Comments for The Same Old Song »
Posted By Beau7890 11 months ago in Political NewsWhat's up with the Republicans? Have they no sense that their policies have sent the country hurtling down the road to ruin? Are they so divorced from reality that in their delusionary state they honestly believe we need more of their tax cuts for the rich and their other forms of plutocratic irresponsibility, the very things that got us to this deplorable state?
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berkeley11 months ago
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Beau789011 months ago
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And some might say he's a bit too partisan here, mainly blaming the Republicans for slowing the process and allowing big business to raid the Treasury--though he does add a couple of parenthetical references about halfway through the article alluding to Democratic complicity.)
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Unfortunately, the cost of campaigns and difficulty of getting honest' messages to the public directly result in an adversarial two-party system and Congressional prioritization of wealthy interests and special projects for members' home districts. I don't know how this can be fixed, no matter what the president does. Media outlets are usually more interested in grand pronouncements, no matter how misleading they may be, and in nasty fights between ideologies than in honest discourse.
Any ideas?-
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berkeley11 months ago
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while there are dozens of issues concerning money and media, there are two other things that could happen.
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the first is that it is both acceptable and legal to lie during a political campaign. this has huge consequences in promoting cynicism and disgust and driving millions of people away from the whole process. we could have "truth commissions" both on a local and national level that would be empowered to both label and remove ads that are blatant lies.
the second is the monopoly our two parties have in elections. instant runoff voting is a simple solution that communities and states could enact. because it would break the monopoly, it will be fiercely opposed by the political machinery, but we could do it. see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting-
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Beau789011 months ago
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I love the idea of being able to validate claims made in campaign ads, though I have to wonder how independent the "truth commissions" could be (who appoints members of the commisions?), and what remedies candidates would have against unjust decisions made by them. There must be some way around this.
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As for alternative voting systems, I know there are a number of them...in Illinois, we used to elect state legislators using cumulative voting, which (as implemented here) had a similar effect of allowing voters to "rank" candidates by giving them three votes to apportion between more than one candidate as they chose. (Under that system, I could split my vote evenly between two or three candidates, give two votes to one and one to another, or give all three to a single candidate.)-
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DarkWizard11 months ago
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berkeley and Beau7890,
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I think that "truth in advertising" should apply to politicians and their campaigns. This means that they have to produce at least hypothetically feasible plans to support any promises made while running for office. Holding to any of these promises would still become moot and subjective, however, after gaining said office as circumstances and information may be changed, obsolete, or inaccurate by the time they gain office and therefore make any accountability to promises unenforcible.
On the topic of voting. I think that we should make national elections more democratic and eliminate the electoral college in favor of popular vote. Also, the rules for how politicians get airtime v. those that the media ignores need to be revamped to reflect a more democratic process. Somehow, corporate money needs to become a non-factor in which candidates get pushed to the forefront of a race. And, the two-party system needs some real competition. This definitely requires some rule changes. Money, power, and influence should not be bottlenecked through a two-party system that does not represent true democracy.-
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Beau789011 months ago
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I think most Americans (since they live in more populous states) would be in favor of abandoning the electoral college, but it'll never happen. It'd require an amendment to the Constitution, which would have to be ratified by many of those tiny states that get disproportionate representation. And it still wouldn't solve the problem of people being taken in by campaign promises that can't possibly be kept.
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beavith111 months ago
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as long as we are a representative republic, the electoral college serves a purpose.
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anybody see what happened in Bolivia? the endemic majority voted themselves a new constitution that benefits themselves at the expense of the minority. oh yeah. and granted Morales another 5 year term, ala Hugo Chavez or Fidel Castro.
the 'disproportionate representation' that you complain about was intentionally put into the constitution. that's how we have a bicameral legislature...
so. your point would be? -
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Endoscopy11 months ago
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ROTFLMAO
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The economy dump was caused by the housing bubble bursting in 2006. All of the mortgage backed paper lost over 30% of its value. Money just disappeared from the financial institutions. The changes made in the CRA and other banking laws related to mortgages in 1992 triggered the bubble in 1995 when it went into effect. But liberals never admit to messing up. In 2004 the youtube of the Democrats ranting against the oversight person bringing bad news of Fannie and Freddy was very nasty. They accused him of trying to kill all CSE's. Democrats created the mess and refused to let anything be done about it. Then they have to blame the Republicans.
The problem with this messy thrown together package is that the time it will take effect. 18 months at the earliest with the rest of the real package taking effect in 2011. Added to that is the little fact that a large percent is pork under a different name. What has paying for birth control have to do with an economic stimulus. That and a lot of other liberal agenda items have been tucked into the bill. Government programs galore going into the future without end. Economic stimulus? Who is kidding who. Immediate fixes are needed not future pie in the sky. The total package with the $300 billion of TARP left makes the bill for the taxpayers close to $1.125 trillion. And the liberals ranted at the $400 billion of Bush. And the liberals are only getting warmed up. Tax and Spend. First spend, spend, spend, and then "Oh my gosh we have to pay for this somehow! We need to raise the taxes!!" They are ridiculing this in congress right now but the real question is how do we pay for this?-
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Will131310 months, 4 weeks ago
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still LYING about CRA and ACORN.. and 1995.. your so full of sh*t your eyes are brown.. are you really that dumb..
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liberals this and liberals that.. who was in TOTAL control 6 of the last 8 years.. and who was in control of congress from 1994 - 2006.. thank GOD that's over.. at least for now...
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Albmore11 months ago
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Yes, we are forming the 4th party group here. OUR platform will be out next week. We are not rich, nor powerful. We will be the david in the bible fight against 2 giants. We can only depend on YOU the average citizen who has had enough and is ready to take on those who many say cannot be taken on. We will have to depend on volenteers and alternative media, BUT we will fight with all we have. OUR government has been running out of control for to long.
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I believe there are enough Americans who feel the same. Divided as the two parties wish us to be we can do little. Together is the only way! This may mean joining together with other independent groups to further OUR same interest later. One thing is certian though, if we continue to do nothing, IF we continue to live in fear of challenging these 2 parties, we will lose ALL of OUR rights and freedoms to them and them that work hand in hand with them.
We are the only ones who can determine OUR destiny! Are we going to allow the government to do it run it for us or OUR we going to retake OUR government and restore it to one of the people?-
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Endoscopy11 months ago
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With the design of out government by the constitution three or more parties will never work. Our founders looked the parliamentarian governments and rejected it. In that kind of government three or more parties work.
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All a third party has ever done in this country is to be a party that causes the party most like it to lose by taking votes from that party. Look at what Ross Perot did for two election cycles. He took votes from the Republicans because he was somewhat conservative. Nader took votes from the Democrats and helped Bush get elected two times.
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Charlson11 months ago
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“With that capital in hand,” said Mr. Pressey, “not only do we feel comfortable that we can ride out the recession, but we also feel that we’ll be in a position to take advantage of opportunities that present themselves once this recession is sorted out.”
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"Take advantage, indeed. That, in a nutshell, is what the plutocracy is all about: taking unfair advantage."
This is the attitude the wealthy wall street bankers have to the detriment of our country.-
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reasonable111 months ago
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That attitude is the reason that there should be NO bailouts! Bailouts are just bandaids over our more serious wounds. I can't understand why we reward people for failing! If the companies are poorly run, let them fall. Others will take there place!
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DarkWizard11 months ago
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Charlson,
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I am with you. Here was the other part of that same piece in the article.
FTA - "The public was told that the money would be used to loosen the frozen credit markets and thus help revive the economy. But as the article pointed out, there were bankers with other ideas. John C. Hope III, the chairman of the Whitney National Bank in New Orleans, in an address to Wall Street fat cats gathered at the Palm Beach Ritz-Carlton, said:
“Make more loans? We’re not going to change our business model or our credit policies to accommodate the needs of the public sector as they see it to have us make more loans.”
How’s that for arrogance and contempt for the public interest? Mr. Hope’s bank received $300 million in taxpayer bailout money."
The republican philosophy of finance will be the ruin of both the Republic and our democratic beliefs. Unfortunately, the republicans seem to be fine with this prospect. It is an arrogant position that basically says that all who are not us should die or succumb to our will.
This has become my main beef with this distinction between to our two parties: Republicans have become too exclusive while Democrats have become more inclusive of the American public. Therefore, I agree with the premise of "Why should we listen to them?" They (the republicans) no longer have the best interests of the country at heart and are pushing their protectionist/isolationist ideals as patriotism.-
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Beau789011 months ago
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Considering he was taking public money meant specifically for his bank to make more loans, that quote from John C. Hope III was infuriating and even more arrogant than anything done by my governor, Blagojevich--and that's saying quite a bit.
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But the money could have loosened the credit markets if Congress or the Treasury had strictly forbidden the recipients to use it for other purposes, or if they'd just come out and bought large shares of those banks. (But God forbid--that would be socialism!)
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willottica11 months ago
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Goppy11 months ago
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As I've said before, when Newt Gingrich "Re-Invented" the Republican Party and Merged it with the Christian Conservative PAC ... a strange political rhetoric emerged ... a kind of "Religio-Rhetoric".
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You see this reflected in various SACRAMENTAL MANTRA's or PRAYER POLITICO that The Modern Republican voices over and over again ... as if on automatic pilot ... or religious trance.
One of these Mantras is "Mainstream Media" .... also referred to as "Vast Left Wing Media Conspiracy".
Another is: "TAX CUTS".
In spite of all evidence that the United States has one of the lowest Tax Rates in the Industrial World .... the Religious Mantra: CUT MY TAXES! is still chanted ... of course with no real relationship with reality.
As evidence by this table below. This table references the Tax Rates of all major industrial nations as a percentage of GDP.
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1 ...... Denmark ...... 48,9%
2 ...... Sweden ...... 48,2%
3 ...... Belgium ...... 44,4%
4 ...... France ...... 43,6%
5 ...... Norway ...... 43,4%
6 ...... Italy ...... 43,3%
7 ...... Finland ...... 43,0%
8 ...... Austria ...... 41,9%
9 ...... Iceland ...... 41,4%
10 .... Hungary ...... 39,3%
11 .... Netherlands ...... 38,0%
12 .... Spain ...... 37,2%
13 .... Luxembourg ...... 36,9%
13 .... United Kingdom ...... 36,6%
14 .... Portugal ...... 36,6%
15 .... Czech Republic ...... 36,4%
16 .... Germany ...... 36,2%
17 .... New Zealand ...... 36,0%
18 .... Poland ...... 33,5%
18 .... Canada ...... 33,3%
19 .... Ireland ...... 32,2%
19 .... Greece ...... 31,3%
19 .... Australia ...... 30,6%
20 .... Slovakia ...... 29,8%
21 .... Switzerland ...... 29,7%
22 .... South Korea ...... 28,7%
23 .... USA ...... 28,3%
23 .... Japan ...... 27,9%
24 .... Turkey ...... 23,7%
25 .... Mexico ...... 19,8%
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Goppy11 months ago
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What, you don't think spending $12 BILLION a MONTH in Iraq is a nice form of "Trickle Down" to us Middle Classes?
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You know, we've been building Hospitals and Roads like CRAZY in Iraq ... and helping the Iraqis get medical care.
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Doesn't that leave a good feeling for us?
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Endoscopy11 months ago
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ROTFLMAO
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The war supplemental for the war in total is $70 billion for the year . That is $5.833 billion a month for all war operations. So where did you get this inflated pie in the sky number. I know it is a number that liberals have thrown around for a long time so it must be real. Well guess what? It is not real.
http://www.slate.com/id/2183592/pagenum/all/-
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Will131310 months, 4 weeks ago
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Taxpayers in Sarasota, Florida will pay $104.2 million for total Iraq war spending approved to date. For the same amount of money, the following could have been provided:
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---
just from YOUR community..
http://www.nationalpriorities.org/tradeoffs?locati... -
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Will131310 months, 4 weeks ago
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525,900,000,000.00 -- total approved to date
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135,421,191,000.00 2009-- 2009 budget
661,321,191,000.00 --- cost of war total thur 2009
308,884,255.49 --- per DAY... to date...
112,742,753,253.15 -- -- per year to date
2,168,266,200.00 -- PER WEEK..
over 2 billion per week.. doesn't add up to 5.83.. so again YOU LIE...
the cost is really staggering when you break it down...
3,575.05 --- cost per second.. PER SECOND..
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Endoscopy11 months ago
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What you leave out is the tax rates on the corporations. The US has twice the rate of any other economically dynamic country. That hurts our businesses to sell products and services outside the country since the customers pay for the taxes.
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protoham11 months ago
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Beau789010 months, 4 weeks ago
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protoham, you're right about the fact that we have so many different kinds of taxes here that all add up. Those are not based on income, they're (for the most part) based on the consumption of goods and services. In fact, some people say that for the "average" citizen, 70% or more of income goes to taxes of all kinds. (Depends on what tax jurisdictions you live in.)
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But that's not an argument for cutting income taxes; it's an argument for making our income taxes higher and getting rid of those consumption-based ones. It's extremely hard to determine who pays the bulk of consumption-based taxes, but safe to assume that people who have to use a larger proportion of their money to live instead of being able to invest or save are paying a disproportionate share.
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amazed11 months ago
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Perhaps Cummins layoffs have something to do with their decision to stop producing on-road truck engines (they are the largest producer of truck engines in the US) because of the expense and difficulty in reaching the 2010 emission standards for diesel engines.
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This in NOT a result of Republican policy, but of more liberal-leaning lawmakers. Obama's plan to let each state set their own emission standards will make it impossible for auto makers to profitably meet the requirements (could be 52 or more different standards), yet their businesses distress or out and out failure will surely be attributed to Republican greed and plutocracism rather than the well-meaning but misguided and over-regulation from the left.
Here's the link for the Cummins decision:
newsgroups.derkeiler.com/pdf/Archive/Misc/misc.tra...-
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DarkWizard11 months ago
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amazed,
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"Obama's plan to let each state set their own emission standards will make it impossible for auto makers to profitably meet the requirements (could be 52 or more different standards), yet their businesses distress or out and out failure will surely be attributed to Republican greed and plutocracism rather than the well-meaning but misguided and over-regulation from the left."
Thank you for playing. Take your wares elsewhere as you are fairly clueless when it comes to the sovereignty of each state to make choices regarding that state. The Federal government has a Constitutional responsibility to uphold this sovereignty. Restoring some measure of each state to control what happens in its own state is not going to be perfect, but it will allow for many diverse ideas on how to handle complex issues to evolve. When some states come up with systems that work, others, including the Federal government, may be able to use those models to build better emission policies on. This will help the auto industry to build cars to those standards and help environmental issues simultaneously instead of making these issues an "either or" scenario.
BTW - Our current crisis is already being "attributed to Republican greed and plutocracism." So, don't worry about a little more being added on. It will be inevitable as the republicans are still pushing the same philosophies and idiocy that got us here.-
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beavith111 months ago
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what?
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let me sum up your observation:
baloney.
you have confused states rights with plain old federal regulation.
the states can write any regulation they like as long as its more stringent than the federal EPA standard. writing whimsical standards doesn't make compliance any easier. ideas to 'help' the auto industry? my foot. this will make it harder on teh auto companies. just like congress putting strings on the bailout to force the car mfrs to make green cars... smart. really smart. NOT.-
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DarkWizard11 months ago
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beavith1,
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You can blather all you want, but some states already tried to write stricter regulations on emissions and were told by the Bush administration, "no go."
Also, states have the right to pass laws that aren't specifically covered in the Constitution. I don't think the EPA is mentioned in the Constitution or any of the carbon emissions regulations. Therefore, states have the right to govern themselves regarding such matters. Unfortunately, the Federal government has gotten in the bad habit of telling states what they can or cannot do or the Federal government won't share tax-payer money with those states.
The rest of your comment is your opinion and, if President Bush were still in office, I would agree with it. As he isn't, the future is yet to be written.
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Beau789011 months ago
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amazed, automakers do not need to meet up to 52 different standards. All they have to do to solve this problem is to meet the strictest standard of all the states.
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et's face facts. The choices American businesses make have nothing to do with Republican or Democratic policies. (Though Republicans generally tend to take a "business can do no wrong and must be given more freedom with their money" attitude--even when it's taxpayer money--that adds fuel to the fire.)
Publicly run corporations are run by boards of directors and executives who will lose their jobs if stockholders vote them out. Their nonsensical short-term strategies are driven by nothing other than the desire to please stockholders by boosting dividends and share prices.
This is why, no matter how stupid their decisions may be, they will always cut costs, even to the detriment of their companies' futures. Some may call it anti-capitalist or anti-free market, but the root of the problem with American business today is the way the stock market is set up--the fact that those running corporations are beholden to no one but shareholders. Shareholders are not required to invest for the long term.-
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Beau789010 months, 4 weeks ago
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I assume you're saying stockholders get to put their money wherever they like, for as long as they like, in response to my comment above yours.
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Of course you're right, but don't you see a problem with the way such a system promotes short-term gain that often hurts the companies' viability for the future? There's no incentive to build healthier companies by beefing up research and development or keeping skilled workers for long periods of time--short-term returns are all stockholders want, as opposed to people who might have a longer vested interest in a business. And the easiest way to get big short-term returns and to drive up stock prices is to borrow as much as possible and cut as many costs as they can--profits will grow in the near term, but the company is likely to be unable to produce quality products and will probably die in a few years (after the current stockholders have taken their profits).
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jk548911 months ago
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This op-ed piece sums up the socialist ideology. That the people's wealth is better used by a centralized government than in the hands and bank accounts of the people who earn it with their own labor. Give me a free market and the fruits of my own labor any day over some group of lawyers in Washington deciding what's best for me and my family.
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Sageparadox11 months ago
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Try living in mid to southern Ohio which is mostly republican conservatives. Not only do we have to pay and file for a State and Federal tax; We have to pay and file for city and school district taxes. Do ever tell me conservatives are not for taxes.
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JustTrollKingComment removed: Hard Banned
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Albmore10 months, 4 weeks ago
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Goopy- First your remark that Obama is a centralist can be debated. Though I will give you the benifit of the doubt on that. Even if he is a centralist, ONE man no matter how you may be in love with him, does not change the 2 party domination and rule of OUR country. ONLY an alternative and a loss of their strong hold will change a thing. I think if OUR party had already been formed, maybe Obama would had been a member.
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2nd Taxes- What you need to add in most of these countries the middle class is below that of the US. Also these are smaller countries. Some smaller than states in the US. They also are tax for national health care.This has been a major problem with the high unemployment rate and the medical attention often does not measured up to those insured in the US.
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