Who to vote for?

[GuardianShua]

President Obama to begin second term as a lame-duck. Republicans vow to not co-operate with Obama, even if it means crippling the nation. Now that is truly evil.

 

[yedida]

President Obama to begin second term as a lame-duck. Republicans vow to not co-operate with Obama, even if it means crippling the nation. Now that is truly evil.

Yes, it is. And if this nation goes under, we will know where to lay the blame. I don't care for Obama, but he needs our prayers and cooperation if anything good is to come in the next 4 years.
As much as I didn't want Romney, I'd be saying the same thing had he won. Our President is who he is and he needs our cooperation, not our battles. And until we can give him that, we're doomed to failure and we can't blame him.

 

[xDenax]

I had assumed the reader would have the integrity to read the link, her Jewishness is clearly stated in the first 2-3 lines of the "early life etc." section.

Perhaps he doesn't get his information from Wikepedia. I didn't. I hadn't seen anything about her being Reform either.

A Jewess attacking ad hominem an old Jew? How very nice. My wife and I are still paying members, in good standing, of both a Conservative Shul and an M.O. Shul, which we attend as regularly as possible, age and distance beginning to limit us somewhat. What you said was naughty. Tsk, tsk.

You are being rude. What does your being a paid member of a synagogue have to do with anything? Do you think that makes you special? Above all others and able to behave any way you like? It doesn't.

 

[Gxg (G²)]

Our President is who he is and he needs our cooperation, not our battles. And until we can give him that, we're doomed to failure and we can't blame him.

Real talk

 

[pat34lee]

President Obama to begin second term as a lame-duck. Republicans vow to not co-operate with Obama, even if it means crippling the nation. Now that is truly evil.

If he returns to his pledge of bipartisanship that he 'forgot' last term, I am sure they will work with him. (Both houses of congress ran roughshod over the Republicans for Obama's first two years as they had supermajorities. Most legislation passed at that time was passed without a single Republican vote for it. What he couldn't get by the Republicans in the second half of his term, he passed using executive orders.) If he continues to try and destroy our economy and take over more of the private sector, I hope they gridlock his every move from now until he leaves office in disgrace or is impeached.

 

[GuardianShua]

House Republican, John Boehner signaled Republican openness today as long as entitlements are cut.

Boehner said. "It involves making real changes to the financial structure of entitlement programs, and reforming our tax code to curb special-interest loopholes and deductions. By working together and creating a fairer, simpler, cleaner tax code, we can give our country a stronger, healthier economy."

Boehner said. "A 'balanced' approach isn't balanced if it means higher tax rates on the small businesses that are key to getting our economy moving again and keeping it moving."

In other words, cut social programs and keep Bush trickledown economics favoring the wealthy.

 

[Gxg (G²)]

When looking at the foundation of a man...
Mormon: anti-Torah...false prophet, false priesthood, false doctrine, replacement theology...belief that Mormons represent the "stick of Joseph", baptism of Holocaust victims by proxy, thereby converting them to Mormonism...heresy.
Israel=secular gov't, but a Jew supporting a Mormon/Catholic platform?

Does this seem strange to anyone else???

However, politics involves a common agenda, which goes beyond religious viewpoint. It seems government is more concerned with the world view. The general public has become spectators of "globalization".

It is interesting to see the ways that things evolved when it comes to the religious views promoted/tolerated by governments.

Romney does not worship the Christian God...or the God of the Bible..

Mormonism was never considered Christianity when it broke off during what was known as the Restorationist era (more here and here and here). It has repeatedly been denounced by mainstream Christianity for decades when it comes to core values of Christianity that are denied---from the beliefs that blacks are cursed to the belief that God had sex with other divine beings in order to make spirit children like Jesus/Lucifer (seen as brothers) to saying God the Father used to be a man like us from another galaxy and claiming men can become like him/rule other universes (blasphemy). What others have often noted is that people were willing to denounce it as "un-Christian" when it wasn't the case that it'd be in the forefront of the Republican party...but once one for it won, the loyalty to the GOP has influenced many to soften up and make previous stances be as if they were never there.

IMHO, all groups of people not trusting in Christ as He expressed of himself are decieved...but there are levels of deception. There are, of course, MANY people who'd grow up in Mormonism not fully aware of what it teaches--but when presented it and refusing to turn away from it (as Romney has), that's a different issue altogether. I do believe it's possible for one to be involved in Mormonism and be a believer due to the issue of revelation being limited at times...

Speaking personally for myself, people such as Philip Jenkins have been the people I learn from at times and they've been of great benefit when it comes to the issue of Mormonism and how to see it...seeing how much they've spread/advanced over the years. He at one point of his book "The Next Christendom" allowed for the inclusion of Mormons in the advancement of Global Christianity...but he made clear that he did so specifically in considering them as "semi-Christian" (p. 66).... something many Mormons take issue with. When reading the book fully, it seemed clear that Jenkins was never saying he personally felt that Mormonism was in any way representative of what Biblical Christianity is at any level. It had many Christian themes and aspects---but the Christ of Mornomism and that of what the early Jewish church felt are 2 radically different things.

There's a need to categorize what specific groups are apart of Christendom--including those groups which are in Abberational Christianity, where they may "major on minors and minor on majors"...leading them to no longer really be reflective of historical Christianity even as it may still hold aspects of it in tack. Single doctrines are never held in isolation from other doctrines, but rather is always part of a system or network of beliefs held by a person or group. And sometimes that system of beliefs includes many doctrines which are orthodox/biblical as well as some which are heretical in a damaging sense. For example, a religious group might hold that the Bible is the Word of God, that there is only one God, that Jesus was born of a virgin and rose from the dead, and yet deny the deity of Jesus Christ. Such a group's belief system is heretical, even though it contains many true beliefs. Moreover, a group's heretical beliefs generally lead them to misunderstand or misapply even those true beliefs they do confess, since the beliefs tend to be interdependent and thus mutually affect one another. Additionally, people often hold conflicting beliefs. Because people are often inconsistent, in some cases they may hold to orthodox beliefs but also hold to beliefs that undermine or contradict their orthodox beliefs. IMHO, this is definately the case with Mormonism

There are many stories of Ex-Mormons who noted they believed Jesus was the Savior/Messiah and needed to trust in Him, even though they weren't fully aware of all the errors within Mormonism...and they got basic components of the faith where they were at.

That said, I don't see where the scriptures EVER allowed for others to be given revelation of who Christ is and to still be good when they blantantly turn away from what the Lord said in favor of a lie. The first commandment alongside the second are key issues for those trusting in Messiah, as believing that God alone is GOD and there is no other like him is something that was never taken lightly---and anyone claiming that God was once a man just like us and we can become God sets the stage for an WORLD of apostasy/blasphemy.

And for Republican friends who see Romney as the hope of our country's future, and belittle the importance of his Mormon faith, anyone knowing the summary of Mormonism would be wise. At the church I grew up at, it was never treated as a light issue.

Banned Mormon Cartoon - EXTENDED VERSION​

The issue of celestial sex that God apparently had with another female deity in order to produce Christ and the Devil amongst other wacky beliefs found within Mormonism---I'm surprised so many act as if that's not an issue and thinking "Oh...well, it's not really that bad of deception or that much against scripture"---for it's another religion entirely, especially when claiming that men will be able to become like God the Father at some point and rule in another universe if they do well enough in their works. President Obama has NEVER come remotely close to advocating anything close to that and I think it wise that many Evangelicals have pointed that out when noting what the President believes/how it's far more Biblical than anything else offered in other presidential options ( #1#18 and #131 )

Can't say I'm very excited about the prospect of having a man who holds to this theology in office..just as I wasn't in 2008 when the man ran for office and during the 2012 election.

Beyond that, there's also the issue of polygamists and many wishing to have that lifestyle pushed when someone gets into office supporting their views..awaiting if he'll speak against the legality of polygamous marriages in Utah and other places... I don't think it's right how so many are focusing on Romney's polygamous ancestry---but it'll be interesting to see if he'll shut it down for good in the U.S where it occurs.

Other issues with his beliefs/how he feels toward blacks are significant enough. Where the Mormon church stands on blacks is never acceptable (more here, here, here / here/here ), regardless of Romney trying to get past that as if it's a non-issue. He has already been called out multiple times on commentary/policies he has supported that do not really favor black communities---and I'm not surprised as to why in light of his faith. Black Republicans, regardless of what Romney says, are right (IMHO) to note that Romney's lack of interest in the black community is shameful....just as much as with President Obama's actions.

LDS Mormon Mitt Romney on Blacks Priesthood​

His stances toward Hispanics also don't seem favorale, IMHO, as it concerns immigration---ironic, IMHO, in light of his background[


It's interesting to see what happens with the inconsistency when saying at one point someone will never support someone...and yet they'll go for them when their party endorses them.

From where I stand, it does seem that much of the switching of stances (and the basis of it being fear for what may come) is a revelation in how circumstances---and not faith---often determine the choices of others. This election isn't the first time Romney brought issues of compromise to the service. I'm reminded of what occurred with Dr.James Dobson of "Focus on the Family" (one of the largest religious right/pro-life groups around) and many others way back in 2008 (before President Obama was elected) and how many were speaking out against Romney just as they were against Obama and other cannidates who didn't walk in righteousness.

Dobson/others raised fuss about President Obama being with Reverend Jeremiah Wright in his church, concerning Black Liberation Theology. Many blasted the church on the theology, not even knowing fully what it was about or seeing what Liberation Theology is pratically and how there are differing variations of it---and Dobson, in his view, said it was wrong to elect a president who (in his mind) went to a racist chuch. Dobson, being Religious Right, was vehemently against anything concerning support of the President during the era he was running (more here and here ).

Dobson accuses Obama of 'distorting' Bible​

And yet with Rommney, he switched. For with President Obama, he said that Christians should never vote for a president who has religious standards not lining up with the Bible since it could influence their presidency....and he said the same thing of Rommney at one point due to his Mormon background. But when Rommney became the most PROMINENT Republican cannidate at one point, all talk on religious background went OUT the window and he started saying how religious right people need to vote to Rommney since he is "qualified" to lead (more here/ here ).

Thankfully, he has tried to come back to seeing the reality of corruption on all sides and encouraging believers to make a radical stand in not approving of any side that is not sold out for the Lord (more shared here/ here )...similar to others in history such as Deitrick Bonheffer and others in Germany when seeing the ways elections were set up and how they refused to endorse any party that was sold out to things the Lord said he hated..

 

[Gxg (G²)]

The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association confirmed on Tuesday that it had removed all references to Mormonism as a “cult” from its website after their founder announced his support of Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney. Billy Graham Evangelistic Association Addresses Critics on Support for Romney

I don't think it'd be wrong to note that the Evangelical Association has essentially commited suicide in endorsing Romney..

There's an interesting article on what you noted that I think you may be intrigued by..entitlted How the Evangelicals Doomed the Republican Party, God, and Mabye America - Patheos

It's interesting seeing how Mormonism has long taught that it was meant to become the faith that'd dominante America....and even though the election led in the loss of a Mormon President, it's interesting to see what was opened up due to people championing it.

Many on the Conservative Evangelical side have long expressed desires for a theocracy in no uncertain terms..especially when it comes to the reality of culture wars dominating the Evangelical landscape for a long time and others seeking to promote their ideas of how the nation should be run from a Christian perspective. ..be it voting against gay marriage or wanting to have prayer/10 commandments in school and many other things.

However, the election involved many interesting factors that've arisen to actually open the door for Evangelicals to have a theocracy that's really not what they were expecting - as seen in what often happened when many said they'd NEVER support someone who was Mormon due to it being against Christian values and yet went with it anyway, justifying it because a Mormon was the head of the party they tended to place their Chrisitan values at squarely - and thus, they ended up advocating for the idea that a Mormon could lead the nation as God's representative of the Christian values they held to....and essentially, giving Mormonism the pass it needed to promote itself as God's Divine Ideal of what Theocracy looks like.

One of my brothers in CHrist alerted me to an article his friend had written that had given a very interesting critique of the Republican party and the way it seemed to evolve - both by choice and by force....and with there being a lot of realization that the party isn't as consistent on its stances as they often told others to believe.

In his words, as it concerns their choice on Romney to begin with:

Now that Mitt Romney has secured the Republican Party nomination, one major constituency group within the GOP will find itself wrestling with party vs. faith. The party leaders have asked conservative evangelicals to vote for a Mormon. Now for me and other religious progressives who have been hard at work establishing and working within ecumenical groups and dialoguing with all faiths, this does not pose a problem. For us, religion is about a faithful and authentic response to God and humankind. How one discerns the Divine in one’s life is in the final analysis, a personal decision. Moreover, we do not believe that one’s religion should effect how one should vote for president or any political office. Policies matter—ones the candidate believes in and ones that the candidate’s party supports and promises to deliver if elected to office.

However, this is not the case with conservative evangelicals. They are dogmatically Christian, believing that a candidate’s religion must reflect their own. Many conservative evangelicals do not believe that Romney is Christian—believing that the Mormon faith is not a Christian faith. Furthermore, many of these same conservative evangelicals believe that a Romney presidency may help “legitimize a false religion.” In 1998, the Southern Baptists, at their Convention held in Mormon rich Salt Lake City, went door to door evangelizing Mormons and promoting a book Mormonism Unmasked. Religious conservatives (evangelicals) rallied earlier in the year in Texas to try to support a candidate not named Romney. Santorum emerged as their pick (a Roman Catholic and not a Protestant) but earlier there was even a flirtation from evangelicals with the spectacularly flawed Newt Gingrich.

To be sure, Romney was anathema to many conservative evangelicals. Conservatives brought this out in the open when early in the campaign conservative evangelical declared Mormonism a “cult” and said to an audience "born-again followers of Christ should always prefer [a] competent Christian to a competent non-Christian like Mitt Romney." Commentators have even noticed that Santorum is less than enthusiastic about supporting Romney.

However, not all of this has stop conservative evangelicals from lining up and supporting Romney. In a recent article, Jonathan Merritt writes about the unexpected evangelical silence on Romney’s religion. In the article, he notes that one reason why conservative evangelicals are supporting Romney is theirs and Mormon’s support of “traditional marriage” and other political conservative ideals. Nevertheless, this should not make a difference, because theologically, conservative evangelicals should not vote for a person who is a non-Christian.

Maybe therein lies the rub. Maybe conservative evangelicals were hiding behind religious faith family values all along. Maybe it was never about any of that anyway. Maybe it was all about politics, winning offices, and promoting a conservative agenda. If it was about theology, faith, and religion, drawing upon the teachings of conservative evangelicalism, they should line up supporting Obama. Obama is the “Christian” who has “accepted Jesus Christ in the pardon of his sins.” He is the one baptized into the faith who has affirmed that Jesus is Lord and Savior. Obama repents of his sins and affirms the Triune God of Christianity.

Studies show that Obama talks about faith, religion, Christianity, God, and the church more so than any other president in modern history. His speeches are full of religious rhetoric, the speeches at the prayer breakfasts constructs what I call a rhetorical theology aimed at inviting his audience to understand faith. If there is one candidate in the race that conservative evangelicals should support, based on their own previous criteria and theological presuppositions, it is President Obama.

However, conservative evangelicals are going to support Romney is overwhelming numbers and somehow reconcile teachings about Mormonism that call the religion “false,” a “cult,” or “non-Christian.” As an ecumenical religious leader, I want to say that maybe conservative evangelicals are evolving (again something else that would be anathema to many of them) toward ecumenicism and to having inter-religious dialogue.
​

Moreover, as he wrote in reflection of the election results and how others felt:

As I reflect on the 2012 election, the first group that comes to mind is conservative evangelicals who, despite their former beliefs and protestations about Mormonism, supported Mitt Romney, a devout Mormon. As I wrote about earlier when I began to see this trend happening, there is nothing wrong with conservative evangelicals supporting a Mormon candidate. I even suggested that maybe some in the conservative evangelical wing of the Republican Party were evolving to some sort of ecumenicalism that would lead to a more inter-religious dialogue. This would not be the case however, as many of them—who before believed that Mormonism was a “cult,” “non-Christian,” dismissed those ingrained beliefs and convinced others to do the same.


My thought is that many of them still do believe this and now will have to reconcile the fact that they rejected their own teachings about their faith. For many, it will cause some major theological cognitive dissonance. Before this election year, conservative evangelicals reminded their followers that they should support candidates who shared their beliefs and values. In short, they must support a Christian. That candidate, based on the conservative evangelical belief system, would have been president Obama.


However, they decided to support someone who they heretofore believed did not share their faith because of their own anti-Obama feelings. I imagine some may be wrestling with this because, for many conservative evangelicals, the faith is paramount; one should practice it unflinchingly and waveringly against all manner of temptations. In this instance, the temptation of replacing Obama as president was too good to pass up. So not only did they not adhere to their own principles embedded in their theology, but they also shirked their Christian beliefs by acting in ways that were not “ Christlike” because of their disdain for the President. But their efforts seemed to work because Romney received 79% of the conservative evangelical vote.


The other group I am reflecting on this morning is the group of African American clergy who led efforts to get black Christians not to vote for Obama because of his evolved position on marriage equality. Led by Rev. William Owens and Bishop Harry Jackson, this group of black clergy led their own voter suppression campaign as they attempted to appeal to congregants within the black church to get black people to vote for anyone besides Obama or just not to vote at all. Their attempts of voter suppression seemed not to work because the president received 95% of the African Americans church vote, up 1% from 2008.


Moreover, these would be leaders will also have to go back to their congregations in the aftermath of this election and explain to them why they would participate in an act that many (church going) African Americans feel as sacred. They also will have to explain their seemly selective critique of the president—namely why of the different policies that clergy leaders could and some would argue rightfully justify as a substantial critique, would they select this one? When one remembers that the president’s evolution was only a personal opinion and not policy, I believe one has the right to be suspect of Rev. Owens and Bishop Jackson’s “concern.”


However, this may all be for not. In talking with R3 contributor Earle Fisher on a panel this morning as we reflected on the election, he suggests they these two conservative groups would not have to offer any mea culpas or to use a religious term “confess.” His reasoning is that they do this knowing that their theological positions on paper have never matched their actions. You know, he is right. Conservative ideology and its kissing cousin, conservative theology has always been about maintaining the status quo; clogging up progress, grinding the forces of change. While both of these conservative groups, in an ideal world, have an opportunity to reshape and reconfigure their theological thought processes, chances are that they will not take advantage of the opportunity.
​

 

[Gxg (G²)]

President Obama to begin second term as a lame-duck. Republicans vow to not co-operate with Obama, even if it means crippling the nation. Now that is truly evil.

If they don't work with the president, they ensure their own demise later on as well - and people will quickly grow tired of them...

 

[pat34lee]

If they don't work with the president, they ensure their own demise later on as well - and people will quickly grow tired of them...

If they work with him without holding him accountable, they will ensure our demise as a nation. It took the Republicans winning both houses to bring Clinton around to welfare reform and other cost-cutting legislation which Clinton eventually signed and took credit for.

 

[Gxg (G²)]

If they work with him without holding him accountable, they will ensure our demise as a nation. .

They've not really been holding him accountable as much as being opposed to much of what he does even when it agrees with them - and that's not something that helps any nation. Way too Fiscal conservatives have noted that to be an issue for a long time, especially when many Republicans have noted to others within their party that not everything they hold to in their party is what the president was even meant to be accountable to since much of it helped to bring the nation where it was economically in a crisis and needed to change.

It always works both ways - and accountability needs to be kept on all sides. The issue of Taxes is one of them, as many have noted it is illogical trying to fight against increased taxes while pushing for more tax-cuts since that is what got things messed up. Many in the Republican party are trying to go back to Reganomics in the belief that it worked and that the president needs to be forced to go to that. However, Regan's economics NEVER worked (as even his own economic team called it out before when seeing the long term effects of his actions).



Mess often happens whenever people try quoting Regan's policy under the claim that supply side economics worked for him---but the fact of the matter is that upply side worked for a bit under Reagan because:

1. We were in a designed downturn, which is easier to recover from
2. The deficit brought investment into the US
3. Reagan did have to raise taxes again
​

The way many glorify Reaganomics as being the system for all times is akin to the ways others glorify the methods used to keep carts/horses or the early railroad system running and how the system helped out for the time. Certain things work because of the setting one's in and the ways that culture was geared to make things possible---but if someone looked at bullet trains today in their development (or automobiles/cars) and said that we need to go back to the previous system, they'd be silly for doing so since electricity/gasoline are used today in ways to get things done that were not present in previous times.

As it is, Reaganomics never truly worked fully as much as people champion. It also had flaws and drawbacks that would be damaging for today..

• The Death of Reaganomics
• The Dark Legacy of Reaganomics | Consortiumnews
• Reaganomics: An Analysis - A Post Keynesian Perspective
• The Myths of Reaganomics - Murray N. Rothbard - Mises Daily
• Ronald Reagan and the 1980s: Perceptions, Policies, Legacies - Page 256 - Google Books Result

P.C. Roberts (served under Reagan, mentioned in the article) is deeply critical of the present economic course of the Republican Party in general. It is also apparently forgotten what a massive hit the S&L crisis was on the economy -- deregulation/lack of regulation has been at least a partial author of three financial crises in the US.


It's interesting studying history and remembering what others said on Reagan when he was alive...and for another person who worked with Reagan and saw where things did not work, as said earlier, Bruce Bartlett is the man. He was one of the originators of Reaganomics, the supply-side economic theory that conservatives have clung to for decades. He had an excellent book on the issue entitled The New American Economy: The Failure of Reaganomics and a New Way Forward.

​

For a review on the work, one can go here to EconomistMom.com »How True Fiscal Conservatives Talk About Tax Policy. As she noted on the book:

The New York Times’ David Leonhardt wrote a really nice story about Bruce’s current perspective on supply-side economics and tax policy and how the Republican Party has lost its fiscally-conservative way (emphasis added):

[P]erhaps the most persistent — and thought-provoking — conservative critic of the party has been Bruce Bartlett. Mr. Bartlett has worked for Jack Kemp and Presidents Reagan and George H. W. Bush. He has been a fellow at the Cato Institute and the Heritage Foundation. He wants the estate tax to be reduced, and he thinks that President Obama should not have taken on health reform or climate change this year.
Above all, however, he thinks that the Republican Party no longer has a credible economic policy. It continues to advocate tax cuts even though the recent Bush tax cuts led to only mediocre economic growth and huge deficits…
​

True fiscal conservatives should be advocating a more balanced budget, certainly after we’ve recovered from the aftermath of this recession. (Bill Clinton made this his final point in his prepared remarks to the World Business Forum in New York City on Wednesday.) True fiscal conservatives understand that while the benefit of low tax rates is improved economic incentives for private-sector work and saving, the cost of low tax rates is the reduced public saving that arises from a larger budget deficit (or smaller surplus). The benefits were more likely to outweigh costs back in the days when marginal tax rates were very high. But now it’s a totally different story:

[Bruce's] conservatism starts with the idea that high taxes are no longer the problem, even if complaining about them still makes for good politics. This year, federal taxes are on pace to equal just 15 percent of gross domestic product. It is the lowest share since 1950.
As the economy recovers, taxes will naturally return to about 18 percent of G.D.P., and Mr. Obama’s proposed rate increase on the affluent would take the level closer to 20 percent. But some basic arithmetic — the Medicare budget, projected to soar in coming decades — suggests taxes need to rise further, and history suggests that’s O.K.
For one thing, past tax increases have not choked off economic growth. The 1980s boom didn’t immediately follow the 1981 Reagan tax cut; it followed his 1982 tax increase to reduce the deficit. The 1990s boom followed the 1993 Clinton tax increase. Tax rates matter, but they’re nowhere near the main force affecting growth.
And taxes are supposed to rise as a country grows richer…
​

Bruce argues that while the first goal of modern conservatism should be to keep government from getting too big, the second:

…should be to keep taxes from being increased in the wrong ways. Supply-side economics is based on the idea that higher tax rates discourage work and investment, two crucial ingredients for economic growth. But higher taxes on consumption don’t have nearly the same effect as taxes on incomes or companies. If anything, consumption taxes encourage savings, which lifts investment.
So Mr. Bartlett advocates a value-added tax — a federal sales tax — which most other rich countries have…
​

Even worse though, is to cut taxes in the wrong ways–such that even as public saving is harmed via deficit financing, private incentives to save and invest and work are harmed as well. Or such that most of the tax cutting agenda consists of a prior Administration’s tax policy that a new Administration understands has been proven to not pass the cost-benefit test.

Bruce Bartlett is a true fiscal conservative who’s telling us taxes have to rise. Concord Coalition Executive Director Bob Bixby is another one.
​

Marshalling compelling history and economics, he explains in his book how economic theories that may be perfectly valid at one moment in time under one set of circumstances tend to lose validity over time because they are misapplied under different circumstances. Bartlett makes a compelling, historically-based case for large tax increases, once anathema to him and his economic allies. In The New American Economy, Bartlett seeks to clarify a compelling and way forward for the American economy.

And we definately need to find compelling ways of changing things, as the way that "Trickle Down" was advocated was like having a wolf at the front door appear to be like a puppy/pet dog ...and ignoring the fact that it was not meant to be your friend. The system really doesn't work and people need to stop lying as if it ever was meant to do so in all times/settings...

​

 

[Gxg (G²)]

President Obama to begin second term as a lame-duck. Republicans vow to not co-operate with Obama, even if it means crippling the nation. Now that is truly evil.

As evil as it is for others to refuse to work with him even when many of his policies proved beneficial/prevented a lot of mess - with many economist noting that the economy was placed back on track/in a slow recovery - I don't think he'll be a "lame-duck" president in light of what else he has sought to accomplish.

 

[pat34lee]

It always works both ways - and accountability needs to be kept on all sides. The issue of Taxes is one of them, as many have noted it is illogical trying to fight against increased taxes while pushing for more tax-cuts since that is what got things messed up. Many in the Republican party are trying to go back to Reganomics in the belief that it worked and that the president needs to be forced to go to that. However, Regan's economics NEVER worked (as even his own economic team called it out before when seeing the long term effects of his actions).



Mess often happens whenever people try quoting Regan's policy under the claim that supply side economics worked for him---but the fact of the matter is that upply side worked for a bit under Reagan because:

1. We were in a designed downturn, which is easier to recover from
2. The deficit brought investment into the US
3. Reagan did have to raise taxes again​

​

Increasing taxes cannot get us out of the debt that Bush and Obama piled on us. Only cutting spending can do that, and it has to be social programs, as that is where most of our tax money goes. Government is not our nanny, and was not designed to take care of us. Its only job is to protect us while we take care of our own business.

Reagan's biggest problem was that both houses of congress were democrat controlled. He could not get the tax cuts we needed without the democrats forcing him to accept their pork projects. His goal of cutting taxes worked very well, increasing money paid in taxes. (The democrats promptly spent the extra revenue and then some.)

There is always a break-even point, where increasing taxes makes people and companies spend less and hide more revenue, resulting in less taxes paid. At some point, the taxes become so burdensome that companies are forced to close or move to a more tax-friendly place, whether another state or another country.

 

[Gxg (G²)]

[/indent]Increasing taxes cannot get us out of the debt that Bush and Obama piled on us. Only cutting spending can do that, .

Cutting spending is what got folks into the mess, Bruh..and it is reinterpreting history to say otherwise when it comes to basic logic.

Other conservative economists have pointed out when it comes to the economy steadily improving and yet having issues getting perfected due to other policies allowed to flourish that led to the economic failure.


Here's a link to the Reinhart Rogoff excellent article on the nature of recessions and what we're in:

• Sorry, U.S. Recoveries Really Aren’t Different - Bloomberg

The economy is improving - and improving faster than it did under previous financial and economic crises of this particular kind.We could have been in a much worse position -- a full-out depression. That the economy is still a mess is not Obama's fault. The cause of this economic mess were policies and practices that caused the crash -- and these happened long before Obama took office. The indicators we see under this presidency were hatched in 2007, and conceived long before they hatched

Bruce Bartlett, who worked during the Reagan Administration, did a lot of work in addressing the issue of how the recession itself took a lot of work in developing and policies set in place long before the recession led to where we are (more here). The Economist did other reviews similar to what Sister Thekla noted:

• Is it Barack Obama's economy?
• Barack Obama's economic record: End-of-term report | The Economist
• The economy as a whole is growing at an unimpressive rate. It may not be able to go much faster

It's understandable while so many economists give Obama credit for saving America from a second great depression.

There are multiple factors that make a difference when seeing the extent of the recession and the ways that it has been stalled and yet taking time to get out of.

Bruce Bartlett did some good review on the issue elsewhere:

• Charts That Should Get Obama Reelected - Business Insider
• Bruce Bartlett: Obama Is And Always Has Been A Moderate Conservative

Bruce Bartlett on Reagan vs Obama Taxes​

Conservative Bruce Bartlett Defends Obama On The Deficit
Former Reagan Policy Advisor Bruce Bartlett Explains How Bush Facilitated Economic Mess​

Despite Republican mythmaking that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) "created zero jobs," the CBO reported in November that the stimulus added up to 2.4 million jobs and boosted GDP by as much as 1.9 points in the past quarter. As it turns out, that conclusion confirms the consensus of most economists - including John McCain's 2008 brain trust- that President Obama's recovery program is continuing to deliver benefits for the American people.

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From the beginning, the nonpartisan CBO has testified to the success of the largely concluded 2009 stimulus package in driving employment and economic growth. In February, the New York Times assessed the impact of the Obama stimulus and rebutted its Republican critics:

By comparison, despite criticism of its size and composition by both the right and the left, the stimulus by the Obama administration did add to jobs and growth. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates it will have contributed at least 1.6 million jobs and perhaps as many as 8.4 million by 2013.This month, the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago surveyed a panel of economic experts of different political persuasions about the impact of the president's stimulus package: eight out of 10 said it had contributed to lower unemployment by the end of 2010. There was less consensus on whether its benefits would exceed its long-term costs, including higher taxes to pay for the spending. Still, when asked if the policy was worth it, four times as many economists agreed as disagreed.


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In order to truly gauge the success of the stimulus, it's worth taking a second look at just how dire the U.S. economic situation was when the Obama administration made its fateful prediction that unemployment would peak at 8 percent. As The Economist and the Washington Post's Ezra Klein detailed, in early 2009 the American economy was not only in much worse shape than anyone imagined; it was literally on the brink of collapse.

As The Economist explained the run-up to the passage of the $787 billion recovery program:

The White House looked at the economic situation, sized up Congress, and took its shot. Unfortunately, the situation was far more dire than anyone in the administration or in Congress supposed.

Output in the third and fourth quarters fell by 3.7% and 8.9%, respectively, not at 0.5% and 3.8% as believed at the time. Employment was also falling much faster than estimated. Some 820,000 jobs were lost in January, rather than the 598,000 then reported. In the three months prior to the passage of stimulus, the economy cut loose 2.2m workers, not 1.8m. In January, total employment was already 1m workers below the level shown in the official data.




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Whether the White House should have known the unemployment picture was going to be much, much worse (as Joseph Stiglitz and Jared Bernstein argued) or that the stimulus package itself was too small and too laden with tax breaks (as Paul Krugman warned at the time), there is little question that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act worked largely as designed. And you don't have to take the CBO's word for it. You can just ask some of John McCain's adviser. Douglas Holtz-Eakin, former head of the CBO and chief economic adviser to John McCain during the 2008 election, acknowledged the impact of the stimulus. Certainly no fan of either Barack Obama or the design of the ARRA, Holtz-Eakin told Ezra Klein that:

"The argument that the stimulus had zero impact and we shouldn't have done it is intellectually dishonest or wrong. If you throw a trillion dollars at the economy it has an impact, and we needed to do something."

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Mark Zandi, another adviser to McCain, was much more adamant. Federal intervention, he and Princeton economist Alan Blinder argued in August 2010, literally saved the United States from a second Great Depression. In "How the Great Recession Was Brought to an End," Blinder and Zandi's models confirmed the impact of the Obama recovery program and concluded that "laissez faire was not an option

Despite the GOP's ignorant claims that "President Obama made the economy worse," the Romney and Ryan budget blueprints would actually bring economic growth to a screeching halt and with it cast hundreds of thousands of Americans into the ranks of the unemployed.

The Economic Policy Institute summed up the carnage the Ryan budget is forecast to produce:

Paul Ryan's latest budget doesn't just fail to address job creation, it aggressively slows job growth. Against a current policy baseline, the budget cuts discretionary programs by about $120 billion over the next two years and mandatory programs by $284 billion, sucking demand out of the economy when it most needs it and leading to job loss. Using a standard macroeconomic model that is consistent with that used by private- and public-sector forecasters, the shock to aggregate demand from near-term spending cuts would result in roughly 1.3 million jobs lost in 2013 and 2.8 million jobs lost in 2014, or 4.1 million jobs through 2014.

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Despite his promise to produce 12 million new jobs in his first term, Mitt Romney's vision isn't much better in the long term. Many leading economists predict that far from rescuing the middle class, Mitt Romney will only batter it further. Joel Prakken, chairman of economic forecasting firm Macroeconomic Advisers, rejected the notion that Mitt's 159-point plan would "reduce the unemployment rate from eight to five in two years." James Galbraith worried that" if applied, these fiscal measures would be utterly draconian" and "the attacks on Medicare and Social Security would throw large portions of the population into poverty." Mark Hopkins of Moody's Analytics stated that "on net, all of [Romney's] policies would do more harm in the short term," adding, "If we implemented all of his policies, it would push us deeper into recession and make the recovery slower." Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz cautioned, "The Romney plan is going to slow down the economy, worsen the jobs deficit, and significantly increase the likelihood of a recession."

It'd be beneficial if people study the causes of the recession, the particular type of recession we had (hint: very different from the one under Reagan), and the projections for recovery..

Only cutting spending can do that, and it has to be social programs, as that is where most of our tax money goes. Government is not our nanny, and was not designed to take care of us. Its only job is to protect us while we take care of our own business.

One doesn't need government to be a "nanny" in order to note where government is to aid in taking care of the destitute and helping others who do just that DAILY as it concerns faith-based programs/initiatives. That will always make a difference on a myriad of things, be it social security or Medicare or programs for the disabled and many other things.

If one wishes to talk on governmnet being a "nanny", one needs to address where the same people talking on government giving welfare say zero on government doing welfare from a corporate perspective. ..as government is often used to protect the businesses others make and that's still looking for government to take care of it.

Again, there are many reasons amongst others that other conservatives never favored the oppositon to Obama highly because of his seeking to ensure that the biggest corporations are dependent on various kinds of corporate welfare - subsidies, giveaways, bailouts, waivers, and other dazzling preferences - while many pay no tax at all on very substantial profits...and yet being unwilling to deal with cuts to those organizations (alongside military spending) while wanting to address taking spending away from those programs helping everyday people.

For more:

• Big No Tax Corps Keep Dodging" ()
• "Corporate Welfare in the Federal Budget" ( )
• "Government Dependency and Corporatist America" ( )
• "Corporate Welfare Queens, by James Surowiecki" ( )
• Lessons from the Fall of RomneyCare - Cato Institute

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[Gxg (G²)]

[/indent]Increasing taxes cannot get us out of the debt that Bush and Obama piled on us. Only cutting spending can do that, and it has to be social programs, as that is where most of our tax money goes.

Many, actually, have noted that most of the tax money goes to WAR/military spending - something many conservatives have long noted to be a big problem when it comes to being unwilling to cut funding to those things in certain areas and the GOPs defense on those things.

Tax Dollars At War​

For other articles on the issue, from "ZeroHedge":

-Obama Vs Romney National Security Policies In A Nutshell
-The Stunning Political Reality Of The Fiscal Cliff Debate
-A History Of US Defense Spending Since FDR; And Where Obama And Romney Differ
-Trends in U.S. Military SpendingGuest Post: Americans Want Smaller Government And Lower Taxes
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Reagan's biggest problem was that both houses of congress were democrat controlled. He could not get the tax cuts we needed without the democrats forcing him to accept their pork projects. His goal of cutting taxes worked very well, increasing money paid in taxes. (The democrats promptly spent the extra revenue and then some.)
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That's not historical in light of where other conservatives have long noted otherwise - specifically those who worked with Reagan and noted where the tax-cuts set the stage for where we are today.

The notion of “trickle-down economics,” the idea that if those at the top do well, so will the rest of society, is a lie. Period....and the evidence of it doing good is overwhelmingly to the contrary: the real income (adjusted for inflation) of most Americans today is lower than it was almost a decade and half ago, in 1997. In the decades immediately after World War II, we had economic growth in which most people shared, with those at the bottom doing proportionately better than those at the top. (It was also the period that saw the country’s most rapid economic growth.)

Among the precipitating events leading to greater inequality were the beginning of the deregulation of the financial sector and the reduction in the progressivity of the tax system. Deregulation led to the excessive financialization of the economy—to the point that, before the crisis, 40 percent of all corporate profits went to the financial sector. And the financial sector has been marked by extremes in compensation at the top, and has made its profits partly by exploiting those at the bottom and middle, with, for instance, predatory lending and abusive credit-card practices. Reagan’s successors, unfortunately, continued down the path of deregulation. They also extended the policy of lowering taxes at the top, to the point where today, the richest 1 percent of Americans pay only around 15 percent of their income in taxes, far lower than those with more moderate incomes. Reagan’s breaking of the air-traffic controllers’ strike is often cited as a critical juncture in the weakening of unions, one of the factors explaining why workers have done so badly in recent decades. But there are other factors as well. Reagan promoted trade liberalization, and some of the growth in inequality is due to globalization and the replacement of semi-skilled jobs with new technologies and outsourced labor. Some of the increase in inequality common to both Europe and America can be ascribed to that. But what’s different about America is the remarkable growth in incomes of the very top—especially the top 0.1 percent. This is orders of magnitude greater than in most of Europe and comes partly out of Reagan’s deregulatory fervor, particularly in finance, partly out of inadequate enforcement of competition laws, partly out of America’s greater willingness to take advantage of inadequate corporate governance laws.

Throughout its history, America has struggled with inequality. But with the tax policies and regulations that existed in the postwar period, we were on the right track toward ameliorating some of that. The tax cuts and deregulation that began in the Reagan years reversed the trend. Income disparities before tax and transfers (help that is given to the poor through, for instance, food stamps) is now larger, and because government is doing less for the poor and favoring the rich, inequalities in income, after taxes and transfers, are even larger.

One of Romney's top economic advisors, Glenn Hubbard, the dean of the Columbia Business School, along with former Sen. Phil Gramm (Mr. Banking Deregulation of the late 1990s), penned an op-ed Thursday in The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) comparing the current recession with "the superior job creation and income growth" of—wait for it—the 1980s. Interestingly enough, there was no mention of the Clinton 1990s or the Bush tax cuts, of which Hubbard was a prime architect as chairman of the president's Council of Economic Advisors.

Yet there's a growing consensus addresses the issue:

• Robert Moffitt and Mark Wilhelm found "no evidence" that high income US taxpayers increased their work hours in response to the 1986 Reagan tax cuts. This undercuts a central premise of supply-side economics, that cutting taxes gives people incentives to work more.
• A 2010 report by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found that cutting income taxes produced the least bang for the buck among 11 proposed policy options aimed at boosting employment.
• David and Christina Romer, economists at UC Berkeley (she was President Obama's CEA chairman), found that changes in marginal tax rates had little effect on US economic growth in the 1920s and 1930s, either.

The most striking evidence is the glaring contrast between the 1990s and 2000s. A 2008 study by the liberal Center for American Progress and Economic Policy Institute showed that private investment, GDP, wages, household income, employment, and federal revenue all grew faster—sometimes much faster—during the high-tax Clinton years than they did during the low-tax Reagan and Bush eras. In August 1993, President Clinton signed a law that boosted the top personal income tax rate dramatically, to 39.6% from 31%. But rather than die out, the nascent economic recovery picked up speed and never looked back. By the time this giant boom ended, the US economy had added nearly 20 million private-sector jobs in every sector from manufacturing to retail trade to finance to information technology. And the Clinton administration not only out-performed the supply-side administrations, but was more fair overall.

Of course, higher taxes didn't cause this boom and that's the whole point: other economic forces were so powerful that marginal tax rates didn't matter. And they didn't matter a decade later when President Bush signed the second of two tax cuts in May 2003, accelerating the 2001 act's provisions, reducing the top rate to 35%, and cutting capital gains and dividend tax rates. When Reagan jumped into the deep end of the supply-side pool he immediately found himself underwater as deficits began to rise - eventually increasing from $700 billion when Reagan came into office in 1980 to $3 trillion when he left.

The trickle-down economics, while performing worse, has also resulted in a vast gap in wealth and income between the rest and other Americans -- and triggered the most serious recession since the Great Depression.


It is a grave error when others fall for the belief that deregulation and lower taxes for the rich (and corporations) will result in a thriving economy -- providing more investment growth, productivity growth, overall growth, and job creation.

Nonetheless, in the real world it just hasn't worked out that way.

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As the charts above (from Think Progress) show, all four of those areas of growth have actually been slower under the supply-side administrations of both Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush than under the more Keynesian (non-supply-side) administration of Bill Clinton.


For other places, one can go to CHART: Bush Vs. Obama On Private And Public Sector Job ...

One can also invesitgate Economy In Perspective - GDP and See How the Economy Has Performed Under Obama as well as here to
Economic growth exceeds expectations, picks up steam - The . Ultimately, neither Keynesian stimulus nor Friedmanesque monetary policy have done the job. Obviously, supply-side economics worked better when the top tax rate was slashed from 70% to 28% under President Reagan. It might be more justified at the state level, where crippling tax burdens have made some states uncompetitive. And raising taxes too high would likely hurt growth, so it may work better in reverse. Nonetheless, supply side economis is a theory with diminishing returns that has outlived its usefulness. For after the last two decades, believing that cuts in marginal personal tax rates will create jobs and revive our economy is like still believing the universe revolves around Planet Eart.

As another said best:

"Now, as our economy struggles to emerge from the deepest recession in generations—and as we argue over what to do with the expiring Bush-era tax cuts—it is more important than ever to understand one simple fact: When put to the test in the real world, supply-side policies did not deliver as promised. In fact, by every important measure, our nation’s economic performance after the tax increases of 1993 significantly outpaced that of the periods following the tax cuts of the early 1980s and the early 2000s."

The Failure of Supply-Side Economics | Center for American Progress

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For reference:

• Predatory Lenders Hijack Microfinance
• The Predatory State by James Kenneth Galbraith - Ludwig von ...
• Romney/Ryan and That Supply-Side Black Magic - Ted Frier - Open
• David Stockman bombshell: How my Republican Party destroyed the American Economy
• How Deregulation Eviscerated the Banking Sector Safety Net and Spawned the U.S. Financial Crisis -- Money Morning.

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[Gxg (G²)]

I'm going to vote my pocket book. That means I'm voting for Obama..

Some things take time and thankfully the president did seek to address things so that they'd not happen at a faster rate. The president has done a lot when it came to helping things out, regardless of how much others may disagree with him. For many businesses would not have been able to survive if the president didn't catch the economy when things were in a free-fall and allowed for things to get back on track, with the safety nets being a key part in helping others who were harmed in their business. Paul Glastris noted it wisely in his well researched/documented article entitled The Incomplete Greatness of Barack Obama

As it concerns business, When there's so much talk of how the president is "anti-business", it tends to get accepted the more people hear of it...as is the case with media.

I've often been a bit tripped out at the many ways the president has done things that are pro-business and they get repeatedly ignored. First, Obama continued the Bush crisis-fighting policy of bailing out and stabilizing the banking sector, effectively saving Wall Street from a complete disaster it created on its own. Then he went on to rescue the American automobile industry. On taxes? He continued the Bush-era tax cuts on the wealthiest Americans over fierce opposition from his own party. Now he’s offering even more tax cuts. In his $447 billion jobs plan, Obama has recommended slicing the payroll tax paid by businesses. And on trade? Obama sent free-trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia and Panama to Congress for final approval, again over some opposition from his party.

The main Obama policy often attacked as “anti-business” is his healthcare reform. But one aim of the reform is to control escalating medical costs, which would boost the competitiveness of American businesses. Granted, Obama did increase regulation on the financial sector. But it really isn't “anti-business” since the goal is to prevent the sort of dangerous financial speculation that tanked Wall Street and created the Great Recession in the first place. A more stable, well-regulated financial system is good for American business, not “anti-business.”

In many ways, it often seems that the supposedly “pro-business” Republicans (though not all Republicans thankfully) are the ones blocking Obama policies that could help business even more. Obama’s plans to improve American infrastructure, repeatedly rejected by the GOP, would give a boost to efficiency and bring down costs for American companies.

Criticizing government policy is an easy smokescreen to hide the real reason unemployment remains stubbornly high – corporate managers would rather boost productivity and fatten profits than expand and hire during a downturn. I’d agree with Timothy Egan in the New York Times, who once wrote: “For no matter your view of President Obama, he effectively saved capitalism.”

According to the St. Louis Federal Reserve, corporate profits hit $1.37 trillion in the first quarter—an all-time high. Businesses are sitting on about $2 trillion in cash reserves. Business spending jumped 20 percent last quarter, and is up by 13 percent against 2009. The Obama administration has dropped taxes for small businesses and big ones alike. America’s supposedly "anti-business" president has led an extremely pro-business recovery. The corporate community has recovered first, and best. .and Obama administration has endorsed U.S. Rep. Stephen Fincher's bill to exempt companies with $700 million in publicly traded shares from the external auditing requirement of the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Act.

Of the 4.5 million private sector jobs created since Obama took office, about 2.6 million -- or 60 percent -- were created by small businesses. George H.W. Bush, by comparison, created just 1.8 million small business jobs during his full four years in office. And if we add the paltry number created under two terms of George W. Bush, we arrive at a startling conclusion: Obama has created as many small business jobs in one administration as his two GOP predecessors did in three. These jobs and the revival of the small business sector didn't just happen spontaneously. From the day he took office, Obama has deliberately stoked its development, providing some 18 different tax cuts: some under the banner of the 2009 American Recovery Act (the "Stimulus"), others through the Small Business Jobs Act of 2010. Obama also established the Small Business Lending Fund (SBLF) which made it easier for community-based banks to provide critical start-up loans that most fledgling businesses need to get off the ground, or to finance their expansion, hiring more workers.

The rise in commercial lending to small businesses, which began in late 2011, and has accelerated since, was itself triggered by Obama's loan guarantee policies. In 2010, he set up an unprecedentedly large fund, totaling $30 billion, under the Small Business Administration (SBA), to help underwrite commercial lending to small businesses. The SBA doesn't actually provide the loans but it signals to banks the kinds of businesses that are likely to be promising and profitable enterprises.

The benefits have been substantial. To take just one example: SBA's Dallas/Fort Worth district office approved an unprecedented 666 loans and $399.8 million in loan guarantees to small businesses during the first three months of 2012. That's a whopping increase of 83 percent and 42 percent, respectively, over the same period in 2011.




To give more figures:

• At Bank of America, new loans to businesses with less than $20 million in revenue increased 20 percent in 2011, to 6.4 billion. Among businesses with less than $5 million in revenue, lending increased 63 percent.
• A recent U.S. Treasury report on Pennsylvania found that the state's three leading banks had raised small business lending by $270 million, a whopping 60 percent increase. It took just $30 million in SBLF funding from the Obama administration to trigger that increase.
• Jim Chessen, chief economist at the American Bankers Association, said banks expect small business lending nationwide to increase by another 7 percent in 2012. That's on top of a 5 percent rise in 2011. The trajectory of rising small business lending and hiring is clear.

There has also been A LOT renewed confidence of small business owners. Gallup, which has surveyed business owners for years, recently found that the satisfaction index among owners was at its highest level since July 2008. That means Obama has largely restored small business confidence to its pre-recession levels, a remarkable feat, but like so many others, one that's been largely under-reported, or distorted by partisan warfare.


Another aspect of Obama's pro-active support to small business that's less well known is his stewardship of the Jumpstart Our Business Start-Ups (JOBS) legislation that passed the Congress in April of 2012. Obama had to reach across the aisle to work with Republicans to balance opposition he faced from within his own Democratic ranks. The bill relaxes federal security regulations to make it easier for small start-ups to gather investment capital, and many consumer groups saw it as a step backwards in terms of maintaining transparency and protecting investors from being swindled. For the bill's legislative supporters, it was a clear recognition that the IPO sector, which may be the economy's leading source of business innovation as well as job creation, will never fully recover unless extraordinary/ risky steps are taken. It was a handful of Silicon Valley investors -- many of them prospective Obama donors, of course -- who spearheaded the JOBS legislation, but it stands as one of the true bipartisan achievements of Obama's first term.

Others have noted that many (both big and small businesses) tend to be hostile politically to the president because of the deeply-ingrained perception that Democrats, because they also support stronger business regulation, are less sympathetic than Republicans are to free enterprise. Recent polls suggest that small businesses actually support increased regulation, especially on the environment. Other reasons for hostility are due to the simple lack of education. For example, while clearly worried about the cost of health care reform, a recent survey found that a majority of small business owners remained completely unaware of the large subsidy and tax exemption actually afforded them under Obamacare. Republicans, while shoring up big firms, have often neglected the small business sector, except, of course, as a convenient ideological symbol. Most economists know that the GOP's attempt to portray its tax cuts on high-income earners as an investment capital "stimulus" to small businesses is a fraud. Only 3-4 percent of small business owners report annual personal income in the $200,000-$250,000 bracket. Tax cuts at this level will have only minimal impact on the nation's economy, except as a subsidy for the luxury purchases of the rich.


Whether folks like it or note, Obama has a "sterling" record when it comes to promoting small business. And that is a BIG DEAL for many around the country when it comes to handling hard times and seeing what the president has done on behalf of others so that they can do well. It's what many voters are concerned on during the elections.

• Iraqi American Mojo: Obama is pro business
• Bill Clinton Ad Blesses Obama Economics - ABC News
• Obama Outdoes Pro-Business Republicans - TheStreet
• Obama administration endorses Fincher's pro-business bill » The
• Former President Clinton Makes Pitch for Obama | PBS NewsHour
• Clinton says Obama offers a better path forward for America - CNN
• Obama Is Pro-Business, In Spite Of What Conservatives Say « Alan ...

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[GuardianShua]

I wonder if in the next election the Republicans will again have the same game plan. You can not fool all of the public all of the time. That is why Democrats and Independents turned out in record numbers. Someone had to save the country from the wealthy.

 

[pat34lee]

Many, actually, have noted that most of the tax money goes to WAR/military spending - something many conservatives have long noted to be a big problem when it comes to being unwilling to cut funding to those things in certain areas and the GOPs defense on those things.

Even if most of the mandatory spending went to defense (The main duty actually assigned to the feds by the constitution), it would still be under 37% of the total spending, while 40% goes to SS, medicare and medicaid. There are still many other social welfare programs hiding under 'Other Mandatory Programs' and 'Discretionary Non-Defense', which probably bring the total to well over 50%. That is half our money going to programs they had no constitutional power to create.

What is Obama's plan for the future? More money to social programs, less to the military. And over twice as much just on the interest payments.

 

[Gxg (G²)]

I wonder if in the next election the Republicans will again have the same game plan. You can not fool all of the public all of the time. That is why Democrats and Independents turned out in record numbers. Someone had to save the country from the wealthy.

True.

 

[pat34lee]

I wonder if in the next election the Republicans will again have the same game plan. You can not fool all of the public all of the time. That is why Democrats and Independents turned out in record numbers. Someone had to save the country from the wealthy.

If you believe Obama is not bought and paid for as much as any President, you are fooling yourself. How else do you think a nobody from the corrupt Chicago political machine beat the Clintons at their own game?