The American Spectator

Oldefarte| 8.6.12 @ 1:51PM

I couldn't agree more. Of course the Clinton tax increases hurt....in fact ALL TAX INCREASES do so. What is the ultimate purpose of a tax increase? To either pay down the defecit/debt or to fund additional governmental programs, and with this administration's history my guess is that it would be used to do the latter. Even it it became the former, it would still be a bad idea. Governmental defecits/debt should be lowered/eliminated by expense/spending reductions ONLY. The loons/left/liberals/progressives want to instead only consider tax increases since they can sneek into same additional program funding. The whole idea should be to downsize government, since same is too excessive, overblown, wasteful, duplicative, etc. The liberal loons have historically used their subversive political tactics to bend Republicans' and conservatives' arms into submissive compromise with their governmental welfaric political tactics, and since governmental control has always been in the hands of the looney left, conservatives and Republicans have had to go along to get along in compromising fashion. The American public must be made to understand the folly of the liberals socialistic methods and the benefits to alternative conservative governmental principles!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Oldefarte| 8.6.12 @ 1:56PM

PS: The American public has never before had access to true conservative thoughts on a wholesale level, and now they do so [and that is why this country is slowely shiting rightward toward conservatism]. For this we all now have writers/commentators such as Quin, Rush, Hannity, Savage, Fox, TAS, Braitbart etc to thank for same!!!!!!!

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Libertyinfinite| 8.6.12 @ 7:33PM

Wait till november, you can write that Mitt Romneys official & personal refusal to stand up for traditional family values (story in newsmax today) did cost him the election.

I told you Mitt Romney would hand the win to the left. I didn't think he'd come out & personall promise to, but whatever.

The real true sickness was then, always has been & always will be hellreal clinton, out current Secretary of State, that thing is a malcontent of the highest order. I think it's gay, & can't come to terms with reality or something. Bill wouldn't be that bad without "it", hellreal hillry.

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Oldefarte| 8.7.12 @ 11:26AM

Brilliant commentary!!!!!

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Fiscal| 8.7.12 @ 9:37AM

Nice statement Quin -- too bad it isn't true. GDP showed a consistent rise during the Clinton years. In fact, growth was faster during the Clinton years than either the Reagan or Bush years where there were large rate cuts. Changes in marginal tax rates have little effect on economic growth because the resultant effective tax rate changes are so small. In addition, marginal tax rate cuts affect the upper income brackets more than the lower brackets. Given that we have a consumption economy, consumption and investment in the higher brackets tends to be global rather than national so the effect is to help the Chinese more than it helps us. When have you heard that the middle class buys expensive yachts, homes in the south of France, or puts money in the Cayman's or Switzerland? Even when you invest in companies like GE about 60% of that money goes global rather than national.

Unfortunately, this fairy tale about tax cuts propounded by right wing ideologies lacks factual justification. Lest you think I'm a left winger, the data shows that stimulus spending is just as ineffective in GDP growth. That said, what hurts our country the most is deficit spending over a long period of time increasing our debt and lowering our flexibility. Rax cuts without requisite budget decreases is a deadly combination. You can't solve this problem without a modest tax increase AND HUGE SPENDING CUTS -- especially in the nanny state entitlements arena.

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Oldefarte| 8.7.12 @ 11:44AM

Why you cut spending and also increase taxes, when the latter would cancel out the former? Some of what you opine is correct, but tax increases have never been, nor will they ever be the answer [since same simply provides more money for government to wastefully spend upon new welfare programs/legislation. Limit your argument to "AND HUGE SPENDING CUTS" and you will hit the budgetary bullseye correctly. Clinton's tax increase was not [nor will any such tax increases] stimulative to our economy, but rather de-stimulative, in that it took away some of the productive aspects of the booming economy at that time [which was solely due to the explosion of the internet/dot.com financial boom]. Clinton simply took financial advantage of same and taxed the resultant income increases resulting from it. Currently we need as you partially claimed huge governmental spending elimination/decrease, in order for the resultant freeing up of private capital to be used strictly for private sector growth. Instead of government monopolizing the loan/borrowing of money, private businesses can do so to expand their plant/equipment purchases and increases in employment, which in the multiplier effect economically will provide income to others to consume/purchase more. There is nor should there eve be a reason for tax increases. Government simply spends too much money and needs to be put on a serious financial diet by eliminated programs/employees/purchases!!!!!!!!!!!

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Fiscal| 8.7.12 @ 1:29PM

Stimulus does not inhibit the economy directly -- it is just wasteful spending since given that money in terms of tax breaks does not help the economy. Business has more capital to invest today than ever before. It isn't the lack of capital that is the problem, it is that demand for their products is low. Again, tax breaks for the wealthy does not stimulate demand (in this country). I suggest you actually go through the budgetary numbers. If you do, you'll see that there is absolutely no way to balance the budget EVEN WITH HUGE SPENDING CUTS. This has been proven in several studies and even with the CBO.

The biggest problem with spending is that notwithstanding what politicians say, no one on the right or left will pass legislation that reduces our largest items -- social security and medicare. And no one on the right will cut military spending. It is impossible to balance the budget without cuts in all three. I suggest you actually get into the numbers and play with them a bit. We hear a lot of rhetoric, but it turns out the rhetoric on both the right and left is pure baloney (technical term).

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KnaveDave | 8.7.12 @ 4:00PM

Clinton INHERITED a stagnant economy at the end of the Bush I years. That's why Bush lost.

In 1993 Clinton raised personal income taxes only on the top two income tax rates to 36% and 39.6%. In addition, his legislation raised corporate taxes from 34% to 35%, removed the cap on Medicare payroll tax (so the rich would have to pay that tax on all of their income), and expanded the taxable portion of Social Security benefits.

This combination resulted in a $90 billion increase in government revenue, which was paired to a $45 billion cut in spending, leading to our first surplus budgets in many decades. It resulted in a slight decrease in the GROWTH rate of GDP, but GDP continued to grow at around 2.5%. Even if the slower rate of GROWTH was only because of Clinton's tax increases, that was a small price to pay to load the economy into doing the heavy work of finally paying off enormous national debt.

In '97, to accelerate the economy more, he lowered the capital gains tax paid by the rich from 28% to 20%. That resulted in a stock-market speculation BOOM that went bust in the dot-com crash. He should have stayed with his original tax policies and enjoyed modest GDP growth and solid employment, while accomplishing the near impossible of paying down the debt. ( http://thegreatrecession.info/.....president/ )

You cannot expect to pay down debt and not load the engine a little. That's what engines are for.

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