Sunday, March 4, 2012

Secretary of the Blood and Treasury

The way that I see it, folks, most of George W. Bush's major transgressions came in the realm of foreign policy. I mean, certainly, the dude spent exorbitantly domestically (non-defense discretionary and entitlement spending both skyrocketed under Bush), too, and the now infamous tax-cuts may or may not have been the wisest course of action (this, though revenues actually skyrocketed between 2003 and 2007) but, please. These two massive open-ended wars - not only did they not really resolve anything, they also may have been one of the key driving forces (along, of course, with the idiotic interest-rate policies of Greenspan and Bernanke) of our 2008 economic collapse - hundreds of billions, possibly trillions squandered. And the fact that we're STILL not entirely sure how it's all gonna play out. That perhaps more so than anything else.....

10 comments:

Les Carpenter said...

Interesting, and I might add fairly accurate commentary.

Will "take no prisoners" Hart said...

It didn't take a rocket-scientist to figure out what was going to happen after we left Iraq. And, sure enough....

dmarks said...

The cost of the wars is about $1.3 trillion. Between them, Obama and Bush have added about 10 trillion to the debt (with Obama starting to edge out Bush).

So once you get rid of that, you still have the vast majority of the debt problem.

Dervish Sanders said...

Get rid of the bush tax cuts.

Will "take no prisoners" Hart said...

I think that a large chunk of the deficits are the result of the recession, more so than the result of overspending (not at all to minimize this factor, mind you).......wd, I'm in favor of the top rates going back to 39.6% (maybe upping the threshold from $250,00 to $300-400,000), and the rest of the rates to possibly go up eventually. Just not now in the middle of a weak recovery.

Dervish Sanders said...

The low tax rates are the reason for the weak recovery.

Will "take no prisoners" Hart said...

Yeah, let's take MORE money out of consumption and investment and give it to the slovenly bureaucrats instead. Capital idea!

Dervish Sanders said...

Will: Yeah, let's take MORE money out of consumption and investment and give it to the slovenly bureaucrats instead. Capital idea!

You're responding to my comment? I didn't suggest taking money out of comsumption or investment, or giving it to "slovenly bureaucrats". I agree that we need more money put into consumption and encourage investement. Which is why we need to RAISE TAXES.

David Sirota explains with an article titled, "Are too-low taxes exacerbating the recession?"

The answer is YES. Sirota writes: "Though the Reagan zeitgeist created the illusion that taxes stunt economic growth, the numbers prove that higher marginal tax rates generate more resources for the job-creating, wage-generating public investments (roads, bridges, broadband, etc.) that sustain an economy. They also create economic incentives for economy-sustaining capital investment. Indeed, the easiest way wealthy business owners can avoid high-bracket tax rates is by plowing their profits back into their businesses and taking the corresponding write-off rather than simply pocketing the excess cash and paying an IRS levy".

Will "take no prisoners" Hart said...

That's a minority opinion, wd. I agree that taxes need to ulimately go up but taking more money out of the private sector during a piss-poor recovery is probably foolheartedly and the President himself evidently agrees with me (he only wants to raise the top tax rates).

Dervish Sanders said...

Will: That's a minority opinion...

It isn't an "opinion", it's a fact.