This is very counter intuitive - US tax cuts have delivered higher tax revenues, with the rich paying a higher share of the total tax share. This year the US Treasury saw an 11 percent gain in tax revenues. As a consequence the US deficit is set to halve by 2009. Not only that, some of the American states have recorded growth rates just behind China and ahead of India.
The real news, and where the policy credit belongs, is with the 2003 tax cuts. They've succeeded even beyond Art Laffer's dreams, if that's possible. In the nine quarters preceding that cut on dividend and capital gains rates and in marginal income-tax rates, economic growth averaged an annual 1.1%. In the 12 quarters--three full years--since the tax cut passed, growth has averaged a remarkable 4%.
[...]
This growth in turn has produced a record flood of tax revenues, just as the most ebullient supply-siders predicted. In the first nine months of fiscal 2006, tax revenues have climbed by $206 billion, or nearly 13%. As the Congressional Budget Office recently noted, "That increase represents the second-highest rate of growth for that nine-month period in the past 25 years"--exceeded only by the year before. For all of fiscal 2005, revenues rose by $274 billion, or 15%. We should add that CBO itself failed to anticipate this revenue boom, as the nearby table shows. Maybe its economists should rethink their models.
[...]
Remember the folks who said the tax cuts would "blow a hole in the deficit?" Well, revenues as a share of the economy are now expected to rise this year to 18.3%, slightly above the modern historical average of 18.2%. The remaining budget deficit of a little under $300 billion will be about 2.3% of GDP, which is smaller than in 17 of the previous 25 years. Throw in the surpluses rolling into the states, and the overall U.S. "fiscal deficit" is now economically trivial.
It's worth remembering that the U.S. tax cuts of 2003 where much-derided and Bush was mocked for his economic stupidity. Who's laughing now?
Monday, July 17, 2006
Saturday, July 15, 2006
Freedland and Baddiel interviewed on Hardtalk
Great interview with Freedland and Baddiel on the BBC's Hardtalk, discussing Jewishness and Britishness with their usual intelligence and humour.
BBC Hard Talk
In a Hardtalk Extra interview broadcast on Friday 7th October, Gavin Esler talks to Jonathan Freedland and David Baddiel. One is a leading journalist, the other a well-known comedian, recently turned writer. Both are Jewish and have recently published books which seek to assess the issues - past and present - of being both Jewish and British.
BBC Hard Talk
In a Hardtalk Extra interview broadcast on Friday 7th October, Gavin Esler talks to Jonathan Freedland and David Baddiel. One is a leading journalist, the other a well-known comedian, recently turned writer. Both are Jewish and have recently published books which seek to assess the issues - past and present - of being both Jewish and British.
Israel at war in Gaza and Lebanon - Pipes was right
Very interesting interview on the BBC Radio 4 Today Program where Isaac Herzog, a member of Ehud Olmert's government, suggests that their (defining) policy of unilateral disengagement may be a mistake.
This would represent one huge "I told you so" for Daniel Pipes who has repeatedly critised the policy of unilateral withdrawal from both Lebanon and Gaza, and the links between the two.
I have blogged about this elsewhere, but one of my previous comments is worth re-posting, as the empirical evidence says unequivocally that Pipes was right:
-----------
And a contrary view. Credit to Pipes, he makes a concrete, falsifiable prediction as to the consequences of Sharon's Gaza pullout, which we can keep an eye on to see if he is proved right or wrong.
"Today Gaza, Tomorrow Jerusalem"
by Daniel Pipes
New York Sun
August 9, 2005
Are Israel's critics correct? Does the "occupation" of the West Bank and Gaza cause the Palestinian Arabs' anti-Semitism, their suicide factories, and their terrorism? And is it true these horrors will end only when Israeli civilians and troops leave the territories?
The answer is coming soon. Starting August 15, the Israeli government will evict about 8,000 Israelis from Gaza and turn their land over to the Palestinian Authority. In addition to being a unique event in modern history (no other democracy has forcibly uprooted thousands of its own citizens of one religion from their lawful homes), it also offers a rare, live, social-science experiment.
We stand at an interpretive divide. If Israel's critics are right, the Gaza withdrawal will improve Palestinian attitudes toward Israel, leading to an end of incitement and a steep drop in attempted violence, followed by a renewal of negotiations and a full settlement. Logic requires, after all, that if "occupation" is the problem, ending it, even partially, will lead to a solution.
But I forecast a very different outcome. Given that about 80% of Palestinian Arabs continue to reject Israel's very existence, signs of Israeli weakness, such as the forthcoming Gaza withdrawal, will instead inspire heightened Palestinian irredentism. Absorbing their new gift without gratitude, Palestinian Arabs will focus on those territories Israelis have not evacuated. (This is what happened after Israeli forces fled Lebanon.) The retreat will inspire not comity but a new rejectionist exhilaration, a greater frenzy of anti-Zionist anger, and a surge in anti-Israel violence.
Palestinian Arabs themselves are openly saying as much. A top Hamas figure in Gaza, Ahmed al-Bahar says "Israel has never been in such a state of retreat and weakness as it is today following more than four years of the intifada. Hamas's heroic attacks exposed the weakness and volatility of the impotent Zionist security establishment. The withdrawal marks the end of the Zionist dream and is a sign of the moral and psychological decline of the Jewish state. We believe that the resistance is the only way to pressure the Jews."
This would represent one huge "I told you so" for Daniel Pipes who has repeatedly critised the policy of unilateral withdrawal from both Lebanon and Gaza, and the links between the two.
I have blogged about this elsewhere, but one of my previous comments is worth re-posting, as the empirical evidence says unequivocally that Pipes was right:
-----------
And a contrary view. Credit to Pipes, he makes a concrete, falsifiable prediction as to the consequences of Sharon's Gaza pullout, which we can keep an eye on to see if he is proved right or wrong.
"Today Gaza, Tomorrow Jerusalem"
by Daniel Pipes
New York Sun
August 9, 2005
Are Israel's critics correct? Does the "occupation" of the West Bank and Gaza cause the Palestinian Arabs' anti-Semitism, their suicide factories, and their terrorism? And is it true these horrors will end only when Israeli civilians and troops leave the territories?
The answer is coming soon. Starting August 15, the Israeli government will evict about 8,000 Israelis from Gaza and turn their land over to the Palestinian Authority. In addition to being a unique event in modern history (no other democracy has forcibly uprooted thousands of its own citizens of one religion from their lawful homes), it also offers a rare, live, social-science experiment.
We stand at an interpretive divide. If Israel's critics are right, the Gaza withdrawal will improve Palestinian attitudes toward Israel, leading to an end of incitement and a steep drop in attempted violence, followed by a renewal of negotiations and a full settlement. Logic requires, after all, that if "occupation" is the problem, ending it, even partially, will lead to a solution.
But I forecast a very different outcome. Given that about 80% of Palestinian Arabs continue to reject Israel's very existence, signs of Israeli weakness, such as the forthcoming Gaza withdrawal, will instead inspire heightened Palestinian irredentism. Absorbing their new gift without gratitude, Palestinian Arabs will focus on those territories Israelis have not evacuated. (This is what happened after Israeli forces fled Lebanon.) The retreat will inspire not comity but a new rejectionist exhilaration, a greater frenzy of anti-Zionist anger, and a surge in anti-Israel violence.
Palestinian Arabs themselves are openly saying as much. A top Hamas figure in Gaza, Ahmed al-Bahar says "Israel has never been in such a state of retreat and weakness as it is today following more than four years of the intifada. Hamas's heroic attacks exposed the weakness and volatility of the impotent Zionist security establishment. The withdrawal marks the end of the Zionist dream and is a sign of the moral and psychological decline of the Jewish state. We believe that the resistance is the only way to pressure the Jews."
Thursday, July 06, 2006
Happy Birthday George
On the occasion of G.W.'s 60th birthday (and a couple of days after July 4th) here is a rather nice piece in praise of America:
What's So Great About America?
By Dinesh D'Souza
The newcomer who sees America for the first time typically experiences emotions that alternate between wonder and delight. Here is a country where everything works: The roads are paper-smooth, the highway signs are clear and accurate, the public toilets function properly, when you pick up the telephone you get a dial tone. You can even buy things from the store and then take them back if you change your mind. For the Third World visitor, the American supermarket is a marvel to behold: endless aisles of every imaginable product, 50 different types of cereal, multiple flavors of ice cream, countless unappreciated inventions like quilted toilet paper, fabric softener, roll-on deodorant, disposable diapers.
The immigrant cannot help noticing that America is a country where the poor live comparatively well. This fact was dramatized in the 1980s, when CBS television broadcast an anti-Reagan documentary, “People Like Us,” which was intended to show the miseries of the poor during an American recession. The Soviet Union also broadcast the documentary, with the intention of embarrassing the Reagan administration. But it had the opposite effect. Ordinary people across the Soviet Union saw that the poorest Americans had television sets and cars. They arrived at the same conclusion that I witnessed in a friend of mine from Bombay who has been trying unsuccessfully to move to the United States for nearly a decade. I asked him, “Why are you so eager to come to America?” He replied, “Because I really want to live in a country where the poor people are fat.”
Read on...
Found it via: instapundit
What's So Great About America?
By Dinesh D'Souza
The newcomer who sees America for the first time typically experiences emotions that alternate between wonder and delight. Here is a country where everything works: The roads are paper-smooth, the highway signs are clear and accurate, the public toilets function properly, when you pick up the telephone you get a dial tone. You can even buy things from the store and then take them back if you change your mind. For the Third World visitor, the American supermarket is a marvel to behold: endless aisles of every imaginable product, 50 different types of cereal, multiple flavors of ice cream, countless unappreciated inventions like quilted toilet paper, fabric softener, roll-on deodorant, disposable diapers.
The immigrant cannot help noticing that America is a country where the poor live comparatively well. This fact was dramatized in the 1980s, when CBS television broadcast an anti-Reagan documentary, “People Like Us,” which was intended to show the miseries of the poor during an American recession. The Soviet Union also broadcast the documentary, with the intention of embarrassing the Reagan administration. But it had the opposite effect. Ordinary people across the Soviet Union saw that the poorest Americans had television sets and cars. They arrived at the same conclusion that I witnessed in a friend of mine from Bombay who has been trying unsuccessfully to move to the United States for nearly a decade. I asked him, “Why are you so eager to come to America?” He replied, “Because I really want to live in a country where the poor people are fat.”
Read on...
Found it via: instapundit
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