[Rhodes22-list] 2007 Tax Return

[Bill Effros]

Nice job, Dave.

I'd love to see any spread sheets you have created to back up the words.

Bill Effros

DCLewis1 at aol.com wrote:
> 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
>  
>  
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