Austan Goolsbee Explains The Tax Cut Fight…
Introducing White House Whiteboard
In this first edition, Austan Goolsbee, Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers at the White House, tackles the tax cut fight and what it means that Congressional Republicans are “holding middle class tax cuts hostage” as the President has said:
That makes it pretty clear, doesn’t it. While the candidates are off now running for their seats, please remember to bring this up to the Republicans who are saying that Obama’s Administration is doing nothing to fix our economy.
Related Articles
- Austan Goolsbee, tax cuts and “big red balls” (salon.com)
- Think Nobody in the White House Knows How to Explain Economic Policy? (theatlantic.com)
Posted on October 1, 2010, in budget, Business, campaign, Congress, Economics, Finance, Legal, Politics, Taxes, Video, Word from Bill and tagged Austan Goolsbee, Council of Economic Advisers, Government, Middle-Class, President, Tax cut, United States, White House. Bookmark the permalink. 12 Comments.
Under The LobsterScope 
While I think the Whitehouse whiteboard was simplistic and ineffectually… I agree with the conclusion. I would argue that the financing of “goverment” ..by necessity leads to a redistribution of wealth—from the haves to haves nots– read “new deal”….to “supply side” which produced the opposite. The real concern should be the balance needed to maintain a viable Constitutional Republic. The mob should be restrained from storming the “Gilded” gates… but well financed minority rule leads but to oligarchy. Pissin’ off the peasants and bringing down the pretenders. In the Eisenhower 50’s a 90 percent top tax rate was confiscatory. But whining about returning the top rate to the levels of Clinton years is not only clueless, it will eventually be self defeating for the moneyed class. Democracy detest blatant inequality.
Regards,
Doug
Are you suggesting that all governmental spending is necessary and that none of it’s wasteful?
Nope. Bet you wish I was.
No, not really. That would have led to a more colorful discussion 😉
So don’t make me get link-happy on you Bill. Don’t you think a lot of the excess taxes placed on the wealthy go to wasteful and/or duplicated programs that could be better served as being administered in the private sector?
No.
Well we could go back and forth and suggest the programs / spending to cut that lines up with our political beliefs. Instead, consider googling something like “wasteful government spending” for a whole plethora of places to start.
I’m trying to avoid talking about the Bush Administration.
Come on Bill. Don’t go all liberal playbook and speaking points on me here.
Show us that you can find wasteful government spending that doesn’t really need to be funded by taxing the evil rich.
Wasteful? How about necessary? And if the “evil rich” are avoiding a percentage of taxation related to their wealth, then this is the most wasteful thing I can think of… especially if the wealth is hidden away in foreign locales to prevent even more ordinary taxation.
OK, Tharpster. So what would you cut in order to leave the hugely rich minority with even more money? Perhaps we could pull it from highway maintenance? Maybe we could cut it from Veteran’s hospitals?
What are the ineffective programs? (I think the entire military expenditure in Afghanistan is an ineffective program… and if we could cut 80% of our military spending in one fell swoop then the Koch Brothers can keep their tax cut.)
The only real clarity offered in this film is that the administration and those in favor of progressive taxation have absolutely no clue.
Tax cuts can’t be afforded? Kill the ineffective programs. There are plenty of them. Cut spending. Stop redistributing the weatlh through confiscatory taxation.
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