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You are here: Home / I Often Wonder

I Often Wonder

by John Cole|  March 9, 20037:52 pm| 14 Comments

This post is in: Democratic Stupidity

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If Bill Clinton can open his mouth without lying.

Mr. President, with all due respect, the reason we have a huge projected deficit this year is because we are not cutting homeland security and the litany of other spending issues you discussed.

I have decided I am against the complete repeal of the dividend tax, at least for the time being, but do you have to lie about everything?

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14Comments

  1. 1.

    90210

    March 9, 2003 at 8:27 pm

    You call Clinton a liar, but you’re lying in exactly the same way when you say the deficit is because of the need to fund homeland security, etc.. The deficit is neither due to the tax cut nor to any failure to cut spending, but to Bush’s policies in totality. The tax cut or the spending could co-exist with a balanced budget– the deficit is caused by their simultaneous presence. And it doesn’t really make sense to anyone who didn’t watch the show.

  2. 2.

    John Cole

    March 9, 2003 at 8:34 pm

    I edited your comment, 90210, because I fixed my spelling.

    At any rate, I am not lying.- the deficit is caused by spending too much money. Clinton claimed we were cutting homeland security and cutting education spending in order to have tax cuts. There has been no such fiscal discipline. We have been spending like drunken sailors and not cut the spending of anything…

  3. 3.

    Andrew Lazarus

    March 10, 2003 at 12:09 am

    Well, as I understand it the plan seems to be to run up such a humongous deficit, we’ll finally have to cut Social Security and School Lunch and all those other nasty little programs, that we were unfortunately able to afford under the Clinton Administration because of how they operated at a surplus, with high productivity and low unemployment.

    The monster deficits of the Bush Administration (which are only expected to grow further) come from either his inability to forecast (hey, didn’t he say we were going to have a small temporary deficit? Who’s lying now?) or from his stupid economic program in totality, or both, as 90210 says. Heck, the entire budget for Homeland Security is only 10% of the budget deficit. See http://www.whitehouse.gov/homeland/homeland_security_book.html#4.

    Bush ran for office on a program that the surpluses could continue even in the face of his wanton tax cuts. Voodoo economics, as his father said, and truer than he realized: Bush seems to prefer the Haitian two-class economic system to the one we used to have.

  4. 4.

    John Cole

    March 10, 2003 at 1:12 am

    Andrew- according to the reports I have seen, the budget has increased extraordinary amounts- the deficits are not currently being caused by the tax cuts, but by inordinate spending. I am as disgusted at Bush and the republicans for this spending spree as anyone- I think it is horribly irresponsible. Blaming it on the tax cuts is silly, though- unless you are only looking at the ten year projections- which will likely turn out to be just like every other ten year projection ever made. In a word, wrong.

  5. 5.

    Ricky

    March 10, 2003 at 10:04 am

    It’s the spending.

    http://www.rjwest.com/mtarchives/budget_stuff/001036.html

  6. 6.

    Andrew Lazarus

    March 10, 2003 at 10:14 am

    It isn’t the *discretionary* spending. Homeland Security and all related law enforcement probably isn’t more than 20% of the deficit total, and of course if we look only at the increase, it will be much less. And those expensive School Lunches were cut.

    Now, entitlement spending went up, but that’s a demographic given and should be planned for. We know about what Social Security will cost years in advance.

    These deficits come from a revenue shortfall, caused by the recession (some conservative economists believe that with enough tax cuts the business cycle will disappear, and they mis-planned accordingly), by a one-time economic hit caused by 9/11 (e.g., airlines), and BY THE TAX CUTS. And deepening and extending the cuts, most of which don’t even kick in until after Bush is gone, will make the deficits permanent and structural. At this point, even people like the Congressional Budget Office agree.

    Highly recommended economics blog: http://www.j-bradford-delong.net

    Hey, I’m a liberal cheapskate, which means I loved the Clinton surpluses. Except for some sort of smarter national health plan and money for the environment, I’m not into wild spending sprees.

  7. 7.

    HH

    March 10, 2003 at 10:41 am

    Yeah we’re all familiar with DeLong around here…

    http://poorandstupid.com
    http://musil.blogspot.com
    http://justoneminute.blogspot.com

  8. 8.

    Ricky

    March 10, 2003 at 11:06 am

    The data begs to differ. The inlays have been higher than both the GDP and inflation the last 40 years.

    It’s been the spending….the on-budget spending.

    The ‘it’s never enough’ crowd would never acknowledge the facts, but the data is incontrovertable.

  9. 9.

    apostropher

    March 10, 2003 at 1:15 pm

    Not to call anybody names, but this has to be the very stupidest argument I have ever read.

    “It’s the spending!”
    “It’s the tax cut!”

    Outlays – revenue = deficit

    Arguing that it is one or the other is inane. It would have been a complete pass, but the QB threw it too far. No, the wideout didn’t run far enough. No, the QB threw it too far. No, the wideout didn’t run far enough.

    They didn’t raise enough revenue to cover their spending. So which is it: overspending or underfunding? IT’S BOTH. A quarter is still a quarter whether it lands heads or tails.

  10. 10.

    John Cole

    March 10, 2003 at 1:36 pm

    Hehe..

  11. 11.

    Ricky

    March 10, 2003 at 3:23 pm

    So if you get a $5 million dollar raise & still end up spending $6 million, your income is part of the problem, not your spending?

    Noted.

    ONE OF THESE DAYS someone will actually address spending….but, it seems that 2.1 trillion is STILL NOT ENOUGH. Gotta be that taxes are too low!

  12. 12.

    Andrew Lazarus

    March 10, 2003 at 5:13 pm

    Apostropher, the question of how to apportion blame to tax cuts or spending isn’t an absolute. As you point out, that’s impossible. I think we’re comparing the current mess with the Clinton-era budgets and also with Bush’s OWN forecasts. Remember, he promised us in the campaign that we would still have surpluses after his tax cuts. (Obviously, he was wrong, one can argue if he deliberately lied.)

    And compared with the projections that the Bush Administration was making as recently as early 2002, the delta is mostly revenue side.

    Now, I think there are people like Ricky and HH who hated the budgets we had under Clinton because even though they were balanced, they have philosophical objections to high levels of govt spending. Since they aren’t able to sell this concept when the govt is in surplus, they look forward to ruinous deficits where they’ll have a better chance. Kind of like support Christian Science by pricing conventional medicine out of reach.

    I looked at the three web sites recommended by HH, and believe me, the conservative team can do a lot better. (Say, here, or http://www.volokh.com .) The third featured a remarkably vicious and inaccurate comment about Al Gore and capital punishment, making fun of his desire for more careful implementation. Hey, HH, when it’s you walking down to the Hot Seat, I’m gonna cry me a river.

    Here are some specific DeLong posts (disclaimer, he and I are slightly acquainted)

    http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/2003_archives/cat_policy_fiscal.html

  13. 13.

    Ricky

    March 10, 2003 at 5:57 pm

    Now, I think there are people like Ricky and HH who hated the budgets we had under Clinton because…

    Don’t try to think for me, Andrew.

  14. 14.

    Bill Hannah

    April 18, 2003 at 10:55 pm

    We have to remember that we had a RECESSION in 2001 exacerbated by 9/11 and corporate scandels. This recession significantly reduced income tax revenues by 10%, 15%, and even 20% in some States. Federal spending never decreases due to the politization of the federal budget process – which is why we have deficits. Clinton benefitted from huge income tax windfalls during the 90s. If he would have exercised sound fiscal policies we would have had billions more in surpluses to pay off the debt or return to taxpayers. At the time of the Bush tax cuts, most economists thought that we were going into a “soft landing” but because of 9/11 and the after-effects of the market-mania of the 90s, we now have deficits….

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