budget

"class warfare". Link here. I guess that phrase tested well for the republicans in the budget debates. Every time Obama or another progressive mentions raising taxes on the poor ole rich people, a hoard of conservative talking heads squawk "class warfare", like life sized Ken dolls in Armani suits with pull strings coming out of their backsides.
They don't know the first thing about class warfare. Now Czar Nicholas and the rest of the Romanovs, they know class warfare.

By now you have heard that President Obama has chosen to throw Social Security and the Medicare and Medicaid Programs over the side of his proverbial fishing boat as bait to see if he can get Republicans to give him another really lousy compromise, much as he did last December when he gave up billions upon billions of deficit reduction in order to help Republicans preserve tax cuts for billionaires.

And it looks like the President doesn’t really lose if you or I get hurt here: in fact, it seems that, in his eyes, it’s to his advantage to fight against his own base as he seeks to be “the adult in the room” in the runup to the ’12 election.

So we’re going to have to find a way to put The Fear on this guy – and I think I’ve got a plan to force this President to listen.

And it works like this: if this President ain’t gonna be moved by our message…we do it by holding the rest of his Party hostage.

From our e-mail:

We are saddened by the implications of this budget. You know the statistics: 30,000 jobs lost, 12-13,000 in education alone. North Carolina’s recovery will be hindered by this budget, and our generation will have to live with the consequences.

However, in a strange way, tonight was the night that our faith in the Democratic Party was vindicated. This moment proved that our efforts in 2008 and 2010 were well worth it. We will remember this night as we work across our state to reelect our Governor and take back the General Assembly in 2012.

Take a look at this video. It was put up at WFMY at 6:25PM and taken down before midnight. bunch of cowards. Found it at Montgomery County School System site:

http://www.montgomery.k12.nc.us/montgomerycounty/cwp/view.asp?A=3&Q=311447

Outstanding piece, and there will be calls for this guy's head. Write him at:

dale.ellis@montgomery.k12.nc.us

We need to run this guy for House.

It must suck to have someone you live with disagree with you, Rep Stone.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20069530-503544.html?tag=stack

A North Carolina lawmaker doesn't think it was right for his daughter and her third-grade class to write to him and other elected officials protesting possible cuts in state education spending.

Republican state Rep. Mike Stone says his daughter asked in her note to "please raise the budget, dad" and help keep two teacher assistants employed.

Stone told WRAL-TV: "As I read through this (letter), anger completely shot through me, and I was trying to hold myself together. (It's unconscionable) to know any education system would use a daughter against her father."

He went a step further on Twitter, blaming the entire political opposition, when he wrote in response to WRAL's story: "The NCAE, Democrat Party & Bev Perdue have hit a new low."

From a Facebook post by Dan Besse:

Please join in urging Gov. Perdue to veto the terrible budget just passed by the short-sighted GOP legislature. It would slash our public schools, community colleges, and universities, cut off critical health care for the poorest North Carolinians, and tear down our structure of air and water pollution control. Please call Gov. Perdue's office on Monday during the day, 800-662-7952 or 919-733-2391. Thanks!

Make the call. It's quick and it's easy. Just say, "Hi, I'm calling to encourage the Governor to veto the terrible budget just passed by the GOP legislature. Thank you." It's that simple.

Throughout the history of this country, popular movements have always been fueled by anger at a government that is trying to restrict our rights and strip our pockets. The Republican education agenda does exactly those two things: it restricts North Carolinians' rights to a sound basic education and cut into the pocketbooks of almost everyone who interacts with our educational system.

To me, that's just not ok.

There’s a lot of ways to be petty and cheap and stupid, and a lot of ways to stick it to a program you don’t like, and by extension, the clients of that program…and this week the House Republicans have embarked on an effort to combine the two into one petty, cheap, and stupid way to stick it to the clients of Social Security and the workers who administer the program.

They’re going to sell it to you, if they can, as a way to “lower the deficit”, or words similar…but what this is really about is making the actual Social Security program work less well—because, after all, if a program is popular today, the best way to make it less so is to apply a bit of “treat ‘em like their cars were impounded” to every interaction customers have with the system.

And what better way to make sure that happens…then to aggressively demoralize everyone who works down at the ol’ Social Security office?

The most searched word on miriam-webster.com for the year 2010 - austerity. You do not have to look very far to see that folks are resigned to a future not as bright as the past. It's the new normal - shrinking expectations, stagnating income, long-term unemployment, a smaller government, more work in our later years, a growing permanent underclass, and a select few that are super wealthy paying a smaller percent of taxes than most workers. All this can be ignored because enough of us are doing well even in these conditions. We are a nation of plenty. The national debt soars, while state and local governments are forced to cut budgets in ways that reinforce the expectation. The consequences of the national debt are not as immediate. The increasing percentage of the federal budget that goes to pay down the debt will prompt calls for even more austerity on a national scale. Our future as a people joined together is at stake. Do not forget we are a nation of plenty.

Just in the off chance that you're so busy working you don't have time to think, have you seen this?

Increased taxes on high earners should be the first step toward balancing the federal budget, a new poll suggested Monday. Raising taxes on the rich beats out cuts to defense spending, Medicare and Social Security as U.S. adults' top preference on how to close the deficit, according to a 60 Minutes/Vanity Fair poll.

I know it's hard to get the governor to do anything even remotely resembling "progressive" in terms of public policy, but still. When 60% of citizens think it's time to raise taxes on multimillionaires, shouldn't you at least consider the idea? And so what if her budget is dead on arrival in the General Assembly? Anything she wants that's important will be dead on arrival with the Tarheel Taliban, so why not want something worth wanting?

It's time to raise taxes on multimillionaires. All you need is a new top tax bracket and a 1% increase in the rate over the current top bracket. Don't make this complicated. Just do it.