Boehner’s Plan Will Do

[Geee]

National Review:


Many of us never thought that the Republicans would hold tough long enough to get President Obama and the Democrats to agree to a budget deal that does not include raising income-tax rates. But they did — and Speaker of the House John Boehner no doubt deserves much of the credit for that.

Despite the widespread notion that raising tax rates automatically means collecting more revenue for the government, history says otherwise. As far back as the 1920s, Secretary of the Treasury Andrew Mellon pointed out that the government received a very similar amount of revenue from high-income earners at low tax rates as it did at tax rates several times as high.

How was that possible? Because high tax rates drive investors into tax shelters, such as tax-exempt bonds. Today, as a result of globalization and electronic transfers of money, “the rich” are even less likely to stand still and be sheared like sheep, when they can easily send their money overseas, to places where tax rates are lower.
Money sent overseas creates jobs overseas — and American workers cannot transfer themselves overseas to get those jobs as readily as investors can send their money there.

All the overheated political rhetoric about needing to tax “millionaires and billionaires” is not about bringing in more revenue to the government. It is about bringing in more votes for politicians who stir up class warfare with rhetoric.

Now that the Republicans seem to have gotten the Democrats off their higher-taxes kick, the question is whether a minority of the House Republicans will refuse to pass the Boehner legislation. Boehner’s plan could lead to a deal that will spare the country a major economic disruption and spare the Republicans from losing the 2012 elections by being blamed — rightly or wrongly — for the disruptions.

Is the Boehner legislation the best legislation possible? Of course not! You don’t get your heart’s desire when you control only one house of Congress and face a presidential veto.

The most basic fact of life is that we can make our choices only among the alternatives actually available. It is not idealism to ignore the limits of one’s power. Nor is it selling out one’s principles to recognize those limits at a given time and place, and get the best deal possible under those conditions.

[pollyannaish]

I may be in the minority here, but I agree with Sowell, Krauthammer, Medved and others on this.

 

We need to vote this through. At some point, you DO have to understand that our constitution means it when it says we have a divided government and that average Americans tend to be happy with incremental change and uncomfortable with radical change. We must be REALISTIC and not once again let the perfect become the enemy of the good.

 

Right now, I'll settle for some reductions and no new taxes...plus a shot at winning the White House in 2012 with a candidate that is SERIOUS and ENGAGED in working on changing the crap that has been going on for half a century. This did not happen overnight, it can not be fixed over night.

 

I hope that naivete and stubborness does not blow our shot at 2012. I PRAY it doesn't because another win is our ONLY hope.

[Argyle58]

I may be in the minority here, but I agree with Sowell, Krauthammer, Medved and others on this.

 

We need to vote this through. At some point, you DO have to understand that our constitution means it when it says we have a divided government and that average Americans tend to be happy with incremental change and uncomfortable with radical change. We must be REALISTIC and not once again let the perfect become the enemy of the good.

 

Right now, I'll settle for some reductions and no new taxes...plus a shot at winning the White House in 2012 with a candidate that is SERIOUS and ENGAGED in working on changing the crap that has been going on for half a century. This did not happen overnight, it can not be fixed over night.

 

I hope that naivete and stubborness does not blow our shot at 2012. I PRAY it doesn't because another win is our ONLY hope.

 

I agree, but would add that it is hard to pin the "Obstructionist" label on the party who is presenting plan after plan, and the Dims are the ones who won't play ball.

[Pepper]

I am with Obama on this. He's the only one presenting a plan. The others are fighting like children.

 

 

Today is George Costanza Opposite Day

[Rheo]

I am with Obama on this. He's the only one presenting a plan. The others are fighting like children.

 

 

Today is George Costanza Opposite Day

[SrWoodchuck]

From one of the Tea Party Hobbit's [Me]:

 

 

 

H/T:WeazelZippers

[cudjo]

Pollyannish -- well said

[Argyle58]

From the Cato Institute:

 

http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/boehners-new-plan-doesnt-cut-spending/

 

 

Boehner’s New Plan Doesn’t Cut Spending

Posted by Chris Edwards

 

House Speaker John Boehner has revised his budget plan in response to an unfavorable analysis by the CBO. The CBO has examined Boehner’s new plan and finds that it would cut spending by $917 billion over 10 years. Of the total, only $761 billion would be cuts to programs. The rest of the savings would be from reduced interest costs.

 

Actually, the revised Boehner plan doesn’t cut spending at all. The chart shows the discretionary spending caps in the new Boehner plan. Spending increases every year—from $1.043 trillion in 2012 to $1.234 trillion in 2021. (These figures exclude the costs of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan).

 

The “cuts” in the Boehner plan are only cuts from the CBO baseline, which is an assumed path of constantly rising spending. If Congress wanted to, it could require CBO to increase its “baseline” spending by, say, $5 trillion over the next decade. Then Boehner could claim that he was “cutting” spending by $5.9 trillion, even though his plan hadn’t changed. You can see that discretionary “cuts” against baselines don’t mean anything.

 

There is a graph and video at the link.

[Valin]

I may be in the minority here, but I agree with Sowell, Krauthammer, Medved and others on this.

 

 

If I may quote David Limbaugh "Conservatives seem to be evenly divided on whether or not to support House Speaker John Boehner's budgetary plan to avoid a debt ceiling impasse. But the level of vitriol back and forth is increasing, with one side calling the other "crazy" and the other shouting back "RINOs," or Republicans in name only.

 

I believe both sides are acting honorably; they mostly agree on goals and disagree on tactics. But it's a bit more complicated than that. They also differ somewhat in their operating assumptions."