Posted on 01/02/2011 9:59:23 AM PST by Libloather
LLS
Undertaxing ? Huh !
When they raise the debt and then monetize it by printing dollars, the value of the dollar goes down as does the purchasing power of the American family. Why would we want to do that?
Yea, you can call this in braille.
No, I didn’t think so.
We sure would.
We'd have to reload more often.
“Undertaxing ? Huh !”
Thank you! I was hoping someone with operative brain cells would notice that. Here’s why I wrote it: IF the overspending of the last 50 years had been accompanied (as it should have) by enough ongoing taxation to actually pay for all those distributed goodies, the people would have revolted and put a stop to the stupidity long ago. The drag on the economy from high taxation would have killed the spending beast before it went out of control.
Undertaxation is how they got away with the overspending. It was the age-old promise of a free lunch. “Look at all the good we are doing, and it’s not costing you any more than usual!”
Now now, anyway. As you know, the bill comes due eventually.
Dumbass es need to cut spending why raise the debt ceiling this would just allow Odumbo to go on spending more and more. WHY NOT CUT THE SPENDING LEVEL TO that of 1986. The Odumbo aides can eat cake. The bastards are all fired, pack up their damn bags and get the blank out of Dc and go get a job as chicken farmers. that is all they can do is clean up chicken poop.
Hey Obamabutt, what part of “dept CEILING” does your sleazy, skinny, metro-girl brain not understand?
Oh, I forgot where you were “eddicated”.
Butthole!!
If by this you mean confiscating the property of productive people for free giveaways to non-productive people, then, yes this is "purely by insanity."
Sorry Goolsbee you've already damaged tghe full faith and credit of the United States through the bloated welfare state.
If the debt ceiling keeps moving up every time someone says they want it raised, there is no ceiling. It’s just semantics.
Tell Obama and the Rinocrats to F*CK OFF.
Over our history (at least since around World War II times), tax revenues collected have consistently been between 16% of GDP and 20% of GDP.
Tax rates don't matter. Raising rates doesn't raise revenues. Actually, cutting rates does increase total revenues (see 1960-1968 under Kennedy tax policies and 1980-1988 under Reagan for examples. Revenues nearly doubled under Reagan, but spending more than doubled during the same time period.
Raising tax rates won't help. Growing the economy is the way to more revenues. Higher tax rates tend to reduce growth, returning revenues to about the same leve as the lower rates. Reducing spending to levels below actual revenue collections is the best way to cure the deficits.
Furthere, realistically, inflation will eventually cure the accumulated debt so far. It won't be pretty for "the little people," but we're way past ever being able to pay our debts with dollars worth today's value.
I agree with EVERYTHING you wrote in your post. I was talking about back when the Great Society programs were started. Then, we were being taxed at a rate that produced less than the typical peak of about 19.5% of GDP. Yes, attempting to tax beyond that level results in a drag on the economy which inhibits revenue collection.
A bedrock principle of financial conservatism is to avoid shackling the country with debt by spending only what we have the revenue to cover, given the cap you mentioned. If politicians had revealed the true costs of the programs by also defining the amount of taxation required to pay for the programs as they grew over the years, voters would have said, “Stop, we can’t afford that.” The Tea Party would be about 45 years old!
Which brings us to the present problem. Now it’s too late. We are so far behind the eight-ball that real cuts (not just cuts in future spending increases) or sovereign debt default will be required. If we had known the score at the outset, through heavy taxation up front, we would have stopped the enterprise in its’ tracks, before it became a runaway train.
And you are correct that there is no way to tax our way out of this amount of debt. Real spending cuts are required. Any increase in tax revenue must come through economic growth, as we saw in 2003-5, and 1962-5.
In the end, it comes down to whether one is a net tax receiver (politicians and lower income voters) or a net tax payer (middle and upper income voters). The first group doesn’t worry about overtaxing or overspending, as they don’t have to pay the money back someday. The second group worries. If the second group becomes too small, we’ve all got a big problem, known as dead-end Socialism.
Sorry to be so wordy, I hope I’ve made my thinking more clear.
I agree with EVERYTHING you wrote in your post. I was talking about back when the Great Society programs were started. Then, we were being taxed at a rate that produced less than the typical peak of about 19.5% of GDP. Yes, attempting to tax beyond that level results in a drag on the economy which inhibits revenue collection.
A bedrock principle of financial conservatism is to avoid shackling the country with debt by spending only what we have the revenue to cover, given the cap you mentioned. If politicians had revealed the true costs of the programs by also defining the amount of taxation required to pay for the programs as they grew over the years, voters would have said, “Stop, we can’t afford that.” The Tea Party would be about 45 years old!
Which brings us to the present problem. Now it’s too late. We are so far behind the eight-ball that real cuts (not just cuts in future spending increases) or sovereign debt default will be required. If we had known the score at the outset, through heavy taxation up front, we would have stopped the enterprise in its’ tracks, before it became a runaway train.
And you are correct that there is no way to tax our way out of this amount of debt. Real spending cuts are required. Any increase in tax revenue must come through economic growth, as we saw in 2003-5, and 1962-5.
In the end, it comes down to whether one is a net tax receiver (politicians and lower income voters) or a net tax payer (middle and upper income voters). The first group doesn’t worry about overtaxing or overspending, as they don’t have to pay the money back someday. The second group worries. If the second group becomes too small, we’ve all got a big problem, known as dead-end Socialism.
Sorry to be so wordy, I hope I’ve made my thinking more clear.
Well...said though part of the problem is that many wealthy interest groups, such as the military-industrial, prison-industrial, and enviro-industrial complexes are not only net-tax receivers but extremely powerful, arguably more powrful than the poor.
Well...said though part of the problem is that many wealthy interest groups, such as the military-industrial, prison-industrial, and enviro-industrial complexes are not only net-tax receivers but extremely powerful, arguably more powrful than the poor.
Well...said though part of the problem is that many wealthy interest groups, such as the military-industrial, prison-industrial, and enviro-industrial complexes are not only net-tax receivers but extremely powerful, arguably more powrful than the poor.
Why not? The Democrats played chicken with CRA and the minimum wage that killed the economy. I agree with Goolsbee; letting the debt ceiling remain constant would pretty much kill the economy, which would also ensure Obama’s a 1 term President. Sounds like a great idea to me.
Higher Taxes Won’t Reduce the Deficit
History shows that when Congress gets more revenue, the pols spend it.
Our research confirms what the late economist Milton Friedman said of Congress many years ago: “Politicians will always spend every penny of tax raised and whatever else they can get away with.”
I basically agree with what you say, except for retaining “first responder” unions. Why do you believe “first responders” should be the exception?
Perhaps retaining the current debt ceiling is playing chicken, but the fact is, there absolutely will be a reckoning sooner or later, and the longer we wait to reconcile the debt, the worse the consequences. Perhaps we should REDUCE the debt ceiling by 10% per year over the next 10 years thus forcing the crooks in Washington to live within a budget like we all do.
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