I mentioned this yesterday, but its worth adding to the OOTD rolls. Barack Obama has repeatedly claimed to have passed the largest middle-class tax cut in history as part of his 2009 Porkulus plan, which Obama plans to reprise in his jobs speech tonight. Glenn Kessler at the Washington Post awarded Obama four Pinocchios for this whopper of a lie, which is bad enough. It enters OOTD territory when Kessler discovers how the White House has bragged about outside validation for their dubious claim:
Incidentally, the report that the administration official cited as outside validation for the 95 percent statistic just mentioned it as an aside. We checked with one of the co-authors, and he said the source for the figure was a White House fact sheet.
The CBPP was embarrassed enough at the regurgitation of political talking points to have avoided footnoting the claim in the report, which is why Kessler had to ask one of the two authors for the citation. Thats doubly ironic, since the article intended to push back against misconceptions about how many people pay federal income tax, and the authors ended up propagating more nonsense instead.
Still, Im not sure which is worse the fact that Obamas team tried to bolster their argument by having the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities launder a talking point on their behalf, or that it took the national news media months to ask where the CBPP got their data.
#2
Im not sure which is worse the fact that Obamas team tried to bolster their argument by having the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities launder a talking point on their behalf
I don't think the administration had to twist arms
[Iran Press TV] US president Barack B.O. Obama's new job creation package includes billions of dollars of tax cuts for the unemployed and construction spending to stimulate the country's shaken economy. The tax cuts are just extensions, and there's no such thing as a 'shovel-ready' construction project in the U.S. of A. given our EPA...
Obama is expected to unveil his USD 300 billion plan to Congress on Thursday, to get the Americans working again, the News Agency that Dare Not be Named reported.
"I'm going to propose ways to put America back to work that both parties can agree to, because I still believe both parties can work together to solve our problems," Obama said in a Labor Day speech in Detroit.
Crowd warm-up provided by Jimmy Hoffa, Junior.
Meanwhile, ...back at the ranch, Butch and the Kid finally brought their horses under control... the Republicans who control the US House of representatives have attacked his plans in advance of president's prime-time speech.
The jobless rate and the sluggish recovery from the country's worst recession will be central issues as Obama runs for re-election next year. The US economy is in a critical situation as the national unemployment rate is stuck above 9 percent.
While the US economic growth stalled to a devastating rate of 1 percent in the second quarter, following an even more shocking 0.4 percent in the first three months of 2011, US president Barack Obama and his administration have come under increased pressure to take steps to jump start growth and reduce unemployment.
Posted by: Fred ||
09/08/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
Tax cuts offset by more government spending. Haven't we been doing this for the past 2 years? Is it working, or am I missing something?
#4
Here's a thought or two for the US Congress and our genius Colombia University scholar:
1. Provide US industry with a one month TAX Holiday between now and Christmas. If the stock market goes up, extend it for another month, then another, and another.
2. Give sales tax free status to any product still made in the United States (if there are any remaining) for the upcoming Christmas holiday season. If holiday season picks up, extend it to Easter, then Labor Day.
3. Make federal gasoline taxes deductable from Federal and State Income tax for folks driving US made automobiles.
4. Recruit a bunch of steel workers, pipefitters, and welder contractors. Pick a spot out somewhere's (preferably near of a major oil and gas trunk line) and build a new oil refinery. Oklahoma and Texas quickly come to mind. When it's done, sell it to an oil company at a discount, and with tax exempt status if they hire American help.
5. Let it be known the South Korean Army now has a robust nuclear capability and bring our US Army 2nd Infantry Division home.
6. Limit unemployment insurance to 179 days within a 5 year period, no exceptions.
7. Remove the ceiling on money earned by age 62-66 Social Security applicants. Let them work full-time and pay taxes until they're 105 if the wish.
8. Invoice the Mooslim rebels for every dime spent helping them overthrow the Kadaffi regime. Put everyone else on notice that we are a pay-as-you go peace provider. No exceptions.
9. End Federal tax-payer funded college tuition loans. Working your way through college is an education also.
10. Sub-contract the US Federal Prison system to Mexico.
11. Limit the USPS to letters only. Everything else goes Brown or FEDEX. Charge $2.50 per letter. The USPS fiscal problem with fix itself.
12. Replace the Food Stamp program with free MRE's. Two per day per family member. Sign for them at the firehouse or police station. (See item #6 for program duration and limits)
13. Lower the Capital Gains tax to 5% for 2012.
14. Terminate the so-called "Earned Income Tax Credit." (see item #12).
15. Permit hospitals to require an up-front $250,000. charge for anchor baby birthing. (hospitals keep $10,000, US Penal System get's the remainder).
16. Invoice the Germans and NATO for US soldiers and airmen stationed in Germany and elsewhere in Europe. No ticki-no ride.
17. Give the so-called "mission" of the BATF to the FBI. Integrate former ATF agents into local law enforcement.
18. Raise the rent of the UN building in NYC to a non-negociable $ 125B per year with a 5 year security deposit. Gold Bullion only, in advance.
19. Make Sarah Palin the energy Czar. Let her work from home and approve/and monitor drilling in Alaska and off the US coast. Pay her $10m per year, but hold it in escrow unitl she's got us self sufficient with crude oil.
20. Make "Farmer's Markets" tax free zones.
21. End property taxes. Charge a fee, a head tax, for policing, the firehouse, water, sewer, school kids, etc.
22. Set aside public land for private veggie and flower gardens as is done in Europe and elsewhere.
23. Appoint Bill Gates to fix Amtrak and passenger service. Give him a deadline. Start with a new name, like the B&O and Union Pacific.
24. Get rid of FEMA and FEMA regions. Tell the governors of the states that they now have the mission. Pre-position MRE's, cots, porta-potties and tentage where it can be flown in to disaster areas. Put the Air National Guard in charge of transportation, set-up, and policing.
25. Disband the so-called "Federal Reserve" and give fair warning to it's former members that they are being monitored closely!
But you left out the most important thing for job growth - removing the hyperregulatory business environment.
My addition to your list:
-Make null and void all regulations at all levels of government passed after 1992, and rigorously enforce the ones that are left.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
09/08/2011 5:54 Comments ||
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#7
Brer' Rabbit:
"Disband all federal, state, county, and municipal government unions, and make it a felony (treason) to try and organize a new one. If they strike, fire all who do, with the proviso of a lifetime ban on any government work at any level."
Fixed it for ya.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
09/08/2011 6:04 Comments ||
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#8
He's going to increase the "Earned Income Tax Credit", and more people who never pay a penny in taxes are going to get refunds.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
09/08/2011 9:16 Comments ||
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#9
26. Resign
It would have an immediate, positive, effect on the stock market. At least until people figured out what Biden stands for.
#10
Good ideas. Also consider abolishing the Dept. of Education unless they can demonstrate they improve education. The same with the Dept. of Energy. Unless they can demonstrate they make us energy independent get rid of it.
#11
Even though most of the slobbering media will continue to portray Obama's "Direct aid to local governments" component as a vehicle to help teachers and first responders this scheme deserves alot of scrutiny. Oh, there will be pleanty of payola targeted twoards the urban areas to keep Maxine and the CBC at bay. And there'll be enough grease to keep Trumpka and Hoffa from squealing too loud. But you can bet there's a good share of the boodle left over for smack-dab in conservative districts. You can almost hear Axelrod now - "Go ahead Cantor...turn it down." The Political class calls it micro-targeting. But really it's just old school Chi-Town politics - Bribe your friends and extort your enemies. Hell, even Ahmadinejad knew the best place to drop off cooking oil was in his fiercest critic's back yard.
#12
Get rid of FEMA and FEMA regions. Tell the governors of the states that they now have the mission. Pre-position MRE's, cots, porta-potties and tentage where it can be flown in to disaster areas. Put the Air National Guard in charge of transportation, set-up, and policing.
If the disaster-response procedure (it's online and takes about as long to find as it did to publish this blather) is followed, that's essentially what's supposed to happen. If the lower-level government entity can't handle it, it goes to the next higher one.
#13
Amen, Pappy - I'm filling out forms just this AM for disaster response and Recovery tasking for my local Gov't employer. They are call/critical tasking lists from SAIC, who I guess is contracting for coordinating this stuff into a quick and easy "disaster local response database" that can be also used by County/State/Fed responses to say...a large quake or fire. I get the bridges, roads, and utilities that cross with them....
Posted by: Frank G ||
09/08/2011 14:10 Comments ||
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#14
The problem is that due to corruption, ineptitude, or politics (see: "Hurricaine Katrina", "New Orleans"), the disaster response system gets bypassed or short-circuited.
But then again, it's a hell of a lot easier to type up a bullsh*t hit-list for the Old Fart Email Network than it is to research what's wrong and then hold the bastards accountable.
#15
Make null and void all regulations at all levels of government passed after 1992, and rigorously enforce the ones that are left.
While a good idea, the mere pruning back of the regulatory state would do little long-term good as there would remain strong impetus on the drivers of the present problem (politicians & big businesses who conspire to grow regulation explosively) to simply re-regulate as quickly as possible.
#19
That even a whiff of a suggestion of a hint of less than perfect job security for his little life on a random blog causes such a reaction from the troll tells us everything we need to know about what kind of "man" he really is.
Public functionary-itis.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
09/08/2011 20:07 Comments ||
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#20
Toronto troll shows up pretending to be Dutch. Again.
[Iran Press TV] President Barack B.O. Obama was expected to propose about $300 billion in tax cuts and government spending on Thursday as part of his major jobs speech to a joint session of Congress, media reports said.
The president would introduce more than $300 billion into the economy through tax cuts, aid to state and local governments and spending on infrastructure, Bloomberg reported.
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney unveiled on Tuesday a plan to create jobs and grow the economy that he would propose if he were elected president. His plan came two days ahead of Obama's expected joint speech to Congress.
Obama's plan also would offset short-term costs by asking Congress to raise revenue in a deficit-cutting proposal that Obama would propose next week, according to Bloomberg.
The amount in the Obama jobs package would be offset by other cuts, Democratic sources said, according to CNN.
Romney said he would target job growth of 4% a year for the four-year presidential term, and projected to add 11 million jobs for Americans during that span.
He said he would eliminate taxes on interest, dividends and capital gains in order to help the middle class save money. The Street
FACTS & FIGURES
The official jobless rate in the United States is over 9 percent. Econpost
In fact, when unemployment is measured according to the formula that was used when President Bill Clinton took office, it is actually around 20%. Free Republic
More than half of the total benefit from the tax cuts in 2010 alone will accrue solely to the richest 5 percent of Americans while the middle 20 percent of Americans will reap only 7 percent of the benefit. American Progress
Some economists say extending the tax cuts for the wealthy will cost about $80 billion by the end of 2012. American Progress
Posted by: Fred ||
09/08/2011 00:00 ||
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#1
I had to go to the original link to verify it was the Mullahs who were cherry-picking quotes (Facts & Figures).
Not that I thought His Fredness would fail to use the proper format for his words!
Posted by: Bobby ||
09/08/2011 6:35 Comments ||
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#2
Somehow with Obama, any tax cut is going to result in an increase in spending.
Sharpen the knives Mr. Issa. Bruck Krasting examines the seedy dealing between the Solyndra bankruptcy and a Democratic, Obama-bundling billionaire and his family trust fund. Worth a look.
According to White House visitor logs, between March 12, 2009, and April 14, 2011, Solyndra officials and investors made no fewer than 20 trips to the West Wing. In the week before the administration awarded Solyndra with the first-ever alternative energy loan guarantee on March 20, four separate visits were logged.
At this moment, FBI agents are raiding the now-vacant Solyndra offices in Fremont, executing a Department of Energy and Office of Inspector General warrant in search of evidence about the plant's abrupt bankruptcy last week.
A beleaguered Solyndra spokesman took a wild guess at what the FBI might be looking for:
Solyndra spokesman Dave Miller said the search came as a surprise, but he emphasized the company is "fully cooperating" with federal officials. He said he did not know the purpose of the search, but he speculated it could have something to do with the $535 million in loan guarantees the Department of Energy awarded to Solyndra.
Ya think?
While the "Anybody seen $535 million around here?" quote in the headline is of course a joke, Business Insider adds some key context to the raid:
The Obama administration's relationship with the company has come under scrutiny since the bankruptcy was abruptly announced last week. The Daily Caller reported that between March 12, 2009, and April 14, 2011, "Solyndra officials and investors made no fewer than 20 trips to the West Wing."
Solargate? Put in seedy politicians since the dhimocrats and Obumble were so in bed with this company. Hope and change, the Chicago way baby!
#4
Some very expensive (to taxpayers) funny business happened before the bankruptcy w/ the mega Obama donor Kaiser.
There is one very slippery fact that I am wondering about. It has to do with subordination. This a legal issue on who gets paid first in a bankruptcy. In all cases the equity is last on the list. But that is not the situation with Solyndra/Kaiser. From Bloomberg:
In February, Solyndra and its lenders reorganized the companys debts, putting the U.S. loan behind $69.3 million owed to other lenders, including an affiliate of Solyndras biggest shareholder, Argonaut Ventures.
This kind of stuff is not supposed to happen. The equity interest of the Kaiser family got a preference as to the right of repayment from Solyndra. Kaiser got in front of the line. He got in front of the US Governments $528mm IOU from Solyndra. Kaiser got in front of the interests of the American taxpayer. There had to be some very serious arm-twisting going on in the background to achieve this feat.
#6
Guess their under the table campaign contribution wasn't large enough.
So much for the genius idea of using federal loan guarantees to make pay-offs. Hey, you don't suppose they were using illegal imported rosewood in those solar panels, do you?
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
I mentioned this yesterday, but its worth adding to the OOTD rolls. Barack Obama has repeatedly claimed to have passed the largest middle-class tax cut in history as part of his 2009 Porkulus plan, which Obama plans to reprise in his jobs speech tonight. Glenn Kessler at the Washington Post awarded Obama four Pinocchios for this whopper of a lie, which is bad enough. It enters OOTD territory when Kessler discovers how the White House has bragged about outside validation for their dubious claim:
[Iran Press TV] US president 
[Iran Press TV] President 
At this moment, FBI agents are raiding the now-vacant Solyndra offices in Fremont, executing a Department of Energy and Office of Inspector General warrant in search of evidence about the plant's abrupt bankruptcy last week.
