Do the right thing

[rubato]

I think the main objection to continuing the UEC was that it was giving away money that we don't have.

... "

The main objections to continuing the Bush tax cuts for the rich (hey thanks!) is that we are borrowing the money to give it to people who need it the least.

Qualifying it as a finalist in the "worst social reform programs of all time" competition.

yrs,
rubato

[Scooter]

The main objections to continuing the Bush tax cuts for the rich (hey thanks!) is that we are borrowing the money to give it to people who need it the least.

More precisely, in the current circumstances, borrowing money to give it to people who are the least likely to use it in ways that will stimulate the economy.

[Andrew D]

To the extent to which dgs49's labels of governmental activity are accurate in the first place, all of them can be justified under the Commerce Clause, the Necessary and Proper Clause, the Taxing and Spending Clause, or some combination of them.

I am disinclined to go through his rhetorical litany line by line, but this one is irresistible: The government shouldn't be in "Banking"? That would have come as one hell of a shock in 1791.

The very first Congress chartered the First Bank of the United States in 1791. That Congress included (with overlap):

20 Delegates to the Constitutional Convention;
at least 22 Delegates to State Ratification Conventions;
5 Delegates to the Annapolis Convention;
1 future Chief Justice of the United States;
1 future Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court;
a past Chief Justice of New Hampshire;
future Chief Justices of Delaware and South Carolina;
future Supreme Court Justices of Maine, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire;
2 future Presidents of the United States;
1 future Vice President of the United States; and
8 signers of the Declaration of Independence.

The bank had been proposed by Alexander Hamilton -- New York Delegate to the Constitutional Convention, delegate to the New York Ratification Convention, etc. Although James Madison ("the Father of the Constitution") opposed the creation of the First National Bank when he was in Congress, he urged (and signed into law) the creation of the Second National Bank (1816) when he was President. The constitutionality of the National Bank was unanimously upheld by the Supreme Court, of which both the Chief Justice and the Senior Justice had been Delegates to the Virginia Ratifying Convention, in 1819.

I don't know where dgs49 gets the idea that the U.S. government should not be involved in banking, but it sure doesn't come from any connection to constitutional reality.

[dgs49]

...and yet, Thomas Jefferson opposed the charter because the bank was unconstitutional.

What did he know?

What about the rest of my list, Andrew?

Auto manufacturing?

Retirement planning?

[dgs49]

I know this is a tired, tired, tired subject, but it makes my toenails curl upward when I read Lefties' whines about tax "giveaways" to "The Rich."

The only good thing about reading rubato's vacuous rants on the subject is that they illustrate the upside-down world of the Left, where the purpose of the tax code is to promote "social justice" by taking money from The Rich and redistributing it to as many government teat-suckers as the Left can assemble.

In this Bizarro world, the government has to borrow money to "replace" that which it could have confiscated from certain segments of society but didn't.

I did a little number crunching with the Tax Code a couple days ago and came up with some interesting comparisons. Taking a base case of a household with a taxable income of $50 thousand, that household pays $6,669 in FIT, a little over 13% of its taxable income.

Consider by comparison an executive with a household taxable income of $500 thousand. It pays $145,362 in FIT. So with 10 times more income, it pays 21 times more in tax. And according to the American Left, this is simply not enough. The more prosperous household is not paying its "fair" share, and is, in effect, stealing from the "less fortunate." Of course, we will not get into whether the more prosperous family is likely more "fortunate" or is more likely to have at least one person who has worked his or her ass off to reach that income level. I personally find the ubiquitous use of the words "fortunate" and "less fortunate" as inappropriate and insulting.

Comparing the baseline household to one with a $5.0MM taxable income, that family pays $1.7 million in FIT, and of course that's not anywhere near enough. 258 times as much as the baseline guy, but not enough to satisfy the Left. 100% might be enough.

We, in the U.S. have had marginal FIT rates in excess of 90% (though nobody ever actually paid that much, there was a 50% cap that the rubes were unaware of), largely to satisfy the ignoranti who demanded that The Rich be punished for their prosperity.

Depends on your concept of "fairness," I guess.

[Lord Jim]

Now that right there, is a pretty good post....

[Scooter]

IWe, in the U.S. have had marginal FIT rates in excess of 90% (though nobody ever actually paid that much, there was a 50% cap that the rubes were unaware of), largely to satisfy the ignoranti who demanded that The Rich be punished for their prosperity.

And yet, some of the most spectacular economic growth ever experienced occurred during the era in which this was so. Go figure.

[Lord Jim]

And yet, some of the most spectacular economic growth ever experienced occurred during the era in which this was so. Go figure.

That could have had something to do with the fact that a war had just been concluded that devastated the production capability of every other major industrial country in the world, while out capacity had grown exponentially due to war time production requirements. (Not to mention the fact that some major players in today's global economy, like India and China, weren't even in the game)

[Long Run]

IWe, in the U.S. have had marginal FIT rates in excess of 90% (though nobody ever actually paid that much, there was a 50% cap that the rubes were unaware of), largely to satisfy the ignoranti who demanded that The Rich be punished for their prosperity.

And yet, some of the most spectacular economic growth ever experienced occurred during the era in which this was so. Go figure.

Might have something to do with the U.S. having the only economy that wasn't devastated by war. Once other countries recovered their economic output capabilities, U.S. top marginal rates were reduced by both sides of the political spectrum as an economic necessity. So here we are arguing whether the top rate should be 35 or 39.6%. A.C. Gilbert's toy could bridge this great divide.

[Scooter]

Look at economic growth in, say, Germany and Italy in the 1950s and 60s (with tax rates as high or higher than in the U.S.) and the issue of whether an economy was devastated by war becomes a complete irrelevancy to this discussion.

[Lord Jim]

Look at economic growth in, say, Germany and Italy in the 1950s and 60s

That's a little misleading, since they were starting from such a low base....(Much like China for the past two decades....when you start from near zero, any growth will translate into an impressive "rate")

They also benefited from the huge infusion of outside investment from The Marshal Plan.

[Scooter]

In which case the fact that the U.S. economy had not been "devastated" by war really doesn't have anything to do with why it was able to achieve spectacular rates of growth in a context of very high marginal tax rates.

[Andrew D]

...and yet, Thomas Jefferson opposed the charter because the bank was unconstitutional.

What did he know?

Thomas Jefferson had numerous views about the Constitution which were rejected by the Framers. I see no reason to take his opinion over theirs. Doing so is simply more of dgs49's ignoring the Constitution as it is in favor of the Constitution as he wishes it were.

What about the rest of my list, Andrew?

As I said, I have no inclination to go through your whole rhetorical litany. It suffices to say that nothing on your list constitutes an expenditure of federal money for a purpose which is merely local, rather than general. Therefore, all of them are justifiable under the General Welfare Clause. Not by your interpretation of that clause, to be sure, but your interpretation was one side of an early constitutional debate, and your side lost.

The Constitution says:

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; ....

(U.S. Const., Art. I, Sec. 8 (emphasis added).)

In another constitutional debate which Jefferson lost, he argued that (as he put it later):

Congress had not unlimited powers to provide for the general welfare, but were restrained to those specifically enumerated; and that, as it was never meant they should provide for that welfare but by the exercise of the enumerated powers, so it could not have been meant they should raise money for purposes which the enumeration did not place under their action; consequently, that the specification of powers is a limitation of the purposes for which they may raise money.

(Letter to Albert Gallatin, 16 June 1817.)

Alexander Hamilton, on the other hand, argued that:

The National Legislature has express authority "To lay and Collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the Common defence and general welfare" with no other qualifications than that "all duties, imposts and excises, shall be uniform throughout the United states, that no capitation or other direct tax shall be laid unless in proportion to numbers ascertained by a census or enumeration taken on the principles prescribed in the Constitution, and that "no tax or duty shall be laid on articles exported from any state." These three qualifications excepted, the power to raise money is plenary, and indefinite; and the objects to which it may be appropriated are no less comprehensive, than the payment of the public debts and the providing for the common defence and "general Welfare." The terms "general Welfare" were doubtless intended to signify more than was expressed or imported in those which Preceded; otherwise numerous exigencies incident to the affairs of a Nation would have been left without a provision. The phrase is as comprehensive as any that could have been used; because it was not fit that the constitutional authority of the Union, to appropriate its revenues shou'd have been restricted within narrower limits than the "General Welfare" and because this necessarily embraces a vast variety of particulars, which are susceptible neither of specification nor of definition.

It is therefore of necessity left to the discretion of the National Legislature, to pronounce, upon the objects, which concern the general Welfare, and for which under that description, an appropriation of money is requisite and proper. And there seems to be no room for a doubt that whatever concerns the general Interests of learning of Agriculture of Manufactures and of Commerce are within the sphere of the national Councils as far as regards an application of Money.

The only qualification of the generallity of the Phrase in question, which seems to be admissible, is this--That the object to which an appropriation of money is to be made be General and not local; its operation extending in fact, or by possibility, throughout the Union, and not being confined to a particular spot.

(Report on Manufactures, 5 December 1791 (italics omitted).)

Hamilton won. As Joseph Story (Supreme Court Justice 1811-1845) put it:

A power to lay taxes for any purposes whatsoever is a general power; a power to lay taxes for certain specified purposes is a limited power. A power to lay taxes for the common defence and general welfare of the United States is not in common sense a general power. It is limited to those objects. It cannot constitutionally transcend them. If the defence proposed by a tax be not the common defence of the United States, if the welfare be not general, but special, or local, as contradistinguished from national, it is not within the scope of the constitution. If the tax be not proposed for the common defence, or general welfare, but for other objects, wholly extraneous, (as for instance, for propagating Mahometanism among the Turks, or giving aids and subsidies to a foreign nation, to build palaces for its kings, or erect monuments to its heroes,) it would be wholly indefensible upon constitutional principles. The power, then, is, under such circumstances, necessarily a qualified power.

(2 Commentaries on the Constitution (1833) sec. 923.)

Jefferson also contended that:

For the laying of taxes is the power, and the general welfare the purpose for which the power is to be exercised. [Congress] are not to lay taxes ad libitum for any purpose they please; but only to pay the debts or provide for the welfare of the Union. In like manner, they are not to do anything they please to provide for the general welfare, but only to lay taxes for that purpose.

(Opinion on the Constitutionality of a National Bank, 15 February 1791 (italics omitted).)

That is a rather a bizarre argument: It amounts to saying that even if Congress has the power to lay and collect taxes for the general welfare, it does not have the power to spend for the general welfare the taxes which it has collected for the general welfare. What else is Congress supposed to do with those taxes once it has collected them? As Story observed, "if congress is authorized to lay taxes for such purposes, it would be strange, if, when raised, the money could not be applied to them. That would be to give a power for a certain end, and then deny the end intended by the power." (2 Commentaries on the Constitution, sec. 920.)

The Hamiltonian interpretation of the General Welfare Clause was officially adopted by a conservative Supreme Court in United States v. Butler, where the Court held that the General Welfare Clause is limited only by the qualification that "the powers of taxation and appropriation extend only to matters of national, as distinguished from local, welfare." (297 U.S. 1, 67 (1936).) That, of course, is what Hamilton had said -- that "the object to which an appropriation of money is to be made [must] be General and not local; its operation extending in fact, or by possibility, throughout the Union, and not being confined to a particular spot."

There are many people, of whom dgs appears to be one, who wish that Jefferson's view had prevailed. But it did not.

Moreover, the "discretion belongs to Congress" to determine what is in the general welfare, and the Supreme Court will reverse Congress only if "the choice is clearly wrong, a display of arbitrary power." (Helvering v. Davis, 301 U.S. 619, 640 (1937).) Again, that is what Hamilton had said: "It is therefore of necessity left to the discretion of the National Legislature, to pronounce, upon the objects, which concern the general Welfare, and for which under that description, an appropriation of money is requisite and proper."

And Congress evidently has never crossed that line, because "[n]o Taxing and Spending Clause statute has ever been invalidated because it did not serve the general welfare ...." (The Oxford Companion to the Supreme Court of the United States (2d ed. 2005) at p. 1005.) Your side lost the debate over the General Welfare Clause a long time ago. Live with it.

[Gob]

Gob

Have you really taken a good look at our parties?

And you want our president to be directly beholden to them?

LOL!! No arguing with that!

[rubato]

I know this is a tired, tired, tired subject, but it makes my toenails curl upward when I read Lefties' whines about tax "giveaways" to "The Rich."

The only good thing about reading rubato's vacuous rants on the subject is that they illustrate the upside-down world of the Left, where the purpose of the tax code is to promote "social justice" by taking money from The Rich and redistributing it to as many government teat-suckers as the Left can assemble.
... "

If you have an economic system, like ours, which permits a staggering differential in incomes then you have to justify that difference in reward on some basis, and you have to explain why those with the greatest capacity, when that capacity is 10 times, 100 times, those in the bottom 20%, do not also have an obligation which is proportional.

You hate people and think they are mostly like you: mean, selfish, vicious and the only way to make a viable society is to use as much punishment and suffering as you can employ.

I like people and think they are mostly like me: generally good and well-meaning with some lapses of judgement and only rarer and lesser and rarer punishments are necessary to curtail the few percent who are sociopathic and inspire the lazy to adequate efforts.




yrs,
rubato

[Econoline]

I did a little number crunching with the Tax Code a couple days ago and came up with some interesting comparisons. Taking a base case of a household with a taxable income of $50 thousand, that household pays $6,669 in FIT, a little over 13% of its taxable income.

Consider by comparison an executive with a household taxable income of $500 thousand. It pays $145,362 in FIT. So with 10 times more income, it pays 21 times more in tax. And according to the American Left, this is simply not enough. The more prosperous household is not paying its "fair" share, and is, in effect, stealing from the "less fortunate." Of course, we will not get into whether the more prosperous family is likely more "fortunate" or is more likely to have at least one person who has worked his or her ass off to reach that income level. I personally find the ubiquitous use of the words "fortunate" and "less fortunate" as inappropriate and insulting.

Comparing the baseline household to one with a $5.0MM taxable income, that family pays $1.7 million in FIT, and of course that's not anywhere near enough. 258 times as much as the baseline guy, but not enough to satisfy the Left.

According to your figures your baseline household has $43,331 left after taxes; the $500K household has $354,638 left. The $5.0M household has $3,300,000, and of course that's not anywhere near enough. 76 times as much as the baseline guy, but not enough to satisfy the wealthy. How much is "enough"?? For the truly greedy there is never enough.

Yet I know you think that $21,000 ($10/hr.) ought to be more than enough for others to live on.

[rubato]

Austan Goolsbee explains it all for you. Follow link and click on video.:

http://rortybomb.wordpress.com/2010/10/ ... -the-rich/

Borrowing $100,000 to give to each person making over $1,000,000 a year is bad policy.

yrs,
rubato

[Lord Jim]

FWIW, if those on the "left" don't feel their interests are being represented by Obama, why should they vote for him; must every vote be reduced to a "lesser of two evils" sum game? Is half a loaf (or a few crumbs) grudgingly tossed at you better than none? IMHO, not always. I think Obama has to reach out to his own party at least as much as he reaches out to the repubs

One big thing Obama's got going for him, is the fact that there are damn few lefties of sufficient stature to be able to mount even a semi-serious challenge against him for the nomination...Maybe Russ Feingold....

I wouldn't be a bit surprised if Kucinich ran again, but he doesn't even rise to the level of "semi" serious....Bernie Sanders is too old....(Maybe Al Franken will give it a shot...the libs go positively orgasmic over him....)

I would define "semi-serious" as a candidate who's capable of garnering 30% + in some primaries and gathering at least a few hundred delegates....

I would define "serious" as a challenger who was actually capable of winning some primaries and caucuses, and who would go into the convention with at least a third of the delegates....

[Big RR]

Even without a challenge, many on the left may just choose to stay home and not vote at all. Somehow I doubt the right would vote Obama back in--he needs that vote.

[Lord Jim]

If Obama is re-elected, I strongly suspect it will be by a much closer margin than last time...

He won't have any of the conservative support he had, (as I've pointed out before, Obama got the highest percentage of the Republican vote of any Democrat since Lyndon Johnson in 1964) the youth vote won't turn out for him in the numbers they did in 2008, and most importantly he won't get anywhere near the percentage of the independent vote he received. If on top of this, a lot of reliably Democratic voters stay home, he's in serious trouble...

This is the downside to trying to be all things to all people, (or at least most things to most people) that worked so well for him the last time that he was able to put together a coalition of support from Chris Buckley to Michael Moore...

When you play it that way, it's very easy to wind up pleasing no one...