Despite the Ass-kissing, Stimulus Plan Passes Without a Single Republican Vote

STOP RIGHT THERE.

That's bullshit my brother. The tax cuts did no such thing. You're repeating the right-wing mantra of "more money in thei pockets." The tiny tax cuts most Americans got went towards paying debt.

Let's have this conversation .. without the bullshit.




Some tax cuts are indeed needed, including some to small businesses. I own a business and would welcome a tax cut. However, tax cuts should take a much smaller percentage of this stimulus plan than spending, even if that means no tax cut for me. Many small businesses are doomed to failure anyway because of bad business planning. I know, been there, done that. Throwing money as such businesses may keep them afloat for a while, but it won't stimulate the economy.

We can most certainly have the conversation... but pretending that tax cuts don't work simply because of where we are now is quite simply... ignorant.

As I said, there is a balance. You cannot cut taxes without eventually cutting spending. It was the massive spending, the removal of Glass Steagall and the insanely low interest rates from Greenspan from 2001-2004 that killed us. It was not the tax cuts. If you decrease taxes too far, you don't have the revenue you need, if you raise them too much you stiffle growth. So those who say tax cuts don't work are just as moronic as those that say they always work. It is a package deal. You CAN cut taxes and increase spending in the short run. Both provide stimulus to the economy. But you cannot do both for the long run. THAT is where the problems occur.

As for small businesses... true, most end up failing... but here is a secret... those that are not profitable... are not paying taxes on income. It is the profitable small businesses that are being supported with tax cuts on their income.

Side note... tax cuts ARE a smaller percentage of this package than spending.
 
"I posted an article that described what Obama has caved on .. so far"

No; you posted an interview with a leftie, who asserted that Obama had caved, but was admittedly vague on the details. I provided them. The majority of tax cuts are not going to "the rich." They're going to pretty much exactly who Obama said they'd go to throughout the campaign.

If Obama differs with you & he regarding the effectiveness of tax cuts at a time like this, so be it. I do NOT disagree with him, nor do many of those on the left. It doesn't mean he's "caving" to Republicans. It's a disagreement on economic theory.

The fact that you're still in the dark about this is fairly astounding.

The fact that you don't seem to have the curiosity to research what is truth is even more astounding.

If I may .. you're a democrat .. you don't speak for those of us on the left .. whom you call "lefties."
 
The fact that you're still in the dark about this is fairly astounding.

The fact that you don't seem to have the curiosity to research what is truth is even more astounding.

If I may .. you're a democrat .. you don't speak for those of us on the left .. whom you call "lefties."

I researched what the tax cuts actually were. Like I said, the guy in your interview could offer up "what I've heard" on the tax cuts as his main line of reasoning for "the cave."

I'm on the left. You don't speak for me, either; at all.
 
But see, corporations don't want to create jobs here, because they can go elsewhere and hire slaves. it would be a boon for american workers if we just stopped all trade from nations based on slave labor and mistreatment.

Protectionism Now!

protectionism is not the new boogey man, globalization is.

Corporations are not going to be able to hire people in other countries for jobs that HAVE to be done here.

Sorry, but you cannot pay someone in India to build a bridge here in the US. That is why the jobs created should be infrastructure buildout. Either the traditional such as upgrading roads, bridges, damns, levees etc... or a buildout of renewable energy capabilities. (yes, I know... you think they are bogus... blah blah blah)
 
Corporations are not going to be able to hire people in other countries for jobs that HAVE to be done here.

Sorry, but you cannot pay someone in India to build a bridge here in the US. That is why the jobs created should be infrastructure buildout. Either the traditional such as upgrading roads, bridges, damns, levees etc... or a buildout of renewable energy capabilities. (yes, I know... you think they are bogus... blah blah blah)

Ok. But to save jobs at all levels, we should implement protectionist measures. It;s not communism. It's not naziism. It's the ideology that made america strong and self sufficient.
 
We can most certainly have the conversation... but pretending that tax cuts don't work simply because of where we are now is quite simply... ignorant.

As I said, there is a balance. You cannot cut taxes without eventually cutting spending. It was the massive spending, the removal of Glass Steagall and the insanely low interest rates from Greenspan from 2001-2004 that killed us. It was not the tax cuts. If you decrease taxes too far, you don't have the revenue you need, if you raise them too much you stiffle growth. So those who say tax cuts don't work are just as moronic as those that say they always work. It is a package deal. You CAN cut taxes and increase spending in the short run. Both provide stimulus to the economy. But you cannot do both for the long run. THAT is where the problems occur.

As for small businesses... true, most end up failing... but here is a secret... those that are not profitable... are not paying taxes on income. It is the profitable small businesses that are being supported with tax cuts on their income.

Side note... tax cuts ARE a smaller percentage of this package than spending.

Sure .. then there is reality.

Bush tax cut mythology

As the debate turns to economic stimulus, we’re starting to hear this: “Bush realized that the economy needed help, so he asked Congress to enact tax cuts to provide stimulus. And this turned the economy around.”

None of this is true.

There were two main Bush tax cuts — EGTRRA, enacted in mid-2001, and JGTRRA, enacted in 2003. (What do the letters stand for? All sorts of good stuff. If we ever have legislation decreeing death of the first-born, it will be named MPAPRA, the Motherhood Patriotism and Apple Pie Reconcilation Act, or something like that.) (I think I screwed up the letters on the chart, but it really doesn’t matter.)

Here’s the employment-population ratio, which gives a pretty good read on the state of the economy, and the timing of the two tax cuts.

Click on link for the graph

EGTRRA arrived in the middle of a recession, but that was an accident. It was devised in 1999, when the economy was booming, to defend Bush’s right flank against Steve Forbes. During the 2000 campaign, Bush sold it as a way of returning budget surpluses to the people, with not a hint that it had something to do with fighting recession. The recession story was an after-the-fact reinvention.

And EGTRRA didn’t seem to help all that much. Formally, the recession ended in late 2001, but most labor-market indicators continued to worsen into mid-2003.

JGTRRA, which mainly cut tax rates on capital gains and dividends, was followed by a real recovery. And the Bushies naturally claimed the credit. But the real source of the expansion was the housing boom, which had very little to do with the tax cut.

This is today’s history lesson.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/01/14/bush-tax-cut-mythology/

A lesson from the guy who won the Nobel Prize for Economics.

By the way, I never said tax cuts weren't smaller than spending .. I said they should be much smaller.
 
Well, at least that f'ing Cawacko learned his lesson and isn't on this thread running his mouth anymore.

If I see him on here again, I am going to run his ass off here again!
 
I researched what the tax cuts actually were. Like I said, the guy in your interview could offer up "what I've heard" on the tax cuts as his main line of reasoning for "the cave."

I'm on the left. You don't speak for me, either; at all.

I'm comfortable with whatever you want to call yourself. Your reasoning is not on the left.
 
Historical precedents are out the window w/ this crisis.

Does anyone want to try to argue that massive infrastructure investment is the "real" tonic for this, using the 1930's as an example?
 
Historical precedents are out the window w/ this crisis.

Does anyone want to try to argue that massive infrastructure investment is the "real" tonic for this, using the 1930's as an example?

Krugman has already done that, as have other economists, when the first round of "FDR caused the depression" started coming from the right wing revisionists.

It's probably in archived stuff on his blog. I remember it was very interesting reading.
 
Historical precedents are out the window w/ this crisis.

Does anyone want to try to argue that massive infrastructure investment is the "real" tonic for this, using the 1930's as an example?
I like the idea of becoming the source of the new "green" technology. The producers. Production will get us out of it, not temporary infrastructure investment. (Although infrastructure is important). While I may disagree on the reason for the need, the idea is a good one regardless.
 
I like the idea of becoming the source of the new "green" technology. The producers. Production will get us out of it, not temporary infrastructure investment. (Although infrastructure is important). While I may disagree on the reason for the need, the idea is a good one regardless.

An entire industry created by government fiat? It's fucking dumb. sorry. these kinds of irrational bubbles are what got us here.
 
Chapdog - That's just not true. That's horseshit from the Wall Street Journal. What the bill prohibits is stimulus funds being used for school voucher programs. Nothing more.

Stop reading that crap.

right... it protects the unionized public schools from competition.
 
One interesting thing about Obama putting the tax cuts in from the outset is that at the end of the day the Democrats voted in favor of tax cuts and the Republicans voted against tax cuts. That's fucking strange.
 
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