Re: The 2nd Term - Round 1 - Diving for Dollars
You may laugh but I do occasionally listen to talk radio (but not one particular program) on days that I drive to work and when the other radio stations are playing crappy music (which is pretty often, no good rock music has been made since the early-mid 90's). I also scan poliical websites so you can get a sense of what issues the right and left are playing without actually tuning in. Daily Show clips are often posted in these places for example.
So, examples of right wing talking points. For this discussion, the Hillary Clinton out of context "what does it matter" has been the topic du jour in right wing media. Opie didn't come up with that one himself. In fact the whole Benghazi = coverup is another theme. If you think back a bit to the election, recall the pundit reaction to the Ryan-Biden debate. To a person, no matter what channel you tuned into (and I do scan channels to gauge reactions) every conservative pundit said the exact same thing, which was Biden was too rude/aggressive/etc. It was an excellent exercise in coodination, but horrible if you were looking for real opinions.
Takers vs workers is another one on the right, which is absurd since most of the "takers" by Mittens' definition are the elderly who vote GOP more than any other bloc.
Pirate I do have proof, and here it is:
Simply put, the Republican party operates to this day under the concept of Reaganomics, while the Democrats operate under Clintonomics. What do I mean by that?
Reaganomics is the notion that across the board tax cuts for the wealthy pay for themselves and also pay for massive defense spending increases. I'm not being partisan on that, that's what he put into law. Furthermore, this is the EXACT same platform Mitt Romney ran on, some 32 years after Reagan was elected. Like it or not Reaganomics is a failure. All you get is massive deficits, an economy overly dependent on defense spending, and money being parked overseas.
Clintonomics is the idea that some level of spending must be maintained and tax levels have to be at the right levels to fund it, even if that means raising taxes. There is no over reliance on the defense sector to prop up domestic industry. Clintonomics led to a balanced budget and a boomingn economy because the US had its financial house in order.
So, fast forward to today. Obama and Dems are proposing eliminating some special interest tax deductions (carried interest, oil and AG subsidies, etc) to generate additional revenue and then offset it equally with some spending cuts (amongst the ideas are chained CPI, etc). That's pretty Clintonian, and is the right approach to take. IMHO, budget changes need to generate about 500Bn a year in deficit reduction and the rest needs to come from growth. Right now we're at about 400Bn a year (100 prior year cuts mostly end of wars, 100 sequester, 130 payroll tax expiration, 70 upper income tax hikes). Get 50Bn a year from tax code changes, 50Bn from spending cuts and that's about all the economy can sustain.
GOP plan is to cut 1T a year out of spending. You tell me, realistically, which plan has a better chance of succeeding if both were enacted.
First off, I have no reason to laugh at you for listening to talk radio. I asked if you did, you said you did (and I would think you'd be good enough to tell me the truth on that), and that I can respect. Personally, I do not actively seek mainstream media, although I wouldn't have to go far to find it. It's sort of like the comments of the work ethic of women, how they have to work twice as hard as men, because they feel men don't hard at all, it's not so much of a challenge.
I can't remember if that was Eleanor Roosevelt or someone else. In any case, to the points.
The only "talking point" I have possibly heard enough to comment about is your concept of "takers vs. workers", although it hasn't been around since the election. Benghazi wasn't covered by the mainstream until after the election. I believe there is a segment of a show, I think it was "Face the Nation", where someone tried to bring it up and it was avoided. Since the election, I don't know what has been said about it other than what pundits on this forum have said, so I won't comment. One thing I will say, though, is that you have misconstrued the "takers vs. workers" "talking point". We're not talking about retirees here, but rather those who have dependent status (at least based upon the IRS's definition of dependent from the 1040 returns) on specific welfare programs, such as food stamps, Medicaid, and the like. Sure, social security and Medicare can be seen as such, however one thing that is of grave difference between the two groups of programs I have mentioned is that one comes with a mandate-by-taxation. In order to receive retirement social security benefits (we're not talking death benefit here), you must actually be enrolled in Medicare. Under Medicare, there are of course premium amounts that are required to be paid, however the cost of those premiums actually increases for each year after the federally-dictated "retirement age" you do not enroll. In addition, once you enroll, you are required, under penalty of felony, to use their method of service and ONLY their method of service for the specific benefits where you have chosen to participate (i.e. if you need a prescription drug and you're under that plan, it is a felony to pay for the drug out of pocket; you must wait for the Medicare funding). However, we might as well go back to the non-mandated-by-taxation welfare. Let's say you start receiving unemployment cheques. Several people I have interviewed are only doing the minimum for active job seeking in order to get their cheque, and will not seriously consider a job until the benefit runs out. This is why we have so many people on food stamps.
As for your "Clintonomics", although I do think you are missing a number of the tax cuts that took place around 1995 (you may not have seen them, but others did), there is one big flaw that is being missed: Are those who are attempting to put "Clintonomics" into practice and cutting spending actually putting the money saved into the bank, or are they merely shifting the money and spending somewhere else? There's one adage that I have always lived by: "The best way to make money is to not spend it." When the bill to remove the debt limit is signed into law, I would recommend you pay close attention to actions by not only Congress, but also the administration. Is there any new spending that is being authored, now that the money is "available"? This is one thing that I noticed after the last debt limit increase, is that the administration almost immediately authored new spending.
