GE pays no taxes, receives tax bonuses, ships jobs overseas, and its CEO is into job creation

[Demosthenes11]

If you want to talk about it in those terms, what I won't be convinced of is increasing T by 1 when at the same time increasing S by 10 is somehow important or the problem. S is the problem not T.

Now the military example, if S is made up of X (the military) and Y, cutting X in half doesn't matter when it Y goes up by just as much.

but why would should we cut Y if we don't allow the touching of X

[Demosthenes11]

I'd love to see how much we spend on "entitlement spending." What does that even mean? Welfare? Or are we talking all subsidies that let poor people live their lives? Public trans? Shouldn't tax breaks for churches be included in this?

[Melchiah]

Entitlement spending is of course any sort of welfare or social program not benefitting a large business.

[aurik]

Guys the 5 million we spend on NPR is totally the problem. If we don't cut this 5 million, there's absolutely no reason to collect any additional taxes or make cuts to the military $500 million spending on advertising.


Also, taxes are irrelevant, because money spent will eventually be repaid. If not through revenue collected, then by devaluation of the currency against foreign currencies, making imports more expensive and lowering everyone's standard of living.

Hooray for inflation.

[Plow]

Do lots of people believe this line of thinking?

not sure if rhetorical

but, yes... tons, and tons, and tons

Basically the way you arrive at modern conservative fiscal idealism is by utterly and completely shutting out reality, and replacing it with quite literally whatever the fuck you can think of that convinces you you're right.

The past few pages are absolute textbook.

[Cantih]

It is one of my long-term life goals. It's still 9 years before I'm even old enough to run during an election year, though.

Have you put thought to running for a Senate seat in 4 years, or Representative now?

[archibaldcrane]

Basically the way you arrive at modern conservative fiscal idealism is by utterly and completely shutting out reality, and replacing it with quite literally whatever the fuck you can think of that convinces you you're right.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

[archibaldcrane]

Have you put thought to running for a Senate seat in 4 years, or Representative now?

More importantly, are you in law school now and/or are you from a very wealthy family?

[SwampdonkeyPLD]

Or maybe, since we have lower tax levels now than at any point in the past 60 years, we should raise taxes since we can't properly function when we pinch pennies this hard.

Also, I've never seen someone stick to a nonsensical position as hard as Swampy is. "It doesn't matter if we cut spending because we'll keep on increasing spending" is just an amazing argument.

Except that's not what I said.

[Jaybar]

From going bankrupt to w/e other consequences there are. The simple point is, cutting something i.e., the military, doesn't matter b/c spending is always going to go up. Cutting spending for little shit doesn't matter. It slowly delays w/e the end result of perpetual spending increases are. Now, if our spending didn't always go up, maybe it would matter if GE didn't pay taxes.

And liberalism isn't a religion Kuya?

"Cutting something doesn't matter b/c spending is always going to go up."

Sounds pretty clear cut to me. Or did you mean something else.

[Talint]

Hell, just the money we spent on the missiles we dropped on Libya in the first 24 hours could have made a few thousand jobs in this country.

Since you bring it up:

Number of missiles fired into Libya v. Amount of funding NPR receives.

[SwampdonkeyPLD]

Guys the 5 million we spend on NPR is totally the problem. If we don't cut this 5 million, there's absolutely no reason to collect any additional taxes or make cuts to the military $500 million spending on advertising.


Also, taxes are irrelevant, because money spent will eventually be repaid. If not through revenue collected, then by devaluation of the currency against foreign currencies, making imports more expensive and lowering everyone's standard of living.

Hooray for inflation.

In that case, carry on.

[Yugl]

Since you bring it up:

Number of missiles fired into Libya v. Amount of funding NPR receives.

I don't know if I would trust that article. They said most people got the poll question correct and then went on to say "most" somehow constitutes 45%.

[Rhinox]

I don't know if I would trust that article. They said most people got the poll question correct and then went on to say "most" somehow constitutes 45%.

you do realize there can be multiple choices right? and by multiple I mean more then two

[Yugl]

you do realize there can be multiple choices right? and by multiple I mean more then two

You do realize that if 45% say 2+2=4, it doesn't matter whether 15% voted for 9 and 40% voted for 5 because it's still not a majority.

Edit: Before I see a ridiculous comeback, I'll point out there's a difference between most of votes and the highest votes. The latter helps your case, but the author used the former.

[Rhinox]

You do realize that if 45% say 2+2=4, it doesn't matter whether 15% voted for 9 and 40% voted for 5 because it's still not a majority.

Edit: Before I see a ridiculous comeback, I'll point out there's a difference between a majority of people and a majority of votes. The latter helps your case, but the author used the former.

Most of you (45%) got this week’s question right:

Looks like he used it as most of the votes to me. But go ahead lets debate semantics

[Yugl]

Looks like he used it as most of the votes to me. But go ahead lets debate semantics

I fixed my edit to articulate my point better. While I recognize the point you're trying to make (45-15-40 means the most votes went to 45%), he said most got it right. In other words, most did not get it wrong. However, 55% is certainly higher than 45%. It was a joke, but obviously we need to turn everything into an argument.

[Chicomagiko]

[Olo401]

The simple point is, cutting something i.e., the military, doesn't matter b/c spending is always going to go up.

And spending will always go up as long as corporations fix the prices, and that will continue to happen as long as Republicans are elected because they believe it's legit to fix the prices (i.e. Medicare Part D's bans on negotiating bulk prices for prescription meds and reimportation from Canada). And before you say it yes I recognize Dems are also to blame here, in particular because they've helped enable the formation of corporate trusts in practically every industry. Not to mention the fucking Blue Dogs who are basically Republicans all but in name.

Except that's not what I said.

Yes it is.. you just said it with different sentence structure.

[Yugl]

I still stood (and stand) by my point, so your picture is misplaced. But hey, you think 45>55, so maybe I cannot reason with you.