The news media and Democrats often talk in demeaning terms of the so-called Bush economy and its problems.
I suggest that U.S. economic problems can be traced directly to Congresses controlled by Democrats.
During the summer of 1994, the president was a Democrat, Clinton, and both houses of Congress were controlled by Democrats. Unemployment averaged 6.1 percent.
Republicans campaigned on a platform of cutting taxes and spending. They won control of both the House and Senate.
Eighteen months after the Republicans took control, unemployment had dropped to 5.3 percent and then remained at 5 percent or lower for 69 of the remaining 116 months of GOP control of Congress.
During the summer of 2006, the president was a Republican, Bush, and both houses of Congress were controlled by Republicans. Unemployment averaged 4.7 percent.
Democrats campaigned on promises, or threats, of higher taxes, greater regulation of business and commerce, and no energy development. They took control of both houses of Congress in January 2007. Eighteen months after the Democrats took control of Congress, unemployment has climbed back to 6.1 percent.
Anyone who votes to send any Democrat to Washington, where he or she will vote to keep Nancy Pelosi or Harry Reid in a leadership position, is voting against the possibility of our country having a sane, sensible energy and economic policy.
Chess Howard, Augusta
Comments
Hey Chess, will your taxes go up? If you make >250K then yes. If you don't, then you are voting AGAINST your own best interest as do many ill informed, "family values" voters. The same ones that can't pay their mortgages, afford gas, have to buy less food and have to choose between eating and buying their medicine. If you make more than 250K (5% of the pop), then you can absorb it. If you can't, how are you smart enough or lucky enough to be in the top 5% of income earners in America?
Academic answer: to claim a relationship (correlation or association) between two phenomena (Congressional party in charge and unemployment) you are making the assumption that all other things constant (ceretis paribus) these things have a significant effect on each other. They may or may not. You also can't claim causality (which causes the other) unless you undergo more powerful statistical techniques that go much higher than looking up the unemployment monthly figures from the BLS on the web and taking averages. No personal offense Chess, but this question and the ability to solve it is above your statistical intellect. I'm sure I'm about to be blasted as an intellectual and elitest, but shouldn't we have the people that are equipped to answer this question do so. Chess, you just don't know that you don't know. Most rigorous research into this question has at least 8 variables that will influence this relationship (specification) and then you can get some idea if your two variables of choice actually have a significant effect on each other. Leave the science to us social scientists, but then again, a lot of "ill informed" folk would believe you over me...Phd be damned.
Dr Gunby.....letting the Bush tax cuts expire will make my taxes go up. And I make less than 250K. Obama doesn't consider letting the tax cuts expiring as a tax hike.
I'm not a scholar, never went to college and don't claim to be smarter than a man with a PHD. As I have lived my life and experienced things I have found one thing rings true no matter if you are college educated or dumb as a bag of hammers. All politicians are in it for themselves. They will never help you or the economy. They will only help themselves, their buddies and their family members get rich. As long as we the people keep pointing at each other and calling each other names based on a party affiliation they can keep stealing from the cookie jar. Both parties have been in charge and neither has done squat for any of us "regular people". If you cannot see that, no matter what your education level, then you never will get it.
justus4, you have no idea what caused the economic upheaval.
DrGunby, yes taxes will go up for everyone under Obama. The expiration of the Bush tax cuts and the increased taxes to the "over $250k" crowd will affect us all. The "over $250k" people are the ones that provide us with goods and services. Their increased taxes will be passed to the consumer as increased operating costs...hidden taxes. Only the most blind think that the trickle down effect doesn't exist.
SisX, what you are missing and a whole lot of Repubs & Dems alike don't understand is that BushCo tax cuts were phased in. Almost all of us have seen our rates frozen during this phase in period. By 2010, the top 1% will be getting over 50% of the benefit. Letting it expire and return rates to where they were would cost the average household a couple of hundred bucks. That indeed may be significant for some, but you will get a 1000 tax cut from this number, so add back the 5% and subtract 1K and you got your new tax bill.
DrGunby, your 5:47 post looks like you've been drinking that tunnel vision kool aid. In the big picture, the consumer gets to pay the tax. This trick only works if you don't admit it exists.
Yeah, it will hurt some, but when my conservative friends do we start digging into the $10T deficit. We now pay 15.6% of our budget paying our debt service interest...not reducing the debt, but just paying the interest. I use the upside number, because the robbing of the trust funds to offset our true interest payments is shameful by both parties, thx for the legacy Reagan. Bush has sent up deficit budgets since he got there. And above and beyond that, he has came back and gotten $2.35T off budget in 7 years for war and anything else that he did not want to put in the real budget. My 2 month old son won't have an America to enjoy as we do at our current pace. It is unsustainable. Increase taxes, reduce spending, invest in America (education, renewable energy, American jobs). When are those of us blessed with literally the highest quality of life in the world going to give more so that our children and grandchildren can also have what we have. All numbers from .
PT, you falling for the fair tax scheme?
Hook, line and sinker, DrGunby. Have you read the book?
DrGunby, do you think America became great because of big government or in spite of it?
I did read the first book and do not need to read the second one. I saw enough to understand what it is. REGRESSIVE...that is not what America stands for. Hobson's choice PT. America is great and will continue to be great in conjuction with our great institutions (govt, churches, educational facilities, military, etc). Why are we trying to spread democracy around the world and we don't actually believe that it works here? Repubs want to sit in the governing sit, but abhor governance when they get there...what gives?
When Repubs get to Washington, they become personal representatives of themselves, just like Dems. What gives? Character, or the lack there of. Personal wealth becomes their driving force. If you found the fair tax to be regressive, I hold you didn't read, or at least didn't understand, it. Unless, of course, you feel the tax burden is only for the top 5%, in which case we'll continue to operate with the hidden tax method.
It was the Clinton Administration, obsessed with multiculturalism, that dictated where mortgage lenders could lend, and originally helped create the market for high-risk subprime loans now infecting like a retrovirus the balance sheets of some of Wall Street's most revered institutions. Tough new regulations forced lenders into high-risk where they had no choice but to lower lending standards to make the loans that sound business practices had previously guarded against making. It was either that or face stiff government penalties. And in doing so he helped create the market for the risky subprime loans that he and Democrats decry as not only greedy but 'predatory'.
Stretched Factchecker, 1. how did they create the market? 2. What are those regulations and what do they say? Your statement is a mischaracterization and almost totally untrue. CDI's...follow the money and the artificial leverage and that is what has the bankers in hock right now with bad paper that no one wants.
I keep thinking about your use of the term "regressive", DrGunby. It made no sense when related to the fair tax, unless it's used as the opposite of the the code word "progressive". The new definition of "progressive", as it relates to the far left, is ...ultra liberal socialism controlled by the "informed" elite. Have I got it right? If so, I agree with your use of the term.
No PT, that answer was worse than slick sally palin...regressive refers to the fact that people of lower incomes pay higher proportions of their income in taxes. I know it phased out taxes for a lot of low income folk, but once the taxing of goods overrode your prebate check, it becomes regressive.
DG,You missed the part about hidden taxes I guess.
Very funny letter. Despearate, in fact. Yes, the economy was so much better under Bush than Clinton. And, the Dawgs were the better team on Saturday. Go GT!!!
No, I understand that taxes are embedded in the prices of products...ie passed along to the consumer. Even so, the fair tax is still a regressive scheme.
I don't believe the economy will do better until we start seeing jobs and manufacturing coming back into the U.S. The Globalization of U.S. businesses have shipped jobs and manufacturing offshore. Without a job for income, how can we expect our citizens to purchase goods to make our economy work? Recently, we have learned that Wall Street speculation has brought in huge foreign investment in this country. As I see it, only the Wall Street investors have received any benefit from this infusion of foreign capital. So a few benefit while the rest of us are just hanging on. Until the infrastructure of this country re-established, a government bail out will NOT fix the underlaying economic problem. I don't foresee the U.S. economy getting any better under our present course of action.
Everyone should have to pay 10% of their yearly income for taxes. If you (civilians, corporations) make more than someone else, then you pay more than someone else. There should be no tax breaks for anyone. And any company who sends work overseas should be fined for taking jobs away from American citizens.
Also, if you are not a citizen, there should be no free health care. You should have to pay for it like anyone else. If you don't like it, go back where you came from.
English is also the chosen language. It was a choice between German and English. Learn English and quit whining that no one understands you.
This all sounds good, but it doesn't work for our political leaders or huge corporations. If it doesn't benefit them, then it's not going to happen.
DrGunby, remember when Obama said that the tax cut brought in an increased tax revenue to the government but he felt it was still more fair to raise the taxes? I find that comment similar to your 7:05 post.
PT, increased revenue from tax cuts on the highest income Americans is an artifact of lagged economic growth and not a direct result of tax cuts. It is time to pay the piper and we of the multi-hundred thousands and multi-million dollar homes and nice cars and great vacation homes and income producing careers for life need to start giving back more...NOW !!
Gunby,I still feel Washington needs to reduce wasteful spending now. Increased revenue is increased revenue and ending it just to be fair is just plain silly.(counterproductive) !!
Thanks for a good letter Mr. Howard.
I find it a logical fallacy that those with incomes greater than 250K have a greater ability to pay more in taxes. Further tax cuts for those greater than 250K is actually more equitable as we have a progressive tax system, so those who pay more need a break. Our progressive tax system is fundamentality unconstitutional since we practice equality under the law, which a progressive system is anything but equal. This govt intervention or bail out reeks of disaster as noble laureate Milton Friedman would argue it might precipitate a depression.
baroness: referring to your comment posted to me yesterday, I was not finding Rose comments ridiculous, but the situation. I do believe this stuff happens everyday and I find that people will do these type of acts ridiculous!
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