President Takes Full Responsibility

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
61

This was a smart move on Bush’s part. As I said in a different thread, trying to place responsibility elsewhere can only backfire if you want to look presidential. Now that Bush has accepted responsibilty, the news media will focus on attacking other people.

As for the argument on taxation, I largely agree with hspder. The concentration of wealth within a small number of people is a bad idea. Not everyone comes from the same background and I think the government should takes steps to help those at the bottom of the ladder. Obviously a trade off is involved.

62

For whatever you think–I am not a Bush lover. I thought he did a good job in his first term and couldn’t vote for Kerry in the second. I don’t agree with the focus of the administration nor the outcomes.

I just don’t like when there is an issue that everyones first response is to blame the President. I too am against our current 2 party system that has given us so much vanilla. I’d like to see a real Perot type who could come in with new ideas and no baggage–aint gonna happen–

I’d really like to see the focus alot more on the issues than the man. It seems like after 3 posts it gets personal. I have said over and over that it was handled poorly by Bush. It was also handled as poorly by local and state govt’s.

Did we learn?
Are we better?

63

[quote]endgamer711 wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
endgamer711 wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
If the tax cuts are so bad, why did government income due to taxes acheive its highest levels ever this summer?

Total tube steak boogie. Spending money like water on a useless war revved up the economy, not tax cuts for the rich.

100% wrong. Tax income was up because consumer spending was up.

War is wasteful and does not help economies (inspite of the misconception people have of WWII).

Use the “tube steak boogie” for the junior high school bullshit.

So, why was consumer spending up? Why do you never complete the analysis? Sounds like high school logic to me, Mr. Sophomore.[/quote]

Because people are allowed to keep their money and spend it how they will.

Because people bought a lot of ipods and other junk this summer.

Consumer spending does not buy missles.

Besides the taxes collected on defense workers salaries the government does not collect tax dollars on war related industries. War is not prfitable business. Most liberals correctly recognize it is a drain on our economy.

Save your silly insults. I asked if you were a student once and you were upset for 3 days. Imagine if I tried to insult you.

64

[quote]hspder wrote:

a) The rich do NOT pay 50+% of their income in taxes – you have no idea how rampant tax evasion is

and

b) Most rich people are not “achievers”. The overwhelming majority either inherited the money, are career criminals, are slave drivers, or amassed their fortune at the expense of society as a whole through pyramid schemes (aka speculators). Not all of them of course, but the overwhelming majority (about 95% according to the latest numbers I have) is part of one of those groups.[/quote]

a) Isn’t the issue of how much income tax to charge a person in relation to their income a different issue from tax evasion? Did you really mean tax evasion, or tax avoidance through loopholes, etc. that favor the rich? Because I think we’d all agree that we’re against tax evasion, which I thought was a crime.

and

b) Can you provide a source for those numbers, please? I’d definitely like to look that over.

65

[quote]reddog6376 wrote:
Total crap. A 2000 Economic Policy Institute study showed that almost 60 percent of Americans in the lowest income quintile in 1969 were in a higher quintile in 1996, and over 61 percent in the highest income quintile had moved down into a lower income quintile during the same period. (Lawrence Mishel, Jared Bernstein, and John Schmitt, State of Working America: 2000-01 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2000), p. 77) Most of the rich in America, used to be poor.[/quote]

Your posts keep just getting more absurd, you really need to stop trying to use that kind of rhetoric. Try to be scientific in your approach for a change.

a) You’re glossing over the fact that anyone with half a brain gets “richer” as they become older. If you just stick a few dollars every month in a 401k starting when you’re young, you’ll be a millionaire by the time you retire. Hence, you cannot track the same people over their lifetime, you have to look at a specific age group and track how that age group evolved.

b) The fact that people in the highest income quintile become “poorer” just proves my point that most of them are not achievers – they were actually dumb enough to have lost money. Achievers would at least be able to keep their money

c) I was talking about people who have a Net Worth in the hundreds of millions – not simple upper middle class people. Also, it’s a stupid measurement if it’s not done regionally – basically every single middle class person in the Bay Area is part of that quintile; even so, I know several couples with combined incomes of over $150k a year that couldn’t afford to buy new shoes for their kids last month – between their mortgage and tuition costs, and other fixed costs, they just have zero disposable income.

d) You completley glossed over the fact that CEOs have never, by any stretch of imagination, made as much money as they do today.

66

[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
Because people are allowed to keep their money and spend it how they will.

Because people bought a lot of ipods and other junk this summer.
[/quote]

You’re absolutely right, Zap – however what you’re neglecting to say is that the people that spend all that money were middle and lower class Americans.

Hence, if Bush had limited the tax cuts to people in the middle and lower classes, it would have had the same positive effect with much less damage to the budget deficit…

Also, you’re forgetting that the tax cuts were NOT enough to pay for all those iPods, hence people are more in debt that they’ve ever been. So the long term benefit of that increased spending is highly arguable.

67

[quote]Professor X wrote:
I agree with this. I am not an “economist” like so many claim to be in this thread, but to ignore the war in Iraq and blame any growth on tax cuts is just retarded.[/quote]

That is a very wise comment… You probably can relate to my frustration, though, since half the people I know seem to think they’re psychologists, driving the people that actually ARE psychologists insane.

(on the other hand, even TV psychologists like Dr.Phil are deeply hated by all real-life psychologists I know, so… I guess it’s a sensitive area… :-))

68

You can’t seriously be trying to compare FEMA’s response to Katrina with those incidents. None of those even came close to magnitude of Katrina.

69

[quote]ChrisPowers wrote:
a) Isn’t the issue of how much income tax to charge a person in relation to their income a different issue from tax evasion? Did you really mean tax evasion, or tax avoidance through loopholes, etc. that favor the rich? Because I think we’d all agree that we’re against tax evasion, which I thought was a crime.[/quote]

You’re right – and I never said to increase the tax bracket for rich people. What I said is that rich people should pay more tax – which can be achieved by way of cutting both loopholes and the crime of tax evasion.

[quote]ChrisPowers wrote:
b) Can you provide a source for those numbers, please? I’d definitely like to look that over.[/quote]

I could, but then I’d have to kill you.

Now seriously, it’s part of a study that is not public. People pay a lot of money for these studies, don’t expect the source to just give it away. Fortunately Stanford has the budget to buy them… We have to do something with all that tuition money we charge… :wink:

However, I’m pretty sure these guys eventually release older studies to the general public, even if it’s only to show off how good they are. Both McKinsey Quarterly and the Economist are used as channels for that, so look around – but please expect 10-year old data.

70

[quote]hspder wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
Because people are allowed to keep their money and spend it how they will.

Because people bought a lot of ipods and other junk this summer.

You’re absolutely right, Zap – however what you’re neglecting to say is that the people that spend all that money were middle and lower class Americans.

Hence, if Bush had limited the tax cuts to people in the middle and lower classes, it would have had the same positive effect with much less damage to the budget deficit…

Also, you’re forgetting that the tax cuts were NOT enough to pay for all those iPods, hence people are more in debt that they’ve ever been. So the long term benefit of that increased spending is highly arguable.
[/quote]

I would have liked to see the middle class get a more substantial percentage of the tax cut, but the rich do pay an overwhelming percentage of our nations taxes and will get a big portion of any substantial cut.

I don’t know if the last tax cut was truly equitable or not. I do know it is better than the alternative, which was Al Gores tax increase. In his mind anyone that made over something like $ 35,000 a year was rich and would have had his taxes increased.

While I joked about the ipods I am sure the rich people bought a few spare boats too.

71

[quote]doogie wrote:

endgamer711 wrote:

Bingo, only one year after Andrew, in 1993, when the Mississippi flooded large portions of the midwest. FEMA proved the worth of the new resourcing, plans, and procedures that had been put into place.

There were also Hurricanes Fran and Opal. For Fran (1996) which was at the high end of category 3, about half a million people were evacuated.

You can’t seriously be trying to compare FEMA’s response to Katrina with those incidents. None of those even came close to magnitude of Katrina.

[/quote]

FEMA did a decent job with Andrew but it took them a while to mobilize.

They will likely do a superb job with Katrina but it will take time.

FEMA is not a first responder although the Bush bashers will go on pretending that is its mission.

72

[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
I would have liked to see the middle class get a more substantial percentage of the tax cut, but the rich do pay an overwhelming percentage of our nations taxes and will get a big portion of any substantial cut.[/quote]

Not if the tax cuts are done properly. There’s no law that forces tax cuts to be across the board.

[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
I don’t know if the last tax cut was truly equitable or not. I do know it is better than the alternative, which was Al Gores tax increase. In his mind anyone that made over something like $ 35,000 a year was rich and would have had his taxes increased.[/quote]

Please don’t limit your imagination to what idiot politicians come up with. I’d have a pretty pathetic job if I did. Just because Al Gore never presented a better alternative it doesn’t mean there wasn’t one. And there was: cut taxes only for the middle and lower class, and leave the rest alone, but work harder on plugging loopholes and stopping tax evasion. In the end, you have the cake and eat it too: a better economy, even more money to curb the deficit and a happier working class.

Not really. Most of it went either to offshore accounts or to home flipping. Compare the number of times properties changed hands in hot markets – like Vegas, Phoenix, and San Francisco – with the population moves and you’ll see what I mean.

And, anyway, most boats rich people buy are not sold over here in the US… They’re made and sold somewhere else.

73

By the way, this page somehow rang connected to the whole “filthy rich” discussion, although it is done on a different plane:

http://slate.msn.com/id/3638/entry/23813/

More than the brilliance of Wehner’s piece, is the asinine and self-serving response of the Reverend that is interesting (and incredibly familiar! Seems like we have a lot of his fans around here!) and shows were much of the pseudo-rationale for continuing to feed the filthy rich comes from, even when it goes against fundamental beliefs (and reminds me of Gandhi’s comment: “I consider western Christianity in its practical working a negation of Christ?s Christianity.”)…

So what I’m reminding myself of, at this point, is of this other great quote:

“Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and annoys the pig.”

74

[quote]hspder wrote:

You’re right – and I never said to increase the tax bracket for rich people. What I said is that rich people should pay more tax – which can be achieved by way of cutting both loopholes and the crime of tax evasion.[/quote]

Good then, I couldn’t agree more.

[quote]I could, but then I’d have to kill you.

Now seriously, it’s part of a study that is not public. People pay a lot of money for these studies, don’t expect the source to just give it away. Fortunately Stanford has the budget to buy them… We have to do something with all that tuition money we charge… :wink:

However, I’m pretty sure these guys eventually release older studies to the general public, even if it’s only to show off how good they are. Both McKinsey Quarterly and the Economist are used as channels for that, so look around – but please expect 10-year old data.[/quote]

That may be true, but you’re going to have a hard time convincing people on this or any other web site by referring to statistics that almost nobody has access to.

I guess in 2015 we’ll know for sure whether or not you were right!

75

[quote]hspder wrote:
…

Please don’t limit your imagination to what idiot politicians come up with. I’d have a pretty pathetic job if I did. Just because Al Gore never presented a better alternative it doesn’t mean there wasn’t one. And there was: cut taxes only for the middle and lower class, and leave the rest alone, but work harder on plugging loopholes and stopping tax evasion. In the end, you have the cake and eat it too: a better economy, even more money to curb the deficit and a happier working class.
[/quote]

Short of running for office myself in 2000 (and I was a year too young) my only realistic choice was between Bush’s tax cuts and Gore’s tax increase. I would pick Bush’s plan every time.

I have no great love for the rich, but I am realistic enough to realize they wil always get more than their share. It seems every plan I have ever seen to soak the rich would end up hurting the little guy.

[quote]hspder wrote:

…

And, anyway, most boats rich people buy are not sold over here in the US… They’re made and sold somewhere else.
[/quote]

Remember the boat manufacturers fled the US when we implemented a luxury tax on them. The rich are still buying boats but the tax dollars and jobs are no longer in the US.
An excellent example of the little guy getting hurt.

76

[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
I have no great love for the rich, but I am realistic enough to realize they wil always get more than their share. It seems every plan I have ever seen to soak the rich would end up hurting the little guy.[/quote]

Again, don’t limit yourself to the stuff politicians come up with. Use your imagination, don’t just blindly follow. Remember that the idea behind our political system is not for politicians to have the ideas for us, it is for them to represent our ideas. And don’t come telling me it doesn’t work. I’m writing this from DC, and I was asked here exactly to provide ideas. The system works, if you’re willing and able to participate.

[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
Remember the boat manufacturers fled the US when we implemented a luxury tax on them. The rich are still buying boats but the tax dollars and jobs are no longer in the US.
An excellent example of the little guy getting hurt.[/quote]

You won’t get any argument from me on that one. Luxury taxes are pretty stupid, anyway you seem them. Even sillier than Sales Tax, which is very silly in itself, as I’ve said before.

77

[quote]Soco wrote:
This was a smart move on Bush’s part. As I said in a different thread, trying to place responsibility elsewhere can only backfire if you want to look presidential. Now that Bush has accepted responsibilty, the news media will focus on attacking other people.

As for the argument on taxation, I largely agree with hspder. The concentration of wealth within a small number of people is a bad idea. Not everyone comes from the same background and I think the government should takes steps to help those at the bottom of the ladder. Obviously a trade off is involved.

[/quote]

Why not make sure equality of opportunity exists instead of equality of outcome? It’s why so many immigrants prosper here instead of the repressive dictatorships or socialist hellholes they left.

Elevate the bottom of the ladder instead of pulling down the top. That’s what freedom and liberty is all about.

Big government cannot handle mundane tasks, it is inefficient at best.

What many psuedo intellectuals fail to tell you is that in an expanding economy the opportunity exists for all to prosper.

If you have a baby when you are a teen, drop out of school or choose drugs instead of a job you have made lifestyle choices that will keep you poor. If you study hard in school, get an education and keep your nose clean criminally and socially then the opportunity exists for you to get a good job and prosper. Environment is a factor but so is personal character and desire. Otherwise the absolutists would be right and clearly they are not.

78

[quote]reddog6376 wrote:
vroom wrote:
Reddog,

I think you are taking an overly simplistic view. When using the word “rich” I think it bears knowing the definition in order to have a reasonable discussion.

I disagree. Anytime you segregate anybody you’ve already screwed up. If you want things to be fair, then everybody should pay the same precentage. (Flat tax)

It just so happens that the “rich” are the ones that are most able to perform plenty of financial tricks, including offshore companies and so on, to minize their taxation and reported income. Which they do (legally) because the US tax system is so burdensome. Simplify and level it, and do away with all loopholes.

Making someone pay more is not a “penalty” unless it is perceived as a hardship by them. The actual percentage values are not a good indication of how much the tax bite hurts. I disagree. If one segment has to pay more than another segment, it is a punishment. Perception of the victims is irrelevent.

Perhaps another way to look at it is that maybe a fair way to pay taxes is to make it such that everyone earning money feels the same amount of pain. Doesn’t that sound fair?

Not at all. How do you measure pain financial pain? I’m a cheap bastard, so paying even $1 causes me excruciating pain, so I guess I’m excempt.

Anyway, just trying to point out some of the difficulties in this area. Simple percentages sound impressive and authoritative, but they aren’t always very useful.

Yes they are, and having everyone pay the same percentage is really the only fair solution.
[/quote]

In addition, it’s the wealthy who have created a majority of the jobs for the country. You can’t punish them for using the american capitalism system like it was meant to be. The government gives loans/grants/etc. to entice people to start their own businesses to stimulate the economy and create employment and the majority of the rich are either business owners or executives who have used the system the government set up. You can’t reward them on one hand and punish them on the other.

79

It just dawned on me that the same people that are completely lambasting the Government’s capability to handle this disaster expeditiously are the same group of liberals that want the Government to step in and deal with the Healthcare crisis.

Isn’t that false logic?

80

[quote]hspder wrote:
Zap Branigan wrote:
I have no great love for the rich, but I am realistic enough to realize they wil always get more than their share. It seems every plan I have ever seen to soak the rich would end up hurting the little guy.

Again, don’t limit yourself to the stuff politicians come up with. Use your imagination, don’t just blindly follow. Remember that the idea behind our political system is not for politicians to have the ideas for us, it is for them to represent our ideas. And don’t come telling me it doesn’t work. I’m writing this from DC, and I was asked here exactly to provide ideas. The system works, if you’re willing and able to participate.

Zap Branigan wrote:
Remember the boat manufacturers fled the US when we implemented a luxury tax on them. The rich are still buying boats but the tax dollars and jobs are no longer in the US.
An excellent example of the little guy getting hurt.

You won’t get any argument from me on that one. Luxury taxes are pretty stupid, anyway you seem them. Even sillier than Sales Tax, which is very silly in itself, as I’ve said before.[/quote]

When you put aside the partisan rhetoric it is amazing how much we actually agree on.

It is to bad that our two party system has become so divisive with an approach that was become almost all or nothing. Of course the major media has promoting this so it is too easy to fall into the trap.