Recent Comments

1. 1 day ago on Non Sequitur

   How does the deficit, which is the annual shortfall in the budget, go POOF in 20 years with an extra 90 billion a year, given that the deficit last year was 1.83 trillion, the year before it was 1.7 trillion, the year before that it was 1.4 trillion, etc.

   In fact, at no point since FY 2002 has the annual shortfall between revenue and spending, i.e., the deficit, been less than 90 billion, so how, exactly, would an annual extra 90 billion in revenue make the annual deficit go POOF?

2. 1 day ago on Non Sequitur

   Um… the national debt in FY1985 was about 1.8 trillion. In 2024 it was about 35 trillion. If one assumes not having the Reagan era tax cuts would have generated an extra $90 billion a year — a debatable assumption at best — for each of those years (it wasn’t clear if the original claim was that it would have done that, or if it would be generating that much extra revenue now), the debt would be about 31.5 trillion. Even factoring in savings from lower interest payments, you’re looking at probably at least 29 to 30 billion in debt.

3. 1 day ago on Non Sequitur

   What utter fiction. Courtesy of the Tax Foundation:

   The average income tax rate in 2022 was 14.5 percent. The top 1 percent of taxpayers paid a 23.1 percent average rate, six times higher than the 3.7 percent average rate paid by the bottom half of taxpayers.

   The top 1 percent’s income share fell from 26.3 percent in 2021 to 22.4 percent in 2022, and its share of federal income taxes paid fell from 45.8 percent to 40.4 percent.

   The top 50 percent of all taxpayers paid 97 percent of all federal individual income taxes, while the bottom 50 percent paid the remaining 3 percent.

   I’m sorry if reality doesn’t fit certain preferred narratives, but facts are facts.

4. 1 day ago on Non Sequitur

   And yet when George H.W. Bush increased taxes again, federal receipts as a percent of GDP actually went down. If higher taxes on rich = equal greater receipts for the government, how do you explain that?

5. 1 day ago on Non Sequitur

   Sorry, but you can check the statistics yourself. Google “Federal Receipts as Percent of Gross Domestic Product” and go to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (I can’t post the link for some reason).

   Between 1946 and 2024, federal receipts as a percent of GDP have generally fluctuated between 15% and 17.5%. Tax cuts and tax increases produce temporary variations, but there’s inevitably a reversion to the norm. You may also notice that receipts in the 1950s were, overally, lower than in the 1980s.

   Oh, and by the way? The first major tax cuts came in the Kennedy administration.

6. 1 day ago on Pearls Before Swine

   On the plus side, one of the super-volcanoes erupting would take care of global warming for a while.

7. 1 day ago on Non Sequitur

   Weirdly enough, those two things had nothing to do with one another.

   And, fun fact, federal revenues as a percent of GDP haven’t really changed that much over the last 75 years; if anything, they’ve been slightly higher on average since the 1980s — in other words, higher tax rates on the rich didn’t actually generate more revenue.

8. 1 day ago on Dick Tracy

   “If he’s a solid citizen, though… how come no one’s claimed him?”

   He doesn’t have anyone to claim him?

   Anyone who could claim him doesn’t yet realize something’s happen to him?

   Plenty of reasonable answers to your question, Mr. Tracy.

9. 2 days ago on Luann

   If you know what you’re doing, you can do over one-handed.

   And if you’re standing, it’s a lot easier.

10. 5 days ago on Ripley's Believe It or Not

    Uh… unless there’s a Godzilla film I missed, there’s only been Shin Godzilla and Godzilla Minus One, and what do you mean by “hunt people,” because Godzilla killed plenty in both movies.