Rodney26, on 2010-November-19, 12:29, said:
You can say over and over that Bush's tax cuts caused the increase in the deficit but it simply isn't true. Bush's reckless overspending caused that, and Obama has been much worse. The solution is to spend less.
No. The solution is to align spending and taxes. If congress succeeds in lowering spending below current tax collections, then cutting taxes will be great. I'm all for it.
But, so far as I can see, no politician is supporting the drastic spending cuts (9-10% of GDP) necessary to match current tax revenues. What is not cut must be made up with taxes. Otherwise future taxpayers will be buried under compounded debt service charges to the tune of $1 trillion per year for debt they had no part in creating.
Rodney26, on 2010-November-19, 12:29, said:
It amuses me to no end that people that point out this fact to you get accused of believing in a free lunch.
The free lunch argument I object to is the nonsense that the Bush tax
cuts led to an
increase in federal revenue. Phil denied that anyone on this board ever made such an argument, but he is wrong about that one also:
Rodney26, on 2010-November-01, 23:21, said:
Clinton never reduced spending, but he can be credited for keeping government spending on a steady path despite enhanced revenues for the dot-com bubble. I don't think there is a lot of evidence he was trying to pare down debt but he certainly was more fiscally responsible than Obama or Bush. I agree with the first two points on Bush, but the lower marginal rates resulted in more federal revenues, not less.
The Bush tax cuts took tax collections from almost 21% of GDP down to less than 17% of GDP, and the cratering caused by those cuts is responsible for most of the ballooning debt we face today. A lesser portion is due to unfunded spending increases. These are simply facts.
And it is a fact that the cratering of tax revenues did not produce the economic growth promised by the Bush free lunch crowd. Phil blames this on state governments, but state governments are separate and (for the most part) are required to balance their budgets.
Rodney26, on 2010-November-19, 12:29, said:
However, those that believe we can add 40 million people to the health insurance rolls and reduce the deficit simultaneously are apparently "realists."
Yes, requiring people to buy insurance to pay for the (unnecessarily expensive) care that they now get for nothing in emergency rooms -- subsidized by the rest of us -- is part of the solution to controlling healthcare costs. That is the realist position.
The free lunch crowd from 20 states is now petitioning the courts to recognize a constitutional "right to be a freeloader" to prevent Obama from restoring fiscal responsibility in healthcare.
The free lunch crowd is also fighting Obama's plans to
cut unnecessary subsidies to Medicare Advantage plans. If one can't cut even that, how can we possibly cut spending enough to avoid tax increases?
The growth of wisdom may be gauged exactly by the diminution of ill temper. Friedrich Nietzsche
The infliction of cruelty with a good conscience is a delight to moralists that is why they invented hell. Bertrand Russell