Obama Budget Flimflam: “Irresponsible Policy Choices”
There has been a lot of media attention to President Obama’s budget announcements of last week. In fact, the actual budget has not yet been developed. Last week the Administration published several documents that were about the budget, but did not include the hundreds of pages of line items and numbers that will be included in the actual budget. One of those documents, “Inheriting A Legacy of Misplaced Priorities,”(ILMP) is a campaign style propaganda piece, intended to justify the upcoming budget.
ILMP uses a well-worn leftist tactic, rolling scores of false assertions, and miss-statements of fact into a few pages so that it takes hundreds of hours to compose corrections by compiling all the data. Our counter-tactic will be to dispute key assertions, upon which most of the rest of the assertions rest, starting with this one:
…for far too long, the resilience, optimism, and industriousness of the American people have been frustrated by irresponsible policy choices in Washington. Prudent investments in education, clean energy, health care, and infrastructure were sacrificed for huge tax cuts for the wealthy and well-connected.
Obama’s intent is to plant in the mind of the reader the perception that there has been a trade-off, that Congress and previous presidents faced a choice between tax cuts and “prudent investment” and that they chose the tax cuts, and that as a result the government didn’t collect enough revenue and had no money to increase spending or “prudent investments.” Obama and The Left identify Reagan era tax cuts as the beginning of the this, “far too long” problem. Under Reagan all tax bracket rates were reduced. The top bracket was reduced from 70% to 28%.
If we accept the conclusion that too little tax revenue and too little spending caused all our nation’s problems, then of course the Obama agenda of tax increases and oceanic increases in spending makes sense.
Income Tax Revenue 1984 - 2008
As the chart demonstrates, income tax revenue began to increase dramatically, just after the Reagan tax cuts were implemented. Revenue actually went down just after the first President Bush broke his “no new taxes” pledge and joined Congressional Democrats in raising rates.
The only significant tax revenue decline over the past quarter century resulted not from tax cuts but from a recession caused by the bursting dot-com stock bubble and the 9-11 terrorist attacks. Two years later, Congress and President Bush implemented significant cuts in all tax bracket rates, and in the rates for Capital Gains and Dividends. Only then did the economy begin to recover from the Dot-com-911 recession, generating increasing tax revenue for the government.
Since last fall tax revenue has been falling, but not because the rates are too low. The rates the same as they were when revenue was higher, and rising. Revenue is falling because a severe recession has, again, lowered taxable income.
As the data demonstrates, declining tax revenue cannot be the cause of America’s economic problems. But it clearly is possible that government has caused problems by collecting TOO MUCH from tax payers, especially small businesses.
We are told by the Democrats that Clinton’s tax increase in 1993 brought us a balanced budget and Trillions in surpluses and that Bush just threw it all away on tax cuts for the rich.
This chart does show tax revenue went way up after Clinton’s tax increase.
What’s the real, whole story?
That is the whole story, Sarah!
Clinton set this nation on a responsible, sustainable course and Bush drove us into the ditch. Iraq, torture, Gitmo, Patriot act, tax cuts for Billionaires who didn’t even ask for tax cuts!
Golden Parachutes for wall street crooks, foreclosure for hard working, honest citizens.
Worst President in the history of America!
Sarah -
At the risk of stating the obvious. I wouldn’t pay much attention to the drivel comming from Chuck’s weak mind.
Note carefully: The Bush I tax increase was followed by receipt reduction. Why? GDP decline.
Next: the Clinton tax increase FOLLOWED the uptick in tax revenue. Why? Recovering economy.
Next: Late 90′s revenues were an illusion, the byproduct of the dot.com bubble. That was never real, just a bubble.
I would also note, and Chuckie would hate this, that Willion Jefferson Clinton LOWERED the capital gains tax rate (egad!!!) late in the decade.
Don’t expect quantitative analysis from Chuck. Just slobber.
Thank you aaa again.
I’m sure you know the Democrats take credit for low unemployment and general good times in the 90s. they say Clinton’s tax increase made it happen.
No politician ever comes out and says how high taxes should be.
What if they started with a blank sheet of paper? Is there a way to figure out what the ideal tax rate is? Is 35% better than 39%? Is 30% better than that? Why?
I know what chuckster will say. the higher the better for the “rich” but zero for Chuck and his peers.
Does anyone have a thoughtful answer?
Republicans keep blinding themselves to the Clinton era of very low unemployment and prosperity.
The rich did just fine during the 90s under Clinton’s tax schedule. Obama will bring us back to the same tax schedule Clinton had and things will get better again.
Republicans have one answer to every problem. Cut taxes for the rich. Well, it doesn’t work. It gives even more to the people who have the most.
The people are tired of always worrying about not upsetting the rich while they slurp their caviar and champaign.