Reagan Speaks to Us Again

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
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[quote]John S. wrote:First I will start with your last point, I am not trying to convince anyone. You are beyond reach and I have looked at the alternatives and the Free market is the only way to go, this is no reasurance topic for me.

We will then begin with taxes and by the end of this maybe you will see why raising taxes are bad…[/quote]

Before I get into this, let me just clarify: I’m not trying to make a case for higher taxes. I generally think taxes should be kept as low as practical. Now you and I may have different ideas of what is “practical,” but that’s beside the point. What I am saying is:

A) specifically, that Reagan’s tax cuts were not responsible for doubling tax revenues, since that happens every decade whether taxes are low, high, or sideways (and besides, real growth of receipts slowed under his administration), and

B)that lowering taxes, just like you would expect, tends to lower revenue. This is not necessarily a bad thing (incidentally, you’ll find that I make few value judgements on this forum).

Now the bulk of your post is a reiteration of the idea that increases in income tax rates decrease incentive to work, and therefore work. But this is false. It may decrease the incentive to work, but that is not at all the same as actually reducing the quantity or quality of work a person does. When you think about it, the whole idea seems very silly. Who ever says “well, my income tax rate went up 3%! I’m cutting back to 30 hours a week!” Even if people did say this, many have little choice in the matter. The middle and working classes have been having a rough time for years (barring the consumption binge we recently experienced, which I think you would agree was largely a result of fictitious wealth), and could little afford to reduce their work. The only class able to do this is the upper class, and the higher you go, the easier your tax burden tends to get, roughly speaking. Not only that, but a lot of these people, especially the super-wealthy, are very ambitious, type-A personalities, who pursue their work regardless of the tax rate.

At any rate, broadly speaking, this classic myth simply doesn’t hold up to scrutiny.

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I don’t want to assume. If you’re saying I am a bully or that I “attack the intellect and character of my opponents,” I want you point out where. Otherwise, I don’t want to hear anything else about liberals who only insult their opponents, or can’t substantiate their argument.

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I am seeing why we are seeing two different thing when we look at the graphs. You want big governmetn so therefor want them to have tons of money, while I want a small government but my government would still have a ton of money.

We need to look at government exependatures when we compare the data.

High taxes retard economic growth, that is not me saying that, that is that evil “right wing” president JFK.

If we take a look after the collapse in 1920(caused by the fed) at the end of 1921 unemployment was at 1.8%. Now this is far below natural rate of unemployment but the government is needing to spend far less money on welfare programs and the likes. Now add to the fact that revenue increased also you can see that my government does just fine.

Now lets take a look at the 1930’s, now I am not saying that you would have done exactly what FDR did but you propose a lot of government envolvment, government envolvement led to the depression dragging on. But I will say that it did provide immediate relief for people.

It really comes down to view on governmet, that is why we see taxes two completely different ways.

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I love this :slight_smile: Reagan loses again :slight_smile:

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[quote]pittbulll wrote:

I love this :slight_smile: Reagan loses again :)[/quote]

Yeah because that liberal congress never got in Reagans way once. How is the cherry picking going?

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[quote]John S. wrote:

[quote]pittbulll wrote:

I love this :slight_smile: Reagan loses again :)[/quote]

Yeah because that liberal congress never got in Reagans way once. How is the cherry picking going?[/quote]

Oh those liberals, always holding the republicans down.

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[quote]John S. wrote:

[quote]pittbulll wrote:

I love this :slight_smile: Reagan loses again :)[/quote]

Yeah because that liberal congress never got in Reagans way once. How is the cherry picking going?[/quote]

Excuses, excuses ,excuses,:slight_smile:

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[quote]John S. wrote:
I am seeing why we are seeing two different thing when we look at the graphs. You want big governmetn so therefor want them to have tons of money, while I want a small government but my government would still have a ton of money.[/quote]

Allow me to quote my post just two posts above yours:

“Before I get into this, let me just clarify: I’m not trying to make a case for higher taxes. I generally think taxes should be kept as low as practical. Now you and I may have different ideas of what is “practical,” but that’s beside the point.”

No, we don’t. The point had nothing to do with expenditures, only revenues.

You’re going to have to define “high,” because it’s certainly not true in general, i.e., it’s not true that a lower tax rate will always cause more economic growth than a higher one. There’s actually evidence that higher taxes can increase economic growth.

Now once again, I am not trying to make any kind of a normative statement, but it seems to me like your whole argument is an attempt to justify the conclusion you want to draw: taxes should be lower. In order to do this, you attempt to prove that lower taxes stimulate economic growth, and while I won’t argue that it can, that in no way means that it always does. What I am saying, on the contrary, is that your factual assertions are incorrect. Not that your sentiments are misplaced.

The whole point is, we are making different arguments. This is shown by the fact that you continually attempt to put words in my mouth, to portray me as someone who wants higher taxes. Because you are trying to make a positive argument to support a normative conclusion, you assume that I am also attempting to justify a normative conclusion, which is not the case. My noting that lower taxes frequently means lower revenue does not at all suggest that I have any sort of problem with lower revenues, or that revenue maximization is the goal.

Yes, it does come down to our views on government, but not quite the way you think.

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john, please read this. when the author refers to “today” he means 1988. reagan’s fiscal conservatism is a myth.

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[quote]thefederalist wrote:

john, please read this. when the author refers to “today” he means 1988. reagan’s fiscal conservatism is a myth.[/quote]

I am not saying Reagan walked on water, and even tho I am a mises follower they are not laying the blame of the government spending at the correct persons feet, which would be the congress.

Did Reagan do some things I did not agree with sure, but is his message what I agree with. Absolutly.

What I am impressed with him the most is that revenue to the government went from 500 billion to 1.1 trillion and the standard of living for the vast majority of america(unless you where a steel worker) went up greatly. We had an economic boom that was for the most part not caused by a bubble.(I say for the most part because when military spending should have went down after the cold war there would have been some pull back).

7 of Reagans 8 years he proposed spending cuts, the only year he didn’t was when we did our big military investment to end the cold war.

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[quote]Ryan P. McCarter wrote:

[quote]John S. wrote:
I am seeing why we are seeing two different thing when we look at the graphs. You want big governmetn so therefor want them to have tons of money, while I want a small government but my government would still have a ton of money.[/quote]

Allow me to quote my post just two posts above yours:

“Before I get into this, let me just clarify: I’m not trying to make a case for higher taxes. I generally think taxes should be kept as low as practical. Now you and I may have different ideas of what is “practical,” but that’s beside the point.”

No, we don’t. The point had nothing to do with expenditures, only revenues.

You’re going to have to define “high,” because it’s certainly not true in general, i.e., it’s not true that a lower tax rate will always cause more economic growth than a higher one. There’s actually evidence that higher taxes can increase economic growth.

Now once again, I am not trying to make any kind of a normative statement, but it seems to me like your whole argument is an attempt to justify the conclusion you want to draw: taxes should be lower. In order to do this, you attempt to prove that lower taxes stimulate economic growth, and while I won’t argue that it can, that in no way means that it always does. What I am saying, on the contrary, is that your factual assertions are incorrect. Not that your sentiments are misplaced.

The whole point is, we are making different arguments. This is shown by the fact that you continually attempt to put words in my mouth, to portray me as someone who wants higher taxes. Because you are trying to make a positive argument to support a normative conclusion, you assume that I am also attempting to justify a normative conclusion, which is not the case. My noting that lower taxes frequently means lower revenue does not at all suggest that I have any sort of problem with lower revenues, or that revenue maximization is the goal.

Yes, it does come down to our views on government, but not quite the way you think.
[/quote]

Lets take a look at revenue shall we? This is where I think we are having our biggest missunderstanding.

Lets say your government costs 2 trillion to operate, where mine costs 500 billion.

You bring in 2 trillion dollars where I bring in 600 billion. At the end of the year I have 100 billion left over you have 0. So at the end of the day which government has more money? Even if we do not agree on this point we can agree on the next point.

When Reagan cut taxes in a ten year span federal revenue increased from 500 billion to 1.1 trillion.

The example I really like is Coolidge. With him brought in the roaring 20’s(now the fed made the roaring 20’s a little more roaring then they should have been but everything went fine till they shrunk the money supply to 30% for some strange reason). 1.8% unemployment happened under him now we both know this is well below natural rate(and will not last for to long under natural rate) but I think it stands to show that my way works wonders.

We have a lot of posters on this site that visit this forum that where alive when Carter and Reagan where in office, you should ask them if there lives improved more under Carter or Reagan.

Now myself I am a fan of the fair tax, because I truely believe that is the one tax that will shrink government down to size in a hurry.

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[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]John S. wrote:

…We have a lot of posters on this site that visit this forum that where alive when Carter and Reagan where in office, you should ask them if there lives improved more under Carter or Reagan…

[/quote]I’m one of those guys.

Life under Carter was relatively miserable for a couple or more reasons:

  1. He was a miserably stupid, arrogant, ineffective estrogen soaked individual.

  2. The chickens came home to roost as a result of the ridiculous Great Society spending of Johnson, Nixon and Ford. (Ford didn’t really cause it; he just went along with what was already rolling along)

Having said those nice things about Carter I think Johnson might have been the most worthless, harmful president of the last 100 years although he’d get stiff competition from Wilson and FDR.

[/quote]

Oh , I love it did you even pay attention to the link I posted , since the second world war the amount that each tax payer owed was going down until you hit REAGAN and inclined until Clinton , then after Clinton it resumed itâ??d climb again . Life was good for the Steel worker under Carter, I was a young adult. How old were you?

I do not think there are many here qualified to speak on the State of the nation, during Carter and probably not many qualified under Reagan. Under Reagan I went from a good paying job to competing with Illegal immigrants for a dayâ??s wage .

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[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]pittbulll wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]John S. wrote:

…We have a lot of posters on this site that visit this forum that where alive when Carter and Reagan where in office, you should ask them if there lives improved more under Carter or Reagan…

[/quote]I’m one of those guys.

Life under Carter was relatively miserable for a couple or more reasons:

  1. He was a miserably stupid, arrogant, ineffective estrogen soaked individual.

  2. The chickens came home to roost as a result of the ridiculous Great Society spending of Johnson, Nixon and Ford. (Ford didn’t really cause it; he just went along with what was already rolling along)

Having said those nice things about Carter I think Johnson might have been the most worthless, harmful president of the last 100 years although he’d get stiff competition from Wilson and FDR.

[/quote]

Oh , I love it did you even pay attention to the link I posted , since the second world war the amount that each tax payer owed was going down until you hit REAGAN and inclined until Clinton , then after Clinton it resumed it�¢??d climb again . Life was good for the Steel worker under Carter, I was a young adult. How old were you?

I do not think there are many here qualified to speak on the State of the nation, during Carter and probably not many qualified under Reagan. Under Reagan I went from a good paying job to competing with Illegal immigrants for a day�¢??s wage . [/quote]

Well, Pittcow, I wasn’t entirely sure the focus of this thread was supposed to be on lil ol you.

FYI, I was 16 - 20 during Jellyfish Carter’s administration.[/quote]

Well pushitharderupyourass itâ??s not about me, it is about the worst President America has known RONALD RAGAN :slight_smile:

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[quote]pittbulll wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]pittbulll wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]John S. wrote:

…We have a lot of posters on this site that visit this forum that where alive when Carter and Reagan where in office, you should ask them if there lives improved more under Carter or Reagan…

[/quote]I’m one of those guys.

Life under Carter was relatively miserable for a couple or more reasons:

  1. He was a miserably stupid, arrogant, ineffective estrogen soaked individual.

  2. The chickens came home to roost as a result of the ridiculous Great Society spending of Johnson, Nixon and Ford. (Ford didn’t really cause it; he just went along with what was already rolling along)

Having said those nice things about Carter I think Johnson might have been the most worthless, harmful president of the last 100 years although he’d get stiff competition from Wilson and FDR.

[/quote]

Oh , I love it did you even pay attention to the link I posted , since the second world war the amount that each tax payer owed was going down until you hit REAGAN and inclined until Clinton , then after Clinton it resumed it�?�¢??d climb again . Life was good for the Steel worker under Carter, I was a young adult. How old were you?

I do not think there are many here qualified to speak on the State of the nation, during Carter and probably not many qualified under Reagan. Under Reagan I went from a good paying job to competing with Illegal immigrants for a day�?�¢??s wage . [/quote]

Well, Pittcow, I wasn’t entirely sure the focus of this thread was supposed to be on lil ol you.

FYI, I was 16 - 20 during Jellyfish Carter’s administration.[/quote]

Well pushitharderupyourass itâ??s not about me, it is about the worst President America has known RONALD RAGAN :)[/quote]

Isn’t there talk about putting Ronald’s head onto Mount Rushmore? Why would they talk about that for the worst President ever? Some are now talking about Obama, but until he is out of office that talk is crap. 20 years after Reagan and they are talking about it means a lot.

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Ryan P Mcarter. Respect dude.

some serious ownage going on in this thread. doesent seem like u get too much credit on here, but i enjoy reading ur posts and hope u keep em coming.

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[quote]whatever2k wrote:
Ryan P Mcarter. Respect dude.

some serious ownage going on in this thread. doesent seem like u get too much credit on here, but i enjoy reading ur posts and hope u keep em coming.[/quote]

What are your thoughts on the subject? It is one thing to agree, but another to put what you think down on the interwebz. Join in the topic.

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[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]pittbulll wrote:

…it is about the worst President America has known RONALD RAGAN :)[/quote]

Don’t forget to also tell everyone once again that you’re a libertarian.[/quote]

I am not a libertarian , I do think their philosophy would be best in some cases