bob, pleeeeze pleeeeze no more election/Obama talks. Can't take no more!

Quoting fedorovingtonboop: bob, pleeeeze pleeeeze no more election/Obama talks. Can't take no more!

you're stuck with this for the foreseeable future. there are so many angles to still look at and this one is one of the better ones.
these are policy and political wonks who love talking politics. the current political season calls for these arguments to be aired. there are too many conservative tools (ie. byron york, david frum, jonah goldberg) on here that it takes salam to air some honest, um, straight talk. reihan is one of the better conservatives out there. i'm still not convinced he's
not a blue dog democrat.

Quoting fedorovingtonboop: bob, pleeeeze pleeeeze no more election/Obama talks. Can't take no more!

I second that.

it pains me to say this, because i like both Jon Chait and Reihan a lot but: BORING. perhaps this is because most of the diavlog was spent talking about, ::yawn::, taxes? i mean, perhaps watching diavlogs about taxes is something, like dying, that we have to do . . . but that doesn't mean i want to! also, a quick note: this was a bit before my time, but wasn't it a fairly legitimate claim to make that B. Clinton lacked a mandate in his first term because he recieved only 44% of the vote? this point was passed over in the 'vlog.

http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/159...6:35&out=26:46 Shattered Dreams

Quoting fedorovingtonboop: bob, pleeeeze pleeeeze no more election/Obama talks. Can't take no more!

I'm with sp3ak: there is a lot of policy to be discussed now that the Dems have the White House, and I'm for a healthy dose of that. And, echoing sp3ak again, this was a good diavlog to that end.

Jon made an interesting point about what Dems should do if they (ever again) have control of Washington and a surplus when he said that it was pointless to try to squirrel it away and/or to focus too heavily on paying down the debt, if the expectation is that the GOP is just going to screw things up when they get back in power. Probably an oversimplification, but worth keeping in mind. On the other hand, if the Dems were to be in power and things were going well enough that a surplus loomed and they took this idea into consideration, I'd think you'd be serving up an opportunity for the GOP to dust off the "tax and spend" mantra once again. This seems to work all too well when most people feel like things are going well, but don't recognize (or want to admit) that part of the reason things are going well is the Dems' more responsible fiscal policy.

I love this site. I'll forever picture Reihan as having just emerged from under a large roll of Limbaugh blubber. But the discussion ended too soon! If the Great White Whale does indeed crush Captain Reihab and his shipmates - what then for the Republican party over the next 8 to 16 years? To put it a different way - if one's sole priority is to revive the Republican brand, is it pragmatism or folly to follow Limbaugh's lemmings across the Oxycontinental Divide?

Reihan for President of Planet Earth.

I'm a single guy and I make (slightly) more than $250k/year. I currently pay pay a boatload of taxes. In fact, for teh past two years I've paid more in combined federal/state taxes than every dollar I spent on myself (including housing, food, and all discretionary purchases). Why should my taxes be raised even more?

Why should my taxes be raised even more?

You're joking, right?

More taxes. In California there is a flight of people and businesses out of the state due to the high cost of living. The taxes are high here. Reihan wants to put a VAT on top of all the other taxes including the a sales tax that the governor wants to raise to 10%. I think he is being too theoritical on this one. Jonathan seems confident that the Democrats are safely positioned to sail into the sunset. I think he is counting his chickens before they hatch. However, my view is tempered on a perception that many voters are becoming political party weary. John

Quoting timba: If the Great White Whale does indeed crush Captain Reihab and his shipmates - what then for the Republican party over the next 8 to 16 years?

Might only be 4 years. If the ever-worsening economic mess continues, together with the fundamental problems we haven't addressed over the preceeding decades the situation could well look more like the Great Depression than like "just another 6-month recession" in which life resumes as before after a blip that most Americans can mostly ignore. If so, the Republicans whose policies have pretty much pushed the country out of a tenth story window will blame the Democrats and Obama, who will be coming into power just as the body hits the ground. If they can sell that load of tripe, and they have been selling the "Republicans are the party of fiscal responsibility and small government" line to voters for decades despite the fact that nearly the entire US debt was run up in the last 28 years, and the federal budget tripled while Republicans have dominated the federal government, so there is little reason to assume they won't sell it, Republicans could be back in power in 2012.

Cragger, I don't know if the Republicans can sell the fiscal responsibility line so easily now. That said this economic downturn looks pretty severe and some may judge how the Democrats handle it. I just hope the dem controlled congress proves more efficient than it has the last 2 years. To be sure, the executive branch is going to need help on this one. John

Yikes! "Progressive" magazine is lambasting Obama for his early cabinet picks. For example, he should have named Dennis Kucinch for secretary of state job. I wonder what "Nation" and "Mother Jones" will have to say if they haven't already? John

Yikes #2. John Zogby did a poll of voters and 55% of them did not know that the Democrats controlled the Congress. So much for the informed electorate. John

I currently pay pay a boatload of taxes. In fact, for teh past two years I've paid more in combined federal/state taxes than every dollar I spent on myself (including housing, food, and all discretionary purchases). Number one, that's bullshit. You don't pay 50% in taxes. I've tried to figure out where you live where that could be true and I think you can't do math. Number two, presumably we are working with Obama's whopping 3% increase on the marginal tax rate over $250,000 (you do know what a marginal tax rate is right?) and if you make slightly over $250,000 you are kicking in an extra $30 per thousand over $250k. I've got thirty bucks, asshole, and I make about $30k a year.

Jon, was this the scene you were alluding to at the beginning?: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RyqtrGnicc

"Number one, that's bullshit. You don't pay 50% in taxes. I've tried to figure out where you live where that could be true and I think you can't do math." The obvious error in this response is that it incorrectly assumes that my taxes must be 50% or higher. I never said that. I said that I pay more in federal/state taxes than I spend on myself. And that's true. I pay roughly 33% of my gross income in taxes, and I spend 30% of my gross income on myself.

Where does Jerseyboy live? That's a real stumper. And taxes in New Jersey are in fact ridiculously high, probably highest in the US.

"I said that I pay more in federal/state taxes than I spend on myself. And that's true. I pay roughly 33% of my gross income in taxes, and I spend 30% of my gross income on myself." That's very clever, JerseyBoy, but it robs your complaint of meaning. The obvious question is, what does the other 37% of your income go to, and how is that not money spent on (or saved for) yourself and/or those who depend on you?