Cynical Compasssion; Or, Get Off Your Ass by '06, Kids!

[pax]

http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2004/05/28/budget/index.html

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Cynical compassion
Joe Conason

At a White House meeting in November 2002, President Bush asked his staff: "What are we doing on compassion?" The president got no response but silence, recalls former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, and he quickly dropped the subject.

Now we are learning the true and profoundly dismaying answer to that question.

What the Bush administration has been "doing on compassion" is to play merciful and bountiful at political photo opportunities while concocting plans for devastating budget cuts and irresponsible tax cuts. As Bush himself warned his advisors at the same meeting, he didn't want to "slam the door in the third quarter of 2004," meaning in the months before Election Day. But behind closed doors and on Capitol Hill, he and his Republican allies are fashioning policies that reserve whatever compassion they can afford for those least in need.

 

[nbcrusader]

irresponsible tax cuts

Are tax cuts irresponsible if they revive the economy and create jobs?

 

[verte76]

Deficits have always made me uneasy. Don't ask me why. Of course it was a little inconsistent when the Democrats attacked Reagan on deficit spending because the Democrats had voted to increase deficit spending in the '70's. But now we've gone from having a surplus to having a record deficit so fast. It's a little different, anyway.

 

[melon]

Are tax cuts irresponsible if they revive the economy and create jobs?

I believe they are doing neither.

You also cannot keep on cutting taxes; there is going to become a point where it just becomes irresponsible. By the above logic, taxes should be raised when it is more prosperous; but that never happens. It just becomes cuts upon cuts upon cuts upon cuts, forgetting that there is such a thing as "inflation" and military spending doesn't help anything either.

Melon

 

[nbcrusader]

Are further tax cuts on the table?

 

[Salome]

Are tax cuts irresponsible if they revive the economy and create jobs?

yes

unless you manage to achieve an economic utopia where tax cuts lead to such a huge amount of new jobs that the government still has enough money available (instead of deficits) to take care of:
- those who are still in need due to old age, illness, unemployment
- a certain standard of healthcare for everyone
- chances of a proper education for everyone

then it is an irresponsible thing to do

given the continuous rise of the populations avarage age it would especially be an irresponsible thing to do right now


even though I tend to be just a bit right of centre economically, I do believe that the governemnt should be able to support those who really need it
and I just don't think this will be possible (at least in the long run) with tax cuts now


+ I 'm not that certain further tax cuts would lead to a better economy anyway because of the reasons Melon mentioned