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In describing the recent budget debate impasse between the Obama administration and the Republican-led Congress, House Majority Leader Boehner (R-Ohio) stated, "The gulf between the two parties now is about policy. It's not about process, it's not about personalities." Boehner is wrong; it's not about policy. It's about ideology, and has everything to do with personality.
Most fiscal experts are stating that any serious balanced budget reduction plan must include an increase in tax revenues. Alice Rivlin from Brookings states, .".. any balanced budget plan has to include both spending cuts and tax increases - unpleasant medicine."
Boehner has stated, "Most Americans would say a balanced approach is a simple one: The administration gets its debt-limit increase and the American people get their spending cut ..." Once again, his rhetoric is not consistent with the facts. According to the most recent USA Today/Gallup survey by a 2-1 margin, Americans want lawmakers in Congress to seek compromise (and not the compromise Boehner touts) to avoid a government shutdown. The most recent Quinnipiac University survey on this issue finds that 67 to 25 percent that an agreement to raise the debt ceiling should include tax hikes for the wealthy and corporations, not just spending cuts.
The problem with ideologies is that, when left to their own merit, they do not hold up to rational, fact-based scrutiny. They tend to focus on and confuse the imagery of the "should be" and "ought to be" with the practical "is." After several years of ideological babble such as "compassionate conservatism," "American internationalism," "ownership society" and "war on terror," Americans are finally beginning to focus on real issues such as home foreclosures, affordable health care, outsourcing American jobs, global warming and skyrocketing energy costs. Ironically, much of the blame for these problems can be traced back to some of the same ideologues that now threaten to shut down the government.
The dominant story of the current political debate is that the government is broke. We can’t afford to pay for public services, put people to work, or service the public debt. Yet as a nation, we are awash in money. A defective system of money, banking, and finance just puts it in the wrong places.
A newly released report of the New Economy Working Group, coordinated by the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, DC, goes beyond the current debate to call for a deep restructuring of the institutions to which we as a society give the power to create and allocate money. How to Liberate America from Wall Street Rule spells out the steps required to rebuild a system of community-based and accountable institutions devoted to financing productive activities that create good jobs for Americans and generate real community wealth.
Despite the financial crash of 2008, the financial assets of America’s billionaires and the idle cash of the most profitable corporations are now at historic highs. Corporations are using their stores of cash primarily to buy back their own stock, acquire control of other companies, invest in off-shoring yet more American jobs, and pay generous dividends to shareholders and outsized bonuses to management. It was not always so. In response to the Great Depression, our country enacted financial reforms that put in place a system of money, banking, and investment based on community banks, mutual savings and loans, and credit unions. These institutions provided financial services to local Main Street economies that employed Americans to produce and trade real goods and services in response to community needs and opportunities.
This system, which Wall Street interests dismiss as quaint and antiquated, financed the U.S. victory in World War II, the creation of a strong American middle class, an unprecedented period of economic stability and prosperity, and the investments that made America the world’s undisputed industrial and technological leader.
How to Liberate America from Wall Street Rule spells out details of a six-part policy agenda to rebuild a sensible system of community-based and accountable financial services institutions.
1. Break up the mega-banks and implement tax and regulatory policies that favor community financial institutions, with a preference for those organized as cooperatives or as for-profits owned by nonprofit foundations.
2. Establish state-owned partnership banks in each of the 50 states, patterned after the Bank of North Dakota. These would serve as depositories for state financial assets to use in partnership with community financial institutions to fund local farms and businesses.
3. Restructure the Federal Reserve to function under strict standards of transparency and public scrutiny, with General Accounting Office audits and Congressional oversight.
4. Direct all new money created by the Federal Reserve to a Federal Recovery and Reconstruction Bank rather than the current practice of directing it as a subsidy to Wall Street banks. The FRRB would have a mandate to fund essential green infrastructure projects as designated by Congress.
5. Rewrite international trade and investment rules to support national ownership, economic self-reliance, and economic self-determination.
6. Implement appropriate regulatory and fiscal measures to secure the integrity of financial markets and the money/banking system.
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Topic Author
Science Chic wrote: We need to move past they "It's their fault", "NO, it's their fault" crap and focus on solutions. This problem didn't just creep up in the past few years Viking, and it's both parties' fault. Solutions take compromise and hard work, something our politicians aren't doing well.
http://www.truth-out.org/current-politi ... 1310741852
The Current Political Landscape, Ideology vs. Reality
Thursday 21 July 2011
by: Dr. Wilmer J. Leon IIIIn describing the recent budget debate impasse between the Obama administration and the Republican-led Congress, House Majority Leader Boehner (R-Ohio) stated, "The gulf between the two parties now is about policy. It's not about process, it's not about personalities." Boehner is wrong; it's not about policy. It's about ideology, and has everything to do with personality.
Most fiscal experts are stating that any serious balanced budget reduction plan must include an increase in tax revenues. Alice Rivlin from Brookings states, .".. any balanced budget plan has to include both spending cuts and tax increases - unpleasant medicine."
Boehner has stated, "Most Americans would say a balanced approach is a simple one: The administration gets its debt-limit increase and the American people get their spending cut ..." Once again, his rhetoric is not consistent with the facts. According to the most recent USA Today/Gallup survey by a 2-1 margin, Americans want lawmakers in Congress to seek compromise (and not the compromise Boehner touts) to avoid a government shutdown. The most recent Quinnipiac University survey on this issue finds that 67 to 25 percent that an agreement to raise the debt ceiling should include tax hikes for the wealthy and corporations, not just spending cuts.
The problem with ideologies is that, when left to their own merit, they do not hold up to rational, fact-based scrutiny. They tend to focus on and confuse the imagery of the "should be" and "ought to be" with the practical "is." After several years of ideological babble such as "compassionate conservatism," "American internationalism," "ownership society" and "war on terror," Americans are finally beginning to focus on real issues such as home foreclosures, affordable health care, outsourcing American jobs, global warming and skyrocketing energy costs. Ironically, much of the blame for these problems can be traced back to some of the same ideologues that now threaten to shut down the government.
Here's the first thing that needs to be done (I would be especially interested in any objections to the actions called for in the article below):
http://www.truth-out.org/how-liberate-a ... 1311104394
Six Ways to Liberate America From Wall Street Rule
Wednesday 20 July 2011
by: David KortenThe dominant story of the current political debate is that the government is broke. We can’t afford to pay for public services, put people to work, or service the public debt. Yet as a nation, we are awash in money. A defective system of money, banking, and finance just puts it in the wrong places.
A newly released report of the New Economy Working Group, coordinated by the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, DC, goes beyond the current debate to call for a deep restructuring of the institutions to which we as a society give the power to create and allocate money. How to Liberate America from Wall Street Rule spells out the steps required to rebuild a system of community-based and accountable institutions devoted to financing productive activities that create good jobs for Americans and generate real community wealth.
Despite the financial crash of 2008, the financial assets of America’s billionaires and the idle cash of the most profitable corporations are now at historic highs. Corporations are using their stores of cash primarily to buy back their own stock, acquire control of other companies, invest in off-shoring yet more American jobs, and pay generous dividends to shareholders and outsized bonuses to management. It was not always so. In response to the Great Depression, our country enacted financial reforms that put in place a system of money, banking, and investment based on community banks, mutual savings and loans, and credit unions. These institutions provided financial services to local Main Street economies that employed Americans to produce and trade real goods and services in response to community needs and opportunities.
This system, which Wall Street interests dismiss as quaint and antiquated, financed the U.S. victory in World War II, the creation of a strong American middle class, an unprecedented period of economic stability and prosperity, and the investments that made America the world’s undisputed industrial and technological leader.
How to Liberate America from Wall Street Rule spells out details of a six-part policy agenda to rebuild a sensible system of community-based and accountable financial services institutions.
1. Break up the mega-banks and implement tax and regulatory policies that favor community financial institutions, with a preference for those organized as cooperatives or as for-profits owned by nonprofit foundations.
2. Establish state-owned partnership banks in each of the 50 states, patterned after the Bank of North Dakota. These would serve as depositories for state financial assets to use in partnership with community financial institutions to fund local farms and businesses.
3. Restructure the Federal Reserve to function under strict standards of transparency and public scrutiny, with General Accounting Office audits and Congressional oversight.
4. Direct all new money created by the Federal Reserve to a Federal Recovery and Reconstruction Bank rather than the current practice of directing it as a subsidy to Wall Street banks. The FRRB would have a mandate to fund essential green infrastructure projects as designated by Congress.
5. Rewrite international trade and investment rules to support national ownership, economic self-reliance, and economic self-determination.
6. Implement appropriate regulatory and fiscal measures to secure the integrity of financial markets and the money/banking system.
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Topic Author
jmc wrote: You pretend to be a business person, He was saddled with debt from a medicare enhancement, 2 wars ,tax cuts and loopholes to the wealthiest people. 2 years of a housing disaster (also more than 10 years) of Republican endorsements.This a long term work out process. Obama was not close to perfect. The stimulus was poorly designed and a waste . Your "solution" is a further disaster, Get off your "my team" mentality and get to the real world solutions. I am fine and love watching the promoters of disaster keep digging yourselves into poverty.
I do have the answers but you brain deaders are not worth the keystrokes.
Have fun on your way to bankruptcy. Hope you all feel like you "won" Losers all.
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1. Break up the mega-banks and implement tax and regulatory policies that favor community financial institutions, with a preference for those organized as cooperatives or as for-profits owned by nonprofit foundations.
2. Establish state-owned partnership banks in each of the 50 states, patterned after the Bank of North Dakota. These would serve as depositories for state financial assets to use in partnership with community financial institutions to fund local farms and businesses.
3. Restructure the Federal Reserve to function under strict standards of transparency and public scrutiny, with General Accounting Office audits and Congressional oversight.
4. Direct all new money created by the Federal Reserve to a Federal Recovery and Reconstruction Bank rather than the current practice of directing it as a subsidy to Wall Street banks. The FRRB would have a mandate to fund essential green infrastructure projects as designated by Congress.
5. Rewrite international trade and investment rules to support national ownership, economic self-reliance, and economic self-determination.
6. Implement appropriate regulatory and fiscal measures to secure the integrity of financial markets and the money/banking system.
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Because you know squat about about business ans economics, there is a carry over, we are paying for the policies of the last 10 years, you morons think this can be solved in 2. Turnarounds take take a long time especially with a bureaucracy that is so divide. Quit with the stupid cliches and lets try to really solve these difficult problems. I know that is too "taxing" on you simpleton brains.The Viking wrote:
jmc wrote: You pretend to be a business person, He was saddled with debt from a medicare enhancement, 2 wars ,tax cuts and loopholes to the wealthiest people. 2 years of a housing disaster (also more than 10 years) of Republican endorsements.This a long term work out process. Obama was not close to perfect. The stimulus was poorly designed and a waste . Your "solution" is a further disaster, Get off your "my team" mentality and get to the real world solutions. I am fine and love watching the promoters of disaster keep digging yourselves into poverty.
I do have the answers but you brain deaders are not worth the keystrokes.
Have fun on your way to bankruptcy. Hope you all feel like you "won" Losers all.
You make it sound like it just kicked in under Obama. The tax cuts and wars were both going on under Bush for at least 5 years and his WORST year of debt wasnt even 1/3 ov what Obama's BEST year is. And Obama and the totally controlled Dem house and senate ALL voted to keep the tax cuts going after they expired becaue they knew they were a good thing.
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The Viking wrote: OK, let's see how you answer (or deflect and don't answer) this one.
Obama keeps saying that he is trying to CUT more spending than ever in history.
When Bush left office the debt that year was about $400 billion. Obama drove our debt up to $1.1-$1.5 TRILLION per year. Now he is agreeing to cut about $2 trillion over 10 YEARS! That is aoub $200 BILLION per year in cuts leaving our debt, according to the CBO predictions, at between $800 billion and $1 trillion per year.
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