I’ve been browsing some conservative sites and the same theme crops up ‘lower taxes good for business’ and this may be true, however, it omits the fact that lower taxes force government to borrow more heavily and get into more debt regularly, thus creating a cycle of which you have an indebted public sector and a private sector unwilling to provide the money to help the government ‘govern’ in a responsible way fiscally.
Is it just a scam to lower taxes so that they don’t have to pay anything towards the government and just receive the same benefit as someone who does? If so, why do people stand for it?
Oh good, got in there with a straw man in the very first reply.
Very little of the current deficit is new increased spending, it’s mostly the result of a downtown in the economy combined with tax cuts that did not sunset as intended. The democrats did not spend their way to the current deficit - it’s almost all from decline in revenue. Some is hard to avoid, the result of decreased economic activity, but the rest - reduced tax rates - is entire self inflicted.
Your claim that the democrats believe “deficit spending = fiscal responsibility” is a straw man on its own. No one makes the claim that spending more is inherently fiscally responsible. Nor is it a logical logical conclusion to make from the actions of democrats that it is their intent.
On the other hand, maintaining historically low tax rates as a gift to the rich and accruing massive amounts of debt to do it is almost absurdly irresponsible. And yet the self-proclaimed responsible adults on the conservative side think tha cutting taxes further and increasing the problem is the most responsible thing to do.
And they cite the cost we’re laying on future generations as if that somehow gives them the upper hand, when they are the party that wants to increase the deficit. They turn down 4x as much spending cuts as tax increases as part of a package to significantly reduce the deficit because that are rigidly inflexible and have decided to fight to the death rather than contribute one more penny to society.
Any claims that conservatives represent the fiscally responsible daddy in the family while fiscally irresponsible mom blows the budget are absurd. They’ve managed to convince people of this dichotomy over the last few decades when their actions have consistently been the opposite. For decades they’ve been the ones willing to run up the credit card frivolously and only through propoganda and people’s assumptions about the nature of the partisan divide in this country have they somehow managed to convince people that they stand for fiscal responsibility when every actual action they’ve taken has been contrary to this.
The problem lies in the definition of the word “adequate”.
You seem to be taking it for granted that whatever level of spending that liberals want, is the only possible level there can be. Conservatives do not accept this.
No, I’m trying to understand why Conservative politicians are dogmatic about the lowering of a tax rate in order to help businesses, without realising that maybe, just maybe, that business will shape an advantageous scenario where they have government services available, without having to pay for those benefits in proportion of what they earn.
Couldn’t you be spending the same and have the income you received to spend reduced and still be in the same position? It’s not a matter of increased debt but money management.
As to why people stand for it, as I’ve said before the “Kansas Repulicans” may think republiconomics are bullshit but will side with the Republicans because they think their stance on social issues and gun control is more important than economic issues. I’m one of them and I"m not ashamed of it.
So do you disagree that the deficit went up during the Reagan administration, down during the Clinton years, and back up during Dubya’s administration?
If you agree, then…what was your argument, again?
Fair enough, but when a situation arises where you can’t afford bullets to arm your gun because the 'pubs don’t know how to manage the economy properly, you can’t necessarily complain about subsequent tax rises to plug the deficit.
Which again reinforces my point, it just seems like some businesses/business owners are engineering a situation in the country where they pay less taxes than the majority but still reap the reward of government spending/investment.
I suspect for the same reason that other politicians push deficit spending. That leads to the same scenario, just for different groups.
The idea for conservatives is that we cut taxes, this stimulates the economy, and then we make up for the reduced rates with greater economic activity. The idea for liberals is that we spend and increase the deficit, this stimulates the economy, and then we make up for the increased deficits with greater economic activity. That’s the basis for the defense of the Reagan and Bush tax cuts, and for the defense of the Obama deficits. (Obama’s stimulus was about 40% tax cuts.)
The problem is that both tax cuts, and deficit spending, are much easier to get passed than spending cuts. And politicians on both sides will try to jockey for advantage in any discussion about spending cuts, so they can blame it on the other side. We saw that in Obama’s State of the Union address a while back. Obama wanted to spend an additional $350 billion, and pass the responsibility along to the bipartisan deficit reduction commission to decide where to cut, so as not to increase the deficit.
Same sort of jockeying happened to Bush 41. He agreed to a deal where he raised taxes in return for spending cuts. Then the Democrats used his breaking his promise of “no new taxes” to hammer him. And guess what - the Democrats did not cut spending.
Then Clinton took office, and his first act was a try at increasing the deficit. Dole and the GOP found they could stop him. So we continued along until the GOP took over Congress and balanced the budget (much against Clinton’s will, although he took credit for it after the fact - Clinton’s suggested budgets had $200 billion deficits for years, until after he was going to leave the Oval Office).
Because taxes are a cost incurred by both businesses and consumers. Money paid in taxes is money that isn’t spent in the private sector free market on goods and services. And most conservatives believe that the free market meets the needs and wants of people far better than centralized government can.
Conservatives also believe that the government spends too much money on entitlements and other services. They believe that many of those services can be provided more cheaply and efficiently by the private sector.
Also, in the 80s under Reagan, we saw the introduction of the concept of the ‘Laffer Curve’. The theory goes that as the tax rate decreases, total government revenues decrease. However, counterintuitively, at a certain point lower taxes will result in greater tax revenue. This is due to the lower tax rate spuring greater economic growth and higher taxible business revenues.
Finally, you have the concept of “moral hazard”. Basically the unintented consequences of providing safety nets is that you also provide disincentives. For example, welfare encourages people to accept welfare vs working or bailing out businesses encourages businesses to make riskier business decisions.
I think of myself as a fiscal conservative (and a social liberal, fwiw).
But I don’t agree with the knee jerk summary that lowering taxes is fiscally responsible. I think reducing central government is fiscally responsible, and I worry that if I get taxed a dollar more, then the Federal government will leverage that dollar to spend a dollar and ten cents.
I’d tax the hell out of everyone if I were allowed to do so, but only on condition that we reduce spending and pay off debt with the proceeds.
My sense is that “Conservatives” are suspicious of big, central government because it is inefficient and because–at a Federal level–deficit spending has reached insane levels (beginning most recently with Mr Bush).
Given the relative paucity of millionaires in the red states, and given that half the voting pool voted for Mr Romney, it can’t be that all those “conservatives” are protecting themselves from higher taxes…a bunch of them that I know are of pretty moderate means.
It’s the adequate funding line that gets in your way of understanding.
Conservatives all over will tell you the government tries to do too much, therefore the need for funding.
Less government=less funding=understanding the rationale.
Now is this always the case everywhere? Of course not but it’s true of “Conservatives”, less true for “Republicans” of late.
I’m hoping I can ask there here, but if I’m in the wrong thread I apologize. I also hope I can avoid any big arguments between parties as this really is not meant to be a jab at either party.
When the government collects taxes from someone that money doesn’t get dumped into a black pit. Quite the opposite. It does get spent somewhere and given to a different private sector company. Either it is given as food stamps to someone who then will spend the money at a local grocery store (presumably). If it is given to someone on medicaid, they money will be given to a doctor and his office.
So why are taxes often thought of as being taken out of the private sector?
The government is redistributing the money but it still stays in the private sector. Even the money paid to the government employee to redistribute the money will go to the private sector because that employee will need to eat and sleep somewhere.
Because the private sector creates jobs and wealth; the government sector just redistributes wealth. That’s why the commies went broke. They were a little slow to figure it out. The only jobs government creates are oversight jobs, and eventually you run out of money for your overseers to redistribute.