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

To: Peter Dierks who wrote (45039)	8/20/2010 1:16:29 AM
From: Peter Dierks	1 Recommendation Respond to of 71588

Real Tax Increases, Real Consequences By Debra Saunders August 15, 2010 Taxpayers don't look at taxes the way the people who spend the tax money do. Take the battle over the extension of the "Bush tax cuts." Americans to Washington: They were tax cuts in 2001 and 2003. If Washington allows all or parts of the "Bush tax cuts" to expire at the end of the year, the result won't be to not cut taxes, as Beltway lingo and President Obama suggest, but to raise taxes. As pollster Scott Rasmussen reported earlier this month, 56 percent of mainstream voters favor extending the Bush tax rates for all Americans, while 60 percent of those in the political class would extend the tax cuts for everyone except families earning more than $250,000 a year. Not so for the boys of Obamaland's "Recovery Summer." They've set up this phony construct that spending more taxpayer money while taxing the rich will save the economy. New York Times columnist Paul Krugman laid out the situation as a choice between (a) "asking the richest 2 percent or so of Americans to go back to paying the tax rates they paid during the Clinton-era boom" and (b) "allowing the nation's foundations to crumble." But I think Karl Rove got it right when he wrote in his recent book, "Courage and Consequence," that many Democrats "would rather have high taxes and a lower standard of living than low taxes and a higher standard of living." Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner favors extending the Bush tax cuts for most Americans, but opposes a temporary extension for top earners, as it "would hurt economic recovery by undermining confidence that we are prepared to make a commitment today to bring down our future deficits." You have to feel for Geithner. The Treasury secretary was not exactly the quickest draw when it came to paying his own taxes. Now he is in the uncomfortable position of advocating a risky tax increase because it's his only (somewhat) popular option. He must know that to put off raising taxes on the rich for one year would add $36 billion -- peanuts in his circle -- to the deficit. It's not going to close the gaping hole, but it could scare private-sector employers who are considering hiring. Especially when there are whispers from Washington that Obama is drafting another huge economic stimulus package. I don't have the knee-jerk reaction against ending some of the Bush tax cuts that many Republicans have. For one thing, rich people elected Obama, so let them pay higher taxes. Besides, elections have consequences, and voters need to feel those consequences. (The Bush-era deficits, with increased government spending and lower taxes, allowed people to have it both ways for too long.) But this is no time to be pure. With the new jobless numbers out and the economic recovery teetering, this is simply the wrong time to raise taxes. The smart move for Obama would be to announce that he'll start raising taxes when the economy shapes up, stop proposing stimulus packages because they don't create private-sector jobs and stick to that plan. That would rally the country. And while he's at it and Democrats are talking about the need for sacrifice, maybe when the economy's strength revives, they could look beyond squeezing the rich and instead begin trimming some of those odious "Bush tax cuts" for the middle class. Geithner says it's irresponsible to let the Bush tax rates continue, as that adds $700 billion to the deficit over 10 years. Well, what about the middle-class part of the package? It adds $2.4 trillion to the deficit. Meanwhile, Republican talk-show hosts are in la-la land. They keep talking about the magic of the Reagan tax cuts. It's time to start living in the present, guys. Last year's annual deficit was $1.4 trillion. If you cut taxes but you don't cut spending, you make the debt bigger. For my part, I don't want to hear another conservative pundit call for more tax cuts until there's a closure of the gap between what Washington takes in and what it promises and spends. If that day never comes, well, someone has to pay for the party. Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin stands out as the rare Republican willing to challenge the Democrats' "culture of dependency" by proposing painful cuts on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid spending. He, at least, is willing to tell the middle class that entitlement spending is "unsustainable." Ryan is the adult in this room. As David Walker, head of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation and former U.S. controller, told the San Francisco Chronicle's Carolyn Lochhead last week, "If you eliminated all the Bush tax cuts, if you withdrew from Iraq and Afghanistan tomorrow, if you eliminated foreign aid, and if you eliminated all spending associated with congressional earmarks -- the populist things -- it's about 15 percent of the problem." Democrats can't claim to be the fiscally responsible party if they keep proposing to raise spending on the backs of just 2 percent of the population. That, too, is "unsustainable." dsaunders@sfchronicle.com realclearpolitics.com

To: Peter Dierks who wrote (45039)	8/20/2010 9:32:57 AM
From: Peter Dierks	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71588

Obamanomics is why there is no recovery Examiner Editorial August 13, 2010 President Barack Obama waves as he and first lady Michelle Obama board Air Force One at Andrews Air Force Base, Md., on Saturday for yet another vacation. (Cliff Owen/AP) How many more months must Americans endure near-double-digit unemployment, little or no new-job creation, economic stagnation, a topsy-turvy stock market, and sagging consumer confidence before Washington politicians concede the "summer of recovery" is mostly a mirage? They've spent nearly $8 trillion since 2007, including nearly $2 trillion on economic stimulus programs and an equal amount for the Troubled Asset Relief Program and similar bailouts. They've effectively nationalized Fortune 500 corporations, taken over the health care sector, and set the regulatory stage for more bailouts and takeovers, but the needle is still stuck. Worse, recovery isn't likely for many months ahead because those same politicians are planning more of the same failing policies. Consider that entrepreneurial small businesses are the job-creation machine of a free-enterprise economy. But these firms are about to get smacked with significant tax rate increases that will keep most of them struggling just to survive. President Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will let the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003 expire as scheduled Jan. 1, 2011. The current 33 percent tax rate on individuals will go to 36 percent, and the current 35 percent rate will increase to 39.5 percent. Those are individual rates, but the majority of small-business profits are taxed as income to individuals. According to Internal Revenue Service data,30 million tax returns reporting small-business income were filed in 2008, showing net business profits of $631 billion. Americans for Tax Reform pointed out Friday that "large chunk of this net profit -$457 billion - faced taxation in households making more than $200,000 per year. A majority of small business profits will face a tax rate hike under the Obama-Pelosi-Reid plan." So, those millions of small-businesses will soon have even less money to invest in expanding existing product lines or services, as well as job-creating new ventures. As for the big corporations that are hoarding billions of dollars that would otherwise be flowing into new investments and fueling renewed economic growth, there is no mystery why they are putting off making such decisions. Who can blame them after seeing the nationalization of General Motors and Chrysler, or the moratoria under which hundreds of large and small energy firms were forced to stop drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and on land in places like Wyoming? Also, an explosion of new anti-business regulations to further hobble the economy is coming soon, thanks to Obama-Reid-Pelosi policies. As ATR's Grover Norquist told The Examiner, "You don't know what the law will be next month, or if you will even be allowed to own your business. The only thing you can be sure of is they will raise your taxes. You would be a fool now to go out and hire somebody new." Read more at the Washington Examiner: washingtonexaminer.com