I agree Deacon Blues. The Dems should be hammering it home daily that this whole economical philosophy championed by the Repugs is bullshit and has always been bullshit. I mean the results of voodoo economics and trickle down to the masses have benefited one group and one group only- the wealthy. All the statistics bear this out. What the Repugs sold to the American people as gospel for the last 30 years about less government, eliminating any regulations for anything, and the ridiculous tax cuts has completely led to what we have today.
Posted by Chris at February 11, 2009 07:52 AMhere;'s my question, can you prove that tax cuts, however unfair and unbalanced, led to the out of control credit free for all that encouraged immature people to blow all their money plus all their pretend house equity at crap they didnt need? The credit crisis seems unrelated to tax cuts to me, so please let me know your thoughts...
Posted by the young Judith (tyj) at February 11, 2009 08:04 AM
Young Judith doesn't get it. When you pay less in taxes and have more income, you don't spend it as effectively as the Obama administration would. You'd probably blow it on groceries, your kids, monthly bills, or saving for college/retirement. That's an example of greed and what got us in this mess in the first place.
No tax cuts. Let Obama spend the money on the things he believes are important.
Posted by Dennis at February 11, 2009 10:43 AMhey dennis - not like I asked you, but you didn't answer the question I asked. So aside from being a snot, do you have actually anything useful to contribute? How did the previous tax cuts cause the credit crisis or the over-all financial crisis - cause it sounds dumb to just blame the old tax cuts for everything. And Lazy.
No problem if all you can do is write emotionally and not logically, I understand stress can make people lose the ability to reason. But it aint my fault and insulting me as not getting it when you actually havent said anything to get seems rather childish. And boring. Bye!
Posted by the young Judith (tyj) at February 11, 2009 12:45 PMI'll answer your question, Young Judith. There is no connection. Of course, I didn't think that was the point of Deacon Blue's post anyway.
There is no doubt that removing 1.5 Trillion samoleans or more from the revenue stream, with the magic of tax cuts for the wealthy, and drunkenly spending twice that, at the very least, did not help our bottom line or even, in many cases, our individual bottoms. The point made in the front page post was that the Republicans had one and only one answer to fiscal policy. TAX CUTS!!!
The rank irresponsibility and feckless behavior of Americans in general, were encouraged, but not directly caused by the brain-dead policies espoused by the Republican and media establishment.
But to be fair, their houses did have genuine equity when they were cashing it in and spending it. The value of everything disappeared when the Wall Street Gang bet specious insurance money against real money, at a rate much greater than 30 to 1. They raked in very real wealth until the cards all fell down and we, the people were left with a monumental pile of shit that no one can still believe must contain a pony; more like a rampaging herd of diarrhetic elephants.
Posted by DeminNewJ at February 11, 2009 01:08 PMhanks for your polite reply.., and yes, I got the top post. I was going in a different direction but I dont think it is of interest here.
Posted by the young Judith (tyj) at February 11, 2009 04:18 PM"We tried those theories. They failed."
Barack Obama, press conference, 2-9-09
Posted by The Creator at February 11, 2009 04:23 PMWas President Obama talking about California, creator? Seems they collect a lot of taxes and pay for a lot of services that many other states don't do. Is California the model of Democrats and their spending gone wild. Seems that way to me. Democrats have run that state for an awfully long time. Sure the occasional Republican governor comes along. Democrats still run roughshod over the legislature. They keep the gerrymandering going in their favor.
So what are California's problems these days? Seems New York is about to follow California, but so far they're not a lost cause...yet.
***
"[T]he Obama Administration has no plans to do [renounce the expansive Bush view of the state secrets doctrine] formally. They're sensitive to the politics of the case, but they're not motivated by what civil libertarians may write on their blogs" BTD at talkleft
Than there's...
Elena Kagan, Dean of Harvard Law School and nominee for Solicitor General, announced that she believes that the government has the authority to detain indefinitely terrorism suspects because the country is "at war" with Al Qaeda. Because I am busy finishing edits on a law review article, can someone please explain to me how this differs from Bush's position, which liberals condemned, bashed and burned in effigy?
And
Panetta also says that rendition will continue under the Obama administration but that he will try to guarantee through the State Department that rendered individuals are not tortured by officials in other countries. During the Bush administration, however, many leading human rights organizations rejected the argument that diplomatic assurances could effectively protect rendered individuals from torture.
The hits keep on coming...
"Obama had more than 300 foreign policy and military experts advising his campaign, including many original Iraq war opponents. Most held views somewhat to the left of those of his chief Democratic rival Hillary Rodham Clinton, whose team included more original Iraq war supporters.
But prospects for the Obama supporters dimmed when the new president gave control of the three biggest national security fiefdoms to Clinton as his new secretary of State, holdover Robert M. Gates as Defense secretary, and retired Marine Gen. James L. Jones Jr. as national security advisor.
Now, with the national security jobs nearly filled, the Clinton team is dominating the senior ranks of the State Department and the Pentagon. U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice has the highest-ranking job for an Obama team member, but the post has not been traditionally considered a Cabinet-level position.
Steven C. Clemons, a foreign policy specialist at the New America Foundation, a Washington think tank, described the job scramble as a game of musical chairs in which the Obama squad members have often found themselves without a chair.
"If they're not running into Hillary people, they're running into Republicans," he said."LATimes
Posted by peter at February 11, 2009 08:52 PMThe real question is why doesn't Barry O raise the top marginal tax rates back to the Jimmy Carter level of 70%? We all know that the rich have had a free ride since Reagan lowered the rates and the last great economy we had was under the care of President Carter so why not emulate him and raise the marginal rates? Of course we also had 22% interest rates and and 16% inflation and high unemployment especially in black communities and did hand off the "worst economy since the great depression" to Reagan but so what. He was a kind gentle man that wore a sweater.
If trickle down does not work and reaganomics has been proved a failure, why doesn't Barry raise taxes on the rich to fix our current economic situation?
Perhaps it is because he hopes to be a two term president? Unlike Mr. Carter.
Posted by manapp99 at February 12, 2009 08:54 AM