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.
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Great article, Jared.
You might also mention that the arguments used by the rightwing economists that tax-cuts pay for themselves are false; and, when pressed, the honest among them admit it.
From this point, almost any Republican would finish severing America's future from any relationship to its founding.
They'll leave government mostly pre 20th century for the people, and Romulan toward the rest of the planet.
HuffPost's Pick
Ok, let's say we follow the advice of the supply siders, and whittle government down to bathtub-drowning size.
A hurricane just flattened the Florida coast, wiping out the wealthy Palm Beach area. The rich residents there aren't going to want help from FEMA rebuilding the infrastructure? They're gonna pay out of pocket?
An earthquake just wiped out wealthy Orange County, California. The Republicans who loathe paying taxes who live there aren't going to want and expect help from the Federal Government in restoring the roads, bridges, gas and power services? They'll just write a check, right?
A pandemic like SARS or the Avian Flu has decimated a four state swath of the upper midwest, millions dead or dying and the toll on the economy of the US is making the post 9/11 economic fall out look like somebody stole your lunch money, because the federal government isn't in the business of providing disater relief or health services.
All because less than 3% fo the population can't abide paying a slighly larger percentage of their vast wealth, wealth they or their great-great-great grandchildren will never spend.
Norquist and the other self serving phonies should go live on a private island, we Americans have a country to save from the likes of Bush and his ilk before it's too far gone.
There will be plenty of government to serve the owners.
I think you seriously overestimate Republican messaging with Republican practice.
We Americans don't have control of the country, those people do.
Can we get it back? Not much, not soon.
Well said.
Grover Norquist doesn't care about the poor folks in New Orleans, they don't vote Republican; as a matter of fact, the way he looks at it, scattering the refugees from Katrina to the four winds, opens up an entire region to white Republicans like Haley Barbour. That's the way these sociopaths think! Social Darwinism? Sure!
Want further irony? On the whole, Americans could save billions every year if we converted to a Medicare-for-all system AND cover everyone. Here's my conservative argument for this. Diseases that can incubate and fester in densely-populated urban zones where practically nobody has proper health insurance can easily spread out to the where the rich live, work and play, as those urban poor are the ones cooking the food, cleaning the houses & offices, and washing the cars of the rich. And I guarantee you no communicable disease that gets an urban head start is going to care one whit whether its next victim has a fat bank account.
Further, if we faced a serious pandemic - Avian flu, a supervillain strain of the 1919 Spanish Flu, a mutated airborne ebola - it could knock out our ability to respond to a military crisis as effectively as a nuclear strike.
All of that, and I haven't even touched on even the most basic humanitarian arguments for universal health care.
Yes, it is in the rich class's best interest to see that the poor don't become so downtrodden that their icky poorness doesn't get on them. It's the boiling lobster effect; the water is being boiled so slowly, the poor don't know they're being cooked until it's over.
Unfortunately for the first scenario the gov't will fix it anyway, they will simply do so on credit. In the other two scenarios given, they wouldn't CARE, because the people affected would either be poor or not republican donors.....
The fed budget is four main items health 30%, war 30%, pension for fed employees 17%, interest on debt 10%. Currently only 66% of the budget is funded the rest is borrowed. So what toird will McCain cut to get away from borrowing from the Chinese? Then what one tird of what is left will he cut to fund his corporate tax cuts? I am all for less fed government but that means cutting spending not just cutting taxes and borrowing more from the Chinese.
How about we cut every thing in half (including the banks interest payments, and the retired employees pension payments) and we totally cut health (medicare, medicaid).
Totally cut medicare? So you are cool with thousands of the elderly dying because they cant get their medcation? Or having their standard of living reduced because they cant get the regular attention you need later in life to get by?
You basically want a country where the only people that can retire are the extremely wealthy. Im all for cutting wasteful spending but destroying the country by completely destroying programs that people require to live is simply not the answer.
You're neglecting to mention on thing. If we cut medicare and medicaid we will be FARTHER in the hole. This is because these two programs are funded (at a surplus!) from direct payroll deductions. The only reason that we are paying anything to these out of budgets is that they are both being used (along with OASDI) to support the gov't spending on MILITARY!
My solution is that we cut military spending to no more than 2 times what the next ten countries COMBINED spend, which will provide not only a surplus which can pay off the debt, but will provide enough of a surplus to ALSO provide medicare for all!!!
A co-worker had Fox News online with O'Reilly interviewing McSame. The only words I heard as I walked by the computer were McSame saying that tax cuts were the worst thing during an economic downturn. If only I could have been interviewing, I'd have probed further and asked if he was going to raise taxes during the next economic upturn.
He tried to make it sound like he was really giving the issue a lot of thought- hell, that lunkhead wouldn't raise taxes even if they fell on him and pinned him to the ground! He has nothing to contribute to this next chapter of the American experiment.
Let me quote Phoebe Buffet:
"When the revolution comes, I'll have to kill you all. Not you, Joey!"
Americans will soon enough discover that zero government is the same thing as anarchy. When your roads fall apart, your children stay stupid and your gangs take over the streets, you will beg someone to take your tax dollars and make it all go away. The only question is... will you be begging Washington or the Mafia?
They are trying to make the USA work the way they have Iraq running.
Warlords on every corner.
Not warloards... Blackwater.
DING! DING! DING! THE WINNAH!
Zero govt IS anarchy.
Why do rethugs love and want anarchy?
Because bu$hCo wanted all our dough, and more of the burden was placed on the states, and the STOOPID states (mine's Floorduh) in a fit of rethug last throes cut their own taxes, pretty soon all the really BAD socialist things like Police, Fire, EMT service, schools, will start to scream with the pain of reduction and disappearance.
Pennies saved, priceless services lost. Brilliant!
Too bad nobody seems to have told the Republicans that tax cuts never stimulate the economy, never have and never will. Taxes are recalculated into the economy. The government is a consumer and it consumes by proxy for the public. So tax cutting to stimulate the economy has never been anything but a red herring to try and justify tax evasion by the wealthy. And as postulated when the progressive tax system was first proposed, the wealthy benefit more from the services of government than does the general public.
So the whole argument has been made before and the points have not changed. Big government, small government, it all devolves what you are willing to pay for and whether or not you think you benefit from that on which the government spends. That is the proper conversation to be having.
To create an anti-government movement, as the Republicans have done, is not only suicidal in nature but even vaguely seditious. I have heard not tenets coming from the right as to what government should be other than to provide for the common defense. If so, we do not need a Constitution, a Bill of Rights, or Amendments. But I wonder if they have stopped to think about what it is that the government will be defending and who will determine against which of our enemies, foreign or domestic, that defense is employed. Hint. It won’t just be the liberals. There is a word for it. Nazi.
Here's the thing that frightens myself and other Republicans.
The government always gets bigger...never smaller. If we have good economic times, the government gets bigger. If we have bad economic times, the government gets bigger. There's no such thing as making tough choices...the way a family has to make economic choices.
There's a more insidious part to larger government as well. As government continues to expand, more people rely on government to survive economically. This in turn, causes people to vote for more government. And the cycle continues.
When the government owns and controls everything, we cease to be a democracy. That's not what our country was founded on. Our country is founded on liberty and the continued growth of government goes against liberty. It goes against innovation. It goes against invention. It goes against entreprenuership.
Our nation is great because we created the greatest governing document in the history of the world in the Constitution. The Constitution encourages rugged individualism and little interference from the national government. Unabated growth of the Federal Government threatens the very principles which founded this nation.
Jared, I find your blog to be more than partisan...it's downright frightening.
Everyone in the USA relies on the government to survive economically. It's just a fact. That's why we have a military, police, people to make roads, etc. And someone to print money. Imagine if we didn't have a government to print money, what would you do? Barter? We can either regulate in favor of the wealthy (which is what we are doing now) or regulate in favor of everyone else. Either way we will regulate. The anti-government argument is just nonsense. Especially coming from a Republican. I have yet to hear one complain about the size of our military.
But you folks(republicans) believe in war and not in public education. You are cheap and that attitude hurts this country/
So, Tim, where are you on condemning private property so that developers can build a hotel on the site? Sounds to me like "government run amok" except that the understory is that private interests are using the government to tip the scales in their favor. Just like Grover Norquist, the gov't-hater who has raked in millions on government contracts, a lot of so-called conservatives hate government only as long as it isn't giving them something. I can't let your "government is always always always wasteful" statement pass. Once upon a time, New York and California had the most impressive public kindergarten-to-PhD educational systems in the world. They were affordable to most citizens and had high-quality professors. Along came Ronald Reagan in California, and now the state ranks below Mississippi in educational spending per child--and the Governator wants to cut that. No, government is not always inefficient and wasteful. FEMA under Bill Clinton actually did a fine job of cleaning up after natural disasters; it was only when it reverted to cronyism that it failed after Katrina. Government, like private enterprise, is a system, and all systems at bottom depend upon the quality of the people who operate them. Right now, I don't think even you could mount a serious defense of the quality of the people running major corporations and looting them for golden parachutes while shipping jobs overseas. Or would you just see that as a sign of "rugged individualism"?
You forgot to mention that the Bush tax cuts caused MORE money to enter into the government coffers than ever before. If lower taxes equal greater revenue for the government, why raise taxes?
Barack Obama stated very clearly why. Those that have too much money need to be punished and that money should go to the people that need it.
If taxing the rich causes less money to go into the coffers, then how do we distribute wealth more equally? Well, I don't know if there is a perfect solution or if we should even embrace that idea. Success drives innovation and invention and is the greatest reason why we beat the Soviets in the Cold war. But there may be another way besides punishing the rich with higher taxes. We could provide greater incentives for donations given to those in need, especially children in need.
You used the word NAZI to describe Republicans. But the idea of government being the be all and end all is a liberal idea and it is closer to Nazi than the smaller government policies of the Republican party.
Timothy: You are naive enough to believe that the GOP really believes in smaller government. They just believe in smaller government for the poor and working class. They believe in much bigger government for the wealthy; that's why the military industrial complex has grown. Those are all fat cats living off tax money. Reagan doubled the size of the White House staff when he took office.
And the bullshit master of them all, Dick Cheney, has never had a real job. He has always worked for the federal government, or an entitiy like Haliburton which could not exist without US government contracts. He's the ultimate socialist posing as a free enterprise advocate.
When Carter left office the fed deficit was less than a trillion. Under Reagan it went to two trillion and he never submitted a balanced budget in 8 years. Under Bush senior it went to 3.5 trillion, and only under Clinton did it start to go down. Under the current White House moron it has gone up another four trillion, because that poor goofus never had to worry about where his next paycheck was coming from. He has zero sense of responsibility and that is why he will go down as not only the worst president, but probably the most incompetent office holder in our history, on any government level.
You have to start reading and do a little bit less Rush Limbaugh listening for your information.
Technically, Nazi describes the collaboration of government and business for the benefit of business. The concomitant benefit to malleable politicians is implied. Look it up.
More money has never flowed into the coffers of government as a result of tax cuts. If you do not adjust for inflation, there might be the appearance of it after a decade or more of tax cuts, but the actual value of government receipts has not increased.
The argument for taxing the rich in proportion to the benefit they receive from government has been made already, starting with Adam Smith.
Government is not an instrument for redistribution of wealth. To argue that is simplistic. Such social programs as have been accused of being an attempt at redistribution of wealth have been arguably to the benefit of society as a whole, which last I heard included the wealthy.
The argument is not so simple as the size of government. The argument is what it is that the government can do for the public in general and that even in respect to the vital interests capitalist concerns. That is to say business is respected but not to the exclusion of the interest of the public.
"... the Bush tax cuts caused MORE money to enter into the government coffers than ever before."
This is one of those brilliantly-constructed distractions that Movement wingnuts use.
I'd be thrilled to see the sourcing for this statement. If there's any truth to it at all (there's always some), then the concept of "entering the government coffers" is asterisked up the ass. Does it mean more revenues available for government services? Or "trickling down" to the taxpayers' common good? Doubtful.
And proportionally, did this money come more from those below Charlie Gibson's "middle class" [g] than they did before Reagan began, and Bush accelerated, the redistribution of wealth? Probable.
I don't look for a "perfect solution", Mr. timothe. I just want to see zero working poor, zero homeless, and NO bailouts of corporations and banks "too big to fail". There are PLENTY of easily-achievable goals, where there's a will. And there hasn't been, especially in the last 8 years.
Plus, there's the little matter of Barack Obama wanting to "punish" the rich. Only a drooling idiot possibly could believe that is Obama's position. If intellectual dishonesty were a crime, you'd have flames shooting out of your ears, while the lights flickered on and off.
timothe, if you are not very wealthy, yourself, and you believe that shit about the persecuted, downtrodden rich, then you live a fantasy life in which your secret aspirations reflect nothing of what you'll ever realistically be.
Hey come to my hometown of Paris and see how big a pothole can really get! I would just love to send even more of my Euros to the politicians -- the more I send the more they spend and the worse the potholes get. I thought you Americans were smart enough to look at the mess we have in the EU and not make the same mistakes. Do not trust a government official with your money; do you really think he cares more about you and your family than you do? Most of our politicians are rich men, just like in Washington, D.C. -- they don't know or care what a liter of gasoline costs. Their drivers pump the petrol and send the bill us taxpayers -- sound familiar?
--HenriJean
Now we know that you have never been to California. :-)
Potholes in Paris, really? Not in my neighborhood, HJ. Besides, what the hell are you doing driving in Paris? Get yourself a subscription to Vél-lib and bike for St. Louis's sake!
On the other hand, of course, you could try immigrating to the US and getting health care there!
Your alternative is, I presume, to go out and fix the pot holes yourself. That would be the free market system.
McCain (AKA McShame) is as phony as a three dollar bill. He is on both sides of most issues with his campaign infested with special interest lobbyists. He cannot be trusted to do a single thing for the hard working Americans. As a multi-milliner he is simply out of touch and takes no responsibility for his absurd statements and shameful attacks on Obama, while promising to conduct a clean campaign. Morally he is as bankrupt as his spiritual advisor ignorant pastor, namely John C. Hagee, who among other idiotic things called Catholic Church as whore. Does he dare to take him on his campaign to get catholic vote. In his old well past the retirement age for most people, how can he be trusted to carry out enormous responsibly of such a demanding job for the next four years, when has seem to have already lost his bearings
"down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub."
Except for the MIC.
These NeoCon terrorists must be stopped!
We cannot sink any deeper into this dark abyss.
For the love of Humanity ... Obama 08
This wouldn't be a real problem if the Democrats in congress had any backbone. We could have stopped or at least slowed the obscene war spending but didn't. The "leadership" we have in Pelosi and Reed is not only damaging but embarressing. They're incapable of overriding a veto, Not that they even try to. Incapable of putting money where it's needed. Incapable of starting impeachment procedings. Incapable of even the basic oversight entrusted to them. John McCain is really the least of our worries. The enemy is us.
YES YES YES! (And that's not my Meg Ryan impersonation!)
Norquist and his ilk will try to drown everything except what is really important to their hypocritical butts--The big fat ATM machine that is the US government. Do you think that corporations want to have to pay their own mercenaries? I don't.
I'm sure Obama will "compromise" with the Republicans on this. He is more than willing to sell out social security as welfare for the baby boomers.
Working people better start getting used to their new "champion" who will sell out their 20th century hard earned labor benefits in order to advance his political career.
RichLiberal reminds me of those who continue to believe that the South can still win the American Civil War despite the fact that it ended in 1865. Even those believers considers themselves Americans and holds themselves as patriots who are willing to die to save the United States of America. These continued negative, unsubstantiated attacks will serve only to hand a victory to McCain in November and thereby fulfill this dastardly objective. I recall back in March the rancour amongst the Publicans was so deep I for one never expected to see any remains of that party here in May. But as is evidenced the party's attack machine is now fully united around the common objective retaining the presidency in order to continue the mission. Oh but not so for the Democrats they would rather lose an election because their faction failed to prevail than to unite around the victor for the sake of the common objective. For the Publicans its all about the party for the Democrats its about cult worship or so it appears.
Exactly right. Democrats fall in love, Republibots fall in line. Its what makes us so great but it is simultaneously our greatest weakness. What candidate you supported, Edwards Clinton, whoever; if you are a true patriot you have to realize that beating John McCain is the single most important issue facing this country. A vote for John McCain is a vote for ExxonMobile
Many very real, hard compromises are going to have to be made in numerous areas in the near and distant future. However, I will entrust my and my famiy's welfare to the fairness of an Obama presidency any day over John McCain's mega-millionaire lovefest policies. Bring it on!!!
Your evidence for this is...?
I'm having a hot tub party, and Grover Norquist is cordially invited...
heh heh heh
If he shows up, could you drown that twit ... in rational, liberal thinking, that is.
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