Talk radio WIZM in LaCrosse says Kind And Walz Rated Moderate Compared To Other Members Of Congress. The text is in radio script format:
FOR A COUPLE OF DEMOCRATS, RON KIND AND TIM WALZ ARE A BIT ON THE CONSERVATIVE SIDE...
THAT'S HOW THE NATIONAL JOURNAL MAGAZINE RATES TWO AREA CONGRESSMEN, BASED ON SELECTED VOTES IN THE HOUSE. . . .
The Strib reports US House rejects immunity in wiretap measure. Beta News quotes Walz in House passes revised FISA reform bill minus telco immunity.
The Albert Lea Tribune reports that the Glenville, MN SoyMor stops producing biodiesel because the price of soybeans is too high for the plant to be profitable. Meanwhile, the Wind turbines are spinning at the Corn Plus ethanol plant, according to the Fairmont Sentinel. John Deere owns the great part of the turbines for now, but the plant will gain majority ownership in eleven years.
Carimona Township has raised its gopher bounty to $3 per pair of front paws. Such are the consequences to rodents of higher gas prices in Fillmore County.
The Ag Connection notes that Farm Bureau Members Travel to Washington.
The Political Party blog at the Rochester Post Bulletin says FISA Surveillance Bill passes House on narrow vote and Earmark changes put off, for now. The idea went to the Senate to die:
Over in the Senate, support for a one-year moratorium by the three major presidential candidates did not sway many senators. Minnesota Sens. Norm Coleman, R, and Amy Klobuchar, D, helped kill a budget amendment on a 29-71 roll call vote. This week, Sens. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y, and Barack Obama, D-Ill., announced their support for the moratorium, just in time to get on the same page as Republican nominee-in-waiting Sen. John McCain of Arizona.
Rep. Tim Walz, D-Mankato, (who has turned over the rotating freshman class presidency to Rep. John Yarmuth, D-Ky.), said Thursday that he's still open to a moratorium, under specific conditions. "If they want to talk about this and they're really making sure that we're going to use this on national priorities, whether it be paying down the debt or focusing on issues we all agree are priority issues, that's one thing.
"Sending it back to the bureaucracy and letting the president earmark it, which is exactly what it amounts to, or letting the president's designees, I'm nervous about that. It seems like political theatrics."
The Faribault Daily News has published a short "Saturday Starter" opinion on one of Dick day's legislative proposals:
State Sen. Dick Day (R-Owatonna) wants to revive the concept of allowing for racinos - a combination horse race track and casino - in Minnesota. A good reason to be against this plan? The word "racino" simply sounds silly.
In the netroots, Cube Zoo reacts to Brian Davis's tax proposals here. His lead:
Brian Davis is a fool.
Find out why below the fold.
We found the press release to sound a bit like this statement from Iowa Congressional candidate Peter Teahen. Not surprising since Teahen has hired the same Iowa consulting firm as Davis.
While GeistX focuses on Davis's proposed solutions, we question the candidate's basic premise:
Time and time again, it's been shown that tax cuts spur economic growth and lead to job creation which ultimately means greater revenue for the federal treasury.
The name of the major bills that created (and accelerated) the Bush tax cuts are the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 and Jobs and Growth Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2003 (h/t NJPP). How has that worked out for the country? Do tax cuts lead to economic growth?
Not necessarily, and not especially under Bush's watch.
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities puts economic recovery and tax cuts into historical prospective:
Every recession in modern U.S. history has been followed by an economic expansion, regardless of whether taxes were cut, increased (as in the early 1990s), or left unchanged. The recent tax cuts were no more responsible for the fact that the economy recovered from the recession that occurred in 2001 than the tax increases of 1990 and 1993 were responsible for the fact that the economy recovered from the downturn of the early 1990s, instead of remaining permanently stagnant.
Moreover, compared with other post-World War II recoveries, the recovery that began in 2001 is well below average. If tax cuts are crucial to economic growth, then that recovery should stand out brightly in comparison to previous recoveries. It should certainly outshine the comparable years of the 1990s recovery, during which taxes were increased. Instead, with respect to overall economic growth, as well as growth in consumption, investment, wages and salaries, and employment, the expansion that began in 2001 is either the weakest or among the weakest since World War II. Investment, wage and salary, and employment growth also have been significantly weaker than during the 1990s. (These comparisons held true even before the slowdown of the past few quarters began).
And extending the tax cuts--with accompanying spending cuts, as Davis suggests? The CBPP observes:
If the tax cuts are extended without offsets, balancing the budget in 2012 will require cutting Social Security benefits by 28 percent, cutting defense by 38 percent, cutting Medicare by 44 percent, or cutting every other program other than Social Security, defense, Medicare, and homeland security (including education, medical research, border security, environmental protection, veterans’ programs, and programs to assist the poor) by an average of almost one-fifth. For most Americans, keeping the tax cuts at the cost of implementing any of the above options would be a bad bargain.
Even if the tax cuts’ costs are eventually paid for through a more balanced package of spending reductions and progressive tax increases, data from the Tax Policy Center show that, on average, the bottom four-fifths of households will lose more than they gain from the combination of tax cuts and the financing for them. That is, once the need to pay for the tax cuts is taken into account, the 2001 and 2003 “tax cuts” are best seen as net tax cuts for the top 20 percent of households, as a group, financed by net tax increases or benefit reductions for the remaining 80 percent of households, as a group.
There's another look at the relationship between tax cuts and job creation here and here.
The congressional budget outline is the legislative branch's take. For an analysis of the President's budget, check out what the nonpartisan CBO say (pdf here). JobWatch is also a good source.
Bonddad over at Dailykos has good tax diaries on the GOP misstatements on tax and growth: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/10/10/71722/626
He puts in good govt charts that show that tax cuts do not lead to growth in taxes collected.
Posted by: thegoptaxlies | March 15, 2008 at 09:49 PM