Drill Now for oil

[James Arthur]

The neocon tax cutters have a poor record at cutting spending - they
borrow to make up for less tax revenue, and spend like Democrats.

Certainly true of this administration.

The Republicans have been funding both their and
their opponents priorities.

Alarmingly, though, as GWB's team has gushed gold on
their priorities, their Democratic critic's retort
has been that it wasn't enough.

Best,
James Arthur

 

[James Arthur]

The Republicans have been funding both their and
their opponents' priorities.

Alarmingly, though, as GWB's team has gushed gold on
their priorities, their Democratic critics' retort
has been that it wasn't enough.

Groan. Punctuation corrected.

James

 

[MooseFET]

Imagine that -- within the space of a couple of paragraphs, a rather
basic and straightforward economic proposition is debunked/
discredited. Are you fucking serious?

I had to laugh when you wrote "real data." It sort of assumes that it
exists.

It does. Go try to find any practical proof of the claims of the
supporters of the Laffer curve as he drew it and the increased income
from cutting taxes. You will find that in the practice, the data show
the inverse because we are simply not at a high enough tax level for
the claimed effect to be seen.

Now to your links...
Krugman doesn't claim to have debunked the basic proposition,
especially in one or two paragraphs. (As much of a shill has he has
become, that would be bold, even for him.) All he is saying is that
it hasn't been sufficiently demonstrated that marginal tax rates are
at the level were increasing the rate would result in decreased
revenues.

So although he doesn't dismiss that there is a curve he is telling you
it isn't the shape that Laffer and others have claimed.

The other link is a cartoon.

Something must have munged the other link.

Once again, the problem with Laffer's proposition is not in its basic
theoretical statement -- the problem is knowing the complex conditions
for a particular nation and its rates, and its "economy."

The idea that there is a curve is one thing. Claiming to have
knowledge of its shape and that cutting taxes would increase income is
quite another. Laffer made the claim about the US economy.

I don't have much problem with what Krugman wrote, as to whether his
assessment is correct -- it may well be correct and I don't really
doubt it. I did notice he got shady with "So everything you’ve heard
about how revenues have boomed since the Bush tax cuts is wrong. What
really happened was that revenue plunged, as a percent of GDP, in the
early Bush years, then staged a partial, but only partial, recovery"
and then quickly covered up the shadyness with ""UPDATE: Aha, I forgot
to point out that GDP growth has not been exceptionally strong under
Bush, so that I’m not cheating by looking at revenues as a percent of
GDP."

You may dislike him and suggest things about his wording that I
believe are a matter of style but he makes the point quite nicely.

 

[MooseFET]

Since one is quickly 106% converted to the other, what's the dif?

Your 106% is completely bogus so what you conclude based on it isn't
likely to be worth much. A great deal of government spending is
productive.

 

[MooseFET]

It doesn't "come due" at all.


There has to be some debt. If the national debt were zero,
government bonds wouldn't exist, so the "knobs" used to dampen the
economy wouldn't exist.


Better the tooth fairy left us all a million bucks too.

Any money that is left when the rapture happens will just go to waste.

 

[MooseFET]

JeffM wrote:
Never mind that The Left's *Tax and spend*
is preferable to The New Right's *Borrow and spend*.
krw wrote:
While neither is a good thing,
Amen.
tax and spend drives the economy to zero,
reducing the ability to pay equally.
At least it's an honest approach.
No, it's really not.
Piling your debt onto your grandchildren is fundamentally dishonest.
It's a Ponzi scheme.
How does piling on more entitlements help "my grandchildren"?
When the economy turns down, the weenies simply spend more.
It doesn't seem to slow down the Borrow-and-spenders.
It does slow down the tax-n-spenders. At least there is an economy
left to *hope* to be able to pay the bills.
That doesn't make the Republicans. [NO CARRIER]
It's been mentioned here before that Progressives spend their terms
cleaning up the economic messes that NeoCons leave behind
--only to have the NEXT Republican screw it up again.
http://www.bartcop.com/natl-debt_Chart-2004.jpg
Hogwash. What about the economic and other messes
the progressives hero FDR made?
They're the granddaddy of all messes!
Yeah. That
getting-the-nation-through-the-Coolidge/Hoover-Great-Depression
thing was a real bad legacy. 8-|
Complete nonsense.
...though I'l concede that Social Security was a Ponzi scheme.
The Righties should just call their party what it is:
The Subsidize the Trans-Nationals and Send Jobs Overseas Party.
Funny. I didn't know Bill Clinton was a Republican.
...and George H.W. Bush said, "No new taxes".
Politics breeds policy aberations.
Silly statement. Even sillier to knuckle under to the DemonRATS and
go back on a silly statement.
Let me know when you see job growth under a Republican
even keep pace with population growth.
For the last 6 years there has been a lot of job growth.
"The Bush *job growth* record" is an oxymoron.
Only to a flaming weenie.
To repeat:
The rate of job creation hasn't even kept up with population growth.
Nonsense.
Yo, Jeff, Keith. Don't argue, post links to quality data.
Let 'im. He's the one that made the outrageous claims.

Hmmm. Preemptive strike?

No, fact. Let him show how the unemployment rate can be low while
the number of jobs hasn't kept up with the population growth and the
rest of the Democrat talking-point claptrap.

Thats is easy. The U3 has been redefine just about every time an
election is near to make it look better.

 

[MooseFET]

Good grief. OPEN YOUR LEFTIST WEENIE EYES! You might start with
the aftermath of the Kennedy, Reagan, and Bush tax cuts.

Please provide the actual numbers. The Bush tax cuts caused the
income from taxes to decrease as did Reagans. In both cases the debt
exploded.

The Kennedy tax cuts had many other changes in with them.

 

[MooseFET]

Nice metaphors. Meaningless and wrong, but nice anyway.


Nonsense. Taxes on businesses kill growth, which strangles the
economy.

You are wrong in your claim about taxes on businesses. Like I said it
is the nonproductive spending. The money for the nonproductive
spending either comes from the funds that could be used for
investment, the money the customers could be spending or the money
that the business could be investing. All slow growth.

If you want to compete in the world, drop *ALL* taxes on
business. There wouldn't be enough people to fill all the jobs.

The jobs would still go to the lowest cost labor market. This means
that even with not taxes on business they would go to China etc if you
don't have tariffs to make importing expensive or allow your standard
of living to fall to that off the lowest nation.

But if you want to eliminate welfare (both the street corner bum
type and the corn growing type), I'm all for it.

Unfortunately we don't like to trip over dead bodies in the street so
we are stuck with paying those who can't support them selves.

 

[MooseFET]

That is true, mainly because the conservatives have never truely
been in power.

There is a world of difference between a real conservative and a
neocon. The neocons believe that you can eat all the cake and ice-
cream you want and never get fat. The real conservatives would be
raising taxes when the economy is doing well to pay down some of the
debt.

 

[MooseFET]

That's inherent in the beast: governments can't make things,
people do, so governments have to live off their hosts, off
the people. That's why least is best.

You are incorrect. The government is merely us acting together.
Since we can make things acting together, the government can make
things. They make things like roads and bridges and dams. These are
all much too big for just one person to make but together we can do
it.

 

[Jim Yanik]

[email protected] (Don Klipstein) wrote in

The neocon tax cutters have a poor record at cutting spending - they
borrow to make up for less tax revenue, and spend like Democrats. This
started with the Reagan administration.

- Don Klipstein ([email protected])

the socialists create the wasteful spending,the conservatives don't have
the political muscle to get rid of them once created,and get blamed by the
socialists for the spending and the negative effects on the economy.

 

[MooseFET]

Trash-talking? There was a huge mania, a bubble, ripe
for bursting.

There were excesses. There would have been a smaller down turn if it
wasn't for Bush's trash talk.

That was real, and not Bush's fault.

The part that would have happened anyway wasn't his, but running
around like chicken little is like yelling fire in a theater when it
is crowded. In an empty theater it is OK because there is no risk of
people trampling each other.

Acknowledging and addressing that is what Bill should've been
doing rather than taking credit for it.

He had a republican congress to contend with.

Steve Ballmer and Greenspan were hip. Everyone was. I
was screaming it to the rafters a year before it
happened.

Not everyone was screaming it to the rafters. Only those who we
should blame for making it worse by trash talking it were. Please
feel free to add more to the list of those who were trash talking it.

 

[Richard Henry]

Good grief.  OPEN YOUR LEFTIST WEENIE EYES!  You might start with
the aftermath of the Kennedy, Reagan, and Bush tax cuts.  

Whining is not data.

 

[MooseFET]

"Clinton's" taxes and policies were still in effect when
revenues plummeted in 2001.

So, they don't explain the "prosperity."

It was a bubble. Not sustainable, and not real.

So all the problems were caused by Bill Clinton. Yeah right!


The day after the election people looked around and said "Oh crap look
who we just elected" and the economy fell. No big surprise.

 

[Richard Henry]

Actually it was reported on the news tonight that jobs are coming
_back_ to the US due to the dollar falling.

Fox news?

 

[MooseFET]

Actually, AIUI we produce more manufactured goods than ever.
It's the jobs we've been paring.

Small wonder, really: burden employers and they cut
employees. Build robots. Or leave.

Labor is cheaper in China. They will send the jobs to the most cost
effective market. We need to also drop the floor out from under the
US's standard of living if we want to keep the jobs here by cutting
the costs to the manufactures.

 

[MooseFET]

Actually it was reported on the news tonight that jobs are coming
_back_ to the US due to the dollar falling.

Japan has been taking advantage of the cheap american labor for
years.

When the average American worker's standard of living drops below that
of Mexico, the jobs will return from there too and we will all be
rich :>/

 

[Simon S Aysdie]

It does.  Go try to find any practical proof of the claims of the
supporters of the Laffer curve as he drew it and the increased income
from cutting taxes.  

Sorry, but I'm not going to say that "real" (good) data does exist.
And even if it did, it is a harder problem yet to decide what it
means. All you laypeople thinking you know what the data about
complex phenomena is, and more importantly know how to interpret it
are fooling yourselves and people you want to buy into your beliefs.

"Experience . . . brings out the impossibility of learning anything
from
facts till they are examined and interpreted by reason; and teaches
that
the most reckless and treacherous of all theorists is he who
professes
to let facts and figures speak for themselves." -- Alfred Marshall

The proposition is /a priori/. No one has slam dunked it out of
existence by facts reasobably explained. All criticisms are riddled
with bad assumptions.

You will find that in the practice, the data show the inverse
because we are simply not at a high enough tax level for
the claimed effect to be seen.

Let's assume good ("real") data does exist:
So that most decidely does not say Laffers' basic proposition is
incorrect. To oversimplify, it is merely arguing "where we are" on
the "curve." And that implicitly acknowledges the acceptance of this /
a priori/ proposition. And this is exactly what I said in the first
place.

So although he doesn't dismiss that there is a curve he is telling you
it isn't the shape that Laffer and others have claimed.

I think you are really getting confused in thinking Laffer was saying
there was some literal and easily definable/knowable curve. Laffer
himself was not that stupid, as best I can tell. And neither is
Krugman, for that matter. And it is what I have been saying too.

Krugman is saying there are some plain doubts about the effect of
marginal tax rate cuts. That ought to be enough for you.

Something must have munged the other link.


The idea that there is a curve is one thing.  Claiming to have
knowledge of its shape and that cutting taxes would increase income is
quite another.  Laffer made the claim about the US economy.

Oh, I'd like to know exactly what his claim was -- a claim he does not
even recall explicitly, which I think is reasonable. To me, he was
probably explaining basics to some political pinheads, and they ran
with it. Marginal tax rates were certainly high then. There was
nothing wrong with him mentioning a rather basic /a priori/
proposition on a napkin. The pinheads could have been successful
simply due to their contemporary condition. What you should be
complaining about is the politicization of the idea, not the basic
proposition itself. And I certainly don't think you know that rate
cuts back then were a cause of decreased revenue. (Just like KRWs
simplistic counter assumption that a revenue increase is automatically
attibuted to rate cuts.)

The proposition is basic -- both sides make entirely too much of it
imo. It is a stupid diversion from more important questions.

You may dislike him and suggest things about his wording that I
believe are a matter of style but he makes the point quite nicely.

Professor Krugman has some issues, not all of them covered here:
http://www.econjournalwatch.org/pdf/KleinBarlettCharacterIssuesJanuary2008.pdf

BTW, I own three of Krugman's books.

 

[Simon S Aysdie]

That is true, mainly because the conservatives have never truely
been in power.  

You're smearing neo-cons together with conservatives. I agree with
Thomas Woods that neo-conservativism is merely another form of
leftism:

"What is so revealing about Boot’s critique, though, and what in fact
makes his review newsworthy, is that it conclusively proves what
traditional conservatives have consistently alleged: neoconservatism,
at root, is merely a variety of leftism."--Thomas Woods
http://www.amconmag.com/2005_03_28/article2.html

_We've Been Neo-Conned_, by Ron Paul
"One thing is certain: conservatives who worked and voted for less
government in the Reagan years and welcomed the takeover of the U.S.
Congress and the presidency in the 1990s and early 2000s were
deceived. Soon they will realize that the goal of limited government
has been dashed and that their views no longer matter.

The so-called conservative revolution of the past two decades has
given us massive growth in government size, spending and regulations.
Deficits are exploding and the national debt is now rising at greater
than a half-trillion dollars per year. Taxes do not go down – even if
we vote to lower them. They can’t, as long as spending is increased,
since all spending must be paid for one way or another."
http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul110.html

The only way to limit government has been to
redirect spending.  
Incoherent.

The government will *never* reduce spending.

You finally got a hit on the third pitch.

 

[Don Klipstein]

Your 106% is completely bogus so what you conclude based on it isn't
likely to be worth much. A great deal of government spending is
productive.

I see too much government spending being of "productiveness" ranging
from as high as "somewhat subpar" to as low as "slightly more productive
than throwing taxpayer money into a bonfire".

I want a lot less "gubmint"/"gubbamint" spending. It appears to me that
the private sector on average accomplishes more productiveness and
wealth-building than "gubmint" does.

Sadly, the last truly fiscally conservative USA President as of late
June 2008 appears to me to be Eisenhower. I also find that one to be the
only true fiscal conservative since at least 1932 and at least through
2007. A distant second I find to be Clinton, and I say a "much less
distant second" (though still short of "fiscally conservative") is
Clinton's second term, with gridlock against spending bills and tax cut
legislation resulting in large part from both houses of Congress having
majority of the party other than the one in the White House.

As for taxation policy - I say that a greater priority is to spend less.
Borrow-and-spend-as-much-as-Democrats has been MO of "neocons". A few of
them argue how USA is good in this area compared to what I would call
"worse welfare states".

A few fiscal years ago, USA's current President (as of June 2008)
requested an $8 billion "energy bill" and allowed past his desk the $14
billion one that came from Congress in response to his $8-billion request.
He had yet to veto anything as of then when he let that
nearly-doubled-porked-up thing go through!