When I say “regardless of context,” I mean that they’ll favor a tax reduction paired with a spending increase, or oppose a tax increase paired with a greater tax reduction elsewhere, simply because of what it is, not because of its impact.

I want lower taxes. Even more importantly, I want lower taxes with lower spending. And even more importantly than that, I want government that doesn’t spy on me, that doesn’t tell me what I can smoke, or eat, or read, or say, or wear, or watch.

Put another way, the fact that a black man was elected president, in no way increases the a priori probability that a black man could have been elected president (for obvious reasons). I absolutely cannot understand why this is a problem to understand.

Probabilistic reasoning is actually highly counter intuitive for most people John, that is why it is hard to understand. Once you become adept at thinking of things probabilistically it ceases to be such a mystery.

But I find it pretty offensive that people here, and elsewhere, are boiling Obama down to nothing but “He’s going to steal from me” as though it was certain that he was going to steal from you in a manner quantitatively different than any other candidate who could actually become elected President in our system in the current state of affairs in our country.

I glad you find it offensive. Perhaps that will encourage you to look at the nature of government with an empirical eye and logical mind rather than your feelings. A group of individuals calling themselves “the government” claim a moral right to steal from you and I to fund their moral crusades. You’ll note that I drew no distinction between Clinton, Bush II, Obama, or McCain. They all either have done it, will do it, or would have if they’d had the chance. There is some minor quantitative difference in how much they’d steal from me (differing tax rates and all), but, most importantly, there is no qualitative difference in how they would steal from me. Theft is theft, whether it’s perpetrated by a mugger with a .38 special or the policemen who eventually serve an arrest warrant for failure to pay my taxes. The methods are slightly different, but who cares? I’d prefer the mugger because at least he’s not pretending he’s doing you a favor by stealing from you.

But there is something that this country needs more of right now, and as corny and silly and stupid as it sounds, it’s what Obama offered — hope.

I call nonsense. This country needs liberty. It needs freedom.

And I find the “my taxes” single-issue folks as baffling as the “abortion is murder” single-issue folks.

Why? Unpack this a little.

Nonsense. You could have pointed to any number of black Americans who have been astonishingly successful. Even Barack Obama himself (one of 100 U.S. Senators at the time). You are needlessly narrowing of the field (I must point to a black PRESIDENT) doesn’t mean anything.

In any event, your statement doesn’t require that someone ELSE have already done it. That’s the point. Nothing changed yesterday, except possibly the perceptions of some people, BUT those people were WRONG in their perceptions (as the outcome of the day showed).

Put another way, the fact that a black man was elected president, in no way increases the a priori probability that a black man could have been elected president (for obvious reasons). I absolutely cannot understand why this is a problem to understand.

I’ll come out and state that I’m a “Short Shrifter” here.

Pete, I think he’s going to steal from us in essentially the same manner as previous presidents. His race isn’t important. What is important is that people will be reluctant to make valid criticisms of him for fear of being labeled racist (The racism smear seems to be flying freely around this board already). And as most politicians in a similar situation would do, he will take full advantage of that.

So you guys can poo-poo the symbolism all you want, but symbols matter.

I understand why people are excited and I can respect the fact that this is a historic event. Its good to know that Americans will vote for a black man to be president. But on wave of populist emotion, a lot of things I vehemently disagree with are going to happen. The same thing happened after 9/11. This isn’t just about the advancement of black americans, this is also about the continued erosion of economic freedom, civic liberty, and personal responsibility. Just because my concern about the latter outweighs my appreciation for the former doesn’t mean that I’m dick. It means that I think that everyone’s individual liberty is more important than feeling good about a false prophet of a politician.

If you can’t respect that and still think we’re all a bunch of heartless white surbanites who just don’t get it, then I’m afraid that its you who fails to get it. We’ll just have to agree to disagree.

Now, fast forward 70 or so years and ask this question: What is the mathematical predicament of Social Security today? Answer: The amount of money the Social Security system would need today to cover all unfunded liabilities from now on—what fiscal economists call the “infinite horizon discounted value” of what has already been promised recipients but has no funding mechanism currently in place—is $13.6 trillion, an amount slightly less than the annual gross domestic product of the United States.

[...]

Please sit tight while I walk you through the math of Medicare. As you may know, the program comes in three parts: Medicare Part A, which covers hospital stays; Medicare B, which covers doctor visits; and Medicare D, the drug benefit that went into effect just 29 months ago. The infinite-horizon present discounted value of the unfunded liability for Medicare A is $34.4 trillion. The unfunded liability of Medicare B is an additional $34 trillion. The shortfall for Medicare D adds another $17.2 trillion. The total? If you wanted to cover the unfunded liability of all three programs today, you would be stuck with an $85.6 trillion bill. That is more than six times as large as the bill for Social Security. It is more than six times the annual output of the entire U.S. economy.

[...]

Add together the unfunded liabilities from Medicare and Social Security, and it comes to $99.2 trillion over the infinite horizon. Traditional Medicare composes about 69 percent, the new drug benefit roughly 17 percent and Social Security the remaining 14 percent.

[...]

I want to remind you that I am only talking about the unfunded portions of Social Security and Medicare. It is what the current payment scheme of Social Security payroll taxes, Medicare payroll taxes, membership fees for Medicare B, copays, deductibles and all other revenue currently channeled to our entitlement system will not cover under current rules. These existing revenue streams must remain in place in perpetuity to handle the “funded” entitlement liabilities. Reduce or eliminate this income and the unfunded liability grows. Increase benefits and the liability grows as well.

Let’s say you and I and Bruce Ericson and every U.S. citizen who is alive today decided to fully address this unfunded liability through lump-sum payments from our own pocketbooks, so that all of us and all future generations could be secure in the knowledge that we and they would receive promised benefits in perpetuity. How much would we have to pay if we split the tab? Again, the math is painful. With a total population of 304 million, from infants to the elderly, the per-person payment to the federal treasury would come to $330,000. This comes to $1.3 million per family of four—over 25 times the average household’s income.

Clearly, once-and-for-all contributions would be an unbearable burden. Alternatively, we could address the entitlement shortfall through policy changes that would affect ourselves and future generations. For example, a permanent 68 percent increase in federal income tax revenue—from individual and corporate taxpayers—would suffice to fully fund our entitlement programs. Or we could instead divert 68 percent of current income-tax revenues from their intended uses to the entitlement system, which would accomplish the same thing.

Suppose we decided to tackle the issue solely on the spending side. It turns out that total discretionary spending in the federal budget, if maintained at its current share of GDP in perpetuity, is 3 percent larger than the entitlement shortfall. So all we would have to do to fully fund our nation’s entitlement programs would be to cut discretionary spending by 97 percent. But hold on. That discretionary spending includes defense and national security, education, the environment and many other areas, not just those controversial earmarks that make the evening news. All of them would have to be cut—almost eliminated, really—to tackle this problem through discretionary spending.

I hope that gives you some idea of just how large the problem is. And just to drive an important point home, these spending cuts or tax increases would need to be made immediately and maintained in perpetuity to solve the entitlement deficit problem. Discretionary spending would have to be reduced by 97 percent not only for our generation, but for our children and their children and every generation of children to come. And similarly on the taxation side, income tax revenue would have to rise 68 percent and remain that high forever. Remember, though, I said tax revenue, not tax rates. Who knows how much individual and corporate tax rates would have to change to increase revenue by 68 percent?

You can read the whole thing here. Note that what he is talking about in terms of taxes is a 68% increase in revenues, not rates. The increase in rates would likely have to be higher, permanent and start RIGHT NOW.

Now you know why Obama and McCain were such cowards when it came to the question dealing with Medicare. They both knew that if they answered honestly they’d never win election.

Go ahead and feel good about electing one venal coward over another. I don’t.

Symbolic schmymbolic.

By the way, Radley hasn’t noted that the Democrats are already looking at mucking around with your 401ks people. Buh-bye pre-tax contributions. Hellow government run retirement fund. Higher taxes. If you are still in your chair at work, get used to it, you’ll die in it.

Yes, we all know he isn’t a change agent and government will grow bigger and more intrusive–that was going to happen anyway (and will continue until real disaster occurs).

At which point it will get bigger and more intrusive at an accelerated rate.

Again, have your feel good moment. In about a decade or so you wont feel so good irrespective of who is President and what their race is.

Yes, we all know he isn’t a change agent and government will grow bigger and more intrusive–that was going to happen anyway (and will continue until real disaster occurs). But at least there is ONE thing to be proud of: America isn’t as racist as we used to be. And, I won $5 from Lupe since we elected a black man before a woman as President.

Anyone remember when Tiger Woods kept correcting people when they called him black (“Hey, I’m Asian.”).

Is it good that a black man has been elected from a racism standpoint? Sure. Is it good that this particular black man has been elected President? No. If anything it is a bad thing, a very very bad thing. To me the latter by far trumps the former.

But don’t let me ruin your feel-good moment with the fact that the current fiscal crisis is nothing compared to what our government, and leaders like Barack Obama have lead us too.

When a person is elected President, and no one bothers to mention race/gender/sexual orientation because it doesn’t even occur to them that it is in any way relevent, we will likely not even realize that we have arrived.

I find it frustrating that we are willing to declare “Mission Accomplished” after his victory when many African Americans’ situations are rather dire. It’s more frustrating still that 95% of African Americans chose him despite his seeming willingness to continue funding and supporting a broken public education monopoly which limits their opportunities and to continue incarcerating them for consensual crimes at draconian rates.

It’s definately a good sign that black folks in America are so thouroughly enfranchised that a black man can become president. He might be a socialist but so were Hillary, Edwards, Kerry ect…

IMO the only real “change” that is more then just campaign rhetoric is that today it’s reality, not a punch line that we will have a black president. That’s nice to see.