Obama Must Hammer Republicans In 2010 Election

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Bill, I also included this quote which you conveniently ignored;
Bruce Bartlett asserts, "According to Congressional Budget Office data, acceptable answers would be 6.4%, which is the percentage for federal income taxes; 12.7%, which would be for both income taxes and Social Security payroll taxes; or 14.8%, which would represent all federal taxes as a share of GDP in 2009."
http://www.forbes.com/2010/03/18/tea-party-ignorant-taxes-opinions-columnists-bruce-bartlett.html
Good luck Bill. It's easy to twist and distort which is what you and the rest of the GOP/TP crowd does to proliferate your misleading political views.

steve of IL 11:27AM September 22, 2010

Using "1998 through 2005" numbers. When did obama take office ?
Worthless link for your purpose...

Bill Hedges of MO 11:32PM September 21, 2010

Tea Partiers lie about the tax issue. There has been a clear tax shift from federal income, corporate and capital gains taxes to regressive, flat rate state, property and sales taxes. These have increased in the absence of sufficient middle class real income growth to support localities and the fact that federal aid to states and localities has dropped dramatically over the past thirty years. Federal tax base has eroded over time. A GAO report which studied corporate tax liabilities from 1998 to 2005 showed that;
"In the 8 years from 1998 through 2005...about 72 percent of Foreign Controlled Domestic Corporations (FCDC) and 55 percent of US Controlled Corporations (USCC) reported no tax liability for at least 1 year during the 8 years. About 57 percent of FCDCs and 42 percent of USCCs reported no tax liability in multiple years—2 or more years—and about 34 percent of FCDCs and 24 percent of USCCs reported no tax liability for at least half the study period—4 or more years. A correspondingly higher percentage of USCCs reported a tax liability in all 8 years, 45 percent for USCCs and 28 percent for FCDCs."
http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d08957.pdf
The situation has gotten worse. It is also reported by the IRS that small corporations, the so called S corporations, under report their earnings by at least half. Federal income taxes on individuals are also low. Bruce Bartlett asserts, "According to Congressional Budget Office data, acceptable answers would be 6.4%, which is the percentage for federal income taxes; 12.7%, which would be for both income taxes and Social Security payroll taxes; or 14.8%, which would represent all federal taxes as a share of GDP in 2009."
http://www.forbes.com/2010/03/18/tea-party-ignorant-taxes-opinions-columnists-bruce-bartlett.html
Up until the 1990s, all US federal taxes tended to comprise about a fifth of the GDP. The problem is that no one is paying taxes anymore. That is what the tea parties don't get. They are deceitful. No one, not the rich or the poor pay federal income taxes anymore for all intents and purposes. Mr. Obama certainly has his hands in NOBODY'S pockets; this is just tea party hysteria and smears. The large deficit is due to three things; (1)the deep recession and lost tax base, (2)automatic stabilizers and non-discretionary spending as a result of the recession and, (3)years of tax cuts for the rich that have gutted the progressivity of the tax code.
What the GOP/tea party coalition is trying to gradually attain by stealth is a fiscal disconnect between the federal government and states. As federal income and capital gains taxes are eroded and replaced by regressive state and local flat rate taxes, states have increased fiscal burdens and less capacity to meet them. They hence cut back vital . The rich get small federal government and a shift of most fiscal burdens to localities funded by regressive flat taxes. This will be a major disaster for the middle class and working poor.

steve of IL 9:23PM September 21, 2010

Senate said NO. Too much PORK (Don‘t ask). If liberals want to say we are against the war GO FOR IT. The stupid cloud has lifted off most of the public‘s skies. Check polls.
Bush veto’s a war budget. Too much PORK. No harm done to military. I know our FIGHTING MEN have common sense and understand what’s going on. Ever bullet they need they have. Want them to come home to Country they yearn for. Which they fought for...

Bill Hedges of MO 6:21PM September 21, 2010

Hammer the Republicans on what? Because they failed to adopt or co-opt another massive entitlement program that is, based on the track history of our other "entitlement" programs is doomed to massive failure.
Hammer the Republicans for not caving to a progressive liberal agenda.
Perhaps he should take the proverbial hammer to Pelosi and Reid for taking a "go it alone" philosophy and essentially locking Republicans out of the process.
Guess what, despite the massive health care bill, we still have tort problems, insurance companies are still as strong and might as ever. Cost haven't gone down, in fact, premiums are increasing. Who would have thought?
Now you have Reid attempting to circumvent the process, like what happened with health care. He's attempting to attach Don't Ask, and Amnesty for illegals to the defense spending bill. In other words. He's holding the military's finances as hostage and pawns to broker the progressive liberal agenda. To vote for the military spending bill you get the poison pill--don't ask, don't tell and Amnesty. Don't vote for it, and you get accused as being the party of NO and obstructionist.
Gee, and you Dems, want to hammer Republicans. Obama should tell Reid and Pelosi to stop their parlor tricks.

david of ID 3:32PM September 21, 2010

The Republican Governor of Hawaii came out and confirmed he was born there. Good enough for me. Now let's move on to something that matters...like Jobs!!

steve of IL 2:59PM September 21, 2010

A president who cannot produce his long-form birth certificate is in no position to "hammer" anyone. Those educated on the nuances would understand that Obama merely revealed his short-form birth certificate, which proves nothing of his birthplace. A man who hides and deflects from the truth is operating from a position of weakness!!

AZ of CA 2:52PM September 21, 2010

Obama needs to discuss the achievements of his presidency and the obstructiveness of the GOP. The ACA reform will keep people alive who wouldn't have access to health care and the stimulus worked as well as could be. The economy has turned around but not the job market. This is a structural problem not a policy based one; the US economy has been outsourcing jobs for decades and has lost millions of manufacturing jobs to China and elsewhere. Jobless recoveries are the future due to technology, cheap labor overseas, downsizing and the higher labor productivity it brings and the further concentration of income and a tendency toward overproduction making investment stagnant. Restructuring the economy to make millions of green jobs and public service jobs such as health care will reorient the US economy away from finance and towards jobs that can't be outsourced thus ensuring full employment. Of course, the issue is profits not the economy per se. Full employment harms profits by putting upward pressure on wages. This is real GOP objection to stimulus; too much employment becomes unprofitable for corporations. There is a political aspect to this issue as well as an economic one.
Despite this, the Obama Administration has done as good as can be expected given the mess he inherited. Here is the conclusions of a CNNMoney report;
By historical standards, the labor market is recovering nicely -- job growth has started earlier than in past recessions...The unemployment rate hit a high-water mark of 10.1% in October 2009 and has since fallen to 9.5%. Payrolls began growing in November and, excluding the impact of temporary census jobs, the economy has added jobs every month since January. That's a much quicker peak than previous job market recoveries. After the 1990-91 recession ended, the economy lost nearly 300,000 additional jobs in the 11 months that followed. And the 2001 recession was followed by a so-called jobless recovery that lasted for nearly two more years. "Sustained, positive job formation began earlier in this recovery than in the prior two recoveries," said Lakshman Achuthan, managing director of Economic Cycle Research Institute...Heidi Shierholz, labor economist for the Economic Policy Institute, thinks another shot of stimulus spending by the federal government is called for in order to avoid more job losses.
"We owe the growth we have seen to the measures that the Fed and Congress took in early 2009," she said. "It's great to put the brakes on the jobs losses of last year, but we need to do more."
http://money.cnn.com/2010/09/02/news/economy/jobs_recovery/index.htm
Far more jobs were lost in the most recent recession than in any prior one which is why there is such stubbornly persistent unemployment. The Great Recession's job market contracted by 7% where as in the two previous recessions which also had jobless recoveries the job market contracted by only 3.1% and 1.9% respectively. More fiscal stimulus is now needed.

steve of IL 2:50PM September 21, 2010

I agree with you 100%. President Obama needs to get "fired up". On one of these fine fall days, he should just jump over his desk, kick over a few chairs and the knock the hell out of a couple of "tired", old Republicans, and I'll bet he will get a lot of Americans in his corner.
I believe that the President is a "nice guy", but he needs to put that title on the shelf and come out swinging like a crazy man to push his agenda through. If he needs to take a few lessons in "cussin", he can contact me or Sam L. Jackson.
The time has long passed for trying to be friends with the very folks who are trying to wreck his presidency and his efforts to assist the millions of Americans who so desperately need President Obama's help.

Gwen Jones of AL 12:30PM September 21, 2010