# An open letter to my Democratic friends, regarding the current political season. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 28, 2005, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-open-letter-to-my-democratic-friends-regarding-the-current-political-season/328349 "2005-10-28T18:56:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Updike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ec9cab/32.png) [@Updike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Updike)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2005, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-open-letter-to-my-democratic-friends-regarding-the-current-political-season/328349/101 "2005-10-30T22:34:35Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > Wish our people were doing the same - I notice your party is cutting Medicaid and food stamps to pay for Katrina, while continuing to seek new tax cuts, rather than reduce old ones to pay for Katrina. Y’all have a lot of gall, hitting up one group of poor people to pay for the misfortune that afflicted another group of poor people, while you continue to shovel money to the rich. If we can’t stop you now, we’ll damned sure make you pay for it at the polls next year. How does “seeking new tax cuts” equal “shoveling money to the rich”? ---
**Author:** ![Noctolator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Noctolator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Noctolator)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2005, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-open-letter-to-my-democratic-friends-regarding-the-current-political-season/328349/102 "2005-10-31T00:28:18Z")
> [@Updike](#): > > How does “seeking new tax cuts” equal “shoveling money to the rich”? [Here](http://www.ctj.org/html/gwb0602.htm) is one study. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2005, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-open-letter-to-my-democratic-friends-regarding-the-current-political-season/328349/103 "2005-10-31T01:48:41Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Maybe the latest will be as big a deal as the Usual Suspects are hoping for. But when Libby was indicted, my local newspaper had to run a half page of columns explaining who the hell he was. The immediacy of the connection between the lone indictee to date, and the Bush White House, is not as compelling to those not already consumed with Bush hatred as to, perhaps, some others. I’ll see your one data point and [raise you several hundred](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/hp/ssi/postpoll102905.htm): > [@](#): > > As you may know, a federal grand jury has indicted Lewis “Scooter” Libby, chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney, on charges of obstruction of justice and perjury in connection with the case in which the identity of an undercover CIA agent was disclosed to news reporters. Libby has resigned his White House position. > > In your opinion, do you think the charge against Libby represents (a serious) crime, or (a minor or technical) one? > > 10/29/05: > Serious crime: 69% > Minor or technical crime: 26% > No opinion: 5% ---
**Author:** ![Updike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ec9cab/32.png) [@Updike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Updike)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2005, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-open-letter-to-my-democratic-friends-regarding-the-current-political-season/328349/104 "2005-10-31T03:18:31Z")
> [@Noctolator](#): > > [Here](http://www.ctj.org/html/gwb0602.htm) is one study. What the heck are you talking about? A tax cut means the government is taking less of **their** money, not giving, or “shoveling” them anything. ---
**Author:** ![Noctolator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Noctolator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Noctolator)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2005, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-open-letter-to-my-democratic-friends-regarding-the-current-political-season/328349/105 "2005-10-31T03:25:15Z")
> [@Updike](#): > > What the heck are you talking about? A tax cut means the government is taking less of **their** money, not giving, or “shoveling” them anything. The study I posted, if you looked at it, demonstrates a net affect of the Bush-style tax cut. If you were to consider the tax money otherwise forfeit, you can see that this style of tax cut “gives back” $477bn to the top 1% of the country between 2001 and 2010 while relieving the bottom 20% of only $20bn of their tax burden. I did not chose the word “shoveling” but I believe that the study I directed you to demonstrates the effect quite nicely regardless. ---
**Author:** ![Updike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ec9cab/32.png) [@Updike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Updike)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2005, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-open-letter-to-my-democratic-friends-regarding-the-current-political-season/328349/106 "2005-10-31T03:39:17Z")
> [@Noctolator](#): > > The study I posted, if you looked at it, demonstrates a net affect of the Bush-style tax cut. > > If you were to consider the tax money otherwise forfeit, you can see that this style of tax cut “gives back” $477bn to the top 1% of the country between 2001 and 2010 while relieving the bottom 20% of only $20bn of their tax burden. > > I did not chose the word “shoveling” but I believe that the study I directed you to demonstrates the effect quite nicely regardless. NO, it most certainly does NOT. A tax cut does not “give back” anything. It’s their freaking money to start with!!! I guess I’ll never understand why you would think otherwise. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2005, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-open-letter-to-my-democratic-friends-regarding-the-current-political-season/328349/107 "2005-10-31T21:19:31Z")
> [@Updike](#): > > What the heck are you talking about? A tax cut means the government is taking less of **their** money, not giving, or “shoveling” them anything. And that “taking less” is absolutely free, with no repercussions? Dayum. I want to live in _your_ economic world. Because in mine, if revenues are already way less than expenses, and then you cut revenues even more, eventually somebody’s got to pay the difference. The difference immediately gets borrowed, but someone’s got to pay the interest on the borrowing. So yes, the money’s being “shoveled” from those who will pay the interest, to those who got the tax cuts. ---
**Author:** ![Debaser](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3da27b/32.png) [@Debaser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Debaser)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2005, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-open-letter-to-my-democratic-friends-regarding-the-current-political-season/328349/108 "2005-10-31T21:35:40Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > Because in mine, if revenues are already way less than expenses, and then you cut revenues even more, eventually somebody’s got to pay the difference. The difference immediately gets borrowed, but someone’s got to pay the interest on the borrowing. OR: You can cut spending. I know, it’s a wild and crazy idea. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2005, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-open-letter-to-my-democratic-friends-regarding-the-current-political-season/328349/109 "2005-10-31T21:39:15Z")
> [@Debaser](#): > > OR: You can cut spending. Guess we’ll have to wait for a Democrat-controlled Congress and White House for that to happen. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2005, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-open-letter-to-my-democratic-friends-regarding-the-current-political-season/328349/110 "2005-10-31T21:41:59Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > And that “taking less” is absolutely free, with no repercussions? > > Dayum. I want to live in _your_ economic world. I assume you are not claiming that “taking more” is absolutely free either. But **Debaser** is quite correct, you are assuming that spending cuts are absolutely out of the question. In other words, there are other economic and political models besides “the government has a right to everything you make, and you ought to be grateful if they let you keep anything about a bare minimum”. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2005, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-open-letter-to-my-democratic-friends-regarding-the-current-political-season/328349/111 "2005-10-31T21:43:17Z")
“Above”, not “about”. :smack: Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Updike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ec9cab/32.png) [@Updike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Updike)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2005, 10:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-open-letter-to-my-democratic-friends-regarding-the-current-political-season/328349/112 "2005-10-31T22:39:23Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > And that “taking less” is absolutely free, with no repercussions? Is “taking more” absolutely free, with no repercussions? Like when U.S. marginal tax rates were 70%, or 90% in places like the UK? Some people actually left the country over that. Others stopped investing in businesses (i.e. less jobs), because why would you if the govt is going to take 70-90% of your earnings? The socialist model cannot work in this country. Statements like Hillary Clinton’s (paraphasing) “we’ll take money away from you for the common good” just don’t fly. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2005, 10:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-open-letter-to-my-democratic-friends-regarding-the-current-political-season/328349/113 "2005-10-31T22:47:00Z")
> [@Updike](#): > > …The socialist model cannot work in this country. Statements like Hillary Clinton’s (paraphasing) “we’ll take money away from you for the common good” just don’t fly. Well, that certainly settles that! Whatever was she thinking? ---
**Author:** ![Updike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ec9cab/32.png) [@Updike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Updike)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2005, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-open-letter-to-my-democratic-friends-regarding-the-current-political-season/328349/114 "2005-10-31T23:26:45Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Well, that certainly settles that! Whatever was she thinking? Do you have any evidence to the contrary, or are you just bloviating, as usual? ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2005, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-open-letter-to-my-democratic-friends-regarding-the-current-political-season/328349/115 "2005-11-01T00:04:43Z")
If you dust your cheerios for prints, you may find out who peed in them. I can only assure you it wasn’t me. Not that I wouldn’t, only that I didn’t. But since you seem determined to make a stink about this, point of fact, your position is an absurdity, obvious to the meanest intelligence. Taxes for the sake of the common good are the very essence of taxation in a democratic society, the only reasonable argument has to do with which taxes qualify. Your bald statement that such a maxim “will not fly” is fatuous, vacuous and jejuene. Happily for you, if you imagine you can further your argument or social standing by insulting me further, a Pit thread for that very purpose is currently open! Perhaps there your talents can be most fully realized. ---
**Author:** ![bizzwire](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/958977/32.png) [@bizzwire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bizzwire)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2005, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-open-letter-to-my-democratic-friends-regarding-the-current-political-season/328349/116 "2005-11-01T00:44:33Z")
> [@Updike](#): > > The socialist model cannot work in this country. Statements like Hillary Clinton’s (paraphasing) “we’ll take money away from you for the common good” just don’t fly. huh…Socialism = The government spending tax money for the common good (as opposed, I assume, to using it for evil) [Johnny Carson] I did not know that… [/Johnny Carson] ---
**Author:** ![Updike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ec9cab/32.png) [@Updike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Updike)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2005, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-open-letter-to-my-democratic-friends-regarding-the-current-political-season/328349/117 "2005-11-01T01:01:42Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > But since you seem determined to make a stink about this, point of fact, your position is an absurdity, obvious to the meanest intelligence. And your position doesn’t have the sense that God gave a goose, so where does that leave us? > [@](#): > > Taxes for the sake of the common good are the very essence of taxation in a democratic society, the only reasonable argument has to do with which taxes qualify. Your bald statement that such a maxim “will not fly” is fatuous, vacuous and jejuene. Well, you can try selling that arguement in the next election, but I’m willing to bet people aren’t buying. ---
**Author:** ![Dishfunctional](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/35a633/32.png) [@Dishfunctional](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dishfunctional)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2005, 6:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-open-letter-to-my-democratic-friends-regarding-the-current-political-season/328349/118 "2005-11-01T06:11:00Z")
> [@SteveG1](#): > > [@SteveG1](#): > > You got what I was saying, I think. I was saying let’s put national good ahead of party well being. We see things differently, in that I see the FAR right as putting their agendas ahead of national benefit. Not being a member of that group, I can’t speak for them, but I’ll bet, if pressed, they would argue that their agenda is in the best interest of the nation, and could probably do so persuasively. Maybe not persuasively enough to convince you and me, but certainly with enough conviction to assure themselves that they hold the high ground. (I assume we’re talking here primarily about abortion) > [@SteveG1](#): > > I will not lump moderate Republicans in with the extremists. There was stab at this, when McCain and his moderate Republicans joined with moderate Democrats to stop the “nuclear option”. But McCain does not call the shots, more’s the pity. Him I would vote for in a New York minute. Then you probably wouldn’t be surprised at how many times during the run-up to the ’04 election I heard like-minded conservatives in my circle of friends lament what they perceived to be the shabby treatment Joe Lieberman received at the hands of your party’s leaders. > [@SteveG1](#): > > From one standpoint, this war is already won. We toppled the Taliban and we toppled Saddam. However, we are losing “the peace”. I’m afraid I have to strongly disagree with you here. I see no rational standpoint from which one can make that statement. In a war where surrender is not an option and truce is not a possibility, there can be no peace without victory, and when men are dying daily on both sides of this war, bumper sticker sloganeering like that accomplishes absolutely nothing. > [@SteveG1](#): > > Never mind that the war in Iraq was fought on false pretenses. Nevermind that American soldiers (and the enemy too) died in Iraq for political expediency and one man’s quest for personal “glory”. I’m sorry, Steve, but if I believed what you just said were true, I could never use those statements as a mere preface to the next point I was about to make. If I truly believed such horrendous things to be true, I could not toss them out dismissively in a conversation and move on with a shrug and a “never mind”. Let me take a minute here to tell you what **I** know to be true: There’s a radical sect of Islamic fundamentalists out there, the fanatical adherents of which all want to hack your head off in your living room immediately after they hack my head off in mine, and the only thing that’s standing in the way of them doing exactly that is our government - not a single political party, not a single European ally, not the United Nations or the good will of all civilized men, but the decisions made and the actions taken by each branch of our government manifesting itself in the force that we project abroad with our uniformed services, and the sooner the looming reality of that fact is acknowledged, the better off we’ll all be. We may honestly and passionately disagree on the means of preventing that scenario from unfolding, but denying it out of existence is not an option at this time in history nor under this administration, and for one to casually fabricate and attribute such base and criminal motives to any president while foolishly ignoring a very real and impending threat from a very real, determined and capable enemy smacks of simple political posturing at best, and alarming stupidity at worst. I’d like to believe that you yourself doubt the veracity of things you’ve just stated as if they were fact, and that you only did so out of frustration, habit or because that sort of a flat-footed, utterly divisive, ad homonym assault now passes for civil discourse. Opinions are one thing, but if it’s acceptable to present such nonsense as a _fait accompli_, I’m afraid I’ll have to respectfully withdraw from what I see as a senseless exchange of “talking points”. ---
**Author:** ![Dishfunctional](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/35a633/32.png) [@Dishfunctional](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dishfunctional)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2005, 6:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-open-letter-to-my-democratic-friends-regarding-the-current-political-season/328349/119 "2005-11-01T06:31:50Z")
> [@Debaser](#): > > OR: You can cut spending. > > I know, it’s a wild and crazy idea. And a genuinely conservative one, for a change! ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2005, 6:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-open-letter-to-my-democratic-friends-regarding-the-current-political-season/328349/120 "2005-11-01T06:37:32Z")
So, these guys, so anxious to start in lopping and chopping…they were in Iraq? So, they’re all dead now, right? And the threat that these loons might overpower the single most powerful military machine in human history…that threat is considerably lessened now? Really. Hmmmm. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-open-letter-to-my-democratic-friends-regarding-the-current-political-season/328349.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-open-letter-to-my-democratic-friends-regarding-the-current-political-season/328349.md?page=7)