Some deep thoughts:
8/8/10 15:30![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
underlankers.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
talkpoliticsI was looking at some statistics and comparisons the other day and I thought since it appears to be History Week I'd share them. First, I will state my opinion on statistics in any real sense is summed up by this phrase: you have liars, damned liars, and statisticians.
The first statistic is that under the current Obama Administration two things have occurred/will occur as regards taxes: first, under President Obama taxes are at their lowest since the 1950s. Complaint by the Teabaggers about severity of taxes to me are thus difficult to explain as Dwight D. Eisenhower taxed the American people at levels vastly in excess to those done by President Obama's Administration under much less trying circumstances than the current President has.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/taxes/2010-05-10-taxes_N.htm
So if taxes are this low, whence the complaints about undue taxation?
The other statistic as per here: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/01/22/politics/main4747949.shtml is that the current President passed the biggest tax cuts of *any* President since before WWII. He did this despite inheriting two long wars with the concurrent massive expenditure that has very much everything to do with the credit crunch at present. Wars are expensive and thus constrict credit. Yet nobody points out that particular elephant in the room.
Another pair of interesting data are as follows: http://www.bnet.com/blog/healthcare-business/health-spending-hits-173-percent-of-gdp-in-largest-annual-jump/1117 Health care at present under the private enterprise system vastly exceeds spending on the defense budget. This is in no small part due to the rise in costs of Medicare. In the midst of two wars which look on pace both of them to pass a decade's worth of dropping multi-million dollar bombs on Middle Easterners who don't like a foreign occupier who's long on promises and short on delivery health care rises and now makes up over 60 percent of US bankruptcies: http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/06/05/bankruptcy.medical.bills/ and thus is not only the fastest growing problem in GDP but is increasingly an economic issue. All this, I may note, under that lovely free market system that is even longer on promise and shorter on delivery than the government has been.
And as per 2010 the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars total over 1 trillion for results that to me amount to bupkiss: http://www.nationalpriorities.org/costofwar_home. So if I am to understand the fiscal conservatism crowd, as Medicare skyrockets we are must let it alone, and we must also eschew raising taxes in the midst of wars that now total over 1 trillion and must be continued forever for no gain. These wars have pitted a 21st Century superpower army against shepherds armed with improvised weapons.....and the shepherds are kicking our asses around the block, having adapted to our tactics much faster than we've done to theirs. In the midst of 2 fiscally ruinous and unwinnable wars concurrent costs that are to the Right Wing never to be trimmed we are to take courses that will destroy us?
I have a hard time seeing how fiscal conservatism can be defined as ruinous expenditures on white elephant wars and ignoring two glaring pork barrel refuges in the national budget and being blind also to the question of paying for budgets that will cripple my generation and my grandchildren's generations, while the faction most bent on ensuring things are this way lies through its teeth to claim it is also the most concerned about this. So do enlighten me as to how the things described, all of which have been left to get increasingly rotten by the GOP, whose ideas consist of "NOOOOO!!!!" and "STATUS QUO" over and over again, can be solved under Conservative ideas.
And yes, I am well aware of the "Group X has no idea so we don't need one" fallacy so that does not count as an answer.
The first statistic is that under the current Obama Administration two things have occurred/will occur as regards taxes: first, under President Obama taxes are at their lowest since the 1950s. Complaint by the Teabaggers about severity of taxes to me are thus difficult to explain as Dwight D. Eisenhower taxed the American people at levels vastly in excess to those done by President Obama's Administration under much less trying circumstances than the current President has.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/taxes/2010-05-10-taxes_N.htm
So if taxes are this low, whence the complaints about undue taxation?
The other statistic as per here: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/01/22/politics/main4747949.shtml is that the current President passed the biggest tax cuts of *any* President since before WWII. He did this despite inheriting two long wars with the concurrent massive expenditure that has very much everything to do with the credit crunch at present. Wars are expensive and thus constrict credit. Yet nobody points out that particular elephant in the room.
Another pair of interesting data are as follows: http://www.bnet.com/blog/healthcare-business/health-spending-hits-173-percent-of-gdp-in-largest-annual-jump/1117 Health care at present under the private enterprise system vastly exceeds spending on the defense budget. This is in no small part due to the rise in costs of Medicare. In the midst of two wars which look on pace both of them to pass a decade's worth of dropping multi-million dollar bombs on Middle Easterners who don't like a foreign occupier who's long on promises and short on delivery health care rises and now makes up over 60 percent of US bankruptcies: http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/06/05/bankruptcy.medical.bills/ and thus is not only the fastest growing problem in GDP but is increasingly an economic issue. All this, I may note, under that lovely free market system that is even longer on promise and shorter on delivery than the government has been.
And as per 2010 the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars total over 1 trillion for results that to me amount to bupkiss: http://www.nationalpriorities.org/costofwar_home. So if I am to understand the fiscal conservatism crowd, as Medicare skyrockets we are must let it alone, and we must also eschew raising taxes in the midst of wars that now total over 1 trillion and must be continued forever for no gain. These wars have pitted a 21st Century superpower army against shepherds armed with improvised weapons.....and the shepherds are kicking our asses around the block, having adapted to our tactics much faster than we've done to theirs. In the midst of 2 fiscally ruinous and unwinnable wars concurrent costs that are to the Right Wing never to be trimmed we are to take courses that will destroy us?
I have a hard time seeing how fiscal conservatism can be defined as ruinous expenditures on white elephant wars and ignoring two glaring pork barrel refuges in the national budget and being blind also to the question of paying for budgets that will cripple my generation and my grandchildren's generations, while the faction most bent on ensuring things are this way lies through its teeth to claim it is also the most concerned about this. So do enlighten me as to how the things described, all of which have been left to get increasingly rotten by the GOP, whose ideas consist of "NOOOOO!!!!" and "STATUS QUO" over and over again, can be solved under Conservative ideas.
And yes, I am well aware of the "Group X has no idea so we don't need one" fallacy so that does not count as an answer.
Deep thoughts
Date: 8/8/10 20:43 (UTC)In seriousness, "The first statistic is that under the current Obama Administration two things have occurred/will occur as regards taxes: first, under President Obama taxes are at their lowest since the 1950s."
True, but isn't the tax base being raised again, under the Health Care Act, back to their Clinton-era levels?
Edit: I don't have a problem with taxes being increased. Hell, I do not think that Clinton-level taxation is high enough.
Re: Deep thoughts
Date: 8/8/10 20:53 (UTC)Re: Deep thoughts
Date: 8/8/10 20:54 (UTC)Re: Deep thoughts
From:(no subject)
Date: 8/8/10 20:48 (UTC)The main complaint is that they will be raised, and they will need to be raised really high in order to pay for the spending going on, and the spending that is proposed and still to come.
Also: Thus, it may well be that Tea Party people are those who are taxed higher than the average (where again "average" is a useless number).
This statement is nonsensical, as you cannot give a tax cut to someone who is already not paying tax. Also, again, only some people are getting tax cuts, and most of those "cuts" are only temporary rebates.
You can note it all you want, but you're still wrong. We do not have a free market system with health care, not even close, and haven't for a long time. The government has been making the costs higher for many years and every time the government is pushed to "fix" it, it gets worse.
Yes, the GOP wants to keep Medicare, that doesn't mean fiscal conservatives do.
(no subject)
Date: 8/8/10 20:56 (UTC)2) This is true, for the 50% that actually pay taxes as the real 'Baggers are extremely wealthy doctor-types.
3) No True Scotsman Fallacy. And do Fiscal Conservatives have a problem with both these two wars we're currently spending ourselves to death for no gain to fight senselessly?
(no subject)
Date: 8/8/10 22:05 (UTC)3. Fighting a war (or two) is not a fiscal issue.
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
Date: 8/8/10 20:58 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 8/8/10 20:59 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 8/8/10 21:12 (UTC)Under tax system 1 you will be taxed
25% on 80% of it wih the other 20% claimable as deductions
Under tax system 2 you will be taxed
60% on 30% of it with the other 70% being exempted as deductions.
In which are you paying more taxes.
No run along and come back when you have learned the lesson that marginal tax rates are meaningless. What matters is what percentage of the taxes are being paid.
If effective taxes are proportional to income they are "Fair and Balanced" if they are not then there needs to be some correction.
well, today the top 1% of tax payers earn 20% of the income and pay 40% of the taxes.
They pay twice the percentage of the taxes as they earn in income.
In other words they are overtaxed.
(no subject)
Date: 8/8/10 22:26 (UTC)they are overtaxed
that's funny--sad, but funny
(no subject)
Date: 8/8/10 22:27 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 9/8/10 01:40 (UTC)How about a sane tax policy that abandons the insanity of severe progressive taxation?
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
Date: 9/8/10 01:26 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 9/8/10 01:51 (UTC)That have over half the net wealth but they only account for about 20% of the income.
20% of the income pays for 40% of the taxes
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
Date: 9/8/10 04:52 (UTC)I am not claiming that they are paying 40% of what they earn in taxes.
I'm claiming (well actually the IRS is) that 40% of all taxes collected come from the top 1% of wage earners.
Further (again according to the IRS itself) 20% of all income BEFORE deductions, loopholes, and exemptions are reported by that same top 1%
In other words even after using all those deductions, exemptions and loopholes the highest earning 1% of wage earners actually did in fact pay 40% of all income taxes received by the Federal Government but they earned only 20% of the gross income reported.
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:(no subject)
Date: 8/8/10 21:14 (UTC)For you it's History Century. :-)
(no subject)
Date: 9/8/10 01:17 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 9/8/10 01:34 (UTC)First, as your cited article notes it is a combination of previous tax rate cuts and the recession which are lowering the amount of income paid as taxes. In addition the "study" doesn't include payroll taxes because they are "insurance". (Um....)
Second, what people are complaining about (as if you haven't ever been told this before) is the incredibly high levels of spending and the massive increases in taxes coming down the pike to pay for it that are the biggest problem.
Just how do you think several trillion dollars in debt is going to get repaid if not through tax increases? (Like the ones coming January 1st when Congress fails to act on the Bush tax cuts.)
History has proven that Congress will stop spending over its dead body.
(no subject)
Date: 9/8/10 02:19 (UTC)Here comes that sign again:
I realize that asking intellectual honesty is too much from the modern Right but ya'll motherfuckers used this slogan first so deal with it coming back to haunt you.
My point is nobody complains about using million dollar missiles to blow up tents for the purpose of unwinnable wars but the mere prospect of using that money in our own country puts people in conniptions.
(no subject)
Date: 9/8/10 01:37 (UTC)'Complaint by the Teabaggers about severity of taxes to me are thus difficult to explain...'
per link-
The real problem is spending,counters Adam Brandon of FreedomWorks, which organizes Tea Party groups. "The money we borrow is going to be paid back through taxation in the future," he says.
(no subject)
Date: 9/8/10 02:13 (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 9/8/10 04:08 (UTC)Sorry, but you are better than, if he didn't complain then he shouldn't complain now......The bottom line is it does have to stop, and somehow we do have to come together for solutions. (I don't necessarily mean we here...heck I'm not sure what I mean anymore, I'm considering voting for Gov Moonbeam) (Jerry Brown in Ca)
(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:The real GOP problem...
Date: 9/8/10 02:19 (UTC)The economy is good? Cut taxes for the wealthy, so they'll invest their money!
The ecomony is bad? Cut taxes for the wealthy, so they'll invest their money!
The deficit is growing? Cut taxes for the wealthy, so they'll invest their money!
The deficit is shrinking? Cut taxes for the wealthy, so they'll invest their money!
And on and on...war or peace, good times or bad, financial stability or instability: on this issue, Republicans are a one-note band. In fact, I'd be really curious to know under which circumstances the GOP might consider it appropriate to not lower taxes, to say nothing of raising them.
Re: The real GOP problem...
Date: 9/8/10 04:09 (UTC)Re: The real GOP problem...
From: