{"id":5427,"date":"2010-12-08T19:15:57","date_gmt":"2010-12-09T00:15:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/?p=5427"},"modified":"2010-12-08T19:38:10","modified_gmt":"2010-12-09T00:38:10","slug":"more-on-the-tax-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/2010\/12\/08\/more-on-the-tax-deal\/","title":{"rendered":"More on the Tax Deal"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Baseline Scenario, James Kwak writes More on the Tax Deal<\/strong><\/a> where he clarifies how Obama’s behavior comes under the heading of Greenberg’s Law of Counterproductive Behavior<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

If we can infer people\u2019s preferences from their behavior, then the logical inference is that Obama thinks the Bush tax cuts, taken as a whole, are good policy.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Prior to that statement, he had just explained what he thinks was wrong with extending the Bush tax cuts:<\/p>\n

This was the best chance to kill the tax cuts once and for all. Yes, it would have been worse in the short run for the economy. But this is a huge price to pay for a modest stimulus made up entirely out of tax cuts (largely tax cuts for the rich). Instead, we are stuck with a huge reduction in the tax burden of the rich and a small reduction in the tax burden of the middle class\u2013which, on balance, helps the rich and hurts the middle class\u2013forever.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He goes on to point out:<\/p>\n

Finally, are the \u201cmiddle-class\u201d tax cuts really worth fighting for? Or, to put it another way, why does Obama care about them so much? Contrary to the beliefs of the Tea Party, money doesn\u2019t just get eaten by a big monster when it goes to the IRS. It gets spent on stuff that ordinary people want and need. So a priori, we can\u2019t say that an additional dollar of tax revenue is good or bad for ordinary people.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I think Kwak’s ending puts Obama’s choices in the stark contrast needed to see what is going on:<\/p>\n

So perhaps with the best intentions, the Obama administration, by making it more likely that the Bush tax cuts will become permanent (just like the AMT fix is permanent), is probably hastening the day when push will come to shove and Medicare will be gutted. The bigger the projected national debt, the more seemingly reasonable people in the middle of the ideological spectrum shake their heads sadly and say something has to be done about Medicare, as if it\u2019s a fact of nature and not a fact of politics.\u00a0As I\u2019ve said before, no administration has tried harder to control health care costs and thereby protect the future of Medicare. But at the same time, they are digging deeper the hole on the funding side that, politically, is the big threat to Medicare\u2013and to retirement security for hundreds of millions of ordinary Americans.<\/p>\n

Apparently Obama is upset at people on the left for insisting on purity. In his view of the world, he drew a line in the sand: he was going to protect tax cuts for the \u201cmiddle class,\u201d and he succeeded. Maybe he did. Maybe we should be giving him credit for getting what he wanted. But if that\u2019s the case, he\u2019s drawing moderate-Republican lines in the sand. His priorities, as reflected in his policy decisions, are lower taxes (for everyone, not just the rich) and the smaller government that necessarily implies. And that\u2019s why the left is angry.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Baseline Scenario, James Kwak writes More on the Tax Deal where he clarifies how Obama’s behavior comes under the heading of Greenberg’s Law of Counterproductive Behavior. If we can infer people\u2019s preferences from their behavior, then the logical inference is that Obama thinks the Bush tax cuts, taken as a whole, are good policy. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[177,166],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-5427","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-greenbergs-law-of-counterproductive-behavior","7":"category-stevegsposts","8":"czr-hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5427"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5427\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5433,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5427\/revisions\/5433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ssgreenberg.name\/PoliticsBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}