Tea Party

This is kind of ironic having this discussion with Andrew Cuomo ads blowin up in my face in the forums. xD

Statistics are hard. There's a reason there are entire majors for it in college.

Money is worth less every year. It's called inflation, and because it's compounded interest, it happens really fast. $10B in 1970 is $57 billion now. Similarly, GDP (gross domestic product, or the total contributions of everyone working in the entire country for a year) also grows in a compound fashion.

This allows politicians to do amazing things with numbers that let them make shocking statements, that nobody ever calls them on.

Let's say Obama were to hike taxes by $400B. Republicans would say it's the largest tax hike ever! (Well, okay, not adjusted for inflation. And not adjusted for GDP growth. Just in raw dollars. So it's incredibly misleading, but it doesn't matter. People go ZOMG! and rush to the polls to stop the evil commie ***.)

Or let's say Obama cuts taxes by $400B. He can turn around and say it was the largest middle class tax cut ever! (Well okay, again, only if you don't adjust for inflation, and ignore GDP declines for fiscal years A and B, and...)

I mean, it's really easy to find graphs that look like absolute apocalypse. Here's one!



The little asterisk they don't tell you about? That's in gross deficit. Not adjusted for inflation. Not as a percent of GDP. So you're damn right the graph looks like it goes crazy at the end -- the scale is completely bonkers. But nobody cares about math, or statistics, or selective interpretation. It provides a talking point, so we might as well go with it!

Here's another one from the other side!



Look, it's not bad! In fact, it's the Republican years that were bad. Those gosh-durned Democrat years were all sunshine and roses!*

(* If you defer payments on federal obligations, write them off to subsequent years, over-compensate for inflation and fudge the GDP percent growth.)

-------

The point is, saying a particular stat is "biased" is kind of the braindead answer. Of course they are. Mark Twain said there's three kinds of lies in the world: lies, damn lies, and statistics. You have to look at every problem from every statistic: liberal, conservative, and everything in between, and sort out the truth from where they overlap.

Or you could just declare your home team and listen exclusively to what they say, and knee-jerk reject anything else because it's "biased." I guess the latter is easier.

I hope people understand that the ads are served to us in real time by a 3rd party, based on keywords in the current page. We have no control over them, so any ads you see on the site should not be interpreted as representing the official opinion of anyone associated with us. =)

I'm just trying to call from memory here and sort of guessing, but despite
(* If you defer payments on federal obligations, write them off to subsequent years, over-compensate for inflation and fudge the GDP percent growth.)

wouldn't the increase in the deficit also be partly because the the economic downturn in 2001 (along with government spending due to 9/11, which was also a large contributing factor in the market)

stats are stats, regardless of the commentary below.

Statistics are hard. There's a reason there are entire majors for it in college.

Money is worth less every year. It's called inflation, and because it's compounded interest, it happens really fast. $10B in 1970 is $57 billion now. Similarly, GDP (gross domestic product, or the total contributions of everyone working in the entire country for a year) also grows in a compound fashion.

This allows politicians to do amazing things with numbers that let them make shocking statements, that nobody ever calls them on.

Let's say Obama were to hike taxes by $400B. Republicans would say it's the largest tax hike ever! (Well, okay, not adjusted for inflation. And not adjusted for GDP growth. Just in raw dollars. So it's incredibly misleading, but it doesn't matter. People go ZOMG! and rush to the polls to stop the evil commie ***.)

Or let's say Obama cuts taxes by $400B. He can turn around and say it was the largest middle class tax cut ever! (Well okay, again, only if you don't adjust for inflation, and ignore GDP declines for fiscal years A and B, and...)

I mean, it's really easy to find graphs that look like absolute apocalypse. Here's one!



The little asterisk they don't tell you about? That's in gross deficit. Not adjusted for inflation. Not as a percent of GDP. So you're damn right the graph looks like it goes crazy at the end -- the scale is completely bonkers. But nobody cares about math, or statistics, or selective interpretation. It provides a talking point, so we might as well go with it!

Here's another one from the other side!



Look, it's not bad! In fact, it's the Republican years that were bad. Those gosh-durned Democrat years were all sunshine and roses!*

(* If you defer payments on federal obligations, write them off to subsequent years, over-compensate for inflation and fudge the GDP percent growth.)

-------

The point is, saying a particular stat is "biased" is kind of the braindead answer. Of course they are. Mark Twain said there's three kinds of lies in the world: lies, damn lies, and statistics. You have to look at every problem from every statistic: liberal, conservative, and everything in between, and sort out the truth from where they overlap.

Or you could just declare your home team and listen exclusively to what they say, and knee-jerk reject anything else because it's "biased." I guess the latter is easier.

Now I know the full story.

I'm done for the night.
Jaerik thanks for bringing things to my attention that I did not previously know of, like with the Obama healthcare bill. You're probably one of the only people I respect after lurking on these forums for some 2 years.

Everyone else, I felt the vibe of arguing with children. The discussion wasn't going anywhere because neither of us wanted to falter from our opinions. If it makes you happy, I'll admit that the Clinton administration had a printed surplus. I still affiliate myself with the Tea Bag party cuz i hates dem taxes.

Here's the thing, though. People talk about Obamacare, right? Obama took a public option (government runs all health care, abolish the private sector) off the table from Day 1. Didn't even include it in first round negotiations. Instead, they talked about government subsidizing private health care. That was negotiated away, in favor of a private-run but public-backed system of health insurance, but no government oversight of how the money was spent. That was negotiated away too. Instead we got co-ops, private-run insurance conglomerates who can negotiate their own rates (again, privately) with private citizens. That was negotiated away too. It would cost too much and the Republicans wouldn't vote for it unless it was deficit neutral or better. So we got a law that "cost" $800B or whatever, but also shaved ~$300B from Medicare, (in line with proposals from John McCain 4 years earlier), got a bunch from a consumption tax on health care for the rich, tweeked negotiation rates for Medicare drugs etc, (also a Republican demand), and came out costing us $200B or so less over the next 10 years than doing nothing. Of course like all things in government (shocker!) it's going to cost more than initial expectations. But it'll still cost us a ***ton less than doing nothing, and cover a lot more people. And as it turns out? The bill we got is almost a carbon copy (all the way down to the "individual mandate" to buy your own insurance) that Newt Gingrich and the Republican Congress proposed as a counter-bill to Clinton's back in 1996. Literally. We got a bill that was written by Republicans. And yet now they're decrying it as "Obamacare" and saying it'll include "death panels." Honestly, I'm not necessarily a fan of Obama, but what more could the man do?

Now I know the full story. I'm done for the night. Jaerik thanks for bringing things to my attention that I did not previously know of, like with the Obama healthcare bill. You're probably one of the only people I respect after lurking on these forums for some 2 years. Everyone else, I felt the vibe of arguing with children. The discussion wasn't going anywhere because neither of us wanted to falter from our opinions. If it makes you happy, I'll admit that the Clinton administration had a printed surplus. I still affiliate myself with the Tea Bag party cuz i hates dem taxes.

On the subject of taxation:

It's true that by being illegal, they get to skirt a number of tax laws. Specifically, stuff stated on an IRS 1040: US income tax.

However, they do not get to skirt payroll tax. (Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, etc, which can be about 15% of income.) These taxes are withheld and matched by the employer, (see explanation above of employer being hassled for paperwork), and the employer still has to pay their matched taxes whether or not the person is illegal. This money still goes into the health care / social security general fund. However, being illegal, they are ineligible to receive benefits from these entitlements without proof of citizenship, so arguably they are contributing even more than US citizens in this one regard.

Similarly, whenever they buy anything in the country, they must pay sales and consumption taxes, just like a citizen. (Which can be ~8% of income.) There's no way around those.

So while it's true they manage to skirt some taxes (income tax in particular), their one-way contribution to the tax system in other ways, i.e. their inability to draw on certain entitlement programs, may or may not cancel it out in the end. It depends which study you read. But saying they "don't pay a dime" in taxes is political hyperbole.

Statistics are hard. There's a reason there are entire majors for it in college.
The point is, saying a particular stat is "biased" is kind of the braindead answer. Of course they are. Mark Twain said there's three kinds of lies in the world: lies, damn lies, and statistics. You have to look at every problem from every statistic: liberal, conservative, and everything in between, and sort out the truth from where they overlap.

Or you could just declare your home team and listen exclusively to what they say, and knee-jerk reject anything else because it's "biased." I guess the latter is easier.

This statement is incorrect, 80% of construction workers are sub-contractors, they sign a waiver and NO withholdings are done. The employer is NOT required to match anything. The illegals do not file or pay any of these associated taxes.