Semi-Daily Journal

I like the terms "politicized" and "unpoliticized." This is a fair and concise way of dismissing patently false claims.

A year ago a gave a short speech in which I referred to differing ideas relating to tax cuts as "Academic Economics" and "Political Economics." It seemed like the best way to not have to say "Bush" (I barely mentioned him in the speech).

By the way: I hear Frist say the other day that the tax cuts would "grow the economy" and then pay for themselves. Has anybody assessed how much growth would be necessary for the cuts to pay for themselves in 10 years? (Assuming that government spending rises, say, slightly lower than growth?)

(My super-duper-sloppy guesstimate was somewhere around 7 or 8 percent, but I can't stand by that number...)

Shrill. That's what he is.

Let's see. Plenty of money for a tax cut? Well - the tax cut will pay for itself with strong growth. Well, the tax cut is not that big. Well, it is but Bush never said the tax cut would pay for itself. Besides, the CIA made Bush cut taxes. Sound familiar?

Anyone who is still "extrapolating from our responsible past" is a fool.

Cops break up budget fight in the House of Representatives. It would seem the Democrats and Republicans almost got into a real fight over the budget process. Is this how the Bush Administration plans to control the deficit? It would seem we might need even more Washington D.C. police after this incident.

Any bets who on called who a "little fruitcake" in the congressional budget brawl? I have my money on Stark and Thomas. Assuming the tale is true.

With regard to Mr. Barrager's question, what's required is an accurate estimate of the marginal rate of taxation on growth generated by the "investment". If we assumed that the average marginal tax paid on growth was 20%, then the treasury would recover 20% of growth. Assuming that the required rate of return is 3% (i.e., approximately the level of inflation), I thing the equation would be:

1 = 0.2{x/(1.03) + x(1+x)/(1.03)^2 +...}

If my reasoning and algebra is correct, and we require the investment to be paid off in 20 years, this looks like a mere 15% rate of return above inflation is required.

Corrections are welcome; I confess to hashing this out without much thought.

The astonishing thing to me is that certain investments do pay such extraordinary returns. Obviously in the venture capital world, they do. But also investments in education, health and security also seem to pay so handsomely.

Krugman seems totally exasperated with Bush economic numbers. "Yeah, right. I could explain in detail why that claim is nonsense, but in any case, why bother with what these people say? "

The revenue numbers are bad. Revenue dropped from 21% of GDP to 16.3% this year and drops to 16% next year. Bush tax cuts are backloaded meaning the revenue % will drop further. Sure a drop in unemployment from 6.4% to 4% would add some revenue, but it will not bridge the gap between revenue and spending

Spending is 20% of GDP and Bush numbers predict it will drop to 19%. That is a gap of 3% and a gap of 4% between current spending 20% and revenue 16%. That means that the economy would have to expand by 15% to 20% above inflation drive spending down to revenue levels of 16 %. But Bush tax cuts are back loaded and would drop revenue below 16%. Charles is pretty close on his figures. There is no way the economy will expand that fast to balance the budget even by the end of the decade.

Krugman is correct. How do we educate the mathematically challenged voters that the numbers really do not add up?

Our host writes:

Only a complete personnel turnover inside the White House domestic staff could possibly generate confidence that the deficit will go down and not up as the economy grows.

I would only have that confidence if the turnover included the person at the top. Presidents are never passive recipients of advice; they get the advice they want.

Mr. DeLong knows this, of course.

Bakho states "Charles is pretty close on his figures. "

Only by accident, I assure you. If one assumes a perpetuity rather than a defined annuity, the required return drops. If a shorter-term is designated, the required return rises. Such is the nature of compound growth.

Also the marginal rate of taxation on growth would depend on what sectors growth took place in. One of the big problems of the Bush tax plan is that tax revenue has been eliminated from most activities except labor.

But on this line of discussion... there's an interesting rule, formulated by a physicist associated with the Manhattan Project, which states that any estimate if done in an unbiased fashion, will tend to produce the correct result, because errors high and low will tend to cancel out.

"Right now the U.S. government is running deficits bigger, as a share of G.D.P., than those that plunged Argentina into crisis. "

But it was the currency peg which was the crucial factor in plunging Argentina into crisis - the budget deficit was only a contributory factor. If the currency had been allowed to float, it would have acted as a shock absorber. American's currency has gone up significantly, and then down by a similar amount in the last five years. If the Fed had had to keep the dollar stable, the resulting gyrations in interest rates would have caused massive damage to the American economy, but currency movements acted as they should do.

I think Brad is being way too hysterical about America's fiscal situation (though not as bad a Krugman of course). Compared to Italy, Belgium or Japan, America's federal public finances are in great shape, and will be for the next few years at least (and projections beyond that just aren't worth the paper they're written on). Japan has run a budget deficit of 7-10% of GDP for the last several years, and now has debt of 150% of GDP (compared to ~50% for America), but its nominal interest rates are still as low as they can go. None of this means that no-one should worry about the budget deficit, but let's get things into proportion if we are going to start using semi-relevant international comparisons.

For the tax cuts to pay for themselves there would need to be first a significant employment gain to full employment. But, since the tax cuts have lowered the revenue flows even at full employment there will need to be an increase in worker effort and productivity in addition to full employment. GDP growth of at least 4% for at least 2 years will be needed to return to full employment. GDP growth of at least 5% for several years would hold the deficit in check if government spending were to stay constant.

Well, we are aiming at a shifting target. Tax cuts have not stopped more than 3.1 job cuts by corporations since March 2001. Tax cuts are due to increase in size for years and will almost certainly not be reversed. We are spending $3.9 billion a month in Iraq and have not had a budget estimate of the cost of building Iraq. Military costs? Medicare? Social Security? Medicaid? How much can the states cut social services?

Supply side economics is hooey. We will have a budget deficit of $900 billion just these coming 2 years. The Administration was worried about a surplus that would devour us 2 years ago. No need to worry now.

"I think Brad is being way too hysterical about America's fiscal situation (though not as bad a Krugman of course)."

Never thought of Brad DeLong or Paul Krugman (of course of course) as hysterical about deficits. Perhaps the problem is that DeLong and Krugman worry about Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, public schooling. Perhaps my parents will be fortunate enough not to ever ever ever need Social Security or Medicare, but perhaps Brad or Paul have parents and even worry about them or worry about parents other than mine. Perhaps.

Never ever ever ever worry about a trillion here a trillion there. Hey ho....

Ahhh. Brad DeLong and Paul Krugman are hysterical. What we need are more tax cuts. An aging population, war and occupation, and more tax cuts. That should certainly be the answer to hysteria.

America has a sadly low private saving rate, the public deficit is increasing rapidly. This coming year will show a combined private and public saving rate that is zero or negative. That will put added pressure on the balance of payments. We will essentially be financing investment entirely from abroad.

Suppose we ask Tony Blair for help? Why not have Britain pay for our troops in Iraq and an economic development plan? After all, Britain has already pulled half the 10,000 troops from Iraq.

The dollar has declined in value against the Euro, and currencies of Australia, Canada, and Brazil. The dollar has not declined in value against other currencies. There is little reason to believe the selective dollar value decline will ease America's balance of payments deficit.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/19/opinion/19KRIS.html

Going Home, to Red Ink and Blues
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

YAMHILL, Ore. - Across the nation, state and local leaders have been forced to slash more than $100 billion in spending, laying off thousands of employees, cutting off health insurance for roughly one million people, and lowering America's standard of living. Washington is not just aloof from the pain out here in real America, but is making matters worse.

People across America will pay the price for Washington's indifference in lower-quality schools, fewer chances to go to college, less police protection and diminished medical care. The unlucky ones among us, like Douglas Schmidt, will never recover. A 37-year-old epileptic, he depended on drugs that cost $13 a day and were paid for by the state. State budget cuts meant he lost that benefit, and he ran out of pills in late February....

Hysterical about the deficit? Not I....

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/18/national/18GRAN.html

The government's new formula for financial aid will reduce the nation's largest grant program by $270 million and bar 84,000 college students from receiving any award.

Claims of hysteria or pretty far reaching. PK does not portend doom because of budget deficits. But he does portend higher interest rates if foreigners lack confidence in American investments or believe that future governments will try to inflate away the deficit.

Does anyone really think that $450 billion deficits are sustainable? (over $600 billion if you account for SS)? Are $300 billion deficits sustainable in perpetuity? We really need to address that question because that is where the Bush fiscal policies have led.

Why did the budget come into balance for Clinton so much sooner than projected? The answer to that question is the huge revenue increase from the stock market bubble. If you believe as I do that Clinton benefitted from a one time revenue windfall, then Bush tax cuts were NEVER affordable.

Tax cut policy is not based on sound economics. The policy has not changed with the changing economic climate. Economic advisors have changed and tax policy has not changed. The advice of reputable economists has been dismissed out of hand. This is why PK wrote his why bother line. The bottom line is the tax cut policy is meant to be a payoff to the wealthy interest that funded campaign Bush in 2000 and are funding it againg in 2004. Mr. Bush has given them far more in tax cuts than they have contributed to his campaign. They know that if Mr. Bush is defeated, they will likely lose their tax cuts. Thus they will fund Mr. Bush to the hilt in 2004. It is a good investment for them. It is bad news for the rest of us who will end up with the bill.

Remember, a deficit is a tax on future taxpayers. Mr. Bush has overseen one of the largest tax increases in the history of the US.

http://www.cbpp.org/7-18-03bud.htm

Sanitizing The Grim News: The Administration's Efforts to Make Harmful Deficits Appear Benign

This analysis concludes that the Administration's figures understate the likely size of deficits in future years. The analysis also finds that tax cuts play a greater role in the descent from surpluses to deficits than do program increases.

One of the most fundamental problems in the PK analysis is not "shrillness" or "hysteria" per se, but rather an overly abstracted and too narrow or selective view. ("Shrillness" seems to be a not uncommon, pre-emptively mocking charge herein when defending a PK assertion; as pure rhetoric there are worse tactics, but this mock avoids forwarding anything substantive.)

Still, none of that takes anything away from more valid and thoughtful concerns about deficits, but it does add some fully warranted perspective and it does cast doubt upon the virtually gnostic, all-knowing capabilities and triumphalist demeanor of PK, et al. and upon his highly selective perspective and set of facts he would have the debate limited to.

One of the all important broader perspectives is framed within the context that the deficit spending of both Reagan and the current President has taken place within the context of (acknowledged) war in response to aggression. Obviously, this references the Cold War in the case of Reagan and the not so aptly named "War on Terror" in the case of President Bush. By contrast, Clinton was the first president whose entire tenure took place after the end of the Cold War, the "velvet revolution," etc. and thus benefitted greatly from the end of that variegated conflict in terms of his ability to redirect fiscal policy.

This is of interest both because PK references the deficits during the '80s, during Reagan's tenure, but much more importantly because there was a virtual avalanche of (mere) dismissiveness against Reagan's Cold War strategy at the onset of the '80s by so many of the intellectuals of that era, ranging from Albright to Galbraith, Paul Samuelson, Thurow and many, many, many others among this similarly self-assurred set of ideological triumphalists. The concerted, dismissive (and yes, often shrill) tone was highly pronounced to say the least, so much so that it echoed the NYT's Walter Duranty (also contemporary luminaries such as G. B. Shaw, Lillian Hellman, etc.) and his own hollow dismissiveness of Stalin's famine inspiring catastrophes of the '30s and other Stalinist initiatives.

Still another aspect of this broader perspective and contrast is WTC '93, when Clinton failed to treat this event as little more than a domestic crime, even after the evidence came in supporting both bin Laden (or at least al Queda) and Iraqi connections. WTC '93 occurred little more than a month into Clinton's presidency (I believe?), hence it is not at all an exaggeration to say he largely pursued a head-in-the-sand strategy of denial which encouraged more terrorism, not less. Give some at least modest credit to Clinton for his economic policies, free trade intiatives included, but remember as well that his entire tenure is framed both after the termination of the Cold War and prior to the point when the "War on Terror" is acknowledged and then broadly initiated. Reducing deficits within such a strategy of denial and obfuscation pertaining to national security issues is the very least we could have expected from his tenure. With others, (such as Juanita Broaddrick?), I'll withhold any applause that PK would attempt to lead us in.

Hence PK, much rather than shrill (in this case any shrillness would detract from PK's initiative, not forward it), is instead attempting to subdue and occlude, is attempting to limit our perspective and narrow our view, is attempting to limit the range of history and set of facts that he, would-be gate-keeper of knowledge and wisdom, would allow in this aspect of the debate.

Thank you, thank you. Yes, we must continue to lower taxes to secure the nation, end international terrorism, end the Iraqi regime, occupy and build Iraq anew, not to mention contain North Korea and Iran. Lower taxes and all that will be a done deal, plus assuring there will be ample drug benefits for Medicare recipients. Lower taxes won World War II. Wow, I never knew.

When you want to think clearly, turn from "gate-keeper of knowledge and wisdom" PK to Fox News. Rupert Murdoch, I wuv you. Wuv, wuv.

Right. President Clinton supported Stalin. Makes sense. Duh....

bakho, 21% of GDP is an aberration, and unsustainable at ANY tax rate. Here's a graph of tax revenues:

http://faculty.roosevelt.edu/Antler/images/fedrevaspercent.htm

Note that under top marginal rates as high as 90% and as low as 28%, the federal govt's share is pretty consistently between 17% and 19%. That's what we'll have when the economy has fully recovered too.

If you want to end deficits, spending has to come down to between 17% and 19%. It's as simple as that.

Boy, that M Bond can talk up a storm, huh? And if you change the subject often enough, and quickly enough, maybe no one notices that each individual claim is a joke.

War On Terror (~$80 mil) the cause for current account deficits (~$450 mil)? Of course.
Cold War military spending the cause for Reagan deficits? Of course - it had nothing to do with Reagan's tax cut. Oh, and the Soviet Union collapsed because of scary nukes in W Germany, not, say, an inefficient economy and ossified power structure. Of course.
Any opponent of Republican policies actually Stalinists at heart? Of course.
Clinton ignored terrorism? Of course. That's why _his_ administration actually brought those who attacked the WTC to justice ("dead or alive"), and actually _prevented_ a massive domestic terror attack.
The administration that shelved recommendations to prevent terror attacks, ignored advice about OBL from the previous administration, and focused all of its defense energies on magic space bullets? That's the one that kept its head out of the sand.

There's probably more fallacious crap in Bond's post, but that's already more of a sensible response than his partisan ramblings merit.

Spending "has" to come down. How? The Administration defense plan will entail significant spending increases. The occupation of Iraq is costing 3.9 billion a month, and costs of building Iraq have not been estimated. Where are the cuts in spending to come?

"The government's new formula for financial aid will reduce the nation's largest grant program by $270 million and bar 84,000 college students from receiving any award."

Posted by: dahl on July 19, 2003 07:35 AM

Finally, a Bush policy which makes sense. The US needs more grunts in Iraq. Move some of the college students into the army. Heck, the jobs they were training for have probably been sent overseas, anyway.

NO ONE caught the obvious blooper in the equation I presented?

For shame.

Actually the fault is not in the equation, but in the description of it. The equation describes the effect of a tax cut *in a single year*. But of course the tax cuts are presumed to be irreversible. That would seem to make it impossible to recover the "investment" involved in ladling out tax cuts to the wealthy.

_________________________________________

bakho states that "Remember, a deficit is a tax on future taxpayers. Mr. Bush has overseen one of the largest tax increases in the history of the US."

Correct. The GOP has repealed the so-called "death tax" and instituted the birth tax. Children will henceforth be born into increasingly heavy debt slavery.

NO ONE caught the obvious blooper in the equation I presented?

For shame.

Actually the fault is not in the equation, but in the description of it. The equation describes the effect of a tax cut *in a single year*. But of course the tax cuts are presumed to be irreversible. That would seem to make it impossible to recover the "investment" involved in ladling out tax cuts to the wealthy.

_________________________________________

bakho states that "Remember, a deficit is a tax on future taxpayers. Mr. Bush has overseen one of the largest tax increases in the history of the US."

Correct. The GOP has repealed the so-called "death tax" and instituted the birth tax. Children will henceforth be born into increasingly heavy debt slavery.

Patrick- you wrote 21% is an abberration and unsustainable. I agree. As I wrote, the surplus under Clinton was due to a revenue bubble as a result of the stock market bubble. That is unlikely to happen again. Yes spending needs to be 19% of GDP or under. Unfortunately, Mr. Bush and the GOP Congress have spent about 20%. But if you look at your own chart that you linkto, you will note that we started running massive deficits when revenues dropped to around 17% under Reagan. Clinton's balanced budget and surplus came with revenues all over 19%. Those were good years for the wealthy. Yes they paid more taxes but they also earned a lot more money because the economy was better. There are a lot of wealthy people today that net a lot less money under Bush even though they are paying less taxes. They would be better off paying more taxes, but having an economy that was more robust.

Mr. Bush has cut revenue to 16.3% this year and a projected 16% next year. Mr. Bush wants to hold spending at 19%. This is a major revenue gap. We will be spending 3% more of GDP than revenues.

Mr. Bush and the GOP control Congress and the WH. IF they wanted they could cut spending to balance the budget. But they won't do it because the people will not support them if they do. Since they want to cut taxes to pay off their campaign donors and the voter won't let them cut SS, medicare and medicaid, Mr. Bush and the GOP are passing off the tax increase to the next president and to future generations. In fact, Spending has gone up at an alarming rate since Mr. Bush took office. His spending on Iraq is not even included in the 20%. I agree that spending should drop to 19% but Mr. Bush and the GOP Congress do not.

Your own figures show that Mr. Bush has cut taxes to the point where there is not enough revenue to balance spending. You must agree with Krugman and DeLong that Bush fiscal policy will leave us with deficits for a long time to come.

M Bond appears to be unaware that defense spending in constant dollars under Clinton was higher than the average for the entire Cold War, and more or less (it's been a few months since i looked at this, but if i have time i'll find the link and post it) comparable in aggregate to Reagan's defense spending.

Damn annoying things, facts.

i'll ignore the rest of his silliness.

otherwise, bakho is right. Bush has created a structural deficit. The choices are increasing taxes to get revenues back up to 19% or so, or hacking away at social security and medicare to get spending, as Patrick wants, to 17%.

It's not unreasonable to think that president backbone doesn't mind leaving posterity with these two choices....

bahko said: "Krugman is correct. How do we educate the mathematically challenged voters that the numbers really do not add up?"

First of all, let me say that I am not an economist. In fact, maybe I am the kind of voter you are speaking of.

Let me tell you a little bit about myself. I'm 18 years old, which means I'll be voting in the next Presidential election. I took a year of economics in high school (and received passing scores on the Advanced Placement economics tests), but I doubt that gives me much ground to assume I know what economics is about. As for math I know some calculus and statistics (received 5's on AP Calculus BC and Statistics exams.)

What I find, however, is that there is simply no one EXPLAINING how the numbers don't add up in a fashion that is simple enough for laymen such as myself to comprehend. Most of us will never learn a lot of economics or math, so what economists need to do, if they want to use their expertise to inform voters, is tell us what we should know!

Where do I start? There are many people on the Internet such as myself that love to learn but need to be pointed in the right direction. It's unreasonable to expect us to know more than what, say, a sophomore/junior econ major would know, because we simply don't have the time (and in many cases the interest, though that's not the case with me) to learn all this economic theory.

Maybe what people like me need is a smattering of economics knowledge that's fairly practical; it should probably be mostly geared towards helping us decipher the obfuscatory language of White House staff who may or may not be trying to downplay a fiscal crisis, and so forth.

So what I'm saying to you learned men and women who want voters to be more familiar with economics and numbers is: here I am, tell me what to do and know.

Probably the best critique of the administration budget is at John Spratt's website. Congressman Spratt is the ranking Democrat on the House Budget Committee. Because the budget is never debated publicly, this is one of the few places the budget numbers are actually discussed. There are lots of charts and graphs and the explanations are pretty easy to follow.

http://www.house.gov/budget_democrats/

Brad's site is good if you follow the economics and budget threads.

Paul Krugman has his own web site and it has links to Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and Brookings.

http://www.wws.princeton.edu/~pkrugman/fiscalfacts.html

The unofficial PK site has an archive of most of Krugman's popular articles.

http://www.pkarchive.org/

Stan Collendar writes a column every Tuesday morning in the nationaljournal.com
Stan has good info on the budget and a weekly quiz.

Then there is the Concord Coalition, a bipartisan balanced budget group.

http://www.concordcoalition.org/

Most of this info is considered too boring for the local newspaper, but these are good online sites. Anyone else have favorites?

http://www.pkarchive.org/
http://www.cbpp.org

Paul Krugman has written with superb clarity on budget issues for years. PKarchive.org is a wonderful resource. I save many of PK's articles.

CBPP.org is a mine of fine clear analysis of government budget policy.

Brad Delong has long commented on budget policies with similar clarity.

We should wish more of the press would bother to learn a bit of economics and read decent sources when writing on budget policy!

Where does Paul say that we're going get a job recovery???

Paul Krugman does not believe that the Bush administration plans to reduce the deficit as the economy recovers from its current jobless recovery.

Republicans say its getting better but I like to know how? The Wall Street goes has gone up a bit but it's on the level with what companies are saying. Those business that deal international markets have notice a marked loss in sales. The Saudis took some of deal they are were going give ExxonMobil and gave it to joint Dutch Shell / and France TotalFina project.

JEDDAH, 17 July 2003 — The Royal Dutch/Shell group of companies and Total yesterday signed an agreement with Saudi Arabia estimated to be worth $2 billion to form a joint venture with Saudi Aramco for the exploration of gas in an area of 200,000 sq km in the southern part of the Rub Al-Khali. --

And this: --"The new Royal Dutch/Shell group agreement comes barely a month after Saudi negotiators terminated discussions on a $15 billion gas project with a consortium led by Shell’s arch-rival ExxonMobil. Exxon and Saudi Arabia could not agree on financial terms.

Saudi Arabia is hosting a road show meeting on July 22 and 23 in London to showcase the other gas exploration opportunities on offer, for which a considerable number of petroleum companies from Europe, Asia and North America have been invited."

OPEC is moving toward the Euro. I bet North American doesn't get any contracts.

And this: --"Russia, France and Germany have been telling India behind the scenes to do its bit to retrieve the pre-eminence of the UN. Whatever America's initial reaction is, it is sure to take some steps to hurt India. New Delhi should be prepared for it."

These countries are taking steps to seize market shares from the US and going out of their way to make the US pay full cost of going it alone in Iraq.

The coalition of the unwilling are taking avantage of Bush's missteps but I remeber that France President Chirac did say other countries needed to balance the power that the US was using against other nations.

Oh, no -- "past history" -- I can never again take anything Brad writes seriously.

" Spending "has" to come down. How? The Administration defense plan will entail significant spending increases. The occupation of Iraq is costing 3.9 billion a month, and costs of building Iraq have not been estimated. Where are the cuts in spending to come?"

Posted by jd at July 19, 2003 09:54 AM

This misses the point completely. It doesn't matter where the spending cuts come from. What does matter is that for half a century revenue mostly bounced between 17% and 19%.

" M Bond appears to be unaware that defense spending in constant dollars under Clinton was higher than the average for the entire Cold War, and more or less (it's been a few months since i looked at this, but if i have time i'll find the link and post it) comparable in aggregate to Reagan's defense spending.

" Damn annoying things, facts."

This would be my choice for all time goofiest assertion on Semi-Daily Journal. If Ann Coulter ever says anything this strange, she'll have to live out her remaining years in a burka.

Defense spending as a per cent of GDP had declined to under 4% by the end of the Clinton presidency. It was between 6% and 7% in the 1980s, and many years was 9% and above in the 50s, 60s and 70s.

" Mr. Bush has cut revenue to 16.3% this year and a projected 16% next year. Mr. Bush wants to hold spending at 19%. This is a major revenue gap. We will be spending 3% more of GDP than revenues. "

"This year" is barely half over. In 2002 the figure was 17.9% (which is the average for the years 1962-71, with a top marginal tax rate of 70%, iirc). Where are you getting your numbers?

Take a look at the CBO numbers here:

http://www.cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=1821&sequence=0#table2

You'll see that prior to 1975, federal spending was only above 20% in ONE year. After that it was so in every year until 1997 when rapid economic growth raised the denominator so high if fell to 19.5%. Congress fell behind in spending the bounty and it hasn't risen above 20% yet.

The below lists in the first column the % of GDP for federal government revenues, and in the second column spending as % of GDP:

1986 17.5 22.5
1987 18.4 21.6
1988 18.1 21.2
1989 18.3 21.2
1990 18.0 21.8
1991 17.8 22.3
1992 17.5 22.2
1993 17.6 21.5
1994 18.1 21.0
1995 18.5 20.7
1996 18.9 20.3
1997 19.3 19.5
1998 19.9 19.1
1999 20.0 18.6
2000 20.8 18.4
2001 19.8 18.6
2002 17.9 19.5

Why is it that when the top marginal rate was 28% on the very rich in 1987, revenues amounted to 18.4% of GDP. And after the TMR had been raised to almost 40%, revenues in 1994 were lower than in 1987?

And why is anyone projecting revenues will be 16% in the future with a TMR of, iirc, 33% ?

dahl: "When you want to think clearly, turn from "gate-keeper of knowledge and wisdom" PK to Fox News. Rupert Murdoch, I wuv you. Wuv, wuv."

A grand dismissiveness; arrogating, nullish avoidance of anything substantive whatsoever.

howard, I'll more simply tip my hat to P. Sullivan's observation that your assertion that under Clinton defense spending was more than under Reagan is in fact a vacuous and indefensible assertion only, i.e. once again nullish.

A general note: The references to Stalin specifically were vis-a-vis Walter Durranty (1930s) as analogy, not Clinton. Is this a reading/comprehension problem, or more willful, studied avoidance?

Last and least, JRoth's serial dismissiveness:

"Boy, that M Bond can talk up a storm, huh? And if you change the subject often enough, and quickly enough, maybe no one notices that each individual claim is a joke."

Yet once again, nullish dismissiveness, nothing more, at best yet more reading/comprehension problems.

"War On Terror (~$80 mil) the cause for current account deficits (~$450 mil)?"

I specifically used the phrase "One of the all important broader perspectives ..." I.e., not the sum total of perspectives, but one of the all important perspectives. Too, the 80 mil figure is for the "war on terror" only, not the overall military, information gathering and defense budget in general. (But even the 80 mil alone is almost 20% of the 450.)

"Cold War military spending the cause for Reagan deficits? Of course - it had nothing to do with Reagan's tax cut."

That is another "one of" the issues, but it broaches a much larger debate concerning domestic spending, a Democratic congress during that era controlling the purse strings, etc.

"Oh, and the Soviet Union collapsed because of scary nukes in W Germany, not, say, an inefficient economy and ossified power structure. Of course."

Still more nullish dismissiveness. Google on "The Farewell Dossier" for (merely) one intriguing aspect of that era.

"Any opponent of Republican policies actually Stalinists at heart? Of course."

Again, reading + comprehension both. Stalin was referenced solely vis-a-vis Walter Durranty as (completely apt) analogy.

"Clinton ignored terrorism? Of course. That's why his administration actually brought those who attacked the WTC to justice ("dead or alive"), and actually prevented a massive domestic terror attack."

Still yet again, vacuously dismissive. I stated Clinton did not so much as visit the site of WTC '93 and that he treated the perpetrators as little more than domestic criminals rather than international terrorists, even after he learned fully of the intl. connections. And how did Clinton "prevent" a massive domestic terror attack? Your reasoning as regards this is?

"The administration that shelved recommendations to prevent terror attacks, ignored advice about OBL from the previous administration, and focused all of its defense energies on magic space bullets? That's the one that kept its head out of the sand."

Magic space bullets, why "of course," such a lucid argument. OBL, whom the Clinton administration positively avoided when they had (more than one) opportunity to take him into custody, why "of course." And head in the sand logic? The left warned us about going into Afghanistan, warned and fretted over the quagmire effect, the Taliban, the Afghanistan populace who would draw us into another "Vietnam," much as they did the Soviets previously. The left warned us about similar things in Iraq, the wall of flames and steel that would prevent us from entering Baghdad, the urban fighting that would go on forever and ever, warned us once more of another "Vietnam" like quagmire; the left sided with Saddam Hussein, the sadist and destabilizing and terrorizing influence in his own arena and the mid-east and world at large. The President resolved to take action in the real world despite all this fretting, warning, naysayers, arrogators with all their moral umbrage, etc.; that hardly constitutes "head in the sand" reasoning or strategies, regardless as to where one stands on all the individual issues and facets involved.

dahl: "When you want to think clearly, turn from "gate-keeper of knowledge and wisdom" PK to Fox News. Rupert Murdoch, I wuv you. Wuv, wuv."

A grand dismissiveness; arrogating, nullish avoidance of anything substantive whatsoever.

howard, I'll more simply tip my hat to P. Sullivan's observation that your assertion that under Clinton defense spending was more than under Reagan is in fact a vacuous and indefensible assertion only. (And you then use this empty assertion to leverage your broader disdain to boot. Unfortunately not at all untypical.)

(A general note: The references to Stalin specifically were vis-a-vis Walter Durranty (1930s) as analogy, not Clinton. Is this a reading/comprehension problem, or more willful, studied avoidance?)

Last and least, JRoth's serial dismissiveness and triumphalism:

"Boy, that M Bond can talk up a storm, huh? And if you change the subject often enough, and quickly enough, maybe no one notices that each individual claim is a joke."

Yet still again, nullish dismissiveness, nothing more, at best more reading/comprehension problems.

"War On Terror (~$80 mil) the cause for current account deficits (~$450 mil)?"

I specifically used the phrase "One of the all important broader perspectives ..." I.e., not the sum total of perspectives, but one of the all important perspectives. Too, the 80 mil figure is for the "war on terror" only, not the overall military, information gathering and defense budget in general. (But even the 80 mil alone is almost 20% of the 450.)

"Cold War military spending the cause for Reagan deficits? Of course - it had nothing to do with Reagan's tax cut."

That is another "one of" the issues, but it broaches a much larger debate concerning domestic spending, a Democratic congress during that era controlling the purse strings, etc.

"Oh, and the Soviet Union collapsed because of scary nukes in W Germany, not, say, an inefficient economy and ossified power structure. Of course."

Still more nullish dismissiveness. Google on "The Farewell Dossier" for (merely) one intriguing aspect of that era.

"Any opponent of Republican policies actually Stalinists at heart? Of course."

Again, reading + comprehension both. Stalin was referenced solely vis-a-vis Walter Durranty as (completely apt) analogy.

"Clinton ignored terrorism? Of course. That's why his administration actually brought those who attacked the WTC to justice ("dead or alive"), and actually prevented a massive domestic terror attack."

Still yet again, vacuously dismissive. I stated Clinton did not so much as visit the site of WTC '93 and that he treated the perpetrators as little more than domestic criminals rather than international terrorists, even after he learned fully of the intl. connections. And how did Clinton "prevent" a massive domestic terror attack? Your reasoning as regards this is?

"The administration that shelved recommendations to prevent terror attacks, ignored advice about OBL from the previous administration, and focused all of its defense energies on magic space bullets? That's the one that kept its head out of the sand."

Magic space bullets, why "of course," such a lucid argument. OBL, whom the Clinton administration positively avoided when they had (more than one) opportunity to take him into custody, why "of course." And head in the sand logic? The left warned us about going into Afghanistan, warned and fretted over the quagmire effect, the Taliban, the Afghanistan populace who would draw us into another "Vietnam," much as they did the Soviets previously. The left warned us about similar things in Iraq, the wall of flames and steel that would prevent us from entering Baghdad, the urban fighting that would go on forever and ever, warned us once more of another "Vietnam" like quagmire; the left sided with Saddam Hussein, the sadist and destabilizing and terrorizing influence in his own arena and the mid-east and world at large. The President resolved to take action in the real world despite all this fretting, warning, naysayers, arrogators with all their moral umbrage, etc.; that hardly constitutes "head in the sand" reasoning or strategies, regardless as to where one stands on all the individual issues and facets involved.