GayPatriot

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My suggestion to Boehner: pass a bill extending the Bush tax cuts (I think the Social Security tax needs to return to the previous rate). Send the bill to the Senate and let them pass it (or not).

So if Jan 1 arrives and everyone’s taxes jump, the GOP can say “we sent a bill, the Dems rejected it”.

If they want to tinker with the revenue side then stick that in the bill as well. Make the Dems counter. Bill or not, the GOP should stand mute (aside from reminding the voters than the Dems still hold the majority of the government) and force the Dems to make the next move.

My own feeling, though I could live to personally regret it, is to let the Dems have their way. The electorate voted for it. As Ed Koch said, the voters have spoken, now they must be punished.

Comment by SoCalRobert — December 4, 2012 @ 8:31 pm - December 4, 2012
Sadly, no matter what the Republicans do; the Democrats, Obama, and, of course, the news media will blame them.

It is a no win situation.

Comment by Charles — December 4, 2012 @ 9:20 pm - December 4, 2012
Whatever Odumbo proposes, Repugnicans should just vote present and let it the shit hit the fan.

Comment by Brenda Hellwig — December 4, 2012 @ 9:29 pm - December 4, 2012
And how does one propose that Boehner and republicans take advantage of this great ‘opportunity” that Pat Caddell describes? How do they inform “fly over country,” and the millions of voters and non voters in our great decaying cities? How do they do this in 10-30 second sound bites that are prefaced by a severely biased talking head, or on the front page of the N.Y. Times, or worse, in their editorial page. Do you think the Washington Post or the L.A Times will give Boehner the space needed to state his case? I don’t think so. If you do think it possible, I have a bridge between Brooklyn and Manhattan I would love to discuss.

SoCal is right, but if I am not mistaken didn’t the house vote on bill after bill after bill in 2011 and 2012 to try to accomplish the same results – to draw out the difference between obama and republican ideals and ideas. How did that turn out?

I’ll let a far better wordsmith than I could ever hope to be describe how republicans should/could proceed in the fiscal cliff fiasco:

http://www.victorhanson.com/articles/hanson120212.html

The electorate has spoken. Let them suffer the consequences of their actions. An infamous lady is said to have pronounced: “Let them eat cake.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_them_eat_cake

In fact, it is already starting:http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/12/04/IRS-Issues-159-Pages-Of-Obamacare-Rules

Welcome to the new paradigm!!!

Comment by mixitup — December 4, 2012 @ 9:40 pm - December 4, 2012
Agreed, Brenda. How can Republicans POSSIBLY be blamed if they simply let President Downgrade have his way, and as you say, the shit hits the fan? All they have to do is vote PRESENT. Game over. I don’t like what will come of this, but maybe Ed Koch is right: the voters DO need to be punished.

Comment by Bastiat Fan — December 4, 2012 @ 9:41 pm - December 4, 2012
Dan
I am not sure. In 2011 Obama worked with Republicans and got significant cuts in spending (I think over 1 trillion or so) However as part of those deals, Boehner agreed to them with the president, then turned around in the media and said “these deals will never pass the house” and that kind of thing. When they were finally done he was crowing about how fleeced the president.

So this time I think Obama is saying “fool me once” and he is keeping the pressure on and reminding republicans that he got elected on saying tax increases for the wealthy.

Republicans need to say, OK tax increases are going to happen, so lets focus on the real spending cuts that will accompany them.

This would be a “grown up” response. Not slamming your foot down and saying “no” despite the fact that dem majority in the senate increased and the republicans lost seats a few months ago in an election where these issues came up. – Though he should say “no” about the debt limit increases.

Comment by mike — December 4, 2012 @ 9:43 pm - December 4, 2012
Rush Limbaugh’s take on the debt negotiations…

http://www.commoncts.blogspot.com/2012/12/rush-limbaugh-limbaugh-obama-telling.html

Comment by Steve — December 4, 2012 @ 9:50 pm - December 4, 2012
The Republicans will be bashed by the president and the MFM regardless of what happens; they should consider this a form of freedom.

Comment by V the K — December 4, 2012 @ 9:53 pm - December 4, 2012
One final thought to my comments above. I for one will take great joy in watching all the liberals and socialists “pi$$ing and moaning” about all the taxes, fines, penalties and costs associated with their social engineering agenda. It will take some time to play out, but when they feel the bite of all those taxes and more, they will squeel like a stuck pig.

I guess misery loves company!!

Comment by mixitup — December 4, 2012 @ 9:55 pm - December 4, 2012
I am not sure. In 2011 Obama worked with Republicans and got significant cuts in spending (I think over 1 trillion or so) However as part of those deals, Boehner agreed to them with the president, then turned around in the media and said “these deals will never pass the house” and that kind of thing. When they were finally done he was crowing about how fleeced the president.

Comment by mike — December 4, 2012 @ 9:43 pm – December 4, 2012

Actually, that’s a lie.

But we expect that. Obama supporters like mike lie constantly; they really are incapable of dealing with or telling the truth, and do nothing but lie to smear and attack Republicans.

What makes it funny is that mike thinks that someone like himself who endorses and supports tax cheats can ever be expected to be honest. We know he’s an Obama voter. We know he worships Barack Obama as Lord and Messiah. We know that mike worships government as the be-all and end-all of society.

Comment by North Dallas Thirty — December 4, 2012 @ 10:22 pm - December 4, 2012
‘Boehner said Sunday during a commencement speech at Ohio Stadium that his own last name has been pronounced to rhyme with the words honor and leaner and even “boner.”

Then he said: “Thank God it’s not Weiner.”‘

Comment by Ignatius — December 4, 2012 @ 10:23 pm - December 4, 2012
This would be a “grown up” response. Not slamming your foot down and saying “no” despite the fact that dem majority in the senate increased and the republicans lost seats a few months ago in an election where these issues came up.

Comment by mike — December 4, 2012 @ 9:43 pm – December 4, 2012

LOL.

And what did the concern-troll mike call a “grown-up response” in 2004?

Oh, that’s right; the Obama Party and Barack Obama slamming their foot down and saying “no”.

As President Bush prepares for his second term, Democrats in Washington and around the country are organizing for a year of confrontation and resistance, saying they are determined to block Bush’s major initiatives and thereby deny him the mandate he has claimed from his reelection victory last November.

So once again, what we see is lying bigot mike screaming and trying to project onto Republicans what he and his fellow racist looters and moochers in the Obama Party pulled.

I think lying bigot mike should explain to us why slamming your foot down and saying “no” is OK when Obama and his supporters do it first.

But of course, lying bigot mike won’t do that, because it would expose the fact that lying bigot mike is just another Obama talking-points repeater and concern troll.

Comment by North Dallas Thirty — December 4, 2012 @ 10:30 pm - December 4, 2012
I guess no one has noticed a civil war has started in the republican party.

Comment by Richard Bell — December 4, 2012 @ 10:46 pm - December 4, 2012
And we should also remember that concern-troll mike and his fellow Obama supporters who are whining about “grown up responses” are the ones making videos showing “the rich” urinating on “the poor”.

That’s really the answer to these worthless liars and thugs like the troll mike. Laugh in their face and call them the tantrum-throwing children that they are.

Comment by North Dallas Thirty — December 4, 2012 @ 10:48 pm - December 4, 2012
I just wish the GOP would die already so we could have unified, one-party rule and no one would obstruct Obama.

Comment by Average Democrat — December 4, 2012 @ 11:09 pm - December 4, 2012
Boehner is purging conservatives from House finance committees. So, Eff him.

Comment by V the K — December 4, 2012 @ 11:16 pm - December 4, 2012
House Republicans should take the fiscal cliff. Period. Stop negotiating NOW, resume only in 2013.

They should take it because it is the right thing, both fiscally and politically.

Fiscally: No tax increases will help the economy, only hurt it; but at least we’ll get real spending cuts, and that will help the economy in the medium and long terms. Thus helping America.

Politically: History shows that Republicans can’t win by neutering themselves; they can only win by standing on principle. So what if the media-DNC complex is geared up to blame them and make them look bad? That’s going to happen anyway. Having everybody blame you plus the knowledge that you didn’t stand on principle, is a much worse situation to be in than having everybody blame you plus the knowledge that you did.

Comment by ILoveCapitalism — December 5, 2012 @ 1:29 am - December 5, 2012
In 2011 Obama worked with Republicans and got significant cuts in spending (I think over 1 trillion or so) However as part of those deals, Boehner agreed to them with the president, then turned around in the media and said “these deals will never pass the house” and that kind of thing.

mike, that’s a near-perfect opposite of what actually happened in the 2011 negotiations. Seriously mike, step away from the Kool Aid.

Republicans need to say, OK tax increases are going to happen, so lets focus on the real spending cuts that will accompany them.

Another near-opposite misrepresentation of reality. A major aspect of Obama’s “negotiating” (actually, campaigning) position is that He DOES NOT WANT AND WILL NOT GIVE significant spending cuts. How, then, can the Republicans accomplish any spending cuts, no matter what they do? Seriously mike, what planet are you from?

Comment by ILoveCapitalism — December 5, 2012 @ 1:33 am - December 5, 2012
Thomas Sowell on the tax issue:

One of the big advantages that President Obama has, as he plays “chicken” with the Congressional Republicans along the “fiscal cliff,” is that Obama is a master of the plausible lie, which will never be exposed by the mainstream media– nor, apparently, by the Republicans.

A key lie that has been repeated over and over, largely unanswered, is that President Bush’s “tax cuts for the rich” cost the government so much lost tax revenue that this added to the budget deficit– so that the government cannot afford to allow the cost of letting the Bush tax rates continue for “the rich.”

It sounds very plausible, and constant repetition without a challenge may well be enough to convince the voting public that, if the Republican-controlled House of Representatives does not go along with Barack Obama’s demands for more spending and higher tax rates on the top 2 percent, it just shows that they care more for “the rich” than for the other 98 percent.

What is remarkable is how easy it is to show how completely false Obama’s argument is. That also makes it completely inexplicable why the Republicans have not done so.

The official statistics which show plainly how wrong Barack Obama is can be found in his own “Economic Report of the President” for 2012, on page 411. You can look it up.

You may be able to find a copy of the “Economic Report of the President” for 2012 at your local public library. Or you can buy a hard copy from the Government Printing Office or download an electronic version from the Internet.

For those who find that “a picture is worth a thousand words,” they need only see the graphs published in the November 30th issue of Investor’s Business Daily.

What both the statistical tables in the “Economic Report of the President” and the graphs in Investor’s Business Daily show is that (1) tax revenues went up– not down– after tax rates were cut during the Bush administration, and (2) the budget deficit declined, year after year, after the cut in tax rates that have been blamed by Obama for increasing the deficit.

Indeed, the New York Times reported in 2006: “An unexpectedly steep rise in tax revenues from corporations and the wealthy is driving down the projected budget deficit this year.”

While the New York Times may not have expected this, there is nothing unprecedented about lower tax rates leading to higher tax revenues, despite automatic assumptions by many in the media and elsewhere that tax rates and tax revenues automatically move in the same direction. They do not.

The Congressional Budget Office has been embarrassed repeatedly by making projections based on the assumption that tax revenues and tax rates move in the same direction.

This has happened as recently as the George W. Bush administration and as far back as the Reagan administration. Moreover, tax revenues went up when tax rates went down, as far back as the Coolidge administration, before there was a Congressional Budget Office to make false predictions.

The reverse would be true: Tax revenues go down, as tax rates go up.

But, back to original the point of the post, Boehner “making a best of a bad situation”: I’m not sure that he is. For reasons I gave in #17, taking the so-called fiscal cliff is what would make the best of it. Republicans would get real spending cuts, while having kept a principled refusal to agree to Obama’s insane plans.

Comment by ILoveCapitalism — December 5, 2012 @ 1:43 am - December 5, 2012
(i.e., the principle that Sowell correctly points out should work in both directions: so that, when tax rates are already hefty as today, then tax revenues go down, as tax rates go up further.)

Comment by ILoveCapitalism — December 5, 2012 @ 2:34 am - December 5, 2012
A challenge concern troll mike and the Democrat Obama-fluffers cannot answer: Besides defense, what has Obama offered to cut? Real cuts, as in, not promised cuts ten years in the future… actual reductions in year-to-year spending starting this year.

Comment by V the K — December 5, 2012 @ 6:30 am - December 5, 2012
Tax revenues (regardless of rates) are going to operate somewhat independently of the market. You can’t point to the Bush tax cuts, then say tax revenues increased, and end the discussion. Clinton increased tax rates, and revenues grew. The Bush tax rates collected more revenue because of low unemployment and record corporate profits, then the bubble burst. Clinton raised tax rates and also enjoyed low unemployment and tax revenues from an emerging sector.

Comment by Aaron — December 5, 2012 @ 1:12 pm - December 5, 2012
… then Clinton’s bubble burst.

Comment by ILoveCapitalism — December 5, 2012 @ 1:26 pm - December 5, 2012
The Y2K scam was a boon to the Clinton presidency… 2 Trillion spent preparing for a disaster that never happened. But it demonstrates how much more Ooomph you get from the private sector willingly spending $2 Trillion versus Government spending $2 Trillion on bank bailouts, solar companies with bad business plans, bailouts of public employee unions, and grants to teach Africans to wash their peepees.

Comment by V the K — December 5, 2012 @ 1:33 pm - December 5, 2012
Shhh ILC, don’t mention the Dot Com bubble. It confuses Aaron because Bush didn’t spend four years whining about how he inherited it.

Comment by The_Livewire — December 5, 2012 @ 1:33 pm - December 5, 2012
Aaron is right. The tax cuts gave rich people a bunch of disposable income right around the time that real estate prices were doubling in only a couple of years. The Bush tax cuts were a catalyst for the housing bubble, and it makes sense for for tax revenues to go up when there is a massive bubble being inflated.

It’s really cheap to say, “Bush cut taxes and tax revenues exploded!” Both of those things are true, but that doesn’t mean one has to do with the other. There are quite a few conservatives around here talking about how many jobs George Bush created and how low unemployment was, but none of that shit matters if you get all it from a bubble that eventually bursts and leaves you with nothing.

If Republicans want deficit reduction so bad, they can abide some tax increases. What’s crucial to realize is that Republicans don’t want deficit reduction, they want the economy to stay in bad shape for as long as Obama is in office.

Comment by Levi — December 5, 2012 @ 1:38 pm - December 5, 2012
The tax cuts gave rich people a bunch of disposable income right around the time that real estate prices were doubling in only a couple of years

… and never mind that the chief burden/damage of the housing bubble was all those subprime loans. Which, by definition, are LOWER-END home buyers; people who should have never been in mortgages, lied on their applications, etc.

But hey, it’s Levi talking, so facts be damned!

There are quite a few conservatives -lefties- around here talking about how many jobs ~~George Bush~~ -Bill Clinton-created and how low unemployment was, but none of that shit matters if you get all it from a bubble that eventually bursts and leaves you with nothing -as clearly happened in the 90s.

FIFY

Comment by ILoveCapitalism — December 5, 2012 @ 1:56 pm - December 5, 2012
(And I mean the 90s bubble, which of course actually burst in 2000.)

Comment by ILoveCapitalism — December 5, 2012 @ 2:02 pm - December 5, 2012
none of that shit matters if you get all it from a bubble that eventually bursts and leaves you with nothing.

ROFLCOPTER. This is hilarious coming from the guy who wants a 2 trillion dollar dollar stimulus bubble of unemployment payments, loans to cronies with badly managed solar energy companies, and useless Government busywork “jobs.”

Do stupid people know how stupid they sound to intelligent people?

Comment by V the K — December 5, 2012 @ 2:03 pm - December 5, 2012
@VtheK OF course they don’t.

I’m smarter than most conservatives, this is beyond any doubt. I’m also a better person – you guys have given up any claim to that argument with your morally decrepit positions on torture and wars. If that sounds condescending, it’s because it is. And you should probably spend more of your time teaching yourself things and thinking, rather than complain about the mean people that make fun off you for not being very smart.

LEvi’s nattering

Remember, Levi’s so smart, he believes that Democracy is related to skin colour, brain mass is equal to intelligence, and 1.6T is 10% of 4B.

Comment by The_Livewire — December 5, 2012 @ 2:57 pm - December 5, 2012
You absolutly cannot compare the housing bubble with the dot com bubble. This is really my point, you have to look at each economic situation as unique, not point to one trend in recent history and automatically conclude that that same policy should be implemented, and that it will yield the same results.

The dot com bust, first of all, was significantly shallower than the housing bubble. It was a naturally cyclic economic bust. The dot com industry was still trying to find its real value. It affected mostly investors who were speculating about where the peaks and valleys would be during its infancy. Naturally, some dot coms went under, people lost those jobs, and investors lost there money. No big deal! Nothing the government did significantly affected that bubble. And you’re right, I don’t remember Bush bitching about it. But once again, look at the economic situations uniquely, the housing bubble was a much bigger deal.

The housing is completely different because the true value of the property was already established. A false amount of demand was being created, and artificially driving up prices. Do you see the big difference between the two? It’s stupid to blame Clinton for it for signing the Gramm-Leach act into law, or for the CRA. Both pieces were bi-partisan legislation. Sorry Bill Clinton didn’t have a crystal ball to look into and see how adverse the consequences would be. On the flip side, you guys are right, Bush shouldn’t be blamed for creating the housing bubble. But he did fail in looking into how the law was being implemented, and what type of chatostrophic crisis it could (and did) cause. Why didn’t he look into it? Are you going to accuse me of saying he should have had a crystal ball? The writing was on the wall. From the time the law was passed in 1999 until 2006, more and more economists and financial analysts were writing about the crisis. The housing bubble was not a surprise. And when Bush has a history of fumbling the ball, its easy to see why people blame (myself included) him for screwing up the response to it. If you screw up Katrina, Iraq, Terri Schiavo, Harriet Myer, the list goes on and on, then why would he respond to the housing bubble crisis correctly? Remember, there was about two years between the housing bubble and the September 2008, when the shit really hit the fan. Did he do anything significant in this time period to prepare? Not that I know of.

Now back to taxes. Bush would have enjoyed roughly the same amount of growth with or without the tax cuts. The market is going to do, what the market is going to do. Hell he might have run a surplus without them. Now that the short and mid-term projections for the economy are on the up and up, and the U.S. needs additional revenue, its time to raise taxes. Quit repeating what you heard from Fox or Rush about how these tax increases are going to choke the economy, it’s not going to happen.

Comment by Aaron — December 5, 2012 @ 4:52 pm - December 5, 2012
Bush shouldn’t be blamed for creating the housing bubble. But he did fail in looking into how the law was being implemented, and what type of chatostrophic crisis it could (and did) cause. Why didn’t he look into it? Are you going to accuse me of saying he should have had a crystal ball? The writing was on the wall. From the time the law was passed in 1999 until 2006, more and more economists and financial analysts were writing about the crisis. The housing bubble was not a surprise. And when Bush has a history of fumbling the ball, its easy to see why people blame (myself included) him for screwing up the response to it.

Actually, no; that’s a typical Obama cultist talking point that has nothing to do with reality.

The Bush administration today recommended the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago.

Under the plan, disclosed at a Congressional hearing today, a new agency would be created within the Treasury Department to assume supervision of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the government-sponsored companies that are the two largest players in the mortgage lending industry.

The new agency would have the authority, which now rests with Congress, to set one of the two capital-reserve requirements for the companies. It would exercise authority over any new lines of business. And it would determine whether the two are adequately managing the risks of their ballooning portfolios.

The plan is an acknowledgment by the administration that oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — which together have issued more than $1.5 trillion in outstanding debt — is broken. A report by outside investigators in July concluded that Freddie Mac manipulated its accounting to mislead investors, and critics have said Fannie Mae does not adequately hedge against rising interest rates.

But of course, you wouldn’t have recognized that, because your Barack Obama and Barack Obama Party were adamantly opposed to it, insisting that regulation and oversight were not needed.

Rep. Frank: I do think I do not want the same kind of focus on safety and soundness that we have in OCC [Office of the Comptroller of the Currency] and OTS [Office of Thrift Supervision]. I want to roll the dice a little bit more in this situation towards subsidized housing. . . .

Rep. Maxine Waters (D., Calif.), speaking to Housing and Urban Development Secretary Mel Martinez:

Secretary Martinez, if it ain’t broke, why do you want to fix it? Have the GSEs [government-sponsored enterprises] ever missed their housing goals?

And why is this important? Because, Aaron, as you ran away from answering yesterday, Fannie and Freddie’s stupidity was what was driving the mortgage-backed securities and subprime business.

So since you claim to be super-smart and would thus have researched this in advance, your clear refusal to acknowledge the facts indicate that you are a vicious and malicious liar who is deliberately out to slander and smear Republicans.

Comment by North Dallas Thirty — December 5, 2012 @ 6:04 pm - December 5, 2012
And this is utterly hilarious.

A false amount of demand was being created, and artificially driving up prices.

Comment by Aaron — December 5, 2012 @ 4:52 pm – December 5, 2012

But you see, Aaron, according to Levi, tax cuts and wealthy people NEVER create demand. Only government can create demand.

So please answer, Aaron: do tax cuts increase demand?

And if tax cuts increase demand, then why are you and Levi advocating for the opposite, which according to your own logic and terminology will create the opposite?

And if tax cuts DON’T increase demand, then why are you blaming them for creating the housing crisis by causing demand to increase?

Comment by North Dallas Thirty — December 5, 2012 @ 6:08 pm - December 5, 2012
So now I think it’s time to play America’s favorite game show, “That Was So Yesterday!”

First up:

31.You absolutly cannot compare the housing bubble with the dot com bubble. This is really my point, you have to look at each economic situation as unique, not point to one trend in recent history and automatically conclude that that same policy should be implemented, and that it will yield the same results.

Comment by Aaron — December 5, 2012 @ 4:52 pm – December 5, 2012

But what did Aaron say yesterday, audience?

Just like after the Great Depression, people got a good dose of reality in the late 2000′s financial crisis. People are spending less and saving more, which relates to the slow growth because the real growth in the economy is based on continued consumption. Whether we go off the fiscal cliff, comprimise, or kick the can down the road, the U.S. economy will be fine. Remember after the debt ceiling crisis in summer 2011? What did everyone in the world do afterwards? Buy U.S. T-bills. It’s still the safest bet around.

Comment by Aaron — December 3, 2012 @ 10:30 am – December 3, 2012

I’ll say you approach it (if it is in fact, a real, immanent threat to this country) the same way we did during WWII.

Comment by Aaron — December 3, 2012 @ 12:07 pm – December 3, 2012

So what does that mean, audience?

Audience: “THAT WAS SO YESTERDAY!”

Now Aaron, why can’t you stay intellectually coherent from day to day? After all, yesterday you were advising us to do the same thing as the Depression and the same thing as in World War II, which shows quite nicely that you advise pointing to periods in history and doing the same thing.

Any guesses why, audience?

Audience: “BECAUSE HE’S USING A PARTISAN DOUBLE STANDARD TO JUSTIFY HIS BASHING BUSH WHILE EXCUSING CLINTON AND OBAMA!”

That’s all the time we have for today, folks. We’ll see you here tomorrow at the same time, and remember, until then:

Audience: “LIBERALS. ARE. IRRATIONAL. CULTISTS!”

Comment by North Dallas Thirty — December 5, 2012 @ 6:19 pm - December 5, 2012
And while we’re at it, Aaron:

But he did fail in looking into how the law was being implemented, and what type of chatostrophic crisis it could (and did) cause. Why didn’t he look into it? Are you going to accuse me of saying he should have had a crystal ball? The writing was on the wall. From the time the law was passed in 1999 until 2006, more and more economists and financial analysts were writing about the crisis. The housing bubble was not a surprise. And when Bush has a history of fumbling the ball, its easy to see why people blame (myself included) him for screwing up the response to it.

Which becomes even more an act of deliberate lying and malice on your part when it is noted that Crosspatch showed you otherwise yesterday, with ILC’s emphasis.

So again, Aaron: why did you deliberately and with malice lie and claim that Bush had done nothing when in fact he had?

And also, since you have demonstrated yourself to be a malicious liar who will say and do anything to excuse your Obama and your Obama Party while deliberately posting falsehoods about Republicans, why should your statements be taken as anything other than partisan lies?

Comment by North Dallas Thirty — December 5, 2012 @ 6:24 pm - December 5, 2012
You absolutly cannot compare the housing bubble with the dot com bubble.

Why not? The fundamental cause of both was the Federal Reserve, which strives to create bubble after bubble.

The dot com bust, first of all, was significantly shallower than the housing bubble. It was a naturally cyclic economic bust

There’s no such thing. Recessions happen in response to government “stimulus” policies. Recessions are when the economy, much like a body rejecting a disease, tries to reject the government’s distorting policies that caused capital to be mis-allocated for years. As more “stimulus” is applied to make the latest recession go away, the next recession is made larger.

Illustration: The dot-com boom was indeed an artificial bubble, created largely by Greenspan. The recession of 2000-01 was the response to that, the hangover, the time to liquidate the many bad investments. But Bush and Greenspan unwisely short-circuited that recession by applying “stimulus” policies. That led to the housing bubble. The 2008 recession was the response to that, the hangover, the time to liquidate the many bad investments. Since the 2000 recession had been short-circuited (i.e., not allowed to complete its work) by larger applications of “stimulus” to create an even larger bubble, naturally the 2008 recession had to be that much worse. But they are two animals of the same species.

Now, the story continues: Obama and Bernanke unwisely short-circuited the 2008 recession by applying even worse “stimulus” policies. That has led to today’s bubble in U.S. Treasuries. Guess what? The recession that will come once that bubble runs its course is going to be the largest of all, even bigger than 2008′s. Unless we choose to take a recession and get our house in order NOW, with massive spending cuts to balance the budget. But we won’t.

The more you short-circuit recessions with “stimulus” policies, year after year and decade after decade, the more the economy accumulates malinvestments, requiring a still-greater recession to heal the economy.

Nothing the government did significantly affected that bubble.

You couldn’t be more wrong about that. Greenspan inflated it.

It’s stupid to blame Clinton for it for signing the Gramm-Leach act into law, or for the CRA.

Only in the sense that the Federal Reserve was, as with the dot-com bubble, the primary cause of the housing bubble. But the CRA, plus the securitization of mortgages by the government-chartered Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, were important secondary drivers of the housing bubble.

Sorry Bill Clinton didn’t have a crystal ball to look into and see how adverse the consequences would be.

Isn’t that a leader’s job? All it needed, Aaron, was a little honesty and logic. But instead, the CRA’s supporters (inside and outside of the Clinton adminstration) suggested that opposing the CRA was racist.

Remember, there was about two years between the housing bubble and the September 2008, when the shit really hit the fan. Did [Bush] do anything significant in this time period to prepare? Not that I know of.

A lie, on a couple of levels. You participated in a thread, here, where you were made aware, or should have been made aware, of the fact that Bush had a long history of warning about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and attempting to rein them in. Here is the link for you, again: http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2008/10/20081009-10.html

Go read it now.

Furthermore, Bush (and I think this is to his discredit – but, if you apply your views consistently, you should praise him) laid on more “stimulus” in early 2008 to prop up the economy. The same kind of stuff Obama has been doing (just Obama on a larger scale).

Comment by ILoveCapitalism — December 5, 2012 @ 6:25 pm - December 5, 2012
do tax cuts increase demand?

And if tax cuts increase demand, then why are you and Levi advocating for the opposite, which according to your own logic and terminology will create the opposite?

And if tax cuts DON’T increase demand, then why are you blaming them for creating the housing crisis by causing demand to increase?

Bright!

Comment by ILoveCapitalism — December 5, 2012 @ 6:43 pm - December 5, 2012
Put into simple, personal terms, when the Bush tax rates expire, the income hit I will take is about equal to what I spend on a vacation. So, I won’t be taking a vacation next year.

Now, multiply that by several million and tell me there’s no economic impact.

Comment by V the K — December 5, 2012 @ 6:56 pm - December 5, 2012
And I am not alone…

http://www.forbes.com/sites/joelkotkin/2012/12/04/the-blue-state-suicide-pact/

Comment by V the K — December 5, 2012 @ 7:04 pm - December 5, 2012
No you are not alone V! I did the math and for me it is between $1200 – $1500 per month. It will put a lot of waiters and restaurants out of business (we eat out a lot) as well as some Bruster’s Ice Cream shops(really love their pistachio ice cream). I think the multiplier is more in the 50 million and above number. The impact on the economy will be huge.

If you all haven’t noticed, company after company are declaring big special dividends this month to avoid the increase in dividend tax. Former Senator Frist estimates he will save $340,000,000.00 in taxes. Corporations are paying out billions to shareholders this way. Hell, one CEO is going to get $1.2 billion in dividends. Bet that gets Levi’s panties in a wad!!

There is a storm brewing, and the liberal trolls will be in overdrive trying to blame those “rascally republicans” for all the chaos.

It sure is going to be interesting!!!!!

Comment by mixitup — December 5, 2012 @ 8:08 pm - December 5, 2012
Sorry, here is the link to the CEO getting $1.2 billion as a special dividend. As free range capitalist to the core – I love it!!! Screw obama and his taxing America into oblivion.

http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2012/12/03/las-vegas-sands-special-dividend.aspx

Comment by mixitup — December 5, 2012 @ 8:14 pm - December 5, 2012
Sorry for the second time, but in the link to the Las Vegas Sands special dividend, make notice that Costco is doing the same thing. That is especially interesting since the CEO of Costco Is one of obama’s biggest supporters and bundlers. Hmmmmm – wonder how the liberal trolls will explain that one away?

Comment by mixitup — December 5, 2012 @ 8:21 pm - December 5, 2012
I fear it means I’ll need to cut back my cable, my game spending and other luxury expences

Comment by The_Livewire — December 5, 2012 @ 8:32 pm - December 5, 2012
I am getting rid of cable at the end of this month. There’s very little worth watching on TV, and paying my cable bill is subsidizing the MFM.

Comment by V the K — December 5, 2012 @ 8:35 pm - December 5, 2012
Hey Levi; pull your head out of your ass – you’re so blocked up that the shit’s coming out of your mouth.

Stop blaming Bush already, and don’t start blaming Romney instead – he wasn’t elected.

Your “leader” has now been elected – twice! – it is time for him and his faithful followers to take some responsibility for Obamanation.

Comment by Charles — December 5, 2012 @ 9:27 pm - December 5, 2012
@Charles.

My only objection to your post is you shouldn’t use language like that on children (which Levi clearly is).

Comment by The_Livewire — December 6, 2012 @ 8:27 am - December 6, 2012
I think it’s pretty funny that tax rates on the wealthy are the lowest they have ever been in the history of this country, yet since the start of lower tax rates were implemented over 10 years ago, the financial situation of the country as whole has gotten worse. Certainly no more jobs have been created, that’s for sure. But if you go back to the era of Truman/Eisenhower, taxes for the wealthy were high (and they remained wealthy), the country had much lower unemployment rates. Most importantly, modern infrastructure projects (like the federal highway system) were started and completed.

It’s unfortunate that many of the “super wealthy” no longer see a need to have a commitment to the country.

Comment by Kevin — December 6, 2012 @ 10:30 pm - December 6, 2012
tax rates on the wealthy are the lowest they have ever been in the history of this country

That is a bizarrely false statement.

- For 124 years, there was no permanent income tax. (Rate 0% for most of that time.)
- The first permanent income tax, in 1913, had a top rate of 7%.
- Rates were also lower than they are today in the 1920s, and the 1980s. Not coincidentally, both times of prosperity.

Weak on facts as usual, eh Kevin? But I guess that, since BushitlerCheneyBurton still has you locked up at that gay death camp in North Dakota or whatever you talked about that time, it’s hard for you to check what you say, before you say it.

Comment by ILoveCapitalism — December 6, 2012 @ 11:09 pm - December 6, 2012
Facts are too difficult for lazy gays like Kevin.

That’s why Obama can so easily manipulate them.

Comment by North Dallas Thirty — December 7, 2012 @ 1:32 am - December 7, 2012

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