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I went through all of them and here is a list of some of the no brainers. Obviously it's not an exhaustive list. Just convenience for anyone that wants to hit a few buttons.

• End software patents -- over 14K votes and already over the threshold.
• Repeal the Patriot Act -- over 13.5K and over the threshold.
• End corporate personhood -- over 14.5K votes and over the threshold.
• Move to a system like Europe for our internet lines to get more competition for internet service -- still needs over 400 votes.
• Move to runoff voting -- needs over 4K votes.

So expect Obama to tell us why he can't end software patents, abolish the TSA, and repeal the Patriot Act any day now...

I went through all of them and here is a list of some of the no brainers. Obviously it's not an exhaustive list. Just convenience for anyone that wants to hit a few buttons.

• End software patents -- over 14K votes and already over the threshold.
• Repeal the Patriot Act -- over 13.5K and over the threshold.
• End corporate personhood -- over 14.5K votes and over the threshold.
• Move to a system like Europe for our internet lines to get more competition for internet service -- still needs over 400 votes.
• Move to runoff voting -- needs over 4K votes.

So expect Obama to tell us why he can't end software patents, abolish the TSA, and repeal the Patriot Act any day now...

I went through all of them and here is a list of some of the no brainers. Obviously it's not an exhaustive list. Just convenience for anyone that wants to hit a few buttons.

• End software patents -- over 14K votes and already over the threshold.
• Repeal the Patriot Act -- over 13.5K and over the threshold.
• End corporate personhood -- over 14.5K votes and over the threshold.
• Move to a system like Europe for our internet lines to get more competition for internet service -- still needs over 400 votes.
• Move to runoff voting -- needs over 4K votes.

So expect Obama to tell us why he can't end software patents, abolish the TSA, and repeal the Patriot Act any day now...

I went through all of them and here is a list of some of the no brainers. Obviously it's not an exhaustive list. Just convenience for anyone that wants to hit a few buttons.

• End software patents -- over 14K votes and already over the threshold.
• Repeal the Patriot Act -- over 13.5K and over the threshold.
• End corporate personhood -- over 14.5K votes and over the threshold.
• Move to a system like Europe for our internet lines to get more competition for internet service -- still needs over 400 votes.
• Move to runoff voting -- needs over 4K votes.

So expect Obama to tell us why he can't end software patents, abolish the TSA, and repeal the Patriot Act any day now...

Petition for the Real Thing

As many problems as our system of government has with our representatives not listening to their constituents, I would take a dictatorship before I took a direct democracy. At least with a dictatorship there's a small chance of getting a benevolent and intelligent dictator.

There are intelligent people among us, but as a group humans are idiots and the last thing you want is to give real power to the group. The biggest advantage of a representative democracy is also its biggest problem. The fact our representatives can completely ignore what the majority of the people want. Sometimes, that's in our best interests.

https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions#!/petition/restore-right-jurors-judge-law-itself-case-case-basis/QDyqh0Wj

There's one good way to figure out if Obama takes this seriously. Everyone sign this one to convert to the metric system: https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions#!/petition/complete-us-transition-modern-metric-system-allowing-us-manufacture-items-we-could-sell-world/7v0MQpNp The wording is bad; there's no advantage to exports because science and industry has already converted. But there are a lot of cost savings. And there's that whole Challenger thing.

[NOTE: edited for readability]


Most people do not appreciate the role energy plays within the economy. Whether it is the fuel oil in that tanker that has brought those manufactured goods across the Pacific, or the fuel in your gas tank that has allowed you to drive to work this morning, energy plays a fundamental role in economic activity.

We have a plan to develop a special machine that will allow us to synthesize carbon-neutral petroleum replacements cheaply using nuclear fission as a primary input. With this safe technology, we can drastically reduce waste through efficiency, avoid the use of water for cooling, reduce manufacturing costs by avoiding the use of a high-pressure cooling system, and scale to many thousands of reactors over the coming decades. With this, we can exceed the current world energy consumption of roughly 15 TW. We can sequester a century's worth of carbon from the atmosphere, safeguarding our shorelines for generations to come. And we can end water shortages the world over through massive efficient desalination.

This Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor is Green Nuclear, and it is THE silver bullet.

The White House petition for LFTR

More information regarding the technology.

Green Freedom - industrial scale synthesis of fuel from nuclear energy

Petition for the Real Thing

Most people to not appreciate the role energy plays within the economy. Whether it is the fuel oil in that tanker that has brought those manufactured goods across the Pacific, or the fuel in your gas tank that has allowed you to drive to work this morning, energy plays a fundamental role in economic activity.

We have a plan to develop a special machine that will allow us to synthesize carbon-neutral petroleum replacements cheaply using nuclear fission as a primary input. With this safe technology, we can drastically reduce waste through efficiency, avoid the use of water for cooling, reduce manufacturing costs by avoiding the use of a high-pressure cooling system, and scale to many thousands of reactors over the coming decades. With this, we exceed the current world energy consumption of roughly 15 TW. We can sequester a century's worth of carbon from the atmosphere, safeguarding our shorelines for generations to come. And we can end water shortages the world over through massive efficient desalination.

This Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor is Green Nuclear, and it is THE silver bullet.

The White House petition for LFTR

More information regarding the technology.

Green Freedom - industrial scale synthesis of fuel from nuclear energy

Well this is technology use in politics. Plus how is this not relevant to slashdot! Even the EFF seems to think it's worth trying.

Just look at the top petitions.

The silly to real ratio doesn't seem to be out of control. Don't agree with all of them, but there are many good ones at the top.

Sign the petition to reinstate Glass-Steagall here.

Easy, just sign the official whitehouse petition! There it is right at number 5! with 27,000 signatures!

Ha! Captcha is "altering"... They have altered the deal. Pray the government doesn't alter it further....

Yeah. I'll go tell my CEO I want to do it that way. Here's how to contact him.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact

Source? None of that is on the petition:

Help Renee-Nicole Douceur get evaculated from Antarctica now! Raytheon and the NSF do not think a stroke is an emergency

My mother/aunt, Renee Douceur, is the winter site manager at the South Pole Station run by Raytheon and the National Science Foundation. She suffered a stroke on August 27th and the on-site doctors requested for her immediate medical emergency evacuation to get her to proper medical care and prevent further injury to her, The decision makers are disregarding the on-site doctors’ request for Renee’s immediate need for emergency evacuation. Instead they are treating her stroke as a non-emergency, keeping her at the South Pole until late October or early November. Renee’s attorney has advised her to go public because he is being stonewalled by Raytheon and the NSF to get her out ASAP for proper medical diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation (if she survives the trip out) Let's get her home!

To further pile on, have a look at the OMB's historical tables, in particular, table 11.1 and 11.2.

In 2010, 66.2% of all Federal outlays went to direct payments to individuals. The government spent over half its money writing checks, and that doesn't count salaries. The notion that banks are somehow walking off with all the money is total bunk. If you want your checks, just wait until you're old or unemployed; it's mostly social security, medicare and unemployment benefits. (Even if it's paid by a state, it probably came from the feds.)

To further pile on, have a look at the OMB's historical tables, in particular, table 11.1 and 11.2.

In 2010, 66.2% of all Federal outlays went to direct payments to individuals. The government spent over half its money writing checks, and that doesn't count salaries. The notion that banks are somehow walking off with all the money is total bunk. If you want your checks, just wait until you're old or unemployed; it's mostly social security, medicare and unemployment benefits. (Even if it's paid by a state, it probably came from the feds.)

To further pile on, have a look at the OMB's historical tables, in particular, table 11.1 and 11.2.

In 2010, 66.2% of all Federal outlays went to direct payments to individuals. The government spent over half its money writing checks, and that doesn't count salaries. The notion that banks are somehow walking off with all the money is total bunk. If you want your checks, just wait until you're old or unemployed; it's mostly social security, medicare and unemployment benefits. (Even if it's paid by a state, it probably came from the feds.)

http://www.whitehouse.gov/ (which incidentally runs on Drupal)

It is interesting to note that an investment firm associated with Tim O'Reilly invests in Drupal: http://oatv.com/investments/

It also is interesting to note that Tim O'Reilly supported Barack Obama: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x7652433

While Drupal is a great CMS, the White House website probably isn't the best example. :)

Sure. Here you go.

Nazism was powerful and kept getting more powerful. if you're going to post that it sucks, please post a link to a regime you have built so we can compare.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/ (which incidentally runs on Drupal)

Normally, the country can count on conservatives to deal in facts.

News flash: neither party can be counted on to deal in facts. I will also say with utter confidence that your party line (of which there are only two) will not determine how factual you are. There are goddamn liars among all the ranks of any party.

We base policies on science, not sentiment, we insist on people being accountable for their actions, and we maintain that markets, not mandates, are the path to prosperity.

If you based your policies on science, then why isn't it a completely open process? Anonymize the names (if any) and release the numbers (especially who pays what in taxes from which areas) behind your policy making. Of course you don't and on top of that, paltry though it may be, we have to wait until Obama to get that ball started rolling.

Oh, yeah, accountable of their actions? Yeah, you rich bastards love to hold each other accountable for your actions -- especially your financiers.

You would expect conservatives to stand with 95 percent of the scientific community and to grow the 13 percent into a working majority.

Oh, wait a minute, I see what's going on here. You're not really a conservative. You're like Zell Miller who is a Democrat only by label and paperwork.

Your proposal, though noble, is a fool's errand. I believe this has been tackled before and the real problem is that you can always find more and more ties to pollution or non-renewable resources being used to make your product and get it to the consumer and then even after that you have the whole usage of it followed by proper disposal and returning the resources. That cheap Dell computer your secretary is playing Bejeweled on? Yeah, that's a nightmare.

What if we attached all of the costs -- especially the hidden costs -- to all fuels?

Once you lay out a comprehensive and complete list of what the costs are -- especially the hidden costs -- then I'll hop on board. For now you're basically scratching the surface of a very deep and complicated rabbit hole that is hard to trace backward for many reasons. Some of them supply line problems, some of them scientific problems, some of them statistical problems and some even privacy problems for the users.

Companies already try to regulate themselves by paying a so called 'carbon tax' by being 'carbon neutral' or by planting just an assload of trees so they can say X trees for Y products sold. But you know, that's all really neither exact nor assuredly truly undoing all that is done in their dealings. And while they might tell the public one thing, I don't think they believe it.

Could someone please enumerate every true cost of getting one gallon of gasoline into my car tank? What about what happens as I use it? What about what happens after I've used it?

And the best part is that at some point, as you noted, loss of life is going to be on that list of true costs. Whether you're buying an Apple iPhone that some worker committed suicide while making at the Foxconn plant or BP's little explosion killing 11 oil well workers, you're going to have to say at some point that 1 human life = X million dollars in cost. And that makes people really uncomfortable. It gets even more uncomfortable when whoever deciding that cost considers nationality in influencing that ratio.

There is a petition to end software-patents you can help us by signing this petition.

you can help us by signing this petition.

you can help us by signing this petition.

Can't we just get rid of patents now? I mean, it's more and more clear that this just won't work. Never mind that it was not what 'copyright' was invented for.

Asking Slashdot is not going to help however if you really want to help end software patents you can help us by signing this petition.

Here's a petition for patent reform:
https://wwws.whitehouse.gov/petitions/!/petition/direct-patent-office-cease-issuing-software-patents/vvNslSTq

This bill is dead on arrival

What bill?

The Al Jezeera "news" article is about what Obama is expected to announce today:

Barack Obama, the US president, is expected to seek a new minimum tax rate for the wealthy to ensure they pay at least the same percentage as middle-income taxpayers. ... A White House official, who declined to be named because the plan has not been officially announced, said the new rate is part of Obama's proposal for long-term deficit reduction that he will announce on Monday.

The AP article is about the American Jobs Act proposal that President Obama sent to Congress on September 12, 2011:

It would let Bush-era tax cuts for upper income earners expire, limit deductions for wealthier filers and close loopholes and end some corporate tax breaks.

I recognized one of the loopholes (the classification of investment management compensation as capital gains) as an issue complained about here on Slashdot.

The Whitehouse.gov site has no new announcements, statements, or releases about changes or addenda to the American Jobs Act posted today. However, it does have a statement and report from the Office of Management and Budget about the American Jobs Act. But no proposals of new tax brackets.

There have been a number of proposals regarding the taxing of incomes over $1 million as Ezra Klein has noted. But none from President Obama. (Regarding new marginal tax rates, I find House Representative Jan Schakowsky's proposal the most straight forward and reasonable, assuming that the government favors increasing taxes on incomes over $1 million.)

So what are we discussing? I suspect the conversation has merged the separate issues and stories into an incomprehensible clusterfuck to the disservice of everyone engaged.

This bill is dead on arrival

What bill?

The Al Jezeera "news" article is about what Obama is expected to announce today:

Barack Obama, the US president, is expected to seek a new minimum tax rate for the wealthy to ensure they pay at least the same percentage as middle-income taxpayers. ... A White House official, who declined to be named because the plan has not been officially announced, said the new rate is part of Obama's proposal for long-term deficit reduction that he will announce on Monday.

The AP article is about the American Jobs Act proposal that President Obama sent to Congress on September 12, 2011:

It would let Bush-era tax cuts for upper income earners expire, limit deductions for wealthier filers and close loopholes and end some corporate tax breaks.

I recognized one of the loopholes (the classification of investment management compensation as capital gains) as an issue complained about here on Slashdot.

The Whitehouse.gov site has no new announcements, statements, or releases about changes or addenda to the American Jobs Act posted today. However, it does have a statement and report from the Office of Management and Budget about the American Jobs Act. But no proposals of new tax brackets.

There have been a number of proposals regarding the taxing of incomes over $1 million as Ezra Klein has noted. But none from President Obama. (Regarding new marginal tax rates, I find House Representative Jan Schakowsky's proposal the most straight forward and reasonable, assuming that the government favors increasing taxes on incomes over $1 million.)

So what are we discussing? I suspect the conversation has merged the separate issues and stories into an incomprehensible clusterfuck to the disservice of everyone engaged.

Well, it's on the east coast, so there a are a few possible culprits who come to mind who might do just that.

Where do you get your facts, because they are incorrect.

The way nominations work, the republicans have had the power to resist nominations for Obama.

Where do *you* get your information about the appointment process? As long as the President is willing to take the political heat for it, the appointment process provides (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recess_appointment) a method for Obama to appoint heads to those agencies.

When it's something Obama actually cares about (like administering Farm Credits, Homeland Security, Unions a.k.a. National Labor Relations Board, or Equal Employment Opportunity) he has been willing to use recess appointments to fill agency positions http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/president-obama-announces-recess-appointments-key-administration-positions. When it's something like watchdogging Wall Street that he doesn't want to do anymore than the Republicans in Congress do, *then* he leaves the agency positions vacant.

Second of all, the President didn't increase the debt single-handedly. You cannot point out any amount of programs that he himself pushed for that led to a deficit of $3 trillion since his first budget (the 2010 budget, since the 2009 budget was Bush's).

Congress ultimately passes the budget, and it might be helpful to remember who held a majority from 2007-2011. So while it's unfair to blame economic woes solely on Obama, the same holds true for Bush. Certainly they sign the budget into law, but the constitutional authority is not theirs to make (although they do have influence over their respective parties, so you could point to that as a somewhat circular method of blaming the president).

You could, however, argue that mutual control over Congress and the Whitehouse implicitly places budgetary blame on any given President, which would create significant overlap during the Bush years and two years of Obama's term. Given data from the CBO and treasury department, it is interesting how significant the debt increase was between 2007 and this year alone.

A cursory and possibly questionable search revealed a chart on Wikipedia that cited this spreadsheet as its source. Since you're interested in the math, it might be a good place to start rather than resorting to the same classification of rhetoric as was contained in the post to which you were replying.

The Bush tax cuts were to stimulate the economy after 9/11 (they failed to do so)

And yet, Federal tax revenues increased by 30% from 2000 to 2007 (and then began dropping in 2008 as the Housing Bubble burst).

And this in spite of the recession immediately post-9/11, which saw tax revenues drop 10% over a two year period.

Insightful? Really? When the poster literally makes up a non-existent recession to explain the drop in tax revenues when the rates were cut?

Look at the data folks: www.bea.gov/national/xls/gdplev.xls (or if you prefer a graphic representation - http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2010/2/26/saupload_gdp2000_2010.jpg ). There was no post "9-11 recession"; in fact there is not a single quarter after the Bush tax cuts went into effect when the GDP did not increase, until the crash of 2008.

In real terms (inflation adjusted) there was no "30% increase". U.S. tax revenues fell sharply (18%) with the Bush tax cuts going in to effect, and recovered their former level only in 2006 (see second column, 2005 constant dollars: http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/budget/fy2012/assets/hist01z3.xls). But the country had grown in population by 6% over the interim so this was still down from previous levels. It never recovered to the previous level on a per capita or GDP fraction basis 9http://www.deptofnumbers.com/blog/2010/08/tax-revenue-as-a-fraction-of-gdp/).

Actually, no. It requires a 5% annual increase in fuel economy for passenger cars and a 3.5% annual increase for light trucks (for the first 9 years, they too would need to increase at 5% per year after that). See http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/fuel_economy_report.pdf for all of the details.

They're pretty close to raw numbers, and I try not to take things out of context, those numbers are straight from the horses mouth and also extrapolated from 3rd party analysis:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/Overview/
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget
http://budget.house.gov/fy2012budget/
http://www2.ed.gov/about/overview/budget/budget12/index.html
http://www.whitehouse.gov/files/documents/budget_2012.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_United_States_federal_budget

If you find any one sided political lies or gross and blatant misrepresentations, I will gladly adjust accordingly.

They're pretty close to raw numbers, and I try not to take things out of context, those numbers are straight from the horses mouth and also extrapolated from 3rd party analysis:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/Overview/
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget
http://budget.house.gov/fy2012budget/
http://www2.ed.gov/about/overview/budget/budget12/index.html
http://www.whitehouse.gov/files/documents/budget_2012.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_United_States_federal_budget

If you find any one sided political lies or gross and blatant misrepresentations, I will gladly adjust accordingly.

They're pretty close to raw numbers, and I try not to take things out of context, those numbers are straight from the horses mouth and also extrapolated from 3rd party analysis:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/Overview/
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget
http://budget.house.gov/fy2012budget/
http://www2.ed.gov/about/overview/budget/budget12/index.html
http://www.whitehouse.gov/files/documents/budget_2012.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_United_States_federal_budget

If you find any one sided political lies or gross and blatant misrepresentations, I will gladly adjust accordingly.

"It's not like it matters what sock puppet sits on the throne."

The thing is... it actually does. Maybe not as much as it should, but in ways that are still important, it does.

I don't know what would have happened afterward if it had been Al Gore listening to kids read a book about a goat on the morning of 9/11, but I'm sure the world would be a recognizably different place today. Possibly for the worse, probably for the better. But definitely different. I don't know who Dukakis would've nominated to the Supreme Court when Thurgood Marshall retired, but it sure as hell wouldn't have been Clarence Thomas. On a more personal level, I don't know what John McCain would've done last year if his staff told him about a campaign of online videos assuring gay teens that "it gets better", but I'm sure it wouldn't have been this.

So yeah: it matters.

Err, there is an inconvenient errors in your grandstanding.

Not one penny of US debt has been repaid for 51 years: the last time US government funded debt actually decresed on a year-over-year basis was 1960

Clinton had 4 years where budget was in surplus and the US was paying down the debt.

http://factcheck.org/2008/02/the-budget-and-deficit-under-clinton/

http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/budget/fy2012/assets/hist01z2.xls

Bush Jr. like Bush Sr. are on both sides of the chart.

Obama projects 2.5% Fed Funds rate in budget calculations through 2020. Average Fed Funds rate since 1980: 5.7%;

You may have noticed bond rates near 0% for extended period of time, and little inflation. These days, US doesn't have inflation for number of reason, one being that China is exporting deflation worldwide. Of course, this may end, but that's another story.

Anyway, your comparison to 1980 is irrelevant and wrong. We are in a global economic environment today. US is no longer the only nation that matters w.r.t. inflation.

The US government borrows 40-50 cents for every dollar it spends. A balanced budget would mean cutting government spending in half

Negative. To balance the current budget by cutting spending alone would require spending cut of 70%. Each $1 spent by the US governement is returned as 25-30% taxes, thus effectively costing $0.75. The reverse is true as well, Each dollar cut will only decrease the deficit by $0.75 or so, as there will be less revenue.

This is why cuts in Greece are so painful. They have to cut A LOT more than mere 10% of their budget.

In other words, cut the US budget in half to stop the situation from getting worse. Then start working on your debt mountains.

Or how about raise taxes by 50%? Institute 100% inclusion rate for capital gains, as Buffet indicated?

http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/budget/fy2012/assets/hist04z2.xls

So basically, if you cut all agri subsidies, cut all of military spending, cut all the health and human services, the veterans affairs and social security, then you have a balanced budget. If you don't cut the military by at least 50%, you can't balance the budget...

PS. Interesting note from the attached spreadsheet. The Executive Office of the President ALWAYS had less than 0.05% of the entire budget. But during the Bush years, it swelled to 0.3% in 2006, equivalent to the entire budget of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), more than the entire congress and that is A LOT more people! That was about $5-6 billion! WTF?

Err, there is an inconvenient errors in your grandstanding.

Not one penny of US debt has been repaid for 51 years: the last time US government funded debt actually decresed on a year-over-year basis was 1960

Clinton had 4 years where budget was in surplus and the US was paying down the debt.

http://factcheck.org/2008/02/the-budget-and-deficit-under-clinton/

http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/budget/fy2012/assets/hist01z2.xls

Bush Jr. like Bush Sr. are on both sides of the chart.

Obama projects 2.5% Fed Funds rate in budget calculations through 2020. Average Fed Funds rate since 1980: 5.7%;

You may have noticed bond rates near 0% for extended period of time, and little inflation. These days, US doesn't have inflation for number of reason, one being that China is exporting deflation worldwide. Of course, this may end, but that's another story.

Anyway, your comparison to 1980 is irrelevant and wrong. We are in a global economic environment today. US is no longer the only nation that matters w.r.t. inflation.

The US government borrows 40-50 cents for every dollar it spends. A balanced budget would mean cutting government spending in half

Negative. To balance the current budget by cutting spending alone would require spending cut of 70%. Each $1 spent by the US governement is returned as 25-30% taxes, thus effectively costing $0.75. The reverse is true as well, Each dollar cut will only decrease the deficit by $0.75 or so, as there will be less revenue.

This is why cuts in Greece are so painful. They have to cut A LOT more than mere 10% of their budget.

In other words, cut the US budget in half to stop the situation from getting worse. Then start working on your debt mountains.

Or how about raise taxes by 50%? Institute 100% inclusion rate for capital gains, as Buffet indicated?

http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/budget/fy2012/assets/hist04z2.xls

So basically, if you cut all agri subsidies, cut all of military spending, cut all the health and human services, the veterans affairs and social security, then you have a balanced budget. If you don't cut the military by at least 50%, you can't balance the budget...

PS. Interesting note from the attached spreadsheet. The Executive Office of the President ALWAYS had less than 0.05% of the entire budget. But during the Bush years, it swelled to 0.3% in 2006, equivalent to the entire budget of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), more than the entire congress and that is A LOT more people! That was about $5-6 billion! WTF?

Err, there is an inconvenient errors in your grandstanding.

Not one penny of US debt has been repaid for 51 years: the last time US government funded debt actually decresed on a year-over-year basis was 1960

Clinton had 4 years where budget was in surplus and the US was paying down the debt.

http://factcheck.org/2008/02/the-budget-and-deficit-under-clinton/

http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/budget/fy2012/assets/hist01z2.xls

Bush Jr. like Bush Sr. are on both sides of the chart.

Obama projects 2.5% Fed Funds rate in budget calculations through 2020. Average Fed Funds rate since 1980: 5.7%;

You may have noticed bond rates near 0% for extended period of time, and little inflation. These days, US doesn't have inflation for number of reason, one being that China is exporting deflation worldwide. Of course, this may end, but that's another story.

Anyway, your comparison to 1980 is irrelevant and wrong. We are in a global economic environment today. US is no longer the only nation that matters w.r.t. inflation.

The US government borrows 40-50 cents for every dollar it spends. A balanced budget would mean cutting government spending in half

Negative. To balance the current budget by cutting spending alone would require spending cut of 70%. Each $1 spent by the US governement is returned as 25-30% taxes, thus effectively costing $0.75. The reverse is true as well, Each dollar cut will only decrease the deficit by $0.75 or so, as there will be less revenue.

This is why cuts in Greece are so painful. They have to cut A LOT more than mere 10% of their budget.

In other words, cut the US budget in half to stop the situation from getting worse. Then start working on your debt mountains.

Or how about raise taxes by 50%? Institute 100% inclusion rate for capital gains, as Buffet indicated?

http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/budget/fy2012/assets/hist04z2.xls

So basically, if you cut all agri subsidies, cut all of military spending, cut all the health and human services, the veterans affairs and social security, then you have a balanced budget. If you don't cut the military by at least 50%, you can't balance the budget...

PS. Interesting note from the attached spreadsheet. The Executive Office of the President ALWAYS had less than 0.05% of the entire budget. But during the Bush years, it swelled to 0.3% in 2006, equivalent to the entire budget of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), more than the entire congress and that is A LOT more people! That was about $5-6 billion! WTF?

Yeah, let's all laugh at him and his comfortable six-figure salary "idiocy" while we scrape to make rent, and eek out a half decent living. We're better than him!

If you're paying the bills and eeking out a living, you're living the Dream! At least according to Obama. If you're not paying the bills, maybe you can get a special degree (or is it a "badge"?) so you can work in a factory. Living the Dream!!

First, a link to a congressional committee is hardly a partisan statement. The Joint Economic Committee is a Congressional Committee that is representative of the government at the time and the report had inputs from all members.

Second, the parts of the report I quoted were illustrative of the fact that tax decreases from 70% to 50% would increase, rather than decrease revenue. The amount of tax burden paid by higher income earners was also part of higher revenues. If you doubt that, here are the numbers in 2010 constant dollars using CPI data (sources http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/Historicals/,ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/special.requests/cpi/cpiai.txt). For the rest of this post, everything will be in 2010 constant dollars. The numbers are:

Year Revenue

1981 $1428.54M

1982 $1387.16M *first year ERTA was in effect

1983 $1306.56M

1984 $1389.87M

1985 $1478.21M

1986 $1520.67M

1987 $1629.52M

1988 $1665.43M

1989 $1731.93M

1990 $1710.90M

You could argue that the increased revenues were due to improved GDP, but that argument would be wrong. Assuming revenue would grow at the same rate as GDP, and using GDP numbers from http://www.bea.gov/national/nipaweb/TableView.asp?SelectedTable=5&ViewSeries=NO&Java=no&Request3Place=N&3Place=N&FromView=YES&Freq=Year&FirstYear=2010&LastYear=2011&3Place=N&AllYearsChk=YES&Update=Update&JavaBox=no#Mid we have the following table

Year GDP($M) %Change Expected_Revenue($M) Actual_Revenue($M) Difference($M)

1981 $7,500.74 0.82%

1982 $7,351.09 -1.01% $1,414.15 $1,387.17 -$26.98

1983 $7,738.36 2.57% $1,422.77 $1,306.57 -$116.21

1984 $8,249.82 3.20% $1,348.36 $1,389.88 $41.52

1985 $8,546.94 1.77% $1,414.47 $1,478.22 $63.75

1986 $8,873.65 1.88% $1,505.94 $1,520.67 $14.73

1987 $9,091.55 1.21% $1,539.12 $1,629.52 $90.40

1988 $9,401.29 1.67% $1,656.81 $1,665.43 $8.62

1989 $9,640.36 1.26% $1,686.34 $1,731.93 $45.60

1990 $9,677.38 0.19% $1,735.25 $1,710.90 -$24.35

The total revenue collected over this period was $13820.29M, but GDP growth only accounts for $13723.20M. In other words, the government collected $97.08M more than if ERTA was not enacted, all other considerations held constant.

Third, you're correct in saying that tax reductions didn't necessarily lead to increased tax revenues, but GDP growth doesn't account for that either. The fact that upper income brackets increased their wealth has a lot do with with the reduction of capital gains tax from 28% to 20% which led to many top earners realizing their capital gains, thus increasing their net income. That behavior is documented (but I didn't keep track of that url, sorry) and would explain both phenomenon. GDP growth alone does not.

Again, this is all in reaction to the assertion that we need to go back to 75% tax rates, not an argument for or against much smaller tax cuts or raises in the present per se. You can do the same analysis with the Clinton's 1993 tax increase and you'll find that the tax revenues grow at a lower rate than the overall GDP, indicating that people who can shelter their money, are doing just that, once more highlighting the argument that increasing taxes reduces revenues in the long run.

C-SPAN offers 3 streams: http://cspan.org/Live-Video/C-SPAN/
Whitehouse.gov has a live channel, mostly presidential events (tis the season): http://www.whitehouse.gov/live
CNN also offers live streams: http://live.cnn.com/

Here's another one

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/ethics-commitments-executive-branch-personnel

It *is* like this for the executive branch government right now.. This lady worked at a congressional commission, not for the president and so, afaik, wasn't obligated to sign such an ethics pledge.

Not true for Executive branch political appointees (of which I am one). We all had to sign an "ethics pledge" which prohibits this revolving door for two years after our appointment, if we were a lobbyist beforehand. And all appointees can't deal with former employers at all for the first two years of their appointment, which is very annoying but if it helps with corruption it's worth it.

Problem is, this lady worked at FCC which is a Congressional commission and therefore not subject to the Obama ethics pledge, afaik.

Pledge we all signed here: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/ethics-commitments-executive-branch-personnel

It you want to say TV isn't a failure, then cut off CAFR funding for it. Cut off Obama's giveaway to the networks. Let's have the FCC panel made up of engineers who the public votes in, not the one's the POTUS appoints. Today you have to get your daily dose of propaganda BS along with your local news (which could possibly warn if a tsunami is on the way) what a nasty trade off, listening to how jobs are so good, and the economy is recovering, and OBL shot and dumped at sea, just to try to know if the rain might have nuclear fallout or if some earthquake has a 100' wave headed your way. Let us not forget the switch to DTV which sucks more money people don't have. Plus when it's really windy from the haarp technology mucking with the weather, the DTV packets break up. Where in analog, it was just snow and noise, now it's BSOD (black screen of death)

Ya want to talk about the telcos? Start with NSA fios splitters, move on to wiretaps, spying, and all the rest of the crap. You couldn't GIVE me a mobile phone.

You want to talk about the internet and law? Miserable failure. *.AA , DMCA, streaming stations, copyright/patent trolls, SEO blackhats, the intelligence community spying, Chamber of Commerce, facebook. You can't look me in the eye and tell me that's not a failure for the US Constitution which is now intermittent.

When the monetary system financial terrorism come to fruition and mark to market is realized and the funding sources are added up, and the financial terrorists are prosecuted, these technologies will be a failure. It's just that it isn't measured this way currently because of the corruption and payola.

Watch: sock puppet / trolls will vote this message off the radar they don't like the truth.

You could read executive order 13526, which spells out what is and isn't a legal secret, and why and how to get things declassified.

Then you wouldn't think he's correct.