American Politics during the Obama Presidency

[QUOTE=Wild Walleye;416689]The Wall St. F-up didn't just come out of nowhere and appear on the corner of Wall & Broad one morning.[/QUOTE]True, it happend because of relaxed government regulation. No one disputes that.

[QUOTE=Wild Walleye; 416689]Only a true believer (one that believes in bull shit) would make such a statement.

This is another misguided liberal rant."Boo hoo, look at all the people in jail. It's obvious that they shouldn't be there because the crime rate is so low" [/QUOTE]Well, I never said that. Although the sentencing structures are pretty messed up in a lot of states.

[QUOTE=Wild Walleye; 416689]Check out the statistics over at the FBI. The incidence of violent crime (per 100k people) has dropped roughly 41% from 1990, a lovely time in the US when urban decay was in full swing, complemented by the crack cocaine epidemic. During that same period, the incidences of murder, rape and armed robbery have dropped 46. 8,30% and 48, respectively.

While both the nominal number of people incarcerated (not a good measure because it skews high because it doesn't account for population growth) and the real incarceration rate (adjusted for population growth) have gone up, those people weren't put there by the Tea Party, Glenn Beck or Wall Street. They were put there by their own criminal behavior. The fact that they were incarcerated and thus prevented from committing more crimes against innocent people resulted in lower crime rates. If you read those statistics the same way I do, it looks like the authorities have put an awful lot of the bad guys in jail, where most of them belong. [/QUOTE]Yes, I read the stats as you do. No argument there.

[QUOTE=Wild Walleye;416689]So exactly what is it that is causing the unraveling? Do you prefer the days of lower incarceration rates and higher crime rates?[/QUOTE]Of course not. The deterioration of the nuclear family and public education are large contributing factors, as is the lack of viable after-school programs and work-study opportunities.

[QUOTE=Wild Walleye;416689]Look at who has been running most of America's cities over the last 30 years and tell me how it is that the "right" is telling them to do anything. Politicians looking to curry favor with voters often crack down on things like prostitution purely for their own political gain.[/QUOTE]Yes, I couldn't agree more.

[QUOTE=Wild Walleye;416689]Further, you should look at who is really trying to legislate and dictate every little part of your life. Who is saying what light bulbs you can use? Forcing you to use low-flow toilets? Driving little cars? Preventing you from sending your kid to school with a homemade lunch? Banning chocolate milk from school? Making happy meals illegal? Telling you what you can and can't do with your own property?[/QUOTE]Yep, both sides have ideas about how we should live our lives, no question. On some of the issues you mention, members of both sides even agree. Regarding "little cars", there is technology today that can get 300 miles on one electric charge, and hybrid diesels that run on natural gas that don't pollute and cost half as much to operate as petroleum vehicles. So why don't the auto / oil industries make them widely available in the USA at an affordable price?

[QUOTE=Wild Walleye;416689]Like I said, there mustn't be too many reflective objects in your general vicinity.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE=Stan the Man; 416690]I won't bother responding to your prisons argument. You've already been cut to shreds on that one.

The reason there are so many people from the "right" here is that reason generally wins out. There have been many, many people with a leftish perspective drop in now and again. They make their "points" and, generally, they are shown either to be wrong, fools, or both. Usually both. Then, most shuffle off, bleating like sheep.

Don't get me wrong, we have our village idiots who stick around no matter what: Esten, Moreon and a couple more. But, there are dozens of others from the left wing persuasion who have come and gone.

Looks like we've got another village idiot to me. Welcome aboard! [/QUOTE]I'm tempted to stay Stan, but I think I'll just bleat along.

[QUOTE=Jackson;416662]Within his first 30 days in office, Obama borrowed more money than the combined [u]TOTAL[/u] cost of liberating Iraq and Afghanistan, [u]AND[/u] the Hurricane Katrina cleanup.[/QUOTE]Jackson,

The Stimulus (ARRA) was a combination of spending and tax benefits. The cost of the tax benefits is $260B to date. But according to conservatives, tax breaks aren't spending, right?

Actual spending under ARRA is $374B to date. Like the Iraq war, it wasn't spent all at once.

The cost of the Iraq war is pegged around $700B for direct spending alone. Adding indirect costs, estimates get closer to $1T or higher.

Now if you want to include the ARRA tax breaks on the Democrat side, to be fair you need to also add the Bush tax breaks on the Republican side.

Whether you look at direct spending alone, or total impact on deficits, Republicans have contributed far more to federal debt than Democrats.

[QUOTE=HappyGoLucky;416678]It seems that the super rich are getting even a greater share of the country's wealth. So far, Reagan style tricklenomics has failed to provide a fair and stable social structure. These quotes are from the Boston Globe:[/QUOTE]Good article. I read a similar one yesterday. The media needs to spend more time covering this stuff. Of course Reagan tricklenomics failed, even George H. W. Bush called it voodoo economics. The remarkable thing is that Republicans still peddle this false hope, and millions of people lap it up.

Take a look at this interesting chart:

[url]http://blogs.courant.com/susan_campbell/balance2.jpg[/url]

[QUOTE]While unemployment remains at close to 9 percent, the average salaries for CEOs at 200 of America's largest companies rose 20 percent, to $11. 7 million, according to the New York Times. Last month, the Wall Street Journal reported that CEO bonuses at 50 major corporations rose 30. 5 percent last year, the biggest gain in three years, to an average bonus of $2. 5 million. [/QUOTE]This should warm the hearts of our capitalism-loving collegues.

[QUOTE]The share for the top 10 percent was back up to 45. 6 percent in 2008. For the top 1 percent, it was back up to 18. 3 percent in 2007.[/QUOTE]Truly astounding.

[QUOTE]If we had just ended the Bush-era tax cuts and returned to the Clinton years — which were booming ones for the economy — the Treasury said it would get back $3. 7 trillion over the next decade.[/QUOTE]That is the smartest thing we can do. With an additional surtax on capital gains for incomes over 200K.

[QUOTE]Meanwhile, the US Census last year said the rich-poor income gap reached record levels, nearly doubling gaps of the late 1960s. [/QUOTE]According to Republicans, this trend is OK, as long as our poor are less poor than in other countries.

PS. HappyGoLucky you said in another post:

[QUOTE=HappyGoLucky;416691]There's nothing here I disagree with.[/QUOTE]You really agree with Jackson's universal flat tax? I encourage you to revisit that one, and be highly suspicious. A flat tax would likely further widen rich-poor gaps, and potentially be a huge giveaway to the rich.

[QUOTE=Stan Da Man;416684]This perfectly illustrates, yet again, the difference between socialists and capitalists. Esten is a socialist. He is akin to the closet homosexual who has not yet made peace with himself, so he'll issue public denials about what he likes and believes. But, all the evidence is points in a different direction.[/QUOTE]I laugh each time you bring this up Stan. Things are not so black and white. Developed countries have elements of both capitalism and socialism, including the US. Like most Americans, I believe in redistribution to address lopsided distribution. I've provided several examples of this before. Here's another one.

An NBC News / Wall Street Journal poll conducted Feb. 24-28 of 1, 000 adults listed 26 different ways to reduce the federal budget deficit.

The most popular: placing a surtax on federal income taxes for those who make more than $1 million per year (81 percent said that was acceptable) , eliminating spending on earmarks (78 percent) , eliminating funding for weapons systems the Defense Department says aren't necessary (76 percent) and eliminating tax credits for the oil and gas industries (74 percent).

[url]http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41876558/ns/politics/[/url]

Stan. 81% of Americans are Socialists! I feel sorry for you, this must eat you up inside.

Esten, according to your last post 81% of Americans think $1 million is "rich" now not $200K. Perhaps you should get a grip buddy because those lunk heads who fall in the $200K to $999K bunch are small business owners and if you bother to check it is small business that produces the most jobs, far more than "big" business.

Agreed on eliminating 'Ear Marks'. Perhaps you have not noticed but the new Republican Representatives have ALREADY done this, but not their DEMOCRAT counterparts who still cling to EARMARKS. Perhaps you guys need to get your house in order.

Agreed on unwanted weapon systems. Why are we buying weapons systems the military does not want, hey could it be politicians pushing it through? That would seem to be a no brainer, even for you.

Since I work in the Oil Patch, the elimination of tax credits for the oil and gas industries are OK if you understand the increase in operational cost originally offset by these credits will be passed on to the consumer in the form of higher prices for petroleum products. Can you say $8 to $10 a gallon gas. But this is probably just what Liberal Tree Huggers want. What they fail to understand is the accompanying unintended consequence of higher prices at the pump will push the price on all consumer goods up since they are all delivered by transport systems which depend on petroleum products.

So let's see what the 'score card' is for your poll, two tax hikes and two spending cuts. Of course one of the tax hikes will crash the economy with higher costs on petroleum products / consumer products and the other is Classic Class Warfare (Democrats should be proud since they have spoon fed this toxic idea to the public for 50+ years) , but at least the spending cuts make sense and have already been undertaken by REPUBLICANS (no Ear Marks and they have already cut the second engine program for the F35)!

Seems the general public is more in tune with the Tea Party than with the Democrat Party.

Esten, how about addressing Lyndon Johnson's Welfare Program, you know the entitlement that keeps growing and eating through more of the budget each year since 1964. Now remember Democrat Johnson promised us the Welfare program would eliminate proverty in American in a generation and yet we are now on the 3rd+ generation on welfare. The program has done nothing but breed dependency on the government while destroying peoples will to move up and out of poverty.

Right before your very eyes you will see Esten the Magnificent speak completely out of his ass. Witness:

[QUOTE=Esten; 416695]Jackson,

The Stimulus (ARRA) was a combination of spending and tax benefits. The cost of the tax benefits is $260B to date. [/quote]Isn't it amazing folks? He just opens up that gap and out it comes!

Fact, the nominal cost of the scheme, when enacted was $787B. However, that was just an estimate of what the first round of spending in the initial years would cost and does not include the cost of all the 'stimulus' every year in the future into perpetuity or financial meltdown, which ever comes first. What's that you say? It's a one-time thing, right? Not exactly, you see, by design, the people who dreamed up, passed and enacted this atrocity did so in order to make it part of the base line spending every year going forward.

When asked: 'the Congressional Budget Office to estimate the impact of permanently extending the 20 most popular provisions of the stimulus bill. What did the CBO find? . The true 10 year cost of the stimulus bill $2. 527 trillion in in spending with another $744 billion cost in debt servicing. Total bill for the Generational Theft Act: $3. 27 trillion. '

That's just looking at the top 20. When you look at the whole program, growing at 10% pa, the present value of spending built into the base line budget (of this presumably, one-time stimulus) including just the next ten years, is over $12T, including more than $1T of additional expense of debt service, since every last dime of this is deficit spending. Further, the interest on the interest would be more than $100B. If prevailing treasury rates increase, so will the ultimate cost of this nation-destroying behavior.

[quote=]But according to conservatives, tax breaks aren't spending, right?[/quote]When you come from the perspective of a sane individual, when you take someone's money and later return some of it to them, of course subtracting out the costs associated with you handling it, it could never be considered spending. You would have to come from a perspective where all private assets are really government assets to consider reductions to the marginal tax rate to be spending. Oh, wait, that is your perspective.

[quote=]Actual spending under ARRA is $374B to date.[/quote]There he goes again folks! Look at that spew! Keep an eye on him, you don't want to miss the next one!

[quote=]Like the Iraq war, it wasn't spent all at once.[/quote]Esten has finally found something he likes about Bush. The Iraq war. Only because it is the only expense category remotely big enough to be noticed next to Obama's historic spending.

While the Iraq war has been going on for some time, future expenditures will only be incurred so long as we remain involved in the military conflict. Unlike the ARRA spending, Iraq War spending theoretically will go away, one day. Since it appears that Obama is dead set on continuing to prosecute the war, in an almost identical fashion to that of his predecessor, that day won't come soon.

[quote=]The cost of the Iraq war is pegged around $700B for direct spending alone. Adding indirect costs, estimates get closer to $1T or higher. [/quote]Just a drop in the bucket next to Obama's $12T. Maybe Libya will spiral out of control and he can ramp up costs there to help make Obama's global pay-off scheme look less gargantuan.

[quote=]Now if you want to include the ARRA tax breaks on the Democrat side, to be fair you need to also add the Bush tax breaks on the Republican side.[/quote]Only an idiot would consider allowing individuals to keep more of their own hard-earned cash to be a form of spending. Ooops, no offense."Do you get a free bowl of soup with that hat? It looks good on you, though."

[quote=]Whether you look at direct spending alone, or total impact on deficits, Republicans have contributed far more to federal debt than Democrats.[/QUOTE]There it is ladies and gentlemen, the grand finale of Esten the Magnificent! I knew he could do it. Look at that doozie he just laid out there! Look at the steam coming off of that pile! An the smell! A round of applause everyone! He's terrific.

No need to let facts get in your way, you never have before. However, your beloved temporary, permanent stimulus spending (also known as the ultimate slush fund for Democrat pet causes and pay offs) alone, far out strips the aggregate debt accumulated by this nation, at any point throughout its history, prior to the 111th Congress. The fact that it is 100% deficit spending, as is all of the interest that will become due on this deficit spending, places the Democrats at the very top of the heap of profligate spenders.

I am certain that you will recall the overwhelming bipartisan support that ARRA had: "No Republicans in the House and only three Republican Senators voted for the bill. The bill was signed into law on February 17 by President Barack Obama"


A couple parting thoughts to put things into perspective:
- total US tax receipts for 2010 were $2.2T or roughly 16% of GDP (around $14T)
- US National Debt is about $14T (Esten, that is about 7 times what we bring in)
- 2011 budget, just agreed to, runs another $1.6T in debt
- There are no CBO projections showing any future years in which government revenues equal or surpass government expenditures, let alone reduce the deficit.
- Without annual surpluses, there can be no reduction of the national debt

If you could confiscate 100% of total US household income, every year, you still couldn't eliminate the deficit within a reasonable time frame.

A new low, and this one's a doozy.

[QUOTE=Wild Walleye; 416709]Fact, the nominal cost of the scheme, when enacted was $787B. However, that was just an estimate of what the first round of spending in the initial years would cost and does not include the cost of all the 'stimulus' every year in the future into perpetuity or financial meltdown, which ever comes first. What's that you say? It's a one-time thing, right? Not exactly, you see, by design, the people who dreamed up, passed and enacted this atrocity did so in order to make it part of the base line spending every year going forward.

When asked: 'the Congressional Budget Office to estimate the impact of permanently extending the 20 most popular provisions of the stimulus bill. What did the CBO find? . The true 10 year cost of the stimulus bill $2. 527 trillion in in spending with another $744 billion cost in debt servicing. Total bill for the Generational Theft Act: $3. 27 trillion. '

That's just looking at the top 20. When you look at the whole program, growing at 10% pa, the present value of spending built into the base line budget (of this presumably, one-time stimulus) including just the next ten years, is over $12T, including more than $1T of additional expense of debt service, since every last dime of this is deficit spending. Further, the interest on the interest would be more than $100B. If prevailing treasury rates increase, so will the ultimate cost of this nation-destroying behavior. [/QUOTE]And were those ARRA provisions extended? Or are you just recycling a right-wing article from 2 years ago when Paul Ryan asked the CBO about hypothetical (non-existent) extensions?

Since we're relying on the CBO, do you know what their latest (Feb. 2011) estimate of ARRA's cost is? Here's some help:

www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/120xx/doc12074/02-23-ARRA.pdf

[i]"When ARRA was being considered, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation estimated that it would increase budget deficits by $787 billion between fiscal years 2009 and 2019. CBO now estimates that the total impact over the 2009–2019 period will amount to $821 billion."[/i]

$821 billion. Which as I previously noted is part spending and part tax benefits. A far cry from your $12T number.

Here's a number we can believe in, Walleye's credibility = ZERO

Esten, according to the poll you cited 81% of Americans believe $1 Million is "Rich", maybe you should give your guy Obama a clue since he is still stuck with the $250K figure as "Rich".

I earn over $250K, own my own business, employ 22 accountants / CPAs / office staff, drive a 5 year old car and an 11 year old truck, live in a nice home but believe me I am damn sure not 'rich'. As one of those lunk head small business owners who would get caught in Obama's tax hike let me tell you what will happen.

I currently provide healthcare benefits for my employees, three weeks paid leave, paid continuing education allowance, and a 401 (k) which includes Safe Harbor contributions of 3% with an additional minimum of 3% and maximum of 9% in Profit Sharing depending on the profitability of the business year.

Well when Obama hits me with higher personal taxes here is what goes at a minimum: one week of paid leave, continuing education allowance and when ObamaCare kicks in probably healthcare as it appears to be cheaper to pay the fine than insure the employees but we still don't know for sure since HHS / IRS are still writing the rules.

As you can see we are back to the law of unintended consequences and if you think I am different you can believe this is already happening with other employers and will be exacerbated by a tax hike.

How about answering my question about Johnson's Entitlement program called Welfare.

[QUOTE=Esten; 416724]A new low, and this one's a doozy.

And were those ARRA provisions extended? [/quote]They are part of the baseline of the budget Obama submitted. Therefore, they are part of the baseline in the eyes of all democrats in Washington. Why don't you take a class or two and learn how to read so that you aren't dependent upon MSNBC for all of your information.

[quote=]Or are you just recycling a right-wing article from 2 years ago when Paul Ryan asked the CBO about hypothetical (non-existent) extensions?[/quote]Considering that Obama has attempted to make them permanent through his proposed budget, I am afraid that I don't follow your attempt to dismiss the relevance of the issue as hypothetical.

[quote=]Since we're relying on the CBO, do you know what their latest (Feb. 2011) estimate of ARRA's cost is? Here's some help:

[url]www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/120xx/doc12074/02-23-ARRA.pdf[/url]

[i]"When ARRA was being considered, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation estimated that it would increase budget deficits by $787 billion between fiscal years 2009 and 2019. CBO now estimates that the total impact over the 2009–2019 period will amount to $821 billion."[/i] [/quote]Cost of ARA to date, first two years is $862B, which is : 1) more than the original $787B. 2) an incomplete tally considering that some provisions of ARRA haven't even been spent.

[quote=]$821 billion. Which as I previously noted is part spending and part tax benefits.[/quote]Yeah, whatever, you can say it as often as you like. However, you will never make tax cuts into spending. Further, 'tax benefits' given to people who didn't pay the tax in the first place is nothing of the sort. Those are called transfer payments in reference of the transfer that occurs between the person who earned it to the person who did not.

[quote=]A far cry from your $12T number.[/quote]We'll see how much of ARRA becomes a permanent part of the baseline. I stand by my estimate as being much closer to the truth than your or the CBO's.

[quote=]Here's a number we can believe in, Walleye's credibility = ZERO[/QUOTE]I've put out plenty of facts through my posts, you have yet to provide any factual refutation of any of them.

Here, see if you can factually refute the following:

I say that the sun rises in the west.

Our Obfuscator in Chief was clearly channeling Esten last night. His most revealing line of the night, in criticizing Paul Ryan's Plan:

'There's nothing serious about a plan that claims to reduce the deficit by spending a trillion dollars on tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires. '

Spending a trillion dollars on tax cuts? Just how can the government possibly [i]spend[/i] Anything through tax cuts?

This make sense, of course, only if you have a socialist perspective. According to Obama channeling Esten, everything really belongs to the government. So, by not taking it from "millionaires and billionaires" the government is really "spending" it.

By this perverted logic, Obama claims his proposed tax increases are really "savings."

And this is the guy liberals think is smart?

According to a new Associated Press GfK Poll. 62% of Americans believe the answer to the deficient is cutting government spending / services while only 29% believe the answer is raising taxes.

Another interesting poll result was most whites believed their taxes were fain while most no-whites believed their taxes were unfair.

I am sure Moveon and Esten can find some reason this happened and I'll bet it has something to do with Bibles, Guns, Religion and white folks.

Another interesting figure is if the top evil 5% of the country, you know the evil rich, had 100% of their income taken in tax it would NOTeven pay for the deficit created by Obama's 2011 budget much less reduce the last two years of Obama's deficit spending.

IT'S THE SPENDING STUPID!

[QUOTE=Wild Walleye;416743]More lies from the left [/QUOTE][QUOTE=Wild Walleye; 416743]We'll see how much of ARRA becomes a permanent part of the baseline. I stand by my estimate as being much closer to the truth than your or the CBO's.

I've put out plenty of facts through my posts, you have yet to provide any factual refutation of any of them. [/QUOTE]According to Walleye:

Citing ARRA data from cbo.gov and recovery.gov is lying.

But making projections on hypothetical extensions is posting facts.

Walleye, it's been a pleasure exposing once again what a nutjob you are. And once again it is time for me to place you on ignore mode for awhile.

All the best,

Esten

[QUOTE=Doppelganger; 416755]According to a new Associated Press GfK Poll. 62% of Americans believe the answer to the deficient is cutting government spending / services while only 29% believe the answer is raising taxes.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE]I am sure Moveon and Esten can find some reason this happened and I'll bet it has something to do with Bibles, Guns, Religion and white folks. [/QUOTE]The second I saw those numbers I knew it must be a poll that asks what the MAIN approach should be. I went and checked, and that is the case. The poll question was:

[i]BUD3Z. In order to balance the federal budget, which should be the main focus of lawmakers? [/i]

And the choices were Increasing taxes, Cutting government services, Both equally, Neither, Don't know. You could only choose one answer.

Of course the polls have shown this preference for a long time. But what the polls have also shown consistently is that when you ask folks specifically about raising taxes on the wealthy, this also has majority support. So the polls show support for both spending cuts and tax increases on the wealthy, just more weighted on spending cuts.

This is exactly what Obama has proposed. A combination of spending cuts and tax increases, more weighted on the spending cuts.

Looks like Obama is very much in sync with Americans, certainly moreso than the one-sided GOP proposal of spending cuts alone.

[QUOTE]Another interesting figure is if the top evil 5% of the country, you know the evil rich, had 100% of their income taken in tax it would even pay for the deficit created by Obama's 2011 budget much less reduce the last two years of Obama's deficit spending.[/QUOTE]We don't say the rich are evil, you do. And we agree spending needs to be cut, alongside increasing revenue.

Will get to your small business points later.

[QUOTE=Esten; 416761]According to Walleye:

Citing ARRA data from cbo. Gov and recovery. Gov is lying. [/quote]Please don't make me explain for you what the CBO is, again.

[quote=]But making projections on hypothetical extensions is posting facts.[/quote]I am an American that can read and do arithmetic, the first entitles me to question anything and everything my govt does. The fact that I possess world-renowned financial analysis skills (that far exceed anyone in the employ of the CBO) doesn't hurt either.

[quote=]Walleye, it's been a pleasure exposing once again what a nutjob you are.[/quote]I don't recall exposing my nuts to you. However, I have been known to enjoy a little of the grape every now and then so, it is possible. Did you notice how much bigger righty is as compared to lefty? I think it's cause righty is so much more virile.

[quote=]And once again it is time for me to place you on ignore mode for awhile.[/QUOTE]I think it was it Sun Tzu that said "When defeat is imminent, run like a pussy."