Obama

It seems a huge problem with the "chicken crap" tax deal that Obama brokered is being overlooked by most press.It contains a "temporary" reduction in the SSI payroll tax from 6.2% to 4.2%. It is for one year only and does not get rid of the cap (for those who don't know, you only pay SSI on the first $106K of income. Anything beyond that is not taxed. This is why the claim that Social Security is "in crisis" is a load of hooey: Get rid of the cap and it will be solvent forever.)While this would put about $120B into the economy and into the hands of those who need it most to stimulate the economy (the poor who would immediately spend it on the necessities of living, creating demand and thus jobs), let us not fall for the short term gain.In one year, we will hear the same Republicans whining about this "tax increase" that they are now bitching about regarding their own tax measure that they specifically set to expire after 10 years. The Bush tax cuts were deliberately set to sunset but now they claim that doing so is a "tax increase." Now, they're planning on doing the same thing to Social Security.Note the insidiousness: First, they reduce the money going into SSI and then they plan to demand that this reduction in revenue be made permanent. They've been trying to dismantle SSI ever since it was created. This really would kill it.Fortunately, Democratic opposition to the chicken crap tax bill is in the triple digits in the House and some Senators are also signing on, including Sanders who claims he will fillibuster if required.

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

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Minds are like parachutes. Just because you've lost yours doesn't mean you can use mine.

xongsmith writes:

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I hasten to point out that communism has never been tried

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Bullshit. It's been tried many times from the small scale (Amana, Oneida) to the large scale (Soviet Union, Cuba, China). It does not work. The whine of, "But that's not really communism," is nothing more than the No True Scotsman fallacy.

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

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Minds are like parachutes. Just because you've lost yours doesn't mean you can use mine.

Taz tries the "No True Scotsman" Fallacy.The Soviet Union wasn't developed by farmers.And Oneida understood exactly what they were doing.Neither one is with us anymore. Oneida was founded the same year that Marx published his Manifesto. Now, I am hardly implying that Oneida was based upon Marxism. However, their methodology regarding their economic policies follows closely and it isn't surprising that the same idea comes up in multiple places given the state of society at the time.Amana in the US was about the same time (1850s). They're not with us anymore, either.But all this posturing aside, there is no such thing as "true" economic anything. Life is much too complex for that. That's why the US has a lot of "socialist" aspects to it like the interstate highway system, the fire and police departments, the FCC, etc. The reason that rail transportation was able to do as well as it did is because government stepped in and regulated the physical method of track. Private rail companies would deliberately have different widths for the track which meant that cars could only run on certain tracks and thus using the companies for those tracks meant you couldn't use certain rail lines. By enforcing a standard, rail transportation expanded.If you're going to claim that the countries and societies commonly understood as "communist" aren't "really" so, then you're going to have to say that the US isn't "really" capitalist, either.

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

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Minds are like parachutes. Just because you've lost yours doesn't mean you can use mine.

xongsmith responds to me:

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Actually, as of December 6th, 2010, the United States became a Fascist State.

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Ignoring any questions of the veracity of such a statement, fascism is a governmental policy, not an economic policy. Granted, governmental policies require economic policies, but the two are not the same.This is a big problem in the US where people think that "democracy" and "communism" are opposites when they're not. "Democracy" is a governmental system. "Communism" is an economic system. The Soviet Union was a democracy. It had three branches to its system of government just like the US. However, it had a vastly different way of implementing democracy than we do. Too, the UK is also a democracy, also with three branches to its system of government, but it implements that democracy in a different way.While the slur in the US is to call someone a "communist," the slur in an actual communist country is not to call someone as "democratist" but rather a "capitalist."

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

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Minds are like parachutes. Just because you've lost yours doesn't mean you can use mine.

Taz again tries the "No True Scotsman" fallacy:

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The societies that they tried to impliment communism had neither the human will nor the infrastructure to impliment the theory.

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Because the theory doesn't work. It's not that they didn't implement it correctly. Oneida and Amana nailed it. But they failed because communism is not sustainable.

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Right now, what you're doing is you're pointing out that vacuum cleaners don't work because people in the past tried to use it as water vacuums and failed miserably.

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Incorrect. I'm pointing out that people who implemented communism exactly as Marx described were unable to sustain it. Even with modified versions, it was unsustainable.And if you think I'm referring to "60s communes," you really don't know your American history. You do understand that the "Amana" appliances and "Oneida" silverware you have in your kitchen are the remnants of those colonies, yes? They were self-contained units that managed to survive for a while until they could no longer compete with their neighbors and wound up incorporating and selling off their products to their capitalist neighbors.

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It's like my farmers analogy.

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Except the Soviet Union wasn't established by farmers.

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

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Minds are like parachutes. Just because you've lost yours doesn't mean you can use mine.

crashfrog writes:

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So, in other words, Obama got $810 billion in progressive agenda items

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And in the process brokered a deal to kill Social Security.

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and you collective heads-of-chuckle all agree he's not a liberal.

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With a poison pill like that? If he's not a liberal, then he's incompetent.And it seems my prediction came true: DADT went down and Scott Brown flip-flopped AGAIN and voted no.DADT went down by 3 votes and he was one of the three who said they were going to vote for it before they voted against it.

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

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Minds are like parachutes. Just because you've lost yours doesn't mean you can use mine.

onifre responds to me:

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How can China, Cuba and the Soviet Union be communist if the state owns everything and controls everything?

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Because you're confusing an economic policy with a governmental policy.

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And these aren't communism, they are totalitarianism.

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Those two are not mutually exclusive. Back in the early part of the previous century, runaway capitalism led to totalitarianism in the form of monopoly. When you're paid in scrip, are forced to live on site, and have no way to get out, you are in a totalitarian state.Or the Northern Mariana Islands. They get to slap "Made in the USA" stickers on their garments and, well, the company owns your ass. Very capitalist. Very totalitarian.1930s Germany was a totalitarian state, but they were not communist. Same with Italy. Fascist, but not communist.And, of course, there is no "pure" anything. Life is too complex for that. If China isn't communist, then the US isn't capitalist.

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

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Minds are like parachutes. Just because you've lost yours doesn't mean you can use mine.

Dr Adequate responds to me:

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And in the process brokered a deal to kill Social Security.

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I must have missed that. Could you be more specific?

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In the bill is a "temporary," one-year reduction of the payroll tax for Social Security from 6.2% to 4.2%.You can guarantee that at the end of that "temporary" reduction, which will be as we are going into an election year, the Republicans will be demanding a permanent extension, screaming, "TAX INCREASE ON WORKING FAMILIES!" all the way to the ballot box.Currently, Social Security is not in trouble, but it does need some adjustment to ensure it remains solvent (removing the cap would be the most obvious remedy...you could even reduce the payroll tax if you did that.) But by cutting its funding, you guarantee that it eventually fails.

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Whereas a competent person like you would have done ... what?

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Campaigned on the issue I campaigned on and got me elected in the first place: Expiration of the Bush tax cuts, just like they were designed to do.

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Obama is President. Do you really not understand how impotent that makes him?

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Then what on earth is he doing meeting with Congressional Republicans to hammer out a tax deal? Why is Joe Biden making the rounds of Congressional Democrats trying to get this bill passed?You seem to think that we're all blithering idiots when it comes to how legislation is passed. Yes, only Congress can write a law, but you will notice that the President submits a budget to Congress. For all your yammering about "Have you read the Constitution lately?" it seems you have overlooked something: That's from Article II, Section 3. It's why the President submits a budget to Congress. He can't pass it, but he can certainly go to Congress and lobby to try and get certain things done. There are various Executive positions and perogatives that he is able to point out to Congresscritters in an attempt to get his agenda passed. Have you forgotten why Jeffords left the Republican party? Have you forgotten the snub Bush handed to him?

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So what would you do? The Republicans have a majority in the House, they can filibuster the Senate ... and you have the powers given by the Constitution to the President.

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Your call.

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Like I said: Campaign on the pledges I campaigned on and that got me elected in the first place.What I don't do, which Obama is a master at, is open the negotiations by taking things off the table. The reason why we have the Republican insurance reform (for it is not health care reform and is the very same Republican deal they were clamoring for in the 90s...we must never forget that the Republicans have never met a program they didn't hate if it was suggested by a Democrat...even their own) is because Obama started off by saying he wasn't looking for universal, single-payer. First rule of entering a deal when you know you can't get everything you want is to demand everything you want so that when you get dealed down, you're as close as you possibly can be.Why did Obama start off by saying he was willing to consider a two-year extension? No, you start off by demanding exactly what it was "the American people" voted you in to do: Get rid of the Bush tax cuts. 70% of the population want them to expire. They understand that we need to fund the government or it will default. So why is he starting from a weak position where he's already made a concession rather than starting from a position of strength?Of course, that assume he actually believed in his campaign rhetoric. Big assumption, I know.

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

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Minds are like parachutes. Just because you've lost yours doesn't mean you can use mine.

Taz responds to me:

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If you want to go by what a country labels itself, then clearly China is a republic. It says so right there in their official name.

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What does that have to do with anything? China is a republic. The government is run by elected representatives. That's what the word "republic" means. The fact that they have a vastly different system of managing that republic simply means that there is much more going on.Before the 17th Amendment, the Senate was elected by each state's legislature. That's really removing the election process from the voter, but it is still a republican method because the government is being run by elected representatives rather than through hereditary acsension. Neither we nor China is a monarchy.We cannot conflate economic with governmental policies. They are highly intertwined, yes, as governments have great influence on economic policy, but the common association of certain types of governments with certain types of economics doesn't mean the two are the same.

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As I pointed out earlier, according to theory a state needs to go through several stages before it could reach communism.

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And as I pointed out, there are groups that did.And they failed.There are only so many times you can blame the failure of your country to feed itself on the weather.

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Your claim that communism simply doesn't work because every experiment in the past has failed is like saying it is impossible for anyone to become a successful engineer because so far we've only had illiterate farmers trying to label themselves as engineers.

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The Soviet Union wasn't developed by farmers.Care to spin the merry-go-round again? If you keep responding with the same debunked claims, you're only going to get the same refutations. You need to come up with something new.

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

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Minds are like parachutes. Just because you've lost yours doesn't mean you can use mine.

Taz responds to me:

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No, they didn't.

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Yes, they did.

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Communism was never meant to be implimented in such a small scale.

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No True Scotsman, again.

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For example, did either of those societies go through an industrial revolution? Hell, no.

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Hell, yes! Why do you think there is such a thing as the Amana Radar-Range in the first place? Because they were right there in the industrial revolution and worked to have their product be made efficiently.They did everything that communism requires and they still failed.

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They were living as self sustained community but their system was still capitalist.

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No, their system was communist.

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They had to compete with the massive capitalist system that had them surrounded. ANYthing would fail in such a case.

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Huh? You realize you just destroyed your own argument, yes? If a communist system cannot compete with surrounding capitalist systems, then it is a failed system.On an interesting note: Have you noticed that for all the talk the US has about "spreading democracy," in all the places where we have established governments, we have never actually established the same kind of government we have here in the US? No, we establish parliamentarian forms of government with socialist tendencies.

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I'm not saying the soviet union was established only by farmers, you very dense human-human hybrid.

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And I'm not saying you are, you fool.I'm saying that your metaphor of "incompetent person trying to engage in complicated, technical work" with the "incompetent person" being played by the role of "farmer" and the "complilcated, technical work" being described by the term "engineering" doesn't apply to the Soviet Union.It was not established by incomptents who didn't know what they were doing.

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And yes, I don't care what history or Russia labeled itself before the revolution

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Huh? What does the fact that Russia was a monarchy before the revolution have to do with anything? I know I certainly didn't bring it up.

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

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Minds are like parachutes. Just because you've lost yours doesn't mean you can use mine.

onifre writes:

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But every American wants the same thing, affordable insurance

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Then why have we not switched to universal, single-payer? We have some of the highest insurance rates in the world and we're not getting nearly as much out of it as we could.Personal anecdote, which I know doesn't count as evidence, but it is a data point. I was discussing this with my very conservative relatives and I asked them, point blank: "Are you seriously saying that the reason you're against it is because you don't like that it is called a 'tax' rather than a 'premium'?"That is, I had pointed out that in places like France and the UK, they spend half of what we do and get better outcomes. If they are truly concerned about the cost and quality of health care, why would we not want to leverage economies of scale and get everybody working together? "Taxes!" was their reply. "I don't want to pay any more in taxes!"I pointed out that those new taxes would be paid by the money they're already paying as premiums for their current insurance. When my employer switched from one insurance provider to another, we stopped paying the old provider and started paying the new one. We didn't pay both. So with universal, single-payer, you'd stop paying one provider and start paying another, just like if you switched insurance providers right now. Is the problem really that it's called a "tax" and not a "premium"?So no, they don't really want affordable insurance. What they want is low taxes.

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education for their kids

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Again, no, they don't. It's why funding for schools is always so difficult to come by. It's why people clamor for "vouchers" as if that's going to get your kid into the school you want. A school only has so many seats for students. Not everybody can get in. Somebody has to be left out. So what happens to your kid when you don't get him into the school you want? Are you sure you want to drain the funding from the school he is actually attending because you wanted to play the lottery to see if he'd get into the one you wanted?What they want is a magic system that allows them to plug in their kid and not have to participate in the process of educating their child. The school can meet all the student's needs, the child is always motivated, and there are never any stumbling blocks that require management by the parents.

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and they want jobs.

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Then why have the unions dissolved and all of our manufacturing gone overseas? Why did Welch export GE's jobs to India? Why did we have massive fights over the rebuilding of New Orleans because of the insistence that we follow the law and pay the workers what the going rate was (I forget the specific law, but it basically says that government needs to pay the going wage)? Republicans were livid that we would dare try to do so. Why have cities denied permits to companies that want to open plants in town due to resistance to ensuring that the plant be amenable to unionization?What they want is profit.

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It is stupid to think otherwise.

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No...I'll let that one go. Too easy.

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

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Minds are like parachutes. Just because you've lost yours doesn't mean you can use mine.

Taz responds to me:

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Then according to your argument, capitalism is a failed system also, since most self sustained capitalist systems that have ever existed eventually went bellied up.

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This goes into the point I made before: There is no such thing as a "pure" system. Even countries we would nominally call "socialist" follow capitalist processes for a lot of their economic output. The United States, a shining example of "capitalism," is rife with "socialist" structures.

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How many times do I have to repeat myself?

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Until you start reading the replies. Then you can come up with something new. Until then, you can keep spinning the merry-go-round and you'll keep getting the same refutations of your original claims.

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Russia went straight from little better than a feudal system to communist.

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Right...the Industrial Revolution just passed Moscow right on by. You might have a case for China where agricultural industries were the main until the 60s. But again, we're getting into the issue of no such thing as a "pure" system. While they are quite heavily communist, they have been engaging in some capitalist processes and there is some privatization...though with the new leadership, they have been reverting back to a more regulated system (and reversing their economic gains in the process).

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

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Minds are like parachutes. Just because you've lost yours doesn't mean you can use mine.

Dr Adequate responds to me:

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Yeah, he can recommend things to Congress. So can I, all I need to do is stand on the Hill with a placard.

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It's not really power, is it?

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When you do it, no. After all, what are you gonna do about it if they don't listen to you?The President, on the other hand, has much more power. With a national stage and executive powers under his belt, he can make life unpleasant for members of Congress.Again, have you forgotten about Jeffords?Not to mention the fact that the President has the power of a veto. If Congress tries to send him a bill he doesn't like, if those of his party don't work to try and shape the bills to match his agenda, then those bills won't get turned into law and those Congresscritters will not have talking points to take back home during election time.And then there's the fact that the President is a de facto leader of the party. If the President gets upset with certain folks within the party, support from the party will become harder and harder to find.

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Perhaps I overstate the case, but I don't see how the President can get the legislature to do things they don't want to do without offering them something they want.

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Indeed. What makes you think the President has nothing to offer? That Congress doesn't want anything from him?

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As Winston Churchill sagely remarked, democracy is the worst possible political system except for all the others.

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I haven't said otherwise.

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

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Minds are like parachutes. Just because you've lost yours doesn't mean you can use mine.

crashfrog writes:

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You just can't make money betting against Obama.

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I believe the words you are looing for are "in spite of Obama." DADT certainly wasn't repealed because of what he did. In fact, his efforts went down in flames. It's only because, and I shudder to say this because he's a complete tool...only because of Lieberman that it happened. It's only because Reid was willing to keep the Senate around up to the change of seats in January. They managed to get the House to pass a stand-alone bill. If they hadn't managed to get things done at the very last second, it never would have happened because Boehner would never have allowed it.He got lucky. It didn't pass because of him. It passed in spite of him.

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

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Minds are like parachutes. Just because you've lost yours doesn't mean you can use mine.

crashfrog writes:

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Once again Obama has sidestepped the circular firing squad and done more to advance the liberal program than any living politician as a result of being ready to compromise.

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I'm confused...how, exactly, does one "compromise" on an either/or proposition? Either DADT is repealed or it is not.And speaking of "compromise" and the silliness of insisting upon it, the Virginia legislature was discussing new ethics rules, some of which pertained gifts to the spouses of legislators. A woman then asked that since she was married to her wife but Virginia doesn't recognize it, does that mean these ethics rules don't apply to her?Everyone in the body sat there in stunned silence, unable to respond.Some things in this world are black-and-white and for which there is no physical way to "compromise."

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Rrhain

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Thank you for your submission to Science. Your paper was reviewed by a jury of seventh graders so that they could look for balance and to allow them to make up their own minds. We are sorry to say that they found your paper "bogus," specifically describing the section on the laboratory work "boring." We regret that we will be unable to publish your work at this time.

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Minds are like parachutes. Just because you've lost yours doesn't mean you can use mine.