In State of the Union, Obama to return to jobs and the economy

Wasn't there also going to be a Tea Party reply to the SOTU address?

Well, there was, and Rand Paul gave it.

What America needs is not Robin Hood but Adam Smith.

Yes, Robin Hood was a bit short on quotables.

"Our merchants and master manufacturers complain much of the bad effects of high wages in raising the price, and thereby lessening the sale of their goods both at home and abroad. They say nothing concerning the bad effects of high profits. They are silent with regard to the pernicious effects of their own gains. They complain only of those of other people."

"By necessaries I understand not only the commodities which are indispensably necessary for the support of life, but whatever the customs of the country renders it indecent for creditable people, even the lowest order, to be without. A linen shirt, for example, is, strictly speaking, not a necessary of life. The Greeks and Romans lived, I suppose, very comfortably, though they had no linen. But in the present times, through the greater part of Europe, a creditable day-labourer would be ashamed to appear in public without a linen shirt, the want of which would be supposed to denote that disgraceful degree of poverty which, it is presumed, nobody can well fall into, without extreme bad conduct. Custom, in the same manner, has rendered leather shoes a necessary of life in England."

"The necessaries of life occasion the great expense of the poor. They find it difficult to get food, and the greater part of their little revenue is spent in getting it. The luxuries and vanities of life occasion the principal expense of the rich, and a magnificent house embellishes and sets off to the best advantage all the other luxuries and vanities which they possess ... It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion."

"We rarely hear, it has been said, of the combinations of masters, though frequently of those of workmen. But whoever imagines, upon this account, that masters rarely combine, is as ignorant of the world as of the subject. Masters are always and everywhere in a sort of tacit, but constant and uniform, combination, not to raise the wages of labour above their actual rate ... Masters, too, sometimes enter into particular combinations to sink the wages of labour even below this rate."

"People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices."

"The violence and injustice of the rulers of mankind is an ancient evil, for which, I am afraid, the nature of human affairs can scarce admit of a remedy. But the mean rapacity, the monopolizing spirit of merchants and manufacturers, who neither are, nor ought to be, the rulers of mankind, though it cannot perhaps be corrected may very easily be prevented from disturbing the tranquility of anybody but themselves."

-- Adam Smith
 
Rubio's rebuttal was weak because it was like he was talking to Republican caucus voters who will not be relevant for another three years. After Obama took a broad populist approach Rubio looked kind of small.
 
WhoSane Obama is a FUCKING LYING SCUMBAG



FACT CHECK: Overreaching in State of Union speech
By CALVIN WOODWARD | Associated Press – 6 hrs ago...
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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama did some cherry-picking Tuesday night in defense of his record on jobs and laid out a conditional path to citizenship for illegal immigrants that may be less onerous than he made it sound.

A look at some of the claims in his State of the Union speech, a glance at the Republican counterargument and how they fit with the facts:

OBAMA: "After years of grueling recession, our businesses have created over 6 million new jobs."

THE FACTS: That's in the ballpark, as far as it goes. But Obama starts his count not when he took office, but from the point in his first term when job losses were the highest. In doing so, he ignores the 5 million or so jobs that were lost on his watch, up to that point.

Private sector jobs have grown by 6.1 million since February 2010. But since he became president, the gain is a more modest 1.9 million.

And when losses in public sector employment are added to the mix, his overall jobs record is a gain of 1.2 million.

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OBAMA: "We have doubled the distance our cars will go on a gallon of gas."

THE FACTS: Not so fast.

That's expected to happen in 12 more years.

Under a deal the Obama administration reached with automakers in 2011, vehicles will have a corporate average fuel economy of 54.5 miles per gallon by 2025, twice the 27 miles per gallon, on average, that cars and trucks get today. Automobile manufacturers won't start making changes to achieve the new fuel economy standards until model year 2017. Not all cars will double their gas mileage, since the standard is based on an average of a manufacturers' fleet.

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OBAMA: "Already the Affordable Care Act is helping to reduce the growth of health care costs."

THE FACTS: The jury is still out on whether Obama's health care overhaul will reduce the growth of health care costs. It's true that cost increases have eased, but many experts say that's due to the sluggish economy, not to the health care law, whose main provisions are not yet fully in effect.

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OBAMA: "Real reform means establishing a responsible pathway to earned citizenship — a path that includes passing a background check, paying taxes and a meaningful penalty, learning English and going to the back of the line behind the folks trying to come here legally."

THE FACTS: The seemingly stern admonition that illegal immigrants must go to the back of the line, often heard from the president, doesn't appear to have much practical effect except in the most obvious sense. Everyone who joins a line, whether for a movie, a coffee or citizenship, starts at the back of that particular line. It's not clear he is saying anything more than that illegal immigrants won't get to cut in line for citizenship once they've obtained provisional legal status.

Like those living abroad who have applied to come to the U.S. legally, illegal immigrants who qualify for Obama's proposed path to citizenship will surely face long waits to be processed. But during that time, they are already in the U.S. and will get to stay, work and travel in the country under their new status as provisional immigrants, while those outside the U.S. simply have to wait.

Sending illegal immigrants to the "back of the line" is something of a distinction without a difference for some legal immigrants who dutifully followed all the rules before coming to the United States.

For instance, some legal immigrants who are in the U.S. on an employer-sponsored visa can't easily change jobs, or in some cases take a promotion, without jeopardizing their place in line to get a green card. In other cases, would-be legal immigrants in other countries wait for years to be able to settle in the U.S.

Obama is using "back of the line" somewhat figuratively, because there are multiple lines depending on the applicant's relationship with family already in the U.S. or with an employer. Generally, a foreign-born spouse of a U.S. citizen or someone with needed skills and a job offer will be accepted more quickly than many others.

But even as a figurative point, his assertion may cloak the fact that people who came to the U.S. illegally and win provisional status have the great advantage over applicants abroad of already being where they all want to go.

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OBAMA: "Study after study shows that the sooner a child begins learning, the better he or she does down the road. ... And for poor kids who need help the most, this lack of access to preschool education can shadow them for the rest of their lives. ... Every dollar we invest in high-quality early education can save more than $7 later on — by boosting graduation rates, reducing teen pregnancy, even reducing violent crime."

THE FACTS: Dozens of studies have shown Head Start graduates are more likely to complete high school than their at-risk peers who don't participate in the program. But a study last year by the Department of Health and Human Services that found big vocabulary and social development gains for at-risk students in pre-kindergarten programs also found those effects largely faded by the time pupils reached third grade. The report didn't explain why the kids saw a drop-off in performance or predict how they would fare as they aged.

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OBAMA: "I urge this Congress to pursue a bipartisan, market-based solution to climate change, like the one John McCain and Joe Lieberman worked on together a few years ago. But if Congress won't act soon to protect future generations, I will. I will direct my Cabinet to come up with executive actions we can take, now and in the future, to reduce pollution, prepare our communities for the consequences of climate change and speed the transition to more sustainable sources of energy."

THE FACTS: Obama failed to get a global warming bill through Congress when both Houses were controlled by Democrats in 2010. With Republicans in control of the House, the chances of a bill to limit the gases blamed for global warming and to create a market for businesses to trade pollution credits are close to zero. The Obama administration has already acted to control greenhouse gases through existing law. It has boosted fuel-efficiency standards and proposed rules to control heat-trapping emissions from new power plants. And while there are still other ways to address climate change without Congress, it's questionable regulation alone can achieve the reductions needed to start curbing global warming.

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FLORIDA SEN. MARCO RUBIO, in the Republican response: "The real cause of our debt is that our government has been spending $1 trillion more than it takes in every year. That's why we need a balanced-budget amendment."

THE FACTS: That statement may reflect the math behind recent debt, but it doesn't get directly to the cause — the worst recession since the Depression and its aftereffects. The deficit is not only caused by spending, but by reduced tax revenues. And during the recession, revenues from both individual and corporate taxes fell markedly.

The steep increases in debt and the measures that should be taken to ease the burden are central to the debate in Washington. But there is no serious move afoot to amend the Constitution to prohibit deficit spending.

The ability to take on debt has been used by governments worldwide and through U.S. history to shelter people from the ravages of a down economy, wage war and achieve many other ends. An effort to amend the Constitution for any purpose faces daunting odds; this would be no exception. Most state constitutions demand a balanced budget, but states lack some big obligations of the federal government, including national defense. And Washington's ability to go deeper into debt provides states with at least a minimal safety net in times of high unemployment.

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Associated Press writers Tom Raum, Dina Cappiello, Andrew Taylor, Christopher S. Rugaber, Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, Alicia A. Caldwell and Philip Elliott contributed to this report.

EDITOR'S NOTE _ An occasional look at political claims that take shortcuts with the facts or don't tell the full story.
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:):D:cool:
 
If Republicans weren't cowards devoted to concealing their beliefs from the American people they'd come out and tell us all that they want to reduce Medicare benefits. That's what the Ryan plan would have done. But instead the GOP including Romney and Ryan parade themselves around as champions of Medicare protection.

They're flat-out lying to us.
 
You mean this clown?

biden_2012_01_19.png

He's frothing at the mouth about running in 2016. God help us.
 
Reading the lamentation of the women (vetteman and A_J) is more enjoyable than I thought it would be this morning. :D
 
He's frothing at the mouth about running in 2016. God help us.

Think you can beat him? Unless the GOP suddenly stops being crazy I'd put money on Biden.

How do you feel about taking back the Senate? In 2016 there are 10 Democrats and 24 Republicans up for re-election. And right now out of those ten Dems, there are only two that look even remotely vulnerable (Bennett-CO and Murray-WA), and they don't look very vulnerable to me.

Meanwhile the Republicans have to defend a bunch of seats where their incumbent is to the right of their constituents:

Toomey-PA
Ron Johnson-WI tea party, rotten approval rating, Feingold may run again
Ayotte-NH
Kirk-IL - 53 years old and already having strokes, lobotomies, and in Obama's old seat
Murkowski-AK, already on the list again to be taken out in the primary by a Christine O'Donnell
 
Then how is it that Clinton failed to get a health-care plan through Congress and Obama succeeded?

Clinton did welfare reform, started the post cold-war restructure of the military and managed to work with Congress to produced a balanced Budget with a Republican controlled Congress. Then he managed to forestall, deflect, avoid or otherwise wiggle out of a ethics investigation and Impeachment for banging a White House intern.

Obama did little more than sign a piece of corporate entitlement (remember, American Citizens aren't getting universal health care, they're being forced under penalty to buy it from private insurers who managed to defeat any provision which would force open market competition across state lines) that was forced through by a Democrat controlled Congress, after throwing a couple trillion dollars at the same banks that initiated the financial meltdown.

Which one of those more aptly describes a "far more shrewd, skilled political operator?"

Obama's real quality has been being fortunate enough that the GOP has become so out of touch and disorganized that they've done well to not have lost both houses of Congress as well as the presidency.
 
Clinton did welfare reform, started the post cold-war restructure of the military and managed to work with Congress to produced a balanced Budget with a Republican controlled Congress. Then he managed to forestall, deflect, avoid or otherwise wiggle out of a ethics investigation and Impeachment for banging a White House intern.

Obama did little more than sign a piece of corporate entitlement (remember, American Citizens aren't getting universal health care, they're being forced under penalty to buy it from private insurers who managed to defeat any provision which would force open market competition across state lines) that was forced through by a Democrat controlled Congress, after throwing a couple trillion dollars at the same banks that initiated the financial meltdown.

Which one of those more aptly describes a "far more shrewd, skilled political operator?"

Obama's real quality has been being fortunate enough that the GOP has become so out of touch and disorganized that they've done well to not have lost both houses of Congress as well as the presidency.

So Clinton was shrewd because he gave Republicans what both he and Republicans both wanted? That takes shrewdness? And getting caught and impeached for getting his cock sucked was shrewd?

Having a budget surplus during an economic boom time while taxes were much higher, flooding the federal government with revenue was shrewd?
 
Obama did little more than sign a piece of corporate entitlement (remember, American Citizens aren't getting universal health care, they're being forced under penalty to buy it from private insurers who managed to defeat any provision which would force open market competition across state lines) that was forced through by a Democrat controlled Congress, after throwing a couple trillion dollars at the same banks that initiated the financial meltdown.

Americans are getting mostly-universal healthcare. There's an opt-out with a price tag, but otherwise the plan is creating an America where the vast majority of Americans will have coverage. Universal health care doesn't mean coverage needs to be provided by the government.
 
Americans are getting mostly-universal healthcare. There's an opt-out with a price tag, but otherwise the plan is creating an America where the vast majority of Americans will have coverage. Universal health care doesn't mean coverage needs to be provided by the government.

No, you're confusing Universal Health care with enforced insurance coverage. The first is a gov't provided health care system, in which physicians, nurses, other health care professions are gov't employees and the facilities are owned and operated by the gov't. The costs of operating the system, payroll, facility maintenance are fully funded by the gov't. See also, socialized medicine.

What we have now is a fully private system where the citizens are required to buy insurance (which has to do with protecting assets, not providing service) from private companies. Failure to provide proof of insurance subjects one to penalties enforced by the gov't, much like car insurance, except with car insurance, if one doesn't want to drive a car, one doesn't face a penalty for no insurance.


The first is based on a principle of public taxation for a public service.
The second is based on the principle of public taxation for private profit.

Not at all the same thing.


Frankly, though not a fan of socialized anything, I'd have preferred Universal Health care.
 


This is not how you strengthen the middle class. This is how you destroy it:

German steelmakers face a 72 percent jump this year in costs associated with the nation’s renewable- energy subsidy plans and rule changes to Europe’s carbon market. Costs will surge to about 621 million euros ($838 million) from 362 million euros last year...



 
No, you're confusing Universal Health care with enforced insurance coverage. The first is a gov't provided health care system, in which physicians, nurses, other health care professions are gov't employees and the facilities are owned and operated by the gov't. The costs of operating the system, payroll, facility maintenance are fully funded by the gov't. See also, socialized medicine.

There's more than one kind of "universal health care." The UK has a system like you describe; Canada only has single-payer health care where the government (provincial, not federal, BTW) acts as a tax-funded, premium-free health-insurance company.
 
While I find the comparisons to healthcare systems in other countries interesting, they were not built upon the same roots as the one we're currently tempting to ammend. Every system has pitfalls and dangers within it that need to be managed. It's not really fair to suggest a different system without also proposing methods to deal with the challenges that come with it.
 
No, you're confusing Universal Health care with enforced insurance coverage. The first is a gov't provided health care system, in which physicians, nurses, other health care professions are gov't employees and the facilities are owned and operated by the gov't. The costs of operating the system, payroll, facility maintenance are fully funded by the gov't. See also, socialized medicine.

What we have now is a fully private system where the citizens are required to buy insurance (which has to do with protecting assets, not providing service) from private companies. Failure to provide proof of insurance subjects one to penalties enforced by the gov't, much like car insurance, except with car insurance, if one doesn't want to drive a car, one doesn't face a penalty for no insurance.


The first is based on a principle of public taxation for a public service.
The second is based on the principle of public taxation for private profit.

Not at all the same thing.


Frankly, though not a fan of socialized anything, I'd have preferred Universal Health care.

You're saying that universal health care is necessarily government-provided medical care. But that doesn't have to be the case. The term "universal health care" is merely a system where coverage is provided to all members of society. Some may provide the coverage for themselves, some may have it provided by another person/employer/group, and some may have it provided by the government. It doesn't matter how those chips fall, the question is whether the over-arching system is universal or not (or near-universal). If people are buying their own health care (mandated or not), they're still part of the nation's health care system.
 
Rubio rallies against entitlements, even though his own family thrived on it. He, himself, received grants, student aid to attend college.

The GOP should be renamed HOP, Hypocritical Opposition Party.
 
Well, it's not much good being middle-class, or even upper-class, on a ruined planet.

Ignoring your wildly exaggerated (and completely unscientific) speculation...




What does it matter if people wrongly associate recent extreme events and disaster costs with climate change? Responding to it is a good thing, and if people support mitigation action for the wrong reasons, so what?

There are three objections here.

First, an argument that mitigation of greenhouse gases makes sense in terms of decreasing the future costs of extreme events is not a strong one: Even under the assumptions of IPCC, Stern Review, etc. the future costs of extreme events under the most aggressive scenarios of climate change actually decrease as a proportion of GDP.

The second objection is that the discovery of a little horsemeat in lasagne ruins the entire product. You might cite the tasty (and safe) noodles and tomato sauce, but the presence of horsemeat in the product defeats your argument. The science is just not there to connect increasing costs of disasters to climate change, much less individual phenomena like drought, floods and storms. It is horsemeat — and don’t put it into your product lest you compromise the whole package.

The third reason should be obvious but often appears to escape the calculus of many campaigners and journalists. Telling people that their lasagne contains beef, when it actually contains horsemeat is just wrong...
-Roger Pielke, Jr.​
 

Ignoring your wildly exaggerated (and completely unscientific) speculation...





-Roger Pielke, Jr.​

So you deride someone for unscientific speculation and then paste unscientific speculation?
 
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