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By Bill Fletcher, Jr., Carl Davidson
The 2012 election will be one of the most polarized and critical elections in recent history.
Lets cut to the chase. The November 2012 elections will be unlike anything that any of us can remember. It is not just that this will be a close election. It is also not just that the direction of Congress hangs in the balance. Rather, this will be one of the most polarized and critical elections in recent history.
Unfortunately what too few leftists and progressives have been prepared to accept is that the polarization is to a great extent centered on a revenge-seeking white supremacy; on race and the racial implications of the moves to the right in the US political system. It is also focused on a re-subjugation of women, harsh burdens on youth and the elderly, increased war dangers, and reaction all along the line for labor and the working class. No one on the left with any good sense should remain indifferent or stand idly by in the critical need to defeat Republicans this year.
Much More: The 2012 Elections Have Little To Do With Obama's Record
This has to be the dumbest thing you've cut and pasted yet, Shitting Bull....
What's become so creepy about that bullshit is that back in '08, I really believed that it was just a pathetic game that the left was playing to fuck with the opposition...now it's become increasingly clear that too many people on the left actually believe it themselves.
January 13, 2008
"The recession-deniers were muzzled by a horrendous last two weeks of December, and the gloom-and-doomers are now out in force. Their key arguments:
* Plummeting housing will now drag down the rest of the economy.
*The "bad debt" problem is not just "sub-prime" folks who should never have have taken out mortgages in the first place. It includes credit card debt, "high quality" mortgages, car loans, and other leverage that have recently become a consumer way of life.
*Pressure on consumers is leading to a reduction in consumer spending (70% of economy), which, in turn, will lead to a reduction in spending by companies that sell stuff to consumers.
*The question now is not "will there be a recession?" but "how bad will it get?"
*The most optimistic forecasts in a NYT gloom-and-doom round-up are for three crappy quarters, regardless of what the Fed does. Less optimistic forecasts suggest that we are, well, screwed.
After blowing the last downturn, we've been worried this one since last summer (see below). We also suspect that, given the importance of housing to the economy and debt to consumer spending, the recession will be deeper and more prolonged than people think."
For all you wingnuts who try to falsely blame Obama for the national debt, deficits and economy, I invite you to please give us an accounting of the debt that Obama has added - that wasn't a direct or indirect result of Bush actions. The Bush debt clock didn't just stop on the day Obama was sworn in. Let me give you some starting tips: TWO wars that Bush kept OFF budget that Obama keeps ON budget and the Bush tax cuts. In short, Bush-era policies are still driving the numbers.
10 Republican Lies About the Bush Tax Cuts | Crooks and Liars
By Bill Fletcher, Jr., Carl Davidson
The 2012 election will be one of the most polarized and critical elections in recent history.
Lets cut to the chase. The November 2012 elections will be unlike anything that any of us can remember. It is not just that this will be a close election. It is also not just that the direction of Congress hangs in the balance. Rather, this will be one of the most polarized and critical elections in recent history.
Unfortunately what too few leftists and progressives have been prepared to accept is that the polarization is to a great extent centered on a revenge-seeking white supremacy; on race and the racial implications of the moves to the right in the US political system. It is also focused on a re-subjugation of women, harsh burdens on youth and the elderly, increased war dangers, and reaction all along the line for labor and the working class. No one on the left with any good sense should remain indifferent or stand idly by in the critical need to defeat Republicans this year.
Much More: The 2012 Elections Have Little To Do With Obama's Record
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Try giving a source that is not so clearly partisan do you really expect anyone to take a site called crooks and liars serious. That would be the same as me using a site called morons and idiots to back alleged Democrat lies you want someone to take you serious stop acting like a wingnut and posting things like this as a source.For all you wingnuts who try to falsely blame Obama for the national debt, deficits and economy, I invite you to please give us an accounting of the debt that Obama has added - that wasn't a direct or indirect result of Bush actions. The Bush debt clock didn't just stop on the day Obama was sworn in. Let me give you some starting tips: TWO wars that Bush kept OFF budget that Obama keeps ON budget and the Bush tax cuts. In short, Bush-era policies are still driving the numbers.
10 Republican Lies About the Bush Tax Cuts | Crooks and Liars
I'm still waiting for you wingnut geniuses to give us an accounting of the debt that Obama has added - that wasn't a direct or indirect result of Bush actions. Waiting...
For all you wingnuts who try to falsely blame Obama for the national debt, deficits and economy, I invite you to please give us an accounting of the debt that Obama has added - that wasn't a direct or indirect result of Bush actions. The Bush debt clock didn't just stop on the day Obama was sworn in. Let me give you some starting tips: TWO wars that Bush kept OFF budget that Obama keeps ON budget and the Bush tax cuts. In short, Bush-era policies are still driving the numbers.
10 Republican Lies About the Bush Tax Cuts | Crooks and Liars
Whatever the cost, some experts say that it wasn't what was financed in the Iraq War but how it was financed that is problematic.
"The problem is not the impact on the GDP. It basically was financed through debt, which is a completely different issue," says Anthony Cordesman, the Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
"It's really the decision of how to pay for it that has had such a negative effect on the U.S. economy. Because unlike any previous war in U.S. history, this was paid for entirely by debt at the same time that we cut taxes," says Bilmes. While entitlements and other mandatory spending make up a majority of annual federal budgets and contribute heavily to deficits and debt, the Iraq War also contributed significantly. The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities has estimated that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, together with the Bush tax cuts, will account for almost half of the projected $20 trillion debt in 2019.
Much More: The 2012 Elections Have Little To Do With Obama's RecordBy Bill Fletcher, Jr., Carl Davidson
The 2012 election will be one of the most polarized and critical elections in recent history.
Lets cut to the chase. The November 2012 elections will be unlike anything that any of us can remember. It is not just that this will be a close election. It is also not just that the direction of Congress hangs in the balance. Rather, this will be one of the most polarized and critical elections in recent history.
Unfortunately what too few leftists and progressives have been prepared to accept is that the polarization is to a great extent centered on a revenge-seeking white supremacy; on race and the racial implications of the moves to the right in the US political system. It is also focused on a re-subjugation of women, harsh burdens on youth and the elderly, increased war dangers, and reaction all along the line for labor and the working class. No one on the left with any good sense should remain indifferent or stand idly by in the critical need to defeat Republicans this year.
The trillion-dollar figure does not, for example, include long-term health care for veterans, thousands of whom have suffered crippling wounds, or the interest payments on the money borrowed by the Federal Government to fund the war.
By Bill Fletcher, Jr., Carl Davidson
The 2012 election will be one of the most polarized and critical elections in recent history.
Lets cut to the chase. The November 2012 elections will be unlike anything that any of us can remember. It is not just that this will be a close election. It is also not just that the direction of Congress hangs in the balance. Rather, this will be one of the most polarized and critical elections in recent history.
Unfortunately what too few leftists and progressives have been prepared to accept is that the polarization is to a great extent centered on a revenge-seeking white supremacy; on race and the racial implications of the moves to the right in the US political system. It is also focused on a re-subjugation of women, harsh burdens on youth and the elderly, increased war dangers, and reaction all along the line for labor and the working class. No one on the left with any good sense should remain indifferent or stand idly by in the critical need to defeat Republicans this year.
Much More: The 2012 Elections Have Little To Do With Obama's Record
Oh brother!
Playing the white guilt race card and saying that after 3 1/2 years of his failed policies he still has no resonsibity for the disaster, incredible. What this election is going to be about is.......
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-A09a_gHJc]Mitch McConnell: Top Priority, Make Obama a One Term President - YouTube[/ame]
Thanks, Mitch!
Iraq War Lives on as Second-Costliest U.S. Conflict Fuels Debt
By Mike Dorning
Dec. 27 (Bloomberg) -- The war in Iraq is officially over. The costs will go on.
Eight years of dodging improvised explosive devices, repelling insurgent ambushes and quelling sectarian strife already has drained the U.S. of more treasure than any conflict in the nations history except World War II.
Even though the last U.S. combat troops have left Iraq, American taxpayers will face decades of additional expenses, from veterans health care and disability benefits to interest on the debt accumulated to finance the war.
Those costs are going to build for years, said Todd Harrison, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a Washington-based research group.
That burden will come amid growing concern about the federal governments debt, with cuts to popular programs such as Medicare and to national defense being debated. Spending so far on the war and related interest payments make up about a tenth of the U.S. Treasurys $10.4 trillion in publicly held debt.
Direct federal spending on the war through 2012 will reach $823 billion, surpassing the $738 billion in inflation-adjusted dollars the U.S. spent on the Vietnam War, the Congressional Research Service estimated in a March 29 report. Only World War II had a higher direct cost, $4.1 trillion, in current dollars.
Not counted in that is the interest of more than $200 billion the federal government has already had to pay on the resulting debt, said Linda Bilmes, a senior lecturer in public finance at Harvards Kennedy School of Government.
Bilmes also estimates the price over the next 40 years of health care and disability compensation for veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts will be almost $1 trillion.
The veterans costs in particular will dwarf the other budget costs, said Bilmes, who was an assistant commerce secretary under President Bill Clinton.
8. Add interest. The U.S. has borrowed most of the funds used to wage the Iraq war. We will have to repay this debt with interest. If we include in our tally the interest payable on what we are borrowing over only the next 10 years, this adds another $615 billion to the price tag, and brings the total budgetary cost of the Iraq war into the neighborhood of $2.8 trillion.
The credit card war
The Iraq war, says economist Joseph Stiglitz, is the first U.S. war financed entirely on credit. When the war started, the Bush administration said it would cost no more than $60 billion. But the U.S. budget was already in deficit, so the administration had to borrow money to finance the invasion. About 40 percent of the money was borrowed from China and other international investorsthe first time since the Revolutionary War that foreigners financed a U.S. war. At the same time, the administration and Congress lowered taxes instead of raising them, as is customary in wartime. The Federal Reserve kept interest rates low, which encouraged middle-class Americans to go on a consumption binge financed by credit cards and home-equity loans. Today, say Stiglitz and other economists, the bills for the countrys spending spree are starting to come due, in the form of higher prices, a weakened dollar, and lower living standards. Theres no such thing as a free war, Stiglitz said. The U.S.and the worldwill be paying the price for decades to come.
