That’s a false quote. I said “Who cares what you think?” Don’t false quote me or I’ll report you to you, and then you’ll have to warn yourself to stop being an asshole. Of course, since an asshole will be giving the warning, you probably won’t listen.
Only when it goes missing.
Well, no, except insofar as it allows them to engage in new more exploitive debt. Good for them, not really for the economy.
More likely than who? What makes you think so? The likelihood of a group spending versus paying doubt debt with a windfall would be dependant on all kinds of factors. It’s tough too generalize.
Cutting taxes as Bush did undoubtedly helped the economy. How much, and could it have been done more efficiently and also in such a way as too benefit the needy more than the wealthy?
It’s an interesting topic.
As for the “justice” of a tax cut. I have a problem with that concept. Social engineering runs against my Conservative/ Liberarian instincts. I don’t really know that you, the government or anybody else is either able or entitled to identify justice with somebody else’s money.
It’s not really yours or anybody else’s to be playing with this way.
Well no, low interests make investing in MM, CDs, and savings accounts unprofitable, and they also make it easier to borrow so they are supposed to stimulate spending. I would agree with you that the primary goal was too stimulate business, though.
Makes sense.
Right. But you have to do me the favor of also understanding that because wealth and income are not an even distribution across the population, almost any meaningful income tax cut (that will be effective in a macroeconomic sense) is by it’s nature going to primarily benefit those higher income guys since they’re also in the higher tax brackets. There’s really nothing wrong with wealthy people getting tax cuts. I think the payroll taxes are handled progressively because of the earned income tax credit.
The big issue in regressive taxes are sales taxes.
Ok, but it didn’t cover those things before, either.
Oh no. All kinds of problems.
I could call you a “traitor” if you like. 
Mmmmm. Yes. a lot of things have been done right under his administration, but that’s more thanks to the Fed, and Al Greenspan than anything else. His economic policies have been pretty sucky with the exception of the tax cuts, and that $300 give back. Those were good.
Funny, I quit being a Republican because of the spending and social conservatism.
I think the Democrats suck even worse. Morons. Real morons.
That’s rich, coming from the guy who got a mod warning for making up quotes.
Oh, you lying sack of shit. That warning was rescinded and I received an apology for having been warned in error, basically on the grounds that you are a whiny and worthless scumbag.
Moi? Ok, maybe once. In 1960.
Sorry I haven’t looked at this thread in a few days. I saw the direction this thread was going and assumed my post would just be swept away and forgotten in all of the vitriol I saw building and exploding out in general.
I didn’t expect someone to reply twice to the same post of mine in mounting anger.
Firstly, I’ll address your earlier post. If you actually look carefully I said “all it takes is a representative rant. . .” use of the word representative is key. It disproves your accusation that I was generalizing about the entire left based on this sole post by Aeschines, but rather I found it to be “representative” of the left. Meaning this is the type of thing I’ve seen before, that I’ve come to expect, that I observe frequently from the leftist nutjobs that seem to dominate the left side of politics these days.
Secondly, man you need to calm down. I literally exploded in laughter when I read your reply, it was the phrase “cunting fuck” that set me off. I had never seen the word cunt conjugated in that manner before and it was quite humorous.
What’s not humorous, though, is the malice behind your post. I think at some point people on this message board need to not take things so seriously, or if they are going to take things here so seriously, at least behave in a serious manner. I don’t feel the need to explode in expletivies and vile anytime I get ticked off, and in all honesty I have nothing but a sense of condescension for people that feel the need to express themselves that way.
Anyways, I’m not trying to “blackmail” anyone, nor do I have the capability to blackmail the entire left-wing of politics in that sort of way. My simple point is that in general, extremism (represented by shrill ranting and screaming) will do nothing but turn centrists off to whatever you represent, and change the minds of no one to your favor. Now obviously here in the microcosm of the SDMB what we say and do has negligible effect on moderate or conservative voters at large, so there’s not any reason to self-moderate here anymore than you might feel appropriate. But I do know that lots of people feel uncomfortable when confronted with outright ranting and shrill screaming from the left. It all has a cumulative effect, every moderate conservative with a bombastic liberal friend that can’t behave and keep their mouth shut, that’s one more conservative that will probably feel pressured to become MORE conservative, and one who will certainly not be looking favorably towards the left.
In response to some other arguments levied against me; I never claimed the right wasn’t guilty of outburts like this. I’m just saying from my observations I’m hit with outbursts like this from the left way more often than I am from the right. But that just boils down to opinion, and it’s really impossible to say which side is more shrill. But I know which side comes off as more shrill, to me, on a day-to-day basis.
Anne Coulter is a centrist.
I agree.
I’m beyond tired of the ranting on either side. I can’t listen to almost any talk radio because it’s apparently been proven that what makes money is radio hosts railing against one side or the other, instead of trying to come to a reasonable conclusion.
Being a Christian has prepared me for distancing myself from people. The Crusades or the KKK or Fred Phelps do not represent good Christianity, or me.
I can’t stand Rush Limbaugh or Bill Reilly or from what I hear, Ann Coulter, and I’ve never voted Democrat.
Most political belief is not very correspondent with personal morality, intellectual ability, kindness of heart, etc. It’s like saying that MLK was an idiot because he couldn’t run an nuclear power plant. The two don’t have to go together.
All this is why I haven’t gone to GD for months. The yelling and general moaning and name-calling just drains me.
If they’re paying down their debt, then they’re ipso facto not taking on new debt, right?
You’re right, we’d need a study, probably quite an involved and long-term one, to prove it either way.
There was not such a big effect that one could say it definitely helped, and its effect on the deficit is also uncertain. “What would have happened” and all that.
Here I feel confident I can argue against you victoriously with socialist principles, but that’s a big ole thread in itself. Suffice it to say that that money acquires a great deal of its value through what the government does. “Faith and credit”–the government. Interstate highways, mostly “free”–the government. The military, protecting that value–gov. Preserving law and order–gov. Maintaining an environment conducive to business–gov. In short, much of the value of every dollar spent and earned comes from the government, which of course is supported by the American citizenry as a whole. That makes it not “my money.” It is your money as a social construct and an economic tool (and to some degree or another it is yours inasmuch as you deserve a reward for your economic inputs), but it is not fundamentally yours.
Ah, but in a deflationary economy like Japan’s with negative effective interest rates… there’s the rub.
You are right, a tax cut can only cut taxes. But you could also stimulate the economy by, as I said, tossing C-notes to the poor.
I agree that we don’t need to “punish” the wealthy for making money, but in this country right now there is a (correct, I think) perception that the wealthy are getting too big a cut of the economic pie. Hence, tax cuts for them were a slap in the face.
Sucky how? I’d love to hear your thoughts. Maybe the steel tariffs? I agree that those were bullshit.
Yes, the Dems are also too conservative for my tastes.
But you didn’t qualify by saying which Dems. Anytime a conservative makes such a blanket assessment, we’re driven out of town. Please give a list so I may call you a Pinko with impunity! 
Right now the only politicos I really think about are the Bush admin and local Indiana politicians. In terms of the latter, the brand names “Republican” and “Democrat” don’t mean much at all, and I would call neither side swine cunts.
Bart Peterson is the Democrat mayor of Indy. He seems to have good ideas and to be doing a good job. Mitch Daniels is the Republican governor of Indiana. He seems to be doing OK; I don’t have strong feelings about him either way, although he does seem to stir up political trouble and ill will when he needn’t. Evan Bayh, Democratic senator, is the kind of politician I don’t like. Nice haircut and a wet fingertip to the Ole Poll Wind at all times. I wouldn’t want him to be prez. On the other hand, Richard Lugar, Republican Senator, is a man of honor and intelligence who would make a great prez for foreign policy. Def not a swine cunt; I wonder how a man of his political breeding can even stand to stay in the party.
lonesome loser, this is not an official warning, merely a heads-up. The fooforaw that Scylla refers to came about because of consistent, persistent, and aggravating mocking of a user’s user name. Your placing your version of Scylla’s in the title of your post so that it appeared as a (conventionally) bolded user name, combined with your persistent use of “silly” in the Our freedom is on it’s last legs thread, indicates you may be headed in that direction. Please knock it off.
I am, of course, not issuing a declaration that Scylla may not be called silly. I’m simply urging you to break out the thesaurus.
Thanks for the heads up. I am not a one trick pony.
Right. You got me. It’s good for them, but it’s not necessarily good for the economy. The paying down of debt, doesn’t add anything new to the economy in general/
Well, such things have been done. I’ve studied them. I’m a money manager professionally, so I’ve had too. My good faith conclusion is that just as there is a time when value investors are ascendant versus growth investors, and vice versa, there are times when trickle down and supply side economics are the moving force for viable macroeconomic manipulation, and times when they are not.
If I were to make a nonpolitical opinion based strictly on economics, I’d give Greenspan and Bush props for creating a tax incentive that benefitted the economy. I’d guess they were about 60-75% efficient in the at tax break. To get to that level was tough. The $300 giveback was pretty beneficial. On the negative side, it is my opinion that they knocked it out of the park on the difficult stuff and ignored some layups. Those layups might have added a 10-15% efficiency. Sadly, those layups would have also benefitted lower income tax-payers.
I understand why they didn’t do it. A lot of property taxes and sales taxes are at the state level. However, they could have provided credits. For example, a gas tax credit for households with AGI below 60K. You would get a credit against commuting costs or gas tax costs for X number of miles.
I think a Federal Homestead exemption makes sense. Things like that. They benefit everybody and do so fairly but on a percentage basis they benefit those who are less advantaged more. More importantly, they encourage those who are less advantaged to take a bigger stake in their futures and better themselves, and it aids those who are. A win win.
Tough to put through, but worth the challenge.
Actually, we can be sure it helped as basic macroeconomic theory. The question is really to what degree and could it have been used better. As for the deficit, there’s also no question. It hurt the deficit.
Oddly though, this is not a problem. During the years of irrational exuberance in the latter half of the nineties, Clinton had a rationale tax philosophy, and his spending was in control (despite his wishes, but hey, let’s give credit.) We can consider this a store against bad times (the inevitable bubble burst, and the terrorism.)
Bush should be lowering taxes an spending more, and he is. The problem is that he is creating sweeping ineffectice inneficient programs and spending far beyond what he should.
The deficit itself is not a problem. It’s not how much debt you have, it’s how hard it is too carry it. While interest rates were low, Bush’s proposals made sense. As interest rates climb and they are being implemented, they do not. I don’t think we can responsibly carry the cost of a war, the hurricane rebuilding, and the new social programs accompanied with the tax cuts, nor do I think we can justify it in terms of spending our way out of a recession.
Increasing spending and reducing taxes is not a carte blanche to get us out of a recession. One needs to be targetted and efficient. While I have a real problem with trying to institute social justice through taxation, I feel that it is quite reasonable that the burden needs to be spread appropriately. We’re not doing that.
Perhaps by now, you’re beginning to see my frustration. I think there are many legitimate reasons to be unhappy with Bush from an economic standpoint. I think there’s a lot of idiots out there blaming him for things that aren’t his fault yet ignoring the things that are. I have little confidence in an opposing parties ability to improve the situation until and unless they have a pragmatic grasp on it. The only good news in this area, is that the Democrats seem to make a lot of populist hyperbolic stances, yet when it actually comes to setting policy they tend to fall in line with generally accepted economic theory. So, I’m not sure whether to fault them for their lack of integrity, or applaud their rationality.
Well, then feel free to start the debate in GD. Monetary theory, and it’s history is a pet interest of mine. I am fucking Rambo when it comes to monetary theory. You have shown yourself to be reasonable on the subject, so I’d be interested in discussing your socialist theories of monetary policy in a GD thread. As I hope you know, I have the far easier ground to defend as monetary theory and policy evolved from free markets, and socialistic policies have had a tough time integrating them.
But, to your point, I agree concerning the role of government and currency.
Point taken. If real returns are higher through deflation than investment and are enough to be a negative incentive on consumption than you you can’t jump start the economy through easing and tax cuts.
I’ll give you that point 100%, as long as you concede that we’re talking about Japan and a very unusal situation.
Yeah, but that’s not a tax cut. That’s subsidizing. And, it only works to the extent that the poor spend the money. If they are poor because they are in massive debt and can barely float that debt, than subsidizing them is a very nice thing to do from a charitable standpoint but has a nil effect from a macroeconomic standpoint.
We’re having an ongoing problem discussing things from a macroeconomic standpoint versus microeconomic/charitable standpoint. Helping out people in trouble is good. I’m in favor of it. I think we should be doing it. If however, we are having a discussion of macroeconomic theory and what we should do to benefit the economy in general than I think that is a secondary consideration.
If we are to make tax cuts to stimulate the economy, we have to make sure they stimulate the economy. Once we have that covered we should be trying to make sure they serve a secondary purpose such as helping the needy.
I’m not being cold-hearted, just pragmatic. If the goal is to help the needy than the secondary goal is tor try to do it in a way that also stimulates the economy.
In the particulara circumstances regarding the '00-'03 downturn I think the primary focus needed to be stimulating the economy. That would have the most benefit for the most people. Secondary is helping the needy. I’ve already discussed what kind of job I think the administration did in this regard.
Maybe. I’m not sure. We may be in the midst of a transition in our economy and the current inequalities may be a harbinger of general prosperity like industrialization in the turn of the century. Or, that may be a bunch of bullshit.
I’ll let you know for sure in about 20 years.
For example, I think this prescription plan for the elderly is going to be a tremendous boondoggle, hugely expensive, benefit only the drug companies and fuck up health care in general for the rest of humanity across the globe, as it will disincentize R&D.
My major complaint about health care and Democrats is that their stupid socialistic plans atually penalize innovators. As a Republican I could smugly state with absolute conviction that our way of getting things done encourages new advances and innovation, whereas those stupid Democrats penalize it. Bush’s drug plan basically combines the worst flaws of Republican theory with the worst of Democratic theory to produce the worst possible scenario.
Secondly, the Fed is raising interest rates to a point where it’s discouraging equity investments. This carries the risk of sending us into the same kind of situation Japan has been dealing with for twenty years, i.e. no consumption, no investment.
You lower taxes and spend the way out of a recession but once it starts to work (and I maintain that it has) you need to fucking adjust! It is better for the economy if taxes go up and rates go up slower than just having rates skyrocket. We’re fucking with inflation. Raise the tax rates.
We’re really fucking up with the tax rates/inheritance taxes. It serves nobody any purpose to leave things up in the air. We’re increasing the unified credit and ostensibly repealing the estate tax, but with a sunset provision! Who the hell knows what estate takes will be???
You may consider this minor, but it’s a big deal and it’s a big deal now. It has a lot of bearing on where tax rates should be for the wealthy and everybody else. It has a lot of bearing on where capital gains and dividend taxes should be, and it has huge bearing on how the step up at death provision should be.
The citizens of our country deserve to know how these things will be treated so that they can plan appropriately. Our government needs to know how these thing will be treated so that they can tax appropriately.
As it stands right now, some asshole with fifty million dollar will be able to pass on his estate tax free provided he decides to kick the bucket in 2011. I he decides to die in 2010 or 2012 the bulk of his assets could be taxed at about 55%.
Nobody actually beleives this will happen, but we don’t fucking know what we’ll actually do. The laws are in flux. This is a bunch of bullshit, because if we’re going to repeal the estate tax we also need to repeal the step up on death of cost basis.
To date, we’ve been avoiding this discussion. You appear to be sophisticated enough to understand that how we tax poor and middle class people is meaningless from a macroeconic standpoint for the most part.
The people who pay the bulk of taxes don’t know realistically how they are going to be taxed. They can’t plan appropriately. For the most part these people are smart, they will pay taxes now to avoid them later. The government is losing revenue that would benefit everybody if they had a reasonably cohesive plan. Since they don’t all the wealthy can do is play it close to the vest.
Bush has said that he wants the estate tax repeal made permanent yet he’s real vague on the step up provisions, and let’s face it, it ain’t gonna happen. There needs to be an estate tax, and I don’t mean that from any social justice standpoint. I mean that from a pure pragmatical standpoint. We need an estate tax that is balanced so that it incentives people to accumulate an estate to benefit their heirs, but also incentives latter generations to earn, and put that money to work.
Right now, we have neither.
A good plan for taxation for the next twenty years will cause people to plan for their estates and there’s no reason that can’t increase tax receipts, benefit the economy in general, and provide relief for the disadvantaged.
It just takes the guts to put such a plan in place.
Next, the bottom line is that deficit spending in this environment is a good thing. You can take a good thing too far though, and there’s no way around the fact that Bush is overspending versus what he’s bringing in.
If he were a true conservative minimalist than it might work. If he were a liberal tax and spender, it might also work (but not as well for the next 5 years or so.)
But you can’t have your cake and eat it, too. Bush is trying to do that.
Sadly Bush has suffered from the recession that occured right after he took office. It wasn’t his fault, and assholes that blame the economic woes of the early 2000s on Bush are ignorant or stupid.
Bush however has taken reduce taxes and spend to an absurd degree and his successor will most likely catch the blame for this mistake midway through their first term.
I give Bush props though for reducing tax rates on dividends i.e. QDI. That makes a lot of sense. I think the act of 2003 which set long versus short term capital gains tax rates and five year rates is also very smart.
It seems to me that everything that Bush does falls into one of two categories: Incredibly brilliant, or incredibly stupid.
Clinton on the other hand did neither, proving that you don’t have to be a genius as long as you’re not a moron. Doing a few really smart things isn’t necessarily a good thing.
Finally, I think Bush is going to turn out to have been an excellent President. I think Clinton gets marks as “very good.” Bush will do better because he’s asshole enough to do some unpopular things that needed doing.
I think we need to be a real foreign policy hardass. We need a democracry in the Middle East. We need to come down strong against terrorism.
I also think that we need somebody to blame for having done these things. Bush will make a great scapegoat. We get a true centrist and uniter and apologist in their in 2008 and things will be ok regardless of whether it happens to be a Democrat or a Republican.
What I’m afraid of is that we either get an uber-liberal or another uber-hardass, social conservative.
It seems to me a given that the Republicans are going to push a social conservative hardass in '08. I can’t imagine a scenario with a centris Republican going for the ticket.
That leaves the Democrats. We need a "Reagon Democrat, true centrist. to take the white house in '08.
Unfortunately, the left seems to be swinging further out into la-la land, and they seem to be to stupid to see that most of America doesn’t buy into their bullshit, as the wingnuts control the party.
Just give me a fucking moderate Democrat in '08. Please. I promise everything will be ok. I just can’t belieive that they’re so fucking stupid that they can’t see that half the Republican party would jump if they’d move half a step to center.
Define your terms and we may agree. As you state it, and as I see it the left is out there in loony tune land.
Awww, that sucks. I’m sorry you’re forced to address this. That is not my intention. You seem to always disagreee with me and your politics are different than mine. Yet, you have always been fair and reasonable.
Truly, I couldn’t care less what LL calls me.
My issue is a personal one with Ike that he has chosen to create.
One simply cannot be a drive by-asshole bearing personal grudges and an effective moderator at the same time. I don’t know where the scumgbag thinks he gets off indulging his personal baggage to the detriment of his duties. You don’t have that problem and I don’t expect you to pick up Dipshit’s slack, especially since Dipshit lacks the integrity to do it himself.
It must be uncomfortable and distasteful for you, and I am sorry for putting you in that position.
Would you be kind enough to elaborate on this? It seems counterintuitive, given what Aeschines stated:
You responded with these points:
Would you be kind enough to expand upon your reasoning and educate me?
P.S. In another Pit thread I equated FinnAgain’s Pit-posting style with yours. I’d like to retract that comparison as decidedly unfair to you. 
You know who I see as “out there in loony tune land”? Those who would try to equate “the left” with the insurgents. Come to think of it, that’d be pretty close to my definition of “swine cunt”, too.
I responded because I was aware of the other thread I linked to, and I perceived a pattern emerging. I was also previously aware of the thread you linked to. Other moderators may not have the same background information, and therefore will react differently. A lack of moderator action does not have to indicate bias; it can simply indicate a different judgement based on different knowledge.
Sure. If your’re goal is to make policy that will stimulate the economy, the paying down of debt is at the very least neutral, but more likely negative.
One of the basic macroeconomic tenets is that you have to spend your way out of a recession.
Pretend you’re a worker. If people are confident in the economy they will spend money on what you produce and not be overly connerned with their debt load. You will work more, make more money and be more willing to spend.
If they are concerned with their debt load, and you give them a break they won’t spend it. They’ll reduce debt. They’ll simply pay for things they’ve already purchased.
New purchases increase GDP. Paying down debt doesn’t. When giving a tax break, one needs to consider how it wil be used if the reson for giving it is macroecenomic.
I understand. It’s why you’ve earned my admiration and respect.