The Bush Tax Cuts
By JR Hoeft | Thursday, November 4th, 2010 | PolicyI am starting to see a meme from Dems that if we extend the Bush Tax cuts, the government will “lose” money.
Uh…jackass (yes, that’s your logo)…you’re not collecting the money right now, so how can you “lose” it? But if we fail to extend the cuts, that means more people will have to pay taxes, meaning those folks actually will “lose” money to the federal government – money they could be using, as they are now, to pay bills, make payroll, etc.
If they can’t pay bills and make payroll, what will that do to our current economic environment?
Seriously, I can’t believe the way some people think.
Tags:
Contribute for Conservatism!
Share this post
About the author
Conservative to the core; liberal with his opinion! J.R. has been involved in politics for over a decade and has worked on several campaigns in Hampton Roads. He has served on the Executive Committee of the Republican Party of Chesapeake and the Central Committee of the Republican Party of Virginia. He is also the director of “Blogs United” in Virginia. E-mail J.R.. Follow J.R. on Twitter.
We're 75% there! Thank you to everyone who has so far contributed! Just $2000 to go!
Comments
6 Responses to "The Bush Tax Cuts"
Yet you cry deficits! deficits! without making any actual spending cuts. Sure, point at targeting health care reform as a cut, even though it is actually going to save money in the long run.
If I remember correctly, people did pretty well before the Bush tax cuts, on both ends of the fiscal spectrum.
Let’s stop giving a tax cut to the top and maintain them for the middle class who are struggling to make ends meet.
Can’t cut the deficit significantly if you let the cuts continue. I’d sit on it and let the prior GOP votes to let them expire become reality. Then in January, the new Congress can add the Obama cuts! Oh wouldn’t that make then choke… But a tax cut is a tax cut! Does it really matter who’s name is on the cut? LOL
Obama Tax Cuts… Has a great ring to it and I wonder if the GOP could actually bring themselves to vote for Obama’s plan even if they were identical to the current Bush version?
The whole premise of this post is absurd. I know of no one who is arguing that the government would “lose” money if the tax cuts are extended.
What people serious about narrowing the deficit do argue is that extension of the tax cuts causes the deficit to be larger than it would be, compared to if the government was collecting that money in taxes.
This is not a partisan statement. This is not a ideological position on the wisdom or necessity of existing taxes or tax increases. It is simply a mathematical fact.
Still, aside from all the non-economic ideological peccadilloes about taxes that seem to dictate tax policy among Right Wingers, the budget deficit is a nasty problem that one day will require a solution that actually works.
This blog is really quite amusing.
Speaking of absurd and amusing…
Every Dem inside and outside of political office whines that tax cuts have to be paid for. Google it. Doesn’t that mean they contend the brontosaurus govt would “lose” money otherwise?
And a lib who complains that the budget deficit is a nasty problem hasn’t been listening to the Dems in Congress, Obama or the Fed who are spending and printing trillions of dollars to “save” the economy. Translation Tax and Spend until the workers paradise arrives under the wise hand of the gangster socialists.
It’s a negotiable issue. How about letting them expire, only for people making over $500K? How about a $1 million. And you get some deficit reduction. Is the Tea Party willing to go along with high deficits to fund taxcuts Specifically for millionaires?
@valentinus
I notice you comment is unresponsive, and like this post focuses on the semantics of the debate, rather than the substance of the debate. I understand, as the actual facts do not fit neatly with the GOP and Conservative “tax cuts at all costs and in all economic situations” mantra.
Here is a simple question: If all of the Bush tax cuts are allowed to expire (as a Republican Congress voted they should) at the end of the year, would the deficit be larger or smaller in FY2012 and beyond?
As for whether the deficit is a “nasty” problem, the fact is that it is a matter for debate. I think most people look at it and intuitively sense there is something wrong. On the other hand, debt markets do not seem overly concerned about it, and the folks that have their money on the table are usually better judges of the fiscal condition of their investments that voters who pay attention to the issue for 15 minutes every two or four years (although that sentiment, of course, can turn on a dime, and inevitably will change).
Leave your response