Ben Carson has got it all wrong.

[millerbleach]

Originally posted by Neutron Monster:

Originally posted by millerbleach:

So, you aren't a lib but write 3 paragraphs bashing people who hold conservative viewpoints. You then cite the education level of Jindal and claim he's pretending to hold conservative views because he's too smart to actually believe them. It's not possible for an intelligent person to be a conservative seems to be your arguement. You then pronounce the more liberal "conservatives" as the smart ones. I assume that is because they are more in line with your "non liberal" views. You clearly aren't liberal....just like McCain isn't.

No, I don't bash people for being conservative; I bash people for being idiots.

There's nothing wrong with wanting a smaller government. There's nothing wrong with advocating for lower taxes. There are many good arguments for these items. And, fundamentally, these are opinions; I don't think there is a magic level of taxes/spending/whatever that is "right."

But, there are answers that are pretty clearly not right. And way too many of these are given serious currency on the right. They tend to be repeated by the same people. We're talking things like:

- The Laffer curve
- The gold standard
- The idea that lower corporate tax rates will magically help the middle class (this is an extremely inefficient way to help the middle class)
- The idea that science is a lie
- The Balanced Budget Amendment
- The idea that unemployment during or right after a recession is due to people not trying to find jobs because unemployment is generous
- More guns saves lies
- Obama is a foreign Muslim
- The free market is perfect for everything (we can't have laws about X, Y, Z because they go against the free market!)
- The IRS is the worst thing ever
- The lack of acknowledgement that defense spending is easily as screwed up as any other type of spending
- The US should have focused on getting to a balanced budget during the worst recession in years

The left, in 2015, does not have nearly this amount of outright stupid/false ideas gaining major currency among its base. It has some (overemphasis on taxing the rich is one of them), but these aren't being pushed as the platform of the party.

There are a number of very good conservative ideas and principles, things like:

- The government can't just fix everything with money or attention; the government has to honestly account for the result of your actions, including unintended side effects
- Regulations are sticky, and we should do a better job thinking about how to avoid regulatory overload over time
- The tax code is way too complicated
- The free market works very well at seeking profit and it should be allowed to do so in most cases
- Certain parts of the government are pretty inefficient and could spend money better
- Entitlements need to be reformed to be sustainable over the long term

Republicans should focus on those sorts of items and not the stupid items from above. When I see Paul Ryan on TV, he's usually focused on the second list of items. When I see Louie Gohmert, he's talking about the first list almost exclusively.

 

[millerbleach]

Origionally posted by Neuron Monster:

- The Laffer curve
- The gold standard
- The idea that lower corporate tax rates will magically help the middle class (this is an extremely inefficient way to help the middle class)
- The idea that science is a lie
- The Balanced Budget Amendment
- The idea that unemployment during or right after a recession is due to people not trying to find jobs because unemployment is generous
- More guns saves lies
- Obama is a foreign Muslim
- The free market is perfect for everything (we can't have laws about X, Y, Z because they go against the free market!)
- The IRS is the worst thing ever
- The lack of acknowledgement that defense spending is easily as screwed up as any other type of spending
- The US should have focused on getting to a balanced budget during the worst recession in years

That is a long list of things that only a few would be supported by even a majority of conservatives. Others are simply stated falsely.

 

[Neutron Monster]

Originally posted by millerbleach:

You listed 5 things. I had named 2 of them. It wasn't an all encompasing list.

The economy is better but not by much.
Tax increases always generate income at first.
The stimulus is far from over.

The economy was so slow that revenue was horrible. The economy couldn't stay that bad as it had over blown things. It has had an impact on the deficit but it wouldn't have had much impact if the wars hadn'y wound down and sequestration hadn't forced spending reductions in the growth rate.

How can you be so wrong in basically every post?

You said the closing of the budget deficit was largely due to the sequester. That is demonstrably false.

The economy is "much better" from a tax collections standpoint.

No, tax increases do not inherently generate more change "at first" in the government's budget than spending cuts. $100 B of tax increases has the same impact as $100 B of spending cuts.

You could bother looking up the stimulus spending before saying it is "far from over." 91.5% of the stimulus was spent in the first three years (FY 2009-2011). Over 97% of the total was spent by the end of FY 2013. Yes, it is basically over.

And your last paragraph is also demonstrably wrong - it's not that hard to go look up the change in revenue and the change in spending over time. It's also not that hard to adjust for the change in revenue associated with changes in tax law vs. changes in the economy. And it's also not hard to split expenditures between the wars or to come up with the change in expenditures associated with the sequester. The #1 factor changing the overall budget deficit is quite clear when this math is done - the improvement in the health of the economy is the #1 factor lowering the deficit under any reasonable set of analysis. Nothing else even comes close.

This is exactly what I meant in my earlier post about the likelihood that Buck would slaughter you in a basic test of economics or civics. You don't have any idea what the facts are on basically anything, which is why your posts are generally worthless.

 

[Neutron Monster]

Originally posted by millerbleach:

Origionally posted by Neuron Monster:

- The Laffer curve
- The gold standard
- The idea that lower corporate tax rates will magically help the middle class (this is an extremely inefficient way to help the middle class)
- The idea that science is a lie
- The Balanced Budget Amendment
- The idea that unemployment during or right after a recession is due to people not trying to find jobs because unemployment is generous
- More guns saves lies
- Obama is a foreign Muslim
- The free market is perfect for everything (we can't have laws about X, Y, Z because they go against the free market!)
- The IRS is the worst thing ever
- The lack of acknowledgement that defense spending is easily as screwed up as any other type of spending
- The US should have focused on getting to a balanced budget during the worst recession in years

That is a long list of things that only a few would be supported by even a majority of conservatives. Others are simply stated falsely.

A number of those are included in the Republican party platform.

Also, my point is not that every conservative supports those, but that a depressing % of people support a large % of these ideas. Can you come up with a similar list for the left? I cannot. There's not the same level of stupidity and detachment from facts that is pushed forward on a daily basis. There are policies they advocate for that you would disagree with, but that doesn't make the policies stupid. There are plenty of left and right policies I don't support but they aren't stupid/misaligned with facts.

This post was edited on 1/21 6:36 PM by Neutron Monster

 

[millerbleach]

Originally posted by Neutron Monster:

How can you be so wrong in basically every post?

You said the closing of the budget deficit was largely due to the sequester. That is demonstrably false.

The economy is "much better" from a tax collections standpoint.

No, tax increases do not inherently generate more change "at first" in the government's budget than spending cuts. $100 B of tax increases has the same impact as $100 B of spending cuts.

You could bother looking up the stimulus spending before saying it is "far from over." 91.5% of the stimulus was spent in the first three years (FY 2009-2011). Over 97% of the total was spent by the end of FY 2013. Yes, it is basically over.

And your last paragraph is also demonstrably wrong - it's not that hard to go look up the change in revenue and the change in spending over time. It's also not that hard to adjust for the change in revenue associated with changes in tax law vs. changes in the economy. And it's also not hard to split expenditures between the wars or to come up with the change in expenditures associated with the sequester. The #1 factor changing the overall budget deficit is quite clear when this math is done - the improvement in the health of the economy is the #1 factor lowering the deficit under any reasonable set of analysis. Nothing else even comes close.

This is exactly what I meant in my earlier post about the likelihood that Buck would slaughter you in a basic test of economics or civics. You don't have any idea what the facts are on basically anything, which is why your posts are generally worthless.

Wrong, I said sequestration and.......

Only a lib would judge the health of the economy by how much is confiscated.

You assume a status quo in the rate of income. You give no weight to the impact of the tax hike on the economy.

You assume it won't be back.

Duh! The deficit dropped because we took in more money......really? The reasons we are taking in more money is what I was claiming!

If you were judge....probably but still debatable.

 

[Neutron Monster]

Nope, you're still way off, try again.

Uhhh...no...someone with a brain would note that, absent changes in tax policy or collections policy, an increase in tax revenue on an inflation-adjusted basis is a lagging indicator of an improving economy. If you don't change the rates and you take in more money...guess what? Something good had to happen for the revenue to rise - personal incomes rose, profits of companies went up, sales taxes went up because of more consumption, etc. Tax revenue is a good measure of the health of the economy.

Further, an improving economy also manifests (on a lagging basis) in lower government spending on the safety net - it's not just a revenue story.

Yes, a change in taxation impacts GDP. Guess what else does? A change in spending! Obama's tax changes were focused on the rich - a low multiplier group. On the other hand, Republicans advocate for changes in spending that generally impact the middle class and poor, a group with a higher multipler. What does this mean? It means that a dollar of their spending cuts like the sequester is actually worse for the economy than a dollar of the Obama tax increases because of where the marginal dollar came from.

No, the reasons we took in more money were not mentioned in your post. The sequester lowered government revenue. It didn't increase it.

I'm done with this thread until you read a book on economics or something like that. Your posts are basically as far from the facts as they could possibly be.

 

[millerbleach]

Originally posted by Neutron Monster:
Nope, you're still way off, try again.

Uhhh...no...someone with a brain would note that, absent changes in tax policy or collections policy, an increase in tax revenue on an inflation-adjusted basis is a lagging indicator of an improving economy. If you don't change the rates and you take in more money...guess what? Something good had to happen for the revenue to rise - personal incomes rose, profits of companies went up, sales taxes went up because of more consumption, etc. Tax revenue is a good measure of the health of the economy.

Further, an improving economy also manifests (on a lagging basis) in lower government spending on the safety net - it's not just a revenue story.

Yes, a change in taxation impacts GDP. Guess what else does? A change in spending! Obama's tax changes were focused on the rich - a low multiplier group. On the other hand, Republicans advocate for changes in spending that generally impact the middle class and poor, a group with a higher multipler. What does this mean? It means that a dollar of their spending cuts like the sequester is actually worse for the economy than a dollar of the Obama tax increases because of where the marginal dollar came from.

No, the reasons we took in more money were not mentioned in your post. The sequester lowered government revenue. It didn't increase it.

I'm done with this thread until you read a book on economics or something like that. Your posts are basically as far from the facts as they could possibly be.

I can't keep up with your changing arguement! First you claim tax increases lowered the deficit and now you claim tax rates didn't change (they obviously did) then cite the impact of changed rates you said didn't happen! Then you claim the sequester lowered revenues when it had no impact on rates.

Are you really gonna claim we didn't lower spending by shutting down the war machine after years of claiming it was responsible for the deficit?

I'm done with you until you can find a tack.

 

[Neutron Monster]

Going to break my promise to not post in here again to say that I am not all over the place. You just can't read.

You can separate out the impact of the tax rate change from the change in revenue caused by improvement of the economy. The latter has been far more important which I have said about ten times already.

Yes, the sequester lowered revenue slightly. This is not a fact up for debate. What do you think the government money is spent on? It is spent on things like wages which are taxable. The loss of that spending results in less economic activity and less taxes associated with that activity.

Never claimed we didn't lower spending. Go reread my posts. Again, try understanding what others post. I said the change in spending has been less than the change in revenue. More of the budget deficit was closed with revenue, which is mostly due to improvement in the health of the economy. I've said this about 1800 times in this thread yet you seem incapable of processing these facts.

It's not difficult to use google to search for revenue and expenditure by year of the federal government. One changed a lot more than the other over the last five years.

 

[millerbleach]

Originally posted by Neutron Monster:

Yes, the sequester lowered revenue slightly. This is not a fact up for debate. What do you think the government money is spent on? It is spent on things like wages which are taxable. The loss of that spending results in less economic activity and less taxes associated with that activity.

$100 B of tax increases has the same impact as $100 B of spending cuts.

That is what you posted! Now you claim the spending cuts (sequester) have less positive impact than tax cuts because they lower revenue. Another new tack!!!! Cant debate a moving target!

 

[millerbleach]

Originally posted by Neutron Monster:

It's not difficult to use google to search for revenue and expenditure by year of the federal government. One changed a lot more than the other over the last five years.

I have never said spending decreased!!!!! You keep using red herrings to say i've said things I haven't. The sequester kept spending MUCH lower than it would have been. Revenues increased because the economy improved (very slightly) from a very low point generating more revenue. If not for the sequester, the automatic increases in spending would have consumed most of that increase. Defense spending has dropped dramatically due to the wars winding down but other areas have consumed much of that savings. They would have consumed much more if not for the sequester.

 

[millerbleach]

Originally posted by Neutron Monster:
Going to break my promise to not post in here again to say that I am not all over the place. You just can't read.

You can separate out the impact of the tax rate change from the change in revenue caused by improvement of the economy. The latter has been far more important which I have said about ten times already.

Your post:

"Uhhh...no...someone with a brain would note that, absent changes in tax policy or collections policy, an increase in tax revenue on an inflation-adjusted basis is a lagging indicator of an improving economy. If you don't change the rates and you take in more money...guess what?"

If that doesn't say tax rates didn't change, what does it say? Now you claim the economy had more impact on revenue than the tax hikes you said hadn't happened did.

 

[millerbleach]

Some things I think we agree on:
1) Revenues generated are a good indicator of the health of the economy. I would qualify that with the clause...only if rates remain the same. Taking in more money because of rate increases doesn't indicate anything about the economy.
2) The economy has improved from the pits but has a LONG way to go to be good.
3) We spend more every year.
4) The deficit has decreased because of multiple factors.

Am I wrong?