Who's Serious Now? [Paul Ryan vs. Barack Obama]

Isn't this a bit dishonest? Obama extended the Bush tax cuts didn't he? Are those all the sudden somehow paid for under him, but not under Bush? And didn't Obama just go to war in Libya without Congressional approval? I guess we're in Libya free of charge?

If you ask me, no one in the government, on either side, is out to repair the mess we're in.

 

exactly what I was thinking. They are all hypocrites.

 

What does it matter, really? I'm not sure that degrees of hypocrisy should be held up to excuse one group over another. To me, they are all hypocrites to the same degree. Not one among them can stand up for any of us in "real" America without trying to score some points. Your example above included. There is no dialogue amongst these groups in Washington, just more of the same every day; political point scoring.

 

That's awfully convenient for the side that is more hypocritical. A murderer and a burglar are both criminals, but that doesn't mean we look at them equally.

Dems may suck too, but the things they do are very different both politically and economically than the modern GOP.

 

Yeah, one party works on a sense of sanity despite its disagreeability. While the other party relies on lunacy and emotion to get their agenda pushed through.

 

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And they are all equal hypocrites, therefore I am absolved from the effort of deciding which party is better?

 

Well I think we see on the vote that virtually all Republicans prefer tax cuts for multi-millionaires and defunding Medicare to enable them. Pure class warfare.

I wonder if the misguided working class who thought the GOP was mainly about guns, god and gays feel betrayed.

 

No level of taxation on millionaires will fund our Medicare liabilities.

 

But if Republicans are really serious about addressing the deficit, why don't they hold off on tax cuts until the problem is already taken care of? I don't agree with all of the cuts they want to make, but at least those are consistent with the stated goal of reducing the deficit. The tax cuts just make absolutely no sense.

 

You eliminate debt by reducing spending and growing the economy, not raising taxes. You cannot generate the tax revenue necessary to keep up with spending at 25% of GDP. We've never had anything close to that level of revenue, regardless of tax rates.

Spoiler

 

^^ your own graph indicates that we are, indeed, at a historically low point for tax revenue as a % of GDP. Yes, we are also spending way too much.

I slept at a Holiday Inn last night, so I feel pretty good when I say collecting more tax revenue and reducing spending should both be priorities.

The only reason not to eliminate tax breaks would be if it resulted in disaster economically. it's certainly not clear this is the case...

 

You balance the budget by bringing in enough revenue to pay for expenditures. You don't balance the budget by slashing programs that make up a tiny percentage of government spending, while slashing taxes for the wealthiest Americans and Corporate America. That's simply dishonest, something the GOP is good at in spades.

 

He already did cut taxes with the Making Work Pay tax credit, which has lowered taxes to the lowest % of GDP since 1950, according to your graph. That's the lowest% of gdp in 60 years, lower than every republican and democratic president. How do more tax cuts balance the budget? The spending cuts is where the republicans need to focus.

 

.....

 

here's an idea, contain and reverse wealth disparity so the middle class have more purchasing power.

 

It seems simple, but for some reason that task is offensive to far too many people.

 

Your post doesn't really address my concern. I didn't say anything about raising taxes. I said we should cut spending (although I don't necessarily agree with where or how Ryan wants to cut spending), but at the same time, we should not further reduce tax revenues by cutting taxes.