Magox

So, naturally I've been reading virtually everyone's take on the Presidents errrrr budget proposal, and the coverage for the most part has been fair. Dana Millbanks opinion piece, who is what I would consider to be a centrist Democrat has this to offer: Obama's budget games The White House’s budget for fiscal 2013 begins with a broken promise, adds some phony policy assumptions, throws in a few rosy forecasts and omits all kinds of painful decisions. Even then, the proposal would add $1 trillion more to the national debt than Obama contemplated a few months ago — and it is a non-starter on Capitol Hill, where even Senate Democrats have no plans to take it up. It is, in other words, exactly what it was supposed to be: a campaign document. The opposition picked up Sperling’s metaphor and ran with it. “He has punted again,” said Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), the House Budget Committee chairman. Actually, it was more of a kickoff, and Ryan opted to receive: He’ll introduce his own budget in the coming weeks, and it is likely to have large tax cuts for the wealthy and deep cuts to entitlement programs — giving Obama exactly the foil he wants for the fall campaign. But as a budget writer, Obama whiffed. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, although offering a few kind words for the president’s proposal, said the plan “would barely stabilize the debt — and at too high a level.” Then there is ABC's Jake Tappers revisit of Obama's failed promise Obama's Broken Deficit Promise USA TODAY's Editorial piece: Obama's budget plan leaves debt bomb ticking WSJ's take : Obamas amazing budget And then there's the NY Times take of the presidents budget: The Presidents Responsible 2013 budget Well there you have it, we know who's shilling for who All in all, the coverage was accurate. I could of posted the typical right and left wing views, but decided to post the "acceptable" large news outlets. For me, the budget is what the presidency is mainly about, it details a long view of how to stimulate the economy and address our spending and revenue issues while hopefully addressing our entitlement programs. The president does address revenues, even though taxing the "rich" by all reasonable economists view doesn't even come close to solving the revenue issues and is more political than anything else. I'm a substance person, and any rational person knows that the taxing the rich dogma is just that, a political dogma and NOTHING else. In regard to cutting spending. Sorry, but the wars ending doesn't and should't count, and that comes from the bipartisan Policy center. And when it comes to addressing Entitlements. Ok.... Nada

I'm actually a big fan of Niall Ferguson.

Shades of Ayn Rand? I really can't find anything in here that I disagree with. Linky thingy

I mean, do you blame her? Look what she has to put up with everyday.

That's not what was said AT ALL! What was said is that there have been a bunch of people leaving the laborforce, therefore artificially lowering the unemployment rate. I'll give you an example. Lets say you have a total of 100,000 people that are of age and not disabled and that are able to work. Out of those 100,000 lets say that 5,000 of them just for whatever reason don't really want to look for a job. So now the actual workforce that the Labor Department counts in it's unemployment is a workforce of 95,000 not 100,000. So lets say we have 10,000 who are officially unemployed and another 5,000 that just aren't counted. The offical Unemployment rate would be somewhere around 11% and REAL unemployment of a little over 15% Now lets say over the next 12 months that there have been 1000 more jobs added, so out of the 10k that were officially unemployed from before that drops it to 9k, but now lets say that out of the 9k that are unemployed, 2k of those decided to stop looking for work, shrinkng the offcially counted unemployed to 7k. So now the Labor department counts 7k unemployed out of 95k. So now the official unemployment rate is somewhere around 7.5 to 8% Wow! What a dramatic drop in just twelve month, from 11 to below 8% But hold on! There were only 1k more added jobs, how can 1k more added jobs drop an official workforce of 95k from 11% to 8%? well, because they have this screwy way of counting unemployment rates...THey don't count the people who have given up looking for work, and in this particular year there were twice as many people that given up looking for work, therefore artificially dropping the Labor Departments unemployment rate. Then you have to take into account the population increases. The latest job figures added another 1.1M to the list of people who had dropped out of the workforce, but they really did'nt drop out of the workforce in one month,it was an accumulation throughout the year based on census bureau population info, but none the less, they weren't added into the Labor departments figures. But what's worse, having someone actually look for work who can't find a job and therefore who gets factored into a higher unemployment rate or someone who has given up hope for looking for work in which gets dropped from the labor force but isn't counted towards the unemployment rate, which artifically drops the unemployment rate? Without a doubt, it is more troublesome that people have been dropping out of the workforce in droves, but with the Labor departments unemployment rate dropping, I guess it's A OOOKAAAY. So we weren't talking about the jobs that were created, it was the unemployment rate. http://www.amosweb.com/cgi-bin/awb_nav.pl?s=wpd&c=dsp&k=labor+force+participation+rate

Dude, you're harshing his mellow

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/14/us/politics/republicans-see-broken-promises-and-gimmicks-in-obama-budget.html?_r=1

How many campaign promises is Obama going to break? How many does that make it, I can think of six offhand. How do all you lemmings not call him out for what can either be one of two things, either his insincerity or ineptitude? Because he' either lying to us, or he is so naive and has such a horrid economic team that they just aren't able to foresee things. Remember when Obama pledged to cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term? Well, according to the presidents political document, it will reach over $1.3 TRILLION dollars. Not even close. The whole thing is a sham. Just like the healthcare debate with phony accounting tricks, Obama is going to use savings from the Troop pullbacks of AFG. and IRAQ. So instead of applying those savings from wars, he is just gonna add it to new spending initiatives. That's just wonderful! So here is the political budget Liberal wish list 1) $350 Billion for more stimulus spending CHECK 2) $60 Billion for state budgets to save UNION state employee jobs CHECK 3) Withdraw from wars conveniently right before elections CHECK 4) End bush tax cuts for upper income earners CHECK 5) Create Buffett rule of taxes for rich CHECK 6) Minimum savings tax on corporations CHECK 7) Cut defense and Pentagon spending CHECK 8) Oh and he can say I amgoing to cut $4 TRILLION in spending within the next 10 years.... yeah more than half of those "Savings" are from letting the wars end. pffffff talk about accounting tricks That's fine, we'll see what happens when Europe begins to show signs of recovery, and when bond rates begin to rise over here, simply because those bond funds will repatriate back to Europe, then we'll see the focus switch over here. We'll see what excuse they have then and I'm sure blaming the conservatives will have somethig to do with it .

Shocking, that that's how YOU would interpret it. One trick pony comes to mind... Where do you guys come up with this Sh%t?!?!

Lets break down his comment. Before I do, let's remember the pretext of the conversation, we are talking about voting for a black man in a historical context... Right? ok 1) He begins with a statement that says if the next 40 presidents were black, it would be justified to vote for a QUALIFIED white guy just because he's white. He used the word Qualified. 2) Then he goes on to say I wouldn't hold it against women if they voted for a "qualified" woman just because she's a woman. Again, he used the word Qualified 3) then he says things have a historical context, which ties it into our conversation, regarding black people, and that also voting for a "QUALIFIED" black guy is significant in this case because it would be the first black president. Then you replied with Really? That's what you got out of his statement? My guess is even now, where it's pretty damn clear what he was saying which had nothing to do with what you asked, that you will be too hard-headed to admit it. Anyone here who has the ability of reason, can see what he was saying. Listen, I'll be the first to call out anyone about anything, and my political views on most non social issues are on the complete opposite spectrum from what Lybob says, but what is right is right and what is wrong is wrong, and you were wrong. It's that simple. Now if you want to argue the merits that you don't think it's ok to vote for a black "qualified' guy over a white guy who may be a little more "qualified", then thats a valid argument, but that isn't what you said.

That's not the way I read it at all. I actually agree with what he says to a degree. He was talking about in within a certain context, the way I understood it is if you have a qualified person in this case a black guy (it's called context) and he is running up against other candidates, considering that there has never been a black president elected, that that could be used as valid criteria to vote for the black guy. That's the way I understood it and I think thats ok. Now if you are gonna ask me was Barack Obama sufficiently qualified to be president? I would say no. Never had any executive experience, didnt even serve one term as senator, and during that time as senator he castr a **** load of "present" votes. I never thought he was sufficiently qualified, but that is besides the point, because maybe from his perspective he thought he was. So going back to his statement, nowhere did he even come close to implying that he thought he was unqualified, that was your opinion and you basically just made it up. Now again, show me where he implied that.

I'm not one to agree with Lybob, but where was his "assertion that it's ok to vote for an unqualified black guy" . I went back and re read it, and I don't see it, maybe it didn't show up on my screen. Can you show me where he said that? Because from what I read, he specifically used the word "qualified" Where was this said?

Well he did say "qualified"

Who are the Senators of Maine?

Let's face it, millions and millions of people voted for Obama simply because he was black. He's really not saying anything that is some sort of new revelation or anything, he's just saying it how it is. I'm sure there are alot of Afro Americans that can relate to him, he's kinda like that crazy black uncle that goes off the reservation from time to time.

But somehow, it was much more of a moral outrage issue when G.W was in office. How strange

To be fair, he didn't say that. And, you can ONLY pay down the national debt by reducing the deficit. Not that I believe he understands the distinction between the debt and deficit.

If I was a political operative I could have a field day with this. Their "accommodative" measures is simply put, more fodder for conservatives. Talk about government overreach. So they went from one form of centralized power to another. Like I said earlier, this can not be about contraceptives or abortions or anything of the like, from a conservative point of view, this has to be about Obama's White House and how they want to enter every phase of your life. They've given conservatives a whole new round of ammo for this upcoming elections, not to mention the badly needed enthusiasm that they have been lacking because of the candidates they have. There will be alot more energy once they nominate their guy, simply because the antiObama sentiment is strong, but now you are talking about injecting a whole new stream of enthusiasm with this debacle that the W.H created, you will get social conservatives that will enter into the equation and you will get conservatives and independents that value overreach of government as a voting issue. 1) Weak Economy 2) $15 Trillion debt With Trillion dollar deficits projected for many years out 3) Failed energy policy with solyndra, keystone, Cap and trade (which you can tie that into too much centralized power) and an activist EPA 4) Too much centralized power/government overreach ALot of issues to go after them with

I agree, he is genuinely bat **** loony

From what I read, the Catholic Bishops are calling it "unacceptable" Also there is a good editorial piecethat came out this morning from the WSJ. Gotta love the WSJ, its one to spout a partisan opinion, its another to get into the details and numbers or the nuts and bolts of these pieces of legislation and absolutely eviscerate it with hard cold facts and logic. Here is something else to chew on, so the administration says ok, we are gonna "accommodate" the Bishops with this deal, and just for ***** and giggles, lets say its a fair compromise, but now they are gonna FORCE healt insureres to pick it up for free? You freaking tell me that the Executive branch is gonna just mandate a private corporation to pay for something simply to accommodate another entity? Un!@#$ing real These guys are out of their minds. Of course you know what the game plan is right? It goes something like this: Whitehouse: You guys are gonna pick up the tab HealthInsurers: we are? Whitehouse: Yeah you are HI: I don't see how you can make us WH: You wanna !@#$ with us? HI: what do you mean? WH: You remember the health care debate? remember how we demonized you? HI: u huh WH: Before you guys were just heartless callous corporations, now you are gonna be heartless callous corporations that hate womens rights to health insurance. HI: That's BS WH: Comply or its game on bitches!

You got me there

Come on now, When doesn't the GOP ever pander to the social conservatives during the primaries?

Thats all I got out of it

Dude, I hope it's a chick whispering in your ear.

I've been trying to find it too...