Showing posts with label rep mike pence r IN. Show all posts

07 April 2011

UPDATES ON FED BUDGET TALKS; Government Shutdown: Obama Announces Progress But No Budget Deal After White House Meeting 7APR11

THE latest from HuffPost on the budget talks for today, click the links for full articles posted, click the header to go to HuffPost for the full story from this past week. ESPECIALLY ENLIGHTENING IS rep mike pence's SLIP OF THE (FORKED) TONGUE.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- With time growing short, President Barack Obama said Wednesday night that he remains confident that a government shutdown can be avoided this weekend if negotiators can build on constructive talks held at the White House.
(SCROLL DOWN FOR UPDATES)
Differences remain despite the progress, but Obama announced that talks would continue through the night in hopes of avoiding a government shutdown this weekend.
"It's going to require a sufficient sense of urgency," Obama said, "to complete a deal and get it passed and avert a shutdown."
Obama emerged before reporters to declare his differences with the House Republicans were narrowing but that both sides were still stuck in an impasse.
"I thought the meetings were frank, they were constructive, and what they did was narrow the issues and clarify the issues that are still outstanding," Obama said. "I remain confident that if we're serious about getting something done, we should be able to complete a deal and get it passed and avert a shutdown. But it's going to require a sufficient sense of urgency from all parties involved.'"`
After the White House session, Boehner said, "We did have a productive conversation this evening. We do have some honest differences, but I do think we made some progress. But I want to reiterate: There is no agreement on a number and there's no agreement on the policy matters. But there's an attempt on both sides to continue to work together to try to resolve this."

The pressure built Wednesday as Boehner announced House Republicans would approve a stopgap spending bill blending $12 billion in new domestic spending cuts with the full-year Pentagon budget as the price for keeping the government open for another week.
Boehner's move appeared aimed at shifting political blame if a shutdown occurs, but it angered Democrats who felt that talks were progressing.
"I think this is the responsible thing to do for the U.S. Congress, and I would hope the Senate can pass it and the president can sign it into law," Boehner said.
He also criticized Obama, though saying he likes the commander in chief personally. "The president isn't leading," Boehner said. "He didn't lead on last year's budget, and he's not leading on this year's budget."
Obama has already ruled out the weeklong measure Republicans intend to push through the House, and Senate Democrats have labeled it a non-starter. Republican officials said the details of the bill could yet change. But passage of any interim measure is designed to place the onus on the Democratic-controlled Senate to act if a shutdown is to be avoided.

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Today 11:06 AM Details On Wednesday Night's Budget Negotiations

HuffPost's Sam Stein reports:
WASHINGTON -- Congressional and Obama administration negotiators worked at the White House until nearly 2 a.m Thursday morning in an effort to finalize a budget deal that would stave off a government shutdown.
But while top aides to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) -- alongside the White House's director of legislative affairs, Rob Nabors -- were able to come to a closer understanding about the size of spending cuts, a major dispute remains over what type of policy amendments will be allowed in the final bill.
According to a top-ranking Democratic aide, the three parties met last night at the White House for about three and a half hours after President Barack Obama, Reid and Boehner held talks of their own.
The negotiations were productive, the aide said. Democrats agreed to add roughly $1.5 billion in spending cuts to the $33 billion to which they had already agreed. In exchange, they were told that the overall package of cuts would be restructured, with $3 billion in savings drawn from Pentagon spending rather than discretionary programs -- a priority for the Democratic negotiators, the aide said.
The forward movement ended there, however. Boehner spokesman Michael Steel stressed on Thursday morning that "there is no agreement on spending cuts." He also added that the two sides remained apart on policy issues.
Read the full report here.

Today 11:03 AM WATCH: Rep. Pence Slips, Says Trying To Score A Victory For Republicans

According to ThinkProgress, last night, Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN) slipped in explaining his position on funding the federal government to Fox News. Pence told host Greta Van Susteren, "we’re trying — we’re trying to score a victory for the Republican people, for — for the American — for the Republican people — trying to score a victory for the American people, not for the Republican Party."
More here.
WATCH:

Today 10:49 AM Boehner: Members Of Congress Shouldn't Be Paid During A Shutdown

George Stephanopoulos of ABC's "Good Morning America" spoke to Speaker Boehner about a possible government shutdown. During one point in the interview, Boehner made the following comment:

Stephanopoulos: You’re saying you don’t want members of Congress to be paid during a shutdown, if it comes to pass?Boehner: No, they shouldn’t be getting paid. Just like federal employees shouldn’t be getting paid.

Read the full interview transcript here.

Today 10:36 AM Government Agency Shutdown Plans

The Washington Post has provided a list of government agency shutdown plans. The list includes instructions to employees of various agencies, should a government shutdown occur.
For example, here is an excerpt from Interior Department Press Secretary Kendra Barkoff's statement:

We still believe that there is the opportunity for Congress to avoid a government shutdown, but are working to prepare for all possible scenarios.Visitors and potential visitors to national parks, wildlife refuges, and other public lands should be advised that, in the event of a government shutdown, the National Park Service, Fish and Wildlife Service and Bureau of Land Management will close and secure park, refuge and visitor facilities on public lands.

View the list here.

Today 10:17 AM White House Announces Another Meeting With House Speaker Boehner and Majority Leader Reid

HuffPost's Sam Stein writes:
The White House announced on Thursday morning that the President and the Vice President would host another meeting with House Speaker Boehner and Majority Leader Reid at 1 p.m. to hammer out a deal on the budget.
The meeting, announced by Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer, comes after the same parties held discussions on the budget late into Wednesday night with no obvious resolution. The plan was for talks to continue through the night with the option to host another White House meeting if need be. On Thursday morning, Reid took to the floor and said he was less optimistic about the state of talks than he was “11 hours ago,” suggesting that this 1:00 p.m. meeting is the final gasp for negotiators.

Today 10:14 AM Sen. Reid On Government Shutdown: 'It Looks Like It's Headed In That Direction'

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) says on the Senate floor, regarding a government shutdown, "It looks like it's headed in that direction..."
Watch live on C-SPAN 2.

Today 10:07 AM Sen. Reid: 'The Only Thing Holding Up An Agreement Is Ideology'

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) says on the Senate floor, "The numbers are basically there." But, after a night of working, he says, "I'm not nearly as optimistic as I was 11 hours ago."
He goes on to state, "The only thing holding up an agreement is ideology." Watch live on CSPAN-2.

Today 9:57 AM Senator Reid To Offer Update On Budget Negotiations At 10am (ET)

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is expected to deliver an update on budget negotiations at 10am (ET) on the Senate Floor. CSPAN2 will be streaming the update live. Watch here.

Today 9:50 AM Lobbyists See More Work As Possible Shutdown Approaches

Roll Call reports that as Washington braces for a possible government shutdown, lobbyists are busy as ever.

“Everything’s kicked up a notch,” said Jack Howard, a lobbyist with Wexler & Walker Public Policy Associates and a former top aide to then-Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) during the last government shutdowns in the mid-1990s. “I find myself spending a lot more time with the Speaker’s office, [Senate Minority Leader] Mitch McConnell’s office. In situations like this, most decisions get elevated to leadership levels.”Howard’s clients, which include major airlines and energy companies, started calling Monday as they realized just how real the budget impasse on Capitol Hill had become. And it seems just about every business that has some involvement with the government has taken notice. Even companies whose public policy agendas rarely concern the federal budget have become intensely interested in the appropriations process.
“I really didn’t think they were going to get to this point, but in the last 24 hours it’s all anybody’s been talking about,” said Melissa Schulman, a lobbyist with the Bockorny Group. “I have a client that is coming in for some pretty important meetings next week. Their tickets are bought. What are these people supposed to do? We can’t go meet with a government that’s shut down.”

31 December 2010

The Year of the Big Lie: 6 Outrageous Falsehoods That Took Flight in 2010 31DEZ10

Thank God for media organizations like AlterNet and Mother Jones and PolitiFact and Salon and Politico, organizations committed to truth in reporting, not afraid to challenge and report on the shenanigans of the left and right.

From Breitbart's smear of Shirley Sherrod to Glenn Beck's use of Mein Kampf to malign George Soros, right-wing and mainstream media embrace the Big Lie.

In a political year dominated by tales of polarization, a flurry of themes emerged as I contemplated the year just past -- the year of the Tea Party, the year that psycho became the new normal (Glenn Beck), the year in which info leaks rocked the world (WikiLeaks), the year that saw accomplishments defying conventional wisdom (Obama). But at the root of all of these themes lies the Lie; all other themes speak to either its advancement or in its defiance.
In the politics of 2010, the Big Lie, in both its gigantic and more attenuated forms, was almost always deployed in the service of corporations. It may not be so obvious at the surface, especially when the Lie dubs the nation's first black president a racist, or labels a Jewish holocaust survivor an anti-Semite, but the ultimate aim of the Lie in these contexts is to discredit purveyors of ideas and policies that certain corporate leaders and shills find threatening to their quest for all the world's riches.
What follows is a mere sampling of some of the defining lies of 2010, not presented in any particular order of importance, for they're all of a piece.
The Big Lie
The Big Lie theory goes like this: A gigantic, audacious lie is more likely to be believed by the masses than a small one if it is repeated often enough. First articulated in the pages of Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler (who attributed the practice, of course, to Jews) and deployed as a tactic by Nazi master propagandist Joseph Goebbels, the Big Lie went mainstream in 2010, as its propagators on the Right were accepted by big media as respectable articulators of a legitimate point of view. These include Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., and numerous other Republican officials and Tea Party leaders who, in our first Big Lie, refer to the 2010 passage of health-care reform legislation as "a government takeover of health care." The non-partisan PolitiFact.com named this assertion the lie of the year -- an award that will likely have no impact on the issue's framing, since media figures generally fail to challenge the assertion when it's made.
Sometimes Big Lies are personal, targeting a figure whose appearance or background plays to the prejudices of a particular constituency. An attempt to lay just one such Big Lie to rest finds Neil Abercrombie, the newly elected Democratic governor of Hawaii, seeking to release data on the birth of President Barack Obama in his state 49 years ago in an effort to appease birthers -- those who have bought into the lie that Obama was born in Africa, not America, which would make him ineligible for the presidency. Really, Abercrombie needn't bother: the Tea Partiers who doubt the president's birthright will never be satisfied with any level of proof. They're far too invested in the lie.
Perhaps that's why Andrew Breitbart, the right-wing Web site impresario, author of our second Big Lie of the year, thought he could get away with targeting an unknown U.S. Department of Agriculture official, Shirley Sherrod, through the creative editing of a video taken of Sherrod's remarks to a local NAACP gathering.
Brietbart was ripping mad when the NAACP passed a resolution at its national convention that called on Tea Party leaders to repudiate racism within its ranks. The clip was edited to convey the opposite message of Sherrod's remarks, which addressed how she overcame her own prejudice against a white farmer she assisted in the course of her job duties. But before Breitbart's lie was exposed, the Obama administration fired Sherrod (who was later offered another job at USDA). The story immediately became about the video clip as Breitbart presented it, and Sherrod's firing. It wasn’t until the next day that the Lie was exposed.
Breitbart himself demonstrated little chagrin at having posted a distorted view of Sherrod's remarks -- after all, he had achieved much of his desired result: damage to the Obama administration. In rushing to fire Sherrod before an investigation could even begin, the administration signaled that Breitbart's Lie was truth.
In essence, Breitbart's Big Lie was of a particular sort: those designed to prove that one's opponent is guilty of the same sin of which your side stands accused. From the early days of the Tea Party movement in 2009, aided by Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh, there's been a concerted attempt to paint Obama as a racist, a black man with "a deep-seated hatred for white people," in Beck's words. As a representative of the Obama administration and a speaker at an NAACP event, the Sherrod clip, had it not been exposed as a misrepresentation, would have killed two birds with one stone. Yet, even thus exposed, Breitbart remains an influential figure, the incident simply plowed, in an oily heap, to the side of the highway of hatred he travels.
Glenn Beck, of course, is the master of the Big Lie. That each lie Beck tells is more outrageous than the next does nothing to impede his success: in fact, his outrageousness fuels his success. Just last month, marking Big Lie number three for our purposes, Beck falsely accused the liberal financier George Soros of being a Nazi collaborator during World War II, when in fact, the Jewish Soros is a Holocaust survivor. In a three-part series on Soros, Beck framed his attack in language drawn from Hitler's Mein Kampf, calling his series "The Puppet Master," and referring to Soros as a "bloodsucker." While this caused great consternation in the progressive media world, protests in the world of mainstream media were not sustained enough to force Beck from his perch at Fox News, where he serves as community organizer for Rupert Murdoch, CEO of News Corporation, Fox's parent company.
Having made health-care reform his signature issue, Obama was ripe for this kind of attack from the likes of David Koch, the billionaire who founded Americans For Prosperity and FreedomWorks, which have actively promoted the Lie that Obama's insurance-company-friendly reform actually amounts to a government takeover of the health-care system. Like Murdoch, who is also a billionaire, Koch opposes government regulation of any kind -- be it of the health-care industry, the energy industry or the financial sector. Koch also happens to be a top executive at Koch Industries, the company founded by his father, a founder of the John Birch Society, that is rooted in the oil and gas sectors.
George Soros is also a billionaire, but one who favors government regulation, and puts his billions to work in the non-profit sector to fund organizations that support liberal efforts to regulate industry. So Soros became a prime target of the Big Lie.
The Little Big Lie
Perhaps the most pernicious outcome of society's resignation in 2010 to a media landscape blanketed by the Big Big Lie is the proliferation of smaller Big Lies which, taken in the context of enormous Big Lies, come to be seen as not such big deals. Take, for instance, Big Lie number four: the assertion by Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., founder of the House Tea Party Caucus, that Obama's recent trip to India was costing American taxpayers $200 million per day. Media dutifully quoted Bachmann's lie, some even noting that there was no evidence to support it. The media's interest sustained only as much as a 24-hour news cycle would allow. Just another instance of Bachmann being Bachmann.
Or take, for instance, the right-wing trope -- Big Lie number four -- that Obama cannot speak without a teleprompter, that he uses the teleprompter far more often than his predecessor, the verbally challenged George W. Bush. It matters not that Obama has proven, at news conference after news conference, that he does quite well answering questions off the cuff, or that his use of the teleprompter is on a par with that of previous presidents. In January 2010, Obama so deftly fielded questions lobbed at him by members of Congress at a Republican retreat that party leaders conceded it had been bad strategy for their side to allow the exchange to be televised. Yet Tea Partiers remain convinced that the black president is too stupid to speak without a machine scrolling text presumably written by white staffers.
And, coming in just under the wire for 2010 after having been an ongoing 2009 theme, thanks to Sarah Palin, is Big Lie number six: the notion that voluntary counseling for end-of-life care that is reimbursed by Medicare amounts to a government "death panel" designed to "pull the plug on Grandma."
The Media's Role
No Big Lie strategy can work without the dissemination of the Lie by mainstream media and in this regard, the media have been exemplary -- not in a wittingly conspiratorial way, but in a, gee-these-sensational-claims-will-really-boost-our-ratings kind of a way. After all, they too have corporate masters to serve.
The success of the whole Big Lie scheme, it seems, works here on something of a paradox. The rise of right-wing media, which is always the amplifier -- if not the creator -- of such claims, came to pass because of the distrust of mainstream media by a sizable chunk of the American public. However much that distrust existed throughout the history of the republic, it really picked up steam once network news was removed from its role, in the 1970s and '80s, as a public service provided by media entities that use public resources -- the airwaves -- as the vehicle for reaping profits, and news programs were made into profit centers by the corporations that owned the networks.
For their part, conservative personalities played on the jingoism of their adherents, especially during the Vietnam War, to claim that the media were hopelessly liberal in their bias, since they were reporting news that turned the American people against the war -- news, incidentally, that often exposed government lies about body counts and the ostensible success of the war. Daniel Ellsberg's historic leak of the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times brought such falsehoods into brutal relief, much as WikiLeaks did earlier this year with its release of communications and classified video from the war in Afghanistan.
Since the end of the Vietnam War, mainstream news producers and editors have been on the defensive, always needing to prove they're not biased toward liberals. This leads many mainstream outlets to pick up and amplify the themes advanced in right-wing media, while giving little play to those advanced in progressive media. Aiding this process is the fact that the messaging shops of the Right are more adept at framing issues in pithy and emotional ways.
Take the term "death panels." I'll bet you're thinking, what's that doing in a 2010 year-end piece? That's so 2009. Think again. Just this week, the term resurfaced with a vengeance when the New York Times reported that the Obama administration, having failed to win inclusion of coverage for end-of-life counseling in the health-care reform legislation that passed in March (largely thanks to the Right's death-panel framing), is changing Medicare regulations so that doctors will be reimbursed for offering the counseling.
In a segment of "Anderson Cooper 360" that aired on CNN this week, the introductory piece leading into a discussion of the new rules included, in the course of less than four minutes, nine mentions of the phrase "death panel" by the guest host and in clips of politicians discussing the subject (h/t, AlterNet SpeakEasy blogger Linda Milazzo). The graphic for the story read: "'Death Panel' Resurrection."
Congratulations, CNN. You are an accessory to the Big Lie.
Note that CNN is owned by AOL/Time Warner.
And take the postscript to the Breitbart/Sherrod episode. Was Andrew Breitbart hounded out of the polite company of mainstream media? Hardly. He was hired by ABC News to provide commentary on the midterm elections -- a deal that was canceled only after public outcry from media watchdogs.
Note that ABC News is owned by the Disney Corporation.
Newspapers are hardly immune to the pressures of the Big Lie, which often turns up in nuanced ways. In the final days of the battle for health-care reform, USA Today ran a front-page story headlined "Health care law too costly, most say."
Pounded by right-wing messengers, the conventional wisdom in Washington was that there was no public support for an optional public health-care plan, despite ample polling showing that indeed a majority of Americans supported a public option.
In fact, the very USA Today/Gallup poll on which that poll was based revealed continued majority support for a public option -- a fact that was mentioned nowhere in the text of the piece, but appeared only in a tiny graphic that ran alongside the text. Without stating the reasons that two-thirds of Americans thought the plan too costly, USA Today reporter Susan Page never articulated the fact that many of those Americans likely thought the law too expensive in light of the fact that it did not offer a publicly financed health-care plan, thus reinforcing the right's Big Lie.
Note that USA Today is owned by the Gannett Co., Inc., which owns 100 media entities, including newspapers and television stations.
All of the corporations mentioned here as parent companies of media outlets are publicly traded -- hence the lack of accountability to anybody other than shareholders. The axiom at local news stations has long been, "If it bleeds, it leads." Murder and mayhem hold the attention of viewers. In the world of mainstream national news, there's a new axiom taking hold: "If it lies, it flies" -- as long as the Lie is sensational enough to keep viewers tuned in. And the Right is genius at turning out just those sorts of lies.
Because the Big Lie relies not on facts for its impact, but the counter-factual, it cannot be refuted by empirical data. If progressives are to thwart the momentum of the Big Lie's suffocating expansion, they must offer a viable counter-narrative -- stories that speak to people's souls, emotions and experiences -- something more than a raft of facts and policy solutions. We know the true story of our people. We must learn how to tell it.

03 December 2010

American exceptionalism: an old idea and a new political battle from WASHPOST 29NOV10

THE sad fact is the gop and tea-baggers are violating the 9th commandment, "thou shall no bear false witness against thy neighbor" in their hypocritical attacks on Pres Obama on God and religion in America and the concept of American exceptionalism. What god, what supreme being, approves of it's followers resorting to lies, deception, manipulation and propaganda to promote belief in that faith? What articles of faith, what teachings of Christianity, tell believers to lie about another to promote Christianity? Consider this aspect of all the criticism of President Obama's position on American exceptionalism, and what his real position is, and one can only conclude all the "religious" critics don't have a moral, a Christian leg to stand on. See the SPEECHES page on this blog for Pres Obama's 2004 Democratic National Convention speech (text and video).

By Karen Tumulty
Washington Post Staff Writer

Is this a great country or what?
"American exceptionalism" is a phrase that, until recently, was rarely heard outside the confines of think tanks, opinion journals and university history departments.
But with Republicans and tea party activists accusing President Obama and the Democrats of turning the country toward socialism, the idea that the United States is inherently superior to the world's other nations has become the battle cry from a new front in the ongoing culture wars. Lately, it seems to be on the lips of just about every Republican who is giving any thought to running for president in 2012.
"This reorientation away from a celebration of American exceptionalism is misguided and bankrupt," former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney writes in his campaign setup book, "No Apology: The Case For American Greatness."
On Monday, Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.), who is also considering a White House bid, is scheduled to address the Detroit Economic Club on "Restoring American Exceptionalism: A Vision for Economic Growth and Prosperity."
For former Alaska governor Sarah Palin, the concept is a frequent theme in her speeches, Facebook postings, tweets and appearances on Fox News Channel. Her just-published book, "America by Heart," has a chapter titled "America the Exceptional."
Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker, contends in his speeches that Obama's views on the subject are "truly alarming."
In an interview in August with Politico, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee went so far as to declare of Obama: "His worldview is dramatically different than any president, Republican or Democrat, we've had. . . . To deny American exceptionalism is in essence to deny the heart and soul of this nation."
And last week, Rick Santorum, the former senator from Pennsylvania, told a group of College Republicans at American University: "Don't kid yourself with the lie. America is exceptional, and Americans are concerned that there are a group of people in Washington who don't believe that any more."
Some, however, wonder whether Obama's conservative critics are sounding an alarm about the United States' place in the world - or making an insidious suggestion about the president himself.
With a more intellectual sheen than the false assertions that Obama is secretly a Muslim or that he was born in Kenya, an argument over American exceptionalism "is a respectable way of raising the question of whether Obama is one of us," said William Galston, a former policy adviser to President Bill Clinton who is now a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.
Much of this criticism harkens back to a single comment that Obama made at a news conference a year and a half ago in Strasbourg, France, during his first trip overseas as president.
Obama was asked by Financial Times correspondent Ed Luce whether he subscribes, as his predecessors did, "to the school of American exceptionalism that sees America as uniquely qualified to lead the world."
The president's answer began: "I believe in American exceptionalism, just as I suspect that the Brits believe in British exceptionalism and the Greeks believe in Greek exceptionalism."
That may have been a nod to the fact that many abroad hear talk of American exceptionalism as worrisome jingoism. But it provided ammunition for Palin and other Republican critics.
"Maybe President Obama grew up around coaches who insisted that all the players receive participation 'trophies' at the end of the season and where no score was kept in youth soccer games for fear of offending someone," she wrote in her book. " . . . when President Obama insists that all countries are exceptional, he's saying that none is, least of all the country he leads."
At a minimum, Obama's comment reflected "casual staff work. Let's put it that way," said James Q. Wilson, an influential conservative thinker who has written extensively about American exceptionalism. "He did not understand how Americans feel about this."
But while the opening sentence of Obama's answer sounded dismissive, the president's full statement was more complex than that - and was indeed an affirmation of American exceptionalism, although arguably a qualified one.
In addition to the world's largest economy and its mightiest military, Obama said, "we have a core set of values that are enshrined in our Constitution, in our body of law, in our democratic practices, in our belief in free speech and equality, that, though imperfect, are exceptional."
He added: "I see no contradiction between believing that America has a continued extraordinary role in leading the world towards peace and prosperity and recognizing that leadership is incumbent, depends on, our ability to create partnerships because we can't solve these problems alone."
Obama was placing the concept in the context of his view that the United States must enter what he has called "a new era of engagement."
His Republican critics do have a point, Galston said: Democrats have become more squeamish about the idea of exceptionalism in the wake of the George W. Bush years, when spreading American values was used as a justification for unilateral action on the world stage.
"For many liberal Democrats, George W. Bush made the world unsafe for the vigorous assertion of American exceptionalism," Galston said.
But while Obama's statement - made on foreign soil - was about how the idea applies to this country's global role, the concept of exceptionalism also speaks to Americans' beliefs about the size, role and scope of their own government.
"The nation's ideology can be described in five words: liberty, egalitarianism, individualism, populism, and laissez faire," wrote the late political sociologist Seymour Martin Lipset, one of the leading scholars of the subject.
Indeed, exceptionalism has often been employed to explain "why the United States is the only industrialized country which does not have a significant socialist movement or Labor party," Lipset wrote.
The proposition of American exceptionalism, which goes at least as far back as the writing of French aristocrat and historian Alexis de Tocqueville in the 1830s, asserts that this country has a unique character.
It is also rooted in religious belief. A recent survey by the Public Religion Research Institute and the Brookings Institution found that 58 percent of Americans agreed with the statement: "God has granted America a special role in human history."
Gingrich says Obama fails to understand that "American exceptionalism refers directly to the grant of rights asserted in the Declaration of Independence," and that it is a term "which relates directly to our unique assertion of an unprecedented set of rights granted by God."
But White House communications director Dan Pfeiffer noted that Obama has declared exactly that on many occasions - including in his speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, the moment that first brought the then-Illinois state senator to national attention.
"Tonight, we gather to affirm the greatness of our nation not because of the height of our skyscrapers, or the power of our military, or the size of our economy; our pride is based on a very simple premise, summed up in a declaration made over 200 years ago," Obama told the delegates in Boston. " 'We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.' That is the true genius of America."
Pfeiffer contended that the new criticism of Obama on the subject says more about the race for the Republican presidential nomination than anything else.
The GOP contenders know that this kind of argument - with its suggestion that Obama is undermining American values - was "a huge piece of what Sarah Palin did in 2008," Pfeiffer said. "They want a little bit of Sarah Palin magic, because she has a lot of enthusiasm and support among the base."
Research editor Alice Crites contributed to this report.

11 November 2010

Mike Pence says raising taxes lowers tax revenues ....FALSE! from POLITIFACT 7NOV10

REP mike pence (r-IN), loud mouth liar for Republicorp and the greedy wealthy corporation and individuals in this country, caught again lying about taxing the rich, the deficit and entitlement programs. This from PolitiFact

"Anybody who is familiar with the historical data from the IRS knows that raising income tax rates will likely actually reduce federal revenues."

Mike Pence on Sunday, November 7th, 2010 in an interview on "This Week with Christiane Amanpour."
"To recap, Pence said that, "Anybody who is familiar with the historical data from the IRS knows that raising income tax rates will likely actually reduce federal revenues." Actually, the historical data doesn't show that. Experts said the economic theory Pence is drawing from doesn't apply in the current situation, and an increase in tax rates would not cause tax revenues to decline. So we rate his statement False. "

On one side, we have David Stockman, the budget director for President Ronald Reagan. On the other, it's Rep. Mike Pence, the conservative Indiana Republican and potential presidential candidate. The venue: This Week with Christiane Amanpour. The topic: What's worse, raising taxes or letting the deficit run wild?

Stockman said the deficit could ruin the country and savaged the Republican Party's refusal to consider tax increases. "Both parties, unfortunately, became free lunch parties, the Republicans cutting taxes every time they had a chance, never doing anything about spending, and the Democrats digging in to defend everything that was there," Stockman said. "As a result, we now have this massive deficit. ... This will not end well. It's going to end in a disaster."

Pence agreed that Republicans had wrongly allowed spending to increase during the George W. Bush administration but said that Republicans were now more committed to reducing government.

"We think we ought to go back to pre-stimulus, pre-bailout levels, and freeze there," Pence said. "There's been an 84 percent increase in domestic spending since this administration took office. We've got to roll back there. That will save $100 billion in the first year. How about a net hiring freeze on Capitol Hill? ... For Americans under the age of 40, we've got to put everything on the table in the area of Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security. We have got to reform these entitlement programs. They are threatening the fiscal vitality of future generations of Americans."

Not good enough, said Stockman: "Social Security needs to be means-tested right now, not for benefits in 2030, right now, for the top one-third of beneficiaries who have private income that they've earned over their lifetime. We need to drastically scale back Medicare. And the Republicans expanded it. And I appreciate what Mike is saying, but there's no track record of a willingness to take on the doctors, the pharmaceutical companies, the scooter chair manufacturers, who are everywhere. (And) we need to take on defense ... We can't be the policemen of the world anymore because we can't afford it. We're going to have to cut defense drastically. And that isn't just fraud, waste and abuse. It's force structure, fewer divisions, fewer aircraft carriers. And even if we do all that, we still have to raise revenue."

Raising revenue means a tax increase, which Pence said was a bad idea. And Pence further argued that a tax increase wouldn't help anyway: "David believes that every tax increase equals a revenue increase, but that's not true. Anybody who is familiar with the historical data from the IRS knows that raising income tax rates will likely actually reduce federal revenues."

That's what caught our attention as fact-checkers. How can raising taxes not raise money? And does the historical data really show that?

First, we should note that if you take Pence's statement at its most literal, it's not correct. The Internal Revenue Service has published detailed tables of tax collections, and they go up almost every year. They went up after tax increases passed in 1990 and 1993, and, when taxes were cut in 2001, collections dropped. But it's a bit more complicated than that.

If you're not an economist, it sounds counterintuitive to claim that raising taxes gets you less money, but there is some logic behind the theory. You have to start with the idea that government can tax people so much that it creates a disincentive to work. Let's start with an extreme: If you tax people at 100 percent -- which means you'd take all of their income -- people quit their jobs, and you'd get zero dollars in taxes. And rates that are close to 100 percent create similar disincentives. Back in 1980, for example, tax rates were much higher than they are now, with marginal tax rates on the highest incomes at 70 percent. Today, the top rate is half that -- 35 percent.

During the Reagan years, economists postulated that you could cut that top rate, which would stoke economic activity and produce more tax revenues. (You might remember terms such as supply-side economics or the Laffer curve that offer explanations for the theory.) And this seems to be where Pence is coming from. During the 1980s, Reagan cut taxes, and tax revenues did go up almost every year.

But we consulted the tax experts, who told us you can't just look at the raw numbers, for several reasons. First, you should expect tax revenues to go up each year due to economic growth and inflation, even if tax rates stayed the same. Second, there's not a straight line between tax rates and tax revenues. You can raise taxes the same year the economy tanks and get less revenue, or you can cut taxes during a time of economic growth and get more revenue. And those changes in the economy aren't necessarily caused by what the government is doing with tax rates -- the upturns could be due to new inventions and innovations, and the downturns could result from financial panics and real estate bubbles that have little to do with tax rates. And economists have to go to quite a bit of trouble to separate out the effects of tax policy from other things happening in the world.

We also consulted a 2006 Treasury Department report that examined the revenue effects of major tax law changes since World War II. The report examined tax revenues generated by various tax law changes as a percentage of the Gross Domestic Product, a measurement that accounts for economic growth and inflation. The laws that reduced tax rates produced declines in revenues, and the laws that increased tax rates produced increases in tax revenues. So this too contradicts Pence's claim.

Interestingly, Stockman agreed with a little bit of Pence's underlying assumption that increases in taxes can inhibit economic growth. But he disagreed that tax revenues would decrease if the government raised taxes. "I just have to respectfully disagree," Stockman said. "You will have some loss of revenue because some activity or transactions won't happen, but if you raise taxes on paper by $100 billion, maybe you'll get $90 billion or $85 billion. But it's just common-sense fact that, when you raise the rates, you get more revenue. Normally, it's a bad thing to do. But we are in such dire shape that we have no choice but to accept the negative trade-off of some harm to the economy to start paying our bills."

The tax experts we spoke with agreed with Stockman. In this climate, raising the top tax rates from 35 to 39.6 percent would increase revenues. The effect Pence is talking about would not happen at this level of taxation, they said.

"There is some rate at which it would be true," said Roberton Williams of the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center. "But I don't think there are any established economists who would argue that we're near that."

"At current tax rates, most tax increases will increase revenues, at least in the short and medium run," said Brian Riedl of the conservative Heritage Foundation. "The caveat is that in a fragile economy, it can be unpredictable."

"There is no real dispute among economists that broad-based federal income tax cuts reduce revenue (except when tax rates are much higher than they are now)," said Alan D. Viard of the conservative American Enterprise Institute. "Revenue is lower than it would be without the Bush tax cuts -- liberal and conservative economists are in accord on this question."

To recap, Pence said that, "Anybody who is familiar with the historical data from the IRS knows that raising income tax rates will likely actually reduce federal revenues." Actually, the historical data doesn't show that. Experts said the economic theory Pence is drawing from doesn't apply in the current situation, and an increase in tax rates would not cause tax revenues to decline. So we rate his statement False.

About this statement:

Published: Tuesday, November 9th, 2010 at 4:30 p.m.
Subjects: ABC News 'This Week', Taxes
Sources:
ABC News, "This Week with Christiane Amanpour," Nov. 7, 2010
Internal Revenue Service, Treasury Department Gross Tax Collections: Amount Collected by Quarter and Fiscal Year, 1987 - 2007
The White House Office of Budget and Management, Historical Tables
U.S. Department of the Treasury, Revenue effects of major tax bills, September 2006
The Tax Policy Center, Tax Facts: Historical Amount of Revenue by Source, May 3, 2010
Interview with Roberton Williams of the Tax Policy Center
Interview with Brian Riedl of The Heritage Foundation
E-mail interview with Alan D. Viard of the American Enterprise Institute
The Washington Post, Lower Deficit Sparks Debate Over Tax Cuts' Role, Oct. 17, 2006
The Washington Post, Where does the Laffer curve bend?, Aug. 9, 2010
Tax Policy Lessons of the 2000s, edited by Alan D. Viard
Factcheck.org, "Supply-side Spin", July 11, 2007
The Christian Science Monitor, When taxes rise next year, will the rich avoid them?, June 10, 2010

13 September 2010

Senate GOP Vows To Block Tax Increase 13SEP10

IT is inconceivable to me how this has become a winning position for the republican party. Think about it people, the wealthy are going to continue getting their tax cut while the government has to cut funding for education, fire, police, highway and mass transit construction, unemployment, health care, social welfare (safety net)programs too many are already dependent on due to this recession caused by the failed policies of the bush administration coupled with the cost of two horribly mis-managed wars. In the almost two years of this recession, while the wealthy have been receiving their tax cuts how many jobs have they created with this money? republicans criticize the Stimulus program as a waste, but at least economist of all political stripes agree the Stimulus created a few million jobs.......where are the jobs the republicans claim will be created by the tax cuts for the wealthy? I'll tell you where they are...they are overseas, in corporate America's investment in low wage countries (so go ahead and keep shopping at wal-mart, you'll shop your job away sooner or later). The few jobs the wealthy are creating here are probably going to undocumented immigrants, as their gardeners, maids, nannies, field hands, construction workers (hey, don't blame immigrants, blame the law enforcement agencies and the politicians for not going after the employers). Wake up people, especially you Democrats in Congress, find some backbone and stand up to the republicans greed and force them to proclaim their lies and deception to the American people by forcing a vote to keep the tax cuts for the middle and working classes and the poor and do away with the tax cuts for the wealthy!

President Obama's plan to raise taxes on wealthier people while preserving cuts for everyone else appears increasingly likely to founder before Election Day.
Senate Republicans declared on Monday they have the votes to block legislation that would extend only middle-class tax relief — which Obama has repeatedly promised to deliver — if Democrats follow through on plans to let tax rates rise for the wealthiest Americans. The GOP senators forcefully made their case one day after House Republican leader John Boehner suggested he might vote for Obama's plan if that ends up the only option.
Both Republicans and Democrats are using the looming expiration of Bush-era tax cuts as a defining battle in elections to determine control of Congress.
Democratic defectors could lead to passage of the Republicans' version — extending all the Bush tax cuts — or the issue could be left for a postelection congressional session if the current standoff can't be broken. Obama last week declined to say whether he would veto a bill that preserved the tax breaks for the wealthy.
On Sunday, House GOP leader Boehner said he would support renewing tax cuts for the middle class but not the wealthy if that was his only choice. Though Boehner was clear that he supports extending the full range of tax cuts, the White House jumped on his remarks as a possible change of heart.
But Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona, the GOP whip, said Monday his party won't give ground.
"Just before the recess we had a meeting and we discussed this, and every Republican was absolutely supportive of the idea that there shouldn't be any increases in taxes," Kyl said.
Congressional analysts say renewing the tax cuts for everyone would cost the government $4 trillion over the next decade. With polls showing broad public anger over spiraling federal deficits, Obama wants to exclude individuals earning over $200,000 and couples making over $250,000 — who account for $700 billion of that $4 trillion total. They represent about 3 percent of taxpayers, according to the Tax Policy Center, a Washington think tank.
"Only in Washington could someone propose a tax hike as an antidote to a recession," GOP leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said.
McConnell has said a bill extending the tax cuts for only low- and middle-income earners cannot pass the Senate, but he declined to reiterate that threat on Monday. Republicans control 41 seats, the minimum needed for a successful bill-killing filibuster, though McConnell spokesman Don Stewart declined to say whether all 41 Republicans would support a filibuster.
Some Democrats, like Sens. Kent Conrad of North Dakota, Evan Bayh of Indiana and Ben Nelson of Nebraska, are siding with Republicans against raising taxes on anyone during a fragile economic recovery.
"I don't think it makes sense to raise any federal taxes during the uncertain economy we are struggling through," Sen. Joe Lieberman, a Connecticut independent who aligns with Democrats, said Monday. "The more money we leave in private hands, the quicker our economic recovery will be. And that means I will do everything I can to make sure Congress extends the so-called Bush tax cuts for another year."
But Lieberman said he would not vote to hold up extension of the middle class cuts to win leverage to extend those for wealthier people as well.
At issue is a year-end deadline to renew a variety of tax cuts enacted in 2001 — when the federal government was running a surplus. They include lower rates, a $1,000 per-child tax credit, relief for married couples, and lower taxes on investments and large estates.
Democrats are worried that November elections could hand the GOP control of the House and perhaps the Senate. The White House and its Democratic allies hope to use the tax-cut fight to cast themselves as defenders of the middle class and Republicans as a party eager to revive the days of a still-unpopular former president, George W. Bush.
"We're going to take the next 50-some days to convince the public that's exactly what the Republicans would do — back to the Bush policies," said White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said on NBC's Today show.
"We could get (tax cuts) done this week, but we're still in this wrestling match with John Boehner and Mitch McConnell about the last 2 to 3 percent" of upper-income taxpayers, Obama said Monday during a backyard town hall in a Northern Virginia suburb.
Gibbs said the middle class should not be used as a political football by Republicans maneuvering to give tax cuts to wealthy taxpayers, who he said don't need the reductions. Republicans say paring taxes for the wealthy would encourage them and the businesses they operate to create jobs.
Republicans, for their part, say that it's not just the rich who would be hit by Obama's tax hike on upper-income people. Many small businesses — that earn about half of all small business income — would also face the tax increase.
"No American should face a tax increase in January ... not one," said Indiana Rep. Mike Pence, the No. 3 House Republican. "We will not compromise our economy to accommodate the class warfare rhetoric of this administration."

11 August 2010

FIGHT PLANS TO SLASH SOCIAL SECURITY AND RAISE THE RETIREMENT AGE! 8AUG10 from MOVEON.ORG & Boehner, Pence: Raising Social Security Retirement Age An Option 8AUG10

BE SURE TO READ THE POST ABOUT THE REPUBLICAN (AND COWARDLY DEMOCRATIC) PLANS TO RAISE THE RETIREMENT AGE AND SLASH SOCIAL SECURITY BENEFITS.

Opponents of Social Security are ramping up the fight to cut benefits. Congress can stop it, but they'll only act if they hear from concerned voters back home. Can you sign the petition to tell Congress to protect—not cut—Social Security?

Sign the petition

You can't make this stuff up. The economy is in shambles, unemployment is at record levels and home foreclosures are soaring. Congress can't get it together to act on these issues. But there's growing momentum in Washington to—wait for it—slash Social Security?

Believe it. Republicans are campaigning on benefit cuts. Conservative Democrats like Steny Hoyer are echoing their talking points.¹

Everyone's counting on the Deficit Commission to do the dirty work. The commission is stacked with conservatives who've embraced cutting Social Security, and both houses of congress promised to fast-track a vote on its recommendations.² 3 That means that even though no jobs bill can pass congress right now, Social Security cuts might.

To stop the cuts, we need to send a crystal-clear message to members of Congress: Americans reject benefit cuts, and we expect them to do the same. Can you sign our promise to oppose cuts to Social Security? We'll use your signature to pressure them to sign a pledge protecting Social Security while they're home in Virginia for recess. But we need a strong response to make our point. Click below to add your name:

http://pol.moveon.org/sspetition/index.html?id=22411-17549061-v3oGiMx&t=3

The petition says: "I oppose any cuts to Social Security benefits, including raising the retirement age."

We're going to be running a hard-hitting campaign on this issue from now straight through the election. After you sign, we'll give you more opportunities to weigh in with your member of Congress, invite you to local events in your community, and keep you posted on our progress and key media reports on our campaign. Together with our allies, we'll make sure Congress knows that cutting Social Security is unacceptable.

The people who want to cut it are spreading lots of myths meant to make you think there is a looming crisis. Well, it's not true—there is no Social Security crisis. The program's trust fund will have a 4.3 trillion dollar surplus by 2023, and can pay all of its obligations for decades to come.⁴ Also, legally it can't contribute to the deficit—it only ever gives out benefits it can pay for.

Strengthening Social Security is easy—making the rich pay their fair share by lifting the cap on contributions by the wealthy would allow Social Security to pay all of its obligations indefinitely.⁵

Fear-mongering over Social Security is led by Pete Peterson, a hedge fund manager spending $1 billion of his own money in a campaign to slash benefits.⁶ Conservatives in congress have been too happy to join him—Minority Leader John Boehner said he would cut benefits to pay for two unfunded wars,⁷ and the GOP's long term budget plan would fully privatize the program.⁸

Social Security belongs to us, the people who pay into it every day of our working lives, and it shouldn't be cut to pay off a deficit it didn't create. If we show congress that voters won't stand for cuts to our benefits, we can make sure cuts stay off the table and instead focus on real solutions. Can you sign our promise to oppose cuts and then ask your representatives to sign on as well?

http://pol.moveon.org/sspetition/index.html?id=22411-17549061-v3oGiMx&t=4

Thanks for all you do.

–Daniel, Nita, Duncan, Marika, and the rest of the team

Sources:

1. "John Boehner: Raise Social Security Retirement Age to 70," CBS News, June 29, 2010
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20009192-503544.html

2. "Reid Appoints Durbin, Baucus, Conrad To Presidential Commission That Will Help Rein In Spending And Reduce The Deficit" Democrats.Senate.Gov, February 23, 2010
http://democrats.senate.gov/newsroom/record.cfm?id=322454&

3. "What happened on the war supplemental," Congress Matters, July 3, 2010
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=89836&id=22411-17549061-v3oGiMx&t=5

4."To Deficit Hawks: We the People Know Best on Social Security," New Deal 2.0, June 14, 2010
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=89703&id=22411-17549061-v3oGiMx&t=6

5. "Social Security is sustainable," Economic and Policy Institute, May 27, 2010
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=89707&id=22411-17549061-v3oGiMx&t=7

6. "Spending Big to Stop Spending," BusinessWeek, July 1, 2010
http://www.moveon.org/r?r=89837&id=22411-17549061-v3oGiMx&t=8

7. "GOP shrugs over Boehner comment," Politico, June 29, 2010
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0610/39185.html

8. "The Ryan Budget's Radical Priorities," Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, July 7, 2010
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3114

Boehner, Pence: Raising Social Security Retirement Age An Option

Top Republican leaders in the House offered a fairly strong signal on Sunday that they would favor a down-the-road raising of the Social Security retirement age as part of an effort to revamp the entitlement program.
Appearing on NBC's "Meet the Press," Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) said it was time "for the American people to have an adult conversation about the problems that we face" with respect to Social Security's solvency.
"We also know these programs are unsustainable in their current form," said the Ohio Republican. Asked specifically if he supports raising the retirement age to, say, 70, Boehner replied: "There are a lot of options on how you solve these, but I don't want to put the cart before the horse."
This wasn't the first time Boehner had broached the idea of raising Social Security's retirement age. The Minority Leader offered the same suggestion in an interview in late June. Back then, Democrats jumped on the remark, arguing that it was (one) not based in a realistic assessment of Social Security's solvency and (two) insensitive to those people who worked all their lives with an eye towards having a financially-stable retirement. It would be far from surprising if the same arguments are made in the days ahead.
Indeed, a platform of raising of the retirement age presents tricky politics for Republicans. Later during the "Meet the Press" program, Boehner's deputy, Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind), was asked if he supported the idea. The Indiana Republican stammered around for a bit, echoing the same talking point concerning the need for "an adult conversation about domestic spending and entitlements."
Pinned down by host David Gregory, he ultimately replied: "I am for reforming our public entitlements for Americans who are far away from retirement. We need to keep promises to seniors that have been made, make sure that people who are counting on Medicare, Social Security have the benefits that they have. But for younger Americans, absolutely yes, we ought to bring real reform for the sake of future generations of Americans to get spending under control."

Dems Slam Mike Pence for Hosting Job Fair with Stimulus-Backed Employers 11AUG10

(Credit: Getty Images/Alex Wong)

Rep. Mike Pence of Indiana, like other Republicans in Congress this week, excoriated Democrats for their $26 billion extension of stimulus aid, which President Obama signed into law this week, as a state "bailout" that enables states to put off hard budget decisions.

While on the House floor criticizing the aid package on Tuesday, Pence pointed to a jobs fair he hosted yesterday in his district as an example of Americans "reaching for a better future." He failed to mention, however, that a number of the employers present at the job fair were recipients of stimulus funding.
But Democrats say Pence's job fair is yet another example of Republicans taking credit for jobs created by the stimulus while at the same time criticizing the program. Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee called the House Republican leadership "blatant hypocrites."

"If such blatant hypocrites like Mike Pence, Eric Cantor, and John Boehner had their way, the jobs in their districts that they've been trying to take credit for wouldn't even be there," DCCC spokesperson Ryan Rudominer said.

However, Republicans maintain that, with unemployment hovering at close to 10 percent, the president's policies have clearly failed to create jobs.
"At this very hour more than a thousand Hoosiers are gathered at a job fair in my district," Pence said on the House floor yesterday before Democrats passed the $26 billion bill, which will provide funds for Medicaid and teacher salaries. "Some 65 companies have come together with a few cherished openings. My duty is here. But to be honest with you, I would rather be there, standing with those courageous Hoosiers who have come out, put on their Sunday best, and are reaching for a better future."
Pence continued, "Congress ought to be taking action; but not this, not more of the same. Here we go again. Another jobs bill, another bailout. Washington, D.C. -- now after a year and a half of failed economic policies, a stimulus and borrowing and spending and bailouts and takeovers -- says we need to do another jobs bill, so let's do another bailout."
On his website, Pence hailed the success of the Sixth Congressional District Job Fair, which drew about 1,200 citizens in a county with a 12 percent unemployment rate.
Pence told the Star-Press newspaper that it was "a priority" for companies participating in the job fair to be hiring.
At least 16 of the 65 companies at the job fair received funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, including Ball State University -- the location of the job fair -- and at least three more benefited indirectly from the stimulus. The impact the stimulus had on those employers was varied. Brevini Wind USA, Inc. of Yorktown, Indiana benefited greatly, receiving $12.75 million to open a new manufacturing facitlity that will produce parts for wind turbine manufacturers.
House Republican Whip Eric Cantor similarly came under fire last year for holding a job fair with stimulus-funded employers while blasting the stimulus.
Democrats have pointed to such figures as examples of hypocrisy from Republicans.
Matt Lloyd, a spokesperson for Pence, said that the nation's unemployment rate shows that Democrats have failed at creating jobs.
"While the Obama administration advances a public relations campaign to convince America that borrowing more money from future generations will heal the economy, the American people continue to ask, 'Where are the jobs?'" he said. "Congressman Pence hosted a job fair to help underemployed and overtaxed constituents get back to work."

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