THE FRAMERS

The framers of the Constitution developed checks and balances to assure one branch didn't accumulate too much power.
But they never contemplated that one party could shut down the entire governmental system if it didn't get what it wanted.

The Deficit is Coming Down

It was little noticed yesterday, but the Treasury Department reported a fiscal deficit of $1.26T through August, which suggests that Obama's first budget will be $100B (8%) less than Bushes final budget deficit. Hopefully, voters will remember that the GOP President and Congress inherited a record surplus which they turned into a deficit one year. Conversely, Obama and the Democratic Congress inherited a record deficit and have begun to pare it down despite being handed the worst economy in seventy years.

Facts is facts and they are a damnable thing for the Republicans.

small little problem

It is my understanding that our great country has a total debt of around 100 trillion, this would include pensions, SS, Medicare, Medicade and other obligations...well the entire world money, meaning take every dime of the entire world which is about 60 trillion and there is not enough money on a global basis to pay off what we owe. now that is or should be scary

Newt Ginrich "Kenyan anti-colonial" statement

Obama's father was a foreign student who divorced his mother when Obama was 3. They had been separated before then. Obama saw his father once in 1971 when he was 10. When and where exactly did Obama get his "Kenyan anti-colonial view'? This makes no sense on its face, yet no doubt the ignorant Tea Partiers and birthers will be holding up signs at their next rally promoting this absolutely stupid theory.

By Ginrich's theory, anyone who has a parent from a foreign country (which millions of Americans do) believes whatever political philosophy was popular at the time they were born. Nonsense.

Ginrich is a Neo-Nazi white supremacist. This is someone the GOP wants for president? By the way I think George Washington was Anti-Colonial.

THE REAL JOE "YOU LIE" WILSON

Joe Wilson the famous " You Lie" man shocked our nation by breaking decades of decorum and yelling at the commander-in-chief during a joint session of Congress. First he refused to apologize publicly, and then he began raising money off of his embarrassing behavior.

In the year since, not much from Joe has changed. From his childish outburst to inserting lobbyists' words in the Congressional Record as his own, to an ethics investigation over more than $100,000 and 30 taxpayer-funded trips, Joe Wilson represents everything that is wrong with Washington today.

If you ask Joe, none of this is his fault.

He doesn't think that his shouting at the president was wrong; he prides himself on it. Joe doesn't see the problem with lobbyists ghostwriting for him.

And Joe doesn't think that his ethics investigation is about being responsible with your money; he thinks that a nonpartisan commission co-chaired by George W. Bush's choice to head the CIA is on a political witch hunt.

Earning a congressional reprimand, getting in bed with lobbyists, and coming under investigation has left Joe without a leg to stand on. He's the poster boy for Washington insiders and a broken Congress.

Wilson can start by having the courage to do what's right and come clean about how much per diem money he's pocketed. Every tax dollar is precious, and Wilson should return every penny that he stole from us. But, Joe has never had the courage to do what is right. Just another hypocrite from the right. Since Joe joined Congress in 2001 he has cost taxpayers about $100,000.00 including $38,000.00 in stolen per diem money for lodging and meals not counting taxpayer funds to cover US Airforce planes to transport him around to buy trinkets. 30 trips in 8 years Joe who lied now?

The Republican Candidate - 2010

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBe2yn4fhtw

Boy here is a surprise

I am sure baxter knows better than these stats

A recent "Investor's Business Daily" article provided very
interesting statistics from a survey by the United Nations
International Health Organization.

Percentage of men and women who survived a cancer five years
after diagnosis:

U.S. 65%

England 46%

Canada 42%

Percentage of patients diagnosed with diabetes who received
treatment within six months:

U.S. 93%

England 15%

Canada 43%

Percentage of seniors needing hip replacement who received it
within six months:

U.S.. 90%

England 15%

Canada 43%

Percentage referred to a medical specialist who see one within
one month:

U.S. 77%

England 40%

Canada 43%

Number of MRI scanners (a prime diagnostic tool) per million people:

U.S. 71

England 14

Canada 18

Percentage of seniors (65+), with low income, who say they are in
"excellent health":

U.S. 12%

England 2%

Canada 6%


I don't know about you, but I don't want "Universal Healthcare"
comparable to England or Canada .

Moreover, it was Sen. Harry Reid who said, "Elderly Americans
must learn to accept the inconveniences of old age."

SHIP HIM TO CANADA OR ENGLAND !

He is "elderly" himself but be sure to remember his health
insurance is different from yours as Congress has their own high-
end coverage! He will never have to learn to accept
"inconveniences"!!!

AND THE WINNER IS VERY INTERESTING!

The percentage of each past president's cabinet who had worked in
the private business sector prior to their appointment to the
cabinet. You know what the private business sector is... a real
life business, not a government job. Here are the percentages.

T. Roosevelt........ 38%

Taft.....................40%

Wilson .................52%

Harding..................49%

Coolidge.............. 48%

Hoover.................. 42%

F. Roosevelt......... 50%

Truman..................50%

Eisenhower............ 57%

Kenn edy.............. 30%

John son.................47%

Nixon.................... 53%

Ford..................... 42%

Carter.................. 32%

Reagan....................56%

GH Bush................. 51%

Clinton ................. 39%

GW Bush................ 55%

And the winner of the Chicken Dinner is:


Obama................ 8% !!!

SURPRISED?

Yep! That's right! Only Eight Percent!!! - the least by far of
the last 19 presidents!! And these people are trying to tell our
big corporations how to run their business? They know what's
best for GM...Chrysler... Wall Street... and you and me?

How can the president of a major nation and society...the one
with the most successful economic system in world history...
stand and talk about business when he's never worked for one?
Or about jobs when he has never really had one??! And neither
have 92% of his senior staff and closest advisers! They've spent
most of their time in academia, government and/or non-profit
jobs....or as "community organizers" when they should have been
in an employment line.

Just in case you have not seen these interesting statistics:

May want to pass this on, we will NEVER see it in the
main street media, I gar-0n-tee!!!

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The Stimulus Worked - Will it Matter in November?

It has become empirically clear that the Stimulus Plan worked. However, we were in such a deep hole 18 months ago that things still look bleak after a great deal of progress digging out. Can the Democrats communicate this effectively? Will our famously fickle electorate listen, or do they simply want to register dissatisfaction with the status quo? We will see in less than two months.

A few friendly reminders:

We were losing 750,000+ jobs per month when Obama took the oath of office. Under Obama's leadership, we have grown private sector jobs for the past eight months, uninterrupted.

The economy was dropping over 6% per annum in January, 2009. Thanks to our Democratic monopoly on power, growth returned and improved it's rate of growth over 10 points in 2009. Growth continues in 2010, though it has slowed as the GOP has successfully fought Democratic remedies to our myriad economic maladies.

The budget deficit peaked in FY2009 under the Bush Administration's last budget ($1.3T) and Obama's supplemental ($400B) and will decrease in FY2010, the Obama Administration's first fiscal year. The deficit is projected by OMB to markedly decline in 2011 and 2012, to less than half of the deficit inherited from George W Bush.

Hopefully, word will get around and voters will make thoughtful and informed decisions on November 2nd.

SCARE WHITE PEOPLE PARTY

So, how is he such a radical now? What explains the sudden turnaround? What explains the fact that people who have had dealings in the past with this specific person, with the imam behind the proposed Islamic center in downtown Manhattan and know him to be a moderate and who have said so out loud—what explains why they suddenly have decided that the man is so dangerous?

The difference is that now, this moderate imam‘s community center has been declared this month‘s new “scare white people” story. So, the truth about the imam doesn‘t matter anymore. The truth about the cultural center that they want to build downtown doesn‘t matter anymore. It‘s time to scare white people for political profit.

And this formula should be pretty familiar by now. We‘ve been through episodes of “scare white people” game recently. That was—one about Van Jones who was smeared on FOX News as a violent convicted felon. Of course, that wasn‘t true, but he still lost his job as a White House environmental adviser. Be afraid—be afraid of policy wonk, dorky guy Van Jones.

Of course, there was also ACORN, a mostly minority community-based organization attacked as a group of criminal thugs based largely on cooked-up deceptively edited videotapes created by right wing activists. Be afraid—be afraid of the minority community-organizing group made up of poor people.

Now, there was the completely ginned up New Black Panthers episode. White people, be afraid of two whacked out guys who braid their beard hair and hung out outside a polling station on Election Day a year and a half ago. We dug up the old tape so you can be afraid.

And, also, don‘t forget Shirley Sherrod, who, thanks to again to video-editing designed to be misleading, was portrayed as a racist Obama administration official—racist in that she was out to make sure white people didn‘t get any help from the Department of Agriculture. White people, be afraid—be afraid of Shirley Sherrod.

After all of these other very recent chapters in the scare white people political playbook: “A,” we should have been ready for it, but, “B,” it‘s quite clear that it‘s time for a new one. So, the Ground Zero mosque controversy was born.

What‘s worth noting about all of these different “scare white people” stories is that they‘re not really actual news stories. I mean, no real news organizations started running with this story as actual news. The best “scare white people” stories are invented out of whole cloth, from inside the media world, so they can be just the right kind of scary in just the right kind of way in order to drive just the right political consequence.

So, ultimately, if the conservative media drives this to make it big enough, then normal news organizations pick it up, too, sometimes because they‘re gilded (ph) into it by conservatives. But no non-FOX, non-conservative media outlet ever starts these things.

OOOPS looks like The Big O messed up

ACCOUNTING 101 It seems like a miracle that our leader was able to convince BP to establish a $20 billion escrow fund to compensate those hurt by the ongoing oil plume in the Gulf of Mexico . After all, he had no constitutional power to force them to do so. Let us take a closer look at the effect on BP’s 2010 finances: 1. BP will establish a $20 billion fund, but will pay only $7 billion into it during 2010. 2. BP is a British corporation, but has a very large operating entity in the US . 3. By Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), BP must book the entire $20 billion expense in the year accrued, i.e., year the liability is incurred. Therefore, they will book a $20 billion expense in 2010, reducing their US tax liability by $7 billion. 4. Our anointed leader also convinced this massive corporation to show their concern for the “small people” by withholding dividends to their shareholders for the last 3 quarters of 2010. This reduces their outward cash flow by about $7.5 billion, including approximately 40% of that amount to US citizens. Assuming that the Bush tax cuts will survive through the end of 2010, the US Treasury will lose another $450million in taxes on that amount. We won’t even discuss the effect on the US economy. Let us put the results into a table easily understood by the "small" people: BP Cash Flow: · Escrow funding ($7 billion) · Dividend saving $7.5 billion · Tax savings $7 billion · Net favorable cash flow for 2010 to BP : $7.5 billion US Treasury Tax Receipts/Reductions: · BP Corporate income tax (-$7.5 billion) · BP Shareholders (-$0.45 billion) · Net unfavorable tax receipts ($7.95 billion) I guess we really should expect this. After all, our anointed leader is the most inexperienced man in any room he enters. Scorecard: · BP Corporate Bean Counters - 1 · · Washington Tax Smart Guys - 0 · · American People - We Get BP (Bean Poop) This isn't so hard to understand - BP made their largest political contributions to Obama's campaign. Obama plays politics acting tough on BP. We pay. Frankly, I admire BP for their deal making ability. They must have brought their accountants to the table. After all, BP is not a fly by night operation and Obama thought he and his minimal business experience tax people and accountants could take on BP. WAKE UP AMERICA !!!!!

Text of One Republican and One Democrat Secretary of Treasury

O'NEILL: Exactly, because I kept saying, you know, the tax code we have is proof that we're not an intelligent people, and it's worse now than it was 10 years ago, when I was singing this song. So I think the president could earn a lot of credit and could make a huge difference if he would lead the charge for fundamental tax reform.

You know, and ideally, if you think about how you get capital formation, you get fairness in the distribution of paying for public goods, if we had something simple instead of the current income tax and corporate income tax, something simple like a VAT or a consumption-based tax, I think that would give reassurance to the markets that we're coming back and we're creating the basis for capital formation and savings, as opposed to consuming everything in sight.

ZAKARIA: One of the things that you that mentioned to me in the green room which I think is striking is that one of the advantages of the VAT, or the national sales tax, is there's very efficient tax collection. You said that when you were at Treasury, the estimate was that the United States did not collect $400 billion in taxes? Is that --

O'NEILL: Per year.

ZAKARIA: Per year.

O'NEILL: Per year. And it cost us $300 billion across the society to administer the colossal mess we've got. No intelligent people would invent this if they were given a chance to create a tax system that was worthy of people who need to free up resources that are being wasted.

ZAKARIA: Bob, if you had a magic wand, what would you do to get this economy moving? People look at your tenure as secretary of Treasury, where with all the controversy, you created 22 million jobs. Now, maybe you would say that government doesn't create those jobs, and I agree. But those jobs were created on your watch.

So do you want to share the magic sauce with us?

RUBIN: Well, I'll respond to your question in the current context, but I will say this -- it was a remarkable period in the '90s, and I think President Clinton was terrific on economic policy. And I think that made a real contribution.

But let's now talk about the current context, which is quite different. Here's what I would do, Fareed. And it's been this debate that's going on right now.

I think what you I would do is I would stay on, roughly speaking, the current fiscal track, because we still have large fiscal deficits, and that does create demand, although those deficits are coming down, so you're actually reducing the demand.

ZAKARIA: So you mean you won't spend more on a second stimulus right now?

RUBIN: I wouldn't do a major second stimulus because I think -- and I think Paul said the same thing. I wouldn't do a major second stimulus because I think we run a risk that it could be counterproductive in creating a lot of additional uncertainty and undermining confidence.

But at the same time -- and what I'm about to say is easy to say and very hard to do -- at the same time, I would try over the next six months to put in place a very serious beginning of deficit reduction that would take effect at some specified time in the future. And I would guess something like two years.

So it wouldn't take effect right now, when the economy is still so vulnerable, but if you could do it and it was credible, and people believed it, and it was real, I think that could do a lot for confidence. The problem is that's very easy to say and very hard to do.

ZAKARIA: And on that note, we will be right back to speak with both of the secretaries of Treasury.
To get the full text go to Paul O.Neill on Fareed Zakaria CNN

Obama Motors

Hey Baxter...I heard that General Motors in building a new 500 million dollar plant to help out all the workers that have lost their jobs in Michigan and the US...that is great...but I heard they are building it in MEXICO....OOOPS guess Obama does not have his boarders straighten out on which side the US is on

I hate to go above Terry now that he apparently has found a computer in Chicago...but

Does not a moment of thought of your Liberal whack jobs idiots mind ever enter, even for a moment, to just consider that your "man" acutally might be a Nazi?  While you were cheering for his success with health care, didn't the idea that the "man" would be able to tell you to "buy" insurance ever give you a minute of pause?  Really, it didn't?  Then you are stupid, almost as stupid as Krugman.  Terry, you want to be compelled to buy Scottsdale sparkle bonds to improve the efficiency of the erotic industry because it is important to the economy of Scottsdale?  How do you not get this?


By BETSY MCCAUGHEY


Last November, a reporter asked House Speaker Nancy Pelosi if it was constitutional for Congress to require Americans to buy health insurance. Ms. Pelosi responded, "Are you serious?"

On Monday, U.S. District Judge Henry Hudson got serious. He denied Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius's motion to dismiss a lawsuit brought by the state of Virginia challenging the new health law. His ruling stated that it is far from certain Congress has the authority to compel Americans to buy insurance and penalize those who don't.

Judge Hudson's ruling paved the way for a trial to begin on October 18, with possible appeals all the way to the Supreme Court, a lengthy process. Some states will likely delay creating insurance exchanges and slow down other costly preparations for ObamaCare until its constitutionality is determined by this case.

If mandatory insurance is declared unconstitutional, the entire health law could collapse like a house of cards. Most complex legislation states that if one part of the law is struck down, other parts remain enforceable. But authors of ObamaCare chose to omit that clause, suggesting that the health overhaul won't work without mandatory insurance.


The law's defenders say the requirement that everyone purchase health insurance will solve a national problem by reducing the number of uninsured and spreading the cost of care over a larger insurance pool.

Critics say that the requirement tramples the Constitution. Twenty-one states and several individuals are already suing to overturn it. Virginia went one step further, enacting a law that makes it illegal to require any resident to purchase health insurance. The Virginia measure won solid support from both Republican and Democratic state legislators. Despite what Mrs. Pelosi tried to suggest, questioning the constitutionality of ObamaCare is not partisan posturing. A fundamental principle is at stake.

On July 1, before a packed courtroom, attorneys for the state of Virginia argued that if the federal government can require you to buy insurance, it could also force you to buy any product to solve any national problem: a new GM car to bolster Detroit, or stocks to prop up Wall Street.

HOW SOON WE FORGET

“We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence — economic, political, even spiritual — is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military/industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.” -Pres. Eisenhower, 1961.

Greenspan & Stockman Oppose Tax Cut Extension

Greenspan stated firmly on Sunday's MTP that tax cuts DO NOT pay for themselves and opined that extension of Bushes cuts could be "disasterous". He went on to say that he favors tax cuts but not with borrowed money (duh!).

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/01/alan-greenspan-extending_n_666549.html

David Stockman was far more aggressive in his criticism of today's GOP. Damning words from Reagan's budget director.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/01/opinion/01stockman.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=stockman&st=Search