Below is an explanation of why it is both fair and logical for the rich to pay more taxes. Taken from http://www.zompist.com/richtax.htm The website also has an argument against the flat tax.

It was written a while ago (90s I'm guessing) but most of the points are still valid today.

For more than a century it's been generally recognized that the best taxes (admittedly this is an expression reminiscent of "the most pleasant death" or "the funniest Family Circus cartoon") are progressive-- that is, proportionate to income.

Lately, however, it's become fashionable to question this. Various Republican leaders have trotted out the idea of a flat tax, meaning a fixed percentage of income tax levied on everyone. And in their hearts they may be anxious to emulate Maggie Thatcher's poll tax-- a single amount that everyone must pay.

Isn't that more fair? Shouldn't everyone pay the same amount?

In a word-- no. It's not more fair; it's appallingly unfair. Why? The rich should pay more taxes, because the rich get more from the government.

Consider defense, for example, which makes up 20% of the budget. Defending the country benefits everyone; but it benefits the rich more, because they have more to defend. It's the same principle as insurance: if you have a bigger house or a fancier car, you pay more to insure it.

Social security payments, which make up another 20% of the budget, are dependent on income-- if you've put more into the system, you get higher payments when you retire.

Investments in the nation's infrastructure-- transportation, education, research & development, energy, police subsidies, the courts, etc.-- again are more useful the more you have. The interstates and airports benefit interstate commerce and people who can travel, not ghetto dwellers. Energy is used disproportionately by the rich and by industry.

As for public education, the better public schools are the ones attended by the moderately well off. The very well off ship their offspring off to private schools; but it is their companies that benefit from a well-educated public. (If you don't think that's a benefit, go start up an engineering firm, or even a factory, in El Salvador. Or Watts.)

The FDIC and the S&L bailout obviously most benefit investors and large depositors. A neat example: a smooth operator bought a failing S&L for $350 million, then received $2 billion from the government to help resurrect it.

Beyond all this, the federal budget is top-heavy with corporate welfare. Counting tax breaks and expenditures, corporations and the rich snuffle up over $400 billion a year-- compare that to the $1400 budget, or the $116 billion spent on programs for the poor.

Where's all that money go? There's direct subsidies to agribusiness ($18 billion a year), to export companies, to maritime shippers, and to various industries-- airlines, nuclear power companies, timber companies, mining companies, automakers, drug companies. There's billions of dollars in military waste and fraud. And there's untold billions in tax credits, deductions, and loopholes. Accelerated depreciation alone, for instance, is estimated to cost the Treasury $37 billion a year-- billions more than the mortgage interest deduction. (Which itself benefits the people with the biggest mortgages. But we should encourage home ownership, shouldn't we? Well, Canada has no interest deduction, but has about the same rate of home ownership.)

For more, see Mark Zepezauer and Arthur Naiman's informative little book, Take the Rich Off Welfare.

How about social spending? Well, putting aside the merely religious consideration that the richest nation on the planet can well afford to lob a few farthings at the hungry, I'd argue that it's social spending-- the New Deal-- that's kept this country capitalistic. Tempting as it is for the rich to take all the wealth of a country, it's really not wise to leave the poor with no stake in the system, and every reason to agitate for imposing a new system of their own. Think of social spending as insurance against violent revolution-- and again, like any insurance, it's of most benefit to those with the biggest boodle.

@GeeSussFreeK

No, not in the way I think you mean. The FED doesn't function as a bank of deposit, they function as an interbank lending facility, where the money being lent is created (or recycled) by the FED itself. Bonds and treasury securities are the primary source of the reserve, although there are other assets in play as well.

Technically, any debt incurred by the government is a liability of the public taxpayer, given that the government is expected to pay those debts off by using tax income. The Bond is, by definition, a loan TO the government. It is also the only legal way the government is allowed to get money, aside from taxes. Which is why the give them to the FED.

Let the logic of THAT sink in. We loaned money to ourselves by going into debt to ourselves, and then immediately turned around and called it a 'bank asset' and used it to loan more money out to every one else. If you subtract back to the start of the whole equation we, quite literally, end up with zero 'real' dollars in existence.

It's confusing, but that's the point. If people don't understand how badly they are getting screwed, they don't do anything to stop it.

Simple: The FED takes US Bonds and gives the same amount of money back to the US Government. (Remember that the FED is a private bank, despite the word 'Federal' in the title.) It works exactly the way you or I could buy Federal Bonds, except on a much larger scale.

So if Congress decides we are in need of an extra 100 million, they give the FED that amount in bonds and get back 100 million in treasury notes (US dollars) which are immediately deposited into the US Treasury account at the FED itself. The FED then gets to use this money as a fractional reserve to loan out ten times that amount to other, smaller, consumer banks. (Who, in turn, do exactly the same thing.)

This technically puts the government 100 million in debt, and it's why everyone talks about 'making money out of thin air.' This is significant because - since the Gold Standard no longer exists - it is also the sole defining factor involved in the value of the dollar.

If you're actually curious to learn how all the background dealing works, I recommend reading "The Create from Jekyll Island" by G. Edward Griffin. It's a remarkably well written assessment of how the FED operates.

The only downside to flushing those $1.6 trillion down the toilet is a surplus of reserves on the market, possibly fueling some inflation in the (near) future. And he's correct in pointing out that with high unemployment and therefore stagnant/falling wages, the risk of runaway inflation is negligible, if not downright non-existant at this moment. In any case, raising the reserve requirement to suck reserves out of the market works just as nicely as buying them back.

People argued that it's just an accounting trick. So what? It's debt owed to yourself, interest paid to yourself through the treasury. Core inflation is low as it is, arguably even too low already. It's easy, simple, straight-forward; any reason not to do it?

But are people really against raising the debt ceiling? It's just an arbitrary number that has been raised over and over again, it has no meaning. The deals that might come along with it this time, those are fucking scary. And it's not just the Republicans, Obama is right up there on the frontline, pushing for even more radical cuts to Medicare spending and Social Security, as this article shows.

As for reducing the double mandate to stable prices only: look at the ECB. Those shitheads are even worse than the Fed in that regard. They take an additional 5% unemployment over an additional 0.5% inflation any day.

Wankers, the lot of 'em.

Leave out the Taxocrat "Free Houses for Poor People Who Won't Repay The Loans Act" and the history of the housing crisis is neatly rewritten.

"No, no, government interference didn't cause people to take stupid risks at ALL! It was all GREED!"

(BTW how much was Blarney Fwank's bonus after running Fan-Fred into the ground)?



"We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. And I have just one interest, and now if I am wrong somebody else can have my job. I want to see this country prosper. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises. I say after eight years of this administration, we have just as much unemployment as when we started. And enormous debt to boot."

--Henry Morgenthau, Secretary of Treasury under FDR, as written in his personal diary in May 1939

"NO NO, FDR socialism ENDED the Depression! It just prolonged ITSELF for 14 years afterward!"

>> ^marbles:

[S]ince companies can gain a market advantage by piggybacking on government infrastructure and making political deals, then it leads to oligopolies where the consumers are given false choices at inflated prices in their goods and services.
I'm not sure why the words "government" or "political" are in there. Companies can gain advantage by piggybacking on some other company's infrastructure, and the infrastructure's owner can make exclusivity agreements, which then lead to oligopolies where the customers are given false choices at inflated prices.

You even provided some non-governmental examples:
>> ^marbles:
Think Verizon/AT&T, Comcast/Time Warner, Energy providers, etc.

I suppose there are public electricity generation companies, but I don't remember the US government ever having a cable TV or wireless phone company.
>> ^marbles:
The USPS is self-sufficient? The USPS has several billion dollar deficits every year. To stay in business it has to "borrow" money from the US Treasury each year.

Two things. One, it's hard to find companies who didn't have losses in the last few years, and two the USPS's finances are being artificially deflated by a policy foisted on them by Congress.

That aside, self-sufficiency in this case means that nobody's taxes go to the post office. They're getting unusually cheap debt because they can borrow money using the US government's credit rating, but that doesn't cost anyone in higher taxes.

Keep in mind, this is the USPS borrowing from the Treasury. In terms of the national debt, it's an asset, not a liability. Maybe you're right, and the USPS will run up a huge debt, and then default, but I don't think so.

As for the big rant about debt and inflation, I'm too tired to run through the economics right now, but this whole story about debt & inflation is vastly, vastly overblown. Yeah, it could be a problem, maybe in 2030, and only then if we never end the Bush tax cuts, but otherwise it's just another scare tactic to make you do something that's against your own interests.

>> ^NetRunner:

First, the Post Office has been self-sufficient since the 80's. Your paycheck has nothing to do with it, unless you buy postage from the USPS.
Second, there's a difference between "inefficiency", and mandated universal service. What you describe is the latter.
And a third point to @blankfist's gung-ho praise of private carriers, all the packages I've gotten this year from Fedex were sent by Fedex's SmartPost, where they hire the USPS to do terminal delivery for them, because they can do it more efficiently.
Ditto for DHL and UPS. It's been a while since someone other than a USPS mail carrier brought me a package.
As confrontational as all that sounds, I don't really have any particular attachment to seeing government be in the mail delivery business. I don't really see any point in the universal service requirement on snail mail anymore, either.
I'm game for upgrading to something like Finland's universal service for broadband internet, since keeping us all connected via an information network is why we had a government-subsidized post office in the first place.
If you guys sign on for that, I'm all for cutting the Post Office loose.


FedEx and UPS will fly USPS mail from point A to point B. USPS will deliver the last leg of Fedex and UPS parcels in certain areas. It works both ways. They all touch each other's junk.
But the enforced monopoly on private mail creates an oligopoly in the package delivery market. This is the greater evil of government enforced monopolies. Monopolies don't lead to ingenuity, resourcefulness, or efficiency. So markets, that are seemingly free, will emerge around the government controlled one. And since companies can gain a market advantage by piggybacking on government infrastructure and making political deals, then it leads to oligopolies where the consumers are given false choices at inflated prices in their goods and services. Think Verizon/AT&T, Comcast/Time Warner, Energy providers, etc.

The USPS is self-sufficient? The USPS has several billion dollar deficits every year. To stay in business it has to "borrow" money from the US Treasury each year. ("Borrow" because it'll get paid back right?) So... where does the Treasury get it's money from? *cough* ... Taxes?!?! Ok, so technically it isn't using tax money because really that money was spent a looong time ago with how the government has it's own deficits (in the trillions!).
Basically when the USPS brags that they don't get tax payer money, it's at best a misnomer. It's actually far worse. The USPS has to "borrow" money from the US treasury, who has to "borrow" money from the Federal Reserve. And since the Federal Reserve doesn't actually have any "reserves", it magically creates the money, which debases the currency, which causes inflation. So everyone does end up paying for the deficit, only it's with an invisible tax of lost purchasing power of their money, i.e. prices go up. Yet the "debt" holder still collects interest from the tax payers and can even demand payment in full which would probably lead to confiscation of public assets and/or selling of public assets to private companies. So the reality is the USPS does cost the tax payer. The tax payer pays the deficit. Twice. Plus interest. That's why public debt is such a dangerous matter. And also why most of the debt in the world is illegitimate.

Would you vote for someone who follows *a* lord? If the problem lies in adhering to a higher power, would you accept someone who does, but simply not to your christian god? If not then ask yourself why, you simply can't argue that Christianity is the most righteous of the major religions when it comes to dealing with financial issues, it has always been at the forefront of corruption.

>> ^shinyblurry:

"No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money."
And people do worship the almighty dollar. Some people would do practically anything, up to murder and more, for money. If you don't have it, you have no status, no power, and no utility. The poor are despised and ignored; they are ground into the dirt and forgotten about. The love of money is responsible for a great deal of evil in the world. And a small number of people control most of the wealth in the world and lord over everyone else, silently controlling most of the power as well.
Of course absolute power corrupts absolutely, because the human nature is a fallen one. You simply can't trust anyone in power who doesn't truly follow the Lord. That is why Obama is so untrustworthy, because he has lied about being a Christian; he isn't one. Whatever he is, he has a lying and deceitful nature.
Agree with Jon Stewart. Give up in thinking anything good will come out of this administration; it is obviously stacked by the NWO crowd. The treasury is run by goldman sachs. Many other departments are stacked with special interests and big business types. The entire thing is corrupt to its roots. One thing I know, we haven't even begun to be amazed at how screwed up it really is.

"No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money."

And people do worship the almighty dollar. Some people would do practically anything, up to murder and more, for money. If you don't have it, you have no status, no power, and no utility. The poor are despised and ignored; they are ground into the dirt and forgotten about. The love of money is responsible for a great deal of evil in the world. And a small number of people control most of the wealth in the world and lord over everyone else, silently controlling most of the power as well.

Of course absolute power corrupts absolutely, because the human nature is a fallen one. You simply can't trust anyone in power who doesn't truly follow the Lord. That is why Obama is so untrustworthy, because he has lied about being a Christian; he isn't one. Whatever he is, he has a lying and deceitful nature.

Agree with Jon Stewart. Give up in thinking anything good will come out of this administration; it is obviously stacked by the NWO crowd. The treasury is run by goldman sachs. Many other departments are stacked with special interests and big business types. The entire thing is corrupt to its roots. One thing I know, we haven't even begun to be amazed at how screwed up it really is.

@imstellar28 that was pretty much a straw man argument, like Peroxide said.
>> ^imstellar28:

On the contrary, my position is that:
1. Multinational corporations like Serco are almost always evil, and should probably not exist.
2. Forcing people to fund multi-billion dollar corporations is not the right way to build a better world.
3. People should be able to vote with their dollar, and keep their money in their own communities.

I'd agree with the first two, for certain definitions of "corporations" -- specifically, rigidly hierarchical organizations dedicated to enriching shareholders above all else.

On the third, I think it's at least a first-pass attempt to propose some sort of alternative, but I think you've got to flesh out a lot more how people "vote with their dollar" when it comes to prison management. Do those who are to be imprisoned get to shop for the jail that suits their individual needs best?
>> ^imstellar28:
You are arguing against privatization, but Serco is not really a private company. Private companies are not funded by tax revenue. The Mom and Pop diner in your neighborhood, that is a private company.

I'm not sure why you're saying this as if it's at all contrary to what I believe. Maybe we're quibbling over semantics of what "privatization" means in this context, but to me, in this context, what governments are doing with Serco is the very definition of privatization.

As for Serco not being a private company, I don't think selling goods or services to a government makes a corporation a part of government. Serco doesn't have to turn its profits back over to the Treasury of any government, nor does one have to be elected to the position of Serco CEO. To me, that's the problem -- taxes are being siphoned off to make someone a profit, while accountability to the people is further diluted.

But I don't think selling goods and services to government automatically makes the company part of government. I don't think any of us begrudge Staples selling office supplies to the state legislature, or Ford selling cars to police departments, or AT&T selling telecomm services to the FBI.

>> ^imstellar28:
This is just one more way in which people get divided into two camps and waste their time arguing about things which are in reality the same position. Private vs. Public is irrelevant, it makes no difference in this situation as far as I can tell.
The real question here is what is the proper role of government, aka, what should the government be funding with taxpayer money.


So close and yet so far. Yes, this is one more way in which people get divided into two camps and waste their time arguing about things which are in reality the same position (see above!).

However, the real question here isn't "what is the proper role of government" so much as "how do we create a better society for us to live in?"

One may subsequently argue that society will be better with "less" government, but the bottom line is that things like the military, prisons, transportation infrastructure, and schools are all going to exist, and they're all going to be largely controlled by people who aren't you. You can either a) set up a framework of expectations within society so that anyone controlling those things must do so for the good of the people or lose that control, b) set up a framework where a small number of individuals control those things, with their only obligation being to enrich themselves, or c) let those with the guns make the framework what they want.

And yes, I realize that there's more of an equilibrium between those three than a real choice, but I want to push the equilibrium as much towards option a) as I can...

>> ^blankfist:

@NetRunner, what's stimulus money got to do with money supply? Are you serious? You must be trolling. For the benefit of others, I'll answer that question:
The Treasury Department borrows the money from the Federal Reserve. This money is printed new and is NOT already in circulation. So, once those trillions get circulated into the economy, what happens? It inflates the money supply. Presto!

Are you serious? You must be trolling. For the benefit of others, I'll correct you.

The Treasury Department borrows the money by selling Treasury bonds on the open market. Domestic investors and banks buy most of it, a big chunk of it is bought by other governments. Some might be purchased by the Fed using freshly printed money, but that's entirely based on what the Fed wants to do with the money supply, and has nothing to do with whether we did stimulus or not.

Not to mention, even if the Fed prints money and buys a treasury, there's no guarantee the buyer won't just hold the dollars as a reserve of some sort, and keep it out of circulation.

>> ^blankfist:
And you asked what happens to wages during inflation? Well, I don't know

An honest answer. Too bad you kept writing...

>> ^blankfist:
[L]et's look at history, shall we? There are plenty of examples in history (Rome, Germany, Yugoslavia), but let's look at Zimbabwe in the 2000s because it's really easy to google. According to wikipedia, Zimbabwe's "annual inflation was estimated at 6.5 quindecillion novemdecillion percent (6.5 x 10108%, the equivalent of 6 quinquatrigintillion 500 quattuortrigintillion percent, or 65 followed by 107 zeros – 650 million googol percent)."

Yes, inflation can happen. But looking at nominal price levels alone doesn't answer why inflation is bad.

>> ^blankfist:
But that's fine, right? Because they just increased the wages and everyone went back to happy Krugman land and ate marshmallows and played with bunnies. Oh no, that didn't happen at all, did it? No. In the end the Zimbabwean Dollar was destroyed, and the people were forced to adopt foreign currencies.

Well here's the thing, have you actually looked at what's happened to the wage level in Zimbabwe? Is the problem that wages never increased at all, and that inflation meant no one had any purchasing power at all?

Or was it something a little more esoteric like a collapse of market confidence that really buggered them?

>> ^blankfist:
It's not as easy to fix as "putting upward pressure on wages". In fact, the people who are first impacted are the people on the bottom, because ALL (and I mean absolutely ALL) inflation enriches the government first, the big businesses with government contracts second, the rich third, and ultimately it's the poor and retired who suffer through the adjustment phase.

Again, you're hamstrung by not actually understanding the underlying economic principles. If the main issue with inflation was really this confiscatory debasement you're talking about, then that would in large part be fixed by greater wage flexibility.

>> ^blankfist:
And what of the people with savings? Are you so willing to write them off with a big dildo shoved up their asses, because they're not currently "earning" a wage? What of those people who saved and saved because that's what society told them was prudent for their retirement? What does your precious Krugman messiah say of the grandmothers and grandfathers who see their savings diminish while their social security payments play catch up with the current cost of living changes?

The answer there is that inflation screws people with large amounts of liquid money (the rich), and helps people with debt (the not-so-rich), while making holding assets look more promising than holding cash in any form. People who saved for retirement by stuffing $100 bills into their mattress get screwed. People who put their money in a savings account may get screwed if the bank doesn't offer them competitive interest rates. People who invested in a mix of stocks and bonds will see those stocks go up in nominal value, while the bonds will likely become worthless (depends on the exact terms though).

People who rely on Social Security will be fine, so long as a) wages as a whole go up with inflation, and b) conservative morons don't come in and cut the COLA below inflation for no reason. It's part of why anyone who wants to privatize Social Security is pretty much a fuckwad.

In the end, the negative effects of stable but high (~10% or so) inflation wouldn't be so bad. There's basically no downside to inflation around 2-4%. And by the way, we're sitting somewhere around 1% right now, with not even the remotest hint of hyperinflation.

The only way for us to really trigger hyperinflation right now is if conservatives follow through on threats to make the US go into default on its debt. But that won't be hyperinflation because of the Fed printing money, it'll be because conservatives will have trashed our nation's credit rating because they're stupid.

@NetRunner, what's stimulus money got to do with money supply? Are you serious? You must be trolling. For the benefit of others, I'll answer that question:

The Treasury Department borrows the money from the Federal Reserve. This money is printed new and is NOT already in circulation. So, once those trillions get circulated into the economy, what happens? It inflates the money supply. Presto!

And you asked what happens to wages during inflation? Well, I don't know, let's look at history, shall we? There are plenty of examples in history (Rome, Germany, Yugoslavia), but let's look at Zimbabwe in the 2000s because it's really easy to google. According to wikipedia, Zimbabwe's "annual inflation was estimated at 6.5 quindecillion novemdecillion percent (6.5 x 10108%, the equivalent of 6 quinquatrigintillion 500 quattuortrigintillion percent, or 65 followed by 107 zeros – 650 million googol percent)." But that's fine, right? Because they just increased the wages and everyone went back to happy Krugman land and ate marshmallows and played with bunnies. Oh no, that didn't happen at all, did it? No. In the end the Zimbabwean Dollar was destroyed, and the people were forced to adopt foreign currencies.

I'm sorry, but inflation is bad. Very bad. It's not as easy to fix as "putting upward pressure on wages". In fact, the people who are first impacted are the people on the bottom, because ALL (and I mean absolutely ALL) inflation enriches the government first, the big businesses with government contracts second, the rich third, and ultimately it's the poor and retired who suffer through the adjustment phase.

And what of the people with savings? Are you so willing to write them off with a big dildo shoved up their asses, because they're not currently "earning" a wage? What of those people who saved and saved because that's what society told them was prudent for their retirement? What does your precious Krugman messiah say of the grandmothers and grandfathers who see their savings diminish while their social security payments play catch up with the current cost of living changes?

Un. Fucking. Believable.

Wake the fuck up my friend. I want to stage an intervention of one right here and now.

Let's take war, since we both agree.

How has the US conducted itself in it's corporate driven foreign policy over the last few decades? What is the pattern of our imperialism?

Step 1: Destabilize the economy, whether it be through violence, sanctions, puppet governments or all 3.

Step 2: We force these countries to privatize and to sell off their infrastructure to big business.

Step 3: Corporate profit.

Now take a look at our own nation. Do you see any similarities?

Our economy has already been destabilized by way of the deficit. Unfathomable amounts of money have gone towards war, corporate welfare and tax cuts for people who are making record profits, cleaning out our treasury and creating debt for many generations to come. We are now on to step two, which is to destroy and privatize the infrastructure. The same people that created this deficit are now saying that we can't afford education or social security, and you, Mr sanctimonious libertarian, in your eagerness to have anything at all to back up your shallow excuse for an ideology, latch on to this bullshit like a child hugging his teddy bear. When you say things like 'education is unsustainable' or other such provably false statements, you are a parrot of the right. If it pisses you off, then good, but don't be mad at me, talk to the guy in the mirror.

You aren't a rebel or a rugged individual. You are a pawn. Congrats for having liberal social views and supporting the ACLU, just like almost every other person on this site. I never know what response you are looking for when you trot out that unremarkable fact. Would you like a trophy? A handjob?

I don't care if you respond or not, because you are just going to trot out the same tired bullshit arguments that have already been thoroughly destroyed many times over on this site. You are being manipulated, your ego is being massaged, and Koch and Mellon Scaife are laughing all the way to the bank as they fill your head with utopian daydreams. Your own idol, Milton Friedman, supported death squads that killed tens of thousands in Chile. You've never responded to that fact, probably because you can't without having your worldview crash down on top of your head. Your economic belief system has nothing to do with liberty and everything to do with imperialism.

Everyone deserves liberty, not just rich people.

>> ^blankfist:

>> ^dystopianfuturetoday:
Public eduction is perfectly sustainable. Take a look around the rest of the world. It's just not sustainable when you spend $1,154,031,244,020 on war in the middle east, give trillions away to corporations in the form of bailouts, subsidies and bailouts, and give tax cuts to the super wealthy. When did you become such an uncritical right wing parrot? >> ^blankfist:
Maybe the government shouldn't be in the business of education? Public schools will forever be "under funded" as long as it remains "free". Completely unsustainable system.


I was going to respond favorably to your comment, until I read your last sentence. Yeah, I'm so right wing with my ACLU card and all those right wing things I do in favor of people's equal rights and civil liberties. Your personal attacks diminish the effectiveness of your arguments. Try not doing that sometime and see how it works out for you.

What does ProtectOurElectionsExceptForIllegalsVotingDemocrat.org have to say about the tax cheat running the Treasury?

It's become part of the Sift, not unlike Westy's spelling and QuantumMushroom finding a rightist slant that blames leftist forces for everything.


Oh, not EVERYTHING. After all, 98% isn't a 100%.

Liberals' 50 years of dreadful domestic policy
Posted: December 23, 2010

by Larry Elder

For the past 50 years, the Democrats – and many Republicans who should know better – have been wrong about virtually every major domestic policy issue. Let's review some of them:

Taxes

The bipartisan extension of the Bush tax cuts represents the latest triumph over the "soak the rich because trickledown doesn't work" leftists.

President Ronald Reagan sharply reduced the top marginal tax rates from 70 percent to 28 percent, doubling the Treasury's tax revenue. President George H.W. Bush raised the income tax rate, as did his successor. But President George W. Bush lowered them to the current 35 percent.

President Barack Obama repeatedly called the current rate unfair, harmful to the country and a reward to those who "didn't need" the cuts and "didn't ask for" them. If true, he and his party ditched their moral obligation to oppose the extension. But they didn't, because none of it is true. Democratic icon John F. Kennedy, who reduced the top marginal rate from more than 90 percent to 70 percent, said, "A rising tide lifts all the boats." He was right – and most of the Democratic Party knows it.


Welfare for the "underclass"

When President Lyndon Johnson launched his "War on Poverty," the poverty rate was trending down. When he offered money and benefits to unmarried women, the rate started flat-lining. Women married the government, allowing men to abandon their moral and financial responsibilities.

The percentage of children born outside of marriage – to young, disproportionately uneducated and disproportionately brown and black women – exploded. In 1996, over the objections of many on the left, welfare was reformed. Time limits were imposed, and women no longer received additional benefits if they had more children. The welfare rolls declined. Ten years later, the New York Times wrote: "When the 1996 law was passed ... liberal advocacy groups ... predicted that it would increase child poverty, hunger and homelessness. The predictions were not fulfilled."

Education

The federal government's increasing involvement with education – what is properly a state and local function – has been costly and ineffective at best, and counterproductive at worst. Title I, a program begun 45 years ago to close the performance gap between urban and suburban schools, burns through more than $15 billion a year, and the performance gap has widened. The feds spend $80 billion a year on K-12 education, as if money is the answer. States like Utah and Iowa spend much less money per student compared with districts like those in New York City and Washington, D.C., with much better results.

Where parents have choices – where the money follows the student rather than the other way around – the students perform better, with higher parental satisfaction. But the teachers' unions and the Democratic Party continue to resist true competition among public, private and parochial schools.

Gun control

Violent crime occurs disproportionately in urban areas – where Democrats in charge impose the most draconian gun-control laws.

Over the objection of those who warn of a "return to the Wild West," 34 states passed laws allowing citizens to carry concealed weapons. Not one state has repealed its law. Professor John Lott, author of "More Guns, Less Crime," says: "There is a strong negative relationship between the number of law-abiding citizens with permits and the crime rate: As more people obtain permits, there is a greater decline in violent crime rates. For each additional year that a concealed handgun law is in effect, the murder rate declines by 3 percent, rape by 2 percent and robberies by over 2 percent."


"Affirmative action"

Race-based preferences have been a disaster for college admissions. Students admitted with lesser credentials are more likely to drop out. Had their credentials matched their schools, they would have been far more likely to graduate and thus enter the job market at a more productive level.

Preferences in government hiring and contracting have led to widespread, costly and morale-draining "reverse discrimination" lawsuits. Where preferences have been put to the ballot, voters – even in liberal states like California – have voted against them.

Minimum-wage hikes

Almost all economists agree that minimum-wage laws contribute to unemployment among the low-skilled – the very group the "compassionate party" claims to care about.

Economist Walter E. Williams, 74, in his new autobiography, "Up from the Projects," describes the many low-skilled jobs he took as a teenager. "By today's standards," he wrote, "my youthful employment opportunities might be seen as extraordinary. That was not the case in the 1940s and 1950s. In fact, as I've reported in some of my research, teenage unemployment among blacks was slightly lower than among whites, and black teens were more active in the labor force as well. All of my classmates, friends, and acquaintances who wanted to work found jobs of one sort or another."

Obamacare

This ghastly government-directed scheme will inevitably lead to rationing and lower-quality care – all without "bending the cost curve" down as Obama promised.

Any party can have a bad half-century. Merry Christmas Solstice.