Letters to the Editor
Majorajam
Published Letters: 275 Editor's Choice: 11
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@Shooter
[Read the article: The Obama campaign's past two weeks]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Clinton's tax cut was a cap gains cut, while Bush cut across the board on taxes primarily falling on the upper most of upper income tax payers. This included the estate tax, by far and away the most efficient, most progressive tax on the books. These are very different things. Those who claim that tax cuts remotely 'pay for themselves', and btw, very few people taken seriously do, would never argue that estate tax cuts pay for themselves unless they wanted to go the whole 'effect on the culture' angle, and economists generally don't.
I think Hume's Ghost- whose criticism of Obama's economic plans sounds a lot like Krugmans, and generally is wrongheaded- was referring to lost revenue relative to the status-quo ante, which is the correct comparison, and which is, btw a very accurate statement. If you want to compare nominal revenues through time and without controlling for things like, I don't know, massive bull markets, massive bear markets, etc., a la Charlie Gibson, then you are simply parading around your ignorance like so many Mardis Gras beads. The fact is the Clinton administration closed the budget gap in large part due to the TAX INCREASES enacted at the start of his term, as well as the (relative) spending restraint wrought of a divided government and, of course, a bull market bonanza (something that exposes just how irresponsible and remarkable were the Regan budget deficits). The cap gains cut had sweet FA to do with any of that.
Do you know why that is Shooter? I highly doubt it. The reason is right there in the supply siders literature- you hardly have to go to fully-witted economists to find it. The cap gains cut is supposed to incentivize investment, especially long term investment. By no calculation is it possible that this would have a meaningful impact on highly short term (3 years) economic growth. So you and your uninformed friends can have your woefully credulist and patently fatuous arguments, you can have and a big happy party hat with streamers to keep yourselves company, and you can all chow down on that shite too, but please go recruiting elsewhere.
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If you can read this we haven't disappeared up our own ass. Yet.
[Read the article: Jezebels without a cause]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I'm trying to figure what the purpose of this post is that anyone should take the time to read it. Let me see if I have this straight. Broadsheet bloviator agrees with bevy of other bloviators about that the off boilerplate bunkum of two other bloviators blew. And that has something to do with Madonna (whew! still within the 80s) which probably means that all bloviators concerned aren't all that concerned.
Well, that's of a piece. I heard an Algerian author speak in very broken English a few years ago at the New York Public Library (or that might've been the woman next to her, but whatever). She seemed impressive, but unfortunately about all I was able to recover was her opinion that our culture has become so self-referential, so incestuously introverted, so up our own arse, that it threatened to disappear. I still don't know what that means, but I do know that it has something to do with this blog post, the fact that I still hear music I heard growing up in public places of all stripes- or other some such ripped off from the Beatles or Sly or Sabbath or whoever when I'm not hearing the same resampled so you can dance to it- and the fact that the height of cultural innovation typically involves the use of acronyms or punctuatin'. Discuss.
Are these to Jezebels bored? A better question is, who the hell isn't.
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Glenn's admission of the differences between Obama and McCain insuffiently tepid
[Read the article: Today's coverup of surveillance crimes and Barack Obama]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Glenn,
All due respect, it's probably not a waste of column inches to throw in a mention of the type of justices that McCain has promised to nominate to a soon to be having a number of vacancies Supreme Court- Clarence Thomas for one who held that indefinite detention of American citizens designated as illegal combatants, within US borders, and without any recourse to the judicial system was, "well within the President's war powers". Obama, not so much- more like Ginsberg and Stevens, i.e. those fighting to keep the constitution alive. If you are want to delude yourself into believing that this sentiment has a sufficiently high profile in your various post after Obama smashing post, just read your own comments threads and see if you can't keep a running count the number of commenters that echo that message- you won't need a piece of paper.
I also would say that you've made your point on this subject abundantly clear on a daily basis for two weeks now. So, while it may be a fair one, I find myself wondering what is being accomplished, (because it certainly can't be considered cathartic). Certainly I could see today's votes from a few days after the House vote, when it became clear that there was going to be no re-reversal from the Obama camp.
How about advancing a new objective, in addition to the inspired Act Blue effort to which I have given more than I probably can afford at the moment? What is the next positive/proactive step, given that this is done and dusted, to highlight? How can the 4th amendment be restored? Are there any other paths to bringing past lawbreaking activities to light even if that is all that is revealed?