The Democrat Project
December 18, 2010
Has anyone else heard about this? With all the harping that Democrats have been doing about tax cuts for the rich, they have actually decided to take matters into their own hands. It’s called the Democrat Project.
I didn’t believe it myself, but this comes from a reliable source. Rich liberals like Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Richard Branson, Ted Turner along with a host of the richest Democrat politicians including Nancy Pelosi, Jane Harmon, John Kerry and Al Gore have found the true meaning of Christmas and are banding together to give away money in San Francisco. They were all so upset that the tax rates remained in place for themselves, that they decided to go ahead and give it back to the people who really need it. How admirable is that?
You heard it here first. Although the date hasn’t been announced yet, these humanitarians are planning to give away $100,000 a person to the poorest San Francisco street dwellers in order to help make their lives better this Christmas. I am told it was supposed to be a secret so that what happened in Detroit didn’t happen in the City. But now the cat is out of the bag.
I am here to tell you I am really impressed by this gesture.
The challenge, I’m told, comes in how to choose who gets the money. Several ideas have been proposed at a secret meeting in the Pacific Heights home of a wealthy Democrat supporter who asked to remain nameless.
“We Democrats have long talked about helping the poor; now it is time to put our money where our mouths are,“ he said. “But then we thought about how were we going to start? With all the needy people in San Francisco we had to decide how to go about selecting the beneficiaries of our generosity.”
Right now the plan is to have people call a toll free number and register for their opportunity to receive the gift. Since the total amount of the pool has not been announced, we’re not sure how many people will actually end up being recipients. But what a great idea.
UPDATE: After careful thought, Democrats decided to hire union officials to disperse the money. After negotiations were settled, after salary, pensions and health care benefits to workers, there wash’t enough left to give away, so the idea has been shelved for now. Better luck next Christmas!
- FedUpEditor
More about the Tax Deal – OPINION
December 18, 2010
Friday morning I woke up fuming mad convinced that all incumbents had to go, Republican or Democrat. We had been told on the news all day Thursday that Republican Senators were considering voting for the pork barrel spending additions. That’s when I heard Reid had pulled the bill due to lack of support… from BOTH parties. I believe that is thanks to all of us who made phone calls and wrote letters. Again, the Tea Party Patriots ride to save the day!
Though there was relief that the omnibus spending attachment failed to get added to the tax extension, I still feel incumbents need to go because too many RINOS like Olympia Snowe, Susan Collins, Chuck Grassley and Lindsey Graham, among others, all too often feel that “getting things done” is Congress’s job, regardless of the legislation. Not so fast.
Had Congress “gotten things done” by locking in a Democrat budget for the incoming Republican House, it would not only have been an outrage, it would have been unconscionable. Democrats have been running government with a continuing resolution in lieu of passing a budget (which is unconstitutional by the way) so as to keep from shutting down government. Why was it so important to try and pass it? Politically speaking, so it could have been hung around the neck of the incoming Republican majority, even though they would have had nothing to do with it. Thanks to waffling from the likes of the Senators mentioned above, it almost happened!
Besides, who says it is such a bad thing to shut down government anyway? I look at all the government employees and about the only ones I think DESERVE lifetime pensions and healthcare are those who put their lives on the line every day. And that is NOT Congress nor the hundreds of thousands of bureaucrats who push paper from one office to another in federal, state and local governments. In fact, about the only ones I think deserve lifetime compensation for a job well done are police, fire and the military. This does NOT include the people at TSA. It’s just my opinion.
Government office holders’ benefits are based on tenure; how long they have been there, not how good their performance has been. Does how long a person has worked in a job really qualify them for 70% of their salary for the rest of their life? Those of us in the private sector are responsible for our own retirement. Why shouldn’t government employees be too?
FedUpEditor
What tax deal? – OPINION
December 16, 2010
This tax deal was a bad one to begin with. Originally all that was proposed was extending the Bush tax rates for two more years in exchange for continuing unemployment benefits, another unfunded liability, for 13 more months. Think about that. This would guarantee it to be another political issue around Christmastime next year. And what Grinch politician would vote against extending unemployment during the holiday season for those unfortunate enough to have lost their jobs… 3 years ago? Why not propose an extension for 4 months? Why not 6 months? Because Democrats want it to be an issue next Christmas as well. The worst part? We don’t have the money!
But remember; Democrats did not win the election. Conservatives (for the most part) did. This is not their Congress anymore even though they are technically in charge until January. So why are Democrats setting the agenda for next year and beyond? We have to stop them now and limit the damage.
The 2010 election was about getting rid of out of control government spending. So what were they proposing? Spending another $33 billion that we don’t have to pay people not to work. Pelosi and those who think like her say unemployment is the biggest stimulus we could have and would create jobs. If this is so, with unemployment going from around 5% when Bush was in office to nearly 10% after Obama and the Democrats started running everything, you would think our economy would be booming, right? Of course, sane people know those who share this erroneous opinion are just plain stupid. Still, it doesn’t stop them from continuing to espouse the lie. I guess if someone says it often enough eventually it becomes the truth. Thank you mainstream media.
Sorry, but I live just down the street from Rush Limbaugh in Literalville. By looking at the truth in what the economy is doing and has done in the past, we see that unemployment benefits do NOT stimulate the economy. Money sucked out of the economy to be given to non-producers stimulates nothing. It’s the bathtub analogy again where taking water from one end of the tub and pouring it in the other does not raise the level of the water. No new wealth has been created.
Next we have the fact that current tax rates are the status quo. So leaving them in place would give us more of the same, especially with the current rate Congress is spending. How would extending the Bush tax rates improve our situation? It won’t. What we need is to reduce government spending and lower taxes to spur economic growth. In the original proposal, spending would have been increased to pay unemployment benefits with money we don’t have. So obviously, the original proposal was a bad deal.
Now the bill has gone to the Senate for debate, and it is getting worse. What happened? PORK! After promising to end earmarks in the 2011 Congress, some Republicans have joined the pork fest by adding their own pet projects which have nothing to do with 1) unemployment benefits or 2) extending the tax rates. Even though theirs is just a small portion of the nearly $1.2 trillion in new spending being proposed by Democrats, it doesn’t make it right. Republicans need to listen to the people or risk losing the majority once again in 2012.
So to summarize, what started out as a simple tit for tat to extend the tax rates (and a bad deal at that) it has become a huge omnibus spending bill. It’s time to put a stop to it. Republicans need to stand strong an vote against this. They are in the minority, so if it gets passed, it will be hung around the Democrats’ necks for years to come.
There is so much more I could say about this lousy attempt at “bi-partisanship”. Early on when the media was whining about Obama caving to the “rich” by proposing the extension of the Bush tax rates, it was obvious to me that this will stimulate nothing. What we need is strong leadership from the Republicans. However, judging by the choices for committee chairmanships and the continuation of the “old boy network”, it’s obvious more of the incumbent Republicans need to go in 2012. They are just not listening to us.
Mick Orton
