Count me as unconvinced:
President Bush on Friday ruled out raising taxes to pay for Gulf Coast reconstruction, saying other government spending must be cut. “You bet it will cost money, but I’m confident we can handle it,” he said.
“It’s going to cost whatever it’s going to cost, and we’re going to be wise about the money we spend,” Bush said a day after laying out an expensive plan for rebuilding New Orleans and the Gulf Coast without spelling out how he would pay for it.
Bush spoke at a news conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin hours after attending a prayer service in memory of the victims of Hurricane Katrina. Addressing religious and political leaders at the National Cathedral, the president vowed to help rebuild the region with an eye toward wiping out the persistent poverty and racial injustice that exist there.
“As we clear away the debris of a hurricane, let us also clear away the legacy of inequality,” Bush said at the cathedral. Polls suggest a majority of Americans believe the president should have responded quicker to Katrina. High percentages of blacks tell pollsters they believe race played a role in the slow response by all levels of government.
Yeah. Sure. We will find a way to pay for it without raising taxes.
Permanent deficits.
Krista
Who the hell is that man, and what has he done with President Bush???
Tim F
Us Republicans should be thrilled that uncle Karl will be managing this huge stack of money. When it comes to winning elections big-money patronage is half the battle. Go team!
Caroline
Of course, nothing will be cut to pay for the reconstruction.
This is the way Bush has always lived his life. Get in a mess, somebody else will pay for getting him out of it-be it daddy, granddaddy, uncle, mama etc.
goonie bird
Make the hollywood cleberties pay a big percentage since they are the ones who supposedly cares about the less fortunate let them put their money where their mouths are and say its for a good purpouse and sorry no raccoon hugging they dont care for ham headded iidots from hollyweird
Frank
I can’t believe you don’t already know where the money is coming from. We will be borrowing it from the Chinese. We were already borrowing >300billion a year from them. One or two hundred billion extra over a few years won’t make all that much difference. It’ll just hasten slightly the day that the dollar becomes less valuable than toilet paper.
Caroline
Hollywood? Well, Bush has been cutting them big checks from the treasury. He said that he won’t make them pay. Tke it up with Bush.
jobiuspublius
Well, the CIA is currently receiving a modest sum of money. About 30 billion? Then there is the military and haliburton, etc.
Such concern , in this blog, for what government does with our money, but never a mention of No-Bid, Cost-Plus And Abuse. Why?
W.B. Reeves
Your kidding, right? He’s going to pay for it the same way he’s paying for Iraq and the Tax cuts. Writing IOU’s on behalf of subsequent generations. SOP or hadn’t you noticed?
ppGaz
Why is everyone so surprised? The GOP exposed their plan days ago.
Spend lavishly, move on, blame Democrats.
They’ve already started looking for factlets to hang on liberals:
Justice Looks for Docs
Bush has outlined the lavish spending; we can surmise that large amounts of this money will go to GOP contributors.
The “move on” portion of the scheme will follow.
Tim F
There might still be some people unconvinced by my earlier post about patronage hiring. To wit, some may still believe that it is a bad thing. Let this be a warning to you.
If you don’t hire people who couldn’t possibly hold their job without your help it will turn around and bite you in the ass. Every time. Thank god uncle Karl is back in charge.
DougJ
Nothing is more important after a natural disaster than cutting taxes.
Doug
F*&*’in’ Red-Ink Republicans drive me up a wall. When the Democrats are the more fiscally responsible party, something is wrong. But, a Republican President hasn’t presided over a balanced budget in over 30 years. That’s not bad luck. That’s a plan.
Jon H
Let’s just give the freaking Gulf Coast to China, and be done with it.
On the bright side, they’d probably make New Orleans a freakin’ awesome domed city, making flooding a non-issue.
Jon H
“Nothing is more important after a natural disaster than cutting taxes.”
And fighting porn.
Jon H
Hey, I bet we could pay for it by taxing the churches.
The Babaganoosh
I would really like to be optimistic about this. I’m trying my hardest to be optimistic about this. Please let it be the hit that finally gives the GOP an iota of fiscal responsibility.
And Doug – the saddest part is that the GOP is STILL the more fiscally responsible party. It’s like FR is a hot potato, and the elephant holds it, cries “AH!” and tosses it to the Donkey, who promptly screams and drops it to the ground… where the elephant picks it up again, and the cycle continues.
Mac
Seems to me that the last Donkey Administration, being the “Tax and Spend” type, had a nice little surplus at the end.
I haven’t been keeping score lately, but the difference from End of Clinton to today as far a surplus to deficit goes, is the swing a trillion yet? If not will it be next year? And when a Democrat or a fisically conservative Resmuglican get into office, how much will taxes go up? And the blame will be pointed to who?
“Borrow and Spend” is a poor way of doing the peoples business, but it sure makes a lot of rich friends, and a lot of friends rich.
Anyone trust GW to do the right thing? It’s time for him to retire from this nasty job and move on. As usual for him. China will bail him out, they don’t want the gulf coast, west coast will be fine, thanks. Make the Pacific a Chinese Lake and just by calling in loans. Who says we aren’t living in historic times?
docG
This fine moment in American history is brought to you by George Santayana:
“Fanaticism consists in redoubling your effort when you have forgotten your aim.”
Scott Chaffin
Much like those permanent deficits from the Reagan years, I bet. We’re just a big zero-sum economy where there is never any growth.
jobiuspublius
Gee, I guess NOLA is Grover’s Bathtub.
jobiuspublius
Mark-NC
WOW – sounds like a Republican from the days when I was a registered Republcian. Sounds like the Republicans from the days when Clinton was president.
Unfortunately, this Congressman will vote as he is told by the “there’s no fat left since Republicans have done such a wonderful job” Tom Delays of Congress. And Bush will go on vacation while the deficit heads toward $1 trillion/year.
AND – all Republicans will swear that the Dems would be worse even though Clinton took us into surplus budgets while they watched and bitched that it wasn’t enough.
The problem isn’t that the Republican Congress is a bunch of free spending pigs who will look right into the camera and declare that they are “fiscally conservative”. The problem is that the Republican faithful will IGNORE all facts, (a spiraling dificit and trade balance, bloated pork like the farm bill and the recent highway bill, no bid contracts to Republican friends, etc.) and vote them all back in regardless of the consequences.
DougJ
If all those people hadn’t been so busy looking at internet porn, maybe they would have found the time to evacuate. I think this disaster calls for a huge investment in faith-based anti-pornography Christian groups.
Krista
Don’t laugh…there will be people who will try to arrange that very thing.
Tim F
The five stages of political denial:
(1) There’s nothing wrong with my party!
(2) My party has flaws but they’re nothing compared with your party.
(3) It sucks but everybody does it.
(4) On this one, solitary issue I’ll concede that my party is a bit weak relative to your party.
(5) I’m disgraced to be affiliated with these guys. Let’s throw the bums out and start over.
I’m confident that we can help Babaganoosh past stage (2) and at least as far as stage (4). The sooner people come to terms with the fact that in many respects the modern Republican party has gone irretrievably tits-up the sooner the healing process can begin.
(* Yes, role-reversal Friday is over. It was fun.)
summr
Call me crazy, but I’ve said before that I’d be willing to pay more taxes for NOLA reconstruction and universal healthcare. The money I got back from the Bush tax cut is money I don’t need and can very easily live without. I wonder if anyone has ever done a poll on how many people would be willing to pay a little more in taxes to achieve a particular level of social welfare. Maybe those who are willing could pay additional taxes. I pay taxes in Massachusetts which gives a taxpayer the option of being taxed at a higher rate when s/he files a return (resulting in a reduction in the refund or increase in the payment for those who choose this higher tax rate at filing time). Perhaps something similar could be done on the federal level.
Something that really bothers me: China is one of the US’s biggest creditors to the tune of $460 billion. What if they decide to aggressively use their US government bond holdings as a political lever? Imagine Japan and China dumping all their US government bonds onto the market right now. Absolutely devastating (though Japan probably wouldn’t do this). There has got to be a better way of dealing with
deficits than relying on foreign creditors to always act in a beneficial way.
CaseyL
summr, here’s my take on how the China thing shakes down:
The Bush Admin, insofar as it thinks about such things at all, is betting that China won’t destabilize the US economy because China needs us to buy its consumer goods.
The Chinese are betting that, when the time comes that China has achieved its goal of Major Global Political/Economic Power, the US will be too deeply in hock to challenge it.
My money’s on China. Not because I want it to be, but because China is run by smart predators and our our country is run by stupid predators.
B. Ross
“Deficits don’t matter.”
Bwa ha ha.
Gee, what DID happen to that big, fat peace-and-prosperity Clinton era budget SURPLUS?
Your boy sure turned that one around, but good!
DougJ
I wonder if babaganoosh is really Bill O’Reilly. That guy really loves Middle Eastern food.
Just Some Guy
I
Com Con
Raising taxes is not the answer. It never is. I see this as an opportunity to cut into the fat of the federal government. I read that by some accounts over 35% of the spending is wasteful. Getting rid of the NEA and NIH would be a start.
summr
The NEA still exists? I thought conservatives had taken care of that… Yes getting rid of the NIH would be a logical way to save money. I mean they fund most of the biomedical research going on in universities and a few startup biomed companies (through small business grants). Every time I attend an NIH grant review meeting and read yet another brilliant proposal, I think to myself “what would my favorite congressperson do in my shoes?” Save taxpayer money of course! Who needs medical breakthroughs or genome mapping anyway? I’m sure Merck or Pfizer can take care of all our research funding needs, especially if funded study results consistently show that the solution to every problem is one of their drugs. Add the NSF, DARPA and CDC to the chopping block — the NSF funds atheists, DARPA hasn’t done anything useful since creating the internet, and the CDC is needlessly worried about infectious diseases that primarily affect non-Americans.
DougJ’s Flying Spaghetti Monster and the Chinese will work hand in hand to take care of everything we need. Ramen.
Tim F
When a guy shows up and drops five or six troll-tastic posts in his first what, half-hour here, I say that he isn’t yet worth the reply.
You could ask how troll-tastic is this guy. Here’s a simple thought exercise, let’s poll the rightwing blogizens here about whether they think abolishing the NIH is a smart way to reduce government spending. in advance I’d say that our new friend has marginalized himself way out on some partisan fringe, but there’s always the possibility that I’m wrong about that.
Def Guy, Mac Buckets, Ricky, Stormy, Another Jeff? Thoughts? I already know what Cole thinks of the far-out Norquist fringe of his party.
Krista
Tim F – you’re right…I allowed myself to be baited into a response on the Sheehan thread. Oh well…it was fun to vent my spleen anyway.
Com Con
Meant to type NEH. The NIH does a lot of good.
S.W. Anderson
Soon enough, our foreign creditors will impose de facto taxes on us. And the folks who can’t see past all the wonderfully cheap merchandise at the malls and big-box stores will suddenly get really P.O.’d.
Funny thing about that impending turn of events is that instead of circulating at least once, or part of once, in our economy, the money will just go straight out the national wazoo.
Kimmitt
They’re called “elections.”
Com Con
I’d like to see them try. You can say what you like about the war in Iraq, and somethings have gone wrong for sure, but it’s got to make someone think twice before they try pulling something like that. We made an example of Saddam.
mrmobi
What universe are you living in? “…some things have gone wrong for sure,” Is there any aspect of the Iraq war we didn’t completely screw up except for the initial invasion? Militarily, we are stretched to the max. This is the military juggernaut which couldn’t scrape up more than 500 special forces troops in Afghanistan to oppose a force of 2,000 at Tora Bora to capture or preferably kill Osama Bin Laden. “We made an example of Saddam.” What we made clear is that we didn’t have the will or the expertise to finish what Bush’s father started, we can’t even properly equip the inadequate number of troops there now.
The only thing we can do now is threaten to “Nuke em.” Makes me proud to be an American.
Just Some Guy
Meh. Preview doesn’t show you that an < will munge the post. HTML entities to the rescue!
Anyway, I <3 Ron Paul. Is there a way to form a political party that is fiscally conservative and socially liberal? Please?
demimondian
Com Con, it’s called “devaluing the dollar”. When the deficit gets large enough that the demand for dollars starts to fall (due to uncertainty about our ability to pay), then the value of the dollar on international markets will drop. This will greatly raise the price of imported goods, while reducing the price of US assets.
That, Comecon, is a de facto tax on consumption.
Com Con
The whole idea that we need to raise taxes in a situation like this is flawed. Raising taxes slows down the economy and hurts tax revenue in the future. So the best thing to do in terms of deficits five or six years down the road is not to raise taxes, to try to cut other extraneuous programs, and if we have to, run a big deficit for a few year. Both options are a lot better for our fiscal future than raising taxes. If anything, we should think about cutting taxes right now to stimulate growth.
Com Con
And they can devalue the dollar all they want to, all that does is make out imports stronger.
demimondian
Mercantilism is a fine solution if your currency can crash. However, in a country with a strong central bank (that is, the US), in which asset inflation is seen as a bad thing (which it is), the consequence of that policy is to cause the bentral bank to intervene to raise interest rates.
What that does is trade off paying more money in interest against paying more money in taxes. At the end of the day, it’s a wash from an economic growth perspective, but far fairer to the next generation to pay your own bills.
Com Con
So what do you propose we do, Demi? Raise taxes and watch our economy go south?
BadTux
First of all, if lower taxes are so great, Com Con, why are you here in America instead of Mexico? I mean, Mexico’s taxes are less than half of American taxes, so that means Mexico must be, like, this giant paradise south of the border that people are just fighting to get into, right? Right?
Err, no. It’s a corrupt cesspool full of people who lack the skills to contribute to a modern economy. That’s what happens when you decrease taxes below the amount needed to maintain the infrastructure for a modern economy — roads, schools, adequate fire and police, adequate health care. Intel didn’t build a new microprocessor plant in Mexico. They built it in Arizona. AMD didn’t build a new microprocessor plant in Mexico. They built it in Germany. Something about needing an educated workforce and honest government that wouldn’t seize their factory at gunpoint if a corrupt official felt he hadn’t been bribed enough.
In short, taxes work sort of like an upside-down U. Too few taxes, you have a 3rd world hellhole that is unsuitable for business. Too many taxes, you have a socialist hellhole that is unsuitable for business. Somewhere in the middle lies the ideal level of taxes — the level that provides the government services necessary for business to thrive (in terms of courts, police, fire, an educated workforce, etc.), without being so onerous that people see no point in starting businesses and thus the economy stagnates.
And my particular point here is that we are nowhere near the right side (too many taxes) of that inverted U. Canada, for example, taxes approximately 10% more of their GNP than we do, yet has had consistent and significant economic growth for each of the last ten years. In fact, we are dangerously close to falling off the left side, especially with the current anti-education bias of the Republican Party due to its pandering to the extremist anti-science religious right. And once we fall off the left side of that inverted U (into the “too few taxes to maintain the infrastructure needed for business”), we turn into Mexico North.
Now, I realize that these little “fact” things, like low-tax Mexico being a worse place to do business than the United States, conflict with your religion. But all I do is call it like I see it. The United States is already the lowest-taxed 1st world nation on the planet. Restoring the tax cuts to bring taxes back up to Clinton levels will not change that — we’ll still pay fewer taxes than even Japan. The only nations with lower taxes are 3rd world hellholes where nobody with any sense wants to live. Those are facts. I’m sorry if they conflict with your religious belief that lower taxes are always better, but I can’t help it, reality simply is, it doesn’t care about your silly religious beliefs (or mine).
– Badtux the Economist Penguin
Cobble
Hey, I’m fine with it. I’m making good money now, so the tax cuts are useful for me. I’m not having children, so I don’t have to care that we’re mortaging my kid’s future. We’re mortaging *your* kids’ futures.
I’m trying to think of ways to soak up the secondary cash that’s going to flow from the patronage game here, myself.
Then I can retire to a nice warm country with low costs.
/cynic
Krista
Badtux – why thank you…that was extremely well-explained and logical. If you’re not an economics professor, you should be.
Defense Guy
Krista
No offense, but that post by BadTux was crap. For it to be logical, it would need the aspect of causality in it, which it lacks. His claims are exactly what he prescribes Com Con’s to be, faith based.
Now if he wants to put the reasons why A must lead to B and only to B, then by all means he should. Otherwise, it’s merely a guess. and when you look at all the other aspects of the countries he is talking about, you soon realize it is a bad guess.
Com Con
Faith-based is okay for me when it comes to economics. When it comes to medicine, I’m science-based all the way, unlike your guys’ friend ppgaz who said he is praying regularly to get better. Good luck, pal. Though I do hope that you do get better no matter how nutty your treatment.
summr
They’re called “elections.”
Oh excuse my ignorance, I thought the last elections were more about fear mongering (the gays are getting married! don’t forget the terrorists! kerry can’t be decisive about whether or not to eat babies! yellow alert! orange alert!! red alert!!!) than taxes. I stand corrected. Seriously, I’m sure there are folks willing to pay more and if you read my post the suggested increase would be elective. Not everyone believes in saddling their great grand children with an unbelievable amount of debt.
summr
Oops… screwed up the blockquoting on the last message.
demimondian
DG, BadTux is doing science. Science is not about causality, it’s about prediction. If you want the single grandest predictive success of his theory in the past century, I point you to…Bill Clinton.
Remember Clinton? He took the deficit seriously back in 93. The Democrats took the fall for the tax increases he pushed through. Then, lo and behold, the economy exploded. Not just a little bit, but a lot. The Fed found itself in the (to Greenspan) horrible position of not being able to slow the economy down, because the capital which the Federal government would normally have been soaking up in the form of bonds was instead being forced to find productive employment.
Result: a major economic boom. Now, if that’s the case, what’s the worst thing you could do as Clinton’s successor? Cut taxes. Indeed, after the tax cuts began to bite in mid-to-late 2001, the economy tanked. It certainly wasn’t helped by 9/11 — but the Bush recession was already a reality, and a bad one, by the end of 2k1.
So, sorry, DG — BadTux is right (and you can’t imagine how much it pains me to agree with anything to do with Linux).
Defense Guy
Once again, when it comes to economics, it is really hard to ‘prove’ what you think is the cause, actually is. There are just too many variables in play to say with any degree of certainty which is the reason for this or for that. Without getting into a huge discussion about who is right, let me just simply state that there are many more issues at play during Clintons terms than just taxes. We were in a boom then, and some say artificially so. By then end of his 2nd term, we were in a recession.
Oh, and you are just wrong about science not being about causality. It is about causality, or else it’s just guessing.
BadTux
Note that I’m doing a correlational analysis, not a causative analysis. In the field of economics it is basically impossible to do a controlled experiment capable of determining causation. There are too many uncontrollable factors. Anybody who claims they can do a causative analysis in the field of economics is a fraud and charlatan out to score ideological points.
That said, correlational analysis is an excellent tool for proving the falsity of hypotheses such as “lower taxes always produce higher economic growth and higher taxes always reduce economic growth.” All that is necessary is to do a correlational analysis — tax rates vs. economic growth in all nations that we have reliable data for — and if lower tax-rate nations in general have lower economic growth than middle-tax-rate nations, this immediately disproves the hypothesis. And in fact, that is true. The lowest-tax-rate nations in general have both lower levels of economic activity and lower growth. In fact, looking at the OECD statistics, you see an inverted “U” much like I mention above, where tax rates of 30-40% of GDP are associated with highest levels of economic growth, and tax rates on either side are associated with lower levels of economic growth or even economic decline.
In short, the simplistic “low taxes good, high taxes bad” analysis is not borne out by real-world statistics. There are levels of both low taxes and high taxes which are bad. Highest economic growth appears to take place at some point in the middle.
Correlation is not causation, of course (as pointed out to me when I took my first graduate-level research course). However, going to major business magazines and looking at their ratings for “best place to set up a new business” gives a clue. Some major checkpoints on their criteria are “honest government”, “rule of law”, “adequate protection for property rights”, “adequate public safety”, and “educated populance”. “Taxes” falls somewhere below these on the list. Almost every nation which scores high on these marks is in the middle area on taxes. 3rd world hellholes, on the other hand, tend to fall on the left side of the inverted U. This implies (but does not prove, of course) that some level of taxation is necessary in order to provide these services that businesses see as a fundamental requirements. I won’t say it proves it, because I’m not a dishonest hack, but it darn well sure is suggestive, and most certainly *does* disprove the simplistic notion of “low taxes good, high taxes bad”.
– Badtux the Economist Penguin
Com Con
Badtux, am I right in surmising that you are a liberal? And that you Defense Guy are a conservative? It’s funny, you can tell right away, if they want to cut taxes, they must be conservative, if they want to raise them, they must be liberal. And the liberals wonder why they lose elections.
Defense Guy
You are correct Com Con. I don’t think you are a hack BadTux, I just think you should point out that there are many, many more variables involved in an economy than just taxes. It would also be wise to point out that lower taxes can help to encourage growth, and has the extra added benefit of keeping the government’s ability to try to do every last thing, to a minimum.
Our government happens to be addicted to tax revenue, which is a habit I would like to try to help break us of.
demimondian
Sorry, DG — science is about predictive correlation. Prediction is not causation, and that’s something that non-scientists often don’t understand — and which younger scientists hate to reminded of.
My favorite example comes from a field other than my own: if I see a schizophrenic patient, I can make a strong prediction that he or she will be overweight. Does schizophrenia cause obesity? No — schizophrenics tend to be poor and older, and poor, older people tend to be obese in our society. If schizophrenia itself caused obesity (either directly or indeirectly), then one should see a effect even if one controlled for factors such as age and socio-economic status. One sees no such effect, and there is, therefore, no cause and effect relationship.
As far as science is concerned, all that can ever be proven is the failure of causation, and sometimes even that’s hard. Anyone who claims to have proven causation scientifically should be treated as a quack. They probably are.
BadTux
That’s it, ComCom? All you can do in response to objective fact (that lower taxes do NOT always lead to economic growth, that, in fact, below a certain point lower taxes seem to correlate with DECREASED economic growth) is make personal attacks?
It’s no wonder that Bush Republicans (which have nothing to do with conservative Republicans, of which very few exist anymore) have done such a lousy job of running this country. Like Communists, they are so tied to their ideology that they are incapable of accepting reality, and thus incapable of adequately responding when reality rears its ugly head.
As for my political leanings, I view myself as a conservative realist. That is, someone who deals with reality, not with ideology. As far as all the various “-isms” out there — whether Bushism, Communism, whatever — I feel that they are all dangerous because they all make unwarranted assumptions about the best way of organizing the governance of a nation, assumptions that result in lower economic growth, wars of foreign aggression, and increased poverty, assumptions that result in radical swings in how the nation is governed rather than small, conservative steps. The only true conservative way to deal with governing a nation is to look around at what works, and take a pragmatic approach based on what has worked in the past, rather than one driven by ideology, and make changes only slowly and cautiously and only after significant evidence has arisen that said changes are necessary. True conservatives are more concerned with taking a slow, cautious approach that incorporates “best practices” proven in the crucible of time. Unproven, ideologically driven initiatives that result in enormous changes in governance are abhorrent to a true conservative.
Thus a true conservative is not interested in radical concepts such as “starve the beast” or school vouchers, because those are large breaks from what has proven to work in the past and are not sufficiently proven to justify such a large change. But then, as I noted, true conservatives (people who believe that change should happen only slowly and carefully, and only after sufficient proof that change is necessary) are not common in today’s Republican Party, which is “conservative” in much the same way that the Democratic People’s Republic of (North) Korea is “democratic”…
– Badtux the Conservative Penguin
ppGaz
To laugh, or not to laugh, that is the question … not at what you said, but at the idea of teaching something to DG.
You might as well be trying to coax a grapefruit into filling out your tax forms. It helps if you paint little faces on them.
ppGaz
DougJ’s suggestion, and my response, were both tongue-in-cheek.
What I rely on is a fantastic doctor and the fabulous, amazing people who work on the various teams at the hospitals here. Watching them work makes me infinitely humble, and respectful of science. My grandparents were fucked in the situation I’m in, because the science wasn’t there yet. I am very lucky!
DougJ
Brilliant satire by the Times today on “reconstruction”. I posted this elsewhere but it is too brilliant to ignore.
ppGaz
Hard to know which is the greatest genius: John Cole’s whipsawing of his readership from “bite me” to “please play nice”, sometimes in the same hour …. or Brooks’ description of a “brilliant” strategy by Bush.
Brooks may be the only pundit on earth who hasn’t managed to figuratively shake his head and look down at the floor at the New Orleans speech. Brooks has apparently bought into the ultimate “point” of all Bush initiatives: The “Who Cares” Principle.
No money for it? Who cares? Federal programs trample on the hapless states? Who cares? Overcompensating for the dismantling of Fema? Who cares? Etc.
No WMDs? Who cares? Maybe they’re under the sofa? Who cares? Can’t find Osama? Who cares? Forgot to plan for post-invasion Iraq? Who cares? Country going broke? Who cares? Voters running away from proposed Social Security measures? Who cares? Half the country has no confidence in you? Who cares? Terrorists plan to use airplanes? Who cares? Attacks on science weaken American fortunes? Who cares?
DougJ
Ppgaz, if he wrote that piece here, he’d immediately be dismissed as a troll. There’s no way he can really believe that.
DougJ
You almost have to wonder if Tierney’s got Brooks smoking some primo stuff as part of his drug legalization crusade (a crusade I’m behind 100%, I should add).
ppGaz
True. Brooks is just inscrutable. I think he’s Chinese.
kchiker
No joke. It’s an irony that continues to amaze me. Married people with children are still trending overwhelmingly Republican. Have kids? They are SO hosed. We have sold them into political and economic slavery.
And the most fire-breathing economic conservatives keep on voting for the party of “no more fat left to trim”.
Unfreakingbelievable.
summr
Either the Democrats will evolve in that direction or Christine Todd Whitman and her “my party too” Republicans will see the light and split (I have less hope for a spontaneous Ross Perot-type movement in the near future).
Defense Guy
BadTux
You must think yourself brilliant. Sadly for you, the truth is that you do not get to define for other people what truisms are, and you sure don’t get to define what is radical or not. The world does not work by allowing you to decide what is reasonable, which I would bet is very closely in tune with what YOU think, and then describe everything outside of that narrow description in terms that are less than flattering.
On top of that, you are wrong about raising taxes in this country being a plus, as simply giving our corrupt and incompetant government more money in the hopes that they will be able to solve the ills of our society is laughable. The idea that throwing money at a problem is the best solution to fixing it has been ingrained in us for far too long and has done nothing to help. As for school vouchers, I will pass along to the students we are failing today your high minded idealism along with the message that we are realling sending them, which is a short and sweet ‘fuck you’. I am sure they will appreciate your sentiments that we need to study the issue more, and by the way we are going to take more out of your parent(s) paycheck to fund that study. I am sure they will understand.
demimondian
Ladeez and gennlemen, please ‘low me to diereckt your attention to the creature in the corner over there.
DG. A finer specimen of Troglodytes pseudointellectualis has never been seen. Originally presented to us as the a true speciman of T. intellectualis, but, sadly, just another fraud.
Eh? What’s that? Where did T. pseudo come from? Well, we don’t know. Originally, we thought that T. pseudo arose from a cross between T. poseur and T. intellectualis, but, with the accumulating evidence that T. intellectualis never actually existed, we’ve come to the conclusion that male specimens of T. pseudo must arise from back-crossing with female specimens of T. poseur.
Pardon? Yes, that would explain why all specimens of T. pseudointellectualis are such mother-fucking idiots.
ppGaz
Bwaaaaaaaaahahaha! Right, those prerogatives are reserved for you, right asshole?
Oh wait … message from Your Big Giant Head! You will now lecture on the subject of Taxation!
What is the correct tax rate, Oh Wise Knower of All Things?
We study at the smelly feet of the master.
Com Con
Couldn’t have said it better myself. You’ve got to starve the beast. That’s the only way to keep the congress from stuffing themselves with pork.
ppGaz
Actually, electing a better Congress would be a better solution.
demimondian
Dot.Com.Con opines…
I’m not accustomed to people who brag about how badly they express themselves. Is this the right’s next great victory? First, getting people to be proud of their mathematical ignorance, then getting people to ignore science, and now getting them to be proud of their leaden tongues?
Wow. What a strategy.
Com Con
When was I proud of my mathematical ignorance? When did I ignore science? A lot of Republicans are very pro-science. It’s good for the economy, it’s the source of a lot of technological innovation. You guys are so quick to lump all Republicans in together. I thought you were the ones that didn’t like stereotypes and generalizations.
demimondian
As to the first, I was making fun of you — I have no way of knowing what mathematical facility you do or don’t have.
As to the second, however…go back and read BadTux’s dissertations with a clear eye. That’s science in action – rational, quite, and understated – and, although you may not realize it, he finds himself driven to a conclusion which he finds distasteful. Libertarians, as a rule, aren’t all that big on taxation, you know, yet he argues that the evidence suggests that further tax cuts would harm, not help, the economy. If you let your ideology get in the way of reading that, then you are objectively anti-science.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: scientific research is a two-edged sword. If you like science because objective truth grows the economy, then you need to realize that objective truth also makes an almost oberwhelming case for global warming. If you try to have one without the other, then you open the door to the kooks and the cranks in your party, to the benefit of none of us.
Tim F
Married couples have more debt. Republicans promise to act as a one-way tax ratchet. It’s a no-brainer.
Defense Guy
demimondian
Very nice, but it won’t stop real science from occuring day after day. However, when your ideas get challenged, be sure to run behind semantics. You are doing a fine fine job, and soon you may be elevated to the positon of ‘elite’, where there will be a nice fat job waiting for you at the NY Times or perhaps some left leaning think take.
Yes, Science is all about prediction. Like the prediction that internal combustion engines will continue to work as they always have on my way into work, and the prediction that the “laws” of physics will continue to be as we have described them the next time we launch a space shuttle. For the astronauts sake, I hope the rocket “scientists” have made the correct predictions again this time. There you will learn how to mock any ideas that are not fully supported by your league of betters. Should be a grand old time for you, reminiscent of the betters, pre-enlightenment.
Which is all a good diversion from the fact that stating point A and stating point B without the statement of WHY they should be related is still a guess. Which is what I was saying when you decided to point out to the mere plebes how to define the word science. Oh, and be sure to take some stab at the church or G-d for my statement on the enlightenment, you know, to really strut your stuff.
Tim F
Oh but they’re trying, Ringo. They’re trying real hard.
You can’t put too many links in a post, so I’ll toss a few that you can google yourself.
* Applicants for STD/AIDS research money can’t mention ‘prostuitute’ or ‘homosexual’ anywhere in their proposals.
* In terms of winning the party’s presidential nomination, creationism has become Republican-ese for ‘ethanol.’
* Bizarre and nonsensical stem-cell policies.
* Prohibiting high-shool teachers from speaking factually about reproductive science. Condoms do in fact work, and you can’t get AIDS from sweat or tears.
Off the top of my head. You can’t kill science all at once, but you can wear it down.
ppGaz
Ten dollars to anyone who can explain what the fuck DG is talking about.
AkaDad
Con Com said,
“Raising taxes is not the answer. It never is.”
In 1993 the Democrats passed a defecit reduction bill, which raised taxes. Not one republican voted for it, saying it would ruin the economy and cause a recession. We then watched the Regan/Bush deficits turned into a surplus.
You may want to rethink that argument…
Defense Guy
AkaDad
So, do the harder work of showing how it was the raising of taxes that led to our “surplus”, as opposed to the artificially pumped tech sector which put massive amounts of income into the hands of the people. As it turns out, not only was it artificially pumped, it was remarkably easy to offshore.
This has been my point, despite the attempts to derail it by absurd semantic discussions about what ‘science’ is. There are more factors than just the tax rate at work in our economy.
AkaDad
DG
My point is that raising taxes doesnt hurt the economy or is a bad idea.
I agree that part of the expansion was due to tech, but alot of it had to do with deficit reduction, freeing up wasted billions of dollars, of interest payments. Sending a message to Wall Street that we have our fiscal house in order.
Defense Guy
Reasonable people can disagree, but higher taxes actually end up hurting those they are purporting to help, namely the poor and the middle class. The rich aren’t hurt by taxes, and in most cases don’t even pay the same level as those in the lower economic brackets.
The scraps that the government is willing to provide in return of this fleecing are not worth the price paid. In fact, the idea of government as charitable institute is ridiculous, as the amount eaten up by overhead would never be acceptable in any other charitable organization.
Tim F
Then why tax?
ppGaz
Somebody has to fix the potholes.
Tim F
Apparently social programs like pothole-fixing end up hurting those they are supposed to help. If we counted on the private sector to build and maintain roads this country wouldn’t be in the damned mess we are in today.
ppGaz
Absolutely. The sooner we turn the Interstate Highway System over to Halliburton, the better.
demimondian
DG–
Uhh, no. You need to do the harder work of showing that the principal cause of the surplusses was anything other than the tax increases. And you also need to show that the phenomenal economic growth during the Clinton years was due to anything other than those surplusses.
Fair warning: any example I’ve been able to think of works equally well against arguments alleging that the Reagan cuts did any good.
Defense Guy
Unless it takes years for the effects to be shown.
Defense Guy
No one is stopping you from sending checks to the IRS. They will not turn them away.
Tim F
Yes, those of us with jobs generally do that.
Defense Guy
Tim F
You are free to pay a higher rate. In fact, you can send in whatever amount in excess of your calculated tax and the fed will smile and thank you. So, why not lead by example and pay more than what the government currently expects?
Tim F
Because you are paying taxes too. As long as there are rightwingers around to scream and cry about their tax burden I feel positively welathy.
Tim F
Def guy, I know that you don’t want to earn a reputation for using sarcasm and misdirection to avoid simlpe questions, but it’s happening an awful lot lately. I’ll be a sport and offer you another chance.
Do you think road-building is an unnecessary social program that does more harm than good? It’s awfully hard to do without tax revenue.
Remember, time is money but credibility is priceless.
Defense Guy
No Tim F. I believe that road building is not an unnecessary social program that does more harm than good. However, in some cases, or perhaps many, it has just gotten out of hand. The Mixing Bowl fiasco here in DC, the big dig in Boston and the new soon to be bridge boondoggles in Alaska are what you get when the government feels it has money for everything. I don’t think I need to point out that this money is coming out of our pockets, and increasing the amount coming out is not likely to help the situation.
Defense Guy
One other thing Tim F. If you really want to inflict the death blow to the Democrats, you should encourage a platform that calls for increasing taxes. Remember, one of the more liberal cities in this country could not even get a 10 cent per cup of coffee tax passed. A plan that was going to go directly to increasing the quality of education for the next generation.
Tim F
Your first post argues for better fiscal oversight rather than fewer taxes. Your second post arguest that fiscal responsibility loses elections. The corollary of this argument is a well-known disease of democracies known as ‘bread and circuses.’ As it happens right now that disease is the Republican Party. Score another one for Heinlein. Neither is what you’d call a slam-dunk argument against taxes per se.
donald
You want to raise revenue, you lower taxes. In addition, you eliminate the departments of HUD, Education, Energy, and homeland security. The math and execution of government in relation to the constitution is simple, as are most of you apparently.