U.S. Politics NEXT!

[LongRider]

28 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

There is no reason to believe that "tax cuts pay for themselves" or that the this current tax cut will lead to a substantial boost in the level of GDP in the next 10 years like Republicans claim or that it will lead to a higher longer term GDP growth like the Republican Party claims.

I heard a Florida congressman (sorry, forget his name) on NPR last week claim that the tax scam bill would cause growth of 6%!!   Gee, that clown must be delusional to see that much pie in sky.

[OldGimletEye]

23 hours ago, GAROVORKIN said:

Correct me if wrong, but didn't  the budget debit issues  of our modern era really  begin in the Kennedy and John Administrations ? 

Nope. The debt/GDP ratio fell under Kennedy/Johnson. In fact from World War 2, until Bill Clinton the debt/GDP ratio fell under every Democratic president. Same can't be said about Republican Presidents. It rose for instance under Reagan.

[mormont]

49 minutes ago, GAROVORKIN said:

That is a perfectly reasonable response to my question.

So's the first one, mind you.

[OldGimletEye]

23 hours ago, Nasty LongRider said:

All hail the great and powerful St. Ronnie!   (Just don't look behind the curtain!)

https://thinkprogress.org/10-things-conservatives-dont-want-you-to-know-about-ronald-reagan-7a87723a4f68/

Good list. But, one thing I'll add. The Reagan recovery was largely about monetary policy. Around 1981 or so the FED rate reached about 19%. So there was a lot of room to cut. I know I've mentioned this a lot, but unfortunately the idea that the Reagan tax cuts spurred awesome growth and recovery, remains strong in Republican and conservative mythology.

[OldGimletEye]

23 hours ago, Nasty LongRider said:

I heard a Florida congressman (sorry, forget his name) on NPR last week claim that the tax scam bill would cause growth of 6%!!   Gee, that clown must be delusional to see that much pie in sky.

Conservative clowns gonna conservative clown around.

[Paladin of Ice]

45 minutes ago, GAROVORKIN said:

Correct me if wrong, but didn't  the budget debit issues  of our modern era really  begin in the Kennedy and John Administrations ? 

Here's a brief history of US debt from the start of the nation to 2012, which you may find informative. Long story short, not only did debt tend to decrease under Democratic admins after FDR, but in 1974 debt was 24% of US GDP. After Reagan, the closest we've ever come to that level again was about 33%, at the start of W. Bush's presidency after the 90s boom. Then the Bush tax cuts and increased spending on war (the equivalent of cutting someone's pay and forcing them to increase how much they spend at the same time) did a number of the debt. Then we got the Great Recession and things went more or less to hell as far as debt is concerned.

The key excerpts regarding your question are:

Quote

WORLD WAR II

The debt-to-GDP ratio hit its all-time record of 113% by war's end. Debt was at $241.86 billion in 1946, about $2.87 trillion in current dollars. Unlike after World War I, the US never really tried to pay down much of the debt it incurred during World War II. Still the debt shrank in significance as the US economy grew. It would take the debt-to-GDP ratio until 1962 just to get back to where the US was before the war. And with some fits and starts the debt load declined until hitting its recent low in 1974 at 24%, when the debt outstanding held by the public was $343.7 billion ($1.61 trillion, in current dollars.)

REAGONOMICS

Debt-to-GDP began another upswing in the early 1980s, when the US fell into a particularly nasty recession, set off by the Federal Reserve under Paul Volcker, who raised interest rates to record heights in order to defeat inflation. Government receipts flattened thanks in part to the large, permanent tax cuts that served as one of the top accomplishments of President Ronald Reagan's first term. Spending jumped on both defense and social programs. Deficits exploded, breaking with the US tradition of only running large deficits during wartime. Debt-to-GDP began to climb and it hit a postwar peak of more than 49% in the early 1990s. In 1995, the publicly held debt outstanding was about $3.6 trillion (or $5.47 trillion, in today's money).  After that, a surge of economic growth, and increased revenues--thanks in part to the 1990 tax increases that cost the first President George Bush re-election and tax increases pushed through by the Clinton administration --helped bend the trajectory of the debt load back into line.

W.

The debt-load continued to look increasingly manageable throughout the late 1990s, and it hit its recent low of less than 33% of GDP in 2001. At that point, things looked so good on the debt front, that some were projecting the US would be within striking distance of eliminating the entire debt within a decade. It didn't work out that way.

A recession, combined with tax cuts in 2001 and 2003 championed by President George W. Bush, severely crimped revenue. At the same time, spending surged both on military outlays after Sept. 11 and on domestic programs such as an expensive prescription-drug benefit for senior citizens. As a result. US borrowing shot higher to finance the Bush Administration's efforts to stabilize the banking system as the economy teetered on the brink in 2008. Total government debt available to be traded publicly rose from $3.41 trillion in December 2000 to $5.80 trillion in December 2008, an increase of 70%; the debt-to-GDP ratio went up from 34.7% in 2000 to 40.5% in 2008. 

 

[OldGimletEye]

Now maybe you’ve thought to yourself, “I’ve always wanted to be a sorry ass libertarian jerko? What can I do to be a sorry ass libertarian jerko?”

Well, probably, by taking your life savings and borrowing as much money as you can from friends and family and then putting it all into Bitcoin.

But, aside from that, here is another pretty good way: Show the ACA increased real healthcare consumption, while at the same time showing that the relative price of healthcare declined compared to all other goods and then declaring the ACA was a failure.

Libertarian clown man Arnold Kling nicely demonstrates why he’s a clown:

Quote

The piece as a whole points out that although health care spending growth has slowed in nominal terms, on an inflation-adjusted per capita basis, health care spending has picked up.

Once, again, if you want to know whether you increased real health care consumption, you use a health care price index. If you want to know how that increased real health care consumption burdens people’s other economic choices you use a general price index. And using a general price index, it would appear the relative price of health care has declined, since the ACA.

This isn’t hard.

The clownery continues.

[OldGimletEye]

On 12/23/2017 at 8:01 AM, Martell Spy said:

Democrats: We Can Win Suburban Republicans With a Progressive Platform
What the party has learned from its two biggest wins of 2017.

https://newrepublic.com/article/146369/democrats-can-win-suburban-republicans-progressive-platform

 

Quote

By the way,” he added, “that’s what the conservatives did. They stuck to their guns and tried to sell their vision.”

Yup. They sure in the hell did.

[Bonnot OG]

 

Pretty much.

[KingintheNorth4]

1 hour ago, Sword of Doom said:

 

Pretty much.

https://twitter.com/maggieNYT/status/944613786140340224?ref_src=twcamp^share|twsrc^m5|twgr^email|twcon^7046|twterm^0 If you want further proof of Trump's racism.

[Bonnot OG]

35 minutes ago, KingintheNorth4 said:

https://twitter.com/maggieNYT/status/944613786140340224?ref_src=twcamp^share|twsrc^m5|twgr^email|twcon^7046|twterm^0 If you want further proof of Trump's racism.

Yup, that is what prompted that tweet I referenced. 

He's such a sack of shit.

[GAROVORKIN]

9 hours ago, OldGimletEye said:

Yeah pretty much.

But, also lets start with the Penn Wharton Model and JCT estimates which predict a boost of about somewhere 0.1 - 0.2 in GDP level in the next ten years. You'll note that isn't that much. And then you got to take about a third of that out as it's investment income that goes to foreign investors. And the rest of it goes mainly to the wealthy. Personally I think both the Penn Wharton and JCT model are a bit optimistic but they are at least credible.

If this about helping most people there are certainly better policy levers you could employ, like better anti-trust enforcement, boosting the minimum wage, spending on infrastructure, job training etc, etc.

And then of course the the Republican Party will use the deficits that their corporate tax cut create to justify cutting back on a variety of programs like Medicare, Medicaid,  Social Security, TANF, and SNAP.

Lovely.

[GAROVORKIN]

13 hours ago, OldGimletEye said:

Nope. The debt/GDP ratio fell under Kennedy/Johnson. In fact from World War 2, until Bill Clinton the debt/GDP ratio fell under every Democratic president. Same can't be said about Republican Presidents. It rose for instance under Reagan.

In the case of Bill Clinton , he did an excellent job with the budget. He did raise some taxes but he also did entitlement reform. I often wonder if Al Gore would have continued a similar fiscal approach had he won in 2000.

[Spockydog]

4 hours ago, Sword of Doom said:

 

Pretty much.

Also, 'falsehoods' instead of 'lies'.

[SerHaHa]

Quote

Good list. But, one thing I'll add. The Reagan recovery was largely about monetary policy. Around 1981 or so the FED rate reached about 19%. So there was a lot of room to cut. I know I've mentioned this a lot, but unfortunately the idea that the Reagan tax cuts spurred awesome growth and recovery, remains strong in Republican and conservative mythology.

Agreed completely.  It was such a different time, as you said, the interest rates were sky high, and that left a lot of room to drop them, where as now, not so much.  Also, the whole capital forming effects of the rapid build up of the military to counter/end the Soviets, particularly the Navy, which had 600 fighting ships or near enough, literally 2x what the USN has now, and in effect nearly 3x if you go by the number of ships and naval aircraft that are actually capable of fighting right now.  Notice how Trump has latched on to that, frequently boasting of rebuilding the US Navy to a "500 ship navy".  Probably one of the most outrageous things (fiscally at least) he's flapped his gums about IMO. 

 

Quote

In the case of Bill Clinton , he did an excellent job with the budget. He did raise some taxes but he also did entitle reform. I ofter wonder of Al Gore would have continued that fiscal approach had he won in 2000.

While I feel his wife would have been an even greater disaster than Trump, if that's even possible, I think that Bill Clinton was the best President the USA's had since the second world war ended.  Certainly the best in my lifetime, hands down.  It's a shame he was politically limited over getting a blow job or two (or a thousand, who cares), and couldn't have done even more in the latter part of his administration.  About the only saving grace IMO of having had Hilary win would be that Bill would be back in the WH too, that's how I feel about it anyway.

[felice]

3 hours ago, SerHaHa said:

While I feel his wife would have been an even greater disaster than Trump, if that's even possible, I think that Bill Clinton was the best President the USA's had since the second world war ended.  Certainly the best in my lifetime, hands down.  It's a shame he was politically limited over getting a blow job or two

And how do you think Hillary differs from Bill, politically speaking? Aside from being incapable of receiving blow jobs?

[Week]

28 minutes ago, felice said:

And how do you think Hillary differs from Bill, politically speaking? Aside from being incapable of receiving blow jobs?

She would have deleted more emails, gone back to benghazi, and ran a childsex ring out of a pizza place near DC.

[LongRider]

29 minutes ago, Week said:

She would have deleted more emails, gone back to benghazi, and ran a childsex ring out of a pizza place near DC.

And worn even more pantsuits!

[James Arryn]

11 hours ago, Sword of Doom said:

 

Pretty much.

 

Part of the reason he gets a pass on his racism isn’t because of the colour of readers, but rather their nationality. Don’t know if you’re old enough to remember how much wiggle room Dubya got over his illegal wars, torture camps, secret jails, etc. Anyone elected automatically gets a shit ton of ‘presidential’ credit because many Americans cannot conceive of the idea of America being that wrong.

6 hours ago, SerHaHa said:

Agreed completely.  It was such a different time, as you said, the interest rates were sky high, and that left a lot of room to drop them, where as now, not so much.  Also, the whole capital forming effects of the rapid build up of the military to counter/end the Soviets, particularly the Navy, which had 600 fighting ships or near enough, literally 2x what the USN has now, and in effect nearly 3x if you go by the number of ships and naval aircraft that are actually capable of fighting right now.  Notice how Trump has latched on to that, frequently boasting of rebuilding the US Navy to a "500 ship navy".  Probably one of the most outrageous things (fiscally at least) he's flapped his gums about IMO. 

 

While I feel his wife would have been an even greater disaster than Trump, if that's even possible, I think that Bill Clinton was the best President the USA's had since the second world war ended.  Certainly the best in my lifetime, hands down.  It's a shame he was politically limited over getting a blow job or two (or a thousand, who cares), and couldn't have done even more in the latter part of his administration.  About the only saving grace IMO of having had Hilary win would be that Bill would be back in the WH too, that's how I feel about it anyway.

Getting a blowjob or two wasn’t the problem. Lying in court under oath in a sexual harassment case was the problem. Kind of a big deal, imo. And I despise Gingrich and the other people who lead the charge. I think Hillary lacks Bill’s genius as a communicator/manipulator, and is much more of a hawk, but otherwise I think they’re pretty similar politically, excepting her resume was way better at the the time of their respective elections.

[ThinkerX]

17 hours ago, OldGimletEye said:

Yeah pretty much.

But, also lets start with the Penn Wharton Model and JCT estimates which predict a boost of about somewhere 0.1 - 0.2 in GDP level in the next ten years. You'll note that isn't that much. And then you got to take about a third of that out as it's investment income that goes to foreign investors. And the rest of it goes mainly to the wealthy. Personally I think both the Penn Wharton and JCT model are a bit optimistic but they are at least credible.

If this about helping most people there are certainly better policy levers you could employ, like better anti-trust enforcement, boosting the minimum wage, spending on infrastructure, job training etc, etc.

And then of course the the Republican Party will use the deficits that their corporate tax cut create to justify cutting back on a variety of programs like Medicare, Medicaid,  Social Security, TANF, and SNAP.

Still think the republicans cannot manage a repeat or echo of the 2007-2008 collapse before the end of 2020?  Imagine all the various loopholes and provisions in this tax bill exploited full tilt, with nary a hint of restraint or foresight.