The Senate shows some backbone... well, not exactly backbone, but at least a notochord... in refusing to go along with Bush Administration plans to boost the long-run deficit and slow the long-run growth of the American economy.
God! I really hope the morals and the competence of those who direct the Bush Administration's security policy exceed that of those who direct its economic policy.
Posted by DeLong at March 25, 2003 07:57 PM | TrackBackCNN Politics: WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Senate unexpectedly reversed itself Tuesday, voting to slash more than half of President Bush's proposed $726 billion tax cut and dealing a blow to the keystone of his economic recovery plan.
A week after refusing to do so, senators voted 51-48 to reduce the tax reduction's price tag to $350 billion through 2013. Bush has said his plan -- which would eliminate taxes on corporate dividends and reduce income taxes -- is needed to create jobs, boost investment and spur the slumbering economy.
Just Friday, the Senate voted 62-38 to reject a similar move to pare Bush's tax plan in half. That plan would have taken the additional money Bush wanted for tax cuts and used it for deficit reduction.
Both moderate Sen. Lincoln Chafee, R-Rhode Island, and deficit hawk Sen. Ernest Hollings, D-South Carolina, had voted against making the tax cut smaller on that day.
But both voted Tuesday to shrink the size of the proposed tax cut. Tuesday's successful amendment was slightly different, saying it would take some funds that Bush wanted to use for the tax cut and use that money to either to overhaul Social Security or put toward deficit reduction.
The vote was a major victory for Democrats. These lawmakers -- joined by some GOP moderates -- have been arguing that a tax cut of the magnitude Bush wants makes no sense at a time when federal deficits are expected to surge to a record high and when U.S. troops are engaged in a war with Iraq.
I wish they would show the same backbone when it came to lowering spending. If indeed they just spend the money, then the tax cut would be preferable. But if they actually use the money to lower the amount of extortion futures they take out then its the right move.
Posted by: Rob Sperry on March 26, 2003 12:01 AMDoesn't this just mean that the two houses will "compromise" somewhere north of $500 billion and make almost as bad a hash of things as the original?
Posted by: C.J. Colucci on March 26, 2003 07:21 AMAt the risk of being corrected (Greenspan seems to think spending limits worked), is there anything in the statements that some of the "saved" tax money will be used for deficit reduction or SS reform that is binding? Isn't the deficit reduction statement mostly just a statement of the way the math works -- if you bring in more revenue, you borrow less, all else equal?
Posted by: K Harris on March 26, 2003 07:24 AMBush started with an absurdly high number. He's still getting more than is appropriate, especially given the proposed structure of the cuts. Some short term stimulus, if properly structured is fine. The proposal is not.
Plus the House/Senate conference problem, as CJ mentioned.
Posted by: richard on March 26, 2003 07:26 AMBush started with an absurdly high number. He's still getting more than is appropriate, especially given the proposed structure of the cuts. Some short term stimulus, if properly structured is fine. The proposal is not.
Plus the House/Senate conference problem, as CJ mentioned.
Posted by: richard on March 26, 2003 07:29 AMFrom now on when I see an abandoned car on the side of the road I will no longer think that it has broken down. I will instead believe that Rob Sperry suddenly, on his way to work, decided that the money to build the road had been extorted from him and he could no longer in good moral conscience use it.
Posted by: a different chris on March 26, 2003 08:51 AM"But if they actually use the money to lower the amount of extortion futures they take out then its the right move"
Perhaps you could provide a translation for "extortion futures"--pardon me, but are you speaking libertarianese? :)
But as a number of bloggers are pointing out today (see, for example, www.matthewyglesias.com)the projected deficits exceed total discretionary domestic spending. How you propose to deal with the deficits by cutting spending, therefore, is a mystery. Maybe you would care to lay out some numbers?
Posted by: rea on March 26, 2003 08:55 AMI work from home, so you will need to get a different fantasy chris.
Posted by: Rob Sperry on March 26, 2003 10:06 AMVertebrate? Please. Any of the figures cited mean a fiscal train wreck in the not too distant future. One thing we can be certain of is that whatever really happens in ten years will have nothing to do with any of the current maneuvers to make the tax code "permanent" because the arithmetic wont allow it. This ain't rocket science. All they are doing is trying to look moderate by compromising with complete fiscal lunacy. Is half-lunacy still nuts? The Dems make a serious mistake by having their fingerprints on any of this at all. Let the Republicans have all of the credit for their complete and total failure to even try to add two numbers together. These chickens will come home to roost in due course and it wont matter a whole lot whether we are half a trillion off course or one and a half trillion off course since we will still have to go ahead and do the unpleasant work of fixing it.
Posted by: Steve on March 26, 2003 10:08 AMI like the term "Primitive Streak". It is what eventually becomes the neural tube in the embryo.
Posted by: Adam on March 26, 2003 10:18 AM"Vertebrate? Please." The Administration will have all or most of this awful budget and we will regret it for years....
Posted by: dahl on March 26, 2003 12:13 PM"The Senate approved a $2.2 trillion budget for next year on Wednesday that hands President Bush a setback on his domestic agenda, giving him less than half the $726 billion in tax reductions he wants for reviving the economy."
- AP News Report
3/26/03
Any cut will help!
Posted by: dahl on March 26, 2003 01:19 PMShowing backbone? THEY JUST PASSED A HUGE TAX CUT!!! We have massive deficits, a war, states are broke and laying off in the tens of thousands (California laid off 30,000 teachers last week), etc., and the Senate pased a $350 BILLION TAX CUT!!!! What were they thinking?
And the comment above about cuting spending? How does "taking money out of the economy" help the economy?
What spending to cut? The money that retired people live on? Does that help landlords and grocery stores? Cut the number of people working for the governemnt - raising unemployment even more? Cut the justice system? Cut WHAT government spending - how come right wingers never say WHAT spending to cut?
I have an idea - cut the $300 billion interest we are paying (to the rich) from previous tax cuts (for the rich.) Just stop paying it!
THAT'S a real spending cut! You want to cut taxes and pay for it with spending cuts? Cut THAT!
I really think it is much wiser to focus on a few select Democratic Senators who are prostituting themselves rather than discussing the entire Senate. The biggest Democratic prostitute by far is self-righteous phony Zell Miller (D-GA), who is pretty much a mouth-piece for the White House. Miller's floor speeches on tax policy are a case study in political pandering and bad economics. The two other main Democrats are John Breaux (D-LA) and Ben Nelson (D-NE), who I think takes his cues from Breaux. Others Democrats whom I suspect lack backbone, since they voted for the original May 2001 tax cut, are:
Max Baucus (D-MT)
Feinstein (D-CA)
Jim Jeffords (I-VT)
Tim Johnson (D-SD)
Herb Kohl (D-WI)
Mary Landrieu (D-LA)
Blanche Lincoln (D-AR)
I think that the Republican Party is pretty much hopeless, but there are five or so "moderate" Republicans who must be condemned if they vote for tax cuts that they obviously don't believe in. Until this past vote, Republicans have gone into three categories. (1) Lincoln Chafee and possibly John McCain are rightly willing to fight Bush on this tax cut issue. (2) Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins, and Arlen Specter claim to be moderates but are too weak-willed and easily whipped into voting as the Republican leadership tells them. (3) EVERY other Republican Senators not already named is a supply-side ideologue crank. It is only useful to complain about the five Republicans in categories (1) and (2) when they screw up.
Posted by: Bobby on March 28, 2003 06:22 AM"And the comment above about cuting spending? How does "taking money out of the economy" help the economy?"
It doesn't, of course. That's the whole point of the tax cut. Lowering taxes results in less money taken out of the economy.
Posted by: Ken on March 29, 2003 03:28 PM