Fuck its silent in here.......

[Bort]

And we'd finally get some Jetsons shit.

Vote Bort 2012.

[R-V]

And we'd finally get some Jetsons shit.

Vote Bort 2012.

Why would I vote for my son? He can't even breathe air yet.

[J. Walter Weatherman]

For the sake of stating my position somewhat succinctly, I choose to roll dice with Friedman, Laffer, and Morpheus on this.

Roll the dice with them on what? The idea that tax cuts completely pay for themselves through increased revenue? I don't think Morph is suggesting that, nor do I believe Milton Friedman ever argued the same. The notion that we're on the downward sloping side of the Laffer curve right now? Ditto.

[J. Walter Weatherman]

And we'd finally get some Jetsons shit.

Vote Bort 2012.

Why would I vote for my son? He can't even breathe air yet.

Is he a CHUD?

I'd vote for a CHUD President.

The better to defend us against the predations of the Mole People.

[Bort]

And we'd finally get some Jetsons shit.

Vote Bort 2012.

Why would I vote for my son? He can't even breathe air yet.

Is he a CHUD?

I'd vote for a CHUD President.

The better to defend us against the predations of the Mole People.

I've already got my future Secretary of War* working on this one. TEC, show them the Death Ray plans.


*Defense? Pussies.

[Gilgamesh]

Arizona is going to get yet another education on federal preemption.

http://www.yumasun.com/news/ballot-62886-union-measure.html

[morpheus]

And we'd finally get some Jetsons shit.

Vote Bort 2012.

Why would I vote for my son? He can't even breathe air yet.

Is he a CHUD?

I'd vote for a CHUD President.

The better to defend us against the predations of the Mole People.

I've already got my future Secretary of War* working on this one. TEC, show them the Death Ray plans.


*Defense? Pussies.

Can we replace the Department of the Treasury with a Department of Cheddar?  Also, I'd like to submit myself as a candidate for this very important position.  I am well versed in the stacking of said cheddar.

[R-V]

Glenn Greenwald rightfully takes Gibbs to the woodshed for this whiny strawman bullplop:

During an interview with The Hill in his West Wing office, White House press secretary Robert Gibbs blasted liberal naysayers, whom he said would never regard anything the president did as good enough.

"I hear these people saying he's like George Bush. Those people ought to be drug tested," Gibbs said. "I mean, it's crazy."

The press secretary dismissed the "professional left" in terms very similar to those used by their opponents on the ideological right, saying, "They will be satisfied when we have Canadian healthcare and we've eliminated the Pentagon. That's not reality."

Of those who complain that Obama caved to centrists on issues such as healthcare reform, Gibbs said: "They wouldn't be satisfied if Dennis Kucinich was president."

[World's #1 Astros Fan]

And we'd finally get some Jetsons shit.

Vote Bort 2012.

Why would I vote for my son? He can't even breathe air yet.

Is he a CHUD?

I'd vote for a CHUD President.

The better to defend us against the predations of the Mole People.

I've already got my future Secretary of War* working on this one. TEC, show them the Death Ray plans.


*Defense? Pussies.

Can we replace the Department of the Treasury with a Department of Cheddar?  Also, I'd like to submit myself as a candidate for this very important position.  I am well versed in the stacking of said cheddar.

We get it, morph.  You make a lot of money.

[Bort]

And we'd finally get some Jetsons shit.

Vote Bort 2012.

Why would I vote for my son? He can't even breathe air yet.

Is he a CHUD?

I'd vote for a CHUD President.

The better to defend us against the predations of the Mole People.

I've already got my future Secretary of War* working on this one. TEC, show them the Death Ray plans.


*Defense? Pussies.

Can we replace the Department of the Treasury with a Department of Cheddar?  Also, I'd like to submit myself as a candidate for this very important position.  I am well versed in the stacking of said cheddar.

We get it, morph.  You make a lot of money.

Money is good. President Bort will need said cheddar to put a flying car in every hovering garage.

[morpheus]

And we'd finally get some Jetsons shit.

Vote Bort 2012.

Why would I vote for my son? He can't even breathe air yet.

Is he a CHUD?

I'd vote for a CHUD President.

The better to defend us against the predations of the Mole People.

I've already got my future Secretary of War* working on this one. TEC, show them the Death Ray plans.


*Defense? Pussies.

Can we replace the Department of the Treasury with a Department of Cheddar?  Also, I'd like to submit myself as a candidate for this very important position.  I am well versed in the stacking of said cheddar.

We get it, morph.  You make deal with a lot of money.

Truth'd.

[morpheus]

So aside from semantics over what is or isn't a tax increase - I don't want to speak for Klein, but in reading some of his prior posts I think what he's getting at is that if we hold the following to be true:

- Long term deficits are bad
- Starve the beast doesn't work

Then we're going to need some level of revenue increases (as well as spending cuts) to get long-term deficits under control.

All this means that it's worth having a discussion over an optimal set of tax rates. Not necessarily the rate that will generate the most revenue or the least revenue for the government. The discussion begins with one's judgment of where the Laffer Curve bends - that's the upper limit of what's on the table. And I'm definitely interested to hear what elected Democrats think.

Personally, I agree with Bartlett's take that 50% rates are, psychologically at least, confiscatory. I also think that it's asinine that we have different tax brackets for individuals earning 30k and 40k - yet an individual making 375k is in the same bracket as an individual making 40 million. Short of comprehensive reform (which is unlikely considering the how dysfunctional the Senate is at the moment) I think we could use a few brackets on the upper end.

DPD.  These are wise words, and ones I wish I heard more on both sides of the aisle.  I think that's twice now that RV and I have agreed in this thread.

[Lance Dicksons Arm]

That said, even if I were wrong, this tax rollback would be such a small difference in net revenue that it's not even worth focusing on.   It's probably a few billion either way.

ORLY?

I don't understand all of the assumptions the CBO used to comment on this graph.  It has to be a bit more complicated than that.  They also did modeling used by Democrats to justify the Healthcare plan that as mentioned before, will never ever come to fruition the way it was drawn up.

[Lance Dicksons Arm]

For the sake of stating my position somewhat succinctly, I choose to roll dice with Friedman, Laffer, and Morpheus on this.

Roll the dice with them on what? The idea that tax cuts completely pay for themselves through increased revenue? I don't think Morph is suggesting that, nor do I believe Milton Friedman ever argued the same. The notion that we're on the downward sloping side of the Laffer curve right now? Ditto.

"I am in favor of cutting taxes under any circumstances and for any excuse, for any reason, whenever it's possible. The reason I am is because I believe the big problem is not taxes, the big problem is spending."  - Milton Friedman

While the context isn't precisely the same as this exact discussion, we can extrapolate this to mean he would not support a roll back of the Bush tax cuts.  No?

[R-V]

That said, even if I were wrong, this tax rollback would be such a small difference in net revenue that it's not even worth focusing on.   It's probably a few billion either way.

ORLY?

I don't understand all of the assumptions the CBO used to comment on this graph.  It has to be a bit more complicated than that.  They also did modeling used by Democrats to justify the Healthcare plan that as mentioned before, will never ever come to fruition the way it was drawn up.

Don't understand the assumptions? Maybe try taking a look at the CBO source documents before dismissing them offhand?

It has to be more complicated? Well, no shit. Projections are just that - projections. So why do you think this projection is more or less valid than any other projection? Or are we just going to dismiss any conclusion that's too complicated?

Why will the CBO healthcare models "never ever" come to fruition? What makes the CBO models more or less dependable than the other models that I presume you're relying on?

There seems to be a lot of hand-waving and dismissal going on here without either offering alternate conclusions or some sort of justification for the hand-waving.