On Tue, Dec 7, 2010 at 10:41 AM, Jim Devine <[email protected]> wrote: > Robert Naiman wrote: >> But the tax cut is temporary. Let it expire when the economy is not in >> recession: that's a better time to have the argument. > > > If I am right that the US and world economies are going to be still in > stagnation two years from now, we'll still see some people saying that > the tax cuts for the rich should expire only when the economy is not > in recession, i.e., 2014 or 2016, and that those times would be a > better time to have the argument. Of course, the GOP and its allies > will continue to yell that it's a big mistake to raise taxes (even on > millionaires) during a recession, because it's a job-killer. > > BTW, the argument that even tax cuts for the rich create jobs could be > applied to military spending. After all, the wars in Afghanistan and > Iraq do stimulate the US economy (while directly creating jobs for a > lot of soldiers). If the US were to end those wars now, the US economy > would face a wave of unemployed ex-soldiers, just as with the ends of > previous wars. So maybe we should delay the ends of those wars, > leaving the debate about them for a more prosperous time.
This is exactly my objection to Robert Naiman's thesis. This is not about the tax cuts themselves - the dollar amounts involved while significant are not huge. This is all about the narrative. If we buy into this nonsense, then we are just begging for more of the same in future. After all if some tax cuts are good, more tax cuts have to be even better! Notice how no one is even talking about real stimulus. Apparently it is not even on the menu. How do you think it got that way? -raghu. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
