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[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
If you think that cutting taxes spurs enough economic growth to recoup the lost government revenues, you are delusional enough to belong in today's GOP.

It's not. It's pretty much a pretext to starve the govt. If not for arguments like that the maximum tax rate would be back around 60%, as it was in the 70s.

What, by the way, is wrong with cutting govt revenues? You know any better test to find efficiencies than cutting revenues? Maybe hire some consultants to weed out redundancies?

[Spanky]

An explanation of what has happend in the Subprime market. In Cartoon form.

http://docs.google.com/TeamPresent?r...&skipauth=true

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
Why? Because the deficit was still pretty significant then. There was a surplus only in 98-01, and it was small in the first and last years.

It took a while to pay for the Reagan years.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
It's not. It's pretty much a pretext to starve the govt. If not for arguments like that the maximum tax rate would be back around 60%, as it was in the 70s.

What, by the way, is wrong with cutting govt revenues? You know any better test to find efficiencies than starving revenues?

I don't know about our current tax rates because at their level it is to hard to know if their is a Supply side effect. But there are many third world governments where tax rates are so onerous that cuts would bring in more revenue.

This has been true of many states of India. Certain tax cuts have brought in massive increases in government revenue.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
It's not. It's pretty much a pretext to starve the govt. If not for arguments like that the maximum tax rate would be back around 60%, as it was in the 70s.

These days, more like a pretext to cut taxes for GOP constituents.

What, by the way, is wrong with cutting govt revenues? You know any better test to find efficiencies than cutting revenues? Maybe hire some consultants to weed out redundancies?

The problem is that you would have to take the political heat, and your average GOP politician is happy to run for office on empty talk of cutting government waste, but once he's there he would much rather arrange for no-bid defense contracts to go to friends than to piss people off.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by Spanky
I don't know about our current tax rates because at their level it is to hard to know if their is a Supply side effect. But there are many third world governments where tax rates are so onerous that cuts would bring in more revenue.

This has been true of many states of India. Certain tax cuts have brought in massive increases in government revenue.

I have seen the success stories touted about Romania or some place like that. National Review loves to flog that shit, but it's as stupid as the DailyKos morons citing Sweden in arguments that we should have a more comprehensive social safety net.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
It took a while to pay for the Reagan years.

2. of course, Reagan killing the USSR made possible Clinton's dismantling of the intelligence services and crippling the military. without those cuts Clinton would have had trouble, instead of balancing the budget, I mean trouble beyond being responsible for 9/11.

[sebastian_dangerfield]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
The problem is that you would have to take the political heat, and your average GOP politician is happy to run for office on empty talk of cutting government waste, but once he's there he would much rather arrange for no-bid defense contracts to go to friends than to piss people off.

We've disagreed on a lot the past two weeks, but I could have written this myself. That's the GOP in a nutshell. "No big govt! Until I'm in office, that is..."

Hell, our fucking govt gave the biggest GOP constituents a fucking war to live on for the next decade. Think I'm being cynical? History will bear me out. The longer I watch this thing, the more I begin to think the Neocons are getting more credit than they deserve.

I'm serious. If Obama wins he should immediately slap a 10-15% surtax on every company servicing the war. Take back a fat slug of that stolen money. Also establish a rule that no CEO of a govt contracting firm can make more than 20X that of the average salary of a newly hired low level employee. AND that they must contribute a surcharge to a medical fund set up to pay for injured soldiers coming home.

These cocksucking scumbags aren't free marketeers. They're walking shit, profiting from theft of our tax dollars. I would hope if your party comes into power and has control of the house it would bleed these sons of bitches ruthlessly instead of getting into the usual bullshit investigations. We don't need any more hearings. We need to make these insiders pay, to re-instill the idea that in a free market, Uncle Sam is not a subsidy for an industry that ought to be running at 40% of its current operations and revenues.

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Adder
Not really. But I would suggest that they are not easy to change, and I wouldn't dismiss cuts in discretionary spending (and pay as you go) as meaningless or "fiscally irresponsible."

ETA: If you had in the first instance said, "I don't think Clinton was as fiscally responsible as he could have been because he did not do enough to curb the growth of entitlements" instead of "Clinton increased taxes and increased spending" we probably could have saved ourselve quite a few posts. But then again, what is the fun in that?

OK. But he was being lauded as more fiscally responsible than what came before him, and for being more responsible thanthe Republicans at the time. Under Bush I in the final years he and the Demcratic Congress cut discretionary spending more than Clinton did when Clinton and the Dem controlled congress. And then when the Repubs took congress he resisted reductions in the growth of entitlement spending and resisted cuts in discretionary spending he thought were too deep that were being pushed by the Republican Congress. So at that time he was not a paragon of fiscal responsiblity. In fact he was just the opposite. If you are going to rate people by their fiscal responsibility:

1) Gingrich (and the Republican Congress controlled by him)
2) Bush I
3) Cinton
4) Bush II and the Republican Congress serving at the same time (hard to know who was more at fault). .

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Spanky
Under Bush I in the final years he and the Demcratic Congress cut discretionary spending more than Clinton did when Clinton and the Dem controlled congress.

Cite, please.

[Adder]

Originally posted by bling trade
Standup routine by Pat Condell re Europe's slow appeasement of Islam.

youtube link

Comedy that ain't.

[Adder]

Originally posted by sebastian_dangerfield
It's not. It's pretty much a pretext to starve the govt. If not for arguments like that the maximum tax rate would be back around 60%, as it was in the 70s.

What, by the way, is wrong with cutting govt revenues? You know any better test to find efficiencies than cutting revenues? Maybe hire some consultants to weed out redundancies?

As I do every time you say this, I will point out that there does not seem to me to be much compunction about borrowing whatever isn't raised in tax revenues.

[Adder]

Originally posted by Spanky
An explanation of what has happend in the Subprime market. In Cartoon form.

http://docs.google.com/TeamPresent?r...&skipauth=true

That is actually a pretty good summary. Except for the part where the villager says the ibankers promised that housing prices would keep going up. While I haven't reviewed the docs myself, I doubt my friends who put these deals together would let something that obvious go by.

This is also a good summary, albeit a bit more comedic

[Spanky]

Originally posted by Tyrone Slothrop
Cite, please.

And you accuse me of ignoring your cites.


http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budge...08/pdf/hist.pdf

Page 59

Discretionary Speeding:

1991: 663.0
1992: 643.2
1993: 632.7
1994: 621.6
1995: 609.2

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by Spanky
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budge...08/pdf/hist.pdf

• "The file you have attempted to access cannot be found."