The Direction Of America

TODAY IS SUNDAY, MAY 19, 2013

November 7, 2012 at 11:00 AM

The Direction Of America

We’ll look at the big picture. What did we vote for? And what now?

A supporter of Republican presidential candidate former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney holds an American flag at a Romney campaign rally at Red Rocks Amphitheater in Golden, Colo., on Tuesday, Oct. 23, 2012. (AP)

The Obama message was Forward. That cast Mitt Romney as back. The country voted Obama. So what will forward mean? The 2012 election was surely a contest over where the country stands, where it should stand, where it will stand. So now what? You can’t leave half the country behind.

Going forward divided is hard. The President was conciliatory last night in victory. Mitt Romney gracious in defeat. But the passions and division are still there.

This hour, On Point: Election 2012 and what it means, for the state, the spirit, the divide, the direction of the nation.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests

Joan Walsh, editor-at-large at Salon.com. She’s the author of What’s the Matter with White People: Why We Long for a Golden Age That Never Was.

Charles Kesler, senior fellow at the Claremont Institute, editor of the Claremont Review of Books, and professor of government at Claremont McKenna College. He is the author of I Am the Change: Barack Obama and the Crisis of Liberalism. You can read his essay on the state of American liberalism here.

Jack Beatty, On Point news analyst.

From Tom’s Reading List

The Boston Globe “No matter whether President Obama or Mitt Romney claims victory on Tuesday, the winner will govern a nation that scholars say is remarkably split on political, economic, generational, racial, and social grounds. The next president also is likely to face a divided Congress, which in the last year seemed to prefer gridlock no matter the stakes.”

Christian Science Monitor “On the eve of an election that everyone says involves two “stark” choices for America, people across the country have a simple plea for Washington: Work together. Get along. Whoever wins the White House, reach out to those across the aisle and solve the nation’s problems.”

hennorama

One of the first questions I’d like to know the answer to – will the Tea Party split off from the Republican party for the 2014 midterms? If they do, one would expect a long electoral drought for Republicans, as the demographics of the country now and in the future favor Democratic constituencies.
- http://www.facebook.com/people/Joshua-Hendrickson/1652586055 Joshua Hendrickson
  
  One can hope, but I suspect the Tea Party will double down on their infiltration of the Republicans. Personally, I think greens and progressives should do likewise with the Democratic party. If that means further polarization … well, so be it. I have no hope in middle-of-the-road solutions anymore.
  - sickofthechit
    
    I really don’t see any hope for third and fourth parties until we adopt a 50%+1 vote runoff model for all our elections. Many countries use this and it works fine. It seems to me we don’t really have the democracy we could have as long as we find ourselves choosing the “lesser of two evils” so often.
http://www.facebook.com/people/Joshua-Hendrickson/1652586055 Joshua Hendrickson

Direction? If “stasis” is a direction, that’s where we’re headed. The do-nothing-by-design nature of Congress ensures that. Four more years of nothing. Still, I’ll take that over the four years of fast backward motion which Romney would have delivered.
At this point, it’s just a question of time before demographic shifts leave the reactionaries in the dust and give real progressives a chance to rule for good. So maybe by the time I’m seventy things will be looking up for America. Although that could be too late for the country and the world as a whole.
Wm_James_from_Missouri

Although I voted for the President I do not think Obama-Care will turn out to be the solution to our health care problems. I fully support a modified Single Payer Program, similar to Medicare, but not as generous, as I do not believe we could afford a program that pays in full. I would like to see full coverage on, say, 65% to 70% of medical cost, with caps, up to some limit. I am willing to pay extra on my earnings to help support such a program. The rest should be covered by employers as it is now. _If we could manage to create such a simple program it would allow major positive changes to occur in the workplace. Most of us would no longer be tied down to low paying jobs and would become more mobile, more educated, more skilled, and very much happier !

_We need to seriously consider using intelligent systems, including automation, to help to curtail health care cost. I know that some on this site are disbelievers and are tired of hearing about computers and technology. However, we must face facts. Computers and their derivatives are the answer to just about every problem we face as humans. No exclusively, human based system, will ever control cost for the long term. Governor Romney, the Republicans and the President, missed this point entirely in their platforms.
_The party that strives to understand the power and inevitability of coming technological changes and promotes such technology, will win the century !
William

Will Obama pursue a more radical Liberal agenda in his second term? What will he make his number one priority? Citizenship for illegals? Cap and Trade, a trillion dollar stimulus plan?
- http://www.facebook.com/people/Joshua-Hendrickson/1652586055 Joshua Hendrickson
  
  I presume you think that would be a bad thing?
  *sigh*
  Dinosaurs, please exit stage far-right and leave the country to the mammals–you know, those warm-blooded creatures with real feelings and larger brains.
  - William
    
    Just another name calling lack of idea person like yourself should contain your childish thoughts to yourself.
    - http://www.facebook.com/people/Joshua-Hendrickson/1652586055 Joshua Hendrickson
      
      Okay then. It’s probably too late for a response like this, but here goes:
      
      William says, “Just another name calling lack of idea person like yourself should contain your childish thoughts to yourself.”
      
      You do realize that’s two sentences in one, yes? “Just another name calling lack of idea person” is the first; “should contain your childish thoughts to yourself” is the second. Neither is complete, and the connective “like yourself” would only make sense if it were followed by a semi-colon and “you.” But even that wouldn’t cohere, because “just another name calling lack of idea person like yourself” is actually referring to some hypothetical third party, not to me, especially if you are offering advice in the form of “should.” (There should be hyphens liberally added as well, to make “name-calling lack-of-idea.”) By the way, you contain things in something, not to it; you meant “keep,” not “contain.” So: if I have your meaning right, what you really meant was something like this: “You are just another name-calling, lack-of-idea person, and you should keep your childish thoughts to yourself.”
      
      So much for form. Now for substance (that is, the substance of your original remark):
      
      If you consider Obama’s previous agenda “radical” (I’ll begrudgingly concede “liberal,” sans capital L) then whatever he has coming must be “more radical,” yes? But how was his agenda “radical?” It never got at the roots of any of our systematic problems (“radical” from Latin for “root”); at best they were cosmetic approaches. A trillion dollar stimulus wasn’t enough by half to rectify the financial troubles we suffer. Cap and trade, by focussing on market-based strategies for controlling carbon emissions, is doomed to fail; the market must be bypassed and emissions directly tackled in order to have a hope of fixing our climate disaster (and it’s probably too late for that). But worst of all, your fear of “citizenship for illegals” reveals your own childish mind: people are not “illegal.” They are people, and your lack of empathy for them is what inspired me to call you a dinosaur in the first place. Which, metaphorically speaking, reactionaries like yourself unquestionably are.
      
      Wasn’t this fun?
- JGC
  
  Umm…no…
- Duras
  
  You really need to read a history book, and gain perspective. That way you can contextualize your arguments, which will undoubtedly modify them, and you won’t sound so stupid.
  - William
    
    I see some radicals like yourself would rather engage in name calling so some things never change.
    - Shag_Wevera
      
      What makes Duras a radical?
      - http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF
        
        Naming him/herself after any French author I wasn’t forced to read in high school = intelligentsia = radical.
        
        Now if Duras wanted to be a good American, they’d have chosen an American name, like Arrowsmith or Amberson.
        
        (I don’t have to say I’m kidding, do I?)
    - Duras
      
      Did you know that in this country we once had taxes on the rich over 70%, strong unions, infrastructure projects all over the place, tarrifs, luxury taxes, etc.?
      
      Did you know that Bill Clinton taxed all of the American public more than what Obama has proposed? Did you know that the healthcare model that is now Obamacare was originally the republican counter-policy to Hiliarycare?
      
      You may want to rethink who is radical. The best way to do this is to read history books and look at what is happening in the world.
      
      Can you name one country that has economic conditions to the right of America’s and is doing better in economics and human rights?
      
      Gain perspective, please. If you do so, a few things could happen: you would moderate your convictions, you would wake up out of your dogmatic slumber, but you will not continue to have a narrow utopian vision that does not correspond to the reality of today’s conditions.
      - Duras
        
        P.S., I expect a strong counter-argument with historical data and comparative data with respect to other economies through out the world. Otherwise, you are truly stupid.
      - William
        
        I’m curious why you like to engage in name calling? Is that how your mother taught you to speak in public? I’m perfectly willing to debate issues but find it childish to debate someone like you if you desire to trade insults. Grow up, your guy won last night.
      - Duras
        
        There is only so much I can explain. I can show you different economic conditions through out history and the world where supply side econmics would work and Kenysian economics would hurt. Greece in my opinion should cut public employment right away to 45% of all employment and use the new funds to provide start up capital. Then I would continue the same trend to get public employment down to 25% of all employment.
        
        There are different conditions in the world that require different economic policy. If cutting taxes, deregulating, stepping on unions, privatizing public institutions and programs worked every time, we would have world peace by now.
        
        If you can’t get that through your head at a certain point, I feel that I should call that person as they really are: stupid. More precisely, one’s brain is locked down by ideological manicals. You need to wake up out of your dogmatic slumber and look around in the world.
      - William
        
        What was the spending levels under Clinton? Should we not return to those levels to match his tax rates?
        
        - There is a difference between what the beltway Republicans wanted and what the mainstream Republicans wanted with that old plan for healthcare. The mainstream Republicans rejected it and the beltway Republicans went packing.
        
        Can you name a country that has become so wealthy and lifted more people out of poverty than the USA? We are talking about the tradition values of self-reliance, hard work?
        
        You are blinded by your Liberal dream. It failed in the past, it is failing now and will fail in the future. China did not achieve record growth the last 30 years by sticking with Communism. They embraced capitalism and they are an economic giant.
        
        Liberalism/Progressives/Communism/Socialism/ have been tried around the world and failed.
      - Duras
        
        Descretionary spending is actually much lower than it was from the 1970s, and most of Obama’s spending was on stimulus, a third of which was tax cuts.
        
        Most of the budget spending is eaten by defense and medicare, both of which have ballooned since the 1990s. And I encourage you to look at how Obama cut medicare vs. how Romney/Ryan wants to cut medicare. If you want the conservativism that cuts government programs in order to make them efficient, vote for Obama. If you are the conservative that wants to get rid of retirment programs to force people to put it in 401K, vote for your brand of republicans.
        
        Second, we had Johnson’s War on Poverty that was reducing poverty. Since 1980, Reagan rolled back Johnson’s War on Poverty, and poverty increased under every republican president and only decreased under Clinton. Partly due to healthcare reform, partly due to affirmative action, partly due to public employment, scholarship opportunity, and so on.
        
        You should read Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations and learn about what Capitalism really is before you call somebody far left. That alone will temper your opinion, and then my ideas won’t seem so far out to you.
      - http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF
        
        Duras,
        
        “I encourage (William) to look…” is a textbook example of you throwing good effort at bad faith.
        
        But you have good points nonetheless.
      - Duras
        
        Also, the economic model I point to is Germany: free healthcare, free college, robust infrasturctue, renewable energy and it all working great. Germany also has a bigger social safety net, which in my opinion should be curtailed.
        
        But you don’t know what socialism is. And if you think Obama has made us a more socialist nation, then you don’t know what capitalism is.
        
        You need to realize that FDR was far more liberal and progressive than Obama, but he saved capitalism and saved American Wealth, and we emerged with a huge middle class and a world superpower. Teddy Roosevelt also shaped America for the better. By the 1970s, government was truly overregulating and big, but it was Carter who first deregulated and he tried to expand our energy sources, like Germany did. It is unfortunate that Reagan won the election, cause the Reagan revolution, rolled back Johnson’s War on Poverty and started the War on Drugs. We would be a more sensible and energy efficent country today if Carter had won. We have moved out of the FDR political economy and into the Reagan political economy, and now we are moving towards the FDR political economy, not socialism. So quite this stupid “socialism, communism” crap. It is truly stupid, and it is for people who don’t understand economics and political history. You do not know what you are talking about.
JGC

Krauthammer says in spite of the Democratic presidential and senate victories, there is no mandate. But it is pretty clear we are on a path to being a center-led country, and that includes addressing the deficit with some combination of entitlement cuts and an increase in taxes.
- sickofthechit
  
  I think Obama has received more of a “Mandate” than Shrub ever could have claimed to have had in 2004.
  - Flytrap
    
    He received 2 million less votes than Bush in 2004.
    - Ray in VT
      
      It was 1.4 million actually, but it does appear that Obama won a larger share of the popular vote and more electoral votes. Kerry’s popular number easily beat Romney’s. A win’s a win, even if you lose the popular vote in our system. I think that the mandate is to work together, make some compromises and get things done.
- Jasoturner
  
  Krauthammer employs the Romney school of magical thinking. Say what you want to believe and smugly pretend that any logical refutation is simply political slant, with no substantive merit. America, to their regret, is not yet that gullible.
Michiganjf

For one, idiots like Mitch McConnell can get to work with America’s business and stop claiming their number one priority is to make Obama a one term President!
- Jasoturner
  
  Hey, since McConnell said his number one priority was to make Obama a one-termer, and since he didn’t do that, does it make McConnell a demonstrable failure?
  - sickofthechit
    
    Many of us here in Kentucky just wish, hope and pray he will just resign, or learn to be more like a Wendell Ford who he used to work for and admire, but for far to long has not remembered the lessons learned….
  - hennorama
    
    Yes he is a collossal failure indeed. 4 years of plotting, scheming and obstruction all for naught. Now he’s spouting off (paraphrasing here) “Obama needs to propose something we agree with and can pass.”
    
    One of the more interesting things to watch will be the fight for control of the Republican House leadership. Will Boehner survive?
    - Jasoturner
      
      If Boehner doesn’t survive, that may indicate something grim for the republican party, no?
      - hennorama
        
        I think it just means something grim for Boehner. Good luck trying to wrangle all the various interest groups inside the House Repunlicans, especially the Tea Partiers who are looking for more extremism and even less compromise.
Michiganjf

President Obama will continue to reduce the ridiculous Bush deficit/debt.

The U.S. economy, under President Obama, has performed better than almost every other advanced economy in the world, despite the mess he inherited from Bush… despite intentional Republican obstructionism… despite the suffering economies of other nations continually threatening the U.S recovery… despite the gutting of the American middle-class by short-sighted corporatism and policies destructive to the middle-class (I would argue primarily Republican policies)… etc., etc…
… and yet President Obama STILL has managed to bring the Bush deficit down from 1.7 trillion/yr to 1.1 trillion/yr (keep reading), despite reduced government revenues from the recession and the need for stimulus to stem the economic downturn.
But here are some facts regarding the debt and deficit, SUBSTANTIATED by links to the source material:
Of the 16 trillion we now owe, Bush added 5 trillion to the debt during his eight years… then the “final Bush year deficit” of 1.7 trillion per year has added another 5 trillion to the debt during Obama’s first term.
President Obama has REDUCED Bush’s 1.7 trillion yearly deficit by an average 300 billion/yr, EVERY YEAR HE HAS BEEN IN OFFICE, despite the reduced government revenues caused by the recession, and despite the need to stimulate economic and job growth from the Bush “job-loss spiral,” which was costing America 800,000 jobs a month at the time Obama took office.
Take a look at this AWESOME chart, remembering that the U.S operated under Bush’s final budget through 2009 (Google “Obama’s first budget” for plenty of proof that the first Obama budget took effect in 2010, not 2009 as some Republican’s want you to believe):
http://home.adelphi.edu/sbloch/deficits.html
LOOK AT HOW THE DEFICIT HAS GONE DOWN EACH YEAR UNDER OBAMA, FROM BUSH’S HORRENDOUS FINAL YEAR’S 1.7 TRILLION DEFICIT BUDGET!!!
I LOVE this web page because the guy who created it links to sources… but he also put in some teriffic data, including marginal top-bracket tax rates, party in control of both bodies of Congress and the Presidency, etc…
Look over the whole page and all the charts… this site is truly illuminating, WITH FULLY VERIFIABLE DATA!
ALL of the debt added during Obama’s term is due primarily to Bush taking Clinton’s budgetary surplus and turning it into an absurdly huge, 1.7 trillion/yr deficit… Obama STILL managed to reduce the absurd Bush deficit, DESPITE reduced government revenues and the need for stimulus, WHILE NEVER INCREASING TAXES!!!
Here’s an interesting editorial showing how some people read the Bush deficit situation BEFORE OBAMA”S FIRST BUDGET TOOK EFFECT, back in December of 2009:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/27/opinion/27iht-edbudget.1.20481672.html?_r=1
As you can see, Bush already had full credit for the awful deficit situation plaguing America, as well as the debt it was creating every year, BEFORE OBAMA’S FIRST BUDGET TOOK EFFECT!
Finally, to prove not only Bush, BUT ALL REPUBLICANS have screwed the debt and deficit whenever they get into the presidency, here’s another nice little chart showing debt under the last several presidents:
Carter (D) – started debt/GDP 35.8% ended debt/GDP 32.5%
Reagan (R) – started debt/GDP 32.5% ended debt/GDP 53.1%
Bush I (R) – started debt/GDP 51.1% ended debt/GDP 66.1%
Clinton (D) – started debt/GDP 66.1% ended debt/GDP 56.4%
Bush II (R) – started debt/GDP 56.4% ended debt/GDP 84.2% !!!!
Check this data for yourself:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_debt_by_U.S._presidential_terms#Changes_in_debt_by_political_affiliation
This entire wiki page is Awesome and worth looking over carefully!!! It has LOTS of great info!
I know WIKI data can be faked, but it is correct and reliable over long term periods as it is revised and scrutinized by many…that is what makes WIKI work.
I have been linking to this Wiki page for years now, and this data has held up under more than three years of scrutiny!!!
Surprised?
I think most Americans would be, if only this VERY IMPORTANT data was covered more thoroughly by the mainstream media, which caters primarily to short attention spans and quickie talking points. Republicans have consistently gotten away with lying about who is REALLY responsible for the deficit!
I’ve heard this data covered on ON POINT, one of my favorite radio shows, and on MS-NBC byRachel Maddow…but the coverage is simply NOT sufficient to get to enough of the public. The fact is, we have a terrific president who has done EXTREMELY WELL for America and Americans, EVEN WITH REGARD TO THE DEBT AND DEFICIT!!!
Duras

Looks like America won’t be shredding the social contract anytime soon. Now, if only republicans would stop confusing responsiblity with “Socialism,” we can probably move along with more ease.
JGC

Tim Geithner is supposed to step down soon, I believe. I would like to see Sheila Bair appointed to Treasury in his place.
StilllHere

America wants a divided government in order to weaken it and strengthen personal liberty. America rejects welfare government.

The past two years should be the guide for the next two.
- J__o__h__n
  
  The house victories were nothing more than a triumph of gerrymandering. In races with boundaries not set by partisan committees (the senate and the presidency) the Democrats won overwhelmingly.
  - Fiscally_Responsible
    
    Yeah right. Like the Democrats don’t use their power to gerrymander districts, crush any opposing viewpoints, etc. in states where they are in the majority?
    - J__o__h__n
      
      I agree with you. But the results show the results of that not a mandate for the Republican agenda.
      - http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF
        
        I don’t agree so much.
        
        Funny how the courts don’t have to step in to void illegal redistricting in the D-controlled states as happens in the R-controlled states.
        
        Funny how D-controlled states don’t just make shite up to allow themselves to redistrict as often as they like (hello, Texas!).
        
        Once again, Fiskal’s Libertarian’s sleepmantra of “both sides do it” fails the reality test.
  - hennorama
    
    California voters rejected gerrymandering in 2008, creating the California Citizens Redistricting Commission. Now 14 people – nearly all non-politicians (currently 5 Dem, 5 Rep, 4 Decline To State) – draw the district boundaries. This is one way to avoid the entrenchment of incumbents and may lead to more moderates being elected and fewer political extremists.
    
    This has also been combined with a “Top 2″ primary system, where the top two vote-getters for each office in the primaries then go on to the general election, regardless their party preference. This may also result in more moderate candidates, since they will need to appeal to voters of both major parties, as well as independents. With the Top Two Primary, all candidates running for one of these offices are listed on one ballot, regardless of their party preference, and all voters see the same list of candidates, regardless the voter’s own party registration. (This does not apply to either Presidential candidates nor the political parties’ central committee candidates).
    
    There have already been several 2012 races where the candidates were from the same political party as a result of Top 2.
    
    California leads the way, once again.
    
    Sources:http://wedrawthelines.ca.gov/
    http://myvoteourfuture.org/voter-registration/resources/californias-top-two-primary/#top_2
Jasoturner

I don’t know the direction of America, but I have some hopes:

I hope we can stop treating governance and citizenship as if America was a big corporation. The goal of freedom is not to amass as much money as possible, or to grow the national GDP. That is a reward that our freedom allows us to achieve if we work hard, but it is not what makes us free. Access to information, free speech, the ability to vote and a free press are things that make us free.

I hope we can stop pretending that our K-12 educational system is “the best in the world”, acknowledge that our young people are lagging behind, and that it is a national priority to spend resources on educating the next generation.

I hope we can find the wisdom to maintain, and even upgrade, our transportation and communication infrastructure so that we can remain internationally competitive.

I hope we can find ways to make healthcare and higher education as affordable and as accessible as it is in the remainder of the industrialized world. I hope we can find the humility to admit that we do NOT have the best health care in the world if it costs twice as much as everywhere else, and the health outcomes are no better.

I hope that the seeming absence of heavy religious special interest groups in this election becomes the norm, and that the politicization of religion is recognized as the abomination it really is.

I hope that that conversation about climate change and energy utilization becomes more adult and empirical as we strive to address the increasingly common sever weather events here in the United States.

I hope the press finds the backbone to call out political untruths for what what they are, and to abandon the bow to “fairness” that permits distortions and falsehoods to be presented as substantive rebuttal. We as citizens deserve this.

I hope that we stay out of Iran.

How’s that?
- sickofthechit
  
  Don’t forget on healthcare that we also have 30,000,000 uninsured to boot. Higher costs, less covered. Time for Single Payer Health Care.
- OnPointComments
  
  I have several family members who are teachers, and know many more people who are teachers. They’d all like to make more money and have more resources. But if you ask them what is the biggest problem they face, the universal response is classroom discipline. Discipline, as in behavior and self-control and also in adopting the personal practices that enable learning, has collapsed as the family has collapsed. There are children having children, without marriage, dropping out of school, and dooming themselves to a life of poverty where the government must provide everything. And when their children start school, growing up without the family unit, the cycle repeats itself.
  - Jasoturner
    
    I certainly would not disagree with this sentiment for a subset of the population, but we under perform on average, too.
    
    Resources needn’t just be books, labs and teachers’ salaries. If there are societal problems underpinning things, then maybe we need to evenhandedly evaluate programs like head start to see if they can demonstrably move the needle. Maybe they can’t, maybe they can. If they can, maybe that needs to be a bigger tool in the toolbox.
    
    We only have one America. Hopefully we can stop writing one another off and start identifying priorities we can all work towards.
Ed75

Several people spoke of getting a compromise or consensus, or working together, but I don’t think that’s at all possible. I think of John Updike’s ‘Buchanan Dying’, President Buchanan trying to get compromise before the Civil War, and spending his time in tears. Just not possible.
ToyYoda

I’m wondering how “experts” can glean any sort of meaningful mission statements from the outcome from the ballots. By picking one of two choices for President, A and not B, experts then extrapolate we clearly wanted A, but in reality we want neither and that B was worse. Why can’t we also have a choice, ‘C’ meaning neither of the above and the winner of the election would be the runner up?

Take my state of Massachusetts, ballot Question 4 was about several things (if I can remember correctly), a pledge that entitlements will not be trimmed, tax loopholes will be closed, infrastructure spending would increase, and military spending would decrease. I mostly agreed with Question 4, but had issues with the wording of some points, and completely disagreed with a couple of important points. But how can I convey my feedback to the experts? Through “Yes” or “No”. This, to me, is one big reason why people feel so disconnected with the whole balloting process.
Ed75

Just in general, President Obama’s slogan was ‘forward’, it’s forward over the cliff.
- Yar
  
  ED, thank you for helping reelect our president. You clearly stated a picture of america as church-state. �
  We need people like you who will paint candidates in a way to show people the choice is clear. Well done.
RolloMartins

Not sure what we voted for…but the Corporation lost this one.
- StilllHere
  
  There is no corporation as big as welfare government. We should all be fearful.
  - RolloMartins
    
    Breaking news: the gov’t is owned by The Corporation. That you do not know that is scary.
    - RolloMartins
      
      The gov’t is the wholly owned subsidiary of The Corporation…so you like the owner but not the subsidiary? Have you thought this through? Didn’t think so.
  - Shag_Wevera
    
    Between corporations and government, I’ll take the one that can be voted out of office.
    - StilllHere
      
      The corporation can be boycotted and can become so ineffectual it eventually dies; the government is an ever-growing parasite moving from host to host.
      - Duras
        
        Tell us how you really feel.
J__o__h__n

I hope the Republicans can come up with some new talking points for the next four years. We are really tired of the “socialist” nonsense.
- JGC
  
  I am going to get a preview by trying to listen in on Rush today.
  - Gregg Smith
    
    Let me know how that goes for you.
    - JGC
      
      Just trying my best to be fair and balanced.
      - Gregg Smith
        
        I applaud that, it doesn’t hurt.
- Gregg Smith
  
  You were percent with your electoral college prediction.
  
  We are certainly more socialist than we were 4 years ago and will be further down the road in another 4 years. I don’t see how that is arguable. It’s not nonsense.
  - Kathy
    
    We are not socialist in any way. Even Obama’s signature health care law is free market based. What Republicans call “socialism” is what the rest of the world calls “civilization.”
  - Duras
    
    Our current healthcare system where people go to the ER and the costs are spread out across society is socialism. Obamacare takes us away from that. Even the former Mitt Romney said that.
    - Gregg Smith
      
      Obamacare is a huge tax hike for everyone. Health care cost were supposed to go down but they doubled and will go higher. Doctors are fleeing. I don’t defend the ER status quo but how is that better?
      - http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF
        
        “Doctors are fleeing,” and all your other partisan crap on Obamacare.
        
        Quote that bullshite poll again, Gregg. We all know you want to.
      - Duras
        
        How can Obamacare cause healthcare cost to double if the law hasn’t been implemented?
        
        “Doctors are fleeing.” More like people are flocking to nursing and med school for all the new jobs that are opening up for all the new demand.
        
        Get real, Gregg. For Christ’s sake, get real.
      - Gregg Smith
        
        I guess you think I make this stuff up but I don’t. Parts of Obamacare HAVE been implemented. There’s more to come. Here are the numbers.
        
        http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/09/rising-health-costs-undermine-obama-pledge-to-curb-trend/
        
        Yes and doctors are fleeing, especially in accepting Medicare. The examples are legion. Look into it.
      - Duras
        
        “Doctors are fleeing” Medicare because Obama is cutting fraud in Medicare. Doctors are needlessly billing medicare left and right, and it is bankrupting our system.
        
        In 2014 when the full law is implemented and 40 million or so people can see a doctor, there will be massive hiring across the industry.
      - Shag_Wevera
        
        It costs a little to insure 40 million previously uninsured people, I reckon.
      - Gregg Smith
        
        Fair point but the promise was the costs would go down, was it not? BTW, to get to 40 million you are including illegals.
Gregg Smith

The direction is 20 trillion in debt. Romney was wrong about the 47%. It’s bigger. More than half the country expects the other half to pay their way and they have the votes to make it happen.

President Obama will face the same divided congress and he does not have a mandate. His policies are taking root. Gridlock is better than nothing but the fix is in and it’s too late to reverse it.
- JGC
  
  The mandate is not gridlock; the mandate is to work together and get some problems solved. The mandate is we are a mainly a center country, and center policies need to prevail. It is time for another good look at Simpson-Bowles.
  - Gregg Smith
    
    I’d agree about S/B but what makes you think he will do an about face? President Obama could get bi-partisan support for it but he no longer cares about that… if he ever did. No, unless he changes his ways the best thing is gridlock. But as I said it’s too late to turn the tide.
  - http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF
    
    Simpson-Bowles?
    
    Sure, when it’s approved by the commission.
    - Gregg Smith
      
      Maybe we can expect a little leadership instead of ceding Congressional Constitutional duties to a committee that will be ignored.
      - http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF
        
        Leading those WATBs?
        
        Hey, that’s the right’s job. The president has treated those tantrum-throwing infants like adults long enough.
    - JGC
      
      Paging Paul Ryan, paging Paul Ryan, is there a Mr. Ryan in the House?
- William
  
  The Chicago gang strategy of dividing up the nation into special interest groups and target each one with goodies or promises worked. Top that off with a corrupt press industry that was the attack dog on Romney. Going forward it will be interesting to see how the Republican leadership deals with this type of election.
Shag_Wevera

I’d like to believe that the direction we are heading is toward socialism, albeit only a small step. Americans don’t want privatized or voucherized old-age benefits, and the MAJORITY of Americans do not endorse Paul Ryan style austerity.

Further steps toward socialism will come from our changing demographics. I just heard that 50,000 latinos are turning 18 every day in America. Romney lost that demographic 71-29%. The republican party as it currently stands is less viable with every passing day.

Special recognition to the tea party and their candidates for leaving a terrible taste in the mouth of rational American voters.
Duras

There’s a difference between maintaining public institutions and starting public manufacturing. The latter isn’t in the scope of American liberalism. So it’s just delusional to think socialism in on America’s trajectory. If you think what I’m saying is untrue, then go read about FDR who was more progressive and a stronger liberal than Obama.

We can get back to FDR/JFK state of American liberalism. Back to Johnson’s War on Poverty, and away from Reagan’s War on Drugs. We can find a middle ground between the overregulations and supply shortages of the 1970s, and the type of financial driven, demand deprived recessions of 1929 and today’s.

Capitalism is about market competition before human competition. Capitalism creates a lot of wealth and with that wealth comes responsibility–responsibility to equal opportunity, a justic system, military, and public institutions. We must move back to the FDR political economy that made this country great but be aware of what happened during the 1970s.
ttajtt

needs to find her tracks a basic tax cut, a start for everyone in (the paid worker first, children & retired, then the others gets covered, over needs) basic cover medical/dental care, damage control, middle class, not for rich or poor, a middle class zone. �
more personal responsibility and to its environmental care in rights in a larger population keep needs. home station home energy producing bikes and alike. return water – food back to natural way, no increase toxics’, a founding to make us sick, clean up for the change needed coming up.anchored down the moon station to work from or to, cheaper, where is business jobs? in earth shore$ cheese island view. i remember the gay funding started in the 70′s. for gov. or med – care or something. now look at what it became top science genes. wanting to making un-natural changes…science changed life, life changed science, science changed life.
cherrypie732

If the older white male vote is supposed to be one Obama’s weakest areas…Why do you think he won so fast, and so big here in Vermont…One of the whitest and oldest states? Could it show that the real issue is not race, but his politics? We are also the most secular and liberal state.
- sickofthechit
  
  I envy you all….from here in KY.
  - http://profile.yahoo.com/ZKG7NEG53UKVK7OTIT7Y4VMBOM Jay D
    
    From Louisville, I felt the same way.
TomK_in_Boston

We voted AGAINST a massive escalation of the class warfare that is transferring all the wealth and income to the top and turning the USA into something like a 3′rd world dictatorship where a few families have all the money. We voted for a timid, centrist push-back that might make things a little better.

I do NOT want bipartisanship if it means more attacks on the middle class, the retirement programs, important gvt spending etc in the name of the big bad deficit.
- Potter
  
  correct- why should the center or the center left compromise with the far right? Put them in their cribs and let them scream.
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=9025030 Edward Shaw

After the 2010 midterms, President Obama acknowledged the ‘shellacking’ the Democrats took while Mitch McConnell announced the the top priority for the next 2 years was unseating the president.

Last night you heard President Obama emphasizing the need to pull together as a nation while the GOP spin machine is showing anything but humility in the face of a clear setback. That lack of humility is what keeps them from inching back toward the middle and will continue to cost them an ever larger share of the vote moving forwad.
- JustEdith
  
  I know. And Mitch McConnell, who vowed to make Barack Obama a one term president ‘at any cost’ is still insisting that there is a mandate on the part of the American people for them to continue to on the path that the republicans have persued up to now. He says that he hopes the president will ”propose solutions that actually have a chance of passing the
  Republican-controlled House of Representatives and a closely-divided
  Senate, step up to the plate on the challenges of the moment, and
  deliver in a way that he did not in his first four years in office,”Read more at http://www.inquisitr.com/390338/mitch-mcconnell-who-vowed-to-make-obama-a-one-term-president-at-any-cost-comments-on-presidents-victory/#xc52FD3kVLStcE3r.99
  In other words a continuation of the ‘my way or the highway’ attitude. A lot of the reason that many of these people are still in office is because of the way the districts are drawn. Tired, tired, tired of the obstructionism.
  
  By the way, I though Romney’s concession speech was very graceful.
keltcrusader

Mona needs to do some research that isn’t so slanted, she is really talking directly out of her butt this morning.

Tom, do your job and keep calling her on her talking point junk.
- BHA_in_Vermont
  
  Wrong show, but you are right Though, she always talks out of her butt so today was no different.
  - keltcrusader
    
    oops, I was toggling between the 2 shows online while listening. Should probably check I’m on the right page first!
keltcrusader

Posted on wrong page
Wahoo_wa

We voted for mediocrity and continued gridlock at the worst possible time to do so.
Roy-in-Boise

In the long view our our national and global economy is in-between economic bubbles. Humanity has not emerged from the “fossil fuel age” as yet but these fuels are getting more and more expensive which is reflective in our great recession. Until mankind fully transitions to a form of energy that is fully sustainable real economic and social progress will continue to be slow.

History has demonstrated that prosperity leads to social advancement. The level of awareness of the Romney & Ryan team are firmly imbedded in the 20th century. When Candidate Romney states that “green energy is a myth” combined with his willingness to buy into some bizarre positions on woman’s issues we can see the tip of the iceberg on this brand of regressive thinking. This team just wasn’t up for the job.
Fiscally_Responsible

One place where we will go is that our public schools will continue to produce poorer and poorer results as a result of the teachers’ union continuing to fight accountability for poor teachers and real change in our public schools (“Waiting For Superman”) and demanding the blind support of the Democratic Party, which is is the teachers’ union’s pocket.
http://gregorycamp.wordpress.com/ Greg Camp

Four more years of muddling along, coming up with bandaid solutions to major trauma and a couple of aspirin for cancer–that’s what just got elected.
- Wahoo_wa
  
  I hate that you’re right about that…LOL
- http://pulse.yahoo.com/_Y6CO5C2HE4WM2OYGCDVWGPRXXM oldman
  
  It’s either that or crash – we went over the cliff with the rest of the world in 2008. Anything we’ve done since then or we do going forward just delays or advances the inevitable.
BHA_in_Vermont

My prediction is John Boehner will be saying:
“Two term president” and dig his heels in even deeper to make sure nothing gets done in the House that is even minimally supported, let alone pushed by, Obama for the next 4 years.
http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF

“What’s the Matter with White People” reminds me of an old TV sketch, “The History of White People in America”*.

One episode had a “white people’s crisis”, in which the family runs out of mayonnaise!

(*Can’t say where. I think Martin Mull and/or Fred Willard were involved.)
Davesix6

Tom Forward is going to mean more of the same, unless President Obama actually means what he says this time and is willing to compromise on his ideology.
�
Please keep in mind President Obama made the same type statements calling for unity four years ago!
Then he and the Democrats froze the Republicans out.
- Thinkin5
  
  The Repcons/Tea Party froze out the president. The country and Dems were railing at the president to stand up to them and not give up everything that the Repcons wanted. Oh, and the polls said 60+% of the country said tax the rich more and the R politicians said NO. Even many businessmen and Repubs. still say, tax us more. The pols? No, we don’t care.
Adrian_from_RI

America (July 4, 1776 – November 6, 2012) RIP.
Cause of death: Suicide.
- Duras
  
  I guess tons of money in our political system, blowing up more Muslim countries, dark markets for Wall Street, more tax cuts for people who clearly don’t need them, and pooh poohing teachers would have been the cure…?
http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF

“He was a candidate of business and maybe that’s not a good idea.”

I’m for anything that will stop the Beltway Inbred’s collective swooning over the idea, fluffed beyond all evidence of compatibility, for CEOs in high elective office.
- Thinkin5
  
  It’s just letting the fox into the hen house when you put CEO’s in Washington gov.
  - http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF
    
    There are enough non-CEO foxes, thanx. And enough bidness types in lobbying firms on K Street.
    
    I’ll pivot and say: Too many people inside the Beltway don’t want to fall off any cocktail party invite lists. And too many Beltway Inbreds spend too much time in social circles with too many CEOs, and are too much “source hoors”.
    
    Someone who doesn’t want to piss off their golf buddies, or potential golf buddies higher on the social ladder, is a poor journalist and an even worse pundit.
- Human898
  
  Of course! Do people somehow believe there were no CEO’s with lots of “business experience” behind the “Worst Crisis Since 30′s, No End Yet in Sight” (Wall Street Journal headline September 18, 2008, more than a month before Mr. Obama was elected)
  
  How “business experience” (GWB was the first president with an MBA) suddenly became a “good” thing for the U.S. after the Great Recession, defies sanity.
http://pulse.yahoo.com/_BSFDT4UGOGEKMRRFSW3WSZLPXE daphnetiger

My concern is that Cong. Paul Ryan, having been embolden by this election comes away with the lead for the next election and goes back to his job as senior of the budget committee. He may feel he has a mandate by the election to fight the President tooth and nail and thus we will end up with nothing for 4 years. I do not like his philosophy that is based on two books of fiction and how those two fiction books will get America moving again.
- Scott B
  
  Ayn Rand’s political ideas only work on paper, just like anything works on paper when you control the back and forth on the issues. On paper communism works great: Everyone’s equal, every works the same, and everyone is rewarded the same. But in real life it becomes more “Animal Farm” than “Das Kapital” and “The Communist Manifesto” because humans in real life aren’t scripted to behave how time and experience have proven over and over has show they behave: Often in their own interests for themselves or their associates.
Scott B

“Part of Memory”? They deliberately forget fact, science, history, and experience. They revel in a past that’s based in myth, fantasy, and the Puritans. They forget they came up with Obamacare (Romneycare), Reagan realized “trickle down” and tax cuts didn’t work and raised taxed 4 times, that one of their own started the EPA because rivers were catching fire and kids were getting cancer from PCB’s.

BTW, The Puritans weren’t all that puritanical. They had their own version of Vegas for a while, many of those that came over were criminals offered prison or death in England or a life here, the Salem Witch Trials was a land and political grab, and they had such rampant out of wedlock birth rate with deadbeat dad they actually had to form an agency to track the dads down and make them pay up.
geraldfnord

The word ‘socialist’, like a lot of terms, does better service (if you care more for accuracy than for propaganda-value) as an adjective than as a noun.

Of course, there will always be some who truly believe that because a dose of twenty aspirin are deadly, and a dose of one-tenth of one useless against an head-ache, that two or three therefore must be both deadly and useless.
Kathy

The Republicans prattle that “America is a Center Right Country” as if it was a holy mantra. They’re right. The problem is that Obama is center right. The democrats are center right. The Republican Party has been hijacked by far right extremists and America rejected that last night.
- TomK_in_Boston
  
  Exactly. There is no left in this fight. Obama is a Rockefeller republican according to the metrics I grew up with. We need some strong liberals and that is why I’m so happy for SENATOR ELIZABETH WARREN.
BHA_in_Vermont

I HOPE that Obama starts off with explaining the Affordable Care Act such that all can understand it. He never managed that last term. About half of the country says no to it but says yes to its parts. Clearly “we” want what is in it but the Republicans have managed to cover the whole package with stink that makes people not look inside.
- nj_v2
  
  “My fellow Americans. I’m sorry I caved in and gave the insurance companies pretty much everything they wanted. The lack of any effective cost controls will enable them to charge pretty much whatever they want, even while fulfilling the modest improvements provided in the bill.
  
  I even caved in on the public option, and so, with the windfall profits the health-care industry will reap, any hope of a single-payer system will now be put off many decades into the future, if it’s even possible at all.”
  
  Nah…i don’t think he’ll do it.
GPILAWLLC

Could the fact that Latinos played such a role in this election actually create an even more radical backlash from the kind of white Republicans who questioned the President’s citizenship and really want to take their country back, and could this be a problem for the Republucan leadership, which probably realizes by now that it will have to moderate its approach to immigration? I say yes. There is a chance here that we will see the Republucan party break up.

Chris,
Baltimore, MD
http://profile.yahoo.com/ZKG7NEG53UKVK7OTIT7Y4VMBOM Jay D

I think the message sent last night was:
He is the President and He is willing to work with you (Republicans) now this time work with him and help save America.

Stop disagreeing with your own ideas just because Obama agrees with them.
Davesix6

Please note the White House Office of Management and Budget has projected a $20.3 Trillion national debt going “forward” under Obama!
- BHA_in_Vermont
  
  And it was higher under Romney
  - Davesix6
    
    What is your source BHA?
    It’s obviously not the OMB.
- Mike_Card
  
  “Deficits don’t matter.”
  - Davesix6
    
    Deficits don’t matter until the bill comes due. Look a Europe.
    - Duras
      
      I don’t think you got the joke.
- TomK_in_Boston
  
  OOooh, the dreaded deficit. I guess we better raise taxes on the rich ASAP, huh?
- SpiritualLust
  
  Hey, Davesix6. Yes, national debt went up during Obama administration by 6trillion (cpr for collapsed economy). But at least, he got it under control. George W., on the other hand, raised it by 10 trillion, bankrolling 2 wars and tax cuts for the rich. What did you personally got out of it?
  Are you in he top 1%?
Muriel Vautrin

Obama was elected and a majority of the American people voted for him. The pundits and the Republicans need to stop saying that Obama campaigned on the small stuff. He had a full platform for which people voted: increased taxes on the top 1%; a balanced , common sense deficit reduction that would not penalize the little guy; a health insurance for all at a more affordable cost that would not discriminate against people with a preexisting condition and would not have a cap; reform of the tax code; immigration reform. This is why I voted for him. This is what more than 52 million people voted for. (most small businesses are not part of the top 1% and they would not be affected by the tax hike. Go Obama. Yes work with others in Congress but remember your program
- nj_v2
  
  The Obamabots are an excitable lot.
  
  “Obama was elected and a majority of the American people voted for him.”
  
  Hardly.
  
  Maybe a quarter of registered voters voted for him. 50-something million is not “a majority of the American people.”
BHA_in_Vermont

If Romney REALLY believes what he says, he will open his hidden book of “how I would fix everything” and push, if not force Boehner and McConnell to drop their “no way, no how, nothing Democrats support” politics.

It won’t happen though, if for no reason other than because Romney is not a GOP leader. He is what they were left with after the Primaries.
- http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF
  
  I don’t want to disappoint you, but the contents of Romney’s book are the same as Nixon’s secret plan for Vietnam.
  
  Except Nixon’s secret plan was enough to get him elected, twice.
AC

i’m poking my head in, but a little afraid of going through the comments!!
- 1Brett1
  
  Why, how dare you resort to partisan trolling!
  
  [I'm, kidding]
http://profile.yahoo.com/BQCXJB4TE7L7QIIG7NKDZ5BNJQ JoeJ

“Government is simply the name we give to the things we choose to do together.” Government is not a place to drive idealism radical agendas. The GOP and Tea Party congress need to compromise. Stop holding 99% of Americans hostage.
- Davesix6
  
  Joe, you may want to look at your percentages, Obama didn’t get 99% of the vote
J__o__h__n

Name one uncivil liberal Episcopalian.
http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF

“You may find protecting your Romney signs in parts of CA a problem,” to the caller Barbara who gave evidence of lots of “RealAmericans” in a red state destroying Obama signs?

Hill-fncking-larious, Charles Kessler. Can we get a guest on who isn’t a Beltway Inbred who doesn’t have false equivalency programmed into him?
Thinkin5

Why do the Republicans never question more spending for defense? Cost is never an issue when they want military spending.
- Duras
  
  Nor can conservatives contextualize our military with the militaries around the world….
http://gregorycamp.wordpress.com/ Greg Camp

Walsh, Obama’s race has nothing to do with my opposition to him. You’re the one who keeps yammering on about race.
nhStrobaffa

Hey Tom, this conversation sounds like the one we have been having for the past four years. No solutions from your guest presiding over the conservative perspective, and no responsibility taken for the issues the women from Tennessee addressed. How will we get past this???
sickofthechit

Charles Kesler fails to recognize that if the Bush tax cuts were affordable then repealing them as a starting point is also affordable. Truth be told we should claw back the tax cuts to all with incomes over $250,000 for the last ten years. They were sold to us with a huge lie (“Job Creation”), manipulated into being by the wealthy, the powerful and the greedy.
- OnPointComments
  
  If the Clinton tax rates were so good, why not go back to them in total?
  - Duras
    
    Middle income did go up during the Clinton years, while middle income did go down during the Bush years (before the recession). But I suppose there were other variables that caused income to grow despite higher taxes. I will say, however, a funded government is better than an unfunded government. And moving money to wars and defense is not as good for the American public if the money stayed in our schools and infrastructure.
Davesix6

I am in Tennessee, there is disapointment but no fury.
MatthewNashville

I have never understood a christian agenda where we ignore those in need and prosper from their struggle
- Steve_the_Repoman
  
  I think Jesus also had a problem with an agenda that ignored/took advatage of the poor
http://profile.yahoo.com/BQCXJB4TE7L7QIIG7NKDZ5BNJQ JoeJ

Thanks Fredrick the caller. Right on.
Roy-in-Boise

We are about to have a 51st state with Puerto Rico. How about that?
- http://profile.yahoo.com/ZKG7NEG53UKVK7OTIT7Y4VMBOM Jay D
  
  50 is such a nice number why change it?
  
  I’ve been to Puerto Rico, very good climate, I say enjoy the privileges of being an American territory but if you want a stronger voice then move to one of the real states.
  - http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF
    
    I dunno, part of me doesn’t care for that whole “taxation without representation” bit. The federal govt has a lot of say about PR’s laws, IIRC.
    
    See the huge bunch of Americans living in DC with 0 congresscritters, while a pittance in the rural upper midwest gets 2 Sens and a Rep. And all those non-DCers in Congress have a big hand in what is DC’s government, without living there. Talk about thwarting the will of the people–it’s like Harrisburg’s city govt being stocked with Phillies and Pittsburgers because of the population in the two larger cities.
    
    (I don’t have a dog in this fight personally.)
Davesix6

Why do the pundits on the left always refer to President Obama’s race?
�
Then they infer that those of us who have real policy differences with the President are racists?
�
Joan Walsh is a perfect example of the racism and sexism of the left towards white males, and it is apparent in many of the comments below!
�
I for one am sick and tired of being presumed to be a racist and a sexist by the left, simply because I am a white male and I intend to stand against it.
Jack Acme

We should use the laboratories of the states to see which ideas really work. A good starting point would be to forbid, as much as possible, any state receiving more in federal money then they contribute in taxes (social sec. and medicare excepted).
anamaria23

The caller citing Rush Limbaugh’s et al, influence on the drift in the Repub Party cannot be overstated. There is no equivalance on the Left. 90% of talk radio is right wing.
Fox News with it’s deliberate misreprentation of the truth has done more to destroy the morale and good will of people than most any other force.
Davesix6

Of course Obama on the ground in New Jersey had nothing to do with the election.
Obama didn’t even fly over Nashville during the “Great Flood of 2010″ here.
- Gregg Smith
  
  He let Texas burn.
George_Dedham_MA

Republicans redefining their goals:

“Even with the country on the brink of default, the Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said his “single most important” goal is to make Barack Obama a two-term president.”

When he said in 2008 or 09 what he really said (replace “two-term” above with “one-term”) I consider that almost treason. His job is ALWAYS to do what is best for the country. How do you compromise with some one whose goal is to destroy you? The republicans idea of compromise is doing 99% of what they want. They lost, so it seems like the now reasonable compromise is on Democratic side of the “middle.”
twenty_niner

“The Direction of America” as demonstrated by today’s market:
- StilllHere
  
  You should think about getting a government job.
  - twenty_niner
    
    Had one – five years in the Navy.
    
    That’s where I saw the DOD dump about $30 million into a data center that was torn down about three years later because the left hand didn’t realize that the right hand had build an even bigger data center in another part of the country to do the same exact job. Even worse, the left hand knew about the right hand as the project was getting underway, but instead of returning the money to the taxpayer (or at least the general fund), the money was spent anyway because it has already been approved. The whole episode kind of molded my opinion of big government.
    - J__o__h__n
      
      How many Republicans favor cuts to Defense?
- twenty_niner
  
  Although there a couple of “hope and change” stocks are doing well:
- Human898
  
  Of course news from Europe has nothing to do with it, just like the news in September of 2008 had the stock market lose how much of its value, that has since largely been recovered under Obama.
  
  http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/feb/21/dow-jones-13000-barrier-2008
  
  Please don’t continue to try to insult the intelligence of most Americans
  - StilllHere
    
    American investors know Europe is a basket case. That’s not news. The fact that America just moved another step in that direction matters however.
    - Gregg Smith
      
      The world depends on America… or used to.
  - twenty_niner
    
    Europe is news? Hardly, it’s an old story, of which investors and traders are well aware.
    
    The election is the news.
    
    The market rebounded from its 2008 low because of the Bernanke “put” not Obama. The fed exchanges money (now in the trillions) for Treasuries and other questionable securities that big banks can get off of their balance sheets. The money doesn’t make it to main street in the form of loans (for various reasons), instead it makes it to the trading desks and ultimately to the market.
- http://profile.yahoo.com/BQCXJB4TE7L7QIIG7NKDZ5BNJQ JoeJ
  
  Today market is responding to the result of congress. More stimulus would not bring the bear. Only fools thinks otherwise.
  - twenty_niner
    
    More precisely, the probability of the sequestration going forward is over 50%. In my view it’s a lock.
twenty_niner

“The Direction of America” as demonstrated by today’s market:
- anamaria23
  
  Until next week.
J__o__h__n

Jack, just because the Republicans are held hostage to Grover Norquist and his pledge is no reason for the Democrats to be too.
http://profile.yahoo.com/BQCXJB4TE7L7QIIG7NKDZ5BNJQ JoeJ

Why voters didn’t get a new congress? Does this mean that Obama voters selected GOP congressmen? Or did they come out but didn’t select their congressmen in their ballots?
- http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF
  
  That’s basically a function of how Congressional districts are drawn. Additional computer-aided stuff makes this very much more a science than an art, compared to ~40 years ago.
  
  Some places have had their redistricting plans invalidated by courts. And I won’t pretend that “both sides do it equally”.
Human898

Republicans and I used to be one, need to face up to themselves. If, instead of trying to continue to ignore the disaster at the end of the Bush administration, they acknowledged it, admitted to it and how it really hurt them and America, then showed America some evidence they were going to change, they might have gone somewhere. To continue to hold on to the same essentials, that have lost them 2 elections now, is turning off more and more people, Republicans included.

The current Republican Party needs to act like good business people and not only listen to their customers about the quality of their products and service and performance of their personnel, but use some quality control. If stuff is coming off the assembly line with defects, good and sane business people don’t blame the customers for their complaints, they work on correcting the defects.

For the last 2 decades I have heard a constant refusal of the “neo” Republican Party to take a good look at itself in the mirror find its own defects and work to correct them.

Instead they have exhibited denial and delusion about themselves and blamed those complaining about their defects, many of those complaining about their defects being Republicans of the old sort, not the neo sort.
- Bluejay2fly
  
  I think they are far better businessmen than you can imagine. They are enriching themselves to a level unprecedented in history ,but unfortunately it is at the expense of the rest of the nation. It is a Buffalo tongue economy. That is why since the 80′s we have and will continue to build a military we do not need, have no health care cost controls, have no national energy policy, sell and buy homes at inflated values, and have little to no regulation on in our finical markets.
Davesix6

Tom, what exactly is it that the GOP is supposed to compromise on?

What is it that Obama wants that he has not been able to get?

More government spending, What?
- anamaria23
  
  Passage of the Jobs bill.
http://neilblanchard.blogspot.com/ Neil Blanchard

There are several HUGE totally dominate issues that we are not yet even discussing, that will either be solved by efforts from ALL of us working very hard together – or we will fall apart:

Climate change, climate change, climate change!

This leads to at least two major related issues: food production and the required (and rapid) transition to renewable energy. We will run out of oil and coal and gas, and even uranium – and our current energy use is the main cause of climate change – so we simply have to move to renewable energy as quickly as possible. We will have a sustainable abundance once we leave finite energy behind.

Right now we are literally eating gas and oil; and we are killing the soil, and we are using way too much water, and the fertilizer and pesticide runoff is poisoning our waters. This along with the acidification caused by climate change is killing the life in the oceans, and we are overfishing as well.

Food production is key to getting our economy going again, and to the survival of our culture. Climate change directly affects our fragile fossil fuel dependent food production system. It is not really farming, but rather it is soil and water mining.

If we switched back to real farming – using our knowledge to significantly improve on what we had been doing for about 10,000 years before we “discovered” nitrogen fertilizer and the internal combustion engine, then here are all the deadly problems we would solve, by putting ourselves back into step with the cycle of life:

* We would stop eating oil and gas, which as you and I know are finite.

* We would let the soil come alive again — it decomposes the stuff of life and makes it available for growing new life, building and improving the soil making it better and deeper and sequestering carbon rather than mining it, eroding it, and poisoning our waterways.

* We would cut about 25% of our greenhouse gas output from the crappy-water-soluble-nitrogen-to-nitrous-oxide-nightmare, that also includes dead rivers and dead fishing zones along the way.

* Local food production not only means far less oil burned transporting food around the world (the average food item travels 1,500 miles to your mouth!), but it also means far more nutritious, much better tasting food that makes us all much healthier — we probably would see cancer rates go down, too!

* We would totally solve both our immigration problems and our unemployment problems at the same time. And we would make big dents into our drug problem, our prison problem, our hunger problems, and our decaying civil society would be renewing its way back to health.

Wes Jackson proposes that we move to 80% perennial agriculture within the next 50 years. We need to listen to the wisdom among us if we want to solve our major problems.

We have a sustainable abundance of renewable energy — up to 16X more energy than the needs of the entire world. Everybody can have as much electricity as they need — and all that economic activity supports all our local economies.

Since renewable energy is available everywhere, to any and all people — then the need for a military largely goes away. Since living soils store water much more readily than dead soil, we stop needing to use up our fossil water supply.

We simply must do as nature does — we must have zero waste. Waste means that we are not doing it right: no disposable plastic, no disposable people, no disposable land, no disposable species.

We also need to directly address other major problems like the rising ocean, bigger and more extreme weather events like drought and storms, increasing “tropical” diseases, more fires, etc., etc., etc.

Budget deficits, tax policies, principles of role of government are puny, myopic problems – not unimportant, but they pale in comparison to anthropogenic climate change.

Neil
- http://gregorycamp.wordpress.com/ Greg Camp
  
  We can’t feed the world’s population if we have teams of oxen pulling our plows.
  - http://neilblanchard.blogspot.com/ Neil Blanchard
    
    Greg,
    
    Where did you see anything about oxen? Are you sure that you can dismiss what I wrote based on a knee-jerk reaction? How would you solve this problem?
    
    Animals and farming do go together — they compliment each other; but a modern farm could have electric tractors, I’m sure.
    
    Neil
    - Gregg Smith
      
      My tractor is a 1974 Ford 4000 Diesel. There is no electric tractor that can do what it does, if there are any at all.
    - http://gregorycamp.wordpress.com/ Greg Camp
      
      Do we have batteries good enough for that application? Electric cars have short range, and they’re not having to plow fields.
  - nj_v2
    
    And we can’t continue to feed the world’s population doing what we’re doing.
    
    Do you have a point, or are you just tossing out red herrings because it makes you seem clever?
- nj_v2
  
  I’d like to be wrong, but i’m pretty certain that little to none of the change you (correctly) hope and advocate for is going to come from the next Obummer administration.
  
  Expect more subsidy for nukes, more off-shore and arctic drilling permits, XL pipeline, oil sands, ag policy skewed to corporate farming/genetic engineering. Look at his appointments.
  
  Any real change will have to come from the grassroots, pushing against the weight of an Obama-aided corporate resistance.
http://gregorycamp.wordpress.com/ Greg Camp

Obama is moderate left, not center right.
- Gregg Smith
  
  That’s kind.
- nj_v2
  
  Would love to see the calculus that supports that assertion.
  - Human898
    
    I’m a former Republican and I agree with the assessment that Obama is more moderate, either left or right of what was the dividing line of the past, so apparently did some of my friends and family, both those that have left the party because of what has been mentioned by some callers, as I have explained and as “Republicans for Obama” explained.
    
    http://www.republicansforobama.org/
    
    I would love to see the calculus that doesn’t support it.
    - nj_v2
      
      Obama was selected by political hacks and corporate directors. He makes enough smooth-talking, populist squeaky noises on social issues that the gullible, fake-liberals that comprise the majority of the Demo demographic fawn and swoon. They are either ignorant of, or deliberately avoid dealing with his actual record.
      
      Under Obama:
      
      Zero prosecutions for Wall Street malfeasance, fraud, deception for near-collapse of economy
      
      Extended Bush tax cutsNegotiating more “free trade” agreementsAppointed a raft of corporate hacks to important positions after promising to purge corporate influence in administration
      
      Took public option off table in health-care negotiations before the process even began; final product a windfall for private insurance companies with no effective price caps on whatever crap products they decide to offer. Obummer actually appointed an insurance company executive to manage the transition/implimetation of the legislation.
      
      Escalated wars—Afghanistan surge (where the f**k did that get us?), increase in private military contractors, drone deployments killing civilians, record weapons sales to foreign countries…
      
      Continuation of abrogation of Habeus Corpus, military tribunals, extradition to torture countries, as per Baby Bush
      
      Failed to deliver on promise to close Gitmo, a facility in violation of Geneva conventions
      
      Continued (increased!) subsidies to nukes, support for “clean coal”" (as if there’s any such thing), increased offshore drilling…
      
      Crushing of government whistle blowers
      
      Increased government secrecy
      
      Assassination orders against overseas American citizens
      
      FBI raids on anti-war activists
      
      Caved on effort for progressive tax cuts
      
      Large expansion of TSA mandate that, arguably, violates 4th Amendment
      
      Opposed release of secret, Nixon Watergate testimony
      
      Someone is going to have to explain to me how the hell any of this represents evidence that the Oilybomber record can be called “center left” by any informed, rational person.
      
      People are either so profoundly ignorant of Obama’s actual record, or have no grasp of what “left” and “right” actually mean, or both, to make such demonstrably ludicrous assertions.
      - Human898
        
        He’s president, you’re what?
        
        Yes, “paranoia strikes deep, into your heart it will creep, ot starts when you’re always afraid, step out of line the men come and take you away” -Stephen Stills, 1966
      - nj_v2
        
        ??
- TomK_in_Boston
  
  Obama is no kind of left. He is center right. He loves wall st and his idea of a big tax hit on the romney types is returning to the low clinton era rates.
Duras

Conservatives two years ago were against compromise. When Mitt Romney came around and said that it was “Obama’s poor leadership that lead to gridlock,” conservatives were all for compromise. Now, conservatives are arguing for gridlock. I bet that changes around election time because they have zero principles and just unconsciously cheerlead for a political party.

If you can’t see your strings yet, feel around. They are bound to materialize eventually.
Human898

Benjamin Rush had a point and America showed it did not want to go back there.

“I cannot help commending the zeal that appears in my countrymen against the power of a King or a House of Lords. I concur with them in all their prejudices against hereditary titles, honour and power. History is little else than a recital of the follies and vices of kings and noblemen, and it is because I dread so much from them, that I wish to exclude them forever from Pennsylvania, for notwithstanding our government has been called a simple democracy, I maintain, that a foundation is laid in it for the most complete aristocracy that ever existed in the world.”

“In order to prove this assertion, I shall premise two propositions, which have never been controverted: First, where there is wealth, there will be power; and, secondly, the rich have always been an over-match for the poor in all contests for power.”

“These truths being admitted, I desire to know what can prevent our single representation being filled, in the course of a few years, with a majority of rich men? Say not, the people will not choose such men to represent them. The influence of wealth at elections is irresistible. It has been seen and felt in Pennsylvania, and I am obliged in justice to my subject to say, that there are poor men among us as prepared to be influenced, as the rich are prepared to influence them. The fault must be laid in both cases upon human nature. The consequence of a majority of rich men getting into the legislature is plain. Their wealth will administer fuel to the love of arbitrary power that is common to all men. The present Assembly have furnished them with precedents for breaking the Constitution. Farewell now to annual elections Public emergencies will sanctify the most daring measures. The clamours of their constituents will be silenced with offices, bribes or punishments. An aristocracy will be established, and Pennsylvania will be inhabited like most of the countries in Europe, with only two sorts of animals, tyrants and slaves.”

-Benjamin Rush – 1777 – Bicameralism
Gregg Smith

How many businesses are now going to lay off or fire workers as many said they would if Obama was reelected? Many. Who is going to invest in America now? Only a fool would.
- Mike_Card
  
  So we should expect the unemployment rate to rise to what? It’s sitting at 7.9% now.
  
  The question isn’t who is going to invest here, but where else WOULD they invest, instead of here?
  - Gregg Smith
    
    The caveat: I’m making an educated guess. Yes, sadly I expect the unemployment rate to go up. I’d invest in Brazil but what do I know? I also fear our credit rating will be downgraded again.
    - Mike_Card
      
      As they say, the securities markets abhor uncertainty (even tho that’s the only reason they exist). I’m not especially a rate watcher, but I think rates on US Treasuries are lower now than at the first downgrade–it’s all relative.
      
      Yes, we’re borrowing immense amounts from Asia (I’m pretty sure both Japan and China hold about the same amounts of our debt), but our borrowings are nearly free.
- jefe68
  
  Ah yes, lets lay off workers for political reasons.
  - Gregg Smith
    
    It won’t be for political reasons it’s all about the money. Democrat, Republican, Green and Libertarian businesses will all be watching the bottom line.
- dontlookup
  
  Another supply-side economics fallacy!
  
  Businesspeople will expand or contract according to demand for their products or services. If there is increased demand for what you’re selling, you’d be insane to lay off workers or cut hours and miss out on sales and profits.
  
  If, on the other hand, you bust unions and pay people a crummy wage, or reduce their hours, they’re going to have to buy cheap stuff from low-wage countries, not from you.
  
  Supply-side economics leads inevitably to income inequality, a hollowed-out middle class, and a pay-to-play political system. Like what we got now.
  - Gregg Smith
    
    How much demand was there for Iphones 5 years ago? Supply comes first. Government cannot create demand by passing around other peoples money.
    - dontlookup
      
      Silly person! Government creates huge amounts of demand. It’s called “procurement.”
    - 1Brett1
      
      Why people hadn’t even heard of phones or cared about communicating conveniently on the Internet 5 years ago! [sarcasm]
- StilllHere
  
  There has been a lot of talk about moving workers from full- to part-time to avoid ACA costs. In September’s household survey of the 800+K job gains, 500+K were part-time.
  
  Personally, I would suggest people save as much as they can and spend as little as they can. Taxes are going up and disposable income is going to get whacked. Physical gold looks like the best option for savings.
- 1Brett1
  
  So you are now calling Americans FOOLS? Gregg, and this from such a stand-up guy…
  - Gregg Smith
    
    Where did I call American’s fools? Can you read? Never mind.
    - 1Brett1
      
      It was just a question. Just asking an honest question, that’s all. So, who ARE fools? Americans who invest in America? Anybody who invests in America? Are non-fools only those who go out of their way to invest in anything that is NOT American?
      - Gregg Smith
        
        If you did not include the second sentence (if that’s what you call it) then maybe I would’ve answered with a simple “NO”.
      - 1Brett1
        
        You had a pick of four different questions. Answering “no” to all four wouldn’t seem to make sense…I was just trying to ascertain which “fools” to whom you were referring when you said only fools would invest in America. I suppose you meant everyone who invests in America is a fool? That would be the only possible way to answer “no” to all four questions, which also would be quite unpatriotic of you. To each his own I guess; if you wish to rise to that level of anti-Americanism, so be it…
      - Gregg Smith
        
        This question: “So you are now calling Americans FOOLS? ”
        
        Focus.
- Michele
  
  So, business owners are going to fire employees who are already trained and help make them profitable to show Obama who’s boss? I think most business owners are too pragmatic for that.
  
  On another note, we still have the largest domestic economy in the world so lots of people want to invest in American and their own futures.
rob sprogell

It won’t take long for Mitch McConnell to appear before the press to announce that his party’s new strategy is to make sure that Barack is a two-term president.
rob sprogell

It won’t take long for Mitch McConnell to appear before the press to announce that his party’s new strategy is to make sure that Barack is a two-term president.
http://www.facebook.com/jon.chalk.1 Jon Chalk

Obama won the popular vote and the electoral college by a decent margin, and yet we have 40 more Republican reps than Democrats. How does this happen?

Is this because of voters choosing differently national vs local, is it the screwed up districting or is it something else…?
- jefe68
  
  It’s the gerrymandering of the districts.
  The GOP is very good at this. Both parties do it though.
  - hennorama
    
    Not in California. California voters rejected gerrymandering in 2008, creating the California Citizens Redistricting Commission. There’s also now a Top 2 primary system in California. Together, these will likely result in more moderate candidates, as they will need to appeal to a broader political spectrum just to get past the primaries.
    
    Sources:http://wedrawthelines.ca.gov/faq.html
    
    http://myvoteourfuture.org/voter-registration/resources/californias-top-two-primary/#top_2
- Human898
  
  Note where the gains were, albeit not great in numbers, but I think women did well and the demographics show older white men were what Romney attracted. Not something that should be a surprise.
Gregg Smith

Okay, I’ll ask the question: Will there be a movement to impeach?
- Davesix6
  
  Depends on what comes out on Obama and Benghazi!
  Don’t believe that one is over yet.
  - Gregg Smith
    
    I agree but I’m not advocating it… at this point.
    - 1Brett1
      
      I can understand why you’re not yet “advocating it.” I’ve heard no mention of any such move by anyone of importance from the neocon contingent, and you are a bandwagon hitcher, so it makes sense…
      - Gregg Smith
        
        I’m a trend setter.
  - jimino
    
    Maybe he’ll blame some lower level or cabinet officials for feeding him the wrong information, then give them all a Presidential Medal of Honor. That’s how “W” handled it and seemed to satisfy y’all. Of course that was a real war involving hundreds of thousands of deaths, so it’s probably not as big a deal for you as the Benghazi attack..
- nj_v2
  
  Go get ‘em, Greggg. You can set up a table in front of your local strip mall.
  - Gregg Smith
    
    How did Rocky do?
    - nj_v2
      
      Got more votes than Newt.
      - Gregg Smith
        
        Newt wasn’t on the ballot yesterday.
- jefe68
  
  Maybe you should take a pill and lie down for awhile.
- hennorama
  
  Perhaps, but only “a movement” in the scatological sense.
  
  Not even half a day after the election, and this is your question? You can do much better, sir.
  - nj_v2
    
    “You can do much better, sir.”
    
    Well, actually, if his posting history is any evidence, no, he can’t.
    - 1Brett1
      
      hennorama is using self-esteem-building behavioral techniques on Gregg…it’s kinda cute, but ultimately it’ll be ineffective.
      - Gregg Smith
        
        He/she and I have very little we agree on but we’ve always kept it civil. Sorry that bothers you.
      - 1Brett1
        
        It doesn’t bother me; I was just making an observation. What about my comment did you perceive as indicating I was bothered? Are you projecting?
  - Gregg Smith
    
    It’s a valid question, I wanted to be first.
    - hennorama
      
      I understand your desire to be first, but the question has the flavor of a vindictive sore loser, rather than the principled person I know you to be. That’s how I know you can do better.
      
      My advice: salve your wounds, rest up a bit, reflect on what happened, then use the results of your reflections to ask about what comes next.
      - Gregg Smith
        
        I was only half serious about wanting to be first. I am highly disappointed, but I am not vindictive. It’s a valid question and it will be raised because of Benghazi. I did not advocate it.
        
        And I know what comes next, more debt, more embassies breached, higher fuel prices, higher unemployment, higher taxes, more divisiveness, higher medical cost, more regulation, another debt ceiling hike, further downgrading of our credit, more able-bodied people on food stamps and disability, more lies, more bureaucracy and less incentive for achievement.
hennorama

After a champion’s breakfast of loco moco & Kona coffee, it’s time to get right back to work.

The election campaigns highlighted our differences, but the path ahead requires cooperation and agreement, not obstruction and grandstanding. To advance, we need to first identify the pressing problems we need to work on. I’m posing this to try to spark a conversation, in an effort to come to some sort of agreement. If we can agree about what the problems are, then we can start to discuss solutions.

What can we agree on? Let’s start with some economic factors, since the economy is our #1 concern. I’ve tried to word these as neutrally as possible to avoid argument and blame. These may seem obvious, but we need to start with the basics, IMO.

1. Too many people are out of work.

2. 47% of Americans not paying Federal Income Tax (FIT) is too high a percentage.

3. Current Federal deficit is large and should be reduced.

4. Social Security (20% of FY 2011 Federal spending and rising), and Medicare (about 14% and rising) are in need of reform.

5. Total Federal debt is large and should be reduced.

Source “Policy Basics: Where Do Our Federal Tax Dollars Go?”:http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=1258
- Human898
  
  I agree hennorama, it’s time to put trillions of dollars of hoarded cash to work, stop firing Americans, start rehiring them and at a wage that will put them into a taxable income bracket because employees are not just expenses, they are consumers.
  
  Hoarding cash, a knee jerk reaction to too much free spending on over-inflated value has only prolonged any recovery from the results of too much free spending on overinflated value and bad risk taking based on greed and a philosphy that worships material wealth. A society that looks for instant gratification instead of steady and stable gain with values and worship of human virtue over and above personal instant fame and wealth is never going to find stability in the longer term, if in the shorter term. It will keep sabotaging itself with its overly ambitious and unrealistic expectations or the result of the temptations to get-rich-quick (instant gratification) by corrupt and short-cut (super risky) means that have a higher risk of failure than of success.
  
  Caution and the resulting hoarding and austerity are like anything else, done in the extreme they are no better than the problems they hope to resolve or ward off.   Hoarding, austerity and severe savings means the economy is cut off from circulation of the transactions and cash flow that define the noun “economy”.   In effect they cause all the same problems they hope to escape from or solve.   It’s like trying to solve obesity with starvation, neither obesity nor starvation are healthy.
  
  Those who contributed to a large part of the debt have got to stop trying to hide from being held accountable for their share of addition to the debt, hoping no one noticed or sees it, plain as day and they have to stop with the delusion or the deception that cutting taxes is going to reduce the debt, especially if those that get tax cuts for the purpose of creating jobs and growing the economy, instead, effectively stuff the difference into their mattresses instead of using it for what it was intended to be used for.
  
  Social security is also tied into employment. The more people are employed and the more they make, the more people there are reaching the upper cut offs for SS and there is more money going into Medicare and the more solvent the funds become.  If need be, the upper income cut-off on SS can be raised so that more is contributed to it. Also, if need be, raise the age to when SS can be collected and more will be added to the fund. Other things can also be done. Now, by law, any surplus in SS has to be “borrowed” by the federal government and used to pay the goverments bills. That’s great for paying bills, but it creates an addition to the debt that still needs to be repaid or does it really? A way to solve that problem would be to separate it from that requirement and allow SS to accrue surpluses to use to balance out deficits. The problem with that solution is the same as hoarding cash. Unless the surplus is put to work somehow, simply holding it for a rainy day takes money out of circulation. If it is used for loans in the private sector, those loans would have to be easily called in and liquid so when a rainy day came along they could balance any SS deficit. When rainy days come along, people who have borrowed money don’t normally have the capacity to pay off their loans immediately. There probably is a solution for putting a SS surplus to work that does not create more debt for the federal government, but all it needs are head put together to come up with a solution. How to put the surplus money to work, but make it easy to recall if it is needed.
  
  The policies of getting more people working at higher average wages are not different, the approaches for how to do so are. Some seem to think tax cuts will do it, but they haven’t proven to have consistently done so, if ever have proven to have done so without creating problems at the same time, especially if one is spending more than one takes in at the same time they are putting revenue cuts in place. Others think that since the private sector is doing things like firing Americans and hoarding (pocketing) the labor costs savings instead of rehiring Americans, especially at higher average wages, the government is needed to provide some stimulus, just like a heart attack patient needs some CPR and stabilization before they can get back to the type of health that does not need CPR or an ICU to survive and can do so on its own.
  
  Mr. Obama was correct, we have tried the free spending, bad risk taking, get-rich-quick greedy ways, we have tried the tax cuts for the wealthy, they haven’t worked.
  
  If people don’t want government to solve the economic woes then don’t look to criticize the government when it doesn’t solve them, look to within’ and get to work solving what they say the government shouldn’t.
  
  The “logic” of repeating the idea that “government does not create jobs” yet at the same time blaming the government for not creating jobs is pure absurdity.   Even if one tries to suggest that tax cuts are not the same as government creating jobs, the whole principle of tax cuts is to use government policy to stimulate growth by tax relief.
  
  Tax relief has been in place since 2001 and 2003 respectivley, yet I don’t see a lot, if any people praising all the job and economic growth those cuts and the Great Recession have provided for the nation. I see a lot of the opposite, yet who are they blaming for it?   To me it’s like getting caught red handed with your hand in the cookie jar and then trying to not only deny it, but blame the person that caught you and is trying to replace the cookies you stole from the cookie jar.
  
  Very best!
  - hennorama
    
    Thank you very much for your well-considered and well-written response.
    
    My main thesis about this recovery is that followed a “balance sheet” recession, and as a result, individuals and businesses have been repairing their balance sheets by paying down debt and adding to savings, rather than borrowing and spending. This has resulted in highly muted demand, as available cash resources have not been recirculating into the economy, as you very well said. This has been exacerbated by banks restricting lending through higher lending standards, as well as the fact of declining credit scores resulting from the damage of the Great Recession.
    
    Businesses remain cautious in light of this muted demand, and naturally are reluctant to hire and expand.
    
    While we are technically not in recession and are indeed in recovery, it still feels like a recession due to slow growth and stubbornly high unemployment. I’ve dubbed this “low and slow” recovery “The BBQ Recovery.”
    
    However, there are very encouraging signs that things may be at a tipping point. Household debt is now lower than it was before the Great Recession; housing is showing very positive signs; GDP last quarter grew faster then the prior quarter; the unemployment rate is finally below 8%.
    
    Now if we can just manuever past that pesky fiscal cliff …
  - notafeminista
    
    “Hoarding cash” used to be called “saving.”
    - Mike_Card
      
      No, saving used to be called investing. Hoarding cash was called hoarding cash.
      - notafeminista
        
        No, investing is just that. Spending your money on a venture(whether yours or someone else’s) in the hopes you will receive a return greater than what you spent.
        
        Saving means not spending at all. Or as the Left refers to it, “hoarding.”
      - Mike_Card
        
        If you think it’s a lefty/righty thing, you are probably the most stupid person posting on the board today.
http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF

So, how many pundits are going to be taken out of the Rolodex for getting this election wrong?

And I don’t mean “what they said since Sunday”, but what they’ve said since, say, Labor Day.
- nj_v2
  
  People still have Rolodexes?
  - http://profile.yahoo.com/JXSANCUDPIKQSPID5KT2U4XK5Y TF
    
    :-O
    
    I’ve been caught out as “not with it”. At least that’s what my Funk & Wagnalls says.
    
    I used to say Blackberry, but that’s like the Betamax of PDAs now.
    - nj_v2
      
      Not to worry. I have a little box of 3″ x 5″ index cards next to my (7+-year-old) desk computer that have passwords and screen names for an impossibly large number of Web sites given that i don’t think of myself as particularly computer centered or computer literate.
      
      I use a paper calendar/appointment book and still write grocery lists on the back of scrap paper.
      
      And we all still “dial” phone numbers.
- jefe68
  
  If I don’t see or hear from or of Newt Gingrich again that would be a good thing.
- J__o__h__n
  
  If being wrong were an impediment to that profession, we wouldn’t have been subjected to Mona this morning.
  - TomK_in_Boston
    
    LOL. I bet there will be some good angst on faux news and on hate radio today.
    
    If being wrong counted for anything at all, we wouldn’t still be hearing about tax cuts ‘n deregulation.
    - Duras
      
      I have been popping popcorn and watching Fox News since Obama has been elected and loving every moment.
  - 1Brett1
    
    I wish being wrong were an impediment to THAT profession: FoxNews would be on a monthly public access show in Lubbuck, Texas…
Gail26

I believe what we are seeing is not a country divided by politics per se, but instead a country with many of its citizens fearful of change. The country has evolved into a multicultural social powerhouse that for many creates fear of the familiar and a threat to what was thought of as “safe.” Until these fearful citizens can look in the mirror and ask themselves what about them creates this fear and respond honestly, the divide will continue.
�
Color, gender, race, language, sexual orientation all should never be met with just a minimum of “tolerance” as an acceptable threshold for building a country together. That someone has to “tolerate” someone else in itself allows for the continued maintenance of drawing a line in the sand between our fellow citizens.�
�
If there are citizens today that feel they “lost” something by the outcome of this election. Look in the mirror and think about what it is that you believe you really lost. What is it that you fear about the landscape of your country; your fellow citizens.
�
The country is changing. A majority of its citizens recognize this and wish to embrace it and move forward. But the forward move is not intended to go without those full of fear, or against them, but, instead with them.
Duras

It would be interesting to hear where Mitt Romney really stood on the issues. I grew up around his brand of republicanism (nowhere remotely as wealthy), but him and Ryan are the types that want to get rid of social security and medicare in order to put American retirements solely in a 401K to “encourage more economic growth.” Aside from that, I wonder what he really wanted to do with “Obamneycare,” climate change, economics in general. I bet he doesn’t give any thought to social issues.
- Jasoturner
  
  The fact that you are wondering this after four years of him running for president speaks volumes. Ezra Klein had an interesting take on Romney here:
  
  http://tinyurl.com/a49qnjz
  He may or may not be right, but at least it’s a plausible framing of things.
  - Gregg Smith
    
    I was looking for you on the troll show. I prefer live shad (if I get a net full) on side planers. Redfin lures work pretty well.
  - Duras
    
    Thanks for the article. There was a New Yorker article about Romney and how he got healthcare in Mass. It basically showed that he was data-driven until the data came to crossroads, then he would side with conservative principles. Hard to criticize that.
    
    I also saw a remark he made about “Following the principles Adam Smith laid out in Wealth of Nations.” I read that book almost right after he said that. I found that he doesn’t quite follow his principles, but often alludes to the text when it comes to creating a wealthy class instead of a wealthy nation. But all his allusions to Smith were political speech.
Michiganjf

Once the final House races are decided, it looks like Dems will only have to peel off 20 Republicans on votes which are KEY to the future of Americans.

Can it be done, or are ALL Republicans now so intransigent that even 20 out of 237 can’t be convinced to compromise for the good of Americans?
Michiganjf

Romney/Ryan LOST both of their home states for BOTH the Presidential ticket AND the Senate races!!!

Ryan squeeked by where a 6% flip would have booted him OUT of Congress altogether!

Is it OVER for the Republican Boy Wonder??!!!

I’d hate to have to see him again in four years!
- Jasoturner
  
  I’d love to see him in four years. His lack of sophistication would assure four more years for democrats to try and fix the damage that’s been done. The guy is totally not up to standing in the bright lights and answering the hard questions.
http://www.facebook.com/mitchell.b.easter Mitchell Blake Easter

I can’t believe these guests on your show saying that, in effect, everybody who voted for Obama is dependent on the government! And to hear again tired old idea that the interior of the country is where “real” people do “real” work- such a load of hooey! What about western ranchers grazing their herds on public land? That’s a very sweet deal for them from the US government. No doubt they generally see themselves as flinty individualists, totally self-made, which nobody actually is. I am in a business that gets zero attention or help from the government and I voted for Obama because he is drastically more realistic and forward-thinking than any Republican out there. And am I not correct in thinking that the auto bailout has been generally profitable for the taxpayers? Mainly, the Republicans on your show seem incapable of learning any lessons from reality, they seem as determined as ever to demonize huge numbers of the US population and show no willingness to budge from their untenable positions.
- ttajtt
  
  maybe they done us tarred and feathered our selfs.
TomK_in_Boston

There will be some great rants from hate radio and the faux people. Please post links.
- Gregg Smith
  
  Juan Williams, Bob Beckel, Kirstin Powers and other liberals on Fox sounded giddy to me. What was the reaction of the conservatives on MSNBC… oh wait…
  - TomK_in_Boston
    
    Did you see rove and some talking head woman actually arguing with the prediction of their own network on faux? The guys who do that stuff called Ohio for BHO, and instead of just saying “faux news has called Ohio for the kenyan socialist”, they went into the back room and tried to find a ray of hope. I never saw that before in many years of watching this stuff. If anyone still doubts that they are simply a media arm of the far right, that ought to be a convincer.
    - Gregg Smith
      
      It proved just the opposite. Fox was one of the first to call it despite King Rove’s objection. They called it because it was true and correct. That’s the way it’s supposed to be.
      - TomK_in_Boston
        
        No, they went into the back room and kept asking the guys if there was some reason to doubt their prediction, because they didn’t want it to be true, ie, they showed their bias. That would happen on no other network. I’m afraid you can only see the spin you want, however.
      - Gregg Smith
        
        No, that’s just good TV. They did not budge an inch. The decision room is Fox.
      - ExcellentNews
        
        Rupert Murdoch gave them marching orders. He must be afraid of being indicted under the Patriot Act, given that Pox News has done more harm to America than Al Quaeda and North Korea combined.
  - JGC
    
    I did listen to Rush Limbaugh today. He is still in processing mode from the debacle yesterday. Rush was purporting that it was impossible to have that sort of voting spread because everyone knows that the venues Obama booked were only half-filled (not true). Without obvious support of Obamamaniacs, Rush submits,it can only be concluded that there was possibly some undetected massive voter fraud. (Or maybe it was due to the treachery of Gov. Christie…)
    
    Another interesting interview was on NPR’s Marketplace program tonight. Frank Newport from Gallup polling was clearly peeved to have been caught out predicting Romney support at 49% and Obama at a percentage less than that, while Nate Silver used aggregate polling information to deliver a spot-on prediction of a comfortable Obama lead. Nobody believed Silver’s mathematical prognostications: not Rove, not Gallup, not Scarborough at MSNBC, not Limbaugh, not me; not anyone who was brainwashed into waiting for the tie vote that was to be adjudicated again by our judicially active conservative Supreme Court.
    - Gregg Smith
      
      JGC, you seem to be fair but grossly mistaken. Rush totally demolished the notion it was voter fraud. Totally. In the last seconds of one hour he sarcastically said, there is another explanation (than his) and it’s a massive conspiracy across 50 states who rigged the machines. He was poking fun at the notion. He clearly and demonstrably ridiculed those who believed it at the top of the next hour.
      
      I know it’s hard and I don’t expect you to follow through but listen to as much of Rush as I do Tom before you make any conclusions.
      
      I have to ask, and it’s dicey because I don’t want to accuse you of lying, did you actually listen or did you believe what someone else said about it?
      - JGC
        
        I did listen to Rush by streaming an Alabama country music station, although I did not listen to the full three hour program, just 20 minutes here and 10 minutes there as I went about my business. Maybe my sarcasm radar was not engaged, because I did not detect him poking fun at these ideas. I very, very rarely listen to Limbaugh, usually just a few times a year when I am driving back and forth from Pennsylvania to visit family. Yesterday, this did not sound like the typical Rush program; he seemed a bit tired or off his game, maybe up too late following the election results. Or too dejected.
        
        A bigger problem with choosing the Alabama station for Limbaugh’s show, was having to listen to commercial breaks for Piggly Wiggly’s smoked ham promotions, and some local eatery’s descriptions of their barbecue and hush puppy platters. Now, that was pure torture…mmmm, barbecue and hush puppies…
      - Gregg Smith
        
        This is sarcasm:
        
        RUSH: Folks, there is another explanation for this. Voting machines, all of them are rigged. The exit polling is BS. George Soros planned all of that to support the results, and he just let a couple Republicans win House races to make it look like he didn’t rig everything. That’s a possibility, too. (laughing)
    - http://www.facebook.com/chris.kellawan Chris Kellawan
      
      When will someone take Rush and Ann out behind the barn…..
    - ExcellentNews
      
      Rush is a professional actor, he does not care one way or another. Anything he says or does is calculated to drive viewership on the corporate sales channel labelled Pox News. Most of the millions he’s made shilling for the boss are probably in the Cayman Islands.
hennorama

The most inspiring single thing that I took away from the election:

Young voters made up an even greater part of the electorate (19%) than they did in 2008 (18%).

“…22-23 million young Americans (ages 18-29), or at least 49%, voted in Tuesday’s presidential election, according to national exit polls, demographic data, and current counts of votes cast.”

Sources:

http://www.civicyouth.org/youth-turnout-at-least-49-22-23-million-under-30-voted/
http://www.usatoday.com/story/theoval/2012/11/07/obama-romney-youth-vote-election/1690075/
- Jasoturner
  
  That *is* pretty inspiring. Usually young people are painted as indifferent slackers. Apparently not true. They care.
  - http://profile.yahoo.com/TAGLHQPCVNXD45NYZEOHPMFVOI Jordan Smith
    
    We do care. A lot. We talk to each other a lot, we are not going a way. The Internet mobilizes us and empowers us.
    - Gregg Smith
      
      No one wants you to go away.
ttajtt

some of what obama inherited was from us as will. its the way he was given it and all, like the office. the blink check and all, the pentagon should have been in charge. now making it though the next few years and have more then i started with with whom ever got in office.
Michele

Compromise means all parties move toward each other and give up one thing to gain something they value more. “The president doesn’t have a mandate so he better compromise” That doesn’t sound like compromise it sounds like capitulation. Enough of the childish petulance. The pundits still don’t get it…The center does exist and we are SICK and TIRED of partisanship, prognostication without insight, and empty patter.

This election was close but I do not see it as far left vs. far right mortal combat. Most people moved from the center either right or left and voted for the candidate they believed most aligned with their values. We’re not throwing fire bombs at each other, or dueling to the death over the soul of the country. For the most part we all follow the laws of this land and want an equal shot at those liberties afforded us in the Bill of Rights.

Picking up our toys and going home does not work …we all have to play in the same sandbox. America needs to grow up.
BLewis6

My mistake, I was talking about the previous show.
RobertLongView

Who made the republican party the party of business. Ayn Rand? Ha! The caller from Tenn is correct. They’ve been hijacked by the TEA party. And the TEA Party do not compromise. I hear your guest use the liberal agenda. Does he see the TEA Party Agenda?
Potter

Bravo!– Joan Walsh says it!
RobertLongView

I’m not sure Mitch MCConnell is afraid of a TEA Party challenge? He appears to be under the spell of the “Code of the Mountain Man.” Hatfield & MCCoy style. You know: “Be a man and die like your pappy did, son!”
RobertLongView

The caller from the “Red Neighborhood” (white male bitterness) is on to something. Then they get snookered into the TEA Party agenda. woe, woe woe oh… .
RobertLongView

Listen to Lindsay Grahamn? He is on the TEA Party next to be challenged list!
- JGC
  
  This is a continuing Koch Brothers conspiracy; it does our country no favors to pick off people with nuanced opinion, to be replaced by Kochbots that parrot Kochian values to promote their private enterprise. Remember, Koch Brothers Enterprises are privately held and not even beholden to the mild checks from shareholders and the board.
  - RobertLongView
    
    Also, it could be Norquist after Grahamn. They say Norquist is a fiscal cliff diver and has no fear. Probably has a 1% class investment hedge to cover the downside.
Daveatmav

How can we get the Congress to get things done? A constitutional amendment requiring congress to deliver to the president a budget 90 days prior to the end of the fiscal year. Failure to do this would mean that each congressman/woman would become ineligible to run for congress during the next election cycle, all of them. We can make this happen.
- RobertLongView
  
  Just kick the can further down the road. Keep taxes low and print more money. The Gov’t is not like Ma & Pa sitting at the kitchen table balancing their check book.
  - Human898
    
    Anyone here look at the debt during WWII and what followed? Debt in of itself is not the problem, ask the LBO folks. They depend upon debt and lots of it and they make lots of money by using other people’s money. What do people think the tax cuts are for? Creating jobs or creating more wealth for the already wealthy?
RobertLongView

It beats the heck out of hiring a Venture Capitalist to create jobs? You’ll likely get your pension plan assets raided and rolled into a tax free offshore trust for the CEO’s benefit!
spark84

I listened to tonight’s show and found the condescension from your hosts remarkable. I am white, with an AA, and on a daily basis, supervise many folks with professional degrees. I am far right of center of course, with many friends of various ethnic backgrounds that agree with me. Our common cord is past military service. I will never vote for candidates that place appeasement ahead of good principle. Leave the race issue out of this, as many of us have children of mixed heritage. Conservative thinkers shall always provide a path to success. Stringent government overregulation will only dampen the business climate. After this president fails, a conservative candidate will prevail in 2016.
- ExcellentNews
  
  “conservative thinkers shall always provide the path to success” ??? The historic record is that THINKERS of all stripes have contributed to the success of America. Likewise, thinkers of all stripes have been the source of disastrous ideas too. A pragmatic approach is the only way to success.
  
  As for your military service, assuming you are a real person telling the truth (and not a robo-poster) then thank you for your service. And please keep in mind that the Republican strategists have identified military service (together with church attendance) as one of the statistical variables that can be used to divide and rule the population. Since the 90s, the Republican party has become the party of global oligarchs, some of which are American only by nationality. Everything else is just targeted messaging aligned along these statistical variables to make their base vote.
  - spark84
    
    Yes, I have served in two branches. Unlike our heros that served in Viet Nam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, I have no combat time, but thank you. You are correct in that pragmatic thinkers expand business. But businesses are conservative by nature. Handouts to folks who expect things without working for them cannot ever advance commerce. You don’t get to six figures by occupying Wall Street. Some church attendees make excellent employees. They work hard and become successful, through belief and conviction. Obligarchs? I hope not! I think that many Republicans are actually rather unassuming and humble citizens with modest incomes. You seem to be a very bright individual, hopefully you will make a real difference in your community.
http://www.facebook.com/chris.kellawan Chris Kellawan

Mona was pretty upset that her arguments didn’t gain traction, she actually implied OnPoint is masochistic in a follow up to her, “going out on a limb” article. Sore loser….
ExcellentNews

Given that tax cuts for billionaires since 2000 have NOT created jobs (unless you count jobs exported abroad of course), I am at a loss why the Republican party insists on more tax cuts for billionaires – and are ready to send the American economy to hell in January if they don’t get them.
- ExcellentNews
  
  It would be interesting to see whether some of the hedge fund moguls behind Romney have bet short on the American economy, buy buying derivatives and options that pay off when we reach the “fiscal cliff”…

ONPOINT

TODAY

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IRS and AP scandals. White House damage control. More military sex abuse. Angelina Jolie. Our weekly news roundtable goes behind the headlines.

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