NASTIE’s (Never - A - Stinkin’ - Tax - Increase - Ever!).

[jtuck004]

Attack of the NASTIE’s
May 20, 2011

As the administration and members of Congress debate the path to fiscal sustainability, my colleagues and I at CBPP have consistently stressed the importance of a balanced plan that combines both spending cuts and revenue increases.

Sounds fair…reasonable…right?

But mention “revenues” in this town and you trigger the attack of the NASTIE’s (Never-A-Stinkin’-Tax-Increase-Ever!).

...
Highest Tax Rate Real GDP Growth
1941 0.81 17%
1942 0.88 18%
1943 0.88 16%

Sources: Tax Policy Center, BEA]

What’s that? You want more. How about the same graph re unemployment? Again, if anything, there’s a drift to the lower right of the chart, suggesting higher rates correlate with lower unemployment.

...

Here's the link.

Reading the words of or listening to people traitors who bemoan paying the taxes we need for a strong country, people who think the jobs that tax cuts for the greedy provide are desirable or sustainable, (death gives one bed rest too, but I don't see anyone pushing to the head of that line), I think of this article.

We need investment in this country, of a size and complexity that only a government can provide, in training and rebuilding the human and physical base while we figure out what we need for the next hundred years. And we need to figure out how to sweep the "nasties" out of the way.

I was listening to On Point at NPR today, they talked about a $4 trillion savings over the next 10 years as one of the current proposals, but in that time we will add another $10 - 12 trillion in debt (IIRC) WITH that savings. They talked about having TWICE as many +65 people as we do today in that same time period. (Anyone think the costs of big pharma or medical care are going down enough to offset that during that time?) And they talked about how much better we did during the 90's with higher tax rates.

Most everyone knows we are about 25 million jobs in the hole, and several million homes are in the foreclosure pipeline, in addition to what has already been lost. And food stamps have reached a record number.

So the issues of today aren't going away, or the damage repaired, in two lifetimes. I hear that no one expects Obama's proposal to pass, and that next year's election may be a referendum on exactly that. But if the above is all we get out of it, we are still going to be in the ditch. Do people really think that a win would give us room to say "Ok, we got that, now we need a whole bunch more" and not start this whole argument over again, maybe with less credibility?

Instead, maybe we should acknowlege the size of the job, and what we need to invest, the wars we need to close, make the damn election about something large enough to change the course of a nation. That is what China and every other developing nation is doing. They are our single biggest external threat today, unless one thinks that tent cities are something to aim for. Maybe we teach the American public that one of the benefits of a sovereign currency is that we can manage it to our benefit, that we aren't locked into the same accounting structure that your parents use for the cookie jar. Or is there not enough faith in people to think they could learn that?

Because once the election is past we are looking at another 20 or 30 years (at least) of what we are going through today (very likely, and not even the worst scenario), and despite the evidence that they are wrong, we will have the nasties at our heels again.

If (when?) they win, the policies they promote will make today look like a garden party.



(Hope the blog post above wasn't here b4, I didn't find it in a search)