You should have learned that in history class

• you can learn a lot - on the internet
  • I did not learn that in any of my history classes - Kendra
    • There are a lot of anti-smoking laws - where I live
      • NY has had laws on the books for - ExMQMT
      • gotcha - Kendra
  • You should have learned that in history class - NM

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You guys are very good teachers, and people generally do learn best by example, you know.

By the way I have another question.  That smut rag by Ann Coulter you enjoy so much....she refers to Bill Clinton as a horny hick.  Now does hick apply to ALL people from Arkansas, or all people with a working class background or just people from Arkansas with a working class background? 

(I hope the spacing comes out okay, apologies if not).  From C-span here are a couple comments.  One by a republican and one by a democrat.  It’s good to know that there are people (democrats & republicans alike) who realize this is a bad deal and are looking out for our best interest and not their own.

Rep. Michael Burgess – R. Texas 26^th district

Speaker, I come to the floor today to talk about this 700 billion dollar bill that is in front of us.  I use the term bill advisedly because we have seen no bill.  We are here debating talking points on perhaps one of the largest fundamental change in our nation’s financial system in its history.  And house republicans have been cut out of the process.  Not only have we been cut out of the process, we have also been derided by the leadership of the democratic party and called unpatriotic for not participating.  Mr.  Speaker I have been thrown out of more meetings in this capital in the past 24 hours than I ever thought possible as a duly elected representative of 820,000 citizens of North Texas.  Mr. Speaker, politics is a full contact sport and I understand that, but it is a full contact sport in the light of day in the public arena.  Since we didn’t have hearings, since we didn’t have markups, lets at least put this legislation up on the internet for 24 hours.  That’s what Thomas was made for.  Lets do that and let the American people see what we have done in the dark of night.  After all, I have not gotten any more mail, any more emails on any other subject other than this one that is before us today.  Mr. Speaker I understand we are under martial law as declared by the speaker last night.  I think its ironic house republicans have not been needed for a single thing in this house to assure passage for the last 22 months.  And today we are going to be asked to vote for a bill for political cover because democrats are too weak to stand up to their speaker.  I yield back.

Rep. Marcy Kaptur – D. Ohio 9^th District

Mr. Speaker, my message to the American people, don’t let congress seal this wall street deal.  High financial crimes have been committed.  Now congress is being asked to bail out the culprits and to do so at the expense of those who elected us to guard their interest the people of our country.  The normal legislative process that should accompany review of a monumental proposal to bail out wall street has been shelved, yes shelved.  Only a few insiders are doing the dealing.  Sounds like insider trading to me.  These criminals have so much political power they can shut down the normal legislative process of the highest law making body in this land.  All the committees that should be scanning every word of what is being negotiated are benched, and that means the American people are benched too.  We are constitutionally sworn to protect and defend this republic against ALL enemies foreign and domestic, and my friends there are enemies.  We are told we will have a trillion dollar bill to review soon and have less than 24 hours with no regular hearings to try to vote on this tar baby.  The people pushing this deal are the very same ones who are responsible for the implosion on wall street.  They were fraudulent then and they are fraudelent now.  We should say no to this deal.  I ask my colleagues to join us at 2:00 at HC8 of the capital to meet with some real experts who have done financial resolutions without putting financial burdeon on the taxpayer.  Please join us HC8 at 2 p.m.

94 democrats voted against this bill today.  That is more than half the democrats, yet they get in front of the camera and give their little speeches about how all democrats are for this and its all the republicans fault this didn’t pass.  Hello folks, do the math. 

Pelosi has shown how truly inexperienced, divisive and uncaring she.  She gets up there and her mouth just flaps with nothing of substance being said.  She is incompetent and should be fired.  All that came out of her flapping gums today was more bashing of the republicans and accusing them of what democrats have been doing for over 2 years now.  Why in the world would you give a speech putting all the blame on people and bash the other political side before a vote is even held.  Chalk it up to one more of the numerous reasons she is incompetent and needs to step down.  And if she doesn’t step down she should be physically removed.  Even the Deputy Minority Whip held up a copy of Pelosi’s floor speech at a press conference and said she had “failed to listen and lead” on the issue.

Then I heard Barney Frank talk.  He should be renamed Barney Baloney.  He stands and mocks the people who voted against the bill making fun of them.  As someone said he may be a funny and clever guy, but there is nothing funny about this situation.

Did anyone even notice today that every time Pelosi and Franks spoke the market dived.  When they stopped talking the market started going up.  They’d get in front of the camera again and the market started tanking again big time.  This happened about 3 or 4 times (I was watching it on a split screen).  At that point you would have thought the President would have called over and told them to shut up because they were tanking the market.

Kucinich (democrat) said the ones who caused this are the one who are giving us a line (Pelosi, Franks, Kerry, Dodd).   

Truth is this $700B is not enough.  This is a small part of what is needed.  Many people are saying it's more like close to a trillion.  After this they’ll say well we need this much more, then that much more, and before we know it we’re going to be paying more than just $10,500.

There are economists and educated people who are asking for a decent bill.  But do they consult them.  They are the ones with the knowledge and ideas to get us out of the mess.  No who do they get – Pelosi, Franks, Dodd, etc – the people who did this in the first place).

All I can see is both candidates are more interested in getting themselves elected than what is happening with the economy so don’t even try to say one is worse than the other.  I cannot say what Obama is saying because I’m not hearing anything from him except that he keeps saying it needs to be fixed, but I’m not hearing his specific viewpoints on the bill itself (and I'm not hearing McCain's specifics either).  Specifics would be good if I'm suppose to vote for one or the other in November.

I found a site that has an interesting interview with a historian.  He wrote....

"Especially in politics it is of the utmost importance to try to look behind the facade: who makes up the team of the presidential candidate? The future president of the United States of America is for a large part dependent on and being fed by his team of advisors and future cabinet members."

Below is a link with his interview.  Very interesting.  There are two parts to the video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MouUJNG8f2k&feature=related

Hillary's supporters like General Wesley Clark and others are starting to come out now in full force making statements that are not favorable towards Barack.  Even though Clark's statements are true (just cos you are shot down in an aircraft doesn't mean your qualified to be President) but it doesn't help in getting your party elected to the white house.  I knew she was going to do it so that McCain would win and because he's so weak he'll only be in four years then she and Bill will run again in 4 years.  I just didn't know how she was planning it until I watched the news this a.m.  She is such a skum bag in my opinion.  The worry of having to listen to her again in 4 years is enough to put me through the roof again.

I am so much calmer now these days since I learned how to deal with the frustrating day to day news of politics.  My solution - I now watch HBO, The Food Channel, BBC, Travel Channel, and any other channel that is not news related.  If I want news I will look at Drudge.  TV is just too overwhelming for me and all these so called "experts" commenting on the politics. 

So...you shouldn't be seeing any more stupid irate comments from me anymore.  I'll now just be a couch potato learning how to cook different foods and planning my vacation to all these far away places on the travel channel.  Oh yes, I forgot...while I speak in a british accent because I watch so much BBC.  HA HA 

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/02/17/obama.ahead/index.html?iref=nextin

Adults acting like children once again.  Proves my point every time. 

Then my income will just push us into that bracket.  I wonder if that will negate my entire income?  If so, I guess we may be better off if I just quit? Right now I work because I can't afford to quit.  I won't be able to afford it then either so what will I do?  I wonder how many others will be in my situation? 

FYI, we live in a small older home that we are trying to pay off so that when our two children are college-age, maybe we can afford it. We don't live extravagently by any means.  What will happen to people like us?

The UK presents diplomatic gifts of great antiquity, value  and meaning and in return we  hand them, what?  Plastic model planes?   Talk about a low-rent reception!  Yeah, I guess we  really are illustrating that we don't care enough to give the very best.  

Just call it something besides a tax.

Who Pays for Cap and Trade?

Hint: They were promised a tax cut during the Obama campaign.Article

Cap and trade is the tax that dare not speak its name, and Democrats are hoping in particular that no one notices who would pay for their climate ambitions. With President Obama depending on vast new carbon revenues in his budget and Congress promising a bill by May, perhaps Americans would like to know the deeply unequal ways that climate costs would be distributed across regions and income groups.

Politicians love cap and trade because they can claim to be taxing "polluters," not workers. Hardly. Once the government creates a scarce new commodity -- in this case the right to emit carbon -- and then mandates that businesses buy it, the costs would inevitably be passed on to all consumers in the form of higher prices. Stating the obvious, Peter Orszag -- now Mr. Obama's budget director -- told Congress last year that "Those price increases are essential to the success of a cap-and-trade program."

Hit hardest would be the "95% of working families" Mr. Obama keeps mentioning, usually omitting that his no-new-taxes pledge comes with the caveat "unless you use energy." Putting a price on carbon is regressive by definition because poor and middle-income households spend more of their paychecks on things like gas to drive to work, groceries or home heating.

The Congressional Budget Office -- Mr. Orszag's former roost -- estimates that the price hikes from a 15% cut in emissions would cost the average household in the bottom-income quintile about 3.3% of its after-tax income every year. That's about $680, not including the costs of reduced employment and output. The three middle quintiles would see their paychecks cut between $880 and $1,500, or 2.9% to 2.7% of income. The rich would pay 1.7%. Cap and trade is the ideal policy for every Beltway analyst who thinks the tax code is too progressive (all five of them).

But the greatest inequities are geographic and would be imposed on the parts of the U.S. that rely most on manufacturing or fossil fuels -- particularly coal, which generates most power in the Midwest, Southern and Plains states. It's no coincidence that the liberals most invested in cap and trade -- Barbara Boxer, Henry Waxman, Ed Markey -- come from California or the Northeast.

Coal provides more than half of U.S. electricity, and 25 states get more than 50% of their electricity from conventional coal-fired generation. In Ohio, it totals 86%, according to the Energy Information Administration. Ratepayers in Indiana (94%), Missouri (85%), New Mexico (80%), Pennsylvania (56%), West Virginia (98%) and Wyoming (95%) are going to get soaked.

Another way to think about it is in terms of per capita greenhouse-gas emissions. California is the No. 2 carbon emitter in the country but also has a large economy and population. So the average Californian only had a carbon footprint of about 12 tons of CO2-equivalent in 2005, according to the World Resource Institute's Climate Analysis Indicators, which integrates all government data. The situation is very different in Wyoming and North Dakota -- paging Senators Mike Enzi and Kent Conrad -- where every person was responsible for 154 and 95 tons, respectively. See the nearby chart for cap and trade's biggest state winners and losers.

Democrats say they'll allow some of this ocean of new cap-and-trade revenue to trickle back down to the public. In his budget, Mr. Obama wants to recycle $525 billion through the "making work pay" tax credit that goes to many people who don't pay income taxes. But $400 for individuals and $800 for families still doesn't offset carbon's income raid, especially in states with higher carbon use.

All the more so because the Administration is lowballing its cap-and-trade tax estimates. Its stated goal is to reduce emissions 14% below 2005 levels by 2020, which assuming that four-fifths of emissions are covered (excluding agriculture, for instance), works out to about $13 or $14 per ton of CO2. When CBO scored a similar bill last year, it expected prices to start at $23 and rise to $44 by 2018. CBO also projected the total value of the allowances at $902 billion over the first decade, which is some $256 billion more than the Administration's estimate.

We asked the White House budget office for the assumptions behind its revenue estimates, but a spokesman said the Administration doesn't have a formal proposal and will work with Congress and "stakeholders" to shape one. We were also pointed to recent comments by Mr. Orszag that he was "sure there will be enough there to finance the things that we have identified" and maybe "additional money" too. In other words, Mr. Obama expects a much larger tax increase than even he is willing to admit.

Those "stakeholders" are going to need some very large bribes, starting with the regions that stand to lose the most. Led by Michigan's Debbie Stabenow, 15 Senate Democrats have already formed a "gang" demanding that "consumers and workers in all regions of the U.S. are protected from undue hardship." In practice, this would mean corporate welfare for carbon-heavy businesses.

And of course Congress is its own "stakeholder." An economy-wide tax under the cover of saving the environment is the best political moneymaker since the income tax. Obama officials are already telling the press, sotto voce, that climate revenues might fund universal health care and other new social spending. No doubt they would, and when they did Mr. Obama's cap-and-trade rebates would become even smaller.

Cap and trade, in other words, is a scheme to redistribute income and wealth -- but in a very curious way. It takes from the working class and gives to the affluent; takes from Miami, Ohio, and gives to Miami, Florida; and takes from an industrial America that is already struggling and gives to rich Silicon Valley and Wall Street "green tech" investors who know how to leverage the political class.

how cap and trade is not a tax?

that John McCain's economic plan is designed from the ground up to raise incomes and create jobs for Americans - especially middle-class Americans - and get our economy moving again. It is in sharp contrast to Barack Obama's plan, which does not treat the middle class well and which will reduce jobs rather than create them.

"The McCain tax plan will allow middle-class Americans to keep more of what they earn than the Obama tax plan. McCain will increase the exemption for children from $3,500 to $7,000 per child, and he will provide a refundable health care tax credit of $5,000 for every family. What does this mean for middle-class families? Consider a married couple, one of whom works, earning $55,000 plus employer-paid health insurance of $8,000, and who rent their home and have two young children. Under McCain's plan, this family would receive a tax refund of $2,087 for health care and other things. Under Obama's plan, including his proposed worker's credit, this same family would not get any tax refund; in fact, they will have to pay taxes of $1,213. That's a $3,300 advantage for that family with McCain's plan compared with Obama's.

McCain's plan also provides incentives for firms to hire more workers and to pay them more. He will stop penalizing American firms when they create jobs in America rather than overseas. The U.S. tax code now levies a tax of 35 percent on American firms, the second highest in the world. McCain would reduce the tax to 25 percent, an important reason why his plan creates more jobs than Obama's. Another reason is that McCain will not raise the tax on small businesses, as Obama's plan does. Under Obama's plan, the top marginal income tax rate, which many small businesses pay, will rise to over 50 percent, including his proposed 5 percent increase in the statutory rate, 3 percent for Medicare, 3 percent for Social Security, and 4 percent from the phase out of exemptions.

McCain's economic plan is comprehensive and helps the middle class in many other ways. By promoting domestic energy production, including nuclear power and exploration and production of oil and gas - which Obama has opposed - McCain will reduce the price of gasoline, electricity and heating oil. By promoting free-trade agreements, he will reduce taxes on job-creating exports and reduce the prices that middle- and lower-income families pay for food and clothing. In contrast, Sen. Obama opposes good trade agreements - voting against the Colombia free-trade agreement - that would create jobs in America."

All I heard during Barrack Obama's campaign was how he was going to look out for the middle class and how Bush and McCain would do nothing more than make the rich richer.  Well, every time I turn on the news, I cringe.  All I see are crooks.  CEO crooks, rich crooks, and political crooks.  These crooks are getting rich off of taxpayers and we are getting nothing in return.  The initial bailout has done nothing.  The stock market is still extremely low.  The only good thing I've heard of late is that gas is below 2 dollars a gallon right now.  Now GM wants a bailout.  Their CEOs flying in on private jets and asking for a handout.  I truly do not want to get them one because I know it won't change anything.  However, it breaks my heart to think of the millions of people who will truly suffer from this....including my mother.

Now President-elect Obama still claims to be out there for the middle class, but I just don't see it.  His plans will do nothing more than to help the lower class.  The rich will survive as they are rich, but it will be the middle class who again takes the hit.  The more TV I watch, the more I see Obama as nothing more than a puppet of his political party. 

My husband is so stressed out about this economy and his business that he is losing sleep at night.  He had to fire someone yesterday to save costs which means he will have to work a lot more hours to cover for the person he had to let go which will add more stress and little to no downtime for him.  Not to mention the poor bloke he had to fire right before the holidays. 

I'm sitting here at my desk thinking about our monthly house payment and our two kids and I wonder how we will make it if my husband's boss decides to close his store.  Will he send him to another store or will he just let him go?  How will he find another job in this economy that would make enough money to pay our house payment?  What will happen to my mom if GM gets rid of legacy expenses and she loses my dad's pension and her health benefits.  What happens to my brother when his factory goes under and he is left with three kids and a wife to support? 

Is anyone else literally sick to their stomach about all of this?  I feel like I could just hurl and then I turn TV on and see all these crooks and I just want to scream.  I've tried to stay positive and I've tried to give Obama the benefit of the doubt but his pal Bill Clinton is the one who started the housing crisis by forcing bad loans to be given and Obama has done nothing but surround himself with Clintons and I just can't shake the feeling that we won't rebound from this......at least not for a very very long time.