[talaniman]

I disagree with you both slightly in that but for the extractive nature of our more capitalists citizens helped by a bought and paid for lawmakers we would not only be rolling in dough, but have a vibrant balanced consumer driven economy.

[tomder55]

we have a vibrant consumer driven economy because of our capitalist system. The government just spends too much . Don't tell me that is not so. Our debt ration is over 105% of GDP. You can't tax your way out of that even if you seized the wealth of all the rich.

[paraclete]

Yes your economy has picked up which is good to see, but what damage have you done

[talaniman]

Adding debt during a modest growth is not the way out as a downturn or slowdown would destroy the economy. That trickle down stuff never works and worse enrich the rich without targeted guide lines is robbery. Tax cuts never pay for themselves, and only create debt without flexibility and structure. None of that is present now, and just lays the foundation for austerity and bankruptcy.

The dufus is a bankruptcy expert, as was Bush to a lesser extent. Of course big biz will blame rising costs on labor, and what they cannot pass on viably, they just reduce and mitigate. Repubs did the country no good cutting biz taxes permanently, while not closing loopholes. It was poorly structured and left out the consumer and such plans always cost us all more than they are worth.

Not like we have not seen this play before. Or the results that are sure to come. Repubs KNEW their plan was insufficient, and never touted such an "accomplishment" during silly season. Don't worry Tom, dems always come in and clean up repub fiscal messes, so repubs can come back and screw it up again.

Past behavior and present conditions have been recorded in history.

[jlisenbe]

Adding debt during a modest growth is not the way out as a downturn or slowdown would destroy the economy.

You do realize that this is exactly what Mr. Obama did, to the tune of doubling the national debt? He never had anything more than modest growth.

[talaniman]

And a falling unemployment figure, stable prices, and a very good job creation record. Modest growth wasn't a bad thing. Tell the whole story and not just part of it. How do you ignore Obama starting out with a complete fiscal disaster?

[jlisenbe]

I'm not arguing about the details. I'm just saying that if "adding debt during a modest growth is not the way out as a downturn or slowdown would destroy the economy", then Mr. Obama was in error in adding so much debt.

[talaniman]

I'm not arguing about the details. I'm just saying that if "adding debt during a modest growth is not the way out as a downturn or slowdown would destroy the economy", then Mr. Obama was in error in adding so much debt.

He had little choice in the conditions he was in, but to manage a collapsing economy bleeding jobs at a rate rivaling the great depression, with GLOBAL implications. Even with the debt increasing under Obama the economy was GROWING. Also a good chunk of the Obama debt was making the Bush off the books trillion dollar war accountable in the budget.

The devil is always in the details of which there are many to factor in for accuracy. I would also submit it's as complex a MANAGEMENT problem as our own personal debts. No different than borrowing when an emergency arises, but has to be dealt with after that emergency. You have to admit that Obama dealt effectively with his emergency, and left the dufus with a rather healthy growing economy.

That's a very positive endorsement of the last presidents efforts. The dufus OWNS the stewardship of the economy and is responsible for managing the debt NOW!

[jlisenbe]

That's a very positive endorsement of the last presidents efforts

Just saying that, according to your standard, his method was "not the way out." I think that we tend to agree on the lack of wisdom of deficit spending. I just apply it to everyone. We have spent our way into an enormous hole and everyone is to blame.

[talaniman]

You misunderstand my standard. A deficit funded tax cut benefiting greatly the rich and made permanently guarantees the debt will grow far beyond present levels. That's not what the dufus promised is it? No he said MIDDLE CLASS tax cuts. That sets up the financial dynamic of any further tax cuts adding to the deficit further. Ideally any tax reduction would have some balancing mechanism such as spending reductions, but this has none and the budget has grown as well as the debt.

Even Reagan and his democratic congress raised taxes after cutting them to deal with the debt, and Clinton balanced the budget with military cuts with the repub congress. There is no such countering move with this present congress and administration. Not even a deficit funded tax cut for the middle class, or infrastructure bill.

[jlisenbe]

Look at the stats. The top 10% of wage earners pay almost 70% of the income tax. Kind of hard to give a tax break to people who pay very little in taxes.

[talaniman]

Just to update your data:

https://taxfoundation.org/summary-fe...tax-data-2017/


Yeah it would be hard to find the money to give middle wage earners a break, considering the rich guy tax cut already took most of the wealth through direct tax reduction, and continuing deductions which had already lowered the taxable income for wealthier citizens. Had they closed those loopholes, and put conditions on those cuts, instead of give, the wealthy could earn them maybe the debt would be mitigated, leaving a few bucks for mid America.

Hard yes but not impossible. That was what the dufus ran on as I remember. Did he lie? Of course he did!

[paraclete]

Just to update your data:

https://taxfoundation.org/summary-fe...tax-data-2017/


Yeah it would be hard to find the money to give middle wage earners a break, considering the rich guy tax cut already took most of the wealth through direct tax reduction, and continuing deductions which had already lowered the taxable income for wealthier citizens. Had they closed those loopholes, and put conditions on those cuts, instead of give, the wealthy could earn them maybe the debt would be mitigated, leaving a few bucks for mid America.

Hard yes but not impossible. That was what the dufus ran on as I remember. Did he lie? Of course he did!

You see, you have no idea of sheep farming over there, the idea is to shear the sheep, not listen to their bleeting

[jlisenbe]

Just to update your data:

https://taxfoundation.org/summary-fe...tax-data-2017/

Yeah it would be hard to find the money to give middle wage earners a break, considering the rich guy tax cut already took most of the wealth through direct tax reduction, and continuing deductions which had already lowered the taxable income for wealthier citizens.

Not sure what the purpose of the link was. It showed the top one percent earning about twenty percent of the income and paying about forty percent of the taxes.

As to your wealth transfer scheme, in what way does the top one percent paying forty percent of the taxes somehow become a scheme to transfer wealth from the poor to the rich?? Looks to me like it would be wealth transfer in the other direction. And if the taxable income of the wealthy has been lowered, then how is it that the wealthy ended up paying forty percent of the taxes? Your comment just makes no sense.

[talaniman]

Of course it would make no sense to us average people who cannot imagine the many ways that huge sums of money can be socked away. In a lot of cases though this leads to a very restrictive condition of money not being able to circulate throughout the economy. Even your own chart shows this. Perhaps we get a better understanding if we add more DATA.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth..._United_States



Please watch this video tucked over in the right under wealth and income.

[jlisenbe]

Right off the bat, the man on the video does what I hate. He injects an opinion and treats it as fact. He states that the wealth gap is "unfairly skewed" and "shockingly skewed". It is, he says, "mind blowing". Says who? It is skewed, yes, but on what planet is it unfair that a person, for instance, who goes through five years of rigorous and difficult schooling to become an architect and ends up with a net worth of millions of dollars has a much higher net worth than a person who chose to drop out of school and have four children out of wedlock? They both made choices, and they both live with their choices. Should the feds take money from the person who was been responsible and give it to the person who made much lower quality choices? My view is absolutely not.

So it should be a certain way because, after all, many people think it is that way? That kind of thinking belongs in a first grade classroom.

[Athos]

Right off the bat, the man on the video does what I hate. He injects an opinion and treats it as fact. He states that the wealth gap is "unfairly skewed" and "shockingly skewed". It is, he says, "mind blowing". Says who? It is skewed, yes, but on what planet is it unfair that a person, for instance, who goes through five years of rigorous and difficult schooling to become an architect and ends up with a net worth of millions of dollars has a much higher net worth than a person who chose to drop out of school and have four children out of wedlock? They both made choices, and they both live with their choices. Should the feds take money from the person who was been responsible and give it to the person who made much lower quality choices? My view is absolutely not.

So it should be a certain way because, after all, many people think it is that way? That kind of thinking belongs in a first grade classroom.

What about the four children in your example? Can the feds help them?

[jlisenbe]

That to me is not the question. The question should be, can you help them? If you want to talk to me about the two of us being helpful, then you can make progress, but my experience with most liberals is that they don't give a horse's rear-end about the poor unless you are talking about taking money from B to help C so that A (the liberal) can feel good about him/her self.

When it comes to assisting children, the problem is to avoid the establishment of a reward system for women to have children out of wedlock. I would agree we need to help, but it is the how to do it part we need to look at.

[Athos]

That to me is not the question.

That may not be the question you wanted, but that is the question asked which you have declined to answer. You have a habit of doing that.

...my experience with most liberals is that they don't give a horse's rear-end about the poor unless you are talking about taking money from B to help C so that A (the liberal) can feel good about him/her self.

My experience with most conservatives is that they don't give a horse's rear-end about the poor unless they can make money from them.

When it comes to assisting children, the problem is to avoid the establishment of a reward system for women to have children out of wedlock. I would agree we need to help, but it is the how to do it part we need to look at.

Ah, agreement. Well, that's a start.

[jlisenbe]

That may not be the question you wanted, but that is the question asked which you have declined to answer. You have a habit of doing that.

Ahh, but I did answer it, and I'm glad we have a start!