Are the Majority of Americans Closet Socialists?

[pgg]

and Gay Marriage will be the law of the land.

Oh god forbid

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[BLADEMDA]

Oh god forbid

Actually, HE does forbid it. Even though we are a secular society each individual STATE has sovereignty per the Constitution.
We don't need more judicial activism from the bench.

 

[Mman]

You will pay more money for fewer services under Romney.

Considering our country is broke and has been spending money like it's going out of style, that's what I want. We need to take in at least as much money as we spend so spending has to go WAY down. That's a good thing for the future of all of us.

 

[deleted126335]

Does that include the government and health insurance plans on government employees paying less in professional service fees to hospitals and physicians? I am still voting for Romney, but this has to be expected.

 

[pgg]

Actually, HE does forbid it.

And that's why Romney is going to lose. Because his party just can't get on the right side of history and let it go.

Looks like my gun rights won't last much longer and Gay Marriage will be the law of the land.

Wouldn't it be more logically consistent (and display a measure of humanity) to desire a Court willing to uphold all civil rights? Shouldn't we be hoping for a Court that will protect individuals' most basic rights of self defense and freedom to choose who they live with, without emotional laws interfering, and without punitive taxes (or rewarding tax credits) nudging behavior in one direction or another?


Republicans have a choice:
A) lose on issues the government shouldn't be involved in (gay marriage, abortion, teaching the "controversy" between evolution and creationism)
B) win on issues the government should be involved in (the economy, foreign policy)

Blade, I love you (I mean that in a platonic non-icky-gay way), but every time you bring up this gay marriage thing you might as well send another $1000 to the Obama campaign and stealth-stick an Obama/Biden bumper sticker on ten random cars.

Stop picking A.

 

[countingdays]

Unfortunately, there isn't a party for:
Smaller, less powerful, less intrusive government
Right-sized military
Helping the needy without making it a way of life
Separation of church and state
Protecting workers but not so much that you drive jobs abroad
Environmental protection without driving jobs abroad
A fair tax code that isn't full of loop holes and deductions
Teaching science not religion in school
Etc

 

[hoyden]

I'm grateful for pgg's comments above so that sane voice throws this out. Newsflash, Blade, your grandparents were part of that 47%! Social security isn't taxed, so yeah, old folks (who often vote R) are part of that percent.

Additionally, many of these people pay comparable total tax rates as a percentage of their income (federal payroll and income, state, and local) as Romney does on his millions.

Old folks( at least the majority of them) have already payed their "fair share", in contrary to the generation which never did and doesn't even want to - the latter ones is the mocked audience of 47%.

BTW I would like to have the tax qualification for voting - THIS would finally be FAIR

 

[deleted126335]

Old folks( at least the majority of them) have already payed their "fair share", in contrary to the generation which never did and doesn't even want to - the latter ones is the mocked audience of 47%.

BTW I would like to have the tax qualification for voting - THIS would finally be FAIR

The truth is that they didn't pay enough (if you are talking about dollars). They made a promise to themselves for themselves that they are trying to force their children and grandchildren to keep.

 

[yappy]

+1. Think about if you got in on this stuff on the front end - not having to pay into it for most of your working life. Easy money.

The truth is that they didn't pay enough (if you are talking about dollars). They made a promise to themselves for themselves that they are trying to force their children and grandchildren to keep.

 

[hoyden]

The truth is that they didn't pay enough (if you are talking about dollars). They made a promise to themselves for themselves that they are trying to force their children and grandchildren to keep.

I do not dispute that. My point is that they are not the target of the accusation of not paying income taxes ever.

 

[hoyden]

+1. Think about if you got in on this stuff on the front end - not having to pay into it for most of your working life. Easy money.

I guess the ones who do not pay AT ALL and are still receiving everything are not an object of your and others repugnance.

 

[BLADEMDA]

Does that include the government and health insurance plans on government employees paying less in professional service fees to hospitals and physicians? I am still voting for Romney, but this has to be expected.

This is going to happen NO MATTER WHO WINS in November.

 

[BLADEMDA]

Unfortunately, there isn't a party for:
Smaller, less powerful, less intrusive government
Right-sized military
Helping the needy without making it a way of life
Separation of church and state
Protecting workers but not so much that you drive jobs abroad
Environmental protection without driving jobs abroad
A fair tax code that isn't full of loop holes and deductions
Teaching science not religion in school
Etc

Ron Paul.

 

[GoodmanBrown]

Unfortunately, there isn't a party for:
Smaller, less powerful, less intrusive government
Right-sized military
Helping the needy without making it a way of life
Separation of church and state
Protecting workers but not so much that you drive jobs abroad
Environmental protection without driving jobs abroad
A fair tax code that isn't full of loop holes and deductions
Teaching science not religion in school
Etc

Here's the funny thing. I absolutely agree with every point you have up there. I think we just disagree on who's gonna do a better job at more of these. Do I qualify as a liberal libertarian if such a thing exists?

 

[GoodmanBrown]

I would love to be convinced otherwise.

Natural gas has some promise, but it's a little premature to declare victory.

Totally agree.

Like nuclear plant construction and cheap printable solar panels, I'll believe it when I can see it and buy it. You've got the exact same people who have held up nuclear plant construction for the last few decades jumping on the no-fracking bandwagon. They're pretty good at halting progress. There's no reason to think they won't continue to be pretty good at getting in the way.

We're already buying it, and we don't even know it. In the past 5 years, natural gas went from producing 20% of US electricity to 32%. Coal has fallen from 50% to around 30%. The price of natural gas has still declined compared to inflation over the past 5 years.

I agree that the no-fracking group is very vocal. I live in PA which is ground zero, and I have to say that so far we've seen relatively few ill effects of fracking. I tend toward the granola-y side of things, and I went to an anti-fracking meeting that addressed health concerns. Surprisingly, I left feeling more pro-fracking. There are very few health concerns being found right now, and as companies are forced to recycle the waste water, I think environmental concerns will diminish somewhat as well. I wouldn't be surprised if NY opens its shale up in the next few years.

Next, there's the individual well lifetime/performance. Any given fracking well will produce very well for a couple years and then fall off very sharply. You can increase production by digging more wells, but as a practical matter it's going to be hard to stay ahead of that curve once demand increases. Conventional natural gas supplies in North America are approaching peak.

In doing some research on my own, I agree that there's less guaranteed natural gas than the typical numbers are being bandied about. However, currently the price is just too low to even tap some of these sources. Prudo Bay in Alaska has large deposits of natural gas that aren't even being drilled currently because it's not worth the cost of building another pipe to a convenient shipping port. As other natural deposits run dry and the price rises, I think we'll see other new fields open up. I don't know how much we have (somewhere between 10 and 100 years worth of natural gas), but I think it will help ease our transition to cleaner fuels.

To replace gas/diesel as our primary transportation fuels, we need massive infrastructure changes. This is doable, and I'm sure we will do it as oil prices continue to rise, but there are huge costs associated with changing our infrastructure. NG may be cheap now, but that's just because no one's using it and our existing infrastructure is sufficient to handle existing demand. Is NG really going to be cheap when we're using it for everything from electricity generation to trucking to agriculture to commuter cars?

I don't know that we'll ever drive NG cars, but do we need to? If most cars have a battery that charges at home, and our electricity is produced by NG, it will be a moot point for me. The vast majority of consumer driving is with short trips that get bad gas mileage. Commercial shipping is a trickier nut to crack, but I think it'd be easier to transition because of the generally fewer number of commercial refueling stations needed.

Again the problem isn't running out of energy, it's running out of CHEAP energy. High and rising energy costs acting as brakes on economic growth, which is needed to outgrow existing debt.

Amen to that. We will see. I read an Atlantic article that got me thinking about your car/brick wall analogy and how we're closer than I had previously been thinking.

All that said, I hope you're right. I've actually made some efforts to personally get on the CNG bandwagon. I bought a car on Tuesday, and looked pretty hard for a dual fuel CNG/gasoline vehicle. There aren't any.

Props for looking that hard. I am hoping to get a plug-in hybrid or some such and would have left it at that.

I concede it's a lousy analogy, because it implies disaster is imminent. I have no idea how much longer the can could be kicked down the road. 2 or 10 or 20 years? So much depends on what happens in the rest of the world. I'm not a market timer.

My intent with the truck/wall analogy was to argue that the extent of our financial problems are such that neither one of the candidates can sidestep them, no matter what they do.

You left out the biggest part of that plan (based on April 2011 figures): their asserted belief that the Affordable Care Act will control health care costs, and that if the Medicare cuts proceeded and started "paying doctors low, low rates" that the gap would evaporate ...

They also acknowledge that the predicted 2019 balanced budget for their Do Nothing plan doesn't account for interest on debt. They just predict revenue minus expenses would be in the black. Sure, and the guy being foreclosed down the street would be OK too if he didn't have to worry about the car payment and all that credit card interest and debt.

They also claim that a fiscal deficit of 3% of GDP is "healthy" ... $400+ billion deficits are healthy?!? Perhaps if GDP had been growing at 3% since April 2011 and kept growing at 3% until their 2019 happy-day, I'd concede that point for the sake of argument. But it hasn't, and it won't.

The US has a lot going for it. Security (despite terror fearmongers), universities, capitalism, stable government, natural resources, technology, net food exporter.

As I said earlier, I still get up and go to work every day and save money for a boring retirement. I even buy US bonds. Fat lady isn't on stage, but she's working on it.

Those are some very valid criticisms of the plan. Medicare has to be reigned in, and I suspect we'll have some version of federal "death panels" before it's all said and done. I also think doctors will likely take a pay cut in the future.

Regarding interest on the debt, it remains to be seen how burdensome that will be. I like the sentence from the Slate article:

There is no debt crisis, either, as long as the U.S.'s lenders remain confident in the country.

Greece would technically also not be in trouble if lenders had remained confident. This is the essence of the Atlantic's spin. That currently the US is benefiting hugely from the crisis in Europe and will benefit more when/if the crisis spreads to Japan. But if confidence in the US falters, we're in for trouble quickly.

I am honestly not sure what the next 20 years holds. I'm not overly panicked yet, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't going to be hedging a bit with a few gold holdings...

 

[GoodmanBrown]

Considering our country is broke and has been spending money like it's going out of style, that's what I want. We need to take in at least as much money as we spend so spending has to go WAY down. That's a good thing for the future of all of us.

I really like this point. I totally agree with it, except for the fact that under Romney, millionaires would likely be paying less than they are now. That part rubs me the wrong way.

 

[BLADEMDA]

I really like this point. I totally agree with it, except for the fact that under Romney, millionaires would likely be paying less than they are now. That part rubs me the wrong way.

No they won't. Romney (unlike Obama) is a Moderate and a deal maker. Romney would embrace a deal like Bowles/Simpson as part of a Grand Bargain.

 

[notbobtrustme]

Dude, Obama is to the right of Reagan on just about every issue except for some social ones (aka gay marriage/abortion). This thread is pants-on-head ******ed if you think Obama = socialism.

The two biggest contributors to the current budget mess are the Bush era tax cuts and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which went completely unpaid for 10+ years. Bush stuck them in the emergency spending category, exempting them from Congressional oversight. Remember, even with the sunset of the Bush-era tax cuts, we will still have lower tax rates than the Clinton-era. The debate has lurched so far to the right that America doesn't even know what the center looks like anymore.

 

[IJL]

Dude, Obama is to the right of Reagan on just about every issue except for some social ones (aka gay marriage/abortion). This thread is pants-on-head ******ed if you think Obama = socialism.

The two biggest contributors to the current budget mess are the Bush era tax cuts and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which went completely unpaid for 10+ years. Bush stuck them in the emergency spending category, exempting them from Congressional oversight. Remember, even with the sunset of the Bush-era tax cuts, we will still have lower tax rates than the Clinton-era. The debate has lurched so far to the right that America doesn't even know what the center looks like anymore.

Unbelievable. You dared to mention Obama and Reagan in the same sentence AND you are still blaming Bush??? Wow!

 

[BLADEMDA]

 

[BLADEMDA]

 

[BLADEMDA]

 

[notbobtrustme]

You do realize why those tax receipts are at an all-time low? They are the same policies that Republicans have pushed for a decade that allow so many families earning 50K or more to deduct their tax bill down to zero. Republicans can't have it both ways. By cutting taxes and adding in so many deductions, including the mortgage tax deduction, most families can draw their income tax down to zero or even get a refund. These same policies were pushed aggressively during Gingrich's time in Congress as well as during the mid 2000s, when the GOP-controlled Congress cut taxes like crazy.

And isn't the fiscal cliff what Republicans today want? It balances the budget far more aggressively than any other proposal out there. By itself, it will close the deficit immensely. Or is this another jab at Obama, who seemingly can't do anything right in the GOP's eyes? I mean, if you truly were for deficit reduction, the fiscal cliff sounds like the best solution ever. You cut trillions in spending, raise taxes to circa Clinton-era (when we ran a budget surplus btw and still below Reagan-era tax levels) and make a significant move towards a balanced budget. This is like the GOP's holy grail. Why is there so much hostility here against that? Sounds uber hypocritical to me. If you truly believe that the federal deficit is the greatest economic threat to America, then a solution that aggressively attacks that deficit should be a great solution right?

 

[BLADEMDA]

You do realize why those tax receipts are at an all-time low? They are the same policies that Republicans have pushed for a decade that allow so many families earning 50K or more to deduct their tax bill down to zero. Republicans can't have it both ways. By cutting taxes and adding in so many deductions, including the mortgage tax deduction, most families can draw their income tax down to zero or even get a refund. These same policies were pushed aggressively during Gingrich's time in Congress as well as during the mid 2000s, when the GOP-controlled Congress cut taxes like crazy.

And isn't the fiscal cliff what Republicans today want? It balances the budget far more aggressively than any other proposal out there. By itself, it will close the deficit immensely. Or is this another jab at Obama, who seemingly can't do anything right in the GOP's eyes? I mean, if you truly were for deficit reduction, the fiscal cliff sounds like the best solution ever. You cut trillions in spending, raise taxes to circa Clinton-era (when we ran a budget surplus btw and still below Reagan-era tax levels) and make a significant move towards a balanced budget. This is like the GOP's holy grail. Why is there so much hostility here against that? Sounds uber hypocritical to me. If you truly believe that the federal deficit is the greatest economic threat to America, then a solution that aggressively attacks that deficit should be a great solution right?

The Solutions are out there. Both Parties must embrace a Grand Bargain.

 

[BLADEMDA]

 

[GoodmanBrown]

No they won't. Romney (unlike Obama) is a Moderate and a deal maker. Romney would embrace a deal like Bowles/Simpson as part of a Grand Bargain.

I honestly have no idea why you think this is true. Romney has in no way talked about Simpson-Bowles. His main economic platform is lowering taxes by 20% and removing some deductions (mortgage interest deduction, student loan deductions, charitable deductions, etc.) to make it revenue neutral. It's been shown that middle income families stand to have their taxes raised slightly by the loss of deductions while millionaires will see a slight decrease in taxes paid due to the 20% cut in tax rates. Romney is going on and on about increasing military spending. I think he'll probably decrease Medicare and Social Security spending, but I'm not convinced that he's any sort of deficit hawk at all.

Obama will be in his second term. He won't have to worry about re-election. He already tried to work with Boehner on a "grand bargain" during the debt limit talks, but they fell through when Republicans pulled out. I think if/when Obama is re-elected, his main goal for the 4 years will be a middle & long term plan for the debt. We'll see.

 

[BLADEMDA]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpAOwJvTOio

Free Obama Phone?? nice.

 

[F0nzie]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpAOwJvTOio

Free Obama Phone?? nice.

Bahahahaha!

 

[BLADEMDA]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpAOwJvTOio

Free Obama Phone?? nice.

This video has gone viral. It is a must watch for those of you who don't think people vote for Obama to get more free stuff/handouts from the govt.

 

[notbobtrustme]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tpAOwJvTOio

Free Obama Phone?? nice.

http://www.snopes.com/politics/taxes/cellphone.asp

It's a Reagan-era Program designed to give low income households a phone that was expanded under GWB to include cell phones. It, literally, has nothing to do with Obama.

 

[BLADEMDA]

http://www.snopes.com/politics/taxes/cellphone.asp

It's a Reagan-era Program designed to give low income households a phone that was expanded under GWB to include cell phones. It, literally, has nothing to do with Obama.

Obama won't be cutting that social program or any other program for that matter. His constituency expects more hand outs, more free stuff and only tax the rich.

GWB was a closet socialist unlike Obama who is an OPEN Socialist. I agree with Romney about the leeches in this country but not about the percentage of leeches.

 

[BLADEMDA]

A family of four with an income of about $30,000 can qualify for a subsidized line, according to Bloomberg News. The program is available to consumers in every state, territory, commonwealth and on tribal lands.
In 2008, there were 7.1 million Lifeline accounts nationwide. There are 12.5 million today, according to Bloomberg News. About half of those are mobile phones sold by Miami-based TracFone, Sprint and hundreds of smaller regional companies. The government pays those carriers up to $10 per month for each program subscriber. Users, in turn, get free phones and 250 minutes of monthly airtime.


Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/09/28/viral-video-touting-obama-phone-puts-spotlight-on-16-billion-federal-program/#ixzz27sE7i5Mm


http://obamaphone.net/

 

[BLADEMDA]

Since Fiscal Year 2009, federal and state welfare spending has risen from $779.9 billion to $927.2 billion, an increase of 18.8 percent. That fiscal year includes spending from Oct. 1, 2008 to Sept. 30, 2009.
In his report, Rector said the increase in federal means-tested welfare spending during Obama's first two years in office was two-and-a-half times greater than any previous increase in federal welfare spending in U.S. history, after adjusting for inflation.
Rachel Sheffield, a research associate at The Heritage Foundation's DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society, told CNSNews.com that this kind of pay out can not be maintained.
"It's a huge amount of money we're spending on these programs and our debt is growing," she said. "It's not sustainable."

 

[BLADEMDA]

 

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[BLADEMDA]

 

[BLADEMDA]

 

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[BLADEMDA]

 

[BLADEMDA]

Sergio Perez / Reuters
Protestors shout slogans as they fill up Neptuno Square during a demonstration against government austerity

 

[BLADEMDA]

My previous post shows what happens when you give out Entitlements, then promise even more Entitlements (like free health care, free drugs for Medicare patients) while your national debt spirals out of control.

Will Obama the Socialist stop at a mere 43.4% top federal tax rate? Can the USA afford all the promised Entitlements plus newly promised entitlements of ObamaCare with our current tax structure? Hell No.

Obama knows he needs to raise taxes across the board on everything and everyone. If it moves tax it.

Once this Socialist wins re-election we are going into a recession and unemployment is going up. The people I know with small businesses are getting ready for 4 more years of Obama hell. This means no new jobs, hide your money and take time off.

Someone once said you don't get the government you want you get the one you deserve. Well, bend over friends because Obama is ready to finish the job of "fundamentaly transforming America" whether you like it or not.

 

[BLADEMDA]

 

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[BLADEMDA]