Hello, I'm a liberal. And of course we all know what that means. According to that unimpeachable font of truth and insight, El Snortbo (Rush Limbaugh), and his GOPunditry bretheren that makes me one of the Hate America First Crowd. And because we know by the quality of the source this MUST be true. And being that I do not have the memory of a gnat nor the grasp of an ameoba, and I understand how we got into the messes we're in and who is responsible for that, I'm VOTING REPUBLICAN. In fact I'm going Teabag all the way this fall!
If the America I hate (according Mr. Snortbo) is to fall then who better to bring that to fruition than the most extreme Republicans we can get? Who else will:
Lead us into expensive foreign misadventures for fun and profit spending blood and treasure, bankrupting us and making us hated and mistrusted by more and more of the rest world, even our allies?
Lead us into free trade where we trade away our jobs, our livelihoods, our know-how and even our sovereignty to benefit the few of us who make their fortunes as CEOs and major shareholders in nationless corporations.
Lead us into free-market fundamentalism, where the wise and all knowing hand of the market place (and those who manipulate it and make the rules) undermine the public interest and the middle class for their narrow selfish interest.
Lead us into deregulatory shangra-la where our money isn’t safe from predators, let alone our workers, environment, food, economy or our consumers.
Lead us into the redistribution of wealth where more and more of the resources generated by our people and our land are concentrated into the hands of fewer and fewer mega-rich who wield their money as political weapon against We The People to control our government and reap even more for themselves.
Lead us into ignorance where public education is destroyed to create a large underclass of insecure, low cost workers and where science that threatens interests of the economic powers that be is twisted and undermined in the short-term interest of the few.
Lead us into fundamentalist religiousity, backward thinking and vile xenophobia that we might emulate the piety of the dark ages once more.
Lead us into hatred, fear division and manipulation by the GOPunditry and their incessant GOPropaganda lies and create an ingorant electorate in capable of informed self governance.
Yes that pinnacle of virtue, El Snortbo has most truthfully proclaimed that as a Liberal, I hate everything about America. And that’s why I’m voting Republican, to take our country back(wards)!
If you hate America like I do, please help add to my list of Republican attributes so that we can convince all good America hating liberals and independants to hand supreme power to the Republican party and end this America once for all!
24 comments:
sean, the action you have sarcastically proposed seems like the next logical step if the mood at DU is any measure.
Looks like 9 weeks of extreme Schadenfreude for Nemo.
Yep, 25% hikes in healthcare premiums are definitely among the seeds of GOPdestruction
The 25% hikes occurred almost 2 years after the inauguration. 4 years after the Dems took over the Hill. When will the Obama presidency start? When will the Democrats assume power?
GOPdestruction Heh.
And the good news just keeps on coming...Peter Orszag (President Obama's former budget director) called for all of the Bush-era tax cuts to be extended for two years, including rates for the wealthiest taxpayers. The drab blue of the past is rapidly being replaced by a bright red going forward. Huzzah!
Hazzah! Extending the Bush Tax cuts would add $3.3 Trillion dollars to the nat'l debt through 2020!
http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-money/domestic-taxes/117021-pew-outlines-cost-projections-for-extending-bush-tax-cus
But then we knew all along that this teabaggy tooth gnashin about Bush's debt is just spittin in the wind, cuz like Chainey said "Reagan proved that deficits don't matter." And it's more than obvious they don't really matter to RepubliCons as you've aptly demonstrated with your short-sighted comment above.
They would add to the debt if you assume extending the cuts would have no effect on Americans behavior. It has been my experience (and that of history) that if you promise to reward someone for more productivity, they will work harder/smarter/longer to gain that reward. This in turn grows the economy and Federal revenues go up. In this case it would seem that he who Laffers first or last, laughs best.
7 weeks, 6 Days Heh heh heh.
Don't give me your trickle shit theoretical representational fantasies. Your education awaits you on WPR on 9/10 at 9:00AM on 90.7 FM, be there if you dare to challenge your orthodoxy.
9:00 AM Kathleen Dunn - 09/09D
After nine, Kathleen Dunn and her guest discuss the ongoing debate
about tax policy, and the future of the Bush tax cuts. Guest: David
Cay Johnston, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist. Author, Free Lunch:
How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense
(and Stick You With the Bill).
Kathleen Dunn as an educator? She's more of a cure for insomnia.
No, Dunn is not an educator, she is the host/moderator. David Cay Johnston will provide the education. I've shown you the water, you can drink or protect your dogmatic orthodoxy. I have little doubt as to your choice.
I really have no choice. My office in in the center of a building that acts like a Faraday cage. I can only get stronger signaled (and more interesting) radio stations and 90.7 ain't one of them. It's too bad, I enjoyed them in the past and would have relished calling in and finding out how the "educator" would dismiss all the empirical evidence inferring the correctness of the Laffer curve. sigh.
It may seem like it's off the topic of the mid-terms, but have you noticed the unusually intense tempo of drone strikes lately? It's almost as if a homicidal cynic is trying to influence the election by killing a much despised and central player in 9/11 (For what it's worth, I think OBL was blown to itty bitty pieces under a daisy cutter at Tora Bora.)
No problem Nemo, you can listen to it later today or tomorrow online on WPR's audio archives: http://www.wpr.org/webcasting/archives.cfm
It was fascinating and he did address the Laffer curve he said that it was no where near symetrical as Laffer tries to protray it.
BTW the idea that there are local radio stations that are more interesting than WPR is ludicrous and that includes WCPT Chicago's Progressive talk which is often very interesting except for the commercials which are never interesting but rather a useless of time for me.
If he was arguing symmetry he's missing the point. The point being related to maxima/minima of the curve or more specifically maxima. It really comes down to what you define as the purpose of the tax code. If you view taxes as a tool to punish the productive and snatch Liberty from the masses, then more is never to much. If you view taxes as a way for society to generate revenue then locating that mamima is fundamental.
Still interested in your view of the tempo of drone strikes as of late. Think all that "October Surprise" talk back in zip four was just projection?
The point of the symetry is that it's not nearly as simple as Laffer infers. Since the Bush tax cuts have contributed greatly to the deficit Obama inherited and is projected to add $3.3T by 2010, I'd say wherever that mark might be they missed it.
I have no way of knowing whether Bin Laden is still alive or not. Since we haven't gotten him in the last 9 years, I doubt seriously that Obama thinks he's likely to get him in the next two months. Sounds like typical AM Radio whackiness to me. Maybe he should bomb a few Paki dialysis clinics.
Sounds like typical AM Radio whackiness?
How
about
now
sean?
As for tax cuts causing the deficit, it is telling to note that the deficit was going down (revenues were going up, thank you Dr Laffer) until a spending binge that started around 2007. It's as if a bunch of drunken sailors took over both houses of Congress at the end of 2006. This is not completely fair to drunken sailors in that they tend to spend their own money, but you get the picture.
Bullshit: http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=200
Total Revenues would include those tax items not cut mixed with those cut. All you see reflected in those numbers is that the US had an economic slowdown in the early zips. A breakdown of a tax cut item would be actually useful to either show or contradict the Laffer curve. Look at something like capital gain tax collections.
Still, the across the board tax cuts in 81 look to be good even with these flawed numbers. If only we could have controlled spending during the 80's but as we now clearly see: Democrats spend. And when the money is gone they spend some more.
Still believe that the increase in drone strikes is just "AM Radio whackiness"?
7 weeks, 4 days :)
Ah the Nemo shuffle. I love to watch you dance when you're wrong.
You said: "As for tax cuts causing the deficit, it is telling to note that the deficit was going down (revenues were going up, thank you Dr Laffer) until a spending binge that started around 2007."
Of course neither of those things are true. Tax Revenues did not increase after the tax cuts (yes there was an economic downturn, mild compared to today's downturn handed to us by years of disterous GOPolicy). The deficit was definitely NOT decreasing under Bush.
So in the face of your error you've attempted to move the goal posts by claiming "Total Revenues would include those tax items not cut mixed with those cut." Wrong again, revenues are the receipts, the taxes collected by the government, period. Furthermore, since not only were the tax cuts not paid for by offseting spending cuts, nor was medicare Part D and the Afghan and Iraq wars were financed outside the federal bugdet, there were NO net "cuts" during the Bush years, NONE NADA ZERO ZIP. Quite the opposite. Bush and the republicans ran up the federal debt then handed it an economic near melt down to Obama.
You're entitled to your own opinions but not your own facts. Btw it looks like only the middle class portion will remain so we're not going to borrow more money from China so that the Koch Bros can have money that they don't need and that will not be used to help average Americans. Even I will benefit from the extention of those MC cuts, I think they should all expire so we can start to get a handle on the gross Republicon debt.
If you check, revenues from capitol gain taxes went up after the capitol gain tax rate was cut.
Let me be clear, Republicans spent to much when they were in power. Quite a few of them were tossed for it. I commend you for being consistent by helping vote current big spenders (Democrats) out. Russ looks like a somewhat fit guy. Maybe he can get one of those door to door census jobs after the election.
50 Days :)
According to the non-partisan Congressional budget Office you are wrong again.
Estimated Budgetary Impact of the Tax Increase Prevention Act of 2005:
Extension of the Reduced Tax
Rates for Capital Gains 0 0 -1,549 -8,375 2,672 -54-12,698 * * 0
See the first item (CBO 6-2-06) here: http://www.cbo.gov/cedirect.cfm?bill=hr4297&cong=109
In the short term there may be an increase in revenue due to people taking advantage and cashing in. But as the CBO demonstrates, over the long haul that effect fades and revenues drop.
Nemo, your media lies to you and you bring those lies here and destroy them. Get a clue!
You keep calling the dems big spenders when it has been the GOPsters that have run up the deficit both times thery've been in control over the last 30 years. You're just empirically WRONG. As usual.
Btw, those CBO figures are in millions of dollars for the years 2006 through 2015.
The cap gain tax cuts were put in place in 2001 and your quoting me estimated stats from over a decade later. Do you think the recession might have had some effect? Disingenuous-ness thy name is sean.
The capital gains rate alone does not determine revenues. There are other factors that can also effect the amount culled from the brave and productive in addition to where the current rate is on the Laffer curve. For example if the rate is 1% and is lowered to 0% the market my benefit but the looter class will not see any of it. In a similar fashion, if the Feds raise the rate to 100% the result would be a drop to close to zero in the amount collected. Real people tend to not take a risk their money if there is zero reward.
I could go on with more empirical evidence of the Laffer curve but all the talk of the Kemp-Roth tax act, the Kennedy tax cuts, the 1920s tax cuts and Hauser's Law would just fall on ears (eyes really) that are closed by an extremist ideology.
Conservative Republicans spend more than Dems? Given that the current crop in Congress is adding to the debt at a rate better than 100 Billion a month, I'm surprised that your keyboard did not burst into flames as you typed that fabrication.
49.375 Days :)
First of all I said that the downturn in the early 2000's negatively affected revenues (paragraph 3 of 5:58 post) so there was nothing disengenuous about my statement. Secondly, the CBO projections were not for over a decade later as you claimed. They projected the downturn in revenue from the TIP&R Act of 2005 (enacted 2006) to begin in the years 2008 and 2009, a mere two years out from the CBO report date.
Now if you want to talk about the laffer "curve", then a reasonable discussion would be where the Bush tax cuts fall on that "curve". Talking about 0% and 100% taxation may be illustrative of the concept, but has no basis in reality. You might as well be talking about taxation on Saturn.
And finally, as I have aptly demonstrated already, that the continued adding to the Federal debt is the result of the ongoing wars, the Bush tax cuts, medicare part D, Bush's TARP and of course the great Republicon Recessio that were all locked into place before Obama and the current congress took office. These are legacy costs and not primarily the result of spending bills be the current Congress.
What I'd like to know is how many times in a row you can be proven wrong before you simply shut the up?
Hmmm, please explain how the costs associated with the Iraq war add huge amounts to the deficit but the spending on the failed stimulus (a greater amount!) does not. If you manage that I'd also like to know how a sheep's bladder can be used to predict earthquakes.
Glad to see that you have come along on understanding the Laffer curve. Maybe you could explain it to your thicker chums when they get perplexed about how cutting taxes can result in more revenue. I'd do it, but I've been banished. Banished I tells ya!
48.46 Days :)
Of course the stimulus adds to the deficit. I would never claim otherwise. But the need to do something like a stimulus in the first place was caused by the great recession.
You want to dispute the wisdom of the stimulus? Fine, that's debatable by reasonable people.
Under Kensian theory you would hopefully have some reserves or at least not be in debt up to your eyeballs like we are when you go into a severe downturn so you can use short-term public spending to try and get the economy turned around. Unfornunately, the debt sky rocketed in the years preceding the Great Recession, putting us between a rock and hard place.
Personnaly, I wish the stimulus and Bush's TARP, etc would not have been needed at all. That being said, I think the stimulus should been restricted to ONLY alternative energy programs and the crumbling infrastructure needs that we've built up over the years, which as an engineer I'm sure you're aware of. Those are real needs and the jobs actually are created here in America instead of overseas. Unfortunately it wasn't.
If you assume that I think everything that Obama and the dems have done is completely right, you're mistaken.
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