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Pastimes : Discussion Thread -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: one_less who wrote (390)	6/13/2008 3:05:07 PM
From: Giordano Bruno	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3816

How dare you. -g-

To: one_less who wrote (390)	6/13/2008 4:27:00 PM
From: TimF	Respond to of 3816

think, is the audacity to wake up. In order for the right wing to succeed in its reactionary agenda, the American public had to agree with it. "Reactionary" is a word that sheds more heat than light. If something is conservative, and is at all similar to something from the past, and the speaker doesn't like the thing, it is called "reactionary", its more an attack word than a useful description. To the extent it has any actual meaning at all, its a stretch to call most conservatives ideas and policy ideas "reactionary". On the surface it wouldn't seem that people could agree to freeze their incomes, give tax breaks to the least deserving, amass a huge national debt, ignore the rising cost of health care, and various other aspects of the right-wing agenda. None of those things are part of the right-wing agenda by any reasonable definition of the right wing in the US. Of course Chopra and I might not agree on who is the least deserving. Personally I think the government is, the least deserving, while Chopra apparently thinks all wealth properly belongs to the government so any reduction in what you send is a handout from the government. While working hard, taking risks, and achieving a high income, means you are "the least deserving". Another point is that the reductions in the headline marginal rate often do not mean reductions in the amount of tax paid. Because 1 - Real incomes grow over time, so you pay more even with a lower rate. 2 - Bracket creep - Inflation increases the nominal dollar amount of the same real income pushing people in to higher brackets, or even when your marginal dollar doesn't go in to the next bracket a larger percentage of your income gets paid at the highest rate you where paying before. 3 - AMT, and general lost of loopholes. 4 - Lower marginal rates decrease the incentive to shelter and defer income (both legally and illegally). freeze their incomes Incomes have not been frozen. Also to the extent there is any reason to be concerned about incomes for some or all not growing as fast as we want them to, increased taxes, regulation, and protectionism that we see advocated from the left only increases the reason for concern. amass a huge national debt In comparison to the size of our economy, "large" is more appropriate than "huge". Not that such a large national debt is a good thing, but perspective is nice. Also we have a national debt because we are spending so much. Many "right wing" people would like less spending. Also the largest part of that spending consists of programs pushed through by Democrats. ignore the rising cost of health care Fighting against a government take over of the insurance industry or price controls on drugs, hardly amounts to ignoring the rising cost of health care. As for government subsidies to try to make more people insured, that will most likely have the effect of increasing the price of treatments and to a greater extent the overall amount spent on health care. And while we spend more we get more for our spending. Certain types of heavy handed interference in the medical or medical insurance markets could drive down prices, but mainly by giving us less health care (at least less in quality and quantity than we would otherwise receive in the future, if not less than we currently receive). To offer their agreement, the public had to vote against its own interest No, they had to vote against Chopra's opinion of their interest. The two are not the same thing. President Bush went on to pass the least compassionate Its probably a poor idea to try to measure compassion by the amount of social spending, but I imagine in other circumstances Chopra would do so, at least many liberals would. Well if you measure it that way Bush is the most "compassionate" president ever because social spending, in real terms, is higher than ever. Even if you only count the percentage increase, than Bush is one of the most "compassionate". and a troubled Social Security system do have real, workable solutions that can be implemented if we don't postpone them much longer But most liberals oppose real workable solutions to the problems with social security.