Tax the Rich!

This is a good sign, we might be able to have an honest conversation.

Since you've chosen to move the goalpost from unregulated to deregulated, I'll have to come back to that and move on to your statement about the Bush Tax Cuts.

Your comment here is dishonest, so I'm concerned that you aren't able to participate in a good discussion.

I misspoke, corrected it when you pointed it out to me, and now you are saying that I moved the goalpost. Either you are a dishonest person, or you don't know what "moving the goalpost" means.

We are in our present situation because Bush cut revenues, continued to engage in a pattern of dangerous deregulation, and started two wars without raising taxes.

Those actions are related to our current deficits, and to the mortgage crisis.

cbpp-chart-on-bush-deficit-legacy-121609.jpg
 
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I'm not sure what your chart is supposed to mean...it appears as if you are attempting to claim five things are to blame for the ENTIRE deficit. That is absurd.

WSJ's take:

Myth: The Bush tax cuts wiped out last decade's budget surpluses. Sen. John Kerry (D., Mass.), for example, has long blamed the tax cuts for having "taken a $5.6 trillion surplus and turned it into deficits as far as the eye can see." That $5.6 trillion surplus never existed. It was a projection by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) in January 2001 to cover the next decade. It assumed that late-1990s economic growth and the stock-market bubble (which had already peaked) would continue forever and generate record-high tax revenues. It assumed no recessions, no terrorist attacks, no wars, no natural disasters, and that all discretionary spending would fall to 1930s levels.

I've analyzed CBO's 28 subsequent budget baseline updates since January 2001. These updates reveal that the much-maligned Bush tax cuts, at $1.7 trillion, caused just 14% of the swing from projected surpluses to actual deficits (and that is according to a "static" analysis, excluding any revenues recovered from faster economic growth induced by the cuts).

If there were no Bush tax cuts, runaway spending and economic factors would have guaranteed more than $4 trillion in deficits over the decade and kept the budget in deficit every year except 2007.

Mr. Obama asserted in his January State of the Union Address that by the time he took office, "we had a one-year deficit of over $1 trillion and projected deficits of $8 trillion over the next decade. Most of this was the result of not paying for two wars, two tax cuts, and an expensive prescription drug program."

In short, it's all President Bush's fault. But Mr. Obama's assertion fails on three grounds.

First, the wars, tax cuts and the prescription drug program were implemented in the early 2000s, yet by 2007 the deficit stood at only $161 billion. How could these stable policies have suddenly caused trillion-dollar deficits beginning in 2009? (Obviously what happened was collapsing revenues from the recession along with stimulus spending.)
Related

Second, the president's $8 trillion figure minimizes the problem. Recent CBO data indicate a 10-year baseline deficit closer to $13 trillion if Washington maintains today's tax-and-spend policies—whereby discretionary spending grows with the economy, war spending winds down, ObamaCare is implemented, and Congress extends all the Bush tax cuts, the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT) patch, and the Medicare "doc fix" (i.e., no reimbursement cuts).

Under this realistic baseline, the 10-year cost of extending the Bush tax cuts ($3.2 trillion), the Medicare drug entitlement ($1 trillion), and Iraq and Afghanistan spending ($515 billion) add up to $4.7 trillion. That's approximately one-third of the $13 trillion in baseline deficits—far from the majority the president claims.

Third and most importantly, the White House methodology is arbitrary. With Washington set to tax $33 trillion and spend $46 trillion over the next decade, how does one determine which policies "caused" the $13 trillion deficit? Mr. Obama could have just as easily singled out Social Security ($9.2 trillion over 10 years), antipoverty programs ($7 trillion), other Medicare spending ($5.4 trillion), net interest on the debt ($6.1 trillion), or nondefense discretionary spending ($7.5 trillion).

There's no legitimate reason to single out the $4.7 trillion in tax cuts, war funding and the Medicare drug entitlement.

Entitlements and other obligations are driving the deficits. Specifically, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and net interest costs are projected to rise by 5.4% of GDP between 2008 and 2020. The Bush tax cuts are a convenient scapegoat for past and future budget woes. But it is the dramatic upward arc of federal spending that is the root of the problem.

In short, the numbers don't back up your claims.
 
Your comment here is dishonest, so I'm concerned that you aren't able to participate in a good discussion.

I misspoke, corrected it when you pointed it out to me, and now you are saying that I moved the goalpost. Either you are a dishonest person, or you don't know what "moving the goalpost" means.

I have "known" GenSenica for a long time now and I did not interpret what he said like that.

There are people on forums who cannot, in fact are incapable, of admitting when they make a mistake - they are dishonest.

You proved that you are capable of admitting error. We all applaud you because we all do it and many of us know how hard it is to admit.

However, in rereading the posts because I was wondering where the "moved the goal posts" phrase came from I see that I might just be wrong. Let's see what Gen says. Did something you say make it seem like moving the goalpost or was Gen mistaken too?

Either way I saw what you did and and recognize your integrity shown there.
 
To all: Just give the chart some time and attention and then get back to me.

Who, Gen used the phrase "moving the goalpost" in post number 28.
 
To all: Just give the chart some time and attention and then get back to me.

Who, Gen used the phrase "moving the goalpost" in post number 28.

Your chart is absurd...to those who look at it, be sure to read the follow up WSJ article that was posted for some actual perspective.
 
We are in our present situation because Bush cut revenues

Remember when the leftwing word for taxes was "investments"? Now it's "revenue". :D


continued to engage in a pattern of dangerous deregulation,


Deregulation is DANGEROUS?? Is there anything more amazing than the mentality of a leftwing statist?? :rolleyes:
 
However, in rereading the posts because I was wondering where the "moved the goal posts" phrase came from I see that I might just be wrong. Let's see what Gen says. Did something you say make it seem like moving the goalpost or was Gen mistaken too?
After seeing the two of you talk about it, I looked at it again as well. The original "goalpost" was the "unfettered free market" and I kicked a field goal.

Pepper acknowledged this by admitting an error in using the term "unfettered free market", so the goal post was not moved and I apologize for misusing the term.

However, by switching from a claim of "unfettered free market" to "deregulation", a new goal post was indeed erected... Hence my erroneous claim.

Disproving the first claim was as easy as offering definitions which contradicted the argument but the second argument of "deregulation" is nearly impossible to disprove, and therefore a much more difficult task.

That's when I realized that the difficulty was coming from the fact that I was being asked to disprove a negative. If Pepper wants to claim "deregulation" was to blame, then the onus is on Pepper to substantiate the claim, not on me to disprove it.

Either way I saw what you did and and recognize your integrity shown there.
I agree, it does show integrity when people are able to admit their mistakes.
 
Deregulation is DANGEROUS?? Is there anything more amazing than the mentality of a leftwing statist?? :rolleyes:

Yes, deregulation is dangerous. You really are not thinking this through.

After seeing the two of you talk about it, I looked at it again as well. The original "goalpost" was the "unfettered free market" and I kicked a field goal.

Pepper acknowledged this by admitting an error in using the term "unfettered free market", so the goal post was not moved and I apologize for misusing the term.

However, by switching from a claim of "unfettered free market" to "deregulation", a new goal post was indeed erected... Hence my erroneous claim.

Disproving the first claim was as easy as offering definitions which contradicted the argument but the second argument of "deregulation" is nearly impossible to disprove, and therefore a much more difficult task.

That's when I realized that the difficulty was coming from the fact that I was being asked to disprove a negative. If Pepper wants to claim "deregulation" was to blame, then the onus is on Pepper to substantiate the claim, not on me to disprove it.


I agree, it does show integrity when people are able to admit their mistakes.

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/355/the-giant-pool-of-money
 
Those actions are related to our current deficits, and to the mortgage crisis.

BigRob is right, it is absurd. Your source claims to be "non-partisan" but they are undoubtedly pursuing a political agenda which is clearly stated on their website:

Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, About Us: The Center conducts research and analysis to help shape public debates over proposed budget and tax policies and to help ensure that policymakers consider the needs of low-income families and individuals in these debates. We also develop policy options to alleviate poverty.
Attempting to claim that 100% of our deficits and debt are a result of Bush's policies is not only absurd, it's easily shown to be a total fabrication.

The CBPP claims to have created that graph based on CBO estimates... That much is probably true, it looks like they have mined the numbers from the CBO... But the CBPP has certainly taken a great deal of artistic license in assigning 100% of the deficits to the "Legacy of Bush Policies"...

Lets look at the actual CBO estimates next to the CBPP graph:

saupload_cbo_2010_projected_deficit.png


cbpp-chart-on-bush-deficit-legacy-121609.jpg


You should notice right away that the deficit projections are identical in both graphs. However, in the CBPP graph, just 5 factors (all Bush's fault) are cited as causing 100% of the deficits while the CBO cites no less than 30 different factors as driving the deficits.

CBPP graph shows the Bush Tax Cuts as the #1 driver of deficits. This is false.

Politifact: Tax cuts for rich not biggest deficit factor

[T]he CBO chief Douglas Elmendorf told the Senate Budget Committee that health care is the biggest driver of the budget problem... The CBO's budget estimate released Wednesday projected that over the next several years, Medicare spending will grow at an average annual rate of nearly 7 percent, while Medicaid will grow at an average annual rate of 9 percent – even while the nation's economy itself is growing at a rate of less than 3 percent a year.

None of what the CBO has cited as driving deficits was even mentioned in the CBPP graph which, I will point out again, assigned 100% of the current and future deficits to the "Legacy of Bush Policies". I'd also like to point out that while the CBO cites Medicare and Medicaid as the primary drivers of deficit, the CBPP did not include Bush's expansion of Medicare with the Prescription Drug Benefit in their "Legacy of Bush Policies".

Now, the part of the CBPP graph where it supposedly shows "Deficit Without These Factors", has absolutely no basis in reality whatsoever... Let's look at the CBO deficit estimates for Social Security:

Social%20Security%20Primary%20Defict.gif


And that's JUST Social Security's contribution to the deficit! :eek:

As you can see, the "Deficit Without These Factors" line is total BS and cannot possibly be based on any CBO information.

In closing, I would like to reiterate my questions that have gone unanswered and my comments that have not been addressed:

Are you arguing that the Bush Tax Cuts, and not the recession, caused the drop in revenue between FY'01-FY'03?

If so, you need to explain why the revenue climbed above it's previous highs after passage of the FY'03 tax cut. If, indeed, tax cuts cause a loss in revenue, then FY'04 should have seen even lower tax receipts than FY'03, yet revenue went up and continued to climb until FY'07 where revenue reached it's highest point in nearly a decade.

And lastly, do you believe that raising income tax rates will result in greater income tax revenue?
 
I didn't make a claim of 100%. The chart doesn't show that 100% of the deficit is due to Bush policies. It shows that the majority of the deficit is due to Bush-era policies. That would certainly be expected, since when Clinton left office we were looking at a budget surplus.

The agenda of the creators of the chart is information. Are you capable of dealing with information that is contrary to your preconceptions?
Are you arguing that the Bush Tax Cuts, and not the recession, caused the drop in revenue between FY'01-FY'03?

Both would contribute to the drop in revenue.

And lastly, do you believe that raising income tax rates will result in greater income tax revenue?

Yes, I believe that a return to the tax rates during the Clinton years would put us on a better footing.

Did you even listen to the story?

Nowhere in the story is proof that deregulation caused the crisis... What a waste of my time that was.

Considering that you missed the point, I guess it was a waste of your time. That's not something that I can fix.
 
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I didn't make a claim of 100%. The chart doesn't show that 100% of the deficit is due to Bush policies. It shows that the majority of the deficit is due to Bush-era policies. That would certainly be expected, since when Clinton left office we were looking at a budget surplus.

The agenda of the creators of the chart is information. Are you capable of dealing with information that is contrary to your preconceptions?

Apparently you are not, which is why you have outright ignored the data from the WSJ article.

As for this "surplus" everyone wants to talk about:
That $5.6 trillion surplus never existed. It was a projection by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) in January 2001 to cover the next decade. It assumed that late-1990s economic growth and the stock-market bubble (which had already peaked) would continue forever and generate record-high tax revenues. It assumed no recessions, no terrorist attacks, no wars, no natural disasters, and that all discretionary spending would fall to 1930s levels.

Then we get back to the Bush Tax cuts:
that the much-maligned Bush tax cuts, at $1.7 trillion, caused just 14% of the swing from projected surpluses to actual deficits (and that is according to a "static" analysis, excluding any revenues recovered from faster economic growth induced by the cuts).

If there were no Bush tax cuts, runaway spending and economic factors would have guaranteed more than $4 trillion in deficits over the decade and kept the budget in deficit every year except 2007.

And more of what you cherry picked and ignored:
With Washington set to tax $33 trillion and spend $46 trillion over the next decade, how does one determine which policies "caused" the $13 trillion deficit? Mr. Obama could have just as easily singled out Social Security ($9.2 trillion over 10 years), antipoverty programs ($7 trillion), other Medicare spending ($5.4 trillion), net interest on the debt ($6.1 trillion), or nondefense discretionary spending ($7.5 trillion).

There's no legitimate reason to single out the $4.7 trillion in tax cuts, war funding and the Medicare drug entitlement.

Yes, I believe that a return to the tax rates during the Clinton years would put us on a better footing.

A return to those rates will accomplish nothing in balancing the budget, or getting the deficit under control....Returning to Clinton's tax rates is a talking point that solves nothing.
 
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