Anonymous wrote:When our family structures became dysfunctional, we looked to the government for answers, which can't be provided.

+1.

That's it at the core.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Another good question that someone needs to address. I think, again, that Reagan's idea of trickle down has been clearly debunked, yet you have people who still want to go there (cut taxes to get growth). But it didn't work. Workers need protections or we will not have a stable, functional government. It's that simple. We need reliable health care and a system that supports education and old age. People say it's too expensive, but not having these things could cost way more if society becomes so unstable as to produce constant conflict. That is starting.

How did it not work?

You obviously haven't looked at Kansas lately. It hasn't worked anywhere. Look at OK. It never works. States with high taxes are doing economically better. How do you explain CA's growth? Taxes are high in Silicon Valley. Why don't they move to states with no income tax?

Lots of politicians "reside" in and retire to states with no income taxes. Just saying.

Silicon Valley is afloat for reasons other than higher taxes. Life is more than taxes. Come to think of it, the most expensive towns in CA (and everywhere else for that matter) have the lowest local taxes. Go figure

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, I don't understand your despair. Democracy has never been especially "functional" per se. The overwhelming majority of people are dumb as rocks. If you choice to give them a voice, you shouldn't expect pearls of wisdom. Neither should you expect elected officials who have priorities other than lining their pockets by using the sheep-like electorate. Governments come and go, but this underlying principle remains the same.

I think maybe the Eisenhower/Kennedy years were the high water mark of for functionality of the U.S.'s system of government. Then things changed for many reasons, but I think it is mostly due to a lack of consensus anymore among we the people. (also the election of a few scalawags into the office of the presidency).

This was the rise of the middle class family in the U.S.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Take George W. Bush's big tax cut. It mainly benefitted the wealthier, the supposed "job creators and investors" yet they didn't create jobs (in fact we lost millions of jobs under Bush with his tax cuts in full force) and did not provide any meaningful economic growth. In fact, the Bush tax cuts ended up costing us 2.1 trillion dollars over ten years. It did very little for the working class. And as for investments - we got all the wrong things - wealth extraction, hoarding and offshoring of money and the investments were horrendously irresponsible, we had tons of real estate speculating driving the housing market up into an unsustainable bubble, we had a lot of things like rebundling of the bad debt and other high-risk things going on.

Republican tax policy has already been tried. It did nothing for us. The evidence is in,, and it's irrefutable. It's time to abandon the notion of tax cuts for the rich and move on.

Shaddap. It's not like you pay ANY income taxes anyway. Freeloader's opinions do not count.

Good one. I'm a 1 percenter and pay taxes. I know more poor Rs than Dems. I don't complain about taxes.

Not PP, but want to mention that 1 percenters have no problem paying more. You got the cash. It's the working stiffs (who always end up paying) are left with less and less fat to trim. But you don't give a crap, I know.

When our family structures became dysfunctional, we looked to the government for answers, which can't be provided.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Another good question that someone needs to address. I think, again, that Reagan's idea of trickle down has been clearly debunked, yet you have people who still want to go there (cut taxes to get growth). But it didn't work. Workers need protections or we will not have a stable, functional government. It's that simple. We need reliable health care and a system that supports education and old age. People say it's too expensive, but not having these things could cost way more if society becomes so unstable as to produce constant conflict. That is starting.

How did it not work?

You obviously haven't looked at Kansas lately. It hasn't worked anywhere. Look at OK. It never works. States with high taxes are doing economically better. How do you explain CA's growth? Taxes are high in Silicon Valley. Why don't they move to states with no income tax?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Take George W. Bush's big tax cut. It mainly benefitted the wealthier, the supposed "job creators and investors" yet they didn't create jobs (in fact we lost millions of jobs under Bush with his tax cuts in full force) and did not provide any meaningful economic growth. In fact, the Bush tax cuts ended up costing us 2.1 trillion dollars over ten years. It did very little for the working class. And as for investments - we got all the wrong things - wealth extraction, hoarding and offshoring of money and the investments were horrendously irresponsible, we had tons of real estate speculating driving the housing market up into an unsustainable bubble, we had a lot of things like rebundling of the bad debt and other high-risk things going on.

Republican tax policy has already been tried. It did nothing for us. The evidence is in,, and it's irrefutable. It's time to abandon the notion of tax cuts for the rich and move on.

Shaddap. It's not like you pay ANY income taxes anyway. Freeloader's opinions do not count.

Good one. I'm a 1 percenter and pay taxes. I know more poor Rs than Dems. I don't complain about taxes.

Anonymous wrote:OP, I don't understand your despair. Democracy has never been especially "functional" per se. The overwhelming majority of people are dumb as rocks. If you choice to give them a voice, you shouldn't expect pearls of wisdom. Neither should you expect elected officials who have priorities other than lining their pockets by using the sheep-like electorate. Governments come and go, but this underlying principle remains the same.

I think maybe the Eisenhower/Kennedy years were the high water mark of for functionality of the U.S.'s system of government. Then things changed for many reasons, but I think it is mostly due to a lack of consensus anymore among we the people. (also the election of a few scalawags into the office of the presidency).

Anonymous wrote:OP, I don't understand your despair. Democracy has never been especially "functional" per se. The overwhelming majority of people are dumb as rocks. If you choice to give them a voice, you shouldn't expect pearls of wisdom. Neither should you expect elected officials who have priorities other than lining their pockets by using the sheep-like electorate. Governments come and go, but this underlying principle remains the same.

True, wise words.

OP, I don't understand your despair. Democracy has never been especially "functional" per se. The overwhelming majority of people are dumb as rocks. If you choice to give them a voice, you shouldn't expect pearls of wisdom. Neither should you expect elected officials who have priorities other than lining their pockets by using the sheep-like electorate. Governments come and go, but this underlying principle remains the same.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Take George W. Bush's big tax cut. It mainly benefitted the wealthier, the supposed "job creators and investors" yet they didn't create jobs (in fact we lost millions of jobs under Bush with his tax cuts in full force) and did not provide any meaningful economic growth. In fact, the Bush tax cuts ended up costing us 2.1 trillion dollars over ten years. It did very little for the working class. And as for investments - we got all the wrong things - wealth extraction, hoarding and offshoring of money and the investments were horrendously irresponsible, we had tons of real estate speculating driving the housing market up into an unsustainable bubble, we had a lot of things like rebundling of the bad debt and other high-risk things going on.

Republican tax policy has already been tried. It did nothing for us. The evidence is in,, and it's irrefutable. It's time to abandon the notion of tax cuts for the rich and move on.

Shaddap. It's not like you pay ANY income taxes anyway. Freeloader's opinions do not count.

Good point, but to be fair we don't know whether PP pays federal income tax or is in the freeloader category.

To have 45% adults pay zero federal income tax -- that's unheard of in any Western democracy, and probably the root of the divisive politics we have, back to OP's question.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Take George W. Bush's big tax cut. It mainly benefitted the wealthier, the supposed "job creators and investors" yet they didn't create jobs (in fact we lost millions of jobs under Bush with his tax cuts in full force) and did not provide any meaningful economic growth. In fact, the Bush tax cuts ended up costing us 2.1 trillion dollars over ten years. It did very little for the working class. And as for investments - we got all the wrong things - wealth extraction, hoarding and offshoring of money and the investments were horrendously irresponsible, we had tons of real estate speculating driving the housing market up into an unsustainable bubble, we had a lot of things like rebundling of the bad debt and other high-risk things going on.

Republican tax policy has already been tried. It did nothing for us. The evidence is in,, and it's irrefutable. It's time to abandon the notion of tax cuts for the rich and move on.

Shaddap. It's not like you pay ANY income taxes anyway. Freeloader's opinions do not count.

Bullshit. I probably pay a higher percentage in taxes than you do.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

It did not lift all boats as it was advertised that it would do. Instead we had a further divide in incomes.

No, we had the greatest expansion in U.S. history post WWII. That was coming off of Carter's misery index. Did you forget?

You aren't even attributing the correct quote to the correct person. You're just a liberal trying to argue economics and like the majority of them, when you do, you walk around in circles.

And as to, lifting all boats...ooooh this is going to STING

Learn about how the Laffer curve actually works. Yes, when taxes are at excessive rates, it stifles economic growth. But, Keynesian theories are still in play, that you need a certain amount of government expenditure and investment and support to make things work. There gets to be diminishing returns the more you cut taxes, to the point where excessive tax cuts start becoming counterproductive and destructive. We have already cut and cut and cut. And with each cut we got less and less return. In recent decades, we got no meaningful job growth or economic growth, the only thing that happened with tax cuts is that wages stagnated for the working class while the rich got richer and the wealth divide increased. Tax cuts have gone too far. We need to reverse course. We should probably be adding additional brackets for the wealthy along with eliminating some of the write offs and exemptions. There should be no legitimate reason why a hedge fund trader should be paying a lower percentage than others.

Anonymous wrote:

Take George W. Bush's big tax cut. It mainly benefitted the wealthier, the supposed "job creators and investors" yet they didn't create jobs (in fact we lost millions of jobs under Bush with his tax cuts in full force) and did not provide any meaningful economic growth. In fact, the Bush tax cuts ended up costing us 2.1 trillion dollars over ten years. It did very little for the working class. And as for investments - we got all the wrong things - wealth extraction, hoarding and offshoring of money and the investments were horrendously irresponsible, we had tons of real estate speculating driving the housing market up into an unsustainable bubble, we had a lot of things like rebundling of the bad debt and other high-risk things going on.

Republican tax policy has already been tried. It did nothing for us. The evidence is in,, and it's irrefutable. It's time to abandon the notion of tax cuts for the rich and move on.

Shaddap. It's not like you pay ANY income taxes anyway. Freeloader's opinions do not count.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

No, we had the greatest expansion in U.S. history post WWII. That was coming off of Carter's misery index. Did you forget?

No, I didn't forget. But that ended because other countries (namely Japan and now China) recovered from the war and started competing with us. After WWII we were the only game in town for years. That's over.

No kidding. It ended. Do you understand what you are saying? Reagan was in office for eight years, but somehow this rising tide is supposed to go on for 40 years, even though you've had other presidents after and his policies are no longer in effect?

So why are you bring up trickle down economics as the problem that you somehow have answers to?

LEARN ECONOMICS IF YOU WANT TO DEBATE ECONOMICS.

BECAUSE REPUBLICANS KEPT TRYING TO RAM TRICKLE DOWN ECONOMICS DOWN OUR THROATS. They call it different names, but it's all the same: let the rich keep as much of the money they've made off everyone else's backs. Pretend the rest of us will get a fair share. Blame problems on the black folk. Weaken government and then complain it doesn't function. Repeat.