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The Obama Watch
Obama's Scam and Pelosi's Pigs
Let's name a few names.
Let's x-ray the process that is giving us this so-called "stimulus" bill.
The gargantuan spending bill now waddling through Congress is a lobbyist's dream. Do not think for a second that Democrats in Congress dreamed this up all by themselves. The principle behind it -- enlarging the government, creating more lobbyists and then robbing the taxpayers blind -- yes. This is gospel to liberals on Capitol Hill, always decked out in the language of superior morality and compassion. But the details? Please. The Congressional expertise in this area is close to zilch. Members of Congress are dependent on lobbyists for this kind of material. So they did what they always do: cranked up some blank pages on their Microsoft Word and turned to their favorite lobbyists to ask "whaddya got?"
What Team Obama and Speaker Pelosi are in the middle of doing here is giving the keys to your safe deposit box (not to mention what's left of your 401k's, mutual funds or the value of your house and anything else you haven't nailed down) to their favorite lobbyists. Then sitting back and letting them ransack every last dime you have for themselves. All for the purpose of growing Big Government into Humongous Government, hence creating enough new lobbyists to fill several Super Bowl-sized stadiums. Not to mention slopping the trough for the thousands upon thousands of lobbyists already in town. All of whom will be most anxious to send contributions to the Re-elect Obama campaign in 2012, not to mention the re-election campaigns of Pelosi's congressmen and senator buddies. Talk about pigs dressed up in lipstick! Next to prostitution this is the oldest game in Washington -- and it produces the same results. Someone is always getting screwed. In this case that someone is -- yet again -- you.
Tempting as it may be to focus on the bureaucratic obfuscation that comes along with hundreds of pages written in language like "Title I- General Provisions: Subtitle A-Use of Funds: Section C of Section 1104," let's do something else here. Let's pick four examples at random from the latest version of the stimulus bill. Let's speak English, as well. Instead of the aptly named "Appropriations to which this section applies," let's put it plainly: follow the money.
Who gets your money? Indian tribes.
Lobbyist delivering the goods: National Congress
of American Indians.
How much of your money: "American Indian tribes
stand to gain almost $3 billion..." (Source:
AP).
Best quote from lobby group: The money from
Obama is a "once in a lifetime opportunity."
Favor to Obama from lobby group: On October 31,
2008, Ron Allen, who has served as both president and treasurer
of NCAI and describes himself in a public statement as being
proud to "serve as a member of John McCain's advisory committee,"
endorses Barack Obama. Why? "Because I believe he does represent
true, sincere and positive change for Indian country."
Translation: Obama can be trusted to deliver the goods. The goods
turns out to be $3 billion of your money.
Who gets your money? Labor union
Lobbyist delivering the goods: United
Steelworkers union
How much of your money: Vice President Biden
promises $100 billion will be spent on infrastructure projects.
(Source: news reports.)
Favor to Obama from lobby group: On May 15,
2008, the United Steelworkers, led by president Leo Gerard,
endorsed Obama.
Favor from Obama to lobby: Obama refuses to
insist on removal of a "Buy America" amendment sponsored by
Democrats Byron Dorgan (North Dakota Senator) and Peter Visclosky
(Congressman from Indiana and chairman of the aptly named if
misspelled "Steel Caucus"). Amendment mandates that all funds
"appropriated or otherwise made available" by the bill must be
used to pay only for "iron and steel ...produced in the United
States." Translation: We don't care if this causes a repeat of
the Great Depression as it did in the 1930s as long as we get
ours. One hundred billion dollars of your hard-earned money is
being set aside for the private use of this union. Period. So
shut-up and hand over your wallet.
Who gets your money? Teachers union (government
employees).
Lobbyist delivering the goods: National
Education Association.
How much of your money: $150 billion (Source:
New York Times)
Favor to Obama from lobby group: The NEA
endorsed Obama on July 4, 2008. On July 5 he spoke to the group
by satellite.
Best quote from lobby group: "We've been arguing
that the federal government hasn't been living up to its
commitments, but these increases go a substantial way toward
meeting them," said Joel Packer, a lobbyist for the National
Education Association, the nation's largest teachers union.
Translation: Your piggy bank is now the property of a liberal
activist union and its members. It will create jobs for them --
on your dime. They will want a tax increase eventually to pay for
this. And don't even think of abolishing these new programs once
they're funded or they will say you hate teachers and education.
Who gets your money? Environmentalists.
Lobbyist delivering the goods: The Sierra Club
(and many others).
How much of your money: $80 billion to subsidize
"renewable energy." (Source: news reports.)
Favor to Obama from lobby group: The Sierra Club
endorsed Obama on July 19, 2008.
Best quote from lobby group: In a news release
from Sierra, club president Allison Chin said: "Our endorsement
today marks the beginning of a massive mobilization of thousands
of members around the country for the campaign -- on the phone,
on the ground, on the airwaves and online, spreading the message
that as President, Barack Obama will lead America into the clean
energy future and that we support his plan to solve both our
economic challenges and the challenge of global warming at the
same time." The group has received funding from the Democracy
Alliance, which in turn is funded by billionaire George Soros.
Translation: We take your money and give it to our lobby pals in
groups like the American Wind Energy Association over on M Street
(as opposed to K Street or Connecticut Avenue or…well, you get
the idea). It creates jobs for more lobbyists, usually ex-Hill
staffers and ex-Members of the House and Senate who will lobby
for more of your money and, getting it, will hire more lobbyists
to get still more of your money. You pay, they lobby. Get it? No
house payment problems in the expensive Washington suburbs for
these guys.
What's described above is what you might call the Culture of Tom Daschle. Daschle came to Washington as a Senate staffer for a South Dakota senator. Then went home to get elected to Congress himself, where, House or Senate, he remained until his defeat in 2004. Did he go home then? Are you kidding? As the Wall Street Journal noted in a recent editorial, of course not. Tom Daschle a farmer after all that time in the Big Government Big City? Not on your life. There was influence to peddle and money to be made. In Daschle's case, he made millions almost immediately.
In fairness to Daschle, the real culprit here was one of FDR's New Dealers, the late Tommy "The Cork" Corcoran. Corcoran was a gung-ho New Dealer who spent his time with FDR planting all the green shoots of Big Government. When they quickly blossomed and began to endlessly multiply into the bureaucratic jungle that is modern Washington, Corcoran left government to sign on as a jungle guide. A highly paid jungle guide. He was, in some respects, the Bill Gates or Henry Ford of lobbying. Instead of a real product like software or cars, however, the product was influence. The game was simple. Lobby the government to set up a bureaucracy regulating some aspect of your life out there beyond the Beltway, or better yet have a program for it imbedded in the government itself. Even better, get this done while in government yourself. Set these things in political concrete, which is to say they can never, ever be ended. Then, with some formerly private entity now being squeezed or padded by the government, go to them and volunteer your services to lobby. For or against, no matter. You'll get paid -- well paid -- either way.
Take a look around your immediate surroundings as you read this. What do you see? Your computer? Reading this on Windows? Did you Google this publication? The folks at the Computer and Communications Industry Association (which includes as members Microsoft and Google, to name but two) popped for almost $1.5 million in lobbying last year, a long way from the barely couple hundred grand of a decade ago when there weren't as many computers being sold in the world and the 'Net was just getting off the ground. A while back the New York Times reported Bill Gates had to hire an "army of lobbyists" just to deal with the Justice Department alone. Sipping a coke? According to OpenSecrets.org, the Coca-Cola Company felt the need to spend north of $2.5 million on lobbying last year. Wearing your favorite Nike sneakers? Yup. About half a million listed for them last year. Listening to some soothing music? That would be the folks over at the Recording Industry Association of America.
You get the picture.
In other words, Big Government has so invaded every aspect of your life that in self-defense Americans have had to resort to establishing a very well paid influence-peddling industry in Washington, D.C. (and mini-versions in state capitals) just to survive. After decades of this the whole thing has become one very smooth version of an extortion racket disguised as a candy store. Daschle is only the latest to set up shop, focusing on extorting his living from his area of interest -- health-care. It's no accident why he was selected for the Secretary's job at Health and Human Services. Daschle had made it -- quite literally -- his business to know anybody who is anybody in the health-care industry. And like the president he was set to work for, he had every intention of expanding the government's role in your health-care choices and thus willfully enable (not to mention enlarge) the number of lucrative lobbying jobs in the health-care lobbying trade.
The particularly bad part of this is that Republicans long ago bought into this flim-flam machine. It is an article of faith in Washington that lobby shops hire both Democrats and Republicans to work their respective brethren on Capitol Hill and in the White House of the moment. The only way to effectively protest the whole rigged game if you are leaving government service is, simply put, not to play the game. Lots, needless to say, simply don't have the stomach to fight. It's too lucrative. They are addicted to what might be called influence-peddling crack. Instead they become part of the problem, accepting the underlying premise that a centralized Big Government is here to stay and the only thing to do is just accept the fact it will be made bigger. Endlessly. This is why Republicans pop up as lobbyists for the scandal-tarred Fannie Mae. Hey, everybody does it, goes the rationale. And in Washington, D.C. they would be correct. Everybody does do it. And they get paid very, very well to do it.
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Rocco| 2.10.09 @ 6:58AM
Well, Jeff, I wouldn't hold my breath. The state of American citizenry has sunk very low. The following quote applies: "Iam pridem, ex quo suffragia nulli vendimus, effudit curas; nam qui dabat olim imperium, fasces, legiones, omnia, nunc se continet atque duas tantum res anxius optat, panem et circenses ." “Already long ago, from when we sold our vote to no man, we the People have abdicated our duties; for the People who once upon a time handed out military command, high civil office, legions - everything, now restrains itself and anxiously hopes for just two things: bread and circuses.” -- Roman Satirist, Iunius Decimus Iuvenalis (Juvenal), Satire 10, 77-81.
Substitute "bread" with "welfare" (or government cheese) and "circuses" with "American Idol" or "Dancing with the Stars," and you get the idea.
The whole slate needs to be wiped clean, preferably by votes, but by revolution if necessary.
Rick| 2.10.09 @ 8:59AM
Rocco, your comment is right on target: the whole slate needs to be wiped clean, preferably by votes, but by revolution if necessary.
We do need a revolution in this country. A transformation of character, culture and commitment. It's infuriating to see the nuts in Washington spending our money like a drunken sailor, while pretending they have the inside information on governing. They cannot even balance a budget. Pelosi and Team Obama are acting like kids who just acquired the key to the candy store. And the money they are throwing down the drain is OUR TAX DOLLARS.
A Texas businessman walked up to Glenn Beck and asked him the pertinent question: When are we going to have to strap on our guns and take this country back?
When, indeed?
www.PatriotHangout.com
Bill| 2.10.09 @ 9:40AM
Great article. People in this country need to wake up and take back our country. We need term limits to get the dead wood out of office and no lobbyist or strict limitations and over sight on their activities. Perhaps a change in the way our elections are held.
A tax payer revolt might also be necessary to cut off the flow of cash they waste. A change in the law that prohibits the employer from automatically deducting taxes and leave it up to the individual to pay them. They will not only see how much is taken out each pay period but will, hopefully be more involved in the entire process.
We may have to have a tax payer march on Washington or camp out outside the members of congress homes. Time to be more of a activist?
hoads| 2.10.09 @ 9:44AM
Lobbying is just what we see on the surface. Beneath the surface are the backroom deals and payoffs that I believe are ubiquitous in Washington. Blackmail and extortion included. Look at Blagojevich--he says he was offered a "deal" to be "an incapacitated governor", a ghost payroller by "leading Senators" where he would receive his same pay and security detail for 2 years if he agreed not to appoint Obama's replacement senator. I know Blagojevich is a flake but, nevertheless, the mere fact that this "pay to play" thing for a Senate seat was even discussed is proof that "deal making" is the status quo amongst the well connected. And then there are the lucrative book deals for "tell alls", the rapid wealth accumulation of Senators and Congressman after election--insider information being a perk for being an federally elected representative and the endorsement paybacks. I'd love to see an investigation of all the offshore accounts of our media and elected government. It's all a corrupt game and Lord is right--we're being swindled.
Gill O'Teen| 2.10.09 @ 10:06AM
Rocco, I’m impressed! Someone can actually read Juvenal in the original Latin. However, I must disagree with both you and Rick. It’s too late for votes. We voted last November and look what happened. I watched “Braveheart” the other night. My Father’s grandmother was a member of the Wallace Family, and Dad trudged across North Africa, up through Italy, and eventually into Germany where he helped other Patriots liberate concentration camps. None of these valiant Americans undertook this difficult task so their descendants could live in tyranny.William Wallace’s final word as he lay dying at the hands of his torturer was “Freedom”. Wallace died so Scotland would be free. Many of my Father’s friends died so I could be free. The Stalinists in Washington have usurped our freedom and it is time for action or our children will live in Gulag America. I do not want this legacy for them.
I do not know where there is a functional guillotine, but one could go a long way towards solving this economic crisis. We simply commandeer Nationals Park. Place our guillotine at second base and start lopping off heads starting with every member of Congress who voted for Obama’s Stimulus Theft. We continue until every last traitor has been dispatched. We sell tickets to this spectacle, increasing the price on days when such as Barney Frank and Nancy Pelosi are introduced to Madame.
I have nothing to lose. The current health care plan calls for denying treatment to senior citizens some bean counter in Washington deems not cost effective. Kiss the elderly good-bye. After all, the price of their health care will be deemed inconvenient, and we already know what Obama thinks of inconvenient American citizens since he voted to allow them to die while in the Illinois Senate. So sign me up, give me a weapon. Let’s restore our nation to its former glory.
Don't tread on me!
Tasine| 2.10.09 @ 10:42AM
Lots of aren't laying down, but we are limited in what we can do to turn this thing around. The ballot box is too little too late, and it is so tainted I doubt it will ever be patent again. Contacting our elected officials does very little good because the "good" ones are so outnumbered. Many, many of us blog, but the blogosphere is overrun with crazy liberals, many of whom I would guess are hired just to muck things up. Some of us are forming support groups to be there for each other when the last shoe drops. Our courts are against us. Our elected officials are against us. The media is against us. Short of armed revolution, what else can we do to put a stop to this? Name it and I will do it except I simply cannot send all my money to people who may or may not help - I spent too many years doing that for the Republican Party which now I want no part of. My paltry dollars buy nothing.
Gill O'Teen| 2.10.09 @ 11:05AM
jharp, I am afraid I agree with you which is exactly why those of us who have not slaked our parched throats on Obama kool-aid, can not rely on the ballot box to reclaim our stolen freedoms. My Dad did not raise me to be a Commie Pinko. It is time for us to stand up and take our country back. We may have to lop off many skulls full of mush in the process. Oh well, the cost of freedom is high.
DeAnn| 2.10.09 @ 11:06AM
Yes dear, we heard you the first time. Enjoy the bread lines.
Anthony| 2.10.09 @ 11:22AM
Daschle go home to South Dakota after he was defeated? Are you kidding? Hell, before he was defeated it was discovered that he had sold his home in South Dakota and was a resident of, yep, you got it, Washington D.C. This is precisely the problem America faces, these clowns need to be term limited and forced to stay out of government / lobbying for a decade there after. Farming or teaching in Africa for a decade would do the trick, that will reduce Washington's power over Americans.
Gill O'Teen| 2.10.09 @ 11:52AM
Any who think I’m kidding about its being too late to count on the ballot box and that I have nothing to lose should read the article “Ruin Your Health With the Obama Stimulus Plan” by Betsy McCaughey which I linked to from The Drudge Report
http://www.drudgereport.com/:
The Bloomberg News article was posted at http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&refer=columnist_mccaughey&sid=aLzfDxfbwhzs#
What a creative solution to the bankruptcy of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. Soylent Green anyone?
bobmontgomery| 2.10.09 @ 12:40PM
Community development block grants - AKA the Gamaleil Foundation, ACORN, the Center for Community Change, La Raza
Todd| 2.10.09 @ 12:56PM
The day I read Krugman for truth jharp is the day I spit on the Constitution and that is never going to happen. Krugman is a little liberal lying weasel and there is no truth to be found from that political hack. The same Krugman that is complaining that this bullcrap stimulus is nowhere big enough. According to him, what we need to do is print off trillions of more dollars for whatever liberal special interest groups Pelosi decides on and everything will be A OK. Nevermind out of control inflation and debasement of the dollar, Krugman isn't worried and he has a Nobel prize so who can argue with him. What an ahole.
Gill O'Teen| 2.10.09 @ 1:01PM
jharp, I took your advice, held my nose and read the comments by New York Times Economics Professor, Paul Krugman. Even if every word he wrote is true, he does not even address the take-over of my health care from my doctor by the Obamoid National Coordinator of Health Information Technology. Silly me, I thought you and your like claimed that abortion, even those funded by federal tax dollars, were strictly a private decision between a woman and her doctor. What happened to my right to privacy? What happened to my doctor’s authority to make a plan to help me remain healthy. What if I have a condition that threatens my life?
You and Klugman are just lemmings sucking us all over the cliff with your socialist undertow.
JamesJ| 2.10.09 @ 1:18PM
jharp..Good boy, now repeat after me:
All Hail Obama!
All Hail the State!
J Jo| 2.10.09 @ 1:26PM
Bloomberg's Betsy McCaughey appears to be correct regarding medical rationing. After reading several sections of the bill, doctors and hospitals can even be fined for not following the recommended course of treatment and instead using an alternative. If we were all machine built robots, fine - that approach would work. But we are not, everyone is different and as such respond differently to treatment. There is not a one size fits all in medical care.
While there is sig waste in health care which is driving up the cost, rationing is NOT the answer unless we want to be on a slippery slope of the govt determining who in society is allowed to live and die. That doesn't sound like a free society to me.
I want my dr to decide on my course of treatment and not some bureaucrat in DC who has never met me.
The stimulus bill will bankrupt our country. While sig pain may be averted for a short time, in the end, the weight of the debt is unsustainable in an aging and declining population.
I feel that it is pointless to even complain about it because govt will do what it wants. It doesn't not care what I think. I am the minority upper but still working class that is paying an obscene amt of taxes to support its waste. There are too many that are dependent on the govt for support and will always vote for whatever helps them out even if it is to the determent of society.
Think First| 2.10.09 @ 1:31PM
jharp - So you want me to agree with krugman, who has been proven wrong so many times people in his own profession laugh in his face, and agree that using the same guidelines nationalized medicine in England and other countries to justify not spending money on those they deem to old to help, to expensive to save or not worth spending the money on drugs too expensive according to their guidelines, whether they save lives or not?
This rationale was used to save the failing healthcare system and is now used to justify sending people home to die if the healthcare panel decides you are too expensive to allow to live.
One thing it has done though is create and fuel the new private health care industry particularly in England and the increasing number of Canadians seeking help in the US where they gladly pay cash for treatment they can't get in their own country.
Remember, drug companies create and fund studies to prove their medicines work whether it does or not. Look at the cholesterol scam and you'll see how mainstream it is to buy into the idea that it's the cause of heart attacks no matter how many times it's been proven it's not. All that plaque in your arteries is mostly calcium and other gunk. The actual cholesterol? About 5 to 7% of the total. Limiting your cholesterol though has the side effects of destroying your hormone balance, starving your brain and increasing your chances of Alzheimers. Which means the medical industry and insurance companies get rich on your staying sick as long as possible until they can milk you for all you're worth.
The CDC, Diabetes groups, Cancer groups, etc., follow the money they are paid to approve of and encourage failed treatments because it means money in their pockets. We've already seen how many drugs have had to be recalled because they never should have been approved to begin with. A lot of folks enjoy their Nutrasweet thinking it's safe when EVERY test before approval showed it's many dangers but every objection was overridden and a new industry and money funnel created.
Yes jharp, THINK.
J Jo| 2.10.09 @ 1:47PM
jharp,
Think about it. I know it is taxing to use your brain when you have Krugman to do it for you, but do the math. How do you expect to pay for the trillions of dollars of govt debt that is accumulating? Maybe you are old and don't care. But, I am young, and do not want to spend my entire life working just to pay taxes. And, I do not my children to bare the burden either.
And, I never said the original stimulus was good either. In fact just the opposite. Look at how TARP I was written and you can see what a slippery slope we are on to outright govt control of our lives.
The stimulus bill is like trying to treat advanced heart disease with only an aspirin a day (in size and scope). You can deny you have an issue for a short time, but eventually it will kill you.
aware| 2.10.09 @ 2:02PM
"And wasn't Obama something on T.V. last night. Wow."....what a groupie. What a troll. And Klugman?!? He's not just wrong, he's truly insane.
jharp you have the mentality of an adolescent teenage girl fainting at an Elvis concert. My apologies to adolescent teenage girls.
J Jo| 2.10.09 @ 2:04PM
jharp,
no kidding....how stupid of me! Please explain to me how you expect tax revenues to cover the now estimated $6-10 TRILLION dollar increase in national debt. Even assuming more people go back to work or at least do not lose their jobs, it will be difficult, if not impossible to cover just the interest pmts on the debt with our current tax levies. And then what do you do with future debt because you can be guaranteed that debt will continue to rise. It always does (except one can make an argument that it declined slightly under Clinton). However, that is the exception and not the rule.
Wired| 2.10.09 @ 2:24PM
TEA TIME.
This country was built on the symbolism of tea thrown into the bay. History always repeats itself, when the 'people' get comfortable, fat, too much excess without respect for how it arrived, and definetly not having an understanding of the human condition. We are a cycle of fools, establishing one historical accounting over another, no lessons are learned except by default. We are again slipping into a default. The US government is the largest business on the globe, employing more people who don't have to work a full honest days labor. They are not held accountable like an entrepreneur who has to hustle to make ends meet. If we had our government employs held acountable for thier caretaking of existing laws, instead of creating new ones and thinning down the necessary responsible managemnet of pre-existing laws, we could save a lot of taxpayer monies. Gov. employees would have to produce and be held accountable for thier efforts. Stop bailing out the corporations, captilism was built upon production and management, not bailouts that become subsidies. That alone holds people accountable.
Accountability, that is yet another problem not managed...
Thank you Preside Barrack Hussein Obama, leader of the Worlds Greatest Nation
Let's see how that sorts itself out when other nations 'test' this administration...hold onto your panties...
rw| 2.10.09 @ 4:58PM
jharp,
The people have taken the country back alright. Back to the 1930's. Unenlightened fools such as yourself never learn from history.
Todd| 2.10.09 @ 4:59PM
To use the expense of Iraq as an excuse to justify the socialist agenda of Obama is a red herring jharp. Of course to someone who thinks like you, our military itself is an unnecessary expense that would be better spent on welfare or liberal special interest groups such as unions like the NEA. If it just wasn't for the military spending we could have a socialist paradise right jharp? Bullshit. Nevermind that the military is one of the few justified duties of our government that is listed in the Constitution. I am not going to get into with you whether the Iraq War was justified or not because it would be a waste of time with an Obamaniac like yourself. The fact you consider Krugman an unbiased source of information and truth tells everything we need to know about you. You read the article yesterday I posted about FDR prolonging the Depression? I doubt it because you don't want to read anything that might contradict your warped liberal worldview.
Jerry| 2.10.09 @ 6:27PM
jharp,
...so, to correct W's mistake of 'wasting $1B' in Iraq over a 6-year period, we must blow $1B in the first one month of Obama's presidency?! The promise has now shifted from millions of jobs created, to 'created or saved'--and just how does one quantify a 'saved' job?
Next, we need to repeat W's most truly egregious mistake, TARP I, with another $1B for TARP II...only we'll do it smarter, because our President uses better syntax!
How was W's rotten TARP ramrodded through? Why, the sky will fall if it's not passed by the end of the week, that's how. (Funny, the deadline was exceeded, yet none of the calamaties occured as predicted) And now, the great O-mmunicator is one-upping W's Chicken Little routine by making the absurd claim that if this stimulus bill is not passed, our economy may never recover!
Doesn't the scare mongering give you even a moment's pause, or does the O-dolatry rem0ve all objectivity?
Tom Black| 2.10.09 @ 6:51PM
Isn't it ironic that many of the same people who decry the influence of lobbyists and their legalized bribery, are liberals who advocate big government solutions to our problems? NEWS FLASH: We wouldn't have so many lobbyists and such intense arguments over government policy if the federal government were not such a collossal "sugar daddy" in the first place.
DaveS| 2.10.09 @ 8:00PM
....so, unbuckle your seatbelts and get out before the bus goes off the cliff. Republicans would be gleeful at all this nonsense, but for the damage to the country that these whacks are perpetrating. In a cold war, when something beyond national survival was at stake, Reagan was hopeful; in a mere economic condition, B. Hussein Obama is positively disheartening.
Nick| 2.10.09 @ 9:56PM
jharp,
What planet do you live on?
Republicans controlled congress for 10 of the last 14 years. Can't you get simple facts straight?
And they only had the presidency and congress for a total of 4 years. Not that they did a whole lot of good in those 4 years.
Nick| 2.10.09 @ 11:01PM
jharp,
No, they didn't do alot of good. They did some good.
While they didn't do enough to curb spending, let alone cut the budget like it should be, they were 10 times better than the alternative.
Every budget submitted since '95 was attacked by bleeding heart liberals like yourself as cutting spending too much. You guys screamed bloody murder about Medicare cuts that didn't exist, remember?
You tax & spend liberals always wanted to spend more than the Republicans, ALWAYS! So to imply you guys would have been more fiscally responsible is a joke.
You want proof? Your first act is to add $1 trillion to the deficit. What about PAY-GO? How are you democrats going to pay for this non-stimulus bill?
Pingback| 2.11.09 @ 12:37AM
CUBA COMES TO AMERICA!! « FactReal links to this page. Here’s an excerpt:
Pecos Pete| 2.11.09 @ 7:54AM
If the stimulus bill now in conference committee passes congress we can all, including jharp, kiss our collective asses goodbye. My great grandchldren and their childrens' children won't be able to pay the debt.
Inflation is the train rocketing down the tracks. That's how jharp and other leftists will pay for the debacle Congress and the president are shoving down our throats.
Robot| 2.11.09 @ 10:37PM
I love this stuff. If you right wingers were so good about this stuff why are we in the shape we're in now? Think we ought to give ya' another chance?
I'll use the same excuse you guys gave when you were running the country into the ground -- it's only about 20% of the GDP. We'll recover as long as we don't have "spend and don't tax" policies in place.
The fact is you wanted to eat cake and not gain weight and that just doesn't happen. We have to pay for the excesses of the past and this is how we have to do it or else risk turning the country into a third world republic. Tough luck. Pay your taxes.
Jay| 2.12.09 @ 12:26PM
I plan on going back into the underground economy of hospitality. Cash tips with no paper trail to speak of besides the paltry shift pay if you are actually on the payroll. Stay away from the corporate chains and stick with the small neighborhood places who are more than willing to keep you off the books and you are in.They can't tax what they don't know about.Tear up the cards, find a good hiding spot and stay away from banks.
JEO| 2.15.09 @ 1:55AM
If you want to see the future of America, just look at California (my home state). jharp, Democrats have been in charge of that state since 1965, and your hero Pelosi comes from there. California refuses to cut spending, but everyone one of us knows that when there's no money left, you just stop spending or you go bankrupt - as in the IOU received for state tax refund today. By the way, I don't get the whole "compassion, tolerance and diversity" rhetoric constantly spouted by liberals, and yet you are on this site calling people nasty names. That's what children do when they don't have a good argument. I'm just sayin'.
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joseph Stafura| 2.19.09 @ 12:03PM
The only revolution that working my life was the people movement that ended the Vietnam War before anymore kids were killed for dollars. Who is it exactly that you are taking the country back from, some of us are native americans, environmentalists and people that admire the work that George Soros has done over the last 30 years that has saved lives and educated people.
Bush and Cheney outsourced the entire government to K street firms that in turn figured out how to get rich in Iraq on soldiers blood again. If you want to pick up a gun please go to NYC and do so we can put your sorry ass away for years.
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Joam Marks| 9.29.09 @ 1:24PM
Obama is the Heartbeat of America not a scam.
John John| 9.29.09 @ 6:36PM
I'm with you Joan I love Obama he is truely the Heartbeat of America and anyone who calls this man a scam needs their head examined
LisaLee| 10.1.09 @ 12:37PM
Obama is the Heartbeat of America and not a scam.
Obama is the Heartbeat of America and not a scam.
Obama is the Heartbeat of America and not a scam.
Obama is the Heartbeat of America and not a scam.
Obama is the Heartbeat of America and not a scam.
Obama is the Heartbeat of America and not a scam.
Barbb| 10.2.09 @ 4:26PM
Obama is the Heartbeat of America.
The only politician who is not a scam.
If You Have Health Insurance, the Obama Plan:
* Ends discrimination against people with pre-existing conditions.
* Limits premium discrimination based on gender and age.
* Prevents insurance companies from dropping coverage when people are sick and need it most.
* Caps out-of-pocket expenses so people don't go broke when they get sick.
* Eliminates extra charges for preventive care like mammograms, flu shots and diabetes tests to improve health and save money.
* Protects Medicare for seniors.
* Eliminates the "donut-hole" gap in coverage for prescription drugs.
Bryson| 10.8.09 @ 12:39PM
Don't let others scam you. Obama the Heartbeat of America is For All Americans, the Obama Health Care Plan:
* Won’t add a dime to the deficit and is paid for upfront.
* Requires additional cuts if savings are not realized.
* Implements a number of delivery system reforms that begin to rein in health care costs and align incentives for hospitals, physicians, and others to improve quality.
* Creates an independent commission of doctors and medical experts to identify waste, fraud and abuse in the health care system.
* Orders immediate medical malpractice reform projects that could help doctors focus on putting their patients first, not on practicing defensive medicine.
* Requires large employers to cover their employees and individuals who can afford it to buy insurance so everyone shares in the responsibility of reform.