NY Times Excerpt:Seriously, borrowing a trillion dollars from China just to tweak up economic indicators is a victory for Obama? Granted, the Republicans will now have some skin in the economy but this is clearly a messaging gamble on both sides. If the economy picks up substantially, Republicans will say trickle-down still works - if the economy remains relatively flat or nosedives - they'll say Obama's Keynesian economics is a disaster. But no matter what direction the economy takes if this tax cut package is enacted, nobody will take their eyes off off of the big elephant in the room - the exploding national debt. Krauthammer ignores that reality and even implies the Obama tax cut deal makes a mockery of the Tea party's debt-averse persona.
It will pump a trillion borrowed Chinese dollars into the U.S. economy over the next two years - which just happen to be the two years of the run-up to the next presidential election. This is a defeat?
NY Times Excerpt:Utter nonsense. Obama's tax cut deal almost but not quite satisfies the Tea Party's "taxed enough already" mantra. They would actually want more and deeper tax cuts. Just ask them - ask Paul Ryan if he would like to see even deeper tax cuts. Remember rule number one of Tea Party economics: tax cuts don't create deficits, spending does. Obama's tax cuts will give the new House budget writing director, Rep. Paul Ryan, added impetus to serve up a platter of massive domestic spending cuts that will of course include Medicare and Social Security. This despite Ryan's counter-intuitive expectations he reasoned to support the original Bush tax cuts nearly seven years ago - his expectation that tax cuts will actually bring in more revenue. It won't apply this time.
Obama is no fool. While getting Republicans to boost his own reelection chances, he gets them to make a mockery of their new found, second-chance, post-Bush, Tea-Party, this-time-we're-serious persona of debt-averse fiscal responsibility.
Enjoy those tax cuts while you have them, working poor and middle-class, because you're in for a major ass-whupping later from the hands of Tea Party republicans such as Paul Ryan. Mark my words.
2 comments:
The "Tea Party", which once proclaimed to be opposed to deficits and giant debts and government unable to pay for itself, is pleased that the Republicans have almost unilaterally (just Obama and a few Dems are needed) added a projected trillion dollars to the debt? I rather doubt it.
Much like the social conservatives of the 90's, the tea party has served their republican masters well, voted them into office, and now are being told to shut up. Now that the election is over, the deficit doesn't matter anymore. And now that the Republicans have all but proclaimed that the deficit is not as important as keeping rich folk tax cuts, the clock begins ticking on how long it takes the deficit hawks who joined the movement to realize that the Republicans are Republicans, not Tea Partiers, and not interested in the deficit. As Cheney said, deficits don't matter.
I don't know what Tea Party Mr. Kaye thinks he understands, but the one I know was about spending outweighing income. And I use the past tense because the Tea Party is now dead. They won the election, got the pats on the heads, and now are told to go home. Bye bye teabags, your work is now to be ignored.
After reading your comment two times, I don't think there's much we disagree on except that you seem to believe I'm giving the Tea Party too much credit. However, I have never ever heard of the Tea Party advocating for tax increases if it means to paydown the deficits.
From the very beginning I have felt the people movement Tea Party was a tool of the GOP, FreedomWorks, Crossroads and the Prosperity For America folks. Still are and always will be. What won't die is the idea as you've written, that spending will always outweigh income in minds of those who want to bring down the deficits. This idea is what the grassroots Tea Party was founded on, that they were taxed enough ready, and they demand spending cuts and the corresponding lower taxes they expect that will follow. The Tea Party was only debt-adverse because of spending, not because tax cuts that they advocate will cause deficits - in their minds - tax cuts cannot cause deficits. What I don't understand is where exactly I differ with your understanding of the Tea Party.
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