# 2011: Economic growth to hit 3-4%! **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 30, 2010, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2011-economic-growth-to-hit-3-4/565890 "2010-12-30T23:38:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2011, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2011-economic-growth-to-hit-3-4/565890/121 "2011-01-04T19:11:12Z")
> [@HRoark43](#): > > The middle class isn’t being impoverished. They’re moving up into the ranks of the rich; at least they were until this recession, after which they will resume their upward climb. That is absolutely wrong. The rich have been pulling away from the pack for years. the gap between the rich and the middle class has been widening for decades. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2011, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2011-economic-growth-to-hit-3-4/565890/122 "2011-01-04T19:19:58Z")
> [@HRoark43](#): > > I’m in favor of deep, deep spending cuts. I already said this. > > In addition to the spending cuts I mentioned, I’d also say end Social Security and put all that money into investment funds. Yes, but the only thing folks seem to be willing to fall on their swords for is tax cuts. Mustering political will to cut taxes is fucking simple. You can win election on a platform that consists of little more than cutting taxes. Mustering the political will to cut spending is a lot harder. You cut spending so that we don’t need the tax revenue and the tax cuts will follow. If the last 30 years have taught us anything it has taught us that cutting revenue has no effect (ZERO NADA ZILCH) on spending. All it does is reduce revenue and increase deficits. I know that you think cutting taxes raises revenue but you are simply wrong. No credible economist believes that cutting taxes in todays tax environment will raise revenues. So come back when you have a realstic plan to cut spending because if you can’t muster the political will to control spending then you have no business proposing tax cuts. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2011, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2011-economic-growth-to-hit-3-4/565890/123 "2011-01-04T19:23:05Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > But if we’re going to disallow Post hoc ergo prompter hoc reasoning, then from here on in I expect the lefties on the board to stop claiming that Clinton’s tax increases were good for the economy. Hey, maybe the economy would have been even better without the tax increases, right? I don’t thinki people were saying the teh Clinton tax increases were necessarily good for the economy (all taxes create drag), we’re responding to the apocalyptic predictions from the right that increasing taxes will lead to armageddon. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2011, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2011-economic-growth-to-hit-3-4/565890/124 "2011-01-04T19:37:24Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Counting a huge deficit as an implied tax is not exactly a stretch. When you’re running deficits of close to 11% of GDP, it matters. But even on a direct comparison basis, had the Bush tax cuts been allowed to expire Canada would have had lower taxes overall than the U.S. this year. Now we’re still slightly higher. But we were _much_ higher in the past, and our economy suffered. Yet some of you still think that higher taxes are the path to prosperity. Once again i think you misunderstand the argument. The argument isn’t that higher taxes will be good for the economy. The argument has a couple of facets. First higher taxes (along the lines that are contemplated) will not create much additional drag on the economy and the reduced deficits will have positive effects. The argument that may be confusing you is the argument that money wold be better off in the hands of the poor than the rich. that some redistribution would be good for the economy. Noone is saying that higher taxes per se would be good for the economy. > [@](#): > > We also spent about half as much on stimulus as you did as a percentage of GDP, and that doesn’t seem to have hurt us either. And because we didn’t run our debt through the ceiling to ‘stimulate’ the economy, we’re going to be running surpluses again within 3-4 years, so while you’re starting another round of debates over raising taxes to get your monstrous debt under control, we’ll be debating another round of tax cuts. Half of our “stimulus” was tax cuts for corporations and the rich. If we got rid of those, we would be pretty much where you were. There are significant differences between the US and Canadian structures structures. First of all you guys have a provincial tax that run in the teens, we don’t. You guys have a VAT at BOTH the federal and state level, we don’t. We have a trillion dollar a year military, you don’t. You have Universal Health Care, we don’t. You have an export economy, we don’t. You have very few problems with immigration of low skill workers, we do. We have reasonable banking regulations, we don’t. There are a whole slew of reasons why Canada and the US are not comparable. your property taxes tend to be higher than ours. Your sin taxes are higher than ours. You can match up Canada and the US and say “see, we have lower taxes so obviously thats why Canada is faring better than the US” ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2011, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2011-economic-growth-to-hit-3-4/565890/125 "2011-01-04T19:48:16Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Typically when you hold interest rates artificially low, you bias against short-term use of capital and incentive long-term use of capital. As a result, the biggest malinvestment in the U.S. would seem to be a bloated real estate sector, over-building in houses, apartments, and commercial real estate. I’d say that distortions caused by the mortgage interest deduction have resulted in higher demand for home ownership, driving up real estate prices dramatically in areas that are constrained by geography or zoning. San Franscisco, for example. the mortgage interest deduction has been around a long long time and perhaps it magnified the real estate bubble but it did not cause it. We have had low interest rates in the past and that did not cause the bubble. In fact we have really low interest rates right now and there is no asset bubble forming. It was loose lending standards and unchecked development of the mortagage finance industry. When guys like Angelo Mozillo feel like they can strongarm the GSEs into buying his junk, we have had a breakdown in government ovesight of the markets. With that said, the home mortgage deduction and the low itnerest rates created a bit of a powder keg. > [@](#): > > But that’s just a very large, very visible distortion. Malinvestments could be occurring all over the place. Projects being financed that don’t have customers, I hear what you are saying about cheap money encouraging marginal projects but I am curious where in America you see all these marginal projects being built during taht time period because as far as I can tell, they didn’t occur in the US as much as they occurred in developing nations. > [@](#): > > exuberance and cheap money leading to crazy mergers like Time Warner/AOL, etc. That was a stock for stock deal. > [@](#): > > I’d say the auto sector was bloated because of cheap auto loans and easy credit, and it might have been a good thing to let GM or Chrysler die. These companies are barely treading water right now, while auto loan costs are still at historic lows. How are they going to perform when a car loan costs 8% per year? Have you any idea what the margins are on auto finance. What sort of rates do you think the market demands for collateralized relatively loans with durations of 3 to 5 years? There is a reason why GMAC was the only profitable part of GM. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2011, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2011-economic-growth-to-hit-3-4/565890/126 "2011-01-04T19:59:27Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > You know what the problem with that reasoning is? The problem is that the tax cuts were implemented _because_ the economy was slowing down. That makes the analysis of the effect of those tax cuts suspect. > > Last year’s Romer and Romer paper tried to account for this by examining only ‘exogenous’ tax cuts, and they found very strong, very robust evidence that tax cuts stimulate the economy and tax increases damage the economy. The effect was much larger than they had anticipated - they found that a 1% increase in taxes resulted in a 3% decrease in GDP growth. That’s a huge factor. They also found that this did not hold when the tax increase was used to pay down the deficit - which is evidence that the economy sees deficit spending as a form of taxation. They found that an EXOGENOUS tax increase of 1% reduced GDP by 3%. My understanding is that by exogenous, they mean the money gets taxed by government but is not spent by government. For example, if we increased taxes, to reduce the deficit so that we are taking money out of the system without putting back into the the system somewhere else, then that wold have the effects you are talking about. It doesn’t mean that redistributive taxation is bad for the economy. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2011, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2011-economic-growth-to-hit-3-4/565890/127 "2011-01-04T20:01:54Z")
> [@HRoark43](#): > > FYI the stock market is already back up to 11,000. Those who sold out when it hit 6000 (or so) were fools. Just saying. > > The market is a good investment. You can even find ways to invest in growth markets like China. We had a highly crticized stimulus and TARP program that saved the global economy. just saying. Despite what your broker tells you, AAA corporate bonds outperform treasuries by about 1%. AAA corporate bonds outperform equities by 1 or 2%. There is ar eason why the wealthy buy treasuries. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2011, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2011-economic-growth-to-hit-3-4/565890/128 "2011-01-04T21:03:14Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > I don’t thinki people were saying the teh Clinton tax increases were necessarily good for the economy (all taxes create drag), we’re responding to the apocalyptic predictions from the right that increasing taxes will lead to armageddon. IIRC, the immediate benefit of the tax increases was not increased revenue, but the perception in the markets that the federal government had finally gotten its act together and embarked on a reasonable financial policy. This seemed to encourage investment. Clearly the prospect of paying a few percent more on an anticipated windfall did not stop anyone from investing or working in startups, despite the assumed doom and gloom. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [January 4, 2011, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2011-economic-growth-to-hit-3-4/565890/129 "2011-01-04T21:08:57Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > It’s entirely possible that the real correction should have happened after the tech bubble burst in 1991, but instead of allowing a sharp recession and a recovery, the Bush Administration basically tried Keynesian solutions - tax cuts, spending increases, and a loose monetary policy. THANK YOU. Its been like pulling teeth to get anyone on the right to admit that the Bush tax cuts were Keynesian deficit spending. The worst kind of deficit spending, tax cuts for the rich. Seriosuly, if you wanted to look for the least stimulative stimulus, you would cut taxes for the rich. the only thing less stimulative would be tax cuts for the child of dead rich people. > [@](#): > > The result is a seven years of anemic growth and anemic job creation, the formation of a new bubble due to these policies, followed by an even bigger correction as reality once again tries to assert itself. And then governments respond with even looser monetary policy and bigger stimulus in an attempt to keep the whole rickety infrastructure moving ahead. Well, you need someone who has the courage to take away the pnch bowl when the party starts to heat up. > [@](#): > > The problem is much worse now, because the U.S. has racked up so much debt that it’s losing the ability to raise interest rates without blowing up debt servicing costs, and because it’s run out of monetary bullets AND fiscal stimulus bullets. If the economy takes another downturn into a double-dip recession for whatever reason, it could get very bad. Yes, and isn’t that a reason to avoid that very bad situation instead of taking politcal advatage of the precarious situation we find ourselves in to unecessarily cut taxes even more? ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2011, 6:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2011-economic-growth-to-hit-3-4/565890/130 "2011-01-05T06:13:55Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > I don’t thinki people were saying the teh Clinton tax increases were necessarily good for the economy (all taxes create drag), we’re responding to the apocalyptic predictions from the right that increasing taxes will lead to armageddon. The point is that you don’t know what the economy would have done without the tax increases. In economics, we never know the path not taken. That makes it especially tricky to measure and attempt to direct, and is another good reason to have more humility with regards to the capability of very big governments to really improve society. > [@Damuri Ajashi](#): > > Once again i think you misunderstand the argument. The argument isn’t that higher taxes will be good for the economy. I think you misunderstood what I was arguing. That post was a direct response to **emacknight’s** use of Canada as an example of a country taxing its way to prosperity. My whole point was that Canada under-performed the G8 when we had bigger government and higher taxes, and began improving and eventually outperforming the G8 after we had lowered taxes, shrunk the size of government and the size of the deficit and debt. All these things are a drag on the economy. We made them smaller, and our country did better. Exactly the opposite of what **emacknight** was claiming. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2011, 6:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2011-economic-growth-to-hit-3-4/565890/131 "2011-01-05T06:15:57Z")
> [@Dick\_Dastardly](#): > > Yes of course. Adding on deficits until you get the number you want to make your case and then claiming that there’s nothing wrong with doing that is exactly the sort of thing we’ve come to expect from you. > > And with your history of endless dissembling and parroting of right wing think tank nonsense and presenting it as fact then yes, I’m going to go with what actual credentialled economists say about the Canadian economy versus your claims. Ah, that’s just like you. When losing an argument, resort to appeals to authority and ad hominem cheap shots. Predictable as rain. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2011, 6:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2011-economic-growth-to-hit-3-4/565890/132 "2011-01-05T06:28:30Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > THANK YOU. Its been like pulling teeth to get anyone on the right to admit that the Bush tax cuts were Keynesian deficit spending. The worst kind of deficit spending, tax cuts for the rich. Seriosuly, if you wanted to look for the least stimulative stimulus, you would cut taxes for the rich. the only thing less stimulative would be tax cuts for the child of dead rich people. Really? Given the cries that removing the tax cuts for the wealthy would have us back in recession we have just heard, I didn’t think the right had any problem with the stimulative nature of tax cuts. What they don’t get is that cuts for the rich are ineffective. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2011, 6:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2011-economic-growth-to-hit-3-4/565890/133 "2011-01-05T06:42:12Z")
> [@Damuri\_Ajashi](#): > > the mortgage interest deduction has been around a long long time and perhaps it magnified the real estate bubble but it did not cause it. Oh, I agree. It was just one of many factors. Basically the financial markets AND the government put a lot of weight behind the real estate bubble. Bad policy, out-of-control financial dealmaking, the fed holding rates low… These forces all directed increasing amounts of money at real estate. When money is loose and cheap, it tends to flow towards long term and capital intensive projects. Real estate qualifies on both accounts. > [@](#): > > We have had low interest rates in the past and that did not cause the bubble. In fact we have really low interest rates right now and there is no asset bubble forming. Don’t be too sure. There’s talk of a new bubble possible forming in the tech sector again. Facebook now has an estimated value of $50 billion dollars. We’re starting to see crazy prices being paid for marginal companies again. It’s very early, but I’d keep my eye on it. There could also be an education bubble. Numbers of college students and the price of college has been increasing dramatically, while the monetary value of a degree has been decreasing. That doesn’t seem stable. Of course, a college education is a very long-term investment. > [@](#): > > It was loose lending standards and unchecked development of the mortagage finance industry. When guys like Angelo Mozillo feel like they can strongarm the GSEs into buying his junk, we have had a breakdown in government ovesight of the markets. I sort of agree with this. Certainly the ability to package risk and sell it off at a big discount encouraged much more risk-taking in the financial sector, and rapidly increased the liquidity of the banks, since they could re-use the mortgage money instead of having to sit on the mortgage for 30 years. The problem became worse because of information losses in the financial markets - after one or two transactions, the actual risk of the mortgage securities was unknowable and therefore not priced correctly. The financial system was basically vacuuming up risk and institutionalizing it without the participants really knowing what was happening. Where I part with you is that you say that this was a failure of regulation. I agree that it was, but not that it could have necessarily been prevented. These are the kinds of problems that are easy to see in hindsight, but while it was happening the government was paying plenty of attention - they just didn’t see a problem. In fact, they were encouraging the shenanigans. That goes for both Republicans and Democrats AND the bureaucrats in the government accounting offices. There was simply no pressure for the kind of regulations that might have prevented the problem. We can pass those regulations and prevent the exact same thing happening again, but next time it will be something different that we didn’t foresee. Again. Government isn’t omniscient. It has no more ability to understand and diagnose problems in the economy than do the very smart people in the private sector who have fortunes on the line. > [@](#): > > I hear what you are saying about cheap money encouraging marginal projects but I am curious where in America you see all these marginal projects being built during taht time period because as far as I can tell, they didn’t occur in the US as much as they occurred in developing nations. Not necessarily marginal projects. Capital intensive and long-term projects. For example, a project that will take five years to build and cost $500 million dollars may be completely warranted when interest is at 3%, and a financial disaster if interest is at 8%. Low interest rates also encourage risk-taking, because you can’t earn enough money with the capital in safe investments. When interest rates seek their natural level, then the price of money is based on real factors in the real economy - for example the capital requirements in the short-term economy (building consumer goods and the like), the savings rate of the population, and the relative value of new short-term projects vs new long-term projects. When there’s excess capital, interest rates fall and money starts to flow into the long term projects. When the government holds the interest rate artificially low, it has the effect of diverting capital into long term, high cost projects and into higher-risk investments. But this is a disconnect from the real needs of the underlying economy, so you start getting malinvestments - projects that would never have been started had the proper information about the value of money been transmitted to the investors through market pricing. > [@](#): > > Have you any idea what the margins are on auto finance. What sort of rates do you think the market demands for collateralized relatively loans with durations of 3 to 5 years? There is a reason why GMAC was the only profitable part of GM. I don’t know how old you are, but for most of my adult life interest rates have been much higher than they are now. I wouldn’t take low interest rates for granted. My mother’s mortgage by 1980 was something like 17.5%. When my wife and I bought our first house in 1991, we were ecstatic that the mortgage rate had fallen from 13.5% to 11.5%. Now it’s 4%. It could easily be 8% or 10% in a few years. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2011, 6:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2011-economic-growth-to-hit-3-4/565890/134 "2011-01-05T06:51:59Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > You mean 2001, right? Can’t blame Bush the Elder for this one. Yeah, sorry. 2001. Arthur C. Clarke promised us moonbases, sentient computers and crazy alien monoliths, and all we got was [Pets.com](http://Pets.com). > [@](#): > > I doubt Bush was operating from a Keynseian perspective, since his financial policy was clearly not chosen to be most effective from that point of view. It is a bit unfair to claim all deficit spending is Keynesian - that would make Reagan the biggest Keynseian ever. Based on the claims at the time, the tax cuts were supposed to generate additional revenue, not additional deficits. That’s not how I remember it. I remember lots of talk of ‘putting money in the pockets of American families’ so they would go out and spend it. The tax cuts for the rich were because Bush was also a supply-sider. The whole package was basically a compromise - supply-side tax cuts for the Republicans, in exchange for demand-side tax cuts for the poor and middle class promoted by the Democrats. Funny, that’s what Obama’s stimulus package looked like too. Goodies for everyone! Go team. > [@](#): > > The unfunded wars and the unfunded Medicare mandate had effects also. > And I quite agree that part of our problem now is that increasing deficits during times of relative prosperity limits our freedom of movement today. Agreed on all counts. So why do you believe that this time the government will get its financial house in order once the crisis has passed? The stage is set for a long, slow recovery and a new equilibrium with higher unemployment rates. As long as that exists, there’s never going to be a time when the Democrats say, “Hey, this would be a good time to slow down job creation and growth and start tackling that deficit problem.” Especially not if it requires actual, significant cuts in the size of government. ---
**Author:** ![Dick\_Dastardly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c4cdca/32.png) [@Dick\_Dastardly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dick_Dastardly)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2011, 8:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2011-economic-growth-to-hit-3-4/565890/135 "2011-01-05T08:20:40Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Ah, that’s just like you. When losing an argument, resort to appeals to authority and ad hominem cheap shots. Predictable as rain. You’ll never beat me in an argument because you never use facts and evidence. You have a long, documented history of dissembling, strtching facts to meaninglessness to prove your points, plagiarising from right wing think tanks, making stuff up and what have you. Pointing that out isn’t an ad hominem attack, it’s a simple statement of fact. Pointing out you’re a plagiarist isn’t a cheap shot, it’s a fact. Even in your last post you’re doing the exact same thing you always do. Your biggest refutation of my cite was that, in your own words, " Canada’s economic performance continued to be strong compared to other nations after the tech bubble collapsed". So I look at what actually happened and invite anybody interested to judge for themselves whether that claim is accurate from looking at this graph, which shows Canadian/US economic performance over the relevant period: [![](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_afBLEFxODTA/SP4zS6TbX8I/AAAAAAAAAE0/dM730GBpfZA/s1600-h/US+Canada+GDP+Growth.gif) ](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_afBLEFxODTA/SP4zS6TbX8I/AAAAAAAAAE0/dM730GBpfZA/s1600-h/US+Canada+GDP+Growth.gif) I think most people would conclude that Canadian economic growth dropped remarkably similarly to US economic growth when the tech bubble burst, which kind of backs my cite and, not for the first time, makes it look like you’re just making stuff up again. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2011, 9:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2011-economic-growth-to-hit-3-4/565890/136 "2011-01-05T09:07:47Z")
I would like you to post one example of my ‘plagiarism’, citing both my text and the original so we may see the similarity. Or, you could retract your comments. Or, you could stop polluting Great Debates with personal attacks. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2011, 9:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2011-economic-growth-to-hit-3-4/565890/137 "2011-01-05T09:16:17Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > The point is that you don’t know what the economy would have done without the tax increases. In economics, we never know the path not taken. That makes it especially tricky to measure and attempt to direct, and is another good reason to have more humility with regards to the capability of very big governments to really improve society. Which leaves us with only analysis of past tax cuts and increases to judge what might happen in the future. When was the last time tax cuts were followed by an increase in the rate of GDP growth? When was the last time tax increases were followed by a decrease in the rate of GDP growth? Is there any historical correlation between tax rates and GDP growth? If not, will you please abandon this devotion to tax cuts as economic stimulus? ---
**Author:** ![Dick\_Dastardly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c4cdca/32.png) [@Dick\_Dastardly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dick_Dastardly)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2011, 10:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2011-economic-growth-to-hit-3-4/565890/138 "2011-01-05T10:44:09Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > I would like you to post one example of my ‘plagiarism’, citing both my text and the original so we may see the similarity. > > Or, you could retract your comments. > > Or, you could stop polluting Great Debates with personal attacks. I note you’re not disputing the fact that you have a long and storied history of dissembling, stretching facts, making things up etc. Excellent. All you are disputing is your plagiarism and complaining about ad hominem attacks. Again, a simple statement of fact is not an ad hominem attack. Google spotted your plagiarism for me : [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=12580660&postcount=68](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=12580660&postcount=68) and here’s the original : [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=12561522&postcount=84](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=12561522&postcount=84) You posted almost verbatim some outright nonsense from one of the right wing bullshit factories that you normally use to back up your arguments but that particular time your argument was so ridiculous I thought I’d try and find out where you got it from and googled it. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2011, 12:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2011-economic-growth-to-hit-3-4/565890/139 "2011-01-05T12:13:41Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Arthur C. Clarke promised us moonbases, sentient computers and crazy alien monoliths, and all we got was [Pets.com](http://Pets.com). … > As long as …, there’s never going to be a time when the Democrats say, “Hey, this would be a good time to slow down job creation and growth and start tackling that deficit problem.” 😕 😕 No one expects all economists to be intimately familiar with the economic systems of ancient Mesopotamia, but you might want to refresh your knowledge of the 1990’s if you intend to debate American economics. 😕 😕 (And what’s with the Clarke snark? He predicted communication satellites.) In 1993, it was the _ **Democrats** _ who tackled the deficit with a tax increase. It’s the Republicans, on the other hand, who insist on tax cuts in _all_ economic environments. The story of the **Deficit Reduction Act of 1993** should be much better known. This budget, _which passed without **one single** Republican vote, and ushered in one of the most prosperous eras in American history_ passed a key House vote with a 1-vote margin and was tied 50-50 in the Senate, with Al Gore breaking the tie. The same day that Bill Clinton signed this bill into law, the right-wing blowhards went on national TV and insisted that the Democrats were to blame for all the inevitable horrible economic consequences of this budget. And (repeating myself) this budget led to excellent growth in stock prices, middle class income, etc. But these are just facts. And facts are of little interest to right-wingers. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2011, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2011-economic-growth-to-hit-3-4/565890/140 "2011-01-05T20:49:53Z")
> [@Dick\_Dastardly](#): > > I note you’re not disputing the fact that you have a long and storied history of dissembling, stretching facts, making things up etc. Excellent. All you are disputing is your plagiarism and complaining about ad hominem attacks. Again, a simple statement of fact is not an ad hominem attack. > > Google spotted your plagiarism for me : > > [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=12580660&postcount=68](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=12580660&postcount=68) > > and here’s the original : > > [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=12561522&postcount=84](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=12561522&postcount=84) > > You posted almost verbatim some outright nonsense from one of the right wing bullshit factories that you normally use to back up your arguments but that particular time your argument was so ridiculous I thought I’d try and find out where you got it from and googled it. Just out of curiosity, do you know what plagiarism is? It seems that you think that if you can find any ‘right wing’ site that makes the same general points that I do, then I’m ‘plagiarizing’ them. If that’s the case, then every person on this board who ever posts a general political talking point or agrees with the points made by say, Media Matters for America, is guilty of plagiarism. For your own information, plagiarism is the direct theft of someone else’s writing, copied verbatim, while claiming personal attribution. You say I posted material ‘almost verbatim’. Please give an example. Don’t just drop links - post a paragraph of mine that you believe is an ‘almost verbatim’ copy of someone else’s - close enough that it’s clear that I stole the material and called it my own. You accused me of cutting and pasting other material without attribution. Prove it by showing the source material and mine. If you can’t do that, I expect an apology. You accused me of intellectual theft. Back it up. And no, I don’t agree with the other claims you make about me. I specifically brought up plagiarism because it’s directly testable. I’ll let the other participants in those threads decide whether I’m ‘dissembling’ or not. And would you please take these stupid personal attacks to the pit? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2011-economic-growth-to-hit-3-4/565890.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2011-economic-growth-to-hit-3-4/565890.md?page=8)