He doesn’t have one:
The president keeps promoting an “adult conversation” about the budget, but that can’t happen if the First Adult doesn’t play his part. Obama is eager to be all things to all people. He’s against the debt and its adverse consequences, but he’s for preserving Social Security and Medicare without major changes. He’s for “tough cuts,” but he’s against saying what they are and defending them. He pronounces ambitious goals without saying how they’d be reached. Mainly, he’s for scoring political points against Republicans.
And doesn’t really want one.
That’s been obvious for a long time. Reducing the deficit will require cutting non-defense spending and entitlements, and Democrats can’t bring themselves to do it. People forget, but Bill Clinton never had a plan to balance the budget, either. He was forced to do it by a Republican congress.
[Mid-morning update]
He may not have a plan to eliminate the deficit, but he sure had one to jack up gas prices, and it’s working pretty damned well.
[Update a couple minutes later]
Jim Manzi has some thoughts on demand elasticity of fuel, and why forcing the prices higher is not a good way to wean ourselves off fossil fuels.
[Another update a couple minutes more later]
Why have taxes at all? Why even have a debt limit? Keynesianism has failed, and the “liberals” remain economically incoherent.
[Update a while later]
Because most Americans aren’t as stupid as the Democrats want us to be, they think that the problem is too much spending, not taxes too low.
Chris, you’ll be happy to hear that Obama has come up with a stroke of sheer genius: he’s calling for an end to tax breaks for oil companies!
So that means the oil companies will just jack up their prices by the amount of the taxes they’ll have to pay, thus serving as a tax collector for the government. Since there’s no price elasticity associated with gasoline, tax revenue to the government will go up on a dollar-for-dollar basis. Sheer genius on the part of that Obama, to impose taxes on everyone (including the poor) by appearing to punish the oil companies….
But wait…wasn’t it the One Himself who sought to drive up the cost of energy so people would use less of it? Yes, I believe it was. He couldn’t be so stupid as to think that charging more for something would cause people to use less of it, could he? I mean, a genius who could raise his billable rates from $100 to $125 an hour without losing business (and who agrees with every single utterance of the One) could prove that wrong in a heartbeat.
Oh, dear, we have a seeming contradiction here. It just can’t be that Obama would make such mistakes. It must be Bush’s fault,that’s all I can think of.
By the way, I admire your ability to get paid at all, let alone $125 an hour. Do let me know who pays you this, though, so I can be sure to never rely on their judgment for anything whatsoever…
MfK – by your logic we shouldn’t tax any company anything, since they’ll just jack up their prices to cover the tax. Of course, this assumes that their market is inelastic enough that everybody will have to pay the price.
Or, more likely, pricing and purchasing decisions are made based on a number of factors, including but not limited to value of services and viability of alternatives.
The reason I was able to get the billable hour rate increase was because my competition was charging $135/hour for similar skill levels. When evaluating pricing and tax rates, the viability of alternatives has to be a factor.
Or shorter – a 3% tax rate increase is not going to cause people to flee to Brazil.
“MfK – by your logic we shouldn’t tax any company anything, since they’ll just jack up their prices to cover the tax.”
The One’s logic (and mine, by extension) is exactly the opposite. Tax corporations whatever you want, because they’ll collect it from their customers. They *have* to. There isn’t any choice in that matter. If your Messiah decided to charge you a tax of $125 per hour, you’d either go into another line of business, or raise your rate to $225 an hour to stay even. Would it hurt your business? Well, that’s not B.O.’s concern because he just wants to balance the budget. You’ll figure out something, somehow.
Chris Gerrib wrote “My math is 37+11=47% of Americans support tax hikes. Looks pretty even to me.”
Here’s the whole paragraph in USA Today:
“When it comes to solving the deficit problem, about half of Americans, 48%, want to do it entirely or mostly with spending cuts. Some 37% support an equal mix of spending cuts and tax increases; 11% prefer mostly tax hikes.”
By the same logic, Chris, 85% want spending cuts. But you didn’t mention that part.
At some point you have to stop lying to yourself. There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.
Or shorter – a 3% tax rate increase is not going to cause people to flee to Brazil.
But it does have people retire 3% earlier. And spend 3% more effort forming the ‘Mr. Moneygrubber Trust Fund’. And perform 3% more nepotism to shuffle money along that way. And work 3% less a year.
This doesn’t “boost revenue”.
This also doesn’t “boost GDP”.
we shouldn’t tax any company
That is correct. We should not. It’s just a way, like quantitive easing, of taxing people without visibility. Rather than demagoguing, adults should face the truth… the government takes money away from them all year and not just in the middle of April.
This is one of the strongest arguments for the fair tax. Note that opponents talk about how large the fair tax would be, yet it’s revenue neutral which means? (exercise for the reader.)
“Or shorter – a 3% tax rate increase is not going to cause people to flee to Brazil.”
Nice strawman. The point is not whether they’ll leave but move money to avoid the tax which happens every time the rate increases. You keep beating that dead horse. Enjoy the dogma.
The reason I was able to get the billable hour rate increase was because my competition was charging $135/hour for similar skill levels. When evaluating pricing and tax rates, the viability of alternatives has to be a factor.
Which proves the point that Gerrib doesn’t understand pricing. Gerrib was able to raise his rates because a competitor raised their rates. If what he says is true, that his increase of 25% an hour meant no loss in customers, it is because his competitor priced himself out of the market. The problem is Gerrib’s market is limited, and he thinks his micro-economic example translates into a macro-economic reality.
If the US raises its tax rate “on the rich”, the rich will simply move their assets to a lower tax rate. Please, don’t take my word for it, go read about John Kerry moving his yacht.
All it would have taken to destroy Gerrib’s economy is to come in to the market at a lower price. Please, don’t take my word for it, go read about China and India.
Ack, shouldn’t have included the last sentence. It crosses streams and will probably confuse Gerrib.
Leland – news flash – people don’t make decisions based solely on price. If they did, there would be only one brand for each product or service: the cheapest one. Regarding “limited market” – I was an IT network consultant in Chicago, the 3rd largest city in the US. At the time I had thousands of competitors, including Indian firms.
Ed Minchau – I never said I was against spending cuts. In fact, on my blog yesterday I reiterated my support for spending cuts. I am, however, not prepared to gut Medicare to get a tax break.
Al & Bill Maron – it’s not like we have to study ancient history to see the impact of Clinton’s tax rates. I was alive and paying taxes then, and there was no massive effort to hide money from the tax man. If your theory doesn’t match reality, change the theory, because reality isn’t going to change.
Chris Gerrib Says:
“it’s not like we have to study ancient history to see the impact of Clinton’s tax rates. I was alive and paying taxes then, and there was no massive effort to hide money from the tax man.”
How would you know?
I was an IT network consultant in Chicago
And if the market was so good to you because you provided such excellent service for the price, why are you a has been?
Leland – because I got a better job as IT director at a bank. Less driving around Chicago, more money and more vacation.
Do you have a job, or do you live in your parent’s basement?
Of course I have a job, and apparently it pays more than yours. But that has nothing to do with the issue.
You got a better job, because someone else offered you better conditions: more money/more vacation. The wonder is why you think offering a worse condition (e.g. higher taxes) wouldn’t cause others to make changes. It’s like you have this fantasy that everyone else is stupid, and your the only smart person that knows how take advantage of a better situation. As I said before, keep that thought, and we’ll see you in 2012.
Chris, 90% gets you a massive effort that you might notice on an individual level. (The proposed Democratic budget plan actually reaches this, but it isn’t a real plan. It’s so Obama’s looks sane.)
3% gets you a … 3% effort. And it’s collective, not ‘per individual’. There’s no insane “Oh crap, how do I hide precisely 3% more from the evil govt” spreadsheet. It’s just what happens collectively.
A mild tax increase when you have a roaring economy and a “peace dividend” to spend is not anathema to me. No one -cares- if you retire 3% early, or work 3% less – because collectively things are rolling along fine, and someone will take the risk of replacing whatever it was you provided to society.
But even a mild tax increase when the economy is stuttering along is not the plan. Taxes are “the brakes”. In a near-recession, people don’t generally respond to the corner store going out of business by instantly buying up the lot, building and furnishings with the attitude “I can do that better!”. They’re hunkered down holding on to what they’ve got thus far, and hoping better times will come.
If you wanted to put the entire Bush Tax Cut (I & II) on a trigger based on growth-of-GDP, I could go for that. Just be warned in advance that I’ll slap the label “Biggest tax increase on the poor, evar” on you.
Chris said:
“I was an IT network consultant in Chicago”
“I got a better job as IT director at a bank.”
“In any business I’ve ever been involved in, a 3% price increase usually results in a 3% increase in revenue. ”
“you’re talking to a guy who boosted his top billable rate from $100/hour to $125/hour and didn’t loose a customer.”
“The reason I was able to get the billable hour rate increase was because my competition was charging $135/hour for similar skill levels.”
I was wondering when you worked as a consultant. So I looked at your profile and saw you worked in the 1990’s as a IT consultant and since 2000 at a bank.
This would explain why your work experience as a IT consultant during the dot.com bubble, where you could raise your rates, while undercutting you competitors by about 10%, and not lose customers, suggest to you that other companies and individuals that are working with much smaller profit margins while struggling with increase costs from taxes, regulations and ferderally mandated health care obligations in a down economy will be able and willing to absorb a increase in tax rates.
Thank you for explaining that.