You are NOT addressing the issues.  Look, I hate to be the bearer of bad news but your pronouncements are not the same as proof or evidence.

You clearly stated earlier on that you support higher taxes because "You're not selfish". But you don't explain how the two are connected. 

I think you are simply projecting your emotions onto others.

I don't know if you're serious or just oblivious. You have repeatedly tried to use your vast, famous, experience as proof unto itslf that your opinions are better than other people's opinions. And I have no problem with that if the person chooses to identify themselves.  Like you said, I'd rather let the facts speak for themselves but you seem to go out of your way to bring yourself into the discussion but also desiring not to identify who you are. 

I mean really, talk about hypocricy. I said our health care plan is good, you weren't willing to take my word for it, you wanted me to identify the plan.  Yet, when roles are reversed, you expect us to simply take you at your word that you're an expert on these topics despite what seems to me to be a very limited grasp of economics.

I am happy to have us debate "like equal men".  But if you want to do that, you're going to need to back up your partisan assertions with proof.

A Wiki page arguing tax cuts caused the debt is certainly a good start in proving that the tax cuts affected the national debt levels (though I remain quite skeptical because the evidence you showed is premised that the economy is zero sum and doesn't grow).  And at least you explained in your opinion why you think the debt affected the economy.

But what really struck me is how you've repeatedly made the argument that supporting higher taxes is somehow compassionate or that you're not selfish because you believe this.

As for who you are, I have known who you are since the first post in this thread because in your profile, admins can see first and last names on WinCustomize. I haven't disclosed who you are to maintain your privacy.  I have been gently trying to point out that your resume dosn't imply any sort of special business economic knowledge. But I'm happy to debate purely on the issues as long as you are willing to not try to back up your opinions with a rather unsubtle "I'm a rich guy so just take my word for it".

You say I'm misinterpeting you.  Fine, educate me.  What do you mean when you say that you're not selifhs in the context of supporting higher taxes?  What do you mean when you say that I'm a basically a good guy IF I pass on my earnings to my employees versus other types of spending? 

And then, just last night, I agreed to take your word on it once I had pressed the point for detail. 

I'm one of the only people here providing debatable citations and links to public and verifiable information, instead of just personal opinions.  You can pretend the wiki is biased, though it is peer reviewed, but the cited documents are public record, provided by this administration, and if anything are biased as much as possible in their favor, hehe.  But it still makes the point pretty clearly.  Again, I provide the citations so that they may be challenged.  And when I have been proven inaccurate, I publicly have said so...three times by my count in this thread so far.

Thanks.  But to follow your point, even with a 1-2% annual growith, it's crystal clear that our economy has not DOUBLED - like the debt has.  And remember, those debt figures are NET, in other words, after growth, after revenues, etc.  This is what we are left with that has had to be borrowed.  Either way, we should be able to agree that our revenues versus expenditures are upside down now. 

Again, you are confusing two or three separate points and blending them into one.  That, as I have repeatedly said, was never my intention.

What I have actually said is that I believe it's time to give back a little after 8 years of deficit spending on the tax cuts and war.   You are absolutely free to disagree and vote accordingly.

Which you didn't exploit until very recently in your postings.  And that is what concerned me.

For which I respected, until...you know very well what you did to earn my condemnation on this issue.  If you go no further, then I will return to the discussion at hand.

Apparently, you've only dredged up my creative resume.  You might want to dig a little deeper and read between the lines a bit more, because everything I have said previously in this post is 100% accurate and you should be able to connect most of the dots now if you care to do so. 

But regarding "special business economic knowledge", all I have ever said is that I have created and/or run companies small and large and it was my hope that my broad perspective might have some value as far as this thread was concerned.   Neither of us is presenting ourselves as economic phD's here.

I've never said that.  Period.  In fact, my exact words were "I have been rich and I have been broke".  But, more to the point, my positions on these issues have not changed regardless of what my financial position has been at the time.  For example, when I've been wealthy, I've been grateful to be able to pay taxes and 2% either way didn't kill me.

As an aside, I will mention that you have shown an odd pattern of putting disparate things together to create a picture that turns out not to be the least bit accurate to what I've said.  And then challenging me on it.  It may be that the non-threaded nature of this forum, and both of our megaposting styles have confused things, but it's like there's this third person and we're both debating HIM!   

Fair enough.  Hopefully, this (and previous messages) clears up more of that.

I covered this earlier.  If you've missed this, or perhaps I missed what you want me to answer more specifically, could you please quote me or give me the post #?  I will address that as directly as I can, of course.

As for me, I believe that, as a society of men, we are all our brother's keeper.  My tax point was in regards to getting us to pay our way and undo the damage we have done to our economy and the US dollar, etc.  My universal health care point is that we need to join the rest of the civilized world and admit that not everything we do should be a purely for profit enterprise - especially when it is costing people their lives, physically or financially.  I actually don't believe Obama's plan will go far enough, but maybe that will change once congress goes ahead with it.  Or maybe he sees this as a baby steps process, loosening the grip the HMOs have on our health and welfare one step at a time.  Time will tell.

Maybe a better word rather than selfish/unselfish would be sacrifice?  What level of sacrifice I am willing to make to help my fellow man?  What do you think?

As for you, I don't know you well enough to know how you feel about this.  If I knew you as a friend perhaps this could be a more worthwhile conversation. 

I already clarified that whole IF thing in a previous post.  I was trying very hard NOT to make any assumptions, not insult you personally.  And email can come off as cold and without nuance.  I honestly believe this is a non-issue and there's no reason for you to have taken offense.

I hope this clears the detritus up and we can get back to discussing the issues. 

I agree with you 100%, though I hold the administration and the GOP controlled congress PRIMARILY responsible for the state we are in today rather than just the Democrats. 

Unfortunately, it's the Democrats who are going to be stuck with paying the check...or at least telling us how they suggest WE pay the check.

Yes, I posted this one as just my opinion and used words like "I've read" and "apparently" to make it clear it was just that.  I also did not cite specific documents etc. because I was just indeed stating my opinion. 

Yes, if you had clicked on the 52 hyperlink, it would have taken you to the footnotes of an article, pre-highlighting the footnoted source's name.  Clicking on THAT link takes you to that source.   To save confusion, this is the document cited.

http://www.cbpp.org/12-13-06bud.htm

Now this itself is an article with the table, etc. in it, but that table cites footnotes that discuss how the numbers were calculated from the Congressional Budget Office, or CBO, etc.

However, it can appear as though this deficit calculation is conservatively LOW, as most sources are quoting a total DEBT (ed: corrected from deficit) of $10-11 trillion as of today, including the bailouts, and this article only discusses an increase of $2.3 trillion on top of about $5 trillion when Bush came into office.  But then again, this is dated 2006, so i assume the discrepencies are due to the intervening years plus bailout, etc.

Either way, MY OPINION is that the point is still convincingly made that we have been overspending compared to our revenues and if we hadn't have gone into Iraq and hadn't enacted the tax cut we might be much closer to debt free right now instead of at $11 trillion and climbing.  I can only imagine how strong our dollar would be right now, how much leverage we might have with the Chinese, how closer we might be to reforming Social Security and Health Care, etc., if we weren't so damn far in the hole.

No, it sourced itself.  I guess the clown anxious to prove a point forgot to edit his links.

I doubt that.  And no, no where can I find anyone talking about a deficit of 10-11 trillion

I said the dems would push through the auto industry bail out and that BOTH parties were responsible for the inability to fund social security and yet pass the bailout and begin the spending of trillions after a one week debate.  I did not say just the democrats.

This is not a religious debate.  That's another thread. 

As for me, all seances, speaking with the dead, astrology, etc. have been shown to be un-proven and un-scientific at the least, hokum and confidence games at the worst.  There is not a single shred of evidence whatsoever that either of these are real in the slightest.  No one has EVER been proven to be able to talk to the dead and no connection between the positions of the planets, stars, and moons and human events has EVER been shown. To say otherwise is indeed ignorant of the scientific facts of how our world and universe work.  People's WISH that they be true does not mean they have any validity whatsoever.

Come now.  Russia preemptively invaded Georgia without UN or NATO mandate or support.  It's MUCH more analagous to our invasion of Iraq, though not nearly of the same scale, of course. 

As far as Kosovo, here is some useful information to show you the difference...

The Bosnian War as part of the Yugoslav Wars.

Which came after the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia as crammed together after WW2, in much the same artificial fashion as Iraq was created by the British after WW1.   Note how impossible it has been to keep these artificial confederations together considering their divergent ethnic and religious lines?

Operation Deliberate Force was NATO's involvement under UN mandate to protect Bosnian refugees.

In other words, we were sent in to help end genocide with the full support of ALL of our allies on a mission that, to this day, is considered an American "good deed" in Europe (except among those who commited the war crimes, of course).

Therefore, I believe that to compare Russia invading Georgia with NATO and UN peacekeepers in Bosnia/Kosovo/etc. shows a complete lack of historical knowledge.

Fair enough.  I misread your intention then.  My apologies. 

And yes, that means we still agree 100% on that.

I just clicked the link, in the original post.  It takes you to the footnotes of an article, footnote #52.  That in itself is a link to the article so cited, of which I provided you explicitly in my post to save you the trouble.  I hope this is clear now.

I'm sorry, the word should be total DEBT, of 10-11 trillion, not (annual) deficit.  I have edited the post.  Thank you for bringing that to my attention.

Here is the citation of the actual total US debt to date.

from  http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/

Their source is the US Treasury, updated daily.

And here is a wiki article on it as well.  It passed $10 trillion just a little over a month ago now.

and it would appear BOTH parties are trying desperately to add andother $5 trillion, yes trillion! to that!

http://www.forbes.com/home/2008/11/12/paulson-bernanke-fed-biz-wall-cx_lm_1112bailout.html

F--king insane...

Though it looks like a big chunk of that is under the Fed's normal auspices and has to be paid back.   ASSUMING the debtor in question doesn't just go bankrupt.  What are the odds?