Sunday Morning Talk Show Thread 6 January 2013

Various driveby media television networks ^ | 6 January 2013 | Various Self-Serving Politicians and Big Media Screaming Faces

[Alas Babylon!]

The Talk Shows

January 6th, 2013

Guests to be interviewed today on major television talk shows:

FOX NEWS SUNDAY (Fox Network): Reps. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., and Jim Jordan, R-Ohio; Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas.

MEET THE PRESS (NBC): Sens. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky.; Angus King, a Maine independent; Rep. Xavier Becerra, D-Calif.; Erskine Bowles and Alan Simpson, leaders of President Barack Obama’s now-defunct deficit commission.

FACE THE NATION (CBS): Sens. McConnell; Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., and Chris Murphy, D-Conn.; Reps. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., Mike Kelly, R-Pa., Rick Nolan, D-Minn., and Matt Salmon, R-Ariz.

THIS WEEK (ABC): Sens. McConnell and Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D.; Reps. Joaquin Castro, D-Texas, and Tom Cotton, R-Ark.

STATE OF THE UNION (CNN): Heitkamp; Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.; Rep. Richard Hudson, R-N.C.

[DanZ]

Bray

Are electronic versions of primary voter turnout available? How / where would you get an electronic (spreadsheet) of the voting population in your area by declared party affiliation?

I would be interested in starting now on getting a primary opponent for my current Republican congrescritter.

[rodguy911]

Sorry about that only a part of my post made it through cyber space.....

What if a politician actually told the truth and said SS needs to be fixed and cuts have to be made? We have to raise the age and lower the benefits as well as stop raiding it.

Funny you should mention that. Mitch McConnell just did exactly that while facing an onslaught from DNC Dave. the biased POS interviewer tried his best to get McConnel to admit he was willing to shut the govt. down but got absolutely nowhere with McConnell. Every time dnc dave tried it McConnell came back and said the problem is zero won't cut spending never mention anything at all about shutting the gov.t down. Finally our side is learning how to deal with the DBM biased SOBers. Many are now saying that Mitch McConnell is doing Dingy Harry's job since Dingy Harry doesn't have a clue at best. No wonder Boehner told Harry to go F... himself last week!!Not once but twice!!

[Cheerio]

The government spending politicians just want to make it more solvent in the future so that they will have more money from it to use for their government spending programs.

I see it as part of the RAT class warfare and redistribution of wealth from the seniors. We paid into our FICA accounts for decades and when we want to collect we are told it needs to be means tested? Couple that with the destruction of the US dollar and seniors are being raped.

Beginning November 24, 1936, the United States Government will set up a Social Security account for you, if you are eligible. To understand your obligations, rights, and benefits you should read the following general explanation.

http://www.ssa.gov/history/ssn/ssb36.html

[SMM48]

Right. WE paid into it for decades...

I'll make this as brief as possible.

Recently re-financed my home. Bank asked for a copy of my S.S. "Awards" letter.

I said, "huh"?

Sure enough, at the top of the letter from S.S. advising me of how much monthly I would receive, it says "NOTICE OF AWARD".

I don't consider S.S. an award if I have been paying into it for 40+ years!

[ROCKLOBSTER]

Are electronic versions of primary voter turnout available? How / where would you get an electronic (spreadsheet) of the voting population in your area by declared party affiliation?

Try searching your state's Secretary of State website.

[lodi90]

we are no where near the bottom of the souless pit yet. It will take something like the A-Bombing of Japan on this nation to jolt it awake.

---

Yep. The dims are boiling the frog slowly. By the time enough people realize what they have done it will be too late.

[bray]

Go to your county elections office and you can purchase them for around $125. It will give you all of your voters in your area by affiliation and then cross it with the Secretary of State voter list who actually voted.

We broke the voters down by how many times they voted in the past ten elections and then targeted accordingly. In the primary you target the higher voters and in the general target the lower Repubs and unaffiliated.

You can get more sophisticated from there if you have good excel people.

[bray]

The key to winning elections is yard signs. They tell your neighbors who you are voting for and gets the names in front of people. Our current effort is getting local city councils and utility/school districts filled with our people.

Our system is an automatic for these elections since we can flood the ballot box with our voters.

Pray for America

[ROCKLOBSTER]

Bray is right regarding the primary voter list.

It comes from your local elections clerk. There used to be a thing from the GOP called “voter vault” which may net you the desired information.

Any “R” candidate should have access to it.

[ROCKLOBSTER]

Our system is an automatic for these elections since we can flood the ballot box with our voters.

One of the big problems is "open primaries". That needs to be fixed in certain states by the State Committees.

[SkyPilot]

New definition of GOP "Success."

• Caved to Obama on tax increased, but failed to stop gutting of the military through sequestration taking place in March (military is 18% of the budget, yet takes 50% of the cuts)

• Failed to initiate ANY entitlement reform at all (entitlements bankrupting the nation)

• Not fighting new Obama "gun control" proposals that will instantly lead to millions of Americans becoming over night felons subject to fascist searches, prison terms, and tyranny

• Providing zero leadership on the great moral struggles of our age (abortion and homosexuality)

When the debt ceiling/continuing resolution/sequestration TRIPLE CLIFF happens in March, I fully expect these two to fold like a cheap tent. Do you know what Obama did during that last debt ceiling standoff?

He threatened to withhold people's Social Security direct deposit checks the next week, despite Congress saying they would fund those.

That's ALL it took. And that is all it will take for the GOP to fold again.

[csmusaret]

I don’t know what GOTV is, but it sounds like a method and not a message. There is not one specific action step mentioned anywhere in the entire essay. Is replacing secularism with God based policy and philosophy a good thing? Absolutely, so how do you go about accomplishing that change? You say “we have an entire program then” but you never outline what that program is. This essay sounds more like a mission statement or an outline of goals than an action plan. I am not criticizing the mission or the goals, but I am eager to hear more specifics.

[lodi90]

I admire your optimism but you can’t “win” an election if the two choices are hard leftists and euro/Canadian style “conservatives”. It’s over, sadly.

[bray]

My manual is 18 pages and not completed yet. Until the Party admits it has a problem and needs to go a new bolder direction there is no fixing it. GOTV means Get Out The Vote, something we are terrible at.

Sounds like I should update my manual and get it out. The first step is prayer and the rest becomes easier. What we found works.

Pray for America

[bray]

Gee, I think that is exactly what I said? The point is we can elect Conservatives as opposed to what the County Club thinks. Why do you think they are trying to kick me out of the Party? This is a threat to the Secular Socialists in our Party.

[Twotone]

This has been going around via email (below). I wrote back to the person who sent it to me as being the perfect argument for privatizing social security...

BENEFIT CHECK OR ENTITLEMENT? I PAID INTO THE SOCIAL
SECURITY INSURANCE PROGRAM FOR NEARLY SEVENTY YEARS!!!

SOCIAL SECURITY NOW CALLED ‘FEDERAL BENEFIT PAYMENT/ENTITLEMENT’

Have you noticed, your Social Security check is now referred to as a “Federal Benefit Payment”? I’ll be part of the one percent to forward this. I am forwarding it because it touches a nerve in me, and I hope it will in you.

Please keep passing it on until everyone in our country has read it.

The government is now referring to our Social Security checks as a “Federal Benefit Payment.” This isn’t a benefit - its earned income! Not only did we all contribute to Social Security but our employers did
too. It totaled 15% of our income before taxes. If you averaged $30K per year over your working life, that’s close to $180,000 invested in Social Security.

If you calculate the future value of your monthly investment in social security ($375/month, including both your and your employer’s contributions) at a meager 1% interest rate compounded monthly, after 40 years of working you’d have more than $1.3+ million dollars saved! This is your personal investment.

Upon retirement, if you took out only 3% per year, you’d receive $39,318 per year, or $3,277 per month.

That’s almost three times more than today’s average Social Security benefit of $1,230 per month, according to the Social Security Administration (Google it - it’s a fact).

And your retirement fund would last more than 33 years (until you’re 98 if you retire at age 65). I can only imagine how much better most average-income people could live in retirement if our government had just invested our money in low-risk interest-earning accounts.

Instead, the folks in Washington pulled off a bigger Ponzi scheme than Bernie Madoff ever did. They took our money and used it elsewhere. They “forgot” that it was OUR money they were taking. They didn’t have a referendum to ask us if we wanted to lend the money to them. And they didn’t pay interest on the debt they assumed. And recently, they’ve told us that the money won’t support us for very much longer. But is it our fault they misused our investments?

And now, to add insult to injury, they’re calling it a “benefit,” as if we never worked to earn every penny of it.

Just because they “borrowed” the money, doesn’t mean that our investments were a charity!

Let’s take a stand. We have earned our right to Social Security and Medicare. Demand that our legislators bring some sense into our government - Find a way to keep Social Security and Medicare going, for the sake of that 92% of our population who need it.

Then call it what it is: Our Earned Retirement Income.

[rodguy911]

Couple that with the destruction of the US dollar and seniors are being raped.

Great catch Cheerio. And that's exactly what is happening. Gutting obamacare and telling us to take a pill when we get really sick. Its all about taking our last dime and spending it on amnesty to provide an endless supply of new rat voters forever.

[kabar]

How much of the current $16 Trillion debt of the United States is due to Social Security???

About $2.7 trillion, which is the balance in the SSTF. Of the $16.4 trillion national debt, about $11.4 trillion is publicly held, i.e., is owed to foreign and domestic investors and the Federal Reserve, which buys up treasuries in order to drag down interest rates through quantitative easing and $5 trillion to the Social Security Trust Fund and federal pension systems under "Intragovernmental Holdings."

None of it. It’s the only program that is still in the black despite continual raids on it by the government spending of DC politicians .

Not so. SS is a pay as you go program, i.e., today's workers pay for today's retirees, has been running in the red since 2010 and will continue to do so permanently.

Source: CBO “Combined OASDI Trust Funds; January 2011 Baseline” 26 Jan 2011. Note: See “Primary Surplus” line (which is negative, indicating a deficit)

Matters are even worse than this chart shows. In December, Congress passed a Social Security tax reduction. Workers are temporarily paying 2 percentage points less, from 6.2 percent to 4.2 percent, in Social Security payroll taxes this calendar year. Since the government is making up the shortfall out of general revenues, CBO’s deficit projections for the trust funds do not include that. But CBO’s figures predict that the “payroll tax holiday” will cost the government’s general fund $85 billion in this fiscal year and $29 billion in fiscal year 2012 (which starts Oct.1, 2011.) Since every dollar of that will have to be borrowed, the combined effect of the ” tax holiday” and the annual deficits will amount to a $130 billion addition to the federal deficit in the current fiscal year, and $59 billion in fiscal 2012.

Social Security has passed a tipping point. For years it generated more revenue than it consumed, holding down the overall federal deficit and allowing Congress to spend more freely for other things. But those days are gone. Rather than lessening the federal deficit, Social Security has at last — as long predicted — become a drag on the government’s overall finances.

As recently as October, CBO was projecting that it would be 2016 before outlays regularly exceed revenues. But Social Security’s fiscal troubles are more severe than was thought, and the latest projections show the permanent deficits started several years ahead of earlier predictions.

Don’t be confused by the fact that the trust funds are projected to continue growing for several more years. That’s because Treasury must still credit interest payments to the funds on the borrowings from earlier years. But unless taxes are increased or other spending is cut severely, the government will have to borrow from the public to pay the interest that it owes to the trust funds.

And don’t be misled by those who say the system can pay full benefits until about 2037 without making any changes to the law. That’s true, but does not change the fact that Social Security taxes no longer cover those benefits. The government is now borrowing money to pay them, and will do so every year for the foreseeable future. And keep in mind, if nothing is done, when those trust funds are exhausted, benefits would have to be cut by 22 percent in 2037, and more each year after that, according to the most recent report of the system’s trustees. By 2084, the system will generate only enough revenue to pay for 75 percent of promised benefit levels.

[rodguy911]

They tell your neighbors who you are voting for and gets the names in front of people.

Doesn't get any better than this. Yard signs are the equivalent of mini-billboards. One of the most effective means of advertising ever developed. If you question their value price some out some time especially in major metro areas.

Brilliant once more bray!

[chiller]

I'm not one to ever take a side against God, but I did see a headline today pointing out that the new Congress is much more secular, not to mention the country itself. That points out the need, but also the difficulty.

I am one who expected the influence of Old Media to diminish over the last several election cycles, but it hasn't happened, or at least not to the point that neuters them.

The election was won, IMHO, with millions of dollars and paid volunteers (full-time, 4 years)working in swing states, with liberal voting laws that allowed the volunteers to personally identify, one-on-one, corral voters and/or bribe them for their democratic vote, and literally usher them to the polls, or mail their absentee ballot. Add the fraudulent votes harvested from the obit sections. That's one issue.

If low information voters are another issue I'd suggest this attack on the media and its bias:
Many of us, from Rush on down, have been wondering how to combat media bias. Media ad buys may be a tactic to explore.

Pick an issue: Sandy Hook and guns. Run a reasonably financed national ad campaign briefly on the alphabets (and major cable ) Reinforce much less expensively thereafter on the internet. Make our counterpoint effectively and pointedly shiv the media at the same time for their biased coverage of the issue.

Make our point far and wide, and undermine the liberal media. Repeat as the budget crisis reaches decision time. Repeat when Republicans are accused of a war on women. Repeat Benghazi. Repeat debt ceiling. Repeat taxes.

Finance it with contributions from us and every soul fed up with the crap we've seen for 4 years; the Heritage Foundation type organizations, NRO, NRA, Weekly Standard, Newt's Solutions group, the RNC, Sherman Adelson types, Mitt Romney, Steve Wynn. Hot button issues would likely raise lots of cash.

A couple million bucks judicially spent could begin to raise the awareness of the low information voter, which, IMHO, is the goal. Prominent exposure would certainly ignite a media debate which we could then win armed with facts.

[shalom aleichem]

The voting information is all available at your state secretary of state (or elections) office or usually on-line.

[rodguy911]

Gotta disagree.
Boehner really had little wiggle room.
What he got was acknowledgment that the Bush tax cuts were a good thing all along and he got 98% of taxpayers a more permanent tax cut. He actually forced the dems to view the Bush cuts as now a good thing instead of just one more thing they demonize.

http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-12-25/business/36015725_1_bush-tax-tax-cuts-tax-rates

The above from the “Washington Post” of all places, is just one of many articles showing the dichotomy of now approving of tax cuts they once demonized.
Here’s a cut from the piece:

“President Obama has put the extension of the tax cuts for most Americans at the top of his domestic agenda, a remarkable turnaround for Democrats, who had staunchly opposed the tax breaks when they were written into law about a decade ago.”

Its hard not to see this as about the best we could have got from the cards we had to play.

[kabar]

SCOTUS has already decided that your SS contributions don't belong to you--Flemming vs Nestor.

Consider this, a person could pay into SS for 50 years, die the day before he turns 67 and not receive one cent from SS aside from a small burial allowance. His estate would receive nothing if he wasn't married or had dependent children. SS is an insurance scheme, not a pension scheme. And Congress can change the benefits at any time.

[rodguy911]

Check out brays posts # 57 and 58. He should answer most of your questions there.

[rodguy911]

Great post and there are ways to attract the low information voters although many of them are simply bought by the left with our money of course.
You can dumb down stuff into sound bites. Hope and change, forward,etc. sometimes it works sometimes not.

[rodguy911]

Brilliant stuff kabar. I have long thought that one immediate solution is to bump up the eligibility age to 70.

[kabar]

The government is now referring to our Social Security checks as a “Federal Benefit Payment.” This isn’t a benefit - its earned income! Not only did we all contribute to Social Security but our employers did too. It totaled 15% of our income before taxes. If you averaged $30K per year over your working life, that’s close to $180,000 invested in Social Security.

People on SS today will receive far more in benefits than they made in contributions. Why SS is a Ponzi scheme

The current FICA payment is 6.2% each for the employee and employer or 12.4%. This rate has been in effect since 1990. The SS rates have been changed many times since its inception.

The SS benefit is not computed on the basis of contributions.

"Social Security benefits are based on your lifetime earnings. Your actual earnings are adjusted or “indexed” to account for changes in average wages since the year the earnings were received. Then Social Security calculates your average indexed monthly earnings during the 35 years in which you earned the most. We apply a formula to these earnings and arrive at your basic benefit, or “primary insurance amount” (PIA). This is how much you would receive at your full retirement age — 65 or older, depending on your date of birth."

[kabar]

Let’s take a stand. We have earned our right to Social Security and Medicare.

You "earned" it with a big taxpayer subsidy and putting the tab on your children and grandchildren.

This graph shows that the average man and woman (average defined in the study as average income over their working lives and living to the average life expectancy) who start receiving benefits in 2010 get over 3 times more in benefits than they pay in to the system! Of importance, the study accounts for inflation by calculating all past taxes and future payments in 2010 dollars to provide an accurate comparison. If the notion that Medicare recipients are simply "getting back what they paid in" is false then where is the money coming from? Simply, the excess received is being borrowed from younger generations and the cost is more than we can bear.

The premiums collected for Medicare Parts B and D pay for only 25% of the costs for those programs. By law, the General Fund must pay the other 75%. In FY 2011 this amounted to $222 billion. These costs will continue to increase as 10,000 people a day retire for the next 20 years, which will double our population over 65. It is why Medicare will consume the entire federal budget if not reformed.

[Son House]

Democrat Economic Mentality: Those creating wealth cannot spend it right and only Democrats know how to spend it before the wealth gets too concentrated for any of the productive individuals.

That’s why the Simple Macroeconomics of: The More Money Taken Out of the Private Sector, The Smaller the Private Sector, just doesn’t Matter in the Democrat’s Legislation and Regulation.

That’s also why it’s just fine if Gore sells before tax rates are expected to increase and Kerry can dock his yacht in another state to avoid paying higher taxes. They've already got their wealth and too bad for everyone else who doesn't, go get an education and join the middle class.

[kabar]

All things considered, I would rather see it privatized or at least most of it leaving a small defined benefit program for survivor and disability benefts. People would thus have actual wealth creation and not depend on government, which can change the benefits at any time. Currently, SS represents an unfunded liability of more than $18 trilion.

SS is actually pretty easy to resolve. Medicare is the real problem and the hardest to solve.

[Cheerio]

He threatened to withhold people's Social Security direct deposit checks the next week, despite Congress saying they would fund those.

AND he has the backing of the left and his RAT party to do exactly that. He will indeed use it again in 2013 and DEMAND from those obstinate Republicans to have the debt ceiling REMOVED.

Here is where he derives his state run media power over this subject that the spineless Republicans can never ever win on........the below argues both ways, and provides insight into the history of this ponzi scheme LIE perpetrated by the lefties.

Social Security’s Sham Guarantee
By Michael D. Tanner
May 29, 2005

Gov. Perry's Right About Social Security
Walter E. Williams
Sep 21, 2011

Washington’s Lies
BY WALTER E. WILLIAMS, OCTOBER 2010

Note: The article below has been scrubbed from all sources ( http://www.frumforum.com/social-security-checks-are-not-guaranteed/) even the wayback machine, but I post the original below.


Social Security Checks Are Not Guaranteed
July 12th, 2011 at 4:59 pm David Frum

Back when conservatives were fighting the good fight for private accounts in Social Security, we often pointed to the Supreme Court ruling that individuals had no legally enforceable right to Social Security benefits. I quote the Cato Institute’s Michael Tanner:

Many people believe that Social Security is an “earned right.” That is, they think that because they have paid Social Security taxes, they are entitled to receive Social Security benefits. The government encourages that belief by referring to Social Security taxes as “contributions,” as in the Federal Insurance Contribution Act. However, in the 1960 case of Fleming v. Nestor, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that workers have no legally binding contractual rights to their Social Security benefits, and that those benefits can be cut or even eliminated at any time.

Ephram Nestor was a Bulgarian immigrant who came to the United States in 1918 and paid Social Security taxes from 1936, the year the system began operating, until he retired in 1955. A year after he retired, Nestor was deported for having been a member of the Communist Party in the 1930s. In 1954 Congress had passed a law saying that any person deported from the United States should lose his Social Security benefits. Accordingly, Nestor’s $55.60 per month Social Security checks were stopped. Nestor sued, claiming that because he had paid Social Security taxes, he had a right to Social Security benefits.

The Supreme Court disagreed, saying “To engraft upon the Social Security system a concept of ‘accrued property rights’ would deprive it of the flexibility and boldness in adjustment to ever changing conditions which it demands.” The Court went on to say, “It is apparent that the non-contractual interest of an employee covered by the [Social Security] Act cannot be soundly analogized to that of the holder of an annuity, whose right to benefits is bottomed on his contractual premium payments.”

The Court’s decision was not surprising. In an earlier case, Helvering v. Davis (1937), the Court had ruled that Social Security was not a contributory insurance program, saying, “The proceeds of both the employee and employer taxes are to be paid into the Treasury like any other internal revenue generally, and are not earmarked in any way.”

In other words, Social Security is not an insurance program at all. It is simply a payroll tax on one side and a welfare program on the other. Your Social Security benefits are always subject to the whim of 535 politicians in Washington. Congress has cut Social Security benefits in the past and is likely to do so in the future.

Conservatives are blasting President Obama for “scare tactics” when he suggests in interviews that Social Security payments will not in fact be secure in the event of a hard crash with the debt ceiling.

Actually Obama is here channeling 100% classic conservative theory. Conservatives have argued for 20 years that Social Security is a pure gratuity, vulnerable to change at the whim of Congress. That’s why we wanted to change it! But the consequence of Social Security being a pure gratuity is that Social Security recipients must stand at the back of the line if it becomes necessary to slash spending by 44% . Bondholders collect first. People with other contracts and other legally enforceable claims collect next. Those without legally enforceable claims collect last. That last category includes not only Social Security recipients and the unemployed, but also, for example, soldiers in the field.

It can’t be right that the Secretary of the Treasury has the discretionary power to pay anybody he likes. Some people have legally stronger claims against the federal government than others. Unfortunately for the GOP’s strategy in this bizarre game of threat and counter-threat, the claims that are most politically powerful also happen to be legally weaker.

[Sooth2222]

I'll also disagree. The lower income Obama voters who believed that "millionaires" were going to get soaked are going to be surprised when they look at their paychecks and discover that they are the millionaires!

True, the seriously wealthy might see a change if they just stand there like a deer in headlights. But they won't. Most of them wouldn't have become seriously wealthy if they weren't really, really smart in the first place. So I doubt the gov't will collect near the $60 billion it projects from the income tax increases. I think Obama actually believes he won, and Boehner believes he lost. Okay -- let Obama spiking the football if it makes him feel good, but this deal wasn't a bad deal for the rest of us.

I'm more worried about them monetizing so much of the deficit, rather than cutting spending. This did not work out very well when it was tried by Weimar Germany.

[Jmathes]

[Son House]

No, Boehner and McConnell and many other Republicans should be written off as reliable Democrat votes, they are closer to Pelosi and Reid’s views then being anything Conservative.

Economically speaking, some House Republicans have been wrong since the last debt ceiling deal when the credit rating was first down graded because they wouldn’t stop the spending which is still the problem.

[Son House]

Boehner won’t get another deal, as from now on meetings will be with Biden and Geithner instead.

In the first place, Boehner should have never been negotiating outside of the House Democrats, let them go make any deals and say no if the deal isn’t right. It’s a matter of ‘know your role’.

[ROCKLOBSTER]

House Republicans...wouldn’t stop the spending which is still the problem.

All of this spending, which happened with no budget, must have been approved by the House in order to be appropriated. Do we have a list of these "continuing resolutions" or "supplemental budget" bills and the corresponding roll calls?

Or did they pass them by doing the cowardly "unanimous consent" hammer-vote?

[Alas Babylon!]

They didn’t have a referendum to ask us if we wanted to lend the money to them.

Oh yes they did! You (not you Twotone, the writer) were just too stupid to notice and didn't pay attention.

Every time you voted for a democrat or a RINO, you gave them carte blanche to do what they did. Collectively, you could have stopped it by flushing Obama, but you gave him another 4. So don't cry to me when that knife in your back gets twisted even further.

But not to worry about it! You won't NEED Social Security when the Death Panel does its job.

[SkyPilot]

I disagree with your disagreement.

• The GOP got swindled during the 2011 "debt deal" that placed great hope that the "Super Committee" in the sky would do what everyone knows has to be done, but does not have the political courage to do: reform entitlements. Instead, the GOP caved on agreeing to allow the military to take the body blow of 50% of the cuts, despite being 18% of the budget, and being the one agency that is called for in the US Constitution

• This "deal" did nothing but delay those cuts, that are now looming again in about seven weeks. Moreover, it is even worse when the details are examined. The DoD will now have only 7 months to implement the first set of cuts (which last 10 years!) for the remainder of the fiscal year. Worse still, they cannot cut troop strength (although that is coming very soon), so the DoD will be forced to slash the Operations and Maintenance budget line, which is the basically the life blood of the military. The cut will be deep, about 25-30% and will be immediate, resulting in the most rapid and deepest hollowing out of the Defense Dept in American history

• Taxes went up on everyone - the payroll tax was deducted from almost every hard working American's paycheck the day after Congress passed this legislation (and even before Obama's underlings "autopenned" his name

• The tax increases in "the rich" will fund the government for a whopping 6 days

• Real entitlement reform in the coming "debt ceiling" is now no where because of this political defeat the GOP signed onto. That means we are screwed as a nation.

[rodguy911]

It’s tough when you only control one house and barely control that. When we lost the election it really sealed our fate in so many ways. We can get some traction but how much is hard to say.
We have an administration hell bent on destroying capitalism and installing communism,they got reelected. Sad day for the country.

[Friendofgeorge]

Watched 5 minutes of MTP and the same of FNS. I just happened to tune in for Newt and Carly

While they both said a few good things, I did not appreciate them one bit suggesting that the debt ceiling was off limits

Why do they think they were invited on the show in the first place? Shirley((airplane) they know???? If not then they are not that bright!

Gregory only had Newt on because he had his writings on the debt ceiling, and same for Carly.

Yes I know they had perhaps a couple other things to say, but still they are only helping set up the MSM talking points for why we just have to raise the debt ceiling...They are only allowing themselves to be used, was kind of sickening really!

[Gritty]

The City Where the Sirens Never Sleep (Detroit is dying. But, it is not dead yet)

[SkyPilot]

True enough.

But the Republicans have to get the military sequester out of the equation. Right now, Obama and the Democrats have a gun to the temple of the hostage in the room, and that hostage is Defense.

The Republicans were asked by the Democrats (in a stunning reversal) if the Republicans wanted to delay Sequester for 2 years, and the Republicans said "No!"

True enough, it would have added $109 Billion to the debt for one year which would have been addressed in the next year's budget, but when we are talking about $17 Trillion in debt and $100 Trillion in unfunded liabilities driven almost exclusively by entitlements, the Republicans would have been very smart to have taken the deal. That $109 Billion is less than 10 cents on the dollars of every deficit Obama has run every year for the last 4 years!

The GOP refused, and painted themselves right into a corner with the coming debt ceiling negotiations.

Sometimes I wonder if the GOP is really that stupid, or they are stealth Democrats.

[Gritty]

Oops! That was posted by mistake.

It's a good article anyhow and shows where America is headed if we stay on the current glide path. Tinkering around the edges isn't going to hack it. Certainly massive corruption and socialism aren't either.

Anyhow, bray is right. God was thrown out of our schools and our schools turned to crap. God was thrown out of our culture and our culture turned to crap. God was thrown out of our politics and our politics turned to crap. When God is kept out of our lives, they eventually turn to crap.

Do I see a trend here?

Another thing I believe bray has right. If one believes in the utterly humanistic and discredited theory of evolution, one can't really believe God is whom He says He is in His deeds and His Word. "Evolution" of species is not His style. That is the style of somebody else. I used to believe it myself. But that's all it ever was or can be - a belief, and a wrong one at that.

Believing lies usually ends up in one living them as well.

[kabar]

The DoD will now have only 7 months to implement the first set of cuts (which last 10 years!) for the remainder of the fiscal year. Worse still, they cannot cut troop strength (although that is coming very soon), so the DoD will be forced to slash the Operations and Maintenance budget line, which is the basically the life blood of the military. The cut will be deep, about 25-30% and will be immediate, resulting in the most rapid and deepest hollowing out of the Defense Dept in American history

It won't happen. Congress will work out some sort of deal to avoid it. There are too many Dems who will not want to see such cuts that affect their consitutents. VA is a major recipient of DOD funds. Our two Dem senators and the Dem congressional reps don't support such cuts. You can bet that there will be some sleight of hand fiscal tricks to postpone these cuts as well as the other ones involved with sequestration. The bottomline will be no real cuts for anyone.

Taxes went up on everyone - the payroll tax was deducted from almost every hard working American's paycheck the day after Congress passed this legislation (and even before Obama's underlings "autopenned" his name

I for one am happy that the two year payroll tax holiday was ended. It was a scam. Congress guaranteed that the SSTF would be held harmless by issuing non-market T-bills in the amount of the lost revenue and depositing them into the SSTF. So the costs of the shortfall were made up by the General Fund, which borrows 42 cents on the dollar. This was just more stimulus spending and unlike the Bush tax rebates, it would include everyone who pays SS including those receiving EITCs. Do you think we should continue the payroll tax holiday at the same time that SS is already running a deficit since 2010?

[kabar]

Yep you are correct. I watched all the talk shows. The main talking point on the coming debt ceiling fight is that it would be catastrophic for the nation and the Reps and the most common analogy used was hostage taking and shooting the hostage.

I agree that Newt was put on MTP because he is against the debt ceiling fight. He wants to postpone it until the looming fights on the continuing resolution and sequestration. This is the old RINO ploy of postponing any fight with the Dems until some later event. And then when that event is on the horizon, there will be another excuse as to why it is not the right time. Neither party is serious about making real spending cuts.

[kabar]

True enough, it would have added $109 Billion to the debt for one year which would have been addressed in the next year's budget, but when we are talking about $17 Trillion in debt and $100 Trillion in unfunded liabilities driven almost exclusively by entitlements, the Republicans would have been very smart to have taken the deal. That $109 Billion is less than 10 cents on the dollars of every deficit Obama has run every year for the last 4 years!

More rationalization for why we cannot have any cut in spending, even $110 billion out of a $3.7 trillion dollar budget, which is less than 3%. The sequestration formula of 50% from defense and 50% from everything else can be changed. In fact, that was the idea. It was the club to get both parties to make cuts. Now that the time has arrived without any deal, both parties will need to identify cuts to avoid the sequestration forumla. The Reps have already done so and it was passed by the House.

Postponing the sequestration cuts for another year is just plain nuts. We have the Obama tax increases. Obama claims the spending cuts from sequestration, yet now you want to postpone them until next year. If the Reps were to agree to such a deal, what kind of message does that send to its base who are already unhappy with them for raising taxes?

[rodguy911]

I don't know exactly what to tell you on that one. But, I just got some new sources and will find out. First thing that comes to mind is that it's so difficult to get anything at all in the way of cuts from the regime that they may have wanted to salvage something but that's just a guess.

You gotta remember zero won't even talk about budget cuts. They want to do everything through taxation and growth.no surprise they buy most of their votes with our money and have been for years. Zero is basically saying let cloward piven weave its evil way. Which is what they really want. This whole thing is convoluted and complex,in some areas all we can do is make educated guesses.

[SkyPilot]

Now that the time has arrived without any deal, both parties will need to identify cuts to avoid the sequestration forumla. The Reps have already done so and it was passed by the House. Postponing the sequestration cuts for another year is just plain nuts.

There can be sensible cuts, but when the GOP agreed to allow the Democrats to take 50% from the military when it is approximately 18% of the budget was irresponsible. Moreover, the military is the only Federal agency that has already endured real, actual cuts in spending. The ONLY agency to already do so.

But even if we implemented all of the sequestration cuts right now, it would not stop the bleeding.

We are hemorrhaging as a nation because of entitlements.

They MUST be reformed.

[shalom aleichem]

In an attemt to get us over the century mark...comment on RG3 being kept in game way past his ability to play on badly injurted knee. Sad abuse of a great player. Shanahan said (in prior game) Don’t look at me, Doctors cleared him. Doctor says, Not true, I did not even see the kid or his injury.

I hope ESPN is happy that theior “cornball brother” went down.

What a nest of vipers (ESPN that is).

[shalom aleichem]

and for the 100th....Good luck to you Crimson Tide tomorrow night.

I don’t think Rudy or the Four Horsemen are on the roster, so the Tide should Rollll!