And taxes aren't a magic money spigot, sometimes lowering certain rates increases total revenue, Kennedy and Reagan both did this.
Actually no they did not. Not in the slightest. Not in the wildest dreams of the most right wing tax economists (I.E. the people who actually study taxes) did this happen.
Your analysis also ignores that, as much as tax rates have fluctuated, government revenue is consistently around 20% of GDP. If spending is above 20% of GDP, you're going to have big deficits anyhow.
Wrong again. Total govt revenue is 31% of GDP. And it fluctuates wildly. Federal revenue has been surprisingly stable because tax policies are intended to not increase the amount generated.
This is why other nations can get easily over 20% of revenue, its not some magical thing that doesn't work in the U.S.
The U.S. is a very low revenue state
We can do precisely as much revenue as the other nations on that list if we so wanted
One of the things you'd get if you means tested social security is you'd get more and more people calling it welfare (which is what you just did!) when it is an insurance program. SSI, you know? And we know what happens to welfare programs in this country:
1) Demonized as only applying to minorities
2) Cut
Anyway, social security isn't a deficit contributor. Short term, the deficit is Bush tax cuts + 9% unemployment + wars/defense. Middle term we're mostly OK. Long term, the problem is health care costs. There are two solutions to that particular problem:
A) Remove Medicare/Medicaid from the government's budget. Also known as the pulling the plug on Grandma/poor people plan. Cost containment. Which the Republicans have offered exactly 0 proposals for. While the Democrats have ACA which will help. Not enough, but it's a first step.
So, we just shouldn't be realistic about what SS is and does because...we don't want it to be cut? It's not even kind of an insurance program. The idea in insurance is only a few unluckies have to collect. In SS, everyone collects what they put in and a lot more OPM. That sort of works when old people live to be 60, collect for less than a year, and there are lots of young people. It doesn't work when people live to be 80, and people are having a lot less kids.
Your analysis also ignores that, as much as tax rates have fluctuated, government revenue is consistently around 20% of GDP. If spending is above 20% of GDP, you're going to have big deficits anyhow.
No, he's saying you should look at what SS actually is. It's not welfare. It's a retirement insurance plan.
Making it means tested turns it into welfare and imports a host of costs and inefficiencies for no good reason.
And taxes aren't a magic money spigot, sometimes lowering certain rates increases total revenue, Kennedy and Reagan both did this.
Actually no they did not. Not in the slightest. Not in the wildest dreams of the most right wing tax economists (I.E. the people who actually study taxes) did this happen.
Because raising taxes (by and large, especially on the wealthy) increases revenue, which is rather important to paying off the deficit. Also, S&P wasn't reacting to Obama's speech, but Republican brinksmanship, threatening to refuse to raise the debt ceiling if they don't get more massive spending cuts.
That doesn't seem completely right. While S&P does mention the partisan political situation, they also mention how U.S. debt accumulation has been at a much higher clip than other triple-A countries for some time now. The President's plan doesn't seem to offer much in the way of significant spending reductions. He threw a few bones out in making a commission on military spending, promised to find "waste and abuse" in programs (a few minutes after he called "waste and abuse" a red herring.)
And taxes aren't a magic money spigot, sometimes lowering certain rates increases total revenue, Kennedy and Reagan both did this.
That isn't quite true. Reagan did a good job of stamping out loopholes and introduced the AMT, which meant that people who didn't use to pay taxes (or had artificially low rates) began paying taxes at lower rates than those that they were avoiding. It wasn't the lowered taxes that caused that money to be collected. But Congress loves adding loopholes, so it didn't last long.
Also Reagan ended up raising taxes later, because of the whole massive deficit thing. Just not enough to sustain all that spending.
So can you. Justify your refutations or don't refute. Is there a problem with the Econ PhDs that John Hopkins produces and that the University of Washington and Oxford hire?
[US news and world report ranking for Grad School program ranking John Hopkins] http://tinyurl.com/3cdkaf9
[US news and world report ranking for Grad School program ranking University of Washington] http://tinyurl.com/3puas3f
Does the data just not add up? Is there some sort of methodological error that was missed?
Oh, and for the record. The markets responded to the S&P reports by increasing the value of U.S. treasury bonds and decreasing their yield. So that should give you an indication of what value the report had.
Also, for those interested in tax rates. Goolsbee has a couple rather famous papers on their effect on revenues.
Oh, and for the record. The markets responded to the S&P reports by increasing the value of U.S. treasury bonds and decreasing their yield. So that should give you an indication of what value the report had.
Also, for those interested in tax rates. Goolsbee has a couple rather famous papers on their effect on revenues.
Welcome to school FPA20111, enjoy your stay. We will be having end of the year exams in December.
Ha. Ha. What do you teach? "Introductory Bullshit in Accounting"? Or "Ignoring Political Reality"? Tax rates have been consistent because Americans in whole reject the leviathan states of Europe. It's just not in the culture.
FPA20111 on
The paranoid man believes that everyone is out to get him. The intelligent man knows that everyone is out to get him.
Individual taxes have soared and plummeted all over the board since the 1950's, we've never broken 21% of GDP. If you want confiscatory rates in the Europe range of 50-60%, you better start selling a VAT and those 80% rates back to people. Good luck with that.
FPA20111 on
The paranoid man believes that everyone is out to get him. The intelligent man knows that everyone is out to get him.
I'm really tired of people talking about the deficit commission's "plans" or "recommendations". The group didn't issue jack shit officially, because they couldn't get enough votes on the slash-Social-Security-and-cut-taxes proposal, so stop pretending that outline should be treated as if it had their imprimatur.
I don't think that's how it worked and the coverage is more consistent with my perception.
I don't mean to be harsh here, but since when do we rely on the media to cover anything remotely complicated accurately?
I believe the Commission operated under normal committee rules. Since a majority of the members voted for the Chairmen's plan it is the official Commission Recommendation.
Unfortunately, they didn't vote in time - the Commission ceased to exist, legally, the day before they held the vote, so it was essentially meaningless.
Do you have a reference for that? About the vote happening after the commission being disbanded, that is.
My google-fu has mostly failed me in finding a similar take on the matter. Or much at all about exactly when it got terminated. I mean, if I read it right (by no means an assumption I'm quick to make), the commission's charter gave it authorization to run until thirty days after its final report, and the vote on that report had a deadline of December first of last year, but I don't see where missing the vote's deadline calls for the commission to get disbanded.
Oh, and for the record. The markets responded to the S&P reports by increasing the value of U.S. treasury bonds and decreasing their yield. So that should give you an indication of what value the report had.
Also, for those interested in tax rates. Goolsbee has a couple rather famous papers on their effect on revenues.
Anyway bond yield moves counter to bond value. So the more valuable on the secondary market a bond is, the lower the interest rate.
Bond rates didn't move enough to be attributable to anything. The S&P report had pretty much zero effect, but if it did have an effect rates moved the opposite of the "omg bond rating is down" stupidity.
As lower bond ratings imply higher risk. Higher risk implies lower value. Lower value drives sales. Sales drives price down which drives interest rates up.
Oh, and for the record. The markets responded to the S&P reports by increasing the value of U.S. treasury bonds and decreasing their yield. So that should give you an indication of what value the report had.
Also, for those interested in tax rates. Goolsbee has a couple rather famous papers on their effect on revenues.
Welcome to school FPA20111, enjoy your stay. We will be having end of the year exams in December.
What's that exactly mean Goumindong?
If bond markets started fearing for the quality of US government debt, US Treasury yields would go up and their price would go down (the price and interest yield of a bond are inversely linked). The exact opposite happened.
For contrast, a bunch of the European countries with debt crises have had their interest rates running sky high.
Individual taxes have soared and plummeted all over the board since the 1950's, we've never broken 21% of GDP. If you want confiscatory rates in the Europe range of 50-60%, you better start selling a VAT and those 80% rates back to people. Good luck with that.
Do you understand basic statistics? I have a feeling that you don't.
The other way to say this is that do you really believe that the tax structure is only defined by the top and bottom marginal rates?
Oh, and that first link. Yea, doesn't actually provide background on the 19% claim.
I'm really tired of people talking about the deficit commission's "plans" or "recommendations". The group didn't issue jack shit officially, because they couldn't get enough votes on the slash-Social-Security-and-cut-taxes proposal, so stop pretending that outline should be treated as if it had their imprimatur.
I don't think that's how it worked and the coverage is more consistent with my perception.
I don't mean to be harsh here, but since when do we rely on the media to cover anything remotely complicated accurately?
I believe the Commission operated under normal committee rules. Since a majority of the members voted for the Chairmen's plan it is the official Commission Recommendation.
Unfortunately, they didn't vote in time - the Commission ceased to exist, legally, the day before they held the vote, so it was essentially meaningless.
Do you have a reference for that? About the vote happening after the commission being disbanded, that is.
My google-fu has mostly failed me in finding a similar take on the matter. Or much at all about exactly when it got terminated. I mean, if I read it right (by no means an assumption I'm quick to make), the commission's charter gave it authorization to run until thirty days after its final report, and the vote on that report had a deadline of December first of last year, but I don't see where missing the vote's deadline calls for the commission to get disbanded.
Are doublethink and deliberate misreading required courses in red districts or something? Both of the conservatives that have been through lately seem to be specialists in the subject.
Are doublethink and deliberate misreading required courses in red districts or something? Both of the conservatives that have been through lately seem to be specialists in the subject.
Most people skate by on ignorance.
If however, you set out to actually argue a point, you either need facts or you need lies and rhetorical tricks. (and these can be lies you actually believe yourself)
And sometimes facts don't support your point, so you've got no choice.
Anyway bond yield moves counter to bond value. So the more valuable on the secondary market a bond is, the lower the interest rate.
Bond rates didn't move enough to be attributable to anything. The S&P report had pretty much zero effect, but if it did have an effect rates moved the opposite of the "omg bond rating is down" stupidity.
As lower bond ratings imply higher risk. Higher risk implies lower value. Lower value drives sales. Sales drives price down which drives interest rates up.
Oh, and for the record. The markets responded to the S&P reports by increasing the value of U.S. treasury bonds and decreasing their yield. So that should give you an indication of what value the report had.
Also, for those interested in tax rates. Goolsbee has a couple rather famous papers on their effect on revenues.
Welcome to school FPA20111, enjoy your stay. We will be having end of the year exams in December.
What's that exactly mean Goumindong?
If bond markets started fearing for the quality of US government debt, US Treasury yields would go up and their price would go down (the price and interest yield of a bond are inversely linked). The exact opposite happened.
For contrast, a bunch of the European countries with debt crises have had their interest rates running sky high.
I'm really tired of people talking about the deficit commission's "plans" or "recommendations". The group didn't issue jack shit officially, because they couldn't get enough votes on the slash-Social-Security-and-cut-taxes proposal, so stop pretending that outline should be treated as if it had their imprimatur.
I don't think that's how it worked and the coverage is more consistent with my perception.
I don't mean to be harsh here, but since when do we rely on the media to cover anything remotely complicated accurately?
I believe the Commission operated under normal committee rules. Since a majority of the members voted for the Chairmen's plan it is the official Commission Recommendation.
Unfortunately, they didn't vote in time - the Commission ceased to exist, legally, the day before they held the vote, so it was essentially meaningless.
Do you have a reference for that? About the vote happening after the commission being disbanded, that is.
My google-fu has mostly failed me in finding a similar take on the matter. Or much at all about exactly when it got terminated. I mean, if I read it right (by no means an assumption I'm quick to make), the commission's charter gave it authorization to run until thirty days after its final report, and the vote on that report had a deadline of December first of last year, but I don't see where missing the vote's deadline calls for the commission to get disbanded.
Kinda crazy, the path that comission took. Six republican co-sponsors bailed on the senate's bill to create the thing, and it failed by a six vote margin, so the president signs an executive order to create it instead. It gets a $500,000 budget, gets all sorts of negative press from leaked plans and bad policy and the co-chair calling social security a 310 million teated cow, and then the commission ultimately fails to reach the super-majority necessary to make any part of the endeavor worthwhile.
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FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
COLUMBUS, Ohio – In state after state, Republicans are moving swiftly past blunted Democratic opposition to turn a conservative wish-list into law. Their successes, spurred by big election gains in November, go well beyond the spending cuts forced on states by the fiscal crunch and tea party agitation.
Republican governors and state legislators are bringing abortion restrictions into effect from Virginia to Arizona, expanding gun rights north and south, pushing polling-station photo ID laws that are anathema to Democrats and taking on public sector unions anywhere they can.
All this as the thinned ranks of Democrats find themselves outmaneuvered in statehouses where they once put up a fight. In many states, they are unable to do much except hope that voters will see these actions as an overreach by the Republicans they elected — an accidental revolution to be reversed down the road.
A tug to the right was in the cards ever since voters put the GOP in charge of 25 legislatures and 29 governors' offices in the 2010 elections. That is turning out to be every bit as key to shaping the nation's ideological direction as anything happening in Washington.
A close-up review of the first wave of legislative action by Associated Press statehouse reporters shows the striking degree to which the GOP has been able to break through gridlock and achieve improbable ends. The historic and wildly contentious curbs on public sector bargaining in Wisconsin, quickly followed by similar action in Ohio, were but a signal that the status quo is being challenged on multiple fronts in many places.
The realignment in Florida has produced a law imposing more accountability on teachers, along with 18 proposed abortion restrictions, some bound to become law. Immigration controls are motivating lawmakers far from borders, constitutional amendments against gay marriage are picking up steam, Michigan and Missouri shortened the period people can get jobless benefits and Indiana may soon have the broadest school voucher program in the U.S.
At least 20 states are going after public-sector benefits, pay or bargaining rights.
In Virginia, Republicans used a deft legislative maneuver to enact a law that could close many of the state's 21 abortion clinics. In Missouri, a presidential swing state where Republicans are at their strongest numbers in decades, a tax cut sought by business for 10 years has been given final legislative approval and Democrats are putting up little resistance to Republican priorities they once tied in knots.
"You can't get up on every issue when you're in the minority," said state Sen. Tim Green, a Democrat from St. Louis. "So you pick the ones you're most passionate about."
In North Carolina, where Republicans won control of both legislative levers for the first time since 1870, the party has secured approval in both chambers for charter school expansion and a bill that would create separate crimes for the death or injury of a fetus at any stage of development, not including legal abortions. Republicans have made unexpected progress in giving gun owners more rights to carry concealed pistols.
North Carolina is also among nearly a dozen states where an initiative to require photo IDs at polls is getting traction. Democrats and civil libertarians worry photo ID rules would suppress minority and legal immigrant voting.
Conservatives welcome the pace and breadth of it all. "When you have one side that's been put out in the legislative wilderness, there's a lot of pent-up ideas that are going to move quickly," said Dallas Woodhouse, director of Americans for Prosperity in North Carolina.
Even solidly Democratic Vermont is coming up a paler shade of blue as legislators seek cuts in spending on the elderly and disabled after shelving a plan to raise taxes on the rich. The squeeze on state budgets and the shaky economy are forcing lawmakers of both parties to rethink the usual partisan prescriptions.
"In the context of that kind of a fiscal reality, I think agendas become a little bit more polarized and opportunities for finding the kind of adjustments on the margins become less and less," said political scientist Philip Russo of Ohio's Miami University.
In bellwether Ohio, new Republican Gov. John Kasich burst out of the gate with a plan, now law, to hand over job creation functions from the government to a nonprofit corporation whose board he chairs. Bills that would have met quick death under Democratic control have advanced under Republican majorities — none more apparent than the law to curtail the collective bargaining rights of more than 350,000 public workers.
Democrats in Ohio are complaining about "one-party rule" and want buyer's remorse legislation that would help voters recall lawmakers who are doing things they didn't elect them to do. Their chances of getting it are close to zero.
So is a conservative tide sweeping the nation?
If so, historian Doris Kearns Goodwin sees it as a tide that can wash out as fast as it rushed in.
Sitting in the State Room of the Statehouse in Columbus, Ohio, where she had come for a historical event, Goodwin said declining party loyalty has accelerated shifts in public opinion and swings of the pendulum. She recalled the Democratic statehouse gains of 2008, the year of Barack Obama. "We thought in 2008, many pundits did, that that meant a progressive era was coming in; now everybody's talking about a conservative era in the states and maybe in the nation," she said.
"When one whole party comes in, and they come in having been out before, there's that flush of victory that makes them think this is our time, whether they're Democrats or Republicans, to get through what we want to get through."
In South Carolina, where Republicans are fashioning further restrictions to one of the country's toughest immigration enforcement laws, Democrats have mostly dropped the delaying tactics they once used with relish. The Democratic opposition has essentially vaporized in Tennessee, Kansas and Oklahoma, too.
In Oklahoma, where the GOP controls both chambers and the governor's office for the first time in history, Republicans are making sweeping changes to the state's civil justice system, shoring up the state's pension system by making workers contribute more and work longer, and aiming to eliminate bargaining rights for municipal workers in the state's seven largest cities.
"They're power mad," said Democratic lawmaker Richard Morrissette of Oklahoma City. "They weren't out there campaigning on the idea of consolidating power. They know they have control of the House, the Senate and the governor's office, and they're ramming this stuff through just because they can."
If Republicans are overreaching, it's also true that voters did not elect them to govern like Democrats.
"All this should come as no surprise to people," said New Hampshire GOP lawmaker Gene Chandler. With supermajorities in both chambers, giving them a stronger hand against a Democratic governor, GOP legislators in the state have passed bills to shift more public employee pension costs to workers and opt for spending cuts over tax increases. They've also approved legislation to expand the right to use deadly force in self-defense.
It's not all coming up tulips for the tea party or the social conservatives, however. New Mexico and Utah are among Republican-led states where governors are bypassing the GOP playbook. The tea party movement is in tatters in Colorado and not much better off in Alaska.
In Montana, Republican leaders are struggling to keep their eye on the big picture — cutting spending, developing natural resources — while the swollen GOP freshman class peppers the debate with calls to nullify federal laws, create an armed citizen's militia, legalize spear hunting, force FBI agents to get a sheriff's OK before arresting anyone, and more.
"Stop scaring our constituents and stop letting us look like buffoons," veteran Republican lawmaker Walt McNutt told the aggressive newcomers.
Gov. Brian Schweitzer, not one of the Democrats to roll over, came up with a cattle brand that reads "VETO" and seems itching to use it. "Ain't nobody in the history of Montana has had so many danged ornery critters," he said.
I quoted it because I don't think anyone should click a foxnews.com link.
I find it extremely hard to believe that Oklahoma's never had a GOP trifecta before, but I can't find out anything about the history of its legislature to verify.
Individual taxes have soared and plummeted all over the board since the 1950's, we've never broken 21% of GDP. If you want confiscatory rates in the Europe range of 50-60%, you better start selling a VAT and those 80% rates back to people. Good luck with that.
Do you understand basic statistics? I have a feeling that you don't.
The other way to say this is that do you really believe that the tax structure is only defined by the top and bottom marginal rates?
Oh, and that first link. Yea, doesn't actually provide background on the 19% claim.
That one's CBO. I'm sure I'm too stupid to understand it, but it seems like the squiggly sort of line stays right around the 20 on the left. I think that means that revenue has stayed around 20% all through the last 6 decades, in spite of rates fluctuating between 95 and 35. But again, you're the Professor here, so please explain to the class why that's wrong.
Obama's plan to soak the richest segment of the population is not going to work, as even when we were taxing the living fuck out of them in the 50's, revenue did not spike as a percentage of GDP. If you want big tax increases, you need to take on the middle class. That's where the money is. Mortgage deduction being just one example. You can tax every dime the rich make and it won't eliminate the deficit without deep, structural, permanent cuts in spending, and that plan ignores the massive flight of wealth that would take place if we decided to start confiscating too much money.
FPA20111 on
The paranoid man believes that everyone is out to get him. The intelligent man knows that everyone is out to get him.
Believe it, though most Oklahoma Democrats would seem like Republicans if you didn't see the "D" by their name. Hell, most dems in this state go out of their way to stress their conservatism.
Obama's plan to soak the richest segment of the population is not going to work, as even when we were taxing the living fuck out of them in the 50's, revenue did not spike as a percentage of GDP
No shit. Taxes had already been high, so there was nowhere to spike to. Now, if the brackets under Truman had been as ridiculously low as they are today, you'd have a good point, but since they weren't, your claim is nonsensical.
that plan ignores the massive flight of wealth that would take place if we decided to start confiscating too much money.
Name one place where that has actually happened, ever. Because I keep hearing that claim, and nobody has ever been able to back it up.
Posts
So you didn't actually read and/or understand a thing he typed.
Ok.
Wrong again. Total govt revenue is 31% of GDP. And it fluctuates wildly. Federal revenue has been surprisingly stable because tax policies are intended to not increase the amount generated.
This is why other nations can get easily over 20% of revenue, its not some magical thing that doesn't work in the U.S.
The U.S. is a very low revenue state
We can do precisely as much revenue as the other nations on that list if we so wanted
No, you cannot. Medicare spending is not in any way tied or marginal on defense and serves no explicit defense purpose.
The DoE servicing Thermonuclear Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles does
No, he's saying you should look at what SS actually is. It's not welfare. It's a retirement insurance plan.
Making it means tested turns it into welfare and imports a host of costs and inefficiencies for no good reason.
You can troll better than that. Come on.
That isn't quite true. Reagan did a good job of stamping out loopholes and introduced the AMT, which meant that people who didn't use to pay taxes (or had artificially low rates) began paying taxes at lower rates than those that they were avoiding. It wasn't the lowered taxes that caused that money to be collected. But Congress loves adding loopholes, so it didn't last long.
Also Reagan ended up raising taxes later, because of the whole massive deficit thing. Just not enough to sustain all that spending.
While retirement savings is an important part of it, it also helps people insure themselves against the risk of things like, disability.
This, by the way, is why the disingenuous bullshit that is "we'll lower rates but close loopholes and thus increase revenues!" is indeed bullshit.
But you can't deny that, if they managed to accomplish it, it would be effective.
So can you. Justify your refutations or don't refute. Is there a problem with the Econ PhDs that John Hopkins produces and that the University of Washington and Oxford hire?
[US news and world report ranking for Grad School program ranking John Hopkins]
http://tinyurl.com/3cdkaf9
[US news and world report ranking for Grad School program ranking University of Washington]
http://tinyurl.com/3puas3f
Does the data just not add up? Is there some sort of methodological error that was missed?
Also, for those interested in tax rates. Goolsbee has a couple rather famous papers on their effect on revenues.
http://faculty.chicagobooth.edu/austan.goolsbee/research/laf.pdf
http://faculty.chicagobooth.edu/austan.goolsbee/research/taxrich.pdf
Welcome to school FPA20111, enjoy your stay. We will be having end of the year exams in December.
Similarly, if I invented Galt's Motor, the plot of Atlas Shrugged almost makes sense.
Half of the people in it think the plot of Atlas Shrugged makes sense?
chair to Creation and then suplex the Void.
Ha. Ha. What do you teach? "Introductory Bullshit in Accounting"? Or "Ignoring Political Reality"? Tax rates have been consistent because Americans in whole reject the leviathan states of Europe. It's just not in the culture.
http://www.ntu.org/tax-basics/history-of-federal-individual-1.html
Individual taxes have soared and plummeted all over the board since the 1950's, we've never broken 21% of GDP. If you want confiscatory rates in the Europe range of 50-60%, you better start selling a VAT and those 80% rates back to people. Good luck with that.
Do you have a reference for that? About the vote happening after the commission being disbanded, that is.
My google-fu has mostly failed me in finding a similar take on the matter. Or much at all about exactly when it got terminated. I mean, if I read it right (by no means an assumption I'm quick to make), the commission's charter gave it authorization to run until thirty days after its final report, and the vote on that report had a deadline of December first of last year, but I don't see where missing the vote's deadline calls for the commission to get disbanded.
What's that exactly mean Goumindong?
It was snark.
Anyway bond yield moves counter to bond value. So the more valuable on the secondary market a bond is, the lower the interest rate.
Bond rates didn't move enough to be attributable to anything. The S&P report had pretty much zero effect, but if it did have an effect rates moved the opposite of the "omg bond rating is down" stupidity.
As lower bond ratings imply higher risk. Higher risk implies lower value. Lower value drives sales. Sales drives price down which drives interest rates up.
If bond markets started fearing for the quality of US government debt, US Treasury yields would go up and their price would go down (the price and interest yield of a bond are inversely linked). The exact opposite happened.
For contrast, a bunch of the European countries with debt crises have had their interest rates running sky high.
Do you understand basic statistics? I have a feeling that you don't.
The other way to say this is that do you really believe that the tax structure is only defined by the top and bottom marginal rates?
Oh, and that first link. Yea, doesn't actually provide background on the 19% claim.
That'd be hilarious.
You know, the era where the top marginal tax rate on upper income was 90%
Most people skate by on ignorance.
If however, you set out to actually argue a point, you either need facts or you need lies and rhetorical tricks. (and these can be lies you actually believe yourself)
And sometimes facts don't support your point, so you've got no choice.
Thanks guys.
Awesome, thanks for the link.
Kinda crazy, the path that comission took. Six republican co-sponsors bailed on the senate's bill to create the thing, and it failed by a six vote margin, so the president signs an executive order to create it instead. It gets a $500,000 budget, gets all sorts of negative press from leaked plans and bad policy and the co-chair calling social security a 310 million teated cow, and then the commission ultimately fails to reach the super-majority necessary to make any part of the endeavor worthwhile.
You got it
I quoted it because I don't think anyone should click a foxnews.com link.
It's from the associated press, though.
twitch.tv/Taramoor
@TaramoorPlays
Taramoor on Youtube
Here's another chart.
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/20/federal-revenues-at-lowest-share-of-gdp-since-1950/
Here's a pdf: http://cbo.gov/ftpdocs/105xx/doc10521/08-25-BudgetUpdate.pdf
That one's CBO. I'm sure I'm too stupid to understand it, but it seems like the squiggly sort of line stays right around the 20 on the left. I think that means that revenue has stayed around 20% all through the last 6 decades, in spite of rates fluctuating between 95 and 35. But again, you're the Professor here, so please explain to the class why that's wrong.
Obama's plan to soak the richest segment of the population is not going to work, as even when we were taxing the living fuck out of them in the 50's, revenue did not spike as a percentage of GDP. If you want big tax increases, you need to take on the middle class. That's where the money is. Mortgage deduction being just one example. You can tax every dime the rich make and it won't eliminate the deficit without deep, structural, permanent cuts in spending, and that plan ignores the massive flight of wealth that would take place if we decided to start confiscating too much money.