Tuesday, November 25, 2008

"Now, what was the question?"

From C&L (Paul Krugman: 'Caricature Economics`):
Looking for new ideas to help the economy? Please don't look to Rep. John Boehner for any new ideas. And this is not from the debate episode of the West Wing.
He said this on FNS:
“If we’re really serious about creating jobs, what we ought to do is, we ought to eliminate the capital gains tax for the next two years on any equities that are purchased,” he said. He argued that cutting the corporate income tax would help boost employment.
As Krugman notes:
The answer is, eliminate the capital gains tax. Now, what was the question?

This brings back a memory: on Sept. 13, 2001, I got frantic calls from staffers on Capitol Hill. They informed me that Republican leaders in the House were trying to use the terrorist attack to ram through, you guessed it, a cut in the capital gains tax.
He's
[sic] something you can never forget.
Meanwhile, at a panel discussion with Rich Lowry of National Review, I heard the latest argument against the Employee Free Choice Act: now would be a really bad time to make union organizing easier, because it would hurt business confidence in a recession.

Recession, recovery, whatever: it’s always proof that the Bush years should continue forever.
As I've noted previously:
Folks, when "tax cuts" is THE solution for the economy in all cases - whether it's in dire straits or robust & healthy - then we all oughta be saying, "Hmmmm".

... and, for what it's worth, the folks that are selling us "tax cuts" oughta be labelled as snake-oil salesmen!!!
... The re-emergent anti-union theme is just a nice cherry on top of the sundae! Labor bad! Management good!

I'll re-quote Atrios:
"Damn those unions for destroying Citigroup!!!"
Have a nice day.

No comments: