One of the most entertaining scenes of the seemingly endless Republican primary debate season was Juan Williams’s “food stamp president” question to Newt Gingrich, which Gingrich handled as Manny Ramirez used to handle unprepared pitchers: bait them into throwing the pitch he wanted, hit it out of the park, and give the pitcher a good stare-down as he began to round the bases.
It typified the reason many conservatives wanted to take on President Obama with Gingrich—namely, his ability to effectively challenge the premise of a question and change the conversation. This is a useful skill because the mainstream political press will always seek to force conservatives to play by whatever rules are most advantageous to the liberal establishment, and Gingrich was able to set his own rules, to an extent. But people tend to forget the rules automatically change during a presidential general election: the exposure nominees get, through public appearances, speeches, rallies, and debates, gives candidates an ability to speak over the din of the media and directly to the American people. It raises the volume.
Which is why the selection of Paul Ryan as Mitt Romney’s running mate may make it more difficult—despite what liberals think—to tag Romney with Ryan’s budget as they seek to depict it. Joining the ticket means Ryan will be at full volume, speaking directly to the voters. A poll last week found popular support for Ryan’s budget after it was described in positive terms. If Ryan has the chance to frame the debate about his budget, Democrats may find the Obama campaign’s demagoguery less effective than they think.
Some on the left are sensing this already. Here’s William Saletan on the supposed poll-tested unpopularity of entitlement reform:
So what? Screw the polls. Republicans will be on the right side of the spending debate. They’ll be on the right side of the substance debate, too. Instead of bickering about Romney’s tax returns and repeating the obvious but unhelpful observation that the unemployment rate sucks, we’ll actually have to debate serious problems and solutions. That’s great for the country.
I’d adjust that second sentence slightly: Change the polls. That’s what Ryan will seek to do with the new platform Romney has given him. Ryan has already shown his effectiveness as a spokesman for serious reform. Now he’ll be at full volume.
From 1950 through 1963, the income tax rate for the highest bracket was over 90%. That was an era of growth and prosperity. nOpposing taxation is like ignoring Iran's efforts to acquire atomic weapons. It is disloyal. This is a moment in history when both parties are becoming ever more extreme. They are, in their different ways, putting their silly principles over America's interests.
No more bong hits.
You've got to be kidding, G. That period of American history was a total anomaly. WWII had just ended and the rest of the (formerly) industrialized world was literally in ruins. The U.S. was the king of the world and literally the only manufacturing game in town. U.S. policy during this time committed alot of stupidities (many of which continue to plague us now), but even so we could afford the stupidity because we were so stinking rich and dominant. For example, during this period the U.S. auto industry adopted many of the union benefits and policies that resulted in killing the auto industry in the 70's and since then. Would you advocate that American automakers go back to those same ruinous policies now simply because they were making money hand over fist back in the 50's and 60's? n nAnd what about a 90% bracket on top earners? Have you ever heard of something called the Laffer Curve? You can set a 90% or even 100% tax bracket and still wind up, as Arthur Laffer demonstrated, with far less revenue than you would have if the rate were set at 20% or 30% simply because the rich are not idiots and high tax rates give them every incentive to legally move their money elsewhere to avoid the tax (i.e., tax free municipal bonds, equities, etc.. ). Laffer showed that it is far better to have a lower tax rate that will incentivize people to pay the tax; this brings in far more revenue. n nYour comment also displays a basic fallacy that government can make better use of OUR money than we can ourselves. Simply put, it is not in America's interest to give the federal government more of our money. It is beyond dispute that the U.S. government is an inefficient, wasteful, bloated, corrupt and largely incompetent organization. The key, as the Founders established, is to keep central government limited to a few, vital functions and let the states do the rest. With your formula, we might as well give 100% of our income to the government as anything less is "disloyal."
This is the first time I have heard anyone explain the reason why we got out of the great depression. We were the only remaining manufacturing country left in the world, so no nmatter what we did we would succeed, even with a 90% tax rate. Glad to know there nis intelligence out there.
Please. The highest bracket was 90%, but no one actually paid that rate. Remember the avocado ranches and similar tax dodges? All the high nominal rate did was lead to enormous economically wasted effort, divert resources from productive activity, and give an unfair advantage to those who could hire the lawyers and tax accountants to avoid it.
I agree completely, opposing taxation is disloyal. Therefore I expect no objection to taxing the "loyal" bottom 50% of earners (who pay 0% now) at 10% of their income, including welfare payments and benefits so they will stop bleating about who's not paying "their fair share".
The reason why the 1950s was a period of American prosperity was that Europe and Japan had been devastated by World War II. The U.S. was practically the only intact manufacturing power left in the world. And so we sold lots of stuff–or even gave away stuff in the Marshall Plan–to help those economies rebuild. n nThis ain't the 1950s anymore. Those Japanese we flattened in 1945, came roaring back and that's a major reason why the U.S. automobile industry has declined. n nThere are too many Americans who think that we can re-boot the 1950s, ignoring the fact that the 1950s followed the events of the 1940s.
Only in congress would a person who views every problem as individualism vs. collectivism be considered an intellectual.
President Obama commissioned Simpson-Bowles and then proceded to ignore the recommendations and has spent the country into serious financial jeopardy. What's needed is an overhaul of the entire tax system so that everyone pays something. 50% of wage earners pay no taxes and the top 20% of earners pay the majority of all taxes. Cut the size of government, cut tax rates and make everyone pay something or implement a flat tax; reform social security, medicaid and medicare. Let everyone share the burden of making the hard decisions we need to make to restore prosperity in a country where 26 million people are either unemployed or underemployed and 100 million, excluding social security and medicare, are on the government dole. Now that's what I call a fair deal for everybody. If you want to bang the rich as they're about to do in France by raising tax rates on high wage earners to 75%, then Canada here we come.
A good, though brief essay. I'm going to go off topic. What is it with these "Four Dangers of Destroying Men" ads here? Are they paying the big bucks? Seems kind of creepy to me.
Here is the simplest, most graphic summary I've seen of the problem as it stands today: n n* U.S. Tax revenue: $2,170,000,000,000 n n* Fed budget: $3,820,000,000,000 n n* New debt: $ 1,650,000,000,000 n n* National debt: $14,271,000,000,000 n n* Recent budget cuts: $ 38,500,000,000 n nRemove 8 zeros and pretend it's a household budget: n n* Annual family income: $21,700 n n* Money the family spent: $38,200 n n* New debt on the credit card: $16,500 n n* Outstanding balance on the credit card: $142,710 n n* Total budget cuts: $385 n
Please note that the $14.271 trillion of national debt does not include the tens of trillions of dollars in unfunded liabilities from Social Security and Medicare. Not to mention the trillions of dollars of unfunded liabilities in local and state pension and medical benefits.
Romney + Ryan = Recovery