Jshore:
Fine if you don’t like that cite (Sheesh at least a Reagan site is unimpeachable (even if they don’t remember where they got the data), not at all like those Clinton sites. I hate the charts at the Clinton sites. Everyone is going down (pause) get it?)
Here’s some more reliable economic info for you to back up my claims.
http://www.Patbuchananrules.com
http://www.fatrichwhitemen.com
Argue with that.
Have you no shame?
Here we are in a perfectly respectable conversation as regards greed, avarice, and the headlong worship of Mammon. And you have to drag sex into it!
Are you sure it was Charybdis that sucked down Greek seamen?
(Neither have I)
That’s from an early morning scene from The Odyssey, where rosy-fingered dawn
Yeah, we “get it”. Another thing we “get” is the tendency of a number of some conservatives, when cornered on a debate point, to reply along the terms of “Oh yeah? Well your god Clinton got a BLOWJOB! That trumps anything you have to say! Nyah, nyah!”
Woosh!
*Originally posted by jshore *
… one finds that although the claim is technically correct that the revenues as a percentage of GDP have reached an all-time high at the end of the Clinton era,
“technically correct” is jshore’s way of minimizing the fact that an opponent was right. Regardless of anything else, a tax cut seems reasonable at a time when taxes paid are at record high levels.
there is another side to the tale: If one looks at federal outlays as a percentage of GDP, they have been dropping all through the Clinton era and are, as of 1999, at a level so low that it has not been equalled since 1973-1974 and has not been lower since 1966.
Ta da! Jshore has provided a simple, straight-forward statement of reality. Government income was unprecentedly high, and outlays were considerably lower. So, we had three choices:
Use the surplus to reduce the national debt.
Bring outlays up to income.
Bring income down to outlays.
Unfortunately #1 isn’t politically feasible. Congress and the President will spend every dollar they can get their hands on.
The Bush plan was a compromise between #2 and #3. It cut taxes by about half of the estimated surplus.
Actually I agree that revenues are at a record high as a percentage of GDP.
However:
2)Outlays will increase of their own accord even without any new spending programmes. Unemployment will probably increase by half a point or so before it settles down increasing welfare payments, and more importantly the baby-boom generation will retire especially the next decade. The “surplus” is an artifact of looking at only a ten year horizon. There are entirely predictably expenditures that are going to be necessary the decade after that.
3) Bush can commit to having the current surplus spent mainly on reducing the debt if he wants. He can promise to veto any spending more than a certain percentage amount. Since debt reduction is popular this is a credible threat.
BTW doesn’t the edit feature on this forum work?
Scylla,
Boy those Clinton jokes were low blows! 
[By the way, you may actually want to check the first of your links…it works (unlike the rest) and is to some sort of rock band that plays 80’s music.]
“Technically correct” means you have correctly identified the tree but missed the rest of the forest. Actually, I have to retract my “technically correct” statement and said “technically incorrect but not far off” since a more careful scan of the numbers than I did last night shows that receipts as a percentage of GDP were higher in 1944 and 1945 than in 1998 (with the 1945 number equal to the 2000 projected number and the 1944 number still higher). This was probably due to all those war bonds. And, at any rate, the exact numbers one gets may depend on different estimates of the GDP so I will grant the reagan.com source the benefit of the doubt.
Well, it’s easy to keep taxes artificially low by running deficits. If you keep in mind that we haven’t had a surplus since 1969 (and before that the previous year was 1960), then you begin to get the feeling of why we might want to put this windfall of money we are finally getting toward (1) reducing the debt we built up, primarily in the Reagan era and (2) taking some action on problems, e.g., those that make our country compare in some statistics closer to Third World nations than to our First World breathren.
Particularly since tax rates on the rich aren’t at particularly high levels (by historical standards, in comparison with other wealthy nations, …). Rather, the reason for our high government receipts is because the well off are simply doing so well! (We also want to take advantage of the current state of affairs before the baby boomers retire to actually build up the social security trust fund rather than stealing from it and manufacturing an artificial “social security crisis” that we can then use to justify privatizing it.)
And, maybe some tax relief to those who haven’t benefitted so much from the economic boom is warranted (which would probably due more than a supply side stimulus to help get the economy rolling again anyway).
By the way, I find it a strange argument to say, “Well, we will never be able to pay down the debt because Congress and the President will just want to spend it, so we might as well give money back in the form of tax cuts thus forcing us not to spend because otherwise we will have ballooning deficits again.” Do you really endorse such a strategy? For one thing, if Congress will just spend away the surplus, why won’t they do the same thing and just deficit spend again? Why don’t we just try to figure out a realistic plan to pay down the debt, fund needed programs, and perhaps give some tax relief to those who might really need it rather than trying to play these games to try to “get [government] down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub”, as Grover Norquist, described as the “field marshall” of the Bush tax plan said?
That is not really true. For one thing, we are relying on 10-year projections which may or may not come to fruition. For another, the Bush/Congress tax plan is extremely back-loaded…because of the way the brackets are gradually reduced and the way the estate tax is gradually eliminated… which means that while it may now only be $1.35 billion dollars over the next 10 years, it will be much more in the following decade (the number quoted in this week’s Nation is $4.2 trillion).
[Note added in preview: Yeah…what Cyberpundit said too.]
I know the redistributionist liberals here may not want to hear it, but the Bush tax cut is what the people wanted, and that’s why it passed. Americans are not socialists. They don’t seize every opportunity possible to soak the rich.
Frankly, I think the Democrat’s side was pretty shaky. Attacking the rich used to be a reliable way of scoring political points, but not any more. There has always been widespread support for less graduation in income taxes, ever since the late 1970’s.
You know, taxes should work like this: Politicians campaign by describing the functions they believe government should do. The people elect those who’s vision of government most closely matches theirs. Then taxes need to be raised to pay for those programs.
If, at the end of a long period you find that you raised far too much money in tax, the only fair thing to do is give it back, in the same proportion that it was collected. But the Democrats basically said, “But we want to keep the money to pay for all those things the people want!”
Well, if they want them, fine. Give the money back, campaign on the new programs, and if the people elect you, raise taxes to pay for them. But don’t sneak your agenda in through the back door, and don’t use a tax rebate to foist your ideas of redistributionist economics off on the people.
What the Democrats saw was a valuable loophole for them - they suddenly had this big wad of cash that they could use to pay for things that they wanted, without having to go back to the people for the money to do it. That’s a political goldmine. But that mean old Bush wanted to give the money back!
Anyway, it’s clear that the Democrats were fighting against their own constituents in this case. Twelve Democrats voted for the tax cut. Of those twelve, eight are up for re-election in 2002. Clearly, they understood that fighting against the tax cut was politically damaging, meaning that the people they represent wanted it, in largely the form Bush was offering it.
Oh dear, Sam! Those horrible liberals/Dems try to “sneak things by” while those upright honest Republicans do the right thing. Give me a break!
One point of agreement I can find in your whole post there is the truism that fighting against tax cuts is politically damaging. The Republicans used that and a lot of obfuscation to their advantage. Another point of agreement is that I do think Americans try to be fair-minded and don’t simply want to “soak the rich”. But I think they do want the burden proportioned with some accounting of who can afford it the most.
But, I think in large part the Reps were able to pull off their tax cuts by deception and keeping the public ignorant. If they really wanted to be honest about it, why did they put up these extremely misleading charts showing the percent reduction in income tax that seemed to show they favored the poor? Why did they continually leave the payroll tax out of the equation? Why was there no discussion of the regressive parts of the federal tax structure…the cap on the SS tax, the fact that that tax applies only to earned income, and the fact that rich people get more of their money from capital gains which are taxed at a lower rate? And why weren’t they willing to publicize the distributional effects of the tax…which brackets get what percent of the amount?
And, with the estate tax, why did they appeal to arguments about loss of family farms and the like without apparently being able to find at least one example of this? Or, why didn’t they support amending the tax instead of repealing it? Why didn’t they come right out and say, “We feel Americans, no matter how wealthy, since admittedly this impacts less than 2% of you, should be allowed to pass on all their money to their heirs without a dime going to the government, including that part that is capital gains and has never been taxed at all?”
I’ll admit that the Dems clearly lost the political battle, but I don’t think they lost the moral one (except for those who sold out and to the extent that they weren’t less inept in the political battle).
Sam, spare us the motherfucking red baiting. I find it tiresome and intellectually bankrupt. You know bloody well many of your interlocutors are fairly sophisticated in terms of both politics and economics, some more so than yourself.
In terms of what “Americans” desires, you know as well as polls have been highly contradictory, in part against tax cuts versus debt payment, in part for, depending on how the question is framed.
What do we know then? That Americans, like anyone, have contradictory desires. That with fairly sketchy understanding of economics on a popular level folks have confused ideas.
Soaking the rich? What do we mean by that Sam? Socialistic. I’m going to be frank, I regard this kind of language as pure politics.
Come on kids, most of the participants here can do better than this, including Sam.
What do you mean Sam? Do we need to argue economics or are we argue demogogic factors?
Sam, I find it rather tedious to defend graduated income taxes, but you know very well that empirically income distribution issues present some serious development issues. There are in fact clear economic gains to equilibriated distribution of wealth.
Empirically there is a tension between pursuit of self-interest and group solutions; I think we have fairly clearly argued this in the past so I am fairly impatient that you have not even pretended to address substantive issue but simply mouthed ideologically motived distortions.
Very well.
Very nice little game Sam, however, debts are debts. Now we all know that the actual story includes (rightly or wrongly, for better or worse) prior spending above the level collected in past taxes. We can argue about (a) whether deficit spending is good (i) in general (ii) in the specific, but it is done.
The fair thing to do is to make a rational decision regarding costs and benefits of applying a surplus to prior debts.
Basically we have a baseless appeal to emotion. Sam, please, let’s stop this kind of foolishness.
Deal, Sam, let me add the following: let’s not use distortive, inaccurate characterizations of either tax policy or politics.
So, let’s not sneak our agenda conservative through the back door either.
Bloody hell. I have not an ounce of fucking patience for this sort of hyporcritical game.
Sam, this is bloody tiresome. Really bloody tiresome.
I would hope that intellectually you know better. If not… Well what can I say, politically motived characterizations are never terribly helpful.
I frankly have no patience at all for political propaganda.
[quote]
Anyway, it’s clear that the Democrats were fighting against their own constituents in this case.
[/qyuote]
No, what is clear is that both parties are fighting to characterize political and economic issues which many people understand only at the most basic levels – with good reason of course – and to the extent one or the other party has achieved a political mass it depends on fairly non-rational appeals. Your characterization does not strike me as partically helpful or accurate, but rather ideological.
So, when playing the ideological game, let’s not pretend otherwise. Your assertions are not other than ideological.
Ahhhh, thank you Sam, let us continue to play the ideological game.
Bloody fucking hell, can we ** never ** have an * intelligent * economically well informed discussion on such issues?
“But, I think in large part the Reps were able to pull off their tax cuts by deception and keeping the public ignorant”
Yes but how come the Dems were so ineffective in countering that spin?
After all this issue came up during the campaign in a big way. And they’ve had about several months more to oppose this.
It’s not as if the media is against them or something. In fact the editorial pages are firmly on their side on this one. Even centrist columnists like David Broder and centrist publications like the Economist (which endorsed Bush) have opposed this tax cut. Paul Krugman has been going on and on about this tax cut for at least 8 months.
In any case the polls seem to indicate that most people do in fact want a somewhat smaller tax cut with less going to the rich.
While sheer incompetence can’t be ruled out I am begining to think that there might be some thinking among the Democrats that having this tax cut in place actually gives them a good campaign issue later on.
Now if the Dems propose any popular programme and Bush says no because there isn’t enough money they can blame this tax cut for it. The fact that so much of it goes to the top 1% helps in that regard and also makes it easier to raise taxes later than if it were going mostly to the middle classes.
Does this make sense or am I underestimating the Dems’ stupidity?
An interesting theory! The Dems have been seeming to go for some political point-scoring versus concentrating on intelligent principled stands. On the other hand, they have also shown a certain amount of stupidity. I won’t take any bets on that one. (And, to be fair, with Republicans close to united behind Bush and a lot of blue dog Democrats around, the deck wasn’t completely stacked in their favor. Still, they clearly should have been able to do better than they did.)
I kind of agree with jshore. My argument is strange. I’m not happy about the situation, but I think it’s reality. The last guy who seriously pursued deficit reducition was Newt G., and look what happened to him.
I think we’re fated to wind up with unbalanced budgets and continuing governmnet debt.
Collounsbury: Hey, calm down, man. I’m not even American, so I have no personal axe to grind here. I’m just calling it as I see it.
As for the people being ‘fooled’ by the Republicans, just how stupid do you think the American people area? Every Democrat I’ve seen interviewed in the last two months has managed to get his ‘talking points’ out in front of the public, and we’ve all heard about the rich getting 44-48% of the tax cut. The people aren’t stupid - they just don’t agree with the Democrats.
Of course, the Republican argument is that if you are giving taxpayers a rebate, then the money should go to the people who actually paid the taxes. The Democrats tried to turn the tax ‘rebate’ into an entitlement, offering up things like instant rebates to every American regardless of whether or not they even paid tax.
Frankly, I think people are getting tired of the class envy card the Democrats keep playing. That might have worked 20 years ago, but it’s hard to get a real class-struggle frenzy going when truck drivers and union workers have big stock holdings in their own portfolios and pension plans.
Basically the Democrats are saying, “Well, we raised your taxes before to pay for the programs you wanted. But we taxed you too much, and now we have lots left over. We’ll give you back 10% of it, and spend the rest on things you never voted for, but which we think you need. Oh, and even though almost 50% of the money came from the top 1%, we think they have enough money already, so we’re going to take THEIR money and give it to the people we think could use it more.”
The Republicans are saying, “Oops. We taxed you too much. Here’s your money back.”
If the Republicans had actually offered proportionally more to the rich than what they paid, I would be against it. And I believe the very first version of their tax plan did just that. But that has been corrected, and I think the final plan was pretty fair. Apparently, as least 12 Democrats in the Senate agree.
Woah…My fever must be back up, I’m starting to hallucinate! december agreeing with that paragraph of my post there. Back to the Tylenol!
Seriously though, in response to what the rest of what you said: Well, I heardly see how the tax cut makes it less likely we will end up in deficit spending! I can see you making an argument that at least it would be a deficit due less to spending too much (in your view) than not getting enough revenue in. But, there is no plausible way I can see this tax cut leading to lower deficits (or larger surplusses).
As for your question, Sam Stone, about how stupid I think people are, well to be honest I don’t think most people do educate themselves enough to understand the details and what they mean. I think most people hear the Dems say that ~45% of the tax cut goes to the top 1% and they hear Bush say how the biggest percentage breaks are reserved for the lowest earners and I would bet many throw their hands up in confusion and don’t know what to make of it. I challenge you to go out on the street and see if you could get the average person to explain this discrepancy and what each statistic is actually measuring!
And, then they, like you, seem enticed by an argument whereby everyone has to get the same percentage back in the tax cut as what they put in in income taxes, without regard for the fact that all the other taxes paid (as I alluded to above…and didn’t even include local taxes like sales taxes), which are all regressive. (Let alone considering the radical idea that maybe some people are hurting more than others who are doing just fine and dandy, thank you…so maybe those who have benefitted the most from the booming economy might be able to live with getting less of their contribution back. But, again, one doesn’t even have to bring up these redistributional issues because what you are doing is actually regressive, not neutral, in the broader picture of things.)
[By the way, in regards to your last paragraph about the distributional impacts, I must admit that I haven’t seen a real analysis of the amount given back relative to the amount paid in, particularly one that tries to look at the larger picture than just income taxes. Have you? Also, I thought I recalled you supporting the Bush tax cut in its original form…Was I wrong on that?]
Having said all that about the public, I don’t think there has been any enthusiastic grandswell support in favor of G.W.'s tax cut despite the power of the bully pulpit that the President has. What gets through Congress has some relation to what the masses want, but also relates to what those currently sitting in the majority in Congress want and to what those who have the power and influence to make their point of views heard and can raise considerable money for campaigns want.
As for the “too much” argument, there is still a big debt, largely due to one of G.W.'s predecessors who you admire so much, that needs to be paid off. And, there are actually programs that polls show that the public supports that need to be funded. I don’t think you are really entitled to say that the government has necessarily funded all the programs that the public wants funded and thus the rest should go back. That is an issue properly decided in the political arena (which I assume even you might agree with since, with this tax cut plan, it seems to currently be going your way in the political arena).
[You libertarians (or leaning that way) always seem to be evoking these ephemeral larger principles that you claim are very concrete. I must admit that I invoke larger principles too in support of my cause, but I don’t think I try to argue that they support a certain policy to the concreteness and exactity that you guys seem to!]
Yeah…your from that socialist country north of our border! What are you doing wasting your time with us? Isn’t Canada’s soul in far dire need of a libertarian conversion? Or are you opting for the easier targets first?
Right, and I didn’t say the tax cut would help prevent deficit spending. I said deficit spending was in the cards with or without a tax cut. The difference is, without a tax cut, the level of taxation and spending would be that much nigher.
Let’s see what happened. Tax cut passed in 1981. Now one would think that forward-looking businessfolk would immediate pick up their investment if they believed in that good 'ol supply side magic. But no, their joy was delayed, “until it became effective”.
Fixed Nonresidential Investment
81-82…-4.7%
82-83… 2.5%
Heralding the 82-83 investment recovery as a way of vindicating Reagan’s tax cuts is pathetic. The increase in investment didn’t even equal the preceding year’s decrease. (And recall that this followed a long recession where investment had shrunk prior to 1981).
Now, let’s look at the effects of on Investment of Clinton’s 1993 tax increase, “effective in 1994”
Fixed Nonresidential Investment
93-94…9.8%
94-95…9.6%
Well, lookee there. Seems like the Clinton tax increase caused a veritable explosion of investment activity. No delays, no drips, no errors.
No, I don’t believe that; as CyberPundit noted, cyclic factors must be controlled for.
Source: Statistical Abstract
RE: The OP. Another point. If the Dems filibustered during the final vote, that might have broken a back-room deal with Jeffords. Jeffords’ position was that he would vote with the Dems on procedural matters after the tax cut passed. The only real losers in that deal were those who wanted to pack the court system with a certain type of judge. (And once again, the business wing of the Republican party triumphs over the socially conservative wing.)
I keep hearing this point made without substantiation. It does have some truth in it, but it ignores the budget surpluses secured during the Clinton era and the generally lower deficits during the Carter era. Again, I note that federal spending during the Clinton years shrank as a share of GDP, even after controling for the business cycle. Again, using casual (and bogus) empiricism, one might conclude that lower federal spending follows from tax increases on those in the highest brackets.