SFO tax protest

[Capt.Slog 0]

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Defense spending is responsible for a considerable portion of the debt, and we spend far more than anyone else.

We spend far more than the next 20 nations combined.

[Amazon 7]

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Defense spending is responsible for a considerable portion of the debt, and we spend far more than anyone else.

We spend far more than the next 20 nations combined.

I think President Eisenhower said some thing about this situation...

[kelpdiver 2]

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Defense spending is responsible for a considerable portion of the debt, and we spend far more than anyone else.

We spend far more than the next 20 nations combined.

That is the claim, though I suspect methods of accounting are in play here. But no doubt that we're spending much more than anyone else.

[BDashe 0]

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>O has every intention of INCREASING taxes on the wealthiest americans,
>what are you implying bill?

That it doesn't matter if he decreases them, and it doesn't matter that Bush decreased them. By your logic it's not a tax cut.

>90% of the world hates us because of the last guy, and we just pissed off the
>somali's again (which is awesome, go SEALs) sooooo we should reduce our
>military?

Yes. If you want to trumpet the cause of reduced spending, have the balls to support reduction of spending even when it's a program you like.

The alternative is a bunch of people saying "REDUCE SPENDING! REDUCE TAXES! RIGHT NOW! except for my favorite programs but other than that REDUCE SPENDING!" Which is what we have right now - and which is why we never reduce spending.

Will that increase our risk? Yes. It's the price you pay. If you don't want to live with the increase in risk, get out your checkbook and have the integrity to pay for what you ask for.

>invest in sectors of itself that are working WELL for the government or the country . . .

If you mean "support the infrastructure projects that work" that's fine. Again, be willing to back that up with your checkbook.

>Obviously, that's what the rallys were for. people thinking logically, not
>with political strategy.

If people were thinking logically, they would not have chosen the anniversary of an event used to protest the fact that they had no representation in government. Instead you had guys with teabags hanging from their glasses bitching that they don't want to pay taxes.

Oh silly billy, where to begin...?

A credit of $400 over 52 weeks is not a tax cut, period. it is a rebate, you're twisting my words into your own logic and labeling it mine. You know very well those are two very different things. it's less than one percent of the income a guy making just $50K per year, and it comes in painfully slow installments. The least you libs can do is admit it is a weak sauce attempt at reaching across the isle. I will admit, yeah, it's better than nothing but it's almost a slap in the face it is so petty, especially when real tax cut expirations are in sight. Also, we still have to figure out how to pay back all this money we just borrowed. There are about 300 million people that need to repay it one way or another.

Of course there are areas in the military that could use some trimming, it's part of the government right? The war being one of the fattier bites. Once that is over we get a huge burden off our backs. My point is, which is also a matter of opinion, you can't be the world super power and cut your military. They are a major reason why we are who we are today. Plus, thousands of advancements in the military make it to every day use! normal military spending helps many sectors of our economy- funds projects from teh private sector, creates jobs, etc. Saving the whales and giving money to crack heads though...

and yes, i am happy to back up our infrastucture projects and services like the mail with my checkbook, those are exactly what i am talking about
The parallel is that the repubs do not have any representation in the government, and we can see a storm of taxes and fees looming on the horizon to pay a trillion dollars back.

EDIT: I know the 'people' voted for this to be so, however the average idiot american was just scared of the recession, and were sold on this intangible solution of hope. Hope is NEVER a solution. He certainly followed through with change, but holy sh*t, nothing like playing roulette with the future of a country.

Checks and balances has effectively been eliminated, and quite frankly, that is scary. We/they'd like to at least have their voices acknowledged and maybe even considered seriously once in a while instead of rushing 1000 page documents through the legal process in a day. Since the few reps we have out in DC are being ignored, they did the only other thing they can do, organize. Libs do it for a freakin living, anti-war, pro green, pro-animal rights etc etc. repubs hate this sh*t, and by sh*t i mean publicly organizing. As one organizer said 'It isn't in our DNA...' the fact that so many were finally motivated enough to try and be heard collectively is extremely surprising.

So there I was...

Making friends and playing nice since 1983

[TomAiello 26]

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Defense spending is responsible for a considerable portion of the debt, and we spend far more than anyone else.

We spend far more than the next 20 nations combined.

I don't believe that's correct.

The military spending of the People's Republic of China is extremely hard to quantify and likely far exceeds official estimates because;

(a) The People's Army owns a large number of industrial enterprises and disentangling their military production and non-military production is virtually impossible (in addition to which their profits are redirected to military spending without any additional "government" spending)

(b) The Chinese Yuan is kept at artificially low levels by the Chinese government, causing an inherent understatement in almost all Chinese accounts (GDP, spending, etc).


I'm not saying we ought to be spending nearly as much as we are on the military (I'd be happy with something like 5% of the current total, but for me that goes for virtually all of our government programs), but I think that we need to be realistic about the facts on the ground, and I don't think that our numbers are actually all that realistic.

-- Tom Aiello

Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com
SnakeRiverBASE.com

[billvon 3,120]

>A credit of $400 over 52 weeks is not a tax cut, period. it is a rebate . . .

So was Bush's mailing of refund checks when he first got into office. But conservatives everywhere celebrated that as a "tax cut." It almost seems like, to conservatives, the logic is simple:

Tax cut under a republican - letting people keep their own hard-earned money

Tax cut under a democrat - not a tax cut at all, it's welfare, it's stealing food from my children's mouths etc.

> I will admit, yeah, it's better than nothing . . .

I agree! It's small but better than nothing.

> Also, we still have to figure out how to pay back all this money we just
>borrowed. There are about 300 million people that need to repay it one way or
>another.

Yes. It is heartening to see republicans discover fiscal responsibility again.

> My point is, which is also a matter of opinion, you can't be the world super
>power and cut your military.

We have done it before and we are still the world's super power, so that's demonstrably false.

>The parallel is that the repubs do not have any representation in the government . . .

?? The republicans can shut down any legislation they don't like. They can propose bills, and if they get enough votes, get it passed into law. People in the US could, in the next election, replace every elected official with a hard-right leaning politician if they so chose.

Claiming that that is anything like 1773 is just plain silly, and makes the "tea party protest" a joke.

[kelpdiver 2]

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Oh silly billy, where to begin...?

No kidding. Bill answered most of it, so I'll just hit a few.

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A credit of $400 over 52 weeks is not a tax cut, period. it is a rebate, you're twisting my words into your own logic and labeling it mine. You know very well those are two very different things.

A rose by any other name. $400 is $400. In 2001, the 'rebate' was a tax cut that was preadvanced in the form of a check. This time, it's not, so if you really think the words matter, this is a tax cut, just a very small one. Everyone is getting a few bucks more, so what can you call it other than a tax cut? The size is irrelevant.

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My point is, which is also a matter of opinion, you can't be the world super power and cut your military.

And the Soviets found that if you keep spending too much on the military, you cease to be a super power. We have to make some change here - either get other people to pay in, or do less. Since we haven't solved our MC/SS problems, in the next decade those programs will finally start running in the red after 3 decades of funding our military spending.

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The parallel is that the repubs do not have any representation in the government, and we can see a storm of taxes and fees looming on the horizon to pay a trillion dollars back.

They had full power during the time they added 5T in debt.

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Libs do it for a freakin living, anti-war, pro green, pro-animal rights etc etc. repubs hate this sh*t, and by sh*t i mean publicly organizing. As one organizer said 'It isn't in our DNA...'

Do you know how pathetic this sounds? Karl Rove never had a program with organizing. Had no problem storming the vote counting offices in Florida 9 years ago.

Sorry, this is horseshit. The GOP historically has been better at organization and cohesiveness than the Democrats.

[BDashe 0]

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>A credit of $400 over 52 weeks is not a tax cut, period. it is a rebate . . .

So was Bush's mailing of refund checks when he first got into office. But conservatives everywhere celebrated that as a "tax cut." It almost seems like, to conservatives, the logic is simple:

Tax cut under a republican - letting people keep their own hard-earned money

Tax cut under a democrat - not a tax cut at all, it's welfare, it's stealing food from my children's mouths etc.

reply]

this is the only section between you and kelp worth acknowledging since you do an extremely great job of editing what I write to fit your agenda(s).

Bush's rebate was a rebate, and it was never labeled anything but a rebate because what it was...wait for it... was a rebate! weird how that works, isnt it? it was a sad and desperate attempt at a quick boost to the economy that we all knew would do nothing. I thought that it was ridiculous, but f*ck, I'll take free money just like every other @$$hole in this country. We shouldn't have done it in the first place, but if it is happening and i can't stop it, I'll take it. us righties want to stop "it" before "it" ever happens, the current case is trying to find a way to payback about 600 billion in uneccesary "it" spending we couldn't stop.

Back to the Bush rebate, all it did was put a drop of water in the empty pool of debt that the idiot american had gotten themselves into with real estate and credit cards... I did my duty and bought close 2 hours of tunnel time though!
ha ha, actually one more thing- kelp, nice notation of rove organizing something like a f*ckin decade ago. plus I'm referring to a national civilian movement, you can't deny there are way more lib rallys and demonstrations than righties.

So there I was...

Making friends and playing nice since 1983

[penniless 0]

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>A credit of $400 over 52 weeks is not a tax cut, period. it is a rebate . . .

So was Bush's mailing of refund checks when he first got into office. But conservatives everywhere celebrated that as a "tax cut." It almost seems like, to conservatives, the logic is simple:

Tax cut under a republican - letting people keep their own hard-earned money

Tax cut under a democrat - not a tax cut at all, it's welfare, it's stealing food from my children's mouths etc.

reply]

this is the only section between you and kelp worth acknowledging since you do an extremely great job of editing what I write to fit your agenda(s).

Bush's rebate was a rebate, and it was never labeled anything but a rebate because what it was...wait for it... was a rebate! weird how that works, isnt it? it was a sad and desperate attempt at a quick boost to the economy that we all knew would do nothing. I thought that it was ridiculous, but f*ck, I'll take free money just like every other @$$hole in this country. We shouldn't have done it in the first place, but if it is happening and i can't stop it, I'll take it. us righties want to stop "it" before "it" ever happens, the current case is trying to find a way to payback about 600 billion in uneccesary "it" spending we couldn't stop.

Back to the Bush rebate, all it did was put a drop of water in the empty pool of debt that the idiot american had gotten themselves into with real estate and credit cards... I did my duty and bought close 2 hours of tunnel time though!
ha ha, actually one more thing- kelp, nice notation of rove organizing something like a f*ckin decade ago. plus I'm referring to a national civilian movement, you can't deny there are way more lib rallys and demonstrations than righties.

Interesting semantic contortions you go through in a vain attempt to prove Billvon wrong.

[billvon 3,120]

>Bush however, DID grace us all with some REAL tax cuts and labeled
>them correctly too.

They weren't "real." They were just a pathetic attempt to curry favor with his richest supporters while ballooning the deficit by over 1 trillion dollars - more than this bailout has cost us. But hey, don't let numbers get in your way!

(The above was using your logic, of course.)

[kelpdiver 2]

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Bush's rebate was a rebate, and it was never labeled anything but a rebate because what it was...wait for it... was a rebate! weird how that works, isnt it?

No, what's weird is that it really was a tax cut.

The tax rate on the first $6000 (12000 for couples) in income was reduced from 15 to 10%.

Part of those tax cuts was a reduction in rates, including a drop from 15 percent to 10 percent on the first $6,000 of income for singles and $12,000 for married taxpayers filing jointly. The checks were an advance on that cut. If the Feds didn't mail it out, everyone would have gotten instead the following tax season.

[LyraM45 0]

I'm so confused in all of this... where were these republicans and their demonstrations against unnecessary gov't spending when Bush was in office??? They act like it just started happening when Obama took office!

Apologies for the spelling (and grammar).... I got a B.S, not a B.A. :)

[Coreece 190]

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where were these republicans and their demonstrations against unnecessary gov't spending when Bush was in office???

Probably at work...

Your secrets are the true reflection of who you really are...

[Amazon 7]

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I'm so confused in all of this... where were these republicans and their demonstrations against unnecessary gov't spending when Bush was in office??? They act like it just started happening when Obama took office!

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA


Ok that is some funny shit right there.... I don't care who you are.....

Like that would happen...



BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

[BDashe 0]

Ummm maybe you guys missed the thread topic on top of every post? protesting new taxes undoubtedly on their way? taxes? not spending...taxes?

Every politician is going to have unnecessary spending, palin has plenty of incomplete projects to brag about. It'd be nice to see some restraint though. a TRILLION dollars in ADDITIONAL spending? holy f*ck! it is such a large figure it seems no one really cares since it is so incomprehensible. O may as well have made the white house dog a unicorn, everyone would have written it off the same way since it isnt real to anyone.

but anyway, back ON topic, we had no taxes to really get p*ssed about while bush was around since they were steadily coming down.

So there I was...

Making friends and playing nice since 1983

[Amazon 7]

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Ummm maybe you guys missed the thread topic on top of every post? protesting new taxes undoubtedly on their way? taxes? not spending...taxes?

Every politician is going to have unnecessary spending, palin has plenty of incomplete projects to brag about. It'd be nice to see some restraint though. a TRILLION dollars in ADDITIONAL spending? holy f*ck! it is such a large figure it seems no one really cares since it is so incomprehensible. O may as well have made the white house dog a unicorn, everyone would have written it off the same way since it isnt real to anyone.

but anyway, back ON topic, we had no taxes to really get p*ssed about while bush was around since they were steadily coming down.

How much of the DEFICIT has built up since 1981 under repubican administrations???... cutting taxes.... without cutting the sacred cows of all those conservative's..


Hint.. the deficit at the time of Carter leaving office... was 900 BILLION... not trillion.

Georgesdaddy called it in the 1980 primaries.. VOODOO Economics....

It is going to take a LOT of work to get rid of all that trickle

[jcd11235 0]

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we had no taxes to really get p*ssed about while bush was around since they were steadily coming down.

All while spending increased.

Clinton left office after steering the nation to and along a path of fiscal responsibility. Apparently his successor did not see the value of a responsible fiscal policy.

Oh wait; I'm sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt a perfectly good rant about taxes with a dose of reality. Feel free to retreat back to the fantasy world in which trickle down economics actually works.

Math tutoring available. Only $6! per hour! First lesson: Factorials!

[TomAiello 26]

Honestly, I think the thing that the Republicans are mostly angry about is that Obama has adopted a time honored (or at least honored since the early 1980's) republican tactic of "borrow and spend." And he's done it in a huge way, far outdoing them at their own game.


In the choice between "tax and spend" and "borrow and spend", I'd like to go with "don't spend" please.


Also, I think that anyone who thinks these protests were just about current taxes wasn't paying attention. In my local newspaper there were several photos of protest signs, and _every_ one of them referred to debt, not taxes. There was one shot of 3 children holding signs indicating their ages and the amount that they owed.

-- Tom Aiello

Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com
SnakeRiverBASE.com

[BDashe 0]

and you can live in your socialist delusion where big brother declares 'all is good.' Enjoy your Victory cigarettes.

Tom- right on the money, they were about foreseeable taxes.

So there I was...

Making friends and playing nice since 1983

[Coreece 190]

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There was one shot of 3 children holding signs indicating their ages and the amount that they owed.

No worries...they'll be able to get the best education, ride super fast trains to their great paying job or finally be able to utilize a flying car....oh and don't forget lower electricity bills and the cost saving benefits of healthcare for the peasants....

Your secrets are the true reflection of who you really are...

[BillyVance 35]

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Clinton left office after steering the nation to and along a path of fiscal responsibility. Apparently his successor did not see the value of a responsible fiscal policy.

Sounds about right to me. Of course, gotta remember that Bush Sr and Bush Jr started wars that we're still paying for, while Clinton didn't, AFAIK. I wonder just how much we would have been taxed if the cost of the wars were passed directly to us to balance the budget.

"Mediocre people don't like high achievers, and high achievers don't like mediocre people." - SIX TIME National Champion coach Nick Saban

[TomAiello 26]

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I wonder just how much we would have been taxed if the cost of the wars were passed directly to us to balance the budget.

Honestly, I think it should be. I think that the problem with "borrow and spend" is that people don't have to face the real pain of their spending. If a war is truly worth fighting, it's worth paying for. If the public supports it, they ought to feel how much it costs when they make that decision.

Same goes for all spending, really.

-- Tom Aiello

Tom@SnakeRiverBASE.com
SnakeRiverBASE.com

[ChasingBlueSky 0]

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Ya, they sure do look like a bunch of lunatic with a stupid message dont they

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/04/15/anti-tax-tea-party-protests-expected/

Actually, for the most part they did. The best part were the idiots in DC that decided to throw a box of teabags over the fence at the White House. Needless to say the SS wasn't amused and moved everyone into the park. The idiots started to complain that Obama was censoring them. Also, there needs to be a spell checker made for posters at these things. It doesn't help when you look like an uneducated mass.

From what I can tell, the turnout was good in maybe three cities. Considering this was created and sponsored by what many claim to be the most popular voice of the country, I'd say it was a failure.

It seems the GOP have realized this as well, other events from the past week:

*Bernard Goldberg breaks bad on Hannity and tells him he is worse than the Liberals were against Bush. This happened live on Fox.

*The GOP are concerned the Tea Parties may have polarized a certain population of their voters and exposed them to more Libertarian viewpoints. Because of this they feel that this will cause them to lose more votes in the next two elections.

*Congressman Tiahrt(R) has come out and said Rush doesn't represent the GOP and he is only an entertainer.

*"If you put public policy issues to a religious test, you risk becoming a religious party," Schmidt declared. "And in a free country, a political party cannot be viable in the long term if it is seen as a sectarian party." -- Steve Schmidt, McCain campaign manager addressing the Log Cabin Republican convention this week. He went into how polarizing topics like Gay Marriage and making a platform based off religious standards will cause the party to die. He also feels that without a major disaster against this country is mishandled by Obama that the GOP cannot defeat him next time.

*Michelle Bachman's numbers are dropping drastically and her seat is now considered to be up in the air or strongly leading towards the Dem in the next election.

*75% of Texans and the Texas Senate tell Gov Rick Perry he is nuts about succession and the stimulus.

This is what happens when your national narrative is one of fear and hyperbole. The GOP is screwed and will lose any relevancy in the next election unless they get back on track. I want a multiple party system in place so I hope they wise up.

_________________________________________
you can burn the land and boil the sea, but you can't take the sky from me....
I WILL fly again.....

[kelpdiver 2]

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*"If you put public policy issues to a religious test, you risk becoming a religious party," Schmidt declared. "And in a free country, a political party cannot be viable in the long term if it is seen as a sectarian party." -- Steve Schmidt, McCain campaign manager addressing the Log Cabin Republican convention this week. He went into how polarizing topics like Gay Marriage and making a platform based off religious standards will cause the party to die. He also feels that without a major disaster against this country is mishandled by Obama that the GOP cannot defeat him next time.

Indeed - the GOP should try to measure how many voters it gained that it didn't already have in its ongoing wars against abortion (more 80s/90s) and gay marriage. Then compare to how many it lost.

The Democrats did this analysis with gun control and that's why we don't see another AWB on the agenda still.

[rushmc 23]

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I'm so confused in all of this... where were these republicans and their demonstrations against unnecessary gov't spending when Bush was in office??? They act like it just started happening when Obama took office!

Well, I bitched about it. I wrote Harkin and Grassley.

But I guess more got involved because of the current numbers

"America will never be destroyed from the outside,
if we falter and lose our freedoms,
it will be because we destroyed ourselves."
Abraham Lincoln