Re: "Critics cry foul in Bush Social Security maneuver"

Jeffrey Beaver wrote:

( previous post snipped-follow thread )

I'm pleased for Ireland. But just quoting data in the absence of all potential variables is meaningless. We do not know of what conditions were present in Ireland prior to their tax cuts, we don't know know of any special circumstances which account for other growth, nor do we know what is normal for their economy.


The following remarks are by Mark Wynne Senior Economist and Research
Officer, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, made at a December 12, 2000
conference sponsored by the International Monetary Fund.

"Instead of considering Europe as a whole, look at some of the
individual countries for evidence of how market-friendly policies can
help things. One case in point is what’s happened in Ireland over the
past decade, where you had a shift away from very traditional statist
policies of heavy public sector involvement towards low taxation of
business income and a more business-friendly environment, more
deregulation. And the payoff was rates of GDP growth in the 7 to 10
percent range in real terms for most of the past ten years."

Nothing new here, Jeff. Just a restatement of your initial assertion which also does not address my questions.

What we DO know is that tax here, didn't produce substantial benefit to the population, didn't do much to unemployment but DID create a deficit which must be paid back in the future.


I would submit that tax cuts did not cause the deficit.

Excuse me, Jeff, but I'm ROTFLMAO.

We should
eliminate corporate welfare, farm subsidies, political pork, reign in
out of control entitlement programs, and get out of Iraq as
expeditiously as possible. Then we can talk about deficits. There
won't be any.

In short, Jeff, following your conjectures to their logical conclusions, if we eliminate Government in its entirety, then we can eliminate taxes completely. But Government provides those services which we as a society need, by virtue of our representative government. So your thesis is merely a substitution of what you believe should be the societal needs as opposed to what Government, as a function of the electorate thinks. the function of Government ,Jeff,which i tend to think that you don't understand is NOT to preserve individual wealth, but, as an entity of society, function to provide services for the common good. That requires money, and in order to get that money, requires a collective contribution from everyone. Now our policy is that each makes that contribution according to his ability to pay. A worthy policy.

And yes, the debate should be on what society needs. I agree, that we don't need a war of aggression, but I'm not about to say that farmers should take it on the chin. and I'm not going to make a blanket statement about entitlements as do you, for it is precisely those entitlements that create the purpose of Government. We have a deficit because we spend more than we take in. The unnecessary tax cuts did that. A far more responsible action by Bush would have been to cut programs to match his tax cuts, rather than his continuation of Ronald Regan's voodoo economics.

So we really didn't gain anything; we just delayed having to pay the bill. And we don't know about that in Ireland, either.


Ireland is in much better fiscal shape and running lower deficits than
it did prior to cutting corporate taxes.

good for them. I still don't know enough about all the unstated variables to be so certain as you. And neither do you.

So, in short, Jeff, if you neglect Government deficits, which you conveniently do


Alan, please do not assume that I "neglect" government deficits. The
deficits we currently face are one of several large black marks
against Bush and the Republican Party in general -- which has grown
far too fat and lazy in it's role as the majority party in congress.
The best tax policy in the world can't offset out of control
entitlement programs, bloated farm subsidies, any and all corporate
subsidies, a fabulously expensive war in Iraq, and pork barrel
projects as far as the eye can see.

Well, you certainly don't give them much space in your considerations.

, tax cuts really don't do very much for anyone, except to put more money into the hands of those who need it least, as compared to the Government programs which are cut for those who do have the greatest need.


In my view, you could not be more wrong. If you were right, France
which has some of the highest taxes in the developed world, would have
low unemployment, a booming economy, and a balanced budget. It has
none of those things -- simply because taxes do not pay the bills of a
welfare state. Those bills are paid by a strong GDP. But, at any
level of GDP there will always be limits as to how much can be spent
on public projects without starving the goose that laid the golden
egg.

We're not talking about France, where, again, variables are not the same as they are here. Fact remains, that the tax cuts went to the upper echelon of earners in far greater proportion than to the middle and the bottom. And the fact remains that those taxes pay, for the most part, for programs that benefit the middle and lower, and not the wealthy. so basically, the tax cuts went to shift the benefits from the middle and low, who need them most, to the wealthy, who don't. And we're not talking about a welfare state; we're talking about paying for those services that we need as a society, and who shall pay for them. We had no problems with the GDP when Clinton was running surpluses. A few more years of surpluses would have totally solved the Social Security problem.
.

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