Hard News by Russell Brown

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Hard News: Fox News: I know, right?

56 Responses

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  • Graeme Edgeler, in reply to WH,

    The US is running a huge deficit caused in large part by tax cuts on upper income earners. Before that stroke of genius there was as surplus.

    The US is running a deficit because it is spending more than it earns. We could just as easily claim that the failure to raise taxes on poor people is causing it. There is no reason to look at the status quo ante as against any other taxing system.

    Wellington, New Zealand • Since Nov 2006 • 3215 posts Report Reply

  • Keir Leslie,

    I think it makes sense to say the deficit was caused by the Bush tax cuts and the Bush war.

    The reason we look at the status quo ante is that we want to attribute causation to a thing done by someone; in this case, the obvious thing is cuts, and the someone is Bush.

    Since Jul 2008 • 1452 posts Report Reply

  • Brodie Davis,

    except that doesn't really work. The bottom 50% of Americas population only control 2.5% of the wealth. So you would need to take all of it to equal the tax take reduction of the high income tax cuts in America. That is not just take all of their income, but everything they own. Its just a mugs game.

    re:
    http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-august-18-2011/world-of-class-warfare---the-poor-s-free-ride-is-over

    Since Aug 2008 • 54 posts Report Reply

  • Bart Janssen, in reply to Graeme Edgeler,

    The US is running a deficit because it is spending more than it earns. We could just as easily claim that the failure to raise taxes on poor people is causing it.

    But the point you are casually ignoring, is that tax rates were reduced and the biggest benefactors of that reduction were the rich.

    Raising taxes for the poor does not create anywhere nearly enough revenue.

    And the problem with the US deficit has been a drop in revenue NOT an increase in expenditure.

    Auckland • Since Nov 2006 • 4461 posts Report Reply

  • WH,

    The US is running a deficit because it is spending more than it earns.

    Jon Stewart argued that preferential tax rates on investment income are a form of cross-subsidy as against wage and salary earners. I think that basically holds up.

    We could just as easily claim that the failure to raise taxes on poor people is causing it. There is no reason to look at the status quo ante as against any other taxing system.

    I think we can tell meaningful causal stories about the path of the US deficit. It's important to separate the fiscal effect of actual policies (such as Bush's tax cuts) from choices that could have been made but were not.

    It's actually quite hard not to compare policies against the status quo when you're faced with the choice of what to vote for.

    Since Nov 2006 • 797 posts Report Reply

  • Matthew Littlewood,

    I've become increasingly in awe of Tom Tomorrow's (AKA Dan Perkins') ability to wring absurdist, jaw-dropping satirical humour out of US politics, when it's already plenty absurd and jaw-dropping as it is, but his latest cartoon riffing on Mitt's gaffes is just beyond fantastic.

    http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/09/24/1134459/-Further-gaffes

    Seriously, how does he make the long-hanging fruit seem so exotic and delicious?

    Today, Tomorrow, Timaru • Since Jan 2007 • 449 posts Report Reply

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