Capitol Hill Blue Forums Political Issues Campaign 2020 Democrating Efforts

We used to have a large collection of folks who would copy/paste RW talking points, thinking that's what debate is. I guess we eventually wore a lot of them down.

But notice how when you get a con who CAN debate, it gets interesting?
Because it is interesting. Keeps me honest, that's all I know.

How much mileage can one get out of "libtards are all poopyheads"?

As for MaR's assertion that large population centers generally go blue because they need infrastructure and spending on services, of course!
What do you expect large cities to do, hold bake sales and charge sidewalk tolls the moment you leave your apartment?

Every single time an entire state, or even a large city, tries to do the libertarian "drown government in the bathtub" thing, the tax base gets pissed off because quality of life in the city takes a steep nosedive.

I get that it's a time honored American tradition to bitch and moan about paying taxes, but we tried running large cities without them, and it was an endless series of disasters, epidemics, crime waves, garbage piling up everywhere, homes and businesses burning and starting large fire conflagrations that consumed entire neighborhoods, buildings collapsing, poisoned water, you simply cannot run a decent size city without a healthy tax base.

It's been tried before. It didn't work.

There's a collection of urban tax havens in some Brazilian cities.
They're called "favelas", and folks in favelas NEVER pay taxes...except they do pay, and pay and pay and pay, just not to the city. Instead, they wind up paying "protection" to the drug lords who run the favelas.
So you see, even when you eliminate taxation altogether in an urban environment, someone eventually comes around and demands you pay up anyway.

Based on DP and Facebook, the answer is "all the mileage," because there isn't actually a debate, just people looking for in-group validation.



Yeah, that's even worse than it appears.

https://www.opb.org/news/article/po...o-longer-respond-to-all-emergency-calls/


It's 240 years of incessant whining by people who can't connect "paying the bills" with "any level of civilization at all."

From the link I posted, I give you the libertarian paradise:

I thought I might add that not once have the Dems taken over from the Republicans without inheriting a financial disaster. Obama, for instance, inherited the worst recession since the depression of 1920.

As a proud Republican I can see that you may have missed that one and every other one of Dems winning against Republicans. Kinda says something about the grand plans of the Republicans. Right now they are running historic deficits and apparently adding 1 TRILLION to the debt every year. I know, Obama added to the debt - the difference is that he, basically, saved the entire economy from absolute failure. Anyway, next time you claim Republican fiscal responsibility be careful!

I have been arguing this for almost 30 years here at CHB, it isn't fiscal conservancy that people want, it is fiscal spending, as high and mighty as possible, as long as they agree with where the money is getting spent. The fact that Trump, who at various times has been a Democrat and a Republican (but always a moron), is spending at ridiculous levels, doesn't mean that the Dems wouldn't howl if he decided to reduce government spending. They would cut that money in different places in the budget and spend it on something that they like, just like the Republicans do.

It is the same animal, just different colors with different priorities. The budget deficits are so large right now, that thinking that they will ever be reduced is a fairy tale. There will be algebraic gymnastics in future budgets that claim they will reduce the deficit by 2% over 10 years, but we know that will never happen. Both sides suck, nothing can be done about it.

I may have missed it, but how do tax cuts figure into your algebraic gymnastics? According to one point of view, it's really stupid to cut back on income when you are buying stuff and need to make payments.

Let me put that into a simpler question: why would anyone cut taxes when we are running increasing deficits?

Looks like they succeeded in drowning that thar gubmint in the bathtub alright.

I'm sure it will work out just fine for everyone involved.

Very much this.

In a high tech society, you are going to spend or you are going to take immediate downgrades in your standard of living. So slashing revenues isn't really a sane option.

It is also worth mentioning that I spent quite a bit of time working on taxes last month, and the sorts of allowances made to working and middle class people took a beating, while life just got way easier on rich folks and C corporations.

Of course what the C corporations did was massive stock buybacks. Investment wasn't really a thing.