So you think the wealthy came by it easily and I’m uproariously hillarious to suggest otherwise? Then how’s about you go out and squeeze a billion or two out of the country’s environment and report back to us how easy it was.
I think the issue is not that it’s easy to become a billionaire. I think the issue is that you think that we all share the same environment. Different people are born differently and have different chances. Drastically different chances, to the point where the difference in chances between, say, a child of a single mother in harlem and the child of the CEO of Halliburton are almost infinitely far apart. Not recognizing this is simply foolish. We do NOT all have the same environment; in fact, that’s kind of the whole reason such things as the redistribution of wealth are necessary.
Frankly, I don’t have much of a problem with programs to help the truly needy, although I do question why it’s up to everyone else to provide for a single mother in Harlem or anywhere else who’s deliberately made the unfortunate choices that brought them to where they are. But as a nation we abandoned long ago the notion that people should be responsible for the consequences of their own actions, and the fact is that the child needs to be supported somehow. What I have a problem with is the fact that the government never stops trying to define “needy” upward and the definition of “wealthy” downward. We are now to the point where half the American population has been deemed too poor to pay income taxes, yet most of these people are driving around in fairly new cars and watching big screen TVs and living in perfectly comfortable homes with amenities that would be considered luxuries in most parts of the world. This is blatant redistribution of income on the part of a government and political philosophy which seeks to create equality not of opportunity but of result. And of course, once this practice goes far enough, productivity, investment and innovation go out the door, government takes over, and hey, we’re all partying like its 1964…in the Soviet Union!
The second problem I have is the notion that it’s somehow unfair and that something is deeply wrong when a relatively small number of people hold the majority of “the nation’s” wealth. It isn’t the nation’s wealth in the first place - it’s the property of the people who earned it; and in the second place, as I’ve been saying, their wealth doesn’t prevent anyone else from making every bit as much as they are able. It’s not like there’s only so much money to go around and for every $10 a rich guy has, it’s $10 that no one else can hope to earn. In truth, he has his $10 and you can make whatever you’re capable of. The one has nothing to do with the other and I get tired of liberals and Democrats trying to stir up jealousy and class resentment by making people think that the rich are somehow soaking up all “their” money. When it comes to the money wealthy people have vs. the money other people can make for themselves, it’s apples and oranges and the one has no impact on the other.
Because you, like other Reps, refuse to acknowledge the obvious: spending is not a problem. Running a deficit is not a problem. Having higher taxes is not a problem. Having a lot of entitlement programs are not problems. Raising the debt ceiling is not a problem.
All of the problems come from refusing to see reality for what it is. We have raised the debt ceiling almost once a year for decades and it hasn’t lead to a downgrade. We have operated with massive deficits for decades and our credit was still great. All of the things Reps have argued will contribute to a debt crisis has not happened even though taxes have been higher, deficits have been higher, and past recessions have been deeper.
The ONLY thing different this time was that the Reps have made these things issues, and because of their abject refusal to listen to reason, they have scared rating agencies around the world into realizing just how fucked up and insane they are. They are the problem. Why should Dems have to back down when they have a proven track record of fiscal responsibility?
Right on dude!
That whole “job creators” thingy is just pure bullshit, right?
CMC fnord!
You have got to be kidding me! So after decades of our country spending more than it takes in and maxing out the credit cards year after year, the solution to the problems which this has created now is simply to borrow more money! And so on and so on, ad infinitum! Further, anyone who objects and suggests reduced spending instead is simply being irresponsible!
:smack: It’s all so easy! Why didn’t I think of that?!
I’d bet at some time in your life you’ve been heard to say “I can’t be overdrawn; I still have checks left!”
The problem is that we need to help the economy as a whole grow and the Republicans are just plain wrong in their assessment. In a healthy economy, I am all for personal responsibility and letting people earn what they are worth in the marketplace (although I still think that there is a big difference between earning $5 million by investing $100 million that you inherited from Daddy and starting a business from the ground up and earning $5 million in profit and that there is no reason that the first should be taxed at a much lower rate as it currently is).
Regardless, if you want to increase overall growth the government needs to invest money. What doesn’t make sense is to invest money in a way that profits only the wealthy. If you look at Moody’s analysis at the start of the current crisis here (particularly table 1) you can see that return on investment is actually greater than 100% in certain cases such as increasing unemployment benefits, extending food stamps, or giving a payroll tax holiday. In other words, by giving to the poor, because of the higher marginal spending, the government actually can make money and reduce the deficit. The Republicans, however, prefer the fantasy that giving more to the rich will increase jobs which has never been proven.
Even if the only reason that the United States’ credit was downgraded was the deficit, why would anybody oppose spending that would at the same time decrease the deficit?
(And before you say it I know, I know Moody’s is a liberal progressive biased organization-right?)
Yes, because a household works in the same way that a national government with a GDP of $14T. At the moment, we have to ramp up spending because WE ARE IN A RECESSION. We worry about the debt when we aren’t. Man, Keynes must be a 4-letter word for you.
You don’t see any flaw in this reasoning?
A relative of mine worked for a metro police department, and officers of that department arrested a woman for stabbing her husband. When the husband died in the hospital, they went to jail to arrest her again, this time for murder. When she heard that her husband had died, the woman exploded. “Motherfucker! That asshole! I stabbed him twice before and he didn’t die!”
This is, at least, a colorable argument. You don’t say we can always continue raising the debt ceiling and spending more – just that we should do so now, given the specific circumstances we’re in.
You might be right, but here are two arguments against spending which I find persuasive:
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The kind of spending the Democrats seem to favor are not, in my opinion, the kinds of things that will stimulate the economy and help industry create jobs.
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Even if they were, both Democrats and Republicans have, in the past, shown remarkably little concern for the debt and the deficit when we were not in a recession. So capitulating now, without some guarantee of responsibility when the crisis ends, isn’t the right answer either.
I think just about every single Democrat would get behind and push an infrastructure jobs bill.
There are no such guarantees. Whichever party is in power will advance their own agenda and attempt to reverse the agenda of the opposing party.
Anything they can do can be undone.
So, you’re pissed off that I used the plural? Well ok. Newt says “Republicans.” I kind of assume that he speaks for more than just himself. The article gives me the tone that Newt’s quote was sort of representative of certain Republicans.
Anyway, I call this classic Elucidator: Big shit about nothing.
May I remind you that the compromise that the President supported (and the Democrats surely would have) had larger spending cuts than what eventually was agreed to, but was rejected by your side for having any revenue increases at all. Admit that your side are the inflexible ones.
If the Dems utterly refused any cuts, then you’d have a point. Your party nearly put the country into default, your party caused the credit rating of the United States to be cut, and your party has been captured by fanatics.
YES!
I’m glad you finally understand! Now sit down and be quiet like a good little sheeple.
…It would make sense, if that was actually what happened. But it wasn’t.
You mean giving money to those who, traditionally, create demand? Or what do you mean? Tax cuts have been a total flop, subsidies work but need to be carefully handled, and infrastructure contracting is somehow not as prominent as it ought to be… What does not create jobs or stimulate demand? What exactly are you referring to?
…So instead, we don’t capitulate now, pull more money out of the economy, and watch as we spiral downwards like Germany in '29?
Yeah, because the problem is what we’re spending on student loans, and welfare for the disabled. Not the wars that your favorite guy lied the nation into. Cause those didn’t cost us anything, right?
Math is clearly not your strong point.
Math is easy.
Research seems to be your weak point. Find out how much we budget for our military (all of it, not just one illegal war that you’re getting all uppity about) and how much we budget for entitlements then get back to me.
Here, I’ll get you started in California alone with what we’re spending that “Student Loans and Welfare for the Disabled” on and you tell me if you see a problem…
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Do you see a problem here? I see a potential for about 90% reduction on bullshit government entities. What do you see?
True.
And unfortunately the Balanced Budget Amendment is too much of a poison pill risk; we do need to be able to run a deficit in an emergency.
In what way, specifically, is the analogy flawed?
Oh, it means quite a bit more than nothing. Efforts to rein in the power of contribution from the wealthy have met with stiff resistance over the years. For a cookie, which political party is most prominently featured in that history of resistance? And for another cookie, why do you think that is?
They do it for political power, don’t they? And that extra political power derives simply from their economic status. Now, if you were to recommend that extra political power should be the privilege of the exceptionally smart and good-looking, you might have a case.
But as it stands, you are effectively stating that someone with more money than you deserves more political power and a louder voice in the public fora. Why would I believe that, why would I find that acceptable? I don’t accept that persons of a different gender have less rights than I, nor people of a different religious persuasion, nor skin coloration, etc. etc. Why, then, should I accept extra political privilege for the amount of money a person has?