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GOP and Tea BAggers to force government shutdown

The big difference between your argument and those that want to do away with PP and NPR is that it is the federal government's responsibility is to put forth a strong military to both protect its citizens and its borders.
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Seriously?

Why?

And how much does it cost to have a "strong military?"

What is a strong military anyway? And why/how are they immune to corruption leading to runaway spending? In fact, perhaps it too has become a "pet project" as you put it!

And what are America's borders?

You talk in such vague terms and yet act as if you have all the answers and "the left" is so dumb. Please professor, teach the rest of us and don't run away for days and days hoping that pages have hidden your past embarrassments.
 
One Brow said:
Who wants to do nothing for 25-30 years?
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Ummm a lot of people would love to not have to financially support themselves for that amount of time, and would have no problem occupying their time.

SS is more than just retirement. It is also child/widow support.
 
The Thriller said:
Care to answer anyone's questions?

Or do you only show up to pick things out of your rear?

I noticed after Kicky and a few others blew you up that you took a 2 day hiatus from this thread.

Interesting.
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LOL! Sorry, I do have a life and better things to do than spend all day Saturday and Sunday arguing with a bunch of people. Check the boards. I haven't posted anything on here for two days.
 
The Thriller said:
You just made the greatest argument in favor of the Democrats' economic and fiscal policy with this last post.
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I'm not interested in arguing for either side of the aisle. My point was ideologically untainted. But if anyone was going to twist it to partisan politics, you'd be the guy I expect to do so.
 
The Thriller said:
Care to answer anyone's questions?

Or do you only show up to pick things out of your rear?

I noticed after Kicky and a few others blew you up that you took a 2 day hiatus from this thread.

Interesting.
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Pointing out drunken ramblings is a specialty of mine. The question is if your bishop can tell when you've been drinking all Sunday or not.
 
Maktub said:
You missed the point. Yes military spending can/should come down, but some military spending is necessary. Federal spending on PP and NPR is not. Without it, those programs will be just fine, most of their funding is private.
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The federal money for Planned Parenthood goes to contraceptive services, prenatal health, and general women's health. Many of those services would be reduce.

NPR would be fine in the large cities, but in many of the rural communities, there is not enough of a population base to support a news station at all (public or commercial), and many of those stations would go dark.
 
One Brow said:
It's little better than Social Security, if at all.
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Well then, if it's even just a little better than SS that would be better now, wouldn't it?

IntroJon_01.jpg
 
Marcus said:
The point was that it is better than the average SS benefit.
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Seriously? This is a total sideshow.

I made a lengthy SS post to which there was really only one substantive response. That response was left by franklin who made a statement regarding means-testing, which is relatively uncontroversial (outside of any determination of net cost benefits, as pointed out by Bronco). Other than that, the substance has been entirely conceded by you. Instead you're trying to press a point on whether a particular teacher benefit is better than SS which is a) sort of wholly irrelevant to anything related to the near government shutdown or gov't expenditures (given that it's largely a state issue rather than a fed gov issue) and b) a total forest for the trees issue.

This is, of course, after a total non-response to a lengthy post regarding your claims of the US' corporate tax rates' relative level. It's a wonder I ever try at all.

The fact that our President is such an awful negotiator that he frequently gives in to these kinds of tactics (and gives the GOP more cuts than their opening bid so they'll drop demands to cut something they never could have gotten the votes for anyway) is the reason I'm probably staying home in 2012.
 
Marcus said:
The point was that it is better than the average SS benefit.
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So. when you said in this post "... you'll have a better than average pension coming your way from the teacher's union ... ", you really meant '... you'll have a pension from the teacher's union, and it might be a little better than social security, coming your way ...'. Man, how could I have misunderstood that?
 
Sirkickyass said:
The GOP doesn't have a real choice, but they'll end up extracting their pound of flesh anyway because the Dems are a bunch of ninnies who give the school bully their lunch money before he even asks for it.
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Exactly. There is a Bill Maher video in one of the other threads that sums this up pretty good.
 
All you need to know about both sides on the budget came during the showdown over extending the Bush tax-cuts for the top 2%. That came at a cost of roughly $360 billion over the next two years. It is impossible for me to take seriously any GOP candidate who claims to be a deficit hawk who also supported that extension because it came at nearly 10X the cost as the cuts they nearly shut the government down for.

Not allowing those cuts was also one of Obama's key campaign promises. And he caved. He had an opportunity before the elections to force a floor vote in the House in which the GOP would have to vote against a measure extending everyone's tax cut but the top 2%, crystallizing the real stakes to the GOP position, and refused to even make them put their votes where their mouths were. It was a huge tactical error politically and from a policy position and revealed him as a man without a real principled vision for the future of the country who is not willing to draw any lines in the sand. And what did the Dems get out of that deal? The extension of unemployment benefits. He's a person who actively encourages political hostage taking by caving in every single time.

Frankly, if this had been my negotiation the Planned Parenthood and NPR threats were so nakedly political and designed to be inessential that I would have billions off the table with the GOP as an insult-tax for thinking they could play those games. Not our Democratic party. They gave more away.

The reality is that Obama could emerge from the West Wing tomorrow advocating the repeal of all abortion rights, the abolition of the EPA, tax cuts for everyone, the elimination of Medicare/Medicaid and Social Security and the vast majority of the GOP base still wouldn't like him. He's got to get over the idea that he can win them over and lead public opinion instead of follow it.

All that said, I would love to play poker with the man.
 
Sirkickyass said:
This is, of course, after a total non-response to a lengthy post regarding your claims of the US' corporate tax rates' relative level. It's a wonder I ever try at all.
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Good point. Maybe you should shoot yourself and spare yourself the agony of dealing with me...

Regarding the corporate tax thing. You specifically used GE. GE's profits were all made using off shore divisions and fancy accounting. It's a shame that the US government doesn't realize that keeping a company in the US and only taxing them at 10% is a better return than taxing them at 35% and getting nothing because they set up shop in a different country. 10% of 9 billion is better than 0% which is what GE has paid to the US the last two years. Rather than several other countries getting a cut of taxes paid by GE the US should just lower their rates and get everything from GE.

The US needs to lower their corporate tax rate and then close all of the damn loopholes. GE is only doing what they are allowed to do under US tax law. It seems absolutely silly to me that the US would even have a 35% tax if nobody actually pays 35%.

There's a reason a lot of countries are lowering their corporate taxes. It brings in large corporations. Japan, Ireland and Canada have all lowered, or are getting ready to lower, their corporate tax rates.

Look at it this way, if there are two stores selling the same product but one has it listed at 9.99 and the other at 19.99 but will give you the product for 9.99 if you fill out the paperwork, send it in and wait for a rebate why would you bother going to the second store at all? Just buy it for 9.99 and be done with it. The US is acting like the second store. Tax at a high rate but then offer "rebates" (loopholes) that require lawyers and accountants to realize the savings. Why bother when I can open shop in Canada at 16.5% and cut out all the crap?

Then again, I guess lawyers and accountants need jobs too.
 
One Brow said:
So. when you said in this post "... you'll have a better than average pension coming your way from the teacher's union ... ", you really meant '... you'll have a pension from the teacher's union, and it might be a little better than social security, coming your way ...'. Man, how could I have misunderstood that?
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Good question. How did you misunderstand that?
 
Marcus--I think people understand what you're saying for the most part. Where the discussion lies is in actual tax rates. I agree with you corporate tax should be lowered and loopholes shut, but this doesn't say anything about the true current tax rate. Making an extremely crude calculation from the latest BEA National GDP report, table 11 shows corporate profit (in billions of dollars) of $1,678.3 and taxes of 428.1. That's 25.5%. Start subtracting the government revenue stream and the deal gets better and better for corporate America.

https://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/national/gdp/2011/pdf/gdp4q10_3rd.pdf

The tax structure is more likely to kill start-ups than the big corporations with lobbyists. I was going to point this out a few days ago, but I'm too lazy to get into any meaningful discussion about it.
 
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