Quote:
Originally posted by cthulu23
I'm not talking about tax cuts in general, but Bush's tax cuts in particular. There is a mostly unspoken sentiment, even among Republicans, that these cuts will have to be rolled back to get the deficit under control.
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"Unspoken sentiment" is hardly evidence of a need or a real desire to see them rolled back. Greenspan has specifically stated that he does not want the Bush tax cuts rolled back. He wants to see spending cuts to make it more fiscally responsible to make them permanent.
Those economists arguing against the "Bush tax cuts" have, at their base, a concern for the growing deficit not a problem with the details of the tax cut.
I doubt you will find many economists who will argue that the government is efficient at using the monies they collect. So, the overiding economic theory is one of not just throwing more money into an inefficient system but of creating a more efficient system by forcing the government to prioritize needs. This would be done by removing government's ability to simply pass the costs of increased spending on to the consumer and the economy.
Admittedly the current administration has done little to control the deficit in the short term but it is unrealistic to expect any administration to fit the extraordinary costs associated with 9/11 and the war on terror (whether or not the war in Iraq should have been prosecuted or not is irrelevant in the economic argument presented here) into the budget of a single year or a single term for that matter.