Charlie Brown, I Hear Lucy Wants You To Kick This Football...

[blueduck37.livejournal.com]

Quote of the day: "The McConnell/Boehner plan is to fix the Bush mess by pushing through more of the former president's policies. Again. Totally clear. I don't think they'd even deny it. Why is this off-limits to say out loud?" (TPM's Josh Marshall)

Comments

It's BAY-ner!

[lafinjack.livejournal.com]

[terminator44.livejournal.com]

Of course, the cartoon assumes the stimulus will work any better.

[capthek.livejournal.com]

perfect

[reality-hammer.livejournal.com]

It worked when Mellon, Kennedy, Reagan, Clinton and Bush did it, why wouldn't it work when Obama did it?

ETA: Other countries are cutting taxes (http://www.clubforgrowth.org/2009/01/the_world_continues_to_pass_am.php). It will be illuminating to once again see those that are cutting taxes outpace those that don't.

[spicedogs.livejournal.com]

It didn't work when Bush did it. Look at the mess we are in.

[reality-hammer.livejournal.com]

It did work. The economy recovered and millions of new jobs were created.

The current financial problems aren't tied to tax cuts passed back in 2001.

They are, as has been extensively discussed, a result of bad regulations and bad policies on the part of government backed agencies and people running banking and lending institutions.

[jestingrabbit.livejournal.com]

Part of the problem is that the federal government has huge deficits. This puts more pressure on the credit markets, and that is where the real problem is atm. Bush presided over ballooning deficits with not much to show for it, except the iraq war, which hasn't served anyone's interests except iran.

[reality-hammer.livejournal.com]

The deficits under Bush weren't that large (except for the last one) and were declining up until this last year.

Obama is admitting that he's going to have trillion dollar plus deficits.

[xforge.livejournal.com]

Millions of new jobs eh? Annnnnnnndd that's helping the 65,000 that got laid off last Monday how?

I think everybody that lives in the *real* reality knows the meaning of the term "McJobs." I wouldn't expect you to though.

[spicedogs.livejournal.com]

Millions? The job growth while G.W. Bush was in office was the lowest since at least the 1950s.

[reality-hammer.livejournal.com]

And you can't reconcile the two?

Overall job growth is low because there were job losses in 2001 and 2002. There was job growth 2003-7.

At its peak the economy was generating 3 million new jobs annually.

[ltmurdoch.livejournal.com]

Perhaps because the magnitude of the challenge we are facing now is on a different scale than in any of those cases.

We need tax cuts as part of what we do to help turn our economy around. That's why Obama's plan includes tax cuts. But we also need direct government spending. And if we're going to improve the long-term outlook for the US, a lot of that direct government spending should be on development of technology, infrastructure, and other things that will pay dividends to our economy over time.

And thanks for the link! Now that I saw that, I'm going to move my business to Singapore 'cause being in the US has no value to me whatsoever! I'm just going to go where the taxes are lowest! I hear Congo has pretty low taxes, too!

[reality-hammer.livejournal.com]

The economy was in worse shape when Reagan took office, yet his across the board tax cuts helped stimulate a record setting economic expansion.

Federal spending, to mention one problem, doesn't happen fast enough. The proposed federal spending in the stimulus bill only has 8% of the spending occurring this year.

[malasadas.livejournal.com]

Once again you completely ignore Volcker's role in putting the wheels back on....you want to see who engineered our recovery from the 70's you start there.

[ltmurdoch.livejournal.com]

"The economy was in worse shape when Reagan took office," That depends on how you measure better or worse, but the trajectory right now is such that if it's not worse now, it will be much, much worse later. (I don't remember anyone talking about nationalizing the nation's largest banks back then.)

Reagan also employed a ton of direct government spending that helped the economy recover. Mainly through his investment in the Defense Department. He helped create a ton of jobs in the military contractor sector of the economy while deficit spending at an unprecedented scale. Obama's doing essentially the same thing, but the growth will be in the "bridges and roads" industry, and the alternative energy industry, etc.

As far as speed goes, please provide a reference to the 8% number. I haven't heard that. But even if we assume that's correct, the advantage of direct gov't spending is that it's an immediate boost to the economy. Tax cuts on the other hand will be at least partially saved. If I get a $100 tax break and put $75 in the bank and spend the rest, the boost to the economy is just $25. If the government spends $100 on building a new bridge, that's a $100 boost to the economy.

Not to mention, even if it's only 8% this year, we're still going to need a lot of stimulus in 2010. It's like saying we shouldn't drill in ANWR because we won't get oil from it this year. (Sound familiar?)

Plus, did I mention Obama's plans include tax breaks, too?

[lafinjack.livejournal.com]

It will be illuminating to once again see those that are cutting taxes outpace those that don't.

Stop hating America.

[reality-hammer.livejournal.com]

*pats you on head*

[xforge.livejournal.com]

Standard "I have no response" retort noted

[desidono.livejournal.com]

No really, stop hating America.

[syndicalist.livejournal.com]

Other countries have universal health care, no death penalty, etc. I mean the rest of the industrialized West. So let's do all that too, right?

[johnroche.livejournal.com]

Well, you see, that's different because

[reality-hammer.livejournal.com]

Only if you believe that all outcomes are equal.

[the-hamburglar.livejournal.com]

Ya know if I get free money out of this I'm not going to complain.

[jdhenchman.livejournal.com]

How did Jon Stewart put it?

[torasama.livejournal.com]

"Tax cuts have been tried, and they DIDN'T. WORK."