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

To: TimF who wrote (746991)	8/4/2006 2:24:34 PM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

[But you are forgetting to include the effects of the extra DEBT.] Re: "Not at all." (Funny... I didn't see you include it's effects in your comment. But the Treasury analysis certainly included debt effects --- and you seem to be studiously ignoring that point.) Re: "The requirement to borrow or tax money out of the economy to pay for the spending that produces the extra debt and to pay for the future interest on that debt is why the economic benefit is low. Take out that factor and you have a healthy additional growth rather than just a tiny bit of extra growth." Er, YES... if you CUT the un-paid-for spending, (& don't 'finance' the forgone revenue with government debt sales) then, yes, OF COURSE, growth rates would be much higher. That is EXACTLY the point illustrated by the Treasury analysis (& all the other economic studies... both 'dynamic' AND 'static' analysis.) Re: "Because if you don't do that you get confused as to what polices work." Speak for yourself... I'm not 'confused'. It seems EASY ENOUGH to keep both sides of the ledger in mind. :-) Re: "If you take the negative effects of something other than tax cuts, and apply them to tax cuts you get an inaccurate picture of the effects of tax cuts." I didn't 'apply them to tax cuts'. I simply considered government economic policy as a whole... as did the US Treasury. As should we all. Re: "Yes debt is real and yes it has real effects. But debt caused by a massive increase in spending is not debt caused by tax cuts." Different issues. The forgone revenue (caused by the tax cuts) --- (allright: just '90%' of that static amount) --- that is NOT BALANCED BY A COINCIDENT REDUCTION IN SPENDING is one part of the countervaling force that depresses growth rates. NEW SPENDING (above and beyond the existing spending baseline), what YOU are referring to above... is an ADDITION to the already existing countervaling force. Please don't confuse the two! According to the Treasury EVEN IF NEW SPENDING had not come online, failure to cut spending (by about 90% of the dollar amount of the 'foregone tax revenue' occasioned by the tax changes) would STILL have overwhelmed the benefits of the lower rates... given sufficient time. The NEW UN-PAID-FOR SPENDING just makes matters worse, and quicker.