Crazy Economic "Experts"

Sometimes, John McCain appears to be so out-of-touch with reality that you'd think he might be slipping into senility. I tried (honest) to watch the debate last night, but McCain's constant smirk (reminiscent of another Republican moron) drove me back to working on my attic. His commentary on "taxes" is so supid and childish that It was impossible for me to listen to it without wanting to toss something heavy at the television. McSame is the candidate of the rich and powerful. I'm not rich or powerful, therefore he has nothing to say that could possibly have anything to do with my life.

John Nichols, in an article for The Nation (http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2008/10/16-0) said exactly what I was thinking, "But while McCain clung to the failed fantasies of the past, Obama offered America a community rarely served up on the presidential debate stages of recent campaigns: realism. " I read the kind of crap McSame is jabbering in every Republican propaganda piece I get in the mail these days. Some bonehead named "Kudlow" from CNBC is quoted in an RNC piece as saying Obama "has a very poor grasp of basic economic principles. First off, you don't raise taxes during a recession. That's a no-brainer." Great, morons are defining "no-brainers?"

A tax history source stated that "The Revenue Act of 1932 was the first tax law passed during the Great Depression (Revenue Acts, June 6, 1932, ch. 209, 47 Stat. 169). It increased the individual maximum rate from 25 to 63 percent, and reduced personal exemptions from $1,500 to $1,000 for single persons, and from $3,500 to $2,500 for married couples. The NATIONAL INDUSTRIAL RECOVERY ACT OF 1933 (NIRA), part of President FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT's NEW DEAL, imposed a five percent excise tax on dividend receipts, imposed a capital stock tax and an excess profits tax, and suspended all deductions for losses (June 16, 1933, ch. 90, 48 Stat. 195). The repeal in 1933 of the EIGHTEENTH AMENDMENT, which had prohibited the manufacture and sale of alcohol, brought in an estimated $90 million in new liquor taxes in 1934. The SOCIAL SECURITY ACT OF 1935 provided for a wage tax, half to be paid by the employee and half by the employer, to establish a federal retirement fund (Old Age Pension Act, Aug. 14, 1935, ch. 531, 49 Stat. 620).

"The Wealth Tax Act, also known as the Revenue Act of 1935, increased the maximum tax rate to 79 percent, the Revenue Acts of 1940 and 1941 increased it to 81 percent, the Revenue Act of 1942 raised it to 88 percent, and the Individual Income Tax Act of 1944 raised the individual maximum rate to 94 percent."

The previous administrations, Hoover and Bush, certainly set the standard for no-brainers and putting an economic burden on the top income bracket is the smartest way to balance the budget, again. Republicans are the party of "spend and spend and borrow and spend" and Democrats have been, for the last 50 years, the part of social economic responsibility. That is a no-brainer.

There is no "miracle of the market." There is no Santa Claus, Easter Bunny, or magic bullet. Apparently, there are no economic conservative Republicans.