After supposedly conceding that Obama would concede tax cuts:
Senior White House adviser David Axelrod said this morning that President Obama has not caved to GOP demands on the extension of the Bush tax cuts, despite a report to the contrary.
“We’re willing to discuss how we move forward,” Axelrod said in an e-mail to National Journal rebutting the Huffington Post story, “but we believe that it’s imperative to extend the tax cuts for the middle class, and don’t believe we can afford a permanent extension of tax cuts for the wealthy.”
The Huffington Post reported this morning that Axelrod suggested that “the administration is ready to accept and across-the-board continuation of steep Bush-era tax cuts, including those for the wealthiest taxpayers.”
In the article, Axelrod is quoted as saying, “We have to deal with the world as we find it.”
Now, however, denial.
The taste of crow must have been worse than Axelrod and his lefty enablers expected. Hence, I suspect, the walk back.
Stay tuned.
They were for raising taxes before they were against it, and now are in favor of raising taxes again.
It is more than a little bit sad that the White House is reaching out to HuffPo, no?
Dare I say he was for it before he was against it…
Its ‘cuz they just gots dis report from a commission of smart peepel what sayd we wus all rong an stuph.
don’t you love how Axelrod keeps calling the current (10 years long) tax structure “Bush taxcuts” when the Dems are demanding huge tax RAISES if the current structure isn’t renewed?
Raising the taxes on the “wealthy” will do almost nothing for the budget as far as revenue goes, but will certainly stifle job creation in the private sector. Way to go, Mr. President@
This is not the Axelrod that I knew.
There is no tax cut here, no matter how many times they say it. It is the maintenance of current levels. The Dems and Barcky want to jack up taxes, but the MFM would never dare say that.
They also like to argue that the Bush tax cuts are expiring because Bush somehow wanted it that way, rather than because it’s the only way the Democrats would participate.
I thought Alexrod was more pragmatic than that. He knows Obama, to get re-elected, has to show some progress in the economy (albeit not that much, just heading in the right direction). Even most Democrats know raising taxes in a recession is a very bad idea.
His problem is that you can’t walk this shit back. They’ve repeatedly shown that they’re willing to lose on the issue. Well, now he’ll lose.
Now, if we’re smart, we’ll make sure that we don’t let them use this as a bargaining chip. Raising these taxes is a loser for them. It’s in their interest to drop this, we owe them nothing in return.
permanent extension
It’s the uncertainty about rates what’s key less so than the rates themselves. We need a set it and forget it tax policy to provide both stability and a sense of stability while our bloated failshit government makes the necessary draconian cuts.
Go ahead, Axe – you think people were pissed of a when they voted a couple of weeks ago? How about when those inn the 10% bracket suddenly find themselves in the 15% bracket? Cranky Cudgels and SquidCo torches and pitchforks will be going for $1000 each on Ebay…
I had thought that the Laffer curve does actually contend that there is an optimal level (which is why it’s a curve in the first place?), whether we happen to know what the optimal is at any given moment or not? Now, it could be wrong — the Laffer curve — but if it isn’t wrong . . . then wouldn’t it be incumbent on us to seek something at least in the nearer range of an optimal level? If, I guess, we had decided we actually needed government to perform duties which require such levels of revenues, and not less?
Believe it or not, someone writing for Ezra Klein’s column received some interesting answers to this question, sdferr.
Mankiw and Feldstein to be more precise.
Thank’s for the link bh,
I personally dislike Klein, like Beinart, so I pay little attention to their columns. In this case though I find Feldstein’s input fascinating, and would personally like to investigate this “deadweight” loss concept further. It seems that of those who responded many on both the right and left aren’t factoring this into their analyses.
Really though, as I suspected, this is requires more of a multi-variable topographical style of analysis, instead of a two-dimensional curve; one that accounts for those not paying taxes at all as well as non-GDP-enhancing income in “tax shelters”. But that’s not to say that I don’t still respect Art Laffer immensly. But based on some of the commentary it appears that there are more independant variables implicit in the graph of revenue vs tax rate.
Simple illustration of deadweight loss, via Marginal Revolution.
Simple enough that most of his commenters seem not to understand it.
And yet we’re the anti-intellectual ones…
I think maximizing tax revenue with optimal revenues *before* cutting the spendings might be a trick.
optimal *rates* I mean
We have done evil’d ourselves in our government. fraking hell we’ve done us bad.
Thanks for the link bh.
I’m going to have to do more research, but I’m more certain than ever that profesor Laffer’s curve should probably be more of a multi-dimensional surface; mathematically speaking that is.
I’ll have to search for grad scholl theses on this…
scholl = school.
Public Ivy graduate here, you see…
Scholl’s was an renouned, excellent, and inexpensive, cafeteria just blocks from the WH in DC back in the day.
“Deadweight loss” — why the neighbors of the little red hen wondered why she no longer bakes bread.
I agree that the Laffer curve is multi-dimensional, but I think the point it’s trying to express is sufficient the way it is now. The economic system is so complicated that expressing it fully mathematically is intractable.
I really liked Mankiw’s point in the linked WaPo piece. Do you want to maximize revenues in the present, at the cost of reducing them in the future?
Funny how “sustainability” only counts when the Left can use it as a club against others.
Axelrod couldn’t find the world if you stenciled “WORLD” on it and stuffed it into his pants.
Yes, the basic idea is expressed by the simple curve.
Also, yeah, you’ll lose your mind down the rabbit hole trying to model this. It’s truly complex. MVA to the nth degree.
Heh, depends if “fairness” is involved.
Heh, depends if “fairness” is involved.
Which gets us to an often-overlooked point: sometimes it’s not a matter of how to maximize revenue. Sometimes it’s a matter of just how much slavery you’re willing to endorse as a matter of policy.
I’m pretty sure they could soak us for every penny and say it’s for our own good. Even then they wouldn’t be able to balance the budget.
Axelrod suddenly flipped? I think Axelrod just had a “Frank Pentangeli Moment”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIonn9W9K6Y
– The blog site seems to be brokened….
– One aspect of the Laffer curve, often overlooked, is the “fuzz ball” he projects to occur, starting around 43% on the upward slope, and continuing to about 75% on the down slope side of the 50% peak.
-He states the 43% point is where armed insurrection, civil war begins, and that continues until the 75% point, by which time everyone is either enslaved, or there’s so little real wealth that the government just starts to keep it all.
– So by all means Democraps, let tax increases commence.
– Obama and the Dems are just stalling for time so they can shift the rhetoric to blaming the Republican controlled House for every fiscal screw-up since 2008. It’s all part of the ongoing BDS time continuum.
– Here is the Lefts ploy for damping down, and hoping to silence, an angry electorate.
– Notice in this “plan”, not a word about Obamacare, only 10% reduction in Federal government is a joke, and they always put SS threats at the very top of the list.
– The LeftProgs are really good at fiscal scare tactics, and special interest blackmail. Governing and economic wisdom, not so much.
– When the going gets tough, the Socialists go on vacation.
– HuffPo, of late, seems to be at war with itself, torn between deep disillutionmant, but pathologically unable to actual say the word “failure” in connection to the Golden Erkle. For her part Arianna seems to be sidling back toward conservatism in her comments these days. May be she’s thinking of switching parties a fourth time. Hey, no one ever said she was consistent, or lacked for opportunism.
– Ok, it’s accepting comments Jeff, just not always posting them.
I like how the White House pretends to have a choice here.. I would let the taxes expire and just have everyone suffer a little more, it is not like he is going to win re-election at this rate anyway…
Expiring taxes actually sounds good to me — but I think what you mean, given the context of your comment, is letting tax cuts expire.
And yeah, that would certainly eliminate any uncertainty over Obama’s hopes of getting re-elected.
Higher taxes for rich people make sense. Rich people are not going to spend extra money gained through tax cuts. Poorer people will, thus stimulating the economy.
Rich people are not going to spend extra money gained through tax cuts.
I think in times of impending hyperinflations real estate looks almost as good as gold, no? I doubt the rich people are interested in keeping lots of their money in Obama dollars.
No, but they’ll invest those saved dollars in things that result in poor people being able to find jobs so they can buy shit with their little bitty tax-cut savings.
What a fucking idiot you are.