Father of Bush tax cuts: Recession likely

[Thor_MN]

Source: money.cnn.com

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Martin Feldstein, the Harvard economist credited with being one of the fathers of the Bush administration tax cuts, says the U.S. economy is now likely to slip into a recession, and that avoiding one will take a new round of tax cuts and interest rate cuts from the Federal Reserve.

Feldstein is president and CEO of the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER), the organization charged with determining when the economy is in a recession and when it is growing. He told CNNMoney.com that he had thought the chance of a recession was about 50-50 even before last week.

But he said he now believes a recession is likely, as he pointed to both a report from the Institute of Supply Management showing manufacturing activity in decline for the first time in almost a year, and Friday's December jobs report that showed a jump in the unemployment rate to a two-year high.



Read more: http://money.cnn.com/2008/01/07/news/economy/feldstein/index.htm?cnn=yes

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Haven't we pretty much been shown that Neocon Supply Side economics is just so much trash? We are in the mess we are in because of it, so the solution is more of the same? IIRC, their "$300 tax rebate" for Bush inaugural recession was really just a tax loan, we had to pay it back come tax time. So what they are posing for the "Kick his ass out the door Recession" is another loan that comes due as he is winging his way to Paraguay with what was left of the Treasury?

[terisan]

1. Feldstein should be apologizing and refrain from further advice-giving .

[UpInArms]

5. and then he should turn himself in for

a re-education camp

[The_Casual_Observer]

2. tax cuts and interest rate cuts - This does nothing but increase the wealth

of the investor class. But I guess that's the point.

[Rageneau]

3. Tax cuts are Pirelli's Miracle Elixer. Cures everything!

[knight_of_the_star]

9. This stinks

of piss. Piss and ink.

[Patchuli]

25. Kind of like the Dad in 'Big Fat Greek Wedding'

that used Windex for EVERYTHING? These people sure do prove out the definition of insanity!

Edited for dumb typo

[Xipe Totec]

4. Horseshit

First, they said the economy was doing great; we had a surplus, so a tax cut was in order.

Then the economy when into the shitter, so they said a tax cut was needed to stimulate the economy.

Then things turned around and they said look, the tax cuts are working so we need to keep the tax cuts in place.


Then, before the final dive into the Reganomic cesspool, they are saying we need more tax cuts.


This is the cure-all end all for all the illnesses of the world!


Tax cuts cure blindness, baldness, diabetes, impotence, and incontinence!

[Amonester]

12. And they create slave jobs in Dubai, India and China...

AFTER they cut middle-class quality jobs in 'mur'ka.

Hey, it works marvels (for the treasonous clique of ultra-rich neocons, exclusively).

[Patchuli]

6. The big problem with that

is Feldstein obviously wanted to enrich the rich at our expense. When are these classist bastards going to grow some conscience or morals?!

[boricua79]

20. when are WE going to realize

that it IS a class war. Everytime classwar is used, it's always used to label progressives as hidden communists...but the rich wage class war every single day. Nobody blames them.

Feldstein is a paid spokesman of the rich, and he's an intellectual legitimizer of the current order. Akin to priests in the Vatican. They are there to promote the faith.

[DLnyc]

7. Throw more money around! Tax the poor/reward the rich! Throw more

money around! Tax the poor/reward the rich!

Cutting interest rates and 'injecting cash' gimmicks just weaken the dollar and fuel inflation (while bailing out some large financial institutions that gave lots of money to BushCo).
"Tax cuts", which really mean "Give more money to the rich", just redistribute wealth in the wrong direction: less money in the budget means services (that rich people don't need) get cut. And Repub "tax cuts" have been tax SHIFTS off of corporations and billionaires and onto middle class and poor people.

1) The economy can be improved by borrowing and/or taxing very wealthy people and large monopoly corporations to fund productive public works projects, providing more money, jobs AND goods (so not inflationary). Cutting about 3 or 4 hundred billion out of the military budget (or redirecting it to something USEFUL) would get us a long way in this direction.

2) Taxes (meaning REGULAR PEOPLE's taxes) can be lowered by restoring the estate tax on multi=million dollar estates, restoring the capital gains tax, properly taxing large corporations and restoring high tax rates for extraordinarily rich people (above, say, 3 million in income a year) and redistibuting a lot of that to reduce middle and low income taxes (and/or dramatically raise standard deduction).

I guess I must be really old, but I remember when the solution talked about for a weak economy was USEFUL GOVERNMENT SPENDING, not a bunch of fiscal gimicry. And when "tax cut" meant a tax cut for people who really needed it, PAID FOR by people who could afford it.

Bah, humbug!

[Miss Chybil]

8. All the rich people I know think the economy is great.

So, it sounds like they don't need any more tax cuts.

[Patchuli]

26. Tell them we're coming to

EAT THEM!

hehe j/k...sorta!

[Historic NY]

10. Oh so he wants another to chance to "f" things up..............

I used the first $300 to pay for gas what does he propose now. Ah wait the Republican way let your childrens children pay. Credit Card economics do not work.

[gasperc]

11. Feldstein should remove his head from his ass

then I don't know, drop dead

[yardwork]

13. Thanks for nothing.

[bluesmail]

14. Thanks George

[Mr_Monday]

15. Typical conservative thought

Stay the course and surge the numbers.

[Captain Angry]

16. These guys have seen the numbers

They're just getting on record ahead of it so they can sound intelligent, get book deals, speaking tours, etc.

[eppur_se_muova]

17. Got yourself in a hole? Try a bigger shovel! Same logic. nt

[sofa king]

18. Did we ever even dig out of the last one?

Seriously. How many of you economists out there actually trust the Bush Administration to abstain from manipulating the economic data they publish? Does anyone double-check their reports?

They've not done anything else honestly. There's no way in hell I'd trust them on this.

[boricua79]

19. "My medicine caused this recession...so take more of my Tylenol...it'll be good for you"

What a capitalist MORON. We tried supply side economics in the 80s and we had the same disastrous results then as we do now. If you want a pure example of American capitalist ideas getting experimental play, look to Latin America, where most of its economies in the 50s followed the American development plan of cutting the state and services and allowing the rich to prosper in order to "grow jobs" that would trickle. The plan failed, led to military coups to stave off leftist guerrillas and now has been thorougly discredited...giving rise to civil society leftist movements that plan "Bolivarian alternatives" and other such measures.

This harvard economist should STFU and be happy he's employed by Harvard and live off the rest of his life in quiet comfort.

[boricua79]

21. Check the other thread on DU....BBC is saying the recession has arrived

Thanks George FUCKING Bush.

[BearSquirrel2]

22. Vicious circle ..

If things get worse from tax cuts ... cut more taxes. Income and resource disparity has no place in these assholes' vocabulary. Supply side economics is a premise meant to justifying enriching a few at the expense of the many. It is an entire field meant to ignore the true cause of the great depression, the fact that the rich had all the money, land and resources. At that point there was no point in investing because they already had everything.

[fascisthunter]

23. Hey Republican Voters: YOU BEEN CONNED!

wake the fuck up!

[Javaman]

24. I just love when assholes like this have to eat crow at the expense of

our lives.

Public hangings had a purpose in the old days.