username.exe

Perhaps Bernie will consider going for the presidency of a secessionist California, then.

amideislas

Quite a speech by Obama re: gun control. I don't know how any reasonable person (voter) could find that unreasonable in any way.

But I suppose the instantaneous patent rubbishing of the entire concept by the NRA, the gun lobby, and their traditional political puppets shouldn't be any surprise.

zargof

Unfortunately, the US electorate are not made up of reasonable people.

Giantaxe

More gunz!

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2...trictions.html

Giantaxe

What is wrong with Kasich? He seems the most sensible of the bunch, despite his "I solved world hunger already in Ohio" approach to debating.

Rubio would be a good choice imo. Too bad he's faring so poorly in the polls right now.

amideislas

Well I'm not so sure of that. The farthest right-wing republicans are by far the largest segment that votes in the primaries (and those making the most noise). This is who the campaigns are targeting right now.

The general election is an entirely different kettle of fish. Include the centre, centre-right, and centre-left into the equation, and the "reasonable" voting numbers start to look very different.

I suspect virtually all Republican candidates will seize this opportunity to use this to "prove" Obama's evil communist intent for threatening restricting sales of deadly weapons to those who can exhibit some responsibility. But in the general election, me thinks it will be their biggest mistake. We shall see.

zargof

It's such a strange phenomenon. If Ford produces a car that's unsafe and people start dying then sales drop and Ford has to fix the problem. But for gun manufacturers there is absolutely no compunction to do anything about the number of people killed. In fact the more that die the better for business it appears to be.

username.exe

Marco 'we-need-a-military-of-unlimited-proportions' Rubio? There are better Republican options.

dc koop

Bernie's okay. Has some good things to say like free education for college students and he knows what the real problems that need to be addressed are. Don't stand a chance against Hillary though

dc koop

Quite agree. But as we all know as far as the Republicans are concerned anything Obama says is wrong.. wrong... wrong.

FlaviusAetius

I am not yet a Cruz supporter. However, since the Honorable Member, Zargof, raised Cruz's flat tax and expressed his opinion as to its effect on the economy, it would be fair to take a look at the plan itself.

The first thing that jumps out is that most people at the lower end of the economic ladder would pay no taxes. If the plan is revenue neutral - and I don't know if that analysis has been done - then perhaps Zargof's opinion is too pessimistic. Anyway, here is the outline of his tax plan, as Cruz sets it forth:

"Under the Simple Flat Tax, the current seven rates of personal income tax will collapse into a single low rate of 10 percent. For a family of four, the first $36,000 will be tax-free. The Child Tax Credit will remain in place, and the Simple Flat Tax Plan expands and modernizes the Earned Income Tax Credit with greater anti-fraud and pro-marriage reforms. As a result, the Simple Flat Tax will ensure that low- and middle-income Americans have greater opportunities – not only through minimal taxes, but also through better, high-paying jobs that the Simple Flat Tax will generate. Under the plan, deductions for charitable contributions and mortgage interest payments are preserved.
The IRS will cease to exist as we know it, there will be zero targeting of individuals based on their faith or political beliefs, and there will be no way for thousands of agents to manipulate the system.
For businesses, the corporate income tax will be eliminated. It will be replaced by a simple Business Flat Tax at a single 16 percent rate. The current payroll tax system will be abolished, while maintaining full funding for Social Security and Medicare.
The convoluted tax code will be replaced with new rules of the game – so simple, in fact, that individuals and families could file their taxes on a postcard or phone app. The Death Tax will be eliminated. The Alternative Minimum Tax will be eliminated. The tax on profits earned abroad will be eliminated. And of course, the Obamacare taxes will be eliminated. Also gone will be the unending loopholes in the current code, the stacks of depreciation schedules for businesses, and the multi-tiered rates on income and investments. Under the Simple Flat Tax, the Internet remains free from taxes.
The results will be truly dramatic. According to the well-respected Tax Foundation, the Simple Flat Tax will deliver an economic boost of tremendous magnitude. In the first decade, the Simple Flat Tax will:

• Boost Gross Domestic Product by 13.9 percent above what is currently projected.
• Increase wages by 12.2 percent.
• Create 4,861,000 additional jobs." https://www.tedcruz.org/tax_plan/

zargof

The important part that this analysis leaves out is that even after accounting for anticipated (but unlikely) levels of growth this tax plan would produce, these would still be a loss of $768M in revenue over 10 years. It's $3.6T without the growth.

Details and Analysis of Senator Ted Cruz’s Tax Plan | Tax Foundation

Anyway, you missed the more significant part about the return to the Gold Standard which even Tim Worstall thinks is nuts.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworst...-idea-just-no/

FlaviusAetius

Actually, both the Democrat and the Republican bases have a fairly large proportion of kooks.

That would explain why Bernie is showing so much support amongst the Dem base, offering failed 1930s solutions to 21st Century economic problems. Of course, if you offer vast amounts of 'free stuff' like free college and forgiveness of college loans with vague promises that they will all be paid for by "the rich" you could garner a lot of support from left-wing economic illiterates. Likewise, Trump's promises that he will 'Make America Great' again, without any specifics, will garner a lot of support from right-wing economic illiterates.

On both sides, "The Base" have way too much publicity at this time. Once the primaries are underway and reasonable people come out of the woodwork, Bernie will certainly fade away and more centrist Republicans will probably award the nomination to someone other than Trump. So don't despair. Most Americans are crazy...like a fox.

zargof

It's ironic that you talk about economic illiterates while continuing to push the "free stuff" fallacy as well as thinking that Ted Cruz's economic plans are reasonable.

FlaviusAetius

It is important to note that you only quoted that portion of the Tax Foundation's report that was based on a "static" analysis. The Tax Foundation article went on to look at the growth result of the plan. If that were taken into account, the expected growth in the economy would reduce the deficit to $768 billion over the same period.
I don't necessarily support a return to the Gold Standard without greater analysis, but the major reason some Republican candidates support it is to prevent the "quantitative easing" manipulation of the currency and therefore the economy based on Keynsian theories of economics. (With, in my opinion, decidedly mixed results. It has propped up the stock market and otherwise so distorted the economy we could see a major crash as a result.)

Nathan Lewis, also writing in Forbes, provides an interesting history of the results of the major European and Asian countries being on the gold standard between 1870 and 1914. It's worth a read: Forbes Welcome

As for 40 or so of economists thinking a return to the gold standard would be "nuts" don't forget that, as one president said: we could use some one-armed economists - when pressed, they always say, "On the one hand, this...but on the other hand, that."