When are you going to drop that canard?
I don’t want to derail the thread with a debate about healthcare, but since both you and BrainGlutton responded, I’ll just say that I’ve actually been convinced by the data that a national single-payer system is clearly superior to Obamacare in every respect. And even superior (for health outcomes, at least) to the old US system.
But Europe has overall lackluster economic performance compared to the US. While there are many factors, I’m in the camp that thinks high taxes (even with all the benefits those taxes bring) come at a cost of slightly reduced economic growth. The difference in prosperity between Europe and Africa is just 1% GDP growth annually, over 300 years. So if we sacrifice just 1% GDP growth, think where that puts our great-great-grandkids in 300 years. Is it worth punishing everyone in the future to benefit the bottom 10% today.
I’m also in the camp that thinks this is none of the federal government’s business. Good idea or not, it’s not their job.
So you can see, I’m pretty conservative at the core. The fact that the Tea Party has got me voting for Democrats is a pretty good measure of what the OP is talking about.
When you come down to specific issues, the distinction is actually pretty bogus since everyone is happy to use the govt to further their agenda. Conservatives claim to advocate less govt and fiscal conservatism but actually favor neither when it suits their purposes. DOMA and laws against abortion show that they are perfectly happy to use the power of the state to enforce their religious beliefs. And their willingness to cut taxes while increasing spending on pet projects like border security, the war on drugs, anti-terrorism, foreign military conflicts,etc. show they have no respect for fiscal conservatism whatsoever.
The bottom line is that it’s all branding designed to appeal to certain demographics and in no way relates to reality.
It seems to me that both labels are falling out of use and rightfully so, since the groups that they’re used to describe aren’t the same as they used to be, and in both cases, they’re often used as pejoratives. Rather it seems that it’s just become either left vs. right or progressive instead of liberal, and since we’re in transition, not quite sure what will ultimately replace conservative.
So, to some extent, I’ll agree that it’s sort of the new “liberal” in the sense of being used as a pejorative and so people are less likely to associate with it, but beyond that, it seems to me that the political landscape is just changing too much.
Note the “beginning” in the op?
It’s not there yet but it is the direction it is heading and currently picking up speed as it does. “Conservative” has not yet become anathema and “liberal” is not yet embraced by those aiming for national office.
And I readily admit that some of this is me WAGing in advance of data - the moves that I cited are modest (drops in “economic conservative” ID from 51% in 2010 to 41% in early 2013 and in “social conservative” from 42% in 2009 to 35% in early 2013, with “liberal” of each moving up in the same time periods) and importantly “conservative” is still by itself a larger group than either “liberal” or “moderate.” Given that those who identify as “conservative” are concentrated within the GOP, and especially among those who vote in primaries, running away from the label is not something you’ll see too soon on that side of the fence. OTOH liberal and moderate together are larger than conservative and my sense of it remains that moderates are beginning to move away from those identifying as conservative and are a less scared of the label of liberal.
Certain tactics have not worked well. Let’s face it: Obama is in reality no more hard core liberal than I am. He is a moderate maybe a bit left of center and some issues and to the right even on a couple of others. Labelling him as an example of the extreme liberal position, a socialist even, gradually convinces moderates, who find themselves agreeing with much of what Obama says, that those things are not so extreme.They might not yet be willing to call themselves liberal but they are no longer as scared to vote for someone so labelled.
Yes it is about brand image and brand image matters.
Ummm…one of those “many factors” is getting devastated by continent-wide war (and more importantly, it’s aftermath) for a significant portion of that 300 years. That’s not an insignificant factoid.
I consider myself a committed centrist, and it is impossible to support today’s self-styled “conservatives” because that crowd is sorely lacking in competent professionalism while giving a pass to any sort of mental instability.
I would also start disliking “liberals” if there was some huge movement out there to load up Congress with yogic fliers and crystal-worshipers … it’s just not happening that way, though.
I’m not saying that Africa’s problems result from tax rates. I’m saying that a small difference in growth rates over a long period of time can have dramatic results.
Even vegetarian Kucinich is out, now.
Do you mean Europe or Africa?
The question of course is whether the benefits from what the marginal increase in taxes allow spending on increases growth rate more than the marginal decrease caused by the taxes … like a large business that reserves some money for R&D and future infrastructure investments required for growth may have better long term returns than one that distributes all profits as dividends.
Do the marginal taxes in question allow for education, R&D, infrastructure improvements, and a more productive workforce able to produce more per hour with decreased costs due to illness and injury (such as but not limited to those workplace or foodborne in cause)? Then the impact may be a highly signifiant net positive on long term growth rates. If they solely are marginal increases with no positive impact on productivity (which of course could be the case depending on how it is spent) then those dramatic long term negative results might happen.
Taxation and spending is not good for productivity if it is invested poorly and it is not bad for productivity if it is invested wisely. If the latter then the small difference in growth rate over a long period of time does have dramatic positive results.
Please note Germany’s tax burden is 40.6% of GDP, the United States is only 26.9. China is down at 17.8 but Egypt is even lower at 15.8 and those African countries are down there some in lower single digits. There simply is no linear relationship between tax burden of a country and its long term productivity and even more importantly to discussion about the United States and lowering taxes, the U.S. is pretty low compared to its Western peers. Taxing in order to be able to invest wisely is a good thing and the fact that the U.S. has such high productivity with such a relatively lowish taxation as a fraction of GDP means that we actually have done that moderately well, getting pretty damn good bangs for our bucks.
I don’t know about govt, but for corporations, the link between R&D and growth is clear - at least according to Goldman Sachs.
Chart at link.
Actually, when it comes to that, you can probably take either one, but I was speaking specifically of Europe. The original assertion by dracoi was that Europe’s (relatively) slow economic growth could be tied to higher taxes. Those taxes used at least in part to pay for UHC.
I pointed out that there were a few other things in play. 2 of them start with WW.
Well, yeah, I think the Tea Party is “extreme,” but not in a bad way. I think this group is extreme in how it perseveres with what it believes to be right, even now that these beliefs are becoming unpopular and politically incorrect. I respect the Tea Party because it is pretty strict about sticking to its values and not being swayed to the left by political “peer pressure” like the mainstream Republican party. The mainstream republicans seem to be buckling lately; they seem to be getting lenient on what they believe and changing it in order to please people and win elections. That’s not good politics in my opinion. It’s a sign that a party is becoming corrupt and that the members of said party only care about gaining political power at any cost; and that, of course, isn’t good for any of us.
From your other thread:
From this thread:
You might want to make up your mind about values before starting debates about them.
I don’t see a contradiction between the posts of mine that you quoted; if you don’t mind, could you explain this supposed contradiction a bit more?
So why can’t any of them say what that is?
Sorry. I apparently got lost among the negatives.
I’m also sorry you feel this way but it does appear to be consistent.
Yeah, but turn that around: If a party sticks rigidly to its ideology even when that’s a loser at the polls, so it never gets any political power, what’s the point of the whole thing?
And that is exactly what will happen if the TP ever goes third-party.
I think its good to think long term, but in the grand scheme of things, current taxes and growth rates will mean bupkis to the nation 300 years from now. Given how quickly the world changes targeting policy for more than about 20 years in the future is probably misguided, with an exception made for irreversible changes like global warming, or the draining of the Ogallala Aquifer.