Tag: stimulus

Happy Friday!

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A few fun things for Friday:

1. Republican Beltway noisemaker George Will tells the truth, at long last:

The last 11 years have been filled with hard learning. The 2003 invasion of Iraq, the worst foreign policy decision in U.S. history, coincided with mission creep (“nation building”) in Afghanistan. Both strengthened what can be called the Republicans’ John Quincy Adams faction: America “goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own.”

When anyone to the left of George W. Bush tried to make the same argument a decade ago, they were derided as traitors – or worse – by the bloodthirsty, expansionist, and wrong neoconservative set.

2. In 2008, the world was plunged into a global financial death-spiral. Different countries responded differently. Notably, in February 2009, President Barack Obama introduced, and Congress passed an economic stimulus package. On the other hand, in 2010 the UK’s Conservative – Liberal Democratic Parliament passed stinging austerity measures, inflicting pain – higher taxes, fewer services – on average Britons.

Here’s how the UK did in GDP growth from 2008 – 2014:

Here’s how the US did in GDP growth from 2008 – 2014:

3. Via CityLab, photographer Ignacio Evangelista photographed some of Europe’s abandoned border crossings. Thanks to the Schengen treaty, many internal EU borders are unmanned, unprotected, and abandoned. The EU features the free movement of labor and goods throughout its borders. Meanwhile, here in the US, the President is poised to halt all deportation of law-abiding people who have lived, worked, and paid taxes in the US for many years, and whose family members are already citizens, and this causes people to absolutely lose it. The European experiment is not perfect, but it’s fascinating to consider and analyze.  If, like me, you geek out over this stuff, check out the Internal Schengen Borders Flickr Group, and the External Schengen Borders Flickr Group.

4. Finally, here’s a bird – a Budgie, specifically – that sounds familiar.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2q6utsksoFY]

Tax Cuts For Thee, Tax Cuts For Me

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There is an impasse brewing in Washington over the Bush-era, post-9/11 stimulus made up entirely of income tax cuts. 

This is the same stimulus plan that has been in effect throughout the current economic uncertainty, and the recent global economic meltdown that took place, and has done little to make sure wealth trickles down, or to create jobs. 

It’s becoming part of the NY-27 race, in particular. Republican Chris Collins paints himself as the small business everyman, and called on Representative Kathy Hochul (D) to vote to extend tax cuts even to the wealthiest Americans.  Collins claims millions of small businesses, who aren’t hiring now, would be forced to not hire people (what, like even worser?!) if the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy aren’t extended. Essentially all of the $1 million+ earners in the country are not “small business owners”;  only about 2.5% of small businesses would be affected.  It would also expend the deficit by another trillion dollars, so it’s what we call “fiscally not particularly conservative”.

In fact, since Reaganomics and trickle down/supply-side economics became de rigeur,  wages haven’t stagnated for average Americans – they’e “plummeted”. Wealth hasn’t trickled down to anyone, unless maybe you own a Bentley or yacht dealership. 

No, we shouldn’t begrudge the rich their wealth. However they got it, they’re quite entitled to it. By the same token, we need to stop the hagiography about them being “job creators” without whom our civilization would crumble. Ayn Rand isn’t the treasury secretary. 

President Obama and the Democrats would like to put an end to the tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans. What does that mean? 

What it means is that everyone gets to keep the Bush-era tax cut up to the first $250,000 of annual income – even notable job creators like Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian.  Here’s the average annual tax savings if the middle-income cuts are maintained, but the high-income cuts are abolished: 

Still a pretty good deal, right? Anyone else getting the idea that Collins’ argument is more about self-interest than policy?  The problem is that many genuine small businesses rely on the middle class to buy their goods and services – directly or indirectly. The best way for that to happen is for people to have money in their pockets and the confidence to spend it. Millionaires never, ever have a problem with either of those factors. As we see above, extending the middle-class tax cuts provide a significant benefit across the income spectrum.

Stimulus

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Although Republicans generally follow the thought-process that “stimulus”, or Keynesian pump-priming is a horror matched only by, e.g., Pol Pot’s forced agriculturalization of mid-70s Cambodian society, they seem to change their tune when the economic stimulant is related to military spending. Talk about cutting back on, say, the Niagara Falls Air National Guard Base and all hell breaks loose, regardless on whether it’s really needed. It’s all about the jobs at the base, and the ancillary jobs it creates; in other words, its economic stimulus effect whereby government spending creates economic demand. 

It’s so bad that when the Pentagon promotes its spending priorities for the next federal budget, Medicare-killing wunderkind Paul Ryan calls the generals liars. It’s good to see that Republicans are just as supportive of government stimulus as Democrats, would that they would be honest about it and instead of scoring political points against our Indo-Kenyan Muslim usurper “President”, that they would put country first. 

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