Budget talks: This is getting nasty

Baron Scicluna · Jul 19, 2011

YankeeFan said:

So, if you're a CEO in Thief River Falls, MN; (great name, btw), Pierre, SD; or Muscle Shoals, AL, and you fly in a "corporate jet, are you still a bad guy?

Rural America, already struggling to recover from the recession and the flight of its young people, is about to take another blow: the loss of its airline service.

That was underscored last week when Delta Air Lines announced that it can no longer afford to continue service at 24 small airports. The carrier says it is losing a total of $14 million a year on flights from places like Thief River Falls, a city of 8,600 in northwest Minnesota that fills only 12 percent of the seats, or Pierre, the capital of South Dakota, where Deltas two daily flights are on average less than half full.

Nationally, all major airlines have been reducing and sometimes eliminating flights altogether in small cities, as the industry concentrates much of its service in 29 major hubs, which now account for 70 percent of all passenger traffic, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.

Deltas announcement was especially acute because the airline operates in most of the small airports that receive a total of almost $200 million in federal subsidies to maintain air service under the Essential Air Service program. The subsidies are scheduled to expire in 2013 unless revived by Congress. Delta acquired many of those small-city markets in the Midwest when it merged with Northwest Airlines.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/19/business/economy/24-small-towns-may-lose-airline-service.html?hp=&pagewanted=all
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Thief River Falls is 50 miles away from Grand Forks, ND, which also has an airport. Why can't people drive 50 miles, and why does a town of not even 9,000 people need airplane service?

Azrael · Jul 19, 2011

If only there were some form of high-speed passenger rail service available between regional population centers.

Football_Bat · Jul 19, 2011

Take away the paper dollar and the dollar coin will fly. Hell, take away the $5 bill and a $5 coin will fly. What's the fucking alternative? Bartering of pigs?

YankeeFan · Jul 19, 2011

In the mean time, it's probably not a great idea to mint $200M worth of $1 coins while a $1B worth of them are sitting in a warehouse.

But we will. Because we're required to by law.

Genius.

TheSportsPredictor · Jul 19, 2011

Rules are rules.

Football_Bat · Jul 19, 2011

YankeeFan said:

In the mean time, it's probably not a great idea to mint $200M worth of $1 coins while a $1B worth of them are sitting in a warehouse.

But we will. Because we're required to by law.

Genius.
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So where's the legislation to kill the bill?

Surely the Canadian pulpwood lobby isn't in Dick Shelby's back pocket ... or something back there.

YankeeFan · Jul 19, 2011

Two ads:

Club for Growth:

Crossroads GPS:

king cranium maximus IV · Jul 19, 2011

You do realize that not "caving in" and not raising the debt ceiling would increase the role of government, right?

Ben_Hecht · Jul 19, 2011

YankeeFan said:

Two ads:

Club for Growth:

Crossroads GPS:

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Can only root for Grover to be caught in bed with either a dead girl or a live boy.

Ben_Hecht · Jul 19, 2011

Starman said:

YankeeFan said:

Get ready for a total combined marginal tax rate of nearly 70%

That should finally satisfy the "tax the rich" cheerleaders.

Two problems arise when marginal tax rates are raised. First, as college students learn in Econ 101, higher marginal rates cause real economic harm. The combined marginal rate from all taxes is a vital metric, since it heavily influences incentives in the economy—workers and employers, savers and investors base decisions on after-tax returns. Thus tax rates need to be kept as low as possible, on the broadest possible base, consistent with financing necessary government spending.

Second, as tax rates rise, the tax base shrinks and ultimately, as Art Laffer has long argued, tax rates can become so prohibitive that raising them further reduces revenue—not to mention damaging the economy. That is where U.S. tax rates are headed if we do not control spending soon.

...

But wait, things get worse. As Milton Friedman taught decades ago, the true burden on taxpayers today is government spending; government borrowing requires future interest payments out of future taxes. To cover the Congressional Budget Office projection of Mr. Obama's $841 billion deficit in 2016 requires a 31.7% increase in all income tax rates (and that's assuming the Social Security income cap is removed). This raises the top rate to 52.2% and brings the total combined marginal tax rate to 68.8%. Government, in short, would take over two-thirds of any incremental earnings.

http://online.wSportsJournalists.com/article/SB10001424052702304911104576443893352153776.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
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Straight from the Faux Noise mouthpiece the WSJ. Totally credible.
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Laughted when I saw it. Boilerplate ordered-up WSJ scare shit. I mean, you can't read the editorial spead of the WSJ on a regular basis without laughing your head off.

CarltonBanks · Jul 19, 2011

The Obama quote should hit home. I know it was 2006, but this is another example of him playing politics instead of working to fix problems. He already admitted this in not so many words.

By the way, the toonie makes the best ball marker for those who golf. I would love an American toonie. Take the paper away and the dollar coin would work out just fine.

Stitch · Jul 19, 2011

A lot of funny math in that WSJ piece. Who pays the marginal tax rate stated?

As for the Laffer curve, Boskin fails to mention what the ideal rate would be. It's all about cutting taxes, which would do little to broaden the tax base at this point.

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Budget talks: This is getting nasty

Baron Scicluna Well-Known Member

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Budget talks: This is getting nasty

Baron Scicluna Well-Known Member

Azrael Well-Known Member

Football_Bat Well-Known Member

YankeeFan Well-Known Member

TheSportsPredictor Well-Known Member

Football_Bat Well-Known Member

YankeeFan Well-Known Member

king cranium maximus IV Active Member

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