As memory serves, when Republicans were out of power, and couldn’t even stop a filibuster in the Senate, liberals continually appealed for civility and bipartisanship. Cooperation, we were told, was the proper frame of mind for a legislator. Yet Republicans wouldn’t play along. Those vile knaves thought only about subverting our President. They bickered and fought when our goals were so close to our grasp. All it would have taken was a mere compromise and we all would have been redeemed. All that was necessary was for a voice to rise up on the right, as it naturally would have on the left, saying “Let’s make a deal.”
Let’s Not Make a Deal
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: December 5, 2010
Shit.
If there's anything that we, as a country, can agree on, it is this: "Thou shalt not raise taxes in a recession." If you need any more proof that bipartisanship is hokum designed to escalate a neverending game of "gotcha," behold Paul Krugman, who makes the case for raising taxes with grotesque tension of a contortionist.
I belive that…wait…Judges’ ruling? Yes, I do believe that this is officially the first instance in recorded history that a New York Times columnist implied that George W. Bush is clever.
He wanted to enact an irresponsible tax cut, largely for the benefit of the wealthiest Americans.
Remember this canard? The Bush Tax Cuts only benefit the wealthy. Keep this one in the mental queue for a moment.
But there were Senate rules in place designed to prevent that kind of irresponsibility.
Amazing how fond of Senate rules liberals were when the body was controlled by Republicans. Now they think that the filibuster is a grand conspiracy designed solely to axe the public option.
So Mr. Bush evaded the rules
As Charlie Rangel recently found out, there’s a difference between tax evasion and tax avoidance.
by making the tax cut temporary, with the whole thing scheduled to expire on the last day of 2010.
If Bush gamed the system by making the tax cuts temporary, what do you call it when Obama games the system by balancing ten years of revenue against six years of expenditures for Obamacare? Unrepentant dishonesty? Colossal fraud? A massive middle finger to the American people?
The plan, of course, was to come back later and make the thing permanent,
Still is.
never mind the impact on the deficit. But that never happened. And so here we are, with 2010 almost over and nothing resolved.
Well, in November we resolved that conservatives are best suited to run the country. To reiterate the left-wing shrieks of 2008: “elections have consequences.”
Democrats have tried to push a compromise: let tax cuts for the wealthy expire, but extend tax cuts for the middle class.
Remember when Paul Krugman could just whine about how the Bush tax cuts were only for the wealthy? It was so much easier. Ah, nostalgia for…two paragraphs ago.
Republicans, however, are having none of it.
Precisely because there is nothing of a compromise anywhere in the Democrats magnanimously deciding to only raise taxes on the wealthy.
They have been filibustering Democratic attempts to separate tax cuts that mainly benefit a tiny group of wealthy Americans
and the vast swaths of humanity that aspire to be in that tiny group of wealthy Americans.
from those that mainly help the middle class. It’s all or nothing, they say: all the Bush tax cuts must be extended. What should Democrats do?
I offer three alternatives: a) concede to the party that the American people overwhelmingly backed in the most recent elections b) obstruct, and face the continued electoral wrath of the American people, who—crude though they may be—know that raising taxes in a recession is fucking stupid or c) curl into a little ball and cry.
I recommend option c.
The answer is that they should just say no.
Ah yes, because the Democrat Party hasn’t said “go to hell, America
If G.O.P. intransigence means that taxes rise at the end of this month, so be it.
This is not what laissez-faire capitalism means, Jack. (I realize his name is Paul, but I’m on a kick where I refer to everyone derisively as Jack.)
Think about the logic of the situation.
No! Don’t! Associating this drivel with logic could lead to cranium-induced holes in the wall. You have to read this article with the same mocking contempt as Twilight fan fiction. (Psh. Who reads that? Certainly not I)
Right now, the Republicans see themselves as successful blackmailers,
Oh this is going to invite some fun comparisons.
holding a clear upper hand.
He may be confusing blackmail with poker, so let’s just wait it out.
President Obama, they believe, wouldn’t dare preside over a broad tax increase while the economy is depressed.
Well Obama has proved to be politically masochistic: the Ground Zero mosque, the Beer Summit
And they therefore believe that he will give in to their demands.
In that case, they might as well hold out for a giant slinky, a set of Rock’em Sock’em Robots, and a Boeing 747 to Cuba
But while raising taxes when unemployment is high is a bad thing,
Please stop before you embarrass yourself.
there are worse things.
Plagues, famine, nihilists, ethnic cleansing, hippies, weaponized pumpkins, films starring Reese Witherspoon.
And a cold, hard look at the consequences of giving in to the G.O.P. now suggests that saying no, and letting the Bush tax cuts expire on schedule, is the lesser of two evils.
Seriously. This guy won a Nobel Prize. (Then, so did President Obama…)
Bear in mind that Republicans want to make those tax cuts permanent.
F’sho’ (If you don’t understand my jive, please consult a young hoodlum who speaks “street”)
They might agree to a two- or three-year extension — but only because they believe that this would set up the conditions for a permanent extension later. And they may well be right: if tax-cut blackmail works now, why shouldn’t it work again later?
Because sooner or later Democrats will be forced to confront their identity of government leeches who want an ever-expanding chunk of your money, instead of hiding behind obvious canards like fiscal discipline.
How many times do we have to see it happen? Federal tax revenues are chained to 18.5% of GDP, regardless of marginal tax rates. When tax rates go up, deductions are more loosely interpreted, fraud increases, and GDP growth slows. Conversely, when tax rates decline, the economy grows and Americans are less incentivized to fudge the numbers.
over the next 75 years, the revenue loss would be more than three times the entire projected Social Security shortfall.
More fun with extrapolation: If the temperature declines over the past two days continue, by summer 2011, we will have broken through absolute zero in Chicago
So giving in to Republican demands would mean risking a major fiscal crisis — a crisis that could be resolved only by making savage cuts in federal spending.
No sarcasm, I really like the use of “savage” there. In one word it conveys his entire message—wrong though it may be. Props. (Again, find a hoodlum who speaks “street.”)
And we’re not talking about government programs nobody cares about: the only way to cut spending enough to pay for the Bush tax cuts in the long run would be to dismantle large parts of Social Security and Medicare.
[Wistful sigh]…If only.
So the potential cost of giving in to Republican demands is high.
Excellent nutshelling.
What about the costs of letting the tax cuts expire? To be sure, letting taxes rise in a depressed economy would do damage — but not as much as many people seem to think.
“To be sure, it’s not helpful to cut off your nose, but your face really has it coming.”
A few months ago, the Congressional Budget Office released a report on the impact of various tax options.
Ah yes, the same CBO who thinks that Obamacare is deficit neutral. Are these also the same geniuses who promised that if the stimulus passed, unemployment would never top eight percent? Forgive me if I don’t trust my country’s financial and economic stability to their dubious competence.
A two-year extension of the Bush tax cuts, it estimated, would lower the unemployment rate next year by between 0.1 and 0.3 percentage points compared with what it would be if the tax cuts were allowed to expire; the effect would be about twice as large in 2012.
That’s just shy of 800,000 jobs. Just saying.
Those are significant numbers, but not huge — certainly not enough to justify the apocalyptic rhetoric one often hears about what will happen if the tax cuts are allowed to end on schedule.
The apocalyptic rhetoric comes because we as Americans find the idea of a runaway government hateful. It’s the reason we fought our revolution, and the pursuit of government that is both responsible and responsive had been the underpinning the morality of the United States
Oh, and what about confidence? I’ve been skeptical about claims that budget deficits hurt the economy even in the short run, because they undermine confidence in the government’s long-run solvency. Advanced countries, I’ve argued, have a lot of fiscal leeway.
This is just fucking stupid. When the financial industry turns on you; when the bond market decides that they risk associated with your offerings is too great to ignore, the price change isn’t a slow gradually rising warning. It can happen in minutes, and a crucial pillar of economic support crumbles. Why would we want to walk a tightrope along the edge of a cliff? Why would we even consider dipping a toe into the void? Cut taxes to grow GDP. Cut spending to shrink the deficit.
But anything that makes permanent extension of obviously irresponsible tax cuts more likely also sends a strong signal to investors: it says, “Hey, we aren’t really an advanced country; we’re a banana republic!”
This is the essence of positing a non-disprovable theory. Advanced economies have a lot of leeway, except when the do things that I don’t like, in which case I say that they’re not advanced economies and I get to cling to my scribbled ramblings with renewed fervor.
And that can’t be good for the economy.
Last but not least: if Democrats give in to the blackmailers now, they’ll just face more demands in the future.
This from the party that made negotiating with terrorists a campaign pledge?
As long as Republicans believe that Mr. Obama will do anything to avoid short-term pain, they’ll have every incentive to keep taking hostages. If the president will endanger America
Leave it to Krugman to woefully miscalculate the very basic political arithmetic. Regardless of the minutiae surrounding the idea, tax increases are bad, and every American knows it. Similarly, a government shutdown is bad, and just about every American knows it. By flipping Democrats from the party backing tax hikes to the party fighting valiantly against a government shutdown, the roles are then inverted. Obama would be able to fight that because he would have political capital. Now, with the shit he’s pulled the last two years, sticking to your guns on tax increases is a good way to get bitchslapped into the 30s in approval rating by the American people.
So Mr. Obama should draw a line in the sand, right here, right now. If Republicans hold out, and taxes go up, he should tell the nation the truth, and denounce the blackmail attempt for what it is.
A principled fight against tax hikes.
Yes, letting taxes go up would be politically risky.
Try “calamitous”
But giving in would be risky, too — especially for a president whom voters are starting to write off as a man too timid to take a stand.
Surely tax increases will convince the American people that Obama is a man of principles! Nevermind which principles, I’m trying to make a point here!
Now is the time for him to prove them wrong.
Alternately, now is the time not to pick a losing battle because raising taxes in a recession is fucking stupid. Y’know…either or.
No comments:
Post a Comment