Thursday, August 30, 2012

Debating wd - A Microcosm

a) The American Enterprise Institute, Wall Street Journal, and Manhattan Institute have all asserted that the Tax Policy Center's study on the Mitt Romney budget makes certain critical assumptions; namely that Mr. Romney would never do away with tax-exempt status for municipal bonds and life insurance savings (something that Mr. Romney himself has never once stated).............b) wd refuses to believe that the Tax Policy Center has done this and he proceeds to ask for evidence from the study itself.............c) I proceed to show him the evidence; a chart from the study in which the authors make a list all of the things that THEY believe would in fact be "off the table" in a Mitt Romney administration (none of which Mr. Romney himself has EVER said WOULD be off the table).............d) wd responds to this evidence by asking ME to admit that these assumptions (which, up to now, he had never once admitted existed, mind you) are "reasonable assumptions".............e) I proceed to bash my head repeatedly against a brick-wall and question the wisdom of even engaging the fellow.

9 comments:

Dervish Sanders said...

Your post is a mischaracterization of what I said. You claimed they ignored these things. I proceeded to show you the evidence that they did not... they made the reasonable assumption that these things would be off the table.

And, even though the authors of the report were very clear they were making assumptions and we all knew it... Will now claims I denied they made assumptions.

I'm questioning the wisdom of even engaging Will Hart.

Will "take no prisoners" Hart said...

They did ignore them (your evidence that they didn't ignore them is the fact that they listed them under the off the table category LOL)! They ignored them by not putting them into the calculations and by ASSuming that Mr. Romney wouldn't ever touch them. And you absolutely denied that the authors failed to include these in their calculations. You even challenged me to show you WHERE they didn't use them. How pathetic.

Will "take no prisoners" Hart said...

Me - "I went through it line by line and found no evidence whatsoever that these authors included municipal bond interest and/or interest from life insurance savings as a part of their analysis. They ignored it and thus they ASSume that Mr. Romney would never include it in his doing away of loopholes."...... You -
"You did a very bad job going through it 'line by line' because it is in there. They didn't ignore it. Quote: 'Our major conclusion is that a revenue-neutral individual income tax change that incorporates the features Governor Romney has proposed... maintaining all tax breaks for saving and investment... would... increase the tax burdens on middle- and/or lower-income taxpayers.'"......Me - "Sorry, wd (you won't take the AEI's word for it but I'm supposed to take the Tax Policy Center's word?), but Mr. Romney hasn't proposed a specific budget and show me where in the data that these authors specifically included municipal bond and insurance savings interest. THEY DIDN'T, because, if they had included it, the amount of the deductions would have been significantly greater."......
You - "They did. I just showed you that they did!!"......There it is, wd, you telling me that you "showed me" where the authors included municipal bond and life insurance savings interest into their calculations and they obviously DID NOT!!!!!

Dervish Sanders said...

Will: There it is, wd, you telling me that you "showed me" where the authors included municipal bond and life insurance savings interest into their calculations...

Wrong. They included them. They made a reasonable assumption that they would be zero.

Dervish Sanders said...

Initially when I proved you were wrong I thought an apology might be in order.

Will "take no prisoners" Hart said...

Will: "Municipal bond interest, for example. They assume that Mr. Romney wouldn't do away with that expenditure."...... wd: "Where? Can you quote them?"............MORE EVIDENCE THAT YOU ARE A LIAR. I point out that the authors are ASSuming that Romney wouldn't touch municipal bond interest and you ask me to show you where. AND I SHOWED YOU IN THEIR OWN GRAPH that the authors refused to crunch the numbers with it. You lie!

Will "take no prisoners" Hart said...

They did not include them because if they had included them the revenue value of the loopholes would have been significantly greater. ASSuming that they wouldn't be included was wrong. They should have crunched the numbers utilizing ALL the permutations.......And what kind of an idiotic assumption is it to ASSume that Mr. Romney would EVER completely get rid of the mortgage interest deduction? They assume THAT but not the municipal bond interest. This study was done for one purpose and one purpose only, to make frigging Romney look ridiculous. Just like HR said. You play with the language in order to win an argument.

Will "take no prisoners" Hart said...

"show me where in the data that these authors specifically included (and you know by included that I totally meant IN THEIR CALCULATIONS!!!!!!!!!!!) municipal bond and insurance savings interest" And your answer to that is that they included it by not including it. What an absolute piece of shit you are.

Mordechai said...
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