Obama & Dems Fail to Have Each Other’s Back
Allow these Pew Research numbers to confirm your entrenched beliefs and support your unshakable faith in your own political wisdom.
Remember that enthusiasm gap from the 2010 election that was oh-so-deadly for Democrats? It looks like it hung around for the debt ceiling fight as well.
A telephone poll by the Pew Research Center for People and Press found that Republicans and Tea Party-affiliated respondents both paid more attention to the debt negotiations and were more likely to take action to influence the outcome.
Some 66% of the two groups followed news on the issue closely versus only 34% of those who had different views or did not offer a political opinion. Nor were they passive observers: some 66% of Republicans and Tea Partiers contacted an elected official during the standoff while only 5% of the rest did the same. This despite a direct appeal from President Obama to do exactly that.
As was the case in the midterm election, age was a crucial factor. Only 19% of 18-29 year-olds followed the story closely and 1% contacted an official versus 54% of those over 50 who followed the debate and 16% who contacted an official.
The numbers suggest that Democrats still have a ways to go before they fully reactivate the base voters that powered them into the White House in 2008.
You know my take: if the Dem base got one fifth of the red meat from the Dem leadership that the teabags get from the Republican leadership, we’d crush them again like we did in ’08
Carper: I wanted more cuts, especially to Medicare
Coons: Had to save the hostages
Bill Clinton: Eff you, Republicans
Grasping for straws to explain this train wreck, I consider the usual suspect, FOX News. But I don’t think FOX was really much of a player this time around. It’s all on Obama and (most) Dems in Congress.
Just kept feeding them rope and let them hang themselves.
That’s already in motion. Republicans (and Tom Carper) will hit the end of their rope when the first wave of actual Medicare cuts hits. Talking about “entitlement reform” is all fun and games until somebody gets hurt.
Medicare won’t get cut the way you think. It will end up as an entitlement for those of low net worth (didn’t save or invest during their working years).
It will end up as an entitlement for those of low net worth (didn’t save or invest during their working years).
They saved and invested for health care by paying into Medicare. The wealthy stole their money and the politicians failed their fiduciary duty to keep Medicare strong. The voters are responsible too for creating this situation by voting for Republicans and conservadems.
didnt save or invest during their working years
Delbert, are you aware that prices for decadant things like food, medicine, electricity, education, and gas gave gone up at a much higher rate than pay? You are now asking people to choose between saving and eating. You talk about poor people as if they too could have a yatch or Benz if only they hadnt frittered away their free gumment money. There are also lots of people…. like my grandparents who DID save and invest and dutifly lived way below their means so when they wanted ot retire and enjoy life, they could.
Well like millions of other americans, when that time came, the policies enacted by Republicans deregulated the people they entrusted with their savings and poof. no more retirement. The money they worked more than 40 years to save up was gone because “conservatives” let the uber rich gamble with other people’s money and absolbed those ass holes of any responsibility.
Delbert…. because of republican policies people can take YOUR MONEY, use it to make more money for themselves and leave you with nothing and NEVER be held accountable. You don’t even get to know who it is that ruins your life. how the hell is that “fiscal responsibility?” MOst of the time they dont even have to pay taxes on the money they made by ripping you off. It actually goes to other countries. I totally get fiscal responsibility. it’s why i work 65 hours a week and “splurge” on 4 dollar trips to state parks to relax. The people calling themselves conservatives are seemingly for a wild west where anything goes as long as the gumment doesnt get to participate. good luck partner.
It’s not the “poor” people I’m talking about, Ben. It’s the working class who decide they’d rather make a non-deductible $500 a month car or truck payment instead of riding around in a $1000 used car and putting that $500 a month in the bank or the bed mattress. It’s the little things that ad up over time. And I know “rich” people who have done the same thing. They live to the edge of their means and never save.
Delbert: That 50% of the people who pay no income tax? They’re living on $30,000 a year or less. Please get real. They aren’t driving around in a $500/month car. They’re already driving those beaters.
Most of those “rich” people you’re talking about have put their money into their homes, because over decades real estate has offered better returns than the markets. They’re saving, but mainly by pouring those “savings” into the largest home they can afford.
Carpetbagger Carper had a telephone town hall meeting two nights ago. Did anyone tune in to this right wing neo con corporate whore? We all know that Carney and Coons contact Carper before they vote, so we still have three blind mice representing us. Lets get a real democrat to primary Carper! Why arent we all in the streets over this mess, liberals and progressives have themselves to blame. There were no voices except the baggers pushing this country to default. Liberals are still believing Obama is going to do the right thing? He must be pushed, by libs and progressives to do anything. Al Gore says the country is now officially broken, we only have a few moments in time to turn it around and that means getting off our butts and protesting like they are in Wisconsin in every state. Good luck Delaware trying to find even 5 people who would stand up and be counted.
Anon-He’s lived in Delaware for 30+ years and is still a carpet bagger? We need moderates like Carper who has served Delaware well. Your rant is a mirror image of what the extreme right is doing and not what this country needs. Or if you are so fired up about it, get out from behind the keyboard and put yourself out there buddy.
Geezer: I had the opportunity to review a 2011 Fed tax return last week of a single mother of three who made $23715 as a medical assistant at a local hospital. Brings home $759/2weeks. That makes $1625/month against a $600 rent. She had an $8400 standard deduction and another $14,600 in exemptions because she’s claiming the 3 kids and herself as dependents. That made a taxable income of $715 and a federal tax of $71. She got back the $624 withheld for fed tax plus a $400 Making Work Pay credit, plus $4133 Earned Income credit, plus $1929 Child Tax credit for two of her kids. That made a $7086 refund direct deposited to her savings account. Now you tell me who aint paying the tax. Some one elses taxes had to pay for those welfare credits. Of course she’s late on her rent and yes, she has a car payment obligation.
“Keith Olbermann’s Debt Ceiling Special Comment: ‘Our Government Has Now Given Up The Concept Of Right And Wrong’ (VIDEO)”
Article: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/02/olbermann-debt-ceiling-special-comment-protests-obama_n_915957.html
Let’s look at it from the other end — the “takes home $379.50 a week” end. That comes to $1,520 a month. I’m guessing she pays at least $600 for rent. Another $400 a month or so for food. Without a car, she probably can’t get to work. She has to clothe those kids, too.
Meanwhile, she paid roughly $4,000 in FICA taxes.
In short, she’s still living on and raising kids on less than $30,000. Boo fucking hoo that somebody has to pay taxes to keep her living this high on the hog.
Remember when you worked full time you used to be able to have a home and a car?
You can see, in delberts comment, the inevitable end game for Republicans and center right democrats. When poor people pay 50% of all taxes we”ll have the long searched for BALANCE.
“When poor people pay 50% of all taxes ”
Maybe you haven’t read the Ryan budget. Taxes on capital gains, dividends, corporate income taxes – all gone.
Since Delbert is supposedly doing everything right I’m amazed he isn’t rolling in money. Why is that?
ok delbert. I HAD a 1000 used car.. no warranty and it was costing me roughly 1000 ever couple of months to keep running. that is pretty typical for a car that was made in 1990 and had over 200k miles on it when i bought it.
I recently decided to get a NEW car with a fantastic warranty and payments that i can afford. Now if it decided to die on the side of the road (in the next 90,000 miles) i get a new car. If i get into an accident, i get a new car. if ANYTHING breaks, they fix it at no additional cost. I know exactly how much my car costs per month rather than constantly wondering if the latest used transmission is going to last 10 days or a few years and how much it will cost NEXT time the car doesn’t start. That’s what a used car is. It’s not just about having the latest GPS or sound system. Do you really think people on welfare drive around in caddies? I know quite a few people who work a full time job, take the bus and cant afford to move out of their apartment .. something ELSE that you just spend money of every month with no kind of return. At least with a mortgage, you are working towards full ownership of an asset. Conservatives love to throw up examples of the “undeserving” who use food stamps for $400 champaign, but if you would take a minute to look at actual reality and not Fox reality (and i say Fox reality because they are the ones who keep painting everyone who isnt a republican suburbanite as a leach) you would see that the majority of the people who use assistance use it to supplement their 40 h/w income that isnt enough to pay for the rising cost of living.
Geezer wrote:
Assuming that the Geezer was referring to delbert’s comment and the lady who earned $23,715 per year, she would have paid $1,814.20 in combined Social Security and Medicare taxes; in 2010, the employee’s portion of Social Security withholding was 6.2%, while Medicare withholding was (and still is) 1.45%. In 2011, Social Security withholding has dropped to 4.2% for the employee; it reverts back to 6.2% in 2012.
Referencing delbert’s comment, the lady in question received $6,462 in a federal income tax refund beyond what she paid in. It was noted that she has a rent of $600 per month. In effect, the federal government paid, gratis, 10½ months of her rent for her.
Let’s look at it another way: the lady in question had an income which was, in effect, completely free of federal income taxes of $30,177. She was “earning,” if you include both her wages and what she got back in federal bonuses, $14.51 per hour, assuming a standard 40 hour work week.
In tax year 2008 — I couldn’t find the 2010 numbers — the threshold for 50% in adjusted gross income was $33,048. In other words, we subsidized her to very close to the median AGI number.
it is also assuming he isnt screwing with numbers or outright lying to make his point…. a well known conservative tactic.
Dana: Then what were the other deductions from her paycheck for? Health insurance maybe? And truth be told, you don’t know how many hours she worked for that paycheck, so your “hourly” calculations are just guesses.
I don’t understand the complaint here. If Delbert and Dana think it’s such a swell life, I don’t understand why they don’t live that way themselves. I work because I don’t want to try to get by on that little money. I don’t understand the resentment of someone who doesn’t have a choice in the matter. I don’t understand what they think she should do without. I don’t understand why they think a social system that lets her live that way while excusing rich people from paying more into the system is unfairly tilted — in favor of the working poor. I don’t see what she’s doing to earn their anger.
I don’t understand why they’re such selfish dicks.
Dilbert had you looked beyond that lady’s tax form you would find that a lot of the things she got was the laws passed by the first President Bush
Dana,
Do you have any kids? Do you have any idea what it costs to raise a child, let alone three? Have you ever tried to do that on a $23,000 salary? How would you budget your money to do that and guarantee your children have clothes, food and shelter?
The issue you and delbert clearly have with this woman is not that she’s getting tax refunds or tax credits, but that she’s a single mom who is trying to raise three children and work to support them. What puritanical asswipes you are.
Is it in our nation’s best interest to let her children go to school hungry, go to bed hungry, live on a street where bullets fly nightly and don’t have clean or fitted clothes to wear? Or should we take a little bit of money from the millionaires who don’t have to worry about that kind of stuff and give it to those who need a helping hand?
Dick.
Bernie Sanders says this is the worst bill ever written. It will not only put everything on the table including social security, medicare and medicaid, unemployment benefits, foodstamps, education, environmental protections you name is why he couldnt and wouldnt sign on. He too says Obama should have used the 14th amendment! Had enough of Obama yet? Ready to stand by your man while he takes us all for granted. “Liberals and progressives have no where to go”! Thats what he thinks of us. There isnt one cent to create one job in this country and he knows it. So while out there on the campaign trail “pushing for jobs, he knows damn well there is nothing he can do to create a job”! He sold us out. How many times are we going to be shoved under the bus, kicked in the head before we begin to understand. Obama is a corporate whore, always has been. He was never a liberal or progressive but a died in the wool neo con just like Hilary. He said, he wouldnt put lobbyists in his administration and outright lie. He said, he wouldnt sign on if there were no tax increases…he lied. The corporate owned media created these tea baggers and we are ALL at fault because we did nothing when Obama was elected, we took for granted he would do the right thing by us….well here we are. I will vote for Daffy Duck before another democrat gets my vote. Carper is leading Coons and Carney around like his lap dogs.
We are screwed people and we all know it. So we can put on a happy face or we can do something drastic. Primary him. Put up a real democrat and MAKE this man move off the right. He isnt even center right, he is totally just right of the baggers.
Will someone put out just where in the Consitution the Congress and Senate have the right to create a “Super Congress”? It doesnt exist, but that 14th amendment does and Obama should have used it to raise the debt ceiling and leave the rest alone. He wanted BIG cuts, he and some demorats are willing to put the safety net on the table. Are those the words of a progressive a liberal or a moderate? No, they are the words of a right winger which Obama has proven himself to be. Primary him! Make him move to the center left where the majority of the country is.
Lots of assumptions about the single mother. Where can you find rent at $600 a month, unless its public housing? What about child care costs, utilities, insurance, health insurance, and other expenses we all pay. How do we know she didnt have a house shes trying to keep, perhaps a mortgage too. The hard hearted who think she is living well, and that her children have a chance to go to college are nuts. They have cut the pell grants for Graduate Students? They are cutting headstart! Do you even know what its that bill, check out Bernie Sanders blog and find out exactly what the dirty deal was these demorats signed onto. Harry Reid get rid of him, if this is the best he can do, it proves he is no negiotater either. This Super Congress idea was admittedly Harry Reids?
Dana and Delbert your gaining om MJ for the title “Asswipe of the week” 🙂 The prize is the coveted opportunity to live on the dear lady’s income and care for her kids for 30 days. Ya won’t last 2 days!
DOD refuses its austerity medicine: ggreenwald Leon Panetta: We must cut Social Security and Medicare in order to protect the military budget: http://is.gd/UNBpnA
for anon at 6:07 – the threshold for the 14th Amendment clause couldn’t be met until we actually had no ability to fund our creditors.
We had/have that ability. Plus, Obama had set up a prioritization of who gets the money first and the creditors were first on that list. SCOTUS would have probably found plenty to complain about it he had invoked the clause while we still were technically able to fund our creditors even if it meant gutting granny’s monthly check.
The damage has been done, regardless. The Asian markets are crashing following the US crash from yesterday. The grossly (stupidly) austere debt deal and the muck and mire of American politics is bringing us down (44% blame Bush and 15% blame Obama in the latest poll). Disgust with Congress is at a low not seen since 1977.
With a 41 vote in the Senate that can block the majority, WTF WTF WTF. Can somebody tell me if Reid could have saved us some of this grief if he had stood firm on January 5th and rewrote the rules of the Senate to regain a majority control of his chamber?
The Geezer wrote:
Well, that’s just it: I once did have to live on that little money, but I did have a choice: I worked harder and got ahead, and now I don’t have to live on that little money.
anon asked me:
Actually, I do have an idea how much it costs, because we do have children. They’re 23 and 20 now, and though both being in the Army Reserve helps, we still have college expenses and other things.
This case perfectly demonstrates the uselessness of tax cuts for the working poor.
Mrs Willing wrote:
But just what does the 14th Amendment actually authorize? The relevant section states:
That means that the public debt is valid, and cannot be questioned in a court of law (as opposed to the Confederate debt, which it held to be invalid and void). But it does not say that this somehow means that appropriations from the Treasury can somehow be made to pay the debt without Congressional authorization, nor that the President can ignore a statutory debt ceiling law. It does state that the Congress, very specifically, has the authority to deal with these matters.
Mrs willing wrote:
Perhaps Senator Reid remembers a time, in the not too distant past, when the Democrats were in the minority, and realized it is possible that, come January of 2013, the Democrats might, once again, be in the minority.
What, I wonder, was the position of this website when John Roberts and Samuel Alito were nominated to the Supreme Court. Did anyone here argue that those nominations ought to be filibustered, as the Senate Democrats did with many of President Bush’s lower level judicial appointments?
anon wrote:
In 2010, Republican candidates for the House of Representatives won a majority — not just a plurality — of all of the votes cast. In the Senate races, if you include the independent candidacies of Lisa Murkowski and Charles Crist, both Republicans, in the Republican vote total, once again, the Republicans captured a majority, not just a plurality, of all of the votes cast.
Perhaps your statement that the majority of the country is center-left isn’t accurate.
Dana: Really? You were the single parent of two children?
Dana @11:54 is right. At election time, Democrats consistently underperform their issue polls.
I think it is because at election time the conservative media does a full court press to discredit the Democratic side, and does achieve a temporary downward dip in approval for Democrats and their issues. Approval bounces back after the election but then it is too late.
“Perhaps your statement that the majority of the country is center-left isn’t accurate.”
Yet none of what you offered would prove it. About 48% of eligible voters cast ballots in 2010.
The Geezer wrote:
And, quite frankly, it is the opinion of the voters which matters; if someone is eligible to vote, and doesn’t bother, I have absolutely no sympathy for him or respect for his opinion.
The opinion of those who choose not to vote is meaningless.
The Geezer wrote:
Nope, I am the married father of two children. If someone chooses to have children outside of marriage, or chooses to break up with his spouse, that person has also chosen to be poor. You won’t like that answer, but it’s absolutely true.
What you didn’t write, Dana:
“… that person has also chosen to be poor, and their children should thus also be condemned to growing up in poverty rather than taking some money from obscenely wealthy people who can drop the same amount of money on one meal as another person spends on food for the whole week.”
or if that person decides to marry someone who dies. or if they choose to get laid off, or sick. freakin leaches.
And what if that person’s spouse left her?
I understand everything you say and feel. I part ways because I don’t demand others live up to the standard I set for myself. Some choose not to, but some have no choice. What kind of person resents a woman with two kids, working full-time, whose governmental help allows her to pay for day care so she can work?
I do unto others as I would have them do unto me: Give me help when I might be down. I have worked for 35 straight years. In that time I have collected unemployment for one week, when I was furloughed in early 2009. But I have 12 years to go until full retirement, and now I might not be able to count on even the measly 13K+ SS currently pays per year. You might have noticed that lots of employers find ways to relieve themselves of 60-somethings before they hit full SS age.
The notion that Social Security won’t be there for you younger workers will be a self-fulfilling prophecy. Demand it and it will be there. Fail to and it won’t.
Ass wipe of the week Drum roll please…..
Following a fine run of stupidity, misogny, and all round dumb ass comments the winner is Dana!
Puck is a surprising come from behind runner up
and in the three hole we have the ever popular Delbert
Finally, in the category of “all ass wipe all the time” its DL’s very own MJ!
enjoy the weekend, I will:)
@UcantbeFnserious Skip, is that you? Bottom’s up, buddy.
Skip would just give it to you and retire the trophy, say hi to Monty over the best town in Delaware.
anon wrote:
So? It’s their money, not yours.
“So? It’s their money, not yours.”
Legally or morally?
Remember, an awful lot of wealthy people are wealthy due to practices which were illegal not so long ago. And some that still are illegal. And some that ought to be illegal.
As the saying goes, “there ain’t no honest way to make that much money.”
Dana,
Yeah. People hauling in $250K and above sure “earned” it. They worked hard to get those dividend checks coming.
No one needs to make more than $200,000 a year. That’s really the bottom line. Anything over that is f&cking obscene. If you make that much money, you can afford to give some of it up to help families whose kids go to bed hungry at night and don’t have proper clothes to wear to school.
Saying “It’s their money, not yours,” when there’s no good reason whatsoever for people to have that much money, is to condone poverty and pain among our most vulnerable children.
If that makes me a wealth-distributing rich-bashing godless Marxist socialist, then hell yeah. Gene Debs all the way, you heartless bastard.
Legally and morally. The fact is that there really is an honest way to make that much money. That some might have done so illegally doesn’t mean that, without convicting them in a court of law, you can just take their money.
Piss on morals. Its the legality that’s questionable. ALEC writes the tax laws and if you bring in that much scratch you’d be a fool not to use the loop holes. Now what you’d do with the money is another story.
I think taxing the flesh off the Fers is warranted being they use our infrastructure for profit and our military is nothing but a merc squad protecting their interests.
It’s “their money” only because of the rules that have been set up by the rest of society. We want to change the rules to take an extra 4.5% of the amount they earn beyond $250,000. They can afford it, it won’t hurt the economy the way a tax increase on everyone would and, if you’re serious about addressing the deficit, it will get us closer to balance much faster than cuts alone.
Dilbert why is it you never mention the 1,400 millionaires who paid no taxes in 2009&2010???the possible reason is that you are either one of them or a shill for the Repuk’s and the Rich.
Congress has two reason to exist First is to bring in money to the government Thur taxes. Second to spend that money for the betterment of the country and it’s citizens