[KevinTheOmnivore]

Originally Posted by The One and Only...

Yet, despite all of this man's claims, he fails to recognize that it was before 1913 - the year where the federal income tax came into place - the US economy was in it's greatest shape.

By what standards? The 1950s (POST New Deal), NOT the teens, proved to be the decade of greatest American wealth, meaning the decade that most Americans lived a steady life, and overty remained low. Before 1913...? What are you talking about...?

He mentions that taxes cannot be cut because of education, national defence, and social security, but fails to recognize that taxes could be cut substancially if our government simply stopped attacking other countries because they are "threats" or - more importantly - quit handing out foreign aid so as to get the countries support in the UN.

Please, we give a microscopic amount of money in international aid, and we owe years of back payments to the UN in dues.

And he opposed the war, but his point was that generally during wars, taxes go up, and specific industries expand. From his perspective, this war in Iraw was an insane exception.

He also completely ignores that social security is currently failing: I made a thread about this, and no one responded. By the time my generation comes around, social security is predicted to not even fulfill (1/2? something very close: I can did up the article if need be) of what it promised.

Go ahead and dig it up, and all you'll do is support his argument for progressive taxation. Social Security is failing because for the past 20 years or so, the tax burden has slowly been taken off of its traditional source (nanely the top wage earners and corporations), and has been placed upon the working middle class.

And if ss is failing, doesn't that make two massive tax cuts highly neglegent on President Bush's part,....?

He fails to address welfare, which would further cut government spending.

Absurd. Again, a tiny % every state's budget, compared to other expidentures and corporate bailouts.

Let's also not forget that the author himself said that Clinton's changes had little to do with the economic boost; by that logic, it is feasible that the economy could have still been better off without the increase. The same thing could be said about Bush's tax cuts: it is feasible that the economy would actually be in a worse shape had Bush not made them. Let us also not forget that economist's are divided about his changes.

Traditionally, recession is followed by periods of growth. Tax cuts are supposed to speed up that process. Bush's tax cuts don't look to be doing that, nor do any no-partisan projections look to verify such results.

This paragraph:

"...America a couple of decades from now will be a place in which elderly people make up a disproportionate share of the poor, as they did before Social Security. It will also be a country in which even middle-class elderly Americans are, in many cases, unable to afford expensive medical procedures or prescription drugs and in which poor Americans generally go without even basic health care. And it may well be a place in which only those who can afford expensive private schools can give their children a decent education."

Is practially dismissable. He provides no facts, no numbers: why should I even believe this?

Maybe because even under our current system, roughly 50 million Americans even today go without healthcare...? Maybe because prior to the New Deal, ya know, your "golden age," the elderly did comprise a large portion of our nation's impoverished....?

For all I know, he could be talking about the Great Depression era - an era which is speculated to have been caused by government involvement in the economy.

Yeah, speculation on the Wall Street Journal's OP-ED page. Speculation by the Heritage Foundation, and that lunatic Grover Norquist.

In fact, the depressions of 1907 and 1920 were over within a year, despite the fact that the government did absolutely nothing.

They also weren't depressions on the scale of that faced in the 1930s.

This article is only "excellent" if you like garbage. Do you like garbage?

I'm sorry it was over your head.