June 13, 2006
Spin it!
Two headlines, same story:
1) "Bush May Meet Vow To Halve The Deficit Three Years Early" --Investors Business Daily
2) "Bush Deficit Reduction Plan Falls Off-Schedule." -- Guess who (acc. to Insty, but I can't find the headline anywhere on their site anymore)
Too bad it's because of rising revenue and not reduced spending... *sigh*, I'm guessing that they aren't going to learn their lesson.
ugh, munu ain't letting me comment with my url anymore, apparently y'all have a problem with blog some
Posted by: KG at June 13, 2006 05:44 PMThe problem with tax cuts, apparently, is that they reduce the perceived cost of govenerment - so rather than "starving the beast", as small-government economists had hoped, and forcing reduced spending, tax cuts have caused the opposite - lots of borrowing and spending instead of taxing and spending. According to this article, the equilibrium point is around 19% of GDP...
Posted by: Andrew Blackburn at June 13, 2006 06:56 PMActually, since the Kennedy tax cut in the early 60s, everytime taxes have been cut, revenue has increased. The problem is that spending has increased at a faster rate, creating the deficits. If we were to cut taxes and freeze spending (or just limit increases to the rate of inflation) we would see large surpluses. Which would then justify new spending or more tax cuts, or both.
Posted by: KG at June 13, 2006 07:01 PM
