Fiscal conservative, but social liberal

The "conservative" in fiscally conservative means moderate or cautious. The antonym is fiscally irresponsible.

A few decade ago, political conservative happened to be fiscally conservate as well. No longer. Political liberals tend to be more fiscally conservatives and political conservatives tend to fiscally irresponsible.

CBL
 
CBL4 said:
Political liberals tend to be more fiscally conservatives and political conservatives tend to fiscally irresponsible.
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Oh you bet, you should have seen liberal legislature fighting the increased spending.

Right!?!
 
Oh you bet, you should have seen liberal legislature fighting the increased spending
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It is much more fiscally responsible to tax and spend than to cut-tax and spend. I would prefer to tax and spend less but that is not the question.

CBL
 
CBL4 said:
It is much more fiscally responsible to tax and spend than to cut-tax and spend. I would prefer to tax and spend less but that is not the question.
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When I was young, we were taught that you shouldn't buy things you can't afford. I always took this as an example of a conservative approach, and it was the irresponsible ones that would borrow to spend beyond their means.

I think of that when I compare "tax and spend" democrats and "borrow and spend" republicans.
 
CBL4 said:
It is much more fiscally responsible to tax and spend than to cut-tax and spend. I would prefer to tax and spend less but that is not the question.
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I'm not sure what you mean by the last sentence. Do you mean tax less and spend less?

In any event there are a lot of assumptions in your statement. Oh, that the world were so simple. In the end you are just engaging in rhetoric. The measure of how much we have isn't simply how large is the tax-rate. "Cutting taxes" doesn't necessarily mean a decrease in tax revenue. Better measures are:

1.) Tax revenue
2.) GDP (or other indexes to determine production)

Real economic growth and increased tax revenue can be pegged to cutting taxes. After all of the debate and rhetoric about Reagan's tax cuts the end story is that it did increase revenue and did grow the economy and slow inflation though not as much as Republicans like to trumpet.

Supply Tax Cuts and the Truth About the Reagan Economic Record

pgwenthold said:
When I was young, we were taught that you shouldn't buy things you can't afford. I always took this as an example of a conservative approach, and it was the irresponsible ones that would borrow to spend beyond their means.

I think of that when I compare "tax and spend" democrats and "borrow and spend" republicans.
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Again, you are making simplified statements about complex issues and making a lot of assumptions (see above).
 
Art Vandelay said:
Just because you are financing something through debt doesn't mean that you can't afford it.
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Actually, it does. It means that you are betting on your ability to afford it in the future. This can be a reasonably good bet if you have a steady source of income and no forseeable increase in expenses. But woe betide the one who plans based on uncertain income. As I recall, the first budget submitted by Dubya was based on the continued surpluses from the Clinton era. Oops.
 
Originally posted by RandFanI'm not sure what you mean by the last sentence. Do you mean tax less and spend less?
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That is how I felt pre-Bush. But now we are closer to the baby boomer's retirement, significantly farther in debt, raising less money in taxes and spending more. Now, I think we need to raise taxes and spend less. I hope our next president is closer to Clinton than Bush - fiscally at least.

I have also become a parent and it sickens me to realize the debt load that my children will have before they even have a chance to vote.

In any event there are a lot of assumptions in your statement. Oh, that the world were so simple
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Of course, it was simplified but to do otherwise would derail the discussion. Clearly there are better/worse ways to raise revenue and better/ worse ways to spend it. But, IMO, we owe it to our children to raise more money via taxes and spend less. They should not pay for our excesses.

CBL
 
CBL4 said:
Clearly there are better/worse ways to raise revenue...
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I'm afraid that you missed my point.

Raising taxes doesn't necessarily increase tax revenue and lowering taxes doesn't necessarily decrease it. The amount of money that we have for spending isn't based on tax rates, it isn't even necessarily based on tax revenue.
 
Originally posted by RandFan
I'm afraid that you missed my point.

Raising taxes doesn't necessarily increase tax revenue and lowering taxes doesn't necessarily decrease it.
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I got this point which is why I deliberately used the word "revenue" not "taxes." (Admittedly, when I was simplifying, I used the word taxes.)

The amount of money that we have for spending isn't based on tax rates, it isn't even necessarily based on tax revenue.
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On the surface, this does not make sense. What exactly do you mean?

CBL
 
CBL4 said:
I hope our next president is closer to Clinton than Bush - fiscally at least.
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What, as "presiding over an economic expansion"? Because that was the biggest factor.

Of course, it was simplified but to do otherwise would derail the discussion. Clearly there are better/worse ways to raise revenue and better/ worse ways to spend it. But, IMO, we owe it to our children to raise more money via taxes and spend less. They should not pay for our excesses.
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Debt vs. equity is largely irrelevant. If taxes are higher, parents will have less money to invest in their children, so kids will still be in debt, but now it will be personal debt rather than collective debt. It's the spending that really matter, not financing.

Tricky said:
Actually, it does.
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No, it doesn't.

It means that you are betting on your ability to afford it in the future.
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No, your investors are betting on your ability to afford it. You're actually going shorter on your ability to pay.

But woe betide the one who plans based on uncertain income.
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That's a spending issue, not a financing issue.

As I recall, the first budget submitted by Dubya was based on the continued surpluses from the Clinton era. Oops.
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And liberals disingenuously blamed Bush for the discrepancy.
 
CBL4 said:
I got this point which is why I deliberately used the word "revenue"...
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That does not solve the problem inherent in your statement about cutting taxes. If cutting taxes increases revenue then cutting taxes and spending isn't irresponsible. (That is a conditional statement BTW.)


RandFan said:
Raising taxes doesn't necessarily increase tax revenue and lowering taxes doesn't necessarily decrease it. The amount of money that we have for spending isn't based on tax rates, it isn't even necessarily based on tax revenue.
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On the surface, this does not make sense. What exactly do you mean?
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How much we can spend depends in large part on how much wealth we as a nation make and not on how much we give to the government. Taxing is simply transferring money from the citizens to the government to spend on our behalf. If the economy expands at a sufficient rate then we can always cover the difference between revenue and spending with borrowing. This is what businesses do. It's called investing. It only becomes irresponsible if it is done to excess and the economy doesn't expand enough to cover the shortfall.

So, it is not so simple as saying "cutting taxes and spending is irresponsible". We first need to answer some questions.

1.) How much can we raise taxes before tax revenue goes down?
2.) How much can we lower taxes before tax revenue goes down?

Clearly there is a point at which either direction will result in lower tax revenue.

I hope this helps,

RandFan
 
RandFan,

I probably should have guessed you were referring to national wealth which is, of course, true.

When you have a major financial burden coming up (e.g. social security and medicare for the baby boomers), it is irresponsible to increase your debt(compared to national wealth) cut revenue (via tax cuts), increase current spending (too many to name) and increase your obligations for future spending.

To oversimplify, it is making your children and grandchildren pay for your lifestyle. This is ethically wrong.

CBL
 
RandFan said:
In any event there are a lot of assumptions in your statement. Oh, that the world were so simple. In the end you are just engaging in rhetoric. The measure of how much we have isn't simply how large is the tax-rate. "Cutting taxes" doesn't necessarily mean a decrease in tax revenue.
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One of the regular guests on Al Franken addresses this a lot. He notes that indeed there is not a one-to-one relationship between tax rate and revenue, and that cutting taxes by X does not mean a loss in X revenue.

However, he states that whenever actual economists investigate it, they find that the return on tax cuts is at best something like 20%. IOW, cutting taxes by X means a loss of .8X in revenue.

So to a first approximation, it really IS that simple. Cut taxes = lose revenue
 
RandFan said:
I'm afraid that you missed my point.

Raising taxes doesn't necessarily increase tax revenue and lowering taxes doesn't necessarily decrease it. The amount of money that we have for spending isn't based on tax rates, it isn't even necessarily based on tax revenue.
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I would love to see a copy of the Laffer Curve, in which the axes were labelled and numbered. I've never seen one. Why not?

Maybe the answer can be found in pwengthold's post.
 
CBL4 said:
To oversimplify, it is making your children and grandchildren pay for your lifestyle. This is ethically wrong.
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Again, you are making assumptions and not addressing the point. It depends on the conditional statement that I made. If cutting taxes increases tax revenue then it is not ethically wrong. The problem is if you spend more than can be afforded. That is irresponsible no matter how much you tax.
 
pgwenthold said:
One of the regular guests on Al Franken addresses this a lot. He notes that indeed there is not a one-to-one relationship between tax rate and revenue, and that cutting taxes by X does not mean a loss in X revenue.

However, he states that whenever actual economists investigate it, they find that the return on tax cuts is at best something like 20%. IOW, cutting taxes by X means a loss of .8X in revenue.

So to a first approximation, it really IS that simple. Cut taxes = lose revenue
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You have NOT demonstrated this. You have simply claimed it. Are you really apealing to the authority of Al Franken? :D That's a new one. I'll give you points for creativity. It's a fallacy but I like it.

Supply Tax Cuts and the Truth About the Reagan Economic Record

...the Reagan record unambiguously outperformed the records of the pre- and post-Reagan years. The two exceptions were the savings rate, which declined in the Reagan years at a faster rate than in the pre- and post-Reagan years, and productivity, which grew faster in the pre-Reagan years but slower in the post-Reagan years. [12] The following is a summary for each of the 10 variables:
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RandFan said:
You have NOT demonstrated this. You have simply claimed it. Are you really apealing to the authority of Al Franken? :D That's a new one. I'll give you points for creativity. It's a fallacy but I like it.
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Watch out for matches around all that straw, dude.

1) I never claimed to have demonstrated anything.
2) It's not my claim, it is that of a guest on Al Franken.
3) BTW, did you read that? It's a GUEST of Al Franken, not Al Franken.

So you were oh-for-three.

OTOH, it's not obvious to me why relaying the claims of an unnamed guest on the Al Franken Show is any worse than appealing to the authority of the Cato Institute.
 
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