You're not against waste. You're against waste from rich people. Talk about class warfare, heh.

Two people on food stamps. One buys enough food for a balanced, nutritious meal. The other buys doritos, twinkies and soda.

Person A is able to buy MORE food, and feed himself longer. Person B can buy less food and feed himself for a shorter period of time. Person B is wasting money. Not only that, but Person B is also wasting even more taxpayer money in the form of increased medical costs because of the ramifications of their unhealthy diet choices.

First, if they are that bad, they need to be fired. Simple as that.

Second, if you wanted to be fair with your point, we would enact legislation that kept all the people on the OTHER side of the bank collapse, the people who are living above their means, from ever owning a house until they could actually afford it again. Right?

Leo, no. It is exactly what I said it was. It is money given to a citizen after said citizen jumps through some hoop, whether or not that citizen owed taxes at all. A handout with no strings attached. There is no requirement that the citizen have put that amount down on a home. They can finance 100% of the loan, get the tax credit, spend it on a trip to Vegas, and then sell the home that got them the credit. Free money.

Jox, you're really, REALLY coming off as someone who's intentionally gouging their own eyes out just because someone put the truth in front of them. You're trying entirely too hard, sir.

I am tired of the populist bullshit. The pay of bank CEO's is a distraction from important issues. How much the CEO's of a grand total of 5 applicable companies are making is completely meaningless, and won't have an affect one way or another on the banks. It's compounded by the fact that we bailed the banks out for OUR benefit, not theirs. Last, it's irritating when it comes from people like Obama after he spent more than triple the previous cost for the inauguration and then stokes populist anger with rhetoric about the evil bank and auto CEO's.

Class warfare? Seriously? I'm against waste at all levels, but the waste at the upper end tends to be more harmful than at the bottom, and is easier to regulate. The cost of trying to ensure everyone on food stamps buys "nutritious" food would likely be too high to try it. So we give people who ask for it the little bit of money they need and hope for the best. If they don't feed themselves, it's their tough luck. They're only gonna get so much from us.

Conversely, if we hand a company billions of dollars to fix its problems, it's much more cost effective to keep track of how they're spending it, and it makes more sense to track those billions of dollars going to single entity than it is to track tens of hundreds of dollars going to millions of people.

Personally, I'm completely against government handouts of any kind. With the sole exception of unemployment insurance, I detest WIC, food stamps, and all other bullshit programs like that that coddle people who are unable to feed themselves. And I think these companies should sink or swim on their own, without our help. But if they want it, they're gonna have to answer to us as to how they're spending that money.


So those companies don't get any benefit from a bailout? They didn't ask for it, we "forced" it on them? Is that what you're trying to say? Because if they didn't ask for it, you're absolutely right, we shouldn't meddle in how they spend their money.

But wait... no, I'm pretty sure they came to us absolutely BEGGING for help. So no, your whole point is moot.

As an aside, I don't really give a shit about how much the inauguration cost. You are purposefully neglecting the fact that most of those costs had to do with the fact that it was the most attended inauguration ever. 1.8 million people attended, 50% more than had attended the second largest (Lyndon Johnson's in 1965.) So while you can pretend that Obama somehow planned to spend as much money as he could on an inauguration, and you can pretend that it was a waste of money, and you can ignore the fact that the money was necessary to ensure everyone's safety, the rest of us grown ups who don't listen to Rush Limbaugh or any of these other talking heads can look shit up for ourselves and make decisions based on reality, not on partisan bullshit.

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You were doing well with your first paragraph. But, though it's easier to regulate the pay of corporate CEO's, the regulation is only there for CEO's we've bailed out, who have taken significant bailouts. Which is a grand total of.. 5! This issue, which is so important to so many of you, does not matter at all. It has no affect. It's meaningless.

No, actually, it's not. The bailout helps them, but we did it for the economy, not to save Bank of America. We bailed out GM, Ford and the other auto companies not because of their tie to Americana, but because if we don't, the affect starts a chain reaction that affects not just those companies but their suppliers, the towns they employ people in, etc.


Look, we've come full circle. In addition to taxpayer funding, who helped foot the bill for the inauguration...?

Bailed-out Wall Street Execs!
http://abcnews.go.com/business/inaugura ... 946&page=2

So what's your big solution, Jox?

If it's such a small, "meaningless" gesture (and I happen to agree that it is, compared to the general cost of the bill), then why are you arguing against it so strongly? You and I are paying for their stupid business decisions. Now you want me to pay their bonuses? Fuck that-- how about you pay for it. I would think you would be going right along with this, but for some reason you are arguing. I just don't get it.

Except for, you know, the millions of dollars difference. But I guess in your view millions of dollars nothing. It's chump change. Right?

But... the companies didn't benefit from the bailout? Are you still ignoring that part? Sure, we bailed them out. And sure, we felt as if we had to. But where in your argument does this support the idea that we should be paying them to continue business as usual? The same business as usual that caused them to fail in the first place? Or do you think just throwing money at a problem should fix it?

It'd be great if that article actually listed some of the bailed-out companies that donated. Awesome in fact. It doesn't. The article seems deliberately vague on which companies from Wall Street actually donated, and since we didn't bail out every company on Wall Street, I'm betting that a lot of that $7 million came from companies that we didn't bail out.

But you keep on spinnin', man. SPIN HARDER. If you do it fast enough, you'll make us travel back in time, and you might be able to change the course of history and get McCain elected, and he'll superheroically fix everything in one fucking night.

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Those don't strike me as handouts. Those are rebates.

...which means, all those people who voted for this asshat are also truly retarded.

I don't recall voting for the Transportation Secretary. Did you get a vote?

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I thought we talked about this, Bello. C'mon.

Eating healthy is expensive but doritos, twinkies, and soda is not the only other option.

Kula, you're splitting hairs. It doesn't matter if they spent those particular dollars on the item. Tax credits are incentives.

I'm not arguing whether or not those incentives are always distributed properly or the most beneficial possible. We'd likely agree they're not.

But they are incentives, plain and simple.

Fucking inflation...

<-------<<<

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"Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats." -Henry Louis Mencken
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VEGETARIAN -Noun (vej-i-tair-ee-uhn): Ancient tribal slang for the village idiot who can't hunt, fish or ride.

We're both splitting hairs here, Leo. Both your viewpoint and mine are valid, we simply see things through different lenses.

My original point stands, though, people would not stand for the type of controls on individual handouts/stimuli/incentives that they are screaming for regarding the loans to automakers and financial institutions.

Oh, and to be clear: I'm not necessarily against government directives attached to government handouts, but be consistent.

Leo's not splitting hairs, his definition was simple and spot-on.

Splitting hairs is when you start calling out someone for buying red meat with their food stamps because it'll raise their cholesterol and make them more likely to have a heart attack or something.

Next up from the members of the Lanys Everquest players forum: We debate the meaning of "splitting hairs". Stay tuned.

You know it!

I guess he forgot that part.

From WSJ.com


By the time this tax bill comes due there won't be enough people in the $250k+ bracket to pay for half of it...

I enjoyed this tidbit, too:





And over 8500 earmarks in the latest bill this week.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/02262009/ne ... 157027.htm

But hey, at least I can take a nice native canoe ride in Hawaii while reading up on the latest research about pig farts.

more (link)

I think it's awesome that despite the fact that people like you folk will point at it and say, "omg huge deficit," Obama took the more honest route and included the war in Iraq in the budget.

And don't say you won't. You already implied it. It would have been impressive if you had shown the same kind of outrage when Bush presented his budgets (with huge amounts of spending simply missing from the budget).

I think I did state that I was outraged at the abandonment of fiscal conservativeness in all of Bush-41's budgets. He was a tax-cut and spender. That is just slightly better than a tax and spender but still reckless and dangerous.

Also, about Obama including the war in the budget, yes it should have been in there all the time but something screams political move about it to me. He seems to continually talking both sides on this. "We are ending this now" "We are cutting the military spending in the war in Iraq" "We will bring the troops home" "we will try to bring them home in 12 - 18 months, maybe 24" "we will have a continual presence of 50,000 troops in Irag"

He's the president, everything he does is a political move

And there my friends is the "Change" you were all promised!!

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"Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats." -Henry Louis Mencken
_____
VEGETARIAN -Noun (vej-i-tair-ee-uhn): Ancient tribal slang for the village idiot who can't hunt, fish or ride.

Oh, c'mon. You just want a reason to bitch.

He's bringing the vast majority of troops back home. Some will be remaining for training and to have a presence, much like we did for years in Germany and Korea and elsewhere. He's being responsible in the timeline he's proposed. So what exactly do you have a problem with?

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Well, it was the EXACT SAME STANCE that John McCain had and all you Obamatons latched on to the "OMG McCain wants to have 100 years of war!!!!" bullshit line.

Remember I didn't vote for McCain either.

I wasn't on the boards for the election, so I don't know what you're talking about.

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it wasn't just on the boards it was everywhere.