Posted by Tina
The 16th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was the first crack in the foundation of our liberty:
“The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several states, and without regard to any census or enumeration”
This amendment awarded powers and permission to our elected representatives to take our property. Yes, the wages we earn and the interest and dividend money we gain through thoughtful savings and investment are our property! We seem to have forgotten that our earnings belong to us just as surely as our clothing, our cars, and our homes belong to us. These are the instruments of our individual wealth creation!
Perhaps the good citizens who chose to grant this power to our federal government believed their representatives to be men of honor and thrift. Perhaps they thought these men would never think to overstep the boundaries of good common sense and decency. Perhaps they never dreamed that men called to serve the nation would over time become corrupt and grow the federal government and debt to impossible size. But that is exactly what has happened. Bells have been sounding in alarm for a number of decades. In the 1950’s President Dwight D. Eisenhower could see the potential problem of big government and warned the people:
“As we peer into society’s future, we — you and I, and our government — must avoid the impulse to live only for today, plundering for our own ease and convenience the precious resources of tomorrow. We cannot mortgage the material assets of our grandchildren without risking the loss also of their political and spiritual heritage. We want democracy to survive for all generations to come, not to become the insolvent phantom of tomorrow.”
John F. Kennedy appreciated the value of freedom and knew the cost to the private citizen was too great when government taxed too much:
“The best road to progress is freedom’s road.” ~ “Our tax system still siphons out of the private economy too large a share of personal and business purchasing power and reduces the incentive for risk, investment and effort – thereby aborting our recoveries and stifling our national growth rate.”
Ronald Reagan valued the strength of the individual and sounded the call for Freedom and low taxes with every breath he took:
Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn’t pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same.
Those of us living as adults today can hang our heads in shame. We have failed to heed the warnings of Eisenhower, Kennedy, Reagan. We did not listen carefully enough to our parents, teachers and leaders. We failed to learn from the wisdom of the founders, men who risked everything they had to give us freedom:
“To preserve our independence, we must not let our politicians load us with perpetual debt. We must make our choice between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude. If we can prevent the government from wasting the labours of the people under the pretense of caring for them, the people will be much happier.” ~ Thomas Jefferson
Our nation has been taxed to death since the 16th amendment passed. Some good things have come of it but much has been wasted and despite the huge amount of money we send to Washington each and every year, the nation’s debt has grown massive.
How have we let this happen? How could we have been so ignorant and apathetic? How could we stand by as our children and grandchildren were schooled by the enemies of freedom to admire and appreciate the glorious state over their own worth? What caused our failure to pass on the value of freedom…creating and allowing conditions that would make our kids become dependent, compliant serfs?
Our nation has seen the goal of fundamental transformation nearly brought to fruition through policies that guaranteed an extended non-recovery and high unemployment and through the disastrous passage of the ACA (ObamaCare).
In our lifetimes the love of liberty and self-reliance have all but disappeared. In just the last six years the middle class has disappeared. And yet the people do not seem to see what has led to this downfall…to the weakening of the most innovative and prosperous nation on earth.
Tomorrow is tax day, the day Americans must file their tax returns. 20% of us will pay 90% of the taxes. The rest will pay what they believe is too much and/or take from the largess of redistribution to survive. While the middle class has shrunk the tax burden has increased dramatically…this is unsustainable…its unpatriotic!
“They tax when you earn a dollar, they tax you when you save it, they tax you when you invest it. If you earn a dividend, they tax it again, and if you’re stupid enough to die, they steal up to half.” ~ Grover Norquist president of Americans for Tax Reform
How indeed have we come to this sad state? Consider:
…only then can the narrow horizon of bourgeois right be fully left behind and society inscribe on its banners: from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs. ~ Karl Marx
We bent to the enticing lure of the collectivists…we fell for the easy social fix…we relented to the phony tugs at our heartstrings…the lie that the tax dollars would lift up the poor and bring fairness and equality to our nation. We forgot that charity does not spring from heartless redistribution artists but from caring individuals. We forgot about the greatness of the American can-do spirit. We failed to teach the young the value of freedom, savings, investment, and neighbors helping neighbors. We remained ignorant as educators, journalists, politician and propagandists stole the birthright of this magnificent our country from our children…and from within.
The question now is…how long will we continue to pay the hefty price of mass dependency and ignorance in America? Think about that as you file your taxes. It’s not yet too late to cherish and pass on the American dream. Tax day is a great day to start.
Breitbart reports on findings from the latest CBO report:
The insanity of growing the size of the federal government will hit home…one way or another.
Tina: “While the middle class has shrunk the tax burden has increased dramatically…”
Wrong.
Average federal tax rates are actually at a historic low according to the CBO:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0712/78386.html
Bruce Bartlett, former Reagan advisor, has more:
“Historically, the term “tax rate” has meant the average or effective tax rate — that is, taxes as a share of income. The broadest measure of the tax rate is total federal revenues divided by the gross domestic product.
By this measure, federal taxes are at their lowest level in more than 60 years. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that federal taxes would consume just 14.8 percent of G.D.P. this year. The last year in which revenues were lower was 1950, according to the Office of Management and Budget.”
What happened after 1950? The largest expansion of the middle class ever seen.
So it would seem that the relationship between tax rates and the middle class is actually the exact opposite of what you claimed, Tina. Lowering tax rates, especially on the wealthy, over the past few decades has correlated directly with the decline of the middle class. This is can be explained by the very simple fact that income inequality is bad for the economy.
I recommend the following:
1) Eliminate employer with holding. Make all employees write a check every two weeks instead.
2) Everyone who is due a refund, file early. Everyone who owes, calculate what interest you can afford, and file an extension. Let ’em suck air for 90 days.
3) Voting day should be April 16.
Excellent ideas, but only if you wanted to actually fix the government and wise up taxpayers. This is exactly opposite of what elected representatives want to do. They love status quo…$$$$.
Yes Pie, excellent ideas.
Americans are, by and large, totally unconscious when it comes to the taxes they pay.
That’s one way to look at it, Chris, and I’m sure it seems reasonable to those who pay nothing in federal taxes, or very little, and collect money and services from our government…or to those who work low income jobs and get subsidized on tax day. It probably sounds reasonable to anyone who has a good heart and hasn’t thought very deeply about the subject.
But there are other ways of looking at the tax burden. It’s to think about the overall impact because it does and has affected our economy, jobs, and the overall standard of living. Americans are making it work on credit and that’s insane.
TownHall listed a few stats regarding taxes today:
That’s a lot of time and money and we haven’t yet begun to scratch the surface.
President Obama poses as a concerned man. Up front he made a few token tax cuts and a few targeted tax breaks but his intention and policies to grow the size of government. His proposals and policies are loaded with new taxes and regulations.
American Thinker:
I know you don’t care that the wealthy are being asked to pay higher taxes as a result of Obamacare so we’ll skip that for now and move right along to the hidden tax that will be applied to health insurance and products…these costs are passed on to every American:
Now and Futures has interesting information for those who actually care…scroll to the bottom of the page for a good “partial” list of the types of taxes Americans pay.
If the American Tax Foundation is correct and Americans do spend more on taxes each year than they do on clothing, food and housing combined, then Americans are taxed too much and our representatives spend and waste way to much of our personal wealth and resources.
Federal tax rates may be at their lowest but the total tax burden on the private sector remains much too high. Given the debt we now have with over $2 trillion added in interest alone it’s pretty clear that our representatives don’t manage the money we send them well. In fact, the case is pretty easy to make that they don’t care what their spending is doing to personal buying power, wealth creation, jobs, and the overall economy.
I don’t know what to think about you.
Tina write a excellent response, and beat me to it :);
‘That’s one way to look at it, Chris, and I’m sure it seems reasonable to those who pay nothing in federal taxes, or very little, and collect money and services from our government…or to those who work low income jobs and get subsidized on tax day.’
In fact, the percentage of Americans that are receiving government assistance is now at an all-time record high. This is not a good thing.
So do higher consumption of Government service equate properly to lower CBO “Tax Rate” figures, I don’t think so, nor would I think that anyone paying for these Government, tax payer funded money pits would either.
Use to be Politicians handed out flyer’s and used mailers to get your support, now they just use and send money earned by someone else to buy your vote!
Harold good points. It’s a big subject and a major concern. Not too many people are thinking about it. I guess we are just too accustomed to the good life we’ve lived in freedom to notice it, and the opportunity it offers, slipping away.
Americans are trying to work their way out of debt on the one hand. But they find themselves in a pickle. If Americans are indeed spending more on taxes than they are on clothing, food, and housing they are taxed too much and the way they cope is through the use of credit cards:
Another problem is student loan debt:
These student loans represent a big cash cow for government:
The conclusion I continue to come to is that governments, local, State, and federal have gotten out of control. They make promises they cannot keep for their own power and in the process put citizens AND the nation in deep debt.
Is it any wonder the people are unable to make ends meet when governments are consuming (and wasting) so much of our earnings and wealth?
It’s frustrating to talk about it because the various taxing agencies don’t look at the big picture so they all think the taxes they collect are “reasonable”. Taken separately the rates don’t seem excessive. Nobody stops to think about the overall effect that those taxes, added together, have on individual households and the economy.
Redistribution is ultimately oppressive. Recipients are enticed by the easier path, lured into acceptance of a low standard of living and the easy money that keeps them there. As more money is taken and redistributed the economy is stifled on both the supply side and the demand side…we are all just getting by. The very rich could hardly be called oppressed but that doesn’t mean they are unaffected. Current conditions mean risk taking and investment spending is suppressed. The golden goose is running in mud, it’s wings heavy, its spirit murdered. The people who rely on vibrancy are being screwed at both ends…no good jobs and heavy taxation eating up income leaving zero disposable income.
It’s a sad situation.
Tina: “That’s one way to look at it, Chris, and I’m sure it seems reasonable to those…”
No. It isn’t “one way to look at it.” I made a factual statement–that federal tax rates are at a historic low–in order to challenge your false claim that as the middle class has shrunk, the tax burden has “increased dramatically.” Instead of admitting that you were wrong or challenging this factual statement, you then decided to bust out the “It’s all in how you look at it, man” approach that you only use whenever something you have said has been proven false, and then threw a bunch of numbers at me that have nothing to do with whether the overall tax burden in America has increased or decreased.
The claim that “According to the Tax Foundation, Americans spend more on taxes each year than they do on clothing, food and housing combined” is extremely misleading. The numbers used are an average, and it is highly skewed by the presence of upper income Americans, who do pay more in taxes than they do on necessities. The vast majority of Americans pay more for necessities than in taxes.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/apr/18/reince-priebus/reince-priebus-says-americans-pay-more-taxes-groce/
Good for you!
But current tax rates were not the issue. I was being generous by acknowledging that the single issue of tax rates was one way to look at the tax BURDEN problem.
Your one note samba is actually fairly irrelevant to the discussion.
You’re welcome to your progressive opinion, Chris, but please don’t delude yourself into thinking that it is THE opinion.
The affect that the tax burden has on the overall economy and on those who DO pay taxes DOES affect those who pay less in taxes. Opportunity to advance is greatly diminished! We are living that reality.
$2 trillion in debt service, interest on the national debt, should have you very concerned. How much more will that interest be as the interest rates rise? How much more will they demand in taxes of some sort to meet that burden? And NOTHING has been done to address the underlying problem. Instead, this administration chose to add another BIG unsustainable program! As the President himself said when criticizing his predecessor, “It’s irresponsible!” “It’s unpatriotic!” It’s Un-American!”
When I was a volunteer working for the local Republican Party I would register voters just outside the post office on tax day. We did this for many years. The problem was for every one conservative we registered, ten more dummies joined the liberals. I finally gave up. I have lost all faith in the State GOP to make this into a red state. California is a lost cause. Democrats can run this state into the ground, and they have, but the dummies keep voting them into office. It’s amazing.
IBD
Jobs will not flow from progressive policies and leaders.
Tina, quoting the notoriously dishonest Investor’s Business Daily:
“In February, the Congressional Budget Office’s new budget outlook called ObamaCare an implicit tax on labor, estimating that it would cost 2.5 million workers their jobs.”
Good lord, woman, you KNOW that this is a lie!
The CBO never said that the ACA would “cost 2.5 million workers their jobs.” They said that about 2.5 million people will voluntarily reduce their own hours or leave the workforce due to the increased healthcare security provided by the ACA. I know for a fact that you understand the difference between these two claims, because you a) have made that distinction yourself here on this site before, and b) are not a drooling moron.
You are, however, a (snip) who is willing to promote any false claim that makes Obamacare look bad, even if it is a claim that you have already acknowledged to be false. I don’t know why you continue do this, knowing that I will call you out on it.
And of course you will respond by calling me a PC bully, but I have made the terms of our deal very clear. Stop telling lies, and I will stop calling you a liar. I think that is more than fear.
*more than fair
Why is the word (snip) snipped out of my comment? A person who repeatedly says things that she knows are not true is, by definition, a (snip). Tina knows that the CBO never said that the ACA will “cost 2.5 million workers their jobs,” but she uncritically quoted the lying rag Investor’s Business Daily saying so anyway. She routinely forwards ridiculous, debunked claims about the ACA in order to suit her political agenda. I stand by my choice of words. Editor:
I find that word too strong to use on a lady, and Tina is 100% a lady. You may disagree with her, she may even be wrong at times (as we all are), but she always writes with complete sincerely, I’ve never known her to write otherwise. Truth is often in the mind of the beholder. So lets play nice Chris. -Jack
Chris: “Good lord, woman, you KNOW that this is a lie!”
Funny, none of these sources: AEI, Forbes,
Reuters, The New American, World Magazine, Wall Street Journal, Economic Policy Journal, Huffington Post, Chicago Tribune, Washington Examiner, You Tube-CBO Director Reports to House Budget Committee, You Tube-Aamerican Action forum-How the Affordable Care Act Kills Jobs, disagree with the statement.
If being this “notoriously dishonest” is the standard, then I’d say IBD is in good company and in company I am happy to reference.
You’re darn right I will post anything that discredits the ACA. It is a badly written, very costly, redistribution scheme that serves only some of the people while it greatly burdens and harms many others, including health care professionals. It would be irresponsible to withhold information that discredits the ACA.
Jack I appreciate the editing although I’m fairly certain that our readers can guess at the choice of label Chris has chosen to slap on me.
Dang! I hate being called a liar much less a (snip).
The Fact is, I honestly believe that Obamacare is bad for the nation. I believe it will greatly harm the patient doctor relationship and burden doctors with excessive reporting and record keeping…not to mention poor to awful compensation. I hate to see a bad situation made worse just to make it better for a few people who were not being denied helathcare.
The industry did need reforms but the ACA is not reform that work well.
so I am compelled to post a link to another article that expresses some of my concerns.
I hope you will read it and reconsider if you still back the ACA.
We need to address the problems, and we will, but this bad law must first go. I will do everything in my power to make that happen…because I care about the damage it will cause.
Tina, I apologize for calling you a liar. It is clear from your last few comments that you have somehow managed to convince yourself that the ridiculous things you are saying are true. In that case, it would be more accurate to call you a textbook case of the corrosive effect extreme partisanship has on one’s reading comprehension and critical thinking skills.
Almost none of the articles you cited as agreeing with IBD actually support their claim that the ACA will “cost 2.5 million workers their jobs.” Even most of your right-wing sources don’t say that. The lone exception seems to be the Wall Street Journal, which tells an even bigger lie in its headline: “Congress’s budget office says ObamaCare will increase unemployment.” Of course, the CBO never said anything like that, as you would know if you had actually read and understood most of the articles you just cited.
(I also have to point out that many of your citations were identical to one another–the HuffPo piece is just a reprint of Reuters’, and the AEI and Forbes piece are also the same. This is very poor form; you basically tried to make it look like you had more evidence than you actually did, and it’s also just rude to make someone read the same thing twice.)
The CBO very clearly did not say that the ACA would “cost workers their jobs.” It said that workers would VOLUNTARILY leave their jobs or reduce their hours because of the increased healthcare security afforded by the ACA. Here are the CBO’s exact words:
“The estimated reduction stems almost entirely from a net decline in the amount of labor that workers choose to supply, rather than from a net drop in businesses’ demand for labor.”
It is therefore a lie to say that the CBO estimated that the ACA would “cost 2.5 million workers their jobs.” This is spin designed to provide legitimacy to the baseless claim that ObamaCare is causing employers to cut back on hours and jobs. There is currently no non-anecdotal evidence to support this claim. So Republicans twisted the CBO report, which is about choices made by workers, and tried to make it sound as if it were about employers’ hiring decisions, because that plays into their narrative. The so-called “liberal” mainstream media then played right into their hands by constructing misleading headlines; even Reuters has been criticized by independent fact-checking agencies for this, and rightly so. Most people won’t read much past the headline, and will walk away with the mistaken impression that Obamacare is causing employers to cut hours, because that’s what most people think of when they hear the phrase “cut worker hours.” The fact that the real story is about workers having the opportunity to cut their own hours has gotten lost in the shuffle, much to the delight of Republicans.
But the IBD piece goes beyond being simply misleading, and is blatantly dishonest. The ACA will not “cost” workers their jobs; you can’t “cost” someone something that they are voluntarily giving up. This is obvious. That Republicans seem willing to overlook how obvious this is, simply because it furthers their narrative, is depressing.
You are not a stupid person, Tina. That’s why it saddens and angers me that I just had to explain all this to you, even though we have had nearly this exact conversation on this blog before. We shouldn’t have needed to have it the first time. But you are so invested in anything that upholds conservative ideology that you are willing to abandon your critical faculties just to score a point against Obama. You have taken on this black-and-white worldview where Obama is ALWAYS lying and his opponents are ALWAYS noble patriotic truth-tellers. I know this is not how you behave in the real world, Tina. The real world is never that simple. But you’ve constructed a world online that is. Here you never have to admit when you are wrong, and you don’t have to worry about most of your loyal readers ever calling you out either, because they are all buying into the same fantasy.
And I guess that’s fun for you. But if you ever want to do some real good with this blog, you have got to start using your critical thinking and reading comprehension skills and stop promoting every discredited lie about Obamacare out there. You don’t have to support the damn thing. There are good reasons to oppose it. But the moment that you start resorting to bad or dishonest reasons is the moment you lose all credibility. Unfortunately that moment happened about six years ago, and you haven’t once reconsidered your approach to this issue in that entire time period.
Do you want to do more than just preach to the choir? Do you want to change minds? You will never do that if you keep yourself entrenched in this ideological bubble where you get your information from noted liars just because they tell you what you want to hear. You are doing far more harm than good to your cause, and that will continue to be the case unless you start arguing in a more intellectually honest manner.
Huffington Post headline: “Obamacare To Cut Work Hours By Equivalent Of 2 Million Jobs: CBO”
AEI headline: “CBO: Obamacare is a tax on work, may cut full-time workforce by 2.5 million”
Forbes headline: “CBO: Obamacare Is A Tax On Work, May Cut Full-Time Workforce By 2.5 Million”
I submit that Chris doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
“Obamacare To Cut Work Hours By Equivalent Of 2 Million Jobs: CBO”
AEI headline: “CBO: Obamacare is a tax on work, may cut full-time workforce by 2.5 million”
Forbes headline: “CBO: Obamacare Is A Tax On Work, May Cut Full-Time Workforce By 2.5 Million”
Do you understand the difference between the claim that the ACA “cuts work hours,” or “cuts the full-time workforce,” and the claim that it “costs workers their jobs?”
If not, I submit that you do not know how to read.
Do you understand the word “equivalent”?
Do you understand that the reference is a way to make the affect understandable in terms of work/employees?
When the nation loses the equivalent of 2-2.5 million jobs how much in payroll taxes will the government need to get from others to make up for the loss?
And How naive you are if you think the current cost for this subsidy will remain the same after ten years…fifteen…thirty!
When those citizens “voluntarily” quit working because the subsidies and welfare they receive make it possible to live without working, how thrilled will you be by age 50 that you spent your entire working life paying for those who have the capacity to work and care for themselves but choose not to make the effort because the governments rules makes it easy for them to do so?
And not only that, how thrilled will you be they have not contributed a dime in federal and payroll taxes because like a damn fool, you had such misguided, wrongheaded compassion?
Do you think the able bodied should just have the option to drop out? Do you honestly think that giving people incentive to not work will be good for them, their kids, or the nation over time?
Bah! More later if I have the stomach for it.
Also Chris, some employees HAVE lost jobs because of this law. Companies have cited Obamacare as a reason for cutting their workforce or cutting employee hours.
“Assurnt Health to Cut 108 Jobs, Citing Obamacare Provisions
300 Public Sector Employers Cut Hours Blame Obamacare”
Businesses Cut Full Time Workers to Meet Obamacare Mandate Study Says
Regal Cinemas Cut Employees Hours
Citing Obamacare Cleveland Clinic to Cut $300M, Warns of Layoffs
Small Business Owner on Obamacare, Every Restaurant You Eat At Is Impacted Negatively By This Law”:
Get it?
Oh…and then there are the jobs that will never materialize (AND NEVER BE COUNTED AS A LOSS) because businesses are discouraged from expanding and hiring! How do you account for lost job opportunity…jobs that never materialize? You’d have to be a mind reader!
I will not answer your irrelevant questions until you admit that you promoted a falsehood, Tina.
You quoted an article that said the ACA will “cost 2.5 million workers their jobs.” Now I don’t know if you genuinely believed this nonsense when you posted it, but I think you get it now since you’re not even bothering to defend that claim anymore, instead trying to misdirect with a bunch of “questions” that are really just elitist, anti-poor propaganda about how those damn kids are just so lazy today.
Knowingly or not, you promoted a lie. Again. Let me know when you have the stomach to own up to it.
Chris I linked to many sources that used the same or similar wording. I’m sorry that it makes you so irrationally nuts that you feel you must hound me to death about it.
At this point I’m tempted to forget I’m a lady…and
…yes that is code to our readers about what I would say were I inclined to post such thing overtly on the web.
If you had just a scintilla of similar concern about the corruption and lies of this administration and the many abuses, including the intentional failure to adequately address the economic and jobs problem, I’d have more reason to continue to try to inform and educate you.
Unfortunately, you have not said a single word that would convince me that you have noticed, much less care about lies. This makes your concern that I would lie considerably suspect.
You have no grounds for calling me out on this story as far as I’m concerned and your idiotic assumption that you do just makes you look ridiculous.
I don’t give a rip if you answer the questions…they were designed to make you think outside that very tiny box in which you live.
We’re done.
Tina, you did a masterful job of dealing with Chris’ slams…and you did it like a lady! Congratulations! You set a new high bar for conduct above and beyond!
Chris states he is a teacher, and given his style of posts on Post Scripts of calling out anyone who might disagree with his opinion or ideology and then attempting(miserably)to berate them into his way of thinking. I can only think that the adage of “a apple doesn’t fall far from the tree” when considering how he conducts himself in front of a class, would he call a student a liar or a idiot? or worst, produce a class full of indifferent students where no one participates or learns because of his decorum.
There is no reason “period” to act like a horses behind, just because you have the anonymity of a keyboard.
Chris should consider how rude remarks set the tone of immaturity on his part, especially when compared to the benefits of an engaging rebuttal which in my opinion leads to a better understanding on any subject, especially with people of differing opinions.
As I stated prior Chris, because of your offensive nature, your posts are no longer worth reading, let alone considering for myself. Others may feel this way as well.
Tina: “Chris I linked to many sources that used the same or similar wording.”
No, again, you did not. None of the articles you linked to said that the ACA “cost 2.5 million workers their jobs.” Do you understand what that phrase means? It means that workers are LOSING their jobs. As I have said, many of the articles you linked to did have misleading headlines, and were criticized by fact-checkers, but none of them (except the WSJ piece, which also lied) went as far as saying that WORKERS would lose their jobs due to Obamacare. They said that 2.5 million jobs would be lost from the economy. There is a difference, it is obvious, and it does matter. The claim that the ACA “would cost 2.5 million workers their jobs” is a lie. Period.
I have called out many of Obama’s lies, but you have absolutely no credibility to do so when you are committed to spreading falsehoods for your own cause. I do not lie, Tina. You want to hold me accountable for everything my party does that you don’t like, while I only hold you responsible for your own comments, and somehow you think you can get away with pretending that you are the one with the fair standard? That may work with your devoted partisan fans here but it doesn’t work on me.
Harold: “Chris states he is a teacher, and given his style of posts on Post Scripts of calling out anyone who might disagree with his opinion or ideology”
Harold, this discussion is neither about opinion nor ideology. It is about facts and lies. It is a fact that the CBO never said that the ACA “would cost 2.5 million workers their jobs.” Therefore, IBD is lying by saying that it did.
I am sorry the public education system has failed so many people on this site, that they don’t know the difference between fact and opinion.
Of course I don’t treat you the way I would treat my students. They are children, and you are adults. Would you like me to treat you as if you were a child, Harold? I think I have been more than patient in my attempts to explain very basic facts here, to adults who should know better. I don’t think it is unfair to demand a shred of intellectual honesty. I’ve dealt with Pie Guevara who we all know can’t make a comment here without breaking out a thesaurus full of personal insults, and not one of the conservative commenters here has ever called him out on his crap. But yeah, I’m the bully. You all base every single moral judgment on whether or not a commenter here is a liberal or a conservative. It’s ridiculous, and I’m tired of it.
“and not one of the conservative commenters here has ever called him out on his crap.” Au contre Chris…we do have standards here and they’ve put me in the uncomfortable position of being a censor. I hate doing that! I encourage everyone to be as respectful and civil as you can. We enjoy and learn from debates and the posting of facts, anything else not so much.
While Chris has an apoplectic hissy fits over a misunderstood position about employment he ignores the prescient point of the original issue which helped drive the headlines and was also addressed by IBD:
Decline in GDP usually means a decline in job opportunity as well. Add to that the draconian approach to healthcare, and the environment, that this administration has taken and you have a recipe for insufficient job growth, cut hours for employees, layoffs and firings. The CBO calculated an estimated $2.5M lost jobs lost…one way or another the equivalent of 2.5 million jobs will not be there. This is not a difficult concept to grasp and it is an important concept that the people must grasp if we are ever going to elect representatives that do know how to create policy that creates opportunity and puts people to work.
The vast working middle class is the backbone of our nation. The rich make it possible for that vast middle class to have opportunity. They make it possible by risking their own money through investment and by purchasing large ticket items, eating in expensive restaurants, playing golf, taking vacations and buying homes o which they pay big property taxes. I am so fed up with the tax the rich (because we have decimated the middle class) mentality I could scream!
Instead, I have chosen to participate at Post Scripts and do my part in what I know is necessary…educate and inform the citizenry.
A party that operates first and foremost for larger government and its own power, rather than working first and foremost for the citizenry must be stopped. A party that stays in power by promising help while diminishing opportunity should be exposed as working against the rights and freedom of the people. This radical group has been willing to deceive, lie, cheat, and conspire against opponents for power. It has oppressed rights and freedoms and it is killing our opportunity centered economy. Of course it should be criticized and run out of office!
The best way to uplift anyone in the middle or lower classes is a vibrant economy that offers plenty of opportunity to work, save and invest!
Harold, Jack, I deeply appreciate your support.
“They said that 2.5 million jobs would be lost from the economy. There is a difference…”
The difference is one of semantics at best.
2.5 million fired or 2.5 million of lost opportunity still means that the work will not be there! I doubt that it matters to our friend Chris but for the millions of people without jobs, working several low pay jobs, and in jobs they don’t want but had to take IT MATTERS!
Tina: “The difference is one of semantics at best.”
No, it is not.
The difference between people LOSING jobs that they want and QUITTING jobs that they do not want because they no longer need them is not a difference of “semantics.” That you would even suggest such a thing shows how removed from reality you choose to be just so you can further your narrative.
“I doubt that it matters to our friend Chris but for the millions of people without jobs, working several low pay jobs, and in jobs they don’t want but had to take IT MATTERS!”
You’re not making any sense. The loss will almost entirely be made up of people who are currently “in jobs they don’t want but had to take” in order to get health insurance. If you actually cared about these people, you’d be happy with the news that many of them can now reduce their hours or retire earlier than expected. Instead you have mocked them, belittled them, and suggested that they were lazy people who need to get back to work:
“When those citizens “voluntarily” quit working because the subsidies and welfare they receive make it possible to live without working, how thrilled will you be by age 50 that you spent your entire working life paying for those who have the capacity to work and care for themselves but choose not to make the effort because the governments rules makes it easy for them to do so?
And not only that, how thrilled will you be they have not contributed a dime in federal and payroll taxes because like a damn fool, you had such misguided, wrongheaded compassion?
Do you think the able bodied should just have the option to drop out? Do you honestly think that giving people incentive to not work will be good for them, their kids, or the nation over time?”
And now you are going to pretend that you actually care about people who have only taken jobs because they had to? Previously here on Post Scripts you have argued that job lock isn’t even something that people should be concerned about. Do you honestly believe that your readers have the memories of goldfish? Maybe that’s true for many of them, but it’s not true of me. You can’t keep jumping around between mutually exclusive arguments, grasping at anything to make your point. Well, you can, but not without looking extraordinarily foolish.
Your arguments are weak.
Tina, quoting IBD: “But does it matter? Well, a comprehensive and widely cited study a few years back by President Obama’s own former chief economic advisor, Christina Romer, noted that a mere rise of 1% in taxes as a share of GDP correlated with a subsequent 3% decline in GDP.”
Tina, the problem with continuing to quote articles that have already lied to you once is that they will probably lie to you again. However, this portion isn’t so much a lie as it is a gross simplification of Romer’s conclusions.
Here is Christina Romer, the author of that study, in her own words:
“Some in Washington and in the news media have seized on a study I conducted with David Romer, my husband and colleague, that they say shows tax increases having a bigger short-term effect on the economy than spending cuts.
They are mistaken.
Our study, which examined only federal tax policy, found that conventional analysis underestimates the effect of tax changes on the economy substantially. The key problem we address is that changes in taxes are often linked to what is happening in the economy…
…If there were a similar study on government spending, it would likely show that spending cuts also have larger effects than conventionally believed. Like tax actions, spending changes are often correlated with other factors affecting economic activity. For example, large cuts in military spending, like those after World War II and the Korean War, were typically accompanied by the end of wartime taxes and production controls. Those probably lessened the economic impact of the spending cuts, leading many researchers to underestimate the reductions’ effects
There is a basic reason why government spending changes probably have a larger short-term impact than tax changes. When a household’s tax bill rises by, say, $100, that household typically pays for part of that increase by reducing its savings. Its spending tends to fall by less than $100. But when the government cuts spending by $100, overall demand goes down by that full amount.
Wealthier households typically pay for more of a tax increase out of savings, and so they reduce their spending less than ordinary households. This implies that tax increases on wealthy households probably have less effect on the economy than those on the poor or the middle class.
All of this argues against any form of fiscal austerity just now. Even some deficit hawks warn that immediate tax increases or spending cuts could push the economy back into recession. Far better to pass a plan that phases in spending cuts or tax increases over time.
But if federal policy makers do decide to reduce the deficit immediately, reducing spending alone would probably be the most damaging to the recovery. Raising taxes for the wealthy would be least likely to reduce overall demand and raise unemployment.
Higher tax rates reduce the rewards of work and investing. This can have supply-side effects that lower economic growth over decades.
But a large number of academic studies has found that these effects are relatively small. An excellent survey due to be published in the Journal of Economic Literature found that raising current tax rates by 10 percent would reduce reported income — the end result of work and entrepreneurial effort — by less than 2 percent. That is far less than what was hypothesized by prominent Reagan-era supply-siders like Arthur B. Laffer. He and others postulated that raising taxes 10 percent would ultimately reduce income by more than 10 percent, leading to a decline in tax revenue.
Certain spending cuts may also have small effects on long-run growth. Entitlement spending on Social Security and Medicare could probably be slowed without reducing the nation’s productive ability. But as the bipartisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform emphasized in a report in December, such changes can and should be made in a way that protects the most vulnerable Americans.
Government spending on things like basic scientific research, education and infrastructure, on the other hand, helps increase future productivity. This type of spending often produces high social returns, but the private sector is unlikely to step up if the government pulls back. Case studies described in a recent survey found that less than half of the returns from research-and-development spending were captured by the private investor, so corporations shy away from such endeavors. Cutting federal funds for R.& D. would leave a void and could have significant long-run effects on growth.
These long-term considerations, like the short-run concerns, point to a plan for reducing the deficit that combines spending cuts and tax increases. The cuts should spare valuable investment spending. On the tax side, nearly every economist I know agrees that the best way to raise revenue would be limit tax breaks for households and corporations.
The fiscal commission proposed a concrete plan that would trim a wide range of credits and exemptions, including the preferential treatment of employer-provided health insurance. It would use part of the revenue to reduce tax rates and the rest to cut the deficit. This would help deal with the deficit while actually improving incentives.
The bottom line is that tax increases should be part of any comprehensive budget plan. Opinion polls suggest that many Americans understand this. It is time for policy makers to accept this economic reality.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/03/business/economy/03view.html?_r=0
Knowing well in advance that a critiquing of you would result in a snippet reply Of course I don’t treat you (all) the way I would treat my students. Harold? I think I have been more than patient in my attempts to explain very basic facts here, to adults who should know better. I don’t think it is unfair to demand a shred of intellectual honesty. It’s ridiculous, and I’m tired of it. Yep It;s all about you isn’t it, well sir you crated the discussion with your in your face childish hissy fits. With regards to Pies responses, well as a person, he has shown more restrain than you. You have from time to time, calmed down and and played the game of being the concerned contributor, but that was no more than a thin veneer of civil gamesmanship, very thin! Tina or Jack have tried to guide you toward maturity, sadly, without positive results, because like the Scorpion and frog fable you can not seem to progress beyond your imprinted anger intemperance.
As to your closing line of ‘It’s ridiculous, and I’m tired of it’, very prophetic comment, as we all are tired of your style as well.
Harold: “as we all are tired of your style as well.”
And what of the substance? You’ve spent a lot of time critiquing my style lately, Harold, but what have I said that is objectively wrong?
Tina’s article falsely claimed that the CBO reported that Obamacare would “cost 2.5 million workers their jobs.” Maybe you think I didn’t handle this with the utmost grace, but is that really more important than the initial lie?
It seems you are spending so much time critiquing my tone because you can’t actually oppose my arguments on their merits.
Harold I understand the fatigue! And I appreciate your thoughts on the subject at hand which is the terrible tax burden that all of our taxes are placing on families and singles alike. I confess I did not expect such rabid deflection over an issue that was not even part of the original post! Even after posting evidence that many well respected publications had used the same language the matter was still not dropped. I have only to conclude that nailing me is more important than anything to our friend Chris…more important than the debilitating effect that big government, government debt and taxation has on family budgets, the economy and jobs.
Astounding!
Chris, as I have clearly pointed out in prior posts and stated clearly as possible I don’t read your posts. Because of your style any “substance” you may be trying to share is lost, lost sadly (on most all of us) because of your presentation. So why bother ask, better you ask yourself how you can do a better job of contributing you views to others, learn that first and you’ll develop into a better teacher.
Presently, at least here on PS you do not seem to be able to understand or use what is being critiqued about your rude manner of imparting that information.
Learning in life isn’t just a diploma that only represents someone made it through a discipline.
Learning will never be just the understanding of the subject, it must be coupled with the encouragement one receives in the process, and imparting that encouragement to create the willingness to implore it.
Tina and Jack, along with others on PS are great examples of that, and if mistakes are made by someone, they do not dwell on that mistake by insulting the contributor, they understand how to teach!
Your “style” as I refer to it defeats that purpose here!
Tina: “Even after posting evidence that many well respected publications had used the same language”
But you didn’t. And if you still don’t see that, you have absolutely terrible reading comprehension skills.