Thursday, January 28, 2010

The "Logic Tight" Boxes of Barack Obama

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Back before the Earth had cooled and I was going to college, I believe it was in a psychology course that I was first introduced to the concept of "logic tight boxes", where a person could hold two (or more) contradictory beliefs, so long as they were kept separate in the person's mind in "logic tight boxes", where they would never be examined at the same time by the same standards.
With that in mind, let us examine the words of Barack Obama from his SOTU speech. Barack on tax cuts:
Let me repeat: we cut taxes. We cut taxes for 95% of working families. We cut taxes for small businesses. We cut taxes for first-time homebuyers. We cut taxes for parents trying to care for their children. We cut taxes for 8 million Americans paying for college. As a result, millions of Americans had more to spend on gas, and food, and other necessities, all of which helped businesses keep more workers.

And you "paid for" these tax cuts, how exactly?
The plan that has made all of this possible, from the tax cuts to the jobs, is the Recovery Act. That's right – the Recovery Act, also known as the Stimulus Bill.

So, tax cuts are a good thing, right? Good enough to go into debt to "pay for" them, right? Let's ask Barack!
it's time to finally slash the tax breaks for companies that ship our jobs overseas and give those tax breaks to companies that create jobs in the United States of America.

Oh. So tax breaks can be either good or bad, depending on who is getting them? I see.

Please clarify your position, Mr. President!
So let me start the discussion of government spending by setting the record straight. At the beginning of the last decade, America had a budget surplus of over $200 billion. By the time I took office, we had a one year deficit of over $1 trillion and projected deficits of $8 trillion over the next decade. Most of this was the result of not paying for two wars, two tax cuts, and an expensive prescription drug program.

So, tax cuts are a bad thing? You said the stimulus paid for your tax cuts. How is "paying for" tax cuts with borrowed money any better than that which you (wrongly) criticize? Aren't you going to add: "As a result of these two tax cuts, millions of Americans had more to spend on gas, and food, and other necessities, all of which helped businesses keep more workers"?

Glad you cleared that up for us, Mr. President! When "clueless Joe" Obama says that "two tax cuts" added to the deficit, he demonstrates that he clearly does not know how the world works. He looks at a static model which says "why bother to sell a million widgets at a dollar a piece, when if you only sold one for a million dollars, you wouldn't need to sell any more"! People don't work that way! Raising taxes ten percent is not a guarantee of a ten percent increase in revenues, because people will change their activity based on negative stimuli. Raising taxes or eliminating tax cuts is a disincentive to productivity. Cutting the tax rate ten percent is more likely to create a ten percent or better increase in government revenues, because people have an incentive to keep more of what they earn. When people get to keep more of their own money, it is an incentive for them to do more, not less. Tax rate cuts have historically raised revenues to the government by increasing the volume of activity.
Whether or not Obama is truly clueless or just wants to promote an agenda of class hatred (post racial, my arse!) he certainly gets it wrong. with disastrous consequences for the nation.

Cross posted at Say Anything

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