Being religious is going to be a double edged sword for most politicians in the future. It's been an easy way for the GOP to separate itself from the Democrats on a lot of issues by being a really simple appeal for those who are otherwise not politically affiliated. But now they've become the party of vehemently 'religious (it's all political theater)' anti-science Luddites. I agree with Republicans on most fiscal issues and believe that social issues are best solved at the lowest level.
I'm NEVER going to vote Republican if they don't get their heads out of the sand about science, which is not an affront to religion, and the legislation of morality.
Every issue is its own case which must be looked at individually, but for the most part I think that the more money you leave in people's pockets, the better off they are. There is a line where government spending is helpful and taxation is necessary, but where that line is remains a matter of debate. Democrats think it should be higher, Republicans think it should be lower, I'm more in alignment with the lower.
I don't believe that government is able to spend on behalf of the less fortunate as efficiently as the community. Social Security has an average rate of return of 2.74%. That's paltry by any investment standard. I recently did a lot of research on the subject which showed that after taking 7.65% of a person's paycheck, and matching funds from the company they work for (which is how Social Security and Medicare are funded), you would have to do terribly badly in any respectable fund to only receive 2.74% growth after all those years. Moreover, my research showed that taking that 7.65% out of a minimum wage worker's pocket to pay them back at only 2.74% of what they gave is damn near criminal given the alternatives of investment. Giving that money back to them would be over a $100/month raise. When you're only earning 15,912 a year that's a lot of money that they could use. Even better, if the worker only put half of that into a retirement fund with a 6% lifetime (conservative) return, and the business continued to put in 10% of that original contribution, you would give the average minimum wage worker another $309 per month over social security, all while reintroducing individual contributions by 50% and company contributions by 90%.
The private market simply does a better job providing for retirement among those who provide for themselves. If you don't want to save for your retirement then that's going to be really hard for you in your later life. But we've just shown how someone living and working on minimum wage is worse off on the current system if they are willing to adjust to the alternative of providing for their own retirement.
I don't know how much lower federal taxes need to go, but I know that I would prefer a flat tax with a credit for those not earning more than a certain amount. You earn less than the poverty level, you don't pay taxes. Everyone else pays the same amount. Pretty simple and fair. Nobody gets exemptions. The poor don't get screwed.
I want most spending left to the states. Romney would have done a lot better with me if he said, "Romney care is exactly like Obamacare, but in Massachusetts we decided as a state that's what we wanted. I don't think that's the same solution for the country."
But I want to be really clear, this is what the Republicans SAY they are going to do. In practice it's a lot different. If most spending in the government is done by Social Security and Medicare, there's an equally large section called Defense that the GOP has a huge hard-on for supporting. They can pretend it's not spending, or a lot of corporate welfare, but it is. No bones about it.
The central tenet of Republican fiscal policy is to cut taxes and starve the beast to reduce government spending, putting more money into peoples pockets. This is a policy that I guarantee will never work but will continue to earn Republicans votes.
If you want to reduce consumption of a good you raise the price, conversely if you want to increase the consumption of a good you lower the price. Cutting taxes will always encourage people to demand more government services than they would have at the lower price. Lower taxes = increase demand for government services.
No one likes paying taxes so if you lower peoples taxes you get votes. People like consuming government services so the more you provide at a lower price the more votes you get. The Republicans get a two for one in electoral benefit when they lower taxes. The deficit doesn't get any lower but who cares, it's all about the votes.
Increasing taxes in an effort to balance the budget and lower demand for government services would have a greater impact on Republicans than it would Democrats. "Red States" receive significantly more in return for their tax dollars on average than "Blue States" do. Raise taxes, watch demand for government services go down nationally and watch red states, who have a better seat at the trough, suffer significantly more pain.
It would also hurt the precious defense budget and farm subsidies which are calculated into the increased benefits that red states get from the government on average but are the kind of issues that would give Republicans a swift kick in the balls.
There are lots of very smart Republicans who I think are very aware of this dynamic (at least I hope so). It's central to the idea that price should be established by markets, which Republicans pretend to care about. It's a vile way to manipulate voters but that's what you get in a corrupt system.
I can't give the Democrats a pass in any way. If the Democrats have a coherent fiscal policy let me know because I haven't noticed it yet.
We could talk about many other problems with Republican policy that are bat shit crazy and ill informed but I think the one I listed above is the central lie to their guiding ethos. I've not yet met a republican who doesn't think that I'm an idiot and tells me that I don't understand how markets really work but oh well, I still think that the most essential function of the market is to establish a price at which goods can be exchanged and that the less that price is obfuscated and manipulated the closer we will get to a desired level of consumption. I think there are loads of ways the government could direct it's money to stimulate the economy and encourage the public welfare and happiness but I don't think there is much risk of many of them happening.
If cantaloupe gets cheaper people will choose to consume more of it. If the cost of government goes down, you feel less pain at tax time and the idea of introducing more government services doesn't seem as bad. If taxes are already high you don't want ant more government services because they are already breaking your back you will probably like less government services so that you can pay less taxes in the future.
A supply and demand function is a snapshot, they are usually in constant motion. Consumers and producers constantly change the amount they will supply and demand in response to any change in input. Taxes go up people will desire smaller government. Lower taxes and the opposition to bigger government will slacken.
Right now we consume more than we pay for. Consumption of government services is greater than the cost of those services because of tax cuts and borrowing. If people had to pay the true cost of government by paying a higher tax rate than the pressure to reduce spending would increase and government spending might actually decrease. With the current system Republican tax cuts will only serve to decrease the pressure for smaller government and should if market theory has any validity at all increase the demand for more government services.
Each of us a a level of taxes and government services that we would prefer. Because we have to aggregate the supply and demand of these services you might feel like we have too much government while another person feels like they don't have enough but the average is what should guide the course of government spending (probably not true as campaigne money probably has the biggest influence). People think they are getting what they paid for with their tax money but in fact they are getting more than they paid for because of deficit spending.
I don't know if this is still unclear to you but I'm doing my best.
Summery: If you subsidies a good people will consume more of it than they would at it's market equilibrium price (milk subsidies for instance). If you tax a good people will consume less of it than they would at a market equilibrium price (think cigarettes). Right now we subsides government spending by borrowing. Tax cuts only make the consumption of government services less painful or more desirable. If we paid the true cost of government services the market forces (supply and demand) would shrink government and help establish the size of government that Americans really desire. Doing this would not be in the interest of Republicans because they could no longer campaign on shrinking government and lowering taxes. The real Republican agenda is too get elected not to shrink government (lot of the dingbats think they want smaller government but the guys up top probably know what they are doing).
Lol. The excess money that SSC collects is "invested" in government securities.
- even more so it is prohibited from being used to fund the general revenue.
It's a kinda sorta not really prohibited at all in any way because Treasury bonds go directly into general revenue. They just have launder the money through the bonds first.
This is quite interesting. I had no idea that there were so many people in America who are not religious. 52% is a pretty big number. This will probably affect the way religion in politics work in the future(or even now) now that the majority of the people in this category can now get involved in politics and vote. At the very least, religious beliefs won't be a driving force for getting elected, and more people can run(openly) who are not religious and not have to be afraid to lose simple because of their beliefs.
Republicans will definitely worry, since most of them are Christian, and a lot of them base their ideals off of their religious beliefs. If the majority of people voting aren't religious, that doesn't leave a very big platform for Republicans to stand on.
It's actually 23%. I wonder when religion won't be a "requirement" for US politics anymore. Probably not for at least another 20 years. I also wonder how many US politicians are closet atheists.
It's interesting. I'm super devoted to my religion... And I get nauseous when people bring religion into politics... Maybe even angry.
I'd rather have an atheist in office who is competent at his/her job than a devout (fill in the blank) who happens to be popular with some sub group.
Ugh.
He might have misread this part:
- Between just 2007 and 2014, the adult population of "nones" skyrocketed by 52 percent, to nearly 56 million.
I think the tide is turning quickly in regards to the importance of religion in politics. Eight years ago, when Obama was running against McCain, pastor Rick Warren conducted a debate between the two about the role God plays in their lives etc. I think that such a debate would seem rediculous these days (I thought it did then). Times are changing and if the GOP wants to remain relevant, it needs to change too. My guess is that most of them aren't, in their hearts and minds, actually opposed to things like gay marriage for example, but have had to "play along" with the party line.
Like yellowoftops, I find I am more and more fiscally conservative but the rest of the GOP platform is nuts.
Though the religious people are still the ones that come out to vote in much higher numbers than the "Nones"... I don't think we will see a "None" as US president before 2024.
Luckily, policies are changing quicker, even if lacking considerably behind public majority opinion, for example, on marriage equality, medical marijuana, sex ed, etc.
Republicans will fall back on the fiscal platform. And that article makes a good effort to show that most Democrats try to play the religion card just as much. Hillary Clinton is mentioned talking about how the Bible is the 'living word'. Both parties are going to have to stop using religion as a crutch.