Seeded With Tax Cuts, Kansas Harvests the Benefits

[TeyshaBlue]

[boutons_deux]

"Guys like Reid, Pelosi, Feinstein, etc are as much full of as the Cruz, Christie, etc on the right."

that's bull , really really bull . There ain't nobody on the Dem side even close to Krazy Kruz, Prick Scott, Scott Walker, Jindal, Gohmert, and all the tea bagger crazy -cover tail wagging the Repug dog.

red states vs blue states seals the deal. Repugs up their staties, MI, KS, OK, IN, the Confederacy, WI, etc.

and there's nothing comparable to the red-state/Confederate/Christian Taliban/Fox News/BecKKK/AFA/voter suppression on the Dem side

[RandomGuy]

All I have to do is read the following quote and I know they have...

Actually, you have to do a of a lot more than that.
You are still simply repeating the same flawed argument over and over.

If that is an exaggeration, show how.

[boutons_deux]

"still waiting for hard proof that (KS) taxes inhibit jobs and reducing (KS) taxes on the wealthy/corps created jobs"

[DarrinS]

I will call bull . The parties are not equal in that regard.

Name a Democratic equivalent to Ted Cruz.

There is a vast gulf between the parties. The crazies have stormed the battlements of the GOP, and it shows.

Moderates of all sorts have been handed their heads in GOP primaries.

Dems have their faults, and demagogues, but you can't say they are equivalent. No way.

You sound like Rachel Maddow when she was called out by Jon Stewart.

[boutons_deux]

"like in NJ, where Christie needs to deal with a Dem legislature"

Fatboy blocked the badly needed new Hudson river tunnel to finance his slush funds, has been handing $100Ms in mgmt fees sucked out of NJ employees retirement funds handed to his campaign donor. Typical 0.01% Wall Street corrupt s ing the 99%.

Now he says NJ doesn't want him as Pres because they love him, want to keep him as NJ gov.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/02/poll-chris-christie-approval-ratings-115173.html

[boutons_deux]

GOP Guvs With '16 Ambitions Hamstrung By Budget Crises Of Own Making


http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/budg...+%28TPMNews%29

and still you rightwingut dumb s vote Repug.

[RandomGuy]

You sound like Rachel Maddow when she was called out by Jon Stewart.

[RandomGuy]

I said there's a lot of demagoguery going around in both parties, and in the macro there is. Analyzing the "degrees of demagoguery" on each individual politico is an exercise in futility, IMO.

Guys like Reid, Pelosi, Feinstein, etc are as much full of as the Cruz, Christie, etc on the right. You might not hear about them as much because they're not seeking higher office, but when they had to act, their actions spoke loudly for them.

I'm always willing to listen.

Actions such as?

Pelosi, Reid, etc as partisan as she/he is, is no where near the level of crazy as Cruz.

Make the case for that. I just don't see it.

[RandomGuy]

All I have to do is read the following quote and I know they have...

Put it another way:

A lot of our infrastructure is nearing the end of its planned life. The waterways appear to be the worst example.

You are basically trying to tell me that someone saying "old mechanical things tend to break down more often, and need to be replaced" is wrong, simply because they are the experts on fixing those things.

That is some truly dumb . Seriously stupid.

"derr, the mechanic is wrong when he says I need to fix that wierd noise, so I'm gonna save my money and keep drivin' da car".



You are then: "Duh, my car won't work... duh"




Does that sink in now?

Do you see how stupid that argument is?

[DarrinS]

As for spending on public education, this is interesting

http://www.theatlantic.com/education...-waste/384949/


The North East and CA (hotbeds of GOP leadership ) have the most wasteful school districts. Texas and Florida get more bang for their buck.

[boutons_deux]

Texas and Florida get more bang for their buck.

TX and FL are near the bottom in spending per student, so any bang looks good. Note that the bang (quality education, dropout rate, grade repeat rate, graduation rate, college entrance) isn't listed.

[RandomGuy]

As for spending on public education, this is interesting

http://www.theatlantic.com/education...-waste/384949/


The North East and CA (hotbeds of GOP leadership ) have the most wasteful school districts. Texas and Florida get more bang for their buck.

Liberal Austin makes the top ten.

California is also home to some of the most wasteful K-12 spenders, according to WalletHub—11 of the state's 16 most-populated cities are in the bottom 25. It's noteworthy that two of those cities also top the list of the percentage of households where English isn't spoken as a first language. While that factor isn't necessarily a reason for their inefficient spending, research shows that the language barrier can have a disastrous effect on learning outcomes. Gonzalez, however, pointed to other cities that strived despite their socioeconomic challenges. "Those able to integrate socioeconomically have a leg up," she said. "We see that in Raleigh [No. 22] and in Austin [No. 8] they were able to overcome any factors that in other cities might be holding them back."

Be happy to admit that stupid administration can be traced to poor outcomes. My wife can speak to that rather directly, although probably wouldn't come out and say it directly for fear of potential reprisals.

A good part of my job is evaluating upper management, and from what I have seen taking that and applying it to school boards in RL, it is shocking to see the kinds of idiots that can be elected to school boards, who know all about education, or even managing a company.

[boutons_deux]

"Liberal Austin makes the top ten."

so does Blue Miami.

[tlongII]

Put it another way:

A lot of our infrastructure is nearing the end of its planned life. The waterways appear to be the worst example.

You are basically trying to tell me that someone saying "old mechanical things tend to break down more often, and need to be replaced" is wrong, simply because they are the experts on fixing those things.

That is some truly dumb . Seriously stupid.

"derr, the mechanic is wrong when he says I need to fix that wierd noise, so I'm gonna save my money and keep drivin' da car".



You are then: "Duh, my car won't work... duh"




Does that sink in now?

Do you see how stupid that argument is?

It's not what, it's how much.

[TeyshaBlue]

I'm always willing to listen.

Actions such as?

Pelosi, Reid, etc as partisan as she/he is, is no where near the level of crazy as Cruz.

Make the case for that. I just don't see it.

Probably want to define the crazy level before it's moved again.

[boutons_deux]

Kansas Republicans Finally Admit That Their Tax Cuts For The Wealthy Have Failed

With the state budget forecast to have a 400 million dollar shortfall, Kansas Republicans are finally acknowledging that the massive GOP tax cuts approved under Governor Sam Brownback have not generated the revenue Republican lawmakers promised. The right-wing Kansas Legislature is now contemplating the unthinkable — raising taxes to plug the budget hole.

The legislature which passed drastic tax cuts in 2012 is now scrambling to find ways to undo the damage their shortsighted approach has inflicted upon the state’s economy and its services.

Republicans are acknowledging that they can no longer cut their way to growth, having already taken the budget ax to state pensions, public schools, and government programs.Republican Senator Les Donovan (Wichita) admitted the failure of the GOP’s tax cuts, stating:

We hoped they would just be a magic lantern and everybody would react to it.

But, eh, it’s hard to get a company to uproot their business when they’re established and move to another place just because of this difference in tax policy.

Expecting the tax cuts to work like rubbing a magic lantern reveals the faith-based nature of the Republican Party’s dogmatic adherence to cutting taxes for the wealthy to stimulate economic growth and bring in revenue.

They believe in the policy, not because it has worked before, but because they hope it will work like a “magic lantern”. Yet, in Kansas, Republicans are now discovering that there is no such thing as magic when it comes to operating the state’s budget.

http://www.politicususa.com/2015/05/...iticus+USA+%29

Repug "faith-based" economic bull ed up Kansas, just like Repugs' "faith-based" AGW-denial bull is ing up the planet.

Repugs are ALWAYS wrong, on everything.

[ElNono]

I'm always willing to listen.

Actions such as?

Pelosi, Reid, etc as partisan as she/he is, is no where near the level of crazy as Cruz.

Make the case for that. I just don't see it.

Like extending neocon hawk bull like the Patriot Act, war funding, or actually doing ONE, ONE thing they supposedly stand for. Obamacare was perhaps the very worst of all of it, wheeling and dealing and eventually having to pass it mostly with their own majority. If you gotta do that, why not go for something you've been actually preaching for, like single-payor? Instead, we get this pro-insurance, pro-pharma middle of the road bull that doesn't even touch cost.

All the rhetoric about Wall Street, big money, and they were the accomplices of Dubya in the bailout. The Dodd-Frank regulation was obviously a mere slap in the hand, as banks have never been better (or bigger).

Again, not trying to gauge who's more or less full of . They simply are full of it.

[RandomGuy]

It's not what, it's how much.

No sherlock.

If the mechanic tells you "it will cost $500 to fix that head gasket", and you say that is too much, then it throws a rod, and suddenly you need a $3000 engine, you are still a ing idiot for thinking he was lying to you about needing the $500 repair.

In this case, the concept you are lacking is that of economic multiplier.

Again, going back to the waterways, they point out the economic costs of the unplanned delays to the economy. How many hundreds of billions of dollars do you want to spend to save ten billion in building costs?

They point out the costs to the economy for each of the things they look at, if you were willing to actually read what they are saying instead of being lazy.

I don't blame you for being lazy. That is the way most people work.

It takes effort to understand economic concepts like the multiplier effect. http://dictionary.reference.com/brow...tiplier+effect

I surely can't expect you to click on a link and learn something. That is too much to ask.

Nor can you be bothered to put down the bag of doritos and read what the engineers actually say.

The lazy, easy thing to do is to just not read anything they have taken the time to analyse. Just read one quote and think you know everything about it, because it looks like it confirms what you already believe. Easy peasy.

All I have to do is read the following quote...

The effort required to read data, and examine your starting assumptions is too much for you.

Its okay. Don't bother. I think we can all accept the fact that you are lazy and would prefer to take the easy way out when things get important.

I'll do the reading for you. Just don't when you can't respond without looking like the lazy in class who hasn't done his homework.

[RandomGuy]

Like extending neocon hawk bull like the Patriot Act, war funding, or actually doing ONE, ONE thing they supposedly stand for. Obamacare was perhaps the very worst of all of it, wheeling and dealing and eventually having to pass it mostly with their own majority. If you gotta do that, why not go for something you've been actually preaching for, like single-payor? Instead, we get this pro-insurance, pro-pharma middle of the road bull that doesn't even touch cost.

All the rhetoric about Wall Street, big money, and they were the accomplices of Dubya in the bailout. The Dodd-Frank regulation was obviously a mere slap in the hand, as banks have never been better (or bigger).

Again, not trying to gauge who's more or less full of . They simply are full of it.

None of which makes them as crazy as Cruz, not anywhere near it.

The bailout was necessary, by any sane reasoning. Getting the first real heal insurance reform through the tea s sort of required working within a majority, and even then requires compromise. Kind of hard to work with people ting in your hand.

Not to say they aren't politicians, but I still just don't see it.

Are you saying that compromise is a bad thing? Pass what you can, rather than your ideal?

Almost seems self-contradictory. "I blame them for being partisan, and by the way they shouldn't compromise what they want to get what they can get".

[ElNono]

None of which makes them as crazy as Cruz, not anywhere near it.

The bailout was necessary, by any sane reasoning. Getting the first real heal insurance reform through the tea s sort of required working within a majority, and even then requires compromise. Kind of hard to work with people ting in your hand.

Not to say they aren't politicians, but I still just don't see it.

Are you saying that compromise is a bad thing? Pass what you can, rather than your ideal?

Almost seems self-contradictory. "I blame them for being partisan, and by the way they shouldn't compromise what they want to get what they can get".

IMO, there's nothing crazy about Cruz... he's a seasoned politician that has been part of an administration, his message is tailored to a certain fringe, but it's really no different than Barry campaigning on women's equality, closing Gitmo or ending wars (the latter earned him criticism about not being fit to be a CIC). Barry turned out to be full of , don't really expect any different from Cruz. He's unelectable because his message is largely tailored strictly to that fringe, but I think that's just part of a strategy for him.

The bailout was way more than it needed to be. It's ok to bail out select banks to prevent a run, but bailing AIG? No criminal charges for what amounted to criminal behavior? There's plenty of Pelosi rants about big banks, but when she had to put her money where her mouth was, she tucked tails.

what compromise? IIRC, there was a single GOP vote on both the House and Senate. That's not compromise, that's ramming through. Let's see the vote count, this "compromise" you're talking about.

Now that he's in the minority, Reid's favorite tool is the filibuster. Imagine that. As a centrist, I love compromise, but it's largely not happening right now. We're at a high level of polarization, and IMO, it's been damaging to the nation. This us vs them mentality is killing us.

[boutons_deux]

"that's ramming through."

no, that's Repugs reflexively obstructing EVERYTHING the Dems have proposed for 6 years.

The TARP bailout plan came from a Repug Treasurer and OK'd by the Repug Exec.

And, as LBJ said, if you have enough votes, you pass anything, not the same as the Repugs using reconciliation in 2001 to RAM THROUGH the biggest tax cut (for the wealthy) because they didn't have enough votes to overcome a filibuster.

The Repugs voted against TARP because they knew it would pass without them.

At the same time, they knew TARP was essential to bailing out the financial sector (not bailing out The Real Economy, Main st). They voted against TARP so they could propagandize, politick on "I voted against TARP" to you guys, their ignorant, stupid base that, among others, hates the banks.

Had the Repugs won in 2008, they would have owned and passed "their" TARP because their owners the financial sector demanded it be passed.

Equating Obama with Cruz on the craziness scale proves your full of . Cruz is a freshman Senator, NOT seasoned, except with extreme, Christian Taliban supremacist anarchist unCons utional . yum yum

[ElNono]

"that's ramming through."

no, that's Repugs reflexively obstructing EVERYTHING the Dems have proposed for 6 years.

And Reid cajoled a lot of GOP legislation that he's now filibustering, like the trade agreement. I'm not a fan of the GOP filibustering, but call a spade a spade.

The TARP bailout plan came from a Repug Treasurer and OK'd by the Repug Exec.

That's exactly what I said.

And, as LBJ said, if you have enough votes, you pass anything, not the same as the Repugs using reconciliation in 2001 to RAM THROUGH the biggest tax cut (for the wealthy) because they didn't have enough votes to overcome a filibuster.

This is where you're making my point for me.

The Repugs voted against TARP because they knew it would pass without them.

At the same time, they knew TARP was essential to bailing out the financial sector (not bailing out The Real Economy, Main st). They voted against TARP so they could propagandize, politick on "I voted against TARP" to you guys, their ignorant, stupid base that, among others, hates the banks.

Had the Repugs won in 2008, they would have owned and passed "their" TARP because their owners the financial sector demanded it be passed.

What you're saying is the financial sector has co-opted both parties, which is exactly the point I was making. There's no "saint" Dems or GOP. The difference here is that the GOP rhetoric isn't "big banks bad, boooo". That's you and blue team, but when the hit the fan, they showed their true colors.

Equating Obama with Cruz on the craziness scale proves your full of . Cruz is a freshman Senator, NOT seasoned, except with extreme, Christian Taliban supremacist anarchist unCons utional . yum yum

Between 1999 and 2003, Cruz was the director of the Office of Policy Planning at the Federal Trade Commission, an associate deputy attorney general at the United States Department of Justice, and as domestic policy advisor to U.S. President George W. Bush on the 2000 Bush-Cheney campaign. He served as Solicitor General of Texas from 2003 to May 2008, after being appointed by Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott.

You don't get to be a part of an administration if you don't know who's who in the political arena. This idea that Cruz came out of the woodwork in 2012 is wrong, and ignorant.


The "degrees of evil" and "degrees of crazy" is arbitrary nonsense.

[RandomGuy]

IMO, there's nothing crazy about Cruz... he's a seasoned politician that has been part of an administration, his message is tailored to a certain fringe, but it's really no different than Barry campaigning on women's equality, closing Gitmo or ending wars (the latter earned him criticism about not being fit to be a CIC). Barry turned out to be full of , don't really expect any different from Cruz. He's unelectable because his message is largely tailored strictly to that fringe, but I think that's just part of a strategy for him.

The bailout was way more than it needed to be. It's ok to bail out select banks to prevent a run, but bailing AIG? No criminal charges for what amounted to criminal behavior? There's plenty of Pelosi rants about big banks, but when she had to put her money where her mouth was, she tucked tails.

what compromise? IIRC, there was a single GOP vote on both the House and Senate. That's not compromise, that's ramming through. Let's see the vote count, this "compromise" you're talking about.

Now that he's in the minority, Reid's favorite tool is the filibuster. Imagine that. As a centrist, I love compromise, but it's largely not happening right now. We're at a high level of polarization, and IMO, it's been damaging to the nation. This us vs them mentality is killing us.

AIG required a bailout, because their investment arm was backstopping the banks' bets. You can bet their regulators have clamped down on that.

[ElNono]

AIG required a bailout, because their investment arm was backstopping the banks' bets. You can bet their regulators have clamped down on that.

But it didn't. The rationale that all the bad bets needed to be bailed out is what's baffling to me. The government simply needed to step in and, on a case by case basis, provide select banks enough liquidity to prevent a run. The government primary interest needs to be on the citizen's wellbeing. There was no reason to bail out the banks or insurers on the, arguably, criminal gambling they did with depositor's money. At the very least, the bailout needed to include criminal penalties for those found to have caused such a massive breakdown on the financial system. But, for obvious reasons, there was no such thing.

At any rate, I feel we're going on a tangent and away from what I trying to convey:

When Teddy Cruz talks about the founding fathers and the Cons ution, just remember he was part of the Alberto Gonzales, John Yoo, et all Department of Justice that took a wet on the Cons ution. Similarly, when he rails about "King Obama" and the excesses of executive power, don't forget that he was part of an administration that expanded executive power to unprecedented levels.

That's why, in my opinion, Cruz simply pays lip service to a very specific target. In a sense, it's not a whole lot different than any other politico hitting on certain talking points, it's just that some of the points he's hitting are very partisan (and thus, vitriolic), so it's no surprise the "crazy" card gets pulled. If he's looking to win the nomination or a presidency in this cycle, I think it's a terrible strategy. If he's looking to simply build his base support for a later presidential run, then the strategy makes more sense.