Democrats & Liberals: Archives

Stephen-

I’m not a Republican, but I am fairly conservative. And taxes are an important discussion of right minded people despite your perceptions.

Your statement that “the bills must be paid” is dead-on. And just like anyone’s budget there are three ways to do it: 1) increase revenue, 2) decrease spending, and 3) increase borrowing. Most conservatives believe that the Federal government has grown too large and has encroached on the free market system, the States, and the populous. Therefore, increasing the method by which the Feds do this, taxation, is not a very good choice, and conservatives generally vote for politicians who pledge not to raise taxes.

But politicians of either color or stripe will always choose the easiest path, and conservative politicians have come to believe that there is little political fallout from deficit spending. And so far they have been pretty much proven right. The best argument has been that deficit spending raises interest rates, but the problem is it hasn’t happened. It has de-valued the dollar, but most politicians view that as a plus and not a minus as their constituents can sell their goods abroad more competitively. There must political pain to supporting deficit spending.

I think one good thing that has come from the recent deficit spending is that it is creating a new kind of Democrat who is hawkish on deficits. Hopefully noise from the left will force the GOP to return to its balanced budget advocacy days. Then we can get to the real task at hand, which is to cut wasteful spending, reform our budget busters like Medicare and SS, and better match our sources of revenues (taxes) to our social needs (spending).

But until we cut spending and enact the needed reforms, I will continue to vote for politicians who pledge not to raise taxes.

This is not on the subject, but can anyone tell me why we don’t help the african people more?

I think one good thing that has come from the recent deficit spending is that it is creating a new kind of Democrat who is hawkish on deficits.

George, those Democrats are hardly new. They’ve been around since at least 1992, and I’ve been around a lot longer than that.

Good post Stephen. The Republican Congress has raised the debt limit three times in the last four years,

With last night’s passage of the debt ceiling increase, the government’s borrowing limit has climbed by $2.23 trillion since President Bush took office: by $450 billion in 2002, by a record $984 billion in 2003 and by $800 billion this year. Just the increase in the debt ceiling over the past three years is nearly 2 1/2 times the entire federal debt accumulated between 1776 and 1980.

…Lawmakers reconvened last night to reject a Democratic motion to reimpose “pay as you go” budgetary rules that would force any increase in entitlement spending or cut in taxes to be funded by equal spending cuts or revenue raisers. Lawmakers later raised the debt ceiling.

It passed along party lines in the Senate, “with just one Republican, Sen. John Ensign (Nev.), voting against the proposal while only two Democrats, Sens. John Breaux (La.) and Zell Miller (Ga.), voted in favor.”

And apparently, the Republican Congress didn’t even bother to pass a budget this year. They just kept passing spending bills.

George, Borrowing costs the taxpayer more in the long run. About three hundred billion of our tax dollars goes to nothing but paying back old debt. That is the biggest waste of all, and deficit spending creates it.

The damage the deficit does will be insidious, not instant. We may very well end up paying it at the close of this decade as we’ve been paying for the last twenty years for Reagan’s fun.

The reality is, the modern Republican party is not good with money. I mean, do you even question supply side economics? I mean, a surge in the economy does raise revenues, but who has ever proven that tax cuts create more than a minor improvement in that economy?

Truth is, the Bush tax cuts are a combination of voter bribery, and economic extortion, of Vote for me and get money, don’t vote for me and lose it. It sounds pretty simple, but it isn’t because what people gain from income tax cuts, the average person loses in increased state taxes, higher interest rates, tax dollars wasted on repayment, and a crappy economy that deprives people of jobs and decent livings.

It’s an economic con job, for the most part, and we are bleedin money to foreign investors because of that.

I think, George, that it will take noise and rebellion from your side to get the Republicans in line. If these people feel their re-election chances threatened by their behavior, they will do what they are supposed to do. We’ll make sure that if they fail in the other direction, cutting too much, and not bringing taxation back to reasonable levels to cover debts, they’ll suffer for that, too.

Only between the pressure on each side will these people moderate their spending and tax policies.

Let’s see Democrats go along with some spending cuts— then I’ll consider this newfound Democratic ‘fiscal conservativeness’ more than posturing.

What we have seen so far is Republicans not compromising on tax cuts, which Democrats oppose, but compromising on cutting spending, which Democrats also oppose vehemently.

You can’t have it both ways either.

We are overspending and it has to stop. Unfortunately federal spending has positive incumbent consequences. It will be as hard to wean Republicans off the pork as it would be Democrats. Something akin to a heroine addict getting through detox.

If we can agree on spending reductions, perhaps this is one thing Democrats and Republicans can work together on. Otherwise it is just another liberal ploy to criticize without offering a real solution.

Taxcuts are popular, so is pork spending to buy votes.
Taxes feed pork, for the government its their paycheck, if your paycheck is cut you have to cut back on unnessary things like silly social programs that do little to help the country.

Taxcuts force the politicians to cut out pork.
If you have very deep pockets it easy to pitch a few million to study why the “endangered threepeckered toad” is getting scarce, but that can be done with private donations, shoot, I’ll donate a few bucks to that cause.

The government should only cover basics, everything else should be private funding. If your income is cut in half you may find that unbranded deoderant soap works as well as “irish spring” and costs far less.

Pork and spending comes from BOTH sides of the isle, taxcuts will trim that and may boost the economy so we grow out of the debt.

Did you know that a hog never stops growing for as long as they live? After 230# your return on investment goes in the toilet, just a fact.

my opinion on tax spending:

CUT OUT THE DAMN PORK!!!!

i’m sick of finding out some of my tax money went to the construction of a mall in iowa or to a study of squirrel defication habits….

trim the fat…

If you take the politics out of fiscal and monetary policy, and stop looking at “D’s” and “R’s”, and instead look at economic cycles you get a very different picture. Bush had to “spend” to move the country out of the “twin” problems of recession and the aftermath of 9/11. The economy was heading south and so both the Bush and Greenspan together stepped on the accelerator through government spending increases, tax cuts and lower interest rates.

The same problem happened in reverse with Clinton in 1994. The ecomomy was growing above the sustainable growth rate of the economy. Clinton had two choices in order to apply a break on the economy and give it the best opportunity for long term growth. His choices were to either cut spending or raise taxes. His choice proved to be a good choice as defined by not letting the economy expand at a non sustainable rate. If he had not we would of had a recession long before 2001.

What was good for the economy (tax cuts and increase spending) the last two years, now needs to reverse itself. The growth rate is roughly where it was when Clinton had to make those decisions. Although statistically, both deficits should fall even is Bush does nothing. (Lower dollar should narrow the balance of payments, and increased profits and job creation should bring in more revenue), the imbalance leads to overstimulation of the economy, and if not checked will bring back inflation, which will bring higher interest rates which will choke of growth, and bring on a recession.

What will happen next? Bush will probably fail to get his tax cuts through the Senate. Republicans probably wont fight very hard because they know they are necessary and can just blame in on the republicans. On the flip side, democrats wont get their increase in medical spending and will blame it on the republicans. That allows the pundits to argue and blame each other for the next 2 or 4 years.

Greenspan is sending reports and making publc statements to Congress and the President that the best way to achieve long term growth is to moderate the deficit. Both parties will find a way polically to get what needs to be done financially, and spin it in a way politically to appease their constituents. Each will come away giving something up and at the same time gaining some leverage.

Four years from now we will be debating other problems in the economy.

Craig

This liberal AGREES STRONGLY that spending MUST be cut. I’m not sure there are strong indications of that happening though.

According to a couple articles in the Washington Post, there is strong belief that Bush’s upcoming tax plan will raise income taxes substantially and further reduce or eliminate taxes on dividends.

Bush is planning to eliminate Soc Sec withholdings, and potentially replace them with a national sales tax. The middle class probably won’t see any more money in thier payroll checks to cover that difference, however, because we are losing our state and local income tax withholdings. Federal taxable income for many folk is their gross minus the amount paid to state and local taxes. Federal taxable income would now exclude those deductions and, for many people, be pretty close to their gross income. For me, this could amount to another $1000 in federal taxes, on top of paying federal sales tax on everything.

See this from the Washington Post:

How to Fix Taxes and Social Security
Bush Plans Tax Code Overhaul

-Taylor
—————————————————————-
Don’t blame me — I voted for Kerry!

Wow!! Liberals want to cut spending! Amazing - but who will be the first to complain when the trilions of dollars we waste in social programs are cut? For example - school lunch and breakfast programs - sounds good doesnt it? No one would want a child to go hungry - yet what is the major health issue facing our youth? An epidemic of childhood obesity - so we will soon have some more tax money spent to fix that. Money spent for food then money spent to lose weight - only in the US! Oh by the way - isnt it child abuse not to feed your child? Where are all of the social workers?

Eric-
Give me a break. We actually balanced the Budget under Clinton. We are having to raise the credit limit for this country under your leadership. We have to be willing raise taxes moderately and cut unnecessary spending drastically. I don’t think the Republicans, who have supplied more federal dollars to their constituents than to the Democratic areas, are any longer the party of fiscal conservatism. They want to take us back to a late nineteenth century tax system to support a late twentieth century goverment. In case you haven’t noticed, our economy did rather fine during the 90’s without the help of massive tax cuts.

Truth is, you’re the party in power, and that power has gotten to your heads.

Beagle-
We’ve had three historically massive tax cuts beagle. The pork has increased. Therefore, your theory is wrong. Tax cuts do not force spending cuts, especially when politicians feel free to deficit spend, like they do under Bush and Dick “Reagan proved deficits don’t matter” Cheney. We need to return to a more sensible tax system and more sensible spending.

To all-
I don’t believe this president will moderate his stance on taxes. He has fully bought into supply side economics, and he’s not going to let the facts get in the way of a good theory. The only way we can curb this spending, at the very least, is to make sure that you conservatives out there let your representatives know that their excessive spending is not going to be tolerated. Your party is making fools out of you with this deficit, and I think it’s high time you put the whip to their backs. After all, they’re your public servants.

Ditto on Stephen’s post.

BTW, Democrats with Republican representatives should make sure they crack the whip, too. Theoretically, your Republican representatives represent you, too.

Mike, your school lunch rant is silly. Only poor kids get the school lunch grants.

Tax cuts do work to trim pork, at some point government will start spending more wisely.

If 3 tax cuts didn’t do the job, perhaps we need 3 more and a balanced budget amendment.

Guy’s, how can we possibly pay down the notional debt with the outsoursing of jobs from this country?
Where is your tax base going to come from?
It would seem to me that tax cuts won’t matter if you are unemployed.

Tax cuts do work to trim pork, at some point government will start spending more wisely.

What are you basing that on, Beagle? It’s never happened before. Even with this last “lean” appropriation bill, there was $16 billion worth of pork.

A look at the fine print in the legislation, however, reveals more than 11,000 “earmarks” that add up to about $15.8 billion, or about 4% of the overall spending. Earmarks are money set aside for special projects. These include $300,000 for a parking garage in Auburn, Maine, $8 million to rehabilitate a “historic cafeteria building” in Oregon’s Crater Lake National Park and $1.1 million for research into the development of baby food and other products made from salmon

Your theory of starving the government only works if the government stops raising its debt limit.

AP,

You left off the last part of that post,

“If 3 tax cuts didn’t do the job, perhaps we need 3 more and a balanced budget amendment.”

The pork comes from both sides of the isle, somehow we have to force them to cut out the pork and balance the budget.
We would still have to borrow for existing debt but wouldn’t be adding to it every year, we could grow out of that.
They could still raise taxes but that gets you voted out of office most times, raise taxes for pork= GONE !

I see better times ahead for ALL Americans and the world because of the internet, everyone can now find information on everything and become more informed voters.

I DON’T like taxes, but one I’ll vote for;
Basic internet service included with your phone line. If all the companys had to provide it, I don’t think it would be over $2 a month on a land line.
It pisses me off that some poor children don’t have access to the internet when most have a phone. Computers are getting cheaper every day, and the more well-off could donate their puter to the poor when we upgrade, much like giving them winter coats, ect. They might not have the very best, but they would have a chance to better themselves! Just my opinion.

Ps..Please don’t tell the other Rep’s that I care about poor kids,I don’t want to get booted from the party.

Taxes are good.
Taxes build roads, schools, and hospitals. Taxes pay for scientific research, social programs, infrastructure, and defense. To live in this great nation, we must pay our dues in the form of taxes.
Conservatives have long used the issue of taxes to dupe hard working citizens, such as George, into voting against their own self-interest.
The issue is never as simple as cutting taxes and reducing spending.
Under Republican “tax relief”, I may save $600 on my federal income taxes while at the same time I have to pay more for after-school programs and health insurance for my children.
When my kids go to college, that $600 might pay for one class, woooooohoooooo!
Maybe I’ll spend that $600 on private music lessons because there are no more music programs in public schools.
I could use the $600 to pay chiropractic bills for my kids after they’ve worked a few years picking fruit…since they won’t have a college education and our borders will be sealed up tight.
Maybe my kids will chose their other option and join the military instead. “Tax relief” and spending cuts won’t effect the military, right?
Well…the bulk of military spending doesn’t go to the troops, it goes to large corporations, the investors in which are the true beneficiaries of this tax reform plan. So, even with an Army paycheck, my kids will still be living below the poverty line.
Meanwhile, the true beneficiaries of the so called “tax relief” will be spending their million dollar refund investing in a corporation that has just shut down all of its domestic manufacturing plants and moved them to China. Good thing we also have that free trade.
Then I can take my $600 and go to Wal-Mart and buy some cheap Chinese-made bauble that will make me feel like I’m still in the middle class.
Taxes are good.
The true debate is who should pay how much.

The pork comes from both sides of the isle, somehow we have to force them to cut out the pork and balance the budget.

C’mon, Beagle! Republicans decide which pork projects get into the bill, and Bush decides whether to sign it or not. Democrats don’t have much say in it. And it looks like most of the Democratic pork is going to things like environmetally friendly public transportation systems instead of “Wild American Shrimp Initiatives”.

raise taxes for pork= GONE !

If you’re really concerned, I hope you sent that threat to your representatives (House & Senate).

everyone can now find information on everything and become more informed voters.

You’re absolutely right about that. Although judging by the election, the trick is to get them to actually look at the source documents rather than just take Drudge’s word for it - and then to actually do something about it.

JS, really good points. Most people don’t mind the idea of paying taxes, as long as they get good service in return. If taxes go up and public services and facilities deteriorate, there’s something wrong.

BTW, Beagle. You made me go look up the source documents for the appropriations bill. Here’s the conference report detailing the pork in all its glory.