New York Times:
Unemployment is rising. Foreclosures are surging. Lending is still constrained. So why exactly is the Obama administration waiting to act?
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Obama has had six months now. There is no reason why he shouldn't have won two wars, paid off the National debt, fixed the economy, rebuilt our infrastructure, cured cancer, disarmed Iran and North Korea, solved the health care crisis, stopped global warming, and found a way to get those unsightly stains off my coffee table. Lord knows, the Republicans have done everything they can to help and support him in every way they can!
And just what support did Democrats give Bush especially when and where he was right?
Obama may not have fixed everything but he could have at least fixed one thing.
So far, he's only made things worse. Giving him more time to travel down the wrong road isn't going to help anyone.
when was he right.lol
How exactly do you know that this is the wrong road? Did you go down this road and discover that for yourself or are you spouting more of your talking points taken straight from the cyst infested c a r c a s s of a drop out?
Give it up RSU. This is a site of the most brainwashed out there. They believe the government and lefty politicians are their friends. No ability to have independent thinking.
Reagan raised taxes on unemployment benefits 100%.
Tax cutter my...
he put the burden on the middleclass .
Considering you paid into unemployment along with your employer, it was in effect an benefit cut.
Exactly. Taxed twice.
Well, if you owned a big corporation you got a tax cut.
The HopenChange you all voted into office.
and the loser bush who stole the election.
Still cleaning up after YOU; thanks.
Reagan: The Great American Socialist - by Ravi Batra March 20 2009 Truthout
excerpt:
" In 1981, Reagan signed a law that sharply reduced the income tax for the wealthiest Americans and corporations. The president asserted his program would create jobs, purge inflation and, get this, trim the budget deficit. However, following the tax cut, the deficit soared from 2.5 percent of GDP to over 6 percent, alarming financial markets, sending interest rates sky high, and culminating in the worst recession since the 1930's.
Soon the president realized he needed new revenues to trim the deficit, bring down interest rates and improve his chances for reelection. He would not rescind the income tax cut, but other taxes were acceptable. In 1982, taxes were raised on gasoline and cigarettes, but the deficit hardly budged. In 1983, the president signed the biggest tax rise on payrolls, promising to create a surplus in the Social Security system, while knowing all along that the new revenue would be used to finance the deficit. ..."
The retirement system was looted from the first day the Social Security surplus came into being, because the legislation itself gave the president a free hand to spend the surplus in any way he liked. Thus began a massive transfer of wealth from the poor and the middle class, especially the self-employed small businessman, to the wealthy. The self-employment tax jumped as much as 66 percent.
Continued:
.... In 1986, Reagan slashed the top tax rate further. His redistributionist obsession led to a perversity in the law. The wealthiest faced a 28 percent tax rate, while those with lower incomes faced a 33 percent rate; in addition, the bottom rate climbed from 11 percent to 15 percent. For the first time in history, the top rate fell and the bottom rate rose simultaneously. Even unemployment compensation was not spared. The jobless had to pay income tax on their benefits. A year later, the man who would not spare unemployment compensation from taxation called for a cut in the capital gains tax. Thus, Reagan was a staunch socialist, totally committed to his cause of wealth redistribution towards the affluent.
http://www.truthout.org/032009R
didnt wall street want to our retirement dollars.i think they have been holding these debts,and bad loans for a while.just waiting to put it on the dems
Great points SCG. Everyone likes to remember Ronny Raygun as the great tax cutter, which he was for the rich, but in reality he shouldered the poor and middle clas with the greatest tax increases in history. And don't forget that he also did away with the tax deduction for credit card dept. (which used to get me a bigger tax break than my home deduction) at the same time he was letting the credit card companies raise their rates into the stratosphere.
Thank you . I remember this first hand as I lived through it. But the corporate media played the populace and they re-elected this creature from the Reich Wing. Reagan was the worst thing to happen to America in history (Civil War and Bush 2 excepted)
along with taking writeoffs from the middleclass ,and poor.ie.car loan write offs ,credit card and such.which brings us to second morgage loans on homes ,so people could get a car and write it off. along with buying a second home for ewriteoffs.so maybe it gave people a easy way to get what they want ,and put themselves in hock.which brings us to the problem we have now.personal debt.
next time you look at your 401 .you will be happy to know you helped build the chinese infrastucture .thank you repubes ,bush ,and walls street.
this is the end of the repuke party.heathcare pased next step to put these crooks in jail
Who's gonna pay for all of this spending?
Obama said we are out of money on C-Span yet the democrats spend a trillion every time you look around. Who's gonna pay for this spending?
In a global economy with cheap labor there's no way we can sustain this spending. Unemployment will just get higher why people cheer on more borrowing and spending.
Very sad!
Definitely not the selfish baby-boomers!!!!
the same people that want us to go to war ,dodge the draft in the 60S.real americans lol
... the road to sefdom is paved with good intentions.
maybe bush should have thought of that before he made this mess were in.
The Dems created it and the Republicans looked the other way. Community Reinvestment Act created this Tsunami. Bush didn't have much to do with it. More like Clinton, Barney Frank,Chris Dodd,Eric Holder, etc.....Buying votes costs the taxpayer every time...
JayBindi, the Democrats have been waiting for 60 years to pass healthcare reform but everytime the presidency has changed hands, the Democrats take control of an economy looted and in tatters. This waits no longer and Republicans can pound sand for all I care. You guys lost the election big time and you might want to think about why. Heck, I voted for Obama even though I thought my taxes would go up. Why? Because I need customers to be able to afford my services. Ten years ago, I made half as much and had much more disposable income at the end of the month. Enough is enough. Fiscal policy in our country has moved dangerously to the right. Without a healthy middle class capable of purchasing, our country is in dire straits. Healthcare costs have swallowed up at least 80% of the wage increases I'd have passed along to my employees over the last 8 years. Could you use a 400% increase to your wage increases over the last 8 years?
Your not making any sense because in my business I'm making more money because I do business in the global economy.
The problem is, more taxes and more spending will not create jobs because the wealth builders in this country will not risk their capital on the next you tube or the next google unless it's overseas because Obama and the democrats will try to tax it.
This is how the economy grows. You will not have any business at all because who is gonna buy your product as unemployment skyrockets?
We don't need universal health care just prevention. We can do this by providing the uninsured with free physicals and more.
The only reason the democrats want universal health care is to artificially bring down health care costs because they are paying out too much for medicaire. They need to reform the system, not destroy the economy.
Again, more taxes will stiffle the economy because we are in a global economy with cheap labor.
There will not be the kind of jobs or enough jobs created to sustain all of this spending.
What you are describing affecting the purchasing power of you and your employees is inflation. There is a very high risk that we will be seeing dangerous levels of inflation in the coming years, so don't expect this bill to fix anything.
Obama and economic team are dragging their feet because an extended downturn accomplishes their goal. This downturn has overwhelmingly taken money from the "wealthy"(people with 401k's, equity in home, or simply people that make $50,000 and up) and this is the first step of wealth redistribution. Once the "wealthy" have lost enough then the Obama team can really ramp up the printing press and the distribution of funds to the poor. The ultimate goal is to "equalize" or level the playing field. Trying to remove the large gap between the wealthy and the poor. There is a name for this but I forgot what it was. Oh yea now I remember SOCI/ALISM!
please tell me why they would want us to be Socialist...seriously
Are you saying that any of the libs would be changing? They are just doing what comes naturally to a Socialist.
Power ... same as Putin and countless others.
... with a healthy dose of naivete.
Exactly ... Obama has said as much.
"ABC's Charlie Gibson noted that the record shows increased taxes on capital gains -- which would affect 100 million Americans -- would likely lead to a decrease in government revenues: "Well, Charlie, what I've [Obama] said is that I would look at raising the capital gains tax for purposes of fairness." "
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121910117767951201.html
... simply incredible ignorance and naivete.
You may want to look up Socialism in the dictionary, or on wikipedia, instead of using the far-right's "anything goes" approach to political terms.
From Obama's Secretary of State:
"It's time for a new beginning, for an end to government of the few, by the few, and for the few, time to reject the idea of an 'on your own' society and to replace it with shared responsibility for shared prosperity,..." - Hillary Clinton, May 29, 2007
definitions of Communism:
"a system in which goods are owned in common and are available to all as needed - Mirriam-Webster (2007)
"a political and social system whereby all property is owned by the community and each person contributes and receives according to their ability and needs." - Compact Oxford English Dictionary (2007)
BTW, America used to have a solution for bridging the gap between rich and poor- it was called the "Middle Class".
But Reagan "the great wealth redistributor" thought having a middle class was a bad idea, and all the Goopers since then just carried on his dream of turning America into a third world country.
Actually the federal reserve is killing the middle class.
Pure fantasy, conspiracy thinking.
We can't support our massive federal gov't. We are way too top heavy. We have redundant gov't agency's and departments(fed, state, city, county, local) . This insanity has got to stop. Its not Bush, Its not obama, Its the Executive branch. It needs to be put on a diet. NOW.
like home land security that bush started to cover his but.the cia ,and many other agencies warned him about 9-11 .did he listen nooooooooooooo
dept of homeland security should have never been started in the first place.
With the economy collapsing and unemployment on the rise George W. Bush decided to take a page out of history - The person whose lesson he took (much to the misfortune of us all) NERO.
Bush did what he had to do - in my opinion - with TARP. As a lame duck, he then refused to meddle in things deciding to let his elected successor set poilicy. You really want to criticize that?
Yes, as I recall he threatened the entire nation with marshal law if TARP was not passed as it is with Paulson having complete control with zero oversight.
TARP was Bush's way of kicking America in the balls one last time before he left office.
He did nothing except steal money for eight years... and TARP was his biggest looting by far.
Can a viable third party preferably made up of moderates please stand up. Enough of the GOP and their Corporations need to be coddled and babied and protected. If Corporations have the status of a person should they not pay into america what every individual who is a Citizen or a Permanent Resident pays?
they like taking a piece of the pie ,and not pay for it.but they will pay for what they drink tho lol.who pays for there wars .
Most do . . . at 35%.
I'm betting it's a far cry above what you paid . . . if you paid anything at all.
An even greater majority pays 0%.
Account tricks, offshore tax havens - no corporation pays 35%.
Goldman Sachs and their $3.5 billion in profits will be paying 1%.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601110&sid=a6bQVsZS2_18
bye bye repuke party
The GOP tr/o//s are clamoring for action. Doesn't matter if its the right or wrong action, as long as something is being done. Same mentality that led us into Iraq. Does not matter who we strike as long as we strike someone. You can't reason with people like this. Mentally they are of the same mold as a bin laden, no reasoning, just doing for the sake of doing. Does not matter who it affects, what are the consequences. Pragmatic approach is lost on these buffoons.
POTUS wants to act, but Congress and lobbyists are blocking him.
Seems many of the leftist regulars are somewhat quite this morning.
Obama says his stimulus plan "has worked as intended". If that's true, I wonder what his intent really was? It certainly wasn't intended to create jobs because the only sector growing is government. It wasn't intended to stimulate businesses because the rate of failure is increasing rapidly. It wasn't intended to forestall foreclosures because once again they are on the rise too.
So, just what was Obama's intent? Well, it seems clear enough that his intent was to cripple the nation and force as many as possible to rely upon the government for everything, employment, health care, subsistence, and energy.
For more than 50 years, Democrats have been promising blacks a better life and throughout that time, very little has changed for the better. In fact, many things have become worse. Now, Democrats have expanded their promises to the entire nation telling everyone that they can fix our nation's problems.
If one takes a close look at the track record of Democrats, it should be clear to see that any promise a Democrat makes is an empty promise. Welfare reform meant more broken homes. Energy reform meant the highest prices we've ever seen for fuel. Banking reform has meant reduced credit and less lending. Housing reform has meant the highest foreclosure rates in our history. What little we have working for us is now under threat of reform as well.
At what point will Americans say enough is enough?
Trillions of dollars to be spent - should I do it in a precise manner funding projects in an orderly fashion, or should I just ship out the money in pallets and have hundreds of billions just "Disappear" like we did in Iraq. So hard to choose.
Why does the government need to spend our money at all?
We earned it! All the government does is take . . . and take they do.
Government created this crisis not the people.
Now the government is creating an even bigger crisis to erase the crisis they created.
It's time to say no more. Unfortunately, Democrats . . . the largest creators of crisis, are in charge with no opposition to their destructive plans.
God help us but the next election cycle can't come soon enough.
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Posted: 07-15-09 01:06 AM