"Spending" Is The New "Death Tax"
I used my first column for The Fiscal Times to take on all those who insist that the only way to deal with the federal deficit is by cutting spending. Contrary to those who repeat the "it's a spending problem" mantra, spending definitely is not the only issue and spending cuts are not the only possible response.
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Excellent article
Collender makes some very insightful comments in this article. I heard him give a speech several days ago where he touched on these and many other critical issues that policymakers should be attune to. He is a dynamic and entertaining speaker. I wish more Americans could hear his common sense message on budgets, deficits and spending.
Tax Expenditures, Ho! And How?
Collectively you guys are off on a great track, let's hope folks are paying attention. After taking a bit of a look at the sources of the long-term accumulating debt the numbers convinced me that we could in fact deal with things if we had the political will. Largely thru a combination of tax increases plus controlling discretionary spending, and getting HC under control. Which the current bill does more to set up than anybody has bothered to dig out in detail ( A Taught/Taut/Taunt Moment: Healthcare Speech, Policy, Politics & Realities )
What y'all are pushing is a great new tool but the will question is overwhelming given the sausage-making machinery. Hopefully the Debt Commission will put this in as part of the mix, and if not, let's hope you all get an audience.
To do that though it seems to me your faces need to be a little louder and a lot easier to understand. So might I suggest two things:
1) can you publish a strawman blueprint of a possible policy mix (tax cuts, tax expenditure rationalization, spending management, entitlement/HC changes) that gives us a measuring rod to judge against?
2) and to the extent possible could you develop some graphics and/or charts? In the various articles you point to and the studies they point to it'd be far easier to follow the debate with some simple depictions.
Greg Mankiw managed to get a carbon tax (admittedly as cap-n-trade) on the table when I though I never see the day by making his case in straight-forward ways. You may have an even better alternative to do more.
In that piece, Stan correctly
In that piece, Stan correctly points out the nonsensical but pervasive fallacy that, just because the long-term fiscal imbalance results entirely from the projected spending curve deviating much more from it's historical level, that must be where the entire solution lies. It makes no sense to make that assertion regardless of one's ideology and preferences regarding the mix of tax increases and cuts in projected spending -- even if one's ideal is entirely the latter.
It's like saying that if I've started gaining weight because I've become less active, the only way to stop gaining weight is to get as back to being as active as I was before, as opposed to consuming fewer calories or some combination of the two.
Or, to highlight the irrationality even more clearly, it's like telling someone who now has financial difficulty because he just lost his job that the only solution is for him to get back that specific job that he lost, as opposed to finding a different one (along with any other measures such as spending less in the meantime).
Just because a problem is created (or is projected to be created) by a change in X doesn't mean that the best solution is to reverse (or prevent) that change in X. To think one implies the other is simply irrational, not to mention at odds with the common sense we apply every day in our own lives.
Straw Man
Your argument doesn't hold water. Arguing that we have a "spending problem" does not preclude acknowledging revenues as part of of our fiscal challenge. No serious examiner would look at a deficit driven by 15 percent of GDP revenues and 26 percent of GDP on the spending side and say we don't have a revenue problem. But with spending remaining at high levels in perpetuity (and let's not forget how much promised spending in entitlements vastly exceeds our capacity to tax our way to balance those tabs) one can say with a clear conscience that we do in fact have a spending problem. But note that this doesn't preclude acknowledging revenue's contribution to our deficit and looking at ways to get more out of our tax code (ideally by scrapping it). In arguing that it does, you hold up a straw man that flatly doesn't stand.
Doesn't seem like a straw man
Doesn't seem like a straw man to me. We hear all the time from conservatives the non sequitur that, because the projected change that creates the long-term fiscal imbalance is all on the spending side (i.e., "we have a spending problem"), it supposedly follows that the solution (necessarily) should be all on the spending side. It's a very frequently stated talking point, and it's a non sequitur that should be pointed out as such, regardless of one's ideology and policy preferences. Nonsensical arguments have no place in discussion/debate over policy.
Thank you for making my
Thank you for making my point: defending a non-sequitur by reference to another non-sequitur.
If you can be at all clear
If you can be at all clear about what you are referring to and what your argument is, I can probably explain whatever error you are making.
My point was that Stan was not erecting a straw man and his point was valid. Now, what is the supposed non sequitur you think am I defending?
The assertion made by Stan
The assertion made by Stan that it neccessarily follows that if you believe we have a "spending problem" then you believe revenues aren't part of the problem or should be part of the possible solution. I argued that it doesn't follow, the two notions are not mutually exclusive, so Stan's assertion is therefore a non-sequitur.
I don't know if you actually
I don't know if you actually read the piece to which Stan links, but it was fairly clear to me that he was referring to the very common talking point/implication from the right that because "it's a spending problem" (meaning the projected long-term fiscal imbalance results entirely from growth in spending if revenues remain roughly unchanged as a % of GDP), the solution should be entirely on the spending side. As I've pointed out (and as I believe Stan was pointing out), that reasoning represents a non sequitur.
You seem to be confused by an excessively literal reading of the statement "It's a spending problem" without any sense of the context either of Stan's piece or of the rhetoric from the right that typically accompanies that statement. You seem to think those making that statement are merely (correctly) stating that spending is what is changing as we see projected imbalances, rather than making the illogical implication/assertion that it somehow logically follows that the solution should be entirely on the spending side. You are wrong; they typically do make that illogical assertion/implication. Hopefully now you understand your error.
As a note, that statement and that accompanying illogical assertion/implication has irked me for some time, and I've pointed it out previously, such as at http://keithhennessey.com/2010/02/01/bigger-budget/#IDComment55086483 and http://keithhennessey.com/2009/04/16/americas-long-run-fiscal-problem-is...
More Common Sense
I agree with this article. We should see more common sense approaches to operating our country. We all do this in our homes and it is time that the government does the same thing. CASINO
How do we rank?
Is our spending "out of control" compared to other thriving, prosperous countries? No.
In 2006, fed/state/local spending combined was 36% of GDP. We're third from the bottom--Korea's at 28% and Ireland's at 34%.
Every other rich country spends as much or (far) more than we do--from 36% in Japan to 54% in Sweden.
(The numbers are even more pronounced when you just compare Federal spending, but that's not really a useful comparison because our federalist system results in more spending than in other countries at the state and local levels.)
Details here:
http://www.asymptosis.com/out-of-control-spending-not-so-much.html
We do have to solve health care or our spending will get out of control. That is what certain people are currently trying to do...
SO??? We're not Sweden, and
SO??? We're not Sweden, and we're not Japan. Those comparisons are meaningless. And have you noticed that Japan is swamped with debt and has forgone economic growth for well over a decade?