• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

Dems give 61 speeches on Day 1 -- mention ISIS zero times...

iguanaman said:
The Bush tax cuts were ended for top earners. And there have been many proposals to increase infrastructure spending and eliminating tax breaks for companies the ship away jobs. Those were blocked by Republicans who block everything that might help the economy or the middle class. A 60 vote majority was only held by Democrats for a few weeks.



The Myth of the Filibuster-Proof Democratic Senate - San Diego Free Press
Click to expand...

Ending tax cuts is not a "policy". And the left still complains about how the rich aren't pay their fair share. So did the Democrats solve the issue and their supporters don't realize it?

I didn't say anything about a filibuster proof majority.

And yes, I get it. The Democrats wanted to move mountains but those nasty Republicans just stopped them at every turn. I didn't know that the Republicans were so strong that they can block 2 majorities and the President. To hear people talk about it, they're dead.
 
tres borrachos said:
The high earners, according to many of them on the left, still don't pay enough. I always hear that the rich don't pay their fair share. Maybe those people are lying.

Increasing benefits to the poor is not exactly my idea of fixing income inequality. I always heard that income inequality was the disparity between incomes earned by the very rich and everyone else.

The President's stimulus, which as you correctly say prevented a continuing loss of jobs, didn't fix the problem of machines replacing humans.
Click to expand...

The real problem is not how much the wealthy pay but how much they take and sock away. The top 5% net worths has quintupled to $80 Trillion in only 35 years and it is unsustainable and dangerous to the capitalist system.
Increasing inequality depresses demand since consumption levels depend more on the wages of those at the lower end of the income scale, than the profits of the wealthy
In the face of stagnating wages, households rely increasingly on debt to maintain their lifestyles with rising asset prices, especially in residential housing, worsening this.
Financial liberalisation allows money to flood into countries with trade deficits, such as the USA and the UK, providing the funds for debt-led consumption.
Snowballing wealth at the top increases risky financial speculation.
Inequality doesn’t bring growth, it brings economic instability

In recent years there has been a marked slowing of growth across the world’s wealthiest economies, with none returning to the growth trends experienced before the crisis. Many have begun to speculate that this stagnation could, in fact, be a permanent development – meaning that wealthy economies are fundamentally unable to create enough demand to keep growing.
Click to expand...
Why inequality is an economic problem | New Economics Foundation
 
iguanaman said:
We have fixed income inequality before and it resulted in the largest improvement in the standard of living in history by creating our great middle class. We will do the same again through the magic of progressive taxes. Runaway income inequality is the scourge of capitalism.
Click to expand...

Due to the sheer volume of taxes that the government will acquire with the use of progressive income taxation there will be even larger motivation for legal plunder by all classes and feed the tensions between the people as they fight for personal benefits by the state.

Regardless of that, the very nature of the damn thing causes tensions as it becomes seen as unfair that some people are taxed at higher rates than other people. The different rates also motivate people to use them to push political and social agendas, like for example, the one you're pushing. It becomes in essence nothing more than a tool of the legal plunderer to wage war on his fellow citizens.

Anyway, to speak to your post, there is no point in history where income inequality was solved nor was the middle class created from it.
 
Last edited:
tres borrachos said:
The high earners, according to many of them on the left, still don't pay enough.
Click to expand...

You asked about what's been done with respect to inequality and I gave you an answer. You may not like the answer, and their acts may not have been your idea, but my response was both accurate and relevant.

Oh, and machines replacing humans are not a problem, nor are they a part of the DNC's political agenda (or the republicans)
 
tres borrachos said:
So, just ignore them, and maybe they'll go away. Sounds like a winning strategy.
Click to expand...

LOL Shows how much you follow the news. ISIS is losing territory and will be vanquished from Iraq by the end of the year and this time they will not be coming back because the ones that are beating them are the Iraqi's (with our help of course) and they will be there to keep them away. Sure we could have made a massive commitment at a great cost of blood and treasure and defeated them a bit sooner but that would not stop the problem from returning when we inevitably leave.

THE RISKS IN THE MIDDLE EAST are enormous, but we should also consider events that could lessen the damage. In the next year, the Islamic State is likely to be ejected from Mosul, the second-largest city in Iraq, which it captured in a desert blitzkrieg in the summer of 2014. The Islamic State is also likely to lose its self-declared capital Raqqa, in eastern Syria, according to a number of experts.

“These losses will deal a severe blow to the group’s image as an indomitable expansionary force that has attracted so many recruits from the Mideast, Europe, and elsewhere in the Islamic world,” notes Paul Pillar, who had a 28-year career as a CIA analyst and National Intelligence Council member and later was a member of the Georgetown University faculty.

The Islamic State, which grew out of the murderous al Qaeda in Iraq, reminds Pillar of Peru’s Shining Path guerillas, who operated in the 1980s and 1990s. “After the Maoist group controlled much of Peru, it largely self-destructed as a result of its wanton brutality and finally a strong military response. By late 2017, I suspect that the Islamic State will be reduced to some roving guerrilla bands riding around Syria,” he says.
Click to expand...
Islamic State: Defeat in 2017? - Barron's
 
Last edited:
tres borrachos said:
Ending tax cuts is not a "policy".
Click to expand...

Actually, it is policy.

Are you sure you know what the word means?

And the left still complains about how the rich aren't pay their fair share. So did the Democrats solve the issue and their supporters don't realize it?
Click to expand...

You're complaining that they have policies about issues that haven't been solved yet? Are you actually arguing that they should only have policies about matters that have already been solved?

Do you realize how utterly bizarre that is?
 
Henrin said:
Due to the sheer volume of taxes that the government will acquire with the use of progressive income taxation there will be even larger motivation for legal plunder by all classes and feed the tensions between the people as they fight for personal benefits by the state.

Regardless of that, the very nature of the damn thing causes tensions as it becomes seen as unfair that some people are taxed at higher rates than other people. The different rates also motivate people to use them to push political and social agendas, like for example, the one you're pushing. It becomes in essence nothing more than a tool of the legal plunderer to wage war on his fellow citizens.

Anyway, to speak to your post, there is no point in history where income inequality was solved nor was the middle class created from it.
Click to expand...

That is not happened in postwar America where the inequality of th 1920's gave way to shared wage growth for all classes thanks to tax hikes on top earners. Here is a chart that proves you wrong. Inequality can be fixed again. And as far as "tensions" what is more upsetting than the entire middle class having it's wages stagnate for 35 years or more?

of-course-life-is-great-if-youre-in-the-top-1-of-american-wage-earners-youre-hauling-in-a-bigger-percentage-of-the-countrys-total-pre-tax-income-than-you-have-at-any-time-since-the-late-1920s-your-share-of-the-national-income-in-fact-is-almost-2x-the-long-term-average.jpg
 
Unitedwestand13 said:
And is screaming "ISIS IS GOING TO KILL US ALL" repeatedly supposed to make us feel better about ourselves.
Click to expand...

I don't believe it is. But I've never screamed that. I never heard anyone screaming it. Who screamed that ISIS was going to kill us all?
 
Chomsky said:
After the GOP Convention's nearly non-stop negativity & fear-mongering, it probably evens out.
Click to expand...

We're almost at a terror attack a day in the west at the hands of Muslims.

Cops are being murdered.

The economy sucks.

America isn't respected in the world.

The opposition candidate should be facing criminal charges and jail time but... Isn't.

The military needs to be rebuilt.

The VA is a disaster.

Our borders are open.

Yes... Many Americans have concerns with the state of matters... And we can choose to have another 4-years of Obama-like incompetence... Including ignoring the threat of ISIS and ISIS styled Muslim terrorists.
 
iguanaman said:
That is not happened in postwar America where the inequality of th 1920's gave way to shared wage growth for all classes thanks to tax hikes on top earners. Here is a chart that proves you wrong. Inequality can be fixed again.

of-course-life-is-great-if-youre-in-the-top-1-of-american-wage-earners-youre-hauling-in-a-bigger-percentage-of-the-countrys-total-pre-tax-income-than-you-have-at-any-time-since-the-late-1920s-your-share-of-the-national-income-in-fact-is-almost-2x-the-long-term-average.jpg
Click to expand...

Your idea of fixing income equality is nothing more than legal plunder. Keep your nonsense. Btw, that chart shows income inequality at all points.
 
Henrin said:
You mean like that horrible income inequality, how low taxation on the rich will lead to disaster, or how all the jobs will be replaced by machines? You know, I could list all the possible doomsday's liberals are scared for probably eight hours straight. :lol:
Click to expand...

Except income inequality (a symptom of a bigger problem) affects just about all of us, unlike the remote risk of being killed by a terrorist. And the fate of workers in an increasingly automated and specialized world is actually a serious concern as well.

But it's easier to say, "BE AFRAID!!" and then "I WILL KEEP YOU SAFE FROM EVIL!!" etc.
 
zimmer said:
We're almost at a terror attack a day in the west at the hands of Muslims.

Cops are being murdered.

The economy sucks.

America isn't respected in the world.

The opposition candidate should be facing criminal charges and jail time but... Isn't.

The military needs to be rebuilt.

The VA is a disaster.

Our borders are open.

Yes... Many Americans have concerns with the state of matters... And we can choose to have another 4-years of Obama-like incompetence... Including ignoring the threat of ISIS and ISIS styled Muslim terrorists.
Click to expand...
Yeah I know Zimmer, our lives and America suck.

The GOP told me how much America and my life sucked for 4 days.

Funny thing is, I kinda' like my life and still like America even - though both could be improved upon as always.
 
JasperL said:
Except income inequality (a symptom of a bigger problem) affects just about all of us, unlike the remote risk of being killed by a terrorist. And the fate of workers in an increasingly automated and specialized world is actually a serious concern as well.

But it's easier to say, "BE AFRAID!!" and then "I WILL KEEP YOU SAFE FROM EVIL!!" etc.
Click to expand...

Quite literally the fear of technology has been around since the beginning. When a new technology has come around that eliminated jobs throughout the past several centuries the first response of some people was to cry that it would lead to the end of the workforce. Did you ever read the fear mongering that Eleanor Roosevelt wrote about the technology at the time? It's pretty much the same drivel people are saying today, but about a different technology.
 
Chomsky said:
Yeah I know Zimmer, our lives and America suck.

The GOP told me how much America and my life sucked for 4 days.

Funny thing is, I kinda' like my life and still like America even - though both could be improved upon as always.
Click to expand...

I'm curious... What great things have the Demokrats accomplished?

And why have they been bitching all through the primaries?
 
Chomsky said:
Yeah I know Zimmer, our lives and America suck.

The GOP told me how much America and my life sucked for 4 days.

Funny thing is, I kinda' like my life and still like America even - though both could be improved upon as always.
Click to expand...

I agree. American is the greatest country in the world and I have no patience for those that sell it short. And why do I get the feeling that what the Trumpeteers really are saying is wrong with America is that there is a black man in the Whitehouse. Trump's original "base" were the birthers after all weren't they?
 
Henrin said:
Quite literally the fear of technology has been around since the beginning. When a new technology has come around that eliminated jobs throughout the past several centuries the first response of some people was to cry that it would lead to the end of the workforce. Did you ever read the fear mongering that Eleanor Roosevelt wrote about the technology at the time? It's pretty much the same drivel people are saying today, but about a different technology.
Click to expand...

It's also true that for almost all those years, increases in productivity meant increases in living standards, wages, etc. as labor freed up by automation was employed elsewhere, making more stuff, and with the benefits flowing to everyone at all levels. That trend lasted for roughly 200 years or so, but has since broken down.

So something has changed, fundamentally, with the premise you're implying above. It's not just 'automation' or 'globalization' or 'specialization' and this isn't the place to get into the discussion, but it's clearly not "drivel" to worry about trends really worldwide and certainly in all the developed countries that just do show nearly all the income and wealth gains accruing to a very few at the very top of the ladder, essentially the most highly skilled in various technical fields and in developing information technology.

What's your suggestion of the core problem?
 
zimmer said:
I'm curious... What great things have the Demokrats accomplished?

And why have they been bitching all through the primaries?
Click to expand...

For one they have kept us out of recession and given us the fastest growing economy in the free world. Oh and 76 months of job growth with 14.8 million private sector jobs created. That's more than Reagan and both Bush's put together. Why would anyone want to risk that record?

DPCCPrivateSectorPayroll070816.png
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom