Shodan Has Issues with Dean

[Shodan]

In this thread, Avalonian and some others are taking great umbrage that conservatives don’t want to talk about the issues with Dean. AFAICT, “refusing to talk about the issues” means anything other than accusing Bush of the usual malfeasances, ranging from lying about Iraq to being ahead in the polls.

With dauntless optimism, I am assuming that they will be able to discuss “the issues” without immediately and determinedly reverting to the usual “Bush lied!” that seems to sum up that side of the campaign so far on the SDMB.

(Cites are from www.deanforamerica.com unless otherwise linked.)

The Bush tax cuts amount to about $48 billion a year for the next ten years.

Dean has promised to eliminate the cuts. Assuming that all the tax increase will go to reducing the deficit, we now have a deficit of roughly $450 billion per year.

He has also promised

Governor Dean will begin his work to improve the economy by proposing a two- year, $100 billion Fund to Restore America…"

So the deficit will go back to $500 billion per year (according to his website).

Dean will also increase spending on Homeland Security.

The Governor will also make a long- term commitment to increase funding by at least $5 billion a year over currently proposed Bush administration levels.

So the deficit goes to $505B.

Dean seems to want two things at once, in that he says

I will work to eliminate tax policies that provide incentives for American firms to move manufacturing jobs offshore.

As well as

Unfair tax subsidies, shelters and loopholes abound. Corporations use foreign tax havens solely to avoid paying US income taxes. Tax cheats escape detection and prosecution. Abusive tax shelters are commonplace.

Governor Dean will make fundamental reform of the tax system one of his first priorities. He will crack down on tax shelter promoters and their clients He will pursue actions to impose hefty fines and bar further practice before government agencies by lawyers and accountants who certify abusive tax shelters.

So apparently he wants to attract and keep more businesses in America by increasing their taxes. Go figure.

I will assume for the moment that going in two directions like this will not achieve anything, and that any increase in corporate taxes will be offset by lost businesses. And vice versa, any change in business retention will be offset by tax shelters and so forth. So this won’t affect the deficit, at least in theory.

He also wants to increase spending on Medicare drug benefits, which he says don’t cover enough people.

Dean on the Medicare bill - "When this bill actually starts working in 2006, tens of millions of Americans will be worse off than they are today.
Millions of middle-class seniors will pay stiff premiums but get no drugs for months at a time. Seven million seniors will pay higher premiums unless they give up their doctor and join untested, unreliable Medicare HMOs. Almost three million retirees will lose their existing coverage. Six million low-income seniors
will pay more–not less–for their drugs. ’

http://iowa.deanforamerica.com/node/view/1295

So we aren’t going to save any money there. A rough but
conservative guess would be, what, a further $10 billion per year? $20 billion? Let’s be safe and guess $10 billion. Now the deficit is $515 billion per year.

Make the same guess about Social Security, about which he says,

Assure that Social Security and Medicare are adequately funded to meet the needs of the next generation of retirees.

He won’t raise the retirement age, either -

There is no need to raise the retirement age.

• so this is going to cost more. Make another guess - $40 billion.
  Now the deficit is $555 billion a year.

Add to that the rest of his spending proposals - so far - such as

I will increase federal funding for quality preschool and child care for middle- and lower-income families.

No figures on how much he will increase it, so I won’t make a guess.

He is going to set up another branch of the Small Business
Administration to lend more money - he says that small business in America needs $140 billion dollars in loans. But he only wants to cover a billion of that. No figures again, so let’s ignore that as irrelevant, neither helping nor hurting the deficit.

Governor Dean will pledge to the American people that a Dean administration in Washington will do what the Dean administration did in Vermont: we will balance the budget."

From 1994 to 2001, the rule known as “Pay as you go” was in effect in the U.S. Senate. The rule required that there must be a 60% “super majority” of Senators to approve legislation that would increase the federal deficit over a 10-year period. In other words, new programs or increased funding had to be paid for with revenues or savings, not more borrowing. … It is a guiding principle of his fiscal philosophy that the government must learn to live within its means.

This after increasing the deficit by $55B per year, and raising taxes.

So the issue I would like to discuss is, is it that Dean can’t count, or that he is hoping that I can’t count? Even based on what he is willing to admit to, there is no chance that he can do anything good for the economy.

Regards,
Shodan

[elucidator]

I see. Well, you make a pretty interesting primae facia case, if everything you say is true. There are much more talented cite-ferrets than I, so I won’t go there. (OK,OK, they’re just not as lazy! Happy now?!..)

But given your clear contempt for Mr. Deans policy, perhaps you could take just a moment to explain why a policy of cutting your revenue stream at the same moment as you squander a gazillion bucks in a meaningless military adventure makes economic sense?

About which he lied, lest we forget.

[stolichnaya]

I take it there are no revenue-building or money-saving programs described on Dean’s site at all, besides raising taxes?

[Shodan]

I take it there are no revenue-building or money-saving programs described on Dean’s site at all, besides raising taxes?

I didn’t see any references to cuts of anything.

His main push is to create jobs, allegedly, but it seems to be mostly the same thing I objected to - growing the economy by taxing the hell out of businesses. His Small Business Administration thing is just loans, but very small change, as mentioned.

I suspect he wants to pull out of Iraq, but he gives no idea of how much he would save by doing so and how soon we can expect to spend that too. He speaks against HMOs, so I am not sure how he expects to save money on health care spending either. He says a couple of times he thinks prescription drugs should be cheaper as well - I imagine he is going to pass laws on how much drug companies will charge or something. No specifics again.

I found most of the hard figures I could dig out, and the rest is rather vague boilerplate about putting America first or some such. He expects that everyone will save a lot with government providing health care to everyone, but doesn’t give any specifics.

Regards,
Shodan

[absoul]

So… right now we have a deficit of 450 billion dollars a year. How exactly are you going to say that Deans plan could possibly be worse? Am I missing something here?

[Shodan]

Because adding together his figures makes it look very much like Dean is going to make the deficit worse. And that his economic thinking is fuzzy and contradictory at best, and that he is an outright liar at worst.

Regards,
Shodan

[jshore]

*Originally posted by Shodan *
The Bush tax cuts amount to about $48 billion a year for the next ten years.

And, Shodan seems to have a little issue of reading comprehension. What the link says is that the tax cuts on the top 1% amount to $477 billion over 10 years. The total amount of all the tax cuts is more than that. Not all of the tax cuts go to the top 1%…even if a very large share do. Also, note that the tax cuts phase in and such so that you can’t just take the cost over 10 years and divide by 10.

So, first, you might try to find a figure showing the full extent of the tax cuts per year once they are all phased in. My guess is the number will be in the range of $200-$250 billion a year but that it is only a rough guess.

Dean has promised to eliminate the cuts. Assuming that all the tax increase will go to reducing the deficit, we now have a deficit of roughly $450 billion per year.

Well, the deficit is due to a lot of things. Some of it is due to the slowdown in the economy for example. Noone has claimed that the full $450 billion is due to the tax cuts. (Or, if they did, they were wrong.)

Anyway…that’s enough for now. I don’t really have the time or energy to deconstruct your full post.

Carry on.

[Ravenman]

*Originally posted by Shodan *
The Bush tax cuts amount to about $48 billion a year for the next ten years.

Wait, where do you get $48 billion a year? That big-ass chart on the page you linked shows tax cuts of $109 billion in 2005, $149 billion in 2006, and so on, totaling $891 billion in 2006 to 2010.

I’m not saying repealing the tax cuts are a great idea, but I don’t think your math adds up.

[jshore]

*Originally posted by jshore *
Also, note that the tax cuts phase in and such so that you can’t just take the cost over 10 years and divide by 10.

I also believe that CTJ link proceeds the latest round of tax cuts in which some of the cuts were moved up to phase in quicker and more cuts were introduced.

My $200-250 billion guess for the cuts once fully implemented may actually be a bit low if the cuts that currently sunset are made permanent, as Bush desires. At any rate, it is just a guess. I’m sure you can find more accurate estimates.

[Jackmannii]

It is the end of a very long day at work and I am bushed (ha!), but I suspect that even if I was not, Shodan’s math looks easily as fishy as Dean’s (notably re the impact of GWB’s tax cuts).

I don’t figure any Democratic President to do much about balancing the budget, but (and this is a marvel of modern times) I don’t see them making any bigger of a deficit mess than the Republicans.

GWB & Co. have wiped out the issue of fiscal responsibility, once a reasonably consistent GOP theme. I’m thinking about other issues (energy security, jobs, the environment, MidEast policy etc.).

Based on those issues I definitely won’t vote for Bush and might very well vote for a Democrat.

Now home to collapse into a hot bowl of pasta.

[John_Mace]

During the debate on Sunday, Dean said he expected to balance the budget by 2011 (in the 6th year of his time as prez).

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

Discussing Bush’s economic policies at this point is like complaining about a burglar who farts in your house. It’s an aggravating factor and it’s offensive, to be sure, but the overriding priority is to get the criminal out of your house.

Bush’s tax cuts, while irresponsible, are secondary to the fact that he is a liar and a war criminal. Let’s get the criminals out of the White House and then we can have a discussion of economic policies. If conservatives want to put up a Republican alternative to Bush, that’s fine too and let the policy debates begin but Bush’s actions in Iraq have rendered his economic policies irrelevant, IMO.

[SnoopyFan]

Shodan, you basically have their answer: fingers in their ears, lalala, they can’t hear you

[Tars_Tarkas]

as he hasn’t mentioned invading a random nation due to lies, lies, and more lies, he sounds better than the current embarassment sliming his way through the White House. Of course, a bucket of slime would be better than what we got now.

[elucidator]

How big is the bucket? We talking primo slime, or business class?

[Sam_Stone]

Isn’t it cool how you can be accused of not wanting to talk about Dean’s plans, but when you start a thread where you try to talk about Dean’s plans it immediately devolves into another Bush-bashing thread?

Could I make a suggestion? In the interest of having an interesting debate about HOWARD DEAN, could the Bush-bashers please give it a rest? There are plenty of other I-hate-Bush threads, don’t you think?

Back to Dean:

The most frightening and idiotic thing in his whole platform is this notion that he wants to ‘re-regulate’ business. He wants Federal oversight of every business that offers stock options. He wants to re-regulate telecom, the media, airlines, you name it.

Bill Clinton declared, “The era of Big Government is over.” Howard Dean says, “I will usher in the era of big government.”

Aren’t there ANY moderate Democrats on this board who get a little queasy with all this talk of raising taxes on businesses and re-regulating them? What’s next, managed industrial policy? We left behind this crap in the 70’s, and the next two decades brought massive increases in the standard of living. Why in hell would you want to go back to a heavily regulated economy?

[elucidator]

That’s rich, Sam! First you scold all those nasty little “Bush-bashers” for preventing an “interesting debate” (presumably civil and high-tone) then you dive in: “idiotic” “frightening”! Yeah, guy, way to lift the level of the discourse!

Do I want business regulated? Well, no, not forever, just till such a time as I can trust business to regard my capacity to breathe as being as important as thier next stock option. That would be nice.

[John_Mace]

So, the only input we have so far is “he’s not Bush”. That ain’t nuthin’ to win no election on.

Jesus, folks, are you going to force me to go to his web site and figure it out myself? Isn’t there some Dean geek out there who’s just dying to outline Dean’s fundamental policies. This is the internet, after all-- Dean’s preferred geography. If we asked this about Kucinich, we’d get BrainGlutton to pop in and post 20 paragraphs about that guy’s position, plus a link to 10 artilces and 2 books by Michael Lind.

Perhaps we should phrase the question differently to bait the trap better: If Dean were a character in The Lord of the Rings, what would his policies be?

[minty_green]

Aragorn had policies?

[minty_green]

Actually, now that I think about it, he did have one clear policy: Kicking Sauron’s ass.