Archive for February, 2010

While there are certainly plenty of valid reasons to fear Big Government, it is often the beneficial aspects of what a powerful federal government can provide that sends the mainstream media’s cast of Fox super villains into a frenzy. Universal access to health care, social programs for distressed communities, rights to an education, environmental protection and even basic food and water standards have been discussed in somber tones by Glenn Beck as the stepping stones to a Socialist government hell bent on destroying the American Dream.

I watch in awe as Sean Hannity follows at least thirty mentions of the need for small government with the statement that we should not fetter our CIA and military with respect to battling terrorists. As the history of all Big Governments has illustrated in the starkest of terms, nothing feeds the power of the State more than perpetual war. Sean Hannity has absolute trust in the growing Big Government he fears when said government is blowing up towns via remote control airplanes, killing scores of innocents on nothing more than a hunch that a terrorist might have prayed in the local mosque. Sean Hannity sees no reason to mess about with such Pollyanna bullshit as trials or adherence to the Geneva Convention when fighting this amorphous war that was never formally declared.

The same government that is completely untrustworthy on Health Care is miraculously trustworthy on imprisoning those who mean to do us harm. Simply requesting a modicum of transparency on issues relating to the incarceration and murder of potential enemies of the State is tantamount to being weak on defense or even a traitor. Lucky for us, our government never arrests the wrong man or woman. If the government somehow kills a few thousand innocents along the way, that’s just the cost of freedom, the cost of making Big Government even bigger.

Bill O’Reilly gets flustered when the idea that we should not torture people comes up. He sighs heavily when there is a suggestion that there should be proof before we execute someone. He trusts our government unequivocally in such matters. It is only the big governance of Reid and Pelosi that he questions. There is more of a possibility that our government, which has listened in on our cell phone calls and will soon be looking at most of us naked before we board an airplane, would incarcerate and murder us for our opinions rather than carrying out the supposed Death Panels of the monstrous Health Care plans. While I am not a proponent of the bullshit insurance company giveaways of Harry Reid or the slightly less bullshitty but still very crappy plan of Nancy Pelosi, at least they are devoting some energy into the concept that Big Government can accomplish more than murder.

Sarah Palin laughs at the suggestion of any sort of deliberation before we escalate our various wars. She trusts our lightning-fast precision government to make the decisions of life and death, your way, right away.

The right-wingers, who supported the repeal of McCain-Feingold, believe that corporations must be guaranteed the rights of the individual, as long as they are not Gay Corporations. Nothing threatens the sanctity of marriage more than a dreaded Gay Corporate Merger or George Soros with his hand on John McCain’s backside.

Republicans and Tea Baggers alike can sleep well knowing that Scott Brown also has absolute trust in our Big Government when it comes to imprisonment, torture and murder. Scott Brown’s drunken rambling victory speech a couple of weeks ago drew big applause when he spoke of the fact that there is simply no need to protect the rights of terrorists. Again, the problem here is, as patently obvious as it should be, is that without giving suspects any rights, there is no mechanism to assess if they are guilty or innocent. This undermines all of our rights.

To my friends in the corporate media, I am all for reducing the size of government, right after they arrest the lot of you on suspicion of being terrorists. Isn’t “Hannity” the Arabic word for sewer waste?

The initiatives amount to a package of tax credits, spending expansions and new mandates on employers to encourage retirement savings by workers. Most of them will be included in Obama's budget for the fiscal year starting Oct. 1, and they will require approval from Congress. Obama will release that budget Feb. 1.

The president's latest rollout of ideas served as a preview of his prime-time State of the Union address. The economic elements of that speech will also cover Obama's plans to boost job creation and reduce swelling budget deficits — areas of concern to the public.

Obama's address will outline his second-year agenda across a spectrum of issues, including tighter rules on Wall Street behavior and a push for financial discipline in Washington. He also is expected to touch on the issue of gays in the military.

In an interview Monday, Obama defended his agenda and said he would not support only smaller issues that avoid controversy. “I will not slow down in terms going after the big problems,” he told ABC News.

Among the president's economic ideas:

– Nearly doubling the tax credit that families making under $85,000 can receive for child care costs, with some help for families earning up to $115,000, too.

– Capping the size of periodic federal college loan repayments at 10 percent of borrowers' discretionary income to make payments more affordable.

– Increasing by $1.6 billion the money pumped into a federal fund to help working parents pay for child care, covering an estimated 235,000 additional children.

– Requiring employers who don't offer 401(k) retirement plans to offer direct-deposit IRAs for their employees, with exemptions for the smallest firms.

– Spending more than $100 million to help people care for their elderly parents and get support for themselves as well.

The White House maintained that its imperative still is to create jobs. Unemployment remains in double digits, and the economy is the public's top concern. Yet Obama said that squeezed families need help in other ways, too: paying for child care, helping out aging parents, saving for retirement, paying off college debt.

What matters ultimately to people, Obama said, is “whether they see some progress in their own lives. So we're going to keep fighting to rebuild our economy so that hard work is once again rewarded, wages and incomes are once again rising, the middle class is once again growing.”

Less clear was how much the programs would cost or where the money would come from.

Officials deferred comment until the release of the budget.

Obama, whose poll numbers are off, is trying to sharpen his economic message in a way that shows people he is on their side. White House officials say they know people have been turned off by the long, messy fight for health insurance reform. Plus, there's a perception that families have gotten far less help than big banks.

The economy is growing, but not fast enough to bring down widespread joblessness. The unemployment rate is at 10 percent and most economists say it could take until at least 2015 for it to return to more normal levels.

The plans Obama set forth came from the yearlong work of a task force, led by Vice President Joe Biden, that was charged with helping the middle class.

“We're talking about dignity. We're talking about security,” Biden said. “We're talking about knowing your pension is safe, your health insurance is reliable, your elderly parents and your children are going to be cared for, your neighborhood is safe.”

Obama's initiatives also include expanding and simplifying a tax credit that matches retirement savings, and making 401(k) rules easier to understand.

On the matter of gays in the military, Obama has vowed to lift the ban on gays serving openly, and several lawmakers support a repeal of the law. But some senior military advisers and members of Congress have urged the president not to shake up the status quo at a time of two wars.

Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said he had planned to convene a hearing on the issue in January, but that the Obama administration asked him to hold off until the president's national address.

“We were told by the Pentagon that they expected the president to say something in the State of the Union on it,” Levin said.

Levin, who favors repealing the law, said he does not know what Obama will say. He said he plans to hold hearings in February and would like to hear testimony from Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mike Mullen.

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While there are certainly plenty of valid reasons to fear Big Government, it is often the beneficial aspects of what a powerful federal government can provide that sends the mainstream media’s cast of Fox super villains into a frenzy. Universal access to health care, social programs for distressed communities, rights to an education, environmental protection and even basic food and water standards have been discussed in somber tones by Glenn Beck as the stepping stones to a Socialist government hell bent on destroying the American Dream.

I watch in awe as Sean Hannity follows at least thirty mentions of the need for small government with the statement that we should not fetter our CIA and military with respect to battling terrorists. As the history of all Big Governments has illustrated in the starkest of terms, nothing feeds the power of the State more than perpetual war. Sean Hannity has absolute trust in the growing Big Government he fears when said government is blowing up towns via remote control airplanes, killing scores of innocents on nothing more than a hunch that a terrorist might have prayed in the local mosque. Sean Hannity sees no reason to mess about with such Pollyanna bullshit as trials or adherence to the Geneva Convention when fighting this amorphous war that was never formally declared.

The same government that is completely untrustworthy on Health Care is miraculously trustworthy on imprisoning those who mean to do us harm. Simply requesting a modicum of transparency on issues relating to the incarceration and murder of potential enemies of the State is tantamount to being weak on defense or even a traitor. Lucky for us, our government never arrests the wrong man or woman. If the government somehow kills a few thousand innocents along the way, that’s just the cost of freedom, the cost of making Big Government even bigger.

Bill O’Reilly gets flustered when the idea that we should not torture people comes up. He sighs heavily when there is a suggestion that there should be proof before we execute someone. He trusts our government unequivocally in such matters. It is only the big governance of Reid and Pelosi that he questions. There is more of a possibility that our government, which has listened in on our cell phone calls and will soon be looking at most of us naked before we board an airplane, would incarcerate and murder us for our opinions rather than carrying out the supposed Death Panels of the monstrous Health Care plans. While I am not a proponent of the bullshit insurance company giveaways of Harry Reid or the slightly less bullshitty but still very crappy plan of Nancy Pelosi, at least they are devoting some energy into the concept that Big Government can accomplish more than murder.

Sarah Palin laughs at the suggestion of any sort of deliberation before we escalate our various wars. She trusts our lightning-fast precision government to make the decisions of life and death, your way, right away.

The right-wingers, who supported the repeal of McCain-Feingold, believe that corporations must be guaranteed the rights of the individual, as long as they are not Gay Corporations. Nothing threatens the sanctity of marriage more than a dreaded Gay Corporate Merger or George Soros with his hand on John McCain’s backside.

Republicans and Tea Baggers alike can sleep well knowing that Scott Brown also has absolute trust in our Big Government when it comes to imprisonment, torture and murder. Scott Brown’s drunken rambling victory speech a couple of weeks ago drew big applause when he spoke of the fact that there is simply no need to protect the rights of terrorists. Again, the problem here is, as patently obvious as it should be, is that without giving suspects any rights, there is no mechanism to assess if they are guilty or innocent. This undermines all of our rights.

To my friends in the corporate media, I am all for reducing the size of government, right after they arrest the lot of you on suspicion of being terrorists. Isn’t “Hannity” the Arabic word for sewer waste?

The initiatives amount to a package of tax credits, spending expansions and new mandates on employers to encourage retirement savings by workers. Most of them will be included in Obama's budget for the fiscal year starting Oct. 1, and they will require approval from Congress. Obama will release that budget Feb. 1.

The president's latest rollout of ideas served as a preview of his prime-time State of the Union address. The economic elements of that speech will also cover Obama's plans to boost job creation and reduce swelling budget deficits — areas of concern to the public.

Obama's address will outline his second-year agenda across a spectrum of issues, including tighter rules on Wall Street behavior and a push for financial discipline in Washington. He also is expected to touch on the issue of gays in the military.

In an interview Monday, Obama defended his agenda and said he would not support only smaller issues that avoid controversy. “I will not slow down in terms going after the big problems,” he told ABC News.

Among the president's economic ideas:

– Nearly doubling the tax credit that families making under $85,000 can receive for child care costs, with some help for families earning up to $115,000, too.

– Capping the size of periodic federal college loan repayments at 10 percent of borrowers' discretionary income to make payments more affordable.

– Increasing by $1.6 billion the money pumped into a federal fund to help working parents pay for child care, covering an estimated 235,000 additional children.

– Requiring employers who don't offer 401(k) retirement plans to offer direct-deposit IRAs for their employees, with exemptions for the smallest firms.

– Spending more than $100 million to help people care for their elderly parents and get support for themselves as well.

The White House maintained that its imperative still is to create jobs. Unemployment remains in double digits, and the economy is the public's top concern. Yet Obama said that squeezed families need help in other ways, too: paying for child care, helping out aging parents, saving for retirement, paying off college debt.

What matters ultimately to people, Obama said, is “whether they see some progress in their own lives. So we're going to keep fighting to rebuild our economy so that hard work is once again rewarded, wages and incomes are once again rising, the middle class is once again growing.”

Less clear was how much the programs would cost or where the money would come from.

Officials deferred comment until the release of the budget.

Obama, whose poll numbers are off, is trying to sharpen his economic message in a way that shows people he is on their side. White House officials say they know people have been turned off by the long, messy fight for health insurance reform. Plus, there's a perception that families have gotten far less help than big banks.

The economy is growing, but not fast enough to bring down widespread joblessness. The unemployment rate is at 10 percent and most economists say it could take until at least 2015 for it to return to more normal levels.

The plans Obama set forth came from the yearlong work of a task force, led by Vice President Joe Biden, that was charged with helping the middle class.

“We're talking about dignity. We're talking about security,” Biden said. “We're talking about knowing your pension is safe, your health insurance is reliable, your elderly parents and your children are going to be cared for, your neighborhood is safe.”

Obama's initiatives also include expanding and simplifying a tax credit that matches retirement savings, and making 401(k) rules easier to understand.

On the matter of gays in the military, Obama has vowed to lift the ban on gays serving openly, and several lawmakers support a repeal of the law. But some senior military advisers and members of Congress have urged the president not to shake up the status quo at a time of two wars.

Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said he had planned to convene a hearing on the issue in January, but that the Obama administration asked him to hold off until the president's national address.

“We were told by the Pentagon that they expected the president to say something in the State of the Union on it,” Levin said.

Levin, who favors repealing the law, said he does not know what Obama will say. He said he plans to hold hearings in February and would like to hear testimony from Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mike Mullen.

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