Public Doesn’t Blame Bush Tax Cuts for Deficit

The first, and only, defense offered by our friends on the left regarding Federal spending is to pretend that Bush's deficit spending rivaled Obama's. To which the honest answer is: Not hardly! Check out the inconvenient graph to show the relationship: http://tinyurl.com/yc4ngs3

We're already facing a $12 Trillion deficit; the CBO projects it at $20 Trillion by 2020 at the rate that Obama and Congress are saddling us with deby.

Inconvenient fact number two: if you taxed "the rich" at 100% -- that is, confiscated all their money -- it wouldn't run the Federal government for a week. The commenter, above, whining that the "top richest 1% own almost 50% of the nation's financial wealth" conveniently forgets that the top 1% also pay more income tax than the bottom 90%. And a recent news article notes that about 47% of households -- including families making as much as $50,000 -- will pay NO Federal income taxes at all for 2009. Are they paying their "fair share"?

The government isn't starved for money; it takes in over 18% of GDP already. The problem is that the Federal government spends too much. The bigger problem is that people like our friendly commentators don't think that's a problem -- or that it needs to spend EVEN MORE.

Paul in NJ of NJ 6:34PM April 09, 2010

Whatever else may be said for Mr. Bush, he certainly was no piker in the spending department. He was a little bashful abour paying for his high priced elective debacle in Iraq, leaving that part of his misadventure to future leaders and taxpayers. Getting out of that part of the world with all possible deliberate haste will slow the flow of red ink dramatically. The present administration's decision to properly budget for his (Mr. Bush's) ill-advised choice to open up a war has raised a clamor about "big" spending. The fact that the "big" spending under the previous administration was hidden by "big" borrowing is largely ignored.

I must take issue with Mr. Petrillo's assertion that failure to invest is directly related to the pending normalization of dividend taxes. Taxes were not the driving force behind my (successful) investment decisions before Mr. Bush's tax relief, during the period of the relief, nor do I expect this to change when the relief expires. As my sainted mother-in-law once remarked on the subject "just be grateful that you have it to be taxed."

Leon Maxwell of GA 7:30PM April 02, 2010

It is a tax on every level of production, but gets passed down the line until it is paid by the consumer. At that point, it becomes a hyper-regressive sales tax on the poor, who must spend almost dollar they make.

There has been little or no discussion of which I am aware of what taxes, if any, the VAT would replace. If it replaces a portion of the income tax, the poor once again take it in the shorts, while the wealthy laugh all the way to the bank.

Once a tax is in place, it almost never goes away or decreases. So, the Feds start with a reasonably low VAT, but it increases over time. Also over time, the states decide that a VAT is a great idea and jump on the bandwagon.

The same people who rabidly scream "socialism" seem to be the ones pushing the VAT, a concept which originated in Europe. This alone should make the voter suspicious.

James of CO 6:00PM April 02, 2010

Borrowing for tax cuts for the rich and the Iraq war required massive borrowing from Japan, China and others--raising our national debt and the half trillion dollars in annual interest that could have been used elsewhere. Some interesting aspects of various taxation schemes of the US and Europe is found in Book 4 of the free ebook series 'In Search of Utopia' (http://andgulliverreturns.info)

DrBob of CA 3:05PM April 02, 2010