Modbert
Daydream Believer
- Sep 2, 2008
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Alan Greenspan To GOP: Let Bush Tax Cuts Lapse | The Seminal
Thoughts USMB?
They should follow the law and let [Bush's tax cuts] lapse, Greenspan said in an interview on Bloomberg Televisions Conversations with Judy Woodruff, citing a need for the tax revenue to reduce the federal budget deficit. [...]
Greenspan, in a telephone conversation after his Bloomberg TV interview was taped, said his position is that all the expiring Bush tax cuts should end, for middle-class and high- income families alike.
Ending the cuts probably will slow growth, Greenspan, 84, said in the TV interview. The risk posed by inaction on the deficit is greater, he said.
Unless we start to come to grips with this long-term outlook, we are going to have major problems, said Greenspan, who led the U.S. central bank from 1987 to 2006. I think we misunderstand the momentum of this deficit going forward.
Here, he more or less lays responsibility for the huge deficit problems we now face at the doorsteps of the Bush Administration:
Greenspan said reducing the deficit is going to be far more difficult than anybody imagines after a decade of major increases in federal spending and major tax cuts.
Ironic, this coming from the guy who foolhardily endorsed Bushs 2001 tax cuts, thereby helping to lay the ground work for the massive deficit expansion.
Regardless, this will hopefully take some of the wind out of the GOP/Tea Party sails these self-proclaimed fiscal warriors. After all, they have championed two grotesquely incompatible positions: debt reduction AND tax cuts.
But a week ago their credibility as self-proclaimed deficit hawks was called into question by none other than Chris Wallace (their own mascot) on The Fox News Channel (their home field). And the ensuing fallout continues to reverberate across the main stream media and blogosphere.
Thoughts USMB?