Hello, I need a ride from Sisters to Hood River on 2/8 or 2/10 to retreive my car. Will help w/ gas. Thanks, Erik (970)988-7332
re:re:re: what’s the point
You really want to talk about what a president did wrong during his term? Half of that shit is made up anyway. We could go there with George W. Bush, but we don’t have enough room. You still skirt the subject. I ask you one last time: Regardless of his motives, the President is trying to work with Republicans, Why are they still not making any effort to compromise? Or even budge a little on ANY of the things that have been proposed? Are all of the policies wrong? DO the republicans somehow have the monopoly on what works in this country? If trickle down economics worked so well, why has it not worked under ANY OF THE PRESIDENTS WHO PRACTICED THIS THEORY? NO BULLSHIT EXCUSES. EXPLAIN WHY. Explain why i didn’t work under Reagan. Explain why it didn’t work under the first Bush, or the Second. Explain. stop the bullshit. if you are not willing to answer these question, don’t bother responding because you are full of shit, and you know that you don’t have a leg to stand on. Tell me one time when trickle down economics work. ONCE. JUST ONE TIME. PLEASE TELL ME JUST ONE INSTANCE WHERE TRICKLE DOWN ECONOMICS WORKED.
Why even bother any more?
TIME MAGAZINE JOE KLEIN Thu Feb 4, 4:05 am ET “I am not an ideologue,” the President said to the House Republicans, cocooned in their annual policy caucus in Baltimore – and the ideologues among them laughed. The President was explaining, in the midst of an unprecedented, televised “Question Time” session, that he was open to any good ideas they might have. “It doesn’t make sense,” he continued, that if they told him,” ‘You could do this cheaper and get increased results,’ that I wouldn’t say, ‘Great.’” But the logic of this seemed to slip past the assembled legislators – and the “I am not an ideologue” bite became a derisive staple on Fox News. And therein lies the crisis of democracy that our country faces: a moderate-liberal President, willing to make judicious compromises, confronted by a Republican Party paralyzed by cynicism and hypocrisy, undergirded by inchoate ideological fervor. The President’s hour in the lion’s den was part of an aggressive week of politics – his first in many moons – that began with his well-received State of the Union address and proceeded through town meetings in Florida and New Hampshire. It was marked by a new willingness to engage the opposition party with cutting humor and offers of compromise. In the State of the Union, he had offered an olive branch to the Republicans – a new commitment to budget balancing (including a bipartisan commission to reduce the deficit that Republicans had been clamoring for), a new emphasis on free trade, a total reversal of his party’s traditional positions on nuclear power and offshore drilling. In Baltimore, Obama reminded the Republicans that his $787 billion stimulus package had comprised elements they’d normally support – a $288 billion middle-class tax cut, $275 billion to bail out financially strapped states and an extensive infrastructure plan. “A lot of you,” he noted, dryly, “have gone to appear at ribbon cuttings for the same projects you voted against.” (See the 10 greatest speeches of all time.) The Republican response to this barrage was, well, incoherent. But in most cases the need to demonize Obama trumped the party’s ideological beliefs. The budget commission – to take one flagrant example – was blocked by a group of Republican Senators who had supported or sponsored it. These included the Senate minority leader, Mitch McConnell, and the formerly virtuous John McCain, a sore loser who has reversed his position on practically everything lately. The Senate Republicans then proceeded to vote unanimously against a provision, attached to a necessary increase in the debt limit, that would force Congress to pay for every new initiative it enacts. This “paygo” provision was the law of the land when Bill Clinton was building budget surpluses (in fairness, he inherited it from the equally responsible George H.W. Bush) – and was abandoned when George W. Bush started building the alpine deficits that plague us today. The hypocrisy of all this was staggering, even for politicians. In Baltimore, the House Republicans seemed hurt that the President wasn’t listening to their “new” ideas. Unfortunately, most of these have the sophistication of policy seminars run by high school Libertarian clubs. One of their leading intellectual lights, Representative Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, has offered a Medicare reform proposal that should kill any chance he has of winning higher office: he would privatize Medicare and deliver unto the elderly vouchers that would gradually lose much of their value. This would save a boatload of money, of course … but one wonders whether the party that gave the world “death panels” would stand behind such an all-out assault on the financial security of the nation’s most devout voters. This is quite sad. I’ve been a fan of a great many Republican policy initiatives in the past. I supported the Republican universal health care plan in 1993 (which Obama’s current proposal resembles). I’ve supported lots of Republican urban-policy ideas, especially when it comes to education. I think the realism deployed overseas by Presidents like Eisenhower, Nixon (except for Vietnam) and Bush the Elder is the wisest foreign policy on offer. But the current Republican Party is about none of these. It is about tactical political gain to the exclusion of all else. At the end of the Baltimore session, Congressman Jeb Hensarling of Texas launched a diatribe on the budget, including the fabulous claim that the Obama Administration was now running monthly deficits the size of annual Republican deficits in the past. For once, the President flashed anger in response – he interrupted Hensarling and said, “I’m sure there’s a question in there somewhere.” And then, calmly, he proceeded to take apart Hensarling’s nonsense. The sophistication of Obama’s politics has finally caught up to the opposition: he will offer them compromise and lacerate them when they refuse to play. I suspect he’ll be successful at this. But absent a responsible opposition party, we’ll still be left with a crippled democracy, lacking all ability to address our most serious problems. That is not a recipe for continued success in a competitive world.
RE: Trickle Up
>My question to you is….did the rich man step on the little people? Or did the little people use the rich man to father themselves and their families? It depends.. are his employees at his store working 30 hours a week making close to minimum wage, or 40 hours a week with a wage they can actually live on so they don’t have to be on food stamps? Is he giving them good health insurance, or relying on the government programs to take care of them? Is he giving a pension or 401k so they can afford to retire when it is time, or is he relying on the good ol’ USA to cover everything with social security? How many full time jobs does Wal-Mart have that pay benefits? How many full time jobs with benefits came in with Olive Garden? Many of these big stores are not taking care of their employees and relying on the rest of us to do so through our taxes. Yes, these big corporations are stepping on their workers. Yes, the CEOs of these companies need to pay more.
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