Well whatever respect I had for Jonathan Chait as a honest ideological adversary is now lost. Let’s go ahead and discount the theories of supply-side economics, which would suggest that the Bush tax cuts led to greater economic growth and tax revenue down the road than otherwise would’ve been realized. Let’s also ignore the problem with static budget scoring as opposed to dynamic scoring. No, let’s instead rely on a few simple, non-controversial facts and principles:
1. The Bush tax cuts expire starting next year and in 2013, therefore there is no way they can be blamed for deficit growth beyond 2013. If the Bush tax cuts are extended (i.e. taxes are kept at the same level they’ve been at for a good ten years), that is no longer “Bush-era tax cuts” and becomes Obama and the current Congress’ problem / legacy.
2. In the three years after the Bush tax cuts (i.e. from 2004 to 2007), corporate and individual income tax receipts grew by 40%. That suggests that the budget deficit problem is on the spending side of the ledger, not on the revenue side of the ledger.
3. If we’re going to start pointing fingers at previous presidents, how can you ignore FDR and LBJ? I should point out that Social Security is already running a cash deficit — not in 2017 as previously expected.
So go ahead Chait, go ahead Obama — go ahead and let the Bush tax cuts expire. I dare you. I can’t wait to be overloaded by your intellectual dishonesty when the sudden tax hikes stunt and reverse the economic recovery and cause tax receipts and GDP growth to fall well short of expectations, and subsequently your predictions of deficit reductions come up empty.
Alasdair
It has yet to fail to fascinate me how writers like Chait manage to continue to blinker themselves as to who *actually* put together the Federal Budgets with their budgetary imbalance during the past 3 years … (for the David Ks reading this, Obama and his Democrat party are responsible for the past 2 budgets – Obama as Senator and President, and Pelosi and Reid as leaders of their respective Houses of Congress) …
So, yes, Obama did inherit the mess – if one stretches the language to allow someone to inhherit from himself …
kcatnd
“1. The Bush tax cuts expire starting next year and in 2013, therefore there is no way they can be blamed for deficit growth beyond 2013.”
Why not? The effects of the tax cuts won’t vaporize at midnight on New Year’s Eve. You really think they played no part in the current downturn? That seems like an arbitrary cut-off for assessing the long-term effects of a policy. Clinton-era policies on counter-terrorism, for example, clearly affected 9/11 and subsequent actions taken by the Bush administration.
Obama will share some of the responsibility, of course, but he’ll share it with Bush; just as Bush shared responsibility with Clinton for counter-terrorism measures. These things roll-over and overlap. You know this and are fine ignoring it in this case.
You’re ready to point the finger at, oh, what do you know, Democratic/liberal presidents, on one point, but not on another. I know you’re capable of nuance and intelligence, but I think knee-jerk conservative apologetics are getting in the way of objectivity here.
Is it really that difficult to consider that the Bush-era tax cuts weren’t all that great?
Alasdair
kcatnd – “In the three years after the Bush tax cuts (i.e. from 2004 to 2007), corporate and individual income tax receipts grew by 40%. “ – I suspect that Andrew can cite a source for that assertion … it does fit with prior experiences in this country with federal tax cuts during Kennedy and Reagan …
Is it really so difficult to consider that the increased tax revenues caused by the Bush tax cuts were a Good Thing ?
Are you a believer in the theory that we would have been better off without those increased tax revenues ?
Aware folk are predicting that the expiration of the Bush tax cuts are most likely to lead fairly quickly to decreases in tax receipts … how is a decrease in tax receipts going to help our current economic situation ?
David K.
“Obama and his Democrat party are responsible for the past 2 budgets ”
So in Alasdair land Obama and the Democrats started with a blank slate on innaguration day? We weren’t embroiled in two costly wars? The economy wasn’t tanking? Ineffective tax cuts for the rich weren’t in place? Are you saying that Obama took us to war in Iraq and Afghanistan? That Obama caused the Great Recession?
I suppose if your boss came to you and gave you a task to complete that someone else had started it would be all your fault if he had left it in a bad state then? If the job was 1/10th of the way done and it was expected to be 1/2? The fact that it was behind would be your fault? You would take that on yourself?
Somehow I doubt you would, but hey, maybe you are that altruistic.
The bottom line is the Bush administration left America in worse shape than it was when he took office. We are still trying to climb out of the hole he left us in. Yet you want us to blame Obama because we aren’t living in some late 90’s ecnoomic boom? Let me guess, Obama caused the Greek economy to crash too, I mean maybe he hasn’t eaten enough olives or something…
Joe Mama
Chait is usually a worthwhile read; however, this article is just whining about Democrats’ increasing inability to successfully pass the buck. The problem with his argument is that Democrats have controlled Congress for the last 4 years, which means they have been responsible during that time for making law, outlining regulations, appropriating money, etc, not Republicans. Add to that Obama having been in office for the last 16 months with substantial majorities in the House and Senate, and it becomes that much more implausible to all but the most partisan leftist that everything remains the fault of ChimpyMcBushHitlerHalliburton and the GOP. The longer Obama tries to pass the buck, the less presidential he appears.
Joe Mama, I hinted at what I think is a fair trade, from a partisan-bickering perspective. I say, let’s let David K, kcatnd, and Obamaphiles whine about Bush tax cuts, Iraq, and Afghanistan, and we’ll respond by passing the buck back to LBJ and FDR. The actuarial disasters that are the New Deal and Great Society programs are far more indisputable than anything Dubya is responsible for, so if you ask me, I think we have the better end of the stick by quite a bit.
kcatnd
AML, But what do you think about what I actually wrote? Am I being unfair? And just because I don’t subscribe to rigid conservatism like you doesn’t make me a blind partisan. It’s just hard to have any kind of middle-ground conversation with you when I’m trying, for example, to blame Clinton and Bush for their respective lapses, and you respond by defending Bush and putting all of the blame on some “liberal progressive agenda.”
You’re completely incapable of recognizing a moderate voice because anything outside conservative dogma (e.g. Bush tax cuts were good, always, forever) is automatically opposed. Your knuckles must be blinding white from that tight grip on your end of the stick.
Well whatever respect I had for Jonathan Chait as a honest ideological adversary is now lost. Let’s go ahead and discount the theories of supply-side economics, which would suggest that the Bush tax cuts led to greater economic growth and tax revenue down the road than otherwise would’ve been realized. Let’s also ignore the problem with static budget scoring as opposed to dynamic scoring. No, let’s instead rely on a few simple, non-controversial facts and principles:
1. The Bush tax cuts expire starting next year and in 2013, therefore there is no way they can be blamed for deficit growth beyond 2013. If the Bush tax cuts are extended (i.e. taxes are kept at the same level they’ve been at for a good ten years), that is no longer “Bush-era tax cuts” and becomes Obama and the current Congress’ problem / legacy.
2. In the three years after the Bush tax cuts (i.e. from 2004 to 2007), corporate and individual income tax receipts grew by 40%. That suggests that the budget deficit problem is on the spending side of the ledger, not on the revenue side of the ledger.
3. If we’re going to start pointing fingers at previous presidents, how can you ignore FDR and LBJ? I should point out that Social Security is already running a cash deficit — not in 2017 as previously expected.
So go ahead Chait, go ahead Obama — go ahead and let the Bush tax cuts expire. I dare you. I can’t wait to be overloaded by your intellectual dishonesty when the sudden tax hikes stunt and reverse the economic recovery and cause tax receipts and GDP growth to fall well short of expectations, and subsequently your predictions of deficit reductions come up empty.
It has yet to fail to fascinate me how writers like Chait manage to continue to blinker themselves as to who *actually* put together the Federal Budgets with their budgetary imbalance during the past 3 years … (for the David Ks reading this, Obama and his Democrat party are responsible for the past 2 budgets – Obama as Senator and President, and Pelosi and Reid as leaders of their respective Houses of Congress) …
So, yes, Obama did inherit the mess – if one stretches the language to allow someone to inhherit from himself …
“1. The Bush tax cuts expire starting next year and in 2013, therefore there is no way they can be blamed for deficit growth beyond 2013.”
Why not? The effects of the tax cuts won’t vaporize at midnight on New Year’s Eve. You really think they played no part in the current downturn? That seems like an arbitrary cut-off for assessing the long-term effects of a policy. Clinton-era policies on counter-terrorism, for example, clearly affected 9/11 and subsequent actions taken by the Bush administration.
Obama will share some of the responsibility, of course, but he’ll share it with Bush; just as Bush shared responsibility with Clinton for counter-terrorism measures. These things roll-over and overlap. You know this and are fine ignoring it in this case.
You’re ready to point the finger at, oh, what do you know, Democratic/liberal presidents, on one point, but not on another. I know you’re capable of nuance and intelligence, but I think knee-jerk conservative apologetics are getting in the way of objectivity here.
Is it really that difficult to consider that the Bush-era tax cuts weren’t all that great?
kcatnd – “In the three years after the Bush tax cuts (i.e. from 2004 to 2007), corporate and individual income tax receipts grew by 40%. “ – I suspect that Andrew can cite a source for that assertion … it does fit with prior experiences in this country with federal tax cuts during Kennedy and Reagan …
Is it really so difficult to consider that the increased tax revenues caused by the Bush tax cuts were a Good Thing ?
Are you a believer in the theory that we would have been better off without those increased tax revenues ?
Aware folk are predicting that the expiration of the Bush tax cuts are most likely to lead fairly quickly to decreases in tax receipts … how is a decrease in tax receipts going to help our current economic situation ?
“Obama and his Democrat party are responsible for the past 2 budgets ”
So in Alasdair land Obama and the Democrats started with a blank slate on innaguration day? We weren’t embroiled in two costly wars? The economy wasn’t tanking? Ineffective tax cuts for the rich weren’t in place? Are you saying that Obama took us to war in Iraq and Afghanistan? That Obama caused the Great Recession?
I suppose if your boss came to you and gave you a task to complete that someone else had started it would be all your fault if he had left it in a bad state then? If the job was 1/10th of the way done and it was expected to be 1/2? The fact that it was behind would be your fault? You would take that on yourself?
Somehow I doubt you would, but hey, maybe you are that altruistic.
The bottom line is the Bush administration left America in worse shape than it was when he took office. We are still trying to climb out of the hole he left us in. Yet you want us to blame Obama because we aren’t living in some late 90’s ecnoomic boom? Let me guess, Obama caused the Greek economy to crash too, I mean maybe he hasn’t eaten enough olives or something…
Chait is usually a worthwhile read; however, this article is just whining about Democrats’ increasing inability to successfully pass the buck. The problem with his argument is that Democrats have controlled Congress for the last 4 years, which means they have been responsible during that time for making law, outlining regulations, appropriating money, etc, not Republicans. Add to that Obama having been in office for the last 16 months with substantial majorities in the House and Senate, and it becomes that much more implausible to all but the most partisan leftist that everything remains the fault of ChimpyMcBushHitlerHalliburton and the GOP. The longer Obama tries to pass the buck, the less presidential he appears.
Joe Mama, I hinted at what I think is a fair trade, from a partisan-bickering perspective. I say, let’s let David K, kcatnd, and Obamaphiles whine about Bush tax cuts, Iraq, and Afghanistan, and we’ll respond by passing the buck back to LBJ and FDR. The actuarial disasters that are the New Deal and Great Society programs are far more indisputable than anything Dubya is responsible for, so if you ask me, I think we have the better end of the stick by quite a bit.
AML, But what do you think about what I actually wrote? Am I being unfair? And just because I don’t subscribe to rigid conservatism like you doesn’t make me a blind partisan. It’s just hard to have any kind of middle-ground conversation with you when I’m trying, for example, to blame Clinton and Bush for their respective lapses, and you respond by defending Bush and putting all of the blame on some “liberal progressive agenda.”
You’re completely incapable of recognizing a moderate voice because anything outside conservative dogma (e.g. Bush tax cuts were good, always, forever) is automatically opposed. Your knuckles must be blinding white from that tight grip on your end of the stick.