How To Kill An Economic Recovery

[Straw Man]

And how many times do I have to demonstrate that that is a less optimal approach than cutting spending and leaving taxes alone or perhaps even cutting them? How many times do I have to demonstrate that there are automatic tax increases built into the tax code via inflation and economic growth? How many times do I have to demonstrate that Obama and the Democrats have repeatedly failed to present ANY plan returning us to fiscal responsibility while the Republicans HAVE proposed a budget which at least eventually returns us to a balanced budget?

Example of a straw man argument: claiming that Republicans oppose tax hikes because it is a backdoor to communism. Hmmm, who said that recently? That's right, YOU did:

you've cited one study which I haven't yet read but I will

my calling a 3% increase in marginal tax rates is not a straw man argument - it was modern day hyperbole used by some people on the right to charactrize any increase in taxes

a strawman argument would be to attribute a false position to my oppoenent and then argue against that false position and claim that I am arguing against my opponent

for example, Romney pretending that Obama said you didn't build your business and then arguing agaisnt that false assertion and pretending he is arguing against Obama

[tu_holmes]

The reality is that taxes HAVE gone up, and despite that the deficits have increased:


Three factors which increase tax revenues:
1. Economic growth, which causes the real value of tax revenues to rise.
2. Inflation pushing individuals into higher tax brackets despite no real gains in income.
3. Inflation eroding the real value of tax credits and tax deductions.

Ugh... You keep missing my statement about reducing spending, but whatever dude.

[Soul Crusher]

Barackward! Obama's Job Deficit
 Townhall.com ^ | July 31, 2012 | Bob Beauprez

Posted on Tuesday, July 31, 2012 2:31:48 PM

After a review of the Labor Department's March 2012 economic report, I published an analysis showing that America had a jobs deficit of nearly 10.4 million jobs as compared to a "normal economy."  In the four months that have followed, because the population continues to grow more rapidly than job creation, the total jobs deficit has worsened by an additional 229,000.  That flies in the face of the President's recent assertion that "the private sector is doing fine."



Instead of "doing fine" and a steady recovery from the effects of the recession, net job creation continues to fall backwards.  The arithmetic is straight forward using Bureau of Labor Statistics for June:






Current Total Available Population




243.155


million




Normal Labor Force Participation Rate


multiply
 

0.6653






Active Labor Force Total


equals
 

161.771


million




Normal unemployment level = 5.4%


minus
 

8.736


million




Normal total employed population


equals
 

153.035


million


Unfortunately, instead of more than 153 million that should be employed in a normal healthy U.S. economy, only 142.415 million people had jobs in June according to the Labor Department's report.   That's a jobs deficit of 10.62 million people.



For this analysis, I calculated the average monthly Labor Force Participation Rate from January 1990 through December 2008 using BLS statistics; the 19 consecutive years prior to Obama taking office.   I used the Congressional Budget Office's definition of a "normal unemployment" rate of 5.4%. 



Until there is a significant change in the two big variables in the above analysis, the Labor Force Participation Rate and the Unemployment Rate, there is not going to be much good news for President Obama to crow about.  The most recent LPR (63.8%) and unemployment (8.2%) are each nearly 3% worse than levels that exist in a typical healthy American economy.



President Obama has tried to spin the paltry new job creation numbers as "a step in the right direction."  But, clearly, the small growth in jobs isn't even keeping up with population growth, much less returning the workforce to a healthy level.   Specifically, the 80,000 new jobs credited in the June BLS report were barely half the population increase of 156,000 for the month. 



Obama is also fond of pointing out that 4.4 million new jobs have been created in the last 28 months.  But, what he conveniently doesn't mention is that the workforce population has increased by 7.3 million people during the same period.   He's short of break even by almost 3 million jobs.

Obama's economic policies obviously have not worked, and have left the American market place with enormous uncertainty and anxiety.  Obama's and his Capitol Hill Democrat cohorts' latest attempt at a solution is a bizarre proposal to punish with a tax increase the same segment of the population they are trying to convince to create more jobs. 

By contrast, Mitt Romney succinctly put forward a five step plan last week on CNBC with Larry Kudlow that demonstrates why by more than a 2:1 margin voters trust Romney to manage the economy over Barack Obama.  The five point plan stands in stark contrast to "most of the measures the President pursued that hurt job creation" according to Romney, and includes the following principles:


1.Take "extraordinary advantage" of America's Energy Resources
2.Opening up Foreign Trade, particularly in Latin America
3.Convince the world that America is serious about Balancing our Federal Budget
4.Improve our Human Capital with training for adults and better schools for our kids.
5.Restore Economic Freedom – "Keep tax rates down.  Get regulators to see themselves as allies of enterprise; not the enemies."

Romney asserted, "If we do these things, you'll see America's economy come roaring back…We'll see the kind of economic resurgence the American people expected some years ago." 

Romney told Kudlow that he would lay out more details of his plans to restore our economy to health in coming weeks of the campaign.  In various speeches and policy briefs, the GOP nominee has already done that. 

Compared to Obama's war on fossil fuels, his seizure of the health care and financial services industries, his 50% increase in the federal debt with trillion dollar annual deficits, an avalanche of new taxes particularly in ObamaCare, and a "regulation-gone-wild" philosophy throughout the bureaucracies, Romney's bullet point plan sounds like good place to start over.   November can't come soon enough. 

[howardroark]

Ugh... You keep missing my statement about reducing spending, but whatever dude.

I agree that spending needs to be reduced! That's my entire point! Tax hikes won't get the job done, ANY tax increases will hurt the economy and we've had steadily rising taxes and they will increase even without any explicit tax rate increases!

[tu_holmes]

I agree that spending needs to be reduced! That's my entire point! Tax hikes won't get the job done, ANY tax increases will hurt the economy and we've had steadily rising taxes and they will increase even without any explicit tax rate increases!

I don't think that is true... I think a 3% hike is manageable. The spending decreases then do the rest.

[howardroark]

you've cited one study which I haven't yet read but I will

Great, I can start making a reading list for you.

How about this one, which shows that reducing corporate tax rates increases economic growth? http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047272704001343#SECX11

Or how about this history lesson, like this article by Harvard PhD historian Tom Woods, showing that the fiscal conservative response to economic downturns worked, as opposed to the Keynesian approach which made the Great Depression worse, gave Japan its so-called "lost decade," and now is weakening the recovery from the "Great Recession?" http://www.firstprinciplesjournal.com/articles.aspx?article=1322&theme=home&loc=b

my calling a 3% increase in marginal tax rates is not a straw man argument - it was modern day hyperbole used by some people on the right to charactrize any increase in taxes

a strawman argument would be to attribute a false position to my oppoenent and then argue against that false position and claim that I am arguing against my opponent

Ohhh right, so now your straw man argument was hyperbole.   So is that how you operate? You reduce your opponents' arguments to hyperbole and ignore all of the legitimate arguments, like the ones I laid out for you?

for example, Romney pretending that Obama said you didn't build your business and then arguing agaisnt that false assertion and pretending he is arguing against Obama

Which, actually taken in context, is exactly what Obama claimed: that you are not an individual acting with free will, but a materialistic organism only capable of success when government provides the correct inputs, such as a socialized education system or a nationalized road system.

[Straw Man]

Great, I can start making a reading list for you.

How about this one, which shows that reducing corporate tax rates increases economic growth? http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047272704001343#SECX11

Or how about this history lesson, like this article by Harvard PhD historian Tom Woods, showing that the fiscal conservative response to economic downturns worked, as opposed to the Keynesian approach which made the Great Depression worse, gave Japan its so-called "lost decade," and now is weakening the recovery from the "Great Recession?" http://www.firstprinciplesjournal.com/articles.aspx?article=1322&theme=home&loc=b

Ohhh right, so now your straw man argument was hyperbole.   So is that how you operate? You reduce your opponents' arguments to hyperbole and ignore all of the legitimate arguments, like the ones I laid out for you?

Which, actually taken in context, is exactly what Obama claimed: that you are not an individual acting with free will, but a materialistic organism only capable of success when government provides the correct inputs, such as a socialized education system or a nationalized road system.

Obama never said you were only capable of success when the government provides the correct inputs

There is no need to speculate or fabricate what point Obama was trying to make

Obama actually told you exactly what his point was when he said

The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together.

if you think that's not correct try opening a Chik Fil a in Somolia

Regarding your claim of my alleged straw man argument I never made any actual false argument

Reupublicans on this board and in other places have actually argued that a marginal increase in taxes is akin to Communism, Marxisms, Socialsim and probalby other nonsense that I have forgotten