Bush Economics

[JrSyko]

I want to hear from some informed/educated people about how you agree/disagree with Bush's domestic economic policy. As I see it, he is giving a huge tax credit to the highest tax brackets that won't come into effect for I think 3 years(?). Secondly, he is increasing the military budget and the budgets of all aspects of homeland security (FBI, CIA, etc) In addition, he is increasing the budget for the Justice Department, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Secret Service all to investigate corporate corruption. Where is all this money going to come from? After the tax break, the biggest tax payers, are not going to be paying as much in taxes, yet the government will still need as much if not more money, especially if we go to war with Iraq. (Please do not turn this into a pro/con debate about war with Iraq) He took a surplus and turned into right into a deficit. He didn't even try to use any of it to save Social Security or at least prolong its demise.

This is not an environmental debate by any means, I just posted it here because usually the people who read this are a little more informed on political issues.

One more thing, do you think that perhaps, he should have realized that he needed to maybe forgo the tax credit and keep the money in the best interest of the country? Similar to what his dad did in raising taxes, even though he said he wouldn't, because his economic advisors told him that he must if he waned what was best for the country. I read an interesting article that said that Bush Sr. helped pave the way for Clinton to come in and really turn the economy around following the recession of the 80's.

See ya in the dirt!

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[FORDTECH]

i also think clinton was in the right place at the right time. i think the economy was so good for so long because of what bush sr did . when clinton got elected the economy was turning around just like it was on a down turn when bush got elected.i think they pushed so hard for the tax cut because when he came into office the economy was hurting and they hoped it would stimulate it wich would equal more tax revenue. as far as the rich getting most of the tax cut, it seems like the less they pay in taxes the more they can spend else where like hiring employes buying property ect. it all ends up back to the goverment one way or another. as for every one saying he screwed up by giving tax cuts dick gephart justed called for MORE THIS WEEK and hes a democrat

im not afraid of dying ,i just dont want to be there when it happens !

[Kritter]

Here's how I see it...Our economy is in turmoil right now and if anybody is going to take action it is the president..it's his job.

"As I see it, he is giving a huge tax credit to the highest tax brackets that won't come into effect for I think 3 years"

That is correct, but who has the ability to make jobs? It's rich people. Why is MR Bigwig (rich CEO of a major corporation) going to run a huge corporation and bust his ass to supply jobs to the people which in turn helps the economy, when Mr Bigwig knows that more then 40 cents on every dollar is going to be taken away from him? Tax breaks will keep Mr Bigwig working harder because he knows that less money is going to be taken from him.

How much motivation would you have to work if they said to you "hey man we are going to take 40% of your check for taxes"? I am sure you would not work at 100% if you were only getting paid 60%... would you?

"Secondly, he is increasing the military budget and the budgets of all aspects of homeland security (FBI, CIA, etc) In addition, he is increasing the budget for the Justice Department, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Secret Service all to investigate corporate corruption. "

With his increased budget comes an increase in jobs all types of jobs. With an increase in jobs comes an increase in spending which will get us out of the slump we are in now. Clinton runied the military budget...or made it rather inexistent so somebody has to revive it.

This shows that Bush is big on getting the economy back in order by giving back to the purveyors of jobs(MR Bigwig) and then creating more work for the US people by increasing the military budget as well as others.

OR he could do it like a democrat and rape the shiaat out of everybody who has money and then let everybody who doesnt have money get something for nothing....how's that

Thats my Take...in lamens terms...not too technical, but I call it like I see it.

Kris
"I was thinking the exact same thing about you..."

[Dave_G]

Re: "Where is all this money going to come from? "

Ask yourself this question:
Where will all the money go?


Answer:
Same place it came from. You and me. The money that is spent on such programs always makes it's way back into the economy in many different ways. The government spends it's money (actually ours...) in the private sector for it's goods and services. If you want an example I'll be happy to show you one. ;-)

Dave

"I know it all, but I can't remember most of it..."

[JrSyko]

See I don't buy into the whole argument that by giving "Mr. Bigwig" a tax break, you are going to increase jobs or tax revenues. First of all, I'm talking about personal income tax breaks. Not corporate tax breaks, if there are any. How does giving "Mr. Bigwig" a personal tax break allow him to hire more employees? He is a salaried employee of the company that he works for and by giving him a tax break all it does is allow him to keep more of his millions. The tax burden then falls on the middle class and poor.

Secondly, I don't see the logic to your argument that if the government is taking 40% of your income, than you are not going to work harder, but work less. If 40% of your salary is being taken in taxes, than you are going to have to work harder in order to maintain your standard of living. If operate your off-road racing team strictly from your salary of 100K a year, and the government starts taken 40K from you, than you will need to work harder if you still want to keep your off-road race team or you will be forced to sell it.



See ya in the dirt!

[frankh]

When you pay over 50% of your income too State and Fed taxes it will take a lot of cuts to make it right. I'll show you my Tax return anytime and you can pay the same % I do, and then will see if a little tax cut is such a bad thing.

You need to research why Bush Sr passed the tax bill before you say "he raised Taxes"

Clinton walked into the office with the economy on the way up, Beside he was to busy screwing everything that walked to know how the economy was going or not.

But it does not matter. Everyone on this board has there own thoughts on this and probably will not change his/her mind by what somebody types.

But here is my thought.

1. lower taxes = 2. there is more money for people to buy stuff= 3. more stuff needed to be built to sell= 4. more jobs needed to make the stuff = 5. more tax money coming in from the new jobs to make the stuff= 6. less % needed from each person for the country to run= 7. so they can lower the taxes=see #2

I don't see how you can dispute this.

[JrSyko]

I wasn't saying that him raising taxes was a bad thing, I was almost applauding him for doing so because he saw it needed to be done.

You can argue that raising or lower taxes is good/bad for the economy until you are blue in the face, but it is almost impossible to prove. Reagan lowered taxes, the economy went into recession. Or was it because of the previous administration. Bush/Clinton raised taxes, the economy went up, or was it because of what Reagan did. Bush Jr. lowered taxes the economy has gone down. You can argue it both ways. So I think people need to agree to disagree.

So to answer your question, I can dispute that because you have no "proof."

See ya in the dirt!

[frankh]

That is just what I said about the blue in the face part.

But ask your self one question if you got a couple of grand back from your taxes what would you do with it ?

[jcarius]

What do our tax dollars really do?

Taxes are supposed to be the way that we as a country pay for the services that we as a government provide to each other. The only way to lower the cost is either to increase efficiency or reduce services.

Spending increases, assuming that efficiency is constant, does tend to create jobs in both the public and private sectors. The people in these jobs are paid, directly or indirectly through tax dollars. The problem is that the taxes paid by the people in these new jobs does not cover the tax dollars that were spent in creating and supporting these new jobs.

Who covers the difference? Again, our tax dollars. Of course in reality it's not immediatly taxes - instead, we (as a government) borrow money to make up the difference. Who do we borrow it from? Allegedly ourselves - but that's an extreme oversimplification. Actully the debt gets spread around quite a bit, and a lot of it is held by the wealthiest poeple in our society - and what it means is someday, sometime we have to pay that back. Also, the interest on that debt is effectively subtracted from the current tax revenues, leaving us even less money to fund these services.

Of course, we can just say to heck with it, continue to spend, create government sponsored jobs, and so on until two things happen: one, we are a socialist state or two: inflation (which is the way we can pay back the expensive money we borrowed with cheap money) runs rampant. Or both.

Cutting taxes creating jobs? Just doesn't work. Trickle down economics is great for the rich folks, horrible for the working man. The worst are corporate tax cuts - remember,corporate income tax is paid on profits - this is after all the employees are paid, including the CEO. Increasing corporate profits by cutting their taxes does nothing but help the equity markets, which are by and large do not affect the actual production of goods & services in the US - despite what your stockbroker might want you to think.

Also, tax cuts for the rich do almost nothing to increase their spending. Basically it gives them more to invest - they spend about as much as they did before. If you really want to increase spending you give the tax cuts to the poor and lower middle classes, who spend everything they make. Of course, they spend it on consumer goods, very little of which are produced domestically, and therefore once again this produces little tangiible domestic wealth - but that's a different rant!

The last economic bubble burst because it was all smoke and mirrors - money was changing hands everywhere but very little tangible output was occuring.

If we really, truly wanted a strong, lasting economy we'd:
1) Raise Taxes. Llike it or not, we (the people) have asked our government to provide services that we couldn't afford - and much like a racer that's overused his credit card we have to pay waht we are spending now plus more if we want to get out of debt. Of course, Republicans hate this.

2) Choose to take more responsability for ourselves and tell (vote) our representatives that we want them to provide fewer services. Democrats think this is evil.

3) Stop allowing corporations to have such termendous influence on our government's decisions. It's supposed to be by the people, for the people - businesses are not people. Needless to say, rich folks who have significant equity interests aren' to happy about this one.

Oh and the last one:

4) Stop looking for an easy fix. If we want something as a country, be it a steady economy or world peace realize it's not gonna happen by chance. We are going to have to make a long term comittment that involves real 'sacrafice' - which is another word for investment. We all want our shiny toys, but the reason that the port shutdown was so devistating was because we have, as a country, decided that having companies reap higher profits by moving the actual production of tangible goods offshore was more important than having those jobs here. Having food be cheap was more important than growing it here. And so on.

Ahem. Sorry for the rant - I'm just a little grumpy today!


Jim

[JrSyko]

I think that was extremely well put Jim. An example of the point that you are trying to make, I think, would be the New Deal legislation of FDR. He lowered taxes and increased government spending through such acts as the Public Works Program, CCC, National Municiple League, etc, in an attempt to stimulate the economy by giving people money to spend. However, this put the government in a tremendous amount of debt, so much so that part of our current debt can be attributed to this. Granted that the economy did come out of depression, however that can be attributed more to World War II and not so much the New Deal Programs of FDR. The war stimulated the economy by creating new industries and jobs that were much more long term than just digging ditches for some New Deal Program. The end consumer of these "new" goods was the government and so the cycle went full circle. The government tried to create jobs, then went to war and created more jobs and then ended up buying the goods produced. Nevertheless, none of these programs raised enough money to pay off the debts that the government accumilated in order to fund them and I think that was the point Jim was trying to make. Sure you can lower taxes to try and stimulate the economy, however you never end up being able to afford all the services (like security in a post 9-11 world) that society demands.

If I got a few thousand dollars back from the government, I would invest it. Not spend it. Besides, the more accurate figures for the middle class tax return was between $300-$600. Not a few thousand. A couple hundred bucks back from the government is not going to make a big dent in the economy, no matter how many people get it back.

See ya in the dirt!