Presidential Budget address

The President has spoken Truth to Power, Finally!!! He laid out the difference between the two Parties in a way that has been lacking for a long time. It was kind of the hunky mr. Ryan to admit that he was not presenting a budget so much as a "cause": a blueprint for the robbery of the last few remaining bits of wealth left in the hands of the elderly and the working class and for the elimination of the Poverty/the poor i.e. like GW took care of the cost of War-ignore it! The "Death Panels" we were warned about are coming under their plan-administered by for-profit insurance corporations, 85 year-old  Granny, no cash, out you go, should have worked harder when you were 70!! Well, as Obama said, not in the America I believe in, not now, not ever. We CAN afford to invest in our children NOW and worry about their kids deficit LATER. We are not poor, we are the wealthiest Nation in the World by far! Following the incredibly greedy, Billionaire centered plan presented by the Republican'Ts is a recipe for disaster. The initial Tea Party Movement was inspired by a good, valid purpose but it has been hi-jacked by two disparate groups of ideology driven fanatics who are both promoting Anti-American ideals. One of them is trying to install their own form of Sharia Law and the other has nothing less than the destruction of the current form of Government as their admitted goal. I can hear the Right already screaming about Soaking the Rich and Hurting the Job Creators, well, Show Me the Jobs! The right is determined to distract the public again but this time it is not going to work: we can all look around and see for ourselves, A Republicon President has NEVER balanced a budget, Clinton DID. Bush gave away our "surplus" to the wealthy, threw another $4 Trillion into Defense Contractor/Cronies, bailed out the Banksters at tax-payer expense and then handed Obama a Nation needing immediate and expensive intervention, took a deep breath and then started preaching about "Tax and Spend Democrats". This has been a remarkably effective strategy for the Republicons for many years but it's end has finally come. Even Saint Reagan's Budget Director says VooDoo Economics has run it's course and is in it's death throes. Continuing down this rosy path is madness, it is time to go back to the kind of sound investment and budget management that gave us such growth in the 90's. If we had followed Carter's blueprint for breaking our fossil fuel addiction WE would be leading the world in production of clean running Flex-Fuel Vehicles instead of a Third World country. We would be paying less for power and probably NOT spending more than ONE TRILLION $$$ a year on two wars in the Middle-East. We would probably have the best educated students in the world because we built more schools instead of more Drones, We would be #1 in infant mortality and not #33. We would have a provably better Nation and isn't that the best goal of ANY organization, to always do better? America is the greatest Country in the World BECAUSE We care for our seniors, our children and our Poor. We realize that by giving a poor man a little hand up, in America he has a chance of doing anything he sets his mind to-even become President. We are one of the few countries where the path to the top is NOT created with a gun, rather with a book. By investing now in our highways, bridges, schools, museums, galleries, hospitals, clinics and the students and working families who fill them we are investing in our future and experience has shown us this kind of investment works ten times better than slash and burn spending and tax cuts. I hope the young people will stay inspired as they were in 2008 and not take their eye off congress before 2014, if we can keep the pressure on we can stop the fundamental transformation the Illiteratti are trying to foist on us. There is a document on the internet, the 14 signs of a Fascist Government that is a great help in understanding where the Paul Ryans of the world are trying to lead us-They are not Bad people, just misguided... They truly believe if we just shut down government completely and let Corporations run things life would be better for us all. I just don't agree and neither did our founding fathers. What confuses me is that back in the 60's I went to a number of John Birch meetings, read the books etc. and back then they were screaming that the Insurance Industry was sneaking up on us and taking over the Banks and if we did not watch out the "communists" were going to take over our country from the inside and this secret group, the Illuminati, were scheming to use this threat to ACTUALLY take over the World and subvert our Government and the Bilderbergers meet in Switzerland and Hillary and Lady Di are both members....blah blah blah Now, "conservatives" are teaming up with all these same conspirators and helping them build up their fortunes and guard them from taxation. They stand there ON TAPE and scream about Old Glory and how much they hate her and how much they hate the Guvmint of the United States of America and want to DESTROY it. Speaking this sentiment is just exercising First Amendment Rights but ACTING on it is TREASON. The actions of many Republicans to obstruct job creation and these threats to shut down our Government and using the American People's financial future as a hostage in order to pass favorite fundamentalist religious legislation is reprehensible and dangerous bit of TREASON.  Pay close attention kids, those people want you to go away. They were really concerned about your birth, didn't care what happened before or after that moment- they don't think YOU deserve the same shot at an education that THEY had. They think you should work for minimum wage, 80 hours a week, 50.5 weeks a year until you are 80, then make damn sure all those years of hard work didn't cause more than $1,200/month worth of medical problems and they will be SO SORRY you lost your Retirement Investment in that crash last year, but you made other arrangements didn't you? I mean can't YOUR KIDS pay for you? If they have any money left after paying off the Koch Klan's Tax Breaks borrowed in their name in 2010. Yup, the difference between the two Parties vision for America have never been clearer, I'll take the option where Denny gets to try out unemployment for a change.

notes from the edge

When I was a kid I wanted to be a detective. I even took some criminology classes to go along with my political science and journalism major when I went to U of M. As it turns out those classes come in real handy when trying to figure out what is really going on with our national economy. It's all those page A8 and B17 stories that are where the facts are, the first 5 pages are campaigning politicians, car wrecks and plane crashes. One of those stories this last week was about the activities of the Federal Reserve Bank during the recent economic collapse. The only reason we know any of this is thanks to America's two most valuable Senators, Ron Paul and Bernie Sanders, a most unlikely pair, but I think exemplary of the kind of bi-partisan cooperation we badly need right now. They put a lot of pressure on fellow lawmakers, finally managed to get a look at the books over at the Fed, though only a few years worth. As it turns out, while politicians of both parties debate how much we need to cut from food stamps and unemployment (and not whether this is a wise course or not) The Fed has given the very same Banksters who created all this mess over 3 Trillion dollars at interest rates ranging from ZERO to one fourth of one percent ; which trillions said Banksters then used to buy Treasury Notes paying 4 or 5 per cent, thus pocketing hundreds of billions of dollars of free tax payer money behind the curtain while being bailed out shortly before paying out huge bonuses. With more Tax Payer Money. Your Money. But we are so broke your kids are going to have to do without college, millions of poor children will go to bed hungry and cold and grandma better start looking for a box after that fifteen thousand runs out and the nursing home boots her out. Right. The stock market is doing great though. Another one of those stories was one from the OECD that tells us we are #34 out of 34 developed countries when it comes to social spending. We are #1 though in the number of prisoners, number 1 in the number of CHILDREN in Prison. Number One in the number of children living in poverty. We are #1 in drug and alcohol abuse, #1 in the number of addicts, #1 in divorce...I could go on all day about our poor ranking in education, quality of life, life expectancy, teenage pregnancy etc. but we all know this bad news. We cannot afford to be penny-wise and pound-foolish at a time like this. Our S&P rating is being adjusted because they are worrying about us paying our debt. I would submit that this worry is not because they doubt our having assets to cover our debt but rather that the Republican'T Party with it's obstructionist policies and toying with the debt ceiling has created a good possibility of another major CRASH. If this takes place it will indeed be 30 or 40 years before we even come close to retiring our debt, especially should we be foolish enough to keep cutting taxes for the Wealthy and Corporations and destroy what little is left of our social safety nets. On the other hand, if we were to simply let ALL of the Bush Tax Cuts expire, including the ones on the middle class, we would be balancing our budget again within 10 years without making anybody actually miss any meals or freeze to death. If we raised the earnings cap on payroll tax to say 10 million, we could lower the retirement age to 50 and double the benefit amount, creating millions of jobs and giving the economy a huge shot in the arm as retirees would spend the additional cash right away. As long as we have these bought and paid for politicians refusing to raise taxes  we will continue to fail and I would give the Empire no more than 20 years before it totally crumbles. We can debate how much and on who but taxes must go up on some and others need to start paying the rate they should, not whatever their tax-weasels can't hide offshore.

    Whether you believe in global warming or not the coming climate change is going to be devastating to economies around the world and we are already seeing signs of it now with the recent tornado clusters. We are facing unprecedented flooding over much of America now, late spring rains and a few good heat waves and we could have some really nasty surprises this year to rival events in Japan. I wonder if a nuke plant would survive a tornado? Our grid, like most of our infrastructure, is crumbling. We could easily see huge areas of our country without power for extended periods. Not a good time to be laying off first responders. We need to be investing in improving this situation, not cutting budgets. We all agree it is vital to our National Security that we stop importing foreign oil. We should right now be converting every car in America to run on LPG and we could complete 75% of them within 5 years. We should be insulating, installing solar, wind, tidal, geo-thermal and hydro-power, not cutting back on home heating assistance. I'm not saying we don't need to cut ANY spending: the defense budget went up 80% from 2001-2009, NOT COUNTING THE COST OF THE TWO WARS. We can certainly cut hundreds of billions from our military budget without hurting our safety a bit. Heck, if there isn't at least a trillion dollars of theft and profiteering we could recover I'll eat my hat. so-to-speak. Do these things and our economy would boom like never before and we would soon come to resemble the "Shining City" Ronnie said we could be.If we continue this policy of willy-nilly cutting everything in sight, taxes and spending, sooner or later we will slip and cut our own throat. We need to elect some honest lawmakers and open ALL of the Fed's books, and make sure they cannot continue using our faith and credit solely to enrich the 2% who own America. If we don't make some serious changes soon it will be too late, we have got to find a way to reach the Illiterati and overcome the propaganda, we have too much on the line to let our ideological differences stop all progress. After all, the Rapture may NOT happen, we might as well keep the air and water clean anyway, just in case....

Look, Wall Street is NOT going to allow the Republicons to mess around with the debt ceiling raise-they would be the #1 casualty. DO NOT GIVE THE FARM AWAY!!  end the Bush Tax gift, END the Inheritance tax exemptions, Raise the earnings cap to 5 million and top marginal rate to 50%!!! If Obama can act like a Democrat at least back him up! You guys are letting 15% of our population make all the rules. We need to worry about the kids we have now and forget that imaginary future child's taxes. We have plenty of time to worry about the deficit after recovery strengthens. Ryan's "Path to Prosperity" is a path to prosperity for the wealthy and penury for the people. Seriously, to balance the budget you start by adding another trillion dollars a year in Tax Breaks for the wealthy? No wonder it doesn't reach even for 75 years-no matter how much you raise the tax on the poor they still don't have any money. More efforts to balance the budget on the backs of the seniors and the  poor. So far none of their proposals actually reduce debt.  We need some truth in advertising; this is no plan, it is just more Republicon Wealthfare. They are not going to be happy until they manage to get their hands on that 4+ Trillion$$$ Social Security Surplus and that is the real objective of their "plan" As Senator Pence said on Fox News, 'They (Republican'Ts) are just doing what is best for the republican part, er, I mean republican people, er um ahh I mean we are trying our best to do the American People, not for the republican party'    I just love when they get comfy on Fox and tell the truth.
I am ever entertained by the proclamations about the bold, refreshing, brave plan put forward by Paul Ryan, i.e. slash taxes on the wealthy and privatize medicare. Sure, seniors out shopping for private insurance with their $300/month vouchers, that will work. I'll tell you what, I have a bold, brave new idea: Liver flavored ice cream!  Which is more likely, the ice cream is the latest new fad and makes millions or Ryan's plan balances the budget? I'm betting on the ice cream. It was nice of him at least to come clean and admit it was not intended as a serious document for the budget but rather as a blueprint for a Cause-said cause being the enslavement of the middle class.
  I've got a great idea for bringing jobs back to America-we figure out which CEOs were best at exporting jobs(can you say Fiorina?) and we pack them up and ship them off to India and China. Once they get there they can do what they do best and export those jobs back home! Or maybe a "Proximity" Bill" If you believe in Nuclear power, build the Nuke Plant and storage with close proximity to where the power will be used. And Corporate Overlords should be required to live within 100 miles of their largest facility. Want to build all those iPads in China? Go live there. Moving all of your operations to Bangalore? Hope you enjoy your new townhouse in Calcutta.