The Stimulus Seems to have failed

[Paulhoff]

Yes, I can read. I read you blaming the first four years of negative growth under bush on 9/11 and a recession, and blaming obama for the economy within 3. But by this point i'm bored of seeing your childish tantrums, i'm putting you on ignore.

Good idea, now on a list of two.

Paul

 

[lomiller]

LIAR.



LIAR.

Yes, you are

In point of fact the recession started in Dec 2007 Obama was inaugurated at the end of January 2009

Here, from a February 27th, 2009 issue of that paper (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/28/business/economy/28recession.html?_r=1) "Current conditions are not even as poor as during the twin recessions of the 1980s, when unemployment exceeded 10 percent".

So now you trust the BLS numbers for unemployment, but just a page back you insisted that the BLS was understating the depth of the recession...

What you call stimulus in the 81/82 recession consisted almost entirely of tax cuts

So you admit a very large stimulus was applied in 1982, well that's progress at least.

Now that we agree the 1982 stimulus was twice as large we can address the "tax cut" issue. do you have any evidence that the percentage of tax cuts in 1982 was any greater then the ~45% in the 2009 stimulus or are you just speculating?

 

[mhaze]

Yes, I can read. I read you blaming the first four years of negative growth under bush on 9/11 and a recession, and blaming obama for the economy within 3. But by this point i'm bored of seeing your childish tantrums, i'm putting you on ignore.

Oh, I haven't seen any childish tantrums on BAC's side. But if you want to make a reasonable argument about the lagging effects of top down centralized control's effects, why not just....

Reach an agreement as to the amount of the lag, then proceed with the discussion? For example, you could say that all effects lag their initiation by 24 months. Etc. If you can't do that, or won't, YOU are the childish tantrum guy.

I imagine BAC would be agreeable to such a method.

Just saying.

 

[BeAChooser]

But by this point i'm bored of seeing your childish tantrums, i'm putting you on ignore.

Join the club. You'll look just as silly and childish as TraneWreck.

 

[BeAChooser]

Good idea, now on a list of two

Ironic isn't it? Paulhoff thinks this makes him look like an *adult*.

 

[BeAChooser]

In point of fact the recession started in Dec 2007 Obama was inaugurated at the end of January 2009

Well, that's if you can believe the NBER.

Despite a claim of being nonpartisan, history shows they have been partisan and naturally pushing the start of the current recession as far back into Bush's term as possible makes Obama look better. NBER's political bias can be seen in the dating of the 2001 recession, which actually began during Clinton's term even though the NBER still lists March 2001 as the start date. Here, read this: http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/12/nbers_anomalous_recession_call.html .

That article conclusively proves the management of NBER is tied to the Obama administration and predominantly democrat (in fact, do you know that only about 10 percent of NBER economists identify themselves as Republicans while nearly half call themselves democrats?). The article conclusively proves that NBER's methodology in assigning March 2001 date as the start of the 2000 recession is totally inconsistent to the methodology it used in assigning dates to ALL 11 other NBER-called recessions since 1947. It conclusively proves that there weren't 2 consecutive quarters of negative growth during all of Bush's term in office.

And now we are supposed to just believe their date regarding when the current recession started? How convenient. Sorry, I'm not sure I believe a group that assured us the recession was over back in June of 2009. Does it look over to you folks? Hmmmmmm?

There are many folks who doubt the veracity of NBER's latest dating. For example ...

http://pragcap.com/viewing-the-great-recession-in-hi-def

Our data also indicates that the “Great Recession” unfolded for consumers differently than National Bureau of Economic Research (“NBER”) might have us believe. The NBER is considered to be the official scorekeeper for recessions, and they have dated the beginning of the “Great Recession” to December 2007. While it is true that consumer demand (as measured by our Daily Growth Index) peaked prior to that month (on July 28, 2007 to be exact), we find that during December 2007 consumer demand was still growing year-over-year by more than 1% — slow growth perhaps, but hardly a recession. In fact, on December 13, 2007 some sectors of consumer demand were almost giddy in their growth: housing was still growing at a 12.8% year-over-year rate while our retail department chain index was up double digits. Consumers were clearly not yet in any major funk.

As you can see, NBER's definition of a recession as "a period of falling economic activity spread across the economy, lasting more than a few months, normally visible in real GDP, real income, employment, industrial production, and wholesale-retail sales" doesn't quite match what that source (and others) say was happening back in December 2007. In fact, NBER's approach to deciding when a recession begins and ends is highly arbitrary. They admit themselves that they made the decision on the date during a phone call. There is no hard and fast procedure. So maybe the real date was February of 2008? Or even later ...

http://www.newgeography.com/content/00595-the-recession-fuzzy-thinking-delays-a-recovery

the method of dating recessions changed with the 2001 recession. The new method is much more likely to declare an economy in recession. If the old method had been used — if previous criteria were applied to the current situation — I believe the recession would have commenced no sooner than July 2008. Recent data revisions increase my confidence that the NBER was wrong when they said the recession commenced in December 2007.

In any case … here is another inconsistency in NBER's methodology …

http://www.dailyfinance.com/2010/02/01/is-the-great-recession-over-depends-who-you-ask/

The NBER defines the beginnings and ends of recessions, and when it called the beginning of the current recession -- which began in December 2007, a date that was finally determined in December of 2008 -- it said that employment was the most important factor in defining the timing of the current slowdown: "The committee determined that the decline in economic activity in 2008 met the standard for a recession . . . . The 1.2 million drop in payroll employment so far this year was the biggest factor in determining the start of the contraction. . ." In the name of consistency, if NBER is going to use employment on the way into the recession, it only makes sense to use employment on the way out too. And on that basis, the recession is not over.

Now that we agree the 1982 stimulus was twice as large we can address the "tax cut" issue. do you have any evidence that the percentage of tax cuts in 1982 was any greater then the ~45% in the 2009 stimulus or are you just speculating?

You just proved yet again what I noted about you in what I posted above. You don't read what others post to you. You just want to remain uninformed. And you lie. First, Malerin provided you a link in post #181 of this thread which shows that the 1982 *stimulus* consisted "entirely of tax cuts". Second, the calm that 45% of the 2009 stimulus was tax cuts is another of your lies (or at least the mindless regurgitation of a lie). The 2009 stimulus had about 218 billion in tax cuts. The real percentage was closer to 28%. Here: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-m...wart-claims-stimulus-bill-one-third-tax-cuts/ .

 

[BeAChooser]

http://hotair.com/archives/2011/06/12/get-ready-for-electricity-prices-to-necessarily-skyrocket/

Thanks to new regulations from the Obama administration, power companies will shut down a significant number of coal-fired plants by 2014, and without any other reliable sources of mass-produced electricity, consumers will see their bills go up as much as 60% (via Instapundit and Newsalert):

Obama pushing his war on coal at a time like this is just STUCK ON STUPID. But he probably thinks of it as *green job* stimulus.

 

[Tolls]

To whom? mhaze is as much a partisan hack as BaC is... Everyone else pretty much already knows BaC is a partisan hack...as evidenced by his habit of using blogs as primary sources.

Fair point.
I think it was the straw that broke the camels back...
Oh, and gave something to do for a day or so while hacking at some code.

 

[BeAChooser]

Originally Posted by BobTheDonkey
To whom? mhaze is as much a partisan hack as BaC is... Everyone else pretty much already knows BaC is a partisan hack...as evidenced by his habit of using blogs as primary sources.

Fair point.

Hardly. And since BTD won't answer my response to his smear, how about you take a crack? Here it is: http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=7270290&postcount=1680 .

 

[BeAChooser]

http://www.thenewstribune.com/2011/06/12/1703616/obama-to-announce-plans-to-cut.html

6/13/11

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama announced a new effort Monday to eliminate government waste and named his vice president to lead it.

This was actually reported in the Onion, right? It's a joke, right? RIGHT?

Because Biden was the same guy he named to lead the Stimulus effort and look how that turned out.

 

[Tolls]

Hardly. And since BTD won't answer my response to his smear, how about you take a crack? Here it is: http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=7270290&postcount=1680 .

No.
It is a fair point.
I have taken a crack at the one thing that annoyed me most...which is your assertion that the GDP deflator is nonsense that somehow is to do with the Obama administration.

 

[BobTheDonkey]

For the record, BaC, I've responded to your posts in the past explaining why your assessment of the situation (at the time) was inaccurate and due, in no small part, to partisanship on your part. You refused to acknowledge the evidence in front of your face then, why would I act as if that had changed given your posting in the interim 11 months (or so)?

You call it a smear, I say it's pretty well evidenced in this forum.

 

[mhaze]

http://hotair.com/archives/2011/06/12/get-ready-for-electricity-prices-to-necessarily-skyrocket/

Obama pushing his war on coal at a time like this is just STUCK ON STUPID. But he probably thinks of it as *green job* stimulus.

So you are saying a smart socialist would implement socialist schemes in GOOD TIMES, not in BAD TIMES.

But I think you are wrong, because implementing the radical schemes need to be done when there are crises and high levels of economic stress. When the economy is good, why would anyone want or approve radical change?

In other words...create a situation where the people scream, or where the media continually says...."The government should DO SOMETHING, this can't be allowed to continue..."

That's when, after creating the opportunity to seize power over an industry or economy segment, the liberal controller can implement his scheme.

Standard socialist playbook.

 

[Tolls]

In other words...create a situation where the people scream, or where the media continually says...."The government should DO SOMETHING, this can't be allowed to continue..."

That's when, after creating the opportunity to seize power over an industry or economy segment, the liberal controller can implement his scheme.

Standard socialist playbook.

So...are you implying they're doing this deliberately to make things worse so they can...presumably in your mind create a socialist utopia?

You do realise looking at it from this side of the pond that makes you look slightly nutty?

 

[BeAChooser]

I have taken a crack at the one thing that annoyed me most...which is your assertion that the GDP deflator is nonsense that somehow is to do with the Obama administration.

Then you've taken a crack at a strawman, since I made no such assertion.

I only made the assertion that the Obama administration is not dealing with the real inflation rate, and thus their claims that GDP growth is in positive territory now is erroneous.

You haven't presented anything to challenge my contention about the real inflation rate so the second part of that if-thus statement must be true.

 

[Tolls]

Then you've taken a crack at a strawman, since I made no such assertion.

I only made the assertion that the Obama administration is not dealing with the real inflation rate, and thus their claims that GDP growth is in positive territory now is erroneous.

You haven't presented anything to challenge my contention about the real inflation rate so the second part of that if-thus statement must be true.

You did say that the GDP deflator was wrong. You are saying the GDP figures are therefore wrong. You are saying that the Obama administration is wrong to be pointing to the GDP figures.

The same figures that every administration for the past couple of decades has used.

And only now you take issue with them?

Hmmm....there's a term for that. Can't quite put my finger on it, though...

 

[mhaze]

So...are you implying they're doing this deliberately to make things worse so they can...presumably in your mind create a socialist utopia?

You do realise looking at it from this side of the pond that makes you look slightly nutty?

You mean that stating that a method is "standard socialist playbook" is nutty?

I agree that such a method is nutty, but stating that such a thing is in the playbook is not nutty at all.

Now, are you saying that it's nutty to assert that Obama is operating with standard socialist playbook?

Is that a road you REALLY want to go down in this discussion?

 

[lomiller]

You did say that the GDP deflator was wrong. You are saying the GDP figures are therefore wrong. You are saying that the Obama administration is wrong to be pointing to the GDP figures.

The same figures that every administration for the past couple of decades has used.

And only now you take issue with them?

Hmmm....there's a term for that. Can't quite put my finger on it, though...

Not only that he brings up the GDP methodology when he wants to say the current recession is worse than it is, but when he wants to say the 1982 recession was worse than this one he goes right to the numbers with the current methodology and ignores the fact the most significant changes occurs in 1983. (meaning his numbers supposedly hides how bad current conditions are were implemented duringand were part of the recovery in 1983 he wants to play up.)

 

[Tolls]

You mean that stating that a method is "standard socialist playbook" is nutty?

I agree that such a method is nutty, but stating that such a thing is in the playbook is not nutty at all.

Now, are you saying that it's nutty to assert that Obama is operating with standard socialist playbook?

Is that a road you REALLY want to go down in this discussion?

I would do, except I suspect you have a rather different definition of the term "socialist". Hence my reference to it looking slightly nutty on this side of the pond. You see, if you were to bring this up with (say) a member of the socialist workers party they'd probably look at you like you were mad to suggest that anything Obama was doing was socialist (and then try and sell you a copy of their rag of a paper). Hell, I suspect most Labour supporters would find it an abuse of the term.

Which would, of course, simply result in rather a lot of posting at cross purposes.

 

[BeAChooser]

For the record, BaC, I've responded to your posts in the past explaining why your assessment of the situation (at the time) was inaccurate and due, in no small part, to partisanship on your part. You refused to acknowledge the evidence in front of your face then … snip ...

LOL!

Let's take a stroll through forum archives to see what communication you and I have actually had in the past and who actually proved what. Shall we?

For example, very early in this thread we discussed the economy and stimulus. You made a comment to me and I replied thus:

Your position defies logic (Gov't spends money on creating jobs, those jobs encourage people to spend money, money begins circulating in the economy again. Part of the underlying problem is that the circulation of money slowed.) - the argument that somehow Gov't spending hurts job creation is, well, unproven at best.

LOL! You need to think about your so-called logic. Where does government get the money from in the first place? From people who might have spent it? Who created the uncertainty that made people not want to spend it? Government? And who is it that you think actually creates real wealth? It's not the government.

the argument that somehow Gov't spending hurts job creation is, well, unproven at best.

http://www.heritage.org/Research/Re...t-Spending-Does-Not-Stimulate-Economic-Growth "Why Government Spending Does Not Stimulate Economic Growth"

http://spectator.org/archives/2009/02/06/unemployment-and-spending "Unemployment and Stimulus" (I'll quote a bit of this since I think it's particularly good.)

Academic economists will debate this until the end of time, but because they have their eyes glued to the computer screen, calculating multipliers (whether a dollar of government spending means more than a dollar of growth for the economy), they rarely look out the window. So let's do it for them. The chart below compares the unemployment rate back to 1960 with federal government spending as a share of GDP.

http://spectator.org/assets/mc/govspending.jpg (BAC - a chart plotting Government Spending vs Unemployment)

Clearly, the chart shows that more government spending does not create jobs. In fact, it is exactly the opposite. More government spending is correlated with higher levels of unemployment. In 1965, federal government spending was 17.2% of GDP and the unemployment rate was 4%. By 1982, spending had increased to 23.1% of GDP and unemployment had climbed to almost 11%.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/ar...private_sector_creates_wealth_jobs_99341.html "Note to Obama: Only Private Sector Creates Wealth, Jobs"

http://www.bukisa.com/articles/159654_government-does-not-create-wealth "Government Does Not Create Wealth"

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/rich-n...g-myth-government-spending-stimulates-economy "Debunking the Myth that Government Spending Stimulates the Economy"

http://biggovernment.com/lkudlow/2010/07/03/business-not-government-create-jobs/ "Business, Not Government, Create Jobs"

And I could go on and on and on. Not that any of this would convince you, I suspect.

And I was right. None of it convinced you. In fact, go look and you'll see that you RAN from that response at that point. You didn't even try to argue against the facts I noted and sources I provided.

Folks can view our second round of *debate* on this thread by looking at these posts:

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=6129433&postcount=225 where I comment on the stupidity of the Consumer Protection Act (Frank-Dodd Law) which was 390,000 words long and which many of the democrats who voted for it admitted they hadn't read. I then quote Senator Chamblis on why the law is such a bad idea and cite the record of the two democrats who pushed it through.

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=6129461&postcount=229 Your response to that post is to challenging me whether I read the law.

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=6129497&postcount=231 I respond no, but that I've seen enough passages to know the law is faulty. And then I cite a source showing how the democrats rammed the bill through … in the dead of night and without honest debate on it. And noted that Chris Dodd, it's architect said “No one will know until this is actually in place how it works" and suggested you carefully think about that statement.

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=6129522&postcount=232 You then essentially said all that doesn't matter. And implied that if I haven't personally read the entire bill, I shouldn't comment on it. You just smeared my arguments as "fear-mongering". And then you made the claim that "no one expected a housing melt-down to occur based on the legislation that allowed it to happen."

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=6129584&postcount=233 I responded by pointing out one doesn't need to read an entire bill to find major flaws and that your argument is "a rather pathetic defense of democrats who pass 1000 page bills without reading them." And then told you that you are wrong about that last claim.

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=6129597&postcount=234 Next you made the excuse that we "live in a Country where legislation is not always read by the Congressman" and that we never can know how a bill will actually play out in the end. And indicated that you "do not see where that [not reading the bill] is automatically a negative in regards to the bill and/or it's effects." And then you implied that "the Republican led Congress and Republican President who signed those bills" that led to the housing meltdown are "were responsible for this economic situation."

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=6129762&postcount=236 I came back by noting that "democrats have literally boasted about not reading the bills before passing them." And that indeed Pelosi stated "we have to pass the [Health Care] bill so that you can find out what is in it". And then I asserted (reasonably, I think) that legislators have no business "passing 1000 page bills that will impact every facet of our economy without knowing what impact [they] will have." And then I pointed out to you Fannie and Freddie led to the meltdown and they were "democrat run entities that were used to benefit the democrat base" " and protected in doing that by democrats in Congress when alarms were raised about it." I noted that the "banks and financial institutions collapsed because of legislation pushed through by democrats, not the least of which was Mark To Market accounting."

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=6129799&postcount=237 And to that you regurgitated it was the Republican's fault theme and called my arguments "generic fear-mongering/party line dramatics". At which point, it was obvious you weren't willing to debate the actual facts and this exchange was going nowhere. So I made respond. You didn't convince anyone of anything in that exchange, BTD. You just showed yourself again incapable of actually dealing with the facts at hand.

Our next *debate* on this thread was here, starting with my response to a post you made to Malerin:

The stimulus failed to achieve stated goals, but that does not mean it has had a negative or neutral effect. The truth is, we can never know what would have happened without it.

With absolute certainty? Of course not. Nothing is certain. But in probablistic terms we can most definitely say that history strongly shows that stimulus-type anti-recession/depression efforts tend not to work. Tend to make matters worse. Your position is as if you've watched a non-independent probabilistic event happen 1 time out of 9 times, yet you are still willing to bet your future prosperity that the 10th time it will happen. If you ask me, that is down right crazy.

There have, without a doubt, been jobs created and/or saved through the stimulus package.

No one here has claimed there have been no jobs created or saved as a result of stimulus money. So why do you keep repeating this strawman? What we are claiming is that the number of saved/new jobs has come nowhere near what was predicted by those who promoted it as a recovery method, and furthermore, the jobs that have been created/saved are mostly NOT of the type it was claimed they would be by stimulus proponents (to make them seem more palatable to the public).

Worse, we contend that the stimulus has actually hindered the recovery. And we can base that assertion on what has happened in past recession/depressions. As I pointed out to ideogram earlier, that data falls into one of four cases.

- Cases where recessions/depressions were ended in a relatively short time through cuts (or at least no or very minor increases) in government spending, taxes and regulations. I listed lots of these in this thread.

- Cases where recessions/depressions did not end in a relatively short time after cuts (or at least no or very minor increases) in government spending, taxes and regulations. And as far as I can tell there are hardly any of these.

- Cases where recessions/depressions ended in a relatively short time after massive government intervention of the sort pushed by Obama and the democrats (and admittedly, Bush). And as far as I can tell, there are none of these.

- And, finally, cases where recessions/depressions ended after a long period of time following massive government intervention. And there are several of these.

You don't have to be an economist or an expert to draw a rational conclusion from that data set. And that conclusion is this: it is foolish to bet that massive stimulus spending will bring the next recession/depression to an end more quickly. In fact, that data suggests that massive government intervention will likely lengthen and deepen the recession/depression, instead.

There have also been further unforeseen economic problems - notably the meltdown of the Greek economy and the oil spill - that have hindered job creation and market growth.

Do you think there weren't international economic crises during previous recessions and recoveries ala Greece? No meltdowns of economies? Think again. And again I point you to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latin_American_debt_crisis ). It states that between 1975 and 1982, Latin America quadrupled its external debt to 50% of the region's GDP. 50%! As pointed out, "When the world economy went into recession in the 1970s and 80s, and oil prices skyrocketed, it created a breaking point for most countries in the region." Those countries weren't able to repay their massive debt to the developed countries. On top of that, "the contraction of world trade in 1981 caused the prices of primary resources (Latin America's largest export) to fall." As a result, in August of 1982 (smack dab in the middle of that recession), Mexico declared that "Mexico would no longer be able to service its debt. Mexico declared that it couldn't meet its payment due-dates, and announced unilaterally, a moratorium of 90 days; it also requested a renegotiation of payment periods and new loans in order to fulfill its prior obligations." And that of course affected the US recession. Afterall, Mexico was our 3rd largest trading partner at the time and the US was holding much of that debt. So this latest excuse (and note that Mexico wasn't the only Latin and South American country with ties to the US that was in economic trouble at the time) is just another fail, since even that meltdown didn't prevent the US from recovering far faster from a deeper recession than we are in the current one.

As far as the oil spill argument is concerned, I think you are now grasping for straws. Sure, this is making the current crisis worse, but it was already getting worse long before the oil spill. And how much affect has the oil spill actually had on the US economy so far? Has it increased gas prices? No. It's biggest impact is to affect the tourist economy of a few coastal states. I'm not making light of their plight, just pointing out those states comprise only a small fraction of the total US economy. Here:

http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Issues/The-Economy/2010/07/12/Oil-Spills-Economic-Impact.aspx "July 12, 2010 … Prime Numbers: Oil Spill Has Little Effect on U.S. Economy".

That article notes that only 1.5% of the US GDP comes from Gulf states. And only a fraction of that has been affected. Furthermore, $3.1 billion has been spent in the region by BP (using their money) to cover cleanup and costs, which should help mitigate any effects on the recovery

Personally, I would like to have seen the stimulus targeted differently. Interestingly, this article in The Washington Post in Feb 2009 had this to say:

Quote:
[C]ongressional negotiators have since trimmed billions of dollars from the package to satisfy Senate Republicans, diminishing its potential for job creation along with its overall cost. … snip … The final package, by contrast, is weighted more heavily toward tax cuts, which have a less powerful effect, according to many economists, because taxpayers tend to save a portion of the money.

So by targeting you mean there should have been less tax cuts and more new debt spent? Well all I can say is that some folks just seem incapable of learning from history. They are destined to repeat the same mistakes over and over.

It would appear, therefore, that BaC has been caught arguing against the stimulus simply because it was a Democratic led/passed bill, not because of what was actually contained within the bill.

So now you are going to try red herrings and lies? I've told you why I'm against the stimulus in very clear terms that have nothing to do with democratic or republican administrations. You refuse to discuss those reasons and have decided to try dishonesty, instead. And as further proof you are mischaracterizing my motives, I argued against what Bush was doing to stimulate the economy and end the bank crisis (essentially, more stimulus) back when he was still President. This is not about politics, Bob, although politics can't help but rear it's ugly head since you choose to defend Obama and his policy without looking at the actual facts.

And again, anyone who looks will see you simply ignored my logic and fact filled response. Why was that? You can't convince if you won't debate, BTD.

Your next post to me, http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=6138053&postcount=325 , was simply to dismiss, out of hand, an article I posted. And in your post you made a claim that I then debunked … here:

You have claimed that lowered taxes would have helped the economy more than this stimulus package, all without acknowledging that this stimulus package was mostly tax cuts.

You have an odd definition of the word "mostly". Does socialist math now make 36% mean "most"? Because only 36% of the $787 billion was in the form of "tax cuts" (http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKN1248080420090217?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0 ) and I use the word "cuts" skeptically. Let me explain why.

You forget to mention that almost all of those tax "cuts" were actually tax "credits". Tax credits to low income workers, for example, most of whom actually pay no income tax. Tax credits for children to people already on welfare. Now a tax credit works like this. Say you don't make enough money to even pay taxes. A tax credit means the government still sends you a check. So a tax credit really isn't a cut at all. It's additional spending that the government has to come up via more debt. It's really a delayed tax because someone will eventually have to pay that debt through increased taxes.

You also forget that tax cuts in the form of tax credits don't have any effect if the event that's supposed to allow a reduction in a tax never takes place. The stimulus bill allowed, for example, $2500 in tax credits for college expenses and $8000 in tax credits for first time homes purchased in 2009. But how much of the amount they estimated that would be "credited" actually was "credited"? Remember, there was a recession and the housing market collapsed. Did the housing market come back? No. So, perhaps the government's prediction about first time home buyers didn't come to pass. A prediction that was wrong, just like their predictions about unemployment were wrong. Likewise, the bill offered temporary relief from the AMT (Alternative Minimum Tax) but how many people had AMT obligations in a year of deep recession? Probably fewer than expected.

Calling tax "credits", tax "cuts", is a cheat in yet another way. A true tax cut means that the government lets people keep more of their own money AND make decisions on spending all their money as they wish. But tax credits like the first home tax credit are actually attempts to influence people to spend their money a certain way in order to get rewarded. It's still the government mucking around with the economy, which often back fires as history has shown. Unintended consequences. In this case, perhaps people then got into homes over their head, which would only add to the mortgage crisis down the road and necessitate government relief to those buyers. Remember Obama's spending proposals to do just that?

No, I think what we have here is an attempt by you to not acknowledge the whole story.

And you again failed to respond to my post.

Now we could continue walking through the thread to see what really happened. Just more of the same, I'm afraid. You even did the same thing to other people … such as Malerin. I think folks can see by now what your real arguments/tactics are, BTD: Dishonesty. Red Herrings. Strawmen. Handwaving dismissals. Or just plain running from *real* debate. Because you don't want to learn from history or face the current facts of our situation. I think I called it right in this post to you: http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=6144209&postcount=391 "And based on the exchange I've had on this thread, I think it is clear that *someone* does have fingers in his ear and is screaming 'I can't hear you." And nothing has changed to change that opinion. And this latest smear by you is just more of the same, as "evidenced" above.