Peter Orszag op-ed, NYT: Bush Tax Cuts not affordable, so let's extend them for two more years

[Amerigo Vespucci]

One Nation, Two Deficits
By PETER ORSZAG
Published: September 6, 2010

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/07/opinion/07orszag.html?_r=1&hp

The nation faces a nasty dual deficit problem: a painful jobs deficit in the near term and an unsustainable budget deficit over the medium and long term. This month, the Senate will be debating an issue with significant implications for both — what to do about the Bush-era tax cuts scheduled to expire at the end of the year.

In the face of the dueling deficits, the best approach is a compromise: extend the tax cuts for two years and then end them altogether. Ideally only the middle-class tax cuts would be continued for now. Getting a deal in Congress, though, may require keeping the high-income tax cuts, too. And that would still be worth it.

Why does this combination make sense? The answer is that over the medium term, the tax cuts are simply not affordable. Yet no one wants to make an already stagnating jobs market worse over the next year or two, which is exactly what would happen if the cuts expire as planned.

Higher taxes now would crimp consumer spending, further depressing the already inadequate demand for what firms are capable of producing at full tilt. And since financial markets don’t seem at the moment to view the budget deficit as a problem — take a look at the remarkably low 10-year Treasury bond yield — there is little reason not to extend the tax cuts temporarily.

[Lost4words]

1. defies logic IMO, must be frustrated in his new marriage?

[Amerigo Vespucci]

2. Pretty simple...he says "let's just do it for two more years" now...

...and two years from now he'd say "let's just do it for two more years" again.

It's clutching at straws, it's hoping that if this happened, in two more years we'd be distracted with something else and wouldn't fight it with the same intensity of 2010.

[Me.]

3. Of Course He Does

He keeps hooking up with rich women. So self serving.

[metapunditedgy]

4. Question for "pragmatists:" Are there ANY issues that are off the table for you?

Now that several elected Democrats are even considering gutting social security and extending these "tax cuts," with new trial balloons being floated every day....

Where do you draw the line?

What issues would cause you to break your "ardent support" of the pragmatist wing of the party?

[Beerball1]

5. Deficit

Total bullshit. Let all the tax cuts expire and then propose a middle class tax cut and let the Repugs oppose it. Do it before November. ALSO, I will say this again. Exempt the first $20,000 of income from payroll tax and remove the payroll cap. "Double tap" for workers.

beerball1

[Skittles]

7. BEERBALL1 NAILS IT

:thumbsup:

[elleng]

6. 'Getting a deal in Congress

may require keeping the high-income tax cuts, too. And that would still be worth it.

Why does this combination make sense? The answer is that over the medium term, the tax cuts are simply not affordable. Yet no one wants to make an already stagnating jobs market worse over the next year or two, which is exactly what would happen if the cuts expire as planned.

Higher taxes now would crimp consumer spending, further depressing the already inadequate demand.'

Like it or not . . . .

[Skittles]

8. that is all BULLSHIT

where the jobs over the past ten years from all those tax cuts???