Barack Hussein Obama's tax policy is the wrong one according to Nobel Economists - Dallas-Mavs.com Forums

dude1394 · 10-11-2008, 11:48 AM

Barack Hussein Obama's plan to redistribute wealth will NOT help this economy. Of course the socialist candidate knows this, he's more interested in buying votes.

http://engram-backtalk.blogspot.com/...ncreasing.html

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UPDATE: OK, ignore me and take into consideration what 5 Nobel laureates (and a bunch of other economists) have to say:

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Barack Obama argues that his proposals to raise tax rates and halt international trade agreements would benefit the American economy. They would do nothing of the sort. Economic analysis and historical experience show that they would do the opposite. They would reduce economic growth and decrease the number of jobs in America. Moreover, with the credit crunch, the housing slump, and high energy prices weakening the U.S. economy, his proposals run a high risk of throwing the economy into a deep recession. It was exactly such misguided tax hikes and protectionism, enacted when the U.S. economy was weak in the early 1930s, that greatly increased the severity of the Great Depression.

We are very concerned with Barack Obama's opposition to trade agreements such as the pending one with Colombia, the new one with Central America, or the established one with Canada and Mexico. Exports from the United States to other countries create jobs for Americans. Imports make goods available to Americans at lower prices and are a particular benefit to families and individuals with low incomes. International trade is also a powerful source of strength in a weak economy. In the second quarter of this year, for example, increased international trade did far more to stimulate the U.S. economy than the federal government's "stimulus" package.

Ironically, rather than supporting international trade, Barack Obama is now proposing yet another so-called stimulus package, which would do very little to grow the economy. And his proposal to finance the package with higher taxes on oil would raise oil prices directly and by reducing exploration and production.

We are equally concerned with his proposals to increase tax rates on labor income and investment. His dividend and capital gains tax increases would reduce investment and cut into the savings of millions of Americans. His proposals to increase income and payroll tax rates would discourage the formation and expansion of small businesses and reduce employment and take-home pay, as would his mandates on firms to provide expensive health insurance.

After hearing such economic criticism of his proposals, Barack Obama has apparently suggested to some people that he might postpone his tax increases, perhaps to 2010. But it is a mistake to think that postponing such tax increases would prevent their harmful effect on the economy today. The prospect of such tax rate increases in 2010 is already a drag on the economy. Businesses considering whether to hire workers today and expand their operations have time horizons longer than a year or two, so the prospect of higher taxes starting in 2009 or 2010 reduces hiring and investment in 2008.

In sum, Barack Obama's economic proposals are wrong for the American economy. They defy both economic reason and economic experience.

Perhaps Obama will cite counterarguments of some other Nobel prize winners. For the moment, this all makes sense to me.

Mavdog · 10-11-2008, 01:01 PM

barack obama does not oppose all trade pacts, and voted for several. as is stated in a review of the candidate's trade policies by the council on foreign relations, "Sen. Obama (D-IL) generally supports free trade policies, though he has expressed concern about free trade agreements that do not include labor and environmental protections."

http://www.cfr.org/publication/14762/

dude1394 · 10-11-2008, 01:19 PM

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Originally Posted by Mavdog

barack obama does not oppose all trade pacts, and voted for several. as is stated in a review of the candidate's trade policies by the council on foreign relations, "Sen. Obama (D-IL) generally supports free trade policies, though he has expressed concern about free trade agreements that do not include labor and environmental protections."

http://www.cfr.org/publication/14762/

Except nafta..Somehow our economic woes are tied to Nafta. What an idiot.

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Here is Barack Obama yesterday:

we know that the status quo in Washington just won't do. Not this time. Not this year. We can't keep playing the same Washington game with the same Washington players and expect a different result – because it's a game that ordinary Americans are losing....

It's a game where trade deals like NAFTA ship jobs overseas and force parents to compete with their teenagers to work for minimum wage at Wal-Mart. That's what happens when the American worker doesn't have a voice at the negotiating table, when leaders change their positions on trade with the politics of the moment, and that's why we need a President who will listen to Main Street – not just Wall Street; a President who will stand with workers not just when it's easy, but when it's hard.

kg_veteran · 10-11-2008, 01:25 PM

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Originally Posted by dude1394

Except nafta..Somehow our economic woes are tied to Nafta. What an idiot.

I agree. This quote, in particular, is beyond ridiculous:

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force parents to compete with their teenagers to work for minimum wage at Wal-Mart.

Show me the parents that are supporting their families on minimum wage jobs. I'm not saying that NONE exist, but the number of them is infinitesmal.

Also, the jab at Wal-Mart didn't go unnoticed. I'd say that Wal-Mart has done more for the average low-income family than any politician.

dude1394 · 10-11-2008, 01:27 PM

Obama has to make sure he plays to his union supporters and criticize walmart. yes walmart has done more for lower income folks than democrats have ever done, except ruin their childrens education.

kg_veteran · 10-11-2008, 01:43 PM

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Originally Posted by dude1394

Obama has to make sure he plays to his union supporters and criticize walmart. yes walmart has one more for lower income folks than democrats have ever done, except ruin their childrens education.

Just think -- if Obama had actually spent some of that Annenberg money wisely, he might have improved the education (and thus the upward economic mobility) of inner city children in Chicago!

Mavdog · 10-11-2008, 03:11 PM

how can you show that the annenberg money didn't improve opportunities for those inner city kids?

Epitome22 · 10-12-2008, 05:45 AM

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Originally Posted by dude1394

Barack Hussein Obama's plan to redistribute wealth will NOT help this economy. Of course the socialist candidate knows this, he's more interested in buying votes.

http://engram-backtalk.blogspot.com/...ncreasing.html

That list of "100 economists" for McCain in opposition to Obama's plan...is only signed by 90 people, a majority of whom are not serious economic scholars but are instead hacks that stock right wing think tanks and people directly involved in the McCain-Palin campaign. As I noted earlier, a survey commissioned by The Economist magazine finds that Economists overwhelmingly support the Obama economic agenda over the McCain one. The list of "Economists for Obama" includes 5 Nobel laureates Joseph Stiglitz, Edmund Phelps, Dan McFadden, James Heckman and Robert Solow. In fact, James Heckman who is a peer of such men as Gary Becker, the late Milton Friedman at the University of Chicago said of Obama “I’ve never worked with a campaign that was more interested in what the research shows.”

Other people on record as supporting Obama's socialist economic agenda include Former (Repubican) Chair of the Fed Paul Volcker, behavioral finance expert Richard Thaler, former Vice-chairman of the Federal Reserve Alan Blinder, Two former Republican chairs of the Securities and Exchange Commission William Donaldson & David Ruder and of course the king of Wall St. and the richest man in the world, Warren Buffet. And of course, the actual majority of actual practicing economists.

A word to the wise. Socialism is supposed to be scary & threatening, calling someone with completely mainstream economic views a "socialist" and attaching the tag of socialism to an economic agenda that is not only inoffensive to most economists & economic minds, a strong majority of them actually support the measures, it doesn't do well for your cause. Obama is actually the mainstream candidate, your guy & his base are the loons screaming in the middle of the street. Obama & his party is not only the choice of America going forward, he is and they are going to win by a pretty substantial margin, this makes "socialism" seem a lot less threatening.

Perhaps you might wait until Obama says something along the lines of the market economy sucks and should be replaced by a system where the workforce controls the means of production by means of a dictatorship of the proletariat before using the S word so liberally.

Epitome22 · 10-12-2008, 05:49 AM

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Originally Posted by dude1394

Except nafta..Somehow our economic woes are tied to Nafta. What an idiot.

Actually, everything Obama said there re: NAFTA was 100% on point.

Epitome22 · 10-12-2008, 05:51 AM

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Originally Posted by dude1394

Obama has to make sure he plays to his union supporters and criticize walmart. yes walmart has done more for lower income folks than democrats have ever done, except ruin their childrens education.

LOL.

minkbarn · 10-12-2008, 08:28 AM

President Bush's policies have already crippled our economy. If you're outraged by the destruction of the American economic engine (and most folks are) look at the current administration. That HAVE run us into the ground, not on paper, but for real.

Here's an article debunking this 100 Economist list:

Highlight: "Update: A survey of academic economists by The Economist finds overwhelming preference for Obama's platform."

http://blogs.tnr.com/tnr/blogs/the_p...-big-guns.aspx

"McCain's Not Very Big Guns
In a post entitled "The Booming of the Big Guns," Peter Robinson boasts that the McCain campaign has gotten "100 economists" to sign a statement warning of the grave effects of Barack Obama's economic program.

This statement strikes me as far less devastating than Robinson makes it out to be. First, 100 economists is not actually all that many, given the number of economists in our country. Second, the list of signatories actually has only 90 economists on it. (Count for yourself.) This trouble with basic arithmetic might explain the McCain campaign's stated beliefs in such fallacies as tax hikes always cause revenues to fall.

Was the campaign unable to find 100 economists? The list certainly does not suggest excessive discrimination about credentials. It's heavily larded with GOP apparatchiks now residing in the right-wing think tank world (my favorite is "economist" George Schultz of the Hoover Institution), as well as two signatories who list their affiliation as "McCain-Palin 2008." The takeaway here is that, even with the most generous standards, the campaign couldn't find 100 economists in the country to badmouth Obama's proposals, let alone endorse their own.

Update: A survey of academic economists by The Economist finds overwhelming preference for Obama's platform.

--Jonathan Chait"