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Village Math: Tax Increases Bust The Budget

By Big Tent Democrat, Section Media
Posted on Sat Nov 21, 2009 at 10:57:51 AM EST
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Via FDL, David Broder:

While the CBO said that both the House-passed bill and the one Reid has drafted meet Obama's test by being budget-neutral, every expert I have talked to says [. . . t]hese bills, as they stand, are budget-busters. Here, for example, is what Robert Bixby, the executive director of the Concord Coalition, a bipartisan group of budget watchdogs, told me: "The Senate bill is better than the House version, but there's not much reform in this bill. As of now, it's basically a big entitlement expansion, plus tax increases."

(Emphasis supplied.) Tax increases bust the budget according the Wise Old Men of the Village.

Speaking for me only

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    Village Math: Tax Increases Bust The Budget | 8 comments (8 topical)

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    It's not going to matter (5.00 / 1) (#7)
    by jbindc on Sat Nov 21, 2009 at 03:00:28 PM EST
    While the headline is a bit misleading on this article, Dems are losing the the argument about who's to blame for the recession.  If something isn't done - whether it's raising or lowering taxes, whether the deficit goes up and downs, etc - it isn't going to matter to people in their everyday lives.  If people see that their community is losing jobs and the cost of living is going up - it isn't going to matter who has the better argument in principle. The Village can crow all they want and politicians can bloviate and try to affix blame where they will - all it means is that the Dems will be doomed anyway in 2010 and maybe beyond.

    30 years of Republican messaging (none / 0) (#1)
    by andgarden on Sat Nov 21, 2009 at 11:03:35 AM EST
    It's the same "reasoning" that gets people to believe that cutting taxes reduces the deficit.

    Messaging? (1.00 / 1) (#5)
    by Abdul Abulbul Amir on Sat Nov 21, 2009 at 02:26:34 PM EST
    Try experience.  

    1. The cap gains tax rate increase in 1987 reduced cap gains revenue for roughly the next decade over what was in 1986.

    2. The Reagan income tax rate cuts resulted in higher tax revenues in each year of the Reagan administration than any year before the Reagan administration.

    3. When the 90% top income tax rate bracket was eliminated leaving 70% as the top rate, more revenue was collected at the new 70% rate than at the old 70% and 90% combined.

    4. etc.

    Tax rates effect tax revenues.  The deficit is the difference between spending and revenue, and is not directly effected by tax rates.

    Parent
    Good article by David Johnson (none / 0) (#2)
    by trillian on Sat Nov 21, 2009 at 12:09:50 PM EST
    Why America needs to go back to taxing the wealthy

    Repug Nation (none / 0) (#3)
    by pluege on Sat Nov 21, 2009 at 01:57:05 PM EST
    every expert I have talked to says [. . . t]hese bills, as they stand, are budget-busters.

    must be because health care is money spent on people, cause I ain't heard no budget bustin' sky is falling talk on the $680 billion per year and growing EVERY YEAR expenditures on that criminal pork barrel adventure called the US military.

    I'm trying to interpret... (none / 0) (#4)
    by EL seattle on Sat Nov 21, 2009 at 02:07:47 PM EST
    ... the "message" in this post called "How to Pay for all This" at NRO (of all places) that references something in The Economist...

    Sample bit:
    Better by far to embark on a series of transparent and gradual increases in the federal fuel tax - something that would have obvious advantages for American security policy as well.

    The piece seems so, um, pragmatic and almost balanced when I read it.  There must be a catch in there somewhere.

    apparently, mr. bixby (none / 0) (#6)
    by cpinva on Sat Nov 21, 2009 at 02:31:35 PM EST
    doesn't even bother to read the articles written by the coalition's own chief economist. the coalition's own chief economist also seems to be operating in somewhat of a vacuum, with respect to depression era economic methods, displaying a lazer-like focus strictly on deficits, with little, if any thought given to the disasterous effects of retrenching government spending on the private economy.

    during the clinton administration, when the economy was humming along, and we weren't paying for two unnecessary wars, deficit reduction, and paying down the national debt was sound economic policy. it would seem that dr. rogers, the coalition's chief economist, is stuck in the 90's.

    sadly, dr. rogers earned her phd at UVA. oh well, you can't win them all.

    The Dean of (none / 0) (#8)
    by gyrfalcon on Sat Nov 21, 2009 at 05:06:58 PM EST
    innumeracy.  If I may quote you... Gawd!

    Village Math: Tax Increases Bust The Budget | 8 comments (8 topical)

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