Tuesday, July 11, 2006
Deficit Depression
Some news items actually make me depressed. I shouldn't let it happen, but I can't help being depressed at the following summary of recent federal deficits. I copied the summary from Daily Kos:
From my own personal viewpoint, the economy is doing no better these days with the Bush tax cuts than it did during the high tax years of the Clinton administration. There's plenty of empirical proof, or at least anecdotal demonstration, that tax rates have at best a very small effect on the economy. Giving the richest one percent of the public a lot more money to spend has not given the economy the dramatic boost that the supply-side economists and Republic low-tax ideologues claim it should.
If the American public thought carefully about such matters, they would realize that Bush's tax policy is a dismal failure. It has greatly increased the national debt, has put us in hock to the Chinese, and has not provided a significant boost for the economy. Americans are not intellectuals and don't think about such things. The average American, like anyone else, likes his taxes reduced. He accepts the reduction and pays no attention to either the theory that justifies the reduction or the consequences of the resulting mounting national debt.
I saw a cartoon once. It showed a rather fat man with a small dog on a leash. The man is reading a newspaper while walking the dog and doesn't see the cliff in front of him that he is about to step off of. The dog sees the cliff and is terrified and holds back on the leash, but he is only a small dog and has no effect on the man. I feel like the dog. The man represents the American public that is blindly walking to the cliff and dragging everyone along.
My depressing thought for the day.
Today, the Office of Management Budget projected a $296 billion federal deficit for fiscal year 2006. Bush held a press conference arguing that this is a vindication of his economic policies.
Actually, it would be the fourth largest deficit of all time. Here's the top five:
2004 (George W. Bush) $413 billion
2003 (George W. Bush) $378 billion
2005 (George W. Bush) $318 billion
2006 (George W. Bush) $296 billion (projected)
1992 (George H. W. Bush) $290 billion
When President Bush came into office, he inherited a surplus of $284 Billion. At that time, the Bush administration predicted a $516 billion surplus for 2006.
From my own personal viewpoint, the economy is doing no better these days with the Bush tax cuts than it did during the high tax years of the Clinton administration. There's plenty of empirical proof, or at least anecdotal demonstration, that tax rates have at best a very small effect on the economy. Giving the richest one percent of the public a lot more money to spend has not given the economy the dramatic boost that the supply-side economists and Republic low-tax ideologues claim it should.
If the American public thought carefully about such matters, they would realize that Bush's tax policy is a dismal failure. It has greatly increased the national debt, has put us in hock to the Chinese, and has not provided a significant boost for the economy. Americans are not intellectuals and don't think about such things. The average American, like anyone else, likes his taxes reduced. He accepts the reduction and pays no attention to either the theory that justifies the reduction or the consequences of the resulting mounting national debt.
I saw a cartoon once. It showed a rather fat man with a small dog on a leash. The man is reading a newspaper while walking the dog and doesn't see the cliff in front of him that he is about to step off of. The dog sees the cliff and is terrified and holds back on the leash, but he is only a small dog and has no effect on the man. I feel like the dog. The man represents the American public that is blindly walking to the cliff and dragging everyone along.
My depressing thought for the day.
