Morning Must Reads: Brink

“Barbour’s comments, at a GOP dinner in Iowa, were … comments—and certainly didn’t constitute any kind of serious presentation of a foreign policy agenda. His case for cutting defense spending was more political than substantive—”We can save money on defense and if we Republicans don’t propose saving money on defense, we’ll have no credibility on anything else,”—and not very smart politics, either. What’s more, according to Kasie Hunt’s report, “After the speech, Barbour told reporters that he couldn’t identify specific programs that should be cut from the Pentagon budget.” Barbour’s only substantive argument seemed to be this: “Anybody who says you can’t save money at the Pentagon has never been to the Pentagon.” This is a) childish, b) slightly offensive, and c) raises the question of how much time Barbour has spent at the Pentagon—apart from time spent lobbying for defense contractors or foreign governments.”

I think Bill Kristol’s description of Haley Barbour applies to the Republicans in Congress. Their proposal for cuts is more politcal than substantive and when they were asked about what they would cut, other than programs which costs the taxpayer pennies and would do nothing to reduce the deficit, they did not have any specifics.

To paraphrase Barbour, “Anybody who say can’t save money (name any department or program) has never been to the (department or program)”.

It would seem that, at least Barbour is appearing consistant. When it comes to defense spending, neocons turn into big spending “Liberals”.

Asking anyone on the other of the fence how saving 10 bucks on a 100 dollar burn rate will balance the deficite the response is usually ‘so other than defense, you only want to tax and spend’
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The prevailing logic is that all those millions and suddenly it’s real money. Yeah – if the end result is balancing the budget, other wise its a trickle trying to slow down a river.

I have to laugh about Jim DeMint praising RomneyCare only 3 years ago. No matter, even though ObamaCare is largely modeled on RomneyCare, that alone demonstrates that DeMint is showing the early signs of Obama Derangement Syndrome (ODS).

Is is true that DeMint endorsed Romney over McCain? It must have to do with personality over substance. The idea that the Tea Party’s favorite senator would endorse the moderate Romney over the clearly more conserative McCain demonstrates that McCain is really good at irritating his colleagues.

Now, it this about the individual mandate? Frankly, I think the individual mandate is unconstitutional, however, Romney has distinguished his individual mandate, by stating it comes form the police power of the state.

POLICE POWER? That’s right folks, your state government can mandate things from you and to you that the federal government could never do. And the Tea Party is worried about the federal government? When are they going to protest state governments assaults on our individual liberties?

I see you still can’t or won’t answer the real issue about spending and entitlements

There couldn’t be a more twisted, illogical, taken out of context and ideologically NUTS comment in the swamp than this comment.
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Good job.

One of our conservative friends has been talking about illegal immigration and how Liberals are for “amnesty”. What is interesting is the only ones before Obama who have pushed for “amnesty” were Ronald Reagan (who was successful) and George W. Bush (who was not).

Well, guess what, today on NPR, the Liberal state of Utah has passed a number of measures, some dealing with enforcement, but others which deal with guest worker programs and the like. In addition, in Arizona, five measures to crack down on illegal immigrants were defeated, things like denying health care to illegal immigrants in hospitals and denying entry into elementary school of children of illegal immigrants.

Both Arizona and Utah are heavily Republican and conservative. Arguably Utah is even more Republican and conservative than Arizona. What Arizona is realizing and what Utah saw what was happening in Arizona, was that the tough stand against immigrants was hurting business and the business community was negatively impacted by such legislation.

While the “Minutemen” were finding illegal immigrants as being convenient straw-men for their grievances, the legislators in both states have to deal with reality. As long as America is the land of economic prosperity and as long as American business will hire illegals for jobs and for wages that Americans will not work for, the immigrants will keep on coming.

Understanding Japan’s Nuclear Crisis

Proving how TIME.com spins anything they get their hands on in favor of their libtarded friends.
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“–And Jim DeMint wasn’t so down on RomneyCare in 2007.”

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Well let’s do a little timeline. When was RomneyCare enacted into law? Wow, not until late in 2006. OMG, a complicated program, as you all like to say “very much like ObamaCare” and Demint was expected to know everything before he endorsed Romney over McCain in the New Hampshire primary. Hmmmm.
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Then the bill, just like ObamaCare again, went through many “fixes” and didn’t come to it’s final version until late in 2007. Imagine that!!
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Good job Adam. Today you win the “Who Can Spin Like A Top The Most For Liberal Causes Best” Award!! Congratulations!!

Little Children DIE at Hands Of Gaddafi Backed Forces
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“TUNIS (Reuters) – Twenty-five people, including several children, were killed during heavy bombardments by forces loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi on the western city of Misrata on Friday, a doctor in the city told Reuters.”

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Gee I’ll bet all of the liberals who felt that the US should stay out of all this feel really good this morning. Tonight, might be a little harder to sleep. Oh that’s right, liberals do not care, they abort babies. What is a few little Libyan children when they have mass murdered millions of unborn babies?
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freep,

The point is the Republicans are not serious about cuts in spending either. They want to take a hatchet to the budget, but don’t have a clue of the effects of their cuts or don’t care. In reference to the article, that is what Kristol is saying about Barbour.

You want specifics? I will give you specifics. On Social Security: lift the ceiling on the amount of income subject to the tax; gradually raise the age of receiving full Social Security; Means test how much a recipient receives.

Medicare/medicaid – pay for quality not quantity. Why are we paying twice as much per medicaid/medicare patient in McAllen, Texas than we are paying for patients at the Mayo clinic in Minnesota-one of the finest clinics in the world.

Cut off farm subsidies to the mega-farms-something Republicans (and Democrats) from farm states are currently fighting.

Of course, these are things our friends in Congress are not seriously considering. In the case of Social Security and Medicare, the Senior lobby is making sure both sides are too scared to touch.

And that’s only for starters. I have plenty more.

I’ve hit a new low!! Even Rusty is calling me NUTS!

Not To Worry, The Nuclear Fallout Now Reaching The United States is “Minuscule “
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VIENNA (AP) — Radioactive fallout from Japan’s crippled nuclear plant has reached Southern California but the first readings are far below levels that could pose a health hazard, a diplomat said Friday.
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The diplomat, who has access to radiation tracking by the U.N.’s Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization, cited readings from a California-based measuring station of the group.

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Now we just wait and see if California lights up at night without electricity!!

“There couldn’t be a more twisted, illogical, taken out of context and ideologically NUTS comment in the swamp than this comment.
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Good job.”
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Pshaw, Rusty Rod! You’ve done much better:
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Still my fave from NewFreedomBlog:
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“I am also not a religious zealot or fundamentalist, but this also REEKS in connections to writings I have read on how the Anti-Christ will take over the world. Just saying. Get out your copies of the Late Great Planet Earth and other various once widely believed science fiction books on the apocalypse. ”
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Or how about:
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“I have resisted for a long time to doubt Obama’s birth as a “natural born” citizen of the United States of American. The US Constitution is very specific as to the qualifications for anyone to become “President of the United States”.
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“Also known as “Birthers”, and vilified by the lame stream media types, I do believe we now have the proof needed to challenge Obama’s right to be our President. Our Congress should act on this quickly, and put all efforts into once and for all giving the truth about Obama. ”
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quoted from your own twisted, illogical, ideologically NUTS blog.
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Or do you not think that Obama is the Kenyan Anti-Christ?

thanks for this

The Games The Fed Play: Problem Is It Is ALL Done In Secret
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A spokesman at the New York Fed, which operates as the agent of the U.S. Treasury in currency operations, confirmed that it had intervened. The last time the U.S. government intervened in currency markets was the fall of 2000 when it sold dollars and bought euros to bolster the fledgling European currency.
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The spokesman refused to provide any details on the amounts of the intervention or what currencies were involved.

“In short, we’re well on the way to creating a permanent underclass of the jobless. Why doesn’t Washington care?”

So who pays the price for this unfortunate bipartisanship? The increasingly hopeless unemployed, of course. And the worst hit will be young workers — a point made in 2009 by Peter Orszag, then the White House budget director. As he noted, young Americans who graduated during the severe recession of the early 1980s suffered permanent damage to their earnings. And if the average duration of unemployment is any indication, it’s even harder for new graduates to find decent jobs now than it was in 1982 or 1983.

So the next time you hear some Republican declaring that he’s concerned about deficits because he cares about his children — or, for that matter, the next time you hear Mr. Obama talk about winning the future — you should remember that the clear and present danger to the prospects of young Americans isn’t the deficit. It’s the absence of jobs.

But, as I said, these days Washington doesn’t seem to care about any of that. And you have to wonder what it will take to get politicians caring again about America’s forgotten millions.

The Tragedy That Is Japan
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If this doesn’t tug on your heart strings, nothing ever will.
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“Sitting silent in their classroom, the 30 children whose parents have not come to collect them after tsunami swept away their town
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Even amid the carnage and despair of Japan’s tsunami victims, the plight of the 30 children at Kama Elementary School is heartbreaking.
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They sit quietly in the corner of a third-floor classroom where they have waited each day since the tsunami swept into the town of Ishinomaki for their parents to collect them. So far, no one has come and few at the school now believe they will.
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Teachers think that some of the boys and girls, aged between eight and 12, know their fathers and mothers are among the missing and will never again turn up at the gates of the school on the eastern outskirts of the town, but they are saying nothing.

With HuffPo writers going on strike it seems the left is now being hoisted on its own petard. Its amusing to see the unions asking HuffPo to “invest” in quality writing. I am not sure how long this left wing blog has been spewing nonsense but the union was never heard from until the $$$$ signs appeared on the sale. They are also complaining now about unethical and unprofessional practices. None specified but they seemed to have appeared after $$$$$ changed hands. Once again we see the left having issues and its “all about the money”.
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Having read the HuffPo on an off Arianna has a good case the writers were paid exactly what they were worth!

The industry association called on contributors not currently on strike to cease contributions and asked members to help by “shining a light on the unprofessional and unethical practices of this company.”

Ruiz’s February 20 e-mail addressed a post on the Newspaper Guild’s website titled “Arianna got millions, all we got was a byline.” The post called on Arianna Huffington “to invest in quality journalism by sharing a portion of this fortune with the people who made her successful.” It included a template to e-mail Huffington.

The Newspaper Guild has similarly been rebuffed. The Wednesday statement by the Guild reads, “The Newspaper Guild has requested a meeting with company officials to discuss ways the Huffington Post might demonstrate its commitment to quality journalism. Thus far, the request has been ignored.”

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2011/03/17/newspaper-guild-huffington-post-strike/#ixzz1H0NjAmYd

A New Title Has Been Announced For U.S. Presidents
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I won’t spoil the surprise when you click!! Enjoy!!

“And the worst hit will be young workers — a point made in 2009 by Peter Orszag,”
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Yes they will as the greedy baby boomers continue to build entitlements like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and the bloat known as discretionary spending while the Democrats continue to make a punch line out of deficits with the alternating chorus of “these cuts won’t make a dent” to “these are draconian cuts to vital services”.

Liberals do care, but there’s a reality to what we can and can’t do with our forces. We aren’t the world police. There are other countries that are closer with the means to do something about this. In the end, the Libyans will be responsible for their own genocide. An unfortunate turn of events that were it possible and a reasonable course of action to stop it were available I’d be all on board.
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But bombs won’t fix the situation. Bombs kill indiscriminately.

Begging For Viewers: MSNBC Lawrence O’Donnell Asks Viewers To Watch Him And Not O’Reilly Or Beck
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New lows in TV and Journalism.
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Here’s a little secret, Larry. Start telling the truth for a change. Stop spinning for the progressive agenda for a change. Then viewers will flock to your stupid show.

Rusty Rod’s all hot and bothered to invade Libya. But what about Ivory Coast, Rod?
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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/18/world/africa/18briefs-ART-Ivorycoast.html?_r=1
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You might ask, what’s the difference between Libya and Ivory Coast? Well, Rusty Rod hasn’t been told by Glenn Beck to gin up invading the Ivory Coast. And why wasn’t Rusty Rod told to gin up Ivory Coast?
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“Oil reserves in Libya are the largest in Africa and the ninth largest in the world with 41.5 billion barrels as of 2007.”
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When Rusty Rod is told to say “Save the children!”, what they really want to do is save the oil. Ol’ Rusty Rod’s just a gullible little tool, needed only to parrot the daily talking points, then discarded when he becomes inconvenient to them.

“There’s an old expression: ‘You go home with them that brung you to the dance.’ You guys all brought me to the dance 36 years ago in Delaware as a United States senator. You’ve been with me, and I’ve stayed with you.”
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Biden Admits To Being A Union Whore

“But ‘it’s a world of difference in approach’ between the strict rules that govern work by ex-lobbyists in the executive branch and those in Congress…”

Ethics rules sharply limit the activities of former lobbyists who join the executive branch and former lawmakers who move to lobbying firms. But experts say there are no limits on lawmakers hiring K street employees and letting them write legislation in sync with the policies they advocated for hire.
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New tallies indicate that nearly half of the roughly 150 former lobbyists working in top policy jobs for members of Congress or House committees have been hired in the past few months. And many are working on legislative issues of interest to their former employers.
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The House Energy and Commerce Committee, for example, which led other House panels by hiring six lobbyists this year, is drafting legislation sought by oil and energy firms. At least four staffers on the committee payroll worked for those industries last year.

Looking Very Presidential
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Again, I won’t spoil the surprise!! Enjoy!!

Paying back the bailout doesn’t negate the need for stronger financial regulation and better enforcement.

Six banks repaid nearly half a billion dollars in funds they received from the government bailout of Wall Street, the Treasury Department said, bringing the total bank repayment under the Troubled Asset Relief Program to 99%.

Speaking of what happens to your ratings when you’re a frothing lunatic (referring to Glenn Beck this time, not Rusty Rod)….
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“Overall, Beck’s show is down 35 percent in total viewers in 2011 (averaging 1.9 million over the first seven weeks, compared to 2.93 million last year) and 44 percent in the demo (447,000 vs. 793,000 a year ago).”
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http://www.thewrap.com/media/article/behind-glenn-beck-fox-news-slumping-ratings-24967

Yeah, it all sure sounded good during the campaign.

Weiner then held up a sign with a quote from House Speaker John Boehner and read aloud, “I will not bring a bill to the floor that hasn’t been posted online for at least 72 hours.” He then prodded Republican Rep. Ted Poe, Texas, who was sitting in the chair, “Would the Speaker please clarify for the body that the 72 hours rule is either being waived or does not exist?”
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Poe responded that the rule is not predicated on a number of hours, “but rather on a number of calendar days.” He said that since the measure had been electronically available online since Tuesday, that would constitute three calendar days, thus not breaking any rules.
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Weiner pushed a little further asking Poe to clarify, “Did this bill age for 72 hours? Yes or no?”

Fhmadvocat,

I would take NFB’s comment as a badge of honor. You surely must have done something right! ;-D

Speaking of not understanding the consequences you are a prime example.
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First response as always “raise taxes”. Of course you don’t consider that employers pay half of that tax and it might cause them to: 1) not hire an additional employee 2) not increase salaries of current employees. Then you will no doubt whine about the employers.
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“Medicare/medicaid – pay for quality not quantity”
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And the immediate response from quality physicians is they don’t need to see Medicare/Medicaid physicians for the simple reason their costs go up and their income decreases. And just for good measure we will need how many additional agencies and overpaid government employees to execute this process that will almost certainly fail.
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“Cut off farm subsidies to the mega-farms-something Republicans (and Democrats) from farm states are currently fighting.”
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And of course there is no consequence to this is there? We are already fighting growing food costs thanks to Democrat stupidity in using ethanol in heir jihad against the environment.
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I am sure you have a million more brilliant thoughts. Lie down until they pass.

Who’s spinning? Good grief a full year after the law was enacted where the mandate was the center piece and DeMint only praised it because he really didn’t understand it?

And you have the gall to accuse anybody of being a kool aid drinkers.

Even slumping it seems Beck still has a bigger audience then the drooling frothing lying O’Donnell. So even if Beck is nuts people would still rather listen to him than a liberal. You can only assume Beck is nuts but liberalism is a mental disorder.

Rusty:

Everybody knows Biden and Democrats are union whores, its only the price that is left to negotiate.

The argument makes sense.

Conservatives have long targeted NPR because they believe it has a liberal bias, and many conservatives now believe their claims are bolstered by a selectively edited tape made by the conservative activist James O’Keefe, in which he records an NPR fundraiser supposedly making disparaging comments about the Tea Party. “It is clear we cannot tolerate, or afford, the continued spending of tax dollars on this type prejudice, intolerance and negative stereotyping,” said Rep. Michael Grimm (R-NY). But during a House Rules Committee hearing yesterday in which the de-funding bill was discussed, Rep. James McGovern (D-MA) had a novel amendment: Congress should also prevent any tax dollars, via advertisements, from going to the “wildly biased” Fox News Channel.

Oh gee, my little internet stalker is back. Hi mori-the-moron!!

Why does the government need to advertise anyways. They shouldn’t be allowed to spend tax dollars to bolster any TV, Radio or Print.
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If the programs are not sufficient to stand on their own feet by just being the great government programs they are, then why the need to advertise?

The Weiner, “Click and Clack” and Liberals
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How do you tell the difference?

Oh freeinpa. Mori-the-Moron is just jealous. That is so obvious. I mean, look at the idols he has on TV or radio to bolster his twisted ideology.
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NPR and Click n’ Clack!!
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Which one is your favorite, mori-the-moron, Click or Clack?

Productivity gains have been decoupled from compensation gains.

This is the graphical representation about the joke with the 12 cookies. Private sector workers aren’t sitting around watching public sector workers take off in the distance. They are watching their wages stagnant while the economy is pushing wealth further and further into the top-end of the distribution. It’s not just a story about education, mind you. Here’s the same pattern for college educated workers.

(with charts!)

The above article references this paper. One excerpt:

• U.S. productivity grew by 62.5% from 1989 to 2010, far more than real hourly wages for both private-sector and state/local government workers, which grew 12% in the same period. Real hourly compensation grew a bit more (20.5% for state/local workers and 17.9% for private-sector workers) but still lagged far behind productivity growth.
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• Wage stagnation has hit high school–educated workers harder than college graduates, although both groups have suffered—and a bit more so in the public sector. For example, from 1989 to 2010, real wages for high school-educated workers in the private sector grew by just 4.8%, compared with 2.6% in state government. During the same period, real wages for college graduates in the private sector grew 19.4%, compared with 9.5% in state government.
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• The typical worker has had stagnating wages for a long time, despite enjoying some wage growth during the economic recovery of the late 1990s. While productivity grew 80% between 1979 and 2009, the hourly wage of the median worker grew by only 10.1%, with all of this wage growth occurring from 1996 to 2002, reflecting the strong economic recovery of the late 1990s.

Comparing Libya to the Ivory Coast’s civil war is insane.
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“The Ivorian Civil War is a civil war in Côte d’Ivoire that began on September 19, 2002. Although most of the fighting ended by late 2004, the country remains split in two, with a rebel-held north and a government-held south. French troops were supposed to be brought into Côte d’Ivoire to help resolve the situation. But they played a key role in worsening the tension by destroying the 2 aircraft of the Ivorian army; aircraft that were bombing the rebel camps to free the country. Hostility increased and raids on foreign troops and civilians rose.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivorian_Civil_War
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Digby, who also made the comparison is basically a Code Pinker without the pink dress on. But like Mori-the-Moron do still wear pink undies!!
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What say you mori, do you wear pink panties???

You want specifics? I will give you specifics. On Social Security: lift the ceiling on the amount of income subject to the tax; gradually raise the age of receiving full Social Security; Means test how much a recipient receives.
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The only thing that makes sense in this statement is to raise the ceiling. I have no idea how old you are but I can tell you that in a physically demanding job raising the age is not an answer. In a non physically demanding job an employer looks for any way he can to reduce the number of older workers, and certainly will avoid hiring them.
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Means testing is another bad idea that should go away. What it does is create a welfare system for the elderly. SS is part of a retirement plan NOT a welfare plan. You means test this program and it dies. It becomes a target period. People who receive it become undeserving a drag on society. This idea is a GOP wet dream and they would love to see it.

From your link, Rusty:

Fighting resumed on the 24 February 2011 over the impass on the election results, with the New Force rebels capturing Zouan-Hounien, and clashes in Abobo, Yamoussoukro and around Anyama

MMmmm, Mmmm, Mmm Barack Hussein Obama, or isn’t it?
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As children in New Jersey have been taught to sing since 2007, now even the “Great One” can’t get an elementary named after him.
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Guest worker programs are nothing more than a creation of a permanent underclass. An unlimited pool source for low payed workers with no benefits.

Misrepresentative.

As anyone who spends any time trying to figure it out will tell you, the federal budget is exceedingly complex and difficult. Combine that with the increasingly emotional debate that surrounds federal deficits, the national debt, taxes and spending, and it’s not hard to understand how and why budget discussions almost always seem to involve misstatements, hyperbole and a word I use with increasing frequency these days when characterizing the budget debate — demagoguery.
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I raise this because current polls continue to show that there’s a substantial disconnect between what’s being said about what people want on the budget and actual public opinion. Indeed, the latest polling on budget-related issues shows that the purported lessons of the 2010 midterm elections are much closer to wishful thinking than an accurate assessment of existing public sentiment. [...]
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These three polls and many others show consistently high levels of support for what the federal government does and should make it clear that any “unambiguous message” on spending cuts derived from the 2010 election results is an overstatement or misstatement. Even if that were the real message four months ago on Election Day — and that’s hard to fathom based on the consistent public opinion research — the most recent polls show that federal activities and services are currently incredibly popular. And while some lawmakers insist that revenue increases would only be approved over a politically dead body or two, the polls show such increases may well be far more acceptable to the public than we’re being told.

Cost of Living? Not So Good
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With jobs gone and not expected to return anytime soon due to the failed Obama policies with the economy, people are now struggling to just put food on the table.
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Gas prices that have sky-rocketed. Food, nothing short of a nuclear explosion.
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“A special index created by the Labor Department to measure the actual cost of living for Americans hit a record high in February, according to data released Thursday, surpassing the old high in July 2008. The Chained Consumer Price Index, released along with the more widely-watched CPI, increased 0.5 percent to 127.4, from 126.8 in January. In July 2008, just as the housing crisis was tightening its grip, the Chained Consumer Price Index hit its previous record of 126.9.”

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What was that a few months ago when I said food prices were set to go up substantially. That Obama wasn’t doing anything at all about this failing economy and his policies were to blame?
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Oh well, I really hate to say I TOLD YOU SO

Ha! Ha! Ha! It Is All So Funny, Man!! Ha! Ha! Ha!
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At a lunch on Capitol Hill on St. Patrick’s Day, Obama told an audience that included plenty of Republicans that “some are still bent on peddling rumors about my origins.” But he wasn’t talking about what you’d think he was alluding to:
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“Now, speaking of ancestry, there has been some controversy about my own background. Two years into my presidency, some are still bent on peddling rumors about my origins. So today, I want to put all those rumors to rest. It is true my great-great-great-grandfather really was from Ireland. It’s true. Moneygall, to be precise. I can’t believe I have to keep pointing this out.”

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Of course lying also works. The more you keep telling a lie, sooner or later people may start to believe it.

If by “union whore”, you mean someone who grew in a working class town and has defended the working class during the thiry year assault on them by the Republican Party, then “yes”, I agree.

For “Dessert” or is it the main course?
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“I see you still can’t or won’t answer the real issue about spending and entitlements”
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I’m afraid you can’t; you can’t explain how a couple of millions amounts to anything when we’re wasting billions. And when we ask you for a honest answer or even real solutions you trot out the tired ‘you only want to tax and spend’. If that was only true. WIC and NPR won’t solve your issues and others here have already admitted that it’s about vengeance. They’re ‘liberal’ programs so they gotta go.
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You can’t meet me halfway because you have already shut the door on real solutions to our problems.

I’d say Gov. Barbour is doing a fairly good kob of destroying his “character” by himself. Barbour’s embryonic presidential campaign has been marked by missteps, mistakes and gaffes.
http://www.sunstateactivist.org

:I’m afraid you can’t; you can’t explain how a couple of millions amounts to anything when we’re wasting billions”
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Quite simply it is a start. The left won’t make an easy decision so the expectations that they can address the difficult ones is non-existent for Republicans and a delusion for Democrats. Especially given the whining that has gone on by the left over cutting $100 billion on a $1.4 trillion budget as draconian. It’s not only delusional it destroys any believability that the left will ever stop spending.

HB3 continues its assault on women. When do I get to choose things I don’t want my tax money spent on? Remember all the lying blather about hiring thousands of IRS agents to audit under PPACA? But if it is a stretch via the right, no problem? Just as with pregnancy, if most victims of rape were men, we wouldn’t even be talking about this.

Under a GOP-backed bill expected to sail through the House of Representatives, the Internal Revenue Service would be forced to police how Americans have paid for their abortions. To ensure that taxpayers complied with the law, IRS agents would have to investigate whether certain terminated pregnancies were the result of rape or incest. And one tax expert says that the measure could even lead to questions on tax forms: Have you had an abortion? Did you keep your receipt?

In testimony to a House taxation subcommittee on Wednesday, Thomas Barthold, the chief of staff of the nonpartisan Joint Tax Committee, confirmed that one consequence of the Republicans’ “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act” would be to turn IRS agents into abortion cops—that is, during an audit, they’d have to detemine, from evidence provided by the taxpayer, whether any tax benefit had been inappropriately used to pay for an abortion.

Barthold replied that the taxpayer would have to prove that she had complied with all applicable abortion laws. Under standard audit procedure, a woman would have to provide evidence to corroborate facts about abortions, rapes, and cases of incest, says Marcus Owens, an accountant and former longtime IRS official. If a taxpayer received a deduction or tax credit for abortion costs related to a case of rape or incest, or because her life was endangered, then “on audit [she] would have to demonstrate or prove, ideally by contemporaneous written documentation, that it was incest, or rape, or [her] life was in danger,” Owens says. “It would be fairly intrusive for the woman.”

Not everyone has “contemporaneous written documentation” that a pregnancy was the result of rape or incest. And, as Owens notes, adults sometimes pay for abortions for their children. If H.R. 3 becomes law, parents could face IRS questions about whether they spent pre-tax money from health savings accounts on abortions for their kids. “It would seem there would have to be a question about that [in an audit] and maybe even a question on the tax return,”

http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/03/gop-bill-irs-abortion-audits

The GOP really doesn’t care about women

“You can’t meet me halfway because you have already shut the door on real solutions to our problems”
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This is funny. You won’t agree to millions in cuts but I am the one who won;t meet you half way where billions are needed in total. Do ever read what you write?
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Of course the unsaid is your only answers is no cuts anywhere but to gut defense and of course raise taxes.

“First response as always “raise taxes”
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Freak, no matter how many times you make this fact-free statement, it doesn’t make it true.
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The last tax raise was in 1993!.
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So, obviously, this is not the first answer.
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It is the last answer.
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Reality is RepublicanFirst response as always “cut taxes” no matter what.

“If by “union whore”, you mean someone who grew in a working class town and has defended the working class”
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His father was a used car salesman and Biden is one now who happens to live in “Chateau Country” in Delaware. Hardly working class material.

No mention of where the auto workers are in paying back their bailout nor a mention of greater regulatory scrutiny for them

“Oh gee, my little internet stalker is back. ”
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Apparently, reading Rusty Rod’s blog, or quoting his comments at other places, constitutes ‘stalking’.
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Either:
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A) Rusty Rod doesn’t want anyone to read his comments or blog, and he’s just typing them to himself. Which means he’s insane.
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or
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B) Rusty Rod has no idea what the word ‘stalking’ means, but tosses it around as an accusation anyway Which means he’s stupid.
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Rusty Rod, insane or stupid? We report, you decide!

“McGovern (D-MA) had a novel amendment: Congress should also prevent any tax dollars, via advertisements, from going to the “wildly biased” Fox News Channel.”
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A great idea. In fact there should be ZERO tax dollars spent on advertisements.

“I’ve hit a new low!! Even Rusty is calling me NUTS!”
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Not to brag, fhmadvocat, but Rusty’s first said that about me within a couple of weeks or my first posting.
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But, congrats on the promotion in Swampland.
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Rusty Rod’s enemies list is a great place to be. It means you’ve made an excellent point.

“What say you mori, do you wear pink panties???”
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Oh noes! Rusty Rod questioned my manhood? How will I ever go on? I now know that my political ideology is completely bankrupt because some Archie Bunker wannabe Tea Partier has suggested that perhaps I may be wearing women’s undergarments! Oh the humanity! I’m a broken man!
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That all you got Rusty Rod? Childish, homophobic insults? Better than the previous racial attacks, I guess.

“Which one is your favorite, mori-the-moron, Click or Clack?”
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Don’t you go dissin’ Car Talk! Those guys rock. I’m restoring a ’72 ‘Cuda, they helped me out with some brake line issues. Stand up guys.
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Of course, that’s the only show I listen to on NPR. And I listen to it online. Sorry, Rusty Rod, looks like you may have to go through my underwear drawer again, if you need any material for your next skit.

“The argument makes sense..”
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If you are a clueless liberal who assumes that everyone else’s money should be divided to everyone. Let’s leave aside that government workers wage growth exceeded the folks in private sector despite the argument form the left they don’t. I
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If productivity gains have far outstripped growth in income why has the growth rate in employment of government workers grown at such a fast rate. Or to put it in English the public sector is bloated with employees.
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Then we have the minor issue that productivity gains in the government, HC and education sectors has been over-estimated as it has been measured by costs of production and not market prices.

What is never discussed in these liberal “thought pieces” is the fact they use trend line analysis for income growth. They never factor that the low hanging fruit of economic growth is gone. Free land, breakthrough technologies from 1880-1940 and a pool of children (future workers) could decisively benefit from being brought into the public school system. These 3 sources of job and income growth were exhausted about 1970.

Rusty dances around the room in delight at the thought of dead liberals.
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Rusty – everybody for that matter – keep in mind that the US government in the 1950s set off nuclear bombs in New Mexico.
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Bombs are designed to spread radiation and do an excellent job at it, but, failed to poison a significant portion of New Mexico let alone spread radiation to places as far away as Poland or Japan.
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So, fortunately, nuclear reactors designed to keep radiation contained are extremely unlikely to have any impact at all on California, Hawaii, China, Korea, Taiwan or, even much of the main Island of Japan.
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Why is Rusty Rod happy to believe that people will die of radiation poisoning.
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It’s horrible way to go.

Well Rev Jim you flunked econ once again. No wonder you remain a dropout. Even Skateboarder Erza Klein calls out Obama’s lies on taxes.

You still test positive for stupid

“By Ezra Klein

PolitiFact Fact-checking Bill O Reilly s interview with President Barack Obama.png”I didn’t raise taxes once,” Barack Obama told Bill O’Reilly on Sunday. “I lowered taxes over the last two years.” That’s, well, half true. The Obama administration has raised taxes. The excise tax on high-value health-care insurance, for instance, is a tax. So is the tax on tanning salons, and the increase in cigarette taxes. These taxes — or at least tax levels — didn’t exist before Obama signed them into law. They will raise taxes on certain people under certain circumstances. They will get bigger as the years tick by. PolitiFact rated this as “false,” and rightly so.

“Reality is RepublicanFirst response as always “cut taxes” no matter what.”
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PS It was a Democraticall controlled house, senate and President that extended the Bush tax structure.
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You remain as tedious and dumb as ever and I am already bored trying to teach you again. The rest of your responses will be your one hand typing. I will do something more constructive than trying the impossible and educate you; I will inspect the return springs on my ball point pens.

“Not everyone has “contemporaneous written documentation” that a pregnancy was the result of rape or incest”
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I think the everyday parlance for this is a police report since rape and incest are crimes.

Since you right wing idiots do not pay attention to actual scientific facts on any other issue (or facts of any sort, really) it is probably too much to expect that you would start now.

In his morning search to justify the left’s budget position grape nuts missed this from the CBO.
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The latest Congressional Budget Office report concludes that the country will average an annual budget deficit close to $750 Billion per year for the next ten years including this year. Therefore the national debt will rise by nearly $7.5 Trillion dollars to a total debt of over $21.5 Trillion (115% of the nation’s projected gross national product) putting the nation into technical insolvency
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But there is an analysis that uses the CBO absurd assumptions and humors the left on “tax the rich”.
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The result is the same without cutting entitlements you can get rid of the deficits and debt by wealth re-distribution

With that figure agreed upon, what would be the impact of raising the taxes rates on those filers with modified taxable income above $200,000.00 per year? The most recent comprehensive data on income and tax filing was issued by the IRS in October 2010 and is for the 2008 taxable year. (http://www.irs.gov/taxstats/indtaxstats/article/0,,id=133521,00.html)

For this exercise, a few hard-to-believe assumption must be made: 1) that “Congress would apply all” additional revenue to the deficit and debt, 2) that no new programs would be initiated, 3) the spending assumptions for items such as ObamaCare, Medicare and Social Security are 100% accurate and 4) there would be no catastrophic natural or man-made disasters.(THESE ARE COMICAL)

In 2008 there were 4,359,000 tax returns filed with modified taxable income (MTI) of $200,000 or above. The total amount of MTI above $200,000 was $1.189 Trillion. Using the simplest calculation possible, let us assume the current income tax rate of 35% was increased by a factor of 20%. The new tax rate of 42% would generate an additional $237 Billion in revenue to the government per year. If fully applied to the deficit per the CBO, then the deficit would be reduced to $513 Billion per year and the debt would increase by $5.1 Trillion over ten years to a total indebtedness of $18.8 Trillion still 100% of projected GDP.

If the current top income tax rate would be increased by 40% to a rate of 49%, then theoretically the additional income to the government would increase by $474 Billion per year and reduce the deficit to $276 Billion per year, and the overall debt would go up by $2.8 Trillion over ten years to a total indebtedness of $16.7 Trillion (88% of projected GDP)

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/03/higher_taxes_cant_solve_the_de.html

The point is not that the 18 year old had to report to the police that her father raped her, the point is that she has to be investigated by an IRS agent after the fact.

His father had a series of jobs, from used car salesman to owning a bar, but what is your point (not that you ever have one)? My father was “in management” and I am in management, and yet both he and I recognize that treating workers decently is an important part of a properly functioning American economy. Whereas you and Dick Rod, sitting at home in your pajamas and spewing bile all day, seem to hate the idea of working Americans. One imagines you are jealous of people with actual jobs.

The first sentence of the DeMint quote from his 2007 National Review interview “He has demonstrated, when he stepped into government in a very difficult state, that he could work in a difficult partisan environment, take some good conservative ideas, like private health insurance, and apply them to the need to have everyone insured,” sounds like my opinion of the president if you take “very difficult state” to mean “very difficult time” and not the very difficult Bay State.
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The last sentence, “We don’t need the nation to be more polarized” is pure tea hypocrisy.

So your ok with the IRS getting involved with ObamaCare just not the abortion part. Simple solution- no taxpayer money or tax credit for them- Solved!

Because it’s the auto workers who caused the recession, right? Those pesky unions, if it wasn’t for them and their stupid dog we woulda gotta away with it too!

“. Whereas you and Dick Rod, sitting at home in your pajamas and spewing bile all day, seem to hate the idea of working Americans. One imagines you are jealous of people with actual jobs.”
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Once again you speak of what you have no clue about- no surprise. Did you father or your upper management ever tell you to keep quiet on issues you know nothing about? Or do they like you blabbering like a fool?

Your are amazing, freeinpa,

Your kneejerk response to my ideas is to dismiss them, even if they are originally a CONSERVATIVE IDEA!

Your argument about raising the cap on the social security tax has already been proved wrong by history. List me spell it out for you: RONALD REAGAN RAISED THE SOCIAL SECURITY TAX to help deal with Social Security involvency in the late 1980′s. I don’t remember that hurting the economy or lead to a high spring of unemployment.

Next you attack my idea for Medicare/Mediaid. Dude, the reason we are going broke is the high cost of paying for medical care, not NPR or Planned Parenthood. At the Mayo Clinic, doctors are paid on a fixed salary. That hasn’t stopped the Mayo Clinic for recruiting some of the best doctors in the World. If you were facing a live or death situation, would you prefer the “poorly” paid doctors of the Mayo clinic or the over priced doctors of McAllen, Texas?

For response to the end of farm subsidies shows you are beginning to show signs of Fhmadvocat Derangement Syndrome (FDS). Genius, it has been Conservatives and Republicans who have been calling for the end of farm subsidies, not Democrats. It was John McCain and not Barak Obama who called for the end of welfare for the rich farmers

I shouldn’t be surprised by your response. You were the same guy who defend the guy who beat up his girlfriend, because he pulled some technically about Legislative immunity from arrest.

“Quite simply it is a start. The left won’t make an easy decision so the expectations that they can address the difficult ones is non-existent for Republicans and a delusion for Democrats. Especially given the whining that has gone on by the left over cutting $100 billion on a $1.4 trillion budget as draconian. It’s not only delusional it destroys any believability that the left will ever stop spending.”
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You can’t even be honest about that; GOP wanted to cut 100 billion but can’t.
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And it’s not a start – a start would be if we had a 100 dollar burn rate and you suggest a 105 dollar deficite reduction which includes cuts and tax increases. But you don’t. What you do is to suggest 10 dollar and call it a start. So next year it’s 190 dollar in the whole, the year after that after another 10-20 dollar of ‘liberal’ programs we’re 250+ dollar in the hole etc.
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“That’s not being serious. Did you hear me saying you can’t – what I told you was you don’t want to – you won’t touch any other program than these small ones. Instead you erect straw men.
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This is funny. You won’t agree to millions in cuts but I am the one who won;t meet you half way where billions are needed in total. Do ever read what you write?”
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Again – a lie. Never said we shouldn’t cut anything. Go ahead – say it. You’re cutting them because they’re ‘liberal’ programs and you won’t increase taxes nor cut anything else that might hurt your tribe.
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In other words – you’re not serious about deficite cutting.
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Go ahead – cut NPR, WiC or whatever you like and then tell me with a straight face that you’re putting a dent in the deficite. So what’s the burn rate and what are you suggesting.
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Math according to ideologues.

“Because it’s the auto workers who caused the recession, right? Those pesky unions, if it wasn’t for them and their stupid dog we woulda gotta away with it too!”
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The causes of the recession are for another time. I was referring to the constant and ongoing bashing of banks by the numbskull left Would we have been worse off if no bailout was offered to the banks or the autos? (let’s see if your are smarter than a 5th grader)

And since grape nuts insists we need more regulation for the already most regulated industry (banks) why is it unreasonable to have more oversight to the auto industry especially since they have not repaid back the TARP money.

This is the same Blaze site–run by Bleck–that disses O’Donnell, right? Therefore, what RustFreep’s saying is that Bleck’s critics can’t hold a candle to Bleck because Bleck SAID SO.
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Pretzel logic. With mustard on the side.
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I guess he also forgot that if you trust the scuttlebutt (or read an earlier post from SL this week) Bleck’s days @ Flox are probably numbered anyway.

“The more you keep telling a lie, sooner or later people may start to believe it.”
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There it is folks, the modus operandi of “conservative” politics. Thanks, dude.

In response to 1.5

Social security is going broke. It is a quasi-ponzi scheme which is now going to have to pay the piper.

Social security was created with the idea to get older workers to retire during the Depression so younger unemployed workers could take their place. It made sense, because in 1935, there were 15 people paying in for every one recipient.

Now, we have a problem. People are living longer and they receive what they put in about 10 years. Considering people are living 20 sometimes 30 years after they retire, is it any wonder it is going broke. As far as raising the age for full benefits, it is already going up. I am not talking about jacking the age up to 70 in 5 years, I am talking about 67 or 68 over the next 20 years.

You inquired about my age, and I think that does make a difference. I am a generation Xer, all the baby boomers who were paying in to give us a surplus are starting to retire. They will take up the whole thing before I retire. I don’t expect to receive anything from Social Security, so I don’t plan to live on it.

Social Security is not a retirement plan, it is a “welfare” plan. It should be for the disabled and others of lessor means. After all, if you are disabled, you receive a Social Security check. It should be a safety net for the disadvantaged.

People need to be smart about their retirement. My father receives Social Security even though he makes more than three times as much as I make. I am not begrudging the guy, I think he is amazing. He never made more than $40,000 working in his entire life, yet he was able to retire at 55 years old to take care of my ailing mother. He makes all of his money on his investments to the point he has to pay an estimated tax 4 times a year!

I don’t like to respond to you, but in the interest of accuracy, this is in HB3 and has nothing to do with PPACA.

In response to 1.7

freeinpa, I agree we should be able to cut 100 billion out of budget. However, you are not going to get anywhere near that figure cutting NPR and Planned Parenthood. Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid and Defense account for over 60% of our budget. “Discretionary” spending accounts for only 9% of the budget. Even if you totally wiped out discretionary spending, you would still have a deficit.
Where you do think you can cut without killing the economic recovery?

“If you are a clueless liberal who assumes that everyone else’s money should be divided to everyone. Let’s leave aside that government workers wage growth exceeded the folks in private sector despite the argument form the left they don’t. I
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If productivity gains have far outstripped growth in income why has the growth rate in employment of government workers grown at such a fast rate. Or to put it in English the public sector is bloated with employees.”

Here is why you shouldn’t argue with someone who does not know what he is talking about.

freeinpa is right when he talks about increased spending on wages for government employees. Furthermore he points out that the government has hired more employees.

Had he then turned his argument strictly to the issue of too many government employees, he would have made sense.

Instead, he turns his argument to each individual governmental employee is making more wages which makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.

freeinpa, let me break it down for you.

For simplicity sake, let’s say your state government employs 100 people and pays them each $100 per year. That means the state is paying $10,000 in wages. The following year, the state hires an additional 20 employees. Now it has to pay $12,000 in wages, assuming each worker makes the same as the previous year.

So taxes collected would have to go from $10,000 to $12,000 to pay for the employees. Yet, you argue that the increase in taxes has do to employee wage growth.

Genius! The employees aren’t making any more money. The state has hired more workers! You can argue about the hiring of more workers but you argument about “wage growth” is at best, dishonest or at worse, no understanding of basic math or economics.

Does the average government worker make more than the average person? Of course, because the average government worker has more education that the average person.

When you account for levels of education, the average government worker makes 10% LESS than a person in the private sector with the same level of education. When you look at those with a professional degree, the disparity is much greater.

Of course, freep has completely missed the point anyway. The real argument is not over wages, which governmental workers make less, but over benefits. While private companies have been decreasing benefits for their workers over the past 40 years, governmental workers have kept, and at times increase their benefits. Now most workers in the private sector have a 401(K), while government workers have a pension. Workers in the private sector have to contribute to their health insurance, where a number of government employees do not.

If you really think it is about wages, and not about benefits, you completely missed the boat.

shepherdwong@25.1,
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Like this, Wong?
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“no matter how we reform health care, we will keep this promise: If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor.” Barack the Uncertain in a speech to the AMA in 2009.
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That kind of lie, Wong?

“Your kneejerk response to my ideas is to dismiss them, even if they are originally a CONSERVATIVE IDEA!”
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Wait a minute. I thought according to liberal lore all conservatives moved in lock step with our talking points at the ready
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“Social Security is not a retirement plan, it is a “welfare” plan and Social security is going broke. It is a quasi-ponzi scheme”.
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You are correct although I would argue you drop the “quasi”.
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“I don’t expect to receive anything from Social Security, so I don’t plan to live on it.”
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You are wise but there are a good majority that still believes that the system is viable. I am in mid-50s and do not believe it will pay me nor should it. I am perfectly willing to continue to pay in until a certain age (maybe 65) to cover those 60 and older or already in the system. I can argue sides of means testing.
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“He never made more than $40,000 working in his entire life, yet he was able to retire at 55 years old to take care of my ailing mother. He makes all of his money on his investments to the point he has to pay an estimated tax 4 times a year!”
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It sounds like you come from a good gene pool. One of the ingredients missing in society today is a work ethic coupled with savings and helping oneself. I hope you learned something from him.

I take it as a sign of quality whenever rustyblog calls me a libtard. It shows I’m nowhere near his level in insanity and hate.

Considering that you once hoped japan got wiped off the map, this is both hilarious and disturbing.

What do we think of this, folks?
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http://www.commentorvote.com/index.html
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I thought it might have some merit.

Ivy,

Thanks for the great post. It goes along with my recent posting how at the state level, Republicans are imposing all these regulations on abortion providers under the guise of “protecting” women, when in real truth, they simply want to make abortion more difficult.

The truth that the idea that Republicans want smaller government is a myth. Social Conservatives want to create a Nanny State, where they believe they can legislate morality.

If Liberals want to stick their hands in your pockets, Conservatives want to stick their hands up a woman’s you-know-what.

“I agree we should be able to cut 100 billion out of budget. However, you are not going to get anywhere near that figure cutting NPR and Planned Parenthood. Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid and Defense account for over 60% of our budget. “Discretionary” spending accounts for only 9% of the budget”
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Again I agree. But here is the difference. There are hard decisions that have to be made on Entitlements and no matter how carefully it is addressed, people will be hurt by it. With that in mind it is hard to justify spending any money on planned parenthood, NPR and other programs the government has absolutely no business being in. If the government is going to ask people to pay more in entitlement taxes (SS, Medi etc) and not receive as much if any it is hard for me to get behind paying for Big BIrd \
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$100 billion quite doable and yes a good start would be to rationalize our defense spending (troops in Germany or Korea) but also programs the government needs t be out, Planned Parenthood and NPR being 2 of them.

“So taxes collected would have to go from $10,000 to $12,000 to pay for the employees. Yet, you argue that the increase in taxes has do to employee wage growth.

Genius! The employees aren’t making any more money. The state has hired more workers! You can argue about the hiring of more workers but you argument about “wage growth” is at best, dishonest or at worse, no understanding of basic math or economics”
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IN your example no they aren’t making any more money. But in reality they did. Go back and check how many states froze salaries of government workers for even 1 yr over the past 30. Let’s not forget to include pension and HC costs for which most contribute nothing. So you have growing # of employees and growing costs.
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“When you account for levels of education, the average government worker makes 10% LESS than a person in the private sector with the same level of education.”

Speaking of dishonest, you have to include benefits which far outstrip the private sector. And I do notice all the Phds delivering , mail, working the DMV, AMTRAK, Trash collectors, janitors which account for a major portion of the government employees, Unless of course you want to argue that the governments are top heavy and have far more folks being overpaid in management positions?

I have always been fascinated by those who oppose abortion, but will make an exception for rape and incest. Now there are those who would oppose abortion even if under rape or incest, but not if the mother’s life is in danger. While that last position is considered “extreme”, as least is it morally consistant. If you believe the unborn is a human being, then it makes sense for you to oppose abortion, even under the circumstances of rape and incest. However, if you believe abortion is “murder”, why is it okay to commit “murder” if the woman is a victim of rape or incest?
Those who oppose abortion, but allow for it when the woman is raped or an incest victim are not really concerned about the unborn. If they were they would oppose abortion even in the case of rape or incest. They are more concerned about the woman’s behavior. If the woman suffered a rape or incest, she is an innocent victim. However, if she becomes pregnant under a voluntary act, she is a sinner.

paulejb:

ShepDong doesn’t look at that as a lie but a liberal fact

“Social security is going broke.”
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In 2037? Easy fix raise the limit.
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“Social Security is not a retirement plan, it is a “welfare” plan. It should be for the disabled and others of lessor means. After all, if you are disabled, you receive a Social Security check. It should be a safety net for the disadvantaged.”
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It is not a welfare plan exactly why I argue against your absurd argument. It never was or never planed to be a welfare plan. It is why all people benefit from it wealthy as well as poor.
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You bought the argument made by the same people you argue against Hook, Line,and Sinker. Yet you crow about them calling you names?
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I can only shake my head at the stupidity.

freeinpa@25.3,
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Must be tough to keep all the lies from this administration straight in the mind.
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Consider this…
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It’s lengthy but instructive.

“Republicans are imposing all these regulations on abortion providers under the guise of “protecting” women, when in real truth, they simply want to make abortion more difficult”
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Wasn’t the motto of the Clinton admin “safe and rare”. So that was a ruse. Just like the argument about choice which in this case is French for being irresponsible and the left wants everyone else to pay for it.
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Personally, I oppose abortion. I believe that should be left to the mother and the father. I also believe I should not be required to cover their costs regardless of the decision.
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And Ivy- the case remains the same regardless of HB 3 or ObamaCare. You are ok with the IRS being involved in one but not the other. So is abortion not really health care?

Uh oh! There’s trouble in River City…
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http://hotlineoncall.nationaljournal.com/archives/2011/03/half-would-vote.php
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How can this be?

“It is not a welfare plan exactly why I argue against your absurd argument. It never was or never planed to be a welfare plan. It is why all people benefit from it wealthy as well as poor.”
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It was set up as a “safety net” which was progressive speak for welfare. It was not set up as a retirement plan and is certainly not able to deliver on that front but it will certainly bankrupt it with that view.

To add onto some of Hippo’s points about not cutting the smallest things first, I would suggest people educate themselves on the Pareto Principle (link). Essentially, you don’t make the needle move by cutting the smallest things.

Pareto Principle.
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So what you and hippo are saying but won;t say it. Is you have to cut all entitlements. You won’t say it, Team Donkey won’t say it, Obama won’t say. They are only looking for a campaign issue “Republicans want to cut your social security have you die early and throw grandma out”

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There was a reason, in addition to incompetence, that the Demos didn’t put out a budget for over 14 months they just wan to spend an deficit cutting is a punch line. Democrats can’t control Congress unless they are handing out other people’s money and not acting like a grown up.

In response to 1.18,

The truth is the truth, no matter who says it. Social Security is a problem, and simply kicking down the road is only going to make the job of solving the problem harder.

Social Security was going broke when Reagan and the Democrats kicked in to solve the problem of insolvency. What they did was raise the taxes collected for Social Security. It has worked because babyboomers were in their prime working years.

However, now the babyboomers are retiring, and now Social Security is paying more than it is taking in.

With all due respect, allthings, it is you who has bought the line of those who don’t see an immediate problem, Hook, Line and Sinker. You have been told that Social Security has all this money saved, stockpiled over the years and that is will be alright until 2037. The truth is that the Social Security trust fund as a bunck of IOUs from the federal government. The federal government has been taking from the Social Security trust fund to mask the deficit. And when the Social Security trust fund comes to cash those IOUs, it will be taking money from the general treasury. If you think the debt is bad today, wail until then.

It’s basic math. We’re more likely to go bankrupt before we balance the deficite if our response to fixing the problem is messing with tiny programs while ignoring the large spending and taxes.
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Even Reagan knew better.

“So what you and hippo are saying but won;t say it. Is you have to cut all entitlements. You won’t say it, Team Donkey won’t say it, Obama won’t say. They are only looking for a campaign issue “Republicans want to cut your social security have you die early and throw grandma out”"
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What about ‘cut the programs’ don’t you understand? I wrote – cut them. Cut all those tiny small programs to your hearts content until you purge everything from our budget that you regard as Liberal. But unless you touch the big stuff you won’t put a dent in the deficite. It’ll grow.
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Thanks for all the smoke and mirrors. Let me know when you want a serious discussion about the deficite without your boorish BS about ‘liberals want this and that’. So far the only thing you can think of is to cut small programs, the rest is a liberal conspiracy of what I don’t know.

Spoken like the Village!
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Nothing about accountability. You are willing to let them steal from you to give to corporations, and thier own reelection funds and still give them lifetime benefits for two years of raping you.
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SS is probably the only Government program that has worked and will still work given any will at all.
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Your attitude is systematic of the problem with America today. There is no sense of community, there is no can do, will do, or want to do. It can only end in failure.
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Decades now wages have been frozen, benefits reduced, taxes reduced, wars fought, and the deficit rises and all the while the wealthy get wealthier, you get poorer, and you blame SS?
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I am opposed to every item in the Republican House of Representatives sponsored HB3.

I also believe I should not be required to pay for the costs of war which kill actual living people.

Patrick, living near Sacramento my main concern is traffic. I don’t expect to fulfill Rusty’s compassionate death wish for all liberals. He might like to know that I live in a very conservative county and if the libs go so do the reactionaries.
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Having grown up in the era of “duck and cover” and backyard bomb shelters, I have never found the topic of nuclear fallout particularly amusing. I lived near Seattle and we were always in the mythical concentric circle of total annihilation if a nuke war began. Many nights I had nightmares about a flash of light. In our futile nuke drills, we were told to look away if we saw a flash of light.
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I have relatives who lived near Hanford as children and still have thyroid problems from releases from the plant and the terrible waste management. Some family and friends have died of cancer. Nobody will ever know if it was caused by their proximaty to Hanford.
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Nuclear poisoning is not funny. Newrusty might stop following his hero Limbaugh and stop using tragedy to make his stupid more evident.
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“That kind of lie, Wong?
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No, that’s not even dishonest compared to the sort of traitorous slander of the president that’s the stock-in-trade of the right-wing lie machine.

“…my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s ‘death panel’ so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their ‘level of productivity in society,’ whether they are worthy of health care.”
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– Sarah Palin

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_panel

For some of you who comment here and for Joe Klein, please keep in mind that public service workers are human beings.
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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/42140881/ns/local_news-orange_county_ca/
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Grief and anger swept through Costa Mesa City Hall after a city worker jumped to his death shortly after being called in to get a lay off notice.
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Huy Pham, 29, a city maintenance worker, jumped off the roof of the five-floor civic center just before 3:30 p.m. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
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The City Council voted earlier this month to outsource 18 city services, from firefighting to maintenance, information technology and payroll. The city started handing out pink slips Thursday; around 213 of the city’s 472 employees were to have been notified by the end of the day.

From the first comment:
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How as the poll conducted? Live interviewer? IVR?
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If polling reports don’t release full questions, there’s very little reason to trust them at face value.
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The only newsworthy item in this report is that there is a remarkably stable answer to “vote for Obama or someone else.”

Freak,
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Do the math - or get your twelve year old daughter to do it for you since it seems be beyond you.
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If baby boomer get paid social security, they spend it at private, for profit businesses in such a way that forces profit motivated businesses to hire more people.
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Imagine you ran a business (hilarious to imagine that you could run a lemonade stand, I know, but, use some imagination).
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Scenario one: Mommy doesn’t charge you for the table you use for your lemonade stand. Your costs down $9.
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Scenario two: 180 more people show up to buy a cup of your lemonade at ten cents each.
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So, to make that $18, you have to hire your friends (I know having friends is a stretch of the imagination when we bring up you) for $9.
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Which creates jobs?
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Now, change over the $9 your mommy wants for the table you are using for $90,000 in tax and change the 180 people at ten cents for 180 people at $100 and you’ll know why tax breaks to businesses do not create jobs.

http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/03/gop-bill-irs-abortion-audits
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Under a GOP-backed bill expected to sail through the House of Representatives, the Internal Revenue Service would be forced to police how Americans have paid for their abortions. To ensure that taxpayers complied with the law, IRS agents would have to investigate whether certain terminated pregnancies were the result of rape or incest. And one tax expert says that the measure could even lead to questions on tax forms: Have you had an abortion? Did you keep your receipt?
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The proposal, which House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) has declared a top priority of the new Republican Congress, has 221 cosponsors and is expected to pass the House easily.

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Another one of the Republican high priorities to police citizen’s private lives. I guess it will increase the number of IRS employees needed to make sure women comply to the values police.
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When Republicans gain power they proceed to alienate everybody but corporate white guys and their deluded evangelical cohorts. Their agenda never changes.
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Alienate:
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African Americans
Hispanics
Gays and lesbians
Unions
Elderly
Young people
Women
Arab Americans
Poor and middle class
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Consequence:
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They go back into the wilderness until the American’s lack of short and long term memory brings them back.

http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/03/for-the-first-time-majority-of-americans-support-gay-marriage.php?ref=fpblg
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For The First Time, Majority Of Americans Support Gay Marriage

When private companies take our tax money to do public service it’s good. Because they produce something. When it’s done with public employees it’s bad, because they don’t produce anything.
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The taxes are being spent and in one case there’s a profit motive and in the other it isn’t. With profit motive corners will be cut to be profitable. In the other case, not.
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You might be able to point at cases where public service employees do a bad job and I can show you an equal amount of bad private company work. But there’s 2 arguments that remains the same in this case regardless of the argument if public servants or private is better – private companies have a profit motive, public servants do not and the same amount of taxes is still being spent.

What’s even stranger is that when parents here in America can not pay the bills to take care of their children since wages are so low for so many, Rusty dances with glee when their parents get cuts in their food stamps.
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What’s even stranger than that is when Iraqi children live like that since parents were killed by American bombs Rusty dances in the street waving the American flag.
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Then he wonders why we know he is a heartless SOB despite his bringing up how tragic things are in Japan.
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Children without parents at all and, somewhat less than that, parents who can not take care of them is always tragic. But if involves taxes Rusty would love to defecate on them.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110318/ap_on_sc/us_sci_mercury
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Just thought this was a fascinating story.
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NASA spacecraft now circling Mercury — a first
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NASA’s spacecraft called Messenger successfully veered into a pinpoint orbit Thursday night after a 6 1/2-year trip and 4.9 billion miles and tricky maneuvering to fend off the gravitational pull of the sun. It is the fifth planet in our solar system that NASA has orbited, in addition to the Earth and the moon.
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“It was right on the money,” Messenger’s chief engineer, Eric Finnegan, said. Messenger is in orbit that brings it as close as 120 miles above the planet’s surface. “This is as close you can possibly get to being perfect.”

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I am not concerned if we stop doing manned exploration of space but certainly want to see unmanned exploration continue.

Why can’t the far right be original.
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http://0.tqn.com/d/politicalhumor/1/0/i/f/bush_worstdisaster.jpg
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So far it seems like half of the things the far right posts are copy and past of what was being said about the far right two to ten years ago.

I didn’t notice you had posted the article about the bill to audit for abortions and posted it down line. I guess that will allow me to avoid the idiocy of the reactionary’s justification for this proposed intrusive law.
Lets see. I propose a law that fines or possibly imprisons any man who has sex with a woman who fails the IRS audit. Let’s also imprison or fine an accountant who fails to ask a client if she has had an abortion before preparing her taxes. Jail all doctors who provide abortions in the case of rape or incest if they fail to break their oath of privacy and report the event to the IRS.

Sorry Ivy, I didn’t notice you already posted this above. I am glad to see someone else is repelled by the continued intrusion into women’s reproductive rights.
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After reading the responses you got I commented:
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Lets see. I propose a law that fines or possibly imprisons any man who has sex with a woman who fails the IRS audit. Let’s also imprison or fine an accountant who fails to ask a client if she has had an abortion before preparing her taxes. Jail all doctors who provide abortions in the case of rape or incest if they fail to break their oath of privacy and report the event to the IRS.

shepherdwong@25.5,
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Really?
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http://wizbangblog.com/content/2009/07/26/ezekiel-emmanuel-deny-coverage-to-elderly-and-disabled-for-the-greater-good.php
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Dr Ezekiel Emmanuel advised Obama on health issues.
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http://freedomeden.blogspot.com/2009/10/robert-reich-were-gonna-let-you-die.html

People voted for his race?
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Is this the “white guilt” theory again?
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But since John Edwards was my first choice, I guess that means I am a light skinned Caucasian with black guilt
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Anything else you would like to include of untalented musicians who can’t even make up lyrics better than “mmm mmm mmm”?
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“now even the “Great One” can’t get an elementary named after him.”
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I see at least two named after him the “Great one”.
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http://www.google.com/#hl=en&sugexp=gsis&xhr=t&q=ronald+reagan+elementary+school&cp=26&qe=cm9uYWxkIHJlYWdhbiBlbGVtZW50YXJ5IHM&qesig=-gRsDqfTCIX3iIYk2xu7fw&pkc=AFgZ2tnvmEdQEj0nbo9pG2OSCrq7elRv8Pmi2pWU9NMV6Sk7DrCN6UWdGFzPhsc-8mSayE8wnaBox28Cx71FgX0eQ8hFllUKXg&pf=p&sclient=psy&site=&source=hp&aq=0&aqi=&aql=f&oq=ronald+reagan+elementary+s&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&fp=55d34b7fe4309a3d
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You don’t mean that guy who is far better than any Republican since Eisenhower as Democrats think of him, Obama, as “the Great one”, do you?

npo42@31.1,
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One thing that we do know is that polls of registered voters skews Democrat.

No, not really, unless you’re claiming reality skews towards democrats. By most polls you mean all but Rasmussen, which is known to skew towards the right. But I’m sure you’re just being disingenuous.
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Still didn’t answer any of the questions though, and the polls results are pretty much bunk until then.

“Once again you speak of what you have no clue about- no surprise. Did you father or your upper management ever tell you to keep quiet on issues you know nothing about? Or do they like you blabbering like a fool?”
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Freak,
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This, obviously, a copy and paste of what we have been saying to you.
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You’ll notice that, except for you and Rusty everybody here is offline at random intervals when their work keeps them too busy.
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Unless you are a paid troll it is obvious that you have no time to work.
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From your knowledge of science, your claim to have even taken high school science classes is laughable let alone be an engineer.
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From your complete ignorance of economics, it is obvious that you did not take even one economics class since the day you were born.
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So, your claim to be a consultant, is, also, laughable.
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Perhaps you consult people on how to be paid trolls .

“The causes of the recession are for another time.”
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The cause of the recession is beyond your comprehension. The cause of the recession was banks lending money to people who could never pay them back.
” I was referring to the constant and ongoing bashing of banks by the numbskull left “
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Giving billions of dollars to is bashing?
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Please “bash” me. I would like to own one of the space shuttles for my own personal transportation if I had a few extra billion around.
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“Would we have been worse off if no bailout was offered to the banks or the autos? “
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Yes.

“And since grape nuts insists we need more regulation for the already most regulated industry (banks) why is it unreasonable to have more oversight to the auto industry especially since they have not repaid back the TARP money.”
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Well, how have auto sales caused the recession?
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Not at all.
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How have banks lending money out to people who have no money to pay them back caused the recession?
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Pure cause and effect.
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When a transaction between people has a devastating impact on people who did not participate in the transaction then it is a time for the government, on the behalf of those many people to step in and prevent this type of situation.
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I neither lent nor borrowed any significant amount of money between 2001 and 2007, but, this recession is costing me among many others very dearly.
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The American car industry has a different problem. That is that their executives and decision makers habitually ignore the market and keep on producing cars that nobody wants to drive.

Mail carrier:
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$45,946 – $56,155 per year.
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http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Job=Postal_Service_Mail_Carrier/Salary
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The average UPS driver’s annual salary of $55,000 can rise to $70,000 with overtime. In 2006!
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http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2006/02/22/ups_drivers_avoid_blue_collar_union_blues/
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Looks like government workers earn less.

I am from Wiener’s district.
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Don’t envy my 6 foot tall Wiener.
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Rusty just wishes I can say, that thousands of women in my neighborhood love my six foot tall Wiener.

A black girl is eating pasta on the subway.
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A white woman is arguing with her.
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They get into each others faces, shove one another.
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One random white man and one random black man restrain them.
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And Rusty’s point is….
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If you are a black girl, don’t eat pasta on the subway or a fat white woman will start an argument with you.
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The white woman pushed first.
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Rusty, you are a very strange man.

Outsourcing is not always a great idea.
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First, many government jobs are, by design, such as law enforcement, to handle the worst case scenario. As I said before, almost never are there circumstances when a police department or a fire department fully utilized. This is done by design in case of a rare but serious disaster which requires all of these people to be busy at the same time. For profit businesses, working in not urgent situations do something which law enforcement among many other government activities can not by having only enough people to handle an average situation. Who hasn’t seen a long line at a coffee shop in the mornings, long lines at the grocery store mid-day on weekends or gotten that wonderful recording when calling your bank “All of our representatives are busy right now. Your call is important to us, please hold and somebody will be with you shortly: This can not happen when you dial 9-1-1.
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Second, private, for profit businesses need to set aside 5% to 10% for a profit and sets aside, often, a million dollars for a CEO and a luxurious office for them rather than a cubicle and $100k, per year. So, unless they can shave at least 12% without reducing the level of service the quality of service will suffer.
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Obviously, making a profit and reimbursing truly talented executives is wonderful for goods or services which are not life and death as many government services are.
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Also, unionized labor gets more at the start, but, has a harsh six month to one year screening period and, after that, very low turnover reducing training costs and increasing individual efficiency. So, grabbing the 12% or so savings by going with low wage labor will, also, reduce quality of service.
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If you want to pay K-Mart prices for government services, you’ll get K-Mart quality of government services and,most taxpayers will pay slightly more for higher quality.