Re: NASA moon trip video

"Josh Hill" <usereplyto@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message 
news:u4d1u1tk4dq5mfvfde89gi22uecbhjo559@xxxxxxxxxx

>>Nipping Bush's tax cut will raise revenue in the short trem (over next 18
>>mos or so), but it also slams the brakes on an economy already beginning 
>>to
>>falter under high oil prices.
>>
>>The real answer is to get serious about cutting spending.
>
> It seems to me that there were, from a macroeconomic perspective,
> several serious problems with Bush's tax cuts, chief among them the
> fact that they were targeted largely at the wealthy, who unlike the
> poor and middle class tend to invest rather than spend. Since
> investment isn't what we need in an economic downturn when cheap
> capital is plentiful, for a given reduction in revenue, Bush's tax
> cuts provided significantly less of an economic stimulus than they
> would have had they been targeted towards consumption.

The counter point is, "if the rich aren't making money, nobody's making 
money."

Otherwise, I refer you to the US GDP growth figures.


> I'm not sure why you distinguish between reigning in spending and
> increasing taxes, since it seems to me that from a macroeconomic
> perspective, they have a similar effect, the main difference being
> that spending provides a more effective fiscal stimulus than tax
> decreases that aren't specifically directed towards the poor.

It's de-centralized vs. centralized spending.  The government has a 
different spending pattern.  You want to transfer money uselessly to 
corporations and organizations, let the government spend it.  If you want 
the whole economy to do better, let people spend it.  Cutting taxes puts 
money in the hands of people who would spend it simulating the economy 
buying durable goods, what-have-you.

Moreover the money is the people's to begin with.  Government must leny a 
share of it to provide for the common good.  I think there is an attitude of 
entitlement, as if its Government's decision to make how much money it 
*allows* its people to spend.


> The
> balance between government and private spending should, I think, be
> based upon an analysis of our needs and the most efficient way of
> meeting them, rather than an ideological obsession with small (or
> large) government. Except in unusual circumstances such as a world
> war, when our needs increase as they have because of the Iraqi war,
> the flood in New Orleans, and the Medicare drug benefit, taxes should
> be increased to cover them, with the decision to run a deficit or
> surplus based on purely economic considerations.

A logical exreme of this point of view is the government sticking its nose 
into every buying decision I make (with lobbyists lining up behind to try to 
prejudice the government's decisions for someone's profit).

An alternative method from raising taxes to cover spending is to reduce 
spending in some areas to free up money for new needs.  Ideally, Congress 
uses both, raising taxes if there isn't resources to transfer.  The problem 
with just about any tax is that the government can never get around to 
ending the tax once it has been put into effect.


> Also, I think it's dangerous to speak without qualification about
> reigning in government spending. That isn't going to happen because we
> don't want to eliminate the valid things that government spending
> provides -- things like education, R&D, a strong military, Social
> Security, and Medicare. The problem as I see it is that legislators
> are reluctant to cut the spending that /should/ be cut -- pork like
> farm subsidies, bridges to uninhabited islands in Alaskaand,
> anti-terrorism money for cornfields, the huge and largely unnecessary
> cold war nuclear arsenal, and the like. Since the President and
> Congress haven't been willing to cut out pork, the conservative
> "starve the beast" reductions in government financing have had the
> unfortunate effect of depriving government of the funds it needs for
> productive and necessary investments such as energy independence,
> reconstruction in Louisiana and Iraq, and comprehensive health care
> reform, as well as shifting a burden to states and local communities,
> which has the effect of magnifying economic inequality, since poorer
> localities and large states (which are underrepresented in Congress)
> end up with higher taxes and inferior services, driving business
> elsewhere.

The tax cut was not intended to "starve the beast".  It was intended as 
economic stimulus, right in line with your thinking of how tax decisions 
ought to be made.

My complaint from the start of this thread was about the disconnect between 
receipts and spending and the fact that Congressional Republicans have shown 
no appetite for restraint.


-- 
John Trauger,
Vorlonagent


"Methane martini.
Shaken, not stirred."


"Spirituality without science has no mind.

Science without spirituality has no heart."

-Methuselah Jones



.

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