If you really want to shrink government, insist on raising taxes to pay for every program. I think you could easily have defeated Medicare Part D, the bridge to nowhere, and a lot of other stuff besides.

Of course, no one really wants to shrink government.

VoxOrion wrote:I don't remember where I read it - but I remember being presented with an angle on the New Deal where it was a self defensive "middle ground" to stave off growing demand for something more like communism in the US.

I thought that was the mainstream historical take on the New Deal. You had the Hoover administration with its half-measures (and even some of what Hoover did struck a lot of the more hardcore Republicans as too redistributionist). You had the Norman Thomas socialists and other people further left calling for something far more radical than what FDR passed. And you had demagogues like Huey Long who basically just wanted to ride economic anxiety and resentment to power, somewhat like Hugo Chavez. Roosevelt probably saved democratic free market capitalism by showing that at least it could be responsive to conditions, whatever one thinks of the results of the New Deal programs.

VoxOrion wrote:I'm flabbergasted at how people can expect, no demand, that their quality of life be measured by large houses, the amount of micro-brew in their fridge, the quality of their make-up and video game systems - yet are horrified at the idea that they should keep some money set aside to pay for perscription drugs that WILL HELP KEEP THEM ALIVE as opposed to entertain them.

That's an interesting and valid point. The problem is switching expectations in midstream. If you've bought the McMansion and the microbrews and the Wii and the rest of it with the expectation that your reasonable healthcare costs are going to be taken care of as a part of your work compensation, you're understandably going to be upset when suddenly it isn't.

Which isn't to say that companies are (necessarily or even typically) acting in a cruel or irrational when they cut coverage. They're competing too, and often they're getting killed on healthcare costs. I always figured this would be why eventually we'll have universal government-provided care: you get efficiencies of scale that will unfetter a lot of American companies, even with the big tax hit they'd presumably take.

There are considerations against it--OH NOEZ GUMMIT RUN HELTHCARE!!!1--but at least in theory this is what elections are supposed to determine.

(Also, that elections thing is at least a part of the answer to your honest broker question. Just not a very satisfying answer.)

TenuredVulture wrote:If you really want to shrink government, insist on raising taxes to pay for every program. I think you could easily have defeated Medicare Part D, the bridge to nowhere, and a lot of other stuff besides.

Of course, no one really wants to shrink government.

Bingo. The reason Barry Goldwater is a hero to conservatives is that he had the courage of his convictions. He also got his ass handed to him.

The reason I like the PayGo rule is that it forces real, painful decisions about values and priorities. Unfortunately, neither party has had the character to make that choice and live with it; they all value staying in office over public service.

(This was why I wanted Bloomberg to run and win. That guy's ego is just wired differently: he feels like a big shot not from the cheering of crowds or other rich men kissing his ass, but by making painful decisions with the thought that he's doing the right thing.)

Interesting read about Decider Bush.

Most of you will read it and say, "Dude, we know, we've been telling you he's EVIL AND INCOMPETANT FOR YEARS!".

What interested me was that Rich Lowery is the one who linked it, and commented that there's "A lot to this Daniel Benjamin critique of Bush's management style, I'm afraid."

dajafi wrote:That's an interesting and valid point. The problem is switching expectations in midstream. If you've bought the McMansion and the microbrews and the Wii and the rest of it with the expectation that your reasonable healthcare costs are going to be taken care of as a part of your work compensation, you're understandably going to be upset when suddenly it isn't.

Which isn't to say that companies are (necessarily or even typically) acting in a cruel or irrational when they cut coverage. They're competing too, and often they're getting killed on healthcare costs. I always figured this would be why eventually we'll have universal government-provided care: you get efficiencies of scale that will unfetter a lot of American companies, even with the big tax hit they'd presumably take.

There are considerations against it--OH NOEZ GUMMIT RUN HELTHCARE!!!1--but at least in theory this is what elections are supposed to determine.

(Also, that elections thing is at least a part of the answer to your honest broker question. Just not a very satisfying answer.)

Your first paragraph speaks to the lack of leadership on the American stage, particularly on the right where right and left would expect it. The expectations you mention are real and have risen (I'm thinking of my friend who claims there is no such thing as a slippery slope), and we need leadership to address that and pronounce the hard realities of it. That's not Obama, his side is for this kind of government expansion (I'll be fair and say he'd claim it's in the name of the margins). Ron Paul isn't that guy, no matter how well he's convinced himself and his people that he's the second coming of Goldwater. One of the reasons this is so difficult to imagine is the tight mingling of "free markets" and "big business". That's one of the Douthat/Salam criticisms of today's GOP - the two are not the same thing, but you'd never know it after the last eight years (I'd argue Gingrich/Clinton understood it).

I just wholly disagree that the solution is to cave to those expectations and work around them.

I sure you're tired of the argument, and you even joke about it, but what people facing program, particularly what large one, does the government run well? Granted, this was pre-welfare reform, but I used to take my friend to the hospital for her baby on gubmint healthcare and it was atrocious.

But, again the cynic in me says that this will still play into the class warfare mongering that keeps Democrats employed. The upper middle classes and the rich will continue to get private healthcare for themselves (as they do in Canada, if I'm not mistaken), and the campaign war cry will be about how "the people" should have the same benefits as "the wealthiest Americans"! Look at Medicare perscription drug coverage, you'd think it was worse now that it exists, never mind the decades long demand that preceeded it. I think you and I both know that that same bill signed by a president Obama would be hailed as one of his presidency's greatest achievements, and the inefficiencies would be shrugged off as "he did what he had to do to get it through congress".

As for elections, I'd point to them as a specific if not the most important example of how the government is not an honest broker. I mean, the comment follows criticism of how Bush kept raising spending without raising taxes - I don't care what the platform says, the Dem controlled congress of the last two years isn't exactly trimming their pork in the name of "we can't pay for it without raising taxes".

dajafi wrote:

TomatoPie wrote:You cannot argue about the tax cuts, unless to say that they should have been cut more. Tax revenues are exceeding, by no small margin, all previous records and all estimates, even by tax-cut proponents. There can be no question that tax rates affect behavior.

Sensible persons...

Stop right there. At least on this issue, you're not a sensible person, you're an ideologue. Like anybody who believes that any single policy choice is always the right move in any situation.

I've posted this before, but let's try one more time:

TAX CUTS don't pay for themselves....

As Mr. Nussle acknowledges, "There are those including myself who . . . in the passion of the argument have made statements -- I think I even made a statement once -- that tax relief did pay for itself." In fact, Mr. Nussle said yesterday at a breakfast with reporters sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor, "Some say that [the tax cut] was a total loss. Some say they totally pay for themselves. It's neither extreme."

This is not a merely academic debate, although no serious academic, including Mr. Bush's own economists, has argued that tax cuts produce enough additional economic growth to make up for lost revenue.

You may post it yet again, it remains unpersuasive in the face of the facts. Why so eager to put all your eggs in the basket of one guy quoted in the WaPo?

There is some tax rate at which tax revenues are maximized. Would you agree that it is something less than 100%?

So the question is not "do tax rate cuts grow revenue" but "at what point do lower rates stop yielding higher revenues?"

You could argue, as a sensible and non-ideological person, that perhaps cutting rates from 70% as Reagan did was more likely to generate new revenues than the more modest cuts of our President Bush.

But why speculate, or trust the tossed off opinions of those eager to punish successful capitalists, when we have actual facts to examine?

For instance, US tax revenues have been around 19.5% of GDP regardless of tax rates in the postwar period. Revenues track GDP, not tax rates.



What is the best way, over the long term, to grow revenues?

Grow the GDP.

Even lefties (sensible ones, anyhow) cannot claim that higher tax rates will boost the GDP.

Given that lower tax rates will yeild a higher GDP, we should keep cutting taxes until we find that point where revenues no longer increase.

My guess, which is at least as good as any in the WaPo, is that we still have plenty of room for cuts.
You Can't Soak the Rich

VoxOrion wrote:As far as the disconnect between attitude toward the government and expectations, I agree that there is one. I'm flabbergasted at how people can expect, no demand, that their quality of life be measured by large houses, the amount of micro-brew in their fridge, the quality of their make-up and video game systems - yet are horrified at the idea that they should keep some money set aside to pay for perscription drugs that WILL HELP KEEP THEM ALIVE as opposed to entertain them.

That's an interesting point, but I think that if you are to assume that we can plan for our healthcare costs individually, in theory doesn't that assume that we're all experts of what those costs are going to be? And of course we're not, so in your case (well, the US case) near everyone turns it over to a medical insurance company. And as TV mentions, healthcare isn't just another good which we can make choices over. And we can't really predict what healthcare we will or won't need. And if I recall my college economics classes correctly, one of the things which makes health insurance so costly as a good is that is inherently unpredictable. thats before you get to the idea that it's inherently the consumer's responsibility to decide what is the absolute best healthcare for them, an idea which I'm not a big fan of.

Here's my slightly different take on the healthcare thing, for what it's worth. I've never understood why a government will bend overbackwards to make a company build a factory in their country, but could never say to that company that they could guarantee the health of the workforce. I guess in an age of multinationals, everyone assumes that the the only cost associateed with labour is wages, but if you can gaurantee a supply of labour which doesn't breakdown as much, and so doesn't cost as much in terms of time, money and retraining to replace, that's a good thing, no?

TomatoPie wrote:

dajafi wrote:

TomatoPie wrote:You cannot argue about the tax cuts, unless to say that they should have been cut more. Tax revenues are exceeding, by no small margin, all previous records and all estimates, even by tax-cut proponents. There can be no question that tax rates affect behavior.

Sensible persons...

Stop right there. At least on this issue, you're not a sensible person, you're an ideologue. Like anybody who believes that any single policy choice is always the right move in any situation.

I've posted this before, but let's try one more time:

TAX CUTS don't pay for themselves....

As Mr. Nussle acknowledges, "There are those including myself who . . . in the passion of the argument have made statements -- I think I even made a statement once -- that tax relief did pay for itself." In fact, Mr. Nussle said yesterday at a breakfast with reporters sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor, "Some say that [the tax cut] was a total loss. Some say they totally pay for themselves. It's neither extreme."

This is not a merely academic debate, although no serious academic, including Mr. Bush's own economists, has argued that tax cuts produce enough additional economic growth to make up for lost revenue.

You may post it yet again, it remains unpersuasive in the face of the facts. Why so eager to put all your eggs in the basket of one guy quoted in the WaPo?

There is some tax rate at which tax revenues are maximized. Would you agree that it is something less than 100%?

So the question is not "do tax rate cuts grow revenue" but "at what point do lower rates stop yielding higher revenues?"

You could argue, as a sensible and non-ideological person, that perhaps cutting rates from 70% as Reagan did was more likely to generate new revenues than the more modest cuts of our President Bush.

But why speculate, or trust the tossed off opinions of those eager to punish successful capitalists, when we have actual facts to examine?

For instance, US tax revenues have been around 19.5% of GDP regardless of tax rates in the postwar period. Revenues track GDP, not tax rates.



What is the best way, over the long term, to grow revenues?

Grow the GDP.

Even lefties (sensible ones, anyhow) cannot claim that higher tax rates will boost the GDP.

Given that lower tax rates will yeild a higher GDP, we should keep cutting taxes until we find that point where revenues no longer increase.

My guess, which is at least as good as any in the WaPo, is that we still have plenty of room for cuts.
You Can't Soak the Rich

The chart is a little misleading, at the top line is "top individual tax bracket" which is not the same as overall tax rate.

It's not "one guy in the WaPo." It's Bush's OMB director.

My contention is that there are times to raise taxes and times to lower taxes, and that it's better to be practical and responsive to circumstances than to take an ideologically driven view that one course of action--cut them all--is right all the time. Also, that it's best for governments, like families and businesses, to live within their means over any protracted period of time. Deficits might not be 100 percent determinative, but they do matter; I'll take the overwhelming majority of expert opinion over Dick Cheney.

But since I didn't read any of the rest of your propaganda, and you obviously paid no attention to what I posted, it probably doesn't behoove anyone to continue this argument.

dajafi wrote:It's not "one guy in the WaPo." It's Bush's OMB director.

My contention is that there are times to raise taxes and times to lower taxes, and that it's better to be practical and responsive to circumstances than to take an ideologically driven view that one course of action--cut them all--is right all the time. Also, that it's best for governments, like families and businesses, to live within their means over any protracted period of time. Deficits might not be 100 percent determinative, but they do matter; I'll take the overwhelming majority of expert opinion over Dick Cheney.

But since I didn't read any of the rest of your propaganda, and you obviously paid no attention to what I posted, it probably doesn't behoove anyone to continue this argument.

I surely did pay attention to what you've posted; this is a pet topic of mine and I've read a lot on it from both sides.

You posted nothing I haven't read before.

You should not be so quick to dismiss as propaganda anything that does not comport to your worldview. It's easy to cling to the NYT mantra that the Bushies are fiscally reckless; perhaps as comfy as clinging to God'n'Guns.

I don't endorse or embrace federal deficits nor ballooning debt. But there is no logic in thinking that higher taxes are the cure. None! The evidence is in that tax revenues track GDP, not rates.

As an aside, even though like you I wish we would spend less (NCLB and the Medicare prescription plan are especially bad examples), I don't fret over the current amount of debt. In fact, Ken Fisher says we aren't borrowing enough, and he says it convincingly. I cannot strongly enough recommend his latest book, a smart and witty and quick read.

Is there a time to raise taxes?

Sure -- taxes on behavior that you want to discourage.

I think we should should be very reluctant to discourage saving and productivity.

Well, one reason for high gas prices, and the shame of having the US dollar worth less than the Loonie might be crappy fiscal policy.

TenuredVulture wrote:Well, one reason for high gas prices, and the shame of having the US dollar worth less than the Loonie might be crappy fiscal policy.

I agree entirely, if by that you mean crappy monetary policy.

By keeping rates so low for so long, Bush and Greenspan and Bernanke have:

1) Created the mortage crisis

2) Debased the dollar

3) Fueled commodity inflation

4) Made European vacations prohibitively expensive.

We did the same thing, with the same results, in the 70s. Who will be our Paul Volcker?

TomatoPie wrote:

TenuredVulture wrote:Well, one reason for high gas prices, and the shame of having the US dollar worth less than the Loonie might be crappy fiscal policy.

I agree entirely, if by that you mean crappy monetary policy.

By keeping rates so low for so long, Bush and Greenspan and Bernanke have:

1) Created the mortage crisis

2) Debased the dollar

3) Fueled commodity inflation

4) Made European vacations prohibitively expensive.

We did the same thing, with the same results, in the 70s. Who will be our Paul Volcker?

No, I mean fiscal policy. Monetary policy has been crappy too though. Too much debt, private and public.

TomatoPie wrote:I think we should should be very reluctant to discourage saving and productivity.

We've been encouraging saving?

There are times when deficits are acceptable--when you're going into debt to invest. But we've gone deeper into debt to finance tax cuts. The savings rate is abysmally low, the government no longer supports research and innovation to the extent that we did for 50 years before these clowns came in, and job creation under Bush is going to be less than a quarter what it was under Bill Clinton (even though he--the horror!--raised taxes).

In the final analysis, I'm interested in what's good for the country. Bush's economic policies in this regard have been no more successful than anything else he's done.

It would be nice if we got back to the days when "conservatives" went by what works, rather than abstract theories and magical thinking. Having blasted Great Society-era liberals (with considerable justification) so long for doing exactly this, it's ironic that the Bush/DeLay crowd fell by the same mistake.

You are absolutely right about monetary policy, though, which speaks somewhat to the savings problem. I have my doubts the Democrats would have been any better, since Bush/DeLay (and Greenspan) did what they did to retain power.

dajafi wrote:

TomatoPie wrote:I think we should should be very reluctant to discourage saving and productivity.

We've been encouraging saving?

There are times when deficits are acceptable--when you're going into debt to invest. But we've gone deeper into debt to finance tax cuts. The savings rate is abysmally low, the government no longer supports research and innovation to the extent that we did for 50 years before these clowns came in, and job creation under Bush is going to be less than a quarter what it was under Bill Clinton (even though he--the horror!--raised taxes).

In the final analysis, I'm interested in what's good for the country. Bush's economic policies in this regard have been no more successful than anything else he's done.

It would be nice if we got back to the days when "conservatives" went by what works, rather than abstract theories and magical thinking. Having blasted Great Society-era liberals (with considerable justification) so long for doing exactly this, it's ironic that the Bush/DeLay crowd fell by the same mistake.

You are absolutely right about monetary policy, though, which speaks to the savings problem.

Oakeshott>Schumpeter>Hayek.

dajafi wrote:We've been encouraging saving?

The earnings on savings is taxed as income. Lower tax rates means less disincentive to save.

dajafi wrote:But we've gone deeper into debt to finance tax cuts.

That's just not accurate. Take a look at the numbers. Tax receipts have soared above all-time record levels. The growing debt is a result, exclusively, of runaway spending. And on that, I join you in condeming our POTUS.

dajafi wrote: job creation under Bush is going to be less than a quarter what it was under Bill Clinton

I'd like to see your source for that.

Let's assume your stat is accurate. How do you reconcile that with the fact that unemployment under Bush has been substantially lower than it was under Clinton? Perhaps, since under Bush we've been more or less at full employment, there is less room and less need for job creation.

dajafi wrote: You are absolutely right about monetary policy, though, which speaks somewhat to the savings problem. I have my doubts the Democrats would have been any better, since Bush/DeLay (and Greenspan) did what they did to retain power.

Greenspan/Bush/Bernanke made the classic mistake -- focus on the near term, ignore the long term.

In his first term, Bush did what Rove told him would help win re-election. That is how I explain NCLB and prescription drugs. I really expected fiscal restraint in his second term, and he also had the opportunity to move intererst rates up where they belong, since neither he nor Cheney had any election issues for 2008 forward.

I remain mystified at the profligate spending and irresponsible suppression of interest rates. Who wins in that game?

Bill Clinton presided over an economy that added 22 million jobs.

This is a bogus comparison meant to imply Clinton had something to do with this that distracts from what otherwise may be a valid point. Any president, I don't care if it were Jimmy Carter or W, would have come out of the 90's smelling like roses on the economics side.

TomatoPie wrote:Hoping for Change

Director

John Martin is the Co-founder and Director of Republicans for Obama. He lives in The Bronx, New York, where he is a law student and a United States Navy Reservist.

John was active in his high school's Young Republicans Club and became a registered Republican shortly after his 18th birthday. After graduating with honors from Binghamton University, John interned and worked for Senator James Jeffords (R-I) of Vermont, and then received an MA in Political Science from Columbia University. He has worked on both local and national election campaigns.

Ah, Jeffords.

I'm a little confused to see Bruce Bartlett on there. Didn't he just write a few weeks ago that he wasn't ready to become an Obamican/Obamacon*?

* Obamican: Obama-supporting Republican. Obamacon: Obama-tolerating conservative?