Thom was mistaken. It wasn't the Concord Coalition; it was the Concord Project. Here is the web site: http://concordproject.org/

I find it amazing that when the President has the luxury of a no go Congress and the ability to pander to his base all he wants, he still can't come up with a budget with cuts to the military. What a sacred cow the Military Industrial Complex has become in this country? Just like Israel and Saudi Arabia, we can't shake our addiction to the very problems that are killing us. Sorry, Thom. There is nothing the President is going to do in the next two years that is going to make me jump and shout short of prosecuting Dick Cheney and the Bush crime family for war crimes. Everything else is off the table at this point. The President cannot affect change in the budget anymore than he can change the weather. The natural repercussions of his past inactions have caught up with him and he is effectually impotent. The only power he has left is the power to veto what the Republican Congress he created has to say. However, he still controls the executive branch. He still controls the Attorney General. He can still fulfill his campaign promise and prosecute Bush and Cheney for war crimes. Until that happens, please spare us displays of veneration over his feeble attempts at Kabuki theatre. Surely you can see by almost every post here that they are not going over very well.

Politicians are going to do what the people who got them elected want them to do. I'm not talking about the voters. I'm talking about their campaign doners. The fact is they're supposed to be acting in the best intrest of the majority of the people they represent but sadly that's not the case nowdays. Congress is going to pass a budget that satisfies the largest campaign doners and the Washington lobbyist. The real problem is ignorance of of a large percentage of United States citizens when it comes to civics, how government works, and what their elected representives are doing that is not in their best intrest. Seems like I hear most people blaming the President for any and all problems that arise, not realizing the President can lead congress to do things to help or hurt the country but has little power to do anything without majority votes in both the senate and the house of representatives. So, when the President proposes things to help the country and it's not passed by congress and then the country gets no better, who gets the blame? The President. It's rediculous, but that's the way it is. I can imagine a political cartoon with President Obama dressed like a cowboy standing next to a pond marked with a sign that says " Average American Prosperity Lake" with one hand pulling down on the reigns of a saddled elephant with the GOP brand and pointing down at the water with the other hand as the elephant is pulling back. The caption would read "You can lead an elephant to water but you can't make it drink". On the other hand, if the President leads congress to do good and congress goes along with it, the President should get credit for it and if the President leads congress to do something that hurts the country, the President should get the blame for it. What the USA needs is a civics lesson on a massive scale and a website, easily accessed, that show how your representitives voted in the national and state legislatures simply by typing in your zip code.

Just read in the NYT that the Republicans are feeling slighted that Obama isn't "reaching out to them" or "consulting" them on topics they are familiar with. They just don't feel "included". Interestingly, I did not see a way to comment on that article - I like to think the Times may not have felt up to the barrage of negative reaction if they had opened it for feedback.

I wish Obama had acted like this a long time ago.

The catch is that Americans do not want to aid our poor. We know that not everyone can work (health, etc.) and that there aren't jobs for all who need one. The US shipped out a huge share of our jobs since the 1980s, ended actual welfare aid in the 1990s. America looked at the policies and programs implemented from FDR to Reagan, which took the US to its height of wealth and productivity, and chose to reverse course, doing just the opposite. The inevitable happened.

Since Reagan, the US has lost several trillion dollars (with a "t") to ongoing, massive taxcuts and handouts to corporations/the rich. Corporations continue to use this money to build factories and offices outside the US. shutting them down here. The Dems in Congress are currently considering extreme cuts in disability aid, which will virtually end Social Security Disability, as a necessarty step toward ending Social Security in whole.

Times have changed. US corporations have gone international, and no longer need to rely on US consumers. We make products to be sold in the more successful nations. I think the goal is to finish turning the US itself into another third world labor force, paid poverty wages to produce those goods sold elsewhere, serving to maximize corporate profits.

No, we can't. The US has -- with the support of the middle class -- been implementing the austerity agenda for years, piece by piece, from the bottom up. What we did in a nutshell: We looked at the policies and programs implemented from FDR to Reagan, which took the US to its height of wealth and productivity, and chose to do just the opposite. The inevitable happened. In similar eras in the past, when the richest few were able to take control, the poor and middle class, workers and the jobless, united to push back -- to everyone's benefit. That can't happen this time. This time, the poor have been welcomed to Stand in Solidarity for the middle class -- just don't expect a crumb to trickle down. With nothing to stop it, and in spite of occassiobnal bumps in the road, our corporate powers will bring the austerity agenda to fruition.

All we have to do is cut the obscene military budget (800+ military bases around the world, millions on every bomb, every jet!!!!) and we could fix our infrastructure, feed and house our people, and educate our children. The wealthy are paying a pittance of what they used to in taxes -- if they paid anywhere near their fair share there would be no deficits. Same thing for corporate taxes. It's totally disgusting.

Obama is nothing but a Wall Street shill and he's now attempting to pull his "legacy" out of the toilet. He knows perfectly well that all these "great new programs" he has will go absolutely nowhere. Does he really think we're all that stupid?

We talk about the 1%

Of what population and what country

I guess the 1% of the American population... no?

There are other countries you know!!

And, more human beings around the place

We share the same globe all together

We are one human race

Sorry about the rant! Cheers!

I agree that Infrastructure investment is a fundamental and necessary role of the government. Where we part company is on continued decades-long deficit spending that requires ever larger percentages of the GDP going to pay debts of years and years ago. Greece is facing just that reality. The government there simply does not have enough money to continue providing the level of services they've constructed. No one will give them more money. It's like a family that accumulates too many credit card bills and eventually they have to go bankrupt.... Tell me where I'm wrong?

Inasmuch as bombing people isn't getting us anywhere, why the increase in the "defense" budget, what is called a miltary budget? There is so much that can be done to bolster the country's infrastructure (and gain thousands of jobs) if we were to built just a few less B-2 bombers.

Tainted political red meat offered by the Obama amiseration - Oh, I mean administration. President Obama is completely aware of the chances of his budget making in through Congress, and that chance is just about zero and half. It is the most cynical of theatrics played out on the political stage for those still willing to practice in the art of self-deception.

Dear Thom,

A couple of things about your program this morning—your last caller, Mike Dickman is a friend from the Solidarity Sing Along, and he and I were discussing a Wisconsin / Walker “re-recall” shortly before he called you. It’s one approach we might take later, but more immediately the TAA (Teaching Assistants’ Association) at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, is working on our next action which will be coming up on Saturday 2/14. That day will be the fourth anniversary of the great “Wisconsin Uprising” – a reaction to Walker’s Act 10 “Budget Repair Bill” that has really attacked our public employee unions.

I’d also like to reassure your earlier caller, Tom who was part of the UW anti-Vietnam protests in the late ‘60s, that the revolutionary spirit is still very much alive in Madison. The afore-mentioned Solidarity Sing Along, which I call a “place-holder for democracy” recently observed our 1000th weekday sing; we gather in the Capitol rotunda every noon hour to sing labor, civil rights, and Wisconsin resistance songs (some are really humorous) from 12 to 1 every Monday through Friday since March 11, 2011. We are a real thorn in Walker’s side, as his attempts to discourage us through hundreds of arrests in 2013 are being dismissed by all the judges who have been hearing our cases, even the ones he has appealed.

If you would like more information on Wisconsin doings, you can get good stuff from Kathryn Satiewicz, another friend and a frequent caller to your program.

God Bless you and your co-workers for the important work you are doing.

In Solidarity!! Martina Rippon (martina2323@gmail.com)