Food for thought:
Increases in the national debt, by president since 1976 - I'm not sure the source; is it right?
Click the thumbnail for a larger version:
Increases in national debt to 2008
Gross national debt, by president:
Increases in gross national debt, by president; z-facts via About.com
All this, and they want to lecture “liberals” on how government should be run?
Tip of the old scrub brush to Marion Young.
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(The Life of Reason, vol. 1: Reason in Common Sense)
Ed Darrell on Texas's Colorado River
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Retired teacher of law, economics, history, AP government, psychology and science. Former speechwriter, press guy and legislative aide in U.S. Senate. Former Department of Education. Former airline real estate, telecom towers, Big 6 (that old!) consultant. Lab and field research in air pollution control. My blog, Millard Fillmore's Bathtub, is a continuing experiment to test how to use blogs to improve and speed up learning processes for students, perhaps by making some of the courses actually interesting. It is a blog for teachers, to see if we can use blogs. It is for people interested in social studies and social studies education, to see if we can learn to get it right. It's a blog for science fans, to promote good science and good science policy. It's a blog for people interested in good government and how to achieve it. BS in Mass Communication, University of Utah Graduate study in Rhetoric and Speech Communication, University of Arizona JD from the National Law Center, George Washington University
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[…] You might be surprised to know it goes up dramatically under the Republicans. While they are talking East, they’re walking West. How did Ronald Reagan defeat the Soviet Union? He spent them into oblivion. They simply could not match our spending and in trying to do so, they ruined their economy forcing their breakup. Is the world safer for having them gone? Simple question: Who now is controlling and monitoring all their nuclear weapons? […]
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And I have yet to see any Republican attempt to explain why the rich should get further tax cuts while we have this huge defecit.
Let me know what your side is going to ask the rich to sacrifice.
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Hi Robert!
You say, “We can’t keep taking from the haves to give to the have nots”.
Why not? The “haves” have been taking from the have nots since 1981. After the Gilded Age and the Age of the Robber Barons (which was quite lengthy) we made necessary and helpful adjustments under President Roosevelt. Those adjustments were even expanded on by Presidents Truman and Eisenhower; and with said adjustments (including a 91% tax rate on the fabulously wealthy) we rebuilt Europe, rebuilt Japan, began a space program, built an interstate highway system that was the envy of the free world, fought a war on the Korean Peninsula, significantly improved public education and made America the most prosperous nation in the history of the world.
When President Kennedy entered office, he (and he may have been right) determined that we were probably taxing the wealthiest Americans a bit too severely. Taxes were lowered somewhat…but no one, not even Republicans…ever envisioned them paying proportionately LESS than the working poor and middle class. I’m not sure even old Barry Goldwater had that view. But old Ronnie Ray-gun (who I am not as eager to hate as some liberals) made it chic to take from the poor and the working classes and redistribute the booty to the obscenely rich. And we’ve been on that slide ever since.
I’m not arguing for a permanent return to 91%. But Robert, you and other conservatives really come off as greedy or foolish for attacking President Obama’s call for raising the tax rate on the richest 2% from 34% to 38%. You remind me of another famous Barton. Remember Joe “We Should Apologize to BP” Barton? Seriously, Robert. You’re fighting to save 4% for Bill Gates and Warren Buffet? I wish I had a storefront so I could put a coin jar up front to collect some extra cash to help the poor boys out.
Get real.
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Barton writes:
Ed it could be viewed many ways. We can’t keep “taking from the haves to give to the have nots”. To paraphrase Ms. Thatcher, we will eventually run out of haves to take from. We need fiscal responsiblity and not more money to waste.
THe problem you’re ignoring, that what is going on isn’t taking from the haves and giving it to the have nots….its taking from the have a little and giving it to the already have more than enough.
Considering that in the last 30 years the richest 5% of the country has seen their wealth increase by 300% and their total share of the wealth of this country go up by at least a third while the middle class has been stagnant any claim that “we’ll run out of wealthy people if we start raising their taxes” is unmitigated bullshit.
But as long as you also want to maintain this fiction that 50% of the country pay no income tax then pray tell us how is giving a tax cut to those people going to help them pay for health care? And you might want to consider the fact that a lot of those people may pay no federal income tax but they still pay other federal taxes. Oh and by the way…those who do pay no federal income tax pay nothing because they’re too damn poor to pay any so quit acting like they’re getting some damn benefit from it. QUit acting like its a good thing for them.
The richest people in the country used to pay near 90% in taxes less than 50 years ago. Now they pay less than half that. And the Republicans want to halve even that amount. And you really want to claim that raising their taxes back to the rate they paid under Clinton is going to wipe them all out? Oh please.
Don’t speak about fiscal responsibility, Barton, when your party has been fiscally irresponsible for at least the last ten years and wants to continue with its fiscal irresponsibility by giving the rich even more tax cuts. Sorry, Barton, you have no right to utter the words “fiscal responsibility” whatsoever.
And you like 3, 4 and 5? Really? You want the Koch brothers to pay less taxes but you want yourself to pay more in taxes? Because, Barton, that is the result of 3, 4 and 5.
Perhaps its time you start looking after your own financial interests instead of defending a party that doesn’t give a damn whether you live or die just as long as they can serve the rich people who bought them the House.
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First, I don’t think those pieces say that half of Americans pay no taxes, at all.
But second, I don’t see anything unjust in people who make $400,000 or more per year paying more taxes than people who make under $50,000. Are you trying to suggest some sort of inequity that bites these rich people? On what basis?
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“I’d like to see a source on that.”
“And, do you regard that as a problem, or as a benefit?”
http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/incometaxandtheirs/a/whopaysmost.htm
Ed it could be viewed many ways. We can’t keep “taking from the haves to give to the have nots”. To paraphrase Ms. Thatcher, we will eventually run out of haves to take from. We need fiscal responsiblity and not more money to waste.
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I’d like to see a source on that.
And, do you regard that as a problem, or as a benefit?
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My “blinders” are not nearly as large as yours. You guys have nothing to do everyday but sit around and pull up whatever stats. Support you current talking point. Look at the facts. HALF THE PEOPLE IN THE COUNTRY DON’T PAY FEDERAL INCOME TAX NOW! And just so you know, it’s not the rich. Let me fill you guys in on a basic problem with Washington and the states as far as politics. Life time politicians. Can you say term limits? By the way, on your list, I do like 3, 4, and 5 with stipulations that I will not bore you with. Oh, by the way Ed, since the Dems control the Senate now, can we blame everything that happens on them? And finally Jim, don’t be embarrased for me. I’m still amazed how many people are educated beyond their intelligence, which seems to be the case with some of the “bitch slappers”.
Romans 1:22 “Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.”
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The correct term, i think, is “pwned.” And no, Hattip is not a nice person. And as for Barton..he may very well be a nice person but apparently there indeed is a disease called Bartonitis.
Hattip needs to realize that Reagan nearly bankrupted the United States. THe only thing that saved our country is that the Soviet Union went bankrupt first.
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Someone should file this exchange under “being cyber-bitch-slapped”. Hattip, Bob…I am sure you are both very nice people. But you’ve been — as the kids say these days — “owned”. I’m embarassed for you.
Thank you Ed, Nick and Thomas.
Jim
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I have a Master’s Degree in Public Administration. Long ago I researched the Reagan idea/philospophy of so called “trickle-down economics.” It is a fraud. That is the meme one hears ad infinitum from the right wing in the US now. No taxes on the rich = jobs and more for all – more money for the rich, more in income for the working/middle class, etc. No regulation on corporations = more profit, therfore more jobs anmore people employed. Nonsense! It simply does not work that way.
Truly, a strong middle class with just wages is the lifeblood of a Democracy and of any nation wanting to succeed and prosper. During the Bush years the mantra of no regulation and uninhibited free markets combined with lower taxes would mean prosperity for all was parrotted by every Republican, everywhere, over and over again. Oh, and unions must be busted (Reagan did, in fact, bust the Air Traffic Controllers’ union) and the working poor must work for lower and lower wages (for profits to soar). The social safety net is too costly and so the poor, the sick, throwaway children, the mentally disturbed, the very old, etc., must not be allowed to drag the rest of us down (they are a burden). That is the sick view of society as perpetrated by the right wing in the United States.
I have served my country honorably. I am a Vietnam veteran, a father and grandfather. I have never seen so many nutcases running around in the political arena with no knowledge of historical context, of history itself, of the richness of the labor movement in the US and of the need for a strong middle class, as well as the need for regulation and oversight of capitalism and the markets. Without those components in place, a nation such as ours will die. We are gravely ill. I am not a pessimist. I have seen this happening over many years.
It is very sad for my hard working son, his hard working wife and their two children. They are productive, wonderful citizens, active in their children’s schools, at church, kind and loving toward older family members, but this nation is wearing them down to a point I would never have imagined possible several years ago. I love them so very much. I think of all the other younger persons in their situation and I feel sad about the future of the United States.
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P.S. You claim Democrats broke their promises to Reagan? You forget that the Republicans controlled the Senate, eh?
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When one is “wondering,” one would do well to remember that getting the right answers requires first understanding the issue well enough to ask the right questions.
I didn’t forget any wars, nor did the chart makers (I didn’t make the chart, please note). Truman had a war. Kennedy and Johnson had a war. Clinton had a war. You forget that Democrats, generally, just do a better job of budgeting. And fighting.
Reagan made no “fundamental push” against the USSR. Reagan proposed budget-busting, impossible, unworkable, pie-in-the-sky defense systems that nearly bankrupted our nation. It’s important to remember that we fought and won Gulf War I with the arms Jimmy Carter ordered — as well as Iraq and Afghanistan. Had we been left to Republican efforts only, we’d have been defenseless. The money they spent didn’t help our national security, and most often damaged it.
Clinton didn’t like the draconian budget-balancing plans offered by Newt Gingrich’s bunch, and so he dug in and worked out plans that kept essential domestic programs, but which gifted George W. Bush with enormous surpluses when Bush took office. You forgot that Bush squandered the surpluses before he engaged in wars.
On the whole Democrats have been much more able to be fiscally responsible in office. We should listen to Obama now, especially since he’s still got so many of the Clinton budget-balancing-surplus-makers on his team.
Republicans have no clean soapbox from which to lecture.
Lessons of the past are hard to learn. In 1936 and 1937 we learned that cutting budgets before jobs come back generally lead to another recession. Let’s not forget history, please.
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Hattip is conveniently forgetting that 1: Bush started one of those wars by choice, it was unnecessary. 2: the other war he fought stupidly. 3: He expected future generations to pay for those wars instead of asking the people living now to pay for those wars because 4: after all…its a sin to not cut taxes on the rich and shift the burden to everyone else.
Then there’s Reagan who damn well nearly bankrupted the country. At least Reagan had the grace necessary to figure out his precious Reaganomics was a fools paradise.
And as for Democrats supposedly not keeping their word, Hattip, do you really want us to list all the times that the Republicans have said one thing and done the exact opposite?
But as long as we’re playing this game, lets see how fast hattip and Mr. Barton choke on the currently Republican plan:
1: Exempt all businesses from paying income taxes.
2: Halve the taxes those making 200 grand or more pay.
3: get rid of the estate tax
4: get rid of the capital gains tax
5: start a national sales tax
6: get rid of medicare and social security
Now, hattip, do you realize what that plan is actually doing right? I’ll explain it for you because I’m pretty sure you’re blinders will affect your judgement.
It means, dipshit, that the Republicans want to raise your taxes. And yours too Barton. Because I really do doubt that either of you make more then $200,000 a year. And why do they want to raise your taxes? Because they want the Koch brothers, among others, to not even pay half the taxes they pay now. And even better..they want to get rid of the two programs that your old decrepit asses will depend on to live when you’re old and decrepit.
Oh and as for the GDP argument…do bother to remember what happened to it under Bush.
Yes that’s right, gungadin…it crashed.
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Thanks hattip. Glad I’m not the only conservative watching these guys!
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More specious logic and red herrings out of you. This is accomplished by graphing it against GDP.
Try this for a more reasonable look. (Oh, and have a look at what happens to GDP under Democrats).
Of course, you conveniently “forget” that 1) Bush had war to fight, 2) Reagan made the fundamental push against the USSR, and 3) the Democrats in the Hill during the Regan years broke their promises with Reagan. (imagine that, Democrats not keeping their word.)
One wonders if you are capable of one second of integrity.
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