| richardhutnik said: Several things: * The entire attacking someone on their taxes has been a mantra floating around. The "We are the 53%" (other side of the 47%) response to Occupy Wall Street is all about attacking people on the fact they don't pay taxes. "Skin in the game" is what was floated about also. * Romney brought it up to show how daft Newt was for mentioning it. Unless someone wants to argue that somehow the rich having lower percentage tax rate is a good thing, as in them paying NO income taxes, then Romney did show there is a problem. * As far as cutting taxes to drive spending cuts, that is called "Starving the beast". It has been floated around GOP and conservative circles for decades. The belief is that if you cause the deficit to get severe enough, combine with making raising taxes poison, the government would be forced to slash spending. You can read more about it here: http://www.forbes.com/2010/05/06/tax-cuts-republicans-starve-the-beast-columnists-bruce-bartlett.html |
Starving the beast has for a long time now been an idea that only really thrives among conservatives out of power (i.e., pundits). It's an idea certain politicians may recklessly invoke from time to time, but it's entirely rhetorical. Were the Bush tax cuts done out of a Machiavellian attempt to starve the beast? Or were they done because he'd inherited an economy on the brink of recession and tax cuts are generally popular, so why not? If it was the former, it certainly didn't work because the Republicans controlled all the levers of power and what did they do? They passed Medicare Part D.
When Republicans do something stupid and destructive, it isn't because they're evil super geniuses. It's because they're idiots.
