isadore;1330290 wrote:gosh a ruddies
1945-1981 high tax rates on the rich and the tax revenue generated to keep the national debt consistently decreasing as a percentage of the the gdp.
then the reagan and bush tax cuts, tax cuts for the rich, slow the growth or even shrink tax revenue and the debt as as percentage of gdp grows meteorically.

Unparalleled ignorance.


Under Reagan and Bush we not only had substantial growth rates, we had HUGE increases in tax revenues to the treasury. As always, cuts in marginal rates led to dramatic increases in economic expansion and tax receipts. Unfortunately under the obama regime, we have massive tax increases, many hidden within obamaKare that we are just finding out about now, and we have further threats of major increases across the board. The result: no investment, no jobs, no growth. What a horrific record this president is bestowing on us, not counting his $6 trillion in new debt. It took us 232 years to get to $10 trillion in debt; it has taken obama just 3 1/2 years to increase that by another 60% --- all because of HUGE SPENDING INCREASES ---THAT IS CRIMINAL!!!

Get a mind; then get in the game.

BoatShoes;1329277 wrote:This post contains all of the WSJ scare tactics that have proven false over the last half-decade and it brings the lulz.

1. Where is the evidence that interest rates are going to rise (and even if this happened it would be expansionary as the dollar would depreciate and make exports more competitive).

2. Inflation is projected to run below the target rate for several years which is actually hurting us. Allowing inflation to run at Ronald Reagan levels would not destroy the middle class. On the contrary, it would be expansionary in the near term and ease the debt burden you complain about.

3. A crucial difference between your homeowner and Uncle Sam is that Uncle Sam can always pull dollars out of his pocket that he gets from his Uncle Fed to pay his creditors.

4. The Homeowner doesn't have assets and net worth many orders of magnitude greater than his debt that he owes like Uncle Sam.

5. The real interest rate is below zero and that is why inflation is not taking off when Uncle Ben turns on the presses.

The points have not been proven false over our history, as you well know. Rates will rise by default in order to entice future debt buyers, as you well know. Inflation will return with a vengeance, as you well know. When Uncle Sam magically pulls his dollars out of his pocket, that will signal the emergence of inflation which will be highly costly to the middle class; and it is indeed on its way, as you well know. Uncle Sam has 'net worth' --- funny, you obviously disregard the trillions in unfunded obligations kept 'off balance sheet' by your Uncle. And Benny is keeping rates artificially low in dramatic fashion (and can do so only because of European turmoil) priming the ultimate debt bubble from which there is no where to turn, as you well know.

Good luck.

QuakerOats;1330831 wrote:Unparalleled ignorance.


Under Reagan and Bush we not only had substantial growth rates, we had HUGE increases in tax revenues to the treasury. As always, cuts in marginal rates led to dramatic increases in economic expansion and tax receipts. Unfortunately under the obama regime, we have massive tax increases, many hidden within obamaKare that we are just finding out about now, and we have further threats of major increases across the board. The result: no investment, no jobs, no growth. What a horrific record this president is bestowing on us, not counting his $6 trillion in new debt. It took us 232 years to get to $10 trillion in debt; it has taken obama just 3 1/2 years to increase that by another 60% --- all because of HUGE SPENDING INCREASES ---THAT IS CRIMINAL!!!

Get a mind; then get in the game.

gosh a ruddies you suffer from extreme case of cognitive dissonance. for anyone with an IQ above room temperature it is obvious that the Reagan and Bush tax cuts produced our enormous deficits and Bush economic policies produced the greatest economic calamity in 70 years.

isadore;1330861 wrote:gosh a ruddies you suffer from extreme case of cognitive dissonance. for anyone with an IQ above room temperature it is obvious that the Reagan and Bush tax cuts produced our enormous deficits and Bush economic policies produced the greatest economic calamity in 70 years.

Massive government SPENDING has caused this economic calamity. It's really, really simple math that esacpes ultra-leftists like yourself.

But we do have an a gosh a ruddies African-Amerikan prez who will no doubt save the day....

believer;1330916 wrote:Massive government SPENDING has caused this economic calamity. It's really, really simple math that esacpes ultra-leftists like yourself.

But we do have an a gosh a ruddies African-Amerikan prez who will no doubt save the day....

gosh a ruddies what our first African American President realized about the debt was that the great increases in our debt in the last thirty years have been tied directly to cuts in tax rates to the rich. And being the great leader he is, Obama is pushing for tax raises for the rich. No wonder the majority of voters in the past election voted for him.

Tax raises won't do shit. Any increase in revenue will be spent before it gets there.

isadore;1330861 wrote:for anyone with an IQ above room temperature it is obvious

Power company shut-off your heat again?

higher taxes on the rich will help solve our debt problem.

isadore;1330933 wrote:higher taxes on the rich will help solve our debt problem.

Not even possible.

isadore;1330933 wrote:higher taxes on the rich will help solve our debt problem.

No, but dropping a zero from the dollar will, at least temporarily.

QuakerOats;1330841 wrote:Uncle Sam has 'net worth' --- funny, you obviously disregard the trillions in unfunded obligations kept 'off balance sheet' by your Uncle.

Only gonna address a bit of this silliness.

1. The "Unfunded Liabilities" Meme.

Have you set aside all of your future costs for health insurance, retirement and long-term care in old age? No. You may hope to save enough to transfer this cost onto an insurance company etc. when you get older but they haven't or won't have set aside all that cash either. When you sit and think about it that way it is silly.

The problem is the current rapid inflation in healthcare costs...not presently unfunded healthcare costs. We will be able to pay those costs in the future from future growth if we can bring down healthcare costs in line with economic growth. And, believe it or not, Obamacare (which Romney would've passed too if he'd won in '08 because it was a decent, conservative approach to the problem) has slowed healthcare inflation a bit with more to come as we learn more from its pay-for-value pilot programs, etc.

The "unfunded liabilities" meme is simply a scare tactic to rally support for placing all of those unfunded future costs onto individuals on their own through rather than on society when we dismantle social insurance. Those future costs don't just disappear when you voucherize or dismantle medicare...they just shift to the beneficiaries or private insurers (and actually divert from growth more because these institutions are worse at cost control than medicare).

The only way to get "rid" of these future costs is if the singularity happens and we all become cyborgs or we institute REAL death panels. Or, something along those lines.

We need to do a much better job of matching projected growth with those "liabilities"...but the fact that we're going to be paying for retirees and sick people in the future should neither surprise nor scare anyone.

If we had the healthcare costs of France we'd be looking at perpetual budget surpluses down the road once we got back to full employment.

I mean, we're going to have to spend trillions of dollars in the future to defend our nation...soldiers, tanks, flying aircraft carriers, millenium falcons, etc. Is the Wall Street Journal Editorial page demanding that we slash defense spending now, now, now because of the future defense spending that we haven't accounted for now, now, now!?!?

"Americans must be personally responsible for their own defense and arm themselves as this is the path to freedom and entrepreneurial vigor!"

gut;1330955 wrote:No, but dropping a zero from the dollar will, at least temporarily.

True and then we need to print plenty of them.

isadore;1330933 wrote:higher taxes on the rich will help solve our debt problem.

Only people who failed math in school believe this.

math solution to our budget problem based on over a half century of experience
since 1945 high taxes on rich=decreasing national debt
cut taxes on rich = increasing national debt

gut;1330679 wrote:Which is why the Repubs should give Obama his lame tax increases and then with the economy still in the shitter and $1T+ deficits drop the hammer with the "told you so".

When Obama tries to pretend a $100-200B tax increase on the rich will make much of a dent in the deficit I want to say "how stupid does Obama think people are?" But, of course, Obama doesn't think people are stupid he knows it. Hell, it had to be true or he never would have gotten re-elected.

I'm in this boat. Raise the tax and see what happens; it won't fix anything.

isadore;1331068 wrote:math solution to our budget problem based on over a half century of experience
since 1945 high taxes on rich=decreasing national debt
cut taxes on rich = increasing national debt

You are factually incorrect in this statement, the national debt did not decrease "since 1945".

You once again, failed math.

jmog;1331210 wrote:You are factually incorrect in this statement, the national debt did not decrease "since 1945".

You once again, failed math.

It did decrease as a percentage of gdp which is what I think he means and what is important...

Facts nothing but the facts ....

Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers warned in a 2010 paper, “tax increases appear to have a very large, sustained, and highly significant negative impact on output.”
Raising taxes is risky when economic growth is barely above recession levels. Gross Domestic Product is hobbling along at an estimated 2 percent annualized growth, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Even this anemic figure may be optimistic, given October’s sharp downward revision of last quarter’s estimated growth from 1.7 percent to 1.3 percent.
During Obama’s first term, the debt grew by $5 trillion. This was not because revenues fell: The Office of Management and Budget estimates that this year’s revenues are about $278 billion greater than in 2009, and total revenues since 2009 have exceeded $9 trillion; the problem is that President Obama spent $5 trillion more than this — more than $14 trillion.
Tax hikes may reduce the debt by 1 percent or 2 percent, as CBO projects, or they may backfire, tipping us back into recession. The only sure way to reduce the debt is to cut spending.

http://www.humanevents.com/2012/11/27/larochelle-will-ending-tax-cuts-for-the-rich-reduce-the-debt/

jmog;1331210 wrote:You are factually incorrect in this statement, the national debt did not decrease "since 1945".

You once again, failed math.

with high taxes it did decrease

1946

$269,422,099,173

1947

$258,286,383,109

1948

$252,292,246,510 and has decreased consistently with high taxes on the rich as compared to gdp http://www.davemanuel.com/history-of-debt-in-the-united-states.php

BoatShoes;1331220 wrote:It did decrease as a percentage of gdp which is what I think he means and what is important...

That is not what he said, so he was wrong.

Also, why is that important? The debt is owed by the US government, GDP is not owned by the US government. So why do we compare the debt to GDP instead of debt to income (tax revenues) like a normal person does?

isadore;1331345 wrote:with high taxes it did decrease

It's a nice theory, but again you ignore the reality of what is really driving things. The govt still only collects about 18% of GDP regardless of what the tax rates have been. So revenue growth is correlated mainly with GDP growth, not tax rates. This means, again, that the deficit/debt over the longer term is driven exclusively by changes in spending.

One simple graph proves isadore wrong, since he likes to go with things vs GDP....

http://www.deptofnumbers.com/misc/debt-revenue-and-expenditures-as-a-fraction-of-gdp/

Halfway down the page look at the graph labeled "Government Receipts and Expenditures as a Fraction of GDP"

No matter the tax rates over the years the revenues vs GDP has pretty much been constant, hovering between 15-20% mostly around 17-18%. So change the taxes all you want, you won't bring in more money (as % of GDP).

The problem is obvious to anyone who can pass a math class, up until the late 60s/early 70s spending as a % of GDP was always about the same as revenues. Then all the sudden (and it is even wose now) no one cared anymore and boom, spending has been consistantly above 20% ever since (25% now).

We are currently bringing in our "average" of around 17-18% of GDP, so tax revenues is not the problem. But math with graphs always did cause many people problems for some reason.

BoatShoes;1330993 wrote:Only gonna address a bit of this silliness.

1. The "Unfunded Liabilities" Meme.

Have you set aside all of your future costs for health insurance, retirement and long-term care in old age? No. You may hope to save enough to transfer this cost onto an insurance company etc. when you get older but they haven't or won't have set aside all that cash either. When you sit and think about it that way it is silly.

The "unfunded liabilities" meme is simply a scare tactic to rally support for placing all of those unfunded future costs onto individuals on their own through rather than on society when we dismantle social insurance. Those future costs don't just disappear when you voucherize or dismantle medicare...they just shift to the beneficiaries or private insurers (and actually divert from growth more because these institutions are worse at cost control than medicare).

I invite you to read yesterday's piece in the WSJ by Messrs Cox and Archer where they raise the issue of the government hiding the reality of our true debt, which is actually an astounding $86 trillion, and completely unreported on the treasury's balance sheet. This of course is the complete opposite of what the government forces the rest of us to report, AND FUND, in a transparent and actuarially sound basis. Amazing, isn't it. We have to fund our pensions, the government does not. We have to report to our employees our funding status, the government hides the reality from The People.

$86 trillion train wreck, and your boy remains clueless. Kick the can; pass the pinot grigio.

Change we can believe in ...

jmog;1331426 wrote:One simple graph proves isadore wrong, since he likes to go with things vs GDP....

http://www.deptofnumbers.com/misc/debt-revenue-and-expenditures-as-a-fraction-of-gdp/

Halfway down the page look at the graph labeled "Government Receipts and Expenditures as a Fraction of GDP"

No matter the tax rates over the years the revenues vs GDP has pretty much been constant, hovering between 15-20% mostly around 17-18%. So change the taxes all you want, you won't bring in more money (as % of GDP).

The problem is obvious to anyone who can pass a math class, up until the late 60s/early 70s spending as a % of GDP was always about the same as revenues. Then all the sudden (and it is even wose now) no one cared anymore and boom, spending has been consistantly above 20% ever since (25% now).

We are currently bringing in our "average" of around 17-18% of GDP, so tax revenues is not the problem. But math with graphs always did cause many people problems for some reason.

gosh a ruddies when you look at that chart what you see is when the tax cut come in the last 30 years and revenues decline as a % of gdp, our debt climbs. But gosh when those taxes go up to 20% of gdp our deficit comes down. raise taxes on the rich.