But what's amazing here, obviously, is that Mr Phillips is justifying building aircraft carriers because government spending creates jobs and stimulates the economy. And he's right about that! But it seems that there are no other things the government spends money on, apart from defence, that Mr Phillips believes can stimulate the economy. He appears to believe that while government spending on aircraft carriers leads to workers getting hired, spending their paychecks, and helping the recovery, government spending on highways, high-speed rail, education, and health care does not. Meanwhile, Mr Phillips also believes, as he argued in a Washington Post op-ed last week, that the government shouldn't borrow any more money, because that's leading us to economic ruin, like Greece. And he believes that the government shouldn't raise taxes, because that kills jobs. So where is the money supposed to come from? We're left with one possibility: Mr Phillips believes that we should build more aircraft carriers to stimulate the economy, and fund it by cutting other government spending programmes. But obviously when you cut other government spending programmes, the people who were working for those programmes lose their jobs, stop receiving paychecks, and stop spending money, which harms the recovery. And then there's the question of how many $2.6m prostitute-safe-drinking programmes you can find to cut. You need 3,500 of them to fund your $9 billion aircraft carrier.
That truly is an impressive example of mental gymnastics ....
CARSON CITY, NV—In an effort to promote diversity within their political base, national Tea Party leaders gathered today in Nevada's capital to announce their intention to embrace more coloreds in the lead-up to the 2010 midterm elections. "We're bringing new voices and perspectives into the movement every day, and the addition of some more coloreds is only the beginning," Tea Party spokesman Michael Kealey told reporters, adding that he was "excited to welcome Negroes into the fold." "The time has come for everyone, Orientals even, to take America back." Kealey went on to say that the inclusion of homos in the movement would be "out of the question," unless they were the normal kind.
Truth in satire.
(Note: The words that appear in red are links that you can click.)
There are a number things the public "knows" as we head into the election that are just false. If people elect leaders based on false information, the things those leaders do in office will not be what the public expects or needs.
Here are eight of the biggest myths that are out there:
1) President Obama tripled the deficit.
Reality: Bush's last budget had a $1.416 trillion deficit. Obama's first budget reduced that to $1.29 trillion.2) President Obama raised taxes, which hurt the economy.
Reality: Obama cut taxes. 40% of the "stimulus" was wasted on tax cuts which only create debt, which is why it was so much less effective than it could have been.3) President Obama bailed out the banks.
Reality: While many people conflate the "stimulus" with the bank bailouts, the bank bailouts were requested by President Bush and his Treasury Secretary, former Goldman Sachs CEO Henry Paulson. (Paulson also wanted the bailouts to be "non-reviewable by any court or any agency.") The bailouts passed and began before the 2008 election of President Obama.4) The stimulus didn't work.
Reality: The stimulus worked, but was not enough. In fact, according to the Congressional Budget Office, the stimulus raised employment by between 1.4 million and 3.3 million jobs.5) Businesses will hire if they get tax cuts.
Reality: A business hires the right number of employees to meet demand. Having extra cash does not cause a business to hire, but a business that has a demand for what it does will find the money to hire. Businesses want customers, not tax cuts.6) Health care reform costs $1 trillion.
Reality: The health care reform reduces government deficits by $138 billion.7) Social Security is a Ponzi scheme, is "going broke," people live longer, fewer workers per retiree, etc.
Reality: Social Security has run a surplus since it began, has a trust fund in the trillions, is completely sound for at least 25 more years and cannot legally borrow so cannot contribute to the deficit (compare that to the military budget!) Life expectancy is only longer because fewer babies die; people who reach 65 live about the same number of years as they used to.8) Government spending takes money out of the economy.
Reality: Government is We, the People and the money it spends is on We, the People. Many people do not know that it is government that builds the roads, airports, ports, courts, schools and other things that are the soil in which business thrives. Many people think that all government spending is on "welfare" and "foreign aid" when that is only a small part of the government's budget.This stuff really matters.
If the public votes in a new Congress because a majority of voters think this one tripled the deficit, and as a result the new people follow the policies that actually tripled the deficit, the country could go broke.
If the public votes in a new Congress that rejects the idea of helping to create demand in the economy because they think it didn't work, then the new Congress could do things that cause a depression.
If the public votes in a new Congress because they think the health care reform will increase the deficit when it is actually projected to reduce the deficit, then the new Congress could repeal health care reform and thereby make the deficit worse. And on it goes.
I understand the conservative arguments & perspective against the current administration & congress, though I do not agree with them. I find it hard to understand the liberal / progressive arguments & perspective against Obama, Reid, & Pelosi, except that I share a healthy sense of frustration & impatience with the rate of change & progress. Like Dr. Cornel West so eloquently put it, what is Obama doing for the working poor & unemployed in America today? That being said, going back to a Republican-controlled congress in 2010 & presidency in 2012 is a very scary thing to me. Whomever controls the presidency controls the future of the Supreme Court, & we have ample evidence what the activist wing of the Roberts court feels about corporate personhood & transparency in elections. So, what to do? I for one am not going to throw my vote away on a third party candidate until we live in a parliamentary government in which there are more than two main power-brokering parties. Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders is probably my favorite senator, yet he caucuses with the Democrats & is essentially a Democratic Socialist supporter of the Democratic Party, which I would like to think of myself as too. In any case, I am going to vote for the Democratic candidate in my house district & for governor on Nov. 2, 2010. I am sure that there are several Democratic candidates around the country who do not deserve anyone's vote, but as far as I can tell in my situation, the Democrats are the best option available.
Glenn Beck’s view of American history stems from the paranoid politics of the fifties.
A few months ago, the cable-television and radio host Glenn Beck began his Fox News show with one of his favorite props: a pipe clenched between his teeth. “I’ve got my pipe,” he told his audience, his speech slightly muddled by the stem, “because we’re going to speak about schoolish kind of things.” The theme of the day was “Restoring History,” and Beck, looking professorial in a neat dark blazer and a pink button-down shirt, began the lesson by peering at a stack of history textbooks and pronouncing them full of falsehoods, produced by “malicious progressive intent.” Progressives, he explained—liberals, socialists, Communists, the entire spectrum of the left—“knew they had to separate us from our history to be able to separate us from our Constitution and God.” For the next hour, Beck earnestly explained some of the history that “is being stolen from us”: the depression of 1920, for example, or how conservative economics saved the nation from the “near-depression” of 1946—crises that progressives don’t want you to know about. “You’ve been taught one lie, I think, your whole life,” he said.
Read more http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/10/18/101018fa_fact_wilentz
"Louie Gohmert wants to protect America from terror babies, but Anderson Cooper keeps interrupting him with questions and facts."
