The Democrat Thread

[lostfan]

Then why couldn't the Democrats get that kind of air time for the last 8 years?

I don't understand what you mean here, when were the Democrats denied airtime when they wanted it?

[southsider2k5]

That makes very little sense to me. The multiplier effect as defined in the linked document is "One-year $ change in real GDP per $ reduction in federal tax revenue or increase in spending". In other words, it is defined as what happens relative to no federal action being taken; aka in this case, no tax cuts. It does not matter if it is considered a new outlay by the business or not, all that matters is the impact on GDP. In other words, keeping people employed who's jobs otherwise would have been lost without a tax cut must be included, because their economic activity counts as part of the GDP. If in some fashion it didn't count that, as you claim, then the multiplier for a corporate tax cut would be even lower.

 

The baseline is relative to no government action taken, not relative to where things currently stand.

 

Because they don't count a job saved as a change in GDP, because technically it isn't a "change". It keeps the status quo. The change actually occurs when there is no change, and they have to layoff employees to keep the company afloat. You don't count no change, as a change, that's why these numbers are so low. Its a statistical anomaly that is fairly clear and understood.

 

People take these numbers out of context and have no idea what the actually mean. That's why the whole liberal myth of taxcuts not working keeps getting proliferated.

[NorthSideSox72]

Because they don't count a job saved as a change in GDP, because technically it isn't a "change". It keeps the status quo. The change actually occurs when there is no change, and they have to layoff employees to keep the company afloat. You don't count no change, as a change, that's why these numbers are so low. Its a statistical anomaly that is fairly clear and understood.

 

People take these numbers out of context and have no idea what the actually mean. That's why the whole liberal myth of taxcuts not working keeps getting proliferated.

First sentence, agree. Second sentence, you made a huge leap there. There are many good reasons to argue against certain tax cuts being useful, depending on their implementation. Its not all just some myth.

 

[southsider2k5]

First sentence, agree. Second sentence, you made a huge leap there. There are many good reasons to argue against certain tax cuts being useful, depending on their implementation. Its not all just some myth.

 

When you take numbers out of context to make an arguement, it bothers me. I don't call it a leap of faith at all.

[NorthSideSox72]

When you take numbers out of context to make an arguement, it bothers me. I don't call it a leap of faith at all.

My point is, you asserted that the idea of tax cuts not being good is a "liberal myth". That is the same as saying that GOP'ers see all tax cuts as good as part of their "conservative myth". Neither are myths - tax cuts have effect on the economy, but there are a lot of arguments one can make for or against them in various circumstances. They aren't myths.

 

[southsider2k5]

My point is, you asserted that the idea of tax cuts not being good is a "liberal myth". That is the same as saying that GOP'ers see all tax cuts as good as part of their "conservative myth". Neither are myths - tax cuts have effect on the economy, but there are a lot of arguments one can make for or against them in various circumstances. They aren't myths.

 

It is a myth when something that isn't true is taken to make the arguement that something is true. I guess I could have called it a "lie" instead.

[NorthSideSox72]

It is a myth when something that isn't true is taken to make the arguement that something is true. I guess I could have called it a "lie" instead.

Still not my point, I wasn't picking at the use of the word "myth". My point is, you basically said that the idea of tax cuts being bad was a "liberal myth". That is simply not the case.

 

[Balta1701]

Because they don't count a job saved as a change in GDP, because technically it isn't a "change". It keeps the status quo. The change actually occurs when there is no change, and they have to layoff employees to keep the company afloat. You don't count no change, as a change, that's why these numbers are so low. Its a statistical anomaly that is fairly clear and understood.

 

People take these numbers out of context and have no idea what the actually mean. That's why the whole liberal myth of taxcuts not working keeps getting proliferated.

I still say you are wrong there because you're defining your baseline improperly. A job saved due to a change in a particular tax is a change in the GDP relative to where GDP would have been had the tax cut not happened. You're trying to insist that it's relative to current GDP and that's just not what any of the numbers say. The multiplier effect is defined as the impact on the GDP of a specific government action relative to if that action had not occurred. In other words, if it saves a job, it would still be counted. A more technical way of putting it is:

the change in equilibrium GDP divided by the change in investment (i.e. the initial increase in spending)

 

The multiplier effect is a derivative, it doesn't matter where you start from, the only thing that matters is the rate and direction of the change due to the spending.

 

Let me explain in another way why corporate tax cuts have such a ridiculously low multiplier. Simple question to start off...how much in taxes is Bank of America going to pay on their earnings this year? Answer? Essentially zero. Ditto the next few years, and probably the last few years too. Why? Because we've structured our tax system such that it is loaded with exemptions for businesses. One of those exemptions is that you are allowed to deduct losses and spread those deductions out over a number of years.

 

Now, which businesses are going to be actually paying taxes this year? The few that will are going to be the ones that are actually still profitable. Now, which businesses are going to be the ones cutting the most jobs? The ones that are still profitable or the ones that are hemorrhaging money? If you're giving money out in the form of a business tax cut, you're not giving it to the ones that are cutting the most jobs. You're giving it to the ones that are by and large still profitable. It's going to the wrong place.

 

The Obama team actually realized this, and a few weeks ago when they were setting up this package they floated the idea of having their business tax cut be done in the form of "money given out for jobs saved or jobs created" but they rapidly realized there was just no way to actually figure out which jobs would have been saved without the plan, so they junked it.

 

Some fraction of jobs will be saved by a business tax cut, yes. But with the multiplier effect, the question is basically what fraction of the money you send out actually winds up spent? That's why the multiplication for actual projects is so much higher than for tax cuts. If you give someone who doesn't need a tax cut some portion of your money, they're not likely to spend all of it. The same goes for businesses. If they're hemorrhaging money as it is, then a tax credit would make their balance sheet look better, but it wouldn't change the fact that their business model has moved in to unprofitable territory, and hence it wouldn't directly translate to 100% job savings. Some may well save jobs, but it isn't nearly all going that way. Alternatively, if you hire a person for a project, you are guaranteed to create a job relative to the baseline of the government doing nothing, and therefore you're taking a person out of unemployment and giving them the ability to resume as a consumer. They will therefore actually spend the money.

 

As far as I can tell, you are both simply wrong on the definition of a multiplier effect. Hell, you saw last year how weak of a multiplier a tax credit produced; everyone in the country got a $600 rebate last year, but only a fraction of that moved its way in to the economy because a lot of it was saved.

Prominent economists argue that more than 50 percent of the next package, whatever its size, should be devoted to spending — on public infrastructure like highway and school repair, and on items like food stamps and stepped-up aid to state governments, subsidizing their spending.

 

Zandi, who was an outside adviser to the Republican presidential candidate, John McCain, said in testimony last month before the Senate Budget Committee that nearly every dollar spent in this fashion generates $1.50 or more in economic activity. Repairing a road, for example, means hiring workers who spend their new salaries at supermarkets, which in turn hire more store clerks and stock more groceries to handle the extra spending.

 

This "multiplier effect" is missing, however, when the stimulus comes as a tax break. A $750 billion stimulus package devoted entirely to spending could achieve, through the multiplier effect, more than the $1 trillion rise in output that the Obama administration apparently seeks to generate the 2.5 million new jobs.

 

A stimulus devoted entirely to tax breaks, in contrast, would require the entire $1 trillion in rebates or lower taxes, and probably more, to create those jobs, in part because taxpayers getting this windfall might never spend the money, or not all of it.

 

"The multiplier effect is clearly less than $1," said Nigel Gault, chief domestic economist for Global Insight, "and perhaps as low as 30 cents if only some of the tax break is spent."

 

The one stimulus enacted by Congress — a $168 billion package that the president signed early this year — consisted entirely of tax breaks, mainly in the form of rebate checks mailed to millions of Americans.

 

Some of that windfall was saved or was spent on imports rather than on goods and services produced in this country. Spending on imports adds to the nation's economic output, but saving does not, helping to explain why this first stimulus failed to arrest the contraction.

[southsider2k5]

I still say you are wrong there because you're defining your baseline improperly. A job saved due to a change in a particular tax is a change in the GDP relative to where GDP would have been had the tax cut not happened. You're trying to insist that it's relative to current GDP and that's just not what any of the numbers say. The multiplier effect is defined as the impact on the GDP of a specific government action relative to if that action had not occurred. In other words, if it saves a job, it would still be counted. A more technical way of putting it is:

 

 

The multiplier effect is a derivative, it doesn't matter where you start from, the only thing that matters is the rate and direction of the change due to the spending.

 

Let me explain in another way why corporate tax cuts have such a ridiculously low multiplier. Simple question to start off...how much in taxes is Bank of America going to pay on their earnings this year? Answer? Essentially zero. Ditto the next few years, and probably the last few years too. Why? Because we've structured our tax system such that it is loaded with exemptions for businesses. One of those exemptions is that you are allowed to deduct losses and spread those deductions out over a number of years.

 

Now, which businesses are going to be actually paying taxes this year? The few that will are going to be the ones that are actually still profitable. Now, which businesses are going to be the ones cutting the most jobs? The ones that are still profitable or the ones that are hemorrhaging money? If you're giving money out in the form of a business tax cut, you're not giving it to the ones that are cutting the most jobs. You're giving it to the ones that are by and large still profitable. It's going to the wrong place.

 

The Obama team actually realized this, and a few weeks ago when they were setting up this package they floated the idea of having their business tax cut be done in the form of "money given out for jobs saved or jobs created" but they rapidly realized there was just no way to actually figure out which jobs would have been saved without the plan, so they junked it.

 

Some fraction of jobs will be saved by a business tax cut, yes. But with the multiplier effect, the question is basically what fraction of the money you send out actually winds up spent? That's why the multiplication for actual projects is so much higher than for tax cuts. If you give someone who doesn't need a tax cut some portion of your money, they're not likely to spend all of it. The same goes for businesses. If they're hemorrhaging money as it is, then a tax credit would make their balance sheet look better, but it wouldn't change the fact that their business model has moved in to unprofitable territory, and hence it wouldn't directly translate to 100% job savings. Some may well save jobs, but it isn't nearly all going that way. Alternatively, if you hire a person for a project, you are guaranteed to create a job relative to the baseline of the government doing nothing, and therefore you're taking a person out of unemployment and giving them the ability to resume as a consumer. They will therefore actually spend the money.

 

As far as I can tell, you are both simply wrong on the definition of a multiplier effect. Hell, you saw last year how weak of a multiplier a tax credit produced; everyone in the country got a $600 rebate last year, but only a fraction of that moved its way in to the economy because a lot of it was saved.

 

How exactly would you quantify a "not lost" job? You can't. Its counterintuitive. I'm telling you from dealing with the multiplier effect quite extensively it only deals with actual change, and not implied change. I had a full calculus of economics graduate level class and dealt an entire semester of how these numbers are calculated and what they mean. You are reading into this too far to make it into something that it is not.

 

[kapkomet]

When I heard that phrase last night in the MSM discussing "jobs saved" I laughed - hard. There's no way in hell they know what that number is and they are running it out to the media so they sound like heroes.

 

[lostfan]

So I hear Campbell Brown on CNN talking about (or about to start talking about) how Rush Limbaugh seems to be trying to lead the Republican Party somehow.

 

That is an awesome idea if your plan is to get the Dems closer to 70 seats instead of 60.

[Balta1701]

So I hear Campbell Brown on CNN talking about (or about to start talking about) how Rush Limbaugh seems to be trying to lead the Republican Party somehow.

 

That is an awesome idea if your plan is to get the Dems closer to 70 seats instead of 60.

Earlier this week, Congressman Phil Gingrey defended the party leadership by saying that it was "easy" for people to "Throw Bricks" from outside of Congress where they don't have to actually deal with policy.

 

It took him about a half a day to issue a statement absolutely bowing to Limbaugh and the other radio conservatives. He also called in to the show to apologize.

"Because of the high volume of phone calls and correspondence received by my office since the Politico article ran, I wanted to take a moment to speak directly to grassroots conservatives," Gingrey said in a new statement released by his office. "Let me assure you, I am one of you."

 

"I never told Rush to back off," Gingrey continued. "I regret and apologize for the fact that my comments have offended and upset my fellow conservatives -- that was not my intent ... Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Newt Gingrich, and other conservative giants are the voices of the conservative movement's conscience."

 

Meanwhile, here's Congressman Mike Pence (R- Indiana), one of the top Republicans in the House, challenged about some of Limbaugh's more recent controversial remarks, going almost all out in praise for him.

 

 

Judge for yourself who speaks for that party these days.

[mr_genius]

just more Rush Limbaugh hysteria

Edited January 30, 2009 by mr_genius

[kapkomet]

 

I guess ideas don't matter, just f***ed up radio show hosts.

 

[HuskyCaucasian]

Have Rush's ratings gone down since the election? Just curious if this "pub" is somehow linked to a need for listenership.

[lostfan]

I doubt it. Rush's crowd is faithful.

 

He's converted my brother, and now my brother sounds like a complete dumbass when he talks politics. It's like he goes to download idiotic talking points and regurgitates them to me. He is one of those who still thinks Obama is a Muslim.

[StrangeSox]

I doubt it. Rush's crowd is faithful.

 

He's converted my brother, and now my brother sounds like a complete dumbass when he talks politics. It's like he goes to download idiotic talking points and regurgitates them to me. He is one of those who still thinks Obama is a Muslim.

 

They wear the label "dittohead" with pride, not with shame. I don't know why you'd ever want someone else (who's being millions upon millions of dollars to rant daily) to control your opinions.

[BigSqwert]

The Colbert ReportMon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c

The Word - The Audacity of Nope

Colbert Report Full Episodes

Paul McCartney Appearance

Funny Political Videos

More Funny Videos

 

[HuskyCaucasian]

The voting for the new RNC head is in complete disarray.

[NorthSideSox72]

The voting for the new RNC head is in complete disarray.

What do you mean? Link?

 

[BigSqwert]

Thank god the family planning portion of the stimulus is axed. Us taxpayers need to keep paying the tab on things like this (Emphasis mine)...

 

More news about the mother of the octuplets born in California. She was recently bankrupt and conceived through IVF. The mother is in her mid-30s, and as the world learned Thursday, already had six older children. Her name has not been released.

 

She lives with her parents in a 2-3 bedroom house, and a year-and-a-half ago the family declared bankruptcy and abandoned another home. She conceived the babies through IVF, which doesn't normally transfer more than 2 embryos, and all eight embryos took.

 

There is no mention or information about the babies' father or where she got the fertility treatment. When she arrived at the hospital where she gave birth for prenatal treatment, she was already 3 months pregnant.

 

The babies grandfather is reportedly going back to Iraq to earn money for the doubled family.

 

EDIT: Added LINK

Edited January 30, 2009 by BigSqwert

[HuskyCaucasian]

What do you mean? Link?

I decided to move my discussion to the Rep thread.

 

But the basics:

They're now on their 5th round of voting.

No clear leader.

Two are basically tied for the lead: It's a neck and neck race between Michael Steele (a black man) and Katon Dawson (traces his political coming of age to the civil rights movement -- that is, opposition to 1960's busing policies).

[NorthSideSox72]

Thank god the family planning portion of the stimulus is axed. Us taxpayers need to keep paying the tab on things like this (Emphasis mine)...

 

 

 

EDIT: Added LINK

I was wondering about this case. First, where did the money come from for a bankrupt woman to have fertility treatments? Second, who kind of f***ed up doctor decided it was a good idea to give a 33 year old mother of 6 any fertility treatment at all, let alone putting 8 eggs in there instead of the usual 2?

 

This should never have been allowed to happen.

 

[BigSqwert]

I was wondering about this case. First, where did the money come from for a bankrupt woman to have fertility treatments? Second, who kind of f***ed up doctor decided it was a good idea to give a 33 year old mother of 6 any fertility treatment at all, let alone putting 8 eggs in there instead of the usual 2?

 

This should never have been allowed to happen.

Complete insanity all the way around. You'd think this was all fiction but somehow it all really happened.

[mr_genius]

Have Rush's ratings gone down since the election? Just curious if this "pub" is somehow linked to a need for listenership.

 

Probably not. I know FOX has had a ratings boom, I would suspect Limbaugh may be up in the ratings as well. Rush does love this attention though; makes him feel important when the president is calling him out.