On Tue, 05 Feb 2008 14:10:59 -0500, Kurt Ullman
wrote:

In article ,
Don Homuth dhomuthoneatcomcast.net@ wrote:


Is that why revenues have gone up faster than inflation since the tax
cuts? Actually they accelerated for the first couple of years. The only
thing going up faster than rev is spending. Cause, I'd like you to meet
effect.

They still were Not tax cuts, were they?

And the deficit still continues to climb -- at near record pace.

While revenues also hit record levels. The problems are not in the
revenue, but in the spending side.

No -- the problem is in the mismatch between a small increase in
revenues coupled with a large increase in expenditures.

The key to keeping things in balance is to match them.

Actually if you look at the Joint
Commitee on Taxation "scoring" of the cuts, the revenues that came in
after the cut were larger than the scoring said would have come in if
the cut had not occurred. This is same scoring system they have used for
taxes way before GW came about.

Also based on an illusion. So-called tax "cuts" that are merely
deferrals merely postpone the day of reckoning, and create an illusion
of a thriving economy based on borrowed money. Rather like that
teevee commercial where the guy is bragging about his house, cars,
lawn, pool, etc -- and then says "I'm in debt up to my ears!"

All the rationalizing in the world won't change the economic
fundamental -- Costs are Real and Will and Must be paid. Public costs
will be paid by taxes -- no way around it. And nibbling around the
edges here and there, e.g. doing away with the National Endowment for
the Arts, won't accomplish anything important enough even to bother
with. People whine about such matters out of Personal Preference, not
because of Economic Principle.

There is a need to tax more than we spend. Otherwise we can't pay
down the accumulated Debt, the overwhelming majority of which the Rs
have managed to run up. It is the Combination of taxing and spending
cuts that will be required to get the job done.

So -- same question: What expenditures that You support are You
willing to have cut or done away with?

The answer to that question from everyone involved is where the
Solution -- if there really is one -- resides.

We can handle Some debt, clearly. The accumulated debt involved with
public investment in capital infrastructure ought to be bonded and
paid down over time. That way those who reap the benefit pay the
cost.

But the current-year Operational debt -- and most of it is -- that
accrues, is rolled over endlessly, such that the roughly 15-20 per
cent of the total revenues go just to pay the interest on it, right
off the top -- ought to be for by Current Revenues.

It's not. It hasn't been for quite some time.

Somehow the Rs lost their way a couple of decades back on such
fundamental matters. For a while there, I thought perhaps the Ds
would pick up the concept, but of late it doesn't seem to be happening
as it ought.

Unfortunate, truly!