending it in is there? Or do you just want other people to be forced to send their money in so you don't have to?
Nov 28, '07
I love "tax and spend". It makes so-o-o-o-o much more sense than "borrow and spend".
Nov 28, '07
The Shrubbery is not the first Republican administration to practice this strategy:
Screw up the government as much as possible in order to constrain future spending on social safety net, entitlements, and infrastructure.
In the process, they have caused a downward spiral in the value of the dollar, and generally done to the economy what they have done to the federal government.
Nov 29, '07
The Bush-republican legacy: A QUAGMIRE in the Iraq Civil War A $7 TRILLION Deficit UTTER, COMPLETE INCOMPETENCE!
Nov 29, '07
"No matter how the economy is doing, the Republicans consistently call for tax cuts."
Well, duh. The Repubs have only two solutions for all problems: 1) war and 2) tax cuts.
Economy in recession? We need tax cuts to stimulate the economy.
Economy booming? We need tax cuts because we can afford them.
The real RepubliCON agenda, of course, is to ratchet down government revenues until all government programs and services -- except "defense" -- have to be eliminated.
In the long run this insane policy will destroy this country -- indeed, it already is destroying it -- but the working-class Repubs don't understand that and the rich Repubs who manipulate them don't give a damn as long as they get richer.
9:46 a.m.
Nov 29, '07
Kevin,
That bumper sticker is dead-on. As is the analysis of "bogus mumbo-jumbo." That's exactly what this is.
Nov 29, '07
Have you noticed that the Bush administration is trying to gradually privatetize Medicare as much as possible? Far from sponsoring Universal Health Care (as only Kucinich is doing) they are cutting back on benefits, Doctor payments and everything else they can. They have even included a list of private Medicare supplement plans in their new Medicare handbook. It may be helpful but I can see us being eased off Medicare and on to the private plans. It didn't work with Social Security so now they are trying Medicare.
6:35 a.m.
Nov 30, '07
Paulie, you're dead right. The amazing thing is how far they're willing to go and how much they're able to get away with.
Take the example of the failures of FEMA after Hurricane Katrina. The failures resulted from mindless, knee-jerk anti-government ideology.
Because of reflexive disdain for government, FEMA was budgetarily starved. The directorship of crucial public safety agency as if it were the ambassadorship to Andorra -- a plum job for an incompetent crony.
The disaster preparedness agency was allowed to fall into unpreparedness and an attitude that in case of a disaster, default mode was, it's someone else's business. Because if were FEMA's, that would mean the federal government has a legitimate role. And that can't be.
FEMA's were failures of functions the private sector could not provide. They inherently require active authoritative coordination, because the normal conditions of private sector passive coordination were destroyed. The invisible hand had been nailed to the wall.
But government was missing when it needed to be there, because the anti-government folks had disabled it.
So, is the conclusion drawn from all this that it exemplifies how Reaganism-Norquistism can put us all in danger? (Norquist is to Reagan as Lenin is to Marx).
That Americans need mutual support as well as individualism? Effective government as well as markets?
No. Those points, which might have been made by liberals and centrists, including moderate conservatives (another idea Norquist wants to drown in a bathtub) weren't made, not effectively anyway.
But the extreme anti-government ideologues didn't sit around. They got busy and started circulating memes that FEMA's failures were examples of why government is bad and inherently ineffective.
This is the intellectual equivalent of a parent-murderer claiming sympathy as an orphan. But amazingly they were able to put it over, to the point where one requently sees FEMA's Katrina failures cited as reasons not to support government action or authority in all sorts of unrelated contexts.
Playing defense against maliciousness like Seib's by noting and analyzing its intellectual and moral dishonesty is necessary. But we have to go further.
One piece is building institutions that help us formulate and circulate ideas & their presentation. Kudos to the BlueOregon founders and regular contributors for picking up pieces of that task.
Another is that we need to get stronger about our positive values, lay groundwork of principles in the ideasphere.
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