All these memes about less taxes, cutting taxes, no new taxes

"We just guarantee opportunity to set up a life for yourself and your family here. You may not be rich, but if you work, you'll be able to live comfortably."

Even that is beginning to fade, as options for the low income worker get narrower and narrower while the standard of living gets more and more expensive and low paying jobs continue to pay poorly.

It's at the point where a lot of families and especially single parents work multiple jobs and can barely afford to feed, house, and cloth themselves let alone costly things like health insurance. Even for people who have tv, cars, etc. Getting into an accident would instantly wreck them, either because they couldn't afford insurance or because bastard insurers continue to deny legit claims.

10% of this country owns 80% of the damned wealth. They're loaded up the ass and republicans still have the gall to talk about how the rich need tax cuts. 2% owns 40%. Income disparity has not been at such appalling levels since just before the great depression.

If it weren't for federal programs created by the FDR administration we WOULD have sunk to a depression rivaling that of the 30's when the housing bubble burst and the banks pulled each other down like a stack of dominoes.

My other signature is a Gundam.

The more cynical among us believe this is the Republican Party's long-term plan — after all, citizens in such a Crapsack World would be even easier to abuse. You've already got Republicans urging the end of child-labor laws and the minimum wage, for example...

—R.J.

Those are reactionaries. The Republican party is a conservative party. Eventually the reactionary elements will be shooed out of their party. Reactionary politicians happen whenever a party wins a landslide - they ride the coattails of the more moderate members of the party to election. The more distasteful members of the party start to do things that are politically toxic because they are misjudging why they actually won that election.

And on the Tea Party - it's just the base of the Republican party. Whenever there's a President of a certain party, the opposing party will have a motivated base and be organized by a large organization/a few large organizations. Under Bush, there was Move On.org; under Clinton, there were the Militias.

edited 1st Mar '11 7:06:57 AM by Completion

The problem with a two party system is that it hucks everyone under the same tent. The right and the left are composed of people who under normal circumstances would be stabbing each other in the spleens. A problem compounded by the democratic shift of the civil rights movement which took much of the traditional republican and democratic bases and swapped their allegiances over the race issue.

The republican party lost it's heart when all the rich idealistic social liberals went democratic and the democrats lost their spine when all the racist blue collar schmos went republican.

I'm a bit of a conspiracy theorist about it all, to be honest, although there's some evidence for it. Republicans run up massive debts in order to handcuff Democratic governments from doing stuff. Full stop. The whole tea party thing might be them blowing their load, so to speak, or it might just be this wave of run of the mill hypocrisy.

The evidence for that, is that this actually was the rationale for the Bush II tax cuts. Greenspan was publicly worried that if the deficit was paid down, that it would allow future governments to "interfere" in the economy.

Democracy is the process in which we determine the government that we deserve

@Commando Dude

Well, I'm glad we agree. And I'm even gladder that someone decided to look at other economic data from a different year. While several of your statements aren't exactly well researched, your end point is correct, the wealth of this nation is slowly pooling over into the richer parts, vertical movement has decreased (heh), and the financial nets are no longer as effective since the state doesn't have the money to back it up.

In short, trickle down economics are failing, taxes are not properly spread, and are still too low. Raise the taxes, fix the problem. While poor families will be screwed at the immediate result, it will allow for us to clean up this deficit, get money back into making these programs for helping low end citizens, and, depending on how and where the taxes are placed, take a percentage from the rich that is even to what percentage middle class families pay. More so, since they tend to own big businesses, it's even easier to tax those, once again, allowing for that redistribution of wealth.

edited 1st Mar '11 9:14:51 AM by Usht

The thing about making witty signature lines is that it first needs to actually be witty.

Man, I can't believe I forgot about this as a talking point. I'm friggen in ASCE.

Now, iirc, the amount we're actually going to spend on infrastructure over the next five years is closer to 1 trillion. ASCE seems to think we'll need to spend 2.2 trillion just to get to passing levels of infrastructure, i.e. C's across the board. And I bet most people here wouldn't exactly be happy with all C's on their transcript.

If this isn't a good reason to raise taxes, I don't know what is.

edited 1st Mar '11 10:52:20 AM by deathjavu

Look, you can't make me speak in a logical, coherent, intelligent bananna.

One problem is that people just balk at large numbers.

As I pointed out earlier in this thread: ^ HOLY SHIT ONE TRILLION DOLLARS? THAT'S A LOT OF MONEY!!!111

Since you're a civil engineer, you might want to try this: If people balk at these numbers, sit down with them and explain how much stuff costs. Better yet, ask them to come up with better numbers, and then fill in the holes in their reasoning for them.

edited 1st Mar '11 11:07:49 AM by GlennMagusHarvey

Glenn, people don't want to do that. They only want to see big numbers if they own them. You have to handle this in such a way so that the public doesn't panic and think they're going to go bankrupt.

The thing about making witty signature lines is that it first needs to actually be witty.

Don't want to do what, balk at large numbers, comprehend paying large numbers, hear about large numbers?

edited 1st Mar '11 11:17:05 AM by GlennMagusHarvey

So they're asking for a half a trillion a year. Assuming even dispersal.

Fight smart, not fair.

There's nothing tin-foil about it; you're just combining two conservative financial theories, Jude Wanniski's "Two Santa Claus" theory and "starving the beast" as first popularized by Reagan. To wit, when the Republicans are in power, they (deficit-)spend like madmen to benefit the rich and powerful. Then, when they're out of office, they block all attempts at helping the masses by screaming about the deficit.

Sure, anyone with a knowledge of fourth-grade math knows it's not sustainable, but it's worked for them so far...

—R.J.

@Completion: I don't see the Republicans shooing out the teabaggers any time soon. They are the Republican party.

Maybe not so much shooing as quieting them. Republicans lose presidential elections when they allow the more right-wing element of their party control their message. It may give them gains in midterms, but they usually lose when they're running for President.

edited 1st Mar '11 12:19:38 PM by Completion

If they were to try to mute the social conservatives in their party, they'd find themselves with no volunteers and very few votes.

^^ Explain 2004. Bush didn't run on a centristifying message and he kicked the shit out of John Kerry. (and got gains in both the House and Senate.)

Historically, centrist politics in election season is inconsistent. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

edited 1st Mar '11 12:23:31 PM by MajorTom

Quieting doesn't really mean mute.

Democrats make sure that most left-wing element of their party doesn't control their message during Presidential campaigns. Republicans do the same thing. Neither party has a big enough majority to run by appeasing only their base - both must convince a majority of independents to vote for them. They do so by moderating their message. Midterms excluded.

I can't really answer that since you're right. The most I can say is that Kerry was a completely fucktarded candidate and was completely inconsistent with message. And he got an ultra-liberal VP to campaign with him while he was positioning himself as a moderate and someone who could run a war - while never addressing the inconsistencies of him at that time with his past.

edited 1st Mar '11 12:35:02 PM by Completion

Swift Boating, Tom.

Furthermore, I think Guantanamo must be destroyed.

Bush/Cheney in 2004, and McCain/Palin in 2008 were pretty damn conservative.

That had more to do with how most of Kerry's platform was "Yeah, I'm not Bush. Wait, you want policies? Uhhh..."

edited 1st Mar '11 12:36:05 PM by Pykrete

^ Basically "Hope and Change" the election season in a nutshell.

Only difference, Obama's a more likable person even if his policies are reprehensible.

edited 1st Mar '11 12:37:05 PM by MajorTom

Mc Cain/Palin lost.

Bush/Cheney '04 won largely because they managed to get every social-conservative to the voting booths because of the marriage amendments. And Kerry was a terrible candidate and was inconsistent with what he said and his actions, his selection of a very liberal VP when he was positioning himself as a moderate. And swift boating.

He got in the same trap Dukakis did.

edited 1st Mar '11 12:37:21 PM by Completion

McCain/Palin lost, because there was a gigantic collapse in the housing market, and they wanted to keep the status quo that caused it.

Kerry/Edwards lost, because they ran a lousy campaign against a then-popular wartime president. It didn't help that Kerry is remarkably uncharismatic.

edited 1st Mar '11 12:39:51 PM by EnglishIvy

> kicked the shit out of

I wouldn't call a bare win (where flipping either Ohio or Florida, which were both within a few percentage points, would have flipped the result) "kicked the shit out of". W. Bush was re-elected by the smallest of margins for a presidential re-election.

Also, you wanna get rid of government waste? Stop this bullcrap.

edited 1st Mar '11 12:42:50 PM by GlennMagusHarvey

Interesting thought... if you reversed it to Edwards/Kerry, would they have had a chance? Edwards had the charisma, but his chosen platform would likely have pushed many voters away.

What was Bush's approval rating around the time of the election? The war definitely helped, but I don't think he was extremely popular at the time. I remember his approval being low, but I may be thinking post-Katrina.

edited 1st Mar '11 12:43:37 PM by Completion