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TomCADem

(17,378 posts)
Sat Sep 15, 2012, 09:04 PM Sep 2012

NY Times - "Do Tax Cuts Lead to Economic Growth?"

This analysis further confirms that Romney is going to cut taxes without really making any effort to pay for them by "closing loop holes." Then, perhaps to avoid scrutiny on the deficit, perhaps he will declare war on Iran and use that as an excuse for why the deficit has continued to explode. He will then blame Obama and Democrats for not being brave enough to pass Ryan's Medicare plan, which he will now do to "save Medicare and Social Security" by privitizing them. We have to keep on calling Republicans on this bait and switch.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/16/opinion/sunday/do-tax-cuts-lead-to-economic-growth.html

“At the level of taxes we’ve been at the last couple decades and the magnitude of the changes we’ve had, it’s hard to make the argument that tax rates have a big effect on economic growth,” Mr. Marron said. Similarly, a new report from the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service found that, over the past 65 years, changes in the top tax rate “do not appear correlated with economic growth.”

* * *

The problem for anyone trying to evaluate the Romney plan, however, is that there isn’t a full plan yet. He will not say which tax breaks he would reduce, and the large ones, like the mortgage-interest deduction, are all popular. In a painstaking analysis, the Tax Policy Center showed that achieving all of Mr. Romney’s top-line goals — a revenue-neutral overhaul that does not increase the tax burden of the middle class — is not arithmetically possible. History is littered with vague calls for tax reform that went nowhere.

Beyond taxes, Mr. Romney has declined to detail what spending cuts he would make, although he has promised to make big ones. And some of the programs that would be at risk — medical research, education, technology, roads, mass transportation — probably have a better historical claim on lifting economic growth than tax cuts do.

The policies that new presidents pass tend to be ones on which they laid out specifics, be they the Bush and Reagan tax cuts or the Obama health overhaul. Based on the specifics, Mr. Romney puts a higher priority on tax cuts than anything else. Yet the reality of the last two decades has caused conservative economists, and Mr. Ryan himself, to acknowledge the limits of tax cuts.
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NY Times - "Do Tax Cuts Lead to Economic Growth?" (Original Post) TomCADem Sep 2012 OP
Yes and no. Yes for the rich, no for the rest of us. nt Xipe Totec Sep 2012 #1
The company that I work for is doing very well this year. Curmudgeoness Sep 2012 #2
+8,176 Angry Dragon Sep 2012 #4
Willard and Ryan are Satan in the flesh Angry Dragon Sep 2012 #3

Curmudgeoness

(18,219 posts)
2. The company that I work for is doing very well this year.
Sat Sep 15, 2012, 09:09 PM
Sep 2012

Record profits. The tax planning is freaking my boss out. But the one thing that I have not heard from him is that he is going to stop doing business because he will have to pay the taxes. He is still much better off than ever, even with the taxes he will have to pay. And if taxes were at a higher rate, he would still be much better off. He will not close up because business is too good. None of them will.

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