Redstate

NCLB had never seen the light of day. Not to mention the transportation and farm bills.
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CongressCritter™: Never have so few felt like they were owed so much by so many for so little.

It's war -- so when can we start shooting back at the enemy Democrats?

A) We're going to get a tax hike. And this tax hike will, in the short term, produce a burst of revenue but will, in the medium and long term, dampen economic performance and, eventually, tax receipts along with it.

B) Even she says that we can't afford all the ideas she has in store. I'm not sure we can afford any of them, myself.

But there's no question that we're in a spending mood right now. What's tragic about that is that we're operating as if we don't have a coming shortfall of tens of trillions of dollars approaching us.

Ironically, a huge portion of that is going to come from Medicare. And what public healthcare financing issue are we talking about most? Why adding yet more and more people to the public healthcare financing infrastructure, of course.

We don't know how we're going to pay for what we're on the hook for now....and our only serious response is to talk about how to end up on the hook for even more.

It's tragic.

We need to start encouraging people to smoke again, or the increased cigarette taxes won't be adequate for us to get and keep people healthy.

And the rich are not paying their fair share.

It's war -- so when can we start shooting back at the enemy Democrats?

Your point seems to be that we have runaway inflation - and that is what is responsible for the deficit decline. But, point-of-fact, we have moderate-to-low inflation.

That is what they tell us.. but I don't believe that.

How do you explain the price of gold vs the dollar (or the cost of really anything you like.)

How do you explain the dollar being at an all time low?

I think this is exactly attributed to the ever increasing spending and ever increasing debt in America. We are going broke.

I love it.

“I think we are the team to beat in the NL East -- finally.” - Jimmy "MVP" Rollins, 1/23/07

The Fuzzy Puppy of the VRWC. I've been usurped!

Are you suggesting that the same group of people own all the banking institutions AND all the mainstream press outlets, which are the people who give us the historical record of inflation?

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It's a conspiracy! :-)

Since I'm a mere computer programmer and not a macro-economist, please explain why any of that matters to the topic of the diary?

Regardless of how much paper is in print, 1.2% of the GDP as a deficit is STILL BETTER than (the historical average of) 2.4% of the GDP -- and that is current dollars vs current dollars.

If I'm wrong about that, then spill the beans.

It's war -- so when can we start shooting back at the enemy Democrats?

You say everything's up thanks to inflation... except that the deficit is DOWN. not UP. DOWN.

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because its mesured in dollars. Mesure it in gold.

Being one of the Jooooooooooos and all.

It's not nearly as big of a problem, and it's very comforting. Especially on a cold night in the cave, you should try it.
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CongressCritter™: Never have so few felt like they were owed so much by so many for so little.

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Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. - Milton Friedman

______________________________
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777

The deficit is simply outlays minus revenues. Outlays and revenues are going to be inflated by the same amount! Therefore you can factor that out of the whole equation, therefore the sign of the deficit CAN'T change by inflation!

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economy, only one of which is monetary. And in China, India et al, where gold plays more of a monetary/emergency savings/hidden-from-the-taxman income role than it does here, prices go up in response to market forces that have nothing to do with the US Fed or the banks.

The chart is misleading.

It's not mealy added to the sum, it should be an exponential curve.

And its not a conspircy of any kind, but when they (the fed) say we have 1% inflation I say B*** fricken S***.

If you're sick of the Ronulans, Red Staters, I think Erick has a shirt for you.

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That's an awesome site! I made up a shirt about Comrade Clinton being a Communist D...[something which I have been strongly advised not to allege about Sen. Hillary Clinton ever again here without "proof."]

I can't wait to receive it in the mail!!! LOL. It's going to be a big hit in Montrose, I think. :-)

then that would argue that our deficit of $120bil is ACTUALLY even less than it appears to be, no? Ie, that represents less purchasing power (in DEFICIT) than it would have been, expressed in 1998 dollars. Yes? No?

It's war -- so when can we start shooting back at the enemy Democrats?

It's war -- so when can we start shooting back at the enemy Democrats?

printing more money won't make the deficit go down, far from it. Printing more money implies that something will be done with that money and since we can safely assume burying it in a mason jar in the backyard ain't one of them, we have to assume it will be spent.

Receipts are also up.

Inflation is down, which should be a clue that a lot more money isn't going into circulation.

As the value of the dollars, whether they are deficit dollars or receipt dollars are comparable I don't see what point you are trying to make.

"A man can never have too much red wine, too many books, or too much ammunition." -- Rudyard Kipling

of combat ready Army divisions?

Oops, wrong thread.
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CongressCritter™: Never have so few felt like they were owed so much by so many for so little.

n/t

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CongressCritter™: Never have so few felt like they were owed so much by so many for so little.

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CongressCritter™: Never have so few felt like they were owed so much by so many for so little.

I thought you were going to say, "Yeah, but when we revert to the gold standard under President Paul..."

I don't know about President Paul, but I absolutely support the gold standard. I think its dangerous to let government control the value of the dollar.

If there is any question as to how competent they are at it you can look at its current value. Is there really an argument on this? Our money should be backed by gold, case closed.

Look at it this way.. Your dollars value is exactly the reverse of the gold chart. (as gold is typically used to measure currency value)

I'm just pointing it out, like it or not, thats how it is.

There is another way to look at this if you like.. When the Dems complain about all the billions CEO's make you can mention the decline of the dollars value to them.

So the "excess" of greed is really an illusion.

pull your head out of your ...
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CongressCritter™: Never have so few felt like they were owed so much by so many for so little.

Yea...looks real constant to me. I guess I missed the massive deflation we were experiencing 15 years ago. If you bought gold in 1988 you would be really sad after holding onto it for a dozen years and watching it not only fail to keep up with inflation, but decline in value.
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Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. - Milton Friedman

remains a mystery for Sherlock Holmes.

The values on the chart are derived from the equation

Y= (Revenues-Expenditures)/GDP

Changing the scale by revaluing the dollar causes us to multiply both the numerator and the denominator of the fraction by the same scaling factor.

The scaling factor becomes an identity at that point. You've demonstrated quite brilliantly that we should multiply every single value on the chart by one. Thanks, and keep up the hard work!

“The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil men."

Oh damm.

You got me.. oh wait just kidding.. you didn't.

What I am saying is the government is counterfeiting money and giving it wall street. (The Fed bailout last month.) This causes the GDP to raise against the debt making the appearance that the deficit is dropping BECAUSE there is a higher GDP, but that GDP is funded on debt.. the reason it doesn't equal out right away is takes time for inflation to catch up.

You need to educate yourself on the difference between the national debt and the budget deficit. They are not the same thing. That chart does not deal with the debt.

You might also want to explain what happened to the price of gold (you know, with its magical powers of never changing value and total immunity to the forces of supply and demand) over the course of the decade or two before your chart.
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Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. - Milton Friedman

I know the difference tyvm. Bush's tax cuts *are* GOOD, I they should do more, it has increased the tax revenue by good amount and tax cuts will always help the economy as people have more money to spend.

Gold is not immune to the forces of supply and demand this is why I sourced other investments as well, and if you don't like gold we can use something else.. like wheat. Wheat is $9.53 a bushel a, you guessed it, record high.

The reason, and I should have made this more clear, that I don't believe the economy is doing well is because that growth is fueled prepetually by corporate and private debt. This debt is expressed by the devaluation of our currency that the charts show. You can cite gold in the 80's as being higher (as it was horded since the money was in gold and not stocks, this time the money is in stocks and gold is also high) but you can't compare it to anything and everything the dollar buys.

..and this is all well an fine if you think our entire economy should run at an ever increasing debt.. but when we run out of people to borrow from, and this will be sooner rather than later we are going to be in serious trouble.

The chart you were so eager to find fault with does not deal with the debt at all. You were the one who brought debt into it. So either you are changing the subject, since you realized your original complaint about the chart was utterly clueless, or you were mistaken in the first place and confusing the two. Which is it?

Gold is not immune to the forces of supply and demand this is why I sourced other investments as well, and if you don't like gold we can use something else.. like wheat. Wheat is $9.53 a bushel a, you guessed it, record high.

Yea, or rather than randomly picking and choosing commodities, we could just take EVERYTHING households spend money on and roll it into a number we could call something like... CPI. Oh, that's right. The black helicopter squad are the guys that come up with that number, so it can't be trusted.
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Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. - Milton Friedman

The chart I find fault with is being trumped as an example that the economy is doing good. I don't think it is and pointed out the drop in the dollar in my original post. That not a change in the subject. Your the one who started the straw man argument that gold prices do not matter thus my point is void.

More government spending, thus more corporate revenue, thus more tax revenue, thus higher GDP, thus lower budget deficit, is only a valid point if you ignore the inflation on the original money created.

This balance of spending vs growth only works when we can actually find people to borrow money from to finance it, as the dollars value drops more and more that cycle will become more and more difficult to maintain.

See you downthread in about 400 posts from now.

It's war -- so when can we start shooting back at the enemy Democrats?

their prior months' stuff!

This is kinda clueless but I'll bite.. The reverse, is *ta da* federal spending. (that's growth %, the government never really gets smaller..)

Read the comment threads from BrooksRob, zuiko, and Myself.. I think it was a good discussion of whats really going on with the economy. I don't want to start hashing over the same old points again.

Is spending too high? Does it need to be cut / frozen / handled?

Yes. Period. Now. Forevermore. Agreed.

Do tax cuts decrease government revenues? Not lately, it seems. That is what the graph addresses.

And trust me, my brother, you have no idea how many times these points have been hashed over, and how little desire I have to go through it again.

Well, in your case, at least by discussing it again people could know what your latest position is. You flipped and flopped a few weeks ago, remember? (of course not). So what's your position, that the Bush tax cuts (2001, 2003, or the two combined) have not had a net negative impact on revenues (i.e., that revenues would not have been higher if the tax cuts had not taken place)? And the grand total of your supporting evidence is that revenues have been increasing over the last few years? You observe that correlation and assume causation? Is that what you're saying (at least as of tonight, 10/11/07 at 9:40pm EST)?

Tax receipts have been going down. Sorry.

I would, however, like to see the grand total of your supporting evidence that revenues have DECREASED. Even a silly little ol' graph would be fine.

On second thought, I have not been able to take enough tomato juice baths to get the smell off of me from the last time we tangled, so forget I asked.

Thank you for showing a more recent example of not getting it. I'll type real slow-like for ya so maybe -- just maybe -- you'll finally get it (but I'm not betting on it). Ready?

No one disputes that revenues have been increasing the last few years. No one disputes that the Bush tax cuts occurred in 2001 and 2003. With me so far?

ok, now, do you understand the simple concept that just because tax cuts are up, it doesn't mean that tax cuts are up BECAUSE of the tax cuts rather than DESPITE the tax cuts? Or have I lost you already?

Are you aware that there is consensus among well-credentialled economists -- including conservative economists and Bush's own current and former top economists -- that the Bush tax have had a NEGATIVE impact on revenues? If not, you obviously have not researched it. I have. And there is.

Do you have some rational reason to think that they are all wrong and you're right? Have they all missed something that Jack Savage sees so clearly?

ok, now, do you understand the simple concept that just because tax cuts are up, it doesn't mean that tax cuts are up BECAUSE of the tax cuts rather than DESPITE the tax cuts? Or have I lost you already?

HUH?

ok, obviously a typo (at least it would have been obvious to me in that context if someone else had written it). I meant "just because revenues are up". Glad you pointed it out, whatever your intention.

You have a consensus among well credentialed economists. I have increased tax receipts, beginning with the tax relief act passed in 2003. You're right in that I am certainly not able to see how increased total tax receipts are proof that tax cuts decrease total revenue. I guess we'll leave it at that.

Off the subject, and just for kicks - if your economists are able to predict, say, ONE economic statistic over the next few months - like PPI, GDP, jobs - you know, basic stuff - please feel free to let us all know, and I will start paying a lot more attention to them. Not all, not most - just ONE stat.

In the meantime I will read a certain post by Martin A. Knight again and draw my tomato bath. And re-read your third paragraph. Maybe you were typing too slow, huh?

Thanks for showing how impenetrable you are to reason. Just for kicks, I'll try again.

You have a consensus among well credentialed economists. I have increased tax receipts, beginning with the tax relief act passed in 2003. You're right in that I am certainly not able to see how increased total tax receipts are proof that tax cuts decrease total revenue. I guess we'll leave it at that.

No, Jack, "increased total tax receipts" are NOT "proof that tax cuts decrease total revenue". My point -- and here comes a reeeeal difficult distinction, so get ready -- is that increased revenues does NOT prove that the tax cuts have caused those increases, as opposed to the increases occuring despite the negative net impact of the tax cuts. You REALLY can't understand that it's possible that revenues could go up for reasons other than the tax cuts, and that revenues would have been even higher if the tax cuts had not taken place (even if GDP growth were lower)?? Do you really assess everything in life that way -- observe an anecdotal correlation and assume both a strong correlation and causation? I doubt you do (and I certainly hope not).

Off the subject, and just for kicks - if your economists are able to predict, say, ONE economic statistic over the next few months - like PPI, GDP, jobs - you know, basic stuff - please feel free to let us all know, and I will start paying a lot more attention to them. Not all, not most - just ONE stat.

You say "off the subject", but sure seems that you're making the point that because economists are not particularly good at predicting those figures, that means they lack any substantial credibility on the question of the Bush tax cuts' net impact on revenues, which would be absurd...well, if that's what your point was...but of course it wasn't...because you said "off the subject".

And re-read your third paragraph. Maybe you were typing too slow, huh?

As I said in comment above, it was obviously a typo, and anyone with any sense would have figured out quite quickly what I meant to type.

You forgot to adjust your graph for inflation. If inflation is exponential, as you claim, I would suspect that the rate of growth would be level or negative.

True. Same would apply to the revenues graph above it, which I presume is in nominal dollars. As an additional note, the Y axis on the revenues chart doesn't start at the origin (zero), which creates the visual illusion of a more dramatic rise.

Oh no the heritage foundation has been infiltrated by cultists

That chart was produced on a macintosh.
______________________________
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
-Thomas Paine: The American Crisis, No. 4, 1777

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Wow! So since 1999 government spending has almost doubled?! What has it been from 2004 til now? Any more spify graphs?

I've got to post on this again because I think your missing the picture.

The claims that the economy is doing well simply because the budget deficit is lower are, in my opinion, false and misleading ..above I cite our declining and record low currency as an indication of that. Government has resorted to printing the money to pay the bills and have destroyed the currency. You know why counterfeiting is illegal, right? Why are you letting the government do it?

You need to understand that the government doesn't have a thing that it did not take from *us*. So its revenue going up means people must have more government burden on their shoulders in some form or fashion. I want to see government revenue go down as in.. we don't need to collect it anymore because there is simply less government.

And you need to understand that. The sub-issue was tax cuts and effect on revenue.

You wouldn't happen to be a Ron Paul fan, would you?

OOOPS - halftime's over - see ya Monday...

It's too complex for me to say, there are a lot of factors, and its too late in the day for me to use my brain.

Ron Paul, I dunno.. he is right on economy, but wrong on the war. Let's say I don't hate Ron Paul, but I'm not voting for him.

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Not everyone, Neil. Now go refill your cup.

Welcome back

...a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right...

---Thomas Paine---

just stopping by, but thanks (I think).

2001: Capital Spend Collapse + Stock Market Implosion + National confidence shaken by 9/11 Attacks (and Anthrax Letters) = The table was set for a massive and sustained recession.

2002-2003: Bush takes a page out of Econ 101 and tries to stimulate the economy by cutting taxes (most importantly marginal and cap gains) and yes, by ramping up govt spending.

Result: Recession is relatively mild, sustained recovery has the economy roaring back. And bonus happy ending - the deficit we had to run is coming back down at a healthy clip.

Is that synopsys oversimplified - yes, certainly. But give Bush at least a modest amount of credit for doing exactly what he should have done during a recession and at least partially contributing to things turning out relatively well.

If you want to fault him for not dialing back spending more, once the recovery was underway, fine. And if you want to lament the entitlement problems we are going to have in 2016, that's fair too.

But give Bush and his tax cuts (and recession spending) a break. He did what needed to be done, things are going in the right direction now. I don't get why its so hard to be pleased about that.

You know I probably agree with that. With working in the system it was probably the right call, but the looming danger and ever dropping dollar will not be good overall to the economy.

(and I don't see how Bush alone can stop this without massive cuts to the federal government)

My point is what it is: The impact of his policies/decisions has been higher spending (even aside from war/homeland security) and lower revenues than we would have had without his tax cuts, so if revenues are up and deficits down, it is DESPITE him, not BECAUSE of him, so he deserves zero credit for those trends. If you reject my premise that his tax cuts have most likely had a net impact on revenues, you're incorrect, and if you accept my premise but still think he deserves credit for these trends, you're being illogical. Take your pick.

eh?

And just like I have argued FOR Clinton's success here, despite his tax increases in 1993 before Newt, from the argument that we would have had higher growth sooner sans the tax hikes, shouldn't you give Bush some credit for such great growth despite the tech bubble and 911?

Mike Gamecock DeVine @ The Charlotte Observer
www.race42008.com
www.hinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
"One man with courage makes a majority" - Andrew Jackson

It's not *ALL* Bush or the tax cuts.

The Fed dropping the interest rate to 1% had a lot to do with it too, so Alan Greenspan needs to receive a fair share of the credit.

Mike Gamecock DeVine @ The Charlotte Observer
www.race42008.com
www.hinzsightreport.com
www.theminorityreportblog.com
"One man with courage makes a majority" - Andrew Jackson

n/t

I dont get it, what does n/t mean? (I'm new here)

and properly done, it's in the subject line, signifying that the reader need look no further....

It's war -- so when can we start shooting back at the enemy Democrats?

the reason many of us here have taglines (like mine below) is because the RedState gods force you to have some text in the comment portion. In other words, you'll need some sort of pithy tagline to use properly.

It's war -- so when can we start shooting back at the enemy Democrats?

They need an edit button like dig or something.

the subject line has the whole message. It means "no text"-i.e. no additional message.

The comment field requires an input. Many use the n/t, others some kind of signature phrase, others a period or other punctuation mark.

You know my answer because I've told you many times.

Tax cuts are generally stimulative -- i.e., they generally generate incremental growth of the economy, and in turn, the tax base, which is why there are revenue feedback effects (which mean that the revenue loss will be less than what static scoring calculates).

Roughly speaking, Revenues = tax base X tax rates. If rates go down by some percentage, the tax base must grow (mainly from incremental GDP and reduced tax avoidance) by the reciprocal of the whatever percentage the new tax rate is of the old (just divide old rate by new rate and subtract one to get required incremental growth for revenue-neutrality). In simplified terms, if you go from a flat 30% rate to a flat 20% rate, the tax base has to grow 50% to produce the same revenues as before the tax cut (i.e, 30/20 minus 1). So the question of net revenue impact isn't "Does this tax cut generate incremental growth?" but rather "Does this tax cut generate ENOUGH incremental growth to compensate for the rate reduction?"

I have a document with quotes out the wazoo of conservative economists -- including Bush's own current and former top economists -- who all say what I'm saying about the net impact on revenues of the Bush tax cuts. And very, very few well-credentialled economists disagree. But for a simple explanation from someone other than me, I offer the following. GC, you may have seen this before because I emailed links to it to you about a week ago, but it seems that you may not have read it.

Charles Wheelan writes on economics, and is author of "Naked Economics" http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0393324869/ref=sip%5fpdp%5fdp%5f0/002-7..., although he has no economics degree. His Ph.D. is in public policy from the Harris School at the University of Chicago. His favorite economist is Gary Becker, favorite economics writer is Milton Friedman and favorite economics blogger is Greg Mankiw, all conservative economists)

March 13, 2007:
The Biggest Economics Charlatans: The supply-siders who continue to insist, in the face of all evidence and academic opinion to the contrary, that a country like the United States can boost tax revenues by cutting taxes. Based on my past skepticism of the supply-siders, I know that I'll soon be bombarded by angry comments and emails pointing out government revenues went up after some favorite tax cut, such as the Reagan or Bush tax cuts. But that alone tells us nothing, as government revenues always trend up due to inflation and economic growth. The appropriate question is not whether government revenues were higher after the tax cut than before, but rather whether revenues are higher than they would have been in the absence of the tax cut. All credible evidence on this subject says that there are a lot of good things about tax cuts, but raising extra revenue is not one of them. http://finance.yahoo.com/expert/article/economist/26418

Wheelan, May 2, 2006:
Debunking One of the Worst Ideas in Economics
I'm going to write about what I consider to be the two worst economic ideas -- or at least ideas that pass as economics, though both have been thoroughly repudiated by nearly all credible thinkers…the most pernicious bad ideas in economics are those that have a ring of truth. They're hard to debunk because they have a certain intuitive appeal. As a result, they stick around, providing bogus intellectual cover for bad policy, year after year, decade after decade.

Laffer…supposition: If tax rates are high enough, then cutting taxes might actually generate more revenue for the government, or at least pay for themselves.…In fairness to Mr. Laffer, there's nothing wrong with this theory. It's almost certainly true at very high rates of taxation…. But here's the problem when we take Laffer's theory and try to apply it in the U.S.: We don't have a 99 percent marginal tax rate. Or 70 percent. Or even 50 percent. So cutting the tax rate from 36 percent to 33 percent is not going to give you the same kind of economic jolt as slashing a tax rate from 90 percent to 50 percent. There's no huge black market to be shut down, no big supply of skilled workers to be lured back into the labor market, and so on. Will it generate new economic activity? Probably. And that will generate some incremental tax revenue for the government. But remember, it also means that the government will be taking a smaller cut of all the economic activity that we already have.

Think about a simple numerical example: Assume you've got a $10 trillion economy and an average tax rate of 30 percent. So the government takes $3 trillion. Let's cut the average tax rate to 25 percent and, for the sake of example, assume that it generates $1 trillion in new economic growth (a Herculean assumption, by the way). So now, what does Uncle Sam get? One quarter of $11 trillion is only $2.75 trillion. The economy grows, government revenues shrink. That's basically what happened with the large Reagan and George W. Bush tax cuts… In both cases, government revenue was lower than it would have been without the tax cuts.

Neither the Reagan nor the George W. Bush tax cuts were "self-financing," as the Laffer disciples like to argue…the bottom line from the Bush Administration itself is that tax cuts reduce Uncle Sam's take.
http://finance.yahoo.com/expert/article/economist/4065

I think we would probably have a 50% or more tax rate in the US if we include all the corporate taxes that get passed on to us, Social Security tax that is 14% not 7% because part comes from the employer that they would pay you and all the fees.. Hell, it might be around 60%

I don't know for sure if your wrong however because its hard to tell, I would think government spending would be more effective, but that has a negative impact as well.

lets see..

IRS 33%
SSI 14%
State sales tax 9%
Medicare 3%

That's 59% right there alone, there is a lot more that are harder to count..

I'm suddenly feeling very depressed that I hit that number so easily. I'm going to go cry somewhere for a while.

Brooksie. Welcome back.

Sometimes it's hard to tell if someone's being sarcastic or not in writing. I'll assume not, so thanks. But I'm not going to spend that much time on RS. Just kickin' around a bit tonight because I saw this diary on the deficit that drew me in because fiscal policy is very important to me and I feel strongly that there are some things people need to understand for the benefit of the nation (yeah, sounds grandiose, but no, I'm not under any illusion that I'm contributing much to the nation by doing so, particularly given the responses I typically get on this subject here on RS).

The net of both of them is: "It doesn't matter how much revenue growth there was after tax cuts, it's a KnownFact that it would have been greater without the cuts."

Yeah, it's those quotes that are silly.

So we can all get ourselves on the same page by buying the same make and model? It would be really handy to know with such certainty what would have happened if x, y, and z happened 5 years ago instead of a, b, and c.
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Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. - Milton Friedman

Learn the difference between probability and certainty. Learn what "ceteris paribus" means. And by the way, I took a vacation in 2003 and spent some cash. Is it likely that my vacation spending was responsible for the increases in Federal revenues since then? If you think not, I guess you're not entirely divorced from the sensible world of relative magnitudes and the possibility that, depending on one's expertise, some folks can have a good sense of probabilities of the net effect of one particular economic change (incremental growth of the tax base) and another change that has the opposite effect (lower rates applied to the whole tax base). But I guess Bush's entire economic team could all simultaneously scream in your ear the same thing that I'm saying and you'd still reject it. I'm probably wasting my time, but I thought I'd try again for some reason.

Yea, I've heard that all before. The vacation and all.

You weren't talking about probability a second ago. You didn't say that you believed it was more likely than not that the tax cuts hurt revenue. You know for a fact that the tax cuts have hurt receipts and that any increase in receipts has to be DESPITE those cuts.
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Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. - Milton Friedman

Ahh, zuiko. You don't get much, do you? (I mean concepts, not "get much" in any other sense) It is overwhelmingly likely that the Bush tax cuts have had a negative net impact on revenues. Happy now? When you state your belief about something do you distinguish between what is 100% certain (which is almost nothing) vs. what is overwhelmingly likely? Didn't think so. I was reacting to your nonsensical implication that unless one has a "crystal ball" no one can know the answer to this question of net revenue impact of the Bush tax cuts. Yeah, no one can know with 100% certainty, but that doesn't mean people with appropriate expertise can't determine what is highly likely or highly unlikely. Get it? Probably not. Not the first time I've tried (in vain) to get you to apply reason.

What, in your opinion, stimulates the economy? Is it natural market gyrations that are beyond tax policy? The level of taxation does not affect the economy and overall tax revenue?

Isn't that like a shop owner raising his prices any time he wants more revenue? Most shops wanting to raise total revenue have a sale.

Ask not what I can do for my country, ask what my country can do for me. Washington Elected Elite

The question is very complex to answer, I've shown above that we do have a very high tax rate.. more so on people likely to take advantage of lower capital gains but the boom to the economey is probbly more government spending and the 1% intrest rates much more so than the tax cut. All that "free" debt money in the system.

Not that I would say the tax cut hurt anything, I don't believe that.

Lots of factors can stimulate the economy. Tax cuts, spending increases, reductions in short or long-term interest rates, growth the global economy, technology advancements that raise productivity, globilization (in terms of lowering costs and expanding in foreign markets), a somewhat "natural" turn of the economic cycle from recession toward expansion (perhaps due to rebounding from previous overreaction to the recession in terms of businesses reducing capacity, delayed consumption, etc.), etc., etc., etc. Much more than I could list here, and much more than I even know off the top of my head.

As for the shop owner, actually he wants profit, cash flow and ROI and ROA, not revenue per se (except insofar as revenue is conducive to or indicative of those other financials). But in any case, raising prices could either raise or lower revenues, ceteris paribus, depending on the price-elasticity of demand among customers/prospects. If a 20% price increase results in only 10% decrease in volume over some time horizon, revenues go up. If the result is a 30% decrease in volume, revenues go down. Conversely, a price reduction -- like tax cuts -- may either raise or lower revenues, again depending on the magnitude of the reaction to that incentive.

ok?

When you state your belief about something do you distinguish between what is 100% certain (which is almost nothing) vs. what is overwhelmingly likely?

Well, when I state my beliefs about anything I don't call those who don't agree with my position idiots or uninformed cult members. I would think you'd want the threshold to be at 100% before you start to engage in that. Well, maybe not you, but most people would.
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Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself. - Milton Friedman

lol. You've got to be kidding. There are some people, including some here on RS, who express certainty that tax cuts always cause increased revenues and/or who make such statements regarding the Bush tax cuts, and who have ridiculed me (e.g., calling me "insane") for saying otherwise. It is overwhelmingly likely that the Bush tax cuts have had a net negative impact on revenues, based on the strong consensus among experts (including top conservative economists and Bush's own current and former top economists) who have no incentive to be biased or insincere in reaching that conclusion (and actually have an incentive to reach the opposite conclusion). If people repeatedly refuse to accept that likelihood simply because they've made a couple of crude, conveniently selected anecdotal observations of correlation or because some other non-economist said so, the only explanation is that they simply do not wish to be rational. And if a bunch of people approach the issue that way, and constantly reinforce that irrational belief by repeating it back and forth to one another, then that's drinkin' the ol' Kool-Aid (or simply being ignorant on the issue, but in the case of many on RS with whom I've shared info, that excuse doesn't fly).

growth that directly causes higher receipts.

Personally, I think tax cuts help but don't cause it. They form part of an overall mindset that promotes optimism and expansion.

On a historical note, the capital gains tax cut of 1997 triggered enormous receipts. Which then contributed to the internet bubble, which then fostered massive bad investments, which then contributed to a bust.

As Roseanne Rosannadanna would say, it's always something.

how technological advances can cause massive change. But what we know from 1776 on, is that low taxes makes all the good more possible than not.

Mike Gamecock DeVine @ The Charlotte Observer
www.race42008.com
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"One man with courage makes a majority" - Andrew Jackson