Jindal had his moment, and he blew it
If you had asked me about the worst high-profile political speech I’d ever seen, I would have said it was John McCain’s effort last June, the one with the green backdrop, cringing smile, strangely awkward crowd and the whining “my friends, that’s not change we can believe in.”
Bobby Jindal’s effort last night approached McCain. I had never heard Jindal speak on a formal occasion, and he was bad. Bad message, worse delivery. Some of the harshest reaction came from conservatives who had hopes Jindal could be the party’s standard bearer. David Brooks put it bluntly:
“To come up at this moment in history with a stale ‘government is the problem,’ ‘we can’t trust the federal government’ – it’s just a disaster for the Republican Party…. It’s just not where the country is, it’s not where the future of the country is. There’s an intra-Republican debate. Some people say the Republican Party lost its way because they got too moderate. Some people say they got too weird or too conservative. He thinks they got too moderate, and so he’s making that case. I think it’s insane, and I just think it’s a disaster for the party. I just think it’s unfortunate right now.”
At the Corner at the National Review, they post an email from a longtime reader:
“Jindal’s delivery was weak in this sense: he did not look like someone who could lead this country. He did not instill in me any confidence that he would or could be the standard-bearer in four or eight years, which I was looking for. I wanted him to do well. But he didn’t. … He came across as the guy you’d want to have your daughter bring home, but not the guy you’d want leading your company during tough times.
Even the far-right folks at Free Republic panned it badly:
- “After just two or three words, all I could see and hear for the remainder of Jindle’s speech was … Richard Pryor. Richard Pryor doing his white man’s voice.”
- “Face it, it was a poor performance. He may be a nice enough guy but he had a shot and he blew it.”
- “Nobody here is trying to tear Jindal down, but to deny that he dropped the ball last night is just burying our heads in the sand. Jindal needed to come out with fire in his bellow. Instead, all we got was some smoke and a few sizzles.”
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330 comments Add your comment
NRBraindead
February 25th, 2009
3:36 pm
To all the toothless GOP morons that called the drop in the DOW after the speech last night check where it closes today. Keep listening to your hero Rush and stay away from anything with numbers.
The Truth Comes Out
February 25th, 2009
3:41 pm
Some choice words from the “speech”
“Tonight I want every American to know this: We will rebuild, we will recover, and the United States of America will emerge stronger than before,” Presdient Barack Obama says.
Who are we? The recipients of the entitlements? Are they going to make this country stronger, or continue to suck the life blood out of it?
“The time to take charge of our future is here,” Obama declared.
The time to take charge of the future is with your first God given breath of life. Not when it feels good to wax poetically…
Obama had to wade his way into a chamber packed with lawmakers eager to welcome the nation’s first black president into a Capitol built by slaves.
Many of whose dscendants are now living in public housing on public assistance because they have been conditioned to know they can get away with it…….
I’ll open with a race card, and raise you 1 trillion dollars………
Obama’s 52-minute speech was interrupted 61 times by applause.
A scream and clap like the Oprah show. Is this where American politics have fallen to?
“I ask this Congress to join me in doing whatever proves necessary,” Obama said. “Because we cannot consign our nation to an open-ended recession.”
Has he actually read the plan he signed?
He skipped the traditional litany of new programs common in such speeches but spoke on broad generalities about goals and themes that formed the backbone of his presidential campaign.
Lets not give away any secret details.
“The weight of this crisis will not determine the destiny of this nation,” he said.
So business as usual? The ostrich approach? What a stupid, ignorant statement!
“The only way this century will be another American century is if we confront at last the price of our dependence on oil and the high cost of health care, the schools that aren’t preparing our children and the mountain of debt they stand to inherit,” Obama said.
Oil is NOT, I repeat NOT our enemy. No plastics are made without petroleum products. Does the plastic elastic president know this?
The mountain of debt the children stand to inherit? So he did read his plan……
He promised he would slash it by half by the end of his term in 2013, mostly by ending U.S. combat in Iraq and eliminating some of Bush’s tax cuts for the wealthy.
Does he realize the economic engine that the military is? Lets bring the troops home to a jobless, homeless America and call it prosperity!
Lets end “tax breaks” for the people like NObama himself and the ones who contributed to his campaign.
This is is such a disgrace and embarrasment to our country, I can’t stand it………. NO real solutions were offered, and it was a pitiful attempt at leadership propped up by “applause machine” audience plants.
Mike D
February 25th, 2009
3:42 pm
So it begins. Liberal media has started it’s quest to destroy the reputation of any potential Republican candidate for 2008.
Dave R
February 25th, 2009
3:46 pm
You know, Because it Matters, I don’t even think you know the meaning of the word Fascist. Because if you did, you’d know your statement above regarding Republicans is wholly and completely incorrect.
And you also don’t know squat about government. That whole “we the people are government” thing is absolutely, positively wrong. If we were as you say, we’d be a true democracy, which we are not (and hopefully never will be). We are a Constitutional Republic. And I certainly didn’t put San Fran Nan or Harry Reid into office, nor did I put ol’ Hope & Change in there, either.
One final point: any Clinton surplus was on the back of the Social Security Trust Fund. Congress cooks the books every year on how they use that money. And the jobs he allegedly “created” (as if government could actually create jobs in the first place) were low-paying service jobs, that replaced outsourced high-paying jobs. Sorry to burst your little bubble, there, Matters
Get a clue, will ya?
G
February 25th, 2009
3:51 pm
The effectiveness of the Rushpublican branding campaign on “government” is in fact a central reason we are in the economic mess we are in today. The notion that government is an evil–among some voters a necessary one, but among most voters an evil nonetheless–is what led Democrats to remain silent for much of the last eight years as George W. Bush turned record surpluses into record deficits in the name of scaling back government intrusion; weakened or eliminated regulations that had been in place for decades to protect American consumers, homeowners, retirees, and people saving for their retirement or their kids’ college education; and failed to regulate new threats that were as preventable as they were foreseeable, such as unregulated commerce in “commodities” most people don’t understand (e.g., derivatives) or putting too much money into risky investments without enough capital to back it up if good-times loans were to go bad. And the effective branding of government as the problem is part of what has led, over three decades, to Democrats remaining relatively silent as our infrastructure crumbled because of their (well founded) fear that their conservative opponents in the next election would attack them for their “tax-and-spend” profligacy. The result has been that we cut taxes to the wealthy and failed to invest in our future in times of relative prosperity, while creating the conditions that will require nothing short of massive government deficit spending, extraordinary governance, and a lot of luck to get us out of an economy that is still in free-fall.
Fortunately, we have a leader at the helm who understands the fierce urgency of now. None of us has ever seen anything like a government-in-transition emerge with the rapidity and effectiveness of the new Obama administration, or a first week in office in which a new President reversed course so dramatically on so many issues–particularly in foreign policy–with stroke after stroke of his pen. Obama promised change, and he has already begun to demonstrate, in one domain after another, the last part of his campaign slogan: that this is change we can believe in, because it is happening already.
Dave R
February 25th, 2009
4:00 pm
Oh, I believe its change alright. But it is a change in the wrong direction just as much as Bush’s 8 years was wrong.
RealConservative
February 25th, 2009
4:05 pm
Herein is the major schism within the Republican Party today:
The inside-the-beltway types and New England elites (elitests) see individuals like Governor Jindal as not having the “presence” or “gravitas” to lead our party, not to mention our country.
Worse yet, some of them doubt the tenets of basic conservatism itself, shaken, so it seems, by the so-called “mandate” the Left currently appears to enjoy.
The rest of us – the REAL conservatives in America – believe 100% in our (classic, timeless) principles, regardless of which ideology is fashionable at the moment.
Yes, perhaps Governor Jindal didn’t package our values in the neatest, most effective way. Certainly, his rhetoric was lacking and his presentation was lackluster.
But to call the tropes of his speech – and the core beliefs they represent – “stale” or a “bad message” is completely inane.
Bobby Jindal is arguably the most successful Republican politician in America today, and he did not become so by moderating or even attenuating the traditional, Reaganesque, conservative message – he did it by trumpeting that message loudly to a populace who, regardless of what the elites of either party may think, is basically much more socially and fiscally conservative than they are liberal.
Would I have liked more passion? Of course. Am I weary of Republican standard-bearers who possess weak, unconvincing oratorical skills? Without a doubt. But without a message – without a steadfast, concreate ideologoy – a political party cannot endure.
Governor Jindal got the message exactly right. And without that message, unadulterated and pure, the Republican Party will fracture and die.
Candidates and their rhetorical abilities will come and go, and oratorical abilities can be developed. But what the Republican Party cannot easily fix are permanent, unfilled cracks in its core conservative foundation.
reality check
February 25th, 2009
4:06 pm
The problem with the Republicans is that they complain about whatever Obama wants to do, but they don’t offer any actual ideas or plans of their own to get us out of this mess. It lost them the election and it isn’t working now.
And for the record, the government needs to spend money in a recession to get the economy moving again and once that happens, the growth will fuel the paying down of the debt incurred.
Obama is basing his strategy on the Japanese recession of the 1990’s which started with the burst of their housing bubble, stock market decline, and recession. It took the Japanese 10 years to turn things around because the government didn’t spend enough at the outset of the problem; instead they gave in to those whining about how much it was going to cost. Sound familiar?
I know it’s a bit tougher for the uneducated masses (i.e. core Republican base) to understand and it’s much easier to parrot back what they hear on Fox and conservative talk radio, but if you’ve never studied economics (or you don’t know how to spell it) shut the f*ck up and let the president to his job. And please, 4 years from now when things are looking a lot better for everyone, don’t attribute the success to something that Bush magically set up before he left office the same way you tried to explain away Clinton’s success.
The Truth Comes Out
February 25th, 2009
4:09 pm
The problem G. is that with every stroke of his pen he is leading this country down the path to socialism. Please see past the fuzzy rhetoric and realize what his intent is. Yes he is going to “change” things but not for the good. If I wanted to live in a socialist country I would move to Cuba.
Cammi317
February 25th, 2009
4:21 pm
When Jindal walked out I began laughing hysterically. It was the most awkward and goofy thing that I had ever seen. To top it off, he sounded as if he were doing a commercial voice over during most of his speech. Someone else obviously wrote his speech, because there was a total disconnect between the speech and his diction and facial expressions.
Chess
February 25th, 2009
4:22 pm
I wish you right wingers were just as critical of “W” speeches. I just watched 8 years of lies. Starting with 911. Jindal has not even fixed his own backyard from Katrina. Thanks for new casinos Jindal. Now that is caring about the people.
Gov. Bobby Jindal’s speech and Republican response to President Obama’s address to Congress: The reviews are in « Blue Notes
February 25th, 2009
4:46 pm
[...] Atlanta Journal-Constitution opines: If you had asked me about the worst high-profile political speech I’d ever seen, I would have [...]
Rix
February 25th, 2009
4:57 pm
Jindal ain’t gonna win back Ohio & Virginia for the Repubs. Hey, the Repubs can either adapt to the national mood or they can remain a minority party of idealogues. Jindal wants the latter. Good for him, better for Democrats.
gee
February 25th, 2009
6:13 pm
Now I know why you call yourself mindless sheep. by the way I do not have 24’s I have a BA a masters and I am a computer wiz making a lot of money teaching mindless sheep like you how to use a computer. As Mccain’s daughter put GOP is way behing the times.
if you cannot answer the questions that you asked me it is a wonder you can even comprehend this conversation, oh I forgot Daddy is teaching you how to type and clean your behind. Stay grazing because that is the only thing you can do without anybody holding your hand. GW.
Bobby Swindle Jindal
February 25th, 2009
6:15 pm
Dude blew it he sux.
gee
February 25th, 2009
6:16 pm
All of you talk about socialist government please tell me what is a socialist government.
because in this western world their are many socilaist governments and I would like some one to tell me which countries in the western world are socialist.
G
February 25th, 2009
6:34 pm
We are facing a crisis like none we have seen since the Great Depression, and there’s a reason for the similarity: The same ideology that led us into the Great Depression in the 1930s has led us into the most severe economic crisis we have had since that time. Both times we were brought to the brink of disaster by a radical ideology that says that if you just leave the free market alone, unchecked by any rules designed to protect our shared welfare and our shared values–like the idea that people willing to work hard should be able to get a good job, own a home, and feed their kids and take them to the doctor when they’re sick–everything will work out. Well, we’ve now tried out that ideology twice, and it has been a disaster both times.
Franklin Roosevelt led us out of the Great Depression by taking a pragmatic, not an ideological path, setting up safety nets for people who didn’t deserve to lose their homes or their dignity in retirement through no fault of their own, testing one program after another until he got it right. In the process, we learned something important: that the market may be the engine of our prosperity, but someone has to be at the steering wheel when that engine is on or we’ll run aground, and that someone needs to be us: the people, through our elected representatives. That new vision of government guided us for 50 years, and it served us well, making us the strongest, most prosperous nation in the history of the world.
But over time, not everyone who led our government shared Roosevelt’s vision of trying something out, keeping it if it worked, and discarding it if it didn’t. Over time, bureaucracies calcified, and people felt entitled to programs whether they worked efficiently or not. Politicians found it difficult to make the hard decisions to keep what worked and cut what didn’t, and others used that as an opportunity to play on our worst impulses, blaming all our problems on the poor or infirm. Then Ronald Reagan entered office with a simple creed: that government is the problem, not the solution. That creed resonated with a lot of people because it captured their sense that their tax dollars weren’t being used effectively, that while they were struggling to make ends meet, a bloated bureaucracy was thriving on their hardship.
There was something to Reagan’s critique, but his solution was too simple. Government is neither the problem nor the solution. Government is nothing other than us–the citizens of this country–coming together to solve our shared problems, and if it’s ineffective, we need leaders with the courage and the vision to speak the truth and fix it. Unfortunately, over the next 30 years, the pendulum swung so far from Roosevelt’s vision of government for the people–federal protection of our bank accounts, a minimum wage to guarantee that people who work hard can feed their families, Social Security so Americans can be assured of dignity in their twilight years, worker safety laws so they make it to those years, unemployment insurance to protect us against the inevitable ups and downs of the market, and regulations on Wall Street speculation that could prevent another crash–that we found ourselves right back where we were 80 years ago, with an unregulated market running amok, an ethic of unfettered greed, and a lot of good people losing their jobs, their livelihoods, their retirement, their health care, and their dreams through no fault of their own.
That is where we find ourselves today. It’s time for politicians to stop running for or against government and to start running it well. It’s time to set aside rigid ideologies and deal with the realities that confront us. We have an economy that is spiraling downward, and we have so tied our hands with unpatriotic, anti-government rhetoric that we haven’t invested in our own country in decades. It’s no accident that our bridges are crumbling, our levees aren’t holding, and our children aren’t getting the world-class education that will allow them to compete in the global economy. It’s no accident that we can’t trust the water our children drink, the food we eat, or the banks that finance our mortgages. It’s no accident that our main import is oil and our main export is good American jobs. In all these cases the reason is the same: we have come to believe that the ship of state can run itself, that big businesses can police themselves without a real cop looking over their shoulder, and that we, the people, are so incapable of coming together to create institutions to serve our common good that we should just say no to the idea that we can govern ourselves effectively.
Americans are better than that. The nation that invented modern democracy can surely figure out how to solve our collective problems if we put our heads together and call that government.
Government is neither the problem nor the solution. It is us, and if it isn’t, we should–and we can–remake it. We need leaders who understand that the market is the chief engine of prosperity in a free society, but that sitting idly by as people lose their jobs, their homes, or their doctors isn’t leadership.
Because It Matters
February 25th, 2009
6:41 pm
Dave R, you are doing nothing but confirming everything I wrote in my previous comments.
The first lie you told is to say that I called Republicans fascists, I did not. I said they were closer to fascists than Democrats are to being Socialists.
Second lie, I never said that we are not a republic, we are, but we are self governed as governments govern with the consent of the people. You did vote Republican didn’t you? So you may not have voted for the Democrats but you sure as heck voted in the people who made this mess. Don’t try and tell us this is the Democrats fault, that lie isn’t going to work either.
You need to learn some things before you go around lecturing others on what you mistakenly believe they are ignorant of.This is what I’m talking about when I say that Republicans alienate people rather than attack them. Of course, by “people”, I mean fair minded, compassionate people who understand the seriousness of the present time and are ready to discuss solutions rather than name calling and insults.
Lastly, Social Security money is used by both parties to cook the books. Nonetheless, by the measure both parties used, there was a surplus. George Bush, the guy you voted for, said as much. That was his justification for his tax cuts and rebate checks. So before you point a finger at me, get your side to disavow use of those funds in their budget proposals first, then get back to me.
Again, you try to make Reid and Pelosi and other into boogey men, but that is so really tiresome and childish. Again, you verify the points I made in my earlier comments.
Anyone remember when Newt told us after the Clinton budget passed without a single vote from House Republicans that they economy would be in deep recession in a year’s time and that many jobs would be lost? Google it, if you don’t remember. But it sounds just like Republicans today just anxious to see President Obama to fail. But I’m betting, just like wjat happen with Clinton, things will get better in spite of Republicans and this President doesn’t have the personal issues of Clinton, so he’s going to get far more done.
And as far as “bursting bubbles”, well that’s rich coming from a Republican because under you guys we saw the bursting of the stock market bubble and the housing bubble. Bubbles are what your policies encourage when you seek to remove oversight and regulation. And when they burst and we working people are left holding the tab, you want to pretend you had nothing to do with any of it. It was that mean ol’ Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, or Barack Hussein Obama, or some other non Republican/Libertarian who is at fault.
You people can lie to yourselves all you like. You can get on this and other blogs and keep repeating those lies. You can disrespect our country’s President. You can name call and be as angry, bitter and resentful as you can be. But it’s not going to help the country.
The jig is up! The country made it’s choice and the vote was for change. Republicans made sure corporations and the rich “got their’s”. Now it’s time for working people to get some benefits, especially those who lost jobs through no fault of their own. Deal with it already, and stop all that lying will you please?
Because It Matters
February 25th, 2009
6:55 pm
G, well said, every time. That was a fair and honest account of how things have come to this point in time.
Not only are you comments accurate, they are well written. I hope you were able to reach someone today, at least get them to think about things differently. As you said, “we” are going to have to be the change that is needed.
I have faith in this country. I believe President Obama is the right person at the right time and this great nation will once again do big things for it’s working people and the world.
Disgruntled Georgian
February 25th, 2009
7:05 pm
Where were all of you GOP “fiscal conservatives” blow-hards when Bush and Co. were running up a trillion dollar deficit? How about the cyclone of cash blown on all of those no bid contracts? How many hundreds of billions have been spent on Iraq? Not to mention the lives of brave Americans. Where were you when all these investment firms were getting billion dollar golden parachutes?
Facts: George W. Bush expanded our government to the largest size ever. He presided over the largest national debt ever. He presided over the largest market drop ever. What happened to all of the b.s. Jindal said the GOP stands for? It’s all a lie to get middle class folks to vote for politicians who favor the rich.
Dave R
February 25th, 2009
7:42 pm
Matters, can you be any more clueless?
First, you can’t back away from your claim that Republicans are fascists. You said Republicans were, and I quote: “a tick away from being fascists, in fact, you could make a good argument that they are already.” No mention of Democrats all all. Now who’s the one lying?
Second, you failed to read my posts earlier. I didn’t vote in the Republicans, either. I’m an independent-minded, common-sense thinking individual who does not vote along party lines, but rather votes according to the precepts of the U.S. Constitution as it was WRITTEN, not interpreted by the left-wing Socialists out there. Didn’t vote for Bush, McCain, Obama or Clinton. The only Republican I have voted for is my U.S. representative in the past 10 years. You aren’t ready to have an honest discussion with someone that doesn’t fit your cookie-cutter approach to government.
And I suppose calling Republicans “fascists” is your way of not alienating people and being all inclusive, right?
And as long as BOTH parties cook the books with Social Security funds, it’s OK? We can just write off that bad old deficit under Clinton, because he had LESS debt to cover with SS funds than other Presidents? What kind of planet do you come from?
And I’m sorry, but Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are against everything I hold dear; the Constitution, freedom, individual rights and personal responsibility. They are boogeymen, and they have no place in government as long as they take the oath of office they swore, and turn around and violate it with every act they vote for.
And the housing and banking meltdown was caused by over 30 years of mismanagement of both sectors due to Democrat policies begun under Jimmy Carter, expanded under Bill Clinton and pushed under the carpet by Barney Frank, Maxine Waters and Chris Dodd. Listen to all of them praise Franklin Raines and Fannie and Freddie, while Republicans like Chris Shays warned them of impending disaster. And this was just 4 years ago, Matters.
You libs are as out of touch with personal responsibility as anyone I have ever met. G is all for enveloping everyone in big government’s bosom, reading them sweet bedtime stories at night to drive away their fears, while that same government removes all incentives for people to want to create jobs, make money and pay the taxes that allow you and your friends to live off of us and our grandchildren with massive deficits.
You have no solution for Social Security, which will be in deficit spending in less than 6 years. Hope & Change says he’s going to cut the deficit to $500 BILLION or so in the next 4 years. Big deal! That just cuts the rate of spending INCREASES. When are these jackalopes in Congress and the White House going to realize that when you have less money coming in, YOU SPEND LESS!
You want solutions, Matters? How about these?
1. Pass the FairTax. Within 2 years, you’ll be beating away corporations who want to move here and create jobs with a stick. Employment will skyrocket.
2. Repeal the Community Reinvestment Act. It is the prime reason why irresponsible people have home loans they cannot afford today.
3. Push Iraq to complete the last three benchmarks for success, and bring our troops home.
4. Ban all earmarks and pork for all bills for the next 4 years minimum.
5. Drill for new sources of domestic oil.
6. Make every bill that goes through Congress be a single issue bill. No adding agricultural issues into a defense spending bill. Too much crap gets hidden and dumped by this practice.
7. Pass a pay plan for Congress that increases their pay as they decrease the deficit. If they increase the deficit, they lose money.
8. Institute term limits for Congress. It isn’t even remotely Constitutional, but the way both parties have gamed the election system, it needs to be done.
9. Remove all foreign aid until our deficit is reduced by 75%. Americans will have to take care of America first.
10. Get out of the United Nations. They do nothing for us, and the bill to keep them here is too high. Plus, we should be able to get some pretty good rents for that riverfront property.
11. End the Department of Education. No Child Left behind is an abysmal failure, and isn’t even adequately funded, which causes each state to pony up more money it doesn’t have.
Let the howling begin.
G
February 25th, 2009
8:13 pm
Every flat tax scheme is nothing less than an attempt for the wealthy to pay less, including every such idea floated for many decades.
The reason for the complexity of the tax code is the chiselers, the loophole being hardly a modern invention. As the loopholes get more elaborate, so must the rules to prevent them.
Let’s take one tiny fact from the vast array of such problems and apply it to a flat tax:
Religious institutions cannot be taxed – that is in the Constitution. So, real fast now: a simple and all inclusive definition of a religious institution that includes the real ones and keeps out your crazy Uncle Louie, who thinks he hears the voice of God on his fillings. Or the fake “minister-by-mail” programs. But you have to include Buddhists, Free thinkers, Jews, Muslims, Christians, Hindus, Zoroastrians, Amish and Wiccans. Only the real ones, though, not the cheats. Except, gosh darn it, there’s the Constitution again, which prevents you from defining cheats by defining the religion or instructing the religion on what they must do.
Vast pronouncements of fairness are easy. Actual fairness is hard. That’s why we have so little of it.
“For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.”
H. L. Mencken
Dave R
February 25th, 2009
10:01 pm
G, you clearly haven’t read a single word regarding the FairTax, have you?
There are NO LOOPHOLES in the FairTax. That is what makes it so FAIR! No exemptions EXCEPT for college tuition. Even the government has to pay it when they purchase items.
When a church buys something today, they pay the tax imbedded in the cost of the product (and by the way, there’s NOTHING in the Constitution that keeps churches from being taxed). When a minister buys a gallon of milk, they pay sales taxes, do they not (yes, they do). The FairTax is a sales tax, G.
It is NOT a flat tax. It is a consumption tax. It is the ONLY fair taxation plan out there. You should read it sometime, and not get your information from Bookman.
G
February 26th, 2009
8:10 am
The (allegedly) Fair Tax is about shifting the tax burden away from Business and toward the Consumer.
That means: 1. Elderly people (or anybody) on a fixed income (or no income) will pay more for their medicines and anything else they spend their money on. 2. The government gives you a monthly prebate (to increase your dependence upon them and you should be afraid of that) 3. Rich people who pass their wealth from generation to generation no longer have to put it in trust to avoid bequeathment taxes (they can just give their children all of their money because there is no income tax) 4. Businesses no longer have to pay taxes so business owners can make more money (more profit) and 5. Poor people will no longer be able to afford new things because the tax is an added cost to the product(businesses that make new things will suffer and businesses that restore old things will prosper).
People who say that the (allegedly) Fair Tax is better than a progressive income tax (where you pay progressively more taxes for the more money that you earn in a year) are not poor people. They are complaining that the tax code is too complex (read: I have to struggle to find my tax breaks). If they had a simple paycheck they would not find the tax code that complex. To make their life easier, and their taxes smaller, they are willing to have the government pay people a check each month mostly because they cannot afford the national sales tax; they are also willing to mess with the tax structure and tax the consumerism of the world’s largest economy (well, used to be), (if income taxing is a disincentive in America then why are so many people working to make more money?) and this will result in businesses making more profit.
In all of this, they allege that it is okay for people to pay these taxes because businesses will lower their prices to them. Uh, no, ain’t gonna happen.
Dave R
February 26th, 2009
8:38 am
G, G, G. You fail to grasp the simple basics of the FairTax (as well as capitalism).
BUSINESSES DON’T PAY TAXES! Do you not understand that simple concept? Oh, sure, they are CHARGED taxes, but do you think all those nasty big businessmen take money out of their OWN pockets to pay Uncle Sam? Of course not! They build the tax into the price of everything you and I pay for, and pass the tax on to US! Consumers are the ONLY part of society that ultimately pay taxes. If you can’t get past Economics 101, you’ll never understand how the FairTax is better.
Now, we’ve already talked about your first point of contention, so there should be no need to rehash that.
Your second point has a certain amount of merit regarding dependence on government, however, I am willing to agree to the prebate in order to remove objections from the lower income class that they’ll be paying more with the FairTax. They won’t with the prebate.
Your third point is laughable and is simple wealth envy. What is wrong with people being able to pass onto the next generation the fruits of their labors? Why should the government get what each of us earned when we die? Is that our ultimate goal in life? To make sure we take care of giving Uncle Sugar the net result of all our hard work when we die? If so, why should we work so hard? Where’s my incentive to work if its all going to be taken away from me when I die?
See my first point to answer your 4th objection.
Refer to my lowering of costs to answer your 5th objection.
Now that we’ve knocked down EVERY objection you’ve brought up, let’s put it to you this way:
What’s your alternative? Progressive taxes have been tried before and failed. Income taxes certainly haven’t worked. What’s wrong with trying something new? If it works – great! If it fails, we’re no worse off.
And you really have to get away from that “businesses pay taxes” thing. There’s not a business out there that will eat their profit just so that the end consumer doesn’t have to pay some of the businesses tax burden. You can’t hold them up as all that is bad in the world in one sentence, and assign them a good deed in the next.
Oh, and the whole businesses won’t drop prices thing? Have you driven past a gas station lately? Whats the FIRST thing that happens when competing gas stations on opposite corners get gas that is cheaper than what they paid for it last week? Gas prices go down. It’s called competition, and it works. You just have to open your eyes to see it everyday.
G
February 26th, 2009
9:28 am
There would be no way to track the current living places of every single American. And good luck tracking the truly poor, people who often don’t have mailboxes or checking accounts and may spend periods living out of their cars, or in motels, or on the couches of friends.
It’s all nonsense. The only way to make this thing remotely revenue neutral for the poor and lower middle class family would be to set the prebate equally to the taxes paid.
Which makes one wonder what the point would be.
The Economic Right is fond of complaining that the poor don’t pay taxes, yet they trot out a plan under which the poor certainly do pay taxes even after prebate and want to claim ‘no harm no foul’.
Sorry, the numbers don’t add up. A family of four with two school age children making $40,000 have no federal income tax liability today. That would not be the case under the (allegedly) Fair Tax.
The (allegedly) Fair Tax is a move to lower marginal tax rates on the wealthy. End. Full stop.
I declare this discussion over.
Dave R
February 26th, 2009
9:50 am
Sorry, but I’ll get the last word on this, because it is needed.
You KEEP MISSING THE POINT! Your family of four example doesn’t pay income taxes, that’s true.
But they pay the 23% tax liability built into EVERYTHING THEY BUY TODAY! That car they buy? 26% of it is Federal taxes. That loaf of bread? 19% of it is in taxes.
The FairTax is a REPLACEMENT tax for everything already built into the system, with lower costs to operate than what we have today; no April 15th ever again.
What part of substitution do you NOT get?
And the homeless you speak of will be no worse off than they are now, because everything they happen to buy TODAY already has the 23% tax built into the cost to make the product. They just won’t be getting the prebate.
And again, you failed to answer my question. What do you propose to do differently? Progressive taxes have been tried and failed. Income taxes have been tried and failed. What’s wrong with trying something different? If it doesn’t work, we can always go back and try something else.
But what if it DOES work?
What alternative do you have for the mess we’re in?
jerome
February 26th, 2009
5:13 pm
Louisiana deserves better than lying, cheatin’ governors! Now they got this cottonmouth talking out of both sides of his mouth.Where’s Huey Long when we need em?
Rod Aries
February 26th, 2009
8:45 pm
Carly Fiorina would be my bet for Republican Candidate
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carly_Fiorina
Ned
March 2nd, 2009
10:56 pm
There’s an effort to undermine Jindal. At about the same time as his speech, rumors started to fly that Palin supporters were saying Jindal was a “secret muslim” – rumors linked to the Romney team that has started the battle for 2012 by driving a wedge between rivals.