"Nucular" Bush-O-Meter: 11 - FINAL

[jd212]

I was commenting on your "excuse me if I don't care what Europe thinks" comment after Erica said that you should be wary of going to fight a war that the majority of the rest of the world disagrees with. What I meant was, it doesn't matter what your personal opinion on the matter is because you are not making the decision, but Bush should think twice about fighting such a war when he clearly needs these allies in order to win. I am trying to sustain a debate as well. IT just seems like more people here disagree with you, thus it may seem as if you are being bashed. But really it is not you personally....

[DeltaOne81]

While I agree with Bill R on few things on this thread, I do agree that his comments deserved more than grammar and blood-pressure comments...

[Q]Again, do you really believe Bush is entirely responsible for the current state of the economy? Seriously, outline it for me because I think the economy is far beyond the control of one person. Tax cuts, interest rate changes, etc. do not cause immediate effects. Give me your best explanation. Really.[/Q]
I have taken a year of Economics at Cornell and I left it with one overall opinion... it's all voodoo... and not the Reagan kind. More specifically, it's all expectations. If people expect a good economy, they spend more, invest more, which pushes the GDP and incomes higher. When they expect things to get worse, then hold back and save, which slows down the economy, and starts everything spiraling downhill. When Bush got into office he was so deadset and pigheaded about getting his tax cut for the wealthy (see my previous post for defense of that opinion), that he started talking about how things were going downhill and looked bad, and how the taxcut was desperately needed to give the eonomy a kick.

Citizens who had been happily spending started thinking "uh oh" and slowed down... essentially a self-fulfulling prophecy to hurt the economy for a tax cut that had little to no effect anyway. Just as tunnel-vision pigheaded as he's being about this 'war' (it's really a slaughter - we haven't fought a war in a long time).

Not don't get me wrong and think I'm saying Bush was lying. Some president (forgive my lack of memory from sophomore year - Truman or a Roosevelt or someone) once said he wished there was such a thing as a one-handed economist. Because economists 'always' evaluate politices by saying "on one hand..., but on the other hand...". So what I'm saying is that Bush had good signs and bad signs about the economy, he chose to harp on the bad ones and screwed us over by doing it. I really believe that. I really feel that the summer after my sophomore year, I was 500 votes in Florida away from having a good summer job.

[Q]I would wager that most of the residents of a failing school district are going to be low income. If it were NYC and a wealthy person lived in a bad school district but was going to send their kid to a prep school anyway then I agree, make an income test.[/Q]
I would wager most too, but there are exceptions. More important, I could really see a lot of affluent suburban families using voucher as an excuse to send their kinds to private schools. I come from an affluent Ct suburbs and way too may people consider private schools a status symbol and if the gov't was paying for it, they'd love to pull their kids out of public schools - not for the better education (our schools are damn good) - but simply so they can say the name of some fancy school when asked where their kid goes.

[Q]Democrats say they want to fix education. That's great but it isn't going to happen overnight which does absolutely no good to the kids in the broken schools today. Is Al Gore going to go to PS whatever in Harlem and explain to some 8 year old that he can't go to a private school. Hopefully we'll fix it all by the time your little brother comes through. You, however, are out of luck.[/Q]
How about "You, however, are having tons of money pumped into your schools. You get to join in these great new programs we have running, share your opinions on what works and what doesn't. You get to shape the future of public schools and benefit from these great new resources that we are trying today." Instead of "You can skip out on us if you want to. We'll give you free money to bail on your neighborhood school."

[Q]The whole church-state issue is a smokescreen...[/Q]
Regardless of the particulars of the teachers unions, I take any threat to the separation of church and state or to civil liberties VERY seriously. I know that no one intends this as a way to promote religion, but government dollars going to fund parochial schools means government dollars going straight to churches. How much better is that then the government just making a donation to a religious organization? Different, yes, but better? It's still pumping up certain religions, at the sake of others, with government money. It's fishy, even if it wasn't meant that way.

It's the same thing with Bush's faith based initiative. I know he means no harm with it, but how can you really control these organizations. Religious charities often encourage their recipients to attend religious meetings - they promote themselves and offer themselves are salvation. They're welcome to do what they want with their money, but when it's the government money, it's another long. Old habits die hard, and when it comes to people who think that they're going to heaven a lot of other people are going to hell just for what religion they are, do you really think you're gonna get them to be unbiased? to not mention that while they serve the next bowl of soup? (note: I'm not saying tons of people believe that former statement. I'm not saying tons of people would continue to use faith in their charity work, but some would. I'm not comfortable with that, and it's just not right.

So, although I'm sure you disagree, Bill, is that more the kind of response you were looking for?

-Fred

P.S. I'd love to continue this, but I'm on my way to Hamilton, I can pick it up tonight though :-).

[Al DeFlorio]

Bill R '94 wrote:

I was hoping for some actual debate, exchange of ideas, something more than "Bush Sucks."

You might ponder why in the world anyone would want to engage in rational discourse with someone whose opening statement is:  "Another point I would like to make that nails both sides but I'll mostly criticize the stupidity of the language Democrats use."

[Greg Berge]

> They're about as irrelevant as Gartman.

That's funny but it still hurts.  :-D

I keep reading on this and other forums these inane statements from conservatives that Democrats don't care about other's opinions or have a tin ear to debate or whatnot.  This is usually preceded and succeeded on the same post by belligerant denunciations of liberals AS PEOPLE as unpatriotic or morally reprehensible.  By now why hasn't EVERYONE figured out two simple truths:

#1 Where you stands depends on where you sit.  Our beliefs are conditioned by our own self-interest.  The rich and the religious favor conservativism, the oversocialized and underprivileged favor liberalism.  What favors us or our values just accidentally also happens to be "right" or "moral" or "smart" or whatever.  Hockey ought to be the perfect exemplar of this -- we all always see the ref screw our team.  The "bias" is always against us.  We are subjective beings.

#2 There's no moral difference between the people on either side.  Both sides have an equal percentage of morons and geniuses, have an equal percentage of cynics and idealists, have an equal percentage of charlatans and missionaries.  Naturally, any given person might be a jerk or a saint, but the overall makeup washes out differences.


The reason I think we are all treated to a constant barrage of anger from conservatives on forums is the tone set by AM HateRadio, where it's okay to say anything slanderous about anyone who opposes the drumbeat of a very facile form of social and fiscal conservativism.  C'mon folks -- the pundits are always the very lowest scum of a movement -- why pattern your delivery after them?  I know why Rush does it -- ratings!  But the dittoheads who follow up with the same tone in public forums are just being obnoxious and not doing anything but masturbating in public.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

The reason America has been successful both as a society and an economic enterprise is that we have a gentle, regular swing between liberal and conservative tendencies -- that way, we don't wind up with a theocratic third world dictatorship of the right or a communitarian east bloc dictatorship of the left.  As long as we all continue to relentlessly scrutinize policies, we'll be okay.  

In other words, I'm for freedom of speech, and now I'd like some apple pie.

[JP72]

Hi.  I'm new here, from the class of '72 (Ag school).  It's great to see the team once again enjoying the kind of success it had when I was a student.  Great memories that I'm sure have been relived on this board many times so I'll spare everyone another recap.

I wanted to reply to a post DeltaOne81 made complaining about the President's proposed tax cut being tilted too severely to the high end of the income distribution.

IMO, the problem with the income tax structure is that it places too heavy a burden on the rich and doesn't ask enough of everyone else.  For 1998, the top 1.7% of taxpayers (income wise) paid 40% of the income tax.  They had 22% of the income.  The bottom 75% of payers, who had 33% of the income, paid only 11% of the income tax.  By the way, I'm one of the 75%.

I see two, at least, problems with this. A little reflection will show that any income tax cut must favor the rich since, practically speaking, they're the only ones paying the tax.  Thus, any tax cut proposal is a ready made platform for class warriors to denounce it as a giveaway to the rich.  Taxes can never be reduced regardless of the state of the budget.  This happened in the late '90's.

More disturbing is its deformative effect on democracy.  When a large part of the population can vote itself benefits that they have no part in paying for, it's easy to see in which direction matters will go:  the endless discovery of peoples "rights" to things they had no role in producing but would like to have anyway.  Food, education, health care, a car or two, color TV, an espresso machine: there is no end to it.  And there's always someone who will see the opportunity for himself in arguing for these rights.  And people, being what we are, are always a receptive audience.

The tax structure as it is is ustable, like anything that's top heavy.  When the high income population took a hit, states like NY and CA that depend excessively on it for their tax contributions saw receipts fall off a cliff.  If the burden were distributed more evenly, this would not have happened.

Luckily, I'm not running for office anywhere so I can express these views.  But to get back to DeltaOne81, I wouldn't lose too much sleep about letting the people who earned their money keep a little more of it.  What are we talking about? $60 - 70 billion a year in a budget of over $2 trillion?  It's rounding error!

[Greg Berge]

> For 1998, the top 1.7% of taxpayers (income wise) paid 40% of the income tax. They had 22% of the income.

Point understood, but now challenged.  :-)

The fact is that while these people may have 22% of the income, they have 40% (probably far more) of the disposable income.  A citizen's first $40,000 is a helluva lot more vital to his family's bare subsistence than his fortieth $40,000.

I don't buy this idea that exempting lower income people from taxation opts them out of social responsiiblity.  Does that mean exempting women and the elderly from combat opts them out of responsiblity?  Of course not.  The whole point of a nation is to join together for mutual protection.  Some of these functions require manpower, and the poor provide the vast majority of that.  Others require money... the people WITH the money should provide that.

Finally, I don't know what to tell you if you don't see the difference between food and an espresso machine.  Very basic living standards ought to be the right of any American.  In the final analysis this is also far more hardheadly practical, because it allows more people to enter the middle class and start making meaningful lives for themselves and stop being a burden on wage earners.

There was a very funny Tom Tomorrow about this a couple of months ago, with a few millionaires sitting at a bar.

Just look at the benefits the poor get!  How I envy them!

[Adam \'01]

But wouldn't John Locke argue that one doesn't have to join together for mutual protection if one doesn't want to?  We are all an island...yada yada yada.  See, Kramnick teaches something in his political theory class. :-P

[Greg Berge]

Not only that, but the last time I saw "John Locke" it was bathroom graffitti.  :-D

I have no argument you should be able to opt out if you don't want to follow the rules.  But that means you have to go buy a tropical island somewhere.  Otherwise, the same thing happens as when you wake up one morning and decide you want to opt out of the traffic laws.

[judy]

if you were playing that drinking game, I honestly don't know how you made it that far to count all those...

[Al DeFlorio]

>"Excuse me if I don't care what Europe thinks."

Interesting comment from Nicholas Kristof's column in today's New York Times:

"The most sensible suggestion for confronting anti-Americanism comes from one prominent American official: "It really depends on how our nation conducts itself in foreign policy. If we're an arrogant nation, they'll resent us. If we're a humble nation, but strong, they'll welcome us."

That was George W. Bush in the second presidential debate. He was dead right — back then."

[KeithK]

I don't know why I'm getting into this now (after 84 previous posts) but I have a little time to kill before work...

Just about any system of taxation that isn't Robin Hood-Sherriff of Nottingham regressive will place a higher burden of taxation on the wealthy, in terms of amount.  Few would argue that this is appropriate.  The question is what level of taxation is fair and reasonable.  This comes down to beliefs that are held with quasi-religious fervor and thus can't very well be debated rationally because the two sides can't agree on the assumptions.  Speak broadly, one side feels that the government's (society's) desire or responsibility to provide services to the public (and particularly the lowest income portion) is of primary importance and this therefore justifies high levels of taxation, particularly high marginal rates on those of higher income.  The other side (myself included) believe it is unfair and wrong to tax at marginal rates of 35%, 39% or higher. these rates are, IMO, confiscatory.  Both sides arguments are at the heart reasoned, fair/moral arguments and which is right depends on your perspective.

Regarding tax cuts, (shifting out of present both sides mode...) remember that taxes are not fundamentally a good thing.  They are a cost to the economy, a burden.  No one likes to pay taxes.  This makes cutting taxes always a good thing - you're returning money to the people who earned it.  Tax cuts are not always the best thing and may not even be close at a moment in time - funding the government is in essence a necessary evil - but I think it's wrong to speak of cutting taxes in the same way as about frivolous government spending. Tax cuts do not waste government money, they return taxpayers money to the people.

There's lots of talk about who tax cuts benefit.  For obvious reasons, most tax cuts are likely to help the higher income sector in terms of dollar value.  The only kind that don't are those that increase the so-called "progressive-ness" of the tax code, which is to many already tilted to the point of unfairness.

On the social responsibily front, it is to some extent true that those who do not pay are less likely to be worried about how the money is spent. It's human nature to spend other people's money more freely (witness politicians).  But certainly there are many Americans who wouldn't don't feel this way and are responsible.  I'd just like to point out that this is exactly the argument put forward by Charles Rangel for bringing back the draft.  He thinks that those in power are too willing to spend the lives of other people's children.

[DeltaOne81]

[Q]Regarding tax cuts, (shifting out of present both sides mode...) remember that taxes are not fundamentally a good thing. They are a cost to the economy, a burden. No one likes to pay taxes. This makes cutting taxes always a good thing - you're returning money to the people who earned it. Tax cuts are not always the best thing and may not even be close at a moment in time - funding the government is in essence a necessary evil - but I think it's wrong to speak of cutting taxes in the same way as about frivolous government spending. Tax cuts do not waste government money, they return taxpayers money to the people.[/Q]
Ah, macroeconomics coming back to me. The first couple paragraphs of yours we'll have to agree to disagree on, but this is simply a mistatement.

The equation for Gross Domestic Product was something like GDP = C + G + something else ( I'm pretty sure there was one more factor ) - C was consumer consumption and G was government spending. Conservatives tend to act like money taken in by the government disappears into a black hole. Taken away from the citizens and never to be seen again. To be wasted and squandered and probably burned in the bag in some Democrat's office.

Government spending goes back to the people and the economy just as tax reductions would. It's used to fix roads and buildings and gets paid to the works, it's used to buy medicines and pay for medical care for medicare/cade and goes back to the drug companies and doctors and hospital workers. It's used to pay teachers and build new schools. Taxes redistribute money (through welfare, unemployment benefits) to the less wealthy who tend to have a higher spending rate, just out of necessity. While $40,000 for a multimillionaire may half be invested overseas or in an IRA, $1000 to 40 families struggling to get buy will spent all at local grocery stores and local shops and on their rent.

Government spending is actually much less volitile and more predictable than Consumer Consumption.  Of course, there's a point where taxes are so high that it cripples the ability of the populace to live on a day to day basis, and that's no good, but that point is like 80, 90%. While your society can set taxes based on other priorities, taxes are not, by definition, bad. They are not a necessary evil economically, they are actually targeted, controlled spending.

[JP72]

Greg -

See we took it on the chin last night.  I can hear the wailing and gnashing of teeth from here!

Anyway, I wanted to try again with the post I put up yesterday.

You asked, "Does that mean exempting women and the elderly from combat opts them out of responsiblity?"

Yes it does, as far as responsibility for evaluating the consequences of war goes.  If you don't believe me, ask Charley Rangel.  That's his whole point in saying, "Bring back the draft."  His point is that if our children were exposed to the dangers of combat we would be less likely to engage in it.  He is absolutely right.  I remember the anti-war protests during Vietnam.  I also remember that they disappeared right after the draft was ended.  Ones opinion about the war was largely determined by the likelihood that one would have to fight in it.  

This mirrors my point that if people paid more equally for social benefits they would be more thoughtful before they asked for more of them.  The voters of Oregon just gave testament to this.

Also, "Finally, I don't know what to tell you if you don't see the difference between food and an espresso machine. Very basic living standards ought to be the right of any American."

All I was trying to point out is the unlimited nature the demand for "rights" takes on when their exercise only means taking the possessions of others.  When someone demands that others pay for, for example, his health care and then goes driving off in his Honda, what he really wants is someone to pay for his Honda since if he used that money to pay instead for his health care, he would have it.   It's not that he can't afford health care, it's that he wants someone else to buy it for him so he can have both it and his Honda.  This is exactly why Medicaid now pays for nursing home care for people who were middle class their whole lives until they gave their money to their kids.  A whole industry has been spawned to facilitate these transactions.  This is where and why the discovery of new rights is so useful, popular and never ending.  If everyone has a right to nursing home care, no one has to save for it.  Instead, we can all buy espresso machines with the money we otherwise would have had to save.

I'm not very worried about who pays for the basic living standards of people, even non-Americans.  Hell, I don't even care if I buy HBO for somebody, even if I don't have it.  If people are starving, they will not be restrained by arguments about bio-engineered corn, let alone about rights.  Nor should they be.  In America, judging from the latest obesity statistics, lack is not the biggest dietary problem of anyone, especially the poor.  You say "very basic" living standards should be met.  I'd go as far as basic, eliminating the very.  I'd even go somewhat beyond that.  But we should always remember that basic means something and whatever that may be precisely, it is not unlimited.

[KeithK]

OK, I'll give back a bit on the fact that government spending goes back into the economy.  So your GDP equation is not incorrect, at least in the Econ 102 sense  (at least I think so - my macro class was in '91).  The question is whether the cost on the private sector is equaled (or even exceeded) by the benefits to growth and economy spurred by the public sector.  To accurately reflect reality, you'd have to measure the efficiency at which the money is spent (in some sense that I can't define) in order to determine whether it's a wash or if one side comes out ahead.

My personal sense (=typical conservative view) is that government spending is much less efficient in terms of spurring growth than private spending, in general.  This is the nature of large bureaucracies, central planning and politicans spending money that is not their own.  Therefore, public spending is probably a net drag on the economy.  Not to say that there is no appropriate role for government but I'd rather the people had the money as much as possible (aside from fairness reasons).  There probably are plenty of studies by economists trying to guage this type of thing, but I suspect there is no easy answer so we're left with our gut feelings.  Correct me if I'm wrong.

You also mention income redistribution.  I don't believe the government's role is to redistribute money among it's citizens.  That will happen to a certain degree with any form of entitlement program, some of which are warranted.  But this is not, IMO, a legitimate goal.

Enough for now,
Keith
Member of the CEPDF (Cornell Economic and Political Discussion Forum) :-D

[DeltaOne81]

Keith,

Okay, we've hit the point where it's personal preference, I agree that there's probably some small inherent 'loss' in the whole person -> government -> people process, but my personal values are that any loss in the overall is more than equalled by the benefits. My personal sense (=typical liberal view :-D ) is that the government efficiency losses are relatively small, after all, any "bureaucracy" losses just means wages for the beaurocratic workers, and hence back to the economy.

Also on the matter of person preference, I think income/wealth distribution is vital and a very nobel goal, to make sure that every citizen has the basic needs in today's world - including, but not limited to food, shelter, transportation (not necessarily saying a car, but at least bus money), and a good quality local school - even if that means one less espresso machine, yatch, or beach house for the wealth (excuse me while I try not to cry too hard for them ;-) ).

-Fred

P.S. My family tends to be decently off, and, based on information from companies I've interviewed with, I think I will as well - so saying the gov't should redistribute isnt' bc I think I should personal get more... it's just cuz I have a bleeding heart :-D .

P.P.S. Econ 302, thank you very much ;-).