Comments on: How to reveal your pet economic theory is a crock in one sentence.

By: Alan Scott

Alan Scott — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 00:25:38 +0000

I predict that as the mid term elections get closer and the economy improves too slowly, President Obama will start sounding like a supply side Republican. You socialists will be more angry with him over this than even the 30,000 extra troops he is sending to Afghanistan.

Actually it is the only thing that could save his Presidency. Will he be a realist like Bill Clinton and get reelected, or will he cling to his impractical principles and be Jimmy Carter II.

It should be great theater to watch the Comrades turn on him, if he does veer right.

By: Mark Manoil

Mark Manoil — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 04:54:37 +0000

A longer, more detailed version of my argument:
http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/fromcomments/280806.php

By: Mark Manoil

Mark Manoil — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 04:48:06 +0000

Jon Talton calls them the Kookacracy, but that’s making light of the real damage you identify. Tax cutting has been in vogue 20-30 years, but in Arizona it is pretty much irreversible, because of a 1992 Constitutional amendment that requires 2/3 approval by both houses of the legislature for any tax increase. One might ask if such numbers could be made up of Dems and moderate Republicans, but our legislative friends say the latter group just don’t exist. In the short term we need to elect more statesmen and stateswomen; and then we need to repeal the ’92 amendment so that our legislature has something more than stale ideology with which to govern.

By: Timmys Cat

Timmys Cat — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 17:07:43 +0000

Ahhh, the old Republican trickle down trick. What they don’t want you to notice is what’s trickling down.

By: Eli_Blake

Eli_Blake — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 03:28:18 +0000

Tax cuts, trickle down, deregulate.

Yup.

Tax cuts: made the rich richer, and they banked it in offshore bank accounts.

Trickle down: actually has something to it, only not what they told us. The theory is that when businesses have more money in their pocket they will invest it in ways that grow their companies and create jobs. Which is exactly what has happened with the Bush tax cuts during the 2000′s, and they invested in factories and call centers where (just as the market would predict!) labor was the cheapest. In Asia. So we added $1.3 trillion to the national debt to finance shipping millions of (previously) American jobs to Shanghai and Mumbai.

Deregulate: S&L crisis, Michael Milken, Enron, World Com, Bernie Madoff, subprime mortgages, housing bubble, bailouts… (need we say more?)

By: todd

todd — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 17:57:55 +0000

Donna – I know the theory is largely wrong, just pointing out how doubly wrong that makes Pierce.

By: dude

dude — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 17:14:37 +0000

We’ve been cutting taxes to stimulate the economy for close to 30 years now, which is why the biggest problem our state government is facing in this recession is how to get rid of the trillions of dollars in surplus revenue we’ve accumulated. Right?

By: Donna

Donna — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 05:05:29 +0000

But Todd, the economic theory they are espousing was massively wrong to begin with. The notion that amassing the lion’s share of wealth into the hands of the upper elites leads to prosperity for everyone has been exposed as a ridiculous lie throughout human history. If you don’t attach conditions on it there’s nothing stopping them from sitting on it, gambling it on high-risk investments, or using it to create low wage jobs elsewhere. Back during the Eisenhower administration when the wealthiest Americans had a 90% marginal tax rate, barely any of them paid it. They avoided it by investing their profits back into the American economy. Rich people still enjoyed a very nice lifestyle.

By: todd

todd — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 03:02:42 +0000

As Laffer has said – “The Laffer Curve should not be the reason you raise or lower taxes.”

Anyways, as usual these conservatives don’t even understand the basics of the economic theory they espouse, regardless of whether the theory is right or wrong. In fact the Laffer curve would actually predict a loss of revenue based on the amount of taxes currently being paid. Ooops.

Both Pierce and Pearce have put out this idea of ignoring maintenance of effort requirements which would mean a further loss of federal dollars and a larger hole to fill.