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Were the Bush Tax Cuts Good for Growth?

bfg2009 said:
The next time we the taxpayers gives a company tax breaks why don't we tie stipulations to them that they have to produce x amount of jobs for the US economy. They should have to prove to us that our tax money is being spent to increase the labor force and instead of improving their bottom line.We don't know if the companies that got tax breaks actually produced new jobs or used that money to buy more companies. Maybe even start a new plant in China or somewhere else. We just give them the money and walk away. They have number crunchers so they should have an idea of what x amount of dollars would do for them. Why should we as taxpayers subsidize they debts and we get nothing in return. All I'm trying to say if we give them tax dollars they should be responsible for producing jobs to help the economy. Period. If the primary purpose of the tax cuts is to spur growth then we should know in advance how much they expect to grow with our money.
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I wonder what sort of conditions we can impose on those who breed like rabbits while on the dole?
 
Hmm guess you folks need to go back and ask Obama about the value of tax cuts, just listen to him, he gets a big kick out of standing up in front of his adoring fans and telling you he cut taxes for 95% of the people.

Then of course there are the tax cuts you are talking about …. you know the Bush tax cuts that were extended by liberals in the house, and liberals in the senate … signed by yet another liberal acting as president ..

Now seeing we have had alllllll these tax cuts by this administration, combined with trillions of dollars of spending .. where are the results ???

oppps I forgot .. this is just another liberal thread to bash Bush …..... because they need to deflect away from the fact that this inept, corrupt, ineffective, and incompetent tally wacker, couldn't run a damn ice cream stand.


takes a deep breath ... there I feel better now ..
 
upsideguy said:
Nothing very hard about that: jobs tax credits. Instead of tax rate cuts, you provide credits for jobs created. The multi-nationals would not likely partake, as they already pay zero taxes. Then again, big business doesn't create jobs; small business does and they are the also the ones that pay actually pay corporate taxes.

Obama should have used job tax credits as part of the stimulus. Instead, they had some convoluted scheme to grace some of the employer FICA.
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If it's tax credits of tax cuts still should be based on job creation for the American people. Our leaders should not just give out either all willy nilly to pay political debts.
 
No, I criticize the moron because the FEBRUARY Deficit was bigger than the 2007 deficit.

Get real.

FilmFestGuy said:
That's a dumb answer.

Why didn't they cause growth when we were promised they would.

People are criticizing Obama because the economy only grew 2% last quarter.

You realize that under Bush the average annual growth was 2.39%, right?

The 2000s sucked economically. The worst period ever.

If the Bush tax cuts were "good for growth", then why didn't we grow? That's what I want an answer to. Defend them. What good did they do, especially in light of two wars which went unpaid for.

What good did they do for the economy?
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Amazed said:
No, I criticize the moron because the FEBRUARY Deficit was bigger than the 2007 deficit.

Get real.
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Not sure where someone comes up with Bush's annual growth at 2.39% because here are the actual numbers from BEA.gov. There is so much misinformation provided by liberals here that it is quite disturbing.

GDP and Percentage change from previous year

2001 10286.20 3.36%
2002 10642.30 3.46%
2003 11142.10 4.70%
2004 11867.80 6.51%
2005 12638.40 6.49%
2006 13398.90 6.02%
2007 14077.60 5.07%
2008 14441.40 2.58%
 
Media Matters....Salon....a plethora of Lefty crap.

Conservative said:
Not sure where someone comes up with Bush's annual growth at 2.39% because here are the actual numbers from BEA.gov. There is so much misinformation provided by liberals here that it is quite disturbing.

GDP and Percentage change from previous year

2001 10286.20 3.36%
2002 10642.30 3.46%
2003 11142.10 4.70%
2004 11867.80 6.51%
2005 12638.40 6.49%
2006 13398.90 6.02%
2007 14077.60 5.07%
2008 14441.40 2.58%
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Conservative said:
Not sure where someone comes up with Bush's annual growth at 2.39% because here are the actual numbers from BEA.gov. There is so much misinformation provided by liberals here that it is quite disturbing.

GDP and Percentage change from previous year

2001 10286.20 3.36%
2002 10642.30 3.46%
2003 11142.10 4.70%
2004 11867.80 6.51%
2005 12638.40 6.49%
2006 13398.90 6.02%
2007 14077.60 5.07%
2008 14441.40 2.58%
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I have told you before, but you need to look at REAL GDP if you are comparing years, otherwise some of that growth could simply be due to inflation.
 
FilmFestGuy said:
Liz Peek at FoxNews.com congratulates me for writing about the importance of economic growth. So in the spirit of maximizing growth, I want to pose a question: Why should we believe that extending the Bush tax cuts will provide a big lift to growth?

Those tax cuts passed in 2001 amid big promises about what they would do for the economy. What followed? The decade with the slowest average annual growth since World War II. Amazingly, that statement is true even if you forget about the Great Recession and simply look at 2001-7.

full article

This actually gets to a point I've been trying to make for a while...

If the Bush tax cuts were "good", then why were the 2000s (even if you cut the decade off before the Great Recession) the slowest decade for growth in the post-WW2 era?
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The growth during the Bush years was because of housing prices and the bubble that lead to the present crash, not his idiotic tax cuts. Real wages did not rise during his presidency and to considering that the US economy is based highly on consumer consumption, then said consumers must have gotten the money somewhere. Real Estate was the ATM of the economy during the Bush years.
 
PeteEU said:
The growth during the Bush years was because of housing prices and the bubble that lead to the present crash, not his idiotic tax cuts. Real wages did not rise during his presidency and to considering that the US economy is based highly on consumer consumption, then said consumers must have gotten the money somewhere. Real Estate was the ATM of the economy during the Bush years.
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Source please. Right now.
 
PeteEU said:
The growth during the Bush years was because of housing prices and the bubble that lead to the present crash, not his idiotic tax cuts. Real wages did not rise during his presidency and to considering that the US economy is based highly on consumer consumption, then said consumers must have gotten the money somewhere. Real Estate was the ATM of the economy during the Bush years.
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So then it would be pretty safe to say what drove the Clinton economy, was the dot com bubble, that broke in 2000 or 2001 …. guess one would have to say, that in anytime of growth you can attribute it to something.
 
it's generally true; much of the growth of the Bush years was wiped out by the 2008-2009 crash

cutting the tax rates was absolutely good for the economy. however, what was bad for the economy was the Bush administration jacking up spending.
 
The Barbarian said:
So then it would be pretty safe to say what drove the Clinton economy, was the dot com bubble, that broke in 2000 or 2001 …. guess one would have to say, that in anytime of growth you can attribute it to something.
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that's the trick about it. if you're going to 'give' the 2009 portion of the collapse to Bush, then you have to 'give' the 2001 recession to Clinton.
 
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Conservative said:
Not sure where someone comes up with Bush's annual growth at 2.39% because here are the actual numbers from BEA.gov. There is so much misinformation provided by liberals here that it is quite disturbing.

GDP and Percentage change from previous year

2001 10286.20 3.36%
2002 10642.30 3.46%
2003 11142.10 4.70%
2004 11867.80 6.51%
2005 12638.40 6.49%
2006 13398.90 6.02%
2007 14077.60 5.07%
2008 14441.40 2.58%
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It does look quite a bit different when the BEA adjusts for inflation.
U.S. Department of Commerce. Bureau of Economic Analysis

Code: 
2000	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010
4.1	[b]1.1	1.8	2.5	3.6	3.1	2.7	1.9	0	-2.6[/b]	2.8
 
yeah, but now let's ask yourself if the number he gave for Obama's growth was adjusted for inflation, especially food and energy.
 
cpwill said:
yeah, but now let's ask yourself if the number he gave for Obama's growth was adjusted for inflation, especially food and energy.
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Why ask me?
Let's just look at it.
Which he are we talking about?
Which number are we talking about?
 
Conservative said:
If you adjust for inflation you have to do so with every year and every category of both expense and revenue. It is all relative including right now during the Obama years
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What are you suggesting? That the BEA didn't do their maths correctly? Or what?
 
Simon W. Moon said:
What are you suggesting? That the BEA didn't do their maths correctly? Or what?
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Not at all, BEA is the most accurate site available and the one I use to verify rhetoric. Many use CBO and that is the least accurate especially for projections. I don't think anyone living during the period under review cared about the numbers adjusted for a future date. My point was that anyone that claims the Bush years were all bad is absolutely wrong and the best period was when the Republicans controlled both Houses of Congress.
 
Conservative said:
Not at all, BEA is the most accurate site available and the one I use to verify rhetoric. Many use CBO and that is the least accurate especially for projections. I don't think anyone living during the period under review cared about the numbers adjusted for a future date. My point was that anyone that claims the Bush years were all bad is absolutely wrong and the best period was when the Republicans controlled both Houses of Congress.
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Adjusting for inflation is not a projection. In point of fact, GDP growth is only really meaningful as a statistic if it is adjusted for inflation. Of course you kinda dodge around that and make another meaningless claim to evade all this.
 
Conservative said:
Not at all, BEA is the most accurate site available and the one I use to verify rhetoric. Many use CBO and that is the least accurate especially for projections. I don't think anyone living during the period under review cared about the numbers adjusted for a future date. My point was that anyone that claims the Bush years were all bad is absolutely wrong and the best period was when the Republicans controlled both Houses of Congress.
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I am not sure that the BEA does any projections.
The CBO is intentionally wrong. The CBO generally errs on the side of lower than expected income and higher than expected outgo--which to me, is a prudent way of forecasting as it's easier to figure out what to do w/ more money than expected than it is to figure out what to do with less money than expected..
 
Redress said:
Adjusting for inflation is not a projection. In point of fact, GDP growth is only really meaningful as a statistic if it is adjusted for inflation. Of course you kinda dodge around that and make another meaningless claim to evade all this.
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You really have an obsession with me and a strong desire to prove me wrong as you always seem to focus on the specific post and not the one I was responding to. If you are going to adjust for inflation then do so across the board on revenue and all expenses not just the specific numbers that you seem to like. Let's adjust for inflation the 2.8% economic growth of Obama's last year. Does anyone really care whether or not the 14.6 trillion dollar GDP in 2010 is adjusted for inflation at some time in the future? I really don't care what the inflation rate was because If you notice the GDP numbers during the Bush years you will notice quite during the years of 2003-2007. Was inflation that much higher during that period of time than it was in 2001-2002 or 2007-2008?
 
Simon W. Moon said:
I am not sure that the BEA does any projections.
The CBO is intentionally wrong. The CBO generally errs on the side of lower than expected income and higher than expected outgo--which to me, is a prudent way of forecasting as it's easier to figure out what to do w/ more money than expected than it is to figure out what to do with less money than expected..
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CBO is required by law to accept the assumptions given them by the Congress and not change those assumptions. CBO isn't intentionally wrong although the assumptions given to them are sometimes construed as intentionally wrong to generate results favorable to one party or the other. Both sides do it. BEA doesn't make projections they report results.
 
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