Want to cut the deficit? Try a carbon tax.

Deficits will only be reduced when spending is cut. How many shut downs did it take when Clinton was President to accomplish that?

 

A dogmatic view not supported through the evidence. Austerity, for example, increased deficits. Why? You can't treat the macroeconomy the same way as the spending habits of a man called Bob (given the numerous spillover effects that must be considered)!

 

No, actually it is not 'virtually nonexistent' unless you just deny that there are climate scientists not as convinced as you. It's just another example of having your head shoved so far up your politics, you can't see anything else.

And as for booze and cigarettes, seriously? You think those are comparable to carbon, in relation to our economy? Apples and Oranges. Booze and cigarettes don't keep the machinery at the factory running. Carbon does. Booze and cigarettes don't keep planes in the sky, trucks on the road, and ships floating across the sea. Carbon does. Booze and Cigarettes are not used in the production of concrete, steel, aluminum, lime, glass, and a host of many other produced products we use every single day throughout our entire society. Carbon does. Carbon is released in all of those. Carbon is even released in dealing with human waste, bio-waste and solid waste.

Everything in society runs on carbon. Even an electric car, requires power from a carbon releasing source, unless it is nuclear.

There is only two ways to reduce the release of carbon. Either destroy the economy, doom everyone to impoverishment, and live like pre-78 China, where everyone lives in mud huts. Or kill people. Kill all the people, and with fewer people, there will be fewer uses of carbon.

I'm against both options, but those are the options, if that's your goal.

 

Bush only did because we had some wars to deal with. Reagan, actually didn't. First, Congress themselves, pledged to cut spending. The Democrats violated their pledge, and increased spending. Worse yet, they over spent Reagan's budget every single year. Reagan's budget never boosted spending as much as what happened. It was the Democrats.

 

All refer to negative externalities and all therefore are comparable (to argue otherwise is acceptance of coercion). The only significant difference is how the subsequent tax revenues are used. There is less need for earmarking with alcohol and cigarette taxes (except for funding of anti-markets, such as treatment centres for addicts)

 

Climate scientists who are denialists you can count on one hand and even they aren't as denialist as their denialist followers. Simply following denialists sites is probably how you came by your flat earth views. Or maybe you listen to Rush Limbaugh and Fox News. The clueless almost always draw from similar sources.

Some folks run on them as much as much as carbon gas. Also many industrial countries pay much higher taxes for gas and they don't seem to going in the tank. The economic ignorance in this country is really quite stunning.

 

I covered that as well. Of course they are not going in the tank. Again, carbon is absolutely required for human advancement. There is zero method for replacing carbon.

So you say they pay the tax and don't tank.... well duh.... I just said in the prior posts that all the taxes in the world are not going to tank the use of carbon. The tax is passed on to the lower and middle class. Did you miss this post?

Hello?! Of course those industries are not going to tank. They are passing the cost right along to the lower and middle class.

And lastly.... AGAIN.... science is not determined by a poll. A poll is nothing. Are you seriously suggesting that if I conducted a poll that the moon was made of cheese, and got enough PH.Ds to say it is, then that would magically make that true?

A poll is just an opinion poll. It is about as relevant to the scientific process as flipping a coin, or drawing names out of a hat.

The evidence does not prove, or even substantially suggest, that man made CO2 is the primary driver of climate change.

The problem is, most of you have never looked at the evidence yourself. That's why you think an opinion poll, is what makes science. You don't know what you are talking about, so you default to "well 4 out of 5 somebodies, say it's this... dur... that's science in my world!". Sorry. You lose. That's a fail.

 

Non-issue! The burden of a Pigovian tax gives no rationale to avoid an efficient increase in the price of carbon fuels. All it means is that we have to ensure that the overall tax system is progressive

 

Neither of them "cut taxes". They cut "tax rates". There's a difference. When you look at the actual TAX REVENUE from before and after the tax cuts, the revenue was higher.

Point being, that you can't blame the tax rate cuts, for the deficits, because the amount of taxes collected went... *UP*.

The reason for the deficit, was from drastic spending increases, that were greater than how much the tax revenue increased. For Reagan, that was due to the Democrats who over spent. For Bush, it was because of the war.

 

Given Reagnomics was built on Military Keynesianism this isn't consistent with the reality

 

Scientific theorys are given force by a consensus of vetted scientists with expertise on the topic. Polls can be useful to establish the degree of consensus. Saying "a poll is nothing" without qualifying the matter is of course meaningless blather.

 

I would like to make a correction.
In the following comments I stated that I did not dispute labour as a source of rents.

I was wrong.
I do, in fact, dispute that labour is a source of rents.
Payment of labour below its worth is a source of unearned income not economic rent.

 

Actually, austerity makes debt to GDP ratios worse.
Those nations that embraced austerity & made massive cuts to spending have ended up with an even higher debt to GDP ratio.
If the goal is to lower debt-GDP ratios, which it shouldn't, but if it is, then austerity is not the solution.

 

Reagan raised taxes for the lower and middle classes but gave massive tax breaks to the upper class.

 

The primary goal should be lowering government spending. GDP, in my opinion has become meaningless as it does not represent increased production but more so only increased spending brought about by government manipulation and intervention. The problem is only exacerbated by the fact that we have accumulated so MUCH debt, both present and future, that we are left with a dilemma in which any of the rational choices result in bringing about suffering to a large and growing number of people.

It's sad that a young person today would have to save about $3 to have $1 to spend at retirement age. But I guess more of todays young are buying into government will take care of them when they retire. Cradle to grave.

 

Maybe I'm the only one, but it was during the Reagan years that I finally moved from the lower economic class into the middle class, and have struggled to maintain that position during every administration afterwards.

 

So when the consensus among 'vetted scientists' was that black people were less evolved humans, they really were because the consensus proves it?
When Australia's aboriginals were considered "the lowest known species of the human family, just a step higher than the chimpanzee in brain development", that was correct because there was consensus among 'vetted scientists' at the time?

Please. Consensus means nothing. As in nothing. You disagree, fine. Live in your faux science world where getting a poll number determines truth. But spare the rest of us this fiction that we are against science, because we want actual facts, and data, not a poll number.

 

They simply don't want to save. Which is sad. The function of saving for retirement is easy. Doing it is hard. People don't want to do it.

Yes, if you want to put money into a savings account, then you best save $3 for every $1 you want to spend at retirement.

If you instead by land, and buy stocks, and invest wisely, that's not required. The problem is, people don't want to save up money to buy land, and people are foolish and scared of the stock market.

If you intend to buy land on a mortgage, you are not saving money. You are dishing out hundreds of thousands to the bank in interest payments. How does that save you money?

And if you intend to watch the stock market every day, and sell off your investments every time the market takes a dip, you would be better putting money under your pillow at night. Don't watch the market. Don't sell your investments. Leave them alone, and let them grow.

The average person who saves just $100 a month, every month, for his entire working age, will be a millionaire or close to it by retirement. But you have to do it. And you have to leave it alone.

 

Scientists are subject to the prejudices of their time but I would be curious if there was a systematic scientific vetting process that lead to the above conclusions. My guess is you are making up the scientific vetting part.

 

Bill Clinton raised taxes for the lower and middle classes but gave massive tax breaks to the upper class.

(we can say dumb unsupportable statements just like you)

 

I think you are making up stuff too. I think people automatically assume that those 'scientists' who support what they already believe, are vetted, while assuming those that disagree, are not. I doubt very much that you can prove anything about those who support your side of the debate. In fact, I know already, that many of the names on the IPCC 1998 report did not support the claims made, and some were simply staffers, and had no scientific background at all.

 

What does that mean?
How much spending is too much or not enough?
Are you saying the Federal Government should never run a deficit?

The National Debt is what the people (Private Sector) OWN NOT owe.
The Public Sector's debt is the Private Sector's savings.

They should "buy" into it.
That's what the government is for, to provide services & meet the needs of the people.

 

I didn't comment on class mobility during the Reagan administration, I commented on the tax policy of the Reagan administration.

 

Reagan also increased Government Deficit Spending & the National Debt skyrocketed from $700 billion to $3 trillion.

I guess government spending worked for you & many others.

 

In The Tax Reform Act of 1986 the bottom rate was increased from 11% to 15%.

Sourced frome the Wiki article "Tax Reform Act of 1986"
"Federal Individual Income Tax Rates History" - TaxFoundation.org. 1913–2009