Forgetting Communism’s Crimes

42 responses so far

• 1 balconesfault // Oct 22, 2009 at 10:12 am

  Were there op eds already on the shelf denigrating Obama for showing up at the ceremonies commemorating the fall of the Iron Curtain as if he was personally involved in the victory for capitalism and European democracy?

  If the fall of the Soviet Union as symbolized by the wall’s collapse is not the event of the second half of the 20th Century, what is?

  I’d go with the landing on the moon – but I’m kind of a nerd.

• 2 sinz54 // Oct 22, 2009 at 10:15 am

  The Western Left has never celebrated the fall of Communism. Because it took away a couple of their main issues: Their agitating for unilateral disarmament, their denunciations of the U.S. and the USSR for just being “two equal scorpions in a bottle.” And they saw the USSR as a necessary counterweight to “U.S. imperialism.” At a stroke, the entire “nuclear freeze” movement had become irrelevant–overtaken by events.

  I had moved to Massachusetts and was living there when the Berlin Wall came down and Communism collapsed. Those leftist peacenik organizations I was talking about started dismantling their storefronts in Cambridge MA and shutting down. I’m sure that for them, it must have been a bittersweet moment: Peace really was breaking out–but they were not involved in it. It was happening under two conservative Republican administrations.

• 3 balconesfault // Oct 22, 2009 at 10:26 am

  Sinz, you never fail to delight and entertain with your painting of liberals as all lovers of the USSR.

  I really don’t remember anyone agitating for unilateral disarmament, though. Certainly nobody who had any serious role in the Democratic Party. So at best, is this another example of dislinking the Democratic Party from the extreme left?

• 4 ottovbvs // Oct 22, 2009 at 10:40 am

  ……….Schaeffer buys a silly tee shirt…….why didn’t you pick up one of those with an Iron Cross on it too…….and by some strange alchemy this gets transformed into an attack on Obama and the Democrats……no matter that it was a Democratic administration who conceived the strategies, and put in place the alliances and national institutions, that were instrumental in the defeat of communism……..As for Sinz’s irrational fantasies where The Student’s Soviet for World Revolution and the Support of Communism gets transformed into the Democratic Party…….what can one say to someone whose brain functions like this.

• 5 Raider1 // Oct 22, 2009 at 11:08 am

  Otto.

  First of all. It was Obama’s own communications director and also Ron Bloom, one of his many “czars” who stated that they “admired” and “agreed with” respectively Mao Tse-tung. Dunn and Bloom are democrats. Mao a communist (and mass murderer). So Schaeffer is not linking them in some contrived way, they linked themselves!

  Second. I love how you refer to the Democratic Party of the 1940s and 1950s as if they are even remotely kindred spirits to today’s far left, anti-American, grievance group-oriented, big government, neosocialist party that it has become today. The last of the old dems, JFK, was in favor of strong defense and cutting taxes. Who does that sound more like today???

  However, if you wish to say that the Democrats of today are the same as back then, and thus give them credit for the hard line against the Soviets, then you must also accept that democrats resisted Civil Rights in a big way and a greater percentage of republicans than democrats in Congress supported civil rights legislation. Ah, but then this is where you emply the double standard and say “well that’s not the same democrats as today. Those Dixicrats are more like republicans now!”

  Can’t have it both ways. If yesterdays anti-civil rights democrats are todays republicans, then so are yesterday’s hard line anti-communists.

• 6 Raider1 // Oct 22, 2009 at 11:11 am

  And what do you even mean Otto, by “pick up one with an Iron Cross”? Or is that just a knee-jerk reference Hitler response that you libs always use…while lauding a guy like Mao who made Hitler look like a boy scout on the mass killing scale. You really are a piece of work.

• 7 LFC // Oct 22, 2009 at 11:30 am

  raider1 said… The last of the old dems, JFK, was in favor of strong defense and cutting taxes. Who does that sound more like today???

  a) We spend more than double in defense than the Russia, China, France, and the UK combined. (Those are the next top 4 countries in military spending.) We spend more than the top 15 countries combined.

  The GOP has presided over some of the biggest wastes of defense dollars, like the rollout of the still yet to be proven missile defense system. They fought for the now axed F-22, the fighter with a huge price tag and no mission. How about Rummy’s “you go to war with the army you have, not the one you want” support of the troops? Obama and Gates just increased spending, moving a bigger chunk to equipment for the actual troops, something Bush and Rummy failed to do in the midst of two wars. So explain to me, exactly, how Dems are “weak on defense”.

  b) If you don’t understand that the tax rates under JFK were different than today, than you have no business being involved in this discussion. Just because it’s a good idea to cut taxes when the top marginal rate is 90% does not mean it’s a good idea when the top marginal rate is 35% and the long term gains rate is 15%. You are obviously from the “if some is good, more must be better” school of philosophy. Read Bruce Bartlett’s latest posts to understand why tax cuts today are stupid and reckless.

• 8 balconesfault // Oct 22, 2009 at 11:33 am

  Eh … the Obama Admin figures you cite are as in favor of Mao’s totalitarian rule, as Pete Sessions is in favor of the Taliban. This is a silly sideshow of an argument – if you want to know whether Dunn or Bloom believe that Mao’s violent agrarian revolution, purging the intellengsia (kind of China’s version of the Red State/Blue State battle), was a good idea – why not just ask them, rather than putting words into their mouths?

• 9 Raider1 // Oct 22, 2009 at 11:35 am

  IFC…is it possible that you completely missed the point of my posting by this much? Really?

• 10 Raider1 // Oct 22, 2009 at 11:39 am

  Balcon. Let’s say I did ask and they answered this way:

  “And then the third lesson and tip actually come from two of my favorite political philosophers, Mao Tse-tung and Mother Teresa — not often coupled with each together, [laughter] but the two people that I turn to most to basically deliver a simple point, which is, you’re going to make choices. You’re going to challenge. You’re going to say, ‘Why not?’ You’re going to figure out how to do things that have never been done before. But here’s the deal: These are your choices. They are no one else’s. In 1947, when Mao Tse-tung was being challenged within his own party on his plan to basically take China over, the Nationalist Chinese helped the cities, they had the army, they had the Air Force, they had everything on their side. And people said, ‘How can you win? How can you do this? How can you do this? Against all the odds against you?’ And Mao Tse-tung said, ‘You fight your war and I’ll fight mine,’ and think about that for a second.” — Anita Dunn

  Here are Manufcturing czar Ron Bloom’s thoughts:

  “We know that the free market is nonsense. That the whole point is to game the system. We know this is all about power. That it is an adults only no limit game. We kind of agree with Mao that political power comes largely from the barrel of a gun.”

• 11 Raider1 // Oct 22, 2009 at 11:47 am

  IFC. But believing in higher tax rates (or not cutting them any more) you are basically adhering to a philosophy that says that teh government is a better steward of YOUR money than you are. I simply do not accept that. And I refuse to accept that raising taxes and not massive spending cuts are the only answer to deficits. I pay 50% all in (federarl state, local, FICA, etc.) of my income. How much more does the government need?

  And the fact of the matter is that Kennedy cut the marginal tax rates (yeah I get it Mr. Condescending) regardless of where they were to begin with. So he believed — as true conservatives do today — that those who earn the money are better trusted with it than the government. From a philosophical standpoint, JFK would be a Lieberman democrat or even a moderate republican in another life. That was the point that you should be intelligent enough to digest. That you cannot cherry pick, as Otto does (and he knows it) which part of the ‘old democrats’ viewpoints and policies you wish to claim as your own and which you wish to pass off as really a GOP tenant.

• 12 Raider1 // Oct 22, 2009 at 11:51 am

  tenant should be tennent

• 13 midcon // Oct 22, 2009 at 11:56 am

  Right on Brad and not only that, he failed to properly commemorate the fall the of the Roman Empire, the invention of the wheel, the market collapse of ‘29, and other critical events in human history that made us what we are today. It is Biden’s job to officiate and commemorate. I would rather Obama spend his time governing than commemorating and appearing on prime time.

• 14 Raider1 // Oct 22, 2009 at 11:57 am

  Balcon, by your logic in your first post, no president need ever commemorate an occasion in American history if he was not personally involved right? So I guess no more WW2 ceremonies for any POTUS going forward then eh? And what is this Independence Day thing all about. I don’t see any of OUR signatures on the Declaration of Independence do you? Hmmm.

• 15 Raider1 // Oct 22, 2009 at 12:02 pm

  Midcon…do you not see that Schaeffer first write about the personal trips that Obama felt WERE essential before juxtaposing them against this one he does not feel matters?

  And you have embarked on a wonderful journey of the fallacy of “argumentum ad reductio ad absurdum.” You do see that yes?

  By the way. Air Force One has phones, computers, hecke even a bathroom. Everything a POTUS needs to govern from an Oval Office at 35,000 feet. It is the SYMBOLISM of what matters to this president and what does not that this snubbing of German Chancellor Angela Merkl’s invitation reveals that is so disturbing.

• 16 balconesfault // Oct 22, 2009 at 12:40 pm

  raider1 And Mao Tse-tung said, ‘You fight your war and I’ll fight mine,’ and think about that for a second.”

  And that is very sage advice, no matter who gives it. The only way to win against a more powerful enemy is to define the terms of the battle (I remember a joke as a kid – challenge someone faster to a race, if they give you a head start – then make it a race up a ladder).

  We kind of agree with Mao that political power comes largely from the barrel of a gun

  I cannot count the number of times I have heard Republicans refer to taxation laws as “confiscation of property down the barrel of a gun”. Most certainly enforcement of the free market to the extent that it exists, and maintenance of political power, are all achieved via the barrel of a gun. Even in a democratic society, we accept that there are many who would erode our freedoms and destroy our market system, and we the majority spend huge amounts of money to hire guns to protect those freedoms and our markets from those in the minority who would resort to force to overthrow our system. Are you going to deny this, or just devolve into some childish quibbling over how Bloom phrased something that you innately know to be true?

  And I refuse to accept that raising taxes and not massive spending cuts are the only answer to deficits.

  That is a legitimate position, and requires a vigorous public debate over what we want to spend our money on, what’s the most efficient way to spend that money, and what things we shouldn’t spend our money on either because we’re unlikely to succeed or because we shouldn’t be spending money on that. It is essentially a far more serious discussion than waving tea bags or pledging “No New Taxes” allows for, unfortunately. And thus, we end up spending the money without raising the revenue, generating structural deficits.

  So (Kennedy) believed — as true conservatives do today — that those who earn the money are better trusted with it than the government.

  See – here is where reasoned argument devolves into silly jingoism. What does that mean? That anyone who favors any taxes believes that the government is better trusted with people’s money than the people? Seems to me that it does. I look forward to the calls for completely abolishing all taxing entities.

  Balcon, by your logic in your first post, no president need ever commemorate an occasion in American history if he was not personally involved right?

  I did not say that. What I was meaning to say is that the Republican Party has become so reflexively oppositional to Obama … starting with attacks on what kind of salad Obama liked to eat last year … that it seems that as any decision arrives, the Republican Party is ready to criticize Obama on either side of the issue, depending on which way he tacks. I have no doubt that just as he is being criticized for not going … were he to have decided to go he’d be being attacked from the same parties on the grounds I noted above.

• 17 Reason60 // Oct 22, 2009 at 12:47 pm

  I celebrated the fall of the wall as a proud Reagan Republican, and still feel that Reagan and thatcher and Pope John Paul II rightfully deserve much of the credit for ending the Cold War.

  However, this hand wringing over the lack of a presidential visit seems to be more about whipping up an imaginary slight, about seizing an opportunity to play the victim, more about Obama hatred than anything else.

  Please Republicans, admit it. You won. Communism is dead. Stop trying to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

• 18 midcon // Oct 22, 2009 at 2:42 pm

  raider, Yes, symbolism is important, but actions are more important and while Air Force 1 is a fairly complete functioning office, it is no substitute for the critical interaction among the staff and other political leaders that is necessary for governing. My point was and remains, there is always something to commemorate and one needs to start being selective. Time is a useful discriminator in that regard. Presidential attendance at commemoration events needs to be selective. Now if your point was that there was perceived snub, then the purpose of going was not to commemorate but to build relationships. Ok. I’ll buy that. Still, the more commemoration you have the more you lessen the import of each commemorative event.

• 19 Raider1 // Oct 22, 2009 at 3:05 pm

  I think though in the context of presidents and the intimate relationship the office has had with the Berlin Wall be it “Ich bin eine Berliner” or “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” this would be a fitting end to the continuum that began in the 1960s, culminated in the 1980s, and now the first African American president, a president who claims to be for the re-engagement of the US with our allies (at least for the thirty years Europe has left before becomining an Islamic and therefore stultified, oppressed and backwards continent) this is a fitting denoumont to the saga. And as the US played THE critical role in the downfall of the USSR I think such an occasion carries for sublimity that begs for a presidential appearance than a typical ceremony. If presidents lay wreaths at foreign nations’ war cemeteries, if they travel great distances to give a speech of negligable effect to the so-called Muslim World from Cairo, then surely this one time celebration is worth the leader of the free world’s attention.

• 20 Raider1 // Oct 22, 2009 at 3:07 pm

  LOL…looks like I lost my traing of thought in there somewhere.

• 21 LFC // Oct 22, 2009 at 3:23 pm

  raider1 said… And I refuse to accept that raising taxes and not massive spending cuts are the only answer to deficits.

  Great! Please provide a detailed list of where you are going to cut $1 trillion from the budget. I have never, not once, seen such a list provided by proponents of balancing the budget (or getting somewhere close) through just spending cuts. Generalities such as “pork” and “wasteful spending” will be marked as non-answers.

• 22 Raider1 // Oct 22, 2009 at 3:38 pm

  How about just cut 10% across the board…EVERY DEPT. From defense to social services. Like companies have to on a regular basis in tough times, they will find them. And threaten to fire any dept. head that does not come in on budget which is 90% of the year before.

  Simple concept. Some of the best ideas are in elegant simplicity. This could result in $360 billion in annual savings. When times are tough, you hunker down.

• 23 LFC // Oct 22, 2009 at 3:59 pm

  Ahhhh. The unthinking man’s solution.

  Discretionary spending in Bush’s last budget (FY 2009) was about $1.2 trillion. So you just found $120 billion. That means you have $880 billion to go.

• 24 Reason60 // Oct 22, 2009 at 4:06 pm

  The comments about deficit reduction caught my eye- even at the risk of thread hijacking, I made a long-ish post on this on another board.
  Basically, we spend about 3.5 Trillion per year.
  Of that, about 2.1 Trillion is non-discretionary debt service, Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid;
  Another 900 Billion is Defense;
  the remaining 500 Billion funds EVERYTHING ELSE the government does- Department of Agriculture, Parks, State, Interior, everything.
  The deficit is 1.4 Trillion.

  So essentially, you can shut down the entire government- just close the doors, turn off the lights, mothball it- and you have only reduced the deficit by a third.

  Or to put it another way- there is no way to have a serious conversation about cutting spending that doesn’t involve a discussion about Social Security, Medicare, and Defense.

  And to make any meaningful cut in any department, you have to re-evaluate the scope of its mission and reach. Just cutting a department’s budget without reducing its scope is Dilbert-eque budgeting, since you will have made the department unable to competently service its remaining obligations.

  My suggestions:
  1. Raise the SS and Medicare eligibility age to 70 (or higher);
  2. Eliminate as many military bases around the world as possible- we currently have about 1,000; My targets would be Germany and Japan to start with.
  3. No more wars; Withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan as rapidly as possible.
  4. Bow to reality and raise the marginal tax rates.

  These are just the big items; there are countless smaller items that could be mentioned like Ag subsidies. But the real conversation will be about what sort of government we can have, what sort of international footprint we can have, if we want to have a balanced budget.
  As long as conservatives and liberals both think that the budget can be balanced with a few simple gimmicks [cough-supplyside-cough] or painless bromides about cutting fat, we are headed for endless deficits as far as the eye can see.

  Republicans would do themselves a favor by returning to be the party of sober serious thinkers, with a message of to shared sacrifice and discipline.

• 25 Raider1 // Oct 22, 2009 at 4:17 pm

  $120 billion excuse me. You’re right about the debt service spending. (Just had the figure of 3.6 T in my head.) Obviously a detailed solution is not going to be found on the thread board of a blog. But the sense of inevitablity of big government shown by those who wish to raise taxes is amazingly defeatist.

  Why must we have 1.2 T of discretionary spending at all? What does government do that is so absolutely vital that it cannot be done with 90, 80 even 70% of the money it now uses? So you honestly belief that a massive institution that is beholden to no share-holders, can lose money year after year (run deficits) and can taop new sources of capital when needed for cash at will (treausry auctions, taxes, etc) is going to be by its very nature anything but an incridibly, astonishingly, umiaginably ineffecient and wasteful conern?

  One of the facts of Obama’s resume that bothered me the most was that he had absolutely no experience as a manager in any executive capacity. That he was never an active member of the private sector, nor had he ever had to manage a budget, make payroll, any of the day-to-day functions that even a guy selling trinkets from a kiosk in a mall must do.

  The very nations psyche must change otherwise we are headed in the direction of Europe whose welfare systems and socialist insitutions are already showing deep fissures and will collapse on themselves.

• 26 LFC // Oct 22, 2009 at 4:22 pm

  Reason60, I agree with most of your items but #1, and that’s for several reasons:

  a) I’ve seen a number of people in their 60’s that simply can not expect to be productive until age 70. It’s simply unrealistic. Even the current retirement age for the under 50 or so crowd of 67 is pushing it.

  b) Reducing benefits is a back door tax hike on the lower and middle class. If the actuarial studies show that workers are getting more benefit than they paid for, let’s look at it from that standpoint and adjust accordingly, but “let’s jack up the retirement age” is too a blunt instrument.

  c) I am against anything that increases or extends the Social Security surpluses. The government tears through that surplus cash like nobody’s business. Reagan hiked Soc Sec taxes and burned the the cash it raised. Clinton started got it under control in his last year, and Bush II immediately reversed that trend. I won’t support adding revenue or cutting costs in Social Security until either politicians can’t touch that money or no surplus exists for them to use while adding to future obligations. No more hiding a big chunk of deficit with Social Security surpluses!

  As to #4, the long term capital gains rate must also go up, not just marginal income tax rates. I personally would like to see a much flatter tax (a real flat tax, not the bogus flat INCOME tax Bush promoted) that spanned income, capital gains, and estate tax. It would require some minimum dollar amount that is untaxable for everbody (i.e. you can’t get blood from a stone) or maybe a two bracket system so everybody pays something, but every dollar thereafter would be taxed like every other dollar. That being said, I don’t think that’s politically feasible.

• 27 Raider1 // Oct 22, 2009 at 4:24 pm

  IFC…to me the unthinking man’s solution is. Hmm deficit? Raise taxes. Bigger deficit? Raise taxes more. Knee–JERK.

  Just because 120 billion will not close the gap completely, you argue then to do what? Nothing? That is like a manager saying, “well we could cut our costs here and here but we still won’t get to that 20% ROR our investors expect. So let’s do nothing.” That is the big government mentality.

  Companies that have a finite income and revenu stream must find ways to cut costs and save money to turn a profit within that stream or go out of business. It’s called getting lean and mean (I know efficiency is a hard concept for liberals to understand so I forgive you).

• 28 LFC // Oct 22, 2009 at 4:27 pm

  Why must we have 1.2 T of discretionary spending at all? What does government do that is so absolutely vital that it cannot be done with 90, 80 even 70% of the money it now uses?

  $705 billion of that $1.2 trillion is taken up by the defense budget, homeland security, and support of veterans. So no serious discussion on spending cuts in the discretionary budget can really be had without a big reduction in military spending.

  FYI, a good breakdown and graph can be found at Wikipedia. It lists each department and how much their share of the budget.

• 29 balconesfault // Oct 22, 2009 at 4:35 pm

  Republicans would do themselves a favor by returning to be the party of sober serious thinkers, with a message of to shared sacrifice and discipline.

  I have long insisted that the Republicans greatest economic sin in the last 30 years was the Bush Tax Cuts.

  Why? Because we had a trajectory towards eliminating the debt within a decade. We had two years of annual surplus. And we had developed a culture in Washington where anyone who wanted to propose something new had to justify how it would not reverse the trend of debt elimination.

  The tax cuts immediately took us from a small surplus, back to the era of 12-figure annual deficits, and the resolve was lost.

  I agree that we need new age thresholds for SS in order to avoid bankrupting the system. We probably need some “tweener” stage where a person can semi-retire at 65 but keep working and buy into Medicare at a reduced premium if need be … creating an opportunity for a lot of the elderly to consult part time, forestall drawing Social Security, and reduce the national cost of Medicare. I think expecting every 68 year old to still be able to work a 40-hour week is unrealistic, but we need a smart incentive system that keeps them in the workforce with a reduced schedule.

  We’ve needed to be sloughing off military bases for decades. Actually, I’d much rather we have kept a lot of the bases we killed domestically per the Cheney plan, and lost more of the foreign bases.

  Wars cost so damn much more than the immediate price tag. Increased cost of recruitment in the future. Veterans disability benefits and treatment. Loss of able bodied young men and women from our workforce when reservists are called up. Accelerated need to replace materiel degraded from years of high stress.

  And yeah – the thing that even the most hard core Lauffer Curve acolytes seem to ignore is that it is a double-edged sword … while the Lauffer Curve contends that raising taxes from an optimal point will cause a decrease in tax revenues … it also contends that cutting taxes from an optimal point will cause a decrease in tax revenues.

  If we look at our economic performance over the last 38 years, there’s a lot to suggest that Clinton got the number pretty close to right in 1993.

• 30 balconesfault // Oct 22, 2009 at 4:41 pm

  raider: One of the facts of Obama’s resume that bothered me the most was that he had absolutely no experience as a manager in any executive capacity.

  Seriously? I thought we’d killed the MBA President meme over the last few years.

  The budget is set by Congress. You can blame the President for misapplying funds allocated, for mismanaging the budget that Congress sets, for running an Administration which does not do the things we’re paying for it to do, which is beset by fraud and waste … but where is the evidence that the Obama Administration has been prone to any of these things?

• 31 LFC // Oct 22, 2009 at 4:42 pm

  Just because 120 billion will not close the gap completely, you argue then to do what? Nothing?

  First, at this juncture where the economy is a shambles left behind by the last administration, I do suggest we do nothing. Gov’t spending cuts in the second worst economy in the past 100+ years is not a smart move. This and during a time of a major war are the only time I support deficits.

  When the economy is running reasonably, I believe in a combination of spending cuts and tax hikes:

  a) Raise taxes, including capital gains. Potentially raise the Medicare portion of the payroll tax since it (unlike Social Security) isn’t currently paying for itself. Reduce deductions so people actually pay their fair share of taxes.

  b) Start forcing medical efficiencies. I just went through a serious medical procedure in late June. The bills still haven’t been taken care of by the insurance company. Standardized medical billing is an idea that’s time is WAY past due.

  c) Simplify business taxes. Compared to much of the industrial world, we have a high marginal rate, but low effective rate. Business uses gov’t supported infrastructure. They should pay for it.

  d) Cut the defense budget. I like the idea of closing a number of bases in foreign countries. Yes, there are bases that have strategic significance, but there are many that we can close. Get rid of ridiculous high price tag boondoggles. The non-working missile defense system comes to mind. It should only have an R&D budget until it f***ing works. The decision to roll it out was moronic.

  e) Increase gov’t fees for natural resources to be market value. This area is one big corporate giveaway. I don’t know how much this would help, but it’s worthwhile no matter what.

  That’s a start.

• 32 Reason60 // Oct 22, 2009 at 4:49 pm

  I prefer to use WallStats
  http://www.wallstats.com/deathandtaxes/
  but only because it is graphically easier to me.

  I agree that there are plenty of ways to reduce the deficit- my suggestions were only that, mere suggestions.
  But one fact is inescapable, that the biggest cuts can be acheived from the biggest departments- entitlements and defense. Which are, unfortunately, the most popular and resistant to cuts. Every penny of that 3.5 trillion is watched over by a zealous horde of special interests who are convinced that their budget is absolutely vital and the muscle and bone of our nation’s well being.

  I think Bruce Bartlett has the best commentary on supply side if only because he was one of the original architects of it, and has unassailable conservative credentials and can’t be dismissed as a leftist.

  And Balcone, you are right about the long tail of war costs- my mother in law is still getting a monthly check from her first husband’s military benefits.
  He died in 1947 in the Air Force after serving for 9 months. So in a (admittedly tiny) way we are still spending money on WWII. In 2069, some widow somewhere will still be getting a check for a grunt who died in Iraq.

• 33 LFC // Oct 22, 2009 at 5:39 pm

  But one fact is inescapable, that the biggest cuts can be acheived from the biggest departments- entitlements and defense.

  The one thing that must be understood about entitlements is that they are still a net positive when calculating budget deficit (a fact that irks the ever lovin’ s*** out of me). Take George W’s annual deficits and add about $300 billion of Social Security surpluses per year to them to get a more accurate budget accounting.

  So cutting Social Security is just diverting more payroll taxes to the general fund, while putting off repayment for a couple of decades. I say that this is NOT conservative, but rather a game of “Hide the Deficit”.

  I’ve also read multiple viewpoints that Social Security is not really in that much trouble. Small adjustments like raising the tax cap, increasing the tax rate marginally, indexing smaller annual benefit increases more closely to CPI, etc. would handle most of it without crushing anybody. Even if none of that was implemented, it is projected that 2/3 of benefits could be paid just from payroll taxes in the future, without dipping into the IOUs we’ve built up. Projections also depend upon dropping population growth. Business won’t let that happen. When they need workers and can’t find them, they’ll be screaming for increased immigration.

  Medicare, on the other hand, IS running a deficit today and that will increase. It needs to be tackled now, probably from both from the expense side and the tax side.

• 34 ottovbvs // Oct 22, 2009 at 6:08 pm

  raider1 // Oct 22, 2009 at 11:08 am
  “First of all. It was Obama’s own communications director and also Ron Bloom, one of his many “czars” who stated that they “admired” and “agreed with” respectively Mao Tse-tung.”

  …….One wonders why Richard Nixon made nice with him……..you are so juvenile

• 35 ottovbvs // Oct 22, 2009 at 7:13 pm

  raider1 // Oct 22, 2009 at 11:08 am

  “First of all. It was Obama’s own communications director and also Ron Bloom, one of his many “czars” who stated that they “admired” and “agreed with” respectively Mao Tse-tung.”

  ……..So why did President Nixon laud the guy to the skies…….your world view has all the sophistication of a 13 year old………for better or worse he’s the founder of modern China which is currently kicking our ass.

• 36 ottovbvs // Oct 22, 2009 at 7:20 pm

  27 raider1 // Oct 22, 2009 at 4:24 pm

  “IFC…to me the unthinking man’s solution is. Hmm deficit? Raise taxes. Bigger deficit? Raise taxes more. Knee–JERK.”

  ……Why don’t you lay out a few buck on the conservative economist Bruce Bartlett’s book and he’ll explain it to you:

  http://capitalgainsandgames.com/blog/bruce-bartlett/1168/supply-side-economics-rip

  “(I know efficiency is a hard concept for liberals to understand so I forgive you).”

  ………You’d never think we’d just had eight years of one of the most incompetent and inefficient govt’s in US history……..and it was Republican

• 37 rbottoms // Oct 22, 2009 at 8:43 pm

  While strolling down the streets of Manhattan the other day I saw a shirt which declared: “Communism Killed 100 Million People And All I Got Was This Stupid T-Shirt.”

  “Communism Killed 100 Million People And I Bought This Stupid T-Shirt Courtesy Chinese Communists Slave Labor At Walmart.”

• 38 Raider1 // Oct 23, 2009 at 8:14 am

  Otto…as much as I appreciate that you are justifying several Obama underling’s pining for the days of Mao by using Richard Nixon’s outreach as a “he did it too” defense, I am not sure how that is relevant. One is an act of realpolitik necessity (like FDR and Churchill holding their noses as they climbed into bed, for better or worse, with Stalin) while the examples Schaeffer cites have to do with expressions of philosophical sympathy. China is simply too big to be ignored and Nixon understood that. But that reality, and the policy changes it may have necessiated does not make the millions of dead as the result of Mao’s failed attempts to create a communist country in what is a mostly capitalist populace some how spring back to life.

  China whose history goes back thousands of years (and in which Mao was only a blip really in this context) is and always has been a great nation. And Mao was and always will be a mass murderer.
  And Rbottoms…you are assuming that the shirt was made in China #1. And #2 what exactly is your point? (You don’t know yourself even do you?)

• 39 Raider1 // Oct 23, 2009 at 8:18 am

  Otto, the beautiful thing about economics and accounting is that you can torture a number to say anything you want it to say. You haul out Bartlett, I see your Bartlett and raise you a Laffer or Friedman, etc. And both make compelling cases.

  And I just do not understand why you all continue to ignore the fact that the GOP screwed up not because of conservative principles, but because it abandonded those same principles. Yes, there were Republicans running the fiscal show, but they were not conservatives. I am a conservative, not a party man. So, in essence, you are absolutely right. And the GOP deserved the trouncing they got.

• 40 Dblade // Oct 23, 2009 at 10:38 am

  What’s funny about this is that Hitler himself is starting to become the butt of jokes. Hit youtube up and you can see a ton of hitler parody videos, based on the film Downfall, where Hitler deals with being banned from Xbox Live, talks bout how much he hates ceiling cat or Michael Bay’s version of the transformers, and just is cast as a comic internet ranter.

  I think it’s not really due to any ill motive, but it’s just the human tendency towards the comic. If you constantly remembered and held all the crimes of Communism, you probably wouldn’t get out of bed in the morning. Humor is a release valve for dealing with tragedy.

• 41 balconesfault // Oct 23, 2009 at 11:20 am

  dblade: What’s funny about this is that Hitler himself is starting to become the butt of jokes.

  Ahh… these youngsters …

  http://www.spike.com/video/der-fuehrers-face/2722387

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K08akOt2kuo

• 42 Carney // Dec 2, 2009 at 10:01 am

  I recommend the recent award-winning film “The Soviet Story”.

  http://www.sovietstory.com/

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