Ken,

 

I'd say the tax cuts are already biting them.  The US has the largest
budget deficit in recent memory, if not ever (depending on whether the
deficit is measured as a percentage of the economic output of the
country or in actual dollars), and an economy that's recovering slowly,
if at all.  IMHO, the slow economic recovery reflects a lack of
confidence in the administration, because people are holding on to the
money they got from the tax cuts, rather than reinvesting it.  I don't
know about others on the list, but I'd say that Janet and I are pretty
typical "middle class consumers,"  and the approximately $275.00 we got
from the tax cuts helped pay off some medical bills a little faster, but
was not really "re-invested."  

 

This link leads to an interesting article from the Brookings Institution
on the effects the deficit is already having, as well as potential
effects if the deficit problem is not adequately addressed.

 

http://www.brookings.edu/views/articles/20041201orszaggale.htm
<http://www.brookings.edu/views/articles/20041201orszaggale.htm> 

 

An interesting thing that I learned from the article was that over the
last twenty years, the largest budget deficits were in 1986, 1991 and
1992, where the deficit was pretty much level, and 2003.  In 1986,
Reagan was President (admittedly with a democratic Congress), but in
1991-1992 George H.W.Bush was either in office, or had been the
architect of the budget, with a Republican majority in Congress. In
2003, George W. Bush and a Republican Congress had been in office for at
only two years, and this was after an eight year period of economic
growth, the strongest sustained economic growth in peace-time in recent
memory.  Usually when the US is at war, the economy is strengthened for
several reasons, but among these are an increase in manufacturing output
because much has to go into producing armaments and war materiel, and
also because unemployment rates are reduced as young men and women join
the armed forces, freeing up civilian jobs for others.  

 

We used to hear about "tax and spend" Democrats, but was that really
worse than the spending that has occurred in the past three Republican
administrations that has resulted in huge deficits, because it isn't
matched by revenues?

 

Kendall Corbett

An unreasonable man (but my wife says that's redundant!)

 

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one
persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all
progress depends on the unreasonable man.

 

George Bernard Shaw 1856-1950

 

 

>Date:    Wed, 15 Dec 2004 09:28:36 -0800

>From:    ken barber <[log in to unmask]>

>Subject: Re: Medicaid cuts 'on the table' for 2005

 

>tax cuts?

 

>--- [log in to unmask] wrote:

 

>> I fear most everything will come back and bite them,

>> i.e., Iraq, healthcare,

>> Halliburton, you name it.

>>

>> Bobby