This is great, I found the funniest article I think I’ve ever read! The other day I heard Bill O’Reilly say that tax revenues grew after the ‘Bush’ tax cuts. So I decided to look up some validation for this claim or data against it. Well, I ran into this fun article — Bill O’Reilly and the Imaginary Bush Tax Cut Windfall, by Peter Hart. It’s a MUST READ. It’s too funny. It’s meant to be serious, I’m pretty sure, and lists some ‘arguments’ against the success of the ‘Bush’ tax cuts.

It essentially says this: Sure, tax revenues have grown since the Bush Tax Cuts, but that’s because the economy grew. And asserts that: “A more useful measure would be how tax revenue looks relative to the size of the economy.” (How’s that useful???) and “The decade of the Bush tax cuts had, on average, lower revenue levels as a share of the economy than any previous
decade since the 1950s.”

LOL — The intention of the Bush tax cuts were to take a smaller portion of America’s output in order to allow the economy to grow, with the idea that the reduced tax rates would be made up for with higher tax revenue, due to economic growth. And the Liberal argument against the success of that effort is that a smaller portion of America’s output was collected, and the economy grew, producing higher tax revenues than were lost to the lower rates. Quality.

There’s one other argument Pete has stuffed in this article that, if you’re not careful, almost makes sense. He claims the tax cuts added 2.6 trillion to the debt. How does this make sense if tax revenue GREW over this period? First, you understand that spending grew. Second, you take the GDP, and apply the old tax rates to it, then subtract the multiple of the new tax rate and GDP. In other words, you figure out how much tax revenue you would collect if you could magically apply the old higher tax rate to the new bigger GDP, and camper that with the taxes actually collected with the lower tax rates.

This is yet another example of the fundamental misunderstanding of economics that Liberals and Socialists suffer from. It’s the idea that ‘wealth’ is a given, a constant. They ignore the fact that PEOPLE CREATE wealth out of risk, initiative, investment, and labor. If you cut taxes, and the economy grows because of it, you can’t apply your old slow-growth tax rates to the new growth, and pretend that if you hadn’t cut taxes, you would have had more money.

It’s like this. Say you own a restaurant and you sell hamburgers for $2 each and average about 100 hamburgers and $5,000 in sales per day. Now let’s say you’re partner comes up with a new campaign to promote your business. He reduces the price of your hamburgers to $1, predicting that the loss from reduced burger rates will be made up for by increased revenue. A year later, you’re average sales are 200 hamburgers and $6000 in sales. “Ben & Pete’s, Home of the $1 Burger”

You can’t pull out your calculator, and multiply 200 x (old price=$2) = $400, compare that to 200 x (new price=$1) = $200, and claim that your partner caused you a loss of $200, which ADDED to your debt, which is growing due to other wild spending and growing costs. You’re partner CREATED $1000 in sales.

Of course, you can argue that your partner’s $1 burger idea had nothing to do with the extra $1000 in sales, and likewise argue that the tax cuts had nothing to do with economic growth – but not with these inane tactics. Please. You need to point to another cause of the increased revenue or otherwise construct a logical or honest phrase.

Iranian missiles in Venezuela. If this is true, we are best not to let them cross the Atlantic just as in the Cuban Missile Crisis. Would Obama send naval ships to block the shipment? Would he send fighters to deter an air shipment?  No, he probably wouldn’t do shit.  He’d try to negotiate with 6 party talks until they nuked us, then he’d think about sanctioning them. What I’m referring to is Obama’s innovative zero-leverage approach to negotiation, i.e. charm.

With all the terrifying things the media is able to cover, there must be gobs of horrific omens coming out of intelligence. I wouldn’t be surprised if Obama gets to wage his own war. And, if he’s in office a second term, I’ll be surprised if he doesn’t. The crazies of the world breathed a deep sigh of relief when Hopey Changey Cut’n Run got elected.

Speaking of Hopey Changey – how do you like the news about extending the Bush tax cuts? I’m astounded that even recently there are still oblivious Liberals blaming Republicans for the lack of compromise, using things like the Healthcare bill as an example… It think you have to be stupid to not realize that it’s the Liberals making legislation impossible – not to discount radicals on either end.

Even when the Democrats had a super majority, their legislation was too liberal even for 1/3 of the Democrats! It didn’t matter what the Republicans did then. But still, the Democrats – having the power to pass anything on their own – took a whole year to pass a big pile of shit no one liked, labeled: Healthcare Reform, and that’s about all they did, considering their long list.

Now, after Obama himself naively makes a closed-door deal with the Republicans on the Bush tax cuts, those stubbornDemocrats are still holding onto their super-majority attitude, signing a non-binding resolution to not be on board with the President – their own guys! Some even got caught calling Obama names – lol.

And good glory – what are these Liberals problems with the wealthy. Half the argument against extending the Bush tax cuts for upper income earners are vitriolic class warfare attacks. It’s obnoxious. America wouldn’t be America without the efforts of “The Rich”. Liberals couldn’t afford all their fancy bureaucracy without those juicy upper income earners.

Let the animosity go guys! Get your anger off at the next parade, sit-in, or boycott. Right now we need to decrease unemployment and stimulate the economy. And those evil rich people – well – the money you don’t take from them and spend on bullshit – they put into investment. Yeah, investment. Investment is what enables business expansion, and business expansion is what creates jobs. Goofy little tax credits – well – those don’t create jobs. Paying people to not work – nope – doesn’t create jobs. Random porkish spending *sigh* NO – it doesn’t create jobs! And you’re stupid to think so. Try running a business and you’ll see why.

I’ve been waiting for this book to come out for the past seven years, and it’s finally going to be released on the 9th, a memoir of his presidency by George W. Bush. I’m also excited that it’s only 512 pages, not a bloated bag of pretension, hopefully high-yield and full of detail.

According to reviews, Bush is candid, describing his decisions with regard to, and perspective of, defining events such as 9-11, the invasion of Iraq, the financial crisis, Katrina, Afghanistan, and Iran. It’s said that Bush is also honest in the book, directly writing about his flaws and mistakes as well as his accomplishments.

Sales wise, this book is following the Palin/Beck trend and is already #1 on Amazon prior even to its release. It’s a hard cover of course, and costs a reasonable $35 – or an even more reasonable $18.90 on Amazon.com. I wonder when the hillbilly-affordable $8 paperback will appear at Meijer.

Indeed, people got flustered, “Those drones do kill families all the time.” So I know Bush would have been scorned by the self righteous boohoo anti-war wanks.

The joke it’s self wasn’t the problem. It’s how Obama tells jokes that makes them weird.  He starts smirking before he even tells it, anticipating all his little podium bunnies will chuckle along regardless. And he keeps smirking – with a cadence making it obvious he’s attempting a joke – as people patiently wait for him to stumble it out.

That joke was similar to Brown’s joke about his daughters. It embarrassed everyone. But Obama went on to add something about the most controversial weapon in the arsenal – which the President actually does kill people with. If the Iraqi invasion was illegal drone strikes are assassinations.

Ok, everyone here illegally, you can stay. It was our fault for making you sneak in by making the immigration process a 10-year-long bureaucratic nightmare anyway. But listen up! All you guys thinking of sneaking in now, you better not. The torturous path to US citizenship is just a little bit easier now, according to some American’s more fare, and according to those guys who like to add and subtract it costs more. So there’s no reason to sneak in now, and that goes for you illiterate people too, who only know what they know about the immigration process from what you’ve heard from others.

But if you DO try sneaking in – oh boy. We know it’s not your fault and everything – it’s America’s pre-Obama imperialist foreign policies. But if you do, oh boy, if you do, well, first, we just assume we’ll catch you somehow, especially if you’re a terrorist, and then we’ll flaunt it to the press like we have every other slightly positive anti-terror efforts, damaging those resources for some national defense political points. But oh boy, it won’t be like the old Bush days. We won’t just go giving you medical treatment, food, spending money, and an airline ticket back home. Oh no. We’ll probably take two or three times longer to process you, and then we’ll send you back with even more money so you can afford to take a bag on the plane, assuming we don’t decide you’re case is special, which it undoubtedly is, why the hell else would you be risking your life to get here.

I was just thinking about how the unions took the deal they just got with their ‘Cadillac’ healthcare plans?

Personally, and specifically Citibank – I don’t care if they ram it up their ass sideways with the trunk open. But rationally and fundamentally, it’s just another example of the philosophical approach the Left takes to problem solving:

– The élites decide we all are entitled to, or have a right to “this” – home’s, clean water, healthcare, high pay, and so on. Instead of promoting the growth and advancement of “this” – which can often require some pesky effort and understanding – they take the simply approach. They look at how much “this” costs, make up a number of people not currently enjoying “this”, multiply the two, then decide which group of wealthy people to tax for that amount and pass the legislation with a rushing screaming mob under the banners of for-the-little-guy compassion and demonizing their opposition as being “for the status-quo”. –

In this case they want all the banks to pay back all the money tax payers have lost bailing them out. All the banks can’t pay. So the one’s that have paid – the ones with money – Obama wants to force to pay the whole bill. And that might be fair. I don’t know or really care except for the fact that this approach to home ownership was the cause of the bank problems to begin with. And don’t bring up poorly regulated derivative funds. Yeah, they were brand new devices that needed regulation. But what else needed regulation was Fannie and Freddie – which the evil Bush brigade tried to pass legislation for but Franks – and even Obama himself – fought against it successfully. They called the Conservative’s warnings of an impending crash due to Fannie and Freddie fear mongers.

Noisy Dove, help me think through my bewilderment that this foreign-birthed, al-Qaeda-commissioned Kamikaze passenger is not being tried as a POW? Why was it a better idea to read this lost kid his rights?

You would think we would learn our lesson, since that is how we treated the first World Trade Center bomber.

I think the new approach comes out of the overall idea that we’re not at war with anyone – and that terrorists are criminals. This idea came out of the opposition to the Bush administration. In an effort to cripple his agenda, they pushed the idea that his ‘war’ was simply a scare tactic to pass legislation, with the hope that they’d stop his passage of any legislation.

Now this is a normal thing that happens on both sides. But with regard to the Iraq and Afghan war, and war on terror, this phenomenon has reached truly unhealthy proportions.

Allow me to explain with an analogy: There is a certain portion of the electorate that will watch Obama stand behind a horse with a shovel until it fills with shit then watch him dump that shovel into a cake pan and call it a chocolate cake. Then that percentage will argue virulently that Obama’s ‘cake’ is in fact a chocolate cake.

Likewise there is a percentage on the other side who will argue that a chocolate cake Obama spent many house backing is not a chocolate cake, but a shovel full of horse shit.

Most of this is rational politicing. They’re just trying to slow an agenda they disagree with. But amount these there are certain irrational party-line idealists who – through these semi-rational efforts – start to become true believers. They actually start to believe that this pile of actual horse shit is chocolate cake. They’re even willing to eat it and smile, urging others to enjoy a large slice of this tasty chocolate cake.

Napolitano might be one of these partisan shit-eaters. So might Eric holder. They might actually believe that terrorists are just criminals and that we aren’t at war with a global network of Pan Islamists. So they’re willing to actually treat the war like law enforcement.

This is a totally illogical approach though. Criminals aren’t trying to literally destroy American. Criminals are just trying to make an easy living, or indulging a weird impulse. The ‘terrorists’ are in fact able and willing to destroy our society and are currently in that process – that’s what wars do.

I get so irritated by noisy dove, because he has become a wind bag. It’s a bunch of emotion-laden ideas that “make sense” and are “logical,” but are backed up by little actual substance (i.e. facts). It reminds me earily of Limbaugh and Beck.

I don’t mean for Noisy Dove to sound like an ideologue. Indeed, it’s often a form of therapy for me. I simply summarize some news and give my evaluation of it without sighting the facts I use. This is because I’m lazy, and a lot of stuff I generally feel like anyone interesting in Noisy Dove should already know – thing like: China lies about its emissions, socialism isn’t defined as total socialism, and 1+1=2 no matter what. I’ll try to be more thorough from now on.

Also – do you actually read the articles? I ask because often I’ll write a very thoughtful two sided piece about an Obama decision only to have the editor in chief superimpose Obama’s likeness onto the face of a donkey, or onto the butt of a dog with his lips puckered. As funny as many of the images are – they are often out of context and can make Noisy Dove seem belligerently partisan. But what can I do? It’s the editor’s prerogative.

So let’s see. You don’t believe in trickle-down or that tax cuts increase tax revenue. You even talk of Regan.

First, Regan had a recession and an energy crisis, like the gas problem we’ve had. Yet, despite this, his policies caused the largest economic expansion during peace time, starting in 1982, and created 35 million jobs.

• Joint Economic Committee, The Great Expansion: How It Was Achieved and How It Can Be Sustained, U.S. House of Representatives and U.S. Senate, 106th Cong., 2nd Sess., April 2000, pp. 4-6.

You claim, after accosting me for my emotional Noisy Dove rants, that I offer no facts. Yet you say you don’t believe tax cuts increase tax revenue. Why not? Tax revenue in 1980 was $500 billion and in 1990 it was $1 trillion. That’s an increase wouldn’t you say? Laffer curve – look it up.

• U.S. Office of Management and Budget, Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 2001: Historical Tables, February 2000, Table 1.3, p. 23.

The rich paid more taxes under Regan’s policies because they were making more money to tax. And they had more money because Regan cut taxes allowing them to invest more. He also encouraged investment. Indeed, many people became rich – that’s good.

The ‘gap’ that you are talking about – I asked you to clarify earlier – but you didn’t. So, I’ll assume you’re talking about the graph Obama’s people like to talk about, the one the Liberals are constantly pointing to. It was the one they used in their initial budget. It was a graph showing the % control of wealth. (I wish I could find it. )

Never mind. I found it. It’s a redo of the same graph by someone who obviously understands it though. LOL The trick is that what you’re looking at is %. As Noisy Dove also likes to repeat, the left sees income as a constant – not something people produce. So if the rich are getting a higher % of income while the poor a lower % – that equates to the rich bringing home more money while the poor bring home less. But that’s false – obviously.

It showed the difference between the poor and rich increasing in the past few decades. So, if the bottom 10% had their incomes increase by 3 times, and the top 10% had their incomes increase by 4 times, this graph would show a ‘gap’ in the increase, as though the rich were taking something from the poor. This is a classic socialist argument. It’s a false one too. The rich aren’t taking anything. They are creating wealth and the bottom % are benefiting with an increase standard of living – trickle down. Everyone is growing, but the ‘rich’ – the entrepreneurs – are growing fastest.

It’s actually quite funny. The very graph so many socialist use to show a disparity between the rich and poor is actual empirical evidence for trickle-down theory. It’s only logical anyway. I mean, the only way trickle-down wouldn’t work is if people found a way to make money without hiring anyone, buying materials, or using energy – and then horded all the cash. Likewise, the only was trickle-up wouldn’t work is if poor people put all their extra money into saving and paying off dept – like they are doing now – the reason the stimulus checks failed – Bush and Obama’s.

Reagan had to stop the crazy inflation of the late 70’s (Carter’s stagflation), so he tightened money. Houses had like a 12% mortgage rate when we were kids. Despite this, once Regan’s policies were in place, by 1983, the policies of reducing taxes, spending, regulation, and inflation resulted in unprecedented economic growth.

• This economic boom lasted 92 months without a recession, from November 1982 to July 1990, the longest period of sustained growth during peacetime and the second-longest period of sustained growth in U.S. history. The growth in the economy lasted more than twice as long as the average period of expansions since World War II
• United States Government, Fiscal Year 2001: Historical Tables, February 2000, Table 1.3, p. 23.

The economy grew by a third – ffs (can’t let down Justin). Also, Regan didn’t invent this type of economic thinking. One guy you might like – JFK – he did a similar thing:

“The 1960s and 1980s were periods of record sustained high growth, mainly due to the tax cuts and reforms enacted at the beginning of each decade by Kennedy and Reagan, respectively.

The JFK administration, against the advice of many economic advisers, began cutting taxes in 1962, starting with businesses. An investment tax credit encouraged investment and changes in depreciation costs lowered the cost of capital for businesses. The top corporate rate fell from 52 to 48 percent, and the top individual marginal tax rate fell from 90 to 70 percent. The empirical evidence shows that these tax cuts stimulated growth:”  http://taxesandgrowth.ncpa.org/news/do-taxes-affect-economic-growth

• Between 1962 and 1969, investment grew at an annual rate of 6.1 percent, far higher than the 3 percent annual rate for 1959-1962 and the 2.3 percent rate for 1969-1972 (While Carter was doing what Obama is doing now), after the JFK tax reforms had been repealed.
• Real GNP grew 4.5 percent during the 1960s, higher than the 2.4 percent growth rate seen from 1952-1960.
  • “Taxes and Long-Term Economic Growth,” House Joint Economic Committee Report, February 1997.http://www.house.gov/jec/growth/longterm/longterm.htm

In 1991, after the Reagan rate cuts were well in place, the top 1 percent of taxpayers in income paid 25 percent of all income taxes; the top 5 percent paid 43 percent; and the bottom 50 percent paid only 5 percent. To suggest that this distribution is unfair because it is too easy on upper-income groups is nothing less than absurd.

• U.S. Office of Management and Budget, Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 2001: Historical Tables, February 2000, Table 1.3, p. 23. http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/assets/omb/inforeg/icb2001.pdf

As for the Regan policies cutting aid to the poor, and causing homelessness, I can’t find anything substantiating this or refuting it. According to the fact’s I’m finding Regan actually increased domestic spending. (see chart above) This sounds more like the Liberal style of attack than actual fact – or just the general politician’s argument. You know, saying someone is against heathcare reform because they didn’t vote for Pelosi-care, or saying someone is for the war because they supported development of IED resistant vehicles. It’s just stupid.

The facts is – Regan helped the poor in ways no government bureaucracy could. He stopped Carter’s inflation and unemployment. People tend to propagate ideas like Regan destroyed the inner-cities and odd things like that. More likely the damage being done to inner-cities was the flight of factories from within them and the subsequent evacuation of people to suburbs in their fancy new cars – leaving only the poor who were too poor to leave. The only thing at fault for this is an increasing standard of living. So I guess you could blame Regan – his policies did increase everyone’s standard of living quite a bit. We went from one car to a family to one car to a person – from one TV to one TV in each room – from renting to purchasing homes.

And claiming Regan “ballooned” the debt is totally unfair, especially after you complain about his disregard for the poor. And not to mention he was defeating the Soviet Union – ffs.

Contrary to the Liberal sales pitch, inflation-adjusted defense spending increased 50% between 1980 and 1989. After the cold war the spending was reduced and fell by 15 percent between 89 and 93. Means-tested entitlements (poor people aid) – not including SS or Medicare – rose by over 102% between 80 and 93, and continue to do so.

• U.S. Office of Management and Budget, Budget of the United States Government, Fiscal Year 2001: Historical Tables, February 2000, Table 1.3, p. 23.

Regan’s policies were sound enough that Bill Clinton, as did Bush Sr., continued them resulting in the continued economic success we all grew up accustomed to and that gave us a surplus despite continued increases in entitlements. In other words, Regan’s economic policies did work. They balanced the budget, just not in his term, which would have been a hell of a thing to ask.

Actually, Clinton even followed the Regan philosophy of increased self reliance and reduced Federal involvement with his welfare reform bill: http://www-cgi.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1996/news/9608/22/welfare.sign/ . Of course, Obama reversed Clinton’s reform in the stimulus bill: http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NTY3NzZhNDBkNjU5MjAzZTE4YmQ4MmU5MTk2YTIxNTQ

And George W, he continued the policies as well. You again Dr. Dove– unfairly claim – “That didn’t exactly work out either.”Maybe with facts we can see what really went on. Hmmmm. Now let’s see. What happened during the Bush administration that might have hampered the economic progress the Bush tax cuts likely made? Hmmmm. Oh wait. Could it have been – oh – terrorists using airliners to destroy the world trade canters and cripple the financial district?????????????? I don’t want to irritate you with my wind-bag-ed-ness, but are you fucking kidding me????????? People were shitting their pants Dr. Dove!!!!!! People were stocking plastic and duct tape in case of a chemical attack!!!!!! People were afraid to go to work let along the fucking shopping mall! And what kind of investment climate is that – fucking airplanes crushing building out of the blue…?

And as you know, we went to war. So your claim is miserably unfair – and I think – roundly disproven, if not simply by the fact that the economy continued to grow well, despite domestic attacks and war, until the collapse of the housing bubble and subsequent failure of the derivatives market and the subsequent credit crunch.

So you see? Tax cuts work. Call it JFK’s economic policy if it makes your Liberal bone less tender. And stop absorbing these weird Liberal lies. You even had me believing the one about Regan’s policies being bad for the inner-cities… shit. I’m glad you compelled me to look into it. See – this is the value of discussion.

Well then, stop using characterizations. I’d like to think I have something to learn from Liberal thinkers, but all they do, as you’ve done today, is state general needs and characterizations along with the ever present Bush bash:

I just know that Obama is trying to shrink the gap between the rich and the poor. Unlike Noisy Dove and Glenn Beck, he doesn’t think policies designed to do so will destroy the country. He just thinks it is the moral imperative of a government to represent all the people, including (if not especially) the poor and ignorant. Some, including Obama, actually think shrinking the gap between rich and poor will make the country stronger. If the bank CEOs had been under tighter control, the world wouldn’t be in an economic down turn. His policies reflect his ideals.

I can’t really blame you at this point though. All Obama has proven to be is a symbol – a mascot to be carted around and make fancy vague sunshine speeches while Nancy and Reid force through the most god-awful legislative concoctions man kind will likely ever know.

I don’t know how to learn anything from any of this. That’s why I keep telling you to explain the policies you support. You read a British magazine. You like it. So you let them do your economic thinking because they’re smarter than you? Seriously? Your admitting that my insulting accusation was true – you believe something without understanding it because you like believing in it. You have a “very British” perspective… That’s lame Dr. Dove – totally lame. I hate believing half the conclusions I’ve come to.

And I’m not getting emotional about a political side – ffs. Thanks for assuming I could actually care though. What annoys me is when anyone makes illogical or useless arguments, or simply states things generally without explanation to refute something I’ve carefully explained.

That’s why it’s exhausting you know. When you have an idea that you can’t explain, nothing is more exhausting than having it challenged. That’s why I said before: if you can’t explain something just say so. But don’t pull out comfortable Liberal falsities you choose to believe then be surprised when I call bullshit. And when I call bullshit don’t call me partisan – or ranting Noisy Dove – just because the bullshit is on the left today.

Give me a logical reason to support one of your ideas. If you do I’ll support it. Until then I’m going to assume that, if we have 10 chickens that each lay one egg every other day we will get 5 eggs per day. And if we slaughter one chicken, yes, we will have a great deal of much needed meat that we can use to proudly and historically feed people with, I’ll agree with that. But I won’t believe we will continue to have 5 eggs per day. And I won’t believe that we have increased our overall protein intake. It has nothing to do with ideology. It’s just logical.

Obama just did another Bush speech – “dismantle and destroy”. I guess he’s transitioning his campaign focus a bit. Hell, he even called the attempted terrorist an “attempted terrorists.” Of course, right now he’s not being interrogated. He’s being treated for burns and enjoying the right to remain silent with his lawyer – complements of the people he’s trying to kill. He was also bragging about there being 25 more of him…

Janet Napolitano, Sec. of Homeland Security, claimed the system worked in preventing this attack. LOL We’re in serious trouble folks – because I guess ‘our system’ assumes the terrorists will use faulty detonators and there will be some highly motivated young civilian men handy to pummel the suspect when he starts smoking.

Can’t you just imagine the new safety instructions? Right after the exits are pointed out: “If you notice another passenger smoking, or on fire, he has probably tried to set off a bomb intended to bring down the aircraft and failed for a variety of reasons. Please leap from your seat and mercilessly beat the individual toprevent him from setting off the explosive manually and killing us all.”

This goes back to my suggestion after 9-11. I suggested we not let people know or choose their seat number until they board. I mean, you could still sit with your wife and so on, you just wouldn’t know, or be able to choose, the seat right over the fuel tank.

Oh yeah, and to be fair: someone evidently grabbed Napolitano by her bushy, big empty, coffee can of a head, and slapped some temporary sense into her – because she backtracked and confirmed that – yes indeed – the system failed to stop this naughty delinquent.

Yes folks. On Christmas day a terrorist smuggled a bomb onto a passenger plan, a bomb powerful enough to take it down and kill everyone inside it and who knows how many more on the ground. He pulled out the detonator and activated it. His plan went perfectly. The one flaw was a random (or maybe it was God trying to keep another idiot from ruining Jesus’ birthday) technical malfunction, like when you buy a defective appliance, that is the reason we aren’t sifting through rubble wondering what the hell happened and urging everyone not to assume it was a terror attack.