Dead Man Walking: The President Obama won't be reelected thread. - Page 9

What's sad is that this is certainly not the first time that this budget gimmick has been exposed on these boards--yet President Obama does not get any fucking credit from these allegedly fiscal conservatives for stopping the abuse of said gimmick (please, wingers, give him credit if only to spite me and prove me wrong).

Ah! There you go expecting logic again! Shame on you!

It's possible that they are not reported in the National Debt figures. I don't follow US budgets to that degree of detail. And the bloated U.S. government's accounting procedures can't really be penetrated by a stable mind. But I doubt you would find many conservatives that would agree this policy.

I've been in the thread discussing Obama's Stimulus for a long time and I don't recall this mentioned. (It might have been but I didn't notice it.) When our provincial Conservative government left office, the provincial Liberals had a field-day with the "real" budget numbers they inherited. Nobody went anywhere without hearing about the "real 5.7 Billion dollar deficit they inherited."

If Democrats fought an entire U.S. election without mentioning far and wide that Bush admin deficit was orders of magnitude higher than it really was - and I mean actually naming a correct figure - that party really is even more incompetent than I imagined.

It was mentioned...probably not enough...but I don't think it got much traction in the conservative echo chambers that you probably frequent, either.

You mean like this one?

You and your friends do have a way of ignoring reality.

From the NYT:



We owe most of the debt to ourselves.

Probably true, but two points:

1. A nation is just as broke even if the money owing is owed to its own citizens.

2. The descriptions for the debt seem to leave out the building of the unprecedented national security apparatus after that small thing called 9/11. Not questioning that Bush 2 spent money like a drunken sailor, but that seems like a really odd thing to leave out.

We didn't need that apparatus. We only needed Bush to pay attention to the CIA reports prior to 9/11 that bin Laden was planning to strike the US with airplanes. Building up this nonsensically huge, wasteful, and freedom-stifling national security theater company is like closing and locking the barn door well after the horses already escaped. It was stupid and wasteful.

No comments on the SOTU speech?

Did anyone see the Treasury Secretary's face when Obama called for the savings to be divided into half debt repayment and half for new infrastructure spending? Amazing TV moment.

What savings are there to spend exactly? Isn't the U.S. government currently living on borrowed money?

Of course they did. Would you expect anything else? While you can contend that the numbers can be manipulated to support the president's position, you have no right to deny that the numbers can be manipulated to attack the president's position.

Watching the SOTU...Obama announces that 3 million jobs were created over the last 22 months. Boehner looks upset and isn't clapping. Shocking.

"Tonight, the American Automotive Industry is back." Boehner still looks pissed.

Ooh, a begrudging clap from Boehner for MasterLock bringing jobs back home. It hurts him sooooo much to give Obama any credit or support.

Wow, I thought Boehner looked upset. Eric Cantor looked like he wanted to stab someone when Obama demanded tax cuts for businesses that brought jobs back home.

Stop the interest rates on tuition loans from doubling? Mr. Orange Scowleypants is none too pleased.

Wait, Mr. Orange Scowleypants didn't clap with everyone else for women earning equal pay for equal work? For fuck's sake. Partisanship runs so deep with that one.

Senator Sad Turtle looked conflicted when told that we imported less foreign oil last year than any time in the previous 16.

Just got to the point of the SOTU that you are referring to. I'm guessing the half for paying down the debt is simply not spending that money. Take half the money we were spending on the Iraq war and do nation building at home and save the rest to shrink the deficit. To be clear, at 1am I can't think of a reasonable way to borrow money to pay down the debt (unless the new loans somehow have a lower interest rate maybe?).

"Send me a bill that bans inside trading by members of congress and I'll sign it tomorrow." Well, that's fantastic. Seriously. That DEFINITELY needs to be done. And so many in the gallery showed their support--but I'll fucking believe it when I see it. Congressfolks voting against their own interests AND supporting ANYTHING the president wants? Seems unlikely.

Has anyone found out why John Kerry showed up last night with two black eyes?

Is there a Senatorial Fight Club we don't know about?

jimmac, the negotiation issue was well covered. They had made progress on certain issues...agreements in principle, if you will. At the next negotiation session, Obama pretended they had never agreed on those items, going back to a more extreme position instead. And they DID pass bill after bill, only to have them stopped in the Senate.

The chart is absurd. First, the Bush Tax cuts did NOT "cost" money that we would have otherwise taken in. Secondly, the 2001 recession was not of Bush's making as it started before he took office. Third, the chart is biased. Look at Reagan's portion...it's called "peacetime defense spending." Righto.

He broke it playing hockey.



As for the SOTU: I thought it was a mostly uninspiring speech, but it wasn't as partisan as I expected. That being said, his main themes were:

1) The economy is doing great and jobs are being created all over the place.

2) Raise taxes on the rich to make things "more fair."

3) Talk about the importance of oil right after killing the Keystone XL pipeline.

4) Punish certain businesses who try to escape our job-killing tax and regulator burden, reward others that act as you think they should.

Funny myself and many others remember history differently.

Liar.

Try going to work next month and tell your boss that it's okay, he only needs to pay you half your paycheck. That may help the economics of your struggling company if you did so. Then go home and tell your wife that you didn't just cost her half the income from your job. Go ahead.

You lie just so that you can defy simple logic.

Stop lying.

Your stuck in the simpleton's zero sum game.

Yeah that's it. That's exactly why the Bush tax cuts saved us from the pending economic problems. Oh, wait.

Sometimes the simple math equation is the correct math equation.

Are you really claiming our economy tanked because the government didn't tax us enough?

You have no idea what the hell you're talking about as that analogy is totally invalid. I'm not sure what it is with liberals like yourselves and your inability to understand that taxation is not zero sum. You don't get X revenue from Y taxation, because said taxation affects economic activity. More activity=more revenue. Less activity=less revenue. This has been proven time and time again, yet you fail to see it. How is that possible?

Put another way, you are looking at revenue baseline. Let's say that number is $2 Trillion. Projected revenues with current tax rates are to increase $100 billion a year. But, there is a recession. Revenue begins to decline as a result, and in reality is set to decrease by $50 billion a year. Enter stimulative tax cuts. Revenue initially drops by $200 billion to "pay" for the tax cuts. However, economic activity increases, thereby resulting in more revenue. At the end of 4 years, revenue has not gone down...it has gone up. Revenue is now $2.4 Trillion or higher, but with LOWER tax rates than 4 years prior. Tell me, how does this happen?

The above is not a difficult concept. As I said, it has been proven several times over. Reagan's cuts are the best example, where despite drastically reduced rates, revenue doubled over his term. It was only the actual spending that pushed us into deficits. Some of that was defense driven (which I argue was needed), and some was domestic non-defense, which should have been decreased.

What's the matter SDW? Some people not seeing it your way? Could it be a difference in the way you reason?

Yes, SDW. That's exactly what I think.

Of course I know that over-taxation can affect economic activity. And I also know that reducing taxes too much reduces government revenue.

I know that it's not a zero sum game. Do you have the slightest clue that it's not a black and white game?


Apparently not. And you're the one calling my reasoning simplistic!?

I don't know what it is with right wingers like you!

That's the theory, and it works when there is actually taxation at a level that discourages business activity before the tax cuts are made. In this case we were nowhere near that level, so the tax cuts had zero positive effect. No one invested a single dollar after the cuts than they would have invested had there not been cuts. These tax cuts did nothing but reduce revenue.

Apparently, yes.


Define "over-taxation" and "too much."


I really don't think you do understand it. If you did, your position would not be what it is.


I'm not a right winger. I am a fiscal and security conservative with libertarian leanings. I am a moderate several issues, including abortion, immigration, drugs and to some extent, gay marriage. Nah nah nah do do, stick your head in doo doo.

Over taxation of business is when businesses are deterred from being productive in a particular location because it's no longer of economic value to do so, as opposed to moving somewhere else. We're not even there anywhere in Europe, much less the US. US businesses can afford higher taxes, and that won't stop investment within the US.

Businesses are in business to make money. They're not all of the sudden going to stop trying to make money just because their taxes aren't going down. They also prefer to do business where it's comfortable, and where the people involved in the business can have a secure, comfortable standard of living. Just because it's cheaper to do business in Vietnam doesn't mean businesses will suddenly move to Vietnam. Just because it's cheaper to live in Tijuana doesn't mean my parents will be moving their house from San Diego any time soon.

Too much tax reduction is when the government passes the point where there is a negative impact on revenue growth, and improvements on the livelihood of the middle and lower classes. It doesn't necessarily mean net revenue reduction, though it can. It means revenue would have grown more had the taxes not been further cut. Likewise, just because revenue goes up, it doesn't mean that it might not have gone up even more in a period of growth or recovery absent the excessive tax cuts.

When revenue goes down (or goes up too little) to the point that you cannot afford to offer citizens reasonable government services, like universal health care, part of every first world government around the world except one, then you need to consider that maybe you need to look more closely at the variables in the equation.

Any more questions? Seems you have a lot to learn.

Honestly, we probably both have an understanding of how this works. Let's say the X axis is tax level. Too far the right, taxes are too high. Too far to the left, taxes are too low.

The place where we differ is not even where the center of the curve is. The place we differ in philosophy is what the y axis optimally is. What is it we're trying to maximize?

You may say, for instance, that the Y axis is progress, productivity, maybe GDP... maybe, if you're really forward thinking, it's something like economic freedom.

I say the Y axis should be sustainable minimum standard of living balanced with economic freedom. Standard of living for the poor isn't even part of your equation, or so it would seem. Or perhaps you think that higher progress or productivity enables a higher standard of living for the masses. That's somewhat true, but what you fail to realize is that it does not do so necessarily. Productivity can go up even while standard of living goes down. This is exactly what we should strive to avoid.

Now go ahead. Accuse me of simplistic thinking. Ass.

Tonton, you make an excellent analysis here. I really hope there is an honest person somewhere deep down inside SDW, but I fear your explanations will be for naught. If it's any consolation, I enjoyed reading them.

Our regulatory and tax burden are precisely why we are losing jobs. Businesses are already over taxes. The proof is in the pudding, tonton.


Why in the world would they? Lower taxes encourage more investment in the business. Businesses make more profits and create jobs with those profits. That's how it works.


Unless the location is truly undesirable, business will move where they can succeed most. Period.


Right, so we're close to that now, hmmm?


But you have no idea when that point is, and cannot show any example of it.


But you can't show that it WOULD. That's the entire point.


Reasonable government services are defense, law and order, maintaining infrastructure and education. We go way, way, way beyond "reasonable" with our government spending.


That doesn't make it right, or constitutional.


You're the one that actually believes that taxes aren't high enough, as if that's the problem.

Was the name calling really necessary? As for this post, the problem is that your beliefs about what should actually should be done with taxes have nothing to do with what you wrote above. Either that, or you're simply wrong about what the problem with our tax code is.