By JC
Listening to Trump’s chief economic adviser Gary Cohn and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin revealing their tax cut package during a briefing at the White House today ( I know, torture time…), I heard the following response by Secretary Mnuchin to a question about whether or not Trump would sign the legislation if wasn’t deficit neutral:
“…when we look at the deficits, and the deficit has gone from 10 to 20 trilion dollars in the last administration…”
At this point I realized just how fucked we are, when the Treasury Secretary of the U.S. doesn’t know the difference between the national debt and a deficit (or maybe he is too intellectually sloppy to articulate the difference, or is such a poor communicator he can’t think on his feet). Basic Economics 101 stuff. A deficit or surplus is the measurement (usually annually) of how out of balance the budget is — income and expenses. The national debt is an aggregate of annual deficits or surpluses over time.
While there are many different ways to look at debt and deficits (and Steve K. has had some interesting posts on that at Piece of Mind lately), and we can argue about them till the cows come home, when the person in charge of the nation’s finances (outside of the Fed — and that’s a whole ‘nother story) is not coherent enough to use the proper wordage in what will become another huge battle in Congress — tax “reform” — how can we trust any of the other words he/they use?
Obviously we can’t, which is why everything we see and hear in public is nothing more than a charade for the public and the media to focus on while the real looting goes on behind a smokescreen. Those people are idiots and tools, and they take us for less than idiots.
JC
Nice one! Whatever the Great (orange) Goggamooga in the White House says can be found in its original, psycho-intellectual, pro-corporate glory at The Heritage Foundation,(http://www.heritage.org) where tax reform is — surprise — the hot topic of the day. If there’s any daylight between the Googamooga’s tweets and Heritage, somebody at the White House, or on the Mar-a-Lago golf course, forgot their lines.
But the grand puppet show must go on. Here’s what corporate globalists want from tax “reform.” http://www.heritage.org/taxes/commentary/put-america-first-fixing-the-tax-system
Any questions?
Good spot JC but when does a slipping tongue overshadow our finacial death spiral.
https://westernrifleshooters.files.wordpress.com/2017/04/mal-what.gif
A slip of the tongue like this predicts the sloppiness of thinking to come. And when it is obvious that those purportedly in control of the “economy” can’t make cogent statements, of what concern to them is the death spiral of our economy? The goal is to accumulate as much wealth in the hands of as few people as possible. Deficit spending is just one such tool used by democrats and republicans alike. Much wealth becomes available to be accumulated as the economy spirals into neofeudalism. And it is plain to see that the Goldman Sachs bankers and hedge fund execs in control of the flow of wealth really have just one goal, and that isn’t to work for the good of the middle class, much less the poor.
How about “slipping” compared to an outright lie?
I’m referring to Obama’s statement that his health plan would save us 2400 dollars a year.
I think it’s a well-though out tax reform plan, and this piece over at American Thinker says it all better than I could – give it a read if you have time.
http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2017/04/a_tax_experts_take_on_trumps_proposal_a_truly_great_tax_plan.html
1: Lowering the corporate tax rate is a sham, as corporations do not pay stated rates.
2: Corporations “passing tax through to customers” is also a sham, as it implies that corporations s are charging less for their products than they could and can arbitrarily raise prices to reimburse themselves for taxes. That is only true of monopolies. (Corporations do not need to be competitive with foreign entities, as they are, by and large, one and the same with those foreign entities.)
3: The tax code as currently designed lets low income people with children off the hook via the Earned Income Credit. This is good.
4. The tax code as designed is two-pronged, with two income taxes in place, one of which we do not talk about, the Social Security/Medicare tax. It too is a sham. It does not finance SS or Medicare. It is just a tax, half hidden. It is designed to harm working people. Only self-employed people see its full impact, 14.2% of every dollar earned.
5. Combined with regular income tax and FICA, working people above poverty level are paying 30-40% last dollar in taxes. That is harmful, prevents them from getting ahead. That is, as I see it, its intent, to prevent wealth from spreading.
6. The “Reagan” tax on Social Security benefits, which was deliberaly left non-indexed for inflation, now forces most people above poverty to pay tax on 85% of their benefits. Social Security is now treated like ordinary income.
7. Combine the 30-40% of last dollar tax with student loan debt and now forced payment of exorbitant health insurance premiums (with high deductibles and co-pays), as we are in economic slavery. That is the objective.
All of this could be eliminated tomorrow, of course, with no ill effects, but “Trump”, who is himself a fake president, like Obama, does not want to set people free. His only concern is that the wealthy are not wealthy enough.
And, Eric, it is all bipartisan. The two parties are also, like Trump, fake.
Eric just said the plan was well thought out. Not who was doing the thinking.
Or who benefited from that thinking.
I discovered this after writing about the concept. Mosler appears to be the source of what I was trying to get out. http://moslereconomics.com/wp-content/powerpoints/7DIF.pdf