Pangloss

LOL! Funny post. I didn't get a source from you on the tax revenue thing we talked about in the other thread, so I looked it up myself. According to the document I've linked below (page 30), tax revenue peaked under Clinton in 2000, and dropped significantly in 2001/02. It's apparently gone (or going) up slightly in the 2003/04 numbers listed there, and that that could be in part due to the tax cut, but one could just as easily say that the numbers indicate the opposite, so I'm going to agree with your point on the issue -- the numbers do not suggest an increase in revenue due to the tax cut. Thanks for posting it. http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2004/pdf/hist.pdf In answer to your question, no, I don't propose ending all entitlement spending. I propose actually spending it on people who need our help, rather than people who have trouble keeping up with the Joneses. The government is not in the business of putting all citizens in the same income bracket. It's INSANE what we're spending on Iraq. So what does that say about the orders-of-magnitude-GREATER amounts that we're wasting so that poor little Oliver, who lives in a foster home, can play with an X-Box instead of G.I. Joe?

I've never (deliberately) changed anyone's meaning, I've not misused any terminology related to stocks, and acting like I have was a deliberate attempt to make me look bad in order to demean my point, which you went on to agree with (which you could have just done in the first place). That's called a straw man argument, swansont. I guess we're done here, but I'm sorry to see it, because I thought you had some interesting points that made me think about something in a different way, but I'm not going to have a conversation with someone that's only mature on one side. You're welcome to your usual last word on the subject. Enjoy.

Well maybe I'm putting too fine a point on it, or maybe I'm being overly sensitive. I'd just appreciate it if you'd acknowledge our common ground rather than questioning whether I know anything about stocks. Focus on the positive, my friends!

These semantic points about stock ownership, which I've clearly demonstrated that I understand at least as well as you do, have nothing to do with the discussion at hand, and I'm in no mood at the moment for personal invective and straw-manning. Knock it off. You just agreed above that there's a potential conflict of interest, which you feel can be protected by trustee participation, right? Well as I said in a previous post, I think that's a valid point that I had not considered before. Why not simply say that? Why degenerate the conversation into personal slur and deridement? There's simply no call for being rude to me when I have not been rude to you. I'd like to continue a discussion about that subject, but at the moment I'm not real inclined to do so. When you can keep a civil tongue in your head, we can continue if you like.

arrr

How's that working out for her so far?

Yup, fair enough. The idea that the tax cut "saved" us from a recession is purely my opinion, and I happily caveat my remarks as such. The concept is legitimate, and well understood by economists, but the final extent of any such move is always interperable, no question about it. (Skye I think that answers your question to me as well?)

You mean how do market economies and supply-side economic theories work, or do you mean why do I feel the tax cut was responsible for the recovery to that degree? Either is a legit question, I just want to answer the right one.

No, investing in the stock market is not moronic. It's just moronic to suggest that the government invest in it. Simple question: What are stocks? Simple answer: Partial ownership of the company. If the "company" is partially "owned by" the government, then guess what? It's no longer a private company! Put another way, the whole entire point of the stock market is to trade in private ownership portions. So the idea that the government should trade stock is (a) based on a lack of understanding of what stock is and why it's traded, and (b) a violation of the basic principle of trading it in the first place. Frankly it was the stupidest thing I've ever heard any president say that could not be passed off as miscontrued, semantics, or a slip of the tongue. Bascule, the budget last year was something like $2.2 trillion, out of which about 60% is "entitlement" spending (Social security, healthcare, welfare, etc), as opposed to discretionary (Defense, infrastructure, etc). (IIRC this doesn't include debt-servicing.) For more information about this, I recommend Wikipedia and the Congressional Budget Office (http://www.cbo.gov/). This page appears to have some good historical data which you may find helpful: http://www.cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=1821&sequence=0 Regarding this statement: Do you have a source on that bit about tax revenues? It's my understanding that tax revenues are up under Bush, which is not surprising given a major tax cut and a booming economy. I'd be interested in reading which way it actually is. Thanks. I do agree that spending is up -- an insane amount, in fact. It's not just Bush's fault, though -- in fact 537 people are to blame (every member of congress + VP Cheney (as the 101st Senate vote) + Bush). My point was that it's silly for Clinton to be blaming the deficit on Iraq and the tax cut, when in fact Iraq is a (relative) drop in the bucket and the tax cut actually SAVED us from the recession. In fact if we buy Clinton's reasoning, the recession was his own fault, because of the massive increases in spending he approved in his 2000 budget in spite of serious economic indicators that were swiftly turning red at the time. So not only is he off in his criticism, he's being hypocritical at that.

Bio I'm afraid I don't have a hard answer for you, but I've heard various indications over the years that each agency (within each branch) controls its own web site. In the case of an agency with a small bureaucratic element, like the Supreme Court, it may be handled by their funding agency (such as the Government Accounting Office). Sorry I don't have anything more specific for you.

I happened to catch a few minutes of Rush Limbaugh yesterday at lunch (I usually try to pick up Al Franken when I'm out and about at that time, but for some reason I couldn't tune in 940). Anyway, he was ringing up Clinton for his Sunday talk show appearances, really bashing him for, in his view, bashing the Bush administration. So I popped into the Tivo last night and watched the Clinton interview (I'm a little behind in my Tivo viewing at the moment). I didn't think he attacked Bush per se, and he certainly didn't cross the line in terms of race. But he did actually state that the reason for the deficit is because of the tax cuts and Iraq, which of course is hogwash when we're spending $1.5 trillion per year on entitlements and less than a hundred billion per year on Iraq. He also stated that we're directly asking China to give us low-interest loans to finance the debt, which is also nonsense. The national debt is based on issuing overages of currency backed by the promise of payment to holders, not loans contracted to debt owners. Yes, foreign agencies own the debt, but they own it in the form of treasury bills and bonds which they can cash in at any time. Same thing from a money perspective, but COMPLETELY different from a diplomatic perspective. He even made this ridiculous statement that this is the first time we've ever financed a war based on debt! Um, hello, what the hell does he think the revolution was financed on? What does he think EVERY SINGLE WAR WE'VE EVER HAD was financed on? Yeesh. I think Clinton's a smart guy, but he's playing politics again, and it's disappointing that his perspective is so partisan. He has the ability to be an elder stateman, and he's throwing it away to get his wife elected to the throne. Some of his statements were so moronic that they reminded me of his State of the Union address in which he actually proposed that the government play the stock market! Very disappointing. I'm glad he refrained from personal attack or innuendo about race, so at least he's kept the debate at a responsible level. But he's a smart guy and it's a shame to see him toss out intelligent reasoning in favor of lame partisanship and false analogies.

If I told you that, I'd have to kill you.

But no political platform is perfect. If IMM will forgive me for speaking of her in the third person for a moment, I have a problem with her "animal rights" and her agenda to legislate animal morality on us, but I'd probably vote for her anyway. And then impose it upon them, whether they wanted it or not! (grin) Just kidding.

A nice platform, but this is a common misperception (above). The defense budget increased by something like 50% under Clinton, IIRC. (Or were you referring to the physical downsizing that took place?)

ROFL! Hey JPQ, watch out for Rita down there. I'm staying up here in Broward tomorrow (the course I was teaching tomorrow was cancelled).

I'll pass on thinking (or rather assuming) like that even for a moment, but you go right on ahead.

Just for you, Nevermore. Question: What's President Bush's position on Roe vs. Wade? Answer: He doesn't care how people get out of New Orleans.

I think the "indoctrination" qualm is an understandable one, but how many people do you (any of us) know who are mindless automatons because they recited the Pledge of Allegiance in school? Maybe we should look on it as part of the learning experience. After all, reciting the Pledge doesn't seem to have stopped a great number of people from joining the anti-war movement.

"Cosmos", and James Burke's "Connections", are the two books that hooked me on science.

I'm aware of the history, but I appreciate the thought towards accuracy.

Why wouldn't it be? The Iraq War is a relevent metric for relating to any kind of spending. It's all spending, and it's all relevent. The point I'm trying to get across here is that we spend great heaping amounts of money on welfare, and it gets us nowhere. Meanwhile we spend a fraction of that amount on Iraq, and some knuckleheads run around trying to make it sound like it's going to wreck the economy. Perspective is important. The lack of it is one of the reasons why we can't get our act together. The manipulation of it is why the 30% on either political extreme controls the tone and direction of political change in this country.