When WOULD republicans favor a tax increase?

[mwb970]

Crazy like a GOP fox by Rick Horowitz
(Chicago Tribune, July 13, 2011)

"You can't raise taxes when the economy is so shaky!" That's the current Republican line. I say "current" because there have been other Republican lines too. Maybe you remember a few of them:

"You can't raise taxes when the economy is humming!"

"You can't raise taxes when the economic signs are going up!"

"You can't raise taxes when the economic signs are going down!"

"You can't raise taxes when there are seven days in a week!"

I made that last one up. (I think.)

It would be interesting to hear from the Eric Cantors of the world: Under what conditions exactly would Republicans favor raising taxes on anyone? We know that "today" is never the right time to raise enough revenues to keep the government functioning. But is there an acceptable "tomorrow" lurking somewhere? Anywhere?

Just asking.

I too have been maddened by the republican insistence that the proper response to an improving economy is to cut taxes, and the proper response to a failing economy is ALSO to cut taxes. Wartime? Cut taxes. Peacetime? Cut taxes. It's amazing that so many people who should know better fall for this idiotic crap.

[Autumn]

1. When it's on the poor n/t

[Jefferson23]

8. lol, I was going to post, "when hell freezes over... but your response is exactly right. n/t

[newfie11]

2. when they have a repig pres! n/t

[judgegblue]

3. The right wingers always compare the govt budget to family

finances. If a family car breaks down, or an aplliance quits and the family has no cash to replace, they buy on terms. Shouldn't the fed be able to borrow to provide essential services too. Unless you believe that providing the basics to our people isn't a priority.

[CJCRANE]

4. The Republicans are in a hypnotic fugue.

They've been repeating the same thing for so long they can't stop.

They will keep going and take the "tax cuts for the rich" mantra to its (il)logical conclusion.

[mwb970]

5. republicans cut taxes while launching 2 wars, then they cut spending during a recession.

Both of these foolish policies work directly against the American economy and the American people. Neither has ever been successful. (Neither has creating jobs by cutting taxes on billionaires.) Yet republicans continue to advocate the economic destruction of the nation, presumably to benefit the top 2%. I sure hope those desperately needy super-rich people appreciate all the help they are getting from the political party they bought.

[Igel]

6. Not quite right.

The (R) I've known have been for raising taxes when there was some government need that couldn't be met by cutting spending to appropriate levels. For example, during WWII.

In the same way, (D) I've known have all been for tax cuts when government services were fully funded and there was excess.

There have been some (R) and (D) I've known who have had other reasons, as well. Either there was a recession ((R) and some (D), back before 2000) or when it was just necessary to reduce the deficit and there was no way to right-size other functions of government.

The entire debate as framed is a red herring. At some point there's the need for a debate over the proper tax level. This has to be conducted once the proper spending level of government is decided by public debate; that requires that the extend of and funding needed for each function, role, budget category agreed upon by a majority. This reduces the budget debate to the status of a surrogate for deciding the proper size of government, often in order to avoid deciding the proper size of each subcomponent. In the meantime, subgroups are trying to force the issue, either by declaring some citizens not worthy of having a voice in the debate or by simply refusing to play.

Democracy works when most citizens know that they have to temper their private good in the interest of the common good. Their private views can be irresponsible, but since they have a stake in the system, are committed to its continuance and know they that they have a say they accept that the views they want to be implemented have to be responsible and include everybody, even if it may hurt them personally. Not all sacrifice needs to be shared to be responsible and appropriate: During WWII a lot of 18- and 19-year-olds died, and their sacrifice was most emphatically not "equally shared" by a lot of other Americans.

When you get people without a stake in continuing the system, when you get people who don't believe that they have a say and therefore don't believe that their public views need to be responsible because they don't govern but advocate, when you get people confusing private good with common good, when you get people too uneducated or selfish to be responsible, this breaks down. Furthermore, when others who want to be responsible see that the system has broken down it just encourages them to also discontinue their adherence to any kind of responsibility for the system and the entire enterprise becomes a giant tug of war for blatant power.

Welcome to 2011 and the debate over the debt ceiling as a way to drive debate over the proper overall budget level in order to dictate the appropriate size of government. Since it's a democracy, the people as a group have spoken and reached this as their compromise, even if individual the peoples are really pissed off.

[Enthusiast]

18. WWII Republicans bear no resemblance

to todays Republican and their more unreasonable cousin the Teabagger. The need for higher taxes has never been more obvious. We are still in Iraq and Afghanistan!

[The Second Stone]

7. You can raise taxes on the future.

Republicans are huge on deficit spending. Every deficit is a tax on the future. The Republicans want to weigh down your future with taxes.

[blkmusclmachine]

9. The GOP is trying to drown this Country in a bathtub:

and most of the so-called "New Democrats" in the Party are all to willing to oblige.

[Bill USA]

10. Note that the Red State Brigade considers NOT making temp tax cuts permanent a tax increase!

[ThoughtCriminal]

11. The GOP AZ Legislature has been considering a flat tax

that would massively raise the income tax on 95% of the state's taxpayers - and cut rates for 5%. Can you guess which 5% would see substantial cuts?

[A Simple Game]

12. The Republicans are perfectly right in their reasoning.

It's just that their reasoning is different from ours. Just like * was a very effective president, for the people he represented, which certainly didn't include most of us. Today's Republicans don't represent everyday people, they represent the top 1% of our society. If you look at it from the proper perspective, the Republicans are very good at their jobs.

[louslobbs]

13. When Grover Norquist becomes and honest man and gives permission to the Republicans that it is ok.

with him to raise taxes. In other words never, but you can cut taxes for the rich and the corporations when ever you feel like it and you don't even have to pay for those, just attach those to the deficit for the poor and middle class to pay at a later date. However, you can cut programs for the poor and middle class when ever the need arises, even if that need comes about because you gave more free tax cuts to the rich and corporations and tacked those on to the deficit for.....the poor and the middle class to pay through more benefits cuts. Now, if this causes it all to get out of control, and a black man happens to get elected to the Presidency, then this large deficit that Republicans ran up by not paying for wars, drug programs and tax cuts to the rich, can hold raising the debt ceiling hostage until they can terrorize enough people to give in to their further cuts to the poor and middle class to pay for the damage they have already done. If however, the Republican terrorism doesn't work to continue screwing the poor and middle class with further draconian cuts to pay for their spending binge during the George W. Bush era, then they will cause this nation to default on its obligations and cause economic chaos and upset not only here in America, but around the globe.
Lou

[Po_d Mainiac]

14. When swine are on the ILS to JFK?

When Apollo Ono does his thing on the River Styx?

When Priests only molester Nuns?

[Fuddnik]

16. I don't think swine are instrument rated.

If they're shooting the ILS, it's porcine error.

Kind of like an Inhofe landing.

[treestar]

15. Never. They insist lower taxes result in higher revenues.

The believe this like a religion.

Now ask them why the bush tax cuts did not cause huge revenues and a surplus and they will not answer. it is just Obama's fault.

[mwb970]

17. I think the republican party is more than "like a religion".

I'd say it IS a religion, actually a religious cult, underpinned by a criminal enterprise. What it is NOT is a serious political party with America's interests at heart.

[XanaDUer]

19. NE-VER.

nt

[JayhawkSD]

20. The whole discussion is framed wrong

We are now discussing (not this thread, mostly Republicans) the size of government is terms of how much it spends, which is an idiotic discussion.

When you go to buy a house, what is the first thing you tell the realtor? "I want to have a house payment of 18% of my income?" I don't think so. You talk about the features you want in the house, how many bedrooms, where it needs to be, what kind of view... Only after the house is defined in terms of form and function do you then talk about what that house is going to cost.

But when we talk about government, we don't even mention form or function, we talk about cost and only about cost. Government spending, we say, needs to be cut to 20% of GDP. Not because it is doing things that don't need to be done, but merely because "it is spending too much."

A discussion on this basis is completely and utterly without merit. You simply cannot say that the government is spending too much unless you define what it is doing that does not need to be done, and no one seems able to do that. We get the inevitable "eliminate waste and fraud," but no one can prove that there actually is the $billions of that which is claimed, and it never gets eliminated, because that claim is a perennial one.

The discussion should not be about "cutting spending" but, if we are spending too much, about eliminating or reducing unneeded functions of government. Instead, we talk about cutting spending and aim those cuts at functions in an arbitrary manner that reduces or eliminates them without discussion of whether or not we need them or what purpose they serve.