Thomas Sowell sees a forest where others insist there are but trees:
Deficit commissions make it politically possible to spend money first and get somebody else to recommend raising taxes later. They are a virtual guarantee of never-ending increases in both spending and taxes.
Why provide political cover? Leave the big spenders out there naked in front of the voters! Either the elected officials will change their ways or the voters can change the officials they elect.
There is no special information or wisdom available to unelected deficit commissions that is not available to elected officials. Nor are they more far-seeing than politicians.
[…]
The biggest immediate tax issue is whether the Bush tax cuts will be extended for everyone. Here, as elsewhere in politics, sheer hogwash reigns supreme.
Nancy Pelosi claims that the “tax cuts for the rich” cannot be continued because it would be “too costly.” Although former Republican Majority Leader Dick Armey says, “Demagoguery beats data” in politics, here are some data anyway.
The first big cut in income taxes came in the 1920s, at the urging of Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon. He argued that a reduction of the tax rates would increase the tax revenues. What actually happened?
In 1920, when the top tax rate was 73 percent, for people making over $100,000 a year, the federal government collected just over $700 million in income taxes– and 30 percent of that was paid by people making over $100,000. After a series of tax cuts brought the top rate down to 24 percent, the federal government collected more than a billion dollars in income tax revenue– and people making over $100,000 a year now paid 65 percent of the taxes.
How could that be? The answer is simple: People behave differently when tax rates are high as compared to when they are low. With low tax rates, they take their money out of tax shelters and put it to work in the economy, benefitting themselves, the economy and government, which collects more money in taxes because incomes rise.
High tax rates which very few people are actually paying, because of tax shelters, do not bring in as much revenue as lower tax rates that people are paying. It was much the same story after tax cuts during the Kennedy administration, the Reagan administration and the Bush Administration.
The New York Times reported in 2006: “An unexpectedly steep rise in tax revenues from corporations and the wealthy is driving down the projected budget deficit this year.”
Expectations are in the eyes of the beholder– and in the rhetoric of the demagogues. If class warfare is more important to some politicians than collecting more revenue when there is a deficit, then let the voters know that.
And spare us so-called “deficit reduction commissions.”
Printing new money hasn’t worked at “stimulating” the economy because it doesn’t solve the problem of uncertainty. That is, those private enterprises generally responsible for driving a free-market economy have adopted their own conservative “austerity” measures, pulling money out of the market and refusing to re-invest in our current system, which features heavy regulation, onerous tax rates, aggressive penalties, and a government that on occasion has shown itself to feel sufficiently empowered to gin up crises in order to take over entire industries, fire CEOs, and rob shareholders of their assets in order to transfer wealth and power to crony constituencies.
The free market economy is not modeled after the Chicago machine. And it doesn’t respond to corporatism and liberal fascism simply because Obama sniffs that he won.
It’s not just voters who rebuked this administration’s policies. Nor was this outcome difficult to envision.
In fact, I bet Jimmy Carter’s ears are burning right now.
I thought Obama was the reincarnation of Lincoln, not a second haunting of Carter. We can hope that he does something else like Carter, namely lose his re-election bid.
Not sure I see a Reagan out there, sad to say…
bumblefuck has zero credibility on budgets and anything involving other people’s money… this is going to be a problem for him.
If only Team R could find a former OMB director what had a solid record of fiscal prudence at the state level, someone who delivered the first balanced budget in eight years and turned a $600 million deficit they inherited into a $300 million surplus in a single year.
That person would make a formidable opponent I think.
Me neither. I’m getting depressed again.
Frankly, I do not want government revenues to rise. They get plenty of money right now, more than enough IMO.
I want government spending to decline.
If locking in current tax rates increases confidence and that results in higher revenue so be it. But that is not the reason to keep taxes down, it is merely a fringe benefit.
I agree, Thomas. But if those revenues raised can be used in concert with spending cuts to pay down the deficit, it’s doubleplus good good.
What’s the word on Mitch Daniels? The rumor mills imparts to him some budget-bustery.
Some folks are pressing him to run. More when I have it, NoisyAndrew.
Mitch Daniels unfortunately hates Jesus and wants to establish a VAT just like in Europe, Andrew.
It was at Hot Air.
HF:
I was going to suggest that he trademark Hoosier Daddy as a campaign slogan, but apparently that joke is very old and I should be ashamed of myself.
Printing new money isn’t going to work as long as the Fed pays banks 0.25% interest on reserve deposits when at the same time very short term treasuries are only yielding 0,12%.
Which is why the latest QE is especially like pushing on a string, if banks have no incentive to place their money anywhere but the Fed, and folks and businesses aren’t borrowing because of the uncertainty.
That’s because there isn’t one. Accident of history, or might something else be involved?
Hoosier Daddy I get it!
You know what else I keep hearing about Mr. Mitch at the Hot Air? He’s short! He’s short and sorry too bad he’s unelectable. Cause of the shortness.
That’s retarded even by Hot Air standards I think.
Daniels is a solid candidate with a good record in Indiana. His recent discussion of VATs was way overblown in the media.
I personally think him to be very much like “Silent Cal” Coolidge, with sound conservative principles and executive experience. That said, Cal was never elected President, but succeeded to the Presidency after the death of Warren Harding.
I too need to investigate him further, like all of us-exceot happyfeet who seems to have already made up his mind. But, Daniels seems to lacthe charisma and physical stature normally associated with successful Presidents.
Not that he couldn’t overcome that, nor that Obama might make the usual and customary considerations moot. But I personally cringe a bit at the image of the two men striding towards each other on the debate stage and shaking hands, with Daniels seeming diminuative, physically, compared to the won.
But we don’t even know whether he’s running, or whether the strength of his ideas would overcome any defecit of presentation.
For a marketing wiz, that’s retarded. If you don’t know why, ask nishi.
I’ll just go get a cup of coffee.
Harding had the good sense to die in his first term, so Coolidge was elected in his own right in 1924.
Here you go Bob. Look down the list and you’ll find a debate between Daniels and his opponent in the Indiana governor’s race. Then there’s the (missing) address he gave at the Hudson Institute banquet upon receiving an award named after Herman Kahn buried somewhere in the C-Span archive. If you want I’ll see whether I can dig it up.
If President Dipstick doesn’t pull his head out of his ass–and I doubt he will, it would be out of character–it won’t take anything more than a warm body to beat him in ’12.
here’s the transcript of Mr. Daniels at the Herman Kahn award dealio
Coffee’s good, but seriously, when was the last time the noticeably shorter guy won the popular vote without the benefit of incumbency? (like the way I innoculated myself there?)
Turns out Daniels has a YouTube channel devoted to speeches and appearances. The Hudson Inst. talk.
Thanks sdferr, I’ll look at that later tonight when I have the chance.
Now that happyfeet has preemptively lumped me in with the often irrational HotAir commentariat, I’ll point out that I’ve been looking at Daniels as a personal favorite for some time, regardless of what may be said down the thread about my lack of staunchness or authenticity for not immediately embracing the candidacy of someone who has not even declared their intent yet.
What I would like to hear Daniels expound on a bit would be foreign policy. Now is not the time for Paulian/Buchannanite isolationism.
I like that even though I tend to be relatively pessimistic and despairing. He’s a good leader type person, Mr. Mitch is.
When was the last time a black guy was President or a woman considered the presumptive GOP front runner?
(No, not apples to apples, height as a proxy for alpha-ness is extremely primal.)
Tom Cruise probably has a some useful tips though.
we’ll see Mr. Ernst but me I think bumblefuck has done nothing but shrink since day one… and I think it will be evident
There’s no doubt that Mitchell has a comparable resumé. Indeed, if Gov’t service is your thing, he’s got a fuller resumé than Reagan. But so do most of the other’s mentioned for ’12. Who has Reagan’s ability to connect with people, to communicate conservatism (defining very loosely here) in an accessible way? One, maybe two?
I’d argue that’s not an accident.
Oh, I just wanted to mention the unconstitutional extra special tax on executives bonuses too. I just remembered that ‘cuz McClintock was on the local talk show and I remembered how he lost my trust by voting for that. grr.
Thompson/Giuliani 2012!
Cruise’s tips won’t be worth a damn, because the Republican candidate won’t have control over the camera’s or likely to have sympathetic men behind the lenses.
I can see that this will become a zillion post thread, with happyfeet celebrating the joy of his infatuation with Governor Daniels in every comment. I’m glad to see you being positive for a change, muh man.
I would just remind you though, that no one has declared their candidacy yet. And, after the way you’ve been diminishing other possible candidates taht are admired by some, don’t be surprised if those same folks that have been annoyed by the “hoochies and cumsluts” characterizations don’t warm up to your zeal for Mitch Daniels at first.
“Now is not the time for Paulian/Buchannanite isolationism.”
This would seem to me to be an unlikely position for Gov Daniels to take, if only because he looked at Herman Kahn as a mentor.
Anyone notice how, once I start hittin’ the sauce, the apostrophes start lashin’ out violently?
Elevator shoes and one of those Lincoln hats?
Test run-Is this thing on?
( http://tiny.cc/stature ) It’s the NYSlimes, so pound of salt and all. And G.H.W. Bush had an impressive resume too; Reagan he was not.
When th etime comes I’d like to hear him talk about the issues, and opine on some of Ryan’s Roadmap policy ideas.
Here’s another good ‘un: Daniels’ remarks before a U.S. Chamber of Commerce roundtable.
Context? McCain was 5 foot 9, and had likely lost some due to the effects of ejection, torture, and old age.
Just sayin’
He’s been thick as thieves with Paul Ryan for years, according to Ryan himself. They haz their chats.
Good link at #37 that might go a way towards explaining the opinion some of us have of the man. To put it simply, he sees the fiscal situation as I do. And only by seeing this can one then act appropriately.
Others haven’t impressed this shared view upon me as of yet. But, as I’ve mentioned before, if they do they’ll also have my ear.
George W. Bush is, I believe, shorter than Al Gore. Probably also shorter than
LurchJohn Kerry.I can’t wait to see these video links!
This discussion included in the first C-Span link is pretty good too. Yuval Levin, Arthur Brooks, Rich Lowry and Gov Daniels talking on June 3, 2009 about the future of conservatism and the Republican party. Hits a number of current issues.
Sorry, link.
True, McGeehee, you semi-literate moor-skipping, sheep molester, and I innoculated myself from that. Incumbency trumps height (barely) and Gore’s need to have a woman tell him how to dress like an alpha male undermined his minimal height advantage, costing him the White House (barely).
Maybe Eisenhower. But I can’t be sure since Adlai Stevenson had his feet firmly planted in the air.
Adopt Ryan’s tax and entitlement plan. The lower rates on businesses and individuals will spur investment and lure corporate entities to not only bring existing profits home, but overseas entities to relocate here.
Put the unused TARP funds toward paying down the national debt. Over the next two years divest the government positions in AIG, GM,Chrysler, and CITI; putiing those proceeds to buying down the debt. All payments on loans to the aforementioned entities goes to paying down the debt.
Roll back non-military discretionary spending, initially, to 2000 levels, and then plan further cuts. Trim fat from the military procurement budget. Get rid of 40% of the federal work force, as well as enact a 20% compensation cut across the board. Get rid of the Dept of Ed, EPA, and roll back the size of the DOE to NRC levels.
Get out of Fannie/Freddie over a 5 year period; in the meantime stop bundling new MBS offerings.
Get rid of the Dept of Ed, EPA, and roll back the size of the DOE to NRC levels.
I like the cut of your jib, sailor!
Bob Reed for Senate!
Sorry Lee,
I live in the deeeeeep blue People’s Republic of New York. Only liberal Democrats allowed on the ballot :)
Thanks Master Chief! Let’s all pull together and git ‘er done!
“Only liberal Democrats allowed on the ballot :)”
Maybe you could go undercover, promise to take away the peoples donuts or something, then, after being elected, unveil your deep fried Oreo cookie* franchise.
* I’ll look for the recipe
Uh-oh. Someone speaks of ‘Obama’s Legacy‘, as if he’s as done as week-old fried chicken…
Ummm…what legacy, exactly? Does the bowing count? Oh, and does the early Nobel Peace Prize seem oddly out of place ?
I believe Obama’s foreign policy legacy is about giving away the store in exchange for nothing. See Carter, Jimmy.
–Actually, if you rolled EPA and DoEnergy back to constructive levels, you could fold both of them back into Interior (where they belong) and additionally do away with the overhead of running Cabinet-level departments (which EPA is, even though it doesn’t say so on the label).
As for Education: Demolish the building by implosion, at 10:00 AM on a Tuesday morning. Sell the rubble for landfill and the survivors to the Somalis as slaves; the revenue thus gained to be spent on establishing a small park on the building site.
Regards,
Ric
Deep fried Oreo’s.
Latvia just moved up my list. I’ve also heard their women are wildly attractive. To Google!
I thought this, “won the popular vote” was the 2000 inoculation.
Now that’s a platform I could run on. Or, you know, I’d have to run after backing that platform…Or would I have to sleep on a platform after eating too many fried Oreos…
Okay, Latvia is a winner all around.
Testing 123
I’m on board with this Ric, all the way. DC could always use another good park, and the Somali pirates some new slaves.
Wouldn’t the Somalis require that the slaves be capable of working?
Yeah bh, you’re right. They are federal employees, after all.
You all do realize, mentioning turning DC denizens into slaves moves us from the unconscious racism to the conscious category.
Where’s JD when we need him…
What if we called it a study abroad opportunity in the exciting new field of inverted neo-colonialism? Heck, I’d even be willing to award them each another master’s degree once they’re safely overseas.
LBascom,
Bob Reed,
Hell, even a carpetbagger can be New York Senator if she’s a liberal Democrat…
Oh, by the way, Jeff: I dig the toolbar at the bottom of the page. It’s even retractable!
– Once you hit a certain age re-tractability is a bug, not a feature.
– Wonder is Sarah would eclipse most of the males in the party in 6 inch stiletto’s.
– That should give you something new to worry about ‘feets.
BBH,
Hmmm… I once dated a girl who stands close to 5’11” and has (or had) a pair of 6″ stilettos. They made her remarkably long legs seem otherworldly…
I have a retractable toolbar too, heh heh…Wait, did I say that out loud?
The Fed sure has some rather grouchy people deployed to defend the “running of the printing presses”…
I would like someone to show me a successful “inflation-out-of-trouble”… I seem to remember ruined savings, state bankruptcies, blasted economies, etc. But not success.
#62,63,64 — I didn’t say we’d make a big profit on the transaction. Parks are fairly cheap, after all.
The amazing thing is that Ric made a DEATH THREAT and nobody called him on it! Clearly Frey is right!
Regards,
Ric
This place might be worse than Grand Theft Auto. Maybe we need a warning sticker.
Call you on it. Hell, we were all nodding along…
Well Ric, you said long, long, ago on thread far away that you were indeed an avowed racist. So how could the violence surprise us, when all thinking people know that the two are equivalent :)
And, I mean, we all know Jeff’s an enabler of violence; hell, he’s our ringleader!
What would PW’s rating be, Mi Droogs? NC-17, or XXX? Because of the ultra-violence
– OUTLAW VIOLENCE!
Can someone remind me how the economy has boomed under the current richie rich tax cuts? If the benefits haven’t trickled down, they must be heading down a pipe somewhere.
The economy boomed from 2001 to 2007 with the Bush tax cuts.
Jeff G., BBH has just given you a new tagline for the blog, should you desire one.
OUTLAW VIOLENCE!
Regards,
Ric
No, because you’ve repeatedly shown that you have no interest in a discussion.
Colonel, re: #71, this guy has been consistently making the strongest counter-arguments that I’ve come across. This post in particular is worth checking out for a good faith presentation of the other side.
Here’s something for you to chew on, cynn.
If Bush’s “richie rich” tax cuts are allowed to expire, I get a 50% tax hike, yet my net taxable income is less than $33,000. Why is this? Here: when my current 10% bracket is eliminated – it was created as part of those horrible “tax cuts for the wealthy” – I then get bumped up to the 15% bracket.
I guess that makes me “rich”…. Schweeet!
Not only recovering from the Dot-Com bubble bursting, but from 9/11 as well. And remember all the hand wringing over the Booooooooosh!’s “jobless recovery”, when unemployment was a whopping 6%…
You know, hard times, not like all of the utopian goodness that is Obama’s reign.
And if they actually pull the trigger on it and eliminate the mortgage interest deduction, my income tax bill will more than double.
Yeah! Let’s stick it to those rich fucks!
Idiot.
Bob Reed,
People like cynn truly believe the economy was much worse during the entire Bush Presidency than it is today. Hell, some of those dopes still refer to the 1980s as “the Reagan Depression”.
It’s worth mentioning that the tax cuts that Spiny is speaking of represent $3 trillion dollars over 10 years? The richie rich tax cuts? $.7 trillion over 10 years.
If you actually care about the effect on the balance sheet, you lose all intellectual integrity by accepting the former while saying the latter is what will kill the balance sheet. The Bush tax cuts were incredibly progressive. Just as the Dems required of them. It’s just too damn bad that this is inconvenient for their argument now.
Yeah I know Spiny,
I mean, folks are entitled their own opinions and all, but not their own facts…
Typo, that first sentence wasn’t a question.
Yeah, I should proof read.
Has a nice double entendre going in the context of this place. But I’m afraid it would just confuse the newcomers. Who visit from all the links I get from other blogs on the right.
What bh said at #87.
The inconvenient truth is that on a percentage basis the Booooooooooosh! tax cuts were more generous for the lower and middle income brackets than they were for the rich.
But, you know, this is where the shouting-down-mantra about, “who gets more dollars”, and, “the gap between the rich and poor is widening”, comes into play.
The former being a disingenuous comparison, since a 1% cut for a person that ears 1 million is 10k, and the second is a no brainer; people with more money have access to investments that, while involving higher risk, may pay much higher returns than those available to people of lesser means.
G’night, all.
I am once again in the ranks of the employed, starting tomorrow. Working for the same guy who fired me for sedition.
$8 an hour, but my God the entertainment…
Regards,
Ric
– Congrats Ric. You can look at it as cleverly making the opposition pay for their own undoing. It’s been all the rage since 2008.
Hey, that’s good to hear, Ric.
Congrats and good luck, Ric!
Keep us updated… ;^)
Congrats, Ric! What was your seditious act?
The second (emphasis altered) sentence is interesting in the larger orbit it can take on outside the more strictly economic context in which it is embedded. I like to think about the possibility it could be a fruitful suggestion — even where demagoguery may be in play — as though better governance or better economic outcomes might actually have a hope of outweighing the arguments of bullshitters in the minds of the people who’d have had to have noticed the improved circumstances in their lives. I’ve no idea whether it would work, I hasten to add. Just that it’s something different to think about in the altered state of an intentionally optimistic stance.
Stand your ground and reload sdferr, stand your ground and reload.
bh,
Thank you for the links in 82 above. This old guy needs every thing to help with what to think about the moves made in this arena, which is above my paygrade and education.
No problem, Geoff. And, hey, the often unmentioned truth is that the vast majority of those in finance/investing/trading with educational backgrounds in economics also aren’t macro-economists either, let alone accurate and predictive ones.
Your humble attitude is correct, nor is it as common as one might hope.
People I’ve long trusted in regards to historical cases and general theory are saying quite different things about present circumstances. And they’re all speaking as confidently as ever while they contradict one another. (Par for the course in the dismal science.)
Don’t know how I mangled the phrasing that badly. Here: Your humble attitude is correct but it is more uncommon than one might hope.
That passage struck me as well, sdferr.
Just hoping to keep a roof over my head, food on the table, and a free country for my grandchildren to live in. Simple dreams.
– Leave it to the “elites” to figure out the correct interpretation of the signifier’s.
* Is it a proud proclamation astride the flapping flags of civil war, or a campaign slogan suing for peace.
– Only Jeff’s hairdresser knows.
OUTLAW VIOLENCE! (issuance awaits)
OUTLAW VIOLENCE!
Man, talk about a case study in interpretation and intent…