Congressman Deadbeat Dad:
- Sam Seder: Real Americans are deadbeat dads.
- Young Turks: Rep. Joe Welsch…deadbeat dad
- Lawrence O’Donnel on Rep. Walsh’s hypocrisy.
Newsy: Register to vote…get free pot.
Ed: Voter suppression in Wisconsin.
Beck massacres Kilmeade and Ingraham to become Worst Person in the World.
The Media Responds to Norwegian Terrorist Attack:
- Ann Telnaes: Norwegian massacre.
- Young Turks: FAUX News idiots deny Norway terrorist was right-wing
- Stephen on the U.S. Media’s response to the Muslish Islamesque atrocities in Norway.
- Newsy: Glenn Beck’s controversal “Hitler youth camp” comparison.
- Young Turks: Bill-O claims Norway killer is not a Christian extremist.
- Jon: Onward Christian terrorists.
Bill-O the Clown beats out Michele Bachman as Worst Person in the World.
Jon on the perpetual victims at FAUX News:
Lawrence O’Donnell: Teen suicide rate high in Bachmann’s bigoted Anoka-Hennepin County school district.
Sam Seder: Scumbag NewsCorpse gives mourning mother a phone and then hacks it.
Anthropogenic C****** C*****:
- Pap with guest Bill McKibben on right wing climate denial.
- Greenman: Energy efficiency
- ONN: Nation’s climatologists exhibit strange behavior.
- Pap: Pentagon recognizes climate change as a security threat.
Jon on Twitterized newscasts.
Seattle city councilman Tim Burgess rapping (via Slog).
Rep. Billy Long defeats FAUX’s MacCallum, and Lush Rimbaugh for the title Worst Person in the World.
The Republican Primary Asylum:
- Young Turks: Michele O’Bachmann
- Dan Savage’s new threat to Rick Santorum.
- Young Turks: Newt in trouble over Tiffany’s AGAIN!?!
- Sharpton: Mitt is the ONE!
- Ed: Mitt be measuring the drapes.
- Stephen: Herman Cain breakes his heart.
- Young Turks: Michele Bachmann says, “Leave my husband alooooooonnnnnnne!”
- Young Turks: Bachmann on Dictator Obama.
Ralph Goneau, 79, and Richard Wilhelm, 87, waited 41 years to say “I Do”.
ONN: Social Security reform bill encourages Americans to live faster, die younger.
Ed: Florida voter suppression.
Young Turks: FAUX News infotainer says cut Medicare to fund wars.
Newt triumphs over Rep. Culberson and Glenn Beck Worst Person in the World.
New Fuel Efficiency Standards:
- Obama announces new fuel economy standards.
- NewsyObama announces new fuel efficiency standards.
Lawrence O’Donnell: Right wing wackjobs let FAA funding expire.
Jon does an extended interview with Juan Williams.
Olbermann with Robert Reich on America widening wealth gap.
Newsy: Seven billion and counting.
Debtmageddon:
- Jon: Armadebtdon 2011.
- It’s time to ask why:
- Young Turks: How did we get into this fiscal mess anyway?
- Obama: A bipartisan solution is the only solution.
- Stephen on the Republican ring of power.
- Ann Telnaes: Republicans aim for Obama.
- Rep. Jay Inslee (D-WA-01) on the Boehner proposal.
- Thom with Nation Magazine’s John Nichols on the economic hostage takers
- Ed: Speaker John Boehner is a total, drunk fraud! Pt. I
- Ed: Speaker John Boehner is a total, drunk fraud! Pt. II
- DNC Chair on enabling a debt ceiling compromise.
- Mark Fiore: Dogboy and Mr. Dan on debtmageddon.
- Thom and Karen Finney on the politics of debt.
- Jon reminds Boehner about debt history
- Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) on the unthinkable.
- Secretary LaHood on debt ceiling negotiations.
- Ann Telnaes: The Norquist anti-tax pledge.
- Jon on the motivational qualities of the town.
- Ed with some major psychotalk from Rep. Rep. Paul Broun.
- Newsy: Gearing up for the final battle
White House: West Wing Week.
Newsy: God’s 52% approval rating.
Olbermann wit Rep. Keith Ellison on (Peter) ‘King’-sized fearmongering .
Last week’s Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza can be found here.
NutBaggers. They are a bunch of NutBaggers. I seen some conservative on a show last night that tried to say that the National Debt was only $7 Trillion when GWB left office. Where do these retards come from? They are a bunch of scum of the earth. They lie thru their teeth. And you have a bunch of dumb Americans that listen to them.
The ones that have teeth.
Heh. Right wingers back in the day used to say “the worst Republican is better than the best Democrat”..
Well “the worst Republicans” are running the show it seems..
And “the worst Democrat” would have raised the debt ceiling by now.
If interest rates rise and crash this fragile economy it’s on the right wing.
Roger Rabbit Interviews Roger Rabbit On The Debt Crisis
Special to Horsesass.org:
Q: Mr. Rabbit, what caused this crisis?
A: This crisis was caused by clueless people voting for Republicans. It wouldn’t have happened if they hadn’t elected these Republicans.
Q: Are you worried about what might happen in the next few days?
A: No. If GOPers crash the financial markets and economy, I’ll make money.
Q: Doesn’t that bother your conscience?
A: Why should it? I have no control over it, so I might as well profit from it. And I didn’t cause this! You don’t see me voting for Republicans, do you?
Q: Is there a way out of this mess?
A: Sure. Compromise. After all the posturing runs its course, House and Senate leaders will get together on a bill that half the Repubicans and half the Democrats will vote for, and it’ll pass because that’s enough votes.
Q: Any idea what a final compromise might look like?
A: We already know what it’ll be, because it has already taken shape in the Boehner and Reid bills. Those two proposals will be merged by stripping out the constitutional amendment language. Republicans will get no tax increases and Democrats will get no entitlement cuts. Neither bill raises taxes or significantly cuts spending. Under either bill, you’re looking at spending cuts of $20 billion for the remainder of the current fiscal cycle, which is nothing. The final compromise will shove the major decisions on taxes or entitlements onto the next president and congress. Regardless of whether they do it in one step or two steps, the important thing is this is what will ultimately happen.
Q: Mr. Rabbit, when do you think a compromise will emerge from the two houses of Congress?
A: Not by this Tuesday. These congress critters won’t be happy until they actually see the fruits of their non-labors, i.e., panic in the streets and a scary market selloff. I feel very confident these bastards won’t rescue us from the crisis they’ve manufactured until I’ve made my money. I’m sleeping very well at night nowadays.
Q: Thank you for your insights, Mr. Rabbit.
A: It’s always a pleasure to talk with myself, and so much more pleasant than trying to reason with HA’s retarded trolls.
The debt crisis is manna from heaven from the pundit class, who are having a field day with this. Almost any Tom, Dick, or Harry can get on TV and spew his opinion. With so much commentary from so many talking heads out there, it’s hard to separate the wheat from the chaff. I think this article is worth your time:
http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINIO.....index.html?
I’ll summarize it for you.
Former Sen. Alan Simpson (R-WY) agrees with me when he says, “In the end Congress will find a way to muddle through the current debt limit crisis, in part by promising to deal with the debt later.” But he feels we really do have a debt problem, and anyone who is “serious and honest” will deal with it “cutting spending in defense, domestic spending, entitlements and spending in the tax code.” He supports the “Gang of Six” plan, but whether it will happen on whether we have the political will to do it.
Former Sen. John Danforth (R-MO) thinks Congress should defer tax increases and spending cuts for two more years because we’re still in a recession, and let the American people decide the issue of how much government we want over the long term in the 2012 election.
Former Sen. Arlen Specter (D-PA) thinks Obama should use the 14th Amendment, if necessary, to prevent a default and believes he would get away with it, both legally and politically.
David Stockman, former Reagan budget director, said:
“The Republican ‘no tax increase’ position is preposterous; we are collecting less than 15% of GDP in taxes, the lowest since 1950, and spending 24% of GDP. More than half of that is national security and Social Security, and the Republicans don’t have a plan to cut a dime from either.”
Stockman argues the $800 billion a year defense budget is “a relic of the Cold War” and should be cut $200 billion a year. His reasoning is, “We no longer have any industrial state enemies, and we have been fired as the world policeman, so it is time to mothball some carrier battle groups, ground some air wings, drastically reduce our troop strength, end the futility of Afghanistan and buying multibillion-dollar high tech weapons we can’t afford and don’t need.”
Stockman calls the Boehner and Reid plans “flim-flam” whose tiny spending cuts over the next two years and unenforceable long-term spending caps are “a pathetic joke.”
He thinks we’ll eventually have to means-test social security.
Roger Rabbit’s Take
First of all, this is the issue of our generation, it’s a big deal, so it’s worth fighting over.
Politicians lie, but math doesn’t lie. Federal spending is 24% of GDP and we’re collecting only 15% of GDP in federal taxes.
This is okay for a short time while you’re trying to dig out of a deep recession, and it’s somewhat self-correcting in that tax receipts tend to rise and recession-related spending on things like unemployment benefits and food stamps declines when the economy starts growing again. But it’s unsustainable over the long term.
Of course, using deficit spending to stimulate the economy out of a recession works better if you start with relatively low debt, and unfortunately we entered this recession with relatively high debt thanks to the reckless spending by Bush and a GOP congress during the previous decade. So they made our current situation much worse. Virtually all reputable economists agree Obama’s stimulus was too small, but his hands were tied by the actions of his predecessor.
The Republicans who now control the House are pursuing anti-Keynesian policies, and that’s just plain stupid and wrong, because those policies don’t work in good times or bad. So, part of the solution to the economy’s malaise is returning Congress to Democratic control in the next election — and, of course, keeping the White House safely in Democratic hands.
As for long-term policy, looking a decade or more down the road, it seems obvious to me that taxes have to be raised and we need to reign in spending for both defense and entitlements. Defense spending nearly doubled under Bush and, as Stockman pointed out, a lot of that increase is unnecessary and should be jettisoned. But even if you cut defense all the way back to pre-Bush levels of $400 billion a year, and combine those cuts with a rollback of Bush’s tax cuts, that’s still not enough deficit reduction.
People who can do math have been talking about a looming problem in entitlement spending since the 1980s. Some of the things that have been talked about — such as raising the income cap for payroll taxes — clearly should be done. Bush’s prescription drug program created a huge new expense without any revenue to support it, and should be repealed. That takes nothing away from senior citizens that they had prior to 2006. I don’t think “chained CPI” should be adopted, nor do I support means-testing Social Security, but I think if we’re going to reform the tax code by closing loopholes to lower the rate structure, you could couple lower income tax rates with an increase in the FICA rate to shift some future tax revenues from general spending into sustaining a larger retiree population.
Whatever approach is taken, I adamantly oppose the wingnut ideas of abrogating our social contracts or further impairing the programs that take care of Americans who worked hard all their lives by eliminating taxes for everyone except wage earners. That’s not only crazy, but morally wrong.
Rachel Beckwith’s charity drive is now over $700,000. With money coming in at a rate of nearly $100,000 a day, she’s on track to raise $1 million before the government goes broke on Tuesday. Then, the charity had better spend the money fast, because U.S. money will be worthless within a couple of weeks.
@7 I wrote Goldy an email requesting that this week’s Bible Study verse be Matthew 19:13-14, with Rachel’s photograph posted above with a link to her donor site. I don’t know if Goldy will even read my email, much less respond too my request. But certainly I hope he does. We can skip the Bible bash for a week. It’d be great to see a real tip of the hat from HA to this amazing little girl and her cause.
A Democrat With Backbone
Yes, there still is one …
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21.....2#43956416
What the Republicans did in the last ten years was somewhat analogous to the fight-training technique in which the instructor flies through some clouds doing maneuvers intended to disorient the student, finally putting the plane into a near-stall, shutting off the engine and then letting go of the controls and saying, “Your glider.”
Republicans have elevated lying to an art form.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43.....itol_hill/
Why don’t we enact term limits for these yahoos so we can at least see different faces for the yammering class on TV? When the Constitution was written, the life expectancy wasn’t anywhere near where is is now, so the idea of some clown serving 30 or 40 years in the House and/or Senate was never envisioned by the Founders. We can’t really have a diverse and thriving republic with people hanging-on to elected office for generations. Let’s get those bums out and let somebody else have a chance!
Same goes for those “appointed” kings and queens on the Supreme Court! Limit the damn terms of these egotistical bastards!
There was a 6.4 magnitude earthquake in Japan today, but that’s not news; an earthquake in Japan isn’t news until it hits 7.9 on the Richter scale.
Therefore, I’m not going to post anything about today’s Japanese earthquake, because it isn’t news.
@5. Roger Rabbit spews:
Stockman calls the Boehner and Reid plans “flim-flam” whose tiny spending cuts over the next two years and unenforceable long-term spending caps are “a pathetic joke.”
————————————
Exactly
@6. Roger Rabbit spews:
The Republicans who now control the House are pursuing anti-Keynesian policies, and that’s just plain stupid and wrong, because those policies don’t work in good times or bad
————————————
Exactly wrong, Keynesian policies have failed every time they have been tried, short-term gains are always swamped by inflation and high unemployment later. Check out how the real Keynes performed when he was the main advisor on WWII and post-war British economic policy, it was a complete failure.
“People who can do math have been talking about a looming problem in entitlement spending since the 1980s. Some of the things that have been talked about — such as raising the income cap for payroll taxes — clearly should be done. Bush’s prescription drug program created a huge new expense without any revenue to support it, and should be repealed ”
——————–
Regarding “raising the income cap for payroll taxes,” Dims have never put anything in writing on where the cap should be but are reported to want to eliminate the cap entirely, which turns social security into nothing more than another welfare program with no connection between contributions made and benefits received.
Dims have already said they will keep the drug program.
Whatever approach is taken, I adamantly oppose the wingnut ideas of abrogating our social contracts or further impairing the programs that take care of Americans who worked hard all their lives by eliminating taxes for everyone except wage earners. That’s not only crazy, but morally wrong.
——————————————
What “wingnut ideas of abrogating our social contracts or further impairing the programs that take care of Americans” are you talking about; this is merely typical Dim jargon without specifics. Criticism aside, you are one of the few libs here who know enough to treat the subject seriously and often quite accurately.
@8. Steve spews:
—————————
Ask Goldy how he feels about lying phoneys who make bets that they can’t keep.
@12 We already have term limits. They’re called “elections.”
@12 (continued) If 85% of the voters in Jim McDermott’s district want him to represent them in Congress, who are you to say they can’t have Jim McDermott representing them in Congress?
@15 “Keynesian policies have failed every time they have been tried, short-term gains are always swamped by inflation and high unemployment later.”
Opinions are like assholes — everybody’s got one.
@15 “Dims have already said they will keep the drug program.”
Well gee, even though I’m a Democratic party hack and propagandist, I don’t agree with Democrats on everything … I think for myself … who wudda thought??!! If Democratic propagandists were paid, I’d probably be kicked off the payroll, but since I’m not paid, I can think and say any damn thing I want. And I do.
Hell, I can even get away with being against abortion.
@15 “What ‘wingnut ideas of abrogating our social contracts or further impairing the programs that take care of Americans’are you talking about; this is merely typical Dim jargon without specifics.”
Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment benefits, food stamps, college aid for poor students.
Go back and read my previous posts; this isn’t the first time (or even the 10th time) I’ve mentioned these specific programs as targets of GOP budget cuts.
I’ve also been specific about things I think should be cut: Defense spending, farm subsidies, ethanol subsidies, tax breaks for oil companies, and corporate welfare.
@15 The stupid goatfucker sez, “I’ll bet..”, I take his dumbfuck ass up on it, and he’s been raving like a krazy loon ever since. Damn, I must have somehow pushed the krazy button. The short of it? He can either man up or be my bitch. Speaking of bets, the smart money is on Klynical becoming my bitch. Then I’d let my neighbor’s labrador fuck him in the eyeballs every day.
@18. Roger Rabbit spews:
@15 “Keynesian policies have failed every time they have been tried, short-term gains are always swamped by inflation and high unemployment later.”
Opinions are like assholes — everybody’s got one.
———————–
My opinions have historical evidence on their side, your asshole just farts a lot.
@19. Roger Rabbit spews:
@15 “Dims have already said they will keep the drug program.”
Well gee, even though I’m a Democratic party hack and propagandist, I don’t agree with Democrats on everything … I think for myself … who wudda thought??!! If Democratic propagandists were paid, I’d probably be kicked off the payroll, but since I’m not paid, I can think and say any damn thing I want. And I do.
———————————-
I’m starting to believe you more and more about that.
21. Roger Rabbit spews:
Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment benefits, food stamps, college aid for poor students.
——————–
Right, except for your omission of welfare. Both sides talk Social Security, obviously neither will do anything serious until after the next election. It was foolish for Repubs to back the Ryan Medicare plan, it hits the Repub base and even the most stupid of Dims can hit that issue out of the park. In my view Repubs should present an either-or choice, either we save Social Security and Medicare or we save the various poverty programs because there is not enough money to do both; I believe that would frame the issue favorably.
Yep, this sounds like the aftermath of the bloated defense spending of Raygun and Bush the lesser..
The unemployment part at least.
@23 “Right, except for your omission of welfare.”
I omitted mentioning welfare because I don’t consider welfare part of the social contract. I consider welfare a gift from taxpayers to needy families.
“In my view Repubs should present an either-or choice, either we save Social Security and Medicare or we save the various poverty programs”
Well, let’s see. Let’s look at some numbers:
Total FY 2011 Federal Budget: $3,818.8 billion
Social Security: $748.4 billion
Medicare: $494.3 billion
Temporary Aid For Needy Families: $17.0 billion
So … federal spending on “welfare” (i.e., TANF) is less than one-half of one percent of the budget, and we spend 73 times as much on Social Security and Medicare as we do on TANF. And you think that’s an either-or choice? Really??
Now, if you count Medicaid ($276.2 billion) and food assistance ($107.2 billion), then you’re getting into some real money, although it should be pointed out that food assistance programs primarily exist to help farmers — which is why these programs are run by the Department of Agriculture instead of Health and Human Services. And quite a large chunk of Medicaid spending helps senior citizens, because Medicaid pays for the majority of nursing home care in the United States.
But your idea that we have to make either-or choices between programs that help poor and middle class citizens is a false dichotomy. We don’t have to just choose between Social Security/Medicare and “poverty programs.” Our range of choices includes:
1. Cutting Social Security and/or Medicare;
2. Cutting “poverty programs”;
3. Cutting defense spending;
4. Raising taxes.
In fact, there’s a very strong case for making some taxpayers pay more. These options include:
4a. Raising the ceiling on salaries and wages subject to FICA taxes;
4b. Requiring the rich to pay tax rates at least equal to the tax rates on working class and middle class wage earners;
4c. Making the two-thirds of U.S. corporations that pay no ocrporate income taxes whatsoever pay a minimum corporate tax;
4d. Reducing or eliminating the disparity between tax rates on earned income (salaries and wages) and unearned income (capital gains and dividends).
Given that taxes, as a percentage of GDP, are at historic lows there’s no real reason not to selectively raise taxes on those who can afford to pay and are underpaying now. That certainly should be part of an overall deficit solution, and polls show two-thirds of Americans support this “balanced” approach.
No one is saying there shouldn’t be spending cuts. Everyone agrees on that. Our bloated defense budget certainly should be cut — David Stockman suggested cutting defense by $200 billion a year, but you could cut it by half a trillion dollars a year and that would only put it back where it was in 2001. In fact, you really can’t get to anything approaching a balanced budget without cutting defense spending.
Another area ripe for savings is health care. The federal government pays for about half of all health care in the U.S. — so we already have government health care (what some people mistakenly called “socialized medicine”) in this country. We also have the world’s costliest and most inefficient health care delivery system, so there’s plenty of room to save big bucks without denying anyone any health care they’re getting now.
The story there is Republicans had 30 years to pass health care reform but did nothing. All they did was oppose Clinton’s and Obama’s health care reform efforts. Obamacare would have been a better piece of legislation if Republicans had been constructive and participated in writing it, but they chose to be the “party of no” instead, and many of the faults of Obamacare, as passed, resulted from making politically necessary accomodations to opponents.
One thing is crystal clear: Republicans have not delivered balanced budgets when they had the opportunity to do so. Instead, they ran up gargantuan deficits under Reagan and both Bushes to fund military buildups, several wars, and massive tax breaks for rich people — not to mention the hundreds of billions they spent on pork, no-bid contracts, and outright corruption. So the GOP is not in a position to lecture anyone else about fiscal responsibility.
@23 “It was foolish for Repubs to back the Ryan Medicare plan, it hits the Repub base and even the most stupid of Dims can hit that issue out of the park.”
Well, we agree on that, and you have to wonder what they were thinking.
Actually, I’m pretty sure I know what they were thinking. They tried to go after Social Security first, under Dubya, but that effort failed. They haven’t abandoned their ambition of doing away with Social Security (but first privatizing and looting it), but Medicare looks like an easier target, so they’re going after that now. And if they’re successful at gutting Medicare, then Social Security will return to the chopping block.
The problem is, having gotten rid of private pensions and employer-provided health care, so that Social Security and Medicare is all that most people will have for their old age, the Pubbies are finding their proposals to slash these programs a tough sell.
Somehow, I think that could have been foreseen, even without spending shitloads of money on polls.
Wisconsin Update
At least two of the Republican candidates in Wisconsin’s senate recall elections have been delinquent in paying state taxes, opponents claim.
According to We Are Wisconsin, Kim Simac paid property taxes late in 2007, 2009, and 2010. And state records show that Simac, a Tea Party organizer who claims small businesses are overtaxed, owed no state taxes on her own business in 2001, 2004, 2005, 2006, and 2006. Simac has paid a grand total of $1,800 of state business taxes in the last 10 years — an average of $180 a year. So much for wingnuts who love to complain about taxes they don’t pay.
We Are Wisconsin also claims, in its campaign ads, that Chicago-based corporate lawyer Jonathan Steitz, who is running for public office in Wisconsin, failed to pay Wisconsin state taxes that he owed.
25 – Great analysis that will bounce off the heads of typical HA threads troll – heads that, to the one, are located where the sun doesn’t shine.
@27
It’s one thing to be taken in by a pitchman with a good pitch, but the Tea Baggers got taken in by people that didn’t even have a good pitch.
did any of you ever see the movie training day, where those fucking spics want to kill ethan hawke?
@30
Damn, first it’s the jews, now it’s the Mexican’s. Who’s next?
Asshole @ 30
They said “it was only business” – no different from any other kind of gangster, jew hater.
@32
They said “it was only business” – no different from any other kind of gangster, jew hater.
well, at least you have a good memory for movies.
how in the hell do you call me a jew hater when my post was latino hatred?
33 – Your record here speaks for itself idiot. Along with stupid bigotry towards jews and latinos, do you suffer from senile dementia?
Btw, I’m half latino asshole!
@34
Btw, I’m half latino asshole!
dont stab me homeboy.
@35
Yeah, but you’re %100 ass-hat.
Oops, that’s YLB that’s half latino. But, MOT’s still an ass-hat.
BREAKING NEWS — TENTATIVE DEBT DEAL REACHED
CNN reports that congressional negotiators from both parties and the White House have agreed on the outlines of a debt ceiling deal.
The outline of the agreement is:
1. The debt ceiling will be raised through 2012.
2. Spending will be cut by $2.8 trillion over the next 10 years.
3. Of this amount, $1 trillion will be cut up front, and a special congressional committee will recommend $1.8 trillion of additional cuts by Thanksgiving. If Congress fails to approve these cuts by late December, automatic across-the-board cuts — which include defense and Medicare — would take effect.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said a number of elements remain to be finalized, but he has delayed a vote on his Senate bill until 1 p.m. tomorrow to give negotiators time to finalize the deal.
http://www.cnn.com/2011/POLITI.....?hpt=hp_t1
In other news, little Rachel’s $300 charity drive has now reached $718,207.
You can follow the progress of her campaign — or donate, if you haven’t already (I did) — here:
http://www.mycharitywater.org/.....n_id=16396
This deal actually doesn’t reduce the deficit by very much — $2.8 trillion spread over 10 years is an average of only $280 billion a year. Hell, defense alone should be cut by at least that much! (Full disclosure: Roger Rabbit’s defense stocks will tank if that happens, but who gives a shit about that besides me?)
Here’s why we have trillion-plus annual deficits: Spending is 24% of GDP, and tax revenues are 15% of GDP.
Even though I’m only a rabbit with a golf-ball sized brain, I can do the math on that one in my head!
This doesn’t mean we necessarily have to find trillions more in spending cuts. As the economy recovers, that 24% figure will go down (because spending on things like unemployment benefits and food assistance will drop), and that 15% figure will go up (because tax revenues will increase). So, economic growth will help a lot.
It should be obvious to any sentient organism capable of even a little rational thought that tax increases are a necessary part of any plausible deficit reduction scenario. Democrats didn’t get tax increases in this deal, but they didn’t have to. That’s because the Bush tax cuts were temporary, and will end next year, unless Congress takes affirmative action to extend them. This means the GOPers can’t prevent a tax increase on the rich without agreement of the Democrat-controlled Senate and White House.
@40
This means the GOPers can’t prevent a tax increase on the rich without agreement of the Democrat-controlled Senate and White House.
roger, what is the income threshold that kicks in the tax on the rich?
@41 It changes ever year because of inflation indexing. For tax year 2010, the top marginal rate of 35% kicks in at $373,651.
When Obama ran for president, he talked about raising taxes on individuals making over $250,000 ($400,000 for couples), but that has never been enacted into law.
So, expiration of the Bush tax cuts at the end of 2012 won’t give Obama all the tax increases he wanted. The top bracket threshold will be almost 50% higher for single filers, and a bit lower for couples.
Hmmm, wait a minute, those are the existing rates under the Bush tax cuts. Let me refigure this.
I have no “business” with the likes of you moron.
The 33% bracket would rise to 36% and the 35% bracket would rise to 39.6%. I’m not sure whether the bracket thresholds would be affected. The capital gains rate would also go up — people now paying 10% would pay 15% to 20%.
Here’s a comparison of pre-Bush, Bush, and tentative post-Bush scenarios.
http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/26118.html
There’s a link in that graphic you can click on to get the tax brackets.
It looks like singles making over about $175K (couples about $210K) would pay 3% more on income above those amounts, and all filers making over about $379K would pay 4.6% more on income above that amount.
Yeah, I don’t see that expiration of the Bush tax cuts affects the bracket thresholds. I think the income breaks are the same, and only the tax rates change, as near as I can figure this out in 5 minutes.
@44
I have no “business” with the likes of you moron.
oh c’mon. let me have my fun and dont take ballbusting so seriously. isnt this the country of dissent, free speech, question authority, right to an opinion, speaking truth to power etc etc etc.
Additional Details Of Debt Deal
ABC, Reuters, and other sources report a White House aide said at midnight (eastern time, 2 hours ago) that there is no firm deal yet, but here’s what negotiators are moving toward:
1. $2.8 trillion of spending cuts over 10 years
2. A $2.4 trillion debt ceiling increase through 2012
3. Automatic spending cuts, if triggered, will hit defense harder than Medicare, and the Medicare cuts will hit providers, not beneficiaries
4. The deal includes a vote on a balanced budget amendment in both houses of Congress
[The balanced budget amendment will, of course, get shot down. But by forcing a vote, GOPers can put Democrats on record as voting against the amendment, then use that as a campaign tool against them. — RR]
The debt ceiling deal emerging from White House/congressional negotiations isn’t a sure thing, but it’s going to be the only alternative to default, so there will be enormous pressure on the House and Senate to pass it.
With support from leaders of both parties and a promise by the president to sign it, my guess is Congress will pass it. This will be done with both Republican and Democratic votes.
It was always a foregone conclusion that any deal would be a bipartisan compromise that marginalized Tea Partiers on the right and progressives on the left by marshaling a centrist voting bloc from both parties. This math was always clear from the beginning.
Trolls have free reign here till they get bored freak. Bannings are rare.
Roger Rabbit’s Stock Market Prediction
I think I can safely say the stock market will either go up on Monday, or go down.
Hey, don’t look at me funny like that, how the hell do you expect me to know what’s going to happen?
My guess is Congress will pass whatever deal is reached over the weekend, and it looks like there’s going to be one. I think the market will be down or flat on Monday, because investors won’t commit until they see Congress actually pass a debt ceiling increase. That vote probably won’t come before Monday afternoon at the earliest.
If it looks like a deal will pass Congress, and the market opens flat or slightly lower, I’ll probably buy some stocks on Monday. The situation right now is stock prices aren’t a steal, they’re about where they were two months ago, so all this bickering in D.C. has merely wiped out June and July’s modest gains, but with a number of quality stocks trading at the midpoint of their 52-week trading ranges, I feel I can buy stocks that are appropriate for this weak economic environment.
These include Walgreen’s if it slides a bit lower, 3M, and Johnson & Johnson.
Or, if the market takes a big bounce up, I may just sit on my cash hoard and wait for the next meltdown from Europe. Trust me, there’ll be one.
@49 Trust us on this, nobody here takes you seriously.
Mrs Puddy told me upon arrival back in the States that Pastor Al NotSoSharpton has the time slot on PMSNBC Cenk Upchuck used to occupy. She cracked up laughing when channel surfing she stumbled onto Pastor Al’s show.
Darryl, maybe you can find that Cenk moron a job at the UW!
Cenk Upchuck, what a loser and his followers on this blog site.
LMBBAO!
I just read FDL’s big time leftist loon Jane Hamsher’s take on Standard and Poor’s US debt downgrade threat and most of the slavish comments from more leftist loons below. After a while one feels the bile rising.
Sure is a different view from over the pond and what is being written about our debt in the various European dailies. Butt I’ll leave that to the moronic class to read and compare. But, as the good conservative that I am I visited another lefty site I read to understand what a calmer leftist liberal thinks now and then. His commentary on loony leftist Jane Hamsher is priceless.
Butt Jane is a regular on the leftist PMSNBC!
LMBBAO!
You have to come back to America to read how leftist pinheads at NPR really treated a black man who had the temerity to leave the reservation as leftist whities defined it.
Now that’s a media extravaganza!
Has anyone seen the preznit plan on debt reduction? Well Jay Carney the mouthpiece of this sadministration asked NBC’s UpChuck Todd haven’t you seen it?
Yes, Obummer is really doing this economy good!
Another media extravaganza!
Did some self-important right wing moron have anything worth the time out of anyone’s life to say this morning?
NO OF COURSE NOT…
NEXT!
Your buddy Krugman disagrees with your use of Tax Foundation…
So who is right Roger Dumb Rabbit? Krugman or Tax Foundation? Is Obummer’s tax policy correct?
Sure does look like Harvard Professor Mankiw called it right in 2008. Obummer’s policies are DESTROYING America!
Can you say another exploding Roger Dumb Rabbit pellet?
LMBBAO!
Of course he did in #60.
Oh and arschloch, I know you’ll neva do it but you could tell ekim where I’ve been in the world for the last three months since you know how to tell where everyone posts from on this blog. I know it’s one of the loony skillz you possess sitting on the couch browsing left-wink ( correct wink not wing) kook-aid all day! Butt being the idiotic ASS you are you won’t help a fellow leftist pinhead stop looking foolish so ignore this paragraph!
LMBBAO!
LMAO!! How flattering PuddyBUD!
But DUMBASS STUPID WRONG!
Nope you silly dope I don’t know where “everyone” posts from unless “everyone” (meaning here right wing dopes) is REALLY REALLY STUPID and tells me!
I don’t have access to the wordpress database and the ip addresses and have NEVER bothered the ha bloggers ONCE for anything from it.
YOU POST FROM ONE PLACE AND ONE PLACE ONLY! From a fetid dung heap between your ears deposited in a head lodged firmly in the lower region of your ALIMENTARY CANAL!
Good morning, afternoon, evening whereever SUNSHINE!
(that you can never see given where your head is located)
I like ekim – he’s amused as I am by the feckless antics of PuddySilly and being from Eastern WA farm country verifies my claims about the cheap labor right wingers there.
And like me ekim most likely could not care less from where Puddyfool excretes his miserable right wing blather.
Dipshit arschloch,
First we see you acknowledge being an arschloch. That’s the initial step toward sanity
Second you were the one moronic lying idiot…
I know how to figger this out and this proves you do too. Now who claimed IP Addresses except you? I neva mentioned IP Addresses in my commentary above.
You see you just tripped over your own shitstorm above. And I do all this without the craze databaze personna you possess.
LMBBAO!
LMBBAO!
LMBBAO!
Really sucks to be you. Can’t even rememba what you wrote and it was recent too! But a shitstorm a minute from those worthless fingers!
his love of goats and sheep in the Biblical way!
Thanks. We neva knew!
LMBBAO!
Gotta go arschloch, family outing this morning.
You take care and try to rememba what you write! But stay away from wireless networks discussions. They seem to really trip you up!
LMBBAO!
In both instances I was “told” this moron.
Can you possibly figure out from that shitpile between your ears how the parties involved “told” me this?
Doesn’t seem so..
LMAO!!!
BBA Dumbshit @ above,
Sorry having access to the ip addresses from the HA.org server is the only way I know of to know from where “everyone” posts if they don’t “tell” you outright using a number of means.
Only way to do that is be an insider (which I’m not) or hack which I haven’t done and will never do.
I’d wish you a bad case of diarrhea on your day off but that’d mean your brains would leak out and we’d all be deprived for good of your miserable company..
On second thought..
YOU POST FROM ONE PLACE AND ONE PLACE ONLY! From a fetid dung heap between your ears deposited in a head lodged firmly in the lower region of your ALIMENTARY CANAL!
Hey you were the one who implied no one gives a “rat’s ass” about your wireless frame “payload”.
For once I agreed with you!
Hey I read a good one that applies to Puddydope:
Poor pdope… He can make a show of giving away every miserable copper and it won’t change a thing about him.
Before I begin, I’d like to clarify that I have no idea what pussybutt said in his comments above, because I’m too busy with important stuff this morning to spend any time reading his tripe. OK, with that out of the way, let’s get started.
Item #1: Is The Debt Issue Resolved?
Not yet. Although GOP and Democratic negotiators have worked out the broad outlines of a deal, there are still many unresolved issues. In general, though, party leaders are expressing optimism the negotiators will hammer out a deal for Congress to vote on.
And that’s the next rub — whether both houses will pass it. They will be under tremendous pressure to do so, but a couple of things could go wrong. First of all, they will have very little time to read it and think about it, and as Congress’ initial rejection of the bank bailout in 2008 demonstrated, congress critters don’t like acting in haste or being rushed into things they don’t understand.
Another problem is, with so little time left before Tuesday, there may be insufficient time for House and Senate whips to line up enough votes to pass the thing.
The operating assumption is that any deal worked out by the party negotiators and White House will get enough Democratic votes to make up for the shortfall in Republican votes. But it’s questionable whether that can be taken for granted.
Item #2: What Is The Deal?
It’s the Boehner plan, tweaked to satisfy White House objections: Tea Party GOPers’ demand for a balanced budget amendment has been stripped out (they’ll only get a symbolic vote, which will reject the amendment), and the debt ceiling will be extended to 2013, not this winter as GOPers wanted.
Otherwise, the deal is an almost complete win for the GOP: No tax increases on the rich, Obama has put entitlements on the table for spending cuts, there’s no promise of defense cuts, and there will be no more stimulus spending to reduce unemployment. It’s a drastic change in the direction of U.S. fiscal policy that constitutes a victory for Hooverite economic idiocy, and there’s almost nothing in it for progressives to like.
Item #3: Has Obama Sold Us Out Again?
Yeah, but what are we gonna do? Our choice is to re-elect him, or turn the White House over to a Tea Party nutbag. He has us by the balls.
Obama may get a second-term, but he’s not going to go down in history as the guy who turned “Hope and Change” into reality, nor will he retire as a beloved president.
Item #4: It Could Have Been Worse
At least Obama didn’t agree to let the GOP privatize Social Security and Medicare. Not yet, anyway. But I hate to think about what he might do to us in a second term when he doesn’t have to worry about re-election anymore.
In Other News …
Unregulated Free Markets Don’t Work Dep’t
The crooks at Goldman Sachs are taking money out of your wallet every time you buy anything with aluminum in it by cornering a large part of he world’s aluminum supply and keeping it off the market to drive up aluminum prices.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43....._business/
The Bigot Behind The Anti-Sharia Movement
If there’s one thing rightwing bigots are exceptionally good at, it’s creating straw bogeymen to distract the public’s attention from real issues like the economy’s collapse and the wholesale looting of the working and middle classes by wealthy crooks like the market manipulators at Goldman Sachs.
The latest wave of bigotry sweeping America originated in the New York law office of a rightwing Jew whose credentials for spreading hate include living in a West Bank settlement. He has backing from big-time rightwing money.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43.....ork_times/
I want to clarify that I have nothing against Jews, per se. One of my very best friends is a practicing Orthodox Jew, and I have the utmost respect for his religious beliefs. I would simply observe that haters come in all stripes, and I have no use for a hater of any stripe, nor for the unhealthy divisiveness they bring into our society.
Nuclear Waste Factoids
Number of commercial nuclear reactors in U.S.: 104
Number of active nuclear reactors in U.S.: 65
Number of temporary nuclear waste storage sites in U.S.: 122
Annual U.S. production of spent nuclear fuel: 2,000 metric tons
U.S. stockpile of spent nuclear fuel: 75,000 metric tons
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43.....e_monitor/
The financial punditry class seems to think that, even if Congress passes a debt bill before Tuesday, the stock market will continue to slither lower because a Treasury credit downgrade is inevitable and for other reasons.
Those other reasons include: A weakening economy, and a growing possibility of a double-dip recession, with its implications for forward corporate earnings; a likely resurgence of European sovereign debt woes; and a widespread perception in investment circles that just as the European Union’s response to its debt problems has consisted of taping bandaids over supporating wounds, which doesn’t really fix the problem, our domestic politicians are doing essentially the same thing and the “deficit reduction” we’re seeing doesn’t amount to a hill of beans.
spelling correction @81: “suppurating” not “supporating”
Ever since the Great Meltdown Of Aught-Eight, scared people have been flocking to zero-interest bonds.
I can’t understand that. This looks like a lemming migration to me. Why would any rational person want to own other people’s debts in an environment like this?
If you put your money into common stocks, at least you own something more tangible than a bankrupt’s IOU.
I mean, really, who in their right mind would lend money at no interest to a bankrupt government run by a gang of teaparty idiots?
Everyone knows these people think a pension or union contract is nothing but toilet paper; so why would anyone think they’ll honor their IOUs?
OK Puddydope..
Once upon a time I knew Goldy used a certain website analysis service but haven’t bothered to look at it since.
Shoulda known that one…
But if you think I (or anyone else) gives a crap about your meanderings you’re wrong – as usual..
Different places – same old right wing dope.
http://pandagon.net/index.php/.....bt_ceiling
This gal, Amanda Marcotte, is one of my favorite bloggers…so is Jane Hamsher btw who I got to speak with when I joined FDL…
…I think she has it just right here. These people are ignorant. They have no idea of economic reality. They, like the idiotic puddybitch have this childish belief in the “Easter Bunny” school of economics…or if I only PRAY hard enough teh jeebus will deliver what’s on my wish list.
ylb calls out the puddydope. So do I. This is no time for this kind os insanity and no time to deal with these nitwits. I am really fed up with the BHO Administraion and his craven capitulation to this clown circus.
Open Letter to President Obama-
Quit playing “Calvinball” with these yoyo’s and do what you know needs to be done. Fuck the “tea-party” fuck the republicans. All they really want is to se you gone. You will make points with the American People by showing folks what a gang of thieves and dolts this is…and by putting real programs in place that will help REAL people:
-Tax Reform
-Wall Street Reform
-Restoring American Maufacturing
-Restoring American Infrastructure
-Restoring Pensions and the Social Safety Net
Your base WILL support you. THIS was your mandate. Live up to your promise.
@86 Oh, I have no doubt there’ll be a debt deal, and Congress will pass it; a bunch of Democrats will vote for it, and a bunch of Tea Partiers will vote against it, and then all over the country Democrats will tell voters they voted to save the country and the Tea Party voted to drown it.
This is going to work out just fine.
Meanwhile, it looks to some folks like the double-dip recession is already here.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43....._business/
@87…
I really hate these motherfuckers, man. I really do.
Oh really? In CYA mode now eh arschloch? So it has to be the biggest ASS covering since you are the whole arschloch! In that thread Marvin never mentioned where he was or the system he was using. So you are saying those posts were another of your BULLSHIT postings, still at 100% perfect for slinghing your BULLSHIT on HA!
Do tell arschloch!
LMBBAO!
Roger Dumb Rabbit couldn’t understand truth so he cries a river. Too bad Obummer had no plan eh Roger?
Absolutely.. AGAIN, AGAIN, AGAIN…
AGAIN…
Marvin “TOLD” me where he was posting from!
YOU OBVIOUSLY DON’T KNOW HOW HE DID THAT!
DUMBASS!
Search your databaze on May 2011. Where did Marvin tell you he posted from his girlfriends MAC in Torrence or Pasadena in May 2011 since he WAS BANNED? You traded emails?
In your words “PROVE IT”!
This ought to be real good!
THINK THINK WITH THAT FETID DUNGHEAP YOU CALL YOUR BRAIN!!!
WHAT COULD MARVIN HAVE DONE TO “TELL” ME???
Hint: BESIDES commenting at HA????
Remember, my original commentary before meeting the arschloch.
Sucks to be you!
IS IT CLEARER NOW STUPID????
hopeless…
Never met you (knowingly) and I hope I never will.
The Difference Between Republicans And Democrats
“Republicans … would like to see the growth of … entitlement programs reined in, while shielding the military from cuts.”
Roger Rabbit Commentary: The Warmonger Party wants to take away Granny’s dog food and make her eat grass so the Pentagon can have its $250 million airplanes. What a bunch of assholes.
[Full Disclosure: Roger Rabbit owns stock in Boeing and Lockheed Martin. If defense spending is cut, Roger Rabbit will take a financial hit. When it comes to sucking money from the capitalist system, Roger Rabbit is just as greedy as any Republican, but Granny’s dog food money is more important than $250 million warplanes, so fuck Roger Rabbit and give Granny her dog food money!]
The Difference Between Republicans And Democrats
“Republicans … would like to see the growth of … entitlement programs reined in, while shielding the military from cuts.”
[Quoted from MSNBC]
Roger Rabbit Commentary: The Warmonger Party wants to take away Granny’s dog food and make her eat grass so the Pentagon can have its $250 million airplanes. What a bunch of assholes.
[Full Disclosure: Roger Rabbit owns stock in Boeing and Lockheed Martin. If defense spending is cut, Roger Rabbit will take a financial hit. When it comes to sucking money from the capitalist system, Roger Rabbit is just as greedy as any Republican, but Granny’s dog food money is more important than $250 million warplanes, so fuck Roger Rabbit and give Granny her dog food money!]
The next time some Republican complains to you about “runaway federal spending,” show him this chart.
http://www.data360.org/dsg.asp.....oup_Id=539
The next time some Republican tries to tell you “tax and spend Democrats” ran up the $14 trillion debt, show him this chart.
http://tinyurl.com/3d2n49f
What It Really Means
“The nation’s political leaders agreed on Sunday to spend and invest less money in the American economy, a step that economists said risks the reversal of a faltering recovery ….
“The … deal to cut spending … would complete an about-face in the federal government’s role from … spending in the immediate aftermath of the recession to … cuts going forward ….
“‘Unemployment will be higher than it would have been otherwise. Growth will be lower than it would be otherwise. And inequality will be worse than it would be otherwise,’ Mohamed El-Erian, chief executive of the bond investment firm Pimco, said Sunday on ABC.”
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43.....ork_times/
Roger Rabbit Commentary: It means the Hooverites won. It means Republicans who got elected by promising jobs gave us a deeper recession and higher unemployment. It means President Obama caved in to bullies. It means Granny is going to starve so warmongers can have their $250 million warplanes. At this point, I see no difference between the GOP’s policies and Stalin’s policies. But at least Roger Rabbit will make money from his defense stocks. I figure I might as well be a greedy capitalist — everyone else is.
Just don’t blame this shit on me, because I didn’t vote for it.
Wisconsin Republicans cut $900 million of school funding so rich manufacturers could get a reduction in the state manufacturing tax from 7.4% to 0.4%.
Wisconsin GOP Gov. Scott Walker’s idea of “growing the economy” is to steal businesses and jobs from Illinois by eliminating Wisconsin’s public services and turning Wisconsin in a tax haven for greedy and selfish businessmen.
I don’t live in Wisconsin, so I didn’t vote for that shit either.
A study of the current recession by the National Employment Law Project shows:
— 21.3% of the lost jobs paid over $43,000 a year,
— 60% paid $28,000 to $43,000, and
— 18.7% paid less than $28,000;
and also,
— 73% of the jobs added since the begining of the recession are low wage jobs paying less than $28,000.
In other words, this recession is converting middle class jobs into low-wage jobs, while high earners are doing relatively well.
http://curiouscapitalist.blogs.....dle-class/
Jobs paying over $43,000 have dropped 4.1%, but
shows ”
the bulk of the jobs lost, 60%, were in the middle range of the income scale. That compares to 21.3% for workers in high income jobs, and 18.7% for low-wage workers. Given the job loss, you would expect middle-income jobs to have rebounded the most in the past two years. But that’s not the case. In fact, 73% of the jobs that have been added since the beginning of the recession have been in what the study calls low wage jobs.
Read more: http://curiouscapitalist.blogs.....z1TkhmA21s
A study of the current recession by the National Employment Law Project shows:
– 21.3% of the lost jobs paid over $43,000 a year,
– 60% paid $28,000 to $43,000, and
– 18.7% paid less than $28,000;
and also,
– 73% of the jobs added since the begining of the recession are low wage jobs paying less than $28,000.
In other words, this recession is converting middle class jobs into low-wage jobs, while high earners are doing relatively well.
http://curiouscapitalist.blogs.....dle-class/
@25. Roger Rabbit spews:
@23 “Right, except for your omission of welfare.”
I omitted mentioning welfare because I don’t consider welfare part of the social contract. I consider welfare a gift from taxpayers to needy families.
————————————-
It is notable that you consider welfare to be a gift. I think you are the first liberal here to ever try to apply socialist theory correctly and link consumption with production, it is always to each according to his need, and the from each according to his ability part is swept under the rug. From what I remember seeing here the ordinary lib considers welfare to be a right and not a gift, and the idea that welfare recipient should perform labor in return for their checks would be unthinkable, so I’m wondering what you think about that.
So … federal spending on “welfare” (i.e., TANF) is less than one-half of one percent of the budget, and we spend 73 times as much on Social Security and Medicare as we do on TANF. And you think that’s an either-or choice? Really??
———————–
This understates the cost of welfare to the point of being meaningless, TANF is perhaps the most well-known, but probably a small fraction of overall welfare spending.
Now, if you count Medicaid ($276.2 billion) and food assistance ($107.2 billion), then you’re getting into some real money, although it should be pointed out that food assistance programs primarily exist to help farmers — which is why these programs are run by the Department of Agriculture instead of Health and Human Services. And quite a large chunk of Medicaid spending helps senior citizens, because Medicaid pays for the majority of nursing home care in the United States.
——————–
This gets a little closer to my definition of welfare, which I define as any transfer payment made by virtue of some degree of poverty, but it still understates welfare payments significantly. There are rent subsidies, heating subsidies, telephone subsidies and so on; probably hundreds littered around various government agencies. I don’t know if anybody knows what the total cost is.
The idea that “food assistance programs primarily exist to help farmers” is, with all due respect, sophistry. The purpose was and is to provide food to the needy. One can argue, for example, that rent subsidies primarily exist to help landlords, that heating subsidies primarily exist to help oil companies, and even that welfare checks in some part exist to help alcohol and tobacco manufacturers if you start defining the intended beneficiaries as the suppliers instead of the consumers.
Given that taxes, as a percentage of GDP, are at historic lows there’s no real reason not to selectively raise taxes on those who can afford to pay and are underpaying now. That certainly should be part of an overall deficit solution, and polls show two-thirds of Americans support this “balanced” approach.
————————————-
This misstates taxes as a percentage of GDP, as I have pointed out here before, and have provided sources. Federal taxes have been fairly flat but state and local taxes have risen significantly over the past several decades and total taxes as a percentage of GDP has risen.
Another area ripe for savings is health care. The federal government pays for about half of all health care in the U.S. — so we already have government health care (what some people mistakenly called “socialized medicine”) in this country. We also have the world’s costliest and most inefficient health care delivery system, so there’s plenty of room to save big bucks without denying anyone any health care they’re getting now.
The story there is Republicans had 30 years to pass health care reform but did nothing. All they did was oppose Clinton’s and Obama’s health care reform efforts. Obamacare would have been a better piece of legislation if Republicans had been constructive and participated in writing it, but they chose to be the “party of no” instead, and many of the faults of Obamacare, as passed, resulted from making politically necessary accomodations to opponents.
———————————————
This is counting chickens before they are hatched. I believe health care costs will continue to rise after Obamacare is fully implemented, time will tell.
One thing is crystal clear: Republicans have not delivered balanced budgets when they had the opportunity to do so. Instead, they ran up gargantuan deficits under Reagan and both Bushes to fund military buildups, several wars, and massive tax breaks for rich people — not to mention the hundreds of billions they spent on pork, no-bid contracts, and outright corruption. So the GOP is not in a position to lecture anyone else about fiscal responsibility.
—————————–
I won’t bother to quibble with the standard Dim rhetoric; the fact is the budget was balanced under Clinton because a Republican Congress restrained him, the fact is the last time a Democrat Congress passed a balanced budget it was under a Republican President, if you know of a time when a Democrat Congress and a Democrat President together produced a balanced budget you tell me, and I won’t hold my breath while waiting for you to do so, the fact is Obama and the Democrat Congress ran up the largest deficit in history. Dims are not in a position to lecture anyone else about fiscal responsibility.
@26. Roger Rabbit spews:
@23 “It was foolish for Repubs to back the Ryan Medicare plan, it hits the Repub base and even the most stupid of Dims can hit that issue out of the park.”
Well, we agree on that, and you have to wonder what they were thinking.
Actually, I’m pretty sure I know what they were thinking. They tried to go after Social Security first, under Dubya, but that effort failed. They haven’t abandoned their ambition of doing away with Social Security (but first privatizing and looting it), but Medicare looks like an easier target, so they’re going after that now. And if they’re successful at gutting Medicare, then Social Security will return to the chopping block.
—————————–
Here we go again with the standard Dim rhetoric. There were two reasons in my opinion; one was to gain brownie points with the chattering class for toughness, the other was a sincere effort to save the programs, you know that the programs are unsustainable as well as I do. It was a very stupid thing to do when there was zero chance that it could become law, but at least it showed some character. What is the Dim plan; sit back and watch the programs implode, but then, what else is new.
110, 111 – What a stinking pile of right wing horseshit…
No use penetrating that fever swamp..
Roger I would not bother with this chump any longer.
http://www.libertyunbound.com/.....e_2002.pdf
The myth of the ‘Deadbeat Dad.’ (p. 27)
It turns out that the war on deadbeat dads is a lot like the war on drugs, war on guns, war on sex trafficking, etc. Based on bogus statistics and catchy phrases, perfect for headline writers. But it creates a lot of cool six-figure office jobs in Washington DC. Liberalism as usual.
All that shouting and dancing above and the arschloch still hasn’t answered the question since Marvin was banned by Goldy long ago.
Such a silly idiot. Big time busted.
Nothing there upstairs moving on! LMBBAO!
@110 “It is notable that you consider welfare to be a gift. … From what I remember seeing here the ordinary lib considers welfare to be a right and not a gift, and the idea that welfare recipient should perform labor in return for their checks would be unthinkable, so I’m wondering what you think about that.”
I’d like to make three points.
First, even though I’m a Democratic party hack and liberal propagandist, I’m an independent — and eclectic — thinker, i.e., I strive to be an opinion leader, not an opinion follower. I try to add something to debates, not be a hollow “yes” man, at least some of the time.
Second, as a government lawyer working with a broad spectrum of programs, I have personal knowledge of welfare and Medicaid. Propaganda aside, here are true facts about those programs:
1) Even before Reaganism, welfare was chronically underfunded, and grants were less than bare subsistence and had to be supplemented with other help so people could survive. Being on welfare has never been a cushy gig or any fun, and people on welfare wanted to get off welfare as quickly as possible.
The image of the “welfare queen” perpetrated by rightwing propagandists was a falsehood. Most recipients were young mothers who were separated because of abandonment or abuse. On average, they received welfare for 14 months, then got into the workforce and never returned to the welfare rolls.
Medicaid cost the state far more money than cash grants, and is the single largest component of DSHS’s budget. There are two big components to Medicaid. The first is medical assistance for families on welfare, whose medical needs tend to be higher than the general population because they have very young children. The second is nursing home care for the indigent elderly. This is a big item. In Washington, and throughout the U.S., Medicaid pays about two-thirds of all nursing home costs. Basically, you can’t run a nursing home without Medicaid revenue, because only a couple percent of the U.S. elderly population have enough resources of their home to pay for more than a few months of nursing care. For people of average means, the best old age plan is to die quickly so you never need nursing care. Unfortunately, short of putting a gun to your own head, people don’t get to choose whether to die fast or lingering deaths.
Third, the idea that welfare is an entitlement came from 1960s-era court decisions that basically said states can’t arbitrarily deny or terminate welfare benefits. If you met the objective eligibility criteria they had to give it to you. This naturally encouraged the notion that welfare was a legal right for those who qualified, and of course, was seized on by advocates for the poor who tried to strengthen the idea that welfare is a legal entitlement as part of their political efforts to protect funding for welfare programs.
Unfortunately, this leads to confusion — and has a potential to harm true entitlement programs. Welfare is fundamentally different from social security and medicare. You qualify for the latter by working and paying taxes. It’s an entitlement because you’ve earned benefits by paying taxes into the system, and the benefits aren’t means-tested precisely because you’ve earned them and paid for them. Welfare, on the other hand, is government-run charity.
But it’s important to realize that welfare isn’t something we do purely out of the goodness of our hearts for our fellow citizens. There are many justifications for supporting welfare programs with tax dollars. First of all, we’re the richest country on earth and can afford to take care of our destitute citizens, and letting people starve to death in America (as they do in Africa and other poor regions) offends the sensibilities of most of us. Secondly, these programs primarily benefit vulnerable children and elderly people, and here again, our collective sensibilities motivate us to take care of these people. We’re also motivated by the idea that children should not suffer because of the sins or failures of their parents. Third, our capitalist system inevitably produces winners and losers, often unfairly, and insuring the minimum subsistence of those at the bottom of the economic heap tempers capitalism’s inherent harshness and unfairness, making it more acceptable to all of our citizens and therefore helping to sustain the capitalism system. Fourth, if government didn’t help the utterly destitute, they would have to survive by resorting to stealing from others, so welfare programs help to maintain social order and reduce crime.
Are there people who abuse the welfare system? Sure, but there are corporate crooks, too. The propensity to commit fraud exists among the super-wealthy as much as it does among the dirt-poor. (While a judge, I had the pleasure of a reunion with a gold-digging ex-girlfriend who became very rich by marrying a banker and then — while enjoying a millionaire lifestyle — got caught committing fraud against the state for what amounted to pin money. To say the least, she was embarrassed to meet me again under those circumstances; I tried to be as gracious about it as possible. Of course, I couldn’t handle her case; my fellow judges did.) Yeah, there are people who exploit the welfare system, but I would submit that corporate crooks do far more damage to society than welfare cheats do, simply because they’re much more powerful and take much more money.
Getting back to this idea of welfare as a gift … I think taking care of the poor, especially helpless children and elderly, is something the majority of us simply want to do. We also want that safety net there for our own families, in case they ever need it — you know, “There, but for the grace of God, go I and my loved ones.” What if you’re suddenly struck down by illness, or incapacitated by a drunk driver, who is going to take care of your family? Paying taxes for these programs is a form of insurance for our own loved ones.
For all these reasons, and more, I have a liberal attitude toward paying taxes to support the welfare component of a government-run safety net. Private charity is too underfunded, too uncertain, and too capricious to expect our fellow citizens to depend on it for survival. Welfare really isn’t so expensive that we can’t afford it, even counting the cost of food assistance, housing assistance, and Medicaid. We spend nearly a trillion dollars on militarism, far less on the well-being of our own citizens, so it’s awfully hard to argue that we’re spending too much on taking care of our own people.
@110 (continued) “This gets a little closer to my definition of welfare, which I define as any transfer payment made by virtue of some degree of poverty.”
As I’ve tried to point out above, welfare is more than just charity for our fellow citizens, it’s insurance for ourselves and from the pure capitalist’s point of view it’s a reasonable cost of doing business.
Chet Atkins plays Don Mclain’s Vincent (Starry, Starry Night).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wsePsTEgiqU
Enjoy.
@110 “The idea that “food assistance programs primarily exist to help farmers” is, with all due respect, sophistry. The purpose was and is to provide food to the needy.”
You’re ignoring both history and the realities of political power in D.C. Government help for farmers has been around for at least 100 years, partly because free markets for farm products historically have functioned poorly, and partly because farm products are a vital national interest. Over the years, the farm lobby grew very powerful, and enjoyed broad public support, and it was this lobby that pushed for food assistance programs. The poor had no lobby or political power, and couldn’t have gotten these programs for themselves. Our nation’s ability to produce food surpluses was the context in which the food commodity and food stamp programs were created, and their purpose was to expand the domestic market for farmers’ output in order to increase farm income. It’s hardly “sophistry” to point out the reality that food assistance programs for America’s poor owe their existence to the self-interest and political power of farmers.
If you are as stupid in real life as you act around here you are really in trouble.
@110 “This misstates taxes as a percentage of GDP, as I have pointed out here before, and have provided sources. Federal taxes have been fairly flat but state and local taxes have risen significantly over the past several decades and total taxes as a percentage of GDP has risen.”
But Congress isn’t talking about state and local taxes and spending. The debate in D.C. is about federal taxes and the federal budget.
@110 “This is counting chickens before they are hatched. I believe health care costs will continue to rise after Obamacare is fully implemented, time will tell.”
I believe they will, too, because Obamacare — by abandoning government-run single payer due to GOP opposition — failed to deal with the extreme inefficiencies of the private health insurance system.
Health care spending would rise in any case because the population is aging, and because medical care is getting more sophisticated — we’re now able to treat illnesses and conditions that in the past were untreatable and therefore untreated.
“It’s hardly “sophistry” to point out the reality that food assistance programs for America’s poor owe their existence to the self-interest and political power of farmers.”
I’m not sure what food the poor get today, but back when I was a kid on welfare we received “commodity” food. Whatever it was they called “beef” was in itself sufficient cause to get the fuck off welfare.
@110 “I won’t bother to quibble with the standard Dim rhetoric; the fact is the budget was balanced under Clinton because a Republican Congress restrained him, the fact is the last time a Democrat Congress passed a balanced budget it was under a Republican President, if you know of a time when a Democrat Congress and a Democrat President together produced a balanced budget you tell me, and I won’t hold my breath while waiting for you to do so, the fact is Obama and the Democrat Congress ran up the largest deficit in history. Dims are not in a position to lecture anyone else about fiscal responsibility.”
You know damn well that most of the $14 trillion debt was run up by Republican presidents, and not because Democrats in Congress held guns to their heads.
Any idiot can figure out that when Dubya doubled defense spending in 8 years, created a new trillion-dollar entitlement program without enacting any taxes to pay for it, and slashed tax revenues while growing federal spending three times as fast as his predecessor did, we were going to have deficits. Fully half — $7 trillion — of the $14 trillion debt was added under the Bush administration.
Am I saying Democrats are innocent? Hell no. Both parties do it. Why? Because voters want them to. Debt wasn’t invented by politicians. The growth of public debt was paralleled by growth of private debt in recent decades. Debt is a cultural phenomenon. Even as real incomes stagnated, Americans went on a spending binge. From the time he’s born, the average American has materialism and consumption drilled into him, and borrowing to finance it is encouraged and enabled by our commercial culture. So much so, that rabbits like me are odd ducks indeed — I’m an anti-consumer who practices extreme frugality, neither borrows nor lends, and uses his surplus income to accumulate shares of stock representing ownership of America’s industries.
A couple of academic researchers have produced an interesting book from the data they compiled. Their conclusions: Most Americans with millionaire lifestyles aren’t millionaires, and the majority of America’s millionaires live blue-collar lifestyles. More than half of America’s millionaires live in homes worth less than $300,000 and drive older cars. In other words, you don’t accumulate wealth by spending money, you accumulate wealth by being frugal and investing savings. This really shouldn’t surprise anyone; the math behind it is immutable — money you’ve spent is money you don’t have.
It’s important, also, to understand that most people are followers not leaders. They simply do what everyone else is doing. That’s why so many people got caught up in the debt-and-spending binge. The whole thing was a Ponzi scheme, and I saw this collapse coming back in the 1980s; I knew 25 years ago that it wasn’t sustainable.
Are you surprised that an American public which went on a borrow-and-spend bender elected politicians who promised low taxes and lots of public services at the same time?
As I like to tell my friends, Detroit figured out 100 years ago that the average American car buyer will gladly pay $2,500 for a $2,000 rebate. By commercializing America’s ingrained something-for-nothing mentality, you can turn it into a profit center, and clever marketing people did exactly that.
So if you want to blame somebody for the government debt, blame the whole fucking society and blame our collective mentality of getting something for nothing, because that’s how we got here.
I don’t agree, though, with those who assert “we’re all to blame.” Some of us are fault-free. I certainly didn’t contribute to the mortgage mess by paying off my mortgage. I didn’t contribute to the credit-card stone around American consumers’ necks by keeping my credit card balance at zero. I didn’t contribute to the government deficits and public debt by using tax havens and tax shelters to pay no taxes; I’ve been paying taxes all along. Plenty of people are to blame, but not everyone is, and I’m among the few who somehow remained financially sane while the world around me was going financially nuts.
@112 “Roger I would not bother with this chump any longer.”
While I share your frustration with conservatives’ incessant bullshitting, I think it’s a strategic mistake to let their talking points go unanswered. Liberals tried ignoring the Republican Noise Machine for a while, and paid dearly at the polls for letting them have the microphone all to themselves.
@113 I know attorneys who work in state child support offices, and I’m pretty familiar with this program. Here’s what I will say about it.
1. There really are “deadbeat dads” — a lot of them — if you define “deadbeat dad” as someone who has the ability to provide support for his children but won’t pay voluntarily and therefore has to be forced to pay. There are “deadbeat moms” too, although not nearly as many.
2. The child custody and visitation system does discriminate against males, but that’s not an excuse for refusing to support your children and throwing the cost of their support on taxpayers. These are two separate issues. Pay the support you owe, and work for reforms to the custody/visitation system, but support your kids. You brought your children into the world, and you’re morally and legally obligated to support them, no matter what.
3. I’ve met plenty of deadbeat dads who made the payments on their $50,000 pickup trucks but wouldn’t pay a dime of child support unless the government confiscated it from their paychecks.
4. In any given state child support office, about a third of the “customers” want to pay their child support and do so voluntarily, and about two-thirds won’t pay unless someone takes it from them. So, the noncompliance rate is rather high. In fact, the government child support enforcement system was created in the first place because the noncompliance rate was so high — the honor system simply didn’t work.
5. Even well-intentioned people are likely to stop paying child support after a couple of years. There are many reasons. Lack of visitation is a leading cause — once the dad isn’t seeing the kids anymore, it becomes much harder psychologically to keep mailing that big child support check every month. Sometimes denial of visitation is intentional, sometimes it results from one of the parents moving away from the area for job or other reasons. Another reason payment compliance drops off over time is because dad remarries and has a new family to support, and becomes resentful of depriving his new family of money going out the door for children he really or never sees. He’s also under pressure from a new wife to not spend their money on children that aren’t hers, at the expense of the children they have together. Another reason why well-intentioned people quit paying child support is because the mother remarries and the dad feels her new husband should take over the responsibility of supporting the children in their household. This attitude is understandable, but it’s not the law in Washington state.
Human nature being what it is, it’s much easier to not pay than to pay, even if your gut tells you paying is the right thing to do. A mandatory government enforcement system makes it easy and convenient to make your payments, and most importantly, assures the children of getting their support regularly.
The government’s interest in funding a child support enforcement system is that making parents support their children saves taxpayers money by keeping those kids off welfare.
correction @125: “Another reason payment compliance drops off over time is because dad remarries and has a new family to support, and becomes resentful of depriving his new family of the money going out the door for children he rarely or never sees.”
@122 “I’m not sure what food the poor get today”
The old “food stamp” program has undergone some transformations, but is still around in its present form to the tune over $100 billion a year. There’s also commodity programs and WIC (“Women, Infant, and Children”) which is a voucher program.
“WIC (”Women, Infant, and Children”)”
I’ve wondered what that stood for.
Oh that’s why he was able to comment this last May 24… And you blathered about it above.
What a dummy!
Anyway, I’ve exposed you for the fool you are:
http://hatrolls.blogspot.com/2.....idiot.html
Yawwn.. Translation: running away…
I think I can rightfully speak for all Right Thinking People in this country when I say that WIC can be safely cancelled. After all, that program is concerned only with women, infants and children. Now if fetuses were involved, that would be different…
@131 Fetuses are involved. WIC aims to help pregnant women. Republicans are only against aborting fetuses; they’re not against starving them.
@89
Poor rujax….so full of hate for others…this is a direct result of his own failure at life.
Poor loser.
Lol…no wonder ylbarrio supports illegal immigration…it all makes sense now.
and we now we have urbigot..
Don’t support illegal anything asshat – I oppose feckless psychotic dumbasses who fantasize about abusing people.
Nice try, but you have been exposed.
AWWWW…Emperor Max-minidik ain’t got nobody to push around today. I heard the wife was in the hospital again…better be careful! Don’t leave any marks.
136 – Any right wing moron here like Puddybud could have informed another right wing moron – YOU – of that fact about my ethnic heritage.
You obviously haven’t been listening.
Any ethnicity who has any self respect would disown your miserable ass.
I agree!
Half moron, half idiot!
All arschloch!
Man you are stupid.
Notice he won’t comment on how he claimed Marvin was in Torrence or Pasadena on a MAC!
Run arschloch run… oops that’s called diarrhea! Every day on HA!
LMBBAO!
Hey – I just proved you’re dumb as a brick..
See 129..
New knowledge to anyone as thick as you should be welcome.
@137
the only marks i leave are on her uterus…I keep denting that son of a bitch…
@138
i dont care about your heritage – I just could give a fuck….your still a spinless she-man loser who cant even run his own household.
143 – The bigot hates women to boot..
Wow.. Sure sucks to be you…
wrong again, I love women…just ask your old lady.
146 – Then why do you fantasize about leaving “marks” on a uterus? Causing “bleeding”???
YOU ARE ONE SICK excuse for a “man”..
@115. Roger Rabbit spews:
—————————-
This is probably the best post I have seen on the subject, and I won’t trivialize it with anecdotal quibbles; there will be time for that later.
@116. Roger Rabbit spews:
———————
The social insurance concept is reasonable in theory for issues such as poor health but when you extend the covered risk to poverty the secondary gain factor becomes corrosive and a drag on productivity and society at large in my view. This liberal v conservative split is probably not resolvable because in involves the relative value we place upon freedom of action v security.
@118. Roger Rabbit spews:
————————-
The history of the food stamp program goes back a little before my time so I’m not familiar with the early history. There was of course pressure to prevent foreign food from being included in the program, and it would increase demand for food, but I have a hard time believing that the prime motivation was helping farmers. I think it is a new, and rather poor, justification for food aid, as the argument that food aid helps the poor to have enough to eat has more mass appeal than the argument that farmers need more subsidies.
@120. Roger Rabbit spews:
But Congress isn’t talking about state and local taxes and spending. The debate in D.C. is about federal taxes and the federal budget.
——————————–
That may be what you meant, but you did not qualify it as federal taxes only, “given that taxes, as a percentage of GDP, are at historic lows;” the distinction is not a mere quibble.
@121. Roger Rabbit spews:
—————————
We agree on that at least, however you are vague about “failed to deal with the extreme inefficiencies of the private health insurance system.” As I have mentioned before, the major regulation, at least prior to Obamacare, came at the state level, and rates are significantly higher in Democrat states than Republican ones as I recall. What you term “extreme inefficiencies” come in large part from government regulation.
@123. Roger Rabbit spews:
You know damn well that most of the $14 trillion debt was run up by Republican presidents, and not because Democrats in Congress held guns to their heads.
——————-
You know damn well Republicans have spent more time in office than Democrats in recent decades, and that the Obama/Democrat Congress broke all records by miles.
So if you want to blame somebody for the government debt, blame the whole fucking society and blame our collective mentality of getting something for nothing, because that’s how we got here.
I don’t agree, though, with those who assert “we’re all to blame.” Some of us are fault-free. I certainly didn’t contribute to the mortgage mess by paying off my mortgage. I didn’t contribute to the credit-card stone around American consumers’ necks by keeping my credit card balance at zero. I didn’t contribute to the government deficits and public debt by using tax havens and tax shelters to pay no taxes; I’ve been paying taxes all along. Plenty of people are to blame, but not everyone is, and I’m among the few who somehow remained financially sane while the world around me was going financially nuts.
———————-
You argue both sides here. Society sets a poor example but we have a right to expect leaders to behave responsibly. That Bush and Repubs acted irresponsibly is no excuse for the Obama/Democrat Congress to behave even more irresponsibly.
Sure you don’t… Sure…
Next!
Yep, projecting much indeed!
“@12 (continued) If 85% of the voters in Jim McDermott’s district want him to represent them in Congress, who are you to say they can’t have Jim McDermott representing them in Congress?”
Because they turn into “elected” nobility who think they’re better than anyone else. I don’t care if they’re Dems or Reps, the effect is the same: elected nobility who need to be put in their proper place as just ordinary citizens like the rest of us.