In related news from that pinko America-hating news source, the Voice of America comes the following. To get this administration's expenditures to be neutral you have to be juggling the figures with the precision of Chris Bliss: [rquoter] US War on Terror Could Cost $2.4 Trillion by 2017 Economic advisors to Congress warn the cost of U.S.-led war on terror could exceed $2 trillion over the next 10 years. Much of that funding comes from money borrowed overseas, and the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office says it would be best to start paying for the war now and not let the debt grow. From Washington, VOA's Margaret Besheer has more. The Congressional Budget Office says the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and other war on terror-related expenses have reached more than $600 billion since September 2001. More than $450 billion of that has been spent on the U.S.-led war in Iraq. President Bush has now asked for an additional $160 billion for Iraq for fiscal 2008. Angry congressional Democrats say that far exceeds President Bush's original estimate of $50 billion for the entire Iraq operation. "The truth is that this administration from its original $50 billion estimate on the cost of the war in Iraq right through the estimates being made outside this committee today, consistently low-balls, misstates to the American people the true cost of the dollars, and of course, the true cost in blood that we are paying for this go-it-alone misadventure," said Democratic Congressman Lloyd Doggett of Texas. Peter Orszag, the head of the Congressional Budget Office, which advises Congress on such matters, presented lawmakers two different scenarios for projected future funding of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as other costs associated with the war on terror. The calculations were based on scenarios where the United States would significantly reduce its troop levels by 2010 and 2013 to between 30,000 and 75,000 forces in Iraq and Afghanistan from current levels of about 200,000. "Including both past funding and projected funding under these two illustrative scenarios, total spending for U.S. operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and the rest of the war on terrorism would thus amount to between $1.2 trillion and $1.7 trillion through 2017," Orszag said. Much of these outlays are financed through borrowing, adding on billions of dollars in interest charges. Orszag warns that continued borrowing will have a steep price tag. "The bottom line is that to the extent the spending is not offset by higher taxes or reduced spending elsewhere in the budget, and therefore simply adds to the deficit, the total budgetary impact of the war, including spending to date, possible future spending, and higher interest costs would amount to between 1.7 trillion and 2.4 trillion dollars through 2017," he said. This angered Democrat Dennis Moore of Kansas who asked Orszag if the Bush administration has mortgaged America's future. "We have mortgaged the future of our children and grandchildren, is that correct," asked Moore. "The way I would put it is that we are on an unsustainable fiscal path and something has to give," said Orszag. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, one of the few Republican lawmakers who attended the hearing, dismissed such thinking. "We are fighting this war with a lot less cost and a lot less sacrifice than we have ever fought wars before as a percentage of our ability to pay for it," he said. Congressional Democrats criticized the Bush administration for failing to send a representative to testify before the committee. Wednesday's hearing was heavily dominated by Democrats and only a few Republicans turned up. At the White House, spokeswoman Dana Perino dismissed the Congressional Budget Office's $2.4 trillion estimate as "wildly premature," and defended spending on the global war on terror as an investment in America's security. [/rquoter]
I'm glad you posted that. I remember reading about the huge costs. And they cut taxes?? D&D. Attempt to Keep it Civil! Impeach Bush.
Deckard, this is what you are failing to grasp: Cutting taxes has led to HIGHER tax receipts. Raising taxes would therefore lead to LOWER tax receipts. Want to fund the War on Terror and the troops? LOWER taxes. Very simple really. Also, why would you want to raise taxes if you think (your words, not mine) that the economy is in such dire straits? That just doesn't make sense. What really doesn't make sense is the Mother Of All Tax Hikes. MOATH. Charlie Rangel is a serious threat to our standard of living. His philosophy of punishing those who succeed in society is severely flawed.
Repeating something over and over doesn't makie it true. There's no evidence to suggest that tax cuts have been an engine for growth as opposed to global growth driving American business. During the last major tax hike, the economy grew even faster - would you suggest that the tax hike caused the economy to grow?
I still don't buy it, Trader_J, but I like it when you actually do the D&D thing. D&D. Attempt to Keep it Civil! Impeach Bush.
I'm assuming you missed my last post... I'll post it again for your benefit... Rangel claims the tax changes are revenue neutral. If it is, explain how not raising taxes leads to economic disaster. If not, explain why Rangel's plan is not revenue neutral. Thanks. I really haven't made my mind up about this tax thing, so I'm looking for answers and would appreciate your help. Thanks again.
Deficits help the economy. In turn the government puts more into the economy than it takes away (taxes). The deficit when Reagan was in office was in 6.5% of the GDP, under Bush it is only 1.6% of the GDP. Most knowledgeable economists think that we should have a larger deficit than we do currently. Also, if you think about the way government bonds work. They issue bonds, the public takes them with a certain return yield, then the government basically gives back the total bond amount as capital improvement, which in turn goes right back into the publics pockets. Government has a big stake in how well our economy runs and the more it spends the better off we are. By the way the way we achieve this is a balance between deficit spending and ultimately lower taxes.
No such thing as a free lunch. Cutting taxes and other supply side economics primes the pump and gives you a boost, but you pay it all back down the line. See Ronald Reagan and the economic mess which he handed Bush #1. You are only looking at the front end of the graph and ignoring the back end.
Excepting of course the 25% of the debt in the hands of foreign government and 44% overall in the hands of foreigners.
The reason it is skewed is that the amount of taxes collected will be severely depleted because the people most likely to reinvest in the economy are the wealthy, take part of that investment power away and less capital, less small business start-ups, less employment, less pay, etc.
Most knowledgable economists realize that deficit spending and debt leads to huge govt. waste. Having zero debt isn't a good idea but when roughly 15% of the money spent by govt. pays only interest, that is a huge waste. People who want deficit and debt but are angry about wasteful spending are just spinning their wheels. Spending 15% of total revenue and getting absolutely nothing in return is even worse than the most frivilous of all pork barrell spending ever passed by congress. At least on those deals somebody gets something. The larger the deficit and debt the more interest we have to pay.
Which is why taxing the wealthy more would be better. Someone making huge amounts of money can invest money without having to worry about it at all even if more is taxed. If I was making 10 mil a year and they took half, I would still have so much to invest that it wouldn't hamper that at all.
A lot of those yields end up right back in American investment. Everything is on a global scale and we can't think of it as an isolated event anymore.
Not true at all. The poor spend essentially 100% of their money. Every dollar they get in tax breaks is basically immediately re-invested in the economy. That's not necessarily the case on the supply-side, where some money is spent or invested overseas. If poor people are buying stuff, businesses make money and hire more people. Just because a business gets more money doesn't mean they are going to spend it if they don't have customers.
And every dollar the government has to borrow is a dollar that can't be borrowed by the private sector. If people weren't buying $300 billion in government debt each year, it would lower the cost of borrowing for business and provide more capital for business investment.
Except your argument is that the interest $$$ ends up right back in American pockets and it clearly doesn't. You are right in that the coupons usually end up back in American debt, but this just increases the outflow of this money from the country as opposed to into American pockets. Bringing up some platitude about 'the globalized economy' is just obfuscation.
Do you know how many people make 10 million, maybe .2%, stop thinking this only affects the mega-rich. We are talking about a family that makes $200,000. If you take half that away you most likely took away any investment power they have. People making over 200k-500k are the people make a good living, like their jobs and most likely will never quit to start their own business. They will invest in entrepreneurs, small businesses, real estate, etc and are the backbone of our economic growth. And even the one's that do blaze their own trail reinvest in themselves.
