http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/house/14663…
So yesterday blacklawmakers decided that it was racist to propose budget cuts.
Del. Donna Christensen (D-Virgin Islands), who led the debate, said the GOP cuts threaten to bring the U.S. back to a time when "America was not in her finest hour, a time when the poor, the rural and people of color were denied equal opportunities to education, healthcare, jobs with decent wages and protections, and the possibility of homeownership. We cannot and must not go back there."
Why do people give the CBC the time of day? What they have to say adds virtually no substance to a given debate. These people use the minority population as pawns to further their agendas and the minority population eats this shit up.
Basically what the CBC is saying is that without big daddy and government handouts the black population cannot prosper. If a Republican would have made this same argument, they would be run out of office. Why do we allow these people to play the race card like this? Especially over an issue as vital as balancing this budget we have right now. The CBC did not add their own budget proposal to get this debt under control, instead they race bait and play to their base that the Republicans are trying to bring us back to the days of Jim Crowe by balancing this budget.
Enoughhhhh
i saw this but was too pissed off to finish reading after the second paragraph. of course budget cuts are going to hurt free-loaders the most...what do you expect??
Better question is why does the virgin Islands have a representative.
Standardized tests are racist...
Reasonable people can disagree: http://www.wallstreetoasis.com/group-post/the-relationship-between-econ…
.
Sign up!
Yea, he wants you to join his stupid fucking group and talk about economics. It's a trap... DON'T DO IT!!
Seriously, liberals can be so condescending to minorities sometimes. They should consider listening to Frederick Douglass:
I'm a firm believer that all people have the skills and aptitude to succeed and, as far as I can tell, public policies and their unintended consequences often just get in the way.
John Galliano is racist..
This is the type of thinking that has been getting liberals elected for years. Their circular agenda is as follows: 1) Give handouts to unions, minorities, poor, etc. 2) Those receiving handouts will become increasingly reliant on those handouts and unable to function without them. They will further be told that those giving handouts are the only ones that "care" or "sympathize" with them. 3) Those receiving handouts will have to vote for liberals to continue the handouts. 4) Liberals remain in power. 5) Start back at step 1.
Also known as:
You're correct, but it goes a lot deeper and further back than that.
This is what actually kept monarchies in power for centuries per individual bloodline.
Appeasing the poor through alms is a proven tactic of maintaining wealth and status for oligarchical elites, a de-incentivization process away from political and industrial involvement.
No big surprise that the Democrats were the party of White Southern slave owners.
The parties switched ideologies at some point, so that's not really fair to say. Similarly, when people refer to Republicans as "The party of Lincoln," they're being disingenuous.
Tar Heel Blue, excellent summation!!
If I had a SB, I'd give it to you.
Another reason people vote for the Democrats: 1. Republicans take fiscal profligacy to new extremes while in power. 2. Market bubbles develop and eventually pop leading to democratic victory. 3. Republicans blame Democrats for profligacy, market bubble and subsequent turmoil and promise to be hawkish on deficit. 4. Republicans are elected and proceed to increase the deficit and reinflate bubbles through deregulation.
^^^Sooooo, you're not arguing any of the points in Tar Heel Blue's summation?
Why would I? I'm sure that plays a part in keeping liberals in power, just as saying you will never raise taxes helps keep conservatives in power.
It's not about raising/not raising taxes. It's about raising taxes and not cutting spending. The argument on keeping liberals in power is a lot more circular than the one you presented, IMO.
What would you think of a policy that both cut spending and increased tax rates in order to eliminate the deficit? The deficit is over a $1 trillion. You're not going to cut enough spending to bring that down when you consider that discretionary spending is a relatively small percentage of the budget.
The cutting spending (actually, reducing the growth of spending) and increasing taxes happened in the 1990s and by 2000 we had a budget surplus.
There is certainly wasteful spending that needs to be cut, but in the long-run we'll need to increase taxes.
I'm not attempting to counter Tar Heel Blue with some incredible circular argument, just saying there are arguably more important factors at play in why liberals get elected. It's not like conservatism is the natural order of things which was somehow usurped by people giving handouts.
I think that's a reductive view of liberalism. Conservatism in the Buckley/Goldwater/Reagan/Bush II mold is a very far cry from the Hamiltonian tradition of old and the Founding Fathers would be very hard-pressed to recognize themselves in either party today. The current conservative mindset peddled by Fox News, that is the pursuit of some idealized America that never existed, is a far cry from what the Founding Fathers set to achieve.
The Founding Fathers could probably be best described, in today's jargon, as libertarians (or classical liberals, if you prefer).
How do you reconcile their views on slavery and women with your claim? Also, there was less freedom, not more, back then.
Fair point. Those views are definitely anti-libertarian. Supposedly though, a lot of the them realized that slavery was inconsistent with their political philosophy (but congruent with their self-interest). It seems some (many?) of them even hoped it was only a temporary evil that they hoped would pass: http://econfaculty.gmu.edu/wew/quotes/slavery.html
While there were those who practiced classical liberalism or libertarian policies; Hamilton, Washington and the Federalist had opposing views and wanted to create a larger, stronger union.
There's always two sides to every coin.
I totally agree. Would you agree that at least some were fairly libertarian? Did I at least get one side of the coin right, lol?
^^^^ding ding ding. The party to which I align my views...
I'm not just talking about discretionary spending. I'm talking about budget cuts across the board. I'd not be against raising taxes, in a temporary fashion, if they made cuts to EVERYTHING and these raised taxes were made so they weren't permanent. It would have to be made law that increased taxes weren't permanent for me to even consider it. When I say everything I am including raising the age on SS and eventually phasing it out, cuts to medicaide/aire, cuts to the military via ending both wars, and ending multiple useless and overlapping government agencies, etc.
I do realize that this can't happen immediately due to the crapper our economy is in, but it would have to start phasing in at some point. These are my opinions and only a fraction of them.
Fair enough. I'd just like to point out that no law (tax related or not) is ever permanent. The next Congress can just change it and the president can sign it. We've even had constitutional amendments changed.
If anyone wants a well thought out analysis of what has happened to the ghetto in America should read any William Julius Wilson. Instead of sounding like morons (sorry, some of you do) lacking the ability to understand nuance, you should read some of his published work. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Julius_Wilson#Influence
My view of almost all social phenomena (including the victim mentality, etc.) can be explained by economics. I am not a big believer in cultural differences driving behavior. Rather, I think economics drives culture. In other words, incentives matter. I usually try to avoid making any statements related to race or culture. I like to talk about incentives, instead.
I totally agree with your last point. These videos give you a perspective on why the economic policies that intend to help certain groups (or at least intend to be neutral) actually hurt them: http://www.wallstreetoasis.com/group-post/the-relationship-between-econ…
Yes, I understand that. So in all reality, it would be very very hard to accept raising taxes at this point.
Why? You do realize that taxes today are a lot lower than they were for almost all of the 20th century, right? So just because you raise taxes now doesn't mean you'll never see a tax cut.
Even during Obama's presidency (GASP!) taxes have gone down for basically everyone. I know, that socialist actually reduced taxes!
Hasn't government spending as a percentage of GDP steadily increased throughout the 20th century? That may represent a more realistic tax burden for current and future generations.
If you take the view that to spend is to tax (like I do), then you're absolutely right. But actual tax rates have not mirrored spending because we have a $14 trillion debt, so actual tax rates have varied.
I should have been more precise with my statement above. Marginal tax rates were much higher for most of the 20th century compared to today.
Still, no denying that most Americans pay less in taxes as a percentage of their income today than they did in 2008.
Not trying to be a dick, but I don't get your point. I believe around 15-17% of the workforce (including those who have stopped looking) are not working. Many have been pushed into lower tax brackets. Of course, on average, Americans pay less in taxes. So are you saying, because of this, we should raise taxes?
I didn't say tax REVENUES went down (that much is obvious). Tax rates went down. There were tax cuts.
And no, I am not saying we should raise taxes. I am just sick and tired of people acting like tax rates have increased during Obama's presidency, even though they have not.
I understand there we some minor tax breaks, but I would say that for all intents and purposes, rates have stayed more or less the same under Obama. I saw you're comment that 80% of Tea Party members believe tax rates went up- if that's true, that's sad. Also, though rates have not gone up during Obama's presidency, he's made it no secret that he's unhappy about that- he's been forced to compromise.
Lastly, though our taxes our lower right now, the healthcare laws, if they are not defunded or repealed, will end up costing American citizens money- effectively a tax. Though Obama originally claimed it was not a tax, when his administration had to defend the measures in court they have done so based on the federal government's taxing powers.
That was my point. Seems like we're in agreement there.
If taxes were raised at this point it would crush any "recovery" we are experiencing. Not only that, it would demolish the party who initiated the idea.
prinmemo, I agree with you for the most part. It seems that many of them did want a limited form of government and it's not ridiculous to say that some (many?) had libertarian views. But, I agree with you that maybe it's not important and that we shouldn't hijack the thread with a discussion of it.
If you simply look at tax rates you might think taxes have gone down, but if you factor in the myriad of ways the government shakes you down you will see rates have increased.
The deficit can be reduced though budget cuts, elimination of waste and the economy improving. This lie that we need to give the government anymore money is bullshit.
We dont need to fully eliminate national debt, we just need to reduce it to more reasonable numbers.
Democrats love hand outs because it is a control mechanism. It is basically leveraging Maslow to reduce freedom and increase control. No matter what, there will always be people who think they know what is best. Unfortunately the government seems to be full of these kind of people.
This economy is driven by consumer spending. You can increase consumer spending in a variety of ways. Reducing taxes is one of them. The less the government steals, the more I, the person who earned the money, can spend. Government spending is highly politicized and inefficient. My spending is incredibly efficient and free of politics.
Give people more of their money and allow them to spend. If you want to raise funds, eliminate all the social engineering tax credits.
How about this. How about maybe 25% of Americans shouldn't pay Federal tax, not more than half!!
Half this country free loads on the other half. HALF!
Taxing the rich more and more is basically just mooching off your successful brother or sister. Feels good, easy to do, but doesn't change the fact that you are an utter scumbag for doing it.
If we all share in this country and enjoy it, we should pay for it. The rich have the money to be of a limited burden.
But hey, lets penalize someone who is successful and reward the loser who isn't. Makes complete sense.
I don't know why anyone would think rates have risen during Obama. He has only been President for two years and his first half has been focused on health care.
Well, there are a lot that do. I've seen polls of Tea Party supporters and something like 80 percent believe tax rates have gone up.
ahah this is like fox news
The budget cut will hurt those who depend on the government. Whomever that is will get hurt.
I am white and pay taxes. Won't hurt me.
What does your race have to do with anything? Shows where your mind is.
The topic is that budget cuts are racist. People are asserting that cutting budgets hurts blacks. I think race is central to this topic.
Duh
Liberal's propose and advocate re distributive policy.
Re distributive policy takes from more well off and gives to more worse off.
If you are worse of, you benefit, more well off, you get fucked.
If you are poor or disproportionately poor, you benefit from liberals.
Pretty simple. Whoever is poor will financially benefit from liberal policies.
Surprisingly, that's debatable: http://www.amazon.com/State-Against-Blacks-Walter-Williams/dp/0070703787
His argument is that what a lot of policies give, is less than they take (on whole, they do more harm than good). In other words, he thinks the policies are hurting rich and poor.
Well in the raw sense they give, but in the grand scheme they help.
Kind of like factoring in opportunity cost, intangibles, etc. Pure numbers, they benefit. Socially and down the line, it fucks them.
I guess his argument is that if you separate all policies and compare their effects, it's harmful. Some of the things he claims really hurt are minimum wage laws, occupational licenses, public schooling, etc. Anyway, I'm not even trying to convince the liberals here that he's right, just that they should check it out: http://econfaculty.gmu.edu/wew/ (under "Items of Interest" watch "Good Intentions" and "The State Against Blacks")
The State Against Blacks:
The State Against Blacks 2
The State Against Blacks 4
The State Against Blacks 6
Good Intentions:
Part 2
Possibly, I won't strongly disagree with you. This is a subject I have a modest experience with.
I am starting to watch it now. Thanks for the links, Econ!
Interesting videos. I agree that in many ways the state gets in the way of the advancement of black people. I think, however, that black people have made tremendous strides in this country in the last 60, 70 years. It is a little simplistic to blame the plight of black people mostly on the minimum wage and government programs and regulations. It is definitely a combination of factors that explains these problems.
It is important to point out that black people are doing much better now than they were in the, say, 1940s. Various programs, both governmental and private, are responsible for this improvement. For example, in the early part of the 1930's, the average black worker earned less than half of a comparable white workers. Today, that figure is closer to 80 percent. No denying the improvement. This improvement coincides with civil rights laws, government programs, etc. This basket of policies (both public and private) has worked overall. There is room for improvement, but like anything else in life things are complicated.
It's not just those few programs/regulations. Dr. Williams doesn't claim so either, it's just hard to get into everything in such a short video. It's a whole host of issues, and a whole host of regulations.
Maybe those measures don't take into account the large numbers of unemployed blacks (in other words, they compare employed whites vs employed blacks). If so, this would just add to Dr. Williams point about the destructive nature of the minimum wage laws. If the study gets it right though, maybe the overwhelming majority of that comes from civil rights laws, and many of the other laws in question are doing more harm than good. I agree things are complicated, but I'd say that it's not that hard to believe that plenty of economic legislation decreases economic freedom, which disproportionally harms some groups.
Are you really questioning whether blacks are better off economically today versus 50 years ago? I am not even going to respond.
I already said that some laws do hurt blacks. I am not sure what your response was about. All I added was that it's too simplistic to think that most of the problems have their roots in the minimum wage and other similar laws. The fact that minimum wage laws disproportionately affect blacks tells you something from the start.
I don't understand the minimum wage argument. Someone explain how the minimum wage hurts blacks?
The argument is more that minimum wages laws hurts poor people the most (despite that minimum wages laws intend to help them). Then, the argument is that black people are disproportionally poor, so minimum wages laws disproportionally hurt blacks.
I suspect you're already familiar with why minimum wages can hurt poor people, but for those of you that aren't, here's the logic. A minimum wage of $X, makes it so that anyone who produces less than $X/hour is not worth hiring. Therefore, a lot of jobs that were available at wages below $X are no longer available. For example, suppose that some congressman is livid at the fact that many IB Analysts make less than McDonald's employees (in a bad year), so he decides to impose a law that states that IBs must pay their analysts at least $50/hour, since they often are A students from the best schools in the country. At 100 hours a week, that's $5000/week or approximately $250K/year. Now, imagine you're an MD at some IB, what do you think you're going to do? Surely, you're not just going to throw up your hands and hire analysts anyway. Nope, you're going to be hiring a lot less analysts (if any at all). The point is, minimum wages make it hard for unproductive workers to get a job in the first place. Furthermore, by making it harder for workers to get a job in the first place, they make it harder to build a resume and gain some skills, in order to command higher wages in the future.
Thanks Econ.
See, here is my thing. I've managed people earning minimum wage. They are about as unproductive as a human can be. I don't think lowering the minimum wage would employ anymore people.
I used to tell people I would hire anyone who could show up at least relatively on time and that had their teeth. Needless to say, even with that low of a bar I could not get decent people. I typically worked over 100 hour a week doing the job of 3-4 people.
If you are working consistently for minimum wage you are not a very good worker.
That definitely could be true. But, I want to see if I can persuade you that it does make some, maybe even small, difference.
First, don't you think there are some people that can only produce $2-3/hour worth of goods and services? If so, why would anyone pay them a minimum wage? Also, don't you think that in some cases, instead of paying unproductive people $5/hour (or whatever the minimum wage is) it'd just be smarter from a business standpoint to outsource or use capital intensive production? In the video, Dr. Williams asks "Why aren't there ushers at movie theaters anymore? And why don't people generally pump your gas anymore?" He concludes that it doesn't make sense to pay people the minimum wage to do those jobs because that's too high of a wage, so they simply don't exist. I want to offer one more piece of anecdotal evidence. I used to be a telemarketer and it was completely a commissions based job, with one exception: if you didn't meet a certain quota, you got paid the minimum wage. Well, since that was probably too much to pay someone who couldn't meet the first quota, if you had trouble meeting that quota for a few weeks, you were simply fired. If they could get away with paying the person less, then I suspect they'd let people stick around for a little bit longer and try to improve their skills. (Likewise, my brother runs a car dealership and they do something similar to salesman if they don't sell much their first month, since they have to at least give them minimum wage.)
And, I totally agree with you that if you are consistently working for the minimum wage, you are not a good worker. My main beef with the minimum wage law, is actually not the one I mentioned above (where people are unemployed because they can't produce $5/hour worth of goods and services). My main beef with the minimum wage law, is that it doesn't allow a lot of people to get on the ladder in the first place and learn some skills, make some connections, etc. In other words, I think the long term effects are what's more upsetting. If someone is unfortunate enough to only be able to produce $2/hour of goods/services, I think it's pretty sick that we keep them out of the labor force, instead of letting them get a shitty, low paying job, learning some skills, proving themselves, etc. (Take the example above about car dealerships. There are plenty of salesmen who make $75K+ a year, even though many of them didn't go to college and some didn't even graduate high school and middle school. If they could pay salesmen commission only, even if it was below the minimum wage, I suspect a lot more poor people could come in there and really learn their skills over a longer period of time. But, unfortunately, the minimum wage laws don't allow for such a strategy. So, you basically have to be good from the get-go to have a chance in this industry.)
Anyway, that's just my 2 cents.
I think what Ant is saying is that people that earn minimum wage are already such bad workers that there really isn't much (if any) difference between minimum wage workers and those that would be below minimum wage. In fact, it seems like Ant is saying that more than anything workers earning the minimum wage have an attitude problem and not necessarily a skills problem. They show up to work late, don't do what they're told, etc. To me, that makes sense. The problem is that because the bar is already so low in practice you can't distinguish between a worker that only deserves $5/hr. versus one that deserves the minimum wage. This is practice vs. theory.
As for your response, I don't doubt that there are many laws, programs, and regulations in place that hinder rather than promote the economic improvement of black people in America. There are certainly others that have helped, though. For example, Pell Grants and other forms of financial aid for college have helped. I am not sure how you can argue otherwise. You mentioned that the advancement of certain freedoms probably have more to do with this advancement than anything else - this is probably true. I am skeptical, however, because I can't quite find a direct link between economic advancement and the right to vote, for example.
I agree that Pell Grants have definitely helped (and probably other stuff, as well). I would argue though, that if the gov't was less involved in education in the first place, that'd be even better. But that's another issue, and we probably shouldn't go there...
I agree that if you allowed $2.00 an hour, for example, you could hire a young kid to work as an usher or something, but not too many jobs could pay $2.00 an hour and find anyone to do it. At $7-8.00 an hour you have to put up with horrible workers.
In fact, the only people who work competently for that kind of money are illegal immigrants or someone else who is grateful to even have a job. College kids work well for that money since they are not living on it. Anyone outside of those two groups treat these jobs as throw away jobs.
It is really sad though. I'll give you a perfect example (yours truly).
When I went to Syracuse, I wanted to keep working while I went to school (I had worked in a factory previously and saved up money to pay for school). A friend of a friends mom was a manager at a gas station. I figured the hours would be flexible enough to accommodate school. Well I went from 20 hours a week, PT, to assistant manager to store manager in less than a year. How might you ask, did a full time (18 credit hours a semester) college kid do this?
1) I showed up on time
2) I did'n't talk on my cell phone during work
3) I didn't show up drunk
4) I didn't call out sick
5) I didn't steal
See, that list is pretty basic shit. A high school drop out could do it. Problem is, I was the ONLY person who did this. I literally worked 24 hours once because retards would call in or quit at the drop of a dime. They wanted me to run other stores, but I told them HELL NO. This was a friggin college job, not a damn career.
Now, see, if I had not been going to college, this would of been a sweet gig. Being a store manager isn't anyones dream on this site, but once you have management experience you can leverage it to other stores or eventually a district management role. Good way to make 50K a year or more and if you are good, you are ALWAYS in demand.
See, this is the ultimate problem. You can spend a shit load on schools, do everything possible to help, but people still need to wake up on time, show up, not goof off, etc. Some things are always going to be up to the individual. Sad, but true.
McDonalds is another example. This bartender friend of mine used to manage a McDonalds. She came up through the ranks by simply doing her job. Once again, not a job any of us would want, but 40-50K a year with benefits and upward potential. Problem is people outside of retired folk and young kids treat McDonalds as a shit hole job. Well if you don't have a college education you should try and take these lame ass jobs seriously. For every kid on a fry bin there always has to be a manager and for every manager there is a district manager. Not easy to get these positions, but all you have to do is last. Attrition at these places is so high that if you last a year you are almost guaranteed to get promoted.
Hope this adds some flavor to the discussion.
You always do... haha
LOL glad I could help.
The point is that this debate on what the founding fathers were is pointless. They probably had a whole range of views.
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