Greenspan: McCain Tax Cuts are Ill-Planned

[Mr. Peabody]

Greenspan is a Republican and does support McCain, but these comments are interesting.



http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/
Greenspan: McCain tax cuts ill-planned
Former Fed Chief: 'Not in favor of financing tax cuts with borrowed money.'
Posted September 13, 2008 5:15 PM
by Mark Silva

Alan Greenspan did such a good job as Federal Reserve chairman, Sen. John McCain once said, he'd keep him there in perpetuity - even after he'd died. Just prop him up.

He said so in 2000 when he was running for president, and he has repeated the same line in his current campaign for president, suggesting that he will ask Greenspan to lead a review of the nation's tax code - even dead, the old Fed chief could do a good job of that.

"If he's alive or dead it doesn't matter. If he's dead, just prop him up and put some dark glasses on him like, like 'Weekend at Bernie's,'" McCain joked in October, campaigning in South Carolina with a line that he had used for Greenspan eight years before. "Let's get the best minds in America together and fix this tax code."

The only trouble is, Greenspan doesn't think much of McCain's proposed tax cuts. He said so today, in an interview with Bloomberg News' Al Hunt on Political Capital. McCain, who initially opposed the first round of tax cuts that President Bush pushed, now supports a continuation of the tax cuts.

.McCain has proposed $3.3 trillion of tax cuts in two terms, Hunt noted in his talk with the former Fed chairman: "Can the nation afford tax cuts of that magnitude?''

"Unless we cut spending, no,'' Greenspan said.

"And would you tie any tax cuts to spending?'' Hunt asked.

"I always have tied tax cuts to spending,'' Greenspan said.

"So you would say no tax cuts without comparable spending cuts.''

"Well, indeed, '' Greenspan said, "what I said with respect to - in the year 2002, relative to the existing tax cut debate - that unless it's paid for on the so-called pay-go, I'm not in favor of it. I'm not in favor of financing tax cuts with borrowed money.''


McCain has said he would balance the cost of most of his tax cuts with budget reductions, while providing few details beyond eliminating earmarks and other pork-barrel spending, which have totaled about $171 billion since 2001.

[Anti.Hero]

Cut taxes, Cut spending.

No sense to cut taxes, if you don't cut spending.


Dude is a financial genius!

[PixelPusher]

Guess he never got around to reading Greenspan's book.

[2centsworth]

mccain was never truly in favor of the bush tax cuts because there were no corresponding cuts in spending. anyone who thinks mccain is gonna cut taxes without dramatic cuts in spending doesn't know much about the dude.

[boutons_]

"anyone who thinks mccain is gonna cut taxes without dramatic cuts in spending doesn't know much about the dude."

you don't seem to know much about Congress. Reagan gave us that "kill the govt, it's our enemy and all of our problems" horseshit and then increased deficits hugely, just like dubya. McWorse will be no different. tax cuts for himself, fuck everybody else, and keep blowing a wad in Iraq for 100 years.

[TheMadHatter]

So McSame is a liar then? He wasn't really for the tax cuts......but voted for them anyways? Wait, this is the MAVERICK I'm supposed to be voting into office? The guy who does what is political right for his career instead of standing up for what he believes in.

Your so deep in his shit lies you can't even smell it.

[2centsworth]

So McSame is a liar then? He wasn't really for the tax cuts......but voted for them anyways? Wait, this is the MAVERICK I'm supposed to be voting into office? The guy who does what is political right for his career instead of standing up for what he believes in.

Your so deep in his shit lies you can't even smell it.

you're too closed minded to even have a discussion, so I'll leave you be.

[2centsworth]

"anyone who thinks mccain is gonna cut taxes without dramatic cuts in spending doesn't know much about the dude."

you don't seem to know much about Congress. Reagan gave us that "kill the govt, it's our enemy and all of our problems" horseshit and then increased deficits hugely, just like dubya. McWorse will be no different. tax cuts for himself, fuck everybody else, and keep blowing a wad in Iraq for 100 years.

Boutons, why do you continually ignore where the majority of the money goes? quick reminder, Entitlements.

[bobbyjoe]

That's not true.

Look at the math. $171 billion in earmarks in 7 years. $24 B in earmarks per year.

To give you an idea of how this stacks up on a relative basis, our budget deficit this past year was ~$500 Billion. Even if you markdown $24 B in earmarks to 0, you can see it hardly puts a dent into the budget balancing issues we have.

When you hear McCain talk, if you didnt follow this stuff closely, you'd almost believe that we could solve a great deal of our problems by minimizing earmarks or eliminating them. Not the case.

The real cost hogs in our fiscal budget as a % of GDP are healthcare spending, social security, and defense. If you are serious about budget cuts, those are the 3 areas that must be addressed because they are the biggest pools of money and in all cases are much higher on a relative basis than in other nations...

I don't see how you can claim McCain has corresponding budget cuts lined up to pay for his proposed tax credits and cuts. If anything, defense spending projects to go through the roof under him because he's much more likely to go to War with Iran/Russia/whoever and more likely to continue to spend and spend and spend in Iraq. His Health insurance plan is slightly neutral to slightly budget increasing. So where are these alleged cuts?

Pork barrell spending cuts gets you about 1/25th of the way there. How about the other 24/25ths?

[bobbyjoe]

Boutons, why do you continually ignore where the majority of the money goes? quick reminder, Entitlements.

Sorry, I misread your post. You weren't referring specifically to pork barrel spending.

However, I still don't see where McCain has talked about cutting entitlements? We can assume some level of defense spending increases under him.

For SS, we know he is against uncapping benefit taxation, but that won't really lower SS spending, just attempt to slow the rate of growth.

His healthcare plan would by most estimates slightly increase the overall budget deficit.

I don't see these cuts you are referring to. Reading through the lines on McCain, it basicalyl seems like his plan is for massive tax cuts and hope they initiate and spur economic growth and trickle down. I think Greenspan considers this a little too risky in terms of budget control. Things could really get out of hand if the theory of increased overall tax revenue stemming from growth stimulating tx cuts does not come to fruition in terms of actual results.

[TheMadHatter]

There is a reason why Greenspan doesn't think McCain's plan is sound. Because it's Bush 2.0

[Anti.Hero]

"anyone who thinks mccain is gonna cut taxes without dramatic cuts in spending doesn't know much about the dude."

you don't seem to know much about Congress. Reagan gave us that "kill the govt, it's our enemy and all of our problems" horseshit and then increased deficits hugely, just like dubya. McWorse will be no different. tax cuts for himself, fuck everybody else, and keep blowing a wad in Iraq for 100 years.

Good, then we could finally get a real third party after he would kill off the republicans/faux conservatives.

[Anti.Hero]

There is a reason why Greenspan doesn't think McCain's plan is sound. Because it's Bush 2.0

Did you even read the article or do you just have your tape-recorder playing "4 mo years 4 more years" in the background? :lmao

[efrem1]

"anyone who thinks mccain is gonna cut taxes without dramatic cuts in spending doesn't know much about the dude."

you don't seem to know much about Congress. Reagan gave us that "kill the govt, it's our enemy and all of our problems" horseshit and then increased deficits hugely, just like dubya. McWorse will be no different. tax cuts for himself, fuck everybody else, and keep blowing a wad in Iraq for 100 years.

YOU don't know much about Congress Boutons.

Spending bills pass out of the House of Representatives. Tip O'Neill was a old Boston pol that never met a spending program he did not like and I always remember him saying that Reagan's budgets were always dead on arrival. Reagan tried to make cuts during his first term but Tip went with the poor and blind heartstrings to defeat his proposals and was never the same.

Bush went down the same road with Prescription durg benefits and No Child Left Behind to please the liberals. You want everything to come from Washington Boutons? Well as they say the government that gives you everything will be the one that takes it away from you. You are a slave to DC; you just don't know it yet.

[T Park]

So McSame is a liar then? He wasn't really for the tax cuts......but voted for them anyways? Wait, this is the MAVERICK I'm supposed to be voting into office? The guy who does what is political right for his career instead of standing up for what he believes in.

Your so deep in his shit lies you can't even smell it.

He didn't vote for the tax cuts.

Your scent of desperation is hilarious though.

[boutons_]

"He didn't vote for the tax cuts."

McWorse is for maintaining ALL of dubya's tax cuts, and adding more, for himself. He won't reduce federal govt spending, nobody will or can, going back to Reagan.

His health plan is a de facto tax increase on individuals, pushing them into the hands of avaricious, for-profit health insurane copamines, while very probably off-loading health care from corps.

The dubya tax-cuts have kept ALL of America strong and growing, right?

The tax-cuts have paid for themselves, right?

The tax-cuts, low taxes, and no/bad regulation for the super-wealthy and (financial) corps have prevented wide-spread, deep, long-lasting economic damage (guess who gets hurts the worse) by the capitalists, right?

[fyatuk]

"He didn't vote for the tax cuts."

McWorse is for maintaining ALL of dubya's tax cuts, and adding more, for himself.

The only part of McCain's proposed tax reform that would help him is the phase-out of the AMT. I'd like to see more details on that, but the AMT is certainly broken. It supposedly i going to affect nearly 1/5th of individual taxpayers in the next few years, which is really messed up. Back in 2003, it was referred to as "the most serious problem faced by taxpayers" by the IRS's taxpayer advocate.

Many of the forms of income handled by the AMT are now covered under other tax codes, which results in double taxation on some types of income. That needs to be addressed, and at the very least, those double taxations need to be removed and the threshhold needs to be indexed to inflation like the rest of the tax code pretty much is. This will happen in the first year of his phase-out probably.

McCain wants to maintain the highest individual tax rate, maintain the capital gains tax, and reduce the corporate levels, which wouldn't affect him.

[mogrovejo]

"He didn't vote for the tax cuts."

McWorse is for maintaining ALL of dubya's tax cuts, and adding more, for himself. He won't reduce federal govt spending, nobody will or can, going back to Reagan.

His health plan is a de facto tax increase on individuals, pushing them into the hands of avaricious, for-profit health insurane copamines, while very probably off-loading health care from corps.

The dubya tax-cuts have kept ALL of America strong and growing, right?

The tax-cuts have paid for themselves, right?

The tax-cuts, low taxes, and no/bad regulation for the super-wealthy and (financial) corps have prevented wide-spread, deep, long-lasting economic damage (guess who gets hurts the worse) by the capitalists, right?

Obama now thinks the Bush tax cuts help the economy. He doesn't promise to undo them anymore. LOL Talk about convictions...