Lib media: High debt and high taxes are patriotic

[ed1066]

This falls right into my assertion that the left wants and needs Americans to be in debt, unarmed and dependent on the government for everything.

In this article, the idiot asserts that the founding fathers would approve of Obama's drunken sailor spending...what a moron.

www.salon.com/news/debt_ceiling/index.html?story=/politics/war_room/2011/08/01/hogeland_debt_ceiling

[Savoir Faire-Demogague in NJ]

This falls right into my assertion that the left wants and needs Americans to be in debt, unarmed and dependent on the government for everything.


Talking about needless and useless wars. The war on poverty started in the mid-1960s has been an abject failure. This war has made poverty worse and more widespread. Caused inter-generational poverty amongst families.
The war on poverty and associated social programs are merely a means to maintain a constituency.

[djAdvocate]

Aug 2, 2011 12:02:42 GMT -5 Savoir Faire-Demogague in NJ said:

This falls right into my assertion that the left wants and needs Americans to be in debt, unarmed and dependent on the government for everything.


Talking about needless and useless wars. The war on poverty started in the mid-1960s has been an abject failure. This war has made poverty worse and more widespread. Caused inter-generational poverty amongst families.
The war on poverty and associated social programs are merely a means to maintain a constituency.

i hear this a lot. however, since the WOP began, poverty in America has fallen from the 25% prior to the enactment of the Act to 12.5% today. if that is failure, i am wondering what success would look like.

[Angel!]

Aug 2, 2011 12:12:23 GMT -5 djAdvocate said:

Aug 2, 2011 12:02:42 GMT -5 Savoir Faire-Demogague in NJ said:

This falls right into my assertion that the left wants and needs Americans to be in debt, unarmed and dependent on the government for everything.


Talking about needless and useless wars. The war on poverty started in the mid-1960s has been an abject failure. This war has made poverty worse and more widespread. Caused inter-generational poverty amongst families.
The war on poverty and associated social programs are merely a means to maintain a constituency.

i hear this a lot. however, since the WOP began, poverty in America has fallen from the 25% prior to the enactment of the Act to 12.5% today. if that is failure, i am wondering what success would look like.

Stop interjecting facts into this discussion! Facts have no place in a political debate.

[ugonow]

If our founding fathers had to have a balanced budget,we still would be the Queens subjects. They printed fake notes that said backed by silver on them by the boatload,but were in fact backed by nothing but faith.-They had a hard time raising funds until France came along. After the war that was started by a tax on tea,we put a tax on beer to pay for it.----<<<<<"The Constitution did not omit limits on taxes and borrowing because of an oversight. Under the Articles of Confederation, the federal government had been paralyzed because of its inability to raise revenue, and one of the chief purposes of the Constitution was to give the government the fiscal powers it had previously been denied. During the ratification debate, those fiscal powers were at the heart of the Anti-Federalist case against the Constitution—to which [Alexander] Hamilton responded, in “Federalist No. 30,” that limiting those powers would be unwise because there was no telling what demands the government might face in the future." >>>>>>>>>>>>>>

[Savoir Faire-Demogague in NJ]

i hear this a lot. however, since the WOP began, poverty in America has fallen from the 25% prior to the enactment of the Act to 12.5% today. if that is failure, i am wondering what success would look like.


More of the population is receiving govt checks and other govt social programs than ever before.

[djAdvocate]

Aug 2, 2011 14:14:37 GMT -5 Savoir Faire-Demogague in NJ said:

i hear this a lot. however, since the WOP began, poverty in America has fallen from the 25% prior to the enactment of the Act to 12.5% today. if that is failure, i am wondering what success would look like.


More of the population is receiving govt checks and other govt social programs than ever before.

that makes sense, given the fact that we are in the worst downturn since before many of those programs were enacted AND we have an age wave going on.

[mmhmm]

Another factor that's often overlooked is the migration from rural living (like farming communities) to city living, as people sought better opportunities for employment. Those who are not educated, or skilled, end up in poverty because they cannot find work. There are more reasons for poverty than government, and I see it as narrow-sighted to focus on only one area when assessing blame. There's really a lot to be discussed and debated, and there is an excellent opportunity to try to come up with solutions in lieu of blame casting.

[Deleted]

To make his supposedly constitutional argument, Norquist cites the First Amendment on freedom of religion and the Second on the right to keep and bear arms, and then goes on to cite absolutely nothing, in either the articles or the amendments, that so much as hints at a constitutional requirement to balance the federal budget, avoid debt, tax no more than people like Norquist deem appropriate, and keep government small.

Damn those founding fathers, they forgot all kinds of stuff. Let's see what else did they not address:

1. Spitting in government buildings.
2. They did address shooting in Congress as I remember. You have to shoot each other outside.
3. Doing "it" with animals.
4. Gay marriages

In those days certain things were excepted & other things just weren't excepted. They address issues but not every issue. My guess is that they didn't address anything that would have gone against the morals of the time because it was unthinkable that people would do them (or at least get caught doing them). Who knows there just might have also been a few hot potato issues back then that they didn't address on purpose (Right Tom? Like having sex with slaves).

Anybody that builds an argument on what the founding fathers DIDN'T address is usually going to be a fool trying to get support for what they want. You might as well say that the founding fathers were against off shore dilling because they didn't address that either or that they were for the space program because they didn't rule it out.

[ameiko]

Aug 2, 2011 14:26:41 GMT -5 djAdvocate said:

Aug 2, 2011 14:14:37 GMT -5 Savoir Faire-Demogague in NJ said:

i hear this a lot. however, since the WOP began, poverty in America has fallen from the 25% prior to the enactment of the Act to 12.5% today. if that is failure, i am wondering what success would look like.


More of the population is receiving govt checks and other govt social programs than ever before.

that makes sense, given the fact that we are in the worst downturn since before many of those programs were enacted AND we have an age wave going on.

What you are ignoring is that stealing money from one group to give to another is not lifting them out of poverty. You lift YOURSELF out of poverty by earning a wage that does so.

You also ignore that WOP has laid down the seeds for intergenerational poverty among minorities by destroying African American families and encouraging out of wedlock births that will only breed more people on welfare.

Out of curiousity, by what metric are you defining that prior to the WOP there were 25% in poverty and now 12.5% I am truly curious.

[djAdvocate]

Aug 2, 2011 17:55:44 GMT -5 ameiko said:

Aug 2, 2011 14:26:41 GMT -5 djAdvocate said:

that makes sense, given the fact that we are in the worst downturn since before many of those programs were enacted AND we have an age wave going on.

What you are ignoring is that stealing money from one group to give to another is not lifting them out of poverty. You lift YOURSELF out of poverty by earning a wage that does so.

You also ignore that WOP has laid down the seeds for intergenerational poverty among minorities by destroying African American families and encouraging out of wedlock births that will only breed more people on welfare.

Out of curiousity, by what metric are you defining that prior to the WOP there were 25% in poverty and now 12.5% I am truly curious.

are you "gofor" on another board? i am truly curious.

but to answer your question, i am relying on data prior to 1964 which is not especially good. the prevailing poverty rate prior to that time was around 25% (not immediately prior to that time, but in the preceding 1/3 of a century). it is, i believe, 12.9% today.

the WOP was especially successful with seniors. poverty fell from 30% in 1964 to under 10% today. it has NOT BEEN as successful with kids. about 25% were in poverty in 1964, and about 20% are, today. the 18-64 group falls between those numbers both in terms of success and rates.

it would be nice to focus on kids, and get that rate down to the level it is for seniors. but somehow, i am less than hopeful that will happen. despite all of the fake outpouring of caring that adults have over children, the US is the most unsafe of all Western nations for children.

[Don Perignon]

What it is that defines the "neo-con"?
First of all, the over-weening obsession with denigrating "libs".
Scape-goating "Neo-cons" view "libs" much the same way that "National Socialists" viewed "Jews"... as uber-villains who are the source of all the world's ills.
It can be amusing to observe, once one discounts the pathological maliciousness... if one can manage to do so.

[djAdvocate]

Aug 2, 2011 20:10:54 GMT -5 Don Perignon said:

What it is that defines the "neo-con"?
First of all, the over-weening obsession with denigrating "libs".
Scape-goating "Neo-cons" view "libs" much the same way that "National Socialists" viewed "Jews"... as uber-villains who are the source of all the world's ills.
It can be amusing to observe, once one discounts the pathological maliciousness... if one can manage to do so.

it is one thing to take a new term to apply to a new group. it is quite another to take a group that is 350 years old and denigrate them. well, imo anyway.

[formerexpat]

i hear this a lot. however, since the WOP began, poverty in America has fallen from the 25% prior to the enactment of the Act to 12.5% today. if that is failure, i am wondering what success would look like.

Poverty was hovering around 15-17% between the time EOA was enacted in August 1964 and SSA was enacted in July 1965 and had been on a downward trend from the mid 20's in the late 50's. I doubt that either of these had immediate impacts on the poverty rate.

Since, poverty has run in cycles from 12-15%.

There are people that believe the WOP had a negative impact on poverty.

Speaking of failed wars - the war on drugs. $40bn+ strong per year since the early 80's before jail costs. A total failure.

[formerexpat]

the US is the most unsafe of all Western nations for children.

Wow - quite a statement. Can I have the comprehensive list of Western nations that the US is worse than? I just want to determine if you're including Argentina & Brazil in your assessment, two countries with horrible records with child sex trafficking.

Maybe our child labor laws are a detriment to poor families in some cases? In single parent families, children often need to work to help out the family...I know my grandfather did in the 40's and 50's after his father died when he was 7. He ended up owning his own window and door business and retiring a multimillionaire through his hard work.

[chiver78]

Aug 2, 2011 21:11:14 GMT -5 formerexpat said:

the US is the most unsafe of all Western nations for children.

Wow - quite a statement. Can I have the comprehensive list of Western nations that the US is worse than? I just want to determine if you're including Argentina & Brazil in your assessment, two countries with horrible records with child sex trafficking.

or Brazil in their record as a country that routinely spits in the face of international child abduction.

[djAdvocate]

Aug 2, 2011 21:01:06 GMT -5 formerexpat said:

i hear this a lot. however, since the WOP began, poverty in America has fallen from the 25% prior to the enactment of the Act to 12.5% today. if that is failure, i am wondering what success would look like.

Poverty was hovering around 15-17% between the time EOA was enacted in August 1964 and SSA was enacted in July 1965 and had been on a downward trend from the mid 20's in the late 50's. I doubt that either of these had immediate impacts on the poverty rate.

Since, poverty has run in cycles from 12-15%.

There are people that believe the WOP had a negative impact on poverty.

Speaking of failed wars - the war on drugs. $40bn+ strong per year since the early 80's before jail costs. A total failure.

we can agree on the latter.

[djAdvocate]

Aug 2, 2011 21:11:14 GMT -5 formerexpat said:

the US is the most unsafe of all Western nations for children.

Wow - quite a statement. Can I have the comprehensive list of Western nations that the US is worse than? .

if i can find the damn study, sure. it is over a decade old, and it was systematically suppressed in the US media. give me a few minutes.

i can remember a few of the parameters tho: child abuse, gun deaths, suicides, death by automobile, infant mortality, child poverty, drug deaths, morbid obesity......

[djAdvocate]

what do you know? my trusty old clipboard came in handy again. but the story is (18) years old:

1. The U.S. Is Killing Its Young

Sources: DALLAS MORNING NEWS, Date: 9/25/93, Title: "U.N. Says U.S. Dangerous for Children," Author: Gayle Reaves; USA TODAY, Date: 6/16/93, Title: "Report: 12M kids go hungry in USA,"

SYNOPSIS: While politicians and the media play their adult games, the United States has become one of the most dangerous places in the world for young people -- and it is getting worse.

An alarming report issued in mid-September by the United Nations Children's Fund should have been a lead item on the network evening news programs, but wasn't. In fact, according to the Tyndall Report, which monitors the evening network news programs, the report did not even make the top ten list of news subjects on the networks during the period from September 13 to October 1, 1993.

According to the United Nations Children's Fund:

* Nine out of ten young people murdered in industrialized countries are slain in the United States.

* The U.S. homicide rate for young people ages 15 to 24 is five times greater than that of Canada, its nearest competitor.

* The U.S. poverty rate for children is more than double that of any other major industrialized nation.

* Over the past 20 years, while other industrialized nations were bringing children out of poverty, only the United States and Britain slipped backward.

An earlier report by researchers at Tufts University revealed that nearly 12 million children are going hungry in the United States now.

The plight of our children does not appear to be a function of our recent declining economy but rather one of mis-guided priorities. The economic problems that have affected the United States in the last decade have affected much of the rest of the world too. Other countries have used taxes and other government policies to help address the situation; this has not happened in the United States.

Arloc Sherman, a Children's Fund research analyst, noted that children have been hurt by failing economies throughout the world. "What really distinguishes the United States from all these countries is that we started off with less generous benefits, and as we went through the 1980s other nations got more generous," Sherman says, but "we got even less generous."

Journalist Gayle Reaves, who reported on the findings by the Children's Fund, noted, "Unlike every other industrialized nation, the United States has not signed or ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child, a set of principles adopted by the U.N. General Assembly in 1989."

Now that the United States is one of the most dangerous places in the world for young people to live, it would seem that the time has come for the mass media to alert the public to this growing tragedy.

SSU Censored Researcher: Mark Papadopoulos

COMMENTS: An alarming report by the United Nations Children's Fund, released in late September 1993, should have been widely publicized in the mass media. It was a strident warning to the American people that our young people were in mortal danger for their lives. It also revealed how out of step we were with the rest of the industrialized world in the way we treat our youth. And yet, this alarming story was not put on the national agenda by the mass media.

Gayle Reaves, a reporter with the Dallas Morning News, recognized how important the issue was and her story was published on the front page of the Dallas Morning News. But that was an exception. Reaves felt it was important to tell the story since "It probably would benefit the public to understand that the rest of the world does not have the problems with societal, peacetime violence that the United States has. It is important for people to know that we are not the norm, by far."

Ironically, a series of events in late 1993 forced the mass media to put the issue on the national agenda.

In Northern California, Polly Klaas, a 12-year-old girl from Petaluma, was kidnapped and later found murdered; in St. Louis, Missouri, two young girls, Angle Housman, 9, and Cassidy Senter, 10, were abducted at separate times and both found murdered; and in Southern California, the search for a serial child molester, tied to 32 attacks in the suburban San Fernando Valley, continued.

Tragically, America's young people tried to tell the story which the mass media had ignored. The Children's Express, a news program produced by and for young people, held a two-day conference on violence against youth in Washington, DC, in late October.

George Zitnay, president of the National Head Injury Foundation- in Washington, told a panel of Children's Express reporters, aged from 10 to 14, that "In the nation's capital, it is not uncommon for children to attend two or three funerals a week for friends who have been shot. This is a national epidemic."

Even though it is a national epidemic, it took the senseless deaths of Polly Klaas, Angie Housman, and Cassidy Senter, before the news media focused national attention on this tragic problem.

[formerexpat]

Thanks for finding the report. I'm still not sure that you can consider the US the worst in the Western world but if part of your solution to this problem is to immediately kill child predators, let me know where to sign up or how I can help. Clearly the rehabilitation strategy isn't working and someone should have known between the 1st and 32nd victim that this guy wasn't worth saving.

I'd have to look and see the stats more closely to see what the underlying statements are actually saying.

Infant mortality, for example, has been used by many posters, and the WHO as an indication that our healthcare system is sub par to others, without acknowledgement or even understanding in some cases that all countries do not keep the same statistics and the US keeps records at the age of viability. Some other countries don't count statistics pre full term.

Life expectancy is another that people focus on to point to the US and the health care system. Excluding murders & car accidents, hardly indicative of the healthcare system, the US has the highest life expectancy of the industrialized world. And that's before considering the general rule of mortality that Asian > white > black in life expectancy - even in cases of equal income / net worth. It's not fully understood - is it genetic? We just don't know.

I'm unsure what to make of obesity statistics and the responsibility or even fault of the government or a nation. At what point is a person responsible for themselves? That could be part of the problem - a lot of people still consider people in their 20's kids. With a cradle to grave mentality, when is anyone expected to actually grow up?

[weltschmerz]

" Excluding murders & car accidents, hardly indicative of the healthcare system, the US has the highest life expectancy of the industrialized world"

Do you have a link for that?

[weltschmerz]

www.worldlifeexpectancy.com/world-rankings-total-deaths

According to this, the US is in 30th place. And yes, it does count traffic accidents.

[weltschmerz]

That's funny....I searched and searched and NOWHERE does it say that the US has the highest life expectancy on earth. Maybe you have a secret source? From FOX, perhaps? Maybe you heard it from Rush or Glenn?

[formerexpat]

" Excluding murders & car accidents, hardly indicative of the healthcare system, the US has the highest life expectancy of the industrialized world"

Do you have a link for that?

blogs.wsj.com/numbersguy/does-the-us-lead-in-life-expectancy-223/

I can't find the study that I saw but the premise is the same...I'll see if I can find it but am signing off for the night.

According to this, the US is in 30th place. And yes, it does count road accidents.

I don't know, that figure of 78.2 looks awfully close to the overall life expectancy as calculated by the ordinary CSO tables for life insurance. This table isn't adjusted for this type of activity.

Have a good one, DJ.

[BeenThere...DoneThat...]

[weltschmerz]

"I can't find the study that I saw but the premise is the same...I'll see if I can find it "

Oh, please do. A blog can hardly be considered a credible source.

[djAdvocate]

Aug 2, 2011 22:21:35 GMT -5 formerexpat said:

Thanks for finding the report. I'm still not sure that you can consider the US the worst in the Western world but if part of your solution to this problem is to immediately kill child predators, let me know where to sign up or how I can help. Clearly the rehabilitation strategy isn't working and someone should have known between the 1st and 32nd victim that this guy wasn't worth saving.

I'd have to look and see the stats more closely to see what the underlying statements are actually saying.

Infant mortality, for example, has been used by many posters, and the WHO as an indication that our healthcare system is sub par to others, without acknowledgement or even understanding in some cases that all countries do not keep the same statistics and the US keeps records at the age of viability. Some other countries don't count statistics pre full term.

Life expectancy is another that people focus on to point to the US and the health care system. Excluding murders & car accidents, hardly indicative of the healthcare system, the US has the highest life expectancy of the industrialized world. And that's before considering the general rule of mortality that Asian > white > black in life expectancy - even in cases of equal income / net worth. It's not fully understood - is it genetic? We just don't know.

I'm unsure what to make of obesity statistics and the responsibility or even fault of the government or a nation. At what point is a person responsible for themselves? That could be part of the problem - a lot of people still consider people in their 20's kids. With a cradle to grave mentality, when is anyone expected to actually grow up?

fep- what i am interested in for us to stop trumpeting American Exceptionalism and get to work on some of these problems.

it should not be acceptable to ANY American to have roughly twice the rate of child poverty of any other Western nation. nor should it be a matter of national pride that our statistics on child abuse, child homicide, and death by accident for children are far higher than any other developed nation.

the empty boasting must end where the real work starts. if we really care about our country, and want to MAKE it exceptional, i would say we should get started on children's issues. this is NOT just a healthcare issue, imo. we can't explain it away by saying our healthcare system doesn't serve children well. it is more complicated than that. it is a societal issue.

[Deleted]

I'm always for feeding the kids and improving education - I'm a bleeding heart liberal that way. I've seen child abuse first hand and think every child should be planned for, welcomed and nurtured. But comparisons to other Western nations are tricky. We have a far more mixed population and we have children at greater rates. European nations that are experiencing an influx of immigrants who have larger families are now engaging in the same debates we have about social safety nets and how to integrate uneducated, impoverished people with different values into society in a positive way.

Something like a quarter of children in the U.S. are the children of immigrants and they have a far higher poverty rate than children of native born individuals.

[Angel!]

Aug 2, 2011 21:25:38 GMT -5 djAdvocate said:

what do you know? my trusty old clipboard came in handy again. but the story is (18) years old:

1. The U.S. Is Killing Its Young

Sorry, but an 18 yr old article is hardly proof that the US is the most dangerous western nation for kids. Given that 1991-1993 were the peak years of US crime rates & we are now down 30-50% in virtually every crime category, I would say the data is outdated & useless for making such bold statements.

[Deleted]

Raising taxes means that you have to raise taxes AGAIN, to raise money you lose from companies & individuals leaving. (This link supports this post, at least for those with an open mind).

danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2011/08/02/tax-warning-will-barack-obama-do-to-america-what-leftists-already-have-done-to-illinois-and-england-and/

What conservatives have been saying all along will happen when you raise taxes. (this is from President Obama's home state).

It’s becoming a habit around here — another day, another stalwart of financial services in Chicago threatening to leave town. On Thursday, it was the Chicago Board Options Exchange suggesting that higher corporate taxes in Illinois could cause it to take jobs out of state. The CBOE’s warning came a day after CME Group Inc. said the same thing. CME owns the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and the Chicago Board of Trade. The options market, with its headquarters and trading floor at 400 S. La Salle, employs about 580 people, not including traders who use its facilities. A CBOE spokesman said in a statement that “economic realities” could force a move.