REPUBLICANS ARE THE PROBLEM

And if you want to group a few Blue Dog Democrats along with them then I couldn't object.

Lately I've come to the realization that the reason the Republicans call Obama a socialist is to try and fool true Liberals into believing Obama has their interests at heart when in fact the opposite is true. The Republicans were unable to destroy Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid even when they held the presidency and both houses of congress.

The only way that Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid can be destroyed is with a supposedly Democratic President in office. I fully intend to vote for Obama's primary opponent next year and mark my words he will have a primary opponent. The decline in Obamas approval is not because Republicans hate him any more than they used to but because he has betrayed the left.

Idiots are the problem.  With spending increasing 300% in the last 30 years, it is not a revenue problem (which has remained fairly constant at 18% of GDP).  So anyone saying it is anything but a spending problem is an idiot.

It's more that your vast, indomitable ignorance makes you a communist, and I did.  Perhaps if you spent more time learning about how utterly fucked we are as a result of "helping" our fellow citizens, you'd be more interested in helping them off the government tit, instead of helping them stay on it.

Yes, those terrible Republicans, how dare they try to cut the rate at which government expands!  We need more of it damnit!  Even worse, to actually hold to campaign promises, who do they think they are to do what they were told to by the voters?  The gall of them, interfering in the previously unimpeded expansion of government.

Have you ever checked into reality, or is this your permanent residence?  If GDP grew by 8% a year, there would be a reason to expand government, across the board, by 8% a year.  It doesn't.  Eventually, reality will win.  Delusions of grandeur will fall away to the hovel that remains.  If you check in a wee bit before then, perhaps it wont hurt so much?

GW, if this ain't closet commie, what is.   Massively expands the welfare state in a single stroke, goes at cap and trade, card check, and other insane stupid shit like a dog with a bone, and regulates the living shit out of anything and everything he can.  He's all but an avowed communist, just look into pappy and read his book if you're lost on this claim, and he bloody well walked the walk these last two years.  Still not good enough?

That's some funny shit.  I know it was just pocket change these days, but did you really miss the $80 billion bailout for Chrysler and GM?

You make the mistake of confusing corruption with an oligarchy.  Your politicians are corrupt, and bailed out their buddies in the banking system because they pay them to do it.  Mumbles, who is probably just as nutty as you are with the impending collapse of the socialist safety net, just seems to think they are all Republicans.  Reality is much the opposite.  Democrats have long been in the pocket of unions(mob included), the financial sector, and large corporations like GE.  Both parties are equally in the tank for the agriculture industry, and Republicans tend to be the majority share for defense contract corruption.  I'd say Republicans were also in the tank for the oil industry, but it's more that the Democrats are continually trying to screw them for inane reasons, anything resembling untoward favors are few and far between.

Of course, it all depends on who is in power as well.  Their respective owners don't bother feeding them much when they're in the minority.  Republicans looks crooked as hell for a decade, but they'd have had a hard time getting pissed on the last two election cycles, it all went to Democrats after they won the '06 elections.

GDP, and no, it's not.  10% means even a company like GE is a footnote.  It means the other 90% of the production is somewhere other than in corporations, and it would be lower if government would fuck off and stop propping them up while taxing the successful newcomers into stagnation.

Yes, it would have been the only sane thing he said if he'd simply left off the blindingly biased trash talk.  GE is practically a wing of the Democratic party, lets shoot all those crooked Republicans for giving it green subsidies!

OK, I sort of ignored the "closet" part because I left my sexuality closet so long ago I forget where it was and find the trope boring these days. Closets are personal business, and I was simply stating that Mumble, despite his adoption of rhetoric worthy of Rush, is by no means even remotely communist--he's a social democrat, homeless in the US political system like all of his 'fellow travelers.' The point you are willfully refusing to acknowledge is that there is a way to envision and attempt to implement government that is neither populist authoritarianism nor 'evangelical capitalism.'  

And since we're throwing around links and attempting to assign macroeconomic responsibility to nebulous organizations, I offer this bit as a possible illustration of how Grandly Fucked Up Shit is by no means the sole province of governments. True, it's an Nth-order of difficulty needle-haystack problem to pin down the boundaries between modern governments and modern financial institutions, but whatever...

@myfist0: Privacy does matter to me, but I'm a technological determinist at heart. Privacy happened because of simple things like hallways and abstract things like search warrants. Ubiquitous cameras and the danged inter-tubes are way ahead of countermeasures like info-age privacy laws and a renaissance of fucking manners. 

The point is if you want to stop spending then what you need to do is to stop authorizing spending. That's a perfectly reasonable argument to make. What's not reasonable is to decide that you don't want to pay for something you already bought. That's what's happening with the debt ceiling manufactured crisis.

Authorizing a debt ceiling increase does not authorize any new spending, it in fact allows you to pay the debts *already* authorized.

It would be like an individual to decide to cut his budget by deciding to stop making the car payments that he contracted to make when he bought the car.

We already bought the car, failing to raise the debt ceiling is simply deciding to be a deadbeat. If you want to reduce the deficit then stop buying new expensive cars each year but once you've already bought one then you're morally and legally obligated to make the payments.

The bulk of the debt was run up by two unfunded wars (one of which was totally unnecessary and unjustified), an unfunded Medicare prescription plan, the largest tax cut in the history of the US, the TARP and the Stimulus Package.

All of these things except for the Stimulus Package can be laid squarely at the feet of GW Bush and the Republicans. Only one of them, the Stimulus Package, is the responsibility of Obama and the Democrats and excuse me if I agree with the use of proven true keynesian economics to make the attempt at mitigating the worst depression since the great depression that again can be laid squarely at the feet of GW Bush and the Republicans.

Of course the standard response of the right is to use Orwellian logic to prove that up is down, black is white and good is evil and if you're stupid enough to believe that crap then there's really not much hope for you. Trickle down economics and supply side economics have been proven over and over to not correspond to reality and yet at every turn they trot out their dis-proven theories as if they're fact.

So go ahead and keep on voting me tax cuts that I don't need. While I will lament for my fellow former middle class members at least I can join the Koch Brothers laughing all the way to the bank about the stupid peasants that are willing to cut off their own penis just so that the obscenely rich can be that much more obscenely rich.

Idiots.

As I said the Orwellian logic of the right, but I forgot about the revisionist history of the right, thanks for reminding me. 

"Tax revenue went up following the tax cut, it's a simple fact, get over it." To this I have two words to say, "Bull" and "Shit". A total lie and the most popular right wing talking point. As I said if you believe this crap then there's no hope for you.

Secondly the revisionist history, Hoover and initially FDR both used the conventional wisdom of the time which in fact was to fight recession with austerity and it failed miserably it wasn't until FDR switched over to deficit spending that the tide began to turn and it really wasn't until the most massive deficit spending program in the history of the world including that of today began i.e. World War II, that the country really emerged out of depression.

What we have now is further complicated by the fact that millions upon millions of middle class jobs have been moved to India and China all so that CEO's worth 100's of millions of dollars can earn another 10 million dollar bonus. The result is that we still have cyclic economic behavior however the problem is that the recovery never quite reaches the height of the previous boom cycle and each bust cycle is a little bit lower than the last. Instead of cycles we're on the same downward spiral that you watch every morning as your brown swirlies disappear down the toilet. Kind of fitting since that's how the right views the middle class, as shit to get rid of.

So be the good little corporatist that you are and cut off your penis for the benefit of me and the Koch brothers. Also continue to live paycheck to paycheck so that once you can no longer earn a paycheck and thus are no longer a consumer and therefore no longer a useful part of society please have the good taste to go off and die somewhere and please try to die quietly and discreetly, you wouldn't want to unnecessarily upset the refined sensitivities of the Koch brothers and myself with your destitute demise. 

[edit] BTW I learned my keynesian economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from so many professors that had a Noble prize in economics that I forget how many there were. At least 3 if not 4 of them were nobel laureates but then I assume that a Nobel prize is meaningless to you. They give those things out as if they were toilet paper. [/edit]

Not to dig through historical archives and all to garner supporting figures but here's the "simple idiot's" view:

• You increase spending every year.
• You take in less revenue than you spend.
• You borrow with interest to cover the expenses.
• You do this for forty years.

You can't blame a party--they all did it.

You go on from there to:

• You tax the rich.
• The rich provide the goods and services
• The tax expense they incur is passed down to the consumer

The consumer is in effect paying their tax increase. Then you counter all this by increasing taxes...at a point where many people are struggling just to maintain what they have.

The simple thing is we may have to raise taxes on some and/or all soon--but that isn't going to solve the problem--it just moves the weight of it onto the people.

One side isn't  "all right" and the other side isn't "all wrong" but right now both sides are idiots because they aren't dealing with realities other than political ones.

And the, "I make enough for me so others should be willing to sacrifice" argument is insulting.  Come back with that when you have to decide whether to feed the kids or make the car payment--on the car you need to keep the only job you have.

Here's my view on the "rich" individual.

I was living and going to school in Atlanta, Georgia when President Reagan did his budget cuts that impacted those on permanent assistance and especially those in long term psychiatric care.  At the time, I was living in the YMCA on Butler Street as I had arranged to stay at student rates the "Y" before I arrived.  When I arrived in Atlanta and tried to check in, I was told that the only student housing at the Y was for Georgia Tech students--which was not the school I was attending.

So they told me to go to the Y down the street.  Turns out it was in the projects and was full of drug addicts, drifters and homeless people.  I had a tight budget and took a room there in a double--which meant it was half the rent but open at any time to a room mate moving in.  With the exception of a Vietnam vet under psychiatric care, I was the only white person there.

The desk clerk was a very nice elderly black man who told me, "You shouldn't stay here and certainly not in a double room--someone will hurt you.".  I decided I would (I had no choice really due to my expenses) and ended up getting along with everyone there--even the occasional crazy person who passed through.  A few weeks later I snagged a job (this was during the 80's recession) and on my first night walking home from work, three gang members came after me and asked what I thought of Martin Luther King.  They were pushing me and stepping on my feet and asking if I was afraid of them while I answered.  After I did, they started walking me home every night and telling other gang members to leave me alone and that I as "O.K.".  So I had no trouble "on the street" and the front desk clerk steered "certifiable" room mates away from me.  One of the homeless guys who had a problem with liquor became a friend of mine (he was twenty years older than me).

One day he told me to go out with him and spend the day so I did.  He took me to all the churches and shelters and showed me how he got toothpaste, clothes, deodorant and five meals a day for free.  All of it came from privately funded charities and churches.  When their budgets ran short it was often, "rich people" who would anonymously write a check to cover the week's difference.

I have a friend now who is a chiropractor and is set for life.  He routinely goes to churches and asks about people with no other means to meet an immediate need and writes a check for them to the church--asking not to be identified when doing so. 

When you take this money with legislation, the state spends it "for" those people--it robs them of the chance to give it.  I admire Bill and Melinda Gates and Richard Branson and those like them--who choose to give something back.  I don't think their wealth should be taken from them--I think more incentives should be provided for them to give it.  The state would tell Bill Gates what the "best" use of his money is--I think he might want to use it in a different way and be more effective in the process.

In the end, who determines who is "rich"? and who decides how to spend the money they take from them?  Some of them are doing a better job than the government...Bill Gates is a good example.

I am somewhat concerned for a culture that wants to take from others out of a sense of entitlement so they can spend it on themselves.

Reform taxes, sure.  Increase some on the very wealthy?  To a point, sure.  But it comes down to us being citizens and neighbors in the same states and country and choosing to help one another.

You earned your money and are entitled to it.  I don't covet a cent of it.  Blow it or share it--that's between you and your conscience.

The entitlement problem cuts both ways in any complex economy. The wealth that funds the charity that you are admiring is highly dependent on the overall political economy. The Gates fortune depends on intellectual property systems, which require far more government than something comparatively simple like rights to farm or build on a piece of land. Note the "more" there--property of any type is a social construction; it exists only because collections of people agree on a particular set of rules.

The reason people like Mumblefratz and I are so frustrated with public policy of the last few decades is that the only 'entitlements' that have seen any meaningful cutbacks are safety net programs. (Well, Big Ag did take a wee hit recently.) Programs that facilitate business directly are still thriving by providing a context for private organizations to earn big returns from exploiting public resources like air traffic corridors, interstate highways, and broadcast spectrum.

I'm not as publicly angry as Mumblefratz because I'm a political scientist and I understand that we live in a pluralist democratic republic, at least for a few more years. A healthy democratic system never pleases everyone at once, but it should please most people most of the time, and our Great Experiment looks like it might actually be winding down. Oligarchy's not all that bad if you luck out and most of your oligarchs are more like Gates and Buffet than they are like the Koch brothers.

Your sarcasm-recognition systems must be offline at the moment. Bill Gates is no hero to me, and the only reason I have a shred of respect for Warren Buffet is that he believes inherited wealth should be modest, not mountainous.

I'm also well aware of the Koch brothers 'philanthropic' activities, which, for me, don't come close to balancing out the damage they've done helping keep Congress on the big-money leash. They've avoided the shame of their father's John Birch Society membership, and at least they're not openly funding the 'family values' crowd of hatemongers, but, yea, best I can tell, they're at least really mean if not outright evil.

Speaking of the Koch brothers and rules not applying to Republicans have you heard the latest about one of their astroturf organizations?

It seems Americans for Prosperity (a wholly owned subsidy of Koch Industries, sic) sent out absentee ballots to solidly democratic districts with instructions to return 2 days *after* the election. How cute.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/davidcatanese/0811/AFP_Wisconsin_ballots_have_late_return_date.html

Also in line with voter suppression Scott Walker having already denied college students the vote and already put through a strict voter ID law requiring either a drivers license or state ID only available through the DMV then closed all the DMV's in democratic districts.

http://thepoliticalcarnival.net/2011/07/25/gov-scott-walker-closes-wisconsin-dmv-offices-in-democratic-areas-that-could-provide-voter-i-d/

If you don't recall (pun intended) Scott Walker is the Wisconsin governor that cleared his schedule to talk to a reporter who Walker thought was David Koch.

Here's a recent picture of Scott Walker listening to the Koch Brothers.

Nice job broad brushing an entire family there, I guess that makes me a racist, sister porking redneck, as they're only two generations back there in that same age group.  The incest hasn't actually been proven, but it's either that or a black man is in the family tree, because grandma refused to ever talk about her family tree.

Neither one of them are even socially conservative, they're both libertarians, preferring that government fuck off and leave everyone alone.  I can't find anything that could possibly classify as mean.  The overwhelming majority of their campaign contributions go towards libertarians, and their lobbying activities are perfectly reasonable.  They're an oil refining company and the EPA is batshit insane environmentalism on steroids with the power to put them out of business pretty much at whim, thanks to the wonderfully fucked up Clean Air Act.  Just one rule change and every refinery in the country shuts down because they have to utilize some obscenely expensive technology that can't possibly compete on a global market.  If I were them, I'd be spending even more trying to kill the entire program.  I could rail on the EPA for pages without running out of shit to complain about, it's another portion of government that costs the economy far more than the tax revenue needed to run it.