Did Tax Cuts Exacerbate Tragedy?

Jeremy is a mod-left blogger who is passionate, clear-thinking, often spot-on but ultimately misinformed frequent commenter on this blog. When I posted yesterday about culpability and pork in the light of Katrina, he posted a comment that largely agreed with me, but included this:

I hate to do it, but it needs saying. 1 trillion in tax cuts. 1 smegging trillion.

Would there have been enough money to fix our infrastructure and avoid Katrina, except for the Bush tax cuts? Interesting question, but easy to answer: There's more money, not less, so no.

First, let's get the numbers right. Here's an excerpt from a White House document dated Sept. 3, 2003:

On May 28th, President Bush signed the 2003 jobs and growth tax act, which provides $252.8 billion in tax relief over the six years, 2003 through 2008.

A trillion, a quarter of a trillion ...

Jeremy doesn't seem to understand the simple point that tax cuts raise revenues. We can forgive him because Liberals just don't get this point, perhaps because they spend to much time being suspicious of business and not enough time appreciating what it does for society.

According to the Office of Management and Budget's Historical Tables issued in 2005, in 1996, the year of Clinton's re-election, federal receipts were $1.5 trillion. In 2004, Bush's comparable year, receipts were $1.8 trillion. That's after the tax cuts, but to concede a point Jeremy's sure to raise, not adjusted for inflation. Clinton ended his term with receipts of $2 trillion in 2000, and Bush is projected to end his second term with receipts of $2.5 trillion.

As a Liberal, Jeremy should be celebrating Bush as a great Big Government president.