Werthless wrote:Do the liberals on this board believe that economic policy affects the growth of the US economy? If so, what kind of policies would help growth? The conservative position, as I understand it, is that a simplified tax code with low rates and few carveouts increases economic growth in the long-term. Free trade is also supported by pro-growth conservatives. Most liberal arguments I hear are in terms of fairness, with some arguments for Keynesian stimulus in times of recession. But there doesn't seem to be a liberal consensus for what should be done to improve the growth of the economy, as there is more concern over the relative shares of the pie than over the size of the pie.

Is there a Democrat pro-growth strategy?

geez, Captain Quizzical, you left out any mention of the "conservative position" (which isn't genuinely conservative in any manner) regarding tax policy, which is basically to unburden the very wealthy at the expense of everyone else?

Wealth extraction, Mitt & Pauly style, has nothing to do with growth. It has to do with fattening the rents collected by Mitt's class (Pauly's happy with any scraps his masters toss him). Mitt knows deals, he doesn't know - more accurately, doesn't really care about - growth.

You want to 'grow' - that is, find evidence in economic data that businesses are actually selling more goods & services - you need people to have more money to spend. So, find ways to enable more people to have more $ to spend on stuff businesses make & do.

pacino wrote:actually, his budget is the definition of destroying the poor and working classes. but whatever. his budget is unserious. he just claims that money will be created from tax cuts. he claims that it will be 'revenue-neutral' (so what's the point?). block grants for medicaid? crazy and stupid. it just is. backed off just straight up cutting medicare because he found out it's super dumb.

pacino wrote:he's one of the most unserious politicians in our time. to view him as 'serious' is just crazy. he is against everything he's voted for and done in his personal life.

pacino keeps doing the thing I was making fun of the other night. On the one hand Paul Ryan is going to destroy the poor and working class by gutting entitlements and cutting programs from the social safety net. On the other hand he's one of the most unserious politicians of our lifetime.

His plan does not address the long term debt question in the same manner you would. But his plan apparently cuts federal spending enough to destroy the poor and working classes. In this narrative he is both tremendously, terrifyingly serious and unserious. I sort of think you need to pick one or the other.

Werthless wrote:Is there a Democrat pro-growth strategy?

We need an independent growth strategy so the boneheads don't duke it out to bash/take credit for plans. Daf is correct in this sense, a reformed agenda for America that works to rebuild the crumbling infrastructure set about in the 1920 & 30, modernization of key elements like the power grid, investment in an independent energy policy (see Germany - those socialist rats), opening modern opportunity to rural areas and finding some way to restart American manufacturing. Bickering about social agenda, generating fears over restricted liberties, focusing on woman's health, etc. need to be tossed out in favor for action to advance America. It is so frustrating to hear about what we cannot do, will not do and why everyone has a better idea (that they cannot implement due to political imprisonment).

re-doing the entire infrastructure of the country would do wonders to help this country. don't we have cities ready to fall in on themselves because of leaky sewers?

We can start by leaving entitlements alone for now and making the tax code fair for everyone and let's see what happens. With that extra revenue, we can invest in infrastructure, etc. That's a good start.

Mark McKinnon on the Ryan pick...

“I think it’s a very bold choice. And an exciting and interesting pick. It’s going to elevate the campaign into a debate over big ideas. It means Romney-Ryan can run on principles and provide some real direction and vision for the Republican Party. And probably lose. Maybe big.”

VP bump has been about 2 points. Historically it is Is usually around 4.

jerseyhoya wrote:My beloved fat governor is officially giving the keynote at the convention

Might make him a favorite for the nomination in 2016 (or 2020) if he does well. Both B. Clinton and Obama started to get taken seriously as future candidates because of excellent convention speeches.

Other side of that is Bobby Jindal. What a terrible speech.

The Nightman Cometh wrote:Other side of that is Bobby Jindal. What a terrible speech.

Rudy was the keynote in 2008. Jindal gave a SotU response.

Yeah I know, I was just giving an example of a terrible national performance pushing an otherwise promising option out of the spotlight.

Comparing getting to give the convention keynote to a SotU response is night and day. One has you as the star of the show getting to make an extended case about big things in front of a raucous crowd, the other you're talking to a camera in an empty room responding to the President of the United States who just spoke in front of a joint session of Congress.

If you're gonna quibble with Swiggers post the way to go would be to say Clinton's convention speech was panned, and his rise was in spite of his keynote not because of it (as we might get to say about President Jindal and his SotU response some day).

Fair enough. As someone who wants to see Christie run for higher office are you concerned he actually pisses off some conservatives with his speech by pushing aside social issues?

jerseyhoya wrote:It's impressive how many people on BSG know more about politics than Mitt Romney's inner circle and have access to the focus group/polling work they've done testing various messages

So based on quotes coming out of Mitt's campaign and what Silver said, it looks like this pick wasn't about focus groups or polling. It was about Mitt feeling comfortable with Ryan and liking the fact that they both want the rich to have all the wealth in the world, or something like that. His campaign didn't want Ryan. So it looks like your sarcastic remark was way off the mark.

Doll Is Mine wrote:We can start by leaving entitlements alone for now and making the tax code fair for everyone and let's see what happens. With that extra revenue, we can invest in infrastructure, etc. That's a good start.

I like this. I'll vote for you.

I heard the dems have someone they really like doing their convention speech. He's seen as a future star, but I can't recall his name. He's Latino.

Warszawa wrote:Demand-side economics. We might want to give it a try since the (more or less) last 30 years of the other strategy hasn't worked.

I disagree with your opinion that no one has been trying counter-cyclical fiscal and monetary policy (ie. Keynesianism) in recent history. This is the entire motivation behind the stimulus package, quantitative easing, TARP, etc of recent history; they were done to increase demand. And then there's the uncomfortable Keynesian evidence of the Great Depression.

thephan wrote:

Werthless wrote:Is there a Democrat pro-growth strategy?

We need an independent growth strategy so the boneheads don't duke it out to bash/take credit for plans. Daf is correct in this sense, a reformed agenda for America that works to rebuild the crumbling infrastructure set about in the 1920 & 30, modernization of key elements like the power grid, investment in an independent energy policy (see Germany - those socialist rats), opening modern opportunity to rural areas and finding some way to restart American manufacturing. Bickering about social agenda, generating fears over restricted liberties, focusing on woman's health, etc. need to be tossed out in favor for action to advance America. It is so frustrating to hear about what we cannot do, will not do and why everyone has a better idea (that they cannot implement due to political imprisonment).

I'm on board.

dajafi wrote:
I also suspect that Democrats, all in all, are more on board with your "simplified tax code" of lower rates and fewer deductions than are Republicans. What the Norquist faction seems to care about above all isn't growth per se, but ensuring that no well to do person ever pays more under any circumstances, opportunity costs and larger fiscal consequences be damned.

I don't know about that. I don't foresee Democrats proposing to lower rates, even if it produced higher tax revenues, because it "feels unfair" with such a large portion of the income gains of the last 30 years also going to this group. As it stands now, high income taxpayers pay an increasing share of income taxes, but Democrat politicians certainly do not view the trajectory of our tax-paying distribution as a positive.

Monkeyboy wrote:I heard the dems have someone they really like doing their convention speech. He's seen as a future star, but I can't recall his name. He's Latino.

I would like to see Martin O'Malley or Andrew Cuomo speak as well.

Monkeyboy wrote:I heard the dems have someone they really like doing their convention speech. He's seen as a future star, but I can't recall his name. He's Latino.

ohpleaseohpleaseohpleaseohpleaseohpleaseohpleasebeozzieguillen

talkin' about Castro.