Dean on taxes: middle class ogre or untrustworthy flip flopper?

[stickdog]

These are your two choices.

If Dean doesn't respond to criticism that the middle class deserves some tax relief, he's an ogre who has subverted everything Democrats stand for.

However, if Dean runs the numbers and figures out a way to preserve/offer some middle class tax relief, then he's an untrustworthy candidate who has flip flopped once again!

Of course, these sorts of criticisms don't apply to anyone who was once more staunchly behind the Iraq War than he is today.

Nor to candidates who were once too timid to criticize the "popular" George Bush harshly and directly but who are just now finding their voices.

[w4rma]

1. Dean supports universal health care instead of the Bush tax shifts

the universal health care will put more resources into middle and lower class pockets than the crumbs we supposedly got from Bush's top heavy tax shifts.

Btw, if Dean does come out in favor of keeping the crumbs of Bush's tax shifts in place, that would be fine with me also. I support that position over knocking them all out, anyway. It's easier, for me, to defend that position in debates. Either way, it's not a big deal to me. The big deal for me is shifting resources back towards the middle and lower classes again to go back to the trend before Reagan took office.

[AP]

2. Great, so the slaves get their rotten teeth pulled so they can

work more efficiently out in the fields under the hot sun, making their corporate masters a fat profit.

[MercutioATC]

3. Inflammatory as usual, AP, and amazingly short-sighted...

Universal health care is worth more than tax cuts to this country for a multitude of reasons.

First, it provides...well...universal health care. People who couldn't afford it now will be able to receive treatment.

Second, it eliminates the need for medical facilities to absorb the cost of unreimbursed medical procedures. A local hospital/ER here just laid off 40 people because their unreimbursed medical expenses went from $8M to $12M in one year. Universal health care saves jobs.

Third, treatments are generally less expensive if they're administered in a timely fashion. By providing universal health care, we allow for regular, preventative doctor visits that will treat problems before they get worse and become more costly to treat.

...there's a bit more going on here than "pulling slaves' rotting teeth".

[AP]

7. To republicans, taxes and health care are about shifting wealth to rich

The central theme for the republicans is the shift of wealth. Dean doesn't seem to care about it in the tax code, and he doesn't look at health care in terms of the profits it creates for big business.

If you don't go to the root of the problem, which is the wealth transfer, what's the point of any of this other stuff?

[MercutioATC]

10. You sem to be alluding to single-payer health care...

which, in my opinion, has NO chance of making its way through Congress. I also have questions about how the quality of cutting-edge medecine would fare under a single-payer system, but that's another issue entirely. What makes you believe that single-payer health care can be sold to Congress when they get SO much money from insurance lobbyists?

[sandnsea]

4. But.. but.. but.. Dean is different

This was his big campaign difference. He was going to repeal ALL the tax cuts and give everybody access to health insurance. It had to be done. The rest of the candidates were either not telling the truth or stupid for pretending it didn't have to be done.

It isn't a flip flop. The straight-shooter has been talking out of both sides of his mouth for a year now. Clear back in July 2002 he said on MTP "If you repealed most of the president's tax cut, half of that could be used, and every American could have health insurance." MOST. Not repealling all the tax cuts is nothing new. Now others have tried to say the president's tax cuts aren't the Bush tax cuts and I'm just being dishonest by saying they're the same thing. Or, he's going to repeal all the tax cuts and then make some new ones so that's not keeping some of the tax cuts. I hope you don't try that nonsense.

And bringing up the IWR is getting as tiresome as Republicans bringing up Clinton's penis every time they don't want to debate an issue.

[stickdog]

5. What's tiresome is pretending that a candidate can't refine his message

in response to new data, new ideas and/or legitimate criticism.

I care about what John Kerry is saying about Iraq currently.

As long as he is saying the right things currently, I'll refrain from berating him about what he said last month or six months ago.

I also want the Democratic candidate to have the best possible platform. I think it's simpler to say that we should roll back all of Bush's tax cuts and start from there, but if there is honestly money left over for any sort of a tax cut, of course I want a middle class/lower class tax cut.

I've never liked the marriage penalty for one. And I think Clinton level estate taxation was ripe for reform in that actual family businesses could have their exemption raised a bit while estate planning loopholes should be tightened to make any changes revenue positive.

Still, I think undoing Bush's damage is a great starting point that would give any elected Democratic candidate a clear mandate for actual change.

[AP]

6. What new information? I read that article about Dean's Cato Institute talk

and it sounds like he has been thinking about tax policy (and contradicting himself on it) for years.

[stickdog]

9. Yeah, that's a fair analysis backed by impeccable research.

:eyes:

[sandnsea]

11. I've done the research

I've posted the links. I get called a liar.

TT: You’d reverse Bush’s tax cut, I gather…

Dean: Not all of it, almost all of it…

Sept 13 2002 http://www.txtriangle.com/archive/1049/coverstory.htm

No, I'm not going to go get the rest of them. It's a pointless endeavour.

[Kolesar]

8. I wish you put some facts and developmental material into your thread

You have tied together a bunch of disconnected themes that I am vaguely aware of into a sarcastic commentary that is so dry, I cannot even figure out what your point is.

It is threads like these that ruin my enjoyment of the Politics/Campaigns forum.

Good morning, by the way.