Wednesday, November 14, 2012

PAYING FOR HIS WALL ST DONORS' CRIMES, OBAMA CUTS SOCIAL PROGRAMS - BUT EXPANDS LA RAZA WELFARE STATE IN OUR BORDERS - Union leaders meet with Obama, back austerity drive against workers

Union leaders meet with Obama, back austerity drive against workers


ISN’T OBAMA MERELY BUSH’S FOURTH TERM and MEXICO’S FIRST LA RAZA PRESIDENT?
On Wednesday, Obama will meet with the CEOs of 12 major corporations, including General Electric, Walmart, American Express, Honeywell, Ford, IBM, Pepsico and Chevron. On Friday, he will hold talks with the top congressional leaders of both parties.

As Trumka well knows, Obama is entering into talks with the Republicans having previously, in July 2011, offered a deficit-reduction plan that would raise the eligibility age for Medicare and cut health benefits for the program’s elderly recipients, reduce Social Security payouts to retirees, slash the Medicaid program for the poor, cut health benefits for veterans, and gut other social programs. At the same time, the plan would cut tax rates for corporations and the wealthy and limit or eliminate tax deductions that benefit the middle class and working class.


WHO IN THE OBAMA ADMIN IS NOT CONNECTED TO HIS CRIMINAL BANKSTER DONORS, OR A LA RAZA SUPREMACIST PARTY MEMBER? 


OBAMA HAS TWO AGENDAS. SERVICING BANKSTER DONORS, AND PUSHING OUR BORDERS OPEN FOR MORE ILLEGALS. HE KNOW WE WON’T BE PUNKED BY HIS PERFORMANCES THE SECOND TIME AROUND!

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“Records show that four out of Obama's top five contributors are employees of financial industry giants - Goldman Sachs ($571,330), UBS AG ($364,806), JPMorgan Chase ($362,207) and Citigroup ($358,054).”

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What is the “fiscal cliff”?


By Patrick Martin
14 November 2012

The term “fiscal cliff,” first used by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke last February, refers to the simultaneous expiration of tax cuts and imposition of spending cuts on January 1, 2013.

The American media has seized on the term “fiscal cliff” and promoted it, in part, to suggest that measures which would otherwise be enormously popular—ending the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy or cutting military spending—are threatening, even dangerous.

The main purpose of the media propaganda about the impending “cliff” is to create a sense of financial emergency and override popular opposition to measures the Obama administration and congressional Democrats and Republicans will put forward to avert it, including sweeping cuts in Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

This is bolstered by the reaction in the financial markets, where a sharp sell-off could well serve as a political club to ensure that the policies demanded by Wall Street are adopted in Washington.

Far from an emergency that requires dramatic action to slash the federal deficit, the various components of the “fiscal cliff” are all consequences of legislation passed at various times during the Obama administration and can be averted by the passage of further legislation by Congress, regardless of whether that legislation adds to or subtracts from the deficit.

Deficit reduction is not a requirement of any previous legislation, but a political mandate from the financial aristocracy, which is demanding that its two political parties take joint action to make working people pay for a fiscal crisis that is the product of the 2008 Wall Street crash and the trillions expended to bail out the banks and corporations.

That the deadline is January 1, 2013 is politically revealing. In each of the bipartisan agreements between the Obama White House and congressional Republicans and Democrats—in December 2010, August 2011 and February 2012—the two parties acted deliberately to push back the decision until after the November 2012 elections, in order to prevent the American people from having any say on the measures to be enacted.

The same considerations were at work in the August 2011 agreement to raise the federal debt ceiling, which was increased from $14.3 trillion to $16.4 trillion, a level the Treasury is expected to hit early in 2013, perhaps as soon as mid-February. This will provide an additional pretext for the two big business parties to enact further spending cuts, or it may become part of the proposed “grand bargain” between the Obama administration and congressional leaders.

There are at least seven distinct tax and spending measures that will take effect at the end of the year, with a significant effect on the jobs and living standards of the vast majority of the American people. The estimate produced by the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal Washington think tank, places the total impact at $732 billion.

Expiration of the Bush tax cuts—$202 billion


The largest item is the expiration of the tax cuts first enacted under the Bush administration in 2001, originally to expire January 1, 2011. A deal between Obama and the congressional Republican leadership in December 2010 extended these tax cuts for two years, to January 1, 2013, as Obama capitulated to the refusal of the Republicans to accept any separation between the tax cuts for the wealthy and those for lower- and middle-income families. The deal also extended estate taxes at the low rate that prevailed in 2009.

The same issue is posed in the talks between the White House and Congress set to begin formally this Friday, with Obama again claiming to oppose any extension of the tax cuts for families making more than $250,000 a year or individuals making more than $200,000 a year. These upper-income tax cuts alone account for $52 billion of the total.

Drawing such an income line would require passage of legislation by both the Democratic-controlled Senate and the Republican-controlled House. If Congress deadlocks or Obama vetoes an extension, the tax cuts would expire for all income levels and the average working class family would see a significant reduction in take-home pay.

Across-the-board spending cuts—$128 billion


Spending cuts totaling close to $1 trillion over ten years will begin in January, with the specific programs to be selected by the Obama administration based on a 50-50 split between domestic and military programs. These cuts were part of the August 2011 deal between the White House and congressional Republicans to raise the federal debt ceiling.

This agreement enacted spending cuts of more than $1 trillion and provided for an additional $1 trillion in automatic cuts if a special congressional committee failed to reach agreement on further deficit-reduction. The so-called supercommittee deadlocked in December 2011, triggering the cuts that begin taking effect this January.

These include $50 billion in delayed impact from the initial round of cuts and $78 billion more in the so-called “sequester.”

Expiration of payroll tax cut—$115 billion


The payroll tax that underwrites Social Security and Medicare was temporarily cut from 6.2 percent to 3.1 percent in December 2010, and that cut was extended through the end of this year in February 2012. The expiration of this tax cut will be felt as a 3.1 percent reduction in income for low- and middle-income families, more than the typical pay increase. It will mean a significant drop in real income.

Expiration of extended unemployment benefits—$39 billion


These benefits were coupled to the payroll tax cut as “stimulus” measures in both the December 2010 and February 2012 bipartisan agreements, but in the second deal the Democrats accepted a Republican demand to reduce the duration of extended benefits from 99 weeks to the current 73 weeks for the hardest-hit states, and from 93 weeks to only 63 weeks for most states.

Now, even this inadequate level of benefits for the long-term unemployed is set to end, under conditions where more than five million workers have been out of work for six months or longer. One million long-term unemployed workers who have exhausted all state benefits will lose their extended federal benefits January 1, and a further one million will lose benefits in the first quarter of 2013.

Expansion of the Alternative Minimum Tax—$114 billion


The AMT, first enacted in the 1960s as a measure against tax evasion by the super-rich, was never indexed for inflation, so tens of millions of upper-middle-income families could now come under its provisions. Congress has repeatedly adopted temporary “fixes” to delay imposition of the tax, most recently in December 2010, limited to taxes on 2011 income.

If another “fix” is not adopted, or the AMT is not fully indexed for inflation retroactively, the number of families required to pay the AMT will rise from four million to 30 million next year, sharply increasing the tax bills these families will pay for income earned in 2012.

Expiration of miscellaneous tax provisions—$120 billion


As many as 80 provisions of the 2009 stimulus legislation introduced by the Obama administration and enacted by a Democratic-controlled Congress, or adopted in subsequent deals in December 2010 and February 2012, have either expired this year or will expire January 1. Most of these are incentives to business—$109 billion—while a small fraction, about $11 billion, represents tax credits or expanded deductions for working families.

Mandated cuts in Medicare reimbursement—$14 billion


The 1997 Balanced Budget Act, negotiated by the Clinton administration and then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich, established what was titled the Medicare sustainable growth rate, or SGR, to restrain the growth of payments to health care providers under Medicare. The SGR provision has never actually been put into practice, as pressure from hospitals and the American Medical Association has induced Congress to enact repeated versions of one-time provisions known in Washington jargon as the “doc fix.”

The most recent versions were incorporated into the December 2010 and February 2012 bipartisan agreements under the Obama administration. The latest one expires on January 1, 2013. If the much lower ceiling is imposed, with Medicare reimbursement cut by 27 percent, many doctors and hospitals may stop accepting new Medicare patients and even phase out treating current patients.

Obamanomics: How Barack Obama Is Bankrupting You and Enriching His Wall Street Friends, Corporate Lobbyists, and Union Bosses


 BY TIMOTHY P  CARNEY

Editorial Reviews

Obama Is Making You Poorer—But Who’s Getting Rich?

Goldman Sachs, GE, Pfizer, the United Auto Workers—the same “special interests” Barack Obama was supposed to chase from the temple—are profiting handsomely from Obama’s Big Government policies that crush taxpayers, small businesses, and consumers. In Obamanomics, investigative reporter Timothy P. Carney digs up the dirt the mainstream media ignores and the White House wishes you wouldn’t see. Rather than Hope and Change, Obama is delivering corporate socialism to America, all while claiming he’s battling corporate America. It’s corporate welfare and regulatory robbery—it’s Obamanomics.

Congressman Ron Paul says, “Every libertarian and free-market conservative needs to read Obamanomics.” And Johan Goldberg, columnist and bestselling author says, “Obamanomics is conservative muckraking at its best and an indispensable field guide to the Obama years.”

If you’ve wondered what’s happening to America, as the federal government swallows up the financial sector, the auto industry, and healthcare, and enacts deficit exploding “stimulus packages,” this book makes it all clear—it’s a big scam. Ultimately, Obamanomics boils down to this: every time government gets bigger, somebody’s getting rich, and those somebodies are friends of Barack. This book names the names—and it will make your blood boil.

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Obama Is Making You Poorer—But Who’s Getting Rich?

Goldman Sachs, GE, Pfizer, the United Auto Workers—the same “special interests” Barack Obama was supposed to chase from the temple—are profiting handsomely from Obama’s Big Government policies that crush taxpayers, small businesses, and consumers.

Investigative reporter Timothy P. Carney digs up the dirt the mainstream media ignores and the White House wishes you wouldn’t see. Rather than Hope and Change, Obama is delivering corporate socialism to America, all while claiming he’s battling corporate America. It’s corporate welfare and regulatory robbery—it’s Obamanomics. In this explosive book, Carney reveals:

* The Great Health Care Scam—Obama’s backroom deals with drug companies spell corporate profits and more government control
* The Global Warming Hoax—Obama has bought off industries with a pork-filled bill that will drain your wallet for Al Gore’s agenda
* Obama and Wall Street—“Change” means more bailouts and a heavy Goldman Sachs presence in the West Wing (including Rahm Emanuel)
* Stimulating K Street—The largest spending bill in history gave pork to the well-connected and created a feeding frenzy for lobbyists
* How the GOP needs to change its tune—drastically—to battle Obamanomics

If you’ve wondered what’s happening to our country, as the federal government swallows up the financial sector, the auto industry, and healthcare, and enacts deficit exploding “stimulus packages” that create make-work government jobs, this book makes it all clear—it’s a big scam. Ultimately, Obamanomics boils down to this: every time government gets bigger, somebody’s getting rich, and those somebodies are friends of Barack. This book names the names—and it will make your blood boil.

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Praise for Obamanomics

“The notion that ‘big business’ is on the side of the free market is one of progressivism’s most valuable myths. It allows them to demonize corporations by day and get in bed with them by night. Obamanomics is conservative muckraking at its best. It reveals how President Obama is exploiting the big business mythology to undermine the free market and stick it to entrepreneurs, taxpayers, and consumers. It’s an indispensable field guide to the Obama years.”
—Jonha Goldberg, LA Times columnist and best-selling author

“‘Every time government gets bigger, somebody’s getting rich.’ With this astute observation, Tim Carney begins his task of laying bare the Obama administration’s corporatist governing strategy, hidden behind the president’s populist veneer. This meticulously researched book is a must-read for anyone who wants to understand how Washington really works.”
—David Freddoso, best-selling author of The Case Against Barack Obama

“Every libertarian and free-market conservative who still believes that large corporations are trusted allies in the battle for economic liberty needs to read this book, as does every well-meaning liberal who believes that expansions of the welfare-regulatory state are done to benefit the common people.”
—Congressman Ron Paul

“It’s understandable for critics to condemn President Obama for his ‘socialism.’ But as Tim Carney shows, the real situation is at once more subtle and more sinister. Obamanomics favors big business while disproportionately punishing everyone else. So-called progressives are too clueless to notice, as usual, which is why we have Tim Carney and this book.”
—Thomas E. Woods, Jr., best-selling author of Meltdown and The Politically Incorrect Guideto American History

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·         Hardcover: 256 pages

·         Publisher: Regnery Press (November 30, 2009)

·         Language: English

·         ISBN-10: 1596986123

·         ISBN-13: 978-1596986121

 

 

TAUBE: Predicting Obama’s legacy

On track to rank among worst presidents of all time


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By Michael Taube

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

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Illustration Obama 2.0 by Alexander Hunter for The Washington Times more >



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On Nov. 6, Americans chose President Obama over GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney. If Mr. Obama's second term turns out to be anything like his first, the voters will quickly come to regret that decision.

Mr. Obama is a lame-duck president. He is in his final term and won't be able to run for this particular political office ever again. That being said, each step he takes will have significant implications for his fellow Democrats in 2014 (the midterm elections) and 2016 (the presidential election).

Mr. Obama is in the early stages of building his so-called political legacy. Long before his presidential memoirs are written, his speaking tour is arranged and the groundbreaking ceremony for his presidential library is set, the president's leadership needs to be evaluated historically in some way, shape or form.

Unless things change dramatically in the next four years, Mr. Obama's legacy is on pace to rank him among the worst U.S. presidents of all time.

The president's first term was an unmitigated disaster from an economic standpoint. The eye-popping $833 billion stimulus bill of small tax cuts and wild spending measures passed in February 2009 without a single Republican vote of support. The grotesque auto bailout plan -- initiated by President George W. Bush in 2008, with a more extensive contribution from Mr. Obama -- has exceeded $80 billion. The multibillion-dollar bailout of once-powerful financial companies such as AIG, Bank of America and Goldman Sachs added to the country's economic woes. Moreover, monthly unemployment numbers hit record highs, never falling below 7.8 percent and climbing to a staggering 10 percent in October 2009.

With respect to foreign policy, Mr. Obama's record has been abysmal. Osama bin Laden, the vicious terrorist leader of al Qaeda, was killed under his administration's watch -- and that's a good thing. Yet, early on in his presidency, Mr. Obama supported the philosophy that "strong countries and strong presidents talk to their adversaries." This political greenhorn was therefore open to building relationships with the same tyrants and despots who hated -- and in certain cases, wanted to obliterate -- the United States.

Meanwhile, the important communications term "war on terrorism" was replaced by the Obama White House with an ivory-tower-inspired travesty: "overseas contingency operation." The president's soft-on-terrorism stance, often seen in his lukewarm reactions to Middle Eastern conflicts and the growing threat of radical Islam in Europe, turned off many Americans.

Do not be surprised if the U.S. economy gets even worse during Mr. Obama's second term. For one thing, the president, who claims to be "open to compromise" in negotiations to avoid the fiscal cliff, cannot resist the left-wing impulse to soak the rich with higher income taxes. Social spending measures on everything from education to the environment are likely to skyrocket. Obamacare will become a reality, and the total cost of running a public health care program -- which reportedly could reach $1 trillion -- likely will be a financial mess for generations to come. Trade liberalization also will be a mixed bag because this particular liberal president has minimal respect for free trade and private enterprise.

Foreign policy also will continue to decline. The United States eventually will be out of Afghanistan, meaning that war-torn country's ultimate fate will be a huge question mark. There's a possibility the detention center at Guantanamo Bay will be closed down, causing some dangerous terrorists to be returned to their countries of origin. Israel already has started fighting with Syria and could have to go on its own against Iran because of Mr. Obama's dithering. The war on terrorism will barely be discussed in public. Threats posed by North Korea and other dangerous regimes will largely be ignored. Finally, more emphasis on the bungling mess known as the United Nations will become a priority.

In 1947, Sir Winston Churchill said, "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time." In the face of Mr. Obama's terrible first-term economic and foreign-policy records, it's astonishing that more than 50 percent of Americans re-elected him. Yet the democracy Americans would defend with their dying breath gave this president a second term. Elections work in mysterious ways.

Michael Taube is a former speechwriter for Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.