"The private sector is doing fine."

[Ziggurat]

You're fooling no one other then maybe yourself. You declare your party loyalty with every post, all 23,000 of them. indeed.

And still, no response to my actual arguments. Merely more ad hominems. What do you think that declares about you?

 

[dc1971]

I present facts and an argument. You respond with... well, nothing, really. OK, that's not fair. You've got a literary reference. One that doesn't actually address my argument, but hey, it shows that you've read a book! And it's an important book!

But I think you might want to reconsider what that book was actually about, because it wasn't about the dangers of smaller government. Oops.

Take a deep breath. Find a quiet room. Breathe some more. Listen to the sound of your breath. Feel how relaxed you are now. OOOOOHMMM....

 

[BenBurch]

Fact: I just got my first raise in 3 years.

Congratulations!

 

[RandFan]

The question we face is what will happen if we raise those taxes again. And I'm not convinced that it will help.

It didn't hurt when Reagan raised them. It didn't hurt when Clinton raised them.

Here's the problem as I see it. Historically tax rates have been higher and we have prospered. I think you need something more than a hunch to keep them as low as they are.

But what happened when the Bush tax cuts were enacted? What happened to revenue? Well, between 2003 and 2007, income tax revenue went up from about $1.78 trillion to about $2.56 trillion, about a 44% increase. Now, obviously a lot of factors besides the tax rate enter into that increase. If the economy does better for reasons having nothing to do with tax rates, then we can expect tax revenues to increase because of that, and maybe revenues would have been much higher still without the tax cuts. Inflation also contributes a bit, and so does population growth, though that should only be a few percent each over that time span.

The problem here is that you are painting an incomplete picture.

source Bruce Bartlett held senior policy roles in the administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush and served on the staffs of Representatives Jack Kemp and Ron Paul.

The Congressional Budget Office expects revenue to be just 14.8 percent of G.D.P. this year; the last year it was lower was 1950, when revenue amounted to 14.4 percent of G.D.P.

But revenue has been below 15 percent of G.D.P. since 2009, and the last time we had three years in a row when revenue as a share of G.D.P. was that low was 1941 to 1943.

...

It would have been one thing if the Bush tax cuts had at least bought the country a higher rate of economic growth, even temporarily. They did not. Real G.D.P. growth peaked at just 3.6 percent in 2004 before fading rapidly. Even before the crisis hit, real G.D.P. was growing less than 2 percent a year.

We have a revenue problem. Keeping the tax rates low doesn't appear to be helping us. It's most certainly not stimulating the economy.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

I disagree with the highlighted portion of both statements. You can argue that they aren't false since those parts are subjective evaluations, but I disagree with them.

So your objection to Obama's "fine" value judgement is the same: it's a disagreement on an evaluation rather than on some objective fact.

And I still think it's disingenuous to place his remarks into any broader context than it actually was made in. I don't think Obama was trying to give a broad evaluation of the state of everyone in the private sector. He was talking specifically about the capacity of the private sector to create jobs, in particular in the context of what the federal government should focus on to best help the recovery.

 

[JoeTheJuggler]

If government spending is already too high, then the right growth is negative.

Yes, I'm sure that's a popular political approach as long as no voters are among those adversely affected by the loss of public sector jobs (and services).

So the whole recession thing was good because it's giving us what you consider to be a necessary shrinking of government?

 

[Caper]

It didn't hurt when Reagan raised them. It didn't hurt when Clinton raised them.

Here's the problem as I see it. Historically tax rates have been higher and we have prospered. I think you need something more than a hunch to keep them as low as they are.
The problem here is that you are painting an incomplete picture.
We have a revenue problem. Keeping the tax rates low doesn't appear to be helping us. It's most certainly not stimulating the economy.

I think it's hard to talk about the subject without painting an incomplete picture. You may be right and I tend to agree with you that taxes can probably be raised without harming the economy. But I just think the debate should be over who is going to minimize the damage and not make the economy better. Aging work force, emerging economies, huge debt loads.....ect.

 

[Dymanic]

Try responding to what I actually write, not what you imagine I might think.

I've been responding to what I recognize as familiar GOP talking points. I imagine that you've been repeating them because they are in alignment with your own thinking, but performing that analysis seems to me an unnecessary extra step.

Whether or not tax cuts for the wealthy have produced the job growth we want isn't really the question we face.

There certainly seem to be those who don't want to face that question, as your evasive response demonstrates. You either think those tax cuts helped create jobs or you don't.

Whether they do the right or wrong thing out of honest conviction or cynical power calculations is quite secondary to me, I really care about whether they do the right or wrong thing.

Do you see a jobs bill -- as in: a real jobs bill, one that will actually create more jobs than it eliminates -- as a right or a wrong thing?

If government spending is already too high, then the right growth is negative. The fact that 2012 has a low but still positive growth number (which I never contested) is not impressive.

I'd say it's fairly impressive as a refutation of Romney's claim that President is on a "spending spree".

Interestingly enough, I actually happen to sort of agree that "the right growth is negative" -- in the same sense that for a person sitting on top of a mountain, the "right direction" is down. Our government grew right along with our population, and the accompanying increase in consumption of food, water, energy, etc, and the economy that permitted all of that increase. I see us now on the threshold of the inevitable contraction which is the ultimate price of those decades of explosive growth, not the least reason being that we are at or very near the end of what we once regarded as an endless supply of cheap energy.

So, yeah, we need smaller government -- to go along with our smaller families, smaller waistlines, and smaller (or non-existent) cars. I'd love to think that we might be capable of learning to think in terms of managing that contraction in ways that would minimize the amount of human suffering it will cause, but there presently seems to be far too much collective delusion and cultural inertia to make that the remotest possibility.

 

[RandFan]

I think it's hard to talk about the subject without painting an incomplete picture. You may be right and I tend to agree with you that taxes can probably be raised without harming the economy. But I just think the debate should be over who is going to minimize the damage and not make the economy better. Aging work force, emerging economies, huge debt loads.....ect.

Thank you. Thought provoking.

 

[applecorped]

Thank you. Thought provoking.

Stool provoking.

 

[Caper]

Thank you. Thought provoking.

Was that sarcasm?

 

[RandFan]

Was that sarcasm?

No. Not at all. I had not even considered whether or not the debate should be about minimizing the damage as opposed to making the economy better. I found the tone of your post conciliatory and I'm always willing to consider points of view that take that approach.

 

[RandFan]

Stool provoking.

You don't ever seem to advance the discussion or provide anything substantive. Goodbye.

 

[applecorped]

You don't ever seem to advance the discussion or provide anything substantive. Goodbye.

Not surprisingly, neither do you. Hmmm....

 

[BenBurch]

I think it's hard to talk about the subject without painting an incomplete picture. You may be right and I tend to agree with you that taxes can probably be raised without harming the economy. But I just think the debate should be over who is going to minimize the damage and not make the economy better. Aging work force, emerging economies, huge debt loads.....ect.

Solvable problems all. If I were dictator, I'd investigate doing something along these lines;

If you look at how Japan is dealing with an aging population, or trying to; They are looking to robots to be care-givers. Much, much cheaper in the long run, once developed.

I'd start something like NASA - we need this anyway - a National Mobile Cybernetics Administration. Remit is research, co-development with industry, establishing standards for safety certification. We already have robot automobiles driving on the same highway as humans. For now with an engineer ready to kill it and take over instantly. But some day there will be no human on board, and we will need to have a body competent to pass on safe practice.

And that will employ a lot of people, and pump a lot of money through industry. Unlike NASA, no huge project is getting fed by this, it is all on a small scale, and industry is expected to take things over after development. Unlike NASA, Industry will be expected to pay a fee for use of the patents developed, and this can eventually become a revenue stream rather than a budget item.

Debt loads will handle themselves if we have no more disasters like Bush created and we ask the fed to allow a bit more inflation to cheapen the existing debt over time.

Economics; All economics is energy. Period. Wasn't always like this, but it is as you say "emerging" - actually fully emerged already.

To the first order you can predict the standard of living of a country if you know the number of kilojoules the average citizen consumes per year. Cost of energy is what is driving both the problems in Europe and the recovery here in the USA. It is also what stuck the pin in Bush's bubble. (A few months too early to pin any of the blame on Obama, though some try.)

So, combined with robotics, we also need to ressurect ERDA - Energy Research and Development Agency. NRC would be under ERDA. Goal would be fusion long term, and anything that will work short term. Research will say what that "anything" is. Except for mid-scale pilot plants, no build-out at all would be done. Industry is expected to license the designs and will do so if they make economic sense.

 

[Caper]

Solvable problems all. If I were dictator, I'd investigate doing something along these lines;

If you look at how Japan is dealing with an aging population, or trying to; They are looking to robots to be care-givers. Much, much cheaper in the long run, once developed.

I'd start something like NASA - we need this anyway - a National Mobile Cybernetics Administration. Remit is research, co-development with industry, establishing standards for safety certification. We already have robot automobiles driving on the same highway as humans. For now with an engineer ready to kill it and take over instantly. But some day there will be no human on board, and we will need to have a body competent to pass on safe practice.

And that will employ a lot of people, and pump a lot of money through industry. Unlike NASA, no huge project is getting fed by this, it is all on a small scale, and industry is expected to take things over after development. Unlike NASA, Industry will be expected to pay a fee for use of the patents developed, and this can eventually become a revenue stream rather than a budget item.

Debt loads will handle themselves if we have no more disasters like Bush created and we ask the fed to allow a bit more inflation to cheapen the existing debt over time.

Economics; All economics is energy. Period. Wasn't always like this, but it is as you say "emerging" - actually fully emerged already.

To the first order you can predict the standard of living of a country if you know the number of kilojoules the average citizen consumes per year. Cost of energy is what is driving both the problems in Europe and the recovery here in the USA. It is also what stuck the pin in Bush's bubble. (A few months too early to pin any of the blame on Obama, though some try.)

So, combined with robotics, we also need to ressurect ERDA - Energy Research and Development Agency. NRC would be under ERDA. Goal would be fusion long term, and anything that will work short term. Research will say what that "anything" is. Except for mid-scale pilot plants, no build-out at all would be done. Industry is expected to license the designs and will do so if they make economic sense.

Interesting ideas. I hate being a pessimist. But I keep thinking how all new this is. It's not like we have thousands of years dealing with modern finance (I know trade has been around as long as people). We have.... like a hundred years. I look at South America, India, to some extent some middle eastern countries. I see young hungry youth that want jobs. I think they are hungrier then we are (not literally, we defiantly win there). Technology will limit the damage... maybe even negate the damage. But I see other parts of the world that want their slice of the pie... and maybe that's a good thing (for the world as a whole). There was always emerging economic powers, but America always ruled over technological innovation (Japan may not agree). I'm not sure it's accurate to bring up Clinton's tax rates or Reagan's or Bush's without talking about the other driving factors that played a role as well. Clinton benefited greatly from an internet revolution that was driven in America.... Bush had the 9/11 economy to deal with as well as the dying down of the technology industries (remember pets.com). Then Bush benefited from a housing bubble for a lot of his second term.... Obama now has to deal with the fallout from that.... while at the same time dealing with a VERY, VERY competitive world economy. I don't envy Barrack Obama. He'll get criticized for an economy, I believe he doesn't have all that much control over.... I'm not saying no control... but not near the control the avergae American thinks they have..... or the average politician leads us to believe.

 

[Ziggurat]

It didn't hurt when Reagan raised them. It didn't hurt when Clinton raised them.

And both of those raises occurred under different conditions than we currently face.

Here's the problem as I see it. Historically tax rates have been higher and we have prospered.

Historically, government also spent much less money and we prospered. If past history is your guide, then significant spending cuts are in order as well.

The problem here is that you are painting an incomplete picture.

Of course I am. As are you. As we all do here, in this limited format.

We have a revenue problem. Keeping the tax rates low doesn't appear to be helping us. It's most certainly not stimulating the economy.

We have a deficit problem. You want to fix that by raising taxes rather than cutting spending, with the idea that government spending will stimulate the economy. But that requires that the government spending outweigh the drag of pulling money out of the economy through taxes. In other words, you think government can spend that money more productively than taxpayers can. I don't think that's true at the margins right now.

 

[Ziggurat]

I've been responding to what I recognize as familiar GOP talking points. I imagine that you've been repeating them because they are in alignment with your own thinking, but performing that analysis seems to me an unnecessary extra step.

You're already taking unnecessary extra steps. Confining your responses to what I actually write takes fewer steps than trying to extrapolate to what else you think I might believe.

There certainly seem to be those who don't want to face that question, as your evasive response demonstrates. You either think those tax cuts helped create jobs or you don't.

What I'm trying to evade is a debate which is not solvable and does little to guide us now. There is no way to definitively prove the case either way. If you think there is, you're kidding yourself.

Do you see a jobs bill -- as in: a real jobs bill, one that will actually create more jobs than it eliminates -- as a right or a wrong thing?

That would be a good thing. I just don't think that's what's being offered, even if that's what's intended.

I'd say it's fairly impressive as a refutation of Romney's claim that President is on a "spending spree".

If you massively jack up spending in your first year and then merely keep it high the rest of the term, that doesn't make you frugal.

 

[Ziggurat]

Yes, I'm sure that's a popular political approach as long as no voters are among those adversely affected by the loss of public sector jobs (and services).

I find this argument rather ironic, given your immediately previous post:

So your objection to Obama's "fine" value judgement is the same: it's a disagreement on an evaluation rather than on some objective fact.

What exactly do you think the typical voter's evaluation of Obama's value judgment is going to be?

 

[Frank Newgent]

What exactly do you think the typical voter's evaluation of Obama's value judgment is going to be?

How can we even begin to measure such a thing objectively given government inefficiency? Government regulations stifling election-market innovation have resulted in nothing but an ever lower-voter turnout.

In light of the stark difference in the effectiveness and competence between the private and public sectors, it mystifies me that any right-thinking person would want to transfer more power and money to the government.

How is the process of accumulating then counting individual votes any different? Though it's true there exists a vast untapped market of nonvoters, perhaps this market, instead, could be made more efficient by simply allowing it to come up with better voters. I think you know what I mean.

It's about time we privatise the election process.