Tim Daneliuk wrote in message ...
Nate Perkins wrote:

"Fletis Humplebacker" ! wrote:

"Nate Perkins"

"Fletis Humplebacker"

...

Do the tax cuts help the economy? They are all borrowed money against
the deficit, which effectively increases long term interest rates. A
short term tax cut done in a broad-based stimulative way does help the
economy during recession. A long-range deficit tax cut that is
unsustainable has as much chance of hurting the economy as it does to
help it.

That alot of speculation on your part. It assumes that the money belongs
to the government in the first place.


The concept that long term deficits and sustained increasing debt is
harmful to the health of the economy is well established. What

'Ol Fletis is right about one thing here. It *ain't* the government's
money. The deficits are not primarily caused by tax reduction, they
are primarily caused by the government spending money on the
mooching-cause-of-the-moment with absolutely no self control, especially
in an election cycle.

You guys chant the "ain't the government's money" line like it is some
kind of mantra. You live here, you accept the benefits of national
security and a stable government. You have to pay for these things.
To think otherwise is just looking for a free lunch.

I suppose you could move to some country that doesn't have any taxes
(if you could find one).

conservative group would you trust for verification of this idea?
Check out the Cato Institute or the Heritage Foundation, both are

Cato is NOT a "Conservative" group by any definition. They just don't
lay down for the Idiot Left (Schumer, Clinton, Kennedy, Kerry, et al)

Wow, you don't think Cato is a conservative thinktank? I wonder what
you think is conservative then?

fairly conservative and are vocal on this issue.

And the *Republicans* have sadly become the party of big spenders:

http://www.cato.org/research/fiscal_...factsfigs.html

By any measure (absolute, incremental, per capita, inflation adjusted)
the Bush administration has overseen more spending than any
government in our history ... AND ... the military portion of it
is rather minor. These so-called "right wing conservatives" has
spend bagsfull of money on entitlement programs (drugs, farmers, etc.).

The moochers have spoken...

My point exactly. I am very much in favor of shrinking government so
that we can all afford tax cuts. But borrowing lots of money to pay
for bigger government (as has been done under Bush) is reckless in the
long run.

They are a loan that you are taking out to
help subsidize the guys who really got the big tax cuts.

Like who? The evil rich? Why shouldn't they get a tax cut as well?



Sure they should. When we can afford it, everyone ought to get one.
We can't afford it, though.

Says who?


You think we can afford another tax cut with the deficit currently
running at over 20% of all expenditures? With the debt going up the
way it is? I dunno, maybe all that balanced budget stuff is just
fuzzy math.

You must have gone to a school with a lot of Outcome-Based Learning
goals because the math isn't that hard here. We should all get a HUGE
tax reduction by cutting the Federal Government back to it
Constitutionally mandated tasks. That's right - you CAN reduce taxation
and eliminate deficit simultaneously. The problem is not what the
government takes in, it is what it SPENDS...

I'm not sure what Outcome-Based Learning is. You don't know me, so I
doubt you have any idea what my math background is. But like the
average person, I know red ink when I see it.

If you want to cut government first to pay for a tax cut, you'll get
no argument from me on that score. I just think that borrowed tax
cuts against the debt are dishonest.

Shifting the
tax burden from the upper class to the middle class (maybe you saw the
GAO report of a week ago?) is bad economic policy,


That liberal hysteria. The are angry that money doesn't get
distributed the way they want. The tax burden is growing because
government is growing and there's less earners per entitlement
recipients. Punishing the achievers has an adverse effect as
history proves. That's bad economics!

Not liberal hysteria. Reports of the President's own economists.

They said Bush had a bad economic policy and shifted the tax burden?


They said that Bush's policies have shifted more of the tax burden to
the middle class, and away from the upper class:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5689001/ Whether or not you think this
is bad economic policy probably depends on whether or not you are
rich.

This is a crock because the definition of "rich" is so fluid in these
discussions. More to the point, why should a fractional proportion
of the federal taxpayers (the so-called "rich") pick up a disproportionate
amount of the taxes that everone ELSE get the benefit from. You want
a "fair" system? Then support a flat VAT tax. Everyone pays the
same _percentage_, but bigger spenders pay more in absolute terms.
'Course, if we had a flat federal sales tax and nothing else, the
Congress Critters couldn't tinker with the Order Of Things to encourage
young poor girls to have more out of wedlock children (future Idiot
Liberals) or conversely to jam the morality-of-the-moment down
the throats of the school children (future Self-Important Conservatives).

I do agree that the definition of rich is fluid in these discussions.
I won't even get into the ranting about wedlock children and Idiot
Liberals. The notion of a flat VAT tax has been floated a couple of
times and it's pretty universally disliked, unless you are middle
class and like the idea of a national sales tax in the 20-26% range or
if you are very rich and want to see the middle class carrying more of
your tax load.

I know you will argue it will be less if you cut the size of
government (an idea I support entirely). But I don't think you should
confuse the separate issue of smaller government with other notions of
radical tax reform.