House Websites Jammed After Obama Debt Speech 1042
Hugh Pickens writes "CNN reports that House switchboards have been flooded by phone calls — nearly twice the normal average — and hit with an unusual volume of constituent e-mails as voters voice their concern over the worsening debt-ceiling crisis. At least 104 of 279 congressional websites surveyed by CNN were down or had experienced slow connections on Tuesday, after President Obama's speech Monday night. In his address to the nation, Obama called on the American people to 'make your voice heard.' House Speaker John Boehner's website responded with a 'Server Too Busy' or 'Bad Request (Invalid Hostname)' message during parts of the day. His switchboard reported as many as 150-300 callers on hold, wanting to leave their thoughts for the speaker. House Chief Administrative Officer spokesman Dan Weiser said that lawmakers' websites and phone lines began to sag with the traffic on Monday night. 'Last night we had some website problems. ... There was some websites that were hosted by outside vendors that had slowness, sluggishness, people had trouble getting in. And that was rectified early this morning.'"
Great filters (Score:4, Informative)
The Congressional filtering system is extremely efficient. No matter what you say, somehow you're always supporting the position that the Congresscritter has already taken.
I've been writing to "my" Congressional "representatives" for almost forty years, and even when I've bluntly said that Senator Bozo has a severe case of craniorectal insertion, I get a letter back thanking me for supporting him.
Once the avalanche has started... (Score:4, Informative)
...it's too late for the pebbles to vote. Regardless of your fiscal outlook, the fact is the debt ceiling must be raised, simply because of economic inertia. Fiscal conservatives may be correct that less government spending is good - but that perspective doesn't matter today, as our economic difficulties are the result of decisions years, maybe decades past. If you want to avoid raising debt ceilings in the future (a goal I actually support), that's fine - we can have a discussion on the best fiscal policy to pursue over the next ten years in order to achieve that. But *today* is not the time to debate *this* particular ceiling. That discussion should've happened ten years ago. Playing with the cap today is irresponsible at best, and cynical exploitation of economic trouble created, in part, by an ex-president from your own party, to secure a victory in 2012 ... well, not even at "worst", as that's pretty much exactly what the Republicans are doing.
The point is, you don't change economic trends overnight. The necessity of raising the debt ceiling cannot be altered today, even with the best intentions. I want to stay balanced and not single a particular side for blame, but it seems that the politicking is all about discrediting the sitting president to hurt his incumbent standing in 2012, rather than any form of principled economic disagreement.
Btw: captcha: "defraud"
Campaign Promises (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Rewrite the Constitution or face default! (Score:4, Informative)
You realize this says "taxes and interest" under income, right? Social security contribution from the American people only come through a tax... why would the word "interest" be under income?
Because social security 'invests' its money into federal securities, which the federal government then uses to finance other programs (this and similar IOUs to trust funds make up about 4+ trillion of the current debt). The intention is, of course, to pay off the necessary securities before the social security payments need to be sent.
Now, the federal government could choose to pay those obligations and default on something else. Not all of the debt has to go bad at once, but this is a delicate balance. Do you pay your overseas creditors? Do you pay your employees? Do you pay your debts that you owe to yourself (social security)? As far as protecting the credit rating goes, it's probably wisest to pay outside creditors first. The fact is we already hit the debt ceiling in May, and we are holding on until August 2nd by not investing in certain federal pension and retirement programs with the excuse "we'll make it up later once we get a higher debt limit". This is at least a slight bit of evidence that we are more likely to prioritize outside creditors, and therefore default on something like social security or federal wages.
But it all remains to be seen... The fact is I'm a little surprised the Treasury hasn't released a plan with its payment priorities already, or at least I haven't been able to find one.
Re:Rewrite the Constitution or face default! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Rewrite the Constitution or face default! (Score:4, Informative)
To be pedantic: No US president did that. FDR signed an order allowing the military to create exclusion zones. Race wasn't mentioned. It is critically important to remember that, because of it's far wider implications then an order to inter X people. Had race been specified, it never would have stood against the supreme court.
It was General DeWitts order that interred the Japanese.
IT can be argues that the Nihau incident was the tipping point from a military perspective, and fueled by the farmers of CA desire to rid the Japanese from farming.
Re:Rewrite the Constitution or face default! (Score:4, Informative)
Guess what? That is up to Obama, unless Congress passes a law specifying differently. That means it is Obama who is threatening the lives of seniors, poor people or veterans. Obama or the Democrats in the Senate could put a proposal on the table and then we could debate the relative merits of the Republicans' plan and the Democrats' plan. The problem with criticizing the Republican's plan is that it is the only plan on the table. There are, currently, no other options (except to keep on racking up ever more debt until to no one will loan the government any money).
That's complete nonsense. If Congress abdicates on its responsibility to pay the country's bills, then yes, decisions will have to be made about where we will default [politifact.com], but that isn't on Obama. It's Congress' responsibility to pay the bills.
Saying that the Republican plan is the only plan is bullshit though. Proposing something that you know the other side can't possibly agree to is not a good-faith negotiation. There are two ways to close the deficit gap, cutting spending and raising revenues. The Tea Party Republicans want to take one of those completely off the table and have refused any compromise at all. This is on them.
There have been plenty of other plans being put together, even bi-partisan plans, but the Tea Party faction refuses to budge at all on any sort of tax revenue increase, so those plans are dead before they can even be formed. As long as they insist that only cuts and no revenues can be part of the bill, they are the ones holding the country hostage. Wonder how people will like the tax we all get to pay when it starts costing us more to borrow anything at all because our credit gets downgraded.
We've seen poll after poll now that shows that something like 70% of the country, including a large percentage of Republicans, think that both taxes and cuts should be part of any compromise plan, but the House Republicans won't allow it. This shit is on them, and I think people will see it that way come the next election too. You can't just sit there with your little faction and insist that everything be done your way. That's not how democracy works, and people will recognize which side isn't willing to compromise and get a plan put together that can pass both houses. If the shit hits the fan, we know which group is responsible.
Re:Rewrite the Constitution or face default! (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Obama - Job Killer (Score:4, Informative)
Making it more expensive for someone purchase and use anything just because YOU somehow think it's unfair that they can, is stupid.
That's pretty disingenuous. They aren't making it more expensive, they're taking away a tax break that was given for one item, but not others. Why should that one item get a break? If it can't make it in the market on a level playing field with the same taxes as everything else, maybe they need to rethink their business plan. Asking for a government handout is not a business plan.
His statements regarding this were couched in terms that portrayed those who buy and use private jets as selfish and financially foolish. His implications were clear. If you couldnâ(TM)t see it then you need to pay more attention.
Which statement was that? Every time he mentioned it, it was in relation to elimination of a tax break that there's no good reason to have. I saw nothing about owning planes being selfish or foolish. Could you be specific about what he said that implies that?
And if your purchase of a single washing machine literally supported hundreds of jobs, then I bet you would get a tax break for buying one too.
Again, they shouldn't need a tax break. The plane is worth it or it isn't. Money not spent on planes will be spent on something else that also creates jobs. At least it would be if Congress would quit screwing around and start doing things to create jobs again. Taxes are already the lowest they've been in several decades. More tax breaks aren't going to create jobs. Taxes have been higher during past economic booms, so that's not the issue here.
Re:Who pays the taxes (Score:4, Informative)
The top 10% of earners, above 114,000, pay 70% of all income taxes.
And 400 people control more than half of the wealth in the country. You don't see an inherent problem here?
So, no, the middle class pays less than the rich.
If you define "the rich" as people who make above $114,000 per year. Which still doesn't account for your lousy math and inability to calculate the crucial percentage of individual income number from what you claim above.
Meanwhile, Democrats have defined "the rich" as people making above $200k/year individually or $250k total household income. Republicans insist that these people are "not making all that much." What was your point about who the "rich" are again? Please do define your terms so that we can have an actual discussion here.
The lower 50%, below $33,000, pays almost nothing.
Funny thing about that: if you are making below $33,000 per year at today's prices, you have almost no disposable income to start with: you are making the equivalent of $6000 in 1970 money (feel free to run some other calculations yourself [westegg.com]. This is especially true if you are a single parent or have someone else (aging family member) to support. The phrase you are looking for is "blood from a stone."
Short-term capital gains taxes go up with your tax bracket, and the rate is the same. Even if you bought something at $10,000 and a few laters it grew with inflation to $10,500, you still have to pay tax on the $500 even though you technically didn't make any money. Long-term rates are less in order to offset inflation losses and encourage long-term investment that helps the economy over quick flipping.
Please get an education and learn to stop lying. [irs.gov] All you have to do is hold an "investment" for slightly longer than a year [moneychimp.com] to get it taxed at a mere 15% instead of your actual income-tax rate. The more money people have, the more money they simply funnel through "cycling" schemes that contribute NOTHING to the economy, in order to take advantage of this loophole.
Capital gains taxes need to be eliminated, pure and simple, and any money gained that way treated as what it is, INCOME and taxed accordingly.