GOP Primary Megathread!

[MadImmortalMan]

I disagree.  Lowering the tax rates from 90%+ was just a common sense thing to do, even lowering them from 70% like Reagan has done.  Lowering them to 28% top rate was moving into the idiotic category, though, and carried interest nonsense continued the idiocy.

I'm curious where you think the range of reasonable is.

From that post somewhere above 28 and lower than 70. 

[Phillip V]

Santorum beats Romney by 15 points in the latest Michigan poll. Romney needs to go on the attack now if he wants to fend off a devastating upset in his state of birth.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/burns-haberman/2012/02/ppp-santorum-takes-the-lead-in-michigan-114309.html

[alfred russel]

Who could have forseen that when he ceased to be the right wing candidate that Romney would struggle in the caucuses, and that the 25%-30% he struggled to break in early polling was indicative of a major ceiling of resistance that would be a major problem in as things moved to a person race? 

[grumbler]

Dear god, was this stuff used to break the will of prisoners in Guantanamo ?

Our elections are 4 weeks long and even the historically almost unprecedented interregnum* in May 2010 only lasted like 3 days. 

Dear God, is it possible you to ever stop whining about the length of a process you can completely ignore except if you want to whinge about it on and on?

No one gives a shit how long your elections are.  No one but you is convinced that any system other than yours is legitimate.

Just.  Stop.  Reading.   That will end your agony.   As a side effect, it will stop you posting, and so end my agony; win-win.

[Razgovory]

Why not stop reading monger's posts?

[Darth Wagtaros]

Why not stop reading monger's posts?

When I first came here, this was all swamp. Everyone said I was daft to build a castle on a swamp, but I built in all the same, just to show them. It sank into the swamp. So I built a second one. That sank into the swamp. So I built a third. That burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp. But the fourth one stayed up. And that's what you're going to get, Lad, the strongest castle in all of England.

[The Minsky Moment]

ARRA and TARP will be a significant part of the economic history of the country. Neither TARP nor ARRA goes through without Obama. Obviously others played a role in those (especially Bush/Paulson for TARP), but I'm not sure where you are coming from.

Paulson and Bush played more than a "role" in TARP - they came up with the idea, pushed it through Congress, and implemented it,  Santorum's recent amensia on the subject nothwithstanding. (though to be fair to Rick, at the time this happened he was out of office and his snout was stuck so deep in the lobbyist trough he might not have noticed anything else going on).

Both TARP and ARRA go through not matter who the Democratic nominee was and whether or not Obama was a candidate.

[alfred russel]

Both TARP and ARRA go through not matter who the Democratic nominee was and whether or not Obama was a candidate.

If Obama was opposed, neither would have gone through. TARP was very controversial and failed on the first vote. It was primarily passed by House democrats while republicans opposed it. Had Obama hit the campaign trail with the message to block TARP as a Bush giveaway to the financial sector while the middle class got nothing, do you think it would have passed?

[The Minsky Moment]

If Obama was opposed, neither would have gone through.

That's a different claim.

[DGuller]

I disagree.  Lowering the tax rates from 90%+ was just a common sense thing to do, even lowering them from 70% like Reagan has done.  Lowering them to 28% top rate was moving into the idiotic category, though, and carried interest nonsense continued the idiocy.

I'm curious where you think the range of reasonable is.

Depends on the budget needs.  Figure out how much you need to collect in taxes, and then spread the tax burden progressively.  And I mean really progressively, not this bullshit where actual tax rates spike in the middle, and then go down to near 15% at the very top.  The one problem with the top rate of 28% was that it turned out to be substantially inadequate to collect enough revenues.

[alfred russel]

If Obama was opposed, neither would have gone through.

That's a different claim.

I've read back through what I've posted, and I don't think it is--certainly in October 2008 there was going to be a democratic presidential candidate, and that candidate may or may not have used his or her influence in the same way as Obama did. We will never know. What we do know is what Obama did.

[Sheilbh]

Depends on the budget needs.  Figure out how much you need to collect in taxes, and then spread the tax burden progressively.  And I mean really progressively, not this bullshit where actual tax rates spike in the middle, and then go down to near 15% at the very top.  The one problem with the top rate of 28% was that it turned out to be substantially inadequate to collect enough revenues.

The US has one of the most wildly progressive tax systems in the developed world.  The problem isn't that the very small number of people who are very rich aren't paying enough, it's that the middle class aren't.  That's further exacerbated by the lack of a VAT in the US.

There's also almost no evidence that progressive taxation is a major part in increasing social mobility or reducing income inequality.  Income transfers in various forms of state spending are far more efficient ways of doing both and in that the US is near the bottom of the table.

I find the focus on taxing the rich more, just because, sort of ridiculous.

[alfred russel]

Depends on the budget needs.  Figure out how much you need to collect in taxes, and then spread the tax burden progressively.  And I mean really progressively, not this bullshit where actual tax rates spike in the middle, and then go down to near 15% at the very top.  The one problem with the top rate of 28% was that it turned out to be substantially inadequate to collect enough revenues.

The US has one of the most wildly progressive tax systems in the developed world.  The problem isn't that the very small number of people who are very rich aren't paying enough, it's that the middle class aren't.  That's further exacerbated by the lack of a VAT in the US.

There's also almost no evidence that progressive taxation is a major part in increasing social mobility or reducing income inequality.  Income transfers in various forms of state spending are far more efficient ways of doing both and in that the US is near the bottom of the table.

I find the focus on taxing the rich more, just because, sort of ridiculous.

Our federal income tax is wildly progressive. But, a lot of our taxes are also state and local, which tend to be a combination of property taxes, sales taxes, and generally flat income taxes. Ie, not progressive.

Also, a lot of our federal government has been run off of payroll taxes for the past few decades. These only fall on earned income (not investment income) and mostly phase out after a bit over $100k in income. So those are regressive.

Put it all together and our system isn't as progressive as our most prominent tax (the federal income tax) would indicate.

[Sheilbh]

Most countries payroll taxes have an upper limit and even including payroll taxes the US has one of the most progressive systems in the OECD.

You're right on state taxes though, again, in my experience there was generally still a lot of deductions and credits available and they were, practically speaking, very low in most cases.  You're definitely right on the impact of state sales and property taxes.

Having said all that my understanding is that in terms of who's paying what amount of tax the US is very much an outlier.  The only country that comes close was Ireland a few years ago which had a similarly very progressive system - again based more on people in the bottom half paying very little, rather than people at the top paying a lot.

[garbon]

If Obama was opposed, neither would have gone through.

That's a different claim.

I've read back through what I've posted, and I don't think it is--certainly in October 2008 there was going to be a democratic presidential candidate, and that candidate may or may not have used his or her influence in the same way as Obama did. We will never know. What we do know is what Obama did.

Maybe - however stood back and let it happen doesn't sound like a great accomplishment.