Taking responsibility fo Bush

Posted on 5/15/2008 by John Rove

Ezra Klein looks at how we got Bushed and asks if the country has learned its lesson. My guess is “no”. Conservatives like Grover Norquist and other architects of Bush’s failed administration will never admit that conservitism is a failure. I think it was Rudy Guiliani who kept spouting off about the need for further tax cuts to reduce the deficit. Conservatives seem to believe that tax cuts are some sort of revenue machine so of course they spend while in power, why not they can magically generate money by cutting taxes.
Almost all the thinking behind the conservative movement involves some sort of magical thinking, “if we remove regulation businesses will suddenly do the right thing, and cut prices at the same time”. “If we invade a country and destroy most of the infrastructure a functioning democracy will magically appear”.
Most conservatives argue tht Bush failed conservatism, it seems more like conservatism failed Bush.

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9 Responses to Taking responsibility fo Bush

  1. caveat bettor says:
    5/16/2008 at 11:29 am

    JR, have you looked at revenue trends since the 2003 tax cuts took effect?

    Here is why federal revenues have been up so much:
    http://www.optimist123.com/optimist/2007/04/the_curse_of_th.html

    In sum, people respond to incentives (i.e. they want to make more money, and get stuff cheaper). Also, economic growth fuels revenue better than raising rates, as the former enjoys compound growth.

  2. John Rove says:
    5/16/2008 at 12:03 pm

    Hey CR:

    The link you sent me sounds more like psychology than economics, here for example:

    citeNotice what it does not say: “Tax cuts will pay for themselves before the next election.” (More on that later.) It also does not say: “Tax cuts will always generate more federal revenue, no matter how low the new rate.” It merely says that tax rate cuts increase the private sector players’ incentives to work harder and innovate—i.e., to grow their own incomes, and thereby the whole economy.

    Not only is the fundamental supply-side idea simple and intuitive, it’s also impossible for anyone to dismiss it as “false”—and still maintain their credibility. (Try thinking of a way to falsify the underlying hypothesis: “People respond to incentives.” If you can think of a way, please go immediately to the comments section and tell me what it is.)

    This part is my respense for some reason I canot get it to format right .
    This seems to be saying that people are going to work harder for more money, if anything I would think for most people lowering the taxes someone pays might encourage them to work less.
    For example if someone makes $10 per hour and pays 20% in taxes(I know the numbers are not realistic but they are easy to work with) in one month the person would gross $1600 and take home $1280(1600-(1600*.20). If you lowered the person tax rate to 10% they could take home the same amount of money by working approximately 142 hours per month. I didn’t have a calculator handy but if you worked 142 hours at $10 per hour that would be $1420 times a tax rate of 10% would mean a take home of $1278 and you could work 18 less hours.
    I am not sure that working less is a bad thing or that it would always happen that way but the article you linked to seems to assume everyone would have incentive to act in a certain way and that is not the case.

  3. John Rove says:
    5/16/2008 at 1:24 pm

    Hey Mr Bettor:

    It would also seem that a bigger drain on the “welfare” of most people would be crushing student debt and the costs of health care. Rather than worrying taxes it might make sense to find ways to provide health care for everyone and reduce the cost of education so everyone can go to college without getting loans to pay for it.

    Conservatism is a bad idea, it leads to failed foreign policy and economic depression. Bush was a great conservative and only about 20% of the country likes what he did over the last 8 years, maybe it is time to end the Goldwater experiment.

  4. caveat bettor says:
    5/23/2008 at 10:05 pm

    JR: you are citing hyperinflationary sectors, i.e. healthcare and education. Riddle me this: which sectors are most heavily subsidized by the government?

  5. John Rove says:
    5/24/2008 at 1:25 am

    Both health care and higher ed have gone through a period of privatization since the eighties, it seems like the profit motiv might be what is driving unreasonable price increases.

    Especially with higher ed I would argue that a lot of the cost increases can be attributed to people getting loans to attend school. If you are borrowing money for some reason it is easier to spend more of it, so people don’t notice how expensive college has become; and don’t seem to question what they are getting for their money.

  6. caveat bettor says:
    5/29/2008 at 10:53 pm

    The profit motive exists, I completely agree. It’s the subsidies that bloat up the prices, my well intentioned bud.

  7. John Rove says:
    5/30/2008 at 11:14 am

    Hey Mr Bettor:
    I am working on a project for another group, where we are looking at travel expenses for a large University. I am starting to notice that most the expenses are paid by private companies and then these private companies are given axcess to University facilities. The ROI for these private companies is huge, as they give a few thousand in travel expenses and in return they are getting to use millions of dollars in equipment.
    It seems like we have created a method for funnelling a lot of money to private industry while giving some college administraters a lot of perks, the real losers are the sudents and the public.

  8. caveat bettor says:
    6/2/2008 at 5:25 pm

    Mr. JR:

    What are the corporate taxes that these private companies are paying? It’s easy to make any point if one hides one side of the ledger, now, isn’t it?

  9. John Rove says:
    6/2/2008 at 6:25 pm

    That was one of the interesting things with this project, the private companies were avoiding use tax by using the universities tax id number.

    In a more direct answer to your question, while you are right that company paid taxes which may have indirectly gone to the university, they are in effect bribing a public official to get “special access” to a restricted access public facility. Sort of like me trying to sleep in the governors mansion because my taxes help pay for it. If I slip a security guard a few extra bucks to let me in I am pretty sure their is a law violation going on.

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