America's Debt: Shame on Them

[Neotrotsky]

We weren't the first, won't be the last. Yes Social security is a pyramid scheme, it always was. We knew that back when I was in junior high. Around the same time we were convinced that we should lower our birthrate to replacement value or less because of over population. Our government then raised the immigration rates and stopped enforcing the laws regarding illegal immigration to keep the social security scheme running and to keep our wages low. Let's face it, without that the lowest paid worker would be in big demand right now and make a lot more per hour and could put a lot more of their own money away towards their retirement making social security unnecessary. Instead we have the largest income gap in history. Minimum wage has the lowest spending power in history and we have the working poor. People who are working and still can't afford to feed themselves.

Don't blame the baby boomers, blame "the greatest generation" because it wasn't the baby boomers that raised the immigration rate. We're just the one's paying for it, along with passing that onto our children and grandchildren.

BTW, if wages were higher, we'd be collecting more taxes from the bottom classes. You can't get blood out of a turnip.

Blame the illegals? Really? What's next, accusations of class warfare?

stick your head back up yer liberal azz, your class warfare simply will not win out. too bad.

Ever hear of the law of supply and demand? If they didn't raise the immigration rate, Americans lower birthrate would make the low skilled workers in higher demand, therefore, they'd be paid more, the income gap would be less and our country would be a lot better off with more people making enough money to put away for their own retirement AND pay taxes.

Legal immigration- sure

 

[Trajan]

UK slashes spending, raises VAT and taxes banks | Reuters

Germany cuts jobs, raises taxes - thestar.com

Germany to Raise Taxes on Tobacco, Cut Energy Subsidies Less Than Planned - Bloomberg

FT.com / Europe - France unveils

Austria to Cut Deficit to 3.2% of GDP With Taxes - Businessweek

Dutch insurance premium tax increase to 9.7% in 2011

Japan to raise taxes for quake rebuilding, reports say - The Globe and Mail

Japan raises taxes on cigarettes | Local | House of Japan - Japan News Technology Autos Culture Life Style

Indonesia to raise 2011 tobacco excise tax by 5 pct | Reuters

UPDATE 1-Albania to raise taxes on telecoms, banks -PM | Reuters

Spain, Struggling With Weak Economy, Raises Taxes, Attacks Business | Centurean2′s Weblog

Putin Raises Russia

I could go all day really. Point is, saying nobody is raising taxes or has raised taxes is nothing short of ignorance.

Since I guess I didn't post enough links the first time for some people:

Balkans.com Business News : Turkish government to raise taxes on cars or car loans-Analysis

Turkey raises taxes on cars, tobacco, alcohol and fuel - Hurriyet Daily News

Romania News Watch: Romanian government plans to raise income taxes, scrap 16 percent flat tax

BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) - Romania's finance minister says the cash-strapped government plans to scrap the 16 percent flat tax and introduce higher income taxes starting next year, according to a financial newspaper.

Portugal to raise taxes, trim salaries - International News - livemint.com

Ireland raises taxes in austerity budget and unveils agency to buy toxic assets - Telegraph

Ireland Raises Taxes, Cuts Spending to Narrow Deficit - Businessweek

Czechs to Raise Tobacco Taxes | NACS Online > News & Media Center > News

Euro hopeful Latvia raises taxes | Video | Reuters.com

Hungary to Raise Taxes on Targeted Sectors - WSJ.com

Hungary Government To Cut Drug Subsidies, Raise Taxes - Report - FoxBusiness.com

Brazil Raises Tax on Purchases Abroad - WSJ.com

UPDATE 4-Chile to raise taxes, issue debt for quake rebuild | Reuters

Netanyahu to raise taxes in 2011 - Haaretz Daily Newspaper | Israel News

Laos raises profit tax on foreign firms but baulks at beer tax - Monsters and Critics

Laos govt to raise tax on cigarettes, alcohol

Noy to consider tax raise in 2012 | The Philippine Star » News » Headlines

Egypt Raises Taxes To Ease Poverty | Kuwait E-Gate NewsFeed

Australia to raise taxes to pay for floods | koaa.com | Colorado Springs | Pueblo |

Australia Increases Cigarette Taxes | NACS Online > News & Media Center > News

Australia may raise taxes to help fund healthcare system - Taipei Times

BBC News - S Korea mulls oil tax cut to cushion crude price surge

It helps when you actually read the links too.....

you do realize that a) many states have raised taxes too, ala uhm tobacco taxes etc. ( these are also highly regressive)

b) those nations with the exception of japan have a lower corp. tax rate.

c) did you actually read the links to see what kind of taxes that are raising and what else they may doing? Example- Austria-


Oct. 23 (Bloomberg) -- Austria plans to raise taxes on banks, gasoline and cigarettes and cut costs including some family and pension benefits to cut its deficit by 2.8 billion euros ($3.9 billion) next year and bring it down to 3.2 percent of gross domestic product.
Chancellor Werner Faymann’s government approved a budget plan that foresees complying with the European Union’s 3 percent deficit ceiling in 2012, one year earlier than previously projected. The plan includes additional tax revenue of 1.2 billion euros in 2011, including a 500 million-euro bank levy and a 400 million-euro tax increase on gasoline, and 1.6 billion euros of spending cuts, Faymann said in a statement today after a government meeting in the spa town of Loipersdorf.


This is from oct 2010 btw-

Wed Oct 13, 2010 2:29am EDT
JAKARTA Oct 13 (Reuters) - Indonesia plans to raise the average excise tax for tobacco products by 5 percent next year, Agus Suprijanto, head of the fiscal policy office at the finance ministry, said on Wednesday.


German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government plans to raise tobacco taxes over the next five years, generating as much as 1 billion euros ($1.4 billion) in fresh revenue for the federal budget by 2015.

The tax on cigarettes, rolling and pipe tobacco would be levied from 2011 and make up for falling tobacco tax revenue as Germans smoke less, opt for cheaper brands or turn to smuggled products, the Finance Ministry said today in an e-mailed statement.
Merkel’s coalition, seeking to shrink the budget deficit with about 80 billion euros of cuts and revenue-raising measures, agreed late yesterday to water down planned cuts to energy subsidies for companies with the difference in part to be made up with the tobacco-tax increase. That prompted opposition criticism Merkel is shifting the tax burden from companies to taxpayers.



Did Hungry ever raise the telecom, energy and retail taxes? The article is from oct 2010.

 

[AmericanFirst]

I still have yet to see any GOP "Leaders" explain why our having debt is a bad thing. So bad, that we need to risk default in order to stop it.

Idiot. I have yet to see the dimwits make any sense of anything yet.

 

[Neotrotsky]

Greece

 

[AmericanFirst]

When I get into financial trouble the solution I always turn to is spending more money.

How would you raise the value of your house without spending money on home improvements? It's the same with the economy.

Wrong as usual idiot.

 

[NYcarbineer]

Funny, blame republicans and leave out the fact that you just blew a trillion dollars. That money could have kept us afloat if we went beyond the so called deadline.

When I get into financial trouble the solution I always turn to is spending more money.

Three stimulus bills have been passed since the recession began.

Their total cost, about 1.6 trillion dollars.

Tax cuts represent about 1.1 trillion of that cost.

 

[Neotrotsky]

Funny, blame republicans and leave out the fact that you just blew a trillion dollars. That money could have kept us afloat if we went beyond the so called deadline.

When I get into financial trouble the solution I always turn to is spending more money.

Three stimulus bills have been passed since the recession began.

Their total cost, about 1.6 trillion dollars.

Tax cuts represent about 1.1 trillion of that cost.

Just curious, where did you get those numbers?

 

[NYcarbineer]

Funny, blame republicans and leave out the fact that you just blew a trillion dollars. That money could have kept us afloat if we went beyond the so called deadline.

When I get into financial trouble the solution I always turn to is spending more money.

Three stimulus bills have been passed since the recession began.

Their total cost, about 1.6 trillion dollars.

Tax cuts represent about 1.1 trillion of that cost.

Just curious, where did you get those numbers?

I do research.

They are the approximate costs and breakdowns of the 2009 Stimulus bill, the 2010 tax bill, and the forgotten 2008 Bush stimulus bill.

 

[Neotrotsky]

Three stimulus bills have been passed since the recession began.

Their total cost, about 1.6 trillion dollars.

Tax cuts represent about 1.1 trillion of that cost.

Just curious, where did you get those numbers?

I do research.

They are the approximate costs and breakdowns of the 2009 Stimulus bill, the 2010 tax bill, and the forgotten 2008 Bush stimulus bill.

Any links?

I find sources that say about a third in the first bill

 

[Trajan]

Funny, blame republicans and leave out the fact that you just blew a trillion dollars. That money could have kept us afloat if we went beyond the so called deadline.

When I get into financial trouble the solution I always turn to is spending more money.

Three stimulus bills have been passed since the recession began.

Their total cost, about 1.6 trillion dollars.

Tax cuts represent about 1.1 trillion of that cost.

Just curious, where did you get those numbers?

don't waste your time bro, what he doesn't understand is say the gov. agrees to provide money for solar panel rebates? thats counted as a tax reduction and not spending.....as well as the $250 checks bush sent out in 08 I think it was, which is spending flat out and was gobbled up as to pay bills. Or cash for clunkers or the housing rebates....

 

[Foxfyre]

Three stimulus bills have been passed since the recession began.

Their total cost, about 1.6 trillion dollars.

Tax cuts represent about 1.1 trillion of that cost.

Just curious, where did you get those numbers?

don't waste your time bro, what he doesn't understand is say the gov. agrees to provide money for solar panel rebates? thats counted as a tax reduction and not spending.....as well as the $250 checks bush sent out in 08 I think it was, which is spending flat out and was gobbled up as to pay bills. Or cash for clunkers or the housing rebates....

Did anybody read Charles Krauthammer's column today? Most can see it in the Washington Post. We get it in the Albuquerque Journal too.

An excerpt:

Obama has run disastrous annual deficits of around $1.5 trillion while insisting for months on a “clean” debt-ceiling increase, i.e., with no budget cuts at all. Yet suddenly he now rises to champion major long-term debt reduction, scorning any suggestions of a short-term debt-limit deal as can-kicking.

The flip-flop is transparently political. A short-term deal means another debt-ceiling fight before Election Day, a debate that would put Obama on the defensive and distract from the Mediscare campaign to which the Democrats are clinging to save them in 2012.

A clever strategy it is: Do nothing (see above); invite the Republicans to propose real debt reduction first; and when they do — voting for the Ryan budget and its now infamous and courageous Medicare reform — demagogue them to death.

And then up the ante by demanding Republican agreement to tax increases. So: First you get the GOP to seize the left’s third rail by daring to lay a finger on entitlements. Then you demand the GOP seize the right’s third rail by violating its no-tax pledge. A full-spectrum electrocution. Brilliant.

And what have been Obama’s own debt-reduction ideas? In last week’s news conference, he railed against the tax break for corporate jet owners — six times.

I did the math. If you collect that tax for the next 5,000 years — that is not a typo — it would equal the new debt Obama racked up last year alone. To put it another way, if we had levied this tax at the time of John the Baptist and collected it every year since — first in shekels, then in dollars — we would have 500 years to go before we could offset half of the debt added by Obama last year alone.

I don't always agree with Mr. Krauthammer, but he got it right on this. If you want an educated and reasoned perspective on the current budget/deficit/debt fiasco, read the whole thing here:
The Elmendorf Rule - The Washington Post

 

[Wiseacre]

Just curious, where did you get those numbers?

don't waste your time bro, what he doesn't understand is say the gov. agrees to provide money for solar panel rebates? thats counted as a tax reduction and not spending.....as well as the $250 checks bush sent out in 08 I think it was, which is spending flat out and was gobbled up as to pay bills. Or cash for clunkers or the housing rebates....

Did anybody read Charles Krauthammer's column today? Most can see it in the Washington Post. We get it in the Albuquerque Journal too.

An excerpt:

Obama has run disastrous annual deficits of around $1.5 trillion while insisting for months on a “clean” debt-ceiling increase, i.e., with no budget cuts at all. Yet suddenly he now rises to champion major long-term debt reduction, scorning any suggestions of a short-term debt-limit deal as can-kicking.

The flip-flop is transparently political. A short-term deal means another debt-ceiling fight before Election Day, a debate that would put Obama on the defensive and distract from the Mediscare campaign to which the Democrats are clinging to save them in 2012.

A clever strategy it is: Do nothing (see above); invite the Republicans to propose real debt reduction first; and when they do — voting for the Ryan budget and its now infamous and courageous Medicare reform — demagogue them to death.

And then up the ante by demanding Republican agreement to tax increases. So: First you get the GOP to seize the left’s third rail by daring to lay a finger on entitlements. Then you demand the GOP seize the right’s third rail by violating its no-tax pledge. A full-spectrum electrocution. Brilliant.

And what have been Obama’s own debt-reduction ideas? In last week’s news conference, he railed against the tax break for corporate jet owners — six times.

I did the math. If you collect that tax for the next 5,000 years — that is not a typo — it would equal the new debt Obama racked up last year alone. To put it another way, if we had levied this tax at the time of John the Baptist and collected it every year since — first in shekels, then in dollars — we would have 500 years to go before we could offset half of the debt added by Obama last year alone.

I don't always agree with Mr. Krauthammer, but he got it right on this. If you want an educated and reasoned perspective on the current budget/deficit/debt fiasco, read the whole thing here:
The Elmendorf Rule - The Washington Post

Yeah, I read his column every week, good stuff.

I thought it was interesting that Obama and his admin have been saying we just gotta do this, but then in today's news conference he says he won't sign a short term deal for 30, 60, or 90 days. And I'm thinking, what if this goes down to the last minute and his only option is a short term deal, would he really veto it if the House and the Senate passd it? Wouldn't that be a purely political decision on his part? I get that he wants a long term deal, which would be the best thing for the country to reduce the uncertainty that most people say impedes economic growth. But to say what he said wasn't wise IMHO, it makes him look like he's setting all the rules.

 

[Trajan]

Just curious, where did you get those numbers?

don't waste your time bro, what he doesn't understand is say the gov. agrees to provide money for solar panel rebates? thats counted as a tax reduction and not spending.....as well as the $250 checks bush sent out in 08 I think it was, which is spending flat out and was gobbled up as to pay bills. Or cash for clunkers or the housing rebates....

Did anybody read Charles Krauthammer's column today? Most can see it in the Washington Post. We get it in the Albuquerque Journal too.

An excerpt:

Obama has run disastrous annual deficits of around $1.5 trillion while insisting for months on a “clean” debt-ceiling increase, i.e., with no budget cuts at all. Yet suddenly he now rises to champion major long-term debt reduction, scorning any suggestions of a short-term debt-limit deal as can-kicking.

The flip-flop is transparently political. A short-term deal means another debt-ceiling fight before Election Day, a debate that would put Obama on the defensive and distract from the Mediscare campaign to which the Democrats are clinging to save them in 2012.

A clever strategy it is: Do nothing (see above); invite the Republicans to propose real debt reduction first; and when they do — voting for the Ryan budget and its now infamous and courageous Medicare reform — demagogue them to death.

And then up the ante by demanding Republican agreement to tax increases. So: First you get the GOP to seize the left’s third rail by daring to lay a finger on entitlements. Then you demand the GOP seize the right’s third rail by violating its no-tax pledge. A full-spectrum electrocution. Brilliant.

And what have been Obama’s own debt-reduction ideas? In last week’s news conference, he railed against the tax break for corporate jet owners — six times.

I did the math. If you collect that tax for the next 5,000 years — that is not a typo — it would equal the new debt Obama racked up last year alone. To put it another way, if we had levied this tax at the time of John the Baptist and collected it every year since — first in shekels, then in dollars — we would have 500 years to go before we could offset half of the debt added by Obama last year alone.

I don't always agree with Mr. Krauthammer, but he got it right on this. If you want an educated and reasoned perspective on the current budget/deficit/debt fiasco, read the whole thing here:
The Elmendorf Rule - The Washington Post

back @ ya.....this comes to mind;

July 11, 2011 4:00 A.M.
The Demagogic Style
President Obama is the new, cool version of the fifth-century Athenian Cleon.

The noun dêmagôgos first appeared in Thucydides’ history, mostly in a neutral, only slight disparaging way (usually in reference to the obstreperous Cleon), in its literal sense of “leader of the people.”

But very soon — in later fifth- and fourth-century authors (e.g., Aristophanes, Xenophon, Aristotle, the Attic orators) — both the concrete and the abstract nouns (demagogue and demagogy/demagoguery) and the verb (to demagogue) became ever more pejorative, describing crass popular leaders who alternately flattered and incited the masses (ochlos). Their trick was to obtain and expand their own personal power by clever rhetoric directed against the better off, coupled with promises of more entitlements for the “poor” paid for by a demonized “them.”

We often associate demagoguery in the U.S. with wild right-wing nationalists or cultural chauvinists, such as Joe McCarthy or Father Coughlin, or with folksy Southern “spread-the-wealth” populists, such as William Jennings Bryan (“The Great Commoner”) or Huey Long. And, of course, abroad there were no better demagogues than Mussolini and Hitler, who both started out as national socialists and then united the classes by transferring class hatred onto foreign bogeymen, in a fashion we later see most effectively in Juan and Eva Perón.

Demagoguery, at its best, requires good oratory and charisma — which is why Jimmy Carter was such a dismal failure at it, despite his half-hearted demonization of three-martini lunches and private yachts at a time of a record misery index that saw high unemployment, out-of-control inflation, and usurious interest rates, coupled with a neutralist foreign policy that had led to Russians in Afghanistan, Communist takeovers in Central America, and American hostages in Teheran. Carter’s mock-serious delivery was so droll, his presence so wooden, that his fist-pounding against “them” turned into caricature.

Under a more skilled practitioner such as Barack Obama, the arts of demagoguery have become somewhat more refined in our time, but they nevertheless follow the same old patterns:

1) The use of an incendiary, but otherwise unimportant, example to whip up anger against the so-called establishment classes

Why mention “alligators and moats,” or claim that doctors wantonly lop off limbs and rip out tonsils, or accuse jet-setting corporate grandees of draining the federal Treasury at the expense of “kids’ scholarships”? The president knows full well that the American-Mexican border is only one-third fenced and the influx of illegal aliens is still considerable. He must appreciate that the vast majority of doctors, in this age of promiscuous malpractice suits, do not insist on dangerous and unnecessary surgeries to gouge the patient. And corporate depreciation schedules for personal aircraft reflect a minuscule cost to the Treasury, one analogous perhaps to the tab for personal jet aircraft for those in federal and state government. If the president cannot adduce cogent arguments to oppose increased oil exploration, then he turns to ridiculous anecdotes about the importance of inflating tires, tuning up cars, and trading in 8-mpg clunkers.

2) The demagogic rejection of demagoguery

Recently the president called for a civil, respectful tone among the parties negotiating the looming debt crisis — a sort of prep for tarring his Republican opponents as holding a “gun” to the “head” of his supporters. In fact, for most of Barack Obama’s career we have seen violent similes packaged with Sermon on the Mount forbearance: Divisive language like “bring a gun to a knife fight,” “get in their face,” and “make them sit in the back seat” is always juxtaposed with lofty appeals for no more red-state/blue-state rancor — in a style right out of the best of the fourth-century Athenian demagogues.

In classical times this technique was known as praeteritio and paralipsis — deploring the very sort of tropes that you are about to embrace. Obama adds a concrete manifestation to his rhetoric: damning “fat cat” bankers and then playing golf more than any other modern president as he courts Wall Street, or deriding private jets but using his own presidential jets to junket the first family to Costa del Sol, Vail, and Martha’s Vineyard.

3) The evocation of anonymous straw men, sometimes referred to as “some” or “they”

In the Manichean world of Barack Obama there are all sorts of such demons, mostly unnamed, who insist on extremist politics — while the president soberly and judiciously splits the difference between these fantasy poles. So for the last three years we have heard, but been offered few details, about the perils of both neo-con interventionists and reactionary isolationists, of both profligate big spenders and throw-grandma-over-the-cliff misers, of both socialist single-payer advocates and heartless laissez-faire insurers who shut emergency-room doors to the indigent in extremis — always with the wise Barack Obama plopping down in the middle, trying, for the sake of all the people, to hold onto the golden mean between these artificially constructed zealots.

its free, more at-

The Demagogic Style - National Review Online

 

[iamwhatiseem]

To the two posts above..

Nothing is going to end the uncertainty...nothing.
People in the know are not stupid. All you have to do is look at the "teflon DOW" and KNOW there is only one outcome - bubble burst II.
And when this happens...the media goes crazy...politicians start blaming each other..and everyone gets even more nervous and conservative with their money - and everyone stops buying.
And double-dip here we come. It is inevitable, irreversible and as sure as the sun rising tomorrow.

 

[Contumacious]

IN THREE weeks, if there is no political deal, the American government will go into default. Not, one must pray, on its sovereign debt. But the country will have to stop paying someone: perhaps pensioners, or government suppliers, or soldiers. That would be damaging enough at a time of economic fragility. And the longer such a default went on, the greater the risk of provoking a genuine bond crisis would become.

Same thing happened in 1935 - they simply declared bankruptcy and stole our gold,

But the powers-that-be were convinced that the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board would not allow the nation to go belly up again. Boy , were they ever wrong.

.

 

[Foxfyre]

don't waste your time bro, what he doesn't understand is say the gov. agrees to provide money for solar panel rebates? thats counted as a tax reduction and not spending.....as well as the $250 checks bush sent out in 08 I think it was, which is spending flat out and was gobbled up as to pay bills. Or cash for clunkers or the housing rebates....

Did anybody read Charles Krauthammer's column today? Most can see it in the Washington Post. We get it in the Albuquerque Journal too.

An excerpt:

Obama has run disastrous annual deficits of around $1.5 trillion while insisting for months on a “clean” debt-ceiling increase, i.e., with no budget cuts at all. Yet suddenly he now rises to champion major long-term debt reduction, scorning any suggestions of a short-term debt-limit deal as can-kicking.

The flip-flop is transparently political. A short-term deal means another debt-ceiling fight before Election Day, a debate that would put Obama on the defensive and distract from the Mediscare campaign to which the Democrats are clinging to save them in 2012.

A clever strategy it is: Do nothing (see above); invite the Republicans to propose real debt reduction first; and when they do — voting for the Ryan budget and its now infamous and courageous Medicare reform — demagogue them to death.

And then up the ante by demanding Republican agreement to tax increases. So: First you get the GOP to seize the left’s third rail by daring to lay a finger on entitlements. Then you demand the GOP seize the right’s third rail by violating its no-tax pledge. A full-spectrum electrocution. Brilliant.

And what have been Obama’s own debt-reduction ideas? In last week’s news conference, he railed against the tax break for corporate jet owners — six times.

I did the math. If you collect that tax for the next 5,000 years — that is not a typo — it would equal the new debt Obama racked up last year alone. To put it another way, if we had levied this tax at the time of John the Baptist and collected it every year since — first in shekels, then in dollars — we would have 500 years to go before we could offset half of the debt added by Obama last year alone.

I don't always agree with Mr. Krauthammer, but he got it right on this. If you want an educated and reasoned perspective on the current budget/deficit/debt fiasco, read the whole thing here:
The Elmendorf Rule - The Washington Post

Yeah, I read his column every week, good stuff.

I thought it was interesting that Obama and his admin have been saying we just gotta do this, but then in today's news conference he says he won't sign a short term deal for 30, 60, or 90 days. And I'm thinking, what if this goes down to the last minute and his only option is a short term deal, would he really veto it if the House and the Senate passd it? Wouldn't that be a purely political decision on his part? I get that he wants a long term deal, which would be the best thing for the country to reduce the uncertainty that most people say impedes economic growth. But to say what he said wasn't wise IMHO, it makes him look like he's setting all the rules.

If he doesn't make a deal for whatever reason, I think he will still blame it on Bush, the Republicans, and corporate jet owners. That seems to be the M.O. when they're out of ammo.

More from Krauthammer's essay:

Here we go again. An approaching crisis. A looming deadline. Nervous markets. And then, from the miasma of gridlock, rises our president, calling upon those unruly congressional children to quit squabbling, stop kicking the can down the road and get serious about debt.

This from the man who:

• Ignored the debt problem for two years by kicking the can to a commission.

• Promptly ignored the commission’s December 2010 report.

• Delivered a State of the Union address in January that didn’t even mention the word “debt” until 35 minutes in.

• Delivered in February a budget so embarrassing — it actually increased the deficit — that the Democratic-controlled Senate rejected it 97 to 0.

• Took a budget mulligan with his April 13 debt-plan speech. Asked in Congress how this new “budget framework” would affect the actual federal budget, Congressional Budget Office Director Doug Elmendorf replied with a devastating “We don’t estimate speeches.” You can’t assign numbers to air.

I think us Conseratives have not been very good at coming up with our own talking points to counter those assigned to the left.

But the Elmendorf rule is a good one: "We don't estimate speeches."