Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Arizona, reiterated the GOP mantra that Bush-era tax cuts should continue and entitlement spending be cut. Democrats are keen on letting the Bush-era cuts expire for the highest-income Americans in 2012.Reagan did it. Clinton did it.
"In Washington, there are folks who won't cut a dollar unless we raise taxes," he said on NBC's "Meet the Press."
"If you want to get serious about the deficit our country has to grow economically," Kyl said. "You can't grow if you raise taxes in the middle of a recession."
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Reagan did it. Clinton did it.
On the likely collapse of budget negotiations...
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3 comments:
One can say that Reagan increased taxes right at the end of the recession. And the increase was employment taxes (SS and Medicare) despite the fact that unemployment was very high. By the time Clinton took office the recession had ended.
In both cases, the recovery was in place, especially in 1982 because Volcker had started to drop interest rates. Taxes can be raised right now, but only if it's targeted towards the very rich, such as short term capital gains.
DM
Somebody should remind these republican loons, and their Obama-crat fellow travelers, what the tax rates were on the rich during the administration of the greatest republican ever, Dwight D. Eisenhower.
"You can't grow if you raise taxes in the middle of a recession".
You wonder if this dolt knows what a recession is! On many an occasion, higher taxes and greater government spending have lessened and reversed economic contraction.
But this time, it's far bigger than a recession or even a depression. The parasite called international finance capital has a much tighter hold. This is so to the extent that there is a possibility that an entity such as the US government might actually go bankrupt. That wasn't so in the 1880s or 1930s. No big role for 'ratings agencies' (i.e. the banking police) then. We are in a very very different ballgame.
No technological revolution of an industrial kind is coming. Or even possible, or even wanted. There will be no more global capitalist growth.
I support higher taxes and more government spending on job-creation schemes and welfare; basic social-democratic stuff. I support nationalisation of the banks (and the run-down of their stinking operations). I support a write-off of personal debt and the nationalisation of housing. But there is still no way out other than revolution or mass slaughter of a large part of the population.
We have to wonder why the OWSers haven't come up with an half-decent demands - a point that was raised on this blog some time ago. First and foremost, surely, if we're 'protesting' against 'the banks' is the simple demand: END PERSONAL DEBT. Write it fucking off. Otherwise we just get into imagining we're sports coaches advising the team at half-time, except we're imagining we're economists advising the administration. How about some consciousness of real antagonism?
Every government is a government of bankers' lackeys. They may, however, take welcome action if we force them. So let's force them.
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