The ONLY political and religious thread allowed on Chiefscrowd

[hermhater]

Clinton, McCain emerge as comeback winners in New Hampshire primary



WASHINGTON - Democrat Hillary Clinton pulled off an unexpected narrow victory in New Hampshire on Tuesday, dramatically rescuing her bid for the White House in a tense battle with Barack Obama.
Clinton, who's fighting to become the first woman in the Oval Office, mounted a surprisingly strong showing after bracing for a second defeat following her devastating third-place showing in Iowa.

Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y. greets a familiar face. THE ASSOCIATED PRESS/Elise Amendola

Republican John McCain also nabbed a major comeback victory, putting him solidly back in his party's nomination race.
While Obama, vying to make history as the first black U.S. president, scored big among independents and voters between 18 and 24, Clinton attracted lower-income voters and seniors and did best among voters citing the economy as their top concern.
But a big factor for Clinton was women voters, who had gone over to Obama in large numbers in Iowa. Nearly half in New Hampshire were once again supporting her, while Obama got only a third.






http://www.cbc.ca/cp/world/080108/w0108115A.html

Crap.

[chief31]

He does want them to rule against the Constitution because he studied constitutional law at Harvard and he knows it isn't constitutional. You tell me: what other motive would he have for saying what he said?

You said it. He studied Constitutional Law at Harvard. He expects them to uphold the law because he knows that it is Constitutional.

[chief31]

I showed you explicitly where the treat was made (not just implied) and you are so determined to defend Obama that you refuse to acknowledge the facts. At least 6 and 1/2 million people disagree with you. Will you at least admit that his comments were intended to influence the SCs decision and inappropriate for a sitting president to make?

What did Obama threaten to do if they ruled against him?

I see nothing. You have presented nothing, because there is nothing.

Inappropriate? No.

He said that he was confident that they would make the right decision.

But then, inappropriate is a far cry from the evil tyranny that he is accused of for every action.

[chief31]

Or we could do some of the things that I have already suggested to reduce the cost of healthcare. Right now Insurance and the government already cover the cost of the uninsured. It's not like 'all of a sudden' they are going to have to start covering the uninsured, which will raise prices.

You mention that mandatory auto insurance hasn't hurt the auto insurance industry, but that is different, aside from the fact that driving is a privilege and not a right and nobody has to buy it.

For one thing, the auto insurance industry can sell coverage to anybody in the country. Because there are so many different government regulations regarding health insurance and they differ from stat to state, consumers are not free to buy the cheapest policy. Increased interstate competition would bring down costs.

Second, your auto insurance company is still free to drop your coverage if you are a high risk. There are companies that have built their niche by specifically targeting "high risk" drivers, but if you can't afford auto insurance, too bad. You can't drive.

Under "Obamacare," not only are insurance companies prohibited from dropping high risk clients, but they are also forced to take patients with pre-existing conditions. This will bankrupt the health insurance industry, individual mandate or not, and lead to a single-provider government plan (socialism) which is precisely the goal of "Obamacare" (and yourself).

Flat-out rhetoric.

Democrats had both houses and Obama. If they had some genius evil goal, then they would have done that instead of passing some garbage Republican HC bill, thinking that it could one day lead to the ultimate goal of government oppressing all people.

This bill was passed because it keeps the private sector insurance industry in tact, and keeps those employees at work, even expanding the industry by leaps and bounds.

It is not going to collapse the healthcare industry, and nobody had that goal.

[chief31]

As I recall, the republicans were in favor of extending the middle class tax cuts, but they wanted to tie it to cutting costs to reduce the deficit.

Try that memory thing again.

The big demand by Republicans was for the tax cuts to apply to the top classes, and they got their demands.

They were against the tax cuts when it excluded the top earners.

[chief31]

Under Obama (and a democrat House and Senate) the National debt has now increased more in Obama's first 3 years in office than it did under Bush's entire 8 year term.

Under a recession you spend. That's how you recovery. Private sector, public sector, recessions are based on a lack of consumer confidence, meaning that the spenders are not spending.

Unfortunatley, in order to spend, you have to be bringing in more revenue, or just playing Reaganomics, and borrowing.

And you aren't really going to deny that the vast majority of the spending that has been done since Obama took office was to pay for existing costs, and delayed costs from the previous administration, are you?

[chief31]

One of the reasons the deficit is so high is because we keep increasing the amount under which Americans don't pay any taxes. Today 49.5% of Americans pay 0 federal income tax.

If you really want to balance the budget, go after the top end of the 0% tax bracket. That's where the most money is.

Well, we are going to agree (somewhat) on this one.

We should absolutely be extending the lower end of the tax bracket, even creating brackets.

But Republicans are not allowed to do that because they have signed on with Grover.

The so-called "Warren Buffet tax" would only cut the deficit by 3.62%.

Sounds good. Let's do it.

[Bike]

Well, we are going to agree (somewhat) on this one.

We should absolutely be extending the lower end of the tax bracket, even creating brackets.

But Republicans are not allowed to do that because they have signed on with Grover.



Sounds good. Let's do it.

1. 15% flat tax across the board. No deductions, no exemptions. Or,
2. No income tax period and cut some waste out of this huge, unaccountable, bankrupt gov't....
Lets start here:
Dept of Agriculture - 95 bil/yr
Dept of Commerce - 6.5 bil/yr - does nothing but promote business abroad.
Dept of Education - 70 bil/yr
Dept of Energy - 23 bil/yr - has INCREASED our dependence on foreign oil.
Dept of housing and Urban Development - 48.5 bil/yr
Dept of Homeland Security - 50.5 bil.yr - should be under DOD
IRS - 12.1 bil/yr - Flat tax would eliminate this waste.
EPA - 10 bil/yr
Heres some more that can go:
Administration for Children and Families (ACF)
Administration for Native Americans
Administration on Aging (AoA)
Administration on Developmental Disabilities
Administrative Committee of the Federal Register
Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts
Advisory Council on Historic Preservation
African Development Foundation
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)
Agency for International Development
Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry
Agricultural Marketing Service
Agricultural Research Service
Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives Bureau (Justice)
Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (Treasury)
American Battle Monuments Commission
American Samoa Home Page
AMTRAK (National Railroad Passenger Corporation)
Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service
Appalachian Regional Commission
Architect of the Capitol
Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance Board (Access Board)
Archives (National Archives and Records Administration)
Arctic Research Commission
Arms Control and International Security
Arthritis and Musculoskeletal Interagency Coordinating Committee
...and thats just the A's.
So much waste - so little time.

[TopekaRoy]

While I'm waiting for Chief31 to finish responding to my previous comments, here is something to think about. No comment on my part is necessary.






Translation: Forward for the Motherland, for our victory!

[TopekaRoy]

Woo, hoo! The Unemployment rate fell from 8.2% to 8.1% in April as a whopping 115,000 jobs were "added" to the economy. (That's less than the 154,000 jobs that were "added" last month [source]), and even less than the 163,000 jobs that were forecasted to be created in April (source), and even more less than the average of 252,000 jobs that were "created" per moth between December and February (another source)!

Oh, just ignore the fact that 342,000 people "dropped out of the workforce" last month (A previously cited source). (That means we just quit counting them as unemployed to make the numbers look better.)

GO OBAMA RECOVERY!

[TopekaRoy]

Okay, Chief31. I think your last argument that I responded to was where you said that rich people don't work ...

Chief31
But hey... Why not let those ultra-rich pay even less taxes than they do now, while shifting that burden to the workers instead?

... so lets pick it up from there.

Right, neglecting sixteen months of growth to over-emphasize a single slower month is certaintly what anybody would call putting a positive spin on it.

See my most recent post before this one.

March was the warmest month, which tears the guts out of that "warm weather" theory.

And, since Summer happens every year, I am guessing that there is such a significant jobs spur every Summer?

You do understand that unemployment figures are "seasonally adjusted" to take into account things like people graduating from high school and college and entering the job market, seasonal hiring for construction jobs and temporary retail hiring during the holiday season, right? March was unseasonably warm which could account for the slight increase in jobs compared to March of last year.

I will give you that [Obama and the democrats are impeding the recovery. There is much they could have done to accelerate it and they haven't]. But, when your policies have created the disaster, your opinion about how the other guy is doing in cleaning up your mess just doesn't carry a whole lot of weight. Especially when your ideas are the more of the same that caused it.

I'm just comparing this recovery (which is very weak) to the last recovery in the early 80's (which was much stronger at this point in Reagan's term in office) and what was done differently. Surely you recognize that fact, don't you?

Lower taxes? Yeah. Because that has been so effective in reducing the national debt.

Actually, when Reagan lowered taxes, it resulted in a net increase in federal revenues. (C'mon man. I've already showed you the numbers.) The national debt only increased because federal spending went up faster than govt revenues did. How can I argue with you if you refuse to acknowledge actual numerical facts?

I said "Actually, gas prices just went down by 10 cents a gallon, today, but I'm sure that's an anomaly, No the government doesn't control the oil markets but there are things they can do to influence it. Approving legislation for the Keystone pipeline would be a good start:

To which you replied:

Are you kidding?

Will I have to get a graph to show you how gas prices are always on the rise, even though it drops a little here and there, it is always in the process of an upward, long-term, trend?

Yeah, I wish you would. I would love to see that graph. Historically gas prices (adjusted for inflation) have remained steady or declined since 1918. Since April 9, when you said "Gas prices will forever go up. They won't go back down, until The USA goes crazy with the drilling," (post #2086), regular unleaded here in Topeka has gone down from $3.799 to $3.469, a decrease of 33 cents per gallon. Look at this chart. Pay particular attention to the red line:



Notice, there was a slight spike in 1930 when the great depression caused the value of the dollar to fall dramatically, another spike during the Carter administration when OPEC imposed an oil embargo, causing a gas shortage, and a third spike during George W. Bush's tenure, when fears that the war(s) in the Middle East would affect the availability of gas, but prices always eventually came down.

Even in real actual dollars, I was paying $0.799 for regular unleaded in 1999. In 1981 it was around $1.30 per gallon. When bush left office gas was around $1.70 per gallon and it is still more than double that now (despite the recent decrease). There is no shortage, no oil embargo, no change in the Middle East, no reason whatsoever that gas prices should be this high. I'm not saying it is all Obama's fault, and I don't believe we will ever see prices under $1.00 per gallon again, but there is no reason they shouldn't be under $2.00 per gallon.

How long do you think it would take Republican policies to reverse the natural flow of gas prices to get us back under $1 a gallon?

Actually under Bush in 2008 it only took about 6 months for gas to go from over $4 per gallon to under $1.70 per gallon (purple line), so not that long.



To be continued ...