http://texasdarlin.wordpress.com

interesting...

You know, I've had just about enough of this "Obama's a Muslim" crap. Obama's not a muslim, he's a Marxist. Just read the things he says - classic Marxist stuff. That ought to scare us more.

Who cares, its all BS. If there was any question of his citizenship, I imagine the republicans would have found it months ago. This is all BS.

A PUMA (Hillary) supporter was on Fox and Friends and said a bombshell was about to be dropped. She tried to be coy but when pressed said, 'election fraud'. Btw, the Hillary campaign spent $5.4 million last month. Seems like a bunch for a person who has dropped out of the race.:eek:

A good read on Obama's history.

http://www.freedomsenemies.com/_Obama/ObamaFamily.htm

I think it's a mistake to focus on Obama's muslim background. That only brings namecallers out of the woodwork and gets you labeled a kook. On the other hand, discussing his Marxist tendencies is an unassailable tactic, as it focuses the discussion on the issues and allows no room for obfuscation.

http://www.thenextright.com/patrick-ruffini/obama-campaign-prints-german-language-flyers-for-berlin-rally

This is pretty extraordinary. A candidate for the American Presidency is using flyers printed in German to turn people out for his campaign rally in Berlin on Thursday. This flyer can be found on a bilingual page on BarackObama.com advertising the event:

The German flyers bear Obama's campaign logo and say "Paid for by Obama for America."

I'm surprised at this lapse in judgment in an otherwise well-oiled and professional Obama campaign. The last time they printed up campaign paraphenalia in a foreign language, it didn't work out so hot for them.

So, this isn't just some sober, high-minded foreign policy speech, part of a foreign trip occurring under the auspices of his official Senate office. It is a campaign rally occuring on foreign soil. They are using the same tactics to turn out Germans to an event as they would to any rally right here in America. This after Obama's campaign said this:

“It is not going to be a political speech,” said a senior foreign policy adviser, who spoke to reporters on background. “When the president of the United States goes and gives a speech, it is not a political speech or a political rally.

“But he is not president of the United States,” a reporter reminded the adviser.

The sea of Germans drummed up by the Obama campaign will be used as props to tell us Americans how to vote, and the campaign isn't trying to pretend otherwise. That's breathtakingly arrogant, and par for the course for Barack Obama.

I think it's a mistake to focus on Obama's muslim background.

You are sadly mistaken if you don't think everything AND the kitchen sink has to be thrown at this guy to stop him.

I'm knee deep in this guy and the rabbit hole is the deepest I have ever seen on a candidate that people know nothing about.

Sorry, the muslim angle is a nonstarter. The Marxist angle has more promise, because it appeals to conservatives. The muslim angle is too fraught with peril because it is tenuous and smacks of bigotry. Too easy to get labeled using that approach.

If you've got oodles of muslim evidence, I'd sure like to see it.

Sorry, the muslim angle is a nonstarter. The Marxist angle has more promise, because it appeals to conservatives. The muslim angle is too fraught with peril because it is tenuous and smacks of bigotry. Too easy to get labeled using that approach.

If you've got oodles of muslim evidence, I'd sure like to see it.

Jakarta Indonesia
African cousins

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pakistan,

http://dailymusings.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!EBAB74DA8F94C559!5351.entry

Apparently, according to the Obama campaign, In 1981 -- the year Obama transferred from Occidental College to Columbia University -- Obama visited his mother and sister Maya in Indonesia. After that visit, Obama traveled to Pakistan with a friend from college whose family was from there. The Obama campaign says Obama was in Pakistan for about three weeks, staying with his friend's family in Karachi and also visiting Hyderabad in Southern India.

NOW, It all sounds very innocent, "a college trip to Pakistan".
Pakistan was in turmoil in 1981 and ruled of martial law. Millions of Afghan refugees were living in Pakistan, while the Afghan Mujahedeen operated from bases inside Pakistan in their war with the Soviets. One of the leaders that based his operation in Quetta, Pakistan was Usama Bin Laden (The Sheik).
Pakistan was on the banned travel list for US Citizens at the time and all non-Muslim visitors were not welcome unless sponsored by their embassy for official business.

There would be only a few reasons a young Westerner of the Muslim faith would travel to Pakistan in 1981:

To Participate in Jihad, which is the duty of every "True Believer".

For religious education in a Wahabbi sect, Saudi funded, Madrassa.

In order to purchase drugs from the drug marketplace.

Pakistan was not a tourist stop nor the place to hang out with someone's family in 1981.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Like I said, the rabbit hole is very deep.

This is all implicit stuff. You have anything concrete? Because I have CONCRETE EVIDENCE that the man is a Marxist. Rumor and innuendo isn't going to defeat Obama. The best way to defeat him is running ads using his own words against him. Running ads implying that he's a muslim because, well, "HE MUST BE, HE WENT TO PAKISTAN!" won't fly.

This is all implicit stuff. You have anything concrete? Because I have CONCRETE EVIDENCE that the man is a Marxist. Rumor and innuendo isn't going to defeat Obama. The best way to defeat him is running ads using his own words against him. Running ads implying that he's a muslim because, well, "HE MUST BE, HE WENT TO PAKISTAN!" won't fly.

Yes, but it is not getting posted here. There is a reason one of Obama's own people broke into the passport records.

On another note, he is going to have to convince the US Senate he can run. Having Kenyan or Indonesian citizenship is not a good thing. Hillary's people already have his Kenyan birth-certificate. We are trying to get his U.S. one.

And challenges are brewing to knock him off of several battleground state ballots over this issue.

Keep digging, the rabbit hole is very deep....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qXNLLAk9gek

Look for an upcoming article coming from Judah Benjamin to will put into light the whole dual-citizenship issue.

http://texasdarlin.wordpress.com/2008/07/22/obama-was-born-in-hawaii-wrong-can-of-worms/#comment-3632


If you spent a 1/3rd of the energy you do in trying to vilify Obama and focused it on boosting McCain, it'd probably be more effective in having John-boy win the election.

If you spent a 1/3rd of the energy you do in trying to vilify Obama and focused it on boosting McCain, it'd probably be more effective in having John-boy win the election.I'm hoping McCain gets disqualified on citizenship issues too;) .

I'm hoping McCain gets disqualified on citizenship issues too;) .
GASP

You don't mean...

Ron Paul for President? ;)

GASP

You don't mean...

Ron Paul for President? ;)

I could handle that.. :)

I could handle that.. :)o/\o

Media is burying his Muslim support. Keep your head in the sand. That way you won't see it coming....

Why is Barack doing nothing in Afganistan. I thought it was the front on the War on Terror?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5ScIU1a5Ls

Take the time to read this if you are brave enough to crawl into the rabbit hole.

http://forums.gunboards.com/showpost.php?p=396421&postcount=1

Update 08-08-08

Daily Kos and Obama's SMEARS site have now downgraded the resolution of the birth certificate to low-res.

I guess they think google can erase every computer file in the world that has this image.

We are getting close. I can smell the fear of the Obamonuts.

[url]http://texasdarlin.wordpress.com

You broke the link! :p

You broke the link! :p

I just changed the link to the main page. A lot of stuff was moved around recently. This is the top blog in the blogosphere dealing with the issue of just who is Barack Obama.

Just head on over to the site. Lots and lots to read.

Who ever thought I'd be working for the Clintons?

I guess stopping Marxism makes for strange bedfellows indeed.:D

Who ever thought I'd be working for the Clintons?

I guess stopping Marxism makes for strange bedfellows indeed.:DYes, the textbook example of fighting fire with fire...

Media is burying his Muslim support. Keep your head in the sand. That way you won't see it coming....

Oh no Monster, it's worse than initially thought, Bush is in on "it" too!

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/images/abbas_bush.jpg

Deville, your little carton is exceedingly ignorant...

A: Congress controls the purse strings, not the executive branch. Democrats were in control during Regan's, Bush Sr.'s and the past two years of Dubya's presidencies, as well as the first two years of the Clinton presidency.

B: The full effects of the fiscal policies under a given president aren't fully known until well after their presidency; sometimes as much as a decade after, according to some experts...

C: Tax cuts (1/2 of what is defined as fiscal conservatism) have been proven to increase tax revenue at the national level in this country, while tax increases do the opposite (It's called the Laffer Curve). That pretty well leaves only the area of government spending that could have caused those deficits then, doesn't it. Now who controls government spending? I would refer you back to point 'A'.

D: There was never a surplus under Clinton. It was a "projected" surplus that was reached by cooking the books; just like Clinton's friend's at Enron did...

Quit your crying.

Crying or not, Shagdrum's facts are correct, though.

Quit your crying.

It isn't crying...
All comedy has to have an element of truth to be funny. This cartoon can only vaguely and broadly resemble the truth to someone very ignorant in politics and how government works.

Most of the people who frequent the political section of this forum are not that ignorant in those areas (including you), so I would imagine it isn't very funny to them, for the very reasons I pointed out...

Quit your crying.
There isn't a scintilla of an atom of anything in Shag's post that even remotely comes close to being on the verge of approaching the brink of crying, and you know it.

C: Tax cuts (1/2 of what is defined as fiscal conservatism) have been proven to increase tax revenue at the national level in this country, while tax increases do the opposite (It's called the Laffer Curve). That pretty well leaves only the area of government spending that could have caused those deficits then, doesn't it. Now who controls government spending? I would refer you back to point 'A'.
There are so many factors that affect tax revenues that the Laffer Curve becomes meaningless. It's nothing but a thought experiment that can never be tested in the real world, let alone proven.

But even if we eliminate all other factors and assume that it is accurate for the sake of argument, there's something that you're not taking into account: The LEFT side of the Laffer Curve. If we're sitting anywhere to the left of the peak of the curve, tax increases will increase revenue, and tax cuts will indeed reduce revenue. With that established, I would argue that we're FAR to left of the peak.

Conservative tout Kennedy's tax cuts as "proof" that tax cuts increase revenue, but since the top marginal rate before the cut was over 90%, I'd say that qualifies as far to the right of the peak anyway. Big DUH there.

As for monetary policies taking years to have an effect, well, that may be so, but again, it's impossible to eliminate other factors. Clinton increased taxes and the economy soared, but you'll all be the first to point to internet bubble, and you would be correct. Likewise, Bush's tax cuts didn't increase revenues for the first three years (2001-2004), and saw moderate increases after that, but we have the housing bubble to thank for that. Recent tax revenues have leveled off, and may be on the verge of dropping. In any case, the Bush tax cuts never came anywhere near to paying for themselves, and they never will. In fact, you'll be hard pressed to prove that tax cuts pay for themselves at any time history without considering other non-related factors.

That is why I was very specific in stating that tax cuts have been proven to increase tax revenue at the national level in this country. I probably should have added the word "historically" to make that a bit clearer...

Every time tax cuts have been attempted on the national level (at least in the past fifty years), tax revenues have increased. That would strongly suggest that we were on the right side of the Laffer Curve, and would further suggest that we are most likely still on the right side, unless we are at the equilibrium point.

You are right that there are other factors that affect tax revenue, but that doesn't mean it can't be proven well enough for the purposes of this argument. This isn't a scientific experiment, where only empirical observations from experiments that eliminate all other possible variables are allowed. It is a political and economic debate. In that context, you cannot rightly expect all variables to be eliminated to prove or disprove a theory.

So, to say that those other factors effectively make the Laffer Curve meaningless is to effectively raise the burden of proof to the standard of a scientific experiment in a laboratory, which is not appropriate to this discussion.

If you can't prove or disprove a social science theory adequately unless you eliminate all other variables, then you must throw our every social science theory; political, economic, sociological, etc. etc.

I am curious how you connect the housing bubble to the increased tax revenue, but not Bush's tax cuts (at least in part).

That is why I was very specific in stating that tax cuts have been proven to increase tax revenue at the national level in this country. I probably should have added the word "historically" to make that a bit clearer...What else would I be talking about except national taxes?

Every time tax cuts have been attempted on the national level (at least in the past fifty years), tax revenues have increased.You're gonna need to be more specific if you're gonna make such a bold statement.

Was there still an increase when inflation is taken into account (current vs. constant dollars)?

Were all taxes lowered or were some raised, such as when Reagan lowered income taxes but increased payroll taxes? In other words, are you counting overall receipts or only those which were actually lowered?

How about as a percentage of GDP, which gives a perspective on the general state of the economy at the time and is a truer indicator of growth than raw dollars?

How does the revenue growth compare to previous years when taxes were higher? In other words, what was trend up to that point and how was it affected?

Show me the numbers. Because simply saying "tax cuts have been proven to..." is proof by assertion (sorry, no wikipedia link).

Here, this should get you started (Excel or Excel reader needed):
http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy08/sheets/hist01z3.xls
http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy08/sheets/hist01z2.xls


It's time to kill this myth that tax cuts pay for themselves. It's never happened before, it will never happen in the future.

It's time to kill this myth that tax cuts pay for themselves. It's never happened before, it will never happen in the future.

The only people saying anything about taxes "paying for themselves" are those opposed to tax cuts. In fact, this link (http://www.heritage.org/research/taxes/bg2001.cfm) debunks that myth...

Attempts to debunk solid theories often involve first mischaracterizing them as straw men. Critics often erroneously define supply-side economics as the belief that all tax cuts pay for themselves. They then cite tax cuts that have not fully paid for themselves as conclusive proof that supply-side economics has failed.

However, supply-side economics never contended that all tax cuts pay for themselves. Rather the Laffer Curve (upon which much of the supply-side theory is based) merely formalizes the common-sense observations that:
1. Tax revenues depend on the tax base as well as the tax rate;
2. Raising tax rates discourages the taxed behavior and therefore shrinks the tax base, offsetting some of the revenue gains; and
3. Lowering tax rates encourages the taxed behavior and expands the tax base, offsetting some of the revenue loss.

If policymakers intend cigarette taxes to discourage smoking, they should also expect high investment taxes to discourage investment and income taxes to discourage work. Lowering taxes encourages people to engage in the given behavior, which expands the base and replenishes some of the lost revenue. This is the "feedback effect" of a tax cut.

Whether or not a tax cut recovers 100 percent of the lost revenue depends on the tax rate's location on the Laffer Curve. Each tax has a revenue-maximizing rate at which future tax increases will reduce revenue. (This is the peak of the Laffer Curve.) Only when tax rates are above that level will reducing the tax rate actually increase revenue. Otherwise, it will replenish only a portion of the lost revenue.

How much feedback revenue a given tax cut will generate depends on the degree to which taxpayers adjust their behavior. Cutting sales and property tax rates generally induces smaller feedback effects because taxpayers do not respond by substantially expanding their purchases or home-buying. Income taxes have a higher feedback effect. Nobel Prize-winning economist Ed Prescott has shown a strong cross-national link between lower income tax rates and higher work hours. Investment taxes have the highest feedback effects because investors quickly move to avoid higher-taxed investments. Not surprisingly, history shows that higher investment taxes deeply curtail investment and consequently raise little (if any) new revenue.

Yet, using the standard set by some, even a hypothetical tax cut that provides real tax relief to millions of families and entrepreneurs and creates enough new income to recover 95 percent of the estimated revenue loss would be considered a "failure" of supply-side economics and thus merit a full repeal.


Was there still an increase when inflation is taken into account (current vs. constant dollars)?

Were all taxes lowered or were some raised, such as when Reagan lowered income taxes but increased payroll taxes? In other words, are you counting overall receipts or only those which were actually lowered?

How about as a percentage of GDP, which gives a perspective on the general state of the economy at the time and is a truer indicator of growth than raw dollars?

How does the revenue growth compare to previous years when taxes were higher? In other words, what was trend up to that point and how was it affected?
You're gonna need to be more specific if you're gonna make such a bold statement.

While there are some relevant questions in all that, there is also some obfuscation in there, too.;)

Looking at trends is a very relevant point and that is in both the tables in the lower part of this post.

The best tax to look at is income tax, as that is where most tax revenue comes from, and where the effects of a tax cut are going to show the most dramatic effect. everything else is secondary. That last table shows the huge difference in tax revenue from income taxes vs all other taxes.

Well, the only three times I can remember that taxes were cut for an economic stimulus were Kennedy's tax cuts, Reagan's (specifically 1981) and Dubya's. I am specifically referring to those three.

Kennedy has been discussed and is not at issue. I think the one that will come into question is Reagan's. Here some relevant info...
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c143/shagdrum/chart.gif
Between 1980-1990 tax revenue increased more then $1 trillion dollars.

You can see the longer term trends in this graph:
http://i26.photobucket.com/albums/c143/shagdrum/reccon09.jpg

When looking at that info it is important to remember that for fiscal policy (which encompasses taxes and government spending), the effects of a given policy take years to fully materialize (as opposed to monetary policy).

Also, when tax cuts have been used to stimulate the economy, it is usually in the midst of a recession.

**I think we have officially hijacked this thread.:shifty:

Deville, your little carton is exceedingly ignorant...

A: Congress controls the purse strings, not the executive branch. Democrats were in control during Regan's, Bush Sr.'s and the past two years of Dubya's presidencies, as well as the first two years of the Clinton presidency.

B: The full effects of the fiscal policies under a given president aren't fully known until well after their presidency; sometimes as much as a decade after, according to some experts...

C: Tax cuts (1/2 of what is defined as fiscal conservatism) have been proven to increase tax revenue at the national level in this country, while tax increases do the opposite (It's called the Laffer Curve). That pretty well leaves only the area of government spending that could have caused those deficits then, doesn't it. Now who controls government spending? I would refer you back to point 'A'.

D: There was never a surplus under Clinton. It was a "projected" surplus that was reached by cooking the books; just like Clinton's friend's at Enron did...


Shhhh, DeVille thinks political actions work like a "light switch"! :D

Shhhh, DeVille thinks political actions work like a "light switch"! :D


At least I think, peanut gallery boy.

At least I think, peanut gallery boy.
Oooohhhhhh burrrrnnnnnn! :rolleyes:

So, what grade are you going into this fall?

You imply I'm being childish by replying with a "what grade are we in" jab? Really, now.

You imply I'm being childish by replying with a "what grade are we in" jab? Really, now.It's called illustrating the absurd by using absurdity.

Rush is right, the left have no sense of humor. :rolleyes:

Quote:
Originally Posted by Tricky-Dick http://www.lincolnvscadillac.com/images/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://www.lincolnvscadillac.com/showthread.php?p=412428#post412428)
Shhhh, DeVille thinks political actions work like a "light switch"! :D


At least I think, peanut gallery boy.

"All morons hate it when you call them a moron." - Holden Caulfield

Nice Signature Deville...you hit it right on the head!

It's called illustrating the absurd by using absurdity.

Rush is right, the left have no sense of humor. :rolleyes:

Comfort emotes are great, aren't they.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Tricky-Dick http://www.lincolnvscadillac.com/images/buttons/viewpost.gif (http://www.lincolnvscadillac.com/showthread.php?p=412428#post412428)
Shhhh, DeVille thinks political actions work like a "light switch"! :D




"All morons hate it when you call them a moron." - Holden Caulfield

Nice Signature Deville...you hit it right on the head!

You can have that one, I understand you fellas like to dish it, but then cry when it's given back, no worries. Must be a "right" thing.

Edit: Double Post.