Saturday, October 22, 2016

Planks, Skis and Boards

From MP Debate 3.
"Platform planks may become water skis or diving boards..." Jim

"I find your comment interesting, since these two have incredibly different stated platforms. And the commenters here are fascinated with behaviors.
I find Hillary's plan to increase taxes greatly, grow government intrusion / spending, nominate Liberal activist justices, etc very concerning. I hope the GOP stays in control of the House and Senate... 
Of course then we will need to listen to continuing comments from the Left regarding how the GOP is stalling the proper functioning of the government..." G2A

"Hillary Clinton's tax increase proposal is about $50 billion a year, about 1.3% of the federal budget. 
What ought to be concerning to someone who loves to debt scold is the fact that the Republican candidate is proposing to slash taxes by over 10 times that amount with no meaningful corresponding spending cuts." Sean
I questioned Sean's numbers over at MP but it did not get through...  So here we go.

I find it very difficult that Hillary is going to pay for her wish list with $50 Billion...  Let's name them...

  • Free or reduced Higher Education for many
  • College loan reductions for many
  • Increased infrastructure spending
  • Stabilize social security and medicare
  • Stabilize ACA / Universal Healthcare
  • Additional investment in training and clean energies
  • Addiction and Mental Health treatment investments
  • Increase welfare spending (ie no child in poverty)
Especially when the additional taxes, regulations, mandated benefits / wages, etc will pressure companies to automate or off shore more jobs...

Now I whole heartedly dislike Trumps plan however it would reduce the cost of doing business in the USA, so more companies may stay, locate or expand here.  The big question is what will finally convince companies like Toyota to move their Prius manufacturing here?  Please remember that the consumer has decided that foreign made product is fine and they happily send their money over seas instead of into the pockets of American workers.

20 comments:

John said...

Left a comment here. We will see if it shows up.

Sean is being very reluctant in defending his "It's Only a $50 Billion Tax Increase" comment... Both here and at MP, where my comment made it on Try 2...

Sean said...

Not reluctant at all. You haven't provided any counter-numbers of your own. Now, I've seen a different estimate of Hillary's plan totaling $150 billion. Even at that level, it's just over a quarter of Trump's deficit-busting tax plan. And at least with Hillary's plan, we know people are going to get health care and be able to go to college and we're going to make progress on clean energy and women will get paid leave when they have a baby. The Trump plan is nothing more than George W. Bush's disastrous economics on steroids.

And even if Trump's plan reduces the cost of doing the business in the USA in the short-term, the damage done by the increase in the debt is going to undo those modest short-term improvements. But feel free to continue to contort yourself into backing Trump's approach. It's typical conservative way -- debt only matters when a Democrat is President.

John said...

This looks like a good and scary site.

58 increase proposals $214 Billion / yr
6 savings proposals $-10.9 Billion / yr
81 proposals with indeterminate cost

I am guessing "indeterminate" means expensive...

Sean said...

You can't look at just one side of the ledger, though. (Although, it ought to scare you that the same site you linked to shows Trump is proposing to increase spending on top of his huge tax cut. It's like you didn't learn anything from the 1980s or 2000s.)

John said...

I am painfully aware of the risks of going down the Voodoo Economics Path again.

However I am more afraid of high taxes / hand outs / government control and their unexpected consequences than I am of debt. Besides I keep hoping that someone will actually demand that the government use the $6+ trillion we give them each year more effectively.

This frog is feeling a bit warm.

Sean said...

The explosion of debt under Trump will inevitably lead to higher taxes.

John said...

The alternatives certainly are bleak...

It looks like the water will continue getting warmer and the USA will continue to become less globally competitive.

I wonder what it felt like in Rome as the Empire declined over decades?

Sean said...

"the USA will continue to become less globally competitive"

What evidence is there that the U.S. is "less globally competitive"? Say what you will about our economic performance, but compared to other First World countries, we're doing quite well since the Great Recession (GDP growth rate faster than the EU and OECD, for instance).

John said...

Thank you for making the case for me. Edward and I just had a similar exchange on MP Debate 3. Why would anyone want to emulate Europe?

"That HUGE budget is #22 out of the 25 most industrialized nations as a % of GDP.

Government spending as a % of GDP does represent re-investing in the selected countries needs and prospects.

My Minnesota sensibilities say we likely do need to match our Scandinavian brothers and sisters in the top 5, but, maybe a nice dead center #13 out of 22 at 44% (just behind Span & Germany and a little ahead of GB) solves all of our Social Security woes, brings our infra-structure to world class standards and goes a long ways to a sustainable healthcare solution.

Fix those 3 items and next thing you know everybody's feeling pretty good on the right track/wrong track continuum and, since perception is reality, thinking we're great is a condition on the way to being great.

Try selling that to Paul Ryan on making America great again....." Edward


"You live in the most influential and wealthy country in the world...

And you think we should adopt practices of country's who have been struggling to compete globally / grow economically?

Now I do support learning from the best practices of others, however I prefer that they are truly more effective / efficient." G2A

Sean said...

No one is suggesting that we emulate Europe in all respects. Burn that strawman to the ground!

John said...

Oh Please... Let's look at the list... Which European ideas aren't Liberals eager to adopt?

•Free or reduced Higher Education for many
•College loan reductions for many
•Increased infrastructure spending
•Stabilize social security and medicare
•Stabilize ACA / Universal Healthcare
•Additional investment in training and clean energies
•Addiction and Mental Health treatment investments
•Increase welfare spending (ie no child in poverty)

Especially when the additional taxes, regulations, mandated benefits / wages, stronger Unions, etc will pressure companies to automate or off shore more jobs...

Sean said...

Are you asserting that America's greatness is because our colleges are expensive or because we have a less-than-universal system of healthcare or we allow some children to be in poverty?

For cripes sake, a new mother in China gets 14 weeks of paid leave (at 100% of their salary) but we can't figure out a way do that here?

Anonymous said...

Indeed. Let's look at the list.

•Free or reduced Higher Education for many - Education is the great equalizer. I'm not surprised that a Conservative would want to price a large portion of the population out of the education picture.
•College loan reductions for many - see above
•Increased infrastructure spending - Heaven forbid that our roads and bridges should be safe and that our citizenry should be about to move about without a lot of hassle. Mobility and commerce are good things, presumably.
•Stabilize social security and medicare - Unless you prefer that the elderly live on the street.
•Stabilize ACA / Universal Healthcare - The countries with the best health care outcomes fall under the "Have Universal Healthcare" category.
•Additional investment in training and clean energies - The only losers in this scenario are the companies and industries who want to pollute our planet.
•Addiction and Mental Health treatment investments - If your foot is broken, you get it fixed...but if your brain is broken? Too bad, so sad.
•Increase welfare spending (ie no child in poverty) - Are we a civilized country or not? Do try to decide.

Joel

John said...

Sean,
I think America is GREAT for many reasons.

But mostly because we had carrots and sticks that strongly motivated people to strive to learn, experiment, work and succeed... If they chose not to, they experienced some very negative consequences. If they chose to, they experienced some very positive consequences.

Unfortunately the Liberal effort to drag us into being a Social Democracy means that the negative consequences are increasingly being removed from the poor performing individual and transferred to society.

And the double whammy is that society is transferring those burdens to the citizens who are making good choices via higher tax rates. Thus reducing the positive consequences that can be realized by striving to learn, experiment, work and succeed...

John said...

Joel,
Thank you for confirming that the Liberal plan is to turn us into a European styled Democratic Socialistic country. I hope it works out better for us than it is for them.

Anonymous said...

If this great country regains the optimism it once had, there is nothing we can't do and do well. But you'll be hard-pressed to find American Optimism in the Republican party or the Conservative camp.

Joel

John said...

What are you talking about...

Trump's slogan is Make America Great Again

John said...

Where as Clinton's is some vague socialistic statement of Stronger Together

Sean said...

The stupid-o-meter has been pegged out by these last two posts.

John said...

You may not want to look at Personal Finance 101 then...
The comments just went down a similar path.