Republicans have a poor understanding of economics. They should have no place in making policy

[Listening]

"Everyone except flacks for the White House knows that the 2009 stimulus package failed miserably to produce the promised results," Lindsey wrote. "But even if you buy the White House's argument that the $800 billion package created 3 million jobs, that works out to $266,000 per job. Taxing or borrowing $266,000 from the private sector to create a single job is simply not a cost effective way of putting America back to work. The long-term debt burden of that $266,000 swamps any benefit that the single job created might provide."

Obama s Stimulus A Documented Failure CNS News

 

[Dad2three]

Mondale was a weak and ineffective candidate, and didn't come across well on TV. But most importantly, Ronnie's great debt-fuelled spending spree, made it seem like the US was prospering. The stock market hadn't crashed so everyone was euphoric over the great economy, and the lower taxes. It was in Reagan's second term that the negative effects of his tax cuts came home to roost.

Much like no Republican wanted to run against Clinton (and hence you got Dole), nobody in the democratic party wanted to run against Reagan.

The Market crashed in 1987 because of computer issues (or so they say) but was back in three months.

I believe the market tripled under Reagan (from memory).

There were no negative effects from his tax cuts in his second term.

That is simply a fairy tale.

No, it's Clinton you're thinking of. That's when the market tripled. What Reagan tripled was the national debt.

No, it was Reagan....and I could be wrong.....

Takes over at 824

Finishes at 2180.

You are right, he didn't triple it. It only went up by...... 2.65

Clinton takes over at 3300

Ends at 11722. He almost quadrupled it.....

Reagan takes over a shitstorm economy and does pretty good.

Clinton gets much better and does good with it.

Shitstorm?? lol

Good Times on Wall Street

It was that explosive growth in the stock market that drove the overall prosperity of the Reagan years. The great bull market of the 1980s came fast on the heels of one of the bleakest periods in the history of Wall Street; between 1967 and 1982, the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined by some 23%. Factoring in the high inflation of the period, that represented a real decline in value of nearly 70%.


So AFTER that we are supposed to be impressed by Reagan tripling the debt and growing Gov't spending which REALLY created Reagan's 14 million jobs?


Not-Quite-So-Good Times Off Wall Street


But the expansion of stockownership to nearly 30% of American households still left more than two-thirds of the country shut out of direct benefits from the great bull market of the Age of Reagan. For the 70% of American households that still lacked any stake at all in the stock market, the Reagan economy was not quite so lustrous as it seemed to those enjoying the fruits of rising equity values. Real wages, which had increased steadily from 1945 to 1972 but then stalled through the stagflation era, remained flat through the 1980s as well. Unemployment declined from the atrocious highs of the late 1970s and early 1980s, but the high-paying blue-collar industrial jobs that had been the mainstay of the midcentury economy continued to disappear.


Economy in The Reagan Era

 

[Dad2three]

"Everyone except flacks for the White House knows that the 2009 stimulus package failed miserably to produce the promised results," Lindsey wrote. "But even if you buy the White House's argument that the $800 billion package created 3 million jobs, that works out to $266,000 per job. Taxing or borrowing $266,000 from the private sector to create a single job is simply not a cost effective way of putting America back to work. The long-term debt burden of that $266,000 swamps any benefit that the single job created might provide."

Obama s Stimulus A Documented Failure CNS News

Weird, 40% of the stimulus was tax cuts. How much did each one of those cost?

Dubya's tax cuts cost US $1.7 TRILLION in his 8 years, he lost 1+ million PRIVATE sector jobs in that time. How much did each job loss cost? lol


I guess keeping US out of ANOTHER GOP great depression, the goal of the stimulus, wasn't worth it? LOL

 

[Listening]

Mondale was a weak and ineffective candidate, and didn't come across well on TV. But most importantly, Ronnie's great debt-fuelled spending spree, made it seem like the US was prospering. The stock market hadn't crashed so everyone was euphoric over the great economy, and the lower taxes. It was in Reagan's second term that the negative effects of his tax cuts came home to roost.

Much like no Republican wanted to run against Clinton (and hence you got Dole), nobody in the democratic party wanted to run against Reagan.

The Market crashed in 1987 because of computer issues (or so they say) but was back in three months.

I believe the market tripled under Reagan (from memory).

There were no negative effects from his tax cuts in his second term.

That is simply a fairy tale.

No, it's Clinton you're thinking of. That's when the market tripled. What Reagan tripled was the national debt.

No, it was Reagan....and I could be wrong.....

Takes over at 824

Finishes at 2180.

You are right, he didn't triple it. It only went up by...... 2.65

Clinton takes over at 3300

Ends at 11722. He almost quadrupled it.....

Reagan takes over a shitstorm economy and does pretty good.

Clinton gets much better and does good with it.

Shitstorm?? lol

Good Times on Wall Street

It was that explosive growth in the stock market that drove the overall prosperity of the Reagan years. The great bull market of the 1980s came fast on the heels of one of the bleakest periods in the history of Wall Street; between 1967 and 1982, the Dow Jones Industrial Average declined by some 23%. Factoring in the high inflation of the period, that represented a real decline in value of nearly 70%.


So AFTER that we are supposed to be impressed by Reagan tripling the debt and growing Gov't spending which REALLY created Reagan's 14 million jobs?


Not-Quite-So-Good Times Off Wall Street


But the expansion of stockownership to nearly 30% of American households still left more than two-thirds of the country shut out of direct benefits from the great bull market of the Age of Reagan. For the 70% of American households that still lacked any stake at all in the stock market, the Reagan economy was not quite so lustrous as it seemed to those enjoying the fruits of rising equity values. Real wages, which had increased steadily from 1945 to 1972 but then stalled through the stagflation era, remained flat through the 1980s as well. Unemployment declined from the atrocious highs of the late 1970s and early 1980s, but the high-paying blue-collar industrial jobs that had been the mainstay of the midcentury economy continued to disappear.


Economy in The Reagan Era

Not sure what your are trying to counter here....

But, yes....shitstorm.

Carter got dumped on his ass (got 42% of the vote) in 1980. Because American couldn't see what a good job he was doing [ROTFLMAO]

 

[Listening]

"Everyone except flacks for the White House knows that the 2009 stimulus package failed miserably to produce the promised results," Lindsey wrote. "But even if you buy the White House's argument that the $800 billion package created 3 million jobs, that works out to $266,000 per job. Taxing or borrowing $266,000 from the private sector to create a single job is simply not a cost effective way of putting America back to work. The long-term debt burden of that $266,000 swamps any benefit that the single job created might provide."

Obama s Stimulus A Documented Failure CNS News

Weird, 40% of the stimulus was tax cuts. How much did each one of those cost?

Dubya's tax cuts cost US $1.7 TRILLION in his 8 years, he lost 1+ million PRIVATE sector jobs in that time. How much did each job loss cost? lol


I guess keeping US out of ANOTHER GOP great depression, the goal of the stimulus, wasn't worth it? LOL

You can't multiply 266,000 x 0.4 ?

I don't argue asswipe Bush's tax cut. Bush was a moron.

The whole great depression meme is another wet dream on your part.

 

[Faun]

Mondale was a weak and ineffective candidate, and didn't come across well on TV. But most importantly, Ronnie's great debt-fuelled spending spree, made it seem like the US was prospering. The stock market hadn't crashed so everyone was euphoric over the great economy, and the lower taxes. It was in Reagan's second term that the negative effects of his tax cuts came home to roost.

Much like no Republican wanted to run against Clinton (and hence you got Dole), nobody in the democratic party wanted to run against Reagan.

The Market crashed in 1987 because of computer issues (or so they say) but was back in three months.

I believe the market tripled under Reagan (from memory).

There were no negative effects from his tax cuts in his second term.

That is simply a fairy tale.

No, it's Clinton you're thinking of. That's when the market tripled. What Reagan tripled was the national debt.

No, it was Reagan....and I could be wrong.....

Takes over at 824

Finishes at 2180.

You are right, he didn't triple it. It only went up by...... 2.65

Clinton takes over at 3300

Ends at 11722. He almost quadrupled it.....

Reagan takes over a shitstorm economy and does pretty good.

Clinton gets much better and does good with it.

Thanks for showing I was right.

 

[Dad2three]

"Everyone except flacks for the White House knows that the 2009 stimulus package failed miserably to produce the promised results," Lindsey wrote. "But even if you buy the White House's argument that the $800 billion package created 3 million jobs, that works out to $266,000 per job. Taxing or borrowing $266,000 from the private sector to create a single job is simply not a cost effective way of putting America back to work. The long-term debt burden of that $266,000 swamps any benefit that the single job created might provide."

Obama s Stimulus A Documented Failure CNS News

But the stimulus bill was meant to provide a temporary bump to the economy — and it did just that. Here are the facts:

• Gross domestic product and total payroll employment were at historic lows when the stimulus passed, and private-sector layoffs were peaking. All three of these very important indicators began to turn around almost exactly the moment the stimulus passed. (The Center for American Progress has some great charts here.)
• The Congressional Budget Office concluded that the GDP in the fourth quarter of 2009 was as much as 3.8 percent higher than it would have been without the stimulus.
• At the end of 2010, there were approximately 2.5 million more jobs in the country that wouldn’t have existed without the stimulus, according to Mark Zandi of Moody’s Economy.com.
• The bill kept nearly 6 million people out of poverty in 2009, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP).

Most of the spending measures in the stimulus bill have expired, but the point is that it did what it was supposed to do. For Republicans to simply say “the economy is still bad, so the stimulus was a failure” is a cheap misdirection.

The stimulus act was a success and we need another - The Washington Post

 

[Listening]

Mondale was a weak and ineffective candidate, and didn't come across well on TV. But most importantly, Ronnie's great debt-fuelled spending spree, made it seem like the US was prospering. The stock market hadn't crashed so everyone was euphoric over the great economy, and the lower taxes. It was in Reagan's second term that the negative effects of his tax cuts came home to roost.

Much like no Republican wanted to run against Clinton (and hence you got Dole), nobody in the democratic party wanted to run against Reagan.

The Market crashed in 1987 because of computer issues (or so they say) but was back in three months.

I believe the market tripled under Reagan (from memory).

There were no negative effects from his tax cuts in his second term.

That is simply a fairy tale.

No, it's Clinton you're thinking of. That's when the market tripled. What Reagan tripled was the national debt.

No, it was Reagan....and I could be wrong.....

Takes over at 824

Finishes at 2180.

You are right, he didn't triple it. It only went up by...... 2.65

Clinton takes over at 3300

Ends at 11722. He almost quadrupled it.....

Reagan takes over a shitstorm economy and does pretty good.

Clinton gets much better and does good with it.

Thanks for showing I was right.

Facts is facts.

 

[Dad2three]

"Everyone except flacks for the White House knows that the 2009 stimulus package failed miserably to produce the promised results," Lindsey wrote. "But even if you buy the White House's argument that the $800 billion package created 3 million jobs, that works out to $266,000 per job. Taxing or borrowing $266,000 from the private sector to create a single job is simply not a cost effective way of putting America back to work. The long-term debt burden of that $266,000 swamps any benefit that the single job created might provide."

Obama s Stimulus A Documented Failure CNS News

Weird, 40% of the stimulus was tax cuts. How much did each one of those cost?

Dubya's tax cuts cost US $1.7 TRILLION in his 8 years, he lost 1+ million PRIVATE sector jobs in that time. How much did each job loss cost? lol


I guess keeping US out of ANOTHER GOP great depression, the goal of the stimulus, wasn't worth it? LOL

You can't multiply 266,000 x 0.4 ?

I don't argue asswipe Bush's tax cut. Bush was a moron.

The whole great depression meme is another wet dream on your part.

Sure Bubba, sure. The economy ONLY tumbled 9%+ the last quarter of 2008 and was ONLY dumping 700,000+ jobs a month. We would've been OK with Gov't stepping in, history shows that, lol

 

[Listening]

Each individual of the society has a right to be protected by it in the enjoyment of his life, liberty, and property, according to standing laws. He is obliged, consequently, to contribute his share to the expense of this protection; and to give his personal service, or an equivalent, when necessary. But no part of the property of any individual can, with justice, be taken from him, or applied to public uses, without his own consent, or that of the representative body of the people. In fine, the people of this commonwealth are not controllable by any other laws than those to which their constitutional representative body have given their consent.

Ben Franklin

 

[Paperman299]

"Everyone except flacks for the White House knows that the 2009 stimulus package failed miserably to produce the promised results," Lindsey wrote. "But even if you buy the White House's argument that the $800 billion package created 3 million jobs, that works out to $266,000 per job. Taxing or borrowing $266,000 from the private sector to create a single job is simply not a cost effective way of putting America back to work. The long-term debt burden of that $266,000 swamps any benefit that the single job created might provide."

Obama s Stimulus A Documented Failure CNS News

So because the stimulus didn't provide all that was promised, the economy would have been better off without it? That is completely false, and it is so absurd that only a former economic advisor for George W. Bush, essentially one of the people responsible for the Great Recession, could say it with a straight face. Lindsey's old boss W, by the way, was not against increasing spending to counter the effects of economic downturn. He himself increased the deficit by several times in his final fiscal budget.

Kind of makes Lindsey's comments now seem pretty hypocritical.

 

[Listening]

"Everyone except flacks for the White House knows that the 2009 stimulus package failed miserably to produce the promised results," Lindsey wrote. "But even if you buy the White House's argument that the $800 billion package created 3 million jobs, that works out to $266,000 per job. Taxing or borrowing $266,000 from the private sector to create a single job is simply not a cost effective way of putting America back to work. The long-term debt burden of that $266,000 swamps any benefit that the single job created might provide."

Obama s Stimulus A Documented Failure CNS News

So because the stimulus didn't provide all that was promised, the economy would have been better off without it? That is completely false, and it is so absurd that only a former economic advisor for George W. Bush, essentially one of the people responsible for the Great Recession, could say it with a straight face. Lindsey's old boss W, by the way, was not against increasing spending to counter the effects of economic downturn. He himself increased the deficit by several times in his final fiscal budget.

Kind of makes Lindsey's comments now seem pretty hypocritical.

Sorry, but you'll have a hard time arguing with $266,000 per job (or do you want to take a shot at it ?).

Would you have liked a check for that amount ?

The stimulus was costly with no results.

Nobody can argue the other path would have been worse because we have no way of knowing. Pure and simple.

I would have liked to see GM fail and the economy contract further.

 

[Dad2three]

Each individual of the society has a right to be protected by it in the enjoyment of his life, liberty, and property, according to standing laws. He is obliged, consequently, to contribute his share to the expense of this protection; and to give his personal service, or an equivalent, when necessary. But no part of the property of any individual can, with justice, be taken from him, or applied to public uses, without his own consent, or that of the representative body of the people. In fine, the people of this commonwealth are not controllable by any other laws than those to which their constitutional representative body have given their consent.

Ben Franklin

Good thing we have LAWS that follow that Bubba

Contrary to "Entitlement Society" Rhetoric, Over Nine-Tenths of Entitlement Benefits Go to Elderly, Disabled, or Working Households


Moreover, the vast bulk of that 9 percent goes for medical care, unemployment insurance benefits (which individuals must have a significant work history to receive), Social Security survivor benefits for the children and spouses of deceased workers, and Social Security benefits for retirees between ages 62 and 64. Seven out of the 9 percentage points go for one of these four purposes.

Contrary to Entitlement Society Rhetoric Over Nine-Tenths of Entitlement Benefits Go to Elderly Disabled or Working Households mdash Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

 

[Paperman299]

"Everyone except flacks for the White House knows that the 2009 stimulus package failed miserably to produce the promised results," Lindsey wrote. "But even if you buy the White House's argument that the $800 billion package created 3 million jobs, that works out to $266,000 per job. Taxing or borrowing $266,000 from the private sector to create a single job is simply not a cost effective way of putting America back to work. The long-term debt burden of that $266,000 swamps any benefit that the single job created might provide."

Obama s Stimulus A Documented Failure CNS News

So because the stimulus didn't provide all that was promised, the economy would have been better off without it? That is completely false, and it is so absurd that only a former economic advisor for George W. Bush, essentially one of the people responsible for the Great Recession, could say it with a straight face. Lindsey's old boss W, by the way, was not against increasing spending to counter the effects of economic downturn. He himself increased the deficit by several times in his final fiscal budget.

Kind of makes Lindsey's comments now seem pretty hypocritical.

Sorry, but you'll have a hard time arguing with $266,000 per job (or do you want to take a shot at it ?).

Would you have liked a check for that amount ?

The stimulus was costly with no results.

Nobody can argue the other path would have been worse because we have no way of knowing. Pure and simple.

I would have liked to see GM fail and the economy contract further.

A few dozen top economists would disagree with you.

And Dad2three literally just posted the information making the case you claim can't be made. The positive impact of the stimulus is actually past debate. Throwing out grade school analyses like cutting up the overall cost of the stimulus according to one of its effects is not even an argument, it's shallow political theater.

Again, Lindsey was an economic advisor during the years that created the Great Recession, an aide to a president you profess to disagree with. Why are you listening to him?

 

[Dad2three]

"Everyone except flacks for the White House knows that the 2009 stimulus package failed miserably to produce the promised results," Lindsey wrote. "But even if you buy the White House's argument that the $800 billion package created 3 million jobs, that works out to $266,000 per job. Taxing or borrowing $266,000 from the private sector to create a single job is simply not a cost effective way of putting America back to work. The long-term debt burden of that $266,000 swamps any benefit that the single job created might provide."

Obama s Stimulus A Documented Failure CNS News

So because the stimulus didn't provide all that was promised, the economy would have been better off without it? That is completely false, and it is so absurd that only a former economic advisor for George W. Bush, essentially one of the people responsible for the Great Recession, could say it with a straight face. Lindsey's old boss W, by the way, was not against increasing spending to counter the effects of economic downturn. He himself increased the deficit by several times in his final fiscal budget.

Kind of makes Lindsey's comments now seem pretty hypocritical.

Sorry, but you'll have a hard time arguing with $266,000 per job (or do you want to take a shot at it ?).

Would you have liked a check for that amount ?

The stimulus was costly with no results.

Nobody can argue the other path would have been worse because we have no way of knowing. Pure and simple.

I would have liked to see GM fail and the economy contract further.

Keeping US out of the GOP great depression, 2.0, is 'nothing' *shaking head*

And I'm sure you would've liked to see a REAL depression if GM and the banks failed, as they would've without Gov't backstops, wingnutter!

 

[Listening]

"Everyone except flacks for the White House knows that the 2009 stimulus package failed miserably to produce the promised results," Lindsey wrote. "But even if you buy the White House's argument that the $800 billion package created 3 million jobs, that works out to $266,000 per job. Taxing or borrowing $266,000 from the private sector to create a single job is simply not a cost effective way of putting America back to work. The long-term debt burden of that $266,000 swamps any benefit that the single job created might provide."

Obama s Stimulus A Documented Failure CNS News

So because the stimulus didn't provide all that was promised, the economy would have been better off without it? That is completely false, and it is so absurd that only a former economic advisor for George W. Bush, essentially one of the people responsible for the Great Recession, could say it with a straight face. Lindsey's old boss W, by the way, was not against increasing spending to counter the effects of economic downturn. He himself increased the deficit by several times in his final fiscal budget.

Kind of makes Lindsey's comments now seem pretty hypocritical.

Sorry, but you'll have a hard time arguing with $266,000 per job (or do you want to take a shot at it ?).

Would you have liked a check for that amount ?

The stimulus was costly with no results.

Nobody can argue the other path would have been worse because we have no way of knowing. Pure and simple.

I would have liked to see GM fail and the economy contract further.

Keeping US out of the GOP great depression, 2.0, is 'nothing' *shaking head*

And I'm sure you would've liked to see a REAL depression if GM and the banks failed, as they would've without Gov't backstops, wingnutter!

You fuckers can keep bleating all you want.

You would not let it happen so we'll never really know.

What we know is that the stimulus got us a lot of nothing.

 

[Paperman299]

Each individual of the society has a right to be protected by it in the enjoyment of his life, liberty, and property, according to standing laws. He is obliged, consequently, to contribute his share to the expense of this protection; and to give his personal service, or an equivalent, when necessary. But no part of the property of any individual can, with justice, be taken from him, or applied to public uses, without his own consent, or that of the representative body of the people. In fine, the people of this commonwealth are not controllable by any other laws than those to which their constitutional representative body have given their consent.

Ben Franklin

We're actually talking about a bigger issue than whether or not rich people deserve to be taxed more than others, but okay.

In a letter to James Madison in 1785, for instance, Thomas Jefferson suggested that taxes could be used to reduce “the enormous inequality” between rich and poor. He wrote that one way of “silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions of property in geometrical progression as they rise.”

Madison later spoke in favor of using laws to “reduce extreme wealth towards a state of mediocrity (meaning the middle) and raise extreme indigence towards a state of comfort.”

“The rich alone use imported articles, and on these alone the whole taxes of the general government are levied,” Jefferson wrote in 1811. “The poor man, who uses nothing but what is made in his own farm or family, will pay nothing. (With) our revenues applied to canals, roads, schools, etc., the farmer will see his government supported, his children educated and the face of his country made a paradise by the contributions of the rich alone, without his being called on to spend a cent from his earnings.”

 

[Dad2three]

"Everyone except flacks for the White House knows that the 2009 stimulus package failed miserably to produce the promised results," Lindsey wrote. "But even if you buy the White House's argument that the $800 billion package created 3 million jobs, that works out to $266,000 per job. Taxing or borrowing $266,000 from the private sector to create a single job is simply not a cost effective way of putting America back to work. The long-term debt burden of that $266,000 swamps any benefit that the single job created might provide."

Obama s Stimulus A Documented Failure CNS News

So because the stimulus didn't provide all that was promised, the economy would have been better off without it? That is completely false, and it is so absurd that only a former economic advisor for George W. Bush, essentially one of the people responsible for the Great Recession, could say it with a straight face. Lindsey's old boss W, by the way, was not against increasing spending to counter the effects of economic downturn. He himself increased the deficit by several times in his final fiscal budget.

Kind of makes Lindsey's comments now seem pretty hypocritical.

Sorry, but you'll have a hard time arguing with $266,000 per job (or do you want to take a shot at it ?).

Would you have liked a check for that amount ?

The stimulus was costly with no results.

Nobody can argue the other path would have been worse because we have no way of knowing. Pure and simple.

I would have liked to see GM fail and the economy contract further.

Keeping US out of the GOP great depression, 2.0, is 'nothing' *shaking head*

And I'm sure you would've liked to see a REAL depression if GM and the banks failed, as they would've without Gov't backstops, wingnutter!

You fuckers can keep bleating all you want.

You would not let it happen so we'll never really know.

What we know is that the stimulus got us a lot of nothing.

MORE opinion NOT backed by EXPERTS who went to school and work in the field say.


I agree though, the 40% of stimulus, put into it to get GOP support (tax cuts)which didn't come, was a waste and the stimulus was to small for the size of hole Dubya/GOP policy left US in!

 

[Listening]

"Everyone except flacks for the White House knows that the 2009 stimulus package failed miserably to produce the promised results," Lindsey wrote. "But even if you buy the White House's argument that the $800 billion package created 3 million jobs, that works out to $266,000 per job. Taxing or borrowing $266,000 from the private sector to create a single job is simply not a cost effective way of putting America back to work. The long-term debt burden of that $266,000 swamps any benefit that the single job created might provide."

Obama s Stimulus A Documented Failure CNS News

So because the stimulus didn't provide all that was promised, the economy would have been better off without it? That is completely false, and it is so absurd that only a former economic advisor for George W. Bush, essentially one of the people responsible for the Great Recession, could say it with a straight face. Lindsey's old boss W, by the way, was not against increasing spending to counter the effects of economic downturn. He himself increased the deficit by several times in his final fiscal budget.

Kind of makes Lindsey's comments now seem pretty hypocritical.

Sorry, but you'll have a hard time arguing with $266,000 per job (or do you want to take a shot at it ?).

Would you have liked a check for that amount ?

The stimulus was costly with no results.

Nobody can argue the other path would have been worse because we have no way of knowing. Pure and simple.

I would have liked to see GM fail and the economy contract further.

A few dozen top economists would disagree with you.

And Dad2three literally just posted the information making the case you claim can't be made. The positive impact of the stimulus is actually past debate. Throwing out grade school analyses like cutting up the overall cost of the stimulus according to one of its effects is not even an argument, it's shallow political theater.

Again, Lindsey was an economic advisor during the years that created the Great Recession, an aide to a president you profess to disagree with. Why are you listening to him?

ROTFLMAO

Duddy has not made a case on anything yet (except that he can jam it up with worthless bullshit).

You going to argue the 266,000 per job ? Or hid under duddy's skirt.

I read his numbers and they make sense.

I recall the whole "shovel ready" crap back then. It was a disaster.

 

[Listening]

Each individual of the society has a right to be protected by it in the enjoyment of his life, liberty, and property, according to standing laws. He is obliged, consequently, to contribute his share to the expense of this protection; and to give his personal service, or an equivalent, when necessary. But no part of the property of any individual can, with justice, be taken from him, or applied to public uses, without his own consent, or that of the representative body of the people. In fine, the people of this commonwealth are not controllable by any other laws than those to which their constitutional representative body have given their consent.

Ben Franklin

We're actually talking about a bigger issue than whether or not rich people deserve to be taxed more than others, but okay.

In a letter to James Madison in 1785, for instance, Thomas Jefferson suggested that taxes could be used to reduce “the enormous inequality” between rich and poor. He wrote that one way of “silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions of property in geometrical progression as they rise.”

Madison later spoke in favor of using laws to “reduce extreme wealth towards a state of mediocrity (meaning the middle) and raise extreme indigence towards a state of comfort.”

“The rich alone use imported articles, and on these alone the whole taxes of the general government are levied,” Jefferson wrote in 1811. “The poor man, who uses nothing but what is made in his own farm or family, will pay nothing. (With) our revenues applied to canals, roads, schools, etc., the farmer will see his government supported, his children educated and the face of his country made a paradise by the contributions of the rich alone, without his being called on to spend a cent from his earnings.”

I've never argued with taxing the rich more.

I've always said: I'll vote for 1 dollar of tax increases for ever 4 dollars of real spending cuts.

Not an issue for me.

BTW:

Franklin said:

There is no country in the world where so many provisions are established for them; so many hospitals to receive them when they are sick or lame, founded and maintained by voluntary charities; so many alms-houses for the aged of both sexes, together with a solemn general law made by the rich to subject their estates to a heavy tax for the support of the poor. Under all these obligations, are our poor modest, humble, and thankful; and do they use their best endeavors to maintain themselves, and lighten our shoulders of this burthen? On the contrary, I affirm that there is no country in the world in which the poor are more idle, dissolute, drunken, and insolent. The day you passed that act, you took away from before their eyes the greatest of all inducements to industry, frugality, and sobriety, by giving them a dependence on somewhat else than a careful accumulation during youth and health, for support in age or sickness. In short, you offered a premium for the encouragement of idleness, and you should not now wonder that it has had its effect in the increase of poverty.