Hope and Change Obama Style

[92bDad]

Originally Posted by Arne

Hope and change in the eyes of children:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqDYL4wrLm8

Yet another GREAT Link!!!

A 3 year old and a 4 1/2 year old with a sharper understanding of what is happening than the freakin President!!!

[dude1394]

Another great decision by the obama team.

http://www.instituteforenergyresearc...f-middle-east/

IER: Interior Decision on Oil Shale Locks Away American Energy Resource Larger than Total Reserves of Middle East

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Institute for Energy Research (IER) president Thomas J. Pyle issued the following statement today after the Interior Department announced its plans to withdraw from consideration acreage in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming where research and development of a small portion of our nation’s homegrown oil shale reserves had previously been scheduled to take place:

“Earlier this week, Secretary Salazar suggested America’s massive and homegrown reserves of oil shale held ‘great potential.’ Unfortunately, the Interior Department’s decision today may help ensure that potential never becomes reality – in the process, locking-away an American energy resource larger than the total reserves of the entire Middle East.

“At a time of great economic uncertainty, with millions of Americans out of work and state budgets stretched beyond their breaking point, responsible development of America’s abundant shale resources could be a way out of our current condition, and a way back to a better one. The Interior Department’s announcement today effectively forecloses that opportunity.”

[dude1394]

As theOne said(or maybe he didn't...who the hell can keep up)...he was going to redistribute the wealth (per his rules) and he doesn't disappoint.

http://robertreich.blogspot.com/2009...ve-budget.html

Finally a Progressive Budget

President Obama’s new budget is, well, audacious -- not just because it includes several big, audacious initiatives (universally affordable health care, and a cap-and-trade system for coping with global warming, for starters) but also because it represents the biggest redistribution of income from the wealthy to the middle class and poor this nation has seen in more than forty years.

[Mavdog]

thie proposed budget is just what was spelled out in obama's platform and campaign.

the white house has put forward a good plan, spending that is correctly apportioned, with a fair and equitable distribution of the costs. they should be commended.

[dude1394]

More hope and change...theOne style. Yup..this is a serious budget allright.

http://corner.nationalreview.com/pos...ViMDU5NDNiZmI=

How will Obama find $2 trillion in savings over the next ten years, as he said he would last night? Easy. As White House spokesman Robert Gibbs hinted today in the White House press briefing, the White House can pretend that we would have otherwise been spending the same amount in Iraq through 2019. When we leave Iraq, we can call the difference "savings."

Here is the exchange that took place:

REPORTER: We were told last night that [the $2 trillion savings pledge] basically refers to two things. One is the expiration of tax cuts on the wealthy that would happen next year; and two is a reduction of what we are currently spending in Iraq.

GIBBS: No, I don't — I — I don't think so at all. It's an end of — it's an end to the commitment and the spending of that money . . .

GIBBS: I think that's — I think that's certainly a decent part of it. I don't know, not having seen — at least not having in front of me the formal documents to know whether that's a hundred percent."

REPORTER: Okay. But let me ask, is it transparent to say that tax increases are part of savings? And is it transparent to say that we're going to be saving that much from Iraq, when nobody expects that 10 years out we would be spending what we're spending today in Iraq? Even the previous administration agreed to get out of Iraq by 2012...

GIBBS: Well, I mean, if we're not spending the money and the money doesn't go out the door and the money doesn't increase the deficit, and the deficit decreases by some amount, ultimately getting you to the president's goal of halving a 1.2 (trillion dollar) to $1.3 trillion deficit in his first four years in office.

REPORTER: But if nobody expects to spend 10 years from now what we're spending today in Iraq, and we use that as our baseline, saying, 'Oh, we're saving because we're not spending what we did 10 years ago,' I mean, isn't that sort of setting up a funny money comparison?

[92bDad]

Originally Posted by Mavdog

thie proposed budget is just what was spelled out in obama's platform and campaign.

the white house has put forward a good plan, spending that is correctly apportioned, with a fair and equitable distribution of the costs. they should be commended.

Now you are starting to sound like me trying my darndest to defend President Bush.

Obama and the democrats are running with stuff that is indefensable and yet, the most hardcore supporters will refuse to say anything negative.

At the end of the day, neither you nor I want this nation to fail...however the direction this country is going will destroy everything that was built over 2 centuries.

All the more reason to get the democrats out in 2010, perhaps slowing down the destruction and actually giving this nation a glimmer of hope that we can rebuild.

[dude1394]

Originally Posted by 92bDad

Now you are starting to sound like me trying my darndest to defend President Bush.

Obama and the democrats are running with stuff that is indefensable and yet, the most hardcore supporters will refuse to say anything negative.

At the end of the day, neither you nor I want this nation to fail...however the direction this country is going will destroy everything that was built over 2 centuries.

All the more reason to get the democrats out in 2010, perhaps slowing down the destruction and actually giving this nation a glimmer of hope that we can rebuild.

I'm not so sure...I think mavie is in Krugmans camp.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/27/op...gman.html?_r=1

And this budget looks very, very good.

[Arne]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ca_aOvZPh-g

[Mavdog]

let's see, defense gets a 4% bump that will increase the salaries of our soldiers. are you against that?

the budget includes the actual costs of the iraq and afganistan conflicts. are you against that?

the budget forces the industries that put pollutants and particulates into our air to pay a cost. are you against that?

the budget increases the assistance provided to students who seek higher education. are you against that?

hhs gets reduced by almost 2%. are you against that?

a well crafted budget imo.

[92bDad]

Originally Posted by Mavdog

let's see, defense gets a 4% bump that will increase the salaries of our soldiers. are you against that?

the budget includes the actual costs of the iraq and afganistan conflicts. are you against that?

the budget forces the industries that put pollutants and particulates into our air to pay a cost. are you against that?

the budget increases the assistance provided to students who seek higher education. are you against that?

hhs gets reduced by almost 2%. are you against that?

a well crafted budget imo.

So what % is going to buying up banks? What about other failed private sector financial dealings? What about wasted spending on "Green" and "Global Warming"

Last I heard, this was like a kid over extending themselves only to have Mom and Dad bail them out...it's BAD Money Managment.

Heck only recently, did my own son have his car breakdown...the cost to fix it was abut $25 and some time to do the work. He didn't have the money...my wife and I did...but we told him no we wouldn't give him or even loan him the $25. Basically he has not made good decisions with his money and thus he needed to feel the consequences...his next paycheck, he used the money to get the part he needed, he then figured out how to fix it himself and guess what...he has started a savings account!!!

He actually got to feel the pain of bad decisions!!!

Now, are companies in serious pain...you bet they are. Are individuals at risk, saddly yes...but as long as the Government uses uncollected tax revenue to bail out bad decisions makers, we risk a much higher failure than is currently on the table.

After all, now the government owns 36-40% of some bank...forgive I forget which one was announced today, but this is a very BAD move.

As a general statement the government is icompetant and they are the last people I want getting involved in owning a bank.

It's already bad enough that they are stealing our hard earned dollars to cover a bankrupt social security system...now they are trying to steal the rest of our money.

What's happening in Washington is boardering on criminal...yet there is nothing we can do.

We now have Corrupt Chicago politics running the Nation.

It's crazy and worst part is that there are more than enough Democratic supporters who are burying their heads in the sand because they are too afraid to admit that they were and are WRONG!!!

I once heard that America would be destroyed from within, I never believed it was possbile until now.

We can only hope that if and when the Democrats get kicked out that we will be able to reverse the bad decisions being made...the very costly decisions!!!

[Mavdog]

apparently you aren't against any of the items I mentioned above, but you are against giving anyone (including your kid) a helping hand.

good to know...

[92bDad]

Originally Posted by Mavdog

apparently you aren't against any of the items I mentioned above, but you are against giving anyone (including your kid) a helping hand.

good to know...

I'm not against giving a helping hand, provided that the need is first legit and 2nd that they will be responsible with the help.

My son has had more than his fair share of help from me...but this was an opportunity to parent and allow natural consequences to take their course. Imagine that, it worked...he's different for the experience and now he and I are both better off.

I never stated that I was for or against the items you listed...I would have to learn more about the bill and how those items are being carried out, as well as were are they getting the money to fund those things?

Truth be known, I haven't had a pay raise since 2001...so to give a raise just because some time has gone by doesn't work for me.

I'm not saying people shouln't get raises...but to arbitrarerly (SP?) give a raise because it's 2009 and you were with us in 2008 is foolish.

I'm more of a bonus guy...contribute to the bottom line, increase the profits and share the profits as bonus to those within the company.

How does that apply to the military...there are more than enough sufficient ways to provide incentives to soldiers to earn additional "Bonuses" If you want to get a raise on your base pay, then do what is needed to get promoted.

I would even argue to allow some additional options for exceptional Non-Coms to move into a commissioned role.

Ultimately, the responsibility comes down to the individual.

Don't get me wrong, if you and your democratic colleagues want to give me a handout, hey I'll be glad to receive a free gift with no strings attached...to do with as I see best. Just make sure you are not stealing it from a neighbor prior to giving it to me...I just might give it back to him.

[wmbwinn]

President Obama has laid out the most ambitious and expensive domestic agenda since LBJ, and now all he has to do is figure out how to pay for it. On Tuesday, he left the impression that we need merely end "tax breaks for the wealthiest 2% of Americans," and he promised that households earning less than $250,000 won't see their taxes increased by "one single dime."

This is going to be some trick. Even the most basic inspection of the IRS income tax statistics shows that raising taxes on the salaries, dividends and capital gains of those making more than $250,000 can't possibly raise enough revenue to fund Mr. Obama's new spending ambitions.

Consider the IRS data for 2006, the most recent year that such tax data are available and a good year for the economy and "the wealthiest 2%." Roughly 3.8 million filers had adjusted gross incomes above $200,000 in 2006. (That's about 7% of all returns; the data aren't broken down at the $250,000 point.) These people paid about $522 billion in income taxes, or roughly 62% of all federal individual income receipts. The richest 1% -- about 1.65 million filers making above $388,806 -- paid some $408 billion, or 39.9% of all income tax revenues, while earning about 22% of all reported U.S. income.

Note that federal income taxes are already "progressive" with a 35% top marginal rate, and that Mr. Obama is (so far) proposing to raise it only to 39.6%, plus another two percentage points in hidden deduction phase-outs. He'd also raise capital gains and dividend rates, but those both yield far less revenue than the income tax. These combined increases won't come close to raising the hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue that Mr. Obama is going to need.

But let's not stop at a 42% top rate; as a thought experiment, let's go all the way. A tax policy that confiscated 100% of the taxable income of everyone in America earning over $500,000 in 2006 would only have given Congress an extra $1.3 trillion in revenue. That's less than half the 2006 federal budget of $2.7 trillion and looks tiny compared to the more than $4 trillion Congress will spend in fiscal 2010. Even taking every taxable "dime" of everyone earning more than $75,000 in 2006 would have barely yielded enough to cover that $4 trillion.

Fast forward to this year (and 2010) when the Wall Street meltdown and recession are going to mean far few taxpayers earning more than $500,000. Profits are plunging, businesses are cutting or eliminating dividends, hedge funds are rolling up, and, most of all, capital nationwide is on strike. Raising taxes now will thus yield far less revenue than it would have in 2006.

Mr. Obama is of course counting on an economic recovery. And he's also assuming along with the new liberal economic consensus that taxes don't matter to growth or job creation. The truth, though, is that they do. Small- and medium-sized businesses are the nation's primary employers, and lower individual tax rates have induced thousands of them to shift from filing under the corporate tax system to the individual system, often as limited liability companies or Subchapter S corporations. The Tax Foundation calculates that merely restoring the higher, Clinton-era tax rates on the top two brackets would hit 45% to 55% of small-business income, depending on how inclusively "small business" is defined. These owners will find a way to declare less taxable income.

The bottom line is that Mr. Obama is selling the country on a 2% illusion. Unwinding the U.S. commitment in Iraq and allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire can't possibly pay for his agenda. Taxes on the not-so-rich will need to rise as well.

On that point, by the way, it's unclear why Mr. Obama thinks his climate-change scheme won't hit all Americans with higher taxes. Selling the right to emit greenhouse gases amounts to a steep new tax on most types of energy and, therefore, on all Americans who use energy. There's a reason that Charlie Rangel's Ways and Means panel, which writes tax law, is holding hearings this week on cap-and-trade regulation.

Mr. Obama is very good at portraying his agenda as nothing more than center-left pragmatism. But pragmatists don't ignore the data. And the reality is that the only way to pay for Mr. Obama's ambitions is to reach ever deeper into the pockets of the American middle class.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1235...mEditorialPage

[aquaadverse]

This "If you make less than $250K your taxes won't increase one dime" is crap. I'm not sure when the magic happened to stop businesses from passing on increases in overhead to their customers.


Just make a VAT and be done with it.

http://money.cnn.com/2008/12/01/news...tune/index.htm

I guess that would make it too easy to figure out the insanity.And it's too easy to reverse.

I was in a wait and see mode right after the election. Of course Obama was talking about a $300 billion stimulus back then.

No one seems concerned about how to administer this swag so big chunks aren't flat out stolen. Considering a significant amount is passed to the States, the deficit number isn't the only thing we are double downing.

[dude1394]

Hope and change and bull.

Barack Obama has a remarkable ability to utter howlers with a straight face, but this one from today's radio address, talking about his proposed budget, stretched even his flexible standards of truth:

As Obama well knows, lobbyists all over Washington are lighting cigars with $50 bills at the prospect of having $3.7 trillion worth of spoils to divvy up. Obama must think the American people--his supporters, anyway--are complete idiots.

[nikeball]

I am not a big politics guy..but.. I found this picture amusing.



Change you can believe in. Vote Prime 2012.

[dude1394]

Heh...

Obama said he would have to instill "some flinty Chicago toughness" into Washingtonians.

Well, how things quickly change.

No sooner had the Prime Minister's plane touched down at Andrews Air Force on Monday evening when word was passed to travelling Westminster correspondents that the press conference they'd been told to expect had been called off "because of snow".

[dude1394]

Sometimes there's so much hope and change that I just can't take it.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090302/...obama_spending

WASHINGTON – Despite campaign promises to take a machete to lawmakers' pet projects, President Barack Obama is quietly caving to funding nearly 8,000 of them this year, drawing a stern rebuke Monday from his Republican challenger in last fall's election.

Arizona Sen. John McCain said it is "insulting to the American people" for Obama's budget director to indicate over the weekend that the president will sign a $410 billion spending bill with what Republicans critics say is nearly $5.5 billion in pet projects known as earmarks.

"So much for the promise of change," McCain said in the first of many assaults he is likely to make against pork-barrel spending this year.

Democrats contend that earmarks in the bill total only $3.8 billion, less than 1 percent of the amount Congress is approving to finance government programs through September. Taxpayers for Common Sense, an anti-earmark watchdog group, counts them differently and found $7.7 billion worth.

And Democrats are not alone in funding pet projects. As the minority party in Congress, Republicans claim roughly 40 percent of earmarks, though McCain and House GOP leader John Boehner of Ohio, among others, refuse them. The largess is likely to help ease the measure's way through the Senate.

White House Budget Director Peter Orsazg said Sunday that the new administration wants to "move on ... get this bill done, get it into law and move forward." Obama's chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, called the bill and its 8 percent spending increase over 2008 "last year's business."

Obama is hardly the first president to promise to make Congress change its pork-barreling ways, and he certainly won't be the last. But he is the first to retreat so quickly, after only six weeks in the White House.

"I just went through a campaign ... where both candidates promised change in Washington, promised change from the wasteful, disgraceful, corrupting practice of earmarked, pork-barrel spending," McCain said. "So what we doing here? Not only business as usual, (but) an outrageous insult to the American people."

Only a week ago, Obama was pressing Democratic leaders in Congress to pare back the earmarks at a private White House meeting.

The president, however, hit a brick wall with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and other Democrats who treasure their right to send taxpayer money to their states and districts for park improvements, university research grants, equipment for police departments and redevelopment projects.

"I'm here to tell everyone that we have an obligation as members of Congress to help direct spending to our states," Reid told reporters last week.

That's the kind of treatment President George W. Bush got from his allies in Congress after he took office eight years ago. Like Obama, he wanted to curb lawmakers' appetite for pet projects, but he also was firmly rebuffed.

In Bush's case, it was top GOP leaders — House Speaker Dennis Hastert of Illinois and House Majority Whip Tom DeLay of Texas — who defended earmarks and made the White House back off. They saw them as helping endangered Republicans keep their seats and a way to reward rank-and-file lawmakers willing to toe the leadership's line.

The common thread for Obama and Bush is that the strongest defenders of earmarks also were or are their top allies in Congress — the very people a president needs to advance the rest of his agenda.

Obama administration officials making the rounds on the Sunday news shows promised reductions in the next round of spending bills — and said it was simply time to move on from last year's business.

"We're going to have to make some other changes, going forward, to ... reduce the ultimate number," Emanuel said on CBS' "Face The Nation" on Sunday.

Obama, who swore off his own earmarks during last year's campaign after seeking them earlier in his Senate career, promised last year to force earmarks down to 1994 levels — when Democrats were ousted from their longtime congressional majorities.

Instead, according to an analysis by the GOP staff of the House Appropriations Committee, Obama is poised to sign a measure containing 7,991 earmarks totaling $5.5 billion. That's on top of $6.2 billion worth of pet projects passed last year when Congress adopted a bill bundling together the budgets for the Defense, Homeland Security and Veteran Affairs departments.

Because of rules imposed by Republicans in the waning days of GOP control of Congress and strengthened by Democrats two years ago, the earmark process is far more transparent than it was before. The cost and purpose of each earmark, along with its sponsor or sponsors, is identified in documents accompanying the legislation and on the Internet.

With the new transparency, it's far easier for voters and anti-pork groups such as Taxpayers for Common Sense, a Washington-based watchdog group, to scrutinize legislation.

Among its many earmarks, the pending bill contains grants for social services agencies to help seniors and at-risk youth, money for police department to purchase dashboard cameras, agricultural research such as $1.7 million for honey bee research in Texas, road projects and help for transit agencies.

[92bDad]

Obama’s Scary Hoover-Style Tax Hikes
By Phil Kerpen
Director of Policy, Americans for Prosperity
The composition of the tax hikes in the 2010 budget is frighteningly similar to the Revenue Act of 1932, the much-maligned Hoover tax hikes that put the “Great” in Great Depression by putting an enormous tax burden on millions of Americans, largely through excise taxes. These taxes, raised even further by FDR, were justified by the promise that the funds would be returned in the form of relief programs, which is to say that some portion of the tax revenue, after administrative costs in Washington, would go back to the states with strings attached, often to further political rather than economic objectives.
As the table below shows, the Obama budget blueprint, like the 1932 act, is split mainly between broad excise taxes and income tax hikes on high income earners. Unfortunately, there were no 10-years projections back then, so I had to use one year numbers, but it’s still an interesting comparison.


NOTE...I tried to copy/paste the table from this article...when I have time later this afternoon, I will try to add to this...with a link...my apologies for not getting the full article/graph posted. However the text is pretty alarming...


Courtesy Phil Kerpen
The 2010 budget assumes, probably correctly, that the only way to generate a big revenue increase in the face of severe economic weakness is to use a tax mechanism–the excise tax–that is collected in relatively small increments across millions of transactions made by Americans of all income levels. That is a direct lesson of 1932, when the income tax on the rich–then the only people who paid income taxes–was raised to capture as much revenue as possible before high-income earners fled the country or stopped working. Then, as now, that amount was about 0.3 percent of GDP.
Excise taxes did most of the revenue work in the 1932 act, including excises on everything from trucks, tires, jewelry, chewing gum, and soft drinks to gasoline and electricity. Those last two are especially interesting in light of the carbon cap-and-trade proposal in the 2010 budget, which is a de facto excise tax on those items as well as every other energy technology that relies on the most affordable energy sources: natural gas, oil, and coal.
Despite President Obama’s promise that “If your family earns less than $250,000 a year, you will not see your taxes increase a single dime. I repeat: not one single dime,” his new budget raises 45 percent of its revenue from energy taxes that will be paid by everyone who fills a gas tank, pays an electric bill, or buys anything that was grown, shipped, or manufactured.
While the overall tax hike is smaller than 1932 (0.9 percent of GDP versus 1.6 percent of GDP) and the excise/energy component is only half the size (0.4 percent of GDP versus 0.8 percent of GDP) there is every reason to believe that the bite of the cap-and-trade tax will increase considerably beyond the initial projections, making this plan even more resemble 1932.
The cap-and-trade provisions are designed to get much, much more expensive over time, making the total impact hard to quantify but likely to be as or more expensive than the 1932 Revenue Act. In fact, Obama’s version of cap-and-trade is much more expensive than last year’s already outrageous Lieberman-Warner bill, mandating emissions cuts of 83 percent versus 63 percent in last year’s version.
I didn’t include the death tax in the chart, because there was no revenue estimate for it in 1932, but that’s another eerie parallel. In 1932 the rate was hiked from 20 percent to 45 percent, and in 2010, under Obama’s proposal (which is hidden in a footnote in the budget) it will go from zero under current law to that same 45 percent rate.
If we continue down a path of repeating the policies of the 1930s we risk a repeat of the same results. Let’s hope Congress has the good sense to say no to these Hoover-style tax hikes.

[alexamenos]

McCain frets over $5.5 billion in earmarks., or 1.5% of the $410 billion bill.

How is that 1.5% of the bill any more wasteful more wasteful than the other 98.5%? My guess is we think it's more wasteful because it's all the more clear where it's going --

-- a buck fifty goes into something which we readily and immediately recognize as something we wouldn't buy with our own money, like a new homo museum in san fran. But the other $98.5 goes into...i dunno, "the Department of Great Things for Kids", and who doesn't want great things for Kids? The DGTK then spends $98 on two over paid fat women who prepare useless reports for a bureaucrat when they're not eating powdered donuts, and then the bureaucrat files the report and then spends the remaining fifty cents to hire a contractor to do something that isn't worth fifty cents, much less $98.50.

But McCain doesn't bitch about that 98.5%, because he wants his big government and his reform too.

[dude1394]

McCain can be extremely stupid.

[Mavdog]

Originally Posted by 92bDad

Obama’s Scary Hoover-Style Tax Hikes
By Phil Kerpen
Director of Policy, Americans for Prosperity
The composition of the tax hikes in the 2010 budget is frighteningly similar to the Revenue Act of 1932, the much-maligned Hoover tax hikes that put the “Great” in Great Depression by putting an enormous tax burden on millions of Americans, largely through excise taxes. These taxes, raised even further by FDR, were justified by the promise that the funds would be returned in the form of relief programs, which is to say that some portion of the tax revenue, after administrative costs in Washington, would go back to the states with strings attached, often to further political rather than economic objectives.
As the table below shows, the Obama budget blueprint, like the 1932 act, is split mainly between broad excise taxes and income tax hikes on high income earners. Unfortunately, there were no 10-years projections back then, so I had to use one year numbers, but it’s still an interesting comparison.


NOTE...I tried to copy/paste the table from this article...when I have time later this afternoon, I will try to add to this...with a link...my apologies for not getting the full article/graph posted. However the text is pretty alarming...


Courtesy Phil Kerpen
The 2010 budget assumes, probably correctly, that the only way to generate a big revenue increase in the face of severe economic weakness is to use a tax mechanism–the excise tax–that is collected in relatively small increments across millions of transactions made by Americans of all income levels. That is a direct lesson of 1932, when the income tax on the rich–then the only people who paid income taxes–was raised to capture as much revenue as possible before high-income earners fled the country or stopped working. Then, as now, that amount was about 0.3 percent of GDP.
Excise taxes did most of the revenue work in the 1932 act, including excises on everything from trucks, tires, jewelry, chewing gum, and soft drinks to gasoline and electricity. Those last two are especially interesting in light of the carbon cap-and-trade proposal in the 2010 budget, which is a de facto excise tax on those items as well as every other energy technology that relies on the most affordable energy sources: natural gas, oil, and coal.
Despite President Obama’s promise that “If your family earns less than $250,000 a year, you will not see your taxes increase a single dime. I repeat: not one single dime,” his new budget raises 45 percent of its revenue from energy taxes that will be paid by everyone who fills a gas tank, pays an electric bill, or buys anything that was grown, shipped, or manufactured.
While the overall tax hike is smaller than 1932 (0.9 percent of GDP versus 1.6 percent of GDP) and the excise/energy component is only half the size (0.4 percent of GDP versus 0.8 percent of GDP) there is every reason to believe that the bite of the cap-and-trade tax will increase considerably beyond the initial projections, making this plan even more resemble 1932.
The cap-and-trade provisions are designed to get much, much more expensive over time, making the total impact hard to quantify but likely to be as or more expensive than the 1932 Revenue Act. In fact, Obama’s version of cap-and-trade is much more expensive than last year’s already outrageous Lieberman-Warner bill, mandating emissions cuts of 83 percent versus 63 percent in last year’s version.
I didn’t include the death tax in the chart, because there was no revenue estimate for it in 1932, but that’s another eerie parallel. In 1932 the rate was hiked from 20 percent to 45 percent, and in 2010, under Obama’s proposal (which is hidden in a footnote in the budget) it will go from zero under current law to that same 45 percent rate.
If we continue down a path of repeating the policies of the 1930s we risk a repeat of the same results. Let’s hope Congress has the good sense to say no to these Hoover-style tax hikes.

ridiculous article.

the 1932 act mentioned above increased taxes on ALL income segments, with much higher increases than what is being proposed by the current administration.

the whole premise of this article, "hoover-style tax hikes", is false.

[dude1394]

Hope and change...Union style!!!!
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123604286020215187.html

Dick Durbin has a nasty surprise for two of Sasha and Malia Obama's new schoolmates. And it puts the president in an awkward position.

The children are Sarah and James Parker. Like the Obama girls, Sarah and James attend the Sidwell Friends School in our nation's capital. Unlike the Obama girls, they could not afford the school without the $7,500 voucher they receive from the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship program. Unfortunately, a spending bill the Senate takes up this week includes a poison pill that would kill this program -- and with it perhaps the Parker children's hopes for a Sidwell diploma.

In today's press briefing, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs was asked about McGurn's article and Obama's opposition to school choice. He was not able to muster a coherent response:

QUESTION: On education, there's a provision in the omnibus spending bill that would sunset the D.C. voucher plan. And I'm wondering -- there's been a lot of publicity about this brother and sister pair at Sidwell who use their voucher money to -- to pay for tuition at the same school the president chose to send his children. I'm wondering if you could restate the president's opposition to the D.C. voucher plan and why he's...
(CROSSTALK)
GIBBS: Yes, I -- I would -- let me go -- I've not read the article today, if there was one. I think the...
QUESTION: Well, it's just about two kids who use their voucher money to go to Sidwell. I mean...
GIBBS: Right. I mean, I think -- right.
QUESTION: I mean -- I mean, and they would -- in other words, if they cut the voucher program, they couldn't go there.
GIBBS: Why are you even providing me the opportunity to be the middleman? I mean, again...
QUESTION: Well, could you just restate the president's position?
GIBBS: Well, I think the president has concerns about -- concerns about taking large amounts of funding out of the system to -- to address this, that the president obviously believes -- and I think you'll hear him talk about and has talked about -- the need for reform in our educational system, but -- but has not agreed with the program in the past. I'll see if there's anything to update on that.

Of course, it's hard to answer a question when you can't tell the truth. Gibbs couldn't very well say that President Obama and the Democratic Party are in the bag for the teachers' unions and don't much care what happens to inner-city kids. Could he?

[dude1394]

More hope and change from theOne. So happy that he's going to tackle those earmarks and that mean old deficit...after he gets his fill.

http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/72876/

Candidate Obama said then “we can no longer accept a process that doles out earmarks based on a member of Congress’ seniority, rather than the merit of the project. We can no longer accept an earmarks process that has become so complicated to navigate that a municipality or non-profit group has to hire high-priced D.C. lobbyists to do it. And we can no longer accept an earmarks process in which many of the projects being funded fail to address the real needs of our country.”

Today, of course, President Obama will sign into law more than 8,000 earmarks for FY 2009, part of the $410 billion omnibus spending bill.

But he pledged to work with Congress to reform the earmark process.

[chumdawg]

And he presently IS working with Congress to reform the process, just as he stated.

[dude1394]

[Flacolaco]

Alright...that's pretty funny.

[dude1394]

Couldn't agree more...

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/art...out_limit.html

Morally Unserious in the Extreme
By Charles Krauthammer

WASHINGTON -- Last week, the White House invited me to a signing ceremony overturning the Bush (43) executive order on stem cell research. I assume this was because I have long argued in these columns and during my five years on the President's Council on Bioethics that, contrary to the Bush policy, federal funding should be extended to research on embryonic stem cell lines derived from discarded embryos in fertility clinics.

I declined to attend. Once you show your face at these things you become a tacit endorser of whatever they spring. My caution was vindicated.

Bush had restricted federal funding for embryonic stem cell research to cells derived from embryos that had already been destroyed (as of his speech of Aug. 9, 2001). While I favor moving that moral line to additionally permit the use of spare fertility clinic embryos, Obama replaced it with no line at all. He pointedly left open the creation of cloned -- and noncloned sperm-and-egg-derived -- human embryos solely for the purpose of dismemberment and use for parts.

I am not religious. I do not believe that personhood is conferred upon conception. But I also do not believe that a human embryo is the moral equivalent of a hangnail and deserves no more respect than an appendix. Moreover, given the protean power of embryonic manipulation, the temptation it presents to science, and the well-recorded human propensity for evil even in the pursuit of good, lines must be drawn. I suggested the bright line prohibiting the deliberate creation of human embryos solely for the instrumental purpose of research -- a clear violation of the categorical imperative not to make a human life (even if only a potential human life) a means rather than an end.

On this, Obama has nothing to say. He leaves it entirely to the scientists. This is more than moral abdication. It is acquiescence to the mystique of "science" and its inherent moral benevolence. How anyone as sophisticated as Obama can believe this within living memory of Mengele and Tuskegee and the fake (and coercive) South Korean stem cell research is hard to fathom.

That part of the ceremony, watched from the safe distance of my office, made me uneasy. The other part -- the ostentatious issuance of a memorandum on "restoring scientific integrity to government decision-making" -- would have made me walk out.

Restoring? The implication, of course, is that while Obama is guided solely by science, Bush was driven by dogma, ideology and politics.

What an outrage. George Bush's nationally televised stem cell speech was the most morally serious address on medical ethics ever given by an American president. It was so scrupulous in presenting the best case for both his view and the contrary view that until the last few minutes, the listener had no idea where Bush would come out.

Obama's address was morally unserious in the extreme. It was populated, as his didactic discourses always are, with a forest of straw men. Such as his admonition that we must resist the "false choice between sound science and moral values." Yet, exactly 2 minutes and 12 seconds later he went on to declare that he would never open the door to the "use of cloning for human reproduction."

Does he not think that a cloned human would be of extraordinary scientific interest? And yet he banned it.

Is he so obtuse not to see that he had just made a choice of ethics over science? Yet, unlike President Bush, who painstakingly explained the balance of ethical and scientific goods he was trying to achieve, Obama did not even pretend to make the case why some practices are morally permissible and others not.

This is not just intellectual laziness. It is the moral arrogance of a man who continuously dismisses his critics as ideological while he is guided exclusively by pragmatism (in economics, social policy, foreign policy) and science in medical ethics.

Science has everything to say about what is possible. Science has nothing to say about what is permissible. Obama's pretense that he will "restore science to its rightful place" and make science, not ideology, dispositive in moral debates is yet more rhetorical sleight of hand -- this time to abdicate decision-making and color his own ideological preferences as authentically "scientific."

Dr. James Thomson, the discoverer of embryonic stem cells, said "if human embryonic stem cell research does not make you at least a little bit uncomfortable, you have not thought about it enough." Obama clearly has not.

[Mavdog]

from the writing above it is as if krauthammer didn't listen to nor read the words of obama....yes, this is the change that many americans hoped for, and it is change that can bring positive, beneficial results.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Remarks of President Barack Obama – As Prepared for Delivery

Signing of Stem Cell Executive Order and Scientific Integrity Presidential Memorandum
Washington, DC
March 9, 2009

Today, with the Executive Order I am about to sign, we will bring the change that so many scientists and researchers; doctors and innovators; patients and loved ones have hoped for, and fought for, these past eight years: we will lift the ban on federal funding for promising embryonic stem cell research. We will vigorously support scientists who pursue this research. And we will aim for America to lead the world in the discoveries it one day may yield.

At this moment, the full promise of stem cell research remains unknown, and it should not be overstated. But scientists believe these tiny cells may have the potential to help us understand, and possibly cure, some of our most devastating diseases and conditions. To regenerate a severed spinal cord and lift someone from a wheelchair. To spur insulin production and spare a child from a lifetime of needles. To treat Parkinson’s, cancer, heart disease and others that affect millions of Americans and the people who love them.

But that potential will not reveal itself on its own. Medical miracles do not happen simply by accident. They result from painstaking and costly research – from years of lonely trial and error, much of which never bears fruit – and from a government willing to support that work. From life-saving vaccines, to pioneering cancer treatments, to the sequencing of the human genome – that is the story of scientific progress in America. When government fails to make these investments, opportunities are missed. Promising avenues go unexplored. Some of our best scientists leave for other countries that will sponsor their work. And those countries may surge ahead of ours in the advances that transform our lives.

But in recent years, when it comes to stem cell research, rather than furthering discovery, our government has forced what I believe is a false choice between sound science and moral values. In this case, I believe the two are not inconsistent. As a person of faith, I believe we are called to care for each other and work to ease human suffering. I believe we have been given the capacity and will to pursue this research – and the humanity and conscience to do so responsibly.

It is a difficult and delicate balance. Many thoughtful and decent people are conflicted about, or strongly oppose, this research. I understand their concerns, and we must respect their point of view.

But after much discussion, debate and reflection, the proper course has become clear. The majority of Americans – from across the political spectrum, and of all backgrounds and beliefs – have come to a consensus that we should pursue this research. That the potential it offers is great, and with proper guidelines and strict oversight, the perils can be avoided.

That is a conclusion with which I agree. That is why I am signing this Executive Order, and why I hope Congress will act on a bi-partisan basis to provide further support for this research. We are joined today by many leaders who have reached across the aisle to champion this cause, and I commend them for that work.

Ultimately, I cannot guarantee that we will find the treatments and cures we seek. No President can promise that. But I can promise that we will seek them – actively, responsibly, and with the urgency required to make up for lost ground. Not just by opening up this new frontier of research today, but by supporting promising research of all kinds, including groundbreaking work to convert ordinary human cells into ones that resemble embryonic stem cells.

I can also promise that we will never undertake this research lightly. We will support it only when it is both scientifically worthy and responsibly conducted. We will develop strict guidelines, which we will rigorously enforce, because we cannot ever tolerate misuse or abuse. And we will ensure that our government never opens the door to the use of cloning for human reproduction. It is dangerous, profoundly wrong, and has no place in our society, or any society.

This Order is an important step in advancing the cause of science in America. But let’s be clear: promoting science isn’t just about providing resources – it is also about protecting free and open inquiry. It is about letting scientists like those here today do their jobs, free from manipulation or coercion, and listening to what they tell us, even when it’s inconvenient – especially when it’s inconvenient. It is about ensuring that scientific data is never distorted or concealed to serve a political agenda – and that we make scientific decisions based on facts, not ideology.

By doing this, we will ensure America’s continued global leadership in scientific discoveries and technological breakthroughs. That is essential not only for our economic prosperity, but for the progress of all humanity.

That is why today, I am also signing a Presidential Memorandum directing the head of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy to develop a strategy for restoring scientific integrity to government decision making. To ensure that in this new Administration, we base our public policies on the soundest science; that we appoint scientific advisors based on their credentials and experience, not their politics or ideology; and that we are open and honest with the American people about the science behind our decisions. That is how we will harness the power of science to achieve our goals – to preserve our environment and protect our national security; to create the jobs of the future, and live longer, healthier lives.

As we restore our commitment to science, and resume funding for promising stem cell research, we owe a debt of gratitude to so many tireless advocates, some of whom are with us today, many of whom are not. Today, we honor all those whose names we don’t know, who organized, and raised awareness, and kept on fighting – even when it was too late for them, or for the people they love. And we honor those we know, who used their influence to help others and bring attention to this cause – people like Christopher and Dana Reeve, who we wish could be here to see this moment.

One of Christopher’s friends recalled that he hung a sign on the wall of the exercise room where he did his grueling regimen of physical therapy. It read: "For everyone who thought I couldn’t do it. For everyone who thought I shouldn’t do it. For everyone who said, ‘It’s impossible.’ See you at the finish line."

Christopher once told a reporter who was interviewing him: "If you came back here in ten years, I expect that I’d walk to the door to greet you."

Christopher did not get that chance. But if we pursue this research, maybe one day – maybe not in our lifetime, or even in our children’s lifetime – but maybe one day, others like him might.

There is no finish line in the work of science. The race is always with us – the urgent work of giving substance to hope and answering those many bedside prayers, of seeking a day when words like "terminal" and "incurable" are finally retired from our vocabulary.

Today, using every resource at our disposal, with renewed determination to lead the world in the discoveries of this new century, we rededicate ourselves to this work.

Thank you, God bless you, and may God bless America.
--------------------------------------------------------------
the executive order:

REMOVING BARRIERS TO RESPONSIBLE SCIENTIFIC
RESEARCH INVOLVING HUMAN STEM CELLS

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered as follows:

Section 1. Policy. Research involving human embryonic stem cells and human non-embryonic stem cells has the potential to lead to better understanding and treatment of many disabling diseases and conditions. Advances over the past decade in this promising scientific field have been encouraging, leading to broad agreement in the scientific community that the research should be supported by Federal funds.

For the past 8 years, the authority of the Department of Health and Human Services, including the National Institutes of Health (NIH), to fund and conduct human embryonic stem cell research has been limited by Presidential actions. The purpose of this order is to remove these limitations on scientific inquiry, to expand NIH support for the exploration of human stem cell research, and in so doing to enhance the contribution of America's scientists to important new discoveries and new therapies for the benefit of humankind.

Sec. 2. Research. The Secretary of Health and Human Services (Secretary), through the Director of NIH, may support and conduct responsible, scientifically worthy human stem cell research, including human embryonic stem cell research, to the extent permitted by law.

Sec. 3. Guidance. Within 120 days from the date of this order, the Secretary, through the Director of NIH, shall review existing NIH guidance and other widely recognized guidelines on human stem cell research, including provisions establishing appropriate safeguards, and issue new NIH guidance on such research that is consistent with this order. The Secretary, through NIH, shall review and update such guidance periodically, as appropriate.

Sec. 4. General Provisions. (a) This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.

(b) Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:

(i) authority granted by law to an executive department, agency, or the head thereof; or

(ii) functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.

(c) This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity, by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.

Sec. 5. Revocations. (a) The Presidential statement of August 9, 2001, limiting Federal funding for research involving human embryonic stem cells, shall have no further effect as a statement of governmental policy.

(b) Executive Order 13435 of June 20, 2007, which supplements the August 9, 2001, statement on human embryonic stem cell research, is revoked.

BARACK OBAMA

[dude1394]

I never understood Picasso until now.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archive.../03/023060.php

[chumdawg]

You also don't understand where Obama is coming from.

[Murphy3]

damn multi-quote function isn't working properly for me or somesuch.

[dude1394]

Yea...I'm sure that only if you are pro-obama-policies (or just willing to give him the benefit of the doubt) do you know where he's coming from.

[12 Tone Melodies]

http://www.cnsnews.com/public/conten...x?RsrcID=44943
Obama Signs Law Banning Federal Embryo Research Two Days After Signing Executive Order to OK It
Friday, March 13, 2009
By Terence P. Jeffrey, Editor-in-Chief
(CNSNews.com) - On Wednesday, only two days after he lifted President Bush’s executive order banning federal funding of stem cell research that requires the destruction of human embryos, President Barack Obama signed a law that explicilty bans federal funding of any "research in which a human embryo or embryos are destroyed, discarded, or knowingly subjected to risk of injury or death."

The provision was buried in the 465-page omnibus appropriations bill that Obama signed Wednesday. Known as the Dickey-Wicker amendment, it has been included in the annual appropriations bill for the Department of Health and Human Services every fiscal year since 1996.

The amendment says, in part: "None of the funds made available in this Act may be used for—(1) the creation of a human embryo or embryos for research purposes; or (2) research in which a human embryo or embryos are destroyed, discarded, or knowingly subjected to risk of injury or death."

Found in Section 509 of Title V of the omnibus bill (at page 280 of the 465-page document), the federal funding ban not only prohibits the government from providing tax dollars to support research that kills or risks injury to a human embryo, it also mandates that the government use an all-inclusive definition of “human embryo” that encompasses any nascent human life from the moment that life comes into being, even if created in a laboratory through cloning, in vitro fertilization or any other means.

“For the purposes of this section,” says the law, “the term ‘human embryo or embryos’ includes any organism … that is derived by fertilization, parthenogenesis, cloning, or any other means from one or more human gametes or human diploid cells.” (The entire verbatim text of Section 509 of the omnibus spending law is reprinted at the bottom of this article.)

At a widely publicized White House ceremony on Monday, President Obama signed his own executive order lifting an executive order that President Bush had signed in 2001. While allowing federal funding of research involving embryonic stem cell lines that had already been created from embryos that had already been destroyed, Bush's 2001 order denied federal funding to research that required the killing of any additional embryos.

“For the past 8 years, the authority of the Department of Health and Human Services, including the National Institutes of Health (NIH), to fund and conduct human embryonic stem cell research has been limited by Presidential actions,” said the order that President Obama signed Monday. “The purpose of this order is to remove these limitations on scientific inquiry, to expand NIH support for the exploration of human stem cell research, and in so doing to enhance the contribution of America's scientists to important new discoveries and new therapies for the benefit of humankind.”

The order went on to say: “The Secretary of Health and Human Services (Secretary), through the Director of NIH, may support and conduct responsible, scientifically worthy human stem cell research, including human embryonic stem cell research, to the extent permitted by law.”

Thanks to the Dickey-Wicker language in Section 509 of the omnibus bill, the "extent permitted by law" will continue to forbid federal funding of research that even puts embryos at risk.

Close observers on both sides of the embryonic stem cell issue were well aware of the Dickey-Wicker amendment, and understood that it would pose a legal obstacle to federal funding of embryo-killing research even if President Obama issued an executive order reversing President Bush's administrative policy denying federal funding to that research.

Rep. Diana DeGette (D.-Colo.) sponsored the House version of a bill--vetoed by President Bush--that would have legalized federal funding of stem cell research that destroys so-called “spare” human embryos taken from in vitro fertilization clinics. On Monday, she told The New York Times she had already approached what she called “several pro-life Democrats” about the possibility of repealing Dickey-Wicker.

“Dickey-Wicker is 13 years old now, and I think we need to review these policies,'' The Times quoted DeGette as saying. “I’ve already talked to several pro-life Democrats about Dickey-Wicker, and they seemed open to the concept of reversing the policy if we could show that it was necessary to foster this research.”

Rep. Mike Castle (R.-Del.), who co-sponsored Rep. DeGette’s bill, similarly stated this week that Dickey-Wicker should be revisited.

"Certainly, the Dickey-Wicker amendment . . . is something we need to look at," Castle told Congressional Quarterly Today on Monday. "That was passed in 1996, before we realized the full potential of embryonic stem cell research. Some researchers are telling us now that that needs to be reversed."

Douglas Johnson, spokesman for the National Right to Life Committee, said in a press release Monday that President Obama’s executive order lifting the ban on federal funding for embryo-destroying stem cell research “set the stage” for an effort to repeal Dickey-Wicker.

“This sets the stage for an attack on the Dickey-Wicker law, which since 1995 has been a provision of the annual appropriations bills for federal health programs,” said Johnson. “Any member of Congress who votes for legislation to repeal this law is voting to allow federal funding of human embryo farms, created through the use of human cloning.”

In the remarks he made Monday when announcing the executive order, President Obama said he wanted to close the door to “the use” of cloning for human reproduction but not for other purposes.

“And we will ensure that our government never opens the door to the use of cloning for human reproduction. It is dangerous, profoundly wrong and has no place in our society, or any society,” said Obama.

A bill sponsored in the last Congress by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D.-Calif.) and Sen. Orrin Hatch (R- Utah) would specifically permit federal funding of research using human embryos that are created by cloning and kept alive for no more than 14 days so that their stem cells can be extracted. Federal funding of this type of research is prohibited by Dickey-Wicker.

Researchers are interested in cloning human embryos for prospective stem cell therapies because it might help overcome the problem posed by a patient's immune system, which rejects stem cells derived from another person but might accept stem cells if they are taken from an embryo cloned from the patient himself.

On Tuesday morning, The New York Times carried an editorial calling on Congress to repeal Dickey-Wicker.

“Other important embryonic research is still being hobbled by the so-called Dickey-Wicker amendment,” The Times editorialized. “The amendment, which is regularly attached to appropriations bills for the Department of Health and Human Services, prohibits the use of federal funds to support scientific work that involves the destruction of human embryos (as happens when stem cells are extracted) or the creation of embryos for research purposes.”

“Congress should follow Mr. Obama's lead and lift this prohibition so such important work can benefit from an infusion of federal dollars,” The Times said.

The next day, President Obama signed H.R. 1105, the “Omnibus Appropriations Act, 2009,” which includes the Dickey-Wicker language. Unless Congress passes and President Obama signs new legislation to repeal Dickey-Wicker, it will now be the law of the land at least through September 30, when this fiscal year ends.

The text of Section 509 of the Omnibus Appropriations Act, 2009, reads as follows:

SEC. 509. (a) None of the funds made available in this Act may be used for—(1) the creation of a human embryo or embryos for research purposes; or (2) research in which a human embryo or embryos are destroyed, discarded, or knowingly subjected to risk of injury or death greater than that allowed for research on fetuses in utero under 45 CFR 46.204(b) and section 498(b) of the Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C. 289g(b)). (b) For purposes of this section, the term ‘‘human embryo or embryos’’ includes any organism, not protected as a human subject under 45 CFR 46 as of the date of the enactment of this Act, that is derived by fertilization, parthenogenesis, cloning, or any other means from one or more human gametes or human diploid cells.

[dude1394]

Obama says that your days of maxing out your credit cards are over(?)
The AP reported:

Turning more upbeat, President Barack Obama said Friday his administration is working to create a "post-bubble" model for solid economic growth once the recession ends. He said that means the days of overheated housing markets and "people maxing out on their credit cards" are over. But first, Obama said, "We've got to get through this difficult period."

Not to worry...theOne will take care of maxing out their credit card for you. Just one more thing the guvment will do for you.

[dude1394]

Another one bites the dust. (campaign promise that is).

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/15/us...alth.html?_r=2

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is signaling to Congress that the president could support taxing some employee health benefits, as several influential lawmakers and many economists favor, to help pay for overhauling the health care system.

The proposal is politically problematic for President Obama, however, since it is similar to one he denounced in the presidential campaign as “the largest middle-class tax increase in history.” Most Americans with insurance get it from their employers, and taxing workers for the benefit is opposed by union leaders and some businesses.

In television advertisements last fall, Mr. Obama criticized his Republican rival for the presidency, Senator John McCain of Arizona, for proposing to tax all employer-provided health benefits. The benefits have long been tax-free, regardless of how generous they are or how much an employee earns. The advertisements did not point out that Mr. McCain, in exchange, wanted to give all families a tax credit to subsidize the purchase of coverage.

[Mavdog]

Originally Posted by dude1394

Another one bites the dust. (campaign promise that is).

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/15/us...alth.html?_r=2

yeah, having an ability to listen to others, work on finding a mutually acceptable format to work within in spite of that format being different than your original position, is wrong....

no wonder you were a bush fan.

the concept of working with others involves compromise, and being open to adjusting your position to accomplish mutual goals is to be applauded, not condemned.

[dude1394]

Hey I understand mavie...chum filled me in. Don't bother listening to his campaign rhetoric...just watch what he does in office....

Unfortunately...he's doing just what I expected.

[Mavdog]

Originally Posted by dude1394

Hey I understand mavie...chum filled me in. Don't bother listening to his campaign rhetoric...just watch what he does in office....

Unfortunately...he's doing just what I expected.

no, you still choose to avoid the question.

are you honestly saying you prefer leadership to have a closed, inflexible policy? do you actually not desire leadership to work with various groups to forge a consenus, but rather exhibit a rigidity of closedminded positions?

I don't. I want leadership that can move forward by bridging differences and finding ways to reach a positive, mutually acceptable result. flexibility is a strength, not a weakness.

it's all about results, not who wins and who loses.

at least to some of us.

[wmbwinn]

Originally Posted by Mavdog

no, you still choose to avoid the question.

are you honestly saying you prefer leadership to have a closed, inflexible policy? do you actually not desire leadership to work with various groups to forge a consenus, but rather exhibit a rigidity of closedminded positions?

I don't. I want leadership that can move forward by bridging differences and finding ways to reach a positive, mutually acceptable result. flexibility is a strength, not a weakness.

it's all about results, not who wins and who loses.

at least to some of us.

if you are wrong, then there is no compromise and middle ground. Halfway between wrong and right is not generally acceptable.

You can't negotiate a middle ground with Iran's policy on Israel. You can't negotiate a middle ground between Obama's socialism and the tradition of capitalism. They are ideas in opposition.