Class warfare and the potential for a Democrat takeover of the House, despite the strong and spirited leadership of Republicans, led by John Boehner: Two great tastes that taste great together!
A few quick words for Rep Israel, if I may: the money you claim Republicans are “giving away” without “paying for it” isn’t yours — and so letting people keep it is only costing you inasmuch as you believe you have a right to their money, which you then spend in ways you see fit. But here’s the thing: all money does not belong first to the government. And the government is already taking close to 40% of every dollar through taxes and compliance costs. This is far above historical norms — and yet somehow, we as a country managed to maintain a growing, prosperous, and vibrant economy even when the government wasn’t laying claim to nearly 40% of the country’s revenue.
The government has shown time and again that the way it chooses to spend our money is less efficient and less productive than the way we choose to spend it. And, given that it’s ours, how we spend it shouldn’t be any of the government’s goddamn business.
There is no such thing as an “unfunded, unpaid for tax giveaway.” There is only “unfunded, unpaid for” government spending.
As for the Democrats’ hopes to re-take the House? Well, anything’s possible — and we certainly aren’t throwing up a Presidential candidate who will inspire a lot of down ticket voting.
And yet, for all your talk about how the Republicans want to harm the “middle class” and help the “rich,” the fact is, the middle class is getting poorer and smaller under the policies of Marxist socialists — just as is supposed to happen. And so the chore of Democrats is going to be to use lies and media compliance to try to convince the voting public still active in the private sector that each and every one of them who is suffering is some sort of outlier or anomaly — and that things really have gotten better, just not for them. Yet.
I don’t think such a message is likely to sell — but then again, the country has already voted for Obama once, and the GOP has given us Mitt Romney as Obama’s foil.
So it’s probably a toss up at this point.
Hell, even Obama is getting poorer under Obama.
Huh. One might almost suspect a conspiracy of effort. Nah, can’t be. Surely this is merely a happy coincidence of small minds thinking alike.
When I conquer the world, even thinking something so stupid will be a summary death sentence.
Speaking of unfunded giveaways for millionaires, check out the the green energy initiatives of this administration.
Great. Meanwhile Mitch Daniels and Rob Portman make their pitch to be Mitt’s prom date…
Jeff, why do you hate Israel?
Somebody ask Israel what he thinks about the complete and utter failure of his Democrat colleagues in the Senate to even offer, let alone pass, a budget for three years running.
Not to go Off topic so quickly, but has anyone else heard/read about Michelle’s trip to Pittsburgh yesterday? The cost of the trip was split because she had an “official visit” before her two fundraisers.
The official visit? She met with some military families. ON THE TARMAC for a few minuets before she was whisked off to the fundraisers. She was on that tarmac for about 3 minuets.
“Somebody ask Israel what he thinks . . . ”
Some of us may doubt the premise lurking here.
Well, there is the EITC. Which Rep. Israel loves, no doubt.
Articles said she spend 20 min on the tarmac. But still. She freakin LANDED there.
They are shameless.
“The official visit?”
And?
Well, that goes to unfunded spending disguised as a “tax credit,” but I take your point.
File a complaint with the Federal Elections Commission and make the campaign pick up the tab.
Actually Carin, shameless kicks in when they try to shame you for daring to criticize the First Lady over meeting with our much beloved military’s long-suffering, great-sacrificing military families.
Really, you should just denounce yourself.
I’m just picking on her because I’m racist.
And: just in time for the Silly Season, behold the POWER of this fully armed and operational CHOMSKYBOT!
It’s funny* when they pretend to care about fiscal issues after they brought spending up to absurd levels.
*And disgusting, mind-boggling, and shameless.
Car in,
You’re obviously just part of the right’s “War on Wymyn!(tm)”
And, charlesaustin beat me to the “Jew hating Israel” joke…
“unfunded, unpaid for tax giveaway.”
It’s too bad a lot more people aren’t a lot more upset about all the unauthorized, unconstitutional, power giveaways that preceded it. And it’s shame they won’t take it out on congress and the senate by say taking away the exceptions to laws and rules they carve out for themselves, and cancel the extravagant pensions and other perks they VOTED THEMSELVES as non-contractual balderdash that will not be legally honored henceforth, and place on them a requirement to read all legislation and for it to be greatly simplified such that it is comprehensible to the citizens without the hiring of experts.
I don’t hate Steve Israel. I just want him stripped of his power to rob me and direct my decision making. It’s a trust issue.
Okay, I forced myself to listen to the beginning of that clip. Let’s just accept his assertions. Half of $46B=$23B. Doesn’t give a time frame. Let’s say that’s in one year.
They spend that in about an hour.
So… on one side of the ledger you get a revenue decrease (under static assumptions) that’s indefensible on fiscal grounds when it happens over the course of a year. On the other you get absolutely necessary hourly spending that can’t be cut for any reason.
I’m sure Soledad O’Brien mentioned this immediately though. She’s objective and does her homework.
All money belongs to Government. Letting you keep more of what you earned is a “tax giveaway.” Giving other people that money for not earning it is “investment”.
KEEP TALKING DEMOCRATS PLEASE AND THANK YOU!
“Letting you keep more of what you earned. . . ”
Elizabeth Warren wants a word. YOU earned? Ha, says she, not on your life.
Actually, GOP Primary voters brought us Mitt.
And I haven’t even gotten a vote yet.
Oh, that’s right. I forgot. I had thought the GOP was pushing him, telling us we need to rally around a single guy, telling us he’s the only one who could win, etc.
My bad.
Actually, 40% of GOP Primary voters, over-represented in bright-blue states, brought us Mitt.
FTFY.
Looking back at Michigan, Mitt’s margin of victory in one county was slightly greater than his total margin of victory in the State as a whole. I dunno if he reproduced this circumstance in other States, but I’d bet he came close anyhow.
Romney did the same thing in Ohio.
via Red State and Politico, the spectacle of Republicans in full thrall to pragmatism:
In the House, there are 20 cosponsors of a bill (H.R. 3307) to extend the refundable 2.2 cent/per kilowatt-hour Production Tax Credit (PTC) for wind companies, most of which generate little revenue and pay no taxes… a new report shows that they lost 9,000 jobs in 2009.
Now we find out that many of these wind supporters have received campaign donations from the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), the most vocal supporter of the PTC. This, from Politico:
This time around, Rep. Dave Reichert (R-Wash.) was the biggest winner in AWEA donations, landing $7,500 from the group’s WindPAC. Republican Sens. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, Dean Heller of Nevada and Olympia Snowe of Maine all received $5,000. Reichert and Grassley are leading efforts among Republicans in their respective chambers to extend the production tax credit for wind, which expires at the end of 2012.
WindPAC’s donations to Snowe’s campaign were made before she announced in February she would not seek reelection.
Other GOP recipients include Reps. Rick Berg of North Dakota and Tim Griffin of Arkansas, as well as the Republican Party of Wisconsin.
Other members who represent red districts and received support from the AWEA include Kristi Noem, Kevin McCarthy, Doc Hastings, and Charles Boustany. Red state Senators who received backing from them include John Thune, Orrin Hatch, Richard Lugar, and Lindsey Graham.
No word on whether Hatch threatened to punch out opponents of the bill.
Actually, 40% of GOP Primary voters, over-represented in bright-blue states, brought us Mitt.
I would argue, thanks to the assistance of one Newt Gingrich.
” Actually, 40% of GOP Primary voters, over-represented in bright-blue states, brought us Mitt.”
Admittedly Perry, Cain, Gingrich, Bachmann, Huntsman, Paul, and Santorum all did their part to help Mitt win, as did the crazy negative ad buys, most press organs, and the fucking PODS.
OT simply because I swing that way.
http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-TV/2012/04/17/Romney-Media-Does-Obamas-Bidding
Okay. I think I’m seeing our own echo chamber on the right in full swing… and from Breitbarts’ organization, of all places.
Look at that headline. Then watch the three minutes of interview. There is no there, there. Larry O’Connor speaks most of the time, and begins the first half recounting all the dirty tricks and phony accusations against Romney in the last week. Romney’s response? That there may be a “quote” left wing media conspiracy out there and its just part of the “process.” Then he makes the unremarkable and ideologically neutral observation that Obama can’t run on his record of jobs and the economy, with the unspoken implication that Romney can do better. But, unspoken.
Nowhere do you hear Romney saying the government is the problem, not the solution.
Nota bene: Romney did none of the “ripping,” He merely assented in a mild manner to O’Connor’s assertions.
In the second half O’Connor asserts that there are nonprofit organizations illegally colluding with the White House to coordinate attacks against Romney, and will President Romney please get some official investigations going after the election? Romney merely says if there is any law-breaking, someone should look into it, and he isn’t aware of any specific law-breaking.
Again, please note that all the hair-on-fire phraseology came from the interviewer, and Romney was nearly passive, not to say cooly civil, during the whole thing. Yet the headline is “Romney Rips Media.”
I came for beef and got tofu.
“. . . from Breitbarts’ organization, of all places.”
Oh that’s not surprising at all. Breitbart himself had long ago declared he didn’t give a shit who got the nomination, he was going to be all in whoever it was. Digging down into the philosophical predilections of his own “team” was never his bag.
BTW I fully understand that Romney cannot yell and scream like a whining child about the leftard media, and I don’t expect him to do so. What is annoying is someone on “our” side in the alternative media selling Romney’s tapioca media manner as Ripping The Media Eleventy! I think we’ll see a lot of our rightwing allies characterizing everything Romney says as far more pointed than it really is, to burnish his bona fides.
George Orwell says April 18, 2012 at 11:19 am
And below the video for good measure, “Mitt Romney hammered the media.”
Anyone hear Romney talking to Kudlow? Anyone hear me tearing my hair out?
So, he wants to broaden the base, yet lower rates, but not for the high earners, in order to buy into the liberal notion that tax cuts “have to be paid for.” Now if he wants to broaden the base, does that not mean he wants to have some people not paying taxes now, to start paying them? Does Mitt admit that he wants to tax the poor? But he also wants lower rates, and where will that shortfall be repaid? The poor don’t have enough money, do they? Is he actually raising taxes on the rich? Not according to him, he’s just keeping the same disproportionate burden on the rich.
So how do you lower rates and broaden the base yet not have to admit some of the poor are going to have to start paying taxes? Or is the broaden the base thing a lie?
Mitt says he wants to keep the rich paying their current burden, because he’s about jobs. But I thought the rich were the ones who created most of the jobs.
Clearly I’m overthinking this. Just swoon at the electability of it all and relax.
Only cranks, hobbits and visigoths won’t accept leftist premises. It’s impolite not to.
Yeah, “GOP Primary Voters”. Because the GOP only holds closed primaries to keep the other side from picking a candidate.
George Orwell says April 18, 2012 at 12:05 pm
He’s a con man, but he’s our con man.
That sounds terrible, let’s try again:
Sure, he is a con man, but at least he’s our con man.
Oh, that’s right. I forgot. I had thought the GOP was pushing him, telling us we need to rally around a single guy, telling us he’s the only one who could win, etc.
My bad.
Are we in the mindles sheep category yet? I think ALL the bigger name candidates had GOP worthies telling us we NEEDED them as the nomineee to win. They all say that same shit.
I also remember the same purity shit going on when GHWB was running against Bill. Thus we got Ross Perot running to the fiscal right and we got Bill Clinton elected POTUS. Thats like losing a battle because you don’t like who made your guns.
So, while I highly sympathize with a lack of a Reagan, we don’t HAVE one this time, so I ask that we don’t pull a ’92 and reelect the neo-Marxist in a fit of peak.
It wasn’t purity, SgtTed, it was “Read my lying lips.”
It was Bush’s spinelessness in dealing with the Democrats that got us a real Democrat in the White House instead of the faux wannabe kind.
Which is exactly what we’re afraid will happen with the Etch-A-Sketch.
Evidently many of us are.
As someone else noted, Romney the Inevitable won blue states, often in open primaries, and netted 41% of the vote. And yet here we are.
Funny how when conservatives push for conservative candidates, we’re all out for PURITY! Whereas simply accepting whose turn it is is pragmatic and realistic and what good team players do who want to win.
Apparently it’s also pragmatic to only care about winning this election with whatever flavor will appeal to the low-information moderate/independent/don’t-know-what-the-fuck-is-going-on-but-I’m-mad-as-hell-about-it voters Romney brings in.
Because wanting a conservative leader who can actually win re-election might make those guys mad.
A progressive goads ‘his’ side…
And so on; a virtual litany of Progressive ends what he feels need to be met.
But at least he’s calling for teh ‘focus’; and that’s also important. For all sides.
Heh. Bastards at the NYT didn’t publish my comment. Matters little!
So, what do we do?
Hey Mitts was my last choice before the crazy doctor. I havent got to vote yet, even. I’d vote for Gingritch, based on his Contract with America leadership creds.
Santorum well he’s a Senator, they usually don’t do well as nominees. After Dole and McCain, no thanks, Senator, unless you are a rare find like JFK.
If the GOP spits out Romney as the nominee, I will vote for him.
Nose plugs in place and bag on my head.
Hey I dont buy the “Electable Moderate Appeal for the Broad Middle” bullshit either. That bit of CW was thoroughly slaughtered by 2008.
I am willing to take one to keep Obama out of office. Mitts will use lube. Hes a nice guy.
Thats how enthusiastic I am this year.