Conservative VS Liberal

[Cleo's Mom 257]

Deficit spenders: In February, President Obama created the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform to develop a plan to stabilize the $13 trillion national debt and reduce federal borrowing. The committee's real purpose, of course, is to give him political cover for the gigantic tax increases coming after this year's elections so Democrats can continue to preserve unionized government jobs at all levels and grow the government as they take America further down the road to socialism.Yeah, it's all part of Pres. Obama's sinister plot. I heard he was secretly meeting with unemployed ACORN workers, Fidel Castro, all his chicago friends, etc.. all to turn the country into a big socialist, monarchy, muslim country. Now comes word that the commission is running a deficit, and is demanding the president vastly expand its staff (hire more unionized government workers) and increase its budget from $500,000 to something on the order of $8 million so it can do a proper job of putting the screws to taxpayers. For its profligacy and fecklessness, the commission won the Someone Left the Irony On Award from the HotAir.com blog.

The National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, which the president created through an executive order in February, is charged with developing a plan by December 1 that would stabilize the budget deficit by 2015 and reduce the federal debt over the long term. The group is widely expected to consider a combination of tax reforms and spending cuts.

But despite the weighty demands, the panel has only a fraction of the staff and budget of standing congressional committees. The panel’s own cochairs and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., have criticized the meager resources and called for more support. …

According to fiscal commission staffers, there are 10 to 15 people who work for the commission, including two full-time employees, interns, employees “borrowed”from other agencies such as the Office of Management and Budget and the Treasury Department, and special government employees, who are expected to work no more than 130 days in a calendar year. The number of workers will likely grow to around 20 by midsummer.

The White House has set aside the resources to provide the equivalent of four full-time salaries and $500,000 in operating costs for the commission, fiscal commission Executive Director Bruce Reed told Tax Analysts.

[Cleo's Mom 257]

Caution: Cut & Paste to follow - but from an award winning economist.

Pain without a cause: It's not a good time to throw more people out of work

Saturday, June 12, 2010

By Paul Krugman

What's the greatest threat to our still-fragile economic recovery?

Dangers abound, of course. But what I currently find most ominous is the spread of a destructive idea: The view that now, less than a year into a weak recovery from the worst slump since World War II, is the time for policy makers to stop helping the jobless and start inflicting pain.

When the financial crisis first struck, most of the world's policy makers responded appropriately, cutting interest rates and allowing deficits to rise. And by doing the right thing, by applying the lessons learned from the 1930s, they managed to limit the damage: It was terrible, but it wasn't a second Great Depression.

Now, however, demands that governments switch from supporting their economies to punishing them have been proliferating in op-eds, speeches and reports from international organizations. Indeed, the idea that what depressed economies really need is even more suffering seems to be the new conventional wisdom, not new on these boards, the neocons have been yapping about it since Obama got elected. which John Kenneth Galbraith famously defined as "the ideas which are esteemed at any time for their acceptability."

The extent to which inflicting economic pain has become the accepted thing was driven home to me by the latest report on the economic outlook from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, an influential Paris-based think tank supported by the governments of the world's advanced economies. The OECD is a deeply cautious organization; what it says at any given time virtually defines that moment's conventional wisdom. And what the OECD is saying right now is that policy makers should stop promoting economic recovery and instead begin raising interest rates and slashing spending.

What's particularly remarkable about this recommendation is that it seems disconnected not only from the real needs of the world economy, but from the organization's own economic projections.

Thus, the OECD declares that interest rates in the United States and other nations should rise sharply over the next year and a half, so as to head off inflation. Yet inflation is low and declining, and the OECD's own forecasts show no hint of an inflationary threat. So why raise rates? Why indeed?

The answer, as best I can make it out, is that the organization believes that we must worry about the chance that markets might start expecting inflation, even though they shouldn't and currently don't: We must guard against "the possibility that longer-term inflation expectations could become unanchored in the OECD economies, contrary to what is assumed in the central projection."

A similar argument is used to justify fiscal austerity. Both textbook economics and experience say that slashing spending when you're still suffering from high unemployment is a really bad idea No kidding!!-- not only does it deepen the slump, but it does little to improve the budget outlook, because much of what governments save by spending less they lose as a weaker economy depresses tax receipts. And the OECD predicts that high unemployment will persist for years. Nonetheless, the organization demands both that governments cancel any further plans for economic stimulus and that they begin "fiscal consolidation" next year.

Why do this? Again, to give markets something they shouldn't want and currently don't. Right now, investors don't seem at all worried about the solvency of the U.S. government; the interest rates on federal bonds are near historic lows.

And even if markets were worried about U.S. fiscal prospects, spending cuts in the face of a depressed economy would do little to improve those prospects. But cut we must, says the OECD, because inadequate consolidation efforts "would risk adverse reactions in financial markets."

The best summary I've seen of all this comes from Martin Wolf of The Financial Times, who describes the new conventional wisdom as being that "giving the markets what we think they may want in future -- even though they show little sign of insisting on it now -- should be the ruling idea in policy."

Put that way, it sounds crazy. And it is. Yet it's a view that's spreading. And it's already having ugly consequences.

Last week conservative members of the U.S. House of Representatives, invoking the new deficit fears, scaled back a bill extending aid to the long-term unemployed -- and the Senate left town without acting on even the inadequate measures that remained. As a result, many American families are about to lose unemployment benefits, health insurance or both -- and as these families are forced to slash spending, they will endanger the jobs of many more.

And that's just the beginning. More and more, conventional wisdom says that the responsible thing is to make the unemployed suffer. And while the benefits from inflicting pain are an illusion, the pain itself will be all too real.

Paul Krugman is a syndicated columnist for The New York Times.

Edited June 13, 2010 by Cleo's Mom

[Cleo's Mom 257]

Just so typical of teabagger endorsed candidates - their hypocrisy is staggering and it appears Rand Paul is one of the biggest hypocrites.

Rand Paul: Don't Cut my Government Money

Boy, Rand Paul is fitting in very nicely in the hypocritical Republican Party of Kentucky. You know, the Republican Party that is against any government spending unless of course that spending is going to Corporate Welfare for the greediest and least patriotic among us as they outsource our jobs and cut wages. In the case of Rand Paul, he wants to slash government spending except of course the government spending that has made him rich.

Yes, Paul is calling for slashing government spending that goes to benefit you, but when someone threatens his own right to slop at the government trough, that is where the mad doctor draws the line. You see as an eye doctor Paul has become quite fat at the expense of government programs. Far from "cutting waste" he even requested more money from the government than was allowed, causing disputed payments:

But as a Bowling Green eye surgeon, Paul built his medical practice on payments from Medicare and Medicaid, the massive government health care programs considered to be leading contributors to the national debt.

Paul, the Republican nominee, has been paid $130,461 in Medicaid funds since 2006, about one-third of the sum that he billed the program, according to the state Cabinet for Health and Family Services, which administers that program. Doctors' Medicaid billings often are disputed in part, leading to smaller payments than they requested.

And while he calls for the abolition of the Education Department to help educate children, wants to cut government programs that help the unemployed, disabled and would allow business owners to discriminate not surprisingly as a true Kentucky Republican hypocrite there is one group he thinks should be subsidized by the government:

"Physicians should be allowed to make a

comfortable living

," Paul told supporters in Louisville in May, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Just like the tea-baggers who nominated him and want to "keep government hands off their Medicare" so goes Rand Paul. While he wants to cut any program that helps the poor, unemployed, farmers, the disabled, and practically anyone else, his own funds leeched off the government are just fine and dandy.

This was not lost on the campaign of Jack Conway, the only candidate in this race who has actually SAVED the taxpayers money, not hypocritically taken it from them:

"Medicare must be preserved and, as attorney general, Jack Conway has built a strong record protecting Medicaid by increasing fraud collections by 600 percent," Conway spokeswoman Allison Haley said.

"On the other hand," Haley said, "Rand Paul is once again displaying his hypocrisy by advocating cutting scholarships to our children, aid to farmers and nearly every other government program except the ones that line his own pocket."

Be careful what you wish for Kentucky, it might come true. If Rand Paul is elected he will fight against the programs that benefit you and for the money that flows from the government into his own bank account. He will hypocritically dole out Corporate Welfare to those who outsource jobs and slash wages while leaving our poor, disabled, and Kentucky farmers hanging out to dry.

In that sense Rand Paul is going to fit in quite nicely with the greediest and least patriotic among us.

dailykos

[pattygreen 5]

Pelosi's Loss Could Be Obama's Gain

A pivot to the center (and re-election) would be easier without the House speaker.

By FRED BARNES

In Washington these days, President Obama is rumored to be hoping Republicans capture the House of Representatives in the midterm election in November. There's no evidence for this speculation, so far as I know, but it's hardly far-fetched. If Mr. Obama wants to avert a fiscal crisis and win re-election in 2012, he needs House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to be removed from her powerful post. A GOP takeover may be the only way.

Given the deficit-and-debt mess that Mr. Obama has on his hands, a Republican House would be a godsend. A Republican Senate would help, too. A Republican majority, should it materialize, could be counted on to pass significant cuts in domestic spending next year—cuts that Mrs. Pelosi and her allies in the House Democratic hierarchy would never countenance.

View Full Image

Associated Press Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama

Though Mr. Obama's preferred solution to his fiscal predicament would probably be a very large tax increase, it's a nonstarter. He needs spending cuts to assuage both markets and voters. It was the surge in spending—the stimulus, omnibus budget and the health-care legislation—that prompted the tea party protests, alienated independent voters, and caused the rapid decline in his popularity.

The test is whether Mr. Obama can restrain nondefense discretionary spending. That's the spending over which Washington exerts the greatest control. Even small cuts in entitlement spending are difficult to enact, but the president and Republicans might reach agreement there as well. That would be a political bonus for Mr. Obama, softening his image as a tax-and-spend liberal. Again, this would be impossible if Ms. Pelosi still runs the House.

Over the past 50 years, it should be no surprise which president has the best record for holding down discretionary spending. It was President Reagan. But who was second best? President Clinton, a Democrat. His record of frugality was better than Presidents Nixon, Ford and both Bushes. Mr. Clinton couldn't have done it if Republicans hadn't won the House and Senate in the 1994 election. They insisted on substantial cuts, he went along and then whistled his way to an easy re-election in 1996.

Here are the numbers: Average nondefense discretionary outlays per year under Nixon and Ford increased 39.7% over those of Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, followed by another 39% boost under Mr. Carter, a 14% drop under Mr. Reagan, a 12% jump under the first Mr. Bush, a 7.6% hike under Mr. Clinton, and a 31.2% increase under the second Mr. Bush.

Only four times in the past half century have nondefense discretionary expenditures in real terms decreased in a two-year congressional cycle. And only Reagan's first Congress—controlled by Democrats—cut more (15.5%) than the Republican Congress that Mr. Clinton faced after the 1994 election (3.7%). The other two reductions came under Reagan (2.5%, the 1986-87 budgets) and the younger Mr. Bush (.01%, the 2006-07 budgets).

If defense spending, which is also discretionary, is included, the result is the same. Mr. Clinton, working with a Republican majority, is second to Reagan. And in his new book, "Never Enough, America's Limitless Welfare State," William Voegeli of the Claremont Institute found that "welfare state" spending since FDR increased less under Mr. Clinton than under any president except Reagan.

Let's assume Mr. Obama recognizes that the fiscal and economic peril facing the country because of trillion dollar deficits is a problem for him as well. At the moment, the 10-year deficit tab is pegged to be as low as $6 trillion (Congressional Budget Office) or as high as $13 trillion (Heritage Foundation). Either way, the public is alarmed.

Mr. Obama's re-election to a second term is heavily dependent on his ability to deal effectively with the fiscal mess. He could try to push a big tax hike, like a value-added tax, through a lame duck Congress after the November election. But that's very much a long shot. Besides, higher taxes—on top of those from expiration of the Bush tax cuts—could infuriate voters all the more.

For Mr. Obama, serious spending cuts are the only sensible means of dealing with a potential debt crisis or at least an unsustainable fiscal situation. However, he may not be able to rely on reductions in military spending, as liberal Democrats usually prefer. Mr. Obama has already included deep defense cuts in his budget, and Republicans are unlikely to go along with even deeper cuts.

Mrs. Pelosi won't be any help. She's committed to enacting the Democratic Party's entire liberal agenda, and next to the president she is the most powerful person in Washington. When the president flirted with scaling back his health-care bill last January, Ms. Pelosi stiffened his spine, and the bill passed. As long as she is House speaker, bucking her would be painful, especially if Mr. Obama proposes to eliminate a chunk of the spending she was instrumental in passing in 2009 and 2010.

But if Republicans win the House, everything changes. Mrs. Pelosi's influence as minority leader would be minimal—that is, assuming she's not ousted by Democrats upset over losing the majority.

Mr. Obama would be in a position to make his long-awaited pivot to the center. With Republicans in charge, he'd have to be bipartisan. He'd surely have to accede to serious cuts in spending—even as he complains they are harsh and mean-spirited. Mr. Obama could play a double game, appeasing Democrats by criticizing the cuts and getting credit with everyone else by acquiescing to them.

Mr. Clinton did this brilliantly in 1996. He fought with Republicans over the budget, winning some battles, losing others, as he lurched to the center. He twice vetoed Republican welfare reform bills, then signed a similar measure. He was hailed as the president who overhauled the unpopular welfare system.

In recent months, the president has met repeatedly with Mr. Clinton. We can only guess what they talked about. (probably how to get a certain someone off the voting ballot and give them a government job in exchange.) But given Mr. Clinton's own experience, I suspect he suggested to Mr. Obama that Republicans could be the answer to his political prayers. In 1994, Republicans freed the president from the clutches of liberal Democratic leaders in Congress. In 2010, they can do it again.

Edited June 18, 2010 by pattygreen

[Cleo's Mom 257]

Pelosi's Loss Could Be Obama's Gain

A pivot to the center (and re-election) would be easier without the House speaker.

By FRED BARNES

In Washington these days, President Obama is rumored to be hoping Republicans capture the House of Representatives in the midterm election in November. There's no evidence for this speculation, so far as I know, but it's hardly far-fetched. If Mr. Obama wants to avert a fiscal crisis and win re-election in 2012, he needs House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to be removed from her powerful post. A GOP takeover may be the only way.

Given the deficit-and-debt mess that Mr. Obama has on his hands, a Republican House would be a godsend. A Republican Senate would help, too. A Republican majority, should it materialize, could be counted on to pass significant cuts in domestic spending next year—cuts that Mrs. Pelosi and her allies in the House Democratic hierarchy would never countenance.

View Full Image

Associated Press Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama

Though Mr. Obama's preferred solution to his fiscal predicament would probably be a very large tax increase, it's a nonstarter. He needs spending cuts to assuage both markets and voters. It was the surge in spending—the stimulus, omnibus budget and the health-care legislation—that prompted the tea party protests, alienated independent voters, and caused the rapid decline in his popularity.

The test is whether Mr. Obama can restrain nondefense discretionary spending. That's the spending over which Washington exerts the greatest control. Even small cuts in entitlement spending are difficult to enact, but the president and Republicans might reach agreement there as well. That would be a political bonus for Mr. Obama, softening his image as a tax-and-spend liberal. Again, this would be impossible if Ms. Pelosi still runs the House.

Over the past 50 years, it should be no surprise which president has the best record for holding down discretionary spending. It was President Reagan. But who was second best? President Clinton, a Democrat. His record of frugality was better than Presidents Nixon, Ford and both Bushes. Mr. Clinton couldn't have done it if Republicans hadn't won the House and Senate in the 1994 election. They insisted on substantial cuts, he went along and then whistled his way to an easy re-election in 1996.

Here are the numbers: Average nondefense discretionary outlays per year under Nixon and Ford increased 39.7% over those of Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, followed by another 39% boost under Mr. Carter, a 14% drop under Mr. Reagan, a 12% jump under the first Mr. Bush, a 7.6% hike under Mr. Clinton, and a 31.2% increase under the second Mr. Bush.

Only four times in the past half century have nondefense discretionary expenditures in real terms decreased in a two-year congressional cycle. And only Reagan's first Congress—controlled by Democrats—cut more (15.5%) than the Republican Congress that Mr. Clinton faced after the 1994 election (3.7%). The other two reductions came under Reagan (2.5%, the 1986-87 budgets) and the younger Mr. Bush (.01%, the 2006-07 budgets).

If defense spending, which is also discretionary, is included, the result is the same. Mr. Clinton, working with a Republican majority, is second to Reagan. And in his new book, "Never Enough, America's Limitless Welfare State," William Voegeli of the Claremont Institute found that "welfare state" spending since FDR increased less under Mr. Clinton than under any president except Reagan.

Let's assume Mr. Obama recognizes that the fiscal and economic peril facing the country because of trillion dollar deficits is a problem for him as well. At the moment, the 10-year deficit tab is pegged to be as low as $6 trillion (Congressional Budget Office) or as high as $13 trillion (Heritage Foundation). Either way, the public is alarmed.

Mr. Obama's re-election to a second term is heavily dependent on his ability to deal effectively with the fiscal mess. He could try to push a big tax hike, like a value-added tax, through a lame duck Congress after the November election. But that's very much a long shot. Besides, higher taxes—on top of those from expiration of the Bush tax cuts—could infuriate voters all the more.

For Mr. Obama, serious spending cuts are the only sensible means of dealing with a potential debt crisis or at least an unsustainable fiscal situation. However, he may not be able to rely on reductions in military spending, as liberal Democrats usually prefer. Mr. Obama has already included deep defense cuts in his budget, and Republicans are unlikely to go along with even deeper cuts.

Mrs. Pelosi won't be any help. She's committed to enacting the Democratic Party's entire liberal agenda, and next to the president she is the most powerful person in Washington. When the president flirted with scaling back his health-care bill last January, Ms. Pelosi stiffened his spine, and the bill passed. As long as she is House speaker, bucking her would be painful, especially if Mr. Obama proposes to eliminate a chunk of the spending she was instrumental in passing in 2009 and 2010.

But if Republicans win the House, everything changes. Mrs. Pelosi's influence as minority leader would be minimal—that is, assuming she's not ousted by Democrats upset over losing the majority.

Mr. Obama would be in a position to make his long-awaited pivot to the center. With Republicans in charge, he'd have to be bipartisan. He'd surely have to accede to serious cuts in spending—even as he complains they are harsh and mean-spirited. Mr. Obama could play a double game, appeasing Democrats by criticizing the cuts and getting credit with everyone else by acquiescing to them.

Mr. Clinton did this brilliantly in 1996. He fought with Republicans over the budget, winning some battles, losing others, as he lurched to the center. He twice vetoed Republican welfare reform bills, then signed a similar measure. He was hailed as the president who overhauled the unpopular welfare system.

In recent months, the president has met repeatedly with Mr. Clinton. We can only guess what they talked about. (probably how to get a certain someone off the voting ballot and give them a government job in exchange.) But given Mr. Clinton's own experience, I suspect he suggested to Mr. Obama that Republicans could be the answer to his political prayers. In 1994, Republicans freed the president from the clutches of liberal Democratic leaders in Congress. In 2010, they can do it again.

Fred Barnes is a Fox news contributor so right there that makes him have near zero credibility. We have seen what the republicans did when they had power under bush. We are living with the consequences. And Pres. Obama has had to do the mop up duty.

The republicans have only two solutions, well, three really.

They are:

1) tax cuts for the rich

2) deregulate big business (can you spell Massey and BP?)

3) cut spending for the least among us

Yeah, by all means, lets go back to their failed policies. :thumbup:

BTW, nothing to say about Barton and his apology to BP?

[Cleo's Mom 257]

During the recent state primaries where more than one republican candidate was running, we saw them tripping over each other to be portrayed as the most conservative (read: extremist) -"I'm the most conservative", "No, I am"- ad infinitum, ad nauseum...

So, after the most extremist candidate wins the primary by appealing to the extremist base, they then have to pull back on their wacko positions. We have already seen this start to happen.

When Republicans try to pretend to be reasonable

by Laurence Lewis

Fri Jun 18, 2010 at 07:06:03 AM PDT

Add Meg Whitman to the list of Republican nominees who are trying to pivot away from the divisiveness or extremism that helped them get nominated. As reported by Salon's Alex Pareene:

According to this ad that will run in California during today's World Cup Mexico-France game, gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman respects the Latino community. The ad is in Spanish, so white Republicans will never know that Whitman suddenly loves those scary immigrants.

The ad says Whitman's "the Republican who opposed the Arizona law and opposed Proposition 187."

Of course, during the primary Whitman ran ads touting her opposition to amnesty and drivers licenses for illegal immigrants, and suggested that she might even send the National Guard to the border. She didn't take it to the racist extremes of Arizona Republicans, but she wasn't above marginalizing immigrants in order to secure her own Republican base. Now, she's turning around and trying to make nice. She also flat out lied when she denied using the border fence in an ad, even though she actually did. Fences pretty well define Republicanism. Demonize a minority to unify the paranoid. Divide and conquer.

The Whitman pivot is part of a trend. Extremist Republican Senate nominees Sharron Angle and Rand Paul are attempting the same tactic. Despite entire careers built on the far right fringe, they are now attempting to recast themselves as reasonable moderates. Of course, Faux News has been there to help. As Sam Stein explained, on June 14:

On Monday morning, Nevada Republican Senate candidate Sharon Angle told "Fox and Friends" that, contrary to popular belief, she does not in fact want Social Security to be privatized.

She now says she wants to "personalize" Social Security, rather than privatize it. Whatever that means. Take a cue from Bush and come up with cute pet names?

Media Matters took Faux to task, quoting from Angle's campaign website (emphasis MM):

Free market alternatives, which offer retirement choices to employees and employers, must be developed and offered to those still in their wage earning years, as the Social Security system is transitioned out.

Young workers must be encouraged to investigate personal retirement account options.

But as Media Matters noted, this is how Faux's Steve Doocy posed the question to Angle (emphases mine):

Before you go, Sharron, just, you know,

perhaps it's misinformation or mischaracterization

, but some have said that you are out to get rid of Social Security.

That's not true, right?

Which is where Angle pivoted to her "personalize" nonsense. Of course, on previous Faux broadcasts, Faux's own people had been clear about Angle's views:

On the June 12 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends Saturday, host Alisyn Camerota asked Sarah Palin: "You supported Sharron Angle. I don't have to tell you that she has some controversial positions. She wants to do away with the federal income tax and she wants to phase out Social Security. Do you support those positions?"

Stein:

Regardless of the set-up, the response remains noteworthy. Angle, as pointed out by Jon Ralston, the dean of the Nevada political press corps, has been fairly unapologetic in the past about her desire to see Social Security privatized. At one point, she said the program itself is "hard to justify." That she's now tempering that position illustrates the clear sense among the national Republican establishment that she needs to moderate her platform if she stands a chance of beating Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in the fall.

And moderate she will. For the next several months, anyway. And she won't be alone.

Stein:

Prior to her was Rand Paul, the Tea Party candidate from Kentucky, who insisted during an interview with Fox News's Sean Hannity last week that he certainly would have voted for the Civil Rights Act of 1964, despite refusing to answer the question directly during previous interviews. Paul, similarly, has toned down earlier remarks saying that the government was being too rough on BP in the wake of the oil spill in the Gulf,

telling a local Kentucky radio station

that the federal regulations in place "apparently wasn't enough."

As Angle and Paul, and their enablers at Faux, attempt to fool voters into electing candidates whose positions the voters clearly don't like, it will be incumbent upon us to keep a close watch and to keep the discussions honest. Because whatever Angle and Paul now do isn't what matters most. What matters most is what they will do if they get to Washington. And you can be certain that if they do get to Washington, they won't be the nice, sensible people they are now trying to pretend to be. They will be themselves.

As for Whitman, it's hard to say what she will stand for. Or stand on. Or whom she will stand on. It doesn't seem to matter, just so she's the one standing on top

dailykos

SERIOUSLY, DO THESE PEOPLE NOT THINK WE HAVE THE BENEFIT OF VIDEOS, WEBSITES, PRINTED MEDIA, ETC.. TO CONFIRM THEIR EARLIER EXTREMIST POSITIONS?

This must be the "John McCain" style of campaigning - where he was a maverick before he wasn't a maverick. :scared2: :thumbup:

And these LIARS are who some want to elect more of? :scared2:

[loserbob 11]

When you think about ways to tame the nation's long-term deficit, what's the first thing that comes to mind? Slashing benefits for the old and sick? :thumbup: Or taking a few whacks at the spectacularly bloated defense budget? :smilielol5:

The former option has, somehow, become the default position for Washington's ruling class, including President Obama's deficit commission.

But in April, a bipartisan group of iconoclasts in Congress led by Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) formed their own task force to examine the latter possibility. The group of defense experts released their report on Friday, identifying nearly $1 trillion in defense budget cuts over the next 10 years that could contribute to deficit reduction "while not compromising the essential security of the United States."

Among the possible reductions cited in the report:

• Over $113 billion in savings by reducing the U.S. nuclear arsenal to 1,050 total warheads deployed on 450 land-based missiles and seven Ohio-class submarines; • Over $200 billion in savings by reducing U.S. routine military presence in Europe and Asia to 100,000 while reducing total uniformed military personnel to 1.3 million;

• Over $138 billion in savings by replacing costly and unworkable weapons systems with more practical, affordable alternatives. Suggested cuts would include the F-35 combat aircraft, the MV-22 Osprey, and the Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle.

• Over $60 billion in savings by reforming military health care; and

• Over $100 billion in savings by cutting unnecessary command, support and infrastructure funding.

Deficit hawkery appears to be overwhelming official Washington, despite the fact that the lackluster economy is sending clear signals even to the likes of non-radical Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke that the last thing the nation needs right now is government spending cuts.

Even so, the defense budget seems off limits. Despite some lip service from the deficit commission, there is no serious indication that the requisite 14 of the group's 18 members will agree on anything that would involve defense cuts.

Now, these are budget cuts that I can support, but of course it's a lot easier to pick on the least among us who don't have a voice (lobbyists) while the defense contractors have thousands of lobbyists making sure they continue to get those government contracts.

Although there probably are some areas we can cut defense spending

I dont agree with cutting back uniformed military personnel or the f-35. We need more personnel and we need to stay ahead of the world in military technology(f-35). You see what happens when there arent enough military personnel, we are stretched way to thin, whether the wars are just or not we're there! Defense is our last hope, lets not lose that also!

This is what bothers me about dems, Clinton gave N. Korea a nuc reactor and now they have a bomb (I liked Clinton alot). Now Im wondering if Obama will eventually do something about Iran before its too late! Dems(as far as I can remember)have never really been as high on national security as I would like, Im definately not a warmonger but there are issues that will need dealt with in the very near future and Im not 100% sold on the idea of Obama handling it! I sure hope Im wrong because this issue is very important to me and I would hate it if I was forced to vote rep next time, hate, hate, hate it! Actually I just wouldnt vote. I already have no faith in the GOP and there will never be a legitimate 3rd party!

[loserbob 11]

Actually I just took a quiz about politics and the result was 75% conservative!! I might be conservative but definately not rep!

[Cleo's Mom 257]

Although there probably are some areas we can cut defense spending

I dont agree with cutting back uniformed military personnel or the f-35. We need more personnel and we need to stay ahead of the world in military technology(f-35). You see what happens when there arent enough military personnel, we are stretched way to thin, whether the wars are just or not we're there! Defense is our last hope, lets not lose that also!

This is what bothers me about dems, Clinton gave N. Korea a nuc reactor and now they have a bomb (I liked Clinton alot). Now Im wondering if Obama will eventually do something about Iran before its too late! Dems(as far as I can remember)have never really been as high on national security as I would like, Im definately not a warmonger but there are issues that will need dealt with in the very near future and Im not 100% sold on the idea of Obama handling it! I sure hope Im wrong because this issue is very important to me and I would hate it if I was forced to vote rep next time, hate, hate, hate it! Actually I just wouldnt vote. I already have no faith in the GOP and there will never be a legitimate 3rd party!

I will trust republican secretary of defense Robert Gates when he says the military budget is bloated and needs to be trimmed. You can't increase personnel just by increasing the military budget. That is a separate issue. Recruitment is a problem. But I do agree with increased benefits for the troops, including post-war care and benefits. I just think there is too much of stuff we don't need in the military and a lot of waste that could be cut and what's left better spent.

And I don't buy into that "democrats are soft on defense" crap. The democrats are smarter on defense. The Obama adminstration has captured way more terrorists than did the bush adminstration and they had 7 years. He is also more aggressive with his drone attacks in Pakistan and he increased troops in Afghanistan.

I would never vote for a republican - ever, ever, ever. They don't make us safer, they just like to make you think so.

Edited June 19, 2010 by Cleo's Mom

[Cleo's Mom 257]

A must read. This guy nails it:

here is the transcript of the speech, courtesy of the Senator Whitehouse official website

Mr. President, we have watched with horror the unfolding disaster in the Gulf. We have seen precious lives lost; hard-earned livelihoods hammered; treasured ways of life imperiled.

We have seen the largest deployment of resources ever against an environmental disaster.

We have seen astonishing corporate negligence.

But we have seen something else too-something that ought to be a lasting lesson from this catastrophe: we have seen the revolting specter of an agency of government subservient to - captive to - the industry it is supposed to regulate.

From the Minerals Management Service, supposed to regulate deep sea oil drilling, here's what we have seen:

From the 2008 Inspector General's report on MMS's Royalty in Kind program based in Colorado:

• Senior executives steering lucrative contracts to an outside company created by the executives;

• Staff failing to collect millions of dollars in royalties owed to the American people and allowing oil and gas companies to revise their own multi-million-dollar bids;

• Staff accepting gifts and money from oil and gas companies with whom the office was conducting official business; and

• Staff participating in social events with industry representatives that included illegal drug use and sex.

From the IG report, the Inspector's General's report, released last month on the MMS office in Lake Charles, Louisiana:

• The District Manager telling investigators: "obviously we're all oil industry."

• Employees accepting numerous gifts from companies doing business with the MMS, including a trip to the 2005 Peach Bowl on a private airplane, skeet shooting contests, hunting and fishing trips, and golf tournaments.

• An MMS inspector conducting four inspections of oil drilling platforms while negotiating a job for himself with the company that owned those platforms, and finding (guess what?) no violations during those inspections.

And a 2007 Inspector General Report into the MMS' Minerals Revenue Management office cited, and I quote:

• "Significant issues worthy of separate investigation, including ethical lapses, program mismanagement, and process failures."

As my hometown Providence Journal wrote in a recent editorial, "The Deepwater Horizon accident has made it painfully clear that, in its current form, MMS is a pathetic public guardian. Neither it nor BP was prepared for a disaster of this magnitude, and MMS' cozy relationship with industry is a big reason why." I agree with the Providence Journal.

The scope, the extent, the insidious nature of corporate influence in regulatory agencies of government - this question of regulatory capture - is something we should attend to here. It is the lesson. And it raises the question, beyond the Minerals Management Service, how far does this corporate influence reach into our agencies of government?

The wealth of the international corporate world is staggering. The five biggest oil companies just this quarter posted profits of $23 billion dollars. That's a 23 with twelve zeros behind it-in just one quarter.

The Republican appointees on the Supreme Court just overturned decades of precedent and a hundred years of practice to give these big corporations freedom to spend unlimited funds in our American elections.

Put it to scale; consider $23 billion of pure profit, just in one quarter, by Big Oil. And compare: the Obama and McCain campaigns together spent about $1 billion in the last election. Do the math: for 5% of one quarter's profits, Big Oil could outspend both American presidential campaigns. That may be some politicians' idea of a happy day, because that is who they work to please, but it is wrong and needs to be stopped.

But think: if that's what corporate influence could do in a national election, think of what those vast powerful tentacles of corporate influence can do to a little government agency like the Minerals Management Service:

• Revolving doors to lucrative jobs in the industry so you're set for life;

• Sports tickets, gifts, drugs;

• Constant, relentless lobby pressure and threats of litigation;

• Steadily inserting industry operatives into regulatory positions.

Inch by inch, the tentacles of industry reach further and further into the regulator, until it silently and invisibly comes under industry control, and becomes the industry's puppet; until it is serving the special interests, and not the public interest.

This is no new phenomenon. Marver Bernstein wrote about regulatory capture 55 years ago. He explained that a regulator tends over time to "become more concerned with the general health of the industry and tries to prevent changes which will adversely affect it," to become "passive toward the public interest." This, he said, "is a problem of ethics and morality as well as administrative method," and he called it "a blow to democratic government and responsible political institutions." Ultimately, this leads to what he called "surrender:" "the commission finally becomes a captive of the regulated groups."

If you don't want to go back half a century for a discussion of regulatory capture, look to last week's Wall Street Journal editorial page, where a senior fellow at the Cato Institute writes, "By all accounts, MMS operated as a rubber stamp for BP. It is a striking example of regulatory capture: Agencies tasked with protecting the public interest come to identify with the regulated industry and protect its interests against that of the public. The result: Government fails to protect the public."

There is plenty of evidence that the oil and gas industry had captured MMS. And when you have a captured agency, you get what we've seen:

• Altering, deleting, or ignoring warnings and recommendations from government scientists. A draft environmental analysis for drilling in the Gulf from May of 2000 included the haunting prediction that "the oil industry's experience base in deep-water well control is limited" and a massive oil spill "could easily turn out to be a potential showstopper for the [outer continental shelf] program if the industry and MMS do not come together as a whole to prevent such an incident." This unwelcome observation was deleted from the final analysis published.

• Oil and gas company employees filled out official inspection forms in pencil, for the MMS inspectors to trace over in pen.

• Nearly 400 categorical exclusions, shielded even deepwater drilling from thorough environmental review.

• Cut-and-paste Environmental Assessments were provided by oil and gas companies. BP's Environmental Assessment listed walruses as a species of concern in the Gulf of Mexico. Mr. President, there are not, and never have been, in the memory of man, walruses in the Gulf of Mexico. When they are writing about walruses in the Gulf of Mexico, you know 1) they are cutting and pasting out of documents in Alaska, 2) they are paying no attention to what they write because they know it doesn't matter, and 3) they know perfectly well that MMS will never catch the fact that they've cut and pasted, because they're not looking at it either.

• MMS adopted wholesale for its oil and gas drilling "best practices" proposals of the American Petroleum Institute, and then they made most of those best practices only suggestions.

• There's been virtually no enforcement: According to the MMS website, between 2000 and 2009, civil penalties averaged less than $130 per well per year on our Outer Continental Shelf; and only three criminal referrals were made to the Department since 1990 in the last twenty years.

Add it all up, and there is no real question MMS was a captive regulator. So the question is, after all those years of corporate control of government in the Bush years, how far-reaching is the insinuation of corporate influence?

We know big Pharma wrote the Bush pharmacy benefit legislation. We know big oil and big coal sat down in secret with Dick Cheney to write their energy policy

. But down below the decks, down in the guts of the administration's agencies, how far were the tentacles of corporate influence allowed to reach? How many industry plants are stealthily embedded in the government, there to serve the industry, not the administration or the public.

Well, how is it looking, Mr. President? Well, it is not looking good.

The Securities and Exchange Commission, for instance, gave up its watchdog role years ago and became the lap dog of the big Wall Street financiers: raising leverage limits; refusing to investigate Bernie Madoff; and helping to precipitate the biggest financial disaster since the Great Depression.

29 miners were killed in a West Virginia mine with a safety record that President Obama called troubled." The Mine Safety and Health Administration has been described as a "revolving door" with industry, staffed by people with mining companies' interests at heart, even at the expense of worker safety.

The Bush head of MSHA, for instance, oversaw the rewriting of regulations in 2004 that allowed conveyor belt tunnels to double as ventilation shafts, a practice that contributed to a fatal 2006 Massey mine disaster

.

Who knows how far it leads? Think of the timber rights the taxpayer gives up every year, the grazing rights, the multi-billion dollar contracts to big government contractors, the oil and coal leases on land, the carnival of public wealth at which these big corporations feed.

The vital question is this: are these assets of our nation still in the hands of servants of the nation? Or have the servants of the nation quietly and insidiously become the servants of the big private corporations who want to profit from that public wealth-corporations for whom every dollar of a sweet deal, every avoided expense allowed by a cozy regulator, every corner cut in safety or environmental protection, goes straight to their bottom line and right into their pockets?

The big, multi-billion dollar corporations - Is this who we want safeguarding our national assets? Is this who we want controlling agencies of the United States government?

Mr. President, Winston Churchill once said, in a phrase that I like, that history turns on sharp agate points. What is the sharp agate point on which the history of this Gulf catastrophe should turn? What lesson of history, if left unlearned after this disaster, are we condemned to repeat?

I hope that the lesson we learn is this one: that we can never, never, never again let agencies of the government of the United States of America fall so far under the influence of the corporations they are supposed to regulate.

This government of ours, founded in a Revolution pledging the lives, fortunes and sacred honor of those early patriots;

This government of ours, which has raised for more than two centuries the promise of freedom in human hearts;

This government that lifts its lamp aloft to brighten the darkness of chaos and despair in far distant corners of the globe;

This government, whose finely tuned balance, crafted by those Founders, has seen us through civil war and world war, through westward expansion and great depression, through the light bulb and the Model T and the Boeing 747 and the iPod.

This government, of ours, formed by Washington and Madison, Jefferson and Adams, and led by each of them; and later led by Abraham Lincoln, and by Harry Truman, and by Theodore Roosevelt and by Franklin Roosevelt and by John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

This American government of ours should never, never be on its knees before corporate power, no matter how strong. It should never be in the thrall of corporate wealth no matter how vast.

This American government of ours should never give the American citizen reason to question whose interests are being served. Never.

In this complex world of ours, Mr. President, government must protect us in remote and specialized precincts in the economy. In those remote precincts, few people are watching, but big money is made.

We must be able to trust our government, both in plain view in front of us, and in corners far from sight, to be serving always the public interest, not doing the secret bidding of special interests; of corporate interests, because that's where the big money is at stake.

Have we now learned, have we now finally learned, from the financial melt-down and the Gulf disaster, the price, the terrible price, of all those quietly cut corners?

Have we now learned what price must be paid when the stealthy tentacles of corporate influence are allowed to reach into and capture our agencies of government?

I pray, let us have learned this; let us have learned that lesson. I sincerely pray we have learned our lesson, and that this will never happen again. But let's not just pray.

In this troubled world God works through our human hands; grows a more perfect union through our human hearts; creates his beloved community through our human thoughts and ideas. So it is not enough to pray. We must act.

We must act in defense of the integrity of this great government of ours, which has brought such light to the world, such freedom and equality to our country. We cannot allow this government - that is a model around the world, that inspires people to risk their lives and fortunes to come to our shores - we cannot allow any element of this government to become the tool of corporate power, the avenue of corporate influence, the puppet of corporate tentacles.

I propose a simple device, in this country of laws not men - of rule of law - and that is to allow our top national law officer, the Attorney General of the United States, to step in and clean house whenever an agency or element of government is no longer credibly independent of the industry and businesses it is intended to regulate.

When a component of government is deemed no longer credibly independent of the corporations or industry it is supposed to regulate, I suggest the Attorney General be allowed to come in and clean up: - To hire and fire and take personnel actions,

to assure the integrity of the personnel; - To establish interim regulations and procedures, to assure the integrity of the process; - To audit permits and contracts and assure they were not affected by improper corporate influence; and, if they were, - To rescind them where they are not in the public interest due to that improper corporate influence; - To establish an integrity plan for that component of government; - All subject to appropriate judicial review where private rights are affected; - And then the Attorney General can get back out, with his or her job done: sort of like an ethics trusteeship or receivership.

Mr. President, I'll conclude by saying that the damage to America from the corporate takeover of the Securities and Exchange Commission was nothing short of catastrophic - just in my home state, just in Rhode Island, 70,000 Rhode Islanders are unemployed, and many have lost homes, retirement, health insurance. The toll is devastating.

The damage from the corporate takeover of the Minerals Management Service has also been catastrophic; and who knows what potentially catastrophic damage lurks in whatever other agencies of government have silently succumbed to corporate takeover, but just have not exploded in disaster? If the financial catastrophe and the Gulf catastrophe, and whatever other catastrophes lurk, if they have any meaning at all, it is that business as usual is no longer enough to stem the tide of corporate influence, insidious, secret corporate influence in agencies of the United States government.

It is an institutional problem: relentless, remorseless, constantly grasping and insinuating corporate influence; it will never go away; it will only worsen as corporations get bigger and richer and more global; and there has to be an institutional mechanism in place to resist it, so that it no longer takes a catastrophe to call the failure of governance of an American regulator to proper attention.

I think this is the right way. If a colleague has a better idea, I'm more than willing to listen. But, one thing I know: after our economic catastrophe and this environmental catastrophe, this much, at least, is clear: we can no longer wait for catastrophes to root out improper corporate influence in our government, in this government of our United States. We have to at long last address the problem of insidious regulatory capture, of agencies of our government captive to the industries they are suppose to regulate.

I thank the Presiding Officer. I yield the floor.

America did not revolt against the power of the King of England just to kneel to the power of British Petroleum over 2 centuries later.

Or the Banks

Or the Military Industrial Complex

Or to any Corporate power

And amidst all of the shrieking conservatives who shout "Get the guvmint outta my life" while driving on public roads and depending on our tax payer funded military for protection, we have in reality been experiencing the corporate takeover of the US Government. Of course, government has always been dominated by the wealthy and big business interests, but since the passage of NAFTA, The Gramm/Leech/Bliley Act and the Bush/Cheney Administration, the power of Big Business has run amok, and our political process has been enslaved to the whims and campaign financing of the tentacles of Corporate power.

This must end. It is legalized bribery. Senator Whitehouse knocked this one out of the park, in a way that I can only discribe as EXPLOSIVE, and not because Senator Whitehouse was as bombastic as Alan Grayson or as witty as Al Franken, but because amidst all the corporate spin, propaganda and PR, such truth as was spoken by the Senator from Rhode Island truly is explosive.

Let us hope that the citizens of America are starting to understand the role that Big Business has in the slow motion overthrow of our Democracy to an elitist economic ideology that is unveilied in the words of Joe Barton, Rand Paul and other conservatives who truly think that it is okay to kneel to corporate power. Tentacles indeed.

dailykos

Regulate, baby, regulate

[Cleo's Mom 257]

Out of the mouths of idiots:

Contrarian Michele Bachmann worries BP will get 'fleeced'

By Brian Lambert | Thursday, June 17, 2010

Finally, someone showing a little Christian concern for poor, embattled British Petroleum. With Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, the only thing for certain is a predictable level of batty contrarianism. But this one ... She's getting plenty of attention in some sectors, if not her two local dailies, for her Wednesday comments, which followed the announcement of the $20 billion escrow fund to cover claims coming out of the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster. She says that BP, currently turning the Gulf into a waste holding tank, needs to watch out so it doesn't get played for a "chump" and get "fleeced" by President Obama. The Washington Post's David Weigel, the paper's designated reporter for "the conservative movement and the Republican Party," cornered Bachmann after a Heritage Foundation luncheon. This is where she said: "They shouldn't have to be fleeced and made chumps to have to pay for perpetual unemployment and all the rest

The gulf coast is in ruins. Millions of gallons of oil spew forth each day. Whole industries and thousands of people's livelihoods are being destroyed and bachman is worried about BP? :smile2: Typical neocon priorities!! But not surprising that some on these boards support what she has to say, considering their pro-corporate, anti-government stance.

[Cleo's Mom 257]

bush's policies have done the most damage to the deficit because we're still paying for them:

And as another recent CBPP analysis revealed, over the next 10 years, the Bush tax cuts will contribute more to the U.S. budget deficit than the Obama stimulus, the TARP program, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and revenue lost to the recession - combined.

An AP chart of data from the Congress Budget Office showed the explosion of federal debt that will ensue if the Tea Baggers and their Republican allies get their way in making the Bush tax cuts permanent.

As David Leonhardt documented in the New York Times in last June, "President Obama's agenda, ambitious as it may be, is responsible for only a sliver of the deficits, despite what many of his Republican critics are saying."

In a jaw-dropping chart illustrating how today's trillion-dollar deficits were created, the Times concluded that even before the Bush recession commenced in December 2007, Dubya's dangerously irresponsible tax cuts and unfunded spending produced an ocean of red ink that dwarfed the impact of President Obama's stimulus and other spending programs:

"The economic growth under George W. Bush did not generate nearly enough tax revenue to pay for his agenda, which included tax cuts, the Iraq war, and Medicare prescription drug coverage."

And like most of the other Republican born-again deficit virgins, John Boehner voted for all of it. Of course, that didn't stop him from grandstanding in November that "Washington Democrats' so-called 'war on deficits' is about a year late and more than a trillion dollars short." And just 10 days ago, Boehner asked fellow Meet the Press guess Steny Hoyer (D-MD), "How long are you going to blame the Bush administration? Come on. When is someone in Washington going to take responsibility for what they are in charge of?"

Of course, when it comes to the Republican debt orgy, John Boehner refuses to follow his advice.

dailykos

[BJean 16]

Cleo's nice to come back and see that you're still going strong!

loserbob, I also know that we need a strong national defense. The problem with Republicans is that they think that our national defense actually needs instead to be a strong, kick ass, aggressive pro-war military. They like to fund the big bullets and then use them so they can order some bigger ones. It's an interesting bastardization of what most Americans like to think of as our "national defense."

I believe that I have a conservative streak too. Or maybe what you and I have is a rational more middle of the road ideology than thinking that is either extreme to the right or left.

But what I advocate the most is peace and fairness for all Americans. That's what the Republicans can't stand and work against. So although Democrats haven't cornered the market on peace and fairness, they at least seriously try to make things more fair. When they go too far, and give away too much, I don't think that most Americans are in support of that. Just like you and me.

[Cleo's Mom 257]

Leave it to a conservative, republican, neocon to come up with this convuluted and hypocritical logic: :thumbup:

"I am not a parasite" - funniest GOP fail of the day.

Thu Jun 24, 2010 at 07:53:07 AM PDT

Think Progress scores again:

Farmer who put up sign claiming Democrats are ‘party of parasites’ has taken $1 million in farm subsidies.

A Missouri farmer has parked one of those ugly semi-trailer signs on his land, facing a highway, proclaiming "Are you a Producer or Parasite Democrats - Party of the Parasites".

However.....

• The Kansas City Starhad a little nose around and found that said farmer has received more than $1 million in federal crop subsidies since 1995.
  

"That’s just my money coming back to me," Jungerman, 72, said Monday. "I pay a lot in taxes. I’m not a parasite."

LOL! But wait, there is more:

Jungerman said he put up the sign to

protest people who pay no taxes, but, "Always have their hand out for whatever the government will give them" in social programs.

Crop subsidies are different, he said. When crop prices dip below a certain point, the federal government makes up the difference with a subsidy payment.

I look forward to the farmer's audition on Last Comic Standing.

dailykos

That's right folks, when neocons get a free handout from the government it's called a "subsidy" and of course they deserve it, but when someone else gets something from the government it's called a handout. I'll bet this man believes in the free market with no government intervention (read: regulations), too.

I guess it depends on which side of the corn stalk you're standing on. :eek:

Edited June 24, 2010 by Cleo's Mom

[lauragshsu 6]

Thoughts on this??

Mexico on Tuesday asked a federal court in Arizona to declare the state's new immigration law unconstitutional, arguing that the country's own interests and its citizens' rights are at stake.

Lawyers for Mexico on Tuesday submitted a legal brief in support of one of five lawsuits challenging the law. The law will take effect July 29 unless implementation is blocked by a court.

The law generally requires police investigating another incident or crime to ask people about their immigration status if there's a "reasonable suspicion" they're in the country illegally. It also makes being in Arizona illegally a misdemeanor, and it prohibits seeking day-labor work along the state's streets.

Until recently, Mexican law made illegal immigration a criminal offense -- anyone arrested for the violation could be fined, imprisoned for up to two years and deported. Mexican lawmakers changed that in 2008 to make illegal immigration a civil violation like it is in the United States, but their law still reads an awful lot like Arizona's.

Arizona's policy, which President Felipe Calderon derided during a recent U.S. trip as "discriminatory," states police can't randomly stop people and demand papers, and the law prohibits racial profiling.

Mexican law, however, requires law enforcement officials "to demand that foreigners prove their legal presence in the country before attending to any issues."

Amnesty International recently issued a report claiming illegal immigrants in Mexico -- typically from Central America -- face abuse, rape and kidnappings, and that Mexican police do little to stop it. When illegal immigration was a criminal offense in Mexico, officials were known to seek bribes from suspects to keep them out of jail.

But Mexico said it has a legitimate interest in defending its citizens' rights and that Arizona's law would lead to racial profiling, hinder trade and tourism, and strain the countries' work on combating drug trafficking and related violence.

Citing "grave concerns," Mexico said its interest in having predictable, consistent relations with the United States shouldn't be frustrated by one state.

"Mexican citizens will be afraid to visit Arizona for work or pleasure out of concern that they will be subject to unlawful police scrutiny and detention," the brief said.

It will be up to a U.S. District Court judge to decide whether to accept the brief along with similar ones submitted by various U.S. organizations.

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, who signed the law on April 23 and changes to it on April 30, has lawyers defending it in court.

In a statement issued late Tuesday, Brewer said she was "very disappointed" to learn of Mexico's filing and reiterated that "Arizona's immigration enforcement laws are both reasonable and constitutional."

"I believe that Arizona will ultimately prevail and that our laws will be found constitutional," Brewer added.

Brewer and other supporters of the bill say the law is intended to pressure illegal immigrants to leave the United States. They contend it is a needed response to federal inaction over what they say is a porous border and social problems caused by illegal immigration. They also argue that it has protections against racial profiling.

Mexican officials previously had voiced opposition to the Arizona law, with Calderon saying June 8 that the law "opens a Pandora's box of the worst abuses in the history of humanity" by promoting racial profiling and potentially leading to an authoritarian society

U.S. officials have said the Obama administration has serious concerns about the law and may challenge it in court. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton recently went further by saying a lawsuit is planned.