RSS Feed MenuWhile 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.” After immediately buying it, I reflected on what I had learned when my life briefly brushed up against those who had actually lived under the red jackboot.
I was standing at the Brandenburg Gate months after the Berlin Wall came down and had the chance to speak to AK-47-toting Russian soldiers (boys really) first hand. It was a surreal moment for me as a young American abroad for the first time. And it left an indelible impression on my political psyche as I saw with my own eyes what communism was and is, be it Stalin’s brand, Castro’s or Mao’s—a wretched, defunct system best summed up in the six words I heard from these Soviet soldiers again and again between shots of vodka (or was it antifreeze!) under the eerie lights of a newly opened but still moribund East Berlin…”Take us to America with you!”
There seems to be constant debate on what individual was most responsible for the Cold War victory for the West. Was it Reagan? Thatcher? John Paul II? Walesa? Gorbachev even? My answer is all of the above and more. This great triumph belonged to all who participated. This unique war was won over forty years on a thousand fronts all across the globe, from the jungles of El Salvador to the shipyards of Gdansk to the halls of Reykjavik.
Yet, as has already been discussed, it is apparently not a victory that the current president feels is worth his time commemorating. It makes me wonder: what does this say about President Obama’s basic understanding of history? This president is willing to fly to Oslo for a sham prize, or Copenhagen for an Olympic bid, but passes on a chance to commemorate a great victory for humanity? 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?
White House communications director Anita Dunn has taken a drubbing for citing the murderous Mao Tse-tung as her favorite philosopher. Let’s take her word for it that she was dryly joking. She’d never have made that joke about Adolph Hitler – or even Jefferson Davis. It’s hysterical to accuse this White House of sympathy for communism. But it seems all too sadly apt to accuse it of forgetfulness and indifference to communism’s crimes.
The T-shirt fits nicely by the way.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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
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.”
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?)
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.
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.
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
Carney // Dec 2, 2009 at 10:01 am
I recommend the recent award-winning film “The Soviet Story”.
http://www.sovietstory.com/