But A_J, we're not Socialists...

[4est_4est_Gump]

You do not even know the definition of Socialism.

You think everyone is a Socialist.

Even Jesus...

Why are higher taxes so important to him?

First, as a means: A high-tax economy is liberalism’s only hope for sustaining and enlarging the entitlement state. It provides the funds for enlightened adventures in everything from algae to Obamacare.

Second, as an end in itself. Fundamentally, Obama is a leveler. The community organizer seeks, above all, to reverse the growing inequality that he dates and attributes to ruthless Reaganism. Now, however, clothed in the immense powers of the presidency, he can actually engage in unadorned redistributionism. As in Tuesday night’s $620 billion wealth transfer.

Upon losing the House in 2010, the leveler took cover for the next two years. He wasn’t going to advance his real agenda through the Republican House anyway, and he needed to win reelection.

Now he’s won. The old Obama is back. He must not be underestimated. He has deftly leveraged his class-war-themed election victory (a) to secure a source of funding (albeit still small) for the bloated welfare state, (b) to carry out an admirably candid bit of income redistribution, and (c) to fracture the one remaining institutional obstacle to the rest of his ideological agenda.

Not bad for two months’ work.

Charles Krauthammer, NRO

A_J's corollary #16, “The New Age Liberal does not believe that the government should always grow larger in the future. He just wants a little more government now.”

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

In praising Congress's huge new tax increase, President Obama said Tuesday that "millionaires and billionaires" will finally "pay their fair share." That is, unless you are a Nascar track owner, a wind-energy company or the owners of StarKist Tuna, among many others who managed to get their taxes reduced in Congress's New Year celebration.

There's plenty to lament about the capital and income tax hikes, but the bill's seedier underside is the $40 billion or so in tax payoffs to every crony capitalist and special pleader with a lobbyist worth his million-dollar salary. Congress and the White House want everyone to ignore this corporate-welfare blowout, so allow us to shine a light on the merriment.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100...8216583921471560.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop

When Government gets so powerful that its purchase price is cost effective, even imperative, to business, then business will purchase government indulgences.
A_J, the Stupid

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

 

[ChinaBandit]

It's no coincidence that the words socialist and douchebag each have 9 letters.

 

[Wat_Tyler]

I follow Spartacus because I want to see Rome tremble.


I drive a big-block because I want the ground to tremble.


I wonder if anyone in DC even pays attention . . .


but I have to be bored shitless to do it.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

123456789
communist

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

I follow Spartacus because I want to see Rome tremble.


I drive a big-block because I want the ground to tremble.


I wonder if anyone in DC even pays attention . . .


but I have to be bored shitless to do it.

DC is ringed by five of the richest counties in the nation.

They do not see a problem.

There is plenty of wealth to go around...



You loot the private sector, strip every dollar of 40¢ for overhead, and then give the other 60¢ to your political base in order to revitalize the looted.

What's not to like about that plan?
A_J, the Stupid

 

[mercury14]

You do not even know the definition of Socialism.

You think everyone is a Socialist.

Even Jesus...


Charles Krauthammer, NRO

A_J's corollary #16, “The New Age Liberal does not believe that the government should always grow larger in the future. He just wants a little more government now.”

Holy fuck, tax rates are lower and deductions are FAR more plentiful than ever and suddenly we're in a high-tax economy? How did AJ ever survive the ultra-Commie Reagan era with MUCH higher tax rates than today?

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Да камрад! Мы с вами!
Ваша патриотическая обязанность!

 

[Wat_Tyler]

What's not to like . . . would be not being in the Inner Circle.


I'm just a lowly trough-filler.


This stimulus runs out at the end of the month, and I don't know if/when the next one comes along.


As long as i can afford cat food, they won't eat me instead.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

There's another old saying, Jenn14:
Don't piss down my back and tell me it's raining.

 

[Wat_Tyler]

Is it raining again already???


Damn, we just had rain yesterday.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

What's not to like . . . would be not being in the Inner Circle.


I'm just a lowly trough-filler.


This stimulus runs out at the end of the month, and I don't know if/when the next one comes along.


As long as i can afford cat food, they won't eat me instead.

I just got in from DC.
All they want are hands out for handouts.​

__________________
Well, the plan may have a few bugs, but Liberals demand to be judged on intention, not outcome...
Otherwise, they'd always be judged harshly and they're such well-intentioned, loving, caring, nurturing, compassionate people who only want to run your life so that you can enjoy it more, like they do, happy little moral busybodies who do not want your religion forced upon them....
A_J, the Stupid

 

[Wat_Tyler]

There's a missing hands joke right here, on the tips of my fingers . . .


but I can't put my hands on it just yet.

 

[mercury14]

What's not to like . . . would be not being in the Inner Circle.


I'm just a lowly trough-filler.


This stimulus runs out at the end of the month, and I don't know if/when the next one comes along.


As long as i can afford cat food, they won't eat me instead.

Clearly the stimulus didn't work. Sure the unemployment rate dropped 3%, the GDP improved 8%, and the Dow put on 6,500 points, but where's the actual evidence that the economy got any better???

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Is it raining again already???


Damn, we just had rain yesterday.

Purple Rain​

 

[Voodoo5150]

Clearly the stimulus didn't work. Sure the unemployment rate dropped 3%, the GDP improved 8%, and the Dow put on 6,500 points, but where's the actual evidence that the economy got any better???

Everyone knows anecdotal evidence is the only evidence worth a damn.

*looks around, sees homeless guy*

Fucking Obama ruining America~!1!1!1!!1!!!!111!

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

There's a missing hands joke right here, on the tips of my fingers . . .


but I can't put my hands on it just yet.

Hands across the water,
Hands across the Sea!​

 

[Wat_Tyler]

What I love more than anything is being told that my experience is somehow invalid.


Since sentience set in, I have always paid close attention to details. I see shit that people miss . . . especially the ones who weren't there.


Maybe I should spend more of my spare time writing the subject of the next "can you he'p me find this story" thread . . . .


I wonder how deep the Stoopid will be at work today . . . betting on knee-deep . . . and the PC-pukes won't let me kick my way through it.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Everyone knows anecdotal evidence is the only evidence worth a damn.

*looks around, sees homeless guy*

Fucking Obama ruining America~!1!1!1!!1!!!!111!

It is funny that a nation fallen so far as ours mired in a Lost Decade is viewed as a Paradise to Communists and Socialists.

We have what you and Jenn want, a record number of hands out for handouts and you are giddy and excited over all the people working the new "full-time" work week of 30 hours...

That 3% unemployment drop that Jenn is touting is a measure of how many people just left the work force, not at all a measure of jobs created. But this is the way it goes with all economies that are run top down.

Ask the East Germans, the North Koreans, the Soviet Union, Cuba, Venezuela and all the other innumerable garden spots where the population was disarmed and taught that self-sacrifice and equality were riches far, far greater than any amount of wealth could purchase and if you did not believe in shared egalitarian self-immolation then you had the right to a decent execution.

The Wealth of a Nation works best trickle-down. A Republic and an Economy work best trickle-up. A Socialist believes just the opposite.
A_J, the Stupid

(An Economy is the set of all transactions. Government is mutual cooperation for successful transacting. Wealth is the outcome of successful transactions.)

There's this mentality that says, get the rich, there's not enough of them to protect themselves, taxes don't get passed on to the middle-class, and HEY! we need more taxes on the rich because the middle-class is inexplicably shrinking... And after you tax the hell out of your bosses and landlords, how the fuck do you think they make up the tax? Do you think they just take it in the shorts? or is it possible that they just pass the cost of doing business on down the line. It never ceases to amaze me that the people who know for a fucking fact that shit rolls down-hill think trickle down is a load of shit...
A_J, the Stupid

But note, the rich were able to protect themselves. It is the largest of our small businesses that will actually pay the tax.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

What I love more than anything is being told that my experience is somehow invalid.


Since sentience set in, I have always paid close attention to details. I see shit that people miss . . . especially the ones who weren't there.


Maybe I should spend more of my spare time writing the subject of the next "can you he'p me find this story" thread . . . .


I wonder how deep the Stoopid will be at work today . . . betting on knee-deep . . . and the PC-pukes won't let me kick my way through it.

 

[Wat_Tyler]

That Wee Cat makes me smile every time I see her.


Okay, off to . . . well . . . to do whatever it is that I'll do today.


A piece of pie is better than no pie at all.


Just don't tell me what kind of pie I am limited to, or Rome will be in deep shit.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Look for the loopholes!

The great joke here is that Washington pretends to want to pass "comprehensive tax reform," even as each year it adds more tax giveaways that distort the tax code and keep tax rates higher than they have to be. Even as he praised the bill full of this stuff, Mr. Obama called Tuesday night for "further reforms to our tax code so that the wealthiest corporations and individuals can't take advantage of loopholes and deductions that aren't available to most Americans."

One of Mr. Obama's political gifts is that he can sound so plausible describing the opposite of his real intentions.

The costs of all this are far greater than the estimates conjured by the Joint Tax Committee. They include slower economic growth from misallocated capital, lower revenues for the Treasury and thus more pressure to raise rates on everyone, and greater public cynicism that government mainly serves the powerful.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100...8216583921471560.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop
__________________
What’s the difference between economic stimulus and loophole for the rich? the Democrats standings in the polls.
A_J, the Stupid

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

You vaunted market run-up (yes, now the market is an economic indicator... ) is due to Fed inflation and those closest to it, the Fat Cats on Wall Street are the ones benefitting from it and if we had real actual growth and spending, then we would be experiencing the type of inflation that wipes out the average person trying to establish a retirement.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Are We All Europeans Now?
Mona Charen, NRO
January 4, 2013

Following the fiscal-cliff melodrama, Senator Richard Shelby appeared on television to declare that we are becoming European. “We’re always wanting to spend and promise and spend and borrow, but not cut. We’ve got to get real about this. We’re headed down the road that Europe’s already on.”

There’s no “heading” about it. We’re there. John J. DiIulio, writing in National Affairs, outlined the true size of American government. When state and local government expenditures are added to federal outlays, government spending as a share of GDP easily competes with European nations. In fact, per capita government spending in the U.S. is higher than in France, Germany, and the United Kingdom, and our debt to GDP ratio is higher than in most European states.

The Obama administration has set records for deficit spending in peacetime, but there is no question that the growth of government at all levels has been a decades-long process. In 1960, total government spending (local, state, and federal) amounted to 27 percent of GDP. In 2010, it was about 42 percent. State spending has been almost as irrepressible as federal, leaving only nine states that can now boast AAA credit ratings. Many states are facing crises over unfunded pension liabilities that have the capacity to engender strikes and social unrest in the not-too-distant future.

Though President Obama and the Democrats are fond of citing the “two wars on a credit card” and the Bush tax cuts as drivers of our debt, the truth is that the first Obama term added $4.5 trillion to the national debt in just three years — more than the total debt amassed by the United States government in two centuries. DiIulio writes: “Add our annual debt per capita (about $49,000 in 2011) to total annual government spending per capita (about $20,000 in 2011), and we have a rough ‘big government index’ of nearly $70,000 for every man, woman, and child in this country.”

The difference between Americans and Europeans is that we aren’t honest about our appetite for big government. We hide it through a variety of proxies, private contractors, and public-private partnerships. Leaving aside the Department of Defense, which employs 3.2 million Americans, government employs more than 20 million civil servants. Only 2 million of those are full-time federal workers. The Department of Homeland Security, for example, employs 188,000 federal bureaucrats, but also 200,000 privately contracted employees. Medicaid doesn’t employ an army of civil servants but instead pays private employees of medical practices, hospitals, and nursing homes.

The EPA employs between 16,000 and 18,000 full-time personnel. It has been able to expand its regulatory reach, though, by cooperating with 50 state EPA equivalents and by hiring tens of thousands of private contractors.

Most non-profits receive few government subsidies. But the largest ones with the biggest budgets are heavily government-dependent. One-third of all non-profit dollars come from government. Catholic Charities USA, for example, a marquee “private-sector” charity, received two-thirds of its funding in 2009 from Uncle Sam.

Americans prefer small government to big government — in the abstract. But 60 million receive Medicaid benefits; 54 million collect Social Security; 48 million participate with Medicare; 45 million receive food stamps; 7 million are in prison, in jail, or on parole or probation; more than a million have de facto government jobs working for defense contractors; nearly a million children participate in Head Start; and about 40 percent of K–12 students receive free or reduced-price meals. There’s some overlap in those categories, but it still adds up.

Taking a government check goes down much more easily when you can persuade yourself that you’re only withdrawing money that you have faithfully paid in over the course of a lifetime. Indignant elderly callers to C-SPAN constantly invoke the “I paid for my Social Security” myth. They didn’t. The average beneficiary will receive far more in Medicare and Social Security benefits than he paid for in taxes.

We are, in short, a socialist-style society just like Europe. And Obamacare has yet to kick in.

The road to recovery begins with admitting you have a problem.