It’s starting to look like Obama is realizing he made promises he can’t keep. Pretty much the same story we see with every other politician.
Nice spin there.
1.) Axelrod isn’t Obama, and he’s one of the few who came with him from his tight-lipped campaign. As such, he knows better than to answer a question that Obama may have to ultimately answer differently, making Obama look like a hypocrite. “Those considerations will be made” is pretty much on par with saying “no comment”.
2.) Bill Daley is an “advisor”, that hardly makes him qualified to give details of Obama’s plans. That he speculates that it looks more likely than not, is still not evidence to support your claim that “Obama decides Bush’s tax cust are not so bad after all”.
The issue seems to be when the tax cuts for the wealthy will be repealed, and it is a matter of doing it either in 2009 or 2010. I don’t see anything in the article about postponing his proposed middle class tax cuts. Getting upset that part of Obama’s tax proposal may be delayed by one year is really making a mountain out of a molehill.
I don’t get it. You’re upset that he isn’t raising taxes on the rich just yet? The article said nothing about not cutting taxes for the poor. That’s why I don’t understand your position. Either you’re coming from the right and criticizing him for doing something that would arguably make you happy, or you’re coming from the left and are upset he’s not sticking it to the rich folks just yet? Which is it?
I would sure hope that if the economic situation has changed from the point in time he made his plans, he would be open to adjusting his plans appropriately.
In a boom economy, we should be paying more taxes so we have the reserves (yeah, right, Federal government, reserves) to afford our government during a down economy - AND lower taxes to stimulate the economy while its down. The problem has been that we don’t want to pay more when times are good, instead we want to pay less when times are bad…and that isn’t really a good solution if you continue it through successive cycles.
This is news? He said this back in the campaign.
I think he’s probably wrong not to accelerate the tax hikes, but we knew this was coming.
I don’t see the big deal. He’s just considering allowing the tax cuts expire naturally instead of removing them legislatively. It’s mildly disappointing, but hardly a “broken promise.”
You know, I have to say, I’m really becoming more and more comfortable with my vote for Obama. My only concern right now (besides the economy melting down) is on the gun issue…and I’m hoping Obama shows the same good foresight on that issue as he seems to be on some of these others. If he’s able to throw off the rhetoric and the left wing and do what is right he could be a GREAT president.
Time will tell but even before he’s in office I’m liking what I’m seeing so far…especially since with the Dems in control of the house and the senate I was fearing the worst.
-XT
I like how Obama is at least ackowledging that high taxes on the rich are bad for the economy. I’m not sure why they are only bad when the economy is in the “crisis” it is in now but not at other times, but at least Obama’s thinking is making progress in the right direction.
He’s acknowledging no such thing, and letting the tax cuts expire would not cause the rich to pay “high” taxes anyway. They would still be paying less than what they paid under Reagan. The right wing has an utterly distorted idea of what constitutes “high taxes” anymore. Under Eisenhower, the top bracket was paying 90% income tax, and nobody was calling Ike a “Marxist.”
I think this is a case of both of you seeing/hearing what you like. That is, IIRC, in one the debates (at least; probably elsewhere also), he explicitly said that at some point in the recent past – I’d guess in the '50s, based on what Dio says, but seem to recall him saying Kennedy – the tax rate was too high, to the point that it hurt investment. It was incidental to his main point, where he was most likely going over his general economic plan. Again.
I apologize for not being able to give a better cite, but it was a long campaign and my memory isn’t that good.
If only you took me up on the $100 bet!
But seriously, let’s compare perspectives on taxation. I don’t think anyone with seriously argue that raising taxes, in general, has a positive impact on the economy. However, the conservative movement has shown its proclivity to believe that they have a hammer (tax cuts for the wealthy) and that every problem is a nail. Slow economic growth? Cut taxes. High economic growth? Cut taxes. Big budget surpluses? Cut taxes. Big deficits? Cut taxes.
If it is true that Obama may only be seeking to allow the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans to expire, he seems to be taking a rather adult perspective on things, as opposed to the “live for today and screw tomorrow” ideas foisted upon us by the fiscal conservatives who ran the government for 6 of the last 8 years. First, that in the short term, raising taxes does take money out of some people’s pockets. Second, we are not fiscal grasshoppers who think of only today, and not tomorrow. Third, that the Bush tax cuts dug us into a huge budgetary hole, the depth of which has grown due to the cost of an unnecessary war that has sucked up money that could have been better used to address problems in this country. Lastly, continuing down this same flawed tax policy will only result in greater pain in the long term.
No, **Diogenese **is right on this point. Obama is not saying that “high taxes” on the rich are bad for the economy. He is just talking about making the transition to slightly higher taxes at a slightly later date. At most he is saying it’s bad to raise taxes on anyone at this point in time, and I think he’s right. We don’t know what we’re up against in this current economic climate.
Exactly. I’m impressed he’s not rushing to soak the rich the way some Dems seem to WANT him to, and instead he is taking a measured approach to see how things stand and leaving his options open. It may be that taxes need to be increased on everyone, or maybe just on the ‘rich’…or maybe not at all in the short term. The economic situation is going to drive policy…instead of ideology or some suspect sense of ‘fairness’…and it SOUNDS like Obama is setting things up so that he can actually evaluate the situation before simply waving the magic taxation wand and hiking taxes just because his base wants them hiked (on the ‘rich’ of course).
The more I hear from Obama the more comfortable I’m becoming with him. Like I said, he has the potential to be a great president if he can throw off the rhetoric from his own base and use that marvelous brain of his to do what’s right…as opposed to what’s demanded. Maybe I’ve been infected with Obama fever like my dad claims and I’m only hearing what I want to hear…but at this point I’m encourage. And he hasn’t even taken office yet!
-XT
Guys, look at the quote in the OP, which says that delaying the rise in rates is part of the economic recovery strategy. My post above is not my opinion, they directly said it.
OK, I accept that I was making an overly broad claim, not meant to be limited to this particular time or conversation but to “high taxes” in general. Sorry about that, Dio.
OTOH, I think my response to Rand is accurate as it concerns his view of Obama’s policy. Although I’ll willingly accept it if I’m wrong there also.
On preview: just to be clear, Rand, my only point was that your statement “Obama is at least ackowledging that high taxes on the rich are bad for the economy” is misleading, in that he has already done so (albeit for a higher rate than is being discussed here).
Of course it is. That means you need to have a higher tax rate in good economies so that its possible to lower it during bad economies. Otherwise, you’ve shot your wad - unless you want to take taxes even lower - but they can’t go below zero…and few rational people think they can be near zero and still have a functional federal government.
The problem of late is that we want low taxes in boom times (the government has plenty of revenue - they should give it back) - or we want to spend the money in boom times (the government has plenty of revenue, they should put a road here because six people need it - and building the road will bring millions into the district). We’ve been grasshoppers - not ants - on both sides of the aisle.
If we’d been smart, we’d have been raising taxes during the boom, so we could afford to slash them now while still being able to afford unemployment insurance that provides a safety net and government investment that provides stimulus (like tax cuts) when times are tough. But instead, we are between a rock and a hard place - like Americans, America has a huge credit card bill and is seeing its income drop without having bothered to pay down the mortgage and create a rainy day fund when times were good.
What we will end up doing is not raising taxes, continue the deficit spending, create more deficit spending in order to stimulate the economy, and pass the bill along to future generations. But right now, we don’t have lots of choices about that.
Without an agreed upon definition of “high taxes”, I’m not sure how Obama or anyone else can even have an opinion on that statement. Obviously a 100% tax would be too high, but just as obviously there’s some threshold below that at which the tax rate isn’t too high. The relevant question is: How high is too high?
I’d say the relevant question is…how are ya’ll going to feel if Obama decides that it’s in the best interest of the country as a whole not to soak the rich? If he decides to let the Bush tax cuts lapse, but put in his own measures which keeps taxes on the ‘rich’ relatively static to how they are today? Or if he decides that taxes need to go up for everyone by a small amount, instead of a huge increase on only the ‘rich’?
From some of the things Obama or his representatives SEEM to be saying, it sounds like a lot of the cherished ideas from the left for the past 7 or so years are either under serious reconsideration or at the least not going to be implemented in the first couple of years (or even in the first term).
-XT
That’s not what he’s doing. He’s saying that it’s a bad idea to raise taxes (on anyone) during a recession. That’s precisely why he will raise them later. Unfortunately, Mr. Responsibility decided to cut taxes and increase deficit spending, so President Obama will be left to pick up the tab.
And besides, can’t we all agree that taxes are a necessary evil? Clearly all taxes are “bad” for the economy (in absolute terms) no matter whom they are levied against. I’m talking to my more leftward friends here, but you have to admit that taxes aren’t good for the economy in absolute terms. However, taxes are necessary to build infrastructure and other investments which benefit the long-term prosperity of our nation. We clearly take a hit to have a military. But it’s worth having.
However taxes help redistribute the wealth to keep Capitalism from totally screwing everything up. Unbridled Capitalism leads to depressions and hiccups, the likes of which we are not comfortable with. That’s why we tax and redistribute and regulate. Now since the 80’s we’ve been slowly learning what happens when you start tearing down those structures. You lose stability. Losing stability is great in the 80’s and 90’s when you have impressive growth, but it sucks when you get to situations like we have now. Everyone else in the entire fucking world is on this economic page, I don’t know why we can’t be. Too much government and taxes and regulation leads to stagnation, too much unbridled capitalism leads to instability and inequalities.