What's the Liberal Policy on Stimulating the Economy?

[Scipio2009]

Someone isn't aware of the 1980s or the mid-late 1990s.

Tax cuts, ie supply-side theory, worked beautifully then.

You can't be this dumb, lol.

[Scipio2009]

The tax cut has barely even taken effect and you are already going on about the budget being debt? I bet you weren't screaming from your high horse about debt when it was doubled by 10 trillion under the Obama years, were you.


I could care less if the debt is increased from me and everyone else having more money in their pocket, you can find someone else to rob to account for unnecessary government expenditure.


The year the stimulus package took effect the economy actually contracted by nearly -3%, so in effect this stimulus package ended up costing Americans well over the 1 trillion mark.

Glad that you finally spoke your truth, lol.

For all the talk of unnecessary government spending, why is it that folks like you can never point to any actual spending that you'd wish was eliminated, instead hanging your entire sanity on this foolish belief that if taxes were taken to as close to zero as possible, the money would magically show up to cover the cost of government.

Maybe I'm just a simpleton, but what's wrong with paying for the government that we have, cutting the government spending that should be cut, and then use the money not spent on reducing the national debt and tax cuts?

It's not rocket science.

[1bad65]

You can't be this dumb, lol.

Wow, what an effective rebuttal.

The fact is GDP growth was alot better in those times than during the 2% Obama years.

And revenue almost DOUBLED under Reagan.

[Scipio2009]

Wow, what an effective rebuttal.

The fact is GDP growth was alot better in those times than during the 2% Obama years.

And revenue almost DOUBLED under Reagan.

Reagan's tax cuts threw the country into such a recession that Congress basically undid the entire package the following year; Paul Volcker and his tight monetary policy at the Fed finally broke the back of inflation, which led the turnaround.

And Clinton raised taxes generally, while also using the offsets from closing loopholes to lower certain taxes; with Clinton's tax increase and Republicans not wanting to work with Clinton which held the line on spending, the federal budget was not only balanced, there was a structural surplus.

Bush 43 comes in, again chooses to go with supply side tax cuts, and as has happened almost every time, deficits immediately set in, and the country has been looking at deficits ever since.

Again, don't be stupid.

[1bad65]

Reagan's tax cuts threw the country into such a recession that Congress basically undid the entire package the following year; Paul Volcker and his tight monetary policy at the Fed finally broke the back of inflation, which led the turnaround.

Not really, though some is true.

Yes, it was Voelker who raised interest rates that finally ended the Carter inflation, but that rising of the interest rates is what threw the economy into a recession, not the tax cuts.

And Clinton raised taxes generally, while also using the offsets from closing loopholes to lower certain taxes; with Clinton's tax increase and Republicans not wanting to work with Clinton which held the line on spending, the federal budget was not only balanced, there was a structural surplus.

What's "generally" mean??

The fact is Clinton gave us a big tax increase and a few years later gave the rich a big tax cut. So he is a great case study.

And the fact is GDP grew more in the years after the tax cuts than it grew after the tax increases.

And this claimed surplus, this happened after the tax cuts, correct?

So much for the 'tax cuts cause rising deficits' line, doesn't it.

Bush 43 comes in, again chooses to go with supply side tax cuts, and as has happened almost every time, deficits immediately set in, and the country has been looking at deficits ever since.

Again, partially true, partially false.

First off, you left out the fact that W Bush inherited a problem. The Dot-com crash. Now this was no fault of Clinton, so dont go there.

Those tax cuts boosted the economy and staved off a bigger crash.

As for the deficits blowing up, that would be due to the massive increase in military spending due to fighting two wars. Wars aren't cheap.

[1bad65]

The fact is supply side economics in the form of tax cuts, including tax cuts for the rich, produced higher GDP growth than Obama's Keynesian stimulus based economy did.

It is what it is.

Of course 2% ain't too tough to beat. Just ask Donald Trump.

[BM dnobagaV]

What conservative policies help reduce debt?

[Tony Trick-Pony]

The liberals want to sound like Robin Hood, take it away from the rich to spread it. But it never works that way.

It's funny how even in Robin Hood, the villain is a government employee.

[Tony Trick-Pony]

Unions create an entirely different conversation, which can be had if that's what you want, but that is a separate conversation from simply talking about employee compensation.

In terms of Wikipedia anyway, Ford introduced the Model T in 1908, and moved to solve his production issues by doubling worker's pay to $5 an hour and instituting the 8-hour work day (building the vehicle was rough work, which led to a massive amount of turnover, which impacted the amount of work that could actually be done when training up the new hires. The increase in pay basically eliminated turnover, which helped Ford better train his workers, who were then able to produce more cars and drive down the price of the cars, making it even easier for workers to also purchase what they make).

Anyone with a skill or product can have a job if there's a customer willing to buy your product/utilize your skill. At it's most basic economic level, the customer is the key to everything, regardless of the type of leader in charge.

You deliver a product that the market wants, at a cost that the market can bear, and you work to better deliver that product/service to the customer. Companies that deliver the best product for the customer will reward investors anyway, so why not look at things from the customer up?

And it doesn't even have to be physical product either; Google, as an example, is doing as well as their doing because they deliver a great multi-faceted product to people/business, but also because they've figured out a compensation package that doesn't really hurt the company yet is substantial enough for a worker to basically commit max time to the company without much grumbling.

If companies were incentivised to pursue things from the customer up, rather than the investor down, who knows what the current space would look like.

Oh I agree that it's all about the consumer. To start any business, you have to consider the customer first and last and really in between. A hungry crowd is what grows a business for sure.

I would add that markets that are not so constricted by high taxes and regulations are more free to serve the customers and provide better value for their products. You also have more competition which drives companies to up their game for the consumer. It is definitely about the consumer. Good post.

[Scipio2009]

Oh I agree that it's all about the consumer. To start any business, you have to consider the customer first and last and really in between. A hungry crowd is what grows a business for sure.

I would add that markets that are not so constricted by high taxes and regulations are more free to serve the customers and provide better value for their products. You also have more competition which drives companies to up their game for the consumer. It is definitely about the consumer. Good post.

Markets that are more free also have issues with customers getting defective/toxic products and the issues that arise with governments not in position to provide that safety net, and that's the crux of the conversation.

There's a balance that needs to be had, between businesses that provide goods/services to consumers and government that looks after the general well-being of the people.

Ignoring the current nonsense going on under Trump (exampled by some of the folks on this site), but the old Republican thinking behind that was to have a balanced budget, and shift as much power out of the hands of the federal government as possible (to state/local government, to religious institutions, to business, to people); federal government is for national defense, state/local government is sovereign (courts/police/local roads), and the rest is left to people/business.

Parochial schools, private hospitals, corporate giving, social societies, family foundations, relatives helping each other, etc.

A vision that makes sense, but also one that leaves a whole lot of folks in tough/deadly predicaments.

Democrats argue about everything, but the gist that makes the most sense to me is that government takes on the loss leaders (national defense, old aged pension program/healthcare, educating the population, building the infrastructure, police/fire, research to simply know, consumer safety, etc) which then free up people/business to pursue whatever ventures that come to mind (with taxes high enough to cover the expenses of government).

Again, with it's own issues.