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Courtesy of Office of Management and Budget.
The fiscal cliff. We are arguing over more revenue. We are arguing over tax hikes. We are arguing over the age of Social Security and Medicare commencement. We are arguing over defense. We are arguing over education. We are arguing over discretionary cuts….
When in truth, we should be taking the all of the above approach considering the problem….
This is our generation’s WWII… We are in for the fight of our life, and we have to get this right. There is no room for error….
If one takes this analogy between our economy and WWII further, one could say we are in the pre-years of WWII now, the late 30′s. We are making small amendments to our armed services, buying a few planes here and there, and as the crises worsens, we send some of our stuff overseas.
But it takes the loss of our fleet in Pearl Harbor, to WAKE US UP!…. In a matter of days, the entire Pacific was under Japanese control. All of European civilization but for Britain, was under Nazi Germany’s control…. Just like that…
Had we had our battleships in war mode, Pearl Harbor never would have happened. Had we rushed to France’s aid, probably WWII would have stalemated, and who knows what kind of world we would have today….
Bottom line, is that we need to do all of the above right now… Republicans need to give in on taxes, Democrats need to give in on entitlements. Corporations need to start re-investing now, ahead of the curve. The wealthy, need to pay up a lot more. Everyone needs to chip in….
What we don’t need are arguments because “my side” doesn’t feel like it is treated fairly unless “your side” gives up something…
Just everybody give up everything… You going to later, if you don’t do it now, so, … let’s fix it now…. while the price is still low…..
Seriously, since we are deciding the fate of the world as put by the Guardian, but they termed it the “fate of the free world.”
Which is more relevant?
A) College Transcripts and Passport Applications from before 1980?
Or:
B) Tax Returns for 2009, 2008, 2007, 2006, 2005m 2004, 2003, 2002, 2001, 2000?
Every Presidential wanna-be releases 12 years of tax forms: Why hasn’t Mitt Romney? The American People want to know, Donald… Where is your bet to Romney to publicly release his income tax returns before 5 o’clock, Tuesday, October 30th?
Donald, the American people have questions. The American people need to know if their president has violated any tax laws or has committed any crimes before putting Mitt Romney into the White House… Oh, he’s your guy. That’s why you went back 40 years asking for some dumb transcript…..
Donald, you are such a joke….. Ha, ha, ha… (psst. We are laughing AT you, .. not with you…)..
If you didn’t live baseball, this is probably over your heads. You can get background here.
But this just came out. Eric Cantor, the Tea Party Republican who documented here was solely responsible for the Budget Crises of August 2011, who was solely responsible for the lowering of America’s Standard and Poors Rating, who was solely responsible for the stock market crash and ensuing two quarters of luckluster growth that put the recovery back on its heels as well as putting many out of work, that Eric Cantor who killed the $4 Trillion agreement between Speaker Boehner, Mitch McConnell, and the White House, actually heavily bought US Treasuries short in late June and early July.
When you buy something short, it means you make money when they lose value. In baseball terms, it means you bet on an outcome and then use your position to “throw the game”…
There is no difference between what Eric Cantor did, and what Pete Rose did. The only possible explanation is that Congress is not run by standards of excellence as high as that of baseball.
It needs to be.
Eric Cantor is not in your district. But, you can take it out on Republicans. All of them. If they feel your anger, your hate, your passion, your fire, it will be a long time before the likes of Eric Cantor return to the hallowed halls of Congress.
This is corruption in its most viable form.
How can you deny Pete Rose his spot in history, when you have someone much, much worse as second in command of the Republican Party?
How?
J. C Penny refused to cow to the alleged boycott by the Million Moms, part of the American Dumbass Association, and stood up today, saying it is proud to stand behind Ellen DeGeneres as their spokesperson….
Unlike the Koman foundation, they can do math…..
At 50.8% that includes 158,288,693 women….
Out of which 1 Million Moms equals… 0.6% of one measly percent…..
To the American Family Blah, Blah, Blah Organization……
“Oh, … shut….. up.”
.
This story is making it’s way up the charts… It is about the perils of navigating the private insurance labyrinth, being kicked out, and finding salvation in what?…… A government run Health Care Program.
Bottom line… Private Insurance ain’t what it was under Clinton’s 1990′s… If you haven’t gotten sick lately, then talking smack about Governmental Healthcare, makes you a stupid-ass hypocrite.
Bottom line.
Hurricane Irene is scheduled to blow into North Carolina, sucker punch Richmond, then follow I 95 up the Eastern Seaboard….
When the storm is over, out come the cries for Federal Assistance to cope with damages. Of course, due to Richmond’s representative Eric Cantor, this time there will be a historically low amount of assistance dollars available to be dispensed among all those states needing help….
The proper way any administration should handle these incoming and overwhelming requests, would be to say: since Delaware has always understood the interfacing required between the Federal Government and states; they will get what we need. Richmond,on the other hand, has not. Perhaps they might like to give Eric Cantor a personal call and ask him and his supporters to assist them with their finances?
Eric Cantor was tipped off early that the firm of Standard and Poors was going to devalue the dollar, irregardless of whatever deal they came up with.
Prior to the devaluation of America’s Treasury bonds, Eric Cantor had sent a letter (how did he know…), warning the Tea Party Republicans that pressure to raise taxes would be ratcheted up by the upcoming Standard and Poor’s devaluation….
He was right… Thank goodness, after 12 years, with this devaluation, we are finally starting to hear a few of the common sense arguments on the main stream media, that illustrate for all… that raising taxes to “now” be our best economy grower.. .
If you read Standard and Poors correctly, their report implies that the Tea Parties line (the one about NOT raising taxes), IS the primary obstacle that prevents the fixing of America’s debt problems… By implication, that makes the election of Tea Party candidates, the sole reason our bonds were devalued. (On the other hand, according to the ratings agencies, Obama receives high marks for his part in trying to make a better life for all Americans.)
In a secret email, Eric Cantor says…..
“Over the next several months, there will be tremendous pressure on Congress to prove that S&P’s analysis of the inability of the political parties to bridge our differences is wrong. In short, there will be pressure to compromise on tax increases. We will be told that there is no other way forward. I respectfully disagree.” Eric Cantor
He knew well in advance…
He continues….
“We have said from the beginning of the year, the new Republican Majority was elected to change the way Washington does business. We were not elected to raise taxes or take more money out of the pockets of hard working families and business people. People understand Washington can’t keep spending money that it doesn’t have. They want to see less government – not more taxes.
Back up: we were not elected to…. take more money out of the pockets of hard working families and business people……..
No one said anything about more taxes for the 99% on the bottom… At issue is how much to tax the 1% on the top…
Taxing the top 1% at a marginal rate of 40% and increasing capital gains taxes to a rate of 40%…… actually PUTS MORE MONEY BACK INTO THE POCKETS OF HARD WORKING FAMILIES AND THOSE BUSINESS PEOPLE RUNNING THE ESTABLISHMENTS THOSE FAMILIES CHOOSE TO PATRONIZE……..
So you see, Mr. Cantor.. Raising taxes on the top 1% is not a conflict of interest for you… You said so yourself….. We’ll support you in not raising taxes on the bottom 99%…
Raising taxes on just the top 1%, is good.. WHAM!!!!! It jump-starts the economy…. Whereas,….
Cutting taxes for the top 1%, is bad… We all know this is fact. You don’t need me to explain it; you know just from living through the past 12 years of the Bush Tax cuts… The last 12 years have made the Clinton Tax Hike Years in comparison, seem like the true Guilded Age..Gosh, it seems like so, so long ago, when everything was perfect.
The Bush Tax cuts, collapsed the economy…..
Tax Cuts kill jobs. Always have… always will….
(but what is really, truly, profoundly sad, is this exhortation from Eric Cantor) “When given the choice between bettering the American economy, and getting more Republicans in power, you better vote for getting more Republicans in power…Our new motto: F*ck the economy!”)
Why?
Don’t listen to bull or the finger pointing by piss ants who have no power and so use events to justify their certain slants or beliefs… ..
It’s because the market got surprised by the Labor Figures yesterday and rose….
That wasn’t supposed to happen. The market was supposed to be in the 10000 by close of Friday….
Now, a little extra push is needed to make it reverse direction and go that way, and S&P is the entity in charge of executing that task.
If it doesn’t go below 10,000 by close of Monday, big money will be lost. Obviously, the closer the DOW is to that level if not below, the smaller and smaller the loss will be to those who sold short……
You see. It has nothing to do with politics. It has nothing to do with the economy.
It’s simply betting at a racetrack, ie. one thats run by the mafia…….
Hopefully you listened to me, so it doesn’t matter what the market does…. I mean (and here it is put succinctly), when the mafia puts their money on a horse, that’s one race to gotta get out of…..
In today’s political world, the embattled progressives are ironically in the same position American forces found themselves in Afghanistan around the time Obama was sworn in………
Things do not seem to be going well at all….
They did not get the Bush tax cuts off the books. Those tax cuts are still sending jobs overseas. They did not get single payer health care; insurers still limit health care. And now, many of the federal programs supporting the economies in their districts, are about to be eradicated….
“If only” Obama had stood tough!.. “If only” Democrats were better negotiators and didn’t give up everything at the drop of the hat… “If only” the Democrats worked harder last December to get the Bush tax cuts not reinstated. “If only” Democrats hadn’t lost the House last election, things would be different. “If only” Obama hadn’t sold us out! “If only” Obama had a spine. “If only” Democrats hadn’t caved and given Republicans 100% of what they want…“If only” the media would educate the public. “If only” truth was allowed on the airwaves….
The Progressives should not base their future strategy on “what-ifs” and “if only’s” as Progressives (especially here in Delaware) are prone to do. Such an approach is not “reality-based.”
It is instead, “hope-based”, which is to say in reality … “illusion-based”…
The illusion persists that Obama can “make” Republicans do what Progressive want. It equals the illusion that the US, can “make” the government of Karzai, do what everything we want…
In both cases, both progressives and the US, can’t force the issue. Instead, what they have to do, is out-argue, snuggle-up, and win the battle of the minds; they have to convince the respective populations that if they follow their way, the population will be better off.
With this bill, we now have a “reality” to assist with that convincing…
The core of all the arguing, is the hypothesis that America needs to tax it’s wealthy a little more.
When American’s go to the polls in 2012, they will have begun to feel the effects on the economy of what happens when one cuts $100 billion a year. Just like the balanced budget deficit bill of 1937 pushed America back into depression, so will this bill.
Progressives need to be out there saying, “We told you this would happen; see? We were right all along; all you have to do is tax the wealthy and this all goes away…..”
Unfortunately (or rather fortunately), there will not be a World War III to pull us out of this next upcoming depression… We will just have to spend Federal Dollars as if there was one. Which means, we have to return to the top marginal tax rates of 1941 – 1945…
So yes, there are no new revenues in this bill. Had there been, the reality would be that the House would have allowed a default.
But the argument can now begin… anew,… starting tomorrow! That increases in taxes cause an increase in jobs….. Had another default issue been allowed to occur again before the election, that argument would have been held hostage once again…
Now, it can’t… It can’t…. The argument of “good taxation” will get out there. This future election will be all about job creation…..
The Tea Party and Progressives both make the same error. They feel that holding another side hostage to get their way, is acceptable. That is not how America works. Often we fail, to remember that America is the one who put the Republicans into the position they did. Likewise, it was the Americans who put Democrats in the same position, two years earlier.
This argument needs to be played out over the course of an election cycle. The Americans themselves need to weigh in on this argument. Each side must argue their case.
It comes down to Clinton’s way… versus Bush’s…..
Start changing minds.
