For the Record...

Class Warfare, Math, Macroeconomics and Fairness

OK, so  by now I'm sure we're all aware of President Obama's judgement that the [curiously named] "Buffett Rule" is NOT class warfare... It's MATH.

Bravo, Barry. It's about time you started calling out the Right on their bullshit.

I would like to give him (and everyone) one piece of advice though, when discussion taxation: Avoid the discussion of "fairness."  I know, I know! And I've made fairness-based arguments in the past, linking multiples of the median income in this country to various levels on Mazlow's hierarchy of needs, for example. And these arguments are very effective at convincing people who already agree with you that you're right. They are not very persuasive with anyone who's not already on board.  And I'm not conceding the fairness point - I do happen to be of the opinion that the rich in this country do not, in fact, pay their FAIR share of the tax burden.  BUT... that's my opinion.

And there's the rub:  One cannot objectively quantify "fairness." Whether or not something is "fair" relies entirely on the parties involve FEELING that it is fair.  If someone FEELS or is OF THE OPINION that they're being cheated?  Well guess what? That's one person who BELIEVES that "it" is not fair!

Fairness is an entirely subjective phenomenon.

Now... I will happily raise my hat and tip my glass to fellow working-class warrior, Elizabeth Warren.  SHE got it right.  And Conchobhar included some of the best parts of her speech a few posts back.  It's truly great stuff but, alas, I fear the "Social Contract" may yet be a little bit too high-brow for the Average American these days.  I heard a very well educated man trying to explain it the trainer in the Gym the other night - a black man, who definitely makes only a working-class wage, and yet was attacking the idea of taxing the rich! - and I could see that the argument was not the least bit persuasive.  In fact, it came sounding like the kind of namby-pamby Liberal whining that the Right has so effectively charactarized ALL of the higher moral aspects of civilization as over the past 30 years or so.

And besides, I think there's a much better way to put it, and it comes right from the comments section of this very blog...

In response to Tax/Deficit post back in July, Steeve put it absolutely perfectly:

Raise taxes on everyone until they feel the tiniest pinprick of pain.



So you raise taxes 0.001% on most people and they feel immediate pain. Raise taxes 60% on the rich and they feel no pain at all. That's not my problem. Hell, it isn't anyone's problem.

And there you go. 

The reason we tax the rich? Because we can do so without impacting their daily spending decisions.  And thus it cause no further economic pain, despite the Right's constant bed-wetting about it.

THIS is why you will inevitably end up taxing the rich.  Because doing anything else, including significantly reducing spending, is economic suicide.  The Right might want that, and Fox News might want that, but the American People do not.

So... STEEVE in 2012?

The New "Deal"

So we’ve got a deal. (I guess. We'll see.)


And that’s good (I guess, we'll see) because I was planning out a “well, it was fun while lasted” -type post, lamenting our fall from our status as a great nation, and our new status as the trailer-park dead-beats of the world; basically the same kind of gun-toting, homophobic white-trash who don’t pay their bills that the Republicans rely on to get elected year in and year out. And I’m forced to wonder what the drama was all about. Apparently taxes aren’t going up – for anyone – and Social Security and Medicare are also safe - for now. A trillion in cuts over ten years is (apparently) planned, but I’ve heard that before. That’s theatre, nothing more. Seeing as how likely it is that some those cuts will have to implemented during a Republican Administration (either 2, 4 or 8 years from now) and given the Republicans propensity to complete forget about their fiscal principles of austerity and small government whenever they win the Presidency, I’ll believe it when I see it.

I’m also wondering what this new deficit commission will be able to do that the last 37 have not.

Whatever.

At the end of the day it was much ado about nothing on a tragically Shakespearean level. At the end of the day congress raised the debt ceiling, just like they did 11 times for Reagan, 7 times for Bush, and 74 times (if I'm counting right) since 1962 with nary a whimper. Not that the American public ever heard ANYTHING about ANY of those times – didn’t even know they HAPPENED – because, as Dick Cheney pointed out: Reagan proved that deficits don’t matter! (Yeah: WHEN YOU’RE A REPUBLICAN!)

And to think: Joe Lieberman was concerned that the cuts would affect defense too deeply!

*sigh*

That’s what you get when a Democrat thinks he’s a Republican. (Or is it the other way around?)

A Country facing default, Social Security and Medicare being threatened, deficits that are going out of control…

And he’s worried about defense spending that is currently double that of Russia, China, England and France COMBINED.

We’ll be safe, Joe. You great coward.

And what about the raw, naked, rampant, partisan, ROOTING FOR FAILURE on the part of the right here? I never put any amount of hypocrisy or unprincipled behavior past the right, but I truly never expected it would reach such absurdly transparent levels. And yet somehow? ONLY 60% of America is against the Republicans right now! I mean… THEY WERE LOSING SUPPORT OF BUSINESS LEADERS, FOR CHRIST’S SAKE! If BUSINESS LEADERS aren’t behind them, then WHO THE HELL IS?!

It’s insane.

My favorite – and one of the best examples of just how ignorant the average right-winger IS when it comes to all thins fiscal, monetary and economic – was probably Fox's Stuart Varney "Absolutely" agreeing with Andrew Napolitano that we don't deserve AAA Credit Rating as a nation.


Wow.

Way to hate your country there, Start! Can you IMAGINE what they’d be saying if a progressive had said ANYTHING even remotely like that?!

But here’s the thing…

A country’s credit rating is not based on its debt levels. Nor is it based on its economy. Nor is it based on their ability to balance a budget. All of those things (debt level, income, spending decisions) are what an INDIVIDUAL’s or a COMPANY’s credit rating is based on. But in a GOVERNEMENT’s credit rating, except in circumstances far more extreme than we’re facing now and likely will ever face, almost none of those things matter in the least. Why? Because Governments can do something that individuals and even companies CAN’T do when the cost of their debt gets too high.

RAISE TAXES.

Governments can RAISE TAXES! Individuals can’t do that! Companies can’t do that! And that’s why individuals and companies have to act very cautiously and very deliberately to maintain their good ratings. But governments? Can run deficits year an and year out, and have multi-years recessions and still have a AAA rating. And the reason is that, if they need to, they can RAISE TAXES to pay back their debts!

Now, in the mind of someone for whom that is simply unthinkable, I suppose I can see why they be panicking about our fiscal condition. But the only Government who DOESN’T deserve a AAA rating? Is one that is either unable or unwilling to raise taxes. If your population already pays an average 90% tax rate, and you’re still running up insane debts? FINE. YOU aren’t a AAA credit risk. If you raise taxes but (like Greece) have a national culture that simply doesn’t pay them anyway, as a point of pride, and in addition have lax enforcement existing of Tax laws? Then, yeah, you DEFINITELY don’t deserve a AAA rating. And, I guess, if you’re the kind of government that the average Fox viewer would be happy with – one that would never, under any circumstances, raising taxes including when their facing DEFAULT?

There’s no fucking way I’m buying your bonds!

Why would I?

You’d rather default than pay your bills? That’s not AAA! That’s TRAILER-PARK, DEAD-BEAT status!

But, maybe, just maybe, America will wise up to these hypocritical, self-righteous, uneducated, treasonous, traitorous, un-American SCUMBAGS on the Right is they keep routing for failure. It’s not likely, but I can dream, can’t I?

----------------------------------

(BTW… If I was more of conspiracy-minded person, I’d swear that this debt-ceiling “crisis” was cooked up just to bump the story Ruppert Murdoch’s criminal phone-hacking scandal off of the front page. Get us to forget about that. I don’t REALLY believe that, but it’s been a week or two since I’ve heard dick about it. Just sayin’.)

Teh Stupid Debt / Deficit debate

Did you know that Clinton never had a budget surplus?


It’s true. That confused the shit out of me, because at one point I had numbers that said otherwise, but it’s true. This article, while conservatively biased BIG TIME, explains why and I have since found National Debt Numbers from other sites that back that up. So, it’s right. We’ll just have to accept it.

Now… I told you that because I want to show [the following.] Basically? Republicans and specifically their supply-side econonsense still pretty much suck it fiscally, big time. Now… I’ve done pieces on the debt before, mostly making the same mistake (focusing only on PUBLICLY held debt) this is criticized in the above article. But I want to destroy one of the lies you are hearing from Tea Partiers, John Boehner, Harry Reid (yes, him too!), the Laffer Curve and Reaganomists. The idea that we can UNDER NO CIRCUMSATANCES raise taxes to fix the deficit. Laffer said that the markets will turn down and you’ll lose revenue. Reagan (and later Bush) insisted that the market would boom and the tax cuts would pay for themselves. And even HARRY REID’s current deficit reduction plan includes NO TAX INCREASES.

What. The. Fuck?!

So check this out – and if you want to skip the fancy explanation, just scroll down to the graph and keep reading. I got the followg debt numbers from THIS SITE. Now, based on his comments, I would interpret his ideology as fairly balanced, yet slightly right-leaning. He’s pretty fair with criticism and credit for both sides, acknowledging the realities facing Presidents of ALL parties, but there’s a little more poo-pooing of Democrats and a little more apologism for Republicans; at least it seems that way to me. In any case, I’m only pointing all of this out to show that my information and the data used here doesn’t come from some "Liberal Propaganda" site. It comes for two conservatives (one moderate, one hard) and the U.S. Treasury.

So, to test the theory that, as republican’s put it, we have a “spending problem” and not a “revenue problem,” I thought I do a fairly simple analysis: I’d plot each president’s deficit against their top-tier tax rate and see how they all faned out. (Yeah: I knew how it would look ahead of time, but play along OK? *wink*) For simplicity and legitimacy’s sake, I’m only looking at post WWII numbers – big wars, great depressions, etc… Are bound to have a greater impact on the budget AND the tax rate than anything else, and pretty much ANY partisan will acknowlegde that. (And uh... those ALL happen to work against Democrats, BTW!) Also, while deregulation and lesse-faire economics may have helped create the "roaring twenties," which would boost Republican numbers, all but the most brain-dead partisans realize that those practices were unsustainable.  And history bore that out in the 1930's. Also note – for some reason, these deficits are in 1983 dollars. I'm not sure why he did that, I would have preferred 2010 or 2011 dollars, but I think most of you know that while the absolute values might shift the TRENDS will always remain the same regardless of what year you decide to normalize to. So these are in 1983 dollars, and in Millions. (With no further conversion on my part.)

Federal Deficits in Millions of 1983 Dollars vs. Top Tier Tax Rate the same year:

Wow! Would you look at that! Deficits and top-tier tax rates, in fact, have a negative correlation!

And go figure: The more you take in, the more you can pay off! Wow! What a freaking concept!

And where are we now? Well: Do you see all those REALLY HUGE deficits? Yeah, those are all Bush’43’s and Obama’s. And you see that cluster around 30%? Between $200,000M and $400,000M? Yeah: Those are Reagan’s and Bush’41’s. (Incidentally, those LOW deficits, just below that cluster are all Clinton’s. So while he didn’t have a true SURPLUS, he still did MUCH better than any of the Republicans of the past 30 years!) And I think it's fair to call any top –tier rate under 40% “Reaganesque.” After all, those big deficits at 50%? Were all Reagan’s! So anything UNDER that? IS ABSOLUTLEY Reaganesque – including all current proposals being put forth but Harry Reid and Barack Obama. And it’s time to stop this nonsense. This country, and its Rich, were doing just fine with top tier rates of 50, 70 and even 90%. And the deficits were basically nil’ compared to ANYTHING that we’ve seen in the past 30 years of continuous Reaganomics.

So once again, I’m going to go back to my simple mantras:

Republican philosophy in eight words:

I’VE GOT MINE, SCREW THE REST OF YOU.

[What SHOULD BE] the Democratic philosophy in nine:

TAX THE RICH. TAX THE RICH. TAX THE RICH.

Now… Both of those are parodies, of course, but I find it rather telling that, even in satire, the Liberal position is a solution to the problem, while the Conservative position IS the problem!

So WTF Barrack? WTF Harry?

TAX. THE. RICH!

This will:

1) Fix everything. Seriously.

2) Harm nothing. Seriously!

3) Render the Republicans and Tea-Baggers and RW Libertarians permanently irrelevant.

4) Put the final nail in the coffin of the myth of Supply-Side Economics and its urine-soaked, mentally retarded cousin, trickle-down Reaganomics, and put us back on the path of being a country of opportunity for ALL people and not just the top 2%.

And if that’s “class warfare?” Then SO FUCKING BE IT. The Right has been waging war on the Middle Class, The Working Class, the Unions and the Poor for THIRTY FUCKING YEARS NOW and it has resulted in fiscal disaster. We need jobs. And if the rich won’t provide them, then the Government should TAX THE SHIT OUT OF THEM and provide them. And you know what? After all the money is spent, it will end up right back in the hands of the rich! Because after all, they own the Companies and the Stores and the Services providers where all of that money will be spent! And that’s fine! That’s as it SHOULD BE! That’s why this will do NO HARM! That’s why “trickle down” is a MYTH and “percolate up,” as Obama put it on the ’08 campaign trail, is ECONOMIC REALITY! The only money that the wealthy WON’T get given right back to them? Interest payments on the National Debt – which should be an ever-shrinking number, if we’re running surpluses and paying down the debt! And whatever the Poor, Working and Middle Class manage to keep a hold of, in the form of savings and investments for themselves. And you know what? That will STILL end up going to the CHILDREN of the current-day rich, pretty much fort the same reason.

We need not cry for the Rich in America, folks. They will still be rich. They will still keep all their money. And that’s fine. I don’t want to take it away from them. I just want them to share it a little, since it will all end up going right back them anyway. But it can support a much more comfortable and secure lifestyle (and therefore a much more robust economy) if it passes through a few more hands before ending up back in their wallets.

But no, they’d rather take their toys and say, in the word’s Eric Cartman:

SCREW YOU GUYS, I’M GOING HOME!



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BTW… In case anyone was wondering, you CAN do the same analysis with all of the data going back to 1913, and the negative correlation between top-tier tax rate and deficits still holds:

So, bottom line?

John Boehner and company are full of shit, and Harry Reid and Barrack Obama should stop listening to them!

--- TAX THE RICH. TAX THE RICH. TAX THE RICH.  ---

Republicans to a supermajority of America: Screw you!

So I'm down at the gym and, because my headphones got run over in the parking lot a few weeks back, I'm listening to NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams.  Here's the video feed:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Now... What really struck about this were the statistics.  And these are from the WALL STREET JOURNAL, mind you: Ruppert Murdoch's own news rag!

In favor of Presdient Obama's Debt Reduction Proposals: 58%
In favor of Congressional Republican's Debt Reduction Proposals: 36%

Should Republicans compromise and agree to raise taxes?
YES: 62%
NO: 27%

Should Democrats compromise and allow cuts to Social Security and Medcicare?

YES: 38%
NO: 52%

To put those numbers in perspective...
% of people who voted for Ronald Reagan in 1984: 59%
% of people who voted for Walter Mondale in 1984: 41%


The Republicans are polling at least 3 points lower that Walter Fucking Mondale did in what ended up being one of the worst landslide losses in U.S. Electoral History.

The Democrats are polling within 1 point overall - and three points ahead on tax increases - of Raonlad Reagan, the Right's great hero, in his brightest hour.  (What's more? That lone 52% on the Entitlements issue? Is still over a full point higher than Reagan polled in 1980 against Carter!)

So... here's my question: Why do we even NEED a gang of six?  Why is ANYONE still listening, compromising, fucking PANDERING with ANY of these Right-Wing Ass-Hats?  The Republicans have a position which is unpopular on a Mondalian scale and they're STILL trying to (and our Democratic leaders are letting them) shove it down our throats! 

Mister President, Senate Majority Leader Reid, House Minority Leader Pelosi:

The way I see it, and according to Ruppert Murdoch's own Wall Street Journal about 200 MILLION AMERICANS agree with me, we can fix everything, keep all entitlemants intact, erase the deficit and render the Republican Party permanently irrelevant by following nine simple words:

Tax the rich.

Tax the rich.

Tax the rich.

That's it. Tax the rich. It will literally fix everything and harm nothing. And it will make you the party of the people once again.  Screw this "gang of six" crap.  Tax the rich and veto anything that doesn't. Leave Social Security and Mecdicare alone - or better: FIX THEM without cutting benefits - and veto anythign that doesn't.  It is time to LEAD.  You failed for two years to do this and you lost the house. So I implore you... It's time to grow a spine, step up, LISTEN THE AMERICAN PEOPLE and do what everyone (even the rich) know that you HAVE TO.  I already like your chances in 2012.  But if you stand firm and deliver what a SUPERMAJORITY OF AMERICA is askign you for?  I'll actually FEEL GOOD about liking your chances.

The Party of Fiscal Responsibility?

I've done several pieces over the past year+ showing how absurd it is to consider the REPUBLICANS "fiscally responsible."  Whether it's showing what portion of our debt they're responsible for, or going year by year and showing the trends in deficit spending or even just recognizing the fact that they have been, in fact, actively trying to bankrupt the government in order to force an end to programs that they know they could never get away with, politically, cutting or eliminating.  And that last bit, while seemingly a bit paranoid, is on full display right now in the ongoing farce about trimming the deficit. And to understand just how big a farce this is, realize that you could take ALL of Obama's proposed cuts, ALL of the Republican's proposed cuts, and none of the Republican's propsed tax cuts (yeah - they're "serious" about the deficit, and yet they're STILL proposing tax cuts! That's liek getting "serious" about your credit card debt by working fewer hours!) and even wth all of that, you wouldn't even be HALFWAY to a balanced budget!
And what do we already see will be the result of all these cuts? Hospitals closing, schools closing, tens of thousands out of their jobs, no funduing for public broadcasting (the Right has to LOVE that one!) and the list goes on, and on, and on.

And on.

And for all that pain?  We're not even HALFWAY to a balanced budget?  You gotta be fucking kidding me!

And do you know what's not on the table? RAISING TAXES. Of course.  And there cannot be one person anywhere in the world with two brain cells to bounce together who thinks you can balance the budget on spending cuts alone.  But... this was the Republican's plan all along!  And Speaker Boehner can cry "We're broke!" all he wants, that doesn't make it true.  We're not broke.  That's a bald-faced lie.  We're in the RED, yes.  And that's not good, long-term.  (Although that being the case one has to wonder why the Republicans PUT US in the red every single one of the last 20 years in a row when they held the White House!)  But see... they don't want to raise taxes for two reasons and two reasons only, and neither of them has ANYTHING to do with harming the economy, or creating jobs - botho fwhich are pretty much bullshit.  In fact the same economic model that gives their tax-cut multipliers? (That would be KEYNES.)  Demonstrates that spending changes have a larger effect! (IOW: Those spending cuts will do more harm to the economy than the same level of tax increase. So says the model that gives them the tax-cut multiplier!) And I'm not going to debate that here, but it's a bullshit, nonsense point anyway.  If you want the details, email me or take a goddamned economics course.

The two reasons they don't want to raise taxes is:

1) The American public has grown so stupid and so greedy and so so shortsighted and lacks so much perspective that we're probably to the point where the fools WOULD actually lose their jobs if they did it.  Not that I care about the Republicans losing their jobs, but the bulk of America has grown so spoiled that they just have no clue. No clue at all.  I'll get to what I'd do with taxes in a moment, but the Right has dumbed down America so much, that it probably IS the political reality that raisign taxes is political suicide.  Even though it's needed.  Kind of like... REAL LEADERHSIP.

2) (And this is the important one) Raising taxes would LITERALLY FIX EVERYTHING.  Seriously.  And... they don't want that!  They've been trying to kill these progams for DECADES and they have finally CREATED an environment where they can claim that we have to! (In some cases, IN ORDER TO SAVE THEM!  Figure THAT ONE out!)  But finally, after 30+ years of crippling our governments finances, they finally have enough people fooled into believing that these things have to go. (Persoanlly, I'd say these idiotic Republicans are the ones that have to go, but the people have spoken.) The LAST thing they want at this point is a solvent federal government!

Think about it: How many times have your heard one of these fools, Democrat or Republican, claim, "We just can't afford it anymore?"  I hear it almost every day.  And while they're right, from a certain point of view, it's utterly shocking why no one ever asked about raising taxes back to the levels they were at when the country and its finances were doing just fine!  It's not like we've had these tax rates etched in stone since time immemoriam!  GEORGE W. BUSH created the current tax table, less than a decade ago! And, at least for the past two years, Obama's lowered taxes EVEN MORE!  It's hardly like were tapped here, folks!  It's like we're dying of thirst sitting in our kitchen, and yet refuse to turn on the tap!  It's psychotic!  And if they wanted to lower taxes repsonsibly, all these many long years, they'd have cut the spending FIRST thus keeping the taxes6 cuts deficit neutral.  But since the American people would never go for that, they had to plunge us into debt, creating this artificial crisis in order to confuse the public and get them on board! (And despite being 30 years in the making, with 20 of those years under Reagan, Bush and Bush, somehow this is all OBAMA'S fault!)

Now, I would like to take a look at some of the tax tables of recent past administrations, just to show you how "painful" (hah!) this would be.  As two examples, I'm going to use a household that makes $500,000 per year and my own (approximate) household income.  I'm not going to STATE my income, but I will be honest about what it would cost or save me if we were taxed at some of these older rates.  If you can calculate my income from that information? Congratulations. You pass basic Algebra.  And I'm also assuming that I don't have to explain to any of you how a MARGINAL SYSTEM OF TAXATION works.  So if you don't know where I'm getting my figures, try wikipedia.  One last thing, you can check my tax bracket info aginst the info available at the U.S. Tax Foundation, and my inflation calculatuions HERE.  One last thing: It's worth noting that, starting in 1984, the tax brackets were adjusted each year for inflation automatically.  I happen think this is a good thing, and would automatically adjust ALL fixed numbers in the tax code - including all maximums and minimums - the same way.  So for simplicity's sake, I'm using the last year that the given rates were in effect.

The current tax table is a legacy of the Bush'43 administration:
(Sorry, these run over.  If they were any smaller, you wouldn't be able to read them!)

This is the tax table that resulted in eight years of record deficits (record at elast when compared to any that came before him) under Bush, and another under Obama, and likely another one next year.  Now you hear a lot about eliminating the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy, but I'm on record many times as saying that we should eliminate them accross the board!  Clinton had two budget surplues at the end of his term.  And this was the tax table that created those:

If we adjust for inflation, and move the brackets into 2011 dollars, we get:

So what would all this bed-wetting about the Bush tax cuts cost the rich? Well, that family who's pulling in $500,000 would onlyhave to kick in an extra $12,33.64 a year.  That sounds like a lot, to be sure, but think about it: $500,000 a year!  Think about what you make, what you live on, and ask yourself how hard it would be to find an extra grand or so per month in your budget if you made that many times more than you make now!  You know what I say? Boo-fucking-hoo for the rich.  What would this cost ME?  An extra $1755 a year.  Now that would affect my lifestyle and spendign decisions far more that the $12-large would affect that other familiy's, but I'll be honest with you: $147 less a month?  I could afford it.  Actually? It wouldn't change by budget at all, nor would it impact my retirement savings. I'd still even have some decent cash going into my short-termsavings account. So it really wouldn't change much of anything.  (I guess it must just be good to be me!)  But whatever.  If that's all it cost to REALLY eliminate the defict and KEEP most of our social safety nets? FUCKING DO IT ALREADY!

Now, I will admit that Boehner & Co. may have a point when it comes to tax hikes.  After all, check out the table that got George "Read My Lips" Bush voted out of office in 1992:

adjusted for inflation:

Oh, my fucking god!  His top-rate is still less than his son's!  And he got kicked out of office for that!  Apparently we've been spoiled little cry-babies about taxes longer than I thought, the Clinton years not withstanding!

Now this will illustrate why the whole flat tax thing (and the arguments about top-tier rates) are utter bullshit.  This tax table? Would cost me another $1089 over the Clinton table. (and $2845 over the current table.) That's right: Bill Clinton LOWERED my taxes! (Hint: It was those extra brackets!)  Meanwhile, in all his generosity, Bush'41would give a $13,583 CUT to that family making $500K per year as compared to the Clinton table. (And $1250 less than than what his son's table taxes them at!) Talk about "rob from the poor and give to the rich!"

But how bad was that, anyway?  Why'd he get voted out over that? Well... it was replacing this absurd tax table from Reagan's second term:

Look at that!  A top-tier rate that's actually LESS than what he's taxing the middle class at! Can you believe it!  This is the Right's great hero, folks: Rob from the poor and give to the rich, and don't even try to hide it! Adjusted for inflation, it would look like this:

OK. Under this monstrosity, I'd be paying $3004 more than I'm paying now.  (And $1249 more than the Clinton table!)  Wait... I though Reagan was this great tax-cutter?!  Well... he was, if you were rich enough to afford him:  That family of $500K? Pays $4,872 less than they do now, and $17,205 less that they would owe under Clinton!  The middle class gets soaked for 3-large, so that some making $500K can have an extra 17-GRAND?!  What. the. fuck?  I'm liking Geroge W. Buch better all the time!  At least with him there was SOMETHING in it for me!  As far as I'm concerned Reagan and Bush were a bunch of working-class-people-hating cock-munchers!

There is one thing, however, about Reagan that his current cult-following will not tell you about.  In his first term, he actually signed a top tier tax rate of 50% into law.  It was a CUT at the time but still, let me say that again: Ronald Reagn signed a 50% tax rate into law!  And it was in place until 1986.  Here's what it looked like:

Adjust for inflation and you get...

Looks complicated, no?  Well... complicated can be GOOD sometimes.  Under this table I would owe $2566 more than I owe today, and just $810 more than I would under Clinton.  And those rich folks at $500K?  Would owe $64,798 more than the do now. Wow. And that's under a RONALD WILSON REAGAN CONSTRUCTED Tax Table!  Fuck Clinton! For an extra $810 a year?  I say: let's bring back the first REAGAN tax table!  Let's bring back that $64K tax hike that this great socialist would ask of the rich!

I mentioned that this was actually a reduction, and I've gone so far recently as to call for pre-REAGAN tax rates.  This was the last table under Carter:

Adjusted for inflation:

Do you notice how that top tier rate doesn't even kick in until well after $500K? Remember that the next time someone's making fun of that 70% tax rate.  Now... I'll admit that I could be pursuaded that 70% is too high.  We can argue it.  I'd be perfectly happy with a top tier rate of 50% - with that 1982-86 Reagan Table.

But just for shits and giggles, under Carter, I'd owe $4355 more than I'd owe today.  ($2600 more than with the Clinton table, and $1789 more than with the earlier Reagan table.) That's... a bit much, actually.  I could still swing it, without changing my budget, or my retirement investments, but... there wouldn't be ANYTHIGN left for short-term savings or emergencies. Nothing. Nada. Zilch.  So... yeah, bvioulsy that would eventually impact my budget.  And thus I might just have to back off from my calls of Carter-levels of taxation, even if it would squeeze an extra $117,708 out of those rich bastards down the street, over what they'd owe now. (LOL!) As much as I'd love to seem them pay that... We're getting into T.E.A. territory for me with with what I'd owe.  So, yeah, I'll admit this is excessive.

I'll bet you never thought you'd here me say this: BRING BACK THE REAGAN TAX TABLES!

(Just remember: I mean the 1982-1986 tables, not the 1987-1989 tables!)

What do my libral readers think?  Time to revisit Reagan's great tax policy?

Welcome back!

Welcome back! I hope everyone had a safe and happy holiday. I spent about a week visiting relatives in Massachusetts. Since my parents live in Florida, we don’t get up to Massachusetts very often. So from that perspective, it was good to see everybody again. From another… Well, one thing I’ve noticed as I’ve gotten older and presumably, though probably not proportionately, wiser is that I’ve become more aware of what’s going on under the surface of things. Underneath that polite veneer that’s presented to the world, and which as a child I assumed there was nothing behind – that we were just a big happy family with no politics or strife. And that’s not to say that we aren’t, but my god… It drives me nuts just how much into everyone else business they insist of getting, and how much petty sniping goes on in terms of who’s thinks what, and who said what, and who didn’t go to who’s party, or who’s more generous or more stingy, who got the better gifts… Holy hot hopping hell, it’s like going around the table at Thanksgiving and everyone declaring how good everyone else has it! (And realize that these folks are all very well off! No one’s losing their house, or living on the edge.) But seriously, I could never stand having that many people up in my business all time! Oh my God… It drives you nuts after a while! (And the relative lack of that in my life is one of the advantages of living where I do!)

Anyway, we’re home now. And I must say that while overall we DID have a good time, there were some interesting political discussions that happened on this trip that I’d like to share with you all. I’ll say up front, that most of these I was little more than an observer or a devil’s advocate. For the most part I’m keen to let the family partisans fight it out – no one’s really listening to anyone else anyway, or has any intention of changing their position, so I’d rather not waste my breath burning bridges.

The first involved the Massachusetts State Law regarding care for the elderly. In Massachusetts, as in many other places, If a person cannot pay for their own long term care - and let’s face it: if you don’t have a lot of money, LTC insurance and a decent source of income into retirement, few can – then when you need to enter a nursing home, the state will provide this service, taking care of those elderly and indigent people who can no longer care for themselves. These facilities are not great places of course – the one in question was a real shithole. And yet… the costs are still astronomical. Well beyond what most people could afford even for a short time, let alone indefinitely. Now, when you are in these institutions, you are now a ward of the State. The State gets your pension, your social security, and gives you just a small weekly allowance (to spend on what, I wonder? No one ever leaves the building!) They also take any assets you have, to cover the costs of your care. If you own a house? The state will take it. Car? Same. (Etc…) There are ways around this, of course. Since laws are written by lawyers, to give more work to other lawyers, there are trusts and other estate planning tools that will allow your family to keep most or all of these assets. One has to wonder why you would write a law, and then immediately create another law whose sole purpose is to circumvent the first law, but that’s the biggest problem with politics and legislation. Beyond any Liberal or Conservative issues, the primary problem is that laws are written by legislators who are primarily – like 90% of them – LAWYERS. And their “secret agenda” is not Liberal or Conservative per se - it’s primarily to drum up more business for lawyers. If they can write a law that will result in more law suits? Or that can further complicate tax law or estate law and thus make even more work for tax and estate lawyers? They’re all over it.

ANYWAY… Feel as you will about the idea of the State taking your house, or about the fact that if you pay a lawyer to write up a new trust every couple of years, your family can keep the house, the fact is that caring for the elderly is expensive. And SOMEONE, SOMEHOW needs to pay for it! The real point of contention, and where my Father – a staunch Conservative, Republican, borderline Tea-Party type - started chiming in is that in addition to what I’ve mentioned already, Massachusetts does what they call a “five-year look back” to see if you made any large gifts over the past five years. And if you did? The State can go after the recipient to get them back! Again, this sounds really unfair, but MANY States have these look-back periods. They’re basically meant to prevent people from giving their assets away to family in order to get around paying for the care they’ll receive from the State. And, while it seems like it sucks at first, when you think about it, it’s basically FAIR. Well… My father’s having none of that: To him it’s bullshit that the State would take property, let alone look back five years and take it from other people! Now, he understood WHY they do this. He KNOWS that people could easily cheat the system, were it not for the look back system. So I asked him: How would you pay for it then? Shitty a lifestyle though it may be, this is a necessary, expensive service that’s being provided! Why is it wrong to ask the recipients of that service to pay whatever they can for it? I then added the kicker, reminding him that the alternative was socializing it, through higher taxes, spreading the cost across everyone, and making everyone pay for it. That’s a solution that I don’t really have a problem with: it would be part of my overall health care system. But I KNEW he’d never go for it. And, big surprise, he admitted that he had no ideas for alternatives, although he did point out that the family themselves used to care for their elderly relatives in house. (Yeah: Back when you could raise a family on one income, and people didn’t live nearly as long!) Anyway, I learned a long time ago that you can never get a Conservative to admit he’s wrong, but if you can get them to admit that they have no ideas? Count that as a win. For me? I just see it as evidence that Conservatives are basically whiny little bitches who want something for nothing. (And in this case a Government handout and socialized medicine! Imagine that!) But PAY FOR IT? What kind of liberal nonsense is that?!

Also hilarious, to me anyway, is hearing someone like my dad (a very wealthy man, I should add) talk about how we should just go to a “flat tax.” Now… first off all, he’s a deficit hawk, big time. Granted, he’s your typical Right Winger when it comes to the deficit: Lower Taxes (huh?), cut entitlements, trim defense (at worst), no earmarks, no pork, etc… in other words, basically shitty ideas that will do nothing to fix the deficit, and do great harm to the economy and to people’s lifestyles. But when he talks about a flat tax, I wonder if he’s even capable of basic arithmetic. Because if you assume a rate that doesn’t INCREASE the deficit, YES, his rate would go down, but the rates of ~98% of Americans would go UP. A LOT. When 1% of you population make 20% of the income (note: I just made that up – whatever the actual numbers are, it pretty bad) you cannot lower their tax bracket without raising everyone else’s, if you (1) want everyone to have the same rate. And (2) don’t want to increase the deficit / debt. So… why, you might ask would a Conservative be so much in favor or RAISING everyone’s taxes? I don’t have a clue. No, my dad’s not a stupid man. A bit self-centered in his perspective maybe, but he’s not DUMB. He just suffers for the typical Conservative’s disease of completely lacking logical consistently, self-awareness and principled pragmatism.

Another bit topic of conversation was the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” To which I say, “It’s about damned time, and what the hell took so long?!” But my Brother in Law was in the Navy and my Cousin was a Marine, and they’re both Conservatives – my brother-in-law to a kind of annoying, Sean Hannity degree, my cousin to a more psychotic G.Gordon Liddy / Mike Savage degree. And of course, despite the fact that they both served with gays, whether they knew it or not, this was of course going to signal the death knell of American Military Dominance. Putting aside of course that we spend twice on defense what England, France, Russia and China do combined. Putting aside that almost every other non-Muslim country has already done the same thing, and it’s had no impact. Putting aside that polls showed that even 70% of White Evangelical Christians supported its repeal… It all over. We’re doomed. And it seemed like everyone else (most of whom range from Massachusetts Democrats to Massachusetts Liberals) just LOVED to get my cousin torqued up about it, and get him going on one of his homophobic rants. Don’t get me wrong: I love a good rant as much as the next guy, even when I disagree with the speaker. It’s fun to see a man feeding off his own hatred, anger and fears. It’s fun to see someone just lose it. I know. I’m human too! But as I listened to him, a theme started to emerge that I found rather… disturbing.

I can’t really cite any one thing he said, but he acted like the Marines were their own entity. As if they were a club that could make their own rules and their own policies, rather than an arm of the democratically elected Government, created to enforce theirs. He acted like the Marines existed only to fight – which, yes, they do – but beyond that, as if their whole raison detre was fighting for fighting’s sake alone, or for any reason they alone saw fit, and that other factors, like actual foreign policy and actual American Values like freedom and equality were not the REASON they were fighting. I’m not going to suggest that he speaks for all Marines, but to hear him going off, in an almost thug-like, borderline-Nazi manner, you’d think he thought that it was the Marines, and the mentality of Marines like him that decided (not SHOULD decide, but ACTUALLY decided) what they should be fighting for, what the country stands for, and how the laws should be made and that somehow anything that goes against that fascist psychosis somehow constitutes a betrayal of our brave men and women in uniform. But answer me this: If you’re in the Middle East fighting a bunch of misogynistic, theocratic homophobes, and yet you DON’T believe in religious freedom, or equality, then WHAT THE FUCK ARE FIGHTING FOR?! At that point, you can only be fighting for fighting’s sake. I don’t believe, as he does, that America is betraying that part of the Military by allowing Gays to serve openly. I believe that for many years, large parts of the Military have been betraying American values by not respecting, supporting and fighting for what America actually believes and stands for: Equality and religious freedom.

And one point he actually said, “I don’t judge them [gays], but they’re deviants!” Remember what I said about lacking self-awareness?

Of course, the TSA and Muslim profiling came up. At which point I had to point out (again) that the terrorists were not the ones with long beards and turbans, but rather the clean-shaven ones wearing suits. Also that a turban was rarely indicative of a MUSLIM, and far more often indicative of a HINDU. And that the average Hindu hates Muslims even more that then average American bigot does. Now this lead to a brief conversation about other religions, and which point my Mom asked me what religion “those kids I went to school with were.” I knew the ones she meant: The ones who wore turbans and never, in their life, have cut their hair. To which I answered that they were Sikhs. My brother-in-law chimed in, adding that they “wear daggers around their necks” which is technically true, but also a grossly misleading oversimplification. After which my Father commented that it was a religious with “weird beliefs.” I asked him, “What religion DIDN’T ask you to believe weird things?” and then said, “Do you know what you call a religion without weird beliefs? SCIENCE. (And maybe Philosophy.)” That earned me a wink and a nod from my Uncle, by far the most liberal man in the room, and one of the most liberal men I know.

Speaking of weird beliefs… Do notice how some people will believe anything about someone they don’t like politically?

There was an article – on the front page of the Boston Globe no less – about the fact that the late Senator Edward Kennedy’s dog died. (Yes the Kennedy’s are still royalty in Massachusetts to the point where the death of a dead Kennedy’s dog is front page news!) Now… I noticed something in the article that, I thought, revealed either a gross display of bad taste, or a complete lack of self-awareness on the part of the late Senator. The dog’s name? SPLASH. Seriously. A guy who will forever be remember for driving his car off a bridge, drunk, into a river and allowing a female campaign aid worker to die in the icy water… named his dog SPASH. Now… although I’m not a particular critic of the late Senator, I found this point to be at least a bit perversely humorous - my favorite kind of humor - so I pointed it out. At which point Sean Hannity my brother-in-law started talking about how Kennedy often used to “joke about killing that woman,” and how he was such a scumbag, etc… Now… He works at the Pentagon. And he does occasionally rub elbows with people who actually may have had conversations and even a relationship with the late Senator. But the way he told the story? “I heard,” “People say,” that sort of thing? Just makes me file it under “People will believe anything about someone they disagree with politically.” I don’t know if it happened or not. I have no idea. It could have. But what I do know? Is that a Conservative’s burden of proof is fairly low, when it comes to bad things being said about Progressives or Liberalism.

Anyway, while it was still a good time overall… It’s definitely good to be home


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BTW… There’s was this John Stossell thing that ran on Fox while we were up there that I’d like to debunk, but this post is long enough, and that’s a post that should probably be its own post anyway.

Tax Cuts for Millonaires

And to think that just this morning, I was arguing with someone over whether or not Obama had a tendency to cave to the Right...

Well, the Right got their tax cuts extended.  All of them.  And this after two years of hammering Obama about the DEFICIT!  Un-be-fucking-lievable.

And the best line out of the whole debate?

After having to jetison the Making Work Pay tax credit (for individuals making under $75K and couples making less than $150K) which was part of last year's (Obama's) stimulus bill, the biggest SOB in the Senate, Orin Hatch had the nerve to complain that the Make Work Pay tax credit in effect exempted too many middle-income Americans from having to pay income taxes.

Give that one to you RW friends to stick in their pipe and smoke the next time they tell you the Republicans aren't just out for "tax cuts for millionares," of for that matter that Obama doesn't cave to the Right:

The top 2% got their tax break, but the rest of us lost a big one of ours. 

Why the fuck do we even need this guy? (Obama.)  What has he done that the GUYS WHO LOST (when he came into office) wouldn't have done?  Seriously.  Fifty-nine votes in the Senate and they give the tax cut to the top 2% and screw over everyone else.

That's actually WORSE than Bush.  At least Bush gave me SOMETHING.

The only cut I'm getting?  My social security tax.  AT A TIME WHEN WE'RE CONSTANTLY HEARING THAT SOCIAL SECURITY IS GOING BROKE!  (And from the Republicans, no less! How does this shit even HAPPEN?!)

He's actually worse than Bush.  Relative to what he was given and what he had to work with, politically?   Obama is worse than Bush.

It's un-fucking-believable.

The only thing worse are these idiots who are STILL going around trying to call him a socialist.

This is not what I voted for. Not at all. Lemme know who the 2012 primary challenger is, ASAP.  Because unless Sarah Palin is leading the other ticket, and it's someone who can't beat her?

They've already got my vote.

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And BTW, I'm very sorry to hear about the passing of Elizabeth Edwards.  It's been a rough week, first Ron Santo, and now Edwards.  My thoughts are with both of their families.  You have my sincerest condolences.

My Reply to okiepoli

Background: This conversation started as some back-and-forth between myself an commenter okiepoli just under two months ago, in the Cooler Heads Prevail post.  In my defense I didn't realize that he had sent me an mail, due to my habit of simply deleting any emails that look like they're notifying me of blog comments, opting instead to read them on the actual blog.  And this one was interesting to me, because okie falls into an odd, but growing Category of voter, especially as that Tea Party insanity claims any remnant of the Right not already claimed by the funny-mentalists: A self-identified Conservative Republican who basically sees nothing of value in the Republican Party.  Now, to be sure, that's certain my kind of "Conservative Republican." LOL. I'm both kidding and not kidding when I say we need more like him.  (What I mean is, but the cynical and the principled interpretation of that statement hold true! LOL)  And I may be simplifying things a bit, off course.  I only know him from his posts here and on MMFA, and for the longest time had him pegged as a LIBERAL, due to nothing else that his penchant from joining in on most of the rounds of Republican bashing.  So, following up for that earlier post, he sent me the email below to continue the conversation that blogger apparently would let his post in the comments section. (I'll have to see if there is something I can do about the character limitation.  because it really is too short.)

Just as with my response to Steeve's email, I'm going to put the excerpts from okie's  in yellow.

Eddie;


Sorry it took so long to get back to this - you may have noticed a decreased presence on MMfA also. I've been "live(ing) in interesting times" lately, mostly due to the end of the fiscal year at work. (DOD civilian) And you have 8 new posts I need to catch up with since.

A two-parter, huh? OK, I'll play along:

PART the FIRST – RE: your first reply:


You say, "Unfortunately that school of thought was largely abandoned back in 1980, and all that remains of it now is a distant memory, clung to by the few principled (true) Conservatives left."

Why do you hate Pres. Reagan? (j/k) I would pin the start of the downhill slide to the early '70's – Pres. Nixon was as progressive a Republican as you could hope to find. I think he was confused by the concept of a relatively weak presidency - Constitutionally a mere figurehead – the weakest of the three branches. (See: The Federalist Papers: #67 - 77, specifically #69, 70 &77, arguments can be found in The Antifederalist Papers: #67 – 77.) Combine a pro-unitary executive view with the idea that 'peaceniks,' 'leftists,' and Democrats (my words, not his) were an enemy to be beaten at any cost to prevent the country from sliding towards communism, were, in my view, his downfall.

Pres. Ford wasn't bad, but he wasn't perceived as being 'good' and certainly didn't come across as being as strong as Pres. Nixon. Nixon's pardon combined with the state of the nation at the end of Ford's term, voter dissatisfaction with any Republican rule – weak or strong – and the promise of government reform gave us Pres. Carter. (You can defend Carter if you want to, but you don't need to on my account.)

This may come as a surprise, not only coming from a self-identified Liberal, and one who's written a piece on how badly Nixon really sucked, but really?  I don't think Nixon was all that bad a President, as long as we're only talking policy.  You can criticise the war tactics, although you can defend them as well, but in the end, he DID end the damned war.  He created several important Government regulatory agencies, and normalized relations with China.  (Which again, one can argue either way, but I'd take the problems we have now over what would have been 40 years with a second major player in the Cold War and the arms race. 

The way I see it, much like with Carter, the biggest problem with Nixon was Nixon himself.  His personal issues far outweighed any policy issues he may have had.  I mean, come on... spying on the Democrats in 1972?!  He won 520-17 for cripes sake!  And I don't think ANY of that came from any secret information he might have gleaned from those shenanigans.  His personal demons got in the way of his better judgment.  But Watergate was paranoia, not policy.  And without Watergate?  No one today would even know who Gerald Ford was.

Nixon would be a RINO today.  He may have been perceived as pretty hard-Right in  his day, but remember that he was coming in after Lyndon Johnson, maybe the last public servant who was still supporting the "New Deal" philosophy of Roosevelt.  IMHO? He also had his policy flaws (Vietnam?) but he was the last truly liberal President, and maybe the last truly principled, leader we've had in the White House.

I feel it's important to point out that Presidents Eisenhower, Nixon and Ford all had distinguished military service in foreign theatres, as did Sen. Goldwater. This distinction is lacking when we turn our attention to:

Pres. Reagan


Reagan never had to be a hero (but he played one on TV!), or even come close to an enemy – his 'service' was all done state-side. I'm not sure if that is the difference – merely memorizing the lines and mouthing the words – vs actually having to live the life... Anyway, you and others have repeatedly pointed out Reagan's faults, to which I would only add. Reagan probably could be classified as the 'event horizon' of 'principled Conservatism.'

Wait... who "hates Reagan" now? ;)

Speaking of Reagan, who popularized the term 'welfare queen,' now might be a good time for an aside on my thoughts on the welfare state:


I don't consider myself a heartless bastard so I care, at least a little, about my fellow inhabitants on this speck of mud we call home. I subscribe to the oft mis-attributed phrase "Charity begins at home..." - unfortunately, it seems to end there as well for the modern crop of Republicans. I would challenge them to prove that they are not heartless bastards by "promote(ing) the general Welfare" - not necessarily by taxing and funding social programs, perhaps by getting personally involved? Many folks would defend their charity by saying "I donate..." clothing (they no longer wear,) household items, canned goods, yada, yada, yada – I do that too. Here's the difference – it takes money and people for the kind non-profits to operate – those canned goods that you wouldn't eat unless you were starving, those clothes that you cleaned out of your closet to make room for newer, more fashionable (or better-fitting, whatever) clothing – they're NOT going to collect, warehouse, sort, repackage and distribute themselves. It takes trucks, fuel, space and PEOPLE!

OK, first of all?  No one thinks of themselves as a "heartless bastard."  I'm sure even Rush Limbaugh thinks of himself as a generous and magnanimous guy fighting for what he honestly believes is right.  I'm not suggesting the you are one, not at all, only that this statement doesn't really mean anything. ;)

Second of all, while I applaud anyone's participation in charity, and feel that there is a lot of good work being done in that area... Do you really think it would ever be enough?  If we got rid of the welfare state, do you really think a few dollars here and there, some threadbare clothing, and as many cans of creamed corn will really make up the difference?  What's more, I propose that if the taxes were lower proportionately, once those programs were cut, that charitable donations might actually DROP as the marginal return, in terms of the tax deduction, drops. 

What more, while I don't adopt the label "Keynesian," I do understand how Keynesian economics WORKS.  All that welfare money?  Goes right into the economy.  Every after-tax penny of it immediately becomes someone else's income.  People who WORK.  And people who would also be OUT OF WORK in that big chuck of revenue was suddenly denied them or their employer. (Which in turn would that much less consumption by those people, and less revenue for than many more businesses.)  Whether or not huge deficits can change the course of an economy is up for debate.  What is FACT is that Taxing and Spending - in unison, now, as a balanced budget - increase incomes for everyone.  And cutting taxes and spending - in unison - will hurt just about everyone.  Those rich folks at the top? They're going to be rich either way.  They get every penny they pay in taxes BACK through all the increased consumption resulting from the increased spending.  And the farther down the ladder the spending starts, the more people's income it will become before finally being whittled way by taxes and acts of non-consumption (savings.)  Tax-cuts for the rich?  Pretty much ALL end up as acts of non-consumption.  They'll save it.  So it benefits no one but them.  But a welfare case?  Spends every penny, and thus gives the highest economic benefit to the economy.  THAT'S the fundamental difference between supply-siders and Keynesian: Recognition that the health of the economy depends far more on CONSUMPTION that it does PRODUCTION.  (That, and a recognition of the fact that right now?  Stuff is pretty cheap.  WAGES and INCOME are what's keeping consumption down, not high prices.
I volunteer two hours every two weeks at a kitchen. (I'd do more, it's extremely rewarding in it's own 'warm-fuzzy' way, but I _really_ can't find the time in my schedule.) I manage to work in about 24 'unscheduled' hours a year for projects for Goodwill, SA and some local groups. I'm doing more than some (I suspect many,) and less than others (I suspect too few.)

I applaud you.  I'm ashamed to say that I've done no more than donate, myself.  And while I can make any excuse I want, I'll be honest: Even without the hectic family life, I probably still wouldn't donate much time.  So you could argue that I'm as much a part of the problem, from the Left.  But hey, I'll do my part: I pay my taxes, and I'm not out campaigning to get rid of the social safety nets.  In fact, I would see them strengthened. That may seem like the weaker choice from a Conservative's perspective, but I simply believe that more can be accomplished for the rich, middle class and poor alike by using the resources of the Federal Government instead of society loose change.  And remember: Johnson, Nixon/Ford, Carter?  All of those administrations were basically deficit neutral, at least as compared to everyone since Reagan.  So it's not the "Great Society" program that are killing us.  It our unwillingness to PAY for this great nation, thanks in large part to Ronald "Event Horizon" Reagan and the culture of deficit spending that he kicked off.

I challenge any 'Republican' (or anyone else, for that matter,) who decries the cost of social programs and the tax burden they cause to step-up and either whip out their checkbook or invest their time – otherwise they should admit that they're heartless bastards or, STFU, pay their taxes, and attempt to salve their consciences with the previously mentioned "I donate..." defense. (sorry for the rant – one of my pet peeves.)

Hey, I hear you.   And I feel a little bit better now about saying "I donate," because I'm NOT one of the one's complaining about high taxes.
 
Back to your post: "For me, the label (and the party) is irrelevant. I'm pretty sure we both just think what we think and believe as we do. You're mat be more comfortable with the one label, or party. Me? I couldn;t care less what soemone wants to call it."


In "The Federalist Papers" #10, Madison rails against 'Factions' (political parties,) as does Washington in his Farewell Address – Who am I to pit myself against these and other great thinkers on that subject? Unfortunately, a 'mob mentality' trumps logic. Many people can't be bothered to think independently and have forgotten the wisdom of their elders (or betters, as the case may be.) I would say that modern life has become too fast-paced to allow for considered thought and reasonable debate – but I take our conversation to be evidence that this is not the case. Hell, even during the Founders time, dirt-farmers who worked from sun-up to sun-down managed to find the time to weigh-in on political issues. (I guess they weren't too busy watching TV.)

The evolution of Political Parties was inevitable.  It's human nature and really the nature of a Democracy.  Even in parliamentary systems, they still end up forming coalitions, so you effectively still end up with two sides: The Government and the Opposition.  Those are a bit more diverse groups than what we have, but until recently there were Liberal Republicans, and there remains rather a few Conservative Democrats.  But multiple parties just means split votes, and everything only gets messier.  Like in Great Britain recently, where the Liberal Democrats, who are to the Left of Labor, joined with the Conservative to put them over the top.  And it's a mess.  The Liberals lost on all points - hence the austerity policies that are being enacted, and which I mentioned a few posts ago.  So while Parties suck, there's really no way around them.  Washington and Madison were absolutely right, but they were asking way too much of humanity.

I wouldn't mind if we had at least 5 or 6 viable parties that addressed a variety of issues, values and views. I feel the choices would stimulate thought and debate, and would be preferable to the two-party monopoly that we currently see.

Wouldn't matter. Wouldn't make a bit of difference. (See above, LOL)  And more and more I'm coming to the impression that we really DON'T have two Parties.  The Democrats have shown themselves to be little more than "Republican-lite."  And the funny thing? The Tea-Baggers say the same thing about the Republicans!"  And I can certainly perceive a POV form which BOTH of these statements are true!  And that might be why Congress is so partisan: It's no longer about the policy.  The policies aren't that far apart.  So it's all about which team wins.  Now if the TeaBagger's take over the right? And we have ourselves a little Coffee Party on the Left?  And we compete for the moderates?  (Thus moderating both sides in the process?) THEN we'll have true two-party system.
"What the right practices these days may not be "Conservative" but that's what it's called and I utterly reject it. And if they're going to throw the "Liberal" label at me, then screw 'em. I'LL WEAR IT WITH PRIDE."

So you're OK with letting dishonest people pervert the meaning of words? I know you're not, and neither is Classic! There should be no shame in those labels. We are victims of a campaign to distort the language and those subversives who are conducting that campaign should be called-out and beaten over the head with a dictionary. (Pocket-version or collegiate with large type – depending on the severity of the crime.)

It's not that I'm "OK" with the meaning of words being perverted.  But I'm still a pragmatist.  You say "Conservative" but I hear very little from you that I can't, very fairly, call "Liberal."  So you choose to use a definition that most people, for whatever reason, no longer really consider valid.  Tragic yes, buts that;'s the reality of it.  If I really wanted to choose a label for myself?  Anti-Neo-Conservative might fit better than any.  But is there really any difference between that and "Liberal"? Not really. And hey, "Anti-Neo-Conservative" might be another way of saying "Classic Conservative" or even "Libertarian."  The only thing that puts me on the side of "Liberal" is my recognition that the policies of Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson work.   

And the political Landscape shifted far more in the past 30 years than I have.  I've matured: After all I was only 8 years old when Reagan was elected.  So while I could idolize him as a kid, I had little understanding of policy.  Now that I do, I find that it's not so much that my core beliefs have changed, only that I didn't realize, as a child, how much Reagan differed form them.  And I don't think ANYONE at the time realized the full extent of the long-lasting damage his polices would do. 

In 1979, I may have been just Left of center.  But I find myself practically on the hard Left now, because the republic's perception of the Center has been puled so far to the Right!  And really I don't care about the Label, or the Party.  They're just tools I can use to describe what I believe in, in a simple way that can give a complete stranger some idea what those beliefs are.  It's not a perfect picture, but I dare say that when I say "Liberal" people get a more accurate picture of me than the do of YOU when you say "Conservative."

You can argue who's right and who's wrong. (Answer: You're right; they're wrong.)  I'm just being practical. I can't change the world if no one knows what the hell I'm talking about! LOL

"And it shows."

Agreed!

"So... COME TO THE DARK SIDE!!! (we have cake)"

But I'm watching my weight! ;)


"Thanks for your comment, and for that lucid, principled, well written post on MMFA. Can I use it?"

Fine Print: Copyright restrictions, yada, yada, yada. In whole or in part, etc. Not valid in any other state (of mind.) /Fine Print Thanks for the compliment, you're welcome to quote me. (Especially now that you threw my half-baked idea for solar-powered nuke waste-disposal out there for the world to see. Who knew being outed could be so liberating! Freed from the secret shame. Joy!)

I give up.  I'm not even sure at this point WHAT "shows." LOL.  But I'm glad we agree. LOL

PART the SECOND – RE: Oh, hey Okie, one thing

Ed note: "Okie" refers to someone from Oklahoma – capitalization and use correct in that sense. okiepoli is the screen-name of one opinionated blow-hard from Oklahoma – not capitalized by choice – suitable short-form "okie"

Duely noted. ;)

You said: ""Larger" Government (whatever THAT means) might be harder to "keep track" of, but "smaller" government, by contrast, give any/all of the individals in it more power individually. Personally, I'd like to try it the opposite way... Check out www.thirty-thousand.org.

I followed that link from your blog 22 July, 2010, and collected 7.73 Megs of information from the site and related links – I admit I am intrigued, but haven't had the time to digest and analyze it yet. My argument on size of government is more to do with scope rather than numbers of people or dollars. That said, I still believe that 'smaller' (limited scope,) more efficient (most-bang-for-buck) government is better than 'larger' (broad scope,) inefficient (expanding bureaucracy) government. (My definition of bureaucrat: a non-elected public 'servant' whose decrees (regulations, codes, etc.) carry the weight of law (I can be fined, jailed or otherwise punished for non-compliance.))

I offer this personal observation to clarify my position:


Recently, the OKC "Jesus House" non-profit made the news due to some scandalous activity. My conversations with other volunteers leads me to believe the allegations are true, and I will no longer donate money to that organization until the problems are corrected. It saddens me because Jesus House is such a valuable resource for the homeless in my city, and I know that many others are withholding donations and it has more of a negative effect on the quality and quantity of services offered than it does to the (mis-)management. Still, I made the choice – not some bureaucrat in a bureaucracy that is slow to recognize and correct it's mistakes. I agree – poverty, homelessness, hunger, etc. in the wealthiest nation in the world, is shameful. I also believe, with all my heart, that a government cannot adequately address, much less cure, these social ills.

I'm also dismayed by the Republican support of 'faith-based' organizations – tax-exempt for 501c's I'm OK with, but any kind of grant with that provision seems to cross the line I draw for separation. Where would we stop? If we give a penny to the next "Heaven's Gate" cult, we'd need to give three cents to the next Branch Davidians, more to the next Jim Jones, etc. until we get to the more main-stream folks. (Based on the percent of population represented by these faiths.) To apportion the money otherwise would smack of favoritism.

Again, government (federal) should concern itself with government affairs, LIKE PRESENTING A BUDGET FOR THE PRESIDENT TO SIGN BY APRIL, instead of shirking it's (Congress) Constitutional duty and running the country on continuing resolutions. State and local governments should concern themselves with their respective concerns. Society, through the efforts of it's members and Non-governmental Organizations (NGO's) should address social problems. There are levels of scope involved for each – local, regional, national, global – and levels of commitment. Political and social involvement is a citizens duty.


okiepoli

Wow.  That's mouthful and then some! LOL.  I really don't DISAGREE with anything you've said here.  My only "counter," if that's even the right word for it, is this:
 
1) As I stated previously, there are far more resources available at the federal level to combat poverty that would otherwise be available at the charitable level.  We need BOTH, and of course I'm fine with people dong charitable work.  I just don't understand the mentality that the two must be in competition with each other, instead of part of the same solution.  (Which is how I see them.)
 
And we DO have a repsonsibilty ot combat that poverty if for no other reason than we don't actually aim for full employemnt!  As a coutnry, we actually have a targeted unemployment rate!  So if we're going to keep ANYONE out of work as a matter of policy, I'd say we have some responsibility to them.
 
2) Regarding "punishing wrongdoing."  I'm going to offer something I learned, from a very conservative professor I might add, when I got my MBA.  In any given organization, redundantcny combats fraud.  It does this by requiring more people to be involved in any given conspiracy. And the more people involved, the more likely that one squeals or that it is otherwise discovered. 
 
You can see a very simple example of this at the movie theatre: Why do you pay one person and then give your ticket to someone else?  Why don;t you just PAY and then GO IN?  Because by separating the two processes, you have an accurate count of ticket purchases from one person, that makes it harder for the cashier to steal from the register without being caught.  And even if they tried to coordinate their efforts, all it would take is to be off by one or two ticket purchases here and there for management to know something's screwy is going on.
 
In contrast, a friend of mine has her own business.  She's very good at the service she provide, but she's not much at the business side of things.  She had just two people running the office, doing the billing and tracking the books.  And these two? Milked her to the tune of $700,000 over several years.  How? No redundantcny.  No one checking theirr work.  No checks and balances against which their numbers would ever be compared.  By the time she finally caught on? Her business was on the brink of bankruptcy.
 
People get frustrated with bureaucracies, and that's understandable.  But at least in those cases their is a PROCESS.  If I'm dealing with one person who has all the power? That can be a mixed blessing, big time.  If s/he wants to help me it's great.  But if their job is as a gatekeeper?   And they DON'T want to help me?  I'm twice as screwed as I am dealing with the bureaucracy.  Bureaucracies are SLOW.  But a single point of decision making? Is FINAL.  And of course, it becomes very easy for that person to pull of the very kind of shenanigans you are describing, if there are not redundant layers of process that his work will be compared against.
 
Again, big or small doesn't really matter to me.  The fact that so many things don't work, IMHO, has nothing to do with the size.  It has to do with political games where people don't like something so they slash their budget and then go on TV and say, "Look!  It doesn't even WORK!"  We can accomplish great things when we want to.  And we'd be that much better off if politicians and the media weren't so good at fooling people.  I maintain, and I think you;d agree with me, that a well infomred populace would all but wipe out the modern Republican party.  (And the modern Democrats as well, but they would be pushed back to their more historcical place in the true American Left.)
 
Anyway, that was a very interesting perspective, but I still don't see why you cling to the labels like you do! I read what you say, and, right or wrong, it just doesn't jive what I think of when I hear "Conservative" and certainly not when I hear "Republican." 
 
And thanks so much for the e-mail, and for your continuous contributions to this blog.  I don't think you'll be changing my positions anytime soon (I don't think we're all that far apart on most things to begin with) but I do really appreciate having a principled Conservative around to keep me honest!

Losing heart...

*sigh*

I’ve really been losing heart lately.

The Phelps piece was totally draining for me to write, because it really is a lose-lose scenario. I still feel like crap for having to come down on the side of shitstain like Phelps, and feel even worse that my feelings haven’t really changed much since writing it. Sometimes I find that when writing something and laying out my argument that my feelings on the matter change during that process. That the arguments that sounded fine and dandy in my head, sound absurd once I put them down on paper, (so to speak.) And the Phelps piece could easily fall into that category, bar the fact that I still feel the same way. (And still feel completely and utterly awful about it.)

But beyond any one issue, there’s been a growing sense of helplessness in my mind lately. Some of it comes from the continuing erosion of public support for the Democrats, and how they will now likely lose control of at least the House if not the Senate. Part of it comes from the fact that they DESERVE TO, having abandoned their voting base, accomplished very little, and failed to really sell what they did, after having made concession after concession to the Right, all in a vein effort to win their support – which they never would. And perhaps the worst part of it all is that the general perception (according to narrative being played out in the media) is that they’re losing because they tried to be too Liberal. This narrative has been carried by the Beltway Press since the Carter days, and while there has NEVER been much actual evidence to support it, there is far less now than there has ever been.

The REALITY is that the Republicans have actively tried to sabotage everything Obama and the Democrats have tried to do, even as this has caused people to lose their homes, lose their unemployment benefits, and forestalled the country’s economic recovery until such time as it would be politically advantageous for them. And for all their treasonous, anti-America scumbagery, PEOPLE ARE REWARDING THEM.

What a joke. Obama’s too liberal – even though no part of the liberal agenda has come to pass – and it’s his fault the country’s in this mess – even though it started under Bush, and has been on a steady path to recovery, despite every effort made by the Republicans to prevent this.

The public is being actively misinformed. And they have no fucking clue. None at all.

And it’s not like I haven’t been aware of this for years. It’s not like my frustration with utter stupidity possessed by the average American is anything new. But while I’ve been both a skeptic and cynic my whole life, I guess for one brief moment, between the time the Democrats took back the House in '06 and Obama won the Presidency in '08, I thought things might change. For one brief period of time, I let myself BELIEVE. I had FAITH. But I guess I also seriously underestimated just how stupid this country is, and how easy it would be for the uber-rich and the RW Media (which is ALL of the media!) to simply GIVE power back to the Right. I really didn’t think people would forget how badly the Republicans fucked everything up quite this quickly, especially as the Democrtas have made some progress FIXING almost everything.  IOW - the COURSE is basically right, we just not going fats enough, thanks to the Repulicans, so people want the Republican's to set the course. 

It's makes no damned sense at all.

And not only are the Republicans are running against a recovery that they fought against, and incumbantcy that has been slowly but surely cleaning up their messes for the past four years, reversing the downward death spiral that we were in when the Dem’s came to power in 2006 and that we in the absolute depths of when Obama was elected in 2008… And yet not only are they winning, but the candidates they are winning with candidates who are like everything that was wrong with the ones that lost in 2006, SQUARED! I swear… the next time I hear one of these god-damned tea-baggers saying that we need to cut spending to create jobs, or cut taxes to fix the deficit, I am going to punch them square in the face! (And while they’re on the ground, as I continue kick the shit out of them, maybe I’ll take the time to educate them about how progressive taxation systems or macroeconomics work.) Reagan & Bush’41 CREATED the fiscal problem, Clinton fixed it, Bush’43 brought it right back, and these people want to go BACK to those morons, even as the economy recovers under Obama!

It's utterly insane.

I’d say they deserve what they get, but the problem is that the rest of us DON’T.

Anyway, thanks. Thanks for listening to me piss and moan. I really needed that. I want to leave you with something I came across the other night from a webcomic I’ve started reading recently called “Venus Envy.” (Which is really, really GOOD, BTW! Strong, complex characters, good plot with clever twists, funny as hell at times, dark and tragic at others. Definitely a future Silver Star recipient, although probably not this month.) This is a rather old piece, and it's not a piece from the actual storyline, but rather an expression of the author's frustration with the results of the 2004 election that perfectly echoes not only how I too felt at the time, but how I have increasingly come to feel in over the past two years, and particular in the past few months. I couldn’t say it any better, and don’t really want to try (again) so here it is:

You’re beautiful, Erin. 

And BTW, I love her follow-up reply, to the emails basically telling her to STFU and ‘get on with the story.’ All I can say is, "Wow. Damned strait! You go, girl!"