RKMBs Forums .::Important::. Politics and Current Events Stop Coddling the Super-Rich

As I said, the federal government currently borrow 43 cents out of every dollar spent, and the Democrats still want to hose away even more on Stimulus 2, QE-3, Obamacare, etc.
As I've made clear, even if we raise taxes as you advocate, Democrats have made clear they just want to spend even more on frivolous new programs. So the tax raise you advocate isn't going to pay that 43 cents per dollar borrowed, it's just going to result in borrowing even more!

Social Security was never intended to be the sole source of support for people in their retirement. You make it sound as if we leave it in its current form it would. That does not conform to the facts.
It is logical to slightly reduce the rate of increase (not decrease, as liberals allege) along the lines of the Ryan Plan, to reduce (not eliminate) spending to a level that is financially solvent. The CBO, GAO, Standard & Poors, Moody's and every other group assessing our federal spending agrees. The alternative is more wasteful spending sprees and insolvency.


I'd like to see the federal budget cut by at least 10% across the board. We all know there's duplication and bureaucratic waste throughout our government and if only that were addressed.
I've been reading about it since 1992 (I first learned about it in a book titled America: What Went Wrong, by Don Bartlett and James Steele, two Pulitzer-Prize-winning Philadelphia Inquirer reporters publishing in book form a series of investigative articles they did that were very specific on where the cuts should be made.

Many others, including Ross Perot, who rallied 19% of the vote in 1992 and got Clinton elected, have likewise pushed for cuts in spending. And been ignored.

I'd push for a 10% budget cut across every department. Who among us couldn't cut 10% of our spending if we had to? It would force every branch of government to assess what they really need, and spend what they have more efficiently.



You held it up in a misrepresentative way, implied if not stated saying: this is what you support. Well, no, I don't. And the last time I got a flu shot at work, it cost me 20 bucks.



Hey, I'm okay working an extra 2 years and doing my part. People on average live an extra 10 or 15 years beyond what they did when Social Security was created. It's more than fair to raise it 2 years, based on that criteria. And anyone who wants to retire sooner can elect to do so with less benefits. Or retire sooner with their own private savings. Under the curent system, I know people who have done each of those options.



Along with Hillary Clinton, John Kerry and virtually all of the Democrats as well.

You constantly try to selectively omit Democrat participation from these spending elevations. But they were an active part of it.
Under Reagan, he pushed for offsetting cuts that the Democrats refused. So the deficit went up.
Under Bush Sr., he pledged "no new taxes" but broke his election pledge to do the responsible thing and close the gap in revenue, but spending went up even more. And it cost him the 1992 election.
Under Clinton, there was only a balanced budget passed because Republicans won both houses of congress in 1994, forcing Clinton to pivot 180 degrees from his previous policies, and adopt the blaanced budget favored by voters if he wanted to be re-elected in 1996. You always make it sound like Clinton championed a balanced budget.
In truth it was Gingrich aand Boehner who chamioned the balanced budget agreement that Clinton merely signed!



You said "I hope there will be riots."



And I already even proved the falseness of the basis for you to even hope for the riots. The concessions Republicans are asking for do not gut the programs.

In the area of pensions in Wisconsin, for example, the pensions still exceed the generosity of pensions in the private sector, and these posturing nut-jobs are still rioting.
In the area of social security, SS was always intended to be a supplemental retirement income, not the sole source of retirement income. People were expected to gather their own retirement savings and/or company pensions.
AGAIN: Republicans (who are the only ones with even a plan on the table, by the way) only want to reduce the rate of annual increase on social security and other entitlements, and are NOT trying to cut these programs, as Democrats falsely demonize the Republicans as trying to do.

John Stossel program: "The Money Hole"

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3


Especially good is the last part, about how Canada went down the same European-socialist track that we're on right now, how they likewise got their credit downgraded, and are on track now back to prosperity and federal solvency. If I recall, it took Canada 9 years to get back their AAA credit rating.

The earlier parts give details of towns that went broke, and people who got absolutely no pensions, because of their city's refusal to make any reasonable cuts, until the city was completely broke, and bankrupted, could pay no pensions at all.

They still have their universal health care don't they?

That's only your opinion. The dems are not just going to do cuts while keeping the wealthy tax rates lower than they have been for 5 decades. If the other guys want to campaign on keeping wealthy tax rates low while trying to downplay the cuts they would have to make to accomplish what they say they intend to do, I'm good with that. That will insure another change election IMHO.



Social Security is a crucial part of most people's retirement. That's become more true as company's moved from pensions to very unstable 401k's. Moving the retirement age 2 years is a big deal and will hurt many many people. Not just those that would be retiring but also people looking for work. Keep ducking this all you want but it's neither party is going to be allowed to make such a change and say it's no big deal.



Some of that would be ok, except for they'll also need to adjust taxes back to where they were 10 years ago and soften the blow.




Some cuts are fine but nothing like moving the retirement age for Social Security.



Wasn't my intention nor do I see any language or context that implied what you say I implied. It's nice that you got a 20 dollar shot but you could have got a more expensive one on medicare. All I'm saying is that is an example where some changes could be made to the program to save some significant money.



I recognize that both parties blew the budget. You however just referred to it as Obama spending the money in the previous post. I'll keep making sure Cantor and Boahner also get the credit they deserve and you keep ignoring. I enjoy bringing it up.




Clinton campaigned on cuts, supported and signed into law cuts. A 180 only for the GOP drones


Boehner went on to support and implement tax cuts and not paying for 2 wars, a costly expansion to medicare that he also voted for.



It's to bad Clinton couldn't run again and sign a couple of more things.





Actually if you want it to be an honest quote it would be "...I hope there will be riots...."

You do get points for post the actual quote showing the context of what I said.



So the CBO report on medicare that showed medicare recipients out of pocket costs going up thousands and thousands of dollars shouldn't matter to voters?



You believe there is rioting going on? Exagerating doesn't help what your trying to say.


This is just repetition of repetition. Social Security is now an important part of most of people's retirements. Companies have cut pensions and instead replaced with unreliable 401k's. They didn't pass that saving down with much higher wages either. Nope instead they loaded more work onto fewer hands and outsourced jobs. Some of that profit needs to go back to the country that made them wealthy.

Why would you assume that?

My mother was a teacher of the county for 25 years, and while she has a pension, she has to pay for her own health care. And she retired way before all the currently discussed cuts.

I was clearly asking. According to wikipedia...

wikipedia.org

That circumnavigates the true issue.
The issue is: any further taxes will only be hosed away on even greater spending.

If the Republicans had absolute assurance that new tax revenue would be used responsibly, ONLY to pay down the debt, they would agree to new taxes for that specific and responsible purpose.
But AS I JUST SAID, Democrats have made it clear that they want to use that money for another round of spending: Obamacare, Stimulus 2, QE-3.

To pay debt, Republicans would approve taxes.
To enable further wastful spending, they will not. You portray them as favoring "the rich" ( a class warfare argument that ignores many of these demonized people have all their assets in their business, and are not truly "rich"), when in truth they don't want to take money that won't be spent wisely.






I don't see beyond your just saying so that you made a real case for two more years making any difference.

People live 10 to 15 years longer than they did when Social Security was created, and relative to that, 2 years is nothing. As compared with the 10 to 15 years or more of having the government pay everything.
I have a nurse friend (my father's former girlfriend) who's near 80 and still working. Many people continue to work, it gives them purpose, and many like what they do.
You make work sound like prison or a death sentence. It's different for those who are disabled, and would thus have disability pay.







Again: If new taxes (on "the rich" or on everyone) were used to pay down the debt and not on additional spending, I would have no problem with that.




There we respectfully differ.
Relative to the vast increase in life span (and therefore expanded years of benefits) since Social Security was formed, an extra 2 years is for me acceptable and very reasonable.






Okay, if you say you didn't mean it that way, that's good enough for me.

I've never seen 50-dollar flu shots, but apparently that exists in other places.






On Obama's budgets, on Obamacare, Stimulus and most of Obama's legislation, Republicans were not participants while Obama had supermajorities (Jan 2009-Nov 2010).

Since Boehner became speaker (Jan 2011), the two times Boehner voted for legislation (in January extending the Bush tax cuts, and two weeks ago raising the debt cieling) both times Boehner and the Republicans did so with a gun to their heads of potential economic collapse if they didn't, and still pushed for the most budget cuts they could get.
In January, I think the Republicans accepted legislation that was bad for them politically, but made concessions for the good of the nation. If it was all about political advantage for Boehner and Cantor, they would not have cut a deal, and it would have hurt Obama far more than them.

In negotiating the debt-cieling raise in early August, Republicans offered deal after deal for the needed 4 trillion in cuts S & P and others required.
Democrats fucked us all in the ass, and lost us our credit rating by not accepting better than a 2.4 trillion deal, in cuts that are probably cuts as unreal as the alleged hundreds of billions in "cuts" negotiated in January.

Boehner pushed it wall, both times.





I'm sorry, but that is absolute B.S. on your part.

Clinton RAISED TAXES his first year, and tried to shove through Hillarycare unscrutinized, in ways that even had the New York Times posting full page ads asking if anyone knew who the people were that were building Hillary Clinton's healthcare plan.

It was not until Clinton was thoroughly rejected in the November 1994 election that he adopted the tenets of the Republicans' "Contract With America", including a balanced budget agreement, drafted by Gingrich and the Republicans. Clinton held out for a few things he wouldn't allow to be cut. But it was the Republicans' legislation and priority, not Clinton's. Not until his first two years of tax-and-spend were thoroughly rejected by voters.

Only in the years after the 1994 election, when new Republican control of the House and Senate prevented new taxes, did the economy prosper and deficit reduction begin in 1996.



As I've said, Democrats were a part of passing that legislation to lower taxes and fund wars.
Scapegoating blame onto the Republicans is not a valid argument.




I certainly give credit to Clinton for being part of a bipartisan agreement that worked in the national interest in reducing our deficit.
But it is dishonest to say "it was Clinton who reduced the deficit" when Clinton only later "triangulated" on a balanced budget agreement that was drafted by Republicans, after he was pushed in that direction by election defeats in Nov 1994.




Again: Spending on Medicare and other entitlments still goes up every year in the proposed Ryan plan. It just increases every year at a lower rate. Contrary to the demonization by Democrats that it cuts spending. It simply lowers spending to levels that reach financial solvency.

If left on its current spending trajectory, Medicare will become bankrupt, and no one will get ANY benefits. The Republican alternative at least saves the bulk of Medicare.

It also does not affect those who are closest to retirement over the next 20 years, and gives everyone else time to prepare savings for their retirement.





Not now, but there was at the peak of the protests, that police were not able to contain. And there was some very expensive vandalism thst needed to be repaired in the state Capitol building.

I don't think describing unruly crowds that can't be contained by police, or vandalism inside the state capitol to be "exagerating", to describe it as rioting.





Your answer mixes a few things together that are arguably not connected.

I think an employer that agrees to match every dollar you put in a 401K with a dollar of their own is pretty generous.

The owner of a local comic store where I live spent his first 10 years or so after high school working at Publix supermarket, and used his $40,000 of 401K to purchase his comic book store in 1992 or so, and has been a self-employed business owner ever since. I guess that's in the eye of the beholder whether those funds were considered "reliable".

Regarding offshoring of factories and jobs, the only people I hear offering proposals to incentivize bringing outsourced overseas manufacturing and jobs back to the United States are the Republicans.

It was, if you recall, Bill Clinton in 1993 who signed NAFTA and GATT into law, that began the mass outsourcing of jobs. Granted, with the full support of the Republicans in the House and Senate, but no resistance among the Democrats stood in the way of that legislation.

Will you two just fuck and get it over with?

The GOP rejected several proposals that had a combination of spending cuts and taxes. It didn't even matter if the cuts were much more significant than the taxes. Boehner and Canter walked out of such talks because they wouldn't accept anything like that.


As I said above they walked out of talks where significant cuts were on the table but because there were also taxes included they walked away.



I think how the GOP reacted to Buffet's proposal in general shows who's playing games. Better yet I think much of the general public is seeing it.






First of all, the government doesn't pay for everything on Social Security. My mom get a little over 300 bucks a month. Nor did I make work sound like prison or a death sentence. That's exagerating on your part. Extending the retirement age would be a hardship for many people though. Maybe if you have a desk job it's different and you don't think of the guy with a bad back hoping he doesn't get laid off before he hits retirement age. I know more than a few people over 40 who have found themselves losing a good job and scrambling to find whatever to just put food on the table. All of whom enjoyed working. If you got a nice secure job that you can work as long as you like, your lucky. I don't think that's reallity for most people though.










Some additional spending is ok with me if it's to maintain the entitlement programs. As more baby boomers enter into retirement it's gotta increase to handle them. Even republican plans are grandfathering them in. Not out of principle though but because they're hoping they won't lose voters. Changes can be made to cut waste and fraud in these programs but with the way wages and employment have stagnated I'm thinking people are going to need these programs more than ever.

My above post was partially omitted, and I had to re-construct the parts that were lost. Until I corrected it, the earlier incomplete draft is what was showing till now.



Because there is no trust in Democrat-promised cuts actually being made.
Again: Cuts have to be made first to prove Democrats are serious about reducing deficits. That is the essential first step. Only after that, and only after it is absolutely certain that new revenue will be used for ONLY debt reduction, will raising taxes even be an option.
The plan of Republicans at this point does not include raising taxes because Republicans (as Reagan and even John F. Kennedy did in their presidencies) is to use the proven method of lowering taxes to grow business, that creates more taxable revenue to pay down debt than increased taxes would.

But even if they could "tax the rich" now, Democrats would not use new tax revenue to pay down the debt. Democrats have a long shopping list of new spending, so it is clear that any raised taxes will just be spent on Stimulus 2, QE-3, etc.
Why did you not understand that the first 4 times I said it?



See above. I'm tired of repeating clearly made arguments.



Does it make sense to raise taxes 700 billion to "tax the rich" when Obama and the Dems will not use that money to pay down the debt, but will instead hose away 1.5 trillion (800 billion more than the new revenue) on new frivolous spending, and then ask for even more tax dollars to waste when that is exhausted?

There is absolutely no effort on the part of Democrats to reign in spending.
The only way to stop their crack-addiction to spending is to not enable it to continue, by not authorizing new spending.





You DID make it sound like an inhuman outrage that Republicans (specifically the Ryan Plan) proposed to extend work for just 2 extra years, when persons on average live an additional 10 to 15 years, beyond the life-span when Social Security was begun.
A number of Democrat leaders (such as Joseph Lieberman) see the wisdom of extending retirement another 2 years also.

I actually know and used to work with an orthopedic specialist doctor, who evaluated patients for disability claims. He said it made him sick how many just didn't want to work and tried to get disability when they didn't need it. That most of them on disability might not be able to stand for 8 hours, but certainly are capable of working 8 hours at a desk job.







So... if Democrats approve spending, theý're principled heroes who are about people?
But if Republicans approve spending they're doing so "not out of principle though but because they're hoping they won't lose voters"?

But hey, you're not demonizing Republicans with a double-standard, are you? Oh, no, not at all!
Geez...


The cause of lost U.S. jobs and industry are:

1) Coddling wasteful programs and vast expansion of government jobs and bureaucracy (and their state-funded entitlements) to appease powerful unions that has gotten us to this stage.
2) Giving home loans to millions of people who never should have qualified who are now defaulting (along with repackaging these into mortgage-backed securities), rippling through every other sector of the economy. Barney Frank, Franklin Raines, Chris Dodd, John Kerry, ACORN, Fannie/Freddie, are all clearly to blame.
3) Legislating huge subsidies for environmental programs that go to huge corporatins like GE and ADM, that create inefficient unsustainable bubbles of environmental technology that cannot be sustained without billions more in government subsidies year after year. Legislating corn as the crop to make U.S. ethanol from (corporate welfare to corn manufacturers, when sugar cane is the far more efficient crop to manufacture ethanol from, which caused a shortage of corn for food products, and a price-spike in corn food products for the middle class and poor)
4) Smothering environmental standards and other regulation that makes it cheaper and saner to move business to other countries. I've seen it repeatedly said by Peter Schiff, John Stossel, Donald Trump, Steve Wynn and others that it's far easier now to open a business in China than it is in the United States. When that is the case, the jobs will logically go to China and other nations. Not because of evil/mean/rich Republicans, but because of capitalist-hating Democrats who punitively smother business owners and drive them overseas to more industry-friendly markets.

I'm not saying Republicans are blame-free, they too voted for NAFTA and GATT, easy mortgage lending standards that took part in creating the housing bubble, and other programs that have hurt the economy. But I do see Republicans pushing for real solutions, whereas Democrats just want to blame Republicans while propping up a failed system, rather than make hard choices to fix our economy, or even have an honest debate, as they demonize Republicans with distorted emotionally charged arguments.

They also sell oil and gas to USA.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/09/.../#ixzz1YJRbnZVa

Well, there goes the economy.

-Right Wing SuperFriends.

"HE'S RAISING TAXES!!!!! SOCIALIST APOCALYPSE!!!!!! LET'S KILL HIM!!!"

-The Tea Party

This is a great idea!
-retarded obamanauts

I heard those blood-thirsty scum cheering at the debate for killing and executions. How primitive. How childish. How disgusting. But, the Right is letting them pull them onto the Crazy Highway, so it's just as much their fault as it is the white-trash that makes up the Tea Party. So, fuck them all. And especially those that try to make excuses and apologies for evil like that. Sheep like that are the bottom-feeders that helped Adolf take power....

"Let's kill Obama" is once again your own idea, that you slanderously project as if it came from the Tea Party and not you.

Again: conservatives are content to dissent and offer the facts to disprove your arguments. It's the Left over and over that resorts to violence and gleefully envisions its opposition dead.

Using the socialist label on Obama and his White House is abundantly supported by evidence, way beyond dispute.
If Obama were in any office but the presidency, his leftist history and circle of radical-left associates would exclude him from receiving any security clearance.

I again refer you to the extensively referenced OBAMANOMICS, by Tim Carney

And ROOTS OF OBAMA'S RAGE, by Dinesh D'Souza

You must have missed that Republican debate....

As I've pointed out repeatedly in the fact of your uninformed ignorance, Pro, the Tea Party in polls are among the most educated, the most financially successful, and largely have views that are quantifiably (in percentage numbers) almost identical to those of the mainstream of America.
Whether discussing race, class, income, education, or opinion on social issues.

Haha!

It's always fun watching you have an extreme aging leftist meltdown after attempting to play the moderate for so long.

By the way, Hitler was a National Socialist (i.e., a party of the Left that favored state-run capitalism, not unlike Obama or the Chinese.
And Obama has likewise shown his authoritarian colors in trying to intimidate, shut down and silence Fox News and all other dissenting thought.
Not to mention multiple members of Obama's administration who have openly praised Mao and Hugo Chavez (specifically Anita Dunn, Ron Bloom, Mark Lloyd, Van Jones and Valerie Jarrett, not to mention Obama himself).

At the Republican debate you mention, they were simply discussing the death penalty.

Contrary to your liberal fanaticism, if someone disagrees with your opinion on the death penalty or abortion, they are not "crazy" or "primitive". They simply have a different point of view than you, arguably a better thought-out one.

The fact that you need to demonize a whole group of people just because they disagree with you on one political issue, says a lot more about YOUR fanaticism and ignorance than theirs.

Pssst! Do you really not see me yanking your chain?

So then, that's exactly the bloodthirsty scum I'm talking about. The same kind of people who burned Jews in ovens, and eradicated entire populations. Money does not equal education nor morality. Therefore, to defend scum like these it means you are sacrificing your own Christian views. Jesus would be proud, I'm sure...

Why not work on totally retooling the current tax code to eliminate the loopholes?

Seems both sides are talking about doing that.

because there are just as many millionaires and billionaires on the left who stand to lose just as much (more if you consider all the ones with media empires to manage) as the millionaires and billionaires on the right. the difference is that they survive - and thrive - by hiding behind a pretense of caring about the little guy. they're so used to giving lip service to the 'our fair share' bullshit that some of them might even believe it - at least until it's time to pay up. closing the loopholes would hurt the limousine liberals as much as anyone else.

Somebody dusted off their old talking points!

Only the Republicans have offered multiple plans to do that.

Most of which were passed by the Republican-majority House, and remain partisanly shelved and undebated in the Democrat-majority partisan Senate of Harry Reid.

Plus many other plans to eliminate corruption and waste by reforming, social security, taxation, education, and defense.

The Ryan plan.

Rep. Connie Mack's penny plan.

Herman Cain's 9-9-9- tax reform plan.

Newt Gingrich also offers lucid plans to rebuild our economy's private sector through incentives, without borrowing further trillions from China we can never pay back.

As does Romney.
And of course, Ron Paul.

Simply encouraging oil drilling would create 2 million jobs in the energy sector and related industries. Every Republican candidate favors drilling expansion. It is only Obama and Democrats who favor further obstruction of oil expansion (and destruction of the coal inddustry), and the oil industry alone could create enough jobs to pull us out of recession.

There are plenty of lucid Republican proposals in that direction.
But outside of Fox News and the conservative media, no one is reporting it.

Wow. Pretty torqued-up there, little man.
And you might want to discuss that last point with Pastor Martin Neimoller, one of tens of thousands of other Christians who were locked up in the same concentration camps with the Jews.

Clearly, it was secularist leftist zealots like yourself who eagerly reported Jews in their neighborhood to the Nazis, and then gloatingly cheered as the Gestapo took them away.



I truly wonder if you're schizophrenic, to post these two things in such close juxstaposition to each other.

Are we really supposed to believe this kind of rabid fanaticism on your part is "just kidding"?!?
I think Pariah called it pretty well. When totally busted on your false points and idiocy, you backpedal to: "hey, I was just kidding."

If you can explain to me in clear, sincere terms how you're NOT supposed to believe me, I'm all ears. I've always shown you moderation until you bite a hook. And when you do, I yank the line to see how long you will struggle. When I tell you "Hey man, seriously, I'm just joking calm down", I'm being serious. Pariah whines and cries about it, because he hates I don't show him the same attention I show you. I don't care about him, though. This is about you. How many times have I told you when I'm busting your balls? How many times have I admitted that to you, in hopes you would calm down and get the joke? So many I can't even count. And I will continue to do so, when I feel you're starting to get too FRANTIC about this forum. You can continue to not believe me, if you like. But, ask yourself three questions: Why would I do it? If I'm doing it to lie to you and "backpedal", as you call it, then what do I get out of it? If I'm being serious, and you still continue to leap about and take your fury into other forums, then what do I get out of it? Answer that and you will realize that I have no motivation other than to entertain myself.

You and Pariah...you both take all of these threads and political talking points so seriously. That's why both of you are completely unprepared to spar with someone who doesn't take it seriously...at all...

P.S. The Tea Party is still, factually, an extremist hate-speech group that cheers for murder. That's a recorded fact from live TV. You should YouTube that Republican Debate. Once you realize how you've been conned into joining a terrorist cell like them, you will THANK ME for getting you out of it.

lulz

inb4 'my talking heads are better than your talking heads'

dude you can't make it too obvious for them!