George Bush's Dishonest Budget

Link: TomPaine.com - George Bush's Dishonest Budget.

The budget is a lie because it shamelessly omits a true accounting of the nation’s financial outlook. To cover the costs of his tax cuts, the White House doesn’t supply projections beyond 2011. Its budget excludes the cost of Iraq and Afghanistan (to say nothing of Iran) after 2007. It omits the cost of fixing the Alternative Minimum Tax—which will total hundreds of billions over the next five years.

The budget is a moral disgrace because it shamelessly calls for lavishing benefits on the wealthy—$136,000 annually for those earning over a million a year—while inflicting pain on the most vulnerable—cuts in food programs for the impoverished elderly, in child care for poor working mothers, in preventive health care for vulnerable children. It would even eliminate Social Security’s token death benefit ($225) that helps poor families defray some of the cost of burial. It lavishes more than $500 billion—one half of all discretionary spending—on the Pentagon, the largest source of waste, fraud and abuse in the federal government.

Comments

[rwilson]

Once again, how can someone write about the state of economic affairs without a formal economic background? The use of tax cuts in higher income brackets is due to economic reasoning using adaptive expectations where decision makers base their future expectations from past outcomes. The past outcomes are two previous periods of economic growth that occurred in the 1960's and 80's using supply-side or Voodoo economics. Supply side economic methods entail a reduction in tax revenue and increased budget deficits. Tax cutting was found to be increasingly more effective in higher tax brackets. This was determined by economist Arthur Laffer.

The posts on this blog often reduce economic theory down to subjective, and completely unfounded and untested beliefs. But I can assure you it is in no way political theory.

The slew of posts has made me understand why our president can get away with acting like a moron. As long as the left keeps fighting a system that has proven to work Republicans will continue to be able to control the political power in the US. I am in no way trying to say that economic theory is flawless, in fact I believe that there are many flaws. However, the left, especially the far left is still trying to denounce capitalism instead of accepting that it is the most efficient and productive system. Once this happens we might be able to solve some of the nation’s most pressing problems like social security and a negative savings rate (which by the way is occurring for the first time since the Great Depression). Economics really isn't that scary.

[anonymous]

Deficit spending and disproportionate tax incentives to the wealthy is not an established solution to economic growth. During the 90's there were increases on tax rates of the wealthy and the economy boomed. It is easy to spout accolades for Art Laffer but economics, like other sciences, has informed disagreements of opinion. Whether or not tax cuts make economic sense during a time of massive military expenditures is something still up for debate.

[John Reeve]

Fade in: two men stand on a train platform.

Man 1: Hey, what's that in that box over there?

Man 2: Oh, that? That's a leftist.

Man 1: What is a leftist?

Man 2: A leftist is a person who holds a political ideology commited to denouncing the problems which arise from practicing capitalism.

Man 1: Hey, there aren't any (legitimate) people commited to denouncing the the most efficient and productive system that is capitalism!

Man 2: Well, that's no leftist.

Voiceover: So you see, a leftist is nothing at all.

Fade to black.

[Jodi]

John--fantastic! I wish I could respond with some nifty trapped in a box image. Or a joke about Schroedinger's cat.

[Virgil Johnson]

Rwilson, your post seems filled with glowing comment, regarding tax relief for the rich. Dare I say, and you can debate me in a formal sense on this point. As soon as there is reduction on the taxation of the rich, those paltry programs of humanity for the poor are choked. At the very time tax is reduced upon the rich, the regressive wrench of taxation increases upon the poor. Check it out, and try to get a dose of reality.

You talk about capitalism as a system that works, and I ask you for whom? If you are going to opine about mom and pop businesses don't bother - I am talking about where 90% of the wealth resides. If you are going to lecture about how well we live, than give the credit where the credit is due - to the democratic forces that fought tooth and nail for all the benefits we have today. If it were left to the captitalists you would still be working 14 hour days, seven days a week for small change, and when you fell from exhaustion or injury you would be thrown out like so much trash!

Capitalism works for capitalists, and it works much better in third world countries - because the return on the dollar is much higher (hence globalism). It is efficent for exploitation and wanton destruction in these countries, as it wipes away the living of families that have had working concerns for years. The only reason that does not occur here is because we are on a higher democratic plane because of the efforts of others. However, it is reducing swiftly in this country - because you know capitalism is "efficient," and has a much better chance in countries where the people are weak and poor. They will be further impoverished as the capitalistic clones in those countries do what was done to us in previous centuries. In this country you will hear the great sucking sound of jobs of substance disappearing, while they are replaced with informal-temporary labor. All hail capitalism!

[Rwilson]

Virgil,
Dare I debate you? What a joke. Should I put a suit on the make it a formal debate? Get off your high horse.

[rwilson]

On a side note, I just took a stroll through Beacon Hill (Boston) and happened to pass Lewisberg Sq. where John Kerry lives. I think those on the left might want to question him on his stance about the great divide in capital in the country...not a single car less than $80,000 on his street.

[Virgil Johnson]

Yeah, I know Rwilson. It's been that way since the beginning of this "egalitarian" experiment. Capitalism knows no political divide in America - I have no argument with you there.

[rwilson]

Great article in the WSJ today about how Rhode Island's Democratic led legislature is proposing a 5.5% flat tax to replace its progressive tax which spreads 3.5% to 9.9%. House speaker William Murphy says the "'ultimate goal is to put more money directly into people's pockets both by relief to those hwo need it and by making RI a more attractive place for business that will provide high-paying jobs for more Rhode Islanders'". What happens when Dems being to realize that economics isn't all about lies? Do you jump on their bandwagon or continue to denounce economic theory? I am anxious to see this response.

[John Reeve]

"I am anxious to see this response."

What is the cause of your anxiety?

Is it that you are forced to confront fissures in the conservative constructed straw-man that is the so-called "Leftist" Democrat which supplements reactionary conservatism?

Or is it a more personal kind of anxiety founded in the knowledge that some people will not respond to your argument on your terms and that this refusal will display your displacement from a critical community?

I only ask because the second possibility is much easier to confront, and even offers a kind of privledged position....

[rwilson]

When I wrote the word anxiety I wasn't really thinking that my use of the English language would be analyzed like a stanza of a Shakespearian poem. My ideas are not of the "reactionary conservative" at all so that is just flat out wrong. I would like people from this "critical community" to actually bring up legitimate points against the economic theories that I promote. Putting an emphasis on the way that I use a word like "anxious" just shows that you would rather try to outmaneuver me with English language elitism than actually use a constructive argument. This doesn't really bother me because as people like yourself continue to use such tactics the rest of the world will still ignore your ideas and continue on their merry ways.

[John Reeve]

Rwilson,

of course "the rest of the world will still ignore [my] ideas and continue on their merry ways."

That is my privileged position,

because, as we know, the -legitimate- world is not made up of people who think like me, and so I doubt that there are any "legitimate" points to place "against the economic theories that [you] promote."

{Listen to your Freudian "no," yo.}

My reading what you write shouldn't bother you and cause you anxiety; that lack is the condition of wishing to avoid people actually reading what you have to write, especially in the serious manner reserved for serious matters (my forthcoming PhD in literature notwithstanding, I have little tolerance for "serious" reading-- the ways people read Shakespeare generally bore me-- and I am a hack at producing “serious” readings).

So I apologize for, but simultaneously simply admit to, being part of an elite readership of language

(as an aside, I suggest [but fail to commit to the idea] that my maneuvers work in other languages than English).

I am glad that are you not bothered; I would hate to actually be a source of anxiety [this is something that I fear becoming for my other, sophomore students who I must grade], and I don’t mind deconstructing your arguments rather than helping you construct them.

So (assuming that you truly feel no anxiety) please don’t respond. Thank you for your lack of bother-ed-ness with my backwards lack of "formal economic background".

John Reeve
Lubbock, TX