DiscussMormonism.com

Your problem is that you continue to rely on extremely biased, dishonest sources from the far right, as usual. You folks couldn't tell the truth or be expected to do basic math if your lives depended on it.

From factcheck.org:

"Boehner repeatedly (and falsely) says the president’s fiscal 2013 budget plan will create “trillion-dollar deficits for as far as the eye can see.” It’s true the fiscal 2013 deficit is projected to be close to $1 trillion, but annual deficits would fall each year thereafter — dropping to $488 billion by Obama’s final year in 2017."

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/1 ... ndard-gop/

The Republican Double Standard On What Counts As A Spending Cut

At a press conference this morning, House Speaker John Boehner said that he could accept a fiscal cliff deal that had equal amounts of new spending cuts and new revenues. Last night, media reports suggested that President Obama has offered him a deal which does just that.

According to those reports, the President’s latest offer consists of $1.2 trillion in new revenue, paired with $400 billion in health care savings, $200 billion in further discretionary cuts, $200 billion from other mandatory programs, $130 billion from switching to the Chained CPI, and about $300 billion in reduced interest payments on the debt. All those spending cuts add up to over $1.2 trillion, more than the President’s revenue request.
So why then, did Boehner, at the very same press conference, complain that the President’s offer was “unbalanced” because it contained only $800 billion in spending cuts? Because Boehner wants to pretend that reduced spending on interest payments isn’t really a spending cut. But that’s utterly at odds with reality, basic math, and common sense.

When the government incurs debt, say because it enacted huge tax cuts which reduced federal revenues below spending levels, it is obligated to pay interest on that debt. Every year, billions of federal dollars flow out of the treasury and into the pockets of those who previously lent the government money. Those dollars count as spending just as much as dollars that the government uses to pay employees, or to provide grants to schools, or to build highways. That’s why the Congressional Budget Office, the official non-partisan budget scorekeeper, includes interest payments in its totals for overall spending.

But don’t take my word for it. Just ask noted budget expert John Boehner! Last week, Boehner used a colorful chart to illustrate his point that “spending is the problem.” This chart showed total spending growing to nearly 40 percent of GDP by 2040. Scary! And guess what? Nearly 30 percent of all that spending was interest payments on the debt. Here’s a modified version of Boehner’s chart:

And Boehner’s not alone. Republican lawmakers often complain about how large federal spending is, and they always include interest payments as part of that “problem.” Here’s Senator John Kyl (R-AZ) last year: “Spending in this fiscal year is projected to be a record $3.8 trillion.” $225 billion of that spending was net interest payments. And here’s Paul Ryan (R-WI) complaining about spending in the President’s budget, “Spends too much: $47 trillion of government spending over the next decade.” Guess what? $5.7 trillion of that is interest. There are many more.

Boehner may not like President Obama’s latest deficit reduction proposal. But it is breathtakingly dishonest for him to complain about “out of control” spending one week, and then, in the very next week pretend that proposals to reduce that very same spending don’t count at all.

Is this the same type of argument that claimed Obamacare would reduce spending too? Gimme a break!

Yes, it is called arithmetic. Break out of your Right Wing bubble and get educated. Consider it a Christmas present for yourself.

One of Kevin's problems is that he buys into the Obama budget proposal without actually knowing where the arithmetic comes from such as, among other things, a false claim of credit for 2 trillion in savings that is already in law and another false 1 trillion in savings from moneys that were never requested and never to be spent in Afghanistan and Iraq. And it goes on and on....The Democrats have a well-deserved reputation for double-dipping.

Next we'll be hearing Kevin state that Obama's 6 trillion dollar contribution to the national debt so far is an illusion. That's the REAL arithmetic. He's proposed no significant cuts so all one has to do is extend that out to FY 2022 and you get a similar result. He actual salivates at the thought of a fiscal cliff because that increases revenue via raising taxes and he believes he can get around the automatic cuts (why he proposes some much more additional spending) to keep the wealth destroying crony pay off at the same rate as before.

It's a bit baffling how the right has managed to get so many (including the media) to buy into the false notion that dealing with the so-called cliff involves doing something about the deficit.

The situation actually is that what's coming is automatic austerity, whose tax increases and spending cuts will pretty much take care of the deficit while hurting the economy.

What we really have is a jobs problem, which would be helped by some serious additional stimulus spending. When the economy is suffering is not the time to worry about cutting spending. Quite the opposite.

Next we'll be hearing Kevin state that Obama's 6 trillion dollar contribution to the national debt so far is an illusion.

It isn't "his contribution." We've covered this too many times in the past but you refuse to stick with an argument and follow through with it. All you do is quote some ridiculous Right Wing blog that falls for trhe correlation - causation fallacy, and then leave it at that. Most of the increased debt since 2009 has been driven by forces that had absolutely nothing to do with Obama. I remember specifically asking this forum's Right Wingers to point to specifics that Obama has done to create 6 trillion in added debt. None of you were up to teh challenge because your argument is just an illusion. And once you realize we have a revenue problem, not a spending problem, you'd understand the point. Revenues were cut dramatically for more than a decade thanks to the Bush tax cuts, leading to outrageous deficits year after year. And as I pointed out several times, most of the increased spending was in mandatory spending, which is out of Obama's control.

But this is all a hypocritical complaint anyway as history has shown that conservatives never really cared about the debt anyway. It has skyrocketed under their presidential terms ever since Reagan, and the blind sheep following them haven't once raised an objection to this. Can you explain for us how this is not a double standard?

He's proposed no significant cuts so all one has to do is extend that out to FY 2022 and you get a similar result.

Professional fact checkers disagree. And if you knew anything about Obamacare you'd know its intended purpose was to not only provide more coverage, but also to cut the costs of health care spending, which most Conservatives admit would in fact happen. How the hell is that not a spending cut when we already spend something like 26% of our GDP on health care and the rate of increase is still going up?

He actual salivates at the thought of...

This is why you have no credibility. All you have are idiotic Op Eds from the obscure Right Wing cyber-"news," followed up with your psychobabble about what Obama's thinking. Your assertions about his state of mind are worthless. I'm only interested in the facts that can be proved. You prove nothing, but show plenty of hypocrisy and ignorance. Christmas day and you're still at it, howling at the moon and making excuses to make yourself feel better about being so wrong about so much over the past few years. Pathetic.

The fact is the wealthy in this country have been riding high for too long and I say let all the tax rates increase. Let the Bush tax cuts expire as they were intended to. You and your ilk are willing to fall on your sword just to save teh wealthy from having to pay taxes at the same rates that your Conservative Icaon Ronald Reagan proposed. Explain the irony in that!

Kevin Graham wrote:My problem is that I continue to rely on extremely biased, dishonest sources such as myself, as usual. I couldn't tell the truth or be expected to do basic math if my life depended on it.

I just had, as Kevin's unofficial psychotherapist, to translate that first paragraph of pugnacious projection out of Kevinspeak and into intelligible English.

Next, of course, Kevin quotes Factcheck, a notorious conveyor belt of left-wing spin (who believe, as do other similar entities, that if they use the term "fact" in their name, the typical, public school educated low-information voter (i.e., the average contemporary Democrat/Obama voter) will feed from the spoon as it is fed to them with little intellectual resistance or curiosity and not look at the man behind the curtain.

The existence of people like Kevin Graham means the end of both liberty and security. It means the permanent entrenchment of gangster government and a permanent ruling class that does not "govern," in the constitutional republic sense as the Founders intended, but "rule" a body of "subjects."

The Left, in 100 years, as manifested itself as revolutionary socialism, National Socialism, fascism, and the low-cal, diet version version of all of these, democratic socialism (the national socialist component of this being, of course, multiculturalism and its allied ideological rhizomes). The present moment bodes a syncretic mutant comprising all of these elements.

I just call it Korihorism, to be succinct.

Kevin Graham wrote:It isn't "his contribution." We've covered this too many times in the past but you refuse to stick with an argument and follow through with it. All you do is quote some ridiculous Right Wing blog that falls for trhe correlation - causation fallacy, and then leave it at that. Most of the increased debt since 2009 has been driven by forces that had absolutely nothing to do with Obama.

Look, you can be a bald, brazen liar, or you can be a knave. You can also be both, but to be both, you would actually have to have the intellectual and educational background to tell these kinds of lies in a reasonably compelling manner. When you say things that are easily checked online in 30 seconds, your credibility evaporates as fast as you post.

Your knees are going to get awfully sore bowing on a continual basis before your cult leader and carrying his neo-Marxist water, but the servile mind never slumbers nor sleeps.

I remember specifically asking this forum's Right Wingers to point to specifics that Obama has done to create 6 trillion in added debt. None of you were up to the challenge because your argument is just an illusion. And once you realize we have a revenue problem, not a spending problem, you'd understand the point. Revenues were cut dramatically for more than a decade thanks to the Bush tax cuts, leading to outrageous deficits year after year. And as I pointed out several times, most of the increased spending was in mandatory spending, which is out of Obama's control.

There are only two possibilities here, the first being that Graham does not know what he's talking about, and the second being that he is being knowingly, willfully deceptive.
After following him for a number of years online, both are distinct possibilities. As is my usual wont, however, I will always go with the first until it is made clear that the second is the only option. A third is that he does not know what he's talking about, and doesn't care, and willfully avoids doing the kind of balanced homework that would allow him a more intellectually substantive perspective. Not caring what one is talking about, however, and willfully not being well read or educated enough to know, is, itself, a form of intellectual dishonesty.

http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories ... -cuts.html

http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterferrar ... -tax-cuts/

In fact, as we know empirically and historically, properly done tax cuts always produce increased tax revenues, substantially increased economic activity, and leave the rich paying ever more of the total tax burden than they had before the cut.

http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorial ... htm?p=full

So long as the laws of economics continue to operate, and so long as the incentives and motivating factors that guide human action remain the same, this will always be the case.

The fact is the wealthy in this country have been riding high for too long and I say let all the tax rates increase.

And I say you are a quasi-totalitarian ideological thug who lives out his overheated class envy fantasies of destruction and control through those in actual power willing to carry out such schemes.

Let the Bush tax cuts expire as they were intended to. You and your ilk are willing to fall on your sword just to save the wealthy from having to pay taxes at the same rates that your Conservative Icaon Ronald Reagan proposed. Explain the irony in that!

Reagan cut the top marginal rate from 70% to 28% Present rates are set to rise from 35% to 40% and virtually all other taxes, from capital gains, dividend, and death taxes to a plethora of taxes hidden in Obamacare are set to hit. This includes the compliance costs associated with paying and/or avoiding those taxes.

You're a living, breathing wall of stupefaction, Kevin, and, believe me, despite our deep personal differences, it is very painful for me to see you or anyone else wasting the intelligence and intellect God has given them in this way, and encouraging others to abandon the arduous but deeply satisfying task of thought.

Droopy wrote:Present rates are set to rise from 35% to 40%

Nice rounding there.


But here is a question for you:

- What do you think is the optimal income tax rate? (Let's stick with income tax, since we know that other options like a consumption tax are not going to happen.) Conservatives are always supporting tax cuts, no matter the current rates. How low is too low, or is there such a thing? What rates would be acceptable?