Comments on: Lessons for the Republicans

By: Oldsmoblogger

Oldsmoblogger — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 04:24:10 +0000

Too bad the GOP didn’t field a candidate on the national ticket.

Once again, we see the old hypothesis confirmed: Run a Democrat against a Democrat, and the voters will choose the Democrat every time.

By: Tam

Tam — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 20:26:15 +0000

In our state, where Obama squeaked past McCain, the incumbent GOP governor, who is an actual former member of the Eeeevil Kiss-O’-Death Third Rail Hated Bush administration, absolutely spanked the pinko Democrat challenger.

Too bad the GOP didn’t field a conservative on the national ticket; that’s eleven electoral votes they could have won right there.

By: Oldsmoblogger

Oldsmoblogger — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 18:56:55 +0000

So put it in moral terms rather than mathematical: “You earned it, you deserve to keep it, and who’s better qualified to decide what you need and how to get it than you are?”

By: Sebastian

Sebastian — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 18:48:03 +0000

I could see how you might have thought I was defending it. Mostly I was just using an example of something Republicans have traditionally touted that people just don’t get or care about. Personally, I think the only thing about the Laffer curve that’s not arguable is that at 0% you get 0 revenue, and I think it makes sense that at 100% you get 0 revenue because people won’t work. But it’s always seemed to me if you can’t describe the mathematics of the curve, which I no one seems to be able to do, it’s not entirely useful. Just saying at some point you get diminishing returns seems pointless if no one can say where that point is, or tell you how much revenue you’ll lose. If you can’t make predictions on something, it’s not science, but religion.

By: noops

noops — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 18:40:50 +0000

OK, fair enough. I’ll unwrap myself from the axle now.

Apologies.

By: Sebastian

Sebastian — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 18:33:17 +0000

Navy Vet:

I changed it because I was looking for something different, and something that fit the color scheme better.

By: Sebastian

Sebastian — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 18:29:13 +0000

I was using it as an example, noops. I am not a professional economist, and don’t pretend to be one.

By: noops

noops — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 18:10:42 +0000

Do you actually defend Laffer Curve economics? I DO understand it. I’m an economist, and I’ve worked both private and public sector. I’ve even been part of 4 successful startups (one of them was a non profit, so we’ll say 3.5 startups).

Trickle-Down, Laffer Curve economics DON’T friggin work. I consider myself a conservative ESPECIALLY on financial issues. This canard is what helped screw up the republican brand. This is just like gun grabbers, “Oh, our policies DON’T work? Well let’s yell louder.”

The focus of tax cuts needs to be more oriented on where returns are generated and money invested. Laffer just hasn’t succeeded in this because the current Republican platform basically assumes that the Laffer curve is limitless, which it is not (among a whole host of other issues).

Instead of worrying about receipts, lower taxes where the money ACTUALLY gets invested. Lower the corporate tax rate, the middle class rates, etc. Then you might see receipts increase, but orthogonally to invested growth. But incentivization of the top down doesn’t even make sense on its face.

By: RAH

RAH — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 17:58:21 +0000

The MSM was not going to report on issues unless forced too, If Ayes was brought up by the candidates more forcefully earlier the weatherground may have been reported in the local papers and national papers and prime time news. This info was relegated to the blogs and those who do not care about the issues until the last moment do not read blogs.

Palin may or may not be a strong conservative; her record does indicate she is so far. He viewpoint that she is hired by the state to work for the state and gov’t is for the people rather than rule the people.

But we need to focus on the local and state races to keep a growing number of Strong conservatives as politicians.

More importantly we need to infiltrate the schools and colleges and get a more conservative viewpoint taught. The total public and private school line is liberal.
We have to fight the socialism lite taught in the schools if we want a chance to get a more conservative generation. This was left solely to the liberals who control that field and that has been a mistake.

By: RAH

RAH — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 17:57:58 +0000

This is a good point and the same that conservatives say you must remain true to conservative principles.

The problem is that McCain was conservative like this,but he had too many years of appealing to bipartianship in the Senate. So conservatives were uncertain, the fiscal cons were not assured on his economic abilities. Only Palin seemed a clear conservative. She was unafraid to put Ayers and Obama together but this was too late to get the MSM to investigate Ayers background and the association since she made it necessary to report on this.