The Obama Presidency - 2008 & 2012

[lungs]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Oh yeah, go up the thread however far & you'll find me cautioning against anything more than a temporary celebration on the morning after.

Yep...

FWIW, I'd love to see your complete list of RINOs in the Senate

[molson]

Originally Posted by Ronnie Dobbs2

The politicians who piss off the D and R bases are my favorite kind.

It warms my heart whenever I see any variation/mix of Ds/Rs in the Yes/No congressional votes (until I get all cynical and realize that even those votes are likely just "swapped" for some other political favor).

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by lungs

Yep...

FWIW, I'd love to see your complete list of RINOs in the Senate

I try not to keep a list ... could be used as evidence against me someday

[flere-imsaho]

Originally Posted by Arles

I don't think George W Bush was against the Peace Corps (he certainly did his fair share of nation building)

The Peace Corps were already in place in 2000. Did Bush support or oppose similar types of activities? Not to mention there's a world of difference between the type of nation building envisioned by the Peace Corps (bottom-up) and Bush's neocon foreign policy (top-down re-creation of government structures enabling the spread of free market democracy).

federal funds for education (he spent a ton there - remember no child left behind?)

NCLB? You mean Unfunded Mandates R Us?

and he certainly wasn't for racial segregation.

That civil rights bus had left the station by 2000. The best comparison would be gay rights. Tell me, was Bush as active on these as Kennedy was on civil rights for blacks?

So, it comes down to him banning the death penalty in DC (something Bush never tried to overturn)

Kennedy took an active step to ban the death penalty where he could. Bush's record as Governor of Texas should speak for itself on this topic.

and spending government money to prop up the economy

Kennedy specifically believed in government intervention to stimulate the economy. Bush had to be convinced to consider spending specifically for this purpose, and only agreed when he was in the last throes of his presidency.

(Bush competed with Obama in that area of massive spending).

New spending on Afghanistan, Iraq and Medicare Part D still dwarf the total of new spending initiatives introduced under Obama.

Throw in both wanting to massively cut income taxes during a recessions

Context. Kennedy brought the top rate from something like 90% to 70%, while Bush brought it from the high to mid-30s. There's a world of difference here that you're not seeing.

and being very hawkish when it came to world foe (Al Quada for Bush and Soviet Union for JFK) and I'm struggling to find much of a difference between the two on anything substantive.

First of all, there's a huge difference between a state actor like the Soviet Union and a non-state actor like Al Qaeda. Secondly, Kennedy actively engaged his foe with diplomacy, while maintaining a hawkish stance. The Bush administration actively avoided diplomacy, even with state actors at one or two removes from Al Qaeda itself. A completely different approach.

Now, there are certainly other quotes that are more platitude-based and up Obama's alley - but if you look at the comments that shaped his policies on personal responsibility/welfare, foreign policy, fiscal policy and the brashness with which he attacked the US enemies of the world seemed a lot more like W than Obama.

Oh, so now Kennedy was more like W than Obama, and not:

Originally Posted by Arles

It's educational to note that when JFK was president, he was considered a mainstream democrat. In today's world, he would be considered right of George W Bush.

Keep shifting those goalposts. Eventually you'll have a defensible argument.

[lungs]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

I try not to keep a list ... could be used as evidence against me someday

Just doing my duty as asked by the current admin by keeping an eye on folks like you!

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by flere-imsaho

NCLB? You mean Unfunded Mandates R Us?

The taxpayers who've been footing the bill for glorified daycare for the past few decades would be interested to know that their contributions amount to "unfunded".

The states were given tremendous (an excessive amount) of leeway to determine their own so-called standards.

[molson]

Originally Posted by SteveBollea

But, as far as JFK goes, let's here his own words. "If by a "Liberal" they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people — their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties — someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a "Liberal," then I'm proud to say I'm a "Liberal."

I love it when liberals claim their platform, and what distinguishes them, is that they're basically "for good things".

I'm for everything you said there - which is why I can never be a Democrat, because they have no clue how to get those things. Just being in favor of good things is enough for some.

I have a bunch of hard-core Democrat friends who really, literally believe that if you're against their method of achieving good things, then you're necessarily against those things (and hate poor people, I guess).

If I have concerns/fears about the stimulus, its not I hate people having jobs, and I love poverty. It's because I worry that the stimulus will eventually cause more poverty and job loss.

[flere-imsaho]

Originally Posted by Arles

He still made the choice to enter a country pro-actively that posed no threat to the US.

There's a world of difference between the escalation of military assistance from 800 "advisers" in Vietnam under Eisenhower to the 16,000 troops under Kennedy and dropping 300,000 troops on Iraq.

Regardless of that, however, explain to me how Kennedy's approach is "to the right" of Bush.

This is an unprovable assertion - no different than me saying Kennedy would cut taxes a lot more than Obama in today's climate. Atleast I would have Kennedy's own words in support of that action (as stated above).

You have his words in the context of a 90% top rate. For a more realistic context, consider Ted Kennedy's views on taxation in the past decade.

And anyway, to prove that Kennedy would be "to the right" of Bush, you'd have to argue he'd cut taxes even more than Bush. Good luck with that.

Don't let JFK's own comments and policies impact a good story.

Don't let logic impact yours.

[flere-imsaho]

Edit: Nevermind Jon, I just got what you were trying to say.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by flere-imsaho

No Child Left Behind has been in place for the "past few decades"?

The lack of accountability for decades was a significant impetus behind NCLBA. I can't fathom anyone actually believing it was an entirely lofty ideal without some element of "finally gotcha" involved as well.

[molson]

Originally Posted by SteveBollea

I understand the conservative position on helping people. It's to keep on giving rich people tax cuts and maybe just maybe, they'll only fire 5,000 people instead of 10,000 in the next round of layoffs right before his/her next vacation to Aruba, all while cutting social spending because it's "wasteful."

Nope. But I can definitely understand why you feel so right about everything if this is what you think of people who disagree with you.

Edit: There's more than two ways to think about things (or in your world, "good v. evil"). I'd be all in favor of a simple, efficient, transparent, single-payer health care system. My objections to most of the crap that's been actually proposed is not that it's "big government", but that they just promote more inefficiency, more corruption, and will ultimately cost the government and taxpayers more money per person than they're spending now, but with worse quality of care. And I've never even been to Aruba!

Agree or disagree with that, but don't tell me any of your opinions are morally superior to anyone else's when we want the same good stuff. We'll get a compromise on the health care stuff, and it will be a plan that mostly benefits those that make their living leeching off the government in some way. That's common ground for politicans, D and R, and the entities that keep them in office.

[flere-imsaho]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

The lack of accountability for decades was a significant impetus behind NCLBA. I can't fathom anyone actually believing it was an entirely lofty ideal without some element of "finally gotcha" involved as well.

Yeah, I get that, but that wasn't the point I was trying to make. Arles wants to make the point that Bush believed in federal spending for education as much as Kennedy, but at best Bush's greatest education initiative is more about the restriction of funds (and accountability, and targeting) than any new expenditures.

Originally Posted by Arles

he spent a ton there - remember no child left behind

According to wiki, federal funding for education increased by $12 billion from 2001 to 2007. While $12 billion is certainly a lot of money, when it's adjusted for cost increases and compared to the expansion of other spending during the Bush Administration, I'm not sure if it's accurately depicted as "spending a ton".

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by molson

I'd be all in favor of a simple, efficient, transparent, single-payer health care system. My objections to most of the crap that's been actually proposed is not that it's "big government", but that they just promote more inefficiency, more corruption, and will ultimately cost the government and taxpayers more money per person than they're spending now

how do you know this though? what causes you to believe that this would be the case? where's the evidence, or examples of other countries where this is the case, as opposed to the opposite?

(honest question, not trying to be an ass)

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Originally Posted by DaddyTorgo

how do you know this though? what causes you to believe that this would be the case? where's the evidence, or examples of other countries where this is the case, as opposed to the opposite?

I'm going to chime in here from a personal perspective. I've worked for two government agencies. One is the USDA and the other was the IT department that supports software that controls Medicare reimbursement. I can tell you with absolute certainty that molson is spot on in his assessment of what will happen. Seeing what I've seen would push the average taxpayer to tears for all the wrong reasons.

[molson]

Originally Posted by DaddyTorgo

how do you know this though? what causes you to believe that this would be the case? where's the evidence, or examples of other countries where this is the case, as opposed to the opposite?

(honest question, not trying to be an ass)

The typical solution to problems in the U.S. seems to be more layers, more complicated interactions of different entities. I remembered the flow charts of the original health care plan and I couldn't understand how people were so confident these things would interact in the way it was sold.

I see other countries with far superior health care systems spending a fraction per person (and as % of GDP) that we do. Sounds good to me. But those aren't the systems that being proposed here. We're going to spend MORE, and give people tax breaks and benefits to more easily participate in our shitty system.

When I see the more complex solutions to problems in the U.S., I know why this happens - the more entities that are involved, the more complicated the regulations, the more opportunity for health insurance companies and other corporations to take advantage of the government. The bigger our health care system is, the more the health care industries in this country will be able to steal.

People ask why we can't be like other countries on health care and I wonder the same thing (well I don't wonder, I know why we can't be like that.) But the point is, if someone wants to propose a European-style health care program for the money European countries spend on it - that'd be intruging to me.

I will disclaim that I'm not an expert on any of this. This is just my feeling based on observations of how government works, and America's history in trying to accomplish things like this.

[flere-imsaho]

I'm actually with you on this, molson. As much as I'd like single-payer, my confidence that it could be implemented effectively in the U.S. without becoming a pork barrel (and, heck, corruption) boondoggle, is not high.

[molson]

Originally Posted by SteveBollea

Also, I find it interesting that in general, the conservative argument seems to be, yes, France and Germany are better than us at this, why even try to be better? There's a belief in the American spirit.

But we're not even trying to be better, we're just trying to be bigger and more complicated and more beneficial to corporations. (by "we" I mean the politicans, I think the the supporters of health care reform have their heart in the right place)

Germany spends about half per person on health care that the U.S. does. And it spends about 1/3 less as a % of GDP on health care that we do.

Are any of the proposed plans out there "more like Germany" in that sense? (or in any sense?) Of course not. The Insurance companies will have to benefit from any health care reform for it to pass. (which means it has to be bigger, more complicated, cost more) That's how things are here. That's consistent with the plans that have been proposed.

Medicaid fraud in this country is RIDICULOUS. It's so easy for companies to make money off of it. That's not an accident. Any dollar we spend towards preventing medicaid fraud would come back in criminal and civil penalties several times over. But that won't happen, and that's not an accident either.

The BEST we can do, I think, under the current state of things, is to generally have smaller, simpler government. At least that decreases corporate dependence on taxpayer money. So that's why that's what I am generally in favor of.

[SportsDino]

As an investor (unwillingly, damn taxes) I am pretty interested in the ROI on something like the stimulus bill. I don't buy the bullshit that it is some mystical beast defying all possibility of quantification or reason, and at the same time is supposed to save us.

If they claim it 'created' 1.5 million jobs then they can specify HOW it did it. Otherwise it is just statistical noise and the same old games to dance around the numbers to satisfy whatever partisan agendas exist at the moment.

Say it eventually spends 862 billion in various forms, I think the straight up dollars per supposed job is a valid (if overly simple) metric. The funny thing is, regardless of whether it is tax cuts, unemployment extensions, or what not... it is still valid. The whole point is inject X dollars into an economy and Y jobs pop out the other end. If extending unemployment somehow doesn't have an effect on job creation it would be the economic charity case bill. I argue that unemployment benefits indeed does spur job creation, since it sponsors consumption and reduces push towards substitute occupations of inferior quality... but ya all of these programs are supposed to have an effect, lets guesstimate it.

For 862 billion if we just flat out gave people money, we could give over 4 million people 'jobs' doing absolutely nothing for one year with salary at $200,000. We could be a bit more modest, create 16 million jobs at $50,000.

Obviously, that by itself is not very useful, doesn't really invest all that much, just makes 4 million live a pretty good life for a year, or 16 million a roughly average income for a year.

However, as a benchmark I think it makes sense. If we are seeing much small results than this we have a few mathematical explanations:

- Waste, creating less jobs because parts of the pile are funneled off due to corruption/overhead. I think a large chunk is going right here.

- Extended timeframe investments, can't measure over one year alone since the actual impact is designed to be spent over a period of time. However these should be relatively obvious to find and break down, for instance unemployment extensions can be measured as a pool of payments that will be paid out over the next X months. (As an aside, modeling unemployment benefits has been a pet project lately... I'm trying to measure impact on consumer spending to time market trends, actually very amusing but I'd argue that unemployment extensions are actually responsible for a good deal of job retention in retail and arguably may have the biggest net impact of the entire bill...)

- Cost of materials, which gets tricky... Ya to build a bridge you create a bundle of salaried jobs, but to actually have them doing stuff you need machines, concrete, etc. Most people would outright subtract this as an expense of the bill and say that you need to remove those dollars from the measurement. I disagree however, materials need to be produced, and to do that companies need some sort of labor (hence jobs created/retained). But, in terms of economic impact the value of dollars spent on material towards jobs has a relatively lower effect, since you need to cut out the company's margin on selling the product, inflationary impact on prices (if their is a run on concrete because all these projects start at the same time, I'd hope they'd raise their prices otherwise they are inefficient capitalists!!!), and the fact that rather than creating or retaining employment most materials can be produced by simply ramping up productivity of an existing employment base.

- Tax cuts. Yuck, just yuck. Unless they are carefully designed to actually create jobs I've found tax cuts to be highly inefficient at improving investment. It essentially returns to the giving people $200K deal again. Or worst, backdoor subsidies that tend to get priced in and end up a useless handout to certain businesses.


Anyhoo, i just resent the notion that just because its the government you can't start breaking it down or that it has to be some mysterious beast you need to feed or else the economy will collapse. Why not consider the ROI of a stimulus bill (or gosh damn frickin TARP)? Why must we pour money down a hole when we can just as easily not spend and not tax the money out of people's pockets in the first place?

[molson]

Originally Posted by SteveBollea

I'll be the first to say that the health care bill doesn't go far enough. I'd love to be able to pass a system like even Germany's where everyone pays into one pool where the government basically does the risk pooling and then you get to choose from over 200 pretty small non-profit health plan. But, guess what, that's far to the left of even what the House bill was.

My point is that it's not even a left/right issue. Nobody wants a plan like Germany's here because powerful corporations would suffer. Even fiscal "conservatives" should be in favor of a plan that is more efficient, costs less, and covers more people, even if it involves a bigger government role. I certainly would be.

Democrats can push a "compromise", which keeps the lifeline of the important corporations, and yet they can still claim that they're compassionate because they got that (and blame the republicans for not geting more). (That's basically why I hate Democrats more - because they get to keep the support of corporations and still convince their supporters that they did some wonderful thing for humanity)

[SportsDino]

I wouldn't mind a Germany plan... I hates overly powerful corporations. I love small efficient businesses, or large efficient businesses, or basically businesses operating under true competitive conditions and constantly improving quality/quantity/price equation... none of which apply to Big Healthcare, be it hospitals, insurance, or pharmaceuticals.

[molson]

Originally Posted by SteveBollea

Also, it's weird, but the Democrats you 'hate' will be the ones voting against the health care bill.

I certainly don't hate the ones that stand up to this. I assumed most will just go along.

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by molson

My point is that it's not even a left/right issue. Nobody wants a plan like Germany's here because powerful corporations would suffer. Even fiscal "conservatives" should be in favor of a plan that is more efficient, costs less, and covers more people, even if it involves a bigger government role. I certainly would be.

Democrats can push a "compromise", which keeps the lifeline of the important corporations, and yet they can still claim that they're compassionate because they got that (and blame the republicans for not geting more). (That's basically why I hate Democrats more - because they get to keep the support of corporations and still convince their supporters that they did some wonderful thing for humanity)

you're right about that it's not a left/right issue. it's a "powerful corporations vs. little people" issue. the corporations don't want a plan like Germany's - I think a vast majority of the supporters of health care reform would embrace such a plan.

[molson]

Originally Posted by SteveBollea

But, it's even weirder since you hate the DNC for doing something, even if it's imperfect more than the GOP who has done nothing about health care despite the fact they had the Trifecta of the GOP/Senate/House for six years and a Democratic party they could've run over for a large part of it. I'm sorry, that just doesn't make any sense.

It makes sense to me, that kind of sums up the difference between the GOP and DNC.

The GOP knows that they can't (don't want to) pass real healthcare reform, so they don't.

The DNC can't (doesn't want to) pass real reform either, for the exact same reasons, but they actually get people behind them by doing a little bit, and largely by opposing the GOP (they REALLY get their supporters fired up about that, because everyone likes to feel like part of a team), and yes, compared to the GOP, they can actually trick people into believing they're committed to real reform. They don't even really have to change anything to get credit for doing so.

It's pretty much the same net effect though. Where will things be in 5 years? It will either be no different, or it will be a more bloated mess, more easily taken advantage of by corporations. I'm sure it won't be more efficient, it won't be more transparent, because those are never the priorities of either party.

I wish Democrats would win a 100% majority in each house, just to see what excuses they could come up with to largely keep the (beneifical to them) status quo.

[ISiddiqui]

Originally Posted by SteveBollea

I love when Republicans try to grab Democrats as their own. They try to do it with Harry Truman, JFK, and even Martin Luther King. But then again, they can't say too much great about Lincoln because their base still thinks he was a tyrant, Teddy Roosevelt would be called a socialist, the GOP Presidents in the 20's set the stage for the Great Depression, Eisenhower did silly things like speak out against the military industrial complex and for things like invest in federal infrastructure and of course, Nixon has his own problems. So, they're left with Reagan.

And this is where the nutty left comes in. I've never heard the Republicans call themselves "the party of Lincoln". Nope, never.

[jeff061]

Stop hating on Lincoln ISiddiqui. FFS.

[SportsDino]

I've read Zandi's paper... I don't want to give him too much approval, because he's pushing some things I don't agree with, but obviously the numbers speak for themself. The impact of short term spending from unemployment spending is quite significant statistically, and tax cuts are relatively meh (I'd quibble on the exact numbers but he might have a better model than me haha).

Just want to caution that one year impact on GDP does not an economy make. If you wanted to measure economic health in general based on your ideology you could skew the impact of tax cuts or other spending higher or lower... I hate the notion of focusing on a statistic by itself (numbers can be gamed so many ways)... however at least it gives a start to breaking down these mysterious numbers. Now we just need people to actually understand and use these results when designing public policy. For instance, if all these tax cuts don't have such a big one year stimulus effect... why are they included?!

[JPhillips]

Originally Posted by SportsDino

For instance, if all these tax cuts don't have such a big one year stimulus effect... why are they included?!

Duh. Because Senate moderates are fiscally responsible.

[JPhillips]

Originally Posted by SportsDino

I wouldn't mind a Germany plan... I hates overly powerful corporations. I love small efficient businesses, or large efficient businesses, or basically businesses operating under true competitive conditions and constantly improving quality/quantity/price equation... none of which apply to Big Healthcare, be it hospitals, insurance, or pharmaceuticals.

I was reading recently about the German economic system and how much power workers have at the executive/board level. Fascinating stuff.

[flere-imsaho]

Originally Posted by SportsDino

As an investor (unwillingly, damn taxes) I am pretty interested in the ROI on something like the stimulus bill.

Actually, I'd like to see ROI more often for pretty much every piece of government spending. Too many bills are passed to spend money seemingly on the basis of "hey, it's a good idea" while no one is asking why it's a good idea, how you measure that it's a good idea, if it's quantifiably better than that other idea, etc....

If I could pass one law, it would be to require that all new spending bills contain specific and measurable ROI values, and their performance against these measures is reported on clearly and publically.

I don't buy the bullshit that it is some mystical beast defying all possibility of quantification or reason, and at the same time is supposed to save us.

Correct. Not to sound like a Wall Street Quant or something (and I'm really the furthest from it), but honestly almost everything can be measured, in some way. State your program, define your measures for success, and then execute against that.

For 862 billion if we just flat out gave people money, we could give over 4 million people 'jobs' doing absolutely nothing for one year with salary at $200,000. We could be a bit more modest, create 16 million jobs at $50,000.

More realistically, create an application process for 862,000 grants of $1,000,000 a piece given to the best entrepreneurial ideas. That might stimulate some jobs!

[SportsDino]

If you gave me 862 billion I'm sure I could create quite a few jobs.... and they'd actually last longer than a year, but then we couldn't help the bigwigs slush funds out as much...


German co-determination (I believe that is the term) is a very interesting topic. In a pure ruthless capitalist sense I think executive boards should be fully shareholder run... but the shareholders have been pretty sheep like in general so its pretty much an abysmal failure. Worker participation is better than the stiffs they generally have, besides actually knowing something about the business they might tend to pick (on average) policies that generally boost the health of the company (whereas the executives of say some US companies are typically looking to prey upon the company in many ways).

-----

However, policy-crafting aside, the practice generally has better worker relations and per-capita productivity (which are worth their weight in gold by themself). Some thinkers try to marginalize its impact, but in general I think thats the influence of the monied interests coming into play, or capitalism purists (like I generally am) pushing an agenda.

Overall I think its better than what we do here on average, but just about anything is better than what we do here. On the other hand, there is nothing preventing an American company from implementing any of these tactics themself as a way of improving their shareholder value overall, the freedom is one pleasant aspect of our economy (rather than government mandate) unfortunately the way that freedom is just poorly exercised is disheartening.

-----

I agree fully with you flere, every bit of public policy that deals with funds allocations should have measurement criteria built into it by default. Even if it is only for tracking purposes. Government transparency is probably the single biggest thing I think we could do to reduce spending (and if I were running hte stimulus, would be where I invest to create short and long term jobs).

When the state is taking up a large percentage of the workforce in a supposedly free market economy, we have issues. Both from an economic standpoint and from a government power standpoint (the more necessary the government becomes to the survival of a populace the easier it becomes for the government to control and oppress that populace, even if its relatively benign oppression at first).

[sabotai]

Originally Posted by molson

Germany spends about half per person on health care that the U.S. does. And it spends about 1/3 less as a % of GDP on health care that we do.

A good part of why is because their doctors get paid much less than US doctors. This article sums out how office-based doctors get paid.

Keeping German Doctors On A Budget Lowers Costs : NPR

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by flere-imsaho

Yeah, I get that, but that wasn't the point I was trying to make. Arles wants to make the point that Bush believed in federal spending for education as much as Kennedy, but at best Bush's greatest education initiative is more about the restriction of funds (and accountability, and targeting) than any new expenditures.

But what you said flies in the face of the point I was making. Maybe it was unintentionally unfair to go after a sentence you said in a different context but you did put it out there (and it was what jumped off the page at me as I was scrolling down, which is the only reason I commented on it in the firstplace)

According to wiki, federal funding for education increased by $12 billion from 2001 to 2007. While $12 billion is certainly a lot of money, when it's adjusted for cost increases and compared to the expansion of other spending during the Bush Administration, I'm not sure if it's accurately depicted as "spending a ton".

Okay, I'm going out on a limb here & say that spending $12B should always be accurately depicted as "spending a ton". That's whether it's to eliminate enemies that desperately need to be eliminated, cure cancer, or to put down synthetic turf on the back lawn of the WH. Damn the relativity, a billion here & a billion there sooner or later does add up to real money.

[SportsDino]

Yet the doctors still sign up for work and do their job, and apparently they even do a good job. If they close up shop early because the money has run out, it hasn't seemed to cause a massive outcry from the public (who are still rating the quality of service very high).

Its really simple economics. If its broke, people bitch, they spend more money. If its not broke, people tend not to bitch, the job still tends to pay more than anything else they could be doing, so the doctors show up for work, and if they cut off service to optimize their money... THATS A GOOD THING! We want optimization and restraint... keeps price inflation down, saves doctor work hours, prevents money going to waste instead of fixing people.

You could say it increases the probability of undetected problems since there was restraint in performing the potential procedure that would have detected it... but that becomes a probability game that the Germans are winning.... they generally have lower health problem rates than us. A common sense gamble that is paying off.

So what exactly is the problem in paying doctors less? We pay every profession what we need to, anything more than we need to is simply a market inefficiency. Most of ours in the US are created not by the market, but the government interference itself (or government sponsored interference).

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by SteveBollea

When the federal budget is a couple of trillion, twelve billion simply isn't that much money.

I'll just let that quote stand on its own.

Would you think an increase of .5% of spending in your household would be a ton of money?

For the past 2+ years, there hasn't been an increase of 0%, much less 0.5% increase. At this point, having that extra 0.5% is something that's starting to fade from memory.

[Chubby]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

I'll just let that quote stand on its own.




For the past 2+ years, there hasn't been an increase of 0%, much less 0.5% increase. At this point, having that extra 0.5% is something that's starting to fade from memory.

If you make $1000/week, getting a $5/week raise isn't really going to affect you now is it?

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Chubby

If you make $1000/week, getting a $5/week raise isn't really going to affect you now is it?

It's one trip through the drivethru that couldn't be taken otherwise. And at this point, that's an improvement in my quality of life.

[sabotai]

Originally Posted by SportsDino

Yet the doctors still sign up for work and do their job, and apparently they even do a good job. If they close up shop early because the money has run out, it hasn't seemed to cause a massive outcry from the public (who are still rating the quality of service very high).

Its really simple economics. If its broke, people bitch, they spend more money. If its not broke, people tend not to bitch, the job still tends to pay more than anything else they could be doing, so the doctors show up for work, and if they cut off service to optimize their money... THATS A GOOD THING! We want optimization and restraint... keeps price inflation down, saves doctor work hours, prevents money going to waste instead of fixing people.

You could say it increases the probability of undetected problems since there was restraint in performing the potential procedure that would have detected it... but that becomes a probability game that the Germans are winning.... they generally have lower health problem rates than us. A common sense gamble that is paying off.

So what exactly is the problem in paying doctors less? We pay every profession what we need to, anything more than we need to is simply a market inefficiency. Most of ours in the US are created not by the market, but the government interference itself (or government sponsored interference).

Was this directed at me? Because I'm the one who brought up doctor's pay in Germany but I don't remember mentioning any of the things you are seemingly responding to (like where did I say it was a problem to pay doctors less?)

[SportsDino]

Well an interesting example is that for many people wages have been pretty flat this decade (oh those recessions, if nothing else a good excuse to prevent giving your workers a raise).

Even the horrible CPI (a terrible statistic that has been mangled beyond recognition) says from 2000 to present inflation is about 30%. So I'd just argue that those percentages tend to add up pretty quickly. 7% since 2007.

I'd argue I'd rather have the government keep its hands off my 0.5% if I had a choice....

Just a general question, how many people here actually make 30% then they did in 2000? If you don't on average you have been getting poorer this decade even if you haven't taken a pay cut, congratulations!

[Chubby]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

It's one trip through the drivethru that couldn't be taken otherwise. And at this point, that's an improvement in my quality of life.

yeah, getting 2 more mcdoubles in a week is a huge boost in your quality of life...

[SportsDino]

Originally Posted by sabotai

Was this directed at me? Because I'm the one who brought up doctor's pay in Germany but I don't remember mentioning any of the things you are seemingly responding to (like where did I say it was a problem to pay doctors less?)

I'm mostly stressing the point it is a good thing, but you are right I do come off as posturing it towards you. My bad, still just emphasizing the points I considered important is the bulk of the post. I'm sure someone in this thread will bring up the counter argument anyway, so we'll just assume I was throwing it at them!

EDIT:
I should mention in these posts I'm rarely attacking anyone particular on the board, I much prefer attacking the faceless hordes using terms like 'the rich' or 'fascists' or 'damn dirty liberals'. I do tend to use bombastic and somewhat combative phrasing though, so just ignore that... I've disagreed with everyone on this board at some point I think.

[Arles]

Originally Posted by flere-imsaho

There's a world of difference between the escalation of military assistance from 800 "advisers" in Vietnam under Eisenhower to the 16,000 troops under Kennedy and dropping 300,000 troops on Iraq.

Given there were about half the people in the US in 1960 as there are now and South Vietnam is a much smaller country than Iraq, I'm not really sure there is much of a difference.

Regardless of that, however, explain to me how Kennedy's approach is "to the right" of Bush.

He was much more aggressive in actions and rhetoric towards the Soviet Union, Cuba and Vietnam than Bush was towards Iraq/North Korea/Iran (his axis of evil). He was more fiscally conservative in his actions and rhetoric on tax cuts combined with holding a line on spending (something Bush never did). Bush spent almost 40% more (as a % of spending) on education (2.3%) as JFK did (1.6%). Kennedy was much more pro-Israel that Bush was (esp at the start of W's term). Kennedy was more on personal responsibility and less on government spending to solve problems than Bush. He cut taxes and held spending better than Bush - Kennedy took the debt from 55% of GDP to 45% in his 3 years. Bush took it from 60% to 68% in his 8.

So, maybe "to the right" isn't the right semantics. I would say more fiscally conservative and hawkish than Bush. Either way, his policies were certainly nowhere near the strategy of the current democratic party (and, to be fair, certainly not what the current republicans are doing now as well).

You have his words in the context of a 90% top rate. For a more realistic context, consider Ted Kennedy's views on taxation in the past decade.

Saying Ted Kennedy and JFK were similar on tax policy is a bit of a stretch. Just because they had the same last name doesn't mean they had the same ideas on fiscal spending and tax policy. I'm pretty sure Teddy would be outraged if a president came up with a budget spending less than 2% of the federal budget on education.

And anyway, to prove that Kennedy would be "to the right" of Bush, you'd have to argue he'd cut taxes even more than Bush. Good luck with that.

Not at all, you could argue that he would cut taxes similar to Bush AND hold the line on spending - something he did much better from 1960 to 1963 than Bush did from 2000 to 2008.

Don't let logic impact yours.

There are two parts to a budget - revenue and spending. You seem to only be focused on the first. A true conservative tries to increase revenue through tax cuts while holding spending. JFK did a much better job at that than W.

[sabotai]

Originally Posted by SportsDino

EDIT:
I should mention in these posts I'm rarely attacking anyone particular on the board, I much prefer attacking the faceless hordes using terms like 'the rich' or 'fascists' or 'damn dirty liberals'. I do tend to use bombastic and somewhat combative phrasing though, so just ignore that... I've disagreed with everyone on this board at some point I think.

That's why I asked. It seemed out of character for you to jump on me, especially for things I didn't say.

[molson]

Originally Posted by ISiddiqui

As for the tax quotes, are you fucking out of your mind?!! The highest tax rates in 1960 were 70%!! In 2000 it was 37%! Jeez louise, learn some context!!

I don't know a whole lot about the history of U.S. taxation but I'm trying to understand the context of this. Were there other kinds of tax liabilities that are more present today than there were then? Or was the federal government simply taking billions more from people back then (relative to income/wealth)? Or in other words, how has the overall revenue of the government changed over time - relative to different kinds of taxation and overall income/wealth of individuals in the U.S.?

I'm sure those numbers are out there, I'll look if I get the chance.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Chubby

yeah, getting 2 more mcdoubles in a week is a huge boost in your quality of life...

Yeah motherfucker, considering I eat one meal a day more often than not for the past couple of years, and the dominant motivation for that is cost-related, it would be. And since between a third & half my meals every week for the past six months have involved store brand peanut butter or baloney, yeah it would be.

Sorry if that bursts your bubble somehow but welcome to the state of the economy in the late 2000's.

[ISiddiqui]

Well, payroll taxes have expanded ever since Medicare and Medicaid started in 1965. But that doesn't necessarily account for all of the difference in the resulting income tax drops from 90% in the 1950s to 38% in the late 1980s (and hovering around there since)

[JPhillips]

Arles: You need to look at your timeline. The Kennedy tax cuts were signed into law by Johnson and took effect well after Kennedy died. He also wasn't about less government spending, as his initial plan was to use deficit spending to jumpstart the economy, but conservatives in Congress balked. In fact he would have likely tried to boost spending if he hadn't been killed. He told his chief economist:

"First, we'll have your tax cut, then we'll have my expenditures program."

[SportsDino]

Even though I argue against the stimulus impact of top bracket tax cuts, I do have to say that a 90% bracket is pretty much insanity. Not that anyone paid quite that much, the history of tax dodging started pretty much as soon as it was passed (and indeed it was only passed after the monied interests made sure they could dodge into the forseeable future).

Ideally our taxes even on the very rich would fall below 38% (in my opinion much lower), the main reason I object is because of the assumption that revenues must be fixed or growing, and that a 1% cut in the top bracket would be equivalent to a multi-point bump to pretty much the middle class (because the extremely poor are exempted from everything). It would literally kill the economy to fix revenues, give the rich a 1% cut to 'stimulate' the economy, and watch consumer spending equivalently drop by say 2-5%.

We have a economy where a tenth of a percent in consumer spending is enough to send the DOW into a fit (dumb sheep investors, but I digress).

The unpleasant realization for the Republicans (which I wish they would embrace) is that they need to cut that top tax rate by cutting the pool from the bottom up. Instead of a 'fair' cut of 1% across the board (or a more progressive proportional cut across the brackets), they need to insist on nothing at the top, large cuts in the bottom and middle. A little delayed gratification, but I think they could get their cut if they schemed it right...

Spending is stimulated, circulation of money in the economy increases (this is the multiplier effect you see in one year GDP calculations for instance), the revenues of the rich actually go up in proportion to dollars of tax reduction multiplied by circulation (a billion in spending is more than a billion in revenue, short term), causing tax receipts from the fixed high tax bracket rate to increase.

If the loop generates a net positive cash flow you feed it back into tax cuts, extending the range you apply it to until you get to top bracket cuts. There also are a few fringe benefits:

- decreasing demand for social services from the lower/middle classes over time which can be rolled into spending cuts (and therefore more tax cuts)
- increased job creation to produce the goods that are being bought
- reduced default rate in the middle class loan sector helps stop depletion of reserves (the much mentioned 'deflation' of the money supply, despite general inflation in PRICES)

It is not a wonder cure and it can easily be sunk by our spend/tax happy and ill-disciplined politicians and businesses, but if we were smart it would give us a feedback loop that could get us closer to some reasonable level of efficiency (instead of our expensive bloatocracy). Unfortunately no leader of the common day thinks about systems, they are all about bullet point statements of 'I will reduce taxes' or 'We must save social security... by spending on it', and so on. They are too narrowly focused to look at incremental processes as a solution, they want the headlining giant bill to make them famous, or they want to 'leave it to the market' which is too short-sighted to invest these days.

Anyhoo, I just felt like babbling about tax systems and maybe bring up something in a light others haven't seen before.

[sabotai]

Here's a chart of the history of the bottom and top tax brackets.

National Taxpayers Union - History of Federal Individual Income Bottom and Top Bracket Rates

From 1950-1963, the top bracket was 91-92% for income over $400,000 (not adjusted for inflation).

[molson]

Originally Posted by sabotai

Here's a chart of the history of the bottom and top tax brackets.

National Taxpayers Union - History of Federal Individual Income Bottom and Top Bracket Rates

From 1950-1963, the top bracket was 91-92% for income over $400,000 (not adjusted for inflation).

I still think there's a context there missing - I don't believe for a second that people making more than $400k were shelling out 90% of that (or the amount above $400k) to the government every year. That's about as restrictive as NBA max salaries.

What was a person's "real" total tax liability in the 50s v. today, relative to various levels of income/wealth? I don't know if that can be measured.

[RainMaker]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

It's one trip through the drivethru that couldn't be taken otherwise. And at this point, that's an improvement in my quality of life.

Or a couple electricity bills over the course of a year.

It's $260 for the year which to many, is a nice chunk of change. We forget the hoopla over a $600 rebate check many received a few years ago. With a family, every bit helps.