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[state-of-the-art]

Some interesting polling results about the Tea Party which contradict the claim that it is a libertarian movement.

So what do Tea Partiers have in common? They are overwhelmingly white, but even compared to other white Republicans, they had a low regard for immigrants and blacks long before Barack Obama was president, and they still do.

More important, they were disproportionately social conservatives in 2006 – opposing abortion, for example – and still are today. Next to being a Republican, the strongest predictor of being a Tea Party supporter today was a desire, back in 2006, to see religion play a prominent role in politics. And Tea Partiers continue to hold these views: they seek “deeply religious” elected officials, approve of religious leaders’ engaging in politics and want religion brought into political debates. The Tea Party’s generals may say their overriding concern is a smaller government, but not their rank and file, who are more concerned about putting God in government.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/17/opinion/crashing-the-tea-party.html

 

[Invisible_Insane]

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/17/opinion/crashing-the-tea-party.html

Buried treasure in that article:

Of course, politicians of all stripes are not faring well among the public these days. But in data we have recently collected, the Tea Party ranks lower than any of the 23 other groups we asked about — lower than both Republicans and Democrats. It is even less popular than much maligned groups like “atheists” and “Muslims.”

MOVIN' ON UP

 

[PhoenixDark]

I think it is a little too late. That said, it's way too early to close the book on Romney.

I'm not so sure. Romney benefited from not having to deal with a (white) southerner in the race. Perry changes that; Texas may not be the "south" but it might as well be for electoral purposes, historically. Perry will carry the south, plus he's already leading in Florida. And unlike Bachman he'll have the financial/corporate backing to compete in every primary.

Romney can either move right and be laughed at, or remain in the center-right and be laughed at. Anyone who watched the 08 debates could tell Mike Huckabee got under Romney's skin in every debate; McCain attacked Romney as well, but it never felt like a genuine conservative pointing out the outsider, which is what Huckabee did at every turn. Like Huckabee, I'd expect Perry to bring Romney's religion up, perhaps more covertly.

He's the exact type of candidate Romney's people didn't expect to run in to. Nearly all the major sideline candidates - Gulianni, Christie, Daniels, Pataki - didn't threaten to highlight Romney's negatives because they all were in the same boat of being conservatives with exploitable histories of either bipartisanship or questionable comments/associations. Perry has none of that, he's a pure conservative who perfectly fits what the base wants. Romney will no longer have the inevitable aura he once had, now that the base has a credible candidate who they think can beat Obama. Outside of the most crazy supporters, most conservatives have to know Bachman has no chance; they know by now that she'll just be Palin-ized on a national scale.

 

[gcubed]

Buried treasure in that article:


MOVIN' ON UP

that is a great bullet point. Need that in the back pocket for future arguments.

 

[state-of-the-art]

Buried treasure in that article:


MOVIN' ON UP

Haha, indeed. You know you're unpopular when people like you less than Muslims and atheists.

 

[besada]

OK. And despite all that, why exactly do you think Obama is going to beat him?

A) The economy will be better by November 2012. Maybe not a ton better, but a little better helps.
B) It's not going to be as easy as Perry thinks to walk it back. The national media has a longer memory than the state media, and he has less control there than he does in Texas, where the top media guys are shit-scared of him.
C) I think there's enough third party love this year -- mostly on the right -- that it's going to bleed a good 6-8% of the vote away from the Republican candidate. I would be unsurprised if Paul, after failing miserably in the primaries, takes 8% by himself as a libertarian candidate.
D) Perry is going to get his ass kicked in the GE debates. He's not a very good debater and Obama is. One of the reasons he's avoided debates was because it made his opponents look like they weren't worth worrying about, but the other is because they scare him. He's not particularly bright (outside of a fairly impressive ability to know which way the political winds blow) and he knows that he comes off sounding like a bumpkin up against well-educated politicians.
E) The Tea Party, who he's betting his ride on, is in the process of imploding. By November 2012 it's going to be considerably weaker.

On that final point: That's why you're seeing Cantor and Rove and McConnell distance themselves from the fiery Tea Party rhetoric. It's not some vast conspiracy to protect Perry from being connected to Bush, it's an attempt to stop the GOP from going down with the Tea Party. They can read the approval polls over the debt ceiling debate as well as we can. They don't want a fire-breather as the candidate. They want someone who's fiscally conservative but still a party man. Perry is not a party man. He hates the establishment GOP as much or more than he hates the Democrats.

I'd say more, honestly, because the Democrats were good to him when he was one of them, while the Bush/Rove guys shat all over him. He's been paying back the GOP establishment in Texas every since by dumping Bush/Rove guys and putting his own people in place.

And, finally, he's not a friendly human being. Even his supporters are a little repulsed by him. In contrast, Obama is a friendly guy. He's kept high numbers when he frankly didn't deserve them, and any improvement in the economy is likely going to boost those numbers back up. Many people want to give him the benefit of the doubt. Perry's an angry asshole.

 

[mckmas8808]

The problem is that Romney is the only one left, and no one likes him. Perry gives the business/corporate wing of the party a reason to support someone other than Romney, with Christie refusing to enter.

Rove has come out the gate attacking Perry but it might be too late.

It might be too late? Dude he just entered the race like 4 days ago.

 

[mckmas8808]

I'd say more, honestly, because the Democrats were good to him when he was one of them, while the Bush/Rove guys shat all over him. He's been paying back the GOP establishment in Texas every since by dumping Bush/Rove guys and putting his own people in place.
.

How is it possible that Perry was a Democrat? Did he do a 180 on his beliefs? Or was he a super strong conservative DEM?

 

[Clevinger]

How is it possible that Perry was a Democrat? Did he do a 180 on his beliefs? Or was he a super strong conservative DEM?

I think Besada's said in the past that Perry doesn't have any true ideology. He just wants power. He probably thought it'd be easier to gain it being a Republican.

 

[besada]

How is it possible that Perry was a Democrat? Did he do a 180 on his beliefs? Or was he a super strong conservative DEM?

First, we're talking Texas Democrats, so that's a different thing than a regular Democrat. Secondly his daddy was a Democratic County commissioner, so the people he knew that could help him into politics were unsurprisingly Democrats.

His election to the Lege was as a Democrat, and he even endorsed Gore for President (in 1988).
(By the way, that's the other thing the global warming denial is about -- making sure everyone knows that his endorsement of Gore was a terrible, terrible mistake he made because he was young and stupid.)

He switched to the GOP in 1989 (There's a lot of backstory there), shortly after the election, when it became apparent that there was no upward movement possible for him in the party.

 

[Incognito]

How is it possible that Perry was a Democrat? Did he do a 180 on his beliefs? Or was he a super strong conservative DEM?

in the late 80s and early 90s in texas, it was either become a republican or lose your job.

 

[teruterubozu]

How is it possible that Perry was a Democrat? Did he do a 180 on his beliefs? Or was he a super strong conservative DEM?

He is quoted as saying, "I came to my senses" when asked about his support for Al Gore in 1988.

 

[besada]

One of the things I find funny, by the way, is the description in here of Perry as one of the candidates furthest to the right, while I'm reading the guys at FreeRepublic suggest he's a RINO. Regardless of Perry's political skill, he's not very good at making friends.

Edit: By the way, FR is a fun read these days. I've never seen them quite so fractured in their opinion. They're notorious for forcing a certain orthodoxy of opinion, but they're all over the board on this slate of candidates.

 

[Mike M]

One of the things I find funny, by the way, is the description in here of Perry as one of the candidates furthest to the right, while I'm reading the guys at FreeRepublic suggest he's a RINO.

Jesus, by what metric? Or is it solely because he was a Democrat for a few years three decades ago?

 

[Incognito]

One of the things I find funny, by the way, is the description in here of Perry as one of the candidates furthest to the right, while I'm reading the guys at FreeRepublic suggest he's a RINO. Regardless of Perry's political skill, he's not very good at making friends.

michelle malkin, for one, has been hammering away at his faux conservatism.

 

[empty vessel]

How is it possible that Perry was a Democrat? Did he do a 180 on his beliefs? Or was he a super strong conservative DEM?

The post-Civil War white conservative South was historically Democratic. That is because it was the Republican party that politically empowered blacks after the Civil War during Reconstruction. After the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the white conservative South began abandoning the Democratic party and infiltrating the Republican party (Strom Thurmond was the first to jump ship that same year). Party realignment is a slow process, though. It doesn't happen overnight and can span decades, as it has. It is still ongoing today. (Louisiana, for example, just got its first Republican senator in 2005.) A lot of conversions happened in the 1980's. Perry's was one of them.

Today the Republican party, which used to be a Northeastern liberal business party (and by "liberal" I do not mean pro-union), has been taken over by the Southern Democrats, i.e., conservative Dixiecrats. It is the first time Southern conservatives have controlled a major national party since the Civil War. The result, obviously, is disaster for the country.

 

[ToxicAdam]

Jesus, by what metric? Or is it solely because he was a Democrat for a few years three decades ago?

Government spending and pushing for infrastructure projects (that ultimately got nixed by the Republican Senate).

 

[mckmas8808]

in the late 80s and early 90s in texas, it was either become a republican or lose your job.

Damn! So I'm not going to be surprised if some people try to call him out on that this year. I mean I find it hard to believe that he can be a Texas DEM to the now super far right GOP candidate.

Exactly how much did his beliefs change from 1988? That'll be the question I'd ask him.

 

[besada]

Jesus, by what metric? Or is it solely because he was a Democrat for a few years three decades ago?

No. It's a mixture of the Gardasil controversy and his connections to Rove/Bush (whom they also consider fake conservatives).

The Gardasil thing was huge in the conservative community down here. They saw it as an immense betrayal of conservative principles. The huge land-grab for the TTT didn't help much, either, especially when the plan became apparent to hand the jobs out to a Spanish via Mexico construction company. As Governor he was also pretty soft on immigration (read as not crazy) because as Governor you pretty much have to be in a state that's 30+% Hispanic.

Beyond that, he actually works surprisingly well with the Lege Democrats, in part because he's broken their spines, and in part because he knows many of them from back in the day. There's not much heat about Gore, because at the time Gore was considerably more conservative, and Perry always ably diminishes it by reminding them that Reagan started as a Democrat, too.

Just to clarify, I know most people here think of Rove as a creature of Bush's, but that's completely backward. Rove was on the scene kicking ass in 1977. Bush and Perry were both Rove picks. One of the reasons the bad blood exists there is because Rove basically hand-picked Perry for ascension, and Perry fucked him.

And there's a big contingent in the Democratic party (I know this is hard to grasp) that thinks Rove is the worst thing to happen to the GOP in a long time. They see him as a false conservative/one world gubmint fellow. And all his picks are tainted with that.

 

[mckmas8808]

The post-Civil War white conservative South was historically Democratic. That is because it was the Republican party that politically empowered blacks after the Civil War during Reconstruction. After the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the white conservative South began abandoning the Democratic party and infiltrating the Republican party (Strom Thurmond was the first to jump ship that same year). Party realignment is a slow process, though. It doesn't happen overnight and can span decades, as it has. It is still ongoing today. (Louisiana, for example, just got its first Republican senator in 2005.) A lot of conversions happened in the 1980's. Perry's was one of them.

Today the Republican party, which used to be a Northeastern liberal business party (and by "liberal" I do not mean pro-union), has been taken over by the Southern Democrats, i.e., conservative Dixiecrats. It is the first time Southern conservatives have controlled a major national party since the Civil War. The result, obviously, is disaster for the country.

Okay thanks for that explanation. So yeah he'd easily be able to explain that away and most people will understand. Nothing here to see then.

 

[PhoenixDark]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVO4PzqDltc&eurl

You'd think that after Obama vouched for his ass (and ultimately saved his ass), he'd show just a tad of fucking respect.

 

[Vestal]

I'm not so sure. Romney benefited from not having to deal with a (white) southerner in the race. Perry changes that; Texas may not be the "south" but it might as well be for electoral purposes, historically. Perry will carry the south, plus he's already leading in Florida. And unlike Bachman he'll have the financial/corporate backing to compete in every primary.

Romney can either move right and be laughed at, or remain in the center-right and be laughed at. Anyone who watched the 08 debates could tell Mike Huckabee got under Romney's skin in every debate; McCain attacked Romney as well, but it never felt like a genuine conservative pointing out the outsider, which is what Huckabee did at every turn. Like Huckabee, I'd expect Perry to bring Romney's religion up, perhaps more covertly.

He's the exact type of candidate Romney's people didn't expect to run in to. Nearly all the major sideline candidates - Gulianni, Christie, Daniels, Pataki - didn't threaten to highlight Romney's negatives because they all were in the same boat of being conservatives with exploitable histories of either bipartisanship or questionable comments/associations. Perry has none of that, he's a pure conservative who perfectly fits what the base wants. Romney will no longer have the inevitable aura he once had, now that the base has a credible candidate who they think can beat Obama. Outside of the most crazy supporters, most conservatives have to know Bachman has no chance; they know by now that she'll just be Palin-ized on a national scale.

Right there you just laid out the problem for the Republican party.. How does a straight right conservative convince independents to vote for him/her? Extremist don't win general elections, centrist do.

 

[empty vessel]

Okay thanks for that explanation. So yeah he'd easily be able to explain that away and most people will understand. Nothing here to see then.

So the next time you hear some Southern white conservative Republican with a buzz cut talk about how it was the Democratic party that filibustered the Civil Rights Act of 1964, roll your eyes at them and tell them to go learn some fucking history.

 

[Diablos]

Right there you just laid out the problem for the Republican party.. How does a straight right conservative convince independents to vote for him/her? Extremist don't win general elections, centrist do.

Bush was pretty fucking crazy.

 

[RustyNails]

Exactly. Do people forget this? Obama was insanely popular in 2008, the GOP brand was ruined -- 45% still voted for McCain and Palin. It probably would've been even closer if they were running against Hillary. Palin may have hurt the party in some ways, but a lot of people still voted for a ticket with her name on it, knowing damn well that McCain's age was a problem. Bachmann is from the same tent of crazy that Palin is, even if crazier (and she speaks better). Nothing in US politics surprises me anymore. I'm not saying that Bachmann is a shoo-in or anything close, but it's a bit too early to write her off 100%.

Well maybe the democrats didn't get a overwhelming victory because they had a black guy running with a crazy preacher in his church? Look at the facts. If Obama didn't happen and if John Edwards wasn't a heaping pile of shit, we could've had a slightly overwhelming victory. But get this, no candidate has cracked the 60% ceiling (iirc) in a presidential election in the last 50 years. Reagan roflstomped Carter all the way from California to NY, losing only 3 or 4 states. Despite that, he only won by 55%. Barack Obama beat McCain by 53%.

This is one of the unfortunate consequences of a two-party system. Y

 

[Clipjoint]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVO4PzqDltc&eurl

You'd think that after Obama vouched for his ass (and ultimately saved his ass), he'd show just a tad of fucking respect.

It's like they say, you know why Israel doesn't become the 51st state? Because then they'd only have 2 senators.

 

[besada]

It's like they say, you know why Israel doesn't become the 51st state? Because then they'd only have 2 senators.

Have I mentioned that Perry's Israel credentials are top-notch? He's a full-on friend-of-Israel.

 

[Vestal]

Bush was pretty fucking crazy.

Not when he was running his campaign in 2000. He wasn't so far right.

 

[TacticalFox88]

Not when he was running his campaign in 2000. He wasn't so far right.

Every time I look back I think "Wow...if Bush hadn't won, there's a good possibility the US's debt would've been paid off."

Goddammit

 

[jamesinclair]

Hey poligaf, Im back. What did I miss?

 

[ToxicAdam]

Hey poligaf, Im back. What did I miss?

Somebody tried to troll you yesterday.

 

[Invisible_Insane]

It's like they say, you know why Israel doesn't become the 51st state? Because then they'd only have 2 senators.

I chuckled.

 

[mckmas8808]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVO4PzqDltc&eurl

You'd think that after Obama vouched for his ass (and ultimately saved his ass), he'd show just a tad of fucking respect.

I can't see the video, but is it Lieberman saying something positive about Israel while talking shit about Obama?

 

[gcubed]

Have I mentioned that Perry's Israel credentials are top-notch? He's a full-on friend-of-Israel.

gotta keep that atheism creep going. Maybe by the time my great grandkids are my age it won't be a boogey man word

 

[ronito]

So Trump was on GMA this morning saying that if we raised taxes Investors would move to Sweden. I was like "So they could pay even higher taxes?"

Honestly, the stupidity is getting so thick lately it's almost become physically painful.

 

[PhoenixDark]

I can't see the video, but is it Lieberman saying something positive about Israel while talking shit about Obama?

He tells Sean Hannity that Obama has encouraged Israel's enemies.

 

[mckmas8808]

*Government* Jobs Led To Perry’s Economic Boom
Brian Beutler | August 17, 2011, 2:23PM

On the campaign trail, governor Rick Perry will claim credit for the so-called Texas miracle. His state weathered the housing and jobs crises better than many others, and he'll happily tell voters it was the result of his small government conservative approach to running things.

But his state's relative success has a lot to do with things out of his control -- population growth resulting from an influx of immigrants from Mexico and of workers and retirees from other U.S. states, and high oil company profits, to name just a couple. Oh, and also federal stimulus.

What's that you say?!

Despite being one of the loudest critics of President Obama's stimulus, Perry used billions of dollars of federal money to patch Texas' budget shortfalls, and was thus able to create and maintain lots and lots of public sector jobs. In fact, if you look at net job creation between 2007 and 2010, it's clear the only thing keeping Texas buoyant was government jobs.

Check out the below chart from Jared Bernstein -- a fiscal policy expert at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, and former chief economist to the stimulus bill's top cop, Vice President Joe Biden. It shows pretty conclusively that the recession cost Texas 178,000 private sector jobs -- a fairly small share for a populous state, when you consider that crisis cost the country many millions. But in the same period, it added 125,000 public sector jobs -- nearly half of all government jobs created in this period nationwide. Put together, the Texas has only lost 53,000 jobs total during the downturn.

Source: BLS data.

As Bernstein notes this "shows Texas to be following a traditional Keynesian game plan: as the private sector contracts, turn to the public sector to temporarily make up part of the difference."

Additionally, Perry's papered over some looming budget gaps with fancy paperwork, and unless he or the next governor take steps (like raising taxes) to balance the books, he'll have to cut spending (read: public sector jobs) and many of his gains will have proved illusory.

That's doesn't match Perry's private market, anti-government rhetoric very well, which is why he and his supporters will shout "Texas miracle!" if they're confronted with these facts, to obscure the underlying reality.
​

#########################


So now government jobs count. So conservaGAF (and I wish I could ask all conservatives on cable news), why do governments count when Perry uses them, but they don't count in job creation when Obama uses them?

I wish we could get to a point where we can all acknowledge that government jobs count just like any other private company job does.

If the GOP doesn't think gov't jobs are real jobs, then they can't call this guy the jobs governor. You either acknowledge public jobs are real or you let Perry run on his non-ability to create a net plus in private sector jobs since 2007.

 

[Diablos]

He tells Sean Hannity that Obama has encouraged Israel's enemies.

And to think this douchebag was almost the VP.

 

[Plinko]

*Government* Jobs Led To Perry’s Economic Boom
Brian Beutler | August 17, 2011, 2:23PM

On the campaign trail, governor Rick Perry will claim credit for the so-called Texas miracle. His state weathered the housing and jobs crises better than many others, and he'll happily tell voters it was the result of his small government conservative approach to running things.

But his state's relative success has a lot to do with things out of his control -- population growth resulting from an influx of immigrants from Mexico and of workers and retirees from other U.S. states, and high oil company profits, to name just a couple. Oh, and also federal stimulus.

What's that you say?!

Despite being one of the loudest critics of President Obama's stimulus, Perry used billions of dollars of federal money to patch Texas' budget shortfalls, and was thus able to create and maintain lots and lots of public sector jobs. In fact, if you look at net job creation between 2007 and 2010, it's clear the only thing keeping Texas buoyant was government jobs.

Check out the below chart from Jared Bernstein -- a fiscal policy expert at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, and former chief economist to the stimulus bill's top cop, Vice President Joe Biden. It shows pretty conclusively that the recession cost Texas 178,000 private sector jobs -- a fairly small share for a populous state, when you consider that crisis cost the country many millions. But in the same period, it added 125,000 public sector jobs -- nearly half of all government jobs created in this period nationwide. Put together, the Texas has only lost 53,000 jobs total during the downturn.

Source: BLS data.

As Bernstein notes this "shows Texas to be following a traditional Keynesian game plan: as the private sector contracts, turn to the public sector to temporarily make up part of the difference."

Additionally, Perry's papered over some looming budget gaps with fancy paperwork, and unless he or the next governor take steps (like raising taxes) to balance the books, he'll have to cut spending (read: public sector jobs) and many of his gains will have proved illusory.

That's doesn't match Perry's private market, anti-government rhetoric very well, which is why he and his supporters will shout "Texas miracle!" if they're confronted with these facts, to obscure the underlying reality.
[/indent]


#########################


So now government jobs count. So conservaGAF (and I wish I could ask all conservatives on cable news), why do governments count when Perry uses them, but they don't count in job creation when Obama uses them?

I wish we could get to a point where we can all acknowledge that government jobs count just like any other private company job does.

Yet another reason this guy doesn't have a chance in the general election.

 

[empty vessel]

So Trump was on GMA this morning saying that if we raised taxes Investors would move to Sweden. I was like "So they could pay even higher taxes?"

Honestly, the stupidity is getting so thick lately it's almost become physically painful.

Not to mention that we could still tax them even if they did. A citizen cannot escape the US's tax jurisdiction just by leaving the country. That person would have to become a citizen of another country and renounce his or her American citizenship to avoid American tax jurisdiction.

 

[AndyD]

Not to mention that we could still tax them even if they did. A citizen cannot escape the US's tax jurisdiction just by leaving the country. That person would have to become a citizen of another country and renounce his or her American citizenship to avoid American tax jurisdiction.

That's not so hard when you are a millionaire/billionaire.

 

[empty vessel]

That's not so hard when you are a millionaire/billionaire.

Sure. And good riddance!

Do you really think a lot of millionaires and billionaires are going to be renouncing their American citizenship? (They won't, and why would we care if they did?)

 

[Plumbob]

Sure. And good riddance!

Do you really think a lot of millionaires and billionaires are going to be renouncing their American citizenship? (They won't, and why would we care if they did?)

IDK. Maybe because they create jobs and invest in this country more than any of you losers could.

Spoiler

Don't shoot meee

 

[slidewinder]

Yet another reason this guy doesn't have a chance in the general election.

Yet more evidence of the facility with which he's going to crush Obama.

 

[Byakuya769]

Sure. And good riddance!

Do you really think a lot of millionaires and billionaires are going to be renouncing their American citizenship? (They won't, and why would we care if they did?)

You're clearly not going to be invited to the island utopia.

 

[besada]

That's not so hard when you are a millionaire/billionaire.

Where do you think they're going to go with lower tax rates and a more friendly business climate?

 

[AndyD]

Sure. And good riddance!

Do you really think a lot of millionaires and billionaires are going to be renouncing their American citizenship? (They won't, and why would we care if they did?)

Pshhh, some would in a heartbeat if it meant a huge tax burden/difference. Some would pay willingly, but a lot would move themselves or shelter money in offshore accounts and such. Warren Buffet and others may be philantropic, and support a strong America ultimately, but I do not believe the same can be said about a lot of the quick mi/billionaires that exploited wall street and are out of the public eye.

I think the tax system as a whole needs some overhauling, rather than the limited focus on taxing the income of the rich. All the way from corporate tax practices, to income, whether earned or capital gains, to estate tax and everything in between needs to be addressed.

Where do you think they're going to go with lower tax rates and a more friendly business climate?

Heh, there are plenty of countries with little or virtually no income tax. From Bahamas to Monaco and a lot of others. And business practices are irrelevant when they can continue to hold stock in American companies or when they are already billionaires and simply don't care to work anymore.

 

[ronito]

Pshhh, some would in a heartbeat if it meant a huge tax burden/difference. Some would pay willingly, but a lot would move themselves or shelter money in offshore accounts and such. Warren Buffet and others may be philantropic, and support a strong America ultimately, but I do not believe the same can be said about a lot of the quick mi/billionaires that exploited wall street and are out of the public eye.

I think the tax system as a whole needs some overhauling, rather than the limited focus on taxing the income of the rich. All the way from corporate tax practices, to income, whether earned or capital gains, to estate tax and everything in between needs to be addressed.



Heh, there are plenty of countries with little or virtually no income tax. And business practices are irrelevant when they can continue to hold stock in American companies or when they are already billionaires and simply don't care to work anymore.

Yeah but none of that reform is going to happen because there are very wealthy powers behind leaving it as is (the rich, the tax companies, the tax consultants, etc). So the only thing we have left to us is to raise the taxes on those that benefit the most from the public goods and pay the least.

 

[Branduil]

Where do you think they're going to go with lower tax rates and a more friendly business climate?

Rapture.

 

[Superman00]

Where do you think they're going to go with lower tax rates and a more friendly business climate?

The US is the single largest economy in the world. Where else would they go to be able to make all this money and still have the benefits provided?