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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (175184)	9/17/2003 12:50:36 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1578694

It's Time to Raise Taxes No its time to get control of spending increases. Are you suggesting we vacate Iraq? The government is spending without income. The coming boom won't cure the deficit because of the way the tax cuts were carried out. Defense is important, but without higher taxes, we're headed for a guns-and-butter mess-up. Only if we greatly increase spending for butter. We don't have to increased the spending for "butter"; the tax cuts took care of that. That's because they simply hate the government, and, if they could have their druthers, would wish it away. That's libertarianism. No that is anarchy. Libertarians want a small government not no government. Frankly, that's not the way they sound! And its kind of ridiculous because gov't is neither getting smaller or going away.

To: TimF who wrote (175184)	9/17/2003 2:54:57 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1578694

<font color=brown>The conservatives on Cramer's website are whigging out over his article from this AM so he did a followup article........see below:<font color=black> ****************************************************** Wishful Thinking in Washington By James J. Cramer 09/17/2003 01:48 PM EDT Realism bites. Believe me, I would love it if the government can grow out of the budget problems without tax increases. I also would love it if the government cut "wasted" spending to the point where we didn't need tax increases, particularly for those making more than $300,000 who have benefited spectacularly from the change in dividend and capital gains taxes. But that's unrealistic. The antitax increase folk focus on two main issues: an economic boom will solve our problems, and, the problems that can't be solved by that can be cut by cutting spending. For example, Pat Toomey, the congressman from Allentown, Pa., recently came on Kudlow & Cramer and argued such. His take was that if we cut out the National Endowment for the Arts and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and other "wastage," we will be able to make up a lot of the deficit. That's preposterous on the face of it; those are million-dollar programs and we are talking about hundreds of billions in deficits. Do I call someone a liar? Used to do that, no more. I just disagree. The second argument, that we will grow our way out of things, is disingenuous too, because we have cut taxes to the point that even if we have a boom we won't take enough money in. That's a judgment I am making. It is much easier to make the other judgment, that we will have gigantic GDP and everything works out for the best. I think that smacks of "hope" and just like I don't like to base stock decisions on hope, I don't like to make budget decisions on hope. How many people do you know who have taken down too much debt and then said they will earn their way out of it? You call those people dreamers, right? So what are the alternatives? Cut spending commensurate to the tax cuts. Or boost taxes to help pay for the spending. My difficulty is I truly like what Bush wants to spend money on. I think that the money spent in Iraq is money well spent. I regard it as national security money. And I don't think we should skimp on national security. Is that because I am 400 yards from Ground Zero? Probably. So be it. I think that if we don't kill Islamic terrorism root and branch, through education and through the military, they will be back. I want, if anything, an increase in defense spending for that reason. I am just being realistic in recognizing that without Iraqi oil, this bill for national security/Iraq-style runs to $200 billion because I no longer trust the estimates coming from the government. They destroyed my trust with their misses. Again, that's like a management that promises and promises and keeps getting it wrong. You do lose credibility in my world and in that world. No hard feelings; it is business. I also want some sort of change in Medicare that gives means-tested help for all. That's a $400 billion plan, minimum, and the means-tested stuff is already perceived as being too stingy by the AARP crowd and its believers in Congress. You can't have guns and butter without tax increases. I think that the gains that wealthy individuals have been able to take allows for much higher taxes on their incomes now. Is this class warfare I am calling for? Huh? Can you have class warfare against yourself? I am saying, OK, I want to help pay for this very important national defense initiative, I totally agree with it. I would prefer to pay for it rather than have my kids have to pay for it. I don't want to rob my kids of everything they will have. All my life I have been dictated by doing what I think is right and honorable and good business. It's good business to raise taxes to pay for this stuff, now that the economy is getting better. Or, to put it another way, I never would have gone along with the lowered taxes gambit to break the recession if I had known that taxes could never be raised again when things got better. That was never part of the bargain.