Posted on 07/24/2010 5:14:25 PM PDT by Sub-Driver
Treasury Secretary Says Letting Bush Tax Cuts for Rich Expire Will Not Slow Economic Growth
July 24, 2010 6:00 PM
In an exclusive interview on ABC News’ "This Week" to air Sunday, Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner said the White House would push to let the Bush tax cuts expire for individuals making more than $200,000 a year and families making more than $250,000, but keep them for middle and lower income Americans.
“We think that's the responsible thing to do,” Geithner said, “because we need to make sure we can show the world that they're willing as a country now to start to make some progress bringing down our long-term deficits."
ABC News pointed out that Alan Greenspan, former chairman of the Federal Reserve, told Bloomberg News that letting the tax cuts expire -- which the former Fed Chair supports -- would “probably” slow growth, “but I think we have no choice in doing that, because we have to recognize there are no solutions which are optimum. These are choices between bad and worse.”
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.abcnews.com ...
It is nearly impossible to believe that people this colossally stupid hold positions of such importance.
This bunch is deliberately trying to destroy our economic system and they’re the biggest bunch of idiots and fools ever to occupy the office.
To a true “Keynesian”, what is the point in the Government collecting taxes at all? Why not just print a couple a trillion a year for their needs?
Didn’t Geithner have a problem paying taxes? maybe if all democrats just paid their taxes for once, the deficit would turn into a surplus
How about both?
Damn! You beat me to it!
Another problem with this theory - most of the beneficiaries of these soon-to-exire tax rates are not, in fact, the rich, but rather individuals of modest means who have done the prudent thing and invested for their own retirement. Since neither the tax-advantages schemes, such as IRAs and 401(k)s nor social security can provide completely for the costs of retirement, prudent individuals invest more than they can put into these arrangements, which means that they are depending on investments they’ve made that are subject to the taxes on capital gains and dividends.
The so-called “rich” won’t be particularly hurt by these tax increases because, generally speaking, they have the economic wherewithal to demand that their bargains get grossed up for the taxes they have to pay, which means that they don’t end up economically bearing the cost of these taxes - their counterparties do, and since those counterparties are usually ultimately banks, that means that the customers of those banks with limited means - us, in other words - end up bearing the economic burden of taxes that are nominally imposed on the so-called “rich.”
This guy, and democrats in general, are too stupid for words to suffice.
I wonder how this will effect small businesses? How many people employed by small businesses will lose their jobs? How many businesses will be forced to close?
I wish it were that simple, i see something much more sinister here
I remember this very successful tax lawyer I know just gushing over Obama and his pick of Geithner.
Not no more.
Said by the man who doesn’t pay his own taxes.
Timothy Geithner will go down in history as an imbecile, along with the rest of the clowns.
that’s good to hear!
There’s still a chance we can continute those tax cuts. They should be paid for, of course.
Since we don’t have any economic growth, he’s right.
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