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Like *not* spending trillions of dollars on stimulus and health care bills?
So directly putting money towards guaranteed job creation is bad, but giving money to the rich and hoping they'll spending it creating jobs is good? You don't see any logic issue here?
healthcare:
CBO wrote:
CBO and the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) estimate that enacting both pieces of legislation will produce a net reduction in federal deficits of $143 billion over the 2010-2019 period. About $124 billion of that savings stems from provisions dealing with health care and federal revenues; the other $19 billion results from the education provisions.
Provided, of course, we don't do something epically retarded and neuter the paid for cost saving measures to score political points before they actually have a chance to (more than) pay for themselves.
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fair tax being a separate issue
I was replying to Var, so it wasn't a separate issue, it was what I was talking about (not that it isn't applicable).
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We're already (temporarily) waaaaaaaay on the wrong side of the Laffer curve. Raising taxes will have a negative effect on total revenue over time.
no, on both counts.
[1] [2] The Bush tax cuts had a negligible to poor effect on
long term economic growth when they were implemented. Effective tax rate on the rich is a poor promoter of economic growth (making a higher net income is still a desirable state even if you take home a small percentage of your total gross income), while decreased lending and economic instability caused by rising debts actually discourage people from starting and expanding businesses.
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The reality is that when a bunch of rich people lost a bunch of money it did lead to ~10% unemployment over about an 18 month time period.
The rich lost a bunch of money because the lower classes weren't able to keep up with how much they were being taken advantage of by creditors and were unable to pay them back for things like houses and loans and non-essentials. Then, the creditors were in trouble because they also overextended themselves thinking the lower classes could keep paying them money they didn't have indefinitely.
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Want to rethink the whole "trickle down economics doesn't work" bit? Cause it's getting really stale
I'll stop saying it when it stops being true. You give a rich person 100$ and they'll save it away as they don't "need" it for anything, you give a poor person 100$ and they'll spend it immediately. Which do you really think boosts the economy more?