double the true/effective tax on the upper class and you would not need to increase taxes on the rest of us.

funny that no one has mentioned this as an alternative....

Thank you for giving us a forum for discussing what should have been on the agenda during the BUSH tax cuts.


An ex Bushie is still a Bushie just a different name


You say all hell is going to break loose out when the issue of Social Security and Medicare becomes necessary. Despite foreknowledge of the eventual day.
 
Just because this administration chose not to deal with the subject even handedly  and tried to force Americans to accept the unacceptable. What part of DON’T TOUCH  OUR SECURITY DID THE ADMINISTRATION NOT UNDERSTAND
 
Again, rather than considering all the options, the writer offers only two choices, large cuts in benefits or larger taxes.
 
Have you given thought that setting the priorities of Social Security and Medicare was more important to average Americans than the increased funding and transfer of tax revenue to the military/industrial complex.
 
Is it possible, that again the Republicans who have never seen a weapons system they didn’t  like ,maybe wailing when they see the funding cuts coming to those programs? Because of their  failure to balance the priorities they should be blamed for reductions for a bloated military thereby weakening defense.
 
It never ceases to amaze me that the current administration can spend billions of dollars daily on war efforts, and rebuliding projects,   and then cry we have no money for these social issues.    
 
If any administration thinks that it can change the compact of Social responsibility to its citizens, what the hell do you think were defending.
 
Personally I want to defend against poverty, slavery, hunger,  sickness, homelessness, you know the things that really affect our lives and not the bogeyman that keeps being thrown at us. You know the fifth column, the dreaded communists, now its religious fundamentalists, not recognizing our own brand of theocracy.
 
This is just my opinion   

Yeah, the Bushies are soooo good at taking advice. I am sure they will fall all over themselves to enact Mankiw's resolutions.

Oh please spare me from the false dichotomy, the Republican's favorite debating fallacy.
Taxes would not need to be "vastly higher than anything ever experienced in U.S. history". Just how much higher than 90% can you get? Or is he just referring to effective tax rates for his rich buddies?
Or maybe we could actually do a bit of both, raising taxes and adjusting benefits. But I guess that wouldn't make full use of the tax boogeyman.
And while I actually support higher gas taxes, the "heavy handed CAFE regulations" bit is too much. CAFE hasn't been a burden on automakers in a long time, other than to lower their profits a bit. So what Mankiw is really wanting is to shift the burden of conservation entirely onto the consumer and off of the poor, poor manufacturers.
Sorry, I find his points to be typical WSJ tripe.

A little research on Mankiw:

He was an advisor to McCain in 2000.  

He publicly stated that outsourcing jobs was good for the economy (even Republicans distanced themselves from this).

He wrote a textbook on economics, in which he described supply-side economists as "charlatans and cranks."

He revised his textbook on economics, removing the passage calling supply siders "charlatans and cranks."  Shockingly, this was done, as far as I can tell, just before he was appointed to the administration.

He wrote a column supporting repeal of the estate tax.

I stopped there.  As far as I can tell, he's just another in a long line of Republican hacks.  His opinion is for auction.  Today, telling the truth pays (McCain is running again!), so he tells the truth, as he sees it.  Tomorrow, supply side economics might be in vogue again, so he'll go back to pushing Bushism.  There's nothing to see here that's likeable.  

 

If anyone has had to actually read his textbook for an Econ 101 class it is easy to see how he hooked up with Bush. The entire thing is full of the type of false arguments that give economists such a terrible reputation when it comes to intellectual integrity. I'm sure Mankiw isn't trying to say that he has had some kind of epiphany -- only that Bush is more ideological than even he imagined.

Well, the carbon tax is likable. Who cares who's talking - if Count Dracula advocated a carbon tax, I'd congratulate my esteemed colleague from Transylvania on his good sense.

For me, the overwhelming problem we have in this country isn't taxes, or pollution, or the war in Iraq, or poverty, or any of that stuff.  The problem I see that we can do something about is the lack of integrity that pervades our society at every level.  Scientific research is bought and sold by corporations.  The news media seem more interested in ratings than the truth.  People will do or say anything as long as there's a buck or a career path in it.  You can see it even in some of the posts made by the contributors here.  It isn't so much Mankiw's positions I dislike, but the man himself, and what he typifies.  Perhaps I'm naive, but I really demand better from our "elites."  I wish everyone did.        

The fact that Ken Baer praises this piece tells you a lot about Ken Baer.  What exactly makes this guy a liberal again?

RG 

This Mankiw is a traitor, a treasonous betrayer of the working class citizens of America.

I recommend that the Justice Dept indict and try Mankiw for treason. And should he be convicted (and he should be), I recommend that his punishment be hanging. In public. And if we need to change any laws to accomplish what I recommend above, then let's change those laws.

There is a war going on. Not between America and another nation, but a war conducted by the upper class (and traitors like Mankiw) against the working class of America. If we can conduct a war against non-national terrorists, why can we not conduct a war against traitors like Mankiw who are fighting against the citizen-workers of America?

I am completely serious. Until we get Old Skool on these traitors (both Dem and GOP), they are not gonna change.

A good start would be to hang this Mankiw.

I am completely serious.