GOP fighting hard as protectors of the rich...

[fraga]

So in their position...extend the Bush tax cuts for all or no one...I am glad they finally made the Republicans go on record on their stance...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40504582/ns/politics-capitol_hill/

http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/12/04/senate.tax.vote/index.html?hpt=T1

http://www.npr.org/2010/12/04/131809583/gop-blocks-bill-to-raise-taxes-on-1m-plus-income

[boutons_deux]

More proof that the Dems and Repugs are not identical.

The point is not that the Dems are Knights in Shining Armor, but the Repugs are simply of a different nature, profoundly corrupt, 100% bad faith, and fully enlisted with the wealthy in the VRWC's unstoppable, unlose-able war on everybody and everything. scumbag Boner as leader typifies the entire party. scumbag convict DeLay, too.

[DarrinS]

Why would people NOT want the tax cuts extended for the so-called "rich"?

If they were going to give the "rich" a tax cut and raise every else's taxes, then I could see a problem.

[ChumpDumper]

How much money should one be making a year to call him rich, Darrin?

[boutons_deux]

uh, the deficit is or isn't a gawd-awful disaster that's destroying America?

The Repug schizophrenia on the deficit and protecting the rich is as insane and dishonest as all their positions.

The American pie is infinitely expandable. What the rich are pocketing is what the non-rich are being forced to redistribute to the rich.

[DarrinS]

How much money should one be making a year to call him rich, Darrin?


According to Dems, it's 200K single and 250K couple. That's just upper middle class, IMO. To me, rich would be >= 1 mil.

[DarrinS]

uh, the deficit is or isn't a gawd-awful disaster that's destroying America?

The Repug schizophrenia on the deficit and protecting the rich is as insane and dishonest as all their positions.

The American pie is infinitely expandable. What the rich are pocketing is what the non-rich are being forced to redistribute to the rich.



Hey, I know you have the IQ of a dead squirrel, but you do know that SPENDING is part of the equation, right?

[boutons_deux]

stepped in your own trap: which spending do you want to cut and how much will it reduce the deficit?

[Wild Cobra]

A good read:

The Historical Lessons of Lower Tax Rates (http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2003/08/the-historical-lessons-of-lower-tax-rates)

Tax rates were slashed dramatically during the 1920s, dropping from over 70 percent to less than 25 percent. What happened? Personal income tax revenues increased substantially during the 1920s, despite the reduction in rates. Revenues rose from $719 million in 1921 to $1164 million in 1928, an increase of more than 61 percent.

To help offset this tax increase and also to improve incentives to work, save, and invest, President Reagan proposed sweeping tax rate reductions during the 1980s. What happened? Total tax revenues climbed by 99.4 percent during the 1980s, and the results are even more impressive when looking at what happened to personal income tax revenues. Once the economy received an unambiguous tax cut in January 1983, income tax revenues climbed dramatically, increasing by more than 54 percent by 1989 (28 percent after adjusting for inflation).

The tax cuts of the 1920s
The share of the tax burden paid by the rich rose dramatically as tax rates were reduced. The share of the tax burden borne by the rich (those making $50,000 and up in those days) climbed from 44.2 percent in 1921 to 78.4 percent in 1928.

The Kennedy tax cuts
Just as happened in the 1920s, the share of the income tax burden borne by the rich increased following the tax cuts. Tax collections from those making over $50,000 per year climbed by 57 percent between 1963 and 1966, while tax collections from those earning below $50,000 rose 11 percent. As a result, the rich saw their portion of the income tax burden climb from 11.6 percent to 15.1 percent.

The Reagan tax cuts
The share of income taxes paid by the top 10 percent of earners jumped significantly, climbing from 48.0 percent in 1981 to 57.2 percent in 1988.The top 1 percent saw their share of the income tax bill climb even more dramatically, from 17.6 percent in 1981 to 27.5 percent in 1988.

[ElNono]

No single tax cut in the history of this country increased revenue as a byproduct of the alleged 'trickle down' effect. Considering that the tax cuts are seldom accompanied by spending cuts, the overall effect is increase of debt.

Happened with Reagan, happened with Bush, and will keep on happening now.

Before anybody panders about how noble tax cuts are, I want a full breakdown of realistic spending cuts that could get pass through Congress. Heck, I'll even take realistic spending cuts that the current crop of Republican elected are willing to take on.

[Spurminator]

I just want to know why we can't go ahead and extend the cuts for the under $250M, which everyone seems to agree on, then haggle over the +$250 crowd later in a separate bill. Is there any good reason we shouldn't do that?

[FromWayDowntown]

I just want to know why we can't go ahead and extend the cuts for the under $250M, which everyone seems to agree on, then haggle over the +$250 crowd later in a separate bill. Is there any good reason we shouldn't do that?

Politics?

Oh wait, you said a good reason . . . .

[BlairForceDejuan]

Protectors of the "middle class"!!!111

It's their money. Not yours. Piss off imo.

[Spurminator]

Politics?

Oh wait, you said a good reason . . . .

:lol

Good enough for most, I guess. Go team!

[ChuckD]

A good read:

The Historical Lessons of Lower Tax Rates (http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2003/08/the-historical-lessons-of-lower-tax-rates)

...and then there was 1929. Are you missing the pattern here? GOP lowers taxes, the rich flourish until everyone is brought down by the bubble popping.

Lather, rinse, repeat.

[ChumpDumper]

A good read:

The Historical Lessons of Lower Tax Rates (http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2003/08/the-historical-lessons-of-lower-tax-rates)In the last 50 years, how many years did revenues actually decrease?

[boutons_deux]

The Heritage foundation stink tank, financed by the VRWC, is wonderful, believable source.

Buffet, and without any doubt, other super-weatlhies, pay less the 20% effective tax.

It's part of their lies. "progressive" taxation exists only on paper. The middle class pays an higher effective income tax rate than the superwealthy who have the funds to buy advice on how to evade and avoid taxes, like piping $Bs into offshore accounts.

If the 3% of small business owners who make above $250K don't know how to evade and avoid 3% increase in paper tax rate, then fuck 'em.

The entire financial sector is a fraud, a casino, but "it's their money" but its our risk, our decade-long pain, lost assets, dream-free, stagnating present and future.

[Winehole23]

dream-free, stagnating present and futureThat's what your fortune cookie says.

[boutons_deux]

That's what the present and medium term future is at the macro level.

[DarrinS]

Thought this graphic was interesting. Look at the yellow area in the 1950's to 1960's. People at 1 million+ were taxed at 90%! What would motivate you make a million if you only kept 10 cents on the dollar?

http://images.vizworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/brackets-595x487.jpg

[ChuckD]

Thought this graphic was interesting. Look at the yellow area in the 1950's to 1960's. People at 1 million+ were taxed at 90%! What would motivate you make a million if you only kept 10 cents on the dollar?



And yet people still did!!

[boutons_deux]

the old high-marginal-tax-demotivates argument, disproved in practice across many decades and many countries.

[Spurminator]

What would motivate you make a million if you only kept 10 cents on the dollar?

How about the fact that $2 million after taxes is more than $1 million?

Anyway, that graph has to be wrong because the unemployment rate in the 50's and 60's only hovered between 4-6%, and that couldn't have been possible if we were taxing the rich at a higher rate.

[ChuckD]

How about the fact that $2 million after taxes is more than $1 million?

Anyway, that graph has to be wrong because the unemployment rate in the 50's and 60's only hovered between 4-6%, and that couldn't have been possible if we were taxing the rich at a higher rate.

:lmao:lol

[Winehole23]

That's what the present and medium term future is at the macro level.Economic prospects aren't the only dream out there.

[boutons_deux]

With 20+ million unemployed, mal-employed,
18 million unoccupied homes,
millions of mortgages underdwater, late, in foreclosure
10s of 1000s dying for want of medical care,
freedom and liberty are simply "dreams" they can't enjoy.

In profoundly materialistic America, money is God.

[Winehole23]

freedom and liberty are simply "dreams" they can't enjoyFreedom and liberty are not superfluities.

[xrayzebra]

More proof that the Dems and Repugs are not identical.

The point is not that the Dems are Knights in Shining Armor, but the Repugs are simply of a different nature, profoundly corrupt, 100% bad faith, and fully enlisted with the wealthy in the VRWC's unstoppable, unlose-able war on everybody and everything. scumbag Boner as leader typifies the entire party. scumbag convict DeLay, too.

Hey works for me. Screw you poor, pointy
headed twerps.

Leave the rich alone, they pay enough already.
I think the poor should start paying their
fair share and all of you quit sucking the tit.

Gotta ask twerp, when was the last time you
paid for anything?

[xrayzebra]

Boutons:
10s of 1000s dying for want of medical care,

Holy smokes, and this twerp wants us to believe his
post. When was the last time you saw those 10s of
1000s dying dumb ass.

And for stupid people like you "money is God"! That's
all you ever bitch about, you got it and we want it.

[boutons_deux]

XZ, your fantasy world can't handle the truth. I wikileak on you.

[Bartleby]

Winehole playing Pollyanna to the resident Cassandra?

[boutons_deux]

Freedom and liberty are not superfluities.

They're luxuries, and secondary abstractions, sterile legal concepts, when you're unemployed and/or poor and/or living from week to week, or your or kids are diseased and can't pay for medical care.

[Spursmania]

Poor and middle class folk don't have the brains to figure out how it works. LMAO at the class warfare.:lol
Classic:toast

[boutons_deux]

Cassandra?

Try to keep up:

http://i.huffpost.com/gen/224946/JOB-MARKET-CHART.jpg

The Repugs will block all job creation thru 2012 to continue to inflict maximum pain and to defeat Magic Negro. No President with 7% unemployment has been re-elected.

[Bartleby]

Poor and middle class folk don't have the brains to figure out how it works. LMAO at the class warfare.:lol
Classic:toast

"class warfare" :rolleyes

What an empty talking point.

[boutons_deux]

You fuckers are too stupid to see what is plain as hell.

Explain why tax policy and corporate policy has flattened real income for the lower 98% these past 30 years since St Ronnie started the shit rolling.

[xrayzebra]

You fuckers are too stupid to what is plain as hell.

Explain why tax policy and corporate policy has flattened real income for the lower 98% these past 30 years since St Ronnie started the shit rolling.

Hey twerp, you really are dumb as doorknob.

I thought your boy, Bill, had the country on a
roll for eight years and your social democrats
had everything under control for the past
six years, two of those they were in complete
control.

Yeah, your socialist programs works wonders.
What a great nation it has built. You still have
a job, or did you ever have one?

[ElNono]

Yeah, your socialist programs works wonders.
What a great nation it has built. You still have
a job, or did you ever have one?

You mean socialist programs like bailing out Wall Street, or unpaid tax cuts?

[Winehole23]

Winehole playing Pollyanna to the resident Cassandra?How so?

[Winehole23]

They're luxuries, and secondary abstractions, sterile legal concepts, when you're unemployed and/or poor and/or living from week to week, or your or kids are diseased and can't pay for medical care.Voting isn't a luxury. Neither is the liberty to live as you see fit regardless of your economic status. JMO.

[Winehole23]

There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of by your homo economicus, b_d.


Was Adam Smith an economist? Was Keynes, Ricardo or Schumpeter? By the standards of today’s academic economists, the answer is no. Smith, Ricardo and Keynes produced no mathematical models. Their work lacked the “analytical rigour” and precise deductive logic demanded by modern economics. And none of them ever produced an econometric forecast (although Keynes and Schumpeter were able mathematicians). If any of these giants of economics applied for a university job today, they would be rejected. As for their written work, it would not have a chance of acceptance in the Economic Journal or American Economic Review. The editors, if they felt charitable, might advise Smith and Keynes to try a journal of history or sociology.http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2009/04/goodbyehomoeconomicus/



(subscription only for the whole thing. Sorry. I'll see if there's another version.)



Reposted more fully here (http://economistsview.typepad.com/economistsview/2009/03/goodbye-homo-economicus.html).

[Winehole23]

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-prospects-for-homo-economicus

[Winehole23]

Starting around p.15:

Many of the issues listed here may seem obvious. But in an environment like economics and finance, precisely because it is perceived as being so highly rational, the influence of psychological factors and sentiment is frequently underestimated. Of course, heeding these points – arguably not always such an easy matter in practice – will not automatically guarantee the success of an
investment. But it could certainly help avoid mistakes here and
there. As with Homer Simpson, who acknowledges the effect of
psychology on his behaviour when he realises that he is confused,
the situations we have described may contribute to a clearer
awareness of the impact that psychological factors have on our
decision making.
http://www.dbresearch.de/PROD/DBR_INTERNET_DE-PROD/PROD0000000000259291.pdf

[Winehole23]

Being an American citizen isn't a triviality.




(Or, it doesn't have to be.)

[PublicOption]

why are there no more jobs?

[PublicOption]

3 words

[PublicOption]

Free trade agreements.......

[Winehole23]

why are there no more jobs?I dunno. Maybe you should tell me.

http://austin.craigslist.org/lab/

[Winehole23]

Free trade agreements.......True as far as it goes, but that's hardly the whole story. The epochal financial panic in 2008 made a dent, too.



(The shadow of the entrance still covers us.)

[Winehole23]

You saw the graph, right?

[Winehole23]

(cough)

[Winehole23]

http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=133001&highlight=Goldman+Sachs
http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=122988&highlight=Goldman+Sachs
http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=120076&highlight=Goldman+Sachs
http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=118822&highlight=Goldman+Sachs
http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=108538&highlight=Goldman+Sachs

[Winehole23]

(wheeze)
(http://www.spurstalk.com/forums/showthread.php?t=105503&highlight=Goldman+Sachs)

[boutons_deux]

Voting isn't a luxury.

No, it's a fucking charade in USA. It's a dog-and-pony show to fool the sheeple into "believing" in democracy, as they "believe" in ID/144-hour New Earth creationism, and "believe" in "natural" global warming, because the carbon industries' false prophets preached at them.

The so-called "elected" VRWC-financed tea baggers, their caucus, is asking for $1B in earmarks, mostly for red-states and red districts, which are always pocketing more fed $ than paying in taxes, but they hate (confiscatory, redistributive) socialism while benefiting from it.

The whole fucking country is a fraud, a sham, a TV/church-y bread-and-circuses igno-tainment show business as the oligarchy buggers everyone and solidfies its strangelhold.

[Winehole23]

The whole fucking country is a fraud, a sham, a TV/church-y bread-and-circuses igno-tainment show business as the oligarchy buggers everyone and solidfies its strangelhold.Have you considered emigration?

[boutons_deux]

Love It Or Leave It?

Now where have I heard that before?

[Winehole23]

I didn't say you have to love it. But if you despise it so much, despairing all possibility of its rehabilitation, why not leave?


(Unless of course it turns you on to be a Cassandra, like Bartleby suggested.)

[boutons_deux]

You tell us what a wonderful country the oligarchs have created.

And then tell us in concrete, practical terms how to snatch it back from the oligarchs.

It really is different this time, and there's NO FDR/Great Depression/WWII ready to step in and turn it around. The country is under complete control of the relentlelss, sophisticated, kleptocratic oligarchs, and nobody can do a fucking thing about it.

If I were a Scandinavian, or Frenchman, or German, or Swiss, I'd have much better prospects and quality of life than in USA, but I'm a US citizen.

Cassandra?

"the temple snakes licked her ears clean so that she was able to hear the future."

"Apollo placed a curse on her so that no one would ever believe her predictions. She is a figure both of the epic tradition and of tragedy, where her combination of deep understanding and powerlessness exemplify the tragic condition of humankind."

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/42/Solomon_Ajax_and_Cassandra.jpg/293px-Solomon_Ajax_and_Cassandra.jpg

I'm not making any predictions, just looking at the facts of the near past and present.

[Winehole23]

Bulllshit.

You make predictions all the time. You refer to the future as a forgone conclusion.

[Winehole23]

But you're not Cassandra. The temple snakes didn't lick your ears clean, and Apollo didn't lay a curse on you.

[Winehole23]

And your predictions of the future, delivered as they are with the perfect certainty of the present, are utterly and predictably worthless. No one knows the future.

[Winehole23]

You tell us what a wonderful country the oligarchs have created.All I have suggested is that they have not quite destroyed it completely. Apparently, this enrages you.

[Winehole23]

And then tell us in concrete, practical terms how to snatch it back from the oligarchs.I can't answer that. Can you?

[Winehole23]

http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1901/witbd/

[Winehole23]

If you actually prefer to stay in the USA and in particular in Texas I won't venture to disagree, but I am curious as to why. Why do you live here and not somewhere else?

If you're jealous of Scandinavia/Germany/France/Switzerland, why not check <them> out? seriously. Your reflexive anti-US emphasis might even come in handy.

[boutons_deux]

I can't answer that. Can you?

No, of course not. There is no answer.

The Repug/conservative conspiracy these past 30-35 years to redistribute wealth to the top has given the oligarchs so much power (ie, control of political/legislative/regulatory/military/security/financial apparatus) that the citizens are completely powerless, disenfranchised. Even the NRA dickless gun fetishists and their "2nd Amendment remedies" would be crushed like the insects at, Ruby Ridge/Wacko TX-style.

Keep up your Pollyanna fantasies, they ain't gonna be realized.

[boutons_deux]

http://www.truth-out.org/files/images/cartoon120610.jpg

[TeyshaBlue]

No, of course not. There is no answer.

The Repug/conservative conspiracy these past 30-35 years to redistribute wealth to the top has given the oligarchs so much power (ie, control of political/legislative/regulatory/military/security/financial apparatus) that the citizens are completely powerless, disenfranchised. Even the NRA dickless gun fetishists and their "2nd Amendment remedies" would be crushed like the insects at, Ruby Ridge/Wacko TX-style.

Keep up your Pollyanna fantasies, they ain't gonna be realized.

So much hate...so little sanity.

[Wild Cobra]

You mean socialist programs like bailing out Wall Street, or unpaid tax cuts?
How many republicans voted for a wall street bailout? How many democrats? How many of those republicans are more liberal, and should be democrats?

Unpaid tax cuts...

God... I fucking hate assholes like you who think my money belongs to the government, and I get what they choose.

You should really think about that "unpaid tax cut" sentiment.

[Winehole23]

Keep up your Pollyanna fantasies, they ain't gonna be realized.My Pollyanna fantasy is that liberty and the old republican form have not yet been totally vanquished and corrupted, not that they will regenerate to any appreciable degree.

[johnsmith]

I didn't say you have to love it. But if you despise it so much, despairing all possibility of its rehabilitation, why not leave?


(Unless of course it turns you on to be a Cassandra, like Bartleby suggested.)

That's what I've always wondered about boutons. He takes the time, every single day for the past 5 years (that's how long I've visited this website, so maybe it's more) to come on this site and bitch, moan, and complain about what a terrible place the United States is becaue of the way it's governed, yet he's never offered a solution.

Furthermore, there isn't anything wrong with leaving this country if you feel you could have better opportunities elsewhere. When I was a kid during the recession of the early 80's, my Dad made the decision for all of us to leave and head to Australia because there were opportunities there. We did, he did well, then we came back. What the fuck is the problem?

So I gues my point is, Boutons, you are all talk. You'll never do anything to solve your own problems, but rather, you'll just come on a message board that primarily focuses on a sports franchise and just cry all day and all night.....so my question is.....why bother?

Funniest part is he'll never read this cause I hurt his feelings once and he ignored me.:lol

[CosmicCowboy]

I keep thinking Boutons will be ST's next suicide. I can't imagine going through life with his "I'm so fucked, we're so fucked, everything is so fucked, VRWC blablabla" attitude.

[Wild Cobra]

I keep thinking Boutons will be ST's next suicide. I can't imagine going through life with his "I'm so fucked, we're so fucked, everything is so fucked" attitude.
No kidding. I wonder if he's manic, or what?

Boutons...

How long have you been off your meds?

[johnsmith]

I keep thinking Boutons will be ST's next suicide. I can't imagine going through life with his "I'm so fucked, we're so fucked, everything is so fucked, VRWC blablabla" attitude.

I give it 1 hour before he replies with his standard "I post here for entertainment purposes and I, Boutons, own all".