Phil Gramm: What recession?

So, if all that establishes that the tax cuts benefit, in some way, people of all incomes...then what?

 

Then tax increases hurt, in some way, people of all incomes. But every Dem seems to be claiming it's a certainty that the Bush tax cuts will be allowed to expire. That is a tax increase in every way, shape and form.

 

If the cuts do expire, then a bad economic situation right now would only get worse theoretically. That still doesn't make the economic status quo any less shitty.

 

Actually, I'm pretty sure most Dems are saying that the parts of the tax cuts that benefit those in the lower and middle classes will be allowed to stick around.

 

In neoclassical economics, the budget deficit and the trade deficit are sometimes known as the twin deficits because of the positive correlation between the two. If one goes up, the other usually goes up with it.

Our trade deficit is over $800 billion right now. Bush has increased government spending more than the "socialist" Bill Clinton, who Alan Greenspan called a fiscal conservative in his autobiography.

So, how does this relate to taxes. Well, if you're giving all these tax cuts to the rich, coupled with the largest entitlement program since the Great Society (Medicare prescription benefits, which was rigged as a giveaway to Big Pharma), and of course the ever popular and expensive war in Iraq, it really isn't smart to be cutting the hell out of taxes at the same time. What you wind up when you do that is the huge budget deficits Bush is running ... which correspond with the world's largest trade deficit.

A balanced budget is the ideal situation ... and we once had a president who accomplished that goal. But eight years have passed since, the budget is nowhere near balanced under the Moron in Chief and the economy is in the shitter.

If you want to cut spending rather than letting Bush's tax cuts on the rich expire, that gets you to the same end game from an economic standpoint. But Bush had a Republican Congress for six years and how much did the national debt increase in that time ($3 trillion, $4 trillion?) because Bush and the GOP spent willy nilly on whatever they wanted and cut taxes at the same time. I thought Republicans were supposed to be conservative with the people's money? I guess Zag's content with leaving all those trillion dollars in debt behind for his grandkids to pay off so some fat cat can get a tax break now. Yes, cuts could/should be made to cut the deficit, starting with that BS Medicare drug plan that lets Pharma set the prices and has that stupid doughnut hole provision and of course ending our occupation of a foreign country that didn't attack us.

 

It means the economy is technically NOT in a recession. The key word is "technically". It sure feels like one. But until they want to change the official definition of a recession then there isn't one.

We have become a nation of whiners. Gramm's right on that account.

He just should have picked a MUCH more careful place to say that, or better yet kept it to himself.

 

Meet Gramm's better half.....Thing's are going great...Nothing to see here....


I think what is pissing people off is that "the rules" were always work hard and you too can get a slice of the American Dream. Only now it seems like the game is fixed and we're being played for fools by the top 1 percenters. Gas, stagnant wages, high health care...I don't think people are whining I think they're just being more realistic.

 

. . . and without some legitimate measure of hope, we're all lost.

 

How is it that the following can occur in this thread:

1. I am brought up by Ziggy? Not just that I’m brought up, but that I’m completely misrepresented. Oh that’s right. Ziggy is the guy that makes up fake conversations and posts bootsian lies. First the Uzi wielding 12-year-olds that lived next door, next the black friend that didn’t know Egypt was in Africa, and now this. I guess I’m not surprised.

2. How does this go towards taxes? Taxes have fuck all to do with the current recession. If you don’t think we’re in a recession, maybe you should look towards the world’s wealthiest man and ask him. Warren Buffett says we have stagflation.

That was from June 25. Did things suddenly get better since then? If they did, I must have missed it.

Of course, if it was all about taxes, I’m sure Buffett would have mentioned them. Nope. Instead, we just get dopey and dopier here arguing that it is the “liberals” and the “big government” taxing us all to a recession.

 

If you're giving that he's right about the whining, then he's all right.
We still have not hit a recession in this country.
We've not even had one quarter of negative growth, let alone the two required to pronounce a recession. Perhaps it'll come; perhaps the current quarter will turn us in the negative direction. Certainly the surge in fuel prices and the credit crunch are capable of producing one, but we've managed to avoid it to this point.
If you read what Gramm said, everything is accurate. And yet the word "recession" is tossed around constantly. Does anybody who uses it know what it actually means?
"Misery sells newspapers," Mr. Gramm said. "Thank God the economy is not as bad as you read in the newspaper every day."
I'd have to agree with him on that.

 

Maybe if you'd follow the thread the reason taxes were brought up was because someone started whining about incredibly shrinking paychecks.

All I did was point out that your government has every bit as much to do with that as anything big business has done.....and more importantly I conceded we are in a recession.

Of course, you wouldn't understand that because, like I said, in your own words you don't have to pay any of the taxes we're talking about and in your town, your tax burden is almost non-existent.......

 

I agree 100 percent with your characterization of Bush (and the Repulicans) as a big spending, big government liberal.

That's why it is such a fraud that Republicans and conservatives run around accusing Democrats of being the party of big government. A more accurate term would be the Democrats are the party of slightly bigger government.....

And as for your nonsense about President Clinton Balancing the budget and having a surplus, that's plain silly and if you believe that we had a budget surplus in the Clinton years, you probably also believe that the tax burden is low in New Jersey......