To paraphrase another heartfelt plea from Gov. Paul LePage — "We can't pay our hospitals. We can't pay our bills . . . " — and the proposed solution continues to be deeper cuts in services for desperately poor and disabled people and to give wealthy "job creators" larger tax breaks.
There's no requirement that the beneficiaries actually have to create jobs, so the tax savings are a windfall for people shopping for new sailboats.
The folks at the yacht club aren't worrying about getting by without medical insurance, or fretting about jobless people in line at food banks. The "I've got mine" club is enjoying record high incomes, in sharp contrast to years of stagnant wages for those lucky enough to have jobs. It isn't hard to get along with somebody else's trouble.
Conservative "think tanks" keep recycling old ideas that never worked before. "Trickle down" economics and "Reaganomics," or what former President George H. W. Bush aptly labeled "voodoo economics," keep re-emerging.
The most recent President Bush addressed a flagging economy by giving wealthy people tax breaks that continue to this day. Did that improve any average person's finances over the past decade?
State governments mirror the federal government, with gridlock limiting accomplishment, and extremists decimating the middle ground. LePage and his minions have to be monitored carefully to prevent their faulty economics from becoming irreparable.
On our behalf, organizations such as the Maine People's Alliance try to illuminate political dealings that are carried out in the shadows of Augusta.
Gregory Onnen, Farmington
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Trickle down didn't work for Mr. Onnen.
What are his credentials to speak for anyone else?
One thing is certain. Those evil rich folks aren't buying their yachts in Maine. Democrats destroyed the state's yacht industry and all its jobs with their luxury tax. They wanted those fat cats to pay their fair share. Ask those unemployed shipwrights about fairness.
Taxes do not redistribute wealth. They redistribute tax payers.
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So you don't like capitalism, the rich, republicans, and conservatives.
Why don't you write another letter and tell us exactly how YOU would have done it.
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You start as the author suggests by ignoring the failed policies of the past and following well documented and proven economic policies that produce economic growth like well-regulated markets (which worked miracles for the forty+ years between 1933 and 1980). You follow the Constitution which does not mention private property, free-markets, capitalism, or wall street bonuses. We have no conservatives in this country. We have confederates. We have radical capitalists. We have authoritarian Christians. We have a whole lot of people who want to end the adventure our Founding Fathers started in 1787 because they believe as the Republicans in Michigan believe that democracy does not work.
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Jonathan,
You fail to realize that human nature has not changed for centuries. That said, human nature will continue to pollute the purest of political or economic systems.
Perhaps the solution it to trivialize the opportunity government, comprised of humans, has to pollute the system. Smaller government is better government.
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"human nature has not changed for centuries" is just such an assumption. At a veru superficial level it may be true, but its like saying that all North Americans are the same they aren't. Or all blacks are the same. If its true, its untestable; if false its meaningless. The idea assumes a Jungian species specific collective, inherited common "programming" for all human beings evidence suggests otherwise.
The size of government is correct when it is capable of dealing with the power centers within and without its control. Small government made sense when a big "special interest" (a faction in Madison's words) extended to a part of a city, or even a state. Government power could then not be controlled by one interest (as Madison wrote) each interest competed with the others while government was still many times more powerful than any one or even several in combination. Now the special interests are associations of thousands of corporations that have a set of common interests. These corporations in total being much larger territorially, financially, and in terms of members/agents than all but the largest governments. When international associations of associations conspire together government must be huge to protect the interests of the average person. The problem is the corporations strategy becomes contolling the government whatever its size is. Small government was fine when we went around in stagecoaches.
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I think it is pretty safe to say that human greed, envy, and jealousy has been around for quite some time, is alive and well, and will be around for some time to come.
Government centralizes wealth, which ostensibly attracts those who wish to acquire some of it through influencing policy; we see examples of this behavior every day.
“When international associations of associations conspire together government must
be huge to protect the interests of the average person.”
You’re missing a key point. Government is made of people who are subject to greed; therefore, there is no guarantee of government protection. You cannot separate the two.
“Small government was fine when we went around in stagecoaches.”
Can you seriously say the size of our Federal government is effective?
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Greed is not human nature its a human emotion. I'll agree that human emotions have not changed over reasonable time, but that's not human nature - distinguishing characteristics, including ways of thinking, feeling and acting, that humans tend to have naturally, i.e. independently of the influence of culture. In other words, is there a model human which we are all copies of and culture modifies this model in various ways. If there is a human nature I say its how were are biologically wired in the brain; greed is no one of those wires. Greed is culturally determined and therefore is not part of human nature.
Apparantly, you haven't read our Constitution or the theories that unlay its construction (Federaist No. 10 for example). Ambition must be balanced by ambition; greed by greed so that no one in or out of government may implement by themselves a course of action that compromises the public interest. As govenment gets small relative to special interests this balancing begins to fail. When government is very small and special interests very large it fails completely (example 1880 to 1914 when the Morgan interests controlled the country.). When government is very large and special interest very small it works very well. We were from 1933 to 1970 generally in the Government big; special interests moderately small to getting too big range. Today government is small and special interests huge and therefore the balancing has been increasingly failing for 30 years. The problem is not greed but that the government controls over greed have been weakened to the point that they are difficult to detect. The problem is not greed or capitalism; the problem is unfetterred greed or capitalism.
Government does not centralize wealth. Federal Budget say $4 trillion economy $17 trillion. In capitalist economies the financial services industry concentrates wealth. The Federal Government can not by Constitution control, or tax wealth; it can only tax or control income. Not at all the same thing. It centralizes a portion of income. Today the concentration of wealth in the hands of the public is concentrated in about 10%of the population with 90% concentrated in the top 1% of the population. That is a fundamental threat to republican government.
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Jason,
I couldn’t disagree with you more. Humans are emotional creatures. The concept of love is emotional. Greed, jealousy, and envy are part of that emotion. There is no culture that exist that greed, jealousy, and envy are not present.
You’re quite the idealistic dreamer - just observe humanity.
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But cultures modify, restrain, distort those emotions and their practical use immensely. Hell, the whole basis of modern conservatism is that religion is a necessary "control" on the passions which makes democratic republics possible (this is of course an old aristocractic and after the revolutions Federalist view not supported by evidence). Looks at monks to see that the passions are widely different than average citizens. The fact that emotions are present everywhere does not mean they are part of our nature because culture can change their expression so radically suggests that they are culturally determined (look at early christians and others).
In our case, the structure of the Federal Government is designed precisely to check the passionate expressions of individuals by requiring a system of check and balances. As long as the Federal Government is the most powerful power center in a society those checks and balances work very well (they don't prevent greed they prevent greed having a permanent effect). Where the Federal government is not, they break down and fail.
In the founder's time a corporation was the same as a municipality (that's why the SOS office of corporations manages setting up municipalities and corporations today). They were viewed as a minor extension of government (which legally they are today), a government agency not as a power center. They were legally limited to one and only one purpose and line of activity (building, maintaining, and managing a toll road or a grist mill). Should the owners wish to try something else like manage a ferry they had to go to the legislature and get an expanded charter or charter the ferry as a new and independent corporation. Therefore, a corporation could never accumulate power anywhere close to that of state government never mind the Federal (that's why corporations are not mentioned in the Constitution and only alluded to in the bankruptcy provision). When these controls on corporations were repealed (not done through legislation almost all done through court review), the balance of power was changed and the Constitutional controls were open to the possibility that they would fail. And they did from roughly 1880-1914 and again from 1980 to now.
Therefore, the problem is corporate power and the solution is to regulate that power so that the Constitution can function as it was intended to.
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Jason,
The takeaway is that greed, jealousy, and envy are indeed part of the human condition. All the restraints that society places on itself to keep these behaviors in check are not foolproof. Government, like any organization, loses its span of control as it grows.
As Government grows, it gets to a size where it cannot effectively police itself. One just has to look at the questionable practices contemporary politicians get away with as an example. Common sense indicates that these human foibles lessen within government as government itself gets smaller.
In layman’s terms, the less money government takes from me, the less it can squander on special interest. Moreover, special interests will never be purged from politics for you cannot purge greed, jealousy, and envy from human nature no matter how many checks and balances one creates.
By the way, you don’t have to reference the constitution nor federalist papers to discuss commons sense issues.
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Increased complexity geometrically adds to the challanges of management; but doesn't make it impossible. For the rest, I'm not as pessimistic as you are.
you do have to reference the Constitution and/or the Federalist papers because these aren't common sense issues these are Constitutional questions. Common sense can only lead you astray because these are anything but common questions. Because special interests are always with us the idea that the less money government has the less it can sqander is a fallacy. The special interest will never let you do it if that's what they want. They want small government because it gives them all the power meaning they will just get your money in some other way like defrauding you through your mortgage as they did to millions from 2001 to today. Without big government you have no possibility of a shield.
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Jason,
It all problems come back to basics. Perhaps government likes to preset problems as complex, but all complex problems can be decomposed into basic concepts. My training as an Engineering enables me to take complex problems and decompose them into basic engineering concepts.
Let’s take the budget deficit for example. I read many opinions herein about complex economic theory, it is the Democrat’s fault, it is the Republican’s fault, …, etc.
It all comes down to basics, spending exceeds revenue no matter how you slice it. People add complexity for many reason, perhaps one being to divide people to hide one or more parity’s agenda or to avoid addressing the problem. The solution to a budget deficit is to match revenue and spending – simple.
If one cannot decompose a problem into basic concepts, one will never be an effective problem solver.
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You do need to analyze the real problem not the propaganda by breaking it down to basics. The top 1% pay 1/4 of the tax rate today that they paid 60 years ago. The middle class income has been stagnant since 1980 (no increase in Federal revenues from this source). The top 10% income has increased by more than 280% in the same time (but they are paying 1/4 of the tax rate so Federal revenue has declined from income taxes (same can be said for corporate taxes). The result has to be a significant increase in the debt (its called the Norquist Plan (how to get rid of Social Security and Medicare) adopted in the 1990's by the Republican Party) which will over the long term require a radical reduction in Federal spending. Its a manufactured crisis. Its solution is to restore Federal revenue to the same level as non-war revenue before1980. At the same time Federal spending has been increased without paying for the new spending (Two wars, Medicare Prescription Part D, etc) by the same people who have constrained revenue .Thus making the crisis more acute.Complicating the issue is that while doing the above thy have plunged the country into recession so that we can not now address the debt and therefore not address the crisis they created.
So the solution is to address the recession by increasing spending now within a plan for real increases in revenue and manageable constraints on spending in the future.
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“So the solution is to address the recession.”
Here you are assuming that pre-recession growth rate and GPD are the norm. Perhaps the economy has contracted to its normal equilibrium. The US has participated in deficit spending for over 3 decades. This artificially inflates the economy above its normal equilibrium that would exist without that spending.
Dumping more stimulus spending into the current economy is just perpetuating the distortion of the sustainable equilibrium, especially after 4 years since the onset of the recession. Moreover, we are no longer in a recession by definition, so again, more stimulus will artificially distort the natural equilibrium.
The solution is to grow GDP at a sustainable level without artificial stimulus.
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Yes, we have been deficit spending for 3 decades with the intent of creating an economic crisis which will force the abandonment of Social Security and Medicare. Yes, that inflates the economic, but there is no "normal equilibrium". Without the deficit spending the economy would "not return to" some state without deficit. It would seek some economic state which would depend on many factors including spending before and after the stimulus was removed. Its not a distortion. And there is no "sustainable equilibrium" nor any "natural equilibrium". Nor is government spending an "artificial stimulus". These words are not characterizations of the economy but conclusions based on non-economic assumptions. The economy goes from state to state without ever reaching an equilibrium. Stimulus (government deficit spending) increases growth between two states. Removing stimulus will create a new state which is lower than what would have been achieve if the stimulus had been maintained. But what does maintained mean. A stimulus is an increase in deficit spending. So if I deficit spend $300 billion in this years budget to maintain the stimulus in next years budget I must deficit spend by at least $600 billion (actually it will depend on the economic state after year one (could be 590 billion or $630 billion).
Until the debt ratio to GDP threatens our ability to re-pay the debt (barring some external factor), maintaining stimulus works. That's why a debt to GDP ratio from 25 to 50% target is manageable and why in periods of growth (usually over 3.5%) paying down the debt provides head room for recessions and wars that change the demands on Government.
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“The result has to be a significant increase in the debt.”
The solution goes back to basics. If revenue decreases, so does spending by an equal amount.
Because Congress failed at that task, does not mean you can blame law enacted the may decrease revenue. Rather it should be viewed as ½ of a solution similar to your commend about the tax rate for 1%’ers that does not factor in dedications.
The basic concept still applies albeit not applied by Congress; you should ask yourself why it was not applied.
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Yes.
If its a comment on economic policy, No. I do think they go together, but as you see the Norquist Plan intentionally decreases revenues and increases spending. The goal of the Norquist Plan is to bring about a fiscal crisis by not making any economic sense (the Bush years being the most successful implementation of that plan); not manage the budget, or the debt, nor provide necessary functions of Government.
Big Government debt policy should be that in recessions deficit spend, in economic growth retire the debt (depending on circumstance national debt targets should be between 25 and 50% of GDP), in stable periods balance the budget. National emergencies obviously change that policy.
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“The top 1% pay 1/4 of the tax rate today that they paid 60
years ago.”
This is only half the picture since you are not factoring in deductions. You really need to look at tax liability as a percentage of adjusted gross income. Plus tax rates during WWII were abnormally high, so one should view that as an anomaly in the overall data instead of pointing to it as a norm.
Your tax liability is the absolute number of dollars paid to the government which is comprised of (INCOME-DEDUCTIONS)*MARGINAL TAX RATE. You must consider both variables, deductions and marginal tax rate in you argument if you want to paint the full picture.
You can find this information from the tax foundation as see that the straight line approximation is up and to the right. Time permitting later, I’ll find the data for you to review.
Lastly, current tax revenue as a percent of GDP is as almost as high as it was during WWII.
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The top marginal tax rate in the 1950's was 91%. The effective tax rate after all deductions, loopholes, tax breaks etc was about 52%. Romney paid 13.9% - about 1/4 of the effective tax rate.
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Again you are misleading the readers to support your point of view.
The marginal tax rate that you quote applies to earned income. Rommey’s marginal tax rate was on unearned income (i.e. dividends). You should be comparing apples to apples.
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is nothing but a subsidy preference for one type of economic activity over another.
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First the distinction is purely arbitrary and meaningless. The tax code differentiates only between capital gains and income from every other source and that was not true in the 1950's. And that distinction is perfectly arbitrary and meaningless. Does a dollar received from capital gains have any economic impact different from a dollar received by expending some effort - no.
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All problems come back to basics
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Thinking of big government as a shield is like bedding down for the night next to a lion who hasn't been fed in 4 days. Sleep well.
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thinks independently, a shield doesn't. So I think your analogy fails.
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Me thinketh you may thinketh too much. It was an opinion; not a missile seeking approval.
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But its more than an opinion. Its an opinoin which can bring down our system of government. I'm not casual about that.
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Oh? How so?
Refusing to have big government be our 'shield' can bring down our system of government? That would make it pretty fragile wouldn't it? It wasn't big government that won the Revolution or WWII. It was a government who's purpose was to protect the people and enable them to prosper. Big government, such as we have today, wants to rule them and to dictate how they prosper.
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Ration cards. You couldn't buy anything government did not allow you to buy. Government controlled and planned every step in the US economy. I think you need a better example because WWII is the best example of united, national big government at its biggest.
The role government plays today is if anything smaller in the economy than at anytime in our history except 1880-1929. The Revolution does not apply because that was not under the US Constitution nor even under the Articles of Confederation. We had only an ad hoc government - the First and Second Continental Congress in which both agreed that they couldn't wage war under their organization i.e,. they could supply the troops with almost anything.
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I know all about rationing; I was there.
That wasn't big government. That was a focused government who was fighting a war for the very survival of its people. They had to control everything in order to dedicate ALL resources to the war effort. Had they done any less, we'd all be talking German or Japanese. Today's big government want to control everything to perpetuate its power. And, four more years of oBAMa will be four more years of the same crap. It will be Jimmy Carter's third term.
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No better example of big government exists. "Focused" is just a word that means the same thing in this case as Big - intrusive, all controlling, Federal Government.
Jimmy Carter is not the President hasn't been the President for 32 years. Should Democrats say that Romney's first term is really Nixon's third term. Neither has anything to do with anything in this campaign. The situations and philosophies are completely different.
"Today's big government want to control everything to perpetuate its power". Nothing could be so wrong. Government has very little if any power. The power is all in the corporations. Just remember the development of Dodd-Frank. The Financial services industry through demonstrable fraud (Enron would be embarassed by what Citi, Wells Fargo, and the rest did) plunged the country and Europe into economic collapse and threatened a worldwide Depression. If you remember WWII, you might remember what that's like. Not a single proposal that would re-establish government regulation that would have prevented those frauds was adopted because of corporate power.
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Why admit I'm wrong when I know I'm right.
"The power is all in corporations"...
So, we're to believe that corporations control governtment? Sounds like another example of one can get away with saying just about anything and passing it off as fact or truth as long as they say it with enough authority and conviction.
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The nightly news, any shows including fox that cover congress, citizen united, Federal action against corporations involved in the 2008 financial collapse (none by the way), demonstrate that conclusion every day. One of the lastest example, Federal judge in the California case against Wells Fargo for mortgage fraud has ruled that every mortage processed by Wells Farge was fraudulently processed i.e. Wells Fargo's computer programs for the handling of mortgage payments, late fees, and other payments were written to force the mortgage into foreclosure in violation of the mortgage contract. Have any corporate officers who design and planned this nationwide program of fraud arrested or tried - no. This is at least the second judge who has ruled Wells Fargo engaged in a plan to defraud its mortgage customers.
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A snapshot of government role in our economy; its all up and to the right - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Us_gov_spending_history_1902_2010.png
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Jonathan,
Step back and consider what Pirate is trying to say. The takeaway is that you cannot always expect the government to protect you. The government, or individuals in the government, who are vulnerable to human emotion – greed for one, may not have your best interest in mind similar to a hungry lion.
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William Williams said it best many years ago -we, working people, only win when the rulers are split. United they have too much power. Its not individuals; they are a temporary, incidental problems. The distribution of power is a permanent or ever present problem. If working people are ever to get a fair deal permanently, we must make the structural changes along the line of the founders that corrects the changes in law that have made the corporations too powerful and the government too weak.
1) Corporations are not people. They are an accumulation of contracts - Chief Justice of the Supreme Court John Marshall. Corporations have no civil rights except as explicitly granted in their charters.
2) the revolving door between corporations and government must end. No government regulator can be employed by a regulated corporation for his lifetime and no corporate official can be hired by the government in a regulatory position for life.
3) No corporation can donate to a pollitical campaign (including referendum questions) nor sponsor a PAC or any other third party contributor to political activities of any kind
4) Corporations can not sponsor, organize, or in anyway be involved in events at which political officeholders are invited guests.
5) Corporations can not make the use of any corporate asset available to political officeholders.
6) No corporation can sponsor, create, organize a group of citizens for the purpose of lobbying or contributing to political activities.
Those are step one.
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"Corporations are not people". Chief Justice Marshall was blowing smoke.
Corporations are managers (people)
Corporations are employees (people)
Corporations are stockholders (people)
Corporations are customers (people)
I have a couple dozen more, but you get the drift.
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Corporations are made up of capital equipment, people, procedures, and contracts. I've never seen a paper machine, welder, or gas pump vote.
Being made up of something doesn't give you legal standing or any meaningful rights. Contracts on the other hand do provide rights and responsibilities.
See Darmouth I believe 1803 or 1819 if I'm wrong.
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Nice to see someone's paying attention. Thank you, Mark.
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You failed to mention the abolishment of capitalists, Christians and conservatives.
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I don't need to abolish them. You need to regulate capitalists otherwise they cause tremendous damage to the nation. You leave Christians in their Church where they can't do too much harm. And as for conservatives well the Christians have a good cure for conservatives; its called a funeral. Now confederates that's another matter.
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The parrot sez he'd be willing to bet his beak that you're capable of listening to the William Tell Overture without thinking of the Lone Ranger.
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Oh, yeah, now I remember. When last used, the result was not good for the regulators, Herr Albrecht. But why not try again? Practice makes perfekt.
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Please be respectful.
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... on any scale larger than a New England town meeting. That's why the Founders adamantly avoided it and instead created a republic. The economic policy that ended the Great Depression was WWII, and the growth was so strong that Democrats couldn't throttle it back until Carter, with a total shutdown scheduled for a 2nd Obama term. The Constitution also doesn't mention public property, regulated markets, socialism, or any particular business at all. The genius of the Founders was a creation that has survived bad presidents and worse Congresses, but its greatest test is yet to come.
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Would you like to respond? Login or create a new account. You'll need to verify your account before you can respond.You obviously do need to read the Constitution
"The Constitution also doesn't mention public property, regulated markets, socialism, or any particular business at all." Sorry but it does. Public Property is mentioned in that section that deals with selling public property. Regulated markets are mentioned repeatedly in the document the most powerful beign the regulation of the value of money and federal bankruptcy. Don't mention socialism because no such thing existed at the time of the writting just as capitalism did not exist.
As to greatest test. If you mean by that a new civil war engineered by rightwing extremists you may be right.
Great Depression ended by WWII is just more rightwing propaganda. The Great Depression ended in 1936. Withdraw of recovery methods in 1937 caused a double dip depression which was solved by 1940. WWII did not occur untile almost 2 years later.
our form is a republic; our process is a democracy or more precisely we are a democratic republic.
" with a total shutdown scheduled for a 2nd Obama term" - totally absurd.
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Would you like to respond? Login or create a new account. You'll need to verify your account before you can respond.I can't wait ...
... for you to retire and produce the great American history re-write, with the "real" story of the Founders and the Constitution. If you need a publisher, contact Marvel Comics. They're used to scripts that are "totally absurd".
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Would you like to respond? Login or create a new account. You'll need to verify your account before you can respond.Where do you get you info.
I do appreciate that you always confirm my view by never providing anything but your opinoin even when its fortune telling.
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Would you like to respond? Login or create a new account. You'll need to verify your account before you can respond.This is the opinion section, Jon.
That's all you provide, but evidently that doesn't satisfy. I'll wait for the emperor's proclamation that your opinions are to be received as incontrovertible fact. Meanwhile, calm down. Your spelling is deteriorating.
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Would you like to respond? Login or create a new account. You'll need to verify your account before you can respond.Well stated, Brother.
Well stated, Brother.
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