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Balance the budget while spending uncontrollably into a war all while NOT increasing taxes? Please tell me how the hell that will happen!!!
I heard on NPR this morning that it is based on no or very little war spending in a few years.
Also, NPR during their "fact checking" of the SOTU said that it's tru that the deficit has been cut in half 3 years ahead of schedule (just as Bush claims) and INCLUDES war spending in Iraq and Afgahnistan. The report also went on to say if not for the tax cuts, it would be in balance.
So, seems to me that it's not a "pie-in-the-sky" assertion so to speak, but a plan that is immensly do-able without tax increases...IF the nation extracts itself from Iraq within the next couple of years.
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__________________ America cannot have an empire abroad and a Republic at home.
I heard on NPR this morning that it is based on no or very little war spending in a few years.
Also, NPR during their "fact checking" of the SOTU said that it's tru that the deficit has been cut in half 3 years ahead of schedule (just as Bush claims) and INCLUDES war spending in Iraq and Afgahnistan. The report also went on to say if not for the tax cuts, it would be in balance.
So, seems to me that it's not a "pie-in-the-sky" assertion so to speak, but a plan that is immensly do-able without tax increases...IF the nation extracts itself from Iraq within the next couple of years.
No one intends to "do" this, it's just posturing to turn things back onto the Dems. He could have chosen to go down this path when he had congress on his side and he didn't.
He's a blithering idiot on a lot of things, the budget is one realm he's without equal as master idiot.
He knows that most if not all of his proposals are going to die minutes after he proposes them, the idea is to have the Dems kill them and then blame them for the mess we're in, that's all this is.
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At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.
No one intends to "do" this, it's just posturing to turn things back onto the Dems. He could have chosen to go down this path when he had congress on his side and he didn't.
He's a blithering idiot on a lot of things, the budget is one realm he's without equal as master idiot.
He knows that most if not all of his proposals are going to die minutes after he proposes them, the idea is to have the Dems kill them and then blame them for the mess we're in, that's all this is.
Good take.
New York Times piece also stated that defecit cutting depends on repeal of tax cuts. Let us not forget the spending cuts that are turning us into a 3rd world country. Education is a mess. Health care non existent. Highway maintenance sucks. The Bushidos never stop spinning. Damned graverobbers.
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In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." --Voltaire
Off the Rails: Big Oil, Big Brother Win Big in the State of the Union
A sense of reality and clarity.
Quote:
Off the Rails: Big Oil, Big Brother Win Big in the State of the Union
by Greg Palast | Jan 24 2007 - 9:10am |
There was that tongue again. When the President lies he's got this weird nervous tick: He sticks the tip of his tongue out between his lips. Like a little boy who knows he's fibbing. Like a snake licking a rat.
In his State of the Union tonight the President did his tongue thing 124 times -- my kids kept count.
But it wasn't all rat-licking lies.
Most pundits concentrated on Iraq and wacky health insurance stuff. But that's just bubbles and blather. The real agenda is in the small stuff. The little razors in the policy apple, the nasty little pieces of policy shrapnel that whiz by between the appearances of the Presidential tongue.
First, there was the announcement the regime will, "give employers the tools to verify the legal status of their workers." In case you missed that one, the President is talking about creating a federal citizen profile database.
There's a problem with that idea. It's against the law. The law in question is the United States Constitution. The Founding Fathers thought the government had no right to keep track on a citizen unless there is evidence they have committed, or planned to commit, a crime.
But the Founding Fathers didn't imagine there were millions and billions of dollars to be made by private contractors ready to perform this KGB operation for the Department of Homeland Security, tracking each and every one of us to keep tabs on our "status."
These work databases will tie into "voter verification" databases required by the Help America Vote Act. And these will tie to the databases on citizenship and so on.
Will Big Brother abuse these snoop lists? The biggest purveyor of such hit lists is Choice Point, Inc. – those characters who, before the 2000 election, helped Jeb Bush purge innocent voters as "felons" from Florida voter rolls. Will they abuse the new super-lists? Does Dick Cheney shoot in the woods?
There were several other little IEDs (improvised execrable policy devices) planted in the State of the Union. Did you catch the one about doubling the Strategic Petroleum Reserve? If you're unfamiliar with the SPR, it is supposed to be the stash of oil we keep in case the price of crude gets too high.
Well, the price of oil has been horribly high but Dick Cheney, the official who sits on the Reserve's spigots, has refused to release the oil into the market.
Instead of unleashing the Reserve and busting Big Oil's price gouging Bush will double the Reserve, which will require buying three-quarters of a billion barrels of oil. This is a nice $40 billion pay-out to Big Oil from the US Treasury. Compare this to the President's health insurance plan which will be "revenue neutral" -- that is, have a net investment of zero.
But the $40 billion in loot the oilmen will get from us taxpayers for doubling the Reserve is nothing compared to the boost in the worldwide price of crude caused by this massive, mad purchase. While the Congressional audience didn't even bother polite applause for the reserve purchase plan, there's no doubt they were whooping it up in Saudi Arabia. Clearly, the state of the Saudi-Bush union is still pretty good.
But why end on a cynical note? I must admit I was moved by the President's praise of Wesley Autrey, a New Yorker who, last month, threw himself on top of a man who had fallen on subway tracks -- and held him between the track rails as the train passed over them.
While the President properly acknowledged Autrey's courage in saving the man who fell on the subway tracks, Mr. Bush still did not explain why Dick Cheney pushed the man in the first place.
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In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." --Voltaire
Did you catch the one about doubling the Strategic Petroleum Reserve? If you're unfamiliar with the SPR, it is supposed to be the stash of oil we keep in case the price of crude gets too high.
You know, I caught that one during the speech. I can't believe I failed to mention it here in my original post, but my thoughts about the implications of this "policy" were immediately and exactly the same as the author of the article's thoughts are....
Did you catch the one about doubling the Strategic Petroleum Reserve? If you're unfamiliar with the SPR, it is supposed to be the stash of oil we keep in case the price of crude gets too high.
That's news to me. The original reason for having the SPR was to make sure this country had a reserve supply for our military in case the Arab countries tried to cut off our supply of oil and hold us hostage.
It was never intended to be used for fending off high oil prices even though that's been done a time or two by other presidents. It's a waste of time to do so as the amount of oil it puts into the system isn't enough to change oil prices. It's just a feel good political move.
That's news to me. The original reason for having the SPR was to make sure this country had a reserve supply for our military in case the Arab countries tried to cut off our supply of oil and hold us hostage.
It was never intended to be used for fending off high oil prices even though that's been done a time or two by other presidents. It's a waste of time to do so as the amount of oil it puts into the system isn't enough to change oil prices. It's just a feel good political move.
Wrong. They bought it high and basically enriched their oil buddies. If they hadn't bought it, when they did, the price would have dropped even more and saved the taxpayers when they bought it at a deflated price. They artificially bolstered the barrell price of oil by buying it when they did. The price was dropping like a rock.
__________________
In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." --Voltaire
U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve
The U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve is the largest stockpile of government-owned emergency crude oil in the world. Established in the aftermath of the 1973-74 oil embargo, the SPR provides the President with a powerful response option should a disruption in commercial oil supplies threaten the U.S. economy. It also allows the United States to meet part of its International Energy Agency obligation to maintain emergency oil stocks, and it provides a national defense fuel reserve.
The Energy Policy Act of 2005 directed the Secretary of Energy to fill the SPR to its authorized one billion barrel capacity. This required the Department of Energy to complete proceedings to select sites necessary to expand the SPR to one billion barrels.
That's news to me. The original reason for having the SPR was to make sure this country had a reserve supply for our military in case the Arab countries tried to cut off our supply of oil and hold us hostage.
It was never intended to be used for fending off high oil prices even though that's been done a time or two by other presidents. It's a waste of time to do so as the amount of oil it puts into the system isn't enough to change oil prices. It's just a feel good political move.
Here is an exerpt from the main page on the US DOE web site. Although it mentions a reserve for defense it is not limited to only that. We dipped into the SPR on a few occasions. After Katrina is one that I know of. But, still, the SPR is not and was not designed to be used to control prices. And, although I have felt the pinch in the rise in gas prices (cost of goods, etc), I can not say that our economy was in any real threat. The economy has been doing very well in spite of the gas prices.
Quote:
U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve
Quote:
The U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve is the largest stockpile of government-owned emergency crude oil in the world. Established in the aftermath of the 1973-74 oil embargo, the SPR provides the President with a powerful response option should a disruption in commercial oil supplies threaten the U.S. economy. It also allows the United States to meet part of its International Energy Agency obligation to maintain emergency oil stocks, and it provides a national defense fuel reserve.
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The greatest lies are told before a marriage, after a hunt and during an election - Count Bismark
Last edited by RedStorm; January 25th, 2007 at 08:54 PM.
Here is an exerpt from the main page on the US DOE web site. Although it mentions a reserve for defense it is not limited to only that. We dipped into the SPR on a few occasions. After Katrina is one that I know of. But, still, the SPR is not and was not designed to be used to control prices. And, although I have felt the pinch in the rise in gas prices (cost of goods, etc), I can not say that our economy was in any real threat. The economy has been doing very well in spite of the gas prices.
RS, check out post #23 on this thread.
BTW, I remember when this reserve was proposed and adopted. The main thrust of the argument the government put forth for it's establishment was for military use in case of an oil embargo. That's why there was no problem in getting it passed.
BTW, I remember when this reserve was proposed and adopted. The main thrust of the argument the government put forth for it's establishment was for military use in case of an oil embargo. That's why there was no problem in getting it passed.
I am sure you are correct. Just that we have dipped into the SPR at times when our economy was in danger, ie katrina aftermath.
(late to the pary as usual)
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The greatest lies are told before a marriage, after a hunt and during an election - Count Bismark
Last edited by RedStorm; January 26th, 2007 at 08:45 AM.
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