Andre Carson Ad:

Is that Postal Worker Greg Jones in Andre’s ad?

I Remember: VOTE!

Who Gets US Out of the Hole We Are In?

Robert L. Borosage: President, Institute for America’s Future

…This election, the president said, will offer a choice: "It's a choice between the policies that led us into this mess and the policies that are leading us out of this mess. It's a choice between falling backwards or moving forward."

His critique of Republicans has the advantage of being true. With unparalleled discipline, Republicans voted with virtual unanimity to obstruct every major reform offered by the president, breaking all records on filibusters along the way. To the extent that they offer any program, it is a retread of the very policies that drove us off the cliff -- top end tax cuts, deregulation, drill, baby drill, ardent defense of corporate subsidies and multinational trade accords. Their solution to health care, as Rep. Alan Grayson gibed, is don't get sick. Their solution to unemployment, as Republican Sen. Kyl and others have argued, is starve or work. (Kyl opposes extending unemployment benefits, so people will be desperate enough to take jobs that pay far less, assuming they exist.)

No You Can't (Featuring John Boehner) - Watch more Politics Videos at Vodpod.

Will voters vote for party of no -- or as John Boehner ranted, in a health care
screed immortalized in a YouTube video, the party of "hell no, you can't?"

Well polls suggest that they just might. Off-year, low-turnout elections are the occasion to cast a protest vote. Voters aren't really voting for an opposition candidate or her or his policies, they are voting against. And that clearly is what Republicans are counting on.

Can a compelling choice be posed in midterm elections held in a bad economy?

The president would really like to campaign for credit for one of the most productive congressional sessions in decades. Against Republican obstruction, the White House and Democrats in Congress have passed the largest recovery act in history, the largest increase in student aid since the GI Bill, the most significant health care reform since Medicare, the greatest expansion of community service since Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s, the biggest investment in renewable energy ever. This week the Congress will pass, again, over virtually unified Republican opposition, the largest reform of finance since the 1930s. The White House will roll out studies on the benefits of the health care bill, the millions of jobs created by the stimulus, the consumer protections in financial reform. They'd like a little credit. If only people understood what we've done, they strongly believe, they'd reward us at the polls.

These statements are true but largely irrelevant... As dramatic as the reforms have been, they have not been sufficient to the crisis. And, at the end of the day, what matters is jobs and the economy. House Minority leader John Boehner's response to Obama's argument is simply "Where are the jobs?" Many Americans may think the real choice is between those advocating the policies that got us into the mess and those advocating policies that have failed to get us out.

George W. Bush survived a jobless midterm, but only because of 9/11. In 1994, the economy was actually beginning to generate jobs, but Clinton and Democrats were punished, and the Gingrich Congress was elected. The last president to survive a bad economy in an off-year, first term election was Ronald Reagan. He cut taxes, ran up military spending and exploded the deficit. Despite a deep recession, Reagan got Republicans to unite on a message of "stay the course." He pounded relentlessly from the first day of his administration on the failure of liberalism, on government as the "problem, not the solution," blaming Democrats constantly for the downturn. Democrats made gains, but Reagan survived to go on to re-election.

Obama's message parallels Reagan's. We've begun to create jobs, stay with the policies that "are getting us out of the mess," rather than going back to those "that got us into the mess..."

From the Huffington Post: view the entire article.

Links:

Get Your Free Checks Here!

Get Your Free Checks Here!

by Glenn Littrell

Let’s see:

• a paycheck or an Unemployment benefits check?
• security or an Unemployment benefits check?
• the ability to pay bills or an Unemployment benefits check?
• the possibility to sustain or return to their normal standard of living or an Unemployment benefits check?
• living above the poverty level or an Unemployment benefits check?
• All the above or an Unemployment benefits check?

How can it be so easy to characterize people who have been working for a living as so lazy and lacking of a work ethic that they [and family] would be willing to exchange all of the above for a paltry unemployment check which, even with extensions, is still a short term existence.

It just doesn’t make since to so often portray people who need help as lazy slackers. Does the pitiful UI check make poverty attractive?

5 unemployed workers for every job.

Links:

Republicans To Unemployed: Why Won't You All Just Get Some Jobs Already?

Does Unemployment Money Help or Hurt?
Some Real Questions for Chamber’s ‘Jobs Summit’
Lack of Jobs, Not ‘Generous’ UI Benefits, Keep Unemployed Jobless
Progressive Breakfast: Address Unemployment Pain, Or Make It Worse
Who Gets Us Out Of The Hole We Are In?

Who Gets US Out of the Hole We Are In?

No You Can't (Featuring John Boehner) - Watch more Politics Videos at Vodpod.

Will voters vote for party of no -- or as John Boehner ranted, in a health care screed immortalized in a YouTube video, the party of "hell no, you can't?"

Links:

Get Your Free Checks Here!

Who Gets US Out of the Hole We Are In?

BP Investigation Blocked By Senate

Obama’s Tax Plan / Conservative Complaints:

Much Ado About Little.

SOAKING THE RICH (REDUX).... Hilzoy had a great overnight item on the odd conservative complaints about President Obama's proposal to raise the top marginal tax rate to 39.6% -- where it was under Clinton, and where it was intended to be in 2011 based on George W. Bush's plan. Hilzoy compared a 39.6% against other major capitalist democracies, and just as importantly, against other modern U.S. presidents.

Hilzoy concluded, "All in all, it seems as though we've been suffering through an awful lot of socialism and class warfare all over the world, much of it at the hands of people conservatives claim to admire. If a top marginal rate of 39.6% is enough to make society's producers and creators go on strike, then Galt's Gulch must be getting pretty crowded."

Quite right. But I also thought it would be helpful to add a visual element to this.

John Cole posted this graph a few days ago. See that column on the far-right edge? That's where Obama proposes the marginal top-rate should be.

It's also the rate conservatives believe is so outrageous, that they're accusing the president of "socialism" and talking openly about the "Going Galt" scenario in which wealthy and industrious Americans would deliberately make less money to spite their country.

It's all quite silly, but the graph adds some helpful context to drive the point home.

Obama is proposing a top rate lower than Reagan's first term, lower than Nixon's, lower than Eisenhower's, and lower than FDR's when he pulled us out of the Great Depression.

So, really, try not to hyperventilate.

 

Read full article.

TAX CUTS

WASHINGTON — As President Obama vowed during his campaign and again after the elections, the proposed budget would extend the Bush tax cuts for most households with taxable incomes below $250,000 but allow them to expire at the end of 2010 for families with incomes above that level.

Read full article.