Bulldog Biden, Tax Cut Porn, and a Note to Max Baucus
by jhwygirl
Goddess Bless Vice President Biden, an everyperson’s working Joe. Such a regular guy, he commuted from Delaware – by train – to DC daily during his multiple terms as senator….while his wife worked and his kids went to public school.
I’m not happy with the current economic situation, but I’m old enough to remember how it was in the early 80’s. It was crap. For quite a while. And Reagan wasn’t handed the crap that Obama was before he even turned the keys on the White House.
THE FACTS ARE that George W. Bush took a $237 billion surplus and turned it into a $1.3 trillion deficit. George and his band of thieves left us bankrupt in every sense of the word. While, again, I have great concern over the current situation, my concern lies more with the everyperson, and not the top 2% that would benefit from extending the Bush tax cuts – which did not create jobs, btw.
Republicans, though can’t seem to keep to their contracts with America. Those tax cuts were set to expire because they were known to be creating a deficit when they were approved.
Let’s say that again: The Bush tax cuts were known to be creating a deficit when they were implemented.
Also again: The Bush tax cuts did not create jobs.
Now for the real poop behind those tax cuts that Boehner and his buddies – you know, guys like Dennis Rehberg? – are out there saying need to be extended: If you are married making less than $237,000 a year? Or single, making less than $200,000 a year? You will actually pay less in taxes. So small businesses? Benefit. Middle class? Benefit.
Tax payers? $1.45 billion less in deficit spending.
Yep – that’s right, extending the Bush tax cuts will double the U.S. deficit, while benefiting the very very top of the income earners in the U.S.
~~~~
Today, Joe Biden told Boehner and his buddies what he thought of their economic ideas. You can read it here. It’s a damn good version of take-your-idea-of-economic-stimulation-for-the-rich-and-shove-it.
And Max? If you are out there, paying attention? I hope you read that link above – because if you really want to extend tax cuts to the middle class – and I’m going out on a limb here, but I’m betting a whole lot of us Montanans don’t make more than $250,000 – you’ll take your position as chair of the Finance Committee and quit the nonsense, spread the word, and END THE BUSH TAX CUTS.
Thank you.
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4&20 blackbirds 
August 24, 2010 at 9:24 pm
Regular guy, indeed.
You so easy! Words mean nothing. You must watch what they do. The consensus behind the scenes is not that the tax cuts should stand, but how it is going down.
August 24, 2010 at 10:02 pm
republicans are despicable lying no good negating blatant corporate lapdogs barking in bejeweled collars on the golden leashes of tyrannical tycoons. sure.
and democrats are just a little less worse than that.
that’s why i can agree with one tiny little thing jon boehner said: get rid of obama’s economic team.
of course i’ve been saying that since timmy and larry and the rest of clinton’s reheated neoliberal shit cakes were “picked” by obama in the face of a total global economic collapse.
tax cuts is an interesting snapshot to discuss, but the larger picture is a live action shot of a train heading straight for us.
i’ll say it again, no double-dip recession when the vast majority of americans have yet to stop spiraling down while the market miraculously “recovered” its previous inflated heights (if obama really believed the market bump was anything more than a too small and inefficiently focused stimulus combined with the fed’s respirator “quantitive easing” program, both of which are running out, then he’s not as smart as i hoped he would be)
so it looks like it’s going to be more war abroad and austerity at home and republicans with the house to really fuck shit up while timmy, larry, and the rest of those suckling wall street whores will keep gulping our public lifeblood until pinched off and tossed in the toilet like the parasites they are.
and if biden fell in with them i’d say that’s what he gets for helping to sell americans out for israeli interests every chance he gets.
August 25, 2010 at 7:01 am
So angry, so violent, so profane, damn that rap music!
August 25, 2010 at 11:55 am
if you want to make this an angry rap music generational thing, mr. b, that’s fine by me. the fact is my kids will experience the consequence of your generation’s failure. so yeah, that makes me a little angry.
August 25, 2010 at 8:03 am
THE FACT IS that the National Debt has increased EVERY year since 1958. Clinton just borrowed from the inter-governmental portion of the national debt to create from thin air what appeared to be a surplus. It was just more “VooDoo” economics.
August 25, 2010 at 8:07 am
Better voodo than what youdo?
August 25, 2010 at 9:31 am
“Clinton just borrowed”???
Clinton didn’t do anything but a sign a bill that the republican and conservative dominated Congress passed at the time. Sounds like you got a problem with Newt Gingrich and Trent Lott.
Why don’t you be honest about the republican and conservative roles, particularly under the Bush era, of driving up deficits when in power, only to cry foul when dems do it too?
And if you want to talk voodoo economics, let’s start with reaganomics and trickle down theory, which have dominated the economic scene for 20 of the last 30 years from the white house, and also during the republican congressional control during the latter Clinton years.
You want to talk some facts?
National debt when Bush took office: $5.73t
National debt when Bush left office: $10.7t
Bush presided over an almost 100% increase in the national debt. During Clinton’s tenure, the debt only increased less than 25%.
Crunch on them facts a bit, and see if you can wiggle out of them.
August 26, 2010 at 9:26 am
Yes JC, Bush was a horrible big spending president. Worse than a drunken sailor as the sailor stops spending when he runs out of money. Reagan beats out Bush hands down when it comes to who increased the National Debt by the largest percentage. But the fact remains, as you point out, that the National Debt increased under Clinton as well.
Both the Republicans and the Democrats are guilty and have taken this country down a path from which it cannot return.
Why would I try to wiggle out of any “fact”?
August 26, 2010 at 10:11 am
So if all you are doing is pointing out the obvious, what you going to do about it?
All debt bad? Some debt bad? All dems and republicans bad? Political system bad? Economic system bad? Want a balanced budget amendment?
You took a pot shot at Clinton, whose policies in no way are responsible for our economic situation today. Not that I care if you take pot shots at Clinton. There’s a lot more serious things you could take pot shots at him for, like NAFTA.
So if debt’s your issue, and we have a corrupt political situation, what’s your solution? Elect tea baggers? President Palin gonna save the day?
August 26, 2010 at 10:31 am
repealing of glass-steagall had a tremendous impact on our economic situation today, because it removed the depression-era boundary between commercial banks and investment banks. we don’t get to “too big to fail” without clinton’s deregulation of the financial sector.
August 26, 2010 at 10:40 am
Oh, Clinton (enthusiastically) did his part in all of this.
August 26, 2010 at 12:06 pm
I was referring to Clinton’s policies around the debt, not his policies in general. Guess I didn’t make that clear in my attempts to flesh out mr. drowningindebt.
And yeah, the repeal of Glass-Steagall was a real shitty deal. And a lot of other things Clinton did.
August 26, 2010 at 12:13 pm
The point is that policy proceeds in a straight line, uninterrupted by elections.
August 26, 2010 at 12:20 pm
Then I have the same question for you that I had for drowningindebt: except for stating the obvious, what’s your solution? Whatcha going to do about it?
August 26, 2010 at 2:01 pm
Not sure your comments are addressed to me or if I am butting in.
Anyway, coincidence. Read this:
http://pieceofmind.wordpress.com/2010/08/26/waiting-for-an-alternative-solution/
Then, have at me.
August 26, 2010 at 10:39 pm
Ok, I asked for solutions, and what you wrote was a recitation of your observations (which I mostly concur with).
So you deconstructed our situation, and then as a solution you offer: 1) leave the plutocratic parties; 2) watch shit fall apart; and 3) hope that we become more like europe–with a huge emphasis on hope.
Well, I don’t see much of a solution in any of that. Maybe a strategy, but no solutions. It was all very nihilist, which is the impression I’ve had for a long time with your writings.
When I ask for solutions, it means taking action and doing something, not being a passive observer, a critic.
I’ve written and talked much about how we can create community within a nation that is not dependent upon the status quo, and that will survive even if the country does not–sans major nuclear terrorism, that is.
There are ways to live and begin to plant the seeds of the next incarnation of just and egalitarian society on this continent. And it doesn’t take a nation to fall and some hope to become more like europe to get there.
August 27, 2010 at 6:53 am
The first step in a long journey is to take the first step. My point was exactly that – take the first step! Leave the plutocratic parties. You would not believe how hard it is to get people to see that! But you see it. Now go to work on others. That is progress. It is not nihilism.
August 27, 2010 at 12:06 pm
Debating the relative merits or failures of the two party system, and trying to convince people to leave it behind is not a solution.
If you are going to deconstruct, then you need to offer a reconstruction that is appealing if you want people to follow your path of “taking that fist step” of dumping the two party system.
Nobody is going to follow your suggestion if you can’t articulate where that first step will lead. The blind leading the blind (with much hope) is a poor solution to a problem that has vexed deconstructionists for decades.
August 27, 2010 at 1:27 pm
I think I mentioned in my post that people who don’t think properly are marginalized. Don’t know what else to tell you.
Americans are deeply indoctrinated, and their minds are trained not to think beyond D-R. That’s why I said that convincing them that there is a better way requires “de-programming”, which is not going to happen.
Hence the answer: Collapse.
August 27, 2010 at 3:31 pm
Hence why I have called you a nihilist. Your posts are like the guy standing on the street corner with the sign “The End is Coming.”
Well, if the end is near–and the answer is let it collapse–then why should I bother with doing anything? Might as well indulge in our hedonistic ways as it doesn’t matter anymore.
Which is why you get marginalized. Nobody wants to be told that the end is near, and collapse is the answer: “resistance is futile.”
Denial of the inevitable, and going on one’s merry way is as human as any other darwinian feature of our species.
You might try a different tack… jes sayin’.
August 27, 2010 at 3:46 pm
Am I saying the end is coming? Not hardly. I am saying that this situation cannot be remedied. You are free, as I mentioned to continue your quest of finding your lost keys under that street lamp. I choose to do more productive things, like save money, perhaps move to Costa Rica, and enjoy my life, as much as remains.
American politics cannot be fixed. I’m sorry. Just sayin’.
August 27, 2010 at 4:13 pm
letting our emotions get the best of us is never helpful mark. by your statement that all is lost here, i can only assume that this is from someone who still cares, or he wouldn’t be spending so much time posting comments.
in cases where it is darkest before the dawn it behooves one to care less but do more.
when it is the last of the ninth, two out and four runs down, some sit bitching on the bench and bothering everyone while some grab a bat and at least swing away to get on base and get a rally going.
you are sometimes the world’s most annoying human to those who haven ‘t given up yet.
August 27, 2010 at 4:43 pm
You only need understand the expression “pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the spirit” to understand me.
Yes, I know the cause is futile, that, as Napoleon reminded us, people really don’t want to be free anyway, but I like fighting the fight for its own sake.
I do what I do because I like doing it. I have spent years trying to gain an understanding of how things really work. I get a charge out of seeing it in motion.
Plus, I have a really, really nice life.
August 27, 2010 at 7:09 am
Something else to consider – the nature of power. It is never given to someone. If someone has the power to give you power, then it does not change hands. Power is only taken, often by force. Then those who achieve power step into the shoes of the old guard, and too become corrupt. Ergo, the Soviet Union, the French Revolution … what Europe has was built in the wake of destruction with intent and understanding, much as when our constitution was written. They understood the corrupting nature of power.
Any system that is going to succeed has to be built with an understanding of the nature of power. There are very few instances in history that this has been done except in the wake of collapse.
August 25, 2010 at 3:35 pm
I beg to differ on specifics … the “Clinton” surplus was real, that is, it exceeded the collections on the Social Security Trust Fund – the idea that it had anything to do with Clinton is wrong, as he merely happened to be on office during the dot-com bubble, when capital gains collections soared.
And deficits indeed have been a fact of life since the 1950’s, but were not disproportionate and crazy until Reagan took office. I think that policy was deliberate – the idea was to run up as much debt as possible in order to put the squeeze on domestic programs, while military spending was sacrosanct. Virtually all of our national debt accumulated from 1980 forward.
And one more note, kind of interesting … it is as if GW Bush deliberately set out to destroy the surplus. They knew the tax cuts would create monster debt. But if the government is running a surplus, people start of expect things like infrastructure and better schools and public pensions and health care.
Bush left us with a $1.3 trillion budget deficit in his final year. No accident.
August 25, 2010 at 9:44 am
I can’t think of a better representative for the Dem party than Joe Biden
August 25, 2010 at 10:54 am
Come on Chuck, stand up!
August 25, 2010 at 11:12 am
At least Biden’s human, unlike that other vice president who doesn’t even have a pulse anymore.
Talk about being a zombie unincarnate, Cheney’s truly
living up to, devolving into his Darth Vader alter ego. It won’t be long until he’s just a brain in a beaker.August 27, 2010 at 8:10 pm
This discussion has been very amusing to watch unfold. I understand clearly Mark’s dictum “pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the spirit”. I also understand what he doesn’t seem to. The opposition to our little progressive agenda is angry, stupid, violent, well armed and Republican/ Plutocrat controlled. They are a private fricking army just waiting to be unleashed. Staying with the two-party system isn’t very productive right now. But it lends well to survival. This is written as one who is also well armed, and will be one of the first to fall when Mark’s little Revolt(ing) hits. If’n y’all would forgive me, I’d rather not go that path.
August 27, 2010 at 10:25 pm
You have a way of already knowing things after said … Wisdom after the fact. So tell me, the Democrats gave us Vietnam, Clinton, and are now supposedly a little off their game. But truthfully, since the death of FDR, has it really ever been different except for that brief McGovern era?
August 27, 2010 at 10:47 pm
Duh? That’s generally how one knows things. You expect wisdom before one has information? Are you really that idiotic?
No, Mark. You are being moronic.
August 28, 2010 at 6:47 am
No no no – I mean, someone says something you did not know, and you say you already knew that.
Ad hominem aside, Democrats gave us the Vietnam War, the clubbed the protesters in Chicago like baby seals. When real democratic rule broke out, when people demanded a voice in government (anti-war, women’s movement, civil rights, environmentalists), Democrats called it a “crisis” and formulated the DLC, taking the party back to the right.
History is more than that, of course, but I know some of it. You, not so much?
Oh, wait – you already knew all this!
August 28, 2010 at 7:12 am
By the way, this sort of highlights something that no doubt you already know – the reason that the Democrats are just another right-wing party is that there is no left in the country, period. So it is natural that what few of us there are on the left are not well-understood among Democrats. Since you are right wingers too and don’t know it, lefties confound you.
It is no accident, by the way. It goes all the way back to FDR and a counter-propaganda campaign run by NAM to drive the left out of American politics. It was quite successful – other countries have a vibrant left that is part of the political dialogue and share in power. That’s why they have good health care and pensions and strong unions. None of that is allowed here.
But you cannot conceptualize of a left,apparently. It is beyond your frame of reference, as you were raised in a non-left environment, and so don’t know what it is to have one. And so members of the left seem foreign to you, like we are from Mars.
But you already knew all this.
August 28, 2010 at 7:13 am
“NAM”= National Association of Manufacturers, but you already knew that.
August 28, 2010 at 8:48 am
the problem with the left in this country is that its adherents have fallen victim to american exceptionalism. when the american left willingly allows itself to be severed from movements in other countries, it ceases being relevant. that is why we’ve got this pathetic trope of: biden is better than cheney, so let’s support biden and the democrats because the alternative is just too scary.
i’ve gotten a few new books i’ve been slowly paging through. one is about the greek uprising during the winter of 2008. another one is the poetics of resistance of the zapatista insurgency. resistance is alive and vibrant, just not in this country.
the culmination of resistance occurred in seattle, with the wto protests. the understanding, back then, that globalization was something that needed to be strongly opposed in the streets was critical to resistance. those resistors also understood clinton’s neoliberal complicity and the facilitating role of the democrats in hollowing out this country’s working class and destroying the middle class.
9-11 killed that movement.
i think folks here need to understand no uniquely american resistance will develop in this country. resistance in this country, if it is to ever have any meaningful existence in our post 9-11 world, will have to take cues from other movements in other countries. there is much to learn from how resistance is being fomented in other parts of the world.
and the left can’t be afraid of abandoning the democratic party and going into the political wilderness of third party alternatives.
or we can just keep doing what we’ve done for the last decade: lament over how mean republicans are, and sink all our energy into supporting democrats that use progressive energy, and then discard us once we’ve served our purpose.
August 28, 2010 at 8:58 am
Good insights, Lizard.
I tend to agree with Gore Vidal that the Republic ended in 1947 with the passage of the National Security Act. In true Orwellian fashion, they changed the name of the “War Department” to “Defense” and went into a state of permanent war. They gave us the CIA and NSA and the “Cold War”,invented out of whole cloth. Fear became the primary governing tool.
Today’s Democrats and Republicans are both on the right side of the boat, and it tilts, but to a typical American, the tilt appears to be level.
August 28, 2010 at 9:20 am
yeah, after 1947 this country really ramped up its imperial ambitions because we were perfectly positioned to fill the vacuum left by WWII.
and the goals of empire haven’t really changed much since then.
that’s why obama is bombing yemen, bulking up in columbia, continuing the provocation of “missile defense” in old soviet-bloc countries, and generally trying to maintain and expand our global dominance wherever possible
but our domestic wealth-generating capacity has been destroyed and rebuilt in other more “productive” (read exploitable) locales like china and mexico in order to keep the game going.
politically, we’re stuck in the election cycle absurdity of expedient short-term political compromises and predictable betrayals. and our american exceptionalism keeps the bit players in the charade from acknowledging that we will experience a soviet-style collapse, or japanese lost decade, or another great depression because the ruling class has had the consistent long term goal of dismantling the new deal concessions of half a century ago.
yes, mark, people with our viewpoints are marginalized and ridiculed, but we’ve got to have thick skin in order to maintain our ability to counter the dominant narratives plaguing our national discourse.
August 28, 2010 at 9:57 am
I drink to thick skinnedness! To all men who are men like us! Damned few left!
I like what you write and especially that you are young, as your insights will only get deeper and better yet.