Class envy at its best. Bet you would sing a different tune...

• If the McCain-Palin ticket wins...sm - oldtimer
  • Oh please, not another scare - not again
    • Oh yea? - MQ Sucks
  • I certainly don't want her running our country. - pc
    • Isn't his mom like 90 something? - sbMT
      • She's that young? I figured McCain was at - LEAST that old, if not older.
      • My point exactly - not again
    • And I certainly don't want Obama running it - not again
      • I guess we're even. Cuz it's sorta like how we - don't trust McSame, either.
        • Well, Mcsame saw this crash coming and tried to avoid it... - sam
          • ummmm....sam?......sm - ms
            • No, I didnt misstype....attempt at irony. lol. nm - sam
              • And a poor one at that. It bombed. - n/m
                • Oh, hi out there in the peanut gallery. Thanks for weighing in! - sam
          • Anyone actually looked at the money Obama wants - to spend? You think the economy is bad NOW?nm
            • He can promise the world now.... - sam
              • Right, and no rich people means no jobs, period. - Rich people HIRE people. Hello, Mr. Obama?nm
                • Oh, goody-goody! The "trickle-down theory" - all over again! Think I'll PASS.
                  • Just WHO do you think does provide jobs? - sam
                  • My, yes. What would we do, w/o all those...sm - No Chance
                    • Class envy at its best. Bet you would sing a different tune... - sam
                  • You would say that. Common sense is lost to the - left. and they are all about "gimme something&#
                    • I think they are jealous and think Robin Hood could - solve all their problems... lol.nm
                      • Yes, but alas, socialism doesn't work that way....lol. - sam
                        • Look where out-of-control capitalism got us. - !
                          • Out of control being the operative words.... - sam
                            • Last-worditis. - As always.

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 I almost died when I saw that the ACLU was preparing a lawsuit on behalf of (among others) Christopher Hitchens. This is the guy who went from left-leaning, writing for The Nation to so far right he is not recognizable. I rarely listen to him anymore because, like so many of the radical right, he is so abrasive I find him difficult to stomach. This is a guy who hates the ACLU until he needs it because the ACLU will defend the constitutional rights of anyone and everyone, not just the people, groups, corporations that some find acceptable. As American citizens we all have the right to due process and legal representation no matter how heinous the crimes we have committed. The right goes nuts when the ACLU defends those they disdain but interestingly, Hitchens and Rush both have turned to the ACLU for help when personally in need. Where are their right-wing lawyers?? Why do they need the ACLU to help them?? Why indeed.

Also, on another note, I am again disgusted that this administration who has not one person amongst them who has ever seen combat in any war/conflict is swiftboating AGAIN, this time John Murtha, a REPUBLICAN.  First we had Max Cleland who was decried as unpatriotic. Then Al Gore's service did not count because he was only a journalist (journalists are in harm's way and he was serving in Viet Nam). Then there was John Kerry who actually fought, led and had medals to prove it ...what to do??? Why, question the authenticity of the medals of course. And now, John Murtha, a lifelong military guy, Republican, with medals galore and now his medals are being questioned. I don't know why the military people who frequent these boards are not outraged by this. I understand that the first 3 mentioned were Democrats but Murtha...you guys are okay with this??? You could fill a library with what this administration does not know about military strategies, plans, actual experience and yet they are so arrogant as to swiftboat one of their own who has been behind them 100% up to this point.  This is beyond appalling.

And you "a self-proclaimed" middle class become the poor.  I think to you need to check yourself.  You are totally against the poor, you're sick!  You have no sympathy or empathy?  Do you have a silver spoon on your mouth?  I guess you've been brainwashed to believe that McCain at 70+ is really going to make a difference?  The American dream - yeah right!  The rich get richer while the poor get poorer!  Are you actually an MT?  Get real!  If you believe everything the media says, you are a sad sort.  Yes, this economy needs help and that doesn't mean more taxes on our healthcare.  Are you awake?

of $9T over the next 10 years?????  You really want your children, grandchildren and probably your great-grandchildren to pay for mistakes that did not have to take place in the first place?

You're not wasting tea, you're wasting the little tag on the tea bag. How hard is it to let the government know you are furious with their antics?  I just don't agree it's a waste of time.

Some of us (not me yet) are in the less fortunate boat and not getting any help at all while those in power pocket our money. It's time to stop the nonsense and hold those accountable for their actions. It's time to let the government know we don't want to be told how to live anymore. Freedom is not free anymore. It costs a lot of money and our freedoms are slowly being whittled away one by one. I want to see my grandchildren enough those freedoms, not wind up being told how to live, what to eat, where and when to work, etc.

Whew! Sorry. Am venting.  I'll get off my soapbox now.

John the Revelator (director's remake)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VB1psXTjS4

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.