To deal with the deficit, let the tax cuts expire
By Fareed Zakaria
WashPost
Monday, August 2, 2010
For the past few months, we have heard powerful, passionate arguments about the need to cut America's massive budget deficit. Republican senators have claimed that we are in danger of permanently crippling the economy. Conservative economists and pundits warn of a Greece-like crisis in which America will be able to borrow only at exorbitant interest rates. So when an opportunity presents itself to cut those deficits by about a quarter -- more than $300 billion! -- permanently and relatively easily, you would think that these people would be leading the way. Far from it.
The "Bush tax cuts," passed in 2001 and 2003, remain the single largest cause of America's structural deficit -- that is, the deficit not caused by the collapse in tax revenue when the economy goes into recession. The Bush administration inherited budget surpluses from the Clinton administration. What turned these into deficits, even before the recession? There were three fundamental new costs: the tax cuts, the Medicare prescription-drug bill and post-9/11 security spending (including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan). Of these the tax cuts were by far the largest, adding up to $2.3 trillion over 10 years. According to the Congressional Budget Office, nearly half the cost of all legislation enacted from 2001 to 2007 can be attributed to the tax cuts.
Those cuts are set to expire this year. Republicans say they want to keep them all, even for those making more than $250,000 a year (less than 3 percent of Americans), because higher taxes will hurt the recovery. But for months Republicans have also been arguing that the chief threat to the economy is our gargantuan debt and deficit. That's what's scaring consumers, creditors and businesses. Yet given a chance to address those fears by getting serious about deficit reduction, they run away. By contrast, British Prime Minister David Cameron, a genuine fiscal conservative, concluded that to deal with his country's deficit, which in structural terms is not so different from America's, he would have to raise taxes as well as cut spending.
(Continued...)
WashPost
Monday, August 2, 2010
For the past few months, we have heard powerful, passionate arguments about the need to cut America's massive budget deficit. Republican senators have claimed that we are in danger of permanently crippling the economy. Conservative economists and pundits warn of a Greece-like crisis in which America will be able to borrow only at exorbitant interest rates. So when an opportunity presents itself to cut those deficits by about a quarter -- more than $300 billion! -- permanently and relatively easily, you would think that these people would be leading the way. Far from it.
The "Bush tax cuts," passed in 2001 and 2003, remain the single largest cause of America's structural deficit -- that is, the deficit not caused by the collapse in tax revenue when the economy goes into recession. The Bush administration inherited budget surpluses from the Clinton administration. What turned these into deficits, even before the recession? There were three fundamental new costs: the tax cuts, the Medicare prescription-drug bill and post-9/11 security spending (including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan). Of these the tax cuts were by far the largest, adding up to $2.3 trillion over 10 years. According to the Congressional Budget Office, nearly half the cost of all legislation enacted from 2001 to 2007 can be attributed to the tax cuts.
Those cuts are set to expire this year. Republicans say they want to keep them all, even for those making more than $250,000 a year (less than 3 percent of Americans), because higher taxes will hurt the recovery. But for months Republicans have also been arguing that the chief threat to the economy is our gargantuan debt and deficit. That's what's scaring consumers, creditors and businesses. Yet given a chance to address those fears by getting serious about deficit reduction, they run away. By contrast, British Prime Minister David Cameron, a genuine fiscal conservative, concluded that to deal with his country's deficit, which in structural terms is not so different from America's, he would have to raise taxes as well as cut spending.
(Continued...)
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1 Comments:
if spending and borrowing outpace increased taxes by letting the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts expire, do we have a taxing problem or a spending and borrowing problem? You can tax the income of the richest 10% americans and generate about $500 billion. The problem with that is it is a one-time tax because no one will work for nothing. But, we have a $1.4 trillion debt on its way up to $10 trillion with no end in sight and no way to pay it back.
So, please, let the tax cuts expire. It will hasten the end of the Obama Administration and hopefully set the country against socialism once and for all.
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