And so the ping-pong game of political debate returns to another thread...
Honestly...do all (ALL) of you just copy/paste previous threads over and over and over again?
Redundancey abounds at AO...
There are no real choices for me in this election. Yet I know this election, whether who will win, will alter the course of US and World history beyond anyones control...and in a bad way.
Off topic, but you're wrong with your first statement. The rich pay a HUGE majority of the taxes.
This is a good place to bring in something I wrote in response to this commentary by John Stossel: "But let's remember the facts: the top 1 percent of Americans ? those who earn more than about $300,000 a year ? pay 34 percent, more than a third of all income taxes, and the top 5 percent, those making over $125,000, pay more than half."
The problem here is with assuming that the IRS statistics about the top 1 or 5 percent of taxable income has anything much to do with the top 1 or 5 percent of the wealthiest Americans. The wealthy, especially the super wealthy, have many ways of shielding increases in personal wealth from being considered "income" as defined by the IRS, especially taxable income. A lot of wealth is completely, and deliberately, off this form of radar.
Consider these figures. According to those figures, the top 5% of wealth holders (a different, and wealthier group than the top 5% of income tax payers) own 50% of the wealth in the US. That's like one person in twenty having as much wealth as the other 19 out of 20 combined.
If these top 5% were to pay 50% of all US taxes, that would merely be "breaking even" in a completely non-progressive tax system. But the top 5% of wealth holders only partially overlaps with the less wealthy top 5% of taxable income earners. The top 5% of wealth holders have large amounts of untaxed wealth, and therefore pay a counter-progressively smaller portion of their wealth as taxes.
Further consider that the statistics I linked to above are 1997 data, before the current round of lopsided Bush tax cuts were enacted, and I'd say that there's some fairly solid ground for thinking that the rich are truly getting off easy when it comes to taxes. Not only that, but the rich getting richer won't do much if anything to help increase tax revenues. Only if the rich get richer in fully taxable ways -- which the rich work very hard not to do -- will the public as a whole benefit from their wealth increasing. (Unless of course you wish to believe in fairy tales like "trickle down".)
Granted, it's within the margin of error. But, this is a stunning trend. Kerry was leading Bush by up to 7 points a month ago. This represents a 10 point shift in some cases.
Given the absolute barrage of criticism from Clarke et al, Bush's numbers should be falling. But they're not. Has the GOP ad machine been effective? It seems so. I'm not sure the polls matter at this point in the game, but I am suprised Bush's numbers haven't tanked.
Some pundits have predicted that Kerry may run out of ammo from an attack standpoint. He's been pretty effective with harping on "job losses", but risks "attack fatigue" because he's been saying the same thing for 18 months. Now, I do question if the same will happen to Bush, whose obviously gone negative in response.
BTW, I also don't believe there is true enthusiasm for Kerry, and that the Clintons are going to help torpedo him as the race goes on. Flame away.
Do you know what margin of error means? To look at it any way other than within the realm of error is inaccurate. These polls mean nothing other than to tell us everything is up for grabs.
I agree about the nation being split. but the pointi s the trend, not the number. After Bush's last few weeks, he should be tanking, but he's not. It's odd.
Why should he be tanking? I don't see any Bush supporter dropping their support for GWB. There are those who even say he is not really a conservative, but they will still support him. It really doesn't matter what Bush does, as long as he has an R next to his name on the ballet that is all that counts. Even when the President had 80+% approval rates, a vote would have come down to a 50/50 split among the voters.
November will be about 1 or 2 states, Florida, Ohio, whatever state that is in play. Heck, one or the other could win 350+ electoral votes yet only get 49% of the vote while the other gets 48%.
Quote:
As for economics, I don't agree. I think tax cuts work, and yes...even when they're for the rich. But that's another topic.
Um, isn't anything less than a 10 percentage point lead for an incumbent usually considered to be a stunning setback?
No matter who wins, I doubt we will see any decent changes. The Republican is all over the political spectrum in his policy decisions, and the liberal is the same way, but with the different interpretations of his voting record. Bush reminds me of Napoleon III of France.
Um, isn't anything less than a 10 percentage point lead for an incumbent usually considered to be a stunning setback?
No matter who wins, I doubt we will see any decent changes. The Republican is all over the political spectrum in his policy decisions, and the liberal is the same way, but with the different interpretations of his voting record. Bush reminds me of Napoleon III of France.
That's out of line re: Napolean. That kind of attack is why Bush is going to win again. It's unreasonable. Secondly, be aware that Bush 41 was down 17 points to Dukakis in 1988 (in JULY!) and Clinton was down like 30 points in late 1995. That's approximate and I don't have time to find the link.
Why should he be tanking? I don't see any Bush supporter dropping their support for GWB. There are those who even say he is not really a conservative, but they will still support him. It really doesn't matter what Bush does, as long as he has an R next to his name on the ballet that is all that counts. Even when the President had 80+% approval rates, a vote would have come down to a 50/50 split among the voters.
November will be about 1 or 2 states, Florida, Ohio, whatever state that is in play. Heck, one or the other could win 350+ electoral votes yet only get 49% of the vote while the other gets 48%.
Yes, leave it for another topic.
Bush has been under an all out assault for 4 months. His opponents have accused him of everything in the book. He should be tanking right now. The election will be close as you've said, though. I'm not sure I agree about the 80% approval rating thing/point you made though.
Bush has been under an all out assault for 4 months. His opponents have accused him of everything in the book. He should be tanking right now. The election will be close as you've said, though. I'm not sure I agree about the 80% approval rating thing/point you made though.
The humungous amount of money raised by the Bush team is probably going to be the telling factor in the next election (if Diebold etc. permits anyhting resembling a fair election). It will be blanket pro-Bush attack ads swamping the media in the weeks leading up to the election, and will probably be sufficient to dupe the majority of Americans. I predict Bush to win by about 4%.
Even the curent series of major scandals are not having any noticeable effect, apart from a very gradual decline in Bush approval rates (approx. 75% a year ago, approx. 50% now). The possible thing which will really change the outcome is if something in Kerry's past surfaces that is as significant as cocaine abuse, alcoholism, drunken driving offenses, insider trading or going AWOL, for example. The media will jump all over it and milk it like there was no tomorrow....like "Whitewatergate" and Clinton.
It's hard to tell what effect Nader is having. Nader himself was saying recently that he is taking votes away almost equally from both Bush and Kerry....but I do not know what polling sources he used to come up with that.
No. But now of course you'll try and go back to 9/11 and try and trend from there. Oh look! Bush has lost 50 points!
This will probably go back and forth many times between now and Nov. But the trend has not been good for Bush. Also it's a far cry from " Bush wins all 50 states! ".
What so surprising about it? It's a 50/50 country. If Nader wasn't included, it would be even closer would it not?
It appears to me that nothing will sway the base support of either candidate. Even with the barrage of bad press for Bush in the last few weeks, the Republican friends I have have not dropped their support. The same goes for Bush's "anti-conservative" economic politics (*), my friends will still vote for Bush even though his actions have betrayed the principles they subscribe too.
(*) In reality, I agree with BRussell's opinion about the Reagonite economics. The economic policy executed and propogandized by conservatives when they are in power is nothing but campaign economics. They do it because it gets them elected, regardless of the economic reality.
Bush has been under an all out assault for 4 months. His opponents have accused him of everything in the book. He should be tanking right now. The election will be close as you've said, though. I'm not sure I agree about the 80% approval rating thing/point you made though.
Have you dropped your support for Bush? Ie, won't vote for him. If you haven't, what makes you different from other would be Bush-supporters?
Approval ratings are a second order indicator of voting trends. I'd think party loyalty is the number one thing. Witness the number of Republicans who had to hold their nose and vote for the Medicare bill. As today and in November, Republicans will hold their nose and support the President. It's better to do that than support and vote for Kerry, who in the end may be better for them.
Except he can't win against Bush. I'd vote for the man also but there's no way and I don't want Bush for a second term. Have him run when there's less dire need to get rid of who's already there.
Comments
Honestly...do all (ALL) of you just copy/paste previous threads over and over and over again?
Redundancey abounds at AO...
There are no real choices for me in this election. Yet I know this election, whether who will win, will alter the course of US and World history beyond anyones control...and in a bad way.
Originally posted by SDW2001
Off topic, but you're wrong with your first statement. The rich pay a HUGE majority of the taxes.
This is a good place to bring in something I wrote in response to this commentary by John Stossel: "But let's remember the facts: the top 1 percent of Americans ? those who earn more than about $300,000 a year ? pay 34 percent, more than a third of all income taxes, and the top 5 percent, those making over $125,000, pay more than half."
The problem here is with assuming that the IRS statistics about the top 1 or 5 percent of taxable income has anything much to do with the top 1 or 5 percent of the wealthiest Americans. The wealthy, especially the super wealthy, have many ways of shielding increases in personal wealth from being considered "income" as defined by the IRS, especially taxable income. A lot of wealth is completely, and deliberately, off this form of radar.
Consider these figures. According to those figures, the top 5% of wealth holders (a different, and wealthier group than the top 5% of income tax payers) own 50% of the wealth in the US. That's like one person in twenty having as much wealth as the other 19 out of 20 combined.
If these top 5% were to pay 50% of all US taxes, that would merely be "breaking even" in a completely non-progressive tax system. But the top 5% of wealth holders only partially overlaps with the less wealthy top 5% of taxable income earners. The top 5% of wealth holders have large amounts of untaxed wealth, and therefore pay a counter-progressively smaller portion of their wealth as taxes.
Further consider that the statistics I linked to above are 1997 data, before the current round of lopsided Bush tax cuts were enacted, and I'd say that there's some fairly solid ground for thinking that the rich are truly getting off easy when it comes to taxes. Not only that, but the rich getting richer won't do much if anything to help increase tax revenues. Only if the rich get richer in fully taxable ways -- which the rich work very hard not to do -- will the public as a whole benefit from their wealth increasing. (Unless of course you wish to believe in fairy tales like "trickle down".)
Originally posted by Artman @_@
Honestly...do all (ALL) of you just copy/paste previous threads over and over and over again?
Funny... I just saw this comment of yours after literally copying and pasting something I wrote in another thread.
But only because it really belonged here more than it did in Generel Discussion.
So, err, uh... guilty as charged... but with a flimsy excuse at least.
At least I edited the text a bit after pasting it in.
Originally posted by SDW2001
From pollingreport.com:
Granted, it's within the margin of error. But, this is a stunning trend. Kerry was leading Bush by up to 7 points a month ago. This represents a 10 point shift in some cases.
Given the absolute barrage of criticism from Clarke et al, Bush's numbers should be falling. But they're not. Has the GOP ad machine been effective? It seems so. I'm not sure the polls matter at this point in the game, but I am suprised Bush's numbers haven't tanked.
Some pundits have predicted that Kerry may run out of ammo from an attack standpoint. He's been pretty effective with harping on "job losses", but risks "attack fatigue" because he's been saying the same thing for 18 months. Now, I do question if the same will happen to Bush, whose obviously gone negative in response.
BTW, I also don't believe there is true enthusiasm for Kerry, and that the Clintons are going to help torpedo him as the race goes on. Flame away.
Do you know what margin of error means? To look at it any way other than within the realm of error is inaccurate. These polls mean nothing other than to tell us everything is up for grabs.
Originally posted by Jubelum
So, this poll, and thus this thread, are meaningless. Right. Polls showing Kerry in the lead were worth a thread at one time recently.
Nope. It's an aberration. The general trend for Bush has been lost popularity.
Originally posted by SDW2001
I agree about the nation being split. but the pointi s the trend, not the number. After Bush's last few weeks, he should be tanking, but he's not. It's odd.
Why should he be tanking? I don't see any Bush supporter dropping their support for GWB. There are those who even say he is not really a conservative, but they will still support him. It really doesn't matter what Bush does, as long as he has an R next to his name on the ballet that is all that counts. Even when the President had 80+% approval rates, a vote would have come down to a 50/50 split among the voters.
November will be about 1 or 2 states, Florida, Ohio, whatever state that is in play. Heck, one or the other could win 350+ electoral votes yet only get 49% of the vote while the other gets 48%.
As for economics, I don't agree. I think tax cuts work, and yes...even when they're for the rich. But that's another topic.
Yes, leave it for another topic.
No matter who wins, I doubt we will see any decent changes. The Republican is all over the political spectrum in his policy decisions, and the liberal is the same way, but with the different interpretations of his voting record. Bush reminds me of Napoleon III of France.
Originally posted by jimmac
Nope. It's an aberration. The general trend for Bush has been lost popularity.
No. But now of course you'll try and go back to 9/11 and try and trend from there. Oh look! Bush has lost 50 points!
Originally posted by Crusader
Um, isn't anything less than a 10 percentage point lead for an incumbent usually considered to be a stunning setback?
No matter who wins, I doubt we will see any decent changes. The Republican is all over the political spectrum in his policy decisions, and the liberal is the same way, but with the different interpretations of his voting record. Bush reminds me of Napoleon III of France.
That's out of line re: Napolean. That kind of attack is why Bush is going to win again. It's unreasonable. Secondly, be aware that Bush 41 was down 17 points to Dukakis in 1988 (in JULY!) and Clinton was down like 30 points in late 1995. That's approximate and I don't have time to find the link.
Originally posted by THT
Why should he be tanking? I don't see any Bush supporter dropping their support for GWB. There are those who even say he is not really a conservative, but they will still support him. It really doesn't matter what Bush does, as long as he has an R next to his name on the ballet that is all that counts. Even when the President had 80+% approval rates, a vote would have come down to a 50/50 split among the voters.
November will be about 1 or 2 states, Florida, Ohio, whatever state that is in play. Heck, one or the other could win 350+ electoral votes yet only get 49% of the vote while the other gets 48%.
Yes, leave it for another topic.
Bush has been under an all out assault for 4 months. His opponents have accused him of everything in the book. He should be tanking right now. The election will be close as you've said, though. I'm not sure I agree about the 80% approval rating thing/point you made though.
Time for food. Bye bye.
Originally posted by SDW2001
Bush has been under an all out assault for 4 months. His opponents have accused him of everything in the book. He should be tanking right now. The election will be close as you've said, though. I'm not sure I agree about the 80% approval rating thing/point you made though.
The humungous amount of money raised by the Bush team is probably going to be the telling factor in the next election (if Diebold etc. permits anyhting resembling a fair election). It will be blanket pro-Bush attack ads swamping the media in the weeks leading up to the election, and will probably be sufficient to dupe the majority of Americans. I predict Bush to win by about 4%.
Even the curent series of major scandals are not having any noticeable effect, apart from a very gradual decline in Bush approval rates (approx. 75% a year ago, approx. 50% now). The possible thing which will really change the outcome is if something in Kerry's past surfaces that is as significant as cocaine abuse, alcoholism, drunken driving offenses, insider trading or going AWOL, for example. The media will jump all over it and milk it like there was no tomorrow....like "Whitewatergate" and Clinton.
It's hard to tell what effect Nader is having. Nader himself was saying recently that he is taking votes away almost equally from both Bush and Kerry....but I do not know what polling sources he used to come up with that.
Originally posted by SDW2001
No. But now of course you'll try and go back to 9/11 and try and trend from there. Oh look! Bush has lost 50 points!
This will probably go back and forth many times between now and Nov. But the trend has not been good for Bush. Also it's a far cry from " Bush wins all 50 states! ".
Originally posted by THT
What so surprising about it? It's a 50/50 country. If Nader wasn't included, it would be even closer would it not?
It appears to me that nothing will sway the base support of either candidate. Even with the barrage of bad press for Bush in the last few weeks, the Republican friends I have have not dropped their support. The same goes for Bush's "anti-conservative" economic politics (*), my friends will still vote for Bush even though his actions have betrayed the principles they subscribe too.
(*) In reality, I agree with BRussell's opinion about the Reagonite economics. The economic policy executed and propogandized by conservatives when they are in power is nothing but campaign economics. They do it because it gets them elected, regardless of the economic reality.
http://billhobbs.com/hobbsonline/003479.html
interesting statistics i just ran across.
Originally posted by SDW2001
Bush has been under an all out assault for 4 months. His opponents have accused him of everything in the book. He should be tanking right now. The election will be close as you've said, though. I'm not sure I agree about the 80% approval rating thing/point you made though.
Have you dropped your support for Bush? Ie, won't vote for him. If you haven't, what makes you different from other would be Bush-supporters?
Approval ratings are a second order indicator of voting trends. I'd think party loyalty is the number one thing. Witness the number of Republicans who had to hold their nose and vote for the Medicare bill. As today and in November, Republicans will hold their nose and support the President. It's better to do that than support and vote for Kerry, who in the end may be better for them.
Originally posted by alcimedes
NADER!!!!
Except he can't win against Bush. I'd vote for the man also but there's no way and I don't want Bush for a second term. Have him run when there's less dire need to get rid of who's already there.
OUT THE DOOR IN 2004!
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/....ap/index.html
http://money.cnn.com/2004/03/31/mark...york/index.htm
I really like this one......
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/....ap/index.html
Medicare "Reform" is becoming a sore spot rather than a bright shiny star.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washing...are-usat_x.htm
http://www.usatoday.com/news/polls/t...icare-poll.htm
War on terror (look at the trendlines)
http://www.gallup.com/content/?ci=11170
A little tid-bit about some poll numbers
http://www.gallup.com/content/defaul...?ci=11101&pg=1
Again though, we are months and months away from the election and things can change quickly.