Bush tax cuts have done wonders to stimulate the economy and bring EVEN MORE revenue into the Treasury than when tax rates were higher!!!!!

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Bush Tax Cuts Drop Deficit to $296 Billion

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

WASHINGTON -- President Bush touted new deficit figures Tuesday showing considerable improvement upon earlier administration predictions, trumpeting it as validation of his tax cuts.


Bush himself announced the deficit - a task that has in the past been left to lower-ranking administration officials. The figures show that the deficit for the budget year ending Sept. 30 will be $296 billion - much better than the $423 billion that Bush predicted in February and a slight improvement over 2005.


Bush said the improvement is due to tax cuts he pushed in 2001 and 2003 and his clampdown on domestic agencies funded by Congress.


"These tax cuts left nearly $1.1 trillion in the hands of American workers and families and small business owners. And they used this money to help fuel an economic resurgence that's now in its 18th quarter," Bush said. "Economic growth fueled by tax relief has sent our tax revenues soaring."


Impressive profits and big income gains by the wealthy are largely responsible for the surge in revenues and, in turn, the deficit drop.


However, the results are less impressive when compared to the $318 billion deficit posted last fall for fiscal 2005. Despite strong revenues, the high costs of the Iraq war and Gulf Coast hurricane relief have weighed on the deficit - as have higher interest payments paid on the national debt.


"The 2006 deficit may be a bit lower, but it represents a $600 billion swing from the surplus projected in 2001. And a deficit of $296 billion is still a large deficit. In nominal terms, its one of the four largest in history," said Rep. John Spratt Jr. of South Carolina, top Democrat on the Budget Committee.


Revenues are running $115 billion greater than expected earlier this year, the White House said, reflecting particularly strong growth in taxes paid on corporate profits and income taxes paid by wealthier people and small businessmen who pay taxes quarterly instead of having them withheld by employers.


"With the help of the president's successful pro-growth policies, the 2006 deficit is 30 percent lower than originally expected," said the White House report.


Taxes paid by individuals are growing at an 11 percent rate, the White House says, while corporate taxes are rising at a 19 percent rate.


The economy is estimated to grow at a 3.5 percent rate in real terms, a slight slowdown from the 5.6 percent rate of the first quarter of the year.


"We've had extraordinarily good profit growth, and when you have better profit growth than wage growth you tend to have windfall tax revenues because taxes on profits are higher than taxes on wages," said Diane Swonk, chief economist for Mesirow Financial, a Chicago-based financial services firm.


Swonk predicted that the unexpected revenue surge would ease around the end of the year as profits peak.


Bush has had few opportunities to boast about the deficit over the course of his time in office. He inherited in 2001 a surplus estimated by both White House and congressional forecasters at $5.6 trillion over the subsequent decade, and it quickly dwindled.


Those faulty estimates assumed the late-1990s revenue boom - fueled by the stock market and dot.com booms - would continue. But that bubble burst, and a recession and the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks started a flow of red ink. Several rounds of tax cuts, including Bush's signature $1.35 trillion tax cut in 2001, also contributed to the return to deficits four years ago after four years of budget surpluses.


Even before the release of the figures, critics poked at the White House figures, citing, for example, how they are at odds from Bush's original budget released in 2001, which predicted a $305 billion surplus for the current year, even after accounting for tax cuts.


Some budget experts say the steep rise in tax receipts looks more impressive than it really is since revenues are bouncing back from a three-year decline during Bush's first term, drops not seen since the Great Depression.


"The current so-called revenue surge is merely restoring revenues to where they were half a decade ago," said Robert Greenstein, executive director of the liberal-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities think tank. That's after accounting for inflation and population growth.


Still, the new figures should allow Bush to claim credibly that he will meet his promise, made in early 2004, that he will cut the deficit in half by the end of his second term. Then, the White House forecast the deficit to be $521 billion for the 2004 budget year, setting the goal of $260 billion by 2009.


© 2006 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

In Case You Missed It: Good Jobs At Good Wages

From The Wall Street Journal


July 11, 2006


It's been 26 months since we first referred to the "Dangerfield economy," or the current economic boom that gets no respect. ...


[T]he labor report shows remarkable strength. The unemployment rate stayed at a very low 4.6%, despite the addition of 330,000 new entrants into the labor market. ...


Meanwhile, the increase in total hours worked in June was itself the equivalent of a half-million new jobs. And the number of Americans who have been without a job for more than six months sank by 217,000 in June to its lowest level in more than five years. ...


The major worry of most workers today is, of course, that their take-home pay isn't keeping pace with the cost of college tuition, health care or filling up the gas tank. However, even here there is some good news. Wages rose 4.6% in this year's second quarter, the fastest quarterly pace since 1997. ...


[W]ages after inflation rose by 0.7% in the 62 months from the peak of the last business expansion in March 2001 through this May. ...


The same analysis finds a 7.4% gain in total worker compensation (wages and benefits) after inflation in the current expansion, much higher than the 2% gain over the same stage of the business cycle in the 1990s. Gains in median household net worth have also been higher, largely because of increased housing values. ...


In most parts of the U.S. today, the biggest labor-market problem isn't the lack of jobs but a shortage of willing workers with the proper skills. That's a problem that much of the rest of the industrial world, with jobless rates nearly twice as high, would love to have.


To View Entire Article Please Visit:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB115258405475803021.html?mod=todays_us_opinion

"Bush Tax Cuts Drop Deficit to $296 Billion "

Rory
Your the true definition of a tool

Krusty, you really need to pick up "Econ for Dummies".

...and $296 Billion is the fourth worse deficit EVER.

Excellent.

Fish on...

Todd

Bush is Good, Bush is Great.
Bush fixes everything do not question the infinite wisdom of our supreme lord and mast--um--I mean duly appointed Commander in Chief.
If it wasn't for Bush, The Islamosexuals would have taken over years ago and we'd all be worshipping aborted fetuses and sodomizing radioactive whales.

It's truly strange that the boom years of the Clinton administration - remember when we had a surplus - were apparently just good luck. When Bush light manages to pull off only the fourth largest deficit in our history its cause for praise, and it's all becasue of his good stewardship. I wonder if Rory ever heard about the natural economic cycles we have experienced for more than 150 years. Naw, its all becasue Bush is good Bush is great. Damn I bet if Bush eliminated all taxes revenues would soar.

So the deficit is the fourth largest ever, and the spend-o-whores had to raised the debt celing to 9 trillion.

Yay.

The economy may be rolling along OK, but the spending would have the GOP frothing at the mouth if a Democrat was in office.

Tax-n-spend? Nah. It's cut taxes-n-spend more.

What a perfect alternative.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2006-07-11-deficit-edit_x.htm

Hold your applause: Deficit dip is but a drop in bucket
Posted 7/11/2006 8:30 PM ET


Great news! This year's budget deficit won't be $427 billion as forecast in February but $333 billion. President Bush touted ...
Oops, wait a minute. Those numbers are from last July's White House press release. Let's start again.

Great news! This year's budget deficit won't be $423 billion as forecast in February but $296 billion. President Bush touted this on Tuesday as evidence that his fiscal policies are working.

Forgive us if we don't break out the party hats. It is hard to get excited about an abysmally large deficit in the range of $300 billion that is somewhat less gargantuan than earlier predicted.

Even accepting the administration's assurances that it does not purposefully overestimate the numbers in a Wall Street-like game of beating expectations, this habitual mid-year crowing masks the seriousness of the nation's bleak fiscal outlook.

The government faces a severe financial crunch as the baby-boom generation prepares to retire. Runaway health costs and the swelling number of people collecting government benefits are the chief contributors to what the Government Accountability Office, the research arm of Congress, estimates to be a long-term government shortfall of $46 trillion.

In that light, the most urgent question is not whether this year's deficit is $400 billion or $300 billion, but what the administration and members of Congress are doing to head off the much larger deficits on the horizon.

The answer is: Precious little. Members of both parties willfully ignore these problems and downplay their significance. The Bush administration, meanwhile, makes matters worse by overplaying the significance of its annual budget numbers.

A $296 billion deficit this year would be only slightly better than last year's deficit, which came in at $318 billion. It would, of course, be much worse than the surpluses Bush inherited. And its true size is masked by the $172 billion Social Security surplus. Take that away, and the deficit is $468 billion, or more than $4,000 per household.

There is, to be sure, some modestly good news in the budget numbers. So far, the new Medicare drug benefit hasn't been as costly as anticipated. And tax receipts from companies and wealthy individuals have surged.

But frankly we don't see much reason to gloat. That only diverts attention from the serious financial issues that the nation faces and its leaders duck.

The funniest thing about the deficit thingy is that the war costs aren't even included yet. Imagine what the true and actual deficit is when factoring in the emergency funds bush keeps getting for his folly--that's gotta get paid back sometime. We're not handing out "war grants". And that's not even considering the long term cost of taking care of wounded vets from bush's escapade...

Rather than just acting like overly emotional liberals who in their frustration of being shown that lowering taxes for ALL Americans benefitted our Nation's economy greatly (just like it did when Kennnedy, Reagan and now Bush 43 did it) and lashing out with personal attaks and childish name calling----Is it your thesis that raising taxes would actually have been better for the economy?

I didn't say anything in my personal opening statement of this thread about domestic spending --Bush' failure to veto some of that along with his position on illegal aliens and those who employ them are two of the biggest problems I have with his administration's policies.


However, given the fact that he (Bush 43) inheirited a recesion from Clinton, had war a major waged upon us by terrorists who murdered thousands of our innocent civillans and cost our economy thousands of jobs and billions of dollars and the fact that he had to deal with the biggest natural disaster in out Nation's history displacing hundreds of thousands of people from a major city and disrupting our refining capabilities it's actually AMAZING that the economy is doing as good as it is right now--the tax cuts have been an important aspect of making that an undeniable reality. Actually if Katrina hadn't happened and al Queda never attacked us we probably be running big surplus' right now.

Everone on this forum talks about how great things were while Clinton was in office--thae fact is we have a lower unemployment rate right now than we did during the average of the 70's, 80's OR 90's.

Bill Clinton didn't stimulate the economy (maybe just a few chubby interns :p ) He just happened to be sitting in the drivers seat when the DOT COM boom, fiber optics, tele-communication all went through the roof and took the estock market with it. The way you can illustate that it wasn't Clinton's policies that grew the economy is because after the DOT COM BUST happened we went into a recesion and treasury revenues fell of sharply. If it was Clinton and not sheer luck of beiong in the right place at the right time the economy would have continued on at the same pace.

The stock market is actually much more strong and realistically priced right now (not artificially over-inflated like it was under Clinton~not that that was his fault.

Americans who own their own home is now at an ALL time high and if the new Fed chairman quits di#kin' around with the funds rate soon you'll see investors go wild and the DOW go over 12,000!!!

I know a lot of you hate Bush 43 and that's your right--but this economy id doing good and that's undeniable.

Actually, the "war waged on us" by terrorists, while terrible and costly, didn't cost us much in the way of dollars.

Our corporate war in Iraq, however, is 100% G-dub's baby, and not only are we all paying for it through the nose (well, not all...Halliburton, Bechtel, Chevron, and Lockheed are making out like bandits), but we and the generations to follow will be paying for it for a long time...and not just economically.

There's also quite a few "Christians" in the Administration, and assuming that they are right about Christ, they, too will be paying for it for a long time...like eternity.

Fish on...

Todd

The smallest recession in modern history, by the way, that he's still using as a scapegoat.

And the econonmy is not doing "good", it's flat. Wages are behind cost of living and inflation, jobs growth is flat, unemployment rate does not acurately reflect what the real picture is because of the way the numbers are spun, number of people falling below poverty line has increased every year since 2000...

...and on and on and on...

But, but, but... Clinton! You guys kill me.

So the White House miscalculated by 30% the size of the 2006 deficit? Pretty poor job to miss by 30%. Should we consider ALL their numbers to be plus or minus 30%?

Or maybe they used "counter-intelligence" (intentional mis-information) on us, ie, put out an estimate 30% HIGHER so when the real numbers come out they can claim "LOOK HOW THE PRESIDENT'S PROGRAMS HAVE LOWERED THE DEFICIT" !

Just like when they intentionally float some controversial policy and then the President can step up and say "NO, NOT ON MY WATCH".

It's a bunch of BS, and one of Karl Rove's favorite tools to manipulate the ignorant masses.

Trust this administration if you want, but don't ask me to because I won't. History will prove me correct, wait and see!

Cheerleader for the cheerleader.

Good work Rory.

Bush couldn't stimulate a .........ehh, forget it.

Speaking of the booming economy, how's that stock market working for ya, Krusty?

Dammit, Harley...it's Clinton's fault!

Fish on...

Todd