Does Howard Dean Still Hate Deficits?
In May 2005, trying to back away from his statement earlier that year that he hated “Republicans and everything they stand for,” then-chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Howard Dean claimed those remarks were “a little out of context.” He then went on to tell us what he really hated:
But I don’t hate Republicans as individuals. But I hate what the Republicans are doing to this country. I really do. I hate deficits, as you know. When I was governor, I really was very tough on fiscal responsibility. Deficits in the long run aren’t good for the country, and they do lower our standard of living. Every American family knows that you have to pay your bills. I hate the dishonesty, you know, the idea that you’d put a program through Congress without telling people what it costs, I think that’s wrong.
Emphasis added.
Now, that it’s his party is racking up record deficits, I wonder if the former Vermont Governor still harbors such an animus against deficit spending. And while President Obama may be telling us how much the proposed health care overhaul costs, he, well, hasn’t really explained how he plans on paying for it. Wonder if Mr. Dean finds that dishonest or just plain disingenuous. Or whether it’s okay now that the Democrats are doing it.
Please note the chart below. When Mr. Dean told Americans he hated deficits, we were on the gray side of the chart. Now, we’re on the red (the White House having last month altered its estimate. meaning we should remove the pink).
Maybe the bigger deficits get, the less Mr. Dean hates them.
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“And while President Obama may be telling us how much the proposed health care overhaul costs, he, well, hasn’t really explained how he plans on paying for it. Wonder if Mr. Dean finds that dishonest or just plain disingenuous.”
What are you talking about? Irrespective of the final exact formula, Obama has promised not to sign a bill that adds ANYTHING to the deficits, over a 10 year span. And, as I am sure you know, the Congressional Budget Office just scored the Baucus plan as better than deficit-neutral, it actually REDUCES the deficit. And they are the authoritative voice on these matters – certainly you guys have made them so.
So clearly, despite the gazillion words emphatically stated to the contrary by everyone on the right – it certainly is possible to do Obamacare in a manner that does not add to the deficit.
Comment by Tano — September 18, 2009 @ 12:30 am - September 18, 2009
The republicans are so ignorant that they don’t even know that until September of 2009, the budget belonged to THEM, in other words it was the BUSH deficit.
As for the graph for Bush, they are just out and out wrong. Who drew this, Dick Cheney?
Comment by Marcia C — September 18, 2009 @ 12:45 am - September 18, 2009
Obviously the Republicans don’t even know that because of the US government’s fiscal year, the budget until September 1, 2009, was BUSH’S budget.
If they don’t know even that, there’s no reason to believe a thing they say.
Comment by Marcia C — September 18, 2009 @ 12:47 am - September 18, 2009
Yeah, but Tano, maybe you believe Obama’s promise, but with his approval on the deficit at 38, we see that fewer and fewer Americans trust his promises on fiscal issues. I mean, just look at the chart above. And remember this from a guy who promised a “net spending cut” and to pay for each increase in spending with a corresponding cut. Sorry, I just don’t buy that promise from the President, not based on the past eight months.
The Baucus bill may impress the CBO, but it doesn’t impress anyone else, even Harry Reid doesn’t like it. And it does kind of break Obama’s promise not to raise taxes on 95% of Americans.
Still, Tano, address the main point: does Howard Dean hate deficits?
ADDENDUM: Interesting how you pick at secondary point in the post & ignore the main point.
SPECIAL ADDENDUM FOR MARCIA C: (1) Um, Martha, did you even read the post? I’m wondering if Howard Dean still hates deficits.
(2) Sorry, this ain’t (entirely) Bush’s budget, given that Obama signed the supplemental appropriation shortly after taking office (loaded with earmarks he had seemed keen on vetoing while campaigning). Not just that, it’s Congress who passes the budget and in case you didn’t notice, we’ve had a Democratic Congress since January 2007. So, they share the blame.
(3) So, then, are you saying that Bush is to blame for all the deficits forecast in the coming years–you know those deep red lines . . .
Comment by B. Daniel Blatt — September 18, 2009 @ 12:48 am - September 18, 2009
Yes Dan, I bet he does still hate deficits.
I think you are being quite disengenuous, acting as if these huge deficits are the result of some stealth agenda that Obama implemented after running on a very different agenda.
As you well know, the explosion of deficits began well before he took office, such that even the WSJ was reporting the 09 deficit at 1.2 trillion two weeks before Inauguration day. Then came the stimulus – something that was seen a absolutely vital to preventing us from sinking into a depression. You can pick your most budget-hawky Republican and put him or her in the Oval Office early this year, and they would have done the same – maybe they would have structured the stimulus more in line with GOP values, but they would have stimulated, and it would have cost hundreds of billions.
And as you also well know, a big factor in these deficits are the decreased revenues to the government from the recession. And for later years, it increases because of the need to start paying off all those boomers who start to retire – especially Medicare, from 2010 onward. (hey, maybe we should do something about that!).
SO yeah. Nobody is happy with the current situation. I am sure Dean, and Obama included. But how do you envision it could have been different?
Comment by Tano — September 18, 2009 @ 1:29 am - September 18, 2009
That would be the WaPo. Sorry to piss in your Cheerios (not), but it was drawn up by liberals.
Fixed it for ya.
Comment by ThatGayConservative — September 18, 2009 @ 1:43 am - September 18, 2009
Marcia C. If you can’t believe anything we say. why are you over here. Go back to Kos or what ever hole you crawled out of.
Comment by John W — September 18, 2009 @ 1:44 am - September 18, 2009
BTW,
Doesn’t that assume some higher taxes and reduced spending though?
Comment by ThatGayConservative — September 18, 2009 @ 2:12 am - September 18, 2009
Instead of voluntarily increasing the deficit to $1.6 trillion, Obama could have voluntarily reduced it to $800 billion or even $400 billion, as he had promised to the American people at the height of the financial crisis last autumn.
Instead of ramming through Porkulus without even letting people read it, the President could have honored his own campaign promise to have a 5-day waiting period on each bill for public comment.
Instead of trying to ram through fascist health-care takeover bill after fascist health-care takeover bill, scaremongering the country with threats that “people will die” if they don’t approve his massive expansions of government (whose massive expense Obama lies about), he could make reasonable proposals, allow reasonable time for debate, and set a civil and unifying tone for once.
And so on.
Which is a LIE that only you could possibly believe, Tano, since EVERY bill that Obama proposes in fact adds to the country’s deficits.
And Obama **CHOSE** to increase it to $1.6 trillion. When he could and should have chosen to reduce it significantly, **in accordance with his own late-stage campaign promises**.
Indeed, that is exactly the case. Your Dear Leader is trying to implement a stealth agenda – of massive government expansion – after having run on a very, very different agenda indeed.
The only “disingenuous” one here is you, Tano: You, for trying to pretend that night is day, up is down, etc. etc. etc. in a truly Orwellian fashion. Have you no shame, Tano? Have you not the slightest shred of honesty?
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — September 18, 2009 @ 2:26 am - September 18, 2009
The republicans are so ignorant that they don’t even know that until September of 2009, the budget belonged to THEM, in other words it was the BUSH deficit.
Indeed.
U.S. President Barack Obama yesterday (Thursday) outlined a the $3.94 trillion budget plan that includes a $1.75 trillion deficit in the current fiscal year ending Sept. 30, and that plans for a $1.17 trillion deficit for fiscal 2010.
The new U.S. president sent his fiscal 2009 budget blueprint to Congress yesterday.
Which he then signed a few weeks later.
On Wednesday, March 11th, Congress passed an appropriations package legislation rather than relying on a string of Continuing Resolutions (CR) to fund the federal government as it had for the past two years. President Obama later signed the $410 billion appropriations bill that will fund the government until September 30th. The provision is an increase of $31 billion or an eight percent increase from FY 2008 spending levels.
And why was that necessary?
Democrats defended waiting nearly five months after the fiscal year started to complete the remaining work rather than trying to cut a deal with Bush, and they portrayed consideration of the plan almost as a housekeeping chore.
Because……
The omnibus spending measure consists of the nine fiscal 2009 appropriations bills that mostly fund domestic agencies. Democrats chose not to finish the bills until Bush left office, because he threatened to veto them over their funding levels.
Were you educated on the Federal appropriations process, Marcia, you would know that the Federal government hasn’t had an appropriations law in place in time for the Federal fiscal year to start since the 1940s. In these cases, Congress passes “continuing resolutions” to fund the Federal government until such time in the future as the appropriations bills can be passed.
In this case, your Obama Party, in control of Congress, did exactly that to DELAY the appropriations bill until after the election. Your Obama signed it, your Obama owns it.
It is no surprise to anyone that an outright liar like Obama is trying to blame Bush for an appropriations bill that quadrupled the deficit, despite the fact that Obama pushed it, that Obama endorsed it, and that Obama signed it. Obama has used his minority status for years to avoid responsibility for his actions, and this is just another example.
Of course, the reason he does it is because he knows that he has compliant fools like yourself, ignorant of the actual process and enthralled by his skin color, who are stupid enough to come on blogs like this and beclown yourself with your complete ignorance of the facts.
Comment by North Dallas Thirty — September 18, 2009 @ 2:30 am - September 18, 2009
No. It isn’t. That is a flat-out lie.
Unless, by “do Obamacare”, you mean “do the opposite of most of what Obama has proposed and/or wants, seeking free-market reforms and a massive reduction of government’s existing role in the medical sector.” But, of course you don’t mean that.
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — September 18, 2009 @ 2:31 am - September 18, 2009
By the way, that last slapdown of Marcia C was recycled; oddly enough, noted liar and sockpuppet Tano tried exactly the same excuse a month ago.
No surprise. Obama trolls aren’t known for independent thought or intelligence.
Comment by North Dallas Thirty — September 18, 2009 @ 2:33 am - September 18, 2009
…which you, Tano, spin and lie about on behalf of your Dear Leader.
Something tells me that actually, on some level, you are happy with it.
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — September 18, 2009 @ 2:36 am - September 18, 2009
Tano, interesting choice to use the passive to define the vitality of the “stimulus.” Seen as vital by whom? Not by whom and a whole bevy of economists. I highly doubt any budget-hawky Republican (as you put it), had he been elected, would have done the same. They would have recognized that the “stimulus” that W passed in ‘08 didn’t work and would have tried more free-market means to get the ecoomy going, just as the GIpper did, lo, these 28 years ago.
And how am I being disingenuous to repeat he actual words that Obama said on the campaign trail.
We do agree about the need to reform Medicaire, alas the Clinton rejected the recommendations of the Breaux Commission.
How do I think it could have been different? Well, first, to have had a “stimulus” of corporate tax cuts instead of federal spending and implementing something John McCain said on the campaign trail–a spending freeze.
But, my question remains–if someone pressed Howard Dean today, what would he say about deficits.
Comment by B. Daniel Blatt — September 18, 2009 @ 2:38 am - September 18, 2009
Meaning: Rate cuts, not bailing out rich failures on Wall Street as Obama has been doing, but giving everyone an even leg up and then letting the market pick the failures, as it ought to do and must do, if it is to work.
Corporate tax cuts of that kind would have truly “created or saved” jobs. Unlike Porkulus.
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — September 18, 2009 @ 2:41 am - September 18, 2009
“No. It isn’t. That is a flat-out lie.
Unless, by “do Obamacare”, you mean “do the opposite of most of what Obama has proposed and/or wants”
Try to pay attention buddy.The CBO just scored the Baucus bill as deficit REDUCING.
Comment by Tano — September 18, 2009 @ 2:55 am - September 18, 2009
“would have tried more free-market means to get the economy going, just as the GIpper did, lo, these 28 years ago.”
Like what? Like reducting taxes, i.e. increasing the budget deficit? Thats what I said – the stimulus a Republican would have implemented would have been drawn up to reflect GOP values, but would have caused a hit on the bottom line to a similar extent.
‘to have had a “stimulus” of corporate tax cuts”
just as I thought. Guess what – reducing corporate taxes when corporations are losing money, or having a hard time, doesnt do much. But to whatever extent it does have an effect, that effect is to reduce government revenues, and thus increase budget deficits.
Comment by Tano — September 18, 2009 @ 3:00 am - September 18, 2009
…despite its massive tax increases on ordinary Americans.
Yup. In a time when official unemployment is near 10% and still climbing despite the Ministry of Truth’s allegations of “recovery”, we are to believe that massive tax increases won’t push the increasingly frail economy over the edge, thus destroying tax receipts and increasing the deficit.
And, talk about moving the goalposts! Baucus’ bill – which, from what I understand, OMITS several important features that Obama very recently insisted on – is now “ObamaCare”.
Tano, Orwell looks at you from his grave and sees his predictions about political language coming true.
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — September 18, 2009 @ 3:00 am - September 18, 2009
Whoops, forgot the quote. My above comment was about, “The CBO just scored the Baucus bill as deficit REDUCING…”
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — September 18, 2009 @ 3:01 am - September 18, 2009
Hey, dimwit:
If Obama kept his promise to reduce spending…
…and if he did it to the tune of, say, reducing the deficit to $600 billion, instead of having voluntarily boosted it to $1.6 trillion…
…and if he then threw a $200 billion corporate tax cut on top of that, to REALLY save some jobs out there in the tax base…
…then, the deficit would now be around $800 billion, or ONE-HALF what it really is.
That’s WITH a reasonable tax cut (real stimulus), and, with Obama making good on the platform that he actually campaigned on. And it’s BEFORE the positive revenue effects kick in, further lowering the deficit.
Of course, I can’t guarantee that “the Republicans” would have implemented such a program. Palin-McCain may well have. Bush, probably not so much. But it’s a program in line with ***Obama’s*** campaign promises. You know, Tano – that Dear Leader you defend so slavishly.
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — September 18, 2009 @ 3:08 am - September 18, 2009
Orwell strikes again. Translation: When corporations in general are having a hard time (because the whole economy is), it is then that lowering their taxes does the greatest good.
Tano, do google “Laffer curve” sometime.
They should have covered it in your Econ 101 class, too. It works in both directions. High tax rates oppress the economy, stifling its growth. And as well, they give people an incentive to avoid them. When the economy is struggling, lowering tax rates may well increase net tax receipts.
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — September 18, 2009 @ 3:16 am - September 18, 2009
Guess what – reducing corporate taxes when corporations are losing money, or having a hard time, doesnt do much.
You are so incredibly hilarious, welfare boy.
Do you know what taxes are to businesses? An expense.
Do you know what happens when taxes are raised on businesses? They have to make up for the expense by either selling more or reducing other expenses, such as labor.
Do you know what happens when taxes are CUT on businesses? They now can generate more cash and/or incur additional expenses in other areas, such as labor.
This is something which is known to economists, including, ironically, Obama’s own advisors.
Top Obama economic adviser Christina Romer has studied 20th-century recessions and concluded that monetary tools, not fiscal spending, produced recoveries. Even in the Great Depression, monetary expansion, not FDR’s public works, opened the way toward recovery beginning in the spring of 1933……
They are also betting on the fact that a package divided between $550 billion in spending and $275 billion in tax cuts will be the right mix, even though Romer’s research also shows tax cuts to have a larger multiplier effect on the economy than spending.
In short, had tax cuts been used instead, the stimulative effect would have been the same, but the “hit to the bottom line” would have been LOWER.
The problem here, Tano, is that moochers like yourself don’t pay taxes. You have no concept of productivity because you don’t work. You oppose tax cuts because they reward people who work and earn. You want increased wasteful government spending because you need more in your welfare check.
Comment by North Dallas Thirty — September 18, 2009 @ 3:18 am - September 18, 2009
And you know what’s even funnier, ILC?
Stupid Tano boy screams about how tax cuts always hurt revenue — but can be slapped with the fact that, following the Bush tax cuts, Federal tax revenues set new record highs.
Federal revenue collections hit an all-time high in April, contributing to a further improvement in the budget deficit for the year.
Releasing its monthly budget report, the Treasury Department said Thursday that through the first seven months of this budget year, the deficit totals $80.8 billion, significantly below the $184.1 billion imbalance run up during the first seven months of the 2006 budget year.
So far this year, tax revenues total $1.505 trillion, an increase of 11.2 percent over the same period last year. That figure includes $383.6 billion collected in April, the largest monthly tax collection on record.
Comment by North Dallas Thirty — September 18, 2009 @ 3:22 am - September 18, 2009
Tano, you didn’t address the other idea I proposed–a spending freeze which would have helped cut down the deficit. And then, I’d add major regulatory reform. With fewer regulations, you need fewer government employees. WIth fewer government employees, you have a lower cost of government.
Oh, and here’s what reducing corporate taxes does–it decreases the cost of doing bussiness, making it easier for companies to expand, innovate and so create jobs–opportunites for the laid-off government workers to find gainful and productive employment.
Comment by B. Daniel Blatt — September 18, 2009 @ 3:27 am - September 18, 2009
Unless, of course, you’re a union shop.
Comment by ThatGayConservative — September 18, 2009 @ 3:52 am - September 18, 2009
I think the Obama rabid supporters have now officially crossed the line from rational thought to delusional thought. It is a great defense mechanism. Let’s see, we spend and we have no debt. People work and we pay them and we still have no debt. We print more money and wow, we still have no debt. We can have everything and there is no cost at all. This is the world as it should be. A peaceful happy place where we can all play.
Comment by Scott Lassiter — September 18, 2009 @ 6:59 am - September 18, 2009
Did someone fail to mention that the Baucus bill is deficit neutral and “reduces” the deficit through imposing myriad new taxes on every conceivable source of tax revenue and gutting Medicare?
Let us be clear about reducing the deficit: 1) slash spending, 2) increase taxes, 3) hyper-inflate the dollar, 4) some of each.
“Deficit reduction” is not an end game. If it were, we could just declare national bankruptcy and start a new system. Third world countries have made an art form of it.
When you allow spending to skyrocket and you concentrate on deficit reduction, you must have some sort of alchemy at hand which guides you in the science of spending and borrowing your way out of debt.
Somebody needs to try kindergarten again.
Comment by heliotrope — September 18, 2009 @ 8:21 am - September 18, 2009
Deficits don’t matter BDB. . .so says Cheney and the Gipper.
What’s the fuss all about?
The fiscal shift in the Reagan years was staggering. In January 1981, when Reagan declared the federal budget to be “out of control,” the deficit had reached almost $74 billion, the federal debt $930 billion. Within two years, the deficit was $208 billion. The debt by 1988 totaled $2.6 trillion. In those eight years, the United States moved from being the world’s largest international creditor to the largest debtor nation.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A26402-2004Jun8?language=printer
Comment by rusty — September 18, 2009 @ 8:23 am - September 18, 2009
More on Cheney and Deficits
Cheney to Treasury: “Deficits don’t matter”
Former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill was told “deficits don’t matter” when he warned of a looming fiscal crisis.
O’Neill, fired in a shakeup of Bush’s economic team in December 2002, raised objections to a new round of tax cuts and said the president balked at his more aggressive plan to combat corporate crime after a string of accounting scandals because of opposition from “the corporate crowd,” a key constituency.
O’Neill said he tried to warn Vice President Dick Cheney that growing budget deficits-expected to top $500 billion this fiscal year alone-posed a threat to the economy. Cheney cut him off. “You know, Paul, Reagan proved deficits don’t matter,” he said, according to excerpts. Cheney continued: “We won the midterms (congressional elections). This is our due.” A month later, Cheney told the Treasury secretary he was fired.
The vice president’s office had no immediate comment, but John Snow, who replaced O’Neill, insisted that deficits “do matter” to the administration.
http://www.issues2000.org/2004/Dick_Cheney_Budget_+_Economy.htm
Comment by rusty — September 18, 2009 @ 8:46 am - September 18, 2009
and then there is this little piece about capitalism. sorry, ILC, for I am not as schooled in economics and certainly not as gifted when it comes to expressing myself (as you are) but have been waiting for the opportunity to see what you think about
Why Capitalism Fails The MINKSKY MELTDOWN
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2009/09/13/why_capitalism_fails/
In recent months Minsky’s star has only risen. Nobel Prize-winning economists talk about incorporating his insights, and copies of his books are back in print and selling well. He’s gone from being a nearly forgotten figure to a key player in the debate over how to fix the financial system.
But if Minsky was as right as he seems to have been, the news is not exactly encouraging. He believed in capitalism, but also believed it had almost a genetic weakness. Modern finance, he
argued, was far from the stabilizing force that mainstream economics portrayed: rather, it was a system that created the illusion of stability while simultaneously creating the conditions for an inevitable and dramatic collapse.
In other words, the one person who foresaw the crisis also believed that our whole financial system contains the seeds of its own destruction. “Instability,” he wrote, “is an inherent and inescapable flaw of capitalism.”
Comment by rusty — September 18, 2009 @ 8:53 am - September 18, 2009
hey Rusty, rather than try to spin the discussion off in a different direction, why don’ t you and Tano and MarciaC try to stay on-topic and explain why ScreaminHowieDean thought deficits were wrong under Bush but they’re not wrong under Obama and Congressional Democrats?
That’s the issue.
I know you’d like to drag out Dick Cheney’s reputation and smear him by associating him with DNC Chair ScreaminHowieDean, but these are Dean’s words of wisdom. Explain why he was right then and not wrong now?
Comment by Michigan-Matt — September 18, 2009 @ 10:30 am - September 18, 2009
rusty,
By “capitalism”, I mean a totally free-market system. We don’t have that. Ours is, in large part, a centrally planned economy. There is a central planner for the cost of money (interest rates) called the Federal Reserve, which has spent most of its life systematically debauching the currency and creating economic problems. The dollar basically maintained its purchasing power in the 120 years before the Federal Reserve, and has lost an astounding 95% of its purchasing power in the 95 years since then. As they keep rates artificially lower and debauch the dollar, they create bubble after bubble, or to put it another way, crisis after crisis. Most economists now acknowledge that they played a key role in creating the Great Depression. Less widely acknowledged, but true nonetheless, is that they are the major culprits in creating the real estate bubble and hence, today’s crisis. They affect everybody, even in areas where we have relatively more freedom/capitalism, such as small business. Hence, even our most nearly-capitalist sectors are not capitalist.
There are other central planners in Washington. Some keep moribund, corrupt companies going, when those companies should have been condemned to hell – by the free market. Those planners have been particularly active lately, artificially transferring your wealth and mine to corrupt entities on Wall Street and elsewhere (e.g., to GM and its unions). Others plan attacks on vibrant and successful companies, aiming basically to make them moribund and corrupt. Still other planners try to prevent people from employing each other. As but one example, they criminalize the local ice cream shop owner who hires the local teenager (the teen’s first job) at $5.00 an hour, say, an arrangement otherwise agreeable and beneficial to them both. Because of all those government planners as well as the Federal Reserve, we do not have capitalism.
Capitalism is: that system in which the government neutrally and impartially prosecutes major crimes such as murder, theft, rape, fraud, etc. as much as possible, and otherwise lets people and companies do as they will. It rests on people exercising initiative and their rational minds, AND on taking the consequences of their mistakes and failures. It is a system which has been little understood in human history and rarely tried. Nonetheless, to the extent that countries *approach* it, they do better over time.
The country to approach it closest (though still not perfectly) was America in the period 1789-1913. The result was the greatest century-plus of progress that humankind has ever known, a period that raised living standards so high it abolished slavery, serfdom, most childhood mortality and for that matter, most child labor. As we have not yet wholly abolished capitalism, some of the forward momentum of that period is still carrying us despite our government’s many horrendous mistakes. Our present leadership seems determined to stamp out the remaining vestiges of that forward momentum.
With that as background: Minsky is wrong. Instability is inherent to capitalism in the sense that change is inherent to capitalism. But that’s good instability. It’s part of life. Instability *as a problem*, what Minsky means, is in no way inherent to capitalism. Capitalism is the ultimate in flexibility. It is a system in which people are constantly adjusting to new information – because they are both free to do so, and required to do so (by the discipline of the market, i.e., of reality). In capitalism, there is the very great stability of people always being free to create and accept new opportunities.
Just take the question of unemployment. With capitalism, if wages need to rise because there is a lot going on and employers can’t find people willing to do the work they need done at lower wage levels – then employers pay people more. So wages rise, along with employment. The archetypal example is Henry Ford’s five-dollar-a-day wage, at the time an incredibly rich wage that unions had NOTHING to do with achieving. Conversely, if certain wages need to fall because there is not a lot going on, but there might be more going on if wages were lower, then they fall. The point is, all action is voluntary and the government doesn’t try to stop it. Anybody can get a job if they are willing to take the wage – and if they aren’t willing to take it, if they think they can do better spending their time elsewhere, then good for them! Yay! So unemployment is not a widespread problem, it is individual and only temporary.
That’s under capitalism. But again, that is NOT the system we have. We have a system in which government actively prevents entrepreneurs from creating jobs and actively prevents willing employees from taking them. So you get long-term unemployment, unemployment as a “social problem”. It should be obvious what the solution is, but the government planners don’t want to give up their power. They benefit from perpetuating the problem.
Likewise, take financial crises. With capitalism, if capital is phony or misallocated or being run into the ground by the incompetent or the evil, asset prices crash, and assets are then taken over and re-deployed by the competent. It’s a “crisis” only in a superficial sense, “Ah, things aren’t going well right now. Some people must be paid their wages of failure.” Then life goes on and business, employment and living standards leap forward again as unimagined new businesses and new opportunities are created. If you want to call that “instability”, fine. I don’t. I call it progress. But under the system we have, the government is determined to prevent that, determined to keep failures from being paid their wages of failures. And so we get a moribund system, mired in permanent crisis.
In short: The problems Minsky talks about are not inherent to capitalism. Rather, they are inherent to *violations* of capitalism. Examine every case, and you will find a government determined to block capitalism or to artificially alter the outcome of the market, lying at the root of the problem. That is “why capitalism fails”. It fails, as it inevitably must, when and because government sets out actively to prevent it from working. And the latter is the economic system we have. As long as we have that system, we will have crisis after crisis.
Hardly, as I just explained. If you want to know understand real capitalism, and for that matter, real economics: read the Austrian School, especially Ludwig von Mises.
If you want a simple and fun introduction to some of the basic concepts, here is a book in cartoon form, being read on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGQKXvX9ei8
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — September 18, 2009 @ 11:17 am - September 18, 2009
“Stupid Tano boy screams about how tax cuts always hurt revenue — but can be slapped with the fact that, following the Bush tax cuts, Federal tax revenues set new record highs.’
HaH! Thats pretty funny ND30. YEah, FOUR YEARS LATER.
Because of the Bush tax cuts, federal tax revenues did not recover to 2000 levels until 2005.
Comment by Tano — September 18, 2009 @ 11:19 am - September 18, 2009
P.S. If you go with the YouTube book, be sure to continue on to parts 2 and 3. The whole process takes something over an hour.
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — September 18, 2009 @ 11:22 am - September 18, 2009
“Tano, do google “Laffer curve” sometime.”
And you, ILC are a real comedian.
The “Laffer Curve” merely illustrates the notion that tax cuts can lead to increased revenues IF one is on the righthand side of the curve. And tax cuts lead to decreased revenues if on the left hand side of the curve. And all the empirical evidence ever generated since the Laffer Curve was first discussed nationally, is that we are on the left hand side of the curve.
Reagan cut taxes, and revenues went DOWN. Bush Sr. raised taxes, and revenues went UP. Clinton raised taxes and revenues went UP. Bush Jr. cut taxes and revenues went DOWN.
I know that you rightwing extremists are impervious to evidence, bu this is a bit ridiculous.
Comment by Tano — September 18, 2009 @ 11:25 am - September 18, 2009
thank you ILC
Comment by rusty — September 18, 2009 @ 11:28 am - September 18, 2009
Murray Rothbard provides an introduction to Mises’ ideas on the business cycle. A bit dated, but shorter than a book: http://mises.org/tradcycl/econdepr.asp
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — September 18, 2009 @ 11:59 am - September 18, 2009
I love it when the spinning Tano contradicts himself.
Case in point:
Bush Jr. cut taxes and revenues went DOWN.
But before, when cornered by facts showing that, after the Bush tax cuts, tax revenue soared to record levels, Tano blabbered this.
Because of the Bush tax cuts, federal tax revenues did not recover to 2000 levels until 2005.
In short, Tano has already acknowledged that tax revenues ROSE….and then insists that tax revenues only went DOWN during the Bush administration.
The reason Tano is so ignorant is because he, like his Barack Obama, is dependent upon the government for checks. Barack Obama has never generated wealth; he’s always voted himself salary increases on his government paychecks. Neither of them can comprehend other than financial ruin from reducing the rate at which the government collects money. They pay no expenses, nor have they ever run a profitable business. They are parasites, incapable of creating wealth and only capable of destroying it.
Comment by North Dallas Thirty — September 18, 2009 @ 1:03 pm - September 18, 2009
And all the empirical evidence ever generated since the Laffer Curve was first discussed nationally, is that we are on the left hand side of the curve.
But of course, spinning babbling Tano ignores the facts and reality.
Federal revenue collections hit an all-time high in April, contributing to a further improvement in the budget deficit for the year.
Releasing its monthly budget report, the Treasury Department said Thursday that through the first seven months of this budget year, the deficit totals $80.8 billion, significantly below the $184.1 billion imbalance run up during the first seven months of the 2006 budget year.
So far this year, tax revenues total $1.505 trillion, an increase of 11.2 percent over the same period last year. That figure includes $383.6 billion collected in April, the largest monthly tax collection on record.
If the country were truly on the left-hand side, as spinning babbling Tano insists, tax revenues would a) never increase after tax cuts and b) would never set new records.
Notice how Tano projects and insists others are “impervious to facts”. As has been shown with the facts quoted, Tano is the one who is impervious. As is typical for intellectual and emotional children like Barack Obama and his supporters, Tano projects onto others his failings and stupidity.
Comment by North Dallas Thirty — September 18, 2009 @ 1:10 pm - September 18, 2009
What evidence would that be? All we have is your pile of bullshit you unloaded here. That’s not evidence. That’s desperation.
Comment by ThatGayConservative — September 18, 2009 @ 1:35 pm - September 18, 2009
#10 #12 So let me get this straight, the leftists in here trying to have a smart detailed argument about deficiets and spending didn’t even know who was responsible for the second half of the 2009 budget?
When oh when are we going to quit having to try to re educate these dummies. Boobs morons and dolts.
Comment by Gene in Pennsylvania — September 18, 2009 @ 2:10 pm - September 18, 2009
And, as I am sure you know, the most glorious Baucus plan has a $40 billion dollar tax on medical devices and diagnostic tools. The cost, of course, will be passed onto the patients. Not to mention the fact that the tax will stifle R&D on new equipment and nobody will want to create anything new only to be robbed by Uncle Sugar.
In other words, your Team Killing FUCKTARD leaders are still looking for ways to legislate us into the third world.
Comment by ThatGayConservative — September 18, 2009 @ 4:41 pm - September 18, 2009
try to get control of yourself TGC…
Haven’t you seen the latest poll data highlighted in the most recent posts? Vulgar ranting and name-calling is so August, and is a real turn off to those in the middle…
Comment by Tano — September 18, 2009 @ 5:59 pm - September 18, 2009
Yeah, and I’ve seen your bullshit spin on it too.
By my heel, I care not. I don’t concern myself with what’s a turn on to the spineless who don’t stand for anything and consider themselves the smartest people in the room for it. It is what it is. If you don’t like honesty, may I suggest the DailyKOShole. I know they would have language that you would approve of.
Comment by ThatGayConservative — September 18, 2009 @ 7:42 pm - September 18, 2009
Independent Fox News is reporting the Baucus plan includes tons of new taxes….on condoms and tampons. Didn’t Obama say he would not sign a tax increase on 95% of Americans? Geez I hope he wasn’t….. lying?
Comment by Gene in Pennsylvania — September 18, 2009 @ 8:50 pm - September 18, 2009
From Tano in #35:
Please don’t elaborate. We all know this is 24k truth and you have won the argument. From this day forward, we will believe everything you utter.
The world really looks quite different when you view it standing on your head. This will take getting used to. Does the tingling ever go away? How about the momentary blackouts?
Comment by heliotrope — September 19, 2009 @ 7:49 am - September 19, 2009
heliotrope,
Is your comment supposed to be clever, or sarcastic, or something? What is your point? The quoted passage of mine refers to indisputable facts. You could look it up – just put “federal tax revenues historical” or something like that, into Google, and there ya go.
And the fact that these historical events are exactly contrary to the predictions of those who invoke the Laffer Curve to argue for more tax cuts (those people necessarily having to believe that we are on the right side of the curve, rather than the left, as the evidence shows) is also rather unambiguous.
There seems to be some strange pathology here – maybe it explains why it is so hard for some people to admit error. No heliotrope, you are NOT required to accept that everything I say is necessarily correct just because I am correct on this point.
So yeah, yours is a very bizarre comment. After essentially admitting you have no counter to my points, and doing this little over-the-top snarky comment about me being always right, you end with pretending that I am seeing the world upside down. Well, sorry, but you need to establish first that there is something wrong with my facts before you get to claim that. And you cannot do that, because the facts are correct.
So why all the mental gymnastics? I was correct about this point – deal with it like a grown up.
Comment by Tano — September 19, 2009 @ 9:50 am - September 19, 2009
Such paranoia on the part of Dems, since the Republicans voted against this, seems rather odd given that most of the stimulus money hasn’t even been spent. I guess this is like how we MUST pass their health care plan NOW or everything will go to hell, even though it doesn’t take effect until 2013…
Comment by John — September 19, 2009 @ 11:30 am - September 19, 2009
And I loved the passive, weasel-ly “was seen as vital” construction. Was seen that way… by whom? Only by left-liberals. Was vital for real, or in reality? No.
Comment by ILoveCapitalism — September 19, 2009 @ 12:05 pm - September 19, 2009
So the leftists believe that higher taxes equals higher revenues. That there will be no correspoding change in behavior. That Americans of all stripes will just pony up because the chosen one said so.Does Obamateleproompter believe this as well? He didn’t articulate that during the campaign. He should be honest and agree, and lay out his proposal to balance the budget by raising taxes. If raising taxes 10% is good isn’t raising taxes 20% better and raising taxes 50% best? Time to man up liberal Democrats…tell the truth, tell America you want to raise taxes. And you can’t get where you want to go by just hitting wealthy Americans, you’ve got to go after all those working productive people. The few Obama has left.
Comment by Gene in Pennsylvania — September 19, 2009 @ 2:58 pm - September 19, 2009
OK, Tano, refresh me again on how you can borrow and spend your way out of debt. You have some sort of belief that increasing taxation on the people to cover your debt payments is a positive, productive way to grow “the economy.” Are we playing a game here that the object is to grow “the economy” meaning putting more money in the hands of the government? Why not cut to the chase and go for Weimar Republic style currency devaluation?
Your silliness over this is really weak. You can cause the graph to go up or down by the actions you stated for a moment in time. But a momentary positive rise is meaningless. It is what is sustained and averaged over time is the point.
You can not defend this claptrap of yours:
If you were making any sense at all, Obama would go after the middle class with healthy doses of taxation. Why the middle class? Because they have the money. Get them now, while they have it and grow, grow, grow those revenues.
Of course, once you have squeezed the body dry, there is no more blood to give. You really should run for governor of California. It would be a great place to put your wisdom of taxation into place.
Comment by heliotrope — September 20, 2009 @ 8:08 am - September 20, 2009
Dan, I think the answer you’re looking for is something like the following. Howard Dean may or may not like deficits. I’ll say probably not. When deficits hit record numbers under Bush, who happens to belong to a different party, Dean took the opportunity to exploit it and to criticize Bush for it. Now that we have even a much higher deficit with Obama, who happens to belong to the same party, Dean is silent.
So I think what we have here is an all too typical case of political hypocrisy.
Comment by Pat — September 20, 2009 @ 1:53 pm - September 20, 2009