Gasoline tax

This makes zero sense.

 

Actually US national debt is now $15T. You are not keeping up. Here's 2011 summary and where it came from.

Absolutely. Or Germany's or Korea's. All three have had very successful industrial policy regarding solar energy industry.

 

And you think all 15T is due to your "oil wars". That graph doesn't help your case. Successful policies regarding solar energy? Source?

Give them a few years and we will se how they compare with china.

 

But it demolishes yours. The most interesting fact in the US debt summary is the one in the upper left hand corner.

"At the end of the Clinton Administration in 2001the United States was on track to pay off its debt and accumulate $2.3T in savings by 2011"

What happened?

 

For one thing, the Dot Com Bubble burst. For many consecutive years the Treasury benefited greatly from Wall Street's 'irrational exuberance', as paper profits produced real tax revenues. That was ending as Clinton was leaving office, though the wishful thinking continued.

Even absent Bush's incredible spending binge and tax cuts, the U.S. would not have paid off its debt, or even maintained a balanced budget.

 

Absent Bush's spending binge, Bush's tax cuts and...ta da...Bush's 8 years of Middle East oil wars at $1T a year.

US would have continued running budget surpluses, paid off some of the Reagan era $4T in debt, instead the Reaganomics started all over again in 2001 with the same results, record deficits, debt, oil trade deficits, oil wars.

Clinton's feat of running budget surpluses after 12 years of deficit/debt Reagonmics stands out.

Key number really is Debt/GDP. It had been going down since WWII, went up for the first time with Reagan/Bush, down with Cinton, back up with Bush.

It always comes back to the oil wars bankrupting the nation and never resolving the threat to US national security.

 

And so in 2008, we get rid of Bush and have a triple crown of Democrats in control of the House, in control of the Senate, and in control of the White House........

 

Would have, could have, should have,,,,It's all speculation as to what would have happened if history had been different.

What is clear,, is that Clinton era tax rates (and budgets) created balanced budgets. Bush era tax rates (and budgets) produced record (to that date) deficits) and lead to the economic melt down we call the great recession.

Any sane person might at least look at the realities surrounding tax rates, economic growth and budget deficits during the Clinton years, and try to glean ( and perhaps emulate) those conditions that lead to balanced budgets, as opposed to the opposite.

Icarus

 

Partially true, but also partially wrong. There were a significant number of Clinton era legislative and executive actions that ensured the housing bubble would occur (e.g. Community Reinvestment Act Changes).

Both parties were and are knee deep in these changes. What has always been a problem is the national obsession with associating the figurehead of the time (Clinton, Bush, Obama, etc.) as being the cause of what happened at the time.....rather than the actual underlying mechanics of MANY different organizations and time scales that are the real causes.

Unfortunately, emulating those conditions requires massive changes to our laws (close to impossible), significant changes to our demographics (truly impossible), and a return to the world economic conditions of the time (More mfg. in USA than China - Not happening). We have to look forward, rather than backwards for solutions.

 

And we have to look beyond politics.

 

I'm stepping out of this thread just because it's gotten so active I cannot keep up with it all in the amount of time I'm willing to spend. I will just say this:

Oil companies are not evil in the religious sense of setting out to do bad stuff just for the sake of doing bad stuff. Oil companies are greedy. Companies are greedy. People are greedy. Oil companies are companies run by people. Combine greed with power and the result is harmful to everyone else. Oil companies damage the nation, the economy, and the environment. But they don't do it out of a desire to destroy the world. They do it because, like all of us, they are greedy and they want profit, no matter the cost.

 

Oil Subsidies are about $3.2B per year and are higher today than in the past because there is more domestic production and the price of oil is higher. There is also about $1.1B per year in accelerated depreciation passed in 2005 for all manufacturers. Over 30 years these "subsidies" would have been less than $100B which is quite a difference. I do not know the figure, which is why I asked how you got old years. I do support the president in cutting $4.3B a year off oil subsidies, there is no excuse for them. The one caveat is I do not think oil should be singled out on the accelerated depreciation, it should be killed for all manufacturers or left in for oil. Together all the subsidies averaged out amount to about $1/bbl.

Do you mean $40B in the last 10 years? Please use more accurate figures. The bulk of the subsidies you speak of don't exist.

Since the 70s per capita energy use has actually gone down faster in the US. That rough medicine of punishing fuel taxes has only a little to do with the difference in consumption.
Curbing Euro-Envy | Newgeography.com

A slow increase in oil taxes will let people know the price will not drop low again. A huge tax just hurts the economy.

Do you really think the government doesn't collect oil taxes?

 

"Profit at any cost" is the fatal flaw of our current economic model.

 

I don't believe that the bulk of oil executives operate that way at all. Many believe in social responsibility and reasonable profits. Its the same for most corporations. I've seen some of the dirtiest tricks at non-profits that are supposed to be good.

But then sometimes politicians become the head of oil companies, then become politicians again. This often gets us the worst of both worlds. The more the government can manipulate oil companies, the more dangerous it is. Case in point Dick Cheney, who seemed to have encouraged a war so that his former company could profit. Not that he is the worst politician. Don't we have a trial for a guy that funneled campaign funds to his pregnant mistress so she would keep quiet, and he is pretending it was to keep the secret from his dying wife that he was cheating on. You can't make some of this stuff up.

It is best to keep government to a minimum. Pull out the subsidies, regulate the safety and pollution, collect the taxes. Since its getting more scare add simple per barrel taxes, nothing like windfall profits that opens loopholes and feeds lawyers. Exxon pays a lot in taxes, Solyndra just takes the money and pollutes.

 

That seems about right. The average corporation paid 12.1% in taxes 2011, exxon paid 18% just in federal income tax. I'm all for getting rid of deduction of state tax, but those in high tax states like NY and California object.

If you note in the tax bill the bulk of the taxes were gas taxes and sales taxes not income taxes. As I have said before, I'm all for adding an oil tax, but its crazy to think oil companies are not paying their share of income tax.

 

Does that figure include government grants and subsidies?

 

Yes, the subsidies reduce the tax to that level. Subsidies are small compared to taxes for exxon.

On ethanol things are quite different, subsidies are higher for something not needed.
A loophole created for bain capital lowered taxes on interest from 35% to 15%, which is why a company that should have been paying 25% pays about 12.5%

 

Continued? The actual 'surplus' was already over before Clinton left office. It was the temporary result of Wall Street's Irrational Exuberance, which had popped and was already deflating before Bush was inaugurated.

I agree that Clinton's budget policies were much better than Bush's. But any claim that his would have paid off any significant portion of Reagan's debt is purely wishful thinking.

 

Key point. One of the most critical things being my own behavior and choices.