I can't think of anything more boring than hearing Barack Obama speak unless of course it is hearing Al Gore speak. Soporific!

Here it comes again! see Web Link

Hank: did you even bother to listen to the President's speech last week, or you're just too partisan to man up and listen?

The President destroyed the GOP/Ryan plan while outlining his own budget plans. Then Ryan went on whining for a day about how unfair it was for the President to use actual facts, such as saying Ryan's plan won't balance the budget for 30 years and calls for the debt ceiling to be raised FIVE times in that period.

I'll take soporific, over whining fraud, anytime.

As Heritage analyst Brian Riedl has pointed out, "given that Obama has already helped quadruple the deficit with his stimulus package, pledging to halve it by 2013 is hardly ambitious".

If you want to compare Bush to Obama you need look no further than the Left's favorite newspaper the Washington Post to compare the Bush red ink to Obama. Bush is a parsimonious piker compared to the spendthrift Obama.

Check out this web link

Web Link

and you will see how Obama is squandering America's future.

Hank:

I take Heritage quotes with as much credence as you might take from Daily Kos. Your link is two years old.

Where were you when Bush doubled the national debt? When he took a surplus and squandered it?

Ryan's GOP plan, which you conveniently ignored, requires the debt ceiling to be raised 5 times (also ignored.) The simple act of letting the bush tax cuts expire next year cuts the deficit in half. Instead, Ryan wants to slash services to those who can least afford it while dropping the top rate for millionaires another 10 points, from 35 to 25%.

All while privatizing medicare, arming seniors only with coupons to fight insurance companies.

How do real Americans want to address this? From today (not two years ago!)

"WASHINGTON — ...Americans are clear about how they want to attack the government's runway budget deficits: raise taxes on the wealthy and keep hands off of Medicare and Medicaid.

On tackling the deficit, voters by a margin of 2-to-1 support raising taxes on incomes above $250,000, with 64 percent in favor and 33 percent opposed.

Support for higher taxes rose by 5 percentage points after Obama called for that as one element of his deficit-reduction strategy last week. Opposition dropped by 6 points. The poll was conducted before and after the speech." Web Link

You really should swallow your pride and listen to our President.

Hank:

Sorry, I forgot: Mr. Andrea Mitchell (aka Alan Greenspan) came out over the weekend. Did you hear him, either?

Greenspan once said Clinton's surplus created the danger of paying off the Reagan debt too quickly, and that's why he supported bush's tax cuts.

Look up what he said this weekend about the tax cuts and deficit.

"Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan said tax cuts put in place by former U.S. President George W. Bush should be allowed to expire and the U.S. should return to tax rates that were in effect under former President Bill Clinton to help address the budget deficit.

We should “allow the Bush tax cuts to expire,” Greenspan said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” today, calling the economic crisis “imminent and dire.” We should “put the rates back to where they were during the Clinton administration,” he said.

Greenspan said it will be hard to rein in the budget deficit because data show that if a disproportionate amount of the change come from tax increases “it won’t work,” while the impact of cutting back on spending is “almost insignificant.” "

Al Norte Siberia,

Obviously you know nothing about price elasticity. The same applies to tax elasticity. When JFK dropped tax rates there was an avalanche of income to the U.S. tresury. That is because the tax elasticity was well north of 1. It is still well north of 1. When you consider that 47% of Americans pay no federal taxes at all it is difficult to use that tired class warfare argument that socialist love to parade forward that the rich are not paying enough. Considering that the top 1% are paying 40% of all Federal taxes I would say they are doing their fair share.

What we have is bloated buracracies that are not only not accountable to the bottom line, they are not providing value to the American public. We have Government controlling our lives rather than working for us. They are after all public servants. But you would never know it by their behavior.

Hank siberia:

I note you ignored Alan Greenspan's call for eliminating the deficit busting Bush tax cuts.

re Kennedy: Any large tax cut initially raises revenues for the first year as the uber wealthy sell assets, but revenue then drops like a rock, that's why Reagan's tax cuts for the wealthy tripled the debt and Bush doubled it.

Want to go back to Kennedy's rates, or Clinton's? Both had better economy's than Bush.

your "47% of Americans pay no federal taxes at all" The bottom 40% pay about 6%, their income is less than 20% of the total pie.

your false claim "top 1% are paying 40% of all Federal taxes" again, a link please, especially the one that shows what their share of INCOME is (about 25% of the pie.) It's a Bachman FALSE talking point Web Link

"The upper 1 percent of Americans are now taking in nearly a quarter of the nation’s income every year. In terms of wealth rather than income, the top 1 percent control 40 percent. Their lot in life has improved considerably. Twenty-five years ago, the corresponding figures were 12 percent and 33 percent. One response might be to celebrate the ingenuity and drive that brought good fortune to these people, and to contend that a rising tide lifts all boats. That response would be misguided. While the top 1 percent have seen their incomes rise 18 percent over the past decade, those in the middle have actually seen their incomes fall."

your "they are not providing value to the American public." Yes, they are and the AMERICAN PUBLIC doesn't agree with you.

I note again, you did not comment on American support for Medicare, Social security, and raising taxes on those with incomes over $250k, in the poll linked above.

You are OUT of the mainstream, Hank. In Siberia.

Personally, I'll go along with the recommendations of the Fiscal Commission - a bipartisan group that worked hard to come up with a new, simplified plan.

Web Link

Unfortunately, they will be ignored just like every other commission.

C'mon, Joe Biden can't even listen to him without falling asleep! Although that could be a great lead in to nap time!

Yo,

Al Norte Siberia. Apparently you did not read the Obama deficit projections by the Washington Post. Anything Bush and Reagan have done pale in comparison with Obama's treacherous socialist policies. If you want to make a friendly wager of lets say $1000 on which party will win the presidential election is 2012 please let me know.

Americans are fed up with this glib ivy league dilettante who like James Joyce's Sirens in Ulysses sings a mellifluous tune that draws in ingenuous people only to have them caught between Scylla and Charybdis. The reckless and irresponsible Obama spending policy is the worse than WWII in terms of the havoc it will wreak upon future generations of Americans.

Hank:
Make all the wild claims you want, we all note that you ignore Alan Greenspan's position, and you ignore that you are out of the American mainstream on taxes and Medicare, as linked to above.

"If you want to make a friendly wager of lets say $1000 on which party will win the presidential election is 2012 please let me know."

You don't seem very friendly in your tone, so don't hide it Hank. Glory in your anger. Let's make it 100k, just to make it serious enough to track. I pick mine, you pick yours. I'll take Barack Obama, President of the United States.

Who's your candidate that is going to beat him? Mitt? Sarah? Timmy?

Pick one.

Man up. Pick the winner you want to put money on.

Lost hope -- next

The President of the United States of America just flew over.

Figure it out Hank republican or democrat they all spend money recklessly. So to blame the deficit on Obama or Bush is stupid this has been going on for a long time. Instead of blaming party politics we ought to look at the overall systems that encourage this spending.

Bob:

Or maybe the Bush tax cuts, letting them expire cuts the deficit in half. The President just mentioned that (you do have your facebook page open, right?)

Or asking GE pay some taxes on their $15 billion in profits. Any tax, instead of getting a $3 million credit.

Or Exxon, another tax free, immensely profitable company.

Can always count on an Obama visit to stir it up. [Portion removed. Please stick to topic.]

Al Norte, did Hank ever pick a candidate for the hundred large?

"If you want to make a friendly wager of lets say $1000 on which party will win the presidential election is 2012"

Wow. Hank Lawrence got lucky - no one wanted his money.

Mittens today called for us to invade Syria.

No wonder he lost on a landslide.

>> The same applies to tax elasticity. When JFK dropped tax rates there was an
>> avalanche of income to the U.S. treasury.

First, Hank, you seem to believe that continually halving taxes would continually double the revenue.
I don't know where you guys get these ideas, it's not true, and just a few seconds of thought would
be needed to get that.

But the hero of conservatives tried this very thing, and it was the first time in modern history that
we got huge deficits, and those deficits stuck with us until Bush, who exploded them again with
more tax cuts, and then again with two wars, and then again with more bailouts.

And Republicans still seem to want to do this, to push the country artificially into bankruptcy
in order to get rid of social security, medicare, education, and make everyone pay taxes only
for the military who will be defending those left with any money after we turn the country into
a 3rd world mess.