Thursday, January 3, 2013

Was That the Last Word on Taxes?

Senator McConnell:
Predictably, the President is already claiming that his tax hike on the “rich” isn’t enough. I have news for him: the moment that he and virtually every elected Democrat in Washington signed off on the terms of the current arrangement, it was the last word on taxes.
Economist Andrew Samwick:
In over eight years of blogging, you won't find a single word of praise for the Bush-Obama tax cuts. As a matter of revenue, we now permanently have a tax system that will not raise enough revenue to cover our expenditures.
Mind you – Dr. Samwick served as the chief economist on the staff of the Council of Economic Advisors in 2003 and 2004 (when George W. Bush was President). The question is not whether we will eventually have higher taxes – we will. The question is in what form will those extra taxes be and who will pay them. Naturally, we are not getting as much honesty on this score from Republican politicians as we are getting from Republican economists.

2 comments:

Detroit Dan said...

Revenues do not have to cover expenditures. It's a common, and extremely childish, mistake to confound sovereign budgets with those of private businesses and households.

Please report immediately to the function finance tutorial at NnewEconomicPerspectives.org ...

jamzo said...

82 percent of the bush tax cuts were just made permanent

the goal of the GOP in passing the bush tax cuts was generally achieved

no..they did not get 100%...they only got 82%...

the effect is the same...reduced revenue base for government services..continued deficit accumulation...etc

how did it come about that Obama and the Democrats are celebrating victory for making the bush tax cuts permanent

how did it come about that the economic narrative did not include this perspective in the crisis run-up