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Thread: "The Audacity of (American) Socialism"

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    Default "The Audacity of (American) Socialism"

    (snip)"Barack Obama has styled himself a centrist, but does his record support that claim?

    In this series, we examine Senator Obama's past, his voting record and the people who've served as his advisers and mentors over the years. We'll show how the facts of Obama's actions and associations reveal a far more left-leaning tilt to his background — and to his politics. "(snip)

    (snip)"Barack Obama's Stealth Socialism
    By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Monday, July 28, 2008 4:20 PM PT

    Election '08: Before friendly audiences, Barack Obama speaks passionately about something called "economic justice." He uses the term obliquely, though, speaking in code — socialist code.

    During his NAACP speech earlier this month, Sen. Obama repeated the term at least four times. "I've been working my entire adult life to help build an America where economic justice is being served," he said at the group's 99th annual convention in Cincinnati.

    Democrat Barack Obama arrives in Washington on Monday. On the campaign trail, Obama has styled himself a centrist. But a look at those who've served as his advisers and mentors over the years shows a far more left-leaning tilt to his background — and to his politics. And as president, "we'll ensure that economic justice is served," he asserted. "That's what this election is about." Obama never spelled out the meaning of the term, but he didn't have to. His audience knew what he meant, judging from its thumping approval.

    It's the rest of the public that remains in the dark, which is why we're launching this special educational series.

    "Economic justice" simply means punishing the successful and redistributing their wealth by government fiat. It's a euphemism for socialism.

    In the past, such rhetoric was just that — rhetoric. But Obama's positioning himself with alarming stealth to put that rhetoric into action on a scale not seen since the birth of the welfare state.

    In his latest memoir he shares that he'd like to "recast" the welfare net that FDR and LBJ cast while rolling back what he derisively calls the "winner-take-all" market economy that Ronald Reagan reignited (with record gains in living standards for all).

    Obama also talks about "restoring fairness to the economy," code for soaking the "rich" — a segment of society he fails to understand that includes mom-and-pop businesses filing individual tax returns.

    It's clear from a close reading of his two books that he's a firm believer in class envy. He assumes the economy is a fixed pie, whereby the successful only get rich at the expense of the poor.

    Following this discredited Marxist model, he believes government must step in and redistribute pieces of the pie. That requires massive transfers of wealth through government taxing and spending, a return to the entitlement days of old.

    Of course, Obama is too smart to try to smuggle such hoary collectivist garbage through the front door. He's disguising the wealth transfers as "investments" — "to make America more competitive," he says, or "that give us a fighting chance," whatever that means.

    Among his proposed "investments":

    • "Universal," "guaranteed" health care.

    • "Free" college tuition.

    • "Universal national service" (a la Havana).

    • "Universal 401(k)s" (in which the government would match contributions made by "low- and moderate-income families").

    • "Free" job training (even for criminals).

    • "Wage insurance" (to supplement dislocated union workers' old income levels).

    • "Free" child care and "universal" preschool.

    • More subsidized public housing.

    • A fatter earned income tax credit for "working poor."

    • And even a Global Poverty Act that amounts to a Marshall Plan for the Third World, first and foremost Africa.

    His new New Deal also guarantees a "living wage," with a $10 minimum wage indexed to inflation; and "fair trade" and "fair labor practices," with breaks for "patriot employers" who cow-tow to unions, and sticks for "nonpatriot" companies that don't.

    That's just for starters — first-term stuff.

    Obama doesn't stop with socialized health care. He wants to socialize your entire human resources department — from payrolls to pensions. His social-microengineering even extends to mandating all employers provide seven paid sick days per year to salary and hourly workers alike.

    You can see why Obama was ranked, hands-down, the most liberal member of the Senate by the National Journal. Some, including colleague and presidential challenger John McCain, think he's the most liberal member in Congress.

    But could he really be "more left," as McCain recently remarked, than self-described socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders (for whom Obama has openly campaigned, even making a special trip to Vermont to rally voters)?

    Obama's voting record, going back to his days in the Illinois statehouse, says yes. His career path — and those who guided it — leads to the same unsettling conclusion.

    The seeds of his far-left ideology were planted in his formative years as a teenager in Hawaii — and they were far more radical than any biography or profile in the media has portrayed.

    A careful reading of Obama's first memoir, "Dreams From My Father," reveals that his childhood mentor up to age 18 — a man he cryptically refers to as "Frank" — was none other than the late communist Frank Marshall Davis, who fled Chicago after the FBI and Congress opened investigations into his "subversive," "un-American activities."

    As Obama was preparing to head off to college, he sat at Davis' feet in his Waikiki bungalow for nightly bull sessions. Davis plied his impressionable guest with liberal doses of whiskey and advice, including: Never trust the white establishment.

    "They'll train you so good," he said, "you'll start believing what they tell you about equal opportunity and the American way and all that sh**."

    After college, where he palled around with Marxist professors and took in socialist conferences "for inspiration," Obama followed in Davis' footsteps, becoming a "community organizer" in Chicago.

    His boss there was Gerald Kellman, whose identity Obama also tries to hide in his book. Turns out Kellman's a disciple of the late Saul "The Red" Alinsky, a hard-boiled Chicago socialist who wrote the "Rules for Radicals" and agitated for social revolution in America.

    The Chicago-based Woods Fund provided Kellman with his original $25,000 to hire Obama. In turn, Obama would later serve on the Woods board with terrorist Bill Ayers of the Weather Underground. Ayers was one of Obama's early political supporters.

    After three years agitating with marginal success for more welfare programs in South Side Chicago, Obama decided he would need to study law to "bring about real change" — on a large scale.

    While at Harvard Law School, he still found time to hone his organizing skills. For example, he spent eight days in Los Angeles taking a national training course taught by Alinsky's Industrial Areas Foundation. With his newly minted law degree, he returned to Chicago to reapply — as well as teach — Alinsky's "agitation" tactics.

    (A video-streamed bio on Obama's Web site includes a photo of him teaching in a University of Chicago classroom. If you freeze the frame and look closely at the blackboard Obama is writing on, you can make out the words "Power Analysis" and "Relationships Built on Self Interest" — terms right out of Alinsky's rule book.)

    Amid all this, Obama reunited with his late father's communist tribe in Kenya, the Luo, during trips to Africa.

    As a Nairobi bureaucrat, Barack Hussein Obama Sr., a Harvard-educated economist, grew to challenge the ruling pro-Western government for not being socialist enough. In an eight-page scholarly paper published in 1965, he argued for eliminating private farming and nationalizing businesses "owned by Asians and Europeans."

    His ideas for communist-style expropriation didn't stop there. He also proposed massive taxes on the rich to "redistribute our economic gains to the benefit of all."

    "Theoretically, there is nothing that can stop the government from taxing 100% of income so long as the people get benefits from the government commensurate with their income which is taxed," Obama Sr. wrote. "I do not see why the government cannot tax those who have more and syphon some of these revenues into savings which can be utilized in investment for future development."

    Taxes and "investment" . . . the fruit truly does not fall far from the vine.

    (Voters might also be interested to know that Obama, the supposed straight shooter, does not once mention his father's communist leanings in an entire book dedicated to his memory.)

    In Kenya's recent civil unrest, Obama privately phoned the leader of the opposition Luo tribe, Raila Odinga, to voice his support. Odinga is so committed to communism he named his oldest son after Fidel Castro.

    With his African identity sewn up, Obama returned to Chicago and fell under the spell of an Afrocentric pastor. It was a natural attraction. The Rev. Jeremiah Wright preaches a Marxist version of Christianity called "black liberation theology" and has supported the communists in Cuba, Nicaragua and elsewhere.

    Obama joined Wright's militant church, pledging allegiance to a system of "black values" that demonizes white "middle classness" and other mainstream pursuits.

    (Obama in his first book, published in 1995, calls such values "sensible." There's no mention of them in his new book.)

    With the large church behind him, Obama decided to run for political office, where he could organize for "change" more effectively. "As an elected official," he said, "I could bring church and community leaders together easier than I could as a community organizer or lawyer."

    He could also exercise real, top-down power, the kind that grass-roots activists lack. Alinsky would be proud.

    Throughout his career, Obama has worked closely with a network of stone-cold socialists and full-blown communists striving for "economic justice."

    He's been traveling in an orbit of collectivism that runs from Nairobi to Honolulu, and on through Chicago to Washington.

    Yet a recent AP poll found that only 6% of Americans would describe Obama as "liberal," let alone socialist.

    Public opinion polls usually reflect media opinion, and the media by and large have portrayed Obama as a moderate "outsider" (the No. 1 term survey respondents associate him with) who will bring a "breath of fresh air" to Washington.

    The few who have drilled down on his radical roots have tended to downplay or pooh-pooh them. Even skeptics have failed to connect the dots for fear of being called the dreaded "r" word.

    But too much is at stake in this election to continue mincing words.

    Both a historic banking crisis and 1970s-style stagflation loom over the economy. Democrats, who already control Congress, now threaten to filibuster-proof the Senate in what could be a watershed election for them — at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue.

    A perfect storm of statism is forming, and our economic freedoms are at serious risk.

    Those who care less about looking politically correct than preserving the free-market individualism that's made this country great have to start calling things by their proper name to avert long-term disaster.
    "(snip)

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    Default Re: "The Audacity of (American) Socialism"

    Part 2 ...

    (snip)"Obama's Global Tax
    By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Tuesday, July 29, 2008 4:20 PM PT

    Election '08: A plan by Barack Obama to redistribute American wealth on a global level is moving forward in the Senate. It follows Marxist theology — from each according to his ability, to each according to his need."(snip)

    We are citizens of the world, Sen. Obama told thousands of nonvoting Germans during his recent tour of the Middle East and Europe. And if the Global Poverty Act (S. 2433) he has sponsored becomes law, which is almost certain if he wins in November, we're also going to be taxpayers of the world.

    Speaking in Berlin, Obama said: "While the 20th century taught us that we share a common destiny, the 21st has revealed a world more intertwined than at any time in human history."

    What the 20th century really showed was a series of totalitarian threats — from fascism to Nazism to communism — defeated by the U.S. military. Hitler's Germany, Mussolini's Italy, Tojo's Japan and the Soviet Union offered destinies we did not share.

    Our destiny of peace and freedom through strength was not achieved by a transnationalist fantasy of buying the world a Coke and singing "Kumbaya."

    Obama's Global Poverty Act offers us a global socialist destiny we do not want, one that challenges America's very sovereignty. The former "post-racial" candidate obviously intends to be a post-national president.

    A statement from Obama's office says: "With billions of people living on just dollars a day around the world, global poverty remains one of the greatest challenges and tragedies the international community faces. It must be a priority of American foreign policy to commit to eliminating extreme poverty and ensuring every child has food, shelter and clean drinking water."

    These are worthy goals, but note there's no mention of spreading democracy, expanding free trade, promoting entrepreneurial capitalism or ridding the world of despots who rule and ravage countries such as Zimbabwe and Sudan.

    Obama would give them all a fish without teaching them how to fish. Pledging to cut global poverty in half on the backs of U.S. taxpayers is a ridiculous and impossible goal.

    His legislation refers to the "millennium development goal," a phrase from a declaration adopted by the United Nations Millennium Assembly in 2000 and supported by President Clinton.

    It calls for the "eradication of poverty" in part through the "redistribution (of) wealth of land" and "a fair distribution of the earth's resources." In other words: American resources.

    It's a mantra of liberals that the U.S. is only a small portion of the world's population yet consumes an unseemly portion of the planet's supposedly finite resources. Never mentioned is the fact that America's population, just 5% of the world's total, also produces a stunning 27% of the world's GDP — to the enormous benefit of other countries. Nonetheless, their solution is to siphon off the product of our free democracy and distribute it.

    We already transfer too much national wealth to the United Nations and its busybody agencies. Obama's bill would force U.S. taxpayers to fork over 0.7% of our gross domestic product every year to fund a global war on poverty, spending well above the $16.3 billion in global poverty aid the U.S. already spends.

    Over a 13-year period, from 2002, when the U.N.'s Financing for Development Conference was held, to the target year of 2015, when the U.S is expected to meet its part of the U.N. Millennium goals, we would be spending an additional $65 billion annually for a total of $845 billion.

    During a time of economic uncertainty, the plan would cost every American taxpayer around $2,500.

    If you're worried abut gasoline and heating oil prices now, think what they'll be like when the U.S. is subjected in an Obama administration to global energy consumption and production taxes. Obama's Global Poverty Act is the "international community's" foot in the door.

    The U.N. Millennium declaration called for a "currency transfer tax," a "tax on the rental value of land and natural resources," a "royalty on worldwide fossil energy production — oil, natural gas, coal . . . fees for the commercial use of the oceans, fees for the airplane use of the skies, fees for the use of the electromagnetic spectrum, fees on foreign exchange transactions, and a tax on the carbon content of fuels."

    Co-sponsors of S. 2433 include Democrats Maria Cantwell of Washington, Dianne Feinstein of California, Richard Durbin of Illinois and Robert Menendez of New Jersey. GOP globalists supporting the bill include Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Richard Lugar of Indiana.

    Lugar has worked with Obama to promote more aid to Russia to promote nuclear nonproliferation. Lugar also promotes the Law of the Sea treaty, which turns over the world's oceans to an International Seabed Authority that would charge us to drill offshore and have veto power over the movements and actions of the U.S. Navy.

    Obama's agenda sounds like defeated 2004 Democratic candidate John Kerry's "global test" for U.S. foreign policy decisions where "you have to do it in a way that passes the test — that passes the global test — where your countrymen, your people understand fully why you're doing what you're doing and you can prove to the world that you did it for legitimate reasons."

    Obama has called on the U.S. to "lead by example" on global warming and probably would submit to a Kyoto-like agreement that would sock Americans with literally trillions of dollars in costs over the next half century for little or no benefit.

    "We can't drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times . . . and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK," Obama has said. "That's not leadership. That's not going to happen."

    Oh, really? Who's to say we can't load up our SUV and head out in search of bacon double cheeseburgers at the mall? China? India? Bangladesh? The U.N.?

    In an Obama White House, American sovereignty will become an endangered species. The Global Poverty Act is the first toe in the water of global socialism."(snip)

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    Default Re: "The Audacity of (American) Socialism"

    Why do you read that garbage, Mel? It is pure corporatist propaganda. They already own our congress, don't let them own your mind, too.


    Promote yourself and earn more money! This is a business that is owned by strippers for strippers. Let's make that money!


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    Default Re: "The Audacity of (American) Socialism"

    It's not propaganda if it's true.

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    Default Re: "The Audacity of (American) Socialism"

    ^^^ that was the point ... Obama's voting record on expanding social welfare programs and supporting tax increases to pay for them is 'flawless' !

    Unfortunately, this only helps those who are eligible to collect social welfare benefits, and the uber-rich who can shield their incomes from US taxes ! By pure coincidence no doubt, these two groups are Obama's strongest supporters.

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    Default Re: "The Audacity of (American) Socialism"

    ^^^I love how you always overlook the fact that there are uber-rich republicans.

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    Default Re: "The Audacity of (American) Socialism"

    Yes of course there are uber-rich republicans. But they are in the minority, and declining ...

    (snip)"GREENWICH, Conn. -- You know you're in a different kind of town when the signs against drunk driving show a line drawn through a Martini glass to which the artist thoughtfully added a stirrer. Greenwich, Conn., is one such town.

    Greenwich is home to billionaire hedge-fund managers, private-equity kings and corporate chieftains, as well as ordinary multi-multimillionaires. Interviewing people here requires leaving phone messages with au pairs and catching folks between board meetings.

    You'd think that Greenwich would be solid Bush-loving turf -- what with all those tax cuts for the rich. It is not. The voters are roughly 40 percent Republican, 40 percent unaffiliated and only 20 percent Democratic, but Bush won the town by only a sliver in 2004, even though his father grew up here.

    The political shift toward Democrats has been noted in wealthy suburbs from Seattle to Philadelphia. In 2006, an amazing 63 percent of voters making from $150,000 to $200,000 chose Democratic candidates. Even those making over $200,000 favored Democrats, albeit by a small margin.

    Greenwich has also become an incubator for liberal candidates. Local businessman Ned Lamont became the bloggers' hero last year for nearly unseating Iraq-war cheerleader Joe Lieberman in a Senate race."(snip)

    from


    and the reasons for this are understandable ... if not widely publicized !!!

    (snip)"Wall Streeters who manage other people's money went to Capitol Hill yesterday to protect a loop hole that lets them pay taxes at lesser rates than regular working stiffs. But they couldn't refute the chief argu ment against such special treatment:

    It's unfair.

    And of all people, Chuck Schumer knows it - even if he's pretending, as a matter of political convenience, that he doesn't.

    New York's senior senator - a liberal Democrat - wrote a whole book advis ing politicians on how to "win back the middle-class majority." You can bet the Baileys, the fictitious middle-income family in Chuck's tome, don't back tax loopholes for the uber-rich.

    Yet that's precisely what Schumer him self is doing - by defending a rule that allows millionaire hedge-fund and pri vate-equity managers to have much of their income treated as capital gains, and thus taxed at a lower rate.

    These managers are often paid a per centage of the profits spawned by the funds they oversee. Since the profits are considered capital gains, they're allowed to treat their fees that way, too.

    Which means tens of millions of dollars worth of fees can qualify for the 15 per cent cap-gains tax rate, instead of the 35 percent top income-tax rate.

    Saving the fat-cats a fortune.

    But let's be honest: Fees are fees - not capital gains. Managers are paid for their services: maximizing returns - on invest ments that, by the way, mostly don't even belong to them.

    So why should such earnings count as capital gains for tax purposes ? "(snip)

    (snip)"Schumer opposes such efforts.

    He claims he's worried that such a change may hurt New York, which has more than its share of such business.

    But there's a simpler reason: Schumer, whose top job is to raise money for Dem ocrats, doesn't want to anger the private- equity and hedge-fund industries - which are donating generously to Dems.

    In June alone, Schumer collected $1 mil lion from those industries on behalf of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Com mittee. The committee pocketed another mil over a few months just before that.

    Overall, the securities and investment sector - sensing the shift in Congress - switched last year from favoring Republi cans to Democrats: More than $34 million (53 percent) of its $65 million in gifts went to Dems in '06.

    So don't be surprised if other Demo crats join Sen. Chuck in shilling for the fat-cats.

    Again, that hardly makes it fair. Let's be clear: No one abhors America's high taxes - and the economic damage they do - more than us. They should be lower.

    All of them.

    But if cops and construction workers and bus drivers have to pay the high rates, so, too, should big-shot Wall Street types and their ilk. "(snip)

    from


    and of course the uber-rich Democratic supporters just received what they were expecting in exchange for their political support ... the recently signed 'subprime' bank bailout law, with essentially unlimited 'bailout' assurance for the financial industry and their uber-rich investors !


    But overall, Socialism has historically benefitted the uber-rich and the poor ...

    (snip)"The traditional complaint against capitalism is that the game of life is "rigged" in favor of the wealthy--only those from "privileged" backgrounds have any chance of competing. To quote the trite socialist slogan, "the rich get richer and the poor get poorer." But, looking at the Forbes listing, it appears that nothing could be further from the truth. In a capitalist country like the United States, wealth is dynamic. Adam Smith's "invisible hand" constantly reallocates wealth to society's most productive members--those who contribute the most to the overall good while pursuing quot;selfish" objectives. And that same hand takes from those who don't make productive use of their wealth, be they currently wealthy or not.

    Those who can't or won't recognize this obvious fact preach socialism. They argue that government intervention is required in order to level life's playing field and insure equal "opportunity" for all. In reality, however, socialism does nothing to promote equal opportunity, rather just the opposite. Socialism tends to simply cement the status quo. Those who are already ultra-wealthy when socialist policies are implemented can easily afford to pay the required higher taxes (or find creative ways to avoid them altogether). On the other hand, under socialism, the middle class stands very little chance of ever becoming wealthy--very few have figured out how to compete against the "big boys" and thereby accumulate wealth while paying two-thirds or more of their comparatively meager incomes in taxes.

    And so, in socialist countries, it's the wealthy, as well as the poor, whose social position is"protected" by the government's tax and social policies. The status quo is largely fixed. Wealthy socialists don't have to risk their wealth by putting it to productive use for the common good and are instead free to hoard it. In short, in socialist countries the wealthy really do get wealthier (or at least never lose their wealth), and everyone else largely stagnates. This explains why so many of the ultra-wealthy often preach socialism--people like George Soros."(snip)

    from
    Last edited by Melonie; 08-01-2008 at 10:04 AM.

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    Default Re: "The Audacity of (American) Socialism"

    Quote Originally Posted by Melonie View Post
    Yes of course there are uber-rich republicans.
    Thank you! Let's stop right here.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Richard_Head View Post
    Thank you! Let's stop right here.
    Oh darn. Just when it's getting good.

    O.K. Richard. There are some rich Republicans. So what ?

    I would argue that a major reason for the current Republican predicament is that they strayed from the Reagan/ Gingrich type of policy and got wrapped up into trying to "buy" continuous reelection. Throw in more than their fair share of corruption scandals ( Duke Cunningham; Ted Stevens etc. ) and they richly deserved their electoral comeuppance.

    What Melonie has continually documented, which you NEVER respond to btw, is that the Dems are harboring the real "fat-cats" AND that Dem.policies protect their wealth.

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    Default Re: "The Audacity of (American) Socialism"

    Quote Originally Posted by Eric Stoner View Post
    O.K. Richard. There are some rich Republicans. So what ?
    So stop with all the ridiculous assertions that it's only the "uber-rich" democrats who are looking to stick it to the middle class.

    Quote Originally Posted by Eric Stoner View Post
    I would argue that a major reason for the current Republican predicament is that they strayed from the Reagan/ Gingrich type of policy and got wrapped up into trying to "buy" continuous reelection.
    Or perhaps they just showed their true colors, which had nothing to do with helping the middle class BTW.

    Quote Originally Posted by Eric Stoner View Post
    Throw in more than their fair share of corruption scandals ( Duke Cunningham; Ted Stevens etc. ) and they richly deserved their electoral comeuppance.
    We finally agree on something.

    Quote Originally Posted by Eric Stoner View Post
    What Melonie has continually documented, which you NEVER respond to btw, is that the Dems are harboring the real "fat-cats" AND that Dem.policies protect their wealth.
    Show me some legitimate documentation and not some slanted piece of propaganda and maybe I'll respond. Until then maybe you can tell me what GWB and his republican majority did to give you reason to believe that they were looking out for anyone but the "fat-cats"?

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    Default Re: "The Audacity of (American) Socialism"

    Show me some legitimate documentation and not some slanted piece of propaganda and maybe I'll respond
    what kind of documentation will it take ?

    (snip)"“Some people who have owned farms” is a weird way of putting it, I admit. But “farmers” doesn’t quite capture my meaning.

    Some farm subsidy recipients (such as David Letterman and the Utah Jazz owner Larry Miller) have day jobs. A 2006 study by the Washington Post estimated that $1.3 billion have gone to non-farming farmers between 2000 and 2005."(snip)

    from

    (snip)"Many individuals and businesses cashing in on the [ alternative energy - sic ] tax credits prefer to remain anonymous. Earlier this year, TECO Energy, the holding company for Florida's Tampa Electric, disclosed in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that it had received "more than $50 million from the sale of half of TECO Coal's synthetic-fuel production facilities." The buyer was not named. A TECO official told TIME that "part of the agreement that we signed says that we are not allowed to reveal the name of the purchaser." WPS Resources, the parent company of Wisconsin Public Service, sold a portion of its operation to "a subsidiary of a public company" whose name was not disclosed. Massey Energy Company sold its interest in a synthetic-fuel plant to an "unidentified affiliate of a major financial institution."

    The manager at Warrior Synfuel, near Tuscaloosa, Ala., declined to identify the "private parties," as he called them, that own the plant. He said he had conveyed TIME's request to speak with them: "I believe their choice was that they didn't feel that this was appropriate." "(snip)

    from

    of course, the gov't bailouts of big banks and FNM/FRE over the past few months has directly benefitted stockholders and bondholders of these companies ... most of whom fall in the uber-rich category.

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    Default Re: "The Audacity of (American) Socialism"

    Quote Originally Posted by Melonie View Post
    what kind of documentation will it take ?
    Better than what you have provided.

    Quote Originally Posted by Melonie View Post
    (snip)"“Some people who have owned farms” is a weird way of putting it, I admit. But “farmers” doesn’t quite capture my meaning.

    Some farm subsidy recipients (such as David Letterman and the Utah Jazz owner Larry Miller) have day jobs. A 2006 study by the Washington Post estimated that $1.3 billion have gone to non-farming farmers between 2000 and 2005."(snip)

    from http://www.northbynorthwestern.com/2...chies-pothead/
    Not buying this one. Here's a snip of my own.

    (snip)"The President's concern with farm subsidies cannot be taken very seriously, since in 2002 the Republican Congress with Administration connivance greatly increased these subsidies and at the same time repealed some of the modest reforms that the Clinton Administration had introduced in 1996. The Administration's current proposals would, if enacted, be a step in the right direction, but they will not be enacted, and, judging from the 2002 legislation, they are intended I suspect merely to embarrass the Democratic Congress."

    from:
    http://www.becker-posner-blog.com/ar...utlandish.html

    Quote Originally Posted by Melonie View Post
    (snip)"Many individuals and businesses cashing in on the [ alternative energy - sic ] tax credits prefer to remain anonymous. Earlier this year, TECO Energy, the holding company for Florida's Tampa Electric, disclosed in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that it had received "more than $50 million from the sale of half of TECO Coal's synthetic-fuel production facilities." The buyer was not named. A TECO official told TIME that "part of the agreement that we signed says that we are not allowed to reveal the name of the purchaser." WPS Resources, the parent company of Wisconsin Public Service, sold a portion of its operation to "a subsidiary of a public company" whose name was not disclosed. Massey Energy Company sold its interest in a synthetic-fuel plant to an "unidentified affiliate of a major financial institution."

    The manager at Warrior Synfuel, near Tuscaloosa, Ala., declined to identify the "private parties," as he called them, that own the plant. He said he had conveyed TIME's request to speak with them: "I believe their choice was that they didn't feel that this was appropriate." "(snip)

    from http://www.time.com/time/magazine/ar...493241,00.html
    Why didn't you quote this part of the link???

    (snip) "Forget that it looks like coal. And will burn like coal. It's now called "synthetic fuel." As such, the coal-like product, along with roughly 50 million tons of similar stuff from more than 50 similar plants in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Alabama and other states, is worth more than $1 billion a year in federal income-tax credits, a corporate giveaway protected by a bipartisan group of supporters in Congress. Those who have profited from the system range from fast-buck artists to giant corporations. They include one of the nation's largest hotel operators, a commodities trader barred from the industry for fraudulent practices, a chain of electronics stores, an electric utility that unplugged the lights during the great blackout of 2003, technology firms run by friends of influential lawmakers, limited partnerships of wealthy investors and scores of individuals and businesses preferring to keep their identities secret."

    or this part???

    (snip)"Whenever there's a billion dollars to hand out to special interests, influential members of Congress—Democrats and Republicans—are always lurking in the background."

    Quote Originally Posted by Melonie View Post
    of course, the gov't bailouts of big banks and FNM/FRE over the past few months has directly benefitted stockholders and bondholders of these companies ... most of whom fall in the uber-rich category.
    I think both of these were cases of: 1) cleaning up a republican mess, and 2) there not being an acceptable solution that would make everybody happy and thus ending up passing bills that would fit into the "lesser of two evils" category. Didn't homeowners also benefit from this too BTW, many of whom do not fall into the "uber-rich" category?

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    Default Re: "The Audacity of (American) Socialism"

    Didn't homeowners also benefit from this too BTW, many of whom do not fall into the "uber-rich" category?
    In the short term, probably ... given the fact that some eligible homeowners will be able to stave off foreclosure and eventually get to pay off their house for far less total dollars than would have otherwise been the case. In the long term, definitely not ... since the resulting wariness by lenders of future defaults will make it difficult for many would-be homeowners to ever become homeowners, and since the increased future taxes necessary to pay for the bailout will make it MORE difficult for many would-be homeowners to ever become homeowners.


    As to your other point, I was unable to find any clear documentation of the fairly widespread use of alternative energy tax credits as a means for the uber-rich to reduce their income tax liabilities. As my link clearly stated (the reason I chose to post the link I did was to clearly illustrate this point), part of the reason for this is that the actual private owners / investors in alternative energy projects clearly want to keep their participation and resulting use of production tax credits private ! And for those who have gone public a la David Letterman and professional sports team owner Larry Miller, there is no public accounting available to show how their use of production tax credits from their corn farm ownership has enabled them to vastly reduce the amount of income taxes that would otherwise have been due on their multi-million dollar incomes from their 'day jobs'. The farm subsidy payments they receive ( $8,000 per year in Letterman's case) is small potatoes compared to the tax reductions made possible by the production tax credits

    However, there is ample IRS documentation to show which gov't favored programs are granted production tax credit status ... ethanol, solar, wind, synthetic fuels etc. I'm sure that it is total coincidence that all of these are programs promoted by Democrats ! Also, many other industries are allowed to cash in on tax credits ... including one that recently made the news in relation to Barack Obama and supposed connections to Chicago urban property (re) developers. Here's a link to an article about production tax credits being granted for the redevelopment of New Orleans (not exactly a Conservative Republican stronghold !)



    (snip)"HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson has his own reasons for pressing ahead with the demolitions. HUD has approved plans to turn over scores of acres of prime public land to private developers for 99 year leases and give hundreds of millions of dollars in direct grants, tax credit subsidies and long-term contracts. One of the developers described it as the biggest tax-credit giveaway in years.

    There may be crime in the projects after all–even if the residents are gone. Consider the following examples.

    Investigative reporter Edward T. Pound of the National Journal has uncovered many questionable and several potentially criminal actions by HUD in New Orleans. Pound reported that HUD Secretary Jackson worked with, and is owed over $250,000 from an Atlanta-based company, Columbia Residential. Columbia Residential was part of a team that was awarded a $127 million contract by HUD to develop the St. Bernard housing development. Columbia was also awarded other earlier contracts for as yet undisclosed amounts under still undisclosed circumstances.

    Pound also discovered that a golfing buddy and social friend of Secretary Jackson was given a no-bid $175 an hour “emergency” contract with HUD within months of Katrina. The buddy, William Hairston, was ultimately paid more than $485,000 for working at HANO over an 18 month period.

    A review of the dozens of no-bid contracts approved by HUD in New Orleans shows millions going to politically connected consultants, law firms, architects, and insurance brokers."(snip)


    and a condensation of the Obama related news blurb re Chicago real estate developers receiving huge tax credits and gov't subsidized contracts ...

    (snip)"While I was away, the Boston Globe had a story on Obama and some Chicago affordable housing projects that sound pretty bad. If you read the article carefully, the actual story seems to come down to this:

    First:
    "As a state senator, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee coauthored an Illinois law creating a new pool of tax credits for developers. As a US senator, he pressed for increased federal subsidies. And as a presidential candidate, he has campaigned on a promise to create an Affordable Housing Trust Fund that could give developers an estimated $500 million a year.

    But a Globe review found that thousands of apartments across Chicago that had been built with local, state, and federal subsidies - including several hundred in Obama's former district - deteriorated so completely that they were no longer habitable.""(snip)


    In regard to your last point, I am certainly not defending 'sellout' Republicans ... as they have partnered themselves with Democrats on a huge number of issues which boil down to handing out tax money to special interests. Circling back on topic, democrats and 'sellout' republicans alike have contributed to the supposed Marxification of America ... see below


    ~
    Last edited by Melonie; 08-03-2008 at 07:43 PM.

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    Default Re: "The Audacity of (American) Socialism"

    ^^^ continued from above re the Marxification of America ...

    (snip)"American leaders claim to reject collectivist ideology, but our government has come more to resemble Marx’s grasping hand of the super-state than Adam Smith’s invisible hand of laissez-faire capitalism.

    Listed below are the ten points of Marx’s Communist Manifesto and examples of ways in which these principles are exercised through federal policy in contemporary America.

    1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.

    Almost one-third of the nation’s land mass (over 650 million acres) and 62% of the acreage from the Rockies to the Pacific is owned by the federal government. The federal government owns a whopping 87.6% of the State of Nevada. [2] With great fanfare, former President Bill Clinton put forth a rule locking up 58.5 million acres of National Forest Service lands into wilderness areas, declaring them off-limits to any sort of development, including road-building. This dictate meant no access, no people, and no recreation in an area the size of the entire Northeast corridor from Washington, DC up through the State of Maine’s northern border with Canada. [3] The Bureau of Land Management, the Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Park Service, and the Forest Service spend a combined $8 billion per year to administer federal lands, and according to the U.S. General Accounting Office, they face a backlog of maintenance problems on public lands that exceeds $12 billion. [4]

    2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.

    According to IRS data compiled by the Tax Foundation, the much-maligned top 1% of taxpayers made 18.5% of all income, but paid 34.8% of total income taxes in 1998. The top 5% of taxpayers paid over half of all U.S. income taxes (See Table 1). [5]

    Table 1. Percentage of Taxes Paid – By Income Group

    Income Group
    % of Taxes Paid

    Top 1 percent
    34.8%

    Top 5 percent
    53.8%

    Top 10 percent
    65%

    Top 25 percent
    82.7%

    Bottom 50 percent
    4.2%

    Source: Tax Foundation

    Progressive tax rates penalize hard work, because as an individual increases his or her income, the higher the marginal tax rate that individual must pay. The current debate over tax cuts centers around “fairness” for low-income taxpayers – yet many low-income taxpayers pay no federal income taxes at all or actually receive a federal subsidy through the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). One of the major drawbacks of the Bush tax plan is that it removes 6 million people from the tax rolls, one out of every five families with children. [6] Unfortunately, reducing the proportion of citizens liable to taxation will only enable class-warfare and “soak the rich” rhetoric to be more effective in the future. Instead of a Marxist-style progressive tax, a truly fair system would be a flat tax or national sales tax, both of which feature a single tax rate on all taxpayers and would end the counterproductive jockeying among groups for “targeted” tax breaks.

    3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.

    At 55 percent, the top U.S. inheritance tax rate is second highest in the world. [7] According to the American Council for Capital Formation, only Japan has a higher top rate, and it applies to estates of more than $15.3 million, whereas the top U.S. rate hits at just $3 million (See Figure 1). [8] Family members or other individuals receiving inheritances of over $675,000 effectively pay 37 percent of each additional dollar to the federal government. [9] Even with the exemption amount scheduled to rise to $1 million by 2006, the estate tax necessitates the break- up of many small businesses and family farms in order to pay the tax man.

    The death tax brought in only 1.4 percent of all federal revenues in fiscal year 1998. [10] Yet the costs of maintaining this punitive tax are immense: the Death Tax wastes resources by discouraging work, savings, and investment. Inheritance taxes force Americans to spend billions of dollars per year on estate planners, accountants, and lawyers that could be much better spent on some useful activity other than compliance with complex estate tax regulations. In fact, economists Alicia Munnell and Henry Aaron estimate that the costs of complying with estate tax laws in 1998 ($23 billion) were about equal to the revenue raised by the tax ($23.1 billion). [11] The moral case against the inheritance tax is strong as well. The Death Tax represents double taxation of assets that were already subject to taxation during an individual’s lifetime. Worst of all, the concept behind the Death Tax is the Marxist notion that the government – rather than your family – is entitled to your property.

    4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.

    Marx knew that the “despotic inroads on the rights of property” necessary to implement the communist program would cause capitalists – and their capital – to flee to jurisdictions with lower tax rates and a more business-friendly climate. He therefore proposed that the government expropriate the property of citizens who attempted to escape communist economic oppression. Tellingly, the U.S. operates a program based on this notion. American law subjects people renouncing U.S. citizenship for what the government terms “tax avoidance purposes” to U.S. taxation for ten years after renunciation, no matter where in the world they have moved. [12] As Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. has written, this Marxist idea “implies that the citizen is an indentured servant of the state, and the expatriate a mere fugitive slave to the tax police.” [13]

    The U.S. is an active participant in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), a group that focuses largely on combating “harmful tax competition” – the natural flow of people and capital from high-tax countries to low-tax ones. With U.S. backing, OECD bureaucrats want to set up a global tax regime that would effectively deprive individuals of the opportunity to invest their assets in low-tax jurisdictions. [14] The OECD’s solution to “tax competition” is to eliminate it by supporting punitive sanctions on countries that do not raise their tax rates to an acceptable (noncompetitive) level.

    5. Centralization of credit in the banks of the state, by means of a national bank with state capital and an exclusive monopoly.

    Created in 1913, the Federal Reserve is America’s national bank. “The Fed” controls the infusion of new money into the economy – and thus the level of both interest rates and inflation. The Fed is often accused of acting for political rather than economic reasons. For example, Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan, a political appointee, expressed concern about the over-expansion of the money supply throughout 1998 and 1999, but kept the money flowing and good times rolling throughout President Clinton’s impeachment. At the very first Fed meeting after Clinton’s trial in the Senate had been wrapped up, the Fed raised the funds rate. [15] Empowered to purchase the debt of any institution in the world Under the Monetary Control Act of 1980, [16] the Federal Reserve is literally the world’s buyer of last resort, bailing out debt issuers around the globe by socializing the risks taken by large lending institutions. [17]

    Government-Sponsored Enterprises (GSE’s) Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (originally created to help the poor get home mortgages) are able to borrow at lower rates than private firms because the capital markets believe the federal government will bail out their $1.9 trillion in mortgage loans. Fannie and Freddie compete against private banks, yet they: a) can borrow from the U.S. Treasury, b) are exempt from state and local income taxes, and c) enjoy lower capital requirements than most other financial institutions. According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) the sum of these subsidies totals nearly $6.5 billion per year. [18] A recent study predicted that by 2003 Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will have assumed the risk for almost half of all the residential mortgages in the United States. [19]

    The U.S. government funds the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank, institutions that have a long history of cronyism and making bad loans to prop up tyrannical regimes. American taxpayers shelled out $18.2 billion for IMF programs in 1999. [20] Additionally, Uncle Sam operates the Export-Import Bank and U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). The Export-Import Bank provides corporate welfare in the form of loans, guarantees, and insurance for companies selling goods to often-insolvent nations. “There is no case too big or too small,” says Ex-Im Bank President James A. Harmon, whose agency spent $17 billion in fiscal 1999. [21] While the Ex-Im Bank seeks repayment of debt, USAID simply issues “development” grants to virtually every country on the globe. USAID is seeking $7.5 billion in funding for fiscal 2001. [22]

    6. Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the state.

    The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) oversees communication by telephone, radio, television, and the Internet. Literally every new development in the communications industry must receive FCC approval or die without reaching the marketplace. Although the Constitution gives Congress the sole power to levy taxes, in 1997 the un-elected officials who run the FCC imposed a Universal Service Charge of about $1.50 per month on every phone line in America to assure “affordable” phone access for everyone. [23] This tax, often referred to as the e-rate, will bring in $10 billion annually by 2003.

    The federal government owns and maintains a massive transportation network. In 1998, Congress enacted an elephantine $220 billion highway bill, the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21) that funded everything from the obvious (Interstate highways) to the non-essential (bicycle paths) to the ridiculous (a Greyhound bus museum). Congress larded on an additional $21 billion in TEA-21 transportation pork in 2000. Subsidies to the federally operated Amtrak rail system have cost taxpayers $23 billion since 1970, including $3.6 billion in the last three years alone. Amtrak lost over $940 million in 2000, beating the record it set in 1999. For all the taxpayer money pumped into Amtrak, the rail line carries less than one percent of all intercity passengers. [24]

    7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the state; the bringing into cultivation of waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.

    The U.S. government operates the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), the nation’s largest public power system. Wholly owned by the federal government, the TVA was established by Congress in 1933 primarily to provide flood control, river navigation, and agricultural and industrial development. [25] Poor management caused the TVA to build up a staggering debt of over $27 billion that left the agency paying 35 cents of every budget dollar for interest payments, over twice the 16 cents on the dollar the average power authority spends on debt service. Despite generous tax breaks, subsidies, and regulatory exemptions, the TVA power monopoly charges higher rates than other power providers in the Southeast. [26]

    The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) runs programs from Food Stamps to forestry to crop subsidies for farmers (See Table 2). According to the government’s own budget, these activities cost taxpayers $71 billion in 2000. [27] USDA programs affect virtually every American. The Agriculture Department runs the Food Stamp program, in which more than 20 million people participate. [28] One fourth of all new mothers participate in the Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) food program. [29] 27 million students get free or subsidized breakfasts, lunches and snacks through the $5.5 billion National School Lunch Program. [30] The USDA also runs price support programs, purchasing huge amounts of fruits, vegetables and dairy products in order to keep prices artificially high. [31] There are 105,000 USDA employees for only 1.1 million farmers, a ratio of about one USDA bureaucrat for every ten farmers. [32]

    Table 2. U.S. Department of Agriculture Agencies, Services & Programs

    Farm Service Agency
    Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion

    Foreign Agricultural Service
    Agricultural Marketing Service

    Risk Management Agency
    Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service

    Forest Service
    Grain Inspection, Packers, and Stockyard Admin.

    Natural Resources Conservation Service
    Agricultural Research Service

    Food and Nutrition Service
    Rural Business – Cooperative

    Office of Community Development
    Economic Research Service

    Rural Housing Service
    Cooperative State Research, Ed. and Ext. Service

    Rural Utilities Service
    National Agricultural Statistics Service

    Source: U.S. Department of Agriculture

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    Default Re: "The Audacity of (American) Socialism"

    ... continued yet again ...

    8. Equal obligation of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.

    Federal labor law forces eight million American workers to pay union dues to get or keep a job. These employees may currently be fired for refusal to pay dues or “fees” to a union whose mandatory “representation” they may not want. This explains why inflation-adjusted union income – despite a steady decline in union membership – has more than doubled over the past 30 years. Under their federally granted coercive powers, union officials collect some $4.5 billion annually in compulsory dues. Much of this money is funneled into unreported campaign operations to elect and control Members of Congress dedicated to higher taxes and increased government spending. [33]

    In 1986, Congress passed the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA). This measure gave amnesty – legal forgiveness – to all illegal aliens who had successfully evaded justice for four years or more or were illegally working in agriculture. As a result, 2.7 million illegal aliens have since been admitted as legal immigrants to the United States. In addition, this group has so far brought in an additional 142,000 dependents. Almost 1.1 million of the IRCA amnesties granted between 1989 and 1996 were for agricultural workers. [34] President George W. Bush made his first foreign visit to Mexico, where he signaled his willingness to consider extending legal residency to the estimated 2.5 million Mexicans currently living illegally in the U.S. Bush has said that immigration should be seen as an “opportunity” and spoke with Mexican President Vicente Fox about the latter’s desire “to open the borders to the free flow of people.” [35]

    Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country.

    Federal subsidies to U.S. businesses now cost American taxpayers nearly $100 billion a year. [36] Corporate America feasts on a steady diet of pork that includes direct grant payments, below-market insurance, direct loans and loan guarantees, trade protection, contracts for unneeded activities, and special breaks in the Tax Code. [37] Agribusiness giant Archer Daniels Midland Company (ADM) receives a taxpayer subsidy to produce ethanol (a corn-based fuel additive that costs more to produce than it can be sold for on the market, necessitating a 54-cent per gallon tax subsidy). [38] Ethanol also has a powerful constituency among Midwestern farmers who grow corn. The ethanol tax break and other corporate welfare programs add up to $400 million per year in handouts to ADM. $3 billion of the total $5 billion in ethanol subsidies doled out during the 1990s went to ADM, [39] and analysts reckon that at least 43 percent of ADM’s annual profits are from products heavily subsidized or protected by the American government. [40]

    Taxpayers have also been forced to ante up hundreds of millions to subsidize mergers between defense companies such as Martin Marietta’s 1993 acquisition of General Dynamics’ Space Division and the subsequent merger with Lockheed that formed Lockheed Martin. [41] The government gives $1.4 billion in subsidies to sugar growers (42% goes to the largest producers such as Flo-Sun), which has the effect of jacking up sugar prices. The USDA spends $85 million on overseas consumer marketing campaigns for Chicken McNuggets, Miller Beer, and Campbell’s soup. [42]

    The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development operates the Section 8 housing program that pays the lion’s share of rent for low-income people to live in private complexes to achieve the goal of “income integration.” Taxpayer-subsidized rents in these units often cost well over $1,000 per month. Uncle Sam spent $15 billion for 3 million units of Section 8 housing in 1996. [43] A 2000 investigation of HUD uncovered $935 million in overpayments last year, some of which was used to “throw parties and buy gifts.” [44]

    10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, etc.

    Nowhere in the Constitution is the federal government delegated the power to regulate or fund elementary or secondary education. Yet Washington now pumps $75 billion in tax money into educational programs run by the Departments of Education, Agriculture, Defense, Health and Human Services, Interior, Justice, Labor, and Veterans Affairs. [45] The largest share ($36 billion) is spent by the Department of Education. [46] This massive infusion of tax dollars on public education has not produced the expected results: while average per-pupil spending in public schools grew 212% from 1960 to 1995 and real-dollar teacher salaries have risen 45% over the same period, SAT scores have steadily declined. [47]

    Politically powerful teacher unions control the education agenda, which mainly has to do with expanding government programs. In fact, the 2.5 million-member National Education Association (NEA) supports $906 billion per year in new spending. [48] Although public schools are not doing the job, education unions support strict regulation of home school students (who tend to perform better academically than public school children), such as licensing of parents and barring home schooled kids from extracurricular activities that take place on public school grounds. [49] Teacher unions are the main force opposing vouchers and tuition tax credits that would introduce competition to the public schools. After the privately-run Edison school in San Francisco showed the third highest improvement in test scores out of San Francisco’s 71 schools, teacher unions stepped up efforts to force the city to revoke Edison’s charter. [50] The public school monopoly not only harms taxpayers, it acts as a means of national socialization that promotes the values of the state (“diversity,” extreme environmentalism, etc.) at the expense of parents and communities.

    The U.S. has done away with children’s factory labor, but minimum wage laws hurt employment opportunities for youth by subverting the fair market value of labor. Because of artificially inflated wages, many students have more difficulty than they should in finding part-time or entry-level work. Child-labor laws also prevent many teenagers entering adulthood from putting in as many hours as they would like – or their family may need.

    Conclusion: We Are All Marxists Now

    In the twentieth century, America expended vast sums of blood and treasure combating Communism. We both fought and subsidized the fight against communist governments around the world that stole property, trampled on individual rights, and murdered tens of millions of people in the name of Marx’s noxious ideology.

    Yet modern America in no way resembles the Old Republic of Washington and Jefferson. It is a super-state in which leaders – and the citizens who vote for them – worship at the altar of limited government and individual responsibility but steal money from the collection plate to finance an ever-expanding managerial state. [51] The poor (Food Stamps), the middle class (subsidized student loans), and the rich (unneeded entitlement benefits), are the targets of programs designed to win their support for an ever-expanding government. All classes have gladly accepted these handouts. "(snip)

    from

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    Default Re: "The Audacity of (American) Socialism"

    Richard- Actually, the middle class did rather well under Reagan. The one who RAISED their taxes ( after promising them a tax cut ) was CLINTON !

    The big problem for BOTH parties is they are addicted to spending and doling out special favors to various interest groups as Melonie has continually pointed out and DOCUMENTED for years.

    No Child Left Behind ( more good $ after bad) and the Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit were passed under Bush. What did Clinton do in either area in eight years ?

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    Default Re: "The Audacity of (American) Socialism"

    Quote Originally Posted by Eric Stoner View Post
    Richard- Actually, the middle class did rather well under Reagan.
    Wow, your going way back to Reagan. Should we also note that Reagan's free spending ways completely doomed GHB?

    Quote Originally Posted by Eric Stoner View Post
    The one who RAISED their taxes ( after promising them a tax cut ) was CLINTON !
    Wow again, you jumped right over George H "Read My Lips, No New Taxes" Bush. As for Clinton, why don't we look at the actual NUMBERS before making claims like that?

    Quote Originally Posted by Eric Stoner View Post
    The big problem for BOTH parties is they are addicted to spending and doling out special favors to various interest groups as Melonie has continually pointed out and DOCUMENTED for years.
    No argument here, but for the record Clinton did have a balanced budget when he left office, where are we at with that now????

    Quote Originally Posted by Eric Stoner View Post
    No Child Left Behind ( more good $ after bad) and the Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit were passed under Bush.
    How about we look at more results? Note that GWB had a republican majority to work with from 2000-2006.

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    Default Re: "The Audacity of (American) Socialism"

    for the record Clinton did have a balanced budget when he left office
    so called 'balanced budgets' are not the end-all and be-all that mainstream media tends to infer. In fact, under many circumstances, they are bad for the economy. They can certainly be bad for specific groups of Americans, as this 1996 analysis clearly shows ...

    (snip)"The [ Balanced Budget - sic ] Amendment Can Result in Inequitable Treatment of Future Generations

    Finally, the constitutional amendment could injure those who are young today by prohibiting the adoption of the type of fiscal policies that would treat them most equitably. When families face large future costs, such as for sending children to college, they often build up savings in advance that they tap when their children’s college years arrive. Similarly, many individuals save and build up assets during their working years that they draw down in their retirement years. The point is that families typically do not pay for all of college or retirement costs out of their current incomes; they spend less than they earn in some years in order to save, while spending more than they earn in other years when their needs require that. Most states follow a similar course, saving funds during flush times and placing them in "rainy day funds," then drawing the funds down when need increases and state expenditures exceed state revenues.

    The balanced budget amendment, however, would prohibit the federal government from following such an approach. All government expenditures for a given year would have to be paid for with revenue raised that same year. The government could not build up surpluses in favorable years and draw them down to help balance the budget when need increased.

    Thus, the constitutional amendment would preclude the federal government from building up savings over the next 15 years while most of the baby boomers will still be working to help meet costs that will mount after they retire. All federal expenditures for any given year, including the cost of Social Security and Medicare benefits provided that year, would have to be financed in full by revenue collected in that year.

    The result would be unfavorable to those who are young today. For all expenditures, including Social Security and Medicare, to be financed from current revenue during the years the baby boom generation is retired, one of the following will have to occur: a) taxes will have to be raised to high enough levels in the years the baby boom generation is retired to cover all Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid costs in those years plus all other government costs; b) the rest of the budget will have to be cut to such an extent that the federal government will have difficulty performing some of its basic functions other than providing for the elderly; or c) Social Security and Medicare benefits will have to be reduced very sharply. The degree to which Social Security and Medicare benefits are reduced is likely to be circumscribed by what the public, with its increasing contingent of elderly citizens during the baby boom’s retirement years, will tolerate. The conclusion to which this leads is that under the balanced budget amendment, the tax increases and cuts in public services that those who are young today will have to shoulder in those years could prove to be very large.

    That need not be the case. The baby boomers’ retirement will leave the nation with a temporary bulge in costs. Just as families spread temporary bulges in costs for college or retirement over many years, so could the federal government. A more equitable policy than financing all of the baby boom generation’s retirement costs out of current income — and thereby imposing a special burden on workers whose peak earning years will occur between about 2010 and 2040 — would be to spread the temporary bulge of costs across a longer time period. This could be done by running modest surpluses in years before the baby boomers retire and permitting deficits during their retirement years.

    By requiring all government expenditures to be financed from the same year’s income, however, the balanced budget amendment would preclude such a policy. It consequently may cause the fiscal burdens that today’s youth will have to bear in the next century to be larger than need be the case."(snip)

    from


    Granted that Democrats and Republicans alike have since decided to immediately spend all Social Security and other tax revenue 'surpluses' (that were intended to act as a future buffer against a spike in SSI benefit costs as baby boomers retired), rendering the discussion academic.

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    Default Re: "The Audacity of (American) Socialism"

    Quote Originally Posted by Richard_Head View Post
    No argument here, but for the record Clinton did have a balanced budget when he left office, where are we at with that now????


    If you go to the Dept of Treas website, they have a section about the deficit, and list how much per year got added. In the years of supposed surplus budgets, we still gained debt. Bad accounting allowed them to show a surlups, kinda like Enron.

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    Default Re: "The Audacity of (American) Socialism"

    Quote Originally Posted by Richard_Head View Post
    Wow, your going way back to Reagan. Should we also note that Reagan's free spending ways completely doomed GHB?

    Wow again, you jumped right over George H "Read My Lips, No New Taxes" Bush. As for Clinton, why don't we look at the actual NUMBERS before making claims like that?

    No argument here, but for the record Clinton did have a balanced budget when he left office, where are we at with that now????

    How about we look at more results? Note that GWB had a republican majority to work with from 2000-2006.
    Afaic it was ALL downhill after Reagan. Reagan had a LOT of help from the Congress in letting the deficit grow out of control. First we had George "Read My Lips" Bush letting himself get bamboozled by Congress into raising taxes during a recession.It was doubly damning because Bush was Veep when Reagan agreed to a similar lousy deal : raise taxes in exchange for dollar for dollar spending cuts. Taxes were raised but the cuts never happened. Bush should have been smart enough to insist on cuts first but did not.

    Clinton raised taxes during a recession after promising a tax cut and later admitted he'd raised taxes too much. After initially opposing Gramm- Rudman Clinton was forced to sign it along with Welfare Reform which he also initially opposed. We had balanced budgets under Clinton, no thanks to Clinton. Most of the balance was achieved through draconian cuts in Defense which we later came to regret.

    Except for cutting taxes, Bush has been a rather poor President. Maybe even one of our ten worst. Out of control spending and an unecessary war followed by a totally incompetent occupation coupled with inadequate respect for the Constitution add up to a "D" if you ask me. In fairness, he had a lot of help from a near-sighted pork loving Congress. And for the first two years the Dems controlled the Senate.
    Worst of all, is that both Bushes, but especially G.W. tolerated failure and put loyalty way above competence. That's how we got Rumsfeld staying on when he ought to have been fired, Gonzales and his fellow incompetents running Justice in to the ground etc. etc.

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    Default Re: "The Audacity of (American) Socialism"

    Bush 41 was right to raise taxes. He was from the old school of where one pays for what one buys.

    They don't make em like that anymore.

    From what I hear, Clinton and the Congress did a lot of accounting malarky to make like they had a balanced and surplus budgets.

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    Default Re: "The Audacity of (American) Socialism"

    ^^^ as to the accounting 'malarkey' consider this. The state of California by law is required to balance its budget every year. One of the primary methods utilized is the sale of gov't bonds ... which results in the state being handed X million dollars this year by the bond purchasers, with those X dollars then being counted on the 'plus' side of the annual state budget. However, in exchange for receiving X million dollars immediately, the state is also agreeing to pay 5-6-7% interest next year and every year for the 5-10-20+ term of the bond PLUS repaying the X million dollars when the bond matures 5-10-20 years from now. Via bond issuance, the state of California has managed to balance its budget year after year ... but also rack up $35 billion dollars worth of bond debt and $3 billion dollars per year worth of annual interest expense !

    The federal gov't essentially does the same thing with treasury bonds, but also has the added 'bonus' of borrowing from the Social Security administration via 'special bonds' and a host of other 'tricks' in the bag. Arguably, the bonds issued during the Clinton years are part of the reason that 9% of the current year federal budget must go towards bond interest payments - or put another way Clinton's balanced budgets shifted the cost burden of bond repayment into GWB's administration ! Not to be outdone, GWB has done exactly the same thing to the next administration !

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    Default Re: "The Audacity of (American) Socialism"

    Quote Originally Posted by Deogol View Post
    Bush 41 was right to raise taxes. He was from the old school of where one pays for what one buys.

    They don't make em like that anymore.

    From what I hear, Clinton and the Congress did a lot of accounting malarky to make like they had a balanced and surplus budgets.

    Bush 1 was promised a spending cut of 3USD to every 1USD of tax increase by the Democrats. He failed to make them keep their word, but typical behavior from the Dems in getting what youn want and forgetting what you promised.

    Yes, Enron accounting started at the top.

    And when most people say the debt of 9-10trill, they don't realize our real debt is 6-12 times higher. Every year since its creation, we take all the surplus money from SS and but in an IOU. But that doesn't count as real debt.

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    Default Re: "The Audacity of (American) Socialism"

    ^^^ and the reason that Social Security 'IOU's don't count as real debt is because the US gov't is under no real obligation to continue paying Social Security benefits !!! Many have speculated that, as the number of retirees increases and the number of active workers who actually earn enough to pay income taxes decreases, the gov't will have no choice but to institute a (very socialistic) 'means test' for Social Security benefit eligibility. This is one of the reasons that I am very reluctant to put a lot of money into a 'qualified' retirement plan / IRA ... because the gov't may choose to look at the amount of retirement money 'saved' by individual Americans in future years, and (like the subprime housing bailout) allow those who have scrimped and saved for their own retirement to PAY for their own retirement, while those who have been financially irresponsible will be eligible for gov't retirement benefits !

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    Default Re: "The Audacity of (American) Socialism"

    Quote Originally Posted by Melonie View Post
    ^^^ and the reason that Social Security 'IOU's don't count as real debt is because the US gov't is under no real obligation to continue paying Social Security benefits !!! Many have speculated that, as the number of retirees increases and the number of active workers who actually earn enough to pay income taxes decreases, the gov't will have no choice but to institute a (very socialistic) 'means test' for Social Security benefit eligibility. This is one of the reasons that I am very reluctant to put a lot of money into a 'qualified' retirement plan / IRA ... because the gov't may choose to look at the amount of retirement money 'saved' by individual Americans in future years, and (like the subprime housing bailout) allow those who have scrimped and saved for their own retirement to PAY for their own retirement, while those who have been financially irresponsible will be eligible for gov't retirement benefits !
    I believe in means testing. A family friend retired in the late 90's, he had plenty of assets to still live in the 100-200k per year range after taxes. His SS payments were impressive. Why, when he didn't need it? I think people confuse SS with a traditional retirement plan. That's not what it was for, Supplemental Security Income.

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