The Democrat Thread

[lostfan]

Probably not. I know FOX has had a ratings boom, I would suspect Limbaugh may be up in the ratings as well. Rush does love this attention though; makes him feel important when the president is calling him out.

Yeah Obama really didn't do himself any favors singling out Rush by name. I bet Rush jizzed in his pants when he heard that.

Edited January 30, 2009 by lostfan

[BigSqwert]

Congrats to new RNC Micheal Steele. Yes, the same Micheal Steele who did this when running for the US Senate in 2006.

[mr_genius]

I bet Rush jizzed in his pants when he heard that.

 

[Balta1701]

Congrats to new RNC Micheal Steele. Yes, the same Micheal Steele who did this when running for the US Senate in 2006.

After the repeated ballots, the Republicans had to race through votes on a number of lower ranking positions to get out of the hall before 5 to clear space for the wedding party that had booked the facility next.

[Balta1701]

Torrent going up rather than trickling down.

The nation's top 400 taxpayers made more than $263 million on average in 2006, as the stock market was rallying, but paid income taxes at the lowest rate in the 15 years that the Internal Revenue Service has tracked such data, according to figures released Thursday.

 

Each year, the IRS releases information on the so-called Fortunate 400, the 400 U.S. taxpayers with the highest adjusted gross income.

 

The average income of this group was the highest recorded by the IRS and was up from $213.9 million the year before. In constant dollars, the average income of the top 400 taxpayers nearly quadrupled from 1992, the first year such data were collected. The group's share of the adjusted gross income of all taxpayers in the country nearly doubled between 2002 and 2006, the data show -- from 0.69% to 1.31%.

 

Meanwhile, the group's average income tax rate -- calculated as income taxes paid as a percentage of adjusted gross income -- fell to 17.2%. in 2006 from 18.2% the prior year. That's down from a high of 29.9% in 1995.

 

Information from the 2006 tax year is the most recent available from the IRS.

[NorthSideSox72]

I bet Rush jizzed in his pants when he heard that.

AH MY EYES!!! MY EYES!!!!! GET OUT!!!!!

 

 

[Cubano]

Is there any Democrat that pays taxes?

[lostfan]

Is there any Democrat that pays taxes?

If you look at a map of red vs. blue states you see that all of the industrialized money-making states are where the revenue comes from. Northeast, mid-Atlantic, Rust Belt, Chicago, Milwaukee, west coast. That's about 2/3 of the tax revenue and all of those are heavily Democratic.

 

There's a disproportionate amount of economists who are registered Democrats too.

 

I used to be a registered Democrat, not anymore, but I still lean that way.

Edited January 31, 2009 by lostfan

[StrangeSox]

Is there any Democrat that pays taxes?

 

No.

[Balta1701]

No.

And at least amongst the high income earners, that's the way it should be.

 

Anyway, I think Howard Dean would make an excellent HHS secretary.

[Balta1701]

During the stimulus debate, the House GOP put together a gigantic high income/corporate tax cut that would probably wind up blowing a much larger hole in the deficit than the Democrats version. The House GOP claimed this would create 6.2 million jobs, roughly double what the Dems are saying the Obama plan would create. They based this off of some fuzzy math and cited one paper in particular by a couple of economics Ph.D.'s, Dr. & Dr. Romer. The math was fuzzy in that the paper argued for much larger multiplier effects of everything the government does in this sort of liquidity trap, but the Republicans decided to only use the numbers for that paper for tax cuts, while using standard assumptions for growth related to spending programs.

 

The fun of this of course...is that when you cite someone's work, you can go ask them if that's an appropriate use of their work.

CEA Director Romer’s view is that the House analysis is absolutely incorrect. The CEA estimates that the Republican plan would create only 1.7 million jobs, compared to 4.2 million for the Democratic plan.

 

Question: The House claims that based on the research of CEA Chair Christy Romer, their plan would create 6.2 million jobs. Isn’t that a more effective way of jumpstarting the economy?

 

Answer: The Republican House analysis is flat wrong in its claim that the House Republican stimulus is more effective. No matter what your analytical assumptions, as long as they are consistent the plan the President supports would result in substantially greater job creation than the House Republican plan.

 

Independent groups that have analyzed the President’s plan -- from Macroeconomic Advisors to former McCain advisor Mark Zandi -- have confirmed that the President’s plan will create between 3 - 4 million jobs--twice the number of the House plan. The President supports takes a broad, comprehensive approach. It includes substantial tax cuts – many of which mirror the provisions in the House Republican plan. But it also includes new spending programs that many economists across the spectrum believe will help create jobs and give our economy a kickstart right now.

 

Question: But doesn’t Dr. Romer’s research show that the economic impact of tax cuts is higher than even the Administration is assuming?

 

Answer: Dr. Romer’s research suggests that all types of fiscal stimulus, both spending and tax cuts, might well have a larger impact than is typically assumed and is assumed in the CEA's analysis. It would be great if that were so. It would mean more job creation and more economic activity -- which is exactly what we need right now. The Administration has based its analyses on more modest assumptions that are in line with those several independent forecasters – Republican and Democrat alike.

 

We should have an open discussion about these analytical issues.

 

We cannot afford to play political games with apples-to-oranges comparisons. Such political gamesw distract our attention from the magnitude of the substantive task at hand.

[Balta1701]

Obama to order much needed review/overhaul of the "Sure you food is (blah) safe" FDA. And there is talk of genuine criminal conspiracy charges against the people who kept shipping food they knew was contaminated.

President Barack Obama, speaking as the nation's chief executive and a father, promised a comprehensive review of the Food and Drug Administration amid a salmonella outbreak linked to a Georgia peanut processor.

 

More than 500 people have been sickened and at least eight may have died. Authorities fault Peanut Corp. of America. Officials said the company shipped products that initially tested positive for salmonella after retesting and getting a negative result.

 

The outbreak has led to a massive recall of products ranging from ice cream to cookies and prompted consumer groups to urge Congress to require annual inspections of food processing plants.

 

"I think that the FDA has not been able to catch some of these things as quickly as I expect them to catch," Obama said in an interview aired Monday on NBC's "Today" show. "And so we're going to be doing a complete review of FDA operations."

 

The president said Americans should be able to count on the government to keep children safe when they eat peanut butter and that includes his 7-year-old daughter Sasha.

 

"That's what Sasha eats for lunch probably three times a week. And you know, I don't want to have to worry about whether she's going to get sick as a consequence to having her lunch," Obama said.

2 weeks ago...these guys would have gotten off with a slap on the wrist. The company would have closed, sold off its assets to a different company doing exactly the same thing, everyone would have been rehired under a new name, and business would go on as usual.

[lostfan]

Obama to order much needed review/overhaul of the "Sure you food is (blah) safe" FDA. And there is talk of genuine criminal conspiracy charges against the people who kept shipping food they knew was contaminated.

2 weeks ago...these guys would have gotten off with a slap on the wrist. The company would have closed, sold off its assets to a different company doing exactly the same thing, everyone would have been rehired under a new name, and business would go on as usual.

My liver appreciates that you didn't choose to phrase that "for most of the past 8 years..."

[Balta1701]

My liver appreciates that you didn't choose to phrase that "for most of the past 8 years..."

Consider it a birthday present.

[BigSqwert]

Andrew Sullivan:

 

Cheney Sets Obama Up

 

He hunkers down to play the Dolchstoss card, preparing to blame the next terror attack on the Obama administration's disavowal of his torture program. It seems to me that regardless of the merits or demerits of his view, it's a remarkable violation of civil norms for a vice-president just out of power to assault his successors and all-but declare them indifferent to public safety. It's deeply divisive, deeply partisan and utterly self-serving. In other words: as cheap as one would expect. And part of what ails conservatism. Yes, they seem to be rooting for failure at home and abroad, because it would help vindicate their own appalling record on both fronts.

 

Think of Cheney and Limbaugh as the two centers of gravity for the current GOP. A deeply unserious and deeply disturbing pincer movement against the democratic mandate of the new president.

[HuskyCaucasian]

Andrew Sullivan:

what a Douchbag

[NorthSideSox72]

Cheney snapped on 9/11. Just completely derailed. He's obsessed in an unhealthy, and frankly Unamerican, way. He is so focused on these dangers that he is willing to discard anything in the Constitution to try to fight them. That is, except actually fighting the CAUSES of terrorism. He'd rather fight the terrorists themselves and them alone, despite that they will keep coming, for ever and ever, as long as the engine that creates them keeps running.

 

He's just lost his grip on what America is supposed to stand for.

 

[Balta1701]

Someone should make the point that the theory on which Daschle did not pay taxes on an extraordinary non-salary benefit provided by his employer (car and driver) is exactly the theory on which Palin did not pay taxes on an extraordinary benefit (free air travel for her children, and 60 dollar per day per diem payments for use of her own house).

 

Palin never paid back taxes but simply produced a squirrelly letter from her lawyers saying that someone could believe in good faith that taxes were not owed on the travel or per diems she received, so her failure to report those items as income was excusable.

Link

[kapkomet]

Link

That's not true. Per diems are not taxable (depending on how it was set up - let me say it that way).

 

If Daschle was receving services of this type, and it wasn't under contract or a "per diem" travel allowance, whatever, then he owed taxes on it and it was his fault for allowing the structure of this stuff to be like it was.

 

He was either given bad advice or not careful enough to think about the consequences of doing the things he was doing from a tax structure standpoint.

 

[NorthSideSox72]

Link

So its OK because Palin (maybe) did it? That's a pretty low bar to set.

 

[Balta1701]

Yesterday, the House passed, with a whopping 3 dissenting votes, a bill that will compel the DHS to establish an office who's job it will be to actually go through the terrorist watch list and deal with claims of people who say that they should not be on the list, and requires the DHS to provide a procedure for people to legally challenge their placement on that list if they're detained or denied access to airplanes without cause. Still has to go through the Senate, and I think Joe Lieberman chairs the committee it has to go through, so nothing is certain yet, but it's a much needed step.

 

Seriously, was that so hard?

[BigSqwert]

These people want the terrorists to win.

[NorthSideSox72]

Yesterday, the House passed, with a whopping 3 dissenting votes, a bill that will compel the DHS to establish an office who's job it will be to actually go through the terrorist watch list and deal with claims of people who say that they should not be on the list, and requires the DHS to provide a procedure for people to legally challenge their placement on that list if they're detained or denied access to airplanes without cause. Still has to go through the Senate, and I think Joe Lieberman chairs the committee it has to go through, so nothing is certain yet, but it's a much needed step.

 

Seriously, was that so hard?

Who were the unamerican idiots who voted against? And I am not being sarcastic here - I really find it distinctly unamerican for people to vote directly against a measure to give fair hearing to US citizens in a grievance against the government.

 

[BigSqwert]

Who were the unamerican idiots who voted against? And I am not being sarcastic here - I really find it distinctly unamerican for people to vote directly against a measure to give fair hearing to US citizens in a grievance against the government.

I wouldn't be out on a limb if I were to guess 3 chicken hawk GOPers.

[bmags]

sick of people acting like bipartisanship means complete capitulation from the party in power and then the minority party still doesn't vote for it.