Originally Posted by Brian Rush

Here's my immediate take on Huntsman's plan.

"The heart of the plan lowers all tax rates on individuals and businesses. Mr. Huntsman would create three personal income tax rates—8%, 14% and 23%—and pay for this in a "revenue-neutral" way by eliminating "all deductions and credits."

I'd actually consider agreeing with this if there was also a 1% bracket on (say) the first $25,000 or so -- even if that means adjusting the other brackets upward a little.

(I only say 1% instead of 0% to give all folks with income some "skin in the game" and eliminate the "half the people pay no income tax" argument once and for all.)

Having said that, even though I'm not a fan of a complex tax code, I think we may need tax policy that encourages (with carrots *and* sticks) a way to flush out much of the huge cash stockpiles many companies and a fair number of individuals are accumulating. Giving these entities a good reason to start giving that cash some economic velocity would have to be good for the economy if done right.

Obama has the most incompetent advisers I've ever seen.
It's just incredible how everyone who has the president's ear is a beltway insider. They have no idea how life is outside of the bubble that they live in.
They're looking for a magic action that will make the Republicans act nice and solve all of the countries problems.
And that magic action does not exist.
McConnell has stated that his primary goal is to make Obama a one term president.
I take him at his word.
I believe that he means it.
I have a hard time understanding why Obama and his advisers can not understand this.
There's not going to be any agreement on anything unless McConnell and his allies believe that it will harm the presidents reelection chances.

But Obama will continue to genuflect and defer to his opposition in the belief that somehow independents want a "reasonable leader" above all else even if being reasonable means standing for nothing and being completely ineffective.

It's like the president has a big "kick me" sign on his back and his advisers don't have enough sense to take it off of him.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

Originally Posted by summer in the fall

The difference is by "Boomers" I include both Democrats and Republicans. And by Republicans, you mean an ideological war that you appear more interested in escalating than leaving; meanwhile the Millennials look on in fear as they contemplate fighting in this war they know nothing about. You may pass the culpability to GI's if you want to. But they are all dead. You sir, however, are very much alive...

Peace.

It is fashionable to blame "boomers" for ideological wars, but they are being waged by all generations...

Yes, I know the Boomer mantra "We didn't start the fire" too well. No, you are not the sources of ills. But can you at least take responsibility for your own rhetoric? Can you at least own up to statements like...

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

...It is time for the left to be bolder. People admire folks who say what they believe, and you know where they stand. Many voters liked that about President Bush. What mattered to those voters was not whether he was right (they didn't care about that) but only that you knew where he stood, as he said...

...which insinuate that our first Xer president would be better off a crazed Boomer, rather than a pragmatic Xer using tact and deliberate force?

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

...I think Millies "know" quite a bit about these ideologies...

I beg to differ. We would have never elected Obama if Millennials "knew" the ideology. And they are still the most hopeful, cheerful and open-minded of the bunch. Xers for the most part are too busy staying alive and generally are MIA either physically or mentally. That leaves Boomers rattling chains and standing on soapboxes...

Originally Posted by herbal tee

McConnell has stated that his primary goal is to make Obama a one term president.
I take him at his word.
I believe that he means it.
I have a hard time understanding why Obama and his advisers can not understand this.
There's not going to be any agreement on anything unless McConnell and his allies believe that it will harm the presidents reelection chances.

Yes, I agree. McConnell has made it abundantly clear that doing the right thing is not as important as political victory in 2012. Anyone with that attitude, whether I agree with them or not, should be sent home come Election Day. People overuse the word "treason" these days and I don't think this quite qualifies as an example of it, but it's pretty close IMO. When you say point blank that your main motivation is something other than "what's best for the country and its citizens," you are defiling the oath of office you took. And aren't many of these folks Christians who took this oath over their Bible?

Originally Posted by James50

The employment situation is disastrous and not getting better. Obama, Boehner, Reid, Pelosi. McConnell need to get everyone together and agree on a plan. I am sick of speeches. We either need a dramatic increase in government or a dramatic decrease. The status quo isn't working.

James50

Why James, you're halfway there! We'll make a New Dealer of you yet!

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

I may be more of an alarmist. Until we get the full Regeneracy that implies a clear movement toward a more pragmatic, rational, and humane order, we remain in danger of a false Regeneracy that creates power for the State or for entrenched elites at the expense of everyone else. I don't like using the political f-word, but I see plenty of authoritarian tendencies within the Republican Party and the Tea Party Cult.

Such a "false regeneracy" would not be an unprecedented event by any means. It's what the Gilded Age was like. I'm reading a fine new book about that era, Railroaded, by Richard White, a Standford Boomer historian. By the early 1870s there was nothing ennobling visible in the impact of the civil war.

Originally Posted by ziggyX65

People overuse the word "treason" these days and I don't think this quite qualifies as an example of it, but it's pretty close IMO. When you say point blank that your main motivation is something other than "what's best for the country and its citizens," you are defiling the oath of office you took.

It is a violation of the oath of office and grounds for impeachment. It's not treason. I feel pretty strongly about using that charge for what doesn't legally merit it; that's been a tool of oppression in far too many autocratic regimes, where accusing someone of treason or of crimes against the state was a means of silencing dissent. The Constitution strictly defines treason as making war on the United States or aiding the enemy in wartime. Those things are treason. Nothing else qualifies. And the terms must be used literally, not figuratively; e.g., passing legislation that is deliberately bad for America may be metaphorically called "making war on the United States," but it is not literally picking up a gun and attacking. Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee et al were guilty of treason (but pardoned); very few others accused of it in public have come close.

Originally Posted by KaiserD2

Why James, you're halfway there! We'll make a New Dealer of you yet!

Don't hold your breath.

I could get on the big government side if I could point to some recent example (other than warfare) that the Federal government has been good at. The previous stimulus was full of feel-good liberal cotton candy that did little for the real economy.

Can't anybody play this game?

James50

Originally Posted by ziggyX65

Yes, I agree. McConnell has made it abundantly clear that doing the right thing is not as important as political victory in 2012. Anyone with that attitude, whether I agree with them or not, should be sent home come Election Day. People overuse the word "treason" these days and I don't think this quite qualifies as an example of it, but it's pretty close IMO. When you say point blank that your main motivation is something other than "what's best for the country and its citizens," you are defiling the oath of office you took. And aren't many of these folks Christians who took this oath over their Bible?

I guess that one could take the postmodernist approach that as McConnell believes that he is right in the long run his short term sabotaging of the president is justified. But then again you can justify almost any action that most people would consider wrong using postmodernist thinking. It's all just another way of justifying ends with whatever means is available.

Originally Posted by James50

I could get on the big government side if I could point to some recent example (other than warfare) that the Federal government has been good at. The previous stimulus was full of feel-good liberal cotton candy that did little for the real economy.

Can't anybody play this game?

James50

Actually, the so called stimulus was more a mixed bag of Keynesian and supply side expenditures. It was also way too small, as Krugman and others pointed out at the time, to do the job.

This is all more or less convincing me that there is no way to short stop a 4T. We're going to keep bumbiling our way through non solutions over the next several years. It is very possible that this minor austerity that we see now failing under Obama will be replaced with a full scale austerity by the next president leading to an even deeper contraction. And slowly more people are going to reconcile themselves with the fact that this contraction is more than the government will admit. It is no recession--it is a true depression.

And we may be in it for 20 years the way that our economic policy is going now.

HT, one thing to keep in mind is that the problem can be fixed quite rapidly once we make up our minds to do it. The cure for the Great Depression in the U.S. came in 1942, when, under wartime necessity, the government finally spent and invested on the necessary scale. Within months, we had full employment at good wages and the problem was suddenly a scarcity of consumer goods rather than of demand. Earlier, the Nazi regime had cured the Depression in Germany with an ambitious public-works regimen combined with rearmament. Again, this took mere months (and made Hitler a very popular leader). (Well, except with the Jews, Communists, social democrats, homosexuals . . .)

If we look at the impact the stimulus did have (just compare the months when it was in force to what we see right now), we can envision the possibilities. It was too small and poorly-constructed but within those limitations it did work. A much bigger, better-constructed version would do the job, just as it did in Germany in 1933 and in the U.S. in 1942.

an interesting viewpoint regarding science and the current crop of republican candidates: http://io9.com/5835970/will-the-anti...ricans-know-it

Originally Posted by herbal tee

Obama has the most incompetent advisers I've ever seen.
It's just incredible how everyone who has the president's ear is a beltway insider. They have no idea how life is outside of the bubble that they live in.
They're looking for a magic action that will make the Republicans act nice and solve all of the countries problems.
And that magic action does not exist.
McConnell has stated that his primary goal is to make Obama a one term president.
I take him at his word.
I believe that he means it.
I have a hard time understanding why Obama and his advisers can not understand this.
There's not going to be any agreement on anything unless McConnell and his allies believe that it will harm the presidents reelection chances.

But Obama will continue to genuflect and defer to his opposition in the belief that somehow independents want a "reasonable leader" above all else even if being reasonable means standing for nothing and being completely ineffective.

It's like the president has a big "kick me" sign on his back and his advisers don't have enough sense to take it off of him.

Sadly, I agree 100%. So many of his advisors had Clinton connections, and they apparently expected a replay. Should have read S & H.

To Summer in the Fall I can only say, what Obama is doing is not working, either in real life or politically. Word from the White House is that liberals will be disappointed in his jobs plan, i.e., it won't actually propose putting people directly to work.

Although he apparently had a rebellious streak in High School, Obama has spent most of his life (much of his childhood under very difficult circumstances) doing what was expected of him, and being handsomely rewarded for it. I can't shake the feeling that he expects everyone else to do the same.

This will be the most critical speech of his presidency to date. He has already been chopped at the knees concerning the date of it. I think, going against his normal MO, he will come out fired up and challenge the GOP to a fight. It is time he stops getting kicked around by the bully. The time is right. You heard it here first.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

HT, one thing to keep in mind is that the problem can be fixed quite rapidly once we make up our minds to do it. The cure for the Great Depression in the U.S. came in 1942, when, under wartime necessity, the government finally spent and invested on the necessary scale. Within months, we had full employment at good wages and the problem was suddenly a scarcity of consumer goods rather than of demand. Earlier, the Nazi regime had cured the Depression in Germany with an ambitious public-works regimen combined with rearmament. Again, this took mere months (and made Hitler a very popular leader). (Well, except with the Jews, Communists, social democrats, homosexuals . . .)

If we look at the impact the stimulus did have (just compare the months when it was in force to what we see right now), we can envision the possibilities. It was too small and poorly-constructed but within those limitations it did work. A much bigger, better-constructed version would do the job, just as it did in Germany in 1933 and in the U.S. in 1942.

I guess we should figure out how to have a massive draft and take millions of men out of the workforce too much like the Nazi's started in 1935 and we did in 1940.....

Originally Posted by TeddyR

This will be the most critical speech of his presidency to date. He has already been chopped at the knees concerning the date of it. I think, going against his normal MO, he will come out fired up and challenge the GOP to a fight. It is time he stops getting kicked around by the bully. The time is right. You heard it here first.

I'll be delighted if you are right, but also amazed. He just doesn't seem to be that sort of a bear.

Originally Posted by Weave

I guess we should figure out how to have a massive draft and take millions of men out of the workforce too much like the Nazi's started in 1935 and we did in 1940.....

Employing people, which is what that did, is somewhat different in concept from taking them out of the workforce. Given that we were at war, it was not useless make-work, either.

This is something that supply-siders never seem to understand. These were not employed people being removed from gainful work, these were the unemployed given something (unfortunately) very useful to do. Without the war, and without some other massive form of federal spending to take its place, they would not have been doing something economically productive, they'd have been sitting around without jobs. So it's not as if they were really IN the work force, you know.

Similarly, the tax revenues taken to (partly) pay for all this were not a drain on capital that would otherwise have been invested productively. There was no consumer demand to justify investing it, so it wasn't being invested in anything that would create jobs. Like the unemployed, it was just sitting around or getting into trouble. The government took capital that wasn't doing anything, and used it to employ people who weren't doing anything, and the economy rebounded. It could have been done years earlier and gotten the same result minus the rationing and the casualty lists, except that FDR couldn't be convinced we could "spend our way to prosperity."

He proved himself wrong on that. He also proved those wrong who say the same thing now.

Originally Posted by KaiserD2

I'll be delighted if you are right, but also amazed. He just doesn't seem to be that sort of a bear.

It would be a disaster if he came out with a totally different persona trying to act like Huey Long or Father Coughlin. It would appear phony. People would see through it in a second and might even think he was losing his marbles. He needs to be who he is before anything else.

James50

I guess I spoke a little too soon about maybe supporting Obama. No Eric the Green can do that if he is going to abdicate his responsibility to stop pollution by big oil and coal companies, on the grounds that these Bush-supporting "job creaters" are going to use their "savings" from obeying necessary regulations to create jobs. And some people talk about not waging an ideological war. Boy, the crap I hear from some people.....

Originally Posted by summer in the fall

I swear to god you Boomers won't rest until this country is embroiled in a civil war and the rest of the world takes the opportunity to begin WWIII. I give...

More response to a post like this is in order.

Some years ago, we often heard conservatives accuse liberals of "class warfare" anytime people asked the government and the nation for fairness in the workplace and for needed taxes and regulations. Now we hear we are waging an "ideological war" if we ask for these things. It's just as bad. Hey, if people don't want us to fight an "ideological war," then don't attack us with false, deceptive ideologies! The conservatives start these wars; the people need to defend our rights and our needs against their attacks.

Originally Posted by Brian Rush

Here's my immediate take on Huntsman's plan.

"The heart of the plan lowers all tax rates on individuals and businesses. Mr. Huntsman would create three personal income tax rates—8%, 14% and 23%—and pay for this in a "revenue-neutral" way by eliminating "all deductions and credits."

If this means what it says, literally eliminating "all deductions and credits," then it would amount to a tax cut for the wealthy and a tax increase for most people. Say right now you are a working-class person who makes $20,000 a year. Say you are single and use the standard deduction. The standard deduction plus one personal exemption for 2011 is $9,500, leaving a taxable amount of $10,500. The tax on this is $850 + $300 = $1,100. If all deductions and credits were eliminated but the bottom bracket dropped to 8%, then depending on where the line was drawn, this taxpayer would pay a minimum of $1,600, possibly more.

At the same time, consider someone who at this time has a taxable income of a million dollars. This person currently pays $284,854.50. Suppose that the bracket lines are at $8,500 and $100,000 for a single person. A million in taxable income would be taxed $220,490. In order for the loss of all deductions and credits (which, by the way, would NOT include business deductions, which happen up front and establish income from the business, not taxable income; there's no way those are going away and no way they should) to make up this shortfall, this millionaire would have to have taken $459,746.43 in deductions. I submit that isn't going to be a common occurrence.

So what this looks like to me is a proposal to shift the tax burden downward (again), relying on the fact that most American voters aren't all that math-savvy.

I heard Huntsman on Tavis Smiley actually say that the lower income earners are "paying too little." Lots of people are easily fooled by "flat tax" and similar "simplification" schemes. Such schemes sound nice but help nobody except the rich clients of Huntsman and his Republican colleagues.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

Originally Posted by summer in the fall

I swear to god you Boomers won't rest until this country is embroiled in a civil war and the rest of the world takes the opportunity to begin WWIII. I give...

More response to a post like this is in order.

Some years ago, we often heard conservatives accuse liberals of "class warfare" anytime people asked the government and the nation for fairness in the workplace and for needed taxes and regulations. Now we hear we are waging an "ideological war" if we ask for these things. It's just as bad. Hey, if people don't want us to fight an "ideological war," then don't attack us with false, deceptive ideologies! The conservatives start these wars; the people need to defend our rights and our needs against their attacks.

Who are you talking to? Nevermind. I think I know the answer. You ignored the context in which I made that statement. So you must be talking to the ethers.

Originally Posted by summer in the fall

Yes, I know the Boomer mantra "We didn't start the fire" too well. No, you are not the sources of ills. But can you at least take responsibility for your own rhetoric? Can you at least own up to statements like...

Often the side that is bolder, wins the day. It is time for the left to be bolder. People admire folks who say what they believe, and you know where they stand. Many voters liked that about President Bush. What mattered to those voters was not whether he was right (they didn't care about that) but only that you knew where he stood, as he said. I don't think people know where Obama stands.

...which insinuate that our first Xer president would be better off a crazed Boomer, rather than a pragmatic Xer using tact and deliberate force?

Your comment completely baffles me, Mr. Summer. Of course I "own up" to it. It was the exactly correct thing to say. What would you have any person with any sensible intelligence say? Cave in to right wing creeps who want to destroy the country? You amaze me sir. "Tact and deliberate force?" What on earth does that mean? If Obama is a leader, he needs to spell out just what the nation needs to do and why, and ask and arouse the people to support him. What else would you have him do? Cave in? That is not tact; it is surrender. The right wing will not be cowardly, if the left wing is. The right wing in this country is not interested in anything but victory in their quest for policies that are and will destroy the country. IT will not be cowardly. Don't ask the Left to be cowardly then. The only thing necessary for evil to triumph, is for good men to do nothing. THAT is the situation we are in now. Welcome to the 4T. Tactful and shrewd is one thing, but being nice to ruthless opponents who stand for all the wrong things is not what is called for.

And Obama may not be an Xer anyway, despite his claims; he is a cusper, and I think 1961 belongs in the Boomer group.

I beg to differ. We would have never elected Obama if Millennials "knew" the ideology. And they are still the most hopeful, cheerful and open-minded of the bunch. Xers for the most part are too busy staying alive and generally are MIA either physically or mentally. That leaves Boomers rattling chains and standing on soapboxes...

There never WAS any ideology. Obama made sensible, practical proposals in his campaign, and did not hide anything. Millies knew full well what his proposals were; you can't back away now and call it "ideology from Boomers." He needs to recapture his dedication to sensible proposals for what the country needs, instead of caving in and being reasonable to brutes who only want him ousted. Millies know as well as anyone else what is going on in America. If they are hopeful and cheerful, then just as I SAID, they will move on from the conservative deceptions, and we won't need to fight any "ideological war." But meanwhile you can't stand down when you are attacked.

Originally Posted by KaiserD2

Such a "false regeneracy" would not be an unprecedented event by any means. It's what the Gilded Age was like. I'm reading a fine new book about that era, Railroaded, by Richard White, a Standford Boomer historian. By the early 1870s there was nothing ennobling visible in the impact of the civil war.

Do regeneracies happen in a 1T? Are you getting rusty on turnings and generations theory?

Or are you saying the civil war was a false regeneracy because of what it led to in the next turning? Maybe that could happen this time, indeed; but again, we are a long way from the next turning to know.

Originally Posted by summer in the fall

Who are you talking to? Nevermind. I think I know the answer. You ignored the context in which I made that statement. So you must be talking to the ethers.

You are the one I am talking to. You are the one who said that my statement that Obama should be bold is "a boomer keeping an ideological war going."