The GOP - the party of the wealthy in a New Gilded Age?

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Just as a side note on unions and workers rights:
People tend to get to a better appreciation of workers rights and unions once they have faced a really crap employer. I recall a specific case where the employer tried to reduce salaries (in fact, it was my salary) per e-mail, i.e. change the contract unilaterally, without adhering even to formal requirements - striking was not so much the blatant and obvious illegality, but the quasi-feudal attitude so expressed by that particular boss that it was within his power to do so. Or take employers not adhering to safety standards (hi Mr. Blankenfein). Or when you see how difficult it is for an idividual to stand up to such an abusive employer alone; it really takes some nerve when you depend on that money for your livelyhood. If such an abusive boss has nerve too you're in for a rough ride.

But hey, no problem for Republicans since, naturally, the invisible hand will fix that, too. Just tell the folks in some mining town in Apalachia that they have an easy way out - quit, and move to some other place where they find a better job. Problem solved.

 

Self-destructive behavior of certain unions is well known but I fail to see how that varies from incompetence in corporate leadership. If say the union of autoworkers managed to negotiate a pension package that has been leading the auto industry to bankruptcy, is not half the blame on the corporate leadership who were unable to see or simply not care for the long term feasibility of the deal?

I pretty much agree with Ragusa that people who protest against unions probably haven't had abusive bosses who disregard contracts, laws and safety regulations.

 

That has historically been the case. There are a great many Americans who simply do not earn enough money during their careers to retire comfortably, and they rely on programs like Social Security and Medicare. Even if you do save for retirement, unless you retire a millionaire, SS is going to help there too - it will mean you don't have to dig as deep into your savings each year.

It depends on which "government" you are talking about. Just about none of them are federal employees*. It varies by state, but teachers are employees of either the state or the county they work in. Police officers can be employees of the state, county, city, or local municipality (it varies both within and between states).

*The only place where you may find federally employed teachers and police officers is Washington, DC. On army bases the police are military police, so they are also federal employees, but the vast majority of teachers and police officers are not.

 

This came from Forbes, which is of course the standard bearer of the filthy-rich, vile, fat-cat, republicans (after FOX of course):

Taxpayers Should Be Leery Of Warren Buffett's Faux Noblesse Oblige

I like the comments about the luxury yacht industry in the article. I found these comments to be interesting:

 

The increase in capital gains revenue from a cut is a largely short term thing. In 2006, the nonpartisan Joint Comittee on Taxation estimated that an extension of the capital gains tax cut would lead to a loss of 20 billion dollars.

Also, here is a part of the 2006 letter to Congress the Congressional Budget Office sent: "In analyzing the relationship between capital gains tax rates and capital gains realizations, it is important to distinguish between the temporary and permanent effects of tax rate changes. Investors can generally choose when to realize their gains; if they believe that tax rates will change in the future, they may try to time their realizations to occur during a period with lower tax rates."

People who are super wealthy, being the ones most affected, also hold crazy amounts of political power. If it is known in the well connected circles that efforts are in the way to decrease it, why sell when the taxes are there?

Gereld Prante who is the senior economist for the tax foundation, had this to say about the argument that Forbes makes (made by someone else during a Democratic debate): "Gibson's implying that cutting capital gains taxes raises tax revenues by the mere time series correlation he cited was a stretch. Much of the short-run response to changes in the capital gains tax rate are for tax timing purposes. This is a well-known fact, and it is why CBO projects a huge spike in capital gains collections in 2010 (the last year of the scheduled low 15% rate on long-term gains) and thereby also a large decline in 2011 (when the rate on long-term gains is scheduled to revert to 20%) under current law."

Also, if you're interested in reading it, the Journal of Public Economics released an article which states that tax cuts do not pay for themselves. In other words, there is not enough of a net bonus to employment, investment, or anything else to justify tax cuts as a stimulant in an economy. http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0047272705001738

So a lower capital gains tax rate only increases revenue when investors know it is not a permanent thing.

My advice? Don't trust supply side economics

 

Wow. Thanks.

It may be possible to say it better but thanks for pointing that out because he made points that I sure don't see being brought up in many discussions about this.

More evidence of the GOP trying to control the debate?

 

Is there any way we can put a poll on here to see what everybody thinks about the idea that the GOP represents the interests of the wealthy? I would be interested to see what everyone thinks.

 

A poll here would not be very informative on that subject.....

 

No, but it would be interesting to get everybodies thoughts. That is the name of the thread


Anyways, one of the fundamental reasons i'm so skepitcal of the Republicans (I am of the democrats too, don't get me wrong) is because on almost all sides of economic issues they take positions that are either factually debateable or flat out wrong, and every single time their policies will benefit the plutocrats at the expense of just about everything else. They created the Bush tax cuts, which former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan called "disastrous." Even David Stockman, the Reagen administration's budget chief, has this to say about it: "debt explosion has resulted not from big spending by the Democrats, but instead the Republican Party's embrace, about three decades ago, of the insidious doctrine that deficits don't matter if they result from tax cuts."

And apparently, when the national debt doubled under prez Bush, half of that was because of his tax cuts: http://www.cbpp.org/cms/?fa=view&id=692

Only 10% of debt is because of entitlement programs, and yet those are the things which we have to take away to reduce debt? Bullpoo.

 

There are plenty of non-Americans here and for most of us the GOP is seen as a crazy extremist party so polling us would not really give you relevant information.

 

That would be pointless as besides myself I think there are only a couple of other conservatives on this board. This is primarily a lefty site.

 

Poor, persecuted, perpetually aggrieved American conservatives. And you wee, poor guy. This cri du coeur is so ridiculous.

The US political debate, in particular on the right, uses seriously warped domestic political dichotomies. Don't project them on the rest of the world since it will only produce nonsense results. For instance: To the best of my knowledge I am not considered left in my country, not by any stretch. I certainly don't vote left. And this isn't a lefty site. Yet I have been routinely called a Leftist here, something that can only make sense in the eyes of an American conservative partisan incapable to watch beyond his own and low domestic political horizon. You seriously lack perspective Snook.

The US right, and the contemporary Republican Party, are just extremely ideological and sorely out of synch with what passes as right in the rest of the world. With the exception of a few spots, the entire rest of the world is lefty to you people - compared to contemporary Republicans pretty much every contemporary European Conservative is a moderate or even a lefty. And that also applies for Republican apostates who served in the Reagan administration, but for whom the tent has gotten too small lately because of their lack of ideological purity and in particular because of their treasonous pragmatism.

Looking at the US, and judging by their policies, I consider Democrats to be centrists bordering to conservative. But hey, in Tea Party land they are Socialists, Communists and Far Far Left Leftists. A joke. To the best of my knowledge there is no 'left' left in the US that wields any meaningful power. Beginning with Clinton and triangulation the D's have moved to the right of the centre in pursuit of the elusive swing voter. Not that that matters to American conservatives and their talking heads - all they need is at least the fiction of an all powerful left to justify their own extremism. So they maintain it is there.

 

Ah, I forgot how many non-americans were on this board. My bad.

You're absolutely right Ragusa, there is not "left" left in america, at least in the mainstream political parties. Democrats are centrist at best, and some elements of the right are almost fascist.

"Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power." - Benito Mussolini

Sound familiar?

 

You have missed the point. In no way do I consider myself a "Poor, persecuted, perpetually aggrieved American conservatives." I am just stating a fact. Do we actually have to go through the exercise of listing the posters of these boards to do an analysis? I'm not sure I could come up with five posters in the Alleys that I would consider conservatives and I'm positive I couldn't think of ten. Maybe I could get to ten if I included some people who have been banned.

I have news for you, if you have been routinely called a "leftist" here then guess what, you are one. This board is in English and considering the vast majority of the political discussion and/or posters are American, you unfortunately will be painted with an American brush. Just because in Germany you would be considered a centrist or a "righty" does not mean in America you would be. It just means that the "center" point is placed at a different point in America then it is in Germany or by European standards.

 

Snook,
I have only been called a leftist by American right wingers (and Baronius, for that matter), because apparently they alone could get the idea that I am one. Apparent all it takes for such a ludicrous verdict on my political views is a sufficiently rancorous and polarised political debate at home, and the resulting tribal mindset of us vs. them. I think both Hungary and the US have that aplenty.

And there we are at persecuted again. Apparently the only conceivable reason that I write the things I write and that you object to - and the only compelling explanation in the partisan mind is apparently that I must be one of them, a lefty (or whatever). For these purposes, an imagined leftist is as good as a real one. We're talking about a partisan's tribal paranoia here.

 

Ah, so you're saying we should all be measured off the English political system then? Please don't go assuming America has a monopoly on the English Language - it's used globally as a common language.

Also, do keep in mind that conservative is not the opposite of left-winged politics. Conservatism is one branch of right-winged politics (and not only the domain of right wing, either) - often in many countries not even a big branch. In New Zealand our right-wing politics is mainly focused on economic issues, more free-market right rather than conservative right (and need I mention that New Zealand is an English speaking place, this board is in English, therefore we should judge everyone here by New Zealand's political standards).

To me, the difference between the New Zealand and American right is that the American right-wing (ignoring the Tea Party nutters) has heavy authoritarian streams in it. The "You can't do this, you have to do this" attitude, for example abortion, gay marriages, steam-cell research, that comes from the US right is extreme. Here such a party would be a fringe type party, which no one would want to associate with.

I can think of maybe two parties in New Zealand that I would count as Conservative - one is one of our more extreme left-winged parties, the other one is centre.

 

I honestly think one of the major reasons conservatism has such influence in american politics is the way that they make the common citizens agree with them, the divisive rhetoric, misinformation, and demonization of the evil socialist/communist "other" put out by talking heads like Glenn Beck and O'Reily make Machiavelli look like Mother Theresa in comparison.

I don't know how much the non-americans here know about these guys, but I strongly suggest listening to some of their shows to see the lengths the right will go to in our country.

Just to give an example of this- Obama once had a green jobs adviser named Van Jones. He has founded three successful non-profits for a green-energy economy and is a senior policy adviser at the center for American Progress. Fox news went on to demonize him, constantly calling him a "marxist", and trying to discredit him for being arrested (which he won a settlement for his arrest being illegal and all he did was join a protest, by the way).

After all of this nonsense, he stepped down from the White House because he thought Obama was getting distracted from the real issues because of the conservative attacks on him. He later went on to found the Rebuild the Dream foundation, dedicated to stopping right wing attacks on the middle class and allowing members to submit their ideas for a brighter future and have them be voted on.

Yeah, a real communist criminal that one.

 

If looking for the real reason that conservativism holds such a strong place within our society, one would be wiser to look at our puritanical (ie extremist) roots, the idealism of our declaration of independence, or the uncompromising manner in which some scholars choose to interpret our constitution. We have always been a culture of extremes, and we have always fought social and economic progress tooth and nail.

Our progress has always been followed or preceded by extraordinary violence. We won our independence through war, we needed a civil war to end slavery, women needed a yet another war (WW1) to give them the cultural opening needed to take their right to vote, segregation was brought to a halt thanks in large part to the martyrdom of Martin Luther King and the sacrifices of his followers. Whenever we make substantial progress, we have a backlash, and we've been making a lot of progress lately. It is only natural that conservative extremists would rise to oppose it, often accompanied with threats of secession, violence, or civil war. It is the way things have always happened in the past. Why would anyone expect something different?

 

Excellent points.

 

Well, to be fair, in the world of US politics, you are considered extremely left wing. Snook is right on this one. The "center" of US politics is much further to the right than it is in Germany, or anywhere else in Europe as far as I'm aware. So going by what the US considers left and right would place you quite far to the left indeed.