We all agree: Whoever thinks that the tax cuts and trickle down economics works

[Hawkeye-X]

needs to be severely beaten..

And labelled "Asshat" and given a one-way ticket to Somalia.

[frazzled]

1. We also agree that ...

whoever thinks the recent tax compromise was based on an acceptance of trickle-down economics (or even mainly contained provisions relating to trickle-down economics) needs to go stand in the corner with a dunce hat, and write 500 times on the blackboard: I will try to read more serious analysis in the coming year.

Now go drink an eggnog and flail yourself twelve times with a sprig of mistletoe.

[Statistical]

2. +1 Obama wanted continued UI and taxes to not rise on the poor & middle class ...

$180B to the rich was the price the Republicans demanded.


Of course if Democrats in Congress had done their job when they had 60+ votes he wouldn't have needed to compromise. n/t

[TheKentuckian]

9. Giving the top 20% a bunch of money hoping it spurs the economy is trickle down at work

The money for the bottom 60% is a token effort to create a rhetorical fig leaf for a package that relies on trickle down in it's basic roots.

The U/I benefits have nothing to do with the tax structure. Bush's tax cuts were trickle down and so are Obama's because it is the same package but ramped up some.

The bottom 98% rhetoric just creates cover for the money going to those who need it least.

The demand hole is created mostly from the bottom 40% having close to nothing and spending about every cent on subsistence and various taxes. The bottom 20% must make due with a total pool of 1% of the income.
What the fuck are they supposed to do? Why will this group be allowed to pay more than they do this year?

By definition this is supply side bullshit, you are trying to create demand and you give the lion's share to the top 2/5's. The people that have the most, need the least, and have benefited the most.

By the time you get to the bottom 60% there is probably less than a third of the package left and most of that would be U/I, some of which will go to up the ladder as well.

Only by using an extremely expansive definition of the middle (which also includes the poor, got a job then middle class you are, it seems) can it be argued to be anything else.

If you wanted to stimulate and help those the hardest hit then you'd pump this trillion to the tens of millions of people that don't collectively see a 1/15 of the economy by any means.

[frazzled]

10. No one said the money being given to the top 2% ...

(not 20%, as you state--we are talking of incomes above $250,000 here) was going to spur the economy or trickle down. Just the opposite: Obama said it would do nothing, and he opposed it--it was simply the blood money the Republicans demanded for getting the things Obama DID want to spur the economy: the middle-class tax cuts, the stimulative items he could manage to get, like the payroll tax holiday, the expansion of the earned income tax credit, and the extension of unemployment benefits. That was the trade-off he made--giving the top 2% their blood money--which even the liberal economist Dean Baker says will not do much harm (it just won't do any good). He did it for people who were about to go bust, and to shore up the still wobbling economy by giving the truly needy a few dollars in their pockets to buy food and clothing and pay the bills.

You seem not to understand what this was about. I feel sorry for that. But I am sure no amount of explanation will rid you of your misconceptions.

[Rex]

11. 'But I am sure no amount of explanation will rid you of your misconceptions'

I think it is you that needs to go and flail about in the 'nose 1 understands mes' mud nine or ten times. It is Reaganomics in a kinder, gentler form.

[TheKentuckian]

14. No, you are willfully pretending I don't understand to avoid dealing with my point.

The rest of the top 20% aren't much more likely to spend their giveaway than the top 2%.

You like the conflating the top 20% with "the middle class" but the 80th percentile and up sure as hell isn't average.

[NoPasaran]

3. Nothing says "progressive" like

Giving people we disagree with a severe beating and deporting them!

:crazy:

[handmade34]

8. not a disagreement

nor an opinion that tax cuts and trickle down economics don't work. It is an empirical fact! ...and the people believing the opposite are doing great harm to this couontry.

[Kennah]

4. The Asshats don't like to discuss Somalia

I suspect mostly because they have no answer. Somalia is perhaps the purest example of anarcho-capitalism.

[Kennah]

5. Here's a line of thought that, IMHO, makes it all very real and easy to discuss with simple minds

From 1980 to the present, the time when the tax rates were the HIGHEST was under Bill Clinton.

That was also the time of the greatest productivity and prosperity in the last 30+ years.

One might have to go back to the 1950s, when the tax rates were far, far higher, to find an era of greater productivity and prosperity.

[madokie]

6. I agree

with kicking the shit out of them but why push them off on the Somalians? They have it pretty rough already without the worry with assholes too. :-) :hi:

[Initech]

7. I agree. I'd also add the anti-government crowd to that.

They're the first to scream about overspending - and always cite programs that benefit you - but wont acknowledge overspending on the military. And then they scream about "big government" but wont cut anything that really needs to be cut.

[Motown_Johnny]

12. I'm not into the beating thing. But the label and the ticket are OK by me

[Jester Messiah]

13. Agreed. [nt]