The Most Important Piece of Paper in America
I hold in my hand one of the most important pieces of paper in America: Table T08-0071, an analysis of candidate John McCain's tax plan.
OK, it's not really in my hand because I'm typing, but I'm looking at it carefully, and you should too. It is a table constructed by the Tax Policy Center's steely-eyed tax analysts, and it reveals nothing less than McCain's secret plan to diminish the US government beyond recognition. If he gets his way, conservatives will finally be able to say they've achieved the goal set out by Grover Norquist: to get government "down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub."
The numbers in the table show the revenue loss to the Federal government from McCain's proposed tax cuts. In the far right corner is the 10-year total: -$5.7 trillion.
People deride the Republican candidate as "McSame," implying a continuation of Bushonomics as well as the president's foreign policy. But from the perspective of domestic policy, it's much worse. Sure, McCain extends the Bush tax cuts but that's the least of it. At $1.7 trillion they amount to less than a third of the damage.
Note also that the big ticket tax cuts-eliminating the alternative minimum tax and lowering the corporate tax-both follow on another Bush tradition of exacerbating market-driven (i.e., pre-tax) inequalities by cutting high-end taxes the most.
As I stresshere , McCain's plans to pay for these tax cuts amount to filling a crater with a teaspoon of sand. Earmarks won't get you there, so he'll have to go after discretionary spending. In fact, he's already suggesting a freeze in such spending, excluding defense, of course. Sound inoffensive until you consider that we're talking about kids' health care, education, child care, training for displaced workers, environmental and labor protections, and dozens more programs that lots of people actually need and care about.
Plus, he can't fill the hole he's dug with cuts in these programs either, which leads you to the inevitable punch line of all this: his target is the entitlements, Social Security and Medicare. Those programs have always been the big enchiladas for the Norquist shock troops and they've never recovered from their Social Security privatization defeat. Well, they're back, incognito.
McCain's top economist, a number cruncher of great integrity named Doug Holtz-Eakin, responds to the Tax Policy's analysis here, and he makes a good point or two, especially regarding the way they score the AMT, but his counterpoints amount to little more than quibbles. In fact, one can't help wonder if Doug, who used to inveigh against supply-side nonsense, has been drawn to the economic dark side. When recently asked about the extent to which these numbers fail to add up, his response was: "I think what [critics] ought to do is remember that the proposals are going to engender economic growth, which is the best thing you can do for near-term budget improvement." That's pure hand waving of the type with which the old Holtz-Eakin had no patience.
This story has yet to catch the fire it should, and hopefully will, once the D's get focused on McCain and his dim vision of government. But the point born of these numbers is as simple as it is compelling:
For seven long years, we've tried entrusting our government to those who discredit it, defund it, and fundamentally disbelieve in its role, except when they seek a lucrative contract or a bailout. We gone down the road-and it is a crumbling road, with potholes and failing bridges -- where the solution to every problem is a tax cut, where critical agencies are staffed with cronies at best and opposition lobbyists at worst, where secrecy trumps transparency and cynicism rules, where budget resources are never available for expanding children's health care, but always there for war.
Table T08-0071 is a road map to taking us far, far deeper into this morass. We must not go there.
Loading comments…
Want to reply to a comment? Hint: Click "Reply" at the bottom of the comment; after being approved your comment will appear directly underneath the comment you replied to
The Most Important Piece of Paper In America?
Well, that's self-evident... it's the 'DOI': The Declaration of Independence.
And democratics & republicans love making a mockery of it... and the constitution!
A "secret plan to diminish the US government beyond recognition"? must be sooooo scary for you... considering... the overt plan to usurp constitutional law, by both parties, is going so well... probably much better than expected!
Yawah forbid this country ever attempts to return to it's legal founding principles... with self-evidence... well... self-evidence.
The reason democrats & republicans remain the problem(s)... and never the cure... is their power of willful self-delusion so neccessary to engage in group sex... known as mental masterbation ... which is a dangerous social disease! The perverted 2 party system continues to engage in irresponsible political rutting inorder to satiate whoreful needs with criminal deeds!
Here's something that's supposed to be self-evident... that isn't... and is the basis of the democratic parties push towards socialism. The word 'promote' as in "promoting the general welfare" does not mean 'proclaim by dictate'!
I'm absolutely floored & horrified by hillary & barack's willingness to publicly go on record announcing their intentions to commit gross violations against constitutiuonal law... by 'proclaiming by dictate' that 'univeral health care' is here... illegally as most things are... without constitutional amendment!
Proclaim IS NOT synonymous with Promote, but, Promote IS synonymous with Persuade!
And Promoting by Pursuasion is always to be done peacefully and voluntarily for it to be uncoerced!
So, if it's not specifically written into the constitution then it must be unconstitutional? Really? Of course, by that standard, the SCOTUS isn't allowed to interpret the law, since it's not written in. Signing Statements, which I disagree with under THIS president, are also illegal. And while we're at it, that also means that the federal government isn't allowed to get involved in ANYTHING that isn't directly related to interstate or international trade........
I am old enough to have seen many budgets, fights, 'government can survive on this cut', gutting the federal budget, and on and on.
There is 1 thing for certain, the government grows every year. period. the budget is 3.6 TRILLION dollars (i think) now.
If you cannot find fat to trim in a 3.6 TRILLION dollar budget, then this country is doomed.
Who said there was no fat in the budget? That's not what this story is about.
"There is 1 thing for certain, the government grows every year. period."
Bill Clinton actually shrank the size of the Federal Government and still left us a budget surplus.
Hillary would have done as least as good but now that will never happen. Obama has never said a word about how he going to deal with America's republican ten trillion dollar debt. He's never been long on petty details like that.
Actually, he really didnt. He raised taxes, reformed welfare and rode yet another artificial bubble economy for all it was worth.
Our economy hasnt had real growth since1997. We had an internet bubble which was pure vapor and fed into the derivatives disaster (which we are now mired in) which is already feeding the coming commodities nightmare as large investors retreat into that space (and the commodities meltdown will be the worst yet)
There hasnt been a fed, an administration, or a congress that has been fiscally responsible since before I was born (and Im in my 30s)
under carter, the budget was 340 billion, now it is 3.4 TRILLION. you do the math. The budget NEVER shrinks, and agencies ALWAYS spend that money.
Why do you think the government does stupid things, like say, advertise the 'wic' program. how about allow 20% waste in the foodstamp program (news stories verify this all the time) or how about a 1200$ hammer or 600$ toilet seat?.
The simple answer is just like your own budget. when you have extra money, you spend it on non-essential things, say blockbuster, or cable, or maybe cupcakes. When you tighten, those things are given up to pay for the essentials, house food gas.
The Government is the same way. When they have enough money to sue a farmer in federal court for running over an endangered mouse in his field, that means wasteful and annoying.
Too much money in government means too much power which means that your rights get taken away.
This is not a republican VS democratic issue. THEY ALL INCREASE GOVERNMENT SPENDING EVERY YEAR. Period! If you believe otherwise, you need to go online and review the budgets for the last 50 years. educate yourself.
McCain has proven that he is just another corporate prostitute . Again.
wrong story but it still stands
huffigpost has lost my respect, its spam to me now, for erasing true comments like this
She knows that she can do so much for our country. She has detailed plans and the know how to get them done. Please strip them of their names and images, think about what our President will be faced with and how fast we need action. Think about the last change agent Bush and the others before him, and think of our last democratic president and his wife who fought hard on healthcare for all.
She was written off by higher ups way before she was losing, even now her electoral vote equivalence is higher than b os, and if they were using the system of the general election she would be winning, add MI and FL and she would have won weeks ago.
I have seen absolutely no proof that Hillary knows what to do more than Obama. She sat on her hands for the last 6 years so she wouldn't have to answer for anything she did in the Senate when she ran for president. But, she had to vote and she voted with the Republican majority on most of the vital issues of the day: Iraq, Kyl-Lieberman, the Bankruptcy bill. She did not once stand up to Bush or the GOP.
When Bill was president, he didn't 'fight' for us, he worked with Newt Gingerish to deregulation of the finance and telecom industry. He signed 'Don't Ask Don't Tell'. And let's not forget NAFTA, a law that actually gave corporations tax breaks to move their operations overseas. We're in the economic mess we have today directly due to the deregulation of the finance industry and NAFTA. And Hillary's claim of experience is that she was directly involved in her husband's presidency.
She may know what she can do for the country, but I think her and Bill have already done enough. We need someone with a different approach, one that is less married to corporate influence.
It sounds like a great plan to me. The question every American needs to ask himself: is who spends my money better? Myself or the Government? If Warren Buffet feels he isn't being taxed enough, he can give more money to the government and that is true of all the liberals. Our economy is fuel by private citizens and we should allow them to keep what they have earned. We will also get the lazy bureuacrats of their behinds and let them get real jobs with real benefits like the rest of us.
I'll pay your income tax for the next year if you can get through one day without benefiting from a government program. I've made this offer for 25 years, and no one has collected.
So that means not driving, eating, seeing a doctor, drinking water, eating food, taking prescription drugs, etc......
Oh, I forgot one more, no breathing!
You seem to feel that the government is evil, and exists outside of us. It is not evil, and the only reason that it exists is because the founders decided to create a contract between all the citizens of these united states to allow for the public good!!
if you
drive on roads
drink water
eat food
use medicines
breathe air
fly in airplanes
enjoy TV & Radio
receieve medical or dental care
use skilled trades people
have police and fire protection
work industrial jobs
use manufactured consumer goods
get weather warning
get disaster response
use contracts
graduated from an accredited school
you are benefitting from the standards, regulations and enforcement created by various layers of government.
At a time when we need Government to lead the response to climate change, the development of sustainable power sources and to secure that food resources are fairly distributed McCain's policy sounds like sheer madness.
But it will appeal to the zero taxers.
http://greenteeth.blog.co.uk/2008/05/12/prophecy-in-a-box-on-beasley-street-4164851
This posting is foolish, as it blames all the bad on McCain, while exempting his Democratic challenger from essentially the same decisions.
1) First, the AMT - Obama would face the same 1 trillion dollar bill in getting rid of it. No Democratic president is going to keep a tax that predominantly hits middle income families with children in high-tax (e.g. "BLUE") states. The current Democratic congress was falling all over itself to exempt people this year, and are going to have to find a creative way to pay for this long term.
2) Second, our corporate taxes are rather high.. second in the developed world, only to Japan. Its one reason companies are fleeing.. raise them, more companies leave. Ever wonder one reason Ireland does so well?
3) Entitlements - both parties are clueless when it comes to entitlements, but I will give Bush credit becuase he at least tried to do something. Long term (and not THAT long - it already starting to eat into general revenue), the deficit for entitlements in this country is $53 trillion.. we could pay for a dozen Iraq's with that.. they will grow over the next decade to consume more and more revenue - so basically, payments to senior citizens will suck money away from childrens health care, transportation infrastructure, job retraining. Obama has taken a pass, saying no changes are necessary.. now that is a scary proposition, or at least a really dumb one..
And Obama's approach - just raise every
Corporate CEOs think corporate taxes are too high here? Fine let them keep their profits offshore and out of the U.S. economy. But then let's not let them sell here either; seems to me if you want to do business in an economy, you ought to pay your fair share to support that economy. Nobody should get a free ride.
Government's Constitutional mandate is to "promote the general welfare," it doesn't say "promote the welfare of a corporate state."
it doesn't say promote a welfare state either.
The government takes 3.6 TRILLION in taxes. The article points out that the government will need to do without 550 billion (over 10 years, that makes 5.7 trillion). If every american must tighted their belts on their own household incomes and spending, then the government should to. The tit has gone dry.
This is simply more scare tactics
Heres a news flash for you bud... pretty soon they wont need to. Did you notice that China and India have 6x the population of the USA all waiting to grow up and be consumers?
Notice China and India minting more billionaires monthly?
The average US citizen really cracks me up sometimes. Keeping living in a dreamworld and soon you will find yourself utterly irrelevant and fighting hand to hand for scraps of garbage.
But sure... go ahead and create a hostile environment to OUR EMPLOYERS (I mean where the hell do YOU work - I guess not for a US corporation) and DARE them to move out of the US under threat that they "won't be able to sell here"
That will just drive the foreign corporations who presumably WOULD be able to (or do you propose there would be NO products?) to raise their prices nicely.
Man... our biggest problem in this country is massive ignorance like this.
2) Second, our corporate taxes are rather high.. second in the developed world, only to Japan. Its one reason companies are fleeing.. raise them, more companies leave. Ever wonder one reason Ireland does so well?
Only on paper, my friend, only on paper, high corpoate taxes on trans nationals is a big scam.
The third largest expense we have is paying just the interest on the republicans' ten trillion dollar national debt. If Grover Norquist can't shrink the Gov't, they will bankrupt it.
That debt is the result of the fact that spoiled American citizens (and that includes the RICH and the "poor") fail to recognize that the US is not going to be the leader of the world free market any longer.
Rather than taking REAL steps which would be PAINFUL to position ourselves in a world where we are #3 or 4, over the past 3+ decades politicians have pandered to the cries of the moron masses who can barely read (let alone understand economics), while there 8 and 9 figure buddies have raped the economy with one bubble after another. First the internet stock scam, then the derivatives scam, and next the commodities scam. And all the wild China and India are building REAL wealth while spoiled brat Americans bitch and moan that they arent being paid to keep breathing.
If any politician laid down REAL honesty - that the financial markets need MASSIVE regulation, that individuals are going to HAVE to pay more taxes, that food and gas WONT get cheaper and that entitlements HAVE to go and that ONLY *all* of that coupled with NO new spending has even a REMOTE shot of righting this ship, the barely functional brains of both the right AND left would melt down.
What I find interesting is that any time locally (Texas) something comes up about “privatizing” anything, the lemmings jump on the bandwagon as it heads over the cliff.
“Privatization” is not the answer to all ills. It has been proven to fail as often as any government program fails.
That’s what McCain's “secret” (which I don’t know how something as overt as the republican efforts to turn our country into a progressively greater government controlled by business could be any more “un-secret,” but I guess if someone wants to call it “secret,” okay) is all about.
“Let’s get government out of peoples’ lives (except for their bathrooms, bedrooms and wombs) and make sure business is receiving adequate return on investment” is, and has been for many generations, the mantra of the republican party. The problem with business is that their desire is to turn a profit (that’s not a problem in the business world), but our country was built on a vision, and until these yahoos took the reins was by, for and of the people. Sometimes “people” don’t appear to be profitable.
so what, i am afraid to ask, is you 'vision of the world'?
A local right wing radio bloqhard and many of his right wing callers assetted today that we have 'too many freedoms' in this country-
Ever notice the wingnuts who claim to hold a monopoly of loving freedom-are in fact they are the ones who want to take it away?
Too many freedoms??????? Haven't they already taken too many of them away??!!!
The republicans are nothing but hypocrits. They denounce government taxation and spending, yet when the financial markets want a bailout the republicans are more than happy to abandon any pretense of "free martket economy," and bail out the wealthy.
The republicans are so, so very willing to denounce government oversight while they sit back and allow American defense contractors to steal billions of dollars; the republicans are so very willing to claim they support our troops but have no problem with our troops receiveing defective body armor while the contractors who supply such goods milk the government.
Bush/Cheney/McCain and all of the republicans who protest about taxation and government regulation do not have any problems with eviscerating our civil liberties under the guise of national security while they sell off the control of our banking/financial organizations to foreign nations, they farm out our passport and immigration services to foreign companies, they allow our ports to be controlled by foreign nations.
The republicans are nothing but hypocrits who do not have any problems with the level of America's national debt and national deficit that has spiraled out of control under Bush/Cheney/McCain and the republicans on Capitol Hill.
Such a good post.
Republicans have been using the government as their own private ATM machine for a long time. Military spending—no limits. Corporate tax breaks—no limit. Bail outs—no limit. Corporate welfare and price supports—no limits.
I've come to believe that Republicans view government only as a cash cow for pet projects. They think Democrats spend money on the public because they are bleeding hearts, so their pet projects relate to helping people. They don't see it as public service. So when Republicans get into office, they think it's their turn for their pet projects. And we get the financial irresponsibility and upward redistribution of wealth that we're seeing now. They seem to have no concept of public service, the general welfare, the commons, returning tax money to the communities that generate it. It's a very perverse view of what government is all about.
'Perverse' is a polite way of putting it.
I call it criminal.
In fairness to McCain, the table shows a fairly substantial decrease in deficit spending from $574 billion in 2006, down to $302 billion in 2009. However, this table shows increases in deficit spending from 2010 that end with a $533 billion excess in 2012, which puts us right back where we started out with George W. Bush's excesses. This contrasts sharply with the actual decrease in deficit spending under Clinton, which went from just under $400 billion in 1992 down to $18 billion in 2000.
The history of deficit spending circa. 1981 leaves little doubt that the Republican mantra of fiscal responsibility has no basis in fact. The anti-Democrat rallying cry of "tax and spend" has virtually zero validity, given the diminishing returns seen in GOP executive spending. At some point, the Republican party will need to come to grasp the reality of the supply-side economic myth, which the passage of time, the export of U.S. jobs, and the decline in overall benefits (i.e., pensions, medical insurance, COMPENSATION, etc.), have proven, not as Reagan promised, so much a "trickle-down" as a trickle-out.
Read the full version of this comment in my blog at:
http://www.myspace.com/anarchyjack1
I have a foggy memory, but weren't the republicans in charge of the purse strings the last 6 years of the Clinton Presidency??? Now that Bush has been in office.....oh cripes. What a drunken sailor can do when they have total control. I think it should be manditory that whoever runs congress should not be in the White house. Dem congress=Repub President. Repub congress=Democrat President. Better yet, get rid of all members now serving in Washington and start over with a clean slate.
I agree, gridlock is goooood...
I partly agree. We need a completely clean slate. However, while I would NORMALLY agree with you about the idea of whichever party controls the WH does NOT control the Congress, at this time things are so very messed up that we need at least a couple of years of the dems controlling BOTH. We also need to insist that anyone who claims to be a republican is ACTUALLY a republican, and not a neocon!!
It has always been the Republico-fascist agenda to turn this country into a garrison state where perpetual war is waged against ever-changing enemies (real or imagined) for the enrichment of the military-industrial complex, human needs are ignored and human rights are crushed in the name of "national security."
Since this government has not problem with justifying the use of torture on whoever it declares and emey-it's only a matter of time before they find excuses to torture US citizens....
The days of the US boasting it is the world's beacon of freedom us over.
Dartagan - you do not sound rational, you sound like a counter culture 60s person. The government and the budget has grown steadily EVERY year. This is all just posturing.
Shrinking the massively obnoxious government that has engulfed America would be a valiant endeavor. The facts are stacked against the lip service last few Republican administrations have given the subject though.
Under Bush alone the government has seen a massive increase in size with the Department of Homeland Security. Not to mention the fact that people have lost a good chunk of their rights as the government under this admin has abused people's fears of a terror attack and now spies on its own people, scanning emails, phone conversations, library records, online activity, etc... By executive order Bush has threatened habeas corpus, he has grabbed power for the executive branch at the expense of true checks and balances, he has further marginalized protestors by ushering them off to "free speech zones," he has spent mind boggling amounts of money and has put self interested players in charge of the regulatory agencies causing the sub prime debacle and nearly destroying the value of the dollar.
Everyone but the multinational corporations that benefit from these horrendous policies could do with a whole lot less of this type of government.
I think perhaps, you're confusing size of government with type of government. What's occurring here is a massive shift of wealth, solace and protection away from the middle and poorer classes of society to a small pool of people with a large pool of money. As for 'homeland security,' I can think of no better way to bankrupt a government while you make this transfer of wealth than with a disorganized mega-agency that is answerable to no-one of importance and is most assuredly NOT answerable to, We the People. So I say we have to drown the neo-con abomination in that bathtub they're so fond of before we're too small to accomplish the task. It's our money and our future they're misappropriating (Stealing) as we talk about it. They're small, very well organized and feudally martial in their nature. They are busy installing their own private army in America as we speak. They are going to be a real bitch to take out. We're going to have to get very well organized and turn a bit martial ourselves in order to survive. This is the true price of Patriotism. Good Luck . . .
I think we are not too far off in our agreement here. I agree with you that there is a massive designed wealth shift occuring, but I still maintain that it is being done in large part through an increase in the size of government; Republicans just increase the military and LE as opposed to social programs.
For instance, the US spends more than 1/2 of the entire world's military spending. While I would agree that this admin is not increasing military personal, mainly spending, in my mind this is a government outlay that we all have to bear and it is an increased impact from the government in the same way that a social program would be an increased impact from the government.
Moreover, as I already mentioned, citizen survelience and other fascist-like shifts cause the average citizen to feel an increased impact from the government.
Classic conservative ideology calls for less government impact, less agencies, more free trade, less government spending. The Republican party has done a 180 degree shift on all these fronts.
You must be logged in to comment. Log in or connect with
