The 2010 Election

[WinePusher]

Ok, so what's everybodies predications on the upcoming 2010 congressional elections?

I think republicans will take a sweeping majority in the House, and will get huge gains in the senate (but won't regain the majority).

Key races to look out for are:

California Senate: Carly Fiorina (R) vs. Barbara Boxer (D)
Delaware Senate: Christine O' Donnell (R) vs. Chris Coons (D)
Nevada Senate:Sharon Angle (R) vs. Harry Reid (D)
Florida Senate: Marco Rubio (R) vs. Chris Cristie (I)

I also predict republican victories in every single one of these races, even though they are very tight races.

I realize there's nothing religious about this, but I thought it'd be an interesting discussion in light of the upcoming elections. If moderators feel this is inappropriate they can delete it or lock it.

[Grumpy]

East of Eden

Back at you.

I think we've all seen who has the facts on their side here, in that I agree with micalta "A lot of the assertions and comments made by East of Eden...are spin of the highest order."

Grumpy

[East of Eden]

East of Eden

Back at you.

I think we've all seen who has the facts on their side here, in that I agree with micalta "A lot of the assertions and comments made by East of Eden...are spin of the highest order."

Grumpy

Care to debate and point out this 'spin', such as the JFK tax cuts?

[micatala]

Jobs are shipped overseas to escape Obama tax and regulatory policies.

A lot of the assertions and comments made by East of Eden in his previous post are spin of the highest order, if not just plain wrong. However, I will simply comment on this one as an example of an overall argument being made by E of E that reflects such severe bias that objectivity has gone fleeing into the night.

We have been shipping jobs over sees for decades, and now E of E has the temerity to claim this is happening because of a President who has been in office less than two years???


Maybe E of E can explain how Obama managed to be motivating people to ship jobs oversees back in the 1990's or in the period between 2000-2008. I would love to hear that.

I didn't claim it started with Obama,

Your statement, as written, clearly implied exactly that.

And now, you're backing away from it. This is not unlike what happens in a lot of cases, including to people on FOX, who when they are called on their statements, try to imply they meant more than they said, or meant something different than what they said.

This is called spin.

but it is no secret in a competitive environment businesses will set up shop where the can escape excessive taxation and regulation, and oppressive union demands. Obama seems to be against none of these problems.

Obama has cut taxes for most people. You claim his policy of allowing the Bush tax cuts on those making over 250,000 is taxing the job creators.

And where is the evidence for that assertion? We certainly cannot say the Bush tax cuts resulted in any great boom in job creation. You have not documented that those in that bracket are job creators, merely made an unsubstantiated claim.

In fact, here are some facts which belie your view.

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_was_the_ ... rs_in_2005

The average annual income in 2006 for small businesses, defined as those with fewer than 500 employees was $233,000, although another claims it was 258,000.

Now, this means that some would be making more than the 200K or 250K cutoffs, but most would not. In fact, income distrubutions are almost always skewed high, so that the median is likely significantly smaller than this figure (unless they are reporting the median as the average here).

In fact . . .

An important note also is that 98.1% percent of small-business filers have income too low to be subject to either of the top two tax rates. Since the floor of these is below $250,000, then 98.1% of small business filers will not see any increase with Obamas plan.

Here is another estimate.

Proponents of extending President Bush’s 2001 and 2003 tax cuts for people with incomes over $250,000 argue, in part, that allowing them to expire after 2010 would weaken the economy by hurting small businesses. In reality, however, extending the tax cuts would do little for small business because only the top 3 percent of people with any business income, let alone income from a small business, would benefit. [1] Over the long term, an extension would likely harm the economy — and thus small business — by adding about $1 trillion to deficits and debt over the next decade and even larger amounts in subsequent decades.

It would seem the notion that letting the tax cuts expire on the high end earners would be a great detriment to job creation is rather at odds with the actual evidence.


This assertion, repeated ad nauseum by Republicans, is nothing more than ideology trying to portray itself as conventional wisdom.



In allusion to the thread on media reliability, I think we can say that TV personalities, journalists, etc. who spout this nonsense are simply not telling the truth.

[WinePusher]

So you are OK with taxing poor people at a higher rate than the rich pay?

THIS is what's known as spin. Seriously, if you think that an extension of the Bush tax cuts will force the poor to pay more taxes then the rich, I suggest you figure out what they actually entail. Are you and Obama really concerned about hte deficit? If you were really concerned about the deficit, you should have done what mainstream non-keynesian economists have been suggesting, which is to freeze spending and reduce the size of the bloated and wasteful government.

No one is ok with the poor paying more taxes then the rich, but then again no one should be ok with leaving higher taxes on the rich in a recession which would kill jobs. Everytime there's a shot at wealth redistribution, the democrats have to shoot for it, even if it risks a high unemployment rate.

Jobs are shipped overseas to escape Obama's tax and regulatory policies.

A lot of the assertions and comments made by East of Eden in his previous post are spin of the highest order, if not just plain wrong.

What is wrong with that statement? Jobs are getting shipped over seas, and you don't this is a result of a high corporate tax rate?

We have been shipping jobs over sees for decades, and now E of E has the temerity to claim this is happening because of a President who has been in office less than two years???

Do you think that the financial reform package passed by Obama has not contributed to jobs being shipped overseas?

[Grumpy]

WinePusher

So you are OK with taxing poor people at a higher rate than the rich pay?

THIS is what's known as spin.

Actually, the poor do pay more, as a percentage of their earnings, than the majority of large companies and the rich when FICA is considered with all other taxes.

again no one should be ok with leaving higher taxes on the rich in a recession which would kill jobs.

The Bush tax cuts produced no great surge of jobs, in fact it created a great surge of jobs going over seas. If taxes created jobs then why was Bush's presidency such a disaster for the middle class? Tax cuts do not always produce jobs, it is a booming economy that creates jobs. There are times when tax cuts were appropriate, like Kennedy's cut from 90% to 35% for top earners. But there are times when reckless tax cuts create disastrous economic collapse(ala W's). Now is the time for the rich to step up and pay their share. But don't take my word for it...

"Wed Nov 17, 7:34 am ET
BANGALORE (Reuters) – Warren Buffett praised the U.S. government's efforts to bail out the economy during the financial crisis two years ago, preventing an economic collapse.

In a letter published by the New York Times, Buffett wrote that all corporate America's dominoes were lined up and were ready to topple at lightning speed in the aftermath of Lehman Brothers bankruptcy in September 2008.

"My own company, Berkshire Hathaway (BRKa.N), might have been the last to fall, but that distinction provided little solace," Buffett, nicknamed the Oracle of Omaha, said.

He said the U.S. government's decision to buy up assets that many investors considered to be toxic had helped pull back the economy from the brink of collapse."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20101117/bs_ ... ett_letter

and...

"Anti-tax activists everywhere have been loudly arguing for an extension of George W. Bush-era tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans in the United States. Now a group of millionaires is arguing the opposite.

More than 40 of the nation's millionaires have joined Patriotic Millionaires for Fiscal Strength to ask President Obama to discontinue the tax breaks established for them during the Bush administration, as Salon reports.

"For the fiscal health of our nation and the well-being of our fellow citizens, we ask that you allow tax cuts on incomes over $1,000,000 to expire at the end of this year as scheduled," their website states. "We make this request as loyal citizens who now or in the past earned an income of $1,000,000 per year or more.""

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_theticket ... ama-tax-us

and...

"We reported Friday on a group of millionaires calling for their tax breaks to expire. Now, Warren Buffett -- the third richest man in the world -- is joining that chorus.

Buffett told ABC News' Christiane Amanpour that tax breaks for the rich don't help the economy.

"The rich are always going to say that, you know, just give us more money and we'll go out and spend more and then it will all trickle down to the rest of you," Buffett said. "But that has not worked the last 10 years, and I hope the American public is catching on.""

http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_theticket ... x-the-rich

The rich will not miss a few percent but the deficit will go up more than $800 million. Even the rich recognize the one-note Republican mantra of tax cuts has gone too far.

east of eden wrote:
Jobs are shipped overseas to escape Obama's tax and regulatory policies.

micatala wrote:
A lot of the assertions and comments made by East of Eden in his previous post are spin of the highest order, if not just plain wrong.

What is wrong with that statement? Jobs are getting shipped over seas, and you don't this is a result of a high corporate tax rate?

It certainly isn't the result of anything Obama did, unless he's been secretly running the government for the last decade. Outsourcing peaked under Bush. So it was a lie to blame the outsourcing on Obama or any of his policies.

Do you think that the financial reform package passed by Obama has not contributed to jobs being shipped overseas?

No, it hasn't, though it did not go far enough to shut down the tax breaks for companies that do outsource. Obama has only had 18 months to try to clean up the mess W left behind, saving us from another Great Depression(ask Warren Buffet, third richest man in the world), saving millions of jobs in just the auto industry and reigning in the worst offenses of a for profit health care system. All with little or no help from the Republicans.

Grumpy

[East of Eden]

Your statement, as written, clearly implied exactly that.

Baloney. Because Obama is part of the problem in no way means he is the only problem. By this strange reasoning you could say because Obama has grown the deficit, nobody else did.

And now, you're backing away from it. This is not unlike what happens in a lot of cases, including to people on FOX, who when they are called on their statements, try to imply they meant more than they said, or meant something different than what they said.

This is called spin.

Or bad comprehension, or perhaps purposeful misrepresentation.

Obama has cut taxes for most people. You claim his policy of allowing the Bush tax cuts on those making over 250,000 is taxing the job creators.

And where is the evidence for that assertion? We certainly cannot say the Bush tax cuts resulted in any great boom in job creation. You have not documented that those in that bracket are job creators, merely made an unsubstantiated claim.

In fact, here are some facts which belie your view.

http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_was_the_ ... rs_in_2005

The average annual income in 2006 for small businesses, defined as those with fewer than 500 employees was $233,000, although another claims it was 258,000.

Now, this means that some would be making more than the 200K or 250K cutoffs, but most would not. In fact, income distrubutions are almost always skewed high, so that the median is likely significantly smaller than this figure (unless they are reporting the median as the average here).

In fact . . .

An important note also is that 98.1% percent of small-business filers have income too low to be subject to either of the top two tax rates. Since the floor of these is below $250,000, then 98.1% of small business filers will not see any increase with Obamas plan.

Here is another estimate.

Proponents of extending President Bush’s 2001 and 2003 tax cuts for people with incomes over $250,000 argue, in part, that allowing them to expire after 2010 would weaken the economy by hurting small businesses. In reality, however, extending the tax cuts would do little for small business because only the top 3 percent of people with any business income, let alone income from a small business, would benefit. [1] Over the long term, an extension would likely harm the economy — and thus small business — by adding about $1 trillion to deficits and debt over the next decade and even larger amounts in subsequent decades.



It would seem the notion that letting the tax cuts expire on the high end earners would be a great detriment to job creation is rather at odds with the actual evidence.


This assertion, repeated ad nauseum by Republicans, is nothing more than ideology trying to portray itself as conventional wisdom.

If you think small business owners are important for job creation, why did only 1% of the stimulus go to them? Who do you think invests in business in general, poor people? The fact is, when Reagan cut the top rate from 70% to 28% we created 19 million jobs. After the Bush tax cuts we had 46 straight months of growth. Obama can only dream of either of those records. At this rate it will take 20 years to get back to pre-Obama employment levels. He wants to be like Europe and we sure are turning into them when it comes to employment.

In allusion to the thread on media reliability, I think we can say that TV personalities, journalists, etc. who spout this nonsense are simply not telling the truth.

This shows the relation in Europe between economic growth and low taxes:
http://workforall.net/EN_Tax_policy_for ... _jobs.html

There is a tremendous amount of societal good that comes from economic growth. During the Reagan era, all income groups benefited, including the poor. Under Obama, we have record poverty rates.

[micatala]

So you are OK with taxing poor people at a higher rate than the rich pay?

THIS is what's known as spin. Seriously, if you think that an extension of the Bush tax cuts will force the poor to pay more taxes then the rich, I suggest you figure out what they actually entail. Are you and Obama really concerned about hte deficit? If you were really concerned about the deficit, you should have done what mainstream non-keynesian economists have been suggesting, which is to freeze spending and reduce the size of the bloated and wasteful government.

No one is ok with the poor paying more taxes then the rich, but then again no one should be ok with leaving higher taxes on the rich in a recession which would kill jobs. Everytime there's a shot at wealth redistribution, the democrats have to shoot for it, even if it risks a high unemployment rate.

Do the rich pay more in taxes than the poor? Sure.

The issue is how progressive the tax structure would be. Very few have actually proposed equal rates, and those few are rarely taken seriously.

You mention the deficit. Given no real evidence has been provided that lower tax rates irrespective of other variables lead to higher revenue, AND that most economists agree the Bush tax cuts have been a large contibutor to our existing deficits and those projected into the future, you would think those who are serious about the deficit would be in favor of letting the rates go back to where they were under Clinton.

I would even be OK with the rates going back to Clinton rates on everybody, at least in the long run.

However, I will not apologize, nor accept the "redistribution of wealth" or "socialist" spin, for saying letting the rates go up only on higher end incomes is an appropriate policy.


And I will point out NO evidence has been provided that the tax cuts, either under Bush, or under Reagan, have led to job growth. Those who say the tax cuts under Reagan created jobs are ignoring all the other factors that contribute to job growth. The assertion is little more than ideological dogma without evidence to support it.



Now, if we can lower tax rates without blowing up the deficit further and if we can document, in a variety of circumstance, that this would be better for job growth then other policies without leading to other negative consequences, fine.

This has not been done, no matter how often the ideological dogma is repeated.

Jobs are shipped overseas to escape Obama's tax and regulatory policies.

A lot of the assertions and comments made by East of Eden in his previous post are spin of the highest order, if not just plain wrong.

What is wrong with that statement? Jobs are getting shipped over seas, and you don't this is a result of a high corporate tax rate?

What is wrong is the complete lack of acknowledgment that the problem has been occurring for decades and that Obama came into office at the worst time economically speaking since the Great Depression. It has been the deepest and longest recession since that time, period.

His statement makes about as much sense as blaming the last two years of global warming and glacier melt on Obama.

If we had a 30-year epidemic of plague, we wouldn't be blaming the doctors who had been in charge for only the last two years for all those deaths, or the epidemic itself, especially if no evidence was provided that what the recent doctors were doing was that much different than the previous ones and that there was no evidence anything they did do had made the situation worse.

We have been shipping jobs over sees for decades, and now E of E has the temerity to claim this is happening because of a President who has been in office less than two years???

Do you think that the financial reform package passed by Obama has not contributed to jobs being shipped overseas?

I have seen no shred of evidence provided that the rate of jobs being shipped overseas has accelerated appreciably, nor that anything Obama has done has contributed to more jobs being shipped overseas.

If anyone HAS evidence that this is true, please provide. I m willing to alter my view if the evidence merits. I am not willing to do so on the basis of ideologically driven assumptions or partisan rhetoric.

[micatala]

Your statement, as written, clearly implied exactly that.

Baloney. Because Obama is part of the problem in no way means he is the only problem. By this strange reasoning you could say because Obama has grown the deficit, nobody else did.

If you had meant to imply others were (also) responsible for the overseas job losses, you should have said so. It is not my job to read into your statements to save you from your own oversimplifications.

Your objections to my comments are also ironic in light of what you wrote later in this very same post. In particular:

There is a tremendous amount of societal good that comes from economic growth. During the Reagan era, all income groups benefited, including the poor. Under Obama, we have record poverty rates.

Those poverty rates are the result of the recent recession which was not Obama's fault. By blaming Obama for them you again clearly indicate that your position does not assign responsibility according to the evidence, but according to some other criteria which seem to be ideological or partisan.

I agree, economic growth can do a lot of good, and I agree we should adopt policies which foster economic growth. Where we don't agree is the level to which simply cutting taxes contributes to growth. You alludeto the lower tax rates under Reagan. You neglect that we had faster growth under Clinton AFTER he raised taxes. Your notion that tax cuts automatically lead to better growth and tax hikes the opposite is simply not supported by the evidence. This is especially true since you also ignore the subsequent tax hikes, including the social security tax hike, under Reagan and you ignore other factors which help lead to economic growth.

It is also needs to be reiterated that Obama face a worse situation than Reagan. You can say what you want about the misery index or inflation, but the fact is the recession we are now coming out of was a good 50% deeper and of longer duration than Reagan's. It also came with aggravating factors including the near financial melt down and the mortgage crisis. It started at a time when we were running high deficits and carrying an already large debt burden due to a variety of decisions under GW Bush.


When you address all of these in an objective way, then maybe you would have grounds for complaining about my comments on your arguments blaming Obama for things that were not his fault.

If you think small business owners are important for job creation, why did only 1% of the stimulus go to them? Who do you think invests in business in general, poor people? The fact is, when Reagan cut the top rate from 70% to 28% we created 19 million jobs. After the Bush tax cuts we had 46 straight months of growth. Obama can only dream of either of those records. At this rate it will take 20 years to get back to pre-Obama employment levels. He wants to be like Europe and we sure are turning into them when it comes to employment.

This is not really addressing the previous claim I debunked about the higher end earners who would be paying a few percent more on income over 250K being job creators. You are trying to switch the topic to the stimulus, which we can discuss, but none of what you write here addresses the fact that it is simply NOT TRUE that letting the rates go up on the higher end earners would be nailing "job creators" or "small businesses", whatever the overlap between these two groups is.

This shows the relation in Europe between economic growth and low taxes:
http://workforall.net/EN_Tax_policy_for ... _jobs.html

I'll try to look this over and address in a subsequent post.

I will note that direct comparisons between us and Europe are not entirely applicable since many of those countries actually have gone to a public option or more for health care, thus taking that drag on the economy off the table. I am not saying we have to go that way or that Europe is necessarily superior in any particular way to the U.S., only that it is different.

[Grumpy]

East of Eden

After the Bush tax cuts we had 46 straight months of growth.

In the 8 years of the Bush administration there were 1.2 million jobs created(in the US, there were more overseas), in the 8 years of the Clinton administration(when we had HIGHER tax rates)there were 20 million jobs created. By the evidence you would be much more accurate to say HIGHER tax rates create more jobs. But it isn't that simple. The one note Republican mantra of tax cuts DID NOT create more jobs in the 8 years of Bush. And those tax cuts, along with the unpaid for wars and Medicare drug bill dug a 9 1/2 trillion dollar hole after starting with a 1 trillion dollar surplus.

98% of wage earners(including small businesses)make less than $250,000 a year, the top two percent will be the only people affected by letting the Bush tax cuts expire for those making over $250,000. While the middle class has experience a 5% raise(in real dollars)in the last decade, the top two percent have experienced a 258% raise in income in the same period. As Warren Buffet said, the rich are doing very well indeed in the present economy, yet the Republicans want to give them even more. As Buffet said, considering all deductions, his secretary pays much more of her income to the government than he does. At the higher income levels most of their income comes from capital gains(taxed at 15%) and dividends(20%), not earnings(31%).

So, the top two percent have had it really good for quite some time now, it's time they started carrying their weight and to give the middle class a break.

Grumpy

[East of Eden]

East of Eden

After the Bush tax cuts we had 46 straight months of growth.

In the 8 years of the Bush administration there were 1.2 million jobs created(in the US, there were more overseas), in the 8 years of the Clinton administration(when we had HIGHER tax rates)there were 20 million jobs created. By the evidence you would be much more accurate to say HIGHER tax rates create more jobs. But it isn't that simple. The one note Republican mantra of tax cuts DID NOT create more jobs in the 8 years of Bush. And those tax cuts, along with the unpaid for wars and Medicare drug bill dug a 9 1/2 trillion dollar hole after starting with a 1 trillion dollar surplus.

98% of wage earners(including small businesses)make less than $250,000 a year, the top two percent will be the only people affected by letting the Bush tax cuts expire for those making over $250,000. While the middle class has experience a 5% raise(in real dollars)in the last decade, the top two percent have experienced a 258% raise in income in the same period. As Warren Buffet said, the rich are doing very well indeed in the present economy, yet the Republicans want to give them even more. As Buffet said, considering all deductions, his secretary pays much more of her income to the government than he does. At the higher income levels most of their income comes from capital gains(taxed at 15%) and dividends(20%), not earnings(31%).

So, the top two percent have had it really good for quite some time now, it's time they started carrying their weight and to give the middle class a break.

Grumpy

The high earners are the job creators, deal with it. Given high taxes and regulation and uncertainty, they will sit on their hands rather than invest. Buffet is not representative of the US business community, he is probably part of Obama's crony capitalism club with Goldman Sachs. I note even he was expressing serious doubts about the deficits of Obama.