Toro
Diamond Member
Federal taxes as a share of GDP are at their lowest level in two or more generations14.9% versus a postwar average of 18.2%. There is not one iota of evidence that the economy is suffering from excessive taxation and no evidence that the sorts of tax cuts favoured by Republicansmainly tax cuts for the wealthywould do any good given the nature of the economys problems. Tax cuts dont help those with no incomes because they are unemployed, businesses running at a loss, or investors with a large stock of capital losses. In my view, the Republican obsession with taxes is based on pure dogma, not analysis. ...
The Republicans dont have any credibility whatsoever. They squandered whatever they had when they enacted a massive UNFUNDED expansion of Medicare in 2003. Yet they had the nerve to complain about Obamas health plan, WHICH WAS FULLY PAID FOR according to the Congressional Budget Office. The word chutzpah is insufficient to describe how utterly indefensible the Republican position is, intellectually.
Furthermore, Republicans have a completely indefensible position on taxes. In their view, deficits cannot arise from tax cuts. No matter how much taxes are cut, no matter how low revenues go as a share of GDP, tax cuts are never a cause of deficits; they result ONLY AND EXCLUSIVELY from spendingand never from spending put in place by Republicans, such as Medicare Part D, TARP, two unfunded wars, bridges to nowhere, etcbut ONLY from Democratic efforts to stimulate growth, help the unemployed, provide health insurance for those without it, etc.
The monumental hypocrisy of the Republican Party is something amazing to behold. And their dimwitted accomplices in the tea-party movement are not much better. They know that Republicans, far more than Democrats, are responsible for our fiscal mess, but they wont say so. And they adamantly refuse to put on the table any meaningful programme that would actually reduce spending. Judging by polls, most of them seem to think that all we have to do is cut foreign aid, which represents well less than 1% of the budget. ...
The key area where Republicans and conservatives continue to live in a fantasy world relates to the inevitability of higher taxes to the long-run solution to our fiscal problem. At present, they all live in a dream world in which massive spending cuts that dont hurt average Americans are the only solution to the deficit that they will entertain. But sooner or later, they will realise that this is simply not possible and that tax increases are not the worst thing in the worldRonald Reagan raised taxes 11 times, including in 1982 when the economy was still in recession, and contrary to right-wing predictions Bill Clintons 1993 tax increase did not send the economy into a tailspin. ...
Bruce Bartlett on the deficit, economy and VAT: Six questions for Bruce Bartlett | The Economist