Puterbac News Network and Political Discussion Thread

[Owlman]

good ole Royal street. Great place for antiques (during the day)

[Jungle Rat]

Gays like antiques. Hmmmm

[GBJs]

This should help you:

Outliers removed?

[AlabamAlum]

Correct.

[AlabamAlum]

And, true dat, spacer. I remember my wife spending $1500 at the shop across from the Monteleone.

[Jungle Rat]

So do I.

[sardis]

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/ ... fight.html

It ain't just the media that wants to see this...

[sardis]

or you significantly raise the age of retirement to 72 + starting with those who are currently 55, which we have to do.

As Dora has pointed out, we don't "have" to do it. Right now, it's 67 for those born after 1960. Jumping the retirement age 7 years for those less with 10 years left to plan is more likely to lead to a voter backlash of seniors and the majority of their children. Make it 68 for those born after 1965, 69 for those after 1970, 70 for those born after 1975.

But as long as we bank on oil as our primary source of fuel, we will spend an inordinant amount of wasted time, lives and money in patrolling the middle east.

To say we don't "have to" is reckless, to say the least. Our debt is near 100% of GDP right now. The IMF started worrying about Greece when they were at 115% of GDP. We were as low as 65% just 4 years ago. There are Western countries in better fiscal shape than us who are cutting the retirement pensions of their citizenry.

[bluetick]

the U.S. ranked 27th lowest of the 30 top industrialized countries in its collection of corporate taxes relative to GDP at 1.8% vs the average 2.5%. Bruce Bartlett wrote in May 2011: "...one almost never hears that total revenues are at their lowest level in two or three generations as a share of G.D.P or that corporate tax revenues as a share of G.D.P are the lowest among all major countries. One hears only that the statuatory corporate tax rate in the United States is high compared with other countries, which is true but not necessarily relevant. The economic importance of statutory tax rates is blown far out of proportion by Republicans looking for ways to make taxes look high when they are quite low."

(Bruce Bartlett was executive director of the Joint Economic Committee of Congress and was the senior economic policy analyst in the Reagan White House, and was deputy assistant secretary for economic policy for the George H.W. Bush administration)

[AlabamAlum]

I'm not convinced that raising the tax rate to be closer to the mean on that list is necessarli a good thing. Should we work to emulate France, Germany and Lichtenstein's business tax models?

I think we need to first work to get out of wars, and learn how to control spending by saying no. When we take in more, we tend to spend more and end up borrowing more.

[Toemeesleather]

Yep, the problem is not revenue, it's spending...

[Toemeesleather]

Soooo, now we have another Tricky Dick in the WH....

[Toemeesleather]

I'm tellin' ya, even the libs (the honest ones) are growing tired of carrying The One's water....


http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0611/58098.html

[TheBigMook]

The libs have been annoyed with him for awhile, mainly because Obama is not and never has been liberal.

[Toemeesleather]

In addition to $6 billion in direct government subsidies, Rattner notes the "real" cost to American consumers is much higher. Thanks to mandates requiring certain amounts of ethanol be blended into gasoline, about 40% of U.S. corn production is diverted toward ethanol. That, in turn, drives up the price of feed for cattle and pig, which puts upward pressure on food prices. In the past year, corn prices have doubled while the price of bacon is up 24%, Rattner notes.

Citing these "hidden costs" of mandates, the government's corn ethanol policies are a "much more pernicious force" then even most critics realize, he says.

All this despite studies suggesting corn ethanol is energy inefficient — meaning making a gallon the fuel consumes more energy than it produces.

"Of all the examples I've come across in my time both in Washington and watching Washington, this is one of the most remarkable, inexplicable, inexcusable [subsidies] I've come across"

[bluetick]

I'm not convinced that raising the tax rate to be closer to the mean on that list is necessarli a good thing. Should we work to emulate France, Germany and Lichtenstein's business tax models?

I think we need to first work to get out of wars, and learn how to control spending by saying no. When we take in more, we tend to spend more and end up borrowing more.

If France, Germany, and Lichtenstein had fought wars this century while reducing revenues to record levels and then emerging no worse for the wear...then yeah, we should emulate the heck outta 'em.

As is stands, our problems are fairly unique when compared to the rest of the industrialized world. Dubya inherited arguably the strongest federal balance sheet in postwar history. Record high surpluses, debt was at 30% of GDP and falling ...the country was in great fiscal shape. But rather than follow Clinton's lead, dubya handed out those gigantic tax cuts, with those at the top of the income ladder getting the biggest breaks. Then he fought two endless wars on the other side of the world. And then we had the mortgage/derivitive meltdowm madness.

So we're in a huge financial hole...so deep that we have to look at revenue, same as we look to cut spending. Kill any and all Bush tax policies for starters. Re-jigger SS and Medicare/caid. Deep cut the defense budget. Rein in the corporate subsidies and welfare. Let our fiscal rehab be a shared sacrifice all across the board... we've all got skin in the game.

[Owlman]

To say that the problem is a spending one not a revenue one is silly. We have more outgo than income. To change that you increase income and decrease outgo. To do one without the other only exacerbates the problem.

For thousands of years, revenue is raised to fight wars. What did Bush do? He took the wars off the books and decreased the taxes paid as a percentage of the GDP.

[Owlman]

I should say Bush II. Bush one was infinitely better than his son.

[AlabamAlum]

I've just got that funny feeling that we're going to raise taxes AND continue to spend like drunken sailors on shore leave. Wait. That's not fair to drunken sailors. When they run outta money they actually stop spending.
Until we (they) can responsibly manage the money they do have, I will remain cynical that giving them more will help.

[Owlman]

Until we (they) can responsibly manage the money they do have, I will remain cynical that giving them more will help.

Why be cynical? You only have to go back 11 years. In 1993, Clinton raised taxes to a large outcry that it would damage our economy or that he'd just spend it. Didn't happen. He cut the size of government, revamped and limited AFDC and improved significantly the balance sheet. That's the plan to follow.