With any luck Walker will get hit by a bus and all of this will be over, right?
The link is to the forum that I own. One of the members stumbled onto this forum and posted about it, saying it was a good debate forum.
We have much the same at our forum with similar topics. There is virtually no moderation. Mostly, don’t do anything illegal and keep non work safe images in “The Crucible” I think it makes for an interesting place.
If you’re claiming superslug, perhaps your members might wanna take up a collection to send him to remedial debate camp? If he’s not from your place originally, I apologise for slandering you by suggesting he might be. 
My post was more to the fact that Paul loves his money. He’s another elitist hypocrite but he’s a harmless entertainer, so he gets a pass.
Paul McCartney still lives in England, land of the “we really do charge higher taxes to the rich”
I love the idea that it’s not possible to make a lot of money while maintaining liberal ideals. Hell, my current employers are proof that THAT’S bullshit–I don’t think you could find a more lovable gang of progressive eco-freak electrical engineers.
Lovable gangs of eco-freak electrical engineers go against the public interest.
QFT.
smelly hippies.
Yeah but who cares about the public interest? I’m only paying lip service to it. What I really care about is whether or not it goes against me personally making fat sacks of cash money.
shakes head Sorry, I just channeled superslug’s faux-libertarian fascism for a second there.
Imagine no possessions…
That was a pretty good one.
Also: Life is what happens to you when you’re making other plans…
Boy, beautiful!
Actually, it’s more of an “anything that doesn’t fit the topic of the conversation” deal…
Aw, Starving Artist amd Rand Rover had a love child!
Well, YOU can just rock me to sleep tonight, Mister!
The public interest goes against the public interest.
Check out Walker’s artpage.
(does the link work or not?)
I’m getting a DNS error…
try removing the second http/.
Ok, I’ve devised a recipe for solving a state budget deficit. Please tell me why it is utterly stupid.
- Government employees cost too much? Ok, so let’s cut the pay of government employees- we really have no choice anyway, right? But let’s cut pay for all of them. Forcing just one group of employees to shoulder the burden implies it is their fault/problem, when clearly that isn’t the case.
So. If we are to cut the pay of teachers by 8%, and they make say 60k, allrighty then, cut the pay of every other worker by some graduated amount. If the governor makes 100k, cut his pay by 10%. Government employees who make 40k take a 5% cut. I’m just illustrating the principle here, the specific numbers will change, see below:
- Peg tax increases to salary cuts. Do not require anyone to take a pay cut smaller than the tax increase levied on the top 1% of income earners. So, if the governor is taking a 10% pay cut, the tax hike on the top 1% ought to be 11%.
But we aren’t going to single out the top 1% either- this is everybody’s problem, remember? So we’ll get everybody on board. Everybody takes a tax increase, graduated by ability to pay, perhaps excluding the poorest group (say, incomes below $30k). Devise a set of categories from the top down, and ratchet the % tax increase down to say 1% for low income earners.
- Take a look at how the budget problem has been resolved! Even treating corporate tax breaks as sacred, cutting expenses and raising revenue with the numbers I’ve proposed will result in huge surpluses. So, keeping the hit that each group has to take proportional to the others in the general way I have described, dial it back for everyone until you have achieved a balanced budget (or maybe a very modest surplus).
Voila! I’m sure this approach will be judged as utterly stupid. I’ll just wait to see the reasons why from others. Except from people who make declarations like,“There will be no specifics”- obviously those guys aren’t for real.
- I’d suggest future-anticipating projects like high-speed rail and off (lake) shore wind, but let’s face it. In a post-peak-oil world the race for resources will be a zero-sum game. If stupid people like WI voters and their government officials want to deny themselves their ability to cope, why that will make things that much easier for the rest of us. Just don’t expect your mouthbreathing carpetbaggers to be welcome in my state after the shit hits the fan. Stay in WI, OH, FL and suck it.
Actually, I think some variety of that strategy is what’s going to be required to get the various federal and state deficits under control.
The only way to get the political will required to make the big changes that will be necessary is if people feel that everyone’s sharing in the sacrifice. Liberals aren’t going to tolerate cuts to public employee’s pay and benefits while the rich get tax cuts, and Republicans aren’t going to tolerate big raises in taxes on the rich while the public employees continue to be sheltered from the pain of the recession. Both sides are going to have to give.
Certainly fair. After all, its not like rich people have more money than they need. Unless, of course, that is the very definition of being “rich”.