To get the economy back on track, will President Barack Obama have to break his pledge not to raise taxes on 95 percent of Americans? In a “This Week” exclusive, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner told me, “We’re going to have to do what’s necessary.”
Geithner was clear that he believes a key component of economic recovery is deficit reduction. When I gave him several opportunities to rule out a middle class tax hike, he wouldn’t do it.
“We have to bring these deficits down very dramatically,” Geithner told me. “And that’s going to require some very hard choices.”
“We will not get this economy back on track, recovery will be not strong and sustained, unless we convince the American people that we are going to have the will to bring these deficits down once recovery is firmly established,” he said.
Even Summers said it. I wonder if all the bankers who got vast bonuses that were paid for with government money that raised the deficit will be taxed extra? It could happen…
Why haven’t I heard anything about undoing the Bush tax cuts since the campaign?
Oops! The busload of tax protesters from Oklahoma just pulled up out front, waving their birth certificates around. Wow, that was fast!
It is generally accepted by most of the people who can do at least simple math that you cut taxes to grow an economy by putting more money into the hands of the private sector and while some deficient spending may be required you do try to limit it.
The best I can say for the people running things now is they don’t do math nor are they students of economic history. They have some ideas and they’re going with them though most of those ideas have an iron clad record of staggering economic failure.
If these people get there way in the end the only people living well be in government.
I predicted repeatedly during the campaign on this board that there was going to be a huge vacuuming sound in the area of our wallets and was constantly poo-poohed by the likes of Koolaid drinker Mr_Fusion.
Bite me, suckers.
#39, ‘dro,
Taxes pay for things done for the good of us all. Well, most of the time. Sometimes they go to pay for crooked politician’s pockets like the Haliburton deals.
Taxes also pay for the foolish crap done by the previous administration. There has been more than adequate discourse on that point.
As for things like Universal Health Care, that is what the People want. If the majority decide they want a single payer system, then why not listen to the wishes of the majority? We are willing to pay for a more efficient system that costs less and covers more people.
Getting an extra 1.2% taxes out of the top 1% is almost impossible. They have their own lobbyists, their own attorneys, their own paid for congressmen.
It seems inevitable. After all Dubya spent the money, now we gotta pay for the doubling of the deficit by the Bush Regime.
#42
What planet are you living on? It has been under Obama’s administration that the deficit has gone through the roof, not Bush. Bush’s deficits were chump change compared to what the messiah has done in just his first year.
Man!!! You guys can’t even keep the words debt and deficit separate!!!
Bush generated DEBT: Money owed by overspending across multiple fiscal years.
Obama is generating DEFICIT: Spending money that you do not have even in the face of stupidity. This deficit will then ADD to the debt at a rate FAR faster than the Bush administration.
You cannot spend your way out of debt. You guys are screwed. Move to Canada. Our recession is over and we had hardly any unemployment increase and our debt barely went up at all during it. Oh, and our dollar is rapidly getting back to parity again.