NYT Op-Ed: "Almost everyone agrees" ending Bush Tax Cuts "makes little sense." WT effing F???

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Op-Ed Contributor
The Tax Cut We Can Afford
By MARK ZANDI
Published: August 14, 2010

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/15/opinion/15zandi.html

UNLESS Congress and President Obama act soon, Americans’ taxes will increase in 2011, when the cuts enacted under President George W. Bush are due to expire. Almost everyone agrees that this makes little sense given the economy’s fragility. But consensus ends there. The president supports permanently extending the current tax rates for all except the highest-income households, while Congressional Republicans want the entire basket of cuts to be made permanent. The prudent middle ground would be to forestall any tax increases in 2011 and to phase in higher rates on upper-income households in 2012, when the economy will be on firmer ground.

The president’s plan would be taking an unnecessary gamble with the struggling recovery. Businesses have only recently begun to add jobs, and they appear to be a long way from hiring fast enough to reduce unemployment. Even under the best of circumstances, the unemployment rate will remain near 10 percent well into next year. The high rate of joblessness has cast a shadow on the collective psyche that will only worsen with higher taxes, raising the already uncomfortably high odds that the economy will suffer a double-dip recession.

In most times, raising taxes on the wealthy by such a modest amount has had little impact on the economy. But these aren’t most times. The well-to-do appear unusually sensitive to changes in their finances, probably because their nest eggs are significantly smaller with the drop in stock and housing prices. Only the top 3 percent of households would have to pay higher taxes if the president got his way, but this rarefied group currently accounts for a fourth of consumer spending. If they pull back, even a bit, the recovery could be derailed.

Successful small-business owners, who power the nation’s job-creation machinery, make up one-third of these high-income taxpayers. They have set up their businesses so that their profits are taxed at personal rates. Raising marginal tax rates, even a little, on those who have suffered during the past several years would be a mistake.

[MadMaddie]

1. The author of the article must be smoking crack.

[glitch]

17. They all are in that echo chamber. It's the only thing that explains their behavior. nt

[FBaggins]

2. Should read that ending ALL of the cuts makes little sense.

It's clear that democrats agree that the cuts at the upper end should be allowed to expire.

[tibbiit]

3. what does it take before

Regular people finaly realize we are fucked.
Our leaders lipserve us, but give away the store. They say we eat the leftover garbage and we say thank you. What bullshit but it wont change. (lol alot of mixed metaphors)
tib

[RandomThoughts]

4. What people have to realize

is the problem with information systems.


Although on your bigger comment, things will change. Not sure if anything has changed though, since only have news reports to go on, so who knows, then again I don't need to know anyways.

But they will change. And continue to change till things are set right.

Here is my view, better for everything to go away then to accept what is unacceptable, so does not matter what the change is, only that things have to change. And any method becomes acceptable, if one method does not work pick another, and theoretically that would lead to proper change or worst methods eventually being used.

So better sooner then later, but things will change.

Crank It Up
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnSbpPXlmvo

[Jack Rabbit]

5. The OP's headline is misleading

The headline makes it appear that this is the official position of The New York Times. It is not. It is the position of a contributing editor at The Times, who, as one poster above says, must be smoking crack.

I thought for a second somebody at The Times must have found and drink some Kool Aide left over from 2002, when they printed Judy Miller's fiction about Saddam's weapons programs on the front page above the fold.

[Amerigo Vespucci]

6. Absolutely untrue.

"NYT Op-Ed: "Almost everyone agrees" ending Bush Tax Cuts "makes little sense." WT effing F???"

Op-Ed = "OPINION PIECE." As in "THE OPINION OF THE PERSON WHO WROTE THE EDITORIAL."

Clearly stated. And also the reason why I posted it in "Editorials and Other Articles" rather than in GD.

[Jack Rabbit]

7. My apologies

It would have been more clear if you had stated the name of the author writing in The Times, e.g. Mark Zandi (New York Times): The Tax Cut We Can Afford.

However, the point is not worth pursuing and I hope you accept my apology.

[gristy]

8. An OP-ED can be an in-house or a contributed editorial

I'm not aware of any distinction as far as calling one an OP-ED and not the other.

[RC]

9. You will also notice that he made no distinction between business and personal

income and their respective taxes. This tax in on personal income, not businesses.

[dkf]

10. Will ending the Bush tax cuts reinstate the "marriage penalty"?

I can't remember when that ended.

[corkhead]

11. As Rachel just taught me, "almost everyone" is argumentum ad populum

from the wiki...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum

In logic, an argumentum ad populum (Latin: "appeal to the people") is a fallacious argument that concludes a proposition to be true because many or all people believe it; it alleges: "If many believe so, it is so."

This type of argument is known by several names,<1> including appeal to the masses, appeal to belief, appeal to the majority, appeal to the people, argument by consensus, authority of the many, and bandwagon fallacy, and in Latin by the names argumentum ad populum ("appeal to the people"), argumentum ad numerum ("appeal to the number"), and consensus gentium ("agreement of the clans"). It is also the basis of a number of social phenomena, including communal reinforcement and the bandwagon effect, the spreading of various religious beliefs, and of the Chinese proverb "three men make a tiger".

[ccinamon]

12. I want proof that the top 3% of the households buy 25%

of everything sold. I've never seen such a statistic.

[ThomCat]

18. I would say that is physically impossible.

Just in terms of volume needed to store the stuff, there is no way it is even conceivably possible for 3% of the population to by 25% of all goods. Can't happen.

Then, consider that they would be buying most of that stuff just to watch it rot until it has to be disposed of, and hauled out to landfill. Ridiculous.

Somebody made this statistic up just for shits and giggles.

[4dsc]

20. Its about 14% according to one article I read

So 25% is way off..

[starroute]

22. Probably measured by cost -- not by number of items

If ten ordinary people buy $20,000 cars while one wealthy person buys a $200,000 car -- that means the wealthy person has spent 50% of the total amount right there.

Even ordinary stuff like food, clothing, and home furnishings can mount up if you're buying all top-of-the-line. Toss in things like owning a half-dozen houses, bopping around in private jets, investing in antiques and fine art, or eating regularly at top-notch restaurants and it really adds up.

Whether it's 25% or "only" 14%, I think one of the real dirty secrets of our society is just how lavish the life-style of the wealthy is. They don't flaunt it the way they did in the Gilded Age, but it's there.

[depakid]

13. Like most American media outlets, the NY Times has no problem whatsoever publishing outright lies

and elevating them to the same prominence as objectively factual statements.

Hard to see anything but inexorable decline in a nation with institutions like that

[Demeter]

14. +100 your post

[struggle4progress]

15. Is this Zanda, the former McCain advisor?

[Kahuna]

16. Hyperbole in a headline? Whoever heard of such a thing?

:sarcasm:

[unblock]

19. i think that line is very poorly worded, but i do think few people want ALL the cuts to expire

republicans want all the tax cuts extended, democrats want all the cuts extended except those for the rich.

i haven't heard anyone call for ALL the tax cuts to expire, even the measly cuts for the poorest taxpayers.

[blueworld]

21. The NYT Editorial Board, w/few exceptions, have been a waste for years

The rich are unusually sensitive because THEIR nest eggs are significantly smaller??? Our nests are being foreclosed upon daily & our eggs have been fried for over a year!

Cry me a river. I wonder how sensitive their wittle feelings will be when they see mobs, pitchforks, torches, tumbrils & guillotines at the next Country Club dance?

Tax the f&&ckers & get it over with.

[Dragonbreathp9d]

23. Ever heard of Alan Fucking Greenspan?