patrick.net

EMan says

don't let the door hit you on the way out.

How did the "union" get into this thread?... Always back to the same bugaboos with you guys...

If Americans knew what to care about they wouldn't vote people into office who continue to strip them of the resources that could be used to build this country up. Instead the arguments continue to be confused and diluted by people like you and your "I'm fine and i know another person i think is too so FU" arguments. In your world education cuts don't exist, tent cities don't exist, an infant mortality rate nearing a third world banana republic doesn't exist, because you're doing fine.

Well fucking congratulations. Enjoy your next holiday in europe. Don't worry about who the door hits on your way out.

marcus says

AS for your emotional jibberish about unions

Republicans are pretty smooth operators, huh? They got the nation to spend $3T EXTRA (over FY00) on the military, restore their oil companies' access to Iraq, cut their capital gains taxes in half, AND de-fund the state so your pension and your workplace is on the chopping block.

The chances that they have actually permanently crippled our country by their 1995-2006 policies are unknowable now, but AFAICT not as low as one would assume.

I don't know why it is so hard to understand we need to lower spending in some areas and raise taxes? If tax cuts are supposed to create jobs, it hasn't worked that well. I personally believe our low job rates in the 2000’s were only driven by consumer spending due to the American populace being severely in debt. When half of the people you know are buying nice cars and consuming to the hilt by leveraging a house and credit card to perpetuate this materialism, it couldn’t last. This country has partied hard for the last 8 to 10 years and now we are waking up with a hangover. I get disgusting about it sometimes because I was coming back from all these combat tours and stepped back into this alternate American reality. Spending, spending, spending! I will never regret my decision to serve my country because you need people willing to sacrifice for this nation. However, .1 percent of the country made huge sacrifices while another unknown percentage was allowed to act irresponsibly and now put our country at serious risk. Almost to the point I would consider treasonous.

Guess what, it is time to knuckle down and work on fixing this nation. It will take sacrifices from everyone by raises taxes and cutting our spending. We need more regulation because it is VERY apparent the average American or business cannot act responsibly. When I hear politicians say we need to bail out banks or else it will destroy us, woooaw buddy, that needs to be addressed.

We have a lot of hard decisions to make in the next decade. We cannot tune into corporate news and expect to hear the truth otherwise we end up as one of George Orwell’s books.

I just don’t get it. It seems almost like an anarchist point of view to not raise taxes. If we want to reduce government to the point of non-functioning, then wouldn’t we be getting into the anarchist realm? Isn’t anarchism probably the most radical left we could see, but some of these views are touted as far right or conservative view points?

Dictionary:

Anarchism – a doctrine urging the abolition of government or governmental restraint as the indispensable condition for full social and political liberty.

Troy says

Are we really this stupid?

Apparently we are. We spent too much so the solution is to spend even more - except for some reason it will be different this time.

EightBall says

Apparently we are. We spent too much so the solution is to spend even more - except for some reason it will be different this time.

How about we grow up and quit using lame cliches to describe a fairly complex problem.

So which programs would you cut EightBall and how much would that save? No more talking points. Give us specifics.

tatupu70 says

How about we grow up and quit using lame cliches to describe a fairly complex problem.

Grow up? The main complaint of the democrats is that GWB and the republicans spent too much money via tax breaks. Then they get grumpy saying that we need to spend more money ala ARRA or other government pork and we need to borrow more money. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

HousingWatcher says

So which programs would you cut EightBall and how much would that save? No more talking points. Give us specifics.

How about the military and foreign aid coupled with a reform of the tax code? You can't talk about reducing spending with a straight face and not do something about military spending. Foreign aid is not that huge but it is stupid to borrow money and send it overseas - even if this is a token amount.

I've repeatedly stated that income is income and giving preferential treatment based on what type of income it is ludicrous. If that is a tax increase on some people so be it - why do middle earners pay a higher percentage of their income than high-income people? That's just not right.

Stop hiding the SSI tax burden on the employers. Everything you pay in SSI is being paid by your employer. That is what 15% or so? Yeah yeah it is SSI it isn't a tax but we spend it all anyway and gets included in the general revenues one way or another. Stop the madness - tax everyone at some arbitrary amount (20%? 25%?) that will give us enough $$ to run the government but exclude the first 20k or 40k so the low-income people get a break. It would also make sense to adjust this for regional cost of living but that might be difficult to figure out.

The dems would rule the day if they would get off their own jock and frame the issue correctly but for some reason they are bent on self destruction. How can they be against a balanced budget amendment? I'd prefer you-can't-spend-more-than-total-receipts of the previous year budgeting but I'm just looney I guess.

Cut corporate subsidies and lower the corporate tax rate. They aren't paying jack crap anyway under the current influence peddling model where the government picks winners and losers in an elaborate shell game.

Sweden = tax people/incomes, nothing else

Dan Savage, polyamorous advocate, and sometime pundit on other matters, advocates for political positions that are near impossible to pass on a national level. But he doesn't advocate for the method to his own madness. The states are where he should be looking, but he's not. He wants the feds to fun everything like they do in Sweden.

EightBall says

Grow up? The main complaint of the democrats is that GWB and the republicans spent too much money via tax breaks. Then they get grumpy saying that we need to spend more money ala ARRA or other government pork and we need to borrow more money. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

We do need to borrow more money. At this point, it is WAY too late to change that. We made our bed in the early and mid-2000s and now we have to lie in it.

There is no overnight fix. We need to raise taxes and cut spending. But it needs to be phased in over time so as not to shock us back to recession or depression. Democrats understand this. Obama understands this.

Unfortunately, Republicans don't want to solve the problem. Instead they want to score political points with their base. They think that if the economy tanks, then the public will hang it on Obama. They may be right. But let's not be fooled about what is going on now.

They didn't improve the economy, obviously. They weakened it, and by 2020 they will be responsible for about $8T of our national debt, and we will be paying $400B/yr in interest for them.

Nope. The Bush tax cuts didn't weaken the economy. An unfinanced war in the middle east paid for through the extraction of equity from domestic housing stock is what has tanked the economy.

The Romans tried this. It failed.

War making is what bring down great powers. Not tax cuts.

Sheesh.

why do middle earners pay a higher percentage of their income than high-income people? That's just not right.

I try to explain the nature of tax breaks to people I know. One complaint I get a lot is "why is by employer taking everybody to X restaurant to everyone to get shitfaced."

It's tax breaks. The capital employees previously received in compensation or bonuses is now just another tax writeoff to their employer. The employer is spending your money for you because of the tax code.

The employer is paying you in Home Depot gift cards instead of cash because the tax code.

Obama phallus fluffer, NBC, paid no taxes last year because of the tax code.

Zandi is going after the mortage interest deduction. The Fed is targeting it too.

We don't know how senior the guy on reddit is.

Yes we do. He is Dan Savage, b.1964.

marcus says

AS for your emotional jibberish about unions, I guess it's good that you can pin the blame somewhere other than where it belongs, and that you're gullible enough to buy that hogwash propaganda. I've explained it all before, there are no rich elites in the LA teachers union. Everyone is on the same pay scale, including the officers of the union.

Marcus that is just not true. There is a lot of fraud and corruption right at the top. Why is it that in this state taxes constantly rise, poor constantly get poorer, teachers always get laid off, and yet government officials constantly rank in more and more dough. There are way too many robert rizo types out there.

FBI needs to investigate every single union, municipality and government official in CA starting at the top. Not just finally after years of injury and injustice start investigating one city because they so blatantly started robbing the HUD funds they received. Because that's not an exception, that is the norm in CA government and it's leadership.

Complacent, selfish, fraudulent, crony, entitled. That shoe fits.

wtfcapinv says

The Bush tax cuts didn't weaken the economy. An unfinanced war in the middle east paid for through the extraction of equity from domestic housing stock is what has tanked the economy.

No, the war was financed through government borrowing, and we could borrow thanks to our trade deficit pushing USD overseas, and the reason our trading partners had booming sales is due to the housing bubble, which was caused by lower interest rates, the tax cuts, and the rise of suicide lending.

The tax cuts were entirely unnecessary in that they didn't stimulate anything worth stimulating. The added debt/GDP they created is probably going to kill us later this decade as things run out to their end states.

No, the war was financed through government borrowing, and we could borrow thanks to our trade deficit pushing USD overseas, and the reason our trading partners had booming sales is due to the housing bubble, which was caused by lower interest rates, the tax cuts, and the rise of suicide lending.

You're just picking up the nuts left behind to find our way back home.

The borrowing is dependent on manufactured GDP data. Can't borrow if it costs too much to do so.

The tax cuts were designed to address the recession that began in 2000Q3. Is that in your memory bank?

wtfcapinv says

The tax cuts were designed to address the recession that began in 2000Q3. Is that in your memory bank?

No, the Bush tax cuts were planned in 1999 to loot the country -- to "return" our surplus tax money when it was only in surplus thanks to FICA overpayments. Bush ran on cutting income taxes in the Republican primary.

It's now the Republican answer to everything, including the $1.6T budget deficit now.

''Nothing is more important in the face of a war, than cutting taxes.'' -- Tom Delay.

tatupu70 says

There is no overnight fix. We need to raise taxes and cut spending. But it needs to be phased in over time so as not to shock us back to recession or depression. Democrats understand this. Obama understands this.

The democrats had their chance and BLEW IT. Where were they two years ago? Oh yeah they were busy buying off senators to pass a health care bill while Rome was burning. Now that it has been reduced to ashes, they suddenly are the voice of reason?

EightBall says

Where were they two years ago? Oh yeah they were busy buying off senators to pass a health care bill while Rome was burning.

Nobody wanted to raise taxes -- even on millionaires -- in 2009, 2010. Just like the Republicans demagogued medicare spending cuts to boot out Senators like Feingold, they would have ran attack ads on the Democrats raising taxes in a recession and making it worse. The Dems remembered what happened to them in 1994 and weren't going to repeat that mistake again.

Now that it has been reduced to ashes, they suddenly are the voice of reason?

What passes for reason in this shitty country, yes. Not that too many other peoples have their act together now. Probably countable on one hand.

EightBall says

The democrats had their chance and BLEW IT. Where were they two years ago? Oh yeah they were busy buying off senators to pass a health care bill while Rome was burning. Now that it has been reduced to ashes, they suddenly are the voice of reason?

So, trying to rein in medical costs in the US isn't important? Really? I would think that should be pretty near the top of the list with the boomers nearing retirement.

tatupu70 says

So, trying to rein in medical costs in the US isn't important? Really? I would think that should be pretty near the top of the list with the boomers nearing retirement.

You actually believe this is what they did or even tried to do? I have some swamp land in florida and a bridge in NYC for sale if you are interested...

EightBall says

tatupu70 says

So, trying to rein in medical costs in the US isn't important? Really? I would think that should be pretty near the top of the list with the boomers nearing retirement.

You actually believe this is what they did or even tried to do? I have some swamp land in florida and a bridge in NYC for sale if you are interested...

Please, enlighten me. What was the REAL motivation for trying to revamp our health care system?

EightBall says

You actually believe this is what they did or even tried to do?

yes, it's a step towards single-payer. Making the government pay subsidies to people making under the median income puts the government in the picture wrt cost controls.

Plus the MLR for insurance companies is limited to 15-20%. This is a start.

Our politics were & are too fucked to permit further reforms, but incremental is better than nothing.

Why not cut corporate subsidies while keeping the corporate tax rate at its current level?

tatupu70 says

Please, enlighten me. What was the REAL motivation for trying to revamp our health care system?

From what the dems said, it was to cover 30 million people without health insurance and stop insurance companies from denying coverage for pre-existing conditions. It would have been much easier to implement tort reform to reduce malpractice insurance and allow doctors to quit ordering tests that aren't necessary - but I'm sure you'll disagree with that assessment.

HousingWatcher says

Why not cut corporate subsidies while keeping the corporate tax rate at its current level?

To make it more attractive to bring jobs back to the US...

Troy says

yes, it's a step towards single-payer. Making the government pay subsidies to people making under the median income puts the government in the picture wrt cost controls.

Thanks for the reasoned response. Even when I disagree with you, you aren't an ass like many other people. In the end, however, would it not have been easier to raise taxes (i.e. apply medicare tax to all forms of income) and add people below a certain income level to medicare/medicaid? The bureaucratic institutions to run that are already in place and wouldn't require massive changes. Some simple rules such as no pre-existing limitations if you've had either gov't coverage or some minimum private coverage in the past year, tort reform, and eliminating the restrictions of selling across state lines would have gone a long way to fixing the existing system.

EightBall says

From what the dems said, it was to cover 30 million people without health insurance and stop insurance companies from denying coverage for pre-existing conditions.

That was part of it, yes. Another part was reducing costs.

EightBall says

It would have been much easier to implement tort reform to reduce malpractice insurance and allow doctors to quit ordering tests that aren't necessary - but I'm sure you'll disagree with that assessment.

I'm not against some sort of tort reform. Neither is Obama, as a matter of fact. I believe he mentioned it in his State of the Union. But tort reform is only a very small piece of the puzzle. Tort reform and the whole buying across state lines are great talking points, but they won't add up to a hill of beans. As usual, it's Republicans trying to stop needed change.

EightBall says

Why not cut corporate subsidies while keeping the corporate tax rate at its current level?
To make it more attractive to bring jobs back to the US...

Another right wing fairy tale. Jobs don't leave the US because of the tax rate. Period.

tatupu70 says

That was part of it, yes. Another part was reducing costs.

You can revise history all you want to support your position. Healthcare-for-all was the mantra.

tatupu70 says

I'm not against some sort of tort reform. Neither is Obama, as a matter of fact.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-5310795-503544.html

On Sunday, Mr. Obama discussed some of the types of malpractice reform that might be the subject of the state-based demonstration projects. However, he discounted the idea of capping medical malpractice damages.

Perhaps he has changed his mind now that the democrats aren't running the house?

tatupu70 says

Another right wing fairy tale. Jobs don't leave the US because of the tax rate. Period.

So if I have a choice of running my business in a high-tax locale vs a low tax locale this wouldn't factor into a decision? States don't use tax incentives to lure businesses to move?

Another left wing fairy tale - tax rates play no part in a company's decision on where to operate their business. Wait, you are going to reply that it is only one part of a myriad of factors...I can hear it now...

You can cut the corporate tax rate to ZERO and it would still be much cheaper to keep jobs in China and India than in the U.S. Let's not forget that companies like Whirlpool and GE outsource jobs depsite paying ZERO in corporate taxes in the U.S. As most people fail to comprehend, you simply cannot compete with slave labor. It's that simple.

HousingWatcher says

You can cut the corporate tax rate to ZERO and it would still be much cheaper to keep jobs in China and India than in the U.S. Let's not forget that companies like Whirlpool and GE outsource jobs depsite paying ZERO in corporate taxes in the U.S. As most people fail to comprehend, you simply cannot compete with slave labor. It's that simple.

Hear, hear. We need to have labor and environmental standards with free trade, otherwise it's a race to the bottom.

Taxes are the Republican answer to everything.

When we had a surplus in 2001, what was the GOP answer? Tax cuts.

When we have a massive deficit in 2011, what is the GOP answer? Tax cuts.

Can someone please tell me why anyone outside the top 2% votes Republican? I truly would like to know.

EightBall says

You can revise history all you want to support your position. Healthcare-for-all was the mantra.

I'm not the one revising history. Cutting costs was ALWAYS a major goal of reform.

EightBall says

Perhaps he has changed his mind now that the democrats aren't running the house?

Don't think so. Tort reform isn't the same as capping medical malpractice lawsuits. Not sure why'd you'd imply they are the same?

EightBall says

Wait, you are going to reply that it is only one part of a myriad of factors..

If you know the right answer why are you playing around pretending that taxes are the end all be all. As others have shown many times, corporate taxes were higher in the past and copmanies created plenty of jobs in the US. I'd like to see a graph of jobs created vs. corporate tax rate. I'd be shocked if there was ANY correlation at all.

@ eightball--

From Obama's speech to Congress on Health Care:

Then there's the problem of rising cost. We spend one and a half times more per person on health care than any other country, but we aren't any healthier for it. This is one of the reasons that insurance premiums have gone up three times faster than wages. It's why so many employers -- especially small businesses -- are forcing their employees to pay more for insurance, or are dropping their coverage entirely. It's why so many aspiring entrepreneurs cannot afford to open a business in the first place, and why American businesses that compete internationally -- like our automakers -- are at a huge disadvantage. And it's why those of us with health insurance are also paying a hidden and growing tax for those without it -- about $1,000 per year that pays for somebody else's emergency room and charitable care.

Finally, our health care system is placing an unsustainable burden on taxpayers. When health care costs grow at the rate they have, it puts greater pressure on programs like Medicare and Medicaid. If we do nothing to slow these skyrocketing costs, we will eventually be spending more on Medicare and Medicaid than every other government program combined. Put simply, our health care problem is our deficit problem. Nothing else even comes close. Nothing else. (Applause.)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/09/09/obama-health-care-speech_n_281265.html

HousingWatcher says

Can someone please tell me why anyone outside the top 2% votes Republican?

25% of this country is adamantly against the legality of abortion and another 30% don't believe a woman has total freedom of choice in this area.

50% of this country are against homosex marriage rights.

Those are the two biggies.

Republicans are also much more pro-Israel than Democrats, which is why Orthodox Jews support them at 80% rates.

Conservative Christians like Israel since they believe it's going to touch off Armageddon for them, and anything they can do to help that along is a-ok with them.

Also, the more stupid you are the more the conservative "job creator" / "get government out of my medicare" narrative makes sense to you.

tatupu70 says

Don't think so. Tort reform isn't the same as capping medical malpractice lawsuits. Not sure why'd you'd imply they are the same?

Gee I don't know why I would make them equivalent in the context of health care...but not sure you can exclude capping medical malpractice suits from tort reform...

Tort reform refers to proposed changes in common law civil justice systems that would reduce tort litigation or damages. Tort actions are civil common law claims first created in the English commonwealth system as a non-legislative means for compensating wrongs and harm done by one party to another's person, property or other protected interests (e.g. physical injury or reputation, under libel and slander laws). Tort reform advocates focus on personal injury common law rules in particular.

tatupu70 says

@ eightball--

From Obama's speech to Congress on Health Care:

Sorry, it was sold more on the quote and ideals from the letter he received from Kennedy...By the way, I agree with Kennedy. I just think it was a monumentally stupid time to do it and a huge waste of political capital on the dems part when they could have done something like - I don't know - try to jump start the economy? Did you watch the speech or even re-read it and come to the conclusion that we needed to implement Obamacare because we need to cut costs?

"What we face," he wrote, "is above all a moral issue; at stake are not just the details of policy, but fundamental principles of social justice and the character of our country."

EightBall says

Did you watch the speech or even re-read it and come to the conclusion that we needed to implement Obamacare because we need to cut costs?

Geez. You're still going to disagree? I read the speech. I quoted the speech. Yes, I did come to that conclusion. I'm not sure how you COULDN'T come to that conclusion.

tatupu70 says

If we do nothing to slow these skyrocketing costs, we will eventually be spending more on Medicare and Medicaid than every other government program combined. Put simply, our health care problem is our deficit problem. Nothing else even comes close. Nothing else. (Applause.)

EightBall says

Gee I don't know why I would make them equivalent in the context of health care...but not sure you can exclude capping medical malpractice suits from tort reform...

You aren't thinking very creatively then. There are all sorts of ways to implement tort reform without imposing a cap. How about discouraging nuisance lawsuits? How about allowing medically trained people to judge the lawsuits? Or loser pays legal fees? There are lots of ideas out there. Capping awards is only one of many.

tatupu70 says

Geez. You're still going to disagree? I read the speech. I quoted the speech. Yes, I did come to that conclusion. I'm not sure how you COULDN'T come to that conclusion.

Yes.

tatupu70 says

How about discouraging nuisance lawsuits? How about allowing medically trained people to judge the lawsuits? Or loser pays legal fees?

You must be a republican.

shrekgrinch says

Supply-side tax cuts worked for JFK. Then Reagan. Then Clinton (cap gains tax cuts of 1998).

No, they actually didn't.

Reagan raised taxes by eliminating loopholes and cut overall rates and raised the deficit massively (yes, we call that stimulus or spending). JFK lowered top marginal rates from 91% to 65% (http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2011/01/26/the-myth-of-jfk-as-supply-side-tax-cutter) -- everyone agrees that 91% taxes stifle growth, so can we go back to 65% now? Clinton raised taxes first and then cut some capital gains taxes slightly. Trying to use that to take credit for the dotcom boom is silly -- people were going to invest a lot of that money regardless of tax cuts -- most of the "investment" was short-term, and that was the heyday of day-trading, so most people didn't even benefit from the tax cuts. It could be just as fair to say that capital gains tax cuts resulted in the dotcom bubble and housing bubble if you're going to make some sort of correlation-not-causation argument.

This is all common knowledge, and yet uninformed people always get it wrong. Again, are you willing to move the top marginal rate back up to 65%? If you agree we had such a booming economy then, and top marginal rates are now 35%, then your whole supply-side argument is flawed. In reality the relationship between taxes and economic booms is far more complex than some stupid Laffer curve, and you have to isolate the effects of macroeconomic events.

tatupu70 says

You aren't thinking very creatively then. There are all sorts of ways to implement tort reform without imposing a cap. How about discouraging nuisance lawsuits? How about allowing medically trained people to judge the lawsuits? Or loser pays legal fees? There are lots of ideas out there. Capping awards is only one of many.

Tort reform is just a red herring for an ideological agenda. Tort costs are at most 1-1.5% of healthcare costs.

In addition, it has been shown that medical payouts have not increased over time significantly when you adjust for inflation. If anything, they have DROPPED over time when you adjust for inflation.

Ideology, not real.

Supply-side tax cuts worked for JFK. Then Reagan

What really worked for Raygun was a pretty healthy credit surge/bubble:

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=1cb

Like Bush the Lesser, this was partially prompted by the Fed easing interest rates:

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=1cc