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Sunday, September 06, 2009

That damned Government

What's Mallard raving about today?

Government. Obesity, Prosperity.

How to tell Mallard Fillmore is nuts. "Lowering taxes on the wealthy helps the poor. I want people without insurance to die."

Straw men are fun...and easy to argue with.

10 comments:

Tog said...

How to tell Tinsley is nuts: he believes the Laffer Curve has real-world application.

How to tell Tinsley is a flatulent asshole: he writes and draws Mallard Fillmore.

exanonymous said...

I guess someone doesn't like the soda tax.

Too bad it's Conservative-Libertarian in principle. They don't believe in no taxes (that would be their sister anarchists), they believe that taxes should be proportional to how much a consumer is willing to spend on optional luxuries, or a producer is willing to create in goods. Like soda. Income tax = bad, excise tax and tariffs = good.

Iron Dragon said...

Well, the problem is that Tinsley has a few things off that he needs to look at in terms of history. One thing is this, looking at our levels of economic growth when our income tax rates were highest would show staggering levels of growth. Now mind, there are some possible counter arguments that could be used, we were also practically the only economic power at the time thus we primarily purchased american made products and so did other western and eastern nations. But, when we started cutting taxes economic growth began to stagnate or even decline. Reasons for this include people performing cannibal capitalism where they purchased a healthy company, fired employees, sold off assets, showed a high earnings report then dumped the stock, slaughtering a productive company but pocketing a lot of wealth. Conversely, when you have high taxes you might do things like reinvest in your company to make it a business expense, expand production hire more workers invest more in R&D, all things that create jobs AND try to advance tech which in turn means more people pay taxes because they are able to work.

Also, let's look at the so-called sin taxes. In a lot of cases we do see decreases in purchasing of things like cigarettes, alcohol and other items that are slightly more heavily taxed due to the concerns for health and public welfare. The other key problem is that this is an apples to oranges comparison, income taxes are very different than sales taxes in terms of who they affect, how much they absorb in terms of total income and what they generate in terms of long term and short term growth.

My apologies for the large wall of text.

rewinn said...

@Exo: On the evidence, Tinkley thinks Libertarians are a little bit too communist. I always had my suspicions about them too!

@Iron Dragon: You should apologize for bringing in facts, history and stuff ... without a helpful footnote like ("* Google").

Seriously folks: "Taxing Prosperity WTF"? When our great nation is prosperous again, sure, we should pay down the debt; that's basic basic basic economics. But right now, we're suffering from a collapse in private demand, hence in private supply, ergo the Supply/Demand curves meet at a low level of economic activity. To raise the meeting point, we need to increase public demand (a.k.a. "gummint spending") which will increase actualized supply ergo economic activity. This is basic, Adam-Smith-type economics.

Although maybe all the eConOMISTS are all COMmunISTS too!

I Hate Chuck Asay said...

O Tinsley, you are right: Taxes never go to services, certainly, none that can help us. Rich guys should get everything, while the poor die in the cotton fields. Social conditions, only, affect the poor, because there are no such things as devaluation, economic stimulus, and riots.

No policy can serve multiple purposes--everything is absolute, there is no ambiguity. Ayn Rand, your heroine, was right, and idiots like Relativity Theorists, Quantum Physicists, Renee Descartes and Fyodor Dostoyevski were crazy.

MToje said...

What does "Taxing obesity" even mean? This has the barest makings of a joke in it, but all the bile against taxes obliterates any potential.

Ducky is Right said...

So, Ducky is, I think it's safe to assume, against the income tax. Much more sense to just have a flat tax, and combine it with taxes on specific goods. Right?

Well, no, cause now he's against taxes on specific goods.

See, taxing things like soda, cigarettes, twinkies; things that are less then helpful for public health, to help pay for health insurance makes perfect sense...
Oh, a Democrat is in office? TAX AND SPEND! HEARTLAND! USA! USA! USA!

rewinn said...

If "Taxing Prosperity" discourages prosperity, then OBVIOUSLY we should be taxing POVERTY!!!

Who wants poverty? No one!

Put ALL taxes on the poor and ... they will no longer be poor!

Tinshley, your 80 hours of liquid research really paid off!!!

Kip W said...

Well, the problem is that Tinsley has a few things off that he needs to look at in terms of history.

I would suggest, rather, that Tinsley might have had a couple of things cut that he needed to process long-term memories and create new thoughts. If not by surgery, then by constant self-medication from Dr. Johnny Walker.

Rootbeer said...

I disagree with Tog -- if Tinsley actually believed in the Laffer curve, he would be receptive to the possibility that obesity is prevalent because it is undertaxed AND prosperity is scarce because it is overtaxed, simultaneously.

The only reading of a Laffer curve possible to the type of conservative that mentions Laffer curves these days is to suppose that current tax rates are too high and ought to be reduced.