Michele Bachmann:

[Chuck_G]

Why does Michele Bachmann think we should cut spending? To grow business, to cut the deficit, the usual. But also because God told her we should, via last week's East Coast earthquake and Hurricane Irene. The St. Petersburg Times' Adam C. Smith reports that the presidential candidate told a Sarasota, Florida crowd this weekend, "I don't know how much God has to do to get the attention of the politicians. We've had an earthquake; we've had a hurricane. He said, 'Are you going to start listening to me here?' Listen to the American people because the American people are roaring right now. They know government is on a morbid obesity diet and we've got to rein in the spending."

Questions for debate:

1. Is god really worried about government spending in the U.S. and responsible for hurricanes and earthquakes to provoke fear?

2. Do you think she really believes this or it is just an appeal to the christian far right?

[Jrosemary]

[From post=ref:Michele Bachmann:]

Obviously, four years on our part. Please try to keep up.

[From post: ref:]Michele Bachmann:

You might want to study basic math before you look any sillier.

Moderator Final Warning

Both of these posts represent an uncivil, condescending tone.

Please review the Rules.


______________

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[East of Eden]

[From post=ref:Michele Bachmann:]

Obviously, four years on our part. Please try to keep up.

[From post: ref:]Michele Bachmann:

You might want to study basic math before you look any sillier.

Moderator Final Warning

Both of these posts represent an uncivil, condescending tone.

Please review the Rules.


______________

Moderator final warnings serve as the last strike towards users. Additional violations will result in a probation vote. Further infractions will lead to banishment. Any challenges or replies to moderator warnings should be made via Private Message to avoid derailing topics.

Agreed, I apologize to Wyvern here.

[East of Eden]

No. We have high economic activity during high tax eras and low tax eras.

We have low economic activity during high tax eras and low tax eras.

Your selective citation of data does not refute what the totality of the data indicates.

So why did Obama say (before he changed his mind) we shouldn't raise taxes in this economy? Do you not see how more money paid to the government is less money for hiring and reinvestment?

Also, yes we had tax cuts under Reagan. However, you ignore that we also had large tax increases under Reagan, including a massive increase in the Social Security payroll tax. I happen to think this was not a bad idea. It adjusted the system to take into account the changing demographics of that day. He kept this socialistic system solvent. I give him credit for a good policy move.

Agreed on SS, but were Reagan in charge in the 30s the doomed systems would never have been set up, there are much better options, see Chile.

Yes, that is the contention. What is lacking is anything other than unsubstantiated soundbites to support this.

Wrong, we have the examples of FDR and Obama to support it, and Reagan's good example.

It is still poor form in my view. The insertion comes across as a clumsy attempt to suggest JFK agrees with your skewed rhetorical comment.

Do you deny JFK was saying tax cuts increase government revenues by stimulating the economy, something Obama and Pelosi would deny today?

You are speculating.

Like Obama's novel 'jobs saved' statistic?

We do not know what JFK would suggest as good policy in the current context. You are ignoring that the tax rates in JFK's day were up to 90% and he only moved them down to 70%. You are ignoring the point I already made that him referring to a 90% rate as restrictive does not imply that he would think of 40% as restrictive. It is also fallacious to think that since he reduced the top rate from 90% to 70% he would therefore think we should reduce from 40% to 36% or oppose raising from 36% to 40%.

If JFK's principle is true about tax cuts, what difference what the rate is?

You are essentially mischaracterizing JFK's quote in the same way you mischaracterized Frank's quote earlier.

No, I'm not.

Your opinion is noted. I in fact do not disagree that, provided we have enough revenue to run the government, lower rates are better than higher rates.

Then we agree on that, although I would say we have primarily a spending problem, not a revenue problem.

However, I do support progressive taxation.

I do not, income redistribution is not mentioned in the Constitution. Who is getting a free pass is the 50% who pay no income taxes, that needs to change.

Given the deficits we have, I do think in the not too distant future we can go back to the tax rates as they were under Clinton. Those are slightly higher than they are now, and we did just fine economically under Clinton.

Or at least Clinton after the '94 Congress took over. Our $14 trillion debt is way beyond tinkering with the tax code.

Secondly, this does not address the fallaciousness of your claim that I was pointing out. You were trying to portray the JFK quote as support for Reagan's policies and against Obama's policy.

Right.

This quote does not support your contention in that the rates JFK was considering were profoundly higher than at least what we are discussing vis-a-vis Obama versus Bush rates.

Again, the principle is the same whatever the rates. I don't believe JFK was proposing cutting ONLY the top rate, they were across the board. Talk about cherry picking.

Also, pretty much everyone, including Obama, understands the best way to increase tax revenue and lower the deficit is to increase growth. The issue is how tax policy effects economic growth and tax revenue. You seem to think lower tax rates are necessary for growth or that lowering tax rates always produces higher growth.

The data simply does not support that.

What the data supports is that the JFK/Reagan approach works and Obama's doesn't.

Well, I don't put much credence in it, but we do have Warren Buffet who supports higher marginal tax rates for the wealthy. He does not seem to believe higher rates would have a negative effect.

Warren is free to give all they money he wants to the government. He is not representative of the business community. I once had a conversation with Warren Buffet's cousin who said Warren's support of Democrats has less to do with any sound economic reason and more to do with his opposition to GOP social policy. Warren will be rich no matter what any POTUS does, the same is not true of the average person.

I have shown, with respect to tax revenues, that there was nothing exceptional about the Reagan period. That is not a ridiculous claim but a fact which you have done nothing to refute.

Pointing out that fact is not "throwing stones."

Obama can only dream of such an 'unexceptional' record. From the Heritage Foundation:

"Despite the steep recession in 1982--brought on by tight money policies that were instituted to squeeze out the historic inflation level of the late 1970s--by 1983, the Reagan policies of reducing taxes, spending, regulation, and inflation were in place. The result was unprecedented economic growth:

This economic boom lasted 92 months without a recession, from November 1982 to July 1990, the longest period of sustained growth during peacetime and the second-longest period of sustained growth in U.S. history. The growth in the economy lasted more than twice as long as the average period of expansions since World War II.

The American economy grew by about one-third in real inflation-adjusted terms. This was the equivalent of adding the entire economy of East and West Germany or two-thirds of Japan's economy to the U.S. economy.
From 1950 to 1973, real economic growth in the U.S. economy averaged 3.6 percent per year. From 1973 to 1982, it averaged only 1.6 percent. The Reagan economic boom restored the more usual growth rate as the economy averaged 3.5 percent in real growth from the beginning of 1983 to the end of 1990."

I again call for a retraction of this mischaracterization of what I stated.

If you are referring to your statement that there was nothing exceptional about Reagan's record, your retraction request is refused again.

Granted Reagan inherited high interest rates and a high misery rate.

This does not refute that the primary measures of the severity of a recession are loss of GDP and job losses.

Once again, this shows you ignore the totality of the data in favor of a narrow selection of data chosen to support a view that is at odds with the totality of the data.

If this economy is such an insurmountable problem, why did Obama say something to the effect that if he didn't turn things around in three years, he doesn't deserve to be re-elected?

Well, you called it the "Obama recession." Here is your statement.

"BTW, I once again reject your assertion than Obama's recession was more serious than the one Reagan inherited (and fixed, unlike Obama) from Carter."

I took "unlike Obama" to refer to both fixing the problem and inheriting the problem.

However, if I misintepreted your statement, I apologize and retract that you were saying Obama did not inherit the recent recession.

He certainly did inherit a bad economy, the discussion here I think is getting us out of it. I would have preferred a POTUS with real world experience in the business world such as Romney. To be fair, McCain had little business experience either but I think he would have done less damage as in Obamacare.

Yes, you did. You portrayed "If the stimulus is passed, unemployment will stay under 8%" as an accurate portrayal of what the Administration said.

You left out the caveats and numerical estimates available at the time that qualified this statement.

You at first denied that such conditions existed.

After I provided evidence those conditions were in fact part of the report, you finally admitted the conditions did exist.

Then you dismissed their relevance, referring to the conditions as "CYA" and "weasel words" without giving any valid reason for those dismissals.

These characterizations of the conditions do not refute that these conditions were a part of the claim, as you eventually acknowledged after being repeatedly confronted.


To leave the conditions out of the claim is to make a false claim about what the Administration actually said.

No it isn't. To say a prediction was made by Obama's people that didn't happen is the same as when I said Reagan's promise to balance the budget did not happen. Why those things did not happen is a completely separate discussion. I could say the Democrats reneged on their promise to cut spending after Reagan agreed to raise taxes, but that is a separate issue. Reagan's promise did not happen, and neither did that of Obama's team.

]You also said Frank agreed with "the gist of your argument." This has been shown, by looking at the actual quote, to be an inaccurate characterization of what Frank said. Here is the quote you provided.

"President Obama, whom I greatly admire ... when the economic recovery bill — we're supposed to call it the 'recovery bill,' not the 'stimulus' bill; that's what the focus groups tell us — he predicted or his aides predicted at the time that if it passed, unemployment would get under 8 percent," Frank said Tuesday evening during an appearance on the Fox Business Network. "That was a dumb thing to do."

The source I have is http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing- ... employment. The statement is from August of 2010.

Nothing here says Franks agrees with your views on the stimulus. He only expresses his view that it would have been better not to make the specific reference to the unemployment rate.

You have asked why he made this statement and I provided my view, and I can't say at this point that this is what Frank was thinking in his mind, that Frank understood the quote would be manipulated, quote-mined, distorted, etc. for political effect, just as has happened in this thread.

Frank's quote actually supports my position. He said a prediction was made, and it was dumb to do so. He didn't say the prediction was fulfilled, and he didn't say caveats mean no prediction was made.

In fact, here is more evidence to show Frank does not agree with you, at least in so far as thinking the stimulus was a bad idea or that the stimulus did not work.

Whether the stimulus was a bad idea or worked is a separate question to the prediction that Frank acknowledges.

If Frank thought the stimulus was dumb and did not work, as you say, why did he applaud it?

Straw man, I never said that, I said Frank says a prediction was made, and that it was dumb to do so.

This is from early January 2009 when the stimulus was still being put together. He is supportive of the idea, and has some suggestions and concerns about the details. He clearly does not think the stimulus is a dumb idea.

I would expect Frank to think Obama's plan a good one, he is just as clueless on the economy as Obama. This is the guy who said before the collapse of the housing market than Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac were in no trouble.

Thus, Frank liked the stimulus, but thought it should have less of what you want, tax cuts. Thus Frank disagrees with your views on the stimulus.

Yes, he was even more wrong than Obama, what does that have to do with the point that he agreed a prediction was made and that it was dumb to do so?

Finally, as far as working, the CBO does attribute 3.7 million jobs to the stimulus. This is quite within the margin of the the stimulus report predicted.

Do you really think absent Obama's plan, zero jobs would have been added? Historically, the more severe the recession, the more dramatic the recovery, except for this time. If Obama wanted to put $800,00,000 into the economy he should have cut taxes by that amount, but then his political allies (unions, Solyndra) wouldn't have been paid off.

YOu have certainly not provided anything either as objective or as thorough as the CBO. You have provided no credible evidence for us to question the CBO analysis.

I'm saying the CBO has a bad track record.

Thus, the best analysis we have is that the stimulus did work,

Tell it to the 9% unemployed and the millions being foreclosed on.

[micatala]

No. We have high economic activity during high tax eras and low tax eras.

We have low economic activity during high tax eras and low tax eras.

Your selective citation of data does not refute what the totality of the data indicates.

So why did Obama say (before he changed his mind) we shouldn't raise taxes in this economy? Do you not see how more money paid to the government is less money for hiring and reinvestment?

Well, I am not a spokesperson for Obama. But, as I recall, he supported letting the Bush tax cuts expire for those making over 200,000. I believe he has commented that raising taxes across the board during the recovery is not a good idea. He felt those making over 200K could afford to pay more without adversely affecting the recovery. I basically agree. I do not see any actual evidence the very modest tax increase this would represent on those making over 200K would have an impact on their spending or any hypothetical "job creation" effect.

Consider that a single person making 300K would have faced a tax increase of about $4000. I am getting this from an approximately 4% increase in tax on the marginal income of $100,000.

To your second point, I would in part agree, but I think the effect is so small that it is not discernible in the data due to other factors affecting economic growth. Again, if the guy making $300K is a small business owner who does hire people, I don't see that the extra $4000 is likely to have much of an effect on his hiring decisions.

In addition, not all those making over $200K are "job creators", to use Boehners term. I would love to see data on how many of those individuals are actually job creators. I am sure some of them are, but a lot of them are not. In addition, a lot of the "job creators" make less than $200K and so that particular policy change would not affect them. I would have to look it up, but as I recall, the large majority of small business owners would be under the $200K cutoff.

Finally, a lot of jobs are created by corporations and so would not be affected directly at all by a change in the individual rates.


So, I agree that, in theory, more money paid to government means less for other things, and these other things could be hiring and investment. My point is that if you actually look at the data, it is very hard to determine that tax cuts (or tax increases) have much of a macroeconomic effect. The data shows that we have had high rates of growth at times when we had high, much higher than what Obama proposed, marginal tax rates. We have also had low economic growth (e.g. during the GW Bush Administration) after tax cuts and during relatively low tax periods.

I attribute this to other factors having a much bigger effect on economic growth than tax policy. I certainly see no evidence from the actual data that, outside of fragile economic times, small tax increases have a measureable economic effect.


Given the long term debt and deficit issues we face, I think modest tax increases in the not too distant future are merited. I would say that, at some point, this should include those in lower tax brackets. I actually have some agreement with the notion that everyone contribute something, as long as this takes into account that everyone is already paying payroll taxes, property taxes, sales taxes, etc.

Also, yes we had tax cuts under Reagan. However, you ignore that we also had large tax increases under Reagan, including a massive increase in the Social Security payroll tax. I happen to think this was not a bad idea. It adjusted the system to take into account the changing demographics of that day. He kept this socialistic system solvent. I give him credit for a good policy move.

Agreed on SS, but were Reagan in charge in the 30s the doomed systems would never have been set up, there are much better options, see Chile.

Well, although this is speculation, I would agree Reagan would probably not have set up SS. I am not sure I buy Chile's system is better, but I am not too knowledgeable of the details. However, we are not Chile and Chile, as I recall, just set up there system fairly recently.

I give Reagan credit for adapting his policies to reality to some extent. After the first big tax cut, he saw that the deficits were balooning, even though the economy was also picking up. He backed off the tax cuts to some extent and passed the payroll tax increase. This still didn't stop the deficit spending, but it kept it from getting worse. I don't put all the blame for the deficits on him, but I do think his 1980 campaign promises were too optimistic. He claimed he would cut taxes, increase defense spending, and balance the budget. He accomplished the first two, but the math just didn't work.

Yes, that is the contention. What is lacking is anything other than unsubstantiated soundbites to support this.

Wrong, we have the examples of FDR and Obama to support it, and Reagan's good example.

Just to be complete, here is what I had responded to:

My point is that bad tax policy can deepen and prolong a bad economy.

The jury is still out on Obama since we are still digging our way out of the huge hole we faced when he came into office.

Secondly, we have the counterexample of the Clinton era coming out of the somewhat poor economy in the GHW Bush era. Tax increases were followed by a boom I think would be measured as equal to Reagan's. In fact, here are a whole set of charts comparing Reagan and Clinton.

http://zzpat.tripod.com/graphs.htm

Now, some of these charts are grossly misleading in that they do not adjust for inflation, which makes some of these look really good for Clinton when all that is really going on is economic growth associated with population growth or changes due to inflation. However, the GDP chart at the end would be valid and shows similar average growth for both Presidents. So again, if you look at all the data the contention that tax cuts produce equal or greater revenue or produce "economic booms" simply does not hold water.



As far as FDR, I don't buy that the opinion piece you have provides adequate data to support your point. Here it is again:

"One example: In 1929, we had a top marginal tax rate of 24% on all income over $100,000. And, according to The Historical Statistics of the United States, the federal government took in $1.096 billion that year. In 1935, after FDR successfully enacted a 79% tax on multimillionaires, the federal revenue declined to $527 million. In other words, when the top tax rate was 24% we took in more than twice as much as when the tax rate spiked to 79%. Granted, we were in a Great Depression in 1935, but that is in part because we were steadily adding new taxes and raising taxes from 1929 to 1935, and those rate hikes helped cause and perpetuate the Great Depression. Why should entrepreneurs invest and take risks when they have to turn more than half of what they might make over to the government? The safer move is to avoid investment and expansion, sit on your capital, and wait for better times. Thus, millions of Americans were unemployed because FDR wanted to tax the rich and “make them pay their fair share.�

Their citation of tax revenues fail to take into account the massive depression. Recessions lower tax revenue. Their suggestion that the increase in the marginal tax rate tanked revenue is entirely bogus. They then try to back up by saying "oh, yeah, there was a depression, but . . . " However, they never actually take into account the depression, they just throw out some ideological arguments without any data.

I don't see any actual evidence that tax policy changes prolonged the depression. This is just a clumsy Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc argument.

It is still poor form in my view. The insertion comes across as a clumsy attempt to suggest JFK agrees with your skewed rhetorical comment.

Do you deny JFK was saying tax cuts increase government revenues by stimulating the economy, something Obama and Pelosi would deny today?

I agree with the general point. I was only making an issue of your editorial remark.

As far as Obama and Pelosi, I think you are not accurately portraying their positions or statements. Obama has said tax cuts can be beneficial. There were huge tax cuts as part of the original stimulus. He continues to support the payroll tax cut holiday. However, I think he feels, and I think the data supports this, that direct spending like unemployment benefits and infrastructure projects produce a more direct and immediate stimulative effect.

I am not saying tax cuts are bad. I am saying they are being way oversold by the Republicans. They do not produce the "big booms" that are claimed. They do not seem to produce enough economic activity even to pay for themselves with respect to tax revenue.

You are speculating.

Like Obama's novel 'jobs saved' statistic?

You left out the context. Here it is:

So you agree with JFK's statement that the soundest way to raise revenues is to cut tax rates now?

I said this was speculation. Your response does nothing to refute this.


Now, I would agree the projections or estimates of jobs saved or created are not perfect. However, neither are they pure speculation.

In addition, the numbers on previous job losses, which you also labelled as speculation, were not projections. They are imperfect, but we do go back and do updates. That's how we found that the figures available in January 2009 on what was happening at that time and the previous quarter were too optimistic.

We do not know what JFK would suggest as good policy in the current context. You are ignoring that the tax rates in JFK's day were up to 90% and he only moved them down to 70%. You are ignoring the point I already made that him referring to a 90% rate as restrictive does not imply that he would think of 40% as restrictive. It is also fallacious to think that since he reduced the top rate from 90% to 70% he would therefore think we should reduce from 40% to 36% or oppose raising from 36% to 40%.

If JFK's principle is true about tax cuts, what difference what the rate is?

You don't think that investors or businesses will behave differently when the rate is 70% than when it is 40%??

You are essentially mischaracterizing JFK's quote in the same way you mischaracterized Frank's quote earlier.

No, I'm not.

Well, yes you are since you are speculating about what JFK would say in the present circumstance, but we can leave this aside for now.

Your opinion is noted. I in fact do not disagree that, provided we have enough revenue to run the government, lower rates are better than higher rates.

Then we agree on that, although I would say we have primarily a spending problem, not a revenue problem.

I agree we have a long term spending issue based primarily on medicare and social security.

The current deficits, though, are not primarily because of spending problems but because of the recession. Obama inherited deficits, if measured honestly, in the $800 billion or more range. The recession, because of lost tax revenue due to GDP loss, added at least $200 billion in each of the first couple year's of the Obama Administration. Obama's stimulus package did add about $400 billion a year for two years. That spending is now essentially done. The TARP spending was not Obama's, and that is also done and we got a lot of it back (Bush gets credit for this). There is certainly not much you can point to as far as spending due to policy changes by Obama that is currently contributing a lot to the deficit.

We DO have a revenue problem. A lot of it is a short term problem due to the recession. This should go away as we continue to grow. We also have a longer term revenue problem created by the Bush tax cuts. These contributed a lot to deficits under Bush and will continue to do so if we do not repeal them.

Yes, we could keep those tax cuts if we cut spending, but those cuts would have to be extremely deep and are likely to have extremely negative consequences, including economic ones. Even without Obama's health care initiative, we would be facing huge deficits in the future. Almost all of those deficits are due to policies enacted before Obama took office. These include our wars, the Bush prescription drug bill, long term programs like medicare and medicaid (which are costing more due to demographic changes), and the normal expenses of government.

However, I do support progressive taxation.

I do not, income redistribution is not mentioned in the Constitution.

Well, I don't equate progressive taxation with "income redistribution." What does the constitution say about taxation?

Who is getting a free pass is the 50% who pay no income taxes, that needs to change.

I am open to considering this, but this comment ignores that most of those 50% do pay payroll taxes, medicare taxes, property taxes, sales taxes, etc.

Also, one has to ask why are 50% paying no federal income tax?

I think if we investigated it we would find that the biggest reason is the Bush tax cuts, and the next biggest reason is that a lot of people stopped having to pay taxes because of the recession when they lost jobs or had pay cuts, etc.

Given the deficits we have, I do think in the not too distant future we can go back to the tax rates as they were under Clinton. Those are slightly higher than they are now, and we did just fine economically under Clinton.

Or at least Clinton after the '94 Congress took over. Our $14 trillion debt is way beyond tinkering with the tax code.

I would support doing more than tinkering. The fastest way to address the debt, however, is economic growth. In the short term, we can spend and even borrow money to get the economy going. In the long run, we do have to address the biggest drivers of increased spending, especially medicare, but also social security, and defense.

This quote does not support your contention in that the rates JFK was considering were profoundly higher than at least what we are discussing vis-a-vis Obama versus Bush rates.

Again, the principle is the same whatever the rates. I don't believe JFK was proposing cutting ONLY the top rate, they were across the board. Talk about cherry picking.

I would agree, we need to address rates across the board and we have been addressing primarily the top rates. The other thing we have not addressed at all is what incomes these rates apply to. A 30% rate under $200K and a 40% rate starting at $200K is not the same as the same rates where the cutoff is $500K or a million.

I don't agree that the "principle is the same whatever the rates." To me, the psychology of 70% is a lot different than 40%.

Also, pretty much everyone, including Obama, understands the best way to increase tax revenue and lower the deficit is to increase growth. The issue is how tax policy effects economic growth and tax revenue. You seem to think lower tax rates are necessary for growth or that lowering tax rates always produces higher growth.

The data simply does not support that.

What the data supports is that the JFK/Reagan approach works and Obama's doesn't.

Uhhh, no. You are ignoring Clinton again. You also can't compare Administrations decades in the past with one that is still in the midst of dealing with a major economic recovery. Obama's policies are in fact working.

1) GDP is up.
2) The Dow is way, way up from where it was when he took office.
3) We are creating jobs, but we still have a way to go before we get out of the 8 plus million job hole the recession created.
4) The auto bailout worked.
5) So did the Recovery Act, producing by our best estimate easily 2 million jobs.
6) We averted a total financial melt down.

I have shown, with respect to tax revenues, that there was nothing exceptional about the Reagan period. That is not a ridiculous claim but a fact which you have done nothing to refute.

Pointing out that fact is not "throwing stones."

Obama can only dream of such an 'unexceptional' record.

Again, my point stands. With respect to economic growth and tax revenue, Reagan is not out of the ordinary.

Granted Reagan inherited high interest rates and a high misery rate.

This does not refute that the primary measures of the severity of a recession are loss of GDP and job losses.

Once again, this shows you ignore the totality of the data in favor of a narrow selection of data chosen to support a view that is at odds with the totality of the data.

If this economy is such an insurmountable problem, why did Obama say something to the effect that if he didn't turn things around in three years, he doesn't deserve to be re-elected?

Your response does not refute my point. It does not even address my point.

Well, you called it the "Obama recession." Here is your statement.

"BTW, I once again reject your assertion than Obama's recession was more serious than the one Reagan inherited (and fixed, unlike Obama) from Carter."

I took "unlike Obama" to refer to both fixing the problem and inheriting the problem.

However, if I misintepreted your statement, I apologize and retract that you were saying Obama did not inherit the recent recession.

He certainly did inherit a bad economy, the discussion here I think is getting us out of it. I would have preferred a POTUS with real world experience in the business world such as Romney. To be fair, McCain had little business experience either but I think he would have done less damage as in Obamacare.

Well, this is speculation again. However, I'll accept we are on the same page and that I misunderstood your original statement.

If Frank thought the stimulus was dumb and did not work, as you say, why did he applaud it?

Straw man, I never said that, I said Frank says a prediction was made, and that it was dumb to do so.

I'll skip addressing a lot of the discussion on Frank. I agree, Frank said it was dumb to make the prediction. I do not accept that Frank has the same view of the caveats as you do. He does not say this, that is you reading into his statements.

YOu have certainly not provided anything either as objective or as thorough as the CBO. You have provided no credible evidence for us to question the CBO analysis.

I'm saying the CBO has a bad track record.

Well, as I recall you provided one example arguing this point, but it was pointed out that your argument was highly fallacious.

I've asked a couple of times if you could find anyone who has better numbers than the CBO with no response. I asked if you could find anyone with better names than Romer and Bernstein. So far nothing.

Thus, the best analysis we have is that the stimulus did work,

Tell it to the 9% unemployed and the millions being foreclosed on.

This is a pointless response. It does nothing to refute my point. The best analysis we have indicates the stimulus worked.

The problem was the economy was a lot worse than we knew when this was implemented. We have high unemployment, yes. When your economy loses 8 million jobs, that's what happens.


Here are figures on job creation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jobs_creat ... tial_terms

Here also is a short summary of three Presidents.
From http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index ... 157AAtJpTw

Reagan: Jan 81 to Dec 88, 16.3 million
Clinton: Jan 93 to Dec. 2000, 22.8 million
Bush 43: Jan 2000 to Oct. 2008, 4.4 million

You might also find this USA article interesting.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/s ... 51065798/1

I will comment later. This post is already too long.

[East of Eden]

Well, I am not a spokesperson for Obama. But, as I recall, he supported letting the Bush tax cuts expire for those making over 200,000. I believe he has commented that raising taxes across the board during the recovery is not a good idea. He felt those making over 200K could afford to pay more without adversely affecting the recovery. I basically agree. I do not see any actual evidence the very modest tax increase this would represent on those making over 200K would have an impact on their spending or any hypothetical "job creation" effect.

Yes, not all of those at $200,000+ are job creators, but it is impossible to help the job creators without helping those others. What we know is poor people don't create any jobs. I've always thought it would be a good idea to have in schools a class on success, teaching what things successful people do, and don't do. Successful people should be role models (rather than demonized) since by far the majority got there by serving other people, i.e. helping others get what they want.

Here are some facts on small businesses from Peter Bromberg:

"Small firms (e.g. “rich people� according to president Obama):

Represent 99.7 percent of all employer firms.
Employ just over half of all private sector employees.
Pay 44 percent of total U.S. private payroll.
Have generated 64 percent of net new jobs over the past 15 years.
Create more than half of the nonfarm private gross domestic product (GDP).
Hire 40 percent of high tech workers (such as scientists, engineers, and computer programmers).
Made up 97.3 percent of all identified exporters and produced 30.2 percent of the known export value in FY 2007.
Produce 13 times more patents per employee than large patenting firms; these patents are twice as likely as large firm patents to be among the one percent most cited."

Consider that a single person making 300K would have faced a tax increase of about $4000. I am getting this from an approximately 4% increase in tax on the marginal income of $100,000.

To your second point, I would in part agree, but I think the effect is so small that it is not discernible in the data due to other factors affecting economic growth. Again, if the guy making $300K is a small business owner who does hire people, I don't see that the extra $4000 is likely to have much of an effect on his hiring decisions.

In addition, not all those making over $200K are "job creators", to use Boehners term. I would love to see data on how many of those individuals are actually job creators. I am sure some of them are, but a lot of them are not. In addition, a lot of the "job creators" make less than $200K and so that particular policy change would not affect them. I would have to look it up, but as I recall, the large majority of small business owners would be under the $200K cutoff.

Finally, a lot of jobs are created by corporations and so would not be affected directly at all by a change in the individual rates.


So, I agree that, in theory, more money paid to government means less for other things, and these other things could be hiring and investment. My point is that if you actually look at the data, it is very hard to determine that tax cuts (or tax increases) have much of a macroeconomic effect. The data shows that we have had high rates of growth at times when we had high, much higher than what Obama proposed, marginal tax rates. We have also had low economic growth (e.g. during the GW Bush Administration) after tax cuts and during relatively low tax periods.

I attribute this to other factors having a much bigger effect on economic growth than tax policy. I certainly see no evidence from the actual data that, outside of fragile economic times, small tax increases have a measureable economic effect.

This seems to be an issue only in bad economic times, since in robust times lots of government revenue is being generated.

Given the long term debt and deficit issues we face, I think modest tax increases in the not too distant future are merited. I would say that, at some point, this should include those in lower tax brackets. I actually have some agreement with the notion that everyone contribute something, as long as this takes into account that everyone is already paying payroll taxes, property taxes, sales taxes, etc.

They do, but we are talking about income taxes here. Lower income people not only don't pay any, but they can get the 'Earned Income Tax Credit', which is really a kind of welfare.

Well, although this is speculation, I would agree Reagan would probably not have set up SS. I am not sure I buy Chile's system is better, but I am not too knowledgeable of the details. However, we are not Chile and Chile, as I recall, just set up there system fairly recently.

Not only Chile but I believe the government workers of Galveston, TX (they opted out of SS) have such a system. Their retirement accounts get a higher interest rate and I think it can be passed down to heirs, safe from predatory politicians. With the current set up there is no account, just government IOUs. We could have a Chile type system, with those unemployed or disabled and not able to contribute treated like a regular welfare case. The law of unintended consequences will catch up with SS, when due to people living longer and fewer children, we have a 2 to 1 ratio of workers to retirees.

I give Reagan credit for adapting his policies to reality to some extent. After the first big tax cut, he saw that the deficits were balooning, even though the economy was also picking up. He backed off the tax cuts to some extent and passed the payroll tax increase. This still didn't stop the deficit spending, but it kept it from getting worse. I don't put all the blame for the deficits on him, but I do think his 1980 campaign promises were too optimistic. He claimed he would cut taxes, increase defense spending, and balance the budget. He accomplished the first two, but the math just didn't work.

Agreed, I have said his promise to balance the budget didn't happen, although he didn't add to the debt like Obama is doing despite also inheriting a bad economy.

The jury is still out on Obama since we are still digging our way out of the huge hole we faced when he came into office.

Secondly, we have the counterexample of the Clinton era coming out of the somewhat poor economy in the GHW Bush era. Tax increases were followed by a boom I think would be measured as equal to Reagan's. In fact, here are a whole set of charts comparing Reagan and Clinton.

http://zzpat.tripod.com/graphs.htm

Now, some of these charts are grossly misleading in that they do not adjust for inflation, which makes some of these look really good for Clinton when all that is really going on is economic growth associated with population growth or changes due to inflation. However, the GDP chart at the end would be valid and shows similar average growth for both Presidents. So again, if you look at all the data the contention that tax cuts produce equal or greater revenue or produce "economic booms" simply does not hold water.

I do give Clinton some credit, but you can leave Gingrich and the '94 congress out of the equation. The economy didn't really take off until they took office.

As far as FDR, I don't buy that the opinion piece you have provides adequate data to support your point. Here it is again:

"One example: In 1929, we had a top marginal tax rate of 24% on all income over $100,000. And, according to The Historical Statistics of the United States, the federal government took in $1.096 billion that year. In 1935, after FDR successfully enacted a 79% tax on multimillionaires, the federal revenue declined to $527 million. In other words, when the top tax rate was 24% we took in more than twice as much as when the tax rate spiked to 79%. Granted, we were in a Great Depression in 1935, but that is in part because we were steadily adding new taxes and raising taxes from 1929 to 1935, and those rate hikes helped cause and perpetuate the Great Depression. Why should entrepreneurs invest and take risks when they have to turn more than half of what they might make over to the government? The safer move is to avoid investment and expansion, sit on your capital, and wait for better times. Thus, millions of Americans were unemployed because FDR wanted to tax the rich and “make them pay their fair share.�

Their citation of tax revenues fail to take into account the massive depression. Recessions lower tax revenue. Their suggestion that the increase in the marginal tax rate tanked revenue is entirely bogus. They then try to back up by saying "oh, yeah, there was a depression, but . . . " However, they never actually take into account the depression, they just throw out some ideological arguments without any data.

I don't see any actual evidence that tax policy changes prolonged the depression. This is just a clumsy Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc argument.

I disagree, I think bad tax policy can prolong and deepen a recession. Here is a real-life example of what tax cuts can do in Ireland:

"Ireland, long a poor, economically backward nation, adopted a 12.5% corporate rate in 1988 when it suffered the second lowest per capita income in the EU. The Irish rode the resulting boom over the next 20 years to the second highest per capita income in the EU. Our own Treasury Department issued a study showing that Ireland raises more corporate tax revenues as a percent of GDP with this low rate than we do with our rate nearly 3 times as high." Heritage

As far as Obama and Pelosi, I think you are not accurately portraying their positions or statements. Obama has said tax cuts can be beneficial. There were huge tax cuts as part of the original stimulus. He continues to support the payroll tax cut holiday. However, I think he feels, and I think the data supports this, that direct spending like unemployment benefits and infrastructure projects produce a more direct and immediate stimulative effect.

A separate problem I have with Obama is his redistributive tendencies. I'd like to see where a constitutional scholar finds that in the constitution.

]I said this was speculation. Your response does nothing to refute this.

In the case of JFK and Reagan, it is not speculation to say the soundest way to boost the economy is to cut taxes, because both of their tax cuts were followed by large gains in unemployment and GDP. We're still waiting for similar positive outcomes of Obama's plan.

Now, I would agree the projections or estimates of jobs saved or created are not perfect. However, neither are they pure speculation.

But when we're comparing Obama to Reagan as you do below, shouldn't we come up with a 'jobs saved' category for Reagan?

You don't think that investors or businesses will behave differently when the rate is 70% than when it is 40%??

They do, and they behave differently when it is 28% instead of 40%.

The current deficits, though, are not primarily because of spending problems but because of the recession. Obama inherited deficits, if measured honestly, in the $800 billion or more range. The recession, because of lost tax revenue due to GDP loss, added at least $200 billion in each of the first couple year's of the Obama Administration. Obama's stimulus package did add about $400 billion a year for two years. That spending is now essentially done. The TARP spending was not Obama's, and that is also done and we got a lot of it back (Bush gets credit for this). There is certainly not much you can point to as far as spending due to policy changes by Obama that is currently contributing a lot to the deficit.

We DO have a revenue problem. A lot of it is a short term problem due to the recession. This should go away as we continue to grow. We also have a longer term revenue problem created by the Bush tax cuts.

Wrong on Bush, from Heritage:

"Under Bush’s "tax cuts for the rich" the rich paid more in taxes in 2005 than any time in the prior 20 years. In fact, as the Wall Street Journal noted, thanks to Bush’s tax cuts for the rich, the richest one percent went from paying 25% of all income taxes in 1990 to 39% in 2005. The richest 5% went from paying 44% of all income taxes in 1990 to paying 60% of all income taxes in 2005.
More importantly, after the 2001 initial tax cuts, the annual growth rate went from 0.3% in 2001 to 2.5% in 2002. By 2004, GDP growth was the highest in 20 years.
Likewise, after the 2003 tax cuts, the unemployment rate fell to the lowest level since World War II.
During the Bush years, despite the 2000 Recession, the attacks on 9-11, the stock market scandals, Hurricane Katrina, and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Bush Administration was able to reduce the budget deficit from 412 billion dollars in 2004 to 162 billion dollars in 2007, a sixty percent drop. During the Bush years the average unemployment rate was 5.2 percent, the economy saw the strongest productivity growth in four decades and there was robust GDP growth.
Not only were more jobs lost after the 9-11 attacks in 2001 than in the 2008 market crash, but more jobs were created by President Bush’s pro-business policies and tax cuts than by the Obama-Pelosi "spend your way to hell" Keynesian failure."

These contributed a lot to deficits under Bush and will continue to do so if we do not repeal them.

Yes, we could keep those tax cuts if we cut spending, but those cuts would have to be extremely deep and are likely to have extremely negative consequences, including economic ones. Even without Obama's health care initiative, we would be facing huge deficits in the future. Almost all of those deficits are due to policies enacted before Obama took office. These include our wars, the Bush prescription drug bill, long term programs like medicare and medicaid (which are costing more due to demographic changes)

I was against that.

, and the normal expenses of government.

I would start by shutting down those three government agencies Perry couldn't remember. Let's take the Dept. of Education, which occupies a five story building the size of two football fields. This was essentially Carter's payoff to the teacher's unions. Did we not have education before that dept. was created? Have education results dramatically (if at all) improved since that dept. was created? The same for 'No Child Left Behind', where are the great results of that idea? That's was drives me crazy about government, an agency is set up, and long after the politician who did it is dead that agency continues to grow each year, regardless of any measurable positive results, unlike the private sector. As Greece and Italy are finding out, our debt will require massive radical action, tinkering around the edges or even economic growth (not projected to be here anytime soon) will not fix it.

Well, I don't equate progressive taxation with "income redistribution." What does the constitution say about taxation?

There was no progressive taxation under the Founders. Even God only asked 10% from everyone. IMHO the wealthy should contribute more to charity, and I'll compare my record on that with anyone on this forum.

We can get an idea of what the Founders would say of Obama's plan from this quote of Jefferson:

"The principle of spending money to be paid by posterity under the name of funding is but swindling futurity on a large scale." Here is Jefferson on the General Welfare clause:

"To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of his father has acquired too much, in order to spare to others who (or whose fathers) have not exercised equal industry and skill, it to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, "to guarantee to everyone a free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it."

I am open to considering this, but this comment ignores that most of those 50% do pay payroll taxes, medicare taxes, property taxes, sales taxes, etc.

Also, one has to ask why are 50% paying no federal income tax?

I think if we investigated it we would find that the biggest reason is the Bush tax cuts, and the next biggest reason is that a lot of people stopped having to pay taxes because of the recession when they lost jobs or had pay cuts, etc.

Bush does have something to do with removing people from the tax rolls, and he was proud of it. That was dumb, and needs to be reversed. Even if poor workers contributed a token amount, at least they would feel like they have a stake in the debate.

I would support doing more than tinkering. The fastest way to address the debt, however, is economic growth.

Agreed.

In the short term, we can spend and even borrow money to get the economy going.

That does not work, not when FDR tried it and not under Obama. Even Henry Morgenthau Jr., Roosevelt’s own Treasury secretary, admitted the programs didn’t work. In 1939, Morgenthau wrote, “We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. I say after eight years of this administration, we have just as much unemployment as when we started. And enormous debt to boot.�

Uhhh, no. You are ignoring Clinton again. You also can't compare Administrations decades in the past with one that is still in the midst of dealing with a major economic recovery. Obama's policies are in fact working.

1) GDP is up.
2) The Dow is way, way up from where it was when he took office.

Still under the 14,000 high of a few years ago, and I think it is only up because of the QE I and II spending. There isn't any real solidity behind the economy to make the DOW grow.

3) We are creating jobs, but we still have a way to go before we get out of the 8 plus million job hole the recession created.
4) The auto bailout worked.

For the unions, at the expense of the bondholders. Obama missed a perfect chance to restructure the unrealistic union benefit problem.

5) So did the Recovery Act, producing by our best estimate easily 2 million jobs.

And you could speculate as many or more could have come back in the absence of the Recovery Act. Historically, the more severe the recession the more dramatic the recovery.

6) We averted a total financial melt down.

That threat actually happened under Bush. McCain/Palin were leading before that collapse.

Again, my point stands. With respect to economic growth and tax revenue, Reagan is not out of the ordinary.

That is flat-out not true.

I'll skip addressing a lot of the discussion on Frank. I agree, Frank said it was dumb to make the prediction. I do not accept that Frank has the same view of the caveats as you do. He does not say this, that is you reading into his statements.

OK, I think we've talked about Frank and the prediction/non-prediction enough.

This is a pointless response.

Not to the unemployed.

It does nothing to refute my point. The best analysis we have indicates the stimulus worked.

The problem was the economy was a lot worse than we knew when this was implemented. We have high unemployment, yes. When your economy loses 8 million jobs, that's what happens.

The problem is with Obama's policy.

You might also find this USA article interesting.

http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/s ... 51065798/1

From your link:

"The trouble for Obama is that next year's outlook seems nothing like 1984. The U.S. economy added 3.9 million jobs in the last 12 months before Reagan romped to re-election. Moody's Analytics expects the U.S. to add 1.6 million jobs next year, barely enough to move unemployment lower. That makes the president's prospects a toss-up, analysts say."

[micatala]

Well, I am not a spokesperson for Obama. But, as I recall, he supported letting the Bush tax cuts expire for those making over 200,000. I believe he has commented that raising taxes across the board during the recovery is not a good idea. He felt those making over 200K could afford to pay more without adversely affecting the recovery. I basically agree. I do not see any actual evidence the very modest tax increase this would represent on those making over 200K would have an impact on their spending or any hypothetical "job creation" effect.

Yes, not all of those at $200,000+ are job creators, but it is impossible to help the job creators without helping those others.

Why?


This seems like an incredibly unsubstantiated blanket statement.

Don't we already have policies that specifically target people who create jobs? Aren't there tax credits for small businesses or companies that hire? In fact, isn't there under discussion right now a proposal to give tax breaks to firms that hire veterans???


We absolutely can help the job creators without giving tax breaks to everybody making over $200,000. We already are.

What we know is poor people don't create any jobs.

Well, it depends on what you mean by "create jobs." I certainly agree poor people typically don't do a lot of hiring.

But poor people do create jobs through the demand they create through spending.

Right now, a lot of corporations are flush with cash they are just sitting on. Just having the cash does not mean they are hiriing or even investing in expanding there business. What gets businesses to hire is demand.

I've always thought it would be a good idea to have in schools a class on success, teaching what things successful people do, and don't do. Successful people should be role models (rather than demonized) since by far the majority got there by serving other people, i.e. helping others get what they want.

I don't disagree with this. However, I don't think increasing the marginal tax rate on people making over $200K from 36% to 39.6% is demonizing them or "punishing them for their success." To me that is just empty spin. Especially when we had the higher rates and much, much higher than that even previously and we were doing just fine.

I will accept that some, and I would even occasionally put Obama in this camp, use inappropriately negative rhetoric regarding "the rich." But this works both ways. The Reps are at least as guilty of "class warfare rhetoric" as the dems. I don't really care about the rhetoric. I want policies that work and are fair. A modest tax increase on the higher income brackets (and possibly an even more modest increase on lower brackets) has a lot to recommend it, given our long term debt and deficit issues.

Here are some facts on small businesses from Peter Bromberg:

"Small firms (e.g. “rich people� according to president Obama):

Here you are again inserting your own skewed editorial comments into somebody elses quotes. In this case you are falsely, or at least without any basis in fact, putting words in Obama's mouth.


In fact, Obama has been quite clear that a lot of small business owners would not face an increase under his proposal.

I call for evidence to support your claim that Obama considers small firms rich people.

Represent 99.7 percent of all employer firms.
Employ just over half of all private sector employees.
Pay 44 percent of total U.S. private payroll.
Have generated 64 percent of net new jobs over the past 15 years.
Create more than half of the nonfarm private gross domestic product (GDP).
Hire 40 percent of high tech workers (such as scientists, engineers, and computer programmers).
Made up 97.3 percent of all identified exporters and produced 30.2 percent of the known export value in FY 2007.
Produce 13 times more patents per employee than large patenting firms; these patents are twice as likely as large firm patents to be among the one percent most cited."

Yes, and one very important fact that is not here is the answer to my previous question. How many of those being described above make more than $200K as a single or $250K as a couple?

A related question is what is Bromberg's definition of small firm??

Without the answers to those questions, Bromberg's facts are irrelevant to the issue of raising taxes on those making over $200K or the effect these tax increases would have on job creation.




We still need to know what percent of those making over $200K are really job creators, and how many of the job creators alluded to by Bromberg are making over $200K.



I'll try to address more of your post later, and perhaps try to avoid creating longer and longer back and forth posts.

[Chuck_G]

Yes, not all of those at $200,000+ are job creators, but it is impossible to help the job creators without helping those others. What we know is poor people don't create any jobs. I've always thought it would be a good idea to have in schools a class on success, teaching what things successful people do, and don't do. Successful people should be role models (rather than demonized) since by far the majority got there by serving other people, i.e. helping others get what they want.

Here are some facts on small businesses from Peter Bromberg:

"Small firms (e.g. “rich people� according to president Obama):

Represent 99.7 percent of all employer firms.
Employ just over half of all private sector employees.
Pay 44 percent of total U.S. private payroll.
Have generated 64 percent of net new jobs over the past 15 years.
Create more than half of the nonfarm private gross domestic product (GDP).
Hire 40 percent of high tech workers (such as scientists, engineers, and computer programmers).
Made up 97.3 percent of all identified exporters and produced 30.2 percent of the known export value in FY 2007.
Produce 13 times more patents per employee than large patenting firms; these patents are twice as likely as large firm patents to be among the one percent most cited."

First off I gathered from this site http://web.sba.gov/faqs/faqindex.cfm?areaID=24 the same info you posted above and "small business" is defined as 500 employees or less. Now think about one street in your home town and every business on that street. How many of those businesses even approach 50 employees?

I bet most of them you can think have less than ten. How about construction crews? Restaurants, hardware stores, or other various merchants? After you think of it that way, how many of these small business owners do you think make more than 250k a year? I suspect the answer is very, very few of them.

And besides, as Micatala pointed out, this line of argument is disingenous as these small businesses are taxed as businesses.....not as individuals. From the link I posted above:

Of the 15.5 million individuals whose primary occupation was self-employment (incorporated and unincorporated), the median personal marginal federal tax rate was 10 percent in 2008. Only 4.1 percent of the self-employed were in the marginal tax bracket of 33 percent or more.

Sorry I am just not buying the "killing the job creators" line. And by the way Micatala mentioned earlier than the recession started early 2007. Those of us that work in the housing market were getting hit hard by mid 2006 nearly in the middle of the so-called "Bush gravy train" as my Rush Limbaugh loving friends like to call the two terms of disaster. Now I'm no fan of Obama, in fact I think he has had no impact on the economic problems whatsoever. I think things are just naturally working themselves or something. Honestly I have no idea because frankly I haven't much education on economics. But I will say this; I have more work now than I've had in nearly 6 years and I see many of my my friends that work in the housing market busy now as well. And what I'm really tired of is all of the doom and gloom coming from the "Obama is destroying our country team" and the partisan blame game from either side. A little optimism would go a long way in these tough times.

We made it though Bush. We'll make it through Obama.

[micatala]

Yes, not all of those at $200,000+ are job creators, but it is impossible to help the job creators without helping those others. What we know is poor people don't create any jobs. I've always thought it would be a good idea to have in schools a class on success, teaching what things successful people do, and don't do. Successful people should be role models (rather than demonized) since by far the majority got there by serving other people, i.e. helping others get what they want.

Here are some facts on small businesses from Peter Bromberg:

"Small firms (e.g. “rich people� according to president Obama):

Represent 99.7 percent of all employer firms.
Employ just over half of all private sector employees.
Pay 44 percent of total U.S. private payroll.
Have generated 64 percent of net new jobs over the past 15 years.
Create more than half of the nonfarm private gross domestic product (GDP).
Hire 40 percent of high tech workers (such as scientists, engineers, and computer programmers).
Made up 97.3 percent of all identified exporters and produced 30.2 percent of the known export value in FY 2007.
Produce 13 times more patents per employee than large patenting firms; these patents are twice as likely as large firm patents to be among the one percent most cited."

First off I gathered from this site http://web.sba.gov/faqs/faqindex.cfm?areaID=24 the same info you posted above and "small business" is defined as 500 employees or less. Now think about one street in your home town and every business on that street. How many of those businesses even approach 50 employees?

I bet most of them you can think have less than ten. How about construction crews? Restaurants, hardware stores, or other various merchants? After you think of it that way, how many of these small business owners do you think make more than 250k a year? I suspect the answer is very, very few of them.

And besides, as Micatala pointed out, this line of argument is disingenous as these small businesses are taxed as businesses.....not as individuals. From the link I posted above:

Of the 15.5 million individuals whose primary occupation was self-employment (incorporated and unincorporated), the median personal marginal federal tax rate was 10 percent in 2008. Only 4.1 percent of the self-employed were in the marginal tax bracket of 33 percent or more.

Sorry I am just not buying the "killing the job creators" line. And by the way Micatala mentioned earlier than the recession started early 2007. Those of us that work in the housing market were getting hit hard by mid 2006 nearly in the middle of the so-called "Bush gravy train" as my Rush Limbaugh loving friends like to call the two terms of disaster. Now I'm no fan of Obama, in fact I think he has had no impact on the economic problems whatsoever. I think things are just naturally working themselves or something. Honestly I have no idea because frankly I haven't much education on economics. But I will say this; I have more work now than I've had in nearly 6 years and I see many of my my friends that work in the housing market busy now as well. And what I'm really tired of is all of the doom and gloom coming from the "Obama is destroying our country team" and the partisan blame game from either side. A little optimism would go a long way in these tough times.

We made it though Bush. We'll make it through Obama.

Thanks for the info Chuck.

I noted some other additional info on this site.

Credit conditions are improving. In mid-2010, commercial banks began to ease the tight lending conditions on small businesses that had begun in early 2007. And credit has con­tinued to flow, as loans under $1 million totalled $695 billion in FY 2009. Also, after declining over the past few years, ven­ture capital investment dollars increased in mid-2010.


Source: Federal Reserve Board, Senior Loan Officer Opinion Survey and Call Report data; National Venture Capital Association.

This points to things. First, it points to just how back the credit situation had gotten as we sunk to the low point in the recession.

Second, it points to things getting better.

Third, I believe, if we are making comparisons to Reagan, that the situation during that recession with respect to credit was not nearly this bad.



As another additional item of interest, this site has a link to a 2008 report provided to the Small Business Administration on the costs of regulation.

http://archive.sba.gov/advo/research/rs371tot.pdf

The table on page 13 of this report is copied into Chuck's source.


Oddly, when the copied in the table, they left out the cost of environmental regulations.

This information does indicate that regulations do cost a lot of money to comply with. I would support looking at how to lower these costs.

However, the report admits it does not consider the benefits of these regulations, only the costs. Those do need to be considered as well.

Also, with respect to OECD countries, the U.S. has a low regulatory burden.

The Regulatory Quality Index value for the United States is equal to 1.579 in 2008, and, as noted, the index is calibrated to range between -2.5 and 2.5. The difference between 1.579 and 2.5 (the minimal amount of regulation) would require a change equal to 0.92, which would correspond to an increase in U.S. GDP per capita of
8.7 percent (=0.094 x 0.92). The estimated cost of economic regulations as reflected in lost GDP in 2008 is thus $1.236 trillion (denominated in 2009 dollars).

Page 37 quantifies the total costs of regulations.

In 2008, all federal regulations cost 1.75 trillion to comply with.
Economic regulations took up the lions share, with 1.236 trillion.
Environmental 281 billion.
Tax compliance 160 billion
OSHA etc. 75 billion


Finally, they do have a table on the distribution of firms by size. See page 40.

Only about 18 thousand out of over 6 million firms have more than 500 employees. 5.4 million have fewer than 20 employees. So, almost 90% of firms by this data are under 20 employees. I am not sure why the cite quoting this report grouped the 636,000 firms with between 20 and 500 employees together with this 5.4 million.




Now, one interesting question would be to see if there have been any significant changes in these costs over the last three years. Remember, this report is from 2008.