The Waddler fears GOP “gangsters”
Jerry Nadler, known as “The Waddler” in some New York circles because of his grotesque girth, went on CBS’ “Face the Nation” (why is that show still on the air?) yesterday morning to summon the images of “Republicans as mafioso” in the minds of Americans (the two or three who still watch “Face the Nation”) qaccording to the Hill;
…”nice middle class tax cut you have there, pity if something would happen to it unless you give millionaires and billionaries” a tax cut. “Unless you give the wealthier a tax cut we’re not permitting the middle class to get it.”
Nadler expressed concern that Republicans will continue pressing Congress and President Obama for a permanent extension of those tax cuts and if we “succumb to blackmail” now why should there be any expectation that they will have the “political gumption in 2012 to not submit again.”
Hey, Jerry, it’s not a tax cut…it’s maintaining the status quo. To be against the current tax rates, you’re for a tax hike in the middle of an economic downturn. All Americans are equal, all Americans deserve equal treatment under the tax code. The President said that he’s doing what’s best for Americans. If you oppose the President’s tax plan, you’re doing what’s worse for America, right?
Howard Dean chimed in;
Howard Dean, former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, argued that the tax bill “is terrible for the country in the long term” because the $857 billion plan isn’t paid for and continuing the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts will represent 60 percent of the deficit by 2018.
I’m lucky that my television has survived the last week or so the number of times I’ve yelled at it about putting those imbeciles in my house talking about “paying for” continuing our current tax policy. The American taxpayers have been “paying for” this shit all along so what are they talking about? I guess the Democrats in secure seats from New York and California haven’t been listening for the last eighteen months.
But if you want real class envy, you have to listen to Bernie Sanders who took the opportunity last week to bark at the moon on the Senate floor over the death estate taxes. I’ll probably never pay a penny in death taxes, but the idea that money which a person earns is his/her lifetime and is already taxed by the state and federal governments, is taxed again just because a person dies is just ludicrous, it’s unAmerican, it’s socialist, it’s insane. (Washington Times link)
Armed with giant charts and statistics galore, the Vermont independent argued that wealthy individuals, including the heirs to the Wal-Mart fortune, are in a better position financially to shoulder more of the national debt and for that reason the estate tax should return to 2009 levels, or higher.
Firstly, Sanders isn’t “independent”, he’s a communist. And secondly, I doubt Sam Walton built his Wal-Mart empire so his kids could “shoulder more of the national debt”. If that had been in the front of his mind, I doubt the Wal-Mart stores would have ventured far out of Rogers, Arkansas.
Category: Congress sucks, Liberals suck
Michael, that has got to be the dumbest post I’ve ever read. Trying to say that it’s about opportunity, not results. Have you ever even read Keynes? HAHAHA I’m just pulling your leg man, great post, thanks for letting me know about this debate, I’ve gotten a lot of good laughs off of the basic beat down that’s gone on here. Looks like the battle’s all over, but I’m going to fire a volley anyway just in case. Joe, I’m assuming that you went to school. Maybe not college, but if you did, I think that your economics professors owe you a refund, but the point is this. At any point in your scholastic life did you get A’s? Maybe upper B’s? Hell, even C’s? I’m going to assume that if you got the upper grades, you probably had to work and study for them. You know, homework, show up for class, do the reading, etc. How would you feel about the following scenario? Your professor tells the class after the first exam that he’s got an amazing parity. Most of the kids passed with C’s, there were a few B’s and even fewer A’s. He also had some D’s and a few failing E’s. BUT, those results aren’t fair. How is it fair that some kids are going to end up on the Dean’s List while others are failing? So the prof says that he’s going to take points from the A’s and give them to the E’s to boost them to C average, and he’s going to take a few less points from the B’s and give them to the D’s to get them to a C average. NOW the grades are fair, because everyone in the class has a C. There’s nothing wrong with a C, you can pass the class with a C, so what’s the problem? I mean sure, you worked your ass off to get the A, you skipped a party last weekend, you put in several hours a week just on reading for that class alone, but why should you have all of… Read more »
“at what point does assistance to someone in need become mere enabling? I don’t know the answer to that.”
It’s pretty simple to determine. Observe the check out lane in a grocery store. When you see a 400lb welfare sow with a pack of Oompa-Loompa sized brats in tow paying for steaks, mac-n-cheese, pop and chips (note, no fresh fruit or vegetables are in the purchase) with an EBT card and food stamps, it is enabling, not helping.
There is no way in hell the sugar bombed, vitamin deficient porky kidlets are going to improve themselves riding the state gravy train eating that kind of garbage…
J AG
Then they go out into the parking lot and get into a newer, nicer car than mine……
Wow! Quite a string of posts, and stereotypes. Michael in MI, I read a better description of the fundamental difference, and I like it better than yours – conservatives believe, “the poor are stealing my money”, and liberals believe, “the rich are stealing my money”. Gets right down to the crux of the matter. Obviously most of the people who post on TAH fall into the former camp. Recently read an essay by a guy who had been a bedrock conservative, parroting all the lines I read here. But he had a change of heart, in part because he realized the threat of poverty does not always energize people – it affects different people in different ways. Not everyone rises to the challange. For some, the pressure, and the lack of opportunity, has the opposite affect, it crushes them. So do we let them starve and die in the street like some 4th world slum? Rhetorical question – don’t bother answering – I know what your answer would be.
Imagine being an innocent, impressionable child growing up in a household without a single book, with zero value placed on education, with an absentee father, an overwhelmed mother, no money, no hope. And you tell me everyone has an equal opportunity? Bulls**t! I’d like to see where you ladies and gentlemen would be had you been raised under similar conditions. No, you guys are quick on the draw as far as smugly citing the constitution as a rationalization for your breathtaking selfishness, but it still boils down to the most primitive of instincts – I, me, mine.
Joe–talk about a leap of faith! Since when do conservatives believe the poor are stealing my money? No, actually, GOVERNMENT steals my money, and gives it to those both deserving and not (usually not.)
Again, and I’ll type this real slow so that you can understand–conservatives are not against taxes or government. We recognize that they are necessary. What we are against is EXCESSIVE taxation and government. We are well aware of the fact that the point where government becomes tyrannical has long since been passed.
Do you understand that, or do I need to write it in Sharpie on your forehead and make you read it so you can understand that?
It’s more than just that Sparky, how in the hell do poor believe rich steal from them? What am I going to do, take their blanket? Oh, and when you break out that sharpie, make sure you write it backwards so he can read it when he looks in the mirror. Joe, “not everyone rises to the challenge”. Tough shit! Nothing in life is easy Joe. Because some jerk decides to buckle under and give up, we’re supposed to subsidize it? Look at at those poor assed Mexicans crossing the border for a chance, A CHANCE, to make $3.00/hr. Do you think that they’d do that if the gov’t of Mexico or hell, America, gave them several hundred dollars a week to not work? Of course they’re not, just like those people who got E’s in my scenario weren’t going to work any harder to pass when all they have to do is mooch off of those who worked hard. They are not your responsibility, and they sure as hell aren’t mine. Out of the goodness of my heart, I might take it upon myself to tutor one of those failing kids and try to help him get his grade up, but I sure as hell shouldn’t be forced to by the professor i.e. gov’t. AND when it’s done by me, I can look at how the person is doing, and either decide to continue giving of my time or STOP, and say this guy’s a lost cause and not worth my time. That’s exactly how charity should be, private, with oversight, and 100% voluntary. WTF don’t you get about that? Oh, I forget, you’re too touchy feely and feel bad about all the poor people to have time to use your head for it’s designed purpose. Oh, and Junior, I can’t tell you how long I was laughing at “Observe the check out lane in a grocery store. When you see a 400lb welfare sow with a pack of Oompa-Loompa sized brats in tow paying for steaks…” Oh my GOD I’ve seen that too damned many times too, but… Read more »
What about the “400 lb welfare sow’s” children. They just didn’t choose their parents carefully enough?
>Since when do conservatives believe the poor are stealing my money? No, actually, GOVERNMENT steals my money, and gives it to those both deserving and not (usually not.)
And further more Conservatives feel that their money is better given DIRECTLY to the source. And als that there are better and more successful programs than the government can provide. Read the book “Who Really Cares” By Arthur Brooks. He started writing it- sure he was going to prove that liberals gave more to charity. He was proven wrong. Even if you take away what Conservatives give to religious charities; conservatives give 2 to 1 more to secular charities than liberals. Why? Liberals feel that their taxes are charities are enough, and the government will take care of people. Conservative know that is simply not true..
>What about the “400 lb welfare sow’s” children. They just didn’t choose their parents carefully enough?
Stop that BS.. My mother grew up in an abusive single parent home. She also grew up in poverty. She got pregnant when she was 15. SHE NEVER BLAMED her childhood. She worked two jobs She went back and got her GED, and then went on to nursing school all while working full time. She married the father of her baby when she turned 18..My father grew up in poverty with 6 siblings. He lost his alcoholic father at age 7.They would still be married 34 years later if he hadn’t been killed on the job at age of 37. People use their childhood as an EXCUSE!
Oh, and Junior, I can’t tell you how long I was laughing at “Observe the check out lane in a grocery store. When you see a 400lb welfare sow with a pack of Oompa-Loompa sized brats in tow paying for steaks…”
==========
My mom used to work at Customer Service at a Kohls in Chicago. She would come home almost every night with stories of Mothers coming in with some kind of welfare check that was to be used to buy clothes for their kids. But, instead of spending the $100 (this was back in the 1990s) on say socks, underwear, t-shirts, etc, they would blow the entire $100 on Air Jordan gym shoes.
That was happening 15 years ago. Has anything changed now with regards to how the entitled people choose to spend their “Obama money” from his “stash”? Nope. And yet these same people whine when that “stash” money is ready to get cutoff and complain that they are entitled to that money and the evil rich are the ones that are keeping it from them.
Imagine being an innocent, impressionable child growing up in a household without a single book, with zero value placed on education, with an absentee father, an overwhelmed mother, no money, no hope. And you tell me everyone has an equal opportunity? Bulls**t!
==========
Yes, that child does have an equal opportunity to succeed as everyone else. As is evidenced by the hundreds of thousands of success stories of people who have come from such bad situations through the years here in America.
If you don’t get that, there’s nothing more I can say to you.
OK, I have enjoyed the exchange. I guess I’ve said all I have to say, but it’s always a pleasure….
Also what about the people who have everything as a kid and turn out bad?
Dragged me back in for a few more minutes. Good question Sporkmaster. I was a kid who had advantages and turned out “bad” for a while until I got my s**t together. I know how it is to feel hopeless and in a state of despair. It’s not fun, and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. It kind of goes hand in hand with the question of how melle1228’s mother (Post #60) was able to overcome the odds that were stacked against her. Why do different people respond differently to the same situation? I don’t know, but I do think it is a question that might be researched. As social primates I have to believe most of us want to be part of a society, not just alienated freeloaders. I wish there was a way to get thru to the “400 lb welfare sows” out there that maybe there is a better life out there. I would bet the 400 lb welfare sows are not happy people and not having fun, but rather feel trapped in a system with no prospects for themselves. But how to get thru, how to start the process of self-improvement, I’m not sure. OK, now I’m gone….
“Why do different people respond differently to the same situation?”
I rarely make the following kind of generalization, but your question strikes a cord with me. Why do different people react differently to a given situation? In my limited experience, those who allow themselves to be ‘crushed’ by their circumstances usually, not always but usually, have never been made to make good decisions or made to face the fact that the decisions they are making are wrong. We’ve become a society of enablers, and it’s a trend made worse by our ever expanding nanny govt and bleeding hearts that can’t allow people to fall on their face often enough that they finally get the message.
We’ve become a society of enablers, and it’s a trend made worse by our ever expanding nanny govt and bleeding hearts that can’t allow people to fall on their face often enough that they finally get the message.
==========
Well said, Jacobite. An example that comes to mind is a parent who decides to finally cutoff their college kids of funds. The college kids are now forced to get off their butts and get a job to help pay for their expenses. And most do. And what usually happens is that those college students who are working to pay their way through college appreciate their education a lot more than those who are attending on mommy and daddy’s dime.
“I wish there was a way to get thru to the “400 lb welfare sows” out there that maybe there is a better life out there.”
Um, there is. Cut off their money and force them to either get their shit together or starve. It’s that simple. 99% of the people out there are going to say, FUCK, I’m hungry, I’m losing my apartment/house, I’ve GOT to get a job, any job, or I’m going to die. Yes, a lot will whine about how it’s not fair that they’ve got to get a job to support themselves like the rest of us, oh well. I know it breaks your heart that someone could be so harsh and callous, but said land whale sure as hell doesn’t give a damn about the people out there working so she can sit her fat ass in a rascal and buy luxury items on someone else’s dime. If that really breaks your heart, give money to people like her, see how she spends it. Two weeks from now when it’s all gone, she’ll be back asking for more while in the same exact situation she was in when you 1st gave her money.
Michael, I hear you about those air jordans too., no real regulation on that stuff.
Oh, and Joe, I appreciate how you’ve never once attempted to contradict my scenario of grades instead of money. Glad you weren’t dumb enough to try to argue that, instead going to the old issue of people starving on the streets, because it’s a lot easier to talk about saving lives than it is about changing earned grades, but in reality, they are exactly the same thing.
NathanielPatton,
I will respond to the grade scenario you present. The fatal flaw is you present it as a zero sum game, typical conservative us-against-them kind of thinking – if someone is going to get a better grade, then someone else will have to get a worse grade. Real living, breathing systems don’t operate that way – it’s possible for everyone to improve their situation. Ever hear the phrase “a rising tide raises all boats”?
Y’know, in some social democracies it is still very possible to get rich, even very rich – it’s just harder to get obscenely rich. There are many innovative, hard working, and affluent people in places like Finland or Sweden. It’s just that the other half isn’t in a life-and-death struggle for survival, there is a safety net. So it’s a nice model you’ve created, it just doen’t match reality.
? When did I say that the people who got F’s couldn’t improve their situation without taking from those above? I specifically stated that in the end, with a socialist system like yours, the average is going to go down from a C average to a D. How is that zero sum? What I think that the actual problem is you either didn’t read it, or you didn’t get it, or you did get it but just don’t want to believe it. Taking from those at the top and giving it to those at the bottom only incentivives the people at the bottom to stay the same and takes away the incentives for people at the top to continue to work hard, period.
Yes, that’s the 2nd time you used that idiotic phrase about tides, it was dumb then and it’s dumb now. You’re never, NEVER, going to raise everyone. There’s going to be people who just don’t give a damn, and will go by doing the minimum amount. Hey, that’s their choice, and that’s the beauty of America, they get to make that choice, and if they want, they’ve got the chance to improve. All socialist policies like yours do are cripple the guy and give him a good reason to stay where he is and not improve himself and thereby improve society as a whole.
Oh, and as for Finland and Sweden, what you’re saying is, hey, it’s still possible to get a C and hell, even a C+ to a B, B-, it’s just all but impossible to get a B+, A. That might be fine in your book, but those people who work their asses off should have the ability to go as far as they want, get as rich as they want, and keep and spend that money that they’ve EARNED however they want. That’s called freedom.
“There are many innovative, hard working, and affluent people in places like Finland or Sweden. It’s just that the other half isn’t in a life-and-death struggle for survival, there is a safety net. So it’s a nice model you’ve created, it just doen’t match reality“. I’m calling BS, unless you’ve got cites to prove this unreality-based generalization, Joey.
And, while we’re at it, how about you provide definitions of “rich”, “very rich” and “obscenely rich”. And, “life and death struggle for survival”? Would that be “settling” for 4 Roses instead of Canadian Mist? Or “settling” for Twinkies instead of real food?
Yes, that’s the 2nd time you used that idiotic phrase about tides, it was dumb then and it’s dumb now. You’re never, NEVER, going to raise everyone.
==========
Actually, ol’ Joey is right about the tides raising everyone, yet not in the way he intends.
Just look at how our capitalist system has raised the quality of life of the poor in our country. Our poor would be considered rich in most other nations. People considered poor here have homes, have cars, have TVs, computers, cell phones, etc.
Years ago, only the “rich” could afford cars and TVs and plane trips across the country. Now, all that is affordable even for the poor. Cell phones are cheap enough for everyone to have one, even the poor.
But without that freedom for people to work to achieve these amazing advancements in technology, none of that would be possible. Socialist and communist systems don’t inspire people to create and design and research, etc, because whatever they do, it’s taken from them and given to someone else or the government takes it from them and calls it their own.
Now, is our system perfect? No. But that’s the difference between most of here and those of the ilk of Joey. We understand that utopia and perfection is not possible. It is not possible to take care of everyone, to account for everyone, to guarantee everyone success. The only thing we can work to try to guarantee is that everyone has an equal opportunity to succeed.
What’s that saying… ‘never let the perfect be the enemy of the good’? The socialists and communists like Joey believe that if things aren’t perfect, then they aren’t good. The rest of us understand that there is never going to be perfect, because not everyone has the will to succeed. The best we can do it create the atmosphere where everyone who wants the opportunity has the opportunity.
NathanielPatton,
Reread your rather wordy scenario, and I still maintain it is a zero sum scenario. In your story, there are a finite amount of points available, and if he gives the recepients of lower grades a few extra points, he takes those points away from a higher achieving student. That’s a perfect zero sum game. How about the scenario that everyone gets a higher grade? How about structuring it so everyone could win? But there are limitations to your scenario that prevent it from mirroring society at large. As George E.P. Box said, “All models are false; some are useful”. In all honesty, I don’t think your model is very useful.
An observation – you guys must live where there are a lot of obese, down-and-out people who use food stamps to buy Doritos and Twinkies. I guess I’m lucky enough I just don’t see very many people like that where I live.
How about the scenario that everyone gets a higher grade? How about structuring it so everyone could win?
==========
You mean, instead of how you suggest where we take from “the rich” and give “the poor” handouts, we structure it so that everyone has an opportunity to win (“so everyone could win”)? Well, gee whiz, that’s exactly the structure we have that you suggest is bad and doesn’t work, and we need to change it so that we take from “the rich” (the A students) and give handouts to “the poor” (E students).
He never said that there was a finite amount of points, Joe. He said that the professor felt it unfair that there were those with lower grades.
I now understand: You lack reading comprehension, bless your little heart.
Yeah, that was me. 🙂
Due respect, it YOU GUYS that don’t know how to read. I will repeat, NathanielPatton’s scenario is a zero sum game. The professor is taking a few points from the students with higher grades and giving those points to the students with lower grades. If you multiply the highest possible number of points on a given assignment, and multiply that by the number of students, that gives you the total possible number of points the entire class can earn. That is a finite number. If he takes points from one student and awards them to another, he is still drawing from a finite pool of points. Therefore it is, repeat, it is a zero sum game. The entire concept of economic growth is predicated on a non-zero sum game, where there doesn’t have to be a winner and a loser, but rather where both parties can gain from a transaction. So whatever the merits of NathanielPatton’s scenario, the scenario presents a zero sum.
Should read, “If you TAKE the highest possible number of points on a given assignment”, not “If you multiply the highest possible number of points on a given assignment”
So basically Joe you can’t argue with the the point of the scenario, so you’re trying your hardest to make it false. But it’s not. You take from the A’s and give to the E’s, which is 100% exactly what socialism does, then you ruin the point of working hard for the A and you make not working hard just as rewarding. In all honesty you don’t think my model is useful, because clearly you have a hard time being honest with yourself. That’s the only explanation. That, or like Anonymous said, you lack comprehension…
I don’t think you guys understand non-zero summness, or synergy.
You can talk about “zero sum scenarios” all you want. When you’ve been in a classroom and had a professor tell you on the first day of class that you WILL NOT get an “A” in his class because he grades on a curve, there is only one thought that comes to your mind:
You’re being scr***d.
And I’ll be damned if I ever thought of my grades as a “game”!
That, or like Anonymous said, you lack comprehension…
==========
Ol’ Joey is known round these parts as the local blog idiot/ignoramus (and his comments in this thread — which are just as ignorant as his contributions to other discussions of economics here in the past — are a prime example why). So your latter theory is correct.
I’ll take what I EARN. If I earn a sh**y grade, I earned that. and I’ll have to deal with the consequences. And lets not forget that our “poor” live like kings and queens compared to oh, India, China, Russia etc. less then 10% are “hungry” and that being defined as missing a meal due to finances. Starvation in America is almost unheard of. now I say ALMOST because it does happen. in those cases I fully believe in stepping in and offering a helping hand. But I’d rather it be the Salvation Army, and Red Cross, NOT the Federal Government.
I have no problem with the minimum of taxes, to pay for essential functions, but tell me why the F**K should I support a project to see how to make pig slop not stink (actual Grant in the health care bill) Why should the money I bust my ass for go to, say ethanol credits which have been proven to be useless. Or how about “Green” energy which takes 8 times the effort for the same amount of energy, and the environmental benefits are EXTREMELY debatable (and does nothing but jack the shit out of my energy bill). Why should I have had to give up $600 a week from my job over the summer (yes it was a Union job, and while i have issues about that, they are my issues.) How about the VA? I busted my ass for this country and when I truly depended on the VA to fulfill a promise made, I got SCREWED.
No I’m sorry Joe, you can advocate all you want that the Federal Government is Right and Just, but I’m sorry to say I’ve been the belly of the beast and I’ve seen just how jacked up it is. Most of the other ruffians on here have as well. Spin your wheels all you want. YOU ARE WRONG.
Just drop. You can recover when I get tired.
I have no problem with the minimum of taxes, to pay for essential functions, but tell me why the F**K should I support a project to see how to make pig slop not stink (actual Grant in the health care bill)
==========
Or how about $10 Million for some John Murtha Memorial fund or some such. Yes, that’s actually in this bullsh!t Omnibus flustercuck bill.