A message from the President of the United States

My fellow Americans,

I ran for president to do two things -- to change the tone of bitter partisanship in Washington, and to accomplish constructive economic change so that more Americans can share the blessings of prosperity.
I need to speak candidly to you tonight. Despite my best efforts, I find that I cannot do both things. You see, it takes two to compromise.

I understand why many Americans voted against my party -- the Democrats -- last November. Recovery from the worst recession in 75 years was, and is, too slow.

It's understandable that many people who had high hopes in 2008 felt those hopes dashed in 2010. The president's party normally loses some seats in his first off-year election, especially in hard economic times, and these times have been more difficult than most.

Those of you who voted for the opposition had every right to do so. But the vast majority of Americans did not vote to slash public spending on children, university students, the elderly, the disabled, the sick, and people who are unemployed through no fault of their own. You did not vote to blame the recession on nurses, teachers, police and fire-fighters or to punish them for the sins of Wall Street.

The budget debate that has dominated the headlines has emphasized numbers -- mind numbing numbers. Will Congress cut $70 billion dollars, or $50 billion dollars, or $100 billion dollars? But let me tell you, this budget debate is not just about numbers.

It's about whether kids who are eligible for Head Start are denied places in the classroom. Whether community health centers shut down. Whether students who want a chance to go to college are denied Pell Grants. Whether our families have safe drinking water and pure food. Whether Americans who are unemployed through no fault of their own lose their health insurance. And whether the most affluent Americans get still more tax cuts.

Although the Republican Party is increasingly captured by the Tea Party, I just don't believe most Americans voted for these slash and burn cuts that will only harm our economy.

We have done our best to find a middle ground. But the opposition party keeps moving the goal posts on us.

No sooner do we come to terms over a compromise to keep the government open than the price goes up. The price of keeping the government, it turns out, is to cripple the government and the services that it provides. Deep cuts in Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are next.

Well, not while I'm president. I am here to say tonight that we are not going to balance the budget on the backs of kids, or elderly Americans, or sick people, or working families.

Last December, we reluctantly compromised with the Republicans in order to extend unemployment insurance and help working Americans in other ways. Their price was two more years of tax cuts for the very wealthiest of Americans. The cost was over $125 billion -- or more than the cost of spending cuts now being demanded.

Frankly, if anyone should be tightening their belts in these circumstances, it is the most fortunate among us. But the increase in the deficit caused by those tax cuts is now being used as the pretext to slash government help to everyone else. That's not right. So don't make the mistake of thinking that this debate is about who has the sharpest knife for cutting deficits. It's about how we cut deficits, about whose belt is to be tightened, and how we get the economy back on track.

If the Republicans had been sincere about wanting to hold down deficits, they never would have demanded those tax giveaways as their price for aiding the unemployed. Not only are the Tea Party Republicans demanding crippling cuts in public services. They have also larded up the budget bill with so called riders that have nothing do with the budget.

They would ban funding for the new bureau of consumer financial protection, and other regulatory agencies charged with keeping banks from repeating the abuses that got us into this mess.

They would ban funding for the Affordable Care Act, meaning insurance companies once again could deny coverage to people with pre-existing conditions.

They would prohibit the Environmental Protection Agency from regulating toxic substances like mercury, Dioxin, and arsenic in certain industries.
They would block the Department of Education from cracking down on well documented abuses on the part of for-profit colleges that deceive hard working students and their parents.

They would get rid of federally-funded family planning services, which also includes screening for breast and cervical cancer.

Most Americans do not support these policies. And as much as I want compromise and civility in Washington, I am not a damned fool. Americans deserve to know just how extreme these ideas are. And if the far right wants to threaten to shut down the government if we don't accept these radical ideas, that's a fight I'm prepared to have.

So I will continue my efforts to change the tone in Washington. But sometimes that requires firmness in the face of reckless destruction.

I want you to know, this is not about the "partisan bickering" that the press loves to decry. The far right is trying to show its supporters that it can be tough enough to shut down the government. But I can be just as tough on behalf of working American families, who have already suffered enough.


-- President Barack Obama

Can the markets correct themsevles?

In an exclusive extended interview with Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), Jon Stewart of the Daily Show poses the question: "Doesn't the government have a place in capitalism?"

The Daily Show - Exclusive - Rand Paul Extended Interview Pt. 1
Tags: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

Paul, a well-known Tea Party supporter and Libertarian, believes no. I disagree whole-heartedly with this stance. Paul argues that if the government would step out of the way, the free market system would correct and punish itself and the reason all these bankers and hedge fund managers were allowed to escape scott free is because the government stepped in and bailed them out. Had the Bush and Obama administration not stepped in, capitalism would have punished these people apporpriately and they wouldn't be allowed to continue making millions.

But let's pretend Paul is right. That, somehow magically, the markets would have corrected themselves, what would that look like? Luckily we have a prime example just in a smaller scale.

First, some background information. In 2008, because of rampant deregulation of Wall St. by the Bush Adminstration, banks and mortgage companies were allowed to take greater and greater risks in betting on the exploding housing market and speculated that prices would only go up, not down. This speculation led to an over-extension of credit. When prices began to drop the banks didn't have the assets to cover their losses and went under. Billions of dollars in retirement funds, savings account, and home values went up in smoke. But we did have a warning sign.

For much of the 1990s, Enron had discovered a way to trade energy futures as a commodity. They traded oil, natural gas, coal, and electricity and always bet that the price of these would go up, not down. The reason? Deregulation.

The Republican Senator from California had managed to deregulate California's power grid there by allowing Enron to manipulate the prices through a series of rolling blackouts. In 2001, when their scheme was revealed through an accounting scandal, the price of Enron stock collapsed. Millions of dollars in pension funds, retirement funds, health care funds, went straight down the drain. And what did the new Bush Adminstration do? Nothing. They didn't bail them out, they didn't prevent the collapse, they didn't protect Enron's employees. So, did the market somehow "correct" itself? Had it done so, I doubt the 2008 collapse would have been as severe. But even the smartest men in the room can't tell for sure.

That's not to say justice wasn't served. Many on the board of directors including the CEO were tried and sent to prison. But is that justice? The people who worked for Enron lost everything with no way to get it back while many of the top traders escaped prosecution and retired with hundreds of millions of dollars.

The free market system failed. It failed to protect the workers and it failed to deliver the right kind of justice.

Let's go back even further, pre-1920s. Capitalism in that day was nothing but the Wild Wild West. Companies and banks could do whatever they wanted. This country went through a series of boom and bust cycles where the rich got richer, the poor lost everything, and the free market only seemed to punish those people who had nothing, right up until 1929.

And since then? The government has taken steps to protect people, to lessen the blow of the boom/bust cycles and for much of the 20th century this country prospered like none other. But whenever government regulation fails, companies and corporations are their to take advantage of everything they can: employees, the environment, and the rules. And without regulation, those responsible for polluting, for stealing, for cheating, would never get caught or held accountable and would just pull up and move somewhere else and do it all over again.

The government has a place in our free market, capitalist system. Is government strangling growth? No. In fact, everything points to the exact opposite. The rich continue to get richer and the poor get poorer because we don't have enough regulation, enough taxation, enough rules to keep the wealthy in balance with everyone else. The key to the future, Mr. Paul, is not less government, but more government in the right places. We tried it your way for nearly 3 decades, and it has failed to deliver the kind of prosperity we had in the 40s, 50s, and 60s. And you couldn't handle our way for 2 years without complaining we should "go back."

U.S. ranks 46 in tax collection revenue as a percentage of GDP

The U.S. ranks a lowly 46th out of 100 nations that collect tax revenue as a percentage of GDP. Ths U.S. is also below nearly every 1st world industrialized nation.

http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/GC.TAX.TOTL.GD.ZS

What about the other side?

As many of the right have not so eloquently pointed out: what about your hate filled rhetoric about Bush and Iraq? What's the difference? It's true, many liberals and Democrats espoused vast quantities of hate towards the President after he invaded Iraq and called for his death and head on a pike.

But here is the difference: that kind of talk stemmed from the absolute limit of the politcal spectrum. Our leaders, our elected officials, never joined in on that chorus. John Kerry, John McCain, Ted Kennedy, Hillary Clinton weren't the ones appearing on cable news shows, plastering photos of their "targets" on websites, and delivering hate-filled speeches to hungry, ravenous crowds. Sure, they were against the war, sure they disliked Bush's policies, but they never joined in with the murderous screams echoing from these groups. That's the difference.

Enter the new crop of GOP leadership -- Sarah Palin (a vice presidential candidate), Rand Paul (a U.S. Senator) Dick Armey (a U.S. Representative) and Glenn Beck (a Conservative personality on radio and TV) who all openly deliver lie after lie about our country, our government, and especially our president. They call Obama a socialist, a communist, a nazi, a marxist, a radical Muslim, and a racist that "hates" white people. These people wield enormous power and influence not just in their districts, but across the country thanks to their own propaganda network. They, along with others, continuously villify anyone who does not agree with them with the intention of scaring average Americans with the ideas that our government is evil(now that our government is being run by someone else that is not them).

Here is also the difference: President Bush was never shot at, never attacked (except for someone with a shoe in a foreign country), neither were any member of the GOP for 8 years. Liberals are not the ones stockpiling weapons and ammunition and talking about second amendment solutions and trigger options. That's not us. We talk a big game, sure. But the threat of violence from a hippy, tree-hugging, liberal, is about as likely as a contestant on the Biggest Loser turning down desert.

So comfort yourself all you want that we are exactly the same as the Tea Party or Conservative riff-raff clogging up the political world, but deep down you know that's not true, and you know that your skewed perspective, twisted rationale and vitrol for this government (that is still a goverment of the people, by the people, and for the people) has resulted in a population (all be it, small population) armed to the teeth with the notion that killing and shooting people to protect "liberty" or "freedom" is okay. That blood is on your hands.

And I won't call for your death, or your doom, or for someone to kill you. I will pray for your souls, for your lives, and hope that you will ask forgiveness from whatever God you pray to because while you may think of yourselves as Christians, your actions and words speak to the opposite of that. You know this to be true.

An Open Letter to America from the Republican Party

Dear America,

We're sorry. We f****d you all. We f****d up the country. We f****d ourselves.

The years have not been kind to us and we have no one to blame but ourselves. We have strayed from our principals, from common sense, and from reason. It's true, we don't like people who are different from us. That includes blacks, Asians, Latinos, Muslims, and gays. They frighten us and we hide behind the cloak of religion and patriotism to justify our own ignorance and racism. As a result, we have lost most of America.

We have become irresponsible and irrational. Worse, we tolerate, promote and celebrate prejudice and hatred. We have wound ourselves in a swamp of hypocrisy, hyperbole, historical inaccuracy and hatred. We are sorry, again. Because we believe having responsible choices is important to democracy, we know our survival in the political landscape is important for the future of this country.

We're going to try harder. We're going to come up with a platform that isn't built on a foundation of cowardice: fear of people with colors, religions, cultures and sex lives that differ from your own; fear of reform in banking, health care, energy; fantasy fears of America being transformed into an Islamic nation, into social-/commun-/fasc- ism, into a disarmed populace put in internment camps; and more.

We're going to stop threatening impeachment when the Democratically controlled and elected Congress uses a parliamentary procedure (deem and pass) that we have used more than 35 times in just one session and more than 100 times in all, that's also centuries old and which the courts have supported; especially when our own leaders admit it all.

We're going to stop screaming against a stimulus package that we have taken credit for all the good it's done in our own district. We're going to stop happily handing out enormous checks representing money that we voted against and then falsely claiming we fought for it all along because we know our loyal voting base is either too ignorant or too lazy to believe anything else other than what we tell them. Above all, we're going to stop secretly begging for more funds, pork barrel projects, and aid to help programs we have rallied against such as: free clinics for children and women, Medicaid, Medicare, SCHIP, public transportation, and so-called liberal schools (just to name a few) all the while maintaining our fiscal conservative lies. Sorry, again.

We're going to stop flipping out when the black president bows to foreign dignitaries, as appropriate for their culture, especially since we were silent when the white presidents did the same: Bush. Nixon. Ike. In fact, we didn't even make a peep when Bush held hands and kissed the leader of a country that our own country is not on "kissing terms" with. Our bad.

We're going to stop complaining about a lack of bipartisanship when the President has routinely invited us to Super Bowl parties, visited our own Conservative Caucus to answer questions, and we're going to stop fighting against our own ideas just because the black president likes and endorses our own proposals. We're going to stop routinely obstructing Congressional procedure for the sake of political gain and threatening to filibuster at least 100 pieces of legislation in one session, far more than any other party since the procedural tactic was invented. It was a bad week, we ran out of Milano cookies. Sorry.

We're going to stop using words like socialism, communism and fascism, until we have some kind of basic understanding of what those words mean. Hopefully we can learn that they're not synonymous.

We're going to stop using media outlets and personalities to dictate our parties path and agenda and call them out when their hate-filled tirades endanger not only our party, but people's lives. So, so, sorry.

We know this is a lot to do. Even prominent members of our own party have spoken out against these atrocities. We didn't listen because, well, our heads were too far up our own asses. We are going to drain the swamp of the conspiracy nuts, the bald-faced liars undeterred by demonstrable facts, the overt hypocrisy and the hatred right away. But, please, give us time to work all this out. We should be ready to come back to the political table by the end of this decade, until then, the current party in power is the best chance we have at making progress in the 21st century and undo all the wrongs we have made over the past 30 years. When we return, we are going to offer a calm, responsible, grownup agenda based on our values and vision for America. We know that not everyone will agree with these values, but we can't continue like we have been. We're destroying the very thing we love -- America.

Sincerely,

The GOP

As inspired by:

http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/talk/blogs/a/m/americandad/2010/03/an-open-letter-to-conservative.php