Is it true 40% of American households recieve a direct financial benefit from the government? 40%? Thats the result of creeping tyranny...trickle down misery...just what the existing regime wants, comrade.
The Bankrupting of a Nation
By Honest Abe Follow Fri, 20 Apr 2012, 6:48am 6,819 views 89 comments
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Honest Abe says
Forget fairness. How about in the name of saving the economy?
When wealth disparity reaches the levels that we've got now, the economy stops working. Period. End of story.
You want evidence? How about the 1920s?
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http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/an_billion_trick_ImTBFfz7MeuZLJY7JzXEIJ
More dishonesty from our "trusted" elected officials.
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Honest Abe says
Why don't you stop posting stupid links and answer my fucking question.
It's Obama's fault? What did Obama do again? You never told us.
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http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/article/obama-team-breaks-pledge-taps-lobbyists-cash/495751
Iwpg, the links aren't stupid at all. Whats stupid is your blind acceptance to the creeping tyranny it represents.
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Reality is that as of today, taxes are lower then they have been since the 1950's, and that means less taxes than under Reagan, Bush, and Bush Jr. Nuff' said.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/07/us/politics/with-a-signal-to-donors-obama-yields-on-super-pacs.html
Obama now embracing policy he previously said was: "a threat to our democracy".
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Hey, edvard, I have an idea: all of you people who think taxes are so low should pay an extra 30 to 60% more. After all, you people like progressive taxes, right comrade?
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Santa Cruz, CA
Under Bush the debt was being paid down until the economic crisis hit
You ignorant liberals all conveniently forget that Congress 1. approved Iraq war 2. spends the money. The president doesn't have this power.
Check out who voted to approve military action in Iraq. Hillary Clinton for example is one. John Kerry would be another.
Wars are expensive but they all must take credit where credit is due.
The problem with taxes is there is never enough money to pay for the losers. The reason is that as soon as a loser gets paid for it. another loser sees him and wants into the deal.
Today there are millions of people signing up for fake SSI disability benefits because their unemployment of 99 weeks is running out.
I know several of them as acquaintances. One is the brother of a woman I know who claimed she was "nuts" and he says his back is sore.
Food stamps, sec 8 are available to anyone.
My other acquaintance just got an inheritance a few months ago. Her father died. The people here at Emeline Ave said it did NOT matter if she had 1. an IRA 2. A recent *inheritance*, she was still qualified for sec 8 and food stamps!
The problem with some people is they don't get out enough and meet the people around them, let alone travel the world from time to time. Or, they're just willfully ignorant or not observant.
Everyone wants to get free money, and everyone is going to sign up for anything they can.
Cut off the money to Congress and they'll have a harder time spending it, it's very simple.
Dissolve the dept. of Energy and Education for starters. These agencies produce neither of their namesakes.
I and you have to make it within our means. Let everyone who is: 1. handicapped 2. mentally deranged get something. The rest it's sink or swim.
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marcus says
Do you think the Democrats aren't pushing us towards fascism? There is a wealth of evidence which suggests otherwise.
marcus says
So you invoke the spector of an evil, aristocracy controlled fascist government, then mock the concept of limiting the government's power?
I really don't understand the partisan mind. Iwog is right. Propoganda works.
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clambo says
How about you look in a mirror?
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CBOEtrader says
Are you saying all larger governments are fascist?CBOEtrader says
Can't I be in favor of shrinking governmental spending in many areas (defense for one) but still mock the ridiculous "starve the beast" mentality that has proven not to work?
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http://dailycaller.com/2011/12/04/president-obamas-top-10-constitutional-violations/
Cloud, you're are right. President Osama has participated in race warfare since the incident in DC where the cop asked for ID from the black college professor all the way until now "If I had a son, he'd look just like Treayvon Martin".
But he's also participated and encouraged class warfare, social warfare, economic warfare, hate, disregard and disparage the connstitution warfare,spread the wealth warfare and other socialist/communist stratigies. What else has he got to offer ????
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CBOEtrader says
???
I'm not all that partisan, just because I think the democrats are far better than the republicans. But just focusing on one single issue taxes:
I have stated this at least 10 times before on this site, but my belief is 180 degrees from the typical republican's. I say that if you want to get spending under control, we should pay for our government, rather than borrowing money and undertaxing for what we spend.
If taxes were higher and more progressive and were always set to meet last years spending or current projections, then you would see the powerful (you know the same one paying for a lot of what we spend) make the necessary decisions to keep government from getting too large or too corrupt.
This isn't rocket science. It's called paying your bills and being a responsible adult.
The problem is that then how do republicans then have any power ? When we pay our bills the democrats who are less tied to the MIC and more likely to support programs for the middle class and poor, would be back in long term control of the the federal govt.
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I agree that both parties are moving us toward a corporatocracy or plutocracy fascist state. But the republicans are way worse, and are the ones who have policies that can not survive any kind of democracy.
We only survive with way less big money in politics. But I don't see how we get back to how it was even 50 years ago.
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marcus says
For starters, I like this idea.
I disagree that the Democrats would do this much (if any) better than the republicans. They are both owned by the rich, and wont bite the hand that feeds them.
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Marcus, both parties, big government & centralized power, are pushing us into a fascist state (democrats leading the way).
America cannot survive a democracy. No country can...hence the very real joke - "Be nice to America or we'll bring democracy to your country".
What will save our nation is returning to a CONSTITUTIONAL REPUBLIC.
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CBOEtrader says
Perhaps, but clearly the Democrats are the ones trying to make taxes more progressive. And the ones trying to pass campaign finance reform.
The Republicans are the ones blocking the passage of said bills. And partisan Republican justices are behind Citizens United.
Certainly you can see the difference there, right?
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tatupu70 says
Yes, this was fucking awful.
tatupu70 says
Uh, didn't Obama promise to use public money, only to flip-flop after he saw how much private money he had to work with? He had his chance. He decided getting elected was more important than doing the right thing.
tatupu70 says
Well yes, the supreme court ruling was god awful, whereas Obama's flip-flop was normal political self-serving behavior.
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CBOEtrader says
This line of reasoning is completely wrong. You play by the rules that are in place, regardless of how you feel about them. This is the same stupid argument made that Buffet should pay higher taxes because he thinks he is undertaxed. As you have said though--propaganda works...
The bottom line is that Obama and most Democrats want to enact campaign finance reform, but Replublicans block it at every opportunity. This is one of the many ways that the parties are different. And those who complain that there is no difference are obviously not watching.
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tatupu70 says
Bullshit.
"In February 2007, I proposed a novel way to preserve the strength of the public financing system in the 2008 election. My plan requires both major party candidates to agree on a fundraising truce, return excess money from donors, and stay within the public financing system for the general election. My proposal followed announcements by some presidential candidates that they would forgo public financing so they could raise unlimited funds in the general election. The Federal Election Commission ruled the proposal legal, and Senator John McCain (R-AZ) has already pledged to accept this fundraising pledge. If I am the Democratic nominee, I will aggressively pursue an agreement with the Republican nominee to preserve a publicly financed general election."
He lied. Are you denying this?
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CBOEtrader says
Nope. We're not talking about him lying.
We're talking about which party wants to take money out of politics, and which party doesn't.
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tatupu70 says
Neither of them do. That is the point.
Obama wanted to come across as a new type of politician, and the US ate it up...but he is more of the same.
You are deluding yourself to think otherwise.
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CBOEtrader says
I'm not sure how you can conclude this. Which party passes campaign finance bills? Other than McCain, can you think of any Replublicans who would support it?
I agree that Obama has been disappointing. But you are concluding that he doesn't want to change the system when I would argue he does and has tried, but has been stymied by the opposition party. That's a very different situation.
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CBOEtrader says
He's not more of the same. He started out trying to be a force for good by actively working to pass reforms and ended up as little more than a blockade against right-wingers who are trying to dismantle everything that holds this country together.
You really want the Ryan plan to pass? You want to see an end to Medicare? Social Security? Unemployment? Food stamps? You want billionaires (with a B) stockpiling more billions as taxes on capital gains, interest, dividends, and inheritance is dropped to ZERO?
You know something? I'm stunned just writing the last paragraph. I can't imagine how ANYONE right, left, or center can possibly support such an atrocity as the Ryan budget. It's so radical that you'll have people like Warren Buffett paying NOTHING WHATSOEVER in taxes while a single mom working 60 hours a week is sending a large part of her check to Washington.
It's vile beyond description, yet this disgusting piece of shit passed the House of Representatives in a near party line vote.
If Republicans get the Senate back, Obama will literally be the only man left who can save this country from hell. This is not an exaggeration. It's very clear which party wants all elections dominated by money and which party is willing to set limits. Don't be disingenuous and claim otherwise.
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Cloud says
They sure are. That's an obvious result of record income inequality.
Cloud says
Unemployment is down. So, I'd say lots of people are better off.
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tatupu70 says
The government reported unemployment rate is down. In real life the population continues to increase and work force participation continues to decline.
There are more people, less of them are working and the unemployment rate went down. Amazing. Pretty cool what you can do with numbers when you are the government.
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bob2356 says
I've been hearing this argument for three decades now. Unemployment methodology might not be accurate, but it is consistent with itself. The job market HAS been better and everyone I know in business is reporting it.
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iwog says
You've been hearing about this for 30 years? Really? Thats especially interesting since this situation hasn't occurred in the last 30 years. The last time massive numbers of people ran out of unemployment benefits and fell off the survey was in the 70's. Then the number of women entering the work force more than exceeded the number of people dropping out of the survey so it wasn't comparable at all. What is happening today has no precedent since the depression.
What is your definition of the "job market" that's doing better. The number of people working is less than 10 years ago despite the population increasing by 30 million. What would worse look like?
Huge numbers of people are taking an involuntary early retirement because there are simply no jobs. With unemployment run out, drawing down IRA's and if possible collecting social security is their only option to survive. Most don't have anywhere near the savings they need for this. This is not going to end well at all for them or the economy.
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bob2356 says
You guys just keep fucking making shit up.
In Mar 2002, total US nonfarm payrolls was 130.421 Million. In Mar 2012, it is 132.821 Million.
In Mar 2002, population was 282 million, 28 million of which were 65+. Total under 65 is 254 million.
In Mar 2012, US population is 313 million, 41 million of which are over 65. Total under 65 is 272 million.
130.421/254 = 51.3% employed under 65.
132.821/272 = 48.8% employed under 65.
2.5% less.
Unemployment rate in Mar 2002 was 5.7%. Now its 8.2%. 2.5% higher.
See the correlation???
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bob2356 says
I'm pretty sure the number of people is higher than 10 years ago regardless of what official numbers say. Every contractor I've dealt with since I started buying real estate has one to several cash employees, often illegal, doing the work for them. The permit process has become a joke and contractors are surprised when you ask for one. The rise of the aristocracy means many more domestic jobs are necessary than even a decade ago. Prostitution is skyrocketing and sugardaddy websites are signing up thousands of girls every day. More specific to my industry, the bankruptcy "reform" act of 2005 sent almost every paralegal bankruptcy preparer underground. They are still there, but now they are on Craig's List and they CAN'T report wages because they are in violation of federal law. Then there's ebay and the explosion of people going into business selling stuff. The IRS has indicated it might crack down, but how do you enforce income tax on people buying at garage sales?
My main point is that there's more than one side here. As far as legitimate employment, everyone is reporting better job conditions. I'm not simply going to ignore it and pretend things aren't getting better.
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Other states may be reporting better job conditions (with a liberal "spin" of course). In reality its a mess out there, especially in California. 4 million lost jobs in the last 20 years, and check this out:
http://laist.com/2011/07/25/bleeding_out_california_lost_more_t.php
Liberal policies are driving jobs, businesses and people out of California regardless of how the liberals try to spin it.
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iwog says
Could you elaborate on this some more, preferably in a separate thread. I'd like to understand this better.
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If the U.S. House holds the purse string & the majority is Republican , Who is responsible for tax dollars being spent?
I think the Senate, White House & Supreme Court play second fiddle to any funding decisions.
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HEY YOU says
No one today is responsible for the tax dollars being spent.
The stimulus bill was the last major piece of new spending. Everything else is ongoing spending (mostly by the Bush administration) that has already been locked in by law.
The idea that Obama is spending us into bankruptcy is a childish lie repeated by people who have no idea what's in the budget and don't care.
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zzyzzx says
The bankruptcy reform act of 2005 created huge penalties for paralegals giving legal advice. It also created a stack of paperwork that is a minefield if you don't know what you are doing. It also locked the fee that paralegals charged to between $125 and $200 per case regardless of how much work is involved. The law also bans the use of "paralegal" or any other reference to the law in advertising.
Because I am not a lawyer, I need to sign eleven documents when I prepare a bankruptcy and I cannot under any circumstances give advice even though I've been doing this for nearly 20 years. I protect myself by requiring an attorney consultation for all my clients ($100) to iron out any problems with the case.
The penalty for screwing up is the US Trustee will ban a paralegal from preparing any documents and levy a fine of $10,000 or more. It's insane and has drive almost all paralegal preparers out of the legitimate marketplace.
However they are all over Craig's List. They are easy to spot because they charge more than $150 (illegal) or they don't have an office and want to meet you at your home or a restaurant.
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iwog,
Where did the funds for the stimulus originate?
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HEY YOU says
Debt, however this money was correctly spent during an economic emergency when many economists were predicting a depression.
Contrast this with Bush who not only outspent Obama 10 to 1, but cut taxes while he was doing it.
Democrats ARE BY FAR the most fiscally conservative party. It's not even close. Republicans are financial terrorists by contrast.
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HEY YOU says
People buying bonds who should have been taxed all along.
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/FGTCMDODNS
Plus on top of that Congress got cute in 2010 and gave all wage earners a 2% tax cut by eliminating that FICA payment and just printing the bonds to cover the resulting decrease in contributions.
All these tax cuts are just putting off the inevitable. We basically need to DOUBLE the tax rate in this country, it's in the mid-20% per GDP now:
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=8rs
while debt-to-GDP is literally skyrocketing:
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=8rr
We're going to have to grow up and understand that we can't have trillion-dollar defense establishments:
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/FDEFX
and $2T+ in social benefits:
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/A063RC1
without paying $3T+ in taxes.
The demographic middle of the baby boom is age 57 now. 5 more years they're going to be eligible for their SS, and in 2020 they'll be on Medicare.
God help us all. I can't see the future, but I don't think we have the political maturity to fix our fiscal situation. It's all just going to fly apart some day.
Not like Greece, because we can print, but not like Japan, either since we are dependent on the ROW for so much of our present standard of living.
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clambo says
The sheer degree of bullshitting in these few assertions is commendable.
For one, the national debt grew under Bush -- no debt was being paid down:
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=8rt
And the only reason the federal deficit fell was that the consumer debt take-on absolutely exploded 2001-2006:
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/graph/?g=8ru
That chart compares the annual federal deficit (blue) with the annual consumer debt take-on (red).
From 2003 through 2006 consumers were borrowing & spending $1T+/yr into the economy, and the Feds were taking their cut of that over-stimulated economic activity.
And while "Congress" certainly approved the war, there are two things with that.
1) The vote in the House 252-6 (Republicans) and 82-126 (Dems). The Dems in the House largely voted against the war but the Republicans got what they wanted.
Same story in the Senate, but given the rural idiot states there were more rural idiot Dem senators voting for war.
(48-1 on the Republican side and 29-21 on the Dem side).
Clinton and Kerry did not vote wisely in 2002, but there vote did not matter since there were 12 completely pro-war idiot Dem senators to join with the 48 Republican idiot pro-war senators to get the war resolution through the Senate. In retrospect they could have voted No for the optics of a meaningless protest vote, but they gambled wrong on that.
The Iraq War was a Republican enterprise that the Bush admin dragooned this country into and trying to slough it off on the Democrats is a breathtakingly deceptive tack.
Bravo for the attempt tho.