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Pelosi's false tax choice
NY Post ^ | September 19, 2010 | MICHAEL D. TANNER

Posted on 09/19/2010 3:18:50 AM PDT by Scanian

Stop the presses: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has discovered fiscal discipline. On Thursday, she said she opposed the extension of the Bush tax cuts for higher income brackets, because she “can see no justification for going into debt to a foreign country to underwrite and subsidize tax cuts for the wealthiest people in America.”

Pelosi is right in at least this much: Our expected $1.3 trillion budget deficit and $13.4 trillion national debt pose a fundamental threat to the US economy and our way of life. But she is wrong in her belief that the deficit is due to low taxes rather than profligate spending.

For the last 40 years, federal spending has averaged approximately 21% of GDP, while revenues have averaged roughly 18%, resulting in a structural shortfall of about 3% of GDP. Following the enactment of the Bush tax cuts, revenues did decline steadily as a percentage of GDP (although measured in dollars, revenues actually increased by roughly $700 billion between 2003 and the start of the recession in 2008). This year, tax revenues will be only about 14.6% of GDP.

(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: bushtaxcuts; debt; extension; fiscaldiscipline

1 posted on 09/19/2010 3:18:54 AM PDT by Scanian
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To: Scanian

Nancy Pelosi idea of fiscal discipline is akin to Obama’s idea of healthcare locic not in use by both.


2 posted on 09/19/2010 3:26:09 AM PDT by Vaduz
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To: Scanian
In order to pay down the debt brought to us by Democrat congressthings, I assert that the government should, for the first time, actually make money instead of stealing and wasting it.

Let's put Nancy's organs on ebay.


Frowning takes 68 muscles.
Smiling takes 6.
Pulling this trigger takes 2.
I'm lazy.

3 posted on 09/19/2010 3:47:08 AM PDT by The Comedian
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To: Scanian

Extending the tax cuts will make no difference in the economy except for a psychological lift. The economy is in the tank with the Bush tax cuts in place. letting the taxcuts expire is ,of course,insane. What is needed is further tax RATE cuts frozen and severly curtailed government spending and the elimination of restrictive regulation and regulation agencies!


4 posted on 09/19/2010 3:59:38 AM PDT by timetostand (Ya say ya wanna revolution -- OK!)
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To: The Comedian

Nancy is only parroting what Obama has already said.

These two idiots believe that demonizing people who have worked and made money is the way to save America.


5 posted on 09/19/2010 4:00:21 AM PDT by Venturer
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To: Scanian
These people just do not experience the real world. Drive around sometime in neighborhoods where everyone is struggling. You just don't see many businesses, restaurants, stores, anything involving the economy. But, leave these areas by just a little, and you'll begin to see businesses, and the greater the proximity to people with money to spend, the more businesses you see. Where you see the independent restaurants, businesses, stores etc are areas where there are people with a lot of money to spend.

I'm just being intuitive here. It's hard to imagine that the independent nursery, lawn service, hardware store, restaurants, butcher etc. where I spend money being in business at all if they didn't have a real good percentage of their revenue from people in the income brackets Obama wants to punish. Their taxes go up, the first thing that might go is that local spending that keeps local economies intact. And there goes the local tax base for many communities.

JMHO. My only "data" for my hypothesis is watching what happens to local businesses when people's incomes decline.

6 posted on 09/19/2010 4:49:27 AM PDT by grania
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