New approach to correct budget deficit

Keep appointing guys like Geithner, and Daschle, and.....    they'll pay the back taxes they were sliding on...  :

JR

How about this?

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/cheney_dunk_tank_raises_800?utm_source=onion_rss_daily

I find the real news more amusing... 

JR

Its amazing how some people can believe that one political party is more corrupt than the other party.

Lets get real here, do you believe actually that the two appointees are the only two people in office that have been involved in some sort of corruption??

Showing once again how much more respectable he is than the old scum that was there:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090204/ap_on_go_pr_wh/obama_failed_nominees

I did not read that at all, ENS.  It's just that dems are under the spotlight applying for cabinet jobs.  It is a bit distracting from the fact that the bogus "stimulus bill" is actually GROWING while being debated in the Senate- both parties are WAY deluded if this is their answer to a recession.

I think that an audit of all DC pols and lobbyists would net billions of back/unreported taxes.  Create some auditing jobs too. . .
Mike

It is hard to find any humor in the "stimulus" bill... If anything it is an economy killer.. Buy/Hire american clauses will trigger protectionist responses in kind from trading partners, the amount spent on infrastructure is little and late. Pork early and often. I hear of possible strikes in UK over hiring foreign workers on some jobs (oil workers?). I hope we don't repeat the mistakes we made in the '30s.

The natural pattern for bills is the dems in the house load it up with pork, and them let the Republicans add republican pork in the senate as their idea of negotiating. This is a lose-lose for all taxpayers since expanding government, unions,  and entitlements is not stimulus and not how to work out of a recession. 

I hope the senate can buy a clue. The house has shown their true color and it is red ink (deficit).

For folks inclined to profanity and ad hominum, back at ya..

JR

PS: Daschle being hoist on his own petard is a piece of ironic Karma since he led the filibuster in the senate against some executive appointments for federal judges in 2000-2004.

Mbira said:

Showing once again how much more respectable he is than the old scum that was there:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090204/ap_on_go_pr_wh/obama_failed_nominees

Click to expand...

Yes, but the old scum didn't run on a platform of change

Casey

Joel I don't think it is respectable how did Obama or his team not know?  he is the president and should have all kind of information access.  It reads to me like a slick way of trying to get a buddy in even if they have problems then all you do is say your sorry if it does not work out.

In all fairness, Bush did promise to reach across the aisle and create a less partisan Washington when he first took office. He had some success in TX to that end as governor so I believe he was sincere.

I suspect there will be much difference of opinion why he failed. I have mine, but I grow weary of the expected response if I offer it here.

I applaud Obama's apparent reaching across the aisle, while plucking a strong republican out of the senate to place in a relatively weak cabinet position has some strategic overtones that are hard to ignore. But I won't make accusations that every move has a dark side. IMO he is no Lincoln (rail splitter-in tune with common man) or Kennedy (war hero), but it doesn't hurt to mimmic their better attributes. While there is a fine line between embracing opposing POV (Lincoln) and keeping your enemies close (Machiavelli).   

They are playing hard ball up there, so caveat lector.

JR

Gus said:

Joel I don't think it is respectable how did Obama or his team not know?  he is the president and should have all kind of information access.  It reads to me like a slick way of trying to get a buddy in even if they have problems then all you do is say your sorry if it does not work out.

Click to expand...

They are not stupid or evil. The miscalculation was the unanticipated public reaction to his tax "issue" (I wish I could owe $100k tax bill let alone underpay that much as an oversight)... If Geithner didn't first sensitize the public to this issue, Daschle might have fast tracked it through a generally friendly congress.

The fact that this was already a hot button issue with the public (at least those paying attention) was his undoing. He had been setting up in the wings to head the nationalized healthcare thrust and it was instructive that drug stocks rose on his resignation. I have already expressed my opinions about unintended consequences from tightly regulating new drug prices (reduced profit will mean lower future expectations and less research investment in pursuit of new therapies).

Of course I could be wrong...

JR 

Ooooh... -A tasty worm!!!

...On the end of a piece of string! 

Keith

Gus and John,
I hear what you guys are saying, and really I guess it is all about wether you do or don't trust Obama.  Obviously we won't change eachothers minds here.  I will say though that for me it is hugely refreshing to hear a bit of humility coming out of our president.  That is change enough for me.  ;D

Trust but verify...

I trust Obama to promote a democratic agenda  Not my preference but maybe that's a personal problem. The republicans surely strayed off the reservation with out of control spending  and deserved to get spanked.

I still like my idea that candidates, and surely after elected to office should be subject to perjury for all public statements.

I'm not big on visuals, but this is pretty remarkable for over the top scare tactics, and sloppy math. Pelosi claiming "500 million" americans will lose jobs if we don't give up the pork...  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8hMJVXt09E

I guess she was counting every warm body in the US, Canada, and Mexico losing a job to come up with that kind of number. She obviously misspoke but some politicians appear to throw around numbers for effect without much consideration for fact.


JR

JohnRoberts said:

I still like my idea that candidates, and surely after elected to office should be subject to perjury for all public statements.

Click to expand...

I like that too!!

JohnRoberts said:

Trust but verify...

I trust Obama to promote a democratic agenda  Not my preference but maybe that's a personal problem. The republicans surely strayed off the reservation with out of control spending  and deserved to get spanked.

I still like my idea that candidates, and surely after elected to office should be subject to perjury for all public statements.

I'm not big on visuals, but this is pretty remarkable for over the top scare tactics, and sloppy math. Pelosi claiming "500 million" americans will lose jobs if we don't give up the pork...   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8hMJVXt09E

I guess she was counting every warm body in the US, Canada, and Mexico losing a job to come up with that kind of number. She obviously misspoke but some politicians appear to throw around numbers for effect without much consideration for fact.


JR

Click to expand...

Does anyone get a sick feeling of impending "doom" when they compare Obama to JFK or Abe Lincoln??

I'd rather they compare him to Jimmy Carter.....

He could certainly shorten the lines of folks queueing for work by making them stand closer together ;D

Talk about having a sick feeling...

Population of US= 303,824,640 (July 2008 est.)

Proposed stimulus bill  $ 900,000,000,000  ...  and this is mainly going to stimulate larger government, not permanent private sector jobs.

The amount of deficit spending per US citizen from this one bill..  $3,000 .

As of 2007, there are about 138 million taxpayers in the United States (per wiki)  so more like $6,500 per taxpayer. If taxation becomes more progressive this will get even higher,

The reason politicians are going on TV claiming the end of the world and need for urgency is they're afraid the bottoming process is already in place, and the recovery is going to start without them, causing them to miss this once in a lifetime opportunity for government spending.  The fed has been pumping money into the system for months now, we don't need this.

Perhaps a more targeted, and much much smaller bill could do some good, but not this pork laden load of crap...  Since the new guy has promised transparency in his government I look forward to taxpayers reviewing where their money was spent after this debacle.

This is friggin insane...

JR

JohnRoberts said:

Talk about having a sick feeling...

Population of US= 303,824,640 (July 2008 est.)

Proposed stimulus bill  $ 900,000,000,000  ...  and this is mainly going to stimulate larger government, not permanent private sector jobs.

The amount of deficit spending per US citizen from this one bill..  $3,000 .

As of 2007, there are about 138 million taxpayers in the United States (per wiki)  so more like $6,500 per taxpayer. If taxation becomes more progressive this will get even higher,

The reason politicians are going on TV claiming the end of the world and need for urgency is they're afraid the bottoming process is already in place, and the recovery is going to start without them, causing them to miss this once in a lifetime opportunity for government spending.  The fed has been pumping money into the system for months now, we don't need this.

Perhaps a more targeted, and much much smaller bill could do some good, but not this pork laden load of crap...  Since the new guy has promised transparency in his government I look forward to taxpayers reviewing where their money was spent after this debacle.

This is friggin insane...

JR

Click to expand...

I can see to an extent that this bill will help some people mostly in city/urban areas to whereas doenst do damn for the "country-folk" living in the rural areas of the US.  So to be fair, why dont they just exempt every single taxpayer living in the rural areas from being affected by this bill.....in fact they could:

1. just cut taxes for all the people living in "rural" areas

2. make sure that they get exempted from having chance of recv benefits such as "Pell Grants" , or any kind of emergency funds for that these people living in rural areas.

Those people do not want ANY and so better yet let's just have all basic services pulled from these areas and the people can "self govern" themselves, thus we can go beyond the Bush Tax cuts and give em 100% tax exempt status....
no paved roads... no schools for why do they need em???  To learn about that evil commie/pinko "evolution" stuff??

By doing this, the 25% will have one less thing to complain about and then they can focus on how they can start blowing up abortion clinics and kill more doctors that perform abortions.

Only if they knew that they're sounding like Anarchists more than "Conservatives"

And the war in Iraq has cost us $500-600B (and counting).  So tack that big fat bill onto your gasoline costs over the past six years ($2000 per citizen).  We'll be paying for all of these follies for quite some time.

Regulation of certain aspects of the "free market" is essential.  If that isn't obvious by now.....

People (and corporations) need to be responsible for their actions.  We shouldn't reward failure, greed, cheating, etc. in any way.  That includes CEOs of bailed out banks, people who overstepped their ability pay their mortgage, and elected officials who enabled a lot of it.  This wasn't some sort of natural disaster or unforeseen accident--people caused it.  What has happened to personal responsibility?

A P