President Bush’s suggestion Tuesday that Democrats are “genetically disposed” to raise taxes naturally leads to thoughts of what Republicans are “genetically disposed” to do. Any suggestions?
To get the ideas flowing, here’s the snappy comeback of Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., who is in charge of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee: “George Bush sure has a lot to say for a guy who added $3 trillion to the nation’s debt.”
Posted by Rhonda Holman
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50 Comments
Having, unfortunately, been a repuke for many years, prior to the bush fiasco taking place in washington, I can say with no uncertainty that repukes have no DNA. I know this to be a fact because prior to switching parties, I gave blood and the nurse started laughing and said, ” We can’t use this.”
When I asked her why, she informed me the blood consisted of nothing but white blood cells, and the DNA signiture was missing. After switching parties, I tried again, and was informed my blood was, in fact, now normal.
And let me tell you, I feel much better now, thank you very much. Now, where’s that tax increase package for the rich that requires my signiture?
Read this article.
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2006/10/25/200850.shtml?s=lh
Repubs. are genetically wired to screw up wars.
406 billion dollars a year goes to pay the interest on the debt.That’s all the tax money raised from everyone living west of the Mississippi river.I’m not sure what percent of that money leaves America to foreign central banks and investors. When it leaves it cannot circulate through our economy.We have to pay down the debt.
Why aren’t you at work, random letter troll?
Maybe China will give us some of that 160 bil. surplus they’re making this year!
.morg–
Haven’t you heard the new fiction the Repubic*nts put out these days?
“The debt doesn’t matter. It’s all ‘on paper.’”
Just ask Hotlick or GMC.
The party that exoriated the dems for 40 years as “tax and spend” liberals decides when they get in power, they’re still going to spend–in fact, Bush spends more than LBJ did on gov’t–but they’re just not going to pay for it.
Good plan–if you’re plan is to destroy America . . .
Stupid is as stupid does….. Forrest Gump’s Momma
There is nothing worse than aggressive stupidity…..Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Capn,As long as the dollar remains a reserve currency they can get away with alot, but that’s changing.
http://www.dailyfx.com/story/special_report/special_reports/Watch_Out_Dollar___China_1160586880754.html
Watch Out Dollar – China Plans the World’s Largest IPOThe fact that this listing did not occur on an American or London stock exchange, something that just four years ago would have been arguably unheard-of has tremendous implications for the world economy as a whole by shifting the future of flow of funds and investments away from US dollar or British pound denominated investments into Yuan and Hong Kong Dollar denominated investments. In the past, particularly during the technology boom in the US, investors were tripping over themselves to get an opportunity to participate in the rally in the stock market as well as the plethora of IPO listings. This time around, China is the one to benefit. Foreign investment has increased significantly over the past few years. The ICBC IPO listing will be too attractive for most foreign investors to ignore – the leaders on Wall Street have already snapped up a piece of the pie.
Right, .morg,
The HK dollar is pegged to the US dollar. This is to keep it artifically low so that China can continue to export to us like mad.
How much longer they can keep up that fiction of 7 HK dollars to one and 8 Renmenbi yuan to one US dollar, I don’t know.
But when it finally floats free, it’s going to appreciate fast and our overseas debt is going to quadruple in cost to us.
Maxing out credit cards is in Republicans’ DNA.
See, that’s what I mean.
Not nearly clever enough to be gay, Larry.
Not even close.
Keep trying though . . .
What’s in the GOP DNA? This morning’s trolls tell the story: ‘hatred’ and ’self-loathing.’ And ‘projection.’ Can’t forget that.
Quite revealing, our trolls. They’ve done us a service, in spite of themselves.
A traveling salesman’s car broke down 30 miles from the nearest town in a part of the country he was not familiar with. Soon a businessman stopped to ask if he needed help? The salesman replied that he did, but the businessman said they were kind of picky in that part of the country and inquired, “Are you a democrat or a republican?” The salesman said he was a democrat and the businessman drove off laughing.
The next person to come by was a farmer and he repeated what the businessman had asked. When the salesman again said he was democrat the farmer gave him the finger and sped off.
Soon a beautiful young woman drove up in a red convertible and again inquired as to his political status. This time the salesman said he was a republican, and the young woman said she would give him a ride to town.
As they were driving down the road the salesman could not help himself as he noticed her incredible beauty and told her to stop the car and let him out. “Why on earth do you want out?” she asks. The salesman replied “Lady I have been a republican for only five minutes, and already I want to screw someone.”
“406 billion dollars a year goes to pay the interest on the debt.That’s all the tax money raised from everyone living west of the Mississippi river.I’m not sure what percent of that money leaves America to foreign central banks and investors. When it leaves it cannot circulate through our economy.We have to pay down the debt.”
I don’t disagree on the need to pay down the debt, but everyone West of the Mississippi river includes California. I very seriously doubt less than 10% of the nation’s taxes are collected from everyone west of the Mississippi river. Why ruin your credibility by posting such obvious nonsense?
Here is a superb essay that every Republican and Democratic son and daughter of a WWII veteran should read.
A GI Bill for the 21st centuryThe modern GI Bill pales in comparison to the 1944 legislation that took care of veterans and fueled postwar progress.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-humes26oct26,0,5517702.story?coll=la-opinion-rightrail
Heartlander,
Interesting article, but I have a feeling the writer doesn’t have a clue on the erosion of benefits for GIs since the 1970s. Veterans have been the ‘playtoy’ of Congress and their favorite pasttime in the past 30 years has been eroding benefits.
As far as broadly categorizing anyone who affiliates with the Republican party as some rich, religious fanatics with no sensitivities, I would suggest it’s time to wake up from their adolescent dreams and look at the realities of life.
Name calling with things like ‘repukes or repugs’ serve no purpose other than to be inflammatory.
To me being Republican is more about doing the best you can for yourself first, then if you need help you can turn to the federal government, not the other way around. That is a philosophy I adhere to with great personal satisfaciton. Now I know quite a few Democrats hold that same idea can talk the talk as well as walk the walk.
To broadly categorize people in a political party as fanatics or some sort of political ‘redneck’ is not only narrow-minded but says more about the individual that resorts to the insult than the insulted.
Disagreeing on issues is an entirely different matter. It’s a fact of life that it’s gonna happen. However, if someone disagrees, using ad hominem remarks or some fallacious argument like arguing with bumper sticker slogan then the discussion serves no purpose other than to try to persuade by inflammation.
I’d rather appeal to reason than have someone walk away from an argument angry or hurt.
All one has to do is read Lou Dobbs (a Republican BTW) book about war on the middle class to understand what has been going on for the better part of 30 years — and both parties should be help accountable. Our elected representatives have failed us in evry fathonable way .. the debt is closr to 9 trillion and add another 5 trillion with the balance of trade deficit ….. shame o us for not paying attention to what our elitist leaders have done to this country — yes you – you and you… our public education system is a mess, our leaders actually promote illegal immigration by their inaction, they allow special interests to write our laws — don’t kid your self – any of you and your kids and grand kids will pay for this ignorance in the ways of our democracy in ways you can not fathom now —
We have gone well beyond capitalism — it is rampant consumerism with no accountability or responsibililty for it’s impact –
Shit — I’m so mad I’m beginning to sound like Ian
Viva la moi’
Larry,
Please explain Log Cabin Republicans.
Republicans have DNA. It’s hearts that they’re missing, along with common sense.
here you go mathmajor what I said was 406 billion equals all the taxes collected west of the mississippi.
http://www.publicdebt.treas.gov/opd/opdint.htm
Interest ExpenseFISCAL Year 2006September $ 20,854,140,227.59August 24,213,287,037.82July 23,296,471,495.96June 98,255,216,240.82May 26,062,286,332.48April 19,621,068,645.56March 19,693,659,965.94February 21,243,326,109.56January 13,849,325,895.77December 93,067,144,638.06November 26,912,473,405.45October 18,803,709,320.82———————-FISCAL Year Total $ 405,872,109,315.83
Morg,
Where did you get those figures?
According to the CIA World Fact Book 2.19 trillion in revenues were collected last year. So, you are saying states east of the Mississippi paid 1.7 trillion of all revenues?
Republicans are genetically predisposed to saying that “life is sacred”, then doing everything in their power to show otherwise.
They allow pollution that causes cancer in the name of their big corporation dollars; they want to keep people alive on tubes who are brain dead but underfund medical programs so badly that the shoddy care they receive promotes infection and death; they claim to want to end abortion, but do nothing to address the financial, emotional and issues that affect the life of the mother, and deny programs that would reduce abortion to name a few.
In 1994, when the repukes too over congress, entitlement was at $2.9 billion. Today it is at $28.4 billion. We are also in a war we have no business being in that’s costing us, the tax payers, mega-billions as well as american lives.
Plus, the country is as divided more than during the viet nam war.
It’s time to throw all the pukes, dem and repuk, out and vote in new blood. They’re all crooks and liars.
JM,I’m trying to backtrack my source for that statement it was a fair tax website. I can get IRS numbers from 99 after that they quit breaking it out by region.Sorry I did not fact check that statement. I don’t know if the website authors were quoting gross taxes or individual returns.
http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/99db07co.xls here’s the info from 99
I suspect one figure is total revenues FROM ALL SOURCES and the other just the incoma tax portion. Just a guess.
larryi’mgayjohnson,
Too funny!
Seems like if you wanted to hang with some gay brethren in the bathouse for some hot man-on-man, you’d be better off as a Republican–what with Mark Foley, Ken Mehlman, Karl Rove, Randy ‘Duke’ Cunningham, and who knows who all else.
The GOP: come join the circle jerk.
Majority of Republicans are very nice hard working people. It is only in the past 6 years that the Conservative Christians have ruined the GOP by their holier-than-thou attitude and their incessant shouting down everyone and everything else.
These are the people that made the GOP a dirty name and something to be ashamed of. I truly believe there is nothing worse than a bunch of Religious Nuts who are hell bent on being the right hand of God and they are the ONLY ones who know what God wants or says.
The GOP needs to clean house and clean house fast or they will go down in flames.
Too late sunni.I can already smell the smoke.
What’s a haceeds?
At least Tracy has a real argument and not this childish bullcrap you pull.
By all means, when you can’t refute, LIMERICK!
Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity.
Ben,
“From all sources” count as revenue and I believe his statement just said taxes not Income taxes.
Federal gas, highway, air, social security, income etc etc all count as revenue to the federal government.
The topic appeared to be incomplete, so I asked.
Look out troll.All the regulars know that I eat flaming dragon farts just for snacks,Shit man, I’m so hard you could roller skate on me.
Damn, Tracy, you and this ‘larry i’m gay johnson’ guy should get along great. Are you fat, by the way:-)
If Democrats are the party of “tax and spend”, then the Republicans are the party of “Tax breaks for the Rich and Spend MORE!” All of the traditional claims of the FGOP (Formerly Grand, Old Party) against Democrats are actually the major faults of the Republican Party themselves! In the Kansas Legislature, in Congress, and in the Whitehouse, Republicans in the past two decades have always bankrupted the people, and Democrats come in periodically and bail us out. By the way, the REAL morally bankrupt party is actually the Conservative “Christian” Republicans: right, Foley, et al??
What’s in Republican DNA?
I assume we mean REAL Republicans as that term applies today?
See my thinking is that most people voting Republican have no business doing so at all. They are folks with a dumb bull headed self hating gene that causes them to fervently embrace republican ideals against their own best interests. Think a union worker or soldier or any woman for that matter that votes republican for a sample of these sad deluded folks.
Real Republicans as that term applies today have nothing but greed in their genes. They DO vote in their own best interests for policies that are against everybody elses and society at large best interest. They accumulate money and power to themselves and delude alot of otherwise good folks to help them. “You can make it too!” they tell them. “You just gotta get your nose to the grindstone! (For ME!) The for me they add under their breath or not at all. Real Republicans as the term applies today are the kids who did not share their toys in kindergarten. They are the ones who figure out how to make money off of the labor of someone else. So in the end, they are smart parasites on society.
JR: That is disturbing to me. I feel bad for you. At risk of being accused of preaching, this is a great country, full of opportunity. You apparently have convinced yourself that you aren’t good enough to succeed. If you are angry or resentful at anyone, it should be at yourself, not at those who have achieved. No one who wants to get the most out of life can allow themselves to think like that.
How about looking for reasons that you can rather than you can’t?
Republican Lou Dobbs book “War on the Middle Class” pretty much explains it all —a telling look into what has happened economically, politically and socially in the last 30 years to make things bad for everyone except the top 1& of the population. It’s a failure of our politicians to look out for the communal best interest of the population. …. and we as the electorate bear responsibility for not demanding better —
Film at eleven
Outlander
I wish it to be a great country no less than you think it already is. The difference is in perspective.
You show me. Where is the opportunity? Where is the respect for hard work? Is it in the posts of some on your side who would have working people scrabble over the ever decreasing fall of crumbs from the masters table? Is it in tying an increase in the minimum wage to tax shelters for the few thousand of our most well off? Is it in telling Americans that they are lazy or worthless because they CAN NOT afford to work for the wages of those who displace them while fleeing the failure of their own country or working as de-facto slaves in their own? You show me the hope for the future of this nation for the “have nots”. I aint seeing it. Instead I am seeing lots of “used to haves” You found a niche to hide in and good on you for doing so. I’m a smart guy. I’ll find a niche too. But what about the others? I’ve never been much about me. I was always more concerned with them. What about the millions of folks who just want to survive and have a dim hope to thrive? Where is their “American dream”?
Outlander you have to look around you and see more than just your own future. You have to see a nation that is importing millions of no skill laborers while it’s companies are allowed to outsource millions of low, middle, and high skill jobs. You have to see that and you have to act. You cannot make a small little world for just you and yours and make it last. Becasue sooner or later, the big greed monster is coming for you as well.
Some people think they are the victim and looser, and so they end up that way. Some people think they are winners and achievers, and then they are. People have to figure it out for theirselves. They cannot expect to be given everything they want. They must work for it and earn it. That is life. You can say “but that’s just not fair!” Well, that is life. Equal opportunity does not guarantee equal outcome.
The republicans don’t have DNA. According to them, DNA is a mythical substance supposedly found in stem cells (also a myth) and used as an excuse for abortions and government grants to alleviate suffering, which we all know builds character.
Missouri has a ballot initiative to raise the state’s statutory minimum wage to $6.50 Vaughn Tolle pointed out recently that Kansas’s is $2.65.
It would be hard to deny that this is what Republicans and libertarians consider “smart economics”, i.e. the advantage of near-slave labor costs.
I didn’t know about Kansas’s abysmal minimum wage statute, which specifically describes tip earners, but now it answers a previous mystery. It’s really noticeable to people who live elsewhere that Kansas has really crappy restaurants–the operators don’t know anything about food, such as making it something a diner wants to savor, rather than wolf down to fill the belly.
So restaurant operators here are bean counters who shave costs by things like dispensing franchisors’ factory-prepared dishes, using cheap ingredients, rushing diners to maximize table turnover, and employing cheap labor.
Believe it or not, outside of Kansas, and in occasional cases in Kansas, there are people who love excercising artistic creativity in the kitchen and operate successful commercial ventures by translating their culinary talents into delicious products that many other people want to buy. They don’t underpay their help, because they don’t think in terms of minimizing overhead costs as much as they can, they think of selling products, ambience and service that have high value.
What these restaurateurs do, deep down, is value their own talents, their customers as others who enjoy great food, and their employees.
Heartlander-Your generalizations are so broad, I think you are a current/former dis-satisfied food service employee. “Kansas has crappy restaurants?” Can you prove that?Here’s an idea. If you don’t like the pay of your job (that you liked when you were hired, but somehow it’s not good enough now)GO SOMEWHERE ELSE! Stop looking to the goverment to make your life better. I am getting the feeling that you are a loser and should vote for any democrat you can find, if you can wake up in time. Polls close at 7PM
In NYC, on Times Square, four of us ate at the Roxy Deli last week.Four cheeseburger dinners with fries and a coke–$90 + $15 tip.Burgers for four = $105.00.
And we pay a lousy $2.65 and HOPE like hell somebody tips?(I know a LOT of Kansans that NEVER tip).
Man, hotlick, not even the illegals will work for that, why should we expect our kid’s first jobs to be this way.
SM, thoughtful and true.good point.
Hotlick, when I entered the wage workforce at age 15, after spending 3 years as an “independent contractor” in what is today called “landscape maintenance”, i.e. mowing people’s lawns, weeding and trimming shrubbery, the minimum wage was $1.40, which in today’s dollars was about $9.00. Federal income tax was withheld, but refunded in full, and my SSI contribution was small. The businesses I worked for in high school didn’t go bankrupt paying teenagers this level of wage.
After high school I worked on a three-man team loading lettuce trucks, which is to say lifting 50-60 pound cartons from the ground while walking next to moving trucks, and precisely throwing them up 10 feet to neatly stack them. We loaded 15,000 pounds of lettuce in as little 7 minutes. We worked in temps as hot as 107, and had to drink GALLONS of fluid to keep hydrated. We were paid piecework. Most crews had 4 loaders, but a couple other young guys and I figured we were in good shape, having all been football players, and our employer had no objection to letting us make 33% more than the other crews, sympathizing with our desire to earn money for college. In today’s dollars, we made $25-30/hour. Most days we only worked 5-6 hours, but believe me, we were pretty bushed in that short span of time. I’ve never been in better physical shape than at the end of those summers.
As a busboy, I hustled my a**, making minimum wage plus 20% of waitresses’ tips. I worked as hard as the waitresses, but they made about 3 times as much money. Didn’t upset me. They had families to support. I made more than most teenagers.
I used to mow my own lawn until my boys got old enough to do it. Then when they left, I hired a teenager who developed a successful business. When my youngest son found out what I was paying, he groused, “That’s twice as much as you pay me,” and I responded, “That’s because you’re not paying for the equipment and gas. He is.” Well anyway my independent contractor went off to college and made his younger brother a working partner, and I’m happy to be helping this new go-getter get to where he wants to go.
In my experience, low wages represent penny wisdom/pound foolishness. When you devalue people you don’t get their best efforts and you tend to have higher employee turnover. A study done at KU last year showed that Kansans are paid a higher percentage of their work-output value than the national average, but both their incomes and work-output value average lag the national average. Moreover, outside of JoCo, Kansas counties’ household income has been falling farther and farther behind the national average since the 70’s, when it was at the national average level.
I live comfortably in the upper middle class, but if Kansas’s economy falters, it will eventually affect large segments of the population, including myself, via the coin-flip-side of trickle-down (”ooze up”) economics.
On restaurants, the Atlanta MSA is about 10 times as large as the Wichita MSA. Atlanta has over 400 Zaggat Survey award winners. But Wichita doesn’t have 40 Zaggat winners. The KC MSA (2.2 M people) has 67. But Wichita MSA doesn’t have 15.It has 0.
My eating habits are eclectic. My top choices are RedRobin for casual inexpensive dining, Yia-Yia’s in the mid-price range, and Cibola for special occasions once or twice a year.
Sumo is good for Japanese foot–surprisingly good for the mid-continent. Carrabba’s is decent enough in Italian. Same for Abuelos for Mexican food. Same for P.F. Chang for Chinese. None of these offers truly authentic ethnic cuisine–P.F. Chang for example has restaurants all over suburban California, but they don’t even try to do business in San Francisco or Monterey Park, because these are Chinese-American enclaves that have better offerings by family-owned restaurants whose chefs didn’t learn to cook Chinese in a 3-month training school, they grew up cooking Chinese cuisine.
Abuelos isn’t in California, because even though that state has the largest restaurant market in America, it already has Mexican-inspired (not authentic Mexican cuisine) chains, having invented the genre in the 1960’s (Tia Maria, not to overlook drive-through Taco Bell), and it is home to thousands of authentic-Mexican family-owned restaurants whose mamma chefs started learning how to make Mexican dishes at their own mamma’s knees.
Similarly for Carrabba’s. They can’t compete in California, which has the nation’s largest Italian-American population, and delicious-meal-providing family-owned Italian restaurants have long been abundant there.
Crucially, t is cost-prohibitive to fly in picked-yesterday produce and brought-to-the-dock this morning seafood from the coasts to the mid-continent, so Kansans don’t even know what things like crisp and crunchy salad greens or melt-in-your-mouth salmon taste like.
I know something about great-tasting fish and shellfish, having personally caught/collected five kinds of wild trout&char, three species of salmon, ahi (yellowfin tuna), mahi-mahi, yellowtail jack, croaker, sea bass, mackeral, bocaccio, cabezon, halibut, spiney lobster, abalone, clams, scallops and oysters (great raw just after you pry them off the rocks). I own almost every kind of fishing outfit including microlight spinning, baitcasting, fly, surfcasting, and light and medium ocean trolling. I’ve speared a fair number of ocean fish, as well as spiney lobster in Fiji, where this was legal.
How about beef? That’s Kansas fare. We don’t eat a lot of beef, but when we do I order 6-week dry-aged high-prime beef online from New York. (The most-marbled of prime beef.) Grown in Kansas and Nebraska. Only few times a year, freezing some, because it costs $25+/pound, plus Fed Ex shipping. No Wichita restaurant offers 6-week dry-aged KANSAS-RAISED high prime beef. This top-quality Kansas product is exported to restaurants and meat markets elsewhere. (Aged in a bag prime beef is sold in a couple restaurants here, and you can special order a subprimal cut at Dillon’s. NOT the same thing as dry aged. Also, a 1-inch-thick steak doesn’t taste as good as a 2-inch thick steak. I went to Chester’s Rib&Chophouse once. Super classy ambience. But IMO, they either don’t know much about steaks, or else they don’t think their consumers are willing to support $50 entrees. I’m not a fan of superb interior design and mediocre food. But I’ll take the opposite.)
I’ve recently retaken up stir-fry, due to better local veggie offerings at Dillon’s and SuperTarget than in years past. I have a son who makes pasta from his own dough, but he moved away, alas. I do tacos that everyone says are great (I deep-fat fry tortillas, rather than buy shells), decent enchiladas. I slow-smoke ribs for 6 hours, and these are gobbled up by guests. (I use hickory, but have experimented with apple, cherry, pecan and oak wood.)
Are there other facts you’d like to ask me about what I know about food?
Larry,If you’re gay, then I’m the Raja of Darjeeling!Being gay does not involve making an asshole of yourself.
Heartlander,You sure eat a lot higher on the hog than most of us here! I can’t even afford to drive past Cibola’s.
I only eat high on the hog when I’m cookin those ribs. ;)
Actually it helps to be empty nesters. When we had three teenagers, Outback Steakhouse and Old Chicago were apropos. But you can feed two people at Cibola for the same price as five people at Outback. (I think we’ve taken two of our kids to Cibola ONCE since it opened.)
At Outback, it’s very noisy, sometimes you have to breath other people’s smoke (or at least this was the case when we patronized it), and you also have to carry a beeper while waiting for a table, unless you arrive early or late. At Cibola, it’s quiet and relaxing. You get seated immediately. In summer, you can dine on the patio and look at the “lake” (a pond), and people strolling the promenade. Instead of being in-and-out in 50-60 minutes, you can enjoy a 2-hour experience, and the wait-staff isn’t trying to rush you.
For two adults, one trip to Cibola can be considered preferable to two trips to Outback, but of course many people would say the opposite. You get more food for your dollar in the latter case, but the dining experience in the former case is worth paying for.
I like going to a restaurant whose owner pays an executive chef $60,000/yr, the kind of cook who comes up with new ideas to delight customers, versus a chain-employed $30,000/yr lead cook who merely follows corporate formulas. It may shock and offend some people that mere “cooks” can make $60,000 or even $100,000 in some cities, but other people appreciate the products of talented culinary artists.