Originally Posted by SpicyMcVoodoo Unnecessary foreign entanglements do not equate to "military spending," in the sense that traditional conservatives would support. That's a misconception you seem to have. I think we should spend an abosolute shitload of money to ensure we have the best military in the world so that ...
07-22-2006, 02:45 PM
| #41 | ||||
| Typical Yuppie Scumbag  Binghamton, NY 
| Originally Posted by SpicyMcVoodoo I believe that a stable democracy that is western friendly in the heart of the middle east which seperates Iran from Isreal is an extremely valuable boon to that region's stabability.
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07-22-2006, 04:27 PM
| #42 | ||||
| Noob
| Originally Posted by 6SpeedTA95 It suprises me. I find it hard to believe that contemporary conservative policy and the science of economics overlaps so cleanly.
A liberal can make the counterargument: Higher taxes = more money put back into american industry (more doctors, scientists, military personnel, etc) = increased incomes = increased tax revenues. Tax rates of 70 years ago were what, 11%? Now they are 32%. Were we experiencing 3x as much economic growth in 1930, were we growing at 12% a year? No we weren't growing anywhere near 12% a year in 1930 even though taxes were 3x lower. Is there a perfect inverse correlation between taxes & economic growth in europe where tax rates vary from 35-50%? http://web.econ.ohio-state.edu/rstec...dia---2002.pdf Economic growth by year 1870 - 1.34 1913 - 1.82 1950 - 1.61 1998 - 2.04 In 1913 the tax rate was 5%. In 1950 it was 25% and in 1998 32%. Why is economic growth higher in 1998 if lower taxes = more economic growth. The argument that low taxes = economic growth is wishful thinking. FTR Bush did not cut taxes. Go to taxfreedomday and you'll see that the Bush tax rate stands at 31.6%. The rate has climbed steadily since 2004. Bush's tax rate is now similiar to Clintons. Except clinton balanced the Budget and Bush is still running 300 billion deficits. In Clintons last year he had a 33.6% tax rate and 100 billion in budget surpluses. Bush has a 31.6% rate and 300 billion in deficits. http://www.taxfoundation.org/taxfreedomday/ Last edited by Hedweb Buddha; 07-22-2006 at 05:00 PM. | ||||
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07-22-2006, 04:31 PM
| #43 | ||||
| Noob
| Originally Posted by TekDragon Me too. But Iraq is not a stable democracy and it is not western friendly. In fact of any country to promote democracy in Iraq was probably the worst idea.
Iraq, to my knowledge, never had a functioning pro-democracy movement. If you go over into Iran you'll meet endless millions of people who post on blogs, write papers, talk to friends, love western society and want to build more human rights and democratic government. Go to Iraq under Saddam and that didn't exist. I remember reading in the New Yorker about a stadium being filled with pro-democracy protestors listening to speeches by high ranking ex-politicians under the Mullah system giving speeches promoting human rights. Nothing like that happened in Saddam's Iraq. Kuwait, Jordan, Bahrain, Qatar, even Saudi Arabia have grassroots democracy movements where people have wanted, prepared for and gotten ready for democracy. Iraq does not. FTR, Turkey is a somewhat western friendly muslim democracy in the middle east. | ||||
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07-22-2006, 04:37 PM
| #44 | ||||
| Typical Yuppie Scumbag Binghamton, NY
| Originally Posted by Hedweb Buddha Yes, except for the fact that countless governments around the world and throughout time, including in this day and age, have proven than an individual can spend his or her money far more effeciently than the government. I have no problem with a doctor, farmer, or anyone else producing something for society getting money. I'd just rather give them my dollar myself instead of having the government take that dollar, put the majority of it into administration costs, and give whatever's left to the final recipient.
I don't know how Europe handles it's economies other than the fact that they are more socialized and liberal than the US, their growth has been piss poor for close to a decade, and their unemployment has stayed in the double digits.
Reduction in tax revenues due to the recession that started in 1999. Airline bailouts. Horrible hurricane season that resulted in numerous state emergencies. War on terror There is a reason Bush has a deficit. If you examine what happened to the Clinton surplus you'd be amazed at how almost all of it was eaten up by 9/11, air line bailouts, tax revenue decrease due to the recession, and other circumstances that were out of his control. Liberals like to point to the Iraq War, but the Iraq War was just another drop in the bucket next to those other events. What did Clinton have that ate away at his surplus? Hmmm? That said, despite ALL of the circumstances outside of Bush's control, we are now seeing a significent turn around. The economy is growing at a good, solid, sustainable level and the deficit is being reduced. In 10 years that's what the history books will remember. Not the 2-3 year recession that he inherited. | ||||
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07-22-2006, 04:43 PM
| #45 | ||||
| Administrator  libertarian Oklahoma
| Originally Posted by Hedweb Buddha http://www.heritage.org/Research/Taxes/wm327.cfm
http://www.cato.org/research/articles/rugy-030306.html 1932 - Income, top rate: 63 percent 1936 - Income tax, top rate: 79 percent. Roosevelt also institutes an inheritance tax, estate tax, gift taxes, dividend tax and progressive corporate tax. Where you pulled that 11% 70 years ago number from I have no clue. You should do some more reading on this. | ||||
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07-22-2006, 04:47 PM
| #46 | ||||
| Typical Yuppie Scumbag Binghamton, NY
| Originally Posted by Hedweb Buddha Did you ever think the reason that didn't happen in Iraq is becase it couldn't happen? Do a bit of research on what Saddam did to protestors in his country. He didn't silence them. He fucking slaughtered them, their family, and often the entire village they came from.
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07-22-2006, 04:47 PM
| #47 | ||||
| Administrator libertarian Oklahoma
| In 1932, Republican president, Herbert Hoover, with the support of the newly elected Democratic majority in the House of Representatives, passed the largest peacetime tax increase in the history of the United States. Marginal income tax rates were raised from 1.5% to 4% at the low end and from 25% to 63% at the top of the scale. A huge tax increase by any measure. http://www.shambhala.org/business/go...tml#Whatcaused 11% my ass | ||||
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07-22-2006, 04:50 PM
| #48 | ||||
| Typical Yuppie Scumbag Binghamton, NY
| Originally Posted by 6SpeedTA95
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07-22-2006, 05:03 PM
| #49 | ||||
| Noob
| Originally Posted by 6SpeedTA95 You're the one who needs to learn to read, the link to the 11% figure was in my post.
http://www.taxfoundation.org/taxfreedomday/ Table 1: Tax Freedom Day and Tax Burden, Selected Years 1900 - 2006 1930 11-Feb 11.20% Seriously guys, if this is what passes for debate here maybe this isn't the board for me. I find this very insulting. You're the one who isn't reading. | ||||
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07-22-2006, 05:05 PM
| #50 | ||||
| Noob
| Originally Posted by TekDragon Didja ever think that trying to instill democracy in a country with no history isn't a great idea? Perhaps funding democratic movements in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Kuwait & Iran would've been a better idea.
You claim to want a stable democratic gov. in the middle east. Great, so do I but why did you support promoting that in the country with the least history of democracy then? That is like picking the shittiest car in the car lot and driving it home. The middle east is already moving towards democracy. Supporting those movements (which Bush does do) is going to be a more effective, cheaper, safer method that benefits our reputation instead of destroys it. Now we have a war that costs hundreds of billions of dollars, a country that is considered a 'failed state' by freedom house instead of a liberal democracy and we have built motivation for terrorism. According to Robert Baer we basically handed teh country over to Iran radicals. | ||||
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07-22-2006, 05:16 PM
| #51 | ||||
| Typical Yuppie Scumbag Binghamton, NY
| Originally Posted by Hedweb Buddha We are encouraging Democratic movements in all those countries, including Iran. Iraq WAS a good target primarily because its prior government wasn't heavily steeped in religion. Clerics had power, but no where near the power they did in theocracies like Iran.
Furthermore, you make it sound like Bush had the objective to democratize a country and he spun the wheel and picked one. No. We went into Iraq because Saddam repeatedly broke the cease fire agreement, he violated the terms of the final UN resolution (and every one prior) which authorized force, and he was a known supporter of terrorist groups (the full span of that support was only later realized when ties to palestinan groups and al quedae were discovered in numerous documents and confessions). | ||||
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07-22-2006, 05:21 PM
| #52 | ||||
| Noob
| Originally Posted by TekDragon Yeah I know. But if anything the war in Iraq made muslims more sympathetic to terrorists.
Iraq was not a good target in my view. It will probably take decades for the Iraqi gov. to be considered a legitimate liberal democracy. By that time Kuwait, Jordan, Qatar will probably all be liberal democracies anyway. And I'm sure Syria & Iran will have undergone massive revolutions. Point being, as far as promoting democracy the war in Iraq was unneccesary, expensive and bad for our reputation. | ||||
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07-22-2006, 05:27 PM
| #53 | ||||
| Typical Yuppie Scumbag Binghamton, NY
| Originally Posted by Hedweb Buddha Hardly. Where as before you would see the public in muslim nations aplauding terrorist attacks - you no longer see that reaction. The muslim populous has witnessed hundreds upon hundreds of terrorist attacks on MUSLIM civilians, almost to the exclusion of targeting US troops.
While I WILL say that the presence of US troops has provided religious fanatics with the means of carrying out their anti-west agressions - those religious fanatics are the EXTREME minority and the muslim populations are turning away from them and even seeing them as enemies. And, truth be told, i'd rather our soldiers be fighting those religious extremists over there than here. The fact that the muslim population is turning against terrorism is VERY sweet icing on the cake. | ||||
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07-22-2006, 05:28 PM
| #54 | ||||
| Noob
| Originally Posted by TekDragon Do you have any evidence of this position because this sounds like wishful thinking.
http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/Governmentsuccesses.htm I know tons of people who waste private money. Ever bought a new car? It loses 40% of its value in 2 years. Ever bought a $2000 couch instead of the $500 model? Ever spent 500k on a house to keep up with the Joneses when a 150k house would do just fine? Credit card debt and interest only mortgages are endemic. People love to spend tons of money on designer clothes. I could go on but you probably get the point. If it came down to it I'd rather have universal access to education & healthcare along with a competent military and scientific community instead of a society where people have more money to spend on Humvees and keeping up with the Joneses. There are inherit flaws in capitalism that must be corrected by government. Capitalism is good, but it has flaws -It can be a race to the bottom -It lacks any long term planning -It places the luxuries of the rich above the needs of the poor -It lacks any serious infrastructure planning You need gov. intervention to correct these problems. Last edited by Hedweb Buddha; 07-22-2006 at 05:39 PM. | ||||
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07-22-2006, 05:33 PM
| #55 | ||||
| Noob
| Originally Posted by TekDragon Religious fanatics are not the extreme minority, at least their supporters are not.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...1401030_2.html The survey found only 2 percent of the people polled in Lebanon and 7 percent in Turkey expressing confidence that bin Laden would "do the right thing regarding world affairs." The proportion that expressed confidence in the al Qaeda leader dropped from almost half to about a quarter in Morocco, and from 58 percent to 37 percent in Indonesia. Bin Laden's standing went up slightly in Pakistan, to 51 percent, and in Jordan, to 60 percent. 1/3 of the world's muslims live in Pakistan & Indonesia. Support rates in the 40-60% range are very very mainstream. By sending troops over there we just created more religious extremists. Now we can get to fight them there, here, and everywhere since there are probably more of them as our actions have emboldened terrorists. Humanitarian aid is very effective at combatting terrorism. And I agree that once people see what monsters terrorists are (and that they'd attack a muslim as fast as a westerner) that they will lose interest. | ||||
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07-22-2006, 05:40 PM
| #56 | ||||
| Typical Yuppie Scumbag Binghamton, NY
| Supporters that don't have to live in the line of fire. Reminds me of our resident arm chair general, Thorgrim. Notice how in Lebanon terror support is so low? Maybe because the populations of those nations have to live with the day to day reprecussions of terrorist activities. I recall polling in Iraq that showed support for the miltants was extremely low as well, explaining why the population was actively helping the Iraqi forces in finding those militants. It's easy to say you support terror when you're living in a country cut off from the results. I find the results in Lebanon and Iraq much more satisfying. | ||||
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07-22-2006, 06:07 PM
| #57 | ||||
| Common Sense Conservative  Realist
| Originally Posted by TekDragon What a fallacy... What you're forgetting is that we've created thousands of new extremists with our presence in Iraq, meaning if we weren't over there in the first place, many extremists wouldn't exist period, much less be over in America fighting.
Did you really think that killing between 10,000 and 100,000 innocent Iraqis would not create any extremists?! What if Iraq invaded America and killed 50,000 innocent Americans? How many normal people would suddenly become radicals bent on killing Iraqis? What if the economy sucked and thousands of young males had nothing better to do? Even if we do kill some terrorists, there's no net gain for America because we're making more than we're killing. | ||||
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07-22-2006, 06:10 PM
| #58 | ||||
| Typical Yuppie Scumbag Binghamton, NY
| Originally Posted by SpicyMcVoodoo So? They're dying by the thousands too, with our total casualty level for a 3 year campaign less than many single day battles in prior wars, even modern ones. All the while muslim support for terrorism is dropping.
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07-23-2006, 12:59 AM
| #59 | ||||
| Administrator libertarian Oklahoma
| Originally Posted by Hedweb Buddha Yeah and the link fails to recognize that during the depression unemployment varied from 25 to 38% it further fails to acknowledge that many of the jobs were VERY low paying. High taxes take away incentive to create NEW supply which is what drives an economy forward. Hence the absolutely stagnant 1930s when the TOP marginal rates exceeded 90% starting in 1937. Raising taxes did nothing to help the country during the depression in fact its the one thing that hoover and FDR are criticized for even by economist that support higher taxes.
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