Obama, the Liar-In-Chief

[RIROCKHOUND]

Jim:
So you think a lack of oversight on the banks had nothing to do with the current recession? I see those specifically implicated here, and not the sole source being the 'tax cuts' ""Gov. Romney's plan would cut taxes for the folks at the very top. Roll back regulations on big banks. And he says that if we do, our economy will grow and everyone will benefit." Obama continues: "But you know what? We tried that top-down approach. It's what caused the mess in the first place."

I see that all about the top-down approach, which is clearly what Bush and Romney are advocating for.... how many of Bush's former advisers are now in the background for Romney... the answer is more than a few...

How about the so called Bush Tax cuts, coupled with two wars? So far that is at 1.3 trillion, not counting the long-term care of thousands of soldiers and their families who have been injured? Even if you take out Afghanistan (which I supported fully when it began) we are still close to a trillion on Iraq alone.... Have wars ever been coupled with tax CUTS in our history before? Cost of War to the United States | COSTOFWAR.COM

[detbuch]

Originally Posted by RIROCKHOUND

Jim:
So you think a lack of oversight on the banks had nothing to do with the current recession? I see those specifically implicated here, and not the sole source being the 'tax cuts' ""Gov. Romney's plan would cut taxes for the folks at the very top. Roll back regulations on big banks. And he says that if we do, our economy will grow and everyone will benefit." Obama continues: "But you know what? We tried that top-down approach. It's what caused the mess in the first place."

I see that all about the top-down approach, which is clearly what Bush and Romney are advocating for.... how many of Bush's former advisers are now in the background for Romney... the answer is more than a few...

This is a peculiar understanding of "top down/bottom up." Generally, when applied to current politics, top down refers to government as being the mover and shaker of society with the people following its direction and regulation, and bottom up refers to the private sector, "the people" being the creators of and driving force, with the government, in a democratic free market system republic, being merely a cohesive force with limited powers granted to it and consented by the private sector. Tax policies, whether those of Obama or Bush or Romney, would all be top down policies. Tax cuts would be government, the top, relinquishing power thus restoring it to the bottom, the people, so, would be enabling the bottom to direct and produce more. Tax raises would be the opposite, shifting power to the top, the government, and siphoning power from the bottom. In effect, lowering taxes is a bottom up approach, and raising taxes is a top down approach. This applies to on whomever the taxes are raised or lowered, the rich, middle class, or poor. Top down tinkering to favor any class is usually, if not always, divisive. The theory that cutting taxes on those who create business and the ensuing jobs is a top down decision to enable bottom up conditions to flourish. But picking the winners and losers, the "class" that benefits from policies is class warfare that divides.

The founders and their Constitution never intended for an ultimate top down system of government that would divide the people and give it the power to create the conditions of society. That was to be left to the people, bottom up. Ironically, In their view, the top WAS the people. Though societal structures as flow charts or pyramids place government on top, their Constitution was the most anti-government government document ever written. It was government ceding power from the top of the flow-chart to the bottom sectors. It was government limiting itself from the top and dispersing it to the people to govern, for the most part, themselves. It was government limiting its own power, and letting the greatest portion of powers to remain in the hands of the people who were to be, in contrast to previous notions and practices of government, the actual top of the chart. Progressive shift in politics has now given government the highest position.

How about the so called Bush Tax cuts, coupled with two wars? So far that is at 1.3 trillion, not counting the long-term care of thousands of soldiers and their families who have been injured? Even if you take out Afghanistan (which I supported fully when it began) we are still close to a trillion on Iraq alone.... Have wars ever been coupled with tax CUTS in our history before? Cost of War to the United States | COSTOFWAR.COM

Well, when revenues went up with the Bush tax cuts, that could pay for the wars. But even more to the point, foreign wars are the responsibility of the Federal government and its legitimate financial responsibillity. Its current massive bureacracy and the programs and regulaltions it spues forth, spending trillions of dollars, for the most part, are not legitimate, Constitutional responsibilites. And now there is only the dwindling Afghanistan war, so tax cuts, even under the pay for the war responsibility, especially if they allow the private sector to flourish better as a bottom up force thus creating more gvt. revenue, shouldn't be such a problem, and especially if the gvt. stops, or at least cuts back on, its bureaucratic spending.

[justplugit]

Originally Posted by detbuch

Well, when revenues went up with the Bush tax cuts, that could pay for the wars. But even more to the point, foreign wars are the responsibility of the Federal government and its legitimate financial responsibillity.

Yes, and in addition there was the costs of 9/11, forming Homeland Security and Katrina besides the wars,
all Federal responsibilities.
Now that those expenses are close to being over, there should be more $$ to help
pay down the debt unless it's used for expanding Big G even more.

[spence]

Originally Posted by detbuch

Tax cuts would be government, the top, relinquishing power thus restoring it to the bottom, the people, so, would be enabling the bottom to direct and produce more. Tax raises would be the opposite, shifting power to the top, the government, and siphoning power from the bottom.

You could also argue that in our present situation tax raises would enable the bottom by building a stronger state in which to prosper. Yes, this does assume a level of responsibility we've not seen from either party.

Progressive shift in politics has now given government the highest position.

Assuming that in this case "Progressive" = Republicans and Democrats?

And now there is only the dwindling Afghanistan war, so tax cuts, even under the pay for the war responsibility, especially if they allow the private sector to flourish better as a bottom up force thus creating more gvt. revenue, shouldn't be such a problem, and especially if the gvt. stops, or at least cuts back on, its bureaucratic spending.

There is no war dividend when you're running a deficit.

I'd also argue that government revenues ultimately have more to do with larger (increasingly global) economic trends rather than incentives like low taxation or deregulation.

Our taxes are at historic lows and wealth continues to concentrate at the top and be funneled offshore. Trusting industry has given our housing market a 10+ year wound...

How can anyone seriously argue that yet lower taxes and even less regulation is going to change the vector positively for the American people?

-spence

[scottw]

Originally Posted by spence

You could also argue that in our present situation tax raises would enable the bottom by building a stronger state in which to prosper. -spence

Spence...please elaborate on this gem

[detbuch]

Originally Posted by spence

You could also argue that in our present situation tax raises would enable the bottom by building a stronger state in which to prosper. Yes, this does assume a level of responsibility we've not seen from either party.

You might argue that if you believe that the more powerful the state is the more power the individual has. Since I don't believe that, I wouldn't argue that tax raises, or anything else which would give the central gvt. in our present situation even more power or control over our lives than it already has, would increase individual strength. Nor do I believe that the state making itself "stronger" at the expense of the individual equates with the "bottom" building a stronger state. Unless, of course, the state is, ultimately, the people who make their individual lives more prosperous. When the state and the people are one, then the bottom is the top, and their elected representatives are their servants, the bottom, who will be constrained by the limits that the people have enumerated in their constitution, And the people, who you refer to as the bottom, can then make a stronger state because the people will direct by their actions how they, the state, will thrive. But when the state and the people are not one, and the state is the top, and the people are the bottom who are not directly represented by responsive servants, but are dictated to by unelected bureaucrats appointed with plenary, unrepresentative power by those servants, that is tyranny and does not make the true state, the people, stronger. It strengthens only the stolen state, that power separated from the people, a select few experts who allow rights and priveleges to a people that once had inalienable rights, and directs the "vector" of a people who once determined their own.

And there is no level of responsibility that those in this top down state, separate from the people who are relegated to the bottom, that applies, except the responsibility to do as they choose. When the people are ruled rather than rule, it is the people who must be responsible to the government, not vice versa. To expect undefined responsibility from those you have allowed to rule you is your last and hopeless wish. If you want responsibility, rule yourself. We would have that under Constitutional governance.

Assuming that in this case "Progressive" = Republicans and Democrats?

Of course. I've said so several times. That's why I said progressive, not Democrat or Republican.


There is no war dividend when you're running a deficit.

There are no dividends when you run a deficit. It is more dificult to fund a war when you run a deficit. If you continually run deficits, as we mostly have for 80 years or so, it is difficult to run anything.

I'd also argue that government revenues ultimately have more to do with larger (increasingly global) economic trends rather than incentives like low taxation or deregulation.

Low taxation and less regulation would put us in a competitive position in the global market, and would lessen the need to funnel stuff offshore.

Our taxes are at historic lows and wealth continues to concentrate at the top and be funneled offshore. Trusting industry has given our housing market a 10+ year wound...

How can anyone seriously argue that yet lower taxes and even less regulation is going to change the vector positively for the American people?

-spence

Depends on what you mean by positive. And it depends on what you mean by historic. There were boom times with lower taxes and less regulation in the past. But, if you prefer Wilson's, and the progressives', idea of society being a well ordered bee hive, directed by government, then tinkering with economic levers from the "top" may be your way of achieving a positive vector. If you prefer individual sovereignty, the vector should be directed by the people, not the government.

[scottw]

Originally Posted by detbuch

Depends on what you mean by positive. And it depends on what you mean by historic. But, if you prefer Wilson's, and the progressives', idea of society being a well ordered bee hive, directed by government, then tinkering with economic levers from the "top" may be your way of achieving a positive vector. If you prefer individual sovereignty, the vector should be directed by the people, not the government.

lower taxes and less reguation allow the individual the freedom to determine their own vector....they also restrict the governemnt's ability to interfere in the life of the individual...which is a problem for the progressive who believes that everything must flow through government and obviously have very difficult time relinquishing whatever control they gain over the individual through government regulation and various forms of taxation.....

this whole discussion reminds me of the Milton Friedman-Donahue from the 70's...nothing has really changed and Donahue and company will never learn..the montra is essentially the same

DONAHUE: When you see around the globe the maldistribution of wealth, the desperate plight of millions of people in underdeveloped countries, when you see so few haves and so many have-nots, when you see the greed and the concentration of power, did you ever have a moment of doubt about capitalism and whether greed's a good idea to run on?


FRIEDMAN: Well, first of all, tell me, is there some society you know that doesn't run on greed? You think Russia doesn't run on greed? You think China doesn't run on greed? What is greed? Of course none of us are greedy. It's only the other fellow who's greedy. The world runs on individuals pursuing their separate interests. The great achievements of civilization have not come from government bureaus. Einstein didn't construct his theory under order from a bureaucrat. Henry Ford didn't revolutionize the automobile industry that way. In the only cases in which the masses have escaped from the kind of grinding poverty you're talking about, the only cases in recorded history are where they have had capitalism and largely free trade. If you want to know where the masses are worst off, it's exactly in the kinds of societies that depart from that. So that the record of history is absolutely crystal clear that there is no alternative way, so far discovered, of improving the lot of the ordinary people that can hold a candle to the productive activities that are unleashed by a free enterprise system.

DONAHUE: But it seems to reward not virtue as much as ability to manipulate the system.

FRIEDMAN: And what does reward virtue? Do you think the communist commissar rewards virtue? Do you think Hitler rewards virtue? Do you think American presidents reward virtue? Do they choose their appointees on the basis of the virtue of the people appointed or on the basis of their political clout? Is it really true that political self-interest is nobler somehow than economic self-interest? You know, I think you're taking a lot of things for granted. Just tell me where in the world you find these angels who are going to organize society for us.

DONAHUE: Well --

FRIEDMAN: I don't even trust you to do that.




ahhh...the "angels who are going to organize society for us"...the "Philosopher Kings"

Yuval Levin had a great analysis of this recently

This remarkable window into the president’s thinking shows us not only a man chilly toward the potential of individual initiative, and not only a man deluded about the nature of his opponents and their views, but also (and perhaps most important) a man with a staggeringly thin idea of common action in American life.

The president simply equates doing things together with doing things through government. He sees the citizen and the state, and nothing in between — and thus sees every political question as a choice between radical individualism and a federal program.

But most of life is lived somewhere between those two extremes, and American life in particular has given rise to unprecedented human flourishing because we have allowed the institutions that occupy the middle ground — the family, civil society, and the private economy — to thrive in relative freedom.

The Hollow Republic - Yuval Levin - National Review Online

it was not "trusting industry" or lack of regulation that gave our housing industry a 10 year wound, it was removal by government through cohersion, threats and supposed good intentions, any "risk" for lenders and other players up the line creating the environment for all sorts of unfortunate consequences, government also created a culture that sought to reduce standards and requirements for home ownership to such a level that not only was there little risk for the lenders but little responsibiity required on the part of the buyers ....this happens frequently when government steps in to assume or reduce the risk to the individual or entity and corresponding responsibility to society....government creates vehicals that carpool the risk in life for the individual(and other entities) and mitigate responsibiity and often in areas where they have no business meddeling, they load the vehical up with both unwilling and willing participants and then the vehical goes careening off a cliff....

[Piscator]

Originally Posted by spence

Our taxes are at historic lows and wealth continues to concentrate at the top and be funneled offshore. -spence

This also includes Corporate Taxes: Corporate income taxes for the past three years have hovered at just over 1 percent of GDP, lower than for any three-year period since World War II. The average for OECD countries is 3.5 percent.

The problem I have is the amount of $$’s wasted. Too many stories of gross and wasteful spending and so much scandal in our Government. Regardless of taxes being historically low, an argument could be made that government spending is historically high. So it’s the chicken and the egg, cut spending or increase taxes. I think we need a little of both from everyone. Not just concessions from the rich or the poor, but from everyone. (even though I don’t know what is rich and what is poor)

[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by spence

You could also argue that in our present situation tax raises would enable the bottom by building a stronger state in which to prosper. Yes, this does assume a level of responsibility we've not seen from either party.


Assuming that in this case "Progressive" = Republicans and Democrats?


There is no war dividend when you're running a deficit.

I'd also argue that government revenues ultimately have more to do with larger (increasingly global) economic trends rather than incentives like low taxation or deregulation.

Our taxes are at historic lows and wealth continues to concentrate at the top and be funneled offshore. Trusting industry has given our housing market a 10+ year wound...

How can anyone seriously argue that yet lower taxes and even less regulation is going to change the vector positively for the American people?

-spence

"tax raises would enable the bottom by building a stronger state in which to prosper"

Which explains why there is no poverty in places with strong, tax-funded states like Cuba, Iran, and North Korea.

"Our taxes are at historic lows ..."

That makes a great bumper-sticker, because yes there were tax rates in the 70's at one point. But that argument is destroyed when you consider that just about no one paid those taxes, because there were even more shelters then...

Furthermore Spence, you need to consider all taxes. For example, CT did not have an income tax 25 years ago, nowt it's around 5.5%.

I'm guessing that the average earner works longer into the year to pay his tax bill, than he did 50 years ago. I don't have the data to prove that, but it cannot be false.

"There is no war dividend when you're running a deficit.

"

True. But despite what people on your side of the ailse like to claim, we don't enter into wars for profit.

"How can anyone seriously argue that yet lower taxes and even less regulation is going to change the vector positively for the American people?"

Because it worked when Clinton did it. And it worked beter after Bush did it. You work in finance, right? Wasn't the economy robust from 1996-2007? Granted, much of that was fueled by a reckless housing bubble, but not all of it.

Spence, lower taxes means people like me and you get to keep more of our money. You honestly don't think that would help you? And assuming you will either spend, donate, invest, or save that money in a bank, it will help others, too. That's not rocket science.

Spence, let me turn that around. What evidence do you have, to suggest that more taxes and more regulation, will improve the situation?

No one is saying we don't need any regulation. but there is such a thing as too much regulation.

Das Vedanya...

[Piscator]

Originally Posted by Jim in CT

"Our taxes are at historic lows ..."

That makes a great bumper-sticker, because yes there were tax rates in the 70's at one point. But that argument is destroyed when you consider that just about no one paid those taxes, because there were even more shelters then...

AMT for example.............

[zimmy]

Originally Posted by Piscator

AMT for example.............

The only fair way to look at it is dollar amounts paid compared to gross income. The average is almost exactly the same today then after the Reagan tax cuts of ~1986. Here are the numbers:

"...calculating all taxes paid by Americans and dividing the sum by the nation's total income. To make this calculation, we turned to the Tax Foundation's annual "Tax Freedom Day" report, which offers calculations of total tax burden going back to 1900. (There was no federal income tax then, but there were state and other taxes.)

The foundation's expected tax burden for 2010 is 26.9 percent, up slightly from the 2009 tax burden of 26.6 percent. (This is not unusual: The tax burden typically falls during recessions, as taxpayers move to lower tax brackets.)

Under Eisenhower, that figure ranged from 24.8 percent to 27.7 percent, with the figure lower than 26.9 percent for seven out of eight years. So by this measurement, the tax burden was lower most of the time under Eisenhower.

Under Reagan, it ranged from 29.2 percent to 31.1 percent, meaning that in all eight years it was higher than the current tax burden under Obama."

PolitiFact | Barack Obama says taxes are lower today than under Reagan, Eisenhower

I can understand if someone still believes that lower tax rates would be better for the economy. However, all the arguments about rates and stuff need to be about actual paid. Same reason why it is bogus for the cons to throw around the 39% corporate tax rate as if it is what companies actually pay.

[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by zimmy

The only fair way to look at it is dollar amounts paid compared to gross income. .

Great point. It's misleading for consrevatives to point to the corporate rate being high, and it's equally misleading for a liberal to point to higher individual rates decades ago.

Zimmy, are your percentages reflective of all taxes, feredal, state and local? I'm not doubting your numbers, just curious what's in there.

And what worries many of us is the magnitude by which we are overspending, particularly on entitlements. If you give an honest answer to the question "what do tax rates need to be, to pay for these entitlement programs", I think that answer will scare the hell out of people. Liberals (as a group) will not ever address that question, and conservatives (as a group) do a terrible job of getting that message across.

[detbuch]

Originally Posted by zimmy

The only fair way to look at it is dollar amounts paid compared to gross income. The average is almost exactly the same today then after the Reagan tax cuts of ~1986. Here are the numbers:

"...calculating all taxes paid by Americans and dividing the sum by the nation's total income. To make this calculation, we turned to the Tax Foundation's annual "Tax Freedom Day" report, which offers calculations of total tax burden going back to 1900. (There was no federal income tax then, but there were state and other taxes.)

The foundation's expected tax burden for 2010 is 26.9 percent, up slightly from the 2009 tax burden of 26.6 percent. (This is not unusual: The tax burden typically falls during recessions, as taxpayers move to lower tax brackets.)

Under Eisenhower, that figure ranged from 24.8 percent to 27.7 percent, with the figure lower than 26.9 percent for seven out of eight years. So by this measurement, the tax burden was lower most of the time under Eisenhower.

Under Reagan, it ranged from 29.2 percent to 31.1 percent, meaning that in all eight years it was higher than the current tax burden under Obama."

PolitiFact | Barack Obama says taxes are lower today than under Reagan, Eisenhower

I can understand if someone still believes that lower tax rates would be better for the economy. However, all the arguments about rates and stuff need to be about actual paid. Same reason why it is bogus for the cons to throw around the 39% corporate tax rate as if it is what companies actually pay.

Obama's statement that "rates" are lower today than under Reagan or Eisenhower are mostly true, but deceptively so, as your linked article notes. And deceptive, as well, in ways that the article doesn't mention. And, in itself, meaningless--Obama doesn't mention that they are not lower than under Bush--begging a so what? His intention, I believe, is to create the "meaning," perception, that he is actually a tax cutter, not a typical tax and spender. That he is fiscally conservative, even more than Eisenhower, or Reagan. The article offers caveats to that perception, one of which you quote. The total tax burden was actually less under Eisenhower than under Obama. So, as you say, if the only fair way to look at it is by total tax burden, then, though rates are lower now, the burden was less under Eisenhower. Also, though rates were much higher (at the top incomes) then, the loopholes were more extravagent, and those rates were not paid, so the comparison of rates is irrelevant. Plus, Reagan began the process of reducing those loopholes, thus was able to lower rates. He began, as Spence likes to say, a vector. He started in office with top rates at 70% and reduced them to 50% and then to 28%. And the current rates that Obama brags about were created by Bush, not him. Though he hasn't yet increased rates, he has, as the article says created or raised some taxes other than income, and some have, conveniently, not kicked in yet, such as the tax penalty for non-insurance. And he wants to raise the "rates" on higher incomes. Unlike Reagan, Obama's vector seems to be trending upward. And is it "fair" when looking at the total burden, that the burden of income taxes, even if the rates are the same, is shifted to fewer payers (nearly half don't pay federal income tax now)?

Whether lower rates would be better for the "economy" or not might be debatable. But if the context of the debate does not include what, ultimately, type of government we wish to have, the big choice that Obama says we are going to make in November, it is all just wonkish tweaking that, if the market is allowed to prevail, and we can survive bad choices, we can recover from if we choose to maintain and re-energize a free market economy directed by minimally encumbered individuals.

[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by RIROCKHOUND

Jim:
So you think a lack of oversight on the banks had nothing to do with the current recession? I see those specifically implicated here, and not the sole source being the 'tax cuts' ""Gov. Romney's plan would cut taxes for the folks at the very top. Roll back regulations on big banks. And he says that if we do, our economy will grow and everyone will benefit." Obama continues: "But you know what? We tried that top-down approach. It's what caused the mess in the first place."

I see that all about the top-down approach, which is clearly what Bush and Romney are advocating for.... how many of Bush's former advisers are now in the background for Romney... the answer is more than a few...

How about the so called Bush Tax cuts, coupled with two wars? So far that is at 1.3 trillion, not counting the long-term care of thousands of soldiers and their families who have been injured? Even if you take out Afghanistan (which I supported fully when it began) we are still close to a trillion on Iraq alone.... Have wars ever been coupled with tax CUTS in our history before? Cost of War to the United States | COSTOFWAR.COM

"So you think a lack of oversight on the banks had nothing to do with the current recession?"

I never said that. I specifically said that the fishy financial products played a large role. But since the de-regulation of those products was passed by a Republican legislature and signed by a Democratic president, i don't see how one party is at fault.

Also, I think that the Bush tax cuts had just about nothing to do with it.

"we are still close to a trillion on Iraq alone"

True. But I don't feel that government debt had much at all to do with this recesion. This recession was caused by the subprime mortgage crisis, and the rippling effectsthroughout the financial sector. Government debt will have everything to do with the next recession, however,

"Have wars ever been coupled with tax CUTS in our history before?"

I don't know. In the case of the bUsh tax cuts, I don't see that it matters. Because th efact is (and thgis seems to escape liberals), tax revenues increased aftre the tax cuts. The Bush tax cuts did not result in tax revenue being lower than it was before the tax rate cuts.

People, mostly liberals, do not seem to be able to grasp that. If tax revenues always decreased proportionately with tax rates, you'd have a point. But clearly they do not. What I mean is this...no one can say for sure that the feds would have collected more revenue, if Bush had not cut taxes. It's not that simple. All we know is this...after Bush cut tax rates (the percentage of one's salary that one pays) tax revenues collected by the feds (total dollars collected) hit their all-time high.

Liberals constantly claim (falsely) that the Bush tax cuts (1) onlyhelped the rich (that is demonstrably false), and (2) caused the recession (which makes no sense).

I think I have answered most, if not all, of your questions.

So can you answer one of mine? Just one...if Bush's reduction in tax rates were followed by an increase in tax dollars collected by the feds, how can that cause a recession?

The feds collected more tax dollars from us after the Bush tax cuts. Not less. More. That is undisputed fact, and it annihilates the liberal theory that increasing tax rates will automatically increase tax revenue. Even though it's demonstrably false, liberals continue to beat that drum.

[Jim in CT]

Originally Posted by RIROCKHOUND

Jim:
So you think a lack of oversight on the banks had nothing to do with the current recession? I see those specifically implicated here, and not the sole source being the 'tax cuts' ""Gov. Romney's plan would cut taxes for the folks at the very top. Roll back regulations on big banks. And he says that if we do, our economy will grow and everyone will benefit." Obama continues: "But you know what? We tried that top-down approach. It's what caused the mess in the first place."

I see that all about the top-down approach, which is clearly what Bush and Romney are advocating for.... how many of Bush's former advisers are now in the background for Romney... the answer is more than a few...

How about the so called Bush Tax cuts, coupled with two wars? So far that is at 1.3 trillion, not counting the long-term care of thousands of soldiers and their families who have been injured? Even if you take out Afghanistan (which I supported fully when it began) we are still close to a trillion on Iraq alone.... Have wars ever been coupled with tax CUTS in our history before? Cost of War to the United States | COSTOFWAR.COM

"So you think a lack of oversight on the banks had nothing to do with the current recession?"

I specifically said that fishy financial products, tied to mortgages, played a big role. So I cannot imagine why on Earth you'd claim that I said something so stupid.

"top-down approach, which is clearly what Bush and Romney are advocating for"

Bush advocated a top-down approach? Then can you explain why Bush lowered tax rates for everyone, not just for the rich (which liberals like to lie about)?

Romney wants a small-government approach. Why does that, in your view, equate to a "top-down" approach? Romney isn't proposing to eliminate anti-poverty programs. He isn't proposing to eliminate welfare, food stamps, or unemployment. He just doesn't want the feds doing things they suck at. In a sane world, liberals would happily debate the merits of a limited-government approach. Instead, as always, they demonize the other side, saying things like "that's how we got into this mess, and he wants to do it again! We can't afford that!"

Rockhound, government debt didn't cause this recession (though it will cause the next one). And let me make one more point, and try to pay attention, because this is something liberals REALLY struggle with. Let's pretend I agree with you that federal tax revenue plays a big role in recessions...President Bush cut tax rates. Those lower tax rates were followed by the largest amount of tax dollars ever collected by the IRS.

Thus, where do liberals get off claiming that the Bush tax cuts cost us anything? You cannot know for sure that higher tax rates would have produced more tax revenue. It's not that simple. Why? Because demand increases when you reduce price. Always.

Rockhound, do you claim that higher tax rates will always produce more tax dollars, than lower tax rates? If so, why not impose tax rates of 100%?

It is irrefutable, demonstrable fact, that it's possible to lower tax rates and increase tax revenue. It happened within the last 10 years, for God's sakes.

Now, please don't suggest that I'm saying lower tax rates will always increase tax revenue, because that's equally ridiculous. But they don't always move proportionately. Liberals hate that fact, and thus cannot accept it.