[Rhodes22-list] 2007 Tax Return

[DCLewis1 at aol.com]

Brad,
 
 
Our sailing this weekend was great, beautiful weather and our Rhodes  forgave 
all my mistakes.  Perfect weather for beginners - you and Rummey  would have 
been bored to death, but we loved it.  The boat was more or less  upright at 
all times, didn’t get my swimmies wet at all.  I have to tell  you though, 
those cockpit cushions can be mighty hard to sleep on.  Next  time I think I’ll 
take a sleeping pad to put on top of the cushions.

 
 
Regarding my prior post on this thread, I apologize if my post came across  
as pedantic.  That’s not my goal at all.  I enjoy the exchange and  welcome 
your comments or anyone's comments - I'll think about any  comment.  We're all in 
this together.  Don't take me too seriously,  and I promise I won't take 
anything you post too seriously.
 

Your reference to Mark Twain’s comment that “there are lairs, damn liars,  
and statistics” is on the mark (no pun intended).  As I recall Mr Twain  also 
said: “the country is never at greater risk  than when Congress is in  session”
, and “we have the best government money can buy”.  I would concur  with his 
last 2 insights as well.  In recent years ( minimum 18 years, more  if you 
count just the Congress) it’s all been a “conservative Republican”  government 
- which is a great reason to be very skeptical about conservative  Republicans.
 
With regards to your comment ”...if you look at the current national  debt as 
a percentage of GNP we have no cause for alarm",   I've looked at  that and 
there is cause for alarm.  The reality is the debt more or  less tracked the 
GNP through Carter, and when Mr Reagan came to office it all  went to hell.  The 
ratio of Debt to GNP for Carter was 30%, the ratio of  Debt to GNP for Reagan 
was 47% - that’s a 57% jump.  The debt data is from  whitehouse.gov, the GNP 
data is from eh.net/hmit/gdp, you have to do the  ratio.  There has been a 
substantial increase in the debt/GNP ratio under  the “conservative Republicans” 
(Reagan, Bush1, and Bush2).   
 
Regarding concerns about Soc Security, you may be right that there is a  
serious problem lurking their.  I’ve started my own independent assessment  of Soc 
Security - basically I’m very suspicious of what the smiling politicians  
tell me (this gets back to the Mark Twain quotations above).  I don’t know  where 
it’s going to lead right now, but one thing I’m absolutely certain  would 
help Social Security enormously is for the Federal Government to repay  (with 
interest) the trust funds that were established decades ago to fund  the long 
anticipated shortfall.  You may recall that Mr Reagan ( a  "conservative 
Republican") “borrowed” the money in the trust funds  to cover the revenue 
shortfalls that were a consequence of his “supply side  economics” motivated tax cuts. 

Regarding  your comment “  Looking at the history of the national debt and 
what party was in control,  you’ll see neither party has bragging rights.”, I 
think the facts  contradict.  I have analyzed  the period from 1900 to 2005 
using  the debt data from whitehouse.gov.  I took the debt from each year,  
normalized the information so the numbers all started on 1 Jan, allocated  each 
years debt to a sitting President, and then broken it down by party.   Turns out 
the Democrats incurred a total debt of $2,164.3B over that period, the  
Republicans incurred a total debt of $5,351.8B, the ratio is 1:2.47.  If  you like, 
I can send you the spread sheet off-list.  For every dollar of  debt incurred 
by the Democrats the Republicans have incurred $2.47.  More  than a 2:1 
asymmetry between the “liberal Democrats” and the “fiscally  responsible Republicans
”.  I think the record shows the Republicans have  bragging rights to the 
debt, they own the debt, they did it.
 
But the ratio above really doesn’t do the enormous overspending of the  “
conservative Republicans” justice - it’s really much worse.  Recall that  the 
debt incurred by the Democrats includes funding for bonafide  national 
emergencies like: all of WWII, The Great Depression, WWI, Korea,  etc.  All the big 
ticket items are included in the Democrats overspending,  but even with all that 
heavy burden it’s a factor of 2  less than  the Republicans.  From a 
discretionary perspective (i.e. take out all the  national emergencies the Dems had to 
pay for), the  "conservative  Republicans"  debts are much more than $2.47:$1, 
the ratio begins to  approach 3:1 (actually 2.8:1).  "Conservative 
Republicans" are truly world  class spenders in a league of their own.
 
If you break down the contribution to the national debt prior to Reagan, I  
think you’ll find it sort of tracked the GNP.  I haven’t actually done  those 
calculations, that might be interesting to do, but just looking at the  column 
of debt numbers, the debt increases sort of  monotonicaly  until you get to 
FDRs administration ( 2 Republicans way back, actually paid off  the debt).  You
’ll recall that  FDR had to pay for WWII and the Great  Depression, so I 
think he should get a free pass (although I’ve counted his debt  in the ratio 
above).  Once past FDRs administration things begin to  get back on track.  The 
real spenders that totally swamp all other  Republican spending are those "great 
conservatives" Reagan, Bush1, and Bush2 -  there was a time when Republicans 
were no worse with debt than Democrats,  but that was a long time ago (it 
stopped with Nixon).
 
Look, Cheney is on record as saying “Ronald Reagan showed us that taxes  don’
t matter”, he meant it.  The record shows that neither Reagan, Bush1,  nor 
Bush2 made any effort at all to balance the budget - forget taxes, cut  taxes, 
taxes don't matter.  
 
Let me try to put the Reagan, Bush1, and Bush2 debts in some perspective:  
Ronald Reagan, I believe our 37th President, incurred 68% of the total national  
debt accumulated by these United States over 200+ years by the time he left  
office.  One guy.  Pretty fiscally responsible, huh?  Bush1  followed and 
incurred 33% of the total national debt by the time he left office  (he only had 4 
years) - note, in that calculation I included all the debt that  Reagan had 
run up, so Bush1 started from a higher base than Reagan.  Bush2  hasn’t 
completed his 2 terms yet, but it’s clear that he’s totally off the  indebtedness 
scales also.  You might think about these numbers.   These “conservative 
Republicans” have borrowed the whole thing.  There is  not, and never has been, 
anything fiscally conservative about these guys.  
 
Conversely, we all “know” that liberals are wastrels, right?  Well the  
numbers at whitehouse.gov, when matched up with the party in office give a very  
different picture.  The liberal fiscal record shows  they are actually  pretty 
responsible people when compared against the conservative  Republicans.  
Again, the ratio is 2.47:1 (Rep:Dem) when it comes to  debt.
 
I think things have worked out this way because the Republican  mantra has 
been “cut taxes” (everybody likes that) as opposed to  cut programs (nobody 
likes that).  If you are going to continue programs  and cut taxes, you have to 
borrow, and that explains the rapid run-up in debt  during Reagan, Bush1, and 
Bush2.  There’s nothing responsible or  conservative about it. 
 
Coming back to Mark Twain's quotation about statistics and liars, let my  try 
to introduce a bit of balance.  In fairness, some of  the above is  because 
the recent government has been Republican.  Their costs appear  higher over the 
100+ years analyzed because inflation has  depreciated the  nominal 
borrowings of distant administrations (although that depreciation  affects Republican 
and Dems alike).  My point is, that over 100+ years the  effect of inflation is 
very significant.  However, it is unarguably  true that the average level of 
indebtedness increased markedly (i.e. x3) in  going from Carter's 
administration to Reagan's (Reagan immediately  succeeded Carter, so inflation wasn't a 
huge factor; certainly not  x3).  Also, the debt and budget statistics show that 
Clinton, whatever you  may think of him as a person, was fiscally much more 
conservative  than Bush1 (who preceded him), or Bush2 (who succeeded him).  On  
balance, I think my conclusion is valid -  "conservative Republicans" love  
debt, that's how they do business, and there's nothing conservative about  it.  
The record shows the "conservative Republicans" are much less fiscally  
responsible than any Dem, they have been a disaster.
 
JMO - and a lot of facts and numbers.
 
 


Dave