[twoodfin]

"Someone built the road and bridges and someone educated your employees, and someone built they internet that you use. Those things were funded by tax dollars."

All of that's true, but it's also true that the guy who didn't build a business also gets to use those roads and the internet. It's also true that private spending on telecommunications infrastructure in this country utterly dwarfs public spending. And nobody serious is arguing we shouldn't have roads and bridges.

How any of this is a justification for $1T deficits and real marginal tax rates that will approach 50+% is anyone's guess.

It also sounded really bad coming out of the President's mouth. "I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. . It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something -- there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there." Hey, maybe being "so smart" and "working harder than everyone else" doesn't guarantee success, but at least most voters think those are pretty helpful in America, and may not appreciate anyone, least of all the President, sneering at them.

[joezydeco]

It sounded bad coming out of the President's mouth because he did a very bad job of paraphrasing Elizabeth Warren. Warren put it like this:

"I love small businesses. My daughter started a small business, my brother started a small business, my aunt Alice started a small business, I worked in it when I was a teenager. This is really about a basic question of fairness. And that is, when big businesses really make it big, should they get the special tax breaks so that they don't have to make the contributions to help support all of the basic infrastructure—you know, the roads and bridges and the schools and all those pieces, the basic infrastructure that lets the next kid make it big, and the next kid after that, and the next kid after that? You know, the way I see this, this is really about the basic question of how we build our future. The Republicans have given their vision of how we build our future—they've said, 'I got mine, the rest of you are on your own'. Our vision of how you build a future is that you make the investments forward, so every kid has a chance. That's what this is really about."

[Prophasi]

The Republicans have given their vision of how we build our future—they've said, 'I got mine, the rest of you are on your own'.

Which is, in turn, a poor job of paraphrasing the actual small-government view, which would be better stated as 'I was on my own, I made it, and you can do the same.'

And not all Republicans/libertarians have made it yet. For them it might be 'I haven't made it yet, but I will -- and so can you.'

Her line implies that the view is an asymmetric "benefits for me, but not for thee" philosophy, which isn't the case. It'd be great if more ideologues had enough confidence in their own views to accurately depict and dispute the opposition's, rather than relying on strawmen.

[joezydeco]

I think the GOP's voting record is enough to show that they can publicly proclaim support for public infrastructure, education, civil rights, and healthcare but then do exactly the opposite when it comes to legislation.

[Prophasi]

Sure. But now you're contrasting the philosophy with what politicians actually do in office. If your argument is that politicians engage in lying and hypocrisy, I don't think you'll find many takers.

But I sincerely hope you'd assert the same (with tweaked parameters) for Democrats.

[joezydeco]

No, I believe I was contrasting the GOP's line

'I was on my own, I made it, and you can do the same.'

With the reality:

'I was on my own, I made it with the assistance of resources that government provides, and you can do the same if we actually wanted to support that mode of government in the future, but we don't.'

[Prophasi]

Fair. What resources did the average Republican take advantage of that s/he now wants to kibosh? Axing roads and bridges is nowhere present in the public discussion.

Of Warren's cited examples, schools are the only plausible answer. To say that school is valuable isn't an insight, and to say that school can only be government-funded and -run is baseless.

An argument can be made that government does it the best, but it's disingenuous to say that because Republicans (along with everyone else, and forcibly) had public schooling, they give up their right to upgrade what they got, for the next generation.

[twoodfin]

The Republicans have given their vision of how we build our future—they've said, 'I got mine, the rest of you are on your own'.

Now that's some thoughtful political discourse right there. Take the most draconian budget Republicans have even proposed, and you're still looking at trillions in spending for "the rest of you".

And anyone want to guess how big a % of the Federal budget "roads, bridges and schools" are? Next we'll have Federal candidates talking about firefighters. This isn't a serious argument.

[gruseom]

There actually could be a serious argument about firefighters, because they mostly don't fight fires anymore:

http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2012/07/fir...

Probably won't happen, though, because everybody loves them.

[cantankerous]

I agree with you on infrastructure spending except for one nuance. Usually telecom companies laying down infrastructure are given rights of way and easements that make their jobs much, much, less expensive. That is to say, if we lived in a private property, capitalist utopia, laying down thousands of miles of fiber would be orders of magnitude more expensive and possibly completely intractable. Government plays a role here by suspending private property rights in lieu of the added value to the public where infrastructure is concerned. If you were to figure in the money saved to infrastructure builders by government, then the spending numbers would like quite a bit different.

[twoodfin]

Usually telecom companies laying down infrastructure are given rights of way and easements that make their jobs much, much, less expensive.

Is it traditional for states and localities to just give this stuff away? If they're not accepting competitive bids for the right to lay fiber, they're leaving money on the table.

Certainly when it comes to things like wireless spectrum, the Feds have auctions for billions of dollars.

Here's a pre-dot com crash article that suggests at least for some areas these rights weren't given away:

http://articles.baltimoresun.com/1999-06-04/business/9906040...

[brown9-2]

real marginal tax rates that will approach 50+%

Can you elaborate on this? It seems to me that the proposal for restoring the highest bracket's marginal tax rate to what it was prior to 2001 would restore it to 39.6%.

[ojbyrne]

Adding on state tax gets you there. California, for example, has a top rate of 10.3%.

[fpgeek]

One small point: at the income level where the 39.6% bracket applies, you are almost certainly itemizing deductions (especially if you live in a state with an income tax). In that case, every dollar of state tax paid is deductible for federal purposes, measurably lowering the effective combined rate.

[twoodfin]

There's a good argument for eliminating that deduction, as it effectively grants high tax states and localities a subsidy from the residents of low tax states and localities.

That being said, the deduction doesn't take away the full force of the tax. Some quick math tells me that 40% federal + 10% state - the deduction is a 46% marginal rate.

Medicare/Medicaid FICA has been uncapped since the '90's, and adds 2.9% or 1.45%, depending on how you want to count the employer "contribution". Next year for top earners it goes up another .9% to help pay for ACA.

So I don't think claiming marginal income rates are approaching 50% at the high end is unfair. Does anyone doubt that a popular "fix" for Social Security will be to uncap that tax as well? Then we'd be talking 60%+ if you discount the accounting fiction of the employer contribution. Or are self-employed.

[ojbyrne]

Pretty important point. Thanks for the correction.

[crusso]

Do people just go through and downvote opinions they disagree with and upvote the ones they do agree with?