…and this is a 
Bernie Sanders gave a wonderful speech to the senate. Here's the conclusion:
So, today, I am asking the American people that, if you believe deficit reduction should be about shared sacrifice; if you believe the wealthiest people in our country and the largest corporations should be asked to pay their fair share as part of deficit reduction; if you believe that, at a time when military spending has almost tripled since 1997, that we begin to take a hard look at our defense budget; and if you believe the middle-class and working families have already sacrificed enough, I urge you to make sure that the President hears your voice--and he needs to hear it now.
I would urge the American people to go to my Web site, sanders.senate.gov, and sign a letter to the President letting him know that enough is enough…
I would like to vote for Bernie Sanders for president in 2012. Can someone convince him to run?
Politics
Comments
Posted by: safetycap
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June 29, 2011 8:16 AM
If he runs, I'd not only donate cash, but also volunteer to work on his campaign!
Posted by: Nij
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June 29, 2011 8:19 AM
Holy fuck. Isn't that like complete political suicide to even think of lowering the defence* budget, let alone actively try to do it? Well done to the guy anyway, for standing up against the increasingly conservative insanity** that seems to have your country's.. well, your entire country, in its grip.
* Seriously, who the fuck would possibly consider attacking the US?
**Redundant phrase is redundant.
Posted by: Fred The Hun
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June 29, 2011 8:24 AM
@ Nij,
Especially since it is already undergoing full blown collapse from within, of its own accord.
It doesn't make much sense to poke a dying rabid and cornered rat.
Posted by: Nij
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June 29, 2011 8:28 AM
Especially one with enough nukes to make the world uninhabitable to human life a dozen times over.Posted by: houseofcards
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June 29, 2011 8:29 AM
bernie sanders is an american hero!
Posted by: Katherine Lorraine, Chaton de la Mort
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June 29, 2011 8:30 AM
I'll sign when I get home. Not working here at work.
Posted by: John Morales
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June 29, 2011 8:35 AM
[OT]
The Mouse That Roared?
(OK, not so seriously)
Posted by: vaeisenberg
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June 29, 2011 8:36 AM
I wonder if it will be another shovel full of "change we can believe in". After all, Obama used nice rhetorics too.
Posted by: ss123
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June 29, 2011 8:36 AM
I think that many are at the point where even some conservatives wouldn't care if the military was reduced a bit.
That would just add to the unemployment problem though, which nobody wants to see get worse. However, I don't think it would be political suicide like it used to be.
Posted by: VMFPAPPY214
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June 29, 2011 8:37 AM
The US national debt NOT including future unfunded liabilities is now equal to 98% of the GDP of the entire country. Tell me again how "taxing the rich? will help???
Posted by: Audley Z. Darkheart OM, purveyor of candy and lies
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June 29, 2011 8:47 AM
I love Bernie. He's one of the few senators that does regular interviews on my local NPR station.
And he's absolutely right-- taking programs away from American citizens to continue paying for the world's largest military is disgusting.
Of course, in Audley's perfect world, we'd have a military that was only large enough for self-defense and not so large that we'd be able to use it for "nation building". (And unicorns would fart rainbows while passing out free sandwiches.)
Posted by: Gingerbaker
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June 29, 2011 8:51 AM
Tell me how it would hurt, you douchebag.
Posted by: Blueaussi
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June 29, 2011 8:54 AM
I am not Bernie Sanders, nor would I presume to play him on the net; but I would hazard a guess that "take a hard look at our defense budget" is more about cutting the pork that's stuffed into the defense spending than cutting actual military spending. It's the favorite place for Congress critters to hide pork; they can still bring home the bacon and get to look all hawkish at the same time.
Posted by: Gingerbaker
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June 29, 2011 8:59 AM
For those of you making understandably cynical remarks about Bernie Sanders - please relax. I am from Vermont, and have been following Bernie's career for many decades. He is the real deal.
Posted by: SQB (fuck death)
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June 29, 2011 8:59 AM
Because that would be so much funnier.No wait, how about rainbows passing out free unicorns? I want to ride a unicorn!
Posted by: Moose
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June 29, 2011 9:02 AM
Hmmm...
Linkie No Workie, Crashie...
Is it because I'm from out of the country, or that we crashed his server from the excess attention?
Chanting from the sidelines:
"Go Bernie...Go Bernie...Go Bernie..."
Posted by: Island Adolescent
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June 29, 2011 9:03 AM
Do you not comprehend how getting more money is more helpful than getting less money?
Posted by: greame
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June 29, 2011 9:05 AM
Problem there is that sense is in short order these days.
Posted by: VMFPAPPY214
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June 29, 2011 9:06 AM
Sorry, wrong blog. I was looking for the one that's about evidence-based reasoning.
Posted by: Audley Z. Darkheart OM, purveyor of candy and lies
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June 29, 2011 9:07 AM
SQB,
I could do with a free rainbow. It would perk up my day, if nothing else.
Posted by: Matt "Nora" Penfold
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June 29, 2011 9:10 AM
You found an evidence based blog. You just could not recognise as such due to your impaired cognitive abilities.
Posted by: SQB (fuck death)
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June 29, 2011 9:10 AM
Well, since 10% of the US population seems to own about 70% of its wealth...Posted by: Audley Z. Darkheart OM, purveyor of candy and lies
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June 29, 2011 9:11 AM
VMPAPPY,
And what evidence do you have that taxing the rich does no good? I mean besides your "I got mine, fuck you" attitude.
Posted by: SQB (fuck death)
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June 29, 2011 9:14 AM
Free rainbow for Dr. Audley (PhD, MD, Esq, Etc)
Posted by: VMFPAPPY214
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June 29, 2011 9:18 AM
I'd love to continue this elevated discussion, but 1) I just don't have any nasty names to sling at people I disagree with, and 2)I have to join our town's volunteer group and refill the drinking water reservoir. We're told that can be easily accomplished, just by scooping water from the deep end and dumping it into the shallow.
Posted by: John Morales
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June 29, 2011 9:18 AM
Tax Fraud
Debunking the claim that higher income-tax rates reduce GDP (by Eliot Spitzer at Salon)
Posted by: Audley Z. Darkheart OM, purveyor of candy and lies
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June 29, 2011 9:21 AM
SQB,
Awe, yay! And it's a double rainbow, at that!
:)
Posted by: Jim
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June 29, 2011 9:23 AM
I live in Vermont and have been listening to Sanders' tiresome Marxist war whoops for years. The thing most conspicuously absent from his rhetoric is common sense. Happily, he'll never be president.
Posted by: Matt "Nora" Penfold
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June 29, 2011 9:23 AM
When we examine countries that have good healthcare, good schools and universities, good old age care and so, one thing becomes very clear. They all have relatively high taxation rates, with the wealthy paying a greater proportion of their income in tax compared to the less well off.
Oh, and they all pay for that healthcare.
Posted by: Andrew G.
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June 29, 2011 9:24 AM
Comparing the US "national debt" to its GDP is just silly; compare for example Singapore (debt ~120% of GDP) or Japan (debt ~225% of GDP). It's a meaningless number.
While Sanders may have the right idea as far as taxing the rich are concerned, he's just as dangerously wrong as regards the budget deficit as every other US politician is.
Posted by: Bobber
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June 29, 2011 9:24 AM
When I was looking for a new place to live several years ago, I seriously considered moving to Vermont - partly because I wanted to be represented by Bernie Sanders (weird, but true). I dearly wish he'd run for President of the U.S., but the likelihood of a man who describes himself openly as a democratic socialist winning the presidency is probably just slightly greater than that of an avowed atheist. Still, having his ideas out there in the national spotlight of a campaign might start some conversations that are long overdue in this country.
Posted by: Gus Snarp
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June 29, 2011 9:25 AM
I really want to move to Vermont just so I can be represented by Bernie Sanders instead of this combovered fuckwad.
Posted by: Sven DiMilo
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June 29, 2011 9:25 AM
Weird. I get exactly the opposite impression.
Posted by: kadet.biegler
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June 29, 2011 9:26 AM
Not that I don't support Bernie Sanders (and it was a wonderful speech), but I take exception to this statement:
America is not about giving tax breaks to billionaires and attacking the most vulnerable people in our country.
Isn't it? Really? When did that happen and why no one told me?
I would also like to defend Obama. While campaigning, it's relatively easy to have a fairly coherent plan to improve the national policies. Then once a president starts to govern, it turns out that he has much less power to make things happen that people would expect. Everything requires compromise and making deals and you have the whole Republican establishment working relentlessly towards one goal: to see you fail (never mind what's good for the country). I don't think Obama wouldn't want to implement everything Bernie Sanders is calling for - but he has little room for maneuver.
Posted by: Robin J
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June 29, 2011 9:31 AM
Jim, #28
Ah, America, where anyone left of Genghis Khan is a Marxist.Posted by: Audley Z. Darkheart OM, purveyor of candy and lies
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June 29, 2011 9:31 AM
What, exactly, do you think the economy is? Do you have any idea how economics works?
John Morales,
Thanks for the link.
*sigh* A part of me really misses Spitzer.
Posted by: 0verlord
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June 29, 2011 9:37 AM
YES. It's about time somebody in the Senate suggested that corporations pay their fair share. Signed.
JM, A corrupt politician defends the status quo. What else is new?
Posted by: Gus Snarp
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June 29, 2011 9:39 AM
@VMFPAPPY214 - Please take a basic course in economics. In the meantime, here's a primer: Debt is the total amount owed, in my case it would include a bit of a car loan and two mortgages. In the case of the United States it is a ridiculously high number. Deficit, which is what everyone is talking about reducing, not debt, is the amount one spends in excess of one's income in any given period (usually a year). In my case this is a negative number, so I can slowly pay off my debt over time. In the case of the U.S. this is still an obscenely high number, but one that can be reduced dramatically by taxing the rich in combination with other measures. It makes no sense to compare total debt, acquired over decades, to GDP, an annual number. My personal total debt exceeds my total annual income, so what? I can pay it off slowly, over time, which is the only way the U.S. can reduce its debt.
Debt and deficit. Know the difference. It's important.
Side note: If congress raised the debt ceiling, then simply went home and didn't come back, then the deficit would automatically be reduced dramatically thanks to three things: the new health care law, the automatic expiration of the Bush tax cuts, and the automatic expiration of the alternative minimum tax level adjustment. It could even be eliminated if we assume a return to normal economic growth.
Not to mention that Bernie's point is not that taxing the rich will cure the deficit, but that taxing the rich should be part of it. "Shared sacrifice" are the key words here. Also, compromise. Republicans think that Democrats want to raise the debt ceiling and Republicans want to cut spending, so to give us the debt ceiling, we have to give them spending cuts, but they don't have to give us anything else. That's not the negotiation that is, or at least should be going on. Everyone knows we must raise the debt ceiling, or risk devastating and unprecedented economic consequences. Consequences that you may rest assured the business interests who fund the Republican Party do not want. So the debt ceiling may be leverage, but it's not the thing that can be compromised. They want drastic spending cuts, they ought to also give back some tax cuts. This is not only the kind of compromise that elected officials are supposed to engage in, it's a win win for actually reducing the deficit. (unless of course we remain in a state of weak growth for a decade because we didn't do enough to stimulate the economy, in which case everyone loses).
Posted by: 0verlord
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June 29, 2011 9:39 AM
JM, I'm an idiot who can't read. Scratch my response to you.
Posted by: Gus Snarp
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June 29, 2011 9:45 AM
Hmm, clarification: when I say "give back some tax cuts, I mean give back the tax cuts they've had since Bush that we keep renewing for no apparent reason, not give back in the sense of cutting taxes in return for cutting spending, obviously that would make no sense whatsoever.
Posted by: fauxrs
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June 29, 2011 9:46 AM
We're told that the deficit can be handled by cuts alone by one party and that a combination of cuts and revenue enhancements are required by the other. How is it no one has done the math...
Oh wait, someone has
Its simple enough we can eliminate the deficit by cutting our entire budget 31%,
"Eliminating the need to borrow without touching Social Security or Medicare outlays would require cutting everything else — the active military, military pensions, veterans benefits, judges, prosecutors, highway construction, food stamps, Medicaid services for low- and middle-income workers and all the rest of it — by 53 percent"
I want to see any politician step up and say we need to cut the budget by a number between 31 and 53% and see just how well that goes over with the electorate
Posted by: fauxrs
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June 29, 2011 9:48 AM
Bah - link fail
http://factcheck.org/2011/06/deficit-arithmetic-cut-everything-34-now/
Posted by: StevoR
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June 29, 2011 9:50 AM
But he's a Democrat or independent democrat going by Wikipedia :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernie_Sanders#Representative
So if he did run he'd have to replace Obama to get the Democrat nomination right? That's not likely to happen is it?
Or he could run as an independent candidate for Pres. - like Perot and Nader and we know those didn't work out well.
Can he try to switch parties and run as a Republican? Doubt they'd vote for him.
So, you're not serious about this are you PZ?
Best hope for him that this Aussie observer of US politics (from a great distance & with limited understanding!) can see is somehow replacing Biden as Vice-President or running in 2016.
FWIW. My impression and initial assessment is that I reckon Obama will be up against Romney for 2012 and Obama will win. I very much doubt Sarah Palin will run and expect Bachman will be knocked out in the primaries. Based on media here and online, gut feeling and trust in the good sense and good nature of the American people some of whom I am lucky to enough to know personally, others just via the net.
I get the impression the Tea Party and Creationism have passed their zenith and will fizzle out hopefully fairly soon. It's what I hope - as well as think - will happen.
Posted by: Gus Snarp
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June 29, 2011 9:55 AM
@SteveoR - I don't know when it becomes too late to have a Democratic primary, or who makes that decision, but you can have a primary even when you already have an incumbent, it's just not done often. Bernie could run as an independent, and he'd probably fare better than Nader, maybe even Perot, because he's not coming from left field, but instead has a real track record of governing. But yeah, I think it's more of a fantasy.
Also, going by recent polls, I'm beginning to think Bachmann has a very real chance in the primaries, she could win Iowa, which would improve her chances everywhere else. Obama vs. Bachmann would be. . . interesting, to say the least.
Posted by: Gus Snarp
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June 29, 2011 10:00 AM
@fauxrs - That's not really about cutting the deficit, that's about cutting spending enough to not need to raise the debt ceiling, something that is entirely bat shit crazy. I'm not saying we can or should cut the deficit by spending cuts alone, but that's not the argument that your link is about.
Posted by: Carlie of the lacy, gently wafting adjectives
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June 29, 2011 10:06 AM
Another Pharyngulite recently shared an article claiming that the military is spending 20 billion dollars a year in Iraq and Afghanistan just on AIR CONDITIONING. That's right, 20 Billion-with-a-B dollars a year to air condition tents. There is apparently a tent style that costs a tenth of that to cool, but they won't use it. (there is a disclaimer at the bottom stating some controversy in the numbers)
Posted by: Naked Bunny with a Whip
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June 29, 2011 10:06 AM
Too busy beating your strawman, no doubt.
It never ceases to amaze me how people come trotting in here flinging shit and then whine when their targets fling it back at them.
Posted by: Sven DiMilo
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June 29, 2011 10:12 AM
He's on TV every day, being generally smart, talking general sense, asking pointed questions, and not letting idiots wiggle off the hook.
Such a shame about the whole state-funds-for-top-drawer-callgirls thing. The fucking dumbass.
Posted by: Andrew G.
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June 29, 2011 10:13 AM
Gus Snarp @38:
You're making the unwarranted assumption that reducing the deficit is desirable or even possible.
The government is not a household; you can't think of the government budget as though it were a household budget. In many ways it's exactly the reverse.
Posted by: Gus Snarp
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June 29, 2011 10:19 AM
@Andrew G. - You're reading too much into what I wrote, I think. I made no such assumption. Did I ever actually say the deficit should be reduced? I don't think so. That said, I'll say it now, the deficit should be reduced, in the long term, and a reduction of the deficit is certainly possible. The debt is another matter entirely. In the short term, more spending is needed to stimulate the economy, and therefore increased deficit spending in the short term is not undesirable.
Posted by: humanapexx
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June 29, 2011 10:20 AM
"the largest corporations should be asked to pay their fair share as part of deficit reduction"
Right, and to be able to pay those taxes they can fire a few thousand employees.
This is why, while looney liberals have some great ideas (protect the environment, etc.), they are not qualified to make decisions about the economy.
-- Human Ape
Posted by: Audley Z. Darkheart OM, purveyor of candy and lies
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June 29, 2011 10:21 AM
0verlord:
Corrupt? You could make the argument that Spitzer was an idiot, but there was no evidence of corruption. Plus, you know, he's a political commentator now, not someone who holds office.
Posted by: Gus Snarp
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June 29, 2011 10:27 AM
@humanapexx - You do realize that corporations only pay taxes on net profits, right? Every penny spent on payroll is a penny that is not taxed. Higher payroll = lower taxes. All the Republican arguments on business and taxation seem to be entirely based on the assumption that the people they are trying to convince have never filed business taxes.
Posted by: sprinklingsofalice
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June 29, 2011 10:28 AM
Deficit reduction ≠ common sense
We need to increase government spending until we're solidly back on a growth path.
"Balancing the budget" would increase unemployment, drop us into a double dip, and decrease GDP.
Posted by: Gus Snarp
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June 29, 2011 10:28 AM
@humanapexx - Also, boy those crazy conservatives sure did a great job making decisions about the economy, huh?
Posted by: KentuckyLongRifle
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June 29, 2011 10:31 AM
My $0.02 worth: First, rich people, myself included, shouldn't be forced to pay a higher percent, they should want to, to show their appreciation for benefitting so much from our economic system and to show compassion for those less well off. Second, if you only remember one thing from this discussion, it should be this: corporations don't pay taxes, they collect them. Yep, worth reading again. To raise taxes on corporations only raises taxes on individuals - but it is hidden in the prices of things we buy. Not better.
Posted by: Erulóra (formerly KOPD)
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June 29, 2011 10:36 AM
It should realy be called the "offense budget". That's how it's used.Posted by: Andrew G.
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June 29, 2011 10:37 AM
In the long term, the deficit is controlled not directly by the government but by the balance between private sector investment, private sector savings, imports, and exports. Government policy can affect those factors, but only indirectly for the most part.
A budget deficit is unavoidable if the private sector has net savings (historically this is usually the case) unless there are sufficient net exports to balance that.
Posted by: Matt "Nora" Penfold
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June 29, 2011 10:40 AM
You need to learn some history. Philanthropy has been tried, and it failed to provide for the less well off. Hence why civilised countries (this excludes the US) have implemented welfare systems based on taxing the rich more than the poor.
Posted by: Audley Z. Darkheart OM, purveyor of candy and lies
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June 29, 2011 10:40 AM
Sven,
State funds? I thought it had been proven that the call girls were paid for with his own money. Or did I miss something?
Posted by: Rey Fox, Bird Caller Guy
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June 29, 2011 10:40 AM
All you people raising the bogeyman of "Marxism"? Your politics have demonstrably failed. So kindly STFU.
Posted by: Gus Snarp
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June 29, 2011 10:44 AM
@Andrew G. - I don't think you are talking about a budget deficit. You are talking about, correct me if I'm wrong, a current account deficit, which is something else entirely, being related to trade. The budget deficit is absolutely in the Government's control.
Posted by: Old Yippie
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June 29, 2011 10:44 AM
Much as I would like Bernie Saunders to be my President, we all know that he hasn't a prayer of getting elected. After all, too many Americans have been brainwashed into believing that Socialist is equivalent to Stalinist. After all, wasn't Stalin a socialist? Never mind that none of them know what socialism actually means, they just know that it is bad.
Posted by: https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawn-KgO3VB4dqaRkSAD3lANmD5U98obs-Zk
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June 29, 2011 10:51 AM
Doesn't matter that Sanders is socialist. The Righties are sold on their own propaganda that Obama is the leftiest lefty left that ever lefted in Lefty Town. Sanders would be a wild swing to the Right, according to all Righties.
#56: "To raise taxes on corporations only raises taxes on individuals..."
Then, they shouldn't bother fighting against fair taxes, closed loopholes and such. Because it doesn't affect them, right?
Posted by: Gus Snarp
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June 29, 2011 10:56 AM
Absolutely. Unfortunately that has jack squat to do with government policy. We cannot afford to only allow the rich people who choose to pay their fair share to pay it, we must enforce a system of taxation, or no one pays anything.But there is such a thing as supply and demand. Companies can only raise prices so much, unless wages also rise. There is a limit to how much of the taxes can be passed on to the consumer.
Posted by: levitooker
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June 29, 2011 10:59 AM
Signed and shared! Bernie Sanders is my favorite politician of all time. Such a principled man. Unfortunately I'm just on the other side of the lake from him. But I guess I can't complain too much since we have Kirsten Gillibrand.
Posted by: Randomfactor
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June 29, 2011 11:03 AM
President Bachmann.
You want to bet the American people, considered as a faceless mass, are NOT that stupid?
I love Bernie Sanders but I'm voting for Obama and will push to make his second term what his first should have been.
Posted by: Robin J
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June 29, 2011 11:04 AM
#56:
Great idea. Let's also do away with the criminal justice system, since people shouldn't want to commit crimes.Posted by: GravityIsJustATheory
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June 29, 2011 11:05 AM
Of course (and as demonstrated by a couple of posters already) the Teatards and Loonitarians will just see that and think "Marxist who wants to destroy America".
(Using their own special definitions of "Marxist" = "Anyone to the left of Ayn Rand*", "America" = "The particular interpretation and implimentation of the Constitution and society that I support", and "Destroy" = "Make any changes that mean it is no longer exactly what I want").
* Ghengis Khan did actually support state infrastructure and a civil service, including a postal service, so he would be too far left for their liking.
Posted by: Randomfactor
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June 29, 2011 11:08 AM
Sanders would be a wild swing to the Right, according to all Righties.
We have always been at war with EastSanders.
Posted by: Andrew G.
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June 29, 2011 11:12 AM
Gus Snarp @62: I am talking about the government budget deficit. Look up "sectoral balances equation"; there are many ways to write it but this is one:
(T - G) + (S - I) = (X - M)
where T = taxation, G = government spending (and thus (T - G) = government budget surplus), S = private sector saving, I = private sector investment, X = exports, M = imports (such that (X - M) = current account surplus). This equation is true as a matter of accountancy (it's derived from the fact that GDP can be computed equivalently from the perspective of either income or expenditure).
It's clear from the form of the equation I used above that if (X-M) is negative, i.e. there is a current account deficit, then either (T-G) is negative (government budget is in deficit) or (S-I) is negative (private sector is net borrowing). Plus, if (S-I) is positive (private sector is net saving), then the government budget can only balance (G=T) if the external sector is in surplus to the same extent as the private sector is saving).
The government may control its expenditure (within practical limits) but it does not control its income in absolute terms. The equation above makes clear that the behaviour of the private and external sectors has a direct effect.
Posted by: SallyStrange, Spawn of Cthulhu
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June 29, 2011 11:16 AM
I second the appreciation for Kirsten Gillibrand. I live in Vermont now, so it's great knowing that I'm represented by Bernie, but I am originally from NYS, and I've been keeping an eye on her. She's great on women's issues, choice, and economic equality, and she doesn't seem overly shy about saying so. I can definitely see her making a credible run for the Presidency, if not in 2016 then perhaps in 2020.
Posted by: Gus Snarp
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June 29, 2011 11:23 AM
@Andrew G. - Interesting. I feel like I need Paul Krugman to explain it to me to get it 100%. I've seen the argument that government deficit spending moves debt from the private sector to the public sector, so it makes sense to me in terms of that. I'm not sure, however, that causation is implied to any individual element. All of them have some power to change. In other words, I don't that that says the government can't reduce the deficit through policy change, just that if they do it will have a real effect on the economy, most likely in private sector debt. Which relates to the notion that right now, in this weak economy, deficit reduction is a singularly bad idea, but that at the right time economically it might not be such a bad idea.
Posted by: truthspeaker
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June 29, 2011 11:25 AM
They would do that anyway.
The idea is for the taxes to come out of their profits, which they have plenty of.
Posted by: Don
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June 29, 2011 11:41 AM
As a longtime Vermonter, I have admired Bernie's principles and politics from his days as the Socialist mayor of Burlington, through his stint as the state's only US Representative, to his current tenure as a fiercely vocal Independent in the Senate. He belongs right where he is. His voice is powerful and audacious. He makes a real difference.
What's more, it's worth noting (especially here) that, as a secular Jew, Bernie is the Senate's only non-believer, though he won't cop to it, lest he distract people from his essential messages.
Posted by: Dude... Real Men Watch Ponies!
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June 29, 2011 11:57 AM
#25
Sigh... this obviously show that you don't understand economy, or even analogy.
It's all the same pond, so everyone can use it.
So, can I use the money owned by, say, Bill Gates? No? Then it's not the same thing.
A better analogy is that everyone has their own pond. Taxation take water from those that happens to have a big pond with lots of water that THEY can't possibly use it all (they dug a big hole that just happened to be in a place with lots of rain) and divert it to people who either can't dig a big hole (disability) OR doesn't have much rain (unlucky).
Same with progressive taxation. There's only so much things one person can usefully consume before they just stack them up away somewhere (bank accounts, lands, speculative stock trading, etc).
Posted by: StevoR
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June 29, 2011 12:03 PM
@44. Gus Snarp | June 29, 2011 9:55 AM
Okay, yeah. But surely, surely the American people, (even Republican voters!) are smarter than electing Bachman in the primaries would indicate? I mean someone who is so clueless she says the founding fathers abolished slavery? Really? I know almost nothing of US history and I know better than that. Y'know cause of the Civil War & all. I give even fairly stupid people more credit than a Bachman vote would tend to indicate.
@GravityIsJustATheory | June 29, 2011 11:05 AM
Genghis Khan was also reasonably tolerant regarding other cultures - as long as they accepted the Mongol rule politically they could do pretty much what they liked religion and culture~wise if I recall right.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genghis_Khan#Politics_and_economics
Would provisionally seem to confirm this.
The cities that got exterminated by the Mongols - pretty horrifically in some cases - tended to be the one's that resisted NOT ones selected on any other basis. Pay your tribute, give political recognition to the Khan of Khan's supremity and you'd be pretty much left to your own devices if I gather things correctly.
Posted by: Bruce Gorton
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June 29, 2011 12:15 PM
Posted by: humanapexx Author Profile Page | June 29, 2011 10:20 AM
"the largest corporations should be asked to pay their fair share as part of deficit reduction"
Right, and to be able to pay those taxes they can fire a few thousand employees.
And here we see why conservatives absolutely suck at making money.
Listen up sparky - company taxes are a percentage charged on profit, so a profitable company is not going to reduce its productive capabilities based on its tax environment.
Whether it hires or fires is a function of supply versus demand. 20% off of $100 or 30% of $100 you are still making more money than the person getting charged those same taxes off of $50.
Posted by: Kevin
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June 29, 2011 12:20 PM
I find it amazing how many people have fallen for the Republican line of BS that taxes=reduced jobs. And it's corollary that reduced taxes=more jobs.
Both are patent nonsense.
Posted by: Flex
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June 29, 2011 12:21 PM
KentuckyLongRifle wrote
This is a commonly held idea, and it sounds good at a cursory glance, but it is wrong.
Corporate taxes are on profits, not income. The only relationship they have to the prices of the things we buy are in how much profit the corporation desires.
As a hypothetical, if a company makes $100 profit, at a 35% tax rate it makes an after-tax profit of $65. If you raise the tax rate to 40%, the corporate after-tax profit is $60.
Note how the price of what they are selling is not involved in any of that.
Now, if the company wants to retain an after-tax profit of $65, the corporation needs to increase their before-tax profit to $108.33. How they get that additional $8.33 is up to the corporation and raising prices is only one of the tactics they can use.
In many cases, raising prices is not how a company retains profits. If the good being sold is highly competitive, and the demand for the good is highly elastic, adding that $8.33 to the price of the good will reduce demand so the corporation will not be able to collect more profit to offset the greater taxes.
Again, this is the corporation making the decision to increase profits. Notice how, at this stage, the tax rate is not involved.
I would be very curious as to why this idea is so pervasive. I think its a combination of the confusion between personal income taxes and a plethora of bad literature and movies where some business executive says in response to a penalty from a lawsuit, "It doesn't really matter, we'll raise the price of a loaf of bread a penny to cover our losses."
Posted by: Nakarti
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June 29, 2011 12:25 PM
I am listening to the president, and he basically opened with the content of that letter.
He basically determined that I am voting for him in the next election.
Not so certain about congress or senate though...
Posted by: Michael Swanson
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June 29, 2011 12:29 PM
@ VMFPAPPY214
"The US national debt NOT including future unfunded liabilities is now equal to 98% of the GDP of the entire country. Tell me again how "taxing the rich" will help???
So maybe it won't reduce the national debt. But maybe people and corporations worth billions and billions of dollars simply pay their share, then things like libraries, schools and Medicare would be able to find at least some of their funding. I make $32,000 a year, and I simply pay my taxes. I just pay them. I don't try to squirrel out of them. So if the local billionaire here (there are quite a few in Portland) simply pays his share then, good freakin' zombie Jesus, how much money, compared to my meager share, would be pumped into Portland's, Oregon's and the nation's treasury? I'm guessing a lot.
Posted by: Dude... Real Men Watch Ponies!
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June 29, 2011 12:42 PM
@Flex
#80
Lots and lots of lobbyists, PR, and spin-doctors.
Posted by: truthspeaker
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June 29, 2011 12:50 PM
Not to mention a press that just repeats what the spin doctors tell them without doing any fact-checking, and that never refers back to any history prior to the previous month.
Posted by: Flex
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June 29, 2011 12:50 PM
I wrote,
I also have to be more aware of my tenses.
I am very curious....
And Dude...Real Men Watch Ponies! may have at least part of the answer.
Posted by: PleiadeanX
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June 29, 2011 12:58 PM
Exactly right at #81.
Has Bernie missed the $400B cut in military spending that Obama/Gates have identified (so far)? Did he not hear the part about eliminating corporate tax loopholes?
How about rolling up that fucking letter and smacking Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, and every other lame-ass corporatist in D.C. with it instead of the guy trying to be at least a little responsible?
I'm not in love with Obama's weak, centrist positions on most things, but FFS, has stoopid bred like mosquitos now that summer break is here?
Posted by: Gingerbaker
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June 29, 2011 1:10 PM
So the public can't be persuaded to change its viewpoints? If the Republican party had such a fatalistic view after Goldwater failed in his presidential bid, we would not be facing the situation we are in right now.
The most successful countries in the world are social democracies. Britons cherish their "welfare" (yes, this is what they call them) institutions - like their health and educational systems. If Bernie decided to run, we would have a real national conversation about the purpose of government, social justice, and the corruption of democracy. Decades of Republican propaganda could be dismantled in months.
The fact of the matter is that Americans truly don't understand how they are being ripped off. They don't even know how much better off life is in other countries, because Democrats don't tell them about about the benefits of all the specific services other countries provide for their citizens, and Republicans keep telling them they live in the greatest country in the world.
Americans despise taxes for a good reason - they don't get much in the way of services in return. Once they understand what they are missing, they could be one pissed off electorate ready to throw the weasels out of office for a long, long time.
Posted by: xSpot
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June 29, 2011 1:25 PM
It shouldn't be - we've almost doubled our "defense" spending - I prefer to call it "military spending" and the "defense industry" the "War industry" - since 2000, and then we spent almost as much as the entire rest of the world combined. We could cut it by 75% and still be spending way more than necessary.
I think right now there's a lot of mainstream support for cutting military spending significantly, especially when you ask why we have to have military bases in 130 countries around the world.
And while we're at it, we could ask why the entire US population shouldn't be looking at something like Tricare...
I say do as the Republicans do - go to the extreme and bite down hard. Then if you have to compromise, you make them give up a pound of flesh too. The Democrats don't seem able to or interested in actually fighting these battles.
Posted by: Kagehi
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June 29, 2011 1:29 PM
Sure, because spending billions to bail the same companies out, then giving them a mess of tax breaks, even though they have so many loop holes that some of them get tax refunds every year, then having them decide they need to fire ***American*** workers in the thousands anyway, and hire people in some other country, makes ***way*** more sense. Keep drinking the coolaid and ignoring the fact that reality, from prior economic times, completely contradicts this, "We will hire more people, if you let us keep even more money!", bullshit.
Posted by: xSpot
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June 29, 2011 1:31 PM
If Americans realized how little it costs Europeans to pay for healthcare and college - if that point were really pushed home - I think you'd see lifelong Republicans voting for someone who promised to end use a transaction tax on derivatives to help pay for college and a shredding of the military budget to pay for healthcare.
We're destroying our own economy through lack of infrastructure and with the insane personal debt college and healthcare costs saddle us with. College debt is now greater than credit card debt. And everyone this side of Mark Zuckerberg could be devastated by an insurance company refusing to pay premiums on a cancer claim.
Posted by: Autumn
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June 29, 2011 1:42 PM
xSpot,
It would take a whole lot less than cancer to bankrupt most people in the US. My son broke his arm, and if my wife and I didn't have really nice insurance (she works for the hospital, and it does take care of its own), we would have been stuck with close to $75,000 of high interest debt. It might not have broken us completely, but we certainly would have been instantly forced from "working-class" to "poverty stricken".
Posted by: Michael Swanson
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June 29, 2011 2:05 PM
"It would take a whole lot less than cancer to bankrupt most people in the US."
No shit. One of my coworkers works herself half to death to pay for her husband's medical bills, as he's had long term issues and health insurance only covers so much. Of course, she worked so hard and so much that she had a nervous breakdown and spent about a week or so recovering at a mental health facility. She's back to work now, but has done the math and realizes that it will be decades - DECADES - before she can pay off her debt. Assuming nothing else happens.
Posted by: Olav
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June 29, 2011 2:08 PM
Regarding the title above this article: I know Americans use a slightly different definition of the term, but is it really right to call Sanders, a democratic socialist, a liberal senator?
Posted by: truthspeaker
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June 29, 2011 2:08 PM
Word.
Posted by: truthspeaker
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June 29, 2011 2:11 PM
In the United States, yes it is. We don't use a "slightly" different definition of the term, we use a very different definition.
Posted by: Terry Gibbs
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June 29, 2011 2:15 PM
We should be looking at the military.
Why do we need bases in Germany and South Korea?
Concerning taxes, we need to close the loopholes and make sure they stay closed.
The hidden story with taxes is the loopholes. The rate doesn't matter as long as loopholes exist to allow people to avoid paying the stated rates.
I think higher rates mean more effort is made to get new loopholes.
Posted by: Sander Aarts
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June 29, 2011 2:27 PM
This reminds me of OREO cookies: http://truemajority.org/oreos/ (flash animation)
Posted by: truthspeaker
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June 29, 2011 2:28 PM
Even if you accept that we need those bases, why do we need bases in Iraq and Afghanistan? Obama's "withdrawal" plans for those two countries involves leaving tens of thousands of US troops in both of them.
Posted by: Therrin (Ben S)
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June 29, 2011 3:05 PM
#77 StevoR
As someone living in said country, I can say with all sincereity:=/
Posted by: Therrin (Ben S)
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June 29, 2011 3:06 PM
I can also say it with sincerity, when I notice prior to posting.
Posted by: HB Desiato
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June 29, 2011 3:12 PM
We (well, liberal/progressive types) need a democratic contender for the nomination, even if it isn't really too serious in order to counter the endless stream of teaparty crazy talk. At least there would be another voice for the MSM to cover, I'm sick of teaparty republican news 24/7.
Posted by: Terry Gibbs
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June 29, 2011 3:25 PM
#98. Exactly.
What's the justification of leaving troops in Afghanistan or Iraq?
If it's to prevent terrorists from having a safe haven, would it be cheaper in terms of life and treasure to just go in every decade or so and eradicate them?
Posted by: fauxrs
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June 29, 2011 3:34 PM
@GusSnarp - You're absolutely correct however it indirectly speaks to the point VMFPAPPY214 thinks he made. Since its completely insane to think we can cut our way out of a deficit (which I hope my link shows) then the only other option is to raise revenues, which is usually done in the form of taxes, which he claims wont do the job either. (I also realise he claimed debt)
There are republicans in congress though that do claim, and claim often that we do not have a revenue problem and that we can achieve a balanced budget through cuts alone. Again while my link doesnt speak precisely to that claim the numbers are mostly equivelant.
Posted by: Gus Snarp
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June 29, 2011 3:55 PM
If anybody's interested in what Andrew G. and I were talking about regarding deficits, private sector savings, and trade blances, I found a half way decent explanation here. Thanks for getting me started on that search, Andrew.
Posted by: feralboy12, der Ken-Puppe Sie außerhalb in 1983 verlassen
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June 29, 2011 3:57 PM
Bernie Sanders may be someone to keep an eye on for the future, but we're probably better off if Obama waltzes to re-nomination without opposition.
Historically, when an incumbent present gets even a half-way credible challenge within his own party, his re-election chances are pretty much toast (Johnson 1968, Ford 1976, Carter 1980, Bush 1992).
And I, for one, am mildly terrified of the Republican line-up.
Posted by: feralboy12, der Ken-Puppe Sie außerhalb in 1983 verlassen
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June 29, 2011 3:58 PM
That would be incumbent president, of course.
Dar.
Posted by: Dude... Real Men Watch Ponies!
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June 29, 2011 4:14 PM
@feralboy12
#105
Well, I'm a pyromaniac.
It would be hilarious to watch the fall-out.
Just imagine, Bachmann/Palin won!
Posted by: aketzle
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June 29, 2011 4:17 PM
I would, too! There are a few good men (and women) left...
Posted by: davem
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June 29, 2011 4:29 PM
Why do you need bases in the other 60+ countries?Posted by: Andrew G.
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June 29, 2011 5:01 PM
Gus Snarp @104: your link didn't work.
Posted by: Jadehawk, cascadeuse féministe
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June 29, 2011 5:14 PM
I believe such an outcome would raise the likelihood of nuclear war to 90% :-/Posted by: David Marjanović
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June 29, 2011 6:29 PM
humanapexx, or realize?
Are you sure?
When Bush's tax cuts got through, it was clear they would only benefit the richest 1 % of Americans. So where did the broad support come from? Somebody asked a statistically representative sample of Americans if they thought they belonged to the richest 1 %.
Nineteen percent of Americans believe they belong to the richest one percent.
There are lots of clueless people out there.
BTW, the smallest party in Austria's parliament made its usual once-every-few-years proposal of a flat tax today. Also today, the European Commission proposed an EU-wide tax on stock exchange transactions (you know, Tobin tax).
Well, those in South Korea might have a deterrent effect on North Korea.
But Germany? Those are nothing but relicts from the Cold War.
Posted by: timgueguen
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June 29, 2011 7:29 PM
The argument for military bases in Germany is no doubt a logistics one. It's a lot easier to support operations in the Middle East from Germany than it would be to do so from a continental US base.
Posted by: NMLevesque
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June 29, 2011 9:28 PM
Fantastic stuff. Now if he'd only include fixing the broken religious tax exemption laws I could bump up my approval rating to 10/10. That could provide a much needed revenue stream, and would end a massively corrupted, abused, and ignored system put in place to lessen the tax burden on groups that provide a charitable service.
Posted by: UberAlles
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June 29, 2011 10:59 PM
We've heard this request before, Every politician should be self motivated to restore fiscal responsibility. It should not require any input from anyone.
Cut the spending so that the national debt is reduced year after year after year. America has lived the good life by mortgaging our assets and revenue streams - Then asking future generation to pay for today's bloated consumption.
Each year they spend more, borrow more, waste more.
If we the people are going to sacrifice let our politicians talk & act honestly.
Posted by: Kagehi
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June 30, 2011 12:57 AM
Problem I keep having with this sort of assertion is that three things happen:
1. Entire programs get nuked, even when they could have been combined, or adjusted, or are actually useful, and almost *never* based on something as silly as how much they cost (Planned Parenthood...).
2. If it can be fixed, it won't be, because its better politically, for those apposed to it entirely, to break it more, or prevent it from looking like it can work (pretty much everything dedicated to helping out of work people, for example, or the poor. I.e., food/aid programs that vanish when you are just "under" being destitute, but feed you better than four 30 hour/week jobs, if you don't work at all..)
3. What ever gets broken by doing the above invariably leads to the only solution that *is* allowed, which is more regulations, agencies, and political stupidity, designed not to actually fix any of the problems (that wouldn't be allowed by who ever apposes the programs), but more often to a) promote cronies, or b) increase costs, intentionally, so that the *next* time a discussion of the program comes up the opposition can say, "See, the cost keeps going up, but it hasn't improved at all!"
Its almost unheard of for programs to be combined (unless it would break them faster), or redone, to fix problems, or legislation to be passed which adjusts how the program runs, instead of creating yet another group to watch it, who then need more money to operate. When "reform" is suggested, its often too late (when something like the patent office has become two idiots in front of a 19th century file cabinet, trying to search on 200 billion patents, and unable to determine "if" any of them are really valid any more, after all, we don't need the hundreds of people, or what ever it was *before*, two will work, right. Ok, maybe exaggerating a bit there, on both counts, but its not far off.), then any real solution would require more expense than it would have if the solution had been done the first time it was suggested (Example - just about every damn light rail system ever suggested in California. I figure, by 2020, the amount spent "studying" the problem will finally exceed what it would have cost, in terms of the total amount spent studying it, adjusted, than what actually building the damn thing would, possibly by several factors *beyond*).
In short, its easy to not do anything, easier still to pass useless crap that doesn't fix it, since you don't piss *too many* people off that way, easiest of all to just go serial killer on the budget, and very, very hard to actually sit down and figure out what the programs *should* cost, what is being done wrong, and why they need all the damn money to function (when in fact they probably don't, are not working as they should, and shouldn't cost anything close to what is being spent).
It hardly helps when your "opposition" are people that, often, have completely delusional views of what things cost, should cost, how much normal people have to pay for them themselves, and even what the hell is wrong with the programs (hint - their existence at all, or delusional ideological objections, and the alternate universe math, science, and economist, behind it, are *both* usually the wrong answer).
So.. Now that that is clear, lets see your clear, logically consistent, fact based, non-delusion induced, list of fixes that need to be made. If a few programs need to be gotten rid of entirely, show me the $@#$%$#%$#%$# math to prove it, and don't get it from a right wing think tank, which contradicts *everyone else's* opinion on the subject.
Posted by: propater
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June 30, 2011 3:52 AM
I am confused by the juxtaposition of " if you believe deficit reduction should be about shared sacrifice" and "if you believe the middle-class and working families have already sacrificed enough"
It rings a lot like "lets share sacrifice but not on us..." Do not ask to share something to exclude one category from that sharing in the same sentence... That's the kind of muddy/swampy language that I have come to resent from politicians.
But I agree there is a case to be made that the middle class in the USA got shafted in the last decade(s)...
Posted by: Old Yippie
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June 30, 2011 9:03 AM
The Republicans claim that their unwillingness to cut taxes is based on the Laffer Curve, which they interpret as saying that tax cuts will actually increase tax revenues. The problem is that Laffer's actual theory says that tax cuts, up to a certain point, will increase tax revenues. There is a pretty good explanation at the Wikipedia article, including an idealized version of the curve itself.
The 2001 Bush tax cuts did not increase tax revenues, so taxes must be on the other side of the curve. This shows the Republican argument is crap, since the Laffer theory does not apply.
The reality, of course, is that the Republicans are toadying to the rich, as has been their custom since at least the Taft administration.
Posted by: Gus Snarp
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June 30, 2011 9:17 AM
@Andrew G. - Damn, I could have sworn I got the tag right. Always preview! Here's the link, with full text in case I miss a character: http://neweconomicperspectives.blogspot.com/2009/07/sector-financial-balances-model-of_17.html
Posted by: Dr. I. Needtob Athe
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June 30, 2011 11:07 AM
The big problem is that as soon as I saw "liberal senator" in your title, I automatically thought "Bernie Sanders." It's just like a few decades ago when we saw "atheist" in a newspaper headline and knew the article was about Madalyn Murray O'Hair. My point is that one liberal senator just isn't enough to get the job done.
Posted by: Gus Snarp
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June 30, 2011 11:40 AM
@Old Yippie - Long before Taft, actually. McKinley, at least. Teddy Roosevelt was an aberration who never would have been nominated by his party for the top job, which is why he ultimately left the party.
Posted by: https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawlw4oH0l6k2YD0NCQUeu7nC2owgujUl77U
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June 30, 2011 12:50 PM
ss123 "...if the military was reduced a bit.
That would just add to the unemployment problem though, which nobody wants to see get worse."
How about if those military people were retrained to be construction workers, jumper fire fighters, emergency crews, cops, teachers, etc? Spend the same money on maintaining society and repairing or upgrading the infrastructure. Instead of spending money to blow up other people's stuff by blowing up some of ours.
What could we have done in New Orleans after Katrina with $4,000,000,000 (weekly cost of the Iraq War five years ago) and the warriors we had in Iraq (but mostly trained differently?
I agree, we can't just fire half the army - that would create problems. But if the US military's job is to ensure our country's security, that should include prosperity, infrastructure, mitigating effects of global warming, educating the populace, etc. Reduce the *military part of the military 80%, spend the same money, and, um... get more bang for the buck.
Posted by: https://www.google.com/accounts/o8/id?id=AItOawlw4oH0l6k2YD0NCQUeu7nC2owgujUl77U
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June 30, 2011 12:52 PM
Sorry for the google mess :(
Kermit
Posted by: Jim
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June 30, 2011 3:22 PM
Old Yippie: "The 2001 Bush tax cuts did not increase tax revenues, so taxes must be on the other side of the curve. This shows the Republican argument is crap, since the Laffer theory does not apply."
In 2001 federal revenues totaled $1.99 trillion. In 2008 (Bush's last full year in office) federal revenues totaled $2.52 trillion, an increase of $0.53 trillion.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/budget/fy2012/assets/hist01z1.xls
It's also relevant to note that in 2001 the richest 1% of Americans paid 33.89% of personal income tax, while in 2008 their share of personal income tax had increased to 38.02%.
http://ntu.org/tax-basics/who-pays-income-taxes.html
Posted by: Kagehi
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June 30, 2011 5:15 PM
The problem isn't the "small" increase, its the fact that the amount made over all by businesses, the amount in the pockets of the average person, and other factors **do not correlate** well with the small gain. When factoring in those things, the net result may be a very small increase in government revenue, over the short term, but a net loss later.
An actual graph of some of it, covering 1950s to today shows the "assumed" taxes from corporate, versus the rest. The problem, of course, is that it doesn't take into account loopholes, or show how the biggest earners have so many of them that they don't end up paying much of anything, unless its payroll, which *has* increased to compensate for the loss of "direct" taxes.
http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/background/numbers/revenue.cfm
It has to bloody come from some place...
Then there are other graphs, like the ones showing that with a "top" income tax rate of 75-80%, we had a GDP of 4.5 (which refers to growth of the economy), while the worst we ever had it was a GDP of about 1.75, when the rate was 35%. Its been higher at 28-31% (GDP 2.5) and 38.6% (GDP 2.0), but, in general, the highest GDP, historically, has always been when the tax rates where higher.
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/06/20/249061/chart-taxes-economic-growth/
There is a reason for this. Government builds and maintains roads, it provides supplimentary funds to everything from hospitals to daycare facilities, to you name it. These are not the sort of, "We will pay you to sit on your ass and not grow things on your land.", type things, they are jobs created via *real* need for additional funding, that can't be easily squeezed out of the general populous in a more direct manner. Some of it even goes into things like research, which the public either couldn't, or flat out wouldn't (for various reasons, including stupidity, or religious objections, but I repeat myself...), pay to support at all, without the government spending money on it.
Tell you what. You know what, in all this bullshit, we are not hearing - how many jobs, in infrastructure, aid programs to the poor, and various other, "no, to negative profit", type situations in this country we will lose if we go on defunding things right and left, and never increasing government income.
People like you Jim take small picture perspectives on things, cherry pick small bits of data, and ignore everything else going on. It only matters how much "revenue" the government is supposedly getting, not even what the hell that means, if its adjusted for GDP, or for inflation, or anything else, just how much they *get*. Then you can hand wave about what, given a longer view of economic data is basically a statistical anomoly, and babble, "See, Bush got the government more money by cutting taxes." That he also slowed economic growth, and who the hell knows what else, in the process, which, over the long term would have lowered the amount companies make in the first place, thus **decreasing** the federal income anyway..
One time, short term, jumps in income mean jack shit, if every other marker indicates that the revenue will drop over time, because the economy is sliding. You can't wring water out of a dry sponge, and that is what lowering the damn tax rates does. And, I think I mentioned this before, you also can't frakking grow the economy, get more people hired, and have **your countries** revenues increase, by cutting taxes for people that then turn around and fire thousands of Americans, in favor of hiring people in Singapore, or some place, and that is what every damn one of these companies the Republicans have given new tax breaks to have done. Every damn one of them have hired more people in foreign countries, or fired American workers. Name one, just ****ONE**** that has actually hired people **here**, instead of in China, or some place, in the last 4 years, or has hired more there, than here, on the off chance there is one semi-non-asshole in the country (foreign companies, hiring American workers in the US, at minimum wage, don't count).
Then, when you fail to find one that has investing in our own country, instead of whining their asses off, and hiring someone in a third world country at less cost, explain to me why the "first" thing both sides shouldn't be doing is curtailing this idiot practice, even before complaining about how much the multi-billionaire, 80% of whose workers are in Taiwan, is being oh so badly injured by high taxes...
Posted by: Andrew G.
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June 30, 2011 5:36 PM
But what happened to their share of the personal income over that period?
(clue: it went up)
Posted by: Kagehi
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June 30, 2011 6:07 PM
Yeah, like I said Andrew, cherry picking. Ooh no! They are paying slightly more of the *total* cost! Never mind that they now make 50 times what they did in the 50s, so that their taxes, in terms of income are way smaller.
Or, to put it another way, if I make $14k a year, and I pay only 20%, I am giving the government 2,800 dollars. If there are 100 million of me, we are giving the government 2.8 billion. If I am making 1 billion a year, and there are 100 like me, the amount made from such people would be 380.2 million. Meanwhile, if the $14k person pays $300 rent per month, another $300/month of food, utilities, etc., they "keep" $4,400. Of course, in reality, this is bull. It gets spent on gas for the car, clothes, other expenses, etc. And, if you have a student loan, its another $200/month, or $2,400 of that, right there.
Meanwhile, the rich guy spends, maybe 40%? more than the minimum wager does, in the same time (most of them are not spending **that** much extra every single damn month on useless crap, and the ones that do go bankrupt). Well, you do the math as to how much they get to keep, then explain how having them pay even less of the overall taxes themselves "helps" anyone but them, since the guy on the bottom is "probably" actually paying, in some places, more like $400-500 a month on rent, or more, and a whole host of other differences from the above, and this is based on a "part time" job, which doesn't supply health coverage, or anything else that you also have to pay for. In short, the minimum wage guy is, in reality, probably not even as well off as what I show above. They are running a net personal, "I get to keep this", or $0, or actually going negative, every time they have to see a doctor.
The rich guy on the other hand, they keep getting raises, whining about minimum wage even existing, in some cases, and they amount they pay "from" income is less each year, even if they do pay more *over all*. Its a misleading figure. If I owned a lake, I would be contributing more "over all" to filling a barrel than people spitting into it. For me to complain that I am putting more in form the lake than the people spitting is just plain idiocy. Suggesting that we would be better off, to achieve what ever the end goal is of filling that barrel, if *I* wasn't required to do more than spit in it too, is just plain stupidity, especially if the goal is critical for the village survival, time sensitive, or could, in the long run, undermine my own well being in the process (like, for instance, causing the entire rest of the village to move away, leaving me with a useless lake, and no income, which is kind of what happens when 90% of the country can't **afford** to buy a new TV, but you won't pay anyone that works for you more money, while complaining that the real problem is how much the government wants me to contribute, and not the fact that my TV costs enough that three families would have to chip in to buy *one* of them, at the wages I pay). And, its rapidly getting to that point, especially when the amount being paid to 9% of the "official" population, and possibly as much as 11%, counting those not on the "official" lists, are being paid, by companies, exactly **nothing** right now, being, you know, not employed at all...
Posted by: Jim
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June 30, 2011 6:31 PM
With apologies to Jonathan Swift, here's a modest proposal: All those who think that high tax rates cause prosperity should by all means pay high taxes. If you think it's good for the economy to send, say, 90% of your income to the government, then by all means, please do so. What's stopping you?
Posted by: Notkieran
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July 1, 2011 2:17 AM
Jim@ #128:
>If you think it's good for the economy to send, say, 90% of your income to the government, then by all means, please do so. What's stopping you?
Short answer: Free riders.
Long answer: 90% of a few people with a social conscience is not enough to make up for the missing taxes from people who think that the privileges of citizenship should not come at a cost.
Shortest answer:
You.
Posted by: Jim
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July 1, 2011 6:44 AM
Notkieran: "...90% of a few people with a social conscience is not enough to make up for the missing taxes from people who think that the privileges of citizenship should not come at a cost."
I can't think of anyone who thinks "the privileges of citizenship should not come at a cost." I know that I don't. Nonetheless, while
every citizen with an income should be taxed to pay for essential government services, neither one's compassion nor his social conscience is measured by his enthusiasm for Big Government. Overweening government is not the engine of prosperity, but it is the enemy of liberty.
Posted by: Notkieran
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July 1, 2011 7:13 AM
>Overweening government is not the engine of prosperity, but it is the enemy of liberty.
So your answer is to say that people who don't want to pay taxes shouldn't have to. How does this behaviour preferentially punish "Big Government" while enabling "small government"?
Posted by: Notkieran
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July 1, 2011 7:18 AM
Sorry, I missed the word "more" from "pay taxes".
Before you go on about "Big Government", please explain how you differentiate between "Big Government" and "small government".
After that, please explain why rich people paying more taxes benefits Big Government but not small government.
Finally, explain, in your own words, why Big Government as defined by you is worse than small government as defined by you.
I will assume failure to do this implies that you do not in fact know the answers to these questions and are simply reiterating soundbites as opposed to participating in debate.
After all, everyone knows that Big Government is bad. But that is meaningless unless you know what Big Government means.
Posted by: Flex
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July 1, 2011 9:06 AM
Jim wrote,
You apparently have no concept of the idea of progressive taxation. Its been printed on the back of every tax booklet from the IRS for years, and you still remain ignorant of it.
Jim, just a hint, the era of the largest sustained economic expansion in the US economy occurred at the same time that there existed a 90% tax bracket. The link between the highest marginal tax rates is tenuous at best, but the evidence we have suggests that a 90% tax bracket at the highest level would improve the economy.
The economy grows as money flows. The government spends every dollar it takes in (and often more than it takes in). So yes, basic economics suggests that giving the government more money to spend will, in fact, grow the economy. Note; I am not suggesting that the money supply be altered, or that government should employ everyone. I'm also of the opinion what while the federal government should be able to go into deficit spending when the business cycle slows in order to maintain an even flow of money, the federal government should also pay off any debt acquired when business is booming.
Jim wrote,
A retreat into jingoism is not a valid answer.
Posted by: Andrew G.
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July 1, 2011 11:15 AM
Flex @133: the idea that the government can "pay off" its "debt" can only result from a complete misunderstanding of how money works.
The so-called "national debt" of a country (considering only sovereign-fiat-currency countries) is nothing more nor less than the total accumulated savings of everyone, wherever they are, who has savings in the form of financial assets denominated in that country's currency.
If the government actually succeeded in "paying off" the national debt, then the economy would immediately collapse from lack of money. (Of course in reality things would break long before that point was reached.)
The national debt is not like a personal loan. Government finance is in many ways the mirror image of private finance.
Posted by: Flex
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July 1, 2011 2:13 PM
Andrew G. @134,
Thank you for pointing that out, but I'm aware that paying off all the national debt would not be beneficial.
What I was trying to get at was not paying off the national debt. What I was trying to get at is that deficit spending can be used during an economic slowdown to keep the economy going until things improve. At the same time, the debt accumulated by this deficit spending can be tracked.
This accumulated debt, which is balanced by increased net private savings, is not held equally by the citizens of the nation. We are not talking about granny buying T-bills. We are talking about private institutions financing the necessary government deficit spending and getting a very favorable return for doing nothing but lending money.
Excessive deficit spending is part of the reason there is an increasing divide between the rich and poor in this country. Look at your sectoral balances equation again while remembering that private net savings is pretty much negligible for the working class and rather small for the middle class.
Now, I would expect your response to be that any reduction in public debt (i.e. a public surplus able to pay down the public debt), would mean an increase in private debt, or a reduction in private savings. The contention is that a reduction in private savings would hurt the middle classes most because they are the ones who are on on edge of being able to save at all. That is, if the affect of public debt reduction is evenly spread across society, there would be more middle-class people who would be unable to save.
Which brings us back to the OP and the subsequent discussion. A progressive tax system would allow most of the money needed to reduce any debt accumulated during a period where deficits were necessary from those people who, in fact, benefited most from the deficit spending.
In other words, the government would borrow from the wealthy to keep the economy going. But would pay back the wealthy when the economy is booming by taxing the income (income, not savings) of the wealthy and newly wealthy. If public debt does become more evenly spread across the nation's population, it should be easier for a government to borrow, and pay back, any deficit necessary to keep the economy stable.
Today, with our current tax system, the wealthy institutions are holding an increasing amount of the public debt and the payments on that debt are spread across most of society, rich and poor alike.
I don't believe we are in any danger of defaulting on these debts, but deficit spending is currently just another way that public monies are transferred into private hands. This is public money which is not fulfilling the functions of government, i.e. building infrastructure, providing justice, etc. Instead, it is public money which is going straight into private fortunes.
Posted by: Andrew G.
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July 1, 2011 7:10 PM
Flex, go read my comment #71 and the link that Gus Snarp posted later (especially figure 3). The sectoral balances equation makes a complete mockery of the "run a deficit in bad times and pay it back in good times" argument; it's clear that there needs to be a deficit even in good times if the private and external sector balances require it.
Specifically, if the private sector is saving money (which it almost always is*), then the government can run a surplus only if there are net exports exceeding the private sector savings. It doesn't matter whether a government surplus is desired or not, it mathematically cannot happen except under those conditions.
As for whether deficit spending contributes to wealth inequality: clearly that depends on where money is being spent and where it is being taxed. (The interest payments on Treasury bonds are part of government spending in this case, but it's worth noting that since the government has full control over the interest rate, it can keep these as small as desired. **) Clearly, if you spend a lot of money on bailing out large financial institutions and reduce taxation on rich people, then you are promoting wealth inequality; if, instead, you run the same (or an even higher) deficit but increase taxes on the rich, and direct spending towards reducing unemployment, supporting non-finance businesses, and so on, then you are reducing wealth inequality. So the level of deficit itself is not the problem here.
--
* - the US private sector was substantially in deficit for the period 1998-2007, with results that I think we can all agree were undesirable.
** - the government does not actually have to issue debt instruments at all; they serve no functional purpose.
Posted by: Jim
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July 1, 2011 9:26 PM
*-the US private sector was substantially in deficit for the period 1998-2007, with results that I think we can all agree were undesirable.
At the beginning of 1998, US gross national product was $8.62 trillion (seasonally adjusted).
By the end of 2007, US gross national product was $14.2 trillion (seasonally adjusted). Was that economic growth undesirable?
http://forecastchart.com/chart-us-gnp.html
Posted by: Andrew G.
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July 1, 2011 10:01 PM
That rate of growth is not significantly different from that of similar periods with substantial private sector surpluses. The private sector deficit was therefore neither the cause nor the result of the economic growth - but it does have a clear connection to the financial crisis that immediately followed.
Posted by: Flex
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July 1, 2011 10:08 PM
Andrew G.,
Yes, I read your comments and Gus Snarps link upthread.
At this point I'm not disagreeing with you, but I'm going to have to think about the implications of the sectoral balance equation some more.
As well as looking again into how it is derived.
For T-G is typically thought as being somewhat independent of other factors. But if the sectoral balance equation is true, as all the references I've seen to it suggest that it simply falls out of basic accounting principles, then some counter-intuitive effects occur.
For example, holding the current account surplus fixed means that an increase in tax revenue T, could trigger an increase in private investment.
(T-G) + (S-I) = (X-M). If G, S, X and M stay fixed an increase in T means there much be an increase in I to balance it out.
Like I said, I'll have to think about it some more.
Posted by: Andrew G.
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July 2, 2011 1:10 PM
You may also be interested in this article which discusses the difference between the straight Keynesian position and the MMT position on a number of key questions.
Posted by: Jim
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July 3, 2011 9:31 AM
Andrew G. "If the government actually succeeded in 'paying off' the national debt, then the economy would immediately collapse from lack of money."
If the government paid off its debt, it would place money in the hands of those who had held the debt. How does that amount to a "lack of money" that would cause an "immediate collapse" of the economy?
Posted by: Andrew G.
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July 3, 2011 11:40 PM
Where do you think the money would come from?
Try looking at it in terms of a toy economy where I'm the only private entity. (And for simplicity I'm going to assume zero inflation and zero interest rates.)
Suppose I start out with $100 in cash, and that this year the government deficit-spends $100 to hire me to do something.
So, the government issues $100 in bonds (which I buy, so now I have $0 in cash and a $100 bond), and then it pays me the $100, so now I have $100 in cash again and still have my $100 bond, so my total financial assets are $200.
Next year, the bond comes due, and the government wants to pay it off rather than roll it over, so it has to run a $100 surplus. The only way it can do that is by taxing me for the $100 (and spending nothing), so now I have $0 in cash again but still have my bond, and then paying back the bond, so I now have $100 in cash and no bond. My financial assets are down from $200 to $100 as a result of the government running a $100 surplus.
But here's the kicker: that $100 in cash is part of the "national debt" too, because to issue it, the central bank has to hold $100 in assets, and something like 99% of those assets are themselves government bonds. If the government wants to pay those back too, it has to tax me again for another $99, leaving me with $1 (which might be backed by gold or some other qualifying asset). So at this point the "national debt" is eliminated, but so are all essentially all net private-sector financial assets including the high-powered money. At this point the entire economy is reduced to barter or a hard-currency system (in reality of course it would collapse to the point of government overthrow long before that, due to deflation).
Now, if you add more people to this picture, it must clearly net out to the same result when aggregated over the whole non-government sector. There may be net transfers of wealth depending on who gets taxed and who gets paid, but ultimately the total effect is the same.
Posted by: Jim
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July 5, 2011 12:03 PM
I don't see the relevance of your "explanation" to the real economy, Andrew. Since most people aren't going to get "hire(d) to do something" and for their efforts receive $100 from the government, your "explanation" loses contact with economic reality at the outset.
For what it's worth, I doubt that government will or even should pay off its debt entirely. There will always be investors who want to hold government bonds, so there will always be some level of government debt. The problem today is that the debt has reached unsustainable levels, which raises the risk that the government will turn to inflation to "solve" the debt problem.
Posted by: Flex
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July 5, 2011 12:50 PM
Andrew G.,
Thanks for the continuing response. Before I had a chance to read you additional links I thought of another strangeness about the sectoral balance equation. It claims to be derived from accounting principles, but again, I can't reconcile it with some of the accounting principles I know.
For example, let's assume that over the course of a year that nothing changes. Government revenue and spending stays the same, private savings don't change, the trade balance stays the same. But, depreciation lowers the valuation of private investment. With nothing else changing, the book value of private investment drops maybe 20%. Does this mean private savings has also dropped in order to keep the delta the same? Or is depreciation not counted in this equation which is supposed to be derived from GAAP principles? Or, even more worrisome, does this equation make some non-GAAP assumptions (like eliminating depreciation) and still claim it to be derived from accounting principles?
I haven't had the time to look into this further, but I'm going to have to figure out the assumptions behind that equation.
I read your links with interest, I've mainly been trying to get very familiar with Keynesian theory and I have not been looking at MMT. Which certainly explains my ignorance on their theories. I note, however, that MMT theorists are concerned about deficit spending. Apparently there is a concern that under full employment conditions deficit spending by the Federal government will cause inflation.
What the MMT theory doesn't seem to address is how to prevent a government from deficit spending when full employment is reached. The article you linked to, along with a few of the articles it linked to, suggested that policy makers would be aware of the danger of deficit spending under full-employment conditions and simply stop deficit spending. Forgive me for being a bit skeptical about the capabilities of our legislators being wise enough to manage this.
Further, at least a few of the MMT theorists suggest that it should be easy to reach full employment by having the government hire excess workers.
Which leads to a situation where deficit spending is necessary to get to full employment, but once full employment is reached, the deficit spending needs to be reduced (or eliminated) in order to avoid inflation. That's quite a tight-rope act.
The claim appears to be that generating full employment would automatically increase tax revenue to eliminate the deficit. But this claim seems to be a bit weak when looking at the history of Federal budgets.
Further, from a macro-economic standpoint it would seem to be easy to reach full employment. But in actuality, with the increasing specialization of our individual workers, you often have high unemployment in one field (or location) while simultaneously you have low unemployment in another. For example, in my own industry and location (SE Michigan), there is currently a pretty high demand for automotive engineers but at the same time manufacturing workers are a glut. I know, Keynesian theory doesn't account for this well either (other than acknowledging that this will happen in the short-term and it will balance in the long-term). But what I've seen of MMT it doesn't look like it can handle this well either. That's not a complaint, but a comment.
Some of the ideas of MMT are intriguing, I'll have to devote some time to studying them. I'm particularly interested in their claim that their theories are based on actual evidence about how money moves around in the world and the effects it has. Yet, I've seen plenty of conclusions drawn in other fields, far more rigorous fields than economics, where the claim outstrips the evidence.
What I've seen so far suggests a finer granularity to the data than Keynesian macroeconomics is capable of, but that doesn't necessarily mean a better model of economics.
Posted by: Andrew G.
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July 5, 2011 3:11 PM
The value "I" in the equation is investment spending, not the value of whatever non-financial assets were purchased with that spending.
Put another way, all of the values in the equation are flows rather than stocks.
Inflation isn't popular; there would certainly be political pressure to avoid or correct it.
Currently we have the problem that the argument is being framed in such a way as to deceive the public as to what the effects actually mean to them. The average voter doesn't have the slightest idea of what the effects of government deficits or surpluses are; they do understand inflation, though. (If anything they are likely to treat it as being a worse thing than it really is.)
It's not quite as tight as you seem to be thinking. Those MMT economists who have proposed job-guarantee schemes are essentially proposing replacing the current stock of unemployed people with a stock of minimum-wage government workers; the fixed wage avoids any serious inflation issues by effectively fixing the value of the currency. Only when all these people have been hired away into the private sector can inflation become a major issue; but the very fact that these people are then off the public payroll has a stabilizing effect in reducing the deficit.
The size of the job-guarantee pool replaces unemployment as the metric to be used to determine whether levels of taxation are too high or low; if private industry is expanding to the point where the pool is in danger of becoming empty, then taxation should be increased to reflect the fact that the economy is in danger of overheating.
The problem of job specialization whether by fields or by location is indeed a real one; but the kinds of schemes proposed by MMT economists are certainly no worse at dealing with it than any other system I've seen.
Posted by: Andrew G.
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July 5, 2011 4:04 PM
Jim @143: the case I described is the simplest possible example, in order to show that government surpluses have the effect of reducing net financial assets in the non-government sector, and that in a pure fiat money system, if the government runs a surplus that negates its entire historical deficits (whether issued as debt or not) then it has the effect of removing all high-powered money from the private sector as well as government bonds.
As far as the real economy goes, "paying back" some amount (however small) of government "debt" via surpluses may have the effect of transferring some money from the people who are being taxed to pay for the surplus to the people who currently hold the bonds, but if you simply look at it this way, you may miss the fact that the net financial effect is still negative (the bondholder has cash instead of the bond, so his assets are the same as before, whereas the taxpayer(s) have a net loss of money).
Posted by: Jim
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July 5, 2011 4:35 PM
Andrew@146: Most taxpayers have a net loss of money regardless of how the government uses the money it coercively takes from them via taxation.
Posted by: Andrew G.
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July 5, 2011 7:41 PM
Ah. A libertarian. 'nuff said.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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July 5, 2011 7:46 PM
Jim the fuckwitted loser, when are you finally going to say something both intelligent and that fits with evidence, not ideology of evidenceless losers, like liberturds, IDiots, and godbots?
Posted by: Jim
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July 5, 2011 9:18 PM
Andrew@148: Ad hominem argumentation is the refuge of those who have few (or no) good arguments, Andrew. I'm a bit surprised that you've run out of good arguments so quickly. (By the way, I'm not a libertarian, as that term is normally used in the lexicon of American politics.)
Nerd@149: What do you gain by making such a disgraceful spectacle of yourself, Nerd?
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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July 5, 2011 9:35 PM
I'm not the one doing that Jimbo the liar and bullshitter. You do that with every idjit post you make, and you have made many of them today, showing us your abject ignorance and lack of cogency. What else is new...Politeness is lost on losers like you...Posted by: John Morales
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July 5, 2011 9:43 PM
Jim:
You're surprised because you're dim.
That was no argument; that was an expression of opinion.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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July 5, 2011 10:04 PM
Jim, all liberturds are morally bankrupt. They are also:
1)Arrogant
2)Ignorant of economics
3)Arrogant
4)Ignorant of history
5)Arrogant
6)Ignorant of politics
7)Arrogant
8)Ignorant of science
9)Arrogant
Yep, that fits your posts over the years to a tee. Arrogant and ignorant.
Posted by: Andrew G.
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July 5, 2011 11:23 PM
Jim @150: it was more of an expression of futility than an ad-hominem, at least by intent. I have plenty of arguments available, but I see no reason to deploy them against someone unwilling to make any effort to understand.
Taxation is what it is. Normal people don't feel the need to apply additional pejoratives like "coercive" when discussing it.
(One thing I find amusing about MMT is that any time it gets discussed in forums - such as Austrian-school economics forums - with a high density of libertarians, someone always pops up with the claim that MMT must be false because taxation is immoral.)
Posted by: Jim
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July 6, 2011 7:38 AM
I think that "normal people" understand quite well that taxation is coercive, Andrew. Try not paying your taxes and you'll see what I mean.
I also find it amazing that on the basis of a few short exchanges, you've conclusively decided that I'm unwilling to make any effort to understand your argument that paying off the national debt would cause immediate economic collapse. Has it never occurred to you that a person can make a good-faith effort to understand your argument and still disagree with it?
Posted by: Jim
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July 6, 2011 8:11 AM
Nerd@153: "Yep, that fits your posts over the years to a tee. Arrogant and ignorant."
No doubt others have noticed what I've noticed about your posts, Nerd: That they are invariably gracious, with nary a whiff of arrogance, ignorance, condescension, and/or hatred.
Posted by: Flex
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July 6, 2011 8:20 AM
Andrew @145 wrote,
At this point you wouldn't even need a job-guarantee pool, but simply an income-guarantee pool. From what I've been reading some of the MMT theorists (and I'm not suggesting you are one of them, I don't know if you are or not), appear to claim that simply guaranteeing a living income, whether that person is doing labor for the public sector or not, would be enough to create the indicators necessary for tax rate adjustments of this nature.
Indeed.
While considering this last night, I reflected on the similarities to the very successful program which enabled farmers to hold onto their farms when excess production was occurring. Paying farmers to not grow food, or more accurately providing farmers with enough income to offset the the net profit from growing food enabled not only the farming industry to survive, but it also helped keep the whole food production chain solvent because a price floor was established by manipulating supply.
Classical economic theory tells us that if the state provided a minimum income flow for all individuals, it would automatically reduce the supply of workers.
The next question is, has any sovereign nation tried MMT?
As an aside, what I've found so far does tie into some of the currency theory I was looking at a few years ago. My take away from studying currency theory was that the ideal amount of currency available is just enough to cover every agreed upon transaction. Too much currency and you head toward inflation (i.e. people are willing to use more currency in a transaction simply because they have more), to little and you head toward deflation (a shortage of currency means you bargain harder to avoid spending it). This was certainly much more important before the modern electronic age. But even then I was speculating, in my ignorant way, about the possibility that when a threshold is passed and most of the currency is electronic that inflation/deflation pressures may be automatically reduced simply because there is always enough currency to cover every transaction.
Andrew G @146 wrote,
Not to jump in, but there is difference. Bonds represent a continuous flow of cash from the government to the bondholder until the bond matures. For a 30-year bond this may span several business cycles including times when government cash flow is very tight. If the bonds issued to cover deficits are paid off during surpluses, those bond payments are not needed to be covered the next time there is an economic slow-down.
Now, I get that the MMT theorists say that this doesn't matter. That the government can, in fact, issue additional currency to cover the accumulated bond payments without causing economic ripples.
Which is why I need to study MMT more, because that result seems counter intuitive.
Posted by: Flex
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July 6, 2011 9:12 AM
Jim @155 wrote,
Let's list a couple other things which are technically 'coercive' in the same fashion:
Driving on the right side of the road.
Stopping at red lights.
If you wish to live in the society we have created, you also have responsibilities to that society. Taxes are one of those responsibilities that we all share, just like you are expected to not piss in public.
Now, we get a fair number of libertarians on these threads, and they often use the dog-whistle word 'coercion' to describe things the state requires which they feel, often without any justification other than a sense of grievance, that they don't want to do.
Strangely enough, they don't appear to use the word 'coercion' to describe what happens when you run a red light. That's a public safety issue, so the coercion is justified. But taxing people to pay for the police officer who enforces the requirement to stop at red lights is unjustified coercion.
So don't be surprised when you get labeled as a libertarian if you use the language of a libertarian. If you are ignorant of the language used by libertarians that does not make it the responsibility of the other readers of this thread to figure it out before reacting to your using that language.
Of course, I've read other posts of yours in this and other threads and the reaction of Nerd of Redhead, OM and John Morales was not unexpected.
As far as Andrew G.'s example, I'm not certain how much clearer he could have made it. Maybe consider that the private sector could not exist without a standardized money, and the only issuer of money is a sovereign state. All money is the property of the state, it only loans it to you to enable economic transactions to occur.
Posted by: Jim
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July 6, 2011 12:56 PM
Flex: "All money is the property of the state, it only loans it to you to enable economic transactions to occur."
Well done, Flex. Although you intended to make another point, you've quite succinctly expressed one of the major differences between the thinking of American conservatives and the thinking of American liberals. For conservatives, a man is entitled to his earnings by virtue of his inalienable, God-given right to pursue happiness. Government should tax away only a small part of his earnings to help fund the constitutionally enumerated responsibilities of the government (God himself only asks for 10%). But for liberals, a man's earnings belong to the government, which graciously allows him to keep a portion of what he earns. That's why liberals constantly refer to tax cuts as government expenditures. To their way of thinking, government is spending its own money when it allows a man to keep more of what he earns.
Posted by: Flex
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July 6, 2011 1:53 PM
You miss-understand me Jim.
What does it say on all the currency in your wallet?
It says "Federal Reserve Note".
None of the currency you own is yours, it is on loan to you for your use. This is not a liberal or conservative issue, it is reality.
You suggest that,
I see.
Where in the Federal Constitution does it say that taxation should only be a small part of a person's earnings?
Where does it say in the Federal Constitution that that taxation should only fund the responsibilities enumerated therein?
It does say, in the Federal Constitution, that the responsibilities of the congress include providing for the general welfare of the United States (Art. 1, Sec. 8). Where we apparently differ is what we consider general welfare.
Next, god doesn't ask for any taxes. God doesn't exist. Institutions claiming to speak for god do want you to give them money.
As for your inane characterization of liberals, I suspect you have been drinking the conservative kool-aid for too long.
Liberals do not believe that your earnings, in whatever currency you get it in, belongs to the government. Liberals would love to eliminate income taxes, if it was possible. I doubt anyone, liberal or conservative, has ever included an extra $100 in their check to the IRS with a note saying, "I think my taxes are too low, here's something extra."
Modern liberals, however, look at the level of deficit spending and realize that the only way to curb this, and possibly reduce the rapid transfer of wealth to the already rich, is to create a far more progressive tax system. Personally, I'm in favor of bringing back the 90% tax bracket (which existed throughout the 1950's). Maybe set it at $4,000,000/yr and above, but I think the secondary benefits of such a bracket would be far more beneficial than even reducing the federal deficit.
Now what I find intriguing about Andrew G.'s statements and MMT is that according to MMT's theories about sovereign fiat currency a deficit by the issuing authority doesn't matter (well, doesn't matter as much as other economic indicators). This runs counter to my Keynesian understanding of economics.
Which doesn't mean that MMT is wrong. I'm willing to look into their arguments.
Unlike you Jim, who have now descended into arguing with straw-men.
Posted by: Andrew G.
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July 6, 2011 3:13 PM
It's worth noting that MMT is almost completely neutral with regard to the political right/left spectrum. It's not compatible with the more extreme forms of libertarianism, since as a neo-Chartalist theory it is based on the principle that taxation is what gives a fiat currency its universal value (and indeed there is historical justification for the idea that a government that is unable to enforce taxation in its currency will see the value of that currency collapse); nevertheless, there are MMT theorists and advocates that self-identify as (non-extreme) libertarians.
I personally don't think that statements like "all money is the property of the state" to be either especially meaningful or helpful. Fiat money is a token of exchange created by the state, and given value by taxation, in order to achieve the purposes of the state. In a capitalist democratic state, one of those purposes is to provide favourable conditions for the private sector economy, which requires that the level of taxation be high enough to maintain the value of currency but no higher.
But that "high enough" level is determined in part (but only in part) by the level of government spending, which is (above a certain threshold) a political decision rather than a financial one. People (or political parties) can legitimately disagree over how much the government should spend and where; but such debates should be based on reality, rather than voodoo economics, libertarian fantasies, and the deliberate distortions of those seeking to benefit from political influence.
Posted by: Flex
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July 7, 2011 7:49 AM
Andrew G. wrote,
I think that's something we can certainly agree upon.
Thanks for the pleasant conversation; you've given me ideas to think about. The fact that I'm not yet fully convinced of their value is no reflection on their quality, simply that a short conversation in the comment section of a blog can only really touch on the highlights and not the details.
I'll have to add a few more textbooks to my reading list. ;)