Slashdot Mirror
House Websites Jammed After Obama Debt Speech
Hugh Pickens writes "CNN reports that House switchboards have been flooded by phone calls — nearly twice the normal average — and hit with an unusual volume of constituent e-mails as voters voice their concern over the worsening debt-ceiling crisis. At least 104 of 279 congressional websites surveyed by CNN were down or had experienced slow connections on Tuesday, after President Obama's speech Monday night. In his address to the nation, Obama called on the American people to 'make your voice heard.' House Speaker John Boehner's website responded with a 'Server Too Busy' or 'Bad Request (Invalid Hostname)' message during parts of the day. His switchboard reported as many as 150-300 callers on hold, wanting to leave their thoughts for the speaker. House Chief Administrative Officer spokesman Dan Weiser said that lawmakers' websites and phone lines began to sag with the traffic on Monday night. 'Last night we had some website problems. ... There was some websites that were hosted by outside vendors that had slowness, sluggishness, people had trouble getting in. And that was rectified early this morning.'"
This is extortion. This is anti-American. Rep Mike Lee Admits Extortion.
In specific Tea Party Republicans are threatening to put the nation into default, holding the entire US economy and millions of lives hostage to pass their amendment to the Constitution. They want the nation to default because it will boost recruitment into their militias. They want a civil war and are apparently beyond compromise. They cannot be reasoned with apparently.
Who are these people? Before they called themselves the Tea Party they called themselves the John Birch Society. and before they were called the John Birch society they called themselves the American Liberty League.
This is the same American Liberty League that was behind the Business Plot.
The Business Plot was the attempt to overthrow the US government and in specific overthrow FDR and install a fascist dictatorship. The history of that can be seen by watching this video.
Read about Smedley Darlington Butler and how he single handedly saved the nation from a coup. Now that we have a black President the forces looking to have a coup have grown stronger than ever. And these groups hate the feds and the government because these are the ones investigating them. The solution? Tax cuts, smaller government, which means less FBI investigations into them.
And btw I expect "them" to rate my post down into oblivion. Expect to see it rated as flamebait, overrated or something else.
It seems like the more extreme Republicans that are running things in the House don't have a political philosophy so much as they have a religion. It's hard to convince a zealot of anything.
Pay attention, kids: we're experiencing history! This is another stage in the long decline of the United States.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
This is Democracy inaction
There, fixed it for you.
Our system of government was not setup for this large of a population. When the countru was founded there were many who thought the constittuent:representative ratio was too high and it is faaaar worse now. It is time to dissolve the union and form 50 new nations.
Pity you can't vote for another party and leave the Dems and Reps out of it. Mind you, you'd need some kind of system in place that allows anyone to stand for a seat and be voted in, regardless of how much money they put in to one of the two parties in the democracy.
Please consider this account deleted, I just can't be bothered with the spam anymore.
Now we're going to Slashdot them too!
Hi, you seem to be using the FALSE EQUIVALENCE fallacy!
Let me bring you up to speed: two long and incompetently-waged wars kept of the budget books for political reasons, at the same time we had a tax cut. Nobody's ever cut taxes during a war, let alone two, because that's a really fucking stupid thing to do.
In the latest episode of the Washington Follies, the Republicans demanded big cuts in spending. Fine, say the Dems, here's $3 trillion in spending cuts But we want $1 trilliion in eliminated tax subsidies and raised taxes on the rich. NONONONONO, scream the Republicans, TAXES BAD TAXES BAD.
That's not "durr, they're equally bad".
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
HA HA HA HA.
Do you even know what the amending process entails? Hint: you have to get a supermajority of the state legislatures to approve the amendment. Do you have any fucking idea how long that would take? /Years/. We don't have time for that kind of political theater bullshit. If Republicans want that, they should put it out as a separate measure. If the people and their representatives in the states want it, it'll pass on its own merits.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
The Congressional filtering system is extremely efficient. No matter what you say, somehow you're always supporting the position that the Congresscritter has already taken.
I've been writing to "my" Congressional "representatives" for almost forty years, and even when I've bluntly said that Senator Bozo has a severe case of craniorectal insertion, I get a letter back thanking me for supporting him.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
So we should march on D.C. this week? What should I put on my sign? "More Debt NOW!"?
...it's too late for the pebbles to vote. Regardless of your fiscal outlook, the fact is the debt ceiling must be raised, simply because of economic inertia. Fiscal conservatives may be correct that less government spending is good - but that perspective doesn't matter today, as our economic difficulties are the result of decisions years, maybe decades past. If you want to avoid raising debt ceilings in the future (a goal I actually support), that's fine - we can have a discussion on the best fiscal policy to pursue over the next ten years in order to achieve that. But *today* is not the time to debate *this* particular ceiling. That discussion should've happened ten years ago. Playing with the cap today is irresponsible at best, and cynical exploitation of economic trouble created, in part, by an ex-president from your own party, to secure a victory in 2012 ... well, not even at "worst", as that's pretty much exactly what the Republicans are doing.
The point is, you don't change economic trends overnight. The necessity of raising the debt ceiling cannot be altered today, even with the best intentions. I want to stay balanced and not single a particular side for blame, but it seems that the politicking is all about discrediting the sitting president to hurt his incumbent standing in 2012, rather than any form of principled economic disagreement.
Btw: captcha: "defraud"
You're using a lot of scare tactics. Sometimes when a business spends itself in to a hole it has to make cuts and that hurts their employees. Guess what? We aren't living in gumdrop fairy land. A congress was elected with this specifically as its goal: Cut government spending. That's what they're trying to do, and they're being blocked. In their minds the problem of letting this problem go on is greater than the problem of laying off some people for a month. There is no magic bullet that leads to nothing but good. No matter which way we go to settle the debt issue, some people will be effed in the A. Disagree on ideology, but this whole "they're going to put grannies on the street!" scare tactics bullshit doesn't fly with me. I'd rather see politicans willing to make a hard, possibly unpopular, call than pussy-foot around and just spend more and more money, ignoring the problem, until we're unable to pull ourselves out by any means.
This isn't to say the Republicans are right in the legislative track they want to take, but I think holding the debt ceiling as a poker chip is absolutely fair game. Why else would you have a debt ceiling? The other side is exaggerating the consequences by acting as if the worst possible allocation of funds is the only option when it isn't. That's lying to the American public in hopes of scaring them in to a position, and I don't think that is fair game at all. Perhaps you see lying as a valid political tool, and not the process of law. If that's the case, we'll just have to disagree.
If I can just reach out with my words and touch a butthole, just one, it will all be worth it.
Yeah, except that lowering taxes doesn't seem to grow the economy. Certainly not enough to make up for the lowered rate. Too bad. It's all sensible except for that point.
Anyway, the top 20% pays 86% of the taxes, maybe, but don't they own an equally large (or larger) share of the wealth and income?
When I was a kid, in the 1960s, tax rates were way over 50%. Tax rates in England peaked at 90%. While 90% marginal tax rates will certainly hurt your economy, it's not at all clear than 30%, 40%, 50% rates will do much damage. If we can manage to spend some of that on useful infrastructure things, it may even be good in the long run. Just think! We could have a well-educated, healthy workforce, streets and networks that work, et cetera.
The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. Government can’t pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government’s reckless fiscal policies.
Over the past 5 years, our federal debt has increased by $3.5 trillion to $8.6 trillion.That is “trillion” with a “T.” That is money that we have borrowed from the Social Security trust fund, borrowed from China and Japan, borrowed from American taxpayers. And over the next 5 years, between now and 2011, the President’s budget will increase the debt by almost another $3.5 trillion.
Numbers that large are sometimes hard to understand. Some people may wonder why they matter. Here is why: This year, the Federal Government will spend $220 billion on interest. That is more money to pay interest on our national debt than we’ll spend on Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. That is more money to pay interest on our debt this year than we will spend on education, homeland security, transportation, and veterans benefits combined. It is more money in one year than we are likely to spend to rebuild the devastated gulf coast in a way that honors the best of America.
And the cost of our debt is one of the fastest growing expenses in the Federal budget. This rising debt is a hidden domestic enemy, robbing our cities and States of critical investments in infrastructure like bridges, ports, and levees; robbing our families and our children of critical investments in education and health care reform; robbing our seniors of the retirement and health security they have counted on.
Every dollar we pay in interest is a dollar that is not going to investment in America’s priorities.
Senator Barack Obama
Senate Floor Speech on Public Debt
March 16, 2006
-- Amazing how things change...
if (it != oneThing) it = another;
"The Republican plan would allow Obama to increase the debt ceiling by $2.4T"
It's not the President's job to increase the debt ceiling. The cowards are just looking for a way to get around their blood oath AND be able to score points in the next election, pretty much the definition of dirty pool.
He's already threatened mine. In fact, I could make an argument he got me laid off.
I work in Aerospace at a company that manufactures interior fittings for private jets. Essentially we pimp them out.
When Obama first opened his Pie Hole about how corporations should not be buying these jets, within two weeks we had nearly 60% of our orders canceled as the jet builders like Gulfstream, Falcon, etc. had their orders canceled or placed on hold. With one Class Warfare speech he helped put thousands of people out of work.
Now, a year later I'm back with the same company and sure enough DipShit opens his PieHole again trying to demonize jet owners. We saw a 15% decrease in orders this time. I guess people realize he's just talking out of his ass.
Private jets, yachts, expensive cars, etc. are no different than dishwashers, washers, dryers, TVs, etc. They are luxuries that people pay for and the industries that build these things support thousands of jobs. In fact, in our industry, it’s almost 100% U.S. jobs, and well paying jobs at that.
People bitch and moan about how "rich people" and corporations have their money locked up and are not hiring, yet when they engage in commerce with that very same money, purchasing high end goods that end up paying for many, many salaries, they are demonized by this POS POTUS.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
The Tea-Party Republicans ran on platforms of cutting spending and lowering the debt. Can you blame them for not turning on their constituents and breaking promises to pass legislation their home districts are against? I thought we were tired of politicians making campaign promises, then breaking them in office.
Funtime Candy Wow! - my plan for eventually conquering Japan.
The issue I take with that line of thought is it ignores what the debt ceiling is. The ceiling isn't spending the money. The budget is. When congress passed it's budget they know when and how much the ceiling was going to have to be increased. In the past decade the biggest factors for increased debt (according to bloomberg business news) was the Wars, the medicare drug program, and TARP. All of which the speaker, Eric Cantor, and Senate minority lead McConnell voted for. They helped run this tab up, and now they are threatening to walk out on the bill.
The top 10% of earners, above 114,000, pay 70% of all income taxes.
And 400 people control more than half of the wealth in the country. You don't see an inherent problem here?
So, no, the middle class pays less than the rich.
If you define "the rich" as people who make above $114,000 per year. Which still doesn't account for your lousy math and inability to calculate the crucial percentage of individual income number from what you claim above.
Meanwhile, Democrats have defined "the rich" as people making above $200k/year individually or $250k total household income. Republicans insist that these people are "not making all that much." What was your point about who the "rich" are again? Please do define your terms so that we can have an actual discussion here.
The lower 50%, below $33,000, pays almost nothing.
Funny thing about that: if you are making below $33,000 per year at today's prices, you have almost no disposable income to start with: you are making the equivalent of $6000 in 1970 money (feel free to run some other calculations yourself. This is especially true if you are a single parent or have someone else (aging family member) to support. The phrase you are looking for is "blood from a stone."
Short-term capital gains taxes go up with your tax bracket, and the rate is the same. Even if you bought something at $10,000 and a few laters it grew with inflation to $10,500, you still have to pay tax on the $500 even though you technically didn't make any money. Long-term rates are less in order to offset inflation losses and encourage long-term investment that helps the economy over quick flipping.
Please get an education and learn to stop lying. All you have to do is hold an "investment" for slightly longer than a year to get it taxed at a mere 15% instead of your actual income-tax rate. The more money people have, the more money they simply funnel through "cycling" schemes that contribute NOTHING to the economy, in order to take advantage of this loophole.
Capital gains taxes need to be eliminated, pure and simple, and any money gained that way treated as what it is, INCOME and taxed accordingly.