$50,000,000,000 "Jobs" Bill. Motto: Third Time's The Charm!

[phattonez]

When did fiscal responsibility ever exist? During the Reagan administration? During the Bush Administration? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha hoe he ha ha ha ha ha.

Nice straw man. When did I defend Reagan or Bush?

 

[BDBoop]

So maybe we need to shift production to where business is actually growing, not shrinking.

Ideas? <more words>

 

[imagep]

Nice straw man. When did I defend Reagan or Bush?

In all fairness, you didn't. I just couldn't miss the opportunity though.

 

[phattonez]

Ideas? <more words>

Idk, leave it to entrepreneurs to figure out where production would be best suited. But with more spending means less capital for entrepreneurs to work with so that they can shift production to these areas. When you try to raise demand in general, this shift occurs more and more slowly because it helps all businesses. Businesses that are too large for current demand should shrink so that other companies can grow to meet expanding demand.

 

[phattonez]

In all fairness, you didn't. I just couldn't miss the opportunity though.

Yes, government has sucked at being fiscally responsible for many, many years.

 

[imagep]

So maybe we need to shift production to where business is actually growing, not shrinking.

In my situation we attempted to do that. Five years ago 90% of our business was offset printing, but that industry was and still is in serious decline. I started looking around for other business opportunities, built a new building with a couple of rental units with the plans of using the less desirable (from a road frontage viewpoint) part for my offset business and to either rent out the more desirable unit or to use it to start a new business in. During the construction process I had an opportunity to purchase a business in a related industry (screen printing) and I incorporated it into my existing business as a way to replace the natural decline in my industry with a new product line. A year later I found that I had a lot of customers asking for signs, so I started a sign department also. We are the only graphics company in my state that offers all the products and actually produces all three in-house (a lot of offset printers have started selling other products as dealers or brokers, but few actually produce them).

This is our third recession since I started the company in 1989 (at age 24). During the other two recessions our business actually increased - turns out that a lot of businesses increase their advertising budgets during bad times. the first year of this recession, 2008, we had a record year, I never thought that I would get caught up in the recession, but I did. During 2009 our business fell by 20% or so and so far during 2010 our business is down another 18%. Overall, our sales have declined to pre-expansion (our business expansion that is) levels despite trippeling the number of products that we offer. Except for a handful of customers that have gone under, we have managed to hold on to most of our regular customers and are still getting new customers on a very regular bases - we have actual made sales during the past year to more customers than we did before our sales decline. In a really weird way, despite our gross revenue decline we have actually continued growing - but the orders tend to be for less expensive products, smaller quantities, fewer line items,per invoice, and fewer invoices per customer per year.

Due to limited cash on hand, our strategy for this recession has been simply to hunker down. I had expected a flood of competitors to go out of business, but apparently their strategy has been the same, just to hunker down. Cut employees, cut advertising (I actually increased advertising at first and blew a pile of money doing it - it has become ineffective for our industry) Not much else we can do when we have no cash and when the banks won't lend us any more money (I tried), and when there is not a lot of profit opportunity that I can see in any other industry during this economy.

I did think about advertising really cheap "going out of business" banners on the internet, seems like there may be a good market for that, but then again we rely on repeat customers, I don't think that those customers would repeat their orders to often.

 

[cpwill]

Not the fact that they spent a zillion dollars, but the way they spent it. But at this particular point in time with this particular set of economic situations, what would happen if a bunch of hard core ideolog conservitives took over our governement? What if they immediately slashed the heck out of government spending, what if they immediately slashed the top income tax rate and eleminated inheritance tax and eleminated capital gains tax and all the other things that radical conservitives preach (by the way, I am actually for doing a lot of that stuff)? Would our economy immediately be healed or would it take years of misery on the middle class before things would get better?

well you tell me: what happened when they tried that approach in 1921?



Warren Gamaliel Harding inherited a mess, in particular the post-World War I depression – almost as severe, from peak to trough, as the Great Contraction from 1929 to 1933, that FDR inherited and prolonged. Richard K. Vedder and Lowell E. Gallaway, in their book Out of Work (1993), noted that the magnitude of the 1920 depression "exceeded that for the Great Depression of the following decade for several quarters." The estimated gross national product plunged 24% from $91.5 billion in 1920 to $69.6 billion in 1921. The number of unemployed people jumped from 2.1 million in 1920 to 4.9 million in 1921...

Harding embraced the advice of Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon and called for tax cuts in his first message to Congress, April 12, 1921. The highest taxes, on corporate revenues and "excess" profits, were to be cut. Personal income taxes were to be left as is, with a top rate of 8% of incomes above $4,000... Powerful senators, however, favored giving bonuses to veterans, as 38 states had done. But such spending increases would have put upward pressure on taxes. On July 12, Harding went to the Senate and urged tax and spending cuts. He noted that a half-billion dollars in compensation and insurance claims were already being paid to 813,442 veterans, and 107,824 veterans were enrolled in government-sponsored vocational training programs, the total cost of which was estimated to involve another half-billion dollars...

In 1922, the House passed a veterans’ bonus bill 333–70, without saying how the bonuses would be funded. Harding let senators know that if they passed the bill, he would veto it. The senate passed it 35–17. Despite intense lobbying from the American Legion, Harding vetoed the bill on September 19 – just six weeks before congressional elections, when presidents generally throw goodies at voters. Harding said it was unfair to add to the burdens of 110 million taxpayers.

Federal spending was cut from $6.3 billion in 1920 to $5 billion in 1921 and $3.2 billion in 1922. Federal taxes were cut from $6.6 billion in 1920 to $5.5 billion in 1921 and $4 billion in 1922. Harding’s policies started a trend. The low point for federal taxes was reached in 1924. For federal spending, in 1925. The federal government paid off debt, which had been $24.2 billion in 1920, and it continued to decline until 1930...

With Harding’s tax cuts, spending cuts and relatively non-interventionist economic policy, the gross national product rebounded to $74.1 billion in 1922. The number of unemployed fell to 2.8 million – a reported 6.7% of the labor force – in 1922. The unemployment rate continued to decline, reaching a low of 1.8% in 1926 – an extraordinary feat. Since then, the unemployment rate has been lower only once in wartime (1944), and never in peacetime.

"The seven years from the autumn of 1922 to the autumn of 1929," wrote Vedder and Gallaway, "were arguably the brightest period in the economic history of the United States. Virtually all the measures of economic well-being suggested that the economy had reached new heights in terms of prosperity and the achievement of improvements in human welfare. Real gross national product increased every year, consumer prices were stable (as measured by the consumer price index), real wages rose as a consequence of productivity advance, stock prices tripled. Automobile production in 1929 was almost precisely double the level of 1922. It was in the twenties that Americans bought their first car, their first radio, made their first long-distance telephone call, took their first out-of-state vacation. This was the decade when America entered ‘the age of mass consumption.’"...

Harding had the depression of 1920 licked in a year and a half, but under the "progressive" FDR, the Great Depression would persisted throughout the 1930s, until FDR began conscripting millions of young men for the armed forces.

 

[imagep]

well you tell me: what happened when they tried that approach in 1921?



Warren Gamaliel Harding inherited a mess, in particular the post-World War I depression – almost as severe, from peak to trough, as the Great Contraction from 1929 to 1933, that FDR inherited and prolonged. Richard K. Vedder and Lowell E. Gallaway, in their book Out of Work (1993), noted that the magnitude of the 1920 depression "exceeded that for the Great Depression of the following decade for several quarters." The estimated gross national product plunged 24% from $91.5 billion in 1920 to $69.6 billion in 1921. The number of unemployed people jumped from 2.1 million in 1920 to 4.9 million in 1921...

Harding embraced the advice of Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon and called for tax cuts in his first message to Congress, April 12, 1921. The highest taxes, on corporate revenues and "excess" profits, were to be cut. Personal income taxes were to be left as is, with a top rate of 8% of incomes above $4,000... Powerful senators, however, favored giving bonuses to veterans, as 38 states had done. But such spending increases would have put upward pressure on taxes. On July 12, Harding went to the Senate and urged tax and spending cuts. He noted that a half-billion dollars in compensation and insurance claims were already being paid to 813,442 veterans, and 107,824 veterans were enrolled in government-sponsored vocational training programs, the total cost of which was estimated to involve another half-billion dollars...

In 1922, the House passed a veterans’ bonus bill 333–70, without saying how the bonuses would be funded. Harding let senators know that if they passed the bill, he would veto it. The senate passed it 35–17. Despite intense lobbying from the American Legion, Harding vetoed the bill on September 19 – just six weeks before congressional elections, when presidents generally throw goodies at voters. Harding said it was unfair to add to the burdens of 110 million taxpayers.

Federal spending was cut from $6.3 billion in 1920 to $5 billion in 1921 and $3.2 billion in 1922. Federal taxes were cut from $6.6 billion in 1920 to $5.5 billion in 1921 and $4 billion in 1922. Harding’s policies started a trend. The low point for federal taxes was reached in 1924. For federal spending, in 1925. The federal government paid off debt, which had been $24.2 billion in 1920, and it continued to decline until 1930...

With Harding’s tax cuts, spending cuts and relatively non-interventionist economic policy, the gross national product rebounded to $74.1 billion in 1922. The number of unemployed fell to 2.8 million – a reported 6.7% of the labor force – in 1922. The unemployment rate continued to decline, reaching a low of 1.8% in 1926 – an extraordinary feat. Since then, the unemployment rate has been lower only once in wartime (1944), and never in peacetime.

"The seven years from the autumn of 1922 to the autumn of 1929," wrote Vedder and Gallaway, "were arguably the brightest period in the economic history of the United States. Virtually all the measures of economic well-being suggested that the economy had reached new heights in terms of prosperity and the achievement of improvements in human welfare. Real gross national product increased every year, consumer prices were stable (as measured by the consumer price index), real wages rose as a consequence of productivity advance, stock prices tripled. Automobile production in 1929 was almost precisely double the level of 1922. It was in the twenties that Americans bought their first car, their first radio, made their first long-distance telephone call, took their first out-of-state vacation. This was the decade when America entered ‘the age of mass consumption.’"...

Harding had the depression of 1920 licked in a year and a half, but under the "progressive" FDR, the Great Depression would persisted throughout the 1930s, until FDR began conscripting millions of young men for the armed forces.

It's also interesting to note that the top marginal tax rate after it was cut in 1922 was close to double what it is now. If high taxes caused the 1920 depression, why did a cut to "just" 58% work then, but yet our top tax rate now is only 35% and we are still in a recession? Also, during those "expansion" years, wages for the bottom 99% of our population actually decreased while wages for the top 1% increased very significantly. I have read that the "roaring 20's" were only roaring for the elite while the great depression actually started in the early 20's for the rest of America.

Also, while the top tax rate didn't start increasing again until 3 years AFTER the depression started (which is an indication that taxation was in no way a contributor to the start of the great depression), and it was increased only in an effort to avoid running the government at a deficit. During the WW2 war years our economy expanded like crazy, yet the top tax rate continued to increase. Even after the war, during the late 40's (when some people claim that the depression actually ended) and 50's and well into the 60's the top tax rate remained in the 80%+90+% rate. So obviously the top tax rate has little to do with a bad economy.

The first major drop in tax rates happened under Reagan's watch in 1982, but it is interesting that was AFTER the recession and our economy was already expanding - once again, credit for ending the recession can not be honestly given to the tax cut. Federal deficit spending started skyrocketing in late 1981 and is generally assumed to be the major factor in a 9 year run of expanding economy.

During the last couple of years of Reagan's presidency and the first year of Bush (the elder) presidency the top marginal tax rate dropped to a 55 year low (even lower than in the years leading up to the great depression and the first few years of the depression) however our economy went into the Bush (the elder) recession, the voters really were not to fond of the the recession so they voted Bush I out of office and elected Clinton who with the intent of running a balanced budget (and eventual success in doing so) increased the top tax rate to 39.6% and we had 8 more years of expansion. "W" was elected and immediately faced a very mild recession and cut tax rates to below Ronald Reagan rates, by doing so we once again ran an ever growing budget deficit.

Thats why I have suggested that we start looking at the REAL economic history of this country. Doesn't matter if you are left or right or a centerist, we all need to know the TRUTH, not just the left or right wing propaganda. The truth is that it is very possible that tax rates effect our economy - but when we narrow our focus to the top marginal tax rate most right wingers are very surprised to learn that during the past 100 years or so it is a historical fact that when TOP tax rates have been cut that our economy tends to do worse. Maybe that is not a direct cause and effect relationship, it could be a simple coincidence, but there is definately no historical evidence that cutting top tax rates is good for middle class America.
,,.

 

[Kushinator]

When did fiscal responsibility get shoved out the door?

Fiscal responsibility; make that fiscal responsibility during economic expansion should never ever get shoved out the door. Especially during an invasion type war (it almost forces the taxpayers to express their concern). And well... Cutting spending leads to even greatter unemployment during these stages.

 

[phattonez]

Fiscal responsibility; make that fiscal responsibility during economic expansion should never ever get shoved out the door. Especially during an invasion type war (it almost forces the taxpayers to express their concern). And well... Cutting spending leads to even greatter unemployment during these stages.

Oh yes, because increasing spending doesn't take away activity from the private sector via inflation, crowding out, or higher taxation.

 

[Gipper]

Fiscal responsibility; make that fiscal responsibility during economic expansion should never ever get shoved out the door. Especially during an invasion type war (it almost forces the taxpayers to express their concern). And well... Cutting spending leads to even greatter unemployment during these stages.

On a macroeconomic scale, no work is healthier than inefficient work. You've essentially been subscribing to Marxist economics for the past couple months now. Do you think a man's labor has inherent worth regardless of all else? If I spent 50,000 dollars trying to build a rocket to Saturn, is its fair market value 50,000 because that's the cost of my labor and capital?

From what I've heard of the 50 billion, it's too many earmarks and infrastructure that serves no purpose. Government would be better off just trying to challenge private sector corporations at their own endeavors in a desperate attempt to get them to release cash hordes and hire for jobs they can do and should do, but are too scared to take the first step. In other words, make them sh*t or get off the pot in a flinching match. If the government can do it better and cheaper than Big Biz, go for it. It's the final step in a scare tactic to get private sector growth established at a proper level when compared to public. All it means is that businesses will absorb these people, probably at higher wages. Just think of it as large-scale government training. A job corps, if you will.

Building a high-speed train from Chicago to Milwaukee will bring minimal long-term recovery. It's just "cool". Something a president can use to appease the masses by throwing out buzzwords like "technology" and "progress".

 

[phattonez]

In my situation we attempted to do that.

I never said that just because you shift production you would find success. The rules of entrepreneurship do not change during a recession. Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. But when we take away opportunities for entrepreneurs to succeed, we diminish our number of wins. And artificially inflating demand does that while putting off the inevitable shrinking of businesses that should be failing.

 

[phattonez]

Government would be better off just trying to challenge private sector corporations at their own endeavors in a desperate attempt to get them to release cash hordes and hire for jobs they can do and should do, but are too scared to take the first step. In other words, make them sh*t or get off the pot in a flinching match.

I don't see this as freeing up the capital. I know you probably don't think this is the best solution, but I don't even see it as working until you get rid of the threats of new taxes and increasing regulation. It's an unfriendly business environment, and everyday business must worry about these things plus not being able to predict any future prices with any kind of certainty because of monetary manipulation.

 

[Gipper]

Well, you saw earlier in the thread what would be the ideal situation. What I suggested a couple threads up is more of a "Plan B" scenario. I'm almost thinking that we're at the point that even if Obama's administration did a fiscal 180, corporations would still be gun-shy on pushing the button to unleash the flood gates - and frankly I can't blame them.

I'd like to think that corporate tax cuts, renewals of Bush tax cuts in their entirety, and a few other legislative band-aids would work, but can I be sure? No, not really, not in these times. In addition, legitimate threats of a double-dip may still cause hesitation.

I'm not going to pretend I have a quick-fix or even a guaranteed long term solution. What I was suggesting was mostly just some sort of cattle prod backup plan for Big Biz just in case they're given the green light but still stall at the signal.

 

[TurtleDude]

It's also interesting to note that the top marginal tax rate after it was cut in 1922 was close to double what it is now. If high taxes caused the 1920 depression, why did a cut to "just" 58% work then, but yet our top tax rate now is only 35% and we are still in a recession? Also, during those "expansion" years, wages for the bottom 99% of our population actually decreased while wages for the top 1% increased very significantly. I have read that the "roaring 20's" were only roaring for the elite while the great depression actually started in the early 20's for the rest of America.

Also, while the top tax rate didn't start increasing again until 3 years AFTER the depression started (which is an indication that taxation was in no way a contributor to the start of the great depression), and it was increased only in an effort to avoid running the government at a deficit. During the WW2 war years our economy expanded like crazy, yet the top tax rate continued to increase. Even after the war, during the late 40's (when some people claim that the depression actually ended) and 50's and well into the 60's the top tax rate remained in the 80%+90+% rate. So obviously the top tax rate has little to do with a bad economy.

The first major drop in tax rates happened under Reagan's watch in 1982, but it is interesting that was AFTER the recession and our economy was already expanding - once again, credit for ending the recession can not be honestly given to the tax cut. Federal deficit spending started skyrocketing in late 1981 and is generally assumed to be the major factor in a 9 year run of expanding economy.

During the last couple of years of Reagan's presidency and the first year of Bush (the elder) presidency the top marginal tax rate dropped to a 55 year low (even lower than in the years leading up to the great depression and the first few years of the depression) however our economy went into the Bush (the elder) recession, the voters really were not to fond of the the recession so they voted Bush I out of office and elected Clinton who with the intent of running a balanced budget (and eventual success in doing so) increased the top tax rate to 39.6% and we had 8 more years of expansion. "W" was elected and immediately faced a very mild recession and cut tax rates to below Ronald Reagan rates, by doing so we once again ran an ever growing budget deficit.

Thats why I have suggested that we start looking at the REAL economic history of this country. Doesn't matter if you are left or right or a centerist, we all need to know the TRUTH, not just the left or right wing propaganda. The truth is that it is very possible that tax rates effect our economy - but when we narrow our focus to the top marginal tax rate most right wingers are very surprised to learn that during the past 100 years or so it is a historical fact that when TOP tax rates have been cut that our economy tends to do worse. Maybe that is not a direct cause and effect relationship, it could be a simple coincidence, but there is definately no historical evidence that cutting top tax rates is good for middle class America.
,,.

the effective tax rate then was lower than it will be next year. Far more people were hit by those top rates.

why do people on this board spend so much time arguing that the government deserves more of peoples' money than those who earn or make the money? do any of you advocates of wealth taking really think the money is really needed for essential services or do you just hate the fact that some of us are better off than you are and you feel we have a duty to pay for stuff you want?

 

[imagep]

the effective tax rate then was lower than it will be next year. Far more people were hit by those top rates.

why do people on this board spend so much time arguing that the government deserves more of peoples' money than those who earn or make the money? do any of you advocates of wealth taking really think the money is really needed for essential services or do you just hate the fact that some of us are better off than you are and you feel we have a duty to pay for stuff you want?

Personally, I'm not an advocate of taking wealth that people have fairly worked for and earned. Have you not noted that over and over again I have suggested lower tax rates for people who work for normal incomes? I am with you on reducing government significantly, and I am with you on eleminating entitlements. I agree with you that if we were to reduce government spending that we could have lower tax rates. However in order to have a gov, someone has to pay some taxes. It is only logical to tax those who somehow aquire above normal incomes more than we tax people who have normal incomes because obviously those who have above normal incomes benefit from our government and society the most.

To be more specific, I have suggested that in my fantacy land I would have a gov so small that it could exist on taxing nothing but inheritance - that way everyone would be able to keep everything they earn during life. You make a good arguement that people should be able to keep what they work for, and I agree. So if everyone should be able to keep what they work for then the only option for collecting taxes would be to collect from people who aquire money that they did not earn, the most clear cut way of doing that is to tax inheritance. But yet you reject inheritance tax because an inheritance tax will possibly inconvieniance yourself or your children.

My second option would be to tax only wealth that is above and beyond any "norm" and I have suggested that the "norm" be defined as a level up to what the top 1% make (somewhere around $400k/yr). That $400k happens to coincide with the top salary which may be found in many if not most towns in America (MD specialists have an average salary of around $320k). It is also something like 10 times the average income of the bottom 99% of income earners. Only the rare "elite" earn a salary from a job or self employment in excessof $400k/yr, and when they do it is frequently tens of times higher than that, tending to be made by either rare luck, cronieism, theft, corruption, or abborations in our marketplace. My suggestion is to have no income tax below that amount, and to tax incomes above that amount rather stiffly while still allowing those with incomes above that amount to recieve income up to that amount without any taxes being due - in otherwords, the higher tax rate is not on the entire income, just on the amount marginally above "normal" income amounts. However apparently you are not willing to give into the idea of only the rich paying taxes and the rich only paying taxes on the income amount that is in excess of normal salaries.

While you totally reject the idea of the rich paying more in taxes either at death or as a percent of income, you have no issue with a consumption tax which will tax the middle class at a much higher percentage of income that it would the rich. The result of this being that the rich will continue to become richer and will the middle class will be handicapped by having to pay a higher marginal tax rate than the rich do (when looked at as % of income). This will effectively reduce the number of Americans who are able to retire comfortably or who are able to climb the economic ladder, thus preserving the elite status of the rich indefinately.

You are engaging in class warefare.

 

[TurtleDude]

the consumption tax doesn't limit someone from becoming wealthy. a hard working person who is frugal can start making his earned income work for him by earning him dividends and capital gains while a spend thrift will pay more taxes

that sure beats an income tax where someone who saves is punished doubly and the death tax which really screws the frugal

 

[cpwill]

It's also interesting to note that the top marginal tax rate after it was cut in 1922 was close to double what it is now.

it is interesting, however, it's also not exactly defining.

If high taxes caused the 1920 depression

they didn't (well, certainly not by themselves).

why did a cut to "just" 58% work then, but yet our top tax rate now is only 35% and we are still in a recession?

because the previous rate was 72%; and lowering the rate increased the incentive to work and invest. just as raising taxes decreases the incentive to work and invest.

Also, during those "expansion" years, wages for the bottom 99% of our population actually decreased while wages for the top 1% increased very significantly. I have read that the "roaring 20's" were only roaring for the elite while the great depression actually started in the early 20's for the rest of America.

then you have read crap . in fact the 20's was the creation of a consumer culture, and the birth of our modern middle class. the automobile example was a good one; suddenly items which had once been toys for the wealthy became general goods available to the wide majority of families.

Also, while the top tax rate didn't start increasing again until 3 years AFTER the depression started (which is an indication that taxation was in no way a contributor to the start of the great depression)

the start of? no; but you may want to take a look at when government spending began to rise

and it was increased only in an effort to avoid running the government at a deficit. During the WW2 war years our economy expanded like crazy

no, GDP grew, because that counts 'government spending', which we were doing on debt. unemployment fell because a large percentage of the population was impressed into the military. goods became scarce in most cases, rationed in others, and simply unavaiable in the rest. that is not the description of an economy that is 'expanding like crazy'.

Thats why I have suggested that we start looking at the REAL economic history of this country

i find it hilarious that this is what you are suggesting when you asked for what happens when the federal government cuts taxes and spending; and then didn't like the answer you were given

 

[Kushinator]

On a macroeconomic scale, no work is healthier than inefficient work. You've essentially been subscribing to Marxist economics for the past couple months now. Do you think a man's labor has inherent worth regardless of all else? If I spent 50,000 dollars trying to build a rocket to Saturn, is its fair market value 50,000 because that's the cost of my labor and capital?

Labor theory of value? Ha! In the long run, real labor costs diminish on a pretty consistent basis. What exactly is your point?
Also, care to explain in greater detail the source of your ad hom? The only thing i have posted in this forum that remotely relates to Marxism is the correlation of extreme inequality and financial/economic instability.

From what I've heard of the 50 billion, it's too many earmarks and infrastructure that serves no purpose. Government would be better off just trying to challenge private sector corporations at their own endeavors in a desperate attempt to get them to release cash hordes and hire for jobs they can do and should do, but are too scared to take the first step. In other words, make them sh*t or get off the pot in a flinching match. If the government can do it better and cheaper than Big Biz, go for it. It's the final step in a scare tactic to get private sector growth established at a proper level when compared to public. All it means is that businesses will absorb these people, probably at higher wages. Just think of it as large-scale government training. A job corps, if you will.

You miss the point behind increased infrastructure spending during economic downturns. It is not "force private industry" into increasing their workforce, but to provide firms potential revenue boosting opportunities that require labor (and paychecks) necessary to stimulate aggregate demand. These new paychecks go even further to stimulate demand in the communities where these workers reside.

Building a high-speed train from Chicago to Milwaukee will bring minimal long-term recovery. It's just "cool". Something a president can use to appease the masses by throwing out buzzwords like "technology" and "progress".

I take it you have never driven from Chicago to Milwaukee. You see, it's not so bad if you live in north Chicago or the north suburbs. However, if you live south or west of the city, inbound traffic becomes a total nightmare. Especially on 55 north, 290 East, 294 north, inbound 80/94, 41 (LSD) etc.... Maybe you can tell us about wasteful spending on infrastructure in Alabama. :shrug:

 

[phattonez]

I take it you have never driven from Chicago to Milwaukee. You see, it's not so bad if you live in north Chicago or the north suburbs. However, if you live south or west of the city, inbound traffic becomes a total nightmare. Especially on 55 north, 290 East, 294 north, inbound 80/94, 41 (LSD) etc.... Maybe you can tell us about wasteful spending on infrastructure in Alabama. :shrug:

Have gas tax funds been going exclusively to road projects which in this country have proven much more efficient at decreasing traffic than rail projects? Or are gas tax funds routinely gutted for rail projects which transport very few at a huge cost per rider?

 

[cpwill]

I take it you have never driven from Chicago to Milwaukee. You see, it's not so bad if you live in north Chicago or the north suburbs. However, if you live south or west of the city, inbound traffic becomes a total nightmare. Especially on 55 north, 290 East, 294 north, inbound 80/94, 41 (LSD) etc.... Maybe you can tell us about wasteful spending on infrastructure in Alabama. :shrug:

i take it you think that this money will be spent largely on actually useful projects. just like all those "shovel ready projects" that we were promised under the second Stimulus.

 

[Kushinator]

Have gas tax funds been going exclusively to road projects

which in this country have proven much more efficient at decreasing traffic than rail projects?

I know you are not interested in discussing economics, but ill give it a try anyway. Pigouvian taxation is dependent upon the particular good/service's demand elasticity. Demand elasticity is dependent upon income (% of ones income spent on the particular good/service) and substitution (is their a viable alternative to the good/service). Given that we can accurately assume petro inelasticity, your particular solution is dependent upon either lowering incomes or an increased supply of a viable alternative.

Or are gas tax funds routinely gutted for rail projects which transport very few at a huge cost per rider?

Let's think for a second. If my grand idea was to use taxation to reduce quantity demanded for a particular good/service, would more railways, more public transportation, cheaper costs of alternative fuels, etc... be critical?

 

[Kushinator]

i take it you think that this money will be spent largely on actually useful projects. just like all those "shovel ready projects" that we were promised under the second Stimulus.

Who gives a **** about what i "believe, hope, desire"? I am merely discussing the reality, not what i wish the reality to be. Try it sometime.

 

[Gipper]

You miss the point behind increased infrastructure spending during economic downturns. It is not "force private industry" into increasing their workforce, but to provide firms potential revenue boosting opportunities that require labor (and paychecks) necessary to stimulate aggregate demand. These new paychecks go even further to stimulate demand in the communities where these workers reside.

Ah...so you want to promote full employment through the use of taxes to subsidize inefficient labor. Gee - I can't figure out why I called you Marxist.

I know you are not interested in discussing economics, but ill give it a try anyway. Pigouvian taxation is dependent upon the particular good/service's demand elasticity. Demand elasticity is dependent upon income (% of ones income spent on the particular good/service) and substitution (is their a viable alternative to the good/service). Given that we can accurately assume petro inelasticity, your particular solution is dependent upon either lowering incomes or an increased supply of a viable alternative.

You seem to be ignoring the larger picture. I'd like nothing more than to have public transportation to be viable to the vast majority of Americans. Truth is that it simply isn't. It seems as if you want to trap negative externalities into a box that is physically unable to hold them. Your views violate Coase's Theorem so greatly that Ron should rise from the grave and slap you.

Let's think for a second. If my grand idea was to use taxation to reduce quantity demanded for a particular good/service, would more railways, more public transportation, cheaper costs of alternative fuels, etc... be critical?

Ah, so we can just go down this slippery slope and actually continue to violate Coase by making everything illegal that isn't good for you. I guess in Goldenboy Universe, smoking, fatty foods, salt, unprotected sex, alcohol, and ESPN will all be eradicated.

How wonderfully Orwellian of you. Tell me - is your favorite color red?

 

[drz-400]

Ah...so you want to promote full employment through the use of taxes to subsidize inefficient labor. Gee - I can't figure out why I called you Marxist.

Dude, the economy operating (by rather large amount I might add) below full employment is already inefficient. It is really hard to imagine, I know, but when the government contracts out to CH2MHill for $60,000,000 to do design infrastructure, that raises peoples incomes, and then they spend it, and then that raises other peoples incomes, and they spend it, and that raises other peoples incomes....