The failure of the conservative experiment before your very eyes

[M14 Shooter]

Of course, there are no facts that will sway some. Europe has already proved that austerity policies are a total failure.

If they fail, it's only because of the entitlement mentality of the people in those countries, who feel entitled to riot when their entitlements are threatened.
That fact will not sway you, of course.

I'm sure you're right. I'm sure that is the only reason.

Heh.
Please describe how and why the austerity programs of Europe 'failed"

 

[Avorysuds]

What I don't get is how someone can blame Austerity for not fixing a problem that was created by massive overspending and high taxes... Especially when that Austerity was weak as shit.

Harding proved you can shrink Government and bring a country out of a depression then create an environment for a booming economy. That happened in the US, right after a progressive created a depression... Then another progressive created another depression, Hoover, and FDR only made it worse.

That's reality.

 

[jwoodie]

My quality of life is better when the parks are nice, when the kids are being educated properly, when the city looks nicer. It's not just about me.

Marvellous irony! The story about an apartment owner destroying his own property is pretty good, too. Don't blame the deadbeat tenants, who know it takes three to six months to evict them and repair the damage.

That's right. Throw the low income folks under the bus in favor of the slumlord.
Nice well thought reply.

PC and naivete on display. Do the "slumlords" sneak over at night and throw trash in the hallways and break out the windows of their own buildings? Should "low income folks" be excused from paying rent or maintaining their dwellings?

 

[EricJ]

Maybe if Kansas schools were free to teach instead of following the bureaucratic insanity of the Obama administration they could save a couple of bucks and get kids to learn something besides putting a condom on a banana.

You mean like how Kansas schools try to indoctrinate students with creationism? How they try to claim that science is a religion? That's a whole new thread on conservative failure. But thanks for pointing it out in this this thread. Not that we needed any more evidence of fail of course...

Kansas Creationists Are Claiming That Science Is a Religion VICE United States

 

[Hutch Starskey]

Of course, there are no facts that will sway some. Europe has already proved that austerity policies are a total failure.

If they fail, it's only because of the entitlement mentality of the people in those countries, who feel entitled to riot when their entitlements are threatened.
That fact will not sway you, of course.

I'm sure you're right. I'm sure that is the only reason.

Heh.
Please describe how and why the austerity programs of Europe 'failed"

Read the link I supplied earlier.
Please link something that supports your point.

 

[g5000]

Substitute "Obama" for "Brownback" and you would have a pretty good picture of the national economy.

Except that in the past 12 months, unemployment has gone down in 49 states.

Guess which state in which it did not go down?

 

[Hutch Starskey]

My quality of life is better when the parks are nice, when the kids are being educated properly, when the city looks nicer. It's not just about me.

Marvellous irony! The story about an apartment owner destroying his own property is pretty good, too. Don't blame the deadbeat tenants, who know it takes three to six months to evict them and repair the damage.

That's right. Throw the low income folks under the bus in favor of the slumlord.
Nice well thought reply.

PC and naivete on display. Do the "slumlords" sneak over at night and throw trash in the hallways and break out the windows of their own buildings? Should "low income folks" be excused from paying rent or maintaining their dwellings?

PC? I didn't see any suggestion in the post you responded to that this was the case. It said " rundown apartment buildings". As in not maintained by the owner.
Where did you see that tenants were to blame?

 

[M14 Shooter]

Of course, there are no facts that will sway some. Europe has already proved that austerity policies are a total failure.

If they fail, it's only because of the entitlement mentality of the people in those countries, who feel entitled to riot when their entitlements are threatened.
That fact will not sway you, of course.

I'm sure you're right. I'm sure that is the only reason.

Heh.
Please describe how and why the austerity programs of Europe 'failed"

Read the link I supplied earlier.

Your photo essay does not supply the information necessary to complete your task. Try again.

Please link something that supports your point.

Here's 9.
greece austerity riots - Google Search

 

[Hutch Starskey]

Of course, there are no facts that will sway some. Europe has already proved that austerity policies are a total failure.

If they fail, it's only because of the entitlement mentality of the people in those countries, who feel entitled to riot when their entitlements are threatened.
That fact will not sway you, of course.

I'm sure you're right. I'm sure that is the only reason.

Heh.
Please describe how and why the austerity programs of Europe 'failed"

Read the link I supplied earlier.

Your photo essay does not supply the information necessary to complete your task. Try again.

Please link something that supports your point.

Here's 9.
greece austerity riots - Google Search

Oh, I see it says right here that the riots are to blame.
Really?
Are the riots the cause or a symptom?
There are literally hundreds of articles on this subject. Instead of making dumbass assertions, read some of them.

 

[M14 Shooter]

If they fail, it's only because of the entitlement mentality of the people in those countries, who feel entitled to riot when their entitlements are threatened.
That fact will not sway you, of course.

I'm sure you're right. I'm sure that is the only reason.

Heh.
Please describe how and why the austerity programs of Europe 'failed"

Read the link I supplied earlier.

Your photo essay does not supply the information necessary to complete your task. Try again.

Please link something that supports your point.

Here's 9.
greece austerity riots - Google Search

Oh, I see it says right here that the riots are to blame.

You wanted support for my claim regarding the riots.
I supported the claim by illustrating there were, indeed riots when the austerity measures cane down.
These riots illustrate the entitlement mentality of the people in those countries, who feel entitled to riot when their entitlements are threatened.

 

[Hutch Starskey]

I'm sure you're right. I'm sure that is the only reason.

Heh.
Please describe how and why the austerity programs of Europe 'failed"

Read the link I supplied earlier.

Your photo essay does not supply the information necessary to complete your task. Try again.

Please link something that supports your point.

Here's 9.
greece austerity riots - Google Search

Oh, I see it says right here that the riots are to blame.

You wanted support for my claim regarding the riots.
I supported the claim by illustrating there were, indeed riots when the austerity measures cane down.
These riots illustrate the entitlement mentality of the people in those countries, who feel entitled to riot when their entitlements are threatened.

I never disputed the fact there were riots. I disputed your point that they caused the failure of austerity.

Your position:

"If they fail, it's only because of the entitlement mentality of the people in those countries, who feel entitled to riot when their entitlements are threatened.
That fact will not sway you, of course."

It's not a cause or a fact.

 

[mikegriffith1]

Of course, there are no facts that will sway some. Europe has already proved that austerity policies are a total failure. Yet, in spite of all the evidence, US conservatives try it over and over - no matter how many times it fails. The very definition on insanity!

Gosh, what amazing ignorance.

Pray do tell how Europe has proven that "austerity policies" have failed? Liberal tax-borrow-and-spend policies got those nations into their current mess to begin with.

For that matter, tell me which European nation has practiced "austerity"? The only one that has come close is Greece, and Greece's modest austerity has given the country some hope of getting out of the credit dog house and of starting down the road to fiscal sanity.

Canada practiced genuine "austerity" in the 1990s, slashing spending and laying off thousands of government workers, in addition to cutting taxes. Guess what happened?

The Liberal Party of Canada announced a new austerity budget, a deliberate anti-Keynesian agenda of “smaller and smarter government.” They cut spending by 10% over two years, laid off 60,000 federal workers over three years, and eliminating the deficit in two years. For the next 11 years, Canada ran a surplus, cut the national debt in half, and reduced the size of government from 53% of GDP to today’s 39%.​

And they did it without raising taxes. In fact, fiscal surpluses coupled with strong economic growth rates allowed Ottawa to cut taxes, including personal income taxes (to 29%), the federal VAT (to 5%), capital gains taxes (to 15%), and the corporate income tax (now approaching 15%). The government has also expanded tax-free savings accounts in Canada. ( Canada Did It Why Can t We Human Events )​

 

[RandallFlagg]

.

This is why the "strategy" of cut, cut, cut simply cannot work.

Here in Colorado, we have a tax-cut crusader named Douglas Bruce who has been able to influence several tax-cut bills. As a result, many of our parks are in disrepair, many of our schools are in lousy shape and getting lousier, and there are so many potholes in many of our streets that it's like driving through a freaking war zone, even in the "good" areas.

There is a quality of life issue to consider. Mr. Bruce, the owner of several nasty, run down apartment buildings, does not care about quality of life and is making sure that he doesn't have to pay for it.

My quality of life is better when the parks are nice, when the kids are being educated properly, when the city looks nicer. It's not just about me.

Life is about nuance, equilibrium, and clearly many don't understand that.

.

The "quality of life" in Colorado? Are you serious!?!?!? I travel to Colorado numerous times a year to see friends. Driven on a Colorado road lately? Jesus Christ! Been on one of those toll roads that the people pay to foreign countries to drive on?

Driven on a road in Kansas? Best roads in the country. Colorado? Potheads and beggars. Yes sir. GREAT quality of life!!

Go ahead and start a poll asking people if they'd rather live in Colorado or Kansas.

That's BS of the highest order. You are comparing apples to oranges. Young people - just starting out and raising families choose Kansas everyday over Colorado. Hell, take the mountains out of the equation and what the hell do you have? Kalifornia.

Again, ride the roads in Colorado - then go to Kansas and ride their roads. No comparison. Buy a house in Kansas - then buy the same house in Colorado. No comparison. Raise a family in Kansas (with their schools) and then do it in Colorado. No comparison. Hell, folks from Kansas go to Colorado to ski ever year. They go HOME to Kansas.

I mean, think about it. The Taxpayers pay their taxes to have roads built in Colorado. THEN, in order to ride on the "decent" highways (that they built) they have to pay a toll (which goes to France or Germany) to ride on the roads that THEIR tax money built. Yeah, makes perfect sense to me. Go downtown to LODO - watch the potheads and the drunks piss in the street because they have no public facilities. Hell, if you are lucky, you can watch the drunk bum taking a crap on the sidewalk.

Yeah....Life is great in Colorado. That's why I live in Montana. But I raised my family in Kansas for 25 years after I retired from the Army. If I had it to do over - I would do the EXACT same thing today. Screw Colorado.

 

[Iceweasel]

Rachael Madcow and MSNBC? Seriously?

Tax Cuts of Kansas Already Improving the State s Economy

Tax Cuts of Kansas Already Improving the State’s Economy

...Arthur Laffer, one of the three economists who co-authored An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of States earlier this year, advised Governor Brownback during the crafting of the tax cut bill. In his book, Laffer presents irrefutable evidence that lowering tax rates on small businesses allows more of them to be created, leading to more jobs and stronger economic growth.

This evidence and logic, however, fly in the face of conventional wisdom: that government spending creates jobs and by starving the government, the economy suffers. The cast of fools promoting this nonsense in the national media seized upon a single piece of data — that Kansas state government revenues for the current fiscal year have dropped slightly — to make the case that Kansas was soon going to disappear into a morass of unemployment resulting in massive cutbacks in state services for roads, education, and such. Leading the parade of such Keynesian dreamers was Michael Hiltzik, author of The Economy Hub for the Los Angeles Times. He called Kansas a graveyard, thanks to Brownback, Laffer, and those knuckle-dragging tea partiers:

The graveyard is where the economy of Kansas has been buried since 2012, when Brownback and his Republican state legislature enacted a slew of deep tax cuts in a tea party-esque quest for economic “freedom.”

He decried those tax cuts which “allow everyone from freelancers and petty contractors to huge partnerships to avoid any state income tax at all.” As evidence for the failure of those cuts to work, he pointed to a single piece of data: the report from the Kansas state treasurer’s office that revenues this year have dipped slightly. What Hiltzik failed to mention was that they dipped due to the change in capital gains taxes in 2013 that forced many to sell in 2012 to avoid the higher taxes in 2013. This skewed revenue flow made for an incomplete and inaccurate comparison of revenues to the year before.

He also failed to mention that Kansas Budget Director Shawn Sullivan, on the day of the announcement of the shortfall, said that not only does the state have enough reserves to cover the temporary shortfall, but, "We feel like we’re going to be OK.”

Next in line were the worthies at the New York Times calling themselves the Editorial Board. It called Brownback’s tax cuts “ruinous” and “spectacularly ill-advised,” and the temporary shortfall proved, to their satisfaction at least, that “states cannot cut their way to prosperity. They need every tool of government to nurture growth, and those tools require money.”

Stephen Moore, the Heritage Foundation’s chief economist and co-author with Laffer of Inquiry, happily put the matter to rest:

What is irrefutable from the evidence in the states, not just Kansas, is that strategic tax-rate reductions can ignite growth and employment….

Over the past two decades, the nine states without an income tax have had double the population growth and more than double the income growth of states with very high income taxes. These results are statistically significant, which means it is very unlikely they happened by chance.

 

[Seawytch]

Liberal States Outperform Conservative Ones as Republicans Push More Trickle Down

 

[Hutch Starskey]

Rachael Madcow and MSNBC? Seriously?

Tax Cuts of Kansas Already Improving the State s Economy

Tax Cuts of Kansas Already Improving the State’s Economy

...Arthur Laffer, one of the three economists who co-authored An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of States earlier this year, advised Governor Brownback during the crafting of the tax cut bill. In his book, Laffer presents irrefutable evidence that lowering tax rates on small businesses allows more of them to be created, leading to more jobs and stronger economic growth.

This evidence and logic, however, fly in the face of conventional wisdom: that government spending creates jobs and by starving the government, the economy suffers. The cast of fools promoting this nonsense in the national media seized upon a single piece of data — that Kansas state government revenues for the current fiscal year have dropped slightly — to make the case that Kansas was soon going to disappear into a morass of unemployment resulting in massive cutbacks in state services for roads, education, and such. Leading the parade of such Keynesian dreamers was Michael Hiltzik, author of The Economy Hub for the Los Angeles Times. He called Kansas a graveyard, thanks to Brownback, Laffer, and those knuckle-dragging tea partiers:

The graveyard is where the economy of Kansas has been buried since 2012, when Brownback and his Republican state legislature enacted a slew of deep tax cuts in a tea party-esque quest for economic “freedom.”

He decried those tax cuts which “allow everyone from freelancers and petty contractors to huge partnerships to avoid any state income tax at all.” As evidence for the failure of those cuts to work, he pointed to a single piece of data: the report from the Kansas state treasurer’s office that revenues this year have dipped slightly. What Hiltzik failed to mention was that they dipped due to the change in capital gains taxes in 2013 that forced many to sell in 2012 to avoid the higher taxes in 2013. This skewed revenue flow made for an incomplete and inaccurate comparison of revenues to the year before.

He also failed to mention that Kansas Budget Director Shawn Sullivan, on the day of the announcement of the shortfall, said that not only does the state have enough reserves to cover the temporary shortfall, but, "We feel like we’re going to be OK.”

Next in line were the worthies at the New York Times calling themselves the Editorial Board. It called Brownback’s tax cuts “ruinous” and “spectacularly ill-advised,” and the temporary shortfall proved, to their satisfaction at least, that “states cannot cut their way to prosperity. They need every tool of government to nurture growth, and those tools require money.”

Stephen Moore, the Heritage Foundation’s chief economist and co-author with Laffer of Inquiry, happily put the matter to rest:

What is irrefutable from the evidence in the states, not just Kansas, is that strategic tax-rate reductions can ignite growth and employment….

Over the past two decades, the nine states without an income tax have had double the population growth and more than double the income growth of states with very high income taxes. These results are statistically significant, which means it is very unlikely they happened by chance.

When does the trickle-down take effect?
How will we know it when it happens?
What method is used to measure it's effect?

 

[Dragonlady]

Of course, there are no facts that will sway some. Europe has already proved that austerity policies are a total failure. Yet, in spite of all the evidence, US conservatives try it over and over - no matter how many times it fails. The very definition on insanity!

Gosh, what amazing ignorance.

Pray do tell how Europe has proven that "austerity policies" have failed? Liberal tax-borrow-and-spend policies got those nations into their current mess to begin with.

For that matter, tell me which European nation has practiced "austerity"? The only one that has come close is Greece, and Greece's modest austerity has given the country some hope of getting out of the credit dog house and of starting down the road to fiscal sanity.

Canada practiced genuine "austerity" in the 1990s, slashing spending and laying off thousands of government workers, in addition to cutting taxes. Guess what happened?

The Liberal Party of Canada announced a new austerity budget, a deliberate anti-Keynesian agenda of “smaller and smarter government.” They cut spending by 10% over two years, laid off 60,000 federal workers over three years, and eliminating the deficit in two years. For the next 11 years, Canada ran a surplus, cut the national debt in half, and reduced the size of government from 53% of GDP to today’s 39%.​

And they did it without raising taxes. In fact, fiscal surpluses coupled with strong economic growth rates allowed Ottawa to cut taxes, including personal income taxes (to 29%), the federal VAT (to 5%), capital gains taxes (to 15%), and the corporate income tax (now approaching 15%). The government has also expanded tax-free savings accounts in Canada. ( Canada Did It Why Can t We Human Events )​

Except that in Canada we have cradle to the grave social programs, none of which were cut in the so-called "austerity" program.

Many people complained that the Liberals balanced the budget by cutting transfer payments to the Provinces and in essence, simply downloaded the federal deficit to the Provinces.

It should also be noted that the Liberals took over an economic mess handed to them by the Brian Mulroney Conservatives who held power for nine years. As seems to be true of conservative government, Mulroney increased the size of the cabinet, and the government. So the Liberals were certainly in a position where cutting the size of the government was possible.

 

[SwingVoter]

.
many of our schools are in lousy shape and getting lousier

and have the teachers' unions offered to move to 401k's like the rest of America?

 

[jwoodie]

PC? I didn't see any suggestion in the post you responded to that this was the case. It said " rundown apartment buildings". As in not maintained by the owner.
Where did you see that tenants were to blame?

You have obviously never owned rental property.