It's easy to get a liberal to admit our growing debt is a problem. It's the solution we differ on.
Like the Miller Lite commercials (Tastes Great! Less Filling!) Conservatives and liberals shout at one another, "More Taxes!" "Less Spending!"
Here's Uber lib Michael Tomasky making the case for taxing the rich (and inadvertently blowing it) :
If wealthy Americans were paying taxes at the rate they did 50 years ago, says former Clinton labour secretary Robert Reich, the government would be taking in $350bn more a year: budget woes over. (Michael Tomasky – Guardian)Hahahahahahahahaha! "budget woes over?" Hardly! 350 billion would barely make a dent in Obama's 1.5 Trillion annual deficits. Tomasky just proved the opposite: We cannot put our fiscal house in order by gouging the rich.
Thanks Michael! And Thanks Robert Reich for blowing a humongous hole in your Soak The Rich argument!
When Winning Really Isn't Winning
Liberals were crowing about knocking off a conservative Wisconsin state supreme court justice, and the liberal candidate who stupidly declared victory before the votes were counted now has egg on her face.
The ballot count now shows the conservative incumbent with a probably insurmountable lead. The results are not yet final, but even if the liberal Kloppenburg somehow wins, it is still not a liberal victory
Consider: This election was held in the afterglow of the Madison liberal loon lollapalooza, the rage-filled teacher marches, trashing the capitol and protesting those union-busting meanies in the GOP who have the temerity to look after the interests of the taxpayer. This election had an unprecedented turnout thanks to millions in union money and the rank and file marching in lockstep to the polling place.
And what does the left have to show for it? 50%. Only 50% in the deep blue union stronghold of Wisconsin. This is their high water mark. Liberalism is a spent force in Wisconsin. Sean Trend breaks down the numbers.
Finally, if those two little tidbits didn't start your weekend on a lighthearted note, this will: Uncoached - 10 Great Vintage Miller Lite Commercials
17 comments:
Liberals on fiscal policy are no different than a 20 year old who wants another credit card to pay his debts. The first step of any sane person is to cut spending.
Absolutely, Trestin!
The A Conservative Teacher has a post out that shows if you taxed the at 100% (they'd be long gone) it still wouldn't begin to cover Obama's deficits.
Reich is not talking about budget woes or the deficiet as I read it, he is talking about more spending and disregarding any calls for cutting any spending.
As to the SC race in WI, this made my day yesterday.
Aye Aye Silverfiddle. Wisconsin produced one of the most beautiful moments in recent history yesterday, assuming it sticks.
First of all, as I reminded Tygrrrr today...
A wealthy suburb of Milwaukee suddenly discovers it has more than enough votes to close a tight race - more votes than the number of households in the whole city, and more than enough to turn it.
Nobody got clocked (Tygrrrr wrote that Kloppenburg got "clocked" - nice pun, no point). That’s the whole point. It was a tight race. Yes Brookfield would go right, but the sheer number of votes, and the balance of them, demands investigation. If it’s clean, well, then Brookfielders are very active Republicans who need a better county clerk. If it’s dirty, then the clerk is up a creek and not alone. ...
I've looked into it and I think the whole thing is fishy.
Kloppenburg may have lost, but not by that much. It's doesn't fit the way the election went until that particular set of votes were discovered.
As for taxes...
Going back to any random historic rates would be stupid. Rates must be contextually adjusted as necessary. It is a prime requisite of republican governance. 50 years ago is a wierd choice too, because that's when we began to see the reversal of the WWII rates. I just don't see the analogy. We don't have rates or brackets or any other schemes that look anything like that today!
That all said, I, and many more important people than little ol' me, believe we should make the rates more progressive than they are today.
From my point of view, I will never understand the argument against taking the cap off the SS tax. If you don't like SS, then fine. Repeal it.
But if you believe in fairness, and you recognize that SS is the law and as part of that law requires a tax, why would you want the tax to be specifically regressive - the rich paying a far, far, far lower rate than the middle class, the working class, and the working poor?
This is an important question. Can any of you answer me that?
Why can't you guys get the GOP to back off on the ridiculously expensive standing army?
We have the most advanced military skills and technology on the planet.
Why do we need a 4,000,000 million boot army?
If you think spending is the problem, why do you fuss over stupid crap like a couple percentage points of tax rates here and there?
Shouldn't we pay our bills?
Shouldn't those who can more easily afford it pay their share of the bills for the nation that gave them the opportunity to make that dough in the first place?
JMJ
@ Jersey: "more votes than the number of households in the whole city, and more than enough to turn it."
You are wrong. No one is saying there are too many votes. The number of votes matches registration numbers.
I agree that this should be investigated, if for no other reason than to put the whiny, sour grapes nutball conspiracy theories to rest.
As for tax policy, ho hum. I only brought it up because I found Tomasky's error to be so glaring, and hilarious.
Most Reverend,
Jesus was not a laizzez faire capitalist.
Silver,
Try to factually refute any factual point I factually made.
Really. I dare you.
JMJ
>Jesus was not a laizzez faire capitalist.
You're right. On the other hand, if you mean "laissez faire," then you would be wrong (as always, of course). Jesus was, is, and always will be, the most dedicated supporter of liberty in the universe. If you had even a minor understanding of the New Testament, you would know that Jesus taught very explicitly that actions are only "good" when they are done voluntarily. A society that is not, at least to a significant degree, laissez faire in its approach to the absolute rights of each individual to his or her life, liberty, and property, is antithetical to Christ's gospel. Jesus' harshest words were directed toward the regulators of the day. The more regulatory (Pharisaical) a government becomes, the more mutually exclusive it and Christianity (or any real act of good) become.
I am not surprised Jones favors progressive taxation; he is, after all, a product of progressive education and cant. When you read several blogs daily, you find remarkably similar leftist responses to news issues, particularly on the topic of taxes and now, Ryan’s plan to reduce government spending. The leftist mantra has wide margins, ranging from the ludicrous to the sublime: no republican will ever oppose corporate interests, the GOP hasn’t created any jobs in the past four months, and the GOP is only interested in denying the right of women to abort their babies.
It is worrisome to me that anyone can be so pathetically under-educated. Democrats controlled the House from 2006 to 2010; Democrats didn’t do a damn thing to head off economic collapse, including the disintegration of the housing market; in fact, they did everything within their power to accelerate it. They had the assistance of George Bush in the doing of it. Since 2007, it has been Obama’s plan to make “fundamental changes” to the United States of America. As it turns out, he was not kidding about that.
For those who claim the GOP hasn’t done anything (in four months) to create jobs, let us recall for the umpteenth time that government doesn't create jobs: the private sector does that. Government can only provide an environment conducive to business growth —or it’s opposite. The GOP began to do that when they forced Obama to extend the Bush tax cuts. The fact is that it will take longer to undo the Democrat’s mess than it did to create it.
Among the leftists who argue that we aren’t taxing the rich enough, have they forgotten the revelation ten days ago that friend of Obama (FOO) Jeffrey Immelt and GE paid NO TAXES whatsoever? Stop the demagoguery. Stop pretending unborn children have no rights, or that curtailment of this kind of unconstitutional spending will destroy America. Just the opposite is true.
OK Jersey, here's the factual facts and the factoring factoids who factually factor them in:
JS Online - Brookfield's Totals, Turnout are Consistent.
The new figures put the total vote in the city of Brookfield at 14,315. Brookfield has a voting-age population in the 2010 census of 29,007. So that would make its April 5 turnout equal to 49.4% of voting-age adults.
For the record, I just did your homework for you Jersey. The burden falls upon the the person leveling the nutball charge.
Bastiat,
Like most atheists, I am more familiar with the Bible than most Christians.
You have a weirdly twisted view of Jesus. His argument with the Pharisees had nothing whatsoever to do with their regulatory powers. That's just silliness.
Jesus was a firm believer in the separation of church and state and that the state was by the will of the people. Given everything else he taught, it can only be asserted that he believed a government of man should behave righteously just as should man. There's nothing righteous about laizzez faire neo-liberalism. It is the ol' sleazy search for a superior moral justification for selfishness, as Galbraith said, and there's certainly nothing Christian about that.
Mustang,
Nice sleazy insult-argument there. Growing up in the NYC area as a kid, I attended some of the finest schools in the country. I also had the personal advantage of being born to erudite parents, and not anti-intellectual yahoos.
Silver,
Yet another sleazy argument, huh? Can any of you argue like honest adults?
I did the research, genious. Like I said - THE TOTAL VOTES FROM THE CITY WERE GREATER THAN THE NUMBER OF HOUSEHOLDS. Did you miss where I wrote that yesterday? I was making the point that it is an awful lot of votes and a awful lot for the lowlife scum they went to.
JMJ
Jersey:
I didn't call your unfounded assertion a sleazy argument, I called it a "whiny, sour grapes nutball conspiracy theory," because, as the facts stand right now, it is!
I gave you a link to a Milwaukee newspaper that has shown your numbers to be flat out, absolutely wrong. Turnout was half the voting age population, which tracks with the voting history of that suburb.
RE: "Here's Uber lib Michael Tomasky making the case for taxing the rich.."
...odd, peculiar...
Here's respected conservative Ben Stein saying the same thing...
BB: I don't care who makes the case, the math still doesn't add up.
As I said earlier in the thread, I am not arguing tax policy, merely pointing out what a ridiculous statement Tomasky made.
>Like most atheists, I am more familiar with the Bible than most Christians.
Wow. I didn't think that even you were enough of a goofball to say something that obviously ridiculous.
>You have a weirdly twisted view of Jesus. His argument with the Pharisees had nothing whatsoever to do with their regulatory powers.
Except for that whole thing about making the Law of Moses a burden on everyone by adding volumes of regulations that were never intended to be part of it as originally given.
>There's nothing righteous about laizzez faire neo-liberalism.
So, you're saying that there's nothing righteous about allowing people to make their own decisions and run their own lives? Hmmm...typical. You're into the slavery thing. You hate and/or fear liberty, especially when other people have it.
You may have flipped through the Bible a bit, but you clearly haven't actually studied it or understood the doctrines in the least if you're not aware of one of the clearest core themes that permeates the Gospels as well as the other historical books and the epistles, that of the attempt of Jesus and the apostles to shift the people AWAY from the micromanaging, highly regulated late-Mosaic law to the Gospel law, which provided basic principles and expected people to then voluntarily do the things that they were supposed to do. External coercion toward "righteousness" was and is offensive to Christ, and is antithetical to the entire doctrine of Christianity. Someone who had read the Bible with basic understanding would know something that basic.
My vote is for the Miller Lite girls. :)
Seriously though, i'm all for rich liberals to cough and splutter for all the spending programs they're always caterwauling for, but we all know their definition of 'rich' usually turns out to be people running small businesses and employing people.
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