This Is Not A Democracy, It's A Republic........
You forgot one:
Titanic: Man in charge hits glacier, subsequently sinking the entire ship and killing thousands.
Bush Administration: Ditto, minus the glacier.
Oh, for crying out loud Will. Just laugh, I know you did.
Here's on for you:
Titanic: Huge, sinks, killing indiscriminately.
Ted Kennedy: Huge, drunk, kills young girl and get's away with it because of his name.
I laughed, Jenn. I was just trying to make this a bi-partisan funfest.
Here's another:
Titanic: Loaded up the rich onto lifeboats before everybody else.
Bush Administration: Loaded up the rich with tax cuts and better health plans before everybody else.
And another?
Titanic: Went to sea with the ship it had, not the ship it wished it had.
Bush Administration: Went to war with the army it had, not the army it wished it had.
Come on, that one was good.
More?
Titanic: Three hours of scripted, bad acted, mislead, overly-hyped, expensive torture.
Bush Administration: Eight years of scripted, bad acted, mislead, overly-hyped, expensive torture.
Dude, I'm on fire. More?
Titanic: Leonardo DiCaprio falsely claiming that he is the "king of the world!"
Bush Administration: Dubya falsely claiminng that he is the "king of the world!"
Okay, that one fizzled on me.
I'll quit now. Are we having fun yet?
I know you are. : )
So, how about this:
Titanic: Went to sea with the ship it had, not the ship it wished it had.
Democraps: Went to war with the army it's beloved Clinton screwed for 8 years, and not the good kind of screw.
Titanic: The captain goes down with the ship.
Democraps: Fuck the captain, where's my life boat?
Titanic: Glorious love story, made me cry.
Democraps: Hideous hate filled bitch fest, everyday, makes me cry.
Gee, I'm on fire. : )
How about this:
Titanic: Massive deaths occur because there is no substantive plan for evacuation.
Democraps: Entire party dies because they have no substantive plan for...well...anything.
Titanic: Violins play as the ship sinks.
Democraps: No violins, except the tiny ones in their heads.
Titanic: When in trouble, the ship immediately radios its position.
Democraps: When in trouble, the party has no idea of its position.
Titanic: People have the good sense to get off of a sinking ship.
Democraps: Other than Lieberman, no one has sense enough to get off sinking ship.
Titanic: Deckhands yelled "The Titanic is sinking," and it was.
Democraps: Yelled "Iraq is a disaster," and it wasn't.
Just another quick reminder for Will. The "evil" tax cuts have actually produced more revenue at the federal level than was forecasted before the tax cuts.
That's right Will. More. If the tax cuts had not been passed, the feds would not have as much money.
Furthermore, the rich pay a higher percentage of total income tax than they ever have, because of the tax cuts. That's right Will. The rich have more of the burden now.
Let's summarize:
More federal revenue, higher tax burden on the rich.
I know these are hard concepts, but I am certain you will get them some day.
You've been reading too many Republican talking points that defend their poor decisions.
It is a widely cited right-wing mantra that tax cuts are good for growth and for jobs. Supposedly, the Bush tax cuts were a good economic stimulus when the economy needed it in the recession in 2001. In his radio address on March 10, 2001, President Bush argued that the economy was "sputtering" and that people needed more money to "buy products."
To achieve the stimulus goal, President Bush could not have designed a worse tax cut. For one, the changes did not happen when the economy actually needed it. Out of a massive tax cut totaling $1.3 trillion, only $74 billion, or 5.5 percent, actually occurred in 2001, when the economy supposedly needed it the most. Instead, the vast majority of the tax cuts would happen five years later, when the economy was hopefully no longer in need of help.
The tax cuts were also top heavy; that is, most of the tax changes were targeted towards higher income earners, who are typically more likely to save money than to spend it – the opposite of what the economy needed. In the first five years of the tax cuts, those earning more than $200,000 a year received an estimated tax cut that was 12 times as large as the average. Across all tax changes enacted under President Bush, the nonpartisan Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy estimated that middle-class families saw a tax cut of 7 to 8 percent, compared to a 12 percent cut for the richest 1 percent.
Even during the period of strongest economic growth under President Bush, the tax cuts contributed about one-fifth of that growth, according to estimates by economy.com. Given the lackluster effect of the tax cuts, ingenious conservative rhetoric has identified the dividend tax cuts of 2003 as working miracles in other ways. They supposedly put "billions of dollars in cash into shareholders' pockets," as President Bush put it his radio address on July 19, 2003. These tax cuts, he claimed, boosted economic growth. The rationale is that dividend tax cuts boost stock prices. This makes it more attractive for people to buy stocks, which means more money for investment and ultimately, faster growth.
However, on this point the numbers tell a different story. The tax cuts were signed into law at the end of May 2003. Before dividend tax cuts became law, stock prices rose by 15 percent from their low point in February 2003 through the end of May 2003. For the remainder of 2003, stock prices grew on average 60 percent slower. In 2004, stock market gains were cut again by more than half. If anything, the introduction of dividend tax cuts went along with a slowing momentum on Wall Street, not the other way around.
Oh, little Will, my friend.... will you please stop trying to hard to be a liberal. I know you're smarter than that. Listen, listen really good:
A few weeks ago, the Internal Revenue Service released data on tax year 2003. They show that the top one percent of taxpayers, ranked by adjusted gross income, paid 34.3 percent of all federal income taxes that year. The top 5 percent paid 54.4 percent, the top 10 percent paid 65.8 percent, and the top quarter of taxpayers paid 83.9 percent.
A common liberal retort to these data is that they exclude payroll taxes, which are assumed to be largely paid by the poor. However, it turns out that when one includes payroll taxes in the calculations, it has far less impact on the distribution of the tax burden than most people would assume, because the wealthy also pay a lot of those taxes, too.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/
un...1e17bartle.html
take a looksy. : )
None of which, of course, addresses the points that I made. Not even a little bit.
The fact remains that the feds do have more money than was forecasted before the tax cuts. The fact remains that the rich have been saddled with a larger percentage of our overall tax burden as a result of the tax cuts. That's right, Bush only added to the progressive nature of our tax system, not lessened it.
Whether or not the tax cuts stimulated the economy is debatable, but then, I didn't claim that they did.
Only that the government has gotten richer as a result and that rich people will now pay more of the burden then ever before.
That is not right-wing rhetoric, that is fact.
Here's to hoping that someday you learn the difference
I was talking to Will...not Jenn.
You know, there's a thing called "framing an issue," and the republicans have it down pat. The points you're arguing are, indeed, true. This makes you think you are right, and you are - for now.
You say, "Only that the government has gotten richer as a result and that rich people will now pay more of the burden then ever before." That's true, but it's like a college kid discovering credit cards for the first time. You're rich for a brief period, but eventually it's going to catch up with you.
Trickle-down economics. Or what Dubya's dad even called voodoo economics.
There's a simple common sense objection. We aren't computers. People don't respond to minor changes in income tax rates the way an economist's graph might suggest. Assuming I have the sort of job where productivity precisely corresponds to pay, is it realistic to think that lowering my marginal tax rate by a percentage point or two will result in increased productivity? Will the knowledge that I now get to keep 72 cents for every dollar earned instead of 70 cents really cause me to suddenly work harder? Perhaps if they lowered taxes from 90% to 30%, it would affect my behavior, but that's not what we're talking about. American tax rates are already rock bottom compared to the rest of the world. To suggest that minor tinkering with tax rates will alter people's incentives to work in any significant way strikes me as somewhat divorced from everyday experience.
It's worth noting that the wealthiest Americans make the majority of their income from investments, not from wages. Therefore, even assuming the supply-siders are right about the relationship between tax rates and productivity, the wealthy are the least likely to be affected by such incentives. Yet, inevitably, Republican tax cut proposals disproportionately benefit the rich.
This is your comment to me Will:
"This makes you think you are right, and you are - for now."
The rest was all BLAH,BLAH,BLAH.....
Jenn: "The rest was all BLAH,BLAH,BLAH....."
I'm sorry. I wouldn't want you to try and learn anything.
It was BLAH, BLAH, BLAH, not because Jenn doesn't want to learn, but because it was complete nonsense.
If the tax cuts were "for the rich" how come they now have a larger burden of the tax pie than before? Will is saying the cuts were evil because the rich got a check in the short run, but they will forever pay more in the long run. How is that a "tax cut" again?
If the tax cuts were so evil and damaging, why is it that the feds have more money now than was forecast before? That can only happen if economic growth exceeds expectation and therefore revenue rises.
I'm right...for now? What kind of bullshit is that?
How about, I'm right...period.
The rates won't change Will. Tax revenue will continue to climb as long as the economy grows. Also, I didn't say anything about the relationship between tax cuts and productivity. It would be nice if you would dispute points that I make, rather than this continuous moving to a new one. Are you arguing your original nonsense about evil tax cuts or are we on a totally new topic now?
Could you let me know next time you decide to change the subject?
Hey, Anon..... try laughing, it might help you remove the stick that seems firmly stuck up your arse.
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