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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: i-node who wrote (614040)	6/1/2011 6:16:50 PM
From: TimF	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1578059

But your paragraph reflects total confusion over the meaning of the numbers. You can't just add up all the tax cuts and say, "Okay, there's your deficit". Because, as we know (empirically, from cuts made under JFK, Reagan, Clinton, and Bush) tax cuts often cause economic growth, which causes increased revenue. And tax higher tax rates often interfere with economic growth. Also if taxes don't go up or down, and spending doesn't go up or down (in nominal or in real terms, or real per capita terms), the budget would balance and then go in to surplus over time. So if you add up the factors that contribute to the budget deficit over any medium to long period of time you normally get well over 100 percent total contribution from these factors. In the case of spending, if you use nominal dollars, spending increases over the last decade amount to over 115% percent of the deficit increase all by themselves. (If you adjust for both population increase and inflation it goes down to about 75%)

To: i-node who wrote (614040)	6/1/2011 7:15:41 PM
From: TimF	1 Recommendation Respond to of 1578059

ideasmatter.typepad.com

To: i-node who wrote (614040)	6/2/2011 10:24:22 AM
From: combjelly	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1578059

"If we were only 14T in debt we wouldn't have near the problem we now have." It is the topic of the day, i-node. Now I know you want to distract from that, but... "But your paragraph reflects total confusion over the meaning of the numbers. You can't just add up all the tax cuts and say, "Okay, there's your deficit"" No confusion on my part, i-node. On yours I suspect you are so intent on pushing your ideology that you are willing to distort and make up stuff. Case in point. "Because, as we know (empirically, from cuts made under JFK, Reagan, Clinton, and Bush) tax cuts often cause economic growth, which causes increased revenue." With JFK you have a point. But look at the tax rate. For the rest, not so much. For Reagan and Bush, they ran the highest deficits in history, at least up until their respective administrations. And we have a huge body of proof that it will stimulate the economy. Never enough to make up for the lost revenues. As even some Chicago School economists have admitted, and most reputable economists back. "And tax higher tax rates often interfere with economic growth." And, of course, you have no proof of this. It very well may be true that the economic growth was not as high as it might have been, and there are reasons to suspect it is true, but there is no proof whatsoever that it is a significant factor. Some of the best economic growth has occurred after a tax hike. Like after Clinton raised taxes. But, continue with your spin...