comment by thenewgreen

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thenewgreen · 4829 days ago · link · · parent · post: Debunking the Bunk

To use black and white terms. Do tax cuts add to the deficit? No. They detract from our ability to pay down the deficit. Spending = Defecit. Tax cuts inhibit our ability to pay our creditors. A responsible government (in our current situation) would be one that increased revenues while decreasing spending. Right?

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hootsbox · 4828 days ago · link ·

Yes, assuming that you hold spending as a constant. As recent history has shown us, the "Pay-Go" legislation and promises are pure "bunk" and as disingenous and the people making the statements. NONE of the "pay-go" promises have been kept, and there is no intention on the part of the political "elite" or the "Imperial Congress" as was once coined in a book "The Ruling Class, Inside the Imperial Congress". They say those things to give the appearance of wanting fiscal responsibility, but alas, they are "whitewashed sepulchres" - pretty on the outside, but full of dead mens' bones on the inside. If they really meant it, they would DO IT - but they continue on their merry way making up any excuse (mostly to sound humanitarian but to continue to support the dependent class they themselves created) to continue the spending. Tax hikes may help in the short run, but in the long run, they slow the economy - just look at Belgium (one of the sluggish European community countries) with tax rates at 60% - they produce lower productivity and lower revenues in the long run. European style "democratic socialist" economies are falling under their own weight in front of our eyes, and the US just continues to march in that direction. We should take an note from Václav Klaus, the President of the Chech Republic who has lived throught Nazi occupation, communism, and a free economy. He regrets signing onto the European agreement because , as he states, it has resulted in loss of initiative, loss of productivity, and lower job creation. Me thinks he knows of what he speaks!

+discuss+discuss

kleinbl00 · 4829 days ago · link ·

I'm afraid I'm going to have to inject some shades of gray. Note that I don't have a position in this, however I've studied it a lot recently.

Much of the disagreement over "tax cuts" is "who gets them." You can't even really say "everyone gets equally" because everyone isn't taxed equally. So - do you cut taxes on the poor? That doesn't impact the economy as much as cutting taxes on the rich, simply from a volumetric standpoint. What if you raise taxes on the rich? Well, historically we've done well with that. Historically, however, elections haven't been bought and paid for by the rich so it's a non-starter. How about businesses? The Left will argue that they're the ones that are paying for the elections and there are so many loopholes they don't really pay taxes at all. The Right, on the other hand, will point out that the real tax rate paid by corporations in the United States is higher than most developed nations and the loop holes simply take it from "ludicrous" to "oppressive." Besides which the tax code provides a great deal of portability to corporations, allowing them to off-shore at the drop of a hat.

So when you say "tax cuts" you necessarily have to get into a deep, dirty discussion of "WHOSE tax cuts" and here we are.