How to emasculate the investment incentive of supply side tax cuts

Debate rages hot and heavy in the halls of Congress among lame and limping Democrat ducks desperately and bitterly clinging to their class envy gods with guns who demand that taxes be raised on “the rich.” It seems the thrice-passed tax rates during the 2000s are set to expire yet again, which rates as applied to “middle class” taxpayers President Barack Obama recently bemoaned as due to their “structure”.

The President for whom no tax cuts will ever be named failed to mention that the “structure”, i.e. sun-set provisions every 2-3 years have always been insisted upon by he and his party against the objections of Republicans that always wanted them housed in classic supply-side permanence, lest only short-term, fly-by-night, Lucy-lemonade stand investors visit the structure.

That the Bush tax cuts arrived just in time to help prevent the Tech-bubble/911 downturns from being prolonged and helped fuel strong economic growth and low unemployment in the mid-to-late-naughts is gospel for conservatives and also happens to accurate. But given the fact that most investors and job producers look down the road for low tax rate incentives for more than 2-3 years at a time, one can only surmise that America would have been much more prepared for the Housing bubble had there been more structures built than houses before the 2007-8 crisis.

We have never gotten the full effect of the Bush tax cuts

Permanent Bush tax rates would have helped in that regard, but, God forbid don’t surmise that it would have been better to have had a more “certain” higher tax policy that the Democrats prefer. Heavens no, as of course it is always a positive good that any American gets to keep more of the fruits of their labor in terms of Liberty per se and more funds to buy necessities and wants that keep other Americans employed. No, the Atlas Shrugged need for certainty and stability presumes lower levels of government confiscation. Moreover, the less money the government has of our money, the less power they have to wield over us and the less large a government they can build, even if huge deficits and China eventually have to intervene.

So much for basic economics 101 that too many “hear no evil monkey” Democrats just heard in toto for the first time, as the question for this hour is how the shellacked Lame Democrat-majority Duck Congress will address the rise in corporate, income and capital gains tax rates, not to mention the resurrection of the death tax, as the sun sets on the Bush Naughts tax cuts when the Times Square ball drops to usher in the second year of the 21st Century Teens.

One would hope that Lame Duck Democrats, chastened by their monumental election rejection and informed by tea partiers that there is a Great Recession to deal with, would agree to make all the tax cuts permanent or at least accept the Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC)-proposed compromise of a four-year extension. After all, four years would be enough time to erect a medical marijuana dispensary in California and make enough profits to retire on Long Beach. Three years, not so much. Of course, one could also believe that the Tooth Fairy will leave a tax cut under one’s pillow to replace the bicuspid lost due to the lack of funds for fillings or crowns. Then there is the choice between store-brand peas and Le Sueur, but I digress…

Dem-o-bats, convinced that the blame for their defeat lies with Obama’s failure to give 212 speeches on ObamaCare instead of merely 211, are not about to “give” (liberals think profits belong first to Big Brother) tax cuts to the rich, even if they will toy with the idea that only those making over $1M are rich, rather than all those SUV-driven soccer moms with flower shops making a mere quarter of a million.

So what are Republicans to do given their puny numbers that couldn’t even mount a filibuster without a Blue Dawg or two anyway, and besides which, who wants to filibuster tax cuts for the middle class? What should the strategy be for Republicans that will be taking over the House in January; yet still needing four Democrats in the Senate to pass a permanent tax cut bill by bare majority, 14 to defeat a filibuster and 21 to override the near certain veto of Obama? Or would the 21 Democrats facing the electorate in 2012 be so anxious to follow Harry Reid down the same path that led to the Great Shellacking of 2009? Would a President Obama actually veto a tax cut in early 2011?

The issue is further complicated by the pending expirations of unemployment benefits and the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT), as well as the retro-activity mess that would obtain should not even the Middle Class tax cuts be extended if ObamaDems act the fool on lame duck wings.

Raising Cain over Naughts’ temporized tax cuts for naught

The first Republican this rooster voted for post-2000 conservative epiphany, Godfather’s Pizza savior Herman Cain of Atlanta, has recently suggested that we try to get the best permanent and/or extended tax cut bill that we can before Christmas, but that if push comes to shove Republicans not be seen as being responsible for a rise in taxes on the Middle Class. I tend to agree, especially given the real hardships even in the buying of necessities by low income taxpayers. And to think, defeated Democrat Roy Barnes blamed Georgia job losses on failed GOP pro-life legislation and not ObamaDems, but again, I digress…

But we hear strong voices across the conservative, tea partier nation that argue to the contrary. We do not reject those voices even if one of our mantras has always been to take any tax cut, any time and live to fight another day to get more. Admittedly, even this rooster recently implored the soon-to-be Listener of the House to reject temporizing tax cut impotence, ourselves!

Therefore, despite the deafening noise of the message sent on Election Day 2010, this rooster thinks that the crowing must begin now, into the ears of non-lame Democrats still in office that will be facing the electorate in 2012. Herman Cain suggested that if we must, we have to let Obama win one, for now, lest taxes rise on the Middle Class.

DeVine Gamecock suggests we make a deal: Make the tax cuts permanent and we’ll forever call them: THE OBAMA TAX CUTS! With Obama, all is vanity.

Mike DeVine

“One man with courage makes a majority.” – Andrew Jackson

Charlotte Observer, The Minority Report and Examiner.com archives

www.devinelawvista.com