Obama the Pragmatic Moderate
 

That is the opinion of a writer from the American Enterprise Institute - not exactly known as a left wing think tank. Actually, it frightens me to be thinking along the same lines as someone from the AEI. I guess that's just what happens to pragmatic thinkers.

Here is the link:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...d=opinionsbox1

Regards,

D-Ray

Thanks, Don. I passed it on to all of my folks. Most of them will hate me for it. Fuck'em, I couldn't care less.

Dave

Concur.

Now do you believe me?:rolleyes:

I read that article yesterday and was thinking Norm Ornstein is now going to have to watch his back. His truth-telling doesn't square with the narrative the GOP has been spouting. It's probably time for another excommunication (a la David Frum).

Tough to read. The rhetoric has gotten pretty bad. He sure manages it well I think, but they're so out of control and have so many media mouth pieces they may be too much to stop. I'm really afraid for the country if these people ever actually get what they say they want.

Most prosperous country in the world, with more liberty than anyone, lower taxes than most Western nations and there are thousands of people marching on Washington with a vailed threat of armed isurrection. The people behind these messages know what they're doing, but the people on the ground are taking them at their word. They really believe they're over taxed and their freedom is at stake.

And what freedom exactly is it they've lost? Well, some of their personal privacy I guess, but that's not Obama's doing. I'm not clear if they can still be held without being charged as they could under the previous administration, but again, can't lay that at Obama's feet. What significat program do they want eliminated? Millitary spending? I don't see signs for that, even though it would be the easiest place to cut spending in a massive way. Social Security? You'd have to change the law to cut it, but I don't see the signs for that either. I hope they run a Republican on a "Kill Social Security" platform but I know I won't see that. Medicade/Medicare? Well, same thing.

So there's the bulk of the budget. If we killed everything else it wouldn't make a huge difference in anyone's tax burden. So what is it they want exactly? As they march past the monuments and memorials, what is it they want to change?

The questions that will never be answered. Because there are no good answers. They're just angry because someone told them to be angry but never explained why. Reagan told them that taxes were too high. Maybe they were. But they were lowered again and again. What other country has done a better job? If there's an example out there I'd love to explore how they're doing it and what we can learn from them. But I don't see them holding up any example.

As I've said before, I think America is a dang good place to live. Feel like I won the lottery being born here. Should we continue to srtive to make things better? Sure- and the health care reform legislation is a great start. But wholesale changes to America? No thank you. I'm good. The only big thing I'd like to see change is the preception of our great nation in some corners of the world. And yes, I think Obama is a better person to take that on than we've had in a while.

Good post, Ed. This "overtaxed" notion is, at least in part, an outgrowth of the "Starve the Beast" ideology put forth by His Holiness, Ronald Reagan. Cut revenue flow to government (i.e., taxes) and government programs/expenditures will be forced to shrink. They figured out the first part (cutting taxes), but never even tried the second (reducing spending). What resulted is a widely held belief that we can have all the government we want, but we don't need to pay for it.

The "poster child" pork projects (e.g., bridges to nowhere) have helped perpetuate the myth that tinkering around the edges on government spending will get us where we need to go in terms of fiscal responsibility. As fiscally irresponsible as the Dem's are, they are paragons of virtue and truth when compared to the perpetrators of the big lie being foisted upon the unwashed masses (e.g., the Tea Partiers).

If you want to eliminate an outdated or failed arms system you are weak on defense. However, if you want to eliminate social security, you campaign on "improving" it by privatizing it, and allow Wall Street to get its cut while SS slowly dies. Besides, the rich don't want to change the way SS is funded. The SS tax is the most regressive we have. Not only do all of the lower income earners pay at the same level, the richest only pay on a portion of their income.

What the article didn't really address is that much of the misinformation about Obama sticks because he does not fit the profile of a moderate leader. It's easy to play on even latent prejudices to label a black man as someone outside of the norm. I am not saying that all who disagree with the President do so because of his race, or that even a majority do. I do believe, however, that people are more willing to accept slander against one different from themselves.

Regards,

D-Ray

Completely agree with your post. Might be time to give Congress their check book back. The collection folks are calling.

How much is enough?

Pete

Wiki.

Pete, don't you think that chart is missing a lot of information that would be needed to make any decisions? Population? Inflation? What can you buy today for the price you would have paid in 1934? How on earth could we opperate the government at 1934 levels? I just think popping up that chart is misleading. There's almost certainly a similar chart for average income.

Agreed BUT keep in mind that because taxes are based on percentages they generally rise with inflation.

Pete

Well that's my point. That's what that chart shows.

Here is a little factoid for y'all. Back when Mike Pearson started the SinglePayer plan Canadians and Americans were statistically equal. Same life expectancy, same infant death rate, same prevalence of heart attacks.

Now the Canadians have a six year advantage on life expectancy, half the infant death rate, and much lower rate of heart attacks. Hey, if that is socialism I'll take it.:p

Yeah, but, that's all a big lie as is evidenced by all of the MILLIONS of Canadians cloggoing up hospital waiting rooms all across America.:rolleyes:

Dave

So if the fed income is indeed par with income, why o why do they need a GREATER percentage?

Pete

Again, we don't have enough information here to say much other than things go up. There's no population information here, no spending per-capita information, no notation of when major programs went into effect and no accounting for military spending. In 1935 spending on the Air Force was zero. We didn't have one. So are you suggesting we should disolve the Air Force? Show me in the Constitution where it says the government can create an Air Force.

Technology advances and things cost money- things that we need to be a developed nation. What did we spend on highways in 1935? Should we get rid of the highway system? Why should I pay so Wal Mart can move goods across the country? How's your GPS working for you? Why should I have to pay for the technology that launces satellites? Before probably the 1980s no government offices had computers. They don't give those things away. Should we eliminate all computerized systems from the government? I guess that would include the internet. Get rid of that too? It would save tax dollars. Deliver mail by horse back. Why do I now have to pay for vehicles and fuel? They didn't have to in 1935.

But what would be the *cost* to the American economy if all of those things were eliminated? Would any major corporation establish headquarters in a country with no state sponsored infrastructure? No roads, bridges, internet, national security, satellite comunication, postal system, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. You want to visit from abroad for a face to face about a project? Sure- take a boat. We have no airports here. Then buy a Horse and ride across country because we have no highway system. Am I being absurd? I don't think so. I hear no recognition from the Tea Party folks that we need *any* taxes at all and no specific direction as to where our spending should be cut.

You know what we would have? Afghanistan. Yeah, it all costs money. But thank God we collect taxes and provide appropriate services. If we didn't it wouldn't be much of a place to live and we sure wouldn't have the economic base to keep everyone living so well.

And yes, health care is one of those deals. Why run my company in the U.S. where I have to pay for my employee's health coverage when I can set up shop in Europe or Canada and have the government pick up the tab? You think it's just a fluke that they build a lot of "American" cars north of the border?

And if i need some specialized software developed for my company, why do the job with a Silicon Valley company for more money when I can get it from a French company for less. Those California guys have to pick up the tab for health care and the French guys don't.

This Tea Party nonsense is going to drive us into the stone age.

Here in Colorado, the city of Colorado Springs is so short on cash they're no longer maintaining many of their parks and turning off the street lights. No street lights? Is that the country we want to live in? We're so greedy we're affraid some poor person will have a lighted street at our expense? But they are allowing people to "adopt" street lights, so the wealthy neighborhoods will still have them. It's getting insane.

Actually, the highest marginal tax rate now is considerably lower than in the "good old days." Extracted from an article cited on another thread:

"Between 1913, the first year that the income tax became constitutional, and 1981, the first year of the Reagan presidency, the highest federal marginal income tax rate was, on average, 68 percent ... and today the highest marginal tax rate is only 35 percent."

I thought the argument was federal programs like the highway system generated growth?

Anyway how about government spending as a percentage of GDP.

Pete

PS the US in 1800 wasn't much like Afghanistan.

Am I missing something? That looks pretty flat Pete.

Yeah there's big problems with that chart, need to find one in the CBOs site. Almost certainly to do with social securitys ripoff of the century. No time for digging, will be back ;)

Pete

On the graph you provided, you'll note that the biggest differences between revenue and expenditure (deficit as % of GDP) since WWII occurred during Reagan and Dubya and the least during Clinton (this defies conventional wisdom, n'est ce pas?).

Also, FWIW the deficit as a percentage of GDP appears to be a glide path for improvement under Obama (after he fixes Dubya's mess). On this last point, however, I'll have to see it to believe it.:rolleyes:

We need to subtract the ious for ss.

Pete

So why get on the case of SS when any shortfall it might have is entirely dependent on Congress stealing from it? I paid enough into it Lord know, I was just fortunate enough to have worked the required number of months, else all I put in would have been for nowt. Oh yeah, the BS about it being for your golden years at a lower taxe rate? Well Dubya's minions insisted that I take it at 65 so I paid the IRS 35% of it until I retired at 73. What they do with all that tax, pissed it up against the wall in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Back on topic, I feel that if Obama is a moderate it is due to his situation more than his choice.

Pragmatic, he does seem to have a grasp on what he can manage to accomplish.

Chas

I'm not slamming ss for it, it's all Congress. What a giant scam, if we ever needed proof we're all a bunch of idiots...

Pete

Well, they want to go back to "The Good Ol' Days", which were...........................:rolleyes:

Dave

Clinton and Carter? ;)

Or Johnson and Roosevelt :eek:

Pete

Given their mindset most likely Hoover.:rolleyes:

The "Gilded Age". You know. When a man could build a railroad using "coolie" labor(1), run his trains on coal mined under the gun(2) to carry goods manufactured in sweatshops, by children(3). You know, the days before all of those pesky "progressive" labor laws that cramp a capitalists style and curtail his Constitutional right to the biggest asshole he can be. Before evil people like Teddy Roosevelt, Eleanor Roosevelt and John L. Lewis came along and ruined all of the fun.

Those "Good ole Days".:rolleyes:

Regards,
Dave

(1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coolie

(2) http://www.du.edu/ludlow/cfphoto.html

(3) http://www2.needham.k12.ma.us/nhs/cu...hildlabor.html

In the avatar are striking workers, seen on the right with American flags, facing National Guard bayonettes.
Lawrence Textile Strike, 1912. One of the bloodiest affairs in U.S. Labor history.

Unfettered capitalism. You must be a Socialist with all that talk of "children shouldn't work in sweat shops".

Well, but doesn't this kinda reach for the heart of things, Ed?
I mean, when Beck runs his mouth about getting back to the way things were before the dreaded "progressive era", isn't this what he's talking about?

Dave

Recessive . .regressive . . it's just not cool man. Would Cheech & Chong have a chance today?

Seriously, if the guy has a problem with the accomplishments of progressives - how ever long most of them took - something like fifty years for health care - he is promoting a regressive policy. I doubt that he would want to undo the changes in the cable television industry, where a doofus like him can rake in 35 million dollars telling lies. Can you watch him without thinking of the "Church Lady" from SNL?

Regards,

D-Ray

Small tale; when we bought the land here the couple was undergoing a divorce and we could not get both of them in the same room. So when after much delay we got to closing with their lawyer. I happened to mention "Thank God for laws against child labour" Forgotten the context but I do remember the look on the lawyer's face when he said "What is wrong with child labour".