My former Marxist econ professor on the phony "debt crisis."

[CynicalIdealist]

http://www.zcommunications.org/the-deficit-deal-we-got-taken-by-martin-hart-landsberg


Unfortunately, there was actually little difference between the two sides in terms of the way they engaged and debated the relevant issues. Both sides agreed that we face a major debt crisis. Both sides agreed that out-of-control social programs are the main driver of our deficit and debt problems. And both sides agreed that the less government involvement in the economy the better.
The unanimity is especially striking since all three positions are wrong. We do not face a major debt crisis, social spending is not driving our deficits and debt, and we need more active government intervention in the economy not less to solve our economic problems.Needless to say I was pretty surprised to see his blog article make the front page of ZNet. It's good stuff.

EDIT: He also posted a useful graphic in one of his other blog articles regarding how much each neoliberal-era president cut spending and raised taxes. This is a useful graphic to use against people who still think that Obama's liberal, seeing as every president has been progressively more right-wing since Reagan. http://www.zcommunications.org/FCKFiles/deficitraphic.jpg

[Die Neue Zeit]

You mean tax cuts, right? Not tax increases. The diagram is inconsistent.

[Lynx]

Are you questioning the Reagan era numbers?

[Die Neue Zeit]

Reagan presided over tax cuts, not tax increases, no?

[Lynx]

Source (http://www.abc12.com/story/15134616/reagan-looms-over-debt-debate-inspiring-both-sides?clienttype=printable)


Reagan did push through deep, across-the-board cuts in tax rates in his first year of the presidency in 1981, fulfilling a campaign promise.

But the following year he signed the largest peace-time tax increase in U.S. history, the Tax Equity and Fiscal Responsibility Act of 1982. He raised taxes in every succeeding year of his presidency except the last. As California governor, Reagan also signed the biggest tax increase in state history.

"There was a consistency to Reagan on taxes, which was basically that he cut them when he could, but raised them when he had to. He was not dogmatic on this issue, as his current day followers seem to think," said economist Bruce Bartlett, a senior policy analyst in the Reagan White House and a top Treasury official in President George H.W. Bush's administration.

Bartlett noted that Reagan's tax increases took back about half of his signature 1981 tax cut. When he left office in 1989, federal taxes accounted for 18.4 percent of the nation's gross domestic product, compared with the 18 percent average for the two decades before he took office. By contrast, tax revenues are forecast to be just 14.4 per cent of GDP in 2011.
We would need to see how this chart was compiled.

[CynicalIdealist]

I think Reagan raised regressive taxes but cut taxes on the rich.

[CAleftist]

Reagan presided over tax cuts, not tax increases, no?

Both. Tax cuts on capital and large incomes, tax increases on Social Security and excise taxes (phones, gas). He made the income tax system very regressive.