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EDITOR OF REDSTATE

At 1:30 p.m. EDT today, chat live with Jim Tedisco at RedState

By: Erick Erickson (Diary)  |  March 25th, 2009 at 11:15 AM  | 

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COMMENTS

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  • RobW

    Representative Tedesco, I appreciate you coming on and talking to us. I won’t be around a computer at 1:30, but I still wanted to ask you a question:

    You’ve made it very clear that tax relief is a high priority for you. Once our current crisis blows over and it becomes clear that government spending will continue to exceed tax revenues, will you still push for tax cuts, knowing that these cuts will further increase the deficit?

    Put another way, are tax cuts (or stopping tax increases) more important than deficit reduction?

  • Brian Hibbert
  • aarongardner

    Sign up here.

  • Leopard1996

    More revenues come in when taxes are lowered because the folks that pay those taxes have the savings to apply to investments, and hiring, hence more people start to contribute to the revenues. The problem with the govt is that they need to stop spending. Sorry, things like the GIVE act, and other things are what cause deficits to go up. If taxes get cut, so does spending on frivolous garbage.

    That is what I beleive we advocate.

  • RobW

    I think that what’s been “proven time and again” is that Reaganomics-style policies are good for the economy but result in a much higher national debt. Reagan increased the national debt from $900 billion to $2,800 billion ($2.8 trillion), more than tripling it in 8 years (these numbers don’t include inflation, but discussions of Obama’s budget deficits usually don’t either). Clinton, not Reagan, reduced the national debt (with GOP help) while still allowing for economic growth.

    I agree that spending is a big problem, but the GOP isn’t going to have much control over spending in the next few years (fine with me, considering what we saw 2000-2006). It’s probably safe to assume we’ll be spending more than we take in; knowing that, is it still responsible to lower or even refuse to raise taxes?

  • Brian Hibbert

    Increasing taxes will hurt economic growth and reduce revenues from the projections given by the proponent. The “responsible” tax increases ultimately lead to more tax increases to make up for the difference which leads to even further reduced economic activity and reduced revenues. It’s a vicious cycle.

    Also, increasing government revenue tends to feed the beast. This is more of a psychological response, but when legislators have more money available, they tend to spend it, and add to the spending at ever faster rates.

    The only responsible thing to do is to oppose tax increases and attempt to cut (or at least slow the growth of) spending.

  • Leopard1996

    Yes it is responsible to to refuse to raise taxes, or even lower them. Keep raising taxes, and the ones that produce stop producing. Case closed.