Page 2 of 4 1234
Results 11 to 20 of 32
  1. Havakasha is offline
    Legend
    Havakasha's Avatar
    Joined: Sep 2009 Posts: 5,358
    06-08-2012, 12:57 AM #11
    Tax hikes vs. tax cuts

    Using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics CES survey, I compared the number of jobs created in the years following the balanced budget bill signed by President Clinton in August 1993 and after the second round of Bush tax cuts, which went into effect in May 2003. (Supply-siders think that was the real deal, not the earlier 2001 cuts.)

    Nearly 20 million private sector jobs were created from the August 1993 tax increase until the end of the Clinton administration in December 2000. The number following the Bush tax cuts, in a shorter time period (May 1993 to December 1997, when the Great Recession began), was above seven million.

    But when I actually counted the jobs created in various industries and eliminated those that clearly had nothing to do with lower marginal tax rates, I was left with a much smaller number: two million at most, a dreadful performance by any measurement.

    This isn’t an academic exercise. A 20% cut in marginal tax rates, including reducing the top tax rate to 28% from 35%, is a key plank of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s economic growth plan (along with cuts in business taxes and reduced regulation, which I won’t cover in this column).

    One of former Gov. Romney’s top economic advisers, Glenn Hubbard, the dean of the Columbia Business School, wasn’t available for an interview, nor could the Romney campaign provide another adviser by deadline. Top Bush economist Lawrence Lindsey also wasn’t available.

    Yet Hubbard, along with former Sen. Phil Gramm (Mr. Banking Deregulation of the late 1990s), penned an op-ed Thursday in the Wall Street Journal comparing the current recession with “the superior job creation and income growth” of — wait for it — the 1980s.

    Again, no mention of the Clinton 1990s or the Bush tax cuts, of which Hubbard was a prime architect as chairman of the president’s Council of Economic Advisers.

    Keep on reading.
    http://www.marketwatch.com/story/its...ics-2012-06-08

  2. SiriuslyLong is offline
    Guru
    SiriuslyLong's Avatar
    Joined: Jan 2009 Location: Ann Arbor, MI Posts: 3,560
    06-08-2012, 07:33 AM #12
    "Bush was the most profligate spender in American history! Until Obama came along and pulled out all the stops. No change here.

    There is one key difference. No other president came close to collecting more taxes than George Bush, nor did any ask the rich to carry as large a percentage of the nation's total tax burden. And he did that despite, and some say because, he lowered marginal tax rates. Oddly enough, I don't recall the rich doing that much complaining. Perhaps they were too busy growing the economy.

    Barack Obama can only dream of fleecing the rich as successfully as his predecessor. By focusing on maximizing tax rates instead of tax revenue he makes his job harder. Which is why his base may think class warfare tastes great, but when it comes to the treasury it is sure to be less filling."

    http://www.realclearmarkets.com/arti...ing_98968.html

  3. Havakasha is offline
    Legend
    Havakasha's Avatar
    Joined: Sep 2009 Posts: 5,358
    06-08-2012, 09:18 AM #13
    "too busy growing the economy" Under Bush? Are you kidding. You really have to check the facts of what happened to the U.S.
    country under Bush.


    President Obama spent on getting us out of the 2nd worst recession in our history. He also had to spend for the 2 wars that Bush
    started.

  4. Havakasha is offline
    Legend
    Havakasha's Avatar
    Joined: Sep 2009 Posts: 5,358
    06-08-2012, 09:21 AM #14
    Here is a quick one:


    Mitt Romney claims President Barack Obama’s spending amounts to an “inferno.” But who is really responsible for the huge jump that took place in fiscal 2009? Here are some undisputed facts:

    Fiscal 2009 began Oct. 1, 2008. That was before Obama was elected, and nearly four months before he took office on Jan. 20, 2009.
    President Bush signed the massive spending bill under which the government was operating when Obama took office. That was Sept. 30, 2008. As The Associated Press noted, it combined “a record Pentagon budget with aid for automakers and natural disaster victims, and increased health care funding for veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.”
    Bush also signed, on Oct. 3, 2008, a bank bailout bill that authorized another $700 billion to avert a looming financial collapse (though not all of that would end up being spent in fiscal 2009, and Obama later signed a measure reducing total authorized bailout spending to $475 billion).
    On Jan. 7, 2009 — two weeks before Obama took office — the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office issued its regular budget outlook, stating: “CBO projects that the deficit this year will total $1.2 trillion.”
    CBO attributed the rapid rise in spending to the bank bailout and the federal takeover of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – plus rising costs for unemployment insurance and other factors driven by the collapsing economy (which shed 818,000 jobs in January alone).
    Another factor beyond Obama’s control was an automatic 5.8 percent cost of living increase announced in October 2008 and given to Social Security beneficiaries in January 2009. It was the largest since 1982. Social Security spending alone rose $66 billion in fiscal 2009, and Medicare spending, driven by rising medical costs, rose $39 billion.

  5. SiriuslyLong is offline
    Guru
    SiriuslyLong's Avatar
    Joined: Jan 2009 Location: Ann Arbor, MI Posts: 3,560
    06-08-2012, 09:24 AM #15
    Did George Bush Raise Taxes?

    The debate rages over whether our country can afford to extend the Bush tax cuts for the rich. Progressives argue that the ballooning Federal debt is a legacy of these tax cuts.

    There is one unreported flaw in this argument. As data from the IRS show, George Bush did not cut income taxes. He increased them. In fact, Bush increased income taxes not only for the rich but for at least half of all tax filers. Only the poor paid less income tax under George Bush than under Bill Clinton.

    WHAT?

    Go to the IRS website and add up the numbers for yourself. During the eight years of the Clinton Administration the Federal government collected a total of $5.66 trillion dollars in individual income taxes. During the eight years of the Bush Administration the Federal government collected approximately $7.45 trillion dollars in individual income taxes. The rich - that is, the top 1% of taxpayers - not only forked over a trillion dollars more to Uncle Sam under Bush than under Clinton, their share of the income tax burden increased from 33% to 38%.

    But wait, there’s more.

    http://alhambrainvestments.com/blog/...h-raise-taxes/

  6. Havakasha is offline
    Legend
    Havakasha's Avatar
    Joined: Sep 2009 Posts: 5,358
    06-11-2012, 11:36 PM #16
    MON JUN 11, 2012 AT 05:00 PM PDT
    Trivia question: Which 21st century U.S. president nearly choked the life out of the private sector?
    byJed Lewison
    Fun fact: On average, more private sector jobs have been created each month under Obama than in eight full years of Bush.
    — @jedlewison via Twitter for Mac
    You probably already know that George W. Bush had a net negative private sector jobs creation record, losing 646,000 jobs.
    And you also probably know President Obama has a net positive private sector jobs creation record, with private sector payrolls up by 55,000.

    And you might even know that because of a quirk on the way jobs are reported, roughly a quarter-million jobs that were lost between Jan. 12 and Jan. 21 are generally said to have occurred during the Obama administration, not the Bush one—even though they didn't. Because of that, the real numbers are probably more like 900,000 private sector jobs lost during the Bush presidency and 300,000 jobs created so far under Obama.

    But even those numbers don't tell the whole story because when President Obama took office, the economy was in collapse—and over the past 27 months, the private sector has gained 4.3 million jobs. That's not perfect, but it's a lot better than things were under Bush, and it's a lot better than things are now in the public sector—and that's the point President Obama was making on Friday.

    No matter how you slice it, however, Obama's private sector jobs record is much better than Bush's. There's simply no question about it—and it really shouldn't be a tough trivia question.

    But here's a question that is hard to answer: Given Bush's abysmal economic record, why is Mitt Romney proposing to double down on Bush's economic policies?

    (Note: The data source for the numbers cited in this post is the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Raw data here.)

  7. SiriuslyLong is offline
    Guru
    SiriuslyLong's Avatar
    Joined: Jan 2009 Location: Ann Arbor, MI Posts: 3,560
    06-12-2012, 09:35 AM #17
    "Given Bush's abysmal economic record, why is Mitt Romney proposing to double down on Bush's economic policies?"

    I thought liberals liked tax revenue? Oh, that's right, they like to talk about TAX RATES not TAX REVENUE. If Romney does indeed "double down" on Bush's economic policies, history would indicate that tax receipts will flourish.

  8. Havakasha is offline
    Legend
    Havakasha's Avatar
    Joined: Sep 2009 Posts: 5,358
    06-12-2012, 08:08 PM #18
    Bush's economic policies were a disaster for this country. Its impossible to deny that fact,
    unless of course.....


    Mitt Romney's 'Absurd' Claim Misses Billions In Federal Funds For Cops, Teachers, Firefighters
    Posted: 06/12/2012 5:04 pm Updated: 06/12/2012 5:28 pm


    Mitt Romney was only off by billions of dollars when he said Tuesday that the federal government doesn't pay for police officers, firefighters and teachers.

    Trying to counter criticism from the White House, Romney argued that it was "completely absurd" to say he would cut the hiring of such civil servants because the federal government plays no part in those decisions.

    "That's a very strange accusation," Romney said on "Fox & Friends." "Of course, teachers and firemen and policemen are hired at the local level and also by states. The federal government doesn't pay for teachers, firefighters or policemen. So obviously that is completely absurd."

    In fact, the federal government spends huge amounts of money to support all those professions.

    Back in the Lyndon Johnson administration, it started paying out Title 1 education funds, and this year, it is slated to spend $14.5 billion under Title 1. The money is meant to help disadvantaged schools. The bulk of it is used for personnel costs.

    In 1975, Congress passed the predecessor law to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, designed to improve special education. Programs under IDEA received $11.6 billion in funding in 2012, and much of that money goes to hiring teachers.

    In all, the federal government pays for nearly 11 percent of the country's public school costs.


    Uncle Sam also funds thousands of police jobs ever since the Community Oriented Policing Services program was created in 1994. In its first eight years, COPS provided about a billion dollars annually, mostly for hiring. In 2010, separate from any stimulus spending, the federal government awarded $298 million for 1,388 officers. It spent $247 million to hire more than 1,000 officers in 2011. About 800 will be hired with $111 million in 2012. The Congressional Research Service estimated that as of January 2011 the program had paid for the hiring of 117,000 officers.

    The feds have doled out less for firefighters, but the money is still substantial. In 2009 and 2010, the Federal Emergency Management Agency awarded some $630 million under Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response (SAFER) grants, hiring about 3,400 firefighters. Grants are still being awarded in the 2011-2012 period, for which Congress has set aside about $640 million.

    Nonetheless, Romney on Tuesday appeared to get some backing for his position from Senate Republicans, most prominently Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.).

    "It is not the responsibility of the federal government ... to send money down to state government so that state governments don't have to make tough decisions about balancing their budgets," McConnell told reporters. "We all admire police officers, firefighters and teachers. The decision about how many of those folks to have rests in the hands of state and local governments."

    Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) offered a similar sentiment later on the Senate floor.

    A McConnell spokesman did not immediately answer a question about whether the minority leader thought it was time to stop federal spending under Title 1, IDEA, COPS and the SAFER program.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/0...n_1590872.html

  9. SiriuslyLong is offline
    Guru
    SiriuslyLong's Avatar
    Joined: Jan 2009 Location: Ann Arbor, MI Posts: 3,560
    06-12-2012, 08:44 PM #19
    Quote Originally Posted by SiriuslyLong View Post
    Did George Bush Raise Taxes?

    The debate rages over whether our country can afford to extend the Bush tax cuts for the rich. Progressives argue that the ballooning Federal debt is a legacy of these tax cuts.

    There is one unreported flaw in this argument. As data from the IRS show, George Bush did not cut income taxes. He increased them. In fact, Bush increased income taxes not only for the rich but for at least half of all tax filers. Only the poor paid less income tax under George Bush than under Bill Clinton.

    WHAT?

    Go to the IRS website and add up the numbers for yourself. During the eight years of the Clinton Administration the Federal government collected a total of $5.66 trillion dollars in individual income taxes. During the eight years of the Bush Administration the Federal government collected approximately $7.45 trillion dollars in individual income taxes. The rich - that is, the top 1% of taxpayers - not only forked over a trillion dollars more to Uncle Sam under Bush than under Clinton, their share of the income tax burden increased from 33% to 38%.

    But wait, there’s more.

    http://alhambrainvestments.com/blog/...h-raise-taxes/
    Yeap, that's a disaster....

  10. Havakasha is offline
    Legend
    Havakasha's Avatar
    Joined: Sep 2009 Posts: 5,358
    06-13-2012, 12:06 AM #20
    Bush produced negative job growth over 4 years, helped to throw the country into its second worst recession, got us into 2 wars
    and paid for them off the books, all leading to massive unemployment and increasing debt. Brilliant.


    http://marketplayground.com/2012/06/12/robert-reich-why-the-economy-can’t-get-out-of-first-gear/#more-23074
    Robert Reich: Why The Economy Can’t Get Out Of First Gear
    No CommentsPosted 12 Jun 2012
    Category Economy, Government, Market News, Politics
    By Robert Reich

    Robert Reich
    Rarely in history has the cause of a major economic problem been so clear yet have so few been willing to see it.

    The major reason this recovery has been so anemic is not Europe’s debt crisis. It’s not Japan’s tsumami. It’s not Wall Street’s continuing excesses. It’s not, as right-wing economists tell us, because taxes are too high on corporations and the rich, and safety nets are too generous to the needy. It’s not even, as some liberals contend, because the Obama administration hasn’t spent enough on a temporary Keynesian stimulus.

    The answer is in front of our faces. It’s because American consumers, whose spending is 70 percent of economic activity, don’t have the dough to buy enough to boost the economy – and they can no longer borrow like they could before the crash of 2008.

    If you have any doubt, just take a look at the Survey of Consumer Finances, released Monday by the Federal Reserve. Median family income was $49,600 in 2007. By 2010 it was $45,800 – a drop of 7.7%.

    All of the gains from economic growth have been going to the richest 1 percent – who, because they’re so rich, spend no more than half what they take in.

    Can I say this any more simply? The earnings of the great American middle class fueled the great American expansion for three decades after World War II. Their relative lack of earnings in more recent years set us up for the great American bust.

Page 2 of 4 1234