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Older Talkback
...he passed two free trade acts.......
Outsourced jobs???? The dems have virtually destroyed the Steel, Aluminum, forest products, chemical, textile, energy, and domestic auto industries in the US and somehow, ol GW is the one outsourcing jobs...
All this after ol Billy Clinton and his wife, in name only, took Chinese campaign funds and then got NAFTA, GATT, WTO passed and MFN for china.
Outsourced jobs???? We laid prostrate over liberal congressmens desks to stop NAFTA in the 90's and they told us it was good for jobs.
Wnat to know what?
They were right, but don't blame the republicans...they were completely out front and not the ones who sold out the unions.
Noharness is starting to sound like a communist!
'Did Americans save enough money to be called real savings? NO! Rich folks collect interest. Poor folks pay it. The banks like poor folks because they pay interest. The politicians like having everyone ninety days from bankruptcy for a reason. That condition makes it easier for them to control you. Think about it.'
or at least a liberal.
Gee, people living on credit, refinancing their homes over and over to pay for toys. Now real estate is falling, soon banks will be next. No money from Israel to help us out, all the good paying jobs are in China. The State of Michigan is now a parking lot for Canadians. The on going war run by a President that ran to the Air National Guard that did not do anything, and a Vice President that dodge the draft 3 times. No military experience to run a war between the both of them, 'Zero'. More drain on borrowed money by our government. Oil will hit $150.oo a barrel to help pay for new Military Equipment Bush sold to the Saudis. People put their money in paper accounts, just a bunch of numbers on paper. While gold hit $900.00 per ounce in the US. Month's ago a lot of you laughed at me. Your paper investments are in steep decline. My gold is at $1,200.00 per ounce US in Peru and still going up..........
So end's the United States...............
..no one told them to borrow like they did. In America, it's almost impossible to fail, unless you try.
Isn't it interesting how everyone loves free enterprise until it bites their asses, then it's the presidents fault?
Cheney may have not been a soldier, but he was a helluva Sec Def, saving billions in taxpayer money on bloated programs he cut. He ought to get a medal just for that.
If you're going to live in a free nation, with freedoms, free trade and free enterprise, you need to grow up.
Regarding: 'In America, it's almost impossible to fail, unless you try.'
What's your excuse loser, you didn't try at all? Or is it someones else's fault?
SP4 I(d like you to explain to me how record tax earnings rhyme with record tax cuts ?Doesn't it strike you as somehow a contradiction ?Yet you claim Bush managed both ?That is only the most erratic manifestation of your contribution .I'm so sorry your kbasic understanding of economy is so poor,best you refrain from making too much comments .Too little knowledge .
'SP4 I(d like you to explain to me how record tax earnings rhyme with record tax cuts ?Doesn't it strike you as somehow a contradiction ?'
Only to the clueless.
'That is only the most erratic manifestation of your contribution .I'm so sorry your kbasic[sic] understanding of economy is so poor,best you refrain from making too much comments .Too little knowledge .'
Tax cuts stimulate economic growth, economic growth stimulates income tax revenue. Sorry your understanding of economy is so poor, best you refrain from making too much comments.... In other words shuddup, idiot.
Any statistics to back up your claim that the lost taxes are compensated by additional revenues ?I guess not ...Your demonstration of reagonomics are not a valid economical theory,just an expression of wishful thinking,obsolete .Hence I 'll continue to speak.Noticed that it is always the people that have no arguments that want others to shut up?For obvious reasons.
However you were partly right...increased consumer spending led to higher investments ....in China !
That is a very good question Tonny, and I'm happy for you to accept my tutelage.
Bush's tax cuts in 2001 were in order to...surprise...stimulate the economy (sound familiar?). By every standard, they did exactly that. The result:
More tax revenue than at any time in history. $436 billion over projections at the last scoring.
By lowering taxes and feeding that money into the US earnings machine the resulting tax revenues were above projections for 6 of the last 7 years. It is the mile marker for supply side economics, the gold cup.
What happens when you raise tax levels? Money goes into shelters. It comes out of legitimate for-profit investment and does not stimulate the economy. When taxes are so high it's cheaper to shelter than invest, it, naturally slows your ability to produce. We saw that in the 1970's with Carter's failed policies. Reagan came in and dismantled them and the result was the economy we've enjoyed for the last 27 years.
Bush, whether he understood this, or not, believed in supply side economics, deliberately acted on it like he usually does, and the result has been spectacular.
In fact, it's so good at producing results, the dems are getting into the act now and proposing their own stimulus in the way of a tax cut. That alone is proof positive. Best of all, they can blame the republicans for doing it when they run for office!
This is nothing really new either. If you go to predominantly liberal state and local governments, you will see a plethora of local tax relief plans for special companies. In Oregon, we've had liberal government for 3 decades and they give numerous tax breaks to Nike, Intel and other notables, mostly on the basis of who they back at election time.
Liberals tax for social and political reasons, not really to raise practical revenue (kind of like the caholic church!). Their policies bear this out and so do the tax receipts. Rep. Chucky Rangell is in the middle of trying this right now, and the press is gagging it, in their typical slavish tradition and the other dems are running for cover.
Bush, on the other hand, correctly feels that, if it works for the dems special friends, why not just give it to everyone and then we all share in the results. His philosophy of 'it's not how much you tax, it's how much you get' is a wise-course policy, and has benefited everyone.
The results speak for themselves: record tax receipts, record employment, low inflation, historic high household wealth, all with lower taxes. 1% of americans pay 34% of tax reveue. 5% of americans pay 65% of revenue! If that's not graduated taxation, I can't tell you what is! All of that money not paid in taxes went to earn for the owners and IT was taxed! The results were stupendous by any standard.
The reason the dems hate this? It unhinges their image as government for the little guy! Their pandering to the Culture of Grievance just falls apart in the face of this! Interesting isn't it that the dems actually do more special interest tax relief than the republicans and get stamped with being for the 'little guy'?
Go ask yourself what the result of higher taxation would be for all the social programs Bush has funded, to the point of protest from real conservatives. His policies fed the libnazi pork machine and he didn't care! Wild, huh?
You see, Tonny, it's not that hard to understand at all. Other useful suggestions: read something financial and buy a calculator!
Re:'...or at least a liberal.'
Good grief! You're just now figuring that out?
couldn't have come from SP4-F. There are far too many words for the monosyablic buffon. This is more along his lines, taken from his web-site: 'Braking these rules will result in me sulking and moaning at you for at least an hour, so be warned'
Notice the spelling and petulence. THAT is SP4-F
SP4 will be calling you a libnazi.
Instead of 'monosyablic' I meant monosyllabic.
RE: 'Tax cuts stimulate economic growth, economic growth stimulates income tax revenue.'
----------
Once upon a time, when Laffer drew the curve on a dinner napkin, tax rates were too high, and cutting those rates promoted more revenue growth from taxes than the lost revenue from existing taxes.
Those days are over, and Laffer himself has said so. That's why it's a 'curve'; not a straight line. At the bottom of the curve, rates are low enough already for investment; and incremental cuts cost MORE than any potential revenue gains. Remember that if rates were reduced, A PROPORTIONATELY LARGER GROWTH IN BUSINESS IS REQUIRED TO GENERATE THE SAME REVENUE, AT LOWER RATES!
If there were a way to discriminate high-dollar earners who CONTRIBUTE to the economy by opening or growing businesses, or by direct hiring, that group deserves a stimulus. On the other hand, a high-dollar 'employee' also making gains from bonuses and stock options does NOT deserve a break - they should be paying taxes at a higher rate than the middle-class worker. Tax cuts for the wealthy should be directly linked to their contributions to the economy, since their paying of taxes is necessary in an economy where the American public have to support massive military expenditures.
Read CAREFULLY what Laffer proposed. We ran into a similar problem with Greenspan not taking into account higher GOP spending after 2001, eliminating the then-surplus.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Laffer
Laffer is best known for the Laffer curve, a curve illustrating tax elasticity which asserts that in !CERTAIN! situations, a decrease in tax rates could result in an increase in tax revenues.
The gist of the theory is that tax revenues would be zero if tax rates were either 0% or 100%, and !SOMEWHERE IN BETWEEN 0% AND 100% IS A TAX RATE WHICH MAXIMIZES TOTAL REVENUE!
Laffer's innovation was to conjecture that the tax rate that maximizes revenue was at a much lower level than previously believed: so low that current tax rates were above the level where revenue is maximized. Before Laffer's claim, it was widely supposed that the revenue-maximizing tax rate would be only slightly below 100%.
This garbage is being propounded, even though rates are likely BELOW the point where economic growth would generate enough tax revenue to make up for the cuts - from the same people who brought you 'Democracy in Iraq' complete with a totally failed strategy, and other Neocon goodies of this century.
Hell, even Conservapedia gets the definition right:
www.conservapedia.com/Laffer_curve
'If the tax rate is !HIGHER THAN T*! in the Laffer curve below, then increasing taxes causes government revenue to decrease. Few dispute the underlying principle of the Laffer curve, but the debate centers on where to set the tax rate to obtain the maximum revenue.'
SP4 is stuck in the past, while the world whizzes past. All the GOP has is imagined past glories, and current failures. All he can do is chatter about Bill Clinton, while the problems of Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, recession, economic problems in the banking system, reliance on imported energy, lack of health care for working people due to cutbacks in employer coverage, and other issues go unspoken in his delusional universe.
A candidate with the testicles to stand up and declare tax cuts for those earning below, say, $60,000, and a tax increase for those earning above $250,000 who are NOT DIRECT CONTRIBUTORS to the economy, gets my vote. Small businesspeople would get cuts for WHAT THEY DID - hiring, expansion, productivity improvements, energy conservation. If you don't directly hire and grow your own company, raise those people's taxes to pay for the current expenses of the Bush era.
Tax policy also badly needs revision for those being taxed at lower capital-gains rates for longer-term investments, who have not earned that break, and partners are walking away with hundreds of millions of dollars for deals where companies are stripped, and employees are laid off.
THEN, a fair discussion can take place about lower capital gains taxes for Venture Caps and others who actually CREATE something on a net basis.
'Cheney may have not been a soldier, but he was a helluva Sec Def, saving billions in taxpayer money on bloated programs he cut. He ought to get a medal just for that.'
=======
Cheney, Rumsfeld, and others had tight ties to defense contractors and companies like Carlyle who pushed expensive military projects that went nowhere. That's why it took so long to get the RIGHT weapons and troop carriers to Iraq, and Rumsfeld will be remembered for a sneering reply to a soldier on the order of 'you fight a war with what you have'. He can explain that to the families of those who would have survived inside armored vehicles.
(from 2002)
www.villagevoice.com/news/0218,gray,34384,6.html
Late this March, as part of the post-9-11 military buildup, Donald Rumsfeld gave United Defense, Carlyle's subsidiary, the full monty: over $470 million to continue development on the problem-riddled Crusaders, puzzling some military analysts.
'The Crusader has been the GAO's poster child for bad weapons development,' says Eric Miller, an analyst who watches defense for the Project on Government Oversight. 'Influence is tough to measure, but it's certainly had a friend somewhere.'
Make that a very close friend. Two internal Defense Department documents—letters between Carlyle and Rumsfeld—recently made available to the Voice show the intimate relationship between the Bush administration and the Carlyle Group.
Still, Judicial Watch, the right-wing group that got the memos through a Freedom of Information Act request, says the connection between the Pentagon and the Carlyle Group —whose advisers include the first president Bush—creates the 'appearance of conflict' and violate the public's trust. 'Under normal circumstances, it would be advisable for Rumsfeld to meet with his former secretaries to talk shop,' says the group's president, Tom Fitton. 'But when [you're] working for a defense contractor, it's probably not a good idea.'
www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Corporate_Welfare/CarlyleGroup_HMOWD%3F.html
The revolving door between the government and weapons contractors isn't new, but it has reached new heights (monetarily) and depths (ethically), in recent years.[Richard] Cheney's relationship with Halliburton is a perfect case study of all that is wrong with the relationship between our democratic form of government and the corporations that finance our elections and feed at the government trough on a daily basis.
Halliburton's biggest 'cash cow' during his [Cheney's] tenure was definitely in the area of military support services, and the company's ability to earn so much in this area was directly tied to a decision Cheney had made back when he was secretary of defense in the first Bush administration. It was under Cheney's watch that the decision was made to privatize not only specific services in support of U.S. troops overseas-such as food services, or doing the laundry, or repairing vehicles-but to privatize the actual planning process that went into providing logistics for U.S. troops when they had to be sent into an inhospitable foreign hot spot on short notice.
In 1992, near the end of Cheney's tenure as defense secretary, Halliburton won a contract from the U.S. Army's Logistics Civil Augmentation Program (LOGCAP), which P.W. Singer has described as a deal to 'work with the military in planning the logistical side of contingency operations.' Singer notes that 'it was the first time the U.S. military had ever contracted such global planning to a private organization.' In a pattern that would mark both Halliburton's and Cheney's business paths, the firm got the LOGCAP contract after conducting a top secret $3.9 million report for the Pentagon on how private companies could essentially provide the bulk of the logistics involved in major U.S. contingency deployments, from transportation and base-building to cooking the food and doing the laundry. The initial study contract called for a plan for how a private company could bear the bulk of the logistical burden for deploying 20,000 troops to 5 separate bases overseas within a 1 80-day period. Later in the year, Halliburton got a $5 million follow-on study contract to outline how a private firm might supply logistics for a series of more specific contingencies. By the end of the year, Halliburton had been selected to receive a five-year contract to be the U.S. Army's 'on call' private logistics arm.
Halliburton's growth under Cheney's leadership is nothing compared to what it has done since he became vice president. In 2001, it won back the Army's LOGCAP contract, just in time to cash in on the logistical bonanza involved in providing facilities and provisions for U.S. troops in Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Qatar, Kuwait, Iraq, and all the other far-flung outposts of the Bush administration's war on terrorism. The company is also in charge of making the cages used to house Taliban members and terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. A late August 2003 analysis in the Washington Post estimated that Halliburton had raked in $1.7 billion in military contracts in Iraq, Afghanistan, and beyond since the start of the Bush administration.
The company's biggest prize-which it was awarded on a no-bid basis by the Army Corps of Engineers after Halliburton officials had helped the Defense Department write the specs for the contract-was an open-ended, two year contract worth up to $7 billion for putting out oil fires and repairing oil infrastructure in Iraq.
It was only after dogged questioning from Rep. Henry Waxman that it was revealed that the no-bid Halliburton contract was not merely for putting out oil fires, but for rebuilding and operating Iraq's extensive oil infrastructure.
Halliburton has been quick to show its gratitude to its Republican friends, earmarking 95 percent of its more than $708,000 in campaign donations from 1999 to 2002 to Republican candidates. And there's plenty more where that came from, heading straight for the Bush/Cheney 2004 campaign and the campaigns of their former CEO's Republican colleagues in the House and Senate.
While SP4 relives the glorious past 7 years due to his eyes being in the back of his head; the Fed is concerned about the liquidity crisis, and NOT just about interest rates. The trick is to get banks lending, and at this point they feel that they need to build up reserves to cover newly failing mortgages and new foreclosures. Tax rebates in April will NOT relieve the current problems, and the amounts are a pittance compared to needs. The idea is to induce spending; but much of the 2001 rebates went into the bank. What people DID spend was the case from mortgage refi's, and some of that has led to today's problems with increases in mortgages for variable-rate lending.
The Fed is hoping that reducing rates will reduce the risk of variable-rate mortgage increases in 2008 by allowing banks to ease off. However, the credit-card companies have rates of 25-30% in some cases, and will not follow the Fed in lowering rates.
www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a2lFPOm.XWwg&refer=home
Jan. 22 (Bloomberg) -- The Federal Reserve signaled today that it has grown increasingly concerned over the reluctance of banks to provide credit to companies and consumers, restrictions that may exacerbate an already slowing economy.
The central bank, executing a record emergency reduction in its benchmark interest rate, said in its statement that ``credit has tightened further for some businesses and households.'' The Federal Open Market Committee also noted that ``strains in short- term funding markets have eased somewhat.''
``Consumers don't have the wherewithal to borrow much except in the credit-card market,'' said David Resler, chief economist at Nomura Securities International Inc. in New York. ``Rate cuts help lower the cost of refinancing'' and also aid lenders by ``widening the gap between what they lend and what they borrow,'' he said.
The Fed's first steps in addressing the August credit collapse were to buttress liquidity to keep financial markets stable. Officials cut the charge on direct loans to banks on Aug. 17 in an unscheduled conference call. Last month, the central bank introduced a new tool to inject funds into banks through two monthly auctions of cash.
Today, Chairman Ben S. Bernanke presided over the first so- called inter-meeting reduction of the Fed's benchmark rate since 2001. The FOMC cited a ``weakening of the economic outlook and increasing downside risks to growth'' even after 1 percentage point of rate reductions since September. Bernanke hinted at the rationale in a Jan. 10 speech, when he cited a need for ``decisive and timely'' action. ``We also see considerable evidence that banks have become more restrictive in their lending to firms and households,'' Bernanke said this month. ``More-expensive and less-available credit seems likely to impose a measure of financial restraint on economic growth.''
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