Snow: Tight Spending, Tax Cuts to Cut U.S. Deficits

[Rose Siding]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow, launching the Bush administration's defense of its new budget proposals, made clear on Tuesday that tax cuts remain a cornerstone of its plans for boosting economic growth.

"This administration appreciates that cutting taxes and exercising fiscal discipline must go hand in hand," the Treasury chief told the House Ways and Means Committee.

As he has done in the past, Snow called deficits "unwelcome" and attempted to head off any criticism that excessive tax-cutting zeal helped create them.

"We are not under-taxed and higher taxes will not be the solution to reducing deficits," he said. "Fiscal discipline, combined with economic growth, is the correct path."

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=politicsNews&storyID=7570826&src=rss/ElectionCoverage

[callous taoboy]

1. A 40 million dollar inaugural is tight spending? n/t

[progressiveBadger]

4. Sure it is

They could have paid for rooms or meals for the soldiers they ordered to be at the inauguration, but they didn't! That's what Bush calls thrifty.

[yinkaafrica]

2. This is so sad it makes me want to cry

[Emboldened Chimp]

3. You know, these guys never explain how tax cuts reduce the deficit...

Why? Because they don't. Tax cuts increase the deficit, which in turn gives the license to cut education and social programs for the poor. They've been pulling this shit since Raygun, at least.

[ladjf]

5. I live in Atlanta. There are numerous autos still wearing their

"W" stickers with pride. But, in today's Atlanta Journal, there was a listing of some of the budget cuts effecting Georgia. For instance,
60 C130 airplanes, 100+ F22, 15,0000 farmers, CDC cuts, and hundreds of thousands of other Georgians directly impacted by the new "austere"
(meaning no money left after funding the Iraq war) budget.

How long will it be before the morons flashing their "W" stickers will begin to realize that they have been "had"? Amazing how these white people down here are shooting themselves in the foot by supporting Bush. I hope they are enjoying the fact that gays will have a difficult time, abortions may become illegal in about 15 years
and the Iraqi new freedoms (while 100,000+ are already dead).

Are we having fun yet? Oh, I forgot, it's probably Clinton's fault.

Of course when one is totally "faith-based", they can make up anything and declare it to be true without the need of objective evaluation.

[BronxBoy]

25. I know what you mean......

I relocated to the area about 6 months ago and there are times when I'm waiting in traffic surrounded by the W people and frustrated as hell that I can't find a good progressive radio but I can find Hannity, Rush and O'Reilly as easy as hell that I actually question my sanity.

I agree that I am astounded as well. What really kills me is that the housing construction continues at an unbelievable pace. When these cuts hit, how are people going to be able to afford these homes?

[stevebreeze]

26. don't feel too bad about finding a progressive on the radio

I live in the Chicago area. We voted for Gore and Kerry. In IL we have a democratic gov and both house of the legislature. Still we have no progressives on the radio. Liberal media? What a laugh!

[BronxBoy]

30. Get the F**k out of here !~!!!

None at all??? Wow. In NY you could find them. Didn't have the prescence that they should have had but you could find them. I'm very surprised that a city like Chicago would be progressive free.

[stevebreeze]

32. Used to have Nancy Skinner and Mike Malloy

but both are gone now. To the best of my knowledge there is no one.

[sandnsea]

16. I know! I know!

They didn't include those figures in the budget!!!

Go read the Democrats Attack Budget article. It's true! They just didn't include making the tax cuts permanent in their budget calculations! Unfriggin' believable!

[w4rma]

28. They've been pulling this BS since President Hoover caused the

Great Depression with this same exact "trickle down"/"turning the corner" BS.

[Maeve]

6. Yeah, sure. The tax cuts so far have taken a surplus to record levels

Of deficit, but hey, ya gotta admire record-setters, right? :eyes:

Any wonder they call it a Snow-job?

[Robert Oak]

7. don't forget HR 4520 a 137B corporate/special interest pork feast

I'm so sick of their brazen lies and out of reality "talking points".

[Ganja Ninja]

8. Bush's plans have worked so well up until now.

NOT!

I wonder how these guys can stand up and tell people what they're going to do with a straight face. Nothing has worked as planned for this bunch. Everything they've done has blown up in their face. You'd think they would show some embarrassment they screwed things up so bad but they act as if nothings wrong.

[MidwestTransplant]

9. They don't count Iraq of course

that's a freebee. Also they don't count the costs to phase out social security.

[sandnsea]

18. And they don't count the tax cuts!

Isn't that an amazing way to balance a budget? Just don't count reductions in income, voila! You're a freakin' financial genius!

[Roland99]

10. Reducing revenue will decrease the deficit?

Hunh?

It hasn't helped yet.

I seem to recall higher taxes during the Clinton administration and he managed 4 years of fiscal surpluses!

[w4rma]

29. Note that those taxes were higher on the weathy and lower on the middle

class and the poor than they are now. (Remember that "fees" are taxes also)

[TahitiNut]

11. The Federal Debt will reach a 50-year Record High in FY2006

In very meaningful terms (as a percentage of the GDP), the Federal Debt will reach a 50-year Record High in FY2006 as a result of the fiscal irresponsibility of the Reichbot Banana Republicans during Reagan/Bush, Bush/Quayle, and Bush/Cheney. This doesn't even include foreseeable supplemental appropriations of over $80 billion for the military occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq.

[yellowcanine]

12. G.H.W. Bush had a name for this: "voodoo economics"

He was right then and his son is wrong now.

[shantipriya]

13. snow job!!!

What a moron!!!If raising taxes will not reduce the deficit,what will? according to the Repugs,more tax CUTTING is the answer.What a bunch of selfish idiots!

[Village Idiot]

14. WTF???

"This administration appreciates that cutting taxes and exercising fiscal discipline must go hand in hand..."
WTF???
Snow called deficits "unwelcome..."
No SHIT???
WHO hired THIS lame-ass???

[Brooklyn Michael]

15. It's not that they're looking to decrease the deficit...

Or improve the economy, for that matter........To the GOP, the deficit is just fine the way it is....This enables them to do what they always wanted to do since the 50's - cut all government programs except for defense and end government as we know it. If they get less taxes from the rich, the only thing left will be taxes from the rest of us. If they successfully cut every gov't program not directly related to the war on terra', all OUR taxes will go towards funding the Defense Dept. so we can continue to get into wars that the poor and middle classes will wind up fighting....

Who said * was stupid? This is actually a brilliant strategy.

Bottom-feeding, dirt-bagging, motherfucking EVIL......but brilliant.

:evilfrown:

[Rainscents]

19. Snow is in bedded with GOP!

I think he wants to take this country into bankruptcy!!!

[Massachusetts]

17. WTF

are these guys smoking....I want some!:hippie: :bounce: :wtf: :silly: :dunce:

[74dodgedart]

20. Yeah, supply-side economics has worked so well in the past...

[sonicx]

21. If I give away all my money...

I can pay my bills. :crazy:

[Triana]

22. Tax Cuts DO NOT reduce deficits...

..period. They increase them. We've seen that. It's just like trickle-down - the sh*t doesn't work. Didn't we try that crap in the 80s? (cutting taxes for the rich and trickle-down enronomics?)

Jeebus.

[Rose Siding]

23. More from Reuters: Snow Urges Quick Action on Social Security

snip>
"The sooner you act, the more options are available," Snow said near the end of a three-hour hearing at which several Democratic lawmakers complained they still did not have details of the White House's plan for an overhaul, which would include private savings accounts for younger workers.

Democrats also criticized the absence of information about the costs involved in altering Social Security, which Snow said was "doomed by our country's demographics and in need of wise and effective reform."

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=politicsNews&storyID=7572184&src=rss/ElectionCoverage

This guy's killing me

[area51]

31. wise != nazi

John Snowjob said:

"...{Social Security is} doomed by our country's demographics and in need of wise and effective reform."

No matter how hard you try, you just can't say "wise" & republinazi in the same sentence. Never gonna happen.

---

"Prosperity is just around the corner." -- Herbert Hoover
"The economy has turned a corner." -- GW Bush

Herbert Hoover = GW Bush

Neither man cared about the Depression their economic policies created.

[MasonJar]

24. Just how do tax cuts when we are spending over a billion a week

in Iraq cut the deficit? I heard on NPR coming home that Bush says doing away with the big farm subsidies would save a billion plus over 10 years. Ha! That is one week killing innocents in Iraq.

[daleo]

27. Fuzzy math.

When Canada cut its deficit (and turned it to a surplus) the government implemented both tax increases and spending cuts. It worked, and now we can afford to re-invest.

It is folly to think tax cuts can lead to lowered deficits, especially tax cuts on the rich.