When is humor no longer funny?

[Vandiablo]

There's so much to respond to in this post, and so little time. As always, I'm so glad Jester is here-- Jester's presence allows me to actually spend time with my kids. You see, I only post from home, so any time spent here either takes away from family time or sleep time. And once a great Jester/kandrathe debate (a J/k??) starts, others should stand clear. I must admit I haven't read the entire tax policy debate in this thread, so if I'm repeating something, sorry.

My trickle-down comment was really out-of-place, this was an anti-Bush thread and I stuck anti-Reagan on it. My apologies.

So, I'll assume Jester covered most of the tax policy stuff, so I'll just make two points...

Obama's last speech was fear mongering at its worst.

"Only government can break the cycle that are crippling our economy -- where a lack of spending leads to lost jobs which leads to even less spending; where an inability to lend and borrow stops growth and leads to even less credit."

I see. Only government can solve this problem.

You react similarly to the way I feel when I often hear, "Only God can fix blah blah" or "Only people of faith can blah blah blah". I guess it's usually in the form of "you can only clean yourself up by giving yourself to " whatever deity-of-the-day is.

But never mind that, that's another discussion which I'll probably get into down the road <strike>to hell</strike> some day soon.

You expect to hear someday soon:

Government knows best how to spend your money to save the economy.

I know you believe the opposite from previous posts of yours. And yet:

Here is hesitantly my answer Van. Spend the money on business development loans which will be used for creating or expanding small businesses employing less than 200 people. Here is the catch, the amount given will be determined by the number of people added to the businesses payroll and paid back over 10 years with very low interest. We might also encourage innovation in some way. I don't see that giving $1000 of tax payer collected money and then redistributed back to consumers to spend on a new washing machine will go very far in rebuilding confidence in the economy. But, put people to work where they have disposable income, and they will pretty much spend it.

First of all: You bastard! We had to buy a new washing machine! . . about a month ago. And since we are SITH, expenses of that sort are a hardship.

More on the point: So, normally you say that people know better how to spend their own money than the govt does. So if the $1000 was originally MY money -- and indeed it was, since these are tax rebates or reductions, not gifts to the needy -- how can you say the govt can spend it better? Why are you abandoning your principles?

The bottom line: The engine of the economy is not government, it is business. If you want to accelerate the economy, you need to invest in business. I don't like the idea of government taking money from people, and then giving it away again for other people to spend it as they see fit. ... Not hand outs ...

Again, if I understand correctly, these aren't handouts. It's to taxpayers, not to all citizens. It's not to "other people" -- it's back to the people who paid it. Am I wrong? (Occhi is here, so I must be wrong...)

-V