posted on November 14, 2006 10:22:02 AM new
Gosh...and they haven't even taken over power yet.
Just can't help themselves....gotta RAISE those taxes.
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From today's WSJ - Editoral
[TRY to hold on to your wallets/the dems are now in control]
Rubin's Tax Gambit
Raising taxes in a housing slump isn't the smartest policy.
Tuesday, November 14, 2006 12:01 a.m. EST
That was fast. A mere two days after Democrats capture Congress claiming they wouldn't raise taxes, former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin tells them they should do so anyway.
"You cannot solve the nation's fiscal problems without increased revenues," declared Mr. Rubin, the Democratic Party's leading economic spokesman, in a speech last Thursday.
He also took a crack at economic forecasting by noting that "I think if you were to increase taxes right now, you would have probably about zero negative effect on the economy."
The economics and politics here are worth parsing.
We suppose it's reassuring that Mr. Rubin **now** thinks the economy is strong enough to withstand a tax increase. That's a switch from his opposition to the 2003 Bush tax cuts, which he predicted would bust the budget and do little for growth.
The U.S. economy proceeded to grow by an average of nearly 4% a year for three years following mid-2003, until the recent slowdown due largely to the housing slump.
Everyone makes mistakes, but raising taxes amid a housing decline doesn't sound like brilliant policy to us. Depending on inflation signals in the coming weeks, the Federal Reserve may not be done raising interest rates.
The best hope for avoiding a recession next year and into 2008 is that strong corporate profits and the tight job market will lift business investment and consumer spending enough to offset the impact of tighter monetary policy.
The last thing the economy needs now is a tax increase, too.
And what are the urgent "fiscal problems" that justify a tax increase, anyway?
As the nearby chart shows, federal revenues in fiscal 2006 were 18.4% of GDP, higher than the 18.2% post-1965 average.
In October, the first month of fiscal 2007, revenues rose by 12% from a year earlier.
Mr. Rubin thinks this windfall isn't enough; perhaps he wants to return to the late Clinton years, when the feds grabbed a record 20.9% of GDP and taxpayers demanded a refund by endorsing George W. Bush's tax cut proposal in the election of 2000.
By the way, the federal deficit for fiscal 2006 was only 1.9% of GDP, which is lower than all but eight years since 1975.
Add in the budget surpluses at the state level, and the overall U.S. fiscal "deficit" is economically trivial.
It is all but irrelevant to Mr. Rubin's complaint that the U.S. borrows too much from "foreigners." Those foreigners invest here because of safety and soundness and the expected after-tax return. The quickest way to drive away those investors is to reduce that return by raising taxes.
Mr. Rubin's "fiscal problems" riff is really a rhetorical sleight-of-hand, using future entitlement problems to justify a tax increase today.
He knows all too well that not a dime of new revenue raised today would be "saved" or otherwise devoted to paying for future Social Security or Medicare benefits.
They would be spent on other things by the current Congress, just as today's surplus payroll tax revenues are spent, and just as they were spent when Mr. Rubin was at Treasury in the 1990s.
If Mr. Rubin wants to help reduce the future entitlement benefits he frets so much about, he could always support reforming those programs. Yet when President Bush invited him to participate in a bipartisan entitlement commission last year, Mr. Rubin refused.
Which is why we suspect that Mr. Rubin's real game here is politics.
The Citigroup Inc. executive is part of Hillary Rodham Clinton's braintrust, and he and she would like nothing better than to coax Mr. Bush into raising taxes in the next two years.
That would take the tax issue off the table in 2008, while splintering Republicans the way President George H.W. Bush's tax-hike deal with George Mitchell did going into 1992.
While the democratic party complains about everything THIS President does to protect our Nation:
What would a Democrat president have done at that point? Apparently, the answer is: Sit back and wait for the next terrorist attack.
Ann Coulter
[ edited by Linda_K on Nov 14, 2006 10:25 AM ]
posted on November 14, 2006 10:36:50 AM new
People who resent paying taxes are anti-American, surely don't want to support the troops and obviously want to weaken national security.
WHO exactly does linda THINK will pay off the HUGE debt the Republicans built up....the upper 2% of the richest who got huge tax breaks from bushy?
The oil companies who got huge tax breaks from bushy?
The off-shore companies who are protected by bushy?
Halliburton who has ripped off the American tax payers with the help of bushy???
Obviously after last Tuesday MOST AMERICANS PREFER a solution from DEMOCRATS!!!
posted on November 14, 2006 07:41:39 PM new
One thing for sure guys like me just can't wait to take money away from GREEDY UN-AMERICAN SELF CENTERED NEO-CON LIARS.
posted on November 14, 2006 07:47:51 PM new
No surprise there.
The dems have ALWAYS wanted to take money away from those who have earned it.....and give it to their supporters....who need their handouts to survive. Socialism at it's finest.
While the democratic party complains about everything THIS President does to protect our Nation:
What would a Democrat president have done at that point? Apparently, the answer is: Sit back and wait for the next terrorist attack.
Ann Coulter
posted on November 14, 2006 11:14:39 PM new
People like kinda don't want to pay their share of taxes...how anti-American, anti-troops, and pro-terrorist!
Post away old post Hawg! WE still WON!
How I would've liked to see your hate filled face as the returns came in Tuesday and Wednesday!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!! I bet you were spittin' and a sputterin'!!
And then the Democrats took the SENATE, too!!
LOLOLOLOLOLOL!
Scream away ....NOTHING you can say will change it
posted on November 15, 2006 02:51:42 AM new
Tell us you've "won" when the Democrats do something, anything. They can't get enough votes from their own people to pass anything, nevermind getting Republican support or overriding a veto.
posted on November 15, 2006 10:52:17 AM new
LOL....looks to me like somebody doesn't believe the dems aren't in the hands of corp. America. lol They ARE.
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The 'rich' as you call them pay MOST of the taxes that run our government.
Middle and upper income couples are now considered 'rich'. LOL They're NOT rich....they're earning their own money. Like all American's SHOULD be doing....rather than taking from them to give cradle-to-grave care for the dem supporters.
While the democratic party complains about everything THIS President does to protect our Nation:
What would a Democrat president have done at that point? Apparently, the answer is: Sit back and wait for the next terrorist attack.
Ann Coulter
posted on November 15, 2006 01:08:09 PM new
That was MY POINT.
You didn't mention how the dem party is ALSO in the pocketbook of the big corperations.
Was I upset about how the elections went? I was very disappoint that so many american's aren't aware of the liberal platform, yes.
But with winning both houses...now they'll actually have to ACCOMPLISH something. LOL They have had NO solutions...NO idears...and the HOuse dems are VERY divided on what to do about Iraq.
It will be FUN to watch them come to the realization that WITH power comes RESPONSIBLITY and ACCOUNTABILITY.
Something they're NOT very good at doing.
While the democratic party complains about everything THIS President does to protect our Nation:
What would a Democrat president have done at that point? Apparently, the answer is: Sit back and wait for the next terrorist attack.
Ann Coulter
posted on November 15, 2006 01:48:01 PM new
I don't think people mind having their taxes raised as long as they feel it's not being flushed down the toilet like they do with Iraq.
