Why would they get rid of him? They just put him into the position. Who would we get - another "brilliant?" politician like Cantor or Ryan. No thanks. I'd rather have the older fellow in charge, even if they ALL are idiots.

Global, I don't think you know what the word "libertarian" means. I think you meant to say "liberal".

Joe Kennedy is Robert Kennedy jr's brother.

Just tell me how we are going to cut the budget deficit. Here are the numbers.

Yearly federal shortfall- 1 trillion plus

Amount to be had from a "tax the rich" scheme- About 100 billion

Where is the rest going to come from? Even Dick Durbin (D-Illinois, the number two Dem in the Senate) recently came out and said "It is naive (sp?) to expect us to get out of this mess with tax increases alone. Everything has to be on the table."

By far the most intelligent thing I have ever heard a Democrat say in my life!!!!!!!

Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security are going to have to take a hair cut. Those programs are not sustainabloe in their current form. The only other alternative is a MIDDLE CLASS tax increase. The rich do not make enough money to keep those programs alive as they are now.

There was, in fact, a mass school shooting by a woman in the '90s in Illinois. Her name was Laurie Dann. There was no issue made of her gender in the media that I remember.

Many, many people work full time and more - at two or three jobs - for the privilege of living in poverty. At the VERY least, EVERYONE who works full time should be able to afford decent housing, education, healthcare, etc. for themselves and their children.

More just would be a strong middle class of working people.

Even more just would be equal, common ownership of the means of production and its dividend but I'd be delighted with just a strong middle class of working people.

Democrats are not wimps. They are shills for business.

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

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!

"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."

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.

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'?