patrick.net

they should raise taxes on capital gains (a lot), not income.

wormwood says

You mean our great grand parents and parents who immigrated legally?

Not that you make sense but fyi, if you go back to the time of my grandparents or further, there were NO limits. That is before the 1920s, there were no immigration limits.

wormwood says

Scare tactics for government power grabs.

In wormworld, I reckon this passes as a dissertation. Compelling argument there ww. I suppose after you wrote that phrase you thought to yourself, "I rest my case."

Oh yes, and it's also a vast left wing conspiracy to enrich Al Gore.

Some might argue that if it's possible to get rich trying to save us from ourselves, that that means there still might be hope for capitalism.

Yeah, I get it. When all the people in the top 1% of intelligence distribution collide with those in the top 1% of the US income distribution, it isn't always pretty.

just_passing_through says

If it were true they wouldn’t have been able to pass that health care bill.

Actually, the Dems only had enough votes to break the filibuster when Franken was seated in June 2009, until Kennedy croaked during the August recess, then when Kennedy's replacement was seated, until Sen Brown was seated with the new Congress in 2010. Just a couple of months in 2009 really, and the Senate can move very slowly when the opposition wants to be obstructive.

"The PPACA passed the Senate on December 24, 2009, by a filibuster-proof vote of 60–39"

No reality-twisting needed. Your "700 days of controlling both houses" understanding is the reality-challenged view.

wormwood says

hy do most small business owners, the ones who actually employee people vote Republican?

I gave you the numbers above, the split isn't as wide as you assert.

To the extent a difference exists "small business" people have the resources and connections to not need the government "helping" them. Their kids go to private schools, they Iive in gated communities, they have deductible health plans, and they can shelter $40,000/yr+ of their annual incomes in tax-favored retirement.

You are, of course, missing the bigger picture of what happens to small business people when our country becomes fucked up like Mexico or Brazil.

I guarantee you that small business would rather see a functional, full-employment economy like what we briefly enjoyed under Clinton in the late 90s, or even the fake Bush version of it in the mid-2000s, rather than the shitstorm that is coming at this country head-on.

Why do union types, university professors, actors and government hacks and those who don’t work vote mostly Democrat?

Why do you seem to be such a stupid person here? Make your points, don't be some passive-aggressive asshole.

Apple is making a deal with Chinamobile to sell them iPhones. Find out for yourself how many subscribers Chinamobile has. You do the math.

FYI, The $250K figure is for COUPLES, the figure for individuals is $200K. Oh, now someone will say $50K is not a difference. I guess to Bawney Fwank it's not.
However, I differ from some people because I think some tax breaks for people should be thrown out. The first that comes to mind of course is mortgage interest deduction.
I agree also with the idea of Cain's flat/fair tax.
Taxes should be levied on consumption, not on investment, production, and savings.
Geithner is a tool, the reason he has a job is his father doled out foundation money to Obama's looney mother for some pet project in Indonesia or other. This fact is never reported, for reasons best known to the sycophantic media weasels like Chris Matthews, et. al.
It's fascinating to see the arguments: Republicans feel that the growing debt is unsustainable, and that raising taxes will hurt the economy. Geithner's argument is: if you worry about the debt, we must raise taxes. If you don't care about the debt, that's ok, I will sell $1 trillion in bonds.
He never talks about the obvious: Live within the confines of the taxes collected by the treasury, and be satisfied with a debt equal to one year of GDP. How close they get to this will be interesting to see.
The White House screwed the GM bondholders and the non union workers lost their pensions. Obama gave EQUITY in GM to the Unions!
Return the favor and starve the Democrats. No more money, no more taxes, no more bailouts, no more cruise missiles for Libya.
48% of ALL new jobs created in the last 2 years happened in Texas. By odd coincidence, there is no income tax in Texas. They have agriculture, high tech, energy, fishing, aerospace, defense.
The lack of taxation and regulation has attracted many jobs to Texas. Higher taxes has chased many away from high tax states.

clambo says

48% of ALL new jobs created in the last 2 years happened in Texas. By odd coincidence, there is no income tax in Texas. They have agriculture, high tech, energy, fishing, aerospace, defense.

Florida and Nevada don't have income tax. How are they doing with job creation?

troll much, wormwood? Venezuela's third0-world shitholes aren't the competitive model to Republican laissez-faire capitalism, Norway and Sweden is.

wormwood says

When you ask a liberal how high,how much to satisfy, they can’t answer the question.

This is just more trolling. Check out Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Canada, Australia, and Germany's systems and get back to us. What they do seems to be working a lot better than what we do.

wormwood says

Small business people by definition are not rich. Yeah right, we are all sending our kids to private school and are immuned to bills.

What I saw Troy post was that 51% of small business owners wish republican controlled congress. Later he said this isn't much of a difference, but that to the extent that it does exist....etc.

Translation. He didn't say all small business owners are rich. But rather that some of them are, which might account at least for the small difference the 51% represents compared to the general population.

If you can't understand anything beyond self interest (which may be the case for you), then yes, we can trace party affiliation to who pays or receives the money. The rich business owner doesn't want to pay taxes to go to services or investment that aren't directly for them. Sometimes they don't even want to pay taxes for things we need for our future. And sure government workers, depend on the government for their jobs and their livelihood.

Still, I would argue that you confuse correlation with causation. Often the government worker, or professor or actor was a democrat long before they chose their career. I could ask, what is it about being a democrat that makes one more likely to choose a career of service to others, or in pursuit of creative or intellectual interests that transcend simply the pursuit of wealth ?

(note: I am not saying that all democrats or only democrats pursue such careers. Nor would I try to say that all or even most republicans have careers that are just about making money. )

wormwood says

Raising taxes on the producers will only cause the producers to pull in their horns.

Cutting off their nose to spite their face? Leaving money on the table.

Let's look at the current tax debate, raising the marginal rate of individual income over $200,000 from 35% to 39.6%.

So a person booking $300,000 in income will see an additional $4600 in taxes, $88 a week.

This is going to prevent this go-getter über-capitalist from working? GMAFB.

They will not hire. They will save their money (what little is left after the non-producers get a hold of it) because they know things will get worse.

Let them save then. The system will fall that way. The central facts we face is that we can't blindly cut government spending. We can try, but that will tear apart the system. I'd like to cut the DOD by half but I don't kid myself what would happen to this country if we did that -- even the piddly BRAC cuts killed entire communities in the late 90s.

Clinton's tax rates, contrary to unanimous Republican fear-mongering, did not destroy the economy. Your entire argument here is completely reality-challenged, i.e. bullshit.

again I am sorry about Hugo’s recent illness.

still with the passive-aggressive trolling. LOL. Like it matters. Your bullshit here is obvious enough as it is.

wormwood says

Clambo said “by odd coincidence there is no income taxes in Texas!”

well I had clambo on ignore since his stuff is 100% stupid, and I see he continues with the pattern.

Texas has a massive budget deficit:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/health-care/texas-lawmakers-fail-to-solve-big-budget-problems-punt-tough-decisions-down-the-road/2011/06/24/AGbSTWjH_story.html

and an unemployment picture not much better than the national average:

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=Vx

Canada, Australia, Norway, have 1. natural resources to export 2. small populations. 3. very low immigration. Germany has no resources but low immigration and an export economy based on manufacturing, which we should emulate. Germany also as NO capital gains tax, this helps them. We should emulate what works. 1. No illegal immigration 2. No capital gains tax.
We should also drill for our own energy, since it costs about 8% of GDP, we can find it here (285 trillion cubic feet of natural gas here), and if Exxon sells it to us, we get the money back in dividends (if you bought a mutual fund).
Greece and the USA are very different. The reason Greece wanted into the Euro was to get access to more money, which they borrowed and spent. The actual economy of Greece has always been small and their GDP is a bit larger than the state of Connecticut.
The train is already here, this is now the new normal, at least in California.
If you wish to have money in the future that is worth anything at all, you must hope they fight tooth and nail to raise the debt ceiling. The only thing stopping your money from becoming worthless "lucky money" from Chinatown is the guys who seem so "unreasonable".
Sure if you're rich you don't care a rat's ass, or you are smart and bought only Swiss stocks and have a bank account in Swiss Francs.
Raising taxes is ridiculous, whether or not it is smart or fair today, they won't because this will scare financial markets.
Texas created 48% of all USA jobs in the last 2 years. There is no income tax in Texas. They have other growth industries which are promoted such as energy production.

One sentence is unclear. The guys fighting tooth and nail *against* raising the debt ceiling without cuts are whom I refer to.

lol ... if it can be raised it is a false cap. Only a liberal mind would give faith to a make-believe false cap that one need only "feel" is in place. A real cap is unwanted by the liberal progressives -- always has been. The liberal mind wants no boundries for anything ... and that is why liberalism fails.

A conservative mind needs no cap other than zero balance for all matters other than military. Going into debt against treasure for military action is ok, only because the treasure saved from such action SHOULD be used to off-set the losses we experience. What I mean is, to the victor goes the spoils. So, going into debt for military action is just fine. Going into debt for education is a friggin joke. Going into debt for EPA or IRS or FDA or BATD or any other non-constitutional group is not ok. Going into debt for any social program is not ok. SSI was a liberal/progressive dream, not a conservative idea. As is the case with all welfare programs, it failed.

The medi-care, medi-cade, and other health provider programs are wet-dreams for medi-pros. They are on auto-payment with ZERO market forces and pulled-from-a-butt prices tied to everything.

Conservative response to medi-pros: End all medical insurance programs. End all income based medical welfare. Make all medical services cash and carry. The docs would hate this, but screw them. My NEW rules: If you want to practice medicine in America you can attend school for free with high enough grades. While you attend school you will work for room and board at the nearest free clinic. After you graduate you will work in a military based medical service, for serviceman wages, for 2 years. After that you will be free to work where and how you wish, but you will give 50 hours per year of free service at the nearest free clinic. There you have it folks. Cut the free cash titty off from the medi-pros and force some market costs upon them. Poor people or any people can swing into thefree clinic at any time for any need. Those who would rather pay can negotiate for services with the doc of their choice. Cash and carry.

Canada, Australia, Norway, have 1. natural resources to export 2. small populations.

That helps, yes, but Canada and Norway also run balanced budgets more or less. It's my thesis that the tax rate in the end doesn't really matter, since taxes come out of land values and rents in the end. You're welcome to disagree with this thesis but I think it's pretty solid, since we can simply look to the high-tax nations like Denmark, Germany, the other Eurosocialists and see how well their economies function, and look at their rent levels and land prices.

clambo says

and if Exxon sells it to us, we get the money back in dividends (if you bought a mutual fund).

ahaaha aha aha. Oh man, that's funny. Exxon selling our own natural resources back to us, and if we buy their stock we get some of that money back via their 2.5% dividends. Meanwhile, Norway is taking 50-60% of its resource rents to the state, sequestering this flow in pension fund savings. No wonder I had you on ignore, welcome back to that state.

Texas created 48% of all USA jobs in the last 2 years

More WSJ-OpEd-quality bullshit. Texas actually managed to avoid the worst of the credit bubble with their very sensible limitations on home equity withdrawal.

http://www.irvinehousingblog.com/blog/comments/desire-for-mortgage-equity-withdrawal-created-the-housing-bubble/

It's not that Texas is doing so well now -- it's not -- it's that it's doing less worse than the rest of the country that was using temporary home equity windfalls to power their larger economies.

It is true the recovery is essentially stalled:

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=VA

Energy employment in Texas has in fact been pulling their train:

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=VG

There is no income tax in Texas.

yeah, and their state budget is fucked. Big surprise there.

clambo says

Raising taxes is ridiculous, whether or not it is smart or fair today, they won’t because this will scare financial markets.

yeah yeah we heard that in 1993, immediately before a massive wave of private investment and full employment.

8th grade should have a test given to split students into vocational or educational studies and highschools should be changed to have vocational based studies to fix this stupid system, that some dope-smoking bookworm dreamed up, that all students should be taught as if they were college bound. It's stupid.

also, 2 years of military service after age 18 should be mandatory for all Americans. Not everyone would be in a combat role, but all should be made to serve.

Bap33 says

Poor people or any people can swing into thefree clinic at any time for any need. Those who would rather pay can negotiate for services with the doc of their choice. Cash and carry.

Comparing your complicated, anti-freedom conservative-fantasy boot-camp system to Canada, Australia's, NZ's, Sweden's, Norway's, Denmark's, Germany's, France's, Japan's and several other first-world functioning systems is simply laughable.

http://wayne-doucette.blogspot.com/2010/07/why-is-healthcare-so-expensive.html

Looks like I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue...

Bap33 says

My NEW rules: If you want to practice medicine in America you can attend school for free with high enough grades. While you attend school you will work for room and board at the nearest free clinic. After you graduate you will work in a military based medical service, for serviceman wages, for 2 years. After that you will be free to work where and how you wish, but you will give 50 hours per year of free service at the nearest free clinic. There you have it folks. Cut the free cash titty off from the medi-pros and force some market costs upon them. Poor people or any people can swing into thefree clinic at any time for any need. Those who would rather pay can negotiate for services with the doc of their choice. Cash and carry.

So who pays for hospitals, nurses, technitions, computers, machines (lots and lots of expensive machines that hospitals and drs use), medications, etc.? You know, like the entire rest of the cost of healthcare other than doctor pay. Any suggestions?s

Shrek - I am curious as to why you insist upon hijacking every thread with the same tiresome theme.

Have you considered therapy in addition to having your medications readjusted? It might do you a world of good.

Bap33 says

that some dope-smoking bookworm dreamed up

It's difficult to focus on the text when you're stoned.

The tests that split people into either educational or vocational studies would be a skewed as are all other standardized tests. It's crazy to think that everyone fits into the box.

There are many people who can't read - when they finally learn how, they might fit into a different category.

Bap33 says

also, 2 years of military service after age 18 should be mandatory for all Americans. Not everyone would be in a combat role, but all should be made to serve.

I respectfully disagree that forcing people to "serve" their country by making them walk in a straight line, peel potatoes and perform many other equally exciting tasks would be the best use of everyone's time. Oh, let's not forget that we will pay them less than they would earn if they remained in the private sector, which in turn would mean less taxes for the country they're trying to serve.

APOCALYPSEFUCK says

Especially if they had 30 minute infomercials of them making out.

What would the product be?

Announcer's voiceover: Are you worried about the upcoming Apocalypse - with no friends or family worthy of making it through?

Palin says, "I am..." as she steps out of a limo, leaving her family behind. It drives into an inferno & you hear screams..

Bachmann says, "I am..." as she climbs off a tractor from the family farm she denies ever having benefitted from any of the hundreds of thousands of dollars received in farm aid (even though she claimed farm income on her taxes). The tractor, filled with her husband, 5 children and 21 foster children, drives across the field and drops into a hole.

Announcer: Why worry about making it through alone - when you can make it OUT?

Palin grabs Bachmann, throws off her glasses and pulls her down out of frame. The announcer steps into the frame and explains that with the coming apocalypse, friends will be important. Exiles "Kiss You All Over" plays while the two women are shown making out. Sounds of the crew vomiting can be heard over the words to the song...

wormwood says

Raise taxes on the small business guy he is just going to cut employees and save as much as he can.

This is the biggest lie of the conservative movement. Cutting taxes does not spur hiring and raising taxes does not cause layoffs. It is a complete fallacy.

wormwood says

Troy you want the US to copy the European socialist system? Have you been reading the news lately.

There are two tiers of eurosocialists, the high-tax high-service systems -- Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Germany, France -- and the low-tax high-service systems -- Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece, the UK.

One of these systems is sustainable, one is not. I really don't understand why I have to explain this in such detail, the evidence of the superiority of the high-tax systems is simply obvious.

http://www.merge-left.org/2011/03/24/high-taxes-and-high-entrepreneurship-capitalism-in-socialist-norway/

This is not to say eg. Denmark's high-taxes on small business is optimal, I think they are taxing labor too much in this case.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/05/business/worldbusiness/05iht-labor.4.8603880.html

wormwood says

Unless of course your aim is to take ALL the corporate profits of all the American corporations in 2011 and maybe just maybe you can pay the interest on 100 trillion.

your understanding of economics is something one could find written in the free prize of a CrackerJack box.

Most of that massive unfunded liability of social service is simply Medicare blowing up. We have the fix to that, it is single-payer healthcare, putting everyone in a eurosocialist system that limits profit-seeking of the service providers via monopsony.

This, too, is obvious. We already pay twice as much per capita as Sweden of PUBLIC money on health care, and get much less than half of the care for that money.

It is simply impossible for our economy to support the projected medicare deficit.

Things are going to have to change. We can either sit with our thumbs up our asses (the Republican approach) and have the system fail, or we can change it to what actually works demonstrably well (or at least much better) in the real world -- the Eurosocialist model of Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Australia, Canada, Japan, France, Germany, etc etc.

wormwood says

Raise taxes on the small business guy he is just going to cut employees and save as much as he can. Unemployment, no spending, shrinks GDP and interest rates will go up because banks will want more money because they are scared too.

Pure dogmatic fact-free drivel. Taxes WERE raised -- here in the US -- in 1993, and none of that happened. You are spewing nothing but bullshit, which is all the conservative viewpoint can apparently offer any more.

Sadly, no. They won't lift that restraining order.

clambo says

Raising taxes is ridiculous, whether or not it is smart or fair today, they won’t because this will scare financial markets.

I disagree the market would rejoice over the sheer sanity of it. Even selfish billionaire types would acknowledge, "I'm very unhappy about this personally, but it is the best thing for our country. Well, at least for the middle class, as if I care about them."

Troy says

Actually, the Dems only had enough votes to break the filibuster when Franken was seated in June 2009, until Kennedy croaked during the August recess, then when Kennedy’s replacement was seated, until Sen Brown was seated with the new Congress in 2010. Just a couple of months in 2009 really, and the Senate can move very slowly when the opposition wants to be obstructive.

“The PPACA passed the Senate on December 24, 2009, by a filibuster-proof vote of 60–39″

No reality-twisting needed. Your “700 days of controlling both houses” understanding is the reality-challenged view.

And so you just made my point. During those 700 or so days they had at least two options that didn't involve bribing their peers:

1. Negotiate in good faith rather than try to ram crap down the other parties throats forcing them to use their only and last option - filibuster.

2. During the periods the were filibuster proof they could have also passed a budget - but they weren't working on that. Kind of reminds me of the state govt in CA.

Then there was the lame duck session and quite some time after that. Still no budget. It's ridiculous to pin it all on the republicans.

Your reply is correct though and what I wrote might have been read as "an easy breezy 700 days" which it wouldn't have been, obviously.

I think this is what will happen:

1. Conservative house passes a budget that raises the debt ceiling with strings requiring cuts. Heck, they may even send over a few different versions (a) (b) and (c).

2. After that the ball is the the Senate and Presidents court. It really doesn't matter if they like the bill(s) or not, they have to pass and sign one.

If they don't they risk making a type 2 error - death penalty for an innocent person rather than a type 1 error - setting a guilty person free.

Type 2 error also being the all hell breaking loose default scenario and will in my opinion at that time be 100% the fault of the liberals. They would have had a choice in (from their perspective) two errors to make. Type 1 being passing a budget they don't like.

For pushing a hundred dopes into homes they can't afford and ruining them heres what you get: $666,000

For videotaping 1 whore you get: jail.

We live in bizarro world. The other world is the 'normal' correct one (but how to get there??!)

wormwood says

Didn’t you learn from your elite education

Just out of curiosity, when did it become bad to be smart? Or have a good education?

When did the country decide we'd rather have "folksy" running things? And why?

maybe he was trying to sell the house, " just check out those granite counter tops"

Having a balanced budget, cutting deficit is something this nation needs. We can't keep on spending our way into prosperity, tried that and did not work.

Only reason we are starting to recover as a nation is because people are actually getting out of debt and starting to move the economy. Debt does not produce economy, only poverty.

wormwood says

Tatupu, I will paraphrase the late great William Buckley:
“I’d rather be ruled by the first 100 people in the Boston phone book than the entire faculty at Harvard.”
I share his sentiments.

Have you been to the DMV lately?

tatupu70 says

wormwood says

Didn’t you learn from your elite education

Just out of curiosity, when did it become bad to be smart? Or have a good education?
When did the country decide we’d rather have “folksy” running things? And why?

Not to be a pain, but it was liberal/leftists that came up with stupid crap that infested public-education and public-perception and resulted in a dumbed-down America. The list is about a mile long, so just admit I'm right and save us both the trouble. lol (like that will happen)

TechGromit says

What I think most American’s fail to realize even if the government eliminated the Department of Defense, the Department of Transportation, Department of Justice, Department of treasury, and all of the other departments, it still wouldn’t “balance” the budget. There are two things that take up more than 66% of the budget and it’s Social Security and Medicare. The Federal income only covers 60% of what we spend, if we are to have any hope at all to balance the budget, the bulk of the cuts must come from Social Security and/or Medicare. In the end these entitlement programs must be drastically scaled back, if not completely eliminated, they are unsustainable.

That's not really true. Social Security is about neutral now and has been in the plus all along. So, it's not the cause of the deficit.

It's all about defense and Medicare. Install a public health care system modeled after the best of Europe and Japan and then scale back defense by 50%? 75%? and you'll get somewhere.

The problem is that there are a lot of jobs in defense. Cutting them will be very painful.