On Meet the Press today, Senator John McCain (R-AZ) argued for retaining the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy while at the same time paying lip service to restraining spending.
“... We are in the midst of the greatest recession in the history of this country since the great depression. It is not the time to raise anyone's taxes, and, by the way, also along with that statement I said we have to restrain spending....”
—Senator John McCain (R-AZ)
Meet the Press, November 14, 2010
Statements such as this by McCain are typical. They are also misleading. And they are internally inconsistent—that is, they contradict themselves.
But alas, it takes a thoughtful listener to tease out the truth, and I have long ago reached the conclusion that Meet the Press host David Gregory is simply not up to the task.
Likewise, the Democrats have very poor control of their own public message, so they're not up to the task either. They take some good positions and achieve some good results, but on many of those issues, no one will ever know. Time after time, they allow Republican spin to stand unanswered.
And so you're left with cries in the wilderness by the likes of me.
Let me start with a simple truth: Tax cuts for the wealthy don't pay for themselves.
If you're already doubting me, please check your facts. I haven't yet gotten to the part that we're supposed to quibble over. This point has been made many places by many non-partisan authoritative sources. But perhaps you'll take the word of Alan Greenspan, who has never been accused of being a shill for the Democrats. On Meet the Press, August 1, 2010, the discussion went this way:
GREENSPAN
Look, I'm very much in favor of tax cuts,
but not with borrowed money. [...]
GREGORY
You don't agree with Republican leaders
who say tax cuts pay for themselves?
GREENSPAN
They do not.
Moreoever, let's just make another point clear: If tax cuts don't pay for themselves—and they don't—then it follows that we have to spend to get them.
The Democrats often talk about the tax cuts increasing the deficit, but I'm never sure if people understand what a deficit is or how we get it. The deficit is just money we spend that we don't have. We wouldn't be talking about tax cuts for the rich if we had the money. So let's simplify this: It's just about spending. To allow the spending which is this tax cut, we'd have to borrow money.
The Republicans are always accusing the Democrats of “tax and spend” politics. Yet their replacement is “borrow and spend.” Borrowing to spend might make sense if we were investing in something. But unrestricted funds are not that. I'm all for targeted tax relief for anyone who can show they're actually investing in the US economy. And if that's mostly the wealthy, fine. But I always Reagan (out of context) on this matter: “Trust, but verify.”
Then there's the issue that any borrowed money will have to be paid back—with interest. That will require money from taxes. Taxes are how the government takes in money to pay its bills. It's money we don't owe now, but we will once we borrow to give it to the rich. Our future tax bills are going up due to actions taken now. So let's call that what it is: Raising taxes. Maybe not now, but eventually. It's a shell game, but the taxes will come.
Also, and this is a subtle point, this is money that would come from the wealthy if taxed today. But in the future, since we as a country are borrowing the money, it's all of us who will pay the burden later. It's not just deferred taxes. It's shifting the tax burden down from the wealthy to the middle class. That's called income redistribution. The Republicans often remark that they don't like income redistribution. But really they love it if it works in their favor.
I fear when the dust settles, they'll just get their tax cuts. The Democrats have shown inadequate spine or will to stop them. We'll be told we cannot risk a change in the cash flow to the rich during a tough time like now. We'll also be told that programs offering essential housing, food, and health care to people who would otherwise can't afford it are things we can risk getting rid of, even that we should aggressively be trying to get rid of. I'd love to predict otherwise, but I can't make myself believe it.
If you got value from this post, please "rate" it.
I do actually have one modest suggestion to add to the mix.
See my follow-up post:
Honesty in our Spending Priorities
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Comments
there is a similar fusion in the social sciences: political power and economic power are bound together, and mutually transformable. american people don't have enough political power to defend their economic power from the rich.
if america had citizen initiative, the rich would be paying more taxes. it's that simple.
Greenspan: "The Iraq War was largely about oil."
Greenspan: "They do not."
Truth told.
Oh, and David Stockman agrees, so you have Reagan, Clinton and Bush's guys all stating the facts, the tax cuts are a pure rip-off.
Like Auntie says, "Consider the source."
IMUA
For example, if Gregory had followed up McCain's statement you quote above with:
"Isn't that the same jackassery you conservatives have been saying since Reagan, as you cut top end taxes and spent America into massive indebtedness?"
To which McCain could reply:
"David, I ate at a little Italian restaurant last night. They had the most delicious meatballs I've ever had."
And Gregory would say:
"Okay. Now let's move on....."
"Hard" question, "Follow-up," move on...no matter what gets said.
Good bit of writing, and yes...rated.
The US tax burden is around 28%. The Scandinavian countries have tax burdens of 45-50%. Pretty much every other rich democracy has tax burdens in the 35-45% range. And tweaking the US rate up a tiny bit is going to wreck things? Ridiculous. Keep up the good work Kent. Someday this message might get through.
An afterthought. We've both treated the tax cut argument at face value. It's certainly possible that the tax cutters are tossing out whatever bogus argument presents itself simply because they're bought and paid for by the moneybags crowd.
I wonder if you still think that electing more conservative Blue Dog Democrats makes sense.
Sorry, I could not resist. ;-)
Al, I'm strangely drawn to your unusually electric use of metaphor. It's actually quite apt. Thanks for the reminder about the Citizens Initiative.
Surfer, thanks for chiming in with support.
Fay, indeed, asking the right questions is half of it. What has become of the investigative media? The free press was supposed to protect us, but I guess the collapse of their budgets everywhere (perhaps due to the internet) and the consolidation into efficiently run (and centrally administered) megacorporations has done its damage.
Paul, if you really had the news guys behaving as advocates of the people these days, you'd think the public would be turning out in big numbers to watch. They spend enough on production quality, you'd think they could spend a little on research and prep for the actual interviews.
Doug, thanks for the relaxed praise.
Bonnie, thanks for the kind words. I figure I drone on enough sometimes that I have to do things to keep people reading my prose awake. CSS isn't so hard that getting simple stuff like this to work is hard. It might involve slightly more than what's in my CSS tutorial, I'm not sure.
And, you are on point that the Republicans make NO SENSE and have no evidence to support tax cuts, but that doesn't stop them from pushing their agenda.
Still, they will have to massage the message that tax cuts don't equal deficits -- something the inarticulate Democrats will make easy for them -- which leads to the suspicion the Dems may be being deliberately inarticulate.
Yeah, I know, I'm cynical -- that doesn't make me wrong.
Bernadine, I wish they had gone with Luke Russert. He wouldn't have had the experience of Gregory, but I'm not sure the coverage would have been worse. And he'd have both brought another generation of viewers as well as the ability to grow into the role. He seems to be working his way up the ladder the hard way, which is fine for him, but I think we're the losers for it.
forget the political parties -- the only competition that matters is between the Have-Mores and everybody else
Abrawang, there may be a few who are outright bought, but I think in most cases it's done by just buying the friendship of these people and then working the friendship. Some of it is laziness—these guys cede the power to write legislation to the helpful lobbyists who already have some written, etc.
Rick, I'm not sure the blue dog issue matters here—it seems off-topic to me. I didn't advocate that there should be I just agreed that Brin had made a decent point when he said that he thought there should be. I stand by that but would rather not discuss it here and would ask you not to either.
LPS, now that you mention it, you're right—McCain is on unreasonably often and about issues he has no special competence about.
Tom, I have always been suspicious of temporary measures that go outside the present term. It seems to suggest it's someone else's mess.
Roy, I'm with you on that. I'm still pondering the Green Party. They have an explicit posture on the corporatism issue. I wish they would field a credible candidate.
If Gregory had pressed McCain as in my example, the GOP would revolt and refuse to go on the show. The pols are as much the "talent" as the moderators nowadays. Or, now-a-daze. It's truly hard to watch with a straight face.
___________________________
Dear President Obama,
I am a person who earns enough to benefit most of the time from what is referred to as the upper bracket of the "Bush Tax Cuts." Therefore, you may expect I would support the idea of continuing them. You would be wrong. Those of us who are comfortable and have benefitted from the tax cuts also have grandchildren. It is way past time that my generation (I am 57) was asked to make a sacrifice to benefit those who follow us.
Please, I ask you in the name of my grandchildren to not allow the
Republicorp machine to force the following generations pay for our
mistakes. Nothing could be less American than that. Do not allow these tax cuts to be extended. After a decade of war and all the attendant wasteful spending, I for one would favor the kind of tax structure that would pay what we have borrowed rather than adding another $700billion to the deficit and my grandchildrens already mortgaged future.
Sincerely,
Tim
Sadly, for now, if I hope to hear thoughtfulness and clarity from reporters, I turn to the BBC, The Independent, The Guardian and recently, The New Statesman. The Economist is there as well.
One wonders if DG chose to have McCain on the program or if some powers that be made the choice for him. Who owns NBC now?
I'm frustrated that our politicians and pundits stick with talking points that don't seem to work - they just keep pounding phrases that are too easily taken in the rock/paper/scissors sound-bites-back game. Instead, they need to retool some points to cut into the meat of what you are getting at in this article, Kent.
Also - I agree regarding David Gregory - of all the people in the business, a rather lackluster bunch have floated to the top, I must say. We need a team of Rachel Maddows. Perhaps she'll set a new standard . . . one can only hope!
Anna, going with Luke would have been something of a wildcard play, but I think people would have bought it after his dad was in. It would have offered interesting perspective of a new generation. And, sure, a risk, but they could always back out of it. And anyway, I think in retrospect DG was more of a risk than acknowledged, and they don't seem to be backing out of that—go figure.
Abby, 2nd or 3rd stanza at least. It's got a lot of ’em, just to keep the opposition guessing.
Travellini, thanks for the kind words. And yes, I keep expecting Maddow's show to become a formula others copy. It's a wonder that you don't see it happening more. She's quite good at it. I mean, Keith Olbermann's show is similar in format, almost redundant some days, not that redundancy on such important matters hurts. It wouldn't hurt to have more like them.