Wake up: the American Dream is over

[vidcc]

Speaking of theories, why do you suppose that, it having been conclusively proven that proper tax cuts result in increased revenues, liberals still "theorize" that raising taxes is the only fix for the deficit?

Firstly where has anything been proven conclusively. More tax revenue is generated though a growing economy. This happened under higher and lower tax administrations.
Secondly you seem to be confusing actual theories with spin as to those theories....you collect revenue to pay for things. Now you may think that liberals want to pay for too many things but that is completely different from collecting revenue to reduce a deficit...a conservative created deficit at that which thirdly, has been created by lowering tax while still spending, a conservative tactic that seems designed to bankrupt the government and thereby justifying draconian cuts in the social programs they hate so much. How else can the removal of "pay as you go" be explained?
Reagans cuts ran up huge deficits and so have the bush 2 era cuts.
Liberals do not want to raise tax, they want to balance the budget and are against lowering tax unless the budget can be balanced.

It is a well known fact that the more money made available to the government, the more it will spend.

Have you any non-theoretical ideas to refute that?

yet it seems your boys and girls in office right now are spending money they don't have.

You seem to be ignoring stealth tax increases under this lot as well

[Busyman™]

Firstly where has anything been proven conclusively. More tax revenue is generated though a growing economy. This happened under higher and lower tax administrations.
Secondly you seem to be confusing actual theories with spin as to those theories....you collect revenue to pay for things. Now you may think that liberals want to pay for too many things but that is completely different from collecting revenue to reduce a deficit...a conservative created deficit at that which thirdly, has been created by lowering tax while still spending, a conservative tactic that seems designed to bankrupt the government and thereby justifying draconian cuts in the social programs they hate so much. How else can the removal of "pay as you go" be explained?
Reagans cuts ran up huge deficits and so have the bush 2 era cuts.
Liberals do not want to raise tax, they want to balance the budget and are against lowering tax unless the budget can be balanced.

It is a well known fact that the more money made available to the government, the more it will spend.

Have you any non-theoretical ideas to refute that?

yet it seems your boys and girls in office right now are spending money they don't have.

You seem to be ignoring stealth tax increases under this lot as well

OUCH!!!

[vidcc]

A thing that also seems to be ignored is that removing the minimum wage, thus lowering the wages for those already on it has the knock on effect of increasing the burdon on the tax payer for things like the healthcare they will be able to afford even less.

Of course conservatives don't believe in government involvement in healthcare....

[lynx]

I see 3 major flaws in the Jane Galt piece. I won't bother quoting the whole piece, you can scroll up the page and read it as originally posted.

On April 1, 1992 New Jersey's minimum wage increased from $4.25 to $5.05 per hour.
.
.
Relative to stores in Pennsylvania, fast food restaurants in New Jersey increased employment by 13 percent.
.
.
No one has posited any plausible reason (yes they have, it just depends on who decides what is plausible) that an employer whose wage bill has just gone up would respond by . . . taking on more, now more expensive, workers. Without such a mechanism. . . and colour me suspicious that we will find one . . . we are left with two possibilities:
1) There is some other effect, such as a boom in New Jersey's fast food sector, that masked the employment drop
2) There's something wrong with the data.
3) Poor people are disproportionately likely to shop at places that pay minimum wage, now they have more to spend so sales rise.

Number 1 seems possible, and number 2 seems very likely, because they relied on survey data, and surveys are notoriously unreliable. Just ask the folks at (hang on, I'll just find something completely irrelevant) Coca-Cola, who did the most extensive surveys in history, and unveiled "New Coke" only after every single study had reported that consumers overwhelmingly favoured the new taste. A later study (read: unreliable survey) using more-reliable payroll data (but funded by the retail/restaurant industry (who, of course, don't have any interest in the ourcome), and involving a smaller data set (smaller because it excluded data which didn't fit the required model?)) found the effect you'd expect (read: we want you to believe): minimum wage employment in New Jersey went down compared to Pennsylvania. Other criticisms of the study's methodology helped to seriously weaken their assertion that there was no measurable employment effect. Most of the studies that have been done in the past have tended to reinforce the economic conventional wisdom.

Don't like the result of one survey, just do another until you get the results you want.

* A disproportionate share of minimum wage workers are teenagers and most do not live in poor families.

* A sizable portion of minimum wage workers are poor parents.

* Negative employment effects, if any, appear to be slight and are difficult to detect.

* Minimum wages curb employer-provided training opportunities for low-wage workers and may reduce educational attainment for some at-risk groups.

* Moderate minimum wage increases will not reduce poverty rates.

Pay close attention to that second-to-last point.

Ok, since it's so important let's have a close look at it. Low wage employers are unlikely to provide more than minimal training in the first place, enforcing a minimum wage isn't going to stop them from providing training that aren't giving. Similarly with any other "workplace benefits". If they are not mandatary they aren't likely to exist so it's difficult to see how they are going to be withdrawn.

But employers can just raise prices! say advocates. (Do they? I doubt that very much.) Mmmm, yes . . . unless there are substitutes for their product. McDonalds competes with frozen dinners and 7-11 burritos and Kraft Mac n' Cheese; The Gap competes with the J Crew catalogue. No, McDonalds won't shut its doors, but it doesn't have to in order to reduce employment; if 15% of its customers defect to cheaper alternatives, it will need fewer burger-flippers and order-takers. There's also the fact that workers complete with labour-saving equipment, which may become cost-effective if wages skyrocket. Plus, since poor people are disproportionately likely to shop at places that pay minimum wage, including fast-food outlets, the higher prices often come out of their pockets.

Hang on, prices can't rise because of competition, but these higher prices are going to affect the poor? What higher prices? Did prices rise in New Jersey? I doubt that otherwise it would have been up there in headlines. Of course, that little tidbit is allowed to slip because (once again) it doesn't fit the required model.


Having read some of her other weird ideas I'm not surprised her theories here are such a mess.

[j2k4]

It is a well known fact that the more money made available to the government, the more it will spend.

Have you any non-theoretical ideas to refute that?

yet it seems your boys and girls in office right now are spending money they don't have.

You seem to be ignoring stealth tax increases under this lot as well

You know what I really cannot abide?

The ignorance the two of you display (you and Busyman) when you make such an assertion and he seconds it, both of you overlooking the misgivings I have expressed with Republican spendthrifts elsewhere in this forum, at other times, and then pounce on a quote that doesn't even distinguish between the two political parties.

As you both are well aware, I have no difficulty calling a spade a spade, and if I felt it beneficial to lay our current and ongoing spending woes at the doorstep of the liberals, I would have done so.

Lynx-

Your objections/exceptions are weak opinions, nothing more.

You ascribe your perceptions to faulty data without backing it up, possibly because you'd have to cut-and-paste or provide a link like vid and I have; subsequent posting has had the effect and purpose of denigrating the respective worth of such tactics as a means of conducting our little debate, which is ironic, as the liberal/socialist wing of this forum is absolutely reliant on links, etc., to backstop their proffers, but somehow this same tactic is viewed as a flaw in the ideological cloth when practiced by yours truly.

I've always wondered why that is.

Not really; I know exactly why.

[vidcc]

You know what I really cannot abide?

The ignorance the two of you display (you and Busyman) when you make such an assertion and he seconds it, both of you overlooking the misgivings I have expressed with Republican spendthrifts elsewhere in this forum, at other times, and then pounce on a quote that doesn't even distinguish between the two political parties.

As you both are well aware, I have no difficulty calling a spade a spade, and if I felt it beneficial to lay our current and ongoing spending woes at the doorstep of the liberals, I would have done so.

SO you didn't have a pop at liberals in the post I was responding to

Speaking of theories, why do you suppose that, it having been conclusively proven that proper tax cuts result in increased revenues, liberals still "theorize" that raising taxes is the only fix for the deficit?

you know what I can't abide?

the way you take half a post and ignore the rest pouncing on just a couple of sentences, often totally ignoring any questions directed specifically at you or posing different questions to sidestep

As to Busys posting habits he is alone on that.


And you wonder why people accuse you of being "sensitive"



3 rolleyes in one post

You ascribe your perceptions to faulty data without backing it up

Prove it is faulty....back up what you say

[j2k4]

SO you didn't have a pop at liberals in the post I was responding to

Speaking of theories, why do you suppose that, it having been conclusively proven that proper tax cuts result in increased revenues, liberals still "theorize" that raising taxes is the only fix for the deficit?

Excuse me, but that was not part of your quote, and that which you now choose to quote has only to do with the liberal's view of "reasons" to raise taxes.

you know what I can't abide?

the way you take half a post and ignore the rest pouncing on just a couple of sentences, often totally ignoring any questions directed specifically at you or posing different questions to sidestep


If the rest of your post was sensible, I would have responded.

You ascribe your perceptions to faulty data without backing it up

Prove it is faulty....back up what you say

Unbelievable.

My pique was at lynx's presumption that "Jane Galt's" conclusions were somehow incorrect, or faulty.

I was asking him to "back it up".

Right thought, wrong member, sir...

[lynx]

Strange that you quote Jane Galt, but don't expect her to provide facts and figures to back up her case, but you expect the rest of us to accept it.

Since you introduced the "evidence" first, I simply say - after you.

[vidcc]

Excuse me, but that was not part of your quote, and that which you now choose to quote has only to do with the liberal's view of "reasons" to raise taxes.

It was all part of the same quote...allow me to quote the whole thing together

Speaking of theories, why do you suppose that, it having been conclusively proven that proper tax cuts result in increased revenues, liberals still "theorize" that raising taxes is the only fix for the deficit?

It is a well known fact that the more money made available to the government, the more it will spend.

Have you any non-theoretical ideas to refute that?

now i may have split it up to deal specifically with why revenues are raised but it was a quote from the same post. You may have started a new paragraph but still in the same post and right after you made the misleading dig at liberal tax policy...looks suggestively connected to me subliminal message.... I'm sure you are Karl Roves chief advisor.

Unbelievable.

My pique was at lynx's presumption that "Jane Galt's" conclusions were somehow incorrect, or faulty.

I was asking him to "back it up".

Right thought, wrong member, sir...

...but you did mentioned me personally and I think he has a point, so I am asking you to prove he has faulty data... He seemed to be mostly getting his data from Galts own article pointing out she counters her own statements.

[lynx]

He seemed to be mostly getting his data from Galts own article pointing out she counters her own statements.

I was saving that bit for later.