Hell no, the other way around qaz… our universal health cover system is streets ahead over where you guys were before Obama started to try and provide you guys with something similar. You can kiss that all goodbye with Trumpcare.
Reagan’s recessions didn’t end because of tax cuts. They ended because of the decision of FED Chariman Paul Volcker (who was appointed by Carter) to institute high interest rates. But aside from that, the top marginal tax rate under Reagan was 50% or higher for the first six years of his Presidency, which is 10% higher than it ever was under Obama. taxpolicycenter.org/statisti … -tax-rates
qaz
Posts: 953
Joined: Sat Oct 17, 2015 10:51 am
They ended because Volker raised interest rates? Raising interest rates causes a decrease in business borrowing to fund growth and causes a slowing of economic growth. Lowering interest rates stimulates growth. Making USA corp taxes equal to Europe and China is a no brainer and even Obama acknowledged it was a good idea although taking the time to initiate legislation would have cut into his golf schedule. Nowadays businesses are far more mobile then they have ever been and i know from personal discussions with real business owners that the USA corp tax rate is a big factor.
davo - you don’t get it. The system may be fine and I’m glad it works for you and others - but here on the ground in the USA, with 300 million+ citizens and a government bureaucracy that is bloated and wel-nigh non-functional, the LAST thing we need is the gov’t taking over our lives. Seriously. You don’t know what it’s like here.
Yeah from the various opinions you’ve shared it seems very much… ‘great place to visit but wouldn’t want to live there’ type of thing. 
First of all, that is pretty crude. 
Second of all I’ll ask how much time you’ve spent and lived in the USA? 
It is still a great country and worth preserving. I would not want to live anywhere else. It’s also beautiful.
Regardless, for the reason I gave, tax rates do not significantly affect growth.
The Corporate rates definitely matter now because of the mobility corporations have now that they have never had to this degree.
Chad I’ve never been and would love to come, but sometimes you guys make it sound a tad scary with all the angst that seems to flow back and forth.
Well, let’s look at Medicare and the Medicare advantage plan. The US government controls and funds Medicare. But US private insurance companies - manage it. At least, for the advantage plans. Now:
I have a cap on what I have to pay - in a year. It’s $6700 for a PPO plan and $3400 for an HMO plan.
I’m with Humana and I like the way they handle things.
So why not a single pay government police, but private US insurance companies manage it? And folks can pick the insurance company they want.
And guess what? The insurance plans are rated, on a five star rating. And you see the ratings, on the medicare.gov site. But I had to contact my local public library, adult reference librarian. And they taught me, how to conduct the search…
I need to explain statistical correlation vs statistical causation first (from an earlier post, in this thread). This Amish joke at ebaumsworld.com/jokes/amish-elevator/267556/, gives an example of statistical correlation. 
I’m also including a short, video presentation. 
And the top corporate tax rate was higher for most of Reagan’s presidency than it was for Obama’s (just like the top income tax rate was).
But back in Reagan’s time Corporations weren’t nearly so mobile as they are now. Even medium size corps just buy suppliers in Asia and shift the profits there. There must be an even playing field as a start.
Davo - I think you especially might like this short article on the issues eroding the foundations of America
maverickphilosopher.typepad.com/ … sophy.html.
Steve, again, I agree that the corporate income tax rate should be lower, as do a lot of Democrats and people in other countries who support a stronger safety net (which includes UHC).
If any Democrats agree, i missed it but i hope you’re right. I hope i’m wrong but it appears to me that Dems are actually happy to see folks get on and stay on govt programs so that these people remain dependent and end up being lifelong Dem voters. This appears to me to be an actual strategy of the Dems which is also why they suddenly support open borders.
davo said:
Great place and great people. Let me know if you ever do decide to come. Everyday life is good. The political stuff just smells bad. I just had a friend from our church get back from Australia. Said it was interesting. Has a son and grand children there he had never met. We either embrace cultural and belief differences, or we throw a wall up.
I’m not for walls.
Thanks
I’ve heard that argument before and it’s never made sense to me. The goal for the safety net is to improve the wellbeing of people struggling financially. But your argument makes the safety net sound like a means to an end. That is, you don’t think safety net advocates are motivated by a desire to reduce misery, but something else. That sounds conspiracy theory-ish to me. I support a safety net and it’s for the same reason I suspect practically every supporter of it does: To help people. What specific programs do you have in mind?
qaz
Posts: 961
Joined: Sat Oct 17, 2015 10:51 am
The question is not about a safety net as everyone supports this in varying degrees including myself and i was a Democrat who voted for Bill Clinton in his first term. Over time various programs were proposed to try to get folks on welfare often for generations the job skills to get off welfare type programs. Clinton even signed a welfare to work program that tried to give job training skills to welfare recipients but other then this one singular event i have only seen Democrats oppose these kind of programs and it always baffled me as to the reason why. After observing Democrats for decades i’ve concluded that for the sake of political power they want to keep folks dependent on the government and in the pocket of the Democratic party. I’m not a conspiracy theory fan but i am a fan of common sense.
What makes perfect sense to me, is to be an Independent - like me. Then vote for whom you think, will do the best job - Republican or Democrat. Sometimes it hard to tell, if a Democrat is really a Republican or a Republican is really a Democrat.
Sometimes it hard to tell, if a Democrat is really a Republican or a Republican is really a Democrat.
Well Susan Collins may as well be a Democrat but it’s hard to think of Dems you would mistake as Republicans. They vote as a solid block right now. The only two that occasionally break ranks that i can think of are Joe Mansion and Heidi Heitkamp!
I found this YouTube video informative. So I am including it for **educational ** purposes only.
Hum. This guy sure looks like an agent, on the NCIS LA TV show 
Hypothetically, if I were to use the TOR browser, I would also use a VPN and a Linux operating system.
Steve, what particular programs do Democrats support or oppose that have lead you to conclude this? And if you don’t think they support these programs for their stated reasons, what do you think is their ulterior motive?
I don’t remember the names of the specific programs but if you ever see a Dem support any effort to get people on a govt program off it and back to work i will be amazed. Bill Clinton did sign Welfare Reform and later Obama decided not to enforce it and nowadays anything resembling job training or vocational training will probably be called “racist” by the left. The ulterior motive IMHO is that the Dems see this and open borders as a method to build up their voter base.
If you can’t name the programs you oppose, then I think there’s a good chance they’re not as bad as you imagine they are.
Democrats supported the stimulus bill which IIRC saved or created up to 3 million jobs.
Frankly, I think the idea that Democrats don’t want people to work is a caricature, not grounded in fact. There’s a temp agency in my work building. Applicants line up, and for jobs that have virtually no benefits and meager wages. I know there are some people who are so slothful that they don’t want to work at all, but I think they’re a small minority of the people who benefit from programs like SNAP, heating assistance, and subsidized health insurance.
For the sake of clarity, i was referring to the Democratic party not individual people looking for work. I also observe Republicans generally support military spending but if you ask me to name individual military programs they support , i can’t but that doesn’t mean my observations aren’t valid. This conclusion that the Obama 800 billion stimulus package created or saved 3 million jobs seems crazy to me because you can’t reconcile it to the extended slow growth of the economy under Obama. My understanding of the 800 billion is that it ended up being a payback to unions by Obama.
Saving jobs is a very subjective measure because you project out all the related industries and those projections are subjective but the actual auto industry jobs saved were union jobs which the Dems perceived as their voters.
My view of the Dems has evolved over time and as i said i used to be a Dem but over time they have evolved more and more to the left. They are rabidly pro-abortion now whereas in the past you could be pro-life and a Dem but now there is no room for free speech and free thought in their party. They are the party of group think.
But if the majority of people who benefit from heating and healthcare subsidies, SNAP, etc aren’t slothful, then we can probably conclude Democrats aren’t supporting these programs as part of a Machiavellian ploy to stay in power by keeping people slothful and poor.
Regarding the stimulus, the 3 million jobs number came from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. Rather than concluding the CBO must be wrong since growth was slower than we’d like, I think you should ask, “What would our growth rate be without the stimulus?”, a question which the CBO used in its analysis.
As a political strategy, your theory about Democrats just doesn’t make sense. EVEN IF Democrats didn’t care about unemployment itself (which I think would be a strange assumption), they would know that increasing unemployment through welfare programs is not a sustainable strategy.
I don’t follow your first conclusion. I think most people do want to work as God created us to feel happy when we are productive not slothful. But uneducated people need resources to break out of poverty , not only a safety net but a kind of trampoline effect that gives them a realistic opportunity. There are great opportunities now in fields like welding ,plumbing and other manual type jobs in building and construction fields. I’m hoping Trump when he gets around to infrastructure spending will include programs including training for these fields. Obama had 8 years to propose job training but just couldn’t get around to it.
The growth rate without the stimulus? It was under 2% with it, so i can’t even imagine.
Under Obama the number of people on food stamps and welfare increased significantly yet he was still very popular so this strategy was sustainable for eight years and if Hill was elected Pres i think it would have just continued in the same trajectory for another 8 years at least.