You are aware that Obama and Hillary both took massive amounts of money from "Evil" Wall Street? Obama got more money from Goldman Sachs than Romney. Hillary gave 400k speeches for them as well. Also, that the 10 wealthiest counties in the country voted for obama in '12? GE was run by Jeff Immelt who was obama's job czar. Gues what company took all of their holdings out of the U.S. and parked them overseas to not pay our corporate taxes? That's very compassionate of him, isn't it? obama's first treasury secretary was a tax evader. Don't spout off on the evils of greedy republicans, there are plenty of hypocrite greedy dems, too. The clinton's funneled money into their foundation to pay their living expenses, tax free. As far as deregulation goes, take a look and see when we had the most growth in personal wealth. When regs and taxes are low, business prospers, they hire people and their goods become cheaper, because they produce more because of demand. Why do you think the console you play on has come down almost $200 since they came out? They increased supply, because of demand and want to keep the flow of product going, so they lower prices, also they lower prices to beat out the other console company to sell more units than them, therefore more games, controllers, subscriptions and what not. That is how the free market economy is supposed to work, not the gubment picking the winners. Would you like it if the gubment told you which console you could play on or what games you could play, regardless of your choice in the matter? I would wager not. The democrat party is the party of the wealthy elites, who want you to be a serf and themselves to be your lords and masters. The same applies to establishment republicans.

Wall Street donates to both parties simply because they want to be in with whoever wins. This doesn't mean that the winner is going to do Wall Street's bidding. The wealthiest counties in America... might any of those include Silicon Valley, Hollywood, or Manhattan, all extremely liberal as I recall? Wealth and liberalism aren't mutually exclusive. Bill Gates has been urging tax increases on himself for years, just to give one example. [quote]Why do you think the console you play on has come down almost $200 since they came out? [/quote] Because of supply and demand, clearly. This is a non sequitur and has nothing to do with the topic. The most growth in overall personal wealth was divided between two periods, 1995-2004 and then the record year 2014, when personal wealth shot up $80 billion. President in 1995= Clinton. In 2014= Obama. The greatest recessions we've had have been under both Bushes. Trouble is, the top 1/4 richest have gained over 80% of that wealth. And they scream "class warfare" any time anyone suggests that they should pay a proportional tax rate. Or even payroll taxes to keep Social Security afloat. They are the ones at war with everyone else. Don't kid yourself. They don't want you to get rich, they want you to work for as little pay as possible and increase their profits until they kick your used-up corpse into the gutter.

Bill Gates and anyone else can pay whatever they want in taxes. Cut a check, the government will take it. Why should people be forced to pay a confiscatory rate? Why don't these people clamoring for higher taxes just donate their income? Supply and demand is the crux of what this whole thread is about. Do you think that if the big Comms didn't want NN, it wouldn't happen? They would open their checkbooks and end it. Just like obamacare being written by the insurance companies to benefit them, too bad their payoffs from obama were unconstitutional. All of the regulations make it too expensive for local comms to keep providing service, so the only ones that can play are the big boys. By letting govt regulate everything, so much you crush out smaller competitors and that is exactly what the big comms and the establishment want. Because the big comms will line their pockets and the politicians pockets for keeping the competition out of the picture. Also the 1% were the only group who made any gains under obama. High taxes and rampant regulations don't benefit anyone but the govt and those in their pocket and the poor schlubs who think getting scraps from table of government to survive on are compassionate and the highest level of achievement they'll ever reach. Also, with all of the QE over the last 8 years inflation has stolen wealth from the middle and lower classes. The ultra rich don't care about inflation. DC only wants to drain the middle class of it's remaing wealth through taxes and regulation to turn us into serfs, again.

Most of the major news networks have democratic partners and donors. That's how come it was practically a mental meltdown for dems when Trump won the election. They actually believed the numbers that they polled knowing well that they pool areas that favor democratic parties. Regardless. Red or blue it's not good and it is unameriacn. Don't point fingers and be a part of the solution. Placing blame only leads to a "it's not my fault so you fix it" mentality.

The truth is much more simple: red, blue, they are all politicians. They are all doing the exact same things as all the others, no matter what colors they wear, it's just what polite little lies they like to tell the people that vote for them that differ. None of them are honest, all of them are in someone's pocket, and they are all bought, rented, or otherwise paid for. But if they can keep us fighting each other, we'll all be too busy to look at them and start asking hard questions. The second you start believing that any of them represent you or have your best interest at heart, rather than their own money and comfort, that is when they begin winning.

They aren't the same. Of course they only give a shit about themselves but one side does that by pandering to people and the other does it by pandering to corporations. Which one do you choose? I'll take the side that's atleast going to try to better themselves by making my life better.

So you'll choose the Republicans. Smart man, the job market will thank you, since there will be more options, as will your individual taxes, since they'll shrink.

Fail. Every single Republican tax plan in the last 30+ years has favored the wealthy [i]heavily[/i] over the middle class, considered as a proportion of income the tax burden has gone UP on everyone but the wealthiest Americans (since payroll taxes are capped and make up the biggest part of your burden), and the "trickle-down" theory has never worked. The rich don't spend their tax break to create jobs, they tend to buy government bonds and get guaranteed money back... whereas tax cuts to the middle class and poor actually stimulate the economy, since they spend their money on things like food, clothes, and consumer goods. Democrats have tried repeatedly to cut taxes, but they want to pay for it by returning tax levels on the rich to what they were pre-Reagan or Bush, and they've been blocked by Republicans every time. Republicans WON'T allow tax cuts for the middle class unless they can give even bigger tax cuts to the rich. That tells you whose side they're really on.

Your "argument" is heavily rooted in ignorance of how things actually work in the economy. First off, the majority of people are employees of small businesses, and it is those business owners that most ignorant people identify as "the rich". Their average income is collectively around 200k. That breaks down to cover salaries, insurance, and other business costs, usually leaving about a quarter or less of that income to cover their personal expenses. The wealthy, (top 5%) that you want to unfairly target, aren't earning as much income as you think they are, but still pay more than 95-98% of all personal income tax revenues, and businesses end up passing on the majority of their taxes to the individual consumer. By lowering taxes across the board and simplifying the tax code, long term, the benefits to individuals include more money in their own pocket. This also requires spending cuts and a free market. Something we haven't had since Newt and the gang held Clinton's feet to the fire and shut the government down multiple times. Our government is too sissified these days to actually be accountable, which is why the national debt more than doubled under Obama. Your model of thinking doesn't actually work, and a basic economics class would help you see that.

There's no correlation between tax rates and growth, as you imagine there is. We taxed the crap out of the top bracket in the '50s and we had 4% growth yearly. The greatest uncontrolled growth in spending and in the deficit was under the Republicans' national hero, Ronald Reagan, who ran up the debt (in adjusted dollars) from 2 trillion when he took office to 5 trillion when he left. He convinced you all that you can lower taxes [i]and increase spending[/i] at the same time because "cutting taxes increases revenues". This is voodoo economics, simply put, and it doesn't work. Growth under Reagan was due to things like government spending on massive military programs. Trillions of dollars, all borrowed money. We're still paying the interest on it. It wasn't because of tax rates. Also, the middle class followed Reagan's example and went massively into debt, pumping money into the economy...but it was money they didn't really have, they just wanted to emulate the Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. The debt did double under Obama. Had something to do with bailing out those banks and brokerage firms under the TARP program that was proposed under Bush II, to fix the mess his recession made... It's odd how every Republican president lately has cut taxes on the rich, and had a recession. While Democrats raise taxes and the economy gets better. It doesn't suggest a causal link that raising taxes improves the economy, but it does suggest that lowering taxes on the top 20% doesn't do a damn thing to improve it. As you would see if you looked. Your argument is heavily rooted in ignorance of how things actually work in the economy. A basic economic history class would help you understand that the trickle down economics model is a dismal failure, and cutting taxes on the middle class is what boosts growth.

Stop trying to mix politics and economics. You're obviously not smart enough to figure out that the first post was a joke, picking at your obviously partisan bias, and you just lied in your claim that an adjusted growth of 3t is somehow more that an 11t growth. You also falsely tried to attribute trickle down nonsense to something I said. If you go back and actually read, (I know that's hard for you left wing loons that are in love with your partisan politics) you'll note that I said cutting taxes needs to be paired with a cut in spending. You can't have both. That's how economics actually works. I'm also fairly certain that I mentioned getting out of the way of the free market, but I could be wrong. I'm only assuming, because those go hand in hand. If it were up to me, I'd gut all federal spending by 50%, starting with social programs, corporate bail outs, and foreign aid, ending those in their entirety, then fine tooth combing over the defense budget and eliminating every single dollar that isn't needed. I would also end the Fed and return us to the gold standard.

OK, so you're more of a Lyndon LaRouche fan than a Reaganite. But if you think you can separate economics and politics, you're not living on this planet.

The primary purpose of government is to protect the rights of the individual from government. The limits on the federal government are expressly stated in the Constitution. Anything beyond those, falls the the states. The economy is best handled by the free market, and free of politics.

I don't disagree. Take the money out of politics, ban money in political advertising, get rid of PACs, ban lobbyists, make the system so that someone who is not a millionaire can successfully run for office. But remember that the Constitution also states that our purpose is to "promote the general Welfare", which means social programs and making sure retired people don't end up eating grass clippings and newspaper to survive. There are things the free market can't and won't do, because there's no money in it; and that's where the government has to step in. I don't trust churches and charity to do it because you have to be considered "worthy" of their charity. Government is secular and neutral.

"General welfare" refers to the nation, not individuals. US Constitution 101.

The general welfare of the nation is certainly affected by whether or not masses of the population are in poverty. And it is a legitimate concern of the federal government. Just as the common defense doesn't simply protect some nebulous concept of "the nation", we defend the individual citizens that live in America. I'm leaving now, since you're never going to stop arguing. Bye.