Cantor Appears To Concede That Bush Tax Cuts Will Add To Deficits

Republicans have become completely wedded to the idea that ideology trumps reality. Boner and McConnell are just following that line.

There ain’t no stinking tax cuts . . . There are only Bush Deficit Enchancements . . .

"[I]f you have less revenues coming into the federal government, and more expenditures, what does that add up to? Certainly you're gonna dig the hole deeper."

In other news, a new study by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) has found that the sky is, indeed, blue.

i have yet to get this messed up math they are using to claim tax cuts for people who dont need them mean more revenue for the government.
there have been studies done that show when you concentrate money in a very small population you get less in total useful economic activity. the rich buy the same amount of perishable goods or at least not a lot more then your average american. If you look at the things the richest american CEO's and their families buy its all very rare over priced merchandise like expensive cars made by foreign manufacturers that are only for the super rich and clothing made by specialty places that cater only to the super rich. then the investments are usually made amongst each other investing in you neighbors company usually a financial corporation of some type. the more cash you put in fewer hands the less cash is out in the markets to create innovation jobs or improve the lives of the american people. 99% of these super rich never really do anything particularly useful with all that money not that you couldn't. they usually just give this cash to there kids who really don't ever need to work at all through out their entire lives do to the connections they already have making them rich for really no reason other then their family name. So taxing the rich keeps the cash flowing in the economy we all do things of value but at some point the value of work you did fades in the face of the value of what you do. time to get over your selves you are not so important or valuable innovation is made by the changing faces of our country not the old rich of the past.

These guys will keep speaking mendaciously and illogically as long as the media grants them so much prominence.

I see, for example, that this Cantor story 'disappeared' very quickly from the blog headlines and doubt it will ever appear in the print news or tv news.

"deja voodoo" is very fine.

I think Cantor is the first, but after Alan Greenspan (the patron saint of conservative economics) stating unambiguously that tax cuts do not pay for themselves, more Republicans are going to have to face reality on this or end up looking even more ridiculous. Either they care about deficits or they care about tax cuts, but they can't do both.

Honesty rocks! Shouldn't they be defending the tax cuts on the basis of Reaganomics?

something...d..o..o economics? Holy crap. How many decades have the Repubs been pushing that supply-side mythology and their constituents still swallow it hook line and sinker?? Oh well, I guess somewhere the ghost of Reagan is smiling at the crap he's perpetuated.

The thing about this comic is that there are any number of ways he could have chosen to caricature Obama that have nothing to do with race. Such caricatures would actually have served to reinforce the artist's stated theme of criticizing Obama's ideology.

So not only is the author a bigot (whether or not he wants to admit it), he's a bad author.

A Republican who can do math? First I've heard of since 1980, when Reagan sold the idea that he could increase military spending, cut taxes and balance the budget (he couldn't).

Lemme see if I can follow this GOP circle logic:

1. Republicans are against spending to stimulate job creation because they are most concerned about the deficit.

2. The expiration of the Bush tax cuts would reduce the deficit.

3. Republicans are against the tax cut expiration because they are most concerned about job creation.

How the Democrats continue to let the GOP get away with this nonsense is beyond me. It shouldn't fall to a second or third tier desk reporter on a cable news channel to weakly challenge the GOP on this - Chucky Todd just siting there next to her like the punk he is.

The GOP continue to get away with this nonsense because there is no palpable evidence that it's wrong.

The US Government can still pay its bills because it hasn't had any trouble borrowing money to make up for revenue shortfalls. Deficits are an abstraction to most everyone, and a policy that makes them worse doesn't have a measurable downside.

The financial markets have not acted to exert any discipline on the US's fiscal policy, so the country has become profligate, and tolerates the falsehoods and idiocy that comprise GOP economic talking points.

If and when the govt has trouble borrowing, that will change. E.g., I'm not aware of any politician in Greece campaigning for tax cuts to bring that nation's financial house in order. That country doesn't have the luxury of living in a fantasy world of its own making. Reality caved in on it.

That hasn't happened here yet.

I guess Cantor wouldn't even come on to the show if someone there would point out that there's only a plan to raise -rich- people's taxes

The rightwing folks are trying to misrepresent who actually would be affected by letting the Bush tax cuts lapse. Trying to conflate unemployment numbers with the tax cuts and throwing small businesses in the mix.
Most small business owners do not make $250k annually. Yet we make up a majority of business owners overall.
Small businesses increase staff when demand calls for it. AND most small business' customers are average working Americans. Demand goes down when your customers don't have the cashflow. They don't have the cashflow when their retirement savings are run off with by the big banks that have STOPPED LENDING due to "uncertainty". And that uncertainty is due to fear of regulation.
It's all very nuanced and certainly wouldn't fit on Sarah Palin's palm. Even if it could, I doubt she could grasp it.
But enough! Tax breaks for the top 2% would NOT result in more jobs. It doesn't happen.
It is a scam.
They have been functioning under these tax rates for a while now... they have NOT YET been increased... and yet joblessness is quite high. Stop falling for trickle down theories that just do NOT pan out.

What the hell is going on here? I keep reading and reading and reading, but no one here has blamed Obama for any of this... What kind of ideological purity are you guys demonstrating when you can't work criticisms of that DINO Obama into your critiques of Cantor, Boner, and McConjob?!?!? No one has blamed Rahm Emanuel either... Or made a joke about Harry Reid sending a sternly-worded letter... What gives? And won't somebody think of the children?!?!?!

The job creators he is talking about still lay thousands of employees off after tax cuts.

Hmmm, I suspect we may be seeing the start of the effect of David Stockman's Sunday NYT editorial going round GOP email lists:

Op-Ed Contributor

Four Deformations of the Apocalypse

By DAVID STOCKMAN
Published: July 31, 2010

IF there were such a thing as Chapter 11 for politicians, the Republican push to extend the unaffordable Bush tax cuts would amount to a bankruptcy filing....

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/01/opinion/01stockman.html

ondioline just for you:

Reid should send a sternly worded letter to the children asking them what who is more to blame, Obama or Emanuel, for not fixing republican economic failures quick enough. And the cherry, Sarah Glen Palin-Beck.

I wish Democrats would continuously point out the most hysterically hypocritical point in all this.

The reason the Bush tax cuts were designed to phase out was an accounting gimmick. It made them appear not to raise the long time debt as much.

It has to do with the way that the debt is predicted by the Office of Management and Budget---they calculate short term debt based on the next 8 years and long term debt based on time longer than 8 years, so the Bush tax cuts manipulated the OMB's calculations by expiring at the 8 year mark.

Republicans got the tax cuts passed by using this gimmick to hide the damage, and now they want to call it a tax increase to simply allow the law to follow its course and expire.

Didn't see that one coming.

"[I]f you have less revenues coming into the federal government, and more expenditures, what does that add up to? Certainly you're gonna dig the hole deeper. But you also have to understand, if the priority is to get people back to work, is to start growing this economy again, uh, then you don't wanna make it more expensive for job creators."

OK, so if we agree that cutting taxes makes the deficit grow larger, and we also agree that the current priority has to be stimulating the economy and getting people back to work, even if that causes deficits in the short term, doesn't the question then become how do we get the most bang for the deficit dollar?

If we are going to borrow money to get the economy going again, what is the most efficient way to use that borrowed money, so that we get maximum effect for minimum borrowing? The studies all say that giving the money to the unemployed is far and away more efficient than giving it to the wealthy. I don't remember the numbers exactly, but at times of high unemployment, every dollar you give out in unemployent benefits creates something on the order of $1.65 in economic activity. But for every dollar you give out as tax cuts, you get something like $1.02 in economic activity.

Add to that that extended unemployment benefits are a temporary measure, while tax cuts are more likely to become permanent. (The Republicans, after all, are proposing making the Bush tax cuts permanent, not extending them for just another couple of years.)

I think the conclusion is inevitable: we should forget about tax cuts and concentrating on getting money into the hands of people who are in desperate circumstances because of the economic downturn. But then, I am part of that darned reality-based world.

According to Dubya's own Chairman of Economic Advisors from 2003 - 2005.

N. Gregory Mankiw....
“no credible evidence” that “tax revenues … rise in the face of lower tax rates.”

and... anyone who claims as much is a "snake oil salesman trying to sell a miracle"

quotes courtesy of CBPP.

Bottom Line--The Republican Party won't rest until they have bankrupted the United States. And they are well on the way to their goal.

Aren't tax cuts "spending"?

Have none of you ppl taken economics. Tax cuts = more $ to spend in the economy. How do you not know that.

"Have none of you ppl taken economics. Tax cuts = more $ to spend in the economy. How do you not know that."

Have you not been paying attention to reality? Tax cuts = more money for the already wealthy to horde and consolidate by playing gambling games on Wall Street with derivatives and hedge funds that HAVE AND ADD NO VALUE WHATSOEVER TO THE ECONOMY. In fact, many of them actually hamper economic growth. But hey, what do I know, I haven't willfully internalized an ideological approach to economics in an effort to tell reality how to behave itself.

I get a Boehner every time the right wing nut jobs express their views and reveal their agenda. Dumb Asses!