(no subject)

[farchivist.livejournal.com]

Comments

sarcasm alert

[aviv-b.livejournal.com]

OMG - someone in Congress speaking up for the 99%! I'm shocked I tell you, shocked!

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

So his first line item is something that doesn't even account for 10% of the debt, and assumes that the wars, as opposed to all the spending, was "unpaid for."

His second line item assumes incorrectly that tax cuts have a cost. They do not - the spending was the problem.

The third still assumes that Wall Street, and not the regulatory structure, caused the recession. He also cites "illegal behavior" without pointing out what illegal behavior occurred.

Yes, please, I hope he keeps talking. The more the left shows their ass like this, the better off the rest of us are.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

synthetic CDO's squared should be understood as weapons of criminality and a deceptive market

[hardblue.livejournal.com]

Whereas the right really shows it glory by arguing for more tax cuts for the wealthy and by calling pizza a vegetable?

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

On the former, at least, absolutely.

[prock.livejournal.com]

His second line item assumes incorrectly that tax cuts have a cost. They do not - the spending was the problem.

Deficits are not created by spending. They are created by spending more than you take in. If you decide to start working part time, you don't get to claim that your choice to work less has nothing to do with the fact that you can't pay your bills.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

If you decide to start working part time, you don't get to claim that your choice to work less has nothing to do with the fact that you can't pay your bills.

Except it does have nothing to do with it. If you keep spending the same amount of money (or, in the government's case, more), you can't turn around and say "hey, I'm not making enough money." The problem is that you didn't work your lifestyle to what's coming in.

Revenues are never a guarantee, no matter the tax rate.

[wight1984.livejournal.com]

I feel like I may regret asking this but...

To my understanding, the idea of a deficit is where your spending more money than you're getting in.

Whether you do that by costly spending or cutting away at your revenue, that's still surely relevant to the discussion, right?

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

To a point. The problem is always spending over revenues. Revenues are no guarantees, so the smart move is to always keep spending at or below. To blame a shifting target on tax rates when revenues are always fluid merely takes the blame off the spending, which is the bigger issue. We know, too, that spending is an issue because people are happy to blame war spending for it, so obviously the truth is out there.

If we were cutting spending as far as it could go, and revenues still weren't covering the gap, hand-wringing about tax rates would be legitimate. I doubt Bernie Sanders is upset about the social spending that far outpaces alleged tax cut costs and the cost of the wars, after all.

[udoswald.livejournal.com]

Wow, your ability to completely ignore reality in favor of your preferred narrative is nothing short of astonishing.

So his first line item is something that doesn't even account for 10% of the debt, and assumes that the wars, as opposed to all the spending, was "unpaid for."

Some costs (social programs for instance) are necessary, the wars were not necessary. It's perfectly reasonable to mention that we threw trillions of dollars down the rabbit hole doing something that shouldn't have been done.

His second line item assumes incorrectly that tax cuts have a cost. They do not - the spending was the problem.

Tax cuts obviously have a cost, to suggest otherwise is just absurd. There was money there and now there's not because you gave it away, that's the dictionary definition of a cost.

The spending was mostly necessary. The tax cuts, on the other hand, were not. They were nothing but a giveaway to Bush's cronies designed to buy votes. Worse, they squandered a surplus that could have been used responsibly to pay down the US debt or finance needed infrastructure repairs and improve the living conditions of average Americans instead of being used to buy Joe Millionaire another yacht.

The third still assumes that Wall Street, and not the regulatory structure, caused the recession. He also cites "illegal behavior" without pointing out what illegal behavior occurred.

You can keep chanting the mantra til you're blue in the face, it doesn't make it true. The "regulatory structure" didn't force banks to make billions of dollars on risky loans. "Illegal behavior" would presumably include misrepresenting the value of bundled loans in order to profit off of their sale. And of course there's the matter of fabricating loan documents in order to give loans to those who couldn't normally qualify and, after the house of cards fell down, fabricating other documents in order to take houses away from those who didn't actually deserve to be foreclosed upon.

Yes, please, I hope he keeps talking. The more the left shows their ass like this, the better off the rest of us are.

By all means, I really hope the Republicans keep blindly worshiping the 1% to the detriment of the 99%. I don't know about you but I can do the math and an organized and pissed off 99% will always beat a lazy and selfish 1%.

[badlydrawnjeff.livejournal.com]

Some costs (social programs for instance) are necessary, the wars were not necessary. It's perfectly reasonable to mention that we threw trillions of dollars down the rabbit hole doing something that shouldn't have been done.

What makes one necessary and one unnecessary? Aren't you simply making an "i like it, thus it's necessary" judgement call?

Tax cuts obviously have a cost, to suggest otherwise is just absurd. There was money there and now there's not because you gave it away, that's the dictionary definition of a cost.

The money isn't "given away," it's just never collected. So there's no cost.

The spending was mostly necessary. The tax cuts, on the other hand, were not. They were nothing but a giveaway to Bush's cronies designed to buy votes. Worse, they squandered a surplus that could have been used responsibly to pay down the US debt or finance needed infrastructure repairs and improve the living conditions of average Americans instead of being used to buy Joe Millionaire another yacht.

More judgement calls, with some added partisan hackery to boot.

You can keep chanting the mantra til you're blue in the face, it doesn't make it true. The "regulatory structure" didn't force banks to make billions of dollars on risky loans.

And you accuse me of avoiding reality?

"Illegal behavior" would presumably include misrepresenting the value of bundled loans in order to profit off of their sale. And of course there's the matter of fabricating loan documents in order to give loans to those who couldn't normally qualify and, after the house of cards fell down, fabricating other documents in order to take houses away from those who didn't actually deserve to be foreclosed upon.

[citation needed]

I don't know about you but I can do the math and an organized and pissed off 99% will always beat a lazy and selfish 1%.

Because, after all, the only ting that matters is the arbitrary division of classes as defined by an agitated, misinformed super-minority.

[soliloquy76.livejournal.com]

the wars, as opposed to all the spending, was "unpaid for."

He's cherry-picking, yes. But the wars do not benefit the public like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. It's a money pit. The distinction is important.

His second line item assumes incorrectly that tax cuts have a cost. They do not - the spending was the problem.

This is an ideological stance, not a reasoned one. When you're already spending X amount of dollars on programs that have been passed into law, then cut revenue without cutting some of those programs, you end up with deficits. The Republican-controlled Congress and Bush did not bother to cut spending in 2001 and 2003 when the cuts were passed to match the loss in revenue. That's the problem.

The third still assumes that Wall Street, and not the regulatory structure, caused the recession.

Certain regulations are problematic, yes. Wall Street is still partially complicit in this, as has been proven on numerous occasions.

ETA: Oops, forgot one.

He also cites "illegal behavior" without pointing out what illegal behavior occurred.

Lenders who gave sub-prime mortgages to people who qualified for prime rates, banks foreclosing on customers who are able to pay, accounting fraud, bribing government officials, etc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late-2000s_financial_crisis#Weak_and_fraudulent_underwriting_practice

[pacotelic.livejournal.com]

I was incorrect when I labeled yesterday's cartoon Jeffonomics. -This- is Jeffonomics. Esp. the bit about tax cuts not haivng a cost.

[madscience.livejournal.com]

"His second line item assumes incorrectly that tax cuts have a cost."

The only way this can possibly be true is if you very narrowly and uselessly redefine the word "cost". And even if you do that, the statement remains untrue for the commonly understood and accepted meaning of the word "cost".

This is the same method by which Lutherans argue that atheism is a religion and Christianity is not. But they're not fooling anyone, and neither are you.

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

Be strong, comerades, be strong.

[enders-shadow.livejournal.com]

he's been my fav member of congress for awhile; doubly so after Weiner left

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

well, so much for that. >.>;

[goumindong.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately the only way to do that is by spending(on the right things). General tax policy has little to no effect on labor supply, aggregate demand, or productivity.

I can expand on this if you'd like to get more specific into what some of these things mean.

[atheistkathleen.livejournal.com]

well that's nice but isn't the reason we're at debt because every dollar in circulation is leant to the gov't at interest? by an agency that isn't owned by the gov't?

[lafinjack.livejournal.com]

God damn those liberal dem-- oh wait...

[farchivist.livejournal.com]

It should be interesting to some here, who seem to believe otherwise, that yes, you CAN predict incoming tax revenue within a +/-5% margin and that this is a standard procedure for accountants and economists, who have formulas for this. It's called statistical analysis. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office publishes a report on what tax revenue will be like next year (http://www.cbo.gov/) EVERY DAMN YEAR. I'm absolutely surprised that some people who claim to be so well-informed on economics don't know this very simple piece of information.

[american-geist.livejournal.com]

Don't you all know that semantics govern the laws of the universe?

[pacotelic.livejournal.com]

I hear tell that Water does not cure Dehydration, according to Europe's brightest semanticians.