Among some people "tax cuts for the rich!" has more resonance when it coms out of someone who's super-wealthy.

Funny, those same people never seem to notice all the middle-class politicians and voters who find that kind of rhetoric selfish, mean-spirited, and generally repellant.

No all of us Dean. Some of us think that wealth distribution and tax policy in this country are a shame on all those who support the current insanity which transfers massive debt, responsibility and a truly horrible set of problems to our kids. Rich, middle-class, even some of the great, ignorant, unwashed masses. Though, apparently, not all.

Rosemary! “dorks, totally suck, lame, head is up his ass, fucking loon” ? I hope your 6-year-old has some thoughtful, mature influences as well.

Shep, I take it then by your stance that you agree with me that Social Security is exactly what you described, a "current insanity which transfers massive debt, responsibility and a truly horrible set of problems to our kids." That's what you were referring to, right? I thought so...I'm glad you're on board with the very PROGRESSIVE idea of moving to voluntary privatized accounts...otherwise, you'd be practicing the Marie Antoinette philosophy of politics (what's good for me is not necessarily good for those I don't know or care about)...

Yes Chris, as the Republicans would do it, Social Security would apply. However, private accounts are no solution by themselves, perhaps the worst solution even if they could be made to work. For those for whom that’s a workable retirement, we already have them. We'll still need to get back to PROGRESSIVE taxation to retire those who haven't been adequately compensated for their lifetime of work.

The sooner we can end the demagoguery on both sides, we can start real reforms, like removing the contribution cap and means testing benefits, that will remove the burden from our kids (that, and paying the government’s other bills as we incur them). Social Security should be a safety net for those who absolutely need government help, not an entitlement for middle-class and wealthy people who can stand on their own feet. How are those for (truly) conservative principles?

Shep, I'm with you on your thoughts about Social Security...although I'm a little puzzled about what you said about getting "back to PROGRESSIVE taxation to retire those who haven't been adequately compensated for their lifetime of work." Would you clue me in as to what you're talking about? I hope its not the progressive tax structure we had before Reagan (very justly and wisely) eradicated it...

What's scary is the 75% of them would make a better president than Dubya. Where's John McCain or Colin Powell when you need them? Still, gotta say that Dean's comment about Trent Lott being MLK Jr. was funny.

Tim the Soldier

Shep:

Don't you worry one little bit about my son and what influences him.

I was being rather generous with my comments. If you watched that debate then you would understand that. Please note that I sat quietly observing the entertainment and I refused to allow my son to see that I disagreed with them. Because - he is only six and the reasons are a little too deep.
I certainly didn't use that language in front of my son and I would dress down anyone that would.

Your rude and thoughtless remarks regarding my parenting and your psudo-concern for my son are really a new low.

You should be ashamed of yourself. You probably aren't...but you should be.

Shep...I am wondering if this may have been your first time in Dean's world.
I drop in from time to time and you must not have read the earlier line about the little six year old boy that told his mother he did not understand why all those men were saying bad things about Bush!?!
I found that six year old boy to be quite intelligent. He sat with his MOTHER whom I would think must be a marvelous INFLUENCE. The two of them seemed to have discussed it between one another. The MOTHER must be teaching how to communicate. I am sure that debate may have been over an hour, or so and it STILL had the SIX YEAR OLD curious. So the INFLUENE, I would feel for sure would answer him to the very Best of her knowledge.
HE GAVE UP CARTOON NETWORK......DAH....
The little fella sounds like he is moving along in life pretty well.
I think that got to me more than anything that Rosemary said. Geez..I completly knew what she meant by Al Gore coming back. I guess that slipped by you too.

Chris, I think the progressiveness of Clinton's tax code proved both fair and effective.

Rosemary, sorry if I offended you but my point was that your comments about the Democratic candidates were adolescent at best. And I do honestly worry for children, and the world they'll eventually manage, who are influenced by highly partisan, one-dimensional viewpoints (even without the language) that seem apparent in your comments and the "innocent" question you relate from your son. I'm sure he's never heard mommy or daddy say anything bad about the Dems. Glad to hear you're a Gore fan though, now that he's moved on.

Shep,

If you worked for 49 years at minimum wage and put the SS money into a 401k, you'd have enough to retire on.

With employer matching, my calculation is that such a worker would be contributing $1,508 per year. The average return over time on stock investment is 8%...someone who knows how, calculate $1,508 per year for 49 years with an 8% return...and then do it with a 2% return: betcha the worker still has enough to retire on...even the mere savings itself ($73,892) provides enough money for 88 months at the payout rate that I am expecting on SS when I retire in 2032: thats 7 years worth of SS payments just with putting the money under the mattress and getting no return on it at all...and at zero cost to the government/taxpayers.

Geesh! I just don't understand people who don't understand the massive benefit of privatisation.

Mark, tell it to the people who were SUPPOSED to retire over the last two years on their 401K plan earnings. Besides, that's not way the system works. We're currently contributing to SS, not just for our own retirement, but chiefly to retire our parents.

Shep,

Sure, some people got burned in 2000/2001...but even when the market dropped to 8k, it was still a full four times more valuable than it had been 10 or 12 years previously....

You can have your years when you lose 20% and your years when you gain 20%, but the historical average OVER THE PAST 200 YEARS is an 8% annual return.

Our putative 18 year old who is entirely too stupid to ever get even a single pay raise so he works at minimum wage for 49 years will, over time, get that 8%, even if his last year is a 20% drop (of course, even a modicum of wisdom can come into play here - heck, we can leglislate common-sense in this matter, if we want is to put your funds in higher-risk - and high-yeild - investments for the first 20 years and then from that point progressively put more and more into secure financial instruments).

There is just no comparison between adherence to the 19th century concept of SS and the modern concept of a worker/capitalist who builds up his own wealth in order that he not be dependent upon anyone by a date certain. To keep to the current SS is just purblind reactionaryism.

"I don't care that it was a Bush slam fest. I expected that. Just like I would expect a Republican debate to be a slam fest against the sitting Democrat, like it was with Clinton."

One notable difference between the two types of slam fests is that the slams against Clinton were for the most part true, while those against Bush are for the most part either half truths or outright lies.

I go to liberal sites to enlighten others. I come here to relax and watch socialists get sheared.

Mark and Chris: you're a delight to read.

Sheep, you've been forgetting one of the "e"s. If you truly believe that some portion of the working populace is being undercompensated for the fair value of their work, then please take it upon yourself to make up the whole difference out of your own pocket.

If you make a regular habit of seeking the best quality goods and services at the lowest possible price, without remembering to track down all of the underpaid factors (who made such bargains possible) and compensate them, your life example is completely at odds with your alleged political opinions.

The one thing we know about everyone who reaches retirement age, is that they've all had 47+ productive years to save and invest with the miraculous math of compound interest to help them.

My heart bleeds for poor kids, but I have damned little sympathy for the poor elderly.

Oops . . . Dean, I meant "liberal" in its commonly-polluted sense, not in your reclaiming-the-word jihad sense.

Please to forgive.

Jonathan, thanks for the schoolyard jab; haven't heard that one since grade school. Ah, good times.

I seriously doubt your heart bleeds for anyone but yourself but please do try to remember that constructing ludicrous alternative scenarious is a cheap substitute for taking moral responsibility through your politics or your actions. My heart bleets for you.

Mark, see my earlier comments; I'm just concerned with a safety net for the left-behinds. Those who can save and invest well will acheive just what you say. Some can't or won't or they'll be done in by bad timing and/or the vagaries of the market economy. Like most government-run programs, when the marketplace produces something better, those who can and will take advantage of it. We could leave the rest to the lions but that wouldn't be Christian.

In the words of Dennis Miller:

"The Democratic debate looked like Pez dispenser seance."

Hey Shep:

Happy to be of service.

What's "ludicrous" is the idea that you truly believe the people providing you the cheap and plentiful goods and services you take for granted are underpaid, while you refuse to intentionally overpay for them. My moral obligation is discharged through personal and financial support of charities I believe in, not massive and wasteful government bureacracies of the type you evidently favor.

Your obligation, if you believe what you claim you believe is to go forth and work yourself into the dirt if necessary to earn money with which to compensate the underprivileged producers whom everyone participating in the free market--by voting with their dollars--have deemed unworthy of greater compensation.

Your moral obligation does not include the theft of my paycheck.

I note from your reply to Mark that you at least acknowledge the exercise of free will by those who refuse to take responsibility for their own futures. This suggests you can be reasoned with. Know that there are many ways to be unChristian besides feeding people to lions. Two extremely popular manifestations of unChristianity are inciting envy of the wealthy ("Thou shalt not covet thy neighbors ox, nor ass . . . ") and reliance on progressive taxation (i.e. incremental theft) in place of free-will charitable support to provide for the poor in society.

We are to give of our own money to the poor, not take others' money and give to the poor. It's much harder to do this, or course, but Jesus never promised a rose garden on earth.

I’ll say one thing, Jonathan, you’ve got a lot of chutzpah naming Jesus as a justification for your rationalizations. Personally, I don’t indulge myself by believing that charities will mitigate all the negative effects of markets (and I work for one). I live in the real world where we have to acknowledge and accommodate the blessings and the limitations of both. And, as a citizen of a democracy that enjoys the fruits of a market-economy, I also choose to fulfill my moral duty to pay for those benefits and help those who haven’t through taxes.

As you object to paying taxes to help left-behinds who you cynically blame for their condition, I object to paying for giant weapons-program boondoggles, subsidies to farming conglomerates and highly dubious foreign adventures. But I’ll keep paying my taxes and fighting the transfer of working-class wealth to the rich through the political process. It’s not that I envy the rich, they simply neither need nor deserve my money

But, we digress. What ALL those “dorks” have over the incumbent are agendas favoring a fairer distribution of wealth than markets, on their own, can ever provide. They ALL have better plans to ensure that rising tides actually lift all boats and secure a livable world for our kids. And, if a decorated war-veteran and 3-term Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman (in other words, someone who actually knows something and who has put his life on the line to do his patriotic duty) is a “dork”, I wonder what that makes the current White House resident.

Hey Shep:

Again with the compliments! You flatter me so.

No one takes issue with your choice to help those unable or unwilling to achieve whatever standard of living you aspire for them to have, via taxation or charity or water balloons filled with rare collectable coins. That's your choice.

The problem comes when you gang up with a bunch of like-minded persons and democratically vote to confiscate a greater percentage of someone else's property than you confiscate from your own, as a punishment for that person's superior success at finding and meeting a market need.

If you object to military expenditures, what is you comprehensive plan for our coexistence with Islamists who are willing to die in order to kill us? If it involves space travel, I applaud your vision but remind you of our current technological constraints.

The wealth belongs to the person who earns it. If someone isn't wealthy in a free market society, we have to presume that he or she is failing to perform market-demanded verbs. Whether that is because of inadequacies of our educational system (very possible) or the unwillingness of the person in question to take full advantage of every opportunity afforded him or her (even more likely) is a question that can only be answered on a case-by-case basis.

But what we can do as a society is ensure that we try to improve our educational system to give every child the most even possible chance for success, while constructing any wealth transfer mechanisms to minimize propagation of self-defeating behaviors.

The "Rich" may or may not deserve their money (depending on whether it's first-generation) but the "affluent" absolutely do, by virtue of having met the needs of their fellow citizens better than any of their competitors. And you agree with what I'm saying every single time you choose to voluntarily pay your money to them in a financial transaction instead of supporting one of their inferior competitors or taking on the job yourself.

Did I refer to any of the Democratic candidates as a "dork?" I think that internally a lot, but I don't believe I actually said it in a thread. Please point it out if so.

What could be more fair than distributing wealth to the people serving their fellow people? What is fair about stealing money from those who work hard to provide needed goods and services and handing it off for free for those who don't?

You take the "rising tide" for granted. Its name is free market capitalism, and it will recede from our nation if you and your ideological cohorts keep sponging from it. Don't take for granted the strong swimmers to whom you want to shackle everyone else. And don't take for granted the need of every human being to struggle and strive in order to achieve (along with some measure of financial success) self-respect.

Struggle and perseverence are ennobling. Learning new skills and adapting to changing circumstances are enobling. Barkoloungers are not.

Jonathan, the “dork” thing was Rosemary’s – what this thread was about before we high-jacked it for this silly argument about markets.

You are mistaken in only one important way: you’ve infused the social tools of free enterprise and markets with an infallibility and morality that they simply do not possess. Those inexplicable beliefs lead inevitably to the defense of a system that mightily “values” a CEO who cheats his employees, customers and investors and runs a healthy organization into the ground and devalues a nurse or a teacher or a firefighter who might save your child’s life. Who cares what the market values? It’s a cold, amoral and (pay attention here) often ineffective and destructive social force. Strong regulatory forces are needed to even allow markets to function and progressive taxation is the only mechanism that keeps a market-based society the least bit fair and productive.

Hey Shep:

Why, all of us care what the market values. The market values what we value, if we're honest enough to admit it. We are the market.

I agree that the market will serve our darker wants just as efficiently as it serves our true needs, but that's just an admission that freedom comes with responsibility, which is news to no one.

I agree that the the market functions best within a regulatory framework, and that we as citizens must be vigilant to ensure that that framework is not warped by corrupted legislators and judges. But the means to do that are available to us all. It is only when we, and our regulators, fall asleep at the switch that Enrons become possible.

The CEO, nurse, teacher and firefighter are each worth what the market pays them, though the market can be obstructed by unions to be sure. When you think of undervalued teachers, I bet you're thinking of the plurality or majority of hard-working and motivated teachers who had a strong positive influence on your formative years. You probably aren't dwelling on the incompetent burnouts who they were shackled to, and who even now pull their salaries down as surely as concrete shoes pull down a Mafia informant. When you think you're indicting the free market, you're really accusing the NEA.

The free market isn't infallible, it's just geometrically better than anything else that comes along. Your preferred methods have been tried in other countries, most of which are trying harder to emulate our ways. Sooner or later everyone will catch on, and the whole world will be better for it.

Hey Jonathan, if you're for vigilantly regulated free-markets, I don't thing there's much difference in our methods. And if your rationale for the value of markets is that they let people choose what they want, then I don't see why you should object to unions (couldn't they be considered "free-market" forces?). If you've spent any time in the boardroom, you've seen your share of "incompetent burnouts" (and some who never had much of a wick to burn out in the first place) brought to you entirely by the competitive free-market. By the way, name three people outside Microsoft who "value" Windows.