Larry Gude
Strung Out
No. That is only the cost of the hyper rich fiends that gross $250k and more.
Testing, testing ...
- Thread starter Tilted
- Start date
No. That is only the cost of the hyper rich fiends that gross $250k and more.
Larry Gude
Strung Out
Is that one of the characters is Clue?
FromTexas
This Space for Rent
The ARRA was advertised at $787 billion. The CBO estimated that it would increase deficits by the same amount at the time (which means there is also an interest expense when deficits become debt). Additionally, the CBO stated while ARRA would cause short term increases in GDP, it would have a long term negative effect on GDP. According to Recovery.Gov, which shows a pretty graph, ~$560 billion has been shelled out/not taxed or otherwise out of the $787 billion. The not taxed portion gets back to the Larry discussion of is it cost to the government or savings to us...
Mongo53
New Member
Unless you have the unmittigated Gaul to claim any success as your own, despite no evidence to support it, and a media in the bag that will repeat it with no investigation into whether its true or NOT.The investment of which Tilted speaks does not seem to have any returns
e.g.
The U.S. Woman's Soccer Team winning the Olympics, is all the result of Title 9, it wouldn't have happened if liberals didn't institute (wait, wasn't it that radically paraniod extreme right winger Dick Nixon, that put in Title 9?)
Ummmm, so all the countries that have won the same title also had Title9, I don't think so?
The G.I. Bill created the Middle Class for America!
Ummm, there was a middle class before the G.I. Bill, and everyone that moved into the Middle Class was a former G.I. that went to school on that bill?? As well, can anyone prove a link, that if someone is eduacated for a job, there will be a job waiting for them upon graduation? Cause, the BuggyWhip Industry would probably still be around if they took that approach, just start job training programs for BuggyWhip business and that Industry would still be thriving today. As well, we don't see recent College Grads having problems finding a job today with the poor economy?
The left will always speak of their Social Programs as an Investment, and the returns in Nebulous terms that can never be measured. Politicians of the left will always lay claim to Economic success's, if the claim can NOT be disproven, because the Media will let them get away with it, even if its an incredulous claim.
Yea, Fox News is the Problem.
This is why you want Government out of business as much as possible. The government is NOT accountable to anything but the people's "PERCEPTIONS" and those "PERCEPTIONS" can be manipulated by the Media. So you'll see government make decisions accordingly, more than willing to do as they please, push a personal agenda or idealogy, as long as they can get, with the Media's help, people to "PERCEIVE" that it works.
Bussiness is held accountable by the Free Market, if it doesn't work, the business suffers loses, goes out of business and business that make investments or do things that do work effectively get rewarded with more market share and profits and expand.
When you become Socialist, Government makes centralized business decisions, the same way they always do, NOT based on Free Market Forces, and you end up with lots of bad decisions tha give poor returns.
Arguably, the Government in the housing market, without full authority, played games to hide the problems they were creating to continue the policies they wanted, they had to entice business into it, since they could NOT order business into it. This built the house of cards that came all tumbling down.
Tilted
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Are you saying the Stimulus package only cost $800 Billion-ish - that it only cost more than the war in Iraq - if we consider reduced tax revenues, tax cuts, and tax credits as costs?
FromTexas
This Space for Rent
That would be a true statement if you considered reduced tax revenues a cost to the government. If you do not consider tax benefits as costs, it has cost about $300 billion, so far, and when fully utilized would be about $500 billion (again, ignoring interest expense and effects on GDP).
Personally, I consider most tax credits as cost to the government and would rather just see lower tax. If someone pays no or little tax and you give them credits beyond their earnings, I begin to see that as a cost; not debating whether its a worthwhile cost or not - its just a cost. I do not see tax cuts as a cost because you can not get more value than you paid in (unless you want to go down the liberal path of measuring intangible value).
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FromTexas
This Space for Rent
To enhance on the credits, I see credits as a way for government to 'spend' to influence certain behaviors in the guise of a reduced tax. Overall, as stated, I would rather just see them lower the tax bill. However, influencing new home ownership, college credits, etc... are beneficial when they influence the needed behavior but should still be viewed as a cost for a specific purpose and not less out of our pockets. The rest of us who don't do those things pay the bill for it in the end.
Tilted
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I agree on both points (if I read you correctly) - absent a specific context, I wouldn't consider it a cost to reduce tax burdens (whether it be through reduced rates or non-refundable credits), but I would consider it a cost to issue refundable tax credits to the extent that resulted in giving money to people beyond the amount they actually paid in taxes.
The larger issue, and my larger point, is this. Whether or not we refer to such things as 'costs' and discuss them as such, it's surely hypocritical and intellectually dishonest to criticize the other side's mindset when it causes them to do just that (e.g. when it comes to their discussion of how much it would 'cost' to extend the Bush tax cuts), and then doing the same thing when such is convenient to your argument or position (e.g. with regard to the Stimulus package costing $800 Billion and more than the Iraqi war).
I'm not terribly troubled by people referring to such things as 'costs', though, as I indicated, I probably do have a preference that would lead me not to in general. But, it's been my observation that some of the same sources (e.g. blogs, news media outlets) that have criticized liberals for thinking of tax reductions as costs, didn't hesitate to point out that the Stimulus package cost less than the Iraq war has thus far. That is only true if we consider tax reductions as costs.
The ultimate point is - and this 'cost' semantic/mindset issue is just one, mostly unimportant embodiment of it - from where I sit, I see hypocrisy, intellectual dishonesty, duplicity, and the dissemination of plainly inaccurate information coming from all sides on most political issues. The only factors that seem consistently predictive of the difference in (my) observational frequency of such instances between sides, is the difference in the frequency of my observation of both sides' commentary and the nature of the particular issue at hand. It's rather disheartening.
Larry Gude
Strung Out
In the last generation, we've gone from a standard issue conservative argument of "Which is better for the economy; a dollar spent by an individual or that same dollar spent by the gummint?" to the current inconsistent double speak of 'cost' of tax cuts, 'costs' of bailouts, 'costs' to, TO the government being SOP. The Bush era brought us to accepting this change in language because of how much money he spent and how he spent it, especially Med Part D, his big hallmark POS that is...all together now "Paying for itself".
The same change in language happened during the 2008 campaign when the argument went from whether or not it was a good idea to have gummint in medicine at all to an argument of not if but when and to what degree.
Cries from the left of hypocrisy leveled at Boehner and company and their latest attempts to say 'baaaaaaaa' about spending while pretending they have no fangs are accurate if disingenuous. They are all too happy about spending in general.
And that is where we are, arguing over who gets to put the boots to us.
FromTexas
This Space for Rent
If we remove tax credits and other tax provisions, then there is only $112 billion of true tax cuts (extension of AMT and other individual and corporate tax cuts). Other tax provisions ($48 billion) would be subject to interpretation depending on the individual provisions. So, for arguments sake, lets say the $112+$48 means $160 billion is not 'cost'. That leaves $787 minus $160 for $617 billion. This ignores administrative costs/burdens placed on employers, federal, state, and local communities (and interest and GDP effects).
So - if we wanted to be more honest about it, analysis has shown war spending has a positive long term effect on GDP. The CBO has pointed to a negative long term effect from the ARRA. Additionally, war spending administrative costs are assumed in the appropriation since it pays for Defense's administration and anyone doing business with the DoD is funded at their agreed rate (where they assume administrative costs). In the case of ARRA, oversight from local to federal, awards administration from local to federal, websites, signs, tracking, etc... all add costs - many not included in the ARRA. It may be possible, with sufficient analysis, to return an additional cost to government of that $160 billion we took out. Just a thought...