Hannity panel falsely suggests Obama would let Bush tax cuts expire for everyone
July 23, 2010 11:02 pm ET
From the July 23 edition of Fox News' Hannity:
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Not only should the Bush tax cuts be allowed to expire, but we should return to the tax levels of the Reagan Administration. You know, the tax levels which gave us such an "awesome economy" according to pretty much everyone at Fox.
But since you're making this an issue of being correct and incorrect, well, you're incorrect about that 35% number. In 1981 the top rate was 69.125%. From 82-86 it was 50%. In 87 it dropped to 38.5%. In 88 it was taken to 28% where it stayed through 1990.
You may recall that the economy was so bad then it caused George H.W. Bush to raise taxes.
And do not forget to remove the frayed-filthy ribbon you always tie your dogmatic deceptions with, either.
fl, you are a troll
There are, of course, two problems here. The first is that Democrats plan to keep some, and perhaps even all, of the existing tax rates, a detail the GOP is pretending to ignore. The second is that Democrats, if they were to allow the lower rates to expire, would simply be following the policies set out by Republicans. Ezra Klein had a good item on this today.
To understand what's going on here, you need to go back 10 years to the passage of the Bush tax cuts. In order to maximize the size of the cuts, Republicans had to minimize the influence of minority Democrats on the package. So they chose to run the bill through the reconciliation process.
But that posed some challenges. Budget reconciliation had never been used to increase the deficit. In fact, it specifically existed to decrease the deficit. That's why one of its rules was that you couldn't use it to increase the deficit outside the budget window. Republicans realized they could take that very literally: The budget window was 10 years. So if the tax cuts expired after 10 years, they wouldn't increase the deficit outside the budget window. They'd also have the added benefit of appearing less costly in the Congressional Budget Office's estimates, as the CBO duly scored them as expiring after 10 years, which kept the long-range budget picture from exploding.
The republicans knew these tax cuts were bad for the economy, so they used budget reconciliation and violated the rules of the procedure to get them passed in Congress. The long-range budget picture exploded, contributing to the huge deficit you're complaining about.
I linked to The Washington Monthly where this article appeared this past Tuesday. Click on the July archives to find the date and the post.
[b]
by fairliberal (July 08, 2010 12:09 am ET)
... anyone who dislikes the Obamanation is a racist...those black dudes sure do stick together.
The bottom line in all this is in 2001 we had a surplus which would indicate we had good tax rates going along with a good spending program. Then bush 2 took over, lowered them even more and spend like a drunken sailor on 2 unfunded wars, unfunded medicare drug prescription, etc. with Cheney quoting Reagan don't matter. Republicans are fine with lowering taxes so the rich can get richer and borrowing money for their programs. That's why we are in the financial mess we are today with deficits and debt. Add that to the recession where tax revenues are way down and you have a recipe for where we are today.
I don't think that's true at all!
Obama campaigned on:
*tax cuts for 95% of Americans---Done
*reforming our health care system---Done
*financial reform---Done
*creating jobs---Done
*working to create a green economy---Done
Now which one of these hasn't been addressed over the last 18 months in one way or another?
There are some things he's still working on. Would it be fair to say he's lied about these also even though they've not become laws yet?
It's one thing to say someone lies if he/she has not tried to fulfill what he/she said he/she would do, but to call someone a liar because you don't like what they have done shows a lack of principles.
But man, Nicole Petallides is phenomenally stupid. After her colleague made the (widely discredited) argument that tax cuts for the rich increase revenues*, she begins chirping "It's more money in your pocket! It's more money in your pocket!" What a brilliant point!
*Actually, what was worse is that he cited Christina Romer's research indicating that tax cuts do increase revenue. Of course, those were tax cuts for the poor and lower middle class, which don't have a thing to do with the tax cuts that are proposed to expire. That's the idea they're pushing - that the Obama administration really believes allowing the tax cuts to expire will hurt the economy, but they just want to attack the rich - is really insulting.
He never said "for the rich". If you're going to quote, quote correctly. And adding more money to everybody's pocketbook in the way of taxcuts will allow them spend it...be it a boat or food. Nicole is right.
Tax cuts to middle class people? Half spent, half saved.
Tax cuts to the wealthiest in America? Mostly saved, and they get so MUCH that it dwarfs the amounts that are spent by the poorest Americans and the middle class!
So, tax cuts get mostly saved. And therefore, overall, aren't very good stimulus at all!
You're stupid, Dave. Get a clue.
Your pedantry is best exercised somewhere else.