Posted by Tina
Conservatives can’t talk about the success of Ronald Reagan’s tax policy without sending the left into fits of exasperation as they attempt to discredit him with claims that he worked with Congress and accepted a few tax increases. To lefties the fact that he raised taxes a few times proves that he was no conservative. That’s easy to do but only if you ignore the bulk of his legacy and the boom that followed his economic policies. Having an honest discussion about the Reagan Record just isn’t possible. The point of any discussion about Reagan with a lefty isn’t to reach understanding but to demean and discredit both Reagan and his supporters.
Do lefties care that American citizens have opportunity and wealth building opportunities? I have to say it certainly doesn’t appear that they do. After five years of Keynesian policies that grow government debt and bureaucracy and plunges the middle class into poverty one would think they would be open to other options. Unfortunately, the POTUS SOTU tells us there will be no turning in this presidency and there will be no relief for the citizens of America.
The President’s stubborn adherence to policies that don’t work shouldn’t stop weary American’s from learning about policies that have worked and have worked under both Republican and Democrat presidents.
In an effort to take some of the partisan emotion and contention out of the argument I thought it might be instructive to look at the economic legacy of
Calvin Coolidge:
It is often assumed that broad cuts in income tax rates only benefit the rich and thrust a larger share of the tax burden on the poor. But detailed Internal Revenue Service data show that the across-the-board rate cuts of the early 1920s-including large cuts at the top end-resulted in greater tax payments and a larger tax share paid by those with high incomes. Figure 1 focuses on those earning more than $100,000. As the marginal tax rate on those high-income earners was cut sharply from 60 percent or more (to a maximum of 73 percent) to just 25 percent, taxes paid by that group soared from roughly $300 million to $700 million per year. The share of overall income taxes paid by the group rose from about one-third in the early 1920s to almost two-thirds by the late 1920s. (Note that inflation was virtually zero between 1922 and 1930, thus the tax amounts shown for that period are essentially real changes).
The tax cuts allowed the U.S. economy to grow rapidly during the mid- and late-1920s. Between 1922 and 1929, real gross national product grew at an annual average rate of 4.7 percent and the unemployment rate fell from 6.7 percent to 3.2 percent. The Mellon tax cuts restored incentives to work, save, and invest, and discouraged the use of tax shelters.
The rising tide of strong economic growth lifted all boats. At the top end, total income grew as a result of many more people becoming prosperous, rather than a fixed number of high earners getting greatly richer. For example, between 1922 and 1928, the average income reported on tax returns of those earning more than $100,000 increased 15 percent, but the number of taxpayers in that group almost quadrupled. During the same period, the number of taxpayers earning between $10,000 and $100,000 increased 84 percent, while the number reporting income of less than $10,000 fell. (emphasis mine)
Read that highlighted segment again…don’t skim and dismiss. The highlighted segment represents the exact opposite of what Americans are experiencing today. Fewer people in poverty, more people moved into the middle class, more people moved from the middle class to the upper class. The American people, set free from intrusive and punishing government control and greed, rolled up their sleeves, took risks, invested and unleashed powerful and dynamic growth. Everybody, including our government’s coffers benefited from their creativity and labors.
Unemployment fell dramatically during the twenties under Coolidge and revenues to government from the upper classes grew dramatically…the rich paid more of their dollars to the government! MORE!
The CATO article is enlightening with sources from the Department of the Treasury, a source that can’t be denied or dismissed as right wing extremist blog talk. If you are willing to be honest this information will blow your liberal socks off!
I must send out a hat tip to Tim Stanley of the Telegraph for a fun and enlightening article with the reference to CATO. Stanley recounts the following story about this President of few words:
A hostess said to him, “You must talk to me Mr Coolidge. I made a bet today that I could get more than two words out of you.” Coolidge replied: “You lose.”
President Obama could lighten up on his agenda and learn from the past as President’s Kennedy, Reagan, Clinton, and yes, even George W. Bush did before him. He could create a tax policy that would get the American people working and prospering again…but as he signaled last night…he won’t.
Unlike President Obama Calvin Coolidge was a man of few words but his economic policies created what they called the “Roaring Twenties!
Reganomics and tricle down has failed bar none
“In 1921 — eight years before the great depression — Republicans took over the helm of this nation for 12 years. During that time there were three Republican administrations, the first of which was the administration of Warren G. Harding. History remembers Harding’s administration for one thing more than anything other — scandal. It was during Harding’s presidency that the Teapot Dome Scandal erupted. His administration was considered the most corrupt administration in the history of the United States — until Nixon’s, then Reagan’s, and finally Bush’s.”
you can not rewrite history
Conservative policies are a proven failure!
Thanks for 2008! Stock market crash – war the 2 conservative values always follow each other.
The booms are the bubbles prior to crash
Tina, sometimes … I suspect that you are a wildly perverse, closet Liberal … and yanking my chain … because nobody … NOBODY … in their right mind could put forward Calvin’s administration as an economic success story. Even the staunchest of conservative economists lays The Great Depression squarely at the man’s feet. The “prosperity” of the 20s was nothing more than a stock market bubble … that burst.
Are you actually saying that the BushCo Bubble was “prosperity”? Especially, while we are living through the resulting mess. That is very nearly psychotic.
In fact, the phrase “Roaring Twenties” refers to the psychology of the time, coming out of the devastation of WWI. Economically, it was more like the last gasp of the Guilded Age, wherein income inequality reigned supreme.
A virtuous blogger avoids Adolf comparisons, but you tell one more of these “Big Lies”, and you’re going to force my hand.
Yep, the twenties sure were an awesome time! Good thing nothing bad happened right after! Wheeee!
Just wandering, if raising taxes is grounds for some to believe a republican isn’t a conservative does cutting taxes mean a democrat isn’t a liberal?
From Forbes:
Trashing JFK’s Tax Cuts, One of the Greatest Policy Successes of All Time:
“JFK’s pitch in that legendary campaign was to “get this country moving again.” He was talking about economic growth. And that growth would get unleashed via tax policy, namely two big tax cuts, one on business and the other on personal income.
These tax cuts became law, the business ones in 1962 and the personal ones early in 1964, a few months after the assassination. The economic results that anticipated and accompanied these tax cuts remain among the most whopping ever recorded.
The eight-year expansion from 1961 to 1969 saw growth of 48%, a third more in an eight-year period than in the sixteen years ending in 1960. 1944-69, the “postwar prosperity” quarter century, saw growth at the nice peak-to-peak rate of 3% per year, but only because the 1960s lifted everything up.
Further statistics show more of the same. Unemployment was stuck around 6% in the 1950s, and then settled below 4% in the 1960s. 13 million jobs were created in the 1960s, 7 million in the 1950s. And how about federal receipts: they went up more than the epic rate of economic growth, rising by 55% in real terms in the seven years after 1961.
Why go over this? At some point, we have to start the work of dislodging in public memory the fairy tale about 1950s prosperity which has been current for several decades. More immediately, we have to gainsay the outlandish word that the Washington Post is putting out there on the JFK tax cuts.”
http://www.forbes.com/sites/briandomitrovic/2013/03/12/trashing-jfks-tax-cuts-one-of-the-greatest-policy-successes-of-all-time/
If Kennedy was running today I’d probably vote for him over McCain and Romney. To bad the progressive movement completely took over the DNC and are working on taking control of the GOP.
Libby the history rewrite that you learned in school (from progressives) was built to prop up the progressive movement (forward!) by discrediting the one thing that actually works…capitalism.
We have been through quite a number of bubbles (what goes up must come down) BUT never, except for the Great Depression and now the Obama near depression, has the recovery from said bubbles and recession taken longer than about 18 months. Obama’s inherited recession was over spring of 2009. The time since then has been his opportunity to shine. He has failed miserably and the slow growth, lack of enough jobs, high poverty numbers prove it.
Peter Ferrara – Forbes:
“Are you actually saying that the BushCo Bubble was “prosperity”? Especially, while we are living through the resulting mess.”
The bubble was not created by any Bush policy that you can name…if you could you would. it was created by legislation Clinton wanted (for votes) and that handy little instrument invented at Fannie Mae to bundle loans. The latter made a lot of money for Clinton cronies in the good years, added to their bonuses too, the former poisoned the well. An investor frenzy added to the pot but none of that was a result of Bush policy.
The dot.com bubble recession that Bush inherited from Clinton was no picnic what with 911 and all adding to it. The recovery gave us moderate growth and a reasonable rate of unemployment. Certainly poverty was not the problem it is today.
Ooops…gotta go…back later to respond to the rest.
“At some point, we have to start the work of dislodging in public memory the fairy tale about 1950s prosperity which has been current for several decades.”
Right. Just as soon as all of us alive at the time, and remembering it as it was, are dead … you can start “revising” history to promote your political agenda.
At least yer not shy about your aims, dishonorable though they be. Fox News is busily trying to re-write very recent history, the government shutdown, to rehabilitate Cruz, and they’ve got Tina mesmerized. But the folk who don’t live in Bubbleland … I don’t think it’s gonna work with them.
Libby surprise, surprise…I do not watch FOX News. I watch some Fox Business news in the morning and that’s about all the TV news I watch.
I read. I read fro many different sources. the progressives have controlled curriculum in this country for fifty years and they gradually decided what was “istory”.
My son took a class at Butte College recently and was instructed that no reference material outside of their data base would be allowed and no encyclopedia that was more than ten years old.
Neither you, nor Chris, nor the hapless Dewey can explain the Coolidge, Kennedy, Reagan, and Clinton booms, nor the somewhat miraculous recovery and acceptable growth under GWB considering the disastrous events in his two terms.
You also cannot explain, without blaming others, the terrible Carter record of low growth, high inflation and malaise, or the long Depression years.
In fact you refuse to engage in real discussion about any of it, choosing instead to resort to name calling and avoidance of the positive records under the successful president from both parties. You would never admit that had Hillary gotten Hillarycare passed and the Republicans hadn’t forced lowering taxes and making reforms Bill Clinton would have joined Carter. (I think old Bill was secretly glad wanting to cash in on a better economy himself).
Sorry but those cute/nasty remarks about me just don’t educate or make up for the lack of explanation or defense of progressive economic ideas.
You have failed to convince.
” But the folk who don’t live in Bubbleland … I don’t think it’s gonna work with them.”
Two things:
1. More and more people are tuning progressives out and are wandering over to FOX. they do it because…
2. Under the Obama progressive economic plan they are falling further and further into POVERTY!
That’s Salon, in case you were wondering.
You can run, you can attack the messenger but you cannot hide from the numbers and the reality that Americans experience. Food prices skyrocketed during the Carter years. Fuel prices likewise! Interest rates, ditto! (Good for Grandmas CD’s but not good for a young couple wanting/needing a car or home.
Today we are experiencing low levels of opportunity, high gas/fuel prices, rising food prices, low inflation and interest rates for now but still hard to get a loan without a job…or credit. (Unless you are a minority friend of Obama/Holder) The fed can’t prop up the market with QE anymore so interest rates have begun to rise…the market is holding its breath…and what this administration is doing to banks, and plans to do with OUR investments, is criminal.
Bah!
” … and what this administration is doing to banks, and plans to do with OUR investments, is criminal.”
And what would that be, exactly? What IS going on in that fevered brain of yours?
Tina: That’s Salon, in case you were wondering.
Yes, Tina, but if you read a little further down:
“Inequality is at its ugliest for the hungriest people. While food support was being targeted for cuts, just 20 rich Americans made as much from their 2012 investments as the entire 2012 SNAP (food assistance) budget, which serves 47 million people.”
“And as Congress continues to cut life-sustaining programs, its members should note that their 400 friends on the Forbes list made more from their stock market gains last year than the total amount of the food, housing, and education budgets combined.”
You can only blame Obama for this in that, thanks to a recalcitrant Congress, he can’t do anything about it. I know you like to think so, but we do not have a dictatorship here.
Furthermore, from Oxfam we get this:
“The 85 richest people in the world own more wealth than the 3 billion poorest people combined, according to an Oxfam report on global inequality.”
“That means that less than 100 individuals hold more wealth than the bottom half of the entire world population.”
That is sick-making.
Libby: “Yes, Tina, but if you read a little further down: “Inequality is at its ugliest for the hungriest people.”
Strangely you do not hold Obama or his economic policies responsibLe for this UGLY, HEARTLESS circumstance!!
“While food support was being targeted for cuts”
And the government workers who dole out the stamps can’t tell the difference between those who absolutely need these and are not spending them on beer and cigarettes? I’d say that’s a big government, big bureaucracy, big Obama problem.
Obama’s lousy jobs record has forced otherwise able bodied people to put downward pressure on the food stamp program…how smart is that?
“…just 20 rich Americans made as much from their 2012 investments as the entire 2012 SNAP (food assistance) budget”
Right Libby. They invested their own private after tax funds (property) and MADE money (didn’t steal it) as a return on the investment. That invested money was used by banks to make loans or by business to expand and grow (JOBS) so it wasn’t wasted. The earnings they received will likely be reinvested rather than spent and if it is spent will go a long way toward helping this sluggish economy…and JOBS. Or, for all you know they took those profits and spent them on feeding the hungry at The Jesus Center or on aids relief in Africa or on cancer research or cancer treatment for kids.
Even if they bought themselves a big honkin’ yacht…the money went to support a business and the people who work there…it trickles Libby.
The numbers of people needing food stamps, welfare and unemployment does not equal success or a win for Obama. It demonstrates that his intention is to keep them poor and in the dark. it shows that he doesn’t want people to find out they can prosper and succeed without big government.
“And as Congress continues to cut life-sustaining programs, its members should note that their 400 friends on the Forbes list made more from their stock market gains last year”
Once again they MADE it…they didn’t steal it. if i were a poor American I’d be spending my free time finding out how they did it instead of climbing on board the Obama poverty train with “folks” filled with resentment and a sense of entitlement.
“…thanks to a recalcitrant Congress, he can’t do anything about it.”
Oh please. Reid is blocking for him in the Senate so his failed policies can’t be overturned! he had a super majority congress for two years and a fed that has done QE nonstop until just this year. he has tried one targeted giveaway and grant after another, he enacted all kinds of taxes and regulations, his EPA is doing great damage to the energy industries…he owns this mess and has promised to double down with his pen and his phone!
“The 85 richest people in the world own more wealth than the 3 billion poorest people combined”
And it probably will always be so. I notice it is particularly so in dictatorships.
Did Oxfam also point out how much was donated to help the poor by these very wealthy individuals? Did it mention how many jobs their wealth, invested, create? Did it mention the breakthroughs in science and technology that make helping the poor more practical, cheaper, or more effective? Did Oxfam mention that the surest way to lift people out of poverty is capitalism?
Look at the poorest countries…whats missing?
“That is sick-making.”
Sick-making is the depth of your ignorance about what would best help people move out of poverty.
Forbes:
What we want to encourage is a lot of capitalist activity. It creates a wealth of opportunity to work, to earn, to save, to learn, to move up, to increase our personal wealth.
Success is when the number of people needing government assistance decreases.
Obama has not created success…just the opposite.
We told you this would happen, Libby. I would think you would have the good sense to see it.
“Strangely you do not hold Obama or his economic policies responsibLe for this UGLY, HEARTLESS circumstance!!
I don’t, because they’re not. Obama has not been able to enact his economic policies, except for the thing where the Fed’s been propping of the big banks, buying up bad debt and salvaging Jack’s BofA share value for him (of which policy I do not particularly approve). We are mostly operating under the old rules … BushCo Rules … Reaganomic Rules … and will be … until we can get the likes of Mike Grimes out of the Congress.
Jack’s been crabbing about the homeless again, and I don’t know where he gets the nerve. It was his share value or their jobs. Guess who won?
A damned lot of nerve.
One more thing.
““And as Congress continues to cut life-sustaining programs, its members should note that their 400 friends on the Forbes list…
You have seen lists of Obama’s donors, I know you have. The company that hired Jaime Dimon was at the top of the list.
Exactly who is it that supports progressive causes and gives “folks” like Obama and Hillary a lot of campaign cash through the hundreds of organizations he supports either directly or though his foundation?
That would be BILLIONAIRE INVESTOR George Soros and/or his Tides Foundation.
You’ve also heard of Warren Buffet, major Obama spokesman for the denial of good jobs when he came out against the Keystone Pipeline. And why did he do that? So the oil would be shipped on rails that he owns…greed by your standard… money he doesn’t NEED. Money that the poor don’t get to share!
He also supported the president in raising tax rates on investors…why? Because some of those those investors would move their money into his company, Berkshire Hathaway…greed by your standard.
Seeking Alpha:
That means Buffet doesn’t pay taxes on the reinvested funds…nor would those who invest with him until they sell which they won’t until tax rates once again are made reasonable on investment income.
Obama, Hillary, and spouses also hang around with the wealthiest members of Hollywood, folks that wouldn’t part with a dime unless it would make them money and are KNOWN for being real hard a$$e$ when it comes to negotiating terms.
These monied people refuse to get that the policies they endorse lead to greater numbers in poverty. They gain from trickle down personally and deny it to the poor by selling the notion that trickle down doesn’t work. All of this while they party and fund raise and pass the cash around amongst themselves to block politicians that know HOW to create conditions that cause wealth to be spread liberallythroughout the economy…even down to the poor.
Hypocrites! Deceivers!
Reminder…under John F. Kennedy’s, Ronald Reagan’s, and Bill Clinton’s (reluctant) tax cutting policies the poor did much better as did the middle class.
Baltimore Sun:
“The weakness in this country for too many years has been our insistence of carving an ever-increasing number of slices from a shrinking economic pie. Our policies have concentrated on rationing scarcity rather than creating plenty.”
Instead of fighting over who gets the last piece of shrinking economic pie, let’s help America produce a bigger pie so that everyone will have a chance to be better off. – Ronald Reagan
Tina: “if i were a poor American I wouldn’t last a day.”
Fixed it for you.
Libby, quoting Salon: “Inequality is at its ugliest for the hungriest people. While food support was being targeted for cuts, just 20 rich Americans made as much from their 2012 investments as the entire 2012 SNAP (food assistance) budget, which serves 47 million people.”
“The 85 richest people in the world own more wealth than the 3 billion poorest people combined”
Dear God. We should be redistributing the SHIT out of that wealth.
The only rational question at this point is whether to redistribute it through government, or let rabid mobs of poor people just have at it. I’d rather not have a repeat of the French Revolution, where people who flaunted their wealth were beaten and executed, but maybe I’m just feeling generous.
Tina: “Strangely you do not hold Obama or his economic policies responsibLe for this UGLY, HEARTLESS circumstance!!”
That’s not strange, it’s reality. Income inequality has been growing for decades. Obama inherited the worst recession since the Great Depression. Those are facts.
“And the government workers who dole out the stamps can’t tell the difference between those who absolutely need these and are not spending them on beer and cigarettes?”
You were just informed that the entire food stamp budget could be funded from one year of investment income from the country’s richest 20 people, and you STILL think that the problem is people who buy cigarettes and beer on food stamps, even though *you know that’s physically impossible?*
What’s the weather like in that mound of entrenched classism and willful ignorance you’re buried under?
“Even if they bought themselves a big honkin’ yacht…the money went to support a business and the people who work there…it trickles Libby.”
Yes, because as we all know, the yachting industry is the cornerstone of our economy.
Libby: “The 85 richest people in the world own more wealth than the 3 billion poorest people combined”
Tina: “And it probably will always be so.”
It has NEVER been so! Income inequality is greater today than it ever has been. That is a crime. It is a crime for so few to have so much while so many are starving.
“Like slavery and apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings.” –Nelson Mandela
Chris: “Fixed it for you.”
The only way you know how.
Chris: ” We should be redistributing the SHIT out of that wealth.”
Yeah! Because “we” did so much to earn it…because we have no respect for property rights or the rule of law. Because “we” are filled with envy, hate, and covetousness.
“The only rational question at this point is whether to redistribute it through government, or let rabid mobs of poor people just have at it.”
Rational?
A rational person sees growing poverty, high energy and food prices, massive continuous unemployment, stagnant growth and after five years of the same policies it isn’t working. He then begins to question his education and beliefs. he searches for examples that did work. HE TELLS THE TRUTH ABOUT THEM.
You are neither rational nor logical. You are driven entirely by emotion and self interest.You are incapable of seeing people, all people, as capable human beings. You see them as lucky or desperate. You don’t respect the poor; you wallow in being a victim.
You have no respect or appreciation for the Constitution or for liberty, two most precious gifts granted you simply because you were fortunate to have been born in the United States.
Life is not fair; never will be. Under our Constitution and rule of law you do have tremendous opportunity to better your station and fortune by applying yourself and by learning to manage your finances well. Every American has that opportunity…redistribution policy slowly kills opportunity.
“Obama inherited the worst recession since the Great Depression”
And he has created the worst economic situation for the poor and middle class since the great depression with his polices. Democrat entitlement programs are responsible for most of our debt. what does Obama do…he creates another costly entitlement program. STUPID and also “irresponsible and unpatriotic”.
You were just informed that the entire food stamp budget could be funded from one year of investment income from the country’s richest 20 people”
And it has been that way since the beginning of time and has not changed after seventy years of redistribution. At what point do you begin to realize money isn’t the problem? when do you begin to see that you are feeding people but not teaching them to fish?
” and you STILL think that the problem is people who buy cigarettes and beer on food stamp”
No…the problem is people who are smart enough to apply for food stamps and use them to buy beer and cigarettes and beer instead of food for their children are smart enough to work and provide for their own children…are smart enough to figure life out for themselves IF the government would stop making it so easy to buy their beer and cigarettes.
People handing them out should be able to see the difference between someone truly in need and someone scamming the system…when they have fewer funds they better figure it out so they don’t give the wrong people the stamps.
“What’s the weather like in that mound of entrenched classism and willful ignorance you’re buried under? ”
What’s the weather like in that dung heap of self pity, divisive judgmental class-ism, covetous ignorance and victim-hood you’re buried under?
“Yes, because as we all know, the yachting industry is the cornerstone of our economy.”
You can add small minded (small thinker) and snide to that list. You are snide because you have no vision, no ability to imagine…you have handicapped yourself, you fool. What’s worse you vote to make sure others are just as handicapped as you.
“It has NEVER been so!”
What the hell history book you been reading kid? ‘Cause things were just rosey for the poor back when the king of England ruled and the lowly serfs lacked basic freedoms and property rights.
If you took all of the wealth from all of the rich people and distributed it to the worlds poor within a year they would still be poor and you would have accomplished nothing…NOTHING! You don’t think small Chris…you don’t think at all!
“It is a crime for so few to have so much while so many are starving.”
So lets throw them all in jail and take their money.
How about we start with those who SAY they are all for redistribution but covetously guard their own wealth and spend other peoples money instead.
These are the people who love redistributing what they take from other people to make themselves look empathetic and caring. Phfttt!
How about we start with Nancy Pelosi; Hillary Clinton; Bill Clinton; John, the yachtman, Kerry; Al, jetsetter, Gore; Harry Reid, Jay Rockefeller, Diane Feinstein, Barack Obama, good ol Ted Kennedy and kin, et al.
““Like slavery and apartheid, poverty is not natural…”
Poverty was the natural state for all men from the beginning. Whatever your beliefs about how it began it did not begin with some possessing wealth and others living without.
“It is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings.” –Nelson Mandela”
Best to take actions that actually work. How’s Africa doing by the way. A few places are coming along but for the most part that redistribution (Marxist ) model creates more poverty and disease and some thug that lives on the wealth with an army of thugs to protect him and his wealth.
Geez, Chris. Open your mind to the possibilities. Observe! Tell the truth.
Eat The Rich – Bill Whittle
Wealth Creation – Bill whittle
Wonder if the socialist council woman in Washington state was recommending the machinist workers take over the Boeing plant by force or pay for the property they want. And who was going to fill the duties and responsibilities of the displaced executives and how they planned to pay for their salaries?
Socialist City Council Member: Boeing ‘Workers Should Take Over The Factories’:
“SEATTLE (CBS Seattle/AP) — A newly elected Socialist city council member wants Boeing machinists to take possession of an airplane-building factory if the company decides to move out of state.
“The workers should take over the factories, and shut down Boeing’s profit-making machine,” Council member-elect Kshama Sawant told union supporters earlier this week, according to KIRO-TV.
Sawant claims Boeing executives are taking part in “economic terrorism” considering out-of-state locations to build the new 777X airliner after machinists rejected a contract that would have guaranteed jobs in Everett for eight years.
“The only response we can have if Boeing executives do not agree to keep the plant here is for the machinists to say, ‘The machines are here, the workers are here, we will do the job, we don’t need the executives. The executives don’t do the work, the machinists do,” she told union supporters in Westlake Park, according to KIRO.”
Continued..
http://seattle.cbslocal.com/2013/11/22/socialist-city-council-member-boeing-workers-should-take-over-the-factories/
Peggy makes you wonder how so many of them can run around saying, I’m not a communist (or fascist or socialist) just because I have a few Marxist or fascist ideas!”
Remember when Maxine Waters slipped, and nearly spilled the beans, about the Democrat plan to take over…er…ahh…basically run the oil companies? She lost it and basically threatened an oil exec:
They were all enamored with Hugo Chavez at the time…and yet they deny who they are.
The President has place big union lawyers in charge at the NLRB. The board is supposed to be balanced and fair…ha!
We’re going to see a lot of this in the next couple of years.
But why won’t the Marxists/fascists come out of the closet? It isn’t like we can’t see what they do!
Tina, I’m sure it is as shocking to you as it is to me that in our life-time we’ve gone from the McCarthy communist hunt trials to voting for communists, Marxists, socialists at our representatives in local, state and national positions.
Allen West warned us they were already is Congress. Waters’ slips up that was captured on tape also showed the guy next to her realizing too what she’d done. Instead of a surprised look on his face though he had a smirky smile like oops you just let the cat out of the bag.
Van Jones, a self identified communist was chosen by Obama as his green czar advisor. Valarie Jarrett recommended Jones to Obama from knowing and working with him in Oakland. These are facts not rumors and the lists is growing. There’s also a video of Jarrett talking about her and Jones in Oakland.
Did you every think that Christians and other people of faith would be criticized and attacked as viciously as the Jewish faith was during my youth? That we would become a country so much more divided by our faith, skin color, social standing and earned income today. I remember wanting to live in a nice home like the people up on the hill did instead of in the one bedroom apartment I shared with my mom and brother. It was expected of everyone who could to want to make their own lives better. Those who didn’t were called bums.
Did you ever believe conservative in Hollywood would be treated like the communist of the 1950s? Fearing they’d be put on the “black list” and not get another acting job. They’ve even formed a secret club called Friends of Abe (Lincoln). They meet in secret locations attended by verbal invite only for fear anything in writing will fall into the hands of a progressive and their careers ruined.
To me it’s shocking conservatives are the ones now in hiding while communist and the other big government in control forms of government the ones trying to expose and out who they are. It’s the McCarthy trials almost with roles reversed.
We’d be paying European prices for gas today if it wasn’t for the gas and oil coming out of private land. Obama cutting and limiting oil and coal and then taking credit for the private sector caused gas price reduction is just another one of his lies.
The next president is going to have a huge job cleaning up this mess. Hopefully, the NLRB and other appointees will be replaced ASAP and the damage done reversed. He/she will need a very strong team to start us back on the road to a balanced budget, economic growth and a united we stand attitude instead of the my way or the highway we have now.
Tina, I’ve admitted that the Reagan and Kennedy tax cuts stimulated the economy. But it is downright stupid to act like that proves we should lower taxes today.
It’s funny how conservatives that make this argument almost never say what the tax rate actually WAS back then. Kennedy cut taxes on the top 2%…all the way down to 70%! Reagan cut taxes from 70% down to 50% in his first four years, with seemingly positive economic results. The results of his second big tax cut, which lowered taxes all the way down to 28%, seemed to have more mixed results. But it should be noted that Reagan also raised the capital gains tax to make it equal to income tax, and closed loopholes, two things modern Republicans have shown no interest in doing. Differences between Reagan’s tax plan and Romney’s can be seen here:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/janetnovack/2012/10/22/10-reasons-reagan-could-cut-the-top-tax-rate-to-28-but-romney-cant/
Even Bruce Bartlett, the chief architect of Reagan’s tax plan, has said we need a different solution today and that further cutting taxes on so-called “job creators” won’t work today. One only has to look at the effect of the Bush tax cuts for evidence of that. The Bush administration estimated that the cuts would raise revenue, but they were wrong. Revenue as a proportion of GDP actually fell as a result of the Bush tax cuts.
Too many conservatives don’t seem to understand that the Laffer curve goes both ways. The Laffer curve doesn’t show that we should always lower taxes. It shows that there is an optimal level of taxation that will maximize revenue. We are clearly below that level right now.
Today the biggest obstacle to job creation, according to most small business owners, is not tax policy or regulations. It is lack of demand. Our current climate of low taxes on the rich, record corporate profits, and high unemployment and poverty shows that trickle-down does not always work.
The quickest way to stimulate demand is to put more money in the pockets of poor and middle-class workers. Yes, we do need more redistribution; it’s no coincidence that countries that have embraced redistribution in light of the worldwide financial crisis (Sweden, Denmark, Australia) have recovered much faster than countries which have embraced austerity (England, Germany).
It’s not that I don’t respect property rights. But we have always balanced those rights with other concerns. We have thrived as a nation at times when the government took much more out of the pockets of the rich than they do now. We can do it again.
We’ve been through this before Chris and you had the same excuses and arguments.
It is obvious, painfully so, that the policies this president has embraced wholeheartedly do not work. We are living the result of his recovery plans and prosperity is always…”just around the corner”…just like it was during the Great Depression when similar policies extended the depression unnecessarily.
The rates are not the thing. the thing is how the rates affect economic activity. it doesn’t matter how rates compare to yesteryear. What matters is how competitive they are today and to what degree they blunt or inspire private investment.
It is STUPID to take more from the private sector after a recession…worse after a recession and crash . That is exactly when a nation needs its job creators to take a risk…they won’t do it if government is taking more of their investment capital for “redistribution and creating pages and pages of expensive regulations. Increases in both taxes and regulation create uncertainty about the future.
This is just common sense. It is incredible that you cannot seem to grasp it.
You can take more from the rich…you just won’t see much job growth and in the long run you might just see real hard core depression. This is too important to your future (And to the futures of my grandchildren) for you not to get it. Please do some alternate reading by those who have seen it work and who know from personal experience how and why it works.
Tina: “That is exactly when a nation needs its job creators to take a risk…”
I agree wholeheartedly, but to paraphrase Nick Hanauer, the difference is that I know who the job creators are and you don’t.
When you say “job creators,” it’s always code for rich people. But rich people do not create jobs when there is no demand. For the millionth time: the main reason the market is suffering right now is that people can’t afford to buy what businesses are selling. A business is not going to hire people to do jobs when there are not enough customers for their product. This is also common sense.
You talk about this president’s failed policies, but you ignore the fact that the Bush tax cuts (at least on the wealthy) failed. We were told that they would increase revenues. They did not. That is a fact. (You have previously tried to attribute a normal yearly increase in the dollar amount of revenues to the Bush tax cuts, even though revenue as a percentage of GDP went down and the dollar amount goes up nearly every year regardless of policy–please don’t try that again.)
Raising taxes on the rich to redistribute to the poor is exactly what we need to do right now. When middle class and poor customers have more money to spend, businesses will create more jobs to meet the demand.
FOR PUBLICATION
RAISE TAXES ON RICH TO REWARD TRUE JOB CREATORS
by Nick Hanauer
It is a tenet of American economic beliefs, and an article of faith for Republicans that is seldom contested by Democrats: If taxes are raised on the rich, job creation will stop.
Trouble is, sometimes the things that we know to be true are dead wrong. For the larger part of human history, for example, people were sure that the sun circles the Earth and that we are at the center of the universe. It doesn’t, and we aren’t. The conventional wisdom that the rich and businesses are our nation’s “job creators” is every bit as false.
I’m a very rich person. As an entrepreneur and venture capitalist, I’ve started or helped get off the ground dozens of companies in industries including manufacturing, retail, medical services, the Internet and software. I founded the Internet media company aQuantive Inc., which was acquired by Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) in 2007 for $6.4 billion. I was also the first non-family investor in Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN)
Even so, I’ve never been a “job creator.” I can start a business based on a great idea, and initially hire dozens or hundreds of people. But if no one can afford to buy what I have to sell, my business will soon fail and all those jobs will evaporate.
That’s why I can say with confidence that rich people don’t create jobs, nor do businesses, large or small. What does lead to more employment is the feedback loop between customers and businesses. And only consumers can set in motion a virtuous cycle that allows companies to survive and thrive and business owners to hire. An ordinary middle-class consumer is far more of a job creator than I ever have been or ever will be.
Theory of Evolution
When businesspeople take credit for creating jobs, it is like squirrels taking credit for creating evolution. In fact, it’s the other way around.
It is unquestionably true that without entrepreneurs and investors, you can’t have a dynamic and growing capitalist economy. But it’s equally true that without consumers, you can’t have entrepreneurs and investors.
And the more we have happy customers with lots of disposable income, the better our businesses will do.
That’s why our current policies are so upside down. When the American middle class defends a tax system in which the lion’s share of benefits accrues to the richest, all in the name of job creation, all that happens is that the rich get richer.
And that’s what has been happening in the U.S. for the last 30 years.
Since 1980, the share of the nation’s income for fat cats like me in the top 0.1 percent has increased a shocking 400 percent, while the share for the bottom 50 percent of Americans has declined 33 percent. At the same time, effective tax rates on the superwealthy fell to 16.6 percent in 2007, from 42 percent at the peak of U.S. productivity in the early 1960s, and about 30 percent during the expansion of the 1990s. In my case, that means that this year, I paid an 11 percent rate on an eight-figure income.
One reason this policy is so wrong-headed is that there can never be enough superrich Americans to power a great economy. The annual earnings of people like me are hundreds, if not thousands, of times greater than those of the average American, but we don’t buy hundreds or thousands of times more stuff. My family owns three cars, not 3,000. I buy a few pairs of pants and a few shirts a year, just like most American men. Like everyone else, I go out to eat with friends and family only occasionally.
It’s true that we do spend a lot more than the average family. Yet the one truly expensive line item in our budget is our airplane (which, by the way, was manufactured in France by Dassault Aviation SA (AM)), and those annual costs are mostly for fuel (from the Middle East). It’s just crazy to believe that any of this is more beneficial to our economy than hiring more teachers or police officers or investing in our infrastructure.
More Shoppers Needed
I can’t buy enough of anything to make up for the fact that millions of unemployed and underemployed Americans can’t buy any new clothes or enjoy any meals out. Or to make up for the decreasing consumption of the tens of millions of middle-class families that are barely squeaking by, buried by spiraling costs and trapped by stagnant or declining wages.
If the average American family still got the same share of income they earned in 1980, they would have an astounding $13,000 more in their pockets a year. It’s worth pausing to consider what our economy would be like today if middle-class consumers had that additional income to spend.
It is mathematically impossible to invest enough in our economy and our country to sustain the middle class (our customers) without taxing the top 1 percent at reasonable levels again. Shifting the burden from the 99 percent to the 1 percent is the surest and best way to get our consumer-based economy rolling again.
Significant tax increases on the about $1.5 trillion in collective income of those of us in the top 1 percent could create hundreds of billions of dollars to invest in our economy, rather than letting it pile up in a few bank accounts like a huge clot in our nation’s economic circulatory system.
Consider, for example, that a puny 3 percent surtax on incomes above $1 million would be enough to maintain and expand the current payroll tax cut beyond December, preventing a $1,000 increase on the average worker’s taxes at the worst possible time for the economy. With a few more pennies on the dollar, we could invest in rebuilding schools and infrastructure.
And even if we imposed a millionaires’ surtax and rolled back the Bush- era tax cuts for those at the top, the taxes on the richest Americans would still be historically low, and their incomes would still be astronomically high.
We’ve had it backward for the last 30 years. Rich businesspeople like me don’t create jobs. Middle-class consumers do, and when they thrive, U.S. businesses grow and profit. That’s why taxing the rich to pay for investments that benefit all is a great deal for both the middle class and the rich.
So let’s give a break to the true job creators. Let’s tax the rich like we once did and use that money to spur growth by putting purchasing power back in the hands of the middle class. And let’s remember that capitalists without customers are out of business.”