The policy core of John Kerry’s victory speech tonight:
My campaign is about replacing doubt with hope, and replacing fear with security.
Together we will build a strong foundation for growth by repealing the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy to cut the deficit in half in four years and invest in health care and education.
We will repeal every tax break and every loophole that rewards any corporation for gaming the tax code to go overseas and avoid their responsibilities to America.
We will provide new incentives for manufacturing that reward good companies for creating and keeping good jobs here at home.
We will fight for worker and environmental protections in the core of every trade agreement – and we will raise the minimum wage because no one who works 40 hours a week should have to live in poverty in America.
And we will meet one of the historic challenges of our generation with a bold new plan for energy independence that will invest in technologies of the future and create 500,000 new jobs, so young Americans in uniform will never be held hostage to Mideast oil.
We will stand up for the fundamental fairness of health care as a right and not a privilege.
For an America where Medicare and Social Security are protected; health care costs are held down; and your family’s health is just as important as any politician’s in Washington.
We will rejoin the community of nations and renew our alliances because that is essential to final victory in the war on terror.
The Bush Administration has run the most arrogant, inept, reckless, and ideological foreign policy in modern history.
This President wants to run on national security. Well, if George Bush wants to make national security the central issue in 2004, I have three simple words for him I know he understands: Bring it on.
Boy. The last election choice that sucked this badly was Davis vs. Simon for CA Governor. I was depressed for a week before that election, just at the notion that those two losers were the best that our political system could toss up.
I think I’ll be blue (not like blue-state blue) for at least month or so leading up to November. We could be surprised, maybe one of the candidates moight show us something unexpected. But I’d say sending me chocolates, Calvados, or one of these is definitely something you all ought to consider…
Missing words: al Qaeda, Wahabbi, threat, 9/11, Islam.
Two cheers for Kerry — he’s ensuring Bush victory.
*ding* you got it.
Obviously smoking holes in Manhattan are less significant than raising the minimum wage (which I support, BTW).
A.L.
Now is the point at which someone needs to take Kerry aside and give him a little talking to.
“Okay, John. Congratulations, it’s time to get serious. Your domestic policies? Awesome. Your foreign policy? This is how it’s gonna be…”
Maybe what we really need is a domestic President and a foreign policy President…
Dear A. L.:
John Kerry, MIA. Apparently, he has never come back from Viet Nam.
Andrew:
Maybe what we really need is a domestic President and a foreign policy President…
Actually, we’ve got 50 domestic “Presidents”. They’re called governors. There’s only one President whose primary job is commander-in-chief.
Damn good point, Dave Schuler.
Andrew,
Who, exactly, would you like to give John Kerry “a talking to”? Either he’s the top dog, or he’s not. It’s time for HIM to start the talking to US. And he will. Now, every time there’s a significant crisis (Haiti, violence in Iraq, Chirac runs out of truffles) the press will stand there with a microphone and await his response. This I’m very much looking forward to. This is substance. Everything so far has been flash. My gut tells me he’s not up to it, but my head says give him a chance.
That’s why I say to A.L., cheer up! The show’s just beginning. Get some popcorn, put your feet up on the seat in front of you (ignore the ugly stares you get from the middle-aged couple just to your left) and watch. Will it be a farce or a tear-jerker? Yes.
No write-up about this?
At any rate, I’m working on a post for ya, AL.
I think there’s hope for people like you.
“The Bush Administration has run the most arrogant, inept, reckless, and ideological foreign policy in modern history”
Near my boyhood home in rural Kansas is the longest non-suspension bridge over fresh-water west of the Mississippi built before 1970. [1]
I’m prepared to stipulate that all Kerry charges about the Bush Administration above may be true. But, string enough qualifiers together and anything can hold the (now rendered trivial) record.
As a simple exercise in the interpretation of rhetoric, isn’t it reasonable to conclude from Kerry’s accusation that there may have been administrations more reckless (Kennedy’s) but ept? Or so much less arrogant they were in fact overly reck-full? (Carter on Iran?) Or that Bush is exceeded in arrogance, ineptitude, etc etc by several presidents in the 18th, 19th, and pre-“modern” 20th Centuries?
SO, let us do bring it on. If a flotilla of refugees heads toward America (Vietnamese, Haitian, whatever) what is Kerry’s policy?
If a former enemy wants billions in reconstruction and aid funds (Vietnam, Iraq, whatever) what is Kerry’s policy?
If the military wants more money (for new weapons systems, to account for POWs/MIAs and retrieve remains, whatever) what is Kerry’s policy?
If a dictatorship is beleaguered by nominally democratic insurgents (In Iran, in Nicaragua, in Kurdish-regions of Iraq, whatever ) requesting U.S. funding and weapons, what is Kerry’s policy?
Is it questioning his patriotism to attempt to discern his future policies as President by reviewing his voting and investigative history in the U.S. Senate?
[1] A fact, unlike the “world’s biggest ball of twine” in Cawker City, which goes unrecorded in Guinness.
praktike – I almost pushed a friend at UCLA into getting me into the speech, but got stuck working … :^( … and yes, I’ve read the transcript, but as I note, the jury’s out on what he meant by some specific parts of the speech (I oughta write something about it…) and how to fit it into the balance of his public positions.
Watching, making popcorn.
A.L.
I more I hear John Kerry speak, the more I hear Michael Dukakis.
If Kerry intends to run on stopping outsourcing of jobs without admitting that there are almost as many “insourced” jobs — foreign companies locating here, he’s only being a lacky for the unions.
The unions are pissed because most of the “insourced” jobs are in “right to work” states, primarily in the south. The more he talks about that issue, the more the south will tune him out completely.
And as a previous commenter alluded to, what is Kerry’s plan for Iraq and the War on Terror — turn over control of the US military to the UN?
So Kerry is against all things Bush.
What is he _FOR_?
I second Trent. I want to see Kerry promote progress, not “anything but Bush.”
Kerry: “[I]f George Bush wants to make national security the central issue in 2004, I have three simple words for him I know he understands: Bring it on.”
To me this statement smacks of fear, like a smaller boy on the playground talking tough hoping to avert a fight he knows he can’t win.
Definitely a smoking hole in his approach.
And A.L., we all want a Duc. I’d suffer with a Monster, myself.
If it makes you feel any better, A.L., John Kerry is still in Saigon too…..
A.L.,
I always ask the people who want to raise the minimum wage why id a dollar more is good why 50 dollars more isn’t better?
Economics for the economically challenged:
If it is profitable for an employer to hire a person at a $5 an hour wage and if the wage goes up to $7 it makes sense to install machinery to do the job what will be the net effect of raising the minimum wage?
I will assule (possibly erroniously) that you are familiar with supply and demand curves. What happens when prices are pushed above the market clearing rate? According to all economic experts demand will fall and suppy will rise. Now is that what you wanted? Falling demand for labor and rising supply?
Another liberal tries to help the poor by eliminating jobs. Way to go A.L.
When I figured this out I became a total capitalist.
The only way to get net higher wages it to increase a person’s value through expertise or through capital investment. You cannot increase the value of labor by pointing a (government) gun at a person’s head. Such gun pointing is useful if what you have in mind is theft. Is that what you plan to teach your children?
Let me add that high taxes are driving the rich out of the country.
It is like posting a big sign: rich people not welcome. Is that the Kerry plan? Drive money out of the country and then pass laws to try and keep it in?
There used to be a country totally based on such ideas. Hardly any one remembers it’s name except for a few Beatles fans.
We have a flock of geese laying golden eggs. Are people satisfied? No. They complain that tthe geese are too well fed.
Which is why envy is one of the deadly sins. It destroys economies.
M. Simon: actually the minimum wage shifts a lot of jobs from citizens to illegal immigrants.
Nice, huh.
You’re missing the best line in the speech:
And we will meet one of the historic challenges of our generation with a bold new plan for energy independence that will invest in technologies of the future and create 500,000 new jobs…
EVERY president would do that if he could. But he can’t. Talk about empty words. Those are the emptiest.
Another waiting line of attack on the Credibility Gap for the ‘Anybody but Bush’ crowd. Which we now know is the ‘Kerry for President’ campaign. And this type of insider information most likely comes from Kerry’s camp-member Rand Beers. Cheney on every network and national campaign advertising can’t undo what’s hiding in the White House past.
Avoiding attacking suspected terrorist mastermind
Abu Musab Zarqawi blamed for more than 700 killings in Iraq
By Jim Miklaszewski
Correspondent
NBC News
Updated: 7:14 p.m. ET March 02, 2004
With Tuesday’s attacks, Abu Musab Zarqawi, a Jordanian militant with ties to al-Qaida, is now blamed for more than 700 terrorist killings in Iraq.
But NBC News has learned that long before the war the Bush administration had several chances to wipe out his terrorist operation and perhaps kill Zarqawi himself — but never pulled the trigger.
In June 2002, U.S. officials say intelligence had revealed that Zarqawi and members of al-Qaida had set up a weapons lab at Kirma, in northern Iraq, producing deadly ricin and cyanide.
The Pentagon quickly drafted plans to attack the camp with cruise missiles and airstrikes and sent it to the White House, where, according to U.S. government sources, the plan was debated to death in the National Security Council.
“Here we had targets, we had opportunities, we had a country willing to support casualties, or risk casualties after 9/11 and we still didn’t do it,” said Michael O’Hanlon, military analyst with the Brookings Institution.
Four months later, intelligence showed Zarqawi was planning to use ricin in terrorist attacks in Europe.
The Pentagon drew up a second strike plan, and the White House again killed it. By then the administration had set its course for war with Iraq.
“People were more obsessed with developing the coalition to overthrow Saddam than to execute the president’s policy of preemption against terrorists,” according to terrorism expert and former National Security Council member Roger Cressey.
In January 2003, the threat turned real. Police in London arrested six terror suspects and discovered a ricin lab connected to the camp in Iraq.
The Pentagon drew up still another attack plan, and for the third time, the National Security Council killed it.
Military officials insist their case for attacking Zarqawi’s operation was airtight, but the administration feared destroying the terrorist camp in Iraq could undercut its case for war against Saddam.
The United States did attack the camp at Kirma at the beginning of the war, but it was too late — Zarqawi and many of his followers were gone. “Here’s a case where they waited, they waited too long and now we’re suffering as a result inside Iraq,” Cressey added.
And despite the Bush administration’s tough talk about hitting the terrorists before they strike, Zarqawi’s killing streak continues today.
© 2004 MSNBC Interactive
Just because it amuses ME —
An honest-to-God real life newspaper utters this Kerry-like quote about a recent movie:
“Passion” holds the crown for the second-highest-grossing first five days for a film opening on a Wednesday. …
Don’t worry, Pouncer, it amuses me too. Sort of like when a sports commentator says of a football team, “Team X is 37-0 when leading by three touchdowns in the fourth quarter and its leading rusher has more than 150 yards.” Wow, meaningful.
Now taxes are really perverse. They raise the costs of goods which lowers demand. At the same time they raise the cost of supply. Thus taxes tend to drive supply and demand further apart. As opposed to market mechanisms which tend to bring them together.
Our goal should be the lowest possible taxes so as to allow the most possible satisfaction.
Someone: M. Simon really is right.
It’s mechanical and it happens regardless of politics or fairness or caring or anything else.
Do you realize that you said that, with increased minimum wage, the employer will pay an illegal immigrant an illegal (below legal minimum) wage?
So now they’re both illegal.
You may be right. Probably are.
Is that the kind of incentive that’s good for the polity?
someone,
Thanks. Now if only more Americans understood simple stuff like supply/demand charts we would be much better off!!!!!
SkipWalkDC,
Interesting point. So we had to choose between Saddam and Zawquari. I’d say Saddam was the more lethal threat so the choice was at least reasonable given human falibility. Had we done Zwakari instead of Saddam we would probably be hearing of some Saddamite atrocity today.
Of course hind sight is 20/20.
In any case you can tell that our enemies are desperate. Their plan was to defeat the Great Satan then turn on the infidels among the Arab/Moslems. They evidently have given up on the Great Satan (or are forced into indirect attacks) and are doing the end stage of their war without reaching their goals.
My guess is that it is evident even to the Iraqis what is going on.
Debra J. Saunders of the San Francisco Chronicle asked Senator Kerry a straight forward question on why he voted for the last Gulf War authorization resolution. This is what she wrote about it:
Kerry’s complicated exfoliation
Debra J. Saunders
Wednesday, March 3, 2004
©2004 San Francisco Chronicle | Feedback | FAQ
URL: sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/03/03/EDGVG5CFUG1.DTL
“Kerry’s answer was that Washington insiders believed that Bush didn’t mean what he said. “I think that you had a hard-line group (then Pentagon adviser) Richard Perle, (Deputy Defense Secretary) Paul Wolfowitz and probably (Vice President Dick) Cheney. But when Brent Scowcroft and Jim Baker (former advisers to the first President Bush) weighed in, very publicly in op-eds in the New York Times and the (Washington) Post, the chatter around Washington and (Secretary of State Colin) Powell in particular, who was very much of a different school of thought, was really that the president hadn’t made up his mind. He was looking for an out. That’s what a lot of people thought.”
What about what Bush said to the U.N.? That was “rhetorical,” Kerry answered. And “a whole bunch of very smart legitimate people” not running for president thought as he did. “So most people, actually on the inside, really felt that (Bush) himself was looking for the way out to sort of satisfy Cheney, satisfy Wolfowitz, but not get stuck.” Kerry continued, “The fact that he jumped and went the other way, I think, shocked them and shocked us.”
So Kerry was “misled” because he believed that Bush didn’t mean what Bush said.”
and
“The scariest part is that Kerry looked as if he believed what he said. He had noted that all of his fears of where Bush might err turned out to be right. At the same time, Kerry asserted that his vote for military force made it “harder” for Bush to go to war.”
In so many words, President Bush deceived Kerry by telling him the truth.
“In so many words, President Bush deceived Kerry by telling him the truth.”
I suppose that it’s too much to hope that Bush can keep going to that particular well.
Moe,
Well, he seems to have developed a fondness for that well. Either that, or he just customarily says what he means and then sticks to it…nah, couldn’t be.
My theory is that it’s a media filtering problem that comes directly from eight years of Clinton as President. Cynical media people on the White House beat learned early on that Clinton’s words were born to be parsed to a fine degree. (As an aside, I think Clinton may have enjoyed the intellectual challenge this posed–he is very bright, after all.) After a while, the press just got used to the status quo.
Then Bush got elected. Bush is, amazingly enough, not Clinton. His language is often precise, but never circuitous. He often uses short, declaritive sentences. Unfortunately, if you are used to hearing Clinton, Bush is very confusing. Everything seems so out in the open–so really he must be doing an even better job at hiding things! This leads directly to Kerry’s conclusion–that Bush misled him by telling the truth.
M. Simon: Supply/demand charts don’t mean a thing to people who don’t have jobs. We’re not particularly close to one of the historical lows for employment at the moment. Employment to population _is_ worrying low at the moment, and it seems to keep dropping.
Let’s be clear on what’s happened since trickle-down economics became popular. You can easily look up the studies for yourself on income and employment (Saenz and Piketty, IRS site, CBO site), but the gist of it is this: Since the late 70’s, capital gains taxes have been cut in half, as have income taxes on the wealthiest 2% or so of the population. The line being force-fed to the public was that this would “stimulate” the economy and raise all boats with the tide. What has in fact happened?
Constant dollar income from 1972 to 2000 rose by 4%, if you are in the _bottom_ 99% of income earners. If you’re in the top 1%, constant dollar income increased by over 500% (Saenz, Piketty). Furthermore, if you were in the 99% to 99.5% bracket, your income increased by about 40% (which weights the upper bracket even further).
Meanwhile, as we were dramatically cutting taxes on the wealthiest political donors, we _increased_ social security taxes, circa 1983. Why did we do this? To “save” the system, so it would have enough money to pay for baby boomer retirements, amongst other things. Note that because social security taxes cut off at 87k (today, somewhat less earlier), social security taxes fall disproportionately on the poor and middle class. Three quarters of Americans pay MORE in social security taxes than they do in income taxes.
Instead of setting aside the money, the geniuses in BOTH parties simply added it to the general fund and spent it, leaving a shiny IOU in place of the cash.
So poor and middle class people have been _overpaying_ into the social security fund. Where is the extra money going? Why, it was given to the highest income earners in the form of a tax cut! So we cut taxes on the wealthiest because there is a “surplus”, and we pay for it by transferring money out of the social security silo, to balance the general fund’s budget.
There is only ONE fair solution…if too much money is in the social security fund (and over the past 20 years there has been), GIVE IT BACK TO THE PEOPLE WHO PUT IT THERE. We call them the poor and middle class, in this country. Why on earth would we give THEIR RETIREMENT MONEY (and YOURS) to the highest income individuals?
Our “conservative” friends tell us that by letting top income earners avoid taxes, we somehow stimulate the economy. Exactly how much “stimulation” does the economy need to undergo to make up for the MASSIVE THEFT of retirement savings from the poor and middle class.
Go figure out for yourself…the general fund has borrowed over $1.8 trillion from social security. What part of that did YOU contribute? Would you be better off with that in your retirement account, or are you better off with trickle-down BS and tax avoidance schemes for the wealthy?
I think the election is all about the economy, and all about ethical fiscal management of public resources. There are a lot of folks who orbit this blog who’d want to say it’s about security. I agree, but security has both a long term and a short term. Short term is military, and is not really all that much of an issue. The course has been set, and a President of either party isn’t going to vary too much. Longer term we need a solid economy to _sustain_ that security. Taxes as a percentage of GDP are at their lowest levels (around 15%, down from 19.5% recently) since the 1950s. What, YOUR taxes are way higher than that? You’re right. They are; you pay way too much in tax, between federal income, social security, and medicare. The reason you pay way too much is that there are others who don’t pay their share.
Guess it’s not hard to figure out which side of this I’m on. But here’s the thing: Exactly what does Kerry have to say about this situation? So far…nothing substantive. Hopefully it’ll come. Bush’s policies have clearly favored the same failed trickle-down policies we’ve been suffering under for the past twenty years.
We have two decades that shows us that the effect of cutting taxes on the the wealthiest of Americans has the effect of…reducing how much tax they pay.
This essential flaw has been masked by steadily increasing and incomprehensible public debts. Out of sight, out of mind…
http://www.tnr.com/etc.mhtml?pid=1404
“Noam Scheiber’s Daily Journal of Politics
JOHN KERRY’S VIETNAM PROBLEM
… I’m just not convinced most Americans–even those who distrust Bush personally and think he lied about Iraqi WMD–share Kerry’s more general suspicion of people in positions of power, from the military to the CIA to the White House. If Kerry can’t focus the critique a little more narrowly, I worry that sooner or later he’s going to start sounding like the kind of conspiratorial Vietnam vet who became disillusioned with the U.S. government in the 1970s and just never got over it. Maybe that’s who Kerry really is. But I don’t think it’s who most Americans want as their president.”
Ross,
Words have no meaning when people don’t have jobs.
I don’t have a job.
Thus I have just proved you have posted meaningless trash. Thank you for your help.
==================================================
You are a perfect example of emotionalism pretending to be erudition.
The reason there are not enough jobs is that the government has priced us out of a lot of categories.
Milton Friedman has estimated that if the US government was limited to it’s strict Constitutional functions the economy would be growing at 10% a year. Do you have any idea what that would do for the job market? Of course you don’t. As long as there are people without jobs you are incapable of thought.
Way cool.
The top 1% earn anout 25% of the money and pay 35% of the taxes. They are none too happy about this and are taking their money elsewhere. Now guess who will be paying the taxes the rich don’t?
Here is a site that runs it down for the logic and math and supply/demand challenged:
*HIGHLIGHTED TEXT*
The questin you have to ask yourself is this: is it better for America to have it’s rich investing inside the country or out? Which will lead to more American jobs?
*The tax bomb, or how eating the rich makes us all poorer*
BTW there is a reason Kerry has no economic answer:
1. He promises to raise taxes on the rich: the economy nose dives, the rich leave faster and we are all worse off.
2. He promises to raise taxes on every one. He loses the election.
3. He promises to do the only thing that would help: cut government spending. This will destroy him in the eyes of most Democrats who believe that government guns are the answer to all problems.
Supply/demand again: if you raise the cost of investment (by taxing it) you will have less economic activity. Less profitable economic activity means fewer jobs.
So like the typical liberal prescription your ignorance of basic economics and human nature leads you to suggest policies that will make things worse.
Capitalism is a very hard road. All other roads are harder yet. Marx called these other roads fantasy ideologies. Marx was a very bright man. Now no doubt Marx was incorrect about a lot of things but as he said himself he was no Marxist. He got the big picture.
Simon –
Can I gently nudge the thread back onto foreign policy, and away from taxes and economics; we see things pretty differently and I’ll suggest for our readers that a) real-world econometrics are slightly more complex than the algebraic metaphors we learned in Econ 101; and b) that there are faitrly smart people who make arguments on both sides of the issues Simon is raising. These are definitely issues worth discussing, I’m just more interested in getting my head around Kerry’s foreign policy right now.
A.L.
“Well, he seems to have developed a fondness for that well.”
Don’t get me wrong, I’m planning to vote for Bush. I just find it hard to believe that his opponents will continue to ignore that when he says that he intends to do something, by and large he goes aheard and does it.
Moe
The problem with the liberal methods is that it assumes people are rocks to be mined.
In actual fact people react. If they think the government takes too much of their money thay will move the money out of the country.
You might want to read about rational expectations in economics. The guy who first codified the idea got a Nobel Prize for it.
In fact there is quite a lot to be learned from the Nobelists in economics for the last 20 or so years. One of the more recent ones was a lefty in his youth until he tried to prove the left was correct in a rigorous way. He won a prize for proving the left was wrong. Now my memory is not as good as it should be but the fellow I’m speaking of won his prize in the last 5 years or so. Perhaps some one remembers his name.
A.L.,
My first mate who does very little netting found out from the news today that Kerry’s support for the troops was rhetorical.
I think he just lost the election.
And as far as economics goes what works is pretty well settled among economists and honest politicians. The ignorance that is still out there is mostly on the left. Which makes Europeans more ignorant on average than most Americans.
You will note that these days American unemplyment rises and falls with the economy. Last boom it was under 3% this recession it rose to above 7%.
Europe in boom and bust for the last 10 years has had unemplyment around 10%.
Now the question is are we better off with a more capitalist economy than Europe’s? Don’t forget that our defence spending tops Europe’s. What makes us better off? What keeps our incomes rising while European incomes are stagnant?
Could it be our lower levels of regulation and socialism? A lot of well regarded economists think so.
If we keep our capitalist economy expanding there is an outside chance we can pay off our retirees. The Europeans have no such chance. Their economies will start to decline faster as their population ages.
Capitalism is a harsh system. The systems that promise an easier life at some one else’s expence are all failures or failing.
For those who can read history the end of the USSR pretty much settled the econmic question. Europe is significantly more like the USSR than America is. Europe is whimpering to it’s death. America is still full of life and attracting more life.
Kerry is one of the last of the death spiral politicians. He believes in the UN, he believes in socialism (i.e. the government robs from the rich to give to the poor). He believes that America has nothing to teach the world. He belives that history after 1971 has nothing to teach him.
I do find it interesting A.L. that you accept the advantage of private property for ther welfare of poor people (DeSoto). I’d be interested in finding out at what point on the economic scale that the government becomes a better allocator of resources than private individuals?
I think you cannot separate Kerry’s foreign policy from his economic ideas. I think that is why his foreign policy is so bad. He is at heart a colectivist in a world that is moving towards more individualism.
That is the very same reason I predict (along with quite a few others these days) the demise of the Democrats. Robin Hood economics has no intellectual champions and it’s populist champions are dying off. The XXth century saw the rise and fall of the collectivist man. The XXIst century will see the rise and further rise of the individual.
Kerry is a XXth century collectivist. In fact the Democrats are going to have to clean house (which they cannot do) of the whole collectivist mentality before they will rise agin.
You will note that the most capitalist of the Democrats (Lieberman) also has the most sensible foreign policy. Do you suppose there is a connection?
Moe,
Well, I think it goes back to the media filtering I mentioned above as to why the current situation exists. I think the same filtering issue might exist for Kerry and many of the other Senators and Representatives in Congress. To your point, though, I admit I have no idea how long this state of affairs will last.
An additional factor is Kerry himself–who could generously be described as “nuanced.” Kerry doesn’t like alienating potential voters–which is a perfectly understandable desire in a politician–but I think he tries to be everything to everyone as a result.
My prediction is that Bush will bring out the worst in Kerry. Bush will have a simple, concrete list of accomplishments and goals, and I think this will provoke even more equivocation on Kerry’s part–especially if Kerry continues to think that Bush is playing a deep game. He’ll see it as a trick, and try not to be pinned down to a position that Bush can hammer him on. Meanwhile, from the outside, it looks like a choice between a guy with principles (even if you don’t agree with all of them) and another guy without principles.
Kerry’s going to be in real trouble if he gets pegged as the combination of Gore’s personal charisma and Clinton’s principled consistency. (By the way, I think we can safely say that Bush has a lock on my vote…although, in California, it won’t change whether he gets reelected or not.)
Well, between the NBC News article about Zarqawi and the S.F. Chronicle Debra J. Saunders article about Kerry’s hermeneutic mutterings, I have no idea what’s goin’ on any longer. I guess I trust Bush a little more than Kerry at this point, but I sure wish we had a Winnie.
About the economy. Capital increases productivity several orders of magnitude more than Labor. As an income source labor can’t compete with capital, so if capital ownership narrows then the rich get richer because they control an excessive proportion of productivity. (You want to reward productivity. You just don’t want it narrowly held.)
To fix things and create a self-sustaining and self-regulating economy that avoids the boom and bust adjustments you have to broaden the capital ownership base until the majority of people earn the majority of their income directly from capital, rather than compensation for their labor.
This is just common sense, it seems to me. Why is it such an unknown story?
Scott,
How do you propose to move from the present world to your ideal world (assuming, as seems likely, that they are not the same)?
M. Simon: The page you linked to quotes federal income tax ONLY (it does not include social security or cap gains). This is a very convenient statistic to use if you are IN that top 1%, because people in that category have a division of income between capital gains and income tax. Plus…at that level social security taxes become fairly irrelevant (87k cutoff). On the poor and middle class they are a dramatically higher percentage of total income.
When you include social security taxes and take into account the reduced taxation rates on the ultra-wealthy, you rapidly discover that we are ALREADY living in a flat-tax society. Top to bottom, we pay an average of somewhere around 25% of income to federal taxation systems.
The top 1% are NOT leaving the US. What they are doing is moving money offshore at a crazed rate, into offshore tax havens. This is illegal, of course, but they do it anyway, because congress eviscerated the IRS in 1998. Tax cheating has become progressively more rampant ever since, peaking at an estimated $300 billion of lost revenue each year.
Why do over one million Americans have credit cards issued by offshore banks? Could it be that they are (heaven forbid!) trying to avoid paying taxes on unreported income? Of course, they’ve switched to debit cards now, with the international banking machine now in place.
This bothers me because you and I pay the load, when the cheaters don’t. I’d like to pay my fair share and keep the rest.
Ross,
You may be right about the proportion of taxes paid by the various segments of the population.
However, I think you are making my point for me in any case. As you say the rich are doing their best to move THEIR money out of the country. This is empirical proof that the taxes are either: too high in genral or too high on the wealthy.
The fact that there are laws that mandate keeping the money in the country is sure fire proof that it is a problem.
You basically have two options:
1. Design a system that attracts money to the country
2. Design a system that repels money
Evidently we have chosen #2.
Aside from your ideas of fairness: is it a good idea?
Just a thought, but when John Kerry went to Vietnam, the idea of the day was the Domino Theory. We can say that by going, he supported it. When he left, the name of the game was Failure. We can say he was against it. What’s not to like about refering back to Vietnam?
In other words, John Kerry obviously supports justified wars. He just as obviously opposes military failures (as defined by their detriment to American lives). Seriously, what’s not to like?
As concerns Iraq, the question is whether he has been burned by the domino theory. I think not. To do so would be to so completely reverse himself as to regret his service to his country, yet by choosing a life in public service, he has shown continuous dedication to the American government.
I think John Kerry is doing fine.
SPF brings up a good point. What’s not to like about Kerry? Sure, he may take positions that you disagree with, but he’s got so many other statements that are quite appealing–many times on the same subject!
Kerry evidently takes a bold, uncompromising stand against Failure. I believe he also unequivocally supports Success. What courage! He is truly an inspiration to us all.
Kerry has devoted his career to public service. Since there is little reward for this choice, in compensation or influence, it must be evidence for his devotion to American Ideals. What better evidence that career politicians are the most patriotic people around!
Copy this URL into your web browser to listen to Kerry confessing that he had committed atrocities in Vietnam.
http://www.streamload.com/jmstein77/Kerry2.mp3
Sam Barnes avoids the question.
About public service. It’s so common outside of Washington (as to be conventional wisdom) to think that there are nothing but personal interests involved when one goes to work for the government. Let’s call it for what it is: cynicism. It just isn’t so. My great aunt was tucked in the hidden floors of the Pentagon for her entire life, working to support a (nonpartisan) government she admired. It was her life. My grandfather worked as a lawyer in the Nuremburg trials. My family besides is as patriotic as they come, both in word and deed. The list goes on, and it’s not like they’re some kind of anomaly. Many war veterans of whatever war believe strongly that they did their patriotic duty as a citizen, and not as a partisan. We have no reason to believe that John Kerry as a soldier and as a war protestor wasn’t unprincipled just because he was elected to the Senate and spent most of his life there.
And you know what the first thing my great aunt had to say to me when I asked her what she thought of Bush’s presidency? She said, “he smirks.” I was puzzled, “what do you mean?” “I mean he doesn’t like the government. Every chance he gets he goes back to Texas. He doesn’t like the process, he doesn’t like the people — he doesn’t like government.” She’s about as plugged into DC as you can get. And you know what? It had never occurred to me before that Bush actually actively dislikes the American government, but it resonated.
Tom Holsinger — thanks. You’ve just shown me that Kerry is a true man of courage. Bush’s non-admittal for his mistake regarding Iraqi WMD stands in stark contrast.
SPF,
I would not argue that all politicians serve for cynical reasons. However, some do–and I’m not automatically putting Kerry in either group. Your argument that a career in public office demonstrates dedication to American government _by_ _definition_, however, is silly.
Similarly, it is at least equally possible that what Bush dislikes is Washington, D.C., and the inside-the-Beltway hothouse nature of our nation’s capital. To dress that up as actively disliking the American government is aggressively ungenerous, to put it mildly. Bush has served as our nation’s President for just over three years. If Kerry’s record of public service demonstrates dedication to American government, why would Bush’s record not demonstrate the same thing?
And this Kerry character wants to be president? Bleah. When I think of him bashing the military after he got out of service, it’s pretty hard for me to think of him as commander-in-chief. What is to keep him from turning around and stabbing them in the back?
SPF,
I take it that, if Kerry confessed to boiling babies for breakfast, you’d enthuse that it shows he’s a man of good taste?
Sam Barnes:
Your argument that a career in public office demonstrates dedication to American government _by_ _definition_, however, is silly.
Well, good, because that wasn’t my argument. I merely argued that it was a possibility not to be blithely discarded without justification.
It is very possible that Bush dislikes Washington DC, which in case you didn’t notice, is the seat of the federal government, one branch of which, he is the head. It’s popular nowadays to have an “outsider” image. For any patriot for whom the federal government actually matters, it’s an ordeal to see a certified outsider actually in power.
It’s just one issue, I’m not saying it’s make or break.
You know 20 years and 3 years is not the same right?
Lola, why don’t you listen to that audio file Tom Holsinger posted? If he’s telling the truth, you might know why he protested after his service.
Tom Holsinger, I don’t admire what he did under military orders, but I admire his courage to think independently, to publicly admit atrocious practices, and to speaking out about it after his service. It shows he’s not a sheep, and not afraid to point out public problems which need to be rectified but might be personally implicating. Bravery personified, no?
So, even if the issue were boiling babies for breakfast in Vietnam under military orders, then what’s the matter? Would you stay silent on the subject?
Jeez, quit pushing me to support Kerry. I hardly know anything about the man.