More Details On the Republican's Destructive Budget Plan

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The House Republicans unveiled a budget plan to slash countless dollars of Federal spending, a topic I covered last week in the two part “Defundapalooza” posts (here and here).  Unfortunately there’s more to say on the issue.  Several other very detrimental effects have been found in this proposed budget.

• Moody Analytics Chief Economist Mark Zandi says that these cuts could potentially lower GDP by half a percent and result in 700,000 less jobs being added to the economy.
  Source: Washington Post
• End Federal funding for NPR and PBS.  The only news outlet remaining in the US that is not rife with editorialized content and punditry (factual content level aside) would be no more.  Worse yet, educational programs like Sesame Street and Nova would no longer be produced.
  Source: Washington Independent
  
• Pell grants for low income college students would be cut by up to 15%
• Loss of $1 billion in funding to the Head Start program, resulting in loss of the jobs of over 50,000 teachers and 200,000 children losing access to pre-school.  This would put an extra unnecessary financial and emotional burden on families where both parents have to work to make ends meet.
• Raise the risk of food-borne illness by eliminating $100 million in funding to the United States Department of Agriculture, which would result in fewer inspectors.  In a time when we hear more and more reports of e-coli and salmonella contamination in packaged food products, this is especially concerning.
  Source: The New Republic
• $27 million less in funding for the Poison Control Center, which would potentially cause the most harm to children as most incidents of accidental poisoning occurs with young children.  No longer would parents have the Poison Control hotline to call for assistance in these situations
  Source: Think Progress
• Huge cuts to Planned Parenthood, to which I have commented previously on here.
  Source: The Wall Street Journal
  
• Potentially put thousands of veterans on the street by ending low-cost housing assistance.  These men and women have fought for our freedom and in many cases suffered mental or physical damage as a result.
  Source: Think Progress

Let your voice be heard that these cuts are unacceptable.  These cuts do not represent the direction that we should be moving in and that making the poor and under-priviledged pay for the entitlement of the wealthy is not what America is about.

– “Left of Center”

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$200 Million Per Day? Absolute Laughable Idiocy

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Earlier in the week a report was published in an Indian newspaper that President Obama’s 10 day trip to India would cost roughly $200 million per day. That’s the only source for this, no vetting or verification in US papers or news outlets.

Yet, despite the evidence to support this being as flimsy as wet toilet paper the typical cast of the ultra-Conservative fringe took the ball and ran with it. Michelle Bachmann, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Michael Savage, Matt Drudge, Michelle Malkin, Don Imus, and several other less prominent talking heads parroted this clearly false story without any regard for research, responsibility, or facts.

Given that the Afghanistan War costs roughly $190 million, there’s no logical way that a Presidential diplomatic trip could come remotely close to that cost, let alone eclipse it. The idea that such a thing is possible is laughable on it’s face and should never have gotten past water-cooler jokes. However, unsurprisingly the Republican TEA Party’s communications division, FOX News went to town with a false non-story yet again.

The actual cost of Presidential working trips abroad is not discussed due to security concerns. The excuse is overused, for sure, but in this case it fits. If a dollar figure was known, security experts could potentially determine the scope and strength of efforts to protect the President. This isn’t new under the Obama Administration, it was the same under Clinton & George W Bush. If we’re to return to a time of responsibility and proper journalistic integrity in our politics, perhaps we need to entertain the idea of assessing civil penalties to those who are caught in these kind of intentional falsehoods.

– “Left of Center”

More Commentary:

CNN’s Anderson Cooper

Valerie Jarrett Was Flat Wrong

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One of President Obama’s Senior Advisors, Valerie Jarrett’s claim that Justin Aarberg made a “lifestyle choice” by being gay.  One could infer from this that she may believe that all LGBT Americans actually actively make a choice about who they are. If this is how she thinks, that is a very sad outdated viewpoint.

To anyone who thinks that homosexuals choose to be that way, there’s only one question that needs to be asked. Did you have to make a conscious choice to be straight? I know I didn’t, so it stands to reason logically that homosexuals clearly do not choose to be gay. The only choice they make is whether or not to be open about it. They choose if they want to live with the scorn, hatred, disrespect and possible physical harm that potentially comes with sharing the truth about who they are.

President Obama looks to this woman for advice. We are on the cusp of a time in this country where we’re starting to see the LGBT community gaining the civil rights they have been denied for so long. Because of this, Valerie Jarrett needs to be made to truly apologize for her remarks. A disingenuous apology for if her comments “offended anyone” or a calling of her statements “inartful” or “poorly chosen” will not do. If Valerie Jarrett truly believes that being gay is a choice, then she not only needs to apologize, but President Obama needs to demand her resignation immediately.

Gems from the Annual "Values Voter Summit", Part I

Introduction
The yearly “Values Voter Summit” was held over the weekend. The collection of Conservatives and Republicans gathered together for their annual conference and this year resulted in some of the most false and unbelievably hateful, vile, ignorant & factually vacant comments ever in modern political history. After the nonsense that’s been said since the 2008 election, especially in regards to the healthcare debate, that’s a seriously frightening achievement.

Christine O’Donnell
“Think back for a moment to about a year and a half a go to when our leaders took office.. when our new leaders just took office. Think about how you felt then. The despondency, the anxiety, even a palpable fear for the future of our country.”

I have to ask – fear of what exactly? Fear of being the minority party? Fear that the American people voted in a majority against your policies in 2008? Fear that they will do so again in 2010? No, she’s talking about the false fear of Socialism. Something she either is not really afraid of (but wants you to be) or is truly afraid of because of her exceedingly poor understanding of what Socialism truly is.

“.. a so-called stimulus bill that spent a trillion dollars on a Keynesian fantasy while millions of working Americans lost their jobs and watched their savings disappear.

Well, Ms. O’Donnell firstly, your facts are unsurprisingly a bit lacking. Let’s look at the first half of that quote – the stimulus. Numerous examinations show that the stimulus worked. In fact, there is common agreement that the only reason it didn’t help more was not because it was too much spending, but too little. Examples:

The New York Times || The Philadelphia City Paper || USA Today ||
Wall Street Journal / Allan Greenspan || Firedog Lake || Salon.com

As for the second half of that quote, I have to wonder if she even understands even the basic fundamental aspects of Keynesian economics. I’ll go into more detail on the very basic aspects at another time.

To close out the examination of the second half of the quote, someone should remind Ms. O’Donnell that the market crashed in 2008 before Obama took office. That’s when countless millions of Americans watched their life savings evaporate into nothing.  Finally, Job losses peaked in the first months of 2009, before the Recovery Act was passed.

“..but it didn’t end there, did it? They started talking about Obamacare and the bailouts.”

Again, Ms. O’Donnell needs a history refresher. The TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) also known as the Wall Street bailout was organized, passed and instituted by President Bush while the 2008 election was underway. Remember, John McCain made a spectacle of suspending his campaign to rush back to Washington to show his support for the plan?

My colleague, “Classic Liberal” will be doing a more in depth look at Ms O’Donnell’s individual policies including details on her stance on the healthcare reform bill, here idiotically referred to by its Conservative faux name of “Obamacare.”

“We’re not trying to take back our country. We are our country.”
“The small elite don’t get us. They call us whacky. They call us wingnuts. We call us ‘We, the people.’”

I’m sorry Ms. O’Donnell but you don’t represent me and I am fully aware of thousands and speak with dozens of people daily that don’t see you as representing an America they want to be a part of. Being part of “We the People” means having to accept when you lose an election by the majority will of the same “We the People” you claim to both be and represent. So far, you have done little to demonstrate any comprehension of that.

The Bush Tax Cuts: Don't Believe the Lies

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The tax cuts that are set to expire at the end of this year have, along with most things of late, a partisan mine field of disinformation and outright lies. From nonsense such as saying that these tax cuts don’t have to be payed for to the always unbelievable falsehood that tax cuts for the wealthy help spur the economy, there is a lot of garbage being thrown around. Some Republicans are even calling this a Democratic tax hike. Let’s try and cut through the bull here:

• The Republicans passed the tax cuts during their majority years in Congress under George Bush from 2001 to the end of 2006.
• They passed the bill using Budget Reconciliation so they only had to get 51 votes.
• They knew that by doing this the law would have to be renewed or allowed to expire in 10 years. That’s a requirement of Reconciliation.
• Some of the same Republicans who voted for this law are the same ones now calling this the Democrats raising taxes.
• Contrary to Republican popular belief, tax cuts for the richest Americans (about 2% of the population) do not spur any economic growth.
• These tax cuts, if extended for another 10 years would add an additional $3.1 trillion to the deficit.
• Many Republicans are simultaneously decrying the Stimulus ($787 billion) while advocating an idea that would almost quadruple that spending.

The reality is that when rich people get tax cuts, they keep the money they save or they invest it to make even more money. The average, middle class person has much more need for every dollar that they can get. Whether it be for paying off debts, setting aside the money so they can actually take a vacation, using it as disposable income to make a purchase. Very few do or can afford to save it.

Calling this plan a Democratic tax increase is the height of arrogant hypocrisy by Republicans and it is meant to further divide people. The Republicans knew the time would come when these tax cuts would have to be abandoned or renewed and despite that we’re still seeing the same kind of blatant lies that make Americans distrust politicians and makes rational people distrust Republicans.

It’s high time we start really thinking about the nation’s budget deficit and debt and stop playing these divisive nonsense games and spreading the lies. We had a balanced budget and were in a place to start paying down the debt under Clinton until the Republicans torpedoed that with unfunded tax cuts, a prescription drug plan and an unjustified war. The Republicans stand on very shaky ground when it comes to deficits and spending. These lies and disinformation about the tax cuts do nothing to shore up their position to anyone logical.

– “Left of Center”