Obama: Conceder in Chief
JC29856
Posts: 9,617
oh by gosh by golly, Obama has conceded yet again for the sake of "compromise"...wow Im so surprised!!
He is now offering a new threshold of $400,000 and lowering his 10-year tax revenue goals from the $1.6 trillion he had argued for a few weeks ago.
Obama is proposing lower cost-of-living increases for Social Security beneficiaries, employing an inflation index that would have far-reaching consequences, including pushing more people into higher income tax brackets.
Those changes, as well as Obama's decision not to seek an extension of a temporary payroll tax cut, would force higher tax payments on the middle class, a wide swath of the population that Obama has repeatedly said he wanted to protect from tax increases.
The only president in history to allow the opposing party to hold the "debt ceiling" over his head.
If only he had one (1) ounce of courage those students and teachers in Newtown Ct have/had.
Unlike he and his fellow Democrats that took just about everything Bush and Co rammed down their throats.....
"I understand that I don't expect the Republicans simply to adopt my budget," he said during his post-election news conference last month. "That's not realistic. So, I recognize we're going to have to compromise."
He is now offering a new threshold of $400,000 and lowering his 10-year tax revenue goals from the $1.6 trillion he had argued for a few weeks ago.
Obama is proposing lower cost-of-living increases for Social Security beneficiaries, employing an inflation index that would have far-reaching consequences, including pushing more people into higher income tax brackets.
Those changes, as well as Obama's decision not to seek an extension of a temporary payroll tax cut, would force higher tax payments on the middle class, a wide swath of the population that Obama has repeatedly said he wanted to protect from tax increases.
The only president in history to allow the opposing party to hold the "debt ceiling" over his head.
If only he had one (1) ounce of courage those students and teachers in Newtown Ct have/had.
Unlike he and his fellow Democrats that took just about everything Bush and Co rammed down their throats.....
"I understand that I don't expect the Republicans simply to adopt my budget," he said during his post-election news conference last month. "That's not realistic. So, I recognize we're going to have to compromise."
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...are those who've helped us.
Right 'round the corner could be bigger than ourselves.
Really?
At least he's willing to.
(Worst thread I have seen in a long time)
Typo Man: "Thanks kidz, but remembir, stay in skool!"
http://www.reverbnation.com/brianzilm
Let's see ... everyone's taxes go up ... madatory spending cuts suspended ... debt ceiling to be increased ...
My Magic 8-Ball has foreseen the future!
:fp:
Also, not extending the payroll tax cut isn't compromising with the Republicans, unless I'm missing something. Repubs would want to extend it.
Do you want to rethink this one or are you OK with how callous and tone deaf it reads?
"...I changed by not changing at all..."
"...I changed by not changing at all..."
if someone was assigned the job to evaluate a for profit company and cut spending/expenses, would they start by evaluating the most expensive expenditure or would they ignore it?
So you do have no second thoughts about this comparison? 100% A-OK in your mind?
"...I changed by not changing at all..."
These so called cuts are just "resets" on what the benefits were intended to be. When Medicare was implemented, the average longevity was about 72 years. So, you would be on Medicare 7 years (on average). It was meant to cover end of life. Our average longevity is now 81 with no corresponding adjustment in the benefit provided. So, in fact, as with most gov't programs - once implemented, they only INCREASE (As it will continue to do.)
The fact is, Medicare is a simple fix that should fly through. Make the Medicare age 70 phased in over the next 10 years. You would still be providing FAR greater benefit than originally intended or expected (i.e. covering 11+ years at end of life instead of 7 or so), but at least you would mitigate the growth trend. The fact that the libs balk at moving the age to 67 is not only pure lunacy it is irresponsible (And to be fair ONLY recommending 2 years is irresponsible on the Republicans' side, though I guess compromise is better than nothing).
Social Security is the same thing. Quite frankly, the liberals should just keep their mouths shut and their constituency would automatically grow. However, it's these tough decisions that we need our leaders to pay attention to.
They just did. Not as low as you or I might like, but the current bill recommended by committee is a cut, or "compromise."
"Well, you tell him that I don't talk to suckas."
since you're begging... what thoughts and rethoughts would you like me to expound upon? are you saying that the students and teachers werent courageous? or are you saying that "croc tears" obama is courageous?
168 children
231 children
921 children
Begging am I? You sure do live in your own world.
"...I changed by not changing at all..."
During his first term, we watched him inexplicably water down his health reform program before it even got started, removing the option of a Canadian-style state-run insurance program known as “single-payer” from consideration, and then cutting deals with the insurance industry, the hospital industry and the pharmaceutical industry, before going to Congress with a plan that ended up being a gift to all three.
We watched him cave early on in negotiations over a crisis economic stimulus plan in 2009, giving Republicans a $425-billion tax cut that did nothing to boost jobs in return for getting a measly $425-billion in stimulus funding approved. He caved quickly too on the plan to appoint Elizabeth Warren to head the newly created Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection. The list of Obama premature cave-ins is long and ugly.
Now, when he is almost by accident in an unassailable position to have the hugely unfair and damaging Bush tax cuts for the rich finally expire on December 31, leaving Republicans stuck in January with having to pass Democratic legislation restoring tax cuts for just the middle class, he is giving it away, offering gratis an undermining of Social Security benefits for all Americans by way of a subtle change in the way inflation adjustments are made in future benefits.
There is, as the president surely knows, no real crisis in letting the country go “over” the so-called fiscal cliff. Every expert and every politician knows that when that happens, it is not, despite what the scare-mongering talking heads in the media say, going to raise everyone’s taxes. No politician in Washington would dare to let that happen. They will simply pass a tax bill restoring the Bush tax cuts for people with incomes under $250,000.
There would be no majority vote for restoring tax cuts for the rich, though, which have been costing the US Treasury over $70 billion a year for the past decade -- an amount of revenue more than enough, if applied to the Social Security program, to keep it fully funded into the indefinite future.
As strong as the president’s bargaining position is today, it would be ten times stronger after December 31, because Republicans could no longer hold middle class tax cuts hostage in order to cut taxes for the rich.
"...I changed by not changing at all..."
Right, he'd need a republican congress and a dot com boom (before bust).
Clinton killed 500,000 Iraqi children, Obama probably only killed say about 2,000 children worldwide, not counting (indirectly) of course Palestinian children killed by Israel. Even if they counted (which they don't) the number would still only be say 5,000 worldwide children killed. Obama will never catch him, only time will tell how many Iranian children will be killed due to sanctions, but I doubt it will be near 500,000.
I enjoyed the part of Clinton's autobiography where he described sitting around the situation room and rejecting battle plans because they did not kill enough Iraqi children. Eventually he said, "Screw it, I'll just do it myself."
:roll:
"...I changed by not changing at all..."
I enjoyed the part of Clinton's autobiography where he described sitting around the situation room and rejecting battle plans because they did not kill enough Iraqi children. Eventually he said, "Screw it, I'll just do it myself."
you probably enjoyed this also...knee slapper
When Clinton was president, his secretary of state, Madeline Albright, was questioned by Lesley Stahl on 60 minutes about the effect of US inspired sanctions on Iraq: “We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that’s more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?” Secretary of State Albright calmly responded: “I think this is a very hard choice, but the price–we think the price is worth it.”
(who is the "we" she is referring to when she says "...we think the price is worth it.”
And who is the source when Lesley Stahl says "We have heard..."?
"...I changed by not changing at all..."
Estimates of excess deaths during sanctions vary depending on the source. The estimates vary [28][35] due to differences in methodologies, and specific time-frames covered.[36] A short listing of estimates follows:
Unicef: 500,000 children (including sanctions, collateral effects of war). "[As of 1999] [c]hildren under 5 years of age are dying at more than twice the rate they were ten years ago."[28][37]
Former U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator in Iraq Denis Halliday: "Two hundred thirty-nine thousand children 5 years old and under" as of 1998.[38]
"probably ... 170,000 children", Project on Defense Alternatives, "The Wages of War", 20. October 2003[39]
350,000 excess deaths among children "even using conservative estimates", Slate Explainer, "Are 1 Million Children Dying in Iraq?", 9. October 2001.[40]
Economist Michael Spagat: "very likely to be [less than] than half a million children" because estimation efforts are unable to isolate the effects of sanctions alone due to the lack of "anything resembling a controlled experiment",[41] and "one potential explanation" for the statistics showing a decline in child mortality was that "they were not real, but rather results of manipulations by the Iraqi government."[41]
"Richard Garfield, a Columbia University nursing professor ... cited the figures 345,000-530,000 for the entire 1990-2002 period"[42] for sanctions-related excess deaths.[43]
Zaidi, S. and Fawzi, M. C. S., (1995) The Lancet British medical journal: 567,000 children.[44] A co-author (Zaidi) did a follow-up study in 1996, finding "much lower ... mortality rates ... for unknown reasons."[45]
Iraq expert Amatzia Baram compared the country’s population growth rates over several censuses and found there to be almost no difference in the rate of Iraq’s population growth between 1977 and 1987 (35.8 percent), and between 1987 and 1997 (35.1 percent), suggesting a much lower total.[46]
Infant and child death rates
Iraq's infant and child survival rates fell after sanctions were imposed.
A May 25, 2000 BBC article[47] reported that before Iraq sanctions were imposed by the UN in 1990, infant mortality had "fallen to 47 per 1,000 live births between 1984 and 1989. This compares to approximately 7 per 1,000 in the UK." The BBC article was reporting from a study of the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, titled "Sanctions and childhood mortality in Iraq", that was published in the May 2000 Lancet medical journal.[48] The study concluded that in southern and central Iraq, infant mortality rate between 1994 and 1999 had risen to 108 per 1,000. Child mortality rate, which refers to children between the age of one and five years, also drastically inclined from 56 to 131 per 1,000.[47] In the autonomous northern region during the same period, infant mortality declined from 64 to 59 per 1000 and under-5 mortality fell from 80 to 72 per 1000, which was attributed to better food and resource allocation.
The Lancet publication[48] was the result of two separate surveys by UNICEF[28] between February and May 1999 in partnership with the local authorities and with technical support by the WHO. "The large sample sizes - nearly 24,000 households randomly selected from all governorates in the south and center of Iraq and 16,000 from the north - helped to ensure that the margin of error for child mortality in both surveys was low," UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy said.[28]
In the spring of 2000 a U.S. Congressional letter demanding the lifting of the sanctions garnered 71 signatures, while House Democratic Whip David Bonior called the economic sanctions against Iraq "infanticide masquerading as policy."[49]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanctions_against_Iraq
croc tears!!! thats some funny shit isnt it!!!
(anyway we are getting off the topic of the "Concession King") anyone who would like to further explore and discuss which president has the most "child kills" should probably start a new thread
I think we can pick apart the foreign policy decisions of every American President if we try hard enough and look at it from enough angles. But each of them, regardless of party, has been forced to make tough decisions on a daily basis most of us cannot imagine having to make.
"...I changed by not changing at all..."
1. totally off topic
2. thats not my source, thats what I believe Leslie Stahl was referring to...