Posted on 10/24/2011 10:04:39 AM PDT by 92nina
...ATR’s Ryan Ellis articulated it best in his initial response to Cowen:
Would a grand bargain with $10 in promised spending cuts for $1 in tax hikes be a good deal for conservatives? No. We have been through this before. In 1982, President Reagan was promised $3 in spending cuts for every $1 in tax hikes. In 1990, President George H.W. Bush was promised $2 in spending cuts for every $1 in tax hikes. In each case, all the tax hikes went through, since that's a matter of a single, affirmative tax law change. The spending cuts never materialized. It doesn't matter how unbalanced the promised ratio is. The first number in the ratio always has been and always will be a mirage.
Despite repeatedly pointing out that when higher taxes are on the table, lawmakers never implement necessary spending restraint, politicians, pundits, and some policy wonks still contemplate such an illusory deal. MSNBC’s Morning Joe raises the prospect of such a grand bargain on an almost daily basis....
[SNIP]
...Historical experience aside, it was the Wall Street Journal’s James Taranto, who earlier this year best illustrated with the following story why Republicans would be foolish to entertain a deal that includes even just one cent in tax increases for every hundred dollars in spending cuts:
A man goes into a bar. Sees an attractive woman and asks,
"Would you sleep with me for a million dollars?"
After only a slight hesitation, "sure."
"Well, how about ten dollars?"
"What kind of woman do you think I am?!?"
"We've already established that. Now we're haggling over price."
Read more: http://www.atr.org/even-deal-starter-republicans-a6544#ixzz1bicY0VKO
(Excerpt) Read more at atr.org ...
Take this article and others I found to the fight to the Libs on their own turf; put the Left on the defensive Digg and at Reddit and in Stumbleupon and Delicious
They’ll never happen.
One million to one , is not good.
The increase is immediate, the cuts are in the future.
The cuts are placed on a future session of Congress , under no obligation to honor the deal.
Trusting a little girl named Lucy to hold the football should be too, but....
ok, I’ll agree to it - only if the cuts happen first, and RIGHT NOW.
This is just a BS attempt to give the democraps a campaign issue- “Hey we offered 10-to-1 spending cuts but those evil Republicans turn it down!!!”
I’m flexible. I can see a deal that includes tax increases:
Abolition of base-line budgetting and the reporting mechanisms that support it, plus a ten to one ratio of spending cuts to tax increases and the tax increases narrowly drawn so they don’t impede capital formation (e.g. capping the amount of income that can be excluded from taxation by tax-exempt sourcing — even Calvin Coolidge was against making municipal bond tax exempt).
(And yes, that’s actually a good deal.)
George Mason economics professor, Tyler Cowen, should be ashamed of himself for not first checking with his Professor Emeritus, Walter Williams, before offering such a ludicrous opinion.
How about just $9 in cuts?
immediate tax hike for illusory, distant future promises of unlikely spending cuts... what could possibly go wrong?
/sarcasm
The spending cuts would never happen, Democrats never keep those promises. You cannot make such deals with them.
The other, and more practical reason is in the nature of what is subject to negotiation.
If one side proposes "more" of something (an increase) and the other proposes "less" of it (a decrease), then three outcomes are possible as the result of compromise between them. The side proposing an "increase" may receive more, but less than they desired. The side proposing a "decrease" may receive a reduction, but less of a decrease than what they wanted. Finally, the status quo may be maintained (no change).
In the first event, the net result is positive; in the second, it is negative; in the third, it is neutral.
Now, let's relate this hypothetical situation to the reality of Democrat and Republican political dynamics. As between the two parties, the ritual Democrat demand is always for "more" (e.g. - more spending, more regulation, more power), while the GOP request is not for less, but for less of an increase than what the Democrats desire.
We have all seen this time and again, and conservatives have long bemoaned the Republican tendency to compromise in this fashion. And the reason why it always results in GOP failure is rather simple to deduce: there is only ONE possible outcome for any such compromise. If your adversary's demand is for "more", and yours is not for "less" but instead: "more but not as much as that much" - in time, with repeated demands and compromises, your adversary will eventually receive all that they wanted - and more.
(BTW - It will never happen, so I don't have to worry about ever having supported an actual tax increase.)
No democrat would go for a $1 cut for a $10 tax increase
IF
by cut you mean the budget will be $1 less next year.
By offering $10 cut in THE RATE OF INCREASE is offering nothing.
Why can’t any of the Republicans make this point.
Fine ... let the $10 of cuts happen immediately ... then the $1 in taxes phase in over the next 100 years.
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