Slashdot Mirror

Prosecutors didn't indite O.J. Simpson because they didn't like him and wanted to send him to prison for the rest of his life, they indited him because they had two dead bodies in the morgue and a ton of evidence.

What led to Clinton's impeachment wasn't a crime he committed, but a desire among Republicans to remove him from office by any means necessary. Whitewater and Vince Foster were investigated and re-investigated and no dirt was found on the Clintons. So Ken Starr and House Republicans settled for a manufactured perjury charge.

Whereas with Bush and Cheney, we know for a fact that they have broken the law and violated the Constitution countless times. They violated Habeas Corpus, the 4th Amendment (warrantless wiretapping), 5th Amendment (due process), 6th Amendment (speedy trials), 8th Amendment (cruel & unusual punishment) and laws against using federal agencies for partisan gain (attorney firings, Don Siegelman prosecution).

Democrats shouldn't remove Bush and Cheney from office because they don't like them, but because they committed High Crimes and Misdemeanors.

Um, Clinton? There you go.

Exactly. In this country, we investigate crimes, not people - unless your name is William Jefferson Clinton. The Republicans spent tens of millions of dollars investigating and re-investigating every inch of his life, looking for something they could prosecute. The best thing they could come up with was trying to manufacture a perjury case against him, because you can't even prove that he lied about "sexual relations".

If a former judge had unlimited resources to go over your life with a microscope, no probable cause or due process required, how good would you look?

Do some research on welfare (AFDC). ~55% of people on welfare in the US are off of it in less than 2 years: 20% are on welfare for less than 7 months. 15% are out in 7 to 12 months. 19% are off in 1 to 2 years.

That leaves 27% who are on it for 2 to 5 years, and only 20% who are on it over 5 years. The debates about this shit are so far divorced from reality anymore it is driving me crazy. THE US DOES NOT HAVE A WELFARE PROBLEM. For the most part it is working exactly as it should - helping people to become self-reliant.

I don't have a problem with Clinton getting a blowjob. I don't have a problem with him lying about it. I DO have a serious problem when the lying is under oath as part of testimony in a court of law. They call this perjury. Last time I looked, it was a crime.

100%, Grade A bullshit. Not only did Clinton not commit perjury, he didn't lie under the court's definition of "sexual relations".

Republicans weren't investigating Clinton because they had probable suspicion that he committed a crime, they investigated him because they wanted and excuse to get him out of office. Period.

Face it, there are a lot of things that are considered vile beyond belief...until YOUR Party does them.

False equivalency. The wingnut base is perfectly happy to flip flop on issues, like the importance of military service when Clinton was running against the first Bush, and the second when he was running against Gore, McCain and Kerry. Or how serious perjury is, when they invented perjury charges against Clinton, vs calling for a pardon for Scooter Libby's perjury conviction obtained under a Republican appointed prosecutor and judge. Hell, Fred Thompson, who voted to remove Clinton from office, gave a speech were he passionately called for the rule of law and a pardon of Scooter Libby. Our resident dumb fat fuck, Pudge, calls Barbra Boxer a liar for saying the vote to invade Iraq was about "WMD, period" and yet a week later he uses the Administration line that Social Security is in a "crisis" even though it wouldn't hit for almost 40 years and even then would pay out 75% benefits.

Whereas the Democratic base gets pissed when they're sold out by Democratic politicians. Crappy Dems like Joe Lieberman and Al Wynn have been successfully primaried. Lieberman retained his seat but at least he was booted out of the party. And it was the base of the Democratic party that led the fight against telecom immunity, not conservatives or libertarians.

There are a lot of crappy Dems to be sure (Hoyer, Reid, Pelosi) but at least the party is only half rotten as opposed to 100% rotten like the Republicans (see telecom immunity, torture, etc).

Alternatively, if a Democrat is elected, this'll be quietly forgotten, since it's just election year politics as usual.

Not gonna happen. Senator David Vitter, a Family Values Republican, was busted for prostitution. Wearing diapers. His Republican colleagues gave him a standing ovation when he returned to the Senate. Eliot Spitzer, a former prosecutor who prosecuted prostitution rings, was busted for prostitution. The Republicans in New York said they'd move to impeach him if he didn't resign in 48 hours. The press talked about Vitter for a couple days. They're still talking about Spitzer now, even though he resigned while Vitter is still in office.

The press will rediscover their backbone at the same moment Republicans regain their distrust in an executive branch: the second the next Democrat becomes president.

IANAL, but according to this, this, this and this he did commit perjury.

• The sin of draft dodging when Clinton was running against Herbert Walker Bush, vs when George W. Bush was running against McCain, Gore, and Kerry.
• The importance of having served in the military when Clinton was running against Herbert Walker Bush, vs when George W. Bush was running against McCain, Gore, and Kerry.
• How much responsibility the president bears for the actions of law enforcement agencies on Ruby Ridge (when H.W. Bush had been president for three and a half years) and Waco (when Clinton had been in office for 38 days).
  
• Whitewater vs Harken Energy.
• How serious lying under oath is (which Clinton didn't even do) versus Scooter Libby.
• How Clinton "disgraced the office" by having an affair vs Gengrich and Vitter, just to name two of many Republicans who have had affairs while in office.
• "Cutting and running" from areas where we've deployed troops on Somalia in 1993 and Haiti in 1994, vs Iraq today.
• Surveillance: the conservatives that freaked the fuck out over Carnivore and the Clipper Chip (both of which would have required the use of warrants) vs the far larger NSA warrantless wiretapping.
• Impeachment. Republicans impeached Clinton...because they wanted to impeach him, and settled for a manufactured perjury charge after countless investigations of Whitewater turned up nothing. Whereas the Bush Administration breaks the law (warrantless wiretapping, using federal agencies for partisan gain), subverts the separation of powers (ignores power of the purse, signing statemnts), and has broken four amendments (searches and seizures, due process, cruel and unusual punishment, speedy trials).

They would have to because it would be little more then a political witch hunt.

Huh, and I was just talking about wingnut hypocrisy, too. You talk about how Clinton was impeached for lying under oath (which he didn't do) and two minutes later you blow off any impeachment of Bush and Cheney (who have broken many laws and Constitutional amendments) as "political witch hunt"? You're even faster than Pudge. You need to be taken out back and pistol whipped for being intolerably full of shit. Repeatedly.

Ken Star was told what to investigate. In two occasions he asked for leave to investigate things uncovered but not directly related to his investigation. Clinton was impeached because he intentionally lied in a court of law when he was the chief law enforcement officer in the land, not because of some vast right wing conspiracy. He was since, punished by that court for those offenses, lost his law license and paid fines in one case and a settlement in another relating to it.

That's the right wing story alright. But as is usually the case, the right wing's story and reality have little in common. Short story: unless you could read Clinton's mind, there's no way you could know if he lied. And even if he did lie through his teeth about Monica, it wasn't perjury since it would have to be relevant to the case at hand, and the judge ruled that whatever happened between Clinton and Monica was irrelevant to the Jones case.

And nothing proves the right wing to be full of shit on the subject of perjury than Scooter Libby. Its the same as how terrible avoiding the draft was and how important military service was when Clinton was running against Herbert Walker Bush, compared to when George W. Bush was running against McCain, Gore and Kerry. But then, if they weren't massive hypocrites, they wouldn't be Republicans now would they?

They didn't prosecute Clinton for the sex, they prosecuted him for lying under oath.

No, they prosecuted him because they wanted to prosecute him, because he didn't lie.

Or lying under oath.

Too bad Clinton didn't lie then. Besides, nothing has proved Republicans to be full of shit about "lying under oath" than Scooter Libby. Some of the same Republicans (like Fred Thompson) that voted to impeach Clinton also called for a pardon for Scooter Libby (like Fred Thompson). Some even called passionately for the "rule of law" in the same speech that they also passionately called for a pardon of Scooter Libby (like Fred Thompson).

During the Paula Jones deposition, President Clinton was asked if he had sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky. But before the questioning began, the Jones' lawyers produced the following legal definition of sexual relations:

"For the purposes of this deposition, a person engages in sexual relations when the person knowingly engages in or causes:

1. Contact with the genitalia, anus, groin, breast, inner thigh, or buttocks of any person with an intent to arouse or gratify the sexual desire of any person;
2. Contact between any part of the person's body or an object and the genitals or anus of another person; or
3. Contact between the genitals or anus of the person and any part of another person's body.

Contact means intentional touching, either directly or through clothing."

A lengthy debate followed between the two teams of lawyers. It turned out points 2 and 3 were too broad: anyone accidentally brushing their hips against another person could be accused of having "sex." Judge Susan Webber Wright therefore eliminated points 2 and 3. However, notice that point 3 would have clearly included oral sex performed on Clinton. Its removal set the stage for the controversy to follow.

The Jones' lawyers then asked Clinton if he had sex with Monica Lewinsky based on the remaining definition.

Unfortunately, the definition still contained ambiguities. Who are the "persons" mentioned in the definition? Clinton interpreted it this way:

"For the purposes of this deposition, a person [the deponent, in this case, Clinton] engages in sexual relations when the person [Clinton] knowingly engages in or causes:

1. Contact with the genitalia, anus, groin, breast, inner thigh, or buttocks of any person [that is, any other person, in this case, Monica Lewinsky] with an intent to arouse or gratify the sexual desire of any person [Lewinsky];

Contact means intentional touching, either directly or through clothing."

Given that understanding, the definition clearly does not include oral sex performed on Clinton. Why? Because oral sex is performed with the mouth, and "mouth" is not listed among the other body parts in point 1. Furthermore, a man receiving oral sex is generally considered to be receiving pleasure rather than giving it, and so fails the criterion "to arouse or gratify the sexual desire" of Ms. Lewinsky. Which may make Clinton sexually selfish, but that is not illegal.

Some have argued that Clinton's interpretation of "person" is wrong, and that makes him guilty of perjury. But his interpretation is reasonable at most, and arguable at least. Even if Clinton did misinterpret the most obvious meaning, it is up to prosecutors to prove that he intended to lie about it rather than he was mistaken, something that is impossible to prove. And in any case, it is up the to the prosecution to agree to definitions that are not ambiguous. The Jones' lawyers could have easily eliminated any confusion by replacing the term "person" with "deponent and any second party," but they did not. They could have also asked follow-up questions to clarify anything - indeed, they were invited to by Clinton's lawyers - but they did not. The whole incident is a classic case of prosecutorial incompetence.

The only way to prove that Clinton lied, much les

Poorly conceived, but never implemented plan to give law enforcement backdoor access to computer systems if given a warrant

Actually spying on Americans on a massive scale without warrants. Furthermore, the justification for this program is The War On Terrah. Except the NSA wiretapping started before 911 and didn't stop it.

Those who trade freedom for security deserve neither, and lose both

• Clinton apologized to a communist government for a mid-air crash clearly caused by their pilot
• Clinton was warned point blank that Al Queda was determined to attack the U.S., possibly using hijacked airplanes as weapons, and ignored it
• Clinton sat around on his ass and read a children's book for 20 minutes when he knew the nation was under attack
• Clinton was warned point blank that a coastal city was in danger of being destroyed by a hurricane, and rushed!...to go on vacation
• Clinton stays on vacation after hurricane hits and destroys said coastal city.
• Clinton lied us into attacking and occupying another country
• Clinton's administration did zero planing for how to run said occupied country
• Clinton fired United States Attorneys because they wouldn't press bogus cases against Republicans just before an election
• Clinton started a massive wiretapping program, without warrants, with the NSA
• Clinton's DOJ held American citizens in jail, without trial, and tortured them (yes, sensory deprivation is torture)
• Clinton tried lying us into war again on Iran
• Clinton routinely used recessed appointments to get around the Republican Senate. Remember how Republicans freaked out when Dems discussed filibustering a few of Bush's nominees, when the UpOrDownVote party blocked 60 of Clinton's?

Funny thing though: you don't hear much about Swiss terrorists and their crime rates are extremely low...

That's just because we don't hear about Switzerland in general. They also have a high incidence of handgun violence.

Chaotic Citizen 631995,

See this web site, one of hundreds like it: A Timeline of CIA Atrocities. And this one, too showing U.S. government documents collected by George Washington University: The Secret CIA History of the Iran Coup, 1953.

And, hundreds of books like Blowback

Summary of your comment:

The U.S. government doesn't engage in violent secret behavior.

Besides, other governments engage in violent secret behavior, also.

It's impossible to know what happened in secret, because secrets always remain completely hidden.

Discussing violent secret behavior of the U.S. government is too popular.

People who read Slashdot should focus on the violent behavior of other governments.

Although you haven't read any of the books, or followed the history of the U.S. government of the last 70 years, your knowledge is far superior, and you feel "justified" in being disrespectful.

Not a funny subject: A Timeline of CIA Atrocities.

First off U.S. citizen here so lets get that right out of the way.

Now for the substantive business it's all well and good to mouth platitudes like the U.S. isn't evil but here is the actual history:

Time line of CIA interventions: http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/CIAtimeline.html

Time line of U.S. military interventions: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States _military_history_events

We have been interfering with some other governments business just about EVERY single year since the U.S.founded, that is why "they" hate us. Note that this is entirely against the founding principles of the American republic which were isolationist in nature. Try reading A People History of the U.S. by Howard Zinn and Gore Vidal's perpetual War for Perpetual Peace to see just how "good" we are. Good at propaganda which an American Edward Bernays (Freud's nephew) invented that is...

Technically, Clinton did not commit perjury. Check out this site for a pretty succinct explanation of why he didn't.

While they pay a higher absolute amount- the percentage of their income that they pay in total taxes is lower.

Sales taxes, gas taxes, cell phone taxes, property taxes, school taxes take huge percentages of lower and middle income families compared to high income families.

I agree they pay a higher percentage of income, however the difference is way less than you might think:

TAXES

As Congress has slashed taxes on the rich over the years, it has raised the taxes of the middle class to make up the difference. Here is how the family rates of the rich and the middle class have converged over the postwar years:

The Loss of Tax Progressivity
Effective Family Federal Tax Rate (Income and FICA)1

Year Median Millionaire or Top 1%
1948 5.3% 76.9%
1955 9.1 85.5
1960 12.4 85.5
1965 11.6 66.9
1970 16.1 68.6
1975 20.0 --
1977 -- 35.5
1980 23.7 31.7
1985 24.4 24.9
1989 24.4 26.7
http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/3Taxes.htm

The total tax load as a percentage is actually lower the richer you get.
State Sales taxes
Quintile 1985 1990
Lowest 20% 12.6% 13.8
Second 20% 10.0 10.9
Middle 20% 9.1 10.0
Fourth 20% 8.6 9.5
Next 15% 8.4 9.2
Next 4% 8.2 8.7
Top 1% 7.1 7.6

http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/3Taxes.htm

While they pay a higher absolute amount- the percentage of their income that they pay in total taxes is lower.

Sales taxes, gas taxes, cell phone taxes, property taxes, school taxes take huge percentages of lower and middle income families compared to high income families.

I agree they pay a higher percentage of income, however the difference is way less than you might think:

TAXES

As Congress has slashed taxes on the rich over the years, it has raised the taxes of the middle class to make up the difference. Here is how the family rates of the rich and the middle class have converged over the postwar years:

The Loss of Tax Progressivity
Effective Family Federal Tax Rate (Income and FICA)1

Year Median Millionaire or Top 1%
1948 5.3% 76.9%
1955 9.1 85.5
1960 12.4 85.5
1965 11.6 66.9
1970 16.1 68.6
1975 20.0 --
1977 -- 35.5
1980 23.7 31.7
1985 24.4 24.9
1989 24.4 26.7
http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/3Taxes.htm

The total tax load as a percentage is actually lower the richer you get.
State Sales taxes
Quintile 1985 1990
Lowest 20% 12.6% 13.8
Second 20% 10.0 10.9
Middle 20% 9.1 10.0
Fourth 20% 8.6 9.5
Next 15% 8.4 9.2
Next 4% 8.2 8.7
Top 1% 7.1 7.6

http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/3Taxes.htm

By that logic, explain Switzerland

Here's a write up on gun control in Switzerland.

Ok, I Googled "US federal revenue figures 1980 1985" (without the quotes). I came up with this page which indicates that in constant dollars federal revenue fell after the Reagan tax cuts. But I think the real question is not just whether revenue increased or decreased, but what it did in relation to the rest of the economy. This page seems to indicate that, as a share of GDP, revenue fell after the Bush 43 tax cuts. So it does not seem at all clear to me that decreasing income taxes increases revenue.

I have not seen evidence for that. Can you provide it? 4 years of investigation and $45 million couldn't dig up anything worse than an affair? That's practically saintly by senior politicians' standards.

Well I found this rebuttal to the perjury accusations on a "liberal" site.

Shit I just tried looking for a neocon site and some malware tried to install itself :-(

Anyway, Bush swore an oath to protect the constitution. Many people would say he has broken that in numerous ways.

"People like you have no idea what it means to live in a society where everyone has a gun."

How do you know? Maybe he's Swedish, where every male is required by law to join the army as reserves from age 18 until 30 (34 for officers) and keep a weapon at home:
"The gun policy in Switzerland is unique in Europe. The personal weapon of militia personnel is kept at home as part of the military obligations. This, in addition to liberal gun laws and strong shooting traditions, has led to a very high gun count per capita."

and yet they have far less murders than we do. Every 18-30 yr old Swiss male has an assault rifle at home, yet they have one of the lowest murders per capita in the world, #56 out of 62 countries (US is #24).

Norway has a similar policy, yet they complain when "In the past 16 years at least 18 people have been killed following incidents involving the army's AG3 automatic assault rifle." If only the US had only 18 murders in 16 years!

For Reagan, I recommend you read more of the referenced link. I'll give a brief excerpt.

---
One of the central tenets of supply-side theory is that tax cuts actually increase overall tax collections. There is something faintly foolish about this assertion -- it's like claiming that you can make trees grow taller by cutting them down. But the supply-siders have their own statistics to quote. "During the Reagan tax-cut era," Rush Limbaugh writes, "IRS collections actually nearly doubled... from $550 billion [sic] to about $991 billion."2 This supply-side deception is as common as it is deplorable; it uses nominal dollars instead of constant dollars, which account for inflation. Here are the total tax collections expressed in both:

Tax Collections (billions)3

Year Nominal Constant (87 dollars)
1980 $517.1 728.1
1981 599.3 766.6
1982 617.8 738.2
1983 600.6 684.3
1984 666.6 730.4
1985 734.1 776.6
1986 769.1 790.0
1987 854.1 854.1
1988 909.0 877.3
1989 990.7 916.2
1990 1031.3 914.1
1991 1054.3 894.7
1992 1090.5 895.1

This chart raises two points. First, it allows you to see that real tax collections actually declined in the two years following Reagan's 1981 tax cuts. (In fact, it took until 1985 to recover the 1981 level.) This is exactly the opposite of what supply-siders had predicted. They excuse it by noting that the 1981 cuts were phased in over three years, delaying entrepreneurial investment. But, according to their theory, accumulating tax cuts should have resulted in accumulating -- not declining -- tax collections. (More)

Second, contrary to what Rush implies, real tax collections did not "double" between 1981 and 1989; they grew only 20 percent. This reflects the normal growth that our economy has experienced for centuries, as both our population and productivity have grown. The real question is not whether the tax collections grew, but whether they grew faster than normal under Reaganomics. They did not. The following chart shows the average annual growth of real tax collections under the last 10 presidents. As you can see, Reagan ties for 6th and 7th place:

Average Real Annual Growth of Tax Collections by President4

                              Average
President Annual Growth
Roosevelt 121.3%
Truman 3.7%
Eisenhower 2.4%
Kennedy 4.8%
Johnson 6.9%
Nixon 0.3%
Ford 6.4%
Carter 3.0%
Reagan 2.4%
Bush -0.0%

For a fuller derivation of this chart, see More.
---
(from here)

Want me to run the numbers from Bush II for you?

I think it's a bit fallacious to assume that all rewards must be linear. If you believe that, then take away the 1.5x and 2x overtime pay that non-exempt workers get.

You're not talking about 1.5x/2x; you're talking about 100,000x. If anything, when you get up to dollar values like that, I'd say that linear may be too kind. A person who makes 20k/year simply *cannot* be spending their money on luxury; almost all of it needs to go to necessities. On the other end of the spectrum, a person who makes 2M/year simply *cannot* be spending all their money on necessity; even a huge family wouldn't "need" that much. The only exception, in the latter case, is charitable contributions -- and we give deductions for that.

In short, my driving stance is quite simple: tax rates should reflect how much of a "luxury" money is being spent on, with pure necessity being untaxed, and pure luxury being taxed highly. Ideally, this would be done through sales taxes; however, that gets complicated pretty quickly (what's the tax rate for a canned button mushrooms? Fresh button mushrooms? Fresh oyster mushrooms? Fresh truffles?). Bracketted taxes with deductions for charitable contributions are a good way to approximate this. Augmented with sales taxes, it's a winning situation, in my book.

For Reagan, I recommend you read more of the referenced link. I'll give a brief excerpt.

---
One of the central tenets of supply-side theory is that tax cuts actually increase overall tax collections. There is something faintly foolish about this assertion -- it's like claiming that you can make trees grow taller by cutting them down. But the supply-siders have their own statistics to quote. "During the Reagan tax-cut era," Rush Limbaugh writes, "IRS collections actually nearly doubled... from $550 billion [sic] to about $991 billion."2 This supply-side deception is as common as it is deplorable; it uses nominal dollars instead of constant dollars, which account for inflation. Here are the total tax collections expressed in both:

Tax Collections (billions)3

Year Nominal Constant (87 dollars)
1980 $517.1 728.1
1981 599.3 766.6
1982 617.8 738.2
1983 600.6 684.3
1984 666.6 730.4
1985 734.1 776.6
1986 769.1 790.0
1987 854.1 854.1
1988 909.0 877.3
1989 990.7 916.2
1990 1031.3 914.1
1991 1054.3 894.7
1992 1090.5 895.1

This chart raises two points. First, it allows you to see that real tax collections actually declined in the two years following Reagan's 1981 tax cuts. (In fact, it took until 1985 to recover the 1981 level.) This is exactly the opposite of what supply-siders had predicted. They excuse it by noting that the 1981 cuts were phased in over three years, delaying entrepreneurial investment. But, according to their theory, accumulating tax cuts should have resulted in accumulating -- not declining -- tax collections. (More)

Second, contrary to what Rush implies, real tax collections did not "double" between 1981 and 1989; they grew only 20 percent. This reflects the normal growth that our economy has experienced for centuries, as both our population and productivity have grown. The real question is not whether the tax collections grew, but whether they grew faster than normal under Reaganomics. They did not. The following chart shows the average annual growth of real tax collections under the last 10 presidents. As you can see, Reagan ties for 6th and 7th place:

Average Real Annual Growth of Tax Collections by President4

                              Average
President Annual Growth
Roosevelt 121.3%
Truman 3.7%
Eisenhower 2.4%
Kennedy 4.8%
Johnson 6.9%
Nixon 0.3%
Ford 6.4%
Carter 3.0%
Reagan 2.4%
Bush -0.0%

For a fuller derivation of this chart, see More.
---
(from )

Want me to run the numbers from Bush II for you?

I think it's a bit fallacious to assume that all rewards must be linear. If you believe that, then take away the 1.5x and 2x overtime pay that non-exempt workers get.

You're not talking about 1.5x/2x; you're talking about 100,000x. If anything, when you get up to dollar values like that, I'd say that linear may be too kind. A person who makes 20k/year simply *cannot* be spending their money on luxury; almost all of it needs to go to necessities. On the other end of the spectrum, a person who makes 2M/year simply *cannot* be spending all their money on necessity; even a huge family wouldn't "need" that much. The only exception, in the latter case, is charitable contributions -- and we give deductions for that.

In short, my driving stance is quite simple: tax rates should reflect how much of a "luxury" money is being spent on, with pure necessity being untaxed, and pure luxury being taxed highly. Ideally, this would be done through sales taxes; however, that gets complicated pretty quickly (what's the tax rate for a canned button mushrooms? Fresh button mushrooms? Fresh oyster mushrooms? Fresh truffles?). Bracketted taxes with deductions for charitable contributions are a good way to approximate this. Augmented with sales taxes, it's a winning situation, in my book.

For Reagan, I recommend you read more of the referenced link. I'll give a brief excerpt.

---
One of the central tenets of supply-side theory is that tax cuts actually increase overall tax collections. There is something faintly foolish about this assertion -- it's like claiming that you can make trees grow taller by cutting them down. But the supply-siders have their own statistics to quote. "During the Reagan tax-cut era," Rush Limbaugh writes, "IRS collections actually nearly doubled... from $550 billion [sic] to about $991 billion."2 This supply-side deception is as common as it is deplorable; it uses nominal dollars instead of constant dollars, which account for inflation. Here are the total tax collections expressed in both:

Tax Collections (billions)3

Year Nominal Constant (87 dollars)
1980 $517.1 728.1
1981 599.3 766.6
1982 617.8 738.2
1983 600.6 684.3
1984 666.6 730.4
1985 734.1 776.6
1986 769.1 790.0
1987 854.1 854.1
1988 909.0 877.3
1989 990.7 916.2
1990 1031.3 914.1
1991 1054.3 894.7
1992 1090.5 895.1

This chart raises two points. First, it allows you to see that real tax collections actually declined in the two years following Reagan's 1981 tax cuts. (In fact, it took until 1985 to recover the 1981 level.) This is exactly the opposite of what supply-siders had predicted. They excuse it by noting that the 1981 cuts were phased in over three years, delaying entrepreneurial investment. But, according to their theory, accumulating tax cuts should have resulted in accumulating -- not declining -- tax collections. (More)

Second, contrary to what Rush implies, real tax collections did not "double" between 1981 and 1989; they grew only 20 percent. This reflects the normal growth that our economy has experienced for centuries, as both our population and productivity have grown. The real question is not whether the tax collections grew, but whether they grew faster than normal under Reaganomics. They did not. The following chart shows the average annual growth of real tax collections under the last 10 presidents. As you can see, Reagan ties for 6th and 7th place:

Average Real Annual Growth of Tax Collections by President4

                              Average
President Annual Growth
Roosevelt 121.3%
Truman 3.7%
Eisenhower 2.4%
Kennedy 4.8%
Johnson 6.9%
Nixon 0.3%
Ford 6.4%
Carter 3.0%
Reagan 2.4%
Bush -0.0%

For a fuller derivation of this chart, see More.
---
(from )

Want me to run the numbers from Bush II for you?

I think it's a bit fallacious to assume that all rewards must be linear. If you believe that, then take away the 1.5x and 2x overtime pay that non-exempt workers get.

You're not talking about 1.5x/2x; you're talking about 100,000x. If anything, when you get up to dollar values like that, I'd say that linear may be too kind. A person who makes 20k/year simply *cannot* be spending their money on luxury; almost all of it needs to go to necessities. On the other end of the spectrum, a person who makes 2M/year simply *cannot* be spending all their money on necessity; even a huge family wouldn't "need" that much. The only exception, in the latter case, is charitable contributions -- and we give deductions for that.

In short, my driving stance is quite simple: tax rates should reflect how much of a "luxury" money is being spent on, with pure necessity being untaxed, and pure luxury being taxed highly. Ideally, this would be done through sales taxes; however, that gets complicated pretty quickly (what's the tax rate for a canned button mushrooms? Fresh button mushrooms? Fresh oyster mushrooms? Fresh truffles?). Bracketted taxes with deductions for charitable contributions are a good way to approximate this. Augmented with sales taxes, it's a winning situation, in my book.

Close. From the statistics gathered by the late, great Steve Kangas:

Year Median Millionaire or Top 1%
1948 5.3% 76.9%
1955 9.1 85.5
1960 12.4 85.5
1965 11.6 66.9
1970 16.1 68.6
1975 20.0 --
1977 -- 35.5
1980 23.7 31.7
1985 24.4 24.9
1989 24.4 26.7

Source: The Reagan Years: Taxes; Info from: "the 1948 figure comes from The Statistical History of the United States, 1976; the figures for 1955 to 1983 come from Alan Lerman of the U.S. Department of the Treasury Office of Tax Analysis. The calculations after 1983 come from Eugene Steuerle and John Bakija, Right Ways and Wrong Ways to Reform Social Security (Washington, D.C.: Urban Institute Press, 1993). Figures from the millionaire column for 1948 to 1970 represent the effective tax rates for those earning $1 million a year and come from the U.S. Treasury Department unpublished data set forth on page 1112 of The Statistical History of the United States, 1976. FICA is not included, but the rates would not be affected by a percentage point. The rates from 1977 onward are for the top 1% of families as computed by the Congressional Budget Office tax simulation model and include all federal taxes. Source: the 1992 Greenbook of the House Ways and Means Committee, p. 1510. The effective rate on millionaires would be close to the rate on the top 1 percent."

I expect to see a lot of people commenting "hey, he was smart, he worked hard, he deserves that money". My response to that is: "Really? Is he a hundred thousand times smarter than the average American? Is he a hundred thousand times harder working than some guy who does hot tar roofing for a living? Really?"

Don't get me wrong; complete wealth redistribution eliminates the incentive to work hard in order to better yourself. But a completely "free", "deregulated" economy leads to situations like the early industrial revolution. The economy inherently becomes polarized, as you need money to make money. This is why we have things like the estate tax and higher rates for the upper class. If the rates were like they used to be back in the 1950s/1960s (our nation's biggest boom time, by the way -- yes, you can't really credit that to the taxes, but it's hard to say that the taxes destroyed the boom), we'd be able to provide full healthcare to every American, full education to every American through grad school, double all government funded research, double all infrastructure projects, and still work toward paying off the national debt.

I think 85% may be a bit extreme, but I'd like to see 65% or so. And I say this as someone who has benefitted greatly from having wealthy parents.

>Infact, less than 10% of people with an IQ above 120 have any faith/religous belief.

It's not that I don't believe you or anything, but do you have any sources for that statement? :)

There are studies going back to the 1920's that show this correlation:

http://kspark.kaist.ac.kr/Jesus/Intelligence%20&%2 0religion.htm

http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-thinkingchristians .htm

Or just google "Negative Correlation IQ Religosity"

I would like to point out that Friedman's work fails a crucial test: Actually being true.

Not really. Electronics stores don't accept food stamps, you know. Have you actually met any of these alleged people--let's call them "welfare queens"--or just heard scary stories?

IQ is unpopular because it is mostly in-born, inheritable, and unevenly distributed.

Dissenting opinion...

Which viewpoint is correct? The answer becomes obvious when you compare the lower IQ results of other discriminated minorities around the world, many of whom are of the same genetic stock.

Perhaps the most dramatic example is the Northern Irish. Even though they come from the same ethnic group, Catholics (the discriminated minority) score 15 points lower on IQ tests than Protestants.

In the U.S., both Korean and Japanese students score above average in IQ tests; many scholars agree that, genetically, they are about as close as two ethnic groups can get. But the Korean minority living in Japan scores much lower on IQ tests than the Japanese. Why? The Japanese are extremely racist towards Koreans; they view them as stupid and violent, and employ them only in the dirtiest and lowest-paying jobs. Tensions are so great between the two groups that violence often erupts in the form of riots.

In the U.S., Polish Jews arriving before 1910 were also perceived as stupid (for no other reason than they were accustomed to a different culture and spoke another language). So many "Pollock" jokes arose that Americans still tell them to this day, even if no one remembers why. The Polish Jews suffered heavy job discrimination and suspicion of criminality; not surprisingly, their children suffered low grades and IQ test scores. Today, of course, many Americans hold the opposite prejudice; Jews are viewed as the most brilliant of ethnic groups.

Russian-born Jews who became American soldiers in World War I also scored low on IQ tests. So low, in fact, that Carl Brigham, the creator of the Scholastic Aptitude Test, declared that the results "disprove the popular belief that the Jew is highly intelligent."

From http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-inferiorIQ.htm

Just out of curiosity, do you know how much of your paycheck goes to pay for welfare? My guess is no, because if you had any idea how small the percentage is compared to all the other stuff you pay for, you wouldn't be bringing it up.

Go ahead, look it up. Compare it to the military, medicare/medicaid, and everything else. Hell, I'll even look it up for you, that's what a nice guy I am: Myth: Welfare is to blame for runaway government spending.

Those numbers are from 1992. I'm rather sure our defense budget has drastically increased since then.

Not that old chestnut again. Have you actually ever bothered to read any of the statistics on welfare recipients? Of people on welfare who have children, only 10% have more than 4 kids. A google search for "welfare recipients statistics" turned up these two links as the first hits:

• Myth: People on welfare are usually black, teenage mothers who stay on ten years at a time.
• Myth: Welfare gives people an incentive to avoid work.

While it is true that there are a number of single mothers on welfare, this is largely because of the following scenario (all too common):

1. Woman has job.
2. Woman gets pregnant.
3. Father leaves.
4. Woman takes maternity leave.
5. Despite laws intended to protect her job while she is off, realities force employers to find someone to fill her position. She's assured that this is only temporary.
6. Woman has a baby. By now, living without a wage and on her own has put her heavily in debt.
7. As soon as she can, she goes back to her old job. She finds her position filled by someone new. Typically, she is let go soon after, obstensibly due to "restructuring." The fact that someone has filled her old position and that she must balance child-rearing duties with work, of course, are not the reason (this is sarcasm.)
8. Her child demands a great deal of her time. With no one to help her and no money for a babysitter, her responsibilities make working difficult.
9. The period of unemployment while she was pregnant makes employers regard her as someone "reentering the workforce." Compared to single men with no dependants applying for the same positions, she is regarded as a high risk candidate. Employers are extremely risk averse. Social stigma associated with single motherhood further reduces her attractiveness as a candidate.
10. Reduced to this, she gets on welfare to help her get by. She works a job with low pay but relatively flexible hours, and tries to keep from getting further into debt.
11. On average, within two years, she is able to transition off of welfare: her child becomes eligible for public pre-K programs around age 2.
12. Once school frees up a substantial block of time, she can concentrate on getting a real job.

The old 'welfare queen who has 20 kids and keeps having more to increase her welfare check' is a fantasy invented by men who have no concept of just how difficult bearing children can be. It also completely neglects that the marginal increase in aid for each new child is far less than the increase in costs of raising that child.

Have you ever met anyone on welfare?

They deserve your compassion. I make a lot more money than they'll likely ever make, but let me tell you, I don't know if I would have the strength or fortitude to make it with the odds they're up against. Working a job, taking care of their child, living in poverty, many of them going to school part-time... you should think twice before you judge them.

Not that old chestnut again. Have you actually ever bothered to read any of the statistics on welfare recipients? Of people on welfare who have children, only 10% have more than 4 kids. A google search for "welfare recipients statistics" turned up these two links as the first hits:

• Myth: People on welfare are usually black, teenage mothers who stay on ten years at a time.
• Myth: Welfare gives people an incentive to avoid work.

While it is true that there are a number of single mothers on welfare, this is largely because of the following scenario (all too common):

1. Woman has job.
2. Woman gets pregnant.
3. Father leaves.
4. Woman takes maternity leave.
5. Despite laws intended to protect her job while she is off, realities force employers to find someone to fill her position. She's assured that this is only temporary.
6. Woman has a baby. By now, living without a wage and on her own has put her heavily in debt.
7. As soon as she can, she goes back to her old job. She finds her position filled by someone new. Typically, she is let go soon after, obstensibly due to "restructuring." The fact that someone has filled her old position and that she must balance child-rearing duties with work, of course, are not the reason (this is sarcasm.)
8. Her child demands a great deal of her time. With no one to help her and no money for a babysitter, her responsibilities make working difficult.
9. The period of unemployment while she was pregnant makes employers regard her as someone "reentering the workforce." Compared to single men with no dependants applying for the same positions, she is regarded as a high risk candidate. Employers are extremely risk averse. Social stigma associated with single motherhood further reduces her attractiveness as a candidate.
10. Reduced to this, she gets on welfare to help her get by. She works a job with low pay but relatively flexible hours, and tries to keep from getting further into debt.
11. On average, within two years, she is able to transition off of welfare: her child becomes eligible for public pre-K programs around age 2.
12. Once school frees up a substantial block of time, she can concentrate on getting a real job.

The old 'welfare queen who has 20 kids and keeps having more to increase her welfare check' is a fantasy invented by men who have no concept of just how difficult bearing children can be. It also completely neglects that the marginal increase in aid for each new child is far less than the increase in costs of raising that child.

Have you ever met anyone on welfare?

They deserve your compassion. I make a lot more money than they'll likely ever make, but let me tell you, I don't know if I would have the strength or fortitude to make it with the odds they're up against. Working a job, taking care of their child, living in poverty, many of them going to school part-time... you should think twice before you judge them.

There is a lot of water under the bridge, since 1973. Yes, Chile has a good standing now.

I had plenty of friends who came to the US as economic refugees from Chile in the early '80's. Some were ethnic chinese, who had once prospered and were now bankrupt.

Check out the story of Milton Friedman's "Chicago Boys", a tale of spin and deceit.

May I point you to this little choice quote. It is by a certain Margareth Thatcher, a person no one could mistake for a liberal.

It is becoming politicized simply because one party controls the media, and the other controls the government.

Ahh...so I see you're trotting out the old 'liberal media' chestnut yet again. How cute.

Read this to see why the myth of the 'liberal media' is exactly that...a myth with zero basis in fact.

The successful in this country (the United States of America) have overwhelmingly worked for it!

The link you provided requires registration. Here is a study of my own that gives you a good idea of how upward mobility in the US really works. Here's a handy graphic. You'll note that over a decade or so that in the richest 1% half of them were still in the richest 1% and 80% of them were still in the richest 20%. Are you telling me that of the people born into the top 1% almost all of them worked harder than the other 99% of society to remain in that position?

I am by no means a millionaire or even close, but I also know that I do not have the same desire/drive to do certain things that most millionaires do possess at this time in my life.

I'm not a millionaire either, but I am very smart and have made good economic decisions most of my life. I've worked hard and I fully expect I will be a millionaire by the time I retire, so long as my investments and plans work as well as they have been. That does not, however, mean I am blind to accurately interpreting the statistics. For every dollar of that million I earn over the course of my lifetime, I'm earning about $1.80 for someone else who has done nothing other than loan their money to me through a bank for mortgages and other loans I need in order to have the capital to make money in the first place. In my particular case that means one dollar to person from a less affluent background moving up for two dollars to someone already at the top of the heap. At this rate, I might move to the middle of the pack, but in general it means more and more wealth is consolidating in fewer and fewer hands. It is called condensation of wealth and if you ever to an economics class you should know it plays a big part in almost every economic model.

Wealth disparity in the US is increasing and is higher than about 1/3 of the rest of the world. That isn't terrible, but it is by no means "THE best country for ANYONE to change their status in society."

Americans spend $5,267 per capita on health care every year, almost two and half times the industrialized world's median of $2,193; the extra spending comes to hundreds of billions of dollars a year. What does that extra spending buy us? Americans have fewer doctors per capita than most Western countries. We go to the doctor less than people in other Western countries. We get admitted to the hospital less frequently than people in other Western countries. We are less satisfied with our health care than our counterparts in other countries. American life expectancy is lower than the Western average. Childhood-immunization rates in the United States are lower than average. Infant-mortality rates are in the nineteenth percentile of industrialized nations. Doctors here perform more high-end medical procedures, such as coronary angioplasties, than in other countries, but most of the wealthier Western countries have more CT scanners than the United States does, and Switzerland, Japan, Austria, and Finland all have more MRI machines per capita. Nor is our system more efficient. The United States spends more than a thousand dollars per capita per year--or close to four hundred billion dollars--on health-care-related paperwork and administration, whereas Canada, for example, spends only about three hundred dollars per capita. And, of course, every other country in the industrialized world insures all its citizens; despite those extra hundreds of billions of dollars we spend each year, we leave forty-five million people without any insurance. A country that displays an almost ruthless commitment to efficiency and performance in every aspect of its economy--a country that switched to Japanese cars the moment they were more reliable, and to Chinese T-shirts the moment they were five cents cheaper--has loyally stuck with a health-care system that leaves its citizenry pulling out their teeth with pliers.

The issue about what to do with the health-care system is sometimes presented as a technical argument about the merits of one kind of coverage over another or as an ideological argument about socialized versus private medicine. It is, instead, about a few very simple questions. Do you think that this kind of redistribution of risk is a good idea? Do you think that people whose genes predispose them to depression or cancer, or whose poverty complicates asthma or diabetes, or who get hit by a drunk driver, or who have to keep their mouths closed because their teeth are rotting ought to bear a greater share of the costs of their health care than those of us who are lucky enough to escape such misfortunes? In the rest of the industrialized world, it is assumed that the more equally and widely the burdens of illness are shared, the better off the population as a whole is likely to be. The reason the United States has forty-five million people without coverage is that its health-care policy is in the hands of people who disagree, and who regard health insurance not as the solution but as the problem.

  - Malcolm Gladwell, The New Yorker

F*** the political correctness BS. That's probably the single biggest reason America is declining as much as it is today.
Oh No! The world is going to hell in a hand basket

Love and worship a child? My parents love me, but I think support would be a better word than worship. I like the term 'approve'. My parents will always love me, they'll even support most of my decisions, but their true approval is reserved for when they agree with my actions.

The case of 'approval' for killing varies. My parents are prepared for the case of me killing somebody, as I am military. They acknowledge a difference between killing for wrongful reasons(murder), killing in self defense, killing to defend others, and killing as an act of war. For that matter, the possibility of their child killing a person is something any parent of a police officer has to face. Being a police officer, upholding the law, keeping the peace is considered a good occupation, at least for many parents. It doesn't pay the best, but then again, it's usually a good steady career choice. Police don't often get laid off without some significant cause.

Society teaches parents to approve of military service? Then why is the Army having recruiting difficulties? According to the articles I've been reading, the major problem the recruiters are having are not with the young adults(who are as eager to join up as ever), but with the parents nixing the idea.

Besides, military service is a fairly rare occupation today. Per the CIA factbook, 3.3% of GDP is dedicated to the military, and that there are 108 million people considered fit for military service(both male and female). Of that, 1.4 million are active duty. That's 1.3% of the eligible population. Out of the whole population of 295 million, about .5%. Most military members are support, not combat ops. Police are about .2% of the population in the USA. There is a statistical significant overlap between police officers and reserve/guard service.

Spamming and debt collection, interesting choices. Spamming as a career is very new. Still, most kids don't grow up saying 'I'm going to be a Janitor!'. Most spammers don't get rich, and debt collectors, from my understanding, actually tends to run in families. Still, remember I seperate love, support, and approval. Good parents will love their spamming son, maybe support him in his choice of career(not throw snit fits over it), but not approve(Dear, I'd prefer for you to find a new career path).

It's extremely hard to find completely objective research into this area. The best I could find is an essay on the consolidation of media over the last twenty years and what effect it has had. It's biased, of course, though the facts inside seem to be correct.

If you'd like something more generic, there's the wiki entry, though that doesn't really make a point one way or the other.

It seems like nearly any post I make for a Politics thread is going to get modded -1 Flamebait by somebody. It's hard to tiptoe around that middle ground where everybody can agree or at least tolerate what I've posted.

because that way we will be living in a NICE society

You obviously don't subscribe to the views of Margaret Thatcher (ex-British PM) who once said "There's so such thing as society... only individuals ..."

Under oath, Clinton was given a very specific definition of sexual relations, and according to that definition he didn't have sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky. Where he did lie was to turn around and say the same thing to the American people. We didn't give him any such specific definition, so he should speak our language.

Socialism says that society should try its best not to simply abandon people...
Ah, I see. Thanks for the clarification. I never studied this political stuff at school -- too busy with math and science. But these goals sound very nice! May I ask, however, where "society" gets the massive resources needed for this noble mission?

May I assume that in order to get the resources to meet the noble goals "society" finds it necessary to take money and labor by force from -- I suppose I would've naively said rob -- certain people in order to give to others?

if you studied much history, you would find it highly unusual for democracies to go to war with one another...

That's not such a simple issue. There's correlation, but there's also correlation between peace and wealth of nations, their historic geographic isolation from one another, the rise of the cold war's stabilizing influence during the peak period of democritization, and a number of factors, suggesting that the correlation is not the causation.

track record of the USA is astrounding

On what count?

Like a proper little Darwin