He's just trying to hang on as Speaker and the best way to do that is to piss off the fewest number of republicans before the next session. And the best way to do that is to do nothing.

Its time to start a "Dump Boehner" super PAC to be set up with the sole purpose of getting rid of John B. It shouldn't take too many millions to convince his Ohio constituents next cycle that he has done absolutely nothing for them as Speaker, except for scramble to keep the speakership and its associated perks. Two years of constant hammering Ohio with what a loser he is will also show republicans that they are not the only ones who can raise superPAC money for negative purposes.

I know he would end up as a lobbyist , with a legal license to pass out $ on the House floor (like he did illegally as a member) and end up with a salary of several million. But at least he would be relieved of duty.

The Fiscal Cliff is really a wag-the-dog conspiracy to keep us all from thinking about the End-of-the-World that is about to commence very shortly...starting in Greenwich, England where it will be Dec 21, 2012 in just a few more hours...just 2 hours and 32 minutes from now. The world will start to disintegrate starting from the GMT zone and progress from east to west every hour on the hour until the very last segment has disintegrated. Good bye people...it has been fun while it lasted! ;-}

In the '80s the would be oligarchs of the U.S. implemented a few strategies they had hatched to regain the power and control they lost since the '30s and especially since the '60s. One of them was a disingenuous borrowing from the left the framing and language of victimization, i.e., they charecterized themselves, the rich and powerful, the dominators and masters of society, as victims of society.

Cutting more taxes would have been anything but pro growth, absurd on its face. It would've made the economy more anemic.

A slogan I recently saw on a placard about class warfare I liked was "THEY only call it CLASS WARFARE when WE FIGHT BACK!".

That's the absurd logic of the Republicans, the party of owners of business as opposed to those who work for someone else. "We're going to help the working people by letting them keep more of their money." ignoring that working people don't HAVE any money that doesn't come from those owners of business, or their employers. A tax cut for wage earners is rarely enough to stimulate the economy in a recession, economic insecurity doesn't inspire self idulgent spending but a cheapness, an inclination to sit on any extra money in anticipation of a rainy day that seems ever more iminent.

Meanwhile, businesses, at this time, have much more than enough money but, until recently, were not creating jobs and were cutting them. The reason for that was that having money doesn't cause somebody to create jobs. Business has plenty of money, what it doesn't have is customers. Nobody expands a business when there is no demand just like you wouldn't start an enterprise selling used tissue paper or something else you knew nobody wanted.

Only government will make the investment necessary to restart an economy in such recession. For this reason it's okay to operate on a deficit in such times and it's best to implement an infrastructure program like Obama tried to get passed last year that the Republicans refused to consider - quite possibly because they wanted to crash the economy in time for the election. Similarly, the stimulus package that many Republican governors refused, contained money for infrastructure projects.

Studies by economists have found that a dollar in direct spending is four times as effective as a dollar in tax cuts at creating jobs.

Does that answer your question?

Quote Global:"I think we the earners can do a better and more efficient job of growing this economy and creating jobs."

Who are "we the earners"? From most everything you have ever said it looks like you don't really mean anyone making less than $250,000/year...the majority of workers in America. I believe that you have always taken the position of arguing in favor of those who make more than $250,000/year..the richest people in America...business owners and corporate execs and others who manage to manipulate deals (ie: cheat other people).

And how has that worked out this past 30 years since Reagan...and especially since Bush2? And now, Obama is not much better.

The trend by businesses has been to lay people off and export their jobs overseas and squeeze them out of wages and benefits. They are not job creators...except for the low paying jobs overseas. In America, they are job destroyers. And they have spent the last 30 years with favored tax status full of loop holes so that many corporations don't even pay any taxes at all...and it wasn't because they created jobs in America.

It's time we stopped the hemorrhaging of jobs and money out of the pockets of the people who can least afford it. It is high time we return to taxing the most wealthy people in this country and stopping the outsourcing of our jobs.

All that money going to the wealthy, who can well afford the extra taxation, is just a total waste and is resulting in a total wrecking of our economy and overall well being of the majority of Americans.

The new Speaker of the House.......Eric Cantor..... lazily whined about the so called Obama Welfare State today. Let's be clear about the definition of welfare state.....a state in which the welfare of its citizens, with regard to employment, medical care, SOCIAL SECURITY, etc. is considered to be the responsibility of collectively, "We the People," and this is achieved by electing a smaller group made up of, the same, "We the People." This smaller group is trusted with the responsiblity to carry out these mandates....... 99.9% are happy!

As one of, "We the People," I believe Cantor's PLAN BILLIONAIRE STATE.....a state in which the exploitation of a powerless and frightened citizenry by an empowered few leads to a concentration of wealth so extreme that collapse of the state becomes inevitable. Violent anarchy becomes the result and no one is able to pursue happiness. "PLAN B" fits such a scenario even though its not extreme enough for Cantor.

Quote Kend:"Talking to my American freinds I can't seem to find anyone who can tell me what the plan is for jump starting the economy. Can anyone here?"

It looks to me that the plan is to quietly murder everyone who can't afford the price of staying alive (by just letting some people die of treatable and preventable diseases)...mostly old people on Social Security and Medicare or those who do not yet qualify for those yet but are unemployed and can't afford the healthScare premiums...so they have to pay cash. And they usually bill you for way more than they would bill an insurance company. But, I believe that unless you are "covered" under a healthScare plan, and you have to pay cash, you will not get the healthcare you are paying for anyway.

I believe there is a concerted effort, on behalf of doctors (bullied by the insurance companies) to take the money but avoid any actual preventative actions...like writing necessary prescriptions...like doing the necessary testing...scans..or operations..that it would take to prevent serious fatal medical conditions later on. They will keep "milking" you for any cash they can get but they won't treat you. Like they are punishing you for not participating in their very costly healthScare scams.

So, if they manage to knock off millions of old people, they don't have to worry about making good on Social Security or Medicare. But, the problem is that they would still have massive Pentagon spending and still have the massive economic problems we have today...only those in the Military Industrial Complex will be a whole lot richer. They'd still have massive banking and Wall Street corruption in Casino Capitalism and they will still have a ruinous economy as these criminals continue to hold their hands out to the Government for bailouts.

Maybe what we need is another Monica Lewinski-like scandal that saved us from trashing Social Security to Casino Capitalism during Bill Clinton's Presidency.

Our "big government" is not your "big government"! Our big government builds bridges, schools, and protects us from the capitalist wolves who would devour us in an instant.

Your big government does just the opposite...in addition to wasting lots of money on the Pentagon...on killing people...on spying on people..even, and especially, on it's own citizens.

Your big government specializes in supporting and encouraging corruption...our big government fights corruption and puts corrupt bullies into prison.

Those who generate propaganda to manipulate people into acting against the people's best interests have skillfully manipulated the language and meanings of words...like "government".

Just as now, some people are trying to manipulate the meaning of "we the earners". And how does one really "earn" over $250,000/year? They don't "earn" it...they "steal" it by manipulating other people out of their hard-EARNED money. Workers EARN their money. Manipulators STEAL their money.

Reagan was nothing but just another idiot actor who was taken advantage of by ruthless manipulators. I doubt he even knew what the heck he was saying most of the time...just acting...reading lines he was given to read...by the manipulators. "Speed it up!" Donald Regan demanded of Reagan during a speech. Yeah, we know who the real manipulators were. And Reagan wasn't the last of the idiots who were manipulated in that office of the President. We are about to see the latest one, who will sell us out, manipulated by ruthless criminals...just as other Presidents were....even Bush2. You don't think Bush2 was smart enough to be behind 911 do you? But, I guess if you think OBL was you couldn't even suspect that it was way bigger than OBL or Bush2.

Do you ever listen to Thom Hartmann?

He repeatedly tells us what needs to be done to stimulate the economy. He provides a lot of historical data to support his suppositions.

I'm not sure if Arizona's governor is one of those Republicanswho refused stimulus money but their congressmen blocked the Jobs (Infrastructure) Bill. Work is what puts money in people's pockets and causes them to spend - and then other people have jobs as a result and others as a result of that and so on - much more so than a tax cut, especially in times like these.

What is it with you, Global, Mauiman and whoever else and your obsession with tax cuts? Have you formed a support group and seen a psychiatrist about it? Perhaps group therapy.

Or are you just shillin' like a villin'?

Palindromedary - Thank you.

Well it is well after 8 p.m. on the West Coast and the House has gone home for the Holidays. It is apparent who the Republicans represent and it is not the working or middle class of America. They realize it is going to hurt the poor and the middle class Americans a lot more than it will their masters in the upper financial class of America. The wealthy will not even notice when workers are laid off and social programs for the less fortunate will be cut back. It is ironic that these men and women who were elected by the people to serve as our representatives in Congress actually work only for the top two percent of our nation. Boehner is more concerned with keeping his position in the House than he is with those Republicans who voted for him. Not all Republicans are wealthy, but you would never guess that by the way they protect those tax cuts for the richest while many of them may be looking for a new job in Jan. I could understand it if their theory that tax cuts for the wealthiest has turned into new jobs for the workers of all types in our country. But any idiot can see that if that were true we would or should have seen a major change in the job creation the Republicans claim tax cuts for the wealthy provide. My son in law is a Republican and my daughter is a Democrat with a capital D and neither she nor I can understand the reasoning by the right! He states over and over poor people don't create jobs the wealthy do. And my reply is where are the jobs that should have been created by all the tax cuts that have taken place? His reply is, well it would have been worse without the tax cuts. How do you reason with that mindset? So we just accept and love the guy and blame it on his parents! Ha. I have come to the conclusion that generally whatever political party you were born into is generally the political party you end up supporting! I see it in the terms of whatever faith you were born into is the faith you usually follow. Depending on how strong of an influence it had on your parents and thus was handed down to you. Otherwise, how do you explain these people sticking too and supporting a belief such as supporting tax breaks for the wealthiest at any cost that will have a negative effect on their life? My father use to have a simple one word explanation, brainwashed...there are exceptions to that idea, but not many.

"Kensyian fool" is an oxymoron and you are not truthful, your accusations are wild. I would think you were unhinged if I didn't know you were a shill.

We've heard of nothing but Milton Friedmann for decades. Haven't you heard that he's been thoroughly discredited? It's Milton Friedman's Chicago School that caused the crash of 2008. Now you say the same philosophy and economic method is surreally going to fix the crisis that it caused.

Do you know who controls the House of Representatives, the house of Congress that must initiate ALL spending legislation? Have you heard of someone named John Boehner? Do you know what a filibuster is? Do you know that the usual number of Senate filibusters for a legislative term is less than 5 but in this last one there were nearly 400? Do you know what obstructionism is?

If you think government has been spending these last four years ... Whatever you, Kend and Mauiman are smoking ... I DON'T WANT ANY!

Obama's Jobs/Infrastructure Bill was blocked from the outset. He even broke it up into its componant parts and tried to get each one passed individually and the Republicans refused. Republican governors refused stimulus money so, of course, the economy recovered only a very little and only very slowly. It's the LACK OF GOVERNMENT SPENDING THESE LAST FOUR YEARS THAT HASN'T WORKED!

I, sir, am a Libertarian Socialist (that usually means Anarchist or Anarcho Communist or Anarcho Syndicallist but doesn't necessarilly in my case) and I do, in fact, think that the sovreignity of the individual is not important when it harms the collective. In other words, your rights can not be at the expense of the rights of others. Otherwise, though, I think the sovreignity of the individual is VERY important. I believe that in a democratic society government is a good thing. Genuinely democratic government is the collective will of the people, serves the people, is ours, is of us, IS us and that we have EVERY RIGHT to expect it to serve us and provide for us in any way we might see fit. I think it is profoundly UNDEMOCRATIC for government to serve 1 or 2% of the people at the expense of evereyone else. I do not believe in SPECIAL RIGHTS FOR THE 1% OR 2%.

A legitimate function of government is to protect the weak from the strong and the rightists and capitalist libertarians who are against government are so because they are the strong and they want their rights to be granted at the expense of everyone else's. They want to be free to abuse the weak. They want to be free to exploit, enslave, poison, injure and kill the weak and the not so strong at their pleasure. They don't want any stinkin' labor, environmental or product safety laws and the like. They are really not against government but against DEMOCRATIC government. They want a small elite to govern and effect a tyranny over everyone else. They favor all the legislation that curtails or eradicates civil liberties and negates constitutional rights that passed of late. They also want to privatize government to make it less accountable to and less of and for the people and make it the personal property of a small group of individuals, so creating an elite feudal aristocracy.

I believe very much in the sovreignity of the individual but I believe as the great anarchist Emma Goldman did that there is no conflict or incompatability between the individual and the collective. It's like they told you in school, "Democratic government makes us ALL free."

What a bunch of baloney the so-called "chained CPI" smoke-and-mirrors doublespeak they are using:

"The chained CPI works by assuming that when the price of a product, such as beef, gets too high, consumers don't keep paying the higher prices. Instead, the model predicts they will switch to something cheaper, such as chicken, keeping their cost of living lower and leading to a lower rate of inflation, as measured by the chained CPI. The lower rate of inflation would mean a downward adjustment in cost of living, and thus stingier benefits."

What really happens is the price of beef still goes up (because products rarely go down as much as they go up) and the chicken goes up because now there is an increased demand for chicken. If we really had true competition then perhaps the price of beef would go down..maybe...then again, maybe, farmers would just shoot their cows and burn them in order to keep the prices high. Then there is the monopoly that many of these chain supermarkets run that prevents competition. The price of chicken would go up for sure and then people would have to eat cat food...then cat food would go up..ad infinitum. Maybe they'll eventually manufacture Soylent Green from all of the people who died of starvation and sicknesses...but then they'd still keep prices high even then. They are going to keep squeezing us until we eventually "squeeze" back. If you know what I mean. ;-|

Look what is happening right now in our supermarkets... despite the fact that more and more people are out of work and can't afford to pay the high prices for food...the supermarkets are still raising their prices. I find it difficult to walk through the isles of Safeway and other major supermarkets because of their ridiculous prices. Add to that the price of gasoline and everything else how can they seriously talk to us about making cuts to Social Security cost of living allowances using such a ridiculous model?

Nancy Palosi is a wacko...it's time she retires...maybe we can help her with that on election day. What wimps we have for Democrats!

Squeeze back indeed!!!

Are we ready to organize....Occupy Wall St. failed because they did not get organized. Sure a whole bunch of people showed-up and "occupied" and kinda-sorta got a message going, but thats where it ended. Unless we as a collective can organize; create a manafesto, appoint speakers and leaders, and stand our ground, we will never successfully meet our ends.

We the People must remember that our obligation is NOT to the Government; our obligation is to the principles that our country is suppose to stand for. The Government is an artificial creation. Mind the Declaration of Independence...Governments are set up by the people to acheive certain ends; the equal right to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. When Governments become destructive of those ends it is the RIGHT of The People to alter or abolish the Government.

"Obedience to a Government is the sign of a Totalitarian State." H. Zinn

Dear Thom, While I do agree with you on most of your opinions about our Government and the complete lack of any real {people} representation save for the few like Senator Bernie Sanders and the like I find myself going back to the same subject. I'm amazed and deeply disgusted that grown educated mostly white older men elected to offices and places in Government could allow a few much older criminally insane by now Mega wealthy Family's rule over us unchecked and out of control . We know for fact today that the last president to tell them NO MORE was JFK and for his insult to them they murdered him and many other's and killing anyone else who could ever rise to challenge them. It's NOT about republican or democrate it's about there unchecked greed and the control it buys and the lust for more that has our United States nearly bankrupted just sit back and look at what these people are responsible for thom , My God do you think this has all been just some great coincidence ? It all comes back to the same thing thom and NOTHING is going to change I don't care who you vote for or what bill get's passed just take a look at how many bill's get passed that are supposed to be great for Americans except they NEVER are in fact how many have not worked to undo every people friendly bill passed . Thom your an educated Man please tell Me you see this and that your aware of it. I just can't understand how these elected officials go along with this while being a total hypocrite living two lives as they and there famly members reap the huge rewards of political life and the connections from it. The Kennedy's couldn't go along with it and no doubt knew the penalty they were deeply honorable Men with vision thom but were flat out assassinated , and for that total sacrifice we dishonored them and allow there murderers to continue the rape & plunder of what was once a proud & good nation , just a handful of elderly rotten scumbags run ruffshot over every aspect of life on earth but that's what happens to people when they are allowed to get that powerful . Did they leave anything behind for the betterment of mankind NO SIR they have rewitten the history books so they seem to have played NO part in anything or wrong doing but when you dig a little bit you can plainly see the connections to everything even our wonderful education system was designed by them they look to control food and water but what I can't understand is how we don't just kick in there doors and arrest them ..The shear blatant arrogance of Obama make's want to revolt with vulgar anger , What is wrong with these idiots that they think there plan hasn't been tried before in history with the results the same time after time . It has got to be ego and blind arrogance that make's these fools think they covered all there bases. We must have a Grass roots movement that pull's the covers off these Lowlife bastards the clock is ticking friends.....

Chuckle: What little I do decide to buy...I carefully scrutinize the receipt and often times I'll find that I was either double charged for an item or the price was not the "sale" price. They are sneaky that way...all of those Supermarkets (or any merchants) have to be watched...but if you are in a hurry...and don't watch what is being rung up, you will likely never know you got cheated. I lost count of all the times some cashier tried to short change me when I pay cash for something.

Mark Saulys: That's probably quite true...but calling them wimps makes me feel better. Kind of like calling the so-called 19 Arab hijackers "cowards"..I guess. I don't know how many times I've heard people call them that despite the fact that it would have taken some pretty brave (or crazy) people, knowing they were about to die along with all those other people they were about to kill. Contrast that with another misused term that many Americans often use to describe a US soldier who murders civilians using drones or helicopter gunships with very little likelihood that they, themselves, would ever be in danger, are called "heroes". Not many Americans would be brave (or crazy) enough to do such a thing as strap on an explosive vest or crash into tall buildings. Yet those same people who misused the "coward" name must have gotten some satisfaction out of it even though it was like calling a cat a dog.

I think, if there even were Arab hijackers, that they were "patsies" set up to take the blame...and couldn't even have steered those planes to their targets because they weren't skilled enough pilots (couldn't even very skillfully fly the small aircraft they were "trained" on) and because those planes that hit the WTC towers and the Pentagon were electronically hijacked and guided to their targets...just like any other drone or guided missile....which is the reason why they actually hit their targets. And the one that hit the Pentagon may not even have been a plane at all but a missile. The last plane that supposedly crashed in Pennsylvania could easily have been a flub that had to be aborted and shot out of the air...there was no wreckage to speak of...it just ...disappeared.

My main concern with safeway is how they hammer unions.

In LA they were the instigators of a prolonged strike a couple of years ago.