Stop the economic terrorists!
By louisehartmann
President Obama is negotiating with economic terrorists. And a new Reuters report shows he's giving in to their demands by offering cuts to our social safety net. In calls with lawmakers over the weekend, Obama said he will cut programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid in exchange for a so-called compromise to replace the sequester, as long as Republicans agree to more tax increases.
This is not a compromise. The Republicans have held our economy hostage, and pushed their austerity measures, so they could force Obama's hand in the budget debate. Because of the GOP's economic terrorism, and refusal to end tax breaks for millionaires and billionaires, our nation will face cuts to programs many of use depend on.
A new report from Alternet lists several of the most devastating cuts we now face, like a $199 million cut to public housing, a $633 million cut from Special Education programs, and nearly a $1 billion cut to FEMA disaster relief. And now Obama offers more cuts in hopes that Republicans will negotiate? This is insane. We shouldn't have allowed these cuts in the first place.
No nation, in the history of the world, has ever cut it's way to prosperity, but apparently Congress and the President think somehow austerity will be successful now. We need to band together and fight back against these Republican austerity measures, and against the Administration's purposed cuts to our vital social safety net.
Let's remind them they work for us. Call Congress and the White House and tell them to stop the economic terrorism now.
Comments
#2
Wow, what devastating austerity and these economic terroists. Lets all freak out to this bloody BS. are you kidding?
federal spending will continue to climb.
No Real 'Cuts'
In fact, if nothing else changes, spending in 2013 will be $3.6 trillion, an increase of nearly 2% over 2012, according to data from the CBO. That's because the sequester's "cuts" are actually just reductions in planned spending hikes.
Nor is the federal government operating anything close to an austere budget when looked at as a share of the economy. According to the CBO, spending this year will account for 22.4% of GDP, a level reached only eight times since 1946 — four of which occurred under Obama.
#3
Glad to see you are scheduled to have economist Randy Wray on the show tomorrow. I recently had a chance to re-read a great business card analogy which I think serves as a very clear explanation of how federal government deficits create surpluses for the nongovernment sector, and how the federal government doesn’t need to issue bonds to fund its spending but does so in order to provide a secure interest-bearing savings vehicle in which its citizens can invest the non-interest-bearing dollars they accumulate as a result of the government’s deficits. Here it is:
Imagine the economy is a household which is comprised of you (the parent) and your kids. You the parent are analogous to “government” and the kids comprise the non-government or private sector. As the government you decree that you will offer 100 of your business cards per week to the kids if they agree to tend the garden on a weekly basis.
Naturally, the kids resist as they have no use for worthless business cards so you create demand for your “currency” (the business cards) by establishing a tax that can only be extinguished by remitting them. You declare that the kids will need to pay you 100 business cards per week to remain living in your household.
Immediately, by imposing a tax obligation in the currency of issue (the business cards) you have created a demand for the currency and created the conditions to allow you to transfer private resources (the kid’s labor) to the public sector (your garden). However, also note that you must spend the 100 cards each week before the kids can pay the tax of 100 cards. This illustrates that government spending must precede taxation and that taxation is not a revenue source for the government (i.e. taxing or taking your business cards from your kids does not allow you to spend your cards in the first place). You are the monopoly issuer of your cards and you are never financially constrained in your business cards (the currency).
This arrangement is analogous to a fiat currency like the US dollar. You can then extend this analogy and begin to track your currency transactions via a spreadsheet. This eliminates the need to “print” more business cards. Your spreadsheet represents “bank entries” which record all the outflows (spending) and inflows (taxation). If you make an error and add an extra zero to your spending one week, you wouldn’t have to “print” 900 new cards but your kids would be better off by 900 cards because it would show up as a deposit in their account.
Under the conditions above, the household budget would be balanced each week: You spend 100 cards and the kids pay you 100 cards to extinguish their tax liability. Note that the kids will be unable to accumulate any cards (that is, save) because they can only get access to the volume of cards that you make available via spending.
If you want to teach your kids to save you will either need to increase the business card wage for their labor while leaving your tax unchanged, ask them to do more labor each week and thus increase their wages while leaving your tax unchanged or keep paying them the same amount for the same labor and lower your tax. Let say you provide them with 120 cards per week as wages (government spending) but keep the tax at only 100 cards. Your budget will now be running a deficit of 20 cards per week but the kids can now save 20 cards per week because your spending (the government spending) has provided the “finance” for the savings. As the weeks go by the kids could accumulate more and more savings (numbers in the spreadsheet would increase) and you would soon see that the non-government saving over time is the exact record of the cumulative deficits being run by you (the government). Same as the US economy.
Extend the analogy further; Your kids now want to make more money (cards) and earn a return on their savings. As it stands, the only way they will be able to do that is if you decide to pay interest on their savings. This is equivalent to you offering them a government bond (a bit of paper saying that if they deposit their savings with you each week that you will pay them back at some future time plus some interest paid, of course, in business cards). Your issuance of debt establishes a non-zero rate of interest in your household and increases the kid’s wealth. Note that you were not forced to issue the bond to enable you to continue to run a deficit. The bond simply replaced non-interest bearing savings (reserves in our “banking” system) with an interest-earning asset (the bond).
Work the analogy backward and you can see how a federal surplus reduces private sector savings.
Source: http://www.americasdebate.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=20318&st=0
#4
Sorry you lefties, the big three (SS, Medicare, Medicaid) will have to AT LEAST have a hair cut in order to survive. There is simply NO WAY they can survive in their current form.
#5
You right wing @$$wipez created the whole 'destroy social programs' scam from the very beginning right along with finding other scams to rip people off. You have spent all these years planning and plotting and scheming and avoiding paying your fair share of taxes putting the burden on those who are struggling to get by...many struggling just to stay alive....and you smug, cowardly parasites just keep on laughing all the way to your offshore bank accounts. You heartless cowards can all just EMS!
By the way, someone in Iran is knocking at the doors of the War Criminals...great job Parastoo! You rock!
http://cryptome.org/2013/02/parastoo-janes-cbrn.htm
#6
...shortly after the 08 hiest a man of substantiall wealth shot himself as did many others i read of. his fortune reduced to 50% or less, still sizable by comparison to many but encroaching on his life style. imagine it. Now we head into the next hiest, this time? "My" safety net, your safetty net, items that should not even be in the discussion!!! Yet here we are and they are still trying to bushwack Social Security and Medicare? Now imagine if wall street "did" get thier hands on it? The question i would pose to anyone today is who would you rather trust right now with your safety net? Calling and writing? They really do not care. Greed and selfishness killed what little was left of any so called American dream. Flat wages for decades as the wealth divide increases. Just look at China and the story today about that wasted monster mall and how empty it is. Why? the pigs of industry in china much like in America have made off with all the cash and the mall is belly up because the working stiffs can't afford anyhting. This folks is where America will be sooner then we think. So what do those of us do that might have half an inch to stand on? do we cash out a couple hundred K of our retirement, pay the penalty and tax to pay off our bank imprisonment just to be safe? At elast we'll own the home. we may not be able to afford much more at retirement but hey some dog foods are still cheaper at Big Lots then soup at Wal Mart. Pretty Sad when the solution is so simple.
#7
Tom,
It Would be nice to see the White House phone and the main Congress numbers
in your statement all about calling.
#8
Mauiman2: Medicare needs to be revamped, as in stopping the fraud and the wasteful feeding at the trough by physicians and hospitals. Social Security has nothing to do with the deficit, has been solvent forever (has over a $2T surplus), could be easily fixed by raising the cap and has by and large been paid for by its recipients; HANDS OFF! The bloated military budget, on the other hand, comprises half of our national spending. Why don't I hear you conservatives clammering to cut outrageous defense spending? Oh, you own stock in General Dynamics? I see....
Regarding Obama caving again, I believe we've watched this movie before. He sets up a crisis, then "compromises". How stupid we were to take him at his word.
#9
YUP!
#10
Boner's office never did write back to me. Hey thom i don't get your show in L.A. at 9am anymore since they put on a bunch of blow holes, what's Bernie's standing on it all? And What Do i need to do to get to hear you in L.A. while i'm stuck on the 405 parking lot!lol
#11
Deaf Politics: The mouths move and utter unintelligible oinking noise. Send the vile swine herders back among the company of the disease spreading swine herds they keep. Into the midst of all the hapless freaked out stampeding pig flesh in the fearsomeness of it all. Yesterdays have their value in planning for the future however don't bother turning back the clock , that is not the direction we are headed and there is no getting around it. So good mourning and a cause to celebrate .
#12
Please Mr. President, don't cut our Social Security or Medicare. The MSM reports that you are planning to offer cuts to Social Security and Medicare to satisfy the fascist republicans who hate America and Americans. DO NOT GIVE IN, PLEASE! It is the wrong thing to do. I am 77 and do not want to repeat what the elderly went through before Social Security. They either starved to death or survived eating dog food. Without Medicare, we would die simply die .which is apparently what they want us to do. Just hurry up and die. My parents were married in 1930 and my father drilled holes in acorns for the WPA in order to survive. It wasn't until 1937 that he got a job with the USPS and was able to feed his family. I do not want to go through another Great Republican Depression. AUSTERITY does not work. After President Coolidge cut income taxes for the rich in the mid 1920's, a bubble was created because they had so much extra money. The rich had a heyday buying property, etc. The bubble burst in 1928 just like it burst again in 2008 after the Reagan tax cuts. This caused a monetary crash which led to the subsequent crash of the stock market in 1929. President Hoover, who meant well, decided that the nation had to go on an "AUSTERITY" diet which led us directly into the Great Republican Depression. Thank God for President Roosevelt, he pulled us out of the depression and my father was finally able to get a job to feed us. Please read about the Great Republican Depression of 1929 and lead us out of this mess. PLEASE!!!!! Please do not listen to the Tea Baggers and Neocons. They are trying to repeat history trying for a different outcome. They know nothing about economics or history for that matter. They are just trying to please their masters the Koch Brothers, et al. We do not need AUSTERITY. WE NEED JOBS!!!! I am sure you are aware that during your inauguration ceremony in 2009, the usual suspects held a meeting with Grover Norquist vowing to make you a one term president. Now in your second term they are still blocking everything you are trying to do for the American people. They must not succeed. Please tell them to grow up!!!!!
#13
Maulman- Regarding Social Security, Medicare and so on, you conservatives are full of crap; either completely clueless or deliberately lying. Your argument amounts to little more than regurgitated sound bytes off FOX "news". Sorry pal, you're barking up the wrong tree 'cuz we're not buying it. Social Security, on its worst day, is more sustainable than the bloody Pentagon. We should be cutting the Pentagon's budget, first & foremost, before anything else... for many reasons, having as much to do with morality as economics.
The solution to Social Security's "problem" is no secret, nor is it "rocket science". Thom talks about this all the time on his show. Just raise the cap on SS-taxable income! Sound complicated? Only a know-nothing like Maulman or Global would buy into this neo-con, bogus lie that Social Security or Medicaid - or the Post Office - is "going broke". The hell they are.
One of the greatest comforts I've gotten from Thom's blog is seeing how many people are actually paying attention, who understand the real source of our fiscal crisis. We simply refuse to be brainwashed by Murdock & Company, and the piggish interests they serve. So save it, Maulman. You guys are wasting your time on us. - Aliceinwonderland
#14
Another acronym to decode: EMS. Translation, please!
#15
Dennis4444 - Go on line (Google) and you can enter your zip code and get your Senate and Representative E-mail address and phone number.
#16
This whole Sequestration process is nothing more than a cowardly way to implement Austerity measures against the poor and the middleclass in America, while preserving the wealth of the few. The President and the Democrats are as guilty as the Republicans when it comes right down to who is to blame for our present situation. Damn them all. This is all starting to smell like an inside conspiracy so each party can blame the other for what is and what will take place across America in the coming months. It is too late to march in the streets; they own the streets and the police in every State across our nation, as well as the news media outlets. Welcome to a new America, modeled after the old Soviet Empire. They all (politicians) belong to the Billionaires and Multi-Millionaires that own the political machine that governs our country. It is sad to read that people actually believe they can make a difference in the politics of our country by appealing to the politicians that have sold us out to begin with. Americans on both sides voted based on the commercials they heard and saw on the media and in general are either too lazy or too stupid to think for themselves, and that was apparent in our last Federal and State Elections! I have no faith in the idea that the American people can actually make a difference in what happens in this country. This is a very sad scenario to think about, that is if one is actually capable of individual thought that has not been fed to them by the powers that be. It is hard to draw any difference between what has happened in Europe (Austerity) and what is about to happen (Sequestration) in America. K. W. Take a good look at Greece and Spain if you think the people can make a difference when it comes to the Banksters and the Politicians. Do not be surprised if these measures lead to violence across our nation. Hopefully, it will lead to the burning of Washington and not our cities!
Can't wait to read what Aliceinwonderland will have to say about these comments! I have not given up, I am just a realist.
#17
Do not fool yourself. Obama is not your friend. He is not on your side.
He smiles and pretends to be on your side, but he is really nothing but a meat puppet working for those dark forces in our society working to enslave us all.
Obama works against your interests and for those of his corporate masters.
Economically speaking, he will cut your throat and bleed you dry for that last nickel, not because he or his masters really need it, but just because it gives them great pleasure to watch you bleed to death!
And Obama's biggest thrill will be that his victims fell (once again) for his lame rhetoric and stupid protestations that he will fight to protect the American middleclass!
And his corparate masters love him that much more, because he is making it all go down so easy!
Once he leaves office both he and his family will live on in grand style while the rest of society continues to suffer from his crimes and misdemeanors as well as those he allowed to happen on his watch.
While Obama himself may not quite be an economic terrorist, he is their enabler!
So very, very sad to see...
#18
Ken Ware ~ Usually I can find something to disagree with you about; but, not this time. You took the words out of my mouth. The whole unfolding of this political show looks more choreographed than a Broadway Musical. (By the way, I've always hated Broadway Musicals.) Both parties are blaming the other and doing nothing about it. The obvious goal--turn our country into a third world work camp. The only difference, they don't want to pay to maintain the workers.
The way I see it we have two options. Deal with the situation now, internally. This Generation must solve this problem. The powers that be are becoming too powerful too fast. They are dumbing down the next generation and taking away our weapons. The only hope to solve this problem internally falls on this Generation. If you agree, what do you suggest we do? We must act fast and with wisdom and reason!
The second option is complacency. The country will be ruined and the following Generations will be slaves. A solution, however, will eventually come externally as other countries will not accept the imposed burden from ours and remove our masters from power for us. This might be a good course to allow to happen because it is obvious that our Constitutionally sanctioned system has failed. I'm interested to hear your opinion.
Personally, I'd prefer to resolve the problem now than leave a legacy of oppression to the next Generation.
#19
Oh Alice, I believe he meant something on the order of "Eat My S(Grits)"
#20
I'm sick of this all-or-nothing stupidity (on-table or off-table); while the manipulators behind the curtain pass who-knows-what, likely against our best interests.
Medicare badly needs NORMAL ADJUSTMENTS. It is part of a crazy "camel designed by a committee" delivery system -- a committee that included sabateurs. US Healthcare is a jungle of vulture parasites, serving themselves. I have no problem whatsoever with Rational Cuts and Reorganization of Medicare by rational managers. However, this circus chirade of self-serving clowns ??? No way.
The March 4th TIME Magazine has "Bitter Pill" by Steven Brill, a 33-page documented major expose of US Healthcare issues {ie: Why medical bills are killing us}. It is manditory reading for anyone interested in US Healthcare. Brill documents all my longterm worst fears, suspicions and assumptions about the utterly irrational and detrimental huge-profit billing systems. List prices are meaningless to the Insurers who have huge discounts -- but literally fatal to those with no insurance. You could hardly design a worse access/payment system. The problems are lack of any consumer cost awareness or cost-control. (Though single-payer Medicare seems to work relatively well were it left alone).
Ref: http://www.time.com/time/covers/0,16641,20130304,00.html
{BTW: Steven Brill would be an excellent guest on the program; he was on NPR's Diane Rhem Show last week}
#21
By the way, Ken Ware--I like your new Avatar. Not that I don't like your face. It's nice too--genuine and real. But your new Avatar is very peacefull. Nice! Big improvement over the Airplanes. I like Natural over Artificial any day. Thanks!
#22
Sorry, Aliceinwonderland, for my 3 letter acronym..I don't think that one is in the book. Actually, DAnneMarc got it right! Thank you DAnneMarc!
#23
Last I knew in a Democracy my vote counts the same as David H. Kochs. Unlike David's, my vote was one of an overwhelming vast majority cast in support of closing tax loopholes on the very wealthy and no cuts to social safety nets.
In fact if Obama checks the polls he will notice that many of those who voted for the same Republicans he thinks he needs to compromise with are in agreement with closing tax loopholes and no cuts to the safety nets.
Thus giving in to compromise is simply giving into the will of a handful of billionaires and their self serving teabagger tools.....a vast minority!....why do it?.....respect our Democracy, that's your job!
Changing the subject, I don't get it...the Teabaggers say they won with the sequester like it was a good thing, and at the same time blame Obama for it, like it was a bad thing? This is insanity, no really I'm serious. However I do think they win if their depraved leaders, Cantor and Turtleman succeed in restoring the military spending, which in reality is truly the out of control socialist spending they constantly cry about..... God Dm hypocrites! With it no politically small matter, this is all about to blow soon!
#24
Palindromedary ~ Please, don't mention it. My pleasure! LOL Great to see Fluffy back. Thanks to you!
#25
Hey Outback, where is the social security surplus? It is out the door with general revenues, it is not there. Although I do agree that SS is in the best shape of all of the big three.
To those of you who vented at me, you are dreaming if you think Medicare and Medicaid can survive in their present form. Even if you cut the military in half (and no I do not own General Dyanamics stock) all you are doing is delaying the inevitable.
To those who disagree with me, you have not looked at the numbers, you are just reacting emotionally. That will never get us anywhere. If you disagree with me, show me your numbers, I'll show you mine below.
1 trillion dollar yearly deficit that has to be eliminated, or at least severely reduced
Military budget, 700 Billion a year or so, so even half of that does not cover the gap
"tax the rich" schemes can get you about 50 billion a year or so, just a drop in the bucket.
If you disagree with me, show me your numbers. Otherwise you are proving Fox News correct that lefties just react emotionally and rarely have any basis in fact.
You would not want to prove Fox News right, would you?
#26
Mauiman2 ~ Please cite all your information sources for everyone! Thank you!
#27
JLC - I read your "household analogy" piece and it made my head hurt. The first problem with it is that it's an extreme oversimplification. If the only way the parent (the government) can force the kids (the private sector) to work the garden in return for some symbolic compensation (business cards) is to threaten them with expulsion from the household, then why even bother with the business cards? "Work the garden, you little brats, or you're out in the cold".
This of course immediately begs a whole bunch of questions, such as whether the parent can actually, physically, put them out on the street. What if it's a single parent household with ten kids, half of which are strapping teens? What if two of the older kids (Tubby and Chubby) decide they're going to become "middle men", collect all the business cards, do little of the gardening and dole out just enough cards to their younger and more naive siblings to convince them that they have a piece of the action?
Business cards? Jesus! What's mom anyway, a realtor? Is that garden really critical to the well being being of the household? If it is, I'd submit that mom will soon give up her job, at least in this market, and be out there working the soil full time with eight of her kids after she and her eight youngest physically eject Tubby and Chubby from the house with just the shirts on their backs!
#28
July Gunlock is a POS and I wish she would EMS. Sugar is the major cause of Diabetes. Carbohydrates is the major cause of Obesity. Isn't that common sense by now? Or, are we all so stupid that we remain shills to corporate media propeganda like in the movie, "Idiiotocracy"?
Please, someone--enlighten me before I loose my foot!
PS I'd be happy to define my acronyms if anyione cares!
#29
Mauiman2 - Hold on a minute. The Social Security Trust Fund is "out the door with general revenues"? Since when? That account was set up to be independent of general revenues from day one. It's a separate cash flow that was agreed to be sacrosanct. The fact that politicians of both parties have seen fit to stuff their hands in that cookie jar (since Ronie Raygun, but not excluding Bill Clinton) does not alter one whit the original intent of the revenue. The SS Trust is backed by bonds (T-Bills) held in trust. It's solvent, barring some hanky panky slight of hand by Obummer or someone else.
And then there's the so called "defense" spending issue. No, my friend, It's common knowledge that when you add up the Pentagon's slice (which is the number you quoted) plus the war(s), plus the ongoing burden we're incurring in disabled veterans from those mindless wars, plus the CIA, NSA, BOTSTAF (Black Ops Too Secret To Account For), government contracts to defense contractors for useless weapons that don't work, we spend a mind numbing 1.3 TRILLION DOLLARS per year! That's more than the next 14 countries combined! Tell me now, Maui, what could you do with 650 BILLION DOLLARS PER YEAR to fix our little deficit problem, assuming you cut the military budget in half? Would that make you feel insecure? Just askin'
#30
The strings George Bush once bounced on are now completely attached to Barak Obama. I'm sure a set of pre-fit hooks for Mitt are now in storage.
#31
Honestly and sadly, I have come to believe that Obama's mind boggling concessions are predetermined behind the curtain and he's just another pawn in an orchestrated show of pursed lip indignation and bluster. . With all the power and ideal of the man for whom I voted severely diminished in my eyes at least, I still hold out hope I am dead wrong. But while Obama continues to "negotiate" with congressional domestic terrorists, time after time losing ground, giving them what they want, I have to wonder if this intelligent Harvard graduate is really and truly playing on the team that represents the American people.
#32
There will always be those who believe that the earth is flat.
Economic sanctions have never worked. They haven'y worked for North Korea (Since Bush called their leader a "monkey"), they haven't worked for Iran (since they were labelled "Axix of evil") and over sixty years of unilateral sanctions with Cuba has never achieved anything except higher costs for sugar and cigars. Hoeever, economic ties with the largest comunist country, China, abd cultural and economic ties with the USSR finally led to the downfall of a major threat against the security of the U.S. We should learn that thes "Flat Earth" policies don't work and open up cultural and ecinomic relations with them. They won't feel threatened and we obtain definite economic advantages.
#33
Bobcox - I watched Joe Biden on the News Hour last night addressing AIPAC, rattling the saber at Iran again. I don't think anyone in this administration actually believes that Iran poses a real threat to the region. I believe that it's necessary to foment more paranoia in order to justify our ongoing obscene defense budget. Even if Iran was pursuing a nuke (which is still open to debate), they wouldn't dare use it. Just like North Korea, they would be vaporized instantly. No, we have to keep up the fear mongering so that our "Captains of Industry" can continue to bleed us dry. Another indication of where Obama's priorities reside.
#34
Outback correctly states (I believe) that Social Security was to be "independent of general revenues, ... a separate cash flow that was agreed to be sacrosanct."
The problem suggested is: that any surplus is not stashed in some back room in the basement;-- -- they are invested in the worlds safest repository -- "US Government Bonds (T-Bills) held in trust." And who is that? -- QED yet?
#35
The Pentagon Defense Budget must get trimmed with a weed whacker. Ginning up fear over Nuclear Weapons development in any country doesn't impress me a bit. Hording Nuclear Technology is the biggest threat to peace on the planet. All nations must have this technology. Mutually assured annihilation is the only secure path to peace. Everyone must be on a level playing field in order to shift concern from killing each other to doing business with each other. Any other strategy will fail with dire and expensive consequences. Personally, I'd sleep better at night if we shared technology, materials, and weapons with Iraq and North Korea. Let them know we have no reason to fear them. Lift the sanctions and lets start doing good business!
The main job of Government is to care for the needs of it's subjects. When this duty is forsaken--for whatever justification--that Government is no longer legitimate. A Country is judged by how it treats the least of it's subjects. How it cares for it's poorest and neediest of all set the tone for how it deals with everyone else.
I demand no cuts to social programs at all! For anything that demeans the least of us, demeans us all!
Every dime we spend on the US remains in the US. Every dime we spend on Defense is thrown away and destroyed forever. Cut Defense not our social safety net!
Thank you!
The time has come to tell our representatives how we feel. Copy and paste the above rant (or better yet, write your own) into the comment box at this web site:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/submit-questions-and-comments
Then sign your name and send. It's that easy to let the President know how you feel. Peace!
#36
Thanks for the link, DAnneMarc. I sent the following to the bastards:
"The sight of Joe Biden pandering to AIPAC yesterday turned my stomach! This Iran / nuclear program debacle smacks of the WMD farce prior to the Iraq invasion. Do you people actually think you can get away with this crap again, and so soon? How many people do you think you have fooled?
What we need is to cut our 1.3 Trillion dollar military boondoggle in HALF and ASAP, in order to fix the economy, not launch another military adventure. If you start whacking the social safety net while ramping up this hyped crisis you'll be courting the kind of public reaction that hasn't been seen since the Viet Nam era. Don't do it!"
Like others here, I doubt that it will have any impact, but I feel better having gone on record. Maybe we do need to take to the streets like we did back in the mid 60's. They can only push the peons so far before the pot boils over!
#37
Ken Ware says: "The President and the Democrats are as guilty as the Republicans when it comes right down to who is to blame for our present situation."
I agree with most of your comments in this entry, Ken, but not the above quote. I have a problem with absolutist statements of this sort, because they are too simplistic, coming from frustration and emotional agitation while falling short on accuracy. I'll acknowledge that many Democrats have been essentially worthless as legislators; however I wouldn't go so far as to claim both parties are exactly the same. One need only examine detailed voting records of each member of Congress to see significant differences between the two parties.
This is not to suggest that I am satisfied with our two-party system. Absolutely not.
To obtain congressional voting records, I recommend you (or anyone interested) join an organization called Project Vote Smart, whose volunteers do the research and gather the data; a daunting task and not for the faint of heart. Every few years, these folks release a little booklet titled "Voter's Self Defense Manual". This isn't just for progressives; it's for ANYONE of ANY political leaning who wishes to make informed choices.
I appreciate your interest in my response, Ken. You've pissed me off many times with your comments; yet I still can say that overall, I agree with you more often than not, on many of the topics discussed on this blog.
Peace. - Aliceinwonderland
#38
P.S. Check out <www.votesmart.org> It's a great organization.
#39
JLC- How many times does Thom (and various others) have to keep repeating this: A country is not a household! Therefore you can't manage a national budget llike a household budget! DUH. - Alice I.W.
#40
Aliceinwonderland - My point was that the President and his cohorts in Congress helped to design the Sequestration Bill and therefore was just as responsible as the Republican puppets that agreed to push this B.S. through Congress. Do you really believe in this phony in the Whitehouse? The Sequestration is nothing short of an Austerity program that he and the Dem.'s supported. Why would anyone support an instrument that is designed to cut the poor and middleclass off from essential help that the government can only supply?
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From The Thom Hartmann Reader:
"Thom Hartmann seeks out interesting subjects from such disparate outposts of curiosity that you have to wonder whether or not he uncovered them or they selected him."
60 Minutes had an interview with Zhang Xin, a real estate billionaire from China who worked on Wall St. with Goldman Sachs for a while. A comment she made 11min 45 sec into her interview: "You know, I hear a lot in the U.S., people praise, Wall Street people praise state capitalism in China, "Look at how efficient things get done. Decisions get made so quick and so effective. It can roll over a policy overnight nationwide. And here in the U.S., we need to go through Congress, Senate, and debate." " So Wall St. people prefer the state capitalism of China to our government and economic system? More people should hear this.
An interesting sidenote - in the transcript of the interview they put the comma in the wrong place so it looks like: "You know, I hear a lot in the U.S., people praise Wall Street, people praise state capitalism in China, "Look at how efficient things get done..." which doesn't really make sense, and takes away the impact of what she actually said.