Raise taxes on foreign income, ship more jobs overseas
President Obama says he wants to stop giving “tax breaks” that encourage American companies to “ship jobs overseas.” Like a lot of protectionist rhetoric, it has a nice ring to it but doesn’t stand up to even basic scrutiny.
Obama refers to a tax-code provision that allows U.S. companies to defer the payment of some corporate income tax until their overseas profits are repatriated here. Most other industrialized countries don’t tax their firms’ overseas profits at all — perhaps because they’re too busy cutting tax rates to improve their competitiveness, or perhaps because they realize it’s actually counter-productive.
But rather than talk about why the president’s approach is wrong in theory, consider this example from today’s Wall Street Journal of a similar move Washington has already tried, and watched backfire:
Mr. Obama believes that by increasing the U.S. tax on overseas profits, some companies may be less likely to invest abroad in the first place. In some cases that will be true. But the more frequent result will be that U.S. companies lose business to foreign rivals, U.S. firms are bought by tax-advantaged foreign companies, and some U.S. multinational firms move their headquarters overseas. They can move to Ireland (where the corporate tax rate is 12.5%) or Germany or Taiwan, or dozens of countries with less hostile tax climates.
We know this will happen because we’ve seen it before. The 1986 tax reform abolished deferral of foreign shipping income earned by U.S. controlled firms. No other country taxed foreign shipping income. Did this lead to more business for U.S. shippers? Precisely the opposite.
According to a 2007 study in Tax Notes by former Joint Committee on Taxation director Ken Kies, “Over the 1985-2004 period, the U.S.-flag fleet declined from 737 to 412 vessels, causing U.S.-flag shipping capacity, measured in deadweight tonnage, to drop by more than 50%.”
Mr. Kies explains that “much of the decline was attributable to the acquisition of U.S.-based shipping companies by foreign competitors not subject to tax on their shipping income.” Mr. Kies concludes that the experiment was “a real disaster for U.S. shipping” and that the debate over whether U.S. companies can compete in a global market facing much higher tax rates than their competitors was answered “with a vengeance.”
Now the White House wants to repeat this experience with all U.S. companies. Two industries that would be most harmed would be financial services and technology, and their emphasis on human capital makes them especially able to pack up and move their operations abroad. CEO Steve Ballmer has warned that if the President’s plan is enacted, Microsoft would move facilities and jobs out of the U.S.
Some of our politicians can keep trying to deny the globally competitive nature of business today, but it won’t do us any good.
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191 comments Add your comment
Linda
September 27th, 2010
4:13 pm
As long as Dems. keep blaming Bush & Reps. solely for the economic crisis without admitting to blood on their hands, I’ll keep proving their culpability. Here’s the article predicting the crisis 2 years before Bush was elected:
http://www.nytimes.com/1999/09/30/business/fannie-mae-eases-credit-to-aid-mortgage-lending.html?pagewanted=1
Here’s proof Dems. resisted the attempts by Reps. to stop it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HQWk1Wp3L4
retiredds
September 27th, 2010
4:19 pm
jconservative, you have asked the one question that no one is willing to answer. America has become like the teen whose parents have bought them everything. That teen has no clue as to where the money comes from. He/she just thinks it materializes. Americans have become accustomed to hearing the political (to get elected) catch phrases, “no more taxes”, “no taxes on my watch”, read my lips, “no more taxes”. Well, the grim reaper has arrived. The blunt truth is that without revenue, bankruptcy. Remember Eastern Air Lines. Even when they went bankrupt there were disbelievers. As any reasonable economist knows the airline industry relies upon its cash flow (and most businesses that operate on razor thin margins do as well). Cut the cash flow, business goes under. So what is the threat you raise with your question, what’s wrong with revenue? Nothing, but not enough of it … el busto, no more business.
Some reading this will say, “never will happen”. So my question to you is, “will you guarantee it?”
HDB
September 27th, 2010
4:19 pm
Kyle Wingfield September 27th, 2010
2:42 pm
That would be a GREAT start…but we both know that many on the GOP side will NEVER go for it!! That’s cutting off your meal ticket!!
…from Colin Powell: “We must be firm, but we must also be fair. We must make sure that reduced government spending does not single out the poor and the middle class. Corporate welfare, welfare for the wealthy must be first in line for elimination. All of us, all of us, my friends, all of us must be willing to do with less from government if we are to avoid condemning our children and grandchildren with a crushing burden of debt which will deny them the American dream. We all need to understand that it is the entitlementsstate that must be reformed, and not just the welfare state.”
Linda
September 27th, 2010
4:20 pm
Thanks for the explanation, Kyle. I could not understand why the sites caused suspicion.
HDB
September 27th, 2010
4:28 pm
Linda September 27th, 2010
4:13 pm
So..you were FOR additional regulation on the housing market?? Isn’t that what you WENT AWAY from?? According to YOUR clip, what Barney Frank said was that the housing market needed to EXPAND….and allowed market forces to react!! That’s a CONSERVATIVE principle!! By following a CONSERVATIVE principle, the Democrats showed that an UNREGULATED market will surely FAIL!! You should have recognized that fact!!
Linda
September 27th, 2010
4:34 pm
This is the way to pay off the debt AND eliminate taxes!!!!!!!!
First of all, the states need to take back from the federal govt. the land the feds. took that just happen to contain our natural resources: 84.5% of Nevada, 69.1% of Alaska, 57.4% of Utah, 53.1% of Oregon, 50.2% of Idaho, etc.
According to the Dept. of Energy, the US has proved oil reserves of 21.9 billion barrels. New oil recovery using CO2 could add 89 B barrels to recoverable oil resources in the US, which would give the US the 5th largest oil reserves in the world (110.9 B barrels). (Iraq has 115 B barrels.)
The DOE also found that “multiple advances in technology & widespread sequestration of industrial CO2 could eventually add as much as 430 B new barrels to the technically recoverable resource.” Adding another 430 B barrels would make the US the largest source of oil reserves in the world, ahead of Saudi’s more than 261 B barrels.
There’s 2 websites. Here’s one:
http://www.fossil.energy.gov/news/techlines/2006/06015-Oil_Recovery_Assessments_Released.html
Left wing management
September 27th, 2010
4:35 pm
“By following a CONSERVATIVE principle, the Democrats showed that an UNREGULATED market will surely FAIL!! You should have recognized that fact!!”
Well said, HDB.
Linda
September 27th, 2010
4:35 pm
Here’s the other one:
http://www.fossil.energy.gov/programs/oilgas/eor/index.html
Linda
September 27th, 2010
4:56 pm
HDB @ 4:13, The fed. govt. passed a law in the ‘30 banning lending in “risky” neighborhoods. They printed & distributed the maps. It was called “redlining.”
In the ‘70, it was reversed with the Community Reinvestment Act.
In the ‘90, the CRA was strengthened under Clinton. We already had FHA financing that was designed for low & moderate income buyers & those without perfect credit. The major change was to Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac for conventional financing. The govt. changed their strict underwriting guidelines that had been in place for decades to include borrowers who had no down payment, bad credit & no income/job. That’s how subprime lending began.
Don't Forget
September 27th, 2010
5:16 pm
Linda, the problem with a lot of the US supply of oil is that it is difficult to get and, therefore, very expensive. In some cases you have to heat the rocks hundreds of feet below ground to several hundred degrees just to get it to flow. So when people say we aren’t running out of oil, they are correct. We are running out of cheap oil.
Don't Forget
September 27th, 2010
5:19 pm
Linda, and when those sub prime loans became available to real estate speculators and “flippers” the real estate bubble got huge. When the bubble burst those speculators walked away from those no money down loans because the had no investment and since they didn’t live in these homes they had no reason to pay off the loans.
Not So Casual Observer
September 27th, 2010
5:20 pm
HDB and LWM,
The loan and housing problems began with the Clinton administration and the requirement of lenders to make loans to those who we knew were incapable of repayment. Add to that the “no money down” provisions and “no or low doc” loans so more of those who were not credit worthy could buy a house and now not only are they incapable of making the payments but they have “no skin in the game”, so defaults rise.
Lenders were faced with making the loans or being forced out of business by the Clinton administration so Wall Street devised the inclusion of the bad loans with good loans to sell into the market place. Now the investors did not know whether they had bad loans or good loans nor did they know the extent of the bad mixed with the good and the result was chaos.
Barney Frank, Chris Dodd and Maxine Watters are on record denying there was any problem in the lending market or with Fannie or Freddie and ultimately blocking any regulation of expansion of the government backed programs. Of course their close bud, Franklin Raines, cooked the books and paid himself a sum in the neighborhood of $100 Million but again no investigation of the bookkeeping or attempts to indict Raines who later reappears as a member of the Obama campaign team.
Raines’ name also shows up in the ownership records, along with Soros, Gore and other Dems, of the software to manage the market for carbon credits. The whole “green movement” is simply another liberal hoax to peel away dollars from the US economy and taxpayers for their personal benefit.
The only true regulation the government needs is to keep liberals away from the federal coffers and out of the taxpayers pockets.
Not So Casual Observer
September 27th, 2010
5:33 pm
Don’t…,
The Bakken Oil Pool, on federal government land, is reported to be 200+ billion barrels and not in shale or need of exotic means of extraction. There are many geologists who believe the United States has more oil reserves than the remainder of the world combined. Gull Island is another large oil pool.
I believe our problem is not the lack of crude oil but the ability to refine the oil after years of undue influence by the “Greens” and failure to build refineries.
Linda
September 27th, 2010
5:35 pm
Don’t forget @ 5:16, For decades, the fed. govt. has been telling us that we can’t drill for our own oil because we have to save the planet, while, at the same time, having us buy oil primarily from Canada & Mexico, as if they were on different planets. The fed. govt. tells us we don’t have enough of our own natural resources, while, at the same time, confiscating land where they are located. They have not allowed us to build any new refineries or nuclear power plants for decades. Last year, Obama shut down the opening of a nuclear waste facility that has cost the US & taxpayers billions. The feds. gave up an opportunity to build a natural gas facility that would have produced jobs both in its construction & operation. It’s in Mexico. Obama is funding the drilling of oil for Brazil’s oil company to be used by China.
I did not write the articles. I thought the DOE sounded optimistic. Notice they were written pre-Obama. Don’t you think Sarah Palin would be a great DOE secretary?
AmVet
September 27th, 2010
5:36 pm
“The loan and housing problems began with the Clinton administration…”
Incorrect, Stage 1 began in 1979, as evidenced by Robert Allen’s best selling book in 1980 called Nothing Down.
Also the S& L, real estate-based scandal of the 1980s was a big factor.
Rather than hyper-partisan, simplistic, far right wing, ideologically based nonsense, it would also help to look at the role of people like Carleton Sheets and Tom Vu who preached the nirvana of easy money instead of working.
The facts are irrefutable, the corporate destruction of capitalism started long before Slick Willy…
Linda
September 27th, 2010
5:45 pm
Don’t forget @ 5:19, The Dems. read books by starting in the middle. They disregard the beginning of the subprime crisis, which began in the ’90s when the Dems. passed laws that REQUIRED the GSEs to make these loans. It was ideology, that home ownership was a right, not a privilege, that people who were unemployed, had bad credit but no money were entitled to homes. It was the beginning of a tsunami that turned the world upside down.
bob
September 27th, 2010
5:48 pm
Road, we grew from an upstart to world power without a permanent fed income tax, why would we have no country witha 35% top rate. Libs always say we would go down witht a tax decrease but history shows we have not had it for more than half the time of our existance.
jm
September 27th, 2010
5:48 pm
Marco Rubio:
“Number one, I don’t want to see any
benefit reductions or changes for current retirees or people close to retirement. And at number
two, I want to see social security survive for me, my generation and my children’s generation as
well. And, number three, I want to ensure that the long-term problems in social security don’t
bankrupt our country.”
What’s a fiscal conservative to do? Even a “tea party republican” guy isn’t for social security reform. What has become of this country?
jm
September 27th, 2010
5:50 pm
Link to the Rubio interview. Depressing.
http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/FTN_092610.pdf?tag=cbsnewsTwoColUpperPromoArea
Not So Casual Observer
September 27th, 2010
5:52 pm
Increased taxation has never been the answer to retiring the debt and will not in the future. The only means to pay the debt is through a booming economy and the only means to a boom is less federal intervention, lower taxes and utilization of our vast natural resources.
Essentialy we must give the free market the freedom to expand, thus providing incentive to business to hire workers and return to an economy that actually produces goods along with services. The only means to this end is a lowering of taxes on business, a reduction in the size of government at all levels, the return to a United States with a single language, secure borders and the removal from office of those politicians who continue to ignore history and work toward the destruction and not construction of the United States.
Prices of goods and services produced in the US have been artificially inflated as businesses pass the additional cost of taxes, along with the increased costs of adhering to unreasonable federal regulation and oversight – to the consumer.
The burden of providing health insurance, retirement and other perks need to be removed from the salary scale and individuals should be responsible for their own needs in these areas. Unions have long ago outlived their usefulness and are an unreasonable burden upon business and this has never been more evident than in the Chrysler and GM bailout.
If firing a private sector president, denying the bond holders their position in the bankruptcy and then handing over an ownership interest in GM to a labor union IS NOT an indication of the Obama Administration’s contempt for private business in the eyes of Liberals then there is no hope for free enterprise and Democrats to coexist.
Linda
September 27th, 2010
5:52 pm
AmVet @ 5:36, …..but the subprime crisis began in the ’90s with the GSEs. I suggest you read (minimally) the summaries of Fannie Mae’s annual reports in the ’90s & their chairman’s cooking of their books & his motivation to make a tremendous number of loans.
Left wing management
September 27th, 2010
6:05 pm
AvVet: “The facts are irrefutable, the corporate destruction of capitalism started long before Slick Willy”
Which is an interesting insight in itself.
Were Lenin and Marx not right all along. Capitalism’s biggest enemies are capitalists themselves.
Linda
September 27th, 2010
6:08 pm
Not So @ 5:52, Very well said. My husband & I have lived thru 12 or 13 presidents. This is only the 3rd time we have experienced both a Dem. president & a Dem. legislature, but the first time we have been ruled by progressives/socialists. Boy, howdy. We’ve never seen Americans so angered. We will see history made in Nov. in droves.
Not So Casual Observer
September 27th, 2010
6:16 pm
Amvet,
As usual you are wrong. As Linda noted earlier the CRA was the basis for the slide but the Clinton Administration put the process into high gear with the threat of government intervention if the loans I descrbed earlier were not made to the individuals who were unworthy. The market simply reacted to the directives of the government. Your close pal, Barney Frank, was a chief instigator of the problem.
The S&L situation, not “scandal” as you characterize, was a government creation. The federal regulators stepped in and classified loans upon which not one payment had been missed as reasons for government intervention. The government’s Resolution Trust Corporation closed S&L’s and took over the properties only to allow the assets to waste away under a cloud of poor management and failure to dispose of the assets in a manner consistent with sound business practice. As usual a government program was a collossal failure and destroyed individuals and private businesses along the way.
Government seems to destroy all that comes into contact with the bureaucracy, whether that be the incentive to work for welfare recipients, the incentive to look for a job by the unemployed or the failure by government to keep their hands out of private cookie jars.
Contrary to Obama and Liberal Democrat theology, the money earned by private citizens is not property of the government, was not earned as result of the good grace of government and was more accurately earned IN SPITE of government rather than as a result of government.
Return government to the constrictions outlined in the Constitution, basically a means of providing for the defense of the individual states, and allow the public sector to deal with government-supported thieves in the economy such as Goldman Sachs.
If the federal government would step out and deny any former employee of Goldman to work for or advise anyone in government at any level then that is one bit of Socialism I might support. Only because there is little hope the D’s and R’s will surrender their power over us willingly and Goldman may very well be the root of all evil.
Ayn Rant
September 27th, 2010
6:25 pm
Obama proposed it so it’s got to be wrong according to every “conservative” blog. Actually, it’s dead wrong, just like every other bandage proposed to the abominable 9,000 page federal tax code.
There is a right way to tax business enterprises. It’s called the value-added tax. It replaces the corporate income tax, which is a cesspool of lying, cheating, manipulating, jumping through loopholes, and shuffling assets and liabilities around foreign tax havens. It’s not a new, experimental concept; it’s been working in the European countries and Japan for decades. It’s self-enforcing, and it favors domestic production over foreign sourcing.
That said, no tax arrangement is going to goad American industry and commerce into producing the goods Americans want and foreigners will buy. It’s far too easy for big corporations to market Asian- made goods and services than to bother trying to manage a manufacturing or service operation in the US. While a new product or service plan is still on the drawing boards, a sales rep for China or Korea will put a turnkey offer on the table.
Until we have innovators and captains of industry, instead of financial manipulators, in charge of American corporations, the US will not be able to compete with the advanced European companies and the Asian tigers in the world market. Any restart of American industry will also need investors who are willing to buy into American equity holdings (“stocks”) instead of gamble their money on exotic financial instruments.
AmVet
September 27th, 2010
6:27 pm
Linda, George Bush and Hank Paulson nationalized the GSEs. And used the government as a backdoor bailout for banks — a hidden PPIP/TARP. They were used to buy all the garbage mortgages that banks were desperate to get off their balance sheets.
Democrat theology?
Is that some sort of Coulterish Repubispeak?
Or is it merely every day psychobabble?
The CRA was TINY aspect of the meltdown.
If they were so huge how does explain the more massive housing bubbles in California or S. Florida or Las Vegas or Arizona?
This is just a deflection for those who still have no idea what really happened…
Not So Casual Observer
September 27th, 2010
6:34 pm
Amvet and LWM,
In the year immediately after the release of the Cloward-Piven Strategy which called for the destruction of the economy through the welfare system, the number of welfare claims in New York City, the home of Cloward and Piven, more than doubled. A coincidence the good little Leftist would argue but we all know bettter.
Cloward and Piven were invited to the signing of a bill by Bill Clinton at the White House and I do not believe the bill was associated with sociology or any other area of interest to the guests. This was simply a reward for their treatise and the resulting drain on the welfare system and economy throughout the US over the intervening 30+ years. This is simply more evidence of the true aims of the Left and the Democrats.
You can keep patting yourselves on the back and CLAIMING Capitalism has been damaged from within but the reality is the destruction of Capitlaism has been the goal of the Left and Democrats since the 1960’s and perhaps as far as the election of your savior FDR.
Now we face almost half the population being income tax free at the federal level and all we hear from the Left is “TAX THE RICH”. Well, if the Left were to confiscate the entire net worth of the Forbes 400 richest Americans the result would not cover the deficit for one year under Obama. You Left thieves have very nearly reached Madam Thatcher’s point of “running out of other people’s money”!
CAIR Bears
September 27th, 2010
6:51 pm
“Were Lenin and Marx not right all along. ”
No, but I’ve been right all along in assuming left wingers were commie retards.
CAIR Bears
September 27th, 2010
6:52 pm
“Is that some sort of Coulterish Repubispeak?”
Ah yes, not a day goes by where AmVet doesn’t slam some conservative who A: Isn’t in office, and B: doesn’t make policy.
Gotta love the left wingers.
Mike
September 27th, 2010
6:53 pm
Wingnut, you’re using words like “protectionist” as if it’s a bad thing. It’s a good thing. Protecting the American economy is a good thing.
Don't Forget
September 27th, 2010
6:53 pm
Linda
September 27th, 2010
5:45 pm
Linda and others can you please post your sources?
Not So Casual Observer
September 27th, 2010
6:59 pm
Amvet,
Are you really that dense?
“If they were so huge how does explain the more massive housing bubbles in California or S. Florida or Las Vegas or Arizona?”
The orders from Clinton to make loans in the “red lined areas” and to those without credit, collateral or character (you know the 3 C’s of lending I hope) opened the flood gates for risky loans in all states and essentially created the facade of free money.
As for the states you cited I imagine, as always, this will have to be s-p-e-l-l-e-d o-u-t for you. Easy credit encourages purchasing starting from the lowest price up to the highest as the sellers move up on the housing chain.
California has the largest econonmy of any state and a long coast line thus the property in California is expected to have the highest run up in prices. This does not even take into account the artificial increase as a result of the dot com explosion in Silicon Valley.
Nevada and Arizona have become retirement havens due to weather and a lack of state income tax.
Florida, also without state income tax and with a long coast line and a retirement haven for the lack of severe winters, should only be expected to lead the “bubbles”.
US housing had generally increased in value over the preceeding 30 years and the average consumer expected properties to increase indefinitely. The Clinton demand for easy credit fed the flames and primary residences were supplemented with vacation homes, investment properties, rentals and so on. Demand began to push supply and again easy money was available ( Good Ol’ Bill Clinton) to feed the supply side.
Wall Street met the demand for money from both domestic and foreign investors, again as commanded by the Clinton Administration, and the credit bubble fed the housing bubble which, with the proliferation of re-financing, fed the spending bubble. When the housing bubble popped with the increase in defaults, credit and spending burst as well.
Yet, the genesis is Bill Clinton and the expansion of CRA during his presidency.
Don't Forget
September 27th, 2010
7:10 pm
So, the housing crisis of the mid 2000’s was Clinton’s fault huh? Sure was sneaky of the banks to wait until the mid 2000’s to let it balloon and then bust. If someone didn’t know better they might think W had something to do with it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNqQx7sjoS8
Sounds like someone’s FOS and it isn’t me.
Linda
September 27th, 2010
7:16 pm
AmVet @ 6:27, The GSEs would never been nationalized had the Dems. allowed the Reps. to reign them in during their attempts in ‘03 & ‘05.
If you read my post @ 4:13, I never said the Reps. were innocent. What I said was that the Dems. have blood on their hands but continue to blame Bush solely for the crisis, which is disingenuous. Clinton BRAGGED in his autobiography in ‘02 that it was his adm. that started the goal of home ownership to low & moderate borrowers (unqualified borrowers), the subprime crisis.
TARP, the Toxic Assets Removal Program, to my knowledge, never removed a single toxic asset from any lender. They are still there & we are on the hook for trillions!!!! Just watch & see.
If you had bothered to read either of my sites I referenced above, you would have observed that the crisis was predicted in 1999 by the NYT, 2 yrs. before Bush was elected.
Linda
September 27th, 2010
7:24 pm
Don’t forget @ 6:53, I’ve posted several websites today. What specifically do you want me to prove? I can back up everything I have said.
Not So Casual Observer
September 27th, 2010
7:41 pm
Linda,
Perhaps the hubris of the Obama administration has riled the American people to dismiss the Left and the Democrats for good.
Then, in 2012 if the Republicans have not learned the folly of continuing this beat-down of the American people we will dismiss them as well. Eventually someone will understand they work for us and not the other way around
Not So Casual Observer
September 27th, 2010
7:44 pm
Don’t forget,
Actually, yes it is you! I would bet your eyes are brown!
Don't Forget
September 27th, 2010
7:46 pm
Okay Linda, what’s your source for this?
Linda
September 27th, 2010
5:35 pm
Don’t forget @ 5:16, For decades, the fed. govt. has been telling us that we can’t drill for our own oil because we have to save the planet,
According to an interview I heard with Mathew Simmons the US has more than half of all the land based oil wells in the world. Mr. Simmons died recently but he was one of W’s top energy advisors.
Linda
September 27th, 2010
7:57 pm
Not So @ 7:41, The degree of hubris/arrogance of the Dems. toward the Tea Party will hurt them for years. The Tea Party isn’t going away. Whoever isn’t fiscally conservative will be singled & voted out, whether it’s a Rep. or Dem. Americans are awake & hopefully will remain awake.
CAIR Bears
September 27th, 2010
7:59 pm
“Are you really that dense?”
No, he’s MUCH worse than that.
Don't Forget
September 27th, 2010
8:04 pm
Linda, from your own source:
However, with much of the easy-to-produce oil already recovered from U.S. oil fields, producers have attempted several tertiary, or enhanced oil recovery (EOR), techniques that offer prospects for ultimately producing 30 to 60 percent, or more, of the reservoir’s original oil in place. Three major categories of EOR have been found to be commercially successful to varying degrees:
Thermal recovery, which involves the introduction of heat such as the injection of steam to lower the viscosity, or thin, the heavy viscous oil, and improve its ability to flow through the reservoir. Thermal techniques account for over 50 percent of U.S. EOR production, primarily in California.
Gas injection, which uses gases such as natural gas, nitrogen, or carbon dioxide that expand in a reservoir to push additional oil to a production wellbore, or other gases that dissolve in the oil to lower its viscosity and improves its flow rate. Gas injection accounts for nearly 50 percent of EOR production in the United States.
Chemical injection, which can involve the use of long-chained molecules called polymers to increase the effectiveness of waterfloods, or the use of detergent-like surfactants to help lower the surface tension that often prevents oil droplets from moving through a reservoir. Chemical techniques account for less than one percent of U.S. EOR production.
Each of these techniques has been hampered by its relatively HIGH COST and, in some cases, by the UNPREDICTABILITY of its effectiveness.
Don't Forget
September 27th, 2010
8:23 pm
Don’t forget this either.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/09/business/09charts.html
Jefferson
September 27th, 2010
8:36 pm
Kyle, so you call for a balanced buget but where are you going to get the revenue? Tax cut and borrow does not work. Paying America’s bills is not a worship of money it is a responsibilty. Spending cuts are not a political solution, guess what the solution is, or fool the people and stay in debt.
Linda
September 27th, 2010
8:38 pm
Don’t forget @ 8:04, Arguing with DOE releases prior to the Obama Adm. is so Democratic. The DOE wrote this article, not me. It was obvious that you quoted an article without citing it.
The fact is that we have our own natural resources that will take us into oblivion & that the Dems. want us to tax us into oblivion on energy.
Global warming is a hoax & the American people know it.
Don't Forget
September 27th, 2010
8:45 pm
Linda, re- read the article. Those are best case scenarios and all are very expensive. Oil is sold on a world market. There is no way an oil company is going to extract that oil if it’s not economical and you can’t blame them. And the 430 billion barrel number is about half undiscovered oil. We don’t even know for sure if it exists. You said earlier that dems start reading a book from the middle. Well, it looks to me like you only read the headline.
Don't Forget
September 27th, 2010
9:02 pm
Linda,
And just in case this wasn’t clear, I was citing YOUR article so I didn’t feel it necessary to repost the link.
AmVet
September 27th, 2010
9:44 pm
“…but continue to blame Bush solely for the crisis…”
Why would such dufusi (is that the plural of dufus?) even matter to you?
I know of NO ONE with any credibility at all who posits that.
However, I do see folks like the once Casual Observer try to remove the blame from all pre-Clinton administrations though. Which is equally idiotic, would you not agree?
“…the crisis was predicted in 1999 by the NYT…”
And numerous other preceded them.
Which flies in the face of the cowardly incompetent and deadly Dick Cheney, who said, “Don’t blame him (Bush), nobody saw this coming.”
atlmom
September 27th, 2010
9:53 pm
@road scholar: Actually, we’ve only had income taxes for about 100 years. before that, the govt raised revenues in other ways.
@CJ: actually – NO we should not look at ‘effective tax rates.’ if the ‘effective’ tax rates are very different from ‘actual’ tax rates…well, then it’s a terrible system. it means there are deductions and loopholes and all sorts of pains in the neck for paying taxes…and if you’re a business, that means that it costs you more and more to comply. WHAT A PAIN. other countries – DO NOT do that.
Don't Forget
September 27th, 2010
10:25 pm
I really don’t see much need in blaming Bush anymore except for when people try to blame Obama for things that he inherited from Bush. So there’s a simple way to avoid having people blame Bush and that’s to stop blaming Obama for Bush’s mess.
Don't Forget
September 27th, 2010
10:26 pm
Atl mom, I agree the corporate tax code is a mess but it’s the business’s that lobbied to have those loopholes.