Archive - Apr 20, 2008 - topic

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Type
John McCain
The Associated Press

Deficit hawk John McCain is making the case for the stimulating effect of tax cuts.

Featured Topic | Posted 30 weeks 2 days ago

What's more important: Cutting taxes or balancing the budget?

Associated Press

Republican John McCain said Sunday that cutting taxes and stimulating the economy are more important than balancing the budget, and accused both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama of supporting tax hikes that would worsen the impact of a recession.

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Ben likes: The coming tax bomb

John F. Cogan and R. Glenn Hubbard/Wall Street Journal

The proper way to prepare to meet the entitlement challenge consists of three essential elements: Change entitlements to slow their cost growth; eliminate all nonessential spending in the remainder of the budget; and, most important but often overlooked, adopt policies that promote economic growth. The greater the economic growth, the larger the economic pie, and the greater the public and private resources available to finance entitlement obligations and other national priorities.

Last year's federal budget illustrates the importance of economic growth to the federal budget's overall health. The federal budget deficit was recorded as 1.2% of GDP, half its average level over the past four decades. This modest deficit occurred despite the fact that Congress has been on a decade-long spending binge; despite the fact that not a single entitlement program has been significantly reduced since the late 1990s and two entitlements, Medicare and farm support payments, have been significantly increased; and despite the fact that we are in the midst of costly but necessary wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The consensus that tax increases are needed for fiscal balance is wrong. The next president can fund our defense priorities, maintain tax cuts, and balance the budget. A tax-increase consensus blurs the basic debates over our budget priorities in 2008 -- and severely limits our choices in 2028. 

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Joel likes: It's our fault, too

Andrew Yarrow/Washington Post

The federal deficit halfway through this budget year is at an all-time high, the Treasury Department announced Thursday, and the national debt is growing as well. But before we blame Washington politicians for their irresponsibility, stupidity and cowardice -- and we should -- we may want to look at another culprit: the American people. We, too, bear some responsibility for our $9 trillion federal debt and $50 trillion in governmental promises of future benefits.

Yes, cutting taxes and increasing spending is irresponsible, as is allowing Medicare and Medicaid costs to rise so quickly, as is failing to achieve a long-term fix for Social Security and retirement security, as is developing (and protecting) a Byzantine tax code and dysfunctional budget process, as is pork. Yada yada yada. Washington deserves a lot of blame for the growing national debt, despite some genuinely thoughtful and courageous leaders, and must take the lead in solving the nation's fiscal problems.

But we share the blame. We want lower taxes but more government services. We go to great and morally questionable lengths to avoid paying the taxes that we now owe. We want to stop working as early as possible and draw retirement benefits for as long as possible. 

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Iraq
The Associated Press

An American soldier stands near the site of a car bombing in Iraq.

Featured Topic | Posted 30 weeks 2 days ago

Is the Pentagon waging a propaganda campaign against Americans?

New York Times

The military analysts you see on television are often ex-military officers retired to public life.

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Ben likes: Generals know people at the Pentagon

Michael Goldfarb/The Weekly Standard

The paper offers no evidence that any of these men were using their influence to directly further a personal interest (unless one counts "networking"), and it offers no evidence of coercion on the part of the administration. So the charge is a lack of transparency, and it rests on the assumption that Americans are too stupid to surmise the likely ideological and institutional biases of a former general officer in the United State military.

Of course, Americans are not so stupid, and I suspect most will appreciate the irony of the New York Times judging retired military officers as insufficiently objective in their analysis of the war in Iraq.

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Joel likes: Puppets of the Defense Department

The Capetbagger Report

We’ve known for a while that the Bush administration has been manipulating Iraqi media for propaganda purposes, but the U.S. maintains an independent fourth estate. At least, it’s supposed to.

Many of these retired military commanders knew they were being manipulated by the administration, and knew they were telling the public misleading information, but felt compelled to play along anyway.

For five years, these men have been dominating the airwaves, telling Americans that we’re “winning,” that the Bush policy is “working,” and that the media is ignoring the “good news.” It wasn’t true, as some of them are now willing to admit.

But as offensive as it is to learn about the retired military leaders regurgitating White House talking points for fear of losing lucrative contracts, it’s even more offensive that the Bush gang would view retired commanders as puppets, and the public as suckers.

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