State of the Union

[CuteOldGuy]

How about a place to predict/reflect on the speech tonight? I'll start with an expose of the media coverup of Obama's failures.

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/geoffre...al-state-union

[nevergaveitathought]

we need to be fair, however he might define it

[timpage]

Originally Posted by CuteOldGuy

How about a place to predict/reflect on the speech tonight? I'll start with an expose of the media coverup of Obama's failures.

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/geoffre...al-state-union

Let's see: a ridiculously conservative website citing other ridiculously conservative websitesand/or institutions and/or newspapers for the proposition that Obama has had failures. Hmmm....

So much for being fair.

How about that 500,000 job figure that the American Petroleum Institute says the pipeline would have created. Anybody besides me find that a bit suspect? Maybe a tad optimistic? Maybe an outright lie?

[CuteOldGuy]

Sometimes telling the truth will not be fair.

[nevergaveitathought]

i hear that warren buffett's secretary is the guest of honor

the lie that is being propagated that she has a higher income tax rate than warren does on his income is galling in its persistency and purposeful incorrectness

just another slight of hand by the wordsmith of misdirection

[TexTushHog]

Originally Posted by nevergaveitathought

the lie that is being propagated that she has a higher income tax rate than warren does on his income is galling in its persistency and purposeful incorrectness

I guess it's a lie that Mitt pay less than 15% of his income in taxes, too, eh??!!!

I thought it was a good speech. It would have been a hell of a lot better speech if it had been delivered two years ago. But i suppose you should never curse wisdom because it comes late. The closing -- the bit about the Seal Team 6 flag -- was particularly effective. He's gearing up to reprise Harry Truman's campaign of 1948 running against a do nothing Congress. And the "fairness" theme is a great one no matter whether the Republican nominee is Newt or Mitt. It kills either one of them. (In fact, it actually works better against Newt.)

[CuteOldGuy]

Once again, the term "fairness". It's a meaningless word, or a too meaningful word. What is fair? Who decides? It can't happen, but it is a great term to demagogue. This election will spread more bullshit from both sides, there will be a bumper crop of assholes in Washington.

[TexTushHog]

The first salvo in the President's reelection campaign is a home run!!

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0111/48222.html

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/...in;contentBody

COG, you really don't have a clue, do you. Fairness is a fundamental concept that people value quite highly. Behavioral economics tells us that most people will pick a "fair" outcome over an "unfair" but Pareto optimal outcome, even if the lower overall output is reinforced and explained to them. Any politician, or trial lawyer, who ignores this fundamental concept does so at his own peril.

[Fast Gunn]

I thought it was a great speech!

President Obama brought this country back from the brink of disaster, but the GOP clowns can't even stop fighting among themselves long enough just to pick a nominee.

. . . America, the choice is clear and the election is only 40 weeks away!

[LexusLover]

'We've Come Too Far to Turn Back Now'

The "new" argument for ...... "four more years."

{=== See picture to left!

For Michelle's sake, let's keep plowing on to troubled waters.

To Hell with the USA.

[CuteOldGuy]

Originally Posted by TexTushHog

The first salvo in the President's reelection campaign is a home run!!

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0111/48222.html

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/...in;contentBody

COG, you really don't have a clue, do you. Fairness is a fundamental concept that people value quite highly. Behavioral economics tells us that most people will pick a "fair" outcome over an "unfair" but Pareto optimal outcome, even if the lower overall output is reinforced and explained to them. Any politician, or trial lawyer, who ignores this fundamental concept does so at his own peril.

Do you really think we can reach a common definition of what is fair? I don't want you deciding what is fair for me. Thank you very much.

[gnadfly]

Originally Posted by nevergaveitathought

i hear that warren buffett's secretary is the guest of honor

the lie that is being propagated that she has a higher income tax rate than warren does on his income is galling in its persistency and purposeful incorrectness

just another slight of hand by the wordsmith of misdirection

They consistently leave off the word "rate" and keep repeating the lie that Joe Sixpack and Jane Admin pay more taxes than millionaires. Yesterday Mitt released his 2010 tax return where he paid like $6 million is taxes. The goons on MSNBC this morning again repeated the lie that Buffet's secretary paid more in taxes than Mitt.

[nevergaveitathought]

Originally Posted by gnadfly

They consistently leave off the word "rate" and keep repeating the lie that Joe Sixpack and Jane Admin pay more taxes than millionaires. Yesterday Mitt released his 2010 tax return where he paid like $6 million is taxes. The goons on MSNBC this morning again repeated the lie that Buffet's secretary paid more in taxes than Mitt.

well for warren, the income that flowed down to him from berkshire hathaway? a total tax of 46% was paid on that income..even if the secretary was in the highest bracket ..it would only be 35% and why would a secretary ever be in the highest tax bracket? only because a rich guy (or woman) was spreading the wealth in the first place.....i dont know what bracket she was in..but because dividends are taxed at both the corporate level and the personal level...double taxation...warren's income has an effective tax rate of 46%..warren could decrease the dividend and/or up his earned income (or salary) anytime he chooses...and he too could have a rate of 35% ..and actually the treasury would get less money if he did that.

[Texas Contrarian]

You certainly can make the case that "fairness" (whatever may be one's definition of it) is an issue that resonates with voters. It's also the case that experienced politicians often engage in disingenuous demagoguery such as this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54jr3Ceu894

(It's interesting that Hillary seemed to realize that pushing the capital gains tax rate much beyond 20% might not be such a great idea.)

Did anyone notice that Obama, while he said that anyone making more than a million dollars per year ought to pay a tax rate of at least 30%, didn't say a word about the capital gains tax rate? He knows (or at least should know) very well that not only would pushing the capital gains tax rate to levels that high be politically impracticable, it would be bad policy. It would obviously produce distortions and impediments to the free flow of capital -- just about the last thing our economy needs right now. (And, of course, a capital gains tax rate increase wouldn't collect much additional revenue.)

Everyone knows that high-income taxpayers already pay a 35% rate on ordinary income (salaries, fees, commissions, etc.).

So the rhetoric may be about fairness, but the policy proposals aren't going to do much of anything. None of this is about economics; it's all about scoring political points. Did you see him offer even a hint of how to actually fix our dysfunctional tax system?

Our current tax system is only capable of raising enough revenue to cover about 60% of today's spending level. We're eventually going to see massive spending cuts (ha!), a huge tax increase (and not just on the "rich"), or a horrific fiscal crisis that will shock the economy so severely that it will takes years to recover.

The set of recommendations made by the Simpson-Bowles commission may not go far enough, and they're far from perfect, but at least they offer some starting places for serious debate. Instead, Obama simply ignored the commission, after calling for it the previous year. Maybe he thinks the problem is somehow just going to go away on its own. That's wishful thinking. But why make any sort of tough decision now? There's an election to be won!

As I said in another thread, we're simply building a bridge to the next crisis, not one to a more secure or more prosperous future.

[Boltfan]

By John Stossel:

"Has Barack Obama learned nothing in three years? Last night, during his State of the Union address, he promised “a blueprint for an economy.” But economies are crushed by blueprints.

An economy is really nothing more than people participating in an unfathomably complex spontaneous network of exchanges aimed at improving their material circumstances. It can’t even be diagrammed, much less planned. And any attempt at it will come to grief.

Politicians like Obama believe they are the best judges of how we should conduct our lives. Of course a word like “blueprint” would occur to the president. He, like most who want his job, aspires to be the architect of a new society.

But we who love our lives and our freedom say: No, thanks. We need no social architect. We need liberty under law.

That’s it.

Obama -- and most Republicans are no different -- doesn’t understand the real liberal revolution that transformed civilization. The crux of that revolution is that law should define general visible rules of just conduct, applicable to all, with no eye to particular outcomes. In other words, as Nobel laureate F.A. Hayek taught, the only “purpose” of law is to enable us all to pursue our individual purposes in peace.

If Obama really wanted, as he says, a society in which “everybody gets a fair shot,” he would work to shrink government so that the sphere of freedom could expand. Instead, he expands government and raises taxes on wealthier people, as though giving politicians more money were a way to make society better. Instead, the interventionist state rigs the game on behalf of special interests.

What should Obama have said in his speech? Here’s what I wish he’d said:

Our debt has passed $15 trillion. It will reach Greek levels in just 10 years.
But if we make reasonable cuts to what government spends, our economy can grow us out of our debt. Cutting doesn't just make economic sense, it is also the moral thing to do. Government is best which governs least.

We'll start by closing the Department of Education, which saves $100 billion a year. It’s insane to take money from states only to launder it through Washington and then return it to states.

Next, we’ll close the Department of Housing and Urban Development. That saves $41 billion. We had plenty of housing in America before a department was created.

Then we eliminate the Commerce Department: $9 billion. A government that can’t count votes accurately should not try to negotiate trade. We will eliminate all corporate welfare and all subsidies. That means agriculture subsidies, green energy subsidies, ethanol subsidies and so on. None of it is needed.

I propose selling Amtrak. Why is government in the transportation business? Let private companies compete to run the trains.
And we must finally stop one of the biggest assaults on freedom and our pocketbook: the war on drugs. I used drugs. It’s immoral to imprison people who do what I did and now laugh about.

Still, all these cuts combined will only dent our deficit. We must cut Medicare, Social Security and the military.
I know. Medicare and Social Security are popular. But they are unsustainable. The only way to cut costs and still have medical innovation is to free the market. So I propose that we repeal Obamacare immediately. My proposal was a mistake. We should repeal all government interference in the medical and insurance industries, including licensing. It all impedes competition.

We must shrink the military’s mission to true national defense. That means pulling our troops out of Germany, Japan, Italy and dozens of other countries. America cannot and should not try to police the world.

Those cuts will put America on the road to solvency. But that’s not enough. We also need economic growth.
Our growth has stalled because millions of pages of regulations make businesses too fearful to invest. Entrepreneurs don’t know what the rules -- or taxes -- will be tomorrow.

All destructive laws must go. I endorse the Stossel Rule: For every new law passed, we must repeal two old ones.

OK, Obama will never say that.

But I can dream, can’t I?"

I have always been a big believer in the philosophies espoused by Stossel.