Election 2010: Teabaggin' the Ds & Rs

[Adder]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

To see their coverage of a team from your city. Especially if a team from their city is playing a team from your city.

You east coast types are odd. I have never thought, "gee, I wonder what the Green Bay or Chicago press thinks."

[Adder]

Originally Posted by sebastian_dangerfield

That's a lot of debt service for 1/2-3/4 point growth.

Poltiics is a bitch.

But considering that we probably need at least something like 2 points of extra growth off of MA's forecast to start taking a serious bite out of unemployment, I'll take what I can get.

[Replaced_Texan]

On a more realistic but still Blanchardesque level, however, I continue to think that there actually ought to be a makeable deal to eliminate the corporate income tax and replace it with, say, a carbon tax. The corporate income tax, after all, is an absolute sink of inefficiency and corruption, every congressman's favorite playground for paying off campaign donors and rewarding favored industry groups. And reforming it won't work: we did that in 1986 and it took little more than a decade to degenerate back to its usual foul state. So why not just get rid of it? Corporations would love it, Republicans would love it, it would put lots of tax lawyers out of work, and replacing it with a carbon tax would be great for the planet. What's not to like? There are lots of enforcement details that would have to be worked out, but nothing insurmountable. This honestly seems like something that should be doable.

--Kevin Drum

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by Replaced_Texan

--Kevin Drum

Better to tax something we don't want more of (carbon emissions) than something we do want more of (corporate income).

[sgtclub]

Originally Posted by Adder

It is kind of amazing that they believe this, given that at least from the outside, while displeased about taxes (mostly in baffling, nonsensical ways), was most decidedly anti-deficit.

I agree it may not make sense, but the Rs did compaign on the issue.

And, for that matter, to the extent that you still ascribe fiscal responsibility to the Rs and profligate spending to the Ds, to yourself as well.

You must have me confused with someone else. I scoured Bush for his fiscal policy and especially domestic spending (e.g., Medicare Part D). Both parties suck on this issue.

[sgtclub]

Originally Posted by ironweed

The other party is apparently willing to let taxes go up on people making $50k/year rather than take a compromise that would force people making $1million/yr pay more, or make Fauntleroy pay taxes on everything past the first $1 million daddy left him. All the Republican talk about protecting the working and middle class is bullshit, because we've just seen that the GOP would throw them under the bus in a heartbeat in the service of protecting the wealth at the top.

This is class warfare. Obama is saying that he wants to cut losses, which I can understand, but it's usually the side that's most ruthless who wins.

You are wrong here. This was a negotiation. The Ds blinked.

[sgtclub]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

Club, they were blocking a massive reduction in taxes for most of the country in order to hold out for tax cuts for the top 3%. You're not explaining what they're actually doing if you just say they're "against tax raises of every kind." They were going to the mat specifically to get tax cuts for the richest. And to do it, they were willing to swallow a bunch of other things that their "ideology" should oppose.

Why do you think they are any more beholden to the "Rich" than the Ds? I don't think the evidence is consistent with your view.

On ideology, I don't disagree that a lot of Republicans have convinced themselves that there is something noble and selfless about working to preserve the economic advantages that rich people have. Ayn Rand aside, it's hard to identify real principles that lie behind sacrificing what would be good for the majority of the people in order to relentlessly pursue what would be good for the really wealthy. People like Mike Pence have said so many times that tax cuts for the rich create jobs that they probably believe it. Ultimately, it doesn't really matter whether they believe it or not -- what matters is that that's the organizing principle.

I'd really like to respond to this, but I'm not going down the rabbit hole with you again.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by Replaced_Texan

--Kevin Drum

I think Rs probably hate a carbon tax more than they hate the corporate income tax.

[Adder]

Originally Posted by sgtclub

You must have me confused with someone else. I scoured Bush for his fiscal policy and especially domestic spending (e.g., Medicare Part D). Both parties suck on this issue.

You have refreshed my recollection. My bad.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sgtclub

Why do you think they are any more beholden to the "Rich" than the Ds? I don't think the evidence is consistent with your view.

I didn't say "beholden," but the simple fact is that the Democrats are willing to let the Bush tax cuts expire for those making more than $250K, and the Republicans are not. That is pretty strong evidence.

I'd really like to respond to this, but I'm not going down the rabbit hole with you again.

If your answer is "ideology," fine -- we need not disagree. I'm not saying that the GOP is corrupt, in the sense that they are pushing for tax cuts for the rich that they don't believe in. They have managed to convince themselves that a platform that focuses on the interests of the most wealthy is principled. That's who they are.

[sgtclub]

Originally Posted by Tyrone Slothrop

I didn't say "beholden," but the simple fact is that the Democrats are willing to let the Bush tax cuts expire for those making more than $250K, and the Republicans are not. That is pretty strong evidence.

You didn't say that, but it is what you are suggesting. You are saying that there is no other reason to be for this position, other than to protect a core constituency.

I'm not so sure that the Rs were willing to let the cuts expire, but they definitely had leverage and played it accordingly. If it didn't pass, the Ds, as the party in power, would have gotten the blame. The Rs would then have passed it in the House in January (and it probably would at that point pass the Senate as well), leaving Obama as the sole roadblock - he probably saw that coming and played it smart.

[sgtclub]

Anyone have a view on Wikileaks? At first blush, I don't really see what law was broken.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sgtclub

You didn't say that, but it is what you are suggesting. You are saying that there is no other reason to be for this position, other than to protect a core constituency.

Maybe they're all ideologues, but ideology is one of helping rich people.

Here's the key part of the Chait post (links omitted) that I linked to and you seem to disagree with:

[I]n pure dollar terms, the Republicans got way less out of the tax deal than Democrats did:

And keep in mind, most of that 37% is for families making less than $250,000 a year. In pure numeric terms, the vast majority of the money in this deal is for things the White House (and most Democrats) actually want.

How did Democrats get a deal like that? Ezra Klein's source confirms what I speculated without any information -- Republicans love them some rich folk. They're willing to bargain away a lot to help the very rich:

The only thing that can overwhelm the GOP's partisanship is its overwhelming desire to increase the incomes of the top 1%.

I'm not sure which part you're disagreeing with.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally Posted by sgtclub

Anyone have a view on Wikileaks? At first blush, I don't really see what law was broken.

Maybe they did something wrong if they were working with Manning when he took the documents, but otherwise it's just a bunch of politicians acting poorly.

[Penske 2.0]

Originally Posted by sgtclub

Anyone have a view on Wikileaks? At first blush, I don't really see what law was broken.

No, but a condom was. And that's not good.