A few days ago, Obama was promising that 95% of working people would get a tax cut. The House has scaled that back to make it more affordable. It will be interested to see how the burgeoning young professional class that disproportionately supported Obama--the folks who are making good money, but living in expensive cities and still struggling with rent and loans--will take this.
The rest of the bill is about what you expected--a lot of probably useless green energy spending that I fairly confidently predict will come to nothing, some stuff we should have done anyway, and a bunch of pandering, porky highway spending. The better the projects are, the less likely they are to be stimulative, because they're complicated and time consuming, like healthcare IT and high-speed rail. If we do them on a stimulus timeframe, we'll screw them up, waste an enormous amount of money, and likely make American voters worse off in the long term by locking them in to bad solutions--we won't get a second bite at high-speed rail between LA and San Francisco. Mostly, Democrats took their wish lists, called them "stimulus", and look set to inflict them on the American people in badly done drag.
Now, what does that remind me off? Rhymes with Whoosh Max Butts, I think . . .
Copyright © 2009 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved.
Every four years we have these campaigns where we pretend that Presidents get to legislate policy. Even more interestingly, we'll call this the Obama stimulus plan after it passes instead of the Pelosi/Reid plan. Same thing was true of the 'Bush' Tax Cuts.
These young professionals you speak of who disproportionately supported Obama do not, as many liberal commentators would put it regarding the working class, vote their interests. Their politics and in general, their ideology is of the self-sacrificial stripe. The fact that Obama was about to offer them a tax break was incidental. I would argue that now that he is figuratively punishing them for their ill-gotten goods (in the minds of the urban left, what goods are good gotten anyway?), huzzah, they'll cheer. After living among twenty-something to thirty-something Obama voters pre-and-post 11/4/08 (the year of reckoning), I have a good idea of their ethos - "While I obviously have a good job, and enjoy the creature comforts of a free and prosperous society, and am very likely fortunate enough to pursue an upwardly mobile, interest based career path, I secretly long for the transcendent bliss that the mob might eviscerate me and feed my flesh to their young."
Which Whoosh Max Butts? 2001 or 2003?
High speed rail from LA to SF is a phenomenally bad idea regardless of how much planning goes into it. I can get a walk-up fare on Southwest from Burbank to Oakland for $59. Even city-center to city-center, flying will always beat both the price (unless it's heavily subsidized by taxpayers who don't benefit from the rail system) and the time except in very limited circumstances (NY-DC, for example).
Plus, we're getting it whether we want it or not, thanks to proposition 1a.
C L: It's not the price, it's the convenience. It's very easy to get from Burbank airport to Oakland airport, but it's quite a pain to get from Burbank to Oakland. If we had direct-gate transfers between rail and air like they do at Paris CDG, it'd be a different story.
Cool Cal:
Actually, they do.
As you may have noticed, the welfare state doesn't seem to have done much for the poor. Poor people raised within the welfare state do significantly worse than poor people who come here from dirt poor countries and no welfare state.
When well-nourished American eighteen year olds with twelve years of schooling aren't doing as well as eighteen year old Cambodian refugees, I think we can figure out that the welfare state does not exist to help the poor.
The welfare-industrial complex is however an incredibly efficient machine for creating jobs for educated upper-middle class liberals with liberal arts degrees.
The welfare-industrial complex and the non-profit-industrial complex are merely massive patronage schemes which extorts money from working Americans and gives it to the Stuff White People Like crowd.
Ok, here are the numbers:
Downtown LA to burbank airport: 22 minutes, $41.15 in a taxi
Oakland airport to Union Square, SF: 20 minutes, $30 in a taxi
$59 and 1:15 for the actual flight.
So even checking in an hour early, a trip from downtown to downtown would take 2:52 and cost $130.15
If high speed rail could beat either of those numbers without massive subsidies, I'll eat my hat, but not even the proposition proponents are claiming better performance than that.
CL: I doubt you've been to Oakland, SF, Burbank, or LA.
22 minutes Oakland airport to Union Square, SF? Maybe at 4am, Christmas day. Realistically, that's a forty minute drive, and that's if the bridge and maze are not backed up during either of the four-hour-long rush hours. $30 for a taxi? That won't even get you Oakland to Berkeley in the real world. This isn't even counting the time it takes to claim bags, run through terminals, etc.
Door to door, Eurostar consistently beats Ryanair on time spent.
In terms of performance, high speed rail to an underground city center terminus is unbeatable - and I say this as someone who works in air transit.
In terms of cost? Rail will always be more expensive - you need to buy (or steal) all the land in between, and the right of way needed to build HSR is awful wide.
I live in LA. The 101 through Cahuenga pass can get crowded, but I can routinely get to BUR in 20-25 minutes.
I'm not as familiar with the bay area - I was basing my taxi rates on the following web page (http://sftravelguide.com/around/taxis.php) which was published in 2005. I suppose the rates have gone up since then.
The phase out limits for the tax cuts are fairly high: 75K for individuals and 150K for families. I relaize that in Megan's hot6-house world of NYC and DC that's not much, but in most of the country it's a pretty stellar income. I did better than that last year owing to a munificent relocation bonus, but this year I wonlt hit that limit. The majority of people, including young professionals, will get their tax cuts.
Re: As you may have noticed, the welfare state doesn't seem to have done much for the poor.
It puts food on their table, a roof over their head and medical care at need. That's not trivial.
Re: Poor people raised within the welfare state do significantly worse than poor people who come here from dirt poor countries and no welfare state.
I'd love to see that stats behind that claim. Last I checked the poor in Haiti, Sierra Leone etc. are in far worse shape than our American poor.
Damn, JonF. I finish my residency ( = my household income goes from under the individual limit to over the family one) in six months. Damn damn damn. Oh well, maybe they'll bring back income averaging.
Megan you are wrong, The One™ never made such a claim. He would never make claims such as this. You are clearly distorting what The One™ said because you are a racist --- I am not, I voted for The One™ so I can't be.
...... Young Obama-supporting Professional
Cool Cal said, "These young professionals you speak of who disproportionately supported Obama do not, as many liberal commentators would put it regarding the working class, vote their interests."
As our welfare state expands, the opportunities and prosperity of "these young professionals" will diminish and they'll be left wondering what happened. It is predictable.
Let me prelude this by saying that I understand that many people are going through tough times, and that any tax cut will help, but most young professionals that voted for Obama making more than $75K (or $150K as a family) aren't going to give a second thought to not getting the $500 tax credit. Let's say take home pay for a family making $150K is about $100K (after taxes, 401(k) contributions, etc.) That's a little over $8000 a month. A $500 tax credit is a little over $40 per month. I doubt that most young professionals that voted for Obama are going to begrudge him a 0.5 percent tax cut, particularily given the current amount of irrational exuberance surrounding the Obama presidency.
What these young professional should be upset about is the "Great Payoff" a/k/a stimulus bill that only includes about $49 billion in hard, transportation infrastructure improvements amoung a great pile of fluff spending.
Cool Cal said, "These young professionals you speak of who disproportionately supported Obama do not, as many liberal commentators would put it regarding the working class, vote their interests."
Funny, I've always hear the progressives tripe that those dumb*ss southern redneck republicans just don't vote for their own self interest. Care to square the two for me. Or are you saying that these young professionals are on par with the dumb*ss southern redneck republicans.
JonF,
You might want to reread that last part- the two of you are not talking about the same thing.
When well-nourished American eighteen year olds with twelve years of schooling aren't doing as well as eighteen year old Cambodian refugees, I think we can figure out that the welfare state does not exist to help the poor.
I don't have the stats for this, but I get the point your trying to make. But there is a problem. Namely, that to be successful said Cambodian refugee has to get 'here' (the west) 1st. The mere fact that said person was able to get to the US, and was willing to make such a Huge leap, is a proxy indicator for drive, ambition, determination, flexibility, ect ect.
Its partly the reason why so many people prefer to employ 'illegal' immigrants, then similarly low-wage Americans. One has show is conditioned to work hard, make money, and succeed. the other shows ignorance, laziness, and contentment with their SQ; many things, but NOT drive, not ambition.
"While I obviously have a good job, and enjoy the creature comforts of a free and prosperous society, and am very likely fortunate enough to pursue an upwardly mobile, interest based career path, I secretly long for the transcendent bliss that the mob might eviscerate me and feed my flesh to their young."
Nailed it.
I should clarify that my comment was not meant to imply that there needn't exist any welfare apparatus in this country. On the contrary, I believe a reasonable welfare safety net is a good thing for a society to have, provided there is no dearth of competition and liberty in the flow of goods, services, and labor.
What I meant to point out was that most of the affluent left tend to be somewhat deluded about their own nature. It was more of a cultural observation. Ironically (and granted this is an anecdotal observation) I've noticed that in Coastal CA and NYC, most natives who are liberal and tend to vote to the left, are engaged in decidedly self-serving and indulgent professions and career paths, such as the arts, or other professions that would generate a high future income. On the contrary, so-called red state expatriates, while still consistently voting right, have in my experience tended to come to these metropolitan centers exclusively to engage in social work (an explicit virtue among most church-going middle Americans).
Regarding the high speed rail between L.A. and S.F: Why is this a federal issue at all? Why should MY tax money be paid to move Californians around within the state of California? Shouldn't this be a state (of California) funded or privately funded project? And if there isn't state or private support, shouldn't the project die due to lack of interest or local support? Why aren't those who would benefit from the rail system the ones paying for it? It sounds like a massively expensive pork project, and I stand adamantly against it, at least as a federally funded venture.
It's always made me sad that the biggest victims of the socialist left are it's greatest supporters.
They just never seem to be able to open their eyes and see the con job. They gain nothing tangible by supporting the left and the intangibles that some of them hoped to gain (feed the poor, etc.) never work out either.
As is so often the case the rising young professionals and the older professionals all too often have no historical context by which to judge the creatures they support.
The only problem with your analogy to Bush is that the tax cuts worked. They were stimulative (see Christina Romer's work), the economy did grow, and the recession was shallow and short. I don't read you much and people seem to really like your work, but every time I check in you seem more wrong that right.
To: gb_in_tx
Why should my tax dollars go to pay for federal highways in Texas, when they only move Texans from one miserable Texan city to another?
How about the fact that LA and SF are two mega-cities with alot of travel between the two by Californians, Americans, and International peoples alike.
A train will likely be faster (factoring in travel time to and from the airport in this comparison), or if slower, it will not be significantly so. the cost to ride will also be cheaper. It will be good for the environment. It will decrease congestion, the cost of travel, and decrease the need to build more highways.
It is a given that there will need to be an increase in transportation spending as CA continues to grow. The question remains how wisely will this money be spent.
And sicne California pays more in federal taxes than it takes in, perhaps it is only just that we spend the money in a place that will benefit the most people. I'm sure WY and ND will understand.
How are the 40% that the CBO tells us pay no income tax factor into the 95% who will be getting a cut in income taxes?
Boston satyr wrote:
It will be good for the environment. It will decrease congestion, the cost of travel, and decrease the need to build more highways.
But decreasing the need to build more highways will instead be offset by building rails for the train. I'd imagine land would need to be cleared which will have a tremendous environmental impact and open up various issues about land rights since the rail will need to go through other states to get from one hub to the next. Further, to build this will take years and will require a huge expenditure of capital, and capital overruns which will inevitably jack up the price. And in the meantime people will still need to travel between the two states while its being built so you are not going to see any environmental benefit immediately but in fact see a much worse environmental impact in the short term.
Re: How are the 40% that the CBO tells us pay no income tax factor into the 95% who will be getting a cut in income taxes?
I find that 40% figure highly suspect. I have never been so poor, not even as a teenager working at a resturant, that I did not pay at least some small amount to the IRS.
I have never been so poor, not even as a teenager working at a resturant, that I did not pay at least some small amount to the IRS.
Did you have kids as a teenager working at a restaurant who would have gotten you the EITC? Did you claim the standard deduction when you were a teenager, despite your parents' claiming you as a dependent?
And here's a video reminder of all this mishegas. Oy.
Re: Did you claim the standard deduction when you were a teenager, despite your parents' claiming you as a dependent?
That standard deduction is worth, what?, $4900? That's not a lot-- even added to personal exemption the sum is deep in the subpoverty basement.
The EITC is available mainly to low income people with minor children (its value to childless people is tiny). Most people don't qualify.
High speed rail makes no sense west of Washington DC.
1. It will require permanent garrisons every 5 miles to protect the track from terrorists
2. Passenger checks will be even more unpleasant than airline checks because more people will be squeezed on each train.
3. The number of school buses hit by 200-300 mph trains will skyrocket.
4. All traffic will be from city-center to city-center but West of DC 80% of people live and work in the suburbs.
5. Uses fossil fuels
Passenger rail should be replaced by high speed pneumatic tubes using 1-passenger modules.
1. Each tube can be individually routed
2. Terrorism against tubes is no longer a problem because tubes are far underground
3. Only 1 person in module so there is nobody to kill or take hostage - no need the screen passengers for weapons or small bombs
4. weather is never a problem
5. mach 3 speeds easily reached - NY - LA in 1 hour.
6. No fossil fuels - uses wind power
7. school buses are safe - no grade crossings