2012 Begins Now

[EyeKhan]

What financial reform? I must have missed something, because I don't recall any financial reforms. Just some not particularly impressive partial tax increases and increases to spending which are keeping the alarming rise of deficit spending that Bush 2 initiated. How is keeping that rapidly rising deficit either reform or a milestone?

Seems like the credit card rules were reforms. (I know there were significant changes in requirements for mortgage approvals too. But that's a different story).

Here's what the Senate's web site says:

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE NEW BILL

Consumer Protections with Authority and Independence: Creates a new independent watchdog, housed at the Federal Reserve, with the authority to ensure American consumers get the clear, accurate information they need to shop for mortgages, credit cards, and other financial products, and protect them from hidden fees, abusive terms, and deceptive practices.

Ends Too Big to Fail: Ends the possibility that taxpayers will be asked to write a check to bail out financial firms that threaten the economy by: creating a safe way to liquidate failed financial firms; imposing tough new capital and leverage requirements that make it undesirable to get too big; updating the Fed’s authority to allow system-wide support but no longer prop up individual firms; and establishing rigorous standards and supervision to protect the economy and American consumers, investors and businesses.

Advanced Warning System: Creates a council to identify and address systemic risks posed by large, complex companies, products, and activities before they threaten the stability of the economy.

Transparency & Accountability for Exotic Instruments: Eliminates loopholes that allow risky and abusive practices to go on unnoticed and unregulated - including loopholes for over-the-counter derivatives, asset-backed securities, hedge funds, mortgage brokers and payday lenders.

Federal Bank Supervision: Streamlines bank supervision to create clarity and accountability. Protects the dual banking system that supports community banks.

Executive Compensation and Corporate Governance: Provides shareholders with a say on pay and corporate affairs with a non-binding vote on executive compensation.

Protects Investors: Provides tough new rules for transparency and accountability for credit rating agencies to protect investors and businesses.

Enforces Regulations on the Books: Strengthens oversight and empowers regulators to aggressively pursue financial fraud, conflicts of interest and manipulation of the system that benefit special interests at the expense of American families and businesses.

Sounds like reform to me, but I'm not an expert on the subject. I suppose if you want to hate the bill, hate Democrats, or if you're getting regulated by the bill you'll wave your hand and call it bullshit tax increases. And maybe some or a lot of it is bullshit. I don't know. But I'm not going to take your word for it either.

As for health reform, this leads us back to the fundamental disagreement you and I have. You think expansion and coverage is reform, and is the first step to fixing the system. It's not, it's simply extension of something very broken, and makes any attempt to actually FIX things harder. Reform would have involved cost-containment, reduction of the massive amount of middle-men and delay, efforts to expand the pool of health-care providers, removal of the excessive overhead and restrictions on actual patient care which are driving specialists out of their fields, etc. Health care reform wasn't passed, it was made incredibly more difficult, because that was easier to do politically. That is not political leadership, and it's only a milestone if you think mandating everyone have insurance is more important than trying to fix what's been pricing them OUT of the damned, incredibly expensive, and underperforming system.

Again, this goes back to what you want to call reform. There's a lot of consumer protections in the bill and cost reduction or not, that's a reform. And so is coverage expansion.

Yes, cost is the #1 problem in US health care. But the Powers in health care are not willing to give up their money, and with every single Republican on their side, they could have stopped the bill if they chose to. So if Admin had gone after that, the bill would never have passed. The choice the Administration had to make was do we go after cost containment (and fail, again) or do we pass consumer protections and coverage extensions and kick the cost ball downfield? Right or wrong, they kicked it.

Now, regarding both of these bills, you might disagree they are sufficient or good in any way, but you can't possibly make the argument that in the last two years the Dems did nothing.

[EyeKhan]

What that means is that Germany was more affected by the global recession than we are.

And we are dependant on consumer spending for what, 70% of our economy? You think Germany is like that? You think the fact that the US had a gigantic realestate bubble burst that was fueling consumer spending has anything to do with why our recession here might be longer and deeper than Germany's when their economy actually makes and exports things? Come on, don't be purposefully dense just to try and win an argument.

And regarding the stimulus, prove to me the stimulus did not stop a depression. And before you cry foul, that's the exact same thing you're asking me - and, because you won't say it, the honest answer is its impossible to answer either way.

[wiggin]

Y'know, this debate about Germany is funny and everything. See, the US is closer to pre-recession GDP than Germany, despite their remarkable growth, mostly because the recession hit them very hard (notably due to world trade that was drastically cut). However, to argue this happened in the absence of government stimulus is a total crock. Germany had one of the most generous fiscal stimulus packages in the Western world, and it furthermore had gone longer than in most of Europe, where they're already pushing austerity (all rhetoric aside, Germany's announced austerity plans don't phase in until 2011-2012). In particular, they spent quite a bit on subsidized work hours schemes to prevent unemployment (the German labor market never had as deep unemployment as the US due to this), a cash-for-clunkers style program, tax credits, infrastructure building, etc. It added up to at least 1.5% of GDP in 2009 and 2% of GDP in 2010, and there are still some lagging expenses they're paying.

So, bottom line: you're both wrong. Germany is not some shining example of recovery since their GDP was trashed in the recession (notably because they rely on exports and didn't encourage enough domestic demand to make up the difference), but they also didn't show some remarkable fiscal restraint in avoiding a large stimulus package. Of course, some would argue the stimulus should have been larger and austerity postponed a little more, but that's a difference of degree.

[Steely Glint]

Ah yes, the Democrats don't act because they're good-natured but cowardly. The Republicans are the spawn of Satan trying to destroy the US and the world. Attempting to have a rational argument with you people is pointless.

Attempting to have an honest argument with you is pointless, because your sole rhetorical trick is to try and reword other people arguments into some absurd caricature. It's gotten to the point where any paragraph you write is guaranteed to be fucking stupid if it starts with the word "So" and a comma, though I admit "ah yes" and then a comma provides some welcome variation on theme which is becoming deeply, deeply tedious.

For the record, this technique is well known enough to have a name - which you know perfectly well - and appears on probably every single list of fallacies put on the web since the dawn of the Internet. So, maybe, just maybe your ruse of rephrasing someone's words to make them sound stupid/partisan/self-interested/something else is actually a little more transparent that you perhaps like to think, hmm? The repetitive phraseology you use ("So, you support [fucking stupid extrapolation from someone's words that only a demented and pathologically dishonest ideologue could possibly find plausible]") just makes the whole thing even more obvious and irritating. So stop it.

No, the Republicans aren't the spawn of Satan trying to destroy the US (though letting themselves be co-opted by the breathtakingly loony tea party movement might well have that effect), they're the right wing party of the US. As such, it's their fucking job to make the case for right wing policies and the right wing agenda. Which they do, and which is fine. The Democrats are the left wing party of the US, and it's their job to make the argument for left wing policies and advance the left wing agenda. Instead, they are so terrified of the idea that the US is populated entirely by stupid, bigoted Glenn Beck alikes and that if they offend them they'll be wiped off the face of US politics forever that they just concede vast swathes of the argument to the repubs just like that. Well, Dems, if it seems that US public opinion is dominated by tea party mouthbreathers it's probably because you let the right wing movement completely set the agenda and tone of the debate. Because you're fucking pussies. They should be out there making the argument that small government is not automatically a good thing, that privitised e.g. health-care is not magically more efficient, that actually it isn't morally acceptable to deny health care to one person in order to give state of the art care to someone else and that actually, hey, health care is a basic human right?

I know you and I disagree on all of the above, but surely you can agree that it should be the job of one party to make such argument and another to oppose them? If the dems are just going to concede everything and pretend to be right wing in order to avoid offending Joe Sixpack Fuckwit, who wasn't going to vote for them anyway, do they have any surprise when their own supporters won't turn out to vote for them? And do their own supporters have a right to be surprise when one day they find they have an actual witch-doctor as their senator when they don't turn out to vote because they're butthurt that Obama didn't have actual magic powers?

[Loki]

I know you and I disagree on all of the above, but surely you can agree that it should be the job of one party to make such argument and another to oppose them? If the dems are just going to concede everything and pretend to be right wing in order to avoid offending Joe Sixpack Fuckwit, who wasn't going to vote for them anyway, do they have any surprise when their own supporters won't turn out to vote for them? And do their own supporters have a right to be surprise when one day they find they have an actual witch-doctor as their senator when they don't turn out to vote because they're butthurt that Obama didn't have actual magic powers?

The Democratic Party has always been more heterogeneous than the Republican Party. That means it's always had difficulty agreeing on a single agenda and following through on it. The instances when it did manage to do those things, it had an overwhelming majority in Congress. It's not terribly surprising that a party that includes a decent amount of social conservatives and a decent amount of fiscal conservatives (though not too many fiscal and social conservatives) would have to compromise to its own Congressmen.

[']['ear]

Why don't you respond to the first paragraph? You claimed to have put me on ignore for saying the same fucking thing.

Do NOT expect people to be civil to you when you are so unceasingly rude and manipulative.

[Loki]

Y'know, this debate about Germany is funny and everything. See, the US is closer to pre-recession GDP than Germany, despite their remarkable growth, mostly because the recession hit them very hard (notably due to world trade that was drastically cut). However, to argue this happened in the absence of government stimulus is a total crock. Germany had one of the most generous fiscal stimulus packages in the Western world, and it furthermore had gone longer than in most of Europe, where they're already pushing austerity (all rhetoric aside, Germany's announced austerity plans don't phase in until 2011-2012). In particular, they spent quite a bit on subsidized work hours schemes to prevent unemployment (the German labor market never had as deep unemployment as the US due to this), a cash-for-clunkers style program, tax credits, infrastructure building, etc. It added up to at least 1.5% of GDP in 2009 and 2% of GDP in 2010, and there are still some lagging expenses they're paying.

So, bottom line: you're both wrong. Germany is not some shining example of recovery since their GDP was trashed in the recession (notably because they rely on exports and didn't encourage enough domestic demand to make up the difference), but they also didn't show some remarkable fiscal restraint in avoiding a large stimulus package. Of course, some would argue the stimulus should have been larger and austerity postponed a little more, but that's a difference of degree.

You're comparing 1.5% of GDP to America's ~6% (which doesn't seem to be falling)? Any Western government is going to engage in counter-cyclical spending. 1.5% is not on unusual in that regard.

By the way, the German deficit for 2010 was 4%:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-1...this-year.html

That's in comparison to about 9% for the US.

[EyeKhan]

Why don't you respond to the first paragraph? You claimed to have put me on ignore for saying the same fucking thing.

Do NOT expect people to be civil to you when you are so unceasingly rude and manipulative.

He must not be very busy with school right now because he hasn't been this bad In a while.

[wiggin]

You're comparing 1.5% of GDP to America's ~6% (which doesn't seem to be falling)? Any Western government is going to engage in counter-cyclical spending. 1.5% is not on unusual in that regard.

By the way, the German deficit for 2010 was 4%:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-1...this-year.html

That's in comparison to about 9% for the US.

I'm not talking about deficit spending, but specifically stimulus-related spending. If you just take ARRA, it was about 2.75% of GDP in 2010 (~$400 billion), with similar rates in late 2009 and a lower rate in 2011. That's not much higher than German stimulus, especially when chunks of the US stimulus were essentially waste and not particularly effective.

Fiscal stimulus-related spending in the US is most definitely falling - very little new money has been authorized for 2011. Deficits are high because receipts are low and we already had structural deficit issues. That hardly equates to a stimulus plan. The German fiscal house was just in much better shape before this all started, so their current deficits are still pretty low (though well above eurozone standards, still).

edit: FYI, German fiscal stimulus was about half of the entire eurozone's, despite the fact that their share of eurozone GDP is quite a bit less. Their European neighbors were stingy, but the Germans were not. That's ignoring some of the automatic systems in place that didn't need special legislation, too.

[Loki]

I'm not talking about deficit spending, but specifically stimulus-related spending. If you just take ARRA, it was about 2.75% of GDP in 2010 (~$400 billion), with similar rates in late 2009 and a lower rate in 2011. That's not much higher than German stimulus, especially when chunks of the US stimulus were essentially waste and not particularly effective.

Fiscal stimulus-related spending in the US is most definitely falling - very little new money has been authorized for 2011. Deficits are high because receipts are low and we already had structural deficit issues. That hardly equates to a stimulus plan. The German fiscal house was just in much better shape before this all started, so their current deficits are still pretty low (though well above eurozone standards, still).

I fail to see why you're focusing on single acts. We've spent an extra $1.4 trillion since Obama came to power (over the 2008 figures). Discretionary spending has increased from $930 billion in 2008 to $1.38 trillion in 2011, and a lot of the non-discretionary spending could have been frozen. Meanwhile, Germany had a deficit of 4% of GDP in 2010 and that deficit is projected to decrease in 2011. Please tell me how the situations are remotely comparable.

US Spending Figures:
2008 - $2.90 trillion
2009 - $3.52 trillion
2010 - $3.72 trillion
2011 - $3.83 trillion

http://www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy...get/tables.pdf (page 3; ignore estimates after 2008)
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/defa...ets/tables.pdf (page 2)

Meanwhile, revenues are flat since 2009 and are even predicted to increase by $400 billion in 2011 (note that outlays are projected to keep increasing). So no, the reason for our deficit is continued increases in spending. How exactly is a $900 billion increase in spending since 2008 a consequence of structural problems?

[wiggin]

We've had this conversation before, Loki. Most of the increased spending is either related to various stimulus measures (biggest being ARRA), various bailouts (e.g. TARP), or much higher spending on various automatic measures (e.g. unemployment benefits, which have soared). Most of the increase in discretionary spending is ARRA with minor increases in other programs (excluding defense, which continues to grow at an unacceptably high rate), coupled with higher outlays for mandatory programs.

Revenues most definitely are part of the problem - they fell sharply from 2007 through 2009 and aren't even close to pre-crisis levels now. I don't get why you don't agree. But the larger issue is that the US already had a significant deficit coming into the recession, due to a combination of structural issues (e.g. growing healthcare costs) and shitty budgeting (e.g. war spending, bloated programs, etc.). Germany's deficit was carefully controlled beforehand.

Anyways, this is all far afield. I took issue with this comment of yours:

In fact, Germany didn't really have a stimulus, and it has seen its unemployment rate plummet and has one of the highest growth rates in Europe now. All the stimulus did was temporarily keep some people in their jobs at a monumental cost to the economy. Look to Japan if you want to see what happens when the government tries to keep companies from laying off workers at all cost.

Germany did have a stimulus, and it was bigger than most if not all European nations (~$110 billion all told). Their high growth rate hasn't brought them back to pre-crisis GDP (they're still 2% below) while the US has nearly recouped all of their losses - mainly because German output was slashed much more than the US and many other nations. And the stimulus in the US may have provided some temporary jobs, but Germany pioneered the concept of paying companies to keep people in jobs - that's why their unemployment rate never went as high as the US in this recession, albeit at the expense of a flexible labor market.

Look, I'm not saying Germany is in an awful position - I think they did an okay job recovering from a very bad recession (far worse for them in terms of output). Yet the myth of German austerity being what pulled them through is completely inaccurate. They have a sizable stimulus plan and increased their budget deficit quite a bit (not as much as the US, but we had other pressures on the budget). Austerity isn't kicking in until 2011, yet their 'recovery' (which still needs quite some time before it should be lauded) has been going on for some time.

Don't worry, I'm not singling you out - EK's ridiculous claim that the US recession was longer and deeper than the German recession is particularly amusing, especially when he says it's because Germany is an export-oriented economy. It's just that there are a lot of myths going around about Germany and it drives me crazy.

This graph is particularly illuminating:
http://www.angrybearblog.com/2010/11...ction-ecb.html

[']['ear]

Is this where we can say "Truth has a known liberal bias?"

[EyeKhan]

EK's ridiculous claim that the US recession was longer and deeper than the German recession is particularly amusing,

Excuse me, I didn't make that claim, I (foolishly) accepted Loki's assertion of that claim - with his false assertion they did it with no stimulus - and (worse) was parrotting it with an attempt to offer reasons why it might be true and why Germany's situation might be different from the US. Given Loki's history I damn well should have known better.

Is this where we can say "Truth has a known liberal bias?"

Yes indeed. Honesty - or a desire for honesty and the truth - is apparently a liberal trait. And in politics, it weakens liberalism. Nobody likes the truth.

But the larger issue is that the US already had a significant deficit coming into the recession, due to a combination of structural issues (e.g. growing healthcare costs) and shitty budgeting (e.g. war spending, bloated programs, etc.). Germany's deficit was carefully controlled beforehand.

I'm surprised you don't acknowledge the 2003 Bush tax cuts as a reason for the deficit going into the recession. It also removed one of the quickest (if more symbolic than concrete) responses a president can make to a recession. Bush already shot the tax cut wad - during a strong economy no less - when the recession hit and the economy really needed it.

[wiggin]

Excuse me, I didn't make that claim, I (foolishly) accepted Loki's assertion of that claim - with his false assertion they did it with no stimulus - and (worse) was parrotting it with an attempt to offer reasons why it might be true and why Germany's situation might be different from the US. Given Loki's history I damn well should have known better.

Sorry, I was just responding to this:

And we are dependant on consumer spending for what, 70% of our economy? You think Germany is like that? You think the fact that the US had a gigantic realestate bubble burst that was fueling consumer spending has anything to do with why our recession here might be longer and deeper than Germany's when their economy actually makes and exports things?

Which is clearly wrong on a number of levels. If you agree with the facts, though, that's fine.

I'm surprised you don't acknowledge the 2003 Bush tax cuts as a reason for the deficit going into the recession. It also removed one of the quickest (if more symbolic than concrete) responses a president can make to a recession. Bush already shot the tax cut wad - during a strong economy no less - when the recession hit and the economy really needed it.

Honestly, that story isn't so clear. Deficits were manageable if not great for most of Bush's term, even with the tax cuts (they briefly edged about 3% of GDP in 2003-2004, but that's about it. The issue is that the makeup of the budget was shifting towards very high growth of entitlement spending and didn't leave much room for further cuts, especially in wartime.

I recognize that the relatively flush budgets since the late 90s (even after the dot-com crash and two wars, deficits weren't awful) were an opportunity to think sensibly about entitlement spending and reform, but comprehensive tax reform is also a good place to start. Obviously the makeup of the Bush tax cuts was not the best (I think it would have been wiser to focus on streamlining the tax code and taxing consumption rather than changing total receipts), but it wasn't an awful idea.

My bigger issue with Bush's deficits was that generally I support countercyclical spending, but with Bush's deficits already brushing 3%, there wasn't much room to maneuver. That being said, clearly some of the stimulus spending was on projects that really were dubious at best. I'd say the majority of the Obama-term deficits are due to growth in entitlements, decreases in revenue (something like $500 billion a year below trend growth?), automatic stabilizers (a la unemployment), TARP-like programs, and legitimate fiscal stimulus. But a significant portion was allocated to Democratic priorities that largely used stimulus as an excuse. These are obviously a bad idea in a tough fiscal environment.

[Dreadnaught]

Yes indeed. Honesty - or a desire for honesty and the truth - is apparently a liberal trait. And in politics, it weakens liberalism. Nobody likes the truth.

The meme that lots of House Democrats lost their seats because the body politic is stupid and just doesn't "get it" is frankly arrogant. Looking down on voters is not really a winning approach.

I'm surprised you don't acknowledge the 2003 Bush tax cuts as a reason for the deficit going into the recession. It also removed one of the quickest (if more symbolic than concrete) responses a president can make to a recession. Bush already shot the tax cut wad - during a strong economy no less - when the recession hit and the economy really needed it.

Iraq probably had more of an impact. I don't think it's fair to think about tax cuts as a zero-sum game. For example, a major part of the 2003 tax cut was comprised of cuts in capital gains and dividends.

The S&P 500, for example, rebounded quite a bit for several years after 2003. Obviously most of that was better economic performance. But inflation was also historically low during those times. And it's fair to say that a large chunk of the price increases was that stocks became more valuable assets now that the cost of realizing gains and earning dividends was lower. This increased value encouraged more volume, dividends and generally led to money going back to the government.

In short, raising and cutting taxes it's not a zero-sum issue. The short-term revenue calculations are not nearly as important as considering how taxes will impact economic behavior. It's easy to say that a government needs revenue, so taxes should go up to plug the hole. It's a more mature decision to say that the government has a long-term interest in nurturing a strong business environment that will be able to fund the government.

[EyeKhan]

The meme that lots of House Democrats lost their seats because the body politic is stupid and just doesn't "get it" is frankly arrogant. Looking down on voters is not really a winning approach.

The body politic isn't stupid, just incredibly vulnerable to manipulation and deceit. Knowing that, saying it, doesn't help the problem when you don't have the sort of scruples that let you lie, fear monger, cheat and steal to get power. So, after a fashion, you're depressingly right.

[Lebanese Dragon]

The meme that lots of House Democrats lost their seats because the body politic is stupid and just doesn't "get it" is frankly arrogant. Looking down on voters is not really a winning approach.

I think they're is a lot of truth in that though. People are just really ignorant, and it's not that they lack the ability to think, it's rather they were brainwashed in a certain way that when it comes to certain issues their critical thinking shut downs. I think it's partly due to a disinterest in politics, so they just go with the flow, I think it's because of indoctrination, I think it's because our schools don't consider understanding politics, economics, and basic life skills as core learning material. However, the way our society has evolved it needs to be. As parents work many hours, and kids are at school for many hours, there is less social bonding, discussion, and parents don't teach their kids about the world directly as much... they're raised ignorantly. The way the world works, in some regards past civilization were superior to us. In some regards technology, has made us less social, and worse off socially, and intellectually. As it makes us more independant and does thinking for us.

[Dreadnaught]

The people whose ideology/party are on the "losing" end always say this. Folks aren't being manipulated en-masse, they are taking a look at the situation and are unhappy with some of the major legislative and government spending trends. They want a change. Sound familiar?

[EyeKhan]

Just because people always say something doesn't mean that sometimes it isn't true. My brother's a TEA Partier and his big complaint is how his taxes went up to pay for Obama's bailouts. . Never mind that he actually got a tax cut from Obama and the bailouts were largely the work of GW. My mother's big complaint was how Obama's health care cuts Medicare, how elderly people now would not get organ transplants and knee replacements. . Sorry to be anecdotal and all, but if you can't see the ignorance and deception peddling in the TEA Party nether sphere and the Right Wing propaganda network, you are denying blatant, ugly reality. There is nothing comparable from liberals. And don't start on about Moveon dot org, they have nothing even close to the influence of the right. The only thing the right attacks that I am familiar at all with is NPR and that is frankly the last major source of actual journalism in the United States, and actual journalism is the right wing propaganda machine's biggest threat. Of course they attack NPR.

[']['ear]

The meme that lots of House Democrats lost their seats because the body politic is stupid and just doesn't "get it" is frankly arrogant. Looking down on voters is not really a winning approach.

Fortunately Chaloobi isn't running for congress. So was there a point to this straw man?

Iraq probably had more of an impact. I don't think it's fair to think about tax cuts as a zero-sum game. For example, a major part of the 2003 tax cut was comprised of cuts in capital gains and dividends.

And that would have nothing to do with the impact of Dot com bubble finally dissipating?

The S&P 500, for example, rebounded quite a bit for several years after 2003. Obviously most of that was better economic performance. But inflation was also historically low during those times. And it's fair to say that a large chunk of the price increases was that stocks became more valuable assets now that the cost of realizing gains and earning dividends was lower. This increased value encouraged more volume, dividends and generally led to money going back to the government.

Or we could be parsimonious, and rather than waving some bizarre mechanistic wand we could assume that the economic cycle was churning through its course, and the downturn of the dot com bust was swinging back up.

In short, raising and cutting taxes it's not a zero-sum issue.

Totally agreed, and I at least (and I assume others) never claimed it was, and are guilty of, at most, using shorthand. Which, since we aren't writing fracking dissertations, is acceptable and should be exempt from hair splitting digressions.

The short-term revenue calculations are not nearly as important as considering how taxes will impact economic behavior. It's easy to say that a government needs revenue, so taxes should go up to plug the hole. It's a more mature decision to say that the government has a long-term interest in nurturing a strong business environment that will be able to fund the government.

All true. This disagreement should be about how that happens. Because, as we see now, Capital is hanging onto its money instead of plowing it back into the economy. Giving them a tax cut would be utterly foolish, especially since a) they pay a lower percentage than the middle class, and b) they're not going to spend that money. You want to increase consumption? Give money to people who live hand to mouth, They'll freakin spend it. Better, start fixing roads and bridges, which the whole political spectrum acknowledges are falling apart all over the country. Guess where most of the unemployment lies? Construction. Well, it might not be swinging a hammer, but those same guys can do something other than frame houses. They are then guys who are building our infrastructure back to acceptable levels instead of pulling in unemployment or welfare/food stamps.

[Dreadnaught]

It's completely not acceptable. To use a "shorthand" view of tax cuts/increases and then base your view of fiscal policy on said shorthand is actually something of a self-deception.

Claiming that a relatively minor tax cut hurt government revenues in such a profound way that we swung from a surplus to a deficit is a pretty gross oversimplification.

[Ominous Gamer]

because its sadly "big government" is going to be coming up a lot...

[']['ear]

It's completely not acceptable. To use a "shorthand" view of tax cuts/increases and then base your view of fiscal policy on said shorthand is actually something of a self-deception.

Short hand is communication, Dread. Not policy.

Claiming that a relatively minor tax cut hurt government revenues in such a profound way that we swung from a surplus to a deficit is a pretty gross oversimplification.

I said this?

[Loki]

because its sadly "big government" is going to be coming up a lot...

Because:
A) Regulation is a panacea.
B) Regulation doesn't cause problems of a similar scale.

[EyeKhan]

Because:
A) Regulation is a panacea.

More like a (very) necessary evil.

B) Regulation doesn't cause problems of a similar scale.

Examples?

[']['ear]

Because:
A) Regulation is a panacea.

You're saying that regulation cures everything? Cool! We should just go with that then. Why are you opposed to it?

B) Regulation doesn't cause problems of a similar scale.

So it's not harmful either! Let's all become liberals?

{or let's all spout boilerplate}

[Loki]

More like a (very) necessary evil.

Quite frequently the greater of two evils.

Examples?

The gold standard.
Nixon's and Carter's attempts to regulate oil prices.
Different environmental regulation in different states on the sale of oil.
Numerous environmental regulations that simply lack common sense (see the one Lewk posted recently).
The entire rent control system (particularly in NYC).
Numerous business regulations whose main effect is to force out small businesses (and prevent them from entering), while increasing market share for giant corporations.

Plus all the examples given by OG actually involved regulations, so I fail to see why new regulations would function any better than old ones.

Wouldn't hurt to try to understand this concept:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana_fallacy

[EyeKhan]

The gold standard.

Not enough information provided.

Nixon's and Carter's attempts to regulate oil prices.

Not enough information provided.

Different environmental regulation in different states on the sale of oil.

This - assuming its an actual issue and no, you don't get the benefit of the doubt - is driven by the fact the Federal Government has been too paralyzed to act. It is not an indictment of regulation, but a call for centralized regulation.

Numerous environmental regulations that simply lack common sense (see the one Lewk posted recently).

Not enough information given. And a right-wing capitalizm fanboy doesn't get to decide what makes environmental common sense. Sorry.

The entire rent control system (particularly in NYC).

I'm not familiar with it, though I hear the rent in NYC is Too Damn High.

Numerous business regulations whose main effect is to force out small businesses (and prevent them from entering), while increasing market share for giant corporations.

Sounds like an argument to get unfettered corporate money out of the political process and stop pretending for legal purposes that corporations are people. But, you know.

Plus all the examples given by OG actually involved regulations, so I fail to see why new regulations would function any better than old ones.

Well, unfortunately our Executive can choose not to enforce regulations. That, again, is not an indictment of regulation, but of bad government. Becuase it's not the size that counts, but whether it works. And if the executive is allowed to set aside the law of the land when he feels like it, then you don't have a government that works no matter how small or large it is.

[']['ear]

No use damning regulations if the regulating agency is a) gutted so they can't regulate or b) if conflicts of interest are allowed.

[LittleFuzzy]

No use damning regulations if the regulating agency is a) gutted so they can't regulate or b) if conflicts of interest are allowed.

So we can only point out systemic problems if a system is perfect? What a wonderful way to avoid criticism. Only things which can't be criticized are allowed to be criticized.