Here is one:
I welcomed and agreed with most of “We’re No.1(1)!,” by Thomas L. Friedman (column, Sept. 12), especially his observations about students’ lack of motivation and work ethic. As a retired community college teacher, I’m surprised that teachers don’t report even higher percentages of apathetic students.
Like him, I find it troubling that no politician dares to say that maybe everyone’s taxes have to go up.
I’m puzzled, though, as to how we might return to the discipline and values of the so-called Greatest Generation. Coupled with those older values were qualities that we don’t want to revive: intolerance, fatalism about one’s place in the world, excessive stoicism, repression, bigotry and the exploitation of women and minorities.
We want the tolerance, openness and search for equality and self-fulfillment that are the better side of baby boomer values. The challenge for the next generation will be to face up to the realities while promoting the well-being of all.
Anne Matlack Evans
I’m troubled that no politician (except maybe Paul Ryan) is willing to say we can’t afford Medicare and Social Security.
I think that the previous president said something like that, in the future tense, and because he was who he was the ever partisan politicians quashed his proposal to take a look at the problem.
The answer to the question is this…we abandoned God, denigrated manhood, and made fathers optional in families.
Raising taxes does NOT increase revenue. Lowering taxes increases revenue. We have emperical proof–JFK and Regan tax cuts boosted revenue–our representatives in Congress just spent it all, and borrowed more besides.
The following is intended to be sarcastic. I would say based on the responses to the NYT that the best thing the Babyboomers can do for America is to pass as quickly as possible into history. One, because we are a huge drain on SS and Obamacare dollars and two, because we are too stupid and selfish to continue breathing. What is the opposite of the Greatest Generation?
I have been known to ask my parents, “If your’s is the greatest generation, what did you do to make mine one of the worst.” It’s mortifying that my generation’s contribution to the American Presidency is Bill Clinton and GW Bush.
The letter reveals precisely the problem with Friedman’s article. It’s all elegy, without any willingness to look critically at ourselves, or, for that matter to think about what made the “greatest generation” both great and limited. They’re great in that the sacrifices were sustained by an understanding of transcendent purpose, and the institutions and practices to reinforce it all. Take that away and, e.g., Roosevelt makes no sense (witness the D-Day prayer and the Four Freedoms). On the other hand, while the limits were real, the fifties were anything but complacent — in a sense, it’s because of the critical voices from that time that we can carry on about, “fatalism , excessive stoicism, repression, bigotry and the exploitation of women and minorities.” On both counts, Friedman’s sentimentality does that generation no honor and shines no light on our time. And it masks an unwillingness to think about what actually sustains sacrifice. All Friedman offers is a highly partisan list of (admittedly difficult) policy objectives. Progressive utilitarianism has its place, but it’s a far cry from common culture, common purpose, or common good.
Is there anyone besides me who thinks that Atlas may finally be shrugging?
#4, if lowering taxes increases revenue, then the obvious thing to do is to eliminate taxes entirely. It is amazing that some folks simply don’t get the Laffer Curve theory correctly. What Laffer theorized was that if 100% of income went to taxes, no one would do anything to create income on which they would have to pay taxes so there would be no revenue. Conversely if 0% of income went to taxes, no one would pay taxes, so again there would be no revenue. Supposedly, according to the actual theory, somewhere between 0% and 100% there is a point at which revenue is maximized. Unfortunately, Laffer’s theory doesn’t tell us where that point actually is.
#9 You do realize the Americans paid no income taxes for a very long time and we got along just fine. The modern income tax only began in 1913. Before that, there was only a temporary one to pay off the civil war debt. I believe that we can and should do away with the marxist inspired graduated income tax. Let the regulated market and individual work distribute wealth rather than doing so via government intervention. BTW, the income tax is all about controlling behavior through rewards and punishment. Do you enjoy having the government dictate to you that way?
#9–Thanks for making up stuff that has nothing to do with what I said. In legal argument we call that a red herring–it sounds good but has nothing to do with the question at hand. I said nothing about Laffer or eliminating taxes altogehter. What I said was “we have empericle proof” that lowering taxes increases revenue. I take your reaction as a knee jerk to my having hit a nerve. #8–Yep.
The best tax cut (and the cheapest for the government) would be to leave taxes where they are and slash the millions of pages of regulation and the litigation surrounding it that adds some 40% to the costs of running any business.
1. For litigation initiate “loser pays”. If you initiate and then lose a lawsuit and you pay for the defence costs. If your lawyer takes on contingency then the lawyer pays the defence costs.
2. For regulation, stop regulating most things. Anything that a parent does should NOT be regulated. Nobody should need a license to cut hair, wash dogs, babysit or tutor children or take care of elderly people in their homes. If folks want to pay for these services then do your homework and buyer beware.
3. Try to get as many things into the “a parent can do it” category. Most antihypertensive, asthma, and noninsulin diabetic medications can and should be made over the counter. Tylenol is more dangerous than HCTZ and it IS over the counter. Drug stores should be encouraged to teach folks how to check their glucoses 4x/day and to check their pressures and to do it themselves. Strep screens and urine dipsticks for strep throat and infection should be readily available in your corner drug store. If you can provide the pharmacist with a positive strep screen or urine dip stick, you should be allowed to purchase appropriate (pharmacy approved) medication without going to an urgent care or physician.
4. There are numerous other treatments that could be safely done by intelligent laymen. This would free up the ERs for the folks with appendicitis, and heart attacks instead of the uninsured immigrant with strep throat.
5. Complex laws should be rewritten. Newly hired (less than 6 weeks) bureacrats administering laws should be given examinations using real situations on all the laws they administer. Any law that more than 30% fail should be rewritten or thrown out. The lowest 10% should be fired. If the bureacrats don’t understand it, the people can’t.
6. It should be expected that most people should be able to understand the law without a lawyer to help them. If the law is too complex to understand without a lawyer, then it is probably a BAD law and should be considered for removal.
If you do these things it will be far FAR more effective than a tax cut, and will indeed stimulate business.
11. David Keller wrote
[blockquote]I said nothing about Laffer[/blockquote]
The theory that cutting taxes raises revenue is based upon Laffer’s theory, which does not support the idea that lowering taxes will always increase revenue. (Or the notion that raising taxes always reduces revenue.) The sort of mantra we hear about “lower taxes” always produce higher revenues actually does add up to a claim that zero taxes produce the most revenue. In other words, it is a simplistic answer
[blockquote]What I said was “we have empericle [sic] proof†that lowering taxes increases revenue.[/blockquote]
What we actually have is [b]empirical[/b] proof that there is little correlation between the level of taxation and the revenue generated. What the [b]empirical[/b] proof would indicate is that a top marginal tax rate of 90% (at least under one set of economic circumstances) produces less revenue (partly because virtually no one will pay at a 70% marginal rate) than a top marginal rate of 39.4% (with the elimination of numerous loopholes, exclusions, shelters which meant virtually no one actually paid the top rate) along with increasing inflation and GDP, produces more revenue. There is little [b]empirical[/b] evidence that the Bush tax cuts actually increased revenue–certainly not enough to pay for the roughly one trillion dollar cost of the Iraq war.
10. Sick & Tired of Nuance wrote:
[blockquote]You do realize the Americans paid no income taxes for a very long time and we got along just fine. The modern income tax only began in 1913.[/blockquote]
Yes, I am aware of that. I am also aware that we had high duties, tariffs and excises. We also had revenues from the sale of public lands. If we abolished the income tax and relied on duties, tariffs and excises it would dramatically increase the cost of oil and all the stuff we buy from China and other countries. It would emphatically not balance the budget, even with the most draconian cuts in spending.
It seems that some are advocating returning to the way things were in 2007, little recognizing that the way things were in 2007 resulted in the way things have been in 2008 and following. Even responsible conservatives recognize that the lack of regulation of banks, derivative markets, mortgages, bond rating and insurance were major factors in the disaster of 2008. Countries that had strict regulation of the financial system (e.g., Canada and the Scandinavian countries) have fared far better in the international meltdown than the U.S.
Regulation? What about that gas line disaster in California? Want more of that? How about the Gulf oil spill? Want more of that? How about the chronic episodes of tainted food? Want more of that? Madoff and others? Want more of that? Unsafe work places? Want more of that? More airplane disasters? Want more of that? Cheating on taxes? Want more of that? Dangerous drugs, doctors and hospitals? Want more of that? Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
I participated in an exercise last week to balance the budget. I did manage with draconian cuts to expenses and significant increases in taxes to produce a small surplus with which to pay down existing debt. That, of course, assumes that the draconian cuts did not trigger a recession (which they probably would) and also that the significant tax increases pretty much across the board did not trigger a recession (which they probably would).
[blockquote]If we abolished the income tax and relied on duties, tariffs and excises it would dramatically increase the cost of oil and all the stuff we buy from China and other countries. It would emphatically not balance the budget, even with the most draconian cuts in spending.[/blockquote]
The end of corporate income tax, combined with high tarriffs, would drive capital to the US (low taxes) and return high paying manufacturing jobs here. Gee, that sounds pretty good to me. Shoot, who knows but maybe having all that capital influx and new manufacturing going on here might raise tax revenues enough to balance the budget. We used to have a balanced budget back when we had tarriffs as our revenue stream. So, I don’t see what your objection is. Now, we have high income taxes and the budget is out of control and in just two short years the current government has raised the debt higher than all other administrations combined in our entire history. So, it isn’t a matter of the revenue stream. It’s the same source as we had in 2007, but now we are in a recession. The answer is fiscal discipline, not raising our credit limit. We cannot spend our way to prosperity.
[blockquote]That, of course, assumes that the draconian cuts did not trigger a recession (which they probably would) and also that the significant tax increases pretty much across the board did not trigger a recession (which they probably would). [/blockquote]
Um, maybe you missed it, but we are already in a recession…they are calling it The Great Recession.
The Great Recession ended at the end of 2009. We are actually in a delicate, slow recovery phase. One can debate whether the administration’s proposal to end the 2003 tax cuts for 2% of the tax payers would trigger a double dip recession. Certainly proposals to cut federal spending back to 2007 levels as some have offered would trigger a double dip recession. One could also reasonably debate whether proposal to extend the 2003 tax cuts for all tax payers would significantly increase economic expansion. What the 2003 tax cuts seemed to stimulate was not expansion, but rather mergers and risky speculation, some of which contributed to the economic meltdown in 2008.
There was an interesting column by Ruth Marcus of the Washington Post, [url=http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/viewpoints/stories/DN-marcus_16edi.State.Edition1.196ff62.html]”The myth about jobs, small firms: Startups are given too much credit on employment creation.”[/url] But I doubt if Kendall will post it. 🙂
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/viewpoints/stories/DN-marcus_16edi.State.Edition1.196ff62.html
How did the Greatest/G.I. Generation get to be who they were?
They were born 1901-24, so they were 5 to 28 years old when the Depression hit. They lost their new jobs, got run off their dad’s farms, stood in line at soup kitchens or watched their moms and dads do that. They watched and listened as fascists and communists offered truly terrible solutions to their problems, and pretty much everyone else admit they didn’t really know what to do about the mess the world was in. They suffered and they were scared, which are things that have wonderfully sobering effects. And when things got much, much worse, they did what they had to do.
We are all out of the habit of doing what we have to do. That is not going to last. But that is a gift from God’s left hand. Try to help folks get ready.
#16 Everyone cooking the books to put a positive spin on the economy can’t alter the reality of joblessness, foreclosures, defaults, etc. Folks can say that we aren’t in a recession, but we have 1 out of 7 in poverty now and 1 out of 8 are hungry. Each taxpayer (including you and me) now owe a staggering $121,193 because of the current Federal debt. http://www.usdebtclock.org/ So, any talk that we are “out of the recession now” is not looking at that very real and ever increasing and accelerating debt. We could take the entire GDP of the whole country this year and we could not pay off the Federal and State government debt…and we have a $1.3 Trillion deficit! But what is the point of debating this. They can raise the taxes to 100% and put us all in barracks, enslaved to the government, and we will not get out of this debt.
We are going to monetize the debt. Actually, we are already monetizing the debt, but everyone is acting like it isn’t happening. The fact is, the Fed is just making money out of thin air and buying the debt. That can’t last much longer.
A recession is defined by economists as two or more consecutive quarters of declining Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The GDP has been increasing every quarter beginning with the third quarter of 2009. Sorry, that’s the fact.
It is also true that unemployment/employment are trailing indicators; that is they begin to rise after the GDP begins to rise. Private sector unemployment/employment has been rising for several weeks–another indication that the recession of 2008 has ended.
Poverty has been increasing for nearly a decade. Doubtless the recession has accelerated the increase in poverty, but that increase was well underway during the Bush Boom years, indicating that the trickle down theory does not work.
Talk to me in January.
BTW…
Current US debt: $13,467,830,000,000
Current US deficit: $1,362,466,900,000
Equals $14,830,296,900,000
GDP is $14,542,047,000,000
Our Federal debt and deficit are greater than our entire GDP. That isn’t counting the state’s debts and deficits.
We are bankrupt. Keynesian economics ended up being expensive smoke and mirrors.
Actually, Keynesian economics is rather like Chesterton’s remark about Christianity: It isn’t that it has been tried and failed, but it has not been tried because it is difficult.
Keynesian economics requires a fiscal policy in which taxes decrease and expenditures increase in a recession, but taxes increase and expenditures decrease in boom years. The policy, if actually followed produces deficits in the lean years and surpluses in the fat years which offsets the lean year deficits. It is like Joseph in Egypt: in the fat years you store up grain to eat in the lean years. Unfortunately, in the boom years of 2004-7, taxes were cut and expenditures dramatically increased, creating huge deficits; mind you the national debt was virtually doubled during the previous administration which had inherited a budget surplus.
Clinton increased taxes when things were going well and produced a budget surplus by the end of his term. According to Keynesian economics this was correct fiscal policy. By the same theory lower taxes and increased spending were appropriate in the 2001 recession. But if we actually followed Keynesian economics, taxes would have been raised (instead of lowered again) and spending cut (instead of increased) as that recession ended. Violating Keynesian economics doubled the national debt and contributed to the catastrophe of 2008. If anything 1980-2010 confirms Keynesian economic theory to the degree that not following it produces a huge long term debt.
Sic transit gloria mundi
You just don’t get it. The “surplus” of the Clinton administration was a lie. The Social Security debt was left off the books (and has been since Reagan, I think). The prosperity of the Clinton years was a fiction called the Dot Com bubble. The prosperity of the Bush years was a fiction called the Housing bubble. This isn’t a Left or Right paradigm, it is a financial disaster due to over spending and borrowing to pay for it by both sides. BTW, you speak of the national debt doubling during the 8 years of the previous administration…but you neglect the fact that the national debt under the current administration has surpassed the cumulative total of the national debt amassed by all U.S. presidents from George Washington through Ronald Reagan in just 19 months! So, your partisanship is showing, sir. The Obama administration has added over $2 Trillion in debt in less than two years…twice as fast as the Bush administration (that took 4 years to accumulate the first $2 Trillion in debt).
Guantanamo still has prisoners, we still have troops fighting in Iraq, and even more troops now in Afghanistan. We have a Health Care law that is raising the cost of health care, not lowering it. We have an unemployment rate near 10%, record foreclosures, and a $1.3 Trillion dollar deficit…digging us all deeper and deeper into debt. The policy we have been following, according to the politicians and media is Keynesian…and it is not working. The books have been cooked by both private industry and the government. They consistently skew the numbers, but the reality is still the reality. They double and triple counted jobs during the Census, the liabilities of Social Security and Medicare are “off book”, the Federal and State pension funds are unfunded, etc.