Brilliant pro-Obama bit by Simpsons' animators
Sunday, October 28, 2012 at 12:01AM Very slick. I make a good portion of my living narrating visual explanations (PPT) of complex concepts, and I appreciate a good presentation.
The missing concept here: the trickle-down argument can make sense, in my opinion, in a more closed economic enviroment, or in a national economy less dependent on trade and less subject to international competitive pressures. In today's globalized economy, however, I think it's a distinct beggaring proposition that the supply-siders (and yes, even the Chicago School types) have never admitted - much less figured out. We no longer live in a world where economic philosophies pitched at the nation-state level hold sway. There is a new Washington Consensus to be found.
As somebody who's paid a top-line tax rate for maybe 1/3-1/2 of my adult life, I have to say that I am deeply disturbed by what has happened to the middle class over the past decade, because, as a foreign policy expert, I know that the intolerance and inward-vision bred by flat incomes impacts our power projection capabilities immensely.
I honestly can't see the argument for keeping the Bush tax cuts. Not in our fiscal situation, debt trajectory, and my deep understanding of the progressive-era tasks on our plate. I'm just not that greedy. I want to leave behind a better country for my kids.
I'm made a lot of money across my career and I am no stranger to hard times, so I don't write as someone who's only lived one type of existence. When you make a lot, you should pay a lot - as in, a higher percentage. The Bush tax cuts should go. They are not in our country's best interests going foward.
I don't see it as a way to a strong defence. I don't see it yielding a strong anything.
Reader Comments (7)
If you can spend the full 14 1/2 minutes on this Milton Friedman video, I think your view on effective income taxation will change. Now, this will give more evidence to Romney on lowering rates to 25-28% and eliminating most deductions - a determination of the Simpson Bowles commission, but not much - Romney has NO interest in simplifying the tax system - like abolishing the joke of "corporate income tax" and moving at least some of it into capital gains - Romney is a big shareholder.
You may be certainly right, you should pay progressively more as you make more, but normative and positive arguments need to be distinguished! There is very little evidence that raising these rates will provide effective equity, or increase revenues as a % of GDP.
Forgot the link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TruCIPy79w8
This is certainly slick. But it is rhetoric and sound bites. It ignores that up until 2011, the Democrats were fully capable of letting the Bush tax cuts expire and begin implementing Simpson-Bowles. They did not do it. There is no reason to expect anything different under a second Obama term.
I disagree with your suggestion that in a closed economic environment one might make sense of the theory that if the rich have more after-tax income, some of it will spill over onto the underclasses. It doesn't make any more sense there than it does anywhere else, which is one of the reasons no one actually adheres to such a theory. The rational premise behind keeping the high end of a progressive tax rate structure in check is that excessive top marginal rates create incentives to move capital from relatively productive uses to less productive shelters. Shelters that are probably more plentiful in a global economy than otherwise, I might add.
That being said, I agree that the animation does a nice job of illustrating its asssertion, in spite of what it illustrates being a straw man argument.
And lest you think that I'm commenting from a partisan position, let me assure that I sincerely believe that it will make little or no difference whether Obama or Romney serves out Bush's fourth term.
Extremely impressive video.
But with Obama's second term and the significant budget issues coming up in 1/13, is there any way that either candidate could prevent the Bush tax cut from being extended?
It appears there will still be a firmly Republican house at least
Why are you avoiding the issue of Trade Agreements?!?
The destruction of the US economy can be traced directly to the loss of jobs, which is the result of the various trade agreements we have signed over the past 20 years. It takes at least a generation for these jobs to leave. Back in the 80s and continuing through to the 2000s, US taxpayers and investors started investing first millions, then tens of millions, hundreds of millions, and then billions of dollars setting up the infrastructure, training professors to train managers, building roads, power plants, high-speed internet connections, R & D centers, all with the intention of moving high tech and industry to Asia.
Tax cuts are important, but what we really need to talk about is trade policy. Who writes the trade agreements? Who are the US trade representatives, and whose interests are they serving?
Currently, Obama is negotiating the Trans Pacific Partnership.
Global Research has a story on this at /www.globalresearch.ca/the-trans-pacific-partnerships-global-economic-coup-secret-negotiations-behind-closed-doors/5304389
The formal negotiations are scheduled to start in early December in Aukland, New Zealand. This is one of the largest trade agreements the US has signed, and will be very important to the economic well-being of the American people, and we know practically nothing about it. Once the formal negotiations start, the black-out becomes official. There is very little time left for discussion.
Maybe the election is already over: In Swing state Ohio Mitt Romney´s brother will be responsible to deliver the election machines.
Already in 2008 Homer Simpson made his own personal experience with this fraud machines:
and said the prophetical sentence: "This cannot happen in America, maybe in Ohio!!!"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1aBaX9GPSaQ&feature=player_embedded