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Politics : American Presidential Politics and foreign affairs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (42612)	4/6/2010 11:57:36 AM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 71588

EXACTLY TRUE. Revenue 'went up', as it always eventually does in a growing economy, (just NOT AS MUCH as the baseline revenue that was forgone when the changes were made... mostly because the ever-rising spending kept adding more and more interest costs, and compounding the debt problem). Re: "The key is to get a control of spending" Apparently that is one of the biggest lessons our nation needs to learn... lesson drawn from our own sad experiences. When the question is "how to best reduce deficits" while still keeping the economy on an upward path then MODERATING SPENDING is one of the two absolute requirements for an effective answer. The OTHER required answer is KEEP THE ECONOMY GROWING (because growing GNP, growing wealth, also produces more revenue which --- if spending is moderated --- can then replace the need for borrowing...) and the deficits come tumbling down. So, the two "best" political/economic requirements, prerequisites for controlling federal deficits are: 1) Keep the economy growing. (A 'rising tide lifts all ships'.) (And a lower regimen of taxation, ceuterus paribus, promotes a higher level of economic growth.) 2) Moderate spending. (So that the gains achieved from #1 above are not swamped by the need to issue ever more debt, and by the compounding effects of interest costs on that debt.)

To: TimF who wrote (42612)	4/7/2010 9:43:26 AM
From: Peter Dierks	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71588

Revenue went up, but it would have gone up anyway. Perhaps. At 70% marginal tax rates high income people were willing to make long shot bets as "investments". In general they could write off the losses and if they happened to strike it richer that was better. High tax rates encourage antiproductive behaviors. Tax writers felt it necessary to write new laws to limit the losses that could be realized because they wrote laws encouraging bad investment behavior. (Talk about stupid!) High tax rates lock up investments that should be realized. There is no doubt in my mind that the Reagan tax cuts were directly responsible for the boom that followed for the next twenty years. To give Clinton credit for the productivity that Reagan unleashed is something that requires idiocy or ignorance. If you do have a large deficit things get more complex. It is not complex. When private sector investments are stimulated ala Reagan and Bush 43 it is less harmful than when they are squelched ala Obama.