j_b

i think the point is, no matter your politics or when, if ever, you vote, the rich own the government and its they that call the shots. the odds of ever changing that are infitesimal, but if it makes anybody feel better, maybe we could rebuild the ole'guillotine and throw down, french style for awhile? Fortunately, the people that forced change throughout history weren't as pessimistic as you are.

Porter is such a meany. Everybody is shaking: [video:youtube]twTwvb-UscM

my turn? [video:youtube]w8TaFaYaRow

It’s the same old story, after the populist campaign rhetoric, the congress toadies do the bidding of corporate America despite their mandate to the contrary under the pretense of having to compromise with the agenda of regressives because it is on the front page of the corporate media. The evolution of health care reform is a case in point. At least 2/3 of the public want a strong public option, if not single-payer health care; yet, not only is single-payer not even on the table in congress and in the media but they are trying to pass a public option in name only that won’t take effect until 2013 when it is clear neither the economy nor the people can afford to wait for nothing. If Obama really wanted to reign in DLC democrats like Baucus to promote a progressive agenda, he’d let them know that they’d be gone after the next election despite their corporate dollars, which wouldn’t be unlikely since they are acting against the wishes of their constituencies. On the contrary, he has said that he wouldn't allow the Democratic party to support challenges to conservative democrats, which speaks volume about the game they are playing.

Starving The Beast For decades, a key part of the anti-government agenda of conservatives has been to cut spending on social programs. Their targeted programs have included: health care for the elderly and poor, welfare and food stamps, military retirement, drug abuse centers, unemployment compensation, aid to education, college student loans, nursing homes, employment training, childcare centers, housing subsidies for the elderly and disabled, and school nutrition. They believe that these programs have grown too large and cost taxpayers to much money. But attacking social spending has not been easy. Most Americans think that these programs do a lot of good and do not want to see them cut. Indeed, as another article on this site points out, most of us want the government to actually spend more on education, retirement, and health care – not less. So Republicans have developed a tactic for attacking social spending that they hope will not trigger the ire of the public – an indirect attack on these programs. The tactic? Tax cuts. The idea is simple: if we keep cutting taxes, eventually there won’t be enough money to spend on these social programs and they will have to be reduced. They call this tactic “starving the beast.” Taxes are what nourish government, and so if that source of nourishment is taken way, government must inevitably shrink. For anti-tax advocates like Grover Norquist, this is the ultimate purpose of tax cuts: “The goal is reducing the size and scope of government by draining its lifeblood.”1 Milton Friedman, the arch-conservative economist, speaking of ways to limit or reduce the size of government, offered this prescription: “How can we ever cut government down to size? I believe there is only one way: the way parents control spendthrift children, cutting their allowance. For the government, that means cutting taxes. Resulting deficits will be an effective – I would go as far as to say, the only effective – restraint on the spending propensities of the executive branch and the legislature.”2 So underneath all the Republican rhetoric about cutting taxes – all the talk about stimulating the economy and giving money back to hardworking Americans – there is another, deeper political goal: to strangle government social programs. But this is rarely discussed publicly. Conservatives focus the public’s attention on what they will gain from the tax cuts, not what they will lose by reducing social programs. This strategy was first tried in the Reagan administration. He came into office in 1980 promising to balance the federal budget. But he quickly cut taxes and raised military spending, creating huge budget deficits. (Sound familiar?) This made little sense to many people at the time and was not understood until Reagan’s budget advisor, David Stockman, later revealed that this was a conscious effort to “starve the beast” – a phrase he is reputed to have coined.3 The idea was to put increasing financial pressure on social programs in order to make it easier to cut them. And indeed, it had some effect, with domestic discretionary spending, falling from 4.5% of the economy in 1981 to 3.3% in 1988.3 A series of massive tax cuts during the George W. Bush administration revived this strategy and implemented it in a much more extensive way. These tax cuts cost the federal government over two trillion dollars ($2,000,000,000,000) in lost revenue from 2001 to 2010 alone.5 As economist Paul Krugman observed at the time, “‘starving the beast’ is no longer a hypothetical scenario. It’s happening as we speak. For decades, conservatives have sought tax cuts, not because they’re affordable, but because they aren’t.”6 Much more to read in this article: http://www.governmentisgood.com/articles.php?aid=14

oops, wrong thread

I am certainly not going to make excuses for the Democratic party. It has none.

It's impossible to "organize" most of the political spectrum of ideas in one single party.

those deficit numbers you brought up are way off. Just between Iraq and TARP, Bush spent 1.6 trillions we didn't have (and committed an additional 2 trillions in loan interests and care for the 10,000's of injured, just for the Iraq boondoggle) bringing up "expansion of government" when government is the only entity that is going to spend to pull the economy out of a tailspin is plain silly.

This situation creates no sense of urgency in Washington. Ask Summers what he's going to do about it, for instance, and he hems and haws about recovery act programs that have yet to take full effect. To our political elite, jobs are simply nowhere near as critical an issue as the other economic indicators, the stock market, or the financial health of the nation's top bankers. Outside the Beltway, however, it's a different story. According to a new poll by Hart Research Associates for the Economic Policy Institute, unemployment and the lack of jobs "remains the dominant problem on the economic agenda for voters across party lines." In fact, it's not even close. Asked to name the most important economic problem facing the country, registered voters cited unemployment twice as often as they mentioned the deficit or even the cost of health care; and four times as much as the housing crisis or problems with the banking system. A whopping 83 percent see unemployment as either a fairly big or very big problem; and 81 percent say the Obama administration hasn't done enough to deal with it. And there just aren't a whole lot of things that more than 80 percent of Americans agree about. Not coincidentally, large majorities of voters also see the government's economic policies as helping banks and Wall Street -- while few see themselves or average working families in general as benefiting. Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/02/washington-doesnt-get-it_n_307882.html

lots of different stats there, notably a wide range of estimates, including this one: Recent studies reveal that 45-55% of married women and 50-60% of married men engage in extramarital sex at some time or another during their relationship (Atwood & Schwartz, 2002 - Journal of Couple & Relationship Therapy). I can't claim my experience to be absolutely representative but most people I have known something about have had affairs, whether they lived in an urban or rural environment.

dude, that's pretty righteous but it's a lot more complicated than that. 40% of all marriages end up in divorce, most probably involving some kind of infidelity.

bullshit. I'll denounce the hypocrisy of claiming virtue when it isn't true but I never pounce on someone, whoever they are, for having any kind of extra-marital sex.

really? I don't know if the statistics exist or if they are reliable ( ) but I am willing to bet that extra-marital sex affects at least 70% of people at least once in their lives in western societies. Mind you, I don't recommend it unless something is really messed with the marital relationship.

that's rich coming from those who destroyed the real economy, then fought tooth and nail (and largely succeeded thanks to conservative Democrats) to prevent the economic stimulus from being a meaningful one.

nothing there that money and power can't fix.

clearly the most urgent issue today but since the corporate media has been pushing reducing-the-deficit-is-numero-uno, and Obama pledged to reduce deficit at the G20 while keeping the dollar up, the only possible outcome is more unemployment. It's called austerity and unless progressives put the heat on congress, matters are going to get much worse for real people.

"I feel like I need to protect these people -- I need to certainly protect my family," Letterman said. Geez, if you wanted to protect your family, maybe you shouldn't be banging your staff. Duh. duh? time to wake up instead of trying to hold public figures to standards that never existed. Most people are guarantied to have extra marital affairs, and their number correlate strongly with the number of opportunities they get.

There was a sharp rise in voter turnout starting in the 30’s due to economic hardship and the associated rise of the labor movement. Social progress occurred during that period because people forced change, which demanded they be engaged. Before then, I can’t really tell because my recollection of history isn’t that good and also because women got the vote only in 1920, but I think eligible voter turn out was highest in the 19th century after the civil war. I don’t disagree with your historical characterization of the distribution of power among social classes but you are missing the arrow of time. Along with the enlightenment, then scientific and technological development, emancipation and social progress have occurred, in turn placing greater demands on the legitimacy of power. For example, the national revolutions of the 19th century radically altered the balance of power between elites and the rest. The ‘others’ who run things don’t have to be the traditional elites and there are few reasons to believe that we can’t improve further on the representativity of democracy. Now, it’s also true that following the generalization of TV, atomization of civil society and greater disenfranchisement from the political process have occurred, which in my mind implies that media have to play an even more essential role in informing and engaging the public.

You're right goatboy, but I am hoping for a little fresh snow that may stick .. or not.

Men and women make for very good friends. The tricky part is to get sex out of the way.

Ha! but there is a point/reason to it all. It's just that we can't explain everything.

I am too down to earth to find existing absurd.

Unless there is an indication that it shouldn't be taken seriously, I don't think there is much choice but to take it seriously. I frankly don't care about them conceding. Showing the extent of their pathological lying is sufficient.

you'll have to be more explicit because I have no idea what you are saying. Either I said you were a right winger (I didn't), or I inferred you were one (I didn't), or I didn't do any of those things (true). If you have any evidence contrary to the above, you should provide it because I hate having that little twerp benefit from the ambiguities in your writing. Considering the witch hunt atmosphere entertained by the neanderthals on this board, I do care about what people claim I said.