Bush tax cuts good, Democrats bad. And the automatic cuts that will gut defense bad, Democrats trying to prevent their suspension worse. That according to the CBO.
The CBO says if the Bush tax cuts aren’t extended – i.e., Bush was right, Democrats and Obama were wrong – and if the automatic cuts that resulted from the last budget impasse aren’t suspended, the U.S. economy will go down the toilet starting January 1st of next year.
The funny thing – at least the funny thing if you can see humor in the Democrat Party destroying America – is that Democrats are on the wrong side of both of these issues. We all know the Democrat Party’s histrionics over the Bush tax cuts from the day Bush cut taxes in 2003; but you should also know that Obama is not only in favor of the automatic cuts that the CBO is warning are a bad thing, but Obama has in fact promised to veto any bill that would overturn them. And this in spite of the fact that Obama’s own Secretary of Defense has stated that the cuts Obama is demanding would utterly gut the US military and take America back to pre-World War II levels when we were weak and ripe for a devastating attack.
House Republicans are trying to avert the disaster that both the CBO and Secretary of Defense Panetta have warned us about. Just as they’re trying to keep the Bush tax cuts in place for every single American and for the overall American economy.
Basically, the CBO is warning you that if Democrats get power in 2012, we’re all pretty much screwed:
May 23, 2012 2:00pm
‘Fiscal Cliff’ Looms for U.S. Economy, CBO WarnsAllowing Bush-era tax cuts to expire coupled with a scheduled round of automatic spending cuts would probably throw the U.S. economy into a tailspin. That’s the dire warning from a new Congressional Budget Office report that says the economy would contract by 1.3 percent in the first half 2013, pushing off a ”fiscal cliff” on Jan. 1.
That’s when a higher tax rate would kick in if the Bush-era tax cuts aren’t extended and more than $100 billion in automatic cuts in domestic spending for agencies such as the Pentagon are kept in place.
“Simply extending all of our current tax and spending policies will produce unsustainable deficits and debt, which will also send the economy into decline,” Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., the top Democrat on the Budget Committee, told the Associated Press. “We need to act and we must do so in a balanced way.”
Though lawmakers are expected to head off a shift in the government’s financial situation later this year or in early 2013, the CBO says if nothing is done it would likely push the US economy into recession and wring hundreds of billions of dollars from the budget deficit. That would “represent an additional drag on the weak economic expansion,” the CBO says.
The CBO is a nonpartisan agency of Congress that produces economic analysis and estimates of the cost of legislation.
Last summer’s debt and budget agreement imposed almost $1 trillion in cuts to agency budgets over the coming decade and required automatic cuts of another $1 trillion or so.
The CBO study comes as Congress is gridlocked over spending and taxes in advance of the fall elections. The White House and top Democrats are refusing to act on the expiring tax cuts and automatic spending cuts unless Republicans show greater flexibility on raising taxes.
If no deal is reached, the CBO projects that the economy would shrink by 1.3 percent in the first half of 2013, which would meet the definition of a recession, which is when the economy shrinks for two consecutive quarters.
“Such a contraction in output in the first half of 2013 would probably be judged to be a recession,” CBO said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
The “Bush tax cuts” are named after BUSH for good reason. He was the one who got them through with the help of Republicans against bitter Democrat opposition. Those tax cuts helped get America out of one hell of a hell-hole as a result of the Clinton DotCom bust and the 9/11 attacks that were likewise principally the fault of Bill Clinton. In the DotCom bubble collapse, America lost over $7.1 TRILLION in wealth that was just vaporized; and the Nasdaq valuation saw 78% of its portfolio wiped out as a result of a giant recession that Bill Clinton handed to George Bush. And the 9/11 attack was the result of Clinton’s gutting both the military and the intelligence budgets leaving America both weak and blind. And after the humiliating “Blackhawk Down” retreat from Somalia, it was inevitable that under Bill Clinton al Qaeda “realized that the American soldier was just a paper tiger” as a terrorist named Osama bin Laden said. Al Qaeda attacked America because Bill Clinton opened the door for them to attack America.
Contrary to what the Democrats have always wrongly believed, tax rate cuts have ALWAYS increased U.S. tax revenues every single time we have ever cut our tax rates. It worked when Calvin Coolidge did it; it worked when John F. Kennedy did it; it worked when Ronald Reagan did it; and yes, it worked when George W. Bush did it.
When you allow the American people to keep more of what they earned, they simply make better decisions that improve their own lives and the overall health of the economy far more than when the government taxes and redistributes. Everybody understands that middle class Americans with more purchasing power is a good thing; but it is equally true that when wealthier Americans are allowed to invest and be rewarded for their investment risks, the net result is economic growth and job growth for everybody.
Mayor Cory Booker – a prominent Democrat and Obama ally – said this of the unrelenting attack on private equity in general and Bain Capital in particular:
“As far as that stuff, I have to just say from a very personal level, I’m not about to sit here and indict private equity. To me, it’s just this–we’re getting to a ridiculous point in America, especially that I know. I live in a state where pension funds, unions and other people are investing in companies like Bain Capital. If you look at the totality of Bain Capital’s record, it ain’t–they’ve done a lot to support businesses, to grow businesses, And this, to me, I’m very uncomfortable with.“
Booker is openly acknowledging that private equity is a good thing; that it has an enormous net benefit for cities and for states and for the nation. As do a growing list of Democrats, from Gov. Ed Rendell to Harold Ford to Obama auto czar Steven Rattner to Gov. Deval Patrick to several prominent Democrat US Senators.
Bain Capital points out the fact that:
Despite political attacks that emphasize the few companies that have struggled, the facts are that during Bain Capital’s ownership, revenues grew in 80 percent of the more than 350 companies in which we have invested.
Eight out of ten times Mitt Romney stepped up to the plate he hit a home run and grew the businesses he rescued from bankruptcy. But Obama deceitfully tries to only allow discussion of the two out of ten times that he didn’t.
And then you further find out the sheer duplicity that is Barack Obama: the man who has demonized private equity is at the same time gobbling up MORE MONEY from these firms than Mitt Romney!!!! And that is primarily because of another profound act of cynical Obama dishonesty: because in blatant contradiction to his promise to reign in lobbyists and special interest pacs, Obama has in fact opened the floodgates to both.
Barack Obama has attended FIVE TIMES more fundraisers THAN THE PREVIOUS FIVE PRESIDENTS COMBINED. And a lot of corrupt investors are realizing that the most corrupt money-grubbing whore that has ever infested the White House has opened the doors to crony capitalist boondoggles in which you give Obama a few thousand dollars in campaign contributions and rake in millions or even HUNDREDS of millions of dollars in taxpayer money for the next soon-to-be-bankrupt-boondoggle.
EIGHTY PERCENT of green energy loans somehow ended up in the pockets of OBAMA DONORS. Here’s a list of who got money. It is utterly bankrupt. You can’t find this level of corruption in the entire history of the republic.
It’s implicit from the CBO report: Democrats are the problem and Republicans are the solution to preventing America from going over the “fiscal cliff” that Obama and the Democrats have in store for America.
Tags: automatic cuts, Bush tax cuts, CBO, fiscal cliff, recession, report
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