compshmoe
Well-Known LVC Member
So, by your own standard, I take you are a homosexual?
NOW,NOW remember you want to keep don't ask don't tell:shifty:
Senate Seeks to Create Caesar?
- Thread starter Calabrio
- Start date
NOW,NOW remember you want to keep don't ask don't tell:shifty:
We've addressed this in the other thread, no taking more from someone else doesn't constitute giving it to them, no more than my not robbing you in the street is the same as me giving you the money in your wallet.
The chart you have posted, repeatedly, is of little value OTHER than to reinforce the class warfare propaganda that is spoonfed to economic illiterates.
I really don't want to have to discuss this is partisan terms. There is more than enough blame to go around, you certainly can not absolve the entire GOP of criticism.
But, if I presume to understand the point you are attempting to make, I'll try to respond. IN GENERAL, the GOP has preached fiscal responsibility. There failure to really exercise such restraint during the period between 2002-2006 when they held the majority cost them the subsequent elections.
Not to excuse their lack of discretion, but it has to be recognized that the amount of deficit spending since 2006 has skyrocketed. It was one thing to talk about a deficit when it was a few hundred billion dollars, but for the past few years, and all years in the foreseeable future, we are looking at on-book annual deficits in the TRILLIONS of dollars. As mentioned earlier, so far this year, we are 1.4 TRILLION dollars in the red. We hit the debt limit again today.
Many people who were more casual about issue of debt and fiscal responsibility have had a realization in recent years. They've come to see the writing on the wall.
But what is your point? Because you don't think they were responsible in the past, no one can object when another administration not only continues such spending policies, but accelerates them beyond anything imagined?
That we can never try to correct this ship of state before it hits the iceberg and sinks?
Or is it that you think that the policies of the 20th century are just a natural condition of nature and that we can sustain them forever. If, in your opinions, Republicans wasted money, now it's the Democrats turn to waste the money any way they chose; and we can continue trading this luxury back and forth forever?
If the Bush tax cuts were so expensive, why did they extend them last year? It's because the lower tax rates increased economic activity and helped the economy. You probably don't remember, but when Bush took office, we were at the beginning of a cyclical recession followed by the economically devastating 9/11 attacks.
This isn't a cop-out, I could spend the time to explain Supply-side economics to you right now, but I'm confident that you wouldn't even bother to read it, and you certainly wouldn't take the opportunity to try to understand it. However, I will provide you one statistic to demonstrate how ignorant your claim is-
You're main argument is that tax cuts for the rich takes money from the poor. Besides this being absurd in principle, it's also wrong when you consider the revenue. According to the Wall Street Journal, the taxes paid by millionaire households more than doubled from $136 billion in 2003 to $274 billion in 2006 because of the "Bush tax cuts" in 2003.
The last estimate I saw calculating the cost of both the Iraq and Afghanistan military operations was 1.2 Trillion dollars over the past decade. The current government is already deeper in the red this fiscal year alone.
I don't understand the point you are trying to make here, unless your just regurgitating as much stuff onto the wall with the hope that something will stick?
So, let's clarify here.....
Your opposed to Republicans, even when they are opposed to the very policies you are saying you opposed?
Your analysis doesn't just seem overly simplistic, it seems like you've been manipulated and wound up by someone. Perhaps your not aware of it, but all of these bullet points were bipartisan, embraced by the 'big-government' types in the Republican and the Democrat parties alike.
But despite all of this, you condemn the Republicans who opposed many of these things, like the financial bailout, while you support a President who, with the supermajority in Congress, just passed a sweeping healthcare trojan horse that will cost us trillions and lead us towards a single payer systems.
What you should say is that the GOP refused to allow for a tax increase on higher earners. There were no tax cuts being discussed, only tax increases.
It also needs to be mentioned that about 50% of the population pay NO income taxes either.
Not raising taxes didn't cost anything. There were no tax cuts, merely a continuation of the tax rates that had already been in affect for about ten years.
However, had they jacked up the tax rates, the economic consequences would likely have HURT the economy. Do some homework, look up "supply-side economics" and "Static/Dynamic analysis."
As I've explained.
First, when discussing deficits, it's critical to discuss the SIZE of the deficit.
As much as we complained about the reckless spending when the GOP was in power, and conservative and libertarians absolutely were, it was "only"
about $250 Billion dollars in 2006.
Last year it was $1.3 Trillion.
And a lot of people are starting to realize the folly of their ways, the mistakes of the past, and that we are on a fateful course. If we don't correct our course, the consequences will be devastating.
It doesn't work.
Economically, the progressive policies of the past century don't work financially, practically, or ethically.
Here's another reality, if we don't reform these systems NOW, if we don't change the expectations of the federal government now, in a best case scenario, all of those programs that people are dependent on will simply collapse. Then what will you do?
While we still have a moment of time left, assuming we still do, we need to take the steps necessary to provide the essential care to those who absolutely need it, those that don't have the time to prepare otherwise, and then radically reform or re-imagine the programs. Ideally, scale back the federal government so that it's only performing executing it's constitutional responsibilities, and social programs should be managed locally or at the state level.
Frankly, the Republican/Democrat paradigm is about to come to an end. I prefer to think of politicians as either big government or small government, more freedom or less freedom. Ryan is a smaller government kind of politician, an amazing feat considering he represents the birthplace of the Progressive movement in the U.S.
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compshmoe
Well-Known LVC Member
But what is your point? Because you don't think they were responsible in the past, no one can object when another administration not only continues such spending policies, but accelerates them beyond anything imagined?
That we can never try to correct this ship of state before it hits the iceberg and sinks
No, my point is,you can't do it on the backs of those that have not
According to the Wall Street Journal, the taxes paid by millionaire households more than doubled from $136 billion in 2003 to $274 billion in 2006 because of the "Bush tax cuts" in 2003.
Well they're the ones with no friends in high places cause 4,000 millionaires paid no federal income tax last year : "Those who say the rich pay their fair share point to the fact that the top 1% of taxpayers end up paying almost as much in federal income tax (and some years even more) as the bottom 95% combined."
http://investmentwatchblog.com/shock-4000-millionaires-paid-no-federal-income-tax-last-year/
So, let's clarify here.....
Your opposed to Republicans, even when they are opposed to the very policies you are saying you opposed?
Medicare part D was nothing short of throwing money down the toilet, little coverage at enourmous expense, former U.S. Comptroller General David Walker has called it "the most fiscally irresponsible piece of legislation since the 1960s." The Bush administration was already projecting the largest deficit in American history--$475 billion in fiscal year 2004.
Republicans voted to vastly increase them--and the federal deficit--by $395 billion between 2004 and 2013. BUT, the Bush administration knew this figure was not accurate because Medicare's chief actuary, Richard Foster, had concluded, well before passage, that the more likely cost would be $534 billion. "Tom Scully, a Republican political appointee at the Department of Health and Human Services, threatened to fire him if he dared to make that information public before the vote."
http://www.forbes.com/2009/11/19/re...-care-opinions-columnists-bruce-bartlett.html
But despite all of this, you condemn the Republicans who opposed many of these things, like the financial bailout, while you support a President who, with the supermajority in Congress, just passed a sweeping healthcare trojan horse that will cost us trillions and lead us towards a single payer systems.
Seems someone has lied to you, because " The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the exchanges would ease small business insurance costs, albeit only marginally: premiums in the small-group market are forecast to fall between 1% and 4% under the exchanges, while the amount of coverage would rise by up to 3%.
* For the next four years, until the SHOP Exchanges are set up, businesses with 10 or fewer full-time-equivalent employees earning less than $25,000 a year on average will be eligible for a tax credit of 35% of health insurance costs. (Companies with between 11 and 25 workers and an average wage of up to $50,000 are eligible for partial credits.)
The tax credit will remain in place, increasing to 50% of costs, for the first two years a company buys insurance through its state exchange. The Congressional Budget Office predicts that the tax credit will affect about 12% of individuals covered via the small-group insurance market, lowering their cost of insurance by between 8% and 11%."
http://money.cnn.com/2010/03/22/smallbusiness/small_business_health_reform/
Not raising taxes didn't cost anything. There were no tax cuts, merely a continuation of the tax rates that had already been in affect for about ten years.
so it's just a coincidence that the tax breaks start around the same time your graph takes a bottle of Viagra? and you say it didn't cost anything?
As much as we complained about the reckless spending when the GOP was in power, and conservative and libertarians absolutely were, it was "only"
about $250 Billion dollars in 2006.
Last year it was $1.3 Trillion.
Yeah but the recession started in dec. 2007, although we were told " what recession" there's been alot of money handed out just for that. The Treasury Department and the Fed to pumped trillions of dollars into the economy through a variety of programs, including a $700 billion bailout of banks and Wall Street firms and hundreds of billions of lending by the Fed to major companies and lenders.
Here's another reality, if we don't reform these systems NOW, if we don't change the expectations of the federal government now, in a best case scenario, all of those programs that people are dependent on will simply collapse. Then what will you do?
Well as i said, cutting alone isn't the answer no matter what, as Bush Sr. did, you have to raise money by getting rid of tax breaks , Clinton and the republicans agreed and it worked, the rich made money, and most everyone had money without too much pain BUT i know we'll agree to disagree
That we can never try to correct this ship of state before it hits the iceberg and sinks
No, my point is,you can't do it on the backs of those that have not
According to the Wall Street Journal, the taxes paid by millionaire households more than doubled from $136 billion in 2003 to $274 billion in 2006 because of the "Bush tax cuts" in 2003.
Well they're the ones with no friends in high places cause 4,000 millionaires paid no federal income tax last year : "Those who say the rich pay their fair share point to the fact that the top 1% of taxpayers end up paying almost as much in federal income tax (and some years even more) as the bottom 95% combined."
http://investmentwatchblog.com/shock-4000-millionaires-paid-no-federal-income-tax-last-year/
So, let's clarify here.....
Your opposed to Republicans, even when they are opposed to the very policies you are saying you opposed?
Medicare part D was nothing short of throwing money down the toilet, little coverage at enourmous expense, former U.S. Comptroller General David Walker has called it "the most fiscally irresponsible piece of legislation since the 1960s." The Bush administration was already projecting the largest deficit in American history--$475 billion in fiscal year 2004.
Republicans voted to vastly increase them--and the federal deficit--by $395 billion between 2004 and 2013. BUT, the Bush administration knew this figure was not accurate because Medicare's chief actuary, Richard Foster, had concluded, well before passage, that the more likely cost would be $534 billion. "Tom Scully, a Republican political appointee at the Department of Health and Human Services, threatened to fire him if he dared to make that information public before the vote."
http://www.forbes.com/2009/11/19/re...-care-opinions-columnists-bruce-bartlett.html
But despite all of this, you condemn the Republicans who opposed many of these things, like the financial bailout, while you support a President who, with the supermajority in Congress, just passed a sweeping healthcare trojan horse that will cost us trillions and lead us towards a single payer systems.
Seems someone has lied to you, because " The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the exchanges would ease small business insurance costs, albeit only marginally: premiums in the small-group market are forecast to fall between 1% and 4% under the exchanges, while the amount of coverage would rise by up to 3%.
* For the next four years, until the SHOP Exchanges are set up, businesses with 10 or fewer full-time-equivalent employees earning less than $25,000 a year on average will be eligible for a tax credit of 35% of health insurance costs. (Companies with between 11 and 25 workers and an average wage of up to $50,000 are eligible for partial credits.)
The tax credit will remain in place, increasing to 50% of costs, for the first two years a company buys insurance through its state exchange. The Congressional Budget Office predicts that the tax credit will affect about 12% of individuals covered via the small-group insurance market, lowering their cost of insurance by between 8% and 11%."
http://money.cnn.com/2010/03/22/smallbusiness/small_business_health_reform/
Not raising taxes didn't cost anything. There were no tax cuts, merely a continuation of the tax rates that had already been in affect for about ten years.
so it's just a coincidence that the tax breaks start around the same time your graph takes a bottle of Viagra? and you say it didn't cost anything?
As much as we complained about the reckless spending when the GOP was in power, and conservative and libertarians absolutely were, it was "only"
about $250 Billion dollars in 2006.
Last year it was $1.3 Trillion.
Yeah but the recession started in dec. 2007, although we were told " what recession" there's been alot of money handed out just for that. The Treasury Department and the Fed to pumped trillions of dollars into the economy through a variety of programs, including a $700 billion bailout of banks and Wall Street firms and hundreds of billions of lending by the Fed to major companies and lenders.
Here's another reality, if we don't reform these systems NOW, if we don't change the expectations of the federal government now, in a best case scenario, all of those programs that people are dependent on will simply collapse. Then what will you do?
Well as i said, cutting alone isn't the answer no matter what, as Bush Sr. did, you have to raise money by getting rid of tax breaks , Clinton and the republicans agreed and it worked, the rich made money, and most everyone had money without too much pain BUT i know we'll agree to disagree
What does that mean? That's empty rhetoric.
Let's say that every time I'm downtown, I give this homeless guy a hundred dollar bill. I've come to realize that I'm spending far too much money and I'm deeply in debt. If I only give that guy $75, or instead donate that to the soup kitchen, am I balancing my budget on his back?
Should I just keep giving him $100 until I lose my house?
And isn't it better for me to scale back the charity now, but continue to provide it, rather than spend until I'm bankrupt and sitting on the street next to him, where NEITHER of us will have any money coming in?
You're profoundly mistaken if you think I'm defending our tax policy in this country. However, do you think that tax code should be used as a way of punishing success? Or that those who make over $250k (considered millionaires) can be taxed without limit and without consequence?
Are you looking for someone here to defend that program? I'm not going to. The only positive is that there are some concepts of competition in the program that make it modestly more efficient than some other government programs. With that said, I don't support that expansion of government. I don't support big-government Republican policies.
You seem to be focusing on the expensive of the bill, yet your entire argument is seems to be based on an emotional appeal to extend social services and wealth redistribution while increasing the tax rates on higher earners.
Are you equally outraged by the Obamacare bill that was passed last year?
Apparently not.
You go to reference a CNN article from 2010.
Realize you are narrowly talking about the "Small Business Health Option Program. That's a program that won't possibly come online for another 3 years, and it mandates that states set up broader insurance pools for small businesses to buy into. There's so much more to the Obamacare bill other than that single, that it's really insignificant. Obamacare is not defined by a mandate that states set up a a SHOP Exchange.
Another point, in case you cut and paste another article in your text body. Perhaps you don't know how the CBO works, they calculate data solely using the data provided to them, whether it is accurate or honest information. Garbage in, garbage out.
Use your search-engine prowess and simply look at federal revenue and see for yourself. Recognize that we went into a recession in 1999 and the terrorist attacks in 2001. Also not that there were significant tax cuts in the 80s, 60s, and 20s.
You'll find what I referenced earlier and Shagdrum clearly defined, Hauser's Law. Revenues actually tend to stay the same as a percentage of GDP. Because of this, the best way to increase revenue is not to radically increase rates, but to expand the economy.
I'm 100% in support of sweeping tax policy reform, I do not support the system in place.
But I don't think you understand the enormity of our financial problems. We can't tax our way out of that. It's simply not possible. You'd eventually be taxing at such exorbitant rates that the economy would be grinding to a halt.
Your argument is based in the presumption that we aren't collecting enough money. The issue is that we spend to much, the government is involved in far too many things it has no right to be in and no competency to perform.
If you want to increase revenue, the BEST way is to increase economic activity. And we CAN NOT continue to borrow money.
Not only does all that federal borrowing make it more difficult for regular citizens to borrow money, but as we get closer to defaulting on that debt, who is going to buy into our corrupt monetary system?
No. Clinton was able to pass a tax increase with his majority in Congress and it happened to coincide with the tech boom, which popped in 1999. The Republicans came into office in 1995 and then aggressively attempted to cut spending and reign in the Clinton agenda. That wasn't agreement.
The only agreement came when Reagan and the Democrats had an agreement for Reagan to agree to some tax increases provided that each dollar increase was matched by $2 of budget cuts. The Democrats then reigned on the deal.
Ultimately, as mentioned before, we just have to go back and realize what the role of the federal government is supposed to be. It's not supposed to provide cradle to grave care. It's not supposed to be an instrumental of wealth redistribution. The federal government has a fairly limited responsibility. If you support vast social spending, that can be provided at the state and local levels.
The longer it takes for us to acknowledge the coming catastrophe, the less time we will have to respond, and that increase the pain experienced. We can't sustain those programs. It's not a matter of balancing the budgets on the back of the poor, it's a matter of phasing into a system that will work before everything implodes upon them.
Of course, this has nothing to do with expansion of executive office power, but....