My wife is a poll worker today.
For her, election day really started last night when she and the other workers set up the polling place. Then she had to get up at 4:00 in order to be at the polls by 5:15 in order to open the polls by 6:00.
Tonight the polls close at 7:00, but anyone in line by then gets to vote. Closing the polls takes an hour or more because everyone is super tired by then. Then you have to drive the ballot box over to the registrar.
So an 18 hour day for my wife today.
This chart is a remake of a New York Times chart that is supposed to show how great Democrats are. Why is it a remake? Well, because the original chart had to lie, change scales and do other trickery so that Democrats looked better then Republicans. Because they don't.
The original chart was supposed to show that Democratic administrations are better then Republican administrations. Reworked to be honest, it shows the opposite. What this chart shows is that in general, growth has been better under Republican administrations than Democratic administrations.
The two exceptions are Nixon and Bush. But its impossible to discuss the Bush administration without talking about the three significant economic issues that happened during his administration:
Even after the financial meltdown, if you charge the Dot Com Bubble and 9/11 against Clinton, Bush would have positive growth during his 8 years.
Similarly, Nixon had the Energy Crisis to deal with. Other people have pointed out that if you include the roaring 20's, Hoover was a net wash over the previous period.
So frankly, I think you have to throw out Nixon/Bush/Hoover as outliers. So if you look at the chart, its pretty obvious that except for Clinton (who got to ride the dot com bubble), growth is significantly better under Republican administrations than Democratic administrations. 3-5% bigger.
The reason this matters is because Obama is making a big deal about how he's giving the middle class these $500 tax rebates. A $500 rebate works out to about $.25/hour. It's about 1% wage growth for a median income of $50,000. But if growth is better under Republican administrations, then that means you're passing up a raise of 3-5%/year, which works out to be $1500-$2500 the first year, and for every year after that.
Since raises and growth are cumulative but this "tax cut" is a one time bump, you're even father behind after four years, because 3-5% growth for 4 years would mean that 4th year you'd be making $6,000-$10,000 more.
So that $500 isn't looking very good to me.
Basically, Obama's "Middle Class Tax Cut" actually sucks. What he's really doing is adding about 10 more checkboxes to the 1040, most of which you probably won't be able to check off. There's an article from the WSJ which covers it. But I want to talk about this graph from that article:
We all get that Obama is raising taxes on the rich. But do you know he's raising taxes on the poor?
I guess lawyers are bad at math. Because the way he's structured his tax plan with all these checkboxes that apply or don't apply at different income levels what he's done is raise the tax rates on what economists call the marginal tax rate, and I call the overtime ass rape.
I call it that, because basically, the government doesn't tax you on the first dollar you make. It ramps up from there, until at the end of the week, your paycheck is a lot smaller than it should be. Whatever that works out to be, that's your general tax rate. But when you work overtime, you get taxed at a much higher rate. So if you work say 4 hours of overtime one week, you might expect your check to be for 6 hours more if you get an extra 50% for overtime. But it never is, because that 6 hours of pay gets taxed at the maximum rate. So instead of 6 hours of pay, you get 4 hours of pay.
The people who get reamed the most are the people making $40,000/year. Their marginal tax rate is 40%. Which means that even before state income taxes, if they work 4 hours of overtime, they get paid for 3.6 hours.
So with Obama's plan to hand out this $500 tax rebate, someone making 20/hour would make an extra $.25/hour, or $40/month. Whoopdedo. But if they worked 4 hours of overtime, instead of making an extra $120 they only make $72. So they just paid $48 in taxes. That $40 they got this month suddenly doesn't look so good, and if they worked 4 hours of overtime each week, they paid $192 more in taxes.
This is not the way to rebuild the economy, and it illustrates the fundamental problem with the wealth transfer philosophy at the core of Obama's Tax Plan. It completely undermines people's incentive to work just a little bit harder. Why work overtime? The government will just take it all, and what they don't take will be eaten up by more child care.
Forget about Joe the Plumber who wants to make $250,000. What about Joe the Factory Worker who just put in 4 hours this week of overtime but had to pay more in child care? He's now behind because the government will take more in taxes than he earned.
Hundreds of Economists Sign Letter Opposing Obama's Tax Plan
Meanwhile, the Democrats are going to throw wood on the Bonfire
Good Comparison of the Two Health Care Plans. I learned that basically, McCain's plan will make Health Savings Accounts pretty much universally available. Which is pretty interesting. I still favor my all-of-the-above plan:
As the commenter over there says:
The tax code is has been made so complex that the Governor of a US state in conjunction with the best professional experience of H&R Block, are unable to file an accurate return.
It's bad enough that you have to endure media scrutiny when you run for President, now your tax returns get scrutinized and you end up having to fork out thousands of dollars?
If there's one thing I hate more than Democratic Tax-the-Rich economic policies, its our tax code. (Which is why I hate the Democratic Tax-the-Rich economic policies.)
I got to watch it in 50” HD at my parents house.
It definitely would have been much more entertaining if each candidate had been placed in a giant hamster ball and had them go at it ala American Gladiator.
And really, it would have been just as informative.
Because recycling the same bad ideas the Democrats have had for 30 years isn't change.
