YES! There’s plenty to dislike for both sides.
72%
NO! The GOP will cave on taxes to cut entitlements.
28%
Comments
Thom's Blog Is On the Move
By webmaster
Hello All
Thom's blog in this space and moving to a new home.
Please follow us across to hartmannreport.com - this will be the only place going forward to read Thom's blog posts and articles.
Images of Thom
With His Holiness The Dalai Lama, at His home in Dharamsala, India (Synthesis Dialogues - made into a movie narrated by Harrison Ford)
From The Thom Hartmann Reader:
"Thom Hartmann is a literary descendent of Ben Franklin and Tom Paine. His unflinching observations and deep passion inspire us to explore contemporary culture, politics, and economics; challenge us to face the facts of the societies we are creating; and empower us to demand a better world for our children and grandchildren."
From Screwed:
"Hartmann speaks with the straight talking clarity and brilliance of a modern day Tom Paine as he exposes the intentional and systematic destruction of America’s middle class by an alliance of political con artists and outlines a program to restore it. This is Hartmann at his best. Essential reading for those interested in restoring the institution that made America the envy of the world."
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."
A large majority of the public disagrees with cuts to Social Security. I am qualifying a petition for the White House web site asking Obama to reconsider cuts to Social Security. Please help get it going. This link takes you to the petition. http://wh.gov/MbjL
Cutting Social Security is crazy!! Our retirement saving are at the mercy of the Wall (Fraud) St. banksters as it is. Froma Harrop, a syndicated columnist, said that if the ceiling on earned income was removed and all of it was subject to the OASDI tax, Social Security would be self- sustaining in perpetuity. Time to look at that and at the same time maintain the benefit cap. If the 1% balks at maintaining the benefit cap, then how would they their Social Security means tested?????? Too few have too much and too many don't have enough and Its getting old!!!
It's amazing how Republican our Democratic president is. Why not stand firm, and negotiate from a position of strength, the Presidency!!
Shortly after President Obama was elected in 2008, he said the president he most admired was Reagan. At the time, I said Oh Oh....we're in for trouble. I would say Obama IS a middle-of-the-road Republican in the old sense of what the Republican Party used to be.
It's a risky gamble, that depends on how committed the House/Congress is to not raising taxes. But - the moneybags can easily take on a few more taxes that they don't pay anyway, especially if the trade off is making a dint in Social Security, and a beginning to chipping away at it until eventually there may be nothing left. On the other hand to mess with Social Security is a sure way to not get re-elected in 2014. Even a lot of moderate Republicans are not for it.
The only stop-gaps are the democratic senate, and the public. I don't believe the budget will get past the senate as long as Social Security is in it. They're not going to throw grandma under the bus if they want to remain in the senate after Obama has moved on.
Of course just thinking about progressives, liberals and conservatives uniting brings to mind visions of four horsemen. It's unfortunate that cooperation only comes with efforts to make things worse rather than better.
I know there have to be reasonable ways to cut spending and raise revenues that don't involve pulling food and prescriptions out of the mouths of the disabled and retired. What's wrong with closing some control towers, the traffic on the road is worse that in the sky and we make it home pretty safely. How about a federal license for gun owners, $200 a head, that'll raise some revenue, tax the bullets, dump the lobbyists, quit paying for "crap" and BALANCE THE "GD" BUDGET!
Youth is wasted on the young and politics is wasted on the politicians!