Friday, March 29, AD 2024 4:54am

NY Times Writers Argue For Dictatorship

William Jacobson has a regular feature on his blog making fun of some of the more ridiculous bumper stickers he comes across.  Today he observes a typical moonbat parading his “thoughts” for the world to see.  Among the litany of bumper stickers he spotted was a classic: “When fascism comes to America it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.”  Yeah, there’s nothing particularly original or insightful with this bumper sticker, though it does display the leftist predilection to accuse conservatives of fascism.  The funniest part of this is that it overlooks what is obvious to those of us who kept studying history past high school, specifically that it is the left that more often proposes totalitarian policies.

For further proof of this, here’s a charming op-ed from the New York Times.

PRESIDENT OBAMA should announce that he will raise the debt ceiling unilaterally if he cannot reach a deal with Congress.

Hey, what’s a Constitution between friends?  Separation of powers.  Check and balances.  That’s all sentimental pish posh.  We’re in a state of emergency here, so who needs that pesky old document?

Constitutionally, he would be on solid ground. Politically, he can’t lose. The public wants a deal. The threat to act unilaterally will only strengthen his bargaining power if Republicans don’t want to be frozen out; if they defy him, the public will throw their support to the president. Either way, Republicans look like the obstructionists and will pay a price.

Oh, I’m sure the public will just ignore the fact that the President of the United States completely usurped power and acted like a dictator.  We’re very forgiving of such actions.

Where would Mr. Obama get his constitutional authority to raise the debt ceiling?

Our argument is not based on some obscure provision of the 14th amendment, but on the necessities of state, and on the president’s role as the ultimate guardian of the constitutional order, charged with taking care that the laws be faithfully executed.

They would have been better off with some obscure provision of the 14th amendment.  By this logic, the President would be authorized to ignore Congress whenever he deems a crisis sufficiently bleak.

As William Teach points out, this is especially rich coming from a pair of leftists when for eight years they did nothing but caterwaul about everything President Bush did.  Suddenly they have discovered multi-branch governance is for suckers.

And now for some terrible history.

When Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus during the Civil War, he said that it was necessary to violate one law, lest all the laws but one fall into ruin. So too here: the president may need to violate the debt ceiling to prevent a catastrophe — whether a default on the debt or an enormous reduction in federal spending, which would throw the country back into recession.

Yeah, this is totally like that.  Except of course for the fact that the Nation was engaged in a Civil War.  Oh, and the Constitution very specifically allows for the suspension of habeas corpus in times of insurrection.  And Congress ratified Lincoln’s decision as soon as it reconvened in July 1861.

But other than that, great analogy.

A deadlocked Congress has become incapable of acting consistently;

Yeah, that’s kind of a feature, not a bug of a democratic system.  Perhaps you’d be more comfortable in countries where one party rule is the norm.  In that case, you should be rooting for a fiscal meltdown in order to let the Chinese come in and be our overlords.

it commits to entitlements it will not reduce, appropriates funds it does not have, borrows money it cannot repay and then imposes a debt ceiling it will not raise.

Chutzpah.  Pure chutzpah.  In a post detailing why President Obama should act unilaterally, these would-be fascists lay the blame at the feet of the people who are actually trying to do something.  Can either Posner or Vermeule point to the plan that President Obama has proposed to seriously rollback entitlement spending?  They can’t.  You know why they can’t?  Because there is no such plan.  That’s the reason we face the deficit and debt crisis we do.  Talk about lack of self-awareness.

One of those things must give; in reality, that means that the conflicting laws will have to be reconciled by the only actor who combines the power to act with a willingness to shoulder responsibility — the president.

In other words, instead of democratically elected representatives collaborating together to work through these issues, the President should just act on his own authority and do what he feels like, contrary to the will of Congress and presumably a majority of the American people.  Sieg Heil, baby.

Franklin D. Roosevelt saw this problem clearly, and in his first inaugural address in 1933, addressing his plans to confront the economic crisis, he hinted darkly that “it is to be hoped that the normal balance of executive and legislative authority may be wholly equal, wholly adequate to meet the unprecedented task before us.”

“But it may be,” he continued, “that an unprecedented demand and need for undelayed action may call for temporary departure from that normal balance of public procedure.” In the event, Congress gave him the authorities he sought, and he did not follow through on this threat.

FDR was a pseudo-dictator.  It’s unsurprising that the same man who gave us the “Four Freedoms” and proposed a Court packing plan when the judiciary initially refused to rubber stamp his unconstitutional actions should think that the Executive should just ignore the legislature when he didn’t get his way.  It is no compliment to the man that he only abided by the Constitution when he got his way.

The basic problem today is that the president and the House Republicans are locked in a classic bargaining game.

This “problem” has persisted for the better part of 230 years.  It’s called a republican form of government.

The worst outcome for both is default on the debt, but each side holds out for a favorable deal. They will certainly go to the wire, but economists who have studied bargaining games have shown that there is always a real possibility of breakdown rather than compromise, because only by refusing to deal can each side convey the seriousness of its position.

Yes, that’s one of the pesky problems with republics.  Two sides sometimes can’t reach a positive agreement, and then the cow droppings hits the fan.  Admittedly the fallout from no compromise could lead to fiscal disaster, but are we to destroy the Constitution because we’re afraid of what might happen if we fail to reach a deal?

Unlike some of my fellow conservatives, I do think that we need to reach an agreement and raise the debt ceiling.  Of course I think that we should only raise the ceiling if we get meaningful cuts that are enacted promptly.  But I am not going to abide our Constitution being torn to shreds with only a fig leaf of justification.  We should recognize totalitarianism when we see it, and Messers Posner and Vermeule are advocating precisely that.

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Foxfier
Saturday, July 23, AD 2011 9:44am

I’m still a bit awed at the gall of of it all….

Joe Green
Joe Green
Saturday, July 23, AD 2011 9:48am

Why go through this charade every few years? Why do we even need a debt ceiling? it’s merely another excuse for tiresome political theater. As long as the full faith and credit of the U.S. is good — and despite being in the hole by 14 tril — it still is, why not just keep borrowing and printing?

Secondly, why do the sheeple keep buying into the myth that the federal government is broke? Seems it always has plenty of dough to buy weapons and other crap it doesn’t need, spend on useless aid programs, including billions for foreign countries just to keep them in check, and countless other pork projects. Does the government ever lay off anyone? Stop hiring? All this nonsense about a “deficit” is horse crap. The governments, state and federal, are not broke but want you to think they are so you’d be willing to pony up more and “pay your fair share.” They’re awash in cash and credit, have hundreds billions tucked away in bullion and other reserves and untold assets in land, etc.

This Obama-Boehner feud will come down to the wire, as all such fiscal drama inevitably does. A “deal” will be struck at the 11th hour with both sides trumping “compromise” and extolling “the national interest” and “the good of the nation.” The old folks and kids will be spared again from further pain and the threat of eating dog food and being starved at school, and the Republic will survive.

Then we can go back to the important things in life, such as what Princess Kate is wearing and whether there will be pro football this year.

Foxfier
Saturday, July 23, AD 2011 9:51am

Golly, that’s nice to know– I’m not broke so long as I have a credit card!

Joe Green
Joe Green
Saturday, July 23, AD 2011 9:57am

Fox, you’re credit may run out but not the U.S. government’s. By the way, maybe American can raise a few tril by calling in all her markers over the past 60 years, like the nine-figures that Germany and Japan each owe us for rebuilding their countries and reparations. Both supposedly allies now, but back in the 40’s they drained us of tens of thousands of precious lives and billions in national resources. How soon everyone forgets.

Stephen E Dalton
Stephen E Dalton
Saturday, July 23, AD 2011 10:02am

The quote, “When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in a flag and a cross”, is merely a variation of the original saying by Huey “Kingfish” Long, late governor and senator of Louisiana. The original saying is,”When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag”. Jonah Goldberg in his “Liberal Fascism” makes a pretty good case that facsism has been wrapped in the flag by liberals and foisted upon the American people in various laws and social programs.

Foxfier
Saturday, July 23, AD 2011 10:12am

Fox, you’re credit may run out but not the U.S. government’s.

Doesn’t address what I said, and fallacious to boot.

Remember all those big “debt forgiveness” things? I know Clinton did several when I was a kid– you can’t call in markers you don’t have. (there’s some history involved, too)

If you were being serious, I can think of a long list of things that we could cut to help balance the budget, starting with “stop buying land,” “don’t pay people to sue you” and “stop new programs.” (including regulations)

Sadly, you don’t seem to be serious.

T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Saturday, July 23, AD 2011 10:12am

” . . . the necessities of state, and on the president’s role as the ultimate guardian of the constitutional order, . . . ”

Let’s just ignore the hyperbolic irony of the statement.

Seems that was the justification for it in ancient Rome, and in every other failed republic in history. “It” is absolute tyranny.

“We have buried the putrid corpse of liberty.” Mussolini, 1937

Mussolini is dead and his heirs are credentialed imbeciles.

j. christian
j. christian
Saturday, July 23, AD 2011 10:23am

Seems it always has plenty of dough to buy weapons and other crap it doesn’t need, spend on useless aid programs, including billions for foreign countries just to keep them in check, and countless other pork projects. Does the government ever lay off anyone? Stop hiring?

Uhhh…. Isn’t that the point of this whole exercise? You say that deficits are “horse crap”, and then you say it’s because the gov’t could always cut useless spending. Kinda the point everyone is making, isn’t it?

Sure, the gov’t theoretically can’t go broke. Just print more money. Ask Zimbabwe about that. Or if seigniorage is not your bag, issue even more debt. But at some point (maybe not today), you have to take seriously the drag that increasingly higher debt has on investment and long term growth.

Joe Green
Joe Green
Saturday, July 23, AD 2011 10:43am

As a son of Italy, I cut Mussolini a little slack. After all, he got the trains to run on time.
Fox, I am serious and don’t call me Sadly.
Christian, sorry but don’t buy the ‘debt’ argument as long as we’re owed more than we owe. Screw the Chinese; what have they ever done for us except export crap to Wal-Mart?
Trouble is we don’t have a president or a Congress with the balls to tell em to stick it. You need oil? You got all you ever need in Saudi Arabia and Iraq, which owe us big-time. You need cash? Call in your debts; if we have to pay, let others pony up, too.
Yeah, I’m all for halting handouts. Take the 47 million off food stamps and send em a case of mac and cheese every week or better yet, put em on Jenny Craig. Most of em are already too fat anyway.
Enough with the wars. End the Libya campaign, pull out of Afghanistan, stop already with the Pakistan drones; close 500 bases overseas that are Cold War remnants. Hell, we’ve been in Okinawa since ’46. Let the Japs have it.
And, yes, some of this is tongue-in-cheek. Up to you to figure out what is/isn’t.

Foxfier
Saturday, July 23, AD 2011 10:51am

And, yes, some of this is tongue-in-cheek. Up to you to figure out what is/isn’t.

Thank you for eventually admitting you’re not serious.

Paul-I’m wondering where we’ll find the the similar outrage over the 800+ days and counting that the Dems have failed to pass a budget. It’s probably with the outrage over Obama demanding no requirements coming in, and having a big list of his own, right? Or over the flat tabling of the cut cap and balance bill?

Foxfier
Saturday, July 23, AD 2011 10:52am
T. Shaw
T. Shaw
Saturday, July 23, AD 2011 10:56am

Instead of dictating, Obama and the regime need to foster private sector economic growth and development. That would dig us out of this hole.

Whether through incompetence or by plan, the regime has achieved the opposite.

Giuseppe: Mussolini didn’t go to an Ivy. But, direct opposite of Obama’s failures, he brought prosperity to their peoples before death and destruction caught them.

Joe Green
Joe Green
Saturday, July 23, AD 2011 10:59am

Who the hell us Egan-Jones?

Art Deco
Art Deco
Saturday, July 23, AD 2011 11:11am

“fascism’, ‘constitution torn to shreds’.

You need to sit down and listen to yourself a while.

Donald R. McClarey
Admin
Saturday, July 23, AD 2011 11:30am

In regard to fascism and the cross phrase, that has been erroneously attributed both to Sinclair Lewis and Huey Long. Neither said it. Socialist Lewis wrote a novel It Can’t Happen Here in which he postulated that an American fascist movement could come to power promoting patriotism and Christianity, but the phrase doesn’t appear in the book. Huey Long was once asked if Fascism would ever come to America. He said maybe, but we would call it something else.

Donald R. McClarey
Admin
Saturday, July 23, AD 2011 11:34am

Joe, Mussolini failed to make the trains run on time. His own comment about his government of Italy was that it was not hard to rule Italians, it was impossible!

Joe Green
Joe Green
Saturday, July 23, AD 2011 11:50am

Don, I realize the trains comment was urban legend. Mussolini’s remark reminds me of De Gaulle’s about France: ‘How can anyone govern a nation that has two hundred and forty-six different kinds of cheese?’

Art Deco
Art Deco
Saturday, July 23, AD 2011 11:54am

Excuse me Art, but what would you call it when someone advocates handing over unilateral authority to the President because one doesn’t like it when the two elected branches can’t agree on a policy?

I would call it ‘someone advocating something of dubious legality for reasons of expediency’. No need to call up the specter of Oswald Mosely.

Mandy P.
Mandy P.
Saturday, July 23, AD 2011 12:11pm

“Why go through this charade every few years? Why do we even need a debt ceiling?”

Maybe because it draws attention to how hard the government is screwing us? Or how much money they’re wasting? Getting the public to pay attention to the fact that we’ve borrowed almost as much as the entire economy produces and think about whether or not it’s a good idea to keep that train rolling isn’t a bad thing, IMO. And Congress should have to think seriously about that, too. It’s a shame that this seems to be the only time within recent memory that our representatives have had to think through some of the implications of what they have done and are continuing to do to the nation.

Donald R. McClarey
Admin
Saturday, July 23, AD 2011 12:11pm

The DeGaulle comment has always been linked in my mind Joe with the Mussolini comment!

Art Deco
Art Deco
Saturday, July 23, AD 2011 12:40pm

Mandy P., the government is not screwing you, it just is drawing far to much on the capital markets to finance itself. There are systemic problems with the modus operandi of public agencies and some particular problems with American institutional culture and practice which render expenditure in excess of what a healthy agency would do to achieve a given purpose. There are aspects of public expenditure that politicians would be loath to defend without slipping into a sociopathic frame of mind: expenditure which cements deals between politicians, constituents, and advocacy groups. That might be 15% of the total. Then again it might not. Public spending is largely (though not entirely) driven by clear policy choices. There is a difference between ill-advised policy and scams.

Art Deco
Art Deco
Saturday, July 23, AD 2011 1:01pm

Just because someone isn’t advocating that their opponents be placed in death camps doesn’t mean that their actions don’t lean in a fairly totalitarian direction.

Quack quack down comes Groucho’s duck.

It may be advisable or inadvisable to allow the executive discretion over whether or not to hold a bond sale. It certainly is not ‘totalitarian’. It is regrettable when politicians take action in contravention of law, but sometimes they do. A discrete act such as that does not change the nature of the political order in and of itself. Were Obama to instruct the Treasury to hold a bond sale, he would be committing a ‘process’ offense. There is nothing substantively nefarious about bond sales in either constitutional or authoritarian states.

There are three questions here:

1. How well adapted is the institutional architecture to the basic business of government?

2. Are the habits and inhibitions abroad among salient parties in congruence with the law?

3. And in congruence with good practice?

The answers are ‘not very’, ‘no’, and ‘yes in 1947, not today’. Now, you can complain it is absolutely outrageous for the President to hold a bond sale without congressional authorization. The thing is that the Courts and the Congress and the prosecutocracy have long histories of behaving at a variance with Constitutional provisions. I am not talking about misbehavior of individual actors, but of large swaths of the Constitution which have been effectively abrogated. One more kid taking a dump in the latrine will make it only marginally stinkier.

One thing we might attempt at a future date is some sort of consensual bargain which constructs an institutional set up which people are generally willing to live with as written, which is to say an actual working constitution and not an undertaker’s dressed up corpse of one. To do that, we would actually have to acknowledge what our working constitution is and blast trough the vested interests who like their current deal just fine. Ain’t gonna happen.

Joe Green
Joe Green
Saturday, July 23, AD 2011 1:07pm

Ah, the meaning of words. From Alice in Wonderland:

‘When I use a word… it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.’
‘The question is,’ said Alice, ‘whether you CAN make words mean so many different things.’
‘The question is,’ said Humpty Dumpty, ‘which is to be master—that’s all.’

Mandy P.
Mandy P.
Saturday, July 23, AD 2011 1:18pm

I’m sorry, Art, but when they’ve borrowed and spent so much that effective tax rates would have to be at 70% for all Americans to even start making a dent, when my children and their children and their children will be stuck paying for this mess- assuming it doesn’t all collapse- what exactly do you call that? I call it getting screwed.

Mandy P.
Mandy P.
Saturday, July 23, AD 2011 1:24pm

Especially since we’ve been talking about this train wreck and the need to fix it for literally my entire life. They’ve known it was coming all this time and still continued to borrow and spend, borrow and spend, borrow and spend. They’ve known that the legitimate “systems” needed to be fixed and what did they do? “Anyone who calls for reform wants to kill grandma and starve children!” borrow and spend, borrow and spend. There is no excuse for what’s happened here. And yes, I call that getting screwed.

DarwinCatholic
DarwinCatholic
Saturday, July 23, AD 2011 1:45pm

Mandy,

I’m sorry, Art, but when they’ve borrowed and spent so much that effective tax rates would have to be at 70% for all Americans to even start making a dent,

This is not actually the case. Neither does the debt ceiling prevent congress from spending like a drunken sailor, nor would it be necessary to set tax rates at some ludicrous rate to make a dent in the debt.

Art,

While selling bonds without congressional authorization is not in and of itself dictatorial (come to that, neither was any of the stuff that King George did in the lead up to our revolution) the idea of keeping the purse strings in the hands of the legislature rather than the executive is a pretty basic piece of machinery involved in keeping our government from becoming one. The open suggestion the president simply take these new powers upon himself is particularly troubling given:

– It’s in a media organ which has repeatedly talked about how nice it would be if our own government worked more like China’s.
– The general trend in US history (as in late Republican Rome) seems to be towards soft dictatorship by the executive.

Given that our country only exists because people got over exited about their political rhetoric in regards to procedure and checks and balances, it seems a little late to insist on less inflammatory discussion now.

DarwinCatholic
DarwinCatholic
Saturday, July 23, AD 2011 1:46pm

There’s also the question of: What rates and buyers would be involved in a bond sale of dubious legality. I would assume that kind of move does not come free.

Mandy P.
Mandy P.
Saturday, July 23, AD 2011 2:40pm

“This is not actually the case. Neither does the debt ceiling prevent congress from spending like a drunken sailor, nor would it be necessary to set tax rates at some ludicrous rate to make a dent in the debt.”

That assumes cuts, Darwin. If we continue spending at such high rates and don’t get the “mandatory” stuff under control, it will necessitate some pretty repressive tax rates. Also, my point at my first post was not that I thought the debt ceiling would stop Congress from spending, only that having it in place and the inevitable debate that comes any time the Feds want it increased is useful in calling attention to the amount of spending and our fiscal situation in general. People paying attention to and assessing the federal government’s stewardship of our tax dollars is a good thing, IMO.

Art Deco
Art Deco
Saturday, July 23, AD 2011 2:59pm

Mandy, let’s posit the following:

1. Initial federal debt as a ratio of domestic product = 119% (which I believe is the post-Reconstruction peak, reached in 1945)

2. Nominal interest rates on Treasury issues = 7.5% (as high as it ever has been for any period longer than about a decade).

3. Rate of increase in nominal domestic product = 4.4% (near historic averages).

4. Budget balance (excluding debt service) over the course of each ensuing business cycle = 0. Stipulating there being no banking crisis or war of national mobilization (as there was not between 1953 and 2008), all new debt is retired within six years or so, perhaps less.

5. Time span = 40 years (near the additional life span to be expected by a typical American adult).

What share of domestic product do you have to devote to debt service in order to retire it in toto? The answer is (I believe) 5.3%, or a 6.4% assessment on personal income. That is a way’s away from 70%.

Not that the political class would have the focus or commitment to actually do that, of course.

Mandy P.
Mandy P.
Saturday, July 23, AD 2011 3:42pm

Art, that assumes that revenue procured by taxes is going to equal the same percentage of GDP as the percentage of the tax rate. That’s the fallacy of static tax analysis; (a) it doesn’t take into account that not everything produced is technically income, so a substantial portion of Product isn’t even in play as far as income taxes go and (b) it ignores that economic behavior, and therefore taxable income, is very, very changeable given the circumstances. In reality a tax of 25% on income does not get you revenue that equals 25% GDP. the two do not equate.

Your figures also assume quite a bit that I think won’t be happening any time soon. Like a balanced budget and a 4.4% rate of growth. What you seem to be saying is that in the best of circumstances we could devote a small percentage of GDP to debt service and get out from under it. What I’m saying is that given the current circumstances, it’s going to take a heck of a lot more than what you’re insinuating.

Mandy P.
Mandy P.
Saturday, July 23, AD 2011 3:55pm

I would also like to posit a question:

Since almost half of all Americans do not pay federal income taxes, and even using a static analysis, what additional tax rate would those of us who do pay federal income taxes have to fork over to pay off the debt under the rosy circumstances you set out above? And what would be the effect on the economy?

Art Deco
Art Deco
Saturday, July 23, AD 2011 4:41pm

A 4.4% rate of increase in nominal gross domestic product is unremarkable. That could be (for illustration) decomposed into an annual increase of 1.3% in per capita income (in line with the post-1973 mean), a 1% annual increase in population (ditto) and a 2% annual increase in prices (a goal of the Federal Reserve at times).

If you add an exemption sufficient to exclude the least affluent 30% of the population (and a share of the income of those more affluent), you would have to raise the marginal rate to 8 or 9%.

My figure on personal income came from the Bureau of Economic Analysis of the federal Commerce department. That is what they are counting.

Yeeeessss, it was a back of the envelope calculation in need of some elaboration, as adding to the comparative size of the public sector (all things being equal) reduces economic dynamism. Sovereign default also puts you on a lower growth trajectory. It will not require a marginal rate of 70% on personal income to clear the debt, or anything close to that.

DarwinCatholic
DarwinCatholic
Saturday, July 23, AD 2011 4:54pm

That assumes cuts, Darwin. If we continue spending at such high rates and don’t get the “mandatory” stuff under control, it will necessitate some pretty repressive tax rates.

I realize I’m being the humorless pedant here, but FWIW:

– It’s not particularly necessary to pay down the national debt, the problem is with it expanding at a rate significantly faster than the growth of the economy in the long term. (After all, buying government bonds is a standard way to save money, there’s a demand for bonds, and thus there’s essentially a demand for the government to maintain some amount of debt.)

– I agree with the point that we’d have to significantly increase tax revenues in order to maintain entitlements (and other spend levels) at current growth rates in the long term — and I am definitely against this (and thus for cuts.) But it’s not so much that people would have to be taxed at 70% to pay for current spending growth rates as that we’d have to tax the whole population rather than just a minority of it. Countries with much more government spending than ours don’t necessarily tax their rich more more than we do, the big difference is that they tax their middle class and working class more than we do.

j. christian
j. christian
Saturday, July 23, AD 2011 5:07pm

I think there must be some misunderstanding about the public debt among a lot of conservatives. There is no emergency or impending catastrophe when it comes to the debt, as Art Deco has pointed out. Yes, the rate at which it is growing now is a serious concern, which is why we’re having all these discussions about fiscal responsibility. But I bet a lot of us have mortgages that are multiples of our annual incomes, and yet we manage to pay interest on that debt… Don’t let the large numbers in absolute terms alarm you. It’s the ratios and rates that tell the story in a more meaningful way, and by historical standards, we’re not even close to our highest debt/GDP ratio.

By all means, start turning the ship around — but the iceberg is not as close as you think.

Mandy P.
Mandy P.
Saturday, July 23, AD 2011 5:28pm

Art,

Again, that assessment assumes a balanced budget. Which ain’t exactly happening any time soon. At our current rate of growth as well as the current rate of spending including the current rate of increase, I highly doubt 8-9% increase in taxes on even the percentage that do pay into the system is going to do what you imply.

Darwin and J. Christian,

Obviously I’d prefer that we pay down the debt. However, I am very aware that it is the debt to production ratio that is so troublesome. And while we may not be at the all time highs, it is extremely important to point out that at the high debts of Post-WWII weren’t so devastating mainly because the US was the one of the few first world nations not decimated by the war. When you’re competing with nations that must spend their resources on rebuilding instead of producing, it’s likely that your growth in production will outstrip your debt fairly quickly. But we’re obviously not in that same climate. Couple that with the ever-growing entitlements and a shrinking tax base and we’ve got serious problems. I think you guy already know that, though.

Mandy P.
Mandy P.
Saturday, July 23, AD 2011 5:35pm

Oh, Darwin, about taxing the lower classes. I greatly suspect that’s where we’re going to have to end up. The tax credits that are rumored to be on the nix list are, I think, the first steps in that direction. I’m not opposed to making sure that everyone pay taxes. Frankly, I favor it. I’d prefer a flat rate with either no or very limited deductions. I worry, though, with the soak the rich rhetoric we’ve been so privy to lately, that they’re going to try and squeeze more out of small businesses and other producers.

Joe Green
Joe Green
Saturday, July 23, AD 2011 5:48pm

Mandy, a flat tax is an old idea that in theory sounds good. But the problem always has been on what exactly do you tax. Whether you raise or lower taxes, fiddle with rates, credits and brackets, the fundamental underlying trouble with the economy is not taxes, but as Marco Rubio says, not enough taxpayers. There are more consumers than producers.

Which goes directly to jobs. With a real unemployment rate of about 17% and the Age of the Machine and Technology ever advancing, there either will be burger flippers or engineers in the future workforce. Manufacturing is all but dead in America except for airplane making and a few other industries. And lost in all of this is rising inflation while wages either are frozen or cut, diminishing rates of person income and savings.

Donald R. McClarey
Admin
Saturday, July 23, AD 2011 6:19pm

The US is the number one manufacturing power on the planet:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41349653/

What we are seeing is that we simply do not need a lot of workers in manufacturing to produce endless seas of product. As robotic science advances, our long term problem will be how to provide jobs for workers in an economy that needs fewer workers due to advances in technology. My solution of course is to train more surplus workers to be lawyers, as America can never have enough lawyers! 🙂

Art Deco
Art Deco
Saturday, July 23, AD 2011 6:19pm

Again, that assessment assumes a balanced budget. Which ain’t exactly happening any time soon.

It assumed a balanced budget because the problem under discussion was what the tax burden would be to liquidate the debt. If you intend to do that, you have to balance your books to begin with. A different object, to which Darwin refers, is the burden of reducing the significance of the debt. As long as the growth of the outstanding debt is outstripped by the growth in nominal domestic product, you can do that. You still have to balance your books better than we have been.

There are, by the way, debt free countries. They have sovereign wealth funds. You do not need central government debt to save. There are many other instruments: savings accounts, certificates of deposit, commercial paper, municipal paper, municipal bonds, corporate bonds, foreign bonds, &c. My uncle was born in 1927, and is still in satisfactory health. In his lifetime, we have seen two banking crises, a war which incorporated a comprehensive national mobilization, and a rapid re-armament conjoined to a regional war. That would be one fiscal disaster every 21 years. I would prefer we save our public credit for these sorts of emergencies. That is when you really need it. Otherwise, balance the budget over the course of the business cycle, even if you piss off Robert Kuttner and Paul Krugman.

When you’re competing with nations that must spend their resources on rebuilding instead of producing, it’s likely that your growth in production will outstrip your debt fairly quickly.

The first four years after the war were quite difficult economically and there was little economic growth. The period running from 1949-54 was the most economically dynamic of the post war period, but you are still talking along the lines of production levels 10 or 15% higher than trend for the whole period. Again, the back-of-the-envelope calculation I gave you above assumed high interest rates and average rates of growth in nominal domestic product. These are variables public agencies may influence but not control.

Art Deco
Art Deco
Saturday, July 23, AD 2011 6:24pm

Oh, Darwin, about taxing the lower classes. I greatly suspect that’s where we’re going to have to end up.

Income distribution statistics are soft data. FWIW, the last set I looked at had it that that about 5.8% of pre-tax personal income accrued to the least affluent 30%. There isn’t a great deal of money to be had by attempting to tax them (above and beyond what payroll and sales taxes already take).

Art Deco
Art Deco
Saturday, July 23, AD 2011 6:26pm

Age of the Machine and Technology ever advancing, there either will be burger flippers or engineers in the future workforce

I have been hearing that for forty years. Never seems to come to pass. Funny.

Art Deco
Art Deco
Saturday, July 23, AD 2011 6:28pm

There is no emergency or impending catastrophe when it comes to the debt, as Art Deco has pointed out.

To clarify, I offered that it was possible and within reason upon a fiscal consolidation to retire the debt. We are at this time in an emergency, however.

Joe Green
Joe Green
Saturday, July 23, AD 2011 6:29pm

OK, Art, I concede to a bit of hyperbole, but it seems to me that the number of jobs for skilled workers is declining. Robert Reich wrote tellining about this trend around 15 years ago.

Joe Green
Joe Green
Saturday, July 23, AD 2011 6:40pm

Don, this your office by any chance? 🙂
http://h1.ripway.com/golfwiscon/LawOffice.jpg

Mandy P.
Mandy P.
Sunday, July 24, AD 2011 6:53am

Ack! Sorry I disappeared. Had to get the kids in bed.

About taxes on the lower classes, Art. I don’t propose expanding the tax base to include them as a driver of revenue. Only because I think that we all should be paying in something. It’s very easy to keep voting for people who are going to hand you a check when you don’t have any skin in the game. I see it as another incentive to pay attention. And for all the talk inthe media and political class of people paying their fair share I find it ironic that so many don’t pay anything at all.

Mandy P.
Mandy P.
Sunday, July 24, AD 2011 7:14am

I understand why you assumed a balanced budget in your figures. What I’m asking, and forgive me for not clarifying earlier, is what is the number when you include what it will take to balance the budget. That assumes that there are no spending cuts and no entitlement reforms, so the approx. $1.5 trillion deficit we’re running would be balanced with increased taxes alone (and ignoring the economic effects on growth, obviously). And let’s be honest, I don’t see any serious entitlement reform happening any time soon. I hope I’m wrong about that. But we’ve got Senators defending spending on “cowboy poetry” as necessary, so forgive me for some skepticism there.

I’d also like to point out that for those who are not rich, like myself, a 8-9% bump in taxes would be pretty devastating. Heck, a 3% increase would be extremely painful. so getting this under control is not easy peasy. I don’t think you were necessarily implying it would be, but it is important to point out that we’re not just dealing with numbers here, but people and their lives and livelihoods.

Off to mass, now! Have a great Sunday all.

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