Feb

21

Have you ever noticed that? I do all the time. Bother you? Bothers me. Lots of catchy slogans, lots of hyperbole, but hardly ever does one hear it directly quoted.

Why is that?

Could it be that most folks have never read it?

Could it be that they have read it and realize that they cannot use the constitution to support their own positions?

Why is it?

Curious? …I am.

Here is quote from the constitution:

“Section 8. The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States”

I would like to offer a few points here.

For those that claim that our Federal Income Tax is unconstitutional because of issues concerning apportionment.  Note that section 8 authorizes “Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises” be collected for the purpose of paying its debts. But, it only mentions “Duties, Imposts and Excises ” needing to be uniform. It purposely excludes the word taxes.

Next point, section 8 authorizes Congress the power to collect revenues for not only our defense, but also for the “general welfare” of the United States. We have a healthcare system that in the last 20 years doubled expenditures when weighed against GDP.

We have insurance companies that have dropped over 2 million US Citizens from covereage. We have young people and other reckless citizens that refuse to buy healthcare but do not think twice about showing up at an ER knowing they must be care for in some way. Frankly, I want to blame the insurance companies. I really do. But, they are involved in a for profit business. The less they dole out in expenditures (our care) the more profit they make. That is their charter.

How is this problem not related to the “general welfare” of the Untied States?

You may not agree on the solution, but share with me an area of the constitution that will make your case that healthcare reform is in violation of the constitution. I just have cited you section 8 which unless you are a total bullshit artist and spin-meister (The name Dick Armey comes to mind) is in direct support of healthcare reform. This section also justifies single payor and even a complete takeover of healthcare by our government. This is not something I would be in favor of. But our constitution supports it.

Finally, I would suggest all you folks out there pick up and read our constitution. You will find that many of your positions are quite baseless when trying to tie them directly to the constitution.

Finally, section 8 says, and I quote… ”Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States”…

Hmmmmmm, “to pay the Debts.”

Maybe you could all quit the talk about bloodshed and revolution. The constitution also has provisions for dealing with idiots like you. If you have something that our government is doing that is unconstitutional then I am with you 100%…

Maybe some of you could become rationale again and we could start to have a meaningful dialog about how we are running up debt for things we really do not need, and that we are paying for it with debt. I believe in this we may have actually stumbled across something that is unconstitutional.

Like say… giving the American public a tax cut for 7 years that had to be financed through debt from other countries.

 

 

Feb

17

Check These Items That Fit Your Belief System, and the type of America you wish to be a part of

[ ] A nation is an organic community that requires strong leadership

[ ] Authoritarian nationalism with a corporatist economic system

[ ] Ability to commit violence and wage war in order to keep the nation strong

[ ] Identifies violence and war as actions that create national regeneration

[ ] Resists autonomy of cultural or ethnic groups

[ ] Blames capitalism and liberal democracies

[ ] Advocates a single-party state

I will bet none of you checked any of these. If you did, maybe one or two.  Yet if this does not spell the former Bush Administration, The Tea Party Movement, The incessant filibusters of the current minority party even on legislation they would normally support, and even many of you well educated Americans that for whatever reason cannot see the plain truth that is before you. 

This list is Glen Beck

This list is Bill O’Reilly

This list is Sean Hannity

This list is Fox News (sic)

This list is the Patriot Act

This list is two wars we still wage

This list is why you do not see a single Black, Asian, or Hispanic face in a Tea party crowd

This list is Sarah Palin

This list is Rush Linbaugh

This list is the Federal Reserve

This list is Wall Street

This list is the Health Insurance mobsters

This list is Wal-Mart

This list is what many in the Christian right have become

…This list is the very definition of FASCISM

…Joe McCarthy here we go again

Feb

16

I really do not know but I would suspect many do. So much of the Tea Party movement is sponsored by fallen Republicans and big business.

There are actually many things these people are for that I actually agree with.

- I agree that both Parties have been bought and sold by special interest and big business

- I agree we need to pay down the Federal Deficit

- I agree that many of our civil liberties have been compromised by scary legislation like the Patriot act.

- I believe the Federal Reserve needs to be abolished or radically reformed

- I believe we never ratified the 16th ammendment that is the basis for Federal income tax

What I do not agree with is their hypocrisy. If you are for fiscal responsibility in Government then you are for fiscal responsibility in Government. You are not just for it when the Democrats are in office.

You do not get to forget that the last fiscally responsible President was a Democrat (and this is coming from someone whose mother sent him a “Countdown to Clinton Calendar” when he was elected as I was a Bush guy).

You do not get to forget that Reagan ran up the Federal deficit by 1.34 trillion dollars in his eight years. If you adjust this number for inflation using the CPI the figure is 2.63 trillion.

You do not get to forget that Bush 1 racked up .93 trillion in four years (or 1.44 trillion adjusted for inflation). Or, Bush the younger racked up 1.78 trillion in his first seven years along. This did not include his 800 billion dollar medicaid drug prescription bill, or quite a bit of debt financed outside of the Federal Budget for the Iraq war.

You do not forget these things. For those of you folks on the fringe that have been consistent in your position that you do not like any government I can respect your position even if I do not agree with it.

For the rest of you, take a look in the mirror so you can see what hypocrisy looks like.

Next time you pull into that Walmart parking lot congratulate yourself on all those U.S. Factories your purchases are responsible for closing.

“Always low prices, Always”

But be proud in the knowledge that those Jeans you just bought made someone in Indonesia, paid enough to buy a 1/2 cup of rice.

Feb

3

“Fox News anchor Sean Hannity will deliver the keynote address at the National Republican Congressional Committee fundraising dinner next month.”

“Glenn Beck To Keynote CPAC”

What is wrong with this picture?

People are concerned about the preservation of our constitution and we have a “news” organization sending its personalities to speak at Republican events.

How exactly is this fair and balanced?

Is there anyone on the right with an ounce of decency and sense left?

How exactly can a news organization justify sending its employees to one parties events as keynote speakers and claim to be fair and balanced?

It really does not matter as the GOP has been taken over by the KKK, The John Birch Society, Secessionists, and every other fringe group one can think of.

Hmmmmmm, a news organization run by someone that had to become a US citizen in order to own US television stations is now openly sending his media personalities to GOP events, funding and sponsoring citizen groups that oppose the current administration.

Anyone out there that thinks this is okay does not understand democracy, and does not believe in democracy.

Jan

25

Today I saw an op-ed piece in the NY Times by a guy named Harold Ford Jr. The title was “Democrats, Get Down to Business.” My first thought was another right wing numb-nuts talking trash. This is how disgusted I have become with the Republican party. But, I gave myself a good talking to and read the piece. It had some good talking points in it. It had the type of dialogue we needed long ago.

(Word to Democrats. Pull your heads out and get that bill passed. Your majority and political future depends on this legislation.)

I also saw Mark McKinnon on Rachel Maddow. I really like that guy. He was McCain’s campaign advisor. I have always liked him and the way he communicates and many of his positions. It is nice to see him back on the public scene. If Republicans were wise they will bring more like him to the forefront.

Also, I find the media to largely be a bunch of dinks that are reading the wrong tea leaves. Especially regarding the election of the new Senator from Mass. Maybe more on this later.

 

 

Jan

22

Their bonus pool is only 16.2 billion dollars. Yes, only a paltry $16,200,000,000 dollars for the year. We need you to sing Fergie, Bono, Ms. Crow. We need to raise some cash for these poor souls.

We have become numb to numbers to the point that they have no meaning to us any more, so let me put this in perspective for you. According to yahoo (http://finance.yahoo.com/q/pr?s=GS) they have 35,500 employees. That bonus pool works out to $456,338 dollars per employee. Given old Lloyd and his top cronies will be getting a few hundred million of that it is safe to say that the mailroom and the admin pool will be getting stiffed.

To further put this in perspective, with the median household income around $55,000 this bonus pool represents 294,545 families in America. The 10 billion we gave these ziff-bags in TARP money could have been used to put 285,000 Americans to work at a decent wage for a year.

What exactly does Goldman Sachs do to contribute to America?

Well, they do make a contribution to our economy. For one they took risky, reckless real estate loans, packaged them up and sold them as securities, and then had balls so big they also bought hedges against the manure they sold.

Not only did they make money selling this crap to institutional investors dumb enough to buy them, they also make billions (with a B) when our economy almost went over the cliff. In fact, some of the TARP money we gave to AIG went to payoff these vile scumbags.

This is capitalism? This is so far beyond Antionette telling the poor “to eat cake” it is not even funny. Each day I dig a little deeper into the cess-pool that corporations have become the more I realize that socialism is alive and well. Socialism for the the rich that is.

Where art thou Robin Hood? 

 

Jan

20

Americans First

January 20, 2010 | Leave a Comment

I am not buying the sudden movement against the Government. It is false as it is aimed at the Obama administration. I will agree that government spending is out of control and needs to be dealt with (though now is NOT the time).

-Debt at Obama Inaguration: 10.6 trillion

-Budget Deficits incurred during Reagans 8 years: 1.34 trillion dollars

-Budget Deficits incurred during G. H. Bush’s 4 years: 933 billion

-Budget Deficits incurred during Clinton’s 8 years: 320 billion

-Budget Deficits incurred during G. W. Bush’s first 6 years: 1.63 trillion

(note: those deficit figures are real dollars. They have not been adjusted for inflation using the CPI)

Clinton has three years of surplusses and turned over what was a budget surplus for Bush’s first year in office. I liked Clinton as a president, I liked his fiscal policy.

For the record I liked Reagan and Bush 1, though I did not like that they ran deficits. In Reagans case, I could cut him some slack his first term as he inherited an economy that was in pretty rough shape. By the way, unemployment during Reagans first fours years was 7.62, 9.71, 9.60, 7.51% respectively.

So folks, lets cut through the bullshit right here and right now. Which party has put us in the most debt? Again, he inherited quite an economic mess, though nothing on the scale of what President Obama inherited.

I you are really for our government balancing the budget and paying down the debt start with the facts. Your partisan nonsense is so transparent it is laughable! The Republican jokers talking about fiscal responsibility are the same idiots that put us into this debt to begin with. All of a sudden they have fiscal religion. Give me a break.

Direct your anger where it belongs. Bankers and mortgage lenders that ran financial institutions like casinos. Show anger against investment banks like Goldman Sachs that bought risky mortgage paper, packaged and sold them as securities and if that was not enough, then took out financial instraments (termed hedges) that bet against these investments and made them insane amounts of money when they tanked. Much of those profits came from our bailout.

You want to be pissed off, be pissed off at your neighbors that racked up unsustainable credit card debt and mortgaged their houses to the hilt. They are grand contributors to this mess.

You want to pissed off, be pissed off at big business that was losing money and giving themselves huge bonuses. How in the hell is that capitalism?

Be pissed off at the media circus that reports the news these days like it is a reality television show. Be pissed off at the numbskulls lying to you about what is actually in the health care bill. 

One more thing.

Now, how many of you don’t want a healthcare bill that will protect you for being dropped if you have a pre-existing condition. A bill that would allow you to keep your adult children on your private plan until they are 26 (you of course have to pay for the increased premiums). A plan that does not change a single thing for those of you that are already covered under private insurance other than adding those two items I just mentioned.

You can be a Republican, you can be a Democratic. You can have an opinion on pretty much anything you want. But, you need to cut the bullshit and start being Americans and showing your President some respect. And, back your position up with facts, not spin. There is nothing I hate more than spin and people trying to bullshit me.

Why anyone would want that damn job is beyond me.

 

 

 

Jan

19

I forget who John Stewart of the “Daily Show” asked but the question went something like this…

“What I don’t understand is why Democrats need sixty votes to pass legislation and Republicans only need fifty-one?”

This is a good question. When the Republicans controlled the Congress they seemed to get legislation passed and never once had a majority of sixty. Whether you agree with what is being passed is not the point. Republicans do not seem to need sixty votes, but Democrats do. Maybe a Democrat could share the reason why this is with us.

In a time when we need change, we have the Democrats who have the ball but have started running in the wrong direction. We have the other party being nothing but obstructionist. I would have no problem with their dissent if they actually had some alternative solutions to the problems we are facing. They have brought nothing to the table. Nothing. I have spent a considerable amount of my time trying to figure out what they are offering. They are offering nothing. They are essentially dead-wood.

I am more dismayed by the American public at large. The reward for obstructionism is putting this party back in office? I hear the American public is tired of partisanship. I have not seen that with respect to healthcare. I saw one side looking for input and overtly getting told the goal of the minority was to kill healthcare. It is hard to work and play well with others that have no desire to play with you.

Did they do it with thoughtful debate and discourse. No. They did it with “death panels” , and shouting matches at forums that were meant to be about constructive dialog. Have we really become a nation where innuendo and 30-second sound bites is all we need to form an opinion.

 I am baffled. Truly baffled.

If the Democrats really think they need sixty votes to get anything done I would suggest we just vote them all out.

 

Jan

6

We recently purchased a new car. Our credit is good. I had no doubt walking in that we would be approved and we were. If your credit is good you can borrow money.

Banks have begun lending to people and businesses that are a good credit risk. This is a good thing. People in debt are paying off their debts. This is a very good thing. Savings rates which were actually zero have dramatically gone up in the past 14 months. This is actually a good thing as banks are allowed to loan money based upon a multiplier (this is called leverage) based upon the deposits they have on  hand.  Manufacturing is up which is a good thing.

They call all this capitalism, something we have failed to practice in the last decade. 

On the flip-side. Most the banks have paid the government TARP money back. They have done this based upon these 0 interest rate loans that they invested back into the stock market that is now up. Unfortunately they still are holding many of these stocks. If the market takes another dip, guess what? We are back in the same boat.

The behavior of wall street is still reckless. We still have a mortgage crisis in both the commercial and residential sectors. This is not so good. We need to kick some ass and take names on this front.

We are still fighting and paying for two wars, this is not good.

Government deficits are out of control with no end in sight. To add to this we are between a rock and hard place in the respect that to get out of this mess for the next few years we need to keep spending more than we have. This is not good.

The biggest challenge we face is medicare and medicade expenditures. This is why healthcare reform is so damn important. The Democrats less the blue-dogs holding the party hostage actually have the 51 votes in Congress to pass real reform that will help us reign in costs in both the short term and for the future. Unfortunately the Democrats are too stupid to use reconciliation. They say doing so would take to long. Hmmmmmm, you mean like the Republicans did to you to get through tax cuts during the Bush administration when we were running two wars. They seemed to be able to do it pretty quick. For those of you with short memories Dick “Lucifer” Cheney cast the deciding vote to break the 50-50 deadlock. Hmmmmm, Tea-party people where was your outrage back then on this?

To be fair here are the republicans that voted no.

Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine,
Gordon Smith of Oregon,
Mike DeWine of Ohio and
Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island.

Voting no on a tax cut in the midst of running two wars, low unemployment, and huge federal deficits is beyond insane. These five did the right thing. Three are out of office now. That was their reward. Only the Maine Senators remain. Obviously Maine has their head screwed on straight. Maybe when we stop voting people out of office for doing the hard but right thing more of our elected officials will be inclined to do the right thing.

Anyone that tells you that they are going to increase spending and lower taxes and it will all balance out is an idiot. Anyone that thinks that makes sense is an idiot. Maybe it is time that we stop listening to idiots.

Out #1 immediate priority is to drop unemployment back to pre meltdown levels. This will require more deficit spending but is needed. On the day we accomplish this the next priority is to have a tax increase that affects every American making more than the poverty level.

Yes, a tax increase!

We also need to cut federal spending and to take the excess and pay down our debt owned to foreign nations. The only way we are going to pull this off is to give the president line item veto like Clinton had. He was able to have 4 years of budget surpluses. It worked back then it will work again. He was the last president since Eisenhower that had budget surpluses.

It is time to pull our heads out and quit living on fantasy island. I am completely aligned with the tea-party on this one. But this includes all Americans and all of our elected officials irrespective of political party.

Once we pull our collective heads out many of you could go out to your vehicles and scrape off the bumper sticker that says “We are spending are children inheritance.”

Spending tomorrows money today screws future generations. It is not funny. It is selfish. It is immoral. Knock it off.

Dec

23

Because we collectively punish our elected officials by voting those into office that feed us the biggest line of bullshit.

In looking at our history of government deficits I still contend that unlike companies and individuals some debt seems to be okay. But, I am not sure, neither are our leaders and economists exactly how much is too much. But, I think most of us agree that we are likely past the limit.

I am with the tea party people on this issue.

If your personal debt were to be transferred to your children would you continue to rack up debt? Most of you would not.

Yet, we seem to have no qualms about letting our national deficit continue to rise. Our current deficit is estImated at around 11.4 trillion dollars. I do not want to get off on a tangent here trying to explain everything. I think we can all agree the amount we owe is pretty gross, and pretty outrageous.

We are also in some pretty tough economic times. Unemployment is high. And, to make matters worse we have an aging populations that are going to take social security and medicare, both ponzi schemes, and literally bankrupt our federal government. Oh, and let us not forget that our national infrastructure (roads, utilities) are an aging mess, as is our education system.  

All is not total doom and gloom. Since the economic meltdown in October 2008 the general American public seems to have wised up (hopefully long term) and consumer debt is falling and personal savings are rising.

I think it is high time for our leaders to get a similar haircut.

But, they ARE NOT going to do this as long as you do not understand what is at stake and what will be required to dig out.

The principles are really quite simple. Getting everyone in our country to swallow the medicine is the hard part.

If we look at the governments deficit (which is our collective deficit) there are essentially three things that can be done to dig ourselves out of debt.

1) The government can increase revenues by increasing interest rates, and through the increase of taxes.

2) The government can balance its budget and not spend more than it takes in. Our 2008 budget was 2.9 trillion, the government took in 2.5 trillion, a deficit of 400 billion. But, 400 billion is not the real number. We spent 600 billion in social security surplus to fund the debt. Yes, that is correct, the money left over that you and I have been paying into social security is actually spent on other aspects of the Federal Budget.  This is a different issue we need to take up at a later time.

3) We export at least as many goods to other countries (in dollars) that we import. Did you know that our 3rd biggest export is scrap metal to foreign countries. They recycle these metals and sell them back to us as finished products.

Now, for the bitter medicine we all need to swallow.

To increase revenues
- The Fed needs to raise the Federal Funds rate. It is currently 1/2 percent. To put this in perspective for every trillion the government lends at this rate they receive 5 billion in revenue. Raising this rate to 3% would raise an additional 25 billion in revenue and lending rates would still be affordable.
- Raising taxes seems to be to much a lightening rod. Ok, our GDP is around 13 trillion dollars. If we were to enact a national sales tax of 3% of our GDP for 5 years on 10 trillion of our 13 trillion GDP amount this would along raise 1.5 trillion dollars which would be enough to pay off most of our deficit owed to foreign countries.
- Make an investment to put people back to work. It is estimated that over the past three years 7.5 million jobs were lost. Every million people we can put back to work convervatively represents another 4 billion dollars in collected taxes just at the federal level.
- Let the 3 Bush tax cuts expire. Before you get all bent out of shape. If your adjusted gross income is 50,000 and you are filing married jointly this meant you paid $48 less in 2008 that you did in 2007, and $32 less in 2009 that in 2008. I chose 50,000 as this is close to the reported median family income in 2007. The savings of repealing these tax cuts add an additional 12 billion in government revenues. You and I would be missing $1.53 a week. That is $1.53 on $50,000 in annual income. Not a big deal to you and I. However, an additional 12 billion can go a long way.

To Manage the Federal Budget
Simple
- The government only gets to spend what they bring in.
- We spend this money wiser. Easily, we could find 25% of the money our government spends as wasteful. That is a pile of cash. It is time for a fiscal haircut. By the same token, after we pay down or pay off the foreign debt we owe we takes the years of surplus and we save them for the rainy days. If you analyze most periods of severe economic downturns since the turn of the century you will find they are preceeded by years of government surpluses. Is this a coincidence?

Balance Imports and Exports as a zero sum game
- We begin to do this by investing in green energy and reducing our dependency on foreign oil. By doing this we also create jobs for the future and start taking better care of our environment.

If you think we can get out of the mess we are in by not raising taxes and decreasing spending you are a moron, plain and simple. There are many on the left and many on the right that want fiscal responsibility. But, there are still not enough.

Why?

Because so many of you do not seem to really understand what is going on. It is time to get educated and time to demand our leaders to be fiscally responsible.

Because we elect the person that tells us the best line of BS. I can lower your taxes and increase the services I provide you. We need to quit being fools on this. If our employer said they were going to cut our pay and by doing this we could increase our standard of living we would not buy it.

Wake up America.
 

 

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