Politics: Onward from New Hampshire

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
While plea bargaining has always been an enterprise of dubious morality, I think it's shameful that we condition departure from mandatory sentences to a waiver of your right to a trial by your peers.

You must love that prosecutors can offer lower sentences in exchange for testimony against other defendants.

If I pay someone a hundred bucks to testify in a defendant's favor, I am subject to all manner of penalties. If as a prosecutor I offer that same person three years of freedom to testify against a defendant, I am working the system.

This was litigated a few years ago, in a case that was very interesting in the fifteen minutes before it got reversed as an obvious threat to the criminal litigation system.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
I'm a bleeding heart even for Martha. I think it's fucked up that the Guidelines provide downward departure for acceptance of responsibility only if you plead. While plea bargaining has always been an enterprise of dubious morality, I think it's shameful that we condition departure from mandatory sentences to a waiver of your right to a trial by your peers.

Of course, I also think it's problematic when a prosecutor waives death penalty in exchange for a guilty verdict for the same reason --- "if you want to avoid jail time/death, you'll just plead and get probation/life" is an extremely negative incentive formally to build into the system.

Most fun Catch-22 occurs when a client is convicted of a sex offense, and still maintains innocence.

Main condition of short jail plus probation is successful completion of sex offender treatment.

Main component of successful completion of SO treatment is, acknowledging your guilt.

If you can't get up in front of the group and say "I'm Bilmore, and I'm a rapist", you fail treatment, your probation is denied, and you serve all of your time. Even when the reason is, you didn't do it.

Makes an Alford plea quite problematic in sex cases.

It's all predicated, of course, on the idea that the system is infallible. A guilty verdict means, you did it. But . . .

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by bilmore


If you can't get up in front of the group and say "I'm Bilmore, and I'm a rapist", you fail treatment, your probation is denied, and you serve all of your time. Even when the reason is, you didn't do it.

Have these withstood 5th A challenge? I'm sure it's been litigated, so I guess I'm answering my own question.

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by Sidd Finch
I'm not opposed to modest deficit spending in those times either -- but an order of magnitude less than what we've seen.

Agreed.

Originally posted by Sidd Finch I just don't understand how you can so firmly insist that the sole cause of deficits is increased spending, not decreased revenues from tax cuts. The figures that Burger and I cited demonstrate quite clearly that this is not the case, as does the experience of the only administration to achieve a budget surplus in recent decades.

Because I believe that the level of revenues is more than sufficient to take care of all of our collective needs if only the government would show a modicum of restraint on pork - and yes, the GOP is to blame for the current state of affairs because it is entirely out of control on spending.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by sgtclub
Because I believe that the level of revenues is more than sufficient to take care of all of our collective needs if only the government would show a modicum of restraint on pork - and yes, the GOP is to blame for the current state of affairs because it is entirely out of control on spending.

In other words, even with the tax cuts, we're collecting enough money to fund the purposes of government. Now, if we could only limit our spending to the purposes of government.

Sort of leaves us with a philosophical gap, though, doesn't it? Somebody has to define "purposes", and use the definition on both sides of the equation. So, far, that's not Bush.

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by bilmore
Somebody has to define "purposes", and use the definition on both sides of the equation. So, far, that's not Bush.

Bush+republicans in Congress. No president, Bush included, has stood up to wasteful spending at the expense of shutting down the government. And Bush can't, because whom does he blame for passing wasteful spending?

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by bilmore
Makes an Alford plea quite problematic in sex cases.

It's all predicated, of course, on the idea that the system is infallible. A guilty verdict means, you did it. But . . .

See Capturing the Friedmans the academy award nominated documentary. scary scary shit the prosecutors do.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0342172/

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by sgtclub
I believe that the level of revenues is more than sufficient to take care of all of our collective needs if only the government would show a modicum of restraint on pork

That's a different argument, but thanks for explaining what you meant.

My argument was more focused on the process -- that the government should not cut taxes without first identifying offsetting spending cuts. The line that tax cuts will pay for themselves by increasing revenues is an excuse designed to avoid this reality.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Sidd Finch
The line that tax cuts will pay for themselves by increasing revenues is an excuse designed to avoid this reality.

There is empirical support for that proposition - that the stimulus effect will make a difference. Unfortunately, Bush's profligacy makes it a hard argument to assert lately.

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by bilmore
There is empirical support for that proposition - that the stimulus effect will make a difference.

Not enough of a difference. Tax rates have not recently been high enough to put us on the downward sloping side of Laffer's curve.

[bilmore]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
See Capturing the Friedmans the academy award nominated documentary. scary scary shit the prosecutors do.

I got the fun of (very) tangential involvement in our own version of that. By the time the hypnotists and repressed memory experts were done, the kids were telling tales of witchcraft and midnight sacrifices. And the prosecutor was believing them. And, she was so scary and self-righteous and avenging-angel-ish that several defendants panicked and pled to that drivel.

[The Larry Davis Experience]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
Not enough of a difference. Tax rates have not recently been high enough to put us on the downward sloping side of Laffer's curve.

You say recently. Have they ever been high enough?

In other words, I've never seen empirical support for the idea that tax cuts on the order of any one of the three Bush tax cuts could result in an increase in government revenues in real terms. But perhaps I haven't been keeping up on my supply-side reading.

[ltl/fb]

Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
Not enough of a difference. Tax rates have not recently been high enough to put us on the downward sloping side of Laffer's curve.

Wait, don't we want to be at the high point of Laffer's curve? doesn't the Laffer curve look like a single nipple-less breast of a woman who has had implants and is lying on her back?

Edited to say, uh, nevermind on the factual thing, but I'm leaving the question because I'm an aspiring man-pleaser.

[ltl/fb]

Originally posted by The Larry Davis Experience
You say recently. Have they ever been high enough?

In other words, I've never seen empirical support for the idea that tax cuts on the order of any one of the three Bush tax cuts could result in an increase in government revenues in real terms. But perhaps I haven't been keeping up on my supply-side reading.

I think there was some thought that when the top marginal rates were, like, 70+% or whatever (if I was alive at this time, I wasn't aware of tax rates), the high rate discouraged people from earning more money. I can kind of buy into this, personally, despite being a bleeding-heart liberal or whatever.

Are there different Laffer curves for each income level? Or does it assume a flat tax? I would think the former, but dunno.

Hey, let's all read Showdown at Gucchi Gulch! It could be the PB book club!!

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by The Larry Davis Experience
You say recently. Have they ever been high enough?

In other words, I've never seen empirical support for the idea that tax cuts on the order of any one of the three Bush tax cuts could result in an increase in government revenues in real terms. But perhaps I haven't been keeping up on my supply-side reading.

See circa 1980.