The Tea Party

[Lord Jim]

There s a limit to how much one should expect....

[BoSoxGal]

I voted for higher taxes for the rich and reduced government.

Congress has proven to be totally useless except to corporations and the monied class, so I vote we throw all the bums out!

[Econoline]

Reagan taxed long-term capital gains as ordinary income in 1986 which continued to 1997. So apparently Reagan and the Republican party along with democrats in both houses didn't know that it was "good for the entire economy" either.

One of the few things that Reagan did which I wholeheartedly agreed with--even though it cost me, personally, an extra $10,000 in taxes when I sold a piece of investment property in 1987.

I've earned money from hard work and I've earned money from capital gains, and IMHO capital gains is definitely the easier way to make a buck. It's ridiculous to tax that sort of income at a lower rate.

[Lord Jim]

One of the few things that Reagan did which I wholeheartedly agreed with

So Econo, you disagreed with Mr. Reagan's defeating the Soviet Union, winning the Cold War , and lifting the specter of global nuclear annihilation from the planet?

[Long Run]

There are advantages and drawbacks to taxing capital gains at the same rate as ordinary income. The experience of western democracies show that if ordinary income rates are too high, the capital gains rate has to be reduced to remove the disincentives of not investing or holding investments too long. The 1986 Reform Act was a good lesson that with ordinary income tax rates low enough, having the same rate for capital gains had an initial negative impact on mainly real estate (though so did the passive loss rules); however, marginal rates were reduced from 50% to 28%, and the capital gains rate increased from 20% to 28% as a trade off. However, our experiences have revealed that there is actually an increase in tax revenue from capital gains if the rate is lower -- that is, at our historic cap gains rates, we are always on the down slope of the Laffer Curve so reducing the rate increases revenues. This occurs because there are more transactions.

If you look at it from a fairness standpoint, it can be argued both ways. However, the main point of taxes is to raise revenue, and this should be done while trying to create the least amount of disincentives for positive activities (such as working and investing). Based on the cap gains tax history, it would be a major mistake to raise capital gains rates to the high marginal rates of ordinary income; this would devastate the real estate industry even further and impact other investors in a negative way.

[Lord Jim]

Obama made a HUGE mistake in failing to embrace Simpson- Bowles and not getting it passed when he could have...

Almost as big a mistake as he made when he abandoned his original Stimulus Package concept (which Mitch McConnell said was "something we can work with"...before the Tea Party became a factor in American politics...when Obama had an 80% approval rating, including 60% among Republicans..Before he turned the package over to Nancy Pelosi and her cronies, and they created the MOAP)

[Andrew D]

One of the few things that Reagan did which I wholeheartedly agreed with

So Econo, you disagreed with Mr. Reagan's defeating the Soviet Union, winning the Cold War , and lifting the specter of global nuclear annihilation from the planet?

"Lifting the specter of global nuclear annihilation from the planet?"

Russia still has nuclear weapons. China has nuclear weapons. India has nuclear weapons. Pakistan has nuclear weapons.

As I have posted before, we are living on a nuclear powder-keg:

China has several border disputes going with India. In the Kashmir region and in the area southeast of it, there are at least four chunks of territory occupied by China and claimed by India, of which the largest is Aksai Chin (over 14,000 square miles). And at the eastern end of the Sino-Indian border, there is an even larger chunk of territory -- Arunachal Pradesh (over 32,000 square miles) -- which is occupied by India and claimed by China. China and India went to war over those territories in 1962.

The upshot was that China now controls Aksai Chin, and India now controls Arunachal Pradesh. But that does not mean that the disputes have been resolved. On the contrary, China's "Map World" global online mapping service has just recently issued a map showing both Aksai Chin and Arunachal Pradesh as parts of China.

Those things interrelate, and the outlook is not good. Tibet and East Turkestan border each other, and both of them border Aksai Chin. Tibet also borders Arunachal Pradesh. Aksai Chin also borders both an area occupied by Pakistan and claimed by India and an area occupied by India and claimed by Pakistan. And, of course, China, India, and Pakistan are all nuclear powers.

Throw in social unrest caused by male-to-female disparities, which are most acute in China's western rural regions, and by a lack of safe drinking water for half of China's population (as well as the other privations which result from China's economic and environmental policies). What you get is a recipe for cataclysm.

There are dozens of flashpoints, any of which could ignite others, and before you know it:

--> there are uprisings in East Turkestan and Tibet which spill over into Aksai Chin and Arunachal Pradesh and then into the territories disputed by Indian and Pakistan,

--> tens of millions of testosterone-poisoned young men who can't find any women join the fray,

--> hundreds of millions of people who can't even get a drink of water without risking potentially fatal diseases decide that they've had enough of it,

--> all three countries' millitaries get involved,

--> the internal conflicts become international conflicts,

--> somebody with his finger on the button blows a gasket, and

Kaboom! Nuclear holocaust in Asia.

China's government is sitting fragilely atop all of this in what amounts to an ever-more desperate, frantic, and dangerous game of Whack a Mole. And even if China were to become a representative democracy, those things would not go away.

I find it nearly miraculous that the whole region has not gone up in smoke already -- potentially taking the rest of us with it. And I can't think of anything even resembling a way out of this mess for anyone.

Whatever one may think of Reagan's politics, the notion that we are free from the specter of global nuclear annihilation is divorced from reality.

[Econoline]

One of the few things that Reagan did which I wholeheartedly agreed with

So Econo, you disagreed with Mr. Reagan's defeating the Soviet Union, winning the Cold War , and lifting the specter of global nuclear annihilation from the planet?

Those would indeed have been agreeable things to have done, had Mr. Reagan actually done them....

[Lord Jim]

Yes, there are still nuclear threats in the world, but we no longer have a situation where two Super Powers sit with 20,000 ICBM's trained on each other, set to go off on a hair trigger...

That is the sort of thing that has the potential for "global nuclear annihilation"

An observation about Obama:

I think his greatest problem has been a lack of self-confidence...

That may seem like an odd thing to say about a man who so self-evidently exudes self confidence in all of his public appearances and speeches....

But if you look at the record, going back to his initial failure to stand up to Pelosi and the Democratic leadership in the Congress, and his subsequent failures to stand his ground on almost any major point...

Even in areas where he has been most successful, (like national security) Obama has a tendency to constantly defer to others...

I think that deep down within him, there is a place where he says to himself:

"I rode a wave of historical discontent into Office. It's not really about me. I'm a bright and capable guy, but I'm not sure I was really ready for this. Hell, I was only a Senator for a year and a half before I wound up here....(and that was a lucky break) before that, I was just a representative for a Chicago district in the Illinois state senate....

But I'm here now, and the most important thing I need to do is to try to not completely fuck up. I don't want to be remembered as another Jimmy Carter. And the best way to avoid completely fucking up, is to be cautious, and listen to people who have been around longer, and have more experience with these things than I do. I won't have any great achievements doing it that way, but at least I won't completely fuck up."

I have come to believe that it is the fear of failure....

Rather than the drive for success...

That has been Obama's prime motivating factor for his actions as President....

If one looks at it that way, it pretty much explains everything he has done...

[Lord Jim]

I said it at the time; if Obama winds up being defeated for re-election, he will be able to trace the reason for it back to the decision to turn his stimulus package over to Pelosi and Co....

When Pelosi trotted up to the White House to inform Obama that his proposal was a dead issue, and that she and her pals would be writing the stimulus bill, instead of saying "message received", he should have said:

"I'm sorry Nancy, but that's not the way it's going to be. I was elected with the votes of millions of independents and even Republicans, pledging to get past this 'payback' partisanship, and that's exactly what I'm going to do. My proposal is going to serve as the starting point, and then you, and I, and the leadership of both parties are going to bargain in good faith and hammer out an agreement.

This is of central and critical importance to my Presidency. I would really prefer not to have to do this, but if you're not on board with this approach, I will do a lot of personal arm twisting, and also go over your head to appeal directly to the American people in a prime time speech to put pressure on the members of our caucus in the House to stand with me on this. My popularity rating stands at 80%; yours is 17. If you force me to go to the mat with you on this one,I have no doubt as to who will win."

Of course that would have required real testicular fortitude....

Ironically, if he had done that, (and if he had, Pelosi would have folded like a cheap lawn chair... she's a smart enough pol to know that she wouldn't have wanted to go head to head with a hugely popular President from her own party right after he came into Office) Pelosi might very well still be Speaker today, because a much better bill would have been produced, and the economy would be in far better shape, and the Dems might not have taken such big a shellacking in the mid-terms...

[loCAtek]

Excellent observation

[Econoline]

I agree too, Jim, re Pelosi. Obama was popular, Congress in general and Pelosi in particular was not. If he had stood up to her in the beginning he would have become even more popular, especially with independents and even some Republicans. Whatever losses this strategy might have led to among congressional Democrats, he might well have made up by NOT having the congressional Republicans become a solid uncompromising anti-Obama-at-any-cost bloc.

[liberty]

Why not just take everything back to the exact level of government and taxation of several years ago, 2006 maybe.

Because it won’t work. If we are to pay down the national debt and maintain our country we are going to have raise a huge amount money; perhaps twice as much as we have ever collected in our best year. We will need cut unessential programs and tax everyone more; the rich will get hit hard because they have the most money. On the brighter side once the emergency has passed the taxes can be reduced. Write the automatic tax reductions into in a sunset clause.

The size of the national debt is a national emergency or can we keeping doing this to infinity?