The only good ideas are the ones I can take credit for.
R. Stevens
Tax Cuts, Deregulation and the Economic Tsunami :
Part 2
Part 1 is available here. I'm reviewing the baseless leftist Obama propaganda talking point that poorly defined "Bush policies" were responsible for the tsunami. Kessler pointed out the tax cut allegation of and by itself was a whopper (the worst rating), pointing out a bipartisan investigatory commission on the tsunami didn't even mention taxes in its voluminous report. Kessler decided to curve its final ads' rating on the passing references by Clinton and Obama to regulation. But even that is disputable: you can dispute that by distinguishing among rhetoric, published policy and performance, Bush talked but didn't deliver on a conservative agenda (he grossly overspent (including an unpaid for Medicare drug benefit), did little to restore federalist balance--in fact he vastly expanded federal involvement in education while Reagan wanted to eliminate the Department of Education. But as I've pointed out in past, federal regulations expanded vs. contracted under Bush, and Bush unsuccessfully pushed for GSE reforms.
I wanted to respond to the Obama campaign's response that Kessler simply presents without further comment:
Obama campaign deputy press secretary Kara Carscaden defended the president’s remarks and issued this response:
“While Reagan made ‘trickle down’ famous for tax cuts, the theory is that economic growth is driven by the top. Those like Romney who favor repealing Wall Street reform share the same theory — roll back the rules because when a few people at the top do very well, they will somehow pull the rest of us along.
“The tax cuts contributed to the crisis in multiple ways, including by driving up the deficit, crowding out potential investments that could have promoted sustainable, shared economic growth and leaving the economy vulnerable to speculation-fueled bubbles and high middle-class indebtedness. And they made it more difficult for the federal government to respond to a crisis because it was already facing very high deficits.
“The president’s argument — that our country is stronger when we invest in the middle class rather than cut taxes to the top — is the broad, philosophic question facing our country right now.As Kessler pointed out earlier: “trickle down” is Democratic pejorative for “tax cuts for the rich.” The so-called "theory" is based on the fact income taxes are inefficient It's based on the law of supply and demand and other basic economic principles The Obama campaign ignores the fact the current tax scheme rewards consumption over investment. There are risks to investment , the seed corn of future business growth. Taxes are costs. They raise the bar as to businesses decisions. There are studies that the economically successful adjust relevant decisions for a particular effective tax rate. But as I pointed out yesterday, this goes beyond theory, federal revenues have not collapsed after upper-level rates dropped in the 20's, 40's, 60's, and 80's. like WalMart makes big profits in volume of discounted merchandise, federal revenues of higher growth make up for the margin loss on volume.
New businesses start from scratch all the time; they pay taxes and employ people that pay taxes. but going back to the propaganda, money is fungible. when excess taxes are plundered, they take away money available from use in the more effective, efficient private sector. For the most spendthrift President in history to be lecturing others on the deficit takes pure chutzpah.
Also, the Obama campaign hypocritically says the quarter of tax "cuts" (i.e., from Clinton's tax hikes, which actually lasted for only 2 terms) going to the people who already pay the highest aren't paid for while the 75% going to lower incomes are is arbitrary and unjust from the get-go. And, of course, these hypocrites ignore the reasons Obama has already doubled publicly held debt and his own unrealistic rosy growth projections include trillion dollar deficits as far as the eye can see, not to mention the driving factors are in healthcare and senior entitlements (the latter over $40T in unpaid for liabilities.not to mention the only reason interest payments are manageable is because of historically low Fed interest rates).
"Invest" is something better done in the private sector not frittered away by politicians and bureaucrats. "Invest in the middle class" is shorthand for socialiist redistribution. I am confident the American people are repelled by Obama's redistribution philosophy which is why Obama and his fellow brainwashed statist allies have to falsely posture as centrists versus directly inoke socialist dogma.
Public School Teachers: Their vs. Student Interests
I know firsthand that life isn't fair. in the private sector I'll give one example I may have published in the past. In 2001 I returned to the Chicago west suburbs to replace the vacated tech lead position on a then behind schedule Milwaukee county suburb project (an 83-mile commute); I had responded to the consulting company's posting for an Austin, TX project; the Indian-American consulting company wasn't ready to staff Austin; the flagship project in Wisconsin they used to win the Austin project was failing, and they talked me into rescuing the project. The company's President wanted me to move which he considered cheaper than paying travel, and negotiated a salary in bad faith where he promised to make up in a bonus for the low salary they were offering . (The company would later renege on the bonus, saying their employee handbook denied bonuses on flat-bid projects, something the company president did not mention during negotiation.)
I had to be on site at 7:30 AM to make sure the test upgraded ERP database and related services were up after county-responsibility overnight backups by the client DBA's {this had to do with the fact they lazily and incompetently sometimes used the root/privileged account to do things which overwrote permissions on key application files, which affected the ability to restart application processes). Any maintenance work like patching (sometimes hours long) had to wait until 7 PM. I was on straight salary. I had been promised a bonus which never happened (see above). Our contract called for me to walk the 2 county female DBA's separately through the upgrade processes which took several hours over days,
So right in the middle of my walking the second DBA, through the process without even the courtesy of notifying me, she disappeared.. I was in the middle of something else that needed to be done when she finally showed up, explaining she had an appointment to have her dog's nails clipped
So the next day my teammates and I stopped at one of the men's restrooms on our way out of the courthouse to get fast food for lunch, and I said, "You guys will never guess why I had to work late last night..." No personal attack, just explaining the dog nail clipping bit.
Not being a pervert or paranoid, I didn't check to see if the stalls were occupied and/or others were eavesdropping on the conversation. It turned out the county IT manager was in one of the stalls and thought my comments were out of line, that I was overstepping my bounds at a county government as a "guest"--and wanted me walked off the project immediately (which would have meant my immediate termination). (This was the same guy whom refused to honor an invoice when, because of failed RAID storage and incompetent backup procedure, by contract the county's responsibility) had me reinstalling ERP software and patches all weekend because a critical test was scheduled that Monday. His reaction? Crap happens, and we negotiated a flat-bid contract--at my personal expense; my company, hoping to win a "phase 2" project, let it slide although the county was in breach of contract. ). So the contractor management was willing to throw me under the bus except firing me meant a costly project delay neither side wanted, My management wanted me to be low-profile for the rest of the project and to keep my mouth shut while in the bathroom. Of course, I was in a cubicle next to a county IT worker whom often got verbally abusive with incompetent Oracle Support analysts. I'm talking explicit profanity everyone could overhear. (I've had my own negative experiences with bad analysts: they would get upset at me because I don't suffer fools gladly, especially in dealing with production issues, and I would escalate issues to more senior analysts.) So when Walker took on indulgent civil servants I was like, I have my own stories as a UWM professor and a county contractor,.
One of the things I remember about 9/11 was I think I was the only one working on the floor. The civil servants had brought in portable TV's. One of my Indian project colleagues lived locally (the contractor wanted me to do that but they were headquartered out of a distant Chicago suburb and the county was their only Wisconsin customer). He normally showed up around 9 AM, and I think he had been watching the Today Show and broke the news to the rest of us.
I didn't find a soft copy of reporter Kennedy employer bill of rights but I can guess--flexible hiring, assignment, compensation and retention, work condition requirements (e.g., road warrior lifestyle for consultants, etc.), but I remember Beck on his old TV show covered FDR's second bill of rights and I published at least one post on the subject. I would fight this ideological nonsense (e.g., guaranteed job, so-called living wage, etc.) which would likely result in permanently sticky high unemployment like in France. Job growth is like losing weight or relationships; artificial rules impeding economic liberty obfuscate the private sector.
Musical Interlude: My Favorite Group
ZZ Top, "Legs"
