Obama won. Apparently the Democratic majority in Congress didn't

[margotb822]

Everywhere I turn, the Republicans are spewing more lies about tax cuts and seem to have rediscovered their love of cutting government spending. The problem is, they don't know anything about governing. None of their economic policies have worked. We can't go through another round of "trickle down" economics. It's bullshit.

How do we remind the Democratic majority that they won, too?

Get out there and smack down those whining Republicans, Pelosi, Reid, Hoyer, Frank, Dodd...everyone!

Boehner is out there acting like the boner he is. Give him the STFU that he deserves.

Tax cuts won't work. This is an absurd, backwards, repeatedly disproven theory.

Infrastructure spending will. Use the majority we have to dig this country out.

Ugh! I can't take this freakin mess!

:grr:

[sandnsea]

1. Many of the tax cuts are spending

I am still working on this, but I wish people would look at what these actually are before they get into a pissing match with the right wing, which is exactly what they want.

http://obama-mamas.com/stimulus-tax-cuts.htm

[margotb822]

7. Interesting, thank you

I was going over the Sunday news and reading about Repubs wanting more business tax cuts and prevention of the Bush tax cut repeal. I just want Congressional Dems to draw a line and say "We won. You compromise." I don't want to see any more capitulation on failed tactics.

[Still Sensible]

12. I did notice that McLame and others were calling for

Bush's tax cuts to be made permanent.... lol, in a pig's ass! That one is not going to happen.

[sandnsea]

14. I agree on that portion

Their tax cuts suck. But the ones for lower income workers don't, nor do the college tax credits and some of the others. We've got to get low income people to believe we're on their side.

[margotb822]

16. Yes, I believe that the tax burden of this country should not

be on those with the least. I feel, though, that as long as the wealthy write the tax policy, we'll never have a fair system.

[Two Americas]

29. or we could BE on their side

If we are on the people's side, then there is no need to trick them into thinking that we are. Do we approach this as what we need to do to convince people to continue to support the Democratic party, or do we use the fact that the people do support the Democratic party and have rejected Reaganomics and the religious right to take care of the people?

Low income people are well over half of the population now. The people own the government. The Democrats represent the people. There is no "we" that should be seen as separate from the people.

Tax cuts are the Reaganomics approach. Aside from it having failed, the people have resoundingly rejected that.

The goal here is to give the working people desperately needed relief, not to get them to "believe we're on their side" so they will support us - or actually support a certain group of politicians.

[sandnsea]

31. EIC is the best thing

that ever happened for low income working people. I think most of the time people who think they know best about how to help poor people, like Krugman and Maddow, have never been poor themselves.

There isn't one thing in this package that is targeted at poor people, that poor people won't appreciate.

[Two Americas]

32. maybe

I have no idea what Krugman and Maddow are saying and don't particularly care. What do you mean by "EIC is the best thing?" Compared to what?

Obviously any relief for the people is a good thing, whether or not they "appreciate" it is not relevant. Let's not talk as though anyone is doing the people any favors here. I am saying that in general tax cuts is the Reaganomics approach, and that has failed.

[sandnsea]

33. That's what Maddow and Krugman are saying

Every tax cut is not Reagonomics. Stop knee-jerking. If you don't know that EIC has done more for low income working people than any other program, across the board, then you don't know what it is to be low income.

The stimulus is 2/3 spending, much of it 5 times more than has been spent in any recent budget. It really can't get much better, and taking tax cuts away from mom n pop businesses isn't going to do a thing to help it.

[Two Americas]

34. whatever

I responded to your post, and the specific things you said, not to Maddow, Krugman or anybody else. Then I explained myself again.

You do not know who is knee jerking and who has or hasn't been poor, and that is not relevant to what I said. You are wrong on both counts. I seem to remember you throwing a fit and jumping all over me once for speculating (in a complementarity and empathetic way) about your experience back when you were defending the bail out.

[truedelphi]

35. BAsed on the Dems' past performance, I cannot hold my breath

And I really really wish that when Obama was reading Lincoln's History, that he had gotten to the chapter about how Lincoln rescinded the Central Bank and let the government be its own banker.

[Still Sensible]

10. I agree with you

What I have seen so far includes, as part of the "tax cuts," significant items that will result in direct spending. These are not the tax cuts as the Bush regime peddled them.

[MindMatter]

27. OK, but what I see is same old same old

It is a GOP knee-jerk action. No matter what the question is, their answer is to cut taxes. Screw that. If that is their only answer, then we should just leave them out.

We need to be clear that tax cuts can be warranted in some cases, but they are the worst possible answer as a stimulus for the economy.

1) They don't necessarily put money into the economy. If people use their tax cuts to pay off bills, the money goes into the banks, and we are right back to the lending problem we started with.

2) If people use it to buy products that they would not have purchased otherwise, that is stimulative, but only a fraction of that money goes into the AMERICAN economy. If people take that tax relief and spend it at Wal-Mart, then we are stimulating CHINA's economy, not ours.

In the end, only about 10 cents out of every dollar of tax relief actually makes into in the American economy as new stimulus.

If you want stimulus, then it needs to be through government spending where we can make sure that the stimulus happens, and 100% of the money goes into stimulating OUR economy.

I don't know why Dems have such a hard time explaining this.

[JDPriestly]

28. The Obama tax cuts are OK. It's the additional ones the Republicans

want that are not OK. Tax cuts are great for people have jobs provided that the jobs pay enough to cause the employees to pay taxes.

The problem is that tax cuts do nothing to help the many unemployed and therefore will not really help the economy in the long run. That is because increases in spending that result from tax cuts no longer result in proportional increases in employment unless the tax cuts are specifically aimed at rewarding businesses that create good paying jobs.

The Bush tax cuts to the rich and uper middle class mostly resulted in increased imports from developing countries, increased outsourcing and increased investment outside the U.S. In fact, the Bush tax cuts were one of the major causes of the crisis we are in. More similar tax cuts will just make things worse. The Republicans are wrong again.

[sandnsea]

30. Maddow, Krugman, DeFazio

aren't criticizing the tax cuts the Republicans are wanting, they're criticizing the ones that are in the stimulus right now. They're wrong too. This stimulus only has a few things in it that are give-aways to small business, and it's important to give them something politically, because they think it helps stimulate the economy.

[Fgiriun]

2. I absolutely agree

All of us who have use of logic and a fundamental knowledge of the working of this economy are
well aware that Presidents Obamas proposal has what it takes to infuse the needed fuel to power back up the engine of the economy.

My question is there really a need to compromise by integrating the
malignant ideology of republicans into the A.R.R.P. package. Don't democrats have well above the
majority in the senate and the house to get it passed, barely probably, but approved nonetheless?

It sickens me every time I hear the mention of "tax-cuts", which is the only (i)logical solution according to republicans.
If tax-cuts where the solution to the ailing economy than why are we facing this crisis? After all,
it was bush's massive tax-cuts that delved this country into record deficit and debt.

I don't understand whether these thugs are working for their selfish interests out of unfounded stupidity or mere evil.
Their ideals only serve to dilute and render an otherwise useful and necessary proposal ineffective.

I hope President Obama doesn't give in to the defiance of the incompetent thugs and tells them abruptly once again
"I won. I am the boss"

By the way, I'm new here at DU and hope to accepted in this awesome community. :)

[treestar]

4. Welcome to DU. Great first post.

:hi:

[GreenPartyVoter]

5. Welcome to DU

:hi:

[That Is Quite Enough]

6. Hey, Fgiriun. Welcome!

:toast: :hi:

[liberalmuse]

8. If they persist...

I am hoping President Obama will strip all of their junk from the stimulus (like the tax cuts). They made out like they were going to back him, but every time they're given an inch, they want more, more, more. I think President Obama will need to show them who is in charge. They really don't know who they're messing with. They probably should have watched a little more closely and taken notes when he took out Hillary Clinton and John McCain.

[liberalmuse]

9. Oh, and Welcome to DU!

I did not eve see that this was your first post. You're sure starting out on the right foot.

[Glorfindel]

11. Welcome to DU!

Happy to greet you, and hope you stick around to help us celebrate (and criticize, too!) :toast:

[Fgiriun]

13. Thanks!

Thank you for all your warm welcomes.
I currently reside in a very conservative part of Texas so I know only few people in this area that share my views.

[tulsakatz]

18. I know how you feel........

I live in Oklahoma, in the middle of the bible belt!!

I do know quite a few people who think like me though.....

[tulsakatz]

15. welcome fgiriun!!

that's always the republican's answer to everything.........tax cuts!

I hope you have a good time here....it's a pretty fun place!

[glinda]

23. Welcome to DU!

I agree. No more tax cuts for the wealthy. We middle, lower middle class - nor the poor- never ever see any benefit from that. While our mega new monster home rich neighbors get tons of breaks, we end up paying more in taxes every year.

[liberalmuse]

3. Let's face it, President Obama will quickly learn...

that the Republicans will challenge him at every turn. They refuse to leave childish things behind and are behaving like nothing more than whiny, self-centered children. These children WILL be left behind if they keep it up.

[bvar22]

17. Testify!

I stand with you!

:patriot:

K&R


"There are forces within the Democratic Party who want us to sound like kinder, gentler Republicans. I want us to compete for that great mass of voters that want a party that will stand up for working Americans, family farmers, and people who haven't felt the benefits of the economic upturn."---Paul Wellstone

[Captain Hilts]

19. Get in the wayback machine and see how it was in '93 for Bubba. His budget passed...

by ONE vote - Gore's. Because conservative Dems did not support him.

[pinto]

20. Their PR campaign is predictable. It's all they've got. The vote's the real thing.

Hang in there. :thumbsup:

[margotb822]

26. I'm confident in the House,

and I believe it will pass in the Senate. Repubs are going to play procedural tricks to draw this out. I hope Obama has his winner pants on because he's going to need to wear them for this show. I just really want the Repubs to be embarrassed by their stupidity and selfishness (it's as if they've already forgotten November...).

[mmonk]

21. Don't bother Congress, they are too busy sleeping and partying.

[specimenfred1984]

22. TV land loves to sell "conflict" regardless of how ridiculous it is

You know the old "create tension" format they've been following for years, it's just corporate propaganda 101. Repukes play the propaganda machine because it's all they've got: lies.

[margotb822]

24. And the Dems make it so easy

They let themselves get walked on.

I know sound bites aren't all there is, but for many people, it's all they see. I mean, can they even act like they're in the driver's seat?

I don't know if having Rahm in the House Speaker role would be a "game changer," but I'd like to see someone with cajones take on the tv machine and talking heads. It's why I love Frank. He points out the stupid for what it is.

[elleng]

25. Reps won't stop 'complaining.'

Their moo is to mis-state and mis-frame issues, AND get 'us' up in arms about it. Dems should do their thing, properly, and for pr where necessary state the issues CLEARLY.