As the current melodrama finally plays out in Washington, it is important that people understand how we got into this mess in the first place.
Not since 1957, when I was 6 years old and Dwight Eisenhower was president, has the federal government reported a budget surplus.
In more recent times, President Bill Clinton came closest to balancing the budget by reporting only a $17 billion dollar deficit in 2000. President George W. Bush accumulated close to $3 trillion dollars in budget deficits with the seven budgets over which he presided. President Barack Obama has racked up close to $5 trillion during his three-year watch.
Over this 54-year span of spiraling budget deficits, the Republicans have controlled the White House for 32 of those years and the Democrats for 22. The point here is that both Dems and Repubs - left and right, liberals and conservatives - have participated mightily and jointly in creating this debt crisis.
What, might you ask, are the most important contributing factors to this deficit spending? It boils down to three basic things: Wars, entitlement programs and tax policy. Think about it: Vietnam, Persian Gulf, Iraq, Afghanistan and all the smaller skirmishes along the way. Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, etc. - all of the above require significant revenue streams to function properly. So how do our elected representatives in Washington respond? They reduce the tax rate on the wealthy. They send rebate checks in the mail, a la Bush. They allow income taxes as a percentage of gross incomes to fall to the lowest level of any developed nation in the world. Washington has no appetite for increasing taxes. However, increasing your spending while decreasing your revenue streams while at the same time giving away your rainy day money is a sure recipe for financial disaster.
While it may be true, that the 14th Amendment to the Constitution may state that "the validity of the public debt of the United States authorized by law ... shall not be questioned," the practicality of the enormous impact of the interest payments being made on a $14 trillion dollar debt is mind boggling. Like 42 cents on every federal budget dollar.
A balanced approach is the only plan that can work. Not only do you have to cut spending, you also must increase your revenue stream while at the same time re-evaluating the role of government in people's lives. Clearly, an overwhelming majority of our population wants Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Obviously, they want the Department of Defense to defend them from our enemies. But do they want never-ending wars and skirmishes, endless foreign aid to countries who do not support us and in many cases are openly hostile to our existence, a space program, universal health care, etc.?
The inability of our elected representatives in Washington to forge a bipartisan solution to the debt ceiling issue along with spending cuts and increased taxes makes one pause. Are government shutdowns and polarization the answers we're seeking? I think not! Whatever happened to civility of discourse and mutual respect? Whatever happened to the concept that we are all Americans in this life together? Whatever happened to U.S.?
Rich posted at 1:53 pm on Mon, Aug 1, 2011.
The problem, such as it is Jon, is that no one really knows whether raising taxes will raise or lower revenue. And I do think most people would agree that this isn't the time to gamble with that. The first thing to do when you're in a hole is to stop digging and then deal with getting out. The current bill just says 'dig slower.' Until you stop digging and cut down to a 'balanced' budget, 'balancing' any approach is very likely to get you in deeper.
AmericanPatriot posted at 2:09 pm on Mon, Aug 1, 2011.
I think I see what ya mean. So maybe it isn't a good idea to give free cell phone service to welfare recipients at this point in time?
Rich posted at 3:25 pm on Mon, Aug 1, 2011.
AP,
Probably not.
Leon Ceniceros posted at 3:50 pm on Mon, Aug 1, 2011.
I am so proud to see that my comments and Letters to the Editor (caps, bad grammer, bad spelling and bad punctuation et al....lol) have converted the three of you.
Now that all of you have seen the "light" of Conservative-Republicanism....let's go after the ......PRO-ILLEGAL ALIEN AMNESTY MORMON-CATHOLIC-LA RAZA CABAL.
From the content of this Letter and you great comments, I know that I can count on your help in re-electing Arizona Senate President Russell Pearce ......................and....stopping the election of another ...PRO-ILLEGAL ALIEN AMNESTY SENATOR IN 2012.
WE ALREADY HAVE ....2...R.I.N.O.'s......(Republicans In Name Only)...SENATOR JON KYL AND SENATOR JOHN MCCAIN.............ARIZONA......DOES NOT NEED ANOTHER ........R.I.N.O.....JEFF FLAKE.
LET'S GET BEHIND....A CHARISMIC REPUBLICAN....A "REAL" AMERICAN WHO HAS SERVED HIS NATION.... (NOT TAKE A RELIGIOUS DEFERRMENT). AN ARMY OFFICER (RETIRED) WHO IS CURRENTLY THE ........PINAL COUNTY SHERIFF.................PAUL BABEU............FOR REPUBLICAN SENATORIAL CANDIDATE IN........2012.
Dale Whiting posted at 5:05 pm on Mon, Aug 1, 2011.
Leon,
No one reads you. So do not be so confident that your diatribes and RANTINGS have converted anyone.
Rich,
The debate over raising or lowering taxes probably will never end. But recognizing that Bush 43 tax cuts seem not to have stimulated our recovery from the madness following 9-11, perhaps its time to give tax hikes and tax reform a try! And 9-11 madness was bin Laden's objective.
AP,
Why don't you give us your reference supporting the notion that free cell phone service is given out to welfare receipients?
Dale Whiting posted at 5:09 pm on Mon, Aug 1, 2011.
Leon,
Your RINO reference finally caught my eye. Apparently unless a politician sucks up to the Tea Party, if they are Republican, they are RINO. Since I am a Republican, you would judge me to be a RINO. And anyone who is not a Republican Tea Party enthusiast and is independent or a Democrat must be a liberal.
Gang,
Wasn't it good to see Gabriel Giffords on the House floor today!
Rich posted at 7:04 pm on Mon, Aug 1, 2011.
Actually, Dale, when Bush left office unemployment was 4.5% and the economy had broken growth records three out of four years. Yeah, it hit a speed bump, but Obama turned that into a multi-car smash-up and trying to justify that is mindless. Right now raising taxes is just absurd, all you'll get is more unemployment and if revenue is raised it'll only be on paper. Obama and the Democrats are aware of this, they're signing off on digging us into a hole more slowly so that they can use our tax money to buy votes in 2012, and the GOP knows they need some of that great Federal cash to buy a few themselves. We don't know what the right kinds of economic stimulus might have done, we do know what Obama's have done, and it's not even close to pretty. But don't make absurdist statements like "Bush 43 tax cuts seem not to have stimulated our recovery from the madness following 9-11" because the facts and statistics tell the opposite story.
AmericanPatriot posted at 7:05 pm on Mon, Aug 1, 2011.
Dale I really think you are a senile old man who can't even tell that he reads Leon's comments every time he sees one. Fact 1. The Bush tax cuts actually created more tax revenue than they cut. Look it up fool.
Well, sort of cell phone service for welfare recipients. http://ecfr.gpoaccess.gov/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=ecfr&sid=01658bfba0a7d0eef20b5621bbbf7bd0&rgn=div6&view=text&node=47:3.0.1.1.7.5&idno=47
But hey, isn't internet service and cell phones a right now? Shouldn't all people regardless of their ability to pay have equal access to the internet so that they can use twitter and other social networking sites to plan their next mob thefts and beatings? How de gona know when da next beat whitey night is scheduled?
So Dale, how do you define republican? I noticed you call us neo-cons, so how do you define neo-con anyway? Do you mean neoconservative? A branch of American Conservatism that is most known for its advocacy of using American economic and military power to topple American enemies and promote LIBERAL DEMOCRACY in other countries. The movement emerged during the early 1970s among DEMOCRATS who disagreed with the party's growing opposition to the Vietnam War and had become skeptical of the Great Society's welfare programs. Although neoconservatives generally endorse free-market economics, they often believe cultural and moral issues to be more significant, and so have tended to be less thoroughgoing in opposition to government intervention in society than more traditionally conservative and libertarian members of the Republican Party.[1][2] Many neoconservatives support the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya.
Is that the Tea Party?
Rich posted at 7:10 pm on Mon, Aug 1, 2011.
Leon,
Nobody converted me, I got in trouble in high school fifty years ago calling politicians crooks. The system isn't really workable by design. There isn't an American politician out there with the competence to become a dictator, which is how it's supposed to work. We're ruled by a Confederacy of Dunces (Swift) and a Parliament of Whores (O'Rourke), which is as it should be, preserves our liberty.
NothingButTheTruth posted at 9:08 pm on Mon, Aug 1, 2011.
Rich you can call me a conspiracy theorist or whatever, but do you really think the confederacy of dunces are really running the show. All I see is kabuki theater performed for the masses, designed to obfuscate the real shadow government that rules from behind the curtain. They don't need or want a dictator. The Oligarchy is fine with the show we have. What amazes me is how people are so easy and willing to disbelieve the idea that a small group of very rich and powerful people would get together to conspire to keep what they have worked so hard to acquire. They rule the world but in a very precarious perch. Enough people catch on to their act and they fall apart. Fortunately for them, beer swilling, football watching, wife beating, neanderthals will never catch on and love the kabuki theater.
Rich posted at 11:14 pm on Mon, Aug 1, 2011.
NBTT,
Frank Norris started that one with The Octopus. It's a folk legend. He was attacking the 'Big Four' Huntington, Crocker, Hopkins and Stanford. The fact is that such people cannot be bothered by government, buy their privacy and pay for most everything just to be left alone. They have about as much interest in running things as any intelligent human being, about zero. People who want to, can't and need psychiatric help. As evidenced just the past few weeks.
Slabside posted at 1:08 am on Tue, Aug 2, 2011.
"Leon, No one reads you. So do not be so confident that your diatribes and RANTINGS have converted anyone."
Leon, I read you and while perhaps I do not agree with everything you post, I know for a fact you are a better conservative through and through than the moron that had the audacity to post his manure.
Captain Neo-Con, please go urin8 up a flagpole.
NothingButTheTruth posted at 2:08 am on Tue, Aug 2, 2011.
I see Rich, the idiots are in charge and the foxes have no desire to guard the hen house, and a 1901 novel by Frank Norris is proof positive that it's all just fantasy. Rich people, if they have no interests in running events to their advantage, surely must be the biggest idiots of all. I wonder how they came to be so rich. You truly believe that don't you. None of the several depressions were orchestrated by rich powerful banksters to skin the little people of all their meager savings? Boy, I can't tell you how relieved I am to hear they were all accidents. I actually thought someone up there knew what they were doing. I mean, the rich have been consistently been getting richer and the poor have been consistently getting poorer, and it's all just a huge coincidence. I know personally, I've never taken advantage of newly passed laws to further my stock portfolio, but do you really think that no one who has the money to buy any politician they need wouldn't give them their office by virtue of unlimited contributions to their campaign just so that they could create a favorable legal atmosphere congenial to making them a fortune of money, and preventing the little guys from taking it back?
Dale Whiting posted at 8:08 am on Tue, Aug 2, 2011.
Unemployment was low because borrowing to sustain livelihoods was artifically high. When the housing boom busted, this bubble created by the banking industry burst leaving us with a huge debt from Bush's deficit spending. Let's not revise history so soon Guys. The neo-cons have not won yet!
Two unfunded wars, neither of which was well justified, Medicare Part D, which was a means to an end, i.e. currying votes from retirees, a mounting deficit which cannot be denied [except by you neo-cons], spelled the doom which Obama now faces. And what do the Neo-cons hope and pray for? Obama's defeat! It's we Americans who are in jeopardy of being defeated, both Republicans and Democrats, Liberals, Conservatives, Neo-conservatives, and Independents.
AmericanPatriot posted at 10:42 am on Tue, Aug 2, 2011.
Pray for Obummer's defeat? It was inevitable the day he was elected that he would go down in flames and take America with him. You neo-libertards are as much to blame as anyone else for the mess.
Truth, if you want to learn Who Rules America Now, read the book by that name written by professor G. William Domhoff. It's really amazing how they are able to accomplish their ends through little actual involvement.
AmericanPatriot posted at 11:14 am on Tue, Aug 2, 2011.
Yesterday a New York Times op-ed columnist stated that the Tea Party is 'waging jihad on the American people.' On the very same day, Vice-President Joe Biden stated that Tea Partiers are like terrorists.
Why would the Vice-President of the United States and a columnist for what was once the most influential newspaper in the country use such explosive language to defame and attempt to stigmatize multi-millions of Americans who not only demonstrated their significant power in the midterm elections of 2010 but set the terms of the debate over the national debt? We don't want anymore debt limit raising BS. Both Senators Obummer and Obiden both voted against raising the debt limit when Bush was president. Why is it right to do so now and not then?
Rich posted at 12:37 pm on Tue, Aug 2, 2011.
Dale, no one knows why. We all frame a why to support our viewpoint. Unemployment was low because....well I'll pick this reason because it supports my viewpoint. None of which negates the fact that it was, and none of it explains anything other than wishful thinking. Dumoff's sociological power structures don't do a lot to explain it unless your a Taoist who believes in doing without doing. We know what once worked, and we live in what doesn't. That's all we are sure of and when you start with the whys it's just a mess. Whatever the why, this isn't working, so we really, really need to do something else. What? Haven't a clue, however the one thing that I'm absolutely sure of is that we aren't doing it.
mnjcpa posted at 1:27 pm on Tue, Aug 2, 2011.
One of my favorite classics is Atlas Shrugged. Rand writes that super-talented people with resources and choices will leave a corrupt system for greener pastures. This story line is playing out in America in many unfortunate ways.
She prophesized what would happen to a country dominated by socialistic thinking, generating free-loaders living off the productive class. The free-loader class would demonize the wealthy to rationalize the fleecing of innovative business owners and job creators. Does this sound familiar?
People daring to make more than $250,000 are now potential enemies of the state. Heaven forbid if you make more than a million dollars; you’re considered a dangerous person of interest.
Business owners were disappearing — dropping off the grid, and refusing to work 16-hour days to support the free-loaders. Rand warned what would happen if the productive classes felt abused: they would stop working, go underground, or move to places where achievement is celebrated and they feel appreciated. At what point did we start punishing success in this country?
Our governmental policies give the value destroyers on Wall Street a free pass, while Main Streeters who actually create value get creamed. Examples of things that benefit Wall St. over Main St.: a weak dollar; high export subsidies; low interest rates; a corporate tax code that benefits multinationals; and preferential tax rates on private equity. How we fix it doesn't lay at the laps of the productive people in our society - much like Rand warned.
I have a question for this audience ~ Given that the majority of Americans have little/no net worth, pay little/no taxes, and have few/if any prospects, how can we hope to maintain a civilized, productive society? It’s not obvious that we can.
AmericanPatriot posted at 5:13 pm on Tue, Aug 2, 2011.
I love Ayn Rand and her novels, but things have become so complicated I don't know that it's as cut and dry as she envisioned. When GE makes billions and pays no taxes and Obummers GE CEO jobs czar sends GE's xray division to China, I kinda have to wonder what Ayn would make of it all. It's a global business world now.
mnjcpa posted at 6:21 pm on Tue, Aug 2, 2011.
Dig in to the paragraph where I write about Wall Street getting a pass while Main Street gets creamed. I believe it's what you're describing.[smile]
Rich posted at 7:00 pm on Tue, Aug 2, 2011.
The man who makes it better is the guy who, being unemployed, begs borrows and steals and opens a store, a small factory, buys a farm. He doesn't want to be a CEO, chairman of the board. He liked it better when someone else had all the responsibility and he put in his forty hours. But the times past that by for him, and he is strong enough not to sit and cry, strong enough not to take it, and does something about it. He doesn't take anything from the government, after all if they were any good, he'd still have a job, not 16-20 workdays, breaking the bank to make sure everyone is paid, and has health insurance. Sweat out a payroll sometime. All the sins of the CEOs fall on his head. Government overcharges him because they can get away with it. The city, the county,the state along with Uncle is always in his face. He is over 50% of your employers, and if he could he'd move to Guadalajara tomorrow. Wake up! he's your only salvation. The CEOs are jerks, most have been bankrupt and bailed out, with your tax money. Your elected representatives are the country's only native criminal class. And if you don't get all levels of government off this guy's heiney, you haven't got a prayer.
AmericanPatriot posted at 9:34 pm on Tue, Aug 2, 2011.
mnjcpa, I wasn't offering any contention to what you wrote. In fact, if I weren't so uneloquent I would have said the same words.
Dale Whiting posted at 9:03 am on Wed, Aug 3, 2011.
AmericanPatriot,
Nice to see you catch on the dichotomy between Ayn Rand and the post "Cold War" global economy. I find it odd that George HW Bush was criticized for his "new world order" philosophy, and George W Bush ignored a global economy entirely.
In the new world order, nations need to compete with nations for all sorts of economic opportunities. Money raised from tax cuts trickles down to the nation who can use its resources most efficiently, not the nation lowering its taxes. The nation with high taxes looses the tax payor.
Here’s a puzzle. Leon complains about lack of border security and Mexicans coming north to steal jobs and about NAFTA sending US jobs south. Yet farmers who would crow corn in Mexico cannot compete with farmers growing corn in the US. US farm subsidies combined with the economics of larger automated corporate farms in the US results in it being cheaper to import US corn to Mexico City than to buy it locally. So rather than starve, men and their sons cross the border to pick lettuce and fruit up here.
Being a Neo-con, Leon takes an overly simplistic view of the problem and misses it entirely. Are you a Neo-con, too?
Dale Whiting posted at 9:12 am on Wed, Aug 3, 2011.
And Rich,
Regarding cause and effect analysis, I made your point in another comment yesterday. The dismal science of economics is not much of a science. Human nature makes any scientific analysis of economics a big guess. I find it telling that those who advocate cutting taxes today do not use the Reaganomics "trickle down" theory. They do compare us and our tax rates with other countries, but not with similiarly situated counties.
AmericanPatriot posted at 9:48 am on Wed, Aug 3, 2011.
Dale, check this out. Free cell phones for welfare recipients in Pennsylvania.
http://www.nypost.com/p/blogs/capitol/free_cell_phones_are_civil_right_htTMcKQFrjdvyl9A6NHPdP#ixzz1TrgxELho
AmericanPatriot posted at 9:49 am on Wed, Aug 3, 2011.
8:30 AM, August 1, 2011 ι Abby W. Schachter
Pennsylvanians on public assistance now have a new 'civil right' -- free cell phones. Meanwhile, the rest of us get to pay higher cell bills as a result.
Recently, a federal government program called the Universal Service Fund came to the Keystone State and some residents are thrilled because it means they can enjoy 250 minutes a month and a handset for free, just because they don't have the money to pay for it. Through Assurance Wireless and SafeLink from Tracfone Wireless these folks get to reach out and touch someone while the cost of their service is paid for by everyone else. You see, the telecommunications companies are funding the Universal Service Fund to the tune of $4 billion a year because the feds said they have to and in order to recoup their money, the companies turn around and hike their fees to paying customers. But those of use paying for the free service for the poor, should be happy about this infuriating situation, says Gary Carter, manager of national partnerships for Assurance, because "the program is about peace of mind." Free cell service means "one less bill that someone has to pay, so they can pay their rent or for day care...it is a right to have peace of mind," Cater explained.
Well, the telecommunications companies don't seem to love providing this 'right' to poor folks because they are trying to renegotiate the deal with the FCC. The telecommunications companies like Verizon and AT&T want more paying customers, but their desire to reform their deal with the feds dovetails nicely with the political ideology of the current FCC chairman Julian Genachowski, who like all Obama administration flunkies sees 'rights' where others see 'priviledges'. Just listen to how the agency put the question of providing broadband and cell service to those in rural and poor communities. "The goal of reform is to provide everyone with affordable voice and broadband," the agency said.
Between 14 million and 24 million Americans lack access to broadband, "and immediate prospects for deployment to them are bleak," the FCC said in a report last year. "Many of these Americans are poor or live in rural areas that will remain unserved without reform of the universal service program and other changes," the report said.
But who says that cheap or free broadband is anything more than a luxury?
Well, another Obama flunkie, Rahm Emanuel, that's who. As we reported in June , the new mayor of Chicago was all excited to proclaim the wonderful news of free internet service to poor kids in Chicago's worst neighborhoods. And how could Mayor Emanuel pay for this new 'civil right'? Well, because the federal government extorted the money from Comcast when it wanted to buy NBC-Universal. Once again FCC chairman Genachowski was all about "helping the kids" by forcing the internet provider to give poor kids free netbooks, laptops, and internet service, indefinitely. And who is going to pay for this gift? Well, of course the rest of us poor saps who actually pay our bills.
Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/blogs/capitol/free_cell_phones_are_civil_right_htTMcKQFrjdvyl9A6NHPdP#ixzz1Tz9eNWSi
AmericanPatriot posted at 9:52 am on Wed, Aug 3, 2011.
Wow I wish we were New York.
ALBANY, N.Y. - Taxed-out New Yorkers are voting with their feet, with a staggering 1.6 million residents fleeing the state over the last decade.
For the second consecutive decade, New York led the nation in the percentage of residents leaving for other states, according to the report by the Empire Center for State Policy.
The population loss is "the ultimate barometer of New York's attractiveness as a place to work, live and do business," the report's co-author, E.J. McMahon, said. "It's the ultimate indication that we've been doing things wrong."
Most analysts blamed New York's high taxes and skyrocketing cost of living for the mass exodus.
The Tax Foundation ranked New York highest in the nation in the combined state and local tax burden in 2008. And as small-business lobbyist Mike Durant noted, New York has also "consistently ranked worst or in the top three worst in business climate. You can't suck every penny out of people and expect them to remain in New York."
Since 1960, New York has lost 7.3 million residents to other states -- a net loss of 2.5 million people after adding in an influx of 4.8 million new immigrants, the study found.
Overall, the state's population grew by 2 percent between 2000 and 2010, but that rate that fell far behind states with lower taxes, growing economies and warmer climates like Nevada, Florida and Arizona, the three fastest-growing states, according to The New York Post .
NothingButTheTruth posted at 12:56 pm on Wed, Aug 3, 2011.
August 02, 2011
Obama’s La Raza Lies
By Washington Watcher
Last week, Barack Obama spoke before the National Council of La Raza. [Remarks by the President to the National Council of La Raza, July 25, 2011] For the most part his comments were predictable. He stated his support for the DREAM Act, while opposing the "patchwork" of state laws like Arizona. It was also predictable that he would tell a few half-truths and falsehoods. With no further ado, here are Obama’s La Raza Lies.
Lie # 1: Hispanics are Hit Harder during the Recession:
According to Obama, "we’re still climbing out of a vicious recession, and that recession hit Latino families especially hard." A meme has gone across the internet for years with the mock headline "World Ends, Women and Minorities Hardest Hit" or some variant. (Ironically, the day after Obama’s speech, there really was an article in the New York Times under the headline, Recession Study Finds Hispanics Hit the Hardest.[By Sabrina Tavernise, July 26, 2011].
The Study in question dealt with decline in net worth. But the primary problem with recessions is, by its definition, job loss. And in this case, Hispanics are doing quite well in the recession compared to whites, and blacks for that matter. As VDARE.com’s Ed Rubenstein has reported:
"Since the recession hit in December 2007 non-Hispanics have lost jobs at more than three-times the rate of Hispanics (-5.3 percent versus -1.7 percent.) And since the start of the ‘recovery’ in June 2009 Hispanics have gained 416,000 jobs while non-Hispanics have lost 675,000 positions."
If we are to put race aside (which of course Obama, the New York Times, and La Raza don’t want to,) then it is clear that immigrants are gaining jobs while Americans are losing them. The Pew Hispanic Center reported that by the "official end of the Great Recession in June 2009, foreign-born workers gained 656,000 jobs while native-born workers lost 1.2 million" [After the Great Recession: Foreign Born Gain Jobs; Native Born Lose Jobs, By Rakesh Kochar, Pew Hispanic Center, October 29, 2010.]
Lie # 2. Those Immigrant Entrepreneurs:
According to Obama passing the DREAM Act "wasn’t just the moral thing to do, it was an economic imperative" because " In recent years, one in four high-tech startups in America –- companies like Google and Intel—were founded on immigrants. One in six new small business owners are immigrants. These are job creators who came here to seek opportunity and now seek to share opportunity."
This is more of a lie by omission. It may be true that immigrants are more likely to start businesses than Americans. It is also true that one of the three founders (Andy Grove) of Intel was a Hungarian born immigrant, and one of the two founders of Google (Sergey Brin) was the son of Russian Math Professor. However, with Obama speaking to La Raza and mentioning this fact after discussing the DREAM Act, which almost exclusively benefits Hispanics, there is a clear impression that there are illegal and/or Hispanic Immigrant entrepreneurs who will create jobs if just given the chance.
The Associated Press published a list of top US companies founded or partially founded by immigrants. They are:
1. Intel Corp. – Andy Grove (Hungary)
2.Solectron Corp. – Winston Chen (Taiwan)
3.Sanmina-SCI Corp. – Jule Sola/Milan Mandaric (Bosnia/Croatia)
4.Sun Microsystems Inc. – Andreas Bechtolsheim/Vinod Khosla (Germany/India)
5.eBay Inc. – Pierre Omidyar (France)
6.Yahoo Inc. – Jerry Yang (Taiwan)
7.Life Time Fitness Inc. – Bahram Akradi (Iran)
8.Tetra Tech Inc. – Henri Hodara (France)
9.UTStarcom Inc. – Ying Wu (China)
10.Google Inc. – Sergey Brin (Russia)
All but one came from Europe or Asia, and none are Hispanic. This is true of small businesses as well. Conspicuously absent among these immigrant entrepreneurs are Hispanics.
Nor are Hispanics likely to be small business owners. The most recent census data on Hispanic businesses comes from 2007, when they made 15.1% of the population (it’s now at 16.3) At that time, Hispanics made up 8.3% of all business owners, barely half their share of the population. The census also reported that those businesses made $345 billion in revenuehttp://www.dallasnews.com/business/headlines/20100919-This-week-Dallas-will-host-U-1238.ece, which is only over 1.1% of the 30 trillion dollars in revenues by all businesses that year. Keep in mind, this is in spite of the fact that Hispanic owned businesses get various tax breaks and affirmative action for government contracts.
All this being said, the importance of immigrant entrepreneurs from Europe and Asia is grossly over stated, but that’s another story. (I’d recommend reading Steve Sailer’s article Immigrant Entrepreneurs Less Benefit than They're Cracked Up to Be and Steve Camarota’s detailed report for the Center for Immigration Studies, Reconsidering Immigrant Entrepreneurship: An Examination of Self-Employment Among Natives and Foreign-Born, if you want more information.
Lie # 3 Obama Won’t Pass An Administrative Amnesty:
After bemoaning how terrible our current immigration system is for actually deporting people here illegally, Obama said
“I swore an oath to uphold the laws on the books, but that doesn't mean I don't know very well the real pain and heartbreak that deportations cause… And I promise you, we are responding to your concerns and working every day to make sure we are enforcing flawed laws in the most humane and best possible way. Now, I know some people want me to bypass Congress and change the laws on my own.”
At this point the La Raza broke into applause. Obama said "And believe me, right now dealing with Congress" and was interrupted again by chants of "Yes, you can" Obama continued, "Believe me—believe me, the idea of doing things on my own is very tempting. (Laughter.) I promise you. Not just on immigration reform. (Laughter.) But that's not how—that's not how our system works."
Then an audience member yelled " Change it!" and Obama replied, "That’s not how our democracy functions. That's not how our Constitution is written."
That La Raza crowd is screaming for Obama to bypass congress to enact laws that don’t exist should tell you just how much they respect the rule of law, Constitutional separation of powers, and the democratic process.
But is Obama standing firm against La Raza, what I will call "Hermana Souljah moment”? Hardly.
Obama is already enacting an administrative amnesty. The Obama Administration has been issuing numerous memos expressing their desire to "bypass congress" and not enforce our immigration laws.
As the FAIR’s Bob Dane notes,
"For the past two years, a steady stream of leaked memos reveal how the administration has expanded its amnesty-granting powers. The title of one United States Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) memo says it all, Administrative Alternatives to Comprehensive Immigration Reform. Not surprisingly, the memo suggests ways the government can delay or even prevent the removal of illegal aliens." [Illegal Alien Amnesty Already Happening: Get used to it or HALT it, Fox News, July 29, 2011]
These memos call for granting "deferred action", "parole", or simply cancelling the deportation of entire classes of illegal aliens—including all who would be eligible for the DREAM Act. You know, the same DREAM Act that Congress blocked last year. If this is not bypassing congress, I don’t know what is.
Congressman Lamar Smith (R-TX) introduced the "Hinder the Administration’s Legalization Temptation Act" or HALT Act to prevent the president from trying to use what his administration called "Administrative Alternatives to Comprehensive Immigration Reform" [PDF]to stop deportations and grant amnesty by executive fiat.
If Obama truly does not want to "bypass congress" then he should endorse the bill.
If there is a silver lining to take from this last lie, it is that Obama knows that the American people absolutely will not stand for his amnesty----if they knew about it.
What is more disturbing is the fact that the crowd at La Raza has no shame in letting him know they want him to act like a Latin American dictator.
Obama claimed "Our American family will only be as strong as our growing Latino community."
But it’s pretty clear that growing community simply wants to strong-arm the rest of the country.
"Washington Watcher" [email him] is an anonymous source Inside The Beltway.
mnjcpa posted at 12:28 pm on Thu, Aug 4, 2011.
Wondering at what point Obama is going to take responsibility for his policies and quit blaming Bush? Spending as a share of GDP in the last three years is higher than at any time since 1946.
Liberal Democrats have caused this debt problem and the facts support it. In 1965 defense spending was 7.4% of GDP and 42.8% of outlays. In 2010 that same spending represented only 4.8% of GDP and 20.1% of federal outlays in 2010.
FDR began the entitlement era with the New Deal & Social Security. In the mid-1960s LBJ's Great Society and the health-care state really got the entitlement train moving. Medicare and Medicaid were launched in 1965 along with public housing, food stamps and many more—that have also grown over time. Last year, welfare programs spent about $20,000 for every man, woman and child in poverty. None of these benefit expansions are subject to annual review or deletion.
Obama and other Democrats still oppose any serious reform of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. This insistence on no reform reinforces the notion that our entitlement state is too big to afford. The problem isn't Bush or the wars that came about in his administration - but the freeloaders that we continue to support.
AmericanPatriot posted at 3:51 pm on Thu, Aug 4, 2011.
Sure mnjcpa, the democrats like to rob the rich to fund nation destroying entitlement programs, but what about all those wars the republicans funded? Oh wait that was democrat Woodrow Wilson that stuck us with the federal reserve and got us into WW1, and democrat FDR that got us into WW2, and democrat Johnson's Vietnam, but republican Nixon got us out. Republican Bush did get us into Afghanistan and Iraq, but peace prize winner democrat Obummer said he would get us out but then expanded the war to Libya. Boy o boy those democrats sure to know how to destroy a wealthy nation either robbing the rich to go to war or with entitlement programs. Personally I think they all stunk the room up.
AmericanPatriot posted at 11:26 am on Fri, Aug 5, 2011.
Democrats are the new Soviets?
John Kerry has waded into the media waters and now wants the news to cut out conservatives he doesn’t agree with.
During a discussion of the debt deal and the economy on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” Friday, the current Massachusetts senator and former presidential candidate lambasted the Tea Party and conservatives and the idea that they should be given “equal time” in the media. According to him, their ideas are so whacky that they don’t deserve air time
Not everyone deserves free speech? Heck, the liberal press already tends to leave out important parts of the news. They don't lie. They just don't tell you. It's like these mobs of young people who go around beating and robbing people. They almost never say that the mobs are exclusively black and their victims are almost always white. The only way you can see this is when their is video evidence of this fact. It's like they want you to believe that isn't even the story when in fact that IS the story.
AmericanPatriot posted at 11:35 am on Fri, Aug 5, 2011.
White America is fast coming under attack by black America, and soon the Hispanics are going to join the fun. The liberal media will turn a blind eye cause to notice it and say it is waaacist!
NothingButTheTruth posted at 3:27 pm on Wed, Aug 10, 2011.
Throughout history, poverty is the normal condition of man. Advances which permit this norm to be exceeded — here and there, now and then — are the work of an extremely small minority, frequently despised, often condemned, and almost always opposed by all right-thinking people. Whenever this tiny minority is kept from creating, or (as sometimes happens) is driven out of a society, the people then slip back into abject poverty.
--Robert Heinlein
NothingButTheTruth posted at 2:07 am on Fri, Aug 12, 2011.
Can We Still Afford the Slavery Tax?
by John Derbyshire
Let’s take it as a given that we’re heading into an age of austerity.
This may not be the case. There is no certainty in human affairs. The secret of tabletop fusion power may be discovered next week; the geneticists may come up with something that abolishes both disease and old age, thereby annihilating both our Social Security and Medicare requirements at one stroke; the solar system may, as in the Poul Anderson novel, pass into a region of galactic space that quintuples all our IQs. All sorts of things might happen. Nobody foresaw the Internet…etc., etc.
Absent any such deus ex machina, however, we are heading into tightwad territory, at least so far as public finances are concerned. Where will the pennies get pinched?
I think most of us have a good outline picture. The age for Social Security eligibility will rise; Medicare deductibles will soar; aircraft carriers will be mothballed; postal deliveries will be twice weekly, then weekly. Under an austerity regime, all these and many other changes will happen.
And then, what about welfare?
Welfare is intended to help poor people support themselves and their families. Some kind of welfare relief has been with us since at least the Poor Law of Elizabethan England. You will get an argument about it all from the sterner kind of libertarian or the occasional strict-Malthusian reactionary, but most of us think public provision at some level is unavoidable.
As soon as you start to look at the numbers, though, you come up against the race issue. Here are the 2007-08 TANF tables—that’s Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, a federal program—broken up by state and race. So for example, in the state of Maryland, which is 30 percent black, 80 percent of TANF-receiving families are black.
It’s the same with food stamps, which nowadays come under SNAP—that’s the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. The New York Times published a neat interactive graphic on SNAP usage a couple of years ago. The accompanying article tells us:
Nearly 12 percent of Americans receive aid—28 percent of blacks, 15 percent of Latinos and 8 percent of whites….Half of Americans receive food stamps, at least briefly, by the time they turn 20. Among black children, the figure was 90 percent.
There’s a lot of variation hiding in the overall numbers, as the Times was at pains to remind us. Owsley County, Kentucky’s population is 99.22 percent white: Half are on food stamps. Still, it’s plain that nationwide we’re looking at some big racial gaps.
Those gaps may be getting bigger. The Pew Research Center caused a stir the other day by releasing a report on the white/Hispanic/black wealth gaps. They are more dramatic than is commonly realized, and they’re apparently widening.
Leaving Hispanics out of it—I only have one pair of hands—I’m wondering how these white-black gaps and their consequences will carry forward into an age of austerity.
The gaps seem to be awfully intractable. You need to be over fifty to remember Jim Crow; you need to be somewhat older than that to remember a grandparent who was born in slavery. Yet still the needles on a lot of these dials have barely moved.
After the ructions of the 1960s the USA erected a vast system of support and preferences for black citizens. The height of human felicity in the later 20th century was to be a smart and energetic black American. Colleges, employers, and lenders would beat a path to your door in order to meet their race quotas. When I was researching for a math book a few years ago an academic in that discipline told me that prestige universities’ math departments “fight like cats” over the scant supply of black math Ph.D.s.
For the less stellar there was plenty of government make-work on offer. This has especially been the case at the federal level. In 2007, the latest year for which I can find figures, black Americans were massively overrepresented in the federal workforce—by more than 800 percent in CSOS (Court Services and Offender Services).
Two entire generations of Americans have now grown up among these favors, preferences, and welfare-support discrepancies for black people. They are rationalized among non-blacks, though not without some resentment, as a “Slavery Tax”—as fair recompense for past injustices.
Following the black riots of the 1960s, non-blacks have seen these concessions as an implicit contract or treaty—as non-black America saying to black America: “We’ll give you this stuff if you promise not to break our windows.”
Yet fifty years on, we are still looking at these colossal, apparently intractable, gaps. And the Slavery Tax is expensive—$31 billion in state and federal expenditures in 2008 just for TANF. If black Americans, at 13 percent of the population, consumed TANF funds at the same rate as white Americans, the TANF bill would be less than $14 billion, a savings of $17 billion. A lot of money: not much to show for it.
If you think these numbers are not worth bothering about—mere billions in a sea of trillions—this is just one modest slice of the Slavery Tax I’m talking about. The massive government make-work programs, with all their salaries and benefits, must be far more, though beyond my ability to compute. And if we are talking about pruning the US Postal Service, with 2010 revenues of $67 billion, why not talk about TANF?
Can the Slavery Tax be maintained in an age of austerity? An age in which, moreover, increasing numbers of non-black Americans will feel justified in asking why, after so many decades of favors, concessions, preferences, and support, so many black Americans are still so desperately far behind?
Yet if the Slavery Tax is curtailed or abolished, what will be the consequences? Will it be taken as an abrogation of that implicit treaty, to be responded to with much breaking of glass?
The Slavery Tax was imposed in the robust USA of the 1960s and 1970s, when our country was a mighty engine of prosperity and our governments were swilling in cash. There was some complaining; but heck, we could afford it. We could afford anything!
Now we’re sailing under different skies. Can we still afford the Slavery Tax? If we can’t, how much wider will those gaps get?
And how much glass will be broken? Those riots in London this week:
[British government] cutbacks in the number of police officers have also been blamed for the riots.…In the 12 months to the end of March 2011, the number of officers fell by 4,625 to 139,110.
Right: In times of austerity, police forces take a hit, too.
I grumble a lot about why, in these straitened times, our government doesn’t repatriate the tens of thousands of US soldiers garrisoning Germany, Japan, Korea, etc. When I thus grumbled out loud in the presence of a very cynical friend the other day, my friend remarked: “Perhaps the administration doesn’t want all those armed, trained personnel on US soil.”
He really is very cynical.
Read more: http://takimag.com/article/can_we_still_afford_the_slavery_tax/print#ixzz1UntKkGkD
NothingButTheTruth posted at 12:22 pm on Fri, Aug 12, 2011.
The Beaten Masses: Confronted With Severe Financial Hardship, Why Do Americans Remain Passive?
August 11th, 2011
With an unprecedented sum of wealth, tens of trillions of dollars, held within the top one-tenth of one percent of the US population, we now have the highest and most severe inequality of wealth in US history. Not even the Robber Barons of the Gilded Age were as greedy as the modern day Economic Elite.
As famed American philosopher John Dewey once said, “There is no such thing as the liberty or effective power of an individual, group, or class, except in relation to the liberties, the effective powers, of other individuals, groups or classes.”
In The Economic Elite Vs. The People, I reported on the strategic withholding of wealth from 99% of the US population over the past generation. Since the mid-1970s, worker production and wealth creation has exploded. As the statistics throughout this report prove, the dramatic increase in wealth has been almost entirely absorbed by the economic top one-tenth of one percent of the population, with most of it going to the top one-hundredth of one percent.
If you are wondering why a critical mass of people desperately struggling to make ends meet are still not fighting back with overwhelming force and running the mega-wealthy aristocrats out of town, let’s consider two significant factors:
1) People are so busy trying to maintain their current standard of living that their energies are consumed by holding on to the little that they have left.
2) People have very little understanding of how much wealth has been consolidated within the top economic one-tenth of one percent.
Considering the first factor, it is obvious that people have become beaten down psychologically and financially. A report in the Guardian entitled, “Anxiety keeps the super-rich safe from middle-class rage,” suggests that people are so desperate to hold on to what they have that they are too busy looking down to look up: “As psychologists will tell you, fear of loss is more powerful than the prospect of gain. The struggling middle classes look down more anxiously than they look up, particularly in recession and sluggish recovery.”
Considering the second factor, people do not understand how much wealth has been withheld from them. The average person has never personally experienced or seen the excessive wealth and luxury that the mega-rich live in. Wealth inequality has grown so extreme and the wealthy have become so far removed from average society, it is as if the rich exist in some outer stratosphere beyond the comprehension of the average person. As the Guardian report mentioned above also states:
“… having little daily contact with the rich and little knowledge of how they lived, they simply didn’t think about inequality much, or regard the wealthy as direct competitors for resources. As the sociologist Garry Runciman observed: ‘Envy is a difficult emotion to sustain across a broad social distance.’… Even now most underestimate the rewards of bankers and executives. Top pay has reached such levels that, rather like interstellar distances, what the figures mean is hard to grasp.”
In fact, the average American vastly underestimates the severe wealth disparity that we currently have. This survey, featured in the NY Times, reveals that Americans think our society is far more equal than it actually is:
“In a recent survey of Americans, my colleague Dan Ariely and I found that Americans drastically underestimated the level of wealth inequality in the United States. While recent data indicates that the richest 20 percent of Americans own 84 percent of all wealth, people estimated that this group owned just 59 percent – believing that total wealth in this country is far more evenly divided among poorer Americans.
What’s more, when we asked them how they thought wealth should be distributed, they told us they wanted an even more equitable distribution, with the richest 20 percent owning just 32 percent of the wealth. This was true of Democrats and Republicans, rich and poor – all groups we surveyed approved of some inequality, but their ideal was far more equal than the current level.”
The fact of the matter is that the overwhelming majority of US population is unaware of the vast wealth at hand. An entire generation of unprecedented wealth creation has been concealed from 99% of the population for over 35 years. Having never personally experienced or known of this wealth, the average American cannot comprehend what is possible if even a fraction of it was used for the betterment of society as a whole.
In fact, given modern technology and wealth, not a single American citizen should live in poverty. The statistics clearly demonstrate that we now live in a Neo-Feudal society. In comparison to the wealthiest one-tenth of one percent of the population, who are sitting on top of tens of trillions of dollars in wealth, we are modern day serfs, essentially propagandized peasants.
The fact that the overwhelming majority of Americans are struggling to get by, while tens of trillions of dollars are consolidated within a small fraction of the population, is a crime against humanity.
The day the average American fully comprehends how much wealth is consolidated within just the top one-tenth of one percent of the population, there will be a massive uprising and all the paid off politicians will be run out of town.
The next time you are stressed out, struggling to make ends meet and pay off your debts, just think about the trillions of dollars sitting in the obscenely bloated pockets of one-tenth of one percent of the population. The first step in overcoming your peasant status is to understand that you are indeed a peasant. This is a bitter pill to swallow and most will prefer to, as they have been conditioned to do, continue on their path of media-induced delusion, denial, apathy and ignorance.
However, I still cling to the hope that once enough people become aware of this hidden and obscured fact, we can have the non-violent revolution we so urgently need. Until then, the rich get richer as a critical mass with increasingly dire economic prospects desperately struggles to make ends meet.
By the time you all catch on we will have you all in cages. Haha
ValenS posted at 5:25 am on Tue, Oct 4, 2011.
Here they are ladies and gentlemen... the two world's largest buyers of oil contracts with fed money and fed secret loans of course. Instead of loaning the money to businesses at low but tangible rates, they wanted more action. They wanted life in the commodities and life in the fast lane with derivatives. And now they are tipping over.
They have been driving the economies down by pushing oil up. They pushed hard after the Tsunami to gouge Japan and again to gouge Europe after the Libyan uprising. They are into everything and they are shorting the markets over Greece trying to cause a market crash... these two Tarp "banks"... Only trouble is, I don't see any ATM machines in their lobbies. But I see a lot of hedge fund affiliates hanging around.
These guys need endless bailout just so they can abuse the Citizens of this country. They don't care about this country all they care and commons who use to apply for cash advance about is their Christmas bonuses and keeping the risk needle pegged at everyone else's expense.
Too big to fail? Not these guys... they are just the right size.