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Banned
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Originally Posted by aceventura3
I agreed that spending is out of control.
In regard to Bush's tax cuts -
In '04 revenues increased 5.4%
In '05 revenues increased 14.5%
In '06 revenues increased 11.8%
I am sure the '06 numbers are still subject to revision. As I look at the numbers I can not conclude that the tax cuts have been the cause of the deficits during Bush's term. However, I can support orther causes: 1) Recession 2) War on terror (including homeland security issues) 3) Spending
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ace, your post #39 on this thread....a PR piece from the white house that falsely touts spending cloaked in "off-budget" machinations as "deficit reduction", was thoroughly debunked in my post #31, on your thread:
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthread.php?t=105663
.....4 months ago, when you tried to "offer it" here, the last time.
These points in the OP, IMO, put the points in your last post, in proper context:
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GDP growth 2000-2005, 27% total, 4.9%/year.
<b>Revenue growth 2000-2005, 6.3% total, 1.2%/year.</b>
Spending growth 2000-2005, 38% total, 6.7%/year.
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So, combined MEW and deficit stimulus to the economy of $1,153 billion, only increased GDP by $753 billion in 2005. Receding housing prices will result in huge decreases in economic stimulus from MEW, as "cashout" refinancing disappears, and with a deficit forecast to decline, what will be left to "prop up "GDP? IMO, it won't be possible to raise tax rates without further strain on a GDP that needed an $1,153 billion input in 2005, to effect a $753 billion, 2005 GDP increase.
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ace, anybody....even incompetent management.....can "increase" GDP (or....revenue) by 75 cents for every 1.15 dollars of combined "true" deficit spending and Mortgage Equity Extraction, added to the economy annually....
ace, this will probably be my last post related to our discussion here....the message that you telegraph to me in post #39 is a repeat of this, on the last post on your thread of four months ago:
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthread.php?t=105663
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Originally Posted by aceventura3
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Originally Posted by host
I've demonstrated that in the 48 months prior to Sept. 28, 2001, federal deficit spending of $394,317,400,802.72 combined with "MEW" of $797.8 billion, totalled $1.192 trillion, and in the 48 months after Sept. 28, 2001, federal deficit spending of $2,125246,249,523.44 combined with "MEW" of $1823.9 billion, totalled $3.948 trillion.
My point is that I see no point to the core premise of this thread, because, on average, the increase in fiscal stimulation that was added to the economy, via increased federal deficit spending, combined with increased "MEW", in the 48 months after Sept. 30, 2005, was $2.756 trillion greater than in the 48 month period before Sept. 28, 2001. The effect of Bush era "tax cut" policy, diluted by a $2.756 trillion spending "injection", in the four year period, should produce a positive effect on federal revenue streams from personal income and corporate taxes, but it seems disingenuous and rather one sided to try to "credit" the same folks who managed our treasury into a huge new deficit amount, for increases in the amount of taxes collected in the same period, or with deficit "reduction" that simply places part of the increasing debt, "off budget".
This week, the news media reported that there have been 9 "off budget" appropriations approved by our elected federal officials for war expenses and disaster relief. There were also defeated proposals to actually budget for Pentagon war expenses. If that happened, it would be impossible for claims to be made that falsely imply that the rate of new federal borrowing is "dropping"....the actual increase in total debt proves that this is not true.
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Did you think Bush's tax cuts would lead to less total tax dollars collected? Or did you think the cuts would have no impact at all because of the other factors as you point to? If you say no impact, why not support lower taxes? |
......ace, when the Bush administration came into office, it brought an agenda that included two major "to do" items: ....removing Saddam from power in Iraq, and reversing the tax burden of it's wealthy patrons.
We see the results....dual fiascos... in Iraq, and in federal spending. Just as the stable and cost effective system of containing Saddam with a "no fly zone" and sanctions strategy had cost no downed aircraft in 12 years of allies "no fly zone" enforcement, and by Wolfowitz's estimate to congress in early 2003, about $30 billion.
The following table must be posted again, because it contains the federal treasury annual debt total....(that is why I call it "total") actually accrued.
The marketwatch PR piece that you posted in #39 here, continues part of the debt and some excuses. The following uses the same criteria for the last four presidents...."total debt".
It displays a parallel to what happened since 2001 in Iraq. A budget and taxation regimen that had produced a downward trend in deficits, from 1993 to 2000.... ($360 billion annual deficit, down to $18 billion, annually), and still afforded satisfactory GDP growth, was "revised" by the incoming Bush administration, and the results are similar to the "results" in Iraq:
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http://www.publicdebt.treas.gov/opd/opdhisto4.htm
<a href="http://www.publicdebt.treas.gov/opd/opdpdodt.htm">09/29/2006 $8,506,973,899,215.23</a>
09/30/2005 $7,932,709,661,723.50
09/30/2004 $7,379,052,696,330.32
09/30/2003 $6,783,231,062,743.62
09/30/2002 $6,228,235,965,597.16
09/30/2001 $5,807,463,412,200.06
09/30/2000 $5,674,178,209,886.86
09/30/1999 5,656,270,901,615.43
09/30/1998 5,526,193,008,897.62
09/30/1997 5,413,146,011,397.34
09/30/1996 5,224,810,939,135.73
09/29/1995 4,973,982,900,709.39
09/30/1994 4,692,749,910,013.32
09/30/1993 4,411,488,883,139.38
09/30/1992 4,064,620,655,521.66
09/30/1991 3,665,303,351,697.03
09/28/1990 3,233,313,451,777.25
09/29/1989 2,857,430,960,187.32
09/30/1988 2,602,337,712,041.16
09/30/1987 2,350,276,890,953.00
09/30/1986 2,125,302,616,658.42
12/31/1985 1,945,941,616,459.88
12/31/1984 1,662,966,000,000.00 *
12/31/1983 1,410,702,000,000.00 *
12/31/1982 1,197,073,000,000.00 *
12/31/1981 1,028,729,000,000.00 *
12/31/1980______930,210,000,000.00
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IMO, ace, the Bush II era tax cuts have been a fiscal disaster, much like the decision to discontinue the "no fly zone" and sanctions to keep Saddam in what Cheney described in 2001, as "a box", and replace that policy with invasion and occupation.
MEW and a smaller deficit would, without budget busting tax cuts, have supported GDP growth. Temporary and more progressively designed tax cuts, (as in the 1993 tax cut compromise between Clinton and republicans in congress) in response to severe recession....which, thanks to the ramping of the housing bubble, never happened, should have been saved, along with large federal deficit spending, until an actual GDP decline, emergency.
What recession fighting "weapons" are left for the next presidential administration, ace? The one that took office in january 2001, had three key options available.... the option to lower interest rates, easy because there was no predicament of huge federal borrowing needs that forced higher interest rates to attract potential foreign treasury bond purchasers....
...the option to increase deficit spending for it's stimulative effect on GDP growth, either by temporarily cutting taxes, or investment in capital projects as the Japanese officials have done since 1990....or....when oil prices starting rising...by funding R&D and tax incentives for alternative energy investment, as Carter had done in the late 1970's.....
ace, you get the idea, I'm sure. The next administration has only one option,
lowering interest rates. Cutting taxes and increasing deficit spending are harder to do now than in 2001....before five years of vigorous tax cutting and when the deficit was no higher than $32 billion annually..........
It they try to lower interest rates, they run into the problem of how to attract buyers of $500 billion in annual treasury bill issuance, vs. just $32 billion in 2001. They also have the gnawing, deficit aggravating problem of servicing the interest on existing debt of $8500 billion, compared to only $5674 billion on Sept. 30, 2001.
They've fucked this up so badly, ace...compared to the tools and options that they inherited, just 5 years and 9 months ago, that it is amazing that the opposition party would even been willing to attempt to reverse this disaster, or that anyone would seriously try to mount an obfuscatory argument in defense of what they've "accomplished", in less than 6 years...
...it also reminds me of this:
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...101001285.html
In Search of a North Korea Policy
By William J. Perry
Wednesday, October 11, 2006; Page A19
......The Clinton administration declared in 1994 that if North Korea reprocessed, it would be crossing a "red line," and it threatened military action if that line was crossed. The North Koreans responded to that pressure and began negotiations that led to the Agreed Framework. The Agreed Framework did not end North Korea's aspirations for nuclear weapons, <b>but it did result in a major delay. For more than eight years, under the Agreed Framework, the spent fuel was kept in a storage pond under international supervision.</b>
Then in 2002, the Bush administration discovered the existence of a covert program in uranium, evidently an attempt to evade the Agreed Framework. This program, while potentially serious, would have led to a bomb at a very slow rate, compared with the more mature plutonium program. <b>Nevertheless, the administration unwisely stopped compliance with the Agreed Framework. In response the North Koreans sent the inspectors home and announced their intention to reprocess. The administration deplored the action but set no "red line." North Korea made the plutonium.</b>
The administration also said early this summer that a North Korean test of long-range missiles was unacceptable. North Korea conducted a multiple-launch test of missiles on July 4. Most recently, the administration said a North Korean test of a nuclear bomb would be unacceptable. A week later North Korea conducted its first test........
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....and this, today:
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http://www.boston.com/news/nation/wa...ews+%2F+Nation
GOP leaders seek probe of Berger papers
By Erica Werner, Associated Press Writer | October 11, 2006
......Ten lawmakers, led by House Armed Services Committee Chairman Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., and Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., said in a letter they wanted the House Government Reform Committee to investigate.
They asked the committee to determine whether any documents were missing from Clinton administration terrorism records, to review security measures for classified documents and to seek testimony from Berger......
........In a letter to Davis, Waxman wrote that the Berger incident is not new and has been reviewed by committee staff. He noted Berger gave a television interview Tuesday criticizing the Bush administration's policies on North Korea.
"It would be regrettable if the letter from Republican members that you received today and your own letter to NARA (National Archives and Records administration) were prompted by Mr. Berger's criticism of the administration," Waxman wrote. "It would be equally regrettable if the sudden calls for an investigation were part of an organized effort to divert attention from the war in Iraq and other pressing national issues."
Davis' spokesman had no immediate response.
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ace, <b>You're defending a system of "one party rule" that does only two things well.....destroy critics by hounding them.....ala Ken Starr in his 6 year, $71 million "witch hunt", and now....in this attack of the already confessed and cleared, Sandy Berger....a recently vocal critic of the Bush admin., in defense of Clinton's policies and actions....the other "thing", ace....is a penchant for doing the opposite of whatever Clinton did....and we're now reaping the expense and the security impact of this "anti Clinton" agenda, as governing policy......</b>
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...-2005Apr1.html
Berger Is Likely to Face Fine
By Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, April 2, 2005; Page A08
The Justice Department said yesterday there was no evidence that former national security adviser Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger was trying to conceal information when he illegally took copies of classified terrorism documents out of the National Archives in 2003.....
.....Noel L. Hillman, chief of the Justice Department's public integrity section, said Berger "did not have an intent to hide any of the content of the documents" or conceal facts from the commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. But he did hide the document copies in his coat jacket as he left the archives after two visits in September and October 2003. "As a former high-ranking government official, he knew and understood that what he did was wrong," Hillman said.....
.......Hillman noted that Berger only had copies of the documents -- not the originals -- and so was not charged with the more serious crime of destroying documents.....
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Last edited by host; 10-12-2006 at 10:25 AM..
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