President Obama Re-Elected - Page 724

On October 10 2012 08:29 paralleluniverse wrote:

lol

You're delusional if you think any country would ever attack the US.

On October 10 2012 08:29 paralleluniverse wrote:

lol

You're delusional if you think any country would ever attack the US.

On October 10 2012 08:34 ZeaL. wrote:


But that's cause we spend so much on the military of course. Any sign of weaknes.. and then THEY STRIKE.

On October 10 2012 08:43 RaspberrySC2 wrote:
Whether it's a "clear and present danger" or a "real threat" isn't even as important as if the danger is perceived and believed enough to justify the spending. It seems like the George W Bush administration got practically a blank check for the military after 9/11.

On October 10 2012 08:34 RavenLoud wrote:

The last time that happened (excluding Pearl Harbor) was two hundred years ago, by Canada.

If geopolitical threat should be proportional to spending, China should spend 20x more than the US.

On October 10 2012 07:42 rogzardo wrote:
Just to keep things in perspective. Education makes up 4% of the budget. Defense is 22%.

On October 10 2012 08:50 dvorakftw wrote:

Be a dear and find us total government spending in the United States for education in billions of dollars.

On October 10 2012 08:52 NeMeSiS3 wrote:


You...
Do...
Know.....

That % spending is across the board, so whatever is spent as the 4% the 22% is going to reflect the difference in percentile lol.

On October 10 2012 08:23 paralleluniverse wrote:

We've been over this. Every study in support of Romney is by Republican economists, which Rosen is. That study basically defines above $100,000 as above the middle class.

This study has been debunked here:
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2012/09/department-of-huh-harvey-rosen-says-that-the-romney-tax-cuts-will-raise-national-incomes-by-3-5-or-7-percent.html

Here:


And here:

Another issue that has to be dealt with at the outset is how to define “high-income.” This is not a term of art. Some people would regard a family with an income of $175,000 as being rich, while others would say that it is middle-class. Since who is “high-income” is in the eyes of the beholder, I again do the analysis twice, once for households with $100,000 or more in income, and once only for households with $200,000 or more.

Second, and relatedly, in the academic literature, it would not be considered exotic or even mildly controversial to include behavioral effects in analyses of tax policy. There is a long tradition of doing so. Indeed, my guess is that it would be challenging to publish a paper on the distribution of the tax burden in a first-rate academic journal if that paper assumed that no one’s labor or savings behavior differed across various tax regimes.

Finally, it seems odd to assume away possible increases in incomes associated with a given tax reform proposal when its explicit goal is to enhance growth. This observation raises another reason that is given for excluding macro-dynamic effects—the impact of taxes on economic growth is uncertain. To be sure, there is a lot of disagreement on this issue among professional economists. But that is not sufficient cause to assume that the right answer is exactly zero. Rather, a more sensible approach is to consider alternative assumptions about how tax reform might affect the size of the economy, and see how they affect the substantive conclusions. As explained in the next section, this is the tack that I take.

Compute the amount of tax paid by high-income taxpayers under the Romney plan allowing for micro-dynamic behavioral effects, i.e., effects on the tax base that occur because people re-arrange their affairs (but not their labor supply or saving decisions) when tax rates change. As usual, there are differences among economists about the magnitude of these responses. My reading of the literature is that for high-income individuals, this response is substantial. I assume that for every hundred dollars that the government might expect to lose by reducing tax rates on this group, revenues fall by only about $89 because of decreases in various avoidance activities. This is toward the low end of responses that have been estimated by economists.

Although both economic theory and historical experience suggest that a tax system with lower marginal rates and a broader base would enhance growth, there is considerable controversy with respect to the quantitative impact. Put another way, the honest answer is that no one knows for sure. Economic behavior is very complicated, and let’s face it, economic forecasters haven’t exactly covered themselves in glory during the past few years. But, as I emphasized above, it by no means follows that a zero response is the right answer. Given the uncertainty that attaches to these types of estimates, it makes sense to see how the results would differ assuming several different values for the growth-induced increase in incomes. I therefore include estimates for 3, 5, and 7 percentage points.

The 5 percent figure is consistent with Diamond’s [2012] analysis, which is the only paper I have seen that embeds the Romney plan in a modern growth model. Diamond’s computations are based on the assumption that the baseline is the law that will apply if the 2001/2003 tax changes are allowed to lapse, at least for high-income taxpayers. I refer to this as the “2013 law.” The 2013 law embodies considerably higher tax rates than the 2012 law, so it is likely that the reform-induced increases in growth would be less with the 2012 than the 2013 baseline. That’s because the more efficient the starting point, the lower are the incremental benefits of introducing a tax system with lower rates and a broader base. Therefore, my guess is that the growth effects using the 2012 baseline are lower than Diamond’s estimate; 3 percentage points seems a reasonable figure.

On October 10 2012 07:18 paralleluniverse wrote:

Prove it,

On October 10 2012 08:48 oneofthem wrote:

yea what if the japanese navy attacks them. oh the horror

On October 10 2012 08:53 sam!zdat wrote:


he just wants you to be shocked by the bigness

On October 10 2012 08:57 RavenLoud wrote:


China is surrounded by Russia, India, Japan and the US (from Japan to Taiwan and SEA, even Afghanistan in the west). All are strong and unfriendly.

I think it's safe to say that the possibility of war between Japan and China is far greater than between Canada and the US.

You can be as condescending as you want towards Chinese interests, but you can't say that they are wrong to want to defend themselves vs a country that tried to conquer them twice.

On October 10 2012 07:23 sam!zdat wrote:
Is this a penis joke?

On October 10 2012 09:00 oneofthem wrote:
i'm not sure what you are thinking. strong = war risk? this is not civ 5

On October 10 2012 07:18 paralleluniverse wrote:

Prove it,

in order to offset $360 billion in cuts, one must eliminate 65 percent of all of the available $551 billion in tax expenditures.