Some deep thoughts:
8/8/10 15:30![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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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.
(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)
Date: 9/8/10 02:12 (UTC)