Yesterday, The Daily Show had one of Jon Stewart’s greatest takedowns of Fox News—which is saying something.
The jumping-off point is Warren Buffett’s recent New York Times op-ed in which he pointed out, as he has numerous times over the years, that billionaires like himself pay lower tax rates than their secretaries and called for tax increases on millionaires. That sent the Fox News talking heads over the edge, of course. Fox Business’s Eric Bolling even asked if Buffett, one of the great capitalists of all time, is “completely a socialist” and several talked (including, I should say, CNBC’s Larry “Goldilocks” Kudlow) about “class warfare.”
Not coincidentally, as the Fox folks ramp up their propaganda machine, the leading Republican presidential candidates are talking about raising taxes. Really! On the poor and lower middle class, not the rich. I’m not kidding.
A couple of floors up, The Wall Street Journal is smart to point this out, even if its piece has a couple of flaws. I’m trying to imagine the Journal’s news pages, for instance, putting a “No Easy Answer on Tax Issue” headline on a story about Democrats campaigning on raising taxes on the rich.
The story starts off well, immediately contextualizing the often-used-to-mislead fact that nearly half of Americans pay no federal income tax:
After two decades of bipartisan tax policy, nearly half of all American households don’t pay federal income taxes. Now, Republican presidential candidates are making a politically challenging case to change that fact.
Most working Americans do pay Social Security and Medicare payroll taxes.
But, here’s the next sentence (emphasis mine):
But because of tax breaks for seniors and inducements for work and raising children, among other accumulated changes to the tax code, many manage to avoid income taxes altogether. The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center in July pegged that number at 46% of U.S. households for this year.
You know how most of these people “manage to avoid income taxes”? By being poor. Also, most of those folks do pay income taxes at the state and/or local levels. But the Journal never notes either of these points in its story. This is as close as it gets:
About half of the households that pay no income tax do so simply because the standard deductions for tax filers and dependents are large enough to negate taxable earnings.
Stewart gets it, pointing out that the bottom 50 percent owns just 2.5 percent of the wealth. That’s a bit misleading, since we’re talking about income taxes here. Using that measure, the bottom half earns 12.5 percent of the total income in the U.S. But it’s not totally unfair, since wealth indicates people’s ability to pay. It’s worth noting that the bottom half pays 2.7 percent of all federal income taxes, which is roughly equivalent to its ability to accumulate wealth (I’ve clipped this part of the segment on Hulu).
The Journal is good to point out the candidates’ hypocrisy here, noting that one of the big reasons why the poor don’t pay federal income taxes is because of the Republican Party’s own policies, including Reagan ones:
The earned-income credit was Ronald Reagan’s answer to welfare, a way to make even low-wage jobs pay better than the dole. The child credit, another Republican idea, was doubled in President George W. Bush’s 2001 tax cut and is a favorite of religious conservatives.
And the Journal does a sweet job of calling out Romney, Bachmann, and Perry for their incoherence:
Pressed on how they would bring more people into the tax system, none of the top three campaigns offered details. Alice Stewart, a spokeswoman for Mrs. Bachmann, said the Minnesotan “believes that the tax code is too complicated and must be reformed to be fairer and flatter.”
Campaign spokeswoman Gail Gitcho said Mr. Romney “is opposed to tax increases,” adding he would produce his economic plan in the fall.
It would have been worth pointing out that while lots of folks don’t pay income taxes, federal payroll taxes are highly regressive, as are overall state and local taxes. That’s how you end up with charts like this:
Hey Mr. Buffett: STFU and pay
It would have been worth pointing out that while lots of folks don’t pay income taxes, federal payroll taxes are highly regressive, as are overall state and local taxes.
Are payroll taxes just another form or wealth redistribution or do they fund benefits proportional to the individual’s contribution to them? You cant argue when convenient that on the one hand we cannot means test social security and Medicare because it would undermine the “social fabric” of the programs and then argue that the wealthy need to pay more into them because they are underfunded. Time to make your mind up on this and stop being so schizophrenic.
#1 Posted by Mike H, CJR on Fri 19 Aug 2011 at 04:43 PM
Mike H: The wealthy should pay more, because it's in their best interest to keep this country going. Do you think Mr. Buffett, Mr. Walton, or the talking heads on Fox could have accumulated this much wealth in any other country? Call it the cost of doing business, but paying taxes is what makes this country work. For folks who claim to love this country, they sure seem to mean "I love it, if I don't have to pay for it."
#2 Posted by Thalia, CJR on Fri 19 Aug 2011 at 05:21 PM
thalia wailed: Do you think Mr. Buffett, Mr. Walton, or the talking heads on Fox could have accumulated this much wealth in any other country?
padikiller tolls the Reality Bell: Two thirds of the world's billionaires live outside the U.S.
115 of them live in "Red" China.
China has figured out that the commie/liberal thing doesn't work.
It's time that America figures it out.
#3 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Fri 19 Aug 2011 at 09:32 PM
The problem with the united states is you have these people who have bought hook, line, and sinker into Fox News' propaganda. They consistently vote against their own self-interest in favor of the interests of the super-rich. The poor and the working class, who together represent the vast majority of the American population, are fooled into thinking that policies that harm them will in fact help them. Because of some of the American ideologies, those who are poor are kept poor generation after generation because schools are unequal and university education is unattainable.
The poor and working class are painted as "lazy" and "parasites" because they require more social assistance. In fact many "socialist" countries have higher standards of living and more equal wealth distribution thanks partly to things like universal healthcare; because those who would be sick can get preventative medical treatment rather than waiting until their illness is severe and expensive to treat. They are therefore kept in the workforce and productive members of society. People going bankrupt over medical bills because they are too poor to afford proper insurance and subsequently too sick to work cripples the American society.
Socialism has become a dirty word in the united states, but it represents a paradigm that helps the society as a whole. Those who would become rich still become rich, and those who are poor have the opportunity to become rich just like in the united states. But the difference is that those who are poor are not as poor and they are not as sick and they have a fair chance of getting a proper education.
Americans seem to pride themselves on living in two countries at once: The richest first world country for some, and a poor third world country for many others.
#4 Posted by James, CJR on Sat 20 Aug 2011 at 12:20 AM
"The problem with the united states is you have these people who have bought hook, line, and sinker into Fox News' propaganda. They consistently vote against their own self-interest in favor of the interests of the super-rich. The poor and the working class, who together represent the vast majority of the American population, are fooled into thinking that policies that harm them will in fact help them."
Actually, they are convinced by people like Limbaugh and the Fox News crew that they are losing their country, that lazy/nasty/stupid (fill-in-the-blanks) are taking from them by stealing from their country. They vote against other people's interests and, inadvertently, spite their own. What Fox and others do constantly is misdirect anger away from the real leeches, who are powerful and connected and accept taxpayer money hand over fist while demanding less tax burdens for themselves, and direct it towards government programs, segments of the bottom 50%, and people who have no right to vote or no place to live.
And people vote against their interests because they've been taught that hurting those you hate is more important than helping those you love, including themselves.
#5 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Sat 20 Aug 2011 at 02:48 AM
How do unemployment, SSI, or other welfare programs make people productive, exactly?
I'd really like to know, since from the outside looking in, it would seem that paying people to not work would tend to put a bit of a damper on productivity.
And that socialism thing is working wonders, alright. Just pop over to Athens and Rome to see its magical power.
#6 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Sat 20 Aug 2011 at 08:28 AM
"How do unemployment, SSI, or other welfare programs make people productive, exactly?"
In the same manner that any insurance or retirement programs produces productivity. You invest money when you work. You receive money from the program when you are unable to work due to circumstances such as age or lack of available jobs. The money you receive enables you to pay your bills and purchase goods during time when you would otherwise not have money to spend (hurting the economy even more) or would be a financial burden on other members of society who could be more productive.
We have mandatory programs for unemployment insurance and retirement (SSI) because our overall economy is better when we do not drag it down with poor, unemployed, aged and infirmed. See the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression for an example of what happens when these forms of insurance are not n place.
#7 Posted by WIDTAP, CJR on Sat 20 Aug 2011 at 11:24 AM
what on earth does your headline mean by "reverse'?
This is the very definition of class warfare, not as the term has typically been hijacked and 'reversed' by the rich/ the right to mean the opposite of what it actually has been used to mean.
#8 Posted by martha r, CJR on Sat 20 Aug 2011 at 12:23 PM
@ padikiller- How exactly is China liberal?
#9 Posted by Atrevista, CJR on Sat 20 Aug 2011 at 12:24 PM
WIDTAP wrote: "We have mandatory programs for unemployment insurance and retirement (SSI) because our overall economy is better"
padikiller: ??????
How does paying people to not work make the economy better?
Welfare programs were created to help the economy? What is your basis for this claim?
In fact, welfare programs were created to tap the industrial economy to achieve social goals:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVZijG4WSOw
#10 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Sun 21 Aug 2011 at 08:57 AM
Are payroll taxes just another form or wealth redistribution or do they fund benefits proportional to the individual’s contribution to them?
--- Mike, when we use taxes to fund courts that protect patents, who really benefits the most from that? me, or the guys who own the companies that hold profitable patents?
Same with the interstate highway system; who gets the bigger benefit from that? me, or the CEO of General Motors?
Who benefits more from having the Navy and Merchant Marines patrolling shipping lanes in international waters? You and I, or the folks who run the shipping companies?
I'm not saying that you and I receive no benefit from these things, it's a matter of proportions.
Back in the golden age of American prosperity in the late 40s and early 50s, guys like Warren Buffett paid a much higher tax on their income, because it was acknowledged that they were deriving great benefits from government policy.
We all benefit from these things... this doesn't need to be an ideological debate, just a matter of laws allowing humans to act in concert, but we end up with guys like padikiller bemoaning 'big government threatening people at gunpoint' when we're talking about chipping in to cover the costs of national infrastructure.
You, Mike H, to your credit are usually not as strident. It just seems like some people insist on this doctrinaire enforcement of Ayn Rand-ism on every aspect of public policy, solely on principle, as if Atlas Shrugged were the Koran.
#11 Posted by Hardrada, CJR on Sun 21 Aug 2011 at 03:46 PM
Hardrada wrote: Back in the golden age of American prosperity in the late 40s and early 50s, guys like Warren Buffett paid a much higher tax on their income, because it was acknowledged that they were deriving great benefits from government policy
padikiller call BS: You're only telling half the story...
Back in the day, when the marginal highest income tax rate was 90%... But there were also all kinds of capital gains loopholes and shelters that would have (and did) protected guys like Buffet...
More importantly, however, the average slob paid income taxes too then... Unlike now when half the country mooches from the Treasury...
There was no "Earned Income Credit"... EVERYBODY paid taxes.
If you want to go back to the 1952 taxation system (adjusted to 2011 dollars).. I'm all for it. But the percentage of revenue garnered from the wealthiest Americans will decrease substantially.
Under our current system, the richest 5 % of Americans pay more than half of all the income taxes collected.
It's time for the average American to have a little "skin in the game".
#12 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Sun 21 Aug 2011 at 11:38 PM
"Back in the day, when the marginal highest income tax rate was 90%... But there were also all kinds of capital gains loopholes and shelters that would have (and did) protected guys like Buffet."
"I'm all for it. But the percentage of revenue garnered from the wealthiest Americans will decrease substantially."
Sorry but that's a lie. Unless you have some data to back it up, you should stop spreading these old stories of yours.
#13 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Mon 22 Aug 2011 at 10:16 AM
If we're going to do 1952... Let's do 1952!
A top marginal tax rate of 92 percent of wages in excess of $3,259,607.55
A capital gains tax rate of 25 percent (no matter how long the property was held)
A FICA tax of 1.5 percent on employees and employers (No disability benefits or Medicare, only retirement and death benefits)
And a minimum tax rate of 22.2 percent on all income more than $8000.00 - no tax credits (no EIC, no education credits, no child credits, nada)
A single parent of two kids, filing as head of household, and earning a taxable income of $32,596.08 (the inflation-adjusted equivalent of $4000.00 1952 dollars) would pay $3,218.86 income tax under 1952 tax rates (on top of the 1.5 percent contributed to FICA)
This same parent now pays NOTHING (and indeed, makes money) under 2010 tax rates... This parent would pay a tax of $4289.00, but receives an Earned Income Credit of $3325.00, a $2000.00 child tax credit and a $400.00 "making work pay" credit. So... using 2010 tax rates, this "taxpayer" gets at least $1436 from the government.
It's even worse than this of course. We haven't figured in the education credits, the dependent care credits, etc... We also must note that the standard deduction and personal exemptions are higher now (in inflation adjusted dollars) than they were in 1952. So a taxable income today requires a much higher base wage than it would have in 1952.
So.. summing up...
A single, head of household tax filer with a taxable income of $32596 would pay $3,218.86 income tax into the treasury under 1952 tax rates (on top of 1.5 percent to FICA) while this same tax filer sucksmore than $1436 from the treasury now.
So yeah, Thimbles... I'm all for going back to 1952 rates... The wealthiest tax payers would have an effective tax rate of around 25 percent and so would the lower income tax payers.
So go back to 1952? Hell yes!
No disability. No SSI, No Medicare, No Medicaid. No EPA, No Departments of Education, HHS, Energy, etc., etc, etc. Pay down the debt just like Ike did!
Sign us up!
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-prior/f1040--1952.pdf
#14 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Mon 22 Aug 2011 at 10:54 AM
Nice history lesson padi:
SSI did exist, Eisenhower created HHS, the roots of the Department of Energy was in 1946, etc. etc. etc.
And if we had Eisenhower taxes and Eisenhower public works (not to mention Eisenhower financial regulation) there would be no crisis now.
But, as Eisenhower warned about the military - and he would have warned about finance had he known how money would come to drive American politics:
"This conjunction of an immense military *and now financial* establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial-(*and now financial*) complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense (*and now trade*) with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.
Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades.
In this revolution, research has become central; it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.
Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.
The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, (*bank positions*), and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded.
Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite."
In Eisenhower's day, that was a danger we should have considered. In our day, that is reality with which we must deal. There's alot to love about Eisenhower's days but you'll have to forego Padi's "history lessons" to learn it.
See also:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnrEHFwZ9hk
#15 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Mon 22 Aug 2011 at 11:40 AM
Thimbles blithers nonsense: "SSI did exist, Eisenhower created HHS, the roots of the Department of Energy was in 1946, etc. etc. etc."
padikiller tolls the Reality Bell: SSI was signed into law during the Nixon administration. HHS and DoE were both formed in the Carter Administration...
But hey! Why let the mere truth spoil another Thimbilism, right?
You want to go back to 1952? I all for it!...
As an employer, 1.5% FICA taxes sound good to me, dude!
Sign me up!
#16 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Mon 22 Aug 2011 at 12:35 PM
I like how Padi, with no apparent sense of irony, echoes the Fox talking point word for word. ("Skin in the game!")
My question would be whether the 18.7% of income that the bottom 20% pay is sufficient "skin in the game". And whether there is some sort of requirement that the tax burden of the lowest 20% be spread across all tax classes.
I also note how the income bracket that's taxed the most is the 5th through 10th percentile earners. I would assume that is because the 1st through 4th have access to more sophisticated tax planning resources so they can better game the system. That would seem to be an opportunity, as I can't think of any good reason for anyone to think that there ought to be a special deal for them.
#17 Posted by garhighway, CJR on Mon 22 Aug 2011 at 01:18 PM
garhighway wrote: "I like how Padi, with no apparent sense of irony, echoes the Fox talking point word for word. ("Skin in the game!")"
padikiller responds: "Everybody is going to have to give. Everybody is going to have to have some skin in the game." - President Barack Hussein Obama
#18 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Mon 22 Aug 2011 at 01:27 PM
"padikiller tolls the Reality Bell: SSI was signed into law during the Nixon administration. HHS and DoE were both formed in the Carter Administration."
I thought you meant Social Security Insurance when you put up the initials SSI.
Turns out you meant:
http://www.ssa.gov/ssi/
"a Federal income supplement program funded by general tax revenues (not Social Security taxes)... designed to help aged, blind, and disabled people, who have little or no income; and [provide] cash to meet basic needs for food, clothing, and shelter."
Stay classy.
"HHS and DoE were both formed in the Carter Administration." and assumed duties established by previous agencies.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Health_and_Human_Services#History
"As an employer, 1.5% FICA taxes sound good to me, dude!"
And a 90% top marginal tax rate and a 25% capital gains tax sounds spiffy to me, though short term flipping should be taxed higher.
And, as an employer, you are just going to love the corporate tax rate:
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2011/04/corporate-tax-rates-then-and-now/
#19 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Mon 22 Aug 2011 at 01:37 PM
"padikiller tolls the Reality Bell: SSI was signed into law during the Nixon administration. HHS and DoE were both formed in the Carter Administration."
I thought you meant Social Security Insurance when you put up the initials SSI.
Turns out you meant:
"a Federal income supplement program funded by general tax revenues (not Social Security taxes)... designed to help aged, blind, and disabled people, who have little or no income; and [provide] cash to meet basic needs for food, clothing, and shelter."
Stay classy.
"HHS and DoE were both formed in the Carter Administration." and assumed duties established by previous agencies.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Health_and_Human_Services#History
"As an employer, 1.5% FICA taxes sound good to me, dude!"
And a 90% top marginal tax rate and a 25% capital gains tax sounds spiffy to me, though short term flipping should be taxed higher.
And, as an employer, you are just going to love the corporate tax rate:
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2011/04/corporate-tax-rates-then-and-now/
#20 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Mon 22 Aug 2011 at 01:38 PM
Padi:
Is 18.7% sufficient? Or, to stay with the Fox talking points, is the fact that they have refrigerators a sign that we ought to tax them more?
The moochers.
#21 Posted by garhighway, CJR on Mon 22 Aug 2011 at 01:42 PM
It is a true commentary on American "journalism" that CJR and Alternet are almost indistinguishable in their lefty lunacy.
#22 Posted by Dan Gainor, CJR on Mon 22 Aug 2011 at 02:46 PM
Geez, and here I thought all the lunatics published at the Media Research Center. "I hear Soros bought a carton of milk last week... IT'S A CONSPIRACY, DON'T YOU GET IT?!"
#23 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Mon 22 Aug 2011 at 03:07 PM
Hardrada, most of the money that the Government spends these days are on pensions and healthcare, not bridges, highways, Marines, and the courts.
#24 Posted by Mike H, CJR on Mon 22 Aug 2011 at 03:20 PM
So.. Just to sum up...
The best way to make people productive is to pay them money to sit on their asses.
Gotcha!...
Who could argue with this kind of ironclad reasoning?
#25 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Mon 22 Aug 2011 at 04:16 PM
Wow, great exchanges. Padikiller is always not the most likeable guy in the world, but he (with an adroit assist from Mike H. at the end) mops up as usual. Anyone who thinks 'the rich' paid more taxes, and bore more of the federal tax burden, etc. in 1952 than today is not well-informed. The 90% top rate was a joke, which is one reason there was a Kennedy tax cut to 70% in 1964, and why a Democratic Congress reduced it further in 1986. By way of analogy, I hear that steak was officially, by government decree and everything, really cheap during World War II, too - if you could find a steak, of course.
Beyond that, Chittum and Stewart do not get around to exploring the explosion in state and local taxes since the 1950s, greatly helped along by federal 'matching' funds, and federal projects - the expensive maintenance of which the states and localities inherit. They seem to lack the courage to acknowledge the extreme regressivity of Social Security, too, which no one - no one - denies, when pressed on the matter. In 1952, my state (Ohio) had no state income tax. The top rate is now 6% on federal gross adjusted income. My city (Columbus) had no income tax. It's now 2.5%. Social Security, about 1.5% in 1952 (matched by a 1.5% payroll tax) is now 7.65% (matched by a 7.65% payroll tax).
If you think about it, Stewart and Chittum and Krugman and the rest seek a federal budget that is increasingly dependent on rich people and their fortunes. Does anyone on the entertainment-industry Left (including CJR) think there may be something unhealthy about a federal economy in which so many are dependent on so few, in an age in which there has never been a greater discrepancy between the political aspirations of nation-states on the one hand, and the fluidity of 'capital' on the other? Right-wing critics even at the Tea Party level intuit something that the push-button chattering classes never seem to - that if the gazillionaires take their fortunes offshore, or suffer economic reverses, then the spending by the federal government and the servicing of the debt will devolve to citizens who are not gazillionaires. Or, as the chastened Frenchwoman quoted after the victorious Socialists won and implemented their program in the early 1980s. "I voted for the Socialists because they told me they were going to tax the rich. Then after the election, they came to me and told me I was rich." Oh, and whatever happened to the French Socialists?
#26 Posted by Mark Richard, CJR on Mon 22 Aug 2011 at 05:28 PM
"Hardrada, most of the money that the Government spends these days are on pensions and healthcare, not bridges, highways, Marines, and the courts."
Most of the money that the Federal Government spends these days are on pensions and healthcare, not bridges, highways, Marines, and the courts.
And why is that? Because half of the money collected is FICA which pays for that insurance.
"The best way to make people productive is to pay them money to sit on their asses."
No, the best way to make people productive is to give them jobs, but since the government isn't prepared to do that - because Obama is not a liberal and will not make the liberal case for doing so - and the private sector isn't going to do that - because they hire based on demand which has collapsed due to past stupid conservative policies - then it is better to pay people who are out of work money, to save the jobs that are left, then to let the local economies and businesses completely collapse for lack of money circulation.
"f you think about it, Stewart and Chittum and Krugman and the rest seek a federal budget that is increasingly dependent on rich people and their fortunes."
As I wrote earlier:
"Why are the top ten percent paying 70% of the income tax? Because the top 20% have 80% of the money.
http://www.balloon-juice.com/2011/02/22/soak-the-super-rich/
You aren't going to get more from the poor, you have to tax the rich. There's no other place to go."
I didn't make the US economy top heavy; conservative policy makers did through tax, labor, and trade policy.
Wealth did not trickle down. It got sucked up leaving deficits amongst middle class household budgets and government ones.
All of the income gains over the last 30 years have gone to the top 1%. Everyone else has flatlined or gone down. If you are going to balance the books, if you are going to pay for the programs people support, if you are going to have a government which provides financial stability during the crisises conservatives create, you have to tax money from the people who have money.
And, because of conservatives, those people are the rich.
#27 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Mon 22 Aug 2011 at 08:46 PM
@Mark Richard, you appear to be saying that since the rentier class has succeeded in putting themselves into a position where they no longer *need* the US, we should let them have the whole kit and kaboodle lest they take their marbles and go home. Who cares? At some point (and I happen to think this point is years ago) it becomes unprofitable to coddle them like the two-year-olds they have taken after, so someone's got to be the parent, pick them up by the waist, spank them until they behave, and give them early bedtimes and no candy for a few years.
Enough real Americans like that dirty socialist Warren Buffett will stick around and pay and grumble about it to a greater or lesser degree, just like the rest of us. The psychopathic welfare queens who leave, despite the writings of pro-feudalist PR flack Ayn Rand, have absolutely no intrinsic qualities worth encouraging, and a whole lot of qualities that our nation could better do without.
As for what happened to the French Socialists, apparently they're enough of a threat even today that promising candidates for public office still need to be neutralized through false sex crime allegations. Whether they're still socialist enough to be called as much anywhere but on Fox "News", I can't really say.
This will be handled one way or another: if people stop buying into the system, it comes down to mob rule and the law of the jungle, and that's not gonna be pretty for anyone. If not within the law, then without the law.
#28 Posted by Jonathan, CJR on Mon 22 Aug 2011 at 09:06 PM
Thimbles wrote: ...it is better to pay people who are out of work money, to save the jobs that are left, then to let the local economies and businesses completely collapse for lack of money circulation.
padikiller responds: Ah Yes!... The Ole' "Unemployment Payments Are Stimulus" Schtick, straight out of Nancy "Gulfstream for Me" Pelosi's pre-Tea Party playbook!..
If the idea behind unemployment insurance payments is to stimulate the economy... They why not send all of the money to the worst "local economies? HUH?
Using Thimbles' latest (vapid, stupid, nonsensical) logic, we should stop payments to unemployed people in all but the worst economies...
Unemployed in Vermont (like the whiny, welfare-sucking subject of a recent Chittum story)? Well then you're SOL because we need your money to "stimulate" the worse-off local economies in California...
You need to think through the consequences of your misguided reasoning, Thimbles..
#29 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Mon 22 Aug 2011 at 10:01 PM
What the f*** are you on?
Seriously. Unemployment Insurance provides a safety net, social cushion for individual citizens who require it. Welfare provides a bare minimum cushion for long term unemployed who require it. The worst economies, who have higher percentages of unemployed, DO get more "Unemployment Payment Stimulus" than economies that are less bad, which prevents those economies from going completely down the depression spiral.
I think you need a little more practice at the reductio ad absurdum thing, moron.
And, by the by, those stimuli are going to be cut in the following months so you can see how depressed economies handle reduced money circulation. Your ideas are going to be given a shot, we will be watching and we will see how they turn out. Be prepared to eat a bucket of crow.
#30 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Mon 22 Aug 2011 at 10:49 PM
LOL...
So now we move the goalposts yet again, right Thimbles?..
Now unemployment insurance is a floor finish AND a desert topping!..
A social safety net (that costs money) AND a stimulus program (that makes money)!
Like I said Thimbles... Who could argue with your point that the best way to make people more productive is to pay them to sit on their asses and do nothing? What better way to boost productivity, after all?
Commie/liberalism is a wonder to behold...
#31 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Mon 22 Aug 2011 at 11:12 PM
If you don't get how automatic stabilizers work in the economy, step away from the keyboard and study.
#32 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Mon 22 Aug 2011 at 11:31 PM
Those automatic stabilizers are working great, alright, Thimbles!..
Couldn't ask for a peachier economy!....
What better way to make people productive than to pay them to sit on their asses?!...
You've made a believer out of me...
Now you just need to work on Krugman a little...
#33 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Mon 22 Aug 2011 at 11:48 PM
You're making a lot of thunder, but no lightning, padi.
#34 Posted by Thimbles, CJR on Tue 23 Aug 2011 at 12:15 AM
To Jonathan, as social democrats have learned to their chagrin lo these decades, the rentier class is productive and needed by social democrats for all those goodies they promise their voters. Mario Cuomo, in reducing NY's progressive tax rates on 'the rich' back in the 1980s, acknowledged that you didn't need to like them, with their pinkie rings and limos, to acknowledge that they were useful.
As for the French Socialists, their last presidential candidate managed to lose to the eccentric Sarkozy, and their leadership is in its usual state of turmoil after Strauss-Kahn's difficulties. In the preceding presidential election, the Socialist candidate could not even make the run-off, leaving the contest to be decided between the kleptocrat Chirac and the racist National Front boss. Strauss-Kahn was falsely accused for non-political reasons, but the charge inadvertantly exposed the extremely luxurious way of life of this 'socialist', as well as the way royalist mentality of the French elites, and provided strong evidence - again - of the way that politics invariably seems to imitate art, in this case the last line of Orwell's 'Animal Farm'.
#35 Posted by Mark Richard, CJR on Tue 23 Aug 2011 at 12:22 PM
What just made the damned earthquake?
Global warming? Offshore drilling? The military-industrial complex?
#36 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Tue 23 Aug 2011 at 02:22 PM
In the Kennedy administration, the words "taxpayer", "citizen" and "voter" were basically interchangeable. If one spoke of the interest of the "taxpayers" it was generally understood to be akin to speaking of the interest of society at large.
Such is not the case now (a mere 50 years later) that half of the citizens of the country pay no net income tax.
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that any system wherein the majority is sustained by the minority is not only unjust, but also clearly doomed to failure.
#37 Posted by padikiller, CJR on Tue 23 Aug 2011 at 03:47 PM
I recently watched your proud chastizing of Bill O'Reilly from a film clip of your show. While I get the opportunity for you to tee off on O'Reilly for his style, what I dont get is your attack on him for his substance. If you can just once, put away your arrogant, pompass, " I know everything because I am a Hollywood star attitude" and try to put yourself in the shoes of the working class average person, you might be able to understand the problems facing this country today. Maybe, you and Buffet have the extra cash lying around to support Obama's socialist programs, but alot of your fellow Americans live paycheck to paycheck and do not have this kind of cash. Nor do they want to give more of their hard earned money to Obama so he can waste it away like he has repeatedly done during his term in office. Mr Stewart, are you that blinded by your celebrity status that you cant see the harm that this President has done to this country ? Can you honestly say that this country is better off today after just 3 years of this guy ? At some point we have to stop blaming Bush for our problems and take responsibility for the decisions that Obama has on his watch. Where I support O'Reilly and strongly oppose you, is that O'Reilly is fighting for the averaqge American who is simply trying to make a living and keep up with his or her bills. You obviously cannot relate to the average person, so if you cant respect the messenger, then please respect the message itself and get off of your pompass, deaf , dumb and blind liberal democratic soapbox. Use your influencial position for a good cause , not to further your own self serving interests for once.....
#38 Posted by steve, CJR on Mon 26 Sep 2011 at 08:45 AM