Michelle Bachmann Tells Me What I Will Think

May 7th, 2009

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5CCGa2fhf4

Hear the audio of Michelle Bachmann telling me what I will someday regret voting for Barack Obama because I am going to have to pay off this debt. Now I am all for getting rid of the budget deficit, but I think the bigger problems came with President Bush whose deficit spending went towards funding some ridiculous wars. These amounts generated deficits far larger than what Barack Obama has done and probably will do.  But even if Obama did create a deficit larger than Bush’s, the money was better spent. First Bush put is in debt at a time of economic prosperity.  It was a time when we should have been lowering the deficit like Clinton did during his term. Instead he cut taxes and drove us further into debt. Now in a time of economic hardship, it is to Obama to spend money to stimulate the economy to pull us out of it. Now if Michelle Bachmann wants to argue that Keynesian economics is wrong, she can, but I doubt Oral Roberts university gave her a top-notch education in economics. Even if it is wrong, I would still prefer it to Bush because Obama is spending the money on schools, roads, parks, etc. These are things that I would rather our debt money go towards rather than tax cuts for the rich and wars.

She goes on to say that my tax rate is eventually going to be 65% or higher. I have no clue where that number came from, but we have had higher tax rates in the past on our top tax bracket and we did fine. Denmark has a tax rate over 50% and for the goods and services they deliver, I would probably take it.

She further goes to fancy up the Laffer curve and argue that I will be less likely to work in 2/3 of my money goes to uncle Sam. I don’t know of any empirical evidence to show that being true. When I made minimum wage at my movie theatre job and paid no taxes, I probably worked harder than I did at my defense internship where I actually did have to pay taxes. If my tax rate jumped up to 50% but in exchange my college was free, I would still work just as hard for my money.

Then she goes on to say entrepreneurship is being punished. All these vague claims without any warrants as to why they are true. I know plenty of small business owners and plenty of people who want to form small businesses and none of them cite Obama as a barrier for them. Private enterprise can exist in countries with any tax rate. There is no evidence to the contrary provided.

Her ramblings just get worse when she says the government is going to tell me I am making a mistake by succeeding. I have no clue what this woman even means. My tax rate is higher? So it’s a problem she has with a progressive tax system? Sure, she can argue that, except that income tax and estate tax are probably the only progressive taxes there are. Every other tax in the country is regressive so it still looks like the rich are doing just fine.

She goes to claim that our stimulus bill is bad. But no specific cites of what is bad. I have no clue what part she thinks is bad. Every claim made by conservatives has been refuted. Obama wanted vaccine programs and volcano monitoring and in the past few weeks we have seen volcanic eruptions and flu outbreaks.  What part of the stimulus bill was indefensible? Tell me. Go for it. Because everything I saw in that bill was still probably better than a war.

Then she goes on to say that Democrats control everything, but she fails to note that the Supreme Court has 7 judges appointed by Republicans.  She also takes no responsibility for the fact that Republicans keep forcing out members of the own party like Arlen Specter or Rush Limbaugh’s calls for Colin Powell to leave. If you want to be a party of extreme conservatives with no moderates, you will never control more than 50 seats in the senate.

Then she says that we are going to use Global Warming bills to allow further government intrusion into our lives, once again completely unwarranted. But then again this woman is crazy.  Yet she still thinks that she can think for me.  Get off my back Mom. I don’t need you to tell me what to do.

Ohio Milita Call for Protest

April 21st, 2009

The leader of the Ohio militia called for a protest of a million armed people in Washington DC. I think this is probably going to end up turning back on them for a two reasons.

1. Exposure to the type of people in America who own guns would probably bolster demands for gun control.

2. If I was president and a million armed people showed up at my door, I think I would probably start wondering about gun control laws or just taking away people’s guns.

Clear and Present Danger

April 16th, 2009

Tom Coburn, a Republican senator for Oklahoma has been running around spouting off some lies. Now I am not one for censorship, but I am pretty sure there is some supreme court decision that says that if the stuff you are saying presents a “clear and present danger” then you need to shut up. So if a report comes out saying lying about Barack Obama’s gun control policies is causing extremists to go crazy and kill people, you should probably stop. In fact if somebody goes and kills three people because of it, I would say we definitely have a problem. I am not sure if I agree with that court ruling, but we all need to play by the same rules.

Iowa Gay Marriage

April 15th, 2009

I have had a few different people tell me “It is a sad day when Iowa is considered more progressive than California.”

I just don’t think it’s even close to true.

All Iowa did was have it’s supreme court strike down bans on gay marriage, which is exactly what California did but a few years earlier, point California.

Next Nate Silver’s analysis has Iowan’s voting for a gay marriage ban today by 56% so point California.

Next if we define progressive as the people’s ability to have a more direct role in shaping government policies then California’s low constitutional amendment barriers make it more progressive than Iowa. California requires a majority vote, Iowa requires passage by two consecutive sessions of the legislature and then a vote so point California.

That’s a 3-0 win for California on the progressive meter. The other thing is that California probably isn’t all that progressive anyways, we have San Francisco and LA and the rest of the state is red. One of our senators is planning on voting down the EFCA to make her palpable for the governorship which is currently being held by a republican who beat a liberal democrat just a few years ago. Why is California the bar for progressivism?

Are you trying to lose control of the senate

February 26th, 2009

There is no way Janet Napolitano is the best person in the country for the Department of Homeland Security. She is probably a good candidate, but surely we could find someone who is just as good and thus have a shot at taking the Arizona senate seat. Or at least McCain could be a little nicer to Obama for eliminating his main rival.

Now he is trying to rob himself of his only shot at getting the Kansas senate seat by picking Sebelius. Obama, if you had two more senate seats, how much easier would it have been to get that stimulus bill through?

More for us I guess

February 26th, 2009

“Well, Governor Sanford says that he does not want to take the money, the federal stimulus package money. And I want to say to him: I’ll take it. I’m more than happy to take his money or any other governor in this country that doesn’t want to take this money.”
– California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R), interviewed on This Week, about some Republican governors saying they will not take money from the recently passed economic stimulus package.

From Taegan Goddard

A better way to judge senators

February 26th, 2009

This table, compiled by progressive punch, is an excellent way of judging how well a senator performs. It grades senators based on how much more progressive they are than their electorate. So taking two people with roughly the same progressive ideology, one is from California, the other is from Texas, well the Texas senator is voting much more liberally than a person from that area would expect and thus is a little better. Boxer is an awesome senator, which I have always known, while is actually a bit more conservative than California. Lois Capps, our representative is middle of the road.

California’s Budget Crisis

February 17th, 2009

You might need a log in to read this story and if so I’m sorry, but I need to point out a few more things about the Calfornia budget crisis. 1. Shutting down and restarting infrastructure projects because of a delayed budget is literally 400 million down the hole. 2. One of the republicans who was going to back the plan ultimately rejected it because he wanted an open primary provision thrown in. 3. Not only are the republicans refusing to vote for tax increases, they want to put tax cuts into this budget bill as well as California falls further into a budget crisis. Republicans you are ridiculous.

The Stimulus

January 29th, 2009

This is a very important chart.

Multiplier Graph

Multiplier Graph

This chart lays out the multiplier of each type of fiscal policy; the bigger the number, the better. Each number represents the amount of GDP gained for every dollar spent. So if we spend one dollar to cut the corporate tax rate, GDP goes up thirty cents. Or if we spent one dollar on a temporary increase in food stamps, GDP would go up a dollar and seventy three cents. This chart really hurts republicans. If you look at this graph, the biggest multipliers are in spending increases, while the smallest multipliers are in the tax cuts. Whether you want to argue for a stimulus is one thing, but if you just argue for tax cuts in the stimulus, well, that is going to be hard to justify.

Support our Commander in Chief

January 20th, 2009

Republicans have been calling us treasonous for eight years for criticizing Bush. Now I am all for being critical of our elected officials, I am doing this to point on Republican hypocrisy. So this will be the start of a regular series called Support our Commander in Chief where we catalog instances of this.

First up for imprisonment for treason is Rush Limbaugh for hoping that Obama fails.

Hey Rush, that’s our president. And you should defend him. He represents America. Why do you hate America Rush?