Democrats dislike and distrust the private sector and think that creating government jobs that are worthwhile and pay well is better than “unleashing” the private sector. They believe the private sector is driven by “greed” and it exploits workers and consumers. They believe we need big government and lots of regulation to counterbalance and outweigh the power of the rich and the corporations—plain and simple. They believe that “supply side economics” causes booms and busts and ends in depressions-—that low taxes cause the economy to “overheat”-—and Republicans are unable and unwilling to argue with Democrats head-on and persuade people why Democrats are wrong.
In 1992, you had Bill Clinton running on middle class tax cuts but never delivered and it wasn’t held against him because inflation was low and gas price fell under 1 dollar a gallon in 1998, the year the budget got balanced. Clinton said he wanted to “balance the budget, but not on the backs of the poor or middle class”, but then he ended up cutting the capital gains tax in 1997—which was supply side....and soon Greenspan was warning about “irrational exuberance” in the Nasdaq-—but then cut the Fed Funds rate to help fuel the mania, then the Nasdaq crashed in 2000 from 5,200 to 2,400 in Clinton’s last year because Greenspan raised the Fed Funds rate to 6.5%.
Ross Perot got 19% of the vote/independent vote—calling for a 50 cent gas tax to balance the budget because the deficit was the biggest concern in 1992......and H W Bush ran on his record, which included a tax increase on the rich.
Republicans have done a lousy job of educating the public and pointing out the error of Democrat ways. They are running against a president some people really would like to want to vote for again, even though the independent vote is tilting against him-—it’s Obama who is pushing the middle class tax cut and Republicans are pushing for more tax cuts for everybody against future spending cuts—some of them highly unpopular.
Reagan raised the Social Security tax so high that it ran revenue surpluses for 30 years and created the “trust fund” that Republicans now are saying is “broke” and we cannot afford to pay it back. In other words, Reagan made the middle class OVERPAY Social Security for 30 years leading to the Boomer’s retirement and both parties are unpopular and have dug themselves deep graves.
When Bill Clinton said he wanted to balance the budget, but not on the backs of the poor and middle class, it was Reagans gas tax and SS tax increase he was referring to-—and it doesn’t make one a “rino” to understand the political thinking of everybody who is running for office on all sides.How can you win if you don’t listen to the other side and understand what people believe or be able to explain and defend your own beliefs.
Democrats believe that “profit IS greed” and they like the government created jobs because they seem worthwhile and aren’t for profit-—and they think that profit is a “necessary evil” as long as you have big government there to make sure that people don’t make too much profit——partly by taxing the hell out of it and spreading the wealth.
I NEVER hear Republicans defend private enterprise and fundamentally defend business earnings and profit. NEVER.
All taxes are taxes on TRADE....where both sides seek to “profit” ie, both the buyers and the sellers profit.
People trade money for goods and services or trade good or service or labor for money, ect-—and trades are equal. Taxes are a burden and a cost on all this trading-——and money comes from Fed Reserve controlling the growth of the money supply.
If the Republicans want to WIN, they must talk clearly about money and prices and inflation and deficits and give their side—argued by Milton Friedman—that it was mostly the FEDERAL RESERVE which caused the Great Depression and all the “demand side economics” in the world did NOT work to get us out of the Depression until the Fed doubled the money supply to fuel the war machine after 1941.
Reagan introduced the idea of “supply side economics” in 1980-—but in 1979 the Democrats POLITICIZED THE FED by passing a law creating a “dual mandate” for the Fed to strike a balance between inflation and unemployment.
Thus did the Democrats anticipate Reaganomics by giving the Fed a “demand side” mandate to make Reaganomics fail, then claim that the Fed is infallible and beyond criticism. Republicans HAVE TO talk about the Fed and explain why overturning the dual mandate is NOT interfering with the “independence of the Fed”, but is returning independence TO the FED!!!!!
It’s the 1979 Fed “dual mandate” which creates the booms and busts and NOT supply side economics.
Republicans can make the argument that the middle class has overpayed for SS for 30 years and eliminate the cap on SS tax. I think we should cut the corporate income tax to 28% and eliminate the double taxation of dividends completely and put the cap gains tax back to 28%—exempt some income from it—and index it for inflation.
Cut today’s budget by 10% across the board——and index the gas tax for inflation-—and I think the business side of payroll taxes is the worst tax of all-—a tax on jobs and raises and wages. Give a tax deduction or even a tax credit against payroll taxes under the Clinton tax code and raise the standard deduction to minimum wage. That would give us the code that Clinton should have given us and takes away the pandering cuts by Obama and Bush.
Republicans should NOT be fighting for Bush policies because it makes them look like backward looking followers and ideologues and not forward looking leaders. So they are better off going back to the Clinton code and working from there.....maybe even getting the top two Clinton rates to kick in at $500.000 and $1 million instead of Clinton’s $250.000.
We’ve had 4 years of FAILED inflation causing “demand side economics” under Obama and Bernanke but the only money which has “trickled down” to the people is from higher prices-—just like in the 1970s.
If Republicans trashed demand side economics of the “1970s and the past 4 years.....including the 1979 dual mandate”-—then they might win converts.
Republicans should not demean all government jobs or the public sector-—just explain why big government is based on lies about the private sector and “profit”. Admit that the private sector isn’t all good either-—because it includes drug dealers and pimps.
But the public sector has become corrupt with unions and pork and vote buying and congressman have huge unaccountable and unknown staff members who write bills which become laws and who knows who is bribing or meeting with staff members of congressmen????
Great comments!