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Are you saying it's democrats that are responsible for not just agreeing to whatever the hell trump wants? They would get nothing in return. That's not how congress works.

Except it is. Obama threatened to shut down the govt no fewer than 3 times (one of which actually took place) to get "whatever the hell" he wanted.
The first time was in 2011 when he pretty much wouldn't reduce spending: https://abcnews.go.com/Politic...
The second time was in 2013 on ACA: https://www.politifact.com/fac...
The third time was in 2015 on spending again: http://www.freedomworks.org/co...

So it is how Congress works, in these days of no-compromise.

translation of 2nd sentence:

Small companies innovate and serve the customer. When they are successful and grow past a certain size, they try to use their wealth to buy influence and use government to stifle competition.

Large companies can handle onerous regulations better than small companies, so onerous regulation is a competitive advantage.

Here's the first google result for: large companies don't suffer from regulation

http://www.freedomworks.org/content/big-corporations-and-big-government-go-hand-hand

Explain how a Jr, Senator of the minority party caused a shut-down.

In this case, the procedural process called unanimous consent. Not to mention their own words and testimony. THEY CLAIMED THEY WANTED TO DO IT. And then they did it.

Perhaps you fell asleep?

Answer he didn't, neither did Utah's Mike Lee. In fact the actual blame for the shut-down if it can be assigned to any one person would be to Sen Harry Reid (D), the Senate Majority leader at the time.

Nope! He wanted to pass a bill to continue spending. But not the reckless, insane, moronic, House version.

And they wouldn't back down.

He refused to let any house budget bill he didn't like even be debated. Yes the House's first budget, demanding total recall of the ACA was too extreme. But that's negotiating, you start out asking for everything knowing that you'll compromise.

Nope, that's insanity. You start out with an extreme position, you put the other person in a position where they think less of you, since you're so outrageous. Then when they say no, and you redouble your efforts, as the House, actually did, twice, you convince them that you're further beyond the pale.

Real negotiations recognize the perils of such demands as you make, as you convince the other side that you are crazy.

The House then did compromise, passing multiple replacement budgets gradually diminishing their demands, Reid refused to let any of them be debated let alone voted on. He forced the shutdown and maintained it until the house leadership caved in.

Nope. The House multiple times, kept adding back in their demands, and even increased them. The Republicans in the House, even REFUSED to let anyone other than the Majority Leader in the House, Eric Canton(or someone Cantor said was his designee), offer a compromise. They changed the rules specifically to prevent any other group from coming together.

Cruz and Lee had NOTHING to do with any of that process. They had zero say in any of the Budget bills passed by the House, and zero say in what Reid let onto the floor of the Senate for debate.

Well, that means you're calling Cruz and Lee liars. Which I admit, they are, but they did claim they were responsible for the shut-down, that it was their purpose and intent. They weren't lying about that.

They put it in writing.

And they weren't the only ones.

Sorry, but the GOP picked up the Shutdown gun, and waved it, in their attempts to force their demands on the rest of us.

Guess who the real cancer on efficiency is. it's not the Republicans.

Sorry, but your completely "alternative" facts, doesn't pass the whiff test.

Shutdowns are Cruz's bread and butter. Yet he avoids responsibility

I get it though, the GOP doesn't want to admit to its own faults, so you try to blame anybody else. You did it for Trumpcare. You did it for the Iraq Withdrawal. You did it for Newt Gingrich's adultery.

Look, I get it, you're used to tweeting whatever you want, and nobody questioning it, but just like the Muslim Ban, what you say matters, and not everybody has the attention span of a goldfish.

Perhaps because removing Obamacare requirements and cutting taxes IS a jobs bill. After all, regulations stifle economic growth, especially in the jobs-growth engine that is small business. And taxes on corporate and personal income negatively impact economic growth, meaning they too restricts jobs growth.

If there is no gag order, how do you explain the fact that the draft hasn't been released? They only have printed copies and the convert to PDF function isn't working?

Spend a million dollars, and astroturf the meme "evil republican congress people are trying to influence you with memes".

Back in reality-world:

http://www.freedomworks.org/co...‘one-nation’-just-liberal-astroturfing

http://mashable.com/2008/08/08...

http://lonelyconservative.com/...

http://dailycaller.com/2013/02...

In October 2009 the Democrats who were then running congress by a huge majority changed the locks on the capitol hill meeting rooms so they could keep Republicans out when they wanted to. (they did this to stop Republicans exposing the involvement of Democrats in the 2008 home loan meltdown activity at Countrywide, but they then used those locked rooms to exclude Republicans from the secret healthcare reform negotiations which Obama had promised would air in their entirety live on C-SPAN)

Obama did, indeed, promise Obamacare negotiations would air live on C-SPAN before he broke his promise, and journalists from across the political spectrum objected and tried to get the negotiations opened

And here's an admittedly biased link to a TEA Party site, used here to point out their frustration with the fact that the "establishment" wing (the lifetime politicians who like big government) of the GOP keeps doing SYMBOLIC votes against Obamacare but then keeps actually fully funding it. The Washington elites of both parties have done stuff like that to their base voters on many issues for decades, but the internet is exposing it.

Oh, and if you are in denial about the corporate lobbyists who climbed into bed with Obama on Obamacare, here is a link to a story explaining WHY big insurance got on board (they originally fought it, but then they got admitted to the closed-door meetings WE the public were shut out of). Also see this link on big Pharma and big Insurance climbing on board and throwing money at Democrat politicians. While many organizations and lobbying groups were involved in the "secret" negotiations, the names of most of the individuals involved are NOT known to Republicans who repeatedly demanded the names and were denied.

Let me further point out that when the Obama administration thinks a Republican governor is breaking a law, they run to the federal courts - something they have NOT done (so I cannot link to it here) to any governor over his/her refusal to create a state exchange - a tacit admission that the governors are obeying the law.

Since I have validated everything in the post you said was so full of falsehoods, whereas YOU provided NO evidence ANY of the claims was false, that previous post was the correct one and yours was the loser

If the law is unfair, then get the law changed.

With the current political climate: good luck with that. You have the "JOB CREATOR" defenders (sorry, I meant FREEDOM) who will do everything they can to give tax breaks to the very rich, and cry about how the media is just biased against them, and that everyone should pay less tax anyway, because tax cuts just magically pay for themselves in hughly unrealistic economic growth that is just waiting to explode when the government just shuts down the IRS.

Then you get a bunch of billionaires running "grassroots" conservative websites, encouraging alternative realities, to gum up government so they can continue to underpay and pollute, and the party faithful will tear around the country claiming to be victims of tyranny, and for some reason they think they are rebels.

As a conservative, I support tax reform, and I appreciate that most liberals want a fairer and simpler tax system. The political incentives are set for the GOP to simply cry about tyranny whilst fighting for Larry Ellison's carried interest tax break.

It is reasoning like this that have brought on this economic downturn. It's called keynesianism, and its just wrong. Because governments always waste the money away in inefficient programs which often could not sustain itself without the government stimulus, since it's not based on any real need in the people and thus does not bring in an economic surplus which again just drags the economy down by the waste of resources.

Who would you rather have spend a $1000 billion bucks , the government or the private sector?

http://www.freedomworks.org/blog/lheal/keynesian-economics-still-failing-after-all-these

Democrat activists came up with it. There is one fellow in particular, in the employment of George Soros, named Brett Kimberline whose made it an art form.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2012/05/25/readymeet-soros-funded-domestic-terrorist-brett-kimberlin-whose-job-is-terrorizing-bloggers-into-silence/

http://www.freedomworks.org/blog/lt1800/swatting-against-conservative-bloggers-continues-u

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2012/06/07/sen-demands-eric-holder-investigate-swatting-attacks-against-conservative-bloggers/

http://www.pdfernhout.net/recognizing-irony-is-a-key-to-transcending-militarism.html
"Military robots like drones are ironic because they are created essentially to force humans to work like robots in an industrialized social order. Why not just create industrial robots to do the work instead? ... There is a fundamental mismatch between 21st century reality and 20th century security thinking. Those "security" agencies are using those tools of abundance, cooperation, and sharing mainly from a mindset of scarcity, competition, and secrecy. Given the power of 21st century technology as an amplifier (including as weapons of mass destruction), a scarcity-based approach to using such technology ultimately is just making us all insecure. Such powerful technologies of abundance, designed, organized, and used from a mindset of scarcity could well ironically doom us all whether through military robots, nukes, plagues, propaganda, or whatever else... Or alternatively, as Bucky Fuller and others have suggested, we could use such technologies to build a world that is abundant and secure for all. ..."

That said, I sent notes to my Senators to support Rand Paul on the narrower issue he raised via "FreedomWorks" (not saying I endorse all of their or his other campaigns).
http://www.freedomworks.org/press-releases/freedomworks-%E2%80%9Cstands-with-rand%E2%80%9D-paul%E2%80%99s-senate-fili

• Occupy Wall Street's General Assembly: http://www.nycga.net/
• The Koch Brothers: http://www.freedomworks.org/ and/or http://teapartypatriots.ning.com/
• The Family: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Coe
• George Soros: http://www.georgesoros.com/

This just confirms to me the claim that government regulation is ubiquitous and expensive. According to numerous sources e.g. http://www.freedomworks.org/blog/jhammerton/the-hidden-cost-of-regulation compliance with regulation costs businesses more that corporate taxes, roughly 12% of GDP. IMHO, not only is the U.S. economy dangerously heading down the road of selling far more in services than it does in tangible product, but the government is feeding itself through runaway regulation.

Taking that a step further, curtailing the tort system will go a long way to reducing the cost of everything. Take the latest example of plastering grotesque images on cigarettes. Was this necessary? These days, if you still haven't figured out that cigarettes are dangerous, something's seriously wrong with you. Of course, there are those who promote the nanny state concept who say that everything must be regulated to the nth degree to avoid a future class-action lawsuit. These days, medicine is conducted in a cover-your-ass manner. Order every frigging test in the book just so that no lawyer can sue down the road saying that his client would still be alive if you had performed test XYZ. CYA is what's fueling the meteoric rise of healthcare costs. Nothing in Obamacare has addressed this. Of course, part of the problem is that much of Congress is made up of lawyers so they're well placed to protect their own. Furthermore, elected officials are rarely held accountable for the efficacy of the laws they right. It's all about "I wrote/passed/voted-for a law. Reelect me." Nevermind the unintended consequences.

Alles in ordnung

Excessive regulation http://www.freedomworks.org/publications/the-danger-of-over-regulation

When it becomes naturally profitable to recycle people will do so themselves. Right now I don't throw away aluminum, stainless steel, brass, copper, lead, steel, some types of glass and several plastics plus newspapers. I use the glass, plastic and newspapers myself. I've found two places that will compete for the stainless, copper, lead and brass which I happen to come across and make my collection and transport costs worthwhile. The steel and aluminum go to another salvager which is reasonably close and pays well. I do this for my own benefit and will keep doing it regardless of the states insistence I line their pockets.

Is it excessive regulation? Is your trash hauler offering you an "all you can dump" service? If so, are you paying more than you need to be paying for the amount of trash you generate? Or is it provided by the locality, and you are counting on other citizens to subsidize your trash load, or vice versa? Maybe you pay by the ton when you tip at the dump, or perhaps you have a choice of can sizes for different prices.

But if you want to go to the trouble to sell your recyclables elsewhere as you do, knock yourself out. Perhaps other people don't have the time or facilities to do like you do, so they can throw out theirs in the recycle bin for convenience. Either way, in TFA, no one's being forced to "line their pockets". The trash inspector wouldn't find any recyclables in the trash bin in either case, right?

It seems you are creating oppression and compulsion where none exists, w.r.t. forcing citizens to hand over their recyclable material. If someone wants to be the crazy yogurt cup lady and fill her house with plastic tubs until they fall over and smother her, so be it. Until the neighbors complain about the smell from the rotting body. Then I guess she'll suffer the indignity of forced burial. Again.

Alles in ordnung

Excessive regulation http://www.freedomworks.org/publications/the-danger-of-over-regulation

When it becomes naturally profitable to recycle people will do so themselves. Right now I don't throw away aluminum, stainless steel, brass, copper, lead, steel, some types of glass and several plastics plus newspapers. I use the glass, plastic and newspapers myself. I've found two places that will compete for the stainless, copper, lead and brass which I happen to come across and make my collection and transport costs worthwhile. The steel and aluminum go to another salvager which is reasonably close and pays well. I do this for my own benefit and will keep doing it regardless of the states insistence I line their pockets.

Back when the tea party movement actually was grassroots (for about 2 weeks) before Dick Armey's freedomworks and Fox News co-opted it. This is how the tea party movement got it's start.

Look. There's no excuse for violence at a non-violent protest. In any group some people are asses. I'm not faulting the tea party movement for it's fair share of idiots, I'm faulting it for the racist element it harbors above and beyond its idiot quotient. Aside from the really overt and disguistingstuff, there's only so many times you can say "real americans" need to "take back america" from Obama who isn't eligible to be president because he's a secret Kenyan Muslim Manchurian candidate before it comes across as racially motivated.

When polling finds this:

For instance, the Tea Party, the grassroots movement committed to reining in what they perceive as big government, and fiscal irresponsibility, also appear predisposed to intolerance. Approximately 45% of Whites either strongly or somewhat approve of the movement. Of those, only 35% believe Blacks to be hardworking, only 45 % believe Blacks are intelligent, and only 41% think that Blacks are trustworthy. Perceptions of Latinos aren’t much different. While 54% of White Tea Party supporters believe Latinos to be hardworking, only 44% think them intelligent, and even fewer, 42% of Tea Party supporters believe Latinos to be trustworthy. When it comes to gays and lesbians, White Tea Party supporters also hold negative attitudes. Only 36% think gay and lesbian couples should be allowed to adopt children, and just 17% are in favor of same-sex marriage.

When you put it all together, it's impossible to conclude that racism isn't an important motivating factor in the tea party movement.

Add to your list business expenses, property taxes, sales taxes, municipal bonds, home improvements, child care, and political contributions.

The tax code is 3,800 or so pages. The tax regulations written by the IRS is over 13,000 pages. That's nearly 17,000 pages. taxcode info

Compliance with the code and regulations cost around $340,000,000,000 a year (that's 340 billion, with a 'b', dollars). Hundreds of billions doesn't get collected because compliance is too low (below 70%, apparently, according to the GAO).

The instructions for that 1040 EZ you mention are over 40 pages long.

The poor pay proportionally 12 times as much of their income on compliance, making this a very regressive system.

The Ways and Means Committee, which has the most to do with the tax code, gets over $55 million a year in campaign contributions -- more than any other committee. You don't suppose that's for special tax breaks, do you?

The tax compliance industry employs about 3.8 million full-time equivalents, or hours that normally translate to that amount. All of us who know CPAs know that from January 1st to April 15th is double or double and a half hours for accountants, not to mention all those paid paraprofessional "tax preparers" that are seasonal. Tax compliance is one of the largest industries in the nation, larger than the federal government itself or the education industry.

Would a flat tax with one single sizable standard deduction to offset the proportion for the poorer among us really be that bad? Could an extra $340 billion in the economy being spent on actually boosting bottom lines hurt?

Short yellows are used in several jurisdictions to generate revenue.

Do you think the authorities running these rackets estimate the revenue per death?

It seems this is common. I've been caught (a ticket, not an accident) by one in Ohio. The cop who ticketed me said it was the most dangerous intersection in the county.

He knew.

A couple of these exploits are mentioned here:
http://www.freedomworks.org/news/denver-colorado-caught-exploiting-short-yellow-lig

This link has it at a little under one added accident per million vehicle entries into an intersection. The ticket rate must be much higher than 1 in a million, so they get nice revenue for each citizen they kill, perhaps $5 million if 1% fatality rate in accidents and $50 tickets to 0.1% of drivers. At least the government doesn't think our lives are cheap. Injuries and repairs are other costs we pay, so this is a very expensive way to fund our government. Drive more carefully in a recession when governments get hungry.

I have to agree with Freedomworks (the people who brought you teabaggers) on this. Foes can sometimes turn into friends while fighting a common enenmy.

Remember when the telcos claimed that net-neutrality would harm the industry by preventing them from collecting enough money to upgrade the infrastructure in the US?

This proves their previous anti-net-neutrality arguments were BS.

From http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-148385.html

"Republican backers, along with broadband providers such as Verizon and AT&T, say it has sufficient Net neutrality protections for consumers, and more extensive rules would discourage investment in wiring American homes with higher-speed connections."

From http://www.freedomworks.org/publications/the-problem-with-network-neutrality

"By contrast, mandatory network neutrality is bad for business. Unlike the narrowband phone lines of the twentieth century, broadband pipes are being built with billions of dollars of unsubsidized investment in a competitive environment. ISPs make this investment on the assumption they can recover the costs and profit. As such, broadband lines are not the "public resource" that monopoly networks were in the past. Companies that own high-speed lines have a right to recover the costs that other parties impose when they wish to use those lines to transmit high-bandwidth, revenue-rich services of their own. If network neutrality is enacted, ISPs will have no incentive to build new pipes. Consumers will therefore get less choice."

Regulation, regulation, and some more regulation.

"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism, since it is the merger of state and corporate power"-- Mussolini

OK, if we are going to quote Mussolini as a great political scientist, let's extrapolate on this a bit. Who created Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the true "merger of state and corporate power" in this crisis? Democrats. Who further extended this by creating the CRA? Democrats. Who expanded its mission into accusing bankers of racism ("redlining") and extorting them to make more bad loans, or else be investigated? Democrats. Who ignored warnings and blocked efforts at reform in 2003? Who killed efforts at GOP reform of the FMs in 2005? Democrats. What party was Chris Dodd, Chairman of the Senate Banking Committee who took millions in lobbying money from the financial services industry and got sweetheart loan deals a member of? Democrats. What party was the guy who was boning the assistant director of Fannie Mae while he was on the House Financial Services Committee a member of? Democrats.

Funny, I see a lot of suspects that your oh-so-insightful post left out.

But don't worry. help is on the way. Barack Obama, who also got a sweetheart loan deal, will be sure critics can't speak out against him. He will define truth, just as Orwell predicted, since the media is asleep at the switch. What party is he from?

Whoever modded parent as "insightful" are all so busy slamming Fox News that you don't even know who is responsible for all of this. But don't let the truth get in the way of a good story.

Sounds like an Absentee-Landlord (as it applies to voting)...
He is there about 1/2 the time, fixing trivial things (voting on non-controversial issues), but is mysteriously he is absent when the real work is to be done (as in THIS case on telecom immunity).
Obama better get his act together ASAP. Hope and Change DO NOT constitute a *Plan Of Action*.

Another reason to vote for the ONLY candidate who can say with pride: "IANAL".

ON a side note, Dodd is a very bad person IMHO...
-He has inserted terrible legislation into the housing bill on surveillance of anyone that does online transactions for the benefit of the IRS and any part of the government that wants to conduct non-anonymous consumer spending data analysis WITHOUT A WARRANT.... Read all about it:
http://www.freedomworks.org/newsroom/press_template.php?press_id=2571
-Unethical if you consider that he is the Chairman of the Banking Finance Committee and whole hearted member of Countrywide's VIP Mortagagor club... Even IF he does have good credit, that in the least is a serious conflict of interest. He should have secured a loan from an institution that is not affiliated with any government bailout (which is clearly the case...) and at a rate that is considered "average for his credit rating, which is listed there too".

This is worth a look too. For those to lazy to RTFA much-less read yet another one, it is regarding a provision Dodd slipped into some housing legislation that would require just about all small businesses to "track, aggregate, and report information on nearly every electronic transaction to the federal government."

"freedomworks.org" What is their goals? fighting "social engineers and the freedom-haters."

Ah yes. The freedom-haters. We all must be careful. They are out there fight now hating. Hating our freedom. And what is the only way to fight them? Of course, <A href="http://www.freedomworks.org/informed/history.php">promoting lower taxes, a limited government, and greater economic freedom</A>. But you knew that already unless you are already a freedom-hater.

Haven't even bothered to notice that Chris Dodd has slipped a provision into the housing bill that requires all internet businesses and payment providers to report their transactions to the IRS.

just all financial transactions

So you guys are all worrying about Bush wiretapping a few conversations so you can sue AT&T, while the government just grabbed all the financial data.

Way to go Democrats! You guys are the best!

Except that SS is not a funded "pay as you go" system. That's been a fiction since the beginning. Social Security is paid out to recipients based on current receipts, not current receipts plus a surplus set aside and saved for future benefits. The surplus has not been "saved" in some big bank vault. Thanks to Teddy Kennedy's bill in the 1970's, the money in the Social Security Trust fund is used to purchase government savings bonds (with a 0.5% ROI), effectively taking the money from Social Security and adding it to the General Fund. In fact, the Social Security Trust Fund is only solvent when you add in the eight trillion dollars of IOU's that the U.S. Congress has written to them.

When SS was created in 1933, the ratio was one recipient was being paid for by 10 payers. In 1980, the ratio was down to 6 earners paying in for each recipient. As of 2000, the number is three point five to one. By 2015 (when the last baby boomers are jumping on the system), the number will be two to one or less, and the "surplus" will be draining at over 400 billion dollars a year. That's 400 billion dollars that the Congress will now *have* to pay back to the Social Security Trust Fund.

Now, think about that. Not only will they have to pay $400B into Social Security, but the vast amount of money that Social Security used to pay into the General Fund via their savings bonds won't be there any more either. That's about $250 Billion more not going in. So we have an instant additional $650B deficit in the federal budget. Can you imagine coming up with an extra 2/3rds of a TRILLION dollars a year?

Do you really think that the government is going to stop spending money? What will they cut? Education, Health care, Social Services, the Military, the FBI, roads?

Or do you think there will be a new round of tax hikes on "the richest Americans", which, according to the definition of rich in the 1993 tax increase was, "Anyone earning over $32,800 a year."

By 2029, the Social Security Trust Fund is completely broke, and, with raising life expectancies, and fewer children per parent, the payout rate by 2035 is predicted to be 1 payer for each 3 recipients. The only way to support that system is an 80% tax rate. America was formed when the colonists rebelled against an appalling tax rate of... seven percent.

I don't think there's an American alive who would tolerate eighty cents of every dollar going to someone else who didn't plan for retirement.

But you don't have to believe me. The Social Security Trustees don't say it survives until 2056. In fact, they've had to repeatedly move the bankruptcy date up, now to 2029. In fact, over history they've been hopelessly optimistic about the future, and have been repeatedly slapped by reality showing that things are much worse then they claimed. Here, here, here, and here. The first one is the trustee report from 2004. The rest are articles from various sources. I intentionally picked articles from all sides of the political spectrum. There is a broad bi-partisan acknowledgement that the system is in horrible trouble -- President Clinton's own committee recommended privatization as the only alternative to higher taxes or lower benefits. The only people denying it are the ones running on "keeping social security safe". People like Barbara Boxer and the like who continuously say there's no problem with the system, even as it racks up 12 digit shortfalls year after year. ($200,000,000,000+ in 2004).

So, I've been putting my own money away (401Ks, IRAs, etc) because I know I can't count on Social Security to give me anything. In fact, more people under the age of 30 believe that we'll make contact with aliens in the next 30 years than believe that Social Security will still be available for them.

You know, that could be because regulators have their heads up their collective asses about the true scope of the threat. It has happened before. I bet half of the chemicals on this list are more poisonous than they are given credit for, and the other half are far more useful than poisonous. Unfortunately, they all get painted with the same brush when anti-competitive industry interests and lobbyists get in bed with the regulators.

You know, that could be because regulators have their heads up their collective asses about the true scope of the threat. It has happened before. I bet half of the chemicals on this list are more poisonous than they are given credit for, and the other half are far more useful than poisonous. Unfortunately, they all get painted with the same brush when anti-competitive industry interests and lobbyists get in bed with the regulators.