Anyone who thinks the $850mm is a "cost" is either a dope or they are cognitively dissonant. I wish everytime someone called it a "cost" on Hannity, he would have hit a button that shouted "You dope!"

SO A LOT OF PEOPLE DO NOT HAVE PAYCHECKS. MORE AND MORE DEPENDENT ON THE STATE TO SUPPLY WHATEVER--NOT JUST FOOD AND OR HOUSING. WHATEVER. SO ARE THESE PEOPLE GOING TO DECOME DEPENDENT ON THE STATE FOREVER. LOOK AT THE HISTORY OF THE SO CALLED "FOOD STAMP" PROGRAM. I SAW A PERSON PASS OF OF A KROGER STORE IN HUSTON WITH MANY MANY ITEMS THAT WERE NOT FOOD. THIS PERSON GOT INTO A NEW CADILLAC TO DRIVE AWAY. SAD SAD SAD THE WAY THE U. S. IS HANDLING THE UNEMPLOYMENT AND ALL THE OTHER GIVE AWAY PROGRAMS. GOOD BYE THE LIFE OF BEING FREE AND INDEPENDENT.

Dr. Paul is right on the money regarding our economic woes being a spending issue and not a revenue issue. However, I'd like to add my two cents. We Americans have been brainwashed by government at all levels into believing that when politicians tell us that they were able to limit a tax increase to a small percentage, that weren't we fortunate. Having worked in corporate America for forty-plus years, I've experienced instances, during flagging economic times, where senior management would mandate a 15% or so cut in budgets across the board. Such mandates included terminology that said, "We don't care how you do it, but just do it." If only "we the people" had the clout to mandate such cuts in government spending, it would go a long way towards solving our debt problems.

I like your reasoning Dr. Paul, It is very nicely spelled out and extremely articulate. Please keep up your good work and I hope that you and other Congresspeople can complete the task of not only ordering the complete and full audit of the Federal Reserve the thieves of the united states but eventually you can also abolish the Federal Reserve and replace it with nothing, causing individual banks and other financial institutions to finally once again compete for their custommers business. Competition amongst all businesses in the united states is the driving force behind prosparity.

@DB

With an economic view on innovation, I agree that regulation is a form of price fixing ultimately, and as such I reject it. I never advocated regulation and certainly don't opine that destruction is good because you can renew as a purpose in its own right. I just refuted the statement by Romney that innovation can only take place in absence of regulation.

Innovation often is prompted by outside forces, whether it is a high price of a commodity, a competitor coming with a smarter solution, useless regulation, consumer demands, etc. By way of example let's take machinery safety regulation.

Most machinery manufacturers simply add safety devices, such as a fence or an emergency stop, increasing their cost price and triggering complaints. A smarter approach is re-think the machine concept and (if possible) create some smart redesign that makes a safer machine AND making it cheaper. I cannot exclude it, but I doubt that without regulation a machinery manufacturer would have an incentive to invent such clever solution.

This is what I meant by "in its own twisted way" regulation is a prompt to innovation. What I DID NOT SAY is that regulation therefore should be promoted.

Reply from The Daily Bell

OK, it sounded like you were suggesting that regulation was a good because it promoted innovation. (An original argument but one with which the elves disagreed ...)

@DB " "You think carbon dioxide is pollution?"

I don't. Do you? My point is that regulation, whether sensible or not, is a fact of life forcing companies to adjust their processes or products. I stated that in opposition to what Romney wrote. In its own twisted way, regulation in that respect can drive technological innovation (waste is imho to be avoided by default), but most regulations only increase the admin burden for no other purpose than to give government control over operations.

Reply from The Daily Bell

Regulation is a form of price fixing. It always results in a queue or distortion of the marketplace. If it is bad, it cannot produce a "good" in our opinion. You are stating a fallacy of the broken-window variety. Destruction is good because it leads to renewed manufacturing ... You are wrong on this one, theoretically anyway. You have fallen into the broken-window-fallacy trap. Move on. You are very smart. Try a different commentary.

"wealth redistribution"

If everyone was given a million dollars, over time the money would end up in the hands of the same people who had the wealth before.

One is where one is because of oneself.

You cannot protect people from their own stupidity.

twittering as stocktradr

"Government regulations such as sex discrimination means that well off households have both partners working. Poor households have no jobs because these were usually in the private sector, jobs taken away by taxes.

Reduce taxes and there will finally be a real re-distribution!"


I agree with this. How about fair wages so 1 parent can work and the other can raise the children. Let's stop having our children raised by negative video games, TV, and federal employees that we call teachers.

Government "re-distribution" has helped to create one of the most polarised societies in history. Governments take our taxes, so we have less to spend in the private sector. Private sector wages and employment are decimated. Governments then take more taxes to pay these disposessed workers social security. The private sector loses more jobs. More people are dependent on government charity.

Of course, government creates jobs itself. But these jobs don't go to the battlers who have been forced into unemployment by government. They go to better off households that have the qualifications to boss the little guy around! Or money pushers who decide who should benefit from the "re-distribution".

Government regulations such as sex discrimination means that well off households have both partners working. Poor households have no jobs because these were usually in the private sector, jobs taken away by taxes.

Reduce taxes and there will finally be a real re-distribution!

Mr Reiss
Whose wealth do you think YOU are entitled to re-distribute?
Mine?
Please avail yourself of the basic education at Click to view link
Best
Michael McKay
Radio Free Market

@Romney -- Posted on 12/21/2010 11:59:33 AM

"Innovation comes when there are little or no regulation, whether the industry is old or new."

I disagree. Regulation is a strong driver for innovation. E.g., environmental regulations force manufacturers to invent better processes with less waste or exhausts.

The problem is, however, that small- and medium-sized enterprises often do not have the time nor the resources to comply to regulations, which are often cooked by mercantilism mechanisms. And if they do, their profitability is affected strongly.

Oh, new employment emerges: in government (maintaining the regulations), consultancy (helping with the regulations; the more complex the better!). This doesn't add to the real (=manufacturing) GDP and longer-term the country's strength is eroded. At the same time the debt is growing, and the mix is the recipe for a major collapse (economically and likely also sociologically). Hence, the worst is yet to come -- believe me.

Reply from The Daily Bell

I disagree. Regulation is a strong driver for innovation. E.g., environmental regulations force manufacturers to invent better processes with less waste or exhausts.


You think carbon dioxide is pollution?

"I ask simply, how can you be a libertarian if you have no choice but to buy Microsoft software every time they upgrade it? THAT is not freedom of choice."

Any so-called private sector coercion you come up with can be trumped 1,000,000 fold by the government. Don't buy Microsoft. OpenOffice has wonderful free versions of all the same office software.

As to your auto industry example, it is fully contradictory. There are more makes and models and options of cars available today in the US compared to anytime in history.

Finally, I am hesitant to make these points in the context of today's mercantilist system – as I don't want to seem as if I am defending today's corporatists. There would be little of the economic consolidation that you fear today without the support of government to protect big business and unions.

Big companies can only "squeeze out" competition with either a) better products or b) government help. I don't complain about the former. I will suggest your complaints should be directed at the latter.

As to "regulating big business" one has to be fully asleep to not see that it is government regulation that protects big business from competition. It has always been so and must always be so.

Yes, your post is full of contradictions. I do not suffer from a lack of understanding.

Lack of understanding does not make a case for contradiction. I am sure your issue is with regulating big business vs. being a libertarian. I ask simply, how can you be a libertarian if you have no choice but to buy Microsoft software every time they upgrade it? THAT is not freedom of choice.

Income taxes are not for generating revenue for the Federal Government. They are to control and redistribute the volume of money and to keep tabs on a nations citizens.

to learn more:

Click to view link

or

Click to view link

@Raymond Reiss, Romney

Your posts are full of too many internal contradictions, let alone contradictions with reality.

@John Danforth

if I understand your comment correctly, I take the opposite view. The sooner the US is unable to finance its deficit, the sooner the house of cards comes tumbling down. A bigger deficit will bring that day upon us that much sooner. Let's get on with it. I don't think a tax increase on people making over $250K would have bothered anyone nearly as much as the inability to finance the debt will. Meanwhile, as spending goes up no matter what, lower taxes is better than higher taxes.

Us Republitarians should come up with catchy phrases that the media will also fall in love with. Why do we, who consider ourselves "logical" when discussing politics, not have the logic to come up with media-friendly slogans for the masses to cheer? We allow the liberal to define topics such as killing unborn children as "pro-choice" and calling loss of expected increases in revenue as "cuts."

We should use the liberal's own playbook on the tax cut issue just as they use it from the abortion issue. "Pro-income" and "pro-family" should be our slogans, and force the liberal to have to use such negative terms as "pro-tax" or "anti-family."

We also should hear what Raymond has to say. While I am all for "make your own choice with your pocketbook," the problem lies in the same thing as big government. After a while, you will not be able to make a choice because there will be only one retailer for a particular product. Let me use the auto industry as an example. The USA car companies kept getting bigger and bigger by swallowing up competitors. I just saw a driving Studebaker the other day, it was a station wagon. Yet today, we effectively have only 2 USA car companies. Why? Is that due to nobody else has a good idea? I think not. I have like 12. It is because the uber-sized corporation will strong-arm competition out of business, NOT by innovation, but by threat, coercion, and by working with Unions and government to make the barriers to entry so high, nobody can possibly make a corporation to compete. When Ford was founded, you could build cars in your garage and sell them on the street. Try that today and you will go to jail.

My point is fully realized when you look at the makeup of American car sales today: less than half is from USA corporations. Yet, purely guessing 85% (no statistics in my hand) should be from cars "made in America" because so many foreign car companies build some of their cars in the USA. So it CAN be done, just we as Americans cannot "start" one, because to be successful, one would have to start from "zero" as FORD did, but because of the barriers to entry, you'd have to invest BILLIONS (GM invested $4 billion to start Saturn 25 years ago, which died last year), so you can imagine the investment required today. Therefore, Raymond's point is realized because I cannot simply invest a few million to start a car company in the USA, but would have to do it in China where they have over 100 new car companies all coming out with innovative new ideas about electric and hybrid autos. We can't because the big companies have squeezed out competition and in cooperation with the unions and government, making barriers impossible to start from scratch.

Innovation comes when there are little or no regulation, whether the industry is old or new. For those who will cry about safety, let the buyer decide that, just as you say let the buyer decide from whom to buy when rebutting Raymond above.

Who had the credentials to give the first MD license? The first Attorney? Did Wilber and Orvil have pilot's licenses? We are not "free" (liberated, hence, "libertarian") until we are free of these shackles of strict regulation.

Gentlemen: It is comical to see a closet socialist like Raymond call for a return to a mythical "nation of shopkeepers". Watches too much public television I expect. If the public wants to "bust up" big business all they have to do is stop buying from them. Big government is a little tougher--they do not sell anything anyone wants, and they have the guns to keep the prices high, and indeed, they raise prices at will. That is why they can confiscate the wealth of the dead--which was accumulated in spite of the best efforts of the Federal Government.

The Hegelian dialectic:

Let's all dance in the streets because we'll still only have about half of what we produce stolen from us and used to rule over us. That they were going to take more, and didn't, is cause for celebration.

Just as Obama and Bush should get medals for waking up the sleeping giant of America, perhaps it would have been better for everyone if they had gotten their way. There are still a lot more people who need to be woken up. The drop in revenue resulting from this idiotic tax increase would have helped bring the whole stinking mess to a head a little sooner.

I love to hear from Ron Paul and he is of course right.

The thing that I can't get off my mind is that the "IRS" and the "Federal Reserve Bank" were created at the same time. If you steal every thing a person's got and you want to get away clean with the crime, then you have to leave them some way to support themselves, lest they wake up and trip the alarm.

While I appreciate your explination, I wonder why the media and yourself, is not mentioning the new ceiling for AMT? Being a tax accountant in the US, I have to keep up on all the tax changes being made. This lower ceiling will affect millions of americans, and not in a pleasant way...