And posters seem to have such trouble staying on-topic, and following arguments to their logical conclusions, ending either at consensus, disagreement on the veracity of supporting evidence, or, as I believe is often the case, resolution to an axiomatic difference in the authors’ fundamental views on human nature.

Since this thread got distracted towards economics, I will paraphrase Henry Hazlitt from “Economics in One Lesson” as follows: Economics is the study of long term effects to all groups, not just short-term effects, and not only to sub-groups. Often the reason “the right” and “the left” disagree about economic policy is that they are considering different time-scales, or one or both are failing to include certain groups in their analysis of costs and benefits.

With respect to increasing or decreasing taxation rates causing increasing or decreasing tax revenues, clearly at each extreme of 0% and 100%, revenues are zero, unless we intend to re-establish slavery as a government-sanctioned taxation policy. And we should give credit to Laffer, who first noticed and analyzed this effect. Yes, there is a sweet spot, if one considers the maximization of the government’s share of individuals’ productive capacity “sweet”, and no, we will never know whether we are to the left or right of it, except through experimentation.

I will never forget the uneasy feeling I developed when, as I expressed my distaste with the levels of debt and annual deficit my Canadian government was running on my behalf to one of my brothers-in-law, a respected and high-ranking policy wonk in Canada, he let me know how things really worked. “We can run deficits forever!” he proclaimed, “Provided the rate of growth of debt remains smaller than the rate of growth of GDP, the debt just gets smaller and smaller, relatively speaking, until it is an insignificant percentage, and no longer really matters.”

On the surface, it sounds ok. But implicit and necessary in this model is either continuous *real* growth in GDP, or inflation, ie depreciation of the currency in which the debt is denominated, or some combination of the two that “delivers the goods”.

Well, inflation is certainly a pernicious evil, as it hides information normally delivered through stable prices, and lulls the poor into thinking they are better off than they really are, and it erodes the capital of the rich as well. And we must ask: how sustainable is *continuous* growth, which this view requires? I know it does not work well for bacteria in a Petri dish, are we that different here on Earth?

Government debt IS EVIL, there is no question in my mind, and here I think I agree with lolife. Note that I do not preclude the desirability of committing one act of evil in order to stop another, larger evil. I think the funding and outcome of WWII might well fall into this category. Continuous borrowing by a government on behalf of its citizens does not.

But deficit/GDP and debt/GDP ratios are better metrics of a government’s fiscal performance than simple annual accounts, and here I must agree with micadelic.

If I get a chance I will respond to your initial post on this thread, lolife, as the whole sane/insane thing has captured my interest, and I think there is still fertile ground to be ploughed there, without resorting to name-calling and invective…

thank you
b2b

There are some facts here and I think they make you uncomfortable: No Republican president since JFK has ever paid down the debt. I say “since JFK” because prior to that we had NO debt.

The Democrats are to blame, too, but that you guys try to protect Reagan, Bush and Bush is just stupid. You think fiscal conservative means someone who cuts taxes and that is completely wrong.

I’ll go get the figures if you really want me to embarrass you and expose your ignorance in this area but what we are basically comparing is a person (say Bill Clinton) who has an income of X and has a debt of about 65% of X and there’s another person (say George Bush) who has an income of about 1.5X and has a debt that’s about 61% of his income. N

Now, one person has a larger total debt, but which one is more fiscally responsible? It’s real easy to figure out but if you don’t know the answer, remind me not to take any financial advise from you.

I’ll grant you that it would be nice if we did a better job of paying down the debt in light of the fantastic economy we’ve all enjoyed up until recent months. An economy that has prospered because of the economic policies of this administration, mind you. But you can’t really indict my guy without being equally critical of Blue-Dress Billy as their record on debt vs. GDP is pretty similar although Bush’s record is a little better. But don’t let the facts get in the way of your feelings.

Oh yeah, as I said we are fighting an expensive, but totally necessary and extremely successful war on Islamic fucktards.

Tell me you are joking.

If we make the same amount of money and you have 3 times your annual income in debt and I have no debt, who is the fiscal conservative? Why are so-called conservatives constantly suggesting that the person with 3 times their annual income in debt is the smart one?

We pay more interest every year on the national debt than we spend on the Iraq war.

Oh, but don’t listen to me! I’m just a stoopid liberal who doesn’t understand economics.

enslaving generations of low income people to the nanny welfare state has really worked great for the last 50 years, hasn’t it. there;s almost no poor people now.

right.

but at least they’re all fat, happy and have color tvs, cars and cell phones.

Well obviously we should eliminate taxes entirely and then we’ll have infinite revenue, right? Right?

um, no. just lower them when they are to high.

that’s like me saying you just want to raise them until government gets all the money.

the ONLY reason, and you know this, that clinton benefited from a booming economy can be summed up in two words “technology bubble.”

clinton “balanced the budget” but as a percentage of GDP, the debt was higher.

just like i can carry more debt than a person that makes half as much as i do, an economy that produces more revenue can carry a higher debt in raw dollars. this is one of your insane liberal arguments that when you actually look at the facts, is baseless.

plus, we are conducting a justifiable, totally necessary war right now and wars are expensive.

For example… When you lower taxes, you increase tax receipts, it happens every time. If you want more money in the government coffers, lower taxes. I know it’s counter-intuitive but the facts are the facts. Why do you ignore it?

Well obviously we should eliminate taxes entirely and then we’ll have infinite revenue, right? Right?

The insanity of your argument becomes apparent. There is a “sweet spot”. Conservatives think — no matter what the tax rate is now, the sweet spot must be less taxes. Obviously that’s why Reagan, Bush and Bush ran surplus budgets. Oh wait, they didn’t!

Yes, I believe liberalism is a mental disorder. I don’t understand how liberals reconcile their thinking.

For example… When you lower taxes, you increase tax receipts, it happens every time. If you want more money in the government coffers, lower taxes. I know it’s counter-intuitive but the facts are the facts. Why do you ignore it?

You may raise money in the short term by raising taxes but the effects are always deleterious on the economy in the long run.

This leads me to believe that you just want to raise taxes to grow government and continue the march to socialism. Because if you actually wanted to increase tax receipts, you would lower taxes. JFK knew that but then again, he was a conservative, not a liberal.

And, in another post, you said that universal health care is fiscally conservative. Dude, that is laughable, and yes, insane.

Do you believe Michael Moore tripe about the health care system in Cuba? Health care in Cuba is free but guess what? It sucks ass. Next time you or someone in your family gets sick, why don’t you go to Cuba for some of that bitchin’ nationalized health care.

Better yet, go to Canada where they probably at least have sterile operating rooms, you just might have to wait until your dead for treatment. Even the Canadians hate Canadian health care (well, the sane ones anyway).