Barack Obama tells Americans 'don't go to Las Vegas'

[21gunsalute]

Seems Republicans are for any tax cuts, unless a Democrat proposes them. Then they are somehow discriminatory. The fact is that Obama's bill cut taxes by $350 BILLION.
No, it was a characterization. It may notbe always, but you gave a good example yourself at the start of your post.

You claim that "Anyone with even a basic understanding of economics and logic should understand why it works this way." I gave you an example of a Nobel Prize winning economist that doesn't believe it. One of numerous economists.
The world is not that simple. And as I pointed out, Reagan raised taxes many times.

Gee, where are all your footnotes. The Federal budget increased by over 50% during the Reagan years.
Now you are way overboard. He has not taken over ONE SINGLE company. He is not even on the board of any companies. The gov't owns stock in three companies and is unwinding those positions. He is not taking over ANYTHING related to health care. Calling him a socialist is downright silly.

So, you are saying Bush was a socialist too? Your statement that GM would have made it through restructuring counters what all the analysts said. You are now claiming to know more than the analysts about business and more than a Nobel prize winning economist about the economy.Yes. It is very expensive to save the country from a depression. Too bad Obama wasn't elected earlier.

Are you serious? Any idea how many trips Bush made? Most were to Texas where he spent one-third of his presidency vacationing. Most of the remainder were fund-raisers. I'm glad we finally have a president that works for his salary.

I don't have time to readdress all this right now, but why do you keep comparing a total jackass like Obama to an almost as big a jackass like George W Bush? How many times do I have to say it? 2 wrongs don't make a right. Re-read my comments please. All you're doing is spinning the facts! Reagan lowered taxes from a top rate of 70% at the end of Carter's term to 28%! Unemployment dropped dramatically during his term. Inflation dropped dramatically during his term. Interest rates dropped dramatically during his term. These are facts that are indisputable no matter how much you try to twist them! George HW Bush raised taxes after saying he wouldn't and killed the economy again. Kennedy and Johnson lowered tax rates and had similar results to Reagan. FDR raised tax rates and the depression became worse! Reaganomics works. It's been proven time and time again. Krugman's doesn't.

 

[daddybo]

you never hear this mentioned?

Do any of these politicians know about the "Laffer Curve" ?

Heritage.org excerpt:

Over the past 100 years, there have been three major periods of tax-rate cuts in the U.S.: the Harding-Coolidge cuts of the mid-1920s; the Kennedy cuts of the mid-1960s; and the Reagan cuts of the early 1980s. Each of these periods of tax cuts was remarkably successful as measured by virtually any public policy metric.

 

[shadroch]

Tax rates today are already 14% lower than what Reagan lowered them to in his 1981 package.
95% of taxpayers recieved a tax cut last year.
Under Reagan, unemployment rose from 7.6 to the 9.6-9.8 range and remained there for two years.
Under Reagan, the economy turned around in the spring of 1983. That means Obama should be given another 14 months before anyone compares the two.
Then again, Reagan didn't inherit a country engaged in two wars, and inherited a baby boomer generation at it's earning heights, not one straining an already stressed social services program.
By the way- President Reagans popularity rating in the spring of 1983 was a whooping 35% favorable.

 

[Katweezel]

Ronald dropped in with some pals to say hello

)

 

[assume_R]

I wouldn't know. The peace prize certainly does not. Who votes on the science prize?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Prize#Nominations

Usually the science one is considered pretty reputable... although sometimes what they do is to acknowledge past scientists for their work long after it was published if it didn't receive recognition at the time (Einstein comes to mind... even though his later-awarded prize wasn't for relativity)

 

[zengrifter]

Oscar Goodman 'bans' Barack Obama from Las Vegas

 

[fubster]

In Reagan's last year in office in 1988 the top tax rate was slashed to 28%, the unemployment rate fell to 5.4%, the inflation rate fell to 4.2% and interest rates fell to 9%! Despite the dramatic slashing of tax rates during the Reagan years, tax receipts virtaully doubled! And it was the so-called "rich" who were responsible for most of this increase. The share of income taxes paid by the top 10 percent of earners jumped significantly, climbing from 48 percent in 1981 to 57.2 percent in 1988. The top 1 percent saw their share of the income tax bill climb even more dramatically, from 17.6 percent in 1981 to 27.5 percent in 1988! What does this mean? It means the working class bore less of the tax burden!

...and all it cost was the quintupling of the national debt! seems like a solid trade-off to me. start a ton of programs that cost money, and then cut taxes!

that's almost as smart as cutting taxes during war time. oh, wait...

 

[fubster]

Do any of these politicians know about the "Laffer Curve" ?

Heritage.org excerpt:

Over the past 100 years, there have been three major periods of tax-rate cuts in the U.S.: the Harding-Coolidge cuts of the mid-1920s; the Kennedy cuts of the mid-1960s; and the Reagan cuts of the early 1980s. Each of these periods of tax cuts was remarkably successful as measured by virtually any public policy metric.

lol @ heritage.org

 

[callipygian]

Do any of these politicians know about the "Laffer Curve" ?

While the general concept of the Laffer Curve is a decent idea, most people who invoke it are idiots.

(1) The Laffer Curve, for those who are unaware, is an upside-down U which represents the tax collected as a function of tax rate. At low tax rates, people produce a lot but you collect very little of it; at high tax rates, people lose incentive to produce. There is a maximum in the middle, representing an optimal tax rate.

(2) The Laffer Curve only supports tax cuts if it can be proven that the tax rate is above this optimal tax rate; if our tax rate is below the optimal, then the Laffer Curve would suggest we raise taxes in order to raise revenue.

(3) Experimentally, the Laffer Curve does not exist, or no country has a high enough tax rate to have actually reached said maximum.

(4) Graphs to the contrary are generally laughable, such as this one:

The authors have (correctly) plotted corporate tax revenues as a function of corporate tax rate for multiple countries, and then simply drawn a line through all the outliers. It's actually quite ridiculous, and as a general warning, this is representative of the level of scholarship that goes into such thinking.

(5) The same data fitted more reasonably looks like this:

This suggests that there is, at best, a shallow Laffer Curve with a maximum around a corporate tax rate of 25%, but this is statistically indistinguishable from a linear model which simply suggests that taxes collected are proportional to the tax rate (which would suggest that the Laffer Curve either doesn't exist or its optimal point is far to the right of the graph).

Over the past 100 years, there have been three major periods of tax-rate cuts in the U.S.: the Harding-Coolidge cuts of the mid-1920s; the Kennedy cuts of the mid-1960s; and the Reagan cuts of the early 1980s. Each of these periods of tax cuts was remarkably successful as measured by virtually any public policy metric.

Of course tax cuts are remarkably successful by public policy metrics.

(a) Tax cuts are generally made when things are going well; happiness is high, the economy is growing, and there aren't any emergency expenses.

(b) Reagan's tax cuts can be measured as successful because we haven't finished paying them off yet. Remember, fiscal conservatives argue for tax cuts alongside spending cuts - since the Reagan years, we have not had any spending cuts, so it's kind of silly to look at the Reagan tax cuts without looking what happened to the deficit.

Basically, when the Democrats are in power, it's tax-and-spend, tax-and-spend. When the Republicans are in power, it's don't-tax-but-spend-anyway.

 

[blackjack avenger]

Some of You Are Really Missing Something

When the government takes money from a person in taxes that is less money that consumer has for goods and services. Hence the economy is negatively affected. This is a simple fact. If the government came and took all your money then you could buy nothing!

When a government takes money from a business in taxes that is less money the business has to expand, hire more employees or research and development and/or the tax expense gets passed onto the consumer. If the government were to take all the money Microsoft has they would have to close their doors. Also, as tax hikes get passed to the consumer you have the same problem as stated in the first paragraph

The government produces no goods. If you look around in your home there is nothing the government has made.

When the government interferes in the economy it causes distortions that hurt the economy. When the government gives tax credits to purchase X product they do so at the cost of Y product. In response businesses must cater to government wishes and not consumer wishes. Campaign contributions to politicians become more important then consumer satisfaction. The car tax credit was a horrible idea. It was great for car manufactures but what about appliance manufacturies? Oh wait, they are getting their credit also. I wonder how many lobbyists were involved. Well, then what about clothes makers? They were left out, perhaps more campaign contributions and lobbying is needed.

I imagine while the car makers got a bump in sales another industry was hurting. The government distorted the markets in favor of one sector of the economy over the other. This leads to the government bailing out poorly run or losers in the economy while those sectors that are performing well have to compete with government intervention in the economy.

 

[blackjack avenger]

Obama & Socialism

Socialism - Any of various theories or systems of social organization in which the means of producing and distributing goods is owned collectively or by a centralized government that often plans and controls the economy.

The expansion of Medicaid by 30 million is an example of Socialism

With medicaid the government determines what services are available and how much doctors and hospitals are paid for services for those in Medicaid.

THIS IS SOCIALISM

Health is to important to put into the hands of the government, think of the Social Security mess.

 

[shadroch]

Who has expanded Medicaid by 30 million people? Certainly the just passed health bill did no such thing.

 

[blackjack avenger]

I Stand Corrected

Who has expanded Medicaid by 30 million people? Certainly the just passed health bill did no such thing.

The number is 32 million
Just do a simple google search and you will find site after site on the net discussing the increase in Medicaid enrollment.

I believe Medicaid taxes are going to go up? This is government command and control of the economy. They are taking money from you and the government will determine who gets what health services at what cost.

 

[QFIT]

The number is 32 million
Just do a simple google search and you will find site after site on the net discussing the increase in Medicaid enrollment.

Just do a simple google search and you will find site after site on the net that says the player at third base controls the table.

 

[QFIT]

Socialism - Any of various theories or systems of social organization in which the means of producing and distributing goods is owned collectively or by a centralized government that often plans and controls the economy.

The expansion of Medicaid by 30 million is an example of Socialism

With medicaid the government determines what services are available and how much doctors and hospitals are paid for services for those in Medicaid.

THIS IS SOCIALISM

Health is to important to put into the hands of the government, think of the Social Security mess.

Even if this were true, it is no more an example of Socialism than police departments, fire departments, the military or public schools. Actually, it is more an example of Christianity. And Social Security is an extremely well-liked and successful program. And, HCR does NOT put health care in gov't hands. It is, in fact, less of a change than enacted by Romney in Mass or proposed by Nixon when he was in office. Few people would call Romney and Nixon Socialists.

 

[aslan]

Even if this were true, it is no more an example of Socialism than police departments, fire departments, the military or public schools. Actually, it is more an example of Christianity. And Social Security is an extremely well-liked and successful program. And, HCR does NOT put health care in gov't hands. It is, in fact, less of a change than enacted by Romney in Mass or proposed by Nixon when he was in office. Few people would call Romney and Nixon Socialists.

In the particular action of giving universal health care to residents of Mass., Romney was a socialist. there are some differences, however. Romney built the Mass. health care plan on Federal funding that was already coming into the state. He simply redirected those funds to the health care plan. The other difference is that socialism is tolerable at the local and state level, where people not only have more direct input into the system, but people can vote with their feet by moving to another jurisdiction. It is not absolute power over the people, because the people have alternatives. With the Federal government mandating health care, there is no alternative. That makes a case for "forced" socialism, whereas the other makes for competition among jurisdictions and allows for plenty of alternatives. At the state and local level, the rights of the people are not in absolute jeopardy.

 

[shadroch]

The number is 32 million
Just do a simple google search and you will find site after site on the net discussing the increase in Medicaid enrollment.

I believe Medicaid taxes are going to go up? This is government command and control of the economy. They are taking money from you and the government will determine who gets what health services at what cost.

A quick search of the internet also shows me dozen of sites claiming Obama was born in Africa, the census will be used to round up jews, that wrestling is real and the Mets will win the World Series.

 

[callipygian]

When the government takes money from a person in taxes that is less money that consumer has for goods and services. Hence the economy is negatively affected. This is a simple fact. If the government came and took all your money then you could buy nothing!

True, but nobody's advocating the government taking all your money, or even half. The Laffer Curve stipulates that the best tax rate is somewhere between 0% and 100%, not that the best tax rate is 0%, and experimental evidence suggests that if the curve even exists, we're near the top, and in any case, it doesn't matter that much anyway because the curve is almost linear.

This is the problem with people who want taxes lowered to stimulate the economy - there is no logical end to the argument, why not lower taxes to 0%? If cutting taxes is so good for the economy, why not just cut them all? It's a self-inconsistent argument.

The most fiscally conservative argument is simply that there should be a set of things that people agree is "essential," and that spending should be cut until only what is essential remains, and then taxes raised high enough to cover all the costs. There will be political squabbling about what is "essential" and what is not, but that's part of the process. Most people favor some sort of health care reform but oppose the current bill; you can't complain that it's non-essential when something like 70% of the public thinks something (if not this thing) should be done.

The major problem is that nobody's actually making a fiscally conservative argument. Cutting taxes when we're running a deficit is not fiscally conservative. Complaining about spending increases is a red herring - even if spending increases didn't pass, we'd still need to raise taxes just to cover the "baseline" spending. Anyone who's truly fiscally conservative should be pushing for one of two plans: (1) cut spending and hike taxes, or (2) increase spending and hike taxes. Either way, if you're fiscally conservative, you should be pushing for higher taxes.

 

[aslan]

True, but nobody's advocating the government taking all your money, or even half. The Laffer Curve stipulates that the best tax rate is somewhere between 0% and 100%, not that the best tax rate is 0%, and experimental evidence suggests that if the curve even exists, we're near the top, and in any case, it doesn't matter that much anyway because the curve is almost linear.

This is the problem with people who want taxes lowered to stimulate the economy - there is no logical end to the argument, why not lower taxes to 0%? If cutting taxes is so good for the economy, why not just cut them all? It's a self-inconsistent argument.

The most fiscally conservative argument is simply that there should be a set of things that people agree is "essential," and that spending should be cut until only what is essential remains, and then taxes raised high enough to cover all the costs. There will be political squabbling about what is "essential" and what is not, but that's part of the process. Most people favor some sort of health care reform but oppose the current bill; you can't complain that it's non-essential when something like 70% of the public thinks something (if not this thing) should be done.

The major problem is that nobody's actually making a fiscally conservative argument. Cutting taxes when we're running a deficit is not fiscally conservative. Complaining about spending increases is a red herring - even if spending increases didn't pass, we'd still need to raise taxes just to cover the "baseline" spending. Anyone who's truly fiscally conservative should be pushing for one of two plans: (1) cut spending and hike taxes, or (2) increase spending and hike taxes. Either way, if you're fiscally conservative, you should be pushing for higher taxes.

I'm an extrovert, so let me ramble a bit. I halfway agree with you, but I have some differences, too.

One thing I would do if I had the power would be to cancel a good part of the stimulus bill that has already been passed, because it is not essential spending. That would lower the tax needs in and of itself. Next, I would repeal the health care bill and invite industry in to help Congress fashion a health care system that will rely on the private sector with adequate oversight by government to keep it honest. There were lots of suggestions by the conservative side of the aisle that were completely ignored, simply because they could be ignored. That was wrong from the start. My belief is that anything short of a military, a police force and a court system, that government can run, private industry can do better. I am not talking about the rightful role of government in overseeing industry and setting limits and rules to protect citizens from unfair practices (eg, child labor laws, working hours, anti-trust legislation). We should get the "established" system right, not create a "replacement" system. Private enterprise needs constraints and guidelines to safeguard the rights and needs of the people, but not absolute control, because then you're giving up on the system that made us great, instead of fixing it to better serve all concerned.

The second phase I would do is what John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan did, give business tax breaks for a twofold purpose: (1) to stimulate the private sector and help them thrive, which in turn will create jobs, and (2) to increase tax revenues due to the increase in business revenues that will more than make up for the decrease in taxes, as occurred in those administrations.

The third phase would be to cut back federal programs that I believe should be dealt with at the state and local levels. Education would be high on my list. When states and local jurisdictions administer these programs there is closer input from the people being served. This approach also creates competition among the various jurisdictions allowing citizens to vote with their feet. If I don't like the educational system in Maryland, I have the option to move to Virginia. I am not trapped by a system federally controlled, which IMO tends to create mediocrity by its universal dictates and sprawling bureaucracy and robs us of the benefits of interstate and local competition.

The fourth part of my plan would be to cut back our military operations. The military should be used to defend the nation, not to spread democracy among unwilling participants, and not to police whatever we don't like in the world, and not to ensure we get out fair share of oil or other commodities. We talk incessantly about being energy independent. If I had the power we would be building dozens of new nuclear plants, drilling offshore, fully exploiting our plentiful natural gas resources. If we could quadruple our wind and solar energy supply, it would hardly add up to ten percent of our energy needs, which are increasing every day. I would encourage continued research in these areas but only to the extent of their promise. We can't build security and independence on wishful thinking. We can easily become energy independent with nuclear, along with our natural gas and oil reserves alone. We might even be able to slowly cut back on coal, unless of course, they can find a way to clean it up in an economically feasible manner.

Fifth, I would take a large blade to foreign aid. We cannot buy the friendship of other nations, and our first responsibility is to the needs of our own citizens. Foreign aid does not make us any more secure. It is a giant black hole that has few benefits. It is also used to "entitle" us to meddle in other countries' internal affairs. This is one of the reasons we are hated by many foreigners. We need to take care of business at home, and that includes minding our own business.

I don't know if these ideas makes me fiscally conservative, but I think they are fiscally responsible. We have to stop spending money we don't have.

 

[muppet]

aslan for president!