Comments on: What have you done for me lately?

By: Doug

Doug — Thu, 09 Oct 2003 08:56:07 +0000

@Howarad: The state without the constitutional mandate for a balanced budget is Vermont. The budget was, of course, balanced by Gov. Howard Dean. Who will bring honor and fiscal integrity back to the White House.

By: nolo

nolo — Wed, 08 Oct 2003 20:36:31 +0000

What ray said. The economic slump, along with federal stinginess, has led to lots of state and local tax hikes. Lots of these hikes are also fairly regressive (like sales tax hikes, etc.). So no wonder people are feeling pinched.

By: ucblockhead

ucblockhead — Wed, 08 Oct 2003 16:57:34 +0000

Many people get small raises yearly. The increased taxes due to these could easily be larger than Bush’s tax cuts for lower incomes, making the actual dollar amount of taxes withheld go up.

By: Andrew Edwards

Andrew Edwards — Wed, 08 Oct 2003 11:46:38 +0000

Also, remember how targetted these tax cuts were towards the wealthiest few. Most average working families might not notice te 50 bucks or whatever they saved, as compared to the thousands or even millions of dollars saved by people like Warren Buffet or, say, George Bush.

By: Ray

Ray — Wed, 08 Oct 2003 11:26:59 +0000

Was the question about federal taxes, or taxes in general? B/C the states have been raising taxes like crazy …

By: howard

howard — Wed, 08 Oct 2003 05:56:06 +0000

Thomas, thank you for the compliment, but yes, i’m familiar with the $20B. That was forced on Bush by the congress, since he opposed any money to the states (hence my reference to the famous Daily News headline), and was well below the real need to prevent counter-cyclical spending cuts or tax hikes (since one or the other was necessary in every state except whoever that one state is that doesn’t have to have a balanced budget), which was more like $80B over a 2-year period. So i feel justified in how i characterized bush’s approach, but fine, i’ll take a $20B footnote. More to the point, the $20B, as far as i can divine (and i may be missing something) didn’t lead to one less state increasing taxes (something on the order of 20+ have), which was the essential point in the first place.

By: Thomas

Thomas — Wed, 08 Oct 2003 05:00:11 +0000

What’s the surprise? People don’t believe lots of things that have happened. Howard—who I presume is an honest and intelligent person—proclaims that “Bush’s attitude toward the budget crisis of the states has been “drop dead.” ” Presumably that “attitude” is why Bush signed a bill providing $20 billion in aid to states this year. The aid to states was actually passed with the most recent tax cuts.

By: howard

howard — Wed, 08 Oct 2003 03:47:37 +0000

It’s also worth remembering that, since Bush’s attitude toward the budget crisis of the states has been “drop dead,” and since therefore a good number of states have increased taxes, and since state taxes are more regressive in nature than federal taxes, it is entirely possible that the poll number is accurate! P.S. The CBS/NYT number on the $87B hasn’t gotten nearly the attention it deserves. Odds are, the $87B will pass, but the next $87B is in serious trouble….

By: Carl

Carl — Wed, 08 Oct 2003 02:16:29 +0000

Re the “taxes gone down” number being under 40%—not all that surprising considering the anti-tax mania/religion in this country, which is largely practiced by conservatives. You could cut taxes by 90%, and there would still be a certain number of crackpots (and Grover Norquist) cursing the government for robbing them blind.

By: Ophelia Benson

Ophelia Benson — Wed, 08 Oct 2003 01:05:47 +0000

Very interesting. So people are not quite as gullible as Bush and Co. thought – that’s good news! Even though it is a pretty low threshold.

By: Nasi Lemak

Nasi Lemak — Tue, 07 Oct 2003 23:36:11 +0000

For one brief, alternate-universe moment there I read “souring” as “soaring”. Phew.