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Originally Posted by filtherton
It think that it's pretty clear that in discussions like these, the words "taxes" and "welfare" have little actual meaning. They're just code words. It won't be long before someone starts claiming that roads are welfare.
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I gave a specific example and asked you to give your definition of a term, there was no "code" in that.
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No doubt we should take the editorial extra seriously because the facts were chosen with great care.
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How many examples of the same thing to we need before we take it seriously. Here is an excerpt from another view from today's WSJ:
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President Obama says "every economist who's looked at it says that the Recovery Act has done its job"—i.e., the stimulus bill has turned the economy around. That's nonsense. Opinions differ widely and many leading economists believe that its impact has been small. Why? The expectation of future spending and future tax hikes to pay for the stimulus and Mr. Obama's vast expansion of government are offsetting the direct short-run expansionary effect. That is standard in all macroeconomic theories.
So, as I and others warned in 2008, the permanent government expansion and higher tax rate agenda is a classic example of what not to do during bad economic times. Worse yet, all the subsidies, bailouts, regulations and mandates are forcing noncommercial decisions on the economy, which now awaits literally thousands of new diktats as a result of things like ObamaCare and the financial reform bill. The uncertainty is impeding investment and hiring.
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Michael Boskin: Obama's Economic Fish Stories - WSJ.com
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The only clear pattern is that it's difficult to predict how tax-based revenue will change in the future.
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No it is not. The general trend is easy to determine regarding tax policy, the difficulty is in isolating tax policy from other variables. Rational people respond in predictable ways.
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Minnesota in the 2000s is a pretty great example of why conservative economic policies fail when it comes to actually keeping government in the black. The great fiscal genius that is Tim Pawlenty, he of the "No New Taxes (but we'll impose a shitload of fees)" pledge was consistently unable to come up with a budget that didn't rely on shifting costs down the road or raiding money set aside for something else. One of his main problems was that despite the old canard that reducing taxes actually increases gov't revenue, he was met with consistent budget shortfalls. If I were IBD, I'd make this connection and let the reader come up with their own flawed conclusion, but I'm not, so I'll just say that the economy is complicated, and that the people who seem to have certainty regarding it are the ones who are the most confused by it.
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Paulenty wants to keep taxes low and cut spending, the DFL controlled legislature has a different agenda, isn't that conflict the root of the budget problems in Minnesota?