Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Original Mad Dog who wrote (488150)	11/6/2003 11:40:32 AM
From: jackhach	Respond to of 769667

The "TAX US LATER & SPEND NOW" gophers are at it again! --- GREENSPAN: Of course, the deterioration in the fiscal balance has already increased the level of debt relative to GDP, and thus has elevated the starting point from which policymakers will soon have to address the budget implications of the impending retirement of the baby-boom generation. Recent budget deliberations are not encouraging. The current debate appears to be about how much to cut taxes or how much to increase spending. No significant constituency seems to support taking the actions that will be necessary to move toward, and one hopes achieve, budget balance. In retrospect, the emergence of budget surpluses in the late 1990s eroded the discipline that emerged as a consequence of the earlier fear of ever rising and, hence, potentially destructive deficits. Indeed, many of the rules that helped to discipline budgetary decisionmaking in the early to mid 90s--in particular, the statutory limits on discretionary spending and the so-called PAYGO rules--were allowed to expire. Many analysts properly continue to be concerned that, without these enforcement mechanisms and the fundamental political will they signal, the built-in bias in favor of red ink will once again become entrenched. Policymakers have become all too aware that government spending programs, and tax preferences can be easy to initiate but extraordinarily difficult to shut down once constituencies develop that have a stake in maintaining the status quo.