Another Graph -or - Is It Any Wonder Why Trump Is Popular

[Lord Jim]

The Democratic Washington elite in the form of Bill Clinton raised taxes on the rich and cut them on the bottom 4/5ths and we had 8 years when all income groups saw substantial improvement."

You're being disingenuous if you're suggesting in saying that, that rube isn't trying to assert a causal relationship between the "raised taxes" and the "income improvement".

And you seem to demonstrate knowledge of his underlying hare-brained "Clinton tax increases created an economic boom" analysis with the caveat you included:

In this particular post, he made no claim either way about the budget surplus, but rather was arguing for the increase in prosperity for the bottom 80%

That indicates that you know full well that he has erroneously argued precisely that point on a number of previous occasions...

Just one of many examples:

Clinton raised taxes on the rich and everything got better. Deficits turned into surpluses. Incomes rose for all 5 5ths. Poverty fell.


yrs,
rubato

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=14470&p=181070&hili ... es#p181070

That looks pretty clear to me...

But specifically regarding "income improvement"; apparently you missed this bit:

The Clinton years present two consecutive periods as experiments of the effects of tax policy. The first period, from 1993 to 1996, began with a significant tax increase as the economy was accelerating out of recession. The second period, from 1997 to 2000, began with a modest tax cut as the economy should have settled into a normal growth period. The economy was decidedly stronger following the tax cut than it was following the tax increase. . . .

The economy averaged 4.2 percent real growth per year from 1997 to 2000--a full percentage point higher than during the expansion following the 1993 tax hike. Employment increased by another 11.5 million jobs, which is roughly comparable to the job growth in the preceding four-year period. Real wages, however, grew at 6.5 percent, which is much stronger than the 0.8 percent growth of the preceding period.

So, comparing the earlier "tax increase" years, to the later "tax cut" years, regarding real wages, (which is a pretty good indicator of incomes rising across the board)...

Well, there really is no comparison....

Rube's "argument" amounts to saying:

"We had policy Y for four years, and then we had policy X for four years, and even though no matter what yardstick you care to use the numbers were vastly better under X then under Y, I'm going to credit Y for all the improvement"...

Jeepers, that doesn't sound real "scientific" to me...

[rubato]

You're drunk by noon again.

1. I said nothing about deficits. Sober up before you post again.

2. You lied about what I have said in the past (nothing new there)

3. You are still wrong about how the Reagan-Bush catastrophic deficits were turned into a surplus by Clinton and the Democrats.


yrs,
rubato

[Burning Petard]

I do not know the source, perhaps Mark Twain, but there has long been the observation "In American politics, for every issue, there is a solution that is cheap, easy, and wrong."

Every issue is extremely complex, and EVERY political soundbite or 140 character tweet is oversimplification to the point (IMNSHO) that it is a lie.

It is even obfuscation to look at a congress critter's voting record on particular bills. Every vote (except those few that are meaningless ritual, like the repeal of Obamacare in the House) have particular devilish details that appear horrible and other details that appear to be the arrival of paradise on earth--in the same bill. The particular such details vary depending on one's point of view. There is truth in the mea culpa 'I was against it before I was for it.' And then there is the procedural practice of 'pairing'. If an individual congress critter of senator wants to vote against the party leadership, they find someone on the other side of the aisle who wants to vote the opposite. Their votes are reported in advance to the party leadership and because their votes cancel each other out, both avoid punishment from their party leadership for not toeing the party line. Each can later point to that vote as evidence to their constituents of their thoughtful independence of conscience on that particular vote.

That is only the beginning the complexities.

snailgate

[Lord Jim]

1. I said nothing about deficits. Sober up before you post again.

2. You lied about what I have said in the past (nothing new there)

I clearly ain't the one who's shit faced...

Clinton raised taxes on the rich and everything got better. Deficits turned into surpluses. Incomes rose for all 5 5ths. Poverty fell.


yrs,
rubato

Follow the link I provided to your post, moron...here it is again:

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=14470&p=181070&hili ... es#p181070

And then you can come back here and explain how it is I managed to cunningly hack your account to make it look like you referred to deficits, and "lie" about what you said....

You just fired up yet another combustible Cubano rube...

[rubato]

1. I said nothing about deficits. Sober up before you post again.

2. You lied about what I have said in the past (nothing new there)

I clearly ain't the one who's shit faced...

Clinton raised taxes on the rich and everything got better. Deficits turned into surpluses. Incomes rose for all 5 5ths. Poverty fell.


yrs,
rubato

This is what I wrote. Nothing about deficits. Stop drinking in the afternoon or stop posting drunk:

The Democratic Washington elite in the form of Bill Clinton raised taxes on the rich and cut them on the bottom 4/5ths and we had 8 years when all income groups saw substantial improvement.



yrs,
rubato

Nothing about deficits. Go sober up, alky. Or start a new thread if you want to discuss something not in this thread?


yrs,
rubato

[Lord Jim]

There he goes doing that impersonation of a really, really, really stupid person again....

That one always slays me...

[Econoline]

Okay, okay. gotcha, Jim. Rubato didn't mention the deficit in this thread, but he mentioned it 5 months ago in another thread, and you'd rather write about that than discuss the topic of this thread.

As a matter of fact, you're the one who mentioned deficits/surpluses above--and the only reason I responded to that was because you posted a graph which directly contradicted what you said: it showed that deficits decreased and surpluses increased at a steady rate all during the first 7 years of Bill Clinton's presidency.

As for this (which is at least on-topic though misleading)...

Real wages, however, grew at 6.5 percent, which is much stronger than the 0.8 percent growth of the preceding period.

...here's another graph for you:

Please note *WHOSE* incomes started rising in '93 (hint: everyone's) and *WHOSE* incomes continued to increase at a much higher rate than everyone else's after '97.