Posts Made By: James Lacey

Originally Posted by Richard Davis

Yeah, where are they Forrest?  Do those have Trump's signature giving them an order to cover up the name?  

As usual, you are trading in straw-man arguments, because I never even remotely suggested they had evidence that Trump ordered it.

We also have plenty of reporting that corroborates the original reporting. Even the US Navy has confirmed that the White House requested that the USS McCain be kept out of sight during his visit.

Originally Posted by Richard Davis

Great, then I'm glad you admit that none of this was Trump's ordering, nor his fault.

End of Story, PERFECT!!  

No. Not end of the story since it's utterly unfathomable that the White House Staff feels compelled to take such actions to prevent the snow-flake in Chief from having a temper tantrum. It is his fault in the sense that his irrational and chaotic behavior compels what I assume would otherwise be rational adults to have to take measures usually reserved for toddlers and kindergarteners. This amoral and dumb TV reality show host and shady real estate developer with the economic, financial, and political awareness of a four-year-old by all available evidence is entirely unqualified to be the POTUS.

Originally Posted by Richard Davis

Suck on this for awhile.  

You in the meantime can suck on this. The only thing keeping the Democratic-controlled House from impeaching Trump right now is that they couldn't get a conviction in the Senate. If the Republicans lose control of the Senate, and Trump does win re-election, then he will be impeached immediately. If Trump loses re-election, later he may well likely be indicted as soon as he leaves the office. If continuing congressional oversight uncovers anything of consequence that changes the political calculus of impeachment in the Senate, Trump will be impeached immediately.


Listen to Mueller's words carefully; If we had had confidence that the president did not commit a crime, we would have said so. Under longstanding department policy, a president cannot be charged with a federal crime while he is in office. The Constitution requires a process other than the criminal justice system to accuse a sitting president of wrongdoing formally.


The only people that think Trump did not commit obstruction of justice are his apologists and sycophants. Mueller's report lays out a persistent effort by Trump to obstruct the Russian election interference investigation because it put him personally at risk. Those are the facts, regardless of what Barr says or how Hannity and Carlson spin it.

Originally Posted by David Cotterell

Too bad Ronald Reagan and his mates weren't in on the joke.  But, hey, let's keep pushing for the massive re-distribution of wealth - UPWARD - and hope that a crumb or two will make it down to the lady who puts mints on the pillows in your fancy hotel...

https://psmag.com/economics/trickle-down-economics-is-indeed-a-joke?fbclid=IwAR2swOl23CruoUE1WDgwWvwgEIC02TIsgJw8CGka42J7Je7ZkL27uzJcGsI

Dave

It's even worse than this. The Congressional Research Service recently released a report that confirms what many of us have suspected, that is, "President Donald Trump’s signature tax code overhaul has not generated any meaningful new economic growth that wasn’t already underway, the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service (CRS) has found." Undoubtedly, someone will show up and shoot the messenger, but the CRS is a non-partisan public policy research arm of the US Congress that works for the Congress. Their entire reason for existence is to create meaningfully unbiased research on public policy that the Congress can then use to make informed decisions. The Republican tax cut was, in fact, a give away to the wealthy. For example, while the average corporate tax rate fell from 24% to 12%, the individual tax rate only fell from 9.6% to 9.2%. Full report here: https://www.everycrsreport.com/reports/R45736.html

Originally Posted by Rod Kaufman

After following these reports as well as previous ones from the CBO, the GOP response remains the same. That is, unless it supports them on the issues, it's always biased, political, partisan, ignoring the facts, not looking at the whole picture, etc, etc. Then, when confronted with reality, such as the time Mitch McConnell realized the reports were, in fact, accurate and the tax cuts were not going to pays for themselves, his response to that news was it's "disappointing". In the meantime. we're all screwed because they won't acknowledge the reports...

When FDR first took office, one of the first things he did was resolve the banking crisis. Not only had the banks failed due to a lack of regulation that allowed them to over-leverage themselves in risky and speculative investments, but the public at large had also lost all confidence in the banks. In a rather amazing feat, FDR used executive power to shut down all the banks and then slowly reopened them based on their solvency and pursued a vigorous public relations campaign to restore public confidence in the banks. It worked, and no sooner was the banking crisis resolved than a vocal minority, those at the apex of the pyramid of wealth, of course, began crying out that no more regulation should be allowed until after recovery progressed. Why? Because they believed that now that the banks were saved, prosperity would "trickle down" to the masses. I kid you not. This "trickle down" malarky is the exact argument used in 1933 at the height of the depression to oppose the formation of the FDIC, the SEC and passage of the Glass-Stegall act. Sometimes, I don't think things have changed very much.

Originally Posted by Greg Shaffer

Thanks for that link....an interesting read for sure, it appears the left has been painting pictures with the brush of inaccuracy for longer than all of us have been alive, a LOT longer.

This kind of political attack, misrepresenting your opponent's actual position, is hardly the monopoly of the left. As an aside, the etymology of "trickle down" goes back way before Reagan. I would even argue that it's now a phrase that is commonly used to describe any "supply-side" economics and that its use in a non-pejorative fashion is not uncommon even among "supply-side" proponents.

Originally Posted by James Brown

Hi James:

True of course.  Earlier in this thread you mentioned that, "The Republican tax cut was, in fact, a give away to the wealthy. For example, while the average corporate tax rate fell from 24% to 12%, the individual tax rate only fell from 9.6% to 9.2%. Full report here..."  That is a complex sentence, and I want to make sure that I am not misinterpreting your point.  The corporate tax cut will help the wealthy, the middle class and the poor as well, assuming that folks of all economic classes are working for corporations, and in the case of the middle class, investing in a 401k that uses date of retirement funds, index funds and the like, and in the case of everyone enjoying a growing economy.  Therefore, I see the corporate tax rate cut being a winner for all economic classes, not just the rich. 

I certainly wish my individual rate were 9.6% or 9.2%!  Since it is not, maybe I did get a bigger tax break than my neighbor, but still I pay a lot of taxes.  These discussions of rate structure would be best carried out under the recognition that a progressive rate tax system can be tuned to optimize this or that desired result, with more or less hope of predictable economic results.   That is not the angle folks such as David'e initial "Joke" author take though!  They see everything through the lens of class warfare.

Jim

The average individual effective tax rate of the whole nation fell from 9.6% to 9.2% is my understanding. Of course, you and I personally pay a much higher effective tax rate. The point is I suppose is that on average, individual effective tax rates hardly budged, whereas corporate effective tax rates fell precipitously.

According to the report, the corporate tax cuts didn't cause an increase in economic output. They didn't result in a rise in worker benefit. They didn't increase real wages for ordinary workers; they didn't repatriate income held abroad, and they didn't reduce the number of US companies moving overseas. All things the corporate tax cuts were supposed to accomplish. In fact, from what I can tell, the corporate tax cuts barely budged any economic indicator of consequence that would have resulted in them being a winner for all economic classes. The only odd thing I saw was that investment was up, but for some reason, it didn't translate into more economic output. Even the report did not have an explanation for this.

I think the more significant point is that it's just not right that tax cuts are always good. Even I concede that given the particular circumstances of an economy, there are times that tax cuts make sense, but apparently, that was not the case with the 2017 tax cuts.

Originally Posted by Rod Kaufman

The tariffs amount to another tax on consumers, albeit a sales tax on affected commodities, since the cost is passed onto Americans buying the products. 

The tariffs almost certainly hurt growth, but my understanding is that it's an almost impossible thing to measure.

Despite all the dubious economic claims made by supporters of the tax cuts and supply-side proponents, the CRS report makes it pretty clear that the 2017 tax cuts did not pay for themselves; they did not result in growth, and the middle-class were not the primary beneficiaries.

Originally Posted by Richard Davis

But you just said "it is a certainty that they hurt economic growth"

Well how can you be CERTAIN if it is IMPOSSIBLE to measure??

The same way I'm certain that the Universe is very large, but I don't know if it's infinitely large.

Originally Posted by Richard Davis

I just wanted to point out how contradictory your very first sentences were and how they didn't make any logical sense whatsoever.

Of course, they make sense; it's just that you insist on finding something, anything, to harp on and beat on ad nauseam. It's beyond tedious, dull and tiresome, but as Jim said, it's what you do. Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, and Richard has to be abusive and toxic repeatedly.