"The Defense Department is the only one that will see a double-digit increase in its budget"
Oh, yes, it is a WAR ECONOMY with the correct historical analogy being that of 1940s Nazi Germany. ALL the RESOURCES are NOW BEING DIVERTED to WAR!!!
"House approves $649b defense budget bill; Frank criticzes $17b increase in ‘time of austerity’" July 09, 2011|By Donna Cassata, Associated Press
WASHINGTON - The House overwhelmingly passed a $649 billion defense spending bill yesterday that boosts the Pentagon budget by $17 billion and covers the costs of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The strong bipartisan vote was 336 to 87 and reflected lawmakers’ intent to ensure national security, preserve defense jobs across the nation, and avoid deep cuts while the country is at war.
:-(
Two factions, one war party, sig heil.
While House Republican leaders slashed billions from all other government agencies, the Defense Department is the only one that will see a double-digit increase in its budget beginning Oct. 1.
Yeah, the SOCIAL SERVICE ONES we WANT and NEED!
Oh, right, a WORLD WAR is BEING FOUGHT even though it is NOT BEING CALLED that in our contemporary media.
Amid negotiations to cut spending and raise the nation’s borrowing limit, the House rejected several amendments to cut the Pentagon budget, including a measure by Representative Barney Frank, a Newton Democrat, to halve the bill’s increase in defense spending.
“We are at a time of austerity,’’ Frank said. “We are at a time when the important programs, valid programs, are being cut back.’’
Scoffing at the suggestion that “everything is on the table’’ in budget negotiations between the Obama administration and congressional leaders, Frank said, “The military budget is not on the table. The military is at the table, and it is eating everybody else’s lunch.’’
It never is.
So all that talk about the Pentagon pitching in under Panetta was just a big bunch of dung, 'eh?
Still, the overall bill is $9 billion less than President Obama sought.
And the antiwar(?) Democrat president wanted MORE MONEY for WAR?
The White House has threatened a veto, citing limits on the president’s authority to transfer detainees from the US prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and money for defense programs it did not want.
Oh, HOW BUSH-like!!!
The measure includes $119 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan....
And I'll give you one guess what the rest of the article is about.
--more--"
And while the WARS are seeing a DOUBLE-DIGIT INCREASE in funding the SLASHING of the SOCIAL SAFETY NET -- already tattered -- is being discussed:
"GOP shows signs of budget flexibility; Obama combative in seeking more deficit reductions" July 07, 2011|By Andrew Taylor and Jim Kuhnhenn, Associated Press
WASHINGTON - Republicans showed signs of flexibility to break a budget impasse yesterday, but the White House raised the ante - pushing for more deficit reduction and taking a pugnacious tone casting the GOP as defenders of corporate tax giveaways.
Oh, I love the PLAYING POLITICS while DEMOCRATS SAT ON THEIR ASSES for TWO YEARS with a FILIBUSTER-PROOF MAJORITY!
The repositioning by both sides appeared to open new compromise possibilities a day before President Obama was set to host the bipartisan congressional leadership for new talks on the budget. The secret negotiations were gaining new urgency because they are tied to an Aug. 2 deadline to raise the government’s borrowing authority.
You must promise further debt slavery to the private banking system if you want services. Sure smells like blackmail to me.
First, House majority leader Eric Cantor, a Virginia Republican, said he was open to closing tax loopholes that the White House says are wasteful and ineffective and that would generate some money toward reducing deficits over the long term.
See: Hidden GOP Tax Hikes
Sick of the puppet show yet, 'murka?
Democratic officials, in turn, said Obama wants far more deficit reduction than the $2 trillion over 10 years that for weeks has been the target for budget negotiators.
But not from the war budget!
In April, Obama proposed deficit reduction of $4 trillion over 12 years, and White House spokesman Jay Carney said yesterday that goal remained “something to aspire to.’’
Related: Boehner abandons goal of $4 trillion debt-reduction package (By Paul Kane, Washington Post)
It's an invisible ink that didn't appear in the printed Sunday Globe, and I briefly scanned it. It's there if you want it.
But even as White House officials expressed confidence that negotiations ultimately would succeed, Obama took a combative approach ahead of today’s meeting.
I'm sick of the politics diversion when the banks are always serviced.
“The debt ceiling should not be something that is used as a gun against the heads of the American people to extract tax breaks for corporate jet owners or oil and gas companies that are making billions of dollars,’’ Obama said during a town hall that featured questions posed through the online social network Twitter.
The debt is the gun.
Related: Obama on Obama
Hey, what's one more lie on a mountain of them?
The president was referring to existing tax benefits that allow corporate jets to depreciate faster than commercial jets and to tax subsidies available to energy corporations. Obama has proposed ending both as part of an effort to cut deficits with new tax revenue.
Democrats had control for two years; why nothing until now?
I'm not fooled anymore, are you?
It is unclear, however, whether Congress and the administration could undertake such an overhaul in the limited time available to negotiate a deal.
Pfft!
Yeah, forget about it. What a waste of time and print.
--more--"
At least they will never touch Social Security:
"While discussions on trimming the costs of entitlement programs had centered on Medicare, the health care program for older Americans, the White House is revisiting a proposal raised earlier in the negotiations to change the inflation measurement used to calculate Social Security cost-of-living adjustments, thus reducing annual increases, officials said yesterday....
Hey, why not? They have already stolen the alleged surplus and tossed in tons of IOU notes.
--more--"
Wow, talk about a double penetration on the elderly.
Good thing we have Democrats looking out for you.
Gee and look who got a big old TAX CHECK!
FLASHBACK:
"Millions in profits and a tax bill ($0) to envy; Generous breaks a significant plus for 30 public companies in the state" May 01, 2011|By Beth Healy, Globe Staff
More like BILLIONS for some; however, I now expect such obfuscations from the corporate media.
They are high-tech companies, financial players, and manufacturers. What they all have in common: They paid no federal income taxes last year, despite making millions of dollars in profits.
Software company Novell Inc. and cellphone tower giant American Tower Corp. are just two of 30 public companies in Massachusetts that owed no federal income tax in 2010, generally because they lost money in prior years and were able to carry forward those losses to offset tax liabilities. In some cases, companies received refunds worth millions of dollars....
What we have here, folks, is corporate fascism like the world has never seen.
No Massachusetts company had a larger federal tax benefit last year than State Street Corp. The Boston financial services giant received an $885 million refund, after taking significant losses on its investment portfolio. State Street received a $2 billion taxpayer-funded bailout in 2008, which it has since repaid, and last year reported a $1.6 billion profit.
Related: State Street Stealers
The company drew fire last month from labor groups, which decried its refund given its large profits and taxpayer bailout. State Street recently cut its head count by 5 percent, laying off 400 workers in the Boston area, and 1,000 more in other locations.
Jeff Crosby, president of the IUE-CWA Local 201, whose members make jet engines in Lynn for General Electric Co., said tax cuts to major companies often don’t create jobs or benefit workers. GE, the largest US company, has sparked national attention to corporate taxes because it paid no federal tax bill last year, even though it turned a $14.2 billion profit.
Not only that, they got a $3.2 billion refund.
Yeah, that's BILLION with a B!
“That’s billions we’re spending subsidizing rich companies,’’ Crosby said....
State Street and many other Bay State companies are simply taking advantage of longstanding, legal tax deductions. But Congress and the Obama administration have extended about $48 billion more in short-term tax breaks to large corporations since 2009, according to the US Treasury Department, aimed at fueling growth and protecting jobs.
One deduction allowed companies to apply their losses toward five years of past profits, instead of two....
Companies get to deduct stock options as a form of compensation, and in an ironic twist, the more the stock price goes up, the more they get to write off....
One begins to realize the WHOLE $Y$TEM is RIGGED for CORPORATION$!!!
Corporate tax lawyers say the system is fair; it lets companies take credit for stock compensation in the same way that they would otherwise deduct employee salaries. But it’s also another way in which taxpayers are subsidizing companies, said Robert McIntyre of Citizens for Tax Justice, a Washington group that advocates for American workers on taxes....
To be sure, many Bay State companies did pay taxes last year....
Anytime the media says "to be sure" you might want to hold your breath.
Some Massachusetts companies pay little or nothing in federal taxes because they are doing most of their business overseas....
--more--"
But YOU MUST DO with LESS MEDICARE and SOCIAL SECURITY, American!
And leave it to the Sunday Globe Special to make you even sicker:
"US default would be ‘disastrous’ to struggling economy, analysts say" by Jay Fitzgerald, Globe Correspondent / July 10, 2011
What would happen if the US government defaulted on its debts?
The short answer: You really don’t want to know.
While White House and congressional negotiators reconvene today to try to make a deal to raise the federal government’s legal debt limit, economists are warning of possible catastrophic consequences to the economy if an agreement isn’t reached and the nation defaults on its debts next month.
Weren't sold the same s*** when Wall Street wanted a bailout?
“It’s the type of thing that could trigger another recession,’’ said Nariman Behravesh, chief economist at IHS Inc., an economics research firm in Lexington.
Which would mean something if we had come out of the first one.
“There would be an almost crisis of confidence, throwing the financial markets into turmoil.’’
I'm convinced this is now some sort of plan so that world bankers can ruin nations and construct a fascist, one-world economic order.
The GENIUSES of FINANCE simply could NOT HAVE BEEN SO INCOMPETENT and WRONG all these years, and if so WHY ARE THEY STILL the ones making DECISIONS?
The US government for years has spent more than it collects in taxes, leading to annual budget deficits financed by borrowing. Raising the debt limit, which allows the country to pay its creditors as well as finance government operations, has historically been a relatively routine procedure.
Yeah, the politicians think nothing of burying this nation under a mountain of debt -- now give me that campaign check.
But with the national debt approaching $14 trillion and Washington riven by intense partisanship, the vote to raise the debt limit has been anything but pro forma. Republicans, who control the House of Representatives, have threatened to reject raising the limit unless Congress and the Obama administration drastically cut spending.
Unless it is the WAR BUDGET, of course!
The technical default that would occur would send the interest rates the US pays to borrow in the bond markets soaring, analysts said....
And then we are ON the ROAD to GREECE, Americans!!
Rates for home mortgages, corporate bonds, credit cards, auto loans, and other forms of credit would quickly follow, jacking up the cost of borrowing and choking off capital to many businesses and individuals. All that would happen when the nation’s struggling economy remains especially vulnerable to shock.
And the WHOLE EMPIRE could FLUSH DOWN PDQ!!!
“A default would be disastrous for the financial markets, the economy and, for most people, it would further harm the jobs market,’’ said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics in West Chester, Pa.
You see who the important concern is, and what job market?
Most political observers and economists believe Democrats and Republicans will raise the borrowing limit before the nation hits the $14.3 trillion debt ceiling on Aug. 2 and loses its legal authority to borrow money to pay for federal programs....
But if the political battle drags on for many more days, he said, it could unnerve some investors, bumping up interest rates and harming the economy....
If the worst-case scenario does unfold, and lawmakers fail to reach a debt agreement, the Treasury would have a number of options to keep paying bills, none of them attractive.
The Treasury has signaled it will do everything possible to maintain payments to investors holding trillions of dollars in US bonds, technically averting a default by using revenue from regular tax collections to pay off debt holders.
Yup, the AmeriKan government WORKS FOR BANKS!!!!
You know, I HAD NO SAY in ALL THAT DEBT ACCUMULATION and THAT is NOT WHERE I want MY MONEY GOING!!!
But since it legally couldn’t borrow money to pay other government bills, Treasury might have to reduce or temporarily halt expenditures on Social Security, Medicare, and other popular federal programs.
All so BANKERS can be PAID!
So GO INTO DEBT FURTHER so BANKERS can get MORE PAY!
Moody’s Zandi thinks such a “payment prioritization’’ wouldn’t calm markets.
“Bond investors,’’ Zandi said, “would start asking, ‘How long will it be before Treasury feels pressure to pay off Social Security and other programs and cut our bond payments?’ ’’
When the PEOPLE are TEARING DOWN the DOORS and STORMING the BASTILLE??!!!
Alasdair Roberts, a professor of law and public policy at Suffolk University Law School, thinks President Obama, a Democrat, and Republican congressional leaders will ultimately forge some sort of deal.
But, he said, the American public better prepare itself for future economic uncertainty and political fights related to the government’s debt, projected to exceed the nation’s economic output this year.
UNLESS you are part of the DEBT SLAVERY SYSTEM or WAR MACHINE! Then things are CERTAIN INDEED!
“This summer is a small taste of what we’re going to face in future years,’’ said Roberts, now writing a book on America’s financial crisis of the 1840s.
Oh, ANOTHER GLOBE "EXPERT" who happens to be PITCHING a BOOK!
“We’re moving into a new phase of American economic history when international markets will be increasingly scrutinizing our finances,’’ said Roberts.
“It’s a more global economy whose rules are not yet set.’’
America brought to its knees by bankers.
--more--"
And who reads books (or newspapers, for that matter) anymore?
"A precipitous situation, not without precedent" by Alasdair Roberts, Globe Correspondent / July 10, 2011
Unless Congress acts, the United States will reach a statutory limit on federal debt in early August. The US Treasury might then default on its loans. This, says Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, would be “an unprecedented event in American history’’ that would inflict catastrophic damage on the economy.
But it isn’t entirely unprecedented. While the federal government has never defaulted, we’ve had a very similar experience.
Between July 1841 and December 1842, eight of the country’s 26 states defaulted on their loans. Other states and the federal government also struggled to avoid insolvency. The entire nation quickly became a pariah in international financial markets.
In 1842 the country was in the midst of its first great depression.
And now we are in the third.
A real estate bubble fueled by easy credit had burst in 1837. American banks that financed this speculation collapsed two years later. The economy ground to a halt.
Isn't that about the same time Andrew Jackson got rid of the second central bank?
Gee, what a coincidence? Get rid of central banks and watch the economy crash.
Many states were caught up in the mania of 1836-37. They borrowed in Europe and competed with each other to build infrastructure that would open their markets. Legislators spent indiscriminately. Every new canal, railroad, and turnpike was supposed to pay for itself. But when the economy collapsed, so did the projects.
Sound familiar, American?
And that borrowing from Europe. Sixty years after fighting for freedom from Britain's central bank the former colonies were once again indebted to European central banks.
There was no toll revenue to repay the loans. Foreign creditors pressed the states to raise property taxes instead. But voters resisted new taxes, and many states simply lacked the capacity to collect them. So the states defaulted.
Sound familiar, American? Our states are headed that way now; however, the agenda-pushing paper that serves banking interests won't tell you that. Then the scheme would collapse and what fun would that be?
In Britain, the main source of investment, there was outrage. American visitors were barred from London clubs and snubbed at dinner parties.
Back in debt to the British central bank?
William Wordsworth published a poem denouncing the “degenerate men’’ of defaulting Pennsylvania. (His retirement savings were in American state bonds.) Another writer said Americans were “guilty of a fraud as enormous as ever disgraced the worst king of the most degraded nation of Europe.’’
European anger was indiscriminate. States that never defaulted, such as Massachusetts, could not sell bonds in Europe. The federal government tried to place a “trifling loan’’ in Europe in 1842. “Tell your government,’’ Baron James de Rothschild told US representatives, “that you cannot borrow a dollar.’’
That's a name that has been behind so much s*** throughout history.
Hidden in my history books though.
Trans-Atlantic relations approached the boiling point. The doctrine of sovereign immunity meant that European investors had no legal remedy. States were free to repudiate their loans - if they were prepared to bear the humiliation and give up access to international finance.
That's not a humiliation, that's an honor.
Related:
"For decades, many states had usury laws capping credit-card interest rates as low as 6 percent. But those rules were upended in 1978"
Just wanted to throw a little history out there myself.
Most states chose a different path. The crisis was a critical point in the evolution of American government. States abandoned their infrastructure schemes and adopted constitutional restrictions on borrowing.
According to the Constitution, the Congress should be coining the money. Every time a president suggest that road he gets a hole in the head.
Voters accepted new taxes, and governments developed the capacity to collect them efficiently.
Ah, freedom!
None of this came easily.
Really? Raping and screwing people not easy?
Many Americans had just acquired the right to vote, and the ideal of popular sovereignty was ascendant. Now, voters were being asked to restrict their own political power. Most agreed that it was necessary.
Yeah, lock yourself up in those chains.
“Self-government is no longer a theory,’’ said John Pettit, an Indiana legislator. “We must take our cool and calm moments to bind and restrict ourselves.’’
And write out that debt interest payment to the "investor."
By the late 1840s, European confidence was restored, and investment once again flowed into the United States. Wordsworth conceded that Pennsylvanians, now repaying their loans, might not be degenerates after all. The trans-Atlantic default crisis was over.
But Americans had learned a hard lesson about the limits to popular sovereignty within a globalized economy.
And that was over 150 years ago.
Alasdair Roberts is the Jerome L. Rappaport Professor of Law and Public Policy at Suffolk University Law School. His book The First Great Depression will be published by Cornell University Press in 2012.
--more--"
Related:
"Dahling’s memo, dated April 12, 1961, is one of dozens of documents in the elder Obama’s “alien’’ file released by the Department of Homeland Security in response to a Freedom of Information Act request made in the course of research on a biography of Obama’s father....
Yeah, too bad Obama's real father is a guy by the name of Frank Marshall Davis.
But hey, after all these years, what is one more lie on the pile?
Sally Jacobs is a Boston Globe reporter. Her book, “The Other Barack, The Bold and Reckless Life of President Obama’s Father,’’ will be released next week.
I'm sick of agenda-pushing, self-serving book promotions passing as news, aren't you?
--more--"
