I’ve been asking around a bit and everyone I’ve spoken to says that most business groups support the stimulus bill in the House (or even larger) form. That makes sense, because businesses do obviously want to avoid a prolonged recession. I wondered, then, why they’re not pushing Senate Republicans to vote for it. Well, it turns out that they are:
the traditionally Republican-leaning business lobby is beginning to exert itself more as well.
In announcing his support Friday night, Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) pointedly read from a Chamber of Commerce endorsement. The National Association of Manufacturers has also weighed in, telling Republicans that votes on the bill “including potential procedural motions” may be considered for designation as key votes in NAM’s scoring of their legislative record.
The main purpose of the Republican party is to support the interests of big business (this is also one of the primary purposes of the Democratic party). I’ve always thought, though, that some day the Republican party would become so insane that it would begin to frighten big business. That day may have arrived.
Kid G
Hahaha, awesome…who will they turn to now, Mr. Porkulus?
Stuck
No Soup For Dan Riehl
Dan Riehl announces the new old GOP revival ( or, once again, Wingnut Blogger Fly’s Over the Cuckoo’s Nest)
calipygian
The 80 odd billion dollars cut from the state budget stabilization fund portion of the stimulus – just what would that money have gone for? Maybe hiring contractors to build/repair roads, schools, bridges, etc.? Who would end up getting that money? Can you say local businesses?
Of course businesses are for all of this.
Having jumped the shark in 2006 and landed in a giant whale turd, the Republicans are trying to get out of that turd by eating it.
God damn they are dumb.
Balconespolitics
Isn’t this a signal for the Dems to play hardball? Strip most of the tax cuts, come back with measures during reconciliation that are SPENDING heavy on things Democratic constituents want money spent on (roads, bridges, schools, renewable energy, passenger rail, water and wastewater utilities, elerctric transmission) and just daring the Republicans to go head to head with the business community in America?
And if Republicans want to filibuster – let them do it in the light of day!
Zzyzx
"Isn’t this a signal for the Dems to play hardball?"
If you think this bill will help, just not as much as a better one, than no it isn’t. If the Democrats play hardball and the Republicans kill the bill, sure it’ll help in 2010, but things might get really bad between now and then. Do you really want to play Chicken with the economy?
cleek
don’t hold yer breath
Just Some Fuckhead
DougJ, the problem is that big business doesn’t have a pragmatic Yankee Republican congress anymore. All they got now is a bunch of Southern unreconstuctionists who think the solution to big problems is a bigger God, more prayer and the occasional patriotic song on the steps of the Capitol building.
Captain Haddock
The GOP’s only hope for viability as a political party is for things to get dramatically worse on Obama’s watch. They cannot take a chance a good bill passing.
Unfortunately for them, the business lobby is not really willing to eat shit just so raging dingbats like Palin look better down the road.
Chris Johnson
If the Republicans are really prepared to kill the bill even if it might help- or ESPECIALLY if it might help- we have big enough problems that things ARE going to get really bad, anyhow. If that’s what we’re stuck with, why not go for broke? Especially if Big Business wants it.
I’ve seen indications before that the leaders of big business aren’t typically idiots, at least not for long. I’m not a bit surprised if they’re turning on the Republicans at this point. The Republicans can no longer help them just by taking more tax burden off them, because the economy’s too fucked. If this isn’t clear to the Pubs, it obviously is becoming clear to Big Business.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
Too late, those rat-bastard Republican pricks have already started the game.
jcricket
As healthcare grows as a problem for businesses, I wonder what would happen to the GOP if big business lobby groups and the small business federations ever got behind nationalizing healthcare (for corporate reasons, not altruistic ones)?
The GOP has staked its future on opposing increase of the government and certainly in opposing any government that can help the average person.
If businesses and the Democrats ever align (in ways less odious than the bankruptcy bill) I just can’t see the GOP surviving.
jcricket
Chicken was what Republicans were playing back in September, when they opposed $300 billion as too big and too slow. What they’re doing now is picking up the gun after their buddy shot himself in the head playing Russian Roulette and cocking it again. Unfortunately it’s pointed at our heads.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
From your keyboard to G-d’s eyes.
sglover
Isn’t it obvious that the ONLY strategy for a cornered and desperate GOP is to wreck Obama’s (very underwhelming and timid) plans, and then blame the majority party when the economy turns even worse? Call it the "King of the Rubbish Heap" strategy — hey, you’re still King in the end. And the Republican Party has long made it plain that they consider banana republics the political ideal.
Zzyzx
@sglover: "Isn’t it obvious that the ONLY strategy for a cornered and desperate GOP is to wreck Obama’s (very underwhelming and timid) plans, and then blame the majority party when the economy turns even worse? "
No, they do have a plan, I just think it’s dumb. They’re going to double down on the Economics 101 uberLibertarian point of view and hope that they actually know what they’re talking about. If they’re right, then they’ll reap benefits. If it turns out that the economy actually is more complex than their simple model, they’ll just have to wait for the Democratic fix to the Republican problems to cause different problems that Republicans can fix…
dmsilev
On ABC right now, the punditry equivalent of the Harlem Globetrotters vs. the Washington Generals: Paul Krugman vs. George Will.
-dms
TenguPhule
This would require our Democratic Senators to have balls.
TenguPhule
Yes. SATSQ.
But remember, nobody ever went broke underestimating the gullibility of the American public.
kommrade reproductive vigor
Some big businesses are more equal than others.
jcricket
The "best part" of this strategy is were it to work (i.e. we enter the next Depression, unemployment’s 15%+, the stock market falls another 30%) the Republicans would only make it worse if they enacted their stated policies (more tax + spending cuts).
Among many reasons, this is why thinking people are leaving the Republican party in droves.
gbear
Hmmm, business wants stimulus spending, governors want stimulus spending, mayors want stimulus spending, over 50% of the house and senate want stimulus spending, despite a recent slide, more people are with Obama’s stimulus package than against it, and the senate republicans are so afraid of the potential success of this bill that they’ll tell all those people to go bite a fart. Good plan.
John Cole
This country would be in far better shape if the current GOP were a lot more like George Will than Newt Gingrich.
dmsilev
@John Cole:
True, that. Will is merely an enabler of the crazies, rather than being crazy himself.
I do have some hope though that the crazification of the GOP will eventually hit a point where even the "serious conservatives" and other such pundits throw aside their bipartisan fetish, and instead start advocating for mass institutionalization of Republican lawmakers. Sarah Palin winning the 2012 nomination would probably do the trick.
-dms
gbear
@gbear:
that ‘more people’ link didn’t work. Here’s another try at it. Looks like more than two links per comment is a no-no?
Xecklothxayyquou Gilchrist
@calipygian: Having jumped the shark in 2006 and landed in a giant whale turd, the Republicans are trying to get out of that turd by eating it. God damn they are dumb.
Belly laugh!
Phew.
JL
@TenguPhule: lol
JL
@Just Some Fuckhead: The Chamber of the south is different than the Chamber of the north. Down here evangelicals rule!
Wile E. Quixote
Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, is in favor of the bill as well. Here’s a link to an article on CNET about it. Note the use of the phrase "so-called stimulus legislation" which links to a remarkably shitheaded piece by Declan McCullagh equating the stimulus bill with the PATRIOT act.
Can we nuke the states full of dirty, filthy, good for nothing reds already. Really, these fuckers keep talking about tax cuts but when you look at this chart you see that South Carolina, home of Jimmy DeMented, received $1.35 in federal spending for every $1.00 in federal taxes they paid. Lazy, hypocritical red scum, I’d love to see Pelosi or someone call them on this and say, "OK, here’s the deal, California gets $0.78 in federal spending for every tax dollar we send to Washington. We want to keep that extra .22 cents. What, that means that the people in Mississippi, which receives $2.02 from the Federal Government for taxes that they pay are going to starve? Well fuck ’em, let Haley Barbour and God make up for the revenue shortfall with tax cuts."
Comrade Mary, Would-Be Minion Of Bad Horse
OT: 60 Minutes has a feature on Captain Sullenberger and the successful water landing in the Hudson. I just tuned in and had the great pleasure of seeing this very calm and competent man repeatedly swatting down fatuous drivel from Katie Couric.
No, he didn’t pray at any point, because he figured someone further back in the plane was doing it for him and he had work to do.
No, the three and a half minutes the whole thing took didn’t feel like slow motion, it felt like three and a half minutes.
No, although he and the co-pilot told each other immediately after the landing, "Hey, that wasn’t as bad as I expected", they immediately tuned back to work, so he did not stop to congratulate himself on averting a disaster, because he hadn’t done so yet.
It’s back on now …
Tonal Crow
It’s past time for the Democrats to play real hardball: require a filibuster’s proponents to maintain it the old-fashioned way: by speaking continuously. And when they crap out, an up-or-down vote.
Wait! Weren’t GOPers once huge fans of "an up-or-down vote"?
Zzyzx
Tonal – the 60 votes needed on this bill is due to Senate spending rules, not a filibuster.
The main lesson here is that this is what happens when you become a regional party. Suppose you’re the Republican Senator from Alabama. You’re not convinced this plan will work, you’re getting flooded by calls non-stop from your constituents to vote against this, people are threatening to run primary challenges on those who vote for it, where’s the incentive to vote in favor of this plan?
The problem for the Republicans is that they’re only a seat or two away from being in a place where they’re completely powerless but each member feels compelled to vote the same way because their seat would be lost.
Laura W
@Comrade Mary, Would-Be Minion Of Bad Horse: I am so glad I am watching this. And I nearly spit up with the freakin’ PRAYING question.
She should’ve ended her career after the Palin interviews, quitting while
aheada bit less behind.Brandon T
http://www.sacbee.com/ourregion/story/1567132.html
Should we call them McConnellvilles or McCaskillvilles?
pattonbt
@Zzyzx:
Truthfully? Yes I do, I want to play chicken with the economy. This stimulus, as it is constituted, is not going to save it. The best it will do is slow the rate of pain on the off chance that we will grow up in our economic views on consumption, regulation and taxation in the interim and things start to right themselves based on our hoped for change in behaviors. Good luck with that. I have little faith that the necessary action and change in behaviors will happen in the softening period the stimulus will give us. It will simply keep some semblance of the veneer of the past alive that we can make through just as we have been forever and no hard change or introspection is necessary. Thus, again, postponing the day of reckoning until later when it will be thrice as painful.
The Democrats have the cards and the chips to win and win right. Force the Republicans to obstruct and obstruct publicly. If business leaders are lining up behind the Democratic position, now is exactly the time to do it the Dems way. So when the Republicans obstruct, no one will support them except the 28% ever again. Strip the tax cuts entirely, strip non stimulus spending, keep in state funding needs, etc. Go for it. The Republicans, in their current form, will not support ANY package put forth by the Dems. They will NOT support anything, they exist to obstruct. The Dems can get this through the house easily without them (50% is all that is required). The senate? Well if you dont think a few R senators wont cave over when the pressure is really on from all sides, then they will pay the price hard.
Fight now, fight right and fight hard. That is what the economy really needs. I dont think the extra couple of weeks it would take to get this done right will seriously hamper the economy, its not going anywhere anytime soon.
Conservatively Liberal
I hear that Obama is delaying Geithner’s announcement on the second half of the bailout money being disbursed. I wonder if this is to put pressure on the Rushublicans by making their banking, finance and market buddies nervous? Combine that with pressure from business interests and you have a lot of pressure being exerted on the Rushublicans right when they don’t need it. It may be that Obama is playing rope-a-dope on a bigger scale than we are seeing here and his letting them run the media narrative may have been the plan all along.
Letting the Rushublicans bleat to the media about how dead-set they are against any stimulus may have pushed business interests to the point that they are openly siding with Obama on the stimulus package. If this is the case, the Rushublicans are in big trouble. With the Treasury presser on the second half of the banking bailout package being delayed, this may cause the banks to start putting pressure on the Rushublicans to get with the program.
While I don’t like the package as it is and am hoping for a small miracle in conference, I do find it interesting how this is shaping up as the debate wraps up. If Obama and the Democrats had brought this pressure to bear early on I don’t think it would have been as effective as the Rushublicans bringing this down on themselves (business interests siding with the Democrats) by mouthing off in the press.
It may be that Obama is helping the (few remaining) Republicans understand that their problem is not so much them as it is the Rushublican wing of the party. It will be interesting to see how this next week goes.
kay
@pattonbt:
Fight now, fight right and fight hard. That is what the economy really needs. I dont think the extra couple of weeks it would take to get this done right will seriously hamper the economy, its not going anywhere anytime soon.
I’m with you. I’m a congenital compromiser. I like…accord. But, enough already. If it has to be Battle of the Ideologues, okay. Democrats have the better argument, and Obama already took the hit he was going to take, politically, and fulfilled his campaign promise to try to work with them.
Now he has less to lose. He’s getting hammered for "failing at bi-partisan" anyway, by the media. Why not "fail" spectacularly and get what he wants?
Wini
@Comrade Mary, Would-Be Minion Of Bad Horse: I absolutely loved his answer to the prayer question.. and the one about whether he threw himself a congratulatory party right upon landing was good, too.
demkat620
@Tonal Crow: I think you’ll find lots of things have changed now that a democrat is in the WH.
I have a question I think the GoOPer’s should answer: Let’s say all we do are tax cuts just like Bush. What happens when that fails again? Do you have a plan B?
JL
The budget bill takes 60 votes and since the dems don’t have the 60 votes they have to sell out the American public. Somehow, I don’t think it will be the repubs who pay.
North Dallas Thirty
Problem is, the business leaders aren’t lining up behind it. Notice the clumsy attempts to hide this by not mentioning the actual name or location of the "Chamber of Commerce" thingy that Specter was supposedly waving about.
Why? Because businesses know that they won’t get any "stimulus" funds if they’re non-union. They know that if they take the money they’ll have to pay maximum dollar for low-quality labor and that, if they’re successful, the government will take over their business operations, cap their pay, and take money away from them.
Meanwhile, there’s that minor detail of why the Obama Party-controlled Congressional Budget Office is even admitting that the "stimulus" is going to cause problems.
All, of course, to reduce negative GDP by one point and unemployment by two points. Impressive, indeed.
Tonal Crow
@Zzyzx
Then the Democrats should change them on an up-or-down vote, per Art.I s.5 cl.2: "Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings…." This is a national emergency, and we cannot give away the store to satisfy the know-nothings. They had their chance to govern, GOPed it up royally, were voted out of power, and now must play second fiddle while the majority gets a chance to govern.
North Dallas Thirty
Let’s say all we do are tax cuts just like Bush. What happens when that fails again?
Given our economic history between 2002 and December of 2007, what, exactly, do you define as "failure"?
What’s really funny about this is that even the Obama Party’s own economic advisor has done research indicating that tax cuts, on average, are twice as effective in terms of putting money into the economy as government spending.
The reason why is pretty simple. Tax cuts reward the people who are paying taxes, which means the people who are actually earning money, producing products, and generating jobs. Government spending only rewards those to whom the money is directed — and, given the Obama Party’s ideological needs, the only people who will be getting the money are ones who are of the correct skin color, level of skill, and union status. Kind of hard for things to be effective when you hand money out on the basis of things other than performance.
pattonbt
@North Dallas Thirty:
You sir, are insane. Why do you even bother? Most businesses know they will benefit from the extra spending from the money that goes in peoples hands from the stimulus. The people who spend will not (even if they could) differentiate how they spend the stimulus money and on what goods based on whether the company they go to is union or not. Business want money in peoples hands to buy their goods. They want the stimulus. Theyd want it even if times were great.
And the government will take over their business? You seriously need help. At least try and come to the party with some rationality. The world in your head must be a strange place.
Is the stimulus perfect, hell no. But when people like you argue against it, it makes it look a hell of a lot better than it did before.
bago
Republicans don’t wait in line for welfare… They take the company jet!
Just Some Fuckhead
Poor Jennifer Hudson, so torn up about everything she accidentally left her dinner napkin on.
Edit: I can haz Grammies thread?
Napoleon
@North Dallas Thirty:
Some of the worst economic growth in American history. Pretty much the definition of failure.
Except that is a blatant lie.
kay
@North Dallas Thirty:
It’s from the Washington Times. August of 2008.
The income of the typical American household has barely budged since 1999, while the U.S. poverty rate of 12.5 percent has stubbornly stayed above the recession level of 2001 and the number of Americans without health insurance has increased by 7.2 million since 2000, a U.S. Census Bureau report showed Tuesday.
Median household income increased 1.3 percent last year but remained essentially unchanged from its 1999 peak level, the Census Bureau reported. Half of households have incomes above the median, while half fall below.
Where did the wealth created by President Bush’s tax cuts go?
Zach
This is why the Senate leadership should’ve had the procedural vote to proceed before the compromisers got to work. It might’ve failed, but if it did the market would plummet and the GOP would begin to listen to their financial backers. All they have to do is pick a few moderates to help get 60 votes and then everyone can vote against the actual bill and still get the 58-41 vote or whatever it would be and have the same claim come 2010 that the House GOP has.
If there’d been a procedural vote earlier in the week I’m almost certain it would’ve worked. Once the compromisers started dominating the conversation there wasn’t any chance, though.
Wile E. Quixote
Isn’t North Dallas Thirty some kind of contractor? I’ll bet he loved the economy between 2002 and 2007. He was probably hiring illegal immigrant labor and paying them under the table to put together shoddily constructed McMansions which were then purchased by real estate speculators with NINJA loans. Yeah, that Bush economy, the one that was based on nothing more than real-estate speculation was probably a real good thing for ND30.
Just Some Fuckhead
Please God don’t let Al Green have a wardrobe malfunction while performing with Justin Timberlake.
North Dallas Thirty
The people who spend will not (even if they could) differentiate how they spend the stimulus money and on what goods based on whether the company they go to is union or not.
If the stimulus plan were about government writing checks directly to people to spend, you might have a point.
But unfortunately, they’re not. The "spending" is going directly to places like Planned Parenthood so that said clinics can keep their doors open and keep advising thirteen-year-olds on how to cross state lines to avoid parental and criminal notification laws. The Obama Party’s advisors like Robert Reich are specifically setting up roadblocks to ensure that, if you’re a white male construction worker or a skilled professional or technician, the stimulus money is not for you.
Meanwhile, the Obama Party is deliberately torpedoing the one thing that would put money into peoples’ and businesses’ hands to spend right away: an immediate reduction in tax rates, as Obama’s own economic advisors have shown in their research.
kay
@pattonbt:
And the government will take over their business? You seriously need help. At least try and come to the party with some rationality. The world in your head must be a strange place.
I think this was a reference to Obama’s attempt to limit the pay of failed CEO’s who are wholly taxpayer-dependent.
Conservative Senators object to that because it’s anti-free market. CEO’s should be paid on merit. In this case, they would be making nothing, but never mind. That’s "details".
Cain
@Tonal Crow:
What would be so sweet is that they try this and they fail, and then watch the right wing deadenders bitch at the Republicans for not have any fortitude.. they’ll start eating themselves. It’ll be awesome.
cain
Laura W
@Just Some Fuckhead: I had no idea what you were talking about here till I read above in the thread and yes, if you don’t get your Grammy thread let’s go back to the previous one because I had an Al Green all ready to go for you earlier today! Plus, I was just listening to all the great tunes from earlier all over again.
Josh Hueco
Planned Parenthood? God, I know it’s Sunday night, but the troll quality is sorely lacking.
Also, when a government contract doesn’t go to Blackwater or Haliburton a wingnut weeps.
Stuck
I think North Dallar Thirty was the prequel to the Movie North Dallas Fourty with Nick Nolte and Mac Davis. Or maybe that was N/D 11eventy.
El Cid
The Ironies of History:
Mnemosyne
Wow, ND30 is just getting more and more unhinged now that he realizes his party’s not in control anymore, isn’t he?
Point of fact: no one advised a 13-year-old to avoid parental notification laws. An adult pretending to be 13 came in and told an outlandish sob story to try and get a PP rep to say something stupid to her hidden camera.
Please show us an actual 13-year-old who was given that advice, not someone who carefully crafted a story to back the PP employee into a corner.
North Dallas Thirty
Where did the wealth created by President Bush’s tax cuts go?
Question: what was going on in the economy in 1999?
That’s right, it was at the height of the Internet bubble, which everyone agrees at this point was a massive and artificially-inflated overvaluation of stocks and capital assets.
Now consider that, in September of 2008, in the middle of a major crash, the economy was at or slightly higher than it had been at the top of the last economic boom.
Plenty of value to be found there.
Stuck
Well then, seems reasonable to me. I mean how many white male construction workers will need an abortion. And isn’t interstate commerce a good thing. Why shouldn’t the baby killing Obamarxist blue states get all that bidness.
I’m experimenting on how to think like a wingnut liberal. It’s not easy.
Svensker
@North Dallas Thirty:
Which one of your asses are you pulling these "facts" out of?
But I guess it’s hard to understand what you’re saying when your teeth are full of turd chunks…too distracting.
Conservatively Liberal
Shorter North Dallas Thirty: I suck Rushublican ass.
I can tell, it looks like you just pried a chocolate donut off of your face.
When I read something like what this fuckwit just wrote it drives home the fact that there are Americans who hate to see workers do well in our country. This is the same thing as saying that they want our nation to fail. A strong, healthy and happy workforce makes for a strong economy and nation. If people have good paying jobs they can save and spend at the same time instead of living from paycheck to paycheck like most do in our service-based economy.
No, these asshats don’t give a shit about anyone but themselves. They don’t want you to earn a good living because in their opinion, you don’t deserve it. They would rather have you compete against poor people in other nations who will work at any price to earn a meal to survive. Free trade was a tool that was used quite effectively to destroy the manufacturing sector of our economy,leaving it in the weakened state that it is today. These people would gladly slice their own wrists to make sure that you are not paid a fair wage, they would rather see our economy in the crapper.
So you think that the problem is that American union workers are "low-quality labor"? No, I think your problem is that you have no fucking brains.
News Nag
Caution: Nazi analogy ahead…
It’s true, however. Big German business, as well as Big American Business (Prescott Bush, et al!), financially supported the Nazi Party from very early on, with Hitler as its prime motivator and ideologue.
Big Business was happy to promote the rabid dog of modern European history (as opposed to timid yappy poodle Blair) as a means of stimulating the arms industries and, likely even moreso, to aim the Nazi dagger into the heart of Soviet Communism.
However, Big Business’ Hitler Plan went more haywire than most Big Business jerkwads even imagined, putting even them (and their nations) at the mercy of a madman’s psychotic whims. I mean, what IF Hitler had expedited the A-bomb instead of jets and rockets?
Reminds me of Bush to a lesser degree. Good thing nobody told W about the top-secret fleet of flying saucers kept under Yucca Mountain.
Love,
News Nag
Just Some Fuckhead
@Laura W: I never get anything nice like the others.
El Cid
Dumbass. Yeah, Arlen Specter was being all dodgy, trying to hide the fact that this was just made up.
From the United States Chamber of Commerce.
Calling for Passage of H.R. 1, the "American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009"
February 6, 2009
TO THE MEMBERS OF THE UNITED STATES SENATE:
With the U.S. economy continuing to deteriorate, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce calls on the Senate to approve without delay H.R. 1, the “American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.” The legislation is not perfect—parts of the bill should be modified or eliminated. However, the Chamber urges the Senate to approve H.R. 1, and encourages Congress and the Administration to work on a conference report that provides timely, targeted, and temporary economic stimulus.
The Chamber supports pro-growth tax initiatives in the bill. In particular, the Chamber strongly supports provisions that would: extend the net operating loss (NOL) carryback period; provide for bonus depreciation and allow a refundable alternative minimum tax (AMT) credit in lieu of bonus depreciation; extend small business expensing; extend AMT relief; and provide a housing credit. The Chamber also supports provisions to extend the Trade Adjustment Assistance program.
In addition, the Chamber strongly supports the Reid-Conrad-Ensign proposal on cancellation of indebtedness (COI). The Chamber applauds the inclusion of tax relief for companies that purchase their own or related party debt at a discount by providing relief from the current COI rules. This important provision applies to all restructurings, including debt-for debt, equity-for-debt, cashfor- debt, and similar exchanges. This provision helps preserve jobs, facilitates the deleveraging of the U.S. economy, and strengthens financial institutions’ balance sheets.
Moreover, many of the spending-side provisions of the legislation will also provide stimulus and get Americans back to work. Of note, the Chamber strongly supports provisions to increase infrastructure spending. Shrinking state budgets and the tightening credit market are leaving many planned projects without direct funding or financing. The already massive backlog of maintenance on America’s roads, rails, public transportation systems, aviation facilities, and inland waterways and ports is growing. Greater transportation investment is necessary to preserve and create jobs in the short-term and provide long-term economic benefits by helping improve the movement of people and goods.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the world’s largest business federation representing more than three million businesses and organizations of every size, sector, and region, urges the Senate to approve H.R. 1. The Chamber looks forward to working with the Senate, House and Administration to accomplish meaningful economic stimulus legislation that can be signed into law in the coming days.
Sincerely,
R. Bruce Josten
R. Bruce Josen is listed as the Executive VP for Governmental Affairs for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a Senior Staff position.
Clearly, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is trying to hide the positions of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Did I say dumbass?
Josh Hueco
fxt.
Just Some Fuckhead
How about Kerry Underwood’s outfit? Was she going commando under that two-sizes-too-small maternity dress?
North Dallas Thirty
Please show us an actual 13-year-old who was given that advice, not someone who carefully crafted a story to back the PP employee into a corner.
Into what "corner", precisely, was this Planned Parenthood employee backed?
The law is quite clear: a pregnant thirteen-year-old not only needs parental notification to get an abortion, but the law to be notified as to why she is pregnant in the first place.
Had this Planned Parenthood employee told the girl no, the law was on the Planned Parenthood employee’s side. She didn’t. Instead, she deliberately told the girl how to break the law.
Furthermore, your argument is akin to saying that drug dealers who sell to undercover law enforcement agents shouldn’t be held accountable because the persons in question weren’t "real" drug customers.
But of course, an Obama Party supporter can’t ever admit that an abortion pusher was wrong. I can’t wait to hear your rationalization for this one.
kay
@Stuck:
Here’s what Reich really said.
"I’d suggest that all contracts entered into with stimulus funds require contractors to provide at least 20 percent of jobs to the long-term unemployed and to people withincomes at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty level. And at least 2 percent of project funds should be allocated to such training. In addition, advantage should be taken of buildings trades apprenticeships — wich must be fully available to women and minorities."
The federal poverty level is 10,400 for an individual. Reich wants to set aside 20% of building trades jobs for people who make less than 20,800 dollars a year. That seems reasonable. There’s no quota for women or minorities.
Laura W
@Just Some Fuckhead: She totally reminded me of Bonnie Whoever in Total Eclipse of the Heart video.
(Is this our strategy for the open thread campaign?)
kay
@kay:
"The Obama Party’s advisors like Robert Reich are specifically setting up roadblocks to ensure that, if you’re a white male construction worker or a skilled professional or technician, the stimulus money is not for you."
Contrast what he wrote with what Reich actually said, above.
Why can’t they make an argument without making stuff up?
North Dallas Thirty
Clearly, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is trying to hide the positions of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Well, I went off the original Politico argument, which didn’t mention it. Thanks for adding that.
That being said, apparently you missed this part:
With the U.S. economy continuing to deteriorate, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce calls on the Senate to approve without delay H.R. 1, the “American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.” The legislation is not perfect—parts of the bill should be modified or eliminated.
So much for that business blank check that Specter was trying to argue existed.
Meanwhile, what are they actually supporting in the bill? Tax cuts and targeted infrastructure spending, NOT the welfare extravaganza or the protectionist pseudo-tariff that the Obama Party is trying to make of it.
Try putting those back in and see how far you get.
pattonbt
@North Dallas Thirty:
What does your reply have to do with the point I refuted about your rant on unions and the stimulus? Planned parenthood? Affirmative action? WTF?
So you cant back up your orginal argument, because it was wrong, so you fall back on wingnut WOLVERINE-speak!
Again, there are plenty of aspects of this bill which can be seriously debated. Some tax cuts are good some stimulus isnt worth it and some spending shouldnt be in it.
And yes, the Democrats havent been ideal on economic policy either, but they are light years ahead of the Republicans. At least they try and make the ledgers balance.
Republican ideology:
1) Tax cuts
2) ???
3) Fail
4) Terry Shiavo
5) ???
6) Fail
7) Temper tantrum
8) ???
9) Win?
Just Some Fuckhead
@Laura W: I know you’re reluctant to despoil another thread but ND30 already queered it before I said anything about the grammies.
Just Some Fuckhead
It’s damn lucky for Coldplay that the Song of the Year award was decided before they murdered it a few minutes ago.
North Dallas Thirty
If people have good paying jobs they can save and spend at the same time instead of living from paycheck to paycheck like most do in our service-based economy.
And think how much more money would be available for people with jobs to save and spend if the government stopped taking 20 – 30% out of their paychecks.
Do you think that would make a difference? How do you think people would react if you told them that the government was going to allow them to keep the money they earned, rather than taking it from them to fund people who don’t work?
Stuck
@kay:
Thanks kay, though I didn’t even need to read what Reich said to know that ND Thirty was spouting RW Propaganda. It is what happens when a party and political movement builds it’s electoral viability on bullshit lies, then after getting elected, also delivers epic fail. Nobody believes them anymore, and they are like the nut that continues to wing it, because that’s all it knows to do. Someday, I hope we will get trolls from the right who actually have a bright idea we can discuss. Someday.
Meanwhile, it’s all mocking, all the time.
gbear
@Just Some Fuckhead:
If Coldplay just won Song of the Year, I’m glad I’m not watching. Sounds like another obviousfest.
Laura W
@Just Some Fuckhead: Why do you think Kid and Pammy couldn’t make it work?
ricky
Elliott’s Hardware, a North Dallas store, is offering a job
to former President George W. Bush as a greeter. Let us hope North Dallas Thirty will be the first customer to avail himself of the opportunity to be directed to an implement for use on loose screws.
El Cid
@North Dallas Thirty: Dumbass — I neither defended Specter nor the positions of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (though I like their continual call to end the U.S. blockade of Cuba). I was just pointing out you were an idiot for using your own lazy ignorance to suggest that somebody made something up regarding the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a problem fixed by one single solitary visit to the web page of the Chamber.
Josh Hueco
@kay:
This is ND30’s schtick. Come in, regurgitate a couple talking points, get smacked down, climb back up and gurgle a different set of talking points while saying, "See? You couldn’t answer my first argument." Get smacked down again, rinse, repeat, etc.
A visual representation of this dynamic can be found here.
Just Some Fuckhead
@gbear: It’s always an "obviousfest". Ya watch for the live performances. Kid Rock just made me his bitch.
North Dallas Thirty
What does your reply have to do with the point I refuted about your rant on unions and the stimulus?
What exactly did you refute, given this evidence?
Do you agree that government contracts should only be given to unionized shops? Do you support laws that would require Federal government contracts to be awarded solely based on merit, or do you believe that nonunion businesses should be barred from competing for Federal contracts?
The federal poverty level is 10,400 for an individual. Reich wants to set aside 20% of building trades jobs for people who make less than 20,800 dollars a year.
Funny, if I were doing government procurement, I would want the people who could do the job best regardless of what they previously made in salary.
In short, if you’ve got a construction company with 5 skilled guys who have made more than $10 an hour, you have to let one of them go so that you can hire a less-skilled person who hasn’t made that much instead.
Does that make any sense?
TheHatOnMyCat
Me at 1:00 pm.
DougJ at 5:47 pm.
What time tomorrow do you want my line for the day?
Stuck
Yes, of course, a planned parenthood worker trying to help a thirteen year old out of a serious jam is sooo like a drug pusher. Go fuck yourself ND 30 and take your Dark Ages laws with you. The Obama party will be thank you for your effort.
ricky
NDT, stupidity becomes you. Really.
Martin
Funny, I thought Republicans were always clamoring for competitive bidding and who could do the job without wasting taxpayer money. Now the GOP is voting against tax cuts and lowering government spending?
What the fuck do you people stand for, anyway?
Brick Oven Bill
‘Huckabee’ is a really bad show.
This stimulus plan is a really bad bill. We should electrify the railroads.
Just Some Fuckhead
They’ll let anyone perform at the grammies now, won’t they?
pattonbt
@North Dallas Thirty:
Just say it – you dont think the government should take any of your money. Period. Thats your ideology, stop trying to make up facts to make you sound anything other than the selfish Randian you are. Laffer curve, bullshit. Trickle down, bullshit. Tax cuts, bullshit. Its all about keeping yours, yours.
You work hard for your money (whatever) and you do not want to share. End of story. You see no benefit to societal stability in making sure certain social needs are funded by communal funds.
There will always be an argument as to where the line should be set up for societal goods to be force funded communally through tax, but for you, its zero.
The rest of the rational world knows that having certain societal benefits funded by communal taxation provide a stability to a society that allows many to propser minimally and some to propsper greatly, much more than they would in an anarchic state.
Grow up and just admit you are selfish and dont want to share in your propserity and stop trying to make up facts that try and make it sound like you are doing so on principled economic theory.
Just Some Fuckhead
Cool, Robert Plant and Alison Krause won duo with Rich Woman. I dig that song.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Laura W: I make it my business not to know stuff like that. :)
North Dallas Thirty
Go fuck yourself ND 30 and take your Dark Ages laws with you.
Yes, as we know, truly "enlightened" Obama Party members like yourself don’t like laws that make it hard for people to have sex with thirteen-year-olds or to get rid of the evidence.
You want to help a pregnant thirteen-year-old? Go after the bastard who got her pregnant. Then tell her parents. Thirteen-year-olds are not allowed to have sex or consent to medical procedures for a reason: they’re not old enough to understand the consequences. A thirteen-year-old in this situation is being used and exploited, both by the person who got her pregnant and the abortion provider.
But again, heaven forbid that abortionists ever be held accountable for their behavior.
Michael Leza
Don’t blame me, I voted for Kodos.
Just Some Fuckhead
@Martin:
I was thinking come 2010 it might be fun to run against Republicans for voting against billions of dollars in tax cuts. hehe.
kay
I said it earlier, but I really am convinced.
They don’t know the election is over. The insane histrionics on the stimulus bill are like John McCain’s entire campaign.
I read "Obama wants quotas for women and minorities and he’s going to take your business!"
Then I read this mild suggestion by Reich, none of that in there, and that’s the source of this hysteria.
It’s like it’s September 2008, forever. They want a do-over.
handy
@Martin:
Whatever the Democrats happen to be proposing for the moment, look for the opposite. There it is.
Stuck
@North Dallas Thirty:
Tell her parents, fundamentalist friekoids who would likely want a 13 year old to bear the child of a rapist, just to satisfy their own religious nutbaggery. You know genius, the law can be made to allow the girl to decide and allow her to abort the fetus of a rapist AND preserve evidence. It’s called DNA. And I don’t have a problem telling the parents beforehand, but not let them ruin the life of a 13 year old for their OWN beliefs.
Conservatively Liberal
The low paid workers of our country (whom you were disparaging) are not paying 20-30% in taxes.
You are a fucking idiot. Wipe that
donut glazeshit off of your face and chew a breath mint.Also.
North Dallas Thirty
Funny, I thought Republicans were always clamoring for competitive bidding and who could do the job without wasting taxpayer money.
They are.
It’s simply the fact that anyone who has ever hired a contractor knows that paying someone who actually knows what they’re doing, even though it costs more, saves money; they get the job done faster, the work is of higher quality, and it doesn’t need multiple attempts to fix the same thing.
What’s really funny about this is that you’re making this accusation in the same thread in which we have the Obama Party people screaming about how goods and services made and provided overseas must be of lower quality because they’re cheaper.
You see no benefit to societal stability in making sure certain social needs are funded by communal funds.
If I felt that way, pattonbt, I wouldn’t give nearly as much time and energy as I do to charitable concerns, nor would I be taking money out of my own pocket to give to people who I know need it.
You and your fellow Obama Party members simply cannot comprehend how anyone could give to the poor without governmental mandate, because you certainly don’t. Furthermore, it is beyond hilarious to watch Obama Party members like yourself call Republicans "selfish" for opposing higher taxes when your party’s leadership, as exemplified by Obama, Geithner, Daschle, Solis, Franken, Rangel, and others, refuse to pay them.
Indeed, I have a better question: since you support paying higher taxes, why don’t you and all your Obama Party friends here just write a check to the Federal government for 30% of all your assets, or whatever your tax bracket happens to be, and forego taking any deductions or exemptions? Practice what you preach. Show your "solidarity".
Stuck
Jeevus, ND 30 , how long is this trollfu wingnut manifesto going to go on. As long as it takes, I suspect. Carry on.
TheHatOnMyCat
Well, that isn’t going to happen. That’s the price that is paid to live in a modern, western, liberal democracy.
And unless that liberal democracy (no, that’s not "liberal" in the American political liberal sense, it’s in this sense) acts quickly, those people you are talking about are not going to have jobs and taxes to pay, very soon.
Of course, those folks can always put their resources together and figure out to have things like roads, schools, bridges, airports, police and fire protection, public hospitals, food inspection, weather forecasting … you know, all those little things that make life as we know it generally possible ….. without paying for them.
Also, DougJ, if you weren’t copying my posts, you wouldn;t have time to write this spoofyassed treacle.
Josh Hueco
You would also know then that simple noblesse oblige isn’t enough.
The Oracle
Businesses are seeing a repeat of the 1929 to 1933 period, during which unemployment rose to over 25 percent.
Rising unemployment cuts into the client base of many small to medium-sized businesses.
As the client base shrinks so does the revenues shrink of many small to medium-sized businesses, leading to small to medium-sized business owners thinking about laying off workers…which only exacerbates the problem by swelling the ranks of the unemployed…shrinking the consumer/client base even further…squeezing even more small to medium-sized businesses…leading to even more layoffs…increasing the number of unemployed…etc. etc. etc….a vicious business cycle…that adversely all businesses, including those small to medium-sized ones owned by Republicans.
If the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is for the Democrat’s/Obama’s economic stimulus package, then they must be getting an earful from state and local chambers of commerce, who realize that rising unemployment levels is bad news for everyone. This trend must be stopped or a whole lot of small to medium-sized businesses, owned by whomever of whatever party affiliation, will be severely hurt and probably go out of business, a repeat of what happened between 1929 and 1933.
Paulson’s FORTUNE 500 upper-management bail-out plan didn’t stop the widespread job loss bleeding, revenue shrinking and small business squeezing in states and communities across America.
Most distressed state governors, except for three Republican governors in the South, are calling for massive injections of federal money into their states, just like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is advocating.
Tax cuts, by themselves, will not reverse what has been set in motion. In fact, tax cuts are the equivalent of Paulson’s FORTUNE 500 giveaway program, essentially a tax rebate program for those already with a lot of money.
Only massive government spending directed at the lowest economic tier, you know, the consumer/small-business-customer base, will have a chance of stopping and reversing this vicious business cycle.
In my view, President Obama’s economic recovery plan doesn’t go far enough, either in its original or revised form. But compromising with the congressional Republicans, and a few so-called "centrist" Democrats, who helped cause this mess in the first place, by heeding their call to up tax cuts while slashing revenue spending, can only make matters worse.
Remember, the only way to stop what is happening is to find some way to maintain current job levels (no more jobs lost, no more shrinking of small business revenues) by creating jobs across the board, in states and communities across America. Only after this is done can job creation occur to offset the jobs already lost. Call this revenue-sharing between our federal government and us "socialism" if you want to, but a massive infusion of federal funds into state and local communities (into workers pockets and small business tills) is the only thing that will work right now…which apparently some Republicans don’t want to see happen because it might make President Obama look good…making each day that passes, as unemployment skyrockets, look more and more like any day between 1929 and 1933.
Gee, maybe this is what has gotten even the U.S. Chamber of Commerce spooked?
handy
So you’re selfish, but feel guilty about it.
North Dallas Thirty
The low paid workers of our country (whom you were disparaging) are not paying 20-30% in taxes.
Barack Obama’s supporter and endorser Warren Buffett says they are.
Mr Buffett said that he was taxed at 17.7 per cent on the $46 million he made last year, without trying to avoid paying higher taxes, while his secretary, who earned $60,000, was taxed at 30 per cent.
Meanwhile, as for disparaging low-paid workers, I think you and your fellow Obama Party protectionists have that one covered already.
They would rather have you compete against poor people in other nations who will work at any price to earn a meal to survive.
Again, since Obama Party members like yourself support only low-paid and unskilled labor, I suggest you put in your own private stimulus package. Hire the cheapest contractor you can find, unlicensed of course, and have them do major household work for you.
Because that’s what you’re demanding businesses do to get stimulus dollars.
Stuck
If Dougj is writing this dreg ND 30, and has gone to the trouble of creating a ND 30 blog, and is writing for Cole on top of all his other trollspoof duties. Then all I can say is, I want to order what he’s having.
calipygian
deleted because it was very intemperate, even by my standards.
gwangung
No. Just a liar. A very bad liar.
Martin
$60K is not low-paid, moron. It’s median. Last year median gross was $61,500.
Can you tell the difference between $60K and $20,800? No?
kay
And I go to Politico, and it’s Joe Biden and….John McCain!
John McCain, our unelected President. ALL OVER Politico.
A man who was so completely incoherent on the economy he had to promise to read, incredibly, Alan Greenspan’s book. Because he didn’t know (of course) that Greenspan’s been discredited.
He just got thumped, on the economy, so who better to play President , on the economy, of course.
Stuck
@calipygian:
He only wants to avoid making baby Jeebus cry. Any Red Blooded American would after all.
handy
@kay:
I saw a McCain sound byte a few minutes ago that struck me as truly bizarre and wondering if the guy might be (to put it gently) losing it. He basically said, "When the Republicans and Bush were in charge the last eight years we weren’t partisan. Now look! Obama and Pelosi and Reid are doing it too. I thought we were going to see change." Then he just chuckled and gave a little glance at the camera like he really got in a good zinger there!
So glad that one didn’t win.
Brian Griffin
@ND30: And think how much more money would be available for people with jobs to save and spend if the government stopped taking 20 – 30% out of their paychecks.
This is a winning argument, because you can see how well this works out in other countries with low tax income tax rates, like Haiti, for example, or perhaps pre-9/11 Afghanistan. That explains why those countries had, and still have, such a successful pro-business climate.
In that regard it’s not surprising that the Taliban has become the political model for today’s GOP.
El Cid
I would like to be making $60K a year even if I have to suffer 30% tax rates (even if it’s a real, and not simply hypothetical given deductions and write-off’s).
calipygian
If ND30 would love a libertarian paradise with no taxes and no gubmint regulation, I recommend Somalia.
I hear the climate and the beaches are terrific, too!
Conservatively Liberal
You think $60,000.00 a year is low pay? You are completely out of touch with reality. Oh, right, that is a requirement for Rushublican membership.
Yes indeed, you are a fucking idiot. But please, keep going because it is entertaining seeing out of touch people wandering around talking nonsense. Kind of like that crazy old homeless drunk/mental patient that hangs out in just about every downtown in America.
Every village needs its idiot and we have found ours.
North Dallas Thirty
$60K is not low-paid, moron. It’s median. Last year median gross was $61,500.
So that qualifies her to be paying 30% of her income in taxes?
Tell us, why don’t you and your fellow Obama Party members start defining where the cutoff points are, now that you’re saying people who make $60k a year should be paying 30% in taxes?
pattonbt
@North Dallas Thirty:
"You and your fellow Obama Party members simply cannot comprehend how anyone could give to the poor without governmental mandate, because you certainly don’t"
Um, no. Charitable contributions are nice. But they dont build and maintain sufficient roads, schools, hospitals, power grids, defense, etc. They do great for charitable things like shelters, food banks, blood banks, etc. So good on you for supporting charity.
Its takes both. Thats the difference between Republicans and everyone else. Us others realize that it takes both mandated programs funded by communal taxes AND charitable contributions to make a society work. Republicans believe in magic fairy land where things just work because they give a couple bucks to the local chruch.
As for those who dont pay taxes, a pox on them. You will not find me defending those from any side of the isle. They deserve what they get.
I actually believe in paying taxes (I do it in 2 countries for goodness sake). I have no problem in writing over 30% of my income to the government, I already do, and I dont bitch and moan about it. I will inherit a buttload of money later in life and the government is going to take a huge bite out of it. I hate it one level but I know it is for the greater good. I recognize the government isnt perfect at allocating or spending those funds, but the good outweighs the bad and I try and hold them accountable with my vote. I accept I cant make it perfect and let the good deeds done outweigh the anger I have at the waste – dont throw the baby out with the bathwater kind of thinking.
My dad taught me at a young age that if you are paying taxes that means you are doing well. So I give back in both ways – charitably for my causes and taxes to keep my country sound for future prosperity. Its pretty simple actually once you get over your selfish knee-jerkism.
TheHatOnMyCat
Well, besides my material, it would appear that he is living on amphetamines.
So, yeah.
handy
Fake. So fake.
North Dallas Thirty
You think $60,000.00 a year is low pay?
Well, according to your own statistic, that’s below average for most Americans, is it not?
Last year median gross was $61,500.
So half of Americans make MORE than $60,000. Are you saying that they’re all selfish rich people who should have their taxes hiked?
TheHatOnMyCat
What is the total effective tax rate in the top 30 modern western liberal democracies? What tax elements typically make up that effective rate?
The last time I looked, the US was down toward the bottom of that list in total effective tax rate.
I’m guessing that the lack of national healthcare is what keeps us at that low point on the chart. Since we employ the YOYO approach, that lets us keep the tax rates low.
TheHatOnMyCat
Who reads Politico?
Chet
Or, even better – do the latter first, and you’ll probably find the former, too.
That’s the problem with parental notification laws – given that most sexual abuse is intra-familial, you’re putting 13-year-old girls in the position of having to get permission for their abortion from their rapist.
North Dallas Thirty
I hate it one level but I know it is for the greater good.
Then you should be signing over all of your income to the government.
Seriously. If you’re so much about the greater good, it’s selfish for you to keep any of your money. You’ve already said that it’s OK if the government wastes it; giving money to the government in your belief is ALWAYS good.
So sign it over and go on welfare.
It’s funny; as I wrote about yesterday, you see all these Obama Party members waxing about how taxes are good and how everyone should want their tax rates raised like these Obama Party members do, but they won’t take the step and actually sign over to the government the 50%, 60%, whatever percent to which they wish to raise everyone else’s taxes.
North Dallas Thirty
That’s the problem with parental notification laws – given that most sexual abuse is intra-familial, you’re putting 13-year-old girls in the position of having to get permission for their abortion from their rapist.
So the cure is, of course, to tell the girl how to get an abortion without either parental permission OR reporting the sexual abuse, as was done in this case.
Nice attempt to protect your abortion-pushing allies, Chet, but all you do is make the argument even more ridiculous.
TheHatOnMyCat
If we added debt service related to the coming crisis, plus healthcare using a single-payer system, what would the US total effective tax rate be in, say, ten years?
How do you know, Doug?
Chet
Yeah, sounds good to me. A rapist gets away, maybe, but they probably would have anyway (have you seen the conviction rates for rapes?) In the meantime a young girl gets the help she needs.
Who the fuck is the "Obama Party"?
Gus
ND30, you’re awfully fixated on sex with 13 year old girls. Just sayin’.
Danton
$60K per annum is a pretty good salary… if you live in Pawnee Rock, Kansas, and don’t have children.
Mike in NC
"North Douchebag 30": must admit that this anti-tax, anti-abortion, anti-Obama Party trolling is getting extremely lame. You have our permission to go fuck yourself now.
Conservatively Liberal
@North Dallas Thirty:
Like the typical wingnut, once proven wrong you go off on another tangent in an attempt to somehow validate what you claimed in the first place. Did I say that taxing someone who makes $60,000.00 a year at that rate is good? NO. We were talking about your definition of ‘low pay’, weren’t we? Right. Now that we have corrected your definition of low pay lets address this new issue you have raised.
No, taxing someone who makes $60,000.00 a year at a rate of 30% is not good, but you wouldn’t like my solution either. Adjust the rate scale upward, remove the loopholes and have no cap on it. IOW, the more you make the more they take. That would be a fair solution. The more you benefit from this great nation of ours, the more you return in ‘gratitude’ so it can be reinvested back into the economy with investments in infrastructure and maintaining the health of the populace.
I can already guess that this would be objectionable to you but it ought to be interesting to see how you respond to my suggestion.
The Other Steve
Just tossing a tidbit out there.
The TARP funding, along with the money the Fed has moved into the markets to try to stabilize things is all part of a Milton Friedman economics policy… increasing the supply of money blah blah blah.
one side effect of this is inflation.
If we can stimulate an inflation in salaries… this will help with debt of all sorts. Mortgage debt, federal debt, etc.
Just thought you would like to know. It’s been my belief for several years now that the govt would respond to the debt problem with inflation. And that they have done.
Josh Hueco
@Chet:
The nearly 67 million Americans who voted for "That One."
North Dallas Thirty
Yeah, sounds good to me. A rapist gets away, maybe, but they probably would have anyway (have you seen the conviction rates for rapes?) In the meantime a young girl gets the help she needs.
Sure, why worry about stopping the sexual abuse when you can just get rid of the evidence? Besides, a thirteen-year-old always makes the right decision.
Sheesh.
TheHatOnMyCat
ND30 will be right back after he figures out how this chart shows that Americans are among the lowest-taxed people in the modern world.
Okay, it’s an illusion, since YOYO Healthcare is itself a brutal and sociopathic tax on all but the richest citizens ….
But we can’t ask ND30/DougJ to have an answer right off the top of his imaginary head.
pattonbt
@North Dallas Thirty:
I would say dont be obtuse, but thats your whole game so it would be wasted.
Theres no question that I have a line somewhere which I would think would be too much to give to the government. I dont pretend to be Mother Theresa. I could probably be counted upon for another 10% of my salary if push came to shove before I would start getting agitated.
And you know I didnt say it was all good, I recognize that there is a downside and said as much.
This is where you lose everytime. You try and make it black and white. You try and find one example of waste or error or hate and extrapolate it to the population as a whole so you can have your black and white world.
I know this may come as a shock, but the world isnt black and white, its all sorts of grey. Grey which requires thought, dedication, compromise and sacrifice.
And the reason why I do not hand over more of my salary voluntarily right now is that too many people in power who can control how funds are allocated would allocate that money in ways which I find abhorrent. Good thing is, those people seem to be dying to destroty their party and are slowly being replaced by moderate progressives. As the agenda changes, they can have more of my money happily.
JL
@North Dallas Thirty: Actually I friends who own a few small businesses. They thought that in order to hire capable people to manage and work in their stores, it was important for them to take less profit. They could live on less. Different strokes for different folks.
Conservatively Liberal
I am starting to wonder if ND30 makes $60,000.00 a year, pays 30% in taxes and is banging his 13 year old daughter.
You know it would be irresponsible not to speculate.
Enough of this shit, time to get out the guitar and annoy the neighbors. This idiot has already bored me to tears. Or is that tears of laughter? Well, one or the other and I have better things to do.
Brian J
Some have said that a vote against the stimulus is a safe vote for the Republicans. If they do so and the economy recovers fast enough that Obama and the Democrats get credit, they can take the role of playing the loyal opposition. But if the economy doesn’t recover fast enough, they can say they were right all along and try to regain power based on that.
Maybe it will be that easy for them, but I doubt it. Regardless, they aren’t being responsible. They are being immature cowards, and something tells me Obama’s political operation is going to be more than capable and willing to remind them of this during the next two elections.
Chet
Personally, I see a pregnant 13-year-old girl as a young person in a world of shit who needs a hand, not as "evidence." But that’s just me, I guess. Keep describing young women and fetuses as nothing more than the "evidence" of crimes and then try to tell me you belong to the party with deep concerns about human dignity. Yeah, that’s a winner, right there.
Nobody always makes the right decision. Living with that is what adults have to learn to do in a free society. I know conservatives have a hard time with that concept.
JL
What I find interesting is the flack that Obama is receiving. Let’s see within three weeks, he has promised to close Gitmo, turned over by executive order some of the most egregious orders of Bush, signed the Schip bill, and will sign a stimulus within a few days.
Stuck
@North Dallas Thirty:
And what other decision would be right, other than to abort the fetus of a 13 year old rape victim?
There is something oddly systematic about this guys trolling. Almost like an organized pre meditated troll raid. Something to look for in the future. Maybe
TheHatOnMyCat
Heh.
John T
@handy:
Sadly, no. I’ve seen this guy stink up other blogs before too, and his m.o. is the same each time. He eventually gets banned because of his annoying Calvinball tactics and outright bullshit lies.
JL
@North Dallas Thirty: I have always been pro life but I feel that life begins after birth.
KG
Um, I’m pretty sure that the cut off points are in the US Tax Code. Oh, yeah, that’s right it is 26 USC 1. There are the tax rates, as signed into law by George W Bush.
pattonbt
@Brian J:
The problem for the Republicans is they dont have a fresh face to help them get through (thinking from just an optics standpoint). The people they have can only connect with the die hards – preaching to the choir. They’ve been around too long, talk in the same tired old talking points and seem too much to play the TV game.
They lack a certain…seriousness that times like these require. To them, its about the game not solving the problems. People just see the McCains, Boehners, etc. and just think ‘Them again? Havent we had enough of the giddy southern frat boys yet?’
I know thats a superficial part of this process, but it does them a disservice, and as I want to see them lose, more power to them to keep going this way (maybe they should try the tire gauge thingy again).
Church Lady
@JSF(#46) – Funny. My husband said the same thing. He wondered if she was eating when they called her name.
North Dallas Thirty
We were talking about your definition of ‘low pay’, weren’t we?
Yup. And as I pointed out, using your own statistics, $60k a year is below-average pay in the United States.
Your problem is that you won’t say Warren Buffett is wrong. So be it.
IOW, the more you make the more they take. That would be a fair solution.
Sorry, but as Rangel, Franken, Solis, Daschle, Geithner, Obama, and others show, your Obama Party and you and your fellow liberals do not believe in actually giving back; you believe in not paying your taxes.
Meanwhile, who "benefits most" in this country? Those people who, like Obama’s aunt, receive cheap housing, free healthcare, subsidized everything — and don’t even have to work for it.
JL
@KG: I actually don’t think that some repubs know how taxes work.
TheHatOnMyCat
@North Dallas Thirty:
Your troll fu is weak.
Brian J
@pattonbt:
I agree, although it’s one of many problems. Another issue, although one that’s amusingly in the back ground, is the failure of these people to turn some of the bigger names in the Democratic party into villains like they did to people like Hillary Clinton. I’m sure you’ve heard plenty of conservatives rail against Nancy Pelolsi, but unless you’re already sympathetic enough to their cause to be voting for the Republicans, which is not enough of the public, the most likely response is "Who? Oh, wait, her? That lady from California? What’s the deal with her? [loses interest]"
handy
@John T:
So be it. I guess it’s hard to believe that someone can be so dense, ironic (while not meaning to be ironic), moronic and inarticulate that I was just giving the troll the benefit of the doubt.
KG
@154: I wish I didn’t know how taxes work, but I had to take a tax law course to earn my JD. I’m still in favor of simplification (and really, if I could be emperor for a day, I’d impose a national sales tax and repeal the income tax); it’s not so much that rates are too high, it’s that the system is too complex.
Oh, and ND30, regarding the rates that Buffett pays… well, it really depends on what kind of income he’s being taxed on. If most of his income is capital income, that gets taxed at a different rate than his salary. If he’s getting stock options or deferred payments that gets taxed at different rates. The net rate comparison is irrelevant.
pattonbt
@North Dallas Thirty:
Obama’s aunt now?
Whats next, his half brother in Kenya? The birth certificate thing?
You really cant defend anything can you.
You just pick one off the wall example and taint the whole system based on one problem.
Eric Stratton would be impressed. "And I will not sit here and listen to you badmouth the United States of America! Gentlemen!"
North Dallas Thirty
Theres no question that I have a line somewhere which I would think would be too much to give to the government.
Oh, and here you were calling me "selfish" for saying the same thing a few posts ago.
It never fails. The Obama Party members whine about how complaining about government waste and not being overjoyed about paying more in taxes is "selfish", but always come up with creative excuses for why they don’t fork over the cash themselves.
gbear
Rachel Maddow has some words of wisdom for ND30.
TheHatOnMyCat
Bzzt. The material is getting incoherent now.
Are you posting and drinking?
handy
@North Dallas Thirty:
Did I say "Moronic?" I meant "Retard."
kay
@handy:
I got it, John McCain. I got it the first 40 times you said it in.
You’re not voting for the stimulus. Ear marks, Christmas tree, blah, blah blah. Nine solid months of John McCain’s single economic idea. Now we’re treated to overtime.
You’re just 1 of 100 Senator McCain. Shut up and let someone else talk.
Josh Hueco
@North Dallas Thirty:
We’ll make a deal. We agree to voluntarily pay more taxes, but in return we and only we get to use the roads, schools, parks, police, hospitals, etc. etc. etc. etc., and to reap the advantages of more stable government finances. That means no more something for nothing for Textards like you. Deal?
North Dallas Thirty
Um, I’m pretty sure that the cut off points are in the US Tax Code. Oh, yeah, that’s right it is 26 USC 1.
LOL….the funny part about your attempt to do this is that the one claiming that people who make $60k a year are being taxed at 30%; it was Obama’s financial advisor Warren Buffett.
Feel free to say that he and Obama, who repeats the same rhetoric, are both idiots. Or you can do like "Conservatively Liberal" did and twist yourself into knots to try to avoid criticizing The One and his economic brain trust.
Church Lady
All I can say is that if Warren Buffet, who made 17 million or so in income in a single year, is only paying his secretary 60K per year, he is one cheap bastard.
North Dallas Thirty
Personally, I see a pregnant 13-year-old girl as a young person in a world of shit who needs a hand, not as "evidence."
So do I.
Where we differ is that you would rather send a thirteen-year-old, unaccompanied, across state lines to get a major medical procedure in order to having to avoid telling her parents, who you assume are always awful, or reporting the person who had sex with her.
I say that you report the crime, tell the parents, and move forward from there. That neatly avoids all the required assumptions you have, namely that the parents hate their daughter and that the father is always the rapist.
Perry Como
Given our economic history between 2002 and December of 2007, what, exactly, do you define as "failure"?
PikaWingnut! I choose Darrell! Failure is usually defined by something failing. You know, like the global economic meltdown that is currently happening despite eight glorious years of tax cuts.
Is the economy good? Tax cuts!
Is the economy bad? Tax cuts!
What should I have for lunch? Tax cuts!
PROTIP: You can spot Darrells in the wild by observing their inability to stay on topic when they’ve lost a point.
Comrade Darkness
@Stuck: "Tell her parents, fundamentalist friekoids who would likely want a 13 year old to bear the child of a rapist, just to satisfy their own religious nutbaggery."
Well, with a 13 year old odds are, the perp is either her a) father b) uncle c) mom’s boyfriend (my sister is just dealing with a case like this) or d) close family friend.
Yeah it’s rape, but it’s not a stranger. That’s why re-victimizing the victim like the righties SOOO love to do in these cases is so nauseating and heinous. God, they do love to screw em when their down. The more down the better.
KG
I’m sorry, 166 makes no sense. You wanted the cut offs for taxes, so I gave them to you.
Litlebritdifrnt
"fuming silently" I am getting a little weary of all this and perhaps it is because I am not as smart as the President is. However, he has an e-mail list of what? 13 Million people? Send an e-mail to those 13 million and tell them to start e-mailing, calling and writing their representatives and tell them if they don’t support the bill their arses are unemployed come the next election. Am I just being simplistic? (Perhaps this is his plan and he is just waiting until he needs to do it) "sigh"
TheHatOnMyCat
Anybody can read the popular financial press and find out that the typical effective tax rate in the US is about 28%, give or take.
So what? That rate is shockingly low for a modern western country (in this case, OECD countries). It speaks of a country that basically lets the middle class fend for itself against things over which it has no control, such as healthcare costs.
It’s the picture of a country in decline. Considering how rich a country it is, it’s a picture of a social model that is out of control and headed for disaster.
I think Mexico is close to the US on the bottom of the list, perhaps we should start studying their socio-economic model?
North Dallas Thirty
Bzzt. The material is getting incoherent now.
Yes, we know you’re still in denial about the fact that your Obama Party supports and endorses tax cheats like Obama, Rangel, Solis, Daschle, Geithner, Franken, etc.
We agree to voluntarily pay more taxes, but in return we and only we get to use the roads, schools, parks, police, hospitals, etc. etc. etc. etc., and to reap the advantages of more stable government finances.
Better idea: you also deny access to the roads, schools, parks, police, hospitals, etc., etc., etc. to those people who, like Obama’s aunt, pay nothing in taxes.
You don’t have any trouble whatsoever with people who pay lower or zero taxes using and benefitting from government services, nor do you whine about their "fair share". Indeed, you and your party fought tooth and nail to block welfare benefits from having any type of work requirement around them.
Comrade Darkness
"I say that you report the crime, tell the parents, and move forward from there"
Her f*cking parents are involved you loser. How does that work then?
" Indeed, you and your party fought tooth and nail to block welfare benefits from having any type of work requirement around them."
Unless there was childcare widely available. Or did your rightwing fax machine run out of ink before it printed that part?
Walter Sobchak
@ND30 – You win already! Every time you
TheHatOnMyCat
Ah, changing the subject. Do you have any troll moves that are not predictable?
Clearly you don’t think we are worth your best work.
North Dallas Thirty
Ah, the contradiction:
c) mom’s boyfriend (my sister is just dealing with a case like this)
Followed by:
That’s why re-victimizing the victim like the righties SOOO love to do in these cases is so nauseating and heinous.
Excuse me, how is reporting the crime and telling the girl’s mother that her boyfriend is raping her daughter "re-victimizing the victim"?
Or would your sister genuinely prefer not to know that her boyfriend raped her daughter and got her pregnant?
Explain the logic.
pattonbt
@North Dallas Thirty:
Its true, at some point, I will become selfish. Such as I dont really give my time to charity, but to compensate I try to give a bit more in money. See I recognize Im not perfect and I try to be better.
Again, grey, dude, grey.
The difference between you and me is you see no benefit in trying to do better. You see the world as yours and yours. So you make up excuses for your beliefs which have no basis in fact or obtusely take one egregious example and extrapolate it over the entire population to damn the process as a whole. And once called on it, you change the subject and clap harder. You refuse to man up and admit to your core beliefs because you know they are ugly and would look horrible in the light of day. Trust me, no evidence supports your world view, unless your world view is simply ‘me and mine’. Dont be ashamed, you are not alone. 28% of America agrees with you (unfortunately).
North Dallas Thirty
Her f*cking parents are involved you loser. How does that work then?
One, you have no proof that it’s her parents. You assumed that. What if it’s NOT her parents?
Two, reporting the crime means that there’s an investigation. That’s why you do both simultaneously; if the parents are involved, that can be found out in the investigation.
JL
@handy: So true and he needs to be ignored at this point. We’re just taking away from the time that he could spend with those pseudo economists Rush and Sean. The truth hurts for those types.
Josh Hueco
@North Dallas Thirty:
Because they’re the ones who need/use them the most, but have the least capacity to pay.
Like when Clinton signed welfare reform?
TenguPhule
This new troll hasn’t gotten the knack of not outright lying at the start.
Comrade Darkness
My sister is the one who deals with the kid. The mother denies the boyfriend could possibly be doing this. But you insist we force this kid, who isn’t old enough to safely carry a child, to bring this baby to term? F*cking risk her life and screw over her future because her mom is clueless and this man is a pig? That’s not re-victimizing? Bad enough having to testify to the whole thing time after time after time to see the process through to the end to get the jerkwad behind bars. But to do that while carrying the b*stards baby? What are you some kind freaking monster?
You have absolutely no f*cking clue.
Logic is useless.
Stuck
You didn’t answer my solution to this earlier up thread, no doubt because you want to obfuscate what you’re really getting at, which is, not allowing the 13 year, together with authorities to ensure what is best for the child. And that would always be to allow the rape victims fetus to be aborted. Any parent who would force their child to bear a rapists child, especially since it is likely it is someone she knows, is nothing but child abuse. It is the Dark Ages laws you idiots keep forcing that gives the parents the call on whether to abort.. And that’s what causes the family planning advocates to go underground with it, by not telling the parents or the police, and to break the dumb law.
skeptonomist
The people who run big business and donate to politicians want tax cuts (and bailouts if they’re bankers). If they are supporting the stimulus is may just be because it has reached critical mass in terms of tax cuts and other handouts for them, as opposed to money going to poor people and workers (the more unemployed workers, the better for CEO’s in their calculations, which do not necessarily include the overall health of the economy, or which equate that health with their own compensation).
TenguPhule
Your Troll-fu is weak.
JL
@Josh Hueco: Probably the same folks that clean and mow his lawn.
TheHatOnMyCat
@TenguPhule:
Hey! See my 155.
Don’t make me stop this internet.
North Dallas Thirty
Pattonbt, perhaps you need a reminder of your initial statement.
I hate it one level but I know it is for the greater good. I recognize the government isnt perfect at allocating or spending those funds, but the good outweighs the bad and I try and hold them accountable with my vote. I accept I cant make it perfect and let the good deeds done outweigh the anger I have at the waste – dont throw the baby out with the bathwater kind of thinking.
And yet, you refuse to sign over all your money to the government because, and I quote:
Theres no question that I have a line somewhere which I would think would be too much to give to the government.
And the reason why I do not hand over more of my salary voluntarily right now is that too many people in power who can control how funds are allocated would allocate that money in ways which I find abhorrent.
Yet when I define that line and call out clear examples of people in power allocating that money in ways I find abhorrent, you scream that I am, quote:
Just say it – you dont think the government should take any of your money. Period. Thats your ideology, stop trying to make up facts to make you sound anything other than the selfish Randian you are. Laffer curve, bullshit. Trickle down, bullshit. Tax cuts, bullshit. Its all about keeping yours, yours.
You work hard for your money (whatever) and you do not want to share. End of story. You see no benefit to societal stability in making sure certain social needs are funded by communal funds.
You yourself stated above that there is no excuse for withholding your money from the government, that it’s unrealistic to expect them to be "perfect", and that the good deeds done will always outweigh the waste. Add to that your weird adherence to a party that supports cheating on your taxes, and what we see here is grade-A hypocrisy.
Rome Again
No, no, no! Who told you that? They got it all wrong. Didn’t you know? The GOP is the party of GOD, it’s clearly the case, if you take that little line that juts out off the bottom of the "P" it clearly spells GOD.
/wingnut
Josh Hueco
@JL:
Probably. I’m going to guess, from his handle and his douchetacular character, that ND30 lives in Collin "Ah gawt mahne!" County.
North Dallas Thirty
This new troll hasn’t gotten the knack of not outright lying at the start.
Suit yourself.
Mike in NC
This wingnut troll makes me long for the intellectual depth of Antajaranut (sp?) and USA Patriot, among other recent pathetic sacks of shit, or even good old B.O.B!
TenguPhule
It was so nice it had to be said twice.
TheHatOnMyCat
You are going to need to be a better liar than that, Troll30.
You really expect anyone to believe that the reason you don’t surrender your paycheck is that the "people in power" wouldn’t allocate it in a way you approve of?
You’re just a shill for these guys, then.
Rome Again
@Mike in NC:
I’m sure whoever writes Atan and USAP is just trying on a new suit. No need to miss them, their creator is right here, I’m sure. Treat this troll like a psychologist would Sybil and you’ll probably be talking to one of the other ones on a moment’s notice.
Perry Como
So Darrell ND30, do you think another $1.3 trillion in tax cuts would help put people back to work?
TheHatOnMyCat
Purr.
TenguPhule
And when I went the first time , it turned out you lied.
Big surprise.
Groucho48
Buffett was talking about the marginal rate she would be paying at 60,000 a year. Not knowing anything about her dependents or deductions, she almost certainly paid less than 20% in Federal income taxes.
Buffett’s point was that for every dollar his secretary earned past that 60,000, she’d be paying the top tax rate of around 30%, while, he, whose income was primarily from capital gains, would be paying about 17% for every new dollar he earned. He didn’t see this as quite fair.
TheHatOnMyCat
Right you are darlin.
Rome Again
That was very cute honey. Can you start a new one just for me? ;)
TenguPhule
The P stands for Pig, the other white meat.
North Dallas Thirty
You didn’t answer my solution to this earlier up thread, no doubt because you want to obfuscate what you’re really getting at
Actually, your first solution was to eliminate laws requiring abortion providers to notify parents and police when a thirteen-year-old turns up pregnant.
Go fuck yourself ND 30 and take your Dark Ages laws with you.
Then your second solution was a nice combination of antireligious bigotry and assumptions.
Tell her parents, fundamentalist friekoids who would likely want a 13 year old to bear the child of a rapist, just to satisfy their own religious nutbaggery.
So now here we are.
You are insistent that the Planned Parenthood worker was absolutely correct when she told the thirteen-year-old girl to cross state lines because that would allow her to have have an abortion without having to notify the parents and the police. Indeed, you called laws that require the police to be notified "Dark Ages laws".
You claim that you want "the authorities" to participate. You support NOT telling the authorities in the first place and sending a thirteen-year-old, ALONE, across state lines to have an abortion.
You also support stripping the parents of their right to consent to medical procedures being performed on their child because, according to you, all parents are either rapists themselves, religious fundamentalists, or both.
Now tell us, liberal: you can stand up and say, with an honest and straight face, that liberals like yourself who would immediately abort the baby anyway do not care if an abortion provider gives your thirteen-year-old advice to NOT tell you, does NOT notify the police, and sends her out of state to have an abortion.
Perry Como
I thought that was Tunch, errr, I mean cat.
TenguPhule
I have never understood how dividends and cap gains got to be seen as more worthy then an honest earned salary and deserving of a better tax rate.
Of course, I don’t get Republicans and their fascination with the butts of male hookers either.
Josh Hueco
@Mike in NC:
Actually I prefer ND30. He may be wrong, but at least he tries to make some arguments, unlike Atanjurawhatever, who is obviously a spoof, and BOB, who is obviously disturbed.
TenguPhule
Let’s see, how about we give PP a legal shield from lawsuits so they can send an adult to help them along without having to worry about fundie parents trying to sue because the little slut obviously deserved it and needs to learn a lesson.
Happy now?
North Dallas Thirty
You are going to need to be a better liar than that, Troll30.
You really expect anyone to believe that the reason you don’t surrender your paycheck is that the "people in power" wouldn’t allocate it in a way you approve of?
The funny part is, HatOnMyCat, that that statement in my post is a direct quote from pattonbt in his attempt to spin why he refuses to voluntarily hand over more money to the government.
Now, all of a sudden, I’m sure you can come up with reasons for why it’s a good thing, even though you were bashing it before when you thought I said it.
TenguPhule
That would be E for elephant.
TenguPhule
If the child feels the parents wouldn’t allow it and she wants it, what are you going to tell her?
Do we endanger her life and wellbeing simply because you’re a dick?
North Dallas Thirty
So Darrell ND30, do you think another $1.3 trillion in tax cuts would help put people back to work?
Yes, it would.
But I happen to think that’s rather excessive. $250 billion or so is good plenty, given that each dollar of tax cut, according to Obama’s own economic advisors, adds three dollars to the economy.
TheHatOnMyCat
I’m not supporting any outlandish tax policy. You are.
And obviously lying in order to kluge together your arguments.
b-psycho
Y’know what? I’ll humor you on this…
Question: if this is the rationale that Republicans are operating off of, then how come they always propose corporate & capital gains tax breaks first, rather than payroll?
Stuck
Your just a black liar pal, if not a spoof. You can’t even follow a simple description of the way to handle the situation so everyone gets notified, the police can investigate, and the best interest of the child is done. And you insist on leaving open the possibility that the child will bear the child of a rapist, which is really what you want to happen. Piss off sick fuck. Your not worth the typing effort.
Rome Again
You are not eating my cat. Not on the menu, sorry.
The Levite priests insist that God said not to eat pigs.
TenguPhule
Except that it doesn’t.
Every major tax cut passed in the last 8 years did shit for the economy.
It doesn’t create jobs. Hell, it probably REDUCES jobs since less labor is needed to make the same net profit. I’d love to see a study on that particular economic theory.
pattonbt
@North Dallas Thirty:
OK then we are both hypocrites, right? You do not hand over all your money to charity do you?
I have already admitted Im not perfect and not willing to forgo all of my creature comforts. I like having a nice standard of living. Thats the beauty of a progressive mindset, I can do good for myself AND do good for others. Because the richer we all are, the better it is for me. Its pretty simple.
You on the other hand, lie about why you do what you do.
Your views are valid to you no doubt, but you refuse to own them for what they are. You make up excuses and facts to support your cold world view. You do this to try to absolve yourself of responsibilty to be a more active member in making things right and participating financially. You can point to this or that individual act and say ‘see, this is why I dont participate at all, its all rotten’. Its intellectually bankrupt, emotionally ugly and morally repugnant.
So I see the difference between you and me as the honesty of the soul. You lie to yourself so you can sleep better at night for being a worthless human being and I sleep like a baby knowing I do well and do some good to boot where I dont have to.
FYI – I am not registered to any party. Sure, Ive supported D’s for the last 20 years, but if the Republicans would give me a reason to vote for them, I would. I dont put party over pragmatism. I want the best and I dont care what party it comes from. But right now and for the foreseeable future, the lesser evils have D’s next to their names.
Have a nice night.
TenguPhule
Its okay as long as you spit, don’t swallow….or so I heard from the Catholic church…..
Wile E. Quixote
Want to understand North Dallas Thirty? Just watch this.
TheHatOnMyCat
@North Dallas Thirty:
How does a tax cut help me when I lose my job? Let’s see, the people working while there is a 20% unemployment rate will be moved by a tax rebate to go out and buy a big screen tv for every room in the house, and that will get me my job back?
How does that work exactly, mister spooftroll?
The people who are still working won’t be spending, won’t be able to borrow, and will be putting their tax refunds in the mattress as a hedge against the disaster they are sure is just around the corner.
TenguPhule
Unfortunately, the nervous system of a CEO is so slow that it takes awhile for the fear like any other information to make it to the decision centers.
Fulcanelli
If I’m reading this right (link) in 2007 General Electric, a global corporation that earned 173 Billion dollars that year paid just 15.5% in income taxes, roughly about the same rate as a married couple with $37,000 taxable income or less, filing jointly. And it was less than 2006, which was less than 2005.
So where the fuck do the Gooper asshats like I-don’t know-how-many-houses-I-have McCain who incessantly whine about a %35 top corporate tax rate get their figures if I can find this info in 3.65 seconds on teh Googles? It’s the effective tax rate that matters, Johnny.
And how much of what lowered GE’s taxable income to 15.5% from 35% went into the pockets of politicians and PAC’s?
And some other food for thought… How much does that married couple use tax-financed services like roads and highways, the Courts, the IRS, the fire and police departments, port security, and all the rest compared to a giant company like GE? Sounds like they get a bargain compared to the public.
A company should be profitable for a thousand reasons, but level the playing field on personal vs. corporate taxation and our deficit problems will dwindle away.
Rome Again
We’ve had tax cuts out the ying-yang for eight freaking years, so if this is true, WHY are we in a crisis again?
You’re trying to state Obama’s economic advisors believe in trickle down theory? I call bullshit!
North Dallas Thirty
If the child feels the parents wouldn’t allow it and she wants it, what are you going to tell her?
The same thing she gets told when she asks for a body piercing or tattoo, tanning, or junk food in the cafeteria without parental consent.
Liberals always amuse me. You won’t let kids have a Twinkie without having a signed form from their mom and dad, but sending them across state lines for a major medical procedure without reporting it to the police is all hunky-dory.
TenguPhule
Give the IRS 10x more funding and let their hounds loose on everything making more then $250,000 a year.
Problem solved.
Fulcanelli
@North Dallas Thirty:
Link to substantiate this, please?
Leo
I’ve never seen such an inconsequential troll in my life. It’s like he hones in on the most tangential and minor point he can find and tries to make the entire argument about that. Over and over again.
JL
@Josh Hueco: I lived in Dallas a few decades ago. There is actually a nice subdivision called North Dallas Thirty. Unlike most of the postage stamp lots, the thirty houses were situated on an acre. I’m not sure whether or not it was in Collin County but it would have been on the border.
TenguPhule
Rape Pregancies, the new FASHION STATEMENT.
JFCNTZYM.
Try instead comparing this to a malignant tumor that the parents refuse to allow to be removed, thus endangering the health of their ward. Parental consent pretty much takes a back burner at that point when it GOES AGAINST the wellbeing of the child.
handy
@North Dallas Thirty:
To anyone not as gullible enough as yours truly to actually go to the link, the gist is that Obama and his advisors shouldn’t dogmatically adhere to a pure Keynesian approach to economic stimulus, but should also consider cuts…on what? Payroll taxes.
As b-psycho just pointed out, good luck finding any Republican willing to push that tax cut over the kind preferred by their investor-class corporate cronies.
North Dallas Thirty
Hell, it probably REDUCES jobs since less labor is needed to make the same net profit.
What company only wants to make the SAME profit year over year? Every one I’ve ever been involved with wants to grow and make more.
Let’s see, the people working while there is a 20% unemployment rate will be moved by a tax rebate to go out and buy a big screen tv for every room in the house, and that will get me my job back?
Wasn’t the point of mailing out "stimulus" checks that consumers would take the money and spend it, and thus create jobs?
Tax cuts simply eliminate the middleman. It’s far more efficient to let people keep more money in the paychecks they receive every week than to only rebate it once a year. The money is immediately available to them and they don’t have to wait until they file their taxes annually to get it.
TheHatOnMyCat
Ah, THAT’S why these tax cut fanatics talk like assholes!
TheHatOnMyCat
( spits Honey Nut Cheerios all over cat )
Rome Again
If you have a problem with these policies, go tell the people who wrote them. We didn’t. For the record, I got my ears pierced in 1976 on my 14th birthday and I didn’t get parental consent first.
I also used to eat Carnation Breakfast Bars every day in high school (chocolate covered, yummy, wish they still made them) and my parents never knew.
Those policies you are citing have nothing to do with us here. Democrats are not all believers of one simple doctrine (we are quite varied in the things we believe and advocate), you’ll have to do better than to try to hold one group of us accountable for what other groups chose to do.
TenguPhule
And if they get their tax cuts it’s all profit, no extra expenses from a new worker. So yeah.
Corrected.
Tax cuts do not work as stimulus, we have seen it tried in reality and it does not work as advertised.
Wile E. Quixote
Oh, and I love how ND30 refers to "the Obama party", attempting to imply that the Democratic party is now some sort of massive personality cult. Give it a break you ND30, you worthless Texas fairy. You spent the last eight years on your hands and knees begging to suck your own shit off of George Bush’s cock and when you weren’t doing that you were canonizing Ronald Reagan. The Republican party is nothing more than a personality cult for the stupid, the worthless, the bigoted and the weak.
Wile E. Quixote
Oh, and I love how ND30 refers to "the Obama party", attempting to imply that the Democratic party is now some sort of massive personality cult. Give it a break you ND30, you worthless Texas fairy. You spent the last eight years on your hands and knees begging to suck your own shit off of George Bush’s cock and when you weren’t doing that you were canonizing Ronald Reagan. The Republican party is nothing more than a personality cult for the stupid, the worthless, the bigoted and the weak.
Fencedude
Someone please explain to me why a large number of wingnuts seem to think that those of us on the left "enjoy" women having abortions.
North Dallas Thirty
You do not hand over all your money to charity do you?
Nope. But I don’t demand that other peoples’ taxes be raised or that they be forced to contribute more to charity, either.
You do. Hence, I ask with perfect rightness why, if you think the government can spend your money so much better than you can, why you don’t just sign it all over right now.
You can point to this or that individual act and say ‘see, this is why I dont participate at all, its all rotten’. Its intellectually bankrupt, emotionally ugly and morally repugnant.
Which is why, of course, that you do it.
And the reason why I do not hand over more of my salary voluntarily right now is that too many people in power who can control how funds are allocated would allocate that money in ways which I find abhorrent.
So you’re allowed to withhold money because you object, but for anyone else to do the same is "selfish".
I can understand why you like the Obama Party. It’s full of people like you, Daschle, Solis, Geithner, Franken, Rangel, Obama, and others who can manage that crazy disconnect of demanding everyone else pay taxes while refusing to fork over their own.
handy
Really? That was the point? Could have fooled me, I thought it was a rather half-assed attempt fueled more by political opportunity than anything else.
The middleman including, in no particular order: police and emergency services, road maintenance, hospitals, schools, and other such dubious societal benefits I as a tax payer would better use my money for than the government would on my behalf. Or something.
Perry Como
@North Dallas Thirty:
I thought that post was familiar. Look here.
For a personal anecdote: I run a small business that hires highly skilled workers on a project basis. The clients are varied, but I have one client that does work for the FedGov. That client is overdue on a five figure, net-60 payment because of budget issues. I’m not directly paid by the FedGov, it sort of trickles down through my client, to me, to my contractors. It’s academic work, something the Republicans think is worthless (and I can tell you that Republicans would jizz in their pants if they saw what this work does).
So now I have to float money to pay my contractors which means I don’t have as much capital to spend as new projects come in. Tax cuts? Doesn’t make a difference. Government funding research? In this case it would make a huge difference. (seriously, wingnuts would love this shit)
I could have people working on the FedGov project while I hire others to take the private market business I had to turn down last month because I couldn’t guarantee payment to the contractors. I have to have 30 days of cash on hand to pay contractors and small business loans have dried up. So tax cuts do shit for my business.
TenguPhule
And since when has Obama failed to pay taxes?
For that matter when has Franken?
Stuck
Damn right. Those things’ll kill you. And it’s double trouble when you have to pay their doctor bill on a 13 year old’s salary.
TenguPhule
My personal theory is that because they love raping little girls, they obviously think we enjoy having to help the victims.
Rome Again
Wasn’t the point of mailing out "stimulus" checks that consumers would take the money and spend it, and thus create jobs?
What happens after all those checks are spent? The money ends up in the hands of corporations, who sock it away and don’t keep it floating. If a bunch of people go to Walmart and buy, buy, buy, Walmart ends up with a bunch of extra funds in their bank account, and no reason to keep any new hires in place.
Are you aware of why this is a bad idea? Please tell me you can follow this line of thought. I’d hate to think you are a total moron.
TheHatOnMyCat
Yeah, that was Bush’s idea. Republicans supported it. They thought that was all they had to do.
Great idea. We went from concern to the edge of economic armageddon in one year under their leadership.
Send every family a few hundred bucks and prosperity returns. Almost exactly a year ago.
How’s that working out so far? Token tax cuts for the middle class, to cover up for huge tax breaks for rich cronies, emasculation of regulation and federal oversight of the big systems, credit and banking policies aimed at filling the pockets of the bankers and the fat cats who support the GOP, have brought us to the brink.
Okay with you if we try something different?
Rome Again
Dang it, I didn’t blockquote that original and now I can’t edit tonight for some reason. ARGH!
TenguPhule
You may need to provide a map.
TheHatOnMyCat
Nah, you can eat a Twinkie. It doesn’t pop back out of you in nine months and expect you to send it to college.
gwangung
Folks, "debating" ND30 is like trying to teach a pig to sing.
Asshole is getting what he wants.
JL
@Rome Again: I thought that Atan was DougJ’s alter ego for a while but DNorth 30 can’t be just a spoof. He’s definitely a troll because he comes without facts. Trolls are still bloviators. Sean and Rush don’t pass on the facts.
TenguPhule
I advocate a return to slave labor, every current member of the GOP voting caucus to be precise.
We can set up labor camps and have them build the American Pyramids by lugging large blocks of granite by hand so that The Sun God Obama can be buried in worthy surroundings.
Northern Observer
ND30,
Tax cuts are ineffective when you get into a liquidity trap (zero interest rates and negative growth) since individuals preferences are for savings not spending in this environment.
You are simply increasing the overall economic debt without getting any benefit until after the economy recovers.
Direct spending and income support to the unemployed are necessary to stop the downward loop.
Basic econ 101
handy
@TenguPhule:
As far as we know he didn’t which is why this troll and his poo flinging should be summarily ignored. Peace out.
TheHatOnMyCat
The post edit thing is designed by the GOP. It breaks down quickly after implementation and makes things worse.
( and, it hasn’t been working perfectly the last few days )
Comrade Jake
"The Obama Party" LMAO. Where do people come up with this silliness? It’s like some people are forever trapped in third grade.
TheHatOnMyCat
Republicans will fall for this, it’s a shovel-ready project.
North Dallas Thirty
For that matter when has Franken?
That’s easy.
Montysano
@North Dallas Thirty:
In the current economic climate, people will take any extra money (i.e. tax cuts) and save it. Read the news: the savings rate is rising quickly.
But, for example, if part of the stimulus is $100M (or whatever it was) to clean up the National Mall, then bids go out, contractors get hired, supplies get bought, workers get hired, etc.
The GOP man love for tax cuts is approaching the fetish level.
Conservatively Liberal
You guys are still playing with this wingnut? Good. I see that he keeps going off on his little tangents when he is cornered, just like every good wingnut is trained to do. It’s fun watching these ugly little devils chase their tails only to end up with shit on their faces.
It’s almost as fun as playing Whack-A-Mole. Almost. I would rather have a box full of wingnuts with holes on the top and a big fucking hammer.
I would invite my friends over so they could enjoy cracking some nuts. It’s the librul thing to do, we share the good things in life with others.
Rome Again
or insist you buy the latest (insert fad here) every week either. ;)
Mike in NC
Wow. Very interesting statistic. I’m among dozens of people that just lost their jobs at GE as a result of piss poor management and endemic incompetence. Heckuva job, GE!
North Dallas Thirty
Tax cuts do not work as stimulus, we have seen it tried in reality and it does not work as advertised.
The Obama Party’s economic advisor disagrees with you.
They are also betting on the fact that a package divided between $550 billion in spending and $275 billion in tax cuts will be the right mix, even though Romer’s research also shows tax cuts to have a larger multiplier effect on the economy than spending.
Really, I’m still trying to figure out why so many of the Obama Party members commenting here are so adamantly opposed to tax cuts. It’s almost as if they’re dependent on welfare and know that tax cuts wouldn’t put any money in their pockets, but massive Federal pork spending would.
Fulcanelli
Methinks North Dallas Thirty has some sort of masochistic vibe percolating deep in his frontal lobes, hence his periodic visits here to get his ashes hauled by his intellectual and moral betters. With the Homeland Security in this place, if I was a Repiggie supply-sidin’ idiot, this would be that last place on the tubez I’d come to fling poo. Repeatedly. Better to remain silent and be thought a fool, and all that…
North Dallas Thirty
Tax cuts? Doesn’t make a difference.
Of course not, "Perry Como"; you actually have to pay taxes first, and as we see from people like Daschle, Solis, Franken, Rangel, Geithner, and others, the Obama Party is chock full of people like you who don’t pay their taxes in the first place, but suckle hundreds of thousands of dollars off the Federal teat for "contracting" and "consulting".
Rome Again
@North Dallas Thirty:
You can be sure this will be taken care of. Franken didn’t do this himself, someone in his company did. You can’t blame him for something he didn’t do himself. This will be remedied, and if you don’t believe it, you’re an idiot.
Mike in NC
Sorry but that doesn’t even begin to describe those maggots.
North Dallas Thirty
Sorry Rome; you and your fellow leftists have established that any failure by a business means that the CEO is a failure.
Notice how that vanishes when it’s your own Obama Party members.
TheHatOnMyCat
Sure, but those are its strong points.
TheHatOnMyCat
Honey, Republicans still think that the WMDs are hidden in Syria. Don’t give them a problem this complicated to figure out.
Church Lady
Um, not really wanting to stir the pot up any more, but the Republicans did propose some tax cuts that would have been beneficial to lower income workers. One amendment presented would have cut the two lower tax brackets – from 10% to 5% and from 15% to 10%. Another amendment presented called for reducing payroll (social security and medicare) taxes by 50% for both the employee and the employer. The Democrats defeated both amendments, but I don’t know the reasoning behind them not wanting that in the bill.
TheHatOnMyCat
Christ, that’s almost enough to pay for one of Rush Lamebaugh’s Oxycontin orders.
TenguPhule
1. Did you check what the Republicans wanted to balance that? I believe it had something to do with cutting tax deductions down to mortgage interest and charitable contributions.
2. This is a job for Captain Obvious! SS & MC do not need their funding cut now of all times.
Rome Again
If I were to venture a guess, it would be because tax breaks don’t provide stimulus, they just create temporary funds that can be spent and which end up stagnating in someone else’s bank account.
Stimulus is the kind of thing that provides JOBS, provides income, provides opportunity, provides advancement of our way of living, to expand and better the lives of everyone.
The only people that tax cuts help are those who plan to sock it away in their bank account, the kind of people who don’t NEED money, they only WANT money.
Fencedude
Yeah, good job not mentioning the rest of what those amendments did.
Intellectual Honesty FTW
North Dallas Thirty
Franken didn’t do this himself, someone in his company did.
I do so love it when the desperate try to spin to cover up for their Obama Party and its tax cheats.
But Franken’s admission Tuesday night that his corporation had owed $70,000 in back taxes and penalties in 17 states threatens to upend what has been until now a disciplined, on-message campaign against one of the GOP’s most vulnerable incumbents.
The story of Franken’s failure to pay the taxes — on income earned from celebrity appearances and speeches — was front-page news Wednesday in the state’s two biggest newspapers, the Minneapolis Star Tribune and the St. Paul Pioneer Press.
Meanwhile, who do Obama Party members hold responsible for corporate mistakes elsewhere? That’s right, the CEO. How is it that Obama Party members hold CEOs responsible, except when doing so would embarrass an Obama Party member and demonstrate how Obama doesn’t believe in paying taxes?
Conservatively Liberal
Everything the Rushublicans come up with is shovel-ready. I want to get a shovel, dig a big hole, shove their shit in it and cover it up. Then test fire a few nukes on the site.
Also. Ubetcha.
North Dallas Thirty
Someone please explain to me why a large number of wingnuts seem to think that those of us on the left "enjoy" women having abortions.
Because you promote them, pay for them, and insist that there’s nothing wrong with them.
That, and you support people telling thirteen-year-old girls to cross state lines to have them, all without notifying the parents or the police, while you and your party have passed laws that make it a crime to pierce a minor’s ears or allow them into a tanning bed without parental consent.
Rome Again
You cite Politico and expect to be taken seriously? Fuck off! I’m done.
TheHatOnMyCat
Yeah, the state that elected Jesse Ventura. And as it looks now, elected Franken. Whatever.
Your jackalope sightings are not working for you, trolldude.
What else ya got?
North Dallas Thirty
Tax cuts are ineffective when you get into a liquidity trap (zero interest rates and negative growth) since individuals preferences are for savings not spending in this environment.
Question: What does putting your money into a savings account do?
Answer: It provides interest payments to you, paid for by the fact that the bank then takes that money and loans it to other people in return for them paying the bank interest.
The other variation of this I’ve seen is the one that had Obama Party members saying that tax cuts were bad because people would just use them to pay down debt.
Question: What does paying down debt do?
Answer: It saves you money on interest payments and lets the bank exchange debt for cash, which is a positive on the bank’s balance sheet and which can then be loaned to others.
Why are these bad things?
Conservatively Liberal
I think what is pissing MD20/20 off about the libruls not paying their taxes is that they are cheating the banks out of money they could be stealing via the Fed’s back door.
That or the fact that some libruls are still making enough money to have to pay taxes. Probably both.
Rome Again
Corporations have financial departments that make mistakes, no matter who owns them. The CEO’s that we’re holding accountable are the ones who take TARP money and then decide to send their employees on junkets to the Bahamas and such. There IS a difference.
Companies that are not insolvent and still want to remain in business will pay the taxes owed if they are found owing them. Companies that are insolvent and expect a federal bailout because they didn’t manage their business well and need a shot in the arm of federal money should not be spending that money on anything besides keeping their business going, not golden parachute bonuses and expensive trips. If you can’t understand this, you’re not worth arguing with.
pattonbt
@North Dallas Thirty:
Im done after this, sorry to all for feeding the troll this long, but to summarize…
Ive never:
1) demanded anyone hand over everything to the government or charity. Fail.
2) demanded to raise everyones (or anyones) taxes. Fail.
3) argued that to not hand over everything is selfish. Fail.
4) argued the government can spend money better than me full stop. I have argued, probably poorly, that the government can spend money better then me on certain things (roads, schools, hospitals, etc.) and charities can spend money better than me on certain things (shelters, clothing, micro community stuff). Trust me, I can spend my money on me better than anyone. But I know I get some benefits from the spend of government and charities. Fail.
I read the post of mine you linked to and I dont see how it supports your argument that I do the same thing as you (i.e. throw out a whole process based on one anecdote of failure). Fail.
Ive never withheld a dime of money from the government that I owed. True, I dont voluntarily pay more. Fail.
Look, truth is, all Ive been saying is this. I get it. You dont like the government (or any non Republican form of government). You think its evil. Fine. I think its an incredibly short sighted and ignorant stance, but whatever. Just dont try and justify your beliefs with facts and arguments that dont support them. It makes you look, ummm, touched.
Your beliefs, like most humans, are emotionally based. Maybe daddy dropped you on your head when you were young or something. But just ranting about something and making up facts doesnt make it true. Own your beliefs and dont lie about their perceived rightness when the facts do not bear them out. I have tons of beliefs that arent supported by facts, but Im smart enough to not try and argue them against the facts when presented. So if you would just admit you have these views and thats that, we might still mock you, but you wont keep getting embarrassed for seeming so, ummmm, touched.
To all the others here, sorry to have fed the troll. I will now go back to lurker mode.
TenguPhule
Except for that wee little problem of them not making loans so much now….oh, and having a shitload of worthless assets they need that money to cover.
Except that it isn’t, because bank debt right now is viewed with the same warmth as fresh cat turds.
Try again.
Also, none of that creates jobs. Except for the repo man.
North Dallas Thirty
And of course, notice this.
On the one hand, we have liberals saying that more money to people is a bad thing:
If a bunch of people go to Walmart and buy, buy, buy, Walmart ends up with a bunch of extra funds in their bank account, and no reason to keep any new hires in place.
And on the other, we have people saying it’s an economic necessity to write people checks so they can buy, buy, buy.
Direct spending and income support to the unemployed are necessary to stop the downward loop.
TenguPhule
We’re not talking about your hookers and dildos.
We’re talking about not letting 13 year olds be raped a second time by forcing them to give birth.
Rome Again
http://www.forbes.com/global/2006/0522/032.html
The interest earned on a savings account MIGHT buy a loaf of bread per month for the average low income family.
Are you seriously suggesting that’s a solution?
North Dallas Thirty
Except that it isn’t, because bank debt right now is viewed with the same warmth as fresh cat turds.
Except that, when you pay off a debt, you give the bank cash.
Except for that wee little problem of them not making loans so much now….oh, and having a shitload of worthless assets they need that money to cover.
Which is why giving them more money is a good thing, and why we should be encouraging consumers to do exactly that.
TenguPhule
JFCNTZYM, now we’ve gone into the Twilight Zone of "Helping people put food on the table until they can find a job is the equivalent of throwing money at them for no reason at all".
We may have found Darrell’s bastard love child with Ann Coulter here folks.
TheHatOnMyCat
You are looking at $2.5t shortfall in demand for goods and services in the next two years, unless something is done.
Tax cuts don’t put a dent in that. If you don’t abate that shortfall, you are looking at double digit unemployment and ten years of economic malaise. The cost to taxpayers in the long run will greatly exceed the cost of a stimulus that would have prevented the shortfall.
It’s that simple.
TenguPhule
Except you’re not.
Because the bank diced up the debt into 10,000 little pieces and sold it all over the place.
The bank no longer owns the debt, but they went out and bought a whole shitload of collaterized debt instruments which promised fantastic returns only to discover that people who have no income can’t pay their bills.
So yeah.
North Dallas Thirty
The CEO’s that we’re holding accountable are the ones who take TARP money and then decide to send their employees on junkets to the Bahamas and such. There IS a difference.
Actually, there isn’t, given that you fully support and endorse Obama Party members taking junkets paid for by TARP recipients.
Oh, and Rome, since you don’t like Politico and insist that any such stories about Franken are lies, have at it.
Rome Again
Direct spending and income support is not a trip to fucking Walmart. Are you really this much of an idiot?
You really don’t understand that when a tax incentive gets spent the money goes into corporate hands never to be seen again? Hello? Is there anyone in that head of yours?
Zifnab25
@North Dallas Thirty: You found your way over from Riehl World at last, NDT? Haha. Good luck. You’re going to get eaten alive if you haven’t been already.
TheHatOnMyCat
That settles it, I am buying a bank.
Fuck.
North Dallas Thirty
The interest earned on a savings account MIGHT buy a loaf of bread per month for the average low income family.
Unfortunately, though, I believe the argument for shoveling more money to low income families was that they would SPEND the money they were given, not SAVE it.
Why do you oppose giving low-income working families tax cuts?
TheHatOnMyCat
@Rome Again:
Yes, it’s Herbert Hoover.
TenguPhule
Why do you like to invent strawmen?
North Dallas Thirty
We’re talking about not letting 13 year olds be raped a second time by forcing them to give birth.
No, you’re talking about letting them be raped repeatedly by refusing to report the sexual abuse to the police or telling their parents what happened so that their parents could actually do something about it.
The problem here is that you and your fellow abortionists adamantly oppose anything that could in any way result in a woman NOT having an abortion. You and yours ALWAYS promote abortion as the best outcome and utterly refuse to accept anything else.
Conservatively Liberal
You can only watch a fool chase its tail for so long before you get nauseous and wish you can vomit all over them, so I am outta here. Don’t partake of too much MD20/20, you know them fortified wines will make you feel like shit the next day.
Plus you’ll probably have to figure out where you picked up the creature that you shared your bed with last night. Then there are the tests for AIDS, syphilis and such. If not that, then you need to spray everything with Raid to rid yourself of unwanted ‘guests’. Too much hassle.
Don’t overdo it on the MD20/20!
l8r
Zifnab25
And you seem to be confusing the "Obama Party" with the "Democratic Party". The folks on these cruises were clearly Democrats, but they aren’t any more affiliated with the Obama Administration than any Republican House Rep is a member of the Bush Administration. Trying to make this an Obama scandal when a) no laws were broken and b) Obama had precisely zero involvement once again exposes your complete lack of credibility. Simply plastering links on the page doesn’t account for much when, once again, you refuse to actually read them.
TenguPhule
Corrected for accuracy.
Fencedude
@North Dallas Thirty:
The problem, which you seem to not get, is that tax cuts only go so far.
Even if you cut the tax rate to zero, low income is still LOW FUCKING INCOME.
Jesus christ, the problem isn’t the taxes, its the wages. Dipshit.
robertdsc
/thread
North Dallas Thirty
Direct spending and income support is not a trip to fucking Walmart.
Oh really? Do you think unemployed people who receive checks won’t shop at Wal-Mart or buy goods?
You really don’t understand that when a tax incentive gets spent the money goes into corporate hands never to be seen again?
So explain this one to me:
1) Giving a tax cut to individuals and businesses is bad because they might spend that money at the store or elsewhere to buy goods and services, which would then go to another evil corporation and never be seen again.
2) Writing a check to individuals is good because they will spend that money at the store to buy goods and services, which will then stimulate the economy and provide jobs
scarshapedstar
[Internet Court Convenes, Judge North Dallas Thirty Presiding]
Al Franken’s campaign’s tax fuckup: FAIL!
Tyco’s vodka-pissin’ ice sculpture of Michelangelo’s David: NOT FAIL!
[Court Adjourns]
Church Lady
@Rome – I find it doubtful that most people in the two lowest tax brackets would be stashing their windfall in a savings account. If so, then you’ve just provided a reason to not give refundable tax credits – i.e., under your reasoning, those won’t stimulate the economy. I beg to differ. Those are the people that will go out and spend the money, either purchasing necessities or even paying down debt, which would improve their long term financial outlook.
@TenguPhule – What the hell kind of deduction do you thing someone in the 10% bracket (approximately 8K single and 16K married) is taking, other than the standard deduction? I also find it hard to believe that the tax cut loving Republicans would want to get rid of deductions for things like property taxes and state income taxes. After all, they benefit greatly from them. Man, you’re smoking crack.
TenguPhule
The War on Straw Continues!
Helping a 13 year old abort a rapist’s baby is a completely different issue from reporting the rape to the police. It is not PP’s job to report on every girl who comes to them for help. Their job is to help the girl.
And if the parents themselves were responsible, are you still going to support mandatory consent from them?
Fencedude
@North Dallas Thirty:
The point, which you manifestly refuse to acknowledge, is that GIVING PEOPLE MONEY does not solve the problem.
TenguPhule
Perhaps you would like to go read the Republican Senate Alternative to the Stimulus Bill, Churchlady. I can wait.
Make sure you grovel a bit when you apologize, M’kay?
North Dallas Thirty
You are looking at $2.5t shortfall in demand for goods and services in the next two years, unless something is done.
Why would that be a bad thing?
After all, buying these goods and services is just giving money to evil corporations, isn’t it? Isn’t it just putting money in the pockets of the "rich"?
Jesus christ, the problem isn’t the taxes, its the wages.
I always wish liberals would start businesses. It would be great to see what happened to them when they paid two or three times the market rate for labor.
Groucho48
I believe the reduction in the lowest two tax rates was supposed to replace the tax credit for middle and lower income families. With the tax credit, the money would all go to the targeted middle and lower income folks. The Republican plan would see to it that no money went to the very low income folks who didn’t make enough to pay any Federal taxes, while even the richest folks in the country would benefit from the lowered tax rates. Win-win, as far as Republicans are concerned.
TenguPhule
If they have kids?
If they have dependents?
If they own a house and lost their job and are on unemployment?
If they have a shitload of medical expenses?
Perry Como
I could pull out IRS forms and prove I’m not bsing you, but I doubt you would care. I’m not going to get into a larger arguments about federal funding. I can only speak from what I know and I know one of my clients is already in the hole and will be digging deeper because of funding cuts. That kills ongoing and new business for me. But hey, fuck it, TAX CUTS!
I’d rather employ people.
Conservatively Liberal
Ok, one last whack at the mole… ;)
Improved for truthiness.
Next thread. Bye!
TenguPhule
Never heard of partnerships or sole proprietors, have you?
Rome Again
Sure, I’ll repeat for the 50th time what I’ve been saying here ever since I got on this thread: once the money is in the hands of corporations (where the lower tax bracket people spent it) it is GONE, it is sitting in the bank accounts of people who DON’T NEED TO USE IT. It is stagnant. It is not doing any more good. Do you get this?
Fencedude
@North Dallas Thirty:
I always wish liberals would start businesses. It would be great to see what happened to them when they paid two or three times the market rate for labor.
NOT THE POINT DIPSHIT.
TRY TO STAY ON TARGET HERE
North Dallas Thirty
It is not PP’s job to report on every girl who comes to them for help. Their job is to help the girl.
LOL…and of course, liberals think that NOT reporting a rape is somehow helpful to the girl.
The funny thing is that I’m sure you would be supportive of reporting it if it were the girl’s father. But if it’s someone else, all of a sudden you are adamantly opposed to reporting the fact, and especially to telling the girl’s parents.
Do any of you have children? Do you really think it’s a good thing for your pregnant thirteen-year-old daughter to be told to cross state lines so she can have an abortion without it being reported to you because you’re probably religious fundamentalists or rapists, or for her sexual abuse to be reported to the police?
TheHatOnMyCat
That’s right, unemployment checks are a proven way to restart a completely shipwrecked economy. All we need to do is shore up a $2.5t shortfall with purchases of diapers and toilet paper at WalMart and people will be going, Depression, what depression?
TenguPhule
Wrong. Giving taxcuts does not stimulate demand.
People afraid of losing their jobs are not going to spend a tax cut. They will save it.
The banks will not lend, they are afraid that they will not get their money back. They put it into treasuries.
The cycle repeats as jobs are lost because everybody spends less and and everybody spends less because jobs are lost.
Rome Again
I always wish conservatives would wait tables, it would be great to see them report their tips on their taxes after getting a lowered wage because they’re tipped employees and then figure out how they are making any money when another conservative leaves them a 50 cent tip on a $20 bill.
By the way ND30, I do plan to go back and try to click on that last link you left for me. I’m making my way back to it. You’ll have to excuse me, I’m dealing with some browser problems from my new Firefox update (ARGH!) and I keep having to close this page and reopen it. I’ll get it if my browser ever lets me. The last time I tried to load it, it wouldn’t load.
North Dallas Thirty
And here we have the ultimate example of Obama Party contradiction.
In a desperate attempt to argue against tax cuts for low-income individuals and businesses, we get the following.
The point, which you manifestly refuse to acknowledge, is that GIVING PEOPLE MONEY does not solve the problem.
Meanwhile, up yonder:
Direct spending and income support to the unemployed are necessary to stop the downward loop.
So giving people money doesn’t solve the problem, except when it’s giving people money. Got it.
b-psycho
…am I seeing things, or did someone point out the Fed’s role in this mess somewhere on this thread?
Kudos to whoever finally did.
Fencedude
@North Dallas Thirty:
LOL…and of course, liberals think that NOT reporting a rape is somehow helpful to the girl.
Ok, I’m sick of this line of discussion. As far as I can tell, your entire point is based on a single event, at a single Planned Parenthood center where a single employee was conned into making a remarkably stupid statement to someone they thought was a 13 year old girl in trouble.
Was that stupid of them? Yeah, probably. It is also not indicative of the opinions of EVERY FUCKING DEMOCRAT IN THE COUNTRY JESUS FUCKING CHRIST.
The obvious answer is that the rape should be reported to the police, and the girl should ALSO get the abortion, if she so desires. THEY ARE NOT MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE SITUATIONS SO STOP ACTING LIKE THEY ARE YOU SLIMY, DISGUSTING PIECE OF SHIT.
North Dallas Thirty
And here’s another great Obama Party contradiction.
But just ranting about something and making up facts doesnt make it true.
Preceded by, of course:
Maybe daddy dropped you on your head when you were young or something.
Fencedude
@North Dallas Thirty:
So giving people money doesn’t solve the problem, except when it’s giving people money. Got it.
No, you’re just a moron.
Rome Again
They will spend it only when it’s necessary. They will also spend it where it’s cheap and they can get more stuff for their money. Walmart’s bank account is the place where the money that is spent will probably end up.
TheHatOnMyCat
( head, desk )
Okay, you have jumped the trollshark.
I can’t even process this level of madness. Gotta go, I have to pull my fingernails out with a pair of pliers and relax.
TenguPhule
The fatal flaw in your argument is that you assume every pregnant 13 year old is going to PP because they want to rather then they have to. If they’re going to PP, obviously they believe the parents/authorities are opposed to letting them abort.
Also, by the time it comes to PP, the crime should have already been reported (or are we going to prosecute the parents for not telling the police first?) If it wasn’t, then that should be raising your eyebrows about the guardians, not PP.
Groucho48
The market rate as determined by the most powerful corporations in the world, supported by one of the most pro-business, anti-labor administrations ever…negotiating with individuals who are one illness or accident away from poverty. THAT fair market rate? Just wondering…
Rome Again
That does not mean handing people a tax incentive and saying "here, go have fun at the mall". What we are talking about is creating more industry which supports more jobs.
Buy a man a fish, he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish, he eats for the rest of his life.
TenguPhule
Give a Republican a tax cut and they will shit in the ocean and kill all the fish.
TheHatOnMyCat
Buy him a fish and a bottle of sake and he has a great Wednesday evening.
North Dallas Thirty
As far as I can tell, your entire point is based on a single event, at a single Planned Parenthood center where a single employee was conned into making a remarkably stupid statement to someone they thought was a 13 year old girl in trouble.
Then I suggest you view the link in question.
Notice the word "second" in there.
Meanwhile, you missed the multiple times when it was made clear to me that Obama Party members think parental- and police-notification laws when clearly-underage minors show up pregnant are, quote, "Dark Age laws".
Finally, I think your statement that the employee was "conned" says it all. There was no "conning" here; this was a clear-cut case of not one, but multiple employees violating state law. You’re merely not capable of admitting that the Planned Parenthood organization that you support, that you endorse, and that you demand receive millions of dollars in funding annually tells thirteen-year-old girls to cross state lines to avoid having to report sexual abuse or notify their parents.
TheHatOnMyCat
Hey! Again with the bowel references?
No wonder I’m irregular ………….
( reaches for Immodium )
Rome Again
I’d love to. ;)
Thanks honey.
Rome Again
As soon as I posted that, I realized I should have added "until they kill all the fish". Ha! Good catch.
TheHatOnMyCat
@Rome Again:
It’s a date.
North Dallas Thirty
They will spend it only when it’s necessary. They will also spend it where it’s cheap and they can get more stuff for their money. Walmart’s bank account is the place where the money that is spent will probably end up.
Notice the logic here: you say that about people who are have more money through tax cuts, but not about people to whom you and your fellow Obama Party members want to write government checks.
Does that mean that people who are receiving welfare have no incentive to spend only when it’s necessary, or to spend where it’s cheap and they can get more stuff for their money?
TenguPhule
WTF are you talking about?
Stimulus spending pays people and companies for work for the government. Stuff gets built, things get done, people get paid.
North Dallas Thirty
The market rate as determined by the most powerful corporations in the world, supported by one of the most pro-business, anti-labor administrations ever…negotiating with individuals who are one illness or accident away from poverty. THAT fair market rate? Just wondering…
Like I said, libbie, put your money where your mouth is. If you and your fellow libbies honestly believe that market rates for labor are too low and that you can be successful paying what you think is right, have at it.
How long do you think your retail store that pays clerks with no degree or education $25 per hour will last?
Church Lady
@Tenguphule – Have now skimmed over ten reports on various Senate Republican amendments, and can’t find anything about eliminating deductions. Please provide a link. If you’re correct, I will grovel appropriately.
Also, note the term "deduction". A child is an exemption, not a deduction, as are all other dependents. At 8K to 16K, I don’t think mortgage interest is a problem, given at that income they most likely rent, which would also eliminate deductions for property taxes. In fact, at that income level, government sponsored housing is a strong probability. Even, on the far fetched chance that someone at that income level actually owned a home with a mortgage on it, the interest on that mortgage would be so low that the standard deduction would be more beneficial to lowering taxable income. State income tax? Once again, at that level of income, the odds are against it being a factor.
Sorry – not buying your arguement.
As far as medical expenses are concerned, honey, anyone at that level of income is on government sponsored heathcare, so it’s not applicable.
Rome Again
I’ve never been on welfare. I couldn’t tell you. The idea is to get people working, so they are not ON welfare. Why don’t you stop steering this conversation into convoluted twists and turns and stick to the subject?
We are not here to discuss people on welfare, we’re here to discuss how to create jobs, and keep people earning a paycheck, so they can afford necessities, and perhaps even some things that are not necessities once they can afford them.
Throwing a check at them to go shopping isn’t going to do that. EOS.
Perry Como
@North Dallas Thirty:
The plural of anecdote is not data.
TenguPhule
You sound bitter. I’m sorry you got fucked on your own employment negotiations by management.
North Dallas Thirty
Stimulus spending pays people and companies for work for the government.
Of course, from where does the government GET this money?
From people who are actually producing goods and services.
How convenient. The government "pays" a dollar to have something done, then takes 40 to 50 cents of that dollar back in taxes.
Why not do something simpler and allow the people to keep the 50 cents in the first place?
North Dallas Thirty
You sound bitter. I’m sorry you got fucked on your own employment negotiations by management.
Boy, that shows how little you know about my situation. :)
Rome Again
Exactly, and it keeps the merry-go-round turning until banks end up with all the cash again. The problem to solve is to figure out how to keep the banks from ending up with all the cash at the end. Hmmm, maybe if the banks that couldn’t stay solvent went into receivership and the government owned them, then the money would end up in government hands where it can once again go into more building and more jobs? Hmmm?
North Dallas Thirty
We are not here to discuss people on welfare, we’re here to discuss how to create jobs, and keep people earning a paycheck, so they can afford necessities, and perhaps even some things that are not necessities once they can afford them.
Unfortunately, m’dear, creating jobs requires you to give money and support to those evil corporations that you so deeply and completely loathe and who you and yours want to tax and punish out of existence.
Furthermore, as you yourself have stated, giving people more money is pointless, since they will only save it and not spend it — and if they do spend it, it will end up in the hands of those evil corporations, who will just save it and not use it to create jobs.
Meanwhile, your own Obama Party is in the process of making sure that 84% of the available construction workforce will not receive stimulus-related contracts. If you’re trying to put people back to work, it seems silly for you to do that — but if your primary concern is purchasing votes and union money, it makes perfect sense.
TheHatOnMyCat
If you could point to a few liberal democracies where the people pay no taxes, that would be helpful.
And, where in the US is the effective tax rate 50%?
Rome Again
Is that what you consider taxes? Money given to the government for producing goods and services? No, it’s money given to the government as a share of what is earned to keep the government in position to provide for the well-being (firemen, policemen and services that provide help to individuals when it is necessary) and upkeep of the land (infrastructure, making sure bridges don’t crumble and such) where these goods and services are produced.
Actually the people who are paying taxes don’t produce goods and services, they get paid by people who produce goods and services (company owners). The people who are paying the bulk of taxes are only the hired help to advance those companies that produce goods and services, and since the people who own those companies think they are special, they seem to think they should pay less than everyone else, even though they end up with bigger paychecks and are more able to afford the taxes.
TheHatOnMyCat
Well then, tell us all about yourself.
( settles into chair, grabs bottle of Boone’s Farm and bag of pork rinds )
( crunching noises )
Okay, go ahead.
TenguPhule
@Church Lady
Okay, I see the problem. You’re apparently referring to house votes. I was talking about the Senate.
The House version amendments got killed because it was proposed by Republicans as an alternative to spending.
Jesse Ewiak
Just as a side note, Senator-elect Franken’s main tax problem was that he paid taxes to the wrong states. For example, he paid $10,000 in taxes to Minnesota when he really should’ve paid California, etc. So, it wasn’t that he didn’t pay taxes, he just paid the wrong people. It was a mistake and he fixed it.
As far as the rest of the Obama admin goes, I’m perfectly OK with replacing Geinther & Daschale with Krugman & Ezra Klein. :-)
TenguPhule
Because money has to move. That’s how an economy runs.
Well, I’ve narrowed down your educational history to High School Drop out at least. So the night wasn’t a complete loss.
Rome Again
I suppose you have no problem with driving over roads full of potholes and bridges that fall into the water? Because without taxes that’s what you’re future will be. I suppose you’ll have no problem when your house catches on fire and you’re left to put it out with your garden hose? You’ll enjoy it when there are no policemen to keep thugs from breaking into your house to steal your wealth because they can’t afford their next fix?
Do you happen to understand the reason why taxes are a necessity and a good thing?
I suggest you should play Civilizations and see what happens when you don’t provide your citizens with a tax base. You’ll go broke and lose the game. Taxes are a necessity in our society.
North Dallas Thirty
Exactly, and it keeps the merry-go-round turning until banks end up with all the cash again.
Oh really? How is that possible, when you insist that people will not spend money, but instead will save everything they get?
And I found this particularly amusing:
I always wish conservatives would wait tables, it would be great to see them report their tips on their taxes after getting a lowered wage because they’re tipped employees and then figure out how they are making any money when another conservative leaves them a 50 cent tip on a $20 bill.
I waited tables all the way through college at two different restaurants simultaneously, and then did the same during the 2000 – 2002 recession, when that was the only job to be had, at a startup restaurant where we had a lot of $10 total tip nights.
I worked six, sometimes seven days a week, cut back spending significantly, bought a cheaper car, moved to a smaller apartment, clipped coupons, worked another job as well, and resolutely refused to spend more than I made. Gradually, the business picked up, we started making more money, and I met people along the way with whom I was able to network and get into my current professional status.
Been there, done that, and learned from it — the main thing being that there’s no such thing as a job that’s beneath you, and that hard work, thrift, and perserverance can see you through quite nicely.
There are jobs to be had. There just are too many lazy welfare-addicted liberals who believe that the world owes them a $25/hour job for breathing.
Rome Again
Boone’s Farm? LMAO
T.J. Swann Easy Nights and a plate of Brie Cheese, Fruit and Crackers. ;)
Groucho48
Exaggerating another person’s argument is a sure sign you are not confident in yours.
TheHatOnMyCat
Really? How many exactly, and where?
We’ll need to see the data on that one.
TIA.
TheHatOnMyCat
Proving once again that you are classy one in this relationship.
:^)
Does Brie go with pork rinds?
Church Lady
@TenguPhule – No, I reviewed reports on the proposed Senate amendments and could not find anything about them proposing the reduction in the 10% and 15% rates in exchange for eliminating itemized deductions. That’s why I asked for a link.
I’m exhausted and have to go to sleep. If you can find the link, post it and I’ll check back in the morning. As I said, if you are right, I will grovel. If not, will you grovel?
By the way, my original post was in no way a defense of Republicans. It was just to point out that they did, in fact, propose cutting payroll taxes in half, after a commenter early on complained that the Republicans never think about cutting payroll taxes. In this particular case, that statement just wasn’t true. However, I do think that cutting the tax rates for those two tax brackets just might be more beneficial to the recipients than the proposed $500 and $1000 tax credits. I’ll have to put a pencil to it to figure it out for sure.
North Dallas Thirty
Do you happen to understand the reason why taxes are a necessity and a good thing?
What I understand is that your party endorses and supports people like Daschle, Solis, Franken, Rangel, Geithner, and Obama who refuse to pay them.
And all you’ve done is make excuses for why it was perfectly OK for them to do so.
Because money has to move. That’s how an economy runs.
Which is, of course, why you and yours oppose allowing money to "run" by not taking it out of peoples’ paychecks in the first place.
TenguPhule
Unless you suffer a medical emergency.
Or are in an accident.
Or the CC company says you missed a payment.
You are merely one disaster away from financial hell.
And 50 people for every job.
So yeah.
pattonbt
@North Dallas Thirty:
"There are jobs to be had. There just are too many lazy welfare-addicted liberals who believe that the world owes them a $25/hour job for breathing".
Lazy like (not) Joe the (not) Plumber?
http://news.aol.com/political-machine/2008/11/06/joe-the-plumber-fellow-traveler/
(sorry, dont know how to do links)
Beej
@kay: Uh, kay, I agree with you, but when you say that half of all Americans have incomes above the median and half have incomes below the median, you are stating the obvious. Look up the meaning of "median".
North Dallas Thirty
Exaggerating another person’s argument is a sure sign you are not confident in yours.
Who’s exaggerating? Are you saying that people with no degree or education don’t deserve $25 per hour?
TheHatOnMyCat
Jesus, MYM, doesn’t do gravel that well.
Oh wait …. you said grovel.
Sorry, never mind.
TenguPhule
Those weren’t payroll taxes, that was income tax rate.
Rome Again
Please point to where I ever said they will save everything they get? I never did. I said they would spend as it is necessary.
As for your waiting tables, I’m sure glad to see that you’ve seen what that life is like. I’ve been stiffed by so many conservative types that it’s hard to make a living that way. I no longer wait tables.
As for your supposition that liberals are welfare recipients, you are wrong, welfare recipients don’t care about politics. They are not liberal or conservative… they simply don’t fucking care. They are not interested in politics or news. They are only interested in spending. They are the people that watch entertainment television and don’t vote at all.
Those you call Liberals, those who are politically motivated, understand that people need to be taxed to keep the government in position to help it’s citizens (build roads, provide firemen and policemen). Welfare recipients are not really involved in that effort or they would work for a living. Take your Rush Limbaugh trash elsewhere. Go out and yell at those who are not politically motivated and only take money out of the pockets of all those who are providing for them. That’s not us.
TheHatOnMyCat
Not for the crap you are writing.
mightygodking
Costco pays starting clerks $10 per hour. Its ten-year veterans make $44K per year ($21 per hour and change), plus almost 100 percent health benefits.
Costco’s never had high stock prices – mostly because Wall Street doesn’t like it when you pay labour a "needlessly high" salary – but from an earnings standpoint it’s doing just fine.
So, yeah – you’re full of crap.
Groucho48
I believe that is what you are claiming. Do try to keep up.
North Dallas Thirty
Lazy like (not) Joe the (not) Plumber?
So what are you attacking Joe the Plumber for, pattonbt?
Because he certainly had a job.
He had a tax lien, but then again, are you willing to state that not paying your taxes makes you unfit, evil, and awful — and that anyone who would appoint you to any high government office is an incompetent fool?
Church Lady
@TenguPhule – I swear, this is my last post for the night. I will not hit refresh. The Republicans offered both – a 50% cut in payroll taxes for everyone for one year (amendment defeated) and a cut in income taxes for the 10% bracket (cut to 5%) and the 15% bracket (cut to 10%). I’m just thinking that the cut in marginal income tax rates might have actually given those people more money than the proposed refundable tax credit ($500 for singles and $1,000 for families). I just don’t know, without putting a pencil to it.
Put up the link, if you can find it.
Goodnight.
Rome Again
Bullshit. We are not saying they should cheat on taxes, or not pay them. Those taxes should be paid. Taxes are a necessity. I said Franken’s problem was a due to an error and will be paid.
We are all governed by people who live in a different world than we do. No one is above taxes, or the law. We, here, us "Liberals" who you are talking to are the little people, we don’t want people cheating on taxes.
Franken is involved in an election, you can be sure he is not going to let that go by. The link you sent regarding Franken’s tax problem said it was an error, and it will be repaid, just as I said it would. No one here is suggesting that anyone should get a pass for not paying taxes. The problem is the tax burden is and has been on the lower classes for a long time and those who earn a lot more don’t pay their fair share. You want to blame those in power for not paying enough taxes, look to the ideology that taught them they didn’t deserve to pay taxes to begin with… that would be YOUR Republican tenets.
North Dallas Thirty
I’ve been stiffed by so many conservative types that it’s hard to make a living that way.
I’m not surprised, given the bile and hatred you spew towards them.
Those you call Liberals, those who are politically motivated, understand that people need to be taxed to keep the government in position to help it’s citizens (build roads, provide firemen and policemen).
Correction. You understand that OTHER people need to be taxed to pay for your purchases of votes through welfare payments; as we see from Daschle, Solis, Franken, Rangel, Geithner, and Obama, you don’t actually pay them yourself.
TheHatOnMyCat
Uh, well …..
TheHatOnMyCat
Why is this thread starting to feel like an Al-Anon meeting?
rachel
@Rome Again:
What? And lose?!
North Dallas Thirty
You want to blame those in power for not paying enough taxes, look to the ideology that taught them they didn’t deserve to pay taxes to begin with… that would be YOUR Republican tenets.
LMAO….so you are now arguing that Obama Party members are not responsible for their failure and refusal to pay taxes because of Republicans?
The funny part is that you and yours set out to destroy Joe the Plumber for a tax lien, and are still mocking him today — yet you insist that Daschle, Solis, Franken, Rangel, Geithner, and Obama are not in the least responsible for their obvious and deliberate tax evasion.
Fencedude
@North Dallas Thirty:
Correction. You understand that OTHER people need to be taxed to pay for your purchases of votes through welfare payments; as we see from Daschle, Solis, Franken, Rangel, Geithner, and Obama, you don’t actually pay them yourself.
You’re repeating yourself.
Also, why is Obama on that list, exactly? Is it just because you are incapable of making a post without including his name, for some bizarre reason?
TheHatOnMyCat
Man, you’re not even trying now.
Are those electrodes still on your head, because I’m no longer getting a brainwave on the instruments here …..
Fencedude
@North Dallas Thirty:
yet you insist that Daschle, Solis, Franken, Rangel, Geithner, and Obama are not in the least responsible for their obvious and deliberate tax evasion.
Can you try to avoid repeating statements that have already been proven false? It just makes you look like (more of) an idiot
rachel
@Fencedude:
He’s in luuurve! :D
Rome Again
Fuck off asswipe. You don’t know me. I’ve never taken a welfare check in my life. You are WRONG!
Oh, and when I waited tables, I only smiled and served.
I am not a person in power. I don’t live like a person in power. I am a taxpayer. I have always been a taxpayer. I don’t get benefits. I don’t even have health insurance.
You don’t know how to serve, you expect the world owes you a living, and you blame those who think differently from you for not providing you with all you think you deserve. You don’t want to be taxed to pay for the roads and schools and necessary services for a society to exist and run. No, you want that extra 50 cents back in your pocket where you don’t have to pay for any portion of the cost of living in a society.
You want to live in a Mad Max society? Go do it somewhere else. Go jump on a horse and head into the wilderness and life like Grizzly Adams. This is America, where we have roadways and bridges that need to be repaired and we have citizens who have accidents and need the appropriate civil workers to help them deal with those accidents.
I seriously hope you don’t one day end up in an accident with your body all mangled and find there are no longer EMT’s or hospitals.
TheHatOnMyCat
You mean, because he was a complete fake and every word out of his mouth was a fucking lie from the get-go?
Yeah, he deserved better.
That does it, I’m taking the Ativan. Paralysis will be a relief after this thread.
TenguPhule
@Church Lady
Look for amendments sponsored by Sen. Jim DeMint to HR 1. It looks like the text is not up yet on the LOC records.
TenguPhule
He’s got to write a lot worse to qualify as a RNC speechwriter.
Rome Again
He wasn’t even a fucking plumber. Oh, and that business he was hoping to purchase? He was never in any position to purchase it either.
Now he’s a political consultant. He’s making money for having his opinion noted. What did he do to become this "consultant"? Oh, he asked our current president a question and was somehow this overnight sensation (if this is the best you guys can do for a "consultant" have at it, I would like nothing better than to see failed plumbers become the stars of the GOP).
If he’s a plumber, how come he is no longer plumbing?
North Dallas Thirty
You don’t want to be taxed to pay for the roads and schools and necessary services for a society to exist and run. No, you want that extra 50 cents back in your pocket where you don’t have to pay for any portion of the cost of living in a society.
You are downright hilarious.
Do you and your fellow Obama Party members think you have a bit of credibility in this regard, when you and your fellow Obama Party members openly support and endorse outright tax dodgers like Daschle, Solis, Franken, Rangel, Geithner, and Obama for high government positions?
You don’t know how to serve, you expect the world owes you a living, and you blame those who think differently from you for not providing you with all you think you deserve.
Actually, you’re looking in the mirror again.
I know the world doesn’t owe me a living. I’ve had to work my butt off to make one. Meanwhile, you and your Obama Party demand that I keep giving you money and talking about sacrifice and fairness — and now we find out that you and yours aren’t even paying your own taxes.
pattonbt
@North Dallas Thirty:
No, just pointing out your liberal = welfare recipient talking point, like all the others, was bunk. As the Republican poster boy (not) Joe the (not) plumber was himself a welfare recipient at one point in time.
Industrious bottstrap pulling up one he is, not. Typical of Republicans, do as I say not as I do. Shame.
North Dallas Thirty
And actually, Rome Again, with what happened to Joe the Plumber, we saw what you and the Obama Party do with tax dollars.
Gov. Ted Strickland placed Jones-Kelley on paid leave Friday after e-mails requested by The Dispatch revealed that she had used her state e-mail account to help raise campaign funds for President-Elect Barack Obama.
The Dispatch uncovered that Jones-Kelley ran a check on Wurzelbacher through her agency’s child-support computer system. She later said that checks also were run in public assistance and unemployment-compensation tax databases.
This is what you and the Obama Party support. This is what you and the Obama Party do with our tax dollars. Worse, you demand we pay you even more in taxes while your party leadership pays nothing.
Cain
Goddam.. I take a break from homework and it looks like igNorantDork 30 has shat all over the place. Of course, he’s weaving around like a fly on shit and seeing some of you trying to swat him and hit the shit he’s flying over is somewhat amusing. The end result is approximately the same.
There are certain people you don’t debate with. I suggest you just respond with "I know you are, but what am I?" en masse?
Hey ND30, I know you are but what am I?
cain
Cain
I know you are but what am I?!
cain
North Dallas Thirty
No, just pointing out your liberal = welfare recipient talking point, like all the others, was bunk. As the Republican poster boy (not) Joe the (not) plumber was himself a welfare recipient at one point in time.
Industrious bottstrap pulling up one he is, not.
That’s funny; so the fact that he was at one point on welfare and then got off of it makes him a bad person?
Really, I want to see you apply this more generally. Will you state that all liberals who ever at any point in time received welfare of any sort are bad people, just like you state about Joe?
Meanwhile, as far as "do as I say and not as I do", that would certainly seem to apply to your Obama Party and its large roster of tax-dodgers. But then again, you’re not capable of berating them as hypocrites in the same way you are attacking Joe.
gwangung
Of course, the plan may be to play round-robin Poke the Dweeb and keep him up all night, so he’s too tired to bother the other threads.
Rommie
C’mon folks – when someone asks a question like ND30 did way back at @43
"Given our economic history between 2002 and December of 2007, what, exactly, do you define as "failure"?"
Why bother with rationality? Or, to borrow from one Mr. Wonka: YOU LOST. GOOD DAY SIR.
TenguPhule
North Dallas Thirty, since we’re going to play the tar everyone based on selected people (of which some are not even part of said problem) game, then we must conclude from your support of Republicans that you support child molestation, gay hookers, crushing a 12 year old’s testicles to make a parent confess, not paying any taxes you owe at all (as opposed to not paying all of the taxes you may owe) and the KKK.
pattonbt
@North Dallas Thirty:
Man you are dense. Where did I say anything about welfare being bad. You are the idiot who made that comment above which I quoted – again for your pleasure "lazy welfare-addicted liberals". So is (not) Joe the (not) Plumber a liberal? He was on welfare. Or is he lazy? He was on welfare.
Personally, Im glad welfare was there for him, I think its great that he and his family were able to rely on government assistance through a tough time and they got back up on their feet and off the dole. This is where my tax dollars work well.
But you seemed to make the point that welfare was evil on only lazy liberals would go on it. So is welfare good or bad? Id like to know because you seemed confused on the subject.
And I know it wouldnt make any sense to bring up my point again that I agree with you on the cabinet nominees who cheated on their taxes. I have no love for them and think none of them should be (have been) confirmed. So what is your obssession with them? Is that all you have?
Dense and touched, not a fun way to go through life.
Rome Again
It’s only good for those who might have the mindset to be a Republican. It’s only evil when it help someone who is opposed to that Republican mindset.
This joker thinks he has an understanding of what a liberal is based on the continuing education he receives daily via Rush Limbaugh’s Liberal Hatefest. He has no understanding of anything.
He has the audacity to sit here and complain about Liberals after supporting the Republican mindset for the last eight years. "Nuff said".
Go crawl back into your hole, snake. You don’t have any room to talk. Your side chose to go into a war of choice via lies and obfuscation with no remorse for the shitpile you left behind and the pain you have caused. I have no respect for you at all. No bid contracts to Cheney’s company. Shitting all over the Constitution. You liked that, didn’t you? Rant all you want, you’re not going to change anything and things will either get done or not get done, with or without you. You are just another average joe. If you weren’t, you certainly wouldn’t be here lighting fires in our little corner of the world at this time of night. You are insignificant in the whole scheme of things.
Have a great night troll.
Rome Again
Well, since he has no trouble admitting that Not Joe the Not Plumber is a good guy even though he had some tax problems, I’m sure he can accept that those who are going to be doing the work of the government don’t necessarily mean to govern badly just because they had some tax problems.
Oh yeah, I forgot, he has selective reasoning.
If he doesn’t like the people who are governing, perhaps he should go talk to them instead of wasting OUR time. It’s not like we can do anything about it.
Of course, BushCo gets a pass for all they’ve done in the past eight years. Why am I not surprised?
Conservatively Liberal
I just had to come back in here to see how the donnybrook was going. Donnybrook? Hell no! This looks more like a scene from the epic
myiq2xuGoatBoy movie, Goatocalypse Now. Looks like MD20/20 is a goat fucker and he just had himself a roundup.I warned you guys what would happen if you imbibed too much of that cheap fortified shit. You’ve been bit by the Mad Dog and it had you chasing your own tails.
Fer shame. ;)
Xenos
morning shift, checking in…
WTF? Not again!
Conservatively Liberal
@Xenos:
I know, it’s a total wasteland here. Got a mop?
Scratch that, make it a giant squeegee and a wet/dry shop vac.
Gravenstone
May I just give a brief kudos to Mr. Cole and the site designer. The format of poster name on top and clearly delineated post limits makes it amazingly simple to scroll right past the anal dribblings of folks like Dallas Inbred 30. Good thing too, what with my weak constitution and all. (And no, no Pie for me thanks. On the work PC with the devil IE so no nifty Firefox plug-in goodness).
LeeBurl
ND30 is a perfect example of of a gooper. Desperately clinging to his "Atlas Shrugged" book, while flipping through his Ditttohead book guide in search of something relevant to write.
There is no need to respond to this idiot’s tired mantra. People like this bozo should be mocked and laughed at or just pet it on the head and ignore it, like an overly excited barking dog.
Xenos
Back to the topic, an interesting if lousy start to Morning Joe. No coherent message or debate here, just weak talking points from the corporate wing of the GOP establishment.
It is irresponsible! The stimulus can’t be done in three weeks without fraud and abuse! The states are as bad as the banks when it comes to finances! Oh crap – everybody is losing their jobs! Hurry and pass a stimulus already!
If GE/MSNBC does not have a position worked out on a Monday morning, the big business wing does not know what to do. Look for the free market fundamentalists and the nativist GOP rump senators to repeat the brilliance of last week.
myiq2xu
You just can’t quit me, can you?
Conservatively Liberal
Not after all of the excellent adventures we have been through GoatBoy. Think of it this way, you are the gold standard when it comes to goat fuckers. You’re at the top baby!
Just a note: I didn’t miss your other post in that earlier thread. I decided not to comment because the title of the post was Assholes and yours was the first post in it.
Anything I would have said to you would have disturbed the perfect symmetry of that page.
headpan
Is it just me or is Paul Krugman getting tons more teevee time and Sunday bobblehead time these days? I realize he’s a Nobel Prize Winning economist and stuff but he’s a crazy-assed, leftie liberal. With everyone trying to give repube insanity the benefit of the doubt over Dems (just look at Media Matters’ numbers) — why are we talking to this guy? He hasn’t been FULLY DISCREDITED like people like Newt Gingrich (who by the way, would make teh awesomes HHS Sec). I thought that was a bobblehead rule.
PSoTD
Hey calipygian – that may be the best Republican behavioral analysis ever.
Josh Hueco
Good Lord…what the BJ record for comments in one thread? I think we may have broken it.
John Cole
We have had 700-800 comments before.
What is rich, though, is I got an email from North Dallas Thirty accusing me of banning him, saying, basically, “At least be a man and announce you have banned me,” when he has over 60 comments in this thread alone. Of course I didn’t ban him, some of his comments got stuck in the spam filter because he had multiple links, but they should be up now.
I will be waiting for my apology.
Cain
@Josh Hueco:
I’ve seen higher.. this wasn’t really a foam in the mouth thread. Sadly, ND30 keeps coming around when the bulk of the readers have gone to bed. So we couldn’t do an intense ass whupping that we would usually do. But then again he weaves around so much that all of us need to engage him on each topic he creates forcing him to keep track of everything he said for all topics till his head explodes.
cain
Conservatively Liberal
Don’t hold your breath.
Church Lady
TenguPhule, you are right that DeMint did propose eliminating all deductions except for mortgage interest and charitable contributions. So, is the spirit of cooperation…. grovel, grovel, grovel. HOWEVER, the DeMint amendment was in no way tied to the amendment proposing the reduction in the two lowest tax brackets (Cornyn amendment) or the amendment proposing cutting payroll taxes in half (Martinez amendment). They were all separate amendments, presented at different times. Now it’s your turn to grovel.
Sea Star
And what about business supporting a national health plan, that would not only give us universal, affordable health care, but would also relieve business of some of their increasing health care costs.
http://conyers.house.gov/
—sea star
binzinerator
@TheHatOnMyCat:
And methinks a little bit of Ted Haggard too.
North Dallas Thirty
But you seemed to make the point that welfare was evil on only lazy liberals would go on it.
Wrong. The point I made was about lazy, welfare-addicted liberals.
When you are addicted to welfare, you stay on it and you demand more of it, just like the Obama Party does. The Obama Party opposes requiring welfare recipients to work. The Obama Party opposes requiring people to be citizens to receive welfare. The poster child of the Obama Party is Obama’s illegal-immigrant aunt, who defied a court order, stayed in the country, and gets cheap housing, free healthcare, and a no-show government job — all at the expense of honest, hardworking taxpayers who get nothing of the sort.
And I know it wouldnt make any sense to bring up my point again that I agree with you on the cabinet nominees who cheated on their taxes. I have no love for them and think none of them should be (have been) confirmed.
You’re right, it doesn’t — because, since you show no willingness whatsoever to hold Obama responsible for nominating them or your Obama Party for overwhelmingly voting for them, it’s pretty obvious that you’re just paying lip service to the behavior. Attack them like you attacked Joe the Plumber and you might have some credibility in the matter.
Your side chose to go into a war of choice via lies and obfuscation with no remorse for the shitpile you left behind and the pain you have caused.
I always love how liberals who had nothing to say about what Iraq was like under Saddam Hussein and the pain that he caused the Iraqi people suddenly got concerned about them after the fact.
By the way, concerning that after the fact, your faked study got in trouble again this week. Looks like Soros’s purchased "research" doesn’t hold up under sunlight.
For people who are constantly screaming about genocide, you liberals certainly don’t seem to have problems with it when it’s being done by a nation that’s paying off your fellow liberals with billions of dollars in oil bribes. What was that thing you were always shrieking about "no blood for oil"?
And finally
I will be waiting for my apology.
And you got it. Which, of course, you didn’t publicize.