some of the many comments posted in reaction to Nate Silver's recent New York Times' column:
What Obama has failed to point out aggressively is that, if the tax cuts work so well, why is the economy in such dire straights? These tax cuts have been on the books for nearly 10 years and have lead us to the worst economic climate since the Great Depression. The biggest problem we have now is the extreme disparity between the upper income levels and the average worker. The way to stimulate the economy is to get the money into the hands of those who will spend it, i.e., the lower income levels. The upper incomes (and even some of the "upper middle class" (whatever that is) will just put the money away. And, by putting the money into the hands of those who will spend it, we create demand which will create jobs. Right now the working class does not have enough resources to purchase all that the U.S. is capable of producing. So we close factories, lay off workers, and give the CEOs big bonuses for "saving money".
By Bigfootmn
Minnesota
December 7th, 2010
10:46 am
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One major problem is that Obama allowed the Republicans to set the terms of the debate. They should have treated the Bush tax cuts as irresponsible and laughed them off as one of the problems that got us into this mess and pushed for more progressivity in the tax code, rather than agreeing to continue upward income redistribution in the tax code.
by cathybeth
20817
December 7th, 2010
10:47 am
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The left overestimates its portion of the electorate. It is too small to ensure Mr. Obama's re-election. Mr. Obama recognizes this. He has to demonstrate he is pursuing a policy favored by the middle because without that portion of the electorate, which is larger than the left, he loses.
by Ashland
Missouri
December 7th, 2010
10:52 am
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All this really proves is that Obama has no clue.
He let the insurance industry write the health care
bill and he put the most effective parts of it so far
out in the future so as to allow the insurance
industry to kill any of the positive measures.
Further, in essence, he is letting the Republicans write the
tax laws by caving into the two year delay on letting the
Bush tax cuts for the wealthy expire.
He refuses to campaign on the positive things he has
done -- at least in any meaningful way and he keeps
thinking the Republicans will negotiate in good faith.
He is Charlie Brown and they are Lucy (picture Sara
Palin) holding the ball only to pull it away.
by TW
Los Angeles
December 7th, 2010
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Obama is going to be known as the one-termer who caved in to the Republicans instead of the one-termer who stood up to them and did the right thing for the nation's fiscal health by raising taxes on the mega wealthy. He sold out America to the greedy fatcats who've been running things into the ground for the last decade.
by D
Houston
December 7th, 2010
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AND FINALLY A PERSPECTIVE FROM GERMANY...
I think that for a long, long time we've all been missing the point here, in the tax debate. The truth is that Americans don't really understand the logic behind taxation, especially progressive taxation, and that due to the nature of our historical culture (i.e. capitalism) very few Americans (other than ideological progressives and a small highly educated elite) are actually on the side of taxes--for anyone, the rich included. I never really understood this until, as an American, I moved here to Europe.
Here, no one really has this sort of 'debate.' Taxes as a concept are an accepted fact, part of life in a society. Everyone, from the bottom to the top, knows and understands that a government needs taxes in order to function. And then the real argument becomes what to do with the money from taxes.
That a society needs to tax--and that a fair society does so progressively--in order to provide services, and that without such services there is no healthy society, must be taught and explained to Americans from birth up. And it is not--most Americans grow up seeing government as intrusive and taxing of their salaries almost as a theft. Because the truth is, in the average American worker's everyday life there is little to see of the work of taxes. Roads are bad, bridges collapse, tolls raise higher, public schools depend on neighborhoods, college means increasing debt... etc, etc, etc. Is it any surprise that, say, the first time an average 20 year old takes a job and receives his/her first paycheck the first reaction is an exclamation of dismay and disgust at how much of it has been 'stolen' by the government?
Americans need to understand just what the point of taxes in a healthy society is. That we need schools, hospitals, functioning families, health plans, retirement plans and more in order to simply love--and to pay for that, we need taxes. Think of society as one big house with several different roommates wherein each roommate lives in a room of varying sizes and luxuries: he/she with the largest and best room necessarily pays the most rent, and the collective rents pay for the survival of that house. If this were not so, he/she with the smallest and worst room would at some point become so crippled that he/she would fail to function and possibly even die--where on earth would the house end up then?
By MFF
Frankfurt, Germany
December 7th, 2010
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