I see yesterday that the constant lie about the Stimulus working or not working was prevalent here again. You guys on the right really need to find some new material. As released by CBPP yesterday we have yet another unbiased report that disproves the right wing lie that the Stimulus did not work.

http://www.cbpp.org/files/8-30-11stim.pdf

“Among ARRA’s most effective provisions for saving and creating jobs, according to CBO’s estimates, are direct purchases of goods and services by the federal government, transfer payments to states (such as extra Medicaid funding), and transfer payments to individuals (such as increased food stamp benefits and additional weeks of unemployment benefits). CBO’s estimates indicate that tax cuts are less effective job producers and tax cuts for higher-income people have very low bang for the buck”.

“CBO emphasizes that its estimate of 1.0 million to 2.9 million more people employed as of June addresses the limitations of using recipient reports to estimate ARRA’s impact on jobs. CBO’s estimate, which is based on data about how similar policies have affected output and employment in the past, is similar to those of other leading economic forecasters. For example”:

“Mark Zandi of Moody’s Economy.com, Macroeconomic Advisers, and IHS/Global Insight all estimate that ARRA added about 2.4 million jobs in the first quarter of 2011, according to a survey by the Council of Economic Advisers”.

Conclusion:

“CBO’s analysis finds that ARRA has significantly boosted both the number of people employed and the number of hours worked. Without ARRA, millions more workers would be either unemployed or struggling to get by on less income”.

Now there is a surprise (NOT) – tax cuts for the 2% has the lowest bang for the buck – the argument that the TP/GOP keeps touting is pure BULLSH!T.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/08/24/1003682/-Evaluating-the-stimulus:-Yes,-it-worked,-but-theres-more-to-thestory?via=blog_1

“The phrase "failed stimulus" has been a staple of Republican rhetoric since the fall of 2009. But it was wrong then and it’s wrong now, at least according to the people most qualified to judge it. As David Leonhardt wrote in the New York Times”: “Perhaps the best-known economic research firms are IHS Global Insight, Macroeconomic Advisers and Moody’s Economy.com. They all estimate that the bill has added 1.6 million to 1.8 million jobs so far and that its ultimate impact will be roughly 2.5 million jobs”.

“That was in February of 2010. Fifteen months later, in May of this year, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that, as of the most recent quarter, the Recovery Act had increased the number of people employed by between 1.2 million and 3.3 million and increased the number of full-time equivalent jobs by 1.6 million to 4.6 million compared with what would have occurred otherwise”.

“And just a month ago, the president's Council of Economic Advisers came up with similar estimates (2.4 to 3.6 million jobs) using its own forecasting models. You'll find a few critics on the right who dispute the reliability of these models, but they are a distinct minority and it's not as if they have a compelling alternative theory. Keep in mind, by the way, that the administration had predicted the Recovery Act would create 3.5 million jobs, which is on the high end but in the same ballpark as most other estimates”.

“For more evidence, Dylan Matthews reviews the "nine best studies" and concludes, "I'm inclined to believe that the preponderance of evidence indicates the stimulus worked."

Other Sources to read:

http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/2010-08-30-stimulus30_CV_N.htm

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/11/wait-did-the-stimulus-work/

http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=2910

People: The Stimulus program did work. Of the $800+ Billion (Not $1 Trillion like the righties keep posting) only about half went to the stimulus (job creation/saving) side of the ARRA Bill, again, NOT the $1 Trillion they claim the Stimulus Bill cost – it did not cost $1 Trillion Dollars. The rest (over 50%) went to tax cuts and other programs. When the righties on this board (we all know who they are) keep saying they stimulus was a failure they are lying through their teeth still.

Another popular lie this week is about jobs. President Obama is going to release his job bill next week. I appears he is going to be talking about Infrastructure Bill, keeping the Payroll Tax Cut and a few others were mentioned. We will know next week the details.

Now the trash rhetoric from the righties is smoke and mirrors. It must be remembered that the TP/GOP has blocked no less than 4 Job Creation Bills since January 2011. http://democrats.senate.gov/2011/06/21/reid-if-republicans-block-another-jobs-bill-it-will-be-clear-they-care-more-about-right-wing-ideology-than-creating-jobs/

They also blocked the $50 Billion Dollar Infrastructure Bill of last year that had 59 Yea votes. Again, the TP/GOP party has blocked more than 400 Bills in the Senate, many having a majority vote but not the 60 needed to avoid the filibuster which was at all time highs. The new norm when President Obama took office to get a bill passed in the Senate was 60 votes – period. And we wonder why nothing get done – How can it when you have an “Obstructionist” Party that will not compromise and vows to make the President a failure.

This one should get the lefty liberals panties all twisted up in knots!!!

Study: CEO pay tops tax bill

This report is just lefty liberal spin created by taking cherry-picked facts and presenting them out of context in order to arrive at the lefty liberal author’s preconceived conclusion. My favorite one is the “tax refunds” misdirection. The report considers tax refunds to be somehow wrong and sign something is inappropriate or illegal. Think about your own situation: You earn income and pay in either withholding or quarterly estimated taxes. On April 15 you file your 1040 and show that your withholding/estimated taxes exceed the amount you actually owe and, lo and behold, you get a tax refund. YOU ARE GETTING YOUR OWN MONEY BACK BECAUSE YOU PAID IN TOO MUCH!!! This is not inappropriate or illegal, is it? It works the same way for corporations.

Another important piece of info this report ignores is that the IRS has an army of tax auditors and tax lawyers constantly going through large company’s federal tax returns 52 weeks a year, year in and year out. Maybe the real problem this report should be looking into, if there is something inappropriate or illegal going on, is the possible incompetence of Barry’s IRS.

Study: CEO pay tops tax bill
By: Mackenzie Weinger
August 31, 2011 06:17 AM EDT

One-fourth of the highest-paid CEOs in the United States made more money last year than their companies paid in taxes, according to a report on Wednesday.

For the 25 CEOs whose earnings exceeded their company’s federal income tax, pay averaged $16.7 million, a study by the left-leaning think tank the Institute for Policy Studies founds. The report also revealed that many of the firms spent far more on lobbying than on taxes.

The report revealed eBay paid CEO John Donahoe $12.4 million — but reported a $131 million refund on its 2010 federal income taxes. And at General Electric, where CEO Jeff Immelt raked in $15.2 million, the company received a $3.3 billion refund and dropped $41.8 million on lobbying and political campaigns. And at Boeing, CEO Jim McNerney takes home $13.8 million, while the company paid $13 million in taxes and spent $20.8 million on lobbying in 2010

About 6 days ago the French super-rich asked for a 3% tax increase on income over $720,000:

In an open letter they wrote: "We, the presidents, leaders of industry, businesses....bankers and wealthy citizens would like the richest people to have to pay a 'special contribution'."

US "career politicians" and revenues: Ricky Perry supports a temporary tax holiday that would allow corporations to repatriate offshore funds at a zero percent tax rate, under the guise of job creation. Perry said that reducing the repatriation tax rate to nothing was "the easiest thing" to spur job creation. Bachmann agreed.

In 60 years, the effective federal tax rate has never been lower. Perry and Bachmann take the right wing approach that all propaganda is acceptable, no truth expected or required. Bernie Sanders said the "Very richest want more and they are prepared to dismantle the existing political and social order to get it".

Cantor is a perfect example of what is wrong in our Political System today. Yesterday he doubles down on his “Hostage” tactic of no FEMA aid unless the tens of Billions needed come from “Spending Cuts” elsewhere. 40+ dead, homes and businesses destroyed infrastructures in chaos (bridges, roadways, and sewer systems) and this repugnant clown wants to hold those American Citizens “Hostage” again. And here is the kicker – the “Spending Cuts” that Cantor wants come under Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, Non-Defense Discretionary Spending which includes cutting FEMA funds by 40%. And by the way, the TP/GOP has blocked the automatic emergency funding to FEMA already – So there are NO FEMA dollars to address the current wave of emergencies.

Also take note that the TP/GOP is also trying to take funding away from the first responders as well, people like fire fighters, utility workers, law enforcement etc.

I am telling you, these TP/GOP Party Neo-Nazi/Fascists do not hold any of the traditional American Values. They are “Americans in Name ONLY” and this is further proof on how far they have turned their backs on America.

Further evidence that TAX CUTS do NOT create JOBS!

WASHINGTON - Twenty-five of the100 highest paid U.S. CEOs earned more last year than their companies paid infederal income tax, a pay study said on Wednesday.

It also found many of thecompanies spent more on lobbying than they did on taxes.

He also asked"why CEO pay and corporate profits are skyrocketing while worker pay
stagnates and unemployment remains unacceptably high," and "the extent to which our tax code may be encouraging these growing disparities."

Compensation for the 25 CEOs with pay surpassing corporate taxes averaged $16.7 million,
according to the study, compared to a $10.8 million average for S&P 500 CEOs. Among the companies topping the IPS list

Read the whole tragic story @

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/31/ceo-taxes-company-income-study_n_943063.html

Before the right wing nut jobs start howling this morning about the SOURCE – it is a Rueter’s article re-published by HP!

Meanwhile, back in the REAL world, Eric Cantor is continuing to play his role of Chief Hostage Taker when it comes to natural disaster relief!

The Teapublican’s carry on their mission of balancing the budget off the backs of the
middle-class, disabled & working poor!

If we're lucky maybe we'll get 'trickled' on! ;o)

Note to all; In post 1 above, paragraphs 3-5 were to be in quotes and are attributable to the link immediately below paragraph 5. For some reason the quote tool didn't work and I didn't get an edit timer. Apologies to all on FR for any confusion.

Can you believe this?

We should be like 1900; we should be like 1940, 1950, 1960. I live on the Gulf Coast; we deal with hurricanes all the time. Galveston is in my district.
–Ron Paul

According to the NYT Hurricane Irene will most likely prove to be one of the 10 costliest catastrophes in the nation’s history, and analysts said that much of the damage might not be covered by insurance because it was caused not by winds but by flooding, which is excluded from many standard policies.

Americans anxiously waiting to face Irene that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) just wasn’t necessary.Yet Ron Paul is nostalgic for the 1900s and Eric Cantor is representing the rich and infamous.

Like I said before there is a lot of stupid out there.

John B:

Outstanding post today.

Things are not going to improve until people have some money in their pockets to spend. That means Jobs for the most part. Yes the payroll tax holiday and the UI will help but the bottom line is we need jobs and a lot of them.

We know the TP/GOP are not talking about Job Creation. They are consumed with tax cuts, spending cuts and repealing regulations. They think that is the way to job growth - the problem is that this model has not worked for the last 10+ years so why would it work now????

Perry may face a old political ghost from his tenure as Texas Agriculture commissioner -- a complimentary letter he wrote in 1993

Slick Rick's ghost of political present should be concerned about the book he wrote ONLY 9 months ago! lol

*** Romney shifts course:

Slow news day? lol

What else is NEW?

The dude flip-flops around like a fish out of water! ;o)

"And Romney suggested that the U.S. should be adding to its military might -- and spending for it -- rather than drawing down. "

Mittless needs to takes Robert Gates advice, and have his head examined.

I notice the sage of Albany didn't waste any time spinning the report on companies paying more to CEOs than they pay in taxes. It's really the fault of the IRS!!

I don't see any answers there on how increasing liquidity for big corporations creates demand...the source of our current slowdown.

John B, Des Moines, IA

Meanwhile, thanks to ALEC, Conservative legislators already have their marching orders. Mere citizens aren’t allowed to know, and those trying to find out will have it made clear that they are most unwelcome, http://www.truth-out.org/journalist-kicked-out-alec-conference-threatened-arrest/1312555820 but we can assume certain things.

John you did a good job. Just like I and others exposed The Kochtopulus; it's time to expose ALEC!!!

Note to all; In post 1 above, paragraphs 3-5 were to be in quotes and are attributable to the link immediately below paragraph 5. For some reason the quote tool didn't work and I didn't get an edit timer. Apologies to all on FR for any confusion.

John B Certainly, I hope the righties will take note. But as we know facts don't impress them.

"Retired colonel claims Cheney "was president for all practical purposes" in first term." From "Cheney fears war crimes trial"

This is what happens when you put dumb in charge.

The last last thing we need now is an even dummer duma$$ from TX

Backhouse:

Very nicely done this morning. Thanks for the info. Really puts it into perspective does it not?

"The last last thing we need now is an even dummer duma$$ from TX"

Joe Scarborough's caricature of Parry was a hoot!

By Ruth Marcus, Published: August 30
Opinion Writer Post Opinions

"Rick Perry is no George W. Bush.
Perry's 2010 Tea Party-steeped manifesto, "Fed Up!," makes George Bush look like George McGovern. Perry has said he wasn't planning to run for president when he wrote the book, and it shows:
●The Texas governor floats the notion of repealing the 16th Amendment, which authorized the federal income tax. Perry describes the amendment as "the great milestone on the road to serfdom" because it "was the birth of wealth redistribution in the United States."
Raise your hand if you believe, as Perry suggests, that it is wrong to ask the wealthiest to pay a greater share of their income than the poor.
●He lambastes the 17th Amendment, which instituted direct election of senators, as a misguided "blow to the ability of states to exert influence on the federal government" that "traded structural difficulties and some local corruption for a much larger and dangerous form of corruption."
Raise your hand if you'd like to give the power to elect senators back to your state legislature.
● Perry laments the New Deal as "the second big step" — the 16th and 17th amendments being the first — "in the march of socialism and . . . the key to releasing the remaining constraints on the national government's power to do whatever it wishes."
●He specifically targets Social Security for "violently tossing aside any respect for our founding principles of federalism and limited government," and asserts that "by any measure, Social Security is a failure."
Not by the measure of the dramatically reduced share of elderly living in poverty. Perry's description of Social Security as a "Ponzi scheme" was impolitic, but he has a legitimate point about the program's funding imbalance. The bigger problem is his fundamental hostility to the notion of a federal role in retirement security — or, more broadly, a federal role in much of anything beside national defense.
●As much as he dislikes the New Deal, Perry is even less happy about the Great Society, suggesting that programs such as Medicare are unconstitutional. "From housing to public television, from the environment to art, from education to medical care, from public transportation to food, and beyond, Washington took greater control of powers that were conspicuously missing from Article 1 of the Constitution," he writes.
Whoa! These are not mainstream Republican views — at least, not any Republican mainstream post-Goldwater and pre-Tea Party. Even Ronald Reagan, who had once criticized Social Security and Medicare, was backing away from those positions by the 1980 presidential campaign.
Reading "Fed Up!," I had a flashback to scouring the writings of Robert Bork after his 1987 Supreme Court nomination — except that Bork's most controversial writings were decades, not months, old.
Indeed, Perry's views on the role of judges may be the most alarming part of "Fed Up!," given a president's ability to shape the Supreme Court for decades to come. Perry writes about the current court with venomous disdain.
The court "adheres to the Constitution in appearance only and as a matter of necessity," he writes, "finding in it or in previous case law the single nugget around which the court can marginally justify its policy choice to keep up the pretense of actually caring one iota about the Constitution in the first place."
Disagreeing with liberal justices is one thing. Accusing them of not caring about the Constitution is like denouncing the opposing party as unpatriotic — and is equally out of bounds.
Perry's ideas range from wrongheaded to terrifying: requiring federal judges to stand for reappointment and reconfirmation; and letting Congress override the Supreme Court with a two-thirds vote in both houses. This "risks increased politicization of judicial decisions," Perry allows, "but also has the benefit of letting the people stop the court from unilaterally deciding policy."
Some benefit. Imagine what would have happened in the aftermath of Brown v. Board of Education if the Perry rule were in place.
"Not as often discussed, but equally interesting," Perry muses, "would be a 'clarifying' amendment" — for example, to stop the 14th Amendment from being "abused by the court to carry out whatever policy choices it wants to make in the form of judicial activism." How would Perry clarify such grand phrases as "due process" and "equal protection"? Perry doesn't say.
The subtitle of Perry's book is "Our Fight to Save America from Washington." Reading it summons the image of another, urgent fight: saving America from Rick Perry."

Navy:

Cantor is a perfect example of what is wrong in our Political System today. Yesterday he doubles down on his "Hostage" tactic of no FEMA aid unless the tens of Billions needed come from "Spending Cuts" elsewhere.

Last evening I was watching Hardball, hosted by Michael Smerconish, whom I usually think quite reasonable, and listening to Cliff May, whom I don't, while they struggled mightily to minimize the impact of Irene and to criticize President Obama for overreacting. They acted as if it was just another thunderstorm instead of, as estimates now put it, one of the top 10 natural disasters in this country's history in terms of cost, much of which is likely to be uninsured.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/31/us/31floods.html?_r=1&hp

Why on earth would they do such a thing? I wondered silently to myself. Didn't Katrina teach us that it always make sense to be overprepared for a disaster, rather than underprepared?

But then, thinking about this is the context of Eric Cantor's position, it finally hit me. The right wing wants to minimize Irene, which hit the largely blue east coast, so that it can make a persuasive case to its own base that federal help is not really necessary because it wasn't that much of a storm anyway. They plan to use Irene to whipsaw the liberal east coast into accepting cuts to Social Security and Medicare, to which they would never otherwise agree, in order to get the help they desperately need.

The cold, hard cynicism of all of this, in the face of a VERY human disaster, in which nearly 40 people have already died, and countless more have lost their homes and their livelihoods, completely astounds me. Trading Social Security benefits for disaster aid is perhaps THE most demonic out of so many demonic things I have heard come out of this Republican Congress.

It makes me literally sick.

ALEC Exposed!!!

Through the corporate-funded American Legislative Exchange Council, (ALEC)global corporations and state politicians vote behind closed doors to try to rewrite state laws that govern your rights. These so-called "model bills" reach into almost every area of American life and often directly benefit huge corporations. Through ALEC, corporations have "a VOICE and a VOTE" on specific changes to the law that are then proposed in your state. DO YOU?

• Worker and Consumer Rights
• Tort Reform and Injured Americans
• Privatizing Schools and Higher Ed Policy
• Health, Pharmaceuticals and Safety Net Programs
• Environment, Energy and Agriculture
• Democracy, Voter Rights and Federal Power
• Taxes and Budgets
• Guns, Prisons, Crime and Immigration

http://www.alecexposed.org/wiki/ALEC_Exposed

I'm so willing to bet ALEC is behind Arizona and Alabama's bigoted immigration law. I haven't don't the research yet. Will get back to you.

Hey Haggis, someone who doesn't know how to spell "dummer?" probably should refrain on someone else's intelligence.

All right lefty liberals, step right up to arm yourselves. Here is a link to an article that totally exposes the Republican propaganda/prevarication machine. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2011/08/05/economic-meltdown-villain-george-w-bush-s-staggering-debt-numbers.html?obref=obinsite

Within that article you will find another link to a very nice graph from the Boston Globe.

This information destroys any and ALL arguments that the right wing has even the tiniest clue on how to manage this economy. They have zero credibility. That said, please don't forget, facts mean nothing to right-wingers.

Please read the article. You will be amazed AND you will now be armed with facts that will destroy Republican lies.

John B, Des Moines, IA

Excellent

Rick Perry's "resume," mentioned in the article, is not exactly what it seems. He's fudged the numbers - on jobs in Texas, on the effects of his governance (the state is literally at the bottom of the barrel in education and health insurance coverage, for example), and his budgets (he diverted Federal stimulus money to balance his budget). Perry's close association with a very right wing fundamentalist religious organization whose goal is to grab power in the country looms as a matter of great contention. The latter, by the way, is probably not much of an issue opportunity for Romney, given his own exposure to some who feel Momonism is a cult.

It seems that this would be a very good time for some of those third-party advocacy groups to start spending money on ads about all these candidates on the right. It's time to begin defining them with realistic and accurate statements rather than the misinformation the candidates put out.

And ditto for their outrageous and false statements about everything from President Obama to how to "fix" the economy.

Yes we will know:

Same warmed over stuff, full of blame and sprinkled with excuses.

More short term government stimulus or "sugar" highs that end and nothing really changes.

Here we go again, Obama borrowing and printing money to buy a "clunker".

The Fed treating the symptoms with the cause in the White House, and the cure 16 months away.

The voters are catching on...

OK you cut and pasties, go for it!

Well said Anna Molly. The Hypocrisy of Cantor is already significant. When his district took storm damage in 2004 he was all about getting help from the feds, and no need for offsets. What's different? Democratic President, that's what.

Far-lefty loon tactic #24--Accuse Republican candidates of "fudging" their resumes.

David's chart is, indeed, highly instructive. Here is the direct link to the chart.

http://www.boston.com/news/politics/articles/2011/07/31/the_debt_crisis/

Thank you so much, David.

@ John B:

Thank you, John. The difference is the democratic President AND the fact that the disaster hit mostly blue states, giving him the "perfect storm" opportunity to use this crisis as leverage in order to extract the concessions he wants. Convincing the rest of the country that they're all just whiners in the east because the storm wasn't really that bad will make the job even easier.

Anna Molly -

What you described in your post is exactly the strategy exposed byThomas Frank and Naomi Klein in their books. And further, it is the fundamental strategy of the Tea Party in the House right now - make things so bad that they can justify their extremist agenda - or, as also has happened in the past, divert attention as they sneak things under the radar.

That's aleady in progress, in fact. During the debt ceiling debate, while everyone was looking the other way, some Tea Party House members silently introduced a bill to gut the EPA and some other agencies. That measure sits in committee, awaiting Congress' return.

This is actually an attempt at revolution.

White Collar Auto,

"doesn't know how to spell "dummer?"

I got learned in Texas.

Mittens is the world greatest flip flopper. Arrrrgh!! Romney is so milquetoast. Will the real Romney come out of the closest?

It seems you Libs were busy into the wee hours searching for your cut and pastes this morning. Got one from just about everyone.

Except Anna Molly, who has concocted some sort of fantasy in her mind that the Republicans are going after entitlements to fund FEMA. That's a bit of a stretch AM, even for you and "it literally makes you sick"? Golly, fantasies aren't suppose to make you sick.

And I see many have already jumped on AM's fantasy as fact, even citing someone's book.

You guys are really getting desperate.

Bev:

Nice job, kudos. What do you expect from a Political Party (TP/GOP) that has adopted most of the ideology from 1930/1940 Europe.

These guys have turned their backs on America and are not true Americans any longer. This rhetoric on Irene where they want to hold American Citizens "Hostage" again. How repugnant can one party get.

The only difference from 1930/1940 Europe is that we do not have concentration camps yet for people who oppose them. We do not have Ovens and Gas Chambers (YET) but they are taking away health care from the working people, low income families, women, etc. And yes people are going to die without proper health care regardless how the righties want to spin it.

In some cases the "Gas Chambers" will appear to be more humane that a slow painful death from ovarian cancer, heart problems, diabeties, etc. The TP/GOP on their quest to make sure only the wealthy will be able to afford Health Care are no better than those ideologies of past decades. Dead isDead, the method is moot and people if the TP/GOP has their way with Health Care - this is what is going to happen. Harsh analogy - yes but it is true none the less.

●He lambastes the 17th Amendment, which instituted direct election of senators, as a misguided “blow to the ability of states to exert influence on the federal government” that “traded structural difficulties and some local corruption for a much larger and dangerous form of corruption.”

I am not a Perry fan.. I find him to be a globalist AND not very conservative IMO.

That being said he is repeating a point well made by others.

The 17th amendment is more responsible for out of control lobbying and special interest control than anything else. Before the 17th amendment senators did not sit long and they reported DIRECTLY to their states. Today's Senators sit for life in many cases and owe allegiance to the highest bidder.

Think about this... if you want to influence the US government by lobbying say 20% of a legislative body, are you going to try and spend money lobbying 112 House Representatives or 20 Senators?

The senate is by far more corrupt and paid for by special interest. This is no more evident than the dozens of bills that can pass bi-partisan support in the house and die bi-partisan in the senate.

Take for example Ron Paul's "Audit the Fed Bill" that gained overwhelming support from both parties in the house but was quickly killed by both parties in the senate. The lobbying from the big banks and the FED Reserve was WELL documented in the Senate.

Our government was intended to be a balance of power between states and federal and the 17th amendment effectively disconnected the states from any direct say in federal law outside a constitutional convention.

So in short, yes... we would be FAR better off without the 17th amendment.

And lest I forget - kudos to John B., Beverly, Navy, Job1, Backhouse - truly good stuff this morning. I have to save a lot of those posts. Thanks so much not only for the research, but the thoughtful and well-stated analyses.

Republican Gas Chambers Navy?

The lefts desperation is simply palpable this mornig.

Far-Lefty Loon Tactic #31-- Plant mentally unstable posters on a liberal blog in the hopes of taking advantage of public sympathy for the handicapped. Such posters will claim that gas chambers and concentration camps are coming. Note: It's not clear why the Far Lefty Loons continue to use this tactic. It's often hilarious, incites ridicule from non-mentally ill people and generally confirms suspicions that the left is full of s**t.

Yeah kudos to the left wing loon circle jerk society who takes turns being the pivot man. LMAO.

Job1

Perry's description of Social Security as a "Ponzi scheme" was impolitic?

Job1,

Oh Hell NO it wasn't impolitic. GOV. BIG Hair Perry was sincere. He knew what was he doing. He wanted to rile up up all the anti-government old Republicans. In many of them including the idiots who watch FOX believe and agree with his Lies. SS is solvent.

Your most was excellent and informative in addition to the things the baggies need to know.

Keep up the good work.

David Walker:

Great post this week. You are on a roll - keep it up I have enjoyed every one of them.

Anna Molloy:

Right on target - Home run. I could not put it better.

Job1:

You are also on fire this week.

Great posts everybody and lots of facts to support them.

AM: we never finished our discussion yesterday. Would you care to continue it today?

I'm saying we need some NEW economic advisers, who think in terms of REAL stimulus, rather than those phony baloney guys like Summers and Geithner and that guy from Goldman that got us into this mess.

______________________________________________

And yet Barry just appointed a same old, same old, far left moron to head the CEA, virtually guaranteeing he will get the same old, same old, failed policy advice of more and bigger Keynesian deficit spending "stimulus". Sounds like you really believe America needs a new President, since this one keeps repeating his same old, same old, mistakes.

BTW, can you provide a detail or two as to what you consider "REAL stimulus"?? And also maybe explain why the greatest minds of the Barry admin seem to be so oblivious to it??

JOE re: Study: CEO pay tops tax bill

The article also cited TAX BENEFITS, entirely different from tax refunds. Can we all agree its time to end the games using the tax code. Tax reforms are needed ASAP.

The right wing nut jobs have run out of gas this morning! lol

They can't refute or dispute anything that has been posted this morning SO they've reverted to snark & name calling!

My, my, if that isn't a worn out winning strategy? lmao!

Mr. Rogers -

While I understand your point and also am concerned about the excessive influence of lobbyists and campaign cash on Senators, reverting to the election of Senators by state legislatures would be an even worse disaster - and party for the very reasons you raise.

Unbelievably, most state legislatures are even more under the influence of well-heeled power brokers than the national legislature. Florida's is practically owned by the public works contractors, the insurance industry, the telecommunications and agricultural interests, and a couple more. Florida is the least consumer-friendly state in the nation and has the most repressive landlord-tenant laws I've eever encountered. Turning the selection of the Senators from Florida back to the state lawmkers is an utterly horrible idea.

And of course, if we repealed the 17th amendment, then we'd also turn the selection of Senators over to private, secretive and unaccountable organizations such as ALEC, which now is dominating activities in a wide number of state legislatures.

That's what Perry and the other right wing extremists want, of course. And I am almost certain that if they got their wish, pretty soon election of the President and Vice President would revert to a vote by the Senate.

The right wing agenda is loaded from top to bottom with gimmicks aimed at seizing absolute power in this country and holding on forever. It really is a vast right-wing conspiracy, and deadly dangerous to the United States of America.

Damage123

Far-Lefty Loon Tactic #31-- Plant mentally unstable posters on a liberal blog in the hopes of taking advantage of public sympathy for the handicapped. Such posters will claim that gas chambers and concentration camps are coming. Note: It's not clear why the Far Lefty Loons continue to use this tactic. It's often hilarious, incites ridicule from non-mentally ill people and generally confirms suspicions that the left is full of s**t.

Guess what else is "infinitely telling"? Tea-Potty Wingnut, you return and return to this site.

STFU and take your blue pills!!!

Damage, Don't waste your time, just have a good laugh. Just read the desperation in their comments, all personal attacks. No facts. References to every liberal, socialist blog on the planet. You are on to the Navy fraud though. This President is a dismal failure and they know it. Put the real facts and figures out there and watch the blame and excuses in their response. Blame and excuses is the same response Obama has when he gives a speech along with dividing Americans. Now Obama wants to double down on his failed policies....got to love it.

OK Feisty, How about I refute this.

Navy:

In some cases the "Gas Chambers" will appear to be more humane that a slow painful death from ovarian cancer, heart problems, diabeties, etc. The TP/GOP on their quest to make sure only the wealthy will be able to afford Health Care are no better than those ideologies of past decades. Dead isDead, the method is moot and people if the TP/GOP has their way with Health Care - this is what is going to happen. Harsh analogy - yes but it is true none the less.

I, as a reasonable person, tend to believe that no one will be bringing back Gas Chambers to use for Ovarian Cancer Patients, but unfortunately I don't have any crystal ball into the future so maybe Navy does.

Or perhaps you would like to back up his claim either with

a) Facts

b) Your own explanation as to why we can plan on seeing Gas Chambers for cancer stricken patients if the Republicans get their way.

Go ahead, it ought to fun.

Joe in Albany, Yep twisted is the order of the day. My corp 60+ global employees has 5 full time IRS agents sitting in a war room a floor down for our CIO. Its amazing what they spend, they have a ops type situation with an entire wall of all 275 entities under our umbrella. They review EVERYTHING we do EVERY week! They require and un fetted Internet connection with their own security (my responsibility) which is why I have access to this room.

Bev and David Walker - also sincere thanks.

And Bev, you do such a good job of taking down righties here whose only tactic is to hoot like monkeys looking for the banana, bringing absolutely no content to the board. I have those folk mainly on ignore to avoid getting dragged off topic squabbling with them - damage being one I did that with after the very first day's encounter with the troll.

Hey, anyone here know how to report someone?

These "Why don't you STFU" comments are really getting out of hand.

How do the people of the Commonwealth of Virginia feel about their rogue Congressman Can'tor, and is the Governor at opposite ends of the debate with Can'tor?

Do the Teapublicans in Virginia still support Eric of Can't or do they want federal help to mend/fix their homes, businesses, infrastructure?

US Navy Disabled Veteran - Retired

CBO’s estimates indicate that tax cuts are less effective job producers and tax cuts for higher-income people have very low bang for the buck”.

Navy, Thank you Your first post was so great and informative. It truly defies the LIES and innuendos aboard the looney tune express.

@Joe in Albany

This one should get the lefty liberals panties all twisted up in knots!!!

Study: CEO pay tops tax bill

This report is just lefty liberal spin created by taking cherry-picked facts and presenting them out of context in order to arrive at the lefty liberal author’s preconceived conclusion. YOU ARE GETTING YOUR OWN MONEY BACK BECAUSE YOU PAID IN TOO MUCH!!! This is not inappropriate or illegal, is it? It works the same way for corporations.

@Anna Molly I really like that analogy of the Perfect Storm for us libbies. Joeey won't be in it though because he is on the baby monkey train to stupidity land

Joeey, Is this from your GOPolitico research? You what gets your britches in a twist? You excitement aboard the baby monkey train taking you to looney town with the Tea nuts.

Thanks for the fab posts. Navy,

On Cantor: Does he thinks families in out-of-the-way-places will sit and twiddle their thumbs while their houses flood & rivers rise, or maybe play Canasta while waiting for non-existent airlifts.....while GOP congressionals take six months to sanction Disaster Relief monies.

Seems like amassing greater and greater fortunes while folks burn/drown/go hungry/jobless is considered a win by Cantor and the $$Untraceables.

The further we get down the road from the Bush years, the worse that administration looks to me. Seeing Cheney in the news again brought it all back to me. What a psychopath. I can't believe there are voters out there who are willing to bring Bush back, in the form of Rick Perry. Only question is, what evil mastermind is pulling Perry's strings?

damage 123:

No, really! Take a good look at Perry's resume. This is the guy who is going to make the federal government "inconsequential". Right? Government is the problem not the solution. Right?

Well bub, the guy's a millionaire, and he's been suckin' it up from the government trough virtually his entire "working" career. I put "working" in quotation marks, because we all know government people don't work. Right? They're just sucking the government teat. Right?

Big government sure works for him, doesn't it?

The right wing agenda is loaded from top to bottom with gimmicks aimed at seizing absolute power in this country and holding on forever. It really is a vast right-wing conspiracy, and deadly dangerous to the United States of America.

Let's first quit the rhetoric garbage. People on the right will say the left wing wants to turn is into a communist government controlled slave nation. These are extremes and they are not held by the majority of citizens in either party.

Second, while you will ALWAYS have influence exercised in elected officials, consolidated the power into a lifetime central source is by ALL means guaranteed to equate to a more powerfully corrupted and dangerous individual. A corrupted Florida senator simply doesn't have enough influence over the entire senator and is not likely to overpower any interest from the other 49 states. To exercise influence in senators without the 17th amendment, the buying of such influence would be far more expensive and the campaign far more public than it is today.

Also let's be honest. For the most part, and I know there are exceptions, states are managed FAR BETTER than the Federal Government and I have access to my state legislatures whereas my federal ones are all but untouchable.

Take Obama's healthcare bill. What a disaster by all counts in that popular vote was against AND HALF of the states are suing the feds over it. I don't like our current health system and I don't like the new one coming. I know for 100% fact that America can sit down and come up with a plan that at least 80% of all will like if we quit the partisan grand standing for power and "reelection". A state elected US senate would NEVER pass bills that half of the states would feel the need to sue over.

At the end of the day, the biggest problem America has is ordinary American apathy.. people who don't care about politics and don't want to vote. I can't blame them with all of the rhetoric involved and the noise from Fox News (for the right) and MSNBC (for the left) and similar partisan commentators.

When I did down with friends on the left, and we have a REAL discussion, we can agree on about 90% of the problems and once we begin to talk it out, we can agree on many solutions together. This is the type of dialogue we need at a national level. We just don't get it.

And many people on this board slinging that partisan mud are part of the problem.

Right you are "fabricated" post it certainly was....

Mr. Rogers,

I appreciate engaging in dialogue with reasonable people of all types. Please note, however, that I stand by the conclusion I wrote - not in terms of describing you, but of the tactics, straegy, and objectives of the Tea Party - Libertarian wing that now unfortunately dominates not only the U.S. House, but also a great many state houses and legislatures. To end this part of the discussion allow me to refer you to the comprehensive studies done by Thomas Frank and Naomi Klein. I've posted the book titles several times here before but will again if you desire.

In respect to your comments about the accessibility of state lawmakers, I find them about so-so. Accessibility of Federal officeholders is a patchwork, I've experienced, with some in both House and Senate operating excellent D.C. and field constituent service programs, and others adopting a more aloof tone. That, probably, is accounted for more by the individual personalities of the lawmakers.

I believe that serious campaign finance reform is the real solution of the issues you raise. Legislation to set aside the effect of the Citizsens United Supreme Court decision, more serious restriction on campaign contributions by trade and business associations and the "think tanks" that front for them as well as major businesses (aka Americans for Tax Reform, the Heritage Foundation, the Club for Growth, the Cato Institute), limits on the total amount of money any individual can donate in a single election cycle, full disclosure of ALL donations and spending whether by a party, candidate or outside interest group, and more.

In fact, I'd be very supportive of reforming campaigns in general, and funding them entirely out of a special reserve of public money, eliminating all contributions and putting a sharp limit on related third-party spending (in this case, third-parties to include political parties, clubs, associations, and unions).

Overturning the 17th amendment to me remains a bad idea, and it doesn't in any sense go after the basic problem - the role of money in politics. As the famous Jesse "Big Daddy" Unruh said in the 1960's, "Money is the mother's milk of politics." And both of the authors mentioned above show in considerable detail just how money has definitely corrupted Federal politics and policies for the past 30 years.

I guess I am not sure what that Chart is supposed to mean? So they are stating Bush's deficit was 6 trillion based on what years? Since Obama has been in office with his third fiscal year ending September 30th, how are they interpreting deficit years? But lets say that we all agree with the way they measured spending deficits, if we take Obama's budget out to the end of his 4 year term with 4 full years of deficit spending based on his own forecast how does that compare to Bush's 8 years? What am I missing and why does anyone think that chart helps Obama? Now lets throw the chart away and stop pointing fingers at anyone and say what spending or deficit cutting proposals has Obama put forth? Economic growth? Even his own forecast with healthy economic growth in them which is probably at this point just fantasy show trillion dollar deficits for the foreseeable future. Why? Because he doesnt address out of control spending on entitlements and is scared to put forth a plan worrying about the 2012 election.

Navy, I think most of us accept the notion that the stimulus had a positive impact and probably kept things from getting even worse. But people dont accept the crazy Soros funded estimates of job creation. Under your theory, Scott Walker must be the greatest governor of all time because look at all the jobs he has already created for Wisconsin. His fiscal policies have already saved thousands of teachers from being laid off across the state. I assume you count that as job creation since the same studies you cite count them for the stimulus. The real issue on the stimulus isnt whether there was some positive benefit, it was at what aggregate cost per job. Since the money wasnt focused on infrastructure need but on pork projects for democratic congressmen or tax cut investment incentives, job creation was temporary and at a huge cost per job. The government would have been better off just handing each person in this country a check to spend how they saw fit than actually spending it in the manner it did.

John A:

That's aleady in progress, in fact. During the debt ceiling debate, while everyone was looking the other way, some Tea Party House members silently introduced a bill to gut the EPA and some other agencies. That measure sits in committee, awaiting Congress' return.

This is actually an attempt at revolution.

You're absolutely right, John. I read about this a while back in The New York Times -- how the Republicans are trying to gut the entire environmental regulation structure while no one is looking.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/28/science/earth/28enviro.html

With the nation’s attention diverted by the drama over the debt ceiling, Republicans in the House of Representatives are loading up an appropriations bill with 39 ways — and counting — to significantly curtail environmental regulation.

It's that old strategy that, if you throw enough stuff up at the ceiling, some of it will eventually stick. And they know that democrats -- who also accept contributions from corporatists -- are neither diligent enough, nor motivated enough, to stop all of these measures. Some WILL stick.

And maybe all of them. A frightening prospect from a bunch of folks who keep saying they worry about what kind of future we are leaving to our grandchildren.

No, they don't.

Judge Albany Joe:

And yet Barry just appointed a same old, same old, far left moron to head the CEA, virtually guaranteeing he will get the same old, same old, failed policy advice of more and bigger Keynesian deficit spending "stimulus". Sounds like you really believe America needs a new President, since this one keeps repeating his same old, same old, mistakes.

And your point? I'm not happy with the way things are going, Joe. That is no secret.

But the real problem isn't that we will get more Keynesian spending this time. It's that we DIDN'T get enough of it the last time. Only 1/3 of the original stimulus package was even designated for job creation, and a big part of that third was left discretionary with the states, which used it for a lot of things that didn't create jobs.

BTW, can you provide a detail or two as to what you consider "REAL stimulus"?? And also maybe explain why the greatest minds of the Barry admin seem to be so oblivious to it??

The reason the great minds of the "Barry admin" are oblivious to it is that they are primarily Friedman-style monetarists -- Summers, Geithner, and that guy from Goldman, as examples. Which is why Christina Romer got so upset. Don't blame ME because Obama has elected to surround himself with conservative thinkers at a time when conservative thinking is exactly the opposite of what we need.

And you will notice that his recent appointees have reflected an apparent acknowledgment that he was being pulled to hard to the right. Maybe we will see how this plays out in the next week or so.

REAL Keynesian spending puts the money directly into job creation, rather than into the hands of "job creators" who are in reality anything but. They just take the money and sit on it, as time has certainly proven out. Money that is actually allocated to creating jobs will circulate directly back into the economy, and ironically, the so-called "job creators" will ultimately benefit in any case. The jobs will create the demand, which will in turn, create more jobs, creating more demand, and so on and so on, and shooby dooby do ....

But you don't need me to explain this to you, Joe. You know, in your heart of hearts, that the way things are going is not working, and that the stimulus was not really Keynesian, or certainly not Keynesian enough.

By the way, I did see your posts yesterday, and you seemed hurt that I no longer called you "judge." I apologize. I actually stopped because I was afraid you would think I was mocking you. Mea culpa. That's easy enough to fix, your honor.

@David -- please post a link to Gov. Perry's income tax filing that shows him being a millionaire from government wages -- not book sales. Thanks. I imagine today's failed president will show that he has become a millionaire out of the blue too.

I see the righties are still floundering around in their own mess. They cannot dispute the truth so they continue to use the Karl Rove Play Book trying to deflect the truth even when many posts include the sources for all to read.

The TP/GOP agenda is going to hurt America and some people more than others. Women are losing their ability to get cancer screenings from PP and basic medical services, low income and middle class people will not be able to afford Health Care in the future and the best these repugnant creatures have to offer is more name calling.

Your party (TP/GOP) not longer supports American values, virtues, compassion or anything that made this country great. You are in effect the Anti-American Party

Anna Molly, excellent post. This is the same subject we wrote about at some length yesterday, too.

A substantial number of economists have been urging a bigger stimulus package now, and from the controlled leaks oozing between White House doorway cracks, it seems that may be what will come out. President Obama, by nature, is one who prefers concensus decisions, and frankly this is one time he needs to go big.

John A.-400474

I will agree either way campaign finance reform would help. I disagree with you on libertarianism being a problem. I find myself to be more libertarian leaning at the same time I do not believe corporations are people. In fact, corporations should not be able to give more than the average citizen and at the very minimum the $2500 minimum for citizens should apply to these "citizen" corporations.

That being said, corruption is not my only reason for repealing the 17th. It also was a fundamental breakage of how our federal and state government were to work together and essentially gave the Federal Governmentfull power over the states with regards to federal law while the founders intended states to have DIRECT say in federal law.

Anyhow, I appreciate the sound discussion as well and see... we CAN agree on one thing. Corporations are not people.... that's a start right.

I mean seriously, how stupid was that ruling... Can corporations Die or Go to Jail? Can they suffer the same consequences as REAL people? Of course not....

John A and Mr. Rogers...

Great conversation between you two this morning. I have enjoyed reading along! Mr. Rogers, I share a lot of what you mention as far as discussions with liberal friends of mine...when we sit down and get past rhetoric and talking points, we sure do have a lot in common.

Thanks!

TOAST ANYONE?

Another really interesting day here at the First Read mud-slinging semi-finals.

The left appears to be using well-informed, intelligent, and documented arguments while the right are reduced to name-calling, insults and juvenile attempts at crude humor.

I have never seen such a wide gap in the quality of the posts being offered in the 18 months I've been reading and posting on First Read. We usually see some of the usual suspects with their talking points well-organized and filled with pseudo-facts and Fox News stats (the same thing) but today they are just flailing away with nothing of any real or pseudo substance. A very interesting development.

I work in a legal office. No, I'm not a lawyer, I'm an investigator. IN the legal profession there is a popular saying: "When the facts are on your side, pound the facts. When the facts are against you, pound the table." Lots of table pounding from the right here this morning. Like I said, it looks more than a little desperate.

The topic of the day (for those who have forgotten) is Romney's shift in strategy and the possibility that Perry will be a flash in the political pan. I agree with the latter.

If you need further proof of that please take note of the story from Monday that our Senior Senator, Big Jim "What global warming?" Inhoffe has strongly endorsed Perry. Big Jim is to the US Senate what the Hindenburg was to aviation, only the Hindenburg was smarter. They have a lot in common. Big Jim is a pilot, which means that both he and the Hindenburg were and are flying gas-bags. Don't take his endorsement too seriously, and don't look for "his candidate" to make the cut.

I repeat, Perry will fall, fatally wounded by his own words, as will Bachman and all the rest. Romney will be the nominee but will fail to get the full support of his party because of his religion. President Obama will win in an historic landslide and happy days will be here again. Take it to the bank kids. If you don't believe me, just look at the desperation in the right-wing posts on this blog. They know they are toast.

American Held Hostage, day 243

Obama/Biden 2012

Tony C,

Post 1.45 was spot on.

Don't waste your time, just have a good laugh.

No kidding…lol

I've been reading these posts for quite some time but only recently started replying. I used to think you could log on and have some semblance of an adult conversation. Impossible.

Almost every thread starts immediately with insults, which garner only more insults.

Just have a blast with the liberals here. Like at a zoo, they're kinda fun to watch if you don't take this site seriously. For example Crusty, oops, I mean Feisty, I'm pretty sure that gal, if she really IS a girl, doesn't get outta her sweatpants all day. The very first to post almost daily? That could ONLY happen if your job is to record the latest episode of Maury. You know the 'ol saying "Misery loves company".

Then there's Bev "Resist We Much" Sharpton, THE most racist threader on here. I'm fairly certain her and the Reverend are secretly married. Her typing sounds like how Big Al talks. Although I should lighten up, I'm pretty sure it stems from her sorrow that she had to move from Cabrini-Green.

Navy, Navy, Navy, where to start?....or end? I'll bet in "real life" he's a swell guy but on here he acts as if there are two wires touching that shouldn't be; the sidewalk doesn't quite reach the front door; a few fries short of a Happy Meal; Couldn't pour water out of a boot with instructions on the heel; A few gunmen short of a posse… lol…well, you get my drift.

The only liberal I have found to have a decent convo with is Anna-Molly. She's pretty cool and hot as hell to boot.

Just have fun with them. I do.

Love, Mike

Kirk:

I guess I am not sure what that Chart is supposed to mean? So they are stating Bush's deficit was 6 trillion based on what years? Since Obama has been in office with his third fiscal year ending September 30th, how are they interpreting deficit years?

I thought you went to law school. Res ipsa loquitur.

By the way, the fiscal 2009 budget (October 2008 to September 2009) was mostly set by the Bush administration, which is responsible for a big piece of the deficit spending during that fiscal period that was already in place before President Obama took office.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_United_States_federal_budget

So far, the President is mostly responsible only for fiscal 2010 and 2011, with fiscal 2012 yet to be determined.

Now lets throw the chart away and stop pointing fingers at anyone

Isn't that what always happens when the person pointing fingers has fingers turned back on them?

I don't presume to speak for David, but I think that may have been his main point.

Under your theory, Scott Walker must be the greatest governor of all time because look at all the jobs he has already created for Wisconsin. His fiscal policies have already saved thousands of teachers from being laid off across the state.

Categorically false. There have been layoffs in just about every school district in this state, not to mention other public employees.

http://host.madison.com/ct/news/local/education/blog/article_4d0c0d30-cdd7-11e0-93dd-001cc4c03286.html

Anecdotal evidence, backed up by a recent survey The Capital Times sent to school superintendents across the state, shows that a majority of those who responded, from districts large and small, are now operating with considerably fewer teachers and other staff. Only a small percentage have increased staff, reduced class size — shown to improve student achievement — or added programs.

Wisconsin just lost 12,500 PRIVATE SECTOR jobs in July, alone. The averge number of jobs created over the past 3 months is 700. Our unemployment rate has climbed .3 percent in the past 2 months.

http://dwd.wisconsin.gov/dwd/newsreleases/2011/unemployment/110818_july_state.pdf

Or hadn't you heard? Pity that. It's so easy to jump to the wrong conclusions when you're working with false assumptions.

Romney ... the fact of the matter is "Career politicians (hand in hand with the corporate folks) got us into this mess".

And by the way Romney ... do you recall when you were sheltering money off shore for the same people who are getting big tax breaks at the present ... and you justified it because it was legal ... ethics be damned.

Which one of you are we to trust or beileve??? The one thing we do agree on ... your opponent is an Idiot!!!

Ditto to what "Grimey" said....

John A -- Campaign finance reforms that make me smile and hopeful.

AM -- Good argument you through back at the "Judge". ; )

A substantial number of economists have been urging a bigger stimulus package now, and from the controlled leaks oozing between White House doorway cracks, it seems that may be what will come out. President Obama, by nature, is one who prefers concensus decisions, and frankly this is one time he needs to go big.

I will have to completely disagree with you on this one John. Stimulus is a SHORT TERM trick. It will only temporarily boost GDP by a small amount and when the stimulus spending is gone, we will simply have nothing but more debt.

We must treat the disease... not the symptoms. Our economy is broken. We consume more than we produce. We import more than we export. In short, anyone who spends more than they make will one day have no money. This is the story of America.

Government stimulus and consumer spending are CONSUMPTION not production. Even government stimulus that results in temporary increase of production (i.e. building of war planes, bridges, ect) simply create temporary short term demand.

Mining, drilling, manufacturing... these things CREATE wealth. Wealth is not created in services or the printing of money. We must fix our "free trade" system to a "fair trade" and create an incentive environment for manufacturing here in the US.

We must then allow the liquidation of bad debt.

This would be a good long term job producing fix for America.

Government stimulus is a side show and an unproductive waste of time.

Of course Obama will NEVER rework our trade agreements because he is just as bought and paid for by special interest as 90% in DC are.

The ONLY candidate who is 100% immune to special interest or corporate influence is Ron Paul. He will have my vote.

An interesting seed posted a while ago shows just how far the right wing wants to go to destroy this country:

http://btco.newsvine.com/_news/2011/08/31/7536707-the-new-resentment-of-the-poor?threadId=3211705&commentId=57579765#c57579765

In a decade of frenzied tax-cutting for the rich, the Republican Party just happened to lower tax rates for the poor, as well. Now several of the party’s most prominent presidential candidates and lawmakers want to correct that oversight and raise taxes on the poor and the working class, while protecting the rich, of course.

These Republican leaders, who think nothing of widening tax loopholes for corporations and multimillion-dollar estates, are offended by the idea that people making less than $40,000 might benefit from the progressive tax code. They are infuriated by the earned income tax credit (the pride of Ronald Reagan), which has become the biggest and most effective antipoverty program by giving working families thousands of dollars a year in tax refunds. They scoff at continuing President Obama’s payroll tax cut, which is tilted toward low- and middle-income workers and expires in December.

John A: In fact, I'd be very supportive of reforming campaigns in general, and funding them entirely out of a special reserve of public money

I'm with you on this, John.

Didn't there used to be a line on the 1040 Tax Return Form for choosing to donate $1 to Presidential elections? Is it still there? This could be a workable solution.

Bev, Ron Paul's nostalgia for 1900 in his constituency and his call for no more FEMA:

The disaster that year cost 6,000+ human beings lives in the town of Galveston. Heard on Maddow show that folks were given whiskey to drink to take the edge off the pain - and not much else to help their recovery.

mmnord1969:

The only liberal I have found to have a decent convo with is Anna-Molly. She's pretty cool and hot as hell to boot.

Thank you for the best laugh I've had all day. Don't know exactly where you're going with this, but you're practically guaranteed not to get an argument from me.

And maybe that's exactly where you're going with this. ;-)

fielden:

Didn't there used to be a line on the 1040 Tax Return Form for choosing to donate $1 to Presidential elections? Is it still there? This could be a workable solution.

Yes, it's still there, although it's become such an exercise in futility that even I've stopped checking it.

The only way it's a "workable solution" is if they take away all other avenues of contributions. And with the current Supreme Court, you can already see how much chance that has of being upheld.

By the way, the fiscal 2009 budget (October 2008 to September 2009) was mostly set by the Bush administration, which is responsible for a big piece of the deficit spending during that fiscal period that was already in place before President Obama took office.

Would this be the budget that was appropriated by the 110th Congress where both houses were controlled by the Democratic party? So, to use your logic that the President is entirely responsible for deficit spending you accept that the current administration is soley responsible for the deficits from 2009 - 2013?

Or, are both parties just irresponsible spenders?

LOL Anna Molly - It's all good.

Six of one, half dozen of another,..... a Joke is still just a Joke

Mr. Rogers -

I have written several 'Vine columns on the debt, deficit,tax reform and the stimulus, and have seeded as well the observations of economists aboout the way to promote economic growth. Please consider clicking on my screen name to acess those pieces - while I occasionally copy one as appropriate and post here, that's not necessary for this exchange.

Your embrace of the Tea Party platform, meaning deregulation, tax cutting, privatization, and so-called "free markets" is in my opinion unfortunate. But that's your choice.

However, that method has been attempted not only in the U.S. for the past 30 years, but as well all around the globe. The results, as reported at length by Naomi Klein, have been disastrous. Check out her book, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. There are other writers as well whose separate works corroborate her study.

In fact, the Freidman school of economic and political policy is directly responsible for the terrible economic mess afflicting the world now.

In respect to the 17th Amendment, we could digress into a discussion of why some features of the original Constitution were constructed, and how over time a more direct form of democratic representation as well as direct election of the President and Vice President came about. I do know the history, but it can be tedious for the others here. I think Anna Molly, an attorney, may also have faster access than I to the detailed legislative history of the Amerndment if it is required.

Simply put, the writing of the Constitution in 1787 followed an abject failure of the Articles of Confederation, which contains concepts many on the right now would see reinstated. It also took place precisely 20 years before the first successful steamboat began commercial service. There are all manner of intersting quirks in the original Constitution that reflect the realities of how a nation, so spread out and thinly-populated in large regions, necessarily had to function.

Remember, prior to the coming of the steamboat, and over a following 20 years the development of steam locomotives and railroads, a great many people never traveled more than 10 miles from their place of birth across their entire lifetimes. The cultural, social, political and economic effects of mechanically-powered transportation over great distances was ineed life- and world-changing.

The original Constitution was really a quasi-parliamentary system. But strong sentiments of republicanism and other principles steered development of the government away from that foundation.

Anna Molly, thanks for the continued digs that you say you never do but I guess I should expect that at this point. Ok, I have no problem with that interpretation of the fiscal deficits but it doesnt change my fundamental question which was so what? Obama has two years left as you say and the first two averaged $1.4 trillion each. Additionally, if you use Obama's own deficit forecast, its over a trillion a year so his 4 year total is going to be close to the aggregate deficit of Bush's 8 years. Again I would say so what? What is he doing now which of course you failed to address.

As for Wisconsin, you are playing the same game that you accuse the conservatives of playing with Obama. I can only go by what I read in the WSJ but what you are failing to address are whether jobs were saved. All those layoffs according to the Wall Street Journal were already budgeted because of the fiscal crisis when Walker took office and that if you only look at the amount of budgetary savings directly attributable to his initiatives (primarily the ability to contract with competing health care providers to get a competitive bid which they say saved milwaukee $25 million just this year), there are a thousands of teacher jobs that were saved. So using the Obama stimulus logic where it was used to shore up state and local budgets across the country including $27 billion earmarked for education and teacher salaries, millions of jobs were saved even in the face of overall job loss.

You live there so you can I am sure give me all kinds of anecdotal evidence that differs which is why positions are so established and hostile in Wisconsin. Its easier here in Illinois because its pretty clear what caused us to have the worst state economy in the country. There is only one party in power and we all know what fiscal policies were adopted and why local communities are bankrupt due to the unfunded liabilities of local unions collectively bargained with democratic politicians that are in their back pocket. In illinois we already know what a high tax, high government regulatory environment will do to the economy and its fiscal health. We dont have to point fingers as the blame is easy.

Alan J:

Or, are both parties just irresponsible spenders?

OMG You TRAPPED me, Alan. LoLoL

Only problem is that I've never said anything else.

Republicans are generally the ones who refuse to accept ANY responsibility for their share of it. But Democrats who sat back and wink-winked at the raiding of the Social Security surplus to cover for Bush's unfunded prescription drug program, his unfunded tax cuts, and two off-the-books wars certainly bear their share of the blame.

@ Kirk:

I actually have you on ignore now, but against my better judgment, I took a peek. I won't make that mistake again. Same old, same old. Everything that doesn't agree with you is personally accusatory. Such thin skin you have, Kirk.

The rest I'll let pass, but I think you really might do well to read the information provided by actual Wisconsin school administrators and school board members, rather than whatever spin Rupert Murdoch and his gang are putting on it these days.

The REAL folks are not liking the Walker budget so much.

As for saving all those jobs, you might really be interested to know, and you would if you read the article, that a lot of "talent" was lost in the past few months, in the sense that a lot of experienced teachers decided they had had enough and resigned. That's the only reason why the layoff numbers aren't even higher than they are.

Just read the article, Kirk, and the DWD press release, and next time be more careful where you get your "facts."

Anna Molly, plus there never really was a social security surplus after the impact of the internet bust and 9/11 were factored in. Those surpluses estimated at the end of Clinton term were based on continued economic growth that was both unsustainable and didnt happen. That makes the Bush fiscal disaster first with the republican congress and then later Pelosi's even more indefensible. Both parties are clearly responsible for indefensible spending and both parties refuse to accept any responsibility for their share of it. But I guess were we fiscal conservatives differ is how we get ourselves back into fiscal sanity.

I KNEW there was something cool about ya Anna....You're a Cheesehead! Go figure, a liberal badger and a conservative gopher. LOL

Anna Molly, not sure why I have the thin skin when you question my intelligence and you ignore me because you dont like what you hear. Seems like strange logic. Everytime I am reasonable you throw back what you dont agree with me. You totally ignore things you cant address or are inconvienent truths for you but turn it around and somehow I am thin skinned. Actually wasnt bothered at all by your post and was surprised that you seem to struggle with mine. As for Wisconsin, I admit I really dont know what REAL people in Wisconsin are saying but the WSJ is actually a very good paper regardless of ownership. For my own benefit, since your response really didnt address my response, what in Walker's policies caused more layoffs than were already proposed? Are you saying his policies didnt really create any budgetary savings? Are you saying that if he hadnt allowed health care competitive bidding fewer jobs would have been lost? Are you saying he should have done something different to save those jobs? The only thing the WSJ said was that when he took office all of these layoffs were already in the budget and his policies have actually in the short term saved jobs in the same way the stimulus saved jobs. Not sure how your response was a response.

Of course you will let the rest pass, its the inconvienent truths of debate and discussion. You dont like what i say so I am thin skinned and when I agree with you, thats not enough and I need to come all the way over but when you disagree with me, your tough and not thin skinned because you push the ignore button. Again, I must have missed logic 101 somewhere.

However, that method has been attempted not only in the U.S. for the past 30 years, but as well all around the globe. The results, as reported at length by Naomi Klein, have been disastrous. Check out her book, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. There are other writers as well whose separate works corroborate her study.

That's just it John. What you, your author and people like Micheal Moore calls capitalism is not capitalism at all but a system of corporatism. We have not had REAL free markets at a large scale in America for nearly 100 years. Take the Federal Reserve for example... Even the cost of money itself is rigged. If the cost of money ix FIXED how can you say we have free markets?

Our government is controlled by 6 industries: Energy, Telecom, Healthcare, Military Industrial complex, Agriculture, and finance. Each of these industries are ran by a small hand full of mega-corporations who control government not just through financial contribution to legislatures, but the very regulatory bodies and bureaucracies created to "keep them fair". There is WELL document corruption and influence from the SEC, FDA, FTC, FCC, and right on down the list where the companies who are regulated have a revolving door of the very people who are supposed to police them that benefit from past or future "favors".

This system of corporatism exists in part due to the massive size and consolidated power of CENTRAL GOVERNMENT and CENTRAL ECONOMIC PLANNING.

In fact, looking clearly, it is FAR more realistic to say that Big Central Governments, combined with the disastrous Central Economic planning based on Keynesian economic theory has and is a CLEAR FAILURE in nearly every country these practices are implemented.

REAL Keynesian spending puts the money directly into job creation, rather than into the hands of "job creators" who are in reality anything but. They just take the money and sit on it, as time has certainly proven out. Money that is actually allocated to creating jobs will circulate directly back into the economy, and ironically, the so-called "job creators" will ultimately benefit in any case. The jobs will create the demand, which will in turn, create more jobs, creating more demand, and so on and so on, and shooby dooby do ....

______________________________________________________

AM: Sounds like you are advocating direct federal govt hiring of the unemployed like FDR's WPA??

Let's see if Barry's "new jobs plan" has that in it in a BIG way next week.

My bet is no.

BTW, my memory could be wrong, but I don't think Barry and his chosen economic advisors really had much to do with the 2009 Porkulus bill. Barry made the decision to let Nancy Pelosi and Congress write the bill and present it to him for signature. And, surprise, surprise, Congress loaded it up wth pork goodies, instead of job creating programs. If you want to blame anyone for the Porkulus failure, that decision would be the starting point.

AM: Sounds like you are advocating direct federal govt hiring of the unemployed like FDR's WPA??

Not necessarily, Joe. You can do WPA type projects with existing private sector contractors, and there are something like a million unemployed construction workers right now who could be pulled back into the workforce quickly.

Barry made the decision to let Nancy Pelosi and Congress write the bill and present it to him for signature. And, surprise, surprise, Congress loaded it up wth pork goodies, instead of job creating programs. If you want to blame anyone for the Porkulus failure, that decision would be the starting point.

My recollection of the creation of the final stimulus package is somewhat different from yours, but I highly suspect that 36 percent of it would NOT have gone to tax cuts had it been purely the project of that good ol' Communist broomstick driver, Nancy Pelosi.

As a matter of fact, the final bill shifted a lot of money away from the original House allocations toward the Senate allocations, which were driven in large part by Republicans ...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Recovery_and_Reinvestment_Act_of_2009

Senate Republicans forced a near unprecedented level of changes (near $150 billion) in the House bill which had more closely followed the Obama plan. The biggest losers were States (severely restricted Stabilization Fund) and the low income workers (reduced tax credit) with major gains for the elderly (largely left out of the Obama & House plans) and high income tax-payers.

(emphasis added)

While most economists favored SOME form of stimulus, some of the more liberal economists argued that the final bill did not go far enough to provide stimulus for consumer spending and provided too much in tax cuts.

Economists such as Martin Feldstein, Daron Acemoğlu, National Economic Council director Larry Summers, and Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences winners Joseph Stiglitz^[52] and Paul Krugman^[53] favored large economic stimulus to counter the economic downturn. While in favor of a stimulus package, Feldstein expressed concern over the act as written, saying it needed revision to address consumer spending and unemployment more directly.^[54] Just after the bill was enacted, Krugman wrote that the stimulus was too small to deal with the problem, adding, "And it’s widely believed that political considerations led to a plan that was weaker and contains more tax cuts than it should have — that Mr. Obama compromised in advance in the hope of gaining broad bipartisan support

(emphasis added)

Now, just where do you suppose the President got the advice that he should sign the weaker compromise bill with more tax cuts in it?

He didn't get it from Nancy Pelosi, that's for sure.

The only jobs program that can work is taxing less, regulating less, and capping spending so confidence can return and corporations will unleash the trillions of dollars they are holding in reserve, just waiting to invest when the economy stabalizes.

Ron Paul predicted this collapse, as did every other free market economist...yet not one is in the Obama administration advising them. Hence why his economics continue to do the exact wrong things and fail. Blame politics if you like, but it's not admitting their BS theories on economics (Keynesianism) have been a failure.

Keynesians are the geocentrists of our time, and like heliocentrists the free market economists are ridiculed and ignored. Try going with the people that saw it coming...we might just know wtf we're talking about.

But I doubt you will. The Republicans will keep trying to marginalize Ron Paul like the liberals THEY are, and the Dems will continue to chase their tail (and tale) in a flawed tautology.

We are the dog whistle only the intelligent can hear.

Mr. Rogers -

Now I see where you're coming from - the Ayn Rand-influenced "Austrian" school of economics. Sometimes its eferred to as the "anarchy school of economics."

Well, first of all, this country largely had exactly what you describe during most of the 1800's. In fact, there was not a single, national currency until the 1890's, when at last significant banking laws put an end to the flood of local banknotes issued almost without oversight by state-chartered banks. (The various currencies were frequently fraudulent, ultimately, and in some cases the banks that issued them crashed, bringing on serious recessions with considerable frequency.)

What was America like under the system you advocate?

First, the country was far more agricultural. Rural life was hard, too, as isolation, little or no medical care, limited education (often paid for by families that chipped in for a schoolmaster or 'marm of little better than a high school education), and exposure to financial manipulation by distant markets laid immense stress on farmers and their families. While exports of considerable agricultural produce and some processed products made the brokers and shippers rich, the farmers did not. For so many, as Thomas Hobbes said of his imagined "state of nature" in Leviathan, life was "nasty, poor, brutish and short."

And it was not entirely different in the cities, either. Poverty was extreme and widespread. The working classes were absolutely the working poor. There was better access to education, but many a youngster only attended a few years of school before having to help keep the family afloat. My maternal grandfather left school at age 10 after his father died, and never went back.

Prostitution and petty crime kept many a person afloat. There's a compelling, fictional but lifted from the actual events, places and people of the times, portait of New York in your version of America, in the 1999 book, Dreamland, by Kevin Baker. It is an entertaining read. There's a far more gruesome portrait in Jacob Riis' collection of photographs, in How the Other Half Lives.

To further learn about the America you advocate, look up two of Jane Addams' books - Twenty Years at Hull House, and Democracy and Social Ethics. For those who don't know who she was, Jane Addams founded Hull House in Chicago, where women and children found shelter, food was collected for the poor and hungry, and where she began a lifelong career devoted to improving the lot of all Americans. She was the first American woman to receive the Nobel Prize - for Peace, in 1931.

In the America of Addams' time, political corruption was inevitable, and would be in yours, as well. In that America, the markets were absolutely not "self-regulating." Instead there was a relentless drive toward monpoly. And it was inevitable that employers free from the interference of government brutually exploited their workforces. The inequality of incomes exceeded - and would exceed - even that of today's America.

Disease was a constant terror, despite the rapidly-advancing science of medicine. It was for that reason that Metropolitan Life Insurance Company, trying to extend lives of its policyholders, founded the Visiting Nurse program, and mounted a public health information campaign that included placards on the stages of theaters: PLEASE DON'T SPIT ON THE SIDEWALK. They were battling the epidemic of tuberculosis.

In that America, and again in yours, the phony medications, cure-all ointments, and outright medical quackery flooded the unregulated markets. I work with nautical archaeologists who some years ago excavated a ship that sank in the mid-1800's. Among the goods recovered were thousands on thousands of bottles for those nostrums - one of which was a dental cream promoted to mothers to soothe their babies' teething pains. It was almost wholly made of heroin.

Well, I could continue the recitation. The point is that we've been there, done that, and learned some difficult lessons about the way a society and government should operate.

It is a fallacy to say that economies operate independently, and that an "anarchic" economy of the kind Adam Smith wrote will work in its perfection without affecting the politcy. I agree that over the past 30 years, much of the operation of the U.S. political economy has been that of a corporatist state, but it was also the theory of the Friedman school that left to regulate itself, business would be selkf-correcting. It most absolutely was not, nor has it ever been, nor will it ever be thus.

And it is a fallacy that the U.S. now is a planned economy, or that Keynesian policies have been tried and failed. There has actually never been a comprehensive effort, anywhere, to apply Keynesian economics - merely some rather modest attempts at it. The great advance in economics and government realized during President Franklin Roosevelt's terms, and afterward, is that government and the conomy are co-dependent, that for the nation to prosper, its people must prosper and take part in not only forming the elements of an economy but also in its benefits. Economic anarchy is founded on precisely the opposite principle, as articulated by Ayn Rand.

And it is a fallacy that the U.S. now is a planned economy, or that Keynesian policies have been tried and failed.

LOL. Hi modern-day geocentrist.

BTW, if you read Ayn Rand (I'm not an Objectivist, but I do read) you'd know she was a small government statist, not an anarchist. Also, you'd know anarchism doesn't mean chaos, disorder, violence, or lawlessness.

But keep believing your programming from State schools and their PC'd up dictionaries. Don't bother to read any anarchists, and don't bother to find out it actually means voluntary organization, spontaneous order, non-violence, and law without rulers. Nah, just keep talking about things you don't understand AT ALL...like anarchism, economics, and philosophy.

LOL. But thx for the laughs though.

ProIndividual -

Using another typical Karl Rove tactic - belittle the other side, use ridcule and scorn, and for heck's sake, don't deal with the substance. Actually, Alan Greenspan, who was greatly influenced by Rand, as was Friedman, used to quote a line of hers about eliminating the concept of altruism. And it was that particular reference I had in mind.

As for anarchism, you clearly do not understand the reference to the Austrian school, which had great influence on Rand and on Friedman. As for your comments about anarchism in general, go educate yourself - Barbara Tuchman's superb history is also a good read: The Proud Tower.

As for the rest of your dimissive drivel you are clearly an entirely ignorant person - and are extending that ignorance to your assumptions about me personally. And you KNOW nothing.

Enjoy your solitude, little creature. I have more useful things to do when I write here than pay any fiurther attention to your efforts to change the topic.

Fantastic work today John A, a huge amount of information there for anyone who doesn't just throw it aside because it doesn't fit his/her preconceived notions.

Speaking of that, this comment by another poster caught my attention;

Government stimulus and consumer spending are CONSUMPTION not production. Even government stimulus that results in temporary increase of production (i.e. building of war planes, bridges, ect) simply create temporary short term demand.

That's EXACTLY the point. The private economy is not at this time not able to come close to fully utilizing available capacity. That's when the government can provide a positive impact by temporarily increasing consumption. Doing so increases overall activity in the economy, pulling the rest of the economy up until it gets some momentum in the private sector.

John A, so your Alinsky method of personal attacks to make the other person seem somewhat less credible and less intelligent is your playbook? Give it a rest and when you can provide reasonable, credible intellectual debate without ridicule and personal attacks maybe someone besides the 15 progressives in here will listen. Do you ever wonder why the rest of the world laughs at collegiate academics as having no ability to live in the real world? Take off your radically shaded glasses and acutally critically think as you might learn something besides from a book.

I will give you a little lesson. My old boss was a Harvard grad with Chicago MBA and he became boss with zero experience other than being an investment banker for 20 years. He had no real life experience managing anything people or businesses. He clearly thought he was the smartest guy in the room at every meeting. When he started he bought every book possible on managing and guess how he fared? Thats you--telling us everything you learned from some failed book of radicals and leftist economic theory with no real life experience on economic behavior.

A lot of great posts from John's A & B, Navy, David Walker, Feisty, AM, Bev...

All that's left to say is Romney changes his position like some change their underwear--especially those who have regular sh!t hemorrhages around here (and others who just go into a fetal position when confronted for their rude and vile bile).

I've read Ayn Rand too, and not only did she fail to practice what she preached, she glorified the robber barons while never mentioning the child labor or cholera or disparity between rich and poor only seen again today. Plutocracy and democracy do not mix.

John B, that is a failed approach that hasnt worked in the past and certainly hasnt worked in the states that have tried. Have you not noticed California, Illinois and NY with the highest tax, highest government spending and they dont seem to be creating any economic uptick? I am not against government stimulus but lets focus on creating some permanent incentives to invest and make it easier for businesses to get created, start and expand. Unemployment benefits, payroll tax holidays put some money but no real money in peoples hands to expand the economy. No one is going to invest and buy a home because they got a temporary payroll tax holiday.

JohnB, thanks. Your posts have been rich material, too, and I've found it important to save them and a number of others as well.

It appears the President is going to go big, by delivering his proposals on the floor of Congress. It's a bold move, but risky, too.

By making the move, President Obama is defining the campaign: jobs, and the duty of Congress to act on effective measures. He puts himself in complete contrast with the Republicans in the House, essentially taking a leaf from Harry Truman's 1948 campaign, when he ran against a "do-nothing Congress."

And he's also setting up the foundation for a national Democratic Party effort to re-take the House and Senate.

This is a brilliant counterstroke on another level. After the nation observes the President delivering his proposals, it will see the reactions of the Republican field, which will surely go on an all-out attack. The president has thus formed the terms of the debate amongst them, in sharp contrast to his proposals - and has set the nation on a course that is basically a referendum on the plans.

Ran out of time -- In his early writing, Adam Smith also wrote that capitalism only works with charity and ethics.

Great post, IR. All the evidence points toward building up our infrastructure, creating jobs in the process. Republicans, meanwhile, would rather reduce government employment (and have done so all around the country) making our problem worse rather than better.

IR,

Good one. The CEO's are running wild and the Republican-Tea Potty want to leave business alone to create jobs. What a laugh.

@IR -- Since you do well in cutting & pasting what you want, why don't you go back and paste the important parts of the story that you dropped on the floor in the editing room? Doesn't fit your agenda huh? What about pointing out that the MSNBC story (which went to get length to explain who it was owned by) failed to include the GE chairman's salary. It also failed to include that all of this is happening under the Obama administration who vowed to crack down on corporations and Wall Street. What an empty suit!!! You also failed to point out (left out on purpose) the fact that the average salary for the S&P 500 companies CEOs is over $10 million.

This is not a story about Republicans. It is a story on the failed leadership and the failed promises of the Obama administration.

Nope Ben ...It is the Story of how the Tax Code has failed us no matter who was in Charge and about how the Obama Administration is trying to change it in spite of overwhelming opposition from Republican/T.P Yahoo's. Nice try though.

IR:

Another home run. The system is broken and the TP/GOP knows it since they broke it - but of course deny it.

We need jobs not more rhetoric and "Hostage" taking. This is going to blow up in the face of all America if we are not careful.

BEN

I agree Mr. Obama promised one year ago when he came back from vacation he would have a jobs plan for us. Where the hell is it? Obama, Boehner, Reid, Pelosi have left us high(over 9%) and dry.

Bush and Obama have spent us into a hole that we may NEVER get out. But most of you are worried about which party to blame. Wake UP this is not a party issue. This is very poor voting on our part. DO some real research and vote with your heads not your party. THINK FOR A CHANGE.

BEN -- It's the Congress who legislate this mess that has been in place for decades. GE, Verizon, Ebay etc. have tax lawyers to help them take advantage of all legal options that Congress legislates via what lobbyists or "think tanks" dictate.

Come sit in the IRS war room at my corp, See the issue is none of you have any visibility (real eyes) on issues. Its all just what you read on a blog!

There is a much larger story that I fear most folks are missing. These enormous salaries are going to the white collar and wingtip crowd - the denizens of the executive suites and boardrooms. The fact is those guys are gutting the very corporations that pay them these huge sums of money. Indeed, they are insulated from the people who actually make a company profitable.

Consider Dave Packard and Bill Hewlett. These two guys began in a garage with a massive capitalization of $537. That's all - that was the seed money for Hewlett-Packard. Like so many successful businesses, their first successes came courtesy of the federal government. Later however, we saw the Hewlett-Packard name in our doctors' offices and in hospitals. Eventually, we had the H-P name in our home on the best printers on the market. Hewlett-Packard became an icon of American ingenuity and entrepreneurial excellence. We were introduced to the "H-P Way", a management model that recognized the importance of their employees.

Then along came the white collar crowd, creators of bureaucracy, crushers of ingenuity and creativity - led by Carly Fiorina. Down with the H-P Way - up with the Cult of Carly. She spun off the medical end and created Agilent - a disaster. She bought off the board and executives at Compaq in her quest to become the largest computer maker in the world - another disaster. Finally, in a moment of sanity, the grossly inept H-P Board of Directors got rid of this idiot woman and gave her a payout that dwarfed the lifetime earnings of its founders - Dave Packard and Bill Hewlett.

Following her dismissal and reverting to form, H-P's Board of Directors instituted a unique management style that included illegally spying on employees. Not a very good idea. So, the Board once again showed its collective brilliance and hired Mark Hurd - another white collar who further drove H-P into the ground.

In spite Hurd's public displays of stupidity, Larry Ellison of Oracle hires Hurd, another testament to the brilliance of private enterprise. Even crazier, John McCain brings Carly Fiorina aboard his presidential campaign for her economic savvy. Not enough? Fiorina goes on to become the G.O.P.'s candidate for Senator in California.

Didn't we just see a banking meltdown that was driven by the greed and outright incompetence of the white shirt and wingtip wonders? Didn't we see massive failures in board rooms across the nation. Yet, the right wing continues to tell us about the excellence of private enterprise. There are countless stories about the INCOMPETENCE of private enterprise.

Wake up, dammit. WE bailed those idiots out. As workers, WE are the ones who make success in private enterprise possible, not the blowhards in the executive suites. Why do we stand by and allow those parasites to buy Congressmen ignore us because we can't afford to pay to play?

Facing reality is not wrong. This is about class warfare - there's no two ways about it. Those at the top are waging war on the working class. Consider this fact....There's way more of us than there is of them. Why do we let this theft of our labor and the destruction of our country continue?

Ah...but Jolly wouldn't you rather have a simpler tax code instead?

Sure.....I think that everyone should pay taxes. EVERYONE! people and corp's I want every person and company in the US to have real skin in the game. Not just sales tax on items.

Since January of this year alone, the TP/GOP has blocked at least 4 bills that would have created jobs. Last year they blocked the Infrastructure Bill.

People, President Obama is the only one trying to move this country forward. The TP/GOP has blocked virtually everything and now is trying to blame President Obama FOR THEIR "Obstructionism". Right out of the Roviean Doctrine.

We do not have Jobs, because the TP/GOP does not want us to have jobs. They want high unemployment and a stalled economy - PERIOD. Our President has put Job Bills out there and the TP/GOP keeps blocking them.

You righties are just lying through your false teeth again and again. You are the people that are blocking Job Bills not President Obama - "Liars Liars - Pants on Fire"

Just watch, there is not going to be a real Jobs Bill from the right - we will see some smoke and mirrors but no real Jobs Bill. Nothing that will create much needed Jobs NOW.

This is a stupid article because tax refunds have nothing to do with actual net taxes paid. Someone mentioned that the real issue is the size of the CEO compensation which is tied directly to the tax change in 1996 under Clinton that disallowed tax deductions for cash compensation over $1 million. Performance based pay was deductible all this under the social engineering policies at the time which wanted CEOs to get paid based on thier performance including stock price. So instead of cash, CEOs get the vast majority of thier compensation in the form of stock options. Those numbers cited above as compensation for those people are based on an estimate of what their stock options will be worth, not what they are actually paid. They may or may not receive that compensation depending on the performance of their stock.

Another fallacy that John B, put in his original post is that corporations are sitting on a pile of cash unwilling to invest. Much of that cash is overseas and corporations cant bring it back to the US without being taxed in essence twice or at rates higher than the country's tax rate they earned the profits. If they did so, many of these companies couldnt compete in those foreign countries and would have to shut down operations and that would be a job killer which is why they are talking about the amnesty. Second, if you tie investment with how CEOs get paid above, none of those guys want to be sitting on cash earning 1% in Treasuries. That does nothing for their stock price and there own compensation. Its far better for them to invest in their business or expand and earn profit margins that are expected for the business so the stock values will go up. You guys act like they are intentionally not investing.

Finally, another point to against Navy is that extending unemployment or the payroll tax holiday does absolutely nothing of benefit to the economy. Obama's new economic czar has even written papers just like Larry Summers that shows the correlation between the length of unemployment benefits and the length of time for people to get a new job. The statistical correlation he had was 1 to 1 which means that as long as people are getting paid to not work they wont. Wonder if he is going to have to change his mind like Summers now that he works for Obama. Second, all evidence shows that the current payroll tax holiday has done zero to job growth--because its temporary. Temporary holidays put some money in people's pockets but they are proven to create temporary short term spending blips just like Bush's refundable tax credits. If Obama was serious he would create permanent tax incentives to invest and offsetting these benefits with new costs like the new health insurance mandates, EPA regs etc.

This is so fundamentally flawed as to be border line criminal.

Yet Republican/T.P folks think that these folks need protecting.

Let’s straighten out the tax code before we do so much harm to the 98% of us that we will never recover.

What exactly is your point IR? Are you saying that companies shouldn't exploit the tax code? If so, why is the President proposing a tax rebate for hiring? If company hires 10 people and claims this proposed rebate would that make them border line criminals? Do you understand exactly how GE avoids paying taxes on profits? Do you think they are buying 50% of the Volt production because its economically beneficial $42,000 cars or is there a tax incentive that lowers their costs? What about all the write-offs for "green" projects?

Do you ever think through what you post?

If the left would quit worrying about who has money and how can we steal it from them, we could begin to solve some problems and quit treating symptoms. But I guess the progressive way is easier. It is always easier to steal what you want rather than figuring out how to get it legally (like the corporations and CEO's did).

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and many economists have previously found that in a weak economy, Unemployment Insurance and refundable tax credits, such as the Child Tax Credit and the Earned Income Tax Credit, provide much more of a boost to economic activity and job creation compared to tax cuts aimed at high-income individuals. That’s because those who are hard-pressed by the ailing economy are more likely to spend any income received. According to the Moody’s Analytics model, every dollar spent on Unemployment Insurance generates $1.60 of additional economic activity, the Child Tax Credit generates $1.38, and the Earned Income Tax Credit generates $1.24................http://www.minnesotabuildingtrades.org/news/unemployment-insurance-tax-credits-working-families-boost-economy-much-more-high-income-tax-cut

Jolly-- Not a fan of VAT either, just another layer of BS.

.

OK, gang, this morning's posts are so extreme that I have to comment:

@ David Walker - For every HP and Carly Fiona there are countless small companies like mine whose white shirt and wingtip wonders (like me) loose a lot of nights sleep figuring out how we are going to keep our struggling businesses alive and save the jobs of our employees. Many of us even dare to dream of growing and creating jobs. To make the blanket statement like "As workers, WE are the ones who make success in private enterprise possible, not the blowhards in the executive suites" and "This is about class warfare - there's no two ways about it" are utterly infuriating. A successful enterprise requires both competent workers and executives/ managers and this is true for all sizes of business. Neither can thrive without the other. It is easy for the guy in the coveralls to resent the higher salary of the guy in the tie, but the guy in the coveralls has no idea the weight of responsibility borne by his necktie-wearing associate.

I refuse to accept high-publicity unethical actions of a few companies to be indicative of the American business as a whole. I know way too many people just like me who taken pay cuts and/or haven't seen a raise in years so that we can avoid laying off even one employee.

@US Navy Disabled Veteran -Retired - I appreciate the passion you carry for your cause and enjoy reading your posts. They give me a perspective I would never otherwise have gained, regardless of whether I agree or not. But I soundly reject any comparisons between present day U.S. and 1930's Europe. There is no comparison in a historical context between post WW1 Europe and 2000s United States. We can not imagine the conditions that led to the rise of pre-WW2 Fascist governments. I have in my collection a German one million mark note from that time period. There is writing all over it, my grandmother told me it was a shopping list - that was all the note was worth.

Mark in SoCal:

How in hell do you think I understand how poorly businesses can be run? I made my living running my own business. Are you just looking for an excuse to show your BS outrage? I described the success of Dave Packard and Bill Hewlett, and I described how Carly Fiorina destroyed their work in a few short years. There's two polar extremes as examples.

Mountains of statistics show that far more businesses fail than succeed. It's not a few businesses that fail. It's the majority, and please spare me the nonsense about a few unethical business people. There's no shortage of those.

You're infuriated? How dense can you be? You are a worker AND a manager. Once upon a time so were Dave Packard and Bill Hewlett. You don't really imagine that a white shirt and wingtip guy knows what callouses are, do you? You don't really think they know what it means to go home bone-weary tired, do you? Nope, they manipulate numbers. They set targets for workers even though they have no clue about the work processes.

You say the worker cannot truly grasp the headaches of guy who wears the necktie. Well, of course not. Workers are stupid. The guy who wears the necktie. Well that little decoration makes him smart, right? That's a two-way street Mark. The guy in the necktie came after the guy with the blue collar. He has no clue how things get done in the pits.

True story. A Verizon executive addresses his insipid flock of workers. We have to lower our customer interface time, he tells them. Our average time with customers is in excess of 300 seconds, he tells them. (More than five whole minutes. Bunch of damn slackers.) The solution, he tells them, is to put a cap on the time they can spend with customers at 280 seconds.

A very nervy employee who clearly does not know his place tells the brilliant executive that this is equivalent to saying we need to put 16 ounces in a 14 ounce can. The executive's brilliant answer, "I know." That's it Mark. They demand the impossible. They push their employees beyond reasonable limits and then reward themselves for driving them into the ground.

I've re-read my post and I can't see why you'd be offended. If the shoe doesn't fit, don't wear it.

Corporate tax is paid by consumers at the price of sale...we should have a flat corporate tax rate, 0%. It only makes us all poorer by making our products cost more...not mention driving jobs overseas.

@ USNDVR -

"Since January of this year alone, the TP/GOP has blocked at least 4 bills that would have created jobs. Last year they blocked the Infrastructure Bill."

How did they accomplish that last year? Dems had a majority in the House and Senate.

David,

I am painfully aware more business fail than succeed. These failures are attributable to multiple factors, unethical practices being only one of them. But that was not my point.

Like many in management I came up through the ranks. I was an grunt airplane mechanic and line pilot long before I put on a tie and am no stranger to calluses and punishing hours. My story is typical and the best managers and white-collar guys (and gals) take what we learned in the pits and apply our experience and knowledge to the bigger picture. If anything the workload increases and I think if you were to interview many white-collar folk you would find dedicated upper-level management in a 24-7 job. Mine certainly is. And if I don't do it well, people loose their jobs. Unacceptable.

Workers are most definitely not stupid and if I made that inference in my post then that is poor writing on my part. Many worker's positions and experience level just do not allow then to see the bigger picture and consequently are unaware of what their manager's responsibilities consist of. This does not make them stupid or any less valuable contributors to the organization at large.

David, the exception (not offense) I took to your statements were in their general disparagement of upper management. I reiterate - both workers and management need each other for a business to be healthy and successful. Call me naive but I believe white-collar personnel to whom you refer are not the majority, but really only the ones that get the bulk of the publicity. And if I am wrong, then there is a whole lot of change that needs to take place not in the political area but in the workplace itself.

Mark, your experience is mine and I didnt interpret your email the way David did. In fact, you said what I have tied to say many times but not as articulate as you. My parents owned a small retail store as I grew up in a small midwestern town. I worked at the store and they eventually expanded to 3 that they have know at semi retirement. One of my sisters runs them now. I saw first hand the struggles, employment practices, economic decision making that goes into making a small business work including working 14 hour days 7 days a week. I am fortunate now to be one of those hated white collar guys that the main posters on this site hate. You are not going to get any sympathy or agreement from them on your views (although David Walker is one of the more reasonable debaters) as they will never believe you could possibly understand the plight of their definition of a real person or the common man. Every issue is set forth or illustrated in the extreme always using the bad apple the extreme case to make the point they want to make. They dont seem to understand their own logic in that its no different than making the conclusion that since more black men are in prison, black people must be criminals. GE doesnt pay taxes so all corporations are evil. A CEO made $15 million so all CEOs are greedy bastards. One self avowed republican is against gay marriage so all people who vote for a GOP candidate are horrible people. But of course they slough off the distorted wild examples from the left as nonsense or not comparable. The other part you will find is that for the most part the feeling from the progressives in this room is that success you have from working so hard is no longer something to be proud of. Somehow you didnt achieve that via merit, hard work, ambition and through your own personal goals but through an unfair advantage. Most on here want to punish you for your success, feel you dont pay enough taxes especially in california, dont you already have enough, level the playing field by eliminating personal accountability for the choices you make in life. Your going to find that thread of views over and over and over.

Ah, but the Carly Fiorina's of the world don't live in the world of small business to which you refer. They're free agents who ride at will from one company to another, being paid for short term gains at the expense of long term stability and profitability.

Equating these big company CEOs with the proprietors of your neighborhood hardware store is incorrect. The world of Wall Street doesn't care if they run a hardware store. They don't care what they run. They don't care if they CLOSE whatever they run as long as they put some profit into their own pockets in the process. Then they ride of to the next operation and repeat the process.

That's not constructive, quite the opposite in fact. These people are DESTROYING the American economy and the American middle class a little at a time. They spend vast amounts of money lobbying the government to make it even easier for them to destroy the American economy.

It's wrong. It's time to bring it to an end.

John B, thats just not true. So you think McDonalds that employs hundreds of thousands of people and must continue to grow and invest in order to not be left behind in a very competitive market acts only for the personal benefit of the CEO? I am not going to defend CEO salaries but the vast majority of their compensation is in the form of stock options that are only valuable if the stock price goes up. They must grow profits and not just in the form of expense cutting but real revenue growth with requires expansion and investment. You want to put all corporate executives in a stereotyped bucket that you read or hear some embellished story in the news. You cant equate the bad apple across the board. Get the chip off your shoulder these people are not destroying the middle class or the american economy, they are the american economy in which most of us work and rely on. I can name a dozen other Chicago area companies that are not evil and employ great employees and the executives are hard working, talented and not the evil guys you read in Navy's think progress reports. Why do you think Obama relies so much on Buffet, Gates, the Pritzker family etc?

Mark:

So there I was, playing in the dirt, and I didn't get to your post until this moment. I see that John B. has perfectly expressed the larger point I was trying to make. The managers of what I lump into what I call Megabuck Monstrocorp are surprisingly stupid for the positions they hold. As we see on a rather routine basis, they are also tone-deaf. (I'd rather be sailing.) If Carly Fiorina had died in her office, the corporation would have continued to run. She was hardly as important as she thought.

A dead CEO could have run GM or Chrysler into the ground even better than the living CEO's who did the same thing. The living ones needed more time and charged big bucks for their destructive work. Dead people are more honest. They don't do a damned thing AND they don't take down huge salaries for doing nothing, or in even worse cases, try to destroy the world. Lockheed, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, B of A, Penn Central - where does this list stop?

In another life, I had occasion to meet quite a number of high-powered types. Most were quite unimpressive. Many are outright stupid, but they play the game. The Good Old Boy system is alive and well. You might want to take a look at a book from a while back called The Rich and the Super Rich by Ferdinand Lundberg. Nothing has changed since it was written some 40-years ago. Indeed, this has been going on since time immemorial. But I digress.

Some of the sharpest people I have met run small businesses; honest-to-goodness small businesses, that employ a few folks and don't generate sales in the hundreds of millions of dollars. They are decent, hard-working folk. They are what makes America run, not these bobble-headed idiots in board rooms who are busy scratching each other's backs.

That's small business and those guys are the ones I want to see succeed. I hope that shoe fits you.

Lastly, there IS a whole lot that needs to change in the workplace - and there is no doubt that workers must be a part of that change. The unmistakable decline of America tells us that.

David,

Playing in the dirt is an absolutely acceptable excuse for a delayed response!! Given the choice between dirt and a keyboard I'll take dirt any day. Thanks for taking the time to respond.

I think were you and I diverge is our views of Mr. Big and Megacorp. I believe the leaders of large corporations (and the corporations themselves) need to be evaluated on an individual basis rather than lumped into a group. There are some really good ones and really awful ones. And a whole bunch of 'em that just do an average job. It is unfortunate the rotten apples receive the most press.

My line of work affords me the chance to meet and interact with a wide variety of Mr. Bigs. I have been impressed by the work ethic many of these people exhibit. A lot of them own jets simply because there is no way the airlines could possibly keep up with their schedules.

Business principles and ethics apply across the board regardless of the size of the company. As a company grows it becomes harder and harder to maintain ethics and principle, and easier to hide transgressions. But that doesn't mean all big corporations and the people that lead them are bad.

The small-business shoe fits. To stagnate is to die, however, we can't stay small forever and hope to prosper. That takes effort from both workers and management.

It's particularly odd given that he and his family have had ties to all the Republican administrations of the last 50 years. It will be interesting to hear how he talks about wages and American manufacturing....

Far-lefty loon Tactic #13-- Accuse the Republican candidate of talking "nonsense."

Far-lefty Loon Tactic #18-- Imply that "ties to all the Republican administrations of the last 50 years" is a negative characteristic.

What part of "we have had a free market since America was founded" " do Republicans not get? Are there people who really believe this nonsense?

We don't have much of a free market. Take money for instance and the Federal Reserve which essentially fixes the cost of money to whatever it wants for whatever reason it wants.

America is controlled by 6 industries: Agriculture, energy, telecoms, finance, military industrial complex, and healthcare. In all of these cases, mega-corporations excerpt powerful influence on government via lobbying AS WELL AS control of the bureaucratic regulatory agencies that are supposed to police them, but instead make up a revolving door of "regulators" who in past or future benefit from "favors".

These regulations keep the big guys in power and prevent any new competition. This is not free markets. This is not capitalism... this is corporatism and it is what we have in the USA.

This is not a partisan problem but is in fact Bi-partisan in nature.

When Americans can quit buying into the two party rhetoric garbage from Fox News and MSNBC we might be able to fix things.

Finally, there is NO presidential candidate including the president himself that speaks to the problems of corporatism EXCEPT Ron Paul.

I didn't say it was a negative characteristic. What I do say and can repeat in plainer English for you is that: A PERSON WHO HAS BEEN PART OF ADMINISTRATIONS GOING BACK 30 YEARS OR SO, AND WHOSE FAMILY ASSOCIATIONS TO REPUBLICAN ADMINISTRATIONS (from Nixon on) GO BACK FARTHER, SHOULD NOT COMPLAIN THAT "GOVERNMENT" HAS FAILED TO ADOPT POLICIES FOR THE 21st CENTURY. Even more so, the Huntsman Corporation has been doing a rip-roaring business for itself. It is absolute nonsense that a candidate for President with those credentials tries to complain about government's role in American manufacturing.

Amy B. Portland, ME

When was Huntsman born? How many Republican Presidents, Congresses have there been since then? Yet he wants to blame government for the drop in American manufacturing? What part of "we have had a free market since America was founded" " do Republicans not get? Are there people who really believe this nonsense?

This does not reflect a decline in American ingenuity or work ethic; it reflects our government's failure to adapt to the realities of the 21st century economy.

Amy B

good points

It also reflects just how out of the ordinary Huntsman will go to curry votes. I have a question for huntsman. Why did he serve his government; more importantly President Obama who in my opinion has been one of the progressive since LBJ despite the opposition and smears. LBJ got civil rights and even then he couldn't it all at once. So the firebaggers need to cool it.

@Beverly -- Huntsman has answered that several, several times -- but you know that don't you. When one is a social progressive, it's hard to swallow a "patriotic" answer isn't it?

Hunstamn, Perry, Romney, Bachmann are all liberals...of course they think they can direct the economy. They aren't free market capitalists, they're just liberals from another Party.

No offense to REAL liberals...but they don't support Obama or hate free market capitalism necessarily either. So, if you're a true follower of liberalism, you shouldn't be all that offended, as you aren't a statist like most of the "liberals" of both Parties today.

Actually all the Republican candidates are liberal Republicans, except Ron Paul...as they aren't free market capitalists except for him...hence why he predicted the collapse of the economy while they ignorantly laughed at him. He's also made millions in gold for over 30 years by betting his predictions.

Ron Paul 2012.

How will still more tax cuts and a reduction in people working for government help an economy suffering from critical lack of demand?

How will raising taxes which will lead to less investing and a lowering of workforce help an economy from a critical lack of demand?

Does this country really have to have a real financial crisis for you to understand what all this debt will ultimately result in down the road. Do you really believe we can keep printing and borrowing money with zero consequences?

Listen to the American People and Raise Revenues.

That's not an answer. We're in a demand-based slowdown with our biggest risk falling into long-term stagnation.

How does giving more money to people who aren't spending what they already have going to fix that?

Far-Lefty Loon Tactic #22-- Accuse people who work for a living of not spending enough of their money.

One more time -- How does giving more money to corporations swimming in liquidity create demand?

How will still more tax cuts and a reduction in people working for government help an economy suffering from critical lack of demand?

This is a false argument. The problem in the USA is that our economy depends TOO MUCH on INTERNAL ORGANIC SPENDING because we IMPORT FAR MORE than we EXPORT. This means we INHERENTLY send the wealth of America AWAY to other nations... mostly China.

There is MUCH demand in the world if we FIX our trade agreements and demand BALANCED and FAIR trade. We could then at the same time focus on favorable manufacturing tax and regulatory reform to MAKE THINGS in the USA and SELL THEM to the world.

A CONSUMING economy is DOOMED to one day go broke when ALL of the money is SPENT. REAL WEALTH is not created in a printing press or by service industry.... but is PRODUCED in mining, drilling, and manufacturing of goods.

This is not hard people.

Quit being partisan hacks. Cutting taxes alone NOR RAISING THEM will fix ANYTHING long term. Government stimulus is only temporary and again will not PRODUCE anything. Once it is spent it requires more stimulus. We need to address the ROOT of the disease and not the symptoms.

You liberals have this "give" mentality. Thats the problem. You really believe the money is the governments in the first place. Wow.

We're in a demand-based slowdown

Standard leftist claptrap used to justify spending even more dollars we don't have. There is a demand component to the problem, but the driving force holding back the economy is on a supply side where cash hoarding businesses have been deterred from investing, expanding and creating jobs because of nonstop talk from this administration about higher taxes; more national debt; more costly, job killing regulations; strident us vs. them class warfare rhetoric; threatened government shutdowns of private plant; and a vision of higher priced eneregy for all.

Until our intrepid Economist-in-Chief understands how his policies have actually retarded economic growth, then the economy will continue its path of sub-trend growth as far as the eye can see.

@Job1

Listen to the American People and Raise Revenues.

OK If this is true that the American People want to Raise Revenues then the President should ask for voluntary contributions to the IRS from the American People. In fact instead of sending $5 or $10 to a political campaign he should ask that they instead send it directly to the IRS.

As they said this morning, if Warren Buffet is so upset that he pays 15% of a bogus number in tax, he can simply write a check for 35% of his true annual income and send it to the IRS.

Alan NJ

Warren Buffet doesn't want to be alone in paying more taxes, Alan. Even though he is the wealthiest individual in America, increasing his taxes won't do much good, unless the other 500 wealthiest pay more as well. And many of those people are not as patriotic as Buffet is.

@JohnB -- It doesn't. That's the answer. But it does give the corporation more opportunities for investment and profits. This in turn provides better companies for Middle Americans and seniors to have in their 401ks, IRAs, etc. to provide a more secure retirement future. Consistent dividends that can also be reinvested or used as income.

Demand comes by making the products Made in America more competitive. Throwing more costs at corporations will not do that -- in fact doesn't even have the possibility of doing that -- while reducing costs to corporations does at least give the companies the ability to produce lower priced goods to induce demand, thus creating more jobs and so on.

Right now corporations are making more money than they were just a few years ago with less people. So with demand low, companies are making more with less and do not have to hire. People can complain all they want but that won't change reality. You can cry morality to the High Heavens but you won't change a thing. But if crying and thinking you are squeezing more from corporations makes you feel good go ahead. Just remember -- Corporations do not pay taxes. Taxes are a cost of doing business passed on to the ultimate consumer. How does that increase demand?

@Amy -- has anyone ever asked them? Why can't Buffet be the first to submit a check? Doesn't every little bit help? Buffet just made a huge profit on BoA so why doesn't he just give that to the IRS?

Roger -- Agreed on imports vs. exports and fair trade.

Bill--- Putting people back to work will increase revenue thus lowering the deficit. You feel government should not "stimulate" this through a jobs bill. What do you think will stimulate business to hire?

Warren Buffet doesn't want to be alone in paying more taxes, Alan. Even though he is the wealthiest individual in America, increasing his taxes won't do much good, unless the other 500 wealthiest pay more as well. And many of those people are not as patriotic as Buffet is.

Buffet is a hypocrite. He admits he would rather give the money to Charity to avoid the taxes AND because the charities are more efficient at helping people.

You could roll back the Bush tax cuts next year and you would still run a nearly 1 TRILLION deficit for that year. Also, it is IMPOSSIBLE to raise enough taxes for the medicare/SS shortfalls quickly approaching.

Obviously taxes are not the main problem... but our spending is. WE should end our trillion/year foreign policy and use that money to tie us over until we can create REAL jobs through manufacturing.

But no one running for president except Ron Paul is honest on these issues.

Amy B. Portland, ME

Alan NJ

Warren Buffet doesn't want to be alone in paying more taxes, Alan. Even though he is the wealthiest individual in America, increasing his taxes won't do much good, unless the other 500 wealthiest pay more as well. And many of those people are not as patriotic as Buffet is.

According to Job1 it's the American People that want this so Warren Buffet would not be alone. Also, according Nancy Pelosi he has enough money already and cannot justify the accumulation of more wealth.

Bill--- Putting people back to work will increase revenue thus lowering the deficit. You feel government should not "stimulate" this through a jobs bill. What do you think will stimulate business to hire?

Increased demand through international exports. Stimulus is artificial short term demand and it's no longer working because the export of cash and boom cycles built on debt simply cannot continue without a massive correction and liquidation of the debt. Even still, I prefer an economy that isn't built on the dependence of maxing out personal and national credit cards but instead savings and investment while selling to the international community.

Mr. Rogers -- Unless we have stronger patent laws other countries will just continue to "duplicate" our products without repercussions. Leverage is the key here. But who's paying attention anyway right? If we do not come down hard on those doing it we will lose the market entirely. It is a complicated mess I know little about. The key to growth overseas it seems would be quality and strong patents. Of course that's an expensive protection our government provides. (Pending a overhaul that is.) Government can be a partner.

Putting people back to work will increase revenue thus lowering the deficit

You're ignoring the cost of the government spending required to "create" the jobs that would ultimately increase tax revenue. Do you have any reason to believe that government would derive more in tax revenues from those "created" jobs than what government spent to "create" those jobs in the first place?

As for what might spur businesses to hire and expand, see my post 4.10.

Bill and Mr. Rodgers,

Good posts and you are absolutely right. The only way to get the economy going again is through private sector job creation. It is the only thing that is permanent. I could be done in various ways, but the main idea is to level the playing field or tilt it in some way that is is beneficial for companies to manufacture in the US. Once this is done the things that we now call problems disappear.

You're ignoring the cost of the government spending required to "create" the jobs that would ultimately increase tax revenue. Do you have any reason to believe that government would derive more in tax revenues from those "created" jobs than what government spent to "create" those jobs in the first place?

Precisely. If I spend 100K to create a job and then earn 25K back in tax revenue I still lost 75K. The reality based on several independent economist studies is that it would actually take $300,000 for government to create a $100,000 job to earn back $25,000 in revenue.

It just doesn't add up.

Governments DO NOT CREATE WEALTH... the only spend it or dilute its value through inflation. Welcome to the USA.

Bill -- I didn't mention government putting people back to work. It was a statement that more revenue would lower the deficit. I asked you what do you think will spur businesses to hire and no where in your 4.10 do I find an answer. You make an argument against government stimulating through a jobs bill but failed to offer a solution as to what will spur business to hire.

Mr. Rogers --- But government does create wealth....through the tax code favoritism.

Mr. Rogers --- But government does create wealth....through the tax code favoritism.

I think we can ALL agree the tax system needs a complete overhaul. That being said, most current millionaires in the US earned their money. To say all rich people made money ripping people off is like saying all poor people are drug addicted thieves.

"To say all rich people made money ripping people off is like saying all poor people are drug addicted thieves."

Not my argument must be someone else you are referring to.

You make an argument against government stimulating through a jobs bill but failed to offer a solution as to what will spur business to hire.

I'll give you five:

1) Increase demand for US goods by taking a lesson from Germany who uses tariffs effectively to ensure a heavy trade surplus each year.

2) Rework all trade agreements that benefit large corporations both in the US and international at the expense of competition (from small business) and US jobs.

3) Offer a ZERO corporate tax rate for manufactures who manufacture using US labor.

4) Roll back certain regulations deemed to restrict manufacturing and production based jobs here in the US.

5) Leave union rules to the states and let each state pick the right balance of union wages and number of jobs

Numbers 3, 4, and 5 could be put in place in a matter of months while 1 and 2 would likely take at least more than a year or two.

Also in order to not increase deficits in the short term due to number 3, you could close all subsidies and many corporate loopholes for companies who do not manufacture anything here.

Mr. Rogers, how nice of you to answer for Bill. He seems to disappear a lot. Especially when his tunnel vision of "supply side theory" is put to rest when you mention the words mortgage derivatives.

As to your solutions you have many good ideas. : ) I'm all about finding answers and willing to try new strategies.

Zero tax allows no room for the socialization of losses so it will never fly.

Tariffs? Someone is liberal Republican I take it...tariffs tax and lower the standard of living for American consumers...it is NOT beneficial for our economy, PERIOD.

Try becoming a REAL free market capitalist, not a fake conservative (yeah right, conservative, what a laugh) who pays it just lip service. I mean could you understand economics less? Liberals want this protectionism, Hamiltonianism, "fair" trade nonsense...now apparently dumb Republicans want it too. Wow, what Nelson Rockefeller liberal Republican you are Rogers.

You got the corporate tax right at least...as companies don't pay wages or taxes, they just add into the price at sale and consumers pay it. I'll give you a little credit for being an ASPIRING free market capitalist for that...but your liberal "fair" trade and protectionism in 1 and 2 overrule it's effects.

You also got the regulation part right...it's a bigger deal than corporate tax actually, totaling in the trillions, not few hundred billions. Now you're back to even...if you did 1 and 2, then 3 and 4, we'd of broke even economically...will you do well in 5 I wonder?

Nope. You suggest that collective bargaining is okay at the state level will most unions are public sector, not private, and simply extort the state's taxpayer's, not fight corporate greed. Also, they create unemployment by stealing nationa income share percentage through above market-level wages from other potential workers at the same or lower compensation levels (corporation either have to rise prices to consumers to maintain hiring levels and therefore make us all poorer as consumers, or they (most likely) have to hire less people). It's completely provable they do NOT raise standard of living for our country. The standard since 1948 has increased (wages+benefits=total real compensation; stagnat wages are NOT the total pay package, medical has eaten up your rise in standards of living so much that your wages stayed the same or lowered even as the standard of living rose, as did Gini co-effecient household income) even as unions fell from 32% of the workforce to 11.9% over that same period.

Less unions, higher standards of living. MSNBC doesn't want you to see that though, and either do the unionized FOX NEWS liberals (neoconservatives are liberals, wake up). Income share decreases, standard of living and total real compensation rises simultaneously...what a concept!

The right balance, my liberal Republican firend is unions NEVER negotiating wages where replacement workers can be brought in. Paying people "scale" means all the same pay, or rewarding the lazy and penalizing the productive. Workers should be paid individually by productivity...as productivity is directly causal to total real compensation levels! Look up the charts for everything I'm saying on google or bing images.

So, overall, you just made net LOSS moves for the economy. I bet you want to close borders too...as that is anti-free market capitalist as well. No free market capitalist in history wanted closed borders...it's labor protectionism for unions!

Do you support the minimum wage too? LOL.

Way to tank the economy and not be a free market capitalist, even as I'm SURE you pay lip service to it...while you totally know nothing about it.

The one saving grace is you want to end subsidies and loopholes...but it doesn't make up enough to stop your ideas from being a net loss to the economy. And BTW, maunfacturing is over, get over it...those jobs pay less than service sector jobs, and the industrial revolution is over...we are in a technological/automation revolution. Being from the "rust belt" I can tell you, Cleveland is a Medical Industry town now, and are going to be better off for it. The jobs in the HUMUNGOUS Cleveland Clinic (one of the world's largest and best hospitals) pay more than steal jobs did...and Division of Labor (you know, that free market capitalism thing?) dicates we specialize at what the MARKET wants us to be best at producing, services or goods. You want to direct the economy to the past...accept production is gone and isn't coming back. Be glad of it, it's why we continue to produce more goods than ever with less people than ever. Automation is progress...stop thinking like a neo-Luddite and living in the less productive past. This process creates jobs and increases standards of living by making production rise while reducing the costs to do it.

If you want to stop the out of control outsourcing then stop the subsidies, loans, caps on liability, and tax breaks that our govt pays to companies leaving...not because it's unpatriotic or bad to leave at market levels, but because we are raising it ABOVE market levels by incentivizing it. BUT do NOT try to stop it at market levels, that will hurt the economy by directing it...you, I, and in fact NO ONE is smart enough to micro manage a free market economy...the trick is keeping it FREE (unregulated, subsidized, incentivized to do X, Y, Z, etc.).

And end corporate personhood, so we can oputlaw corporate donations to campaigns, especially court system elections, to allow HARM and FRAUD to be SEVERELY penalized like it should be in a free market. That will take away the NEED for pre-emptive regulation we have today in our corrupt State dependent capitalist system.

Got all that? No? Then READ Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, some David Ricardo, some Frederic Bastiat, and any of the other free market economists, up to and including the Austrian School who PREDICTED the collapse of our economy (like Ron Paul who is a true free market capitalist).

As a matter of fact, just nominate Ron Paul and he'll fix the economy...since he was the ONLY candidate that predicted the collapse, and was laughed at by both Parties as he did it. It'll save you a lot of reading I know you won't bother to do.

Good day sir...I said GOOD DAY SIR!...lol.

PS. Trade deficits are not good for the economy...the last two trade deficits we had were the Great Depression and the Carter Administration...also Japan's "lost decade".

The fallacy of trade deficits has been debunked since the 19th Century...and backed up by data since the 1970s. Please look up Don Boudreaux on YouTube on the subject.

Regarding coal or fly ash a large discussion is taking place withing the architectural community for the continued use of coal fly ash in Portland Cement concrete mixtures. When fly ash ratios are mixed with lime and water it creates a stronger and more workable concrete mixture then a traditional portland cement exclusive mixture.

Even as a liberal I think that the new EPA regulation considering fly ash a hazardous material could have an unwanted effect. The new classification could blacklist fly ash from being used in concrete production. That would be a big mistake. Believe me encasing the coal fly ash within concrete is a better option then trying to landfill it and have the toxic properties leech into the water supply. An added plus to the fly coal ash is that since it is a readily available by product from the coal industry their is not a cost to create it as in the case of portland cement. Thereby making it cheaper for the contractor to consider in his concrete bid numbers and ultimately less expensive to the owner.

Adding more fly ash to the concrete mix say 10% to 15% is actually a good idea instead of using the energy-intensive 100% portland cement mix exclusively.

Another caveat, what would be needed to be done if fly ash were considered hazardous when regarding abatement if a road with fly ash in the concrete was demolished? How would abatement (removal of this property) be treated once it is part of a the composite concrete product?

This EPA ruling needs to be thought through. Allow it to be good for concrete but not good for landfills.

___________

According to the Center for Sustainable Building Research’s building material database, the debate among building health experts is still open:

Some experts maintain the metals are effectively locked into the [cement] matrix, preventing their release. Furthermore, by using fly ash in concrete rather than landfilling it, the potential for the metals to leach into the environment is reduced. Concern about higher incidence of Radium-226 in fly ash than in cement: An EPA study suggests that the slight increased risk imposed by the greater exposure was offset by the reduced exposure to radon gas, which is less likely to escape fly ash’s glass sphere structure and the less permeable nature of high volume fly ash concrete.

"Even as a liberal I think that the new EPA regulation considering fly ash a hazardous material could have an unwanted effect. The new classification could blacklist fly ash from being used in concrete production. That would be a big mistake. Believe me encasing the coal fly ash within concrete is a better option then trying to landfill it and have the toxic properties leech into the water supply."

Hmmm, it almost sounds like the regulations regarding "hazardous materials" need to be less simplistic than they are.

Oops meant to reply this to Madison NY post.

nice of you to answer for Bill. He seems to disappear a lot.

Pardon me for having a day job that takes most of my time.

no where in your 4.10 do I find an answer

Baloney. What is it about incesseant threats from the Obama administration to increase the cost of doing business that you just don't get? What is it about the anti-business rhetoric eminating from this administration from day one that you just don't get? What is it about the chilling effect of the NRLB trying to tell Boeing where they can or cannot build a plant that you just don't get? The role of government is to promote conditions that enable businesses to be successful. But the Obama admi nistration has done just the opposite. So why should you or anyone else be surprised that the real engine of growth in the economy -- the private sector -- has hunkered down and waits for a better day to unleash its job creating magic?

"The role of government is to promote conditions that enable businesses to be successful."

Ah yes, I remember that part in the Preamble, right before "provide for the common defense"...

Bill -- Are you asking if rhetoric is productive? The answer would be no from any side. Unlike most I feel rhetoric is divisive and silly so I try not to engage. It takes two to tangle however. Actions speak louder. Business has not been a good patriotic friend in time of need. Where are the leaders in business....busy discounting the nation in which they exist upon. I call on them to take the lead and help this Country move out of this mess we find ourselves in due to that old supply theory disaster called mortgage derivatives. A Wall Street product. I think most business would agree that this was the economic boondoggle that broke the camel's back....all the rest of your conjectures seem minor..... rhetoric is an excuse. Boeing is a sticking point... Boeing, CEO Jim McNerney takes home $13.8 million, while the company paid $13 million in taxes and spent $20.8 million on lobbying in 2010. Perhaps he should spend more money lobbying the other side, lol.

LOL Plissken...+1,000

Oh man, that was funny.

ProIndividual-3906907

On unions... let me point out that unions should be as I said a STATE by STATE issue. This is 10th amendment stuff my friend. I live in Texas and clearly see the benefits of right to work states... but for those who don't they will suffer their own consequences and learn from it I hope.

Also, I agree that federal and state workers should never be allowed to unionize since they do not work against "evil corporations" but the tax payer and there is no free market force in a government monopoly to keep wages fair. That being said, I still support the rights for states to use state employee unions if decided on by the people of those states... as long as they don't expect a national bailout when their pensions and economies bust as a result.

You may not like tariffs but I am sure you would agree our various trade agreements are slanted against American small business and workers.

It doesn't. That's the answer.

Thanks, Ben, for admitting that Conservative policies have no solution for our bad economy. Anything that doesn't create demand doesn't help the economy in our current situation. It's that simple.

Are you asking if rhetoric is productive?

No, I'm making the case that rhetoric is decidedly counterproductive. When the president gets on his periodic rants that threaten to raise taxes and other costs of doing business, the legitimate concern of anyone listening to that rhetoric is that it is a prelude to policies which the president supports. To wit: if the president doesn't really want to raise taxes on the evil rich and their corporate brethern, thn why does he constantly regale us with speeches that indicate otherwise?

I call on them to take the lead and help this Country move out of this mess we find ourselves in

Call off the dogs in the Obama administration, and that just might happen – just as it will more than likely happen if Obama is replaced by a Republican president.

Boeing, CEO Jim McNerney takes home $13.8 million, while the company paid $13 million in taxes and spent $20.8 million on lobbying in 2010.

Typical leftist tactic of deflect and reframe. So what does McNerney's salary have to do with NLRB policy?

"The role of government is to promote conditions that enable businesses to be successful."
Ah yes, I remember that part in the Preamble, right before "provide for the common defense"...

Umm right, it comes just before that line in the Constitution that established the Federal Reserve and just after the line that created the president's Council of Economic Advisors. Thanks so much for your thoughtful contribution to the discussion.

Anything that doesn't create demand doesn't help the economy in our current situation. It's that simple.

Only to simple minds like yours, John B.

Bill -- NLRB policy in regard to Boeing is something being played out in the courts. Or maybe not anymore not sure. However, politics or should I say fundamental differences of opinion seem to cast a shadow over the entire mess. Not for me to decide. But you can't deny that the lobbying money spent hasn't helped them.

Til next time

Mr. Rogers and Pro --- wow, you two advocating for the same candidate but such varying positions. To each his own.

Although I am in no way an isolationist it seems fairer trade would help the "little guys" in business. Trade agreements are made by centralized governments something you both seem to dislike so who would make these agreements? I happen to think some things must always remain centralized as cohesive governance produces order not chaos. I just want it to be more effective. Again to each his own as I believe in freedoms.

Bill,

Still no answer, so you have an insult, I see. That's a poor substitute.

And your proof of this would be?

Madison-

Please cite your sources for this alarming claim. Thank you.

"EPA shutting down 1/5th domestic coal fired plants over the next 5 years"

That will lower asthma rates - A smart thing to do.

Just ONE OF MANY cited EPA regulations that when aggregated DESTROYS the US ECONOMY abd JOBS:

The EPA has, for the first time ever, proposed national restrictions on coal ash, a byproduct of coal-burning power plants. Utility and power producers predict the cost of these rules will exceed $100 billion and force them to retire about one-fifth of the nation’s coal capacity, which could mean the loss of well over 100,000 jobs. The nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, which conducts policy research for lawmakers, says that the new restrictions are likely to force many coal plants to shut down between now and 2017.

See: "Ten Job-Destroying Regulations" for further examples and cross references

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/275797/ten-job-destroying-regulations-andrew-stiles

Big Business needs regulations. If you study your history, you will learn that Big Business has needed federal regulations to keep them honest.

Without strong regulations, Big Business will do what ever they won't and that is not good for the American People.

For myself, I like a fair wage, health care, vacations and clean water and air.

I'm sure he heard it through the "tea-vine"

This "feel good" stuff is going to be our downfall if common sense doesn't enter the picture soon. Looks like we will have to wait 16 months.

As well, all this fake science has gone too far. First it was global cooling, then global warming and now climate change. What will the next title for this rubbish be? Anyones guess? The scientific data has already been discredited and or in some cases "misplaced". Be careful if you do not believe in fake science, according to liberals you are anti-science.

Three words for anyone who wants to see that these complaints about "job-killing regulations" are bogus and have been for decades;

Cry Wolf Project.

I know you believe the government creates jobs and wealth.........Why do you want this country to follow the path that Greece followed? Yes, there needs to be regulations. We also need a little common sense when it comes to these regulations. Too many times, regulations are written by people who do not have a clue. In some cases writeen by people with a mis-placed motive. You going down that path again?

Another example, Obama's MACT and CSAPR Utility Standards:

The Obama administration has proposed new maximum-achievable-control-technology (MACT) standards and a cross-state air-pollution rule (CSAPR) for utility plants that will have a direct impact on utilities prices across the country. The new rules will affect more that 1,000 fossil-fuel-fired power plants, a number of which will likely be forced to shut down. As a result, Americans in many parts of the country could find themselves paying anywhere from 12 to 24 percent more for electricity.

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/275797/ten-job-destroying-regulations-andrew-stiles

Careful examination of what Obama DOES NOT WHAT HE SAYS demonstrates WHY Obama and the leftists have DRIVEN THE US INTO a NEVERENING DEPRESSION SPIRAL under THEIR TOTALITARIAN RULE

For myself, I like a fair wage, health care, vacations and clean water and air.

Its a false idea that federal regulations are the only way to get these things.

Of course we need regulations which are nothing more than RULES. All societies need RULES. FACTS are that we have gone WAY overboard with stupid regulations in many industries.

I like pizza, but I don't eat it every day... Too much of anything is bad. There are DOZENS of instances of regulations contributing to the blockage of new jobs or the overseas outsourcing of US jobs.

We need rule sure... but smart rules and rules that allow market place forces to work without creating new bigger problems that need more rules in a never ending cycle of legalistic nightmare.

In many areas where we have regulations they simply result in fines while at the SAME TIME making it ILLEGAL for citizens who are harmed to SEEK CIVIL RESTITUTION. How is this good? In fact Obama shielded BP from law suit and the people who were harmed are still not recovering and BP is doing well. How is this fair regulatory function?

Mr. Rogers

Here is something we agree upon. Simplify the regulations with a caveat of do no harm. Put violators into the courts or in front of an arbitrary board made up of citizens.

Didn’t he enclose the proper ‘donation’ with his ‘prayer request’??)

He forgot to invite Sarah Palin's witch doctor! ;o)

Vote for Perry. America Misses Bush.

PRICELESS!

Mind if I borrow that sometime? lol

DBO, Reuters has article based on 2010 census about loss of government jobs in most states.

But Texas was an exception.

"the Lone Star state had the biggest percentage increase in state workers, 5.9% from 2009-2010. That represented a gain of 17,8800 full time jobs...Local governments in Texas also added the most part-time jobs of all cities,counties and towns. 24,731."

So maybe this red state and its governor has been changing its colors when its comes to public employees.

"Mind if I borrow that sometime? lol"

Have at it. And if you want to substitute "Bush" with "Polio" or "the plague", please feel free.....

What exactly is the difference between Rick Perry claiming he created 240K jobs and the Obama Administration claiming it saved or created 2.3M jobs?

Neither created one private sector job.

Alan, NJ

Neither created one private sector job.

When governments sign contracts with private sector companies to perform work, doesn't that count as creating private sector jobs?

Rick Perry wants to be the leader of the Republican Taliban.

When governments sign contracts with private sector companies to perform work, doesn't that count as creating private sector jobs?

I'm fine with this definition if it used to count the number of jobs both entities are claiming. (Texas and the Federal Government). So using this criteria what are the number for Texas and how jobs have been created and saved?

Obviously he stands for constant change.....

This article isn't news - it's what Romney does, if this was Deep Space 9 he'd be Odo the "shape shifter". The bottom line is that he is going to lose to Rick Perry in the primary. No need to bash president Obama now, you won't face him in 2012 if you can't win the nomination. Let's face it, the evangelicals will never nominate a Mormon and Romney is too moderate for his own party as far as the tea party is concerned. Red meat BS wins your base in primaries and Rick Perry is full of it literally...

Stop supporting neoconservative Democrats.

You guys better pray one of these two liberal Republicans gets nominated by the fake hypocrite Republicans...

...because if Ron Paul gets nominated he'll tear your base in half, and destroy Obama in debates head to head.

You know darn well Obama is a warmonger, a drug warrior, a gay marriage denier, a PATRIOT Act defender, a domestic surveilance hound, a GITMO keeper, a torture supporter, and flatly nothing but a Bush 3 neoconservative Democrat.

And Hillary is too.

But you still support them, and pray every night one of the liberal Republicans gets the nod, so you never have to face up to those horrific immoral things on television in front of the whole nation. You know the brainwashing will be stamped out by a debate and campaign against Ron Paul. That's why your liberal media ignores Paul, and when it doesn't ignore him it cherry picks the most silly topics and misrepresents them. Even liberal FOX (fake) NEWS continues to bash Paul at every turn...anything to avoid the issues that the sociopaths that have run this country for almost a century don't want you to wake up to.

If Ron Paul gets the nomination the sadistic statist monster Obama will lose in a landslide.

It's like a dog whistle that only the awake people can hear...pray the Republicans don't wake up in time, because if they do the liberals will hear the whistle too in the general election.

Hypocrite fake liberals, you make me sick with your support for evil. You're as bad as Bush supporters were.

Really??? Ron Paul??? This guy has just as much of a chance as Ralph Nader - I guess nobody hears their whistle...

or maybe his affiliation with the Black Panthers when he was 2 years old.... lol ...

Or maybe his Uncle Bobbayango Ummatoombe spent 20 years in a hate Whitey, anti-American church.

Riiiight...because in no way is his support for 2 extra wars since he took office, 3 wars he inherited, the drug war, torture, domestic surveilance, self written search warrants, GITMO, banksters, etc., etc., enough to find fault with him.

Aren't we the hypocritical liberal...I mean fake liberal.

How does it feel to support a neoconservative Democrat equivalent to Bush 3?

I wouldn't know, I'm supporting Ron Paul. You should try it...it's nice not to be a total hypocrite.

I know right?! Obama is such a neoconservative warmonger/torture lover/drug warrior/I can go on and on.

Please, stop supporting this monster, there is no Primary for your Party, go vote for the Republican that will NOT do these Bush 3 activites...Ron Paul. You can still vote for Obama in the general election.

Of all the Republicans, assuming you aren't a sophist sociopath, who would you rather face and MAYBE lose to?

If I were a liberal I'd be hoping for the most anti-war, anti-drug war, etc., etc., Presidential candidate from the Right, so in case we lost we'd still win somewhat. (Why Obama the neocon is a win is beyond me, but I apparently can't cure that mental illness; the least I can do is appeal to what little reason you have left outside of your partisan blindness.)

"Of all the Republicans, assuming you aren't a sophist sociopath, who would you rather face and MAYBE lose to?"

Probably Huntsman, since he's not anti-gay, while we're on the subject of not being a sociopath.

Umm excpet Ron Paul is against the marriage amendment...he;s not antigay...he says it's a state's issue unless the Supreme Court of Cowrds steps up and does it's job and rules marriage an individual right.

BTW, gay marriage is more important than stopping torture, mass murder, PATRIOT Act, TSA, Banksters...the list goes on and on?

I'd say your priorities and morality is out of whack. Sorry, but come on.

Supreme Court of Cowards*

I just wanted to add...you're more worried about marriage for gays than millions od dead people in wars of aggression, and millions in cages for nonviolent crimes?

Like I said, your priorities suck. Even if you're gay, how selfish and sophistic can you be?

Is that like being against raising the debt ceiling and then being for it?

Is that like crticizing Bush for his adding to the national debt and then adding to it at a higher pace and wanting to add to it at an even higer pace?

Two faced,cutthroat,dirt-dumb,chicken@!$%#,slimy little bastard with a bright future in politics."

It's a shame we can't squeeze that onto a bumper sticker! lol

Set to music, we could call it the Texas two-step.

My Stimulus has been very Succesful. 9.5% unemployment? Are YOU trying to "make a monkey" out of me? LOL....

As a Republican voter I know you probably didn't mean that as a racist statement mcgraw...but please refrain from jokes featuring monkeys about our first African-American President...it's just gross.

Ron Paul 2012.

He didn't strike it down. A stay was ordered until all appeals are rendered.

BTW: It was not provisionS.....it was A PROVISION...in regards to a sonogram. Liberals ran this in the dirt on yesterday. His ruling will be appealed. All of these judges will be up for re-election in 2012. We will see if they can ride Obama's coat-tails again with the str8 party voting.

American League East is no race. The evil empire against the eviler empire, depending on whether you're from Boston or New York.

So true Houston!

I heard about the court's ruling.....doubt that it will stand with the Roberts court, but it's a start and flies in the face of Slick Ricks pronouncement of making 'Washington inconsequential'!

Hypocritic MUCH....

It's the blind leading the blind on a crusade for sight.

Go Phillies!!!

The first presidential candidate I voted for was Gerald Ford. Sigh. That was the OLD Republican Party. I also voted for David Emery and Olympia Snowe (a LONG time ago) back before ordinary Republicans were called RINOS. I would never vote for a Republican now, even a so-called moderate, because the far-right has taken over that party and it's just not safe to give them any more power.

My mother was a staunch Democrat. "Party of the working man" and all that. She voted for every Dem up through McGovern. Then she realized that the Democrat Party was no longer what it used to be. It had become the party of high taxes, failed social programs, sympathizing with the North Vietnamese, sympathizing with rioters and street criminals. The party of weak national defense. The party of killing innocent fetuses, the anti-family party, the party of handouts, the party run by lawyers etc...She didn't leave the Democrat Party. The party left her.

Sounds like you're a liberal Republican to me...therefore part of the problem. Nominate Ron Paul or Obama wins...I'd bet money on it.

Especially because we (Ron Paul) supporters will NOT vote Republican against Obama otherwise (we'll go Right wing third Party and take glee in your loss).

Wake up, you're running out of time to vote in the ONLY candidate who predicted the economic collapse and 9/11 (YouTube it) while other candidates laughed him off. Stop listening to your fake media on television and do what's right...or lose.

And Hussein did not? Let Hussein stand on his record (LOL) and we shall see.

wtf you talkin bout McGraw???? Did you watch the video?? This is your own party not the "libtards" as you so eloquently describe us.. lol

Apparently, Joe must have had an epiphany of some kind. Now Joe is in love with Paul Ryan-who knew? Must be new orders from the GOP to squash Perry early and often. The good thing about cowboy boots-it makes it easier to squash those cockroaches once you get them cornered. ;-)

He just doesn't like what the party has become. Can you blame him???

Joe Scarorough was a typical RINO. That is why his azz is not in Congress anymore. That is why he is on MSDNC and not Fox.

No one in the Republican party pays any attention to Scarborough. The majority of his viewers are Liberals. Every now and then he will side with Republicans but most of the time he is just as Liberal as all of those Liberal co-hosts and guests that frequent that show.

you're joking, of course...

How...does any American see what has went on the last 3 years from Socialist healthcare to the pandering to illegals...Add all of the Americans in energy producing States this loser has put out of work. He is finished.

Obama 2012! Michelle Obama 2016!!!!

You guys better pray one of these two liberal Republicans gets nominated by the fake hypocrite Republicans...

...because if Ron Paul gets nominated he'll tear your base in half, and destroy Obama in debates head to head.

You know darn well Obama is a warmonger, a drug warrior, a gay marriage denier, a PATRIOT Act defender, a domestic surveilance hound, a GITMO keeper, a torture supporter, and flatly nothing but a Bush 3 neoconservative Democrat.

But you still support him, and pray every night one of the liberal Republicans gets the nod, so you never have to face up to those horrific immoral things on television in front of the whole nation. You know the brainwashing will be stamped out by a debate and campaign against Ron Paul. That's why your liberal media ignores Paul, and when it doesn't ignore him it cherry picks the most silly topics and misrepresents them. Even liberal FOX (fake) NEWS continues to bash Paul at every turn...anything to avoid the issues that the sociopaths that have run this country for almost a century don't want you to wake up to.

If Ron Paul gets the nomination the sadistic statist monster Obama will lose in a landslide.

It's like a dog whistle that only the awake people can hear...pray the Republicans don't wake up in time, because if they do the liberals will hear the whistle too in the general election.

Hypocrite fake liberals, you make me sick with your support for evil. You're as bad as Bush supporters were.

If Ron Paul gets the nomination, I will playing quidditch against the Palin kids and the Obama kids on a flying pig...:)

While I appreciate that libertarians see through the liberal/conservative smokescreen...

Who are the "real" hypocrite republicans?

Who are the real "fake" liberals?

Libertarianism is a political philosophy not a practical governing strategy.

The real liberals are the ones voting for Ron Paul because stopping mass murder is more important than worrying about economics they clearly don't understand. They want an end to American who are nonviolent being put in cages, rather than worrying about raising taxes on the rich, ending torture, and the list goes on and on.

The fake liberals are Obama supporters who sophistically continue to support the guy who is neoconservative by any academic definition, just because he's a DemoCrip and they hate RepubliBloods.

The hypocrite Republicans pay lip service to conservatism and free markets while simultaneously cheerleading for interventionist foreign policy (Wislonian liberal foreign policy, hence why they are neocons) and interfering in the markets by wanting to do ACTUAL isolationist policies like use tariffs and close borders.

Real Republicans, as in Robert "Mr. Republican" Taft (see the statue in Washington) and Barry "Mr.Conservative" Goldwater (see the book 'Conscience of a Conservative'), and even Russel Kirk (author of many of the most influential and important conservative works in the 20th century like 'The Conservative Mind'), are supporting Ron Paul.

The fakes are all for Party, none for principle. The real are for principles, Party be damned.

That's a pretty easy definition wouldn't you say?

Libertarianism is a political philosophy not a practical governing strategy.

The problem is governing, not a lack thereof...a real governing strategy is VETOing every unConstituional law (99% of them), whether they affect economic or civil liberties. Until you get that part, you'll continue thinking evils like pragmatism and compromise are better than coalitions and principles.

They want an end to Americans* who are nonviolent being put in cages, rather than worrying about raising taxes on the rich, support* ending torture, and the list goes on and on.

Just fixing typos