Re: Why Republicans Won't Support the Stimulus
Hey, Ohio Mike, liberal mike 532 just proved your point!! GP On Feb 12, 3:14 am, liberal mike532 ! littlemike...@gmail.com wrote: the republicans who voted against this bill are simply un American ! On Feb 11, 10:26 am, plainolamerican plainolameri...@gmail.com wrote: Why Republicans Won't Support the Stimulus --- because it's a take from our future generations and the rich and give to those who squandered their money? no thanks - let'em pay their own debts On Feb 11, 5:20 am, liberal mike532 ! littlemike...@gmail.com wrote: Why Republicans Won't Support the Stimulushttp://www.truthout.org/021009M Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Blog: Why are Senate Republicans (all, that is, except the lonely moderates Collins, Snowe, and Specter) nixing the stimulus package, as House Republicans did? Not because Obama failed to compromise - he gave them the tax breaks they wanted, ncluded a whopper for business. Not because Senate Democrats failed to bend - they agreed to trim more than $100 billion out of a previous version of the bill. Not because Senate Republicans are doctrinally opposed to deficit spending - many of them happily voted for Bush spending and tax cuts that doubled the federal debt. The reason has to do with the timing of the economic recovery.- Hide quoted text - - Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text - - Show quoted text - --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ Thanks for being part of PoliticalForum at Google Groups. For options help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum * Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/ * It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls. * Read the latest breaking news, and more. -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Why Republicans Won't Support the Stimulus
Two hundred Economists signed an ad in the NY Times explaining why the stimulus is a disaster in the making. The group included three winners of the Nobel Prize in Economics, one of them honored for his work in this particular area. I believe the professionals. In part, that is because what they say makes good common sense. They do not see the issue as a close call at all--but a slam dunk all out disaster-- otherwise they would be disagreeing with each other. They call their work the dismal science in part because there is usually such great disagreement! I must admit that I cannot even conceive of a sum of money exceeding 1 trillion dollars (adding 800 billion to the sum earlier committed). But I know this: When they finish printing or issuing the money into the nation's money supply, the first and certain effect is to devalue the dollars in my pocket by a significant amount. I doubt that a more inflationary plan has ever been proposed--perhaps not even in the great depression. The next question is how to pay back the 1+ trillion debt thus created? Socialists argue that the creation of new jobs will lead to the expansion of the gross national product, which in turn will raise tax revenues. Funny, what we know for sure is that tax CUTS lead to increased tax revenue, and this is just the reverse! Here, its a question of counting generations which again I leave to the experts. It is my personal belief that the socialists already know that they are going to be forced to raise taxes to amortize most of this debt-- that is half of the equation tax and spend upon which they have always relied. Conservatives see two categories: Provisions which will impact the economy beginning immediately and out to about two years. In this category are found the funds which are truly needed to make the money supply fluid enough ACCORDING TO THE EXPERTS (I am not an expert). This part of the plan should be approved. But by far the greatest sums are proposed to advance the socialist's dream agenda of controlling and even nationalizing the financial system. producing alternate energy, reforming the school system, the medical system etc, etc. These are not stimulus items at all--but parts of the long term socialist plan for our country. It takes a long time to build wind farms and the like, but the point here is that each of these political areas, such as alternate energy, need to be addressed separately by government---not part of such a Hugo Chavez cafeteria. I conclude that this huge bill is the perfect place to fear the iron law of unintended consequences as well as the concerns voiced here-- it's just far to big to risk. But in the end, we are in for 2 years of socialist domination with the Democrats in full control of both branches (remember--even the filibuster in the Senate is gone now with the defection of three Republicans--and a filibuster cannot defeat legislation anyhow, merely delay it). We shall see in 2 years and then 4 years how the Dems do--the situation has great clarity as nothing of importance can be blamed on the Conservatives or Republicans who are also conservatives. Should be quite a show. GP On Feb 11, 10:26 am, plainolamerican plainolameri...@gmail.com wrote: Why Republicans Won't Support the Stimulus --- because it's a take from our future generations and the rich and give to those who squandered their money? no thanks - let'em pay their own debts On Feb 11, 5:20 am, liberal mike532 ! littlemike...@gmail.com wrote: Why Republicans Won't Support the Stimulushttp://www.truthout.org/021009M Robert Reich, Robert Reich's Blog: Why are Senate Republicans (all, that is, except the lonely moderates Collins, Snowe, and Specter) nixing the stimulus package, as House Republicans did? Not because Obama failed to compromise - he gave them the tax breaks they wanted, ncluded a whopper for business. Not because Senate Democrats failed to bend - they agreed to trim more than $100 billion out of a previous version of the bill. Not because Senate Republicans are doctrinally opposed to deficit spending - many of them happily voted for Bush spending and tax cuts that doubled the federal debt. The reason has to do with the timing of the economic recovery.- Hide quoted text - - Show quoted text - --~--~-~--~~~---~--~~ Thanks for being part of PoliticalForum at Google Groups. For options help see http://groups.google.com/group/PoliticalForum * Visit our other community at http://www.PoliticalForum.com/ * It's active and moderated. Register and vote in our polls. * Read the latest breaking news, and more. -~--~~~~--~~--~--~---
Re: Terror at the border
One must certainly applaud such a complete and well documented threat assesment as this. IMHO there is a simple reason the terrorists have held off until now. Remember, our terrorist enemies, State and non-State, openly cheered for and lobbied for the election of Obama. They would certainly not hurt his chances by an attack during the campaign. Now USA territory is fair game again for the first time since 9-11. Obama has promised only to talk to them, and somehow one doubts this will suffice. GP On Feb 11, 3:50 pm, Travis baconl...@gmail.com wrote: From: *Travis* Date: Wed, Feb 11, 2009 Subject: Terror at the border *Terror at the border* http://goog_1234292860226/ *A new terrorist threat is closer than you think*http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/2008/12/3801379 * BY COL. ROBERT KILLEBREW (RET.)http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/2008/12/3801379 * With American attention diverted to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the economic crisis and a hard-fought national election, national security experts have largely overlooked the bitter countercartel war in Mexico. But that war, which is beginning to overlap the U.S. border, is only the forerunner of an even more serious threat. Sometime in the near future a lethal combination of transnational terrorism and criminal gangs is going to cross the U.S. border in force. According to some, it already has, and we haven't even noticed. Concern about transnational terrorism and organized crime is nothing new. The collapse of the Cold War spurred the growth of international gangs newly freed from state controls and made available on the gray market enormous quantities of arms and arms-related materials. At the same time, revolutionary groups in South and Central America began diversifying from social revolution into the enormously profitable drug trade that serves North America, turning thousands of trained soldiers into drug mercenaries in the services of organizations such as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and others. In Mexico, powerful criminal families began organizing the cartels that today are challenging the Mexican state. At the same time, criminal gangs — the hired guns of the Mexican cartels — began a period of exponential growth, in Latin America and in the U.S. One gang in particular, Mara Salvatrucha, better known as MS-13, is prototypical of the gangs' particularly bloody and widespread growth. MS-13 originated in El Salvador and Los Angeles from demobilized veterans of the Salvadoran civil war. Since the 1980s, MS-13 has spread throughout the U.S. to Washington, D.C., Oregon, Alaska, Arkansas, Texas, California, Nevada, Oklahoma, Michigan, New York, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Canada and elsewhere. MS-13 traffics in any kind of illegal trade, but principally in drugs. It enforces discipline by the crudest tortures, terminating in death by dismemberment for informing or attempting to leave the gang. The second-greatest concentration of MS-13 in the U.S., after Los Angeles, is in the Washington, D.C., area, where a large immigrant youth population provides recruits and a supportive culture. MS-13 is a particular, extremely violent and disciplined international organization, far more deadly than the local gang-bangers who hang around the 7-Eleven flashing their 9mm handguns and worrying parents. CRIMINAL TERRORISM SURGE The present surge in international crime and criminal terrorism — an accurate description — would be mostly a matter for the police and Interpol had it not been for two other phenomena of the late 20th century. The first, of course, is the growth of international terrorism for religious or political purposes with some state sponsors, principally Iran, and, in this case, the growth of Islamic radicalism south of our border. While some religious extremism is clearly nihilistic, much has a political objective — especially terrorism sponsored by Iran, whose foreign policy appears to be an admixture of Islamic fervor and Iranian geopolitical maneuvering. Latin America is not immune to Islamic influence, since there has been a considerable Muslim immigration to that region, particularly since the Lebanese Diaspora began in the last decades of the 20th century. As a result of immigration and proselytizing, Islam has become one of the fastest-growing religions in Latin America; more than 6 million Muslims live in South American cities, many of them dispossessed and subject to radicalization. In specific locales — particularly the tri-border area between Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil around the town of Ciudad del Este, Paraguay — fundraising for Hezbollah, al-Qaida and possibly Hamas takes place amid an environment of drug and arms trafficking, money laundering and other illicit activities. Mario Baizan, a former Argentine presidential adviser, described the town as one of the world's biggest centers for financing of the
