"For the banks and their bought-and-paid-for representatives in both political parties, no democratic formalities must stand in the way of the ever-greater accumulation of personal wealth. In particular, the human misery inflicted in Detroit is necessary to ensure maximum returns on the tax-free municipal bonds held by the billionaire hedge fund managers."
BEFORE THE ELECTION, OBAMA FOUND A HALF BILLION DOLLARS TO BUY LA RAZA'S ILLEGAL VOTES.
EVERY MONTH OBAMA SQUANDERS BILLIONS PROTECTING THE BORDERS OF MUSLIM DICTATORS... BUT FOR AMERICANS (Legals)??? NO OBAMA TO BE SEEN. HE'S OUT ON THE GOLF COURSE!
THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
Should President Obama give up golf during 'sequester'? (+video)
The (failed) GOP bid to strip funds for presidential golf trips was just one move in an escalating struggle over Obama's 'sequester' strategy, such as axing popular White House tours.
The White House is seen through a chain-link fence where the inaugural reviewing stand once stood in Washington. The Obama administration is canceling tours of the White House beginning March 9, citing staffing reductions prompted by automatic budget cuts that began to take effect last Friday.
(Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP)
Should President Obama give up golf for the duration of the "sequester"? That’s what some irritated conservative GOP lawmakers believe. They’re not mad at presidential sports per se as much as annoyed at what they consider to be Mr. Obama’s grandstanding on spending cuts mandated by sequestration. In particular, they’re peeved that the administration, with blaring trumpets, has announced that public tours of the White House have been cancelled pending further notice.
So on Tuesday, Rep. Louie Gohmert (R) of Texas offered an amendment to the omnibus spending bill that the House is currently considering. None of the money authorized by this continuing resolution “may be used to transport the President to or from a golf course until public tours of the White House resume,” read Representative Gohmert’s amendment.
In a Tuesday floor speech, Gohmert said he hoped this prodding would make the White House rethink tour cancellations. The Texas lawmaker noted that spring break is coming up and tourists of all political persuasions have already made plans for tours of D.C.
“They’ll get their tour of the White House, and all it will cost is one or two golf trips less,” said Gohmert.
Nope. This isn’t happening. House Republican leaders ruled the amendment not relevant to the spending bill, and blocked it from getting a vote on the chamber floor.
But we think Gohmert’s effort was nevertheless indicative. For one thing, it shows that the conservative wing of the GOP remains unhappy with their leadership’s approach to the sequester standoff.
They want more confrontation with the White House, not less. In particular, they want to use the continuing resolution as a club to try to force through even deeper spending reductions, such as cutting money for implementation of some aspects of the Affordable Care Act, aka “Obamacare."
Influential conservative pundit Erick Erickson makes this point Wednesday at RedState. He bemoaned the demise of Gohmert’s amendment and urged GOP conservatives to vote against allowing the continuing resolution to proceed, in the name of trying to force deeper cuts.
“Conservative groups must set a new standard,” Mr. Erickson writes, but he holds out little hope they’ll actually block the bill.
For another thing, the golf-versus-building-tour dust-up shows how the White House has shifted from making big claims about the sequester’s alleged dire effects to implementing small, yet pointed reductions.
ABC’s Rick Klein makes this point Wednesday in the morning political newsletter The Note.
“Inside week one of the sequester, we went from workplace deaths and forest fires and airport chaos to ... no more White House self-guided tours? The Obama administration has gone from very big to very small in sequester messaging, brushed back by the fact some early claims turned out to be less than truthful, and that, well, big things aren’t happening yet,” Mr. Klein writes.
The fact is White House tours are popular with voters. Both Republican and Democratic House members are more than happy to procure tour tickets for traveling constituents. But because of security concerns and sheer popularity, this has to be done well in advance – so tourists with spring break tour times are not going to be happy. They’ll have to hit the Smithsonian instead.
Do the tours really have to be cut? That’s another question entirely. Given their visibility, it’s quite possible that the administration is just engaging in a variant of the time-honored Washington Monument budget ploy.
That’s named after an apocryphal story of a Parks Service chief offering to close the Washington Monument as a contribution to budget austerity. The point is to highlight the effect of reductions by doing away with the most visible and well-liked government services.
But the Obama administration can’t close the Washington Monument this time around. It’s already shut to visitors due to repairs needed to fix the effects of the 2011 D.C.-area earthquake.
So on Tuesday, Rep. Louie Gohmert (R) of Texas offered an amendment to the omnibus spending bill that the House is currently considering. None of the money authorized by this continuing resolution “may be used to transport the President to or from a golf course until public tours of the White House resume,” read Representative Gohmert’s amendment.
In a Tuesday floor speech, Gohmert said he hoped this prodding would make the White House rethink tour cancellations. The Texas lawmaker noted that spring break is coming up and tourists of all political persuasions have already made plans for tours of D.C.
“They’ll get their tour of the White House, and all it will cost is one or two golf trips less,” said Gohmert.
Nope. This isn’t happening. House Republican leaders ruled the amendment not relevant to the spending bill, and blocked it from getting a vote on the chamber floor.
But we think Gohmert’s effort was nevertheless indicative. For one thing, it shows that the conservative wing of the GOP remains unhappy with their leadership’s approach to the sequester standoff.
They want more confrontation with the White House, not less. In particular, they want to use the continuing resolution as a club to try to force through even deeper spending reductions, such as cutting money for implementation of some aspects of the Affordable Care Act, aka “Obamacare."
Influential conservative pundit Erick Erickson makes this point Wednesday at RedState. He bemoaned the demise of Gohmert’s amendment and urged GOP conservatives to vote against allowing the continuing resolution to proceed, in the name of trying to force deeper cuts.
“Conservative groups must set a new standard,” Mr. Erickson writes, but he holds out little hope they’ll actually block the bill.
For another thing, the golf-versus-building-tour dust-up shows how the White House has shifted from making big claims about the sequester’s alleged dire effects to implementing small, yet pointed reductions.
ABC’s Rick Klein makes this point Wednesday in the morning political newsletter The Note.
“Inside week one of the sequester, we went from workplace deaths and forest fires and airport chaos to ... no more White House self-guided tours? The Obama administration has gone from very big to very small in sequester messaging, brushed back by the fact some early claims turned out to be less than truthful, and that, well, big things aren’t happening yet,” Mr. Klein writes.
The fact is White House tours are popular with voters. Both Republican and Democratic House members are more than happy to procure tour tickets for traveling constituents. But because of security concerns and sheer popularity, this has to be done well in advance – so tourists with spring break tour times are not going to be happy. They’ll have to hit the Smithsonian instead.
Do the tours really have to be cut? That’s another question entirely. Given their visibility, it’s quite possible that the administration is just engaging in a variant of the time-honored Washington Monument budget ploy.
That’s named after an apocryphal story of a Parks Service chief offering to close the Washington Monument as a contribution to budget austerity. The point is to highlight the effect of reductions by doing away with the most visible and well-liked government services.
But the Obama administration can’t close the Washington Monument this time around. It’s already shut to visitors due to repairs needed to fix the effects of the 2011 D.C.-area earthquake.
UPWARD MOBILITY? NOT FOR LEGALS IN OBAMA’S AMERICA WHERE THE JOBS GO TO ILLEGALS, AND THE LOOTING OF HIS WALL STREET PAYMASTERS CONTINUES UNABATED.
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2013/03/upward-mobility-in-america-obama-and.html
OBAMA HAS SQUANDERED BILLIONS TO PROTECT THE BORDERS OF MUSLIM DICTATORS…. BUT FOR AMERICAN CITIES IN MELTDOWN WHERE THERE ARE NO JOBS FOR LEGALS… OBAMA GOES GOLFING!
White House cancels tours because there’s no money; Americans now unable to say goodbye to the $250 million the Obama administration is sending Egypt
By Doug Powers • March 6, 2013 10:55 AM
**Written by Doug Powers
An alternate headline comes courtesy of Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX): “The people have been banned from the people’s house.”
From Fox News:
The Obama administration announced Tuesday that it will cancel all tours starting this weekend, due to sequester cuts. The move prompted swift condemnation from Republican lawmakers, who described the decision as the latest attempt to make the sequester seem worse than it is.
[...]
The announcement is the latest from the administration about the impact of the cuts that went into effect last Friday. Congressional staffers received a terse email saying White House tours would be canceled effective this Saturday.
[...]
The announcement is the latest from the administration about the impact of the cuts that went into effect last Friday. Congressional staffers received a terse email saying White House tours would be canceled effective this Saturday.
The email cited “staffing reductions” from the sequester.
“Unfortunately, we will not be able to reschedule affected tours,” the notice said. “We very much regret having to take this action, particularly during the popular Spring touring season.”
Regret it? Uh huh.
Knowing sequestration was looming, there was still enough money for an extra $15 million in Pakistan aid, $50 million for TSA uniforms and even hundreds of thousands for portraits. Even post sequestration they were somehow still able to scrape $250 million from under the country’s couch cushions to give to Egypt.
You can probably guess what the sequester won’t interrupt — and one of those things is the collection of Obamacare taxes. Another is the calligraphy.
Finally, the Tweet of the day:
Ouch.
**Written by Doug Powers
WE KNOW WHAT OBAMA DID FOR HIS BANKSTER
DONORS, FOR GM MANAGEMENT, FOR WALL ST. PERIOD… for jobs… they only thing he
has come up with is AMNESTY!
HE’D SELL US OUT TO THE BIG MONEY
PEOPLE IN A FLASH… Actually, that’s all he’s done!
BUSH IN DRAG! AND AS CORRUPT ANY DAY!
“Obama hasn’t done anything,” he
continued. “The only thing he’s done is take us to war. He’s no different than
any other president we’ve had.”
Wsws.org….
get on their free no-ads E-NEWS!
“You
have to work to live, and then they want to deprive you of your work.”
Detroit
workers face desperate jobs crisis
By
Tom Eley and Lawrence Porter
6 December 2010
6 December 2010
Nowhere in the US is the unemployment
crisis more severe than in Detroit and its metropolitan area in Southeast
Michigan. Once the hub of the US auto industry and home to some of the best
working class jobs, Detroit is now the poorest big city in America.
As the winter months approach, Detroit
residents face a desperate situation—continued mass unemployment, the cutoff of
extended federal benefits, the ever-present danger of having their utilities
shut off or their homes seized. Whatever jobs are available pay poverty-level
wages, hardly adequate to keep food on the table.
The unemployment rate in the
metropolitan area is 13.4 percent, down two percentage points in one year.
However, this decline is largely attributable to the long-term unemployed
falling out of the workforce. The real unemployment rate may be 20 percent or
higher. In Detroit proper, real unemployment—including those involuntarily
working part time and those who have given up all hope of finding work—is
estimated at 50 percent.
By refusing to extend unemployment
benefits, Congress and the Obama administration are condemning the population
of cities like Detroit to mass impoverishment.
Reporters from the World Socialist
Web Site recently went to an office of the Michigan Bureau of Workers’ and
Unemployment Compensation to speak to workers about the consequences for
themselves and their families.
The office is located, with historical
irony, in the old headquarters of General Motors, once the biggest private
employer in the world. The expansive size of the building, Cadillac Plaza—once
the largest single-occupant office building in the world—and its vaulted
ceilings and marble, granite, and limestone construction, stand in sharp
contrast to its present purpose. In addition to the office for unemployment,
the building holds a state lottery claims center and other state offices.
The benefits office was busy; there
were perhaps 150 workers waiting in line for assistance. However, this is still
a small fraction of the unemployed in Detroit. Most claims and filings now
happen on-line or by telephone.
All sorts of obstacles are set up to
keep workers from accessing unemployment benefits. There are strict
requirements related to the length of steady employment prior to being
unemployed. Workers are also required to prove they are actively seeking
employment. If benefits can be secured, they are kept low as a punitive means
of “encouraging” the unemployed to seek work. In Michigan, weekly benefits are
low even relative to the rest of the country and are generally equivalent to
the levels prevailing in the Deep South.
The WSWS spoke to Nikita Johnson and
her husband Sylvester Strikland. Nikita lost her job in October 2010 following
an injury. She worked as a medical technician in an apartment complex for
senior citizens. Despite her recovery, the company refused to hire her back.
Nikita said she understood what the
long-term unemployed were going through. “I feel that it is wrong to cut off
the extension,” stated Nikita. “Even though they were given extensions, they
still need the income. What is going to happen if they are cut off? Many of
those people will lose their homes and become homeless. A lot of people will
lose their families. They don’t understand that people wouldn’t be asking for
it if they didn’t need it. It’s like they don’t care.”
Nikita said that a lot of the jobs
these days are paying $7, $8 maybe $10 an hour without benefits, and people
just can’t live on it.
Sylvester, self-employed as a mechanic,
said working people face a terrible jobs situation. “This government should be
ashamed,” stated Sylvester. “If they cut off people, and we are talking about 2
million people, what are they going to do for money? It’s going to be a bad
situation for everybody.”
“A lot of people are doing whatever
they can to get by,” Sylvester continued. “Some people are becoming
self-employed like what I am doing. You just can’t find a job.”
Looking at his wife and child with him
at the center, Sylvester said, “I know a lot of people are moving in with their
families. It is not unusual now to have three families living in the same house
hoping that someone is going to get a job.”
Sylvester said he is convinced that the
census count in Detroit is skewed because of the number of people living
together.
“A lot of people are living with
illegal utility hookups, and with ten or more people in a house. It’s tough,
but what are people supposed to do?”
Eric Quick is unemployed with children.
He is not eligible for benefits because he has been out of work for too long.
The decision to allow unemployment benefits to expire is “just going to run the
crime rate up,” Quick said. “People are going to steal, rob, and kill to try
feed themselves and their families.”
“Not too much has changed with Obama,”
Quick said. “Nothing has changed for the poor. Maybe things are better for the
rich.”
Levon has been out of work for a year
since being laid off from the Thompson Group, a Detroit-area manufacturer. He
now gets $300 every two weeks in benefits, with two kids to support.
“There are no jobs. When I put in
applications, they say I’m either not qualified or over-qualified,” Levon said.
“You have to work to live, and then they want to deprive you of your work.”
“You get into the situation that you
can’t afford your heat and gas, you’re not sleeping at night because of the
cold, and you’re not eating square meals.”
Levon asked the WSWS about the Wall
Street bailout. “What’s going on with all the money the banks have been
issued?” he asked. “Why aren’t they issuing that money to people?”
Jose is an out-of-work construction
worker, born in Mexico. “There are no jobs. I did asphalt construction, but
it’s over,” he said. “I’m hoping that in the spring jobs will come back.
Somebody’s got to pay the bills”
Francisco, 31, has been laid off from a
landscaping job for seven months. He gets checks every other week for $400. He
must support three kids on that income, plus the money his girlfriend earns as
a nurse. Francisco hopes to get a job with a friend clearing snow for the
winter. He is also considering moving out of Detroit to the suburb of
Southfield because he believes insurance will be cheaper.
Francisco is angry that funding for the
jobless benefit extension was ended, even as Congress works on extending tax
cuts for rich. “That’s what I hate,” he said. “They always look out for the
rich people.”
“Obama hasn’t done anything,” he
continued. “The only thing he’s done is take us to war. He’s no different than
any other president we’ve had.”
“I got arrested and put in prison when
I was 18. I was young and dumb. That was 12 years ago, and I can’t get a job
because I was a convict. But I was only 18. I’ve tried everything. Nobody’s
hiring.”
Francisco says he knows many households
that live without utilities. Some of them make “little bonfires” inside their
houses to keep warm on cold days, he says. “One of my girlfriend’s friends just
got her gas cut off for being $2 short on a bill. She owed $117 and she
accidentally sent in $115, so they cut the gas and lights.” He worries about
“innocent little kids dying in house fires because they’re in homes without
heat or lights.”
*
THE LOOTING OF AMERICA
POVERTY RISES AS WALL ST. BILLIONAIRES WHINE!
These guys profited from puffing up the housing bubble, then got bailed out when the going got tough. (Please see The Looting of America for all the gory details.) Without taxpayer largess, these hedge fund honchos would be flat broke. Instead, they're back to hauling in obscene profits.
These billionaires don't even have to worry about serious financial reforms. The paltry legislation that squeaked through Congress did nothing to end too big and too interconnected to fail. In fact, the biggest firms got even bigger as they gobbled up troubled banks, with the generous support of the federal government. No bank or hedge fund was broken up. Nobody was forced to pay a financial transaction tax. None of the big boys had a cap placed on their astronomical wealth. No one's paying reparations for wrecking the US economy. The big bankers are still free to create and trade the very derivatives that catapulted us into this global crisis. You'd think the billionaires would be praying on the altar of government and erecting statues on Capital Hill in honor of St. Bailout.
*
While 43.6 million Americans live in poverty, the richest men of finance sure are getting pissy. First Steve Schwartzman, head of the Blackrock private equity company, compares the Obama administration's effort to close billionaires' tax loopholes to "the Nazi invasion of Poland." Then hedge fund mogul David Loeb announces that he's abandoning the Democrats because they're violating "this country's core founding principles" -- including "non-punitive taxation, Constitutionally-guaranteed protections against persecution of the minority, and an inexorable right of self-determination." Instead of showing their outrage about the spread of poverty in the richest nation on Earth, the super-rich want us to pity them?
Why are Wall Street's billionaires so whiny? Is it really possible to make $900,000 an hour (not a typo -- that's what the top ten hedge fund managers take in), and still feel aggrieved about the way government is treating you? After you've been bailed out by the federal government to the tune of $10 trillion (also not a typo) in loans, asset swaps, liquidity and other guarantees, can you really still feel like an oppressed minority?
You'd think the Wall Street moguls would be thankful. Not just thankful -- down on their knees kissing the ground taxpayers walk on and hollering hallelujah at the top of their lungs! These guys profited from puffing up the housing bubble, then got bailed out when the going got tough. (Please see The Looting of America for all the gory details.) Without taxpayer largess, these hedge fund honchos would be flat broke. Instead, they're back to hauling in obscene profits.
These billionaires don't even have to worry about serious financial reforms. The paltry legislation that squeaked through Congress did nothing to end too big and too interconnected to fail. In fact, the biggest firms got even bigger as they gobbled up troubled banks, with the generous support of the federal government. No bank or hedge fund was broken up. Nobody was forced to pay a financial transaction tax. None of the big boys had a cap placed on their astronomical wealth. No one's paying reparations for wrecking the US economy. The big bankers are still free to create and trade the very derivatives that catapulted us into this global crisis. You'd think the billionaires would be praying on the altar of government and erecting statues on Capital Hill in honor of St. Bailout.
Instead, standing before us are these troubled souls, haunted by visions of persecution. Why?
The world changed. Before the bubble burst, these people walked on water. Their billions proved that they were the best and the brightest -- not just captains of the financial universe, but global elites who had earned a place in history. They donated serious money to worthy causes -- and political campaigns. No one wanted to mess with them.
But then came the crash. And the things changed for the big guys -- not so much financially as spiritually. Plebeians, including me, are asking pointed questions and sometimes even being heard, both on the Internet and in the mainstream media. For the first time in a generation, the public wants to know more about these emperors and their new clothes. For instance:
• What do these guys actually do that earns them such wealth?
• Is what they do productive and useful for society? Is there any connection between what they earn and what they produce for society?
• Did they help cause the crash?
• Did these billionaires benefit from the bailouts? If so, how much?
• Are they exacerbating the current unemployment and poverty crisis with their shenanigans?
• Why shouldn't we eliminate their tax loopholes (like carried interest)?
• Should their sky-high incomes be taxed at the same levels as during the Eisenhower years?
• Can we create the millions of jobs we need if the billionaires continue to skim off so much of our nation's wealth??
• Should we curb their wealth and political influence?
How dare we ask such questions! How dare we consider targeting them for special taxes? How dare we even think about redistributing THEIR incomes... even if at the moment much of their money comes directly from our bailouts and tax breaks?
It's true that the billionaires live in a hermetically sealed world. But that doesn't mean they don't notice the riffraff nipping at their heels. And they don't like it much. So they've gotten busy doing what billionaires do best: using their money to shield themselves. They're digging into their bottomless war chests, tapping their vast connections and using their considerable influence to shift the debate away from them and towards the rest of us.
We borrowed too much, not them. We get too much health care, not them. We retire too soon, not them. We need to tighten our belts while they pull in another $900,000 an hour. And if we want to cure poverty, we need to get the government to leave Wall Street alone. Sadly, their counter-offensive is starting to take hold.
How can this happen? Many Americans want to relate to billionaires. They believe that all of us are entitled to make as much as we can, pretty much by any means necessary. After all, maybe someday you or I will strike it rich. And when we do, we sure don't want government regulators or the taxman coming around!
Billionaires are symbols of American individual prowess and virility. And if we try to hold them back or slow them down, we're on the road to tyranny. Okay, the game is rigged in their favor. Okay, they got bailed out while the rest of us didn't -- especially the 29 million people who are jobless or forced into part-time work. But what matters most is that in America, nothing can interfere with individual money-making. That only a few of us actually make it into the big-time isn't a bad thing: It's what makes being rich so special. So beware: If we enact even the mildest of measures to rein in Wall Street billionaires, we're on the path to becoming North Korea.
Unfortunately, if we don't adjust our attitudes, we can expect continued high levels of unemployment and more people pushed below the poverty line. It's not clear that our economy will ever recover as long as the Wall Street billionaires keep siphoning off so much of our wealth. How can we create jobs for the many while the few are walking off with $900,000 an hour with almost no new jobs to show for it? In the old days, even robber barons built industries that employed people -- steel, oil, railroads. Now the robber barons build palaces out of fantasy finance. We can keep coddling our financial billionaires and let our economy spiral down, or we can make them pay their fair share so we can create real jobs. These guys crashed the economy, they killed billions of jobs, and now they're cashing in on our bailout. They owe us. They owe the unemployed. They owe the poor.
Dwight D. Eisenhower was no radical, but he accepted the reality: If America was going to prosper -- and pay for its costly Cold War -- the super-rich would have to pony up. It was common knowledge that when the rich grew too wealthy, they used their excess incomes to speculate. In the 1950s, memories of the Great Depression loomed large, and people knew that a skewed distribution of income only fueled speculative booms and disastrous busts. On Ike's watch, the effective marginal tax rate for those earning over $3 million (in today's dollars) was over 70 percent. The super-rich paid. As a nation we respected that other important American value: advancing the common good.
For the last thirty years we've been told that making as much as you can is just another way of advancing the common good. But the Great Recession erased that equation: The Wall Streeters who made as much as they could undermined the common good. It's time to balance the scales. This isn't just redistribution of income in pursuit of some egalitarian utopia. It's a way to use public policy to reattach billionaires to the common good.
It's time to take Eisenhower's cue and redeploy the excessive wealth Wall Street's high rollers have accumulated. If we leave it in their hands, they'll keep using it to construct speculative financial casinos. Instead, we could use that money to build a stronger, more prosperous nation. We could provide our people with free higher education at all our public colleges and universities -- just like we did for WWII vets under the GI Bill of Rights (a program that returned seven dollars in GDP for every dollar invested). We could fund a green energy Manhattan Project to wean us from fossil fuels. An added bonus: If we siphon some of the money off Wall Street, some of our brightest college graduates might even be attracted not to high finance but to jobs in science, education and healthcare, where we need them.
Of course, this pursuit of the common good won't be easy for the billionaires (and those who indentify with them.). But there's just no alternative for this oppressed minority: They're going to have to learn to live on less than $900,000 an hour.
Les Leopold is the author of The Looting of America: How Wall Street's Game of Fantasy Finance destroyed our Jobs, Pensions and Prosperity, and What We Can Do About It Chelsea Green Publishing, June 2009.
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