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O.K., tea-bag memers: time to stop getting your history wrong and make some real change. Let's see a real Tea Party, a formal political machine to placce candidates on the ballot to run against Dems and the GOP.
Target #1: Senator John Thune. Robbinsdale Radical, Northern Valley Beacon, and South Dakota Watch are having merciless fun highlighting Senator John Thune's flip-flop on stimulus. First Thune seeks political points by calling it pork; then he seeks political points by criticizing the President for not sending that pork to Sioux Falls for dikes. Republican Thune is singing from exactly the same big-government hymnal as Democrats Tim Johnson and Stephanie Herseth Sandlin.
So, teabaggers, let's see you put your money where your tricorners and wigs are. Drop the RINO rhetoric; let the Republicans have the name. You don't want it. Organize a third party. Put someone on the ballot to run against Senator Thune and whomever the Dems field. Pick Steve Sibson to take your principles to Washington. I say this with all sincerity: Seeing Steve Sibson go toe-to-toe with John Thune on stage at DakotaFest, the State Fair, and SDPB would be a fascinating and instructive exercise in political philosophy. It would prove to me what the teabaggers have so frequently, desperately and unsuccessfully tried to prove: that the Tea Parties are something more than mostly cranky Republicans blowing smoke.
Run against the Dem incumbents as well. Run Allen Unruh to unseat SHS in the House. Or run Leslee—she's boning up on leadership; have her put those words into practice on the campaign trail. (She's always been campaigning for herself anyway: might as well give her the chance to do it for real for once.)
If the teabaggers have a coherent message and a vision for the country, let's see them put those views into real action. Neither the Dems nor the GOP will sing your tune. So form a party. Run candidates. Win elections. That's the game that matters. Let's see if you're ready to play.
Sioux Falls is hostile towards bicyclists and peds
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After riding E-Bike for 4 years I decided this year I would try to ride
almost everyday this winter, not quite but I am averaging 6 days a week so
far. Stu...
23 hours ago
Comrade Cory:
ReplyDeleteWho really cares about SD politics right now?
The legislature is out of session. We are safe for another few months from their stupidity.
Here's an idea: make the governor submit a long term budget to the legislature so they have a plan instead of yearly chaos.
I'd love to form a third party - both of the others are big spenders etc right now. Would never have a chance of winning though and would only hurt what we protestors want to accomplish by assuring the Dems win again next time around.
ReplyDeleteThe Republican is by far the lesser of the two evils. And I see you like to use the derogatory term for tea party participants as well. Just shows you are losing the argument, and you as a debator should know that.
The blogs you cited are all left-leaning blogs so of course they are going after Thune as he is Republican and doesn't even have an opponent yet. Is everyone scared to run against him and you just stoop to innuendo etc?
Johnson and Herseth are the rubber stamps for the bloated gov't spending this time around, and you can't deny that. Thune is offering amendments to try and at least stem the blood-letting. Herseth and Johnson are saying "where do I sign?"
Cory, Yes, how lame. Do you really want to start pointing out "Flip Flops". I believe Stephanie Herseth Sandlin endorsed John Edwards until he "Flip Flopped" on his wife then Stephanie "Flip Flopped" to Obama. I believe Stephanie Herseth Sandlin was one of the original "Blue Dogs" until Obama decided to start some serious spending then SHS pulled out the check book to help Obama with his "Flip Flop" to spend within our means or pay as we go. I'm still laughing how the hypnotized masses are excited about spending a "Trillion" dollars. With all of Obamas hand shakes has terrorism decreased in Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan? Nope. Does the medial point this out? Nope. I'm pretty sure "Flip Flopping" is not just a GOP thing. Its just the Liberal medial forgets to bring it to the forefront, because they are in awe of the "Chosen One". Further, I wish you would learn how to utilize the meaning of Worldview correctly. When you decide to buy into Worldviews you will always be disappointed. I think that is why you are always disappointed. You need to figure out how to put your faith in the "Truth". Any other view than the "Truth" is a Worldview.
ReplyDeleteFACT CHECK: Obama's Job Creation, Deficit Claims Questionable
ReplyDeletePresident Obama turned the page on 100 days in office with an iffy boast about job creation and claims of fiscal prudence that are hard to square with his spending.
AP
Thursday, April 30, 2009
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powered by BaynoteWASHINGTON -- President Obama turned the page on 100 days in office with an iffy boast about job creation and claims of fiscal prudence that are hard to square with his spending.
Obama spoke with abundant confidence about his chances for achieving the big-ticket items on his agenda despite economic calamity:
-- His assertion that his proposed budget "will cut the deficit in half by the end of my first term" is an eyeball-roller for many economists, given the uncharted terrain of trillion-dollar deficits the government is negotiating.
-- He promised vast savings from increased spending on preventive health care in the face of doubts that such an effort, however laudable it might be for public welfare, can pay for itself, let alone yield huge savings.
-- He pitched a remedy for Social Security's long-term crisis that analysts say won't fix half the problem.
Obama held a prime-time news conference Wednesday and addressed citizens at an Arnold, Mo., high school, using both events to review progress at the 100-day mark and look ahead.
A look at some of his claims:
OBAMA: "We began by passing a Recovery Act that has already saved or created over 150,000 jobs." -- from news conference.
THE FACTS: This assertion is dubious on several levels. For starters, the U.S. has lost more than 1.2 million jobs since Obama took office, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Even if Obama's stimulus bill saved or created as many jobs as he says, that number is dwarfed by the number of recent job losses.
But Obama's number is murky, at best. The White House has not yet announced how it intends to count jobs created by the stimulus bill. Obama's number is based on a job-counting formula that his economists have developed but have not made public. Until that formula is announced --probably in the coming week or so -- there's no way to assess its accuracy.
Whatever the formula, economists who study job creation say it will require some creative math. That's because Obama has lumped "jobs saved" in with "jobs created." Even economists for organizations that stand to benefit from the stimulus concede it probably is impossible to estimate saved jobs because that would require calculating a hypothetical: how many people would have lost their jobs without the stimulus.
___
OBAMA: "We must lay a new foundation for growth, a foundation that will strengthen our economy and help us compete in the 21st century. And that's exactly what this budget begins to do. It contains new investments in education that will equip our workers with the right skills and training; new investments in renewable energy that will create millions of jobs and new industries; new investments in health care that will cut costs for families and businesses, and new savings that will bring down our deficit." -- news conference.
"I've personally asked the leadership in Congress to pass into law rules that follow the simple principle: You pay for what you spend, so that government acts the same way any responsible family does." -- in Missouri.
THE FACTS: While the budget does set a roadmap for achieving the president's goals, it says nothing about how to pay for his health plan, expected to cost more than $1 trillion over the next 10 years. And while the deficit, under the plan, would drop to $523 billion in 2014, it achieves it with unrealistic assumptions, such as projections that spending in Iraq and Afghanistan will amount to only $50 billion a year.
___
OBAMA: "Number one, we inherited a $1.3 trillion deficit....That wasn't me." -- in Missouri.
THE FACTS:
Congress, under Democratic control in 2007 and 2008, held the purse strings that led to the deficit Obama inherited. A Republican president, George W. Bush, had a role too: He signed the legislation.
Obama supported the emergency financial bailout package in Bush's final months -- a package Democratic leaders wanted to make bigger.
To be sure, Obama opposed the Iraq war, a drain on federal coffers for six years before he became president. But with one major exception, he voted in support of Iraq war spending.
The nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget has estimated Obama's policy proposals would add a net $428 billion to the deficit over four years, even accounting for his spending reduction goals. Now, the deficit is nearly quadrupling to $1.75 trillion.
___
OBAMA: "I think one basic principle that we know is that the more we do on the (disease) prevention side, the more we can obtain serious savings down the road. ... If we're making those investments, we will save huge amounts of money in the long term." -- in Missouri.
THE FACTS: It sounds believable that preventing illness should be cheaper than treating it, and indeed that's the case with steps like preventing smoking and improving diet and exercise. But during the 2008 campaign, when Obama and other presidential candidates were touting a focus on preventive care, the New England Journal of Medicine cautioned that "sweeping statements about the cost-saving potential of prevention, however, are overreaching." It said that "although some preventive measures do save money, the vast majority reviewed in the health economics literature do not."
And a study released in December by the Congressional Budget Office found that increasing preventive care "could improve people's health but would probably generate either modest reductions in the overall costs of health care or increases in such spending within a 10-year budgetary time frame."
___
OBAMA: "You could cut (Social Security) benefits. You could raise the tax on everybody so everybody's payroll tax goes up a little bit. Or you can do what I think is probably the best solution, which is you can raise the cap on the payroll tax." -- in Missouri.
THE FACTS: Obama's proposal would reduce the Social Security trust fund's deficit by less than half, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center.
That means he would still have to cut benefits, raise the payroll tax rate, raise the retirement age or some combination of these measures to deal with the program's long-term imbalance.
Workers currently pay 6.2 percent and their employers pay an equal rate -- for a total of 12.4 percent -- on annual wages of up to $106,800, after which no more payroll tax is collected.
Obama wants workers making more than $250,000 to pay payroll tax on their income over that amount. That would still protect workers making under $250,000 from an additional burden. But it would raise much less money than removing the cap completely.
___
OBAMA: "My hope is that working in a bipartisan fashion we are going to be able to get a health care reform bill on my desk before the end of the year that we'll start seeing in the kinds of investments that will make everybody healthier." -- in Missouri.
THE FACTS: Obama has indeed expressed hope for a health care plan that has support from Democrats and Republicans. But his Democratic allies in Congress have just made that harder. The Democratic budget plan that Congress passed Wednesday gives Democrats the option of denying Republicans the normal right to block health care with a Senate filibuster. The filibuster tactic requires 60 votes to overcome, making it the GOP's main weapon to ensure a bipartisan outcome. The rules set by the budget mean that majority Democrats could potentially pass health care legislation without any Republican votes, sacrificing bipartisanship to achieve their goals.
Anon is so busy spamming us with her/his/its daily unoriginal anti-O meme-spreading (can't you just use e-mail for your spam like everyone else, Anon?) that she/he/it fails to notice I didn't even mention Obama in this post. I know Anon won't vote for Obama next time, and that's fine. What I really want to know is whether Anon will show some moxie and vote against Thune and the GOP as well. Third party, Anon? Put up or shut up.
ReplyDeleteSuch a forceful statement from such a "Big Boy". You utilize your wife "Erin" for defense and I'm sure if you could Rachel Maddow would be there to take the heat for you. Now there is a fine individual.
ReplyDelete[1. Where did I mention Erin in this post?]
ReplyDelete[2. Why do you put her name in quote marks? Erin is a real person, and we don't feel the need to hide behind false names or anonymity.]
1. With attitudes like Anon, the tea parties will never become anythign more practical or powerful than name-calling. Oh well.
"Such a forceful statement from such a "Big Boy". You utilize your wife "Erin" for defense and I'm sure if you could Rachel Maddow would be there to take the heat for you. Now there is a fine individual."
ReplyDeleteSuch forceful statements from someone who hides behind anonymity. Clearly you don't know Cory; if you did, you would know that I'm a real person (see that hyperlink on my name below this? Click on it. It'll take you to my blog. The one written by me, a real person, which you can verify for yourself by contacting me). I write my own comments on Cory's blog when I want to.
Next time stick to the actual argument and set the lame personal attacks aside.
Oops, I meant the hyperlink above this comment.
ReplyDelete