finknottle

I don't mean to suggest those who pay no income taxes are paying no taxes at all. Simply that once a revenue vehicle is paid for by a shrinking voting minority (whether it be income tax, cigarette taxes, or whatever), that vehicle becomes an irresistable target to politicians. Why raise money broadly for a spending program (pissing everybody off, like with a gasoline tax) when you can say it will be paid for entirely by some minority group (like cigarette smokers, or slots junkies)? Morality aside, I think it is particularly dangerous to start doing this with income taxes, since unlike behavioral activities such as smoking or gambling, making money is probably something the state ought not to discourage through tax policy.

I'm not troubled by the drop in the market - that happens, and evens out over the long run. I find the changes in dividend and capital gains a bigger issue. Modern companies simply do not have pension plans, and for a small business owner you have no choice but to create the equivalent of a pension through a vehicle like a 401k or direct stock purchase. On paper that's desirable: we want to be an ownership society, in which we the workers are the owners of the companies we currently like to rail against. By devoting a healthy portion of your income, you can target a retirement nest egg whose dividends and subsequent growth will carry you through retirement. It's not easy, but you can do it. But if we raise the tax rate on that income 33%, then we need a nest egg that is 33% bigger. That really changes the basic equation - you essentially have to increase the contributions, quite a lot under ordinary circumstances for this scenario, by 33%. More likely than not you will be forced to give up on the plan entirely.

Apparently not in these 57 United States of America, unless of course you say Sunni when you mean Shiite.

Yes; but it's the same idea - the trend is always to remove people from paying income taxes, never to add. Eventually we get to the point where the majority of voting voters have no incentive to hold the line on rates, and therefore the politicians have no incentive not to target the payers.

*** I realize this is falling on willfully deaf ears, but this aspect of the current political theater is so important it bears pointing out: Some people like the plan, some (mostly Republicans) do not. McCain is going to be faced with a choice: support it, or don't. If he doesn't, then enough Republicans will follow the Republican Candidate that the legislation will not pass. That means, we do nothing. That is a terrible risk. His only alternative is to go to Washington, participate in crafting legislation he can get behind, and ensure that it passes. Yes - he may not be contributing anything as an economist. That misses the point: he is a Kingmaker in the process, a role he has no choice in. *Nothing can get passed if the party candidate is not fully behind it, and he can't get behind it unless he is personally satisfied with it.* Sadly, the same situation is true for Obama: if he came out against the bill, it would not be passed. But since he seems content to accept whatever they come up with based on the Bush proposal, he avoids taking any responsibility for whether the legislation is good or bad, or whether something or nothing is passed.

I would be very appreciative if you could come up with a top ten of the most hatefull things said by Republican congressmen over the past two years - I'd wager there is no comparison with the the deluge of war criminal accusations and innuendo of racism that an embarrassingly significant number of Democrats have made their staple recently.

Fine. Why do you call this the Bush/McCain plan, and not the Bush/Obama plan? As far as I can tell, it is Obama and his apologists that think the proper role is to sit back and support whatever comes out.

Firebrand Joe is at it again, saying that Bush's decision to send our leading Diplomat to Tehren to sit down with the Iranians shows that he is belatedly coming around to Obama's views... http://embeds.blogs.foxnews.com/2008/09/24...mats-in-tehran/ I'm just not sure which parallel universe this occured in.

Aunt Edna was the one who said you could afford a McMansion with no money down and a ballooning mortgage. She heard about it on one of those infomercials.

Just when you think the Democrats can't go any lower with fear-mongoring and race-baiting... They still point to Willie Horton as evidence that the Republuicans play dirty politics, while a day doesn't go by without this sort of stuff.

Well, what would you consider to be his congressional area of expertise? I'm genuinely interested. On paper he is the Afghanistan expert, but his recod on holding hearings is thin to say the least. About the only thing I could remotely come up with is 'constitutional scholar,' but he hasn't been involved with it legislatively and he is unique as an academic in never having written a paper. The media certainly never describes him as a congressional expert on anything.

And now we see the average american's math skills that got us into this mess.

What was in there that was not reported already? And don't you find it suspicious that there is absolutely no mention, even by way of background, of the money paid to Obama or of the Fannie Mae CEO's who had been advising him? Wouldn't you think it appropriate to reference in a supposedly objective news piece on Fannie Mae influence?

The fact is, nobody in Congress knows anything about anything. I am sorry to disillusion you, but Biden is not *really* an expert on foreign policy, McCain is not *really* an expert on military affairs, and Palin is not *really* an expert on energy. Those are just the mantles they assume, by predisposition and getting involved in those issues. (I'd include Obama, but he doesn't even have a signature issue.) Nevertheless, we elect members of Congress to work on the business of the country, qualified or not. Every member is supposed to study the legislation, weigh in, and vote. Simply voting 'present' and being a wall-flower because you are not a subject matter expert is not an acceptable discharge of the duties of office, would you agree?

Yes, but have you read the facts behind the spin as reported by The Obama Times? Or even the details offered in this thread? How on earth does this compare with Obama being advised by Fannie Mae CEO '91-'98 James Johnson ($21 million in compensation from FM), Fannie Mae CEO '99-'04 Franklin Raines ($90 million in compensation), and Fannie Mae vice chaiirman '98-'03 ($26 million in compensation, despite being found against over manipulating the books to trigger executive bonuses, and a separate conflict of interest controversary). Yeah, McCain is really the one here who is going to be unduely influenced by Fannie Mae, because some aid has a tie to a firm which receives 30k a month from a company which spreads around the money like a farmer spreading pig-slop.

Ummm, his job? Isn't this why we have a Congress? Despite the Obama experience, it is not supposed to be just a political stepping stone where you get elected, vote present a few times, and move onwards and upwards.

Obamas idea of leadership: a puff-piece joint statement, no doubt filled with lofty rhetoric and vision. McCains idea of leadership: go back to Washingtoin and do his job - participate in the formation of the legislation which is supposed to be so crucial to this crisis.

What a partisan joke. Obama is the #3 recipient of donations from Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac, and has two Fannie Mae CEO's and a Vice Chair as his advisors, yet Lurker would have us worry about undue influence from this. http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=75586 http://pfds.opensecrets.org/092408.html

You were under the impression that the Democrats were hoping for the economy to turn around and Iraq to become peacefull?

I still prefer the video of him becoming unhinged over friendly questioning, vowing to allow no clean coal plants in the US: http://time-blog.com/real_clear_politics/2..._in_americ.html

That is correct. - Congressional social engineering goals required a loosening of lending practices to disadvantaged groups. - Equal treatment requires the same lending standards apply to all borrowers. - Therefore loosened lending standards spread throughout the entire housing sector.

I'd say pay as we go, except the bailout plans are not fixed costs. I assume they are authorization celings, so you really can't budget for them the way you can other programs.

Is this before or after the space aliens land at the request of the the Karl Rove, the CFR and the Rockefellers to force the banking bailout on us?

Biden has really found his mojo lately!

He's a uniter, not a divider (to borrow a phrase from 2000). Speaking of the eerie similarities between the packaging of Obama '08 and Bush '00, does anybody else find interesting the coincidence that just as 'post-partisan' Bush felt compelled to tap a long-time Washington insider (Cheney) for gravitas and to shore up his perceived foreign policy weaknesses, 'transcendent' Obama also went with a long-time insider (Biden) to address the same issues?