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

To: DuckTapeSunroof who wrote (43285)	5/18/2010 3:46:14 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71588

How it failed to reduce government spending as a percentage of Gross National Product, yes Its failed to be applied consistently (or even well defined, is every tax cut in the context of a deficit or impending deficit "starve the beast?, only those intended to serve that purpose?, only ones that meet some other criteria?) And it has reduced government spending as a percentage of the gross nation product at times, not by much, but this is the context of a general up trend in government spending, so holding it nearly the same might be considered a success. Which points to the real issue, in measuring success of "starve the beast". Which is not whether government spending (as a percentage of GDP or by any other measure) goes down after a tax cut, but whether its lower than it would have been without that tax cut. If spending doubles after the tax cut, but would have tripled without out it, than "starve the beast worked. If it was cut by 20 percent after the tax cut, but the spending cut had no casual connection to the tax cut, not even an indirect one, than starve the beast didn't do anything. The problem is that we can't be sure what would have happened, so except perhaps for cases of really extreme results, we have little evidence about the success of failure of starve the beast. The only thing that has been proven against it is that it isn't a powerful and consistently successful method to restrain government spending. It is a disappointment, whether or not it has had some success. Showed that the ever-so-slight-reduction, (still within the margin or error or normal fluctuations), of government spending that occurred across the eight Reagan/Bush Presidency years was completely swamped by the MUCH LARGER reduction of government spending that the eight years of the Clinton Presidency produced.... Which is evidence of just about nothing, unless you can make a good argument that the larger reduction had something to do with Clinton's tax increase (or at least that it would not have happened had spending been cut). If I swing a hammer at a wall, and cause a dent or hole in it, and then a tornado comes through and wipes out the wall, the fact that the tornado had a lot more impact on the wall doesn't imply the hammer had no impact, or that if we want to take down a wall the best method is to wait for a tornado. If that tornado happens in the context of you having just patched the hole, it doesn't suggest that patching holes is the best way to destroy walls. Clinton's tax increase was "the patch", the "peace dividend", the first Republican control of congress in decades and their focus on limiting spending increases and deficits, and other factors where "the tornado". (And that even the extremely modest Reagan reduction was blown apart by the subsequent Bush I Presidency's spending After first Reagan, and then Bush I, raised taxes. Not much of a "starve the beast" attempt going on at that time. which was, again, only cut by the Clinton terms Which was cut after the Republican's took over in congress.