How did we get into this deficit mess?

From the New York Times:

From the New York Times, article by Teresa Tritch, "How the deficit got this big"

Teresa Tritch wrote the story, published on July 24. Sources for the chart were the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 26th, 2011 at 1:21 am and is filed under Barack Obama, Economics, Politics, President Obama. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

102 Responses to How did we get into this deficit mess?

lowerleavell says:

August 8, 2011 at 5:58 pm

I found this visualization of our debt very helpful. We really need to pay down our debt and our financial obligations!

http://usdebt.kleptocracy.us/

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lowerleavell says:

August 8, 2011 at 12:30 pm

This pretty much sums up everything I’ve been saying already.

youtube.com/watch?v=YkOExn3A62Q&feature=player_embedded

Ed, you do know you’re calling most of Washington a “whore” right? And you want to entrust them with more of your money?? These Tea-Party people are refusing to be a whore. I commend them for that.

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Ed Darrell says:

August 8, 2011 at 2:11 am

Criticize the Tea Party all you want…I’m sure they’ve earned it…yet at least they aren’t cow-towing to lobbyists and selling their souls for the top dollar. Disagree with their principles…fine, but at least they have them unlike many in Washington today.

If they were doing it for money, we’d call them prostitutes.

You say they do it for free? That doesn’t make it moral or right, it only changes the name.

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lowerleavell says:

August 8, 2011 at 1:52 am

James said, “Oh Lower does does he? Funny…what does he think he’s doing, and his fellow conservatives, are doing when they spout the word “socialist” and “communist.” ”

James and Jim,

Frankly, I would advocate both sides growing up and having meaningful discussions rather than this school-boy prattle that is being labeled as “debate.” You sound like you’ve been caught throwing a punch and saying, “Well…they started it!” Why is it that I would have higher expectations of your debate ethics than you? Shoot – you have the vice president of the USA calling a grass roots movement of frustrated Americans “terrorists!” Seriously! They won’t even call Islamic Terrorists “terrorists!” Come on guys! Grow up!

Frankly Jim, I would love to see conservatives and liberals be able to sit down like adults and have meaningful discussion on issues without character assassination and gross mishandling of others’ positions. Shoot, even Ed is in rare form these days accusing Boehner and the Republicans of actually wanting the credit rating to drop! There is plenty of blame to go back and forth on who is responsible and why we got into this deficit mess. That’s why I came and posted on this blog. My original post was pretty clear – I don’t care WHO is at fault for starting this mess – FIX IT! Currently in Washington…that’s not possible. Thus…credit downgrade. As I’ve said before, it takes two to play chicken.

Honestly, both sides of the aisle want to fix it and are frustrated with the approach that the other deems to work. But both sides are patriotic Americans (or at least used to be) and you would do well to remember that we both salute the same flag! This crap (excuse the term) is exactly what we’re getting from Washington and exactly why our rating dropped in the first place! Instead of coming up with viable options that actually work, BOTH sides are more interested in political position gamesmanship. My word!

Ed here is actually posting a real perspective of how he things should be fixed. For me, it is a counter-intuitive argument that the type of stimulus’ being proposed by Washington are actually helpful. That doesn’t necessarily mean that the idea doesn’t have merit – it merely means that you have to explain to me why something that is illogical at face value actually has merit when you look at it in depth. Beyond that, not trusting government to fix all our problems doesn’t mean I don’t believe in any government, OK?

I personally believe in the value of the citizen. I see the value of the citizen working his tail off to achieve success without the government making him feel entitled…thus making him a slave of the system. Both rich and poor are in that entitlement mentality right now. I have spend enough time helping people in rehab centers and homeless shelters to understand how the system is played. You do no one a favor by making him depend on others to fish for him. This type of stimulus that you are proposing does more to facilitate a well-fare state where the average “Joe” (no pun intended) is dependent on government assistance for everything including the price of light-bulbs…

I think I understand what you’re saying in theory Ed. I really think I do. I simply question the wisdom in your approach in being the right one for this crisis. And I do understand your frustrations with Bush and I share many of them. I agree he took our rainy day fund. I liked the tax credit but I think a strategy for cutting spending should have been included. But…how does that fix things now?

Beyond that, I’m not stupid to think that Republicans aren’t in bed with rich lobbying companies either. But you would be foolish to think it was just the Republicans.

Criticize the Tea Party all you want…I’m sure they’ve earned it…yet at least they aren’t cow-towing to lobbyists and selling their souls for the top dollar. Disagree with their principles…fine, but at least they have them unlike many in Washington today.

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James Kessler says:

August 7, 2011 at 8:28 pm

Jim writes:
You seem to take offense at the term “anarcho-conservatives”.

Oh Lower does does he? Funny…what does he think he’s doing, and his fellow conservatives, are doing when they spout the word “socialist” and “communist.”

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Jim says:

August 7, 2011 at 7:20 pm

Good evening, Lower!

So glad you responded…thanks.

My point about the ending of the Great Depression was not that the entry into WW2 did, or did not, bring it to an end. My point was that the anarcho-conservative mantra of the last 20-30 years or so has been that war and tax cuts revive struggling economies.

And then I asked the question, why the hell isn’t our economy booming? We’ve had nothing but war and tax cuts since 2002.

As to whether or not the Great Depression was ended by the spending and taxing of the Roosevelt Administration or by the war, the answer is obvious: Yes. To both.

The History Channel, Lower? Really? Yes. Let’s, by all means, have *that* conversation.

You seem to take offense at the term “anarcho-conservatives”. It’s not an epithet. A**holes and pr*icks and c*cksuckers…those are epithets. I didn’t even call them America-hating b*stards. I don’t care for that sort of rhetoric and I hear plenty of it on both the left and the right. I won’t deny that I have given in to that impulse myself and I don’t much like it when I do.

That said, “anarcho-conservative” is a perfectly apt description of today’s Republican. Can we honestly call them Republicans when they consider the great and honorable leaders of their party Socialists? Eisenhower, Ford, Nixon, Javits, Aiken, Hatfield, Landon, Wilkie, Rockefeller, Baker, — hell — even Dole and Reagan have undergone a great deal of selective revision in the minds of today’s anarcho-Republican.

Why?

Because even more conservative Republicans like Richard Lugar and Orin Hatch…definitely in the Reagan mold — are being attacked as Socialists. Because they believe government has A role in solving some of society’s problems.

The vast majority of today’s Republicans are anarchists precisely because they do NOT believe this. The tea party governors of Florida, Wisconsin and Ohio are living proof.

Anarchy is not a dirty word, Lowell. It is simply the status quo when there is no government left to support society and no society left to check and support the government. It is what we currently see in places like Somalia. I still fail to see what tea partiers find attractive about…

No public schools
No speed limits or traffic safety laws
No paved roads
No safe bridges
No clean water
No food inspections
No regulations on toxins and carcinogens
No police or fire services
No safe public parks or nature preserves
No minimum wage
No air traffic control or safe runways

But I suppose there are at least SOME things in Somalia that would have broad appeal, at least among those in the anarchist movement who are also part of the religiousn right. They would like the fact that, in Somalia, there are no…

Safe abortions
Homosexusals who are allowed to live
Women in authority in church or state
Restrictions on the sort of weapon you can own

I suggest the anarcho-Republicans move there. They wouldn’t be allowed to practice Christianity. But frankly, I don’t seem them practicing it in the US anyway.

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lowerleavell says:

August 7, 2011 at 6:54 pm

Jim said, “One little sidebar: anarcho-conservatives love to say that it was not government spending that brought America back from the Great Depression.”

Apparently this includes those “anarcho-conservatives” folks down over at the History Channel…

Love the name calling that is rampant on this site. Sure does reinforce the depth of your arguments I’m sure.

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Jim says:

August 7, 2011 at 5:55 pm

Good evening, Mark!

Great post about a great man. You’re absolutely correct.

One little sidebar: anarcho-conservatives love to say that it was not government spending that brought America back from the Great Depression. Instead, they opine, it was America’s entry into World War Two. I agree with you, that we were already moving out of Depression long before Pearl Harbor. But let’s say the conservatives are correct. War is a boon to a struggling economy…

That’s interesting. And I still hear them say it. War and tax cuts solve everything.

Well what the hell? We’ve had nothing but war and tax cuts since 2002. At what point do we stop doing the same thing over and over again…expecting a different result?

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mark says:

August 7, 2011 at 4:14 pm

Hindsight:
When Franklin Roosevelt came into office, he took over the presidency from a man who watched as the nation’s economy collapsed around him. Roosevelt determined that in order to reinvigorate that economy, the Federal government had to spend money to stimulate it.

He was right, and his programs brought about improvement. Under pressure from the anti-stimulators, however, Federal spending was eased under the impression that the moneys spent had been sufficient. They were not, and the economy began to slump again, not to be truly repaired until World War II — the Great Stimulus.

Thankfully, we have the hindsight to have observed Roosevelt’s stumble and not repeat it. Unless, as so many would have us do, we keep our eyes tightly shut.

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How did we get into this deficit mess? (via Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub) « Armchair Economics from Ghost Dog Jedi says:

August 7, 2011 at 6:38 am

[…] From the New York Times: Teresa Tritch wrote the story, published on July 24. Sources for the chart were the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. … Read More […]

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Ed Darrell says:

August 6, 2011 at 9:27 pm

Most of Chapter 5 of Episode 1 of “Commanding Heights” in this little YouTube version:

Then, on into Chapter 6:

If we don’t do anything, we get “lots of Hitlers, lots of wars.” Let’s make jobs instead.

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Ed Darrell says:

August 6, 2011 at 9:10 pm

Joe, Morgan, and others: You might benefit from looking at a more accurate and nuanced picture of how Keynes’ ideas were employed, though often without acknowledgement or even consciousness that it was Keynesian economics. This is Chapter 5 of the Episode 1 of “Commanding Heights,” Daniel Yergin’s great history of economics in the 20th century — and mind you, Yergin is no friend of Keynes. But see how it worked in a depression, which is where we are now:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/commandingheights/hi/story/ch_f01_05.html

(You can find the rest of Episode 1 and links to the rest of the site, with great resources, here: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/commandingheights/hi/story/ch_menu.html )

I’ve read Keynes’s book (and I find few others have, but I was urged by the Liberty Fund to do it). It’s clear that he did not think the government should intervene all the time, but as the film describes, the government should back out and restore reserve funds in good times. Bush did exactly the opposite, however, and that’s where we got into big trouble. Keynes calls for government intervention when the markets collapse, when it’s important to put money in the hands of wage earners who would otherwise be out of work and out of money. I think it’s hard to argue with that, morally.

See the chart at the top of this thread. The point is that it’s not Obama’s spending that got us into this mess. So it’s unfair to claim that spending as Obama proposes won’t work — inaccurate, too.

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James Kessler says:

August 6, 2011 at 7:56 pm

To quote:
Therefore, according to Keynesian economics, Bush tax cuts should = economic growth.

They would have been…if the rich had spent that money investing in this country. And its especially stupid to do tax cuts to the rich in the middle of a recession since it’s just sucking money out of the economy and thereby contracting the economy even further.

EXCEPT THEY DIDN’T.

But that hasn’t stopped your precious Republicans from arguing that if we give the rich another round of tax cuts it will create jobs and economic prosperity for everyone. Your party is rather like the abused wife who keeps on going back to her husband after he apologizes for kicking her ass and promises to never do it again because “he loves her.” And what happens? The same exact result..she goes home to her husband and again he beats her up and round and round your party goes.

In short your party is making the United States nothing more then an abused wife who continously gets beat up by the rich until finally, sooner or later, she’ll be killed.

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James Kessler says:

August 6, 2011 at 7:49 pm

To quote:
But every economist I’ve seen, including those at CNN, Forbes, etc. have stated that the Obama’s stimulus was an abysmal failure and that the “jobs saved” statistic was “not specific enough to be deemed reliable” as Anderson Cooper put it. Obama is the first one to tout “jobs saved” as a win while the unemployment rates continued to rise. We spent almost a trillion dollars on deficit spending to keep (by and large) public sector jobs that by now in 2011 have been shed by now.

Now find out why they’re saying it was a failure. Because chances are they’ll say it was a failure for two reasons: 1: it wasn’t big enough and 2: it didn’t focus on the right things.

But tell me…how is taking money out of the economy, which is what cutting government spending does, going to help grow the economy?

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Ed Darrell says:

August 6, 2011 at 1:45 pm

But every economist I’ve seen, including those at CNN, Forbes, etc. have stated that the Obama’s stimulus was an abysmal failure and that the “jobs saved” statistic was “not specific enough to be deemed reliable” as Anderson Cooper put it. Obama is the first one to tout “jobs saved” as a win while the unemployment rates continued to rise. We spent almost a trillion dollars on deficit spending to keep (by and large) public sector jobs that by now in 2011 have been shed by now.

Name ’em. Krugman pointed out the stimulus wasn’t big enough to do the job — it stopped the hemmorhage of a half-million jobs a month being lost, and it started the slow climb back up, but it wasn’t big enough to get the economy up and running.

It was an “abysmal failure” because it did not put enough money into the wallets of consumers, to spend, to stimulate demand.

Consequently, the proper reaction now is not to repeat the Republican Errors of 1936, but to get a new, big stimulus, to get some action going.

We’re losing jobs big time from Republican legislatures, like Wisconsin and Texas, laying off critical government workers. Of course, they argue that they have to because of their balanced budget requirements — so they must damage the economy to stay legal.

It’s a clear demonstration of the folly and damage that could be done by a national balanced budget rule.

Tax breaks went to the rich. I agree that was a mistake. It damaged the benefits of the stimulus. We should roll those tax breaks back, and let the wealthy carry their fair share again.

We spent about $800 billion in stimulus, and $1.6 trillion in tax cuts. We got a lot from the stimulus, true — but the tax cuts have continued to hammer at employment, especially at the state level.

That the stimulus could not undo all the damage from the tax cuts does not make the stimulus a failure. It does reveal who is trying to kill our economy, though, doesn’t it?

See Krugman:
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/01/06/stimulus-arithmetic-wonkish-but-important/

(Krugman pegged you, Joe, and Mitch McConnell:

I see the following scenario: a weak stimulus plan, perhaps even weaker than what we’re talking about now, is crafted to win those extra GOP votes. The plan limits the rise in unemployment, but things are still pretty bad, with the rate peaking at something like 9 percent and coming down only slowly. And then Mitch McConnell says “See, government spending doesn’t work.”

See Bill Clinton (as close to Josiah Bartlett as we’re likely to get in a president):
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0611/58006.html

See Jon Huntsman:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/weigel/2011/05/23/huntsman_in_2009_stimulus_probably_wasn_t_big_enough.html

Becker (a Nobel winner) says the stimulus was not well designed, not that stimulus packages don’t work – and so, this one didn’t work well enough:
http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/2010/03/fiscal-stimulus-packages-what-are-their-effects-becker.html

Becker also notes that a key problem is that taxes were not used to offset the costs. This guy is a hero among conservatives, a leader of the Chicago School.

Becker’s colleague, Judge Posner, also complains about the design of the stimulus — not the effect a good stimulus plan would have:
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2010/03/stimulus-wimps/37208/

I’m happy to concede the stimulus was not so well designed as it might be — but it’s not the disaster the tax cuts have been. But for the stimulus, we’d be at 20% unemployment now, at least.

This is a damnably big crisis. It requires blessedly big action.

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Jim says:

August 6, 2011 at 1:43 pm

LL,

You are correct about the Obama stimulus and the bailouts. I can only agree. The stimulus was a failure and the bailout — which was the Decider’s doing but was supported by Obama — was a necessary evil.

But why did the stimulus fail and why did the bailouts not create jobs?

This is because all suggestions of investing the stimulus in major infrastructure projects like high-speed rail, bridge replacement and repair, dam and levees, national parks and battlefields and urban renewal were pronounced “dead on arrival” by the anarcho-Republicans. They made it clear, with the support of very conservative Democrats like Ben Nelson, there would be no so-called “make work” projects or programs. Instead…

Banks, local governments and businesses got the money. And they pretty much pocketed it and ran. A few created temporary jobs.

There were some exceptions. Elkhart County, Indiana created a mess of good-paying, permanent jobs with stimulus money. But most of the localities put the money away for a rainy day or paid off old debts. At best, some used the stimulus to preserve existing jobs. Not a bad thing, I am sure you will agree. But not the ideal.

And what did Tea Party gubernatorial candidates do when they took office in 2011? Jon Kasich put thousands of Ohio construction and rail workers out of work by sh*t-canning the state’s ambitious and desperately needed high-speed rail project. The criminal governor of Wisconsin did likewise there. Talk about two states that could have used some jobs!

I’m willing to agree that President Obama failed in so easily caving to conservative interests and not fighting for shovel-ready, historically proven infrastructure jobs in the stimulus. Are you ready to agree that Tea Party governors and lawmakers failed in derailing job-creating project after project in the name of fiscal restraint?

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lowerleavell says:

August 6, 2011 at 1:05 pm

Ed said, “Stimulus spending gives a big hit to the deficits, but produces income and sales taxes to reduce the deficits, and produce new work that makes new money.”

But every economist I’ve seen, including those at CNN, Forbes, etc. have stated that the Obama’s stimulus was an abysmal failure and that the “jobs saved” statistic was “not specific enough to be deemed reliable” as Anderson Cooper put it. Obama is the first one to tout “jobs saved” as a win while the unemployment rates continued to rise. We spent almost a trillion dollars on deficit spending to keep (by and large) public sector jobs that by now in 2011 have been shed by now.

Beyond that, by and large, the various stimulus packages have gone to the rich and funded by the poor tax payer. So…thanks to this philosophy of stimulus, you’ve robbed the poor to feed the rich. Thanks…

I’m not saying that the stimulus packages didn’t accomplish anything. I’m just saying that they didn’t accomplish their goals and simply strapped the public with more debt.

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Ed Darrell says:

August 6, 2011 at 7:54 am

Not off topic at all, Ellie. Thanks.

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Ellie says:

August 6, 2011 at 6:47 am

Ed, I think you may be incorrect as to the pay for the CCC workers, although it certainly may have varied. My Dad was in the CCC in Washington State when he was around 19. We always thought it bizarre that this kid from the middle of the big city would be sent to the forest to chop down trees. He told me they sent $20 home to his family, and he got to keep $5 for himself.

Sorry to be OT.

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Ed Darrell says:

August 6, 2011 at 3:44 am

Equation here:

To liberals, Bush tax cuts = government spending

Liberals say Keynesian economics means government spending = economic growth

Therefore, according to Keynesian economics, Bush tax cuts should = economic growth.

No, we’re not saying “spending = growth.” We’re saying stimulus spending that puts money in the hands of consumers among the middle class and poor quickly turns over and boosts the economy.

Think the Civilian Conservation Corps. Men got paid ~~$10~~ $20 a month, but that was usually enough to buy food for the family back home, and keep current on the mortgage on the farm. The Rupert Murdochs, Warren Buffets, and other millionaires didn’t get that cash — because they didn’t need it, and they weren’t investing it in businesses that made jobs. Tax cuts to the rich don’t turn over — and that’s exactly what our statistics show today. Tax cuts to the rich mean fatter bank accounts, and money pushed into bonds instead of stocks. Money put out of circulation.

A thriving economy needs money to circulate. Thrift is a great idea — but it means more than socking money away in the mattress when we talk about national thrift on a national scale. To be the best stewards of federal money and federal spending — and therefore, be best stewards of our nation — we need to put money in the hands of people to whom $100 is a big boost. They’ll spend it this week. Some few small businesses will get the boost this week. When enough consumers have $100 and spend it, lots of small businesses flourish. Then the economy is off an running.

Those who put their money in gold, like Ron and Rand Paul, make no new jobs, and contribute nothing to economic recovery. Those who don’t spend their money, don’t contribute.

So, tax cuts are not equal to spending, except in the hit they give to the deficit. Tax cuts give a big hit to the deficits, and produce no gains. Stimulus spending gives a big hit to the deficits, but produces income and sales taxes to reduce the deficits, and produce new work that makes new money.

Money isn’t finite. Money is made when people put it to work. So the idea is to put money in the hands of people who will put it to work now.

Tax cuts = stupid government spending that swells deficits, but produce little gain at best.

Tax cuts and NOT equal to stimulus spending.

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lowerleavell says:

August 6, 2011 at 2:46 am

Equation here:

To liberals, Bush tax cuts = government spending

Liberals say Keynesian economics means government spending = economic growth

Therefore, according to Keynesian economics, Bush tax cuts should = economic growth.

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lowerleavell says:

August 5, 2011 at 2:59 pm

Ed said, “When and where did he say that, Joe?

Did Churchill really say that, Joe?”

“I don’t know.” – Thomas Jefferson. :-)

I do not check every quote that was attributed to every person I’ve quoted. If he didn’t say it, then I’d like to know who did. It was brilliant.

Other things Churchill was attributed to saying was:

“There is not such thing as a good tax.”

And I really liked this one:

“You can always count on Americans to do the right thing – after they’ve tried everything else.”

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Jim says:

August 5, 2011 at 2:54 pm

Ed,

I do love my guns. But I suppose I should upgrade at some point. I won’t be of much use with a M. 1861 Springfield Rifle-Musket.

We do have to organize. It’s difficult given the fact that we don’t control the media the way the right does, but it’s not impossible. Stephanie Miller and Ed Schultz, with whom I sometimes have stylisitc — if not ideological — disagreements, are doing superb work getting people organized. As are Kos and Move On. I don’t know if there are enough of us. And I am not sure the hoi polloi are able to hear.

But give them a couple more years of this social Darwinism and they may be primed and ready.

As far as conservatives drawing first blood, they already have. I look at Oklahoma City as the first shot fired in their “kill all the poors and liberals” campaign. But there were signs of it even before. They like to say liberals came a-killing at Waco. But then, who shot and murdered decorated federal officers who were just trying to enforce the law? Yep. Religious fundamentalists.

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Ed Darrell says:

August 5, 2011 at 2:34 pm

The irony of this conversation is that, in the past, you have talked me down from a few ledges.

Get off the ledge. If we’re going to save America from this great Satan of killing Grandma, killing the hungry, and enslaving the poor who do not die quickly, we’re going to have to organize.

If we organize hard and soon, we may be able to avoid the use of weapons (which, I predict, would be started by the other guys first, anyway — go to the practice range and practice your self-defense).

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lowerleavell says:

August 5, 2011 at 2:32 pm

Ed said, “Joe originally came to this blog to convince me evolution is a crock. If he lapses into a Gish Gallop on any issue, it’s probably because he’s tired. He does better than that most of the time.”

Thank you Ed…I think. :-)

Can you believe it’s actually been about five years ago that we had that initial conversation?! It was June of ’06 when we started chatting creation vs. evolution. Actually, the conversation started on another blog where an atheist was decrying the proportions of the circumference of a Temple object made as 3.0 rather than ‘pi’ at 3.14. I saw it on WordPress’ front page and started commenting on it. There were multiple reasons and possibilities for this (like the fact that ancient man didn’t calculate decimal points into their equations at that time) but it was an interesting conversation. I found it interesting that these atheists were forced to read the proportions of the Temple in order to find problems with the Bible…sounded a little desperate to me. :-)

I think you invited me over to your blog to continue the conversation over the subject of the Big Bang, but I could be mistaken. I sure learned a LOT through our discussions and wish I had time to sit over a cup of hot chocolate (I’m allergic to coffee) with you some day and just chat. I’d love to get to know you beyond blogging. You seem like such a cool guy…one of those guys who we could have intense discussions and then be friends afterward (like you said they can’t do in Washington anymore. I agree…it is very sad on both sides of the aisle. We’re thinking of ourselves as parties more than Americans these days and it’s killing our country!). I respect your achievements, your contributions as an American, and to involvement in our children’s education. Anyway, some of the side conversations I had with other bloggers on your site have been frustrating but I have always found your posts to be well reasoned, educated, and backed up with data. I don’t always agree with you, but you make me know my stuff before I can issue a response. I am better educated because of our discussions and I appreciate it greatly! I still believe you are wrong in evolution in that life cannot be scientifically shown to come from non-living material (such as primordial soup) and reduplicate itself into everything living which we see, but that is that other subject again… :-)

I enjoy blogging with you Ed, especially when the conversations are helpful to all who read them. I wish I had more time. Such is life.

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Ed Darrell says:

August 5, 2011 at 2:32 pm

I’ll get back to the hypocrisy and lack of awareness of Dave Ramsey later.

But about this:

“You don’t make the poor richer by making the rich poorer.” —Winston Churchill

When and where did he say that, Joe?

Did Churchill really say that, Joe?

Kin Hubbard did say that so often it’s not what we don’t know that gets us into trouble — it’s what we know, that isn’t so.

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lowerleavell says:

August 5, 2011 at 2:14 pm

“You don’t make the poor richer by making the rich poorer.” —Winston Churchill

I agree with the Prime Minister. I know you all will be mad at me for quoting Dave Ramsey, but it is worth consideration:

Federal Budget vs. Household Budget: How Do They Compare?
You can’t borrow your way out of debt.

from daveramsey.com on 28 Apr 2011

“Whenever the talking heads on TV start talking about the national economy, most of our eyes start to glaze over. The gigantic numbers that they throw out there are ridiculous; most Americans have no idea what those numbers mean in practical terms. So, I thought it’d be fun to turn those figures into something we can understand a little better—like a household budget.

The federal government will take in $2.173 trillion in 2011. That’s their income, and it sounds pretty good. Until, that is, you factor in that the federal government will spend $3.818 trillion during the year. So, just like many families, the government’s outgo exceeds their income—to the tune of $1.645 trillion in overspending. That’s called the deficit. Altogether, the government has $14.2 trillion in debt.

What would happen if John Q. Public and his wife called my show with these kinds of numbers? Here’s how their financial situation would stack up:

If their household income was $55,000 per year, they’d actually be spending $96,500—$41,500 more than they made! That means they’re spending 175% of their annual income! So, in 2011 they’d add $41,500 of debt to their current credit card debt of $366,000!

What’s the first step to get out of debt? Stop overspending! But that means a family that is used to spending $96,500 a year has to learn how to live on $55,000. That’s a tough pill to swallow. Those kinds of spending cuts seriously hurt, but it’s the only way out of debt for John Q. Public.

If I ever got a call from a family that was spending $41,500 more than they made every year, you would definitely expect me to yell at them for their dumb behavior, right? Kids, no more McDonald’s four times a week. Snacks come from the grocery store now. And we’re not going to the movies for a while, so break out the board games and TV Guide. This family has a problem, so it’s time to amputate the lifestyle!

It works the same way for the government. You can’t borrow your way out of debt, whether you’re a typical American family or the entire U.S. government. At some point, you’ve got to say, “Enough is enough!” and make the hard cuts necessary to win over the long haul.”

Before you decry his post for comparing apples with oranges and start with the Keynesian economic theory again, just consider the truth of what he says. Even if through spending and increased revenue this family was able to raise their income level up to $80,000 a year their debt still continues to grow because spending has not been cut back.

Unless Obama is lying through his teeth then even HE gets the need for spending cuts. At least he verbalizes it as such. Yet here on this blog the defense of MORE federal spending is the key to an economic boom. I’m sorry – again I say that it’s robbing our children’s future (the people who will have to pay back the deficit) in order to fund our spending habits. For shame!

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Ed Darrell says:

August 5, 2011 at 6:51 am

So John Boehner claims that Republicans got 98% of what they want in the debt ceiling deal.

They were hoping for a total collapse of the stock market so their gold purchases wouldn’t look quite so crazy. They only got a 98% crash.

I hope I’m being sarcastic.

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James Kessler says:

August 4, 2011 at 9:55 pm

So John Boehner claims that Republicans got 98% of what they want in the debt ceiling deal.

So that makes the rather large drop today in the stock market their fault right?

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Jim says:

August 4, 2011 at 7:04 pm

Hi Ed!

The irony of this conversation is that, in the past, you have talked me down from a few ledges. When I have despaired over the abjectly stupid choices of voters or when I have wrung my hands about the stream of raw sewage that passes for public discourse these days…you and a few other friends of ours have reminded me of the “bends but doesn’t break” nature of our Republic and its Constitution. Others have lifted my spirits by reminding me that Americans are still, at heart, basically decent people.

If I hear you correctly, you’re now standing out on the ledge with me.

Of course, what keeps both of us from jumping is that obsessive curiously over what’s just around the bend. Even if it’s awful, there truly is something to be said for living in interesting times.

We were not so fortunate as to be alive for the rise of the American “empire” in the late 18th century. Perhaps we’ll see its fall. Or our children will.

Much of what you relate concerning the venerable Mike Mansfield (long a favorite of mine) and Senator Aiken is…I think…owing to the reality of shared trauma and sacrifice.

Bob Dole and George McGovern shared a foxhole. Not literally, of course, but they both knew war and both cheated death. Jack Kennedy and H.,W. Bush, likewise. And those who did not serve in uniform shared — at the very least — the experience of bread lines, lack of indoor plumbing, victory gardens, rationing and scrap metal drives.

What this country needs is a good war, someone once said, Well, we have had three in the last ten years if you can keep track of them as they go by. And only one of them could be remotely considered justifiable. And that one — the war on terror — brought us together for all of 15 minutes.

Were the people of the Pearl Harbor generation that much more patriotic and self-sacrificial? There may be something to that. They went straight from depression to war…no waiting. They already knew what it was to do without or to have a hungry stranger show up at their door. The 9/11 generation knew nothing of that. It only knew eBay and reality TV. So when old farts like me — and much, much older farts like you (I’m gonna pay for that, aren’t I?) — worry about how this generation can’t hold a candle to the one we call “the greatest”…we have a point.

But even so…greatest generations are forged in adversity with the prophetic guidance of leaders who understand what it means to move a population in one direction or another. Lincolns, Roosevelts and Kings. What we got was a cowboy talking tough, handing us a token $400 and telling us the best way we can help ‘Murrica is to go shopping.

Shortly after 9/11, I pleaded with elected officials to call for sacrfice. Raise taxes, the markets be damned. Ration gas and to hell with Shell. Get America’s kids together to collect enough scrap to build a few hundred helicopters. Urge people to channel their patriotic ardor into feeding the hungry and picking up whatever slack government can’t because of war.

No one listened. We were literally five days out from 9/11 and already on to other things. And think of it, Ed! When Pearl was bombed, it wasn’t even a state. Hawaii was like Guam or American Samoa…a territory. Indeed, civilians were killed…but it was a “legitimate” military target for the most part. And yet the rage and fervor the sneak attack created. My own uncle was 4-f because of, all things, an undescended testicle. And he was just 17. So he threatened suicide unless his parents got him the necessary surgery to correct his condition. So he could go and fight. There was some of that among the young after 9/11, I know, But were there lines of recruits stretching more than a mile? And forget military matters…where were the rest of us? The ladies at our church knitted caps for the soldiers…because we were told Afghanistan got very cold at night, despite the daytime heat. So there’s that, I guess.

I just feel like our leaders — from the Decider on down — blew a big opportunity. We were not made of the same stuff as the Greatest Generation, but that stuff could’ve been taught to us and modeled for us. No such luck. And lest I sound too anti-Bush, I am not honestly sure Al Gore would have done it differently. These men are not their fathers.

I really think THAT is why the Senators and Congressmen and Presidents you rubbed shoulders with were so different. The went hungry together…enlisted together…got gold star telegrams together. That carried us almost through the century. But they mostly died or retired by 2000.

Today’s bunch — most of them anyway — are petulant and privileged brats. Funny. It’s not just true in politics, either. Where we once had Mike Mansfield, Frank Church and Bob Michel…we now have Michelle Bachmann, David Wu and Jim DeMint. In journalism, we once had Ed Murrow, Walter Cronkite and Bill Moyers (semi-retired, now)….but now we have Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly and Glenn Beck.

Someone notify the Visigoths. The gates are wide open…

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Ed Darrell says:

August 4, 2011 at 5:10 pm

I’m depressed about this, Jim. Monday evening I listened to poetry with a sociology prof who taught remediation and conciliation before he retired. He observed that the personal relations between Members of Congress are gone, the personal relations that used to mean at 5:00 p.m. everybody was friends, went out to dinner together, and played poker together on weekends — and those relations were what held the nation together in times of crisis in the past.

I immediately thought back to the every-morning-at-breakfast, deep friendship between Mike Mansfield and Robert Aiken — Mansfield the leader of the majority Democrats, Aiken the wise, oldest member of the Republicans, Aiken the Ivy League easterner, Mansfield the up-out-of-the-mines Montanan. I worked Mansfield’s staff during part of the Watergate stuff. One morning my boss handed me a note, said it was urgent to get Mansfield’s ruling on whatever the issue was, etc., etc., and dispatched me to find Mansfield, dining with Aiken in the employees grill in the basement of the Capitol. Mansfield took the interruption kindly, unfolded the note (which was marked “highly confidential”), read it, and handed it to Aiken, from the other party. (Could you imagine John Boehner showing his “highly confidential” notes to Steny Hoyer?) Aiken and Mansfield discussed things for minute, Mansfield wrote a “handled” or something on the note and sent me back. “What do we do with this? The Republicans are going to open this up like a grenade as soon as they convene!” I heard back in the office. Only they didn’t. Aiken had talked sense to the Republicans, Mansfield had talked sense to the Democrats, and they went on to other business, important business.

Back then I learned that 80% of Senate business went through on the consent calendar, meaning any member could stop it with a simple objection. That included a couple of appropriations bills, as I recall. Judges up the wazoo. The stuff that is guaranteed to get a filibuster today flew through on unanimous consent, though often some member would make a speech about how he hated to see it happen. That member couldn’t muster more than token opposition, and so conceded that he’d lost the point. The natino moved on.

Not today. Every wound gets reopened, every scab gets picked, every shin gets kicked, on every issue.

I don’t know what good thing could happen to change that, and I fear hoping for the bad things that would bring Congress together to think like Americans again. But that must happen if we are to stay together as a healthy nation.

Yesterday I learned from Terri Gross’s program that maybe 40 of the Republicans in the House sleep in their offices, including the whip, McCarthy, and Ryan. They literally do not leave the Capitol Compound for days, maybe weeks at a time. Their families stay in the home district.

They are divorced from America, separated from real life by an ivory tower of limestone that used to be one of the The Peoples’ buildings. They are jihadists, on a crusade, and they cannot be swayed by reason or reality.

Who talks reason? Who tells the truth? Who exposes the division for what it is, a wedge driving through the chest of America, to the heart?

I hope for change. I don’t see it.

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Jim says:

August 4, 2011 at 4:34 pm

Ed,

How do you reckon all this will end?

I have my theories. But you’ve known me for years and you’re a far more optimistic man than I am. (Which is one reason I like you so much.)

I keep looking at those images from Somalia, where they’ve have no intrusive gub’mint, no taxes, no make-work gub’mint jobs, no politically correct “gub’mint” schools, plenty of guns and lots of “ol’ time religion”.

What’s to make an anarcho-conservative (they call themselves Republicans, but I can’t, for the life of me, understand why) think the good old USA will be any different a hundred years from now?

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James Kessler says:

August 4, 2011 at 2:17 pm

Lower writes:
By the way, both poor and rich alike, the American people are notorious for their generosity. If we see a legitimate need or a crisis then we are more than willing to do our share to help our neighbor

Well there is a jobs crisis in this country. Okay then…the rich should have absolutely no problem in being oh so generous by going ahead in sacrifice significant portions of their wealth in order to create the jobs that your party says they create.

And yet…they’re not. What has to happen, Joe, for you to realize that when it comes to economics your party spouts nothing but crap?

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James Kessler says:

August 4, 2011 at 2:15 pm

Ed isn’t it quite amusing how the right wingers like Lower like to claim that America is the greatest country on the planet and that they are the uberpatriots who love the United States…and yet time and time again they’re the ones trying to tear the United States down so that its nothing more then a mediocre pathetic country.

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James Kessler says:

August 4, 2011 at 2:13 pm

So much for the Republicans claiming that lowering taxes on businesses will create jobs. As the FAA is currently shut down, noone is collecting the ticket taxes. So what did the airlines do? THey all raised their fares so they could pocket it. When asked about it, this is what Mr. Cantor said:

CANTOR: And what airlines have done is have stepped in and said, well, if we’re not going to pay that money to the federal government, we’re going to keep it towards our own bottom line. And I guess that’s what business does.

Oh and by the way, Lower, if you’re going to keep on bringing that subject up then pray tell why aren’t you demanding that your precious Republicans get rid of corporate welfare, cut the military, end the wars and get rid of all those tax loopholes and cuts that benefit the rich?

Because, again, you’re just showing your rank hypocrisy. Because lets remember…it was your party that did all that borrowing from China. And neither you nor any of your right wing friends raised an objection to it. You went along like good little trained pets willing to destroy the middle class and the poor just to protect the asses of those who got us into this mess.

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Ed Darrell says:

August 4, 2011 at 2:11 pm

Just saw in the news this morning that the government owes more than the entire net-worth of the country’s GDP. And you want to get money from China, etc. to spend our way out of this?

1.� That’s news to you?

2.� So, now we’re back in the shape we were just before the big boom of the 1950s, except, instead of expanding foreign aid, boosting education, building roads and bridges, and increasing and improving the social safety net as Eisenhower did, we’re retrenching, cutting aid to foreign nations despite the desperate need for Middle East and African Marshall Plan, giving out money only to turn paved roads into gravel, cutting education and shutting down college opportunities, and taking money away from Grandma so she’ll be inspired to die quicker (but more painfully).�

If the Soviet Union had done this to us, we’d have declared war.

Who has voodoo economics here?

You do.� You’re supporting the side that says we can work our way out of a recession by repeating all the mistakes that got us into it, only bigger.� You’re supporting the side that says America’s time in the sun is finished, and we need to act like Greece now, declare bankruptcy and quit thinking like a great nation.�

See, economic prosperity comes from an expanding economy.� We could get there again, much more quickly, with a large stimulus.� Another $800 billion would be a big down payment on balancing the budget — because stimulus dollars create a multiple of that amount in economic boost, and at least an equal amount comes back in income taxes if it’s spent on the middle class and poor.� But that’s standard economics as espoused by Milton Friedman, Paul Samuelson, Friedrich von Hayek, James Buchanan and others.� I’ve been combing the economics texts and I can’t find any economist who says declaring bankruptcy and slowing spending is more than just short of economic suicide.� (Can you, Joe?� Bush’s CEA guy got booed out of the Republican House caucus about a week ago when he was explaining the facts of economic life to them — or, perhaps they were chanting “Voo Doo?”)

We aren’t broke.� We could pay the bills, if we put daddies back to work.� We need to spend $500 billion on roads and bridges.� We need to double our foreign aid spending, to help create economic stability and economic allies in those nations still rippling from the Arab Spring of Freedom.� We need to boost our output of American engineers and boost our output of American Ph.D.s, just to stay abreast of China — knowing that those professions would boost our economy, too.

Why not work to make America great?

I think it’s voodoo economics to plan to fail, Joe.� Can you explain why you support those plans to fail, and how it’s NOT voodoo economics?�

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lowerleavell says:

August 4, 2011 at 10:19 am

Just saw in the news this morning that the government owes more than the entire net-worth of the country’s GDP. And you want to get money from China, etc. to spend our way out of this? Who has voodoo economics here?

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James Kessler says:

August 4, 2011 at 4:09 am

I am on vacation, Lower.

As for “That being said, borrowing for normal social services is far from wise – it’s impractical and unethical to borrow against your grandchildren so that you can have an easier life!”

And it is morally depraved to cut taxes to the rich while screwing over the middle class and the poor. It is also morally depraved to demand that social security and medicare be done away with just to protect those tax cuts and all that corporate welfare.

It is morally depraved to the point of evil to protect the fat asses of the rich while casting the middle class and the poor into greater economic hell.

So again, Lower, when you and your precious right wingers get your heads out of your ***** and actually give a damn about all that “spending” when it comes to the military, corporate welfare and all those tax cuts and loopholes you feed the fat mouths of the rich with then you will be in a position to speak.

Because I find it funny that you are worrying about “borrowing” now when you and your party didn’t give a d–n about all the “borrowing” from foreign countries and our children/grandchildren when you and yours were starting those two d–n wars and giving out those tax cuts.

Because you might want to consider this thought: what kind of life will my grandchildren have when there is no social safety net and the rich have everything and pay nothing?

Put up or shut up, Lower. Until then, Lower, you and yours are nothing but amoral bordering on morally depraved hypocrites.

40 years we have been following this bullshit “Cut taxes on the rich and businesses and prosperity will flow like an ocean to everyone” and the only result is this country is being brought to its knees by the greedy few and a party that has sold out this country in the interest of kissing the asses of their rich masters.

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lowerleavell says:

August 3, 2011 at 8:23 pm

No time to write – will just say a few words. James, you obviously have a lot of time on your hands.

Two, no two scenarios are exactly the same nor should be treated the same – my point with citing WWII was that FDR’s social spending didn’t pull us out of depression. Also, what WWII did was give us the motivation, the supply and demand if you will, to get America back to work.

Lastly, and most importantly, who did the government borrow money from in WWII? Have you ever heard of a War Bond? The American people…including those wealthy that you like to criticize that lent their money to the government for the war effort. The economy boomed after WWII as people from THIS country cashed in their bonds. Who is supporting this economy and will get rich off of our borrowing? Not the American people, I can assure you. At least FDR knew to keep the borrowing primarily in house. I’d take FDR over Obama OR Bush any day.

Borrowing has its place, to be sure. We wouldn’t have had a country if France hadn’t loaned us money to fight the Revolutionary War. That being said, borrowing for normal social services is far from wise – it’s impractical and unethical to borrow against your grandchildren so that you can have an easier life!

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James Kessler says:

August 3, 2011 at 11:09 am

Lower writes:
2) The “trend” shows governmental spending doing little – shoot, even the History Channel’s “The Story of Us” credits the mobilizing of the US in WWII as the reason we got out of the Great Depression, not Roosevelt’s New Deal.

Oh I forgot one part of that. WW2 also saw the US government pretty much nationalizing a very large portion of the US economy and businesses. It directed what was made, where it went, how much was made and such.

In short, Lower, WW2 was the last time that this country actually engaged in actual socialism.

Now I’m not saying that the US government should take over the economy that way again, I don’t think thats necessary.

But for the love of God, Lower, IT WAS NOT SPENDING CUTS THAT GOT US OUT OF THE GREAT DEPRESSION. In the 30’s FDR did a lot of spending…and the economy started recovering. So the Republicans and some Democrats howled. So FDR cut back on the spending. The result? The Great Depression came right back.

I have asked you and Morgan before this one question: When the people aren’t spending and when the companies aren’t spending who does that leave? Because the only way for the economy to grow is for there to be money injected into the economy…aka….spending.

And again..WW2, whether you want to be honest enough to admit it or not, was a massive economic stimulus bill. It worked because it was a massive amount of money being injected into the economy.

But no..there you and your party sit thinking that somehow doing the opposite is going to work when its never worked before.

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lowerleavell says:

August 3, 2011 at 2:37 am

Sorry I haven’t gotten back for a few days. Been working a LOT lately. Will try to respond tomorrow or the next day.

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James Kessler says:

August 1, 2011 at 10:18 pm

Oh and let me point out..those companies pay no taxes…and yet it’s not like they’re adding massive amounts of jobs here or increasing worker’s pay here is it?

So can you two finally agree that the argument that lowering taxes on the companies/rich will end up in them creating jobs here and economic prosperity for everyone is utter crap?

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James Kessler says:

August 1, 2011 at 6:59 pm

I want Lower and Morgan to read the following and attempt to explain why this should not be changed.

Quoting part of an editiorial that was in my paper today. The whole thing can be found at:
http://www.startribune.com/opinion/otherviews/126430623.html

In June, Citizens for Tax Justice, a Washington watchdog group, released a partial list from a major forthcoming study of effective tax rates paid by Fortune 500 companies.
1. The 12 corporations analyzed were American Electric Power, Boeing, Dupont, Exxon Mobil, FedEx, General Electric, Honeywell, IBM, United Technologies, Verizon, Wells Fargo and Yahoo. From 2008 through 2010, these companies together reported $171 billion in pretax profits, but as a group, their federal income taxes were a negative $2.5 billion. In other words, they were collectively subsidized.
Eight of these firms reported negative taxes, including Minnesota’s Honeywell International, with three-year profits of $4.9 billion and federal taxes of a negative $34 million. Wells Fargo, with $49 billion in profits, received a net tax benefit of $681 million. GE was the largest net negative taxpayer from 2008-2010, with $7.7 billion in profits and $4.7 billion in negative taxes.
Forbes magazine (hardly the Socialist Worker) noted that the explanation is often that these corporations transfer tax liability across international operations, so that the final accounting shows U.S. divisions operating at a loss.
Christopher Helman, a Forbes financial analyst, noted in an April 2 article that General Electric has two divisions: General Electric Capital and everything else — engines, power plants, etc.
Over the last two years, GE Capital’s risky lending has generated major losses in the United States ($6.5 billion in 2009), while its overseas operations showed healthy profits ($4.3 billion in the same year). U.S. losses, according to Helman, both balance out overseas gains and allow GE to defer taxes on overseas income indefinitely.
Even so, if the domestic side of these companies is losing money, should they receive compensation from the U.S. Treasury?
At the state level, Minnesota companies can also transfer gains out of state, costing Minnesota taxpayers millions of dollars in annual revenues.
It is one thing to argue that taxes interfere with the capacity of businesses to grow and invest. This is undoubtedly true. Tax-free treatment would be blissful for businesses (and very bad for society).
But it is quite another thing to realize that growth and investment by already rich companies have been subsidized by taxpayers, many with modest incomes. This is because the tax system has become rigged to shift wealth and income from the bottom to the top, a fact that Grover Norquist and his minions would prefer that you not learn. Now you know.

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How did we get into this deficit mess? (via Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub) « Politics? says:

August 1, 2011 at 9:39 am

[…] From the New York Times: Teresa Tritch wrote the story, published on July 24. Sources for the chart were the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. … Read More […]

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James Kessler says:

July 31, 2011 at 6:38 pm

Lower writes:
You know what Friedman was saying and he’s right – the government is infamous for mismanagement of what has been entrusted to them…both sides of the aisle.

So is businesses, Lower, and yet I don’t see your side railing that “We can’t trust businesses.”

Some things the government has mismanaged. Other things, like medicare, the government manages better then the so called “private sector.” Or are you going to somehow argue that the fact that medicare is more efficient, though not perfect, about handling health care versus cost then the insurance companies is somehow an argument that the insurance companies are better?

We spend more money on our health care and get less for it then all the other industrialized countries that your side so loves to claim has “socialized” medicine.

So, just to ask the question, why should we continue with that paradigm?

Would you rather have the US military defending your ass or Blackwater? Would you really want BP drilling for oil in your back yard? Or Exxon? Would you rather have social security or someone like Bernie Maddoff handling your retirement money? Or Goldman Sachs? Or Bear Sterns? Or Tom Petters?

All those companies..all those people i just listed are the “rich” that you and your party love to kiss the asses of and claim that they’re the ones with the solutions. They’re the “free market” that you want to put totally in control.

Sorry, no, your cure of the “free market” as represented by them is worse then the disease that you claim government is.

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Ed Darrell says:

July 31, 2011 at 6:06 pm

Here’s a pretty good profile of Friedman, by the way:
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2007/feb/15/who-was-milton-friedman/

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Ed Darrell says:

July 31, 2011 at 5:54 pm

You know what Friedman was saying and he’s right – the government is infamous for mismanagement of what has been entrusted to them…both sides of the aisle.

Okay, I apologize for overreacting.

But I still want to ding you for missing the point.

I know what Friedman was saying — and he’s mostly wrong on this one point. Government doesn’t mismanage any more than anyone in the private sector, and government tends to do much more with much less, in almost every sphere. In paying health claims, for example, the first time I analyzed it for a private company, we found that Medicare and Medicaid spent about $0.75 to process a health care claim. In contrast, the best we could find in the private sector was about $7.50 per touch — ten times what the government spent — but the average number of times a private company “touched” a claim was 1.25.

Today the gap is wider, and the number of touches in the private sector has gone up.

Friedman was making a joke. It’s funny only because of the stereotype. My point was that it was only a joke, ungrounded in fact, mostly. The federal interstate system went over budget — not so much as any private road I’ve ever been involved with. The interstate system’s over-runs were generally due to previously unknown geological or weather phenomena, and inflation due to delays in funding authorizations. It was a hell of an idea, one of the grandest ideas for commerce, ever, and it works well. The private sector has nothing to compare.

So I think Friedman made a joke. That’s not a debating point. He’s wrong on the facts. Jokes do not make the government inefficient at what it does. Friedman’s championing of markets is famous, and fierce. Largely, he was right. In several areas, he just missed the boat. Anecdotes can’t over come it. In one of his grandest errors, Friedman argued that private schools, say with vouchers, could be much cheaper and more effective than public schools. I challenged him at one appearance to offer an example where a private school had done what he claimed, with less money, and without cherry picking students. He smiled as he explained he thought the public school monopoly meant we didn’t have examples yet.

It was a gratuitous and wrong answer. We had plenty of private schools in the nation, even some who opened their doors to all comers. While their academic successes were generally better than public schools, that success came at a higher price. Where the costs were held even with public schools, there was not greater academic achievement, and sometimes not as much. Now that we’ve had experiences with charter schools nationally, we can say, especially with the Texas example, that public schools do better, with less money, than charter schools.

I think Friedman would have come around, given the data we now have. Friedman was not really so radical a free marketeer as we generally make him out to be.

And to the specific example of Sahara sand, let me point out that current, private management of the sand is producing a surplus of the stuff — and that’s bad. That’s the opposite of what people want.

We shouldn’t make policy from jokes ungrounded in economic fact. That’s all.

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lowerleavell says:

July 31, 2011 at 4:06 pm

Ed, c’mon. You know me better than that! I shouldn’t have to defend myself on making light of starvation, wherever it happens.

Seriously…I thought you were making light of Friedman’s comment by over analyzing it to death, so I was paying you a compliment by playing along.

You know what Friedman was saying and he’s right – the government is infamous for mismanagement of what has been entrusted to them…both sides of the aisle.

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Ed Darrell says:

July 31, 2011 at 12:22 pm

Your defense of the de-sanding of the Sahara is quite humorous, Ed. Friedman may not have been much at humor, but your response was. :-) I’m sure Friedman would have agreed with you. :-) Except maybe those poor critters who wouldn’t survive without the desert sand.

This is a key problem. We have starvation around the Sahara, due to a surplus of sand. We make a good-hearted, perhaps too lighthearted response to a stupid one-liner from the neo-~~Nazis~~Conservatives, and they find it funny.

Frankly, I don’t find drought and starvation funny anywhere, in the Sahara, in the Niger, in the Takla Makan, in the Gobi, in the Sonora, in Texas, Somalia, Eritrea, or anywhere.

And these are the same goons who think it would be humorous to see Obama have to deal with ruined U.S. credit.

Monsters. They are monsters of lack of thought. They are monsters of lack of heart, conscience, and soul.

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lowerleavell says:

July 31, 2011 at 2:33 am

James, no disrespect but I only have enough time to discuss this with one person, Ed has said a LOT to respond to, and a lot of what you said mirrors his comments, so I hope I don’t offend if I merely respond to his posts.

Ed said, “You haven’t been critical of people who argue for voodoo economics. You’ve been critical of party politics, sometimes justifiably, but most of the time unrelated to the economic issues.”

OK, let me be critical of people who argue for voodoo economics – how about those who count completely subjective numbers and claim them as “jobs saved”? The numbers you gave for Bush’ job creation performance during his 8 years – I’m sure you included the jobs he saved as well, right? I mean, from a conservative perspective, how many jobs would have been lost without those tax cuts?! Completely subjective…voodoo economics, my friend. I am very critical of it.

Beyond that, it almost sounds like somehow I will get bonus points if I criticize the Republicans here. Seriously…you first with the Democrats. I have never once heard you be critical of your party…except when they don’t go far enough for your liking.

I’ve said nothing about advocating the failing to raise the debt limit. Your rant on what would happen if we failed to raise the limit isn’t lost on me – some of it is fear mongering in that there will be plenty of revenue to pay the troops, pay social security, and pay the debts. But it is true that we will default on an obligation somewhere. What isn’t fear mongering is what will happen to the nation’s credit and what will happen if we cannot lend and borrow with low rates anymore. I completely agree that it needs to go up.

Yet you cannot continue to meet our obligations on credit. SURELY you would agree with that. I wish you would speak to the need of fiscal responsibility rather than saying we need another spending binge by the government to stimulate growth. You’re playing Jenga with the economy that way! Sure, it may look bigger, but you’re taking away from the foundation and just transferring wealth and actually making things less stable. Every time the government borrows more, every American become poorer. Why? Because borrowing comes with interest and payments and the need for more taxes to pay for them. Surely you will agree that spending needs to be reigned in and brought under control?! I’m all for additional revenue, but raising taxes during a recession is not going to help unless you can get the Donald Trump’s of the country to part with a few billion apiece. The government’s a bit late though, his ex-wives have taken their fair share already… :-)

Ed said, “No one’s making any arguments against free markets — except for those who claim, like you appear to, that they aren’t really true.”

Glad to hear it. Freedom for poor people and serfdom for the rich though is what has been advocated here. Something seems fishy here. Your compatriots desire the bulk of the wealth of the rich to be taken by force to be given to the poor. This is freedom? Surely there is a better way to help the poor than handing out free money? You do no favors to give a man a fish – you do him every favor in the world to give him a fish while you’re teaching him how. Problem is, if a citizenry, including the poor, is reliant on their government for everything then they become the slave of their government. That is hardly a free market.

Ed said, “Surely you can’t accuse Obama of that. Bush maybe moved to slowly, but Obama’s done everything possible to stop bank failures, and large corporate failures (like GM, whose failure would have been about as disastrous as the failure of the Bank of the United States in 1930 (despite its name, a private bank)). See pages 82, 83 et seq in Friedman’s Free to Choose.”

I actually would love to read Friedman. Sounds like a writer I would connect with.

No, no one can accuse Obama of not being quick to spend money that we don’t have. :-) Sorry…I couldn’t resist. Frankly, Democrats were so quick to give out cash that bills were passed without anyone really bothering to read them! I have no clue how this debt limit thing will go down with no one having time to read anything! This should have been dealt with long ago! Blame Republicans all you want (I’ll join you), but it takes two to play chicken…

Ed said, “Bush’s tax cuts benefited financiers,”

Bush’s tax cuts benefited everyone…going back to the parable of the talents – the master tells the lazy servant that he could have at least put the talent in the bank and let it collect interest! Apparently, financiers have been around for a while.

Every person who owns stock in a company is a financier. You’re proposing raising taxes on all stock holders? My grandma lives on her stocks and her social security. You’re going to penalize the poor widows now? You want to raise taxes on my 82 year old grandma???

You see, the problem is that you can always paint an “evil” face on those who make money. But if you hacksaw taxes like that, a lot of innocent people are affected. Not every millionaire or billionaire is an evil person who got rich off of their daddy’s hard work or off of the creativity of someone else. Personally, I would rather the lazy financier who plays golf while his portfolio goes up (creating jobs for the country club, btw) keep his money if it means that those who are working their tails off to benefit their family are allowed to keep more of their money as well. It sounds as if you’d rather they both be taxed more.

Ed said, “Friedman explicitly recognizes that greed is not uniformly beneficial, but can do great harm, and always does some harm — so he speaks of the problem of getting a system that allows greed to do the least harm.”

You and I are both in agreement on this point. I think we’re arguing past each other here.

Ed said, “But he is not in favor of no taxes. He complains about our graduated income tax, not because it’s a tax, and not because it puts a higher rate on higher incomes, but because those with higher incomes have loopholes and often pay a lower rate than those who make less money.

Friedman was no anarchist by any stretch. He was not anti-tax. He did not favor giving huge tax cuts to the rich, but instead favored the rich paying a large share of taxes.”

Again, you and I are in agreement and arguing past each other.

The rich already pay a huge share of taxes.

One further question Ed, who would you define as “rich?” What is the dollar amount?

Ed said, “A good one-liner, but not good economics. EPA’s regulation is not worse than the lead air pollution which damaged brains so extensively that when we cleaned it up, the average national IQ rose by several points. Acid rain was uniformly harmful. No non-governmental solution has ever been found.”

You’ll have to look at the rest of Friedman’s interview on Donahue to get his take on those things. Shoot, he didn’t even want Chrysler bailed out back then and says so in the earlier part of the interview.

“Again, he’s striving for a one-liner. Funny image, bad economics, worse conservation.”

Your defense of the de-sanding of the Sahara is quite humorous, Ed. Friedman may not have been much at humor, but your response was. :-) I’m sure Friedman would have agreed with you. :-) Except maybe those poor critters who wouldn’t survive without the desert sand.

Got to go to bed.

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James Kessler says:

July 30, 2011 at 11:56 pm

Lower writes:
“The government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem.”

*yawns* and yet if I asked you to name any of those problems where the government solution is as bad as the problem you couldn’t.

You have bought so far into this “government is the enemy” bulls— that you’ve forgotten one blunt truth when it comes to the government of the United States. That it is the voice of the people. Every time you bitch about the government, Lower, you are attacking the people. You and your fellow right wingers have an irrational hatred of the government of this country..of the people of this country. It has become your ideology…your cult..the belief that you worship and cling to no matter what. For you it is an absolute article of faith with absolutely no evidence to back it.

As for the free market..all of us here believe in it..but unlike you we don’t believe that it is the panacea that can cure all ills. It can help, yes, it can also destroy. And that latter tendency is the reason for it to be governed with rules and regulations, it can not be completely “free” because that is just codeword for economic anarchy.

Before you open your mouth to object to that idea, let me toss an example at you. The Republicans want to allow mining companies to blow the tops off mountains and shove the debris down into river valleys..river valleys that happen to be the source of drinking water for hundreds of thousands of people. Do you agree with that? Before you answer..ask yourself this question “Would I want to drink said fouled water or let my kids do so?” Or “Would I want my children to have to breathe polluted air because I just can’t be bothered to think that yeah…companies should have to do everything reasonably possible to deal with the pollutions they emit.” Or “How would I feel if my child was dying from a treatable disease because the insurance company that I’ve paid thousands of dollars to every year just simply can’t be bothered to pay for my child’s treatment?”

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James Kessler says:

July 30, 2011 at 11:47 pm

Lower writes:
James, what “side” do I have? I’ve been critical of both Republicans AND Democrats. You keep saying “your side.” Both sides are in bed with corporate greed. Liberals just pretend they’re for the little man and call these corporate ‘fat cats’ labor unions. Shoot, even Donald Trump has given more to fund Democrats than Republicans – why? Because he wants to make sure that he doesn’t have problems from both parties.

I have yet to see you be critical of the Republican party. Not one Republican policy have you objected to here. And as for your supposed objection to corporate greed..that’s hilarious considering how much you defend that same corporate greed.

But if you want to maintain that claim of yours..you disagree with the Republicans on what? How would you alleviate the corporate greed?

And your worrying about a “blank check” and your worrying about the deficit would be a lot more believable if you’d go after the Republicans for not cutting the military, for not cutting the corporate welfare, for not cutting the tax loopholes and for not raising taxes on the rich to help deal with that deficit you so love to claim you’re worrying about.

Oh and your acknowledging that your precious Republicans are to blame for majority of the deficit too would be a good idea.

Put your money where your mouth is, Lower. Instead of being a rank hypocrite.

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James Kessler says:

July 30, 2011 at 11:43 pm

Lower writes:
2) The “trend” shows governmental spending doing little – shoot, even the History Channel’s “The Story of Us” credits the mobilizing of the US in WWII as the reason we got out of the Great Depression, not Roosevelt’s New Deal.

The mobilizing of the US for WW2 was a big giant spending program, Lower. In other words..it was exactly what your party objects to. But if you don’t like the New Deal you’re willing to give up your FDIC insurance, your medicare and social security right?

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Ed Darrell says:

July 30, 2011 at 8:28 pm

If the phrase “Gish Gallop” isn’t ringing a bell it’s time everyone looked it up.

Joe originally came to this blog to convince me evolution is a crock. If he lapses into a Gish Gallop on any issue, it’s probably because he’s tired. He does better than that most of the time.

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Ed Darrell says:

July 30, 2011 at 8:15 pm

Joe said:

A couple things: 1) stimulus bills? How are those working for this economy these days? They have been dismal failures!

As I noted earlier, when Obama took office we were losing 500,000 jobs each month. The worst month since the stimulus bill, we had a net gain of 18,000 jobs — that’s a 518,000 jobs on the plus side each month since the stimulus.

The stimulus was a roaring success. It prevented another Great Depression. It was not enough to get us back to full employment and robust economic growth. We need another stimulus, badly.

2) The “trend” shows governmental spending doing little – shoot, even the History Channel’s “The Story of Us” credits the mobilizing of the US in WWII as the reason we got out of the Great Depression, not Roosevelt’s New Deal.

As I wrote earlier, Keynes met with Roosevelt, and told him that he had to get another, larger stimulus to get the U.S. out of what was called the “Roosevelt Recession,” which started when Roosevelt announced budget cuts and tax cuts for the wealthy “job producers.”

World War II was that stimulus. Keynes was right. By 1942, the Civilian Conservation Corps could be wound down, and WPA could be allowed to expire, because all of the clients for those programs were either in the military, or working war support jobs. Government spending and military recruitment took about 140% of the work force — and new workers had to be recruited from women who had never worked outside a home before. More than three million jobs were opened for migrants from the farms of the Deep South, in factories supporting the war effort in the north and west. To keep farms going, hundreds of thousands of workers were recruited from Mexico.

Government spending did it.

Can you imagine how great the boom could have been had that stimulus been spent wholly domestically, instead of in fighting a war?

3) Those 100,000 cops were paid for by the federal government for what? three years? Then the states were to take over.

And where the states took over, in many places, it was because tax collections were improved due to the better economy.

Another case of where a federal stimulus produced huge benefits — not to mention the decline in crime rates.

Each of those cases argues for another stimulus, and against a tax cut.

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Ed Darrell says:

July 30, 2011 at 7:34 pm

By the way, I agree that we need to raise the deficit limit. But I also agree that it shouldn’t be a blank check to just spend whatever we want.

The debt limit allows cash flow to continue to pay the bills already incurred. It cannot be counted as a check in any form. That would be the appropriation from Congress.

Tea Partiers appear not to understand the budget process; or they understand that they cannot win with their draconian, anti-humanitarian, anti-American, anti-job cut proposals. So they take hostage the credit rating instead, and threaten to choke all of America’s prosperity. Nobody voted last November to ruin the credit of the United States for no good reason.

The checks Congress writes are never blank ones. But once they write the checks, they can’t stop payment and pretend they don’t have to send the goods back.

One quick solution, if the debt ceiling fails, would be a total U.S. retreat from Iraq and Afghanistan. The Pentagon is sweating today how to keep the soldiers happy, when the soldiers know their families are likely not to get a check on time this month to pay mortgages in Killeen, Texas, in Kentucky, in Georgia, and in California, and a dozen other places.

Who will volunteer to go tell the soldiers that we have to stop spending, so the nation’s credit was ruined, and their checks will come . . .eventually? I can’t think of any good reason such a thing would happen, and I predict great anger toward the messenger.

How about Mr. Tea Party? Will he go?

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Ed Darrell says:

July 30, 2011 at 7:27 pm

James, what “side” do I have? I’ve been critical of both Republicans AND Democrats. You keep saying “your side.” Both sides are in bed with corporate greed. Liberals just pretend they’re for the little man and call these corporate ‘fat cats’ labor unions. Shoot, even Donald Trump has given more to fund Democrats than Republicans – why? Because he wants to make sure that he doesn’t have problems from both parties.

You haven’t been critical of people who argue for voodoo economics. You’ve been critical of party politics, sometimes justifiably, but most of the time unrelated to the economic issues.

Failing to raise the debt ceiling is something Auric Goldfinger might have dreamed up to crash the world’s economy and make him the world’s richest man and greatest dictator. It’s not a rational economic choice, and it’s bad for every American. Very bad.

I don’t see anywhere that you’ve urged a quick raising of the debt ceiling so we can get on with serious problems.

We thought we were electing a few crazy conservatives, but now we discover we’ve elected a critical mass of suicide economic bombers.

Iraqis and Afghanis are expressing their gratitude today that they have governments that work, and not our current Congress with the Tea Party Economy Suicide Bombers and Nation Hostage Takers. Those few North Koreans who have access to the news today are saying, “Hey, maybe the Kims are right: American capitalists will destroy themselves!” This is embarrassing, damnably embarrassing.

Ed, here’s some quotes of the moment for you from Milton Friedman:

“Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.”

You’re the one making a bad defense of economic serfdom here, Joe — you and Morgan. You think we’re not free? No one’s making any arguments against free markets — except for those who claim, like you appear to, that they aren’t really true.

What in the world do you think will happen to the markets in Japan, China, India, and Europe, on Tuesday, if we don’t get a debt ceiling increase by Sunday night? Seriously. The House Republicans have taken grandma hostage, slit her wrists, and told us to repeal Obama care in order to save her life — or they’ll shoot her and everyone else’s grandmother in the head.

I’ve made no argument against a free market here (or anywhere else), nor can I find anyone else who has.

The free markets will wallop the U.S. with a trillion dollars in additional deficits on Wednesday without a debt ceiling increase. We will get nothing for that trillion dollars. Nothing.

Milton Friedman often spoke about value. He never urged pissing money away, especially not in trillion dollar amounts. Milton Friedman specifically did not ever suggest the U.S. should default on its debt obligations, or any other obligations. Deadbeats pay more money than non-deadbeats. Willfully choosing to make our nation an economic deadbeat is about as stupid as it is possible to get an not forget to breathe.

Arguing for not being stupid is support of free market economics, not opposition to it.

“The Great Depression, like most other periods of severe unemployment, was produced by government mismanagement rather than by any inherent instability of the private economy.”

I’ll agree with that — the central bank didn’t do enough, the Secretary of the Treasury, Andrew Mellon, insisted Americans could stand a couple of years without paychecks (Mellon was a billionaire, a classic “let-’em-eat-cake” sorta guy — what did he know?).

Among other things, Friedman talks about how the government should have intervened to stop the failure of banks three years earlier than Roosevelt finally did. In the case of the Great Depression, Friedman includes in his indictment of the government’s “mismanagement” its failure to intervene to stop private failures.

Surely you can’t accuse Obama of that. Bush maybe moved to slowly, but Obama’s done everything possible to stop bank failures, and large corporate failures (like GM, whose failure would have been about as disastrous as the failure of the Bank of the United States in 1930 (despite its name, a private bank)). See pages 82, 83 et seq in Friedman’s Free to Choose.

Remember that: Friedman’s indictment of the government for mismanagement includes the government’s failure to step in to bail out banks soon enough.

“We have a system that increasingly taxes work and subsidizes nonwork.”

Friedman agrees that we should tax the rich and not the workers. He’d be shocked at the Bush tax cuts. (Did you read that quote before you posted it here?)

Bush’s tax cuts benefited financiers, people who make money with money instead of work. I still can’t figure out why people who otherwise defend Friedman’s uber-market mentality, supported the tax cuts. They were contrary to Friedman’s tax philosophy.

“The problem of social organization is how to set up an arrangement under which greed will do the least harm, capitalism is that kind of a system.”

Not unregulated capitalism. Not capitalism where oligarchs have all the power. Read Friedman’s books — was big on consumers having choices, big on spreading money around to lots of workers, big on having workers benefit from their own labor. Friedman explicitly recognizes that greed is not uniformly beneficial, but can do great harm, and always does some harm — so he speaks of the problem of getting a system that allows greed to do the least harm. Friedman was on to something. You should listen to him on this, Joe.

“I am favor of cutting taxes under any circumstances and for any excuse, for any reason, whenever it’s possible.”

But he is not in favor of no taxes. He complains about our graduated income tax, not because it’s a tax, and not because it puts a higher rate on higher incomes, but because those with higher incomes have loopholes and often pay a lower rate than those who make less money.

Friedman was no anarchist by any stretch. He was not anti-tax. He did not favor giving huge tax cuts to the rich, but instead favored the rich paying a large share of taxes.

“Many people want the government to protect the consumer. A much more urgent problem is to protect the consumer from the government.”

He was wrong there.

“The government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem.”

A good one-liner, but not good economics. EPA’s regulation is not worse than the lead air pollution which damaged brains so extensively that when we cleaned it up, the average national IQ rose by several points. Acid rain was uniformly harmful. No non-governmental solution has ever been found.

Friedman wasn’t much as a comedian, and his economics suffered when he tried one-liners.

And my personal favorite:

“If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there’d be a shortage of sand.”

That would be wise stewardship, in my opinion. Increasing desertification around the Sahara kills a few thousands of people annually on average (maybe millions this year). Increasing desertification killed Babylon, killed Carthage long after it drove the Phoenicians out of Lebanon, then a forest but now a desert, and manages to kill Chinese by the millions when the desert sands carried downstream make an elevated Yellow River than, when it floods, can kill millions.

Again, he’s striving for a one-liner. Funny image, bad economics, worse conservation.

In not one of those quotes does Friedman support simply stopping the paying of bills, especially if that increases costs to government which then must raise taxes.

Friedman was a staunch free marketeer, willing to overlook the murders of tens of thousands in Chile to celebrate free market renewal (the murders occurred before he was called in, to be clear); but Friedman never said “don’t pay your bills.”

What was your point, Joe?

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Pangolin says:

July 30, 2011 at 6:25 pm

If the phrase “Gish Gallop” isn’t ringing a bell it’s time everyone looked it up.

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lowerleavell says:

July 30, 2011 at 4:51 pm

By the way, I agree that we need to raise the deficit limit. But I also agree that it shouldn’t be a blank check to just spend whatever we want. Frankly, if we continued to raise the debt limit without spending cuts then our AAA rating was toast anyway. We have to work towards balancing the budget and paying down our debt!

As already stated, I’m no huge defender of Bush, but when confronted with an economic scenario that resulted from 9/11, corporate scandals like Enron,etc. I don’t remember him blaming it on Clinton and then making the problem worse. I know you’ll disagree with me, but even though many other Republicans blamed Clinton, I never remember Bush himself saying it was all Clinton’s fault and whining for years afterward.

That being said, we went from a potentially horrible economic fallout from 9/11 to actually seeing job growth was, to me, remarkable.

Things could have been much, much better, obviously. Again, I blame the Republicans for losing their ideology to Washington’s lust for power and control. And I also blame the 06′ Democratic sweep into power for continually making things worse and not better…and Bush going along with it! Bush is not innocent by any stretch, but the failure of the tax cuts was not in cutting taxes but in not cutting spending along with the tax cuts.

I agree with Freidman that taxes should be cut whenever possible for whatever reason, but that doesn’t mean you are stupid either and lower taxes and not cut spending.

Ed said, “The trend there is easy to see: Government spending that stimulates jobs makes for a health economy,”

A couple things: 1) stimulus bills? How are those working for this economy these days? They have been dismal failures! 2) The “trend” shows governmental spending doing little – shoot, even the History Channel’s “The Story of Us” credits the mobilizing of the US in WWII as the reason we got out of the Great Depression, not Roosevelt’s New Deal. 3) Those 100,000 cops were paid for by the federal government for what? three years? Then the states were to take over.

Beyond that, a lot of the things you said I agree with. Supply and Demand…good stuff. Yet a stimulus of demand is not generated by taking money from small business owners. There has to be an incentive to make money for your family, not for the government. When government takes more it makes it difficult for them to keep prices low on their customers. Again I’ll say – if you could find a way to simply tax billionaires without affecting the small business owner, then let me know.

Ed said, “You can’t create jobs with tax cuts.”

Are we talking corporate taxes, income taxes, or both? Corporately, we have one of the highest tax rates in the world already. If you close the unethical loopholes then no raise in taxes on a corporate level would even be necessary…of course those new taxes payed will be passed to the consumer. If you cut income taxes then people have more money to spend which leads to greater demand which leads to more jobs. Am I right? Since I have low taxes I am able to afford school – giving my teachers jobs, giving Amazon.com business for the books I’ve bought, giving money to restaurants when I eat to and from school, gas in my car, etc. All because I have the money to pay for school.

On a wealthier scale, who do you think benefits from those “toys” that they buy? The middle class! Billionaires don’t necessarily create jobs directly…they just buy stuff that keeps people working. It’s called demand. They’re great consumers! Manufacturers of corporate jets are outraged at Obama right now! Cut those jets and you cut jobs. I know one guy who works as an on call pilot for a billionaire in Scottsdale. He rarely flies but he feeds his family just by being ready to fly whenever his boss wants to fly his corporate jet around. Cut corporate jets, you cut a LOT of middle class jobs. Shoot, it was Obama’s administration that killed oil rig jobs for months! Corporate CEOs punished or middle class employees?

Beyond that, you can’t create jobs by borrowing money either. You’re robbing Peter to pay Paul. No new wealth has been created – you’re merely stealing from the future for the present. While it is important to do that in economic crisis, it’s no way to plan a budget.

Ed said, “A failure to boost the debt ceiling (by yesterday, probably) will increase our national debt by a trillion dollars for every percentage point of interest we have to pay additionally due to ruined credit.”

I don’t disagree. As I said however, spending HAS to get under control. There comes a point in time when our AAA rating goes by by because we’re borrowing too much however.

Ed said, “Trainwrecks are impossible not to watch, except we’re on the train and can’t jump off. If a foreign power had done this to us, we’d have declared war.”

So, you’re just as mad at both Democrats AND Republicans as I am?

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Ed Darrell says:

July 30, 2011 at 3:51 pm

Joe said:

A tax cut doesn’t mean instant job creation, though there were plenty of jobs created during the Bush years.

About 3 million jobs over 8 years. It was the worst job growth since Herbert Hoover, and it rivaled the job growth of some of the Great Depression years. We had 22 months of recession under Bush. As the Wall Street Journal Blog put it:

His [Bush’s] job-creation record won’t look much better. The Bush administration created about three million jobs (net) over its eight years, a fraction of the 23 million jobs created under President Bill Clinton‘s administration and only slightly better than President George H.W. Bush did in his four years in office.

It was a clue that the economy had been seriously damaged. My hope was that the economy could limp along until Obama (or any Democrat) got in to undo the damage or at least prevent disaster, but that didn’t happen.

In any case, it was a hard lesson that tax cuts for the rich do not create jobs. Alas, it was a lesson left unlearned by the Quislings in the modern Tea Party, many other Republicans, a few people hampered by serious brain damage, and about 100 Republicans in the House of Representatives.

The powerful job growth engine of the Clinton years was fueled by increases in revenue especially that provided the ability for the government to redo regulations in telecommunications, energy research, increased cops and fireman hired and paid by federal grants, and highway repair programs — all of which gave modest jolts to local economies that were multiplied by the sheer number of people affected. Increased demand for cops and firefighters, teachers, skilled engineers for telecom and computing, and construction, lifted the housing and automobile markets, and that created more jobs.

The trend there is easy to see: Government spending that stimulates jobs makes for a health economy,

Jobs are the result of an expanding company which happened during the middle Bush years, not a company struggling to keep afloat as you see in this economy.

If we square your statement with the actual numbers, we can say that the paltry few jobs that resulted during the Bush years were despite his massive wealth transfers to the upper class, who did not spend their money and did not create new demand.

Even WITH the tax cuts companies are going bankrupt.

Companies go bankrupt when there is not enough demand for their products. Companies with products or services in demand could borrow money easily (we have astonishingly low interest rates and banks are desperate to lend money), but no company can get a loan on the hope of demand increasing in the future. Banks won’t loan money to expand companies who are on the verge of bankruptcy because no one is buying their products; banks loan money to companies who have surging demand, so the banks can be assured they get paid back. This is basic non-voodoo economics. Read Friedman sometime.

Tax cuts do no good for a company that is not making enough money to pay a lot of taxes, nor for people who are not drawing an honestly-earned paycheck.

We need a stimulus of demand, not a tax cut for the rich.

Instead of just a lack of jobs, if you raise taxes you would see many more companies (especially the smaller businesses whose margins of profit are so small) having an even harder time surviving.

You can’t create jobs with tax cuts. No economist will argue that. You’re talking not just voodoo economics, but voodoo history coupled with animist economics: If we just give enough money to the Lions of Industry, maybe the rains will come.

Joe, not to put too fine a point on it, but your economics are contrary to Christianity, you know.

Go back to your parable of the talents. One of the powerful morals of that tale is that people need to be wise stewards of the money they are entrusted with. A failure to boost the debt ceiling (by yesterday, probably) will increase our national debt by a trillion dollars for every percentage point of interest we have to pay additionally due to ruined credit.

And who benefits from that, Joe? The Chinese, the Europeans, the Russians, the Saudis . . . and we get nothing in return.

Nothing. It’s worse than the guy who just buried his talent and got nothing for it. It’s like flaking off the gold and flushing it down the sewer. Jesus didn’t think that anyone would believe that someone could be that stupid, and so Jesus didn’t include that in the story.

Clearly, Jesus underestimated the stupid capacity of the Tea Party and their fellow teabag suckers.

Unfortunately, so did way too many voters.

Trainwrecks are impossible not to watch, except we’re on the train and can’t jump off. If a foreign power had done this to us, we’d have declared war.

What can we do when it’s a domestic ~~terrorist/~~tea party adherent?

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lowerleavell says:

July 30, 2011 at 2:34 pm

James said, “I thought your side argued that if we cut their taxes they would create jobs and economic prosperity here.

So..where are the jobs and the economic prosperity?”

A tax cut doesn’t mean instant job creation, though there were plenty of jobs created during the Bush years. Jobs are the result of an expanding company which happened during the middle Bush years, not a company struggling to keep afloat as you see in this economy. Even WITH the tax cuts companies are going bankrupt. Instead of just a lack of jobs, if you raise taxes you would see many more companies (especially the smaller businesses whose margins of profit are so small) having an even harder time surviving.

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lowerleavell says:

July 30, 2011 at 2:25 pm

James, are these companies doing anything illegal? If there are unethical things going on then close the loopholes.

James, what “side” do I have? I’ve been critical of both Republicans AND Democrats. You keep saying “your side.” Both sides are in bed with corporate greed. Liberals just pretend they’re for the little man and call these corporate ‘fat cats’ labor unions. Shoot, even Donald Trump has given more to fund Democrats than Republicans – why? Because he wants to make sure that he doesn’t have problems from both parties.

Ed, here’s some quotes of the moment for you from Milton Friedman:

“Underlying most arguments against the free market is a lack of belief in freedom itself.”

“The Great Depression, like most other periods of severe unemployment, was produced by government mismanagement rather than by any inherent instability of the private economy.”

“We have a system that increasingly taxes work and subsidizes nonwork.”

“The problem of social organization is how to set up an arrangement under which greed will do the least harm, capitalism is that kind of a system.”

“I am favor of cutting taxes under any circumstances and for any excuse, for any reason, whenever it’s possible.”

“Many people want the government to protect the consumer. A much more urgent problem is to protect the consumer from the government.”

“The government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem.”

And my personal favorite:

“If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there’d be a shortage of sand.”

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James Kessler says:

July 29, 2011 at 9:31 pm

Oh wait lower..businesses pay no taxes hm? I thought your side argued that if we cut their taxes they would create jobs and economic prosperity here.

So..where are the jobs and the economic prosperity?

Ah Republicans…still searching for the moral justification for massive greed.

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James Kessler says:

July 29, 2011 at 9:27 pm

Lower writes:
James said, “GE, Capital One, Boeing, Wells Fargo and several other companies pay no federal income tax. Are they adding jobs here?”

James, no corporation pays taxes – all pass them on to the consumer.

No Lower..when I say they don’t actually pay any federal income taxes..I mean they actually pay no federal income taxes. I’m not saying they pay the taxes and then pass it on to us..I’m saying they don’t pay it in the first place. And its not like they’re passing the savings on to us. So perhaps its time to actually make them pay it, hm? After all..they are using government services to make that money. Or do you approve of tax cheats?

But since you want to take that tack..your side loves to claim that if we lower taxes on businesses they’ll pass on the savings to us. Oh wait..then your party tried shutting down the FAA which means the ticket tax is no longer collected. And what did the airlines do? They all immediately raised their fares so they can pocket the money themselves.

This country isn’t going bankrupt because of overspending, child, its going bankrupt because of your sides stupid tax cuts that bring us nothing.

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lowerleavell says:

July 29, 2011 at 2:25 pm

LOL – one person compliments me on my balanced criticism and another says that I’m a one drum line. :-)

I don’t remember singling out Democrats to blame for our current problems. I believe in financial responsibility – it’s a drum-line that neither party has adhered to. I’m skeptical that this last election caused both parties to somehow “see the light.”

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Pangolin says:

July 29, 2011 at 1:55 pm

lowerleavell_ You really have only one note that you sing….”It was the Democrats fault.”

Budget deficit……”It was the Democrats fault.” Never mind the Bush Tax cuts and unfunded wars.

Unemployment…..”It was the Democrats fault.” We’re going to ignore numerous Republican touted trade deals that shipped U.S. manufacturing jobs overseas.

Climate Change effects……”It was the Democrats fault.” “They’re lying” you say “ignore all those scientists and their ‘data’.”

Banking collapse…..”It was the Democrats fault.” We’ll just ignore the sale of CDO’s and massive financial fraud by the banks after the Republican-led repeal of the Glass-Steagall act.

Medical system collapse….”It was the Democrats fault.” We’ll just ignore the fact that the GOP threatened civil war if U.S. citizens were offered a public option or Medicare buy-in. We’ll also ignore the FACT that per-capita medical costs are HALF and medical care delivery is BETTER in countries with socialized medicine. They live longer.

Where, sir, is that much touted responsibility? As an Arizona resident your entire state is on the Federal dole as they collect far more in Federal revenues than they pay. We’ll not go into the Federal water project that makes Phoenix possible and/or livable as a large city.

You’re a fraud and a troll.

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lowerleavell says:

July 29, 2011 at 1:17 pm

James said, “GE, Capital One, Boeing, Wells Fargo and several other companies pay no federal income tax. Are they adding jobs here?”

James, no corporation pays taxes – all pass them on to the consumer.

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lowerleavell says:

July 29, 2011 at 1:16 pm

Ed said, “Check the charts above — it shows that a simple rollback of the Bush taxcuts for the rich would eliminate much of our deficits.”

But the Bush tax cuts weren’t just for the super rich. They weren’t just for “rich” by an American definition either. They were a tax cut for the small business owner as well. Every American who pays taxes has benefited from the tax cuts. So, unless you can find a way to just put a higher tax on billionaires who would barely feel any sting from a rate hike then all Americans would feel the repeal of the Bush tax cuts.

Again, I go back to my original post. I think Americans would be warmer to the idea of their taxes going up if they agreed with how things were being handled in Washington. Again I say, the money from the masses went to the few in Wall Street. You railed against doing that to us poor citizens Ed! Shoot, a few of those companies took that tax money and gave themselves bonuses with it!

If this were not a crisis brought on by over extending and over spending then Americans would be much more generous with their income. But when bailouts and entitlements are shoved down your throat that actually make things worse (like Obamacare which will actually raise prices to my healthcare!), then Americans aren’t too thrilled with taking more of their income. When there is no hope of balancing the budget because government refuses to reign in spending then it is like flushing your money down the toilet – the demand for more will seemingly never decrease. The “pig” will always be hungry for more and will spend whether there is revenue to cover it or not.

Here’s my thing with the Bush tax cuts. They should never have been enacted without a plan to cut spending! You can’t cut revenue without cutting spending. Bush did that and Obama has followed suit.

Beyond that, tell me why the most liberal states with some of the highest tax rates are the states in the most financial trouble right now? Why is it that the most conservative states are balancing their budgets and actually adequately riding out this recession?

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lowerleavell says:

July 29, 2011 at 12:49 pm

Pangolin,

You said, “In 1978, mid-Carter presidency, ONE worker in an average household could pay all the bills. The average worker did not have and did not need a college degree in order to hold down a middle-class job.”

Of course, you still can live in one income…as many single parents know. My wife and I live on one earner’s income and have the entire time we’ve been married. I paid for private college on my own, supported a family, and bought my first home by the time I was 25. I didn’t have any great job by any stretch. So my wife can stay home with the children, by our choice, we live on less. Don’t tell me that you can’t make it on one income these days – it simply means you live wisely on less while you make your start.

The point is, that all the great things you said that were there during the Carter administration was destroyed…by the Carter administration. Interest rates and inflation at nearly 18%? Sure…great times were had by all! You can keep the Carter years – trying to convince people they were really peaches and cream isn’t going to help your cause.

You said, “Finally……I DO believe that government can do many things with money better than private corporations. Social Security, Medicare, public schools, public roads, public parks, libraries, universities, management of fisheries, watersheds, timberlands, and rangelands is far better off left to governments. Private individuals tend to loot and scoot leaving behind polluted wastelands.”

Contracting to private industry usually realizes best results. Not always, I’m sure, but in some areas…like dams, railroads, and highways. Most of our governmental projects like roads, etc. are subcontracted because private industry is better equipped than starting a whole new company to build and repair all our nation’s highways. Beyond that, do public universities or private universities yield the best results? Do public schools or charter schools (that people pay for with tax vouchers – a big debate here in AZ) yield higher test scores and quality? How’s those public libraries doing these days? How’s our USPS doing these days? Let’s just say that even the federalists would have been shocked at how inept the behemoth of our government has become.

You said, “If you don’t like governments and government taxation I suggest you leave and find a place with neither of these luxuries.”

Sigh…thanks for putting words in my mouth. I’ve already said that government and taxes have its place. Of course roads are necessary, of course security is necessary, of course lawful regulations are necessary, of course a judicial system is necessary! No one is making the claim to cast off all restraint. There is a far cry difference between a Democratic Representative Republic and Anarchy. But again, there is a difference between the government working for my benefit…like a public servant should, and me working for the government.

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James Kessler says:

July 29, 2011 at 7:16 am

This is probably the best article explaining why Government and its functions should not be run like a business and should not be privatized and run by businesses:

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2011/07/28/9-reasons-why-business-people-are-terrible-at-governing/

A couple of weeks ago, someone sent me an email. The gist of it was that Walmart is a wildly successful company, so why don’t we hire them to run the government? Really? Walmart? Then I thought about it for a while. That email represented a very commonly held idea in this country, that a successful business is superior to government. We elect business people to office on the idea that they will run the government in a more cost effective manner than someone without business experience.

Despite years as a public servant, Mitt Romney is running for President on his business credentials, hoping Republican voters forget about his relatively liberal voting record. Herman Cain’s only claim to fame is as CEO of a pizza chain. George Bush touted business acumen, despite being a very bad business man. To many voters that didn’t matter. To them, it’s better to be a bad business man than a good politician.

It’s easy to see why this idea tempts so many. For 30 years, we’ve been told that government is bad. Grover Norquist (father of the Republican “No New Taxes” pledge) famously said that we should reduce government to the size where it can fit in a bathtub so it can be drowned. The idea attracted a lot of people, especially after being told that government is bloated and stealing our hard earned money.

Whenever we turn on the TV, we hear one thing about the government. It is broke. We have an outrageous deficit and a huge debt. Wouldn’t it make sense to hire elect someone who knows how to handle cash?

As tempting as it might be, the answer to that question “No.”

1.Companies are in business for one reason and one reason only…to make money. They are not in business to serve their employees or even their customers. A corporation is legally obligated to put profit above all else. This philosophy typically boils down to making the cheapest product the market will allow (or offering the least amount of service) and selling it at the highest price the market will allow. It’s one thing if your cell phone has a built in life span of six months to two years. It’s quite another for the electrical power grid.
2.Businesses do not care about their customers. I know. That statement is a little cold. They spend billions in advertising convincing us that they care about us. They truly want us to have clean clothes. They want us to have a clean environment. They want your children to frolic in fields. They sell you that toy just so your child can see you as the hero you are. They want you to be happy. Actually, no where in the corporate charter does it talk about customer happiness or even customer satisfaction. Sure, if a competitor is making their customers happy, there might be some incentive to go in that direction, but ultimately, it’s about the shareholders and only the shareholders. It’s easier and cheaper to improve the marketing than it is to improve the product or service. In other words, it’s fine to sell defective products, as long as they can manipulate a certain percentage of the people into believing they are buying a good product at a good price, their shareholders are happy. If the marketing campaign is really good, they will convince their customers that product defects are normal (as with many electronics) and that they should pay to replace their defective product with the next generation of the very same defective product.
3.The government is not in the business of turning a profit. Let’s use the post office as an example. Granted, the post office isn’t doing that great right now, but the reason for that is pretty simple. They aren’t charging enough. But let’s say they were doing well. Let’s say they were profitable. Customers would be screaming. We would want that money back in the form of cheaper postage stamps. In fact, wasn’t that the entire premise behind the Bush tax cuts? The government had a surplus of funds. Bush and the Republicans felt it should go back to the taxpayers.
4.The government is not in the business of creating demand. By and large, government services are services deemed necessary for our society to function. Businesses spring up every day by creating new demands for new products. Pharmaceutical companies invent illnesses. Clothing manufacturers convince us that we are somehow inferior if we are caught wearing last year’s styles. Governments pick up trash, teach children and put out fires. They have no incentive to have us create more trash, make dumber children or start fires. On the other hand, if those same services were run by business, the more trash they picked up, the more money they would earn. The more work they had to put into educating our children, the more money they would earn. The more fires they had to put out, the more money they would earn.
5.The cost cutting measures taken by businesses can backfire on the government. Since the age of free trade agreements, one of the most common cost cutting measures has been to outsource jobs. In fact, Mitt Romney’s company taught businesses how to save money by outsourcing. Personally, I’m a little uncomfortable with foreign nationals running the CIA. Say what you will about government employees, at least they pay American payroll taxes.
6.The government is directly accountable to us. Post-Citizens United, this might sound somewhat naive, but we do still hold elections and only the people are eligible to vote. A corporate CEO, on the other hand, is controlled by a small group of people known as the board of directors. If we, the customers, wish to fire our President or Congressperson, all we have to do is show up at the polls (something Americans are notoriously bad at). If we, the customers, wish to fire the CEO of a multinational corporation, well, good luck.
7.Business people tend to do a very bad job at governing. George W. Bush and Dick Cheney both came from business backgrounds. They left the country in the worst financial shape since the Great Depression. Mitt Romney’s Massachusetts was 47th out of the 50 states for job creation.
8.Business is by definition, amoral. Morality is not part of the corporate charter. The US Constitution is a moral (not to be confused with religious) document. It is a code of conduct for all government officials. It states that government officials must answer to We the People. If We the People don’t like the Constitution, we can change it. Business people have no such codes of conduct, unless it is to instruct them to not embarrass the corporation and its board of directors. We the Customers have absolutely no input into any such code of conduct.
9.Finally, businesses can, and do do something that would be unacceptable for the US Government…they go bankrupt.
In all fairness, government runs best when represented by a variety of backgrounds. Business people do have a place in government as do trash collectors, artists and even community organizers. It runs best with a variety of perspectives. It runs best when it is run by We the People

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James Kessler says:

July 29, 2011 at 7:14 am

To quote:
My point with raising their taxes to 100% was to demonstrate that even if you take everything the rich owns you cannot balance our nation’s budget.

And yet noone here and noone in the Democrat party wants to raise their taxes to 100%. And noone in the Democrat party has said “Absolutely no cuts anywhere.”

So the question I have for you is this: Why do you think you’re making a point when you’re really creating a strawman argument? You’re conjuring a false argument because you’re pretending that liberals want to raises taxes on the rich to 100% when none of us do.

You can cut taxes on the rich to 0% and you still won’t improve or sustain an economy the size of ours. There is simply too few rich to do that. You want to improve or sustain an economy the size of ours? Then you need to focus on where the people are..the middle class and the poor. Without us there is no economy. But your party wants to give everything to the rich and think that’s somehow going to benefit the rest of us. It won’t. It never will. “Trickle down” doesn’t work. It never will.

GE, Capital One, Boeing, Wells Fargo and several other companies pay no federal income tax. Are they adding jobs here?
If not what makes you think the rich are going to magically create jobs here when the middle class and the poor have no money to buy anything with?

Our point is that it is better to deal with a deficit via a mixture of spending cuts and tax hikes on the rich. That would deal with the deficit faster, more thoroughly and far more fairly to everyone. It would make it so that everyone sacrifices…not just the middle class and the poor while the rich and the businesses get away with sacrificing nothing.

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Ed Darrell says:

July 29, 2011 at 1:23 am

My point with raising their taxes to 100% was to demonstrate that even if you take everything the rich owns you cannot balance our nation’s budget.

According to OMB and CBO, and every Nobel laureate economist in America, if we simply put tax rates back to what they were in the Clinton administration, when there was much more rapid growth of the rich than there is now, we could balance the budget and pay down the deficits within about 15 years.

Check the charts above — it shows that a simple rollback of the Bush taxcuts for the rich would eliminate much of our deficits.

You’re right, technically, that a 100% tax wouldn’t work. A much more modest increase to 20%, or 30%, would. Such is economics.

Taxes don’t need to be confiscatory to raise big sums. In our experience in America, they need only be fair and progressive.

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Pangolin says:

July 28, 2011 at 10:51 pm

Lowerleavall you are the very definition of a lackey. You are a willing footstool for the wealthy.

In 1978, mid-Carter presidency, ONE worker in an average household could pay all the bills. The average worker did not have and did not need a college degree in order to hold down a middle-class job. Should that worker choose to get a college degree at that time college tuitions were affordable. There were generous state and federal grants and loans and the minimum wage had more buying power. There were few or no homeless in the streets in 1978 because the U.S. had a functional low-income housing program. There were more small farms, family farms, and viable rural townships in the U.S.

The Iran hostage crisis did not occur until November 4th, 1979; only well into the Carter presidency were there (brief) gas lines and James Earl Carter addressed the temporary oil shortfall by pushing through energy policies that we benefit from to this day.

Honestly, I don’t care how many millionaires you know or what swell guys they are. They don’t seem to be swell enough to solve the homeless problem either individually or through group action.

If you don’t like governments and government taxation I suggest you leave and find a place with neither of these luxuries. I would suggest Somalia; the libertarian paradise. Take all your millionaire buddies with you. Back here, I’ll do what I can to see to it that the states are allowed to seize assets of wealthy expatriates who flee the U.S. for tax evasion purposes.

Finally……I DO believe that government can do many things with money better than private corporations. Social Security, Medicare, public schools, public roads, public parks, libraries, universities, management of fisheries, watersheds, timberlands, and rangelands is far better off left to governments. Private individuals tend to loot and scoot leaving behind polluted wastelands.

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lowerleavell says:

July 28, 2011 at 5:52 pm

Jim, real quick – I got the 50% plus from state and local taxes which vary, of course. You know, the Federal government isn’t the only one who wants their cut of your pie, you know.

Regarding the Iraq War, I was indicating that I supported the STATED reasons for going to war. While we could banter back and forth about what the REAL reasons were, etc. I, along with Hillary Clinton and others, agreed with Bush that the reasons that were presented were agreeable.

Oh yes, Pangolin, all Americans look back on the Carter years with such fondness…Sure miss those gas lines…

What you’ve just said is that even if someone is working 80 plus hours a week for their pay, somehow they should be thankful that the government let them keep 30% of what they earned. I don’t care what the dollar amount looks like, I wouldn’t want to work from January through September for the government and be told to be thankful that I can afford my “toys.”

American industry does not exist for the purpose of supporting the government, government exists for the purpose of supporting free industry. More Americans should be millionaires because they keep more of what they’ve earned.

Do you actually know any millionaires of billionaires Pangolin? I have known many millionaires and one billionaire. The millionaire I work for lives on about the same he pays me and gives the rest away to charity and reinvests back into his company. He does so much better about charity work than any government on earth could do dollar for dollar. Interestingly, I asked one millionaire relative of mine what it was like to have that much money – he told me it was a lot like middle class, only with a few more zeros on the bills. This relative of mine owns an apartment complex. He’s the one who when people asked to speak to the owner were told to look for the one person who looked like they couldn’t afford to live there and was doing the maintenance. He couldn’t afford it – the government took too much out in taxes. Most “millionaires” I know are hard working Americans who earned their dollars through decades of hard work.

The difference between us is that you actually think the government will do a better job with the money than the private citizen. So, by your own declarations you are admitting that you do not believe in democracy. You believe the people cannot be trusted to make decisions with their money but should just be given enough to have their “toys” and the government gets the rest. That would be labeled a Socialistic Oligarchy, wouldn’t it? Marxism at the least. And you wonder why people are leery of liberals?

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Pangolin says:

July 28, 2011 at 4:47 pm

Is there anybody reading this who wouldn’t trade a job with a 70% tax rate on $4 million/year for a job with a 20% tax rate at $50K/year. Anybody? Ferris?

How sad for the poor souls that would only be left with $1.2 million dollars tax free to spend. Sure you could buy a new suburban house, car, boat, medical care for four, food, clothing and world travel, every year for that money but it simply isn’t fair to these victimized individuals.

Crocodile tears; I got em right here. Maximum tax brackets were that high up till Ronald Reagans presidency and there were no lack of wealthy people lording it over the common folk. At the same time the common folk could afford to support a family on ONE union job at places like Safeway or the local lumberyard.

I’d take that deal in a hot second.

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lowerleavell says:

July 28, 2011 at 4:35 pm

By the way, I say all of these words about the rich after being unemployed for four months last year. It was two small business owners (one who franchises for a billionaire family who invented the chicken sandwich), that hired me. Until I found steady work I contracted myself out as a general laborer to who? Small business owners – doing general electrical work for one and doing day-labor work for the other. Shoot, I shoveled manure to feed my family, for Pete’s sake (remember those jobs that citizens aren’t willing to do?)! Through it all, I never took one dime of unemployment or asked for the government’s help for health care, food, or anything. We lived within our means, cut our costs down to where it hurt…bad, and I worked my butt of trying to get work. So Mr. James and Mr. Ed, I don’t hold my positions from a middle class position, I hold my positions through a “below poverty level/lower middle class” position. I don’t make much but I have learned how to live within my means. I still don’t want the rich to give me money for which I haven’t worked. They, nor the government, owe me nothing but the opportunity to work hard and see fruit for MY labor, not theirs. I do benefit from their hard work, to be sure, but I have no desire for their money to be taken from their wallets and put into mine, no matter how deep their wallet.

Class envy…it really makes me upset. I hate to be so blunt, but if you want more money, quit blogging, turn off your computer and do an honest days hard labor! Learn how to work hard and in this country you still have the opportunities to succeed…even with Obama as president.

Ed, you say you’re a Christian so I’ll use the parable of the talents from Matthew 25. The master gave one servant 5 talents, another 3, and another only 1. How was that fair to give some people more talents than others?! The one worked hard and ended up with 10, the one with 3 worked hard and ended up with 6, and the one with 1 was lazy and buried his talent. When the master returned he took away the talent from the lazy servant and gave it to the one with…10! The master didn’t say that it was unfair that the one with 1 didn’t have a fair shake, so since there ended up being a total of 17 talents we’ll divide it and give each 5.6! Spread the wealth around! No, the point is to maximize what God has entrusted you with, whether that be a little or a lot. Billionaires have been entrusted (by God, not Obama) with much – they’ll be held accountable for much. Even though I and others like me are poorer (by American standards), I am still accountable for what I have been given. Whining that it’s not fair that others have more and aren’t giving it all to charity isn’t my responsibility.

Thanks to our government spending, the little amount I make goes towards the fruit we call a dollar that is worth less now than Canada’s! Our gas prices have gone up over a buck since last year, and prices of food are getting higher and higher as well! I don’t blame corporate owners – they work hard to keep their prices low so that they can get business. I blame our government that is spending so much more than it makes it is mind numbing. They are devaluing the dollar quicker than people can make them! At this point in my life, even though I am not old, I am doubtful that even my children will know what it is like to have a debt-free (or insignificant debt carrying) country.

Ed said, “But Friedman never questioned the need to spread prosperity to the middle classes and especially the poor.”

I am no Friedman expert but I doubt that he would have trusted the Federal government to be the ones to handle the job of charity to the poor. The guy didn’t even want regulations for air bags – how would he have wanted the government to handle prosperity spreading to the middle and poorer classes?

Ed said, “But that revolution would have been impossible had not governments built the paved roads automobiles require to travel. That revolution would have been impossible without the government intervention that built the railroads that carried sheet metal, rubber, paint and other components of automobiles to Ford’s factories, nor without the government intervention that produced the electricity his plants required, and delivered it to the plant.”

That is a good point and I don’t disagree with you. That’s the thing…I don’t disagree with the need for government. Government certainly has its place. Taxes have their place. That being said, the government that we had when the rails were laid and the roads paved is a far cry from the government that we have now, wouldn’t you agree? The government used to be BY the people and FOR the people, not people for the government. When did we start looking at the wealth of Americans as being on loan from the government and if the government needs it they can step in and take it back? It’s a whole paradigm shift in thinking that I seriously believe is dangerous! If all I have belongs to the government then I am merely a vassal of the state rather than the state being a vassal of the people. I don’t know about you, but I am in no hurry to return to a feudalistic form of government!

Ed said, “Greed works best when it’s regulated and channeled into good efforts. The average man cannot compete against a large, private, rich organization, without government intervention to level the playing field.”

I agree. Breaking up monopolies and regulating companies that want to cheat their employees/customers is important. No doubts there. Yet there is such a thing as over regulating, wouldn’t you say? Many of the problems we face in our deficit is because the government was TOO involved (i.e. bailouts, etc.). As Reagan said, “In this present crisis, government is not the solution to the problem…government IS the problem.”

I would think that Freidman would be upset because reforms have already been found and no one is willing to do what is necessary (like my family and I did when I have income difficulties) to cut expenditures and reign in spending. Obama certainly wouldn’t have batted an eye about this if the Republicans hadn’t won the House – until they won, there was nothing but rhetoric about cutting the deficit. He merely added to it with more bailouts and more new entitlements. Sorry…I have no faith in Republicans OR Democrats. They both must be held accountable to the American people. Knocking Republicans won’t work with me. I usually will join in with the mob. :-) The only reason I have voted Republican is because idealistically I have liked what they have said more than Democrats. Unfortunately, we have gotten the same results from both parties in recent years.

Ed said, “Not so. Historically, spreading prosperity around makes for a robust economy and a free society.

Historically, trying to limit prosperity to a tiny few causes revolution.”

You are arguing against your own position Ed. Was it not your party (as well as mine) that gave the prosperity of the masses to the tiny few on Wall Street? I’m sorry, I do not trust this present government to effectively spread wealth the those who are in poverty. This government is to waste is like H2O is to water. Blame Bush if you want – I’ll agree. Show me how Obama has made things better?

Ed said, “The American Dream is not to work for a rich man. The dream is to be rich.”

The American Dream is not to work for the government either. at least with someone wealthy you can learn a trade from them and then strike it out on your own after education or with a a great entrepreneurial idea. Why work your tail off for years to better the position of our family only to see more and more taken from the government? I know of families who could hire more people and expand their businesses but don’t do it because it would take them to the next tax bracket and they wouldn’t make any more money than they already do. What would be the point of working harder for the same, if not less money?

At this point, companies that could hire are waiting to see what Obama and the government will do about taxes and debt before they look to hire people. The government should NEVER have that much power over the free market to the point where people will hold off on hiring based on the whims of bureaucrats!

Also, if these tax cuts are so evil, why did Obama and the Democrats vote to extend them and say that they were necessary to keep the economy in good shape? It’s almost like they know that if they were repealed it would hurt…the middle and lower classes as well.

Sorry for the long reply – I won’t have time to post again for a while.

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lowerleavell says:

July 28, 2011 at 12:45 pm

I only have a limited amount of time to write so I can’t respond to everything. I’ll do what I can.

Frankly, I’ve been upset with the Bush administration since the prescription drug benefit was signed into law! The private market fixed the problem with $4-10 competitive prescriptions and would have done so anyway without governmental program. So yes, I do blame the Bush administration as well as Obama’s. Bush was no economic conservative.

Beyond that, while I was just fine with the reasons presented for going to war with Iraq and Afghanistan, I haven’t exactly been happy how the wars have been handled or how much they’ve cost as a result.

As to your problem with corporate greed, don’t forget it was both our parties that gave these corporate gurus over about two trillion dollars in bailouts. Don’t get me started on those! If you are genuinely concerned about the middle and lower class then shouldn’t you be upset about bailouts going to corporations rather than poor people who could really use the money?

Regarding Friedman’s comments on greed – he did not defend greed as much as acknowledge its existence in all societies. Claim it isn’t there if you want but I don’t know of a society in which you have humans where you don’t have greed. On a more noble scale, there is nothing wrong with trying to work hard to better your situation and better the situations of those around you. Many of the billionaires you decry have done just that on a macro scale and I have no problem with them being super rich in principle. I didn’t invent the Apple, PC, iphone, department store, chicken sandwich, etc. I haven’t done anything to earn millions or billions of dollars so why should I be paid for something I didn’t do. I purposefully have not sacrificed my time or energy because getting rich isn’t important to me – I guard my time to spend it with my family rather than working 80 hours a week.

My point with raising their taxes to 100% was to demonstrate that even if you take everything the rich owns you cannot balance our nation’s budget. They do not have enough – taxes increases (according to Obama) would extend to the small business owner which will directly impact every American with less jobs and less revenue for their families. Everyone would suffer right now if there was a tax hike. My boss is already making cuts because of cutbacks – you think he will add new jobs if the government takes more of his money??? The solution to this problem HAS to be spending cuts rather than additional revenue. Higher taxes would devastate this country! Can you honestly imagine what would happen if you raised taxes on ANYONE right now in this recession? How’s it working for NY and CA with their mass exodus of their tax payers? Even if we were talking about just taxing billionaires – do you know how many jobs these guys create?

Frankly, if you have a problem with how much money they make verses how much their employees make then take it up with their stock holders and employees rather than the federal government. I see nothing in the constitution that says that the government should be the ones to decide how much is enough. Companies have the right to strike if they feel their wages are too low.

As far as these guys getting rich off my back – I have no problem with that. I am working for them for an agreed upon wage in which I use to better myself through education so that when I am older and more mature I will be able to have my own business. They are helping me with a job and I am in turn being a productive employee. We both benefit from the agreement. If I felt I was being treated unfairly then I have the ability to look for work elsewhere. Where I work, most of my co-workers are in school to go to better themselves – one is going to be a doctor, several others desire to be nurses – another is going to be a beautician. They are pursuing their dreams and they live in a country where their dreams are possible. Their end game isn’t billions of dollars -that’s not their dream.

I have no problem with taxing the rich – they already pay over 50% of their wages in taxes. They pay more than that for any bonuses they earn. Yet how can I, who pays not one penny in federal or state income taxes (except Medicare and social security – which I look at as a tax), how can I say that those who pay over 50% aren’t paying their fair share? They are paying tons in taxes and I pay none – and yet I am saying they need to pay more because it isn’t fair that they make so much money? This is the difference between us – I see it as the job of stock holders and employees to hold salaries and bonuses in check – not the federal government. If they all agree to what their CEOs get, if they’re content to let their executives set big salaries, that’s between them and their company, not between them and the federal government. If you’re tired of them getting wealthier, go on strike!

And no, I don’t have a problem with closing tax loopholes. If people are trying to manipulate the system, that’s unethical.

I have to go.

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Ed Darrell says:

July 28, 2011 at 7:22 am

You can’t reason a person out of a position s/he didn’t get to by reason in the first place, right?

No, you’re right, we won’t sway any Tea Partiers — they’ve already smoked the tea, nor have they sobered up.

In the very first comment here in this thread, Joe said:

By the way, both poor and rich alike, the American people are notorious for their generosity. If we see a legitimate need or a crisis then we are more than willing to do our share to help our neighbor. The fact that Americans haven’t charitably opened their wallets to the US treasury or warmed their hearts to new taxes speaks loudly to the fact that Americans know that their tax money is already being flushed down the toilet. We’re generous, but we’re not stupid. We have a spending problem, not a deficit problem.

But of course, it’s not Obama who is flushing money down the toilet, if anyone did — that was done in the Bush administration by John Boehner and his fellow travelers (if you regard transfers of wealth as “flushing,” especially transfers from the poor and middle class to the rich — from the Third Estate to the First Estate, and if you regard our wars as folly, which Joe appears to do from his decrying the spending on them). Our country is not “broke,” but is fully capable of recovering from debt that would stagger other nations, but not ours if we get people back to work and increase demand (did you see the news from Ford Motor yesterday?).

Americans “know their money is being flushed down the toilet,” though it isn’t.

Plus, so many people “just know” that tax cuts will aid prosperity, though that’s never been found to be true, though all economic models predict the contrary in these cases, and though the tax cuts look to be among the chief causes of our present straits. (Don’t forget that, without the Bush tax cuts, we were on a path for a $5 trillion surplus — which would have paid for both wars and almost all of the Bush administration maladministration and misspending, obviating the need for the stimulus in the Obama years — we’d have a balanced budget, but for that cursed tax cut.)

Kin Hubbard said it ain’t what we don’t know that gets us into trouble. It’s what we know, that ain’t so.

Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub has been working against ignorance since 2006. It’s taking much longer than we wished, nor did we anticipate the backlash from those who like to be in ignorance.

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Pangolin says:

July 28, 2011 at 1:59 am

James and Ed, if you think that Republican pig is going to sing because you presented it with a logical and factual argument you’ve got a long wait coming. It simply wants another dive into the feed trough.

But as far as presenting the refutations of the normal simplistic, conservative, slop-think; you’re doing a fine job.

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James Kessler says:

July 27, 2011 at 4:11 pm

And just because I suspect Lower and Morgan won’t goto a link showing a clip from Keith Olbermann’s show, I’ll provide them the text of what Ms. MacCallum said:

“But I couldn’t help thinking, well, if we weren’t in such a precarious situation and hadn’t overextended ourselves to such an incredible extent where we are sending out 80 million checks a month – the U.S. government – wouldn’t we have been able to handle those things like the two wars in a much better, stronger fiscal position, and isn’t that where we really want to be as a country, where a war doesn’t bust us because we’ve got good fundamentals? ” Fox News host Martha MacCallum

So….she’s arguing that we should get rid of social security, medicare and medicaid so this country could run the wars without running into financial difficulties.

So, Lower & Morgan, would you care to defend her?

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Ed Darrell says:

July 27, 2011 at 12:57 am

Historically speaking, “Spreading the wealth around” doesn’t work.

Not so. Historically, spreading prosperity around makes for a robust economy and a free society.

Historically, trying to limit prosperity to a tiny few causes revolution. Think Marie Antoinette. Everybody has to have enough prosperity to buy flower, then let each person choose whether to make bread or cake.

But if there’s not enough flour, those who eat cake may, themselves, be sacrificed.

The American Dream is not to work for a rich man. The dream is to be rich. It’s anti-American not to “spread the wealth around,” though you’ll gain a lot more Republicans if you call it “creating prosperity.”

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James Kessler says:

July 26, 2011 at 10:57 pm

Ed, I think Martha McCallum of Fixed News illustrates the right wing’s thinking best: http://current.com/shows/countdown/videos/worst-persons-mccallum-of-fox-news-limbaugh-congressman-long

So, Lower, do you agree with her or not?

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Ed Darrell says:

July 26, 2011 at 10:39 pm

Joe offers a hoary old video of Milton Friedman defending greed.

Saw this video recently and thought it summed it up pretty well

Friedman specifically did not defend letting greed run rampant. He didn’t claim we need no regulation at all. He said our regulated economy works better than communism.

Have ever read Friedman’s textbooks, Joe? He has trouble specific suggestions of Keynes with regard to price controls and rent controls.

But Friedman never questioned the need to spread prosperity to the middle classes and especially the poor. In fact, his defense of “greed” is founded on his assumption that people can generally look out for their best interests.

And if we look at his examples, they were made possible with government intervention. He says no government told Henry Ford to revolutionize transportation and automobile making. True.

But that revolution would have been impossible had not governments built the paved roads automobiles require to travel. That revolution would have been impossible without the government intervention that built the railroads that carried sheet metal, rubber, paint and other components of automobiles to Ford’s factories, nor without the government intervention that produced the electricity his plants required, and delivered it to the plant.

There is no such thing as a solo act of entrepreneurship any more, there are no truly solo performances. Even the operatic diva, giving the “solo recital,” sings music composed by others, preserved by others over the ages, and is accompanied by another on the piano, a piano built of exotic woods and metals from four different continents. The audience she sings to is composed of people who bought tickets from an organization that booked the hall, and in many towns in America, that hall was built with government-sponsored bonds.

Greed works best when it’s regulated and channeled into good efforts. The average man cannot compete against a large, private, rich organization, without government intervention to level the playing field.

Isn’t competition good? Yes. And monopolies are bad. Oligopolies also tend to destroy people, and the societies those people make.

Friedman would say to anyone looking at the debt ceiling issue today, “Raise it and pay the bills. Then look for reforms.”

Greed can’t function when the nation runs into a ditch. The Great Depression ruined millionaires, too, and the crash that would result from a debt ceiling screwup will cripple the rich in our nation, too.

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James Kessler says:

July 26, 2011 at 8:21 pm

To quote:
Lower writes:
Well, Americans have found out now that Democrats are just as bad if not worse and so in 2010 they decided to give Republicans one more chance to rein in the spending

The Democrats wanted to get rid of Bush’s tax cuts. If they had been allowed to do so the deficit would be nonexistant according to the CBO. So again..the reason the deficit exists and the reason it continues to exist, Lower, is the Republicans inability to ask those with more money then God to pay the tax rates they paid when bill clinton was president.

The Americans didn’t find out the Democrats were as bad or worse then the Republicans..the Republicans fear mongered and bullshitted their way back into power. And now the American people are finding out that not only are the Republicans as bad as they used to be..they’re worse.

And there you sit..willing to give up your money just so the precious rich don’t have to pay.

Your precious Republicans, lower, are driving off a cliff and attempting to take the United States with them. The Republicans are nothing but a bunch of Whigs after all.

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James Kessler says:

July 26, 2011 at 7:08 pm

Lower writes:

Well, Americans have found out now that Democrats are just as bad if not worse and so in 2010 they decided to give Republicans one more chance to rein in the spending.

Oh you mean like how the Republicans want to spend another trillion dollars giving another tax cut to the rich and use your social security and medicare money to pay for it?

Sorry, the Republicans aren’t attempting to rein in spending. THey just want to rein in spending that goes to benefit the middle class and the poor. They want to spend that money on the rich. If the Republicans were really interested in reining in spending, they’d cut the military, cut the corporate welfare and get rid of the tax loopholes and tax cuts. That would be actually them being worried about spending.

And yet they don’t. You are being played for the world’s biggest sucker, Lower.

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James Kessler says:

July 26, 2011 at 7:05 pm

Lower writes:
Historically speaking, “Spreading the wealth around” doesn’t work.

Historically speaking, concentrating the wealth in the hands of the few is disastrous for countries. Want to know what happened the last time the wealth was concentrated like it is now in this country? Oh wait..the Great Depression.

And how do you think the middle class came to be in this country? Oh wait…spreading the wealth around.

But sure, Lower, continue to screw over your own economic interests just so the rich don’t have to pay higher taxes.

Seriously, Lower, its time you start looking out for yourself instead of kissing the asses of those the Republicans tell you to.

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José Carlos Brizolla says:

July 26, 2011 at 5:54 pm

Sometimes the mistakes of his predecessor take years to be tidy, I hope that Obama can solve it in less time.

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lowerleavell says:

July 26, 2011 at 3:32 pm

Historically speaking, “Spreading the wealth around” doesn’t work.

Saw this video recently and thought it summed it up pretty well:

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lowerleavell says:

July 26, 2011 at 2:45 pm

Will just say that it doesn’t really matter as of the deadline because neither the Republican’s nor the Democrat’s current plan include tax increases…thankfully.

Also, I don’t make enough to pay income taxes. I get a refund plus a rebate every year…thanks to Bush’s tax cuts, the EIC, and the child tax credit. Since my rate is 0%, how can I complain that those who pay over 50% of their income aren’t paying their fair share?

By the way, corporations set salaries, bonuses, etc. If stock holders don’t like the way a company is handled, they have the power to do something about it. Fire them! Taking money from greedy CEOs and giving it to greedy politicians however, isn’t really reassuring to me.

Yes, I was mad at Bush and the Republicans, and so were a lot of others. Why do you think the Obama and Pelosi, etc. got elected? It wasn’t because the American people loved their policies, it was that the Republicans got fired! Well, Americans have found out now that Democrats are just as bad if not worse and so in 2010 they decided to give Republicans one more chance to rein in the spending.

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James Kessler says:

July 26, 2011 at 2:16 pm

Okay you think we shouldn’t blame Bush for his part of the mess.

Okay I’ll stop blaming Bush…but that means that you agree that the deficit is only the $1.5 trillion dollars that Obama was president for the creation of.

Agreed?

Yes thats a stupid idea, the deficit is indeed larger then $1.5 trillion. But that means Bush is still responsible for most of it so you don’t get to blame Obama for all of it and you don’t get to expect us to give Bush and the Republicans a free pass for what they did.

You agreed with Solution when he said that everyone is to blame. Okay..lets see you put your money where your mouth is and agree that Bush and the Republicans then..and the Republicans now are to blame also. That, by the way, also means that you agree that the rich are also to blame and that they should sacrifice as well to help fix the mess they, partially, created.

So, as I said, lets see you put your money where your mouth is.

Because I’m getting real tired of your stupidly blatant hypocrisy.

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James Kessler says:

July 26, 2011 at 2:10 pm

To quote:
if I hire someone to fix the job of their predecessor I don’t expect them to make the problem exponentially worse and then continue to wine about their predecessor, two years plus after I hired them!

And yet you hired Bush and the Republicans who created the problem in the first place, made that problem exponentially huge and instead of firing him you sit there and blindly defend them.

And I’m willing to bet you never objected when the Republicans somehow blamed Clinton for 9-11……

So we should not consider you a blatant hypocrite for what reason?

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James Kessler says:

July 26, 2011 at 2:07 pm

Lower writes:
How do you “give” a tax cut? You’re starting with the premise that all the money belongs to Washington and they merely LET people keep some of what they earn. Listen, 100% of the money that I earn belongs to me. I worked for it. In taxes,

Because in accounting tax cuts are an expense..its’ spending.

You’re starting with the premise that the money you earn you earned completely by yourself. You don’t. You earn it on the backs of others. Just like the rich earned it on the backs of the rest of us. So they have a responsibility to the rest of us. There is no way in hell you can argue that somehow the Koch Brothers actually earned $15 billion dollars in one year all by themselves. Just to use them for an example. Oh wait..where did that $15 billion came from..oh thats’ right..their employees and customers. From charging their customers a little more and paying their employees a little less. Gee I wonder when was the last time the grunts in the Koch industries got a significant pay raise.

They did not earn the tax cut, Lower. They have done nothing to earn it. Nor has those tax cuts accomplished what you and your dimwitted party said they would do. All those tax cuts have done is bankrupt this country nearly. So as long as your party wants to sit there and say “Everyone must sacrifice” then I’m going to assume that “Everyone” actually means “everyone including the rich.”

So the rich can sacrifice, Lower, because they haven’t yet.

Lower writes:
Pragmatically speaking, if you took every penny from the wealthy there still wouldn’t be enough to pay down the deficit.

And yet curiously, Lower, I have never said the wealthy should have every penny taken from them. Neither has any other Democrat.

I have said their taxes should be raised to the rates they were at under Clinton. Are you saying that the tax rate on the rich was 100% then?

Pragmatically speaking, Lower, you can lower the taxes on the rich to 0% and you still won’t benefit the economy. Why? Because there simply isn’t enough of them to sustain an economy that provides adequately for 300+ million people. They spend the money they get from tax cuts they hoard it which is what they’ve been doing for 10 years. WHat do you have when they pay nothing and have everything?

As for my beef with the rich, its this. I am tired, Lower, of them getting an ever increasing share of the wealth of this country. I am tired of the middle class getting screwed over front to back just so the rich can steal a little more of our money. I am tired of them getting tax cut after tax cut after tax cut and 1: not doing anything to earn it and 2: not doing anything to benefit the people of this country with it. And I am tired of your party kissing the asses of the rich and screwing over the middle class and the poor to do so. I and my family bust our asses every day just to survive. We should have our Social Security and Medicare, just for example, taken from us why? Why is it that our taxes should be raised but not the rich? Why should we be the only ones to sacrifice, Lower?

Let me give you an example. Hedge fund managers pay an income tax of 15%. That’s lower then everyone else. The top 25 hedge fund managers currently make about $22 billion..that’s billion with a B a year. If that tax loophole was closed those 25 top hedge fund managers would still make $17 billion a year. Are you really going to try and argue that they can’t possibly live on just under $700 million a year as opposed to $880 million a year?

If the government got rid of that tax loophole the government would have an extra $5 billion nearly a year…just from 25 people. Imagine how much it would be when you factor in every hedge fund manager and whoever else enjoys that tax loophole…imagine how much less the deficit would be, Lower, and how much less you and I and the rest of the middle class would have to sacrifice to fix this mess.

Your party’s tax cuts to the rich did not create any jobs, did not keep from causing a deficit, did not bring economic prosperity to everyone. EIther your party lied, Lower, or your party was simply stupid. So again..why shouldn’t we rescind those tax cuts? Why shouldn’t that be the sacrifice the rich have to make?

After all…everyone has to sacrifice….right?

You want spending cuts, Lower? Fine..I have no problem in agreeing to spending cuts….just as long as you and yours agree to tax the rich at a higher rate then they are taxed now. You want the middle class and the poor to sacrifice? Then you can ask the rich to sacrifice. If you want my political side to compromise..then your political side can compromise.

So how about it, Lower?

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Ed Darrell says:

July 26, 2011 at 1:52 pm

if I hire someone to fix the job of their predecessor I don’t expect them to make the problem exponentially worse and then continue to wine about their predecessor, two years plus after I hired them!

The chart shows that Obama didn’t make things exponentially worse — it was Bush and the Republicans. You’re right: Boehner should stop whining and get on board.

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James Kessler says:

July 26, 2011 at 1:46 pm

Solution wrote:
As Kessler posted an anti-Republican rant, my question is why?

Can he really believe what he wrote? Do anti-Republican or anti-Democrat rants have any place in anything? Anti-Republican rants seem more popular, again why?

Both parties are to blame for the mess the American economy is in. This is equal blame.

All presidents, past and present share the blame for the debt problem. Equal blame, in that none of them corrected the problem.
~~~

My response:
1: Because I can. Because Lower and his little friend Morgan have posted anti-Obama rants and will continue to do so.
2: Yes
3: Because Republicans have gone out of control and are risking the future of this country because they care more for their precious ideology then fixing the problems this country has.

And as for the “Both parties are to blame for the mess the American economy is in.” I would agree…if the Republicans would get their heads out of whatever orifice they have it buried in, accept responsibility and start acting like adults and make compromises. Since they seem to think its only their way or the highway…well to hell with them. If they want spending cuts then they can accept tax hikes on the rich. They can accept closing tax loopholes and accept cutting corporate welfare.

I am not interested in one sided surrender. They can compromise or they can get bent.

IMO, they are acting exactly like the Whigs and as long as they do so I am perfectly content to let them wallow in their insanity and eventual oblivion.

They want the Democrats to accept massive spending cuts..then the Republicans can sacrifice something of equal value to achieve that.

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lowerleavell says:

July 26, 2011 at 1:37 pm

Well said Solutions.

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lowerleavell says:

July 26, 2011 at 1:36 pm

How do you “give” a tax cut? You’re starting with the premise that all the money belongs to Washington and they merely LET people keep some of what they earn. Listen, 100% of the money that I earn belongs to me. I worked for it. In taxes, I (and those who are rich and poor alike) have willfully given what is mine to the government in order for services rendered. Services like protection and law and order. When those services are frivolously wasted, how dare they have the audacity to ask for more money? Cut the waste and if you show a legitimate need then come back and we’ll talk.

But personally, I don’t understand your beef with rich people? I only see less well off people lusting after and envying their neighbors’ wealth. So what if they are billionaires? Many of them worked hard to become so – I applaud their hard work. So what if they fly around in private jets while I drive a Saturn to work? I am content with what I have worked hard for and I have actually benefited from their hard work as well. Because of their hard work I am writing from a laptop that they helped invent, have a cell phone that works on a system they build, feed my family with food that they sold me, and drive to work in a car that they built, filling it with gas that they refined and drilled for. For me, Truett Cathy is my employer – a billionaire and a fine Christian man who has given jobs to thousands. I also work part time for a small business owner who makes millions…and gives almost all of it away, living on about the same income as I do. He drives a Prius. My grandparents are small business owners who give over 1/2 of their income away to charity. Seriously, stop coveting your neighbor’s money!

Pragmatically speaking, if you took every penny from the wealthy there still wouldn’t be enough to pay down the deficit.

Regarding charity – many people do not believe in declaring their charity to the government. Jesus said something about not letting your right hand know what your left hand is doing. Just because it isn’t declared on their taxes doesn’t necessarily mean that it hasn’t been given. If they don’t give – shame on them. But I do know that over 1/2 of the nations most wealthy people – Bill Gates, Oprah, Steve Jobs, etc. have all pledged over 1/2 of their fortunes to charity. I’d say they’re doing just fine with the money God (not Obama) has entrusted them with whether they do it for a tax deduction or not. Who knows – maybe that’s their way of “doing their fair share” by not declaring their charity on their taxes to keep their rates higher.

By the way…you keep saying “your party.” Honestly, I’m probably more mad at “my party” than you are. Attacking “my party” over yours helps nothing.

I like the way this guy puts it…pretty much sums up the sentiment of many American people:

youtube.com/watch?v=8SGyVNippvA

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solutions777 says:

July 26, 2011 at 1:30 pm

As Kessler posted an anti-Republican rant, my question is why?

Can he really believe what he wrote? Do anti-Republican or anti-Democrat rants have any place in anything? Anti-Republican rants seem more popular, again why?

Both parties are to blame for the mess the American economy is in. This is equal blame.

All presidents, past and present share the blame for the debt problem. Equal blame, in that none of them corrected the problem.

LikeLike
James Kessler says:

July 26, 2011 at 1:13 pm

Lower writes:
Frustrating…especially when Obama got the job by promising to cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term! I don’t care WHO caused the problem. Fix it!

And Bush got the job by promising to make the country safer,by promising to grow the economy and jobs and by not engaging in “nation building.”

Lets see…we had the 9-11 attacks on his watch, the economy contracted and crashed on his watch, and he engaged in nation building in Iraq.

As for Obama’s supposed not keeping his promise..gee..I wonder what the deficit would be like if the Republicans had let Obama rescind the Bush tax cuts like he promised? I’m willing to bet the deficit would be a lot smaller then it is right now.

Oh and by the way..considering your party was still blaming Clinton for shit after Bush came into office…that little objection of yours is bullshit. Bush gets blamed, child, because it was Bush’s fault in the first place.

Sorry, I know you and your party love to rewrite history and lie through your teeth but we’re not stupid like you. We don’t buy your bullshit. Go away.

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James Kessler says:

July 26, 2011 at 1:08 pm

And yet, Lower, 70% of the people want taxes raised on the rich. But the only tax increase the Republicans wants is to raise taxes on the poor. So apparently your party thinks the poor should be more charitable but the rich shouldn’t.

Sorry, child, we have both a spending and a revenue problem. The spending problem is because of your party’s stupid wars and stupid tax cuts..and the revenue problem is because of your party’s stupid tax cuts.

As for that charitable bit…oh you mean like where Rick Perry, multimillionaire and governor of Texas, donated a grand total of 90 dollars to charity?

But no..keep on being a stupid fool and thinking you should pay for the deficit but the rich shouldn’t pay a damn thing.

If your party really thought we had a spending problem, Lower, it would cut the military, get rid of corporate welfare and get rid of all those tax loopholes your party loves to shower the rich with.

Curiously…they don’t. So apparently your party isn’t actually that worried about cutting spending.

Oh and the proof that we have a revenue problem? The CBO has said that if the bush tax cuts were done away with..the deficit would be gone within 6 years.

But if you say the rich are so generous…lets see them give up their tax cuts. Because its not like they’ve been “generous” in the job creation department.

Oh wait…thats what your party said would happen if we gave them tax cuts. That there would be no deficit, that the economy would grow and that millions of jobs would be created. And oh look…none of that happened. So why shouldn’t we yank their tax cuts? After all..they haven’t done what they and your party promised. If you give someone something of value and expect something of value in return and you don’t get it don’t you expect the return of what you gave them?

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lowerleavell says:

July 26, 2011 at 12:54 pm

So, 2 1/2 years later…the answer is still “Blame Bush!” Lame…

Even assuming these numbers from the Times were completely accurate, if I hire someone to fix the job of their predecessor I don’t expect them to make the problem exponentially worse and then continue to wine about their predecessor, two years plus after I hired them! Adding a ton of new spending and lowering the value of the dollar by printing tons of money hasn’t exactly helped either. Frustrating…especially when Obama got the job by promising to cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term! I don’t care WHO caused the problem. Fix it!

By the way, both poor and rich alike, the American people are notorious for their generosity. If we see a legitimate need or a crisis then we are more than willing to do our share to help our neighbor. The fact that Americans haven’t charitably opened their wallets to the US treasury or warmed their hearts to new taxes speaks loudly to the fact that Americans know that their tax money is already being flushed down the toilet. We’re generous, but we’re not stupid. We have a spending problem, not a deficit problem.

Seriously…

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