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We are not able to blog this week. We will resume next week.

Comments

[Tax Relief]

:( Ok, thanks!

[lee]

thank you for your tips! http://www.fagbearing.cc/

[Paul Smith]

Merci beaucoup pour votre article.

[Roberto Castillo]

thank you soo much for yours opinions

[Jack]

GaaaaaaWD! In the last few days Congress has to accomplish anything it spends its time with ponyshow wanking over the silliest of "balanced budget amendments" ever.

Do they really think that riding a "wave" of 14% approval (was it McCain who deemed it "down to immediate family and paid help?) they're likely to implement a Constitutional amendment, and one that blatantly furthers the ALL FOR THE RICH agenda they no longer even try to camouflage?

Suggestion: IF they wanted to go down in history for adding an amendment surely the only possibility and one of lasting worth would be that of overturning the infamous democracy destroying "Citizens United" SC decision that allows unlimited funds to be deployed under names like "C/U" to assassinate the character of those running for office as Bush's buddy Sam Wyly did to McCain in S. Carolina 1999.

There is NO way this nation can survive the onslaught of shadowy figures and soulless global corporations deciding who is fit for office with their billions, ie. advancing the ALL FOR THE RICH agenda.

But then? We've front running Newt coming straight out with a fantastic tax cutting scheme continuing the ALL FOR THE RICH agenda that would blow another $3,000,000,000,000 hole in the budget..... unless he can take enough food out of the mouths of the working folk to "pay for it". Agreed?

[jordan 13 retro]

I really like this website , and hope you will write more ,thanks a lot for your information,thank u very much.

[Jason Weinman]

Actually Jack, I think you have it backwards. Government spending is taken out of the mouths of working folk, regardless of the progressiveness of the tax scheme. Tax incidence doesn't fall exactly where you want it to, and every cent of resources that the government distributes differently than a free market reduces production, and by extension makes the proverbial pie that you're trying to share smaller. If you're upset about government actions benefiting the rich, you're right--but you're looking in all the wrong places. Government subsidies and tax credits that protect favored interests or constituencies (eg. oil subsidies and the home mortgage interest deduction, respectively) skew incentives and ultimately have the same effects as direct government spending. A program to curb inefficient tax policy by closing the sorts of tax loopholes that allowed GE to pay no taxes, and employers to pay less than the market rate for labor (by virtue of the employer provided healthcare deduction) would be a good start, because (like tax cuts in general) it would result in a situation in which fewer of the country's resources are under the authority of the government. These resources, left in the hands of the private sector, could then be more productively utilized.

[Jack]

Jason... Yeah, on one of those ten year long (or more) graphs I'd be mostly in agreement including noting that virtually every tax deduction from home mortgage interest, to 401's, HSA's all favor the wealthier income groups...... and a cruel joke to Walmart's "valued associates".

Ideally you're exactly right that the best means of harnessing the power of capitalism to efficiently deploy scare resources is not to create a lot of distortions, including that of insisting that if a business requires the use of a truck or a mail clerk it has to cover the operating costs of each, as even slave owners had to do to protect their investment in human capital.

(Here, some will want to revisit the chapters on how un-organized labor and producers of generic commodities have little, if any, market power with the fruits of their labor being bid down by better organized and fewer buyers to below the costs of production -- the reason every modern society has min wage, work rules and various forms of farm price supports.)

My objections to "balanced budgets amendment" begin with a disdain for those cowardly and naive enough to believe they can delegate much of their reason for existence to "cruise control" and, of course goes on to that of knowing the NO family, company, state ends each year "in balance". Those having bought a home, had a bad year, sent a few kids to school, or founded the smallest business probably don't need to be reminded. Then there's the utter silliness of proposing a balanced budget, anything, when in near depression, and proposed by a Congress of 10% approval.

And finally, "balance" is likely not the right goal. As long as we can finance our longer term investments at low interest rates there exists the same case for "deficit spending" as causes most of us to invest in a family home when the need is there and to be paid off over the next 30 years when it might return additional benefits as part of a retirement portfolio.

I don't favor government growing much beyond the 18% of GDP it was until the Reagan years.

When Reagan was elected, I shrugged and thought perhaps Stockman's plan to "starve the beast" via tax cuts first and ha-ha cuts to match later might be a good idea. Wring out the excess and if too much we can put it back later. Of course, poor Stockman was flung to the wolves and no such thing took place, with the closest to Stockman's freeze government spending while GDP grows being the Rubin plan with increased taxes and compromises all around.

http://dailybail.com/home/chart-us-debt-to-gdp-1940-2015.html

So where are we today? Soaring income inequality and stagnant wages for most made worse by large H/C cost increases and oil price gouging is the strongest trend since 1980 with increasing, perhaps, even dangerous levels of debt.

http://lanekenworthy.net/2008/03/09/the-best-inequality-graph/

So where do we go with a mess like this? Is the debt a high level emergency? Currently the interest payments are something on the order of $500 billion/year -- 3% of GDP, or put another way the difference between the 18% that was about the spend and tax rate until the big deficit years came along, and 21% of GDP.

In the short run cutting doesn't get you very far... as nearly every cut just makes the unemployment rolls higher along with decreasing spendable income and adding more homes and used cars to the "bank owned" category. While the very few of the top few percent can't as Repubs like to say "close the deficit gap" the trend has to be that of unwinding some of the generous benefits of the upper income groups --- assuming, as I do, no rapid change in working folks incomes.

Even the "pay roll tax holiday for working folk" if 3% is worth $3,000 to the $100,000 household and just $600 to the guy trying to hang on a $20,000.

Raising tax revenues by 30% of non-SS revenue sounds like a lot.... but then it's only about 3% of income. Distribute such a revenue increase around in a sharply progressive manner -- ha! kinda like the curve of incomes disparity growth, and other nations can only say, "Well they've a high bit of debt (not much more than most and a lot less than Japan) but they're at least making the credit card payments.

Leave the surcharge schedule in place as we make the needed transitions (energy -- infrastructure maintenance, cutting the worst of the bloat from military, and addressing, not only Medicare, but the whole unsustainable H/C mess) and the economy returns to something akin to full employment and it will generate enough to bring deficits back in line. Say deficits being one percent of a GDP growing at 3%.

Well, hardly the stuff of Norquist and the ideologues, but with a bit of tweaking a pragmatic way back.

[Giovanni Di Giuseppe]

Thank you, I much appreciate your works

[Back Taxes]

Its next week! Where is the new post!

[Jack]

Taxes? Is mindless spammer here helping your core biz? Thanx!

[Cheap Air Max]

Taxes? Is mindless spammer here helping your core biz?

[Air Force One]

Its next week! Where is the new post!

[Cheap Scarf Online]

Even the "pay roll tax holiday for working folk" if 3% is worth $3,000 to the $100,000 household and just $600 to the guy trying to hang on a $20,000.

[Nike Running Shoes]

Taxes? Is mindless spammer here helping your core biz?

[Paul Smith UK]

When Reagan was elected, I shrugged and thought perhaps Stockman's plan to "starve the beast" via tax cuts first and ha-ha cuts to match later might be a good idea. Wring out the excess and if too much we can put it back later. Of course, poor Stockman was flung to the wolves and no such thing took place, with the closest to Stockman's freeze government spending while GDP grows being the Rubin plan with increased taxes and compromises all around.

[moncler outlet]

Two heads are better than one

[Tax Help]

Jack, wheres my money?

[Jack]

Tax "Help?" Your money? One assumes that when working folk earn enough to have a taxable event or problem, that's when you get to begin charging them. Do you get many on unemployment who need help with their EZ-form card?

[LV Scarves]

Happy Holidays!

[Discount NBA Basketball Shoes]

Thank you for such an informative website and post on the EU debt crisis. This is particularly the case when there seems to be constant and volatile opposition in these weaker EU nations to austerity measures.

[Paul Smith London]

Have a safe holiday season!!

[Nike Running Shoes]

Merry Christmas, Professor Becker and Judge Poser.

[yelin]

merci beaucoup

[caps new era]

Debt that the financial sector dishonorably extended should not be honored, he says.