Obama

[Sibling Chatty]

OK, Hillary and Obama got the corporate welfare thing goin' on, but where do you see social welfare looming?

If the corporate welfare and the give-aways to the wealthy are cut back, maybe there MIGHT be something left to re-establish a safety net for the most vulnerable. It sure as shit ain't around right now!

Take the huge profits and executive salaries and bonuses out of medical care, make the system work for everybody, and any ONE cutback of these:  (1) the War Machine's profits (2) the enormous tax cuts for the top 2%  (3) the elimination of non-taxable income sources for the wealthy--- and funding full medical coverage for the country is DONE. COVERED.

Now, there's no medical to worry about losing if you get a job. Get some damn subsidized-for-the-poorest child-care availability LIKE EVERY OTHER CIVILIZED COUNTRY and employment's even MORE possible.

Now, how about some damn jobs??? The mf'ers in the White House sure as hell have done their best to offshore any job they can. STOP THEM. Get some jobs back here, and then--WHAT "social welfare??" People are TRYING to f'ing stay alive in a country that doesn't give a shit if they die. I'm in favor of that.

[The Meromorph]

 , Dee Dee, 

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

OK, Hillary and Obama got the corporate welfare thing goin' on, but where do you see social welfare looming?

If the corporate welfare and the give-aways to the wealthy are cut back, maybe there MIGHT be something left to re-establish a safety net for the most vulnerable. It sure as shit ain't around right now!

Take the huge profits and executive salaries and bonuses out of medical care, make the system work for everybody, and any ONE cutback of these:  (1) the War Machine's profits (2) the enormous tax cuts for the top 2%  (3) the elimination of non-taxable income sources for the wealthy--- and funding full medical coverage for the country is DONE. COVERED.

Now, there's no medical to worry about losing if you get a job. Get some damn subsidized-for-the-poorest child-care availability LIKE EVERY OTHER CIVILIZED COUNTRY and employment's even MORE possible.

Now, how about some damn jobs??? The mf'ers in the White House sure as hell have done their best to offshore any job they can. STOP THEM. Get some jobs back here, and then--WHAT "social welfare??" People are TRYING to f'ing stay alive in a country that doesn't give a shit if they die. I'm in favor of that.

I could comment, but why?

You said it.... you definitely said it.

[beagle]

I don't like my choices much for President.  Social welfare on one side and Corporate welfare on the other.  Isn't there someone in-between? 

Careful, I think that's the spell that invokes Mr Blair and his "Third Way".

[Darlica]

Chatty for president?

[ivor]

The part that irks me about Obama and Clinton is they want  a $70,000,000,000 stimulus plan for the economy.  Where do they get that money?  They print it or raise taxes.  If they print money it makes your dollar smaller.

Giuliani wants to cut trillions of dollars in taxes.  The tax he's talking about getting rid of is the death tax.  That just helps the wealthy.  It doesn't do carp for you and me.

That's what I was talking about.  I wasn't talking about cutting social welfare.

 

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

The reality is that whomever gets the job will have to raise taxes*, cut spending and cut social services. The questions are whose taxes will be raised (The rich or the middle class?), what spending will be cut (will the DoD get a cut and how big?) and some social services will be either cut (which ones?). All of those will get a staunch resistance from different interest groups on capitol hill, so quite likely 'compromises' will be made and whatever changes will be relatively small with the other camp vowing to restore them as soon as they have more leverage.

* Oh, the repugs will raise taxes, only that it will be stealthy and to the middle class with proposals akin to the so called *Fair* tax.

[ivor]

I don't know who's going to win the next presidential election but I'm betting on "Pork." 

The more we're taxed the bigger government gets.  It's a never ending spiral until we can't afford to pay the interest on our debt and then... BLAM  ...depression.  It's not a matter of, "if," it's when.  Printing money is just delaying the pain.  The government doesn't let you print your own money to pay for your debts, why should our government be able to?

I'm not against paying taxes for health services for people that can't afford them.  I am for an economy that allows everyone to prosper, this ain't it...  Between me and my SO we pay over $50,000 dollars a year in taxes.  Ten grand of that is going to this stupid war.  I have a problem with that.  I think I'd rather spend that ten grand and "juice up" the economy or donate it to a not-for-profit hospital.

I'd like to see the US stop being the "King of the World" so we can save money on military spending. 

I'd like to see rewards offered for Medicare fraud so we can get health services to the people that actually need it.

How about the "War on Drugs?"  That's a pointless waste of money.  Prohibition didn't work and the, "War on Drugs," isn't working either.  The "War on Drugs," is doing a damn good job of creating a market for drugs by making sure prices are high.  Let's decriminalize it and take all the money out of it,  then, we can stop wasting money incarcerating a generation of people and save even more money!

[Bob in a quantum-state-of-faith]

Chatty for president?

I'm in.

It _would_ solve a whole host of issues, starting with our beloved Chatty's shortage of funds for her much needed meds.... the _prez_ gets the best of everything, obviously. 

I'd _also_ love to see Chatty use her smitin' stick on a certain few <expletive deleted> in Washington...

[Sibling Chatty]

See, here's where reality gets scary.

Nobody that ever SAID what I did could get NEAR an election.

We KNOW there's huge and gaping problems. First off? Taxes on ALL INCOME. If you've got a nice $300,000 salary, you pay taxes on it. If some Trust Fund Baby with a couple of big investment portfolios goin' gets $300,000 or $3,000,000 in new income a year?? Tell me, what's the tax burden on that NEW money??

That is welfare for the rich. Estate taxes?? Don't give in to calling them death taxes. There's no tax on the dead. It's a tax on the estate. You hoarde your money, you pay some taxes on it. You put it out there working and helping the economy? You don't. All the scare crap about "family farms" and all that?? Lies. The usual lies by the usual liars.

I don't want the extremely wealthy to carry the burden. I want corporations and the extremely wealthy (who own those corporations) to PAY THEIR SHARE. When they do, then the middle class won't be choking. And maybe the poor won't be sitting around stunned to know that their friends pay more than TWICE in taxes in a year than they ever earned in a year.

I want to be able to say that I live in a country where children get enough to eat, and GOOD food, not cheap garbage, and the CEO's don't get to write off meals that cost more than a disabled person gets every month to live on...where people that CAN work get to work and corporations have to pay a living wage.

This ain't it, folks, this ain't it.

I'm sitting in a 52 degree room to write this, because Dan and I lent out "big heater" to a friend who hasn't been able to pay her gas bill. Until the damnable Army gets off their asses and pays her the 3 months back checks they owe her husband (who is in a military hospital and will probably die there) she's going to have to use an electric heater and cook on my 2 burner hotplate. We have heaters in the bedrooms, and one in the bathroom. She and her children are all huddled into one room with our heater--the one room that opens into the bathroom, so it can stay 'warm' too.

Tomorrow, when Loew's opens, I will go buy an "end of season" small heater for her bathroom. (Gotta go to town for meds anyway.) And I will probably go to the gas company and put some money on her bill.

This woman works a full-time job. She can't go be with her dying husband, she sure can't bring him home. And she can't keep their children warm in winter.

What the hell happened to America?

[Scriblerus the Philosophe]

I do believe it is the loss of connection to our fellow humans. And a sense of entitlement.

[Swatopluk]

The WSJ is not just pro tax cuts it is specifically pro tax cut for the rich and no tax cut for everyone else and they even openly say it that way. A recent editorial (or op-ed, not sure) stated that tax cut for poor and middle class people don't help th economy because those people spend it on unproductive things (i.e. food, paying their rent etc.) while the rich invest it where it matters. Congress should therefore make sure that the demanded tax cuts are restricted to the upper income brackets.
While I respect the honesty, it also feeds the desire to reintroduce some forms of punishment usually involving four pieces of cattle or rogue elephants for certain kinds of inhumanity.

[ivor]

We KNOW there's huge and gaping problems. First off? Taxes on ALL INCOME. If you've got a nice $300,000 salary, you pay taxes on it. If some Trust Fund Baby with a couple of big investment portfolios goin' gets $300,000 or $3,000,000 in new income a year?? Tell me, what's the tax burden on that NEW money??

SO is saying capital gains tax on the income would be 15%.  Probably half what an ordinary person would pay in taxes from a salary job.  In 2009 the capital gains tax goes up to 20%, subject to the whim of the new administration.

That is welfare for the rich. Estate taxes?? Don't give in to calling them death taxes. There's no tax on the dead. It's a tax on the estate. You hoarde your money, you pay some taxes on it. You put it out there working and helping the economy? You don't. All the scare crap about "family farms" and all that?? Lies. The usual lies by the usual liars.

You pay Estate taxes when you die so they are sometimes called death taxes.  There's a 50% tax on your estate when you die with a $2,000,000 exemption.  If you're wealthy and have a good estate planner, you live good and die poor so you don't pay too much.

I don't want the extremely wealthy to carry the burden. I want corporations and the extremely wealthy (who own those corporations) to PAY THEIR SHARE. When they do, then the middle class won't be choking. And maybe the poor won't be sitting around stunned to know that their friends pay more than TWICE in taxes in a year than they ever earned in a year.

I've been poor.  I was on food stamps in the Navy.  I'm just one paycheck ahead of being poor again.   Even though we make a lot I have no money to spend.   I have just enough to be able to go out for lunch and that's about it.  No fancy lunches either, just the hot plate from SweetBay or something.  We've canceled all our vacations and we're focusing on getting rid of debt.

The WSJ is not just pro tax cuts it is specifically pro tax cut for the rich and no tax cut for everyone else and they even openly say it that way.

Do you have a link for that Wall Street Journal article Swato?

It's the rich that are causing these economic cycles.  Look at the mortgage industry!  The gobmint makes money out of thin air and loans it to the mortgage industry.  The mortgage companies are poorly managed by executives that are making millions.  They make loans to consumers that they can't possibly afford if interest rates go up.  The mortgage company goes belly up because they made bad loans but wait!  Da...da...daaa!  Over the hill comes the Gobmint on a white horse to the rescue and bails out the mortgage company!  Of course the mortgage industry is slower because the real estate bubble burst, so they lay off the workers and keep the executives.  Little John doesn't get the XBox for his birthday because Mom can barely pay for food.  Who pays for that?  You and me. 

The economy is going to be this way until we get the money and the power out of government and give it back to the people where it belongs. 

[Swatopluk]

Sorry, I got that second hand and the WSJ op-ed pages are to my knowledge behind a subscription wall. I'll see, if I can find the source again, where I got it from.

Edit 1
OK here is one direct quote

We've been saying for some time that the economy could use another tax cut, so perhaps we should be pleased that Washington is suddenly talking about a fiscal "stimulus." The challenge now is getting politicians to distinguish between policies that actually "stimulate" and the equivalent of dropping hundred dollar bills from helicopters.

Edit 2:
It is directly available
http://online.wsj.com/public/article_print/SB120001233120482535.html
It does not say in so much words that commoners spend the money on food* but it states that the economic stimulus that way is minuscule and therefore to be avoided.

*or I may have mixed two different comments in my mind

[ivor]

Nice!  I figure I and my SO won't qualify because we make to much.  Not that it matters much, $500 is just a drop in the bucket for my tax bill.

Looks like a $500 tax rebate will cost about $30,000,000,000.00 to $70,000,000,000.00 which they will probably print.  People that get the money will spend it or pay off debt with it which goes right back into the pockets of the rich right?  The end result will be more taxes and or smaller dollars.  Is this good government? 

A $500 dollar rebate sound like a great idea but if the government prints the money it's just inflation.  The rich love inflation because they can pay off their debt with smaller dollars.  You and I get to pay more for goods and services which also benefit the rich.  It's win win, for the rich.

My bad: Bush just proposed a $145,000,000,000.00 "stimulus" package.  I guess they'll have to print it... LOL!