patrick.net

The GOP will soon get it. It's either they support Ron Paul and have a chance or lose to Obama.

Why? Because the establishment will never get Ron Paul's supporters. And their numbers are growing fast.

What does Ron Paul have to do with the payroll tax? Your so obsessed with Ron Paul I think you need counseling.

Dude, why don't you look at the title of your thread?

You are so obsessed with the outdated republican/democrat paradigm you can't even see that their puppets are just being alternated.

If you cannot accept something different, stop whining and embrace the status quo.

And who do you think truly supports the reduction or elimination of your taxes?

Ron Paul wants to let the housing market collapse and allow the value of my house to plummet to $1. No thank you.

HousingWatcher says

Ron Paul wants to let the housing market collapse and allow the value of my house to plummet to $1. No thank you.

Hmmm...I will let others respond to that.

But here's a link that talks about housing and Ron Paul:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/sardi/sardi192.html

And the link says exactly as I just said earlier: Ron Paul would allow housing to collapse as president. If housing collapses, it will take the entire economy with it. Housing will be super cheap, but nobody would have the money to afford those super cheap houses.

So what's wrong with homes dropping in price?

What context of government policy do you see anywhere that exists showing the government has a interest in propping up housing prices?

The market sets prices, not the government.

We already have rock bottom interest rates and gave thousands of dollars to people to buy homes as an incentive a few years ago..

Suburbia has run its course. Technologies allow us to physically need less space, families are smaller and people aren't afraid of cities anymore...

mdovell says

So what's wrong with homes dropping in price?

Everything! If home prices are allowed to crater, there will be no economy and you will be standing on a soup line. The 2 states that saw prices drop the most, NEvada and Florida, have the worst economies. NEvada has the highest unemployment rate in the country, and Florida has the highest homelessness rate in the country.

mdovell says

families are smaller and people aren't afraid of cities anymore...

I disagree. Most inner city high schools today are nothing more than dropout factories. New York, Newark, Detroit, etc. have the worst schools imaginable. Hence, families need to move to the suburbs. On top of that, because of the recession, crime is actually increasing in the cities:

Crime is up, mayor's report reveals

An annual report from City Hall shows a 32% spike in forcible rapes reported in the 12 months ending in June. Murders and robberies also increased

Read more: http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20110916/FREE/110919914#ixzz1h2ifgsTC

Crime is so bad, a thug actually burned a woman alive in a Brooklyn elevator just a few days ago.

Democrats want to do it for just 2 month, Republicans want to do it for a year. And that's the difference.

FortWayne says

Democrats want to do it for just 2 month, Republicans want to do it for a year. And that's the difference.

That's a lot of afactualness for such a small post.

89 out of a hundred Senators voted for the Senate bill, which would extend the cut short-term so negotiations could continue after the winter break without the tax cut lapsing. Both parties overwhelmingly want the tax cut in place for the coming year. So the desired duration is not a difference, let alone the difference; and since 37 Republican Senators voted for the temporary extension, the issue defies partisan characterization altogether.

The backdrop here is that the Senate came up with an extension bill that met the President's requirements, and met those House requirments that Boehner had made known (ie: XL pipeline.) The Senate passed it, and adjourned in good faith, expecting to come back to the issue in January. Quoth Orrin Hatch: "This is probably a done deal in the House."

Boehner himself was in favor of the bill, but didn't even try to sell it to the rank-and-file in the House. Instead, he asked them what they wanted to do. Incredibly, they wanted to pick a fight over whether to debate the issue now or next month. And here we are.

This is an intra-party issue, and an inter-chamber issue --not a partisan issue.

Gory details:
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-12-20/boehner-on-defensive-again-as-party-rebellion-imperils-tax-cut.html

HousingWatcher says

I disagree. Most inner city high schools today are nothing more than dropout factories. New York, Newark, Detroit, etc. have the worst schools imaginable. Hence, families need to move to the suburbs. On top of that, because of the recession, crime is actually increasing in the cities:

Crime is up, mayor's report reveals

An annual report from City Hall shows a 32% spike in forcible rapes reported in the 12 months ending in June. Murders and robberies also increased

Read more: http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20110916/FREE/110919914#ixzz1h2ifgsTC

Crime is so bad, a thug actually burned a woman alive in a Brooklyn elevator just a few days ago.

On a national level crime is going down generally. http://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/fbi-releases-preliminary-semiannual-crime-statistics-for-2011

White flight ended. This is when people that were more affulent fled to the suburbs in the 60's onward..now it's reversed. The majority of poor people live in suburbs rather than cities.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121642866373567057.html

Why would this be? Well there are things that can happen in a city and not suburbs and vice versa. A noise complaint in a city doesn't take much..in the suburbs you can have car alarms go off, screams etc it doesn't matter as much. There's much fewer cameras in a suburb than a city. Criminals are now going outside of a city to do their crime rather than cities because there are far fewer cops and less resources.

Meanwhile the boredom of suburbia is bothering younger people to the point where they don't mind going into a city for a concert, sporting event etc. In addition car free living can be a plus.

Of course the other factor is gentrification. You wait until a property goes down to a point where you put in much higher ended things. The combat zone in boston was an example.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combat_Zone_(Boston)
Basically the old adult sections are gone only to be replaced with college dorms, a movie theater and other more higher ended goods

Another example is in NYC. Dinkins put in quasi government organizations that would put civil fines for various small crimes. It freed up police to go after violent crime. Gradually businesses came back...the disney store is where a red light district was!

I understand what you are saying about dropout factories but gradually it can be argued that education is going more to the private market. It isn't that hard to tell your kids to go to khanacademy.org or MIT courseware. Education is not limited to a classroom any more so than health care in a doctors office.

mdovell says

White flight ended. This is when people that were more affulent fled to the suburbs in the 60's onward..now it's reversed. The majority of poor people live in suburbs rather than cities

You need to read the article again--you've completed misread it. White flight has slowed. From the article:

"So many whites had abandoned cities over the past half-century, there weren't as many left to lose. Whites make up 66% of the general U.S. population, but only about 40% of large cities"

"For instance, while most of the 50 largest cities continue to see declines in the share of whites, it is at much-reduced rates"

And it has been joined by black flight--middle class african americans are fleeing to the suburbs leaving the poor in the cities. The very poor remain in the cities.

"As middle-class African-Americans have left San Francisco, the remaining black population has gone from poor to poorer. In 1990, half of the city's African-American population was very low-income; by 2005, that number swelled to about two-thirds"

Now the House has decided not to hold a vote on the Senate compromise at all. That surely means that they couldn't get party unity in rejecting it, which would make such a vote a political liability. Ironically, they decided last night to postpone the vote to today because they then wanted it to happen "in the light of day."

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1211/70678.html

I said earlier that both parties want a tax cut. Today Ezra Klein makes a persuasive point that calls that into question:

"Rather, Democrats and Republicans are arguing over the price Democrats are willing to pay and Republicans are willing to accept in order to extend the payroll tax cut for a full year. Republicans want, among other things, the Keystone XL Pipeline and further cuts to discretionary spending. Neither of those things, you’ll notice, is “a payroll tax cut.” Democrats oppose resolving big environmental questions through a rider to a must-pass tax bill, and they’re against some of the cuts Republicans are proposing. Neither of those concerns, you’ll notice, are concerns about a payroll tax cut."

He's casting the rhetoric aside and ignoring what the Republicans are saying and instead focusing on what they are doing. It's a fine thing to do. He's absolutely correct, and I stand corrected. It's more accurate to say that the Democrats want the tax cut extended for a full year, and the Republicans are willing to accede to that under certain conditions that have not yet been hammered out.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/an-interview-with-health-reforms-best-hope/2011/12/20/gIQAQnYT7O_blog.html

Cities are actually declining ni population, especially cities like Detroit and Chicago. The reports of the demise of the suburbs are greatly exagggerated.

Cities like NYC are losing their middle class and very soon will only be home to the poor and the rich.