But hey, let's not be biased. Let's read City Journal's take on the tax bill. Just to be sure.



Okay, so the tax bill's going to pay for itself by increasing growth through work and investment, which will compensate for the loss in revenue. In other words, a roundabout way of justifying the tax cut via the Laffer Curve. Economically sound reasoning on principle. But that raises the question of whether the facts of America's economic condition supports using the Laffer Curve in this way.

We can look at the opinions of economists. Economists overwhelmingly disagree that the tax cuts will increase revenue. At least with individual income, there is consensus that tax cuts will not increase revenue.

But what about business tax? Well, that's complicated. The United States does have the highest ~nominal~ business taxes, and there's ~some~ evidence that cutting the business tax rate might increase revenue. But the effective tax rate of American businesses is extremely low, already far below the OECD average that's supposed to be the Laffer curve "sweet spot" Republicans are aiming for, justified by papers such as this.

In other words, they're equivocating on the effective and nominal U.S. tax rates. However, it's not entirely bad, the tax plan also does limit some corporate tax credits. However, it repeals the minimum and many tax credits are left in place; it's hard to estimate exactly how this will effect the actual coporate tax rate, but the point is, it's probably to the left of the maximum in the Laffer curve, i.e. won't produce revenue.



A common refrain, but this raises the question: do the wealthy disproportionately benefit from government spending? If they do, it's wrong to claim the current progressive tax system is "unfair" in any way. And I think it's pretty uncontroversial that they do disproportionately benefit from government spending: the bailout, for one, preserved the value of many toxic financial assets that wealthy people had a larger stake in, while homeowners were often shafted.



Again, true, but the U.S. also has by far the worst inequality in the developed world. So much that they still earn more than the wealthy in other developed nations, even after the heftier progressive tax.



That's because the benefits to the wealthy are not primarily in income tax, they're in the value added to corporate stock, which wealthy people own almost all of.



Sounds alot like the Bush tax cuts.



When you comprehend the whole paragraph and look at the key idea, what it's saying is cutting taxes is good because it helps businesses, while spending is the problem. Also, "lol" that the pretext for this normative claim is "reality".



As above, equivocating on the nominal vs. the effective tax rate.



"Flexibility to repatriate capital" means literally not taxing income they bring back. More on why this is meaningless later.



You've created an incentive, but is it an effective one? More on why this is meaningless later as above.



Yes, if you could get corporations to invest. But this is unlikely, and as above we will discuss why this is later.



"It will grow" is not the same as "it will grow significantly and justify its costs". I'm not sure how these estimates are done, but I'm also not sure how strong the "consensus" is here: they certainly preferred to label the highest estimated GDP increases they could find, but didn't seem to present the alternative view.. hmm.



How about both? There's evidence that redistribution does not create market-destroying conditions. Much the opposite, in fact, it doesn't seem to correlate at all with growth, or if it does, the correlation is that inequality produces slightly less growth. This is good news for progressives: increase the effective top tax rate to 60% and you won't see any loss to productivity. In other words, it literally doesn't matter to the economy how much CEOs earn. Half or quarter their income and nothing will happen except conditions will be better for other people.



Sure: Democrats often propose policies that might hamper growth, but that's not the point here.



Let's look at their source:



It's not even remotely funny the level of cynicism one must be capable of to say with a straight face that this loss of employment is bad. "The ACA is bad", the Republican said, "because healthy people don't want to do slave labor."



Buzzwords

So on what I was going to comment on earlier: there's every reason to believe that the tax bill will have only tiny effects on investment. Consider, for one, this event. Seriously, watch the video.

CEOs couldn't even bull****. They are under no false pretenses and are not lying. Most have no intentions of expanding their businesses after the tax cut, despite that being the necessary ingredient for the tax cuts to be able to pay for themselves on any level. Corporations are awash with cash. They are sitting on record amounts of money. Letting them bring back hundreds of billions for free and cutting their taxes isn't going to change what they're already doing, in fact, most predict they're going to double down on share buybacks and other activities which help only the 84% of their primary shareholders.

Not to mention the opinion of every rating agency ever that this will not lead to substantial growth.

So, cherrypick the outlier estimates if you want even minimal GDP growth, sure. Over here in "let's pick the mean if you want a better approximation" land, the Republican tax bill is bunk, and I can safely say the conservative defense of it is economically illiterate, biased, uninformed, and relies on brushed-up faulty economics 101 reasoning that any serious person can see through.

It's a Marxist interpretation, you silly.

Why do you think you can disprove conservatism by making cheeky comments about an article about the tax bill? How long did you work on this for? Too long. lol

There wasn't anything to disprove. The entire argument was based in a false premise. I'm not even "disproving conservatism". I'm working against this one defense against a specific tax bill. One that was so erroneous and filled with blatantly incorrect thought.

I like how you get kinda butthurt that I'm not impressed by your preferred conservative sources and have so far refused to acknowledge that the Republican tax bill isn't based in genuine politics. I think you're in willful denial of the political reality.

What did you think I thought would happen?

Listening to the podcast though, I was right before I was even right, Ross Douthat explicitly exists for the sole reason of convincing liberals that conservativism is reasonable. He's literally an exercise in empty rhetoric, and he says that to you directly.

No wonder so many liberals are lost and confused about this.

What did you think I thought would happen? That you'd read an article from City Journal and then sign up for the NRA and start denying climate change while listening to Rush Limbaugh and complaining about Hollywood? What kind of stake do you think I have in this conversation?

That is, that you'd read the articles and see them as doing nothing but confirming your preexisting prejudices. Wah wah. Your loss.

Well, I don't know what you had in mind, but I was hoping that you might show me a source of conservative ideas which can't be dispelled in a few minute's research.

I think your stake is, you want to be able to hold onto a world view where most people are generally pretty reasonable, and that more dispute comes out of misunderstanding and an unwillingness to listen, and you hope that if only liberals really heard conservatives and if conservatives only listened to liberals, then we could overcome many of the social issues plaguing us like college students acting wild and conservatives getting a little crazy in the voting booths.

Yup: you are incapable of accepting that people can criticize conservatives and not be wrong-thinking.

No? Why do you think you're challenging my own worldview by showing that conservatives make bad arguments? Conservatives make plenty of bad and unconvincing arguments.

Give a straight answer then: is the Republican tax bill defensible?

lol why does everything hang on this tax bill?

Because it implies some things. If Republicans are passing bills that are indefensible, it implies they aren't governing properly and should be removed. You seem to dislike this view, that Republicans should be removed from power, but also can't defend their actions in congress. You don't get to have your cake and eat it too.

Don't dodge the question. Give an actual opinion for once.

Well, if what it means for the bill be indefensible is that every Republican should be impeached from congress and the White House because it passed, as you're suggesting, then no, I don't think it was indefensible. It'd be interesting to see how you'd implement this, but I'm sure you can, because, as you said, you're a man of action, and not an "intellectual", as you said earlier.

Frankly I don't know what you mean by "indefensible".

Heh, you just can't answer a direct question, ever.

By defensible I mean justifiable through sound, proper, and convincing argument.

Look: I'm not advocating for anything radical, like an anti-democratic purge of Republicans. I feel like your only way of parsing my statements is that I'm some extreme French revolution populist ready to kill people.

I think it's imperative for the future and health of this country for Republicans to be voted out of office, immediately, as soon as possible. No other group is as bad for the American people or as dangerous for world stability. I'm attempting to justify that view by claiming the legislation they pass is so awful that there cannot exist a palatable, coherent argument to justify it. It seems obvious to me that, if our legislators are doing indefensible things, people should do what they can to remove them from office.

My solution is very liberal: grassroots campaigning, fundraising, raising populist hell against the electoral machine to force real democracy into the system and get these people out, democratically.

You seem to really not like that my solution involves a 100% all-out political fight against an opposing class of people, an inherent factionalism. I do not think we can gain from working with Republicans in office. I think the only choice is to force them out.

That doesn't mean conservatives won't be a part of building a new era of government, though. It's not progressive or die. It's stop the malignant tumor from destroying the only good parts of American society.

Again, Republicans aren't the problem, just as Trump isn't the problem. They're both just symptoms.

I think you hate it. I think a lot of people hate it. I think the people who paid for it with campaign contributions love it. I don't know where being "defensible" fits into that picture.

So.. guillotine the wealthy then? Seems like you wouldn't have anything to say about that, if you're a nihilist about human agency.

I feel like your only way of parsing my statements is that I'm some extreme French revolution populist ready to kill people.

So.. guillotine the wealthy then?

Look: I'm not advocating for anything radical, like an anti-democratic purge of Republicans. I feel like your only way of parsing my statements is that I'm some extreme French revolution populist ready to kill people.

It's my duty as an American to remove them from power. This tyranny will not go unpunished.

"That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

It's my duty as an American to remove them from power. This tyranny will not go unpunished.

Haha OK looks' like Eversor already picked up on that.

Also, what's with the bizarrely cringy patriotic songs and stuff?

I haven't been following this thread too carefully,

I'm serious in grilling Eversor about his internal contradictions regarding Republicans, but I also feel kinda bad pinning him down so hard so I'm trying to ease up with some humor.

To Reid: I'm not sure I get the humor. I was just assuming you were serious(ly making me cringe).

I haven't said anything contradictory.