Volcker: Raise Taxes to Curb the Deficit

Paul Volcker says that the U.S. will probably need to raise taxes to curb the deficit.

Specifically, at a speech to the New York Historical Society, Volcker said that America should consider imposing a "value added tax" - a type of national sales tax used in Europe - and also carbon or other energy-related taxes.

Of course, Herbert Hoover raised taxes in 1932, with disastrous results for the economy.

More importantly, instead of raising taxes or cutting services, why don't we just stop unnecessary wars, unnecessary bailouts and unnecessary interest costs - and claw back the ill-gotten gains from the too big to fails?

Comments

[Baron Robber]

sometimes people miss sarcasm when they are ticked off. I think roger missed it above

[moldygoat]

Unnecessary wars? don't you enjoy your patriot act/police state freedom that the war on terror is providing you?

Unnecessary bailouts? you should be happy with all the new opportunities provided to you from the V recovery?

The government says taxes are good, i see no reasons to doubt.

[kalum]

Volker has become an AH. Slash entitlements. Screw raising taxes.

[SWRichmond]

He always was an asshole, the crisis has forced him out of the closet.  He knows constant talk of tax increases are needed to support the Treasury market.  He knows his boss' game is over when the Treasury market collapses.

[Selah]

Unnecessary wars?

Unnecessary bailouts?

That was all a product of the Bush/Cheney regime.

Obama "inherited" that mess and had no idea how bad it was when someone (probably a teabagger) put a gun upside his head and forced him to run for President.

It will all get better when the Democrat(ic) side of GS/JPM is voted out and replaced with the Republican...

[Ripped Chunk]

Oil

Big Banks

Enough said.

Why do people think it matters which party is in the White House or has a majority. It is just foolish thinking. It's a show to make you believe your vote counts for something.

Oil

Big Banks

Oil

Big Banks

[sgt_doom]

"Why do people think it matters which party is in the White House or has a majority."

Because (and I've finally admitted this to myself after many years of voluntary political activism) most Ameritards are too damn lazy and stupid to ever take notice that the same people keep showing up, regardless of what party or president is in the White House.

One of Obama's first appointments was Diana Farrell, exactly who would have been one of Dick Cheney's first appointments had he been elected president.

Remember when George W. Bush attempted to get neocon Linda Chavez nominated for a political appointment?  She was from Jimmy Carter's administration.  So was Eliott Abrams, one of Regan's and Bush's appointments, as well.

And they always mention that Timmy Geithner and Larry Summers were in the Clinton administration, but conveniently forget to mention that they both were first appointed in the George H.W. Bush administration!

Had Cheney (god help us!) been elected instead, or if Sarah Palin ever gets elected (and given the average IQ in America today, it is a likelihood!!!!), we'd have exactly the same people in the West Wing as we see babbling today.

[swamp]

Still blinded by the left / right bullshit huh?

Keep reading ZH.

[SWRichmond]

Amen, brother.

[George Washington]

+1,000

[Rogerwilco]

So being ass-raped by a guy named Obama is OK, since some guy named Bush did it first? How about the notion that the federal government is too damn big? Maybe we really need lower taxes, less federal/state spending, and higher interest rates.

[sgt_doom]

"How about the notion that the federal government is too damn big?"

Geez, what rocks do people like you crawl out from under?  The federal government has been majority privatized, clown!

Ever hear about someone named Reagan?  Ever hear about executive orders?  How about Reagan's Executive Order #12615, establishing the Office of Privatization?

Now, what do you suppose the purpose of the Office of privatization was, clown?

Now, when you clowns complain about the federal government (as in intel agencies) letting America down when they allowed that underware bomber from Nigeria to board that plane, be advised that it was Blackwater USA (now called Xe Services) and SAIC and Mantech Int'l which were responsible for that screwup -- it's all been privatized, clown?

And so has the majority of the remainder of the government, that's the problem, dood.  Those absolutely corrupt private corps.

Get it?????

[Cistercian]

 Privatization....one of the least railed about ongoing thefts going!So much money being stolen from so many to enrich so few.

 The American people are being nuked from every angle....

[Dark Helmet]

Democrats use more lube.

[Postal]

The black helicopters are coming for you...

[sgt_doom]

My favorite news story about those black helicopters was when that moron and clown, Cokie Roberts, the newsy shill with some Sunday morning political show nobody watches, back in the late '90s made fun of people who said they had seen black helicopters.

This was exactly ONE WEEK after the Pentagon, in a nationally televised press conference, made a public apology for their screwup in Nashville, Tennessee that previous weekend.

You see (assuming you have any neurons onboard), the US Army's Special Activity outfit, which runs those black helicopters, had forgotten to notify the city government of Nashville that they had scheduled a simulated counterterrorist maneuver that weekend in the downtown financial district of Nashville.

So when they began it, the mayor got on the phone to the national guard, the governor (who then called the White House, you might have heard of them) and the FBI, etc.

Now you know all about those black helicopters, sonny, think you can remember it???

[MarketTruth]

Strong, credible allegations of high-level criminal activity can bring down a government. When the government lacks an effective, fact-based defense, other techniques must be employed. The success of these techniques depends heavily upon a cooperative, compliant press and a mere token opposition party.

1. Dummy up. If it's not reported, if it's not news, it didn't happen.
2. Wax indignant. This is also known as the "how dare you?" gambit.
3. Characterize the charges as "rumors" or, better yet, "wild rumors." If, in spite of the news blackout, the public is still able to learn about the suspicious facts, it can only be through "rumors." (If they tend to believe the "rumors" it must be because they are simply "paranoid" or "hysterical.")
4. Knock down straw men. Deal only with the weakest aspect of the weakest charges. Even better, create your own straw men. Make up wild rumors and give them lead play when you appear to debunk all the charges, real and fanciful alike.
5. Call the skeptics names like "conspiracy theorist," "nut," "ranter," "kook," "crackpot," and of course, "rumor monger." Be sure, too, to use heavily loaded verbs and adjectives when characterizing their charges and defending the "more reasonable" government and its defenders. You must then carefully avoid fair and open debate with any of the people you have thus maligned. For insurance, set up your own "skeptics" to shoot down.
6. Impugn motives. Attempt to marginalize the critics by suggesting strongly that they are not really interested in the truth but are simply pursuing a partisan political agenda or are out to make money (compared to over-compensated adherents to the government line who, presumably, are not).
7. Invoke authority. Here the controlled press and the sham opposition can be very useful.
8. Dismiss the charges as "old news."
9. Come half-clean. This is also known as "confession and avoidance" or "taking the limited hangout route." This way, you create the impression of candor and honesty while you admit only to relatively harmless, less-than-criminal "mistakes." This stratagem often requires the embrace of a fall-back position quite different from the one originally taken. With effective damage control, the fall-back position need only be peddled by stooge skeptics to carefully limited markets.
10. Characterize the crimes as impossibly complex and the truth as ultimately unknowable.
11. Reason backward, using the deductive method with a vengeance. With thoroughly rigorous deduction, troublesome evidence is irrelevant. For example: We have a completely free press. If they know of evidence that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (BATF) had prior knowledge of the Oklahoma City bombing they would have reported it. They haven't reported it, so there was no prior knowledge by the BATF. Another variation on this theme involves the likelihood of a conspiracy leaker and a press that would report the leak.
12. Require the skeptics to solve the crime completely. For example: If Vince Foster was murdered, who did it and why?
13. Change the subject. This technique includes creating and/or publicizing distractions.
14. Scantly report incriminating facts, and then make nothing of them. This is sometimes referred to as "bump and run" reporting.
15. Baldly and brazenly lie. A favorite way of doing this is to attribute the "facts" furnished the public to a plausible-sounding, but anonymous, source.
16. Expanding further on numbers 4 and 5, have your own stooges "expose" scandals and champion popular causes. Their job is to pre-empt real opponents and to play 99-yard football. A variation is to pay rich people for the job who will pretend to spend their own money.
17. Flood the Internet with agents. This is the answer to the question, "What could possibly motivate a person to spend hour upon hour on Internet news groups defending the government and/or the press and harassing genuine critics?" Don't the authorities have defenders enough in all the newspapers, magazines, radio, and television? One would think refusing to print critical letters and screening out serious callers or dumping them from radio talk shows would be control enough, but, obviously, it is not.

[Cistercian]

 #17 is especially relevant here.What an offensive use of public resources.

 There are even bots that post.Their sophistication will only increase over time and the advantage to using them is that they just bury a site with total sewage.

 Drowning out honest discourse with agenda driven lies.....somehow it escapes me as to how that is serving any good.

  Great post, thank you!

[Ripped Chunk]

Obama would have to cross big oil and or big bank to get into the position that Nixon did.

Do you think Nixon would have fell if he had toed the line??????

[hbjork1]

+10

[swamp]

+1000

(6. Personal attack)
(12. Shifting the burden)

[George Washington]

That bit is getting a tad old:

Herding the Sheep Ridicule of Conspiracy Theories Focuses On Diffusing Criticism of the Powerful

[sgt_doom]

Great post, GW, and of course Volcker, one of the in crowd, even if they refuse to hire him back (too old, grandpaw!) as he was (perhaps still is) with the Group of Thirty and helped establish this colossal lack of any economy today while enriching all his bosses.

Of course, instead of proclaiming that those 70 percent and plus corporations in America which pay no federal taxes (called tax fraud, BTW) and recovering trillions of dollars in unpaid taxes, Volcker the Clown believes the rest of us, who pay our taxes, should be taxed even more so!

And the corporate piddlers who dare call themselves "the media" (media my all-American ass, draft-dodging swine), say the "Volcker Rule" will save us.

Nothing you will save you when the people grab the pitchforks....

[QQQBall]

Volcker is the stalking horse, the lightning rod -

Paul Volcker is Hussien's Colin Powell

[hbjork1]

Big part of the problem is that the average layman makes no distinction between hypothesis (of conspiracy) and theory.  Lazy, or i guess I should say indifferent, people frequently use the word theory to describe their hypothesis.  Maybe "theory" sounds more credible.

http://wilstar.com/theories.htm. 

If the debaters can be brought to the point of using the common English vocabulary, then a meaningful debate of whatever subject is being discussed can begin.