This tax day, one of the big Republican talking points is that cutting taxes raises revenue. The theory is that if businesses and the wealthy pay less in taxes, they have more to spend on creating jobs.
But even conservative economists have cast doubt on this claim.
“Federal revenue is lower today than it would have been without the tax cuts. There’s really no dispute among economists about that,” said Alan D. Viard, a former White House economist under George W. Bush, in a 2006 Washington Post article.
Robert Carroll, deputy assistant Treasury secretary for tax analysis, also said that no one in the administration believes tax cuts created a surge in revenue. “As a matter of principle, we do not think tax cuts pay for themselves,” Carroll said.
Bruce Bartlett, a Reagan economist who became a strong critic of the Bush administration’s policies, used data from the Office of Management and Budget in a blog post last year to illustrate how “the Bush tax cuts reduced revenue rather significantly.”
Ronald Reagan, in fact, demonstrated how untrue it is that cutting taxes raises revenue:
Reagan enacted a major tax cut his first year in office and government revenue dropped off precipitously. Despite the conservative myth that tax cuts somehow increase revenue, the government went deeper into debt and Reagan had to raise taxes just a year after he enacted his tax cut. Despite ten more tax hikes on everything from gasoline to corporate income, Reagan was never able to get the deficit under control.
Reagan—Ronald Reagan, the icon of today’s Republican party!—realized that cutting taxes decreased revenues and increased the debt. And he responded by raising taxes. He raised them in regressive ways that didn’t fix the mess he had made, but in comparison to politicians like Paul Ryan and John Boehner, whose response to creating a mess is to see if they can’t turn it into a disaster, he was practically a moderate.
The budget plan that Budget Committee Chair Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) has put forward for the House Republicans is truly stunning. It takes the war on America’s middle class not to the next level but about three levels down the road.
There’s something we should start with, though, when we think about this budget. And that’s where we are now. Mark Sumner points us to this graph:
That’s the deficit, and that big orange stripe, the one getting wider by the year, is how much of the deficit the Bush tax cuts are creating.
Not only are billionaires already piling up ever larger heaps of cash under the shelter of the Bush cuts, the deregulation that drove the economy into instability only accelerated the disparity in wealth. Bailed-out Wall Street is again handing out record bonuses, while Main Street is dealing with the effects of budget cuts. The cost of belt-tightening is being borne by the poor and middle class, while the ultra-wealthy increase their dominance.
The nation had a record surplus in 2000. What’s happened since then is not an increase in social programs, EPA funding, or any of the other things on the chopping block in the current budget deal. What’s happened is a massive funneling of cash to the top. Unless that’s reversed, it will be impossible to staunch the flow of red ink.
Any serious fiscal policy will be one that, at a minimum, rolls back the Bush cuts. Any policy that hopes to put the nation on the road to long-term stability must look to repair the damage that’s been done by four decades of fruitless handouts to the wealthy.
House Budget Committee Chair Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) proposed FY 2012 budget resolution is a backward-looking plan that would benefit big oil companies at the expense of middle-class Americans. It retains $40 billion in Big Oil tax loopholes while completely eliminating investments in the clean energy technologies of the future that are essential for long-term economic growth.
Also this:
Cuts education for children and raise college costs for nearly 10 million students - Center for American Progress:
This means a significant cut to federal kindergarten-through-12th-grade education funding is in his sights… In addition to cuts to K-12 education, the Ryan plan would also cut Pell Grants by returning them to pre-stimulus levels. This is a cut of more than $800 in each student’s maximum Pell Grant award, which would impact millions of young Americans who depend on critical financial assistance in order to attend college.
Makes tax cuts for the wealthiest permanent, adding $1 trillion to the deficit – Paul Krugman:
The Tax Policy Center finds that the Ryan plan would cut taxes on the richest 1 percent of the population in half, giving them 117 percent of the plan’s total tax cuts. That’s not a misprint. Even as it slashed taxes at the top, the plan would raise taxes for 95 percent of the population.
It’s practically impossible to comprehend the devastation Rep. Ryan and his party are trying to inflict on working people—and devastation that’s inflicted on working people is devastation to the nation as a whole.
Half in Ten has a quiz about this budget. Take it and see how much you know about where we are and where this would take us.
In an effort to disguise higher food prices, companies are putting less food in the same sized packages. From the NY Times:
One shopper noticed when she made dinner for her 9 kids:
“Whole wheat pasta had gone from 16 ounces to 13.25 ounces,” she said. “I bought three boxes and it wasn’t enough — that was a little embarrassing. I bought the same amount I always buy, I just didn’t realize it, because who reads the sizes all the time?”
Ms. Stauber, 33, said she began inspecting her other purchases, aisle by aisle. Many canned vegetables dropped to 13 or 14 ounces from 16; boxes of baby wipes went to 72 from 80; and sugar was stacked in 4-pound, not 5-pound, bags, she said.
It’s stealth reduction.
In every economic downturn in the last few decades, companies have reduced the size of some products, disguising price increases and avoiding comparisons on same-size packages, before and after an increase. Each time, the marketing campaigns are coy; this time, the smaller versions are “greener” (packages good for the environment) or more “portable” (little carry bags for the takeout lifestyle) or “healthier” (fewer calories).
Marketing strategies are so cynical. They take for granted that we’re too dumb to notice.
This was the paragraph that grabbed me:
Thomas J. Alexander, a finance professor at Northwood University, said that businesses had little choice these days when faced with increases in the costs of their raw goods. “Companies only have pricing power when wages are also increasing, and we’re not seeing that right now because of the high unemployment,” he said.
The unemployment numbers haven’t gone down significantly, but we never hear about the huge numbers of people out of work any more. We never hear about job creation. All we hear about is the deficit, and how dismantling the social safety net is the solution. Even I know that a budget isn’t balanced by cutting alone. We need revenue – the kind created by having a working population.
Food and gas prices are going to continue to rise. This means tougher times ahead for those who are already hurting.
I’ve seen a number of bloggers address the home ownership rate, which at 66.5% is down to 1998 levels. But Susie Madrak highlights another number: an 11% vacancy rate. According to the CNBC post she points to:
The number of vacant homes for rent fell by 493 thousand, as rental demand rose. 471,000 homes are listed as “Held off Market” about half for temporary use, but the other half are likely foreclosures. And no, the shadow inventory isn’t just 200,000, it’s far higher than that.
So think about it. Eleven percent of the houses in America are empty. This as builders start to get more bullish, and renting apartments becomes ever more popular. Vacancies in the apartment sector have been falling steadily and dramatically, why? Because we’re still recovering emotionally from the toll of the housing crash.
Younger Americans have seen what home ownership has done to their friends and families, and many want no part of it. Credit has become very nearly elitist. Home prices, whatever your particular data provider preference might be, are still falling.
Like the New York Times article I wrote about yesterday, this is another piece of evidence showing us how profoundly our economy—indeed our country—has been changed by this recession and by the decades of growing income inequality that preceded it.
Enormous income inequality became the new normal. Then came this recession—we haven’t reached a post-recession new normal, but lots of signs suggest that what we’re moving toward is something that just a few years ago seemed unthinkable. That we have unemployment near or over 10% and the government doesn’t treat that as an emergency, that banks are allowed to just throw people out of their homes based on fraudulent paperwork, that the middle class is under a sustained attack.
The question is, where’s the tipping point at which the mass of working people in this country either accept that this is it—that their jobs, health care, and retirement will always be insecure; that they can’t expect to provide a better life for their children—or instead of accepting it, fight back, whatever that fight looks like?
I know I’m a broken record on this, but there is no great mystery why the Dems are looking at potentially major problems in November. The economy is truly atrocious and has been for a long time. I remember just before the ’08 election – almost two years ago – betting a friend that unemployment would rise above 7.6%. At the time to many people 7.6% seemed to be a pretty crazy number, even in the middle of the unfolding crisis. Soon after the administration projected that unemployment would peak at 9% from Q1-Q3 2010, and then start declining without any stimulus. It’s now been above 9% since May 2009, including 3 months where it was 10%+. If I had traveled back in time to warn them of this state of affairs, they would have been more likely to believe the time travel part.
President Obama gives another great speech—great not just because he’s a compelling speaker but because he’s laying out so much about what’s wrong with the economy.
Excerpts:
I ran for President because for much of the last decade, a very specific governing philosophy had reigned about how America should work: Cut taxes, especially for millionaires and billionaires. Cut regulations for special interests. Cut trade deals even if they didn’t benefit our workers. Cut back on investments in our people and in our future -– in education and clean energy, in research and technology. The idea was that if we just had blind faith in the market, if we let corporations play by their own rules, if we left everyone else to fend for themselves that America would grow and America would prosper.
And for a time this idea gave us the illusion of prosperity. We saw financial firms and CEOs take in record profits and record bonuses. We saw a housing boom that led to new homeowners and new jobs in construction. Consumers bought more condos and bigger cars and better TVs.
But while all this was happening, the broader economy was becoming weaker. Nobody understands that more than the people of Ohio. Job growth between 2000 and 2008 was slower than it had been in any economic expansion since World War II -– slower than it’s been over the last year. The wages and incomes of middle-class families kept falling while the cost of everything from tuition to health care kept on going up. Folks were forced to put more debt on their credit cards and borrow against homes that many couldn’t afford to buy in the first place. And meanwhile, a failure to pay for two wars and two tax cuts for the wealthy helped turn a record surplus into a record deficit.
I ran for President because I believed that this kind of economy was unsustainable –- for the middle class and for the future of our nation. I ran because I had a different idea about how America was built.
And
I believe government should be lean; government should be efficient. I believe government should leave people free to make the choices they think are best for themselves and their families, so long as those choices don’t hurt others. (Applause.)
But in the words of the first Republican President, Abraham Lincoln, I also believe that government should do for the people what they cannot do better for themselves. (Applause.) And that means making the long-term investments in this country’s future that individuals and corporations can’t make on their own: investments in education and clean energy, in basic research and technology and infrastructure. (Applause.)
That means making sure corporations live up to their responsibilities to treat consumers fairly and play by the same rules as everyone else. (Applause.) Their responsibility is to look out for their workers, as well as their shareholders, and create jobs here at home.
And that means providing a hand-up for middle-class families –- so that if they work hard and meet their responsibilities, they can afford to raise their children, and send them to college, see a doctor when they get sick, retire with dignity and respect. (Applause.)
That’s what we Democrats believe in -– a vibrant free market, but one that works for everybody. (Applause.) That’s our vision. That’s our vision for a stronger economy and a growing middle class. And that’s the difference between what we and Republicans in Congress are offering the American people right now.
To roads being turned to gravel, senior year of high school being made optional, public bus systems being shut down and libraries being closed, add another effect of state and municipal budget crises: firehouse brownouts.
Fire departments that can’t keep all their units open at any one time are instituting “rolling brownouts,” in which today the firehouse down the block from me might be closed and tomorrow it will be open while the one in your neighborhood across town will be closed. According to the New York Times, this is increasingly widespread—the article mentions Philadelphia, Baltimore, Sacramento, San Diego.
Firehouse closures don’t just affect the response time for fires. Increasingly, emergency medical response teams are part of fire departments, so people in cities with brownouts don’t just have to worry about facing a relatively rare fire. Much more common medical emergencies are suddenly a far graver concern: A heart attack, a fall down the stairs, being hit by a car. Or choking:
The risks of cutting fire service were driven home here last month when Bentley Do, a 2-year-old boy who was visiting relatives, somehow got his hands on a gum ball, put it in his mouth, started laughing and then began choking.
“It blocked the air hole,” said his uncle, Brian Do, who called 911 while other relatives frantically tried to dislodge the gum ball. “No air could flow in and out.”
It is only 600 steps from the front door of the neatly kept stucco home where the boy was staying to the nearest fire station, just down the block. But the station was empty that evening: its engine was in another part of town, on a call in an area usually covered by an engine that had been taken out of service as part of a brownout plan.
The police came to the home within five minutes and began performing cardiopulmonary resuscitation, officials said. But it took nine and a half minutes — almost twice the national goal of arriving within five minutes — for the fire engine, with a paramedic and more medical equipment, to get there. An ambulance came moments later and took Bentley to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Maybe that little boy would have died anyway. But wouldn’t you rather the question wasn’t out there? His family would, and they’re publicizing his story to draw attention to the problem.
State and municipal budget crises bring the overall economic crisis into sharp focus. If we can’t look at gravel roads and disappearing public transit and closed libraries and firehouses and see that something needs to be done, will Bentley Do’s story be enough? How much more of this will our government tune out before acting to end the crisis?
A slowdown in the housing and construction markets contributed to a sluggish outlook for the economy Thursday, highlighting the significance of government stimulus and job creation.
According to new statistics, pending homes sales and construction both declined in May. In addition, figures showed that while manufacturers recorded some gains in June, the pace of activity in that sector slowed last month compared with May and also came in slightly below estimates.
New-vehicle sales in the United States slowed in June, automakers and analysts said, raising concerns that the market’s recovery could be stalling after months of slow but encouraging gains.
The jobless sure are messing things up for the market’s recovery.
This isn’t likely to change any time soon. The hiring outlook isn’t good:
The weak private sector job growth, coupled with the loss of more than 200,000 census jobs in June, has economists surveyed by Briefing.com forecasting an overall loss of about 100,000 jobs for June. The government will release those figures Friday. The unemployment rate is expected to rise to 9.8% from 9.7% in May.
The Senate failed again to pass an extension of unemployment benefits.
Lurking beneath the deficit concerns for some members is the suspicion that the extended benefits discourage people from looking for work — even though there are five people vying for every available job and a full third of the 15 million unemployed don’t actually receive the benefits.
If Congress eventually does reauthorize the aid, people eligible for extended benefits during the lapse will be paid retroactively. Failure to do so would be unprecedented: Since the 1950s extended federal benefits have never been allowed to expire with a national unemployment rate above 7.2 percent. The current rate stands at 9.7 percent.
The deficit peacocks claim that extending benefits will increase the deficit. No word on how the deficit will decrease with even more people out of work living in poverty.
I’m sure it’s partly my mood, but wow is the news depressing this week. I’m just going to do some quick links until I can wrap my mind around all this, accept that it’s actually where we are right now, and come up with something to say.
In 2010, the Obama administration has estimated, school districts across the country might lay off as many as 300,000 employees, many of them teachers. That would be five times the number of layoffs in 2009, and ten times the number of layoffs in 2008.
-snip-
The teachers and other public-sector employees might be just the start. The CBPP has estimated that if states cut their spending from 2009 to 2010 the same level they did from 2008 to 2009, it might cost as many as 900,000 public- and private-sector jobs — swelling the ranks of the unemployed by five percent or more.
Did you know the national debt would stabilize if Congress did nothing? Because nothing includes things like the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy expiring—and who thinks Congress will let that happen?
And, of course, jobless workers around the country are still waiting for that unemployment extension we keep talking about. And they’re going to keep waiting. Thank you, Senate!
Responding to a PhD economist who thinks bloggers and op-ed writers shouldn’t bother trying to explain what’s going on in the economy, Matt Yglesias does an excellent job explaining why we should try to explain exactly that:
But perhaps you’re a citizen of a liberal democracy who speaks English and tries to keep abreast of political controversies. Well you’ve probably heard politicians talking a lot about jobs and the economy. You’ve probably noticed that voters keep telling pollsters that jobs and the economy matter to them. Jobs and the economy may matter to you! You may have seen that political scientists have found that presidential re-election is closely linked to economic performance, and thus deduced that the fate of a whole range of national policy issues hinges on economic growth. Well then I bet you are probably interested in the fact that a wide range of credible experts (with PhDs, even) believe the world’s central banks could be doing more to boost employment.
-snip-
Completely apart from the fact that the “science” of economics is a good deal less developed than what you see in real sciences, the fact is that economic policy is economics plus politics. For example, according to Ben Bernanke, the Fed could reduce unemployment by raising its inflation target but this would be a bad idea because it runs the risk of causing inflation expectations to become un-anchored. That’s a judgment that contains some “economics” content but it’s largely a political judgment. It’s part of his job to make those judgments, but it’s the job of citizens to question them.
We don’t all have PhD’s in economics, nor should we. The world benefits by having people with different academic training thinking about the same large-scale problems from different angles and by having people be interested in more than one thing, even if that means they aren’t highly credentialed in everything they ever pay attention to. For instance, Jared Bernstein, Vice President Biden’s economic policy advisor, doesn’t have formal training in economics, yet he’s held jobs at a think tank and under two presidential administrations doing economics. Clearly a PhD is not the be-all and end-all of understanding the economy.
Also, as Yglesias says, the world benefits by having citizens who question “experts” and fight to ensure that the government identifies the problems that plague working people and implements solutions that actually help working people. That is the essence of democracy.
