Continuing saga of the Atlas Shrugs Guy.

[Bourne]

No, you're just falling for the same shuck and jive the Republicans have been using for years.

Clinton raised taxes, and we saw some of our best job growth in history. Reagan both raised and lowered taxes and had a similar outcome. Bush lowered taxes and we ended up with the second largest recession in our history. His father raised taxes and things went south.

Nw, if you're genuinely seeing a pattern there, then this is a pointless discussion. You will never find any economist, that knows their game, who will agree with your baseless premise.

[crawjo]

No, you're just falling for the same shuck and jive the Republicans have been using for years.

Clinton raised taxes, and we saw some of our best job growth in history. Reagan both raised and lowered taxes and had a similar outcome. Bush lowered taxes and we ended up with the second largest recession in our history. His father raised taxes and things went south.

Nw, if you're genuinely seeing a pattern there, then this is a pointless discussion. You will never find any economist, that knows their game, who will agree with your baseless premise.

You are just reusing old talking points. My position has nothing to do with Republican messaging. My position has to do with my study of history, in particular the history of the Great Depression, where the U.S. recovery was torpedoed in 1937 by a foolish attempt to balance the budget through spending cuts and tax increases. My position is pretty much the standard Keynesian position, which the last time I checked is not Republican orthodoxy.

[Bourne]

In other words, there is no pattern.

Thank you.

[crawjo]

In other words, there is no pattern.

Thank you.

It's not about a pattern, it's about the logic behind Keynesian theory. Do you think that cutting government spending helps to stimulate the economy? Do you think that raising taxes helps to stimulate the economy? Both exert deflationary pressures on the economy, which is fine, except in the midst of a recession or a weak recovery from a recession, in which case it can tilt the economy back into recession, as it has done in Great Britain.

The reasons behind the economic growth of the 1990s have nothing to do with the tax rates. The situation isn't at all comparable to 2012.

I'd be all in favor of raising taxes, but I'm glad we didn't do that in 2010, when the economy was weaker than it is today. If we do it today I'd prefer to put it off a bit longer, because the economy remains very vulnerable given the rate of unemployment and given also the situation in Europe. The international market is not going to be able to absorb any more demand, which means that you have to be very careful with domestic economic policy right now. Obama gets this, which is why I don't think he shed a tear when the Bush tax cuts were extended a couple years ago. I think he does want to raise rates now.

[Dr Dave]

I don't know if anybody else has been keeping up with this, but I have to admit that it has become soap operatic, and quite a diversionary good time.

In order:

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/...t-time/264556/

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/...ed-guy/264564/

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/...s-back/264588/

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/...ll-say/264612/

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/...ed-guy/264852/

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/...ed-guy/264947/

What is needed now is the second coming of William Tecumseh Sherman.

"My aim then was to whip the rebels, to humble their pride, to follow them to their inmost recesses, and make them fear and dread us."

The Republican Right doesn't just need to be defeated; it needs to be humiliated. Getting the Great Compromiser re-elected and cheering for social rights is all well and good, but a very poor excuse for what Sherman did. When we see Jamie Dimon, Rick Perry, and Mitch McConnell running down the street in fear for their lives, we'll know we're getting somewhere.

[walto]

No, you're just falling for the same shuck and jive the Republicans have been using for years.

Clinton raised taxes, and we saw some of our best job growth in history. Reagan both raised and lowered taxes and had a similar outcome. Bush lowered taxes and we ended up with the second largest recession in our history. His father raised taxes and things went south.

Nw, if you're genuinely seeing a pattern there, then this is a pointless discussion. You will never find any economist, that knows their game, who will agree with your baseless premise.

Taxes are only one governmental fiscal factor, and there are non-fiscal stimulants and irritants to the economy as well. And even with respect to taxes, some are more harmful to the economy than others. Finally, even if there were only income taxes and increasing or lowering marginal taxes were not only the only governmental fiscal factor, but the only causal stimulants/irritants in the universe, there are state and local income taxes as well as the Federal tax.

[crawjo]

The point, obviously, is not that taxes decide economic growth all by themselves. The point is that they are one factor, and that in an environment where economic growth is especially sluggish and there is not much demand, raising taxes can be counterproductive even if your goal is to balance the budget or reduce the deficit. Bourne's argument is almost identical in logic to those who try to determine whether global warming exists based on what the temperature is in Omaha right now. If you are only selectively looking for "patterns" and not grasping the underlying mechanisms, you are going to invalidate every economic theory, because there is no economic argument that cannot find some shallow counter-example somewhere in the world.

[Bourne]

The point, obviously, is not that taxes decide economic growth all by themselves. The point is that they are one factor

And an outrageously small one.

[walto]

Speaking of taxes, there's a good piece by Nate Silver today on a tax bubble that Congress may be dreaming up.