Here is one entry from Michael Knoll in Pennsylvania:
With many of the Bush tax cuts sets to expire in the coming years, the tax system has been described as a jump ball. And President-Elect Obama, who was elected on a platform promising tax cuts for 95 percent of Americans and ambitious plans to increase spending, is poised to grab it. With solid Democratic majorities in the House and Senate, there will be intense pressure on him to move quickly to reverse the Bush tax cuts and to implement his promised tax and spending plans. Yet, prudence dictates not moving too quickly with his tax plan for several reasons. First, a weak economy is not the time to raise taxes on the top 5 percent. The time for tax increases will come when the economy improves. Second, the U.S. government has been running large deficits, which add to the national debt. Once the economy improves, total tax revenues will in all likelihood need to be increased ”“ not only revenues from the top 5 percent ”“ to reduce those deficits. Third, there is substantial dissatisfaction with the existing tax system from many corners. President Bush cut taxes first and then tried to get tax reform. He got his tax cuts, but he made little headway on tax reform having given away all the benefits. By connecting any revenue changes (most likely increases) with tax reform, President Obama will be better able to achieve both. Fourth, the U.S. tax system was designed for a nation where foreign trade and investment constituted a small part of the economy. That is no longer the case, and any major overhaul needs to address squarely the United States’ economic connections with the rest of the world.
Wow. It’s always interesting to see what economics professors think. You stop feeling stupid so quickly. The responses are generally all over the map and those that aren’t entirely ideological (two of the cited profs limit their comments solely to recommending that the Defense of Marriage Act be repealed – that’ll fix the economy, you betcha) are hedged with so many “maybes” as to say essentially nothing.
I continue to believe that our President-Elect has a huge opportunity that should not be missed: he has three more months to Blame Bush. He needs to send his transition team in so they can be “Shocked! Shocked!” at what a mess the current administration has purportedly made of things followed by the explanation that he can’t possibly implement his campaign promises until he’s cleaned it up. This gives him an out against raising the top tax rate at a time of economic crisis as this is a recipe for a “jobless recovery.” He can also avoid raising the capital gains rate (which will keep the stock market below 10K in perpetuity) while waiting out the current economic mess (which really has little to do with Bush, but who really cares about reality when you can bash a sitting president? Besides, this is a time it might actually do some good).
Why I don’t think he will: 1) he’s a decent guy and the decent thing is to get all magnanimous once elected; 2) he’s not a self-serving opportunist like Clinton but rather really believes in the stuff he’s been saying on the stump; 3) he’s a Democrat and Democrats have a terrible habit of always believing their own propaganda; 4) you don’t bypass pretty much every presidential vetting process there is (he walked into the senate virtually unopposed, did little while there, was handed the nomination – in the only real political challenge he’s ever faced – because of the Democrats’ hatred of Bush and the Iraq War, and had the presidency drop into his lap as a result of a fortuitously-timed stock market crash) without having an ego the size of Siberia. He’s going to think he’s right about everything, will fail to see how lucky he’s been (he and his team really did work hard during the campaign and this will go a long way toward convincing him that he earned it), and most of all, will really believe that soaking the rich is the way to fix the economy, that money in middle-class pockets will be invested in job creation in the same way and to the same extent as money in blue blood trust funds – and businesses, small and large. He’s got a year and a half. If the voting public doesn’t think he and the Democrat Congress have fixed things to their satisfaction, it’s a bum’s rush for the Party-in-Power followed by two years of being stymied by a party he pretty much can’t help but ignore for the next two years. Then the hard part begins.