Who Won the Debate?

[buckshot24]

I agree the economy needs help, I do not agree that raising taxes has the potential to slow growth, do you have actual facts to the contrary or is this your gut feeling? I've already explained the benefits of raising taxes. I can't really help you if you fail to read my full posts.

Would raising taxes to 100% slow growth? 90%? 75%? 50%?

How can you disagree that raising taxes at least has the potential to slow growth? At some point taxes will slow growth no matter what you say. Will raising taxes 1%? Probably not much. But at some point you have to see that taxes can slow growth.

I call it like I see it. You shouldn't be offended though, you should be ashamed. Ashamed that you let politicians and pundits lie to you without fact checking what they say.

If you feel comfortable in calling people names then that is on you. I could call you names but that doesn't help anything.

People are avoiding taxes now and taxes are pretty damn low historically so point is moot.

Raising taxes increases the incentive to avoid taxes.

Bush ended his term with a negative job loss of 1.79 million (add total jobs created/lost from both terms), compared to Obama who has a net of 3.354 million new jobs.

Well your source laid blame at the Clinton administration's feet for the meltdown so unless you are disagreeing with your source you can't blame Bush entirely for the job losses. Like I said though I am not too interested in defending Bush, he isn't going to run again.

I didn't make that claim so I don't know what you are talking about. The Bush tax cuts did add to the debt, a lot I might add.

We're talking about tax rates! You brought up Bush and what happened at the end of his term as some sort of indication that Obama's tax policy is better than Bush's. You are using an event that you admit had nothing to do with taxes and claiming that low taxes don't work.

I have no idea what you are talking about so I can't answer you.

I thought it was pretty straight forward. Obama wants to raise capital gains tax rates by 9%. This means that an investor must consider this extra 9% when considering making an investment. The extra 9% makes it harder for an investment to make money. So my question again...

Will raising capital gains tax rates create more investment or less of it?

By all means post your source. But even if you have a source you still have absolutely zero evidence to prove your claim.

Actually it is Obama but he was talking about in recession (I mis-remembered it) but this is sort of a quibble since our economic growth is so slow right now anyway. So I'll give you what I was thinking but his quote doesn't technically apply in the current situation.

It's completely relevant! If I make my money doing A and I'm running for president and I propose policies that make me even more money by doing A, that doesn't raise red flags for you? At the very least you should be asking yourself, "who does this benefit? How many people will be affected by this negatively or positively". Instead, you don't see how it relates to you therefore it doesn't relate to you, wake the fuck up it does affect you!

Do you honestly think Romney is running for president to lower cap gains so he can make more money!?!? This may be the most ridiculous thing I've heard in quite some time. Romney spent a year of his life running in 2008. He's spent 1.5 years of his life running this 2011-2012. Don't you think if he spent 2.5 years of his life concentrating on making money that he could make a ton more than a few percentage points on cap gains? Is that your argument? I'm sorry but that is just absurd.

But seriously folks, you asked me about my tax returns and I told you that they aren't relevant to this discussion because I don't make my money through capital investments. I am woke up dude.

Show me where it says they must loosen their lending requirements.
http://www.ncrc.org/programs-a-servi...a-mainmenu-136

Did you read your source? Or was your confirmation bias so strong that you missed the obvious reference to Clinton being partially culpable for the meltdown?

The Clinton administration, which pushed for less stringent credit and downpayment requirements for working- and middle-class families.

So which of these bullet points do you agree with and which do you not agree with?

CRA has been in existence since 1977 your conclusion is wrong. Again if you have some facts or citations that show otherwise go ahead and post them.

And Clinton did nothing to it? You call me a parrot?

It might as well be negative? You don't see the difference between a whole in the boat and a leak?

A slow leak will sink a ship if you don't either fix it or remove more water than what is coming into the boat.

Things are getting worse? What "things" are these? The unemployment rate hasn't gone up.

So ask yourself how the job growth numbers aren't keeping up with the size of the workforce then? How can these two facts co-exist? People quit looking for work so they don't count any longer.

The stock market hasn't gone down.

They love it when the FED prints money.

The housing market is rebounding.

It couldn't help not to but it's probably because real estate value has been diminished so much.

There has been 30 consecutive months of job growth.

More people leaving the work force because they can't find work than the jobs that are added. We are supposed to be in recovery! 30k-50k is pathetic.

Are things great? Hell no! Do things need to improve? Hell yes! Are things getting worse? No!

I'll disagree here since job growth rate isn't keeping pace with population growth rate (meaning kids graduating and entering the job market).

Why did we have to do TARP in the first place? Was it because the economy was falling like a rock? Are things great right now? So under Bush trying to fix the economy was ok with you and the extreme amount of spending was also ok but Obama, he should fix the economy with magic!

Here's where your "parrot" name leads you astray. I don't like big spending no matter who does it? Bush let me down in so many ways but you are assuming that he is my idol because I espouse conservative ideas. You didn't answer my question about why should Obama keep spending at the same levels as they were during an emergency situation? (whether I agreed with TARP is irrelevant).

I'd love to hear your standards for how things should be fixed because I wouldn't want the next president to violate those standards. Do you know how to fix the economy? I don't think you do and yet you sure as shit know what we shouldn't be doing!

I don't have all of the answers never claimed to but I do have a set of principles that I would like to see our government move towards. Lower spending, less entitlements, less government, lower taxes across the board, less regulation, easier tax code, more liberty etc. etc. Obama is moving us away from all of these principles and that is why I am so against him.

LOL how old are you? Obamacare bad! Yes please do tell me why you think it's bad and why he wont accomplish what it set out to do. Speaking of which, what in your mind was the purpose of Obamacare? Also if you think I'm going to disagree with you on something and you would be happy to tell me why, just fucking say why, I really shouldn't have to respond to each of your points asking for more detail.

You can respond or not, I'm for liberty

I was just in an obamacare exchange in another thread I don't think expanding it to here would be such a good idea.

So oil production is up but gas prices are still high, does that tell you something? Exactly what would you have Obama do? And please be specific, I'm extremely curious to hear how you think you could lower gas prices.

No it doesn't tell me anything. You have this zero sum game mentality that permeates all of your arguments. Let's say we didn't have the supply we are getting from private firms expanding drilling techniques. Don't you think oil prices would be even higher? Will more supply create lower or higher oil prices?

Yes I'll dismiss your sources just like you dismissed mine so I guess it's pointless to post your citations. Brilliant!

I didn't dismiss your sources out of hand in fact I even used one of them to show you that I was right. But the fact that factcheck.org says something doesn't make it right. I could go through it point by point if I wanted to but that would require way too much work and I don't have enough motivation to be honest.

The number one rule of the right, accuse your opponent of the very thing you are doing.

I guess I don't know how I did that.

Good job parrot!

You're a good man

 

[pandemonium]

I don't see any sources in that giant, break-out response you spent an hour putting together.

 

[Matt1970]

It's not a matter of what I believe, it's the facts that matter and you have yet to present any.

Here is my source;
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3798


Where is your source and I'm sorry you can't link to your gut.

There is no point in presenting facts to someone who thinks cutting capital gains taxes doesn't lead to greater investment in the stock market.

 

[buckshot24]

I don't see any sources in that giant, break-out response you spent an hour putting together.

I quoted one of his sources that says what I was saying.

What do you think needs to be sourced?

 

[buckshot24]

Ok, here is one source...

"In general, there is significant consensus that broad-based
reductions in taxes on capital have the potential to boost
economic growth over the long run. Reductions in capital
taxation increase the return on investment and therefore the
formation of capital. The resulting increase in the capital
stock yields greater output and higher incomes throughout
much of the economy"
http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/ftpdocs/38xx/doc3856/taxbrief2.pdf

 

[jackstar7]

There is no point in presenting facts to someone who thinks cutting capital gains taxes doesn't lead to greater investment in the stock market.

Diminishing returns.

 

[ivwshane]

Ok, here is one source...

"In general, there is significant consensus that broad-based
reductions in taxes on capital have the potential to boost
economic growth over the long run. Reductions in capital
taxation increase the return on investment and therefore the
formation of capital. The resulting increase in the capital
stock yields greater output and higher incomes throughout
much of the economy"
http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/ftpdocs/38xx/doc3856/taxbrief2.pdf

From the same source:
Largely because of the stock market boom of the 1990
gains rose as a percentage of individual income tax receip
from about 7 percent in each year in the first half of th
decade to about 12 percent in 2000. The jump in realiz
tions in the late 1990s accounted for about 30 percent of th
growth in income tax receipts in excess of GDP growth th
occurred from 1994 to 1999.
3
No one yet knows for sur
but a fall in capital gains realizations may have played
similarly important role in the drop in receipts in 2002.

In your own quote the consensus is that there potential, it's not a given.

Here is another quote from the source you apparently didn't read:
Rising gains receipts in response to a rate cut are
most likely to occur in the short run. Postponing or ad-
vancing realizations by a year is relatively easy compared
with doing so over much longer periods. In addition, a stock
of accumulated gains may be realized shortly after the rate is
cut, but once that accumulation is “unlocked,” the stock of
accrued gains is smaller and realizations cannot continue at
as fast a rate as they did initially

I'll just continue quoting them (great source by the way)
The potentially large difference between
the long- and short-term sensitivity of realizations to tax
rates can mislead observers into assuming a greater perma-
nent responsiveness than actually exists.

Because of the other influences on realizations, the relation-
ship between them and tax rates can be hard to detect and
easy to confuse with other phenomena. For example, a
number of observers have attributed the rapid rise in realiza-
tions in the late 1990s to the 1997 cut in capital gains tax
rates. But the 45 percent increase in realizations in 1996
—before the cut—exceeded the 40 percent and 25 percent
increases in 1997 and 1998 that followed it. Careful studies
have failed to agree on how responsive gains realizations are
to changes in tax rates, with estimates of that responsiveness
varying widely

And while reductions in the overall taxation of capital in-
come can measurably increase economic growth, a cut in
capital gains taxes alone is likely to produce much smaller
macroeconomic effects. Inaccuracies in projecting revenue
and disagreements about the effects of tax changes stem not
from a failure to incorporate the behavioral responses of
asset holders but from the complexities inherent in the na-
ture of gains and gains realizations.

Sounds conclusive doesn't it? /s

 

[monovillage]

George F. Will
Opinion Writer

"Romney hits a trifecta in Denver"

The presidential campaign, hitherto a plod through a torrent of words tedious beyond words, began to dance in Denver. There a masterfully prepared Mitt Romney completed a trifecta of tasks and unveiled an issue that, because it illustrates contemporary liberalism’s repellant essence, can constitute his campaign’s closing argument.

Barack Obama, knight of the peevish countenance, illustrated William F. Buckley’s axiom that liberals who celebrate tolerance of other views always seem amazed that there are other views. Obama, who is not known as a martyr to the work ethic and who might use a teleprompter when ordering lunch, seemed uncomfortable with a format that allowed fluidity of discourse. .........................................................

Luck is not always the residue of design, and Romney was lucky that the first debate concerned the economy, a subject that to him is a hanging curveball and to Obama is a dancing knuckleball. The topic helped Romney accomplish three things.

First, recent polls showing him losing were on the verge of becoming self-fulfilling prophesies by discouraging his supporters and inspiriting Obama’s. Romney, unleashing his inner wonk about economic matters, probably stabilized public opinion and prevented a rush to judgment as early voting accelerates.

Second, Romney needed to be seen tutoring Obama on such elementary distinctions as that between reducing tax rates (while simultaneously reducing, by means-testing, the value of deductions) and reducing revenues, revenues being a function of economic growth, which the rate reductions could stimulate.

Third, Romney needed to rivet the attention of the electorate, in which self-identified conservatives outnumber self-identified liberals 2 to 1

I'm not a big Will fan, but this was a nice opinion piece and one that I think nailed it.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...4fc77a-0e4d-11e2-bb5e-492c0d30bff6_story.html

 

[ivwshane]

Would raising taxes to 100% slow growth? 90%? 75%? 50%?

How can you disagree that raising taxes at least has the potential to slow growth? At some point taxes will slow growth no matter what you say. Will raising taxes 1%? Probably not much. But at some point you have to see that taxes can slow growth.

Again I site history and history says we have had tax rates as high as 70+% and high growth.
Would you concede that raising taxes a paltry 4% on the highest income earners has the possibility of having zero affect on growth, positive or negative?

Here is a chart that illustrates that your gut feeling is full of shit:
http://www.addictinginfo.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/taxrates1.png

If you feel comfortable in calling people names then that is on you. I could call you names but that doesn't help anything.

Again I call it like I see it, feel free to call me names, nothing else is helping your argument

Raising taxes increases the incentive to avoid taxes.

Again, people are avoiding taxes now, show more than just a statement from your ass.

Well your source laid blame at the Clinton administration's feet for the meltdown so unless you are disagreeing with your source you can't blame Bush entirely for the job losses. Like I said though I am not too interested in defending Bush, he isn't going to run again.

Clinton is partly to blame as was congress, whats your point? Did I say it was all Bush's fault? No, and I'll do you one better, Bush even saw that there might be a potential issue and urged congress to do something about it but nothing came from it. Another strawman by you though.

We're talking about tax rates! You brought up Bush and what happened at the end of his term as some sort of indication that Obama's tax policy is better than Bush's. You are using an event that you admit had nothing to do with taxes and claiming that low taxes don't work.

Apparently I have to spell it out for you. Tax increases or tax decreases do not hurt growth or help it, there has been no proven correlation between the two. Do you get it now?

I thought it was pretty straight forward. Obama wants to raise capital gains tax rates by 9%. This means that an investor must consider this extra 9% when considering making an investment. The extra 9% makes it harder for an investment to make money. So my question again...

You just posted an article that clearly explained how capital gains taxes work and then you make this dumb ass statement. Capital gains taxes are paid when assets are sold, not bought. So that totally invalidates your point there.

Will raising capital gains tax rates create more investment or less of it?

See my previous statement.



Actually it is Obama but he was talking about in recession (I mis-remembered it) but this is sort of a quibble since our economic growth is so slow right now anyway. So I'll give you what I was thinking but his quote doesn't technically apply in the current situation.

Do you honestly think Romney is running for president to lower cap gains so he can make more money!?!? This may be the most ridiculous thing I've heard in quite some time. Romney spent a year of his life running in 2008. He's spent 1.5 years of his life running this 2011-2012. Don't you think if he spent 2.5 years of his life concentrating on making money that he could make a ton more than a few percentage points on cap gains? Is that your argument? I'm sorry but that is just absurd.

It must be nice living in a world where a politician can change his views and policies from week to week and it makes you all warm and fuzzy because he has been doing it for six years. Some people are greedy and all about their money and if you think Romney isn't one of those people than you don't know Mitt!

But seriously folks, you asked me about my tax returns and I told you that they aren't relevant to this discussion because I don't make my money through capital investments. I am woke up dude.


Did you read your source? Or was your confirmation bias so strong that you missed the obvious reference to Clinton being partially culpable for the meltdown?

I've already addressed this strawman the first time you stated it. There is plenty of blame to go around, wall street, home buyers, republicans, democrats, and others. Just because you think it's a "My side" against "Your side, doesn't mean I am. I'm all about the truth which is why I ask for citations and not just gut feelings, apparently you are not.


So which of these bullet points do you agree with and which do you not agree with?

And Clinton did nothing to it? You call me a parrot?

A slow leak will sink a ship if you don't either fix it or remove more water than what is coming into the boat.

Who do you think has been trying to fix it? The guy that wont give the details so you can analyze his plan? Or the guy that's tried to put together tough regulations and who has been willing to cut "untouchables"?
Be careful your bias might show


So ask yourself how the job growth numbers aren't keeping up with the size of the workforce then? How can these two facts co-exist? People quit looking for work so they don't count any longer.

Ask yourself this, who in congress is holding up a jobs bill that has a potential to put 1.3 million people to work?

They love it when the FED prints money.

The stock market has been rising because of inflation? interesting seeing as inflation is lower than under Bush and right about in line with the Clinton years.
http://inflationdata.com/inflation/Inflation_Rate/HistoricalInflation.aspx


It couldn't help not to but it's probably because real estate value has been diminished so much.

Except for the fact that prices have risen to the largest year over year gain since 2006.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2012/10/02/home-prices-rising/1608957/


More people leaving the work force because they can't find work than the jobs that are added. We are supposed to be in recovery! 30k-50k is pathetic.

It does suck and it will get worse as the baby boomers continue retiring. But please lets hear what you or Romney is going to do to spur growth faster (here's a hint: Romney says he will add 12 million new jobs, sounds great except that's the amount we are currently expecting to add now so his plan is to do nothing).

I'll disagree here since job growth rate isn't keeping pace with population growth rate (meaning kids graduating and entering the job market).

Disagree all you want but you haven't shown how things are getting worse. Regardless of who was president in the last four years we would have still had a higher population growth versus job growth. I'm curious though, how many jobs do we need per month to keep up with population growth?



Here's where your "parrot" name leads you astray. I don't like big spending no matter who does it? Bush let me down in so many ways but you are assuming that he is my idol because I espouse conservative ideas. You didn't answer my question about why should Obama keep spending at the same levels as they were during an emergency situation? (whether I agreed with TARP is irrelevant).

Either the economy sucks and we need to do like Bush started to help us get out of the mess or the economy is doing fine and we can stop spending? Which is it?

I don't have all of the answers never claimed to but I do have a set of principles that I would like to see our government move towards. Lower spending, less entitlements, less government, lower taxes across the board, less regulation, easier tax code, more liberty etc. etc. Obama is moving us away from all of these principles and that is why I am so against him.

Again please elaborate on everything you just said and show exactly how Obama is raising taxes, increasing government, increasing entitlements, making the tax code harder, and taking away your liberties. And then show me what Romney plans to do on the same issues.
If you cannot answer that then you are indeed a parrot and a pathetic one at that.

BTW, I omitted some of them because I know the answer. Less regulation is a funny one because you say you are for less of it yet conveniently forget that less regulation (during Clinton and the Bush years) is what helped us get into this financial mess but I'm sure you don't mind so long as you get less regulations (whatever that means to you personally I don't know).


You can respond or not, I'm for liberty

I was just in an obamacare exchange in another thread I don't think expanding it to here would be such a good idea.

No it doesn't tell me anything. You have this zero sum game mentality that permeates all of your arguments. Let's say we didn't have the supply we are getting from private firms expanding drilling techniques. Don't you think oil prices would be even higher? Will more supply create lower or higher oil prices?

No you just are incapable of using facts to back up your statements like the one above. Again, please show me how increased US oil production has led to decreased prices. Oil prices are controlled at the global level and anything we get here will go to the world market which still wont do anything for gas prices here unless India and China curb their use.

I didn't dismiss your sources out of hand in fact I even used one of them to show you that I was right. But the fact that factcheck.org says something doesn't make it right. I could go through it point by point if I wanted to but that would require way too much work and I don't have enough motivation to be honest.

Yes of course it would be too much work, instead it's easier to post a 10,000 response full of BS and non facts, I wouldn't want your world to crumble around you when the facts hit you in the face. You are right, you don't have the motivation to educate yourself.

I guess I don't know how I did that.

Because, like most parrots, you've been trained to do it automatically.

You're a good man

Please don't respond this time unless you have citations. Thanks

 

[pandemonium]

Ok, here is one source...

"In general, there is significant consensus that broad-based
reductions in taxes on capital have the potential to boost
economic growth over the long run. Reductions in capital
taxation increase the return on investment and therefore the
formation of capital. The resulting increase in the capital
stock yields greater output and higher incomes throughout
much of the economy"
http://www.cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/ftpdocs/38xx/doc3856/taxbrief2.pdf

A source that doesn't definitely say tax rates are related to economic growth and even states several times that it's difficult to determine? Well done, sir. Well done.

I can quote contextually removed statements as well!

Because of the other influences on realizations, the relationship between them and tax rates can be hard to detect and easy to confuse with other phenomena. For example, a number of observers have attributed the rapid rise in realizations in the late 1990s to the 1997 cut in capital gains tax rates. But the 45 percent increase in realizations in 1996 —before the cut—exceeded the 40 percent and 25 percent increases in 1997 and 1998 that followed it. Careful studies have failed to agree on how responsive gains realizations are to changes in tax rates, with estimates of that responsiveness varying widely.

Though, this immediately follows your quoted paragraph:

But the potential for big growth effects from a capital gains tax cut is much smaller than it is for a more general cut in the tax on capital. For example, Congressional researchers estimated that a cut of the magnitude proposed in 1990 or enacted in 1997 (25 percent to 30 percent) would reduce the tax on corporate capital by only 2.7 percent and would decrease the cost of capital by less than 1 percent.8 Some additional reduction in the cost of capital might result from the salutary effects of improved liquidity as a consequence of less lock-in. But such an impact would also be small.

One reason for those limited effects is that about half of gains are not taxed anyway because they are associated with assets whose basis is stepped up at death. A second reason is that although a cut in capital gains taxes helps reduce the cost of capital, it only affects the cost of a portion of a firm’s financing. It has no effect on the roughly one-third of corporate investment financed through debt. And it does not affect the estimated half of the return on equity-financed capital that comes in the form of dividends, which are subject to regular rather than capital gains tax rates. A third reason is that the tax rate on gains is already low relative to regular rates, so even a large percentage cut in the gains rate would have a relatively small effect on the cost of capital.

And while reductions in the overall taxation of capital income can measurably increase economic growth, a cut in capital gains taxes alone is likely to produce much smaller macroeconomic effects.

Shall we compare taxation versus growth along side with unemployment? I think we shall:

There's some factual data to compare. Enjoy!

 

[sportage]

On PBS...
Actually, why can not PBS become more creative and save their own rear ends?
There are things they could do to create revenue? Save big bird?
It might not be pretty, but there are ways.
Change programming. Lower the rail and compete with those other stations.
Hire more controversial news people, like those on msnbc and fox.
Give Howard Stern his own nightly show.
Start running a lot of commercials. Just like the other guys do.
I would think PBS could do something so they could be self sustaining. Stay afloat.
If fox can do,it, surely PBS could too?
At least compromise with programming.
Keep some of the good, while mixing in some of the bad.
Maybe add a reality show with low life red necks.
Hire Honey Boo Boo.
Or pick up one of those canceled network shows.
Try something...?

 

[zsdersw]

George F. Will
Opinion Writer

"Romney hits a trifecta in Denver"

I'm not a big Will fan, but this was a nice opinion piece and one that I think nailed it.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opini...4fc77a-0e4d-11e2-bb5e-492c0d30bff6_story.html

I normally like George Will and agree with what he writes. This time, though, I think he is overreaching in his opinion that the debate will have a significant impact.

Why do I like George Will? Because he's a true conservative.. not a neo-con. He's also not afraid to criticize his own party when it makes mistakes... which is something that is sorely lacking these days.

 

[BD2003]

On PBS...
Actually, why can not PBS become more creative and save their own rear ends?
There are things they could do to create revenue? Save big bird?
It might not be pretty, but there are ways.
Change programming. Lower the rail and compete with those other stations.
Hire more controversial news people, like those on msnbc and fox.
Give Howard Stern his own nightly show.
Start running a lot of commercials. Just like the other guys do.
I would think PBS could do something so they could be self sustaining. Stay afloat.
If fox can do,it, surely PBS could too?
At least compromise with programming.
Keep some of the good, while mixing in some of the bad.
Maybe add a reality show with low life red necks.
Hire Honey Boo Boo.
Or pick up one of those canceled network shows.
Try something...?

You basically just answered your own question.

Republicans just don't get it.

 

[buckshot24]

Please don't respond this time unless you have citations. Thanks

What about Clinton and your source? I used your citation, was your citation wrong on that point?

 

[bozack]

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/--GcowID39...JpIVOQ1oXQ/s400/elephant-fucking-a-donkey.jpg
Mitt dominated in this one....team O will truly have to step up their game next time

---------------------------------------
Thanks. I'm at work. A "NSFW" & link would have been a lot better than embedding that image. -Admin DrPizza

Sorry Dr. I work in a pretty casual environment so forget some people have to be mindful of stuff like that.

 

[buckshot24]

In your own quote the consensus is that there potential, it's not a given.

What more do you want? A statement that says with the same certainty that water is wet? The real problem is in pinpointing the exact cause when there are so many moving parts. In scientific testing, generally, you hold all other variables constant to determine the effect of the one variable you'd like to model. Unfortunately that just isn't possible in the case of the economy.

When you can't hold the non-test variables constant one can always claim that the other variables are impacting the one you are trying to determine. This is where you have to infer some things and use what you call "gut" I call it logic. This is why I was asking the questions I was asking you.

Will raising capital gains tax rates increase or decrease (or keep them the same) capital transactions? Are you more or less likely to sell an asset when the rate is higher or when it is lower? Everything else remaining equal.

But what really caused the boom in the late nineties? You've ruled out tax policy, you seem to disagree that cutting spending caused it since you think raising spending now is what we need. What was it?

 

[K1052]

Not by me. That is for Congress to work out based on DIRECTION and GUIDANCE from the President based on said President's ideals and intent.

Which is exactly why I believe Romney was on to something when he stuck to a very short list that describes his ideals and intent. It is not his job to figure out the specifics ahead of time. He merely points the ship in the right direction while Congress is supposed to make it move.

The main problem I have with Obama is that he is pointing the ship (giving GUIDANCE) in the completely wrong direction...

That's what got us sequestration. Without a practical framework all the intent and rhetoric in the world is worthless. Romney already committed to no additional revenue so that pretty much murders any bipartisan solution while he championed his history as governor as a bipartisan deal maker.

 

[K1052]

A few hundred million there, a few billion there, pretty soon it starts to add up to real money.

Paraphrased off the Dirksen quote.

It amounts to cleaning out the ashtray in a burning car and saying you've fixed it. Hell they barely even register against other programs from the discretionary budget like education, the VA, health and human service, NASA, DHS, etc.

 

[Rainsford]

I normally like George Will and agree with what he writes. This time, though, I think he is overreaching in his opinion that the debate will have a significant impact.

Why do I like George Will? Because he's a true conservative.. not a neo-con. He's also not afraid to criticize his own party when it makes mistakes... which is something that is sorely lacking these days.

He even went so far as to say the debate could constitute Romney's closing argument. Given that there are more than four weeks left in the election, I think Will is definitely overstating the impact of the debate.

But then again, I think George Will is generally a giant tool when it comes to political commentary. He might sometimes criticize his own side (although I honestly don't see that very often), but he's ridiculously predictable when it comes to commentary about the left. His debate-Obama, for example, seems less like an accurate assessment of Obama's performance and more like a preconceived Obama straw-man that some conservatives came up with the instant Obama stepped onto the national stage. It's hard to respect anybody as much of a political deep thinker, on any side, when their critique of the other side consists entirely of the usual generic talking points.

 

[OrByte]

The only time anyone is serious about cutting government spending is if they talk about medicare and SS

otherwise...no amount of government cuts matter much.

with the exception of unfunded wars.

edit: good write up from the Houston Chronicle on rounding up the fact checks from the 1st debate

http://blog.chron.com/txpotomac/201...e-often-in-denver-debate-by-a-pinocchio-nose/

 

[zinfamous]

The only thing I will add to this is this little silver lining: Like us, as these countries continue to grow and get educated (as China is doing) the quality of living will rise, as it rises so will the demands of their people for safety and minimum wages and work conditions (just look at foxconn as an example).

Of course when that happens another country will fill the gap and the cycle will start again.

agreed, and that's the problem. What happens when this planet runs out of agreeable countries, let alone actual land space, to house these cheap, uneducated laborers to put together our $0.05 plastic spoons?

 

[spidey07]

New video showing all of Obama's stuttering and "uh...uh...uh....uh...." Hilarious.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=819q62ZMYVk

 

[Incorruptible]

New video showing all of Obama's stuttering and "uh...uh...uh....uh...." Hilarious.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=819q62ZMYVk

obama was finally exposed for what he is, the idiot can only read a teleprompter but his supporters who are partisan hacks wont understand this

 

[zinfamous]

so this^ is what it's like when 12 year-old children get involved in politics.

 

[ivwshane]

What about Clinton and your source? I used your citation, was your citation wrong on that point?

You reading comprehension sucks and I will not be repeating myself for the third time.