What happens when you spend gadzillions of dollars and you don’t make any money? You go broke:
Treasury Secretary John W. Snow warned Congress on Monday that the federal government risked default without an increase in the debt limit and that the Republican-controlled Congress would soon be forced to address that issue.
This isn’t rocket science. The Treasury Secretary needs to hit up Beijing and Riyadh for some more money for guns. Meanwhile, the House Republicans have a plan to make the task of selling fiscal ruin to the American public more palatable:
House conservatives plan this week to propose an austere alternative spending plan that would pare more than $650 billion over five years, balance the budget and drastically shrink three cabinet agencies…
Senior aides say the conservatives’ plan would wring about $350 billion from Medicare, Medicaid and other social programs and save $300 billion partly through a major reorganization of the Education, Commerce and Energy Departments.
But no new taxes.
The new budget proposal is certain to be assailed by Democrats who accuse Republicans of forging ahead with tax cuts that benefit the affluent and add to the deficit while reducing support for those most in need.
“This president will have piled up more debt than all of the presidents preceding him,” Senator Kent Conrad of North Dakota, the senior Democrat on the Budget Committee, said Monday as he joined other Democrats in accusing Republicans of shortchanging domestic security.
This is BushCo. folks, not America…not anymore. Bill Clinton tried to enact universal health care and balance the budget. BushCo. has bankrupted the country, slashed health programs, and stole more money from our children than all previous Presidents combined managed to steal from our forebears.
The Bush administration, and their Congressional enablers, are nothing more than a gang of thieves. And I don’t care how many times they back you up in your hatred of gays, Mexicans, Arabs, dildos, and abortion, they are still not on your side. The Republican’s socially conservative base is being fleeced just as badly as the Democrat’s urban poor base.
War ain’t free, but for them…it pays.
Maybe it’s time for Democrats to….. cut taxes.
Let me explain.
Why don’t we remove the social security cap so that everyon has to pay out their fair share, and use the extra revenue to reduce the overal rate of Social Security contributions.
And while we’re at it why don’t we tax capital gains in the same way that we do earned income. The argument that taxing capital gains harms seniors goes out the window when seniors who are truely dependent on capital gains as their primary source of income and are only getting a couple of thousand dollars a year from are exempted from taxes on this income just like any other low income individual.
And the corporate shenanigans, income is the money you recieve for the goods and services you produce, not that amount minus as many deductions and you can claim. If everyone pulled their fair share Democrats could lower taxes for those who need it the most.
i hope one day soon we have the opportunity to lobby on behalf of better social policy and offer innovative ideas. I’m tired of fighting on this playing field. But today it just seems like so much wasted breath to offer positive alternatives. I feel badly for our Dem lawmakers. What incentive do they have to even try?
When did they start trying? It would take too long to list the enabling votes and lack of an organized opposition to anything on behalf of the Dem lawmakers.
We all know they don’t have the spine or the votes; but it has been proven, at least in the senate, that opposition is possible.
Spare your sympathy for the current D’s in congress, and show the democRatbastards the door.
Christ in a bathtub, Kerry sponsors a bill to give W line item veto?…WTF?…
Help me out here Boo.
Peace
i support the line-item veto the way Kerry devised it. I am sick to death of the expansion of pork over the last 20 years. Ultimately, the GOP broke the system by exploiting a flaw in the rules.
The President would be able to send dead of night earmarks back to Congress and say “Are you all sure you want this Bridge to Nowhere in the NASA budget, because it doesn’t make any sense to me?”
And opposition is completely different from pointless wonkery.
Bush could cut out some bipartisan agreement that might keep some people alive and out of dire poverty and homelessness because he “just want’s to.” Or some National Forest protection provision, etc.
Unfortunately, line item veto has a double edge.
Do you honestly believe it will be used solely for that purpose? As Isis says below, it is a doubled edged sword.
Signing statements anyone?
This proposal is inappropriate given the current political climate, IMO, and will result in no good end.
Peace
it is isn’t the line-item veto of Clinton’s era.
Basically, the President can send a bill back and ask the Congress to approve a segment of a bill again.
So, it’s not really a veto.
What happens now is that they take a popular bill like the funding for the troops and they stick something unpopular in it, like ANWR. Then when the campaign comes, they say Senator Jones voted against body armor for our troops, when he really voted against putting oil-drilling in a armed forces bill.
Or even worse, they put earmarks in a bill after everyone has read it (if they read it) and appropriations are voted out without Congress’s knowledge.
Because of this practice, pork barrel spending has spiraled out of control and lots of terrible legislation gets passed under dishonest circumstances.
If the bill passes, most likely, it will pass again. But this discourages the practice of abusing the system to steal money.
I understand that, what I don’t understand is the willful disregard for the reality of the circumstances.
“If “ifs” and “buts” were candy and nuts, wouldn’t it be a Merry Christmas?”
I am not convinced.
Peace
Okay, it could turn out that we just disagree, but to make sure I’ll explain my position a little more.
Let’s say that Congress passes an education funding bill. And let’s say that the meat and potatoes of the bill are well understood. And the bill passes Congress and goes to Bush.
Now, Bush might object to the meat and potatoes of the bill, but there is no point in sending that back because Congress will just reaffirm that they like the bill.
If Bush opposed the meat and potatoes he will veto the entire bill.
But, if the bill has little largely unnoticed provisions in it that have little or nothing to do with funding schools, Bush can highlight those and send just those portion back and ask Congress to reaffirm them. Chances are, if the portions are just pork that Congress will not approve them.
So, it saves us money.
Now, how could Bush abuse the system? He could try to throw out amendments he doesn’t like, but the amendments already passed once and will likely pass again. What else can he do?
Basically, this forces Congress to draft honest legislation. That is why Kerry supports it and why I support it.
Your fifth graf is precisely why I question this.
Pork is a way of life for the both parties, the R’s, certainly more so than the D’s. It is payback, greasing the skids, catering to the base, ad infinitum.
I do not believe that Bush cares, he doesn’t have to run again. What he has to do is survive the threat of impeachment and worse. All the Rove-speak in the world, as evidenced by his petulant remarks re: this subject today, will not alter that reality.
Deals with the devil, and all that. The reality is that this is a very poor idea at this time.
Additionally, for arguments sake, why not keep this for after the elections and use it as an issue during? If, and it’s still a very big if, the D’s take control of one or both houses of congress, then bring it forth. Putting this forward at this time allows the R’s to take credit for a new spirit of bipartisanship and, IMO, weakens the overall D position in the coming elections.
WTF happened to thinking ahead, strategy….common sense. It’s an endangered species, especially within the DLC.
Perhaps, I really do not get it, or I just see things differently. Either way, I think we’re just going to have to disagree on this one.
Peace
I think we might find more agreement if we limit the debate to strategy and ignore whether the proposed bill is good policy.
So let’s talk strategy.
Most swing voters like bipartisanship. For this reason, politicians are always making empty gestures toward bipartisanship. And that is what Kerry has done. Reid immediately slapped it down. But Kerry was able to put forward an good-will offer that highlights the current hypocrisy of the Republicans about pork barrel spending.
It’s good for Kerry, it’s good for Reid, and it’s not good for congressional Republicans that oppose cleaning up the stink-pie of handouts and corruption.
If you want to think strategically, remember that this bill will not pass and it is just a gesture.
Some Dems will howl at Kerry for making a conciliatory gesture toward Bush. But it is actually an empty gesture that sticks the knife in the GOP Congress and gives Kerry a shine of bipartisnship.
In my opinion, it’s good policy and it is good politics.
Inequality should be a subject for every democratic campaign.
We need canidate out there telling people:
“These freeloaders want you to pay so they can play. They are taking money out of your pocket so that they can buy a second home in the Hamptons. You don’t have enough money to put your kid’s through school, and grandma can’t pay for her pills. Yet still they play while you pay. You pay your fair share, they need to pay theirs.”
They have used people’s prejudices and the empty promise of something for nothing to transform the American government into a remarkably effective siphon, stuffing the coffers of big business with the wealth of the public while the public works itself further and further into apathy and debt.
I still can’t believe that there are people who cannot or will not understand this.
Why can’t they see? Propaganda is a powerful tool. Keep repeating the lies often enough and no matter how big the lie, some people will believe it. Combine that with an absence of any competing narrative on the airwaves and — voila — instant ignorance!
That’s definitely true…as GWB said himself.
Barack Obama is giving a GREAT speech on the Senate floor. GREAT!
He is kicking ass.
Who’S ass is he kicking, BooMan?
What is the point?
(No I’m not watching the speech, but I’m tired of all this self-congratulatory, back-patting hot air on the Senate floor.)
What am I getting for my money as I am paying our darling little Junior Senator from Illinois’ salary?
I get the sense I’m paying him to stand there and impress all the lying-in-the-lap-of-luxury dems enough to consider nominating him for the 2008 ticket.
Wow. Then i get to go out and cast a vote for my neighbor, who won’t have a shot in hell against Diebold anyway, but what the heck, how many people in this country will get the chance to not only vote for the first “high yeller” pres candidate in history, but at the same time to vote for his NEIGHBOR.
Now that’s something.
I’ll have to keep that in mind when I’m writing this year’s check to the IRS.
I can’t debate the merits of a speech with you if you haven’t watched it.
My point is not the content: what the hell good is ANY speech on the senate floor right now?
Who does it benefit, aside from the speaker and a few select observers.
You might as well be watching a Bulls game.
Great speeches get a little old after a while, you know?
Hitler is rumored to have given lots of “great speeches”.
The lying-in-the-lap-of-luxury dems are NOT doing their JOBS. Period. I’m tired of paying their salaries from my hard-earned dollars.
Seriously.
it was superb. I will post it when I find a hardcopy.
He lashed into the corruption of the body in a way that no freshman Senator has had the audacity to do in my memory.
Fifteen years ago Freshman Senators didn’t even have the chutzpah to speak until their second year, let alone call all their colleagues crooks.
here?
yes, and I couldn’t say it any better than that. That is exactly what my point has been since I started this blog.
Well, and what is “new” about that?
What in that speech did he say that is not 100% clear already to everyone who heard it? And how many times does it have to be repeated in how many speeches before something is done about it?
He isn’t a wizard and he doesn’t have a magic wand.
He is a Senator, and Senator’s make speeches. When there is a bill coming to the floor they explain the reasons they support it or do not support it, and they offer amendments to improve a bill and explain why they think those amendments are necessary.
If you would like your Senator to discontinue this practice for some reason, maybe you can explain your reasoning.
Senators make good speeches, bad speeches, and speeches that are just a waste of time.
This speech was better than good. It was excellent.
When someone stands up and speaks an unpopular truth in the Senate it is always noteworthy. For a freshman to bring the hammer down like this shows a lot of courage.
If you don’t know the history and protocols and manners of the Senate then maybe you will miss the stink-bomb effect of having to listen to a lowly freshman lecture you about reforming your rotten corrupted institution.
I am quite aware of it. Were this speech given in 1984, I’d have applauded it for its courage, its forthrightness, its audacity, etc. Heck. I might have still done that in 2000. Geez. Even when they were spewing their hot-air and blather in the “symbolic” contestation of the Ohio election results, I was standing here like the good little cheerleader that I am, shouting! jumping up and down! Giveemhell! Yeah.
Well, at this point: I think these dumbfucks are SERIOUSLY underestimating the “trouble’ we are in right now. Seriously. Underestimating.
We are in desparate times. These require desperate measures and more than minor infringements of protocol and fucking MANNERS!
(I am 100% with AG on the notion that the time for “politeness” has long since passed. LONG SINCE.)
Barring some miraculous collective brain-and-or-heart transplant for the American people which will drive millions and millions of people off their couches and into the streets, these ass-cheeks-stuck-together lame-ass “polite” politicians who call themselves Dems are the only ones with ANY power to stop this em’effing fascist steamroller that is bearing down on us like a mack truck.
These people need to be out there pushing for impeachment, they need to be out there using the L (as in LIAR) word–they need to be jumping up and down like a bunch of fucking LUNATICS, screaming, stomping, wearing orange Gitmo suits on the Senate floor (shit, if they don’t even have the guts to violate the dress code, then I’d say, yeah, Sheehan should run–maybe she should ask Sponge Bob to be her running mate: no, that’s not a Cindy slam, that’s a lying-in-the-lap-of-luxury-Dem slam). Now, if the speech had been broadcast on National TV when everyone was watching, OK, maybe it would have some value: if that means that our sexy little jr senator needs to disrobe and start jacking off on the senate floor to get the media attention to do it, then so be it. Down with the pants, Mr. OBama. But standing there talking to himself and a few remaining interested parties–sorry, I’m tired of footing the bill for that. Let them hold cocktail parties and give each other speeches (or blowjobs, whatever).
I dunno, BooMan, I think you are being naive–and you’re certainly not alone. But then again, if my job were to run a liberal blog, I might be able to afford the luxury of that much naivete. (And I’m not talking about afford in the sense of money).
But it’s not: I don’t know how many times I’ve mentioned what I’ve been doing for a living for the past year and a half–in case you’ve forgotten, I am translating source documents (i.e. ORIGINAL SOURCE TEXT) from the Nazi era. This includes, btw, Hitler speeches–not to mention Goebbels, Göring; also includes translation of the laws that were passed–not just the infamous “Nuremburg Laws” or “laws for the protection of the German Volk” etc., lots and lots of lesser laws….).
My point: y’all are seriously fucking underestimating the trouble we are in–at least if the comparison between our current situation and the ca. 2,000 pages of documents I have translated in the past year or so are any index.
I know what I have on my desk.
And I know what I’m seeing go down here.
We are in deeper shit than these idiots understand.
If they did understand, they would be doing WHATEVER IT TAKES to get these s.o.b.s out of office. Even if that meant bringing in NATO troops.
They are in it for themselves, not for the sake of the country. If they were in it for the country, they would risk everything to get the whole damn country up in arms. If that means standing on the senate floor naked with half a hard-on in order to get the attention of the press.
I don’t know, is Barbara Boxer’s tit worth as much as Janet Jackson’s? Maybe it is. If so. Out with it.
Look stark-
I started this blog over voter fraud, I have called for impeachment from the get-go, I just made a comment suggesting that we need to be on watch for a self-inflicted 9/11 because there is no other way for Bush to stop Iran from going forward with their nuclear program, I have suggested that Zarqawi is not in Iraq, I have suggested the OBL and Zawahiri’s tapes are fakes, and I have not suppressed even wilder speculation.
I have called for people to support Chuck Pennacchio, I have done a lot of things that other bloggers shy away from because they are afraid of being marginalized.
I don’t care. They are dangerous criminals and I know it.
So, cut me some slack with the lectures on how serious things are.
Obama gave a good speech. I’m glad he did.
read his book yet? I loved it.
OK. You’re right.
And you are indeed a lot braver than a lot of bloggers.
I’m more pissed at Obama than at you.
I have seen nothing to indicate that he gives a rat’s ass about anything but protecting his own political ascent.
I will not deny the fact that Obama is an incredibly good speaker.
My question: who the hell is he talking to and how am I benefitting from his grandiloquent speeches?
How are the rest of his neighbors (and believe me, most of them need a helluvalot more from him than I do!) benefitting from this speech?
I can see you are getting a hell of a kick out of it, but really, what good is that speech doing?
What good is it? Except to bolster Obama’s career.
And the country is served by this in what way?
I’m supposed to be “excited” by this?
Wow. Freshman senators get to play the name-calling game?
I want to be able to do that when I grow up too.
Death by a thousand cuts.
so what. we get what we deserve.
Honestly, I don’t give a shit anymore what happens to this country. Not a tinkers damn.
South Dakota is banning all abortions? Well, good for them if they don’t love their daughters.
And the democrats are no better. They steal a little less, but no better.
Fuck it.
Record debt with no benefit to anybody but the ruling class. Things are going exactly as they hoped for. In the past the oligarchs were somewhat limited by the threat of revolutionary action — like that which allowed the New Deal to happen. Now the victims of Bushco are cowed into silence by their own fantasy that Bush is somehow making them “safer” by subverting our country, and by simple intimidation through the NSA and the rest of the “homeland security” apparatus.
How well is it working? The Christian Science Monitor provides a stark report card.
And the benefits don’t stop there. The side effects of economic collapse promise to fulfill the Republicans’ secret dream for America as it visits a nonstop nightmare on all decent citizens:
Unless the Republican Party is not only stopped cold in the upcoming elections, but destroyed, the only choices left for the American people will be either life in a true fascist police state or life in a dying empire. Now more than ever, everything depends on what happens this November.
There is no advantage to gaining seats in November if this does not also include support of impeachment proceedings.
Anyone who thinks that this country will survive the full-term abortion that IS Bushco is exercising that finest and most long standing tradition this country has: DENIAL.
SEE ALSO
There will be no impeachment hearings, even if the democrats win. Literally, nothign will happen, and by January 2009, it’s all aboard the Express Train to Pardonville.
It wasn’t the democrats who led the drive to impeach nixon, it was the republicans.
and then ford pardoned him.
so it was, and so it shall be. Bet you a nickel.
did you follow the links in this diary
The Harpers forum on C-Span is definitely worth the time to watch.
that is a bad version of revisionist history. But more important than what the Democratic Party of 1974 did to take out Nixon is what the Democratic Party of 1975 did to reform the government.
BushCo. has dismantled their reforms piece by piece.
Maybe there will be impeachment hearings, maybe not. I’m hard put to say what good the Nixon impeachment ended up doing, other than a certain sense of satisfaction.
What is desperately important is that Congress be able to stymie the GOP neofascist agenda over the next two years. That will mean a majority large enough to neutralize the DINOs. If we fail I believe we will have passed the point of no return.
No advantage? I share your jaundiced view of the Dems, but have no doubt that a substantial Dem majority in Congress would have headed off some of Bush’s worst excesses and investigated the rest. I’d love to see Bush and the gangsters in the slammer, but the priority is to defang him for his last two toxic years.
The figure of 300 fucken Billin dollars jumped out at me because the IRS has stated publicly that that very amount is what rich people and corporations are not paying in yearly taxes and in fact cheating but they do not have the staff to go after them to make them pay..and in fact they have had many budget cuts themselves-no doubt on purpose to make sure of this. Oh yeah, bushco did make up funding for one area. To add more staff to go after people of very low income to make sure they weren’t cheating on the earned income credit-which the IRS said that maybe was not paid correctly to the tune of a lousy(in the scheme of things) 9 Billion dollars. Of course I guess those stupid low income people should just quite living paycheck to paycheck and start saving right.
If the fucken rich paid their fair share, if corporations didn’t have offshore accounts, if the pork barrel in legislation wasn’t so obscene we could almost pay for the gdamn Iraq war and social programs even without raising taxes back to fair standards.
My feeling today is obviously fuck off and die to all rethugs and craven democrats who are going along with this continuing bullshit by the bushco mafia..I am not feeding the good wolf today whatsoever.