Redstate

--
Gone 2500 years, still not PC.

...and shouldn't you be explaining where we should believe Obama when he says he threaten Canada to force them to renegotiate NAFTA or his advisor who told the Canadians not to worry as he was really only lying to convince some fools to vote for him.

Well, the last part of McCain’s quote hits every issue I raised here, so while the title is about trade, it’s not focused completely on trade. Free trade, just like the free market, is one of the main reasons our country enjoys our level of prosperity. But trade agreements, when poorly constructed, can do more harm than good because a business is going to do whatever it can in order to maximize its profits, sometimes at the expense of American workers. Has our country benefitted from NAFTA? Yes. Has NAFTA also had serious consequences to American workers because we cannot force Mexico and Canada to pay their employees competitive wages and to be more environmentally compatible? The answer is also yes. I don’t think you will find many people that are willing to get rid of our minimum wage laws or discontinue leading the world as far as environmental standards are concerned in the name of free trade. But as long as we’re not on the same standards as the countries we trade with, there will always be American workers losing their jobs to companies that can do business in other countries where they can turn a better profit.

Quick, without using Google, tell me the name and position of “his advisor” that was accused—falsely—of double-talking with Canada. While you’re at it, how about “that guy” that talks with Hamas that just left the Obama campaign. What do they have in common? They both don’t have any real job within his campaign. I will leave the 60-plus federal lobbyist McCain has working as paid employees for another day.

Well the mininum wage in Canada is CAD7.75 to CAD8.75 - How much do they need to raise it to? Oh and if the Canadians ask the USA to raise the mnimum wage or corporate tax rates or energy taxes or any of the other government interventions that affect the compedetive advange is that OK? Or is this just going to be a bit of one one-way bullying?

You'll probably want to sideslip the above and talk about Mexico, so lets hear what new minimum wage Obama plans to order the Mexican govenment to impose?

the one candidate who has promised to do most to stop both?

Socialism doesn't work. It looks nice on paper, but it's been tried and it's failed miserably every time (usually accompanied by widespread death and suffering).
Proud member of the V.R.W.C.

So what's Obama's planned min wage for Canada then - currently it's CAD7.75-8.75 - how high do you want them to set it?

OK, sure, you'll want to side-slip and talk about Mexico and leave the above without a reply. So Obama will phone up the Mexican president and tell him that country's new minimum wage. Does he have a plan for where he wants it set? And if the Mexican workers are as not productive as an American worker, what's he to do?

So Obama is going to start off by threatening his two closest neighbours including one of your oldest allies to change their domestic economic policies or else? Could that present any diplomatic problems? Perhaps that's why he thinks he'll be more welcome in Caracas than Ottawa.

about the issues with Canada. I think this is a case of "debate answer becomes policy", because he has spoken out against NAFTA consistently in the past, but he has never said, until that debate moment, that he wanted to get it renewed. I'm curious to see where he goes on this one.

The larger point about all this is if we go around jumping into free trade agreements with anyone that wants one (Columbia), and we can't hold them to similar standards, then American workers suffer and more people end up working in our even-increasing "service industry" (retail, waiter, drive-thru). I think free trade makes a lot more sense with Canada than Mexico. But at the same time we want Mexico to be strong and healthy so it slows the immigration problem.

So the question is: At what expense to American workers are we willing to engage in free trade agreements?

Not all free trade agreements are bad, but not all free trade is beneficial to our interest. Is it worth it to our people that end up losing their jobs to be in an agreement that probably is going to benefit Mexico more than us in the short-term in order to make Mexico stronger?

Tough situation.

I'm sure you know that advisers play just as significant a role in campaigns as paid employees, right? Condi Rice wasn't paid, if I recall correctly - are you seriously arguing that she wasn't a significant part of President Bush's campaigns.

And second, why do the newspapers refer to Obama letting those two (among many others) go as "firings", "sackings" and/or "resignations" from the campaign?

I will leave the 60-plus federal lobbyist McCain has working as paid employees for another day.

{quaking in terror} Ooooooh .... the lobbyists are coming to get me! NOOOOOOOOO ...... !!!

In case it escaped your notice, lobbying is an explicitly protected First Amendment right i.e. "Congress shall make no law ... abridging ... the right of the people peaceably to assemble and petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

Notwithstanding the demonization campaign against lobbyists as a class in the Press (who have their own lobbyists - the exception McCain-Feingold carved out for them but not other American citizens came from somewhere), a lobbyist, by definition is not a moral reprobate - they actually do have a legitimate role to play and they have played this role since the days of Washington in New York.

The whole thing with Goolsbee went way overboard. He said one thing, another was reported, and then the TV station apologized.

Honestly, do you not see a conflict of interest with a federal lobbyist holding a top position in a candidate's campaign? I know perfectly well that lobbyist are as old as government and I am also pretty sure that a large percent of all lobbyists represent good companies and are not part of the bigger problem. But at the same time there is no way you're going to convince me that there is nothing wrong with having a million-dollar lobbyist work for your campaign and for a foreign government at the same time. If I am getting paid to do my job and advance the interests of another country, the absolute perfect second job for me to have would be advising a major presidential candidate through his campaign. Everything works out grand--I get in good with the candidate so when he's in office he may be more enticed to work some policy in my favor because he trusts me. After all, the only thing that is important for me is getting paid, and I have to get the work done right to get paid well.

Why do you think McCain has fired five of his advisers just this week for their lobbying day jobs?

IIRC, he has given them a choice. Cut ties with lobbying, or stay with the campaign.
I really don't see a problem with this. Johnny Mac has made a decision and his campaign is moving forward given that decision.
Obama really doesn't want to get into who does more favors, who has more unsavory characters in their campaign, and who is really low-class. He would get his clock cleaned on all accounts.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Just a typical, small town, white girl...

Reading your comment, I take it you're only concerned with lobbyists with foreign clients?

Otherwise, what c17wife said - McCain is only accepting ex-lobbyists in his campaign; all perfectly legal and perfectly ethical.

I think most lobbyists aren't part of the problem. I think with regards to working in a campaign, the most important thing is who does that person work for now or have worked with in the past. If a person has ties to just about any foreign government, they have to go--it's way too easy to go back to work once the balloons are done falling and after you built a strong working relationship by helping him or her get elected. A lobbyist working for another country does not have US interest in mind.

Domestic businesses and US NGOs are different and should be treated case by case. For example, AARP is considered to have the most powerful lobby in the country, but they represent retirees, which is something that potentially benefits everyone. I don't see a problem with organizations that have an agenda that seems to have the best interest of our country in mind. Businesses are a little more touchy, but you can see where I am going.

What Obama has said is no federal lobbyist will work for his campaign--they are all the same during the election season. What he also wants to do is put time limits on how soon you can leave an elected office and start working as a lobbyist to keep people from passing legislation and then getting jobs for those same companies the bill favors. That sounds like good strides towards transparency and common sense to me.

The bottom line: I don't have a problem with all lobbyists, just the ones that don't serve US interest.

... what, exactly?

Likewise, you and the other Barackolytes at the New York Times can call Barack Obama (like Ned Lamont before him) a "fiscal conservative" but he would still be a quasi-socialist tax and spend Far Left liberal.

Either way, notwithstanding the fact that unemployment is at historically low levels, manufacturing is up last quarter, the credit crisis is apparently ameliorating itself, Clinton simply rode the dotcom boom, etc. and all other factors you neglected to include, the real issue with you is that you feel somehow that the rich are some sort of evil entity that should be made to suffer.

You and your Lord & Saviour Obama are a lot less concerned about the middle class getting to keep more of their money, but more about taking more from people who have worked hard for many years to get ahead. i.e. nothing more than stale old class warfare. Newsflash; most of the people earning $200,000 and above a year do actually work for it - they are not any less deserving of what they work for than anyone else.

Let's not get into the hundreds of billions of new spending programs Obama has already unveiled at this early stage. I simply cannot see how the government taking control of my healthcare choices is compatible with small government.

PS: The left-leaning Press has been cheerleading for a recession for the past year. Still not a single quarter of negative growth to get things started. Y'all can pray for it, but I think a lot more people are praying for the opposite so I guess God is taking that into consideration.

The only president in the past four decades to balance the budget and actually decrease the size of government spending was Clinton.

No. I think that was Congress - Republican for much of that time, I believe. Unfortunately they went native with a Republican in the Oval Office and Bush did nothing to rein them in. As for Clinton, he got to claim that he reduced government spending in his budgets - because like most liberals are inclined to, he took a hatchet to Defense and the military.

Thanks, but I don’t read the NYT for the most part. Probably only when Brooks is off calling Obama “His Hopeness” or whatever--fun to read. The main-stream media is cra and is not a good source of information.

I don’t know where you read what I say and think somehow that I think people that make more money are evil—I didn’t say it or imply it. I actually pointed out that “if you make more than $200k per year I understand why you would want more of this”. By the logic of your argument, do you think people that don’t make much money should be punished for not making more? This isn’t about who deserves tax cuts or who works harder; this is about our federal government operating under a tax policy that 1) creates enough revenue to fund the projects deemed necessary, 2) builds and strengthens the middle and lower class (the bottom 95%), and 3) is able to balance the budget and keep us from acquiring too much unnecessary debt. A strong middle-class is a cornerstone to an effective democracy, but the current policies--and what McCain is proposing--are counterproductive to that by further widening the gap between rich and poor.

Please explain your assessment of Clinton and Bush’s relationship to Congress again. While Clinton worked with a GOP-majority, Congress gets the credit for the fiscal gains. But when the GOP controls the Congress and White House then no one is in charge??? So you don’t think Clinton’s policies had anything to do with that?

Why no comments about McCain’s failures he is proposing? I think maybe they speak for themselves.

Thanks, but I don’t read the NYT for the most part.

Yet, you are pretty good at repeating their talking points. Go figure.

This isn’t about who deserves tax cuts or who works harder; this is about our federal government operating under a tax policy that 1) creates enough revenue to fund the projects deemed necessary

I prefer the word "generate" to "create" in so far as government at every level in America gets its money from the citizenry.

Second, Federal tax receipts shot up dramatically after the Bush tax cuts went into effect - actually shrinking the deficit from $455 billion in 2004 to around $120 billion as of 2007 (even the Democratic Party's New York Times noticed way back in 2006). It's the same thing that happened after the Reagan cuts in the early 1980s. Federal tax revenues went up sharply, but Tip O'Neill and his buddies boosted non-defense spending even more sharply so we had the interesting situation of tax revenues going up at the same as the deficit going up.

Third, the problem is that Democrats are remarkably good at finding and creating more and more programs and projects that are absolutely necessary ... indeed it is a wonder America survived so long without these programs!

2) builds and strengthens the middle and lower class (the bottom 95%)

Not the government's job - letting them keep and control more of their money is really the best thing the government can do. And besides that, raising taxes on "the rich™" has never done much of anything to help the middle class.

3) is able to balance the budget and keep us from acquiring too much unnecessary debt.

The answer is for the government to live within its means like ordinary people do. Unfortunately, your party (and its likely Presidential candidate) are philosophically opposed to that, and my party sold out. {grrr ...}

A strong middle-class is a cornerstone to an effective democracy, but the current policies--and what McCain is proposing--are counterproductive to that by further widening the gap between rich and poor.

To quote JFK: "a rising tide lifts all boats." The rich-poor gap is no threat to democracy in so far as everyone is rising and there is class mobility, even if some are rising faster than others. The income/wealth gap is really immaterial when it comes to measuring socio-economic progress.

e.g. A earns $150000 annually, B earns $40000 (income gap = $110000). A gets a 10% raise, while B gets a 25% raise. Which means A is now earning $165000 and B is now earning $50000 (income gap = $115000). The income gap just increased - but B is better off.

It's only in class warfare terms that anyone would think otherwise.

Please explain your assessment of Clinton and Bush’s relationship to Congress again. While Clinton worked with a GOP-majority, Congress gets the credit for the fiscal gains. But when the GOP controls the Congress and White House then no one is in charge?

Read my comment again. Clinton was actively reined in by the GOP Congress. They ceded control when Bush was elected and went hogwild. In other words, they deserve the significant part of the credit for the Clinton years, and equally (with Bush) deserve the blame for the fiscal indiscipline of 2001 to 2006.

So you don’t think Clinton’s policies had anything to do with that?

Not much, no. I can understand your confusion though. After all, once it turned out to be a success the MSM stopped calling Welfare Reform an attempt at genocide and started calling to it "Bill Clinton's Welfare Reform." They generally applied that same credit attribution policy to fiscal issues as well.

Why no comments about McCain’s failures he is proposing? I think maybe they speak for themselves.

Nah ... better a 60-70% fiscal conservative (McCain) than someone who scores about 2% on a good day (Obama).

one before. It's just terrible that anyone should keep any of their own money or make more money than anyone else, isn't it?

But you have a few of your facts wrong anyway. The Bush "tax cuts for the rich" eliminated completely federal income taxes at the low end of the income range. They greatly reduced the burden on the lower middle class. They shifted more of the burden to the upper middle class and the rich.

But hey, keep repeating the rhetoric and people will believe it, right?

"If you believe in low taxes, small government, and accountability, then Obama is the right candidate for you this year."

Good LORD! His primary plans are increasing taxes, having the government take over large portions of the economy and controlling people's spending. How can you write such a sentence? Didn't it make you're fingers burn to type out such a fiction?

Socialism doesn't work. It looks nice on paper, but it's been tried and it's failed miserably every time (usually accompanied by widespread death and suffering).
Proud member of the V.R.W.C.

IN the early Nineteen sixties, top income tax rates were cut, and guess what, the economy took off. Then in the early eighties top rates were cut and again there was dramatic expansion.
Rates kept creeping back upward, and then in the mid 1990's a massive capital gains rate cut was put into effect and low and behold, the economy took off again.
Then, after another slowdown the Bush tax cuts were put in place, low and behold more growth. By the way, the same things happened in Britain, and a number of other places.

So, it seems that dropping the upper rates does indeed lead to economic stimulus. Just exactly the way economists predict. Now why is that?

Well, it is because money at the higher levels has more of something economists call VELOCITY. That is, since your first hundred thousand or so is used for basic necessities, not a lot of it is saved or invested. But above that level, you are looking at basically four things you can do with your money, (1) conspicuous consumption, (2) safe investments (3) risky investments including creating new business, (4) foreign investment.

By letting people keep more of their own money the money with more velocity often is reinvested into the economy spurring growth. And guess what, IT ALWAYS WORKS.

Now, you can make a separate case to give tax relief to the middle class, and I am all for it. I think the government can do with a whole lot less spending. But there is no way such a tax will have as big an economic stimulus as dropping rates.

/The more you know.

"Nothing works like freedom, Nothing succeeds like liberty"
Kyle

There's no question that cutting taxes stimulates the economy. That was known long before supply-side economics. It's basic Keynesian theory.

The claim by some supply-side economists has been that the economy will be sufficiently stimulated this way, that enough tax revenue will be generated to make the tax cut pay for itself.

But that did not happen with the Reagan or Bush tax cuts.

That's because since the 1970s, taxes in America (unlike, say, Sweden) were not extraordinarily high to begin with. The percentage of national income going to taxes has remained remarkably constant (varying up or down a few percent) for many decades. Hence while cutting taxes stimulated the economy, it couldn't produce such a dramatic stimulation that tax receipts would soar high enough.

Thus when we've instituted supply-side tax cuts, we've gotten significant stimulus to the economy--but at the expense of huge Federal deficits. Reagan's budgets were never balanced. Neither were Bush 43's.

Where to being?

"There's no question that cutting taxes stimulates the economy. That was known long before supply-side economics. It's basic Keynesian theory."

Keynsian economics provides that inflation and unemployment are inversely related, and thus one going up makes the other go down. Both went up in the late 70s and both went down as a result of supply side economic policies.

"The claim by some supply-side economists has been that the economy will be sufficiently stimulated this way, that enough tax revenue will be generated to make the tax cut pay for itself."

There is a different supply side impact depending where on the Laffer curve you are. Not all tax cuts have the same supply side impact. Capitals gains taxes are extremely conducive to supply side effects. Income taxe rates have less of a supply side impact. Tax credits for things like dependent kids or spending money on office supplies have virtually no supply side impact.

The Regan tax cuts actually did raise more revenue than the pre-Reagan tax code. However, domestic spending exceeded the growth in those revenues.

Under Bush, the income tax cuts have not "paid for themselves" but they have had a substantial supply side impact (e.g. they haven't "cost" nearly as much as predicted). Furthermore, the capital gains taxes did in fact more than pay for themselves (e.g. revenues went up even though rates were lowered).

"But that did not happen with the Reagan or Bush tax cuts."
Under both tax cuts, the new capital gains tax rate generated more revenues despite the lower rate. Under Reagan, the income tax raised more money despite the reduction in rates. Under Bush, the income tax cut cost far less than predicted (because of supply side impact), but did not "pay for themselves"

"That's because since the 1970s, taxes in America (unlike, say, Sweden) were not extraordinarily high to begin with. The percentage of national income going to taxes has remained remarkably constant (varying up or down a few percent) for many decades. Hence while cutting taxes stimulated the economy, it couldn't produce such a dramatic stimulation that tax receipts would soar high enough."

Our tax rates were comparable to Sweden until Reagan lowered them.

"Thus when we've instituted supply-side tax cuts, we've gotten significant stimulus to the economy--but at the expense of huge Federal deficits. Reagan's budgets were never balanced. Neither were Bush 43's."

Deficits are the result of spending in relation to revenues. Revenues to the government go up each and every year. Unfortunately, government spending goes up at faster rate.

The reason we got huge deficits was not that the tax cuts didn't pay for themselves. They in fact did. Follwoing the tax cuts, receipts rose drastically. However, as congress always does, they increased spending by even greater amounts. My only problem with Reagan was that he didn't veto enough spending increases. Similarly, the problem with Bush 43's budgets were the new programs added, not the tax cuts.

The problem with lowering taxes to get more government revenue is that it works. And they know it will work. So they spend the money before it comes in.

Tax revenues are at an all time high. Government spending has just grown beyond the pace of anything the private sector can keep up with -- 10% per year growth. It's a disaster, and it's out of control.

Obama would do nothing to change that.

--
Gone 2500 years, still not PC.

If you really do believe that Obama is the candidate of smaller government and lower taxes, you are hopeless.

To be charitable, what he might do is rearrange spending priorities and drastically cut military spending. But there will be no savings because if he gets even a small amount of his proposed new spending put into place it will be a huge expansion of government.

Then there are the onerous attacks he frequently launches against various industries. From Oil to Drugs to the Financial Markets. You better hope it is all rhetoric. If we cripple our key industries in this age of global competition we will damage ourselves in a serious way.

"Nothing works like freedom, Nothing succeeds like liberty"
Kyle

I don't know what your screed on tax policy has to do with McCain's emphasis on free markets and free trade. Is it because you can't defend Obama's protectionism, and so you're trying to change the subject?

No matter, I'll debate tax policy with you.

First of all, the LIBERAL DEMOCRAT Representative, Charles Rangel, has also proposed doing away entirely with the AMT in favor of raising other taxes instead. Surprise! So go complain to him. Even liberal Democrats understand that a tax that isn't indexed for inflation is going to necessarily sock the middle class eventually.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/politics/july-dec07/tax_10-26.html

Secondly, the fact that a taxpayer doesn't declare capital gains tax on their Schedule D doesn't mean that they don't have any. It means that they chose not to sell their assets this year and create a taxable event.

Thus, the fact that most Americans haven't reported capital gains tax this year doesn't mean they don't have capital gains. It means they chose not to sell their assets this year and take the tax. The payment of capital gains taxes by Americans is thus highly irregular; they can have a huge one-time payment in the year they sell and have no capital gains taxes the rest of the time. Hence to claim that most Americans didn't report capital gains taxes this year is misleading. They undoubtedly are waiting for a better time to sell their assets.

If you have to raise any taxes, why on earth do you want to tax capital gains? You're taxing investment, punishing people for investing in stocks, business, housing, alternative energy, mass transit, etc.

Unlike other conservatives, I'm not allergic to raising taxes if the alternative is endless deficits and increasing national debt. But if you want to tax anything, tax consumption: Put a luxury tax on yachts, private jets, big SUVs, etc., favored by the wealthy. Put a price floor on gasoline, so that entrepreneurs who invest in alternative energy can be assured their products will be competitive enough to develop a market.

You know, I lived through the 1960s and 1970s, and the fiscal policies Obama is espousing (and that you are supporting) are very similar to the ones that Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter tried back then. And those policies failed. I know. I was there. Where were you?

It didn't raise any real revenue, but it did put people, who had been building yachts out of work.

The only thing McCain says in the original piece here about free trade is

"by exploiting public resentment of foreign trade rather than focusing on how to make the US more competitive.

But he acknowledged that more must be done to help people who lost jobs because of globalisation and promised more rigorous enforcement of trade agreements to protect US interests."

The entire rest of the piece is liberal, tax-and-spend, protectionism, blah blah blah...

I don't care what Charles Rangel says because completely eliminating the AMT just puts us right back to where we were 40 years ago. Yes it needs to be fixed, but not eliminated.

I have never claimed any capital gains, even two years ago when we sold our house for what I thought was a pretty nice profit because the profit wasn't large enough. I don't know many people that claim capital gains either because almost everyone I know is invested in the thrift savings plan or 401k.

87% out of everyone didn't claim any capital gains, so what's your gut tell you about how many more would have if the timing was better?

Here, I'll do you one better: Right now we have a $500 billion budget deficit. Where do we cut spending by that much (or somewhere close) to a level where we are not bankrupting our grandchildren?

I guess we could just continue on this path of destruction and keep getting money from China, that's cool. Discretionary spending has grown at historic levels during this entire administration. Everything is out of control. We are spending $12 billion each month for Iraq alone, and all McCain has to say is cut more taxes. I think the more sensible thing is to restructure our tax policy to where we can generate enough revenue to get things back under control.