----- Original Message ----- From: "JDG" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Friday, November 05, 2004 8:14 PM Subject: Bush II Re: The Magic Ingredient?
> > Well, I won't debate this at length because we certainly shall see. I am > personally not one to believe that people who otherwise seem quite > intelligent are actually phenomenally stupid. (Please no stupid partisan > jokes here.) But, I see it all the time. The management team at the last company I worked for before going independent kept on making the same mistake over and over again. They were told why they were making mistakes by underlings who actually understood the business. They were told to get with the program..or else. Or, look at all the sincere, well educated, brilliant Marxist professors in the '70s. I'm talking about people who were far to the left of me in my more liberal student days. Their power of denial was a strong as their basic intelligence. Or, look at the mistakes of "the Best and the Brightest" in assessing 'Nam. I'll fully agree with you on one point: our different opinions concerning Bush will be subject to experimental verification....so I can see your reluctance to spend time on speculation. My point here is that there are a many examples that show that bright people can, indeed, be that blind to reality....to the point that they look stupid to those who don't suffer from the same blind spot. > I'd be interested in your response to the Slate.com article on this subject > I posted in response to Dr. Brin a week ago or so. I could point you to a post I made in the same time frame about this argument. :-) The obvious response is that he is only considering part of the tax cut, and part of the taxes paid by people....and thus gives numbers that are not representative of the real effect. I'll repost it if you have trouble finding it, but I gave two ways of analyzing the total picture...both of which show the bias towards the rich. What bothers me about articles like this one is that the author knows that he's not doing the math right, and goes ahead and does it. I know it's not just Republicans that do this....it's a sad part of our political scene. > Your conclusions do seem spot on, although I would not be surprised for > Bush to slip some tax increases into a Social Security overhaul (for > example, by rolling Social Security into the income tax code and removing > the phase-out) or rolling tax increases rather Reagan-like into a > TRA86-like tax code overhaul. Reagan had to compromise...Bush has control of both houses. I cannot imagine him being willing to increase SS taxes for those who make more than 75k/year. That's roughly a 13% increase in the marginal tax for those folks. If he stated that SS is not really insurance, which it isn't, and modifies the taxes as you suggest, then I'd be shocked and pleased. It would make the tax on wage earners much more progressive than it has ever been. I'd still have problems with taxes on wages being far far higher than taxes on other types of income, but that would be a major step forward. (I must admit that, personally, it would not be pleasant, but I try to argue for what is right, not just what benefits my own pocket.) >Or he code produce a tax overhaul that > basically leaves taxes at 17% of GDP.... to me that is one of the most > interesting questions about the next three years. If that becomes permanent, I don't think that the government will be able to fund the military, SS, interest on the debt, and the present level of Medicare benefits without racking up big deficits unless everything else is cut out. Even a 50% cut in everything else right now would just roughly balance the budget. We know that SS and Medicare costs are projected to go way up as the baby boomers age, and I'd expect interest costs to increase from near record lows in the future. So, if he leaves taxes there, it will be non sustainable. > >All of this should be doable. The only thing that he cannot do is get Roe > >vs. Wade overturned. That would give the Democrats an easy way to be the > >majority party again. > > As for your final conclusion, one of the most interesting aspects of this > campaign was that John Kerry and John Edwards repeatedly ran away from > their pro-choice and pro-gay marriage positions. Maybe the electorally > smart position on these issues isn't what it once was? Gay rights was never a good wedge issue for the Democrats. Now, abortion "rights" are considered secure by most who favor them, so the passion is still mostly on the anti-abortion side. But, if the courts overturn Roe vs. Wade, then it will become a hot button issue for those that favor abortion. Dan M. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
