So does anyone on here.....

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ghost
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So does anyone on here.....

Post by ghost »

actually have a plan for solving our debt mess and balancing the budget?
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Re: So does anyone on here.....

Post by David Franks »

ghost wrote:actually have a plan for solving our debt mess and balancing the budget?
In case this is your implication, it is not necessary to have a solution to a problem in order to recognize that there is a problem, or even to have an idea as to what the problem is.

How about yourself?
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Re: So does anyone on here.....

Post by ghost »

I think it's obvious we have a problem. We can't run deficits forever. Do you disagree?
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Re: So does anyone on here.....

Post by Savonarola »

ghost wrote:We can't run deficits forever. Do you disagree?
As we've had one since Jackson (if memory serves), I think it's clear that the deficit isn't the problem the anarchist-wannabes want it to be. I definitely disagree with the notion that the deficit is driving the current recession and with the idea that during a recession is the best time to reduce the deficit.
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Re: So does anyone on here.....

Post by Dardedar »

ghost wrote:I think it's obvious we have a problem.
We have lots of problems.
We can't run deficits forever. Do you disagree?
Yes, I disagree. We can run deficits forever, or until the sun blows up. We inflate our way out of them, or grow out of them (the ratio can go up and down while always running a deficit perpetually). What we can't do is run deficits this large forever (or even very long). But our current fiscal disaster is a Bush created mess with very specific causes:

Wars = Bush (will be $3-$5 trillion)
Bush era tax cuts = Bush (about $2.5 trillion)
Recovery measures = necessary because of Bush (bunches, see here )
TARP Fannie and freddie = (90%) Bush (ibid)
Economic downturn = Bush (about $400 billion per year for several years)
Medicare part D boondoggle = Bush (aprox 1/2 a trillion)

If you subtract the unfunded Bush legacy/disaster, then there is no deficit left to speak of. See here and here.
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L.Wood
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Re: So does anyone on here.....

Post by L.Wood »

.
actually have a plan for solving our debt mess and balancing the budget?
Here is how we paid off the WWII debt, a debt higher, proportionally, than today's debt. Click here Scroll down to 1945 through 1964. If you wish to poke around the Tax Foundation's website you will find 1950 was the year the U.S. had the largest growth in GDP, 7.3%.

You will note rates remained just about constant until JFK lowered them in 1963, effective in 1964. Then, rates were still twice what they are today, capital gains rates
were 40% higher than today's rates.

I recently wrote to U.S. Senator John Boozman about his constant mantra of lower tax rates. I reminded the Senator, I included the printed data in the Tax Foundation Charts, that when he was born, 1950, U.S. top income tax rates were 91% and that the U.S. grew faster that year than any other year on record. I also reminded him that when he and his brother, the late Faye Boozman, opened their eye clinic in 1977 that income tax rates went to 77% and did not prevent neither he nor his brother from being very financially successful.

He wrote back that we now live in a different world.
.
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Re: So does anyone on here.....

Post by David Franks »

L.Wood wrote:He wrote back that we now live in a different world.
Mr. Boozman certainly lives in a different world, if he can't see that what makes the world different is the failures of conservatism in general and of tinkle-down economics in particular.

How can an eye doctor be so blind?
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Re: So does anyone on here.....

Post by ghost »

Sorry it has taken me so long to reply back in my own thread, but work has kept me busy all week. Let's see...

Yes, I disagree. We can run deficits forever, or until the sun blows up. We inflate our way out of them, or grow out of them (the ratio can go up and down while always running a deficit perpetually). What we
can't do is run deficits this large forever (or even very long). But our current fiscal disaster is a Bush created mess with very specific causes:

Wars = Bush (will be $3-$5 trillion)
Bush era tax cuts = Bush (about $2.5 trillion)
Recovery measures = necessary because of Bush (bunches, see here )
TARP Fannie and freddie = (90%) Bush (ibid)
Economic downturn = Bush (about $400 billion per year for several years)
Medicare part D boondoggle = Bush (aprox 1/2 a trillion)

If you subtract the unfunded Bush legacy/disaster, then there is no deficit left to speak of. See here and here.
Wow, this is a VERY interesting response to my question. Let’s see…..
Yes, I disagree. We can run deficits forever, or until the sun blows up.
Well this isn’t starting off so good. I’m not sure how you think we can run deficits forever. That means accumulating more and more debt, and paying more and more interest, and sooner or later, that house of cards folds. Even Keynes would disagree about running a perpetual deficit.
We inflate our way out of them
That’s a temporary fix and not a good one. Creditors don’t like being paid back with worthless money. People and countries don’t buy our debt to help us out, they buy our debt to make a return. If there’s no return,
or worse yet, a loss, they’ll stop buying those treasury bonds. China is already complaining about us inflating our debt away. Also, at our level of debt, the inflation needed to make a big difference in paying it down
will cause prices of goods to rise much faster than wages, making all of us poorer. That starts a domino effect of all sorts of bad things. Every government that has tried to inflate its way out of debt has made its economy crash. Zimbabwe is the most recent example.
or grow out of them (the ratio can go up and down while always running a deficit perpetually).
I’m not sure what you mean by this. If it’s a deficit, it’s a deficit. I think our leadership has shown that they’ll spend whatever we give them, and then some. So you’ll have to elaborate on what you’re putting forth
here.
What we can't do is run deficits this large forever (or even very long).
That we’ll agree on. But the size of the deficit only indicates the speed at which we drive the car off the cliff. We’re just getting there a lot sooner than we used to be.
But our current fiscal disaster is a Bush created mess with very specific causes:
This is where your post gets really interesting.
Wars = Bush (will be $3-$5 trillion)
Bush era tax cuts = Bush (about $2.5 trillion)
Recovery measures = necessary because of Bush (bunches, see here )
TARP Fannie and freddie = (90%) Bush (ibid)
Economic downturn = Bush (about $400 billion per year for several years)
Medicare part D boondoggle = Bush (aprox 1/2 a trillion)
For a site promoting free thinking, and for the site admin who promotes the same in addition to critical thinking, this list undermines both of those concepts.

First off, those are Obama’s wars now. One of the major things he campaigned on was ending the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He was so convincing about it that our active military donated to his 2008 campaign SIGNIFICANTLY more than to McCain’s, and McCain was a decorated war hero. The military ALWAYS overwhelmingly supports Republicans, so this was some feat. But go figure, our troops supported the guy who said he would end two worthless and unpopular wars instead of the guy who wanted to keep fighting wars that were essentially unwinnable into perpetuity. But Obama didn’t end the wars as promised, so he assumes responsibility for the costs on his watch. So I think you need to put some of those costs in the Obama column, but you didn’t include an Obama column, and I’ll get to that in a bit.

Also, you list Bush as if he alone is responsible for all the items on the list. As we are all well aware, the President only signs off on legislation and spending, but Congress actually does the legislating. And Congress has quite a few democrats that could have stopped this deficit spending under Bush, but they didn’t.

But let’s continue. The Bush tax cuts…..Under the Obama administration, those Bush hating democrats held both houses of Congress for two years and could have repealed those cuts. They didn’t. So that one can also go partially in the Obama column that you didn’t include.

Recovery measures….this one is a thread of its own, but there's certainly no agreement that Obama's stimulus was even helpful. It didn't met any of the administrations claimed targets, and the few jobs that were created came at a massive cost. So I think the evidence certainly leans towards the fact that the stimulus was ill conceived, so you can put that one in the Obama column.

TARP, you’ll get no argument from me on that one.

Fannie and Freddie? That hardly can be blamed on Republicans, as it was a predictable consequence of the housing bubble created by our government in the first place. And while Bush did go along with these policies, they were overwhelmingly supported by Democrats. Some economists predicted the collapse, as well as a handful of politicians (none of them Democrats, IIRC). Ron Paul even tried to introduce legislation years ago to fix the problem before it got too big, but no one listened.

Economic downturn…..what could have been a minor economic correction has been made much worse by our government trying to prop up the natural equilibrium of the market, and of course all exacerbated by the housing bubble mentioned above.

Medicare Part D: Yes Bush signed it, are you telling me any Democrat wouldn’t have? Please. Medicare and Social Security are cornerstone issues for Democrats. If it had been Obama’s signature on the law, liberals would herald this as a good thing, but since Bush signed it, it’s a bad thing. Are you for repealing Part D?

So, you’ve cherry picked your list of items to include. Critical thinking fallacy. You can’t put ONE thing on the list that’s substantial that has added to the deficit in the 3 years Obama has been President? Hogwash. The TARP bailouts made the list (and rightly so), but not the equivalent actions undertaken since 2009? That exposes your next critical thinking fallacy, Confirmation Bias. You’ve gone out of your way to blame Bush for EVERYTHING. Does he deserve some blame? Absolutely. But to say that he and he alone is responsible for our deficit woes is just ridiculous. Plenty of people in Congress (Republicans and Democrats) were just as instrumental in spending this money. To not recognize that keeps us from solving the problem.
If you subtract the unfunded Bush legacy/disaster, then there is no deficit left to speak of.
I’m not sure why you even made this statement. We can’t subtract it, we have to deal with it. It seems to be another attempt to blame the previous administration. At this point, that milk is long spilled. You can blame who you want, but now we need leadership in place to clean up the mess.

I don’t have much sympathy for Obama when he wants to blame Bush for the mess. It’s not like he didn’t know what shape the country was in when he was running for President. Hell, *I* knew, so I’m sure he did. He knew what he was getting into. That said, I don’t think he was prepared for the fights that were to come over deficit spending and debt ceiling increases. The public is becoming more and more aware that something must be done, and our ever increasing debt is approaching a critical level. Gone are the days when the next guy can spend as much as the last guy, because our debt DOES have a practical limit. It’s unfortunate for Obama that it’s on his watch that this is taking place, but it still doesn’t change the fact that the problem must be addressed.

Now, the most interesting thing about your post is that you said all that, and still never offered anything of substance to answer the original question. We have deficits, we have astounding debt...what do we do to eliminate both?
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Re: So does anyone on here.....

Post by ghost »

L.Wood wrote:.
actually have a plan for solving our debt mess and balancing the budget?
Here is how we paid off the WWII debt, a debt higher, proportionally, than today's debt. Click here Scroll down to 1945 through 1964. If you wish to poke around the Tax Foundation's website you will find 1950 was the year the U.S. had the largest growth in GDP, 7.3%.

You will note rates remained just about constant until JFK lowered them in 1963, effective in 1964. Then, rates were still twice what they are today, capital gains rates
were 40% higher than today's rates.

I recently wrote to U.S. Senator John Boozman about his constant mantra of lower tax rates. I reminded the Senator, I included the printed data in the Tax Foundation Charts, that when he was born, 1950, U.S. top income tax rates were 91% and that the U.S. grew faster that year than any other year on record. I also reminded him that when he and his brother, the late Faye Boozman, opened their eye clinic in 1977 that income tax rates went to 77% and did not prevent neither he nor his brother from being very financially successful.

He wrote back that we now live in a different world.
.
While Boozman is a douche, he is right: we do live in a different world than we did in 1950. We had an explosion in growth in the years following WWII because most of the industrial world except for us had been decimated by the war. Japan and Europe were both in shambles. We were really the only country on the globe left with a significant manufacturing base. We satisfied the global demand, to the enormous benefit of our economy.

Talk of tax rates all you want, but we don't have "low tax rates"...far from it. While federal income tax rates are certainly not as high as they were in 1950, pretty much everything else is substantially higher.

In 1950, Social Security tax was only 3%, and only on the first $3k of income, and Medicare didn't even exist. Now taxes for SS and Medicare are over 16%, and are taxed on the entire incomes of just about everyone in the middle class. So on a 1950 income of $10,000, the SS tax was $90, or 0.9%. Adjusting for inflation, that 1950 wage in 2010 would be $89,562, with corresponding SS and medicare tax of $14,867 (16.6%). That's an astounding increase. I just realized that I forgot about our temporary SS tax holiday, but you get the idea.

The real explosion has been in local taxation. Sales and property taxes are much higher than in 1950. We've actually seen significant increases in just the last couple of decades as taxes are increased for schools, roads, and other local projects (Like the NW Arkansas Naturals Stadium boondoggle).

Regardless of the top marginal rate, our tax collections have been ~18% of GDP, plus or minus about 3%. And that's from WWII to present. So a 90% tax rate doesn't mean the government gets more money. Go figure, if you're going to take 90% of what I earn, I don't have much motivation to earn it. And rates alone don't tell the whole story; you also have to factor in the brackets and what income those rates apply to. See here.
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Re: So does anyone on here.....

Post by Dardedar »

ghost wrote: I’m not sure how you think we can run deficits forever.
I don't know why, I explained it very carefully. If the rate of deficit is smaller than the rate of inflation, that is, the ratio stays the same, we can run a deficit perpetually. It's not recommended however (I am very much a deficit hawk by the way).
That means accumulating more and more debt, and paying more and more interest, and sooner or later, that house of cards folds.
Probably, but I was responding to your absolute claim, with a theoretical possibility. The government, to some degree controls the interest rate. At times this allows debt to actually not cost interest. People are so anxious to hide their money safely with the US that they recently have been willing to pay us to borrow their money. See: US Treasury sells negative-rate bonds
Even Keynes would disagree about running a perpetual deficit.
I disagree with running a perpetual deficit. Debt however, is essential. The wealthiest country in the world, per capita, also has the highest level of debt (Luxembourg).
DAR
We inflate our way out of them
That’s a temporary fix and not a good one. Creditors don’t like being paid back with worthless money.
Inflating money over time, does not equal "worthless."
China is already complaining about us inflating our debt away.
Really? When did they do that? Complaints about Inflation are popular in rightwing circles but people saying this don't know what they are talking about. Inflation is at 40 year lows:
"...compared with that of other Fed chairs, Bernanke's track record on inflation is quite good. The average inflation rate during Bernanke's tenure, at 2.3%, beats that of every Fed chair since 1970."
TIME magazine
DAR
or grow out of them (the ratio can go up and down while always running a deficit perpetually).
I’m not sure what you mean by this... you’ll have to elaborate on what you’re putting forth here.
If the ratio of deficit/inflation doesn't change, we can run a deficit, theoretically, forever.
DAR
Wars = Bush (will be $3-$5 trillion)
Bush era tax cuts = Bush (about $2.5 trillion)
Recovery measures = necessary because of Bush (bunches, see here )
TARP Fannie and freddie = (90%) Bush (ibid)
Economic downturn = Bush (about $400 billion per year for several years)
Medicare part D boondoggle = Bush (aprox 1/2 a trillion)
For a site promoting free thinking, and for the site admin who promotes the same in addition to critical thinking, this list undermines both of those concepts.
Please don't confuse your differing opinion about political matters as having anything to do with freethinking. You'll find I don't make assertions I can't back up with careful reference. You however could use a little work in that department, as I will show.
First off, those are Obama’s wars now.
No, both wars were started by Bush. Obama did not support the Iraq war.
One of the major things he campaigned on was ending the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
And he ended the Iraq war exactly as promised. In fact, once posted an article about it being slightly ahead of schedule (and inline with what Bush had negotiated).
He was so convincing about it that our active military donated to his 2008 campaign SIGNIFICANTLY more than to McCain’s, and McCain was a decorated war hero.
Wrong:
"The Center for Responsive Politics, which analyzes campaign finance data, reports that a surge of donations for Mr. McCain in the final months he was able to accept campaign contributions moved him into the lead. By the end of August, Mr. McCain received $461,350 from military donors to $450,950 for Mr. Obama." McCain Edges Obama with Military Donors

That this was due to Obama's anti-war stance is speculation on your part.
...our troops supported the guy who said he would end two worthless and unpopular wars instead of the guy who wanted to keep fighting wars that were essentially unwinnable into perpetuity. But Obama didn’t end the wars as promised,...
Let me bring you up to speed and make you aware of current news: Iraq War Draws to Quiet Close
...so he assumes responsibility for the costs on his watch.
Some of Afghanistan for sure. I would credit all of the Iraq cost, about $3-5 trillion, to Bush. Also the vast majority of Afghanistan, which Bush bungled spectacularly.
So I think you need to put some of those costs in the Obama column, but you didn’t include an Obama column,...
There are costs in Obama's column. See this chart I have posted many times. Notice the blue (that's Obama). Notice almost all of the blue is there to clean up Bush mess.
Also, you list Bush as if he alone is responsible for all the items on the list.
That's because he, and his conservatives, are overwhelmingly responsible. As GW Bush's own speech writer put it the other day:
"In the aughts, Republicans held more power for longer than at any time since the twenties, yet the result was the weakest and least broadly shared economic expansion since World War II, followed by an economic crash and prolonged slump. Along the way, the GOP suffered two severe election defeats in 2006 and 2008. Imagine yourself a rank-and-file Republican in 2009: If you have not lost your job or your home, your savings have been sliced and your children cannot find work. Your retirement prospects have dimmed. Most of all, your neighbors blame you for all that has gone wrong in the country. There’s one thing you know for sure: None of this is your fault! And when the new president fails to deliver rapid recovery, he can be designated the target for everyone’s accumulated disappointment and rage. In the midst of economic wreckage, what relief to thrust all blame upon Barack Obama as the wrecker-in-chief." --David Frum LINK
As we are all well aware, the President only signs off on legislation and spending, but Congress actually does the legislating.
That's naive and under estimates the influence of the president on budgets.
And Congress has quite a few democrats that could have stopped this deficit spending under Bush, but they didn’t.
The Demo's where in office 11 months when the Bush recession hit. They certainly could have been more aggressive in going against Bush and his spending but it seems they choose to let him hang himself with his own rope. Then they stood back and reaped the political rewards. That's what politicians do.

Contrary to popular mythology, republicans have consistently been the largest drivers of debt, by far. Observe:

1) Over the last 75 years, Republican administrations have had an average annual deficit of $83.4 billion. The average for Democratic presidents is one fourth of that, only $20 billion. LINK

2) Since 1959 federal spending has gone up an average $35 billion a year under Democratic presidents and $60 billion under Republicans. Republican presidents increased the national debt much faster, more than $200 billion per year, versus less than a $100 billion per year under Democrats." LINK

Also: "The only presidents to add to the debt since WWII have been Reagan, GHW Bush and GW Bush... All other presidents since WWII have contributed nothing to the Gross Federal Debt,..." LINK

This is also true when debt is considered as a ratio to GDP. See the chart I have posted here
The Bush tax cuts…..Under the Obama administration, those Bush hating democrats held both houses of Congress for two years and could have repealed those cuts. They didn’t.
They tried, desperately. But as Obama said, this is considered the Holy Grail to republicans so he bargained this away to get DADT repealed and a few other things. You win some, you lose some.
So that one can also go partially in the Obama column that you didn’t include.
But it's entirely because of the republicans. If it was up to the Demos, it:
a) wouldn't have happened in the first place (Bush passed the tax cuts under reconciliation) and with no Demo support
b) they would have been gone as soon as Demos had a clear shot at them.

So no, I don't blame Bush's budget busting tax cuts for the wealthy on Demos.
Recovery measures….this one is a thread of its own, but there's certainly no agreement that Obama's stimulus was even helpful.
I would put creating about 4 million jobs in the "helpful" column. Observe:

"...the CBO estimates that at least 1.4 million jobs were created and saved by the direct spending alone, and that as many as 3.6 million jobs were produced while stimulus funds were being spent."
Money CNN

The administration's target was about 4 million. "The administration's initial stimulus plan, the $787 billion package passed in February 2009, was designed to save or create about 4 million jobs." -ibid
It didn't met any of the administrations claimed targets, and the few jobs that were created came at a massive cost.
Oh well, the Bush recession had a massive cost. No way around that.
Fannie and Freddie? That hardly can be blamed on Republicans, as it was a predictable consequence of the housing bubble created by our government in the first place. And while Bush did go along with these policies, they were overwhelmingly supported by Democrats.
Bush ran on houses for everyone. Here is a short clip of him saying so.
Ron Paul even tried to introduce legislation years ago to fix the problem before it got too big, but no one listened.
Economic downturn…..what could have been a minor economic correction has been made much worse by our government trying to prop up the natural equilibrium of the market,...
Nonsense. As even Ayn Rand follower Greenspan noted, this was the market choosing to eat itself. Socialism, government, the people stepped up and saved the market, as usual.
Medicare Part D: Yes Bush signed it, are you telling me any Democrat wouldn’t have?
It was big payola to pharma. Demos would far prefer to have something that works without squandering vast sums to big pharma.
If it had been Obama’s signature on the law, liberals would herald this as a good thing,...
No they wouldn't. Demo's and Obama, as promised, have already been working to fix it and he's had some success.
Are you for repealing Part D?
I'm way beyond that. If you want to know my opinions about the US healthcare mess, you can see my lecture notes posted here.
You can’t put ONE thing on the list that’s substantial that has added to the deficit in the 3 years Obama has been President? Hogwash.
You didn't read my references already provided. Begin here. Feel free to list major Obama initiated expenditures that don't have George W. Bush mess all over them.
The TARP bailouts made the list (and rightly so), but not the equivalent actions undertaken since 2009?
List them. Get off the pot and back up your claims freethinker.
You’ve gone out of your way to blame Bush for EVERYTHING.
No, just the great, vast majority of disaster during the last decade. Feel free to provide your list of things Obama should be blamed for. And try to make them something that wasn't necessary because of Bush mess. Have fun.
But to say that he and he alone is responsible for our deficit woes is just ridiculous.
I'll need a wee bit more than your mere assertion here. I have made specific claims and referenced them with easily verifiable citation. You are running on mere assertion and as I have shown, you have consistently been wrong.
DAR
If you subtract the unfunded Bush legacy/disaster, then there is no deficit left to speak of.
I’m not sure why you even made this statement.
Perhaps you should have taken a moment to check the reference I also provided along with the claim, then you wouldn't be unsure.
We can’t subtract it, we have to deal with it.
But we can calculate, estimate, what it would like without Bush mess. And when we do that, we find, no Bush mess equals, nearly, no deficit.
It seems to be another attempt to blame the previous administration. At this point, that milk is long spilled.
Yes, I am very much for laying blame where it is due and not forgetting, white washing, who did the spilling of the milk. Conservatives are very much into that game so I find myself often correcting them. Incidentally, it's interesting to see my opinion about this blame is a majority position held among Americans: The economy? It’s still Bush’s fault

Excerpt: "Fifty-four percent of respondents said that Bush was more to blame while 29 percent put the blame on Obama; 9 percent said both men deserved blame while 6 percent said neither did. Among registered voters, the numbers are almost identical; 54 percent blame Bush, while 30 percent blame Obama."
I don’t have much sympathy for Obama when he wants to blame Bush for the mess.
Probably because you aren't very informed about the details of the situation. Isn't that great about the Iraq war being over? How did you miss that?
It’s not like he didn’t know what shape the country was in when he was running for President.
That has no relevance whatsoever to the question of who is to blame.
I don’t think he was prepared for the fights that were to come over deficit spending and debt ceiling increases.
Right. Who could have guessed the republicans could be so stupid and petty?
...our ever increasing debt is approaching a critical level.
Not really. See my thread here: America Isn't Broke
...our debt DOES have a practical limit.
It does, but we are not near it.
you... still never offered anything of substance to answer the original question. We have deficits, we have astounding debt...what do we do to eliminate both?
Keep republicans out of power. And I say that as a registered independent who has never been a democrat. Our debt is workable and will take care of itself if we can mainly get revenue back up (with a thriving economy) and deal with medical costs on the horizon. That will take republicans taking lessons from the rest of the world about how medical care actually works and removing their heads from their butts on taxing the rich appropriately. There is no need to "eliminate" the debt.

Thanks for dropping by Mr. Ghost, I've given you a bit to chew on here. Take some time to check my references for my claims this time, do your homework and keep your claims tight. We'll see if you are a conservative that's got some fight in ya.
"I'm not a skeptic because I want to believe, I'm a skeptic because I want to know." --Michael Shermer
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Re: So does anyone on here.....

Post by Dardedar »

ghost wrote: Talk of tax rates all you want, but we don't have "low tax rates"...far from it.
I've posted ten reasons, with charts, showing why you are wrong:

Ten Charts that Prove the United States Is a Low-Tax Country
"I'm not a skeptic because I want to believe, I'm a skeptic because I want to know." --Michael Shermer
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Re: So does anyone on here.....

Post by ghost »

Inflating money over time, does not equal "worthless."
Yeah, more or less it does. Our money only has value as long as people are willing to agree that it does. When they don't, as always happens with fiat currency, it truly will not be worth the paper it's printed on.
Really? When did they do that?
Have you been under a rock? Try google: http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=c ... ze+us+debt

Complaints about Inflation are popular in rightwing circles but people saying this don't know what they are talking about. Inflation is at 40 year lows:
"...compared with that of other Fed chairs, Bernanke's track record on inflation is quite good. The average inflation rate during Bernanke's tenure, at 2.3%, beats that of every Fed chair since 1970."
TIME magazine
I'm not impressed. The dollar has lost over 95% of its value in the last century. My savings gets smaller and smaller by the day due to inflation. It doesn't have to be this way.
DAR
or grow out of them (the ratio can go up and down while always running a deficit perpetually).
I’m not sure what you mean by this... you’ll have to elaborate on what you’re putting forth here.

If the ratio of deficit/inflation doesn't change, we can run a deficit, theoretically, forever.
I'm not familiar with that concept, so I'd have to do some research. But it doesn't matter, because we're taking on debt at a much more rapid pace than that.

Please don't confuse your differing opinion about political matters as having anything to do with freethinking. You'll find I don't make assertions I can't back up with careful reference. You however could use a little work in that department, as I will show.
You're going to show me? I can't wait.

No, both wars were started by Bush. Obama did not support the Iraq war.
Who cares? He said he would end it. He didn't. That puts the blame on his shoulders.

And he ended the Iraq war exactly as promised. In fact, once posted an article about it being slightly ahead of schedule (and inline with what Bush had negotiated).
Well, not exactly.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUTYL8HfCGo

Wrong:
"The Center for Responsive Politics, which analyzes campaign finance data, reports that a surge of donations for Mr. McCain in the final months he was able to accept campaign contributions moved him into the lead. By the end of August, Mr. McCain received $461,350 from military donors to $450,950 for Mr. Obama." McCain Edges Obama with Military Donors
You know, you REALLY should read the links that YOU post. First paragraph:
Senator John McCain has pulled slightly ahead of Senator Barack Obama in campaign contributions from military donors. But what set Mr. McCain over the top were donations that came from people working for the Department of Defense. When it comes to the uniformed military, Mr. Obama is still ahead.
Just in case you were wondering, DoD bureaucrats =/= troops.
Let me bring you up to speed and make you aware of current news: Iraq War Draws to Quiet Close
And let me bring you up to speed on the details:
President Obama pulled the plug Friday on negotiations that would have kept American troops in Iraq past the end of this year. CBS News national security correspondent David Martin reports the president's demand for immunity for U.S. troops stationed there was the dealbreaker.
In other words, he negotiated right up until the end to keep the war going. He only pulled the troops out when he couldn't get the deal he wanted. From here.
That's because he, and his conservatives, are overwhelmingly responsible. As GW Bush's own speech writer put it the other day:
"In the aughts, Republicans held more power for longer than at any time since the twenties, yet the result was the weakest and least broadly shared economic expansion since World War II, followed by an economic crash and prolonged slump. Along the way, the GOP suffered two severe election defeats in 2006 and 2008. Imagine yourself a rank-and-file Republican in 2009: If you have not lost your job or your home, your savings have been sliced and your children cannot find work. Your retirement prospects have dimmed. Most of all, your neighbors blame you for all that has gone wrong in the country. There’s one thing you know for sure: None of this is your fault! And when the new president fails to deliver rapid recovery, he can be designated the target for everyone’s accumulated disappointment and rage. In the midst of economic wreckage, what relief to thrust all blame upon Barack Obama as the wrecker-in-chief." --David Frum LINK
You act like I'm arguing FOR Bush. I'm not. It seems to be your only weapon to make Obama look good. Bush certainly gets his share of the blame.
Contrary to popular mythology, republicans have consistently been the largest drivers of debt, by far. Observe:

1) Over the last 75 years, Republican administrations have had an average annual deficit of $83.4 billion. The average for Democratic presidents is one fourth of that, only $20 billion. LINK

2) Since 1959 federal spending has gone up an average $35 billion a year under Democratic presidents and $60 billion under Republicans. Republican presidents increased the national debt much faster, more than $200 billion per year, versus less than a $100 billion per year under Democrats." LINK

Also: "The only presidents to add to the debt since WWII have been Reagan, GHW Bush and GW Bush... All other presidents since WWII have contributed nothing to the Gross Federal Debt,..." LINK

This is also true when debt is considered as a ratio to GDP. See the chart I have posted here
Causation without correlation. You've completely ignored the role of Congress in this mess. And yet MORE pandering about how the Republicans are worse than the Democrats. They both suck.
They tried, desperately. But as Obama said, this is considered the Holy Grail to republicans so he bargained this away to get DADT repealed and a few other things. You win some, you lose some.
When you have a majority in the Senate, and a majority in the House, AND the Presidency, you win as many as you're willing to win. They had that situation for two years. To say that they had to negotiate with Republicans is crap, because they forced health care through.
But it's entirely because of the republicans.
That seems to be the theme of this forum. I think you should rename it. It has a snazzy ring to it.
If it was up to the Demos, it:
b) they would have been gone as soon as Demos had a clear shot at them.
Like when they controlled both Houses and the Presidency. Woops!
I would put creating about 4 million jobs in the "helpful" column. Observe:

"...the CBO estimates that at least 1.4 million jobs were created and saved by the direct spending alone, and that as many as 3.6 million jobs were produced while stimulus funds were being spent."
Money CNN

The administration's target was about 4 million. "The administration's initial stimulus plan, the $787 billion package passed in February 2009, was designed to save or create about 4 million jobs." -ibid
Since your confirmation bias prevents you from even remotely attempting to see if there's any evidence to the contrary, I'll help you out. The CBO estimates are based on a model, which is based on certain assumptions. The model was simply re-run after the stimulus with similar assumptions, and of course produced similar results. This is even noted in the CBO's report!

From a speech from the CBO's director:
When asked if this means that any actual underperformance of the stimulus would fail to show up in the CBO's stimulus jobs count, Elmendorf replied "That's right."
In other words, the CBO has not a damn clue how many jobs were created or saved. And since it's a VERY difficult thing to actually measure when a job is "saved", it's all bunk. Tons of info out on the web about this topic, and it would be easy to see if you were looking for it.

Here's info
Here's some moar

And you can always use The Google and find more....

It didn't met any of the administrations claimed targets, and the few jobs that were created came at a massive cost.
Oh well, the Bush recession had a massive cost. No way around that.
At least you didn't dispute that it didn't meet any expectations. The fact that you missed that most of the economic recession was caused by the housing bubble supported mostly by democrats is telling. Once again, it's all the Republican's faults!
Fannie and Freddie? That hardly can be blamed on Republicans, as it was a predictable consequence of the housing bubble created by our government in the first place. And while Bush did go along with these policies, they were overwhelmingly supported by Democrats.
Bush ran on houses for everyone. Here is a short clip of him saying so.
And I agree. How clear do I need to be that I'm not here defending Republicans?
Nonsense. As even Ayn Rand follower Greenspan noted, this was the market choosing to eat itself. Socialism, government, the people stepped up and saved the market, as usual.
And so much documentation to back up such a claim! It's not "the market" when the government interferes. The market was correcting the bubble that the government created. Student loans are next.
It was big payola to pharma. Demos would far prefer to have something that works without squandering vast sums to big pharma.
Most of our federal spending is payouts to special interests. And many of those same special interests supported PPACA...which was passed by...Democrats!
No they wouldn't. Demo's and Obama, as promised, have already been working to fix it and he's had some success.
That's nice. And doesn't mention one word about Part D. Usually when you provide references, they should actually reference something relevant.
You didn't read my references already provided. Begin here. Feel free to list major Obama initiated expenditures that don't have George W. Bush mess all over them.
See that's the problem. If you think they're Bush's fault, then I can't use them, can I?
I'll need a wee bit more than your mere assertion here. I have made specific claims and referenced them with easily verifiable citation. You are running on mere assertion and as I have shown, you have consistently been wrong.
Really? I've proved you wrong using your own links.
But we can calculate, estimate, what it would like without Bush mess. And when we do that, we find, no Bush mess equals, nearly, no deficit.
That's fascinating. And useless. But I guess it makes you feel good. Blame someone else; do nothing about the problem.
Probably because you aren't very informed about the details of the situation. Isn't that great about the Iraq war being over? How did you miss that?


Must be those 17,000 private contractors that are still there that my tax dollars are paying for, and the Democrats who refused to defund the Iraq war. And that legislation was proposed by a Republican, I might add. Did you miss that?
That has no relevance whatsoever to the question of who is to blame.
I agree. But the question wasn;t who was to blame, the question was how to fix the result of those actions.
Right. Who could have guessed the republicans could be so stupid and petty?
Yes, it's stupid to even consider not raising the debt ceiling by a trillion or so every year. Hell, it's not even real money, we might as well.
It does, but we are not near it.
We're close enough for me and the rest of the people actually concerned about paying for it.
Keep republicans out of power.
I'll agree with that.
And I say that as a registered independent who has never been a democrat.
I hate to break this to you, but voting for democrats makes you a democrat. This entire forum reads like an entire how to manual for liberals.
Our debt is workable and will take care of itself if we can mainly get revenue back up (with a thriving economy) and deal with medical costs on the horizon.
That I can agree with.
That will take republicans taking lessons from the rest of the world about how medical care actually works
Yeah, if you like health care elsewhere, then feel free to move there. Our system needs reform, but this crap they passed earlier isn't it. SCOTUS is going to strike it down anyway, so at least there's that.
and removing their heads from their butts on taxing the rich appropriately.
And who is "rich" and what is "appropriate"? Which country would you model?
There is no need to "eliminate" the debt.
Bullshit. Why would we want to use our money to make other people rich with interest payments? That's like saying there's no need to pay of a credit card. I guess as long as you don't mind giving your money to someone else to make them richer instead of yourself, you're right.
Thanks for dropping by Mr. Ghost, I've given you a bit to chew on here. Take some time to check my references for my claims this time, do your homework and keep your claims tight. We'll see if you are a conservative that's got some fight in ya.
A bit to chew on? Standard left wing stuff.
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Dardedar
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Re: So does anyone on here.....

Post by Dardedar »

DAR
Inflating money over time, does not equal "worthless."
Yeah, more or less it does. Our money only has value as long as people are willing to agree that it does. When they don't, as always happens with fiat currency, it truly will not be worth the paper it's printed on.
See, this is where rightwingers got so consistently off in the bushes. They aren't honest with language. The value of currency is relative to society. If 500 years from now our $1 bills have a little "m" and say $1m on them (meaning a $1 note has deflated to the equivalent of $1million dollars) the dollar can still serve a similarly, relative value within our society. Money/value is a subjective human abstraction. It's a number. We make up the value. That over time we have to move the decimal over and change the name on the bill, is just the way it goes. Get over it.

While that $1m bill 500 years from now will have very little value in relation to today's $1, it hardly matters to the person living 500 years from now since they aren't having any currency exchange going on with people who lived 500 years previous.

(I have a personal policy about trying to make sense with people who first introduce the word "fiat currency" into a conversation, but I'll wave it this time)
DAR
Complaints about Inflation are popular in rightwing circles but people saying this don't know what they are talking about. Inflation is at 40 year lows:
"...compared with that of other Fed chairs, Bernanke's track record on inflation is quite good. The average inflation rate during Bernanke's tenure, at 2.3%, beats that of every Fed chair since 1970."
TIME magazine
I'm not impressed. The dollar has lost over 95% of its value in the last century.
Well I'm not impressed with your complete inability to counter my argument and reference showing that your wank about high inflation is all wet. How does the fact that your dollar today is worth 5 cents in 1910 money effect your life? God, why did you make your conservatives such WHINERS?
My savings gets smaller and smaller by the day due to inflation. It doesn't have to be this way.
Of course it doesn't. Buy Gold! Just kidding. Don't buy gold.
DAR
No, both wars were started by Bush. Obama did not support the Iraq war.
Who cares? He said he would end it. He didn't. That puts the blame on his shoulders.
Again I refer to how you are simply being plainly dishonest with language. Don't do that. We are not at war with Iraq. The war is over. When you say we are at war, or that the war has not ended, you are either lying or too foolish to know the difference.
DAR
And he ended the Iraq war exactly as promised. In fact, once posted an article about it being slightly ahead of schedule (and inline with what Bush had negotiated).
I watched half of it then got bored. He said he would end the war and get the troops out. He did, and he did it upon the agreed upon timeline largely negotiated by Bush. And the biggest complaint among your conservative brethren? That he did it too soon or didn't leave a big enough presence there.
DAR
Wrong:
"The Center for Responsive Politics, which analyzes campaign finance data, reports that a surge of donations for Mr. McCain in the final months he was able to accept campaign contributions moved him into the lead. By the end of August, Mr. McCain received $461,350 from military donors to $450,950 for Mr. Obama." McCain Edges Obama with Military Donors
You know, you REALLY should read the links that YOU post. First paragraph:
And you really should consider reading both the heading, and the second paragraph before your pretend to have a cogent rebuttal. I quote here the heading, first and second paragraph:
McCain Edges Obama With Military Donors
By LESLIE WAYNE
Senator John McCain has pulled slightly ahead of Senator Barack Obama in campaign contributions from military donors. But what set Mr. McCain over the top were donations that came from people working for the Department of Defense. When it comes to the uniformed military, Mr. Obama is still ahead.

The Center for Responsive Politics, which analyzes campaign finance data, reports that a surge of donations for Mr. McCain in the final months he was able to accept campaign contributions moved him into the lead. By the end of August, Mr. McCain received $461,350 from military donors to $450,950 for Mr. Obama.
Just in case you were wondering, DoD bureaucrats =/= troops.
You shouldn't try to rewrite history when it is only a few hours old. Your claim was (CAPS yours):

"[Obama] was so convincing about it that our active military donated to his 2008 campaign SIGNIFICANTLY more than to McCain’s, and McCain was a decorated war hero."

As my reference shows:

"Mr. Obama received $340,400 from members of the uniformed service branches compared to $321,500 for Mr. McCain."

This is a difference of 5%. Why don't you just put your big boy pants on and admit your were incorrect here?
DAR
And let me bring you up to speed on the [war] details:
[Obama] ...negotiated right up until the end to keep the war going.
Even if that were true, it is not relevant to your patently false claim that we are still at war with Iraq. Be honest with language. Don't be like Ron Paul.
He only pulled the troops out when he couldn't get the deal he wanted.
I don't care. Are we at war with Iraq Mr. Ghost? We have lots of troops in Japan and Europe. Are we at war with Japan and Europe Mr. Ghost? Best to be honest with language or it makes my job of pointing out your errors even easier than usual, and I don't need any help in that regard.

[snip Frum quote]
You act like I'm arguing FOR Bush. I'm not.
You've had your nose up Bush's bum this entire thread. Of course you throw in the occasional dig against him and republicans as any good libertarian Ron Paul supporter would. But your usual complaint with these conservatives is that, doggone it, they just aren't conservative enough! As if the Bush experiment wasn't enough, what we need is MORE right-wing conservatism.
It seems to be your only weapon to make Obama look good.
No, I am quite capable of building a strong affirmative case for Obama looking good. But it's also useful to show how good he looks when compared with the shining achievement of conservative rule in a generation: George W. Bush.
DAR
Contrary to popular mythology, republicans have consistently been the largest drivers of debt, by far. Observe:
1) Over the last 75 years, Republican administrations have had an average annual deficit of $83.4 billion. The average for Democratic presidents is one fourth of that, only $20 billion. LINK
2) Since 1959 federal spending has gone up an average $35 billion a year under Democratic presidents and $60 billion under Republicans. Republican presidents increased the national debt much faster, more than $200 billion per year, versus less than a $100 billion per year under Democrats." LINK
Also: "The only presidents to add to the debt since WWII have been Reagan, GHW Bush and GW Bush... All other presidents since WWII have contributed nothing to the Gross Federal Debt,..." LINK
This is also true when debt is considered as a ratio to GDP. See the chart I have posted here
Causation without correlation.
Oh this is rich. I provide 75 years of historical precedent showing the average annual deficits under Demo administrations has been half that of republicans, and you dismiss this with a hand wave? A fluke? Is that the best you have? If it was the case that republicans were bigger drivers of the deficit than demos, then this is exactly what we should see. And it is exactly what we do see. It's right there, objectively measurable data, right under your nose. If this isn't evidence for my claim and against yours, pray, what would evidence look like? Explain why the evidence cuts so crossly against your fiscal conservatives? If your position is correct, why don't we see the opposite of this in the record? What do you have to show for your claim? Nothing!
You've completely ignored the role of Congress in this mess.
President signs the bills but of course congress is involved. If you would like to see the data on that, I have it. Lowest spending over the last several decades, as compiled by a libertarian? When Demos controlled both the congress and the white house. Ask and ye shall receive.
And yet MORE pandering about how the Republicans are worse than the Democrats. They both suck.
Ah, the broad brush. When one sucks, then therefore the other must suck too right? Except, I've just shown with reference how badly your conservatives SUCK and you've shown nothing.
DAR
They tried, desperately. But as Obama said, this is considered the Holy Grail to republicans so he bargained this away to get DADT repealed and a few other things. You win some, you lose some.
When you have a majority in the Senate, and a majority in the House, AND the Presidency, you win as many as you're willing to win.
Wrong. Here's why grasshopper:

***
"Republicans Break All Time Filibuster Record

Republicans last night broke the all-time Senate record for filibusters in a two-year term when they forced the 62nd cloture vote of this session on the omnibus appropriations bill, H.R. 2764.

The previous record of 61 cloture votes in a two-year term was set in 2001-2002, the last time the GOP comprised the minority in the Senate.

The fact that the new record for legislative obstruction was set in less than one session would be similar to Roger Maris hitting 61 home runs before the mid-season break for the all-star game, instead of during the 162 game baseball season.

From refusing to allow the Senate to vote on the merits of the Employee Free Choice Act, to denying a roll call on the substance of the prescription drug bill, to preventing a vote on legislation implementing the recommendations of the 9/11 commission, GOP Senators impeded solutions to pressing problems." -- http://tinyurl.com/4x38p55

And:
"Fifty four filibusters when Democrats were in the minority at that time. Then when the Republicans became the minority in 2007…boing… one hundred and twelve filibusters.
Republicans now have a defacto standing filibuster on practically everything. They’ve made so that passing anything in the Senate requires sixty votes, a super majority every time. This situation has never existed before. This was not the situation in any previous Congress ever..." LINK

So your claim is plainly false. Because of republican unprecedented obstruction, a mere majority does not provide control.
To say that they had to negotiate with Republicans is crap, because they forced health care through.
After much negotiating and watering down of healthcare due to republican obstruction. Healthcare was a must do, make or break objective for this administration. Not every category of legislation rose to that level. That's just the way governing and compromise work. Sorry about that. It's not a dictatorship and we are chock full of conservatives bound and determined to demonstrate that government can't work for the people. And they are really good at demonstrating it.
DAR
If it was up to the Demos, it:
b) they [tax cuts for rich] would have been gone as soon as Demos had a clear shot at them.
Like when they controlled both Houses and the Presidency. Woops!
As shown above, they didn't control both houses due to record filibusters and the need for a super majority. And consider the absurdity here. You seem to be arguing and acknowledging that the Bush tax cuts were budget busters (cost about $2.2 trillion), but when looking at who is to blame you want to blame those who fought vocifously against them, and not blame those who fought tooth and nail,for them. I think readers will be able to see the blatant hypocrisy and cognitive dissonance here.
DAR
I would put creating about 4 million jobs in the "helpful" column. Observe:
"...the CBO estimates that at least 1.4 million jobs were created and saved by the direct spending alone, and that as many as 3.6 million jobs were produced while stimulus funds were being spent."
Money CNN [snip...]
Since your confirmation bias prevents you from even remotely attempting to see if there's any evidence to the contrary, I'll help you out.
The CBO is a standard non-partisan reference. You dismiss this with a hand wave and throw in another baseless unsupported fallacy. Boring. Of course any projection of jobs created/saved is going to based upon estimates and models. Again, your response is reduced to a non-response.
The fact that you missed that most of the economic recession was caused by the housing bubble supported mostly by democrats is telling.
Mere assertion. Bush and your conservatives actually did have control of all branches of government, as Bush's own speech writer pointed out. If they had a problem with the up coming housing crisis (see Glass Steagall act, put forward by republicans), then they should have and could have done something about it. But they didn't. They made it worse.
Once again, it's all the Republican's faults!
Overwhelmingly, bigtime and with bells and whistles on. Where's the "personal responsibility" you conservatives are always going on about? Right. Non-existent.
How clear do I need to be that I'm not here defending Republicans?
A hell of a lot more clear. Throwing in the occasional dig against Bush (who is most worthy of digs) is nice lip service but it doesn't out weight that you have far more in common with him than not, and if anything, most of your complaint is that he wasn't right-wing enough.
DAR
Nonsense. As even Ayn Rand follower Greenspan noted, this was the market choosing to eat itself. Socialism, government, the people stepped up and saved the market, as usual.
And so much documentation to back up such a claim!
All you have to do is ask. Unlike you, I don't make claims I can't back up.
It's not "the market" when the government interferes.
More rightwing nonsense. There are no functioning markets that are not interfered with by governments. Well, other than Somalia, and if you want to use that as a model of a functioning market, begin your education here.
The market was correcting the bubble that the government created.
Alan Greenspan says you are wrong. But really, what does he know about markets?
Demo's and Obama, as promised, have already been working to fix it and he's had some success.
That's nice. And doesn't mention one word about Part D.
Actually, it references his fixing Part C, Medicare Advantage. Another feather in his cap. To learn about his fixing of Part D, see here: Promise Kept:

"The health care bill signed into law by President Barack Obama is poised to "close the 'doughnut hole' in the Medicare Part D Prescription Drug Program that limits benefits for seniors with more than $2,250 but less than $5,100 in annual drug costs."
Usually when you provide references, they should actually reference something relevant.
Fixing Part C was relevant, but certainly not specific enough to the claim regarding Part D. Enjoy the link provided. Let me know if you need further assistance.
DAR
You didn't read my references already provided. Begin here. Feel free to list major Obama initiated expenditures that don't have George W. Bush mess all over them.
See that's the problem. If you think they're Bush's fault, then I can't use them, can I?
Bingo. As that article points out, and the White House Chart I provided show, our deficits have Bush mess all over them. Sorry about that, but not my problem. Defending Bush is optional. I don't do it and I don't recommend it for others. Those who do, will be spanked.
DAR
Isn't that great about the Iraq war being over? How did you miss that?

Must be those 17,000 private contractors that are still there that my tax dollars are paying for,...
Hey Mr. Ghost, does having private contractors in a country mean we are at war with that country? Be honest with language, or you will continue to be roasted for being grossly inaccurate with language.
Yes, it's stupid to even consider not raising the debt ceiling by a trillion or so every year.
Actually, having a debt ceiling in the first place is stupid.
Hell, it's not even real money, we might as well.
Hey Mr. Ron Paul fiat money, if those dollars you have aren't "real money" care to trade them for some pretty pieces of paper I have that aren't consider currency by our society? Didn't think so. You fiat money guys are so full of it.
DAR
Keep republicans out of power.
I'll agree with that.
You didn't vote for Bush? I doubt it.
This entire forum reads like an entire how to manual for liberals.
Thankfully you are here to make it "fair and balanced." I hope you stick around. Hope I haven't been to hard on you but I like a little spice in an exchange and I really strain to take Ron Paulists seriously. It's difficult for me.
...if you like health care elsewhere, then feel free to move there.
I lived in Canada for 21 years so I have experienced first hand what a well functioning healthcare system is like. And Canada's is mediocre on the world stage. But it beats the US for well understood reasons. Read my lecture notes already provided before you attempt to engage on that topic. It's a bit of a specialty.
SCOTUS is going to strike it down anyway, so at least there's that.
If they do, then the states will begin working toward single payer just like they did in Canada... in 1966. So we're a little behind the curve, as usual. Thanks conservative nutbars.
And who is "rich" and what is "appropriate"?
The top one to five percent is rich and taxing them far higher is appropriate. I can get more specific if you like.
Which country would you model?
About a dozen standard peer countries that are kicking our bottoms in standard measurements of societal success and wealth inequality. Many examples provided in this thread: The United States of Inequality
DAR
There is no need to "eliminate" the debt.
Bullshit. Why would we want to use our money to make other people rich with interest payments?
That's how capitalism works. This also works at the personal level. My personal debt vastly exceeds my yearly income/production/GDP and that is as it should be because it allows me to leverage wealth quicker (lifetimes are limited) and spur wealth far faster than I could by paying cash. The stock mart, investments and nations are heavily leveraged (it can be overdone of course, see Greece, Ireland and Iceland) and this is essential to wealth creation (see Luxembourg example already given).
It is always astonishing to me how you free market worshipers are so clueless about basic capitalist market principles. Ron Paul, is an idiot.
That's like saying there's no need to pay of a credit card.
That's right. You don't have to pay off a credit card, other than making the payments. Credit cards are vastly abused and for the most part used for stupid unproductive debt, but when one goes into debt to by a home, or invest in a business (which I have done many times throughout my life), it can be absolutely essential to rapid wealth creation. The notion that debt is intrinsically bad, is childish, naive and misinformed. But it's very common among the Teabagger Ron Paulists.
I guess as long as you don't mind giving your money to someone else to make them richer instead of yourself, you're right.
I came from Canada in 1987 with $300 to my name and a high school degree. Now I own five homes, two paid for. I did that by hard work and debt leverage. So I have some first hand experience with using other peoples money to increase my wealth. I recommend this method to you and others.

D.
"I'm not a skeptic because I want to believe, I'm a skeptic because I want to know." --Michael Shermer
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