"You didn't get there on your own"

[EdwardBaiamonte]

Which is interesting, because Reagan actually supported FDR passionately..

too stupid! they were perfect opposites!! It is almost impossible that anyone could be so dumb about Reagan!!

which is why he campaigned for Truman and did more to save Social Security than any post FDR president. In fact, if Reagan were alive today, the war on SS would never have gotten off the ground.

Reagan wanted to privatize retirement, but never had opportunity
Social Security was always more tar baby than Teflon for Reagan. He told me when he was governor of California that Barry Goldwater’s campaign had demonstrated that Republicans could not safely discuss the issue, but Reagan could not stop talking about it. I have no doubt that he shared the view that Social Security was a Ponzi scheme. He was intrigued with the idea of a voluntary plan that would have allowed workers to make their own investments. This idea would have undermined the system by depriving Social Security of the contributions of millions of the nation’s highest-paid workers. In 1976 he said that Social Security “could have made a provision for those who could do better on their own” and suggested that such recipients be allowed to leave the program upon showing that “they had made provisions for their non-earning years.” This declaration sent shudders through the ranks of Reagan’s political advisers, who knew his true feelings about Social Security.“
Source: The Role of a Lifetime, by Lou Cannon, p. 243 , Jul 2, 1991

Suggested in 1975 to make social security voluntary
In 1975, Reagan suggested ways to make social security voluntary. The demography of Florida made that as dangerous a position as Reagan could adopt on domestic matters. [Based on that issue], Ford beat Reagan [in the Florida primary in 1976] with 53% of the general vote, but with a crushing 60% of voters over sixty-five.
Source: Reagan’s America, by Garry Wills, p. 329 , Jul 2, 1987


See why we are positive a liberal will be slow, very slow??

 

[Bfgrn]

So, just for the record then, you agree with Obama that business owners think their success is because they are "so smart" and because they "worked harder than anyone else."

Those are his words, verbatim, and you agree with them. Correct?

.

Sure, I think that some of them do. I didn't read anything in that quote where he said they all do.

His words, again: "I'm always struck by people who think..."

Always, must happen often.

People who think, very impressive mind-reading there.

The guy knows absolutely nothing about this, and he was playing to a crowd who also does not. That's politics-playing at its worst, and I don't like being used as a pawn in the game, by either side, ever, period.

I don't expect you to agree on this. But that was my point.

.

You just explained WHY Obama made his comments. It is a sickness that has manifested in the conservative movement, the Ayn Rand social Darwinism that is destroying our society. A civil society is not a jungle.

 

[Londoner]

Which is interesting, because Reagan actually supported FDR passionately..

Might be good to divide Reagan into his Democrat/Republican phases. Reagan was a New Dealer to the core until he landed in the top tax bracket in 1954 with his massive Warner Brothers checks.

But his support of the Left, FDR, and the New Deal is without question. In his autobiography "Where's the rest of me?" - which Nancy tried to re-publish but Norquist and Legacy Project crushed - he supports FDR massively. He definitely grew disillusioned under Truman but he was an ardent Cold Warrior, which use to be the province of the Left, who wanted to save the world using Washington.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJDhS4oUm0M]Reagan Campaigns for Truman in 1948 - YouTube[/ame]

Yes but the liberals have created huge ghettos of dependency, to buy votes, that go on and on over many generations. The liberal Great Society amounted to a near genocide against American blacks.

It's interesting to see how LBJ and Reagan handled the "black problem". LBJ used the War on Poverty to help lift them up whereas Reagan used the War on Drugs to cage them. Both policies failed.

(Look at the rate of black incarceration under Reagan's War on Drugs. It will blow your mind. The War on Drugs gave Washington and the states more power to incarcerate the superfluous - people laid low by circumstance (slavery). The USA has the highest prison population by an unbelievable margin - and the proportion of blacks to whites is beyond belief. This is the natural consequence of unwinding a welfare state. When you get rid of safety nets and disposses entire races or classes, you better build cages. So much of government is dealing with either the dependents or have-nots. White people had/have much higher pot consumption, but as property owners with accumulated wealth, they have more to lose and more of an incentive to follow the law)

Regardless . . . be careful with the Right's construction of Reagan. Seriously, the Reagan Legacy Project created by Norquist was designed to create a symbolic Reagan - a leader as meaningful and important to the Right as FDR was to the Left. Norquist literally drained Reagan of all his moderate and Leftist elements. For God's sake, Reagan passed the most liberal abortion policy as governor of California (where he was in EVERY position to stop it. He got in bed with the Moral Majority so he could consolidate the South and Heartland. Much of his supposed social conservatism was pure opportunism. It was a way to win elections by creating a powerful rightwing populism that appealed to the poor. Please turn off talk radio).

 

[clevergirl]

Liberal's are incapable of personal success- just ask Obama

 

[Murf76]

Which is interesting, because Reagan actually supported FDR passionately..

Might be good to divide Reagan into his Democrat/Republican phases. Reagan was a New Dealer to the core until he landed in the top tax bracket in 1954 with his massive Warner Brothers checks.

But his support of the Left, FDR, and the New Deal is without question. In his autobiography "Where's the rest of me?" - which Nancy tried to re-publish but Norquist and Legacy Project crushed - he supports FDR massively. He definitely grew disillusioned under Truman but he was an ardent Cold Warrior, which used to be the province of the Left, which wanted to save the world from Washington.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJDhS4oUm0M]Reagan Campaigns for Truman in 1948 - YouTube[/ame]

Yes but the liberals have created huge ghettos of dependency, to buy votes, that go on and on over many generations. The liberal Great Society amounted to a near genocide against American blacks.

It's interesting to see how LBJ and Reagan handled the "black problem". LBJ used the War on Poverty to save them whereas Reagan used the War on Drugs to cage them.

(Look at the rate of black incarceration under Reagan's War on Drugs. It will blow your mind. The War on Drugs gave Washington and the states more power to incarcerate the superfluous - people laid low by circumstance (slavery), poor genes, and choice. The USA has the highest prison population by an unbelievable margin. This is the natural consequence of unwinding a welfare state. When you get rid of safety nets and disposses entire races or classes, you better build cages. So much of government is dealing with either the dependents or have-nots. White people had/have much higher pot consumption, but as property owners with accumulated wealth, they are less disruptive. The need for social control is much less for people who benefit from the status quo)

Regardless . . . be careful with the Right's construction of Reagan. Seriously, the Reagan Legacy Project created by Norquist was designed to create a symbolic Reagan - a leader as meaningful and important to the Right as FDR was to the Left. Norquist literally drained Reagan of all his moderate and Leftist elements. For God's sake, he passed the most liberal abortion policy as governor of California (where he was in EVERY position to stop it. He got in bed with the Moral Majority so he could consolidate the South and Heartland. Much of his supposed social conservatism was pure opportunism. It was a way for his anti-tax supporters to win elections. Please turn off talk radio).

Ahhhh... I get it now. Deftly played race card. Not the usual frothing, liberal screech of "YOU'RE A RACIST!!!" whenever a political debate isn't going their way.
Nicely done.

 

[Londoner]

There is a reason why people on the right don't know that Reagan passed the most liberal abortion policy in history, along with the greatest amnesty bill in history.

The rightwing voter has been 100% captured by propaganda. I'm not saying the Left is any better; I'm just saying that the Right knows nothing about the real Reagan.

 

[thereisnospoon]

How close is Obama to the 500,000 green energy jobs creation number today? Great business plan Obama. Not.

I thought is was five MILLION....No 50 MILLION green jobs.

 

[Londoner]

Ahhhh... I get it now. Deftly played race card. Not the usual frothing, liberal screech of "YOU'RE A RACIST!!!" whenever a political debate isn't going their way.
Nicely done.

Not race at all. It was purely based on a need to manage the have nots. I don't think the Right is that racist. They hated Clinton more than Obama, and would easily support Condi Rice.

The Right uses the race card in order to shut down debate. Whenever a society is faced with a dispossessed population - be they red, white or yellow, they are faced with having to manage them socially. This is done through Welfare or prison beds.

 

[Bfgrn]

There is a reason why people on the right don't know that Reagan passed the most liberal abortion policy in history, along with the greatest amnesty bill in history.

The rightwing voter has been 100% captured by propaganda. I'm not saying the Left is any better; I'm just saying that the Right knows nothing about the real Reagan.

Or anything about FDR.

FDR was not a a "tax-and-spend" liberal, Roosevelt was in fact deeply committed to a balanced budget. He presented Congress with the Economy Act, a bill that put the federal government on a spending diet by cutting the salaries of federal employees, scaling back defense spending, and reducing veterans' pensions.

 

[Foxfyre]

If they can't refute the topic, the tactic is change the subject folks or pick somebody to demonize or buld straw men to attack or throw red herrings into the bait bucket.

The topic is whether Obama is right that everybody deserves a cut of the businessman's profits because everybody earned them..

 

[Londoner]

Or anything about FDR.

FDR was not a a "tax-and-spend" liberal, Roosevelt was in fact deeply committed to a balanced budget. He presented Congress with the Economy Act, a bill that put the federal government on a spending diet by cutting the salaries of federal employees, scaling back defense spending, and reducing veterans' pensions.

Agreed. The reason the nation slipped back into a full on depression in the late 30s was because FDR transitioned back to austerity and balanced budgets too soon. He believed in balanced budgets way more than Reagan, who was the original deficit spender. He made Carter look like Milton Friedman.

FDR got lucky with WWII. Indeed, It took the largest government spending project in world history to end the depression - WWII, specifically the massive government money deployed for war manufacturing. The entire nation was put back to work. More importantly . . . because consumers had jobs and money-for-consumption, investment capital finally had the consumer base to justify taking risks and putting even more people back to work. FDR was also a pro-war democrat. He and Truman believed in the use of American military power. They were both opposed by conservative isolationists who didn't think Washington had the competence or budget to manage the the globe. How times have changed. [It's funny though. Today's Republicans know none of this. They have literally been 100% educated by an overlapping web of think tanks and media outlets which is centrally controlled by movement conservatism, i.e., big government. Psst: help]

 

[LilOlLady]

Mitt Romney says entrepreneurs need government to start businesses
Jul 18, 2012

Things like investing in roads and bridges, creating fire departments and police forces, and having public schools. In other words, the exact same things that Mitt Romney talked about today. But don't expect President Obama to demand an apology from Romney for stealing his words. After all, there's still that whole Obamneycare thing they need to work out.
Daily Kos: Mitt Romney says entrepreneurs need government to start businesses

 

[Bfgrn]

Which is interesting, because Reagan actually supported FDR passionately..

Might be good to divide Reagan into his Democrat/Republican phases. Reagan was a New Dealer to the core until he landed in the top tax bracket in 1954 with his massive Warner Brothers checks.

But his support of the Left, FDR, and the New Deal is without question. In his autobiography "Where's the rest of me?" - which Nancy tried to re-publish but Norquist and Legacy Project crushed - he supports FDR massively. He definitely grew disillusioned under Truman but he was an ardent Cold Warrior, which used to be the province of the Left, which wanted to save the world from Washington.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJDhS4oUm0M]Reagan Campaigns for Truman in 1948 - YouTube[/ame]

Yes but the liberals have created huge ghettos of dependency, to buy votes, that go on and on over many generations. The liberal Great Society amounted to a near genocide against American blacks.

It's interesting to see how LBJ and Reagan handled the "black problem". LBJ used the War on Poverty to help lift them up whereas Reagan used the War on Drugs to cage them. Both policies failed.

(Look at the rate of black incarceration under Reagan's War on Drugs. It will blow your mind. The War on Drugs gave Washington and the states more power to incarcerate the superfluous - people laid low by circumstance (slavery), poor genes, and choice. The USA has the highest prison population by an unbelievable margin - and the proportion of blacks to whites is beyond belief. This is the natural consequence of unwinding a welfare state. When you get rid of safety nets and disposses entire races or classes, you better build cages. So much of government is dealing with either the dependents or have-nots. White people had/have much higher pot consumption, but as property owners with accumulated wealth, they are less disruptive. The need for social control is much less for people who benefit from the status quo)

Regardless . . . be careful with the Right's construction of Reagan. Seriously, the Reagan Legacy Project created by Norquist was designed to create a symbolic Reagan - a leader as meaningful and important to the Right as FDR was to the Left. Norquist literally drained Reagan of all his moderate and Leftist elements. For God's sake, Reagan passed the most liberal abortion policy as governor of California (where he was in EVERY position to stop it. He got in bed with the Moral Majority so he could consolidate the South and Heartland. Much of his supposed social conservatism was pure opportunism. It was a way to win elections by creating a powerful rightwing populism that appealed to the poor. Please turn off talk radio).

I agree the war on drugs has been a huge failure. But it started with Richard Nixon. Reagan brought us a second wave of regressive policies. The United States has less than 5% of the world’s population. But it has almost 25% of the world’s prisoners.

On the other hand, the war on poverty was a success, despite the fact Johnson effectively pulled the plug on the War on Poverty to fund the war in Vietnam. The war on poverty was based on a design conservatives should get behind. But, as you said: The rightwing voter has been 100% captured by propaganda.



Here are some FACTS for you on what the War on Poverty.

The war on poverty was a New Frontier idea. In 1961, Kennedy took office and put together a Committee on Juvenile Delinquency and Youth Crime. Surplus funds were put to work for job, housing and education programs. President Kennedy had on his agenda a war on poverty and this was the beginning. Kennedy died in Dallas but not his desire to attack poverty.

When President Kennedy's brother-in law Sargent Shriver accepted President Johnson's challenge and took on the 'War on Poverty' the first thing he discovered was rather startling and disturbing. Half of the Americans living in poverty were children. Another large segment were elderly and another segment were mentally and/or physically disabled. So a HUGE segment of the poor fit the TRUE definition of a dependent. So there is an obligation as a civil society to make sure those real dependents are not trampled on or extinguished.

To address some of the players in the conservative fairy tale, voila! We have an unabashed flaming liberal...Sargent Shriver. But I hate to disappoint you. Sargent Shriver hated welfare and had no intention of creating a handout program. He didn't believe in handouts, he believed in community action, opportunity, responsibility, and empowerment.

The 'War on Poverty' was called the Office of Economic Opportunity. The core principles were opportunity, responsibility, community and empowerment. The program's goal was maximum feasible participation. One of the concepts of empowerment was poor people had a right to one-third of the seats on every local poverty program board. It was a community based program that focused on education as the keys to the city. Programs such as VISTA, Job Corps, Community Action Program, and Head Start were created to increase opportunity for the poor so they could pull themselves out of poverty with a hand UP, not a hand out. Even when Johnson effectively pulled the plug on the War on Poverty to fund the war in Vietnam, Shriver fought on and won. During the Shriver years more Americans got out of poverty than during any similar time in our history. (The Clinton years - employing the same philosophy - were the second best.) Ref

Here is one of the agencies created by the WOP...

Job Corps is a program administered by the United States Department of Labor that offers free-of-charge education and vocational training to youth ages 16 to 24.

Job Corps offers career planning, on-the-job training, job placement, residential housing, food service, driver's education, basic health and dental care, a bi-weekly basic living allowance and clothing allowance. Some centers offer childcare programs for single parents as well.

Besides vocational training, the Job Corps program also offers academic training, including basic reading and math, GED attainment, college preparatory, and Limited English Proficiency courses. Some centers also offer programs that allow students to remain in residence at their center while attending college.[citation needed] Job Corps provides career counseling and transition support to its students for up to one year after they graduate from the program.

Career paths

Career paths offered by Job Corps include:

Advanced manufacturing

Communication design
Drafting
Electronic assembly
Machine appliance repair
Machining
Welding
Manufacturing technology
Sign, billboard, and display

Automotive and machine repair

Automobile technician
General services technician
Collision repair and refinish
Heavy construction equipment mechanic
Diesel mechanic
Medium/heavy truck repair
Electronics tech
Stationary engineering

Construction

Bricklaying
Carpentry
Cement masonry
Concrete and terrazzo
Construction craft laborer
Electrical
Electrical overhead line
Facilities maintenance
Floor covering
Glazing
HVAC
Industrial engineering technician
Licensed electrician (bilingual)
Mechanical engineering technician
Painting
Plastering
Plumbing
Roto-Rooter plumbing
Tile setting

Extension programs

Advanced Career Training (ACT)
General Educational Development (GED)
Commercial driver's license (CDL)
Off-Center Training (OCT Program)
High school diploma (HSD Program)

Finance and Business

Accounting services
Business management
Clerical occupations
Legal secretary
Insurance and financial services
Marketing
Medical insurance specialist
Office administration
Paralegal
Purchasing

Health care/allied health professions

Clinical medical assistant
Dental assistant
EKG technician
Emergency medical technician
Exercise/massage therapy
Hemodialysis technician
Licensed practical/vocational nurse
Medical office support
Nurse assistant/home health aide
Opticianry
Pharmacy technician
Phlebotomy
Physical therapy assistant
Rehabilitation therapy
Rehabilitation technician
Registered nurse
Respiratory therapy
Sterile processing
Surgical technician

Homeland security

Corrections officer
Seamanship
Security and protective services

Hospitality

Culinary arts
Hotel and lodging

Information technology

A+ Microsoft MSCE
Computer Networking/Cisco
Computer systems administrator
Computer support specialist
Computer technician
Integrated system tech
Network cable installation
Visual communications

Renewable resources and energy

Forest conservation and urban forestry
Firefighting
Wastewater
Landscaping

Retail sales and services

Behavioral health aide
Criminal justice
Child development
Residential advisor
Cosmetology
Retail sales

Transportation

Asphalt paving
Material and distribution operations
Clerical occupations
Heavy equipment operations
Roustabout operator
Heavy truck driving
TCU administrative clerk

 

[flacaltenn]

The most overt effort I've ever witnessed to hijack a thread and destroy the embarrassment..

FDR? Reagan? Give me some relevence to the OP or go start a WPA-Lovers Thread..

 

[Londoner]

If they can't refute the topic, the tactic is change the subject folks or pick somebody to demonize or buld straw men to attack or throw red herrings into the bait bucket.

The topic is whether Obama is right that everybody deserves a cut of the businessman's profits because everybody earned them..

You have to try and get your information from other sources. And I'm not talking about getting your information from the Left, which would be equally as bad.

Obama was referring to the modern industrial base of this country, upon which capital depends. The Hoover Dam, the interstate system, the energy grids, water treatment and delivery, the postwar build-up of rural and suburban America - the incredible wealth of infrastructure that was created through taxation and the government allocation of capital. Great Republican presidents like Eisenhower put our noble veterans to work building the infrastructure of the modern industrial state upon which commerce depends. Much of the technology that fueled the 80s consumer electronics boom came out of the Cold War Pentagon/NASA.

The big banks crave FDIC insurance, which allows them to take greater risks with capital. Thousands of profitable businesses have depended deeply on government subsidies and bailouts. The entire property system depends on a vigorous and powerful law enforcement network (controlled and funded by the public). Do you know how much money it costs to fund just the legal infrastructure that safeguards just one futures market? Do you know how much Boeing and commercial aviation depended on government subsidies? Commerce and the profits made therein have always depended on a complicated partnership between government and the private sector. Not one penny of profit in the Southwest would be possible without the Hooever Dam. You need to study these things without repeating talk radio cliches. [There are great arguments against the Left, but none of them come from the think tanks and media sources on the right].

Do you understand the multiplier effect - the profit - made possible by Eisenhower's Interstate? Obama was inelegantly referring to the wider nexus of infrastructure upon which capital depends.

My friend did some of his Ph.D research in the outskirts of Nairobi. He lived in a building which had constant electrical fires because there were no regulations or codes for electrical lines. Also, the wasn't a sufficient system of roads to move consumers and goods. There was no insurance system which businesses need to protect their investments. Lacking infrastructure, business cannot invest in many parts of the world. In the outskirts of Nairobi, investments are too easily destroyed or stolen because of zero law enforcement. Here is what you don't understand. Profit depends on the codes and law enforcement provided by the public, managed by government. Capital craves the modern industrial state. Commerce would be IMPOSSIBLE without these things. Profit makers depend on others. This doesn't mean that they should not earn a profit for the amount they add to the equation. It only means that the current anti-tax revolution ignores the infrastructure upon which profit so deeply depends.

Turn off talk radio. You have been lied to.

 

[Murf76]

If they can't refute the topic, the tactic is change the subject folks or pick somebody to demonize or buld straw men to attack or throw red herrings into the bait bucket.

The topic is whether Obama is right that everybody deserves a cut of the businessman's profits because everybody earned them..

You have to try and get your information from other sources. And I'm not talking about getting your information from the Left, which would be equally as bad.

Obama was referring to the modern industrial base of this country, upon which capital depends. The Hoover Dam, the interstate system, the energy grids, water treatment and delivery, the postwar build-up of rural and suburban America - the incredible wealth of infrastructure that was created through taxation and the government allocation of capital. Great Republican presidents like Eisenhower put our noble veterans to work building the infrastructure of the modern industrial state upon which commerce depends. Much of the technology that fueled the 80s consumer electronics boom came out of the Cold War Pentagon/NASA.

The big banks crave FDIC insurance, which allows them to take greater risks with capital. Thousands of profitable businesses have depended deeply on government subsidies and bailouts. The entire property system depends on a vigorous and powerful law enforcement network (controlled and funded by the public). Do you know how much money it costs to fund just the legal infrastructure that safeguards just one futures market? Do you know how much Boeing and commercial aviation depended on government subsidies? Commerce and the profits made therein have always depended on a complicated partnership between government and the private sector. Not one penny of profit in the Southwest would be possible without the Hooever Dam. You need to study these things without repeating talk radio cliches. [There are great arguments against the Left, but none of them come from the think tanks and media sources on the right].

Do you understand the multiplier effect - the profit - made possible by Eisenhower's Interstate? Obama was inelegantly referring to the wider nexus of infrastructure upon which capital depends.

My friend did some of his Ph.D research in the outskirts of Nairobi. He lived in a building which had constant electrical fires because there were no regulations or codes for laying electrical lines. For this reason, business cannot invest in this part of the world. Their property - their goods - would be destroyed in a fire, or stolen because of zero law enforcement. Here is what you don't understand. Profit depends on the codes and law enforcement provided by the public, managed by government. Capital craves the modern industrial state. Commerce would be IMPOSSIBLE without these things. Profit makers depend on others. This doesn't mean that they should not earn a profit for the amount they add to the equation. It only means that the current anti-tax revolution ignores the infrastructure upon which profit so deeply depends.

Turn off talk radio. You have been lied to.

Which might all be interesting points if these businesses didn't ALREADY PAY TAXES. They do it continually, paying every kind of federal, state, local tax you can imagine. They PAY for their use of the infrastructure just like they pay any other business expense... and then some. They've already paid their debt to a decent society. They don't owe anything extra to Obama and his electoral ambitions.

It's a long thread, but we've already covered this ground... repeatedly.

 

[Londoner]

The most overt effort I've ever witnessed to hijack a thread and destroy the embarrassment..

FDR? Reagan? Give me some relevence to the OP or go start a WPA-Lovers Thread..

FDR and Reagan, IMO, symbolize the different philosophies at stake.

Reagan's myopic individualism completely overlooks the massive dependency of commerce on the state, and the machinations of government. The profits of Big Oil were massively dependent on the Pentagon Budget. Stabilizing the middle east is one of the more expensive American ventures in its history. Or you can widen the optic to take in the entire global system of capital. Many of the corporations at the heart of the American economy depend on resources and labor from dangerous parts of the developing world - they need a big strong Pentagon to protect their supply chains. Reagan never made any rhetorical overtures to the massive dependence profit makers had on defense, and subsidies, and bailouts, and FDIC insurance, and infrastructure. He didn't talk about the great things government did for capital. He used idiot-cliches to describe the relationship between government and commerce - and those cliches now sustain an entire generation of people who get 100% of their information from government, i.e., movement conservatism.

FDR, on the other hand, believed that government and commerce depended deeply on each other. His followers like Truman (and even Eisenhower) believed that it was government's job to subsidize the great technological research of [things like] the space program which blossomed under Kennedy. You should research the relationship between the Cold War Pentagon/NASA and the 80s consumer electronics boom. FDR saved Reagan's father because he believed that all Americans were in it together. He believed that profit makers and commerce depended on infrastructure and systems which the public subsidized - which is why he directed some of those profits to the system which made them possible in the first place. Reagan, on the other hand, believed that the profits would magically trickle down in the form of middle class jobs and expanded living standards. But this never happened. The money trickled into Chinese manufacturing and the middle class was put on credit cards and silly mortgages. Opps. But yes, FDR and Reagan have a lot to say about this topic.

FDR and Reagan define the opposing views at stake in this thread fairly well.

 

[Bfgrn]

If they can't refute the topic, the tactic is change the subject folks or pick somebody to demonize or buld straw men to attack or throw red herrings into the bait bucket.

The topic is whether Obama is right that everybody deserves a cut of the businessman's profits because everybody earned them..

No, that is not the 'topic'. That is YOUR polemic, partisan and dishonest propaganda. That is not what the President said.

We are on page 234 of this thread. The topic has been debated ad nauseum. Let me recap and clarify.

The President made a speech, and conservatives and Republicans have taken out of context one line in his speech, and grossly twisted the meaning. They are using it as an attack on Obama.

Conservatives and Republicans only want you to hear the one line where the President said, "If you've got a business, you didn't build that," but they don't want you to hear the sentences preceding and following that line that make it clear he was referring to the government infrastructure that helps businesses succeed, not the businesses themselves.

 

[Vidi]

If they can't refute the topic, the tactic is change the subject folks or pick somebody to demonize or buld straw men to attack or throw red herrings into the bait bucket.

The topic is whether Obama is right that everybody deserves a cut of the businessman's profits because everybody earned them..

You have to try and get your information from other sources. And I'm not talking about getting your information from the Left, which would be equally as bad.

Obama was referring to the modern industrial base of this country, upon which capital depends. The Hoover Dam, the interstate system, the energy grids, water treatment and delivery, the postwar build-up of rural and suburban America - the incredible wealth of infrastructure that was created through taxation and the government allocation of capital. Great Republican presidents like Eisenhower put our noble veterans to work building the infrastructure of the modern industrial state upon which commerce depends. Much of the technology that fueled the 80s consumer electronics boom came out of the Cold War Pentagon/NASA.

The big banks crave FDIC insurance, which allows them to take greater risks with capital. Thousands of profitable businesses have depended deeply on government subsidies and bailouts. The entire property system depends on a vigorous and powerful law enforcement network (controlled and funded by the public). Do you know how much money it costs to fund just the legal infrastructure that safeguards just one futures market? Do you know how much Boeing and commercial aviation depended on government subsidies? Commerce and the profits made therein have always depended on a complicated partnership between government and the private sector. Not one penny of profit in the Southwest would be possible without the Hooever Dam. You need to study these things without repeating talk radio cliches. [There are great arguments against the Left, but none of them come from the think tanks and media sources on the right].

Do you understand the multiplier effect - the profit - made possible by Eisenhower's Interstate? Obama was inelegantly referring to the wider nexus of infrastructure upon which capital depends.

My friend did some of his Ph.D research in the outskirts of Nairobi. He lived in a building which had constant electrical fires because there were no regulations or codes for laying electrical lines. For this reason, business cannot invest in this part of the world. Their property - their goods - would be destroyed in a fire, or stolen because of zero law enforcement. Here is what you don't understand. Profit depends on the codes and law enforcement provided by the public, managed by government. Capital craves the modern industrial state. Commerce would be IMPOSSIBLE without these things. Profit makers depend on others. This doesn't mean that they should not earn a profit for the amount they add to the equation. It only means that the current anti-tax revolution ignores the infrastructure upon which profit so deeply depends.

Turn off talk radio. You have been lied to.

Which might all be interesting points if these businesses didn't ALREADY PAY TAXES. They do it continually, paying every kind of federal, state, local tax you can imagine. They PAY for their use of the infrastructure just like they pay any other business expense... and then some. They've already paid their debt to a decent society. They don't owe anything extra to Obama and his electoral ambitions.

It's a long thread, but we've already covered this ground... repeatedly.

and yet, the same falsehood that they paid into the system is still being expressed.


30 major corporations that paid NOTHING in taxes in the last THREE years.

\

Seventy-eight of the 280 companies paid zero or less in federal income taxes in at least one year from 2008 to 2010…In the years they paid no income tax, these companies earned $156 billion in pretax U.S. profits. But instead of paying $55 billion in income taxes as the 35 percent corporate tax rate seems to require, these companies generated so many excess tax breaks that they reported negative taxes (often receiving outright tax rebate checks from the U.S. Treasury), totaling $21.8 billion. These companies’ “negative tax rates” mean that they made more after taxes than before taxes in those no-tax years


http://www.ctj.org/corporatetaxdodgers/CorporateTaxDodgersReport.pdf

how in the hell can anyone defend Wells Fargo paying NOTHING in taxes after we bailed them out? Thats the very definition of freeloader.

 

[Londoner]

] They PAY for their use of the infrastructure just like they pay any other business expense... and then some. They've already paid their debt to a decent society.

This a little bit of a generalization. Corporations require subsidies, bailouts, and tax breaks in order to move/keep jobs here.

The effective tax rates of large corporations and wealthy individuals is far less than the advertised rate. GE is a perfect example. Don't take my word for it. Here is a company that depends deeply on infrastructure and defense, but who sequesters massive amounts of money off shore. The larger the corporation the more it can offset taxes through a maze of shelters, subsidies and tax credits. If you're paying anything close to the top tax rate as a business or individual - if you're not availing yourself of the massive loopholes that have been methodically built into the system over the last 30 years - than you're not only an idiot, you're shareholders will have your head. Everybody knows that the wealthy have successfully won the tax game. This is why they pay 15% on capital gains. The only people who pay full boat are the ones who make their cake from salaries and wages - the ones who can't afford lawyers and politicians. [There, I was as general as you were]