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| + | Newt Gingrich has proposed a far more promising, 12-point, alternative economic recovery plan that should receive more attention. Gingrich recognizes that America suffers from the second-highest corporate tax rate in the industrialized world, close to 40% counting federal and state levies. The E.U. has reduced their average corporate tax rate from 38% to 24%. Germany and Canada have reduced their corporate tax rate to 19%, with Canada's soon going to 15%. India and China have lower corporate tax rates as well. This leaves American companies at an enormous disadvantage. Gingrich's plan would lower the 35% federal corporate tax rate to the 12.5% rate adopted by Ireland 20 years ago, which raised that longtime poor country from the second-lowest per capita income in the E.U. to the second highest. The U.S. Treasury Department calculates that Ireland raises more corporate tax revenue as a percent of gross domestic product with this 12.5% rate than we do with our 35% federal rate. Gingrich's proposal would also reduce the 25% income tax rate paid by middle class families to 15%, which would create an effective 15% flat tax for 90% of Americans. He would abolish the capital gains tax, which involves double taxation of savings and investment, reduce spending to balance the budget, as he led Congress to do in the 1990s, and open production of more oil, natural gas, nuclear power and alternative energy sources, providing a reliable, low-cost energy supply to power the American economy. Gingrich's proposal is a prescription for another economic boom. http://www.forbes.com/2009/05/29/obama-gingrich-recession-opinions-contributors-stimulus.html | ||
| Nevertheless, with great fanfare the Administration announced last year that it would shovel out $8 billion to help fund several high-speed rail corridors around the country. While that's seemingly small change by today's government standards, transportation officials understand that these appropriations are but a down payment on massive amounts of money yet to come. Traditionally, once a pork barrel scheme is started, nothing in heaven or on Earth is likely to stop it. Like barnacles on a ship, too many vested interests will glom onto it and fight to protect it. Steve Forbes http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2010/0830/opinions-steve-forbes-fact-comment-railroading-taxpayer.html | Nevertheless, with great fanfare the Administration announced last year that it would shovel out $8 billion to help fund several high-speed rail corridors around the country. While that's seemingly small change by today's government standards, transportation officials understand that these appropriations are but a down payment on massive amounts of money yet to come. Traditionally, once a pork barrel scheme is started, nothing in heaven or on Earth is likely to stop it. Like barnacles on a ship, too many vested interests will glom onto it and fight to protect it. Steve Forbes http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2010/0830/opinions-steve-forbes-fact-comment-railroading-taxpayer.html | ||
Revision as of 15:47, 15 August 2010
Contents |
Dems
News
Senator Harry Reid’s latest sermon on race—“I don’t know how anyone of Hispanic heritage could be a Republican"—has sparked within the GOP the predictable mix of outraged protests and guffaws. It is safe to say that the Nevada senator, fresh off of his tone-deaf praise of President Obama’s “non-Negro dialect,” is not in immediate danger of receiving an NAACP Image Award. But his clumsy outburst does provide another clue to the Democratic Party’s strategy for this fall’s congressional elections: to paint the surging GOP as a party of bigots and racists, inhospitable to Hispanic voters. Unfortunately for Republicans, the GOP leadership is playing its part perfectly—though not in the way one might expect. http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-08-12/harry-reids-remark-about-hispanics-and-republicans-impact-on-gop
U.S. Democrats see good news in primary results. http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1120505020100811
Tea Baggers
News
The Birther Conspiracy Lives!!! http://politicsoffootball.wordpress.com/2010/08/10/images-from-the-doctors-tea-party/
The Republican Party’s candidate for governor of Colorado believes that bicycle paths are “part of a greater strategy to rein in American cities under a United Nations treaty.” The party’s Senate candidate in Nevada wants to privatize Medicare and Social Security—and has called for the United States to withdraw from the U.N., though not because of the bicycle conspiracy. And the GOP’s Senate candidate in Connecticut once climbed into a professional wrestling ring and kicked a man in the crotch. I could go on, but you get the point. Democrats may be facing a tough fight this fall, but Republicans are giving them plenty of material to work with. The big political story of the year may turn out to be the consequences of the GOP’s foray into extremism and wackiness. It could be that the party acculturates its not-ready-for-prime-time candidates, harnesses the energy of the tea party movement, and sweeps to a grand old victory. There is also the distinct possibility that the acute philosophical split within the party—basically, a clash between bedrock conservatism and utter nonsense—will hand victories to Democrats that they didn’t anticipate and frankly might not deserve. Anyone who doubts this assessment should reflect on the fact that major figures in the Republican Party are wasting valuable time and energy debating whether the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, adopted in 1868, should be repealed. http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/you_cant_make_up_republican_candidates_like_these_20100812/
The Chamber of Commerce plans to spend at least $75 million on elections in 2010, but returns on its early investments this season have been disappointing. Jane Norton, who lost to a Tea Party backed candidate (Ken Buck) in Colorado Tuesday night, is just one in a string of Chamber-backed candidates to go down in defeat. The Chamber's biggest win of 2010 remains one of its only GOP success stories, when Scott Brown knocked off Martha Coakley to break the Democrats' filibuster-proof majority. Since then, however, Chamber candidates have lost in Maine, South Carolina, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Utah and Kentucky. The losing streak may say less about the Chamber's political acumen than it does about the anger voters have at corporate influence on the political process. A new poll funded by MoveOn.org and performed by SurveyUSA found that opposition to unchecked corporate involvement in the election process cuts across party lines. Seventy-six percent of Republicans in the survey said that it is very important (44%) or somewhat important (28%) for a candidate to commit to reducing the influence corporations have over elections and 64 percent said they'd be more likely to vote for a candidate who backed a constitutional amendment overturning Citizens United, the 5-4 Supreme Court decision that upended a century of campaign law to allow unlimited corporate involvement. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/11/tea-party-crushing-chambe_n_678895.html
Racists
Resent their portrayal in news stories. Liberal commentators including Eric Boehlert. of MediaMatters argue that some news organizations have overstated the clout of the Tea Party, but the activists USA TODAY interviewed call coverage in many newspapers and TV outlets unfairly negative. They bristle in particular at stories that portray them as racists. Some members of the Congressional Black Caucus, including Rep. Emanuel. Cleaver, D-Mo., said they were subjected to racial epithets during a demonstration by Tea Party activists on Capitol Hill earlier this year. Last month, the NAACP asked Tea Party activists to disavow the racist rhetoric of some members of the movement. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews_spec/ynews_spec_pl3411
Limbaugh declares: "I'm a racist." http://mediamatters.org/limbaughwire/2010/08/11#0035
Christian War on Islam
Ignorance is too generous an alibi for Gingrich and Palin. They have been candidates for the most powerful job in the world. It is foolish to dismiss them as fools. A mosque at ground zero will interfere with their politics, in which the Muslim must be etched as an irredeemable zealot with manic eyes and foaming mouth; the mosque must be distorted into a fountainhead of hatred, and every Muslim be blamed for the sins of the few bigots and terrorists who perpetrated 9/11. A range of political forces has a vested interest in the myth of the mad Muslim as the last evil standing between civilization and chaos. The irony is that Palin and Gingrich do not represent the idealism and philosophy of America, a nation that is liberal, open, democratic, and secular. Gingrich is a false American; Palin is a falsetto American. http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-08-14/the-mosque-at-ground-zero-why-it-scares-the-right
Hatred of California
The Administration is giving California $2.3 billion to help launch the construction of a highly ambitious rail line that will ultimately connect Sacramento, San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego. As in Florida, this notion has been rattling around for a long time. In 1996 proponents estimated something similar would cost $18 billion. By 2000 the estimate was $25 billion, in 2004 $37 billion and today California officials say it will take $45 billion, a number no one takes seriously. In fact, independent experts believe the outlays will be more than $80 billion. Just making the connection between Anaheim and San Francisco will cost more than $40 billion. Moreover, La-La Land expects private investors to kick in $12 billion because so many people will want to ride the train that it will turn a handy profit. That's about as likely as Fannie Mae ( FNM - news - people ) and Freddie Mac ( FRE - news - people ) making honest money. The passenger estimates assume the line will attract more riders than the bullet trains in Japan, even though Japan's population density is about ten times that of the U.S. http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2010/0830/opinions-steve-forbes-fact-comment-railroading-taxpayer.html
Hate Obama
Quayle raised more than $1.1 million, with many of the contributions coming from one-time colleagues and friends of his father. Former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld contributed. In May, Bush and his wife Barbara raised money for Quayle at their home in Houston. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100813/ap_on_el_ho/us_quayle_s_quest
Is Dan Quayle's Son's "Obama" Rip Serious? http://motherjones.com/mojo/2010/08/quayle-son-obama-worst-president-history-arizona
Violence
the most disturbing thing about Nick Popaditch, and most dangerous, is that he views the world and its politics through his military service. He seems to believe that military force is the answer to all of our problems throughout the world. He would like to see a tougher approach to Iran and North Korea—we need to rattle more sabers and talk tough. His message: “America will always be able to out tough you and out fight you!” Like dropping bombs is the answer for everything. As if that will make us more secure. http://obrag.org/?p=23300
Worship of Wall Street
Newt Gingrich has proposed a far more promising, 12-point, alternative economic recovery plan that should receive more attention. Gingrich recognizes that America suffers from the second-highest corporate tax rate in the industrialized world, close to 40% counting federal and state levies. The E.U. has reduced their average corporate tax rate from 38% to 24%. Germany and Canada have reduced their corporate tax rate to 19%, with Canada's soon going to 15%. India and China have lower corporate tax rates as well. This leaves American companies at an enormous disadvantage. Gingrich's plan would lower the 35% federal corporate tax rate to the 12.5% rate adopted by Ireland 20 years ago, which raised that longtime poor country from the second-lowest per capita income in the E.U. to the second highest. The U.S. Treasury Department calculates that Ireland raises more corporate tax revenue as a percent of gross domestic product with this 12.5% rate than we do with our 35% federal rate. Gingrich's proposal would also reduce the 25% income tax rate paid by middle class families to 15%, which would create an effective 15% flat tax for 90% of Americans. He would abolish the capital gains tax, which involves double taxation of savings and investment, reduce spending to balance the budget, as he led Congress to do in the 1990s, and open production of more oil, natural gas, nuclear power and alternative energy sources, providing a reliable, low-cost energy supply to power the American economy. Gingrich's proposal is a prescription for another economic boom. http://www.forbes.com/2009/05/29/obama-gingrich-recession-opinions-contributors-stimulus.html
Nevertheless, with great fanfare the Administration announced last year that it would shovel out $8 billion to help fund several high-speed rail corridors around the country. While that's seemingly small change by today's government standards, transportation officials understand that these appropriations are but a down payment on massive amounts of money yet to come. Traditionally, once a pork barrel scheme is started, nothing in heaven or on Earth is likely to stop it. Like barnacles on a ship, too many vested interests will glom onto it and fight to protect it. Steve Forbes http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2010/0830/opinions-steve-forbes-fact-comment-railroading-taxpayer.html
Corruption
Issa issues. Congressional bloodhound should get a whiff of himself. http://www.sdcitybeat.com/sandiego/article-7885-issa-issues.html
