OZYMANDIAS
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said, “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert…Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings,
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despiar!
Nothing beside remains, Round the decay
Of that collossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Shall the Moguls of Massachusetts cry out, “Look on the Hub of the Universe, Ye Mighty, and Despair” like Ozymandias, while UMass Boston has crumbling parking structures no one can use, the Longfellow bridge threatens to dump cars into the Charles, the Storrow Tunnel is only a catastrophe waiting to happen?
If we do not pay for maintenance and repair NOW, we will pay with death, disaster, and economic decay in the future.
No new taxes may mean no new jobs, and no safe roads.
Well, they can either put some money in all of our crumbling bridges or they can pay the bar advocates. Which one do you want? They refuse to do both.
The taxes given up for the “tax holiday” would be more than enough to pay for the work ALREADY DONE by private attorneys. More money was spent on the Sagamore flyover then to pay these folk for the work they have already done…
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But, really, did you read the information at the link on the Longfellow bridge, titled “Crumbling Massachusetts”?
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Do you do work in your livelihood for free? Do we make doctors work for free? Conscript them if they say no?
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I don’t think so.
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Will Verizon or Nstar continue to supply utilities to attorneys who are not being paid – for work done going back to April? I don’t think so.
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That all being said, this state will either take care of its own roads, buildings, and bridges or it will crumble into the muck.
are nice people. Long ago, I was one myself, before telebill. I used to fight to get paid then too. I got sick of being taken for granted and fighting with CPCS over their constant nitpicking. After a year or so I stopped doing advocate work and concentrated on private clients. Recent developments have allowed me to leave the lawyer business altogether and I have never been happier or more relaxed.
…weren’t the dikes around Lake Pontchartrain in New Orleans supposed to be maintained by the US Army Corpse of Engineers, too?
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We see how well that went a couple of years ago.
Of this specific incident, at this time we can only speculate as to its cause. I’m inclined to believe it was because the bridge did not have redundant supports, was built for a load capacity standard from 40 years ago, and had traffic confined to two lanes. I don’t know that any repair, short of installing columns, would have prevented yesterday’s tragedy.
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I agree that we need to put a larger investment into maintaining and upgrading our infrastructure. But I disagree that the reason we aren’t doing this is because of the “tax cuts of the 1990s”.
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Regardless of tax rates, revenues will rise and fall. Whether your budget is $100 million or $100 billion, the problem is an insufficient percentage is being allotted for capital expense. I believe the reason for this is not revenue shortfalls but ballooning operating expenses.
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During the economic boom of the 1990s, we saw increases in spending in education and other social programs. Due to increased hiring, there have been long-term impacts to pension and retiree health costs. Much like deferred maintenance, these long-term liabilities went unfunded. We are overspending currently even if we look only at the fact that we are not setting aside enough to fund future capital and operating costs.
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I defy anyone to look at the budget outlines and be able to identify areas which should be cut in order to fix the structure of our own budget. The line items tell you nothing. The truth can be found only in the details of what the money is actually being spent on.
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Take a look at your own municipal warrants at some point. It is there that you will find a bounty of items, all of which are less important than capital. The individual items are small but together are not insignificant. Yet, each will have to be fought for one by one in order that the spending of our tax dollars is prioritized properly.
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Unless there is some way to codify a tax increase to guarantee in perpetuity that a certain percentage of the budget will go towards infrastructure, you can raise taxes all you want but it will not fix a dent.
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…the picture in the Munich newspaper this morning of the collapse looked like it was due to an earthquake. Two sections–both over the Miss River appear to have collapsed simultaneously.
The weight was not dispersed over the bridge. Instead there was bumper to bumper traffic on the two open lanes. I don’t know that it was a contributing factor.
…I’m amazed that they would have to narrow down an eight lane bridge to two lanes merely to do repair work. Unless the problems had been left to fester for so long that they probably should have closed off the bridge and provided a pontoon bridge as a substitute. (No, I’m not joking.)
reportedly, the repairs were just resurfacing. nothing structural.
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pontoon bridges work pretty well spanning lake washington in seattle. however, there are no current or fast changes in depth to worry about as would be the case on the mississiippi. wind and waves, however, are a serious threat. as is human stupidity – a few years ago workers used the nice dry space in one pontoon to store waste water while resurfacing the bridge. the wind and therefore waves kicked up, and guess what happens when waves top a pontoon’s portal, and that pontoon already contains water?
…Why? They would have interrupted shipping down the Miss. River.
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I’m just amazed at the lack of repair in the infrastructure of the USofA. BTW, does anyone know anything about the overpass collapse north of San Fransisco? I haven’t read anything about that over here in Europe, other than the paragraph I translated.
they’re probably thinking of the bay bridge which connects sf to points east. it was well reported at the time. a tanker driver passed out or something. spillage of his flammable cargo caused a fire which destroyed sections of the bridge.
it is not clear to me which structures are the responsibility of which governmental bodies. but in any case, here’s a sobering snippet from the American Society of Civil Engineers, Report Card for America’s Infrastructure. These are the people that design bridges and related technology. I guess they should know. it look like there’s plenty of dodging of responsibility to go around.
There was a rather snitty, but also rather apt, article in the Sueddeutsche Zeitung (Munich’s newspaper of record) this morning, whose final paragraph reads as follows (translated from the German):
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(Emphasis added)
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So the US government is spending billions of dollars a week in its Don Quixote activity in Iraq, and is not doing diddly with the public infrastructure in the US. Eventually, you in the US will end up like the Iraqis, with no reliable public infrastructure.
See http://www.boston.co…
katrina was appalling to people outside of the region affected, but i’ll bet you this bridge collapse up north in “god’s country” will get some people’s attention like nothing else has. preventable disaster has come to the bread basket neighborhoods. if the dems don’t 1) introduce major infrastructure funding legislation and 2) verbally beat the penny-wise, pound-foolish repubs on the snout for letting the country fall into ruin (wasting funds in eye-rak), then they’re frikken idiots.
…charity begins at home.
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So why are the moneys not being spent at home?
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I’ll put it in my usual German: “wer sind die gewinnern”? And I’ll translate it back into Amerikanisch “who are the profiteers”?
So the US government is spending billions of dollars a week in its Don Quixote activity in Iraq, and is not doing diddly with the public infrastructure in the US. Eventually, you in the US will end up like the Iraqis, with no reliable public infrastructure.
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I’ve heard this several times from different parties already.
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Just because money is being spent on something (like Iraq) does not mean that it would be spent on something else (like infrastructure) if the first something didn’t exist.
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Infrastructure improvements, or lack of same, are in no way related to spending in Iraq.
Dear Mr. Weebles:
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Let’s take an analogy. You are driving a car with 200,000 miles on its tires. Your mechanic tells you the tread is gone, and you risk a blow out.
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However, much like the US Government, rather then spending on replacing your worn out tires, you borrow $100,000 to gamble in Las Vegas. Predictably, you have nothing at all to show for that $100,000 because you essentially threw your money down a black hole.
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To make matters worse, on your drive home, three of your worn out tires blow out, you crash into a guard rail, are rendered a paraplegic – and oh yeah, now you have to replace the whole car.
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Again, it is not “improvements” it is required maintenance that is NOT happening.
… but it has nothing to do with my previous statement.
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Whether you call it “improvements” or “maintenance,” my point stands.
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You can’t blame non-maintenance of transportation infrastructure on Iraq War funding. You also can’t blame lack of funding for [insert project] on Iraq either.
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If Iraq never happened, that money might have been spent or it might not have been spent. You CANNOT say “OMG, our roads and bridges aren’t being funded because of the Iraq War!!!!11!!!”
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Seriously, it’s a lousy argument and lacks critical thinking.
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Oh, and your overall point that this maintenance issue is due to an inability or unwillingness to raise taxes is also incorrect. Throught US history, whenever taxes were cut, government revenues increased. There is MORE money available, not less.
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What this country needs is not more taxes, just better (or different) allocation of its money.
To back up my point about tax cuts increasing government revenue, here is some historical data:
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Calvin Coolidge: marginal tax rates were cut from the top rate of 73% to 24%. The economy rewarded this policy by expanding 59% from 1921 to 1929. Revenues received by the federal treasury increased from $719 million in 1921 to more than $1.1 billion 1929. That’s a 61% increase (there was zero inflation in this period). Growth averaged more than six percent annually.
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John F. Kennedy: marginal tax rates were cut from a top rate of 91% to 70%. In real dollar terms, the economy grew by 42%, an average of 5 percent a year from 1961 to 1965. Tax revenue to the U.S. Treasury increased by 62%. Adjusted for inflation, they rose by one-third.
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Ronald Reagan: marginal tax rates were cut from a top of 70% to 28%. Revenues (from all taxes) to the U.S. Treasury nearly doubled. According to the Budget of the U.S. Government, FY 1997, Office of Management and Budget. Revenues increased from roughly $500 billion in 1980 to $1.1 trillion in 1990.
John F. Kennedy: marginal tax rates were cut from a top rate of 91% to 70%. In real dollar terms, the economy grew by 42%, an average of 5 percent a year from 1961 to 1965.
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The top marginal rate of 91% (on incomes at then were over US$100K) was a wartime rate, from WWII. The war had long been over, and it was widely believed that the wartime rate was long overdue for a reduction.
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The US economy was growing (what exactly is your window?) in large part because the European and far east (Japan, China) had still not fully recovered from the effects of the war. Again, what is you window?
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The reason that I despise pieces from “econometricians” is that they select windows for their statistics that have nothing to do with reality, or that ignore other variables.
Wasn’t it called “the Great Depression”?
The Great Depression had nothing to do with the previous decade’s tax rates or tax revenues. Nothing, zero, nada, zip.
Dear Mr. Weebles: So far you have not earned the right to have bare assertions go unchallenged.
Jesus, are you the arbiter of all that is right and proper?
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Anyway, there are many schools of thought on the cause of the Great Depression, including:
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1. Keynesian theory
2. Overproduction/Underutilization
3. Monetary View
4. Austrian School (credit boom)
5. International Trade (inc. Smoot-Hawley)
And a couple of others
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For the record, after reading “America’s Great Depression” by Rothbard, I think the Austrian School is the best explanation (money supplies/business cycles).
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But none of these explanations theorize that tax hikes or tax reductions caused the Great Depression.
Well, as you held up President Coolidge as a model for the “growth” in the economy, as the economy also collapsed during his presidency, I found your assertion peculiar, to say the least.
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It is not enough to pontificate – you must convince, and provide rational argument – that is if you are actually interested in dialogue.
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So, it is not that I feel I am an “arbiter” but rather that I have put you on notice that your posts are not convincing to me. It is up to you if you care to remedy that.
…the Great Depression had its genesis in the Smoot-Hawley tarifs, and was exacerbated by the fact that the Federal Reserve in the early 1930s increased interest rates (!) to combat inflation.
I mentioned Smoot-Hawley in #5 above. It still has nothing to do with tax rates.
Infrastructure improvements, or lack of same, are in no way related to spending in Iraq.
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…is utter and complete horse manure.
Do you have any proof to back that up?
…I’ll make the bald assertion that, if the USofA government was not spending billions of dollars a week in its misadventur in Iraq that there would be more that the USofA government could spend on infrastructure inthe USofA. Sounds reasonable to me.
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And that is whether or not the USofA government actually did so.
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So you, Mr. Weeble, are actually suggesting that the USofA actually continue to mortgage the US in its tilting at windmills in Iraq, while ignoring infrastructure at home. Interesting. I wonder why.
It is also “horse manure” that cutting taxes led to an increase in the GNP.
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What cutting capitol gains taxes and taxes on the wealthiest 10% and esp. the wealthiest 2% did was help the wealthy get wealthier.
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It is undisputed that the disparity in income, not just the allocation of tax money to foreign adventurism and the governments debt mushroomed under Pres. Bush while during the balanced budgbet under President Clinto America was honored abroad, and booming at home.
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You do not have to “take my word for it” Mr. Weebles. Go to:
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http://www.usatoday….
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For one lovely quote:
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Not that I meant to insult Mr. Ed.
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Interesting. I’ve actually never seen anyone make such a claim.
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Taxes went down; GDP went up. And you conclude the two weren’t connected. Love to see the analysis.
Is there a joint variance between the taxation rate of the wealthy and the Gross Domestic Product? Is there a joint variance between the taxation rate of the “middle class”, namely those who earn $40k – $100k a year?
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Is the Gross Domestic Product related to real peoples incomes, or corporate incomes, or job creation rates?
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If the 5% who are richest get richer, and so the “total income” goes up [is that the same as the Gross Domestic Product?], but 95% of the population gets poorer, is it helpful at all if the rich get richer? Even though the “total dollars in the pot” goes up, if quality of life for 95% of the population goes DOWN what good is that?
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And oh yeah, we live in Mouldering Massachusetts and the Third World of the USA where bridges fall down, New Orleans is left to rot – but the oil barons and neo-robber barons do great, so who cares?
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Is America about wealth for the few, or the value of hard work that means anyone who honestly works hard will get ahead? Are we all about wealth, folks, or work?
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Again, what does an increasing total “gross domestic product” matter if it only benefits 5% of the population [or 10% – someone have this sort of information out there???]
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A wise pundit once said, “Figures don’t lie, but liars can figure.” By that he meant that how you frame the question can determine the answer.
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So, Gary, a nation will not thrive on GDP alone.
You’re arguing two separate things.
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It doesn’t matter which taxes are reduced. They could be taxes on the “rich” or taxes on the poor, but lowering taxes increases GDP. You are now talking about economic disparity which has nothing to do with the correlation between taxes and GDP.
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This is econ 101, folks. I think they covered it my first day in B school.
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And raj, you’re still wrong. My argument was not for or against the Iraq war, it was simply stating that government spending on X does not mean that the money was taken from Y. And if the money is not spent on X, that money is not automatically spent (or even availble to) Y.
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That’s not how our government allocates funds.
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I understand you are passionate about your opposition to the war, and I respect that, but I think it is clouding your understanding of how the United States pays for things.
If all the government has to spend is “X”, then the government spends “X” on anything and everthing BUT infrastructure, then the infrastructure crumbles.
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Now, if some of that “X” is “discretionary spending”, then reducing the discretionary spending leave more in the money pot, which I am calling “X”. I happen to view the trillion or so dollars the Irag war is and will cost as discretionary spending.
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I would rather see those funds spent on infrastructure, and rather not leave a trillion or more in debt that results from destructive discretionary spending for my children and grand children to pay off.
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I would also like their roads not to have sink holes, the bridges not to collapse, and to be able to use the parking structure at UMass Bosotn, and so forth.
And raj, you’re still wrong. My argument was not for or against the Iraq war, it was simply stating that government spending on X does not mean that the money was taken from Y. And if the money is not spent on X, that money is not automatically spent (or even availble to) Y.
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Actually, no I am not wrong. You are correct that if money is spent on X, it does not automatically mean that it was taken from Y. But, if the desire is to try to keep the deficit in some degree of check, a significant amount of money is thrown away (hinaussgeschmissenes Gelt) on a silly project X, it is far less likely that sufficient money will be appropriated and spent on a useful project Y. That’s the point. If there is no desire to keep the deficit in check and instead to rely on a credit card government budget, party on!
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I’ll refrain from taking a swipe at B school, except to note that GWBush was a graduate of one. And that, when I was in engineering school at University, those who couldn’t cut it in engineering school usually went into the business department. I guess I didn’t refrain so much after all.
In my reply, I repeated your use of the term “GDP.”
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GDP and tax revenues are two different things, and GDP is not related to our discussion.
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I shouldn’t have said “lowering taxes increases GDP,” I should have said “lowring tax rates increases tax revenues.”
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My bad. I was posting too quickly.
…I should have said “lowring tax rates increases tax revenues.”
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Lowering the tax rates to zero would mean no tax revenue.
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I really do wish that you guys would get your act in order. Your Laffer curve (where this comes from) is idiotic.
So far in this thread you’ve made a lot of assertations but nothing to back it up.
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When I provided historical examples of the correlation between lower tax rates and higher tax revenue, you had nothing to counter them with.
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And now you say that lowering tax rates to zero would result in no tax revenue. Congratulations, you’ve just found the ONLY way it could result in lower revenue, while at the same time being something that would NEVER happen.
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You’re way in over your head here, raj. Admit it and walk away.
Give me all the examples that you want. Then give me the regression analyses that isolate the effect of the tax rate, as opposed to effects from other variables. Then, I’ll sit up and listen to you. Until then, no.
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Self-described “economists” pick windows (such as you did) to try to prove their points. But the windows are arbitrary. I’ve noticed that a lot in the last 25 years. Do your regression analyses and get back to us.
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Quite frankly it is you who is over your head. Some of us actually do know something about science, math, and statistics…and the silliness that self-described economists spew.
Let me get this straight … even when shown historical examples of tax rate cuts causing increased tax revenue, you still say it’s not true and now demand regression analysis?
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How about this instead:
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You show me one example of cutting tax rates that caused a decrease in tax revenue over, let’s say, a 24-month period, and then we’ll discuss regression analysis.