Cleo's Mom

Rein in spending with "Pay as you go": Well, you'd think with all the yapping the republicans and teabaggers are doing about spending that this bill would be supported by them. Not so fast: LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Published: February 6, 2010 I am curious to know why Sen. Richard Burr, an avowed fiscal conservative, a man who is always telling us that he wants a balanced budget and despite voting for almost every deficit increase that the Bush administration requested, voted against the pay-as-you-go budget rule ("Roll call," Jan. 31)? This is the plan that was in place during the Clinton years, when we balanced the budget. That pay-as-you-go legislation was eliminated in 2002 in order to allow President Bush to run his tax cuts for the wealthy through and subsequently allowed the Republican legislature to pass the incredibly expensive Medicare drug act with absolutely no way to pay for it — plus start and conduct two wars — again, with no way to pay for them other than to borrow from future generations of Americans. Now, after all the crying and teeth-gnashing from conservatives about spending increases, Burr, instead of showing approval for a return to the pay-as-you-go system, voted, along with all 39 other Republican senators, against that plan. Could it be that Burr is more interested in playing politics than he is in a balanced budget? So we had pay as you go under Clinton and enjoyed a budget SURPLUS, then pay as you go was eliminated by REPUBLICAN bush so he could give more money to the rich and start two wars he couldn't pay for. That created a deficit that Obama inherited. Now Pres. Obama signed a bill Friday reinstating these pay as you go budget rules. So, it's the democratic presidents who reigned in spending, as will Pres. Obama, and the republicans who spend like crazy (to help the rich and start wars, among other things). And not a single "I'm so concerned about spending" republican senators voted for this bill. WHAT HYPOCRITES.

Here's the policy and attitude under the bush administration that got us into the mess we are in today - the mess that Pres. Obama has to get us out of: Cheney to Treasury: "Deficits don't matter" Former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill was told "deficits O'Neill, fired in a shakeup of Bush's economic team in December 2002, raised objections to a new round of tax cuts and said the president balked at his more aggressive plan to combat corporate crime after a string of accounting scandals because of opposition from "the corporate crowd," a key constituency. O'Neill said he tried to warn Vice President Dick Cheney that growing budget deficits-expected to top $500 billion this fiscal year alone-posed a threat to the economy. Cheney cut him off. "You know, Paul, Reagan proved deficits don't matter," he said, according to excerpts. Cheney continued: "We won the midterms (congressional elections). This is our due." A month later, Cheney told the Treasury secretary he was fired. That's right - the republican policies are to allow corporate greed and scandal (which we taxpayers pay for) and to ignore deficits (NOW THIS IS THE IMPORTANT PART) when they happen under republican presidents, and to fire whoever tells them the truth.

By LeighaMason: So our current economic crisis can be traced directly back to deregulation of the markets. Greed has to be held in check by regulations. You are so right. And that is my other mantra (the first being that without hypocrisy the republicans would have nothing) and that is: Regulate, baby, regulate. As if we need to take any advice or opinions from the conservatives or the economists they quote - their policies are what got us in this mess. So they should just sit on the sidelines, be appropriately contrite and shut up.

You said you weren't going to particpate anymore and then you did. Another conservative lie. And yes, I cut and paste, but AFTER a thread has gone off in a different direction. I started this thread and don't want to see you take it in another direction.

Republican hypocrisy and medicare: When the healthcare bill in the senate contained about $400 billion in cuts to medicare (eliminating a lot of waste and duplication) well the republicans were all over it - yapping about death panels, rationed care, etc.. Using the scare tactics they are so well known for. All of this came from Newt Gingrich, among others. But he personally tried to ram through deep cuts in Medicare in 1995 and went so far as to shut down the federal government to bully Pres. Clinton to accept those cuts. But even as they are decrying the democratic healthcare plan they are trying to push their "Roadmap for America's Future" put out by republican Rep. Paul Ryan. This roadmap is of an economic agenda that hasn't changed one bit in response to the economic failures of the bush years. It calls for privatization of social security (how's your 401K doing?) and doing away with medicare for those currently under 55. They would be given vouchers (republicans love vouchers) to purchase for-profit private health insurance instead of being able to get not-for-profit medicare. The CBO has already analyzed this plan to mean for those over 55: higher premiums for some, reduced benefits for others. In other words, cuts in medicare. But yet the republicans yap about the democrat plan as if they really care about medicare. What hypocrisy!!

Extend bush's tax cuts? That is the answer to everything from the republicans. That's what contributed to the deficit under bush. And to one of the messes Pres. Obama has had to clean up. This thread is about republican hypocrisy. You said you were not going to participate anymore. Great! But stop hijacking this thread with your cut and paste articles from conservative websites.

Pattygreen: And you ignored this, except to say that "he had to spend all that money to get us out of Bush's mess". Because that's true. I have offered a number of charts, graphs, etc.. and facts that show that the stimulus was needed and it worked. It added to the deficit, but it was still the right thing to do. And most economists agree with me, not you.

There are agencies, like the CBO, who analyze these things. They don't just put out opinions, they deal with real numbers and facts. That's their job to do this. But once again, when the facts dispute your opinion, you ignore them.

You might not agree but that doesn't make you right. Because you're not, you're wrong. Exclusive: Obama stimulus reduced our pain, experts say By Paul Wiseman and Barbara Hansen, USA TODAY President Obama's stimulus package saved jobs — but the government still needs to do more to breathe life into the economy, according to USA TODAY's quarterly survey of 50 economists. Unemployment would have hit 10.8% — higher than December's 10% rate — without Obama's $787 billion stimulus program, according to the economists' median estimate. The difference would translate into another 1.2 million lost jobs. But almost two-thirds of the economists said the government should do more to spur job growth. Suggestions included suspending payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare, increasing spending on infrastructure, enacting a flat tax on income and extending jobless benefits. The economists expect the jobless rate to remain in double digits until the third quarter. David Berson, chief economist at PMI Group, worries that the housing market and the economy will suffer when the government's tax credit to first-time home buyers expires in April and the Fed stops supporting the housing market by purchasing mortgage-backed securities by March 31. Bill Cheney, chief economist at John Hancock Financial Services, is relatively optimistic. He sees unemployment falling to 8.9% by the fourth quarter of this year. Cheney says other economists are "nervous Nellies," shell-shocked by the length and depth of this downturn. They've forgotten that "the deeper the recession, the faster you come out of it." But Diane Swonk, chief economist at Mesirow Financial, says creating jobs is tougher than it was the last time unemployment passed 10% in the early '80s. The reason: The 1981-82 recession was engineered by the Federal Reserve to tame inflation through high interest rates. The Fed brought the economy back simply by reversing course and cutting rates. This time, the Fed has pushed short-term rates to near zero and has flooded markets with money. But the financial system is so damaged by the Wall Street meltdown that it isn't converting easy money into loans and economic growth: "It's like the Fed is dropping money from a helicopter and it's getting caught in the trees," Swonk says. The economists don't expect Fed chief Ben Bernanke to take his foot off the accelerator — and push rates up — until the third quarter. So they don't expect any change in the Fed's zero-interest-rate policy when its Open Market Committee meets Tuesday and Wednesday. "Bernanke and his colleagues are very committed to doing the right thing," Cheney says. They learned from Japan's long 1990s slump, during which policymakers kept declaring premature victory and raising rates and taxes: "It's really important not to snuff out a recovery before it gets going." I wonder if any of those 1.2 million whose jobs were saved by the stimulus are the ones holding up the signs that say "teabag the liberals before they teabag you"?

But you keep missing the point that we tried it bush's way (the conservative, give tax cuts to the rich, way) and are living with the disasterous results. That's why the republicans and neocon economists have no credibility when it comes to the economy.

It's not just my opinion, the economists, who study these things, say it. You have to spend during a time of recession to get money into the economy, to get banks loaning money again to small businesses so they can meet payroll and buy inventory, etc.. Money moves our economy and it wasn't there before the stimulus. The stimulus helped get the economy moving and saved or created millions of jobs.

The stimulus was very effective and most economists now say so. Even the hypocritical republicans who voted against it and then accepted the money in their districts say so. Then they praised the stimulus.

Diane Feinstein didn't run for vice-president and doesn't have presidential aspirations and isn't called upon to be a spokesman for any political movement. She isn't putting herself out there as some leader of anything. If she considered a run for president, I am sure the neo-cons would be out there with both guns blazing. The now closed Palin thread offered many concrete examples of why not only liberals, but most republicans and most americans do not think Palin is qualified to be president. Poll after poll shows this. She appeals to only a very small, select group of people.

Yes, there are ways to prove it. There are all kinds of people (they're called economists) whose job it is to analyze these things. They have said the stimulus is responsible for the economy having been prevented from going "over the cliff" and turning around. As I have said before, when the facts don't support your opinions, you just ignore them.

That's fine by me. But my original posts were relevant to what is going on in the political arena today. You had to dig up old stuff about Barbra Streisand and Gloria Steinem. So I was compelled to respond in kind.

The current deficit is, for the most part, from the bank bailouts, which started under bush. Then the stimulus which was necessary to undo bush's disastrous economic policies (i.e. de-regulate wall street) and keep the economy from the free fall. Almost all the economists agree that the stimulus stopped the free fall of our economy and helped turn it around. CBO estimates that unemployment would be 25% without it. But Pres. Obama gets very little credit for helping our economy because all of a sudden the conservative right and republicans care about the deficit and they yap about it daily. And yes, everything would be much worse without what Pres. Obama has done. And that counts for something with me.

No one cares about the conservative spin on the Obama administration's agenda. The republicans had their chance. They had almost 8 years and we are living with the results of their failed policies. So they are the LAST people to be giving advice on how to run an economy. Obama had to clean up bush's mess. That costs money. Plus he is investing in jobs and the economy and our country's future. Getting the economy healthy and back on track is the best way to reduce the deficit as well as getting healthcare reform.

You are including the 70 million who are under age 18 and most likely be covered under s-chip programs. But even if a government run health plan would be extended to all americans, I believe they could handle it better than the private insurance companies are handling it now. And without rationing care Oh, that's right, they don't have to worry about handling it, they just have to deny claims that result in people dying. :thumbdown: If you had a government plan and they denied you care the first thing you would do would be call your congressman. As scared as they are about getting re-elected all the time, the last thing they would want is angry constituents going public with denied care. They would make sure that didn't happen. They want to get re-elected. Under private insurance, your only recourse is to sue. Lengthy and expensive.

The deficits under Pres. Obama are the result of his cleaning up bush's messes. So they wouldn't be as high if bush had done his job right. BTW - latest poll: only 7% of people blame Pres. Obama for the current economy while 37% blame bush. I agree.

No one cares where Hillary Clinton sent Chelsea to school or whether she let her get her ears pierced at 13. You take a giant leap from this to interpret it as her wanting to push conservative morals on Chelsea while advocating that women have the right to control their bodies.

Foley Hypocrisy: Condemning Clinton’s Sex Scandal While Sexting Underage Boys Mark Foley was a Florida congressman who lamented that Bill Clinton’s runaway sexual addiction caused his scandal with Monica Lewinsky. And yet Foley had demons of his own. On September 29th, 2006 Foley resigned his congressional seat after reports surfaced that he was sending sexually explicit text messages and emails to teenage male congressional pages. Foley insisted he was not a pedophile and had never had sexual contact with any minor. Then he dipped into the media excuse bag and decided to used ALL of them at once: he blamed his emails on a drinking problem, checked himself into a rehab clinic, and said that he had been molested by a clergyman when he 13. To top it off, he decided that NOW was the time come out, and bravely had his lawyer inform the public that “Mark Foley wants you to know he is a gay man.” Many pages came forward after Foley’s announcement, but Florida officials closed the investigation citing “insufficient evidence” to file criminal charges. 7 Robert Tilton Hypocrisy: Prayer Fraud Robert Tilton is an American televangelist who achieved notoriety in the ‘80s and early ‘90s through his TV program Success-N-Life, a very slick and well rehearsed perversion of the “prosperity gospel”. Tilton promised that, for a $1000 pledge, he would personally lobby God on your behalf. All you would have to do was send in your check and he would pray over the very letter you sent him. Today, all of you know him as “The farting Preacher”, but back in the day people sent their entire life savings to this guy. At its peak, Success N Life was in all 235 American TV markets, and was earning $80M a year, tax free. But in 1991, ABC News discovered Tilton’s ministry threw away prayer requests without even reading them, keeping only the money or valuables instead. When confronted with these claims, Tilton claimed that he would pray over computer readouts of prayer requests, or sometimes lay across piles of mail as he prayed (even claiming that chemicals in those letters gave him two “mini strokes” in his brain). Tilton sued ABC for libel in 1992, but the case was dismissed and his show was off the air by October 1993. He later resurfaced on Black Entertainment Television (BET) in the early morning hours. Ole Anthony, founder of the religious watchdog group the Trinity Foundation, said Tilton pays $50,000 per month for the air time, and estimates that Tilton’s ministry is grossing $24 million a year using reruns or repackaged versions of older shows. “With no production costs, a fraction of his former TV time budget, his net must rival that of the good old days with absolutely no effort on his part,” Anthony said. 6 Ted Haggard Hypocrisy: Condemning Homosexuality While Practicing Homosexuality Ted Haggard is the founder and former pastor of the New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colorado; a founder of the Association of Life-Giving Churches; and former leader of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) from 2003 – 2006. Haggard has condemned homosexuality, and under his leadership, the NAE stated that “homosexual activity, like adulterous relationships, is clearly condemned in the Scriptures.” Yet in November 2006, he “left” all of his leadership positions after he admitted soliciting a prostitute for homosexual sex and methamphetamine. After the scandal broke, Haggard entered three weeks of intensive “counseling”, overseen by four ministers who claimed to have converted him back to heterosexuality. When pressed, they backtracked and merely said Haggard is a “heterosexual with issues.” Ya think? Just paying the bills... 5 Bob Barr Hypocrisy: Opposing Abortion While Paying For An Abortion Bob Barr, is a former member of the United States House of Representatives, representing Georgia’s 7th congressional district as a Republican from 1995 to 2003. He gained national attention as one of several leaders who successfully impeached President Bill Clinton. According to a sworn affidavit by Barr’s ex-wife Gail, the longtime abortion opponent paid for her abortion in 1983. Barr never publicly disputed the affidavit, and the author of the Defense of Marriage Act even invoked a legal privilege during his 1985 divorce so he could refuse any questions on whether he cheated on his second wife with his now-third wife. Barr has recently resurfaced as the Libertarian Party’s nominee for President of the United States (he lost). 4 Rush Limbaugh Hypocrisy: Illicit Drug Sourcing Rush Limbaugh is the host of “The Rush Limbaugh Show”, a nationally syndicated radio program devoted to conservative issues and news of the day. On his program, Limbaugh has espoused a deep respect of law enforcement and tough penalties for drug offenders (In 1995, he said drug users “ought to be accused and they ought to be convicted and they ought to be sent up.”) Yet on October 10, 2003, Limbaugh announced that he was addicted to prescription painkillers and would immediately check himself into a rehabilitation program. Law enforcement sources had noted that Limbaugh’s name had come up during an investigation into a black market drug ring in Palm Beach County, Florida, specializing in the illegal sale of prescription drugs OxyContin and hydrocodone. Limbaugh said he first became addicted to prescription painkillers following unsuccessful spinal surgery, but has remained clean since his 2003 treatment. Limbaugh was not incarcerated because Palm Beach does not jail drug offenders unless they’ve failed opportunities to deal with their addiction and have turned to crime to maintain their habit. Thus, benefiting from the soft position on drug crime that he hates so. 3 George Bush, Sr. Hypocrisy: No New Taxes At the 1988 Republican National Convention, candidate George H.W. Bush famously said “Read my lips: no new taxes!”. It was a strong, bold statement, and the soundbyte resonated within the Republican party, which then backed him all the way to a successful election as the 41st President of the United States. Once in office, Bush refused several new tax initiatives from a Democrat controlled Congress, but ultimately relented, and agreed to increase the amount of existing taxes in the 1990 budget agreement. Rush Limbaugh went apoplectic and the general public was only slightly less enraged. While technically the taxes weren’t “new”, they were still “more”, and that’s not what his electorate him to do. Bill Clinton then used Bush’s quote to an easy victory in the 1992 presidential election. 2 Richard Nixon Hypocrisy: Obstruction of Justice In 1973, Richard Nixon went on television and told the world “I am not a crook” as part of a total denial of involvement with the June 17th burglaries of the Democratic National Committee offices located in the Watergate Hotel. But he and other high ranking administration officials were actually eyes-deep in it. As a youth, Nixon was rejected by the FBI academy and later in life had to “settle” for President of the United States. This always ate at him, and he loved the cloak-and-dagger aspects of covert operations. Despite warnings to maintain plausible deniability, Nixon kept himself fully apprised of the break-in. Then journalists Robert Woodward and Carl Bernstein exposed the scandal in August 1972. The public disliked the burglary but loathed the cover-up even more, and popular sentiment led to impeachment processes that ultimately drove Nixon to resign the presidency. 1 Strom Thurmond Hypocrisy: Blocking Civil Rights for His Own Child When South Carolina Gov. Strom Thurmond ran for president in 1948 on the Dixiecrat ticket, he vowed to bar blacks from white schools, restaurants, and even some occupations. But at the same time he was preaching segregation, he was secretly financing the business administration degree of Essie Mae Washington, a black coed at the all-black South Carolina State College. Why? Because it is widely believed that Ms. Washington is his daughter. By supporting a black woman he supposedly sired, Thurmond considered himself remaining loyal to a Southern Gentleman’s code that required white boys, who often learned about sex “on the colored side of town,” to take care of any children they fathered. To his very death, Thurmond never confirmed nor denied Ms. Washington as his daughter, even when the headline: “SEN. THURMOND IS UNPRINCIPLED — WITH COLORED OFFSPRING — WHILE PARADING AS A DEVOUT SEGREGATIONIST” ran in the Edgefield Advertiser, where Ms. Washington went to school.

This is hardly a small number: 43 million people were enrolled in Medicare in 2006, 36 million of whom were 65 and older. Medicare 101 53 million people were enrolled in Medicaid. (date unknown) Payroll taxes for these programs are only paid on the first $106,000 in wages. Why should someone like Bill Gates only pay these taxes on his first $106,000? Extend it to at least one million. That would go a long way to helping to fund these very popular programs.

Healthcare reform: Medicare buy-in from Open Congress Joe Lieberman: For Medicare Buy-In Before He Was Against It December 14, 2009 - by Donny Shaw Over the weekend, Sen. Joe Lieberman [i, CT], one of the key swing votes on health care, informed Majority Leader Sen. Harry Reid [D, NV] that he would vote with the Republicans to filibuster the Democrats’ latest health care “deal,” which would drop the public option in exchange for allowing people aged 55 to 64 to buy into Medicare. To be clear, Lieberman opposes keeping the public option in the bill as well. Talking Points Memo today had a good catch. As a Vice Presidential candidate in 2000 and as recently as September of this year, Lieberman was a strong backer of opening up Medicare and allowing people to buy into it. In 2000 Bangor Daily News reported: [Lieberman] said during the interview that the fastest growing group of uninsured are those 55 to 65. For that reason, the ticket proposes an expansion of Medicare to allow those and older to buy into the public program. There would still be a buy-in price but it would be less than buying private insurance, he said. And here’s the Connecticut Post on September 8 2009 outlining Lieberman’s preferred ways to reform the health care system: By allowing citizens who are not eligible for Medicare or Medicaid to buy in for a rate below the private market, the government can extend coverage to more of those who are currently uninsured, he said. Joe says he is an independent, caucuses with the democrats and votes like and is a hypocrite like a republican.

Top health insurers turned big profit in '09 Industry criticizes report's approach Friday, February 12, 2010 By Noam N. Levey, Los Angeles Times WASHINGTON -- As the nation struggled last year with rising health care costs and a recession, the five largest health insurance companies racked up combined profits of $12.2 billion -- up 56 percent over 2008, according to a new report by liberal health care activists. Based on company financial reports for 2009 filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the report said insurers WellPoint Inc., UnitedHealth Group, Cigna Corp., Aetna and Humana Inc. covered 2.7 million fewer people than they did the year before. The report Thursday also said three of the five insurers cut the proportion of premiums they spent on their customers' medical care, committing relatively more to salaries, administrative expenses and profits. Prepared by Heath Care for America Now, a coalition of liberal advocacy groups and labor unions, the report was aimed at bolstering the drive by Democrats to complete work on a health care overhaul, which insurers have opposed. Industry representatives on Thursday criticized the report's approach, pointing out that 2008 was a bad year financially across many industries, skewing the 2009 comparison. "It is disingenuous to look at the profits at one company today compared to where it was in the depth of a recession," said Robert Zirkelbach, a spokesman for America's Health Insurance Plans, the industry's Washington-based lobbying arm. The company 2009 profits are nonetheless intensifying pressure on an industry already under attack for raising premiums and denying coverage to millions of Americans. "That's why we need health insurance reform today in this country, and why we are going to continue in the Congress to work on this until we see it through," said Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., a leading advocate of the health legislation being pushed by Capitol Hill Democrats. In California, Anthem Blue Cross, a subsidiary of WellPoint, is facing growing scrutiny over its decision to raise premiums for individual health insurance policies by as much as 39 percent this year for some consumers. WellPoint defended the rate increase in a letter Thursday to U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, saying the rising rates reflect soaring medical costs and will average closer to 20 percent for most customers. WellPoint also said Anthem's individual business in California lost money in 2009, as the weak economy prompted many customers to switch to lower-cost options. The company did not say how much Anthem lost. Indianapolis-based WellPoint as a whole posted a profit, recording net income of more than $4.7 billion in 2009, thanks in part to the sale of its NextRx pharmacy benefit management business, which accounted for roughly half the company's profit. That put WellPoint's profit margin at 7.3 percent, the highest of the five big insurers. Margins at the other four ranged from 3.4 percent for Louisville, Ky.-based Humana to 7.1 percent for Philadelphia-based Cigna. Other sectors of the health care industry, including pharmaceutical companies and device makers, typically are more profitable. But the insurance industry's improving financial fortunes is drawing more criticism because all but one of the companies achieved the better results at the same time they lost customers. WellPoint shed nearly 1.4 million customers, a 3.9 percent drop over 2008, according to its filings. And Cigna lost 5.5 percent of its customers, or 639,000 people. Only Aetna, which also was the only company whose profits decreased from 2008, gained new customers, picking up an additional 1.2 million people, an increase of 6.9 percent. Soaring profits, fewer customers, less spent on customers and more on administrative cost. You wouldn't see these headlines or articles about a government run healthcare program because it wouldn't happen. And that's why we need one. But of course there are those who advocate for big corporations and the insurance industry who will defend these obscene profits. I advocate for the patients and for people.

You can only post your opinions, I however post facts.