Word: deficits
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...President. Read my lips: he ought to raise taxes. But not much! What's called for is not something so dramatic as to throw the economy into recession. That's the last way to lower the deficit. What's called for is a tax hike that would raise some money (I'll get specific in a minute) and that would lower interest rates by showing the financial markets we have the will to attack the deficit (but the wisdom not to shoot ourselves in the head by attacking it too hard). Lower interest rates would cut the deficit still further...
These two bites -- $40 billion or so from a tax hike and perhaps an additional $10 billion or $20 billion from lower interest rates -- would not wipe out the deficit. But we don't need to wipe out the deficit. At least not by raising taxes. And certainly not by legislating a balanced-budget amendment. And especially not by cutting investment in our future...
...wipe out the deficit is to grow our way out of it. Hold the line on Government spending while the economy grows and gradually throws off more tax revenue. Money for new programs should come from trimming waste from old ones...
While cutting the deficit to zero is something to shoot for, it's not critical. Growing families or businesses or nations have a legitimate need to borrow if they're investing in the future. It makes sense to borrow for education, research, equipment and infrastructure that will make us more productive. We would be insane to stint in these areas. Is NASA a place to cut back? Hardly. NASA and high-tech programs like it are engines of our economic future. If we lose our technological edge, we've lost our economic future...
Here are four. They should be enacted as a package. Together they'd raise $40 billion in taxes, cutting the deficit by nearly a third. The lower interest rates that would probably result would cut the deficit still further -- and keep the economy rolling to take some of the sting out of the tax hikes...