Hypocrisy of Republicans/Conservatives

[Cleo's Mom 257]

As fun as this is, I'm not going to participate any further. Hypocricy is on both sides of every debate. It's simply the sinful nature of mankind. I could pull up link after link of liberal hypocrits and so could you on conservatives. It's simply not productive. So, have fun everyone.

That's fine by me. But my original posts were relevant to what is going on in the political arena today. You had to dig up old stuff about Barbra Streisand and Gloria Steinem. So I was compelled to respond in kind.

[pattygreen 5]

The current deficit is, for the most part, from the bank bailouts, which started under bush. Then the stimulus which was necessary to undo bush's disastrous economic policies (i.e. de-regulate wall street) and keep the economy from the free fall.

Almost all the economists agree that the stimulus stopped the free fall of our economy and helped turn it around. CBO estimates that unemployment would be 25% without it.

But Pres. Obama gets very little credit for helping our economy because all of a sudden the conservative right and republicans care about the deficit and they yap about it daily.

And yes, everything would be much worse without what Pres. Obama has done. And that counts for something with me.

There is no way to prove that things would have been worse off without all that spending. You can yap all you want about it, but there is no way to show whether things would have been better or worse. I don't think they would have been. This country is just deeper into debt now instead!

[pattygreen 5]

Here's a great form of hypocrisy on the liberal democrats part: Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) had scribbled notes on her hand during a speech she was giving, and not one Democrat Liberal said a word about it. They simply laughed it off, as if it were insignificant and nothing wrong with it. But let a conservative do that, and she's talked about incessively. Liberals can't seem to come up with any 'real' reason to hate Palin, so they need to talk about the petty things. The other night, while flicking through the channels, I came across an MSNBS anchor talking about how some FOX anchor man 'rolled his eyes' after an interview with Palin. You had to see the video of it to know what I'm talking about. He certainly didn't roll his eys at all. FOX even had this anchor man on and he said that he wasn't rolling his eyes, and that he thought Palin was wonderful and answered all his questions with confidence. This just goes to show you how liberals will go to such extremes to find petty crap about conservatives to mock them.

[Cleo's Mom 257]

There is no way to prove that things would have been worse off without all that spending. You can yap all you want about it, but there is no way to show whether things would have been better or worse. I don't think they would have been. This country is just deeper into debt now instead!

Yes, there are ways to prove it. There are all kinds of people (they're called economists) whose job it is to analyze these things. They have said the stimulus is responsible for the economy having been prevented from going "over the cliff" and turning around.

As I have said before, when the facts don't support your opinions, you just ignore them.

[Cleo's Mom 257]

Here's a great form of hypocrisy on the liberal democrats part: Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) had scribbled notes on her hand during a speech she was giving, and not one Democrat Liberal said a word about it. They simply laughed it off, as if it were insignificant and nothing wrong with it. But let a conservative do that, and she's talked about incessively. Liberals can't seem to come up with any 'real' reason to hate Palin, so they need to talk about the petty things. The other night, while flicking through the channels, I came across an MSNBS anchor talking about how some FOX anchor man 'rolled his eyes' after an interview with Palin. You had to see the video of it to know what I'm talking about. He certainly didn't roll his eys at all. FOX even had this anchor man on and he said that he wasn't rolling his eyes, and that he thought Palin was wonderful and answered all his questions with confidence. This just goes to show you how liberals will go to such extremes to find petty crap about conservatives to mock them.

Diane Feinstein didn't run for vice-president and doesn't have presidential aspirations and isn't called upon to be a spokesman for any political movement. She isn't putting herself out there as some leader of anything. If she considered a run for president, I am sure the neo-cons would be out there with both guns blazing.

The now closed Palin thread offered many concrete examples of why not only liberals, but most republicans and most americans do not think Palin is qualified to be president. Poll after poll shows this. She appeals to only a very small, select group of people.

[pattygreen 5]

Yes, there are ways to prove it. There are all kinds of people (they're called economists) whose job it is to analyze these things. They have said the stimulus is responsible for the economy having been prevented from going "over the cliff" and turning around.

As I have said before, when the facts don't support your opinions, you just ignore them.

it is their opinion. It is not proof.

[Cleo's Mom 257]

it is their opinion. It is not proof.

There are agencies, like the CBO, who analyze these things. They don't just put out opinions, they deal with real numbers and facts. That's their job to do this. But once again, when the facts dispute your opinion, you ignore them.

[pattygreen 5]

I like this plan:

The president should start by extending the Republicans’ 2001 and 2003 tax cuts and reducing tax rates for individuals, small businesses and corporations. This will have an immediate positive effect on the economy. Threatening to end the Bush tax cuts or raising taxes to pay for new entitlement programs will only prolong the recession and increase unemployment.

Small businesses are the workhorse of the American economy — they employ the most people and create the innovative ideas that keep America on top. To help them succeed President Obama should consider eliminating the tax on both personal and corporate capital gains. This simple act would encourage greater investment in small businesses, and it would also end the anti-competitive practice of punitive double taxation of the American public.

The president should also let small businesses join together like labor unions and large businesses do to purchase health insurance for their employees. This will free up the capital needed for new investments and new hires, not to mention put us on the right path toward real health care reform.

It is no secret that Americans are desperately looking for dependable jobs, and all too often America’s laws and regulations make it more profitable to ship jobs overseas rather than create jobs here in America. President Obama needs to remove the regulatory barriers currently in place on domestic energy production and start providing incentives for companies to bring their earnings back to America by reducing the corporate tax rate. If the United States is lending billions of dollars to produce oil and gas in Brazil, President Obama should make the same type of investment in energy here at home.

To demonstrate America’s commitment to fiscal responsibility and lowering our staggering national deficit, President Obama should freeze domestic discretionary spending at last year’s level. America’s deficit is hurting our economic standing in the world, and this step would help put us back on the right track.

The bottom line is that President Obama should put his faith in the bottom-up entrepreneurial spirit of the American people to create jobs — not the top-down bureaucratic machinery of Washington, D.C. This country has been through dark times before, and it has always responded with bigger, brighter and better ideas to foster the country’s return to economic dominance. There is no reason this time around should be any different. All it requires is a president who believes in the power of the American people more than he believes in the power of his government.

Michael Steele is chairman of the Republican National Committee.

[pattygreen 5]

First . . . we must tear down self-imposed obstacles to economic growth and wealth creation. The prospect of a barrage of tax increases, new government regulation, and costly government mandates have had a paralyzing impact on our job creators. As the CEO of a steelmaker recently told the Wall Street Journal “I am not going to do anything until these things – health care, climate legislation – go away or are resolved.

Therefore Congress and the Administration should stop the deluge of detrimental rules and regulations.

Since taking office, the administration has put on the table over 100 detrimental regulations each with an impact of $100 million or more on the economy. The President should issue an executive order mitigating the impact of any proposed rule that would adversely affect jobs, the economy and small businesses.

Second . . . we should agree to block any federal tax increases until unemployment drops below 5 percent. That includes any new taxes to pay for more spending or any automatic tax increases embedded in federal law. Americans of all political stripes can agree that the government should never raise taxes during periods of high unemployment. The revenues higher taxes will generate are better off in the pockets of families and small businesses.

Third . . . we need to restore confidence in America’s economic future. Record deficits and debts – coupled with runaway spending – have shaken confidence in our economic future. Many believe that the only solutions will be higher taxes or inflating the dollar, which promise lasting pain for small businesses and working families. One Simple solution is to freeze domestic discretionary spending at last year’s level without raising taxes. This would save U.S. taxpayers $53 billion immediately, but more importantly it would send a signal that we are committed to lowering the deficit.

Fourth . . . we should reform the unemployment system to help people out of work find jobs. Federal unemployment recipients who are likely to exhaust benefits should be required to participate in education, training or enhanced job searches. A similar program in Ohio resulted in the return on investment of 5 to 1 in terms of savings compared to program costs. In Georgia, there’s another example of how states are experimenting and paving the way. An innovative program places unemployment insurance recipients in part time jobs with the UI as their benefit. At the end of a six-week trial period, the employer makes a decision about whether to hire them. The initiative has resulted in quicker returns to work and less unemployment payments.

Why not bring this kind of creative, outside-the-box thinking to Washington? Furthermore, declining, negative balances in unemployment trust funds will force states to implement payroll tax increases on employers this year. These will average almost $250 per worker per year through 2012. The federal government could help ease the burden on employers by immediately suspending the Federal unemployment tax. This would save employers $56 per worker per year. And the $7 billion a year “cost” of this tax suspension could be offset through a reduction of improper government payments, which according to the Administration’s own count totaled $98 billion last fiscal year.

That’s an increase of $26 billion over the previous year

Fifth . . . we need to approve three promising free trade agreements with Colombia, South Korea and Panama that have stalled under the new administration. Recently the President stated that increasing U.S. exports by just 1% would create over 250,000 jobs. Sure enough, the independent International Trade Commission estimates that the three deals would boost U.S. exports by over 1 percent. We urge President Obama and Congress to stand on the side of job creation and quickly approve these agreements.

Sixth . . . we must take action to reduce regulatory and tax barriers that inhibit domestic job creation. Federal regulations and tax law often make it easier for large companies to create jobs overseas instead of here at home. Efforts should be taken to ensure the most favorable environment possible for domestic job creation. For example we should act immediately to remove unnecessary obstacles to domestic energy production. Tapping more heavily into oil, natural gas, shale, nuclear and renewable sources will lower costs, create jobs and reduce our reliance on foreign oil.

We can also provide an incentive for companies to repatriate earnings back to the United States. Currently any profits a U.S. based company earns abroad are taxed at the 35% corporate tax rate when those earnings are brought back into the U.S. As a result companies often keep their earnings stranded in subsidiaries overseas. In 2004, Congress allowed companies a limited time to repatriate foreign profits and pay a reduced tax rate of 5.25%. The policy resulted in more than $350 billion dollars of profits being returned to the U.S. and a windfall to the Treasury of about $18 billion in tax revenue. Providing another limited window for repatriation of foreign earnings would help U.S. companies retain domestic workers and weather the current economic downturn.

Finally, we must deal swiftly and honestly with the looming commercial real estate collapse. Congress should move to give bank regulators incentives to deal responsibly with banks and their borrowers. Forcing liquidation of performing loans makes no sense. If regulators assume a prudent posture towards risk the badly wounded credit markets could then begin the process of repair. In addition, reducing the over-extended depreciation standard – currently a whopping 39 and ½ years to 20 years or less - would provide a lift to property values and bring some common sense to the tax code.

These are Seven Simple Solutions that don’t involve massive new government spending, new bureaucracies, or more debt. They are based on time-honored principles proven to create jobs and ultimately economic prosperity in America. Eric Cantor (R-VA)

[pattygreen 5]

Wrong From The Start: Top 10 Outrageous Claims About the Democrats' Trillion-Dollar 'Stimulus'

Washington Dems Head Into Tomorrow's "Jobs Summit" With a Serious Credibility Problem

Washington, Dec 2, 2009 -

Follow @GOPLeader on Twitter for updates.

The White House will convene a “jobs summit” tomorrow against a backdrop of rising unemployment, soaring debt, and declining public confidence in the Obama Administration’s economic program. Washington Democrats staked their credibility on a nearly

that was supposed to be about putting people back to work, but has instead produced countless examples of wasteful government spending while more than three million more Americans have lost their jobs. Even the accounting methods designed to keep track of the ‘stimulus’ have been widely discredited. Given the last 11 months of outrageous ‘stimulus’ claims, the American people are right to wonder whether Washington Democrats can be trusted to create jobs and cut the deficit:

1. UNEMPLOYMENT "AT EIGHT PERCENT OR BELOW" CLAIM:“Just 10 days before taking office, Obama’s top economic advisers [Christina Romer & Jared Bernstein] released a report predicting unemployment would remain at eight percent or below through this year if an economic stimulus plan won congressional approval.” (Associated Press, 6/14/09)

FACT: The nation’s unemployment rate now stands at 10.2%. The President and several members of his economic team explicitly stated that the ‘stimulus’ was needed to avert double-digit unemployment.

2. IMPACT FELT "IMMEDIATELY"

CLAIM: “Q: If the president gets his way and gets this package approved, he signs it into law, how soon before -- the American public starts to feel results, the creation of jobs? NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL DIRECTOR LAWRENCE SUMMERS: You’ll see the effects begin almost immediately.” (CNN, 2/9/09)

FACT: The U.S. economy has lost more than three million jobs since the trillion-dollar ‘stimulus’ became law. One House Democrat this week referred to the ‘stimulus’ as the “jobless American Recovery Act.” A recent survey found that fewer than one in ten Americans believe the ‘stimulus’ has helped create jobs.

3. "90 PERCENT ... PRIVATE SECTOR"

CLAIM: “More than 90 percent of the jobs created by this plan will be in the private sector.” – President Obama (News conference, 2/9/09)

FACT: “Although President Obama initially said that 90 percent of the jobs created by the stimulus program would be in the private sector, the data suggests that well over half of the jobs claimed so far have been in the public sector.” (The New York Times, 11/4/09)

4. "NO EARMARKS OR PET PROJECTS"

CLAIM: “There will be no earmarks or pet projects in this bill.” – Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (Floor statement, 2/13/09)

FACT: The trillion-dollar ‘stimulus’ has produced countless examples of wasteful government spending, including repairs to a bridge that reportedly carries about 260 cars per day, many to a place called Rusty’s Backwater Saloon in Wisconsin, and in North Carolina, where ‘stimulus’ funds were reportedly used by one town to hire a new worker whose job is to apply for more ‘stimulus’ funds from Washington.

5. "A VERY FISCALLY SOUND PACKAGE"

CLAIM: “We must make sure the public understands this is a very fiscally sound package.” – Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Talk Radio News Service, 3/10/09)

FACT: With the help of the trillion-dollar ‘stimulus,’ the Obama Administration spent more in its first 100 days than all previous presidents have combined. The national debt has topped $12 trillion for the first time in U.S. history. The federal government is now operating on a budget that doubles the national debt in five years and triples it in ten.

6. "A LOT MORE JOBS CREATED"

CLAIM: “The second hundred days you’re going to see a lot more jobs created.” – Vice President Joe Biden (ABC’s This Week, 7/5/09)

FACT: The U.S. economy lost roughly 930,000 jobs in June, July, and August. It was during this period that the President proclaimed he could “see a light at the end of the tunnel.”

7. "A LOT MORE AMMUNITION LEFT"

CLAIM: “There is a lot more ammunition left in the stimulus package.” – Jared Bernstein, the Vice President's chief economist(CNNMoney.com, 10/30/09)

FACT: “The government’s economic stimulus spending has already had its biggest impact and probably won’t contribute to significant growth next year, a top White House adviser said Thursday.” (Associated Press, 10/22/09) “An interesting tidbit from Dr. Christina Romer’s testimony before the Joint Economic Committee. Citing economic analysts she says the fiscal stimulus will have its greatest impact on growth in the second and third quarters of 2009. (Editor’s note – those quarters are now behind us).” (ABC News, 10/22/09)

8. MORE WORK, NOT MORE JOBS

CLAIM: “I think we got the Recovery Act right. … It may be desirable to have a given amount of work shared among more people. But that’s not as desirable as expanding the total amount of work.” – National Economic Council Director Lawrence Summers (The Washington Post, 11/8/09)

FACT: The Obama Administration’s attempt to suddenly make job creation seem like a lesser goal of the trillion-dollar ‘stimulus’ flies in the face of numerous public statements made in the days before the bill was passed, including the President’s statement that creating jobs was his “bottom-line number one.”

9. RAISES SAVE JOBS

CLAIM: “If I give you a raise, it is going to save a portion of your job.” – Department of Health and Human Services spokesman (Associated Press, 11/4/09)

FACT: This is one of several attempts by the Obama Administration to define a job “saved or created” by the ‘stimulus.’ In this particular case, the AP found “more than 9,300 existing employees in more than 9,300 existing employees in hundreds of local agencies who received pay raises and benefits and whose jobs weren’t saved.” In a newly released report, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office states that “it is impossible to determine how many of the reported jobs would have existed in the absence of the stimulus package.”

10. "YOU HAVEN'T SEEN WASTEFUL SPENDING"

CLAIM: “We’ve been in business seven, eight months. You haven’t seen wasteful spending. No one has said we spent $2 million on things that didn’t exist.” – Vice President Joe Biden (The Daily Show, 11/17/09)

FACT: “Stimulus jobs reported in non-existent congressional districts. … Of all the problems found in the latest round of stimulus reporting, add another one: congressional districts that don’t exist. ABC News reported yesterday that White House officials have found 700 mistakenly credited congressional districts out of more than 130,000 stimulus grants.” (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 11/18/09) “The reports on jobs created or saved by the $787 billion economic stimulus package are ‘riddled with inaccuracies and contradictions,’ the federal watchdog overseeing the spending acknowledged Thursday.” (USA TODAY, 11/19/09)

BONUS. REPUBLICAN SOLUTIONS

CLAIM: “Vice President Biden offered an impassioned defense of the Obama administration’s policies on the economy, health care, and energy this morning… He chastised administration opponents for not offering alternatives to solve the problems of the nation.” (Philadelphia Inquirer, 11/23/09)

FACT: “House Republicans Press Obama on Job Creation. House Republicans sent a letter to President Barack Obama today, pushing the administration to seek more business tax breaks as a way to boost the number of new jobs. … Republicans say in their letter that they’re hoping to work with the White House toward a bipartisan jobs plan.” (WSJ Washington Wire, 10/7/09) The proposals contained in House Republicans’ October letter, some of which were presented to President Obama as early as his first week in office, were developed by House Republicans' Economic Recovery and Health Care solutions groups. Republican Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA), who heads up the Economic Recovery Solutions Group, will discuss additional proposals to spur job creation in a speech today at the Heritage Foundation

[pattygreen 5]

We tend to think the White House's forays into media criticism are the sincerest form of flattery, so we're glad to join the ranks of Politico and Fox News as a target. In a White House blog post Tuesday, Obama economic adviser Jared Bernstein writes that "somebody over at the Wall St. Journal's editorial page has a whole lot of explaining to do" about our criticisms of the $787 billion economic stimulus. Once more into the breach!

Mr. Bernstein claims vindication on the basis of a new Congressional Budget Office report that finds that 600,000 to 1.6 million more people are employed and GDP is 1.2% to 3.2% higher than if Congress had done nothing. After rehearsing some of our greatest hits—"It's hard to imagine a more complete repudiation of Keynesian stimulus than the evidence of the last year's job market"—Mr. Bernstein says that we're "more interested in scoring political points" than acknowledging the stimulus reality.

We stand by our economic judgment, but it doesn't have much to do with politics, which we'll leave to the White House experts who today will stage a "jobs summit." We'll go out on a limb and predict nothing of substance will come of this event—except maybe cheerleading for a second stimulus—though it does reveal the deepening political panic over the unemployment rate that rose to 10.2% in October and might stay high long enough to affect the 2010 election. (Sorry, that's political.)

The 10.2% rate may be a sore point in particular for Mr. Bernstein, who along with Council of Economic Advisers Chair Christina Romer helped to sell the spending stimulus in January by predicting it would keep the jobless rate below . . . 8%. If the current jobs market counts as stimulus success, we'd hate to see what the White House considers failure.

A word about that CBO report: It sets up a nonfalsifiable standard for judging the Administration's policies by using large macroeconomic forecasting models, including a Keynesian "multiplier" that says each dollar government injects into the economy yields more than a dollar in output. "The ranges for multipliers . . . are the same ones that CBO used in its initial analysis of the economic effects" in March, CBO's report admits. This is also, ahem, the same theory and more or less the same model that Mr. Bernstein used in his now-infamous stimulus paper.

More relevant to the real world, this modeling is single-entry economic bookkeeping. No one ever doubted that the stimulus spree would create or "save" some jobs, but the problem is that the money comes out of the private sector in the form of higher taxes or borrowing. If $1 is devoted to transfer payments—such as jobless benefits or Medicaid like so much of the stimulus—then a $1 net gain in economic growth will register in the GDP accounts.

But that $1 has to come from someone or some business in the private economy that might have put it to more productive, job-creating uses. Economists call this a substitution effect. These new jobs that aren't created don't get picked up in Bernstein-CBO econometric models, but their loss leaves the economy less prosperous overall.

What can be measured with greater, if not perfect, accuracy is how many new jobs are being created across the economy, and how many people want to work but can't find a job. On those counts, the stimulus has been a manifest bust, much as the critics who appeared on our pages predicted.

As the recovery continues, sooner or later the economy will begin to create new jobs, thank heaven. But the stimulus won't have much do with it, except insofar as the higher taxes to finance the runaway spending further retard private investment and hiring. Meanwhile, the millions of Americans currently looking for work can rejoice in Mr. Bernstein's jobs boom. ()Wall street journal opinion)

[Cleo's Mom 257]

As fun as this is, I'm not going to participate any further. Hypocricy is on both sides of every debate. It's simply the sinful nature of mankind. I could pull up link after link of liberal hypocrits and so could you on conservatives. It's simply not productive. So, have fun everyone.

Extend bush's tax cuts? That is the answer to everything from the republicans. That's what contributed to the deficit under bush. And to one of the messes Pres. Obama has had to clean up.

This thread is about republican hypocrisy. You said you were not going to participate anymore. Great! But stop hijacking this thread with your cut and paste articles from conservative websites.

[Cleo's Mom 257]

Republican hypocrisy and medicare:

When the healthcare bill in the senate contained about $400 billion in cuts to medicare (eliminating a lot of waste and duplication) well the republicans were all over it - yapping about death panels, rationed care, etc.. Using the scare tactics they are so well known for.

All of this came from Newt Gingrich, among others. But he personally tried to ram through deep cuts in Medicare in 1995 and went so far as to shut down the federal government to bully Pres. Clinton to accept those cuts.

But even as they are decrying the democratic healthcare plan they are trying to push their "Roadmap for America's Future" put out by republican Rep. Paul Ryan.

This roadmap is of an economic agenda that hasn't changed one bit in response to the economic failures of the bush years. It calls for privatization of social security (how's your 401K doing?) and doing away with medicare for those currently under 55. They would be given vouchers (republicans love vouchers) to purchase for-profit private health insurance instead of being able to get not-for-profit medicare. The CBO has already analyzed this plan to mean for those over 55: higher premiums for some, reduced benefits for others.

In other words, cuts in medicare. But yet the republicans yap about the democrat plan as if they really care about medicare. What hypocrisy!!

[BJean 16]

patty: "liberal doctors are now stating that the death penalty via a hypodermic needle is cruel and unusual punishment. The doctors say assisting in these legal actions is against their Hippocratic Oath. So, a Doctor can suck the brain out of a baby whose head is sticking out of the birth canal, but they have a problem inserting a needle into a murderer’s vein? LOL

You post something that represents a visual of a baby's head sticking out of a birth canal gettin its' brains sucked out and a murderer on a gurney getting a lethal dose of drugs and watching him die by the punishment you've described as being cruel and unusual and you finish up this little scenario with "LOL"?

Do you know what LOL stands for? Good grief woman.

[BJean 16]

And you're funny. LOL With one sweep of your keyboard you declare that that type of cutting and pasting massive amounts of liberal and right wing material was getting us nowhere and you were going to stop. Then you keep right at it. LOL You're as funny as a rubber crutch.