Predict Roy Moore vs Doug Jones

[OUBubba]

How are you any better? Have you listened to some of your rants on Trump? Dude, you created a thread about how stupid Trump is for looking directly at the eclipse. Good grief.

Truth is an absolute defense.

Carter took over a **** show of an economy thanks to many things - from price fixing to the fall out of well over a decade of wars in Asia. The economy was ready to restart due to the cyclical nature of things. Reagan did good things. That said, deficit spending was not horribly out of control pre Carter/Reagan. Reagan roughly tripled the deficit as compared to Carter - clarification...Carter added approximately 1/3 of what Reagan did in their first/only terms. I'll concede that he outspent the USSR by doing it but he was no shrinking violet when it came to deficit spending. I'll also concede that much of the positives that people throw on Bill Clinton about the economy in his presidency should be shared with the Reagan/Bush momentum and the technology boom that he kind of fell into.

Supply side economics are designed to fiddle with the Laffer curve. When you cut revenue but you don't cut expenses, the model doesn't work. JFK was the last President to do it properly. When you do it the way it's been done since Reagan it actually is voodoo economics. CEO's build bigger houses and buy bigger boats.

 

[Mr. Deez]

Much of that, arguably all of it, is on McConnell. See the link above for a first hand account of this written by someone on the Brooks team.

I read it. It sounds like a sour grapes consultant who's bitter that he backed two candidates in one election, both of whom lost. It's popular to bash Mitch McConnell, and sometimes I'm receptive to it. I'm not a McConnell guy. However, he's not why Mo Brooks lost. If this has been a close race, then perhaps that argument would have merit, but Brooks got his *** kicked. If McConnell had stayed out, it wouldn't have saved Brooks.

This seat is going to be in Democratic hands because of Moore and those who backed him in the GOP primary. Everything else is trivial by comparison.

The way I see it is that, whatever your opinion on Bannon, this election was not about him. Yes it is hard to miss the gloating victory laps today from the Never Trumpers. They love that a guy Bannon campaigned for lost. They are as happy as they can be. But when they do this, they always reveal more about themselves than they intend to do -- that they care more about being proven right than what is best for the country. The pathology here is disturbing.

I've seen the gloating by some. I'm not gloating. I think it's very sad. It's easier to swallow than some of the other seats the illiterate wing of the party has cost us because we'll be able to get the seat back fairly quickly and because we'll be spared of the political liability of having to deal with Moore in the Senate. However, unless you're a liberal Democrat, there's nothing to gloat about.

This obsession you guys have with being proven correct on Bannon/Trump have you missing the big picture.

Two things about this. First, Trump and Bannon were in opposite sides in this race. Second, I'm not really trying to prove myself right on Trump. Trump won the election, so clearly I wasn't right about his viability. Furthermore, my biggest problem with Trump was his idiotic foreign policy rhetoric during the campaign. Well, he's basically done a 180 on that. I take issue with how he handles himself and some of his judgment calls, but I don't complain much about his policy work.

What is it exactly that Establishment Republicans, whether in power or out, have actually done since the Reagan Era? What are the big things? The two that come to mind immediately are --
1. Gone to War, and
2. Increased Entitlements
I do not understand why you work for more of this lameness.

The "Establishment" label is way overused because it's politically expedient for some to use it. The GOP has worked best when its insider class and its grassroots are generally in sync by being unified around ideological principles tempered by a respect for and understanding of the constitutional policymaking process. In my lifetime, that delivered a reform of a welfare system that had been entrenched since 1935, tax relief, defense increases, and a balanced budget - all done with a Democrat in the White House. What have the Bannonites accomplished? Not much.

 

[Seattle Husker]

Yes, and nothing Obama said ever caused severe public backlash, protests, violent acts, or threats of a personal nature.

Sorry, I thought we were talking about reporters. Maybe we can simply agree that they shouldn't have been included in that statement. I get the business fear although I think it's vastly overplayed to justify the tax cuts. Regulation is a red herring.

Considering that journalists are overwhelmingly progressive/liberal, I think we both know not only the answer, but that it's a ridiculous comparison.

So reporters aren't more threatened by the past admin than the current one? The ridiculous comparison was to include them in the original statement.

Again, how you "feel" about something irrelevant. You guys have created such a monster at this point that we're basically all living in gulags with blacks and gays being a step away from being deported. That's not an exaggeration.

I don't know how to respond to this but rather will simply chalk it up to emotion.

There are people who literally are in fear that Trump is going to finger them for deportation and send ICE to their home with guns to haul them away. (Hey... I think another president did that, didn't he? Who was that again...) It doesn't matter whether you "feel threatened." You're not threatened. There's no indication you're GOING to be threatened. But it's much more useful to call Trump out for things he hasn't actually done, because you have a lot more latitude to smear that way and drum up voters, which is what this is all about.

I don't feel threatened but there are some in my local community that are. Our school district has had to send all parent emails to address immigrant parents concerns about deportation. My wife has personally had to address immigrant children visibly distraught over Trump's anti-immigrant rhetoric and actions in school and redirect them to the counselor. ICE and our POTUS have BOASTED about stepped up enforcement and deportation. Should we assume they are lying and that the fears of the immigrant communities are baseless?

The LGBTQ community has had to endure an ill-though out ban on transgender enlistment in the military, something not even the military was consulted on. Trump embraced an openly homophobic candidate in Roy Moore. The Trump administration has taken a "religious liberties" position that makes it acceptable to discriminate against them. In fact, Trump has even expressed an desire to codify this discrimination (from the LGBTQ perspective) in law.

Blacks? Trump claimed moral equivalence between those protesting for White Supremacy and those against it. If you were black, shouldn't you have the right to be concerned just a bit? A President that avoids swinging at the "Nazi's are bad" softball?

These are all things that Trump has actually done. They aren't smear tactics but rather social issues that minority groups are passionate about, probably more passionate than their whether they at an extra $2 or $5 more in their next paycheck.

I am now reading tweets from activists that claim that if Net Neutrality is revoked (after what, two years in existence?) then all of a sudden, all information on where to get an abortion will be gone from the Internet. All free speech on the internet will be removed. The BLM website will be blocked and no longer available. Mind you... this is an argument being made FOR government regulation - "we have to have government regulate the internet so that the government won't regulate the internet."

That's the level of "unhingement" we're seeing based on how people "feel" about things.

You must be reading some pretty fringe stuff if you think "where to get an abortion will be gone from the internet" or a BLM website will be blocked is a NN issue. Net Neutrality is a Corporate interests vs. Internet freedom issue. This is a sellout to corporate interests in every way. There are less than 10 companies that will benefit from these rule changes and literally millions that will lose out, companies and internet subscribers. These handful of companies are literally locking in their control of the internet and innovation in the form of new internet companies will be harmed. Nearly EVERYONE in technology has said as much, including the creators of the Internet.

 

[mb227]

It's not even close. Sure, Trump has gaffes but so did Obama and every president before them. SJL is in a class by herself.

Class and SJL should NEVER be uttered in the same sentence except to say that SJL has none.

 

[Mr. Deez]

When you cut revenue but you don't cut expenses, the model doesn't work. JFK was the last President to do it properly.

Barry, are you actually familiar with the revenue and expenses levels after the JFK and Reagan tax cuts? Serious question, because 90 percent of the people who comment on the issue are talking out there ***.

 

[Seattle Husker]

Class and SJL should NEVER be uttered in the same sentence except to say that SJL has none.

Class...eh hem...

 

[mb227]

It's funny that you think reporters are "less worried" about someone coming down on them. We've taken a turn toward totalitarianism. Will we self correct? I don't know. We'll see.

You mean that turn that the SJW's have been using to demand statues portraying history MUST come down and that has resulted in people having to toe the PC leftist line for fear of being no-platformed (or worse)?

Yeah, we DO NEED to get away from that and a correction cannot come soon enough. It scares me to think what would have happened to speech if #HillaryforPrison would have been elected.

 

[ProdigalHorn]

These are all things that Trump has actually done.

Actually no... these are things you have SAID he has done. As I mentioned, the hyperbole over Trump's statements has reached mammoth proportions. Everything is blown out of proportion, yanked out of context, and twisted into the worst possible interpretation. Trump says a lot of stupid stuff, he gets into ridiculous Twitter wars, and he gets distracted like a cat with a laser beam on stuff that shouldn't matter. So when those things are hammered home to people, you get things like "Trump is going to start a nuclear war," "Trump wants to deport all the brown people," "Trump wants to put gays in concentration camps." ALL THINGS I HAVE READ ON SOCIAL MEDIA IF NOT IN MAINSTREAM MEDIA SOURCES.

ICE and our POTUS have BOASTED about stepped up enforcement and deportation. Should we assume they are lying and that the fears of the immigrant communities are baseless?

Because you conflate "immigrant" with "illegal immigrant," in a deliberate attempt to scare minorities into thinking Trump hates them. And yes, it is deliberate. I don't know whether your wife is counseling kids who are here legally or illegally. If they're here legally, it's pretty simple to say "you're fine. Trump isn't interested in deporting anyone who's allowed to be here by law." I suspect that doesn't get told to anyone, though, does it?

If they're here illegally, I don't know what to tell you. I feel sorry for the kids, but I don't think you simply throw immigration law out the window because children don't like the rules.

The LGBTQ community has had to endure an ill-though out ban on transgender enlistment in the military, something not even the military was consulted on.

How was it ill thought out? Was the military (not a hand-picked liberal spokesperson, but the military population at large) really invested in bringing in transgenders? How has our military been damaged in any way by this ruling? And what does that have to do with gay rights in the civilian world?

Trump embraced an openly homophobic candidate in Roy Moore. The Trump administration has taken a "religious liberties" position that makes it acceptable to discriminate against them.

First part was just ridiculous, and Trump rolled right into the Steve Bannon clown show, no question about it. He got backed into a corner of choosing Roy Moore over the opposition because he thought Moore would do less damage in the Senate (I wouldn't have voted for the guy but I get why someone would make that calculation.)

Second part... well wow, I don't know why he'd want to do that considering you have activist gay couples literally targeting Christian establishments in order to force them to violate their conscience at the risk of destroying their business. I answered your issues on another thread and you never responded, so I'm assuming your justification for destroying the guys life was "because gay rights."

Blacks? Trump claimed moral equivalence between those protesting for White Supremacy and those against it.

This was probably the biggest lie of all. He was referring to protestors on both sides of the monument issue, he wasn't saying that there were good people in the Nazi camp. Since many liberals (especially in the North) interpreted the issue as "good people versus nazis", there IS no honor on the opposing side, ergo anyone who didn't want statues coming down must be a nazi. There WERE good and honest people who didn't want the statues to come down, and he undoubtedly assumed that not everyone protesting the statue removal was a nazi. You can fault Trump for plenty of things, but he's not a nazi sympathizer.

I have no patience for liberals who have created a mythology of evil out of a guy who simply has no filter on his mouth and disagrees with them politically, and now complain that they can't sleep at night because they're scared.

 

[Seattle Husker]

Actually no... these are things you have SAID he has done. As I mentioned, the hyperbole over Trump's statements has reached mammoth proportions. Everything is blown out of proportion, yanked out of context, and twisted into the worst possible interpretation. Trump says a lot of stupid stuff, he gets into ridiculous Twitter wars, and he gets distracted like a cat with a laser beam on stuff that shouldn't matter. So when those things are hammered home to people, you get things like "Trump is going to start a nuclear war," "Trump wants to deport all the brown people," "Trump wants to put gays in concentration camps." ALL THINGS I HAVE READ ON SOCIAL MEDIA IF NOT IN MAINSTREAM MEDIA SOURCES.

Read closer, of the 3 examples I used only 1 was what he "said" which was plainly obvious to all but his supporters.

Because you conflate "immigrant" with "illegal immigrant," in a deliberate attempt to scare minorities into thinking Trump hates them. And yes, it is deliberate. I don't know whether your wife is counseling kids who are here legally or illegally. If they're here legally, it's pretty simple to say "you're fine. Trump isn't interested in deporting anyone who's allowed to be here by law." I suspect that doesn't get told to anyone, though, does it?

Maybe you missed his attempts to cast aspersions on LEGAL immigrants too as well as curb their attempts to immigrate.

If they're here illegally, I don't know what to tell you. I feel sorry for the kids, but I don't think you simply throw immigration law out the window because children don't like the rules.

Yet you called their reaction an "exaggeration". YOU don't care but their reaction is valid because ICE is doing the very things you said they aren't doing. I understand your point that they are here illegally and agree with it to a point. That doesn't mean you need to try to discredit their reactions and claim things aren't so when there are actual undoctored pictures to prove them.

How was it ill thought out? Was the military (not a hand-picked liberal spokesperson, but the military population at large) really invested in bringing in transgenders? How has our military been damaged in any way by this ruling? And what does that have to do with gay rights in the civilian world?

Uh...did you miss the headlines that the military was not consulted when Trump made his pronouncement? They were studying the impact of transgenders to create a policy when Trump, as usual, jumped out in front of the train. This is why they had to quickly say they weren't making any policy changes until they received detailed direction from the White House.

This was probably the biggest lie of all. He was referring to protestors on both sides of the monument issue, he wasn't saying that there were good people in the Nazi camp. Since many liberals (especially in the North) interpreted the issue as "good people versus nazis", there IS no honor on the opposing side, ergo anyone who didn't want statues coming down must be a nazi. There WERE good and honest people who didn't want the statues to come down, and he undoubtedly assumed that not everyone protesting the statue removal was a nazi. You can fault Trump for plenty of things, but he's not a nazi sympathizer.

I don't think he's a nazi sympathizer but he also realizes the alt-right is a valuable propaganda asset which is why he created an absurd moral equivalency argument when commenting on Charlotsville. It was an ad-libbed comment that WASN'T part of this prepared remarks. As for the "there were good people there" I'd ask where? Were they the ones that marched with torches chanting "blood and soil" the night before? Was the guy that drove his car into the crowd of anti-protesters a "good person"? I'm not saying the anti-protesters were blameless but the moral equivalency Trump inferred deserved every word of criticism he received.

I have no patience for liberals who have created a mythology of evil out of a guy who simply has no filter on his mouth and disagrees with them politically, and now complain that they can't sleep at night because they're scared.

Trump isn't evil. I'd argue he's naive and dumb but not evil. He's a political opportunist and realized the value of tapping into white nationalism and stoking it to get him into the White House to stoke his ego. I don't think he's bright enough to recognize the ramifications of half of what he says/does. His ethos is built on a perception that he's "winning" and never having to say he's sorry. That's all.

 

[NJlonghorn]

Trump isn't evil. I'd argue he's naive and dumb but not evil. He's a political opportunist and realized the value of tapping into white nationalism and stoking it to get him into the White House to stoke his ego. I don't think he's bright enough to recognize the ramifications of half of what he says/does. His ethos is built on a perception that he's "winning" and never having to say he's sorry. That's all.

Most of this is right, but I disagree that President Trump is dumb. I think he is very smart and recognizes the ramifications of his actions. He just doesn't care. He lacks all semblance of altruism or empathy, so all that matters to him is feeding his ego or pocketbook.

 

[mchammer]

Read closer, of the 3 examples I used only 1 was what he "said" which was plainly obvious to all but his supporters.



Maybe you missed his attempts to cast aspersions on LEGAL immigrants too as well as curb their attempts to immigrate.



Yet you called their reaction an "exaggeration". YOU don't care but their reaction is valid because ICE is doing the very things you said they aren't doing. I understand your point that they are here illegally and agree with it to a point. That doesn't mean you need to try to discredit their reactions and claim things aren't so when there are actual undoctored pictures to prove them.



Uh...did you miss the headlines that the military was not consulted when Trump made his pronouncement? They were studying the impact of transgenders to create a policy when Trump, as usual, jumped out in front of the train. This is why they had to quickly say they weren't making any policy changes until they received detailed direction from the White House.



I don't think he's a nazi sympathizer but he also realizes the alt-right is a valuable propaganda asset which is why he created an absurd moral equivalency argument when commenting on Charlotsville. It was an ad-libbed comment that WASN'T part of this prepared remarks. As for the "there were good people there" I'd ask where? Were they the ones that marched with torches chanting "blood and soil" the night before? Was the guy that drove his car into the crowd of anti-protesters a "good person"? I'm not saying the anti-protesters were blameless but the moral equivalency Trump inferred deserved every word of criticism he received.



Trump isn't evil. I'd argue he's naive and dumb but not evil. He's a political opportunist and realized the value of tapping into white nationalism and stoking it to get him into the White House to stoke his ego. I don't think he's bright enough to recognize the ramifications of half of what he says/does. His ethos is built on a perception that he's "winning" and never having to say he's sorry. That's all.

There were good protesters there - you just don’t want to see it or admit it. A NYT reporter even said so. Your side is too busy grandstanding to actually hear what Trump is saying.


http://www.breitbart.com/big-govern...ille-protesters-not-white-supremacists-nazis/

 

[Joe Fan]

...What have the Bannonites accomplished? Not much.

I would say quite a bit for 10 months in, and that is on top of not letting the Clinton's have control of the US Govt which is probably the single greatest achievement of all time

 

[OUBubba]

Barry, are you actually familiar with the revenue and expenses levels after the JFK and Reagan tax cuts? Serious question, because 90 percent of the people who comment on the issue are talking out there ***.

The JFK information is from my Economics professor in grad school like 25 years ago. I loved playing with the IS-LM curve and I have a decent 20 page paper on deficit spending in a box somewhere. I was a Limbaugh man back hen. I’ve done a lot of reading on Reaganomics. In 1992 it was a big topic in macroeconomics. But, it is true that Reagan spent more than all current presidents as a percentage of GDP -even more than Obama and Carter. He did cut social programs but he did not cut federal spending overall. Debt increased way more under him that that sumbitch Carter. Federal employees increased under Reagan.


Supply side works when you decrease taxes (income) while also decreasing spending. Doing one without the other is like a double cross in golf when you play a draw off the tee box but you twist it out with a fade instead into an alignment that was set up for the draw.

 

[Mr. Deez]

I would say quite a bit for 10 months in, and that is on top of not letting the Clinton's have control of the US Govt which is probably the single greatest achievement of all time

That's not a policy accomplishment.

 

[Mr. Deez]

The JFK information is from my Economics professor in grad school like 25 years ago. I loved playing with the IS-LM curve and I have a decent 20 page paper on deficit spending in a box somewhere. I was a Limbaugh man back hen. I’ve done a lot of reading on Reaganomics. In 1992 it was a big topic in macroeconomics. But, it is true that Reagan spent more than all current presidents as a percentage of GDP -even more than Obama and Carter. He did cut social programs but he did not cut federal spending overall. Debt increased way more under him that that sumbitch Carter. Federal employees increased under Reagan.


Supply side works when you decrease taxes (income) while also decreasing spending. Doing one without the other is like a double cross in golf when you play a draw off the tee box but you twist it out with a fade instead into an alignment that was set up for the draw.

You could have given me the less verbose, "No, I haven't seen the actual figures, and I'm actually just talking out my ***."

I took macroeconomics in 1995, and my Keynes-ball-licking, Paul Krugman start-up kit professor said the same kinds of things yours did. (Stiglitz wrote my textbook.) I was politically involved at the time and decided to actually look at revenue and expenditure numbers. He was wrong. He didn't make up phony numbers. He just never bothered to discuss them or bring them up. He talked about tax cuts and deficits but never got into specific numbers. I thought that was a very shallow and superficial examination of the issue, which is why I looked and realized why he didn't get into the specifics.

I'm not saying everything in your post is wrong. For example, spending didn't go down under Reagan. However, big parts of your post are wrong or at best highly deceptive. I don't have time to show you right now because I have to take Deez, Jr. to his preschool Christmas party, but I'll explain later.

 

[ProdigalHorn]

Yet you called their reaction an "exaggeration".

From legal immigrants, they are. I didn't say they were for illegal immigrants. However, having said that, the storm troopers haven't been going door to door yet, and I suspect they won't. Despite your comments, Trump isn't stupid and he does get the optics of tearing crying school children away from their guardians and tossing them in a truck. He's been focused on the border, curbing inbound traffic... basically the stuff that most people (except open borders crowds) think he should be doing.

In terms of casting aspersions on legal immigrants, I haven't seen that, although he's talked about managing the number of inbounds, being selective about who we let in, etc... See the point later on empathy... he's not going to waste time trying to couch his words in such a way that someone won't take it the wrong way, and that's a shame because I don't know that his actual stance is that far from where most Americans are on immigration.

Do you really think the country's in favor of a lottery system to make sure we're getting a balance from all different countries? Or the concept of chain migration? Or the concept of treating immigrants the same regardless of their country of origin and potential connection to terrorist ideology? I just don't see that.

Most of this is right, but I disagree that President Trump is dumb. I think he is very smart and recognizes the ramifications of his actions. He just doesn't care. He lacks all semblance of altruism or empathy, so all that matters to him is feeding his ego or pocketbook.

I would qualify that a little. I don't think he's without empathy so much as he has no patience for what he considers "weakness." I think he's empathetic with people who have suffered loss, and are having difficult times, but he's not empathetic with people who he perceives as looking for reasons to be offended. I think he goes out of his way to say things that poke at those people.

He also has no empathy when his own personal ego has been injured, in which case he doesn't care who you are or what the context is (grieving widow, for example...), he's going to shoot his mouth off.

 

[Horns11]

He also has no empathy when his own personal ego has been injured, in which case he doesn't care who you are or what the context is (grieving widow, for example...), he's going to shoot his mouth off.

He's never not in that mode. Even in his 80s USFL days and his 70s housing discrimination case.

 

[OUBubba]

You could have given me the less verbose, "No, I haven't seen the actual figures, and I'm actually just talking out my ***."

I took macroeconomics in 1995, and my Keynes-ball-licking, Paul Krugman start-up kit professor said the same kinds of things yours did. (Stiglitz wrote my textbook.) I was politically involved at the time and decided to actually look at revenue and expenditure numbers. He was wrong. He didn't make up phony numbers. He just never bothered to discuss them or bring them up. He talked about tax cuts and deficits but never got into specific numbers. I thought that was a very shallow and superficial examination of the issue, which is why I looked and realized why he didn't get into the specifics.

I'm not saying everything in your post is wrong. For example, spending didn't go down under Reagan. However, big parts of your post are wrong or at best highly deceptive. I don't have time to show you right now because I have to take Deez, Jr. to his preschool Christmas party, but I'll explain later.

So, you agree that spending didn't go down under Reagan? Isn't that one of the perceptual cornerstones of the myth of Reaganomics? I liked Reagan. I respect the hell out of him. I think the same about Carter/Ford/Obama and both Bush Presidents. But, federal spending was relatively HIGHER under Reagan and Carter OR Obama, relative to GDP. Ironic, huh?

I think supply side economics will work if done properly. If the CEO's reinvest in their company. If they start producing their products here. If they increase their payroll and those people start spending more. I think recent history indicates that lower taxes on high earners and businesses will result in a larger wage gap, bigger CEO parachute plans, larger lake homes, larger boats, etc.

I think Keynesian economics will work also. I think you can vacillate between the two every 20-40 years. That said, I think changing strategies every 8-12 years is not healthy for an economy. But, I'm not a professional economist so what do I know.

 

[Mr. Deez]

Supply side economics are designed to fiddle with the Laffer curve. When you cut revenue but you don't cut expenses, the model doesn't work. JFK was the last President to do it properly.

Based on your subsequent comment, I assume "do[ing] it properly" means cutting revenue and cutting spending. If you look at the numbers, we didn't do that in '60s or in the '80s. Revenue never dropped a single year in the 1960s, even after the tax cuts. Spending dropped one year by a very nominal sum (about $300M in 1965, which was chump change even back then) and then exploded. In the 1980s, revenue dropped in 1983 by about $17B and recovered immediately the following year to much higher levels than it had been prior to the tax cuts. See Table 1.1.

But, it is true that Reagan spent more than all current presidents as a percentage of GDP -even more than Obama and Carter.

Carter? Yes. Obama? No. See Table 1.2.

He did cut social programs

It depends on how you define "social programs." If you exclude health spending and Social Security, then yes. However, that's like saying you don't smoke so long as you exclude cigarettes. If you account for all of it (which any serious thinker would), then absolutely not. See Table 3.1.

but he did not cut federal spending overall.

Nope, he didn't. However, the "he" element is overly simplistic. The President can lead, but Congress spends the money - always has, whether we're talking about Reagan, Carter, Obama, etc.

Supply side works when you decrease taxes (income) while also decreasing spending.

Supply side works when a government that is too big of an economic drain decides to be less of an economic drain. If taxes are too high, it cuts them. If regulations are too tight, it loosens them. Of course, there's plenty of room for debate about the degrees of this.

So, you agree that spending didn't go down under Reagan? Isn't that one of the perceptual cornerstones of the myth of Reaganomics?

I agree that spending didn't go down, but I don't agree that it's one of the perceptual cornerstones of the myth of Reaganomics. The biggest myth of Reaganomics is that the tax cuts were the biggest driver of the deficits. Other than in one year, revenue increased throughout the 1980s, but spending exploded in the aggregate. The deficits were mostly caused by the insatiable appetite for spending money. Furthermore, the reason why economists on the Left don't like to discuss the specific numbers is that the numbers prove that they were full of **** in the 1980s and still are. Politics is trumping any kind of real or intellectually honest analysis of the impact of tax relief.

I think Keynesian economics will work also.

Supply side economics was given a chance because Keynesian economics had failed and was discredited in the 1970s. The Keynesians didn't have an answer for the stagflation problem, and they still don't. Frankly, they didn't have good answers for anything.

 

[mchammer]

The winning formula is the following and it has NEVER been tried:

In this order: 1) cut regulations, 2) cut taxes, and 3) cut spending. Trump is doing the first 2. Doing all 3 insures full employment, gdp growth, and balanced budgets (or slight deficits).

 

[Seattle Husker]

He's never not in that mode. Even in his 80s USFL days and his 70s housing discrimination case.

Speaking of a lack of empathy, here was DJT's first tweet after the terrible train accident in Washington State:


11 minutes later he tweeted this:


We've gotten used to politicians leveraging tragedies for their own personal agenda. Trump didn't even wait to give the proverbial "our condolences are extended..." message before going right to the agenda.

 

[I35]

The winning formula is the following and it has NEVER been tried:

In this order: 1) cut regulations, 2) cut taxes, and 3) cut spending. Trump is doing the first 2. Doing all 3 insures full employment, gdp growth, and balanced budgets (or slight deficits).

Exactly! It really is this simple.

 

[Statalyzer]

The biggest myth of Reaganomics is that the tax cuts were the biggest driver of the deficits. Other than in one year, revenue increased throughout the 1980s, but spending exploded in the aggregate. The deficits were mostly caused by the insatiable appetite for spending money

Yes! Thank you.

Trump claimed moral equivalence between those protesting for White Supremacy and those against it.

I wish so many other Trump opponents would stop saying stupid stuff that makes me defend Trump.

IMO, it was not the WAPO or media generally that beat Moore. I would lay some responsibility at the feet of the GOPers who kept dumping on Moore. In the process, they dumped on the seat itself. They should have been saying, at a minimum, “OK, look, Moore might not be a great candidate but vote R ticket anyway to keep the seat. Then we can remove him." This would have been sane, pragmatic and moral. But the GOP is run by some real nincompoops.

This is only true if your loyalty is first to the Party. It's also a bit delusional as the whole "then we can remove him" thing would never happened.

I see the Alabama result as a good thing in the long run, because crappy candidates and/or crappy human beings need to stop being able to automatically get such huge numbers of votes for no other reason than proclaiming they hold the pro-life position.

 

[Mr. Deez]

I see the Alabama result as a good thing in the long run, because crappy candidates and/or crappy human beings need to stop being able to automatically get such huge numbers of votes for no other reason than proclaiming they hold the pro-life position.

I'm solidly pro-life, but I hate seeing this. It dirties and corrupts the pro-life movement. Furthermore, abortion and other social issues shouldn't be anybody's only issue, because when it is, it becomes an effective diversion. Politicians with terrible records on other issues can get your vote just by being pro-life or having the right view on social issues.

 

[ProdigalHorn]

Speaking of a lack of empathy, here was DJT's first tweet after the terrible train accident in Washington State:


11 minutes later he tweeted this:


We've gotten used to politicians leveraging tragedies for their own personal agenda. Trump didn't even wait to give the proverbial "our condolences are extended..." message before going right to the agenda.

Trump wasn't the only one to get out in front of his skis on that story - the reflex is to talk about "our crumbling infrastructure..." when a day later apparently the conductor was driving 80 in a 30 mph zone headed into a turn. This stuff keeps happening (here in Jersey it's happened a couple of times, and it always ends up being a conductor going way over the posted speed limit for that portion of the track.) Begs the question... what kind of train conductors are we hiring? Hmm...

 

[ProdigalHorn]

And may I just say, that's a Top 10 Simpsons Episodes nominee...

 

[Seattle Husker]

Trump wasn't the only one to get out in front of his skis on that story - the reflex is to talk about "our crumbling infrastructure..." when a day later apparently the conductor was driving 80 in a 30 mph zone headed into a turn. This stuff keeps happening (here in Jersey it's happened a couple of times, and it always ends up being a conductor going way over the posted speed limit for that portion of the track.) Begs the question... what kind of train conductors are we hiring? Hmm...

Yep, lots of challenges in our railway systems. The early evidence seems to show that the rate of speed the conductor had the train traveling was well in excess the speed limit for that section. I have read something about a "Positive Train Control" system that wasn't in place on this section of the track. This system is supposed to alert the conductor to slow down. You could probably argue that's an infrastructure need.

 

[OUBubba]

I'm solidly pro-life, but I hate seeing this. It dirties and corrupts the pro-life movement. Furthermore, abortion and other social issues shouldn't be anybody's only issue, because when it is, it becomes an effective diversion. Politicians with terrible records on other issues can get your vote just by being pro-life or having the right view on social issues.

That’s the biggest issue around right now. My neighbors are ardent baptists and abhor trump but supported him as they held their nose over the hijacked supreme Court seat. A shrewd move by McConnell. A much bigger impact on the election than even Russia.

 

[Mr. Deez]

That’s the biggest issue around right now. My neighbors are ardent baptists and abhor trump but supported him as they held their nose over the hijacked supreme Court seat. A shrewd move by McConnell. A much bigger impact on the election than even Russia.

Barry, why do you think your neighbors were willing to do that?

 

[OUBubba]

Barry, why do you think your neighbors were willing to do that?

Because of the promise of getting a guy like Gorsuch on the Court who will support their views on abortion. The pro life movement has hijacked the idealogical right or the right has hijacked the pro life movement. It's just interesting to me that evangelicals like them will support the ***** grabber. I think a lot of people are single issue voters.