Hey Vel

[Velleity]

A guy's got to make money somehow.

i have a friend.  Protestant minister.  Good guy.  He takes the collection plate every week.  Tosses the contents up into the air.  i asked him why he did that.  He said, the way i figure it, God keeps his share and leaves the rest to fall to the floor for me.  True story (Robertson style).

That's true, and running for office is very, very expensive. How do you support yourself when running for office, and do we really want to make holding office the exclusive province of the independently wealthy?

[johnhp]

Well thank goodness we have corporations to purchase our elections now.

[Boffo]

thanks Dag, at least you have the courage to admit that your choices suck.

you've inspired me to admit that the Republican ticket is not much better, but this Quinn/Hynes matchup is downright hilarious.

and Vel

"That's true, and running for office is very, very expensive. How do you support yourself when running for office,"

oh, I don't know......how about having a job as a senator.......

they should do a study, betcha each election costs more that the sum total of salary over the politicians career,
too easy

Well thank goodness we have unions to purchase our elections now.

[Velleity]

thanks Dag, at least you have the courage to admit that your choices suck.

you've inspired me to admit that the Republican ticket is not much better, but this Quinn/Hynes matchup is downright hilarious.

and Vel

oh, I don't know......how about having a job as a senator.......

they should do a study, betcha each election costs more that the sum total of salary over the politicians career,
too easy

Well thank goodness we have unions to purchase our elections now.

I have explained to you that I know Peter Fitzgerald, a very good man. He is a former partner of the sort of law firm that I affiliate and one of my former partners here, now deceased, was even Peter's best man at Peter's wedding.

I am telling you that it is very expensive to run for Senator and while you're running you have no income. This wasn't a problem for Peter. It's kind of nice when your family owns a chain of banks in the Northwest suburbs. But your average schmoe could never ever do it.

Once elected, if elected, you're fine. But you'll never get there without independent wealth.

[Velleity]

What's your assessment of Quinn's performance as governor, and how do you think he could have done better?

All I see is a big mess.

[Boffo]

the only thing I would ever give this hack credit for is being lightning fast in throwing Blago under the bus.......and that was so blatantly self serving as to be hilarious.

He's impotent with the legislature and refuses to trim an ounce of fat.

look, Vel a tax hike is inevitable in this state, we are soooo buried  AND doing it on an income tax level would be the fair way as the poor, and middle class really can't take a sales tax hike but we need to cut spending somewhere and Quinn just keeps pitching more and more spending.....cutting nothing.

his opening the doors of the prisons was an atrocity although his denial/admission/cover up was as funny as a 3 stooges rerun.

[Velleity]

the only thing I would ever give this hack credit for is being lightning fast in throwing Blago under the bus.......and that was so blatantly self serving as to be hilarious.

He's impotent with the legislature and refuses to trim an ounce of fat.

look, Vel a tax hike is inevitable in this state, we are soooo buried  AND doing it on an income tax level would be the fair way as the poor, and middle class really can't take a sales tax hike but we need to cut spending somewhere and Quinn just keeps pitching more and more spending.....cutting nothing.

his opening the doors of the prisons was an atrocity although his denial/admission/cover up was as funny as a 3 stooges rerun.

I'm not asking you to give him credit. I'm asking if you think anyone could have done any better.

Clearly we have to pay more income taxes, which is most unfortunate. At least you're practical.

[Boffo]

well, "anyone" could have coupled a spending freeze on some entitlements, with some non essential service cuts and possibly sold the legislature on a more modest income tax hike......the "who" would just be rhetorical

he just shut up, borrowed more and kept spending like there's no tomorrow.

I will give him credit for the Ford prize if you will admit that these new jobs will be created by tax CUTS,    deal?

[Velleity]

well, "anyone" could have coupled a spending freeze on some entitlements, with some non essential service cuts and possibly sold the legislature on a more modest income tax hike......the "who" would just be rhetorical

he just shut up, borrowed more and kept spending like there's no tomorrow.

I will give him credit for the Ford prize if you will admit that these new jobs will be created by tax CUTS,    deal?

Why do I have to "admit?" That's rather silly. Isn't it Boffo?

I could care less whether you give him any credit. I haven't given him any credit. I just think he's in an impossible situation and I'm picking your brain. Maybe you have an answer? I sure as hell do not.

You think that's waffling. I consider it honest. If I really don't know I have no problem at all saying that I don't know.

As for tax cuts creating jobs, I cannot subscribe to any "supply-side" notion of this. There is no empirical evidence that you can affect supply curves with anything. You can't do it with tax cuts. You can't do it with moral suasion. The supply curve is going to be the marginal cost of producing something because producers will produce up to the point where the marginal cost equals zero. That is where profits are maximized, and you always have to deal with the laws of diminishing returns.

What a tax cut does do is affect the demand curve. Tax cuts are a traditional Keynesian macroeconomic policy. The problem, Boffo, is that we have a lot of empirical evidence that suggests that most tax cuts are not a particularly effective macroeconomic policy and the arguments that your compatriots come up with are ad hoc bullshit.

The classic argument that your compatriots point to are Kennedy's tax cuts, but this is illustrative of the sophistry. Kennedy was dead by the time those tax cuts were enacted. There was a very high top tax bracket and Kennedy, being a Kennedy, knew that nobody paid that top tax bracket because the tax code was so loaded with loopholes. What Kennedy wanted to do, and actually did, was to get rid of the loopholes so that the rich would actually pay more taxes and that is exactly what he did.

Of course your compatriots jump to the conclusion that tax cuts generate more tax revenues, and intentionally disinformed with their dumbass "Two Santa Clause" crap.

No, I'm not going to concede any tax bullshit.

It's clear to me that Illinois' 3% income tax isn't sufficient to pay our expenses. It would have been nice if the Republicans would have been more responsible with their surplus, when we had it. We might still have problems but we would have fewer problems. As bad as Blagojovich was you can't blame him for our fiscal problems. He inherited that.

[Observer]

It's clear to me that Illinois' 3% income tax isn't sufficient to pay our expenses.

Cut your expenses.