Saturday, October 6, 2007

Taxes and Employment Growth: How Stupid is Rudy Giuliani?

James Pethokoukis interviewed Rudy right after the “tax summit” in Manchester, N.H.

The Democrats are going to say, "We raised taxes in the '90s, cut the deficit, and the economy boomed." Why not try and rerun the '90s instead of cutting taxes? Because we have actually done more job creation by lowering taxes than by raising taxes.


Really? See this post including the second update with Paul Krugman’s comments. Rudy continues:


The federal government is collecting 21 percent more revenues from the lower taxes than the higher taxes. And when they argue with me about this, most of them are arguing about theory - meaning the Democrats. They've never done it. They've sat in a legislature somewhere and debated. I actually did it. I actually did what I'm talking about. I'm not talking about this from the point of view of theory. I actually did it. I lowered taxes at a time in which we were in economic distress … The Kennedy tax cuts led to the same results of the Reagan tax cuts and the Bush tax cuts. One of the worse tax increases in the history of this country was by Herbert Hoover. They all got frightened with the stock market crash. Taxes got raised, tariffs got raised, and they took what could have been a cyclical problem and turned it into a long, 10-, 12-year problem.

I see Rudy is taking credit for the Clinton boom again. Tax rate cuts leading to more tax revenues - what a complete and utter idiot. Of course, Pethokoukis never challenged this complete and utter horseshit as he rather let Rudy babble some meaningless spin about cutting spending. Rudy notes some government employees will retire, which will likely mean their jobs will have to be filled with someone else. There was not a single serious discussion of what programs would be cut. And not a real follow-up question from Pethokoukis.

I do have a thank you for James Pethokoukis. You had the decency to stop emailing me these utterly worthless pieces of yours. Now if you’d cease from submitting them to U.S. News – maybe they’d hire a real business reporter.

3 comments:

Myrtle Blackwood said...

"..I see Rudy is taking credit for the Clinton boom again."

What Clinton Boom?

2000 – Stock Market Collapse of March 2000. Brenner: an "absurd disconnection between the rise of paper wealth and the growth of actual output, and particularly of profits, in the underlying economy."
"..But with the profitability of the financial sector being dependent on the underlying, actual profitability of the manufacturing sector, the finance-driven growth ultimately had to run out of steam. The dizzying rise in market capitalization of nonfinancial corporations from $4.8 billion in 1994 to $15.6 trillion in the first quarter of 2000 represented what Brenner characterizes as an "absurd disconnection between the rise of paper wealth and the growth of actual output, and particularly of profits, in the underlying economy." The loss of $7 trillion in paper wealth in the stock market collapse that began in March 2000 represented the rude reassertion of the reality of a global economy crippled by overcapacity, overproduction and lack of profitability. With the mechanism of "stock-market Keynesianism" having been exhausted, the capacity of the US economy to avoid a serious and prolonged downturn has been greatly eroded, though Brenner is cautious about writing it off. . ."

Drop Till We Shop?, by WALDEN BELLO
[from the October 21, 2002 issue]
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20021021/bello

Anonymous said...

the question is not how stupid is Rudy


the question is how stupid are the voters.

Anonymous said...

pgl,
Is the question regarding Rudy's intellect or the lack there of intended as a bit of rhetoric? Stupid is not so much the descriptive term that comes to my mind when I think of Giuliani. Opportunist comes to mind. Fawning sycophant to power and money trips across the tongue. Egregious self promoter has the ring of truth to it in the case of the former mayor. He has all the makings of a good fascist.