Time's Foroohar: 'I'm Actually Sad' That We're 'Talking About Taxes'
Appearing as a panel member on Sunday's Face the Nation on CBS, Time magazine's Rana Foroohar - identified as assistant managing editor in charge of economics and business on Time's Web site - lamented that she was "sad" at how much taxes are being discussed as she asserted that "one thing that's not going to get us some kind of a growth boom is a tax cut," and then called for more government spending which she claimed would entice businesses into more economic activity.
Without clarifying that the recent political debate about taxes has been about preventing tax rates from increasing as the Bush tax cuts expire, Foroohar dismissed the effectiveness of tax cuts and explained her prescription for the economy:
(Video can be found here.)
Well, I think that the President would like to spend a lot more on infrastructure and education. This is what we need to be talking about right now. I'm actually sad that we're spending so much time talking about taxes because one thing that's not going to get us some kind of a growth boom is a tax cut. I mean, it hasn't worked in the last three or four years. It really hasn't worked since 2001 when you had much broader across-the-board tax cuts.
She continued:
We need to be focused on infrastructure spending, on how to get our roads in better shape and how to get our schools in better shape, and I think that if business saw that government was investing in this country and making it a place that you'd want to do business, then they would start spending some of that two trillion on their balance sheet.
Conservative commentator John Fund of the National Review and the American Spectator responded:
The problem is, four years ago, we had an enormous stimulus package which we were told a lot of it was going into infrastructure, and then, two years later, the President had to admit, in public, "Well, I was wrong. There are no shovel-ready jobs." So we've heard that story before. Words are easy in Washington. Watch what people do, not what they say.
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Comments
Please! Enough of this idiot!
Submitted by Chris Norman on Sun, 07/15/2012 - 11:11pm.
Please! Enough of this idiot! I can't take her anymore today!
Taxes have been decoupled from SPENDING for a long time.
Submitted by upcountrywater on Sun, 07/15/2012 - 11:20pm.
Silly people think if you vote down a tax hike, for some magical reason spending will be reduced... LOLOLz, stupid tax payers. It's all about the ability of going further into debt.PERIOD.
And yes, because we BUREAUCRATS love SPENDING we will trash the paper $$$ you hold so dear.
taxed enough already, spent enough already..TEASEA...
The plousey ponzi food stamp scheme, one buck is $1.70 food stamp bucks... we are in trouble.
You Didn't Build That.
"We need to be focused on
Submitted by celator on Sun, 07/15/2012 - 11:36pm.
"We need to be focused on infrastructure spending, on how to get our roads in better shape..."
Well, Foroohar, next time you get a call from the White House instructing you what to write in TIME, you could remind them about all those "shovel ready jobs" Obama promised the $gazillions of tax payer funded stimulus money was going to pay for. You know, roads, bridges--infrastructure kinda stuff.
Obama must have forgotten about them.
"Talking about the debt makes
Submitted by tcm14 on Mon, 07/16/2012 - 12:02am.
"Talking about the debt makes us sad," she seems to say, "let's spend even more money to make us feel better!!!" This is like trying to cure alcoholism by drinking more.
Here, here
Submitted by bmacdmac on Mon, 07/16/2012 - 7:52am.
The more the Democrats spend the happier they are, oh look at we did. Problem is their running out of others people's money.
Common sense economics works.
Submitted by Dan The Man 2 on Mon, 07/16/2012 - 4:58am.
Common sense economics works. Make plans on what you make and dont spend it all, save some. Above all don't borrow 40% of what you spend. That is a quick way to go broke.
The thing that gets me is why we are borrowing the money instead of just cutting back. I realize cutting back requires effort and cooperation. Why dont teh people rise up and do something?
I'm sad
Submitted by needle on Mon, 07/16/2012 - 6:42am.
...that Ms. Foobar thinks that her job is about her feelings, for Pete's sake, and not about reporting news and information objectively and neutrally.
Time Mag as a news magazine is a disgrace.
Is Ms. Foobar a valley girl?
- Looking forward to the self-annihilation of the Manipulated Stories Machine.
Well, there's your problem, Ms. Foroohar . . .
Submitted by Galvanic on Mon, 07/16/2012 - 8:23am.
. . . You're "thinking" again.
FOROOHAR: We need to be focused on infrastructure spending, on how to get our roads in better shape and how to get our schools in better shape, and I think that if business saw that government was investing in this country and making it a place that you'd want to do business, then they would start spending some of that two trillion on their balance sheet.
Let's look at the facts: This Administration has "invested" so much in this country through government spending that we added $5 TRILLION dollars to the national debt. And despite that all that government spending, businesses have not picked up.
Infrastructure "investment?" Of the $800 billion in the stimulus bill, only 6% was spent on infrastructure.
This Administration has not only piled on debt, but it has created an business environment of uncertainty, from Obamacare to the thousands of new Federal regulations that have been imposed. Businesses don't know what their costs are going to be.,
And primarily for that reason, businesses are reluctant to invest.
She should be deported!
Submitted by NJRightWinger12 on Mon, 07/16/2012 - 1:45pm.
To whatever macaca Middle Eastern country shes from-even if shes NOT from one, deport her anyways!
Liberal have a cognitive disconnect
Submitted by c5then on Mon, 07/16/2012 - 9:22am.
They think that the money that government has to "spend" is completely different than the money that is running around the "economy". As if the economy is a pool and the government can put in a hose and start filling it up. They seem to be clueless (some purposefully clueless) that the hose gets it's water from the pool itself. And worse yet, it is a very leaky hose. So only a smaller percentage of the water taken out of the pool ever makes it back into the pool.
We are in such a mess that in order to only spend what the government takes in (~$2.2 trillion a year) we would have to almost completely eliminate all discretionary spending and cut the defense budget by almost half. And that would be it. The government would be in effect Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and 50% of our current defense spending. In another 10 years (continuing on the same trajectory we are on) the tax revenue will only cover the entitlements alone (SS, Medicare, Medicaid). All the other spending by the government (if any) will have to be borrowed. And this is regardless of any tax increases or decreases that might be enacted. Any of the proposed tax changes that are being talked about will only affect the revenue by a percent or two in any given year. A much much smaller amount than the growth of the entitlements.
Madison and Jefferson and Franklin built a Republic - Roberts killed it!
And you wonder where he gets it?
Submitted by Curly on Mon, 07/16/2012 - 10:14am.
“Bring down all the rich guys by the power of the state, confiscate their land, property, raise taxes as high as you want – 100% if necessary, and obtain their wealth through fiat and legislative piracy. The rationale is that the wealth is not rightfully theirs, in the first place, but had been ripped off from the poor.”
Barack Hussein Obama, Sr. 1965 East African Journal
The tree.....
Submitted by almostacowboy on Mon, 07/16/2012 - 12:59pm.
...and the apple, eh?
An assistant managing editor in charge of economics? Really?
Submitted by JLin on Mon, 07/16/2012 - 10:29am.
" she asserted that "one thing that's not going to get us some kind of a growth boom is a tax cut," and then called for more government spending which she claimed would entice businesses into more economic activity.”
I'm not sure by what qualifications she obtained her current job. Clearly she is not an economist. She may have read some 19th century socialist literature and some Cliff Notes on Keynesian economics but she is quite ignorant of the practical nature of business and economics. This is really not brain surgury.
Really?
Submitted by Utherpend on Mon, 07/16/2012 - 12:00pm.
An assistant managing editor in charge of economics and business on Time's Web site is who they go to for an opinion on econimics, Isnt that like asking a buggy whip manufactorer about the future of automobiles in turn of the century America. I mean Time has watched their readership and circulation decline year after year and the content of the magazine half from what it was 10 years ago and this is their expert?
"...infrastructure and education..."
Submitted by almostacowboy on Mon, 07/16/2012 - 1:00pm.
Communist code for "cronyism and indoctrination".
Hey! I like using the "code" word! :-)