The KGB Oracle Forums General Public Discussion (SPECIAL ACCESS) KGB Political Debate Central Boehner - stupid leader of the party of stupid

I have no idea how this guy was able to keep his job. Mr. Boehner is very, very bad at it. The current congress highlights include tanking the US credit rating, passing the least bills of any congress by a wide margin, and having an approval rating hovering around Hitler's. His undisclosed spending cuts sound a lot like the undisclosed closing of tax loopholes of the last election cycle. While most can agree with these on principle, saying the devil's in the detail is an understatement.

While I agree with the premise, I find the article to be lacking. It is a data-less endorsement of supply-side economics (trickle-down). Common sense dictates that a period of dismal job creation coinciding with historically low top-marginal tax rates should debunk this theory. Intellectually, the Congressional Research Service did debunk this, but was quickly censored by Mr. Boehner's congress. Further, the nuanced analysis of the Democrats as "the party of evil" seems a bit...vacuous. But yea, Mr. Boehner is not good at his job.

I agree with your first paragraph, though passing fewer bills is the one highlight as far as I can tell.

As for you second paragraph, well I am not a huge fan of Supply Side - It is far better than pure Keynesian , but still based on Keynes. Of course there are many variables at work.

As for the correlation between investment and job growth, that is very real - the problem being in a globalized economy all too often that investment goes overseas. American capital investment has created hundreds of millions of jobs...... in east Asia. It still does benefit us here at home, I think we will be far worse off with higher tax rates period. Even Clinton said so, before he backpedaled to toe the campaign line.

The concept of taking resources out of the productive private sector, for use by the non productive govt sector is very real though. In this day and age, one of the primary means that is accomplished though is by simply printing more money.

Though its worth noting that I consider that a non-partisan issue, because the GOP needs to realize that needless military spending is no more productive in terms of generating wealth than spending money of useless civilian bureaucracies.

I think the real problem with the GOP is that they do not stand for anything. This is the qualm that came across to me. Boehner, and Romney when he was running were all rhetoric with no philosophical substance to back it up. I think that is why the author termed things the way he did regarding Evil and Stupid.

One party might be totally bass ackwards, but in a semi coherent fashion. The other party is simply the party of rhetoric and opposition. Which is Stupid.

I have read the article, and it is a bunch of partisan teeth gnashing and denying reality of past elections. While the article happen to have correct conclusion, the author stumbled on it by chance. What they want for Boehner is to not negotiate, so basically keep doing what cost them otherwise 'sure thing' election. Sooner GOP cleans thier house, kicks out various special interest power brokers like Norquist and move back to advocating fiscal conservatism ideas based on compromise, sooner we can back to sane politics.

Plus calling Obama evil in this first paragraph? Bunch of yellow journalism that is below Forbes.

There's are studies to suggest that government is just as efficient as the private sector. I have neither the citations nor inclination to defend this however.

As correctly pointed out, supply-side/Keynesian economics are not a zero-sum game. I find it disheartening that the corporate tax rate, which is highest in the western world, has been completely absent from the debate. Perhaps if the tax rates of hedge-funders and unemployed billionaires were funneled into the engine of the American economy, we'd see better returns.

The GOP's identity crisis seems to be a natural part of the political cycle. Democrats had the same problem after Kerry/during Obama's primary. The GOP does stand for something, but that seems to be at odds with what the public wants. The likely result, however, will be a refinement, not a change of message for the GOP; just as it was for the Democrats.

Sinij - the Evil/Stupid are references to an old saw. I do not take him to mean literally Evil. As far as compromise - I think compromise is fine... when talking about what to cut. If we cut spending doewn to 2T/yr we would still have a govt plenty large enough to run a huge military and provide basic social safety nets... and the tax issue would not be an issue.


Turkey I agree 100% about corporate rates. What gets me about all the income tax-hike talk is the fact that the truly wealthy, including all the Dem plutocrat buddies (and GOP plutocrat buddies) dont pay most of their taxes in terms of regular income. They are like Mitt Romney - they pay Capital Gains rates for pass through interest. If you are talking income tax, you are still typically talking about people who are actually working.

While I agree with most of what you said, I do disagree in regards to the GOP standing for something. The GOP stands for whatever the GOP stands for on that particular day. The party actions have been at total odds with the stated party principles since the early days of the W Bush Presidency.

Its been proven as much as it really can be proven, that losing true conservative and libertarian votes is what cost Romney. Which is no surprise since Romney was the same as Obama, who is the same as Bush.

Holy shit. Did I just coax plutocrats, a buzz word usually reserved for the pages of the Nation, out of you?

Jokes aside, capital gains and carried interest tax deductions are a complicated ball of legitimate merit and abuses. Best solution I've heard is to keep them for long-term investments, eliminate them for short-term speculation. Try implementing that, though.

Also, I didn't mean to imply that the GOP stood for something noble or correct. They stand for (forgive me) plutocracy and theocracy. Debate, reason and science be damned.

I'd like to point out that this is "no true Scotsman" fallacy. Your suggestion also implies that Romney wasn't conservative enough.

Both I disagree with.

Sini; debating argumentitive logic instead of the issue already? Shame! The general consensus is that Romney lost due to losing key demographics: Florida Cubans, Ohio blue-collars, Latinos, single women. If Derid chooses not to believe that, he can take it up with Nate Silver.

Turkey, there is no "instead". Argument/Issue is how you present it.

"Florida Cubans, Ohio blue-collars, Latinos, single women."

Exactly. None of these are conservatives. Plus conservatives/libertarians did vote for Romney, despite Romney sidelining them on many issues.

So who are these mysterious "true conservatives" that didn't vote for Romney, and on what issues would Romney had to pull even harder to the right to appeal to them?