Home > Thinking Right > Archives > 2009 > January > 09 > Entry
DEL.ICIO.USLawmakers: Don’t hide from tax hikes
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Another of the few years that Republicans under the Gold Dome have remaining in power starts on Monday with the dominant issue being how best to raise taxes. History provides the answer for Republicans. Cleverly.
For the Dems, the answer is to exhibit much angst and hand-wringing before, darn it, they are moved by civic obligation to “enhance revenue.” For Republicans, it is to profess opposition to higher taxes, while disguising them as “fees” or gallantly standing aside and allowing voters to decide whether they wish to spend a token sum to cure a grievous public problem — poor schooling, jobs or traffic congestion.
Both the mislabeled fees and the stand-aside posturing reflect a lack of leadership, political gutlessness and the gamesmanship that breeds cynicism and distrust among voters. It’s the weasel politics that so alienated the conservative base about Congress.
If legislators want to raise the sales tax and use the money to fund transportation projects, for example, they should do it straight-up. Make the case. Tell us what we’re getting for the penny. And then raise taxes. No games. No bogus studies without context showing that voters are clamoring for higher taxes or for more spending.
It’s worth noting that the gallant men and women who oppose higher taxes but do support the voters’ right to choose never think it appropriate to let them decide whether to choose a cap on state spending or some other spending-restraint device.
As Republicans go, you have to give it to state Rep. Ron Stephens of Savannah, who is said to be one. He prefiled a bill for a tax of $1.37 per pack on cigarettes and 25 percent of the wholesale cost on loose or smokeless tobacco. That would be up from 37 cents per pack now and 10 percent of the wholesale cost on loose and smokeless.
On taxes, one is inclined to think of Stephens as the young soldier in the movie “Patton” who arises from the floor in a somnolent military headquarters in response to the question, “What are you doing there, soldier?” “Trying to get some sleep, sir,” he replies.
“Well, get back down there, son,” responds Patton. “You’re the only [expletive deleted] in this headquarters who knows what he’s trying to do.”
That’s not exactly apt. The invective has no specific application here, and plenty of those under the Gold Dome know what they’re trying to do. They just don’t want you to know that they did it when they do it.
Stephens for his part sounds like the generic politician, one who offers his proposed tax increase as “a sound solution to the state’s fiscal crisis that will help, not hurt, the state’s ability to operate responsibly while continuing to serve all its residents.” It would serve all its residents by making smoking prohibitively expensive and by reimbursing the state for some of the costs of treating those with tobacco-related illnesses, he has argued. Therefore, to the clever Republican, it is a kind of “user fee.”
State Sen. Jack Murphy (R-Cumming) offers a kind of user-fee argument with legislation he’s considering that would impose a surcharge of $3 to $5 each on strip-club patrons. The money would go, he says, to services for sexually-exploited youngsters.
Tax strip-club patrons as you will, but don’t pretend it’s a user fee and don’t offer the excuse that it’s to be spent on some particular program. If a program doesn’t stand on its merits, it doesn’t warrant a linked tax.
State Rep. Chuck Sims of Ambrose proposes to tax groceries for two years, a tax increase of just under a billion dollars a year. It’s a bold proposal from one not given to adventurism in drafting legislation unsought by higher-ups. To such signals, the lay fiscal conservative should be alert. Sims’ concern, expressed to reporter James Salzer, is that budget cuts to be proposed by Gov. Sonny Perdue will be “too drastic.”
The lay fiscal conservative should be alert, too, to the prospect that Republicans will maneuver cleverly to get rid of the $428 million in state tax relief grants that go to offset local property taxes. If done, it would come in the 2009-2010 fiscal year starting July 1.
There’s no clever way to take the break back. Legislators could try to couple withdrawal with a cap on the growth of assessments. If so, not a one of them will have the moral authority to call the national Democrats to task for raising taxes when they allow the Bush tax cuts to expire.
State Sen. Jack Hill (R-Reidsville), chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, thinks the sluggish economy makes it time to re-examine the sales tax structure. That means spread the tax to services, an idea that never goes away. Just be honest and aboveboard. Make the case for new money and levy the taxes, straight-up. No games. No deceit.
Permalink | Comments (96) | Post your comment | Categories: Column
Comments
By Shorter Wooten
January 10, 2009 8:09 AM | Link to this
I saw Patton last night and I needed an excuse to quote my favorite line in the movie. Oh yeah, taxes bad.
By Redneck Convert
January 10, 2009 8:34 AM | Link to this
Well, asking a politican to be honest and aboveboard is something like asking a wolf to change to vegetables. It ain’t going to happen.
And so they will end up raising the tax on my Skoal and Redman. And when people quit smoking and chewing on account of they can’t afford it, they will tax something else to make up the diffrence. Only they’ll call it a fee.
Leastwise Wooten is right about this disguised tax thing. A buddy tells me that Roswell is fixing to put a fee on water to build a plant to handle runoff water. They ain’t got the guts to increase taxes for it. So people that live there will get a fee that depends on how much driveway and roof space they got. You can’t even deduct fees on your taxes, so the taxpayer will lose both ways. Then the council members will run around bragging about how they kept taxes the same.
It’s hard times coming to guvmint these days, what with sales taxes going down and people out of work and property values plunging. So I reckon we better bend over and get ready for guvmint to do You Know What to us. I’m with Raghead. Just get rid of guvmint except for the parts that will keep my money safe and make Those People stop robbing and killing and fund the Army for war. It’s a jungle out there and every man for hisself anyway.
That’s my opinion and it’s very true. Have a good weekend everybody.
By ron
January 10, 2009 8:44 AM | Link to this
Good morning,Taxes are going to have to be raised,no doubt about it.Government does not cut.Meaningfully that is.
A sales tax on groceries will be long remembered and Rep Chuck Sims would probably have to move to California to live if he successfully passes his bill.Better to go with a tax on services.I know that’s a nasty tax,but the origionator will survive politically.This service tax has to be in addition to a sales tax.
Taxing tobacco and alcohol is never a bad idea.The votes you lose will be more than made up by folks that appreciate clean air.If cigarettes were $15 a pack,only about 10% of smokers would quit and they’d be replaced by the next generation.
State Senator Jack Murphy’s[R-Cummings],proposal of a surcharge on strip club patrons for the benefit of sexually exploited children should maybe instead look to taxing churches,because I’ll bet more sexually exploited children origionate there than from the patrons of a strip club.
Speaking of taxing churches and their holdings and their businesses——It’s time to do that.
An increase in sales tax and income tax is an option that must be looked at hard.If you need money,it has to come from somewhere.
Now for my disclosures:I don’t smoke.I take an occasional drink on a Friday afternoon.I do most of my own work so a services tax would have a minimal affect.I do not attend church.I don’t go to strip clubs.I don’t go to restaurants either,so maybe the tax there can be raised.
Now,Mr/Ms.Politician,Raise taxes all you want to.The only thing I camn do is vote against you if I don’t like what you’ve done.Remember,I only have one vote.
By Churchill's MOM
January 10, 2009 8:47 AM | Link to this
Those lying liberal northern Papers are lying about our GIRL. Jim write about something that matters..
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin expressed displeasure Friday with media reports of her recent comments about Caroline Kennedy.
“I was not commenting at all on Caroline Kennedy as a prospective U.S. senator, but rather on the seemingly arbitrary ways in which news organizations determine the level and kind of scrutiny given to those who aspire to public office,” Palin said. “In fact, I consider Ms. Kennedy qualified and experienced, and she could serve New York well.”
“As a public official, I expect criticism and I expect to be held accountable for how I govern,” the Alaska governor added. “But the personal, salacious nature of recent reporting, and often the refusal of the media to correct obvious mistakes, unfortunately discredits too many in journalism today, making it difficult for many Americans to believe what they see in the media.”
In an interview with conservative filmmaker John Ziegler for his coming move “How Obama Got Elected,” posted on YouTube on Wednesday, Palin said that Kennedy has gotten softer treatment in the press because of a “class issue.”
“I’ve been interested to see how Caroline Kennedy will be handled and if she will be handled with kid gloves or if she will be under such a microscope,” Palin said during the interview. “It’s going to be interesting to see how that plays out and I think that as we watch that we will perhaps be able to prove that there is a class issue here also that was such a factor in the scrutiny of my candidacy versus, say, the scrutiny of what her candidacy may be.”
Palin’s office released the remarks along with a statement expressing “dismay” with coverage of the comments, especially with a story in Politico Thursday that the office said “inflames” the governor’s comments on Kennedy.
“Ironically, the latest media eruption concerning the governor came out of an interview she gave to a filmmaker who is creating a documentary on distortions by the national press,” the statement read.
“Particularly troubling was a post on Politico.com titled, ‘Palin: Media Goes Easy on Kennedy.’ The headline inflames the governor’s quote in the transcript, in which she answered a question about media treatment of the prospect that Caroline Kennedy would be appointed to the U.S. Senate.”
By Sunday Beer Drinker
January 10, 2009 8:49 AM | Link to this
So how much revenue could be raised if beer was sold on Sunday?
By zeke
January 10, 2009 9:51 AM | Link to this
How much can be saved forcing marta to pay for itself? How much can be raised with Sunday alcohol sales? How much can be raised taxing churches and othe so called non profits for everything except their core missions? Churches and non profits who have real estate holdings and other ventures need to be charged taxes on those non religious ventures! How much can be gained by telling Washington hacks that we do not want any money from them, but, we are going to keep all of our own except just enough to fund our military forces! Georgia gets back about 90% to 92% of the taxes that go tho the feds! How many billions of daolars would that mean to have the full 100% without ever raising taxes???? It is not up to us to pay fro roads and bridges in West Virginia, New York or other states!
By atlmom
January 10, 2009 10:31 AM | Link to this
1) trying to raise taxes won’t have much effect. We will never collect the revenue that is projected, and then they will want to raise revenues otherwise. 2) I am all for getting rid of all the fees, the extra fees, the extra taxes, the whatever - given we have absolutely no idea what’s taxed and how. Give it to me straight. Get rid of the ridiculous car tag tax - and raise the sales tax or the income tax. Because the cost to collect that tax is immense, compared to the other costs of tax collection. 3) Just stop spending my money. Cut your budget. Just like the rest of us do. I’m all for THAT. 4) why should marta pay for itself when the roads don’t? We subsidize roads, but we shouldn’t subsidize marta? Where’s the logic in that? If there were no marta - there’d be more traffic - what do you think of that? What we need is more transit, before more companies leave Atlanta, or don’t locate here at all, due to the traffic/standard of living.
By Jackie
January 10, 2009 11:25 AM | Link to this
I would like for some/any of the so-called conservatives to explain how the economy works.
It seems that those of us who do not believe the conservatives have never done anything but bring economic grief to this country and the policies and practices that they put forth have been devastating to the country has not worked.
It seems the conservatives are either confused, or, have not explained to the rest of us what is required to make the economy work for all of us.
By @@
January 10, 2009 11:25 AM | Link to this
I’m with ‘ya, Jim.
On the hoof, a pig is a very unattractive creature.
Yet, when it’s smoked, pulled, or comes on a rack, there are those who will drool at the sight of it.
By Crime Pays Sometimes
January 10, 2009 11:25 AM | Link to this
Obama will astonish us all on inauguration day. He’ll obliterate the last refuge of conservatism by exorcising the jingoistic jangle of jungle law that possessed our foreign policy. He’ll douse Bush’s divine rights of executive privelege with a baptism of fire, (as in “you’re fired”.)
Obama will invoke the dormant phantoms of our founding fathers, unleashing the unconsummated bliss of our promised freedoms while he annulls the Cheney shotgun-marriage of church and state.
Obama will speak as our president, and our latent prophesy of justice will be fulfilled; our cautious faith in America restored; our new blushing Bride of Liberty will beckon globally to the wretched refuse of Bush Diplomacy: You are America too!
By D
January 10, 2009 11:27 AM | Link to this
Economically, the best taxes will come from something where we won’t see a significant decrease in the quantity demanded of the product when the price increases — tobacco and alcohol, for example. People who want these products will pay the new, higher prices and help raise the money that we need. I think what the General Assembly needs to do is to look at these products and realize that we are in a situation that would make these taxes necessary and proper at this time to keep Georgia afloat….. and while we’re at it, stop bending over to the Christian Right and do what’s right for all of the people of Georgia. Mississippi hasn’t gone to hell since it legalized casino gambling in the waters of that state. Maybe we should give it a try in Georgia too…. we can’t go around saying Mississippi is more progressive than Georgia, now can we?
By Corey
January 10, 2009 11:46 AM | Link to this
None of us knows what tomorrow will bring, but these blogs allow us a chance to pretend we’re all experts. Our votes result in what we get from whom we elect; my fellow Americans we goofed in 2000 and again in 2004. Do you get the feeling that we in Georgia goofed the last couple of elections cycles with our state elected officials - just wondering? As long as state government is held hostage by the religious fundamentalists, and local governments (Atlanta et.al.) are held hostage by the black baptist Civil Rights Era mindset ministers and their ilk we will be stuck in the past.
By Old Man Ribah
January 10, 2009 11:55 AM | Link to this
Obama will astonish us all on inauguration day. He’ll obliterate the last refuge of conservatism by exorcising the jingoistic jangle of jungle law that possessed our unjuried foreign policy. He’ll douse Bush’s divine rights of executive privelege with a baptism of you’re fired.
Obama will invoke the dormant phantoms of our founding fathers, unleashing the unconsummated bliss of our promised freedoms while he annulls the Cheney shotgun-marriage of church and state.
Obama will speak as our president, and our latent prophesy of justice will be fulfilled; our cautious faith in America restored; our new blushing Bride of Liberty will beckon globally to the wretched refuse of Bush Diplomacy: You are America too!
By Curious Observer
January 10, 2009 11:58 AM | Link to this
Does anyone else see the foolishness of instituting an extra tax on a product we want to disappear—and then claiming that’s the purpose of the tax? So what happens to the extra revenue when more people give up tobacco because they can’t afford it? We are right back to where we started—short on funds and needing to find another source of tax revenue.
I suppose it is asking too much for legislators and county officials to show some guts by coming forth with a tax increase that won’t disappear. The mindless among us keep yelling about the need to shrink the size of government as a solution, but they are remarkably quiet about what they would eliminate as a state or county service.
Well, push has finally come to shove in this fiscal environment, and I look forward to seeing what our state legislators come up with to fill the holes in the budget. The gaps have become so large that mere shell games won’t wash. I fully expect to see a reworking of the state income tax structure to produce more revenue, along with some cutting of the state subsidy of the property tax system. Increases in taxes on tobacco and alcohol won’t come close to bridging the gaps. This spring ought to make for divine entertainment at the state capitol building.
By Robin Hood
January 10, 2009 12:06 PM | Link to this
Never underestimate the need for money from Government. For Politicians, any cut is drastic. Ever notice “they” never have enough money, but they never worry about taking it from us in “new” fees, user fees, raising sales taxes.
Given that gas prices are rising again and the cost of groceries is projected to rise again; re-imposing a sales tax on groceries hurts more than it will help.
But then again in the view of politicians, what they want is ALWAYS more important than any individual taxpayers’ needs.
We need to call all politicians (Democrat and Republican) to cut their extraneous programs and pet projects before taking more of our money. Don’t be a Shirley Franklin and cut the most vital services first (police and fire) to get the tax increases you want. Take out your own trash, cut the fat first.
Then we’ll take about tax increases.
By Chris
January 10, 2009 1:04 PM | Link to this
FLAT TAX NOW!
Eliminate all stealth taxes that we have to pay for. Cut spending now and leave the people alone!
By GaLiberal
January 10, 2009 1:53 PM | Link to this
By Chris January 10, 2009 1:04 PM FLAT TAX NOW! Eliminate all stealth taxes that we have to pay for. Cut spending now and leave the people alone!
Chris, you have just provided more proof that stupid people should not be allowed to vote. The Flat Tax is a discredited con job that will never work. Just look the huge budget shortfall caused at the fall off in state sales tax income. Now imagine how bad it would be if the states ONLY income source was sales tax.
You also forget that it’s the people that demand the government take care of them. Roads, bridges, safe water, sewer, parks, fire, and police just to name a few. It takes money to provide those services. I guess the state/county/city could just leave the people alone and not provide anything. But then what would be the good of having states and counties and cities? Every person for themselves. Dam up the river to get water for yourself. Who cares about the families that live downstream? If someone gets in your way, just kill them. One less person to compete for limited resources. Yea, that’s way better than having to pay taxes. What a s**.
When you vote Rethuglicon, you vote against your own best interests. And Chris is living proof.
By ron
January 10, 2009 3:08 PM | Link to this
Ga.Liberal,There was a time when I too believed that the people were the driver of government.I have since come to realize that government is a self sustaining,and always growing cancer.It no longer is conrolled by the people,but is almost self sustaining.
By Pedestrian Mandate
January 10, 2009 3:23 PM | Link to this
It’s fascinating to watch the rats jump the GOP ship. Now wooten plays against both sides of the aisle: “They’re ALL are tax and spenders”, he writes, trying to weasel his way back to respectibility.
Wooten is betting that we’re all morons with a four second attention span and a three minute memory and that we’re all suffering from amnesia and that most of us are brain dead and that 100 percent of his readership wears dunce caps, helmets, ride short busses and just had a lobotomy.
YOU CANT FOOL ALL THE MORONS ALL THE TIME WOOTEN!!!
WOOTEN!
WOOTEN!!
wooten
By Pedestrian Mandate
January 10, 2009 3:38 PM | Link to this
WOOTEN!!
By Glenn
January 10, 2009 3:41 PM | Link to this
I’m just going to come out and say this without tring to sound clever. When I worked in politics we had this false distinction between “policy” and “fiscal”. I’m sorry I fell for that, as the two are so painfully inseparable. It frightens me — I mean this: it frightens me as a I lay my head down — that so many of our leaders seem unable to find it within themselves to exercise fiscal discipline of any kind. I see that some of our Georgian’s are sensible, and that some of the elected officials of both parties in e.g. Colorado and Ohio are working hard to rein things in, but in general I’m afraid there’s a feeding frenzy of politicians who’ve no sense of business nor even any experience with balancing their own accounts. This scares the hell out of me. It means so much hurt to come. Most of it to fall on the wee ones.
By follyfore
January 10, 2009 3:53 PM | Link to this
Israeli ground fire today killed the Hamas commander in charge of launching rockets into Israel from the Gaza City area
Cool. Israel is kicking Hamass. Geddit? Terrorist apologist libs are sure to be upset over that news.
Amazing how so many Dimocrat scandals have been had this year, and nary a word mentioned by their beloved DNC media like CNN and the New York Slimes. The latest case in point, Baltimore’s Dimocrat mayor:
Baltimore Mayor Sheila A. Dixon was charged today with 12 counts of felony theft, perjury, fraud and misconduct in office, becoming the city’s first sitting mayor to be criminally indicted.
The case stems in part from at least $15,348 in gifts Dixon allegedly received from her former boyfriend, prominent city developer Ronald H. Lipscomb, while she was City Council president. She also is accused of using as much as $3,400 in gift cards, some donated to her office for distribution to “needy families,” to purchase Best Buy electronics and other items for herself and her staff.
What was that GAliberal posted again about voting for Rethuglicons being against best interests? Trash.
By Pedestrian Mandate
January 10, 2009 4:05 PM | Link to this
It’s a good thing you didn’t try to sound clever, Glenda. You need to learn the diff between fiscal and monetary policy, then you need to stick your head in the toilet.
bwa
By follyfore
January 10, 2009 4:09 PM | Link to this
Record lows globally. Record snowfall globally. A canceled snowboarding competition because of record snow.
I sure am glad the stupid liberal wacko left wingnut Algorebots were right about global warming. Free carbon credits for everyone!
No, wait. Global warming causes global cooling just like a drought caused by man’s SUV and backyard grill use actually causes flooding and hurricanes. Yeah. That’s the ticket. Let’s spend money on that junk science known as man-induced global warming. No wait. Now it’s called climate change. My bad.
Come to think of it, when the hell have liberals ever been right about anything? Just like nearly fifty years of Great Society social spending (that’s welfare and other gubment handouts for you slow wits who voted for Obama and didn’t know Democrats ran congress when questioned) to rid this nation of the “poor” has accomplished WHAT?
By @@
January 10, 2009 4:17 PM | Link to this
The latest situation report from my fair Clayton.
Foreclosures are the highest in the metro area, as is unemployment.
NOW! crime is on the rise.
Virginia Seay is quoted as saying……“The solution to our problem is education.”
Not saying she doesn’t have a valid point, just wonderin’ where the heck she’s been for the last seven years and two losses in accreditation.
By Cardinal Red
January 10, 2009 4:22 PM | Link to this
Throughout the post-World War II history of the U.S. economy, recessions have repeatedly caused unemployment to break above the level we are at now — occasionally quite forcefully. Unemployment was between 7.3 percent and 7.8 percent throughout all of 1992, while the first half of the 1980s had chronic and persistent unemployment that regularly hovered above 7.2 percent and peaked at 10.8 percent. The unemployment rate was also above the current figure from 1974 through 1977, and in both 1958 and 1949.
The unemployment measurement is a backward look at job loss, through the lens of people who have begun to look for new jobs and then taken the time to respond to the bureau’s survey. On Jan. 8, the U.S. Department of Labor reported its measure of filings for unemployment benefits — a more current statistic, and a more solid one because it does not rely on survey data. This number indicated that claims for benefits actually fell for the two weeks after Dec. 25. The figure for the week ending Jan. 8 indicates that 467,000 people filed claims — hardly a cause for celebration, but a noteworthy decline from the 586,000 reported Dec. 24.
At the end of the day, the U.S. economy is in recession, and rising unemployment is to be expected. As long as it remains within the historical parameters of the post-World War II business cycle (as it has thus far), it represents a necessary process in the economy that, while certainly unpleasant and difficult for those affected, also clears malinvestment and reduces input costs for businesses. Despite grim economic headlines, there is no evidence to suggest that the global economy has broken out of the patterns it has followed since the mid-20th century.
By follyfore
January 10, 2009 4:33 PM | Link to this
I would like for some liberal Dimocrat here to explain to me why this is not characterized as hate speech by the DNC media (I already know the answer):
Like many other protests of Israel’s campaign in Gaza, this one ended badly — police had to cool an ugly fight between supporters of Israel and Gaza, breaking up the warring sides as their screaming and chanting threatened to turn into something worse.
But some protesters at this rally in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., took their rhetoric a step further, calling for the extermination of Israel — and of Jews.
But as the protest continued and crowds grew, one woman in a hijab began to shout curses and slurs that shocked Jewish activists in the city, which has a sizable Jewish population.
“Go back to the oven,” she shouted, calling for the counter-protesters to die in the manner that the Nazis used to exterminate Jews during the Holocaust.
“You need a big oven, that’s what you need,” she yelled.
I wonder what the reaction would have been had someone shouted back to her, “you need to be stoned to death.” I know the answer to that too.
By fed up
January 10, 2009 4:38 PM | Link to this
GA LIBERAL what do you propose since you think the flat tax or fair tax is no good. No answer, that figures. What’s going on now with taxes is working so well isn’t it?
By follyfore
January 10, 2009 4:44 PM | Link to this
Heh. Heheheh. Another brilliant liberal idea and it’s aftermath. Another Jimmy Carter legacy, too. One just has to wonder, are all those Hollywood star libs going to come back and fix things? Will we see Sean Penn in a little boat - or in this case maybe a little red wagon - saving people again?
RESIDENTS of a model housing estate bankrolled by Hollywood celebrities and hand-built by Jimmy Carter, the former US president, are complaining that it is falling apart.
Fairway Oaks was built on northern Florida wasteland by 10,000 volunteers, including Carter, in a record 17-day “blitz” organised by the charity Habitat for Humanity.
Eight years later it is better known for cockroaches, mildew and mysterious skin rashes.
A forthcoming legal battle over Fairway Oaks threatens the reputation of a charity envied for the calibre of its celebrity supporters, who range from Johnny Depp and Brad Pitt to Colin Firth, Christian Bale and Helena Bonham Carter.
By TRUTH
January 10, 2009 4:47 PM | Link to this
Those In Gaza are no different than Americans fighting King George’s oppression of colonists. You get your home taken from you, and your home is destroyed over and over and over what do you expect them to do? It’s only human nature to defend your home, family and way of life. We did it, and the Palestinians have the same right. They are the only people on Earth who isn’t allowed to return home after a war (as it was stolen from them). That’s international law, the right to return, and Israel continually violates it. Why? Because they bought our traitorous congressmen and senators to protect them. No country gets as much welfare from the USA (on average $17,000 for every man, woman and child in Israel A YEAR), either. We don’t even give our own citizens that much money. One Israel gets more money than 2 Americans who are poor! Enough is enough. And stop arming them. If they want to kill Palestinians let them with their bear hands, as that’s how barbaric they’ve become.
By follyfore
January 10, 2009 4:50 PM | Link to this
Hey fed up: don’t waste your time on debating taxes with an idiotic liberal. They think the successful in this nation don’t pay enough income tax as it is: all 25% of them who pay nearly 90% of them as the top 25% of income earners. Liberal dimwits won’t be happy until the top 10% pay 100% of all taxes in this nation. It’s no big secret really - and then those idiots wonder why investment money and jobs continue to go overseas.
By Truth In War
January 10, 2009 5:00 PM | Link to this
The Arabs started a war with Israel. The Arabs lost. That’s what happens when you start a fight you LOSE.
Speaking of welfare from states, the US has the second highest corporate tax rate in the entire world.
You never hear anyone mention that, do you?
By Truth In War
January 10, 2009 5:01 PM | Link to this
If they want to kill Palestinians let them with their bear hands, as that’s how barbaric they’ve become.
Yes. And hiding behind innocent women and children and firing rockets from mosques is so heroic, isn’t it.
By jget out much?
January 10, 2009 5:23 PM | Link to this
Yes. And hiding behind innocent women and children and firing rockets from mosques is so heroic, isn’t it.
about as heroic as dropping bombs from the sky when you know your opponent has no way to shoot back.
By TRUTH
January 10, 2009 5:24 PM | Link to this
THE GAZANS Most of the people living in Gaza are not there by choice. The majority of the 1.5 million people crammed into the roughly 140 square miles of the Gaza Strip belong to families that came from towns and villages outside Gaza like Ashkelon and Beersheba. They were driven to Gaza by the Israeli Army in 1948.
THE OCCUPATION The Gazans have lived under Israeli occupation since the Six-Day War in 1967. Israel is still widely considered to be an occupying power, even though it removed its troops and settlers from the strip in 2005. Israel still controls access to the area, imports and exports, and the movement of people in and out. Israel has control over Gaza’s air space and sea coast, and its forces enter the area at will. As the occupying power, Israel has the responsibility under the Fourth Geneva Convention to see to the welfare of the civilian population of the Gaza Strip.
THE BLOCKADE Israel’s blockade of the strip, with the support of the United States and the European Union, has grown increasingly stringent since Hamas won the Palestinian Legislative Council elections in January 2006. Fuel, electricity, imports, exports and the movement of people in and out of the Strip have been slowly choked off, leading to life-threatening problems of sanitation, health, water supply and transportation.
The blockade has subjected many to unemployment, penury and malnutrition. This amounts to the collective punishment — with the tacit support of the United States — of a civilian population for exercising its democratic rights.
THE CEASE-FIRE Lifting the blockade, along with a cessation of rocket fire, was one of the key terms of the June cease-fire between Israel and Hamas. This accord led to a reduction in rockets fired from Gaza from hundreds in May and June to a total of less than 20 in the subsequent four months (according to Israeli government figures). The cease-fire broke down when Israeli forces launched major air and ground attacks in early November; six Hamas operatives were reported killed.
WAR CRIMES The targeting of civilians, whether by Hamas or by Israel, is potentially a war crime. Every human life is precious. But the numbers speak for themselves: Nearly 700 Palestinians, most of them civilians, have been killed since the conflict broke out at the end of last year. In contrast, there have been around a dozen Israelis killed, many of them soldiers. Negotiation is a much more effective way to deal with rockets and other forms of violence. This might have been able to happen had Israel fulfilled the terms of the June cease-fire and lifted its blockade of the Gaza Strip.
This war on the people of Gaza isn’t really about rockets. Nor is it about “restoring Israel’s deterrence,” as the Israeli press might have you believe. Far more revealing are the words of Moshe Yaalon, then the Israeli Defense Forces chief of staff, in 2002: “The Palestinians must be made to understand in the deepest recesses of their consciousness that they are a defeated people.”
By Jackie
January 10, 2009 5:27 PM | Link to this
@follyfore,
You seem to have a lot of answers relating to liberal v. conservatives views.
I was wondering what is it the conservatives know about taxes, economy and war that have been so successful.
It seems to me making disparaging remarks toward those of us that do no agree with you and those of you that believe the conservative philosophy has been a disaster does not offer any solutions to the current conservative economic meltdown.
Could you offer some definitive steps needed to solve those problems?
By Ygtbkmr
January 10, 2009 5:36 PM | Link to this
truth couldn’t give a rat’s azz about palestinians or israelis. our support is cutting into his government check. his life support is in the hooch he buys to get him thru the day.
By TRUTH
January 10, 2009 5:53 PM | Link to this
Ygtbkmr 5:36 PM
I pay a significant amount of taxes and get nothing from the government. I simply don’t understand why we pick up the check for Iseral when they act against our best interest in most cases. Just a hint where do you think we got the false WMD information about Iriq?
By Glenn
January 10, 2009 5:59 PM | Link to this
Oh shut up, PoFo. I’ll win @@’s heart long before you will.
And long after her husband has done, alas.
I know how you hate emotivism, as for you it’s just a trick of the trade, but at some point the over-expenditures swell into something humanly tragic. That’s what I was trying to convey.
In my old state we hid a forty-billion deficit for years. Our thinking was that the public simply could not construe the magnitude, the gravity of it. We were right, and were right to have done so.
So sue me.
By Pedestrian Mandate
January 10, 2009 5:59 PM | Link to this
Halftime in Tennessee. Titans should be up by a couple of touches, but they are dogged by penalties, and turnovers. It’s really all titans.
Ravens cant possibly win this. Zero offense. One lucky skunk touchdown bomb is all they got and THAT should have been intercepted. Titans will open it up in the second half.
Law of averages.
By glenn129
January 10, 2009 7:03 PM | Link to this
Tax chocolate.
By Bill Shipp
January 11, 2009 8:34 AM | Link to this
Breaking out of the recession in Georgia could be even more difficult than many experts think. One reason: The federal government and the Georgia Gold Dome appear to be pulling in opposite directions on several fronts to warm up the economy.
The incoming administration of Barack Obama plans to spend nearly a trillion dollars to stimulate the national economy. It plans massive tax cuts aimed at the middle class, and it has scrapped proposals to suspend most of the Bush administration’s cuts for upper-income taxpayers.
The administration of Gov. Sonny Perdue has different ideas. Perdue appears to be following the path of Depression-era President Herbert Hoover. While keeping the details under wraps, Perdue has tax increases and drastic reductions in spending and services on his mind.
The state hopes to persuade the legislature to approve a new tax on hospital revenue. Although the governor’s people insist on referring to these measures as fees, let’s call them what they are: taxes.
The new hospital money would be spent on shoring up Medicaid to the tune of $208 million. It also would fund trauma centers and underwrite other health care needs. That is what we are told in the Capitol. In fact, the fresh cash - a percentage of each hospital’s net revenue - is expected to wind up in the state’s general fund to be spent as Georgia’s kook-led legislature desires.
Health care interests already are up in arms about the tax, which they say could cripple or even shut down smaller hospitals across the state. Some big hospitals are perplexed at being kept in the dark about a proposal that directly affects their bottom lines as well as the health of many Georgians.
The administration wants to abolish former Gov. Roy Barnes’ homeowner tax relief grants, which provided an estimated $438 million in tax relief last year. And new insurance fees and automatically increased premiums will shortly add to many Georgians’ cash-flow woes, even as joblessness and foreclosures rise across the state.
And, by the way, the state plans to borrow another record amount for several ongoing projects, including moving the entire state Corrections Department from Atlanta to Monroe County in Middle Georgia.
As for cutting back on services, the ill, elderly and working poor have been hardest hit.
The state veterans’ home at Milledgeville is being closed. In addition, several Georgia mental health facilities are being shut down as the state prepares to privatize treatment and reduce its caregiver staff to nearly zero.
Georgia has three major blots on its historical record: slavery, renting convict labor and cruel and negligible care for its mentally sick. Is Georgia about to replay its infamous role from the 1950s as the nation’s snake pit for the mentally impaired?
Georgia’s public schools and colleges continue to take a shellacking with major cuts in staff and programs. Class sizes are being increased, and quality education has taken a giant step backward in many areas.
Obama has asked the states to forego employee cutbacks and curtailment of services to avoid adding more fuel to the recession fires. His plea has been ignored in Georgia’s statehouse.
Meanwhile, Georgia is becoming known as Illinois South for its pay-to-play shenanigans. A Perdue appointee to the state Board of Regents has been discovered with $1 million in contracts with the University System, which he governs. And Speaker Glenn Richardson’s House chamber has become a clearinghouse for the speaker’s political action program, to which every House committee chairman contributes cash each year.
On the other hand, let’s give credit where it’s due. Perdue has received national recognition for his $14 million Go Fish program to promote Georgia bass fishing. The Wall Street Journal poked fun at the Go Fish program and quoted Perdue: “The governor says even if the lakes stay low, that will make it easier to get to the fish. ‘Would you rather catch a big fish in your bathtub,’ Mr. Perdue recently asked reporters at a news conference, ‘or your swimming pool?’”
The next governor’s election comes up in 2010. Right now, the pickings for a sterling successor to Perdue look mighty slim, but who knows? A new FDR or Huey Long could emerge from the Georgia pines any day now.
By Old Man Ribah
January 11, 2009 9:06 AM | Link to this
Bookman asks, “How would things be different if McCain were the prez-elect?
First, I’d have been forced to U-tube the Palin wardrobe malfunction video I bought on Ebay. (clever editing with a stunt double). But perhaps I can better express the nuances better in a poem:
If Palin were the veep elect then al queda would surrender.
If McCain were the people’s choice then the fashion would be suspenders.
If the GOP managed the win then we’d all be smelling rats here-a and there-a.
If John McCain were the president we’d have to pinch each other awake…I dubs Sara!
Sara in a towel. Sara in a dress. Sara in a bathing suit. The country in a mess.
Sara winked at me that day, I’m sure all men would say. John would start WW3, and increase our soldiers pay.
If Sara won then every phrase would end with “or terrorists win” and Rush would forever reign with his ditto-headed spin.
If McCain had won then animal rights could relax about the gerbel, and Fox News would hit us hard with stories straight from Goebels.
By mister.earl
January 11, 2009 9:49 AM | Link to this
Eight Years Of Madoffs
THREE days after the world learned that $50 billion may have disappeared in Bernie Madoff’s Ponzi scheme, The Times led its front page of Dec. 14 with the revelation of another $50 billion rip-off. This time the vanished loot belonged to American taxpayers. That was our collective contribution to the $117 billion spent (as of mid-2008) on Iraq reconstruction — a sinkhole of corruption, cronyism, incompetence and outright theft that epitomized Bush management at home and abroad.
The source for this news was a near-final draft of an as-yet-unpublished 513-page federal history of this nation-building fiasco. The document was assembled by the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction — led by a Bush appointee, no less. It pinpoints, among other transgressions, a governmental Ponzi scheme concocted to bamboozle Americans into believing they were accruing steady dividends on their investment in a “new” Iraq.
The $50 billion also pales next to other sums that remain unaccounted for in the Bush era, from the $345 billion in lost tax revenue due to unpoliced offshore corporate tax havens to the far-from-transparent disposition of some $350 billion in Wall Street bailout money. In the old Pat Moynihan phrase, the Bush years have “defined deviancy down” in terms of how low a standard of ethical behavior we now tolerate as the norm from public officials.
By Old Man Ribah
January 11, 2009 10:02 AM | Link to this
Capitalism is it’s own worst enemy. It doesn’t work without war or pirates.
Without war, capitalism is a soup line.
Without pirates, capitalism is a chick flick.
Cheney is the stereotypical poster-child emblematic cliche of a corrupt capitalist.
And his daughter is gay. You get the idea that if Cheney’s life were not a pirate movie, but a biblical movie, that Cheney’s obedience to GOD’s request that he sacrifice his son would be to beg that he be allowed to sacrifice his gay daughter, “She’s sort of like a son, God, you know…”
Cheney is scum. He belongs behind bars.
By sniveling lib
January 11, 2009 10:14 AM | Link to this
Capitalism is it’s own worst enemy. It doesn’t work without war or pirates. Without war, capitalism is a soup line.
That’s quite an interesting perspective, liberal poofbooty. Since you hate capitalism so much, perhaps you can shed some light for the rest of us what greatness alternatives have provided other nations, especially those states that are dependent on government for everything from an asswipe to a plot of land to be chunked six feet down in.
By Old Man Ribah
January 11, 2009 10:19 AM | Link to this
Man I hates the Cards.
You gonna make ‘em pay, Eli?
By sniveling lib
January 11, 2009 10:49 AM | Link to this
Random weekend comments:
If you pick a fight with Israel, you will lose. Bad. Nobody mentions thousands of rockets fired from Gaza into Israel since Israel withdrew from Gaza. Hamas saw the withdrawal as “victory” and a sign from Allah to continue attacks. Brilliant way of thinking, no?
In the UK, big screen plasma TVs will soon be banned as part of the battle against alleged climate change. You can bank that any movement like that in this nation will cause a new revolution - from our cold dead hands. Liberals (oh EXCUSE me, progressives) need to keep their algore junk science the hell out of our family rooms.
Record cold and snow around the globe. Global warming or global cooling? The algorebots can’t decide.
Baltimore’s mayor is a black democrat woman. She’s been indicted with 12 counts of felony theft, perjury, fraud and misconduct in office, becoming the city’s first sitting mayor to be criminally indicted. No word yet if she’s going to blame racism. No mention about it in the New York Times, CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, and certainly not in the AJC.
Five Somali pirates drowned as they fought over a $3 million ransom air dropped on the Sirius Star, the world’s biggest ship hijacking to date. Apparently, their boat overturned in rough seas. Even better news would have been something like “RAF fighters strafe and sink pirate boat loaded with booty - bodies eaten by sharks.”
The USS George H.W. Bush, a nuclear aircraft carrier longer than three football fields and built at a cost of $6.2 billion, was commissioned Saturday in Norfolk with its namesake, the 41st president George H.W. Bush. You can bet Bill Clinton will never have any naval vessel named after him.
“Everybody’s going to have to give. Everybody’s going to have to have some skin in the game.” Those are comments from Obama on fixing the economy. One has to wonder, with a current tax rate where the bottom 50% of income earners pay just 3% of all federal income tax, just how is “everyone” going to give some skin in the game there, chief? Liberals talk a good game, don’t they.
ABC’s Good Morning American loves to run coochie coo stories on Obama and the dog they’ll get. However, co-anchor Bill Weir declared that “Barney’s a jerk” and “everyone hates him” this weekend. Obviously that Barney Bite a few months ago has his little liberal pretty panties in a wad. Perhaps that sad case just doesn’t understand that Barney hates left wing liberally biased reporters.
Polling results this week about that democrat senate seat thief Al Franken conclude that more Minnesotans have a negative impression of him than a positive one, by a 45 percent to 37 percent margin. It is astonishing how all those votes mysteriously showed up and put him in, isn’t it? Especially considering that ~200 vote margin when nearly 3 MILLION votes were cast. That defines stolen election for you.
Kieth Olbermann ruins my football experience. Keep the liberal snake at bay where he belongs - MSNBC.
Sarah Palin continues to be in the main stream Democrat media. Why? She’s just a governor again now. What are the liberals so full of hate over that they feel they have to keep her in the media spotlight? It is most humorous watching their gaping mouths froth & drool over her like they do over Ann Coulter. Don’t be a hater.
By catlady
January 11, 2009 11:38 AM | Link to this
Funny how the “conservatives” are now calling for tax hikes now that “their boy” will no longer get the blame, now that the economy is in the tank.
George Bush, his incompetence, the graft of his cronies, has nearly killed our nation. How could anyone “remember his reign fondly?”
What I don’t understand is, given their love of money, how his supporters can continue to adore him since he sponsored the rape of their savings, and their children’s futures?
By David Mebane
January 11, 2009 11:41 AM | Link to this
I have the longest thermometer in the universe. Today I stuck it into the ground, until just the top was visible. The readout was 20 degrees Fahrenheit, so I guess it makes sense that Jim Wooten wrote a column about raising taxes.
By David Mebane
January 11, 2009 11:44 AM | Link to this
I have the longest thermometer in the universe. Today I stuck it into the ground, until just the top was visible. The readout was 20 degrees Fahrenheit, so I guess it makes sense that Jim Wooten wrote a column about raising taxes.
By sniveling lib
January 11, 2009 11:58 AM | Link to this
Funny how the “conservatives” are now calling for tax hikes now that “their boy” will no longer get the blame, now that the economy is in the tank.
Who would that be, catlady? Enlighten us please. Further, what I find funny is how you liberals suddenly find a deficit, a falling dollar, and a trade imbalance NOT IMPORTANT. Now comment on that, and don’t choke on a fur ball.
By sniveling lib
January 11, 2009 12:01 PM | Link to this
Oops. I’m sorry fur ball: I meant to ask at the Fed level what Republicans are asking for a tax hike. Nobody cares about Georgia and Wooten’s blog - at least that’s what your fellow stupid mindless liberal brethren constantly remind us of here.
By sniveling lib
January 11, 2009 12:11 PM | Link to this
That’s quite an interesting perspective, liberal poofbooty. Since you hate capitalism so much, perhaps you can shed some light for the rest of us what greatness alternatives have provided other nations…
Huh. No offering by the communist Che lover yet. No surprise.
By ron
January 11, 2009 12:21 PM | Link to this
$2 billion dollars in the hole will require that Perdue cut some government positions.That will add a little to the downturn.It will also require that he raise taxes considerably.That also will contribute to the downturn.By the end of the year,maybe the deficit wil be $3 billion.
The states are hoping that the feda bail them out big time.This is no time to be bringing up State versus Federal rights.The states want large sums of money and they want it now.
Then next year comes and we’re in no better shape than we are now.Proably worse.
Sonny wants to bail out the housing industry.Build them bigger,better ,and more expensive,boys.In another ten years we can do this all over again,with even bigger sums of money.That is if we get this present mess solved.I’d feel a lot better about it if I saw a President in office that actually knew what he was doing,not some kid that’s charismatic and a good talker.
By sniveling lib
January 11, 2009 12:34 PM | Link to this
The states are hoping that the fed bail them out big time.This is no time to be bringing up State versus Federal rights
You mean like abortion and gay rights that liberals want the Fed to be involved with and decide on vs. the states, ron? I have to admit - you liberals are the best cherry pickers on the planet.
By Porter
January 11, 2009 12:36 PM | Link to this
Knock off the raise taxes junk, state government can learn to tighten up like a lot of the rest of us are having to do. A lot of services could be privatized, hours could be shortened, and/or people laid off. Sell off some assets, close some programs, raising taxes in a slow economy is bad medicine, very bad medicine. State government shouldn’t get a soft ride through this hard time on the taxpayer’s backs.
By sniveling lib
January 11, 2009 12:43 PM | Link to this
Another oops, this one to ron - I didn’t mean “you liberals” in that comment as if you are a liberal. I meant liberals in general.
Anyway, I see the pooflib still has no alternatives for us over capitalism that will make our lives better than others around the globe dependent on government. I’m so not surprised.
By fed up
January 11, 2009 12:54 PM | Link to this
still no answer from GA LIBERAL.
By sniveling lib
January 11, 2009 1:21 PM | Link to this
fed up: methinks you have a bigger chance of an Obamabot screaming about that budget deficit cart they always trot out during Republican rule than getting an answer from GA lib. But, the day is young.
By sniveling lib
January 11, 2009 1:32 PM | Link to this
WASHINGTON, Jan 7 (Reuters) - The battered U.S. job market may be losing one of its last remaining sources of strength as small businesses begin aggressively cutting payrolls in the face of a dismal holiday shopping season.
A report on Wednesday showed private sector job losses of 693,000 in December, far greater than economists had expected. Small businesses accounted for an unusually large 40 percent of the decline, according to the figures from ADP Employer Services and Macroeconomic Advisers.
Michael Alter, president of payroll services company SurePayroll, said small business owners tend to be very reluctant to cut jobs because it’s often a matter of firing a relative or friend who has been with the company for years. Business owners’ first inclination may be to absorb a few bad months by taking home less profit rather than axing jobs, which could help explain why larger firms were quicker to cut when the economy starting to sour.
The longer the recession lasts, the more small companies will have to face an unpleasant choice of “either I continue to make less money or I have to let Sally, who’s been with me for 20 years, go,” Alter said.
Just think, a lot of those evil rich that democrats want to punish with higher taxes are small business owners. For kicks, let’s also throw in their wishes of a federally mandated “livable” wage, whatever in the hell that means.
But wait, let’s not stop there. Democrats also want days/weeks/months/years off “free” for family leave issues - and full benefits for you and your dependents as a minimum wage earner. Are you taking care of grandma and she broke her hip while you rang up a customer at Jerry’s Hobby Shop? You get all the paid time off with benefits you need under Democrats! See how long Jerry stays in business.
By Old Man Ribah
January 11, 2009 1:41 PM | Link to this
The refs are cheating. LEt them play. Eli off in the face of the wind.
I dont like this one bit.
GO Giants!
By snark
January 11, 2009 2:04 PM | Link to this
Eli is an overrated QB running on family name just like his big brother. Big bro getting MVP again when the Colts tanked this year and last says it all.
By Old Man Ribah
January 11, 2009 2:11 PM | Link to this
I noticed early in the season when the Giants were winning, that the play calling was innapropriate, but they were winning, so I stfu.
But they’re not winning lately, and these set of calls so far in this game displays a coach who is pigskin simple.
If the GIants lose, on top of this Falcon loss, then it will send me over the top, and I will reek my revenge on this blog against the right yes you people who chew Limbaugh’s cud and then regurgitate it like the little ditto heads you love 2B.
You all better watch the game and start cheering for Eli. That’s a promise.
Go Giants. Formula for victory: throw when you’re supposed to run, run when you’re supposed to throw.
By sniveling lib
January 11, 2009 2:49 PM | Link to this
LMAO PoFo. You have to remember that the Falcons weren’t even supposed to be where they were the past season after the Vick thingie. So quitchawhinin’. Vick gave dirty bird a whole new meaning.
By Old Man Ribah
January 11, 2009 2:57 PM | Link to this
The Giants go “prevent” for that last Eagle drive? That’s it. They dont deserve to win.
I’m not sure what’s going on. I am 90 percent certain that these playoff games are fixed.
I think we’ve been worried about Al Queda, when we should be looking at the oldest terrorism in the world: Russian Mafia fixing football games.
They must approach the quarterback and tell him to throw interceptions and fumble or just plain be a loser, or else.
I really believe this. There’s no other explanation. Every decision the GIants have made in this football game has been wrong. Every single one.
When Eli had the wind in his face, he threw. When Eli had the wind at his back, they ran.
Then, the prevent defense? Long proved to be a failure? They use the prevent? Please.
I cant stand it. Second half! More of the same? I cant believe what I’m watching.
I know it’s cold, but these calls are just just just
you all better hope the giants win….
By Old Man Ribah
January 11, 2009 3:26 PM | Link to this
Proof of a fix: First and ten on the eagle’s thirty. Pass to the flats, a sweep and then a wussy pass. three and out?
Never throw to the flats on the thirty on first down and in the third quarter when the score is close.
Everyone knows that.
It’s fixed. Now they missed the field goal. I hate the world! Oh, you conservatives are going to pay for this even if the giants win now. now I’m mad.
Go Giants!
By Old Man Ribah
January 11, 2009 3:36 PM | Link to this
More proof of a russian mafia fix: NY won the toss and the elect to receive? Instead of making sure they get the wind advantage in the fourth q?
thats so fundementally evil that only the russians could have caused it.
This game is making me sick. Oh, you conservatives are gonna pay. oh man.
By Old Man Ribah
January 11, 2009 3:46 PM | Link to this
Now NY challenges a spot?
I dont care anymore. I hope they lose. These are not the giants. These are bribed imposters throwing the game taking a dive caking it on purpose.
Gambling has ruined football. just like basketball, baseball, tennis, volleyball, ping pong, hockey, lacross, soccor, and croquet.
By Old Man Ribah
January 11, 2009 3:52 PM | Link to this
They’ve given up field position. thrown away two time outs for no reason. still plenty of time.
I’m having difficulty believing that NY knows what to do here.
By sniveling lib
January 11, 2009 4:01 PM | Link to this
Back to politics, leave it to former democrat adviser George Snafuphanopoulos to open his liberal pie hole on what the Democrats in congress have wasted two years on now instead of dealing with what the hell they were elected to doing by a bunch of uneducated numbnut dufus liberal lackeys:
Interviewing President-elect Barack Obama for Sunday’s This Week, ABC’s George Stephanopoulos zeroed in on criticism of including tax cuts in the “stimulus bill” and repeatedly pressed Obama about naming a special prosecutor, a 9/11-like commission or at least getting “your Justice Department to investigate” what an e-mail Stephanopoulos showcased on screen described as “the gravest crimes of the Bush administration, including torture and warrantless wiretapping.” On taxes, Stephanopoulos demanded: “Do you really believe those business tax cuts are going to work to create jobs?” He soon yearned: “But you might give up on some of the business tax cuts?”
Tell that ugly Greek to GFH.
By Old Man Ribah
January 11, 2009 4:01 PM | Link to this
This is the worst play calling I’ve ever seen. What could possible explain this?
THis is too much for anyone to take. I cant take it. I’m actually feeling myself losing control. I’m completely unhinged by this. I feel the evil little devil inside of me breaking into the open and he could…go…all…the…way!
Analchord arrives on Monday, and he’s looking to eat conservative bloggers.
By sniveling lib
January 11, 2009 4:09 PM | Link to this
Analchord arrives on Monday, and he’s looking to eat conservative bloggers.
Hey PoFo: you are sure to be disappointed, because we neocons actually have day jobs to pay for you liberals’ twinkletoed government wishes. We won’t be around to see you sh!t on your liberal self. For shame.
By sniveling lib
January 11, 2009 4:16 PM | Link to this
President-elect Barack Obama said Wednesday that he rarely reads favorable press coverage and chooses instead to focus on negative stories. “I think it’s important not to live in the bubble,” Obama said during an interview on CNBC. “You’ve got to be open to outside information, particularly criticism.”
WHAT??? You have GOT to be kidding me.
Those who helped elect Obama into office lived in a bubble of a positive media for him that refused to report or even investigate Chicago politics in his past. It was more important to the democrat media to investigate Joe Plumber, that poor guy who just asked Obama a tough question, and report on a knocked up teenage daughter of Sarah Palin, who the democrat media STILL won’t let go of.
God how priceless.
By sniveling lib
January 11, 2009 4:19 PM | Link to this
Toldya Eli was overrated.
smirk
By TRUTH
January 11, 2009 4:21 PM | Link to this
This question makes three inaccurate presumptions. First, it presumes that Hamas’ ideology remains the primary obstacle to a two-state solution (an independent Palestinian state and a secure Israeli state), whereas the complete opposite is true. Israel’s military occupation of the West Bank in defiance of international law (i.e. UN Res. 194 passed in 1948, Res. 242 passed in 1967, and Res. 338 passed in 1973, to name a few) and its continuous bombardment and blockade of the Gaza Strip have been the greatest obstacle to a two-state solution and a peaceful resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Israel has made the creation of an independent Palestinian state not only a “theoretical impossibility,” but a practical impossibility.
Despite the withdrawal of Israeli troops and the dismantling of illegal Israeli settlements from the Gaza Strip in 2005, Israel continued to occupy the Gaza Strip by maintaining complete control of the territory by sea, air and land. Further, it has used this territorial control to impose an inhumane economic siege upon the Palestinian inhabitants of Gaza for the last 18 months. By preventing the entry of food, fuel, medicine and even humanitarian aid, the blockade has resulted in the utter collapse of the economy in Gaza, forcing its sole power plant to shut down. Consequently, hospitals have been unable to operate lifesaving equipment and nearly 40-50 tons of sewage pours into the sea daily.
Worse yet, since December 27, Israel has launched one of the most atrocious onslaughts against a civilian population since the turn of this century in the Gaza Strip. After closing off all of the Gaza Strip’s borders, thus, ensuring that its civilians had no escape from the teeming, bloody hell known as Gaza, it began a massive aerial bombardment of the strip, followed by a ferocious ground invasion. In the first 48 hours of this war, Israel killed over 350 civilians. The death toll has currently exceeded 700 with over a third of the dead being children.
The images I’ve seen on Arab satellite over the last two weeks of maimed Palestinian children, corpses crushed under pulverized homes, and the reckless destruction of homes, schools, UN refugee camps, mosques and police stations, leave no question in my mind that Israel’s assault against the Gaza Strip is the epitome of state terror and a war crime against humanity. The world’s silence and inability to force a ceasefire in the face of such atrocities speaks volumes about the type of leadership we currently have. We have a leadership that values strategic interests over human lives, a leadership that justifies the killing of over 700 Palestinians as “self-defense,” and one that hypocritically denounces terrorism, yet is indifferent to the killing of Palestinian civilians.
While Israel claims it is targeting Hamas militants, the facts speak for themselves. According to a Norwegian physician in one of Gaza’s hospitals, Mads Gilbert, over 801 children had been injured or killed by January 6. As he told the BBC, “The numbers are contradictory to everything Israel says. This is the worst man-made disaster for the time I can think (of).”
Second, this question is yet one more attempt to depict Israel as standing on the brink of survival, which is grotesquely inaccurate. This mischaracterization of Israel as struggling to “survive” against a hostile, uncompromising Hamas is so far-fetched that it makes a mockery of the facts on the ground. Israel is one of the most powerful, self-sufficient and technologically advanced countries in the world that its survival is no longer in question. It has the fourth most powerful military in the world, a growing economy with a Gross Domestic Product (purchasing power parity) of $85.8 billion in 2007, and the unconditional support of the United States in the form of military and economic aid and UN veto power. As noted by political scientists Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer in The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, “Since the October War in 1973, Washington has provided Israel with a level of support dwarfing the amounts provided to any other state. It has been the largest annual recipient of direct U.S. economic and military assistance since 1976 and the largest total recipient since World War ll.”
Compare this with the unbearable economic conditions of the Gaza Strip, where over eighty percent of the population subsists on $2 a day. Consider that in June 2005, there were 3,900 factories in Gaza employing 35,000 people and today there are less than 195 left employing only 1,750 people. Further, the agriculture sector has come to a standstill and nearly 40,000 workers who depend on cash crops no longer have an income. While these conditions have been aggravated by the three-year economic blockade of the Gaza Strip, the truth is that Israel has deliberately impeded the growth of the Gazan economy since 1967. As Avi Shlaim writes in The Guardian, “To use the Biblical phrase, Israel turned the people of Gaza into the hewers of wood and the drawers of water, into a source of cheap labour and a captive market for Israeli goods. The development of local industry was actively impeded so as to make it impossible for the Palestinians to end their subordination to Israel and to establish the economic underpinnings essential for real political independence.”
Third, this question falsely presumes that Hamas’ ideology makes Israel’s existence a theoretical impossibility. This excuse has been used time and time again by Israel and the Western media to justify Israel’s military attacks against the Gaza Strip. As early as May 2006, three months after Hamas was elected to office in the first democratically-held Palestinian elections, Hamas leaders officially declared that they would accept a “two-state” solution in which Palestinians have “freedom and independence side by side with our neighbors.” By recognizing the state of Israel, Hamas had relinquished the Palestinians’ historic claim over 78% of what was previously considered Palestine. For the first time, Hamas leaders declared on several occasions their willingness to recognize the state of Israel if Palestinians enjoyed their independent state. This was a historic opportunity for peace which Israel did not care to explore. Instead, it chose to unleash the madness we are witnessing on the civilian population of Gaza. Certainly, this option will not make Israel any more secure or the conflict any closer to reaching a peaceful resolution. In fact, by destroying Gaza’s infrastructure, wounding over 3000 Palestinians and killing over 700 civilians, it will only fuel extremism and hatred among a population that lives under the threat of Israeli violence and abject poverty.
By sniveling lib
January 11, 2009 4:29 PM | Link to this
1) Israel has a right to exist.
2) Arabs attacked Israel unprovoked and lost land.
3) Israel withdrew from land voluntarily in a peace gesture.
4) Hamas sees said withdrawal as weakness and uses that as staging grounds for further attacks. For years.
5) Israel finally retaliates.
You know, it’s really not that difficult to understand.
By Old Man Ribah
January 11, 2009 4:36 PM | Link to this
The talking heads pre game shows are insufferable and should be axed.
I think we need a revolution in football broadcasting. I’m finally sick of Madden too.
I really hate the cards.
By fed up
January 11, 2009 4:42 PM | Link to this
Like the tax thing sniveling lib they are not going to see that Hamas has done/is doing anything wrong…it’s all Israel’s fault for wanting to exist and to defend themselves.
On the stimulus package, why not give all working Americans a tax break for 3-5 months…no federal taxes whatsoever (SS, Withholding, Medicare) let us take home what we earn, less the state taxes can’t ask for too much, ha ha. This will cost less than what they are proposing. But then again they wouldn’t do that because then we (yes, even the libs) would see how much we give to the government every pay day and all you know what would break loose, another Boston Tea Party, nationwide.
By sniveling lib
January 11, 2009 4:52 PM | Link to this
“…how much we give to the government every pay day and all you know what would break loose, another Boston Tea Party, nationwide.”
Fed up, you are preaching to the choir here. I’d suggest buying a gun, you know, one of those things the bedwetting whineyassed liberals hate so much (unless a criminal or terrorist uses it), and practicing with it regularly.
By ron
January 11, 2009 5:05 PM | Link to this
It always strikes me as odd that there is always enough money for arms and never enough for food.The price of the rockets raining down on Israel would feed a lot of starving kids,but Hamas is not interested in feeding their children,only their men of fighting age.
By sniveling lib
January 11, 2009 5:06 PM | Link to this
Yet another reason why it is good democrats are in charge…this time, it has to do with the democrats dragging their limp wrists in the mud over Burris’ appointment:
On Tuesday, Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.) said: “I believe sincerely that if Roland Burris had not been an African-American, then he would be appointed. They think that they are above the law, and although they might not be termed racist, their action is racist.”
By sniveling lib
January 11, 2009 5:09 PM | Link to this
It always strikes me as odd that there is always enough money for arms and never enough for food.The price of the rockets raining down on Israel would feed a lot of starving kids..
That’s an ironic gesture of observation there, ron. I find it ironic that after nearly 50 years of socialist/welfare entitlement programs paid for by working people that democrat liberals scream for, we just happen to still have poor people in this nation.
By sniveling lib
January 11, 2009 5:13 PM | Link to this
Where are all those mouthy liberals that run this blog during the weekdays anyway? Are they waiting tables? Dumping our trash? Too drunk/stoned to respond to posts today?
By sniveling lib
January 11, 2009 5:20 PM | Link to this
Jan. 6 (Bloomberg) — Group health insurers in New York would have to give parents the option to extend coverage to their children until age 30 under a proposal Governor David Paterson plans to introduce, state officials said.
You tell me this isn’t yet another bedwetting liberal democrat wet dream that could morph into a national/federal plan under Obama.
By sniveling lib
January 11, 2009 5:29 PM | Link to this
This is a snippet of some briliant words by a non-libdem in Hollywood named Gary Graham. Oh my God how more true are these words:
*I’m told I’ll hurt my career if I continually spout off about Liberalism — which I see as a growing cancer in our society. Worldwide, I’ve seen Liberalism metastasize into virulent incarnations of Socialism, and, left unchecked, even into its malignant cousin, Communism. Only the arrogant or the somnambulist would think such a thing could never happen here. It’s a matter of increment.
Once a group organizes into a coalition, it’s a short step to claiming the right to the property of another group. All that is necessary is for an individual’s right to personal property to become a secondary concern. The ‘needs’ of the group must supercede, dontcha know. It’s a vicious cycle – wants become needs become rights. The fact that the thievery is done at the behest of a ‘civilized’ government does not sanitize the crime.
By sniveling lib
January 11, 2009 5:49 PM | Link to this
Again, I’m going to roto-rooter this up liberal hypocrite a-s-s until hell freezes over, or until cowardly hypocritical liberal democrats admit failure in congress for TWO YEARS, whichever comes first:
WASHINGTON (AP) - President-elect Barack Obama says the nation probably faces huge deficits for years to come, but heavy spending is needed now to spur the economy. Obama said Tuesday the deficit appears on track to hit $1 trillion soon. Speaking to reporters after meeting with top economic aides, Obama said: “Potentially we’ve got trillion-dollar deficits for years to come, even with the economic recovery that we are working on.”
Remember, these were the same liberal asshat hypocrites who b!tched for years over Republican spending and deficits.
By fed up
January 11, 2009 6:07 PM | Link to this
I have a gun, actually several and target practice frequently. I would suggest anyone that doesn’t have a concealed carry license yet to go get one. With the dems in control the licenses are sure to be obsolete and/or a lot tougher with a lot more fees, etc. attached. Look what happened when Clinton was in power.
My problem with this whole stimulus is that Obama says that the only way the economy is going to get fixed is by government. Excuse me, I think government started the problem now they’re going to fix it. I don’t care which side of the aisle they’re on.
By sniveling lib
January 11, 2009 6:15 PM | Link to this
fed up: there is a reason gun sales shot through the roof (no pun intended) since the election. Mindless liberals hate guns because it’s one less thing they can control of human beings - that being our right to defend ourselves against criminal scum that probably mindlessly supports democrats.
By sniveling lib
January 11, 2009 6:29 PM | Link to this
Well, the day has come to a close and we are no closer on answers to the idiotic liberal communist Che lover who is no closer to alternatives for us over capitalism that will make our lives better than others around the globe dependent on government from cradle to grave. Again. I’m so not surprised. What a waste of thought. Not that I’m actually surprised or anything.
By JackLeg
January 12, 2009 10:26 AM | Link to this
What we need is not higher or more taxes, we need politicians to only spend what they have not more.
By Do the Math
January 12, 2009 10:39 AM | Link to this
In this fiscal environment, they are not lowering the cost of programs to the minimum that is tollerable, then raising taxes (not hiding fees) to meet the cost of the necessary programs, then they are not doing their jobs.
If you don’t do your job then get out and give it to someone who is willing and capable.
By llw morris
January 12, 2009 11:11 AM | Link to this
Tax fat people.
By llw morris
January 12, 2009 11:12 AM | Link to this
Tax fat people.
By llw morris
January 12, 2009 11:22 AM | Link to this
call it a fat tax…..why not..you got a tax on every thing else.
By Sirlun
January 12, 2009 12:31 PM | Link to this
You said it D it’s time for Georgia’s scales to be shed off it’s eyes and slither it’s way into the 21st century. The perception of Georgia (not Metro Atlanta) by most in this nation is that Georgia is a backward state with too much of its potential untapped. Sunday Liquor sales, Casino gambling are all available for the usage but the legislature allows the Christian Right(many of whom believe suffering is Godly)to control what we think and how we should act. Millions upon millions of dollars are slipping through Georgia’s finger’s everyday and the state has no-one to blame but itself. Alas, as backwards as Mississippi is it is more progressive than lowly Georgia. I wonder did they balance their state budget last year and do they project tax increases on their citizenry this year???