“A $26 billion jobs bill for teachers.” – Actually, it’s just money to keep public employees and their lavish pensions and benefits from being financially linked to a failed economy.

Although I and everyone else value teachers, we despise the power of their union, which has caused my property taxes to continue to rise as my accessed property tax continues to plummet.

If you’re a public sector worker you will be spared from the ongoing depression at any cost.

My stimulus for the economy: Ending usury by banks. The credit card interest rate should be fixed NATIONALLY to the prime lending rate at no more than 2 percent over prime…and that goes for all short term loans as well (payday, overdraft, etc.)

No loan of any kind should be exempt from state or local usury laws.

Zeno wrote “My stimulus for the economy: Ending usury by banks. The credit card interest rate should be fixed NATIONALLY to the prime lending rate at no more than 2 percent over prime…and that goes for all short term loans as well (payday, overdraft, etc.)”

While I agree with your first comment regarding the arrogance of certain teacher unions, no bank in its right mind would ever issue a credit card (e.g. unsecured debt) to consumers at a permanent low rate of prime plus 2%. I think much our economic problems are caused by subsidized cheap credit so I disagree with your solution here.

While I do support better federal oversight over our banking system (e.g. Paul Volcker has some good ideas as usual, American consumers also need to take a good hard look in the mirror and come to grips with the reality that they had large role in the housing bubble. Here is my list of factors that combined to cause this imperfect economic storm that had been brewing for at least 10-12 years prior to 2008.

1)Complete breakdown of risk management processes at financial firms (whose primary job it is to manage risk)and the fact that compensation was tied to short term earnings, rather than long term shareholder value at these firms.

2) Federal Reserve policy that ignored higher housing prices. In the early 1990s, the federal government’s inflation indices removed housing prices and replaced it with a renters equivalent index. These two indices really started diverging in the late 1990s and 2000s. Federal Reserve policy did not recognize housing prices as a inflationary bubble.

3) Distortion of housing prices by federal tax policy and Fannie and Freddie

4) Lack of savings (and entitlement mentality on the part of Americans)

5) Excess of global savings (primarily from Asia) that was looking for a safe return. Throughout most periods, US housing back assets offered a stable return with minimal risk. Asian savers put their faith in US financial firms to manage risk, which failed them miserably.

I know many people want to blame Wall Street for everything, but this is a gross distortion of the reality. Each of us is reponsible for performing our own due diligence and making our own life decisions, such as forgoing houses that we can not afford based on basic math.

Conservatives swallowed the Beck/Limbaugh Stupid Pill that unions are a bad thing in America…

… then, in the next breath, they’ll complain about low wages and a race to the bottom due to outsourcing to China!

Pitifully ignorant and hypocritical.

Why doesn’t the Obama administration use reconciliation (they can get 50 votes, if not 60) more (and recess appointments)? They have more support when they are more aggressive, not less.

As more and more politicians become polorized to the right or left, it’s interesting to me to see how many Americans become more in the middle. People want to become more involved in the process but are deterred by how unwilling our representatives are to compromise, NOT voting on party lines.

The Tea Partiers have nothing until they have specific spending and cutting plans based on a budget. It isn’t enough to yell ‘too much tax’. Like Palin, they are all rhetoric and no substance.

What conservatives didn’t and don’t understand, is that after making unions impotent and obsolete in America, there was no one left with enough clout to fight the outsourcing agenda of big business and actually sway congress into policies that would have kept jobs in America.

… now it’s too late, and conservatives have irrevocably screwed America, American productivity, and the average American worker.

Regarding the young woman who called in minutes ago.

Cathy, maybe we do not understand how the Senate works, but they (a.k.a., the pragmatists, and the realists) do not understand that the Congress has become a deeply dysfunfunctional institution.

@Niel,

“the observation that President Bush had less of a majority when the Republicans controlled Congress and seemed to have successfully executed more of HIS agenda. Why?”

… because Dems don’t react like a mindless block to anything their political leadership thinks might be in the party’s short-term interest.

… Only Republicans act that way.

Single payer would be possible in the USA if people understood:

How it would make it EASIER for businesses to compete in a global market by not having to haggle over increasing health care premiums every year.

Medical services would be cheaper because the providers wouldn’t have to employ many people to handle all the different payment plans (no good for employment though )

That the government would NOT be deciding what care you could get or which doctor you can use. How many people are ALREADY in a health insurance plan that includes only some doctors in an area? MOST! Under single payer, ALL doctors take insurance from ‘your carrier’. In network, out of network – all B.S.

The government would NOT be deciding if Grandma gets to live

etc

The Republicans are ‘fiscally responsible’? ROTFLMAO

Under George W. Bush it was “DON’T tax but spend anyway”. There was nothing responsible about the last administration’s fiscal actions.

So Beohner thinks teacher, police, & firefighters keeping their jobs is totally irresponsible? But out of control CEO’s can keep their jobs and the uber-wealthy deserve tax cuts. Huh?????

“Biblical Floods” in an Islamic country?

Maybe not exactly the best comparison

“Newt cookie”

Newt the guy who left his wife in the hospital with cancer for another younger women, than leaving her for a congressional aid. Who was calling obama a radical socialist and than saying the U.S. should act more like China(A communist county) in our economics.

Its amazing that people still listen to this guy.

So Gates plan to cut 200 million, well okay but when congress came back to vote there voted for 600 million for Defense so by gates cutting the defense budget it actually increased by 400 million. As well as that 30 billion plus approved before that.

were the tax cuts to expire the budget deficit would shrink by 30% what does the deficit hark republicans say

lol

http://www.thedailyshow.com/full-episodes/wed-august-11-2010-laura-linney

Check out Palin foolish comment.

Caller “Cathy” was spot on. Obama came in with an opportunity to go over the heads of Congress and speak dirctly to the people who put him in office and were really ready for true change. He didn’t, and in hindsight I have concluded it’s because he truly does not share the progressive principles that so many of his supporters do. We thought he would be take Wall Street’s money (along with a lot of others people’s) to get elected then refuse to pander to them. He didn’t.

Shouldn’t be hard for the Democratic party to shove Newt back into the pond. He originated obstructionist politics when he was Speaker of the House 15 years ago. The original “just say no” guy. Remind the voting public of that fact.

Funny how things work. Nothing substantial gets done in the house and senate so the call is “throw the majority party bums out”. The reason nothing gets done is that NEITHER side is willing to agree to ANYTHING that is desired by the “other side”. Vote “the other side” in and what will get done – NOTHING.

Stop pandering to the right AND left. The middle is the largest group, standard bell curve. Few people are strictly ‘right’ or ‘left’ on all issues.

And get rid of “free trade” election laws. If you (a person or business) are not DIRECTLY represented by a person running for office because you live or do business in THEIR district, you should have NO say and provide NO money to their campaign nor influence over their time in office. Lobby the people who DO represent YOU. Likewise, NO influence over the passage of law in another district or state (CA Prop 8 for example)

Regarding the midterm elections, New York Congressman Charles Rangel is turning into a huge political liability for President Obama, Speaker Pelosi, and Co. I know Rangel served our nation honorably during the Korean War and was well respected by his constituents for most of his tenure, but he is now one of many poster children for congressional term limits. If Congress is going to raise my taxes, it is really not too much to ask that its most senior members abide by the laws they impose on the rest of us (and not paying taxes on rental properties is most minor of his alleged infractions).

On a more humurous note, former NYC Mayor David Dinkins (e.g. in my opinion second only to John Lindsay as the worst NYC Mayor ever) made a quite dignified public appearance last evening.

FROM CNN
Outside, protesters held up signs that read, “Rangel Resign” and “Just Say No to Incumbents,” prompting former New York City Mayor David Dinkins to flash them his middle finger. “He’s my brother. I wouldn’t be anywhere else,” Dinkins said of Rangel.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/08/12/pol.rangel.birthday.gala/index.html

Such Grace, Mr. Dinkins!!!

Save the tone of disrespect for Sarah Palin. Ted Steven’s memorial is on Wed. We are all mourning his passing in Alaska, D’s and R’s and I’s and Non-partisans and Undeclared . . . The country should mourn too. It is the passing of an era for us but also for the nation–a time when Rs and Ds spoke to each other with respect.

I’m glad for the teaching jobs saved from the jobless recession, but what about those lost jobs in 2008 between Florida’s overheated property taxes and the lost students who fled the taxes with the parents? Go to a teacher job fair to see the wasted talent; they happen sometimes in the same place and day as home improvement fairs and usually gets second billing to the home fair when televised. Floridians in January 2008 decided to lower property taxes when home values were high; it’s unclear that the rates were reset when the values plummeted. How has there been real inflation when real wages have been stagnant since 1973? They didn’t; that was just supply-side bubbles!

I’m interested in the concept of the capital strike that Jack mentioned, but I wonder if rather than an intentional plan, it’s more just a zeitgeist resulting from the way the rules of the game have been set up. It’s possible that the people who are busy making money don’t necessarily have enough time left to spend it. You hear of CEO’s making 400 times that of their employees. I don’t know how I could possibly spend that much money to keep it flowing back into the economy. Businesses trying to cut costs by reducing staff and having the workers remain pick up the slack, means that those who still have jobs are working harder, which gives less time to spend the money they earn. Meanwhile, those without steady employment have to spend the last of their savings, and the divide grows.

I am frustrated that Robert Gibbs had to sling some useless labels in response to criticism from progressives, but I understand his frustration, as well as theirs.

The obstructionist Republicans have made it difficult, so Obama early on adopted a compromise posture. My own frustration is that he has not gotten his message out CONTINUALLY. Every day and night, either thru his staff or his allies in congress.

People still say that the the public does not like the health care bill and it was shoved down our throats. It turns out people are not so against it. They were against the cartoon portrayal created by the Republicans, which was never properly rebutted.

The Democrats need to make the American people understand that the Republicans are just plain LYING to the people. And they get away with it. Perhaps the Dems need to help people understand that you only lie to those whom you consider STUPID enough to believe you. That is what the Repubs have done.

Two recent examples; Today I heard John ‘Ochre Joker’ Boehner call the bill to pay teachers and policemen a ‘bailout’. Yesterday another Repub called those two unions ‘interest groups’. Obama and the Dems need to set up a fast acting strike force to hit these comments IMMEDIATELY with a consistent message.

The Repubs are lying to the people because they think we are stupid. They are playing the age old game of divide and conquer.

It’s pretty well summed up in Bob Dylan’s song ‘Only a Pawn in Their Game’ which dealt specifically with lynch mobs but the concept covers EVERYTHING.

Come on America, stop watching celebrity gossip, read the newspaper, get the facts and stand up for yourselves and your families and the future. Before it is too late.

Correction: The 5th graf should read “convert the Obama information (intel) network to a top down get the troops in line diktat system.”

How many people, voters, in the United States can even recite this subset of the Obama Administrations accomplishments?

• Financial regulation – Wall Street reform represents the toughest financial reform since the Great Depression

• Health Insurance Reform. Eliminating pre-existing conditions and other coverage denials. It’s cutting taxes for small business owners that cover their employees, by up to 35 percent of the premiums they’re paying for their employees. It’s saying to young people, you can stay on your parent’s health insurance until you’re 26 so that there’s not that gap in coverage just as they’re starting their careers. It’s providing assistance to seniors, so that they can help to deal with that doughnut hole that was created by the prescription drug plan. There was no “public option” … keeping all the business in the private sector.

• The stimulus bill pumped about $100 billion into the crumbling embarrassment of our national infrastructure and transportation system. It was the largest investment in infrastructure since Ike.

• The stimulus bill also put forward $60 billion in spending and tax incentives for renewable and clean energy, also a historic investment.

• The stimulus bill also funded a giant investment in science and tech, amping up the budgets at NASA, the National Science Foundation, and an experimental energy research agency that was created under President George W. Bush, but never funded until now.

• President Obama also expanded state kids` health insurance to cover another four million kids.

• He signed the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act amending the 1964 civil rights act for equal pay for equal work.

• He signed a nuclear arms deal with Russia that would reduce both countries` arsenals by a third. He created a new global nonproliferation initiative to keep nuclear materials out of the hands of terrorists.

• He set forth an international way forward on the proposition of Ronald Reagan, a world without nuclear weapons. Then there are the legislative and policy achievements that don`t just build on previously-set precedents, but set new ones.

• The Hate Crimes Prevention Act, also known as the Matthew Shepard Act. It had languished in Congress for years.

• The Food and Drug Administration permitted for the first time to regulate tobacco.

• Obama fired two wartime commanding generals in little over a year.

• Obama overhauled the astonishing stupidity of the student loan system in which banks were being subsidized to give loans that were guaranteed by the government anyway, a license to print money.

• He canceled a weapons program that was bloated, unnecessary and totally irrelevant to either of our current wars, the F-22. Why even mention the cancellation of a single weapons system? Because that never happens. Weapons systems never get canceled. The F-22 did, which is itself a miracle.

• The auto bailout ushered GM and Chrysler through bankruptcy with the goal of making them profitable and shifting toward more fuel-efficient vehicles. GM has repaid direct loans of nearly $7 billion, but the remaining $43 billion can be recouped only when GM returns to the public market.

Love this administration or hate it, this president is getting a lot done. The last time any president did this much in office, booze was illegal. If you believe in policy, if you believe in government that addresses problems, you can believe in this administration.

Another accomplishment I neglected to mention in my previous post is about the Gulf oil spill.

Obama achieved results for the “people in need in the gulf” roughly 110 days, oil man George Herbert Walker Bush who presided over the Exxon Valdez spill – it took 20 years. More than 440 plaintiffs died waiting for a final settlement in the Exxon Valdez case. About 50 filed bankruptcy. And 4,200 liens filed by creditors, including the Internal Revenue Service and the state. ( http://www.adn.com/evos/stories/T99032267.html )

The Obama administration brokered a deal where BP has created a $20B fund +$100M and brokered by an independent 3rd party. Obama showed incredible leadership in his swift action never before seen by the government. Especially with the funds coming from the liable party. The fund doesn’t limit BP’s liability for cleanup costs and economic damage, Obama said in June, and it doesn’t supersede the rights of individuals or states to sue the company. ( http://tinyurl.com/2bdef7s )

Obama achieved results for the “people in need in the gulf” roughly 110 days, oil man George Herbert Walker Bush who presided over the Exxon Valdez spill – 20 years.

How do you define leadership? I think Obama is proving his ability to lead.

Regarding the caller “Cathy’s comments—typical liberal elite mindset that there’s nothing wrong with the message , it’s just that the ignorant public hasn’t had it adequately explained to them by Obama or the Dems. Calling a $26 billion giveaway to teacher’s unions a stimulus program is an insult to the intelligence of most citizens. All this money will do is delay the day of reckoning for those fiscally irresponsible states that have governed for the benefit of public employee unions and not taxpayers, like Calif., NY, NJ, Illinois, etc. Do liberals have a program to stimulate the private sector? Or does the private sector even matter ( outside of GM , Chrysler , and “green jobs” (LOL)?))

Better yet, take a look at this MS-NBC article which summarizes some of Quayle’s recent stupidities:

Here’s the link

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38695343/ns/politics/

Great thanks to Bob for taking the time to remind us of President Obama’s many achievements
The far left display an astonishing lack of maturity and an unprecedented sense of entitlement.
Like the far right, they see themselves as victims, petulance and all.