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Subscribe to RSSFormer OMB director Peter Orszag's inaugural New York Times column, in which he expressed reluctant support for extending the Bush tax cuts for two years before ending them altogether, is still being rehashed by some liberal and conservative bloggers.
In an interview with the Washington Post's Greg Sargent today, Orszag clarified his position, saying it was not meant as a defense of tax cuts for the wealthy.
"The point I was trying to make is that we can't afford the tax cuts over the medium term, and they shouldn't be made permanent -- but the middle class tax cuts should not expire today... If the price to be paid for that a temporary extension of the upper income tax cuts, my view is that we should reluctantly accept that," Orszag told Sargent.
Liberal blogger John Cole at Balloon Juice responded to Orszag's statement, highlighting the fact that Orszag advocates a tax cut extension because he thinks they could be more effective politically, not policy-wise.
Orszag’s position in his piece yesterday was evident to anyone without an axe to grind or headline to sell- he thinks extending the tax cuts on the wealthy are a bad policy, but he would suck it up and accept it to keep the middle class cuts in place. The only way to read Orszag’s op-ed yesterday and come away with the coverage we got yesterday was to, well, ignore what he actually said in the op-ed and start salivating about conflict.
But I’m kind of used to that by now.
On the conservative side, NRO's Michael G. Franc didn't doubt that Orszag's motivation for supporting a temporary extension was political. He did, however, trip over a sentence from Orszag's original article in which Orszag explains why all tax cuts should eventually expire. He excerpts the following paragraph:
How much savings is plausible on the spending side? Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security will account for almost half of spending by 2015. Even if we reform Social Security, which we should, any plausible plan would phase in benefit changes to avoid harming current beneficiaries — and so would generate little savings over the next five years. The health reform act included substantial savings in Medicare and Medicaid, so there aren’t further big reductions available there in our time frame. (Emphasis added.)
Franc urged readers to "replay that last sentence again." He wrote:
So, a permanent, multi-hundred billion dollar tax increase hangs over every American taxpayer like the sword of Damocles precisely because President Obama and his allies in Congress used up all the potential savings from two of the big three entitlement programs — Medicare and Medicaid — to pay for Obamacare? The mere existence of Obamacare, we are now told, means all of us — included those with far less than $250,000 a year in income — will be saddled with higher taxes forevermore. And there is no other way to solve this fiscal mess? How convenient! Why didn’t Orszag and other administration officials in the know shout this rather salient fact from the rooftops prior to the final vote on Obamacare? Think it might have affected the outcome?
Guess we just have to score any future tax increase as yet another cost of Obamacare. Or, better yet, repeal the darn thing.
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Are these the same tax cuts that have created all the jobs, and continue to creat jobs as they remain in effect still? The ones that people say allow the rich to keep creating jobs OVER SEAS?
Hm...... lemme think.
I'll think for you.....NO!!!!
Such 'voilence.'
I'll take it one step further TRR... and borrow a rightie squawking point..
Oh... HELL NO!
Some one will have to pay for the last 8 years of tax cuts and war spending and I am not counting on China to help.
ooh-such deep thought.
Anybody with a modicum of intelligence knows that you do not raise taxes during a recession. Anybody. I'll make it simpler: suppose you owned a store. You made pretty good money, and in order to attract more customers, you lowered your prices. The customers came, and you did pretty well. Then, a lot of those cutomers lost their jobs and bought less of your wares. Do you think it would be a good idea to raise your prices at that time?
You can debate among yourselves.
I would have had a better, longer, post for you, but the computer just finished dispatching the fraggles back to fraggle rock. I have no idea how they migrated here in the first place, and I have a lot to do-my princess just got a new tooth and we are celebrating tonight. (yes, I know, it's a weird thing to celebrate. However, there is no law against it, and we want to celebrate!).
See y'all tomorrow.
Ah, we're back to fairy tales about how Conservative economics work again. Mainly because there are no examples of it working in the real world. In the real world deregulation and trickle down economics leads to massive bubbles that create recessions of increasing size until the entire economy is crippled. In the reality-based community such events might have names like the Hoover Depression and the Bush Recession.
Sorry to burst a bubble but the number of small businesses that would be impacted by allowing the tax cuts to expire on the richest 2% is less than half of one percent of taxpayers.
"Anybody with a modicum of intelligence knows that you do not raise taxes during a recession. Anybody. I'll make it simpler: suppose you owned a store. You made pretty good money, and in order to attract more customers, you lowered your prices. The customers came, and you did pretty well. Then, a lot of those cutomers lost their jobs and bought less of your wares. Do you think it would be a good idea to raise your prices at that time?"
No JO-
If you are a modern, large corporation in the US? You don't have to. A lot of your continuing business is driven by expanding markets overseas. Where you sent a large number of the jobs that allow the people to by your product (aka- demand). Why the hell would you care about a bunch of losers that are now unemployed here? Your win no matter what. OF COURSE you want your taxes cut.
Wow dbo, that sums it up pretty well. I also think it shows how a group of individual players in the free market can do something which individually look like a good move but collectively are bad for society. If I send my business overseas it helps my costs. If EVERYONE sends their business overseas then all of our consumers lose their buying power. That's the power of the traditional unwritten bargain between America and the free market. If the Captains of Industry have enough sense to realize which side their bread is buttered on they'll keep America afloat. If they let America sink (and today's free market ideologue Conservatives have us to the verge of that) then ultimately the business world sinks along with it.
Or as my old, Republican Dad has said for quite a few years now, "What's going to happen when no one has any money?"
I'm going to start trading in wampum, rum and cocoa.
Might as well. Glenn Beck advises that we should survey our neighbors to see who has useful survival skills and similar world views. That way when the fall of civilization comes (he's expecting it within the next year) you'll have some hope of getting by. Worst of all will be the danger coming from all those people who won't have access to antipsychotics due to the failure of pharmaceutical companies.
I wish I could make this stuff up but it was on his Saturday "encore" show. And people wonder why I have a negative view of Conservatism.
I'm in favor of planning for contingencies, of course. Reading various newsblogs and other forums has led me to believe getting my CHL and spending all that time at the range was money and time well-spent. I have little faith in the modern ability of the people as a whole to solve our problems with words and rationality.
I do find it ironic that Beck would suggest such a thing given that his particular brand of foaming mouth-juice-stink is one of the largest contributors to the collective lunacy gripping our society. Strange that the option of first resort neo-conservatives have turned to over the last decade is to declare all solutions dead ends (together with the possibility of other solutions!) and reach for the rifle.
It's like I'm living in some hive-minded, nightmarish BDSM fantasy dreamed up by Orwell, Koestler, Vonnegut, Burgess and Huxley after a solid fortnight binging on absinthe and Xanax.
Bob Hope:
"Eisenhower admitted that the budget can't be balanced. Joseph McCarthy said the communists are taking over. You don't know what to worry about these days – the country being overthrown or overdrawn."
In yesterday's article Orszag stated "ideally only the middle class tax cuts would be continued for now", he did not think the tax cuts for the wealthy should be extended. In the article, Orszag recognized the difficulty to get the preferred middle class cuts done in this political environment. That's a true statement. Why was it necessary to clarify anything--he was clear; it seems it was the reporting that was slanted toward making it sound as if he supported extending everything. I watched Howard Fineman last night completely ignore that part of Orszag's article and said that Orszag wanted to extend everything. No, Orszag's article indicated it might be necessary in order to extend the middle class cuts--that didn't mean he supported the idea.
Unfortunately Jody you answered your own question. There's very little Conservatives won't misrepresent in order to further their narrative and break down our hold on reality.
I see this conclusion by Michael G. Franc in the article "The mere existence of Obamacare, we are now told, means all of us — included those with far less than $250,000 a year in income — will be saddled with higher taxes forevermore." I may be missing something, but I can't find anything in the article that supports that conclusion. Just because the Health Care bills calls for finding all the possible savings in Medicare, how does that mean that everyone, including those with far less income than $250,000 will be saddled with higher taxes forevermore? Where does it say that?
Heartlight3, it doesn't say that. It is another 'death panel' talking point from the Republicans. It's like when they say the HCR will cost over 1 trillion dollars, they forget to mention the savings that more than offset that cost and actually lowers the debt.
But hey, what did you expect?
Another mind twister from faux news
Napolitano: Obama admin. would not "prosecute" NBPP members
Napolitano: "Why wouldn't the federal government prosecute" NBPP? During the September 7 edition of Fox News' Glenn Beck, Napolitano played a video clip of New Black Panther Party members at a Philadelphia polling station in 2008 while saying:
Decision not to pursue criminal charges was made by Bush DOJ, not Obama
Bush DOJ, not Obama, made decision not to pursue criminal charges. Before President Bush left office, the Department of Justice filed a http://mediamatters.org/rd?to=http://www.justice.gov/crt/voting/misc/philadelphia_bpp_comp.php http://www.justice.gov/crt/voting/misc/philadelphia_bpp_comp.php">civil complaint asking for an injunction against the New Black Panther Party and some of its members. In May 14 http://www.usccr.gov/NBPH/05-14-2010_NBPPhearing.pdf">testimony before the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Assistant Attorney General Thomas Perez explained that the Bush administration's Justice Department "determined that the facts did not constitute a prosecutable violation of the criminal statutes" but did "file a civil action on January 7th, 2009." From Perez's http://www.usccr.gov/NBPH/05-14-2010_NBPPhearing.pdf#page=18">testimony:
Obama DOJ actually obtained judgment against individual carrying weapon at polling place
May 2009: DOJ obtained default judgment against Shabazz for carrying weapon outside polling station. On May 18, 2009, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania http://www.slideshare.net/LegalDocs/findlaw-voting-rights-new-black-panther-party-figure-shabazzs-weapons-order">entered default judgment against King Samir Shabazz. Perez stated in his May 14 http://www.usccr.gov/NBPH/05-14-2010_NBPPhearing.pdf">testimony that the Justice Department had obtained "sufficient evidence to sustain the charge" of voter intimidation against Shabazz, identified by Perez as "the defendant who had the nightstick," and that "the default judgment was sought and obtained as it related to him." Perez also http://www.usccr.gov/NBPH/05-14-2010_NBPPhearing.pdf#page-19">testified:
Lets get real here folks, we're talking about raising the taxes on the wealthiest by 3%! 3% Most of them pay minimal taxes to begin with, because they have creatively invested in tax free vehicles, like muni bonds. They can afford to hire the advisers to avoid as much tax as possible. And even at that we talking about adding billions of gov't revenue with the phasing out of these tax cuts! This is a no brainer. I make way way less than the $250,000 level, but would be willing to pay a few percent more to get our country back on track financially and back as a leader in energy & science innovation with a literate population!
Who cares if the Pugs are on board for an extension of the tax cuts for the middle class. The Bush tax cuts were passed using reconciliation and a middle class extension could be done the same way.
Al, look at your own party. You don't even have half of the Dems on board with not extending the tax cut to the top 2% let only the GOP
This is depressing. The people who "control" our lives are the people who have all the money , health plans and retirement packages. Why should they work hard to see that us middle class people have anything? They have nothing to lose but elections, and even the criminals keep their pensions. bummer :(
True that. The motto of the power brokers on the Right is apparently FYIGM.
Another thought. The tax cuts were in place for 10 years and did nothing to help the economy. Why would this suddenly change?