The rich pay a higher percentage, and more taxes overall than the poor. Why do you think anyone is saying otherwise. And that's absolutely how it should be, for the good of everyone, rich included.

It's perfectly sensible to talk about why some people don't pay any taxes at all. I'm not even debating that. But the rich should still pay more, regardless. The US has been one of the strongest economies for most of the 20th and 21st centuries with a progressive income tax, and it's been a heck of a lot more progressive than it is now, and we were still very prosperous.

Showing fraud in some programs doesn't mean the program should be abolished. It can be reformed as well. There are plenty of ways to do that. We didn't abolish welfare in the 1990s. We reformed it. And no, it's not true that private businesses will always create the jobs when the economy is down. History has proven quite the opposite. Why would a business invest to make more goods and services if there's no market for it. A downturn in the economy breeds more economic decline. It's called a business cycle, and it's a natural occurrence. If you were a business owner, generally speaking, if you know less people out there have the money to buy your goods and services, would you increase production and hire more workers? Of course not. Does the average person put more money into the stock market or take money out when the market tanks? Takes money out, which drains money for investing. This is basic micro and macroeconomics.

Some force has to run counter to the natural tendencies of the market to force demand to increase, and of course this virtually always requires running a deficit. This is why slogans like "the gov't should be run like a business" are simplistic and wrong. The gov't should in those situations create jobs through various programs, thereby increasing income for the lower classes, which creates spending and demand, which then causes businesses to increase production, hire more workers, and that gets the economy back on track. You can site case study after case study in our history we've done this, and it worked. We ended the Great Depression via defense spending in the form of WWII in record levels as the most obvious exaggerated example. That historically was qm's worst nightmare - record deficits in raw amount at the time, and still to this day historic record deficits as a percentage of GDP during WWII, followed by a tax raise on the richest Americans to over 90%. And what calamity befell the US because of those policies? We ended the Great Depression, became an economic Superpower, and Americans enjoyed record prosperity it and the world had never seen before.

This is historical fact that simply can't be denied.

Here's what happened - Democrats deficit spent as they were supposed to (which is exactly what the GOP would have done had they been in power, because it was started by George W. Bush), which stopped the economic free fall. Moody's didn't downgrade the US debt. It was S&P. They sited math about the alarming deficits which contained a $2 trillion mistake on their part. They also sited political instability as the GOP was risking default to get their policies in place, which btw still include massive deficits.

The GOP couldn't stop the Democrats from spending all that money?! Laughable. The GOP started the freakin' bailouts and stimulus! What did the GOP do the last time there was a recession after 9/11? Deficit spent, then continued to deficit spend when the economy was strong. Dude, seriously, you have no factual basis for that kind of claim whatsoever.

>> ^quantumushroom:

this is what we've been trying to tell you QM, the system doesn't work when only a few contribute...the system works when ALL contribute based on what they can afford.
I totally agree, so why does the bottom 50% of Americans pay NO income tax? The wealthy already pay a disproportionately high percentage of all taxes and I have yet to find a liberalsifter who admits this.
I well understand that Scrooge McDuck won't miss a few more shovelfuls of gold coins swiped by federal bulldozers, but lets review reality:
1) The "extra" money attained by "soaking" Scrooge and Rich Uncle Pennybags (from the Monopoly game) will be pi$$ed away, like the 60 billion dollars EVERY YEAR lost to fraud, waste and abuse in Medicaid/Medicare. The federal mafia is composed of sh1tty stewards of our money.
2) The Hawaiian Dunce has spent 3 trillion in 3 years with little or nothing to show for it. So what magical number of dollars is going to make everything all right? A quadrillion?
3) When the socialists raise taxes, the wealthy of 2011 have their accountant press a few buttons on their computating machines, sending their $$$ overseas, invested in more stable markets. Apparently many already have, probably the moment they knew Obama was elected.
4) Liberal say, "Rich man not know difference he still rich." But there's now less money to invest and less money to create jobs. Now some liberalsifter will say, "This graph indicates that the rich don't create jobs with their ill-gotten gains."
BUT, if you're honest with yourselves, you'll know that one million dollars has a much better chance of creating jobs in the hands of entrepreneurs and investors than the government "Department of Creating Jobs" which probably spends that much just on office furniture.
5) The debt limit 'debate' is total BS, always has been. Here is what happened: taxocrats burned through tax money at an alarming rate and there weren't enough elected Republicans to stop them. THAT'S why Moody's got scared and US was downgraded. Republicans can't communicate for sh1t anyway, and so the socialists and their media lapdogs managed to blame the right for this mess.
6) Warren Buffoon likes to be liked, I get that, but he should still STFU and make a real gesture. Giving a symbolic billion dollars to the federal mafia should do it. He won't miss it.

LOL! So explain how the US became an economic Super Power the world had never seen to that point IMMEDIATELY after WWII? This was after the Great Depression. WWII generated US deficits of 24% of GDP in 1945, which has NEVER been surpassed since, not even today, with the current deficits of 13% of GDP. It is absolutely the case that without those deficits, the US wouldn't have been able to pay for the war effort, and it is absolutely the case WWII ended the Great Depression. Those "talking heads" you refer to are called "historians". They use things called "facts" to help form their conclusions.

Just how did it end the Depression? By reducing unemployment to basically 0%, raising demand for labor which increased wages, all the while retooling existing closed factories and building new ones to crank out all of what we needed to win the war. As a result, consumers had significantly increased income, which was pumped into the economy when spent. When the war ended, the government did a tremendous job transitioning back into a peacetime economy compared to total war mobilization, while building a massive military industrial complex to compete in the Cold War. Also, the average male American citizen was granted wide access to the first time to a college education through the GI Bill, resulting in a never seen before highly educated general population. It was the dawn of the US as one of the two global economic and military superpowers.

So what did we do after WWII? We ran surpluses in the 1950s by raising marginal tax rates on the rich to over 90%, and that was during those super economically disastrous times known as the 1950s, when the US GNP rose by 66% in that decade. Both running a deficit to end the recession and raising taxes on the rich are both things you vehemently oppose, yet it was without a doubt proven to be effective in our history. It's historical fact you can try to ignore, but it's staring you point blank in the face.

Try to dodge this all you want. I'd rather accept reality and try to figure out honestly how to fix our current economy instead of clinging to a rigid ideology which has been clearly proven to be wrong in our national history.

>> ^heropsycho:
Explain how the US got out of the Depression then. You most certainly can spend your way out of a depression. All those tanks, planes, bombs, guns, war material, all of it was paid for with money the US gov't didn't have on a record scale never before seen to that point.
You absolutely can't refute that. The US gov't did not have the money to pay for WWII, and they borrowed a butt ton to win the war, and it fueled the US ascension to becoming an economic superpower. That's how glued you are to your ideology that you can't see the obvious example in history where you're absolutely 100% dead wrong. It's like saying Jews have never been systemically persecuted with the obvious example of the Holocaust in history.
>> ^quantumushroom:
What I find absolutely appalling about QM's argument is there's no context in why the debt was run up by Obama. It's really simple - the economy was in free fall. That's exactly what the gov't must do in that situation. Everybody knew it. Bush Jr. knew it, too, which is why the stimulus and bailouts started under him, and continued by Obama. It's painfully obvious to anyone who is willing to have an honest conversation about this topic.
Bush Jr. was not a true conservative. Nobody spends their way out of a depression, it's Keynesian bullplop. Why we can't have an honest convo about this topic: leftsift refuses to acknowledge who pays the most in taxes in America, and that the only reason Obama needed to overclock spending was because he could.


It's this line of thinking that has brought us to where we're at now. Using your line of reasoning one should pay their mortgage bill with a credit card and then take out a home equity loan to pay the credit card bill. It's economic suicide.

Explain how the US got out of the Depression then. You most certainly can spend your way out of a depression. All those tanks, planes, bombs, guns, war material, all of it was paid for with money the US gov't didn't have on a record scale never before seen to that point.

You absolutely can't refute that. The US gov't did not have the money to pay for WWII, and they borrowed a butt ton to win the war, and it fueled the US ascension to becoming an economic superpower. That's how glued you are to your ideology that you can't see the obvious example in history where you're absolutely 100% dead wrong. It's like saying Jews have never been systemically persecuted with the obvious example of the Holocaust in history.

>> ^quantumushroom:

What I find absolutely appalling about QM's argument is there's no context in why the debt was run up by Obama. It's really simple - the economy was in free fall. That's exactly what the gov't must do in that situation. Everybody knew it. Bush Jr. knew it, too, which is why the stimulus and bailouts started under him, and continued by Obama. It's painfully obvious to anyone who is willing to have an honest conversation about this topic.
Bush Jr. was not a true conservative. Nobody spends their way out of a depression, it's Keynesian bullplop. Why we can't have an honest convo about this topic: leftsift refuses to acknowledge who pays the most in taxes in America, and that the only reason Obama needed to overclock spending was because he could.

These are laughable. Universal education is a failure?! Uhh, on what planet? Despite the enormous problems universal education faces today in the US, it's a hell of a lot better than the last time we left education up to the private sector only. It also put the US on the road towards becoming an economic and military superpower. Social Security has been a failure? How exactly?! The US was not an economic superpower until AFTER SSI began, and amazing, we've been a superpower ever since. Not that SSI caused our ascendance, but it clearly didn't hurt at all. The Post Office is a failure?! A few money issues doesn't change the fact that the post office still delivers mail to anywhere in the US for a nominal charge.

Now, and here's the most laughable thing I've seen WP say yet. That everywhere there's socialism, there's cronyism, corruption, poor standards of living, and routinely oppress people. Uhh, dude, we're more capitalist than virtually every European country, and you're saying there's no cronyism, corruption, standards of living are good for everyone in the US, and we oppress people less than France, Britain, or Germany?! Completely laughable.

And do you know how many failed, corrupt mainly market economies there have been?! Do you understand that the US has suffered two massive recessions (1929 & 2008) after structuring itself missing very basic regulation required along with proper enforcement, right? Oh, of course you don't. Somehow, socialist agendas somehow caused each.

For every Switzerland there's a bad socialist economy. Ok, how about this? Name a single thriving economy that isn't a mixed economy.

Socialist agendas are not aimed at creating bureaucracies for the sake of bureaucracies, and advocates are not selfish. I'm a pragmatist who favors what works. I know for example a well run public education system and wide access to normal people for college educations (first introduced to average Americans en masse in the GI Bill) radically changed society for the better. It's absurd to even argue against that. The US's rise to global superpower came as generations began being generally educated. I know the Tennessee Valley Authority, a New Deal program, laid the foundation to industrialize that region of the US, which helped to produce war material to win WWII, improve the quality of life for people in that region with wide availability of electricity, and lots of jobs. It was originally one of those evil gov't socialist programs you so despise.

We can fix public education without privatizing it, btw. Across the US, there are shining examples of top notch schools that are public schools that outperform private schools, even though private schools get their proverbial pick of the litter. Across the US, there are lots of examples of bad private schools. I went to a public school, and here I am, on my second successful career, intelligent, thoughtful, and in demand by employers. I attended a public university, and I don't regret it at all.

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:

Socialized medicine…only failing because of a lack of funding
Oh of course. Socialism never fails. Instead, socialism just doesn’t have enough money. Just keep on pouring taxes into the meat grinder, and finally socialized (whatever) creates the perfect sausages… Except it never does. War on Poverty. Great Society. Socialized Medicine. Universal Education. Social Security. Post Office. Shoot – take it all the way down to Food Stamps. No socialist program ever has ‘enough money’.
Social medicine fails because socialism is not designed to help people. Socialized systems are designed 100% to create large bureaucracies, which in turn exist only to self-perpetuate in the form of increasing year-over-year budgets. Helping people actually decreases a program’s budget-line, so they work to deny services (or waste them) as aggressively as possible so they can use it as leverage to lobby the government for more money and power. That’s the reason why the UK system (or any socialist program) routinely denies more and more ‘care’, while at the same time costing more and more money.
Guys like BS Bill brag about how wonderful socialist systems are. They ignore the reality. Socialist nations are rife with cronyism, corruption, poor standards of living, and regularly oppress their people. Socialist governments are the perpetrators of the worst tragedies of all human history. Historically, for every Switzerland there are a hundred North Koreas. Even the modern Euro socialist lite nations only work because they have capitalist wealth-creation engines to support (barely) their corrupt and inefficient socialist programs. The US is not failing because it is too capitalist and giving too much to the rich. It is failing because heavily socialized programs are doing what they always do… Collapsing because of internal corruption.
At its heart – socialism is nothing more than laziness and selfishness. People see a problem in society. They feel bad. They think, “Gee – someone should do something…” At that point you have a couple choices. 1. Be a capitalist and solve the problem yourself. 2. Be a socialist and vote for someone who PROMISES to solve the problem for you. That’s the trick of socialism. It preys on people who are well-intentioned, but who are also selfish, lazy, and a bit stupid. Socialists want to ‘help’, but are too selfish and lazy to actually do something about the problems they see. Therefore they become stupid and fervidly believe any liar (like Obama) who says they will solve the problem for them using taxes. It is stupid because there is no evidence that taxes EVER solve social problems.
Examples of lies that socialists believe…
“Aw – you feel bad when there are poor people… Vote for me and I’ll create The Great Society and eliminate poverty!”
“Aw – you feel bad about people who have medical needs… Vote for me and I’ll tax the ‘rich’ so you don’t have to pay for your medical expenses!”
“Aw – you get sad when you see pictures of polar bears… Vote for me and I’ll tax all carbon emissions and change the global climate!”
“Aw – you want children to get an education… Vote for me and I’ll create free universal public education!”
And do these systems work? Of course not. The Great Society didn’t make a dent in poverty. Social medicine denies more care than it provides. Carbon taxes don’t change the climate. Kids that go to public schools come out stupider. But the SOCIAL PROGRAMS created to address these problems? Oh – of course – they just need ‘more money’ and THEN they will start working!
Socialism. The lazy jerk’s way of destroying society while telling themselves they are ‘helping’.

Very well said, thank you.

In reply to this comment by BicycleRepairMan:
@<a rel="nofollow" href="http://videosift.com/member/SDGundamX" title="member since March 2nd, 2007" class="profilelink">SDGundamX

Look, pretending that you've examined the dictionary definition of sarcasm and irony really shows that you don't get Pats jabs AT ALL. Heres the joke he was making:

He hopes his insults "harms your physical and mental well-being so har that you'll have to lie down for 10 minutes before you can even pray"

Clearly this is a JOKE, he knows full well that no matter what anyone says to anyone ever, certainly not in a public debate, can actually harm people like that. The joke is targeted at people who claims that actual harm has come to them, simply because their beliefs were insulted. IE muslims who just cannot live in a world were people draw their precious prophet, so they have to threaten and scream at everyone, muslim and infidel, until they stop the drawing and apologize for the "crime", and even then they are not satisfied and take the liberty of threatening liberal democratic countries with "revenge".

If you are a certain kind of jihadist, murder and offensive cartoons seems to be reasonable tit-for-tat to you. it is this concept that Pat is mocking with his joke. Cleary he knows, like everybody else , that you cannot be "physically harmed" by an offending joke or insult, he sarcastically pretends to have this awesome superpower that he can harm people with.

It actually reminds me of a great old monty python sketch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fNvi6xG-5Y

@SDGundamX

Look, pretending that you've examined the dictionary definition of sarcasm and irony really shows that you don't get Pats jabs AT ALL. Heres the joke he was making:

He hopes his insults "harms your physical and mental well-being so har that you'll have to lie down for 10 minutes before you can even pray"

Clearly this is a JOKE, he knows full well that no matter what anyone says to anyone ever, certainly not in a public debate, can actually harm people like that. The joke is targeted at people who claims that actual harm has come to them, simply because their beliefs were insulted. IE muslims who just cannot live in a world were people draw their precious prophet, so they have to threaten and scream at everyone, muslim and infidel, until they stop the drawing and apologize for the "crime", and even then they are not satisfied and take the liberty of threatening liberal democratic countries with "revenge".

If you are a certain kind of jihadist, murder and offensive cartoons seems to be reasonable tit-for-tat to you. it is this concept that Pat is mocking with his joke. Cleary he knows, like everybody else , that you cannot be "physically harmed" by an offending joke or insult, he sarcastically pretends to have this awesome superpower that he can harm people with.

It actually reminds me of a great old monty python sketch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fNvi6xG-5Y

For the record, I've always thought time manipulation would be the best superpower. So take that, title!

But even if I could only have the power to stop time rather than go forward and back, it would still beat everything else for sheer usefulness in real life.

(See Roger Lee Vernon's story "The Stop Watch" and John D. MacDonald's book "The Girl, the Gold Watch & Everything")

That is actually the superpower I used to dream about as a little kid, though I had no idea who this Zach clown was.

I still think Nightcrawler-like teleportation would be way more fun, and no, you wouldn't lose your clothes doing it.

I'd probably spend the rest of my life trying to beat my own record of how many people I could punch in the face before the first one hit the ground, though.

I'm very confused. Let me get this straight...

You're gonna blame the repeal of Glass-Steagall (a law that REGULATED financial markets) on Barney Frank who voted AGAINST the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which is the legislation that repealed Glass-Steagall?! You do realize you're basically making effectively a socialist argument, right?! You're saying the repeal of Glass-Steagall was intended to help the poor, but it didn't. Glass-Steagall is fundamentally socialist, so you're saying repealing it hurt the economy?!

Other than the fact you got the critical detail of Frank voting against Gramm-Leach-Bliley wrong, I completely agree with you.

In respect that job reports have been disappointing, you didn't address what every objective report about the stimulus bill says it created jobs, and those jobs did go to lower and middle class people. There's a disappointment it didn't do more than it ended up doing, but it DID create/save jobs in the short run, that's undeniable. Extension of unemployment benefits helped the poor and middle class. I could go on and on. You're seriously gonna fight this point?! Ridiculous.

Every company Obama visited and showed as a good example folded, huh? Let's see some proof. I want to see everyone of these companies, and what happened to them. You don't get to throw idiotic statements like this out without proof and expect not get called out on it. You're full of crap on that.

Oh, so if the jobs went to people you blanket don't like, it didn't do any good? LOL! Nevermind they're poor and middle class jobs, those very people you said weren't helped. I don't blame you. Those fat cat teachers and other civil servants, robbing the country blind with their gross underpay and what not! BTW, state employees are not all union members. There are in many states laws against state employees unionizing. Minor detail really...

So you're talking about "real Socialist" countries, not the fake ones I described. Are they more left than us? YES! You then mentioned we've gone "too far to the left" and the pendulum swing of a correction is coming to smite us! Are you suggesting the UK, France, and Britain were smited by the wrath of the free market gods for being too socialist? How have they managed to avoid the smite?!

As to the US education system today. First off, I'm glad you agree with me that universal public education system did coincide with the rise of the US as an economic superpower. You do at least seem to understand attacking that point is pretty pointless. But that also means you lost the argument. We had undeniably the world's best education system during that time, and it was a socialistic program in nature. Do we have the best education system now without question? No. What changed? Not the public mandate. Not the fact it's still mostly gov't operated. That's the same. Therefore, it's undeniable that you can have a top notch gov't run public education system.

Need more proof?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/dec/07/world-education-rankings-maths-science-reading

What do you notice about the countries with the best education systems? Oh wonder of wonders, virtually all of them have gov't operated public education systems! How do so many evil socialist programs work so well?! Hmmm, maybe it's because sometimes, socialist ideas work the best, and maybe you should open your mind a little, look at specific things, look at data objectively, and apply socialist or capitalist solutions, whichever work the best? I know that's apparently revolutionary for you, but it's called "effective problem solving".

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:

Amazing how all leftists are criminally corrupt, all of them, apparently. Just because you're a leftist, it automatically means you don't care about the people.
Of course not all of them are corrupt – just most of the ones in political office. However, that is more endemic of being a politician than a leftist as the GOP is corrupt to the core too. I’m sure on some level even the corrupt political leftists believe they ‘care’ and are ‘helping’. But their method of helping is a poison pill destined to kill the supposed beneficiary. For example… Barney Frank thought he was helping the poor by pushing to repeal Glass-Steagall. In Frank’s fuzz-filled brain, he helped the poor get “uffodubble howsing”. But the result of his policies speak for themselves. The poor were NOT ‘helped’, and the nation’s financial stability was ruined by leftist plans for making banks give out loans to people who could not afford them. The left’s method of ‘help’ almost universally manifests in the form of inefficient, expensive, wasteful, freedom-killing big government programs which inevitably crash, burn, and make things worse than any leftist ever DREAMED life was like without their ‘help’.
Obama's big gov't spending doesn't do anything for the poor and middle class. You mean, except saving jobs when the economy tanked, the vast majority went to the poor and middle classes. Other than that... LOL...
That’s why every month the US has “unexpectedly high” unemployment figures. It’s why every job report for the last 3 years has been ‘disappointing’. It’s why every company Obama visited on the stump as a ‘shining example’ for jobs has folded. There are multiple reports that prove Obama’s stimulus money has gone almost entirely to labor unions, or state governments (and thence, THEIR unions) who supported him. In short, like a typical Chicago thug, he used the stimulus as political payola “walkin’ round money”. Jobs for the middle class & poor? Maybe 1 for every million bucks.
Leftist governments do not help with wealth distribution?! They just make it worse? I'm sure that's happened on occasion, but that's generally patently false.
I’m talking REAL left government – socialism. History has proven that leftist political philosophy’s ultimate end is wealth concentration at the top of government with the ‘people’ in utter poverty such as Soviet Russia, North Korea, Cambodia, Cuba, et al. What you are talking about are not really socialist governments. They are capitalist with socialist programs IN it (sort of the mirror image of China’s “socialist with capitalist programs”). The US ever since FDR has not been so much a ‘capitalist’ society as much as it is just another European-style capitalist with social program left-leaning government. The New Deal, the Great Society, and so many other leftist programs have routinely and regularly siphoned wealth from the middle class and used it to conduct failed social experiments. For the last 20 years or so, the US has gone further and further left in terms of spending and economic policy.
For example….universal public education and a progressive income tax coincided with the rise of the US as a global economic superpower as those first generations of publicly educated people came of working age.
Like all socialist systems, it starts well but ends badly. Remember Orwell's "Animal Farm"? Look at the US education system today and tell me it is “working wonderfully”. It is one of the most expensive in the world, while at the same time one of the least effective. Universal education is great. PUBLIC universal education? Not so much – and mostly BECAUSE it is a ‘socialist’ program. Open up a voucher system and let people choose the school, which will increase competition and lower costs.
Now - I don’t disagree with the underlying premise of your position. A pure capitalist freedom isn’t good either. Freedom is the best choice, tempered with a distant set of standards. I don’t have a problem with government mandating universal education, or even with it establishing some basic, simple standards. However, the pendulum has swung too far in the ‘socialist’ direction, and we are due for a correction. However, the people who benefit from the social system (government & unions) are responding as predicted to pullback, and would rather blow up the system than give up their power and money. Such is the end result of socialism, alas.
The founding fathers had it right. It is best to leave such matters at the state level where the people have more control and there is more accountability. The federal government should serve as ONLY a place where people can go to redress grievances (abuses). Central systems are fine when they are distant, have little power, and serve as little more than a final authority to appeal to, or as a repository of advised (but not REQUIRED) standards. The ‘system’ should be about 5% centralized and 95% local. Right now the US is more like a ‘45% federal, 55% local’ government and it is coming apart at the seams.

Amazing how all leftists are criminally corrupt, all of them, apparently. Just because you're a leftist, it automatically means you don't care about the people.

Of course not all of them are corrupt – just most of the ones in political office. However, that is more endemic of being a politician than a leftist as the GOP is corrupt to the core too. I’m sure on some level even the corrupt political leftists believe they ‘care’ and are ‘helping’. But their method of helping is a poison pill destined to kill the supposed beneficiary. For example… Barney Frank thought he was helping the poor by pushing to repeal Glass-Steagall. In Frank’s fuzz-filled brain, he helped the poor get “uffodubble howsing”. But the result of his policies speak for themselves. The poor were NOT ‘helped’, and the nation’s financial stability was ruined by leftist plans for making banks give out loans to people who could not afford them. The left’s method of ‘help’ almost universally manifests in the form of inefficient, expensive, wasteful, freedom-killing big government programs which inevitably crash, burn, and make things worse than any leftist ever DREAMED life was like without their ‘help’.

Obama's big gov't spending doesn't do anything for the poor and middle class. You mean, except saving jobs when the economy tanked, the vast majority went to the poor and middle classes. Other than that... LOL...

That’s why every month the US has “unexpectedly high” unemployment figures. It’s why every job report for the last 3 years has been ‘disappointing’. It’s why every company Obama visited on the stump as a ‘shining example’ for jobs has folded. There are multiple reports that prove Obama’s stimulus money has gone almost entirely to labor unions, or state governments (and thence, THEIR unions) who supported him. In short, like a typical Chicago thug, he used the stimulus as political payola “walkin’ round money”. Jobs for the middle class & poor? Maybe 1 for every million bucks.

Leftist governments do not help with wealth distribution?! They just make it worse? I'm sure that's happened on occasion, but that's generally patently false.

I’m talking REAL left government – socialism. History has proven that leftist political philosophy’s ultimate end is wealth concentration at the top of government with the ‘people’ in utter poverty such as Soviet Russia, North Korea, Cambodia, Cuba, et al. What you are talking about are not really socialist governments. They are capitalist with socialist programs IN it (sort of the mirror image of China’s “socialist with capitalist programs”). The US ever since FDR has not been so much a ‘capitalist’ society as much as it is just another European-style capitalist with social program left-leaning government. The New Deal, the Great Society, and so many other leftist programs have routinely and regularly siphoned wealth from the middle class and used it to conduct failed social experiments. For the last 20 years or so, the US has gone further and further left in terms of spending and economic policy.

For example….universal public education and a progressive income tax coincided with the rise of the US as a global economic superpower as those first generations of publicly educated people came of working age.

Like all socialist systems, it starts well but ends badly. Remember Orwell's "Animal Farm"? Look at the US education system today and tell me it is “working wonderfully”. It is one of the most expensive in the world, while at the same time one of the least effective. Universal education is great. PUBLIC universal education? Not so much – and mostly BECAUSE it is a ‘socialist’ program. Open up a voucher system and let people choose the school, which will increase competition and lower costs.

Now - I don’t disagree with the underlying premise of your position. A pure capitalist freedom isn’t good either. Freedom is the best choice, tempered with a distant set of standards. I don’t have a problem with government mandating universal education, or even with it establishing some basic, simple standards. However, the pendulum has swung too far in the ‘socialist’ direction, and we are due for a correction. However, the people who benefit from the social system (government & unions) are responding as predicted to pullback, and would rather blow up the system than give up their power and money. Such is the end result of socialism, alas.

The founding fathers had it right. It is best to leave such matters at the state level where the people have more control and there is more accountability. The federal government should serve as ONLY a place where people can go to redress grievances (abuses). Central systems are fine when they are distant, have little power, and serve as little more than a final authority to appeal to, or as a repository of advised (but not REQUIRED) standards. The ‘system’ should be about 5% centralized and 95% local. Right now the US is more like a ‘45% federal, 55% local’ government and it is coming apart at the seams.

Oh man, where to start...

Amazing how all leftists are criminally corrupt, all of them, apparently. Just because you're a leftist, it automatically means you don't care about the people. On the face of it, patently absurd. Yes, some leftists are corrupt. No question about it. So are many capitalists, too. Doesn't mean either philosophy is bankrupt.

Obama's big gov't spending doesn't do anything for the poor and middle class. You mean, except saving jobs when the economy tanked, the vast majority went to the poor and middle classes. Other than that... LOL...

I'm totally sympathetic to the argument the stimulus may do more harm than good in the long run, but it wasn't done to shovel money into big bloated, criminally negligent gov't troughs. It was done to save jobs, and help the economy. Even if I disagreed with waterboarding, I wouldn't go around telling people the Bush administration did it because they loved the thrill of torturing people.

Leftist governments do not help with wealth distribution?! They just make it worse? I'm sure that's happened on occasion, but that's generally patently false. UN reports show the following:

In the U.S. the top 10% hold 70% of the country’s wealth
In France, the top 10% hold 61% of the country’s wealth
In the U.K. , the top 10% hold 56% of the country’s wealth
In Germany, the top 10% hold 44% of the country’s wealth
In Japan the top 10% hold 39% of the country’s wealth

France, UK, and Germany are significantly to the left of US in terms of their economic system without question. Japan is a weird beast, but still more socialist than we are. Their personal income tax rates are very low, but their corporate tax rate is one of the highest in the world. They also have significant elements of socialism in their economy, such as universal health care, publicly funded education, transportation, etc., but there is also a lot of free market elements as well. They also have a progressive income tax, although it has become less progressive as years have gone by.

So, I'd love to know how you came to that conclusion.

Finally, let me explain why some such as myself favor a form of mixed economy with a blend of socialism and capitalism: it works better for virtually everyone - rich, poor, and the middle class. As a very simple example, universal mandatory education, which was not a part of US society until it was publicly funded, helped businesses in the end because it increased the skill set and productivity of workers, which allowed businesses to increase profits in the long run. Universal, compulsory publicly funded education is socialist in nature. And how can society afford this? Partly by progressive taxation, which you claim is "poor people" believing that they have a right to the rich's money. Well, guess what? It worked BEAUTIFULLY! Universal public education and a progressive income tax coincided with the rise of the US as a global economic superpower as those first generations of publicly educated people came of working age. Weird how that worked, huh?

Now, I know people such as myself you consider a "neolib", but we're actually moderates, many of us are well intentioned, as I'm sure is true about conservatives, and we also have quite a bit of facts on our side to back us up, too. Raising marginal tax rates on the richest 1% of Americans is socialist in nature, but doing it a small amount isn't tantamount to socialism. And socialist ideas aren't inherently bad either (same for capitalistic ideas).

>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:

Besides, leftists really don't care jack-crap whether or not the bottom 5% actually ever moves out of the poverty level. The crocodile tears about the 'poor' is a bunch of propoganda they use to advance higher tax rates - which help the poor only in the barest, most marginal, subsistence-only way. Neolibs use the poor as a manure shovel to trowel money into bloated, criminally negligent government troughs. Obama's entire regime is demonstrable proof that huge government spending accomplishes nothing for the poor or middle class. In fact, higher taxation & spending accomplish the exact opposite of 'helping' the middle class. Leftist governments do not help with wealth distribution. If anything, wealth disparity is frequently much worse under leftist systems. "Rich" person money does more good funding private-citizen billionaire prostitute crack snorting addictions than it does in government.
So I reject the neolib premise that money "must" be shunted from the rich to government, or society is somehow less fair. Frankly, it is none of your cotton-pickin' business or mine what rich folks so with their cash. Neither poor people, nor the middle class have any right to anyone else's money just because they're jealous that someone else has more of it. If a guy is rich, it is their decision what to do with their money. Donate to charities, invest it in businesses, or use it to murder puppies - whatever - it's THEIR cash - not yours. Same goes for companies and corporations too. Just because a company is earning truckloads of cash doesn't mean you have any right to one jack-sprat cent of it.

I second that link request!

Wikileaks released some US embassy cables, which was of communications between some of Iran's neighboring arab states and US. Those states have competing interests with Iran and are not its allies. In those cables, the arab states told US, what US wanted to hear, which was that Iran is a problem. The arab states are worried about Iran becoming nuclear and a superpower. That information was well known and the arab states all had close relations with US already.

These cables revealed no information on a "color revolution", so I am curious to see marbles sources on his wikileaks claim.

>> ^RedSky:

Link plz.
>> ^marbles:
There was a failed color revolution in Iran in 2009. I believe there are Wikileaks cables confirming it and the operation in Syria.

Like the campaign for liberty that tours the nation? But your right, things start from the bottom down. It is always nice, though, to have hands from above as well. You can already see things slowing changing in the republican party, but it is still marginal in terms of majority. Like Dr. Paul says though, he won't consider it a success unless BOTH parties are chop full of his base ideals.


>> ^NetRunner:

@blankfist how about signing on to some sort of Instant Runoff Voting campaign, instead of begging people to vote for people who didn't even make it on the ballot in 2008, and who likely won't even run in 2012?
Also, I can tell you from personal experience that you can't really count on massive political transformation to happen from the White House down. It's gotta be from the bottom up.
If Paul were leading a movement to try to make the grassroots of the right anti-war, maybe I'd have a bit more affinity for him. But he isn't doing that at all. Instead, he mostly just comes on TV, bashes Democrats for wars (and anything else going wrong), mumbles something about Republicans being guilty "too", and suggests that the only solution is for him personally to have more authority and power. That has totally soured me on Paul, and really makes me think is just another sociopath in search of political power for his own gratification.
Rather than pin your hopes on individual politicians, I suggest you go for shifting public opinion. If enough people strongly believe that America should give up its role as a military superpower, then there will be endless politicians from both parties who will be all too happy to hop in front of that parade.
Incidentally, most of us liberals and Democratic voters already feel that way. You might want to look at the other political coalition, since they seem to feel pretty strongly about maintaining America's military preeminence forever.



What kind of spending of federal funds wouldn't end up in your district though? Perhaps I don't understand the setup, though?
>> ^jwray:

This could easily be fixed with a rule that requires congressmen to recuse themselves from voting on spending for their own district, in the same way that judges must recuse themselves from cases if they have a conflict of interest.

@blankfist how about signing on to some sort of Instant Runoff Voting campaign, instead of begging people to vote for people who didn't even make it on the ballot in 2008, and who likely won't even run in 2012?

Also, I can tell you from personal experience that you can't really count on massive political transformation to happen from the White House down. It's gotta be from the bottom up.

If Paul were leading a movement to try to make the grassroots of the right anti-war, maybe I'd have a bit more affinity for him. But he isn't doing that at all. Instead, he mostly just comes on TV, bashes Democrats for wars (and anything else going wrong), mumbles something about Republicans being guilty "too", and suggests that the only solution is for him personally to have more authority and power. That has totally soured me on Paul, and really makes me think is just another sociopath in search of political power for his own gratification.

Rather than pin your hopes on individual politicians, I suggest you go for shifting public opinion. If enough people strongly believe that America should give up its role as a military superpower, then there will be endless politicians from both parties who will be all too happy to hop in front of that parade.

Incidentally, most of us liberals and Democratic voters already feel that way. You might want to look at the other political coalition, since they seem to feel pretty strongly about maintaining America's military preeminence forever.