Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Fiscal Fakers, Fools, Frontmen And Fatheads

Within hours of President Obama's budget proposal on Monday, Tea Party jokes Jim DeMint and Mike Pence went berserk, saying the President's budget would doom the country because it doesn't cut the deficit enough.

They then proceeded to unveil their own plan to add trillions to the national debt.

Make permanent the 2001 and 2003 individual income tax relief for all hard-working Americans -- preserving the 10%, 15%, 25%, 28%, 33% and 35% income tax brackets, rather than allowing President Obama and Democrats to increase the top tax bracket to 39.6% and increase taxes on the lowest earning Americans in the bottom 10% bracket;
Permanently repeal the immoral and unfair death tax, which increases from 35% to 55% on Jan. 1, 2013. Permanent repeal of the death tax would increase GDP by $118.8 billion and lead to $23.3 billion per year in new federal revenue;
Prevent the tax increase on capital gains and dividends income for all Americans, rather than allowing the Democrats to increase the rates to 20% from the current 15%; and
Permanently patch the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT).

You got it.  Tax cuts, overwhelmingly for the wealthy.   Trillions of dollars in tax cuts that will magically raise federal revenue.  No mention anywhere in the plan how to pay for it.  But we have to eliminate $100 billion in spending right now or the country will implode.  Meanwhile, it's perfectly okay to add ten, a hundred times that to the national debt because tax cuts magically create more additional revenue than is lost through taxes not paid!

And we're supposed to take these clowns seriously?   Right.

3 comments:

  1. Meanwhile, it's perfectly okay to add ten, a hundred times that to the national debt because tax cuts magically create more additional revenue than is lost through taxes not paid!

    You want to look at the OMB tables showing increased federal revenue during 2003 through 2007, following the Bush tax cuts?

    And we're supposed to take seriously the clowns who make statements like the one I quoted above? Right.

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  2. Huh? Then why are we in a huge deficit if tax cuts magically raised revenue?

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  3. Nerem:

    Huh? Then why are we in a huge deficit if tax cuts magically raised revenue?

    There was nothing magical about the increase in revenues. They happened.

    We are in a deficit because spending, first under Republicans and then under Democrats, increased by a greater amount than the amount of increased revenues received. As I mentioned, the OMB tables show that clearly (you can get to them here; it opens an Excel spreadsheet).

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