Few folks support welfare fraud, just as few folks support the elimination of welfare just becuause of its easily demonstrable excesses. I think most folks support the notion of a safety net to help folks out for some transitional period while they are experiencing hard times. And most folks deeply dislike the notion of welfare support as a long-term lifestyle choice. Unless it’s for folks with a serious demonstrable disability.

So any viable reform would need to coalesce around that sort of consensus. Just getting rid of it seems like a non-starter, if you ask me. Empty venting, IOW.

Sounds like an apt description of Bush’s (or Dan Quayle’s) political career. One of my favorite quotations is “No one talks more of hard work and self reliance than the guy who inherited his father’s store.” Glad that doesn’t seem to apply in your case but I always wonder at the vitriol toward the people at the bottom with nary a word about the huge amounts greasing the skids of people at the top who “earned” their way by being born to success.

P.S. that Jesus fella was known to hang out with and side with the poor so you may want to reread the book. He might be really disappointed in your harsh view of people who probably run the gamut from what you say to what you are clueless about.

WELFARE IS A WASTE! I’m sick of supporting people who choose not to work, claim they are disabled, or even are disabled. I have seizures all the time, I had a traumatic brain injury, I was born and raised dirt poor–I’ve never once relied on the government for support. Instead, I am supporting other LAZY people. It is absurd. END WELFARE NOW.

Don’t bother commenting back to me on this one, I won’t be checking back again–plus, I think God would agree with me on it. :) Have a great day.

I grew up dirt poor, but I never lived on welfare, I did however learn to live without. It made me a stronger person and a much harder worker.

We are enabling people to become slackers and dependent upon others for support. This is a crooked system. All welfare and government programs of support should be ended. People should self-supportive. It’s the only way to live proudly.

It’s indisputable that taxation affects growth, and that higher taxation leads to lower growth, and consequently a smaller future tax base. And vice versa. Even the Neo-Marxists have figured this out.

It’s likewise indisputable that Laffer was right — there is a point of diminishing and even negative revenue returns in taxations. Most people either supporting or denying the Laffer Curve fail to understand what it actually says. Anti-taxers perpetually claim that all tax cuts result in higher revenues, which is patently false. They only result in higher revenues if the tax is being reduced from past the inflection point of the Laffer Curve for that particular tax. Pro-taxers likewise have the mistaken idea that tax hikes always results in higher revenues, which is likewise patently false. Same thing, just approaching the inflection point of the curve from the other side. Once you get past that point for any given tax, revenues begin to fall.

To make it even more fun, the inflection point of the Curve for any given tax or bundle of taxes is not a constant but a moving target, somewhat dependent on outside socio-economic factors. Laffer was explicit about all of this in his original formulations, BTW, which so few bother to either read or consider. But this ain’t rocket science, just applied basic economics, sustained by the empirical research.

What you (as a government) end up doing is balancing growth (and thus future tax base) against current taxation, hoping to maximize revenues by staying in the sweet spot of the curvee, near the inflection point. Go over, and revenues shrink. Go under, and you’re not capturing all the revenue you could while maintaining economic growth.

The base point remains that you gotta balance what you spend with what you have. I’ll leave it to partisan to argue about how to get there.That leaves me knowing that I in fact AM fiscally responsible compared to you. Because you are apparently willing to try to get to balance if it can be reached in the ideologically proper way. I don’t care. I just know everyone is going to have to get poned in one way or another.

Since I didn’t support tax cuts, I feel no obligation to defend them against your rant. But focusing on tax cuts is only a part of the story, and it’s the one focused on by folks eager to highlight GOP fiscal policy as the primary cause of where we are. But what about government revenue? How has that fared historically in the wake of various tax cuts and tax increases? The data is mixed, constantly argued about, and defies your attempts at simplification.

In the interest of fair disclosure, I’m happy to state that I am quite agnostic on the notion that the federal deficit has been primarily caused by tax cuts. At best, that’s an oversimplification. At worst, it’s a distraction, because it promises everyday people THEY won’t have to suffer to get things fixed. If you ask me, the sooner we all face the scope of it, the better.

Demographic trends are a better place to look for a cause to burgeoning deficits. The biggest part of the rise in federal spending is to fund medicare and social security. And that’s a “more people collecting, fewer contributing” problem. One that is getting worse every day that fewer old people die and fewer tax payers are born. Its scope is too vast to be bridged simply by collecting a bit more from the richest folks.

Simon: right. Go too far one way or the other and you produce swamping effects. We couldn’t cut taxes to zero either.

Well, I didn’t expect any sense out of you, no factual analysis or relevant evidence for buttressing your spews, just sense-free frothing ideological BS and reactionary ad hom, and you’ve completely fulfilled my expectations.

I’ve heard the cry “Rich aren’t paying enough” too many times on this site.

Here is the data from the IRS web site for your review. http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/06in03etr.xls. If you look at the last group on this spreadsheet you’ll find that the top 50% of income tax payers are footing the bill for the 97% of the income tax revenue. The top 5% of the tax payers had 60% of the share in 2006, an increase from 2003 when it the same group was paying 53%. Across the board, the % of income tax share went up consistently during the 2003-2006 time period.

So if this isn’t a “reasonable tax base” please share what top % group you want to tax more and how much more they should pay. When I look at it, I see only half of the population paying for the rest. It seems to be a clear spending problem.

We can balance the ledger either by collecting more or by spending less.

This is the only nit I’d pick with your comment. We can balance the ledger by spending less. We can attempt to balance the ledger by collecting more, but that only works if there is a small gap to close. The more money you try to extract from the economy by taxation, the more you simply beget inefficiencies and limit the overall productive capacity of the economy, which in turn reduces what can be collected. That’s why it’s a mistake to calculate tax revenues after tax rate changes with the assumption that the numbers will remain static relative to one another (hence the laffer curve, for example).

Kranky, I know exactly where you stand. You’re right, it’s not fair to lump you in with conservative ideologues. However, you often espouse “conservative” points as if they are fact, at least when speaking in shorthand.

For example, you speak of fiscal responsibility–a cliché when it comes from the right. Even if you are sincere in your desire for “fiscally responsible government” you approach it from a perspective of always over spending –you did it in this very thread.

My point is that it is sometimes over spending, but it is often under-funding. I look at two sides of the equation. You want to be fiscally responsible? Then stop cutting off your nose to spite your face, as the GOP has done for 30 years. It is they who pursue tax cuts to the detriment of everyone but the rich. It is they who spend money they don’t have and let others clean up after them.

It was FISCALLY IRRESPONSIBLE to give tax cuts to the rich, and then launching an unnecessary war and spend money without care or concern on other things.

As someone mentioned earlier, the chickens have come home to roost. But it’s not ONLY the chickens (over-spending) people are pointing a finger at. It is spending what money we had unwisely and it is giving people in power more money and more power.

Tell you what cranky…I won’t lump you in with “conservatives” anymore.

I’ll call you “the thinks he’s a fiscally responsible, but kranky guy who only looks at half of every story and no one ever understands him and everyone else is a moron class.”

And Tully, you apparently didn’t learn anything back in those “halcyon days”

Ah, those were halcyon days! 10%+ unemployment for years on end, interest and inflation rates both well over 15% and headed up, our military demoralized and degenerating, etc. Who wouldn’t look back on all that with fond nostalgia?

Sorry guys, but you are coming from the premise that all government is bad and spending is bad–you can certainly have that opinion, but to call someone a moron just because you’ve got 30 years of conservative dogma and little else backing you up seems a little thin.

I can’t speak for Simon. But you’re way off about me. You come here often, so I am inclined to believe that you just do not listen. If I am wrong, I apologize in advance.

I constantly advocate the simple notion that government, just like the people, ought to spend within its means. That’s not fiscal conservatism, it’s just fiscal responsibility.

I accept the democratic premise that the government basically is us, for better or worse. You and Me. And Simon, and Tully, and Harden, and Justin, and Jay and Exiled and everyone else. We can balance the ledger either by collecting more or by spending less. Which choice we make is a matter for the people to decide via their representative local, state, and federal governments. It’s up to us. And we don’t agree, and so it’s ok to decide on a majority vote. But spending well beyond our means really ought not to be simply subject to the majority’s will. That’s how we got here. Spendind substantially beyond our means is just not a sustainable practice.

That said, the notion that we were somehow brought to this primarily due to the fundamental unsoundness of conservative ideology is, to speak plainly, comical. To quote Pogo, “we have seen the enemy and he is us.”

It’s just not a democratic way/republican way problem. It’s not even really a conservative way/liberal way problem.

What is it? It’s a what we want/what we can afford problem.

I have made it clear on copious occasions here that this is my PoV on it. So don’t go grouping me in with the “conservative dogma” crowd. You embarrass yourself to the folks who know where I stand.

And if I am sounding really harsh(and kranky), I apologize for that too. If indeed I deserve to be forgiven, it’s because I get awfully sick of getting lumped in with all the conservatives every time I disagree with a liberal. BTW, I get just as sick of get awfully sick of getting lumped in with all the liberals every time I disagree with a conservative. Between the two, it’s what makes me such a kranky kritter.

California is in trouble because California consistently and continuously increased state spending at rates enormously higher and faster than the economic growth of the state of California could support, namely, rates far in excess of the growth of state revenues. Period. If you spend more than you make, sooner or later you run out of people willing to lend you money to keep spending

Now, one can certainly apportion blame to the irresponsible legislators, and one can certainly apportion blame to the voters of California for continuing to vote for irresponsible legislators. Since after all, they are the ones responsible.

Sorry guys, but you are coming from the premise that all government is bad and spending is bad–you can certainly have that opinion, but to call someone a moron just because you’ve got 30 years of conservative dogma and little else backing you up seems a little thin.

There are two sides of the equation–too much spending or too little revenue.

You fall on the side of too much spending automatically because that is the tripe the GOP has pushed for 30 years. Cut taxes, cut taxes, cut taxes and starve the beast. Or, in reality, while we are in power let’s spend like crazy so that when the Democrats get in power we can scream about budget deficits and over spending.

What if we’d actually taken a different tact? What if we tax and spent responsibly? What if we actually opted to pay for what we receive? What if instead of cutting taxes on the wealthy for 30 years, we had maintained a reasonable tax base (I’m sure we could fight about that all day long).

There is simply no denying that the last 30 years have been all about the consolidation of massive wealth in the hands of the relatively few. We would be in a far different situation if we had taxed, legislated and spent wisely.

Yes, Kranky and Simon, that includes living within our means–but that’s not what the last 30 years of conservative idealology has been about. You know it, I know it. Calling people a moron simply because they don’t subscribe to your particular philosophy doesn’t change that.