tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13054771.post114693069440420327..comments2024-01-24T04:59:45.518-05:00Comments on Jewish Atheist: Why Conservatives Should Support Higher TaxesJewish Atheisthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04616617537150446818noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13054771.post-1147008875058829352006-05-07T09:34:00.000-04:002006-05-07T09:34:00.000-04:00Didn't Reagan pass the biggest tax hike in the his...Didn't Reagan pass the biggest tax hike in the history of the country..a fact most people don't remember. Prior to Reagan, social security payments were not taxed and you could deduct the interest on your credit cards. <BR/><BR/>Also, doesn't it take at least 12 months for any economic plan to take effect in a country as large as this one?asherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09237854868544073084noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13054771.post-1146987195337036242006-05-07T03:33:00.000-04:002006-05-07T03:33:00.000-04:00Again looking at 1981 to 2005, Niskanen then asked...<I>Again looking at 1981 to 2005, Niskanen then asked at what level taxes neither increase nor decrease spending. The answer: about 19 percent of the GDP. In other words, taxation above that level shrinks government, and taxation below it makes government grow. Thanks to the Bush tax cuts, revenues have been well below 19 percent since 2002 (17.8 percent last year). Perhaps not surprisingly, government spending has risen under Bush.</I><BR/><BR/>No time for whole thing now, but this shows one of the major flaws here: Revenues as a % of GDP is meaningless; the revenues as a % of GDP have gone down simply because of the strong GDP growth; but in reality, revenues themselves are way up.<BR/><BR/>The article also fails to take into account quality of life issues which is one of the main drives of increased GDP...Ezziehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12494592434522239195noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13054771.post-1146974579457393952006-05-07T00:02:00.000-04:002006-05-07T00:02:00.000-04:00Erm, no. What's actually happening is that you're ...<I>Erm, no. What's actually happening is that you're paying for 80% of government in cash and putting the other 20% on your credit card, at a non-trivial rate of interest.</I><BR/><BR/>He's not talking about what's "actually happening" -- he's talking about what taxpayers perceive. Sort of like with credit cards for a lot of people, where it doesn't feel like spending so people spend more. I think you're basically saying the same thing actually.<BR/><BR/>I can't speak about the other stuff because I'm not informed enough. :-)Jewish Atheisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04616617537150446818noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13054771.post-1146964985101135012006-05-06T21:23:00.000-04:002006-05-06T21:23:00.000-04:00"Another result is that voters pay for only 80 per..."Another result is that voters pay for only 80 percent of what government actually costs. Think of this as a 20 percent discount on government. "<BR/><BR/>Erm, no. What's actually happening is that you're paying for 80% of government in cash and putting the other 20% on your credit card, at a non-trivial rate of interest. Then repeating the performance the following year without paying off last year's card bill (except, maybe, the interest) and so on until your economy collapses.<BR/><BR/>But yes, to continue the original analogy, people have been known to use credit to buy things they couldn't otherwise afford.<BR/><BR/>"After all, spending (as a share of the gross domestic product, the standard way to measure it) went up, not down, after Reagan cut taxes in the early 1980s; it went down, not up, after the first President Bush and President Clinton raised taxes in the early 1990s; and it went up, not down, following the Bush tax cuts early in this decade."<BR/><BR/>I am not an economist, but this looks like a rather dubious way of doing comparisons to me. All it is saying is that GDP grew faster than spending during the Bush I/Clinton years and vice versa in the Reagan/Bush II years. It isn't saying anything about the actual rate of spending growth. I'd have thought the cash figure adjusted for inflation would be a better way of doing that.<BR/><BR/>And finally, I have to say that any analysis that ignores the fact that Reagan/Bush II were both spending on the military at wartime levels (literally so in the case of Bush II, and spending the USSR into the ground on defence in order to win the cold war for Reagan) and the other two presidents weren't isn't worth the paper it's written on.<BR/><BR/>"Second, conservatives who are serious about halting or reversing the dizzying Bush-era expansion of government—if there are any such conservatives, something of an open question these days" <BR/><BR/>I obviously read different Conservative commenters than the author, but I've read plenty who loathe what Bush is doing to the federal budget. The balanced budget movement is by no means dead on the right.Randomhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12510273350131579837noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13054771.post-1146936594632807422006-05-06T13:29:00.000-04:002006-05-06T13:29:00.000-04:00Yes. Unfortunately people forget that (taxes)(siz...Yes. Unfortunately people forget that <BR/>(taxes)(size of government)=k, where k is a constant. Otherwise, the nation goes into debt. I would love to see lower taxes, but only so that it fits within the bounds of k. <BR/><BR/>Unfortunately, Atlantic Monthly is right at the moment.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com