If you have not read this i recommend you do. It will explain how republicans manage to take control of many Americans mindset for the pass 30years

Two Santa Clauses or How The Republican Party Has Conned America for Thirty Years

by Thom Hartmann

This weekend, House Republican leader John Boehner played out the role of Jude Wanniski on NBC’s “Meet The Press.”

Odds are you’ve never heard of Jude, but without him Reagan never would have become a “successful” president, Republicans never would have taken control of the House or Senate, Bill Clinton never would have been impeached, and neither George Bush would have been president.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/01/26-0

Can you discuss the tremendous amount of Bush and Republican era policy the Obama administration is quietly reversing?

The American public would be thrilled to know about the phenomenal amount President Obama has accomplished on the policy end, and even all of the legislative accomplishments aren’t getting enough coverage.

It would be terrific if you could devote a full segment to this topic, or at least discuss it in “Week in the News.”

The majority who put President Obama in office should know just how hard he is working on their behalf.

Thanks!

Great post Michael! Thanks for the link!

Everyone should indeed read this!

Certainly you will want to comment on the successful closing of Gitmo this week marking yet another campaign promise kept by President Obama.

Rachel,

you must be very disappointed, i’m sure if he decided to send some of the folks back to Yemen and some got loose the republicans would be screaming and crying, you must admit that fear is playing a big roll in not closing it.

Americans are so tough to fight the enemy on the battlefield but god forbid they face trial or are sent to jail in America. (run for the hills) Preach we have the best court systems and Iran should be like ours yet Americans are afraid to use it in fear it might not go there way.(for shame)

Can onpoint talk about the attempted wiretapping of the one of our senators office?
since last week nothing claim for jack and the others.

I love my Toyota! My last one went over 350000 miles!
I just bought a used Rav4 and have to say, I am still loyal. Their cars are in many ways still superior,and last longer than any American car I have had. Every company makes mistakes. It’s just that when you set the bar as high as Toyota did, the mistakes are overemphasized. It is like Obama. If you expect perfection, you are bound to be disappointed.

Tom asks in his intro………are you still driving your Toyota? Of course! Auto recalls are nothing new. This story has been way overblown. Nineteen incidents over eight years is not a crisis. The odds of having a problem are incredibly small. Have the repair made and move on.

Re The speeding up of Senator’s Brown swearing in:

How many votes did Al Franken miss after his election and before he was allowed to be seated?

Did someone on your show really just describe Obama’s tactics as “mau-mauing”? And then did the MC fail to call her out about that? I thought that sort of racebaiting went out years ago. And there is not doubt about the connotations of that phrase (for instance have you ever heard used in reference to an Euro-american?

Why is it that Republicans started caring about deficits only on 1/20/09?

They’re against a jobs bill. Of course they are. But they’re just fine with more tax cuts for the rich and allowing banks to keep bailout money. They’re just fine with high credit card rates and arbitrary rate changes. They’re just fine with bank fees and a lending freeze to small biz.

They’re only against deficits because they don’t want a tax hike on the rich to deal with it. But they’d sell the national parks, close our embassies, and abolish unemployment insurance to deal with the debt.

As long as bankers can keep their butlers and their bonuses, the Republicans will cut anything that benefits people who work for a living.

With regard to Toyota: When evaluating the severity of the Toyota problem, keep in mind that the SIZE of the recall is NOT a reflection of Toyota’s lack of quality control or disregard for safety. It is a DIRECT reflection of the SUCCESS of Toyota’s product lines. Toyota controls 15-17 percent of the US car market. That is HUGE! So even the smallest error in production is magnified exponentially. Likewise, the response will be huge and will take some time to iron out. Don’t buy that Ford yet!

The Republican flips on policies they themselves once supported are indeed “unpatriotic.”

These Benedict Arnold Republicans care nothing about the country’s well-being, but only about their own welfare in the next election and how it might enrich them.

Who were the seven grandstanding Republican hypocrites who were sponsors of the bill until it was likely to pass?

Can someone talk about how many people have actually died or how many Toyota’s have had their accelerators fail in comparison to how many are on the road? Just how dangerous are these cars?

Unpatriotic for Sen McCain to be concerned about trillion dollare deficit? Ruth you need a dictionary. I may or may not agree with him or with you but I’m not going to call you “unpatriotic”. Arrogance plain ans simple

“Admirably disciiplined… from a political point of view.” – That’s a very euphemistically diplomatic, Mr McManus.

Republicans were indeed able to obstruct, as they vote 100% what their leadership determines is to their political benefit, as though they have no individual conscience whatever, but are instead mindless automatons who are concerned only with what their leadership tells them is good for the next election cycle.

Democrats, on the other hand, never vote 100% with their leadership, as they DO have consciences, and when they disagree with their leadership, they have no trouble voting their minds. No group of nearly 60 intelligent people can possibly agree 100%, especially if they are true to their constituents whose interest vary greatly geographically, economically, and even culturally.

Also, despite the lie from Republicans like the caller, Democrats never had a philibuster-proof majority in congress, as two non-Republican senators are independent… one of those, Joe Lieberman, can almost always be expected NOT to vote with Dems, as it turns out.

Republicans were, therefore, crucial to getting ANYTHING passed in Congress, and your assertion that “Republican obstructionism was absolutely impossible,” is simply another Republican lie and talking point.

Tom,
It’s just a terrible time to be President. No matter who took office, his policy was destined to offend some constituents. He did a lot to assuage the opposition, but now it is time to show the people what a real “leftist” he really is. Now that he knows that he will not be able to placate all groups without offending no one, it’s time to push through legislation that Pres. Obama truly believes in.

Patrick,
The bill the Republicans flipped on was one which would help control the 1.2 trillion/year deficit Bush left Americans.

That is why flipping on the commitment for purely political gain was “unpatriotic.”

How did you not catch that simple point?

How many people have in total died due to the fault in last 2 years? Compare that to the total number of people died in road accidents..

I have been using my Camry 2007 since Nov 06, got 80k miles on it, and I dont think just because a faulty pedal/electronics have been making news on the airtime my perceptions to the entire organization will change.

Ofcourse I will be more careful and thankful to all the media attention that brought this matter out, however it will take a few more strong hits (engine blowout, faulty wheels etc) to tarnish Toyota’s imgage in my view.

I’d like to respond to your guest’s comment regarding what he called President Obama’s very complex plan–deal with unemployment first, then deal with the deficit. That doesn’t seem too complex–get a job so you can payoff your debts.

I’ve been looking for full-time work since before Obama was elected. I know that I need the job to pay off debt. And if I had full-time work, I’d be paying more taxes providing revenue to help balance our national budget and pay off our national debt.

Correction

“Admirably disciiplined… from a political point of view.” – That’s a very euphemistically diplomatic way of putting it, Mr McManus.

Republicans were indeed able to obstruct, as they vote 100% what their leadership determines is to their political benefit, as though they have no individual conscience whatever, but are instead mindless automatons who are concerned only with what their leadership tells them is good for the next election cycle.

Democrats, on the other hand, never vote 100% with their leadership, as they DO have consciences, and when they disagree with their leadership, they have no trouble voting their minds. No group of nearly 60 intelligent people can possibly agree 100%, especially if they are true to their constituents whose interest vary greatly geographically, economically, and even culturally.

Also, despite the lie from Republicans like the caller, Democrats never had a philibuster-proof majority in congress, as two non-Republican senators are independent… one of those, Joe Lieberman, can almost always be expected NOT to vote with Dems, as it turns out.

Republicans were, therefore, crucial to getting ANYTHING passed in Congress, and your assertion that “Republican obstructionism was absolutely impossible,” is simply another Republican lie and talking point.

The Dems have no spine, plain and simple. They don’t need 60 votes to get things done. All they need is courage and 51 votes.

Could the 2 party system be holding us back, by allowing the parties to think that if they hold on long enough/make the other guys look bad, they will be back on top, and do what they want?
Are the 2 parties almost like large corporations in that they now look out for the parties interests ahead of the public’s best interest?

The press does not significant attension to the fact that Republican Party has made a calculated choice to obstruct any initiative from Obama and to demonize him personnaly. American should be ashamed about the stand of the republican Party leadership.

1. The democrats never had sixty votes – Liberman

2. Republicans with the talk radio and cable are able to convince people to vote against their own interests.

3. I say let the republicans return to power and see wht will happen to us as a country.

Thank you Ruth for your comments on the lip service of Republicans with regards to the deficit. I couldn’t agree more and have been waiting for the media to jump all over this. It’s hypocritical and speaks to the bigger picture of a “NO” minded party. It’s clear that they are not working on behalf of what is good for the country, they are working on behalf of themselves and their beliefs. Which one only need look at the past eight years to see how “well” that worked.

Fifteen minutes into this program, the position of mainstream Republicans has been misrepresented.

Even MSNBC’s first two programs (Morning Joe & subsequent program with Chuck Todd) pointed out not only that the recent poll taken, (where a majority of Republicans not only believe President Obama is a socialist but a significant minority question his citizenship) was taken and published by a left wing group, but that the questions were structured to solicity exactly these responses. By the way, the same organization conducted the only poll that had Martha Coakley defeating Senator Brown. The polls garbage, and is designed to play into current White House talking points on how to define the opposition.

Secondly, no MAINSTREAM Republican holds that addressing unemployment should be put on hold in the interest of deficit reduction. They hold further government tinkering in the interest of reducing unemployment is highly inefficient; their position- cuts in capital gains taxes and not raising (or cutting)marginal tax rates (particularly payroll taxes) is a far more efficient way to reduce unemployment significantly over the median run. Igniting an economic boom in the private sector is the only way to dramatrically raise government revenue without burying the next gerneration of the middle class in debt. The Bush tax cuts not paid for? Yes they were- by generating almost seven years of additional revenue from a booming economy. Bush’ lack of regualtory action, the Fed’s lack of regulation and free money, Fannie May & Freddie Mac’s policies (for which we can blame Democrats aas well as Republicans) are responsible for causing last year’s meltdown.

I am an independent. I am a Joe Lieberman Democrat. I am a Judd Gregg Republican. Our President, and a majority of the Congress, is doing what Republicans did after 2000- robbing our kids in the form higher deficits at the expense of rising deficits. WANT TO INCREASE EMPLOYMENT AND REDUCE THE DEBT: CUT SPENDING AND CUT TAXES.

JP, The “simple” point is that name calling from the left OR right is not debate or discussion. Nor is it good for the nation. It is divisive, uneeded and unproductive.

Why the Democrats can’t get anywhere….

Obama is strong, intelligent and a great communicator. The Democrats have a large majority in both houses. So what’s the problem. It has to be the Democratic Legislative “Leadership” (in quotes for a reason. Pelosi is marginally useful, but Reid should be (should have been a long time ago) forced out. He is, I believe, single-handedly responsible for most of the Democratic travails by dint of his weakness. Since Democrats are too spineless to toss him, they should look ahead and hope he is defeated in the fall election and plan to replace him with someone with courage.

Ditto the comments of Carol from down South (I forget where). What about the willful political cluelessness plauging the party establishments???

The Republicans are the One who MADE THIS MESS and still they are AGAINST ECONOMIC REFORM

Yes Obama spent billions of dollars to bail the Pathetic banks of USA.

Obama did that to Avoid Economic Depression or Great Depression. You don’t need to go to Hardvard to understand simple Economics.

Yes the Deficit was created by THE REPUBLICANS and they are still Destroying our country.

Wake Up American!!! Stop Being so Naive.

The world is laughing at The Republicans

Even GOD knows that Obama didn’t Made this Mess.

Tom said that NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden is facing “a reduced budget.” Quite the opposite: the NASA budget is *increasing* by about 6 billion dollars over the next five years. What has been cut is the Constellation set of vehicles, which the Augustine Commission found were too far behind schedule and underfunded to serve the International Space Station or get us to the Moon in a timely manner.

As an aerospace engineer involved in technology research and development, I am extremely excited about the new NASA budget. It provides increased funding, emphasis on science and technology, opportunities to develop so-called “game changing” architectures for space exploration, and will likely get us to Mars much sooner than NASA efforts until now!

The Supreme Court has a “conservative” majority now.

The combination of the Bush Era tax breaks for corporations to write import expenses, along with new rules to allow them to have unlimited contributions is a bitter pill.

Now we taxpayers are paying the bills while the corporations use their money to make those awful political commercials to justify taking away my job to pay those taxes. Ugh…

Conservative people who want to work for a living, VOTED FOR FAMILY VALUES. The supreme court decision is an empty consolation prize. They are quick to work for corporations, and are slow to implement a pro-life agenda.

While I am relieved they lied to President Bush I and II about being pro-life, it is not reassuring that they make it harder to raise that baby in a free world.

Here is our chance to bring pro-life people over to the liberal side. Chinese Communists are conservatives. Mao Tse Tung forbade abortions, then turned around and forced abortions. The same legal principle was in play. Chinese women do not have a right to choose life.

Tax cuts for importing corporations go directly to the people who force Chinese women into abortions.

Maybe pro-life people can throw their nets on the other side of the boat to save more babies.

Why Democrats CANNOT solve the BIG MESS that THE REPUBLICANS DID FOR 6 PATHETIC YEARS. Because the Republicans are still want to destroy the US economy.

Remember the Administration of Bill Clinton

Bill Clinton had MONEY SURPLUS OF A TRILLION DOLLARS.

What happen to that Budget Surplus.

Bush and Republicans SPEND IT ALL.

Michael thanks for the link to the article “wo Santa Clauses or How The Republican Party Has Conned America for Thirty Years”

For the people like the commenter Richard Walsh, if you’re a wealthy millionaire I can see why you would say this.
If you’re a not and make an average income you are delusional. That said I don’t see the democrat’s doing anything to help here. What a mess.

Personally I fear that we might end up like Argentina circa 1999 – 2002. The republicans have all but destroyed this country for political gain and they have succeeded, some what in convincing people that government is the problem. Well if things really go south, I bet the first ones lining up for government WPA work will be the likes of the Richard Walsh’s.

re the AIG bonuses: why is there no discussion about taxing them? start at 10% surtax over $250,000 bonus, up to a max of 90% surtax over $1 million bonus. that would bring the money back to the treasury right away.

I am a Joe Lieberman Democrat. – Posted by Richard Walsh — What the hell is a “Joe Lieberman Democrat?”

Obama a socialist? WE ARE ALL SOCIALISTS. A socialist is a person who believes government should answer basic economic questions- what goods and services an exonomy produces, how, and for whom. A socialist purportedly focuses on the last and advocates some form of wealth redistribution. I am a socialist: anyone who believes in the Social Security program is a socialist.

Anyone who believes in economic freedom: in the right of freely interacting individuals answering the basic economic questions through the MARKET, is a capitalists (individuals exercise control over their property in making capital investments in determining production). If we like our standard of living, WE ARE ALL CAPITALISTS.

All exonomies are MIXED. This is a question of degrees. And compared to middle America, OBAMA IS A SOCIALIST.

The regarding heads rolling in the Mass Dem Party is appropriate. The Democatic Party leadership in MA is historically weak and not leaning toward the bright side. Their parochial attitude allowed the state to have a string of Republican governors and their utter inability to manage their own members is beyond believe. Independents outnumber Democrats in MA by a wide range. I think Independents outnumber Democrats because the have given up on the ability of the party to function and it is better to leave them behind. Coakly could have been a more dynamic candidate, but like in all elections in MA, once a candidate is selected in the primary, then the supports of all the other candidates go home and sit on their hands. I am an Independent firstly because the Democratic party has moved too far to the right and we have no Liberal Party, such as the UK to turn to and also because the party, very much on the state level but the national too, is organisationally not capable of managing itself. That is a serious problem, although not as bad as the other party which is very good at controlling its members, it is essentially a fascist organisation

Once again Colin Powell comes around the correct position years after when he is no longer in a position to do anything.

In regards to the Toyota debacle, it really doesn’t matter if the US Government has a real or perceived conflict of interest in commenting that Toyota owners should stop driving their cars and get them to a dealer for repairs. Those of us that are Japanese car entheusiasts (Nissan for me) will not dessert them for a chevy…trust me on that. I believe that Toyota will ocme back from this and regain any loyal customers thay may lose on a temporary basis. If anyone else benefits from this , it will be Honda and Nissan (maybe Ford).

In February, 2007, we experienced three unexplained acceleration events within 24 hours in our six month old 2007 RAV 4. Our car was manufactured in Japan and has never been included in any of the recalls to date. We took our car to our dealer and informed them that we were never driving the car again. They allowed us to trade the car, and, after they were unable to determine the problem, sold the car back to Toyota. At the time we filed a complaint with NHTSA. It is distressing to think that people are assuming that they are safe from this problem because they have a Japanese manufactured RAV 4 that has not been recalled.

Toyota????

What about Nissan Sentra,Mitsubishi Hatchback Lancer,Honda Civic SR,Hyundai Genesis Coupe,Subaru WRX,Suzuki SXT and Ford Focus GT .

These are Great Car makers too. Be a smart consumer

Toyota? yes they make great cars but they are not the only car manufacturer on the Planet earth.

Toyora car never and will look so great anyways.

My Toyota was manufactured in America. So I really like Toyota and speak as a friend.

But the parts related to the recall, gas pedals and software for brakes, were not made or designed by my fellow Americans or our Japanese friends.

Tax cuts to write off import business expenses led directly into the temptation for the parts makers going to the lowest wage places. American and Japanese cars alike have to go along with this to compete against each other.

We taxpayers are picking up the difference in this tax cut for the privilege of having dangerous cars on the road.

An Obama voter and supporter, I alarmed how fast his leadership and policies and achievements can be undermined. Is the GOP the voice of the millions uninsured, unemployed, and in foreclosure? If not, why can’t the Dems reach and rally them?
And why can’t the fearful Dem reps up for re-election not get their constituents to understand why their pollicies will help their district? Is it really all a media warp, as Michael/Common Dreams claims? If so, why can’t the Domocratic machine bite back? It’s only the first quarter of 2010, and so much damage has been done. Help!

Richard where do you get this stuff? Obama is no more of a socialist than GW bush was.

Main Entry: so·cial·ism
Pronunciation: \ˈsō-shə-ˌli-zəm\
Function: noun
Date: 1837

1 : any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods
2 a : a system of society or group living in which there is no private property b : a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state
3 : a stage of society in Marxist theory transitional between capitalism and communism and distinguished by unequal distribution of goods and pay according to work done.

To the gentleman who believes Republicans and not Democrats are obstructionists: you have not looked at behavior of the majority when voting in committee- where bills are actually written.
99%- literally- of Republican amendments were defeated- with Democrats, unlike the Republicans, voted lockstep with their leadership.
If they had not done so through all 3 House committees and the Senate Finance Committee on health care, we would have a bill that focused on BOTH the costs and the availability of health insurance- and one that moderate Democrats and Republicans would vote for.
As is, the House and Senate bills ignored costs. (Any informed person on this issue knows that insurance expansion is paid under CBO estimates only assuming $526 billion in Medicare “waste reduction” savings- an assumption the CBO was insturcted to make but savings Congress will never vote for. (If they would, why haven’t they? And perhaps the savings should be used to help make the current program solvent). The House and Senate bills if passed add to the deficit, asks are kids to pay for an expansion in health care, with a net effect of RAISING COSTS while make coverage more accessible.
The lack of real health insurance reform is just one result of Republicans and DEMOCRATS voting in lockstep.

Toyota PARTS ARE NOW MADE IN CHINA.

Where else can they be made.

My 2008 Mitsubishi Lancer is 100 percent made in Japen check your Driver side door panel sticker near the latch it will tell you where the car was made.

Always China that’s the rest of the world ARE JOBLESS especially Americans.

take that job here and pay the UNEMPLOYED Americanc 8 BUCK AN HOUR. Believe they will be happy especially Teen agers who needed badly of JOBS

Media should take responsibility. I am part of the media machine and realize we need to take our responsibility for a lot that has happened this past week. But I’ll only use Toyota as an example.

We all heard what the S of Trans said. And every person with common sense knows what he meant by “stop driving your cars”. Don’t drive to work, or the car pool, or to grandma”s this weekend. Drive to your dealer and have the problem fixed. But the media keeps focusing on the words instead of the intent and explination. And we’ve blown up the relationship between bailing out two american brands that have been mismanaged for years, to the government wanting to be in the business of building cars. I am smart enough to know my government wanted to save jobs. Not build cars. The US govt. is not in competition with Toyota. We are punishing the car makers that did the job right all these years. And if we cause Toyota to suffer, how many American jobs suffer? See the problem? The media wants to feed the story instead of make sense out of it and inform Americans responsibily. My list of examples this week goes on. Don’t even get me started on gays in the military! Why is it even a discussion? If I’m willing to die for my country the American people should be willing to comfort my partner when I do! Shame on anyone who thinks otherwise.

Too bad about your rave 4 Linda, Still love mine. If it is subject to recall, I will be happy to get it fixed and move on. That is life. If something changed where suddenly a few thousand people had issues with my model year 06, then maybe I’d have a concern, but the likelihood of injury is low, and it is not being recalled. When a recall occurrs, it is because of a required risk assessment done by the company using actual occurrences and liklihood
More power to you for getting a new car!

JEFFE: Any basic macroeconomics textbook should explain the dictionary definition for you: “ownership” here means control of “capital.” And, for example, UNDER CURRENT PROGRAMS (Medicare, Medicaid, Verterans) over 50% of health care by 2012 will be paid for BY THE GOVERNMENHT. Which means, the government will be answersing the questions What care (goods/services) gets paid for and for whom (who qualifies for each program). Services not covered will disappear.

Our government controlled the capital that kept GM solvent- look who (Obama administration) forced its CEO to resign earlier this year.

Don’t need a degree in economics, we have socialism. Any ecoomic text will tell you that perfect socialism and perfect capitalism are self-destructive. They will all tell you ALL economies are MIXED.

I use more than the dictionary or the internet.

To Alex Warde: I am for the first time both UNEMPLOYED and UNINSURED (and I am 50). If things go badly, my house will be under FORECLUSRE (Need a big revenue stream-job- by spring- the house is underwater).
I wouldn’t mind government helo- I figure that I have paid taxes and will again to help those in need under whatever programs. BUT THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION’S WAY OF SAVING JOBS HAS BEEN HIGHLY INEFFICIENT AND WILL BE PAID FOR BY THE NEXT GENERATION- who just might face their own recession and have their own burdens to deal with. They don’t need ours.
The Stimulus bill saved jobs for the most important constituency of the Demcratic Party: the Unions, the MAJORITY of whose membership is GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES. Really- look it up. That’s why they cite “fireman, teachers, policemen” jobs saved (and they saved headaches for their politcal allies who had to deal with the states’ budget government crunch).

TO AKILEZ: You are correct. The Bush administration and REPUBLICANS IN CONGRESS did not pay for the programs they passed.
But the Clinton administration never had policies to bring us to ba balanced budget- until Republicans burned him by winning control of the Congress in 1994 (and not even then). Then, as a great president, he had abandoned the costly expansion of government he proposed in 1992 (ex. his failed health care) and focused on what he could achieve positive for the country with the REPUBLICAN MAJORITY (the Congress, not the executive, apporpriates the funds. All president’s budgets are pretty much dead on arrival when Congress gets their hand on it). CLINTON had a “budget” surplus (even at that, there was no surplus if one does not include the Social Security trust fund) ONLY BECAUSE HE WORKED WITH THE REPUBLICANS AND THEY WORKED WITH HIM IN AREAS OF COMMON GROUND.
Go back- read the “Contract with America,. the Republican program in 1994- then look and see what policies Pres. Clinton supported from the Republican Congress (by REJECTING CONGRESSIONAL DEMOCRATS- LOOK UP THE “TRIANGULATAION STRATEGY” DEVELOPED BY THEN CLINTON POLITICAL ADVISOR DICK MORRIS.

CLINTON WAS GREAT. HE WAS A POLITICAL ANIMAL- BUT ONLY WHEN IT WAS IN THE INTEREST OF HIS COUNTRY.

By the way, as a percentage of GDP (which is what really matters), deficits from 2000-2007 were less than any seven year period in the 1990s or 1980s.

EIO Boston. Have more respect for the average citizen’s ability to make decisions for themselves.

Read what I have written here today:

I do not listen to Rush Limbaugh or any conservative talk radio. I doubt On Point is what you mean- and MSNBC is way left of mainstream (lets see- Oberman, Maddow, Matthews), as is CBS, CNN,…

The voters are upset- at the Bush/Republcians 2001-2009 for not paying as they went; at OBAMA and this Congress who use that fact as an excuse TO SPEND WAY MORE – WITHOUT PAYING AS THEY GO.

CLINTON, and the REPUBLCAN CONGRESS that acturally had to come up with the $ to pay as you go, GOT IT RIGHT.

WE NEED DIVIDED GOVERNMENT. WE ARE GOING TO HAVE IT- REAL SOON.

Mr Kerr.
The Supreme Court did overturn a precedent almost 100 years old in its recent decision allowing Corporate free speech close to elections despite McCain Feingold.
Aside from the fact that many interests (media corporations, labor unions) have inordinate influence in the same time period- and that all such influence may well affect voter outcomes little, and that despite the misrepresentation by our Pres. in the State of the Union regarding foreign corporate influence) consider the following:

IN OVERTURNING THIS PRECEDENT, THE COURT NOT ONLY LONGER ESTABLISHED, OLDER PRECEDENT (Equating corporations with “persons” as referred to in the 5th and 14th Amendments- something our whole political and economic system depends- late 1880s) BUT THE CONSTITUTION ITSELF.

See, the Court is NOT supposed to ask the question “What do we think SHOULD BE’- Congress does that- they legislate-
The Court is supposed to do what it did in this case: WHAT DOES THE LAW SAY.

If conservatives on the Court are to be blamed for a wrong decision, why do you think Justice Kennedy went along?

Joe Lieberman Demcrat
= Connecticut’s Atty Gen for Years- until elected
= U.S. Democratic Senator from CT (U know, Chris Dodd’s friend, 1989-2007
=2000 Democratic candidate to be Vice President of the United States (Al Gore’s running mate).

=man of his word (for expanding health care, but not at a time when the nation can’t, or won’t pay for it).

=pragmatic defender of the nation (you know, support for the surge- only thing that makes it so Obama can get us out of Iraq

=willing to represent Democratic principles, vote with the caucus, but more willing to do the politically uncomfortable.

GO JOE GO!!!!! He’s my Senator, and damn proud of him.

Lieberman is probably a Mossad plant in our government.

Every move he makes can be shown to benefit Israel or the Israeli agenda in some way.

GO JOE GO!!!!! He’s my Senator, and damn proud of him. That says it all.

Walsh you’re the one calling people socialist, not me.
Obama and the democrat’s are so far from that. Giving a bail out is not socialism, it’s a social engineering.
Also GM filed for bankruptcy, so a lot of contracts were renegotiated. This was a calculation by the Obama administration, and the Bush administration to keep unemployment down, or at least that was the plan.

I see you do not say much about the bank bailouts.

Joe Lieberman is the worse example of a politician, a snake of man who bends to the wind for his own gain. A man without any scruples or care for his country or his sate, only staying in power.

Still Driving my Prius. It’s still the safest car on the road; no other car can carry my full-sized family so efficiently. I’ve carried my kids all over the country in it and never experienced ANY problem with it. I feel safer knowing that I’m not destroying my kids’ future as quickly as I would in any other car.

In regards to gays in the military: As a Vet I dont think the problem will be going forward them serving, but how to deal with benefits for domestic partnerships.

To Michael:

Read the article about Jude Wanniski and Arthur Laffer at the commondreams site. It takes the concurrence of related concepts held by a school of economists and the principles of Ronald Reagan- held for decades-from BEFORE his 1964 speech in support of Goldwater (Read Reagan’s speeches for GE in the 1950s) when they were unpopular to after their successful implementation in 1989. Wanniski had nothing to do with the FORMATION of Reagan’s belief in less government, lower taxes and the market. Wanniski and Laffer simply provided the theoretical underpinnings for Reagan’s position among the intellectual elite.

Likewise, Reagan, Wanniski, Laffer had anything to do DIRECT with the policy behind the increase in the Social Security taxes in 1986. That proposal was put forth by a BIPARTISAN commission because neither Reagan Republicans nor Tip O’neil Democrats wanted to take the actions necessary to make the program (supposedly) solvent when the boomers hit retirment in the 21st century. As Fed chair, Greenspan(AND HIS PREDECESSOR PAUL VOLKER- on whom Obama relies) supported the tax changes because they knew solvency was a good idea.

Reagan got elected in part because we had unemployment as high as now in 1980 and double digit inflation. He implemented his long held proposal- cut MARGINAL tax rates (yes, returning REAL tax levels and PROGRESSIVITY of the code to what it was in 1978- taxes had gone up on everyone with increasing progressivity because tax brackets were not then indexed for (double digit) inflation.

The federal income tax, in real inflation dollar terms, return to near 1978 progressivity levels by 1984 (Reagans 3 year, 25% tax cut). Until the code was changed in 1986, Reagan’s policy only reduced real taxation on the wealthy to 78 levels (corporate income tax reductions aside).

And, along with Volker-Greenspan monetary policy, it worked: until last year, we did not face the economic crisis lack that we endured in the 1970s. If the Laffer curve is bad theory, WHY WHEN MARGINAL TAX RATES WERE CUT BY KENNEDY, REAGAN, AND BUSH, WERE GOVERNMENT REVENUES HIGHER than what had been projected for the outyears at higher rates before their implementation?

The deficits came from ever greater spending, not the tax cuts.

This article takes facts, asserts cause-effect relationship as part of POLTICAL SPIN.

The caller who said (paraphrasing) “Democrats have overwhelming majorities in both houses and are in complete control of the government but still can’t pass their agenda” offered a perfect opening to someone on the panel to explain why our governance system is so dysfunctional.

Doyle McManus gave a confusing answer about the Democrats “lack of party cohesion” and never mentioned the word “filibuster.” This archaic and anti-democratic practice that allows 41% of Senators to frustrate the will of the other 59%, not to mention strong support for change from the American public, is the entire reason the Democrats are stymied in their quest to reform health care.

In any other modern democracy, the victory Democrats won in 2008 would have automatically translated into passage of their agenda. If Pres. Obama and the Democrats don’t at least make the filibuster and the need to reform it an issue, they will have precious little ability to explain themselves in the upcoming elections.

If conservatives on the Court are to be blamed for a wrong decision, why do you think Justice Kennedy went along? – Posted by Richad [sic] Walsh, — Kennedy is a conservative. He is just a more reasonable one compared to the extremists to his right.

VIVA MY TOYOTA! VIVA MY TOYOTA!

VIVA! VIVA! MY TOYOTAAAAA!( 2005 Matrix)( not viagra, but the same commercial gingle)

But i still going to have it checked, i love the car but i’m not blindly in love.

Sorry FORD baby, you’re still not my type.Your commitment in a relationship don’t last as long and you are never willing to go the extra mile to help my budget.

Doyle McManus should get his facts straight, which he could have done easily by reading his own newspaper (LA Times). Then he would have known that complaints about Toyota vehicle problems were reported far earlier than 2007. There was the sludge problem in about 2002. Prius lighting system failure complaints go back to 2004 & peaked in 2006.

The most disturbing thing to me (a former automotive reporter & editor) is Toyota’s pattern of denial & attempting to blame its owners for some of these problems (i.e. sludge & sudden acceleration). It’s also disturbing that NHTSA, understaffed & too industry-friendly during the Bush administration, appeared to enable Toyota in its denial and efforts to blame others in these cases.

Not only is McManus’s credibility somewhat tarnished by his misstatements, but so is the credibility of On Point & its host for failing to call McManus on such an obvious error. Henceforth, I will do my own fact-checking on items presented as fact on this show.\

Ken Fermoyle

1. Toyota recall is such a non-story. 19 occurences can only be described as statistically insignifigant, and Toyota is offering a fix. What’s the problem exactly? (I’ve never owned a Toyota)

2. Joe Lieberman is the consumate politician. He will do ANYTHING to keep his office, including changing parties to dodge a primary defeat. I have extreme contempt for this man and will relish the day he leaves office.

3. EIO Boston, your third point is spot on. The wishy washy independents need a refresher course on conservative governance. America desperately needs a legitimate third party, even if it is the tea baggers.

I had loved my Toyotas for years and love them still. They have always been low maintenace and more reliable than any other vehicle I’ve owned except perhaps Nissans which were on par with Toyota.

As technologies improve, difficulties will follow. I am impressed with the way they are handling the issues, bringing them right to light, developing fixes very quickly and working overtime to correct them.

I currently drive a 2006 Prius. I love it! It has 95,000 miles on it; zero maintenace beyond regular oil and filter changes.

Most impressive is the fact that Toyota, while improving the Prius each year, has maintained an almost completely stable price. Also, the resale value is terrific.

For the above reasons I recently contacted a salesman to trade up to a 2010 Prius. That was before the news about the recalls came out. I haven’t broken stride. I have complete confidence that my new Prius will be as trouble free as the current one & that IF issues should arise they will be dealt with promptly.

Perhaps if Toyota slowed with improving their technology they would encounter fewer problems, but personally I’m very much in favor of increased economy and heightened safety. Finally, if you check the history of recalls you will see that Toyota’s current recalls are substantially smaller than many others that have occured, primarily with “American” cars.

They raised the debt ceiling to $14.3 Trillion. Some in Washington say that ceiling will be reached by the end of the month. I hope not!

You seem to be missing these events in your estimates,

I refer you to listen to
1. Regan was call out on using these not be some liberal but by Bush Sr. remember that line Voodoo economics?

2. Faced with looming deficits, Reagan raised taxes again in 1983 with a gasoline tax and once more in 1984, this time by $50 billion over three years, mainly through closing tax loopholes for business. Despite the fact that such increases were anathema to conservatives–and probably cost Reagan’s successor, George H.W. Bush, reelection–Reagan raised taxes a grand total of four times just between 1982-84.

http://firedoglake.com/2009/02/01/newsflash-ronald-reagan-raised-taxes-you-idiots/

3. But after his initial victories on tax cuts and defense, the revolution effectively stalled. Deficits started to balloon, the recession soon deepened, his party lost ground in the 1982 midterms, and thereafter Reagan never seriously tried to enact the radical domestic agenda he’d campaigned on. Rather than abolish the departments of Energy and Education, as he had promised to do if elected president, Reagan added a new cabinet-level department–one of the largest federal agencies–the Department of Veterans Affairs.

4.Reagan also vastly expanded one of the largest federal domestic programs, Social Security. Before becoming president, he had often openly mused, much to the alarm of his politically sensitive staff, about restructuring Social Security to allow individuals to opt out of the system–an antecedent of today’s privatization plans. At the start of his administration, with Social Security teetering on the brink of insolvency, Reagan attempted to push through immediate draconian cuts to the program. But the Senate unanimously rebuked his plan, and the GOP lost 26 House seats in the 1982 midterm elections, largely as a result of this overreach.

The following year, Reagan made one of the greatest ideological about-faces in the history of the presidency, agreeing to a $165 billion bailout of Social Security. In almost every way, the bailout flew in the face of conservative ideology. It dramatically increased payroll taxes on employees and employers, brought a whole new class of recipients–new federal workers–into the system, and, for the first time, taxed Social Security benefits, and did so in the most liberal way: only those of upper-income recipients. (As an added affront to conservatives, the tax wasn’t indexed to inflation, meaning that more and more people have gradually had to pay it over time.)

By expanding rather than scaling back entitlements, Reagan–and Newt Gingrich after him–demonstrated that conservatives could not and would not launch a frontal assault on Social Security, effectively conceding that these cherished New Deal programs were central features of the American polity.
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2001/0301.green.html

cont

4. When he stepped down as Fed chairman less than three years ago, Congress treated Greenspan as an oracle, one of the great economic statesmen of all time. Yesterday, many members of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee treated him as a hostile witness.

“You found that your view of the world, your ideology was not right, it was not working?” said Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), the committee chairman.

“Absolutely, precisely,” Greenspan said. “You know, that’s precisely the reason I was shocked, because I have been going for 40 years or more with very considerable evidence that it was working exceptionally well.”

Greenspan alternately defended his legacy and acknowledged mistakes. Waxman asked whether the former chairman was wrong to consistently oppose regulating the multitrillion dollar derivative market that has contributed to the financial crisis.

“Well, partially,” said Greenspan, before stressing the difference between credit-default swaps and other types of derivatives.

With the global financial system unraveling, economists and political leaders are coming to doubt some of Greenspan’s most closely held views: that markets can exact self-discipline, that central bankers should generally not try to prick bubbles in the price of houses or tech stocks, that a policymaker’s most powerful tool to encourage growth is to stay out of the way.
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Even Greenspan seemed genuinely perplexed yesterday by all that had happened, hard-pressed to explain how formerly fundamental truths about how markets work could have proved so wrong.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/23/AR2008102300193.html

5 Debt to asset ratios held by banks Most investment banks were leveraged by a ratio of 30 to 1, and they were dealing with billions of dollars instead of thousands. Government sponsored mortgage giants Freddie (FRE) and Fannie were using leverage closer to 100 to 1, because of their supposedly stricter lending standards and implicit government backing. As you know, when asset prices are rising, this system works like a dream, but let’s look at what happens when asset prices (in this case – houses) move downward.

In scenario #1 above, if the price of the house decreases by $30,000, other than the “paper loss”, as long as you don’t sell, there are no problems because you have no leveraged debt. In scenario #3 above – maximum leverage, if the price of the house decreases by $30,000, here’s what potentially happens:

* Let’s assume the bank that lent you the $99,000 decides that the collateral (the value of the house) is no longer sufficient to cover the loan. It may ask you to come up with the difference between the current value of the home ($70,000) and the outstanding debt ($99,000). In order to protect the bank’s interests, it will want you to come up with $29,000.
* Now you have two options. First, you can give the bank the $29,000. But you probably didn’t have it in the first place, so this is probably not a realistic option. Secondly, you could refinance your mortgage with another bank. But this probably won’t work because you already have $29,000 of negative equity. All banks are going to be reluctant to give you money without collateral.
* So you most likely lose the house to foreclosure. This is exactly what is happening to a number of homeowners today.

Now let’s map this scenario from a homeowner with a single mortgage to an investment bank that invests in millions of mortgages. If the day you bought the house you had a net worth of $1,000 – the cash you put down on your house – then lets say your personal “stock” was worth $1,000. After the foreclosure you lost your $1,000 investment and now you personal “stock” is worth $0.

6.Bushes tax cuts
Think because you have money in the stock market you might have a stake in eliminating the dividend tax, the centerpiece of the president’s tax cut — $300 billion over 10 years? (You probably think you have money in the stock market because your 401K keeps going down — that would be 40 million Americans.) But no! This tax break doesn’t apply to your dividends! The money in your 401K from both savings and dividends are tax sheltered until you withdraw the money — then all of it gets taxed as ordinary income. You don’t get any tax break on your dividends — that only goes to the investor class. According to Kevin Phillips, 1 percent of investors pocketed 42 percent of the stock-market gains between 1989 and 1997, while the top 10 percent of the population took 86 percent. These people need a tax cut! They haven’t been getting their share!

According to the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, the effect of eliminating dividend taxation is that the average benefit for those making less than $10,000 would be $6, and average benefit for those making more than $1 million would be $45,098. Quick, high-schoolers, let’s practice up for the those SATs by figuring out by what percentage $45,098 is bigger than $6.

Bush also wants to accelerate the income-tax cuts slated for 2006. Look at this folly. The top 5 percent of taxpayers would get 70 percent of the benefits on that one. The bottom 80 percent would get 6.5 percent of the benefits. Ditto with accelerating the 2004 tax cuts: 64.4 percent to the top 5 percent of taxpayers; 7.7 percent to the bottom 80 percent.

One of those people who can’t handle numbers, need something visual to work with? Find the Urban-Brookings charts published in the Jan. 7 New York Times showing who gets how much of this tax cut. You can bareley see the lines that measure the relief until you get above the 99th percentile.

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0115-05.htm

charts and graphs from the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center,

http://finance.senate.gov/hearings/testimony/2005test/092806potest.pdf

7. Reagan promised a restoration of the nation’s military strength, at the same time 60% of Americans polled felt defense spending was too low.[12] Reagan also promised an end to “‘trust me’ government” and to restore economic health by implementing a supply-side economic policy. Reagan promised a balanced budget within three years (which he said would be “the beginning of the end of inflation”), accompanied by a 30% reduction in taxes over those same years. With respect to the economy, Reagan famously said, “A recession is when your neighbor loses his job. A depression is when you lose yours. And recovery is when Jimmy Carter loses his.”[7] Reagan also criticized the “windfall profit tax” that Carter and Congress enacted that year in regards to domestic oil production and promised to attempt to repeal it as president.[13] The tax was not a tax on profits, but on the difference between the price control-mandated price and the market price.[14]

On the issue of women’s rights there was much division, with many feminists frustrated with Carter, the only candidate who supported the Equal Rights Amendment. After a bitter Convention fight between Republican feminists and antifeminists the Republican Party dropped their forty-year endorsement of the ERA[15]. Reagan, however, announced his dedication to women’s rights and his intention to, if elected, appoint women to his cabinet and the first female justice to the Supreme Court.[16] He also pledged to work with all 50 state governors to combat discrimination against women and to equalize federal laws as an alternative to the ERA.[7] Reagan was convinced to give an endorsement of women’s rights in his nomination acceptance speech.

Carter was criticized by his own aides for not having a “grand plan;” he often criticized Reagan’s economic plan, but did not create one of his own in response.[7]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_presidential_election,_1980

I did find this man. Tell me this is not happening now.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Kenneth_Galbraith
John Kenneth Galbraith

In American Capitalism: The Concept of Countervailing Power, published in 1952, Galbraith outlined how the American economy in the future would be managed by a triumvirate of big business, big labor, and an activist government. Galbraith termed the reaction of lobby groups and unions “countervailing power.” He contrasted this arrangement with the previous pre-depression era where big business had relatively free rein over the economy.

Galbraith’s main ideas focused around the influence of the market power of large corporations.[4] He believed that this market power weakened the widely-accepted principle of consumer sovereignty, allowing corporations to be price makers, rather than price takers,[33] allowing corporations with the strongest market power to increase the production of their goods beyond an efficient amount. He further believed that market power played a major role in inflation[4] and argued that corporations and trade unions could only increase prices to the extent that their market power allowed them to. He argued that in situations of excessive market power, price controls effectively controlled inflation, but cautioned against using them in markets that were basically efficient such as agricultural goods and housing.[34] He noted that price controls were much easier to enforce in industries with relatively few buyers and sellers.[34]:244 Galbraith’s view of market power was not entirely negative; he also noted that the power of US firms played a part in the success of the US economy.

In The Affluent Society Galbraith asserts that classical economic theory was true for the eras before the present, which were times of “poverty”; now, however, we have moved from an age of poverty to an age of “affluence,” and for such an age, a completely new economic theory is needed. Galbraith’s main argument is that as society becomes relatively more affluent, so private business must “create” consumer wants through advertising, and while this generates artificial affluence through the production of commercial goods and services, the public sector becomes neglected. He points out that while many Americans were able to purchase luxury items, their parks were polluted and their children attended poorly maintained schools. He argues that markets alone will underprovide (or fail to provide at all) for many public goods, whereas private goods are typically ‘overprovided’ due to the process of advertising creating an artificial demand above the individual’s basic needs. This emphasis on the power of advertising and consequent overconsumption may have anticipated the drop in savings rates in the USA and elsewhere in the developing world.[4]

Galbraith proposed curbing the consumption of certain products through greater use of consumption taxes, arguing that this could be more efficient than other forms of taxation, such as labour or land taxes. Galbraith’s major proposal was a program he called “investment in men” — a large-scale publicly-funded education program aimed at empowering ordinary citizens. Galbraith wished to entrust citizens with the future of the American republic.

I also found this

States’ rights as “code word”

The term “states’ rights,” some have argued,[11] was used as a code word by defenders of segregation.[citation needed] It was the official name of the “Dixiecrat” party led by white supremacist presidential candidate Strom Thurmond.[12][13] George Wallace, the Alabama governor—who famously declared in his inaugural address, “Segregation now! Segregation tomorrow! Segregation forever!”—later remarked that he should have said, “States’ rights now! States’ rights tomorrow! States’ rights forever!”[citation needed] Wallace, however, claimed that segregation was but one issue symbolic of a larger struggle for states’ rights; in that view, which some historians dispute, his replacement of segregation with states’ rights would be more of a clarification than a euphemism.[14]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/States%E2%80%99_rights

Sounds like a teabagger today, they had a clip of one of the people talking briefly to some of the tea party folks the use of socialist

There’s also a bit of clinging to that magical marginal tax rate idea the Laffer curve which has been seriously debunked by empirics during the Reagan and Clinton years. However, I will give the Kemp-Roth tax bill–and hence, Bartlett and his Supply Side–credit for two positive policies. The first was a Keynsian style spending/tax fiscal policy during the last bad recession we had back in the 1980s. The other is the realization that it’s good to provide tax incentives for long term supply curve enhancement. This would be tax credits for re-capitalization for industry which should actually be more part of a national industrial plan, but I’ll just leave it at that. The other would be the idea of tax sheltering money for retirement. 401(k)s were a good innovation. The Clinton administration was also instrumental in sheltering long term savings from current taxes. These two things do help with long run economic growth and capital formation which are lofty and necessary goals.

However, for the little bit of good coming from SSE, also came a lot of bad. I found it interesting that in Bartlett’s piece today he reveals the bad with almost what appears to be relish. That is how most Republicans turned the idea that you can promote long term economic growth with some good, targeted tax policy into the mess that Dubya/Cheney wrought with the frightful combination of tax cuts are good for everything that ails you and deficits never matter as long as you spend the money on wars and enriching the military industrial complex.

During the George W. Bush years, however, I think SSE became distorted into something that is, frankly, nuts–the ideas that there is no economic problem that cannot be cured with more and bigger tax cuts, that all tax cuts are equally beneficial, and that all tax cuts raise revenue.

These incorrect ideas led to the enactment of many tax cuts that had no meaningful effect on economic performance. Many were just give-aways to favored Republican constituencies, little different, substantively, from government spending. What, after all, is the difference between a direct spending program and a refundable tax credit? Nothing, really, except that Republicans oppose the first because it represents Big Government while they support the latter because it is a “tax cut.”

I think these sorts of semantic differences cloud economic decisionmaking rather than contributing to it. As a consequence, we now have a tax code riddled with tax credits and other tax schemes of dubious merit, expiring provisions that never expire, and an income tax that fully exempts almost on half of tax filers from paying even a penny to support the general operations of the federal government.

The supply-siders are to a large extent responsible for this mess, myself included. We opened Pandora’s Box when we got the Republican Party to abandon the balanced budget as its signature economic policy and adopt tax cuts as its raison d’être. In particular, the idea that tax cuts will “starve the beast” and automatically shrink the size of government is extremely pernicious.

http://dakiniland.wordpress.com/2009/10/13/did-he-come-to-bury-or-praise-suppy-side-economics/

Bruce B. Believe it did its work and now should go away,

As all economists now know, these ideas were wrong. All economists today accept the importance of the money supply–perhaps too much; during the recent crisis many asserted that fiscal stimulus was unnecessary because an increase in the money supply was the only thing necessary to restore growth. (How this would have been accomplished when interest rates were close to zero was never explained.) All economists now accept the importance of marginal tax rates to economic decisionmaking, and organizations like the National Bureau of Economic Research publish vast numbers of papers on this topic.

During the George W. Bush years, however, I think SSE became distorted into something that is, frankly, nuts–the ideas that there is no economic problem that cannot be cured with more and bigger tax cuts, that all tax cuts are equally beneficial, and that all tax cuts raise revenue.

These incorrect ideas led to the enactment of many tax cuts that had no meaningful effect on economic performance. Many were just give-aways to favored Republican constituencies, little different, substantively, from government spending. What, after all, is the difference between a direct spending program and a refundable tax credit? Nothing, really, except that Republicans oppose the first because it represents Big Government while they support the latter because it is a “tax cut.”

I think these sorts of semantic differences cloud economic decisionmaking rather than contributing to it. As a consequence, we now have a tax code riddled with tax credits and other tax schemes of dubious merit, expiring provisions that never expire, and an income tax that fully exempts almost on half of tax filers from paying even a penny to support the general operations of the federal government.

The supply-siders are to a large extent responsible for this mess, myself included. We opened Pandora’s Box when we got the Republican Party to abandon the balanced budget as its signature economic policy and adopt tax cuts as its raison d’être. In particular, the idea that tax cuts will “starve the beast” and automatically shrink the size of government is extremely pernicious.

Indeed, by destroying the balanced budget constraint, starve-the-beast theory actually opened the flood gates of spending. As I explained in a recent column, a key reason why deficits restrained spending in the past is because they led to politically unpopular tax increases. But if, as Republicans now maintain, taxes must never be increased at any time for any reason then there is never any political cost to raising spending and cutting taxes at the same time, as the Bush 43 administration and a Republican Congress did year after year.

http://www.capitalgainsandgames.com/blog/bruce-bartlett/1168/supply-side-economics-rip

Fiscal Responsibility Requires Higher Taxes
Bruce Bartlett

Americans can’t have their cake and eat it too.

Throughout most of our nation’s history, political conservatives really only had one thing in common: They all believed in a balanced federal budget. They might disagree on religion, foreign policy and any number of other issues, but everyone who thought of themselves as a conservative believed absolutely in the necessity of balancing the budget on an annual basis.

Today, the notion seems quaint. Republicans pay lip service to balancing the budget, but only when Democrats are in office. When they were in power under George W. Bush, they all agreed with Vice President Dick Cheney when he told Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill, “Reagan proved deficits don’t matter

It doesn’t really matter whether Cheney was speaking about the politics or economics of deficits. He was articulating the now-universal view among conservatives that deficits are not worth suffering any political pain to deal with. In particular, taxes must never be raised to reduce deficits. That’s a cure worse than the disease, virtually all conservatives believe today.

This reversal of the historical conservative position has had enormous implications for our national finances. By effectively taking taxes off the table, conservatives unwittingly opened the flood gates of spending.

If Toyota’s accelerator problems actually are related to a nylon bushing, justification of their engineering decisions and handling of the issue could get really problematic for them. Nylon’s environmental vulnerabilities are well known. It was cool stuff in the 60’s but now its just inexpensive plastic, compared to the many advanced polymers. Toyota’s loyalists shouldn’t dismiss the story too quickly.
Side note- my Dad brought home a bunch of scrap rotary stepping switches with seized nylon bushings when I was a kid, which began my interest in engineering!

oh, yes, Ruth Marcus did just say “to the extent that the president can kind of “mau-mau” and embarrass repbublicans into trying to find some common ground…”

as for Scott Brown re: having to borrow 40% of budget “because we don’t have the money to pay for all the spending, and I am concerned that we’re living beyond our means” –

oh really? how bout cutting some of that ol’ military budget, like a few planes, a few drones, some of that pentagon bloat…??

Richard Walsh’s comments are a breath of fresh air from some of the posts on this board. I too would describe myself as a Lieberman Democrat /Judd Gregg Republican. Joe Lieberman represents what used to be considered the best of the Democratic party, which unfortunately is no longer. Joe Lieberman is a moderate liberal Democrat out of step with today’s democratic base that feeds off Daily Kos , MSNBC , and Move on.org.

What disturbs me from reading these comments and listening to callers to On Point each week is the sheer ignorance so many people have regarding “big and small” business and the private sector. Demagoguing “big business” , “banks”, ” the wealthy” will do nothing to grow the economy and create more jobs.
Despite what many on this board may believe , government does not create wealth or drive economic growth. As one caller observed, business responds to increased demand. Providing a $5K tax credit for hiring someone only works on the margin. Hiring an employee is analogous to making an investment in a fixed asset. The more it costs to acquire the asset , the greater return you need for your investment. The more expensive it is to hire an employee ( wages plus benefits) the greater the revenue the new hire needs to generate. Businesses aren’t hiring today because they are concerned about future economic conditions , likely higher taxes and higher interest rates , etc. Obama just doesn’t get it — tight credit is not the problem. Small business does not want to borrow money with all these uncertainties in the market.

The private sector responds to tax incentives–like it or not. Increase the investment tax credit or allow faster write off of depreciation causes a company to reconsider delaying a capital equipment purchase until economic conditions improve. Why ? It allows a company to shorten the time to recover its investment. Business responds to tax incentives no differently than individuals who responded to cash-for -clunkers , and first time home owner tax credits.

Increase taxes on the “rich”—do people on this board realize that nearly 44% of all people pay no income taxes? and please don’t tell me about payroll taxes being paid by everyone. What frustrates me about this country is that everyone feels entitled to some benefit so long as it’s paid by someone else or a future generation. Sorry , but there just are not enough “fat cats” to tax to pay for all the “stimulus ” money being spent.

A key reason why a balanced budget requirement constrained spending is that deficits led to higher taxes. Since people don’t like paying taxes, they put a brake on spending that couldn’t be financed out of current revenues. In the event that there was some new program that was widely deemed to be desirable, such as Social Security or Medicare, it was commonly understood that new taxes dedicated just to these programs were an essential requirement for enactment.

Programs that couldn’t be financed weren’t seriously considered until the Bush 43 administration. Contrary to the experience of Social Security and Medicare, he offered no dedicated financing for the Medicare drug benefit. It simply added to the budget deficit and will add as much to it over the next decade as the February stimulus package that every Republican voted against.

And, of course, no effort was made to pay for tax cuts or pork barrel projects. In fact, Republicans jettisoned PAYGO (pay as you go) budget rules in 2002. These were first imposed in the 1990 budget deal, engineered by George H.W. Bush at great personal and political cost. But many budget experts believe they were the primary reason for the surpluses of the 1990s, because they required that new programs be paid for with tax increases or spending cuts. This made it very hard to enact tax cuts or spending increases, leaving the budget on automatic pilot and allowing surpluses to emerge.

When pressed about their abandonment of support for the balanced budget, Republicans say that supporting higher taxes to reduce deficits only made them tax collectors for the welfare state. Democrats bought votes with seemingly costless deficits and controlled Congress for decades. Republicans complained about deficits and stayed in the minority for decades.

Eventually, Republicans decided that fighting deficits just wasn’t working for them. People might support a balanced budget in public opinion polls, but they opposed every single thing that would actually reduce deficits, especially higher taxes.

In the 1970s, conservatives talked themselves into believing that cutting taxes was a better way of restraining government’s growth than supporting a balanced budget. Just take away Congress’s credit card, Ronald Reagan used to say, and it will be forced to cut spending.

This reversal of the long-held conservative position proved to be extremely popular, politically, and had a lot to do with the Republican takeover of Congress in 1994. It is now Republican dogma that taxes must never be increased no matter how big the deficit. The last Republican to do that, Bush 41, got thrown out of the White House on his ear for doing so, Republicans believe.

Such a fate is not going to befall any congressional Republican today. Their mantra is that all tax increases must be opposed with every fiber of their being, and there is no problem that can’t be cured by tax cuts.

During Bill Clinton’s administration, Democratic economists got religion on deficits. They believe that his 1993 tax increase sparked an economic boom. They also saw that as the federal budget went from deficit to surplus, this had enormously positive economic effects by adding to the stock of national saving and reducing real interest rates, which raised investment and reduced unemployment.

Clinton’s big mistake was in not locking up the surpluses in some way. One idea would have been to use the surpluses to create private Social Security accounts that Republicans wouldn’t have dared to touch any more than they would dare to cut Social Security benefits.

Instead, the surpluses were completely dissipated on temporary tax cuts and spending programs that bought reelection for Republicans in 2002 and 2004, but made no lasting contribution to the economy’s growth. Even as the surpluses turned into deficits, Republicans’ position didn’t change–they were still for big tax cuts regardless of the budgetary circumstances.

Indeed, back in February when Congress was debating the stimulus package and the Treasury was facing a deficit of $1.2 trillion this year, the Republican position was that tax cuts–and only tax cuts–would stave off a deep recession. How that would have helped when incomes were falling to such an extent that tax revenues were virtually collapsing on their own was never explained. Tax cuts were a mantra to be repeated endlessly whether they had any rational connection to the economy’s problems or not.

Everyone knows that fiscal discipline must be restored eventually, or we will face truly horrifying consequences–defaulting on the debt, nonpayment of Social Security benefits, a collapsing dollar, and double-digit inflation and interest rates. Everyone also knows that this will involve a combination of higher revenues and lower spending. The idea that we can restore fiscal health only with spending cuts is childish, as I tried to explain last week.

What we face is a game of chicken. Republicans think if they wait until the last possible second to support the smallest possible tax increase necessary to make a budget deal work, they can get the largest possible spending cuts. The problem is that there is not one iota of historical evidence that this strategy will work. The budget deals of the 1980s and 1990s were all roughly 50-50: half tax increases, half spending cuts.

At some point, taxes have to be back on the table as the price that must be paid for profligate spending. Only then will the American people realize that they can’t have their cake and eat it too, as Republicans have preached for the last decade. Only when the American people go back to believing that spending must be paid for will they stop demanding something for nothing and put the country back on the path to fiscal sanity.

Bruce Bartlett is a former Treasury Department economist and the author of Reaganomics: Supply-Side Economics in Action and Impostor: How George W. Bush Bankrupted America and Betrayed the Reagan Legacy. Bruce Bartlett’s new book is available for pre-order: The New American Economy: The Failure of Reaganomics and a New Way Forward. He writes a weekly column for Forbes.com.

http://www.forbes.com/2009/09/24/fiscal-spending-taxes-opinions-columnists-bruce-bartlett.html

Bruce Bartlett Sums up the republicans faulty logic that Jon and Richard seems to emit. And this is from the mouth of one of Reagan own guys.

Jon Stringer what you say is full of half truths and distortions. I was watching an interview with David Stockman, the former budget director for President Reagan, who completly disagrees with this line of Republican thinking. In fact he said the Republican “starve the beast” idea is a failure and that it’s obvious that taxes will have to be raised to deal with the deficit.

One other observation, you are entitled to support Joe Lieberman, however it is clear that this man is a joke.
He is only interested in staying in power and his actions speak to this. This is not the same politician of 10 years ago.

Jon Stringer,

1. Someone with a point of view different than your own isn’t automatically ignorant.

2. 44% of Americans pay no taxes… Interesting. The wealthiest 5% of Americans control 75% of the wealth and assets in this country. Is there anything wrong with asking them to pay 75% of the taxes?

3. The wealthy in this country have pushed their advantage close to a tipping point. Too many people who have too little. These poor may realize the power their numbers give them in a democracy and may just take more from you than the current top tax rate.

4. I’m not actually anti-capitalist. Individuals can amass as much wealth as they like, as long as every citizen has food, shelter, education, and healthcare. In the eyes of conservatives this makes me some sort of bolshevik.

Cory, In my area of this country, I see many poor people who have never worked a day in their lifes. They have always had food, shelter, education and healthcare, all paid for by the taxpayers. Not that they can’t work, many do not want to work. I have worked at some of the jobs these people do not want, so the 12 million illegals come over here and work those jobs. Not everyone is like this, but I have seen over the last 40 years this group increasing.
The number of Social Security disabilities have skyrocketed in my area, many look to be rather healthy.
My sister is a teacher, for 35+ years. The new trick, students are told by parents to act up and become disciple problems so they can qualify as A.D.D so as to get a disability determination by the welfare system, thus draw a check. I hope this is stopped.

As far as who pays taxes:
1. Top 20% pay 69.3% of all taxes.
2. Middle 60% pay 29.7% of all taxes.
3. Bottom 20% pay 0.8% of all taxes.

So in your #2 block,the rich folks are paying close to 75% of ALL taxes in this country.

David,

I accept everything you said at face value. There are people in the world who range from the lazy to the loathsome. I’ve been a jailer at a county lockup, so I’ve seen many examples of both. I just believe that supporting the basic needs of even these individuals is part of our social contract… The price of doing business, you might say.

I am not sure what other alternative I would find acceptable. Part of being human is proving to ourselves that we are better than our animal instincts. We come together for mutual benefit and to prove we are at least a half step above Darwin, natural selection, and survival of the fittest.

A world like this means a few things. Advancement may be a little slower, The wealthiest may be slightly less wealthy, and so on.

By the way, I’d love not to work. I’m just not smart enough to figure out how to make that work!

Yaaaawwnn. Really dry stuff.

I have to say, this story of parents telling their children to fake ADD in school to get an SSA/SSDI determination and benefits sounds apocryphal at best. First, in a determination of that nature, school teachers/administrators wouldn’t make that determination; so, at best, a student could hope to achieve placement in a special education class by attempting such a stunt. True ADD would be difficult for a child to fake in a sustained way, and simply acting out in class without any specifically identified clinical reasons would not bring about suspicion of ADD by school administrators (it might bring about suspicion of other things, though). A school psychologist, at best, would only be able to make a determination for the purposes of class placement. Schools do NOT make determinations for government benefits resulting in “drawing a check”!

There would be less of a benefit and more of a hassle for parents if they instructed their children to fake a learning disability in school. The school’s administrators would ask parents to become more involved in meetings, would have the school psychologist investigate the etiology of the child’s problems, etc., and this would mean–to a parent who is trying to “game” the system–one big hassle with no benefit perceived/received by them.

In an SSA/SSDI determination, those agencies use their own approved clinical staff to make determinations for benefits. The process would be even less likely successful for the “gaming” parent than would the charade within the school system. The parents also would run the risk of being caught trying to defraud the government. And, even if a child has true ADD, getting benefits from SSA/SSDI based on an ADD diagnosis is difficult.

If children are faking ADD in your sister’s school and are successful at that, teachers/ administrators are sorely lacking in any professional conduct if they put the child in a special education program simply because he/she is acting out, particularly if the child’s behaviors changed from historically how he/she behaved. School administrators would suspect some family problem at home more so than a sudden onset of ADD!

Any other action other than special placement of a child within the school (and this would be based on an array of testing, observation, parent interviews, etc.) would be outside the purview of the school system.

I worked as a county Case Manager for many, many years and worked with cases involving children’s behavioral issues and special education programs in school systems.

I looked at GM and Ford, but could not sleep at night thinking my hard earned, non-union, money going to a bunch of UAW thugs. I’m driving my 3rd Toyota in 20 years and would love to see the UAW go bankrupt and allow GM to be “Union Free”.

a bunch of UAW thugs That’s uncalled for.
The majority of these workers a good honest Americans trying to make a good living wage. Janet do you have any understanding of how it was in this country when the UAW was first organized?

By the way I’m not in a union nor am I a big fan of them but I feel that without them this country would in worse shape than it is. Workers need to able to collectively bargain and a union is the best way to do it. The corruption one sees in some of these institutions is an issue, but for the most part the rank and file are just working people, not unlike you I suspect.

I would also add that Toyota has been pretty corrupt in how they have handled this crisis, it’s inexcusable.

Janet,

I totally agree with you. Employees organizing and negotiating with mega-corporations with a unified voice is a terrible idea.

Individuals are much better off dealing with their employers as free agents. Corporations will in turn deal with these individuals in a fair and ethical manner.

Absolute tool.

My humble opinion of the blog posted above; ZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. ZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. ZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. ZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Ahmed is Louise.

Jeffe,
What are my distortions and half-truths?

Which politician said “We’ve got to make sure that our party understands that , like it or not, we have to have a financial system that is healthy and functioning , so we can’t be demonizing every bank out there, “….”Weve got to be the party of business, small business and large business, because they produce jobs”.

If you said President Obama , you’re right. My point about the sheer ignorance of so many posters deals with their not having a clue how economic wealth is created and the vital role that big and small business(corporate America) plays. All they spout are their air-head cliches and flower child caricatures.

Great that you’re able to cite David Stockman. As someone who lived thru the Reagan years , I can tell you the lower tax rates generated significantly increased revenues. The problem was that spending by a Democratic Congress increased even faster than revenues. The fact is revenues as a percentage of GDP tends to remain the same no matter what the tax rate is ( see Prof. Hauser’s Law) . Raising taxes encourages taxpayers to shift, hide and underreport income. And higher taxes reduce the incentives to work ,invest, produce,and save thereby dampening overall economic activity and job creation. Economists of all stripes agree that this will lower GDP and tax revenues. Lowering taxes increases GDP which in turn increases revenues. As Walter Cronkite used to say ,”That’s the way it is”…

I avoid union-produced items at all cost.
Giving my money to a corrupt company is one thing, but giving it to a corrupt union on top of that is insane.

Jon that’s what I mean half truth. The deficit went up significantly under Reagan’s tenure. Blaming the Democrat’s for our economic woes is absurd as both parties have made mistakes. The idea that tax cuts promotes growth is also a mistake. If this was true than we should have seen significant growth during the GW Bush’s presidency.
What we saw was the opposite, not growth at all.

How do you account for this? I find it interesting that David Stockman, hardly a left wing tax and spend type, is saying that it is evident that taxes will have to be raised to deal with the deficit. He’s not advocating spending it, he’s advocating paying down the national debt. We are in a crisis and more tax cuts will make it worse not better. If people do have jobs and are not spending how is the economy going to grow? Sure give a tax break to a corporation and the odds are they will not use it to hire anyone, just in fudge the books to make it look better at the end of a quarter.

We are in one serious mess here and the old methods and ideas of both parties are not going to work.

Brett, My statement was that these students have been told to do this in an attempt to get, not that they were successful at getting it. The fact that they are trying is what bothers me.

david,
How do you know that they are told to do this? And, if they are told to do this and they “attempt” this, what form does that attempt take and how is it handled? These are the essential questions. Otherwise, it is just a kind of propaganda, or urban, or suburban or rural legend. It means little other than we have disciplinary problems in schools, at best! If students are admitting to attempting faking ADD symptoms by acting out because their parents told them to, and the school system does nothing, then the school system isn’t addressing a problem. If the school is addressing the problem…are they putting students in special classes? Are they simply suspending or expelling students? I mean, what is your purpose for bringing this up?

I agree that it is appalling how many children in schools don’t seem to have respect for authority or consistently disrupt class, and this IS an issue. But, I guess your point seems to be that people are gaming the system; if they are not successful, the “gaming the system” argument doesn’t hold up, does it? If you are bringing this up to illustrate children are disruptive, why put the “gaming the system” spin on it? I subscribe to the idea that you were trying to reinforce the notion that you think people who seek social services are lazy and game the system.

While I’m sure some are lazy and do try to game the system, your broad brush does little more than make a problem more dramatic for the purposes of emphasis of your opinions. You put this so-called “new trick” within the context of Social Security disabilities skyrocketing in your area. Are you in a position of collecting data on social security benefits recipients in your area?

david, I worked in an environment (a county government job) where I had to take clients to get SSA, SSI and SSDI determinations for thirty years. It’s pretty difficult to get benefits even if you are legitimately disabled. Hearsay or, as I would characterize this, GOSSIP, is hardly a good basis for discussion…so I’m not buying it. Sorry, but you’ve said nothing compelling that makes this story jibe, and it only serves to perpetuate a stereotype. You (as in david) can’t determine someone is disabled just by looking at him/her. The federal government doesn’t determine whether or not they are disabled based on how they look, either. They also don’t just accept this by having just any old doctor sign off on it, either. They have lists of approved doctors from which the person having the supposed disability must choose. That person makes an appointment with an approved doctor and so on, and let me tell those doctors are tough. The doctors are not easily convinced.

Nice try, maybe someone will believe you. But I suspect, if they do, it is because they want to believe your premise anyway.

Sure you aren’t talking about people getting Handicapped parking passes???

Jeffe,

I don’t disagree that at the end of the day , we will need some combination of higher taxes and significant deep spending cuts. However , I’m not optimistic that Washington is capable of serious spending cuts ( and I don’t mean spending freezes after discretionary spending has increased 15-20% )so long as increased taxes are a possibility. The problem with politicians is that in good times they spend like drunken sailors and in bad times they rely on Keynesian arguments to justify continued spending binges. When will it ever stop? Politicians are incapable of making hard choices and setting priorities. We can’t fund everything yet every program has its dependents who scream bloody murder if spending is frozen let alone decreased .

If Washington was serious about controlling costs, they would begin by asking Federal employees to take a 15% pay cut and accept a roll back of their pensions. In my mind , it is nothing short of outrageous that Federal employee pay and benefits now far surpass the private sector that pays for them . The number of Fed employees that earn over $100K/yr. has skyrocketed in the past year.

Finally , if I recall correctly, Reagan’s deficit could be blamed on excessive govt. spending and a defense buildup during the 80’s. Revenues did go up significantly as a result of the Reagan tax cuts . However, arithmetic increases in tax revenues from lower taxes can never overcome exponential increases in spending.