Quote:
Originally Posted by pan6467
Ahhh. but it's ok for you to imply those on the right are just parroting their news sources. I see. "I'm right... fuck you." Fair enough. Doesn't help the country but ok.
|
What isn't true, isn't true. There is no possibility of it becoming true. Why, then, should I have to compromise?
Quote:
|
You're entitled to your beliefs.
|
Oh cut the bullshit. it's not a "belief" that Obama isn't a Muslim. It is a fact. an undeniable, unassailable fact.
Quote:
|
But I don't think you leave room for middle ground and any type of compromise. With freedom comes compromise. With tyranny comes "My side is right and you're an ignorant, stupid, moronic, idiot." All hail Obama and the main stream media.
|
About facts there can be no compromise. They either are, or they are not.
Quote:
|
No you're not. You are prepared to pull out parts of what people say and make implications at your leisure to get what you want so you can say, "see idiot, you just are a right winger listening to Fox/Limbaugh/Beck etc and parroting them."
|
I'm not calling you a right winger. I'm calling you out for acting as though we all have to compromise on everything. That's bunk. We don't. We shouldn't. I'm fine with talking about opinions, and talking about ideas, but when someone's facts are completely wrong, then they are completely wrong, and no amount of capitulating and wishywashy "gee maybe we can compromise" out of me is going to change facts.
Quote:
|
Well, if you'd read my post above, Obama's "tax cut" won't mean shit when there is no tax base. READ WHAT I WROTE, QUOTE THAT, THEN LET"S DEBATE.... he who calls the other idiot, states they are parroting, or insults the other's intelligence first loses. What I'll win I have no idea because with self righteous "I'm right and everyone else is an idiot" attitudes there is no compromise.
|
Again, I wasn't debating you on your issues (though I'm happy to do so) - I was debating you on your idea that facts can be a matter for compromise. The sky is blue. You cannot compromise it into being red.
Quote:
|
We'll start with you quoting ALL of post #364 and debating those points.... OK?????? Until then, please don't put words or meaning behind ANYTHING you just want to pull out and not back up with full quote from me.
|
Again, I wasn't debating you on that issue, but I'll do so at the end of this reply.
Quote:
|
I see no one here even coming close to espousing the views you are accusing me of
|
I wasn't accusing you of them.
Quote:
|
.... but that's what one does when they don't want to truly debate what truly is said and just wants to make themselves feel all warm and fuzzy that they are right and the other side has no clue.
|
Yeah. Shame I wasn't doing that.
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Pan's entire post 364
See Will, if you or your friends go believing one way then you see the Tea Parties that way and refuse to see them for what they truly were.
Same as the people who went solely because Glenn Beck/Limbaugh/Faux News etc told them to go.
My experience was there were far more knowledgeable people there that were there to protest what the future holds, as Dunedin, eloquently explained. But that's what I went looking for.
What I saw as a whole were a bunch of people roughly my age on the average who never truly protested and have lived mostly comfortable lives knowing that that comfort level is about to take a drastic negative change and their children will never be able to live the lives they were able to, much like we have not been able to live to the comfort level of our parents, because taxes, inflation, greed, corruption and debt have taken away opportunities for us that they had. Those same elements have not been getting better, they are in fact worsening. It's easy to say, "income taxes will be lower" but when taxes on everything else goes up, when the middle class are being squeezed more and more and when the dollar is being printed at a rate that inflation will make those "lower income taxes" worthless, something has to be done.
|
And that something probably shouldn't be a bunch of tea party attendees running around parroting Rush Limbaugh. We have a fundamentally broken economy. For 30 years the Republicans (and Clinton, who was a Republican in disguise) have eagerly set things up so that the vast majority of the money in this country is now in the pockets of the very few. Additionally they (with the exception of Clinton) busily increased governmental debt, and they did so by spending the money on things that will not help us, like the B2 at $2billion a plane, or the F22 development contract, which was real useful now that they're about to cancel the program almost before it got started. It would have been far better to spend that money upgrading and improving the infrastructure of the country, because that could create a foundation for solid economic growth, but they didn't, and so we are where we are right now, which is a broke populace and a broke country that has decimated its industry in favor of moving computer records of bits of colored paper around, that has decimated its infrastructure through three decades of severe neglect, and that has decimated the segment of the population that keeps the economy moving - namely the middle class. We are in a very, very deep financial hole. Sure, Obama could sit back and do nothing in order to save money, and it would save money short term, but long term we wouldn't be making very much money either. If Obama's plan works, we will reinvest in jobs here at home rather than in India, and we will reinvest in the infrastructure and industry of this country so that we can actually make things again, and then we'll be able to make money off of those things that we make. Yes, that takes money at first, and it's money that we have to borrow in order to do this plan. You're right about that. But it's very short-term thinking to be worried about spending money right now to pull us out of this mess (especially considering no one gave a shit when we spent money on getting us into this mess like it was going out of style for the previous 30 years), and we've had enough short-term thinking in this country I think. Don't you?
Quote:
|
Now, if Obama were investing in small businesses and the infrastructure instead of bailouts
|
Hold on. The bailouts are investing in industry. GM and Chrysler and Ford do indeed suck, but, they're among the last remaining large industrials we have. If we kill them off, then we're just continuing the 3 decade backslide.
Quote:
|
, he'd be creating a tax base and I could see a feasible solution.
|
Oh and by the way, you seem to be forgetting that Obama is also injecting 15 billion dollars into the loan market for small businesses. The ones you say he isn't investing in.
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Chip Mahan, CEO of Live Oak Bank
"I absolutely applaud the decision to buy up [the Small Business Administration-guaranteed] loans. The main difference is in the philosophy of the SBA, which used to be that it would pay for itself. But if you want to stimulate the economy like this administration is attempting to do, you have to try something different."
|
Mahan's bank primarily lends money to small veterinary practices. (Forbes (yes, that Forbes), 3/27/09
Small Business Loves Obama's Plan - Forbes.com )
Obama is also waiving all 2-3.7% SBA loan fees through the end of this year. And, the SBA will be raising its guarantee-of-loan percentage from 75% to 90%, which will encourage banks to give out more loans.
So yes, he is investing in small busnisses.
As for infrastructure, a large part of the "shovel ready" stimulus programs involve transportation, be it road, or rail. That's infrastructure. There's more, but this post is getting long as it is.
Quote:
|
But, he isn't doing that. He is bailing out banks that continue to raise credit cards fees and interest rates, while tightening their credit belts and increasing foreclosures and showing more profit. That is not helping the population as whole.
|
See above. As to the banks, the banks got their big bailout from Bush, not Obama. Obama even wants to get some of that money back, since the banks are spending it on parties and bonuses, but he can't, because Bush didn't put any provisions in /his/ bailout to get the money back if the banks abused the privilege.
Quote:
|
When the auto industry, which is a HUGE tax base for the communities and Fed. is suffering, workers may have to take pay cuts just to keep jobs and plants close down, that tax base is being eroded. So, while you can tell a GM or Chrysler employee, "Yeah, but you'll be paying less in taxes"... what they lost in pay and benefits will still force them into a financial loss.
|
Hey, GM can get a government bailout. They just have to show that they're gonna do something useful with it. And Obama's right about that. What's the point of throwing several billion at a company if the company's going to do the exact same thing they've been doing for years? GM's already lost over 80 billion dollars since '05. Losing 12 more wouldn't take them very long if they didn't change their ways before they got the money.
Quote:
|
They have less disposable income and the small business takes the hit because the bigger businesses can take a hit far longer than small business... thus that tax base is lost. Tell a mom and pop who owned a store by a factory that closed down.... "Yeah, but you'll pay lower income taxes" as their dreams go up in smoke.
|
How about tell them one of two things: "We saved GM by giving them money and making them change their business practices so that now people actually want to buy their cars and so you're still in your store, oh and by the way you're paying lower taxes to boot," or "We tried to save GM by having them change their business practices so that people would actually want to buy their cars, and we'd have given them money to help them get out of their hole, but the dumbasses wouldn't change and so they went under."
(from their artificially inflated prices which were caused by a scam the Republicans and the banking/mortgage industry cooked up)
Quote:
|
, the communities that rely on property taxes go bankrupt.
|
Yep.
Quote:
|
So they start cutting services. Roads become worse, forcing more car repairs, crime increases, lowering property values further, and it spirals downward
|
But of course, spending any money to fix this problem is bad because the guys at the tea parties said so.
Quote:
|
tell the people affected "yeah, but you'll be paying lower taxes". Tell the city/county/state employees that will be or are getting laid off with no sight to being rehired, "yeah but your income taxes will be less."
|
I'd rather tell them "Next time, pay the fuck attention to who you elect and what they're doing, because we got to this point through the actions of our elected officials, and they stayed in office because you and millions like you let them."
Quote:
|
The point is, Obama is not using his spending to build a tax base, he is continuing to destroy the tax base that has been eroding for the past 30 years. Only, he's destroying it at a much much faster rate and has done so in roughly 100 days worth of policies.
|
The tax base being the middle class. How exactly is he destroying that? It was already destroyed before he got there. You're blaming him for what the 2 Bush's, Clinton, and Reagan did.
Quote:
|
To have people sit there and talk about 95% will be paying lower income taxes and bragging how great Obama is.... is blind to the destruction of the tax base itself.
|
If Obama's plan helps to create jobs, it's not destroying the tax base, it's shoring it up. Giving 12 billion to GM only to watch them lose that and THEN fail isn't going to help the tax base either.
Quote:
|
And to blame all this on Obama is blind to the failed trickle down economic policies that have been in place and the greed, corruption and total lack of investments into maintaining and growing the tax base. That is complete financial suicide that we will pay for instead of retiring, our children and grandchildren will pay for with lower standards of living and freedoms.
|
Yeah, but as you finally point out here, it's not his fault.
Quote:
|
Because as Obama "bails out the states and dictates where that money goes.... our freedoms become lessened.... that will be part of the price we pay.
|
So what would you propose? Just throw money at everyone randomly? How's that gonna work?
Quote:
|
My view at the tea party was many got that idea. But I'm biased because those people were the ones I looked for.
|
And my view is that perhaps there were some people that you found because you were looking for them who had a somewhat less fundamentally flawed (though still wrong) viewpoint. But, the tea parties were heralded by Fox and Limbaugh, people who listen to Fox and Limbaugh were whipped into a frenzy and told to get out there and go to the tea parties, by Fox and Limbaugh, and then Fox artificially inflated the number of people at the tea parties by 300% to make them seem even bigger than they were.