I was recently reading a Facebook post about President Obama's comments on the 2006 budget/debt ceiling debate. I'll save the details for another post but the gist was raising the debt ceiling is a failure of leadership (then President Bush) that was going to be carried on the backs of our children. Obviously President Obama's opinion on the subject has changed. Considering some of the other economic challenges over the last three years like 15% real unemployment, $4 gasoline and spiraling health care costs, whoever wins the Republican nomination will have quite an arsenal of statistics to contrast in the election debates.
The topic of campaign slogans comes to mind. What type of campaign slogan would allow the eventual nominee to distinguish himself from the current administration's failures? The best I can come up with is, "Hope and Change", but it seems like I've heard that before somewhere...
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Initial thoughts on the Obama 2012 budget proposal...
So I've been reading a little bit of the White House's 2012 budget. Aside from the typical rhetoric from both sides, a couple things stick out to me that don't seem to be well reported.
It's no secret that any claimed balance in this proposal will be on the backs of America's wealthy. Taxes on dividends seem to be increasing in some cases 300% from the current 15% rate to 45.6%. With a 1.3 trillion proposed deficit, if you take 100% of the income of those making over $1 million per year you couldn't balance the current budget. The White House is claiming some balance via a tax increase over the next 10 years. One could actually take the position this budget is balanced because the $1.3 tril is offset by 10 years of revenue increases. My question to those who see this as reasonable is: With this spending trajectory, how are you going to balance the 2013 budget? You just gigged the rich with a 300% increase. Do you intend to do the same thing again and effectively raise it to 95.2% of dividends to pay for 2013? What happens when we run out of rich people?
Perhaps the intent is to use 20 years of revenue increases at the same rate to pay for 2013 and then 30 years of revenue for 2014? This 10 year view keeps being exploited to rationalize very bad decisions today.
Perhaps we are wagering by making ourselves comfortable today that our GDP will magically double in the next couple years?
I just don’t get it.
It's no secret that any claimed balance in this proposal will be on the backs of America's wealthy. Taxes on dividends seem to be increasing in some cases 300% from the current 15% rate to 45.6%. With a 1.3 trillion proposed deficit, if you take 100% of the income of those making over $1 million per year you couldn't balance the current budget. The White House is claiming some balance via a tax increase over the next 10 years. One could actually take the position this budget is balanced because the $1.3 tril is offset by 10 years of revenue increases. My question to those who see this as reasonable is: With this spending trajectory, how are you going to balance the 2013 budget? You just gigged the rich with a 300% increase. Do you intend to do the same thing again and effectively raise it to 95.2% of dividends to pay for 2013? What happens when we run out of rich people?
Perhaps the intent is to use 20 years of revenue increases at the same rate to pay for 2013 and then 30 years of revenue for 2014? This 10 year view keeps being exploited to rationalize very bad decisions today.
Perhaps we are wagering by making ourselves comfortable today that our GDP will magically double in the next couple years?
I just don’t get it.
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