A Little Joke About the Bush/Obama Tax Cuts
August 18th, 2010 . by economistmomA few weeks back one of my colleagues relayed an old joke to me which he was reminded of in the context of a fiscal policy issue we had been discussing. Except as soon as he said it, I immediately thought it was an even better analogy to the (then-)Bush(-soon-to-be-Obama) tax cuts. With that clue, let’s see if some of you readers can “see” this, too–solve the riddle: how is the joke below reminiscent of what President Obama proposes to do about the Bush tax cuts?
“Could you loan me ten dollars but just give me five? That way you’ll owe me five, I’ll owe you five, and we’ll be even.”
I will follow up with my answer later (just for dramatic effect). It will involve citing CBO reports, so don’t get your hopes up about it eliciting a lot of yuks from you. 
Different baselines.
Selective amnesia for commitments made in the past. We are going to need a whole lot of that sort of amnesia to restore fiscal sanity to government.
LET THE CUTS EXPIRE! If the Republicans win control of Congress in 2011 let them take responsibility for finally bankrupting the Republic.
Democrats are fools even the bring this up for debate.
End of message.
even to bring…
How on earth anyone can even consider extending what was supposed to be temporary tax cuts for the rich at in this economy baffles the hell out of me.
And no, the “trickle down” argument doesn’t even start to be logical.