Your position is that nothing on the tax side can have any appreciable effect, right? Its nonfactuality aside, how does resigned acceptance of it constitute a plan? :dubious:
From what I’ve heard Stratocaster is more or less right. The increase of income tax on people earning over 250K doesn’t do a whole lot. Part of this is because the wealthy earn so much from investments that get taxed at a much lower rate. If we were to tax investments at the same rate as other income, we might start making a dent. Obama has suggested this.
Elvis, I’m not playing your game. You are the quintessential goal post shifter. I said the tax increases on the table for the rich will not solve the debt crisis. You doubted that and asked for a cite. I gave you one. I have already offered Ryan’s plan as a starting point for debate over what will solve the debt crisis, and asked what the Dems’ counterpoint is. The CBO says Ryan’s plan gets us to a surplus. Let’s not accept anything lock, stock and barrel, or without debate and discussion. But let’s start with something that actually has a shot at solving the problem, per the non-partisan CBO. What is the Democrats’ strategy? Let’s discuss it, and let the better ideas rule the day.
Or we could continue the proud tradition of sniping at each other and demonizing the opposition.
Has he? He has suggested The Buffet Rule, but that doesn’t raise a whole lot of revenue, either.
And funny you should mention dents:
And just to be clear, by “aggressive” here, the author means tax rates upwards of 75%, which aren’t remotely on the table.
Exactly. And to expand on John’s point, from his cite, that 75% rate on the rich “would cover less than 20% of the year’s deficit.” Of the year’s deficit. We are not going to “tax the rich” out of this problem.
Ignoring the link from Patheos (because, really, I don’t feel like getting into who tells the most lies cough), it’s amazing to me how quick some people are to forget that the Iraq Resolution had to have been a bipartisan resolution, given how Republicans didn’t have a super majority in Congress.
Actually, they didn’t even have a simple majority in the Senate-- the Democrats did. However, that doesn’t change the fact that the Iraq War was a massive mistake and that it would not have come to pass had Bush not pushed so hard for it. The Dems were minor players, for sure, but this was Bush’s war.
“Mistake”? No. Lie.
The Democrats’ mistake was the one Otter told Flounder he had made: “You fucked up! You trusted us!”.
And conversely, there would be no Iraq War if Democrats hadn’t voted in favor of the resolution. I fail to see what point you’re trying to make. It’s hard to say someone is a “minor” player when, without that player, the proverbial game ceases to be played.
Ugh. If you want to debate the Iraq war again, open another thread. I’ve said everything I’m going to say about it in this one.
Well, I guess if you want to find the Democrats more responsible for the Iraq War than the Pubs, because they believed the lies they were told by the Republicans, you can do that. I guess.
Partisan spin, much?
It’s a start. The revenue is going to be low while we are trying to recover. As long as the economy is in the dumps, we will have to run deficits. We won’t turn it around with spending cuts. Our primary concern should not be the deficit, it should be the economy. We should have been working on the deficit when the economy was in good shape during the Bush years.
So what? If it covers some of the deficit, it’s worth doing.
The problem is that the deficit hawks are idiots. They have connected the deficit to the economy in people’s minds, but that’s wrong. A little inflation would not be the end of the world. Without spending the economy can do nothing but continue its stagnation.
The next paragraph explains why that’s not a good idea:
Of course. It’s a test to see whose concern over the deficit above all else is sincere.
Exactly, eliminating the Bush tax cuts for average americans is a terrible idea. The best plan is to run deficits until the economy gets on its feet.
How much debt are you willing to take on, as a percent of GDP, before you decide that’s not so good an idea?
I’ll let the policy wonks work out the details. The point is that the debt is a non-issue. The issue is the economy. We can’t solve the debt problem until the economy is solved. Solving the debt problem first kills the economy which then makes the debt problem worse.