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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWe need a new Democratic Party
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Austerity has been proven to make depressions worse for the 99%. But both parties demand more austerity, now. Krugman, Stieglitz and the other reality-based economists are persona non grata.
Health care costs are twice those of other countries, crippling our wallets and our health. One party wants little people to do without health care, the other wants to cover most folks but keep prices staggeringly high through taxpayer subsidies.
The President now has sweeping powers to ignore the Constitution. Both parties are cool with that.
The wealthiest Americans continue to be taxed at incredibly low rates, far lower than many in the middle class. Both parties are all for it.
Social Security is fully funded for decades, probably for at least 75 years. Both parties want to cut benefits to keep low taxes on the wealthy.
Bankers dine regularly with the President, whose staff and cabinet are filled with other bankers on loan from Wall Street. They are treated with fawning and obsequious respect by both parties in Congress.
We expect Republicans to do this stuff, but we expect Democrats to be on our side. A few individuals *are* on our side, but precious few.
This will not be fixed by tweaks. We need to rebuild our party from the ground up.
ADDENDUM: No, I have zero interest in starting a third party. This party belongs to us, and we should keep it; it's the trespassers who need to vacate.
I still call myself a Liberal rather than a Progressive, in large part because I'll be damned if I'll let the opposition steal the word "Liberal" from me, just as I'll be damned if they'll steal my party from me. They've done all they can to turn that word into a slur, but fuck 'em - they can't have it, and we'll win the word back. We're already making progress on this.
I'm a Liberal Democrat. And that's that.
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Egalitarian Thug
(12,448 posts)
bhikkhu
(10,789 posts)
That the wealthy are taxed at incredibly low rates, far below the rest of us, isn't true, especially if you look at the total tax burden. You can narrow "the wealthiest" down to a few individuals and find it to be true - some hide assets and income in foreign countries, or (like Romney) have very specific loopholes that keep their rates artificially low.
But in general you could more accurately say that we all pay close to the same rates across the board. The wealthy could easily pay more, and in a progressive tax system they would pay more, as they are the only group able to pay more. But they don't.
99Forever
(14,524 posts)... instead of that Republican cherrypicked bullshit?
I dare you.
DollarBillHines
(1,922 posts)Tax "rates" for the wealthy are a joke. I know quite a few people whose income runs into millions of dollars per year, and damned few of them pay any real "income" tax.
They write off everything.
They do, however, pay a lot of other taxes, but those are pretty much proportionate to what everyone else pays.
99Forever
(14,524 posts)Although I don't buy for one second that they pay a "proportionate" share of any part of the tax load.
"Taxes are for little people."
DollarBillHines
(1,922 posts)I suppose 'proportionate' doesn't apply to gasoline taxes.
As for income taxes, I pay very little. But I pay a boatload of property and sales tax.
bhikkhu
(10,789 posts)"Citizens for Tax Justice, founded in 1979, is a 501 (c)(4) public interest research and advocacy organization focusing on federal, state and local tax policies and their impact upon our nation. CTJ's mission is to give ordinary people a greater voice in the development of tax laws. Against the armies of special interest lobbyists for corporations and the wealthy, CTJ fights for:
Fair taxes for middle and low-income families
Requiring the wealthy to pay their fair share
Closing corporate tax loopholes
Adequately funding important government services
Reducing the federal debt
Taxation that minimizes distortion of economic markets"
and so forth. I know the first reaction to discrepant information is to attack the source, rather than research the source, and to dismiss the information, rather than fact-check it or make sure you understand it.
"Total taxes" is the key term. The right tends to look only at federal taxes when they form their talking points, as the federal tax rates are the most progressive and show the poor paying nothing and the wealthiest paying ridiculous amounts in comparison. This is a distortion.
"Total taxes" includes sales tax, which consumes a disproportionate amount of poorer individual's income, as do the fuel and energy taxes, and vehicle registration fees and so forth. When you look at the proportions of a person's income paid in total taxes, those who pay no federal income tax still pay about 20% of their income in taxes.
When you get to the middle classes you add more federal income tax along with property taxes and higher state taxes. When you reach the top of the ladder sales tax and others becomes insignificant, but capital gains and property taxes can take up a higher proportion (depending on how the wealth is arranged). If you still just look at federal tax, some people avoid that cleverly, but on the whole they pay about 30% of income in total taxes.
The figures are just the facts, and the group that put them together is slanted in our direction, if its slanted at all. On the one hand, it disproves the RW slander against the poor - they pay their share. On the other hand, it shows that the wealthiest also pay taxes generally at about the same rate as most people. Individuals (such as Romney) may have their special loopholes and tricks, but the general rate is still there.
What I take away is that the whole thing looks pretty equitable and fair overall. The poor should pay a little less, the rich should pay a little more. And if we had some crisis where we had to drum up another percentage or two, obviously it should come from those who can afford it easily. Closing loopholes and tax breaks on the uber-rich is the obvious best approach.
cascadiance
(19,537 posts)... when with what they REALLY pay in *effective tax rates* is often times next to nothing, or in some cases getting money handouts from the U.S. tax payer for all of the loopholes they've paid congress to put in for them. And they LIKE it this way. They can complain about the high rates when only the stupid and the powerless amongst them pay them.
Individual effective real tax rates versus the stated tax rates.
What percent of our tax revenue comes from individuals versus corporations over time...
MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)Also, the top few hundred families pay at a far lower rate than the top 1% - about a 20% rate last year - because of capital gains tax discounts.
bhikkhu
(10,789 posts)though I haven't delved deeply into the raw numbers or methods. The group that put it together is usually pretty reliable - http://www.ctj.org/
Though, of course, given the subject, plenty of reasons for "shoot the messenger" could be found.
GoneFishin
(5,217 posts)It is also a reason some executives are paid less in base pay than in stocks and options, it gives
them more room to characterize the compensation as capital gains which in the past qualified for the 15% tax rate.
Thinkingabout
(30,058 posts)Said he paid a lower rate than his secretary. This is why Romney paid less than 15%.
Demo_Chris
(6,234 posts)fasttense
(17,301 posts)Prior to the tax cut for the very wealthiest (top 1%) the ones that experienced the LARGEST tax cut were the top 1/10 of the 1%. Their tax rate was some where around 10-12%. Even Romney when he released his tax return showed that he only had to pay a whopping 14 percent.
If we accept that your tax chart is correct a cursory look will tell you very quickly that 18% of a minimum wage job is far more than 30% of lets say Romney's 20 million as an unemployed man. Does that tax rate you quote include sales taxes, State and Local taxes, Social Security and Medicare taxes?
Should Romney's 20 million a year be exempt from Social Security taxes (except for the first 110 thousand)
Why should the minimum wage person have to pay taxes on every dollar he earns while Romney gets a tax break for being exceptionally wealthy?
The wealthy in this country get all the benefits of having the working men and women pay the tab for their maleficences as well. The banking bail out comes to mind. Not ONE of the Bankers went to jail for their crashing the economy but we got the bill to the tune of 13 TRILLION dollars.
No Virginia, the wealthy do not pay more in taxes. The Poor and Middle classes pay the vast majority of taxes. Always have and always will.
I think that "It's A Wonderful Life" said it best: "it's that rabble that does all of the working, the living and dieing, Mr. Potter. Is it too much to ask that they have a couple of rooms, a bath and a roof over their heads?"
For the rich the answer to that question is "YES, it is too much to ask."
bhikkhu
(10,789 posts)The RW is fond of looking just at the progressive Federal tax, which skews the picture to the rich paying everything and the "47 percent" being freeloaders.
Looking at the total taxes people pay is much more fair. Federal taxes are the most progressive taxes; others such as sales tax weigh disproportionately on the incomes of the poor.
MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)folks in the 1% pay at a far-lower rate.
Thanks for the info.
sulphurdunn
(6,891 posts)for federal income taxes, not FICA, capital gains, state or local taxes, most of which are capped or regressive. Those at the bottom pay much, much more of their real income in taxes. For the sake of argument though, let's assume there is total across the board equality in tax rates, a sort of universal flat tax that takes exactly 10% from everyone and no more. Who is burdened more, the one paying 10% on a $10,000 income of the one paying the same rate on a $10,000,000 income? Your figures also fail to note that a majority of the 1% receive their income primarily from wages and salaries and are not privy to sophisticated tax avoidance and financial schemes yet are still averaged into the only income group without an upper income limit. As incomes increase, approaching that of the 0.1% of taxpayers, actual taxation drops precipitously and mirrors rates paid by the poorest tax payers.
bread_and_roses
(6,335 posts)readily available at Citizens for Tax Justice?
Like this:
http://www.ctj.org/taxjusticedigest/archive/2013/01/ending_tax_shelters_for_invest.php#.UTPT_leJBzU
A new working paper on tax reform options from Citizens for Tax Justice has a section describing a category of revenue-raising proposals that has not received much attention: ending tax shelters for investment income. As former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers noted in a recent op-ed: “What’s needed is an element that has largely been absent to date: [reducing] the numerous exclusions from the definition of adjusted gross income that enable the accumulation of great wealth with the payment of little or no taxes.”
The problem addressed by these proposals is partly related to the problem posed by the special, low rates that apply to capital gains and stock dividends. (Congress certainly needs to eliminate those special rates, so that investment income is taxed just like any other income.)
The breaks and loopholes criticized by Larry Summers and explained in CTJ’s new working paper allow wealthy individuals to delay or completely avoid paying taxes on their capital gains — at any rate. It does not matter what tax rate applies to capital gains so long as the wealthy can use these shelters to avoid paying any tax at all.
There's a few more little problems with adjusted gross income as calculated for the rich on that page.
And CJA is no radical organization. I, for instance, would go much further than they. But in no way does their overall analysis suggest that current tax rates are in any way "fair" for both the rich and the rest of us.
Capt13
(62 posts)And Screw anyone who thinks "Their Fair Share' shouldn't be 2-3 times more. They've gotten rich on the sweat of the poor for decades. Since they have been sucking the life out of the economy with all the off shoring, outsourcing and tax dodges, Make THEM pay to rebuild the entire economy till they're mother has to eat cat food.
So tired of this "Job Creator" bullshit. I've worked for rich, self entitled pricks and most would squeeze nickel till the buffalo shits, I've worked for average schmucks like me and seen them go without groceries for a week to make sure I got a paycheck.
truedelphi
(32,324 posts)If now is not the time for Class Warfare against the one percent, I don't know when else would be that time.
Oh and a big welcome to DU.
cui bono
(19,926 posts)and is taxed at a different rate. That's how most of the super wealthy make their money.
Art_from_Ark
(27,247 posts)that is, "income that is not earned from your job or from your business".
cali
(114,904 posts)Until we change how political campaigns are funded, any rebuilt party would fall victim to the same pressures extant today.
Publicly funded campaigns are the only way to go, that way EVERY candidate has a level playing field. Get rid of the secret money completely, if you donate to a candidate, you reveal who you are, period.
The very best people for the jobs in Congress--the ones with good ideas, level heads, the ones who know what it's like to scrape by these days--can't afford to run for office. Congress shouldn't be a Millionaire's Club, but it is. Do we really expect millionaires to understand financial difficulties? Apparently not.
To fix a problem, you have to understand it.
Tierra_y_Libertad
(50,414 posts)
MineralMan
(151,268 posts)And that makes it almost impossible to change, as many have noted over time. Change is slow, at best.
glinda
(14,807 posts)green for victory
(591 posts)It was all ready to go....Isn't that something!
CanonRay
(16,171 posts)so why would they change. Let's play Monopoly, I'll make rules up and see who wins. Plus, I can change the rules if they are not working out for me.
tblue
(16,350 posts)I get what you're saying but we do have a way of lying back and taking it.
glinda
(14,807 posts)
AndyTiedye
(23,538 posts)They pick up a gun and start shooting people at random.
ZombieHorde
(29,047 posts)rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)passed if the Republicans continue to steal elections.
Egalitarian Thug
(12,448 posts)
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)We need to overturn Citizens United. We need an entire overhaul of how elections are structured. We need to wrest power over balloting and the debates from the two corporate parties and put them back in the hands of the people.
You are right that we need reform of "the system," and that includes a lot. Corporate money and influence, in all the many ways they have been insinuated into the system.
KittyWampus
(55,894 posts)Manny?
Warren Stupidity
(48,181 posts)
Marrah_G
(28,581 posts)Egalitarian Thug
(12,448 posts)
Le Taz Hot
(22,271 posts)
rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)Not very democratic or Democratic.
Pejorative name calling has no place in DU. But I am sure the Hate Brigade will back you up.
UnrepentantLiberal
(11,700 posts)awoke_in_2003
(34,582 posts)then you may as well call me one, too.
el_bryanto
(11,804 posts)MineralMan
(151,268 posts)If you can gather enough people behind your idea, then you will succeed. If not, then you won't.
Please proceed, Mr. Goldstein.
graham4anything
(11,464 posts)and ***bonus*** on a new website you won't have me to be there.
I am quite happy with the current democratic party
Wouldn't mind the complete ridding of the republicantealibertarian, but I have nothing against TeamObama and all the members of the team.
And I think there is a guy who would love to join in,seems he's not part of the party, can't quite think of the guys name.
Wait a minute, it will come to me.
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canoeist52
(2,282 posts)I'm having a much harder time explaining what it means to be a Democrat than I have ever had in my 40 years of being one.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)"Krugman, Stieglitz and the other reality-based economists are persona non grata."
...you think Krugman is "persona non grata"? On what basis?
KRUGMAN: Centrist Pundits "Will Always Invent Some Reason Why Obama Just Isn't Doing It Right"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022453130
By PAUL KRUGMAN
President Obama laid out a number of good ideas in his State of the Union address. Unfortunately, almost all of them would require spending money — and given Republican control of the House of Representatives, it’s hard to imagine that happening.
One major proposal, however, wouldn’t involve budget outlays: the president’s call for a rise in the minimum wage from $7.25 an hour to $9, with subsequent increases in line with inflation. The question we need to ask is: Would this be good policy? And the answer, perhaps surprisingly, is a clear yes....the current level of the minimum wage is very low by any reasonable standard. For about four decades, increases in the minimum wage have consistently fallen behind inflation, so that in real terms the minimum wage is substantially lower than it was in the 1960s. Meanwhile, worker productivity has doubled. Isn’t it time for a raise?
Now, you might argue that even if the current minimum wage seems low, raising it would cost jobs. But there’s evidence on that question — lots and lots of evidence, because the minimum wage is one of the most studied issues in all of economics. U.S. experience, it turns out, offers many “natural experiments” here, in which one state raises its minimum wage while others do not. And while there are dissenters, as there always are, the great preponderance of the evidence from these natural experiments points to little if any negative effect of minimum wage increases on employment.
<...>
So Mr. Obama’s wage proposal is good economics. It’s also good politics: a wage increase is supported by an overwhelming majority of voters, including a strong majority of self-identified Republican women (but not men). Yet G.O.P. leaders in Congress are opposed to any rise. Why? They say that they’re concerned about the people who might lose their jobs, never mind the evidence that this won’t actually happen. But this isn’t credible...today’s Republican leaders clearly feel disdain for low-wage workers. Bear in mind that such workers, even if they work full time, by and large don’t pay income taxes (although they pay plenty in payroll and sales taxes), while they may receive benefits like Medicaid and food stamps. And you know what this makes them, in the eyes of the G.O.P.: “takers,” members of the contemptible 47 percent who, as Mitt Romney said to nods of approval, won’t take responsibility for their own lives.
- more -
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/18/opinion/krugman-raise-that-wage.html
The pundits are pissed that Obama won. That...
Health care reform won (http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022424843). Wall Street reform won (http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022441546). Raising taxes on the rich won (http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022409893).
The question is why are you?
Tierra_y_Libertad
(50,414 posts)"As people like Greg Sargent point out time and again, the centrist ideal — deficit reduction via a mix of revenue increases and benefits cuts — is what Obama is already offering; in fact, his proposals have been to the right of Bowles-Simpson."
From the same article that you are quoting.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)"As people like Greg Sargent point out time and again, the centrist ideal — deficit reduction via a mix of revenue increases and benefits cuts — is what Obama is already offering; in fact, his proposals have been to the right of Bowles-Simpson."
...even Krugman is allowed to use rhetoric. Bowles-Simpson was a kitchen-sink proposal that included everything from cutting defense to raising the cap on Social Security.
Krugman's point is "Centrist Pundits 'Will Always Invent Some Reason Why Obama Just Isn't Doing It Right'"
And Krugman certainly knows the politics of this.
Tierra_y_Libertad
(50,414 posts)It's naive to think that his proposals that give the Republicans what they want are really "Democratic" while agreeing with the Republicans.
Don't you think?
ProSense
(116,464 posts)"He's also making the point tha Obama is offering the Republicans what they want.
It's naive to think that his proposals that give the Republicans what they want are really "Democratic" while agreeing with the Republicans.
Don't you think?"
...who knows how to play Republicans better than the President?
Krugman: Not With A Bang But With A Whimper
http://upload.democraticunderground.com/10022215606
Eugene Robinson: Obama, winning the argument
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022381931
Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)while the other Party, the Republicans are unwilling to make a deal of any kind. The Third Way centrist rhetoric hinges on 'both Parties are to blame' materials, they need to keep saying 'both Parties' over and over, because they are a bit of each Party, not really Democrats or Republicans, they are the Third Way, and they refuse to blame the Republicans because they ARE the Republicans as much as they are Democrats.
Hard to be in the business of blaming 'both sides' when one side is reasonable and the other devoted to irrational opposition to even their own ideas.
It is time for centrists to admit that they are not just a Third Way, they are a third Party, or just Republicans, because they refuse to blame the Party at fault, they are devoted to the notion that both parties are equally wrong and equally right making the 'center' some paradise of perfection.
Currently 'centrists' take the middle ground between reason and madness, not a tenable place to dwell.
hfojvt
(37,573 posts)Obama gave $1.3 trillion in tax cuts to the richest 5%
and he continues to look for $1.5 trillion in deficit reduction.
Hint: Mr. President, try looking under A fir ATRAzine.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)"raising taxes on the rich did NOT win...Obama gave $1.3 trillion in tax cuts to the richest 5% "
...with your bogus numbers.
Capital Gains Tax Cuts ‘By Far’ The Biggest Contributor To Growth In Income Inequality, Study Finds
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022407211
President Obama actually did something to address the inequality, raising taxes on the top one percent (higher than the Clinton rate with the health care tax included) and increasing capital gains to its highest level since the mid 90s. The total effect is significant.
Perhaps the best prism through which to see the Democrats’ gains is inequality. In the 2008 campaign, Mr. Obama said that his top priority as president would be to “create bottom-up economic growth” and reduce inequality...In the 2009 stimulus, he insisted on making tax credits “fully refundable,” so that even people who did not make enough to pay much federal tax would benefit. The 2010 health care law overhaul was probably the biggest attack on inequality since it began rising in the 1970s, increasing taxes on businesses and the rich to pay for health insurance largely for the middle class.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/03/us/politics/for-obama-fiscal-deal-is-a-victory-that-also-holds-risks.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/04/opinion/kurgman-battles-of-the-budget.html
That also doesn't take the additional health care tax into account.
Krugman: Obama and Redistribution
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022224304
hfojvt
(37,573 posts)they come from Citizens for Tax Justice http://ctj.org/pdf/bidenmcconnelldistribution.pdf
And Krugman is a tool, as I have said before. He writes "about $600 billion versus $800 billion over the next decade."
So the bad deal was only $200 billion worse than the original deal. Perhaps Krugman is too much of a moron to know that the ORIGINAL deal heavily favored the rich? http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021880321 (look, it's a link nobody will click)
Or maybe he's just a tool?
I'm going with tool. Let's give the perfesser the benefit of the doubt.
and again, with YOUR bogus argument "That also doesn't take the additional health care tax into account. "
Maybe because, for the dozenth time, the additional health care tax was NOT part of the evil ATRA surrender to the wealthy.
You know, the one that gives $1.3 trillion in tax cuts to the richest 5% and $2.4 trillion in tax cuts to the richest 20%.
Oh, and another clue for Mr. Tool. Extracting money from the wealthy isn't all about the deficit. It's about an unequal society. http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021824827
ProSense
(116,464 posts)"So the bad deal was only $200 billion worse than the original deal. Perhaps Krugman is too much of a moron to know that the ORIGINAL deal heavily favored the rich? http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021880321 (look, it's a link nobody will click)"
Like I said, there you go with your bogus numbers again. Refering to Krugman as a "tool" and "moron" doesn't add to your crediblity.
brentspeak
(18,290 posts)1) hfojvt posted some figures
2) you (ProSense) claimed, without proof, that they were hfojvt's "own bogus numbers"
3) hfojvt then proved, via a link, that the numbers who neither his own nor "bogus"
4) flummoxed, you (ProSense) ludicrously responded, "There you go with your bogus numbers again!", as though repeating the same NonSense would somehow make it true on the second time around.
Well, I checked that Citizens for Tax Justice link which hfojvt provided, and their report is persuasive: the fiscal cliff deal which Obama agreed to really did end up as a tax cut for the wealthiest, with the lowest income brackets receiving the least generous part of the deal.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)"Nice try, but some of us are paying attention
1) hfojvt posted some figures
2) you (ProSense) claimed, without proof, that they were hfojvt's "own bogus numbers"
3) hfojvt then proved, via a link, that the numbers who neither his own nor "bogus"
4) flummoxed, you (ProSense) ludicrously responded, "There you go with your bogus numbers again!", as though repeating the same NonSense would somehow make it true on the second time around. "
...jumping in with a silly argument and lame attempt at name calling. No you haven't been "paying attention."
I've had that debate over and over again. The numbers are bullshit spin.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022118509
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022224304
brentspeak
(18,290 posts)Nothing in either of those two links disproves CJT's paper, so why bother to post them again (and again)?
A more direct question might be: Considering how easily you're shown to be wrong on these boards, looking quite silly, why do insist on continuing to post here? Why do this to yourself?
ProSense
(116,464 posts)"A more direct question might be: Considering how easily you're shown to be wrong on these boards, looking quite silly, why do insist on continuing to post here? Why do this to yourself?"
Yeah, remember "dump him"?
I'm not the one who is "looking quite silly," and I don't need feel-good pointless threads to feel good. LOL!
"why do insist on continuing to post here?"
I like it. It's fun. It's Democratic Underground, damn it!
Why do you?
bhikkhu
(10,789 posts)...but the reason they look that way is specific to the method. If you let all the bush tax cuts expire and go back to the tax rates before them, then impose the current tax rates on those old tax rates - what is the difference? The difference in the article is that not all the taxes on the wealthiest were increased all the way to their former rates. Because the sums at the top are so large, looked at that way it appears Obama just gave the rich a disproportionately large tax break.
Looked at another way, Obama kept the status quo for everybody but the wealthy - who had their taxes raised. I don't have a problem with Citizens for Tax Justice, but in anything on this subject you have to keep your head and read carefully, there's always ways to put things that will make them look unfair one way or another.
hfojvt
(37,573 posts)Obama kept the "status quo" (meaning the status quo that was created after Bush tax cuts that massively favored the wealthy) for everybody but the wealthy, who got to keep 68% of their massive tax cuts which were set to automatically expire.
What Obama did there massively favored the wealthy over the rest of us - that is my point. And since the Bush tax cuts actually DID expire before both parties could pass another big tax break for the wealthy, then it is, in fact, a big tax break for the wealthy, because it took a status quo where the Bush tax cuts had expired and it passed a new set of permanent tax cuts that heavily favor the wealthy.
So Obama took a bad status quo, and instead of letting it expire and fighting for something better, he made most of it permanent. And the lying jackweasel tries to claim that he gave $1.3 trillion in tax cuts to the top 5% only so the bottm 60% could keep $600 billion in tax cuts. He's fighting for US.
Oh, wait, Obama never claims to care about the bottom 20% or the bottom 60%, only the "middle class, middle class, middle class", by which he means those in the 60-99% bracket. Otherwise known as "the haves".
So the New Democratic Party represents the haves and the Republican Party represents the have-mores.
But at least the voters have a choice.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)"Obama kept the "status quo" (meaning the status quo that was created after Bush tax cuts that massively favored the wealthy) for everybody but the wealthy, who got to keep 68% of their massive tax cuts which were set to automatically expire."
What you can't seem to come to grips with is that the tax code is progressive. Therefore, if you cut taxes for people earning $250,000 or less, the rich benefit too.
"What Obama did there massively favored the wealthy over the rest of us - that is my point. And since the Bush tax cuts actually DID expire before both parties could pass another big tax break for the wealthy, then it is, in fact, a big tax break for the wealthy, because it took a status quo where the Bush tax cuts had expired and it passed a new set of permanent tax cuts that heavily favor the wealthy."
An even sillier argument. The tax cuts expired for about a day so that means Obama cut taxes on the rich.
hfojvt
(37,573 posts)I hate to be rude, but wrong again
"What you can't seem to come to grips with is that the tax code is progressive. Therefore, if you cut taxes for people earning $250,000 or less, the rich benefit too."
maybe you have forgotten the "making work pay credit".
Should I link you again to CTJ where they show how much better the making work pay credit was than the accursed payroll tax cut?
Here, I have it on speed dial http://www.ctj.org/pdf/taxcompromise2010.pdf
Note the table on page 3. A $57 billion tax cut that gives
$0 to the top 1%
1.4% to the top 5% and
27.9% to the bottom 40%
Well, how about that, all tax cuts do NOT have to favor the rich, like defenders of the Bush tax cuts have been saying for decades.
And, of course, creating a 5% tax bracket on the first $5,000 of taxable income would benefit the rich, but NOT disproportionately. That is something Obama chose to do - disproportionately benefit the rich.
And if the standard deduction was doubled, that too, might benefit the rich, some of them maybe do not itemize 1 or 2% of them, but the other 98% would see no benefit from it.
So now that I have taken the trouble to explain that I DO understand tax policy, could you stop repeating the nonsense about how all tax cuts will favor the rich?
ProSense
(116,464 posts)"What you can't seem to come to grips with is that the tax code is progressive. Therefore, if you cut taxes for people earning $250,000 or less, the rich benefit too."
maybe you have forgotten the "making work pay credit".
The Making Work Pay credit is not part of the tax code. The fact is that you are putting a silly spin on the tax code, which ensures that if taxes are cut on people earning under $250,000, it applies to everyone up to that amount.
You're going out of your way to argue a silly point to promote a separate initiative.
The Making Work Pay credit was the policy of the very President you're claiming favors the rich. He enacted it as part of the stimulus, and it was in effect for two years.
It's fine to support and advocate for the MWP credit, but that has nothing to do with the debate about the tax cuts.
and is the standard deduction and a potential 5% tax bracket also not part of the tax code?
In fact, tax code or no tax code, the Making Work Pay credit is a way to "cut taxes for people making $250,000 or less (and why the hell would a sane person want to do that anyway? I mean, wouldn't you have to be an evil bastard like Romney to think that those making $240,000 a year are middle class?) without benefitting the rich.
Thus making THIS
"Therefore, if you cut taxes for people earning $250,000 or less, the rich benefit too.""
palpably false.
You keep inconceivably using the word "nonsense". I do nota think ita means whata you think it does.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)Thus making THIS
"Therefore, if you cut taxes for people earning $250,000 or less, the rich benefit too.""
palpably false.
You know damn well that across the board tax cuts on people earning $250,000 or less applies to everyone. To argue that the claim is false is part of your absurd spin.
Again, the MWP credit was an initiative of President Obama's stimulus, which means that your entire argument about favoring the wealthy is simply bullshit.
Campaigning on making the tax cuts for those earning $250,000 or less had nothing to do with the MWP.
You're conflating issues to mask a silly argument.
hfojvt
(37,573 posts)that's why I, being a good progressive, always oppose them.
You, trying to defend the indefensible are trying to create a false box, as if "across the board tax cuts" are our only alternative.
Maybe the only alternative that a New Democrat like Obama would fight for, but not the only possibility, and not a good choice.
It's only the best of all possibly worlds if you decide, for some strange reason, to limit the possibilities, to restrict your choices to a false choice between "bad" and "worse".
ProSense
(116,464 posts)"that's why I, being a good progressive, always oppose them."
...you're a "good progressive" who doesn't understand that the tax code is progressive.
bhikkhu
(10,789 posts)...unless you can find some twisted up way of interpreting events that might or might not have happened (not that it matters) that allows for that precious "thanks, Obama!" moment, and then re-cast the tax increase on the rich into a massive gift that screwed everybody and was a big tax break on the wealthy.
CTJ didn't go nearly that far, but I think it says something about our media in general that such impressive mental gymnastics are second nature to most of us.
hfojvt
(37,573 posts)what he did was CUT taxes for the rich, and do it in such a way that he could lie and claim he raised taxes on the rich.
Look at it this way. If Obama had extended 100% of the Bush tax cuts, THAT would have been - a huge tax cut for the rich, wouldn't it?
I certainly would say that it was.
However, under your new goalposts of the New Democratic Party, that would be seen as "no change" and thus NOT a big tax cut for the rich, merely maintaining the good old status quo.
So if 100% of the Bush tax cuts being kept is a big tax cut for the rich, then 85% of the Bush tax cuts being made permanent is also a big tax cut for the rich, and yes, a major betrayal by Obama.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)I certainly would say that it was.
However, under your new goalposts of the New Democratic Party, that would be seen as "no change" and thus NOT a big tax cut for the rich, merely maintaining the good old status quo.
During his first campaign, Obama ran on making permanent the tax cuts for those earning $250,000 or less. By your spin, that would be a massive tax cut for the very rich.
It's nonsensical, but you keep pushing it.
the only thing this says to me
"During his first campaign, Obama ran on making permanent the tax cuts for those earning $250,000 or less."
Is basically
"During his first campaign, Obama ran on massive tax cuts for the rich."
Which, unfortunately, the facts and the numbers show to be true.
As I said, when I voted for Obama in 2008, I was not endorsing the $250,000 goalpost that he ran on because
1. I was hoping a Democratic Congress would reduce that ridiculously high number (a foolish hope from New Democrats, I know, but hope springs eternal. Even Obama has not killed it.)
2. At that point I was not yet aware of how much that goalpost favored the wealthy until CTJ came out with their report, incomparably showing how much it did, and does.
Just because Obama got elected promising massive tax cuts for the rich, does not suddenly make massive tax cuts for the rich a good idea, a progressive idea.
Because they are neither.
And I hoped for better from Obama.
During his first campaign, Obama ran on making permanent the tax cuts for those earning $250,000 or less."
Is basically
"During his first campaign, Obama ran on massive tax cuts for the rich."
...you're basically admitting absurdity.
hfojvt
(37,573 posts)even if you cannot, or will not.
The fact is that keeping 78% of the Bush tax cuts massively favors the wealthy. As I have tried, and tried, and tried to explain http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021880321
"no, I am facing facts"
...face these facts:
Capital Gains Tax Cuts ‘By Far’ The Biggest Contributor To Growth In Income Inequality, Study Finds
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022407211
President Obama actually did something to address the inequality, raising taxes on the top one percent (higher than the Clinton rate with the health care tax included) and increasing capital gains to its highest level since the mid 90s. The total effect is significant.
Perhaps the best prism through which to see the Democrats’ gains is inequality. In the 2008 campaign, Mr. Obama said that his top priority as president would be to “create bottom-up economic growth” and reduce inequality...In the 2009 stimulus, he insisted on making tax credits “fully refundable,” so that even people who did not make enough to pay much federal tax would benefit. The 2010 health care law overhaul was probably the biggest attack on inequality since it began rising in the 1970s, increasing taxes on businesses and the rich to pay for health insurance largely for the middle class.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/03/us/politics/for-obama-fiscal-deal-is-a-victory-that-also-holds-risks.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/04/opinion/kurgman-battles-of-the-budget.html
That also doesn't take the additional health care tax into account.
Krugman: Obama and Redistribution
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022224304
hfojvt
(37,573 posts)and
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021824827
"raising taxes on the top one percent" (except for their millions in dividend income, which was cut in half)
and what I wrote
I have to note though - they look at two income gaps
1. The gap between the lowest quintile (20% of the population) and the highest quintile
2. The gap between the lowest quintile and the top 5%
the rest of the top 20% gets a bigger slice of the income pie than even the top 5%, to say nothing of the top 1%
SunSeeker
(58,283 posts)tblue
(16,350 posts)Oy.
TheProgressive
(1,656 posts)The current implementation of our parties and therefore government is
destroying America as we now it.
PETRUS
(3,678 posts)
Poll_Blind
(23,864 posts)PB
ProSense
(116,464 posts)"If enough people demand it with their vote, it will come along."
...like Obama winning by a landslide. Don't worry, he's only got four more years.
There is plenty of time to build that perfect party.
bhikkhu
(10,789 posts)One that will stand up to the repugs when they give us the crazy-eye, that will make their positions on principle and facts.
One that will avoid absolute ideologies that cripple the ability to adapt to circumstances and sustain good government.
...and so forth. I could make a good list there, by going back over what Obama and the Democratic leaders in congress ran and won on last election.
Skraxx
(3,178 posts)That way, nothing ever gets done.
I laugh at your feeble attempts to try to destroy the Democratic party and Obama "from within". I'll let your results speak for themselves. But I guess whinging on DU makes you feel special, so good on ya! Have fun pal!
leftstreet
(40,677 posts)Don't blame the peons
Skraxx
(3,178 posts)The Dem party wasn't doing too bad. WH, Senate and gains in the house. They must be doing something correctly.
tblue
(16,350 posts)the only demands will come from the Right. It's crucial that we maintain pressure. We're all there is. If we stop, the country's toast.
Manny has long ago established a credible presence here at DU, even if you don't agree with him. You, however, . . .
Skraxx
(3,178 posts)CREDIBLE??? ROFL!!!
Le Taz Hot
(22,271 posts)Skraxx
(3,178 posts)No longer welcome here?
Or do you have to want to destroy the party to be welcome here?
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)the Democrat Party from being taken over by big, Right Wing Corporate interests as has happened to the Republican Party.
Why are you a Democrat?
Skraxx
(3,178 posts)I suppose you have a list of those in the party who do not rise to your level of purity.
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)You haven't said. I know why I am a Democrat and I know why the OP considers himself a Democrat, so I wondered considering your failure to understand the OP, why YOU consider yourself to be one?
Skraxx
(3,178 posts)LOL!
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)up as an arbiter of what makes a Democrat, I wanted to know something about your notion of what that is. I KNOW who the OP is, what his opinion of what a Democrat is but I know nothing about you.
If you don't want people to ask for your expertize on what makes a Democrat, then do not conduct purity tests on members who are well known to this community while you are not.
The old 'purity test' meme. So old, so tiresomely familiar.
Here's an idea you might want to consider. These old phrases such as 'purity test' 'reality based community' etc. etc etc are phrases invented by people who get paid for their efforts, no matter how silly they are. They are then repeated generally by people who cannot come up with their own words to express their thoughts. As such, as soon we see people resort to these old phrases, we yawn.
I want to know what YOUR thoughts are, not what someone on Daily Kos or whatever came up with to replace critical and independent thinking. See, when you use other people's words to answer questions, it creates the impression that you might not have any thoughts of your own. Not saying that is the case, but this is what I have found to be true.
The OP otoh, is excellent at using his own words to express his own thoughts. The old 'purity test' 'concern troll' etc garbage replacement for one's own words, isn't necessary for him.
Since you're new I wanted you to know that these old phrases are not likely to impress anyone here. 
MineralMan
(151,268 posts)There are already some of those, but they don't seem to be thriving, even though some of them have been around for a long time. DU probably won't be a good place to begin in starting a third party. This is, after all, Democratic Underground.
Unless you are an extremely charismatic leader with a fairly large existing audience, you'll probably do better by aligning yourself with one of the existing third parties, since they already have organizations and followers. Of course, that means starting fairly low in the hierarchy and building credibility and followers for your particular point of view, but that can be done, if your leadership skills are strong enough.
I'd advise, though, finding such an organization that actually does have leadership. OWS, for example, has had considerable difficulty in gaining ground due to its leaderless makeup. The Green Party might be a reasonable choice for you, if you're serious. Given 40 or 50 years, it might possibly grow to a size that will be noticed politically.
Good luck in your endeavors, Manny! I mean that sincerely.
Left Turn Only
(74 posts)In order to improve the Democratic Party we should get the Green Party to become part of us. If the Green Party became part of us, then their candidates could start running in primaries like the Tea Party does with the Republicans, and we could start getting more members of Congress thinking like true Democrats; it would take time, but it would be better than constantly losing to Republicans because our party would be split with whatever new party would be developed.
The only way a new party is going to start winning elections is if we get a Constitutional amendment to do away with the electoral college and have national elections chosen by the people as a nation rather then by gerrymandered congressional districts. I asked computer savvy DU members once before to start a petition to do away with the electoral college, but no one seemed to grasp the idea. It is the electoral college that makes it near impossible for 3rd party candidates to win, which is why both parties will never start a Constitutional amendment on their own.
Le Taz Hot
(22,271 posts)with the Vichy Dems nor should they. Now, if the Democrats would ever consider being actual Democrats again, there may be room for discussion.
Btw, DUers "grasp the idea" of the inherent problems of the electoral college just fine. It's been the topic of, literally, thousands of threads. Just FYI.
Left Turn Only
(74 posts)If the Green Party is that adverse to joining with the Democrats, they condemn themselves to never advancing their agenda in the present political structure, and the country will continue down its corporate path to oblivion. If the Democratic Party is ever to move to the left, it will take strong leadership and organizational skills, something the Green Party could accomplish if it put its resources into the problem instead of running meaningless elections that only serve to make a stand without any efficacy.
Being new to this site, I'm not aware of the discussions on the electoral college, but, in any event, it's time to move past discussions. I sign onto all kinds of petitions, but I've never seen a concerted effort by anyone to start the process for a Constitutional amendment ending the electoral college. Where are all the progressive organizations and their resources when it comes to this travesty of democracy?
Le Taz Hot
(22,271 posts)". . . if it put its resources into the problem instead of running meaningless elections that only serve to make a stand without any efficacy. "
And you wonder why the Greens aren't just running towards the Third-Way Democratic Party.
Left Turn Only
(74 posts)Maybe someone could explain to me why having Green-Party Democrats holding seats in the House and Senate would be bad for implementing parts of their progressive platform. Think how many congressional districts across the country continue to vote for Democratic senators and congress members and how many of those could be Green-Party Democratic candidates by actually winning primaries running as a Democrat. The reality of the situation remains that the political parties have set up state voting laws that strongly favor the 2-party system, and until that changes, every time a Green Party candidate runs, he or she will start out with 2 strikes against them, and if they think about running for president, the electoral college system will definitely keep them out.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022383150
Which Republican will Warren face in 2016?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022396604
"Bankers dine regularly with the President, whose staff and cabinet are filled with other bankers on loan from Wall Street. They are treated with fawning and obsequious respect by both parties in Congress. "
Thank God for Elizabeth Warren. People are finally taking Wall Street reform seriously.
The Wall Street reform law would have a significant impact if implementation is sped up.
Think about the last two Senate Banking Committee hearings.
Elizabeth Warren Embarrasses Hapless Bank Regulators At First Hearing
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022377143
WARREN TO BERNANKE: "So when are we gonna get rid of 'too big to fail?'"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022434722
I like what Senator Warren is doing, which is highlighting the problems that have plagued the implementation and enforcement of Dodd-Frank. See the exchange beginning at 3:25 mins of the Bernanke clip at the link. First , she went after regulators for not doing their jobs, which has huge implications for Dodd-Frank.
An $83 billion dollars subsidy for the biggest banks runs counter to the notion that these institutions are too big to fail. Invoking Dodd-Frank is fine, but it requires enforcement of its provisions.
Under section 121 of the Dodd-Frank Act, if the Board determines that a financial institution poses a “grave threat” to U.S. financial stability, then the Board, with approval from the Council, “shall” mitigate that threat.2 The Act offers regulators the flexibility to take a range of actions, including limiting the institution’s mergers and acquisitions, restricting or imposing conditions on its products or activities, or ordering it to divest assets or off-balance sheet items.
- more -
http://www.citizen.org/documents/Public-Citizen-Bank-of-America-Petition.pdf
To the extent that the Act expanded the scope of financial firms that may be liquidated by the federal government, beyond the existing authorities of the FDIC and SIPC, there needed to be an additional source of funds, independent of the FDIC's Deposit Insurance Fund, to be used in case of a non-bank or non-security financial company's liquidation. The Orderly Liquidation Fund is to be an FDIC-managed fund, to be used by the FDIC in the event of a covered financial company's liquidation[75] that is not covered by FDIC or SIPC.[76]
Initially, the Fund is to be capitalized over a period no shorter than five years, but no longer than ten; however, in the event the FDIC must make use of the Fund before it is fully capitalized, the Secretary of the Treasury and the FDIC are permitted to extend the period as determined necessary.[36] The method of capitalization is by collecting risk-based assessment fees on any "eligible financial company" – which is defined as "[…] any bank holding company with total consolidated assets equal to or greater than $50 billion and any nonbank financial company supervised by the Board of Governors." The severity of the assessment fees can be adjusted on an as-needed basis (depending on economic conditions and other similar factors) and the relative size and value of a firm is to play a role in determining the fees to be assessed.[36] The eligibility of a financial company to be subject to the fees is periodically reevaluated; or, in other words, a company that does not qualify for fees in the present, will be subject to the fees in the future if they cross the 50 billion line, or become subject to Federal Reserve scrutiny.[36]
To the extent that a covered financial company has a negative net worth and its liquidation creates an obligation to the FDIC as its liquidator, the FDIC shall charge one or more risk-based assessment such that the obligation will be paid off within 60 months (5 years) of the issuance of the obligation.[77] The assessments will be charged to any bank holding company with consolidated assets greater than $50 billion and any nonbank financial company supervised by the Federal Reserve. Under certain conditions, the assessment may be extended to regulated banks and other financial institutions.[78] Assessments are imposed on a graduated basis, with financial companies having greater assets and risk being assessed at a higher rate.[79]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dodd%E2%80%93Frank_Wall_Street_Reform_and_Consumer_Protection_Act#Title_II_.E2.80.93_Orderly_Liquidation_Authority
Now a group is pushing for implementation of the Volcker Rule.
by bobswern
Just a few days plus a year after approximately 100 supporters of the former Occupy Wall Street (“OWS”) working group, the now-autonomous Occupy the SEC (“OSEC”), peacefully marched on Wall Street carrying signs stating, “We don’t make demands so this is a suggestion: Enforce the Volcker Rule,” we’re now learning via a concise and inspiring post by Naked Capitalism Publisher Yves Smith that “Occupy the SEC, Frustrated With Regulatory Defiance of Volcker Rule Implementation Requirements, Sues Fed, SEC, CFTC, FDIC and Treasury.”
First, here’s the link to Wednesday’s story, directly from the OSEC blog: “Occupy the SEC Sues Federal Reserve, SEC, CFTC, OCC, FDIC and U.S. Treasury Over Volcker Rule Delays.”
Occupy the SEC (OSEC) has filed a lawsuit in the Eastern District of New York against six federal agencies, over those agencies’ delay in promulgating a Final Rulemaking in connection with the “Volcker Rule” (Section 619 of the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010).- more -
Congress passed the Volcker Rule in July 2010 in order to re-orient deposit-taking banks towards safe, traditional activities (like offering checking accounts and loans to individuals and businesses), and away from the speculative “proprietary” trading that has imperiled deposited funds as well as the global economy at large in recent years. Simply put, the Volcker Rule seeks to limit the ability of banks to gamble with the average person’s checking account, or with public money offered by the Federal Reserve.
Almost three years since the passage of the Dodd-Frank Act, these agencies have yet to finalize regulations implementing the Volcker Rule. Section 619(b)(2)(A) of the Dodd-Frank Act set a mandatory deadline for the finalization of the Volcker regulations. That deadline passed over a year. Despite this fact, the federal agencies charged with finalizing the Rule have yet to do so. In fact, senior officials at the agencies have indicated that they do not intend to finalize the Volcker Rule anytime soon.
The longer the agencies delay in finalizing the Rule, the longer that banks can continue to gamble with depositors’ money and virtually interest-free loans from the Federal Reserve’s discount window. The financial crisis of 2008 has taught us that the global economy can no longer tolerate such unrestrained speculative activity. Consequently, OSEC has filed a lawsuit against the agencies, seeking declaratory, injunctive and mandamus relief in the form of a court order compelling them to finalize the Volcker Rule within a timeframe specified by the court…
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/02/28/1190410/-Occupy-the-SEC-Sues-Fed-SEC-OCC-CFTC-FDIC-Treasury-Due-To-Failure-To-Implement-Volcker-Rule
Wall Street reform was a huge achievement, but while its implementation is being ignored by supporters, its opponents are doing everything in their power to delay it.
Anyone paying attention saw this coming in 2011.
Bedrock Consumer Protections Once Were Flogged as ‘Exceedingly Dangerous,’ ‘Monstrous Systems’ That Would ‘Cripple’ the Economy
WASHINGTON, D.C. – As the nation approaches the first anniversary of the Dodd-Frank financial reform law, opponents are claiming that the new measure is extraordinarily damaging, especially to Main Street. But industry’s alarmist rhetoric bears striking resemblance to the last time it faced sweeping new safeguards: during the New Deal reforms. The parallels between the language used both then and now are detailed in a report released today by Public Citizen and the Cry Wolf Project.
In the decades since the Great Depression, Americans acknowledged the necessity of having safeguards in place to prevent another crash of the financial markets, including the creation of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and laws requiring public companies to accurately disclose their financial affairs. Although these are now seen as bedrock protections when they were first introduced, Wall Street cried foul, the new report, “Industry Repeats Itself: The Financial Reform Fight,” found.
“The business community’s wildly inaccurate forecasts about the New Deal reforms devalue the credibility of the ominous predictions they are making today,” said Taylor Lincoln, research director of Public Citizen’s Congress Watch division and author of the report. “If history comes close to repeating itself, industry is going to look very silly for its hand-wringing over Dodd-Frank when people look back.”
<...>
In fact, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act is designed to prevent another Wall Street crash, which really made it tough on everyone by causing massive job loss and severely hurting corner butchers and bakers, as well as retirees, families with mortgages and others. The Dodd-Frank law increases transparency (particularly in derivatives markets); creates a new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to ensure that consumers receive straightforward information about financial products and to police abusive practices; improves corporate governance; increases capital requirements for banks; deters particularly large financial institutions from providing incentives for employees to take undue risks; and gives the government the ability to take failed investment institutions into receivership, similar to the FDIC’s authority regarding commercial banks. Much of it has yet to be implemented.
- more -
http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2011/07/12-0
Occupy Movement Files Lawsuit Against Every Federal Regulator of Wall Street
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022444086
Statement from Sen. Elizabeth Warren on confirmation of Jack Lew as Secretary of the Treasury
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022441721
Tierra_y_Libertad
(50,414 posts)"Were parties here divided merely by a greediness for office,...to take a part with either would be unworthy of a reasonable or moral man." --Thomas Jefferson to William Branch Giles, 1795.
840high
(17,196 posts)Plucketeer
(12,882 posts)He really did. And I think he'd be right on the front lines for the idea of ditching the name Democratic Party. We're all here because we find the gang that goes by GOP and/or Republican to be repulsive. As much of a sanctuary as the Democratic party might seem, the topic of this thread is lamenting for the Democratic Party that was. I submit that we're gonna have to ditch that moniker - Democratic Party - to start with a fresh, unsullied slate. Our esteemed president stands under that banner - Slick Willie stands under that banner. While these and those who orchestrate with them all play in harmony, the music they produce is NOT soothing to our ears. Just LOOK at how labor has been ignored, save for when they offer up campaign donations. And John Edwards - love him or hate him - was the last to even speak of the poor, not to mention associate with them. What about the expanded drilling that's surging forward - what about EVERYTHING we do - every MOVE we make - being surveilled and logged somewhere? Democrat has been a handly label to establish that we're not one of "them", or "those". But it doesn't build an honest refuge for the likes of manyh of us here on DU.
How about a NEW name? How about Clean Slate Party. How about Reality Party - Honesty Party - Destiny Party - Sane & Humane Party????? I've still got a few bumper stickers on the rear window of my car. One that's as honest an assesment of me as I might muster? ....... "NOT A REPUBLICAN"
JoePhilly
(27,787 posts)he wouldn't be a member of DU.
Tierra_y_Libertad
(50,414 posts)I've been a member from 2001 but owe no particular loyalty to the Democratic Party which I've been a member of since 1965.
leftstreet
(40,677 posts)hfojvt
(37,573 posts)we've already GOT a new Democratic Party, loaded with new Democrats
What we need is to take the old one back.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022085948
Bake
(21,977 posts)You said it, hfojvt!! You said it!
Bake
King_Klonopin
(1,379 posts)The defeat of McGovern in '68 turned us into placating,
blue dog wussies. (IMO)
Lydia Leftcoast
(48,223 posts)The Dem candidate in 1968 was Hubert Humphrey.
King_Klonopin
(1,379 posts)hfojvt
(37,573 posts)it was the victory of Reagan, a landslide victory that also brought gains in the House and Republican control of the Senate. Reagan won every state but seven - Hawaii, Minnesota, Rhode Island, Georgia, Maryland, West Virginia and DC
Then Mondale got crushed in 1984 - took only Minnesota, and DC. and Dukakis did not fare much better in 1988, taking a mere 11 statres - Washington, Oregon, Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Hawaii, DC, WV, Mass, New York and Rhode Island. Then with the victory of Clinton in 1992, it seemed to show that at least the DLC way wins elections, and Clinton became head of the party for 8 years making it more and more DLC.
Other things happened too - politics got more expensive, GE bought NBC and made the news there far more conservative. With the contract of Diamond Dan Rather, the $6 million man, being in the media became much more lucrative. No longer would journalists like Uncle Walter and Charles Kuralt care about truth and the common people, instead the media would be made up of 1%ers or wanna-be 1%ers, who knew which side their bread was buttered on.
And so on, both unions and manufacturing began a decline as Wal-mart and the Manpower Temp agency became the largest employers in the country. And so on. Chalmers Johnson provides a lot of detail in his book "Sleepwalking through History" but I found it far too depressing to read.
MineralMan
(151,268 posts)Had Clinton not won, we were heading for a Republican-dominated government. Voters rejected progressive candidates emphatically. Today, I believe the result would be the same, frankly. And there's the dilemma we face.
Lydia Leftcoast
(48,223 posts)I winced each time Mondale or Dukakis opened their mouths.
By the end of the Dukakis campaign, I was thinking, "Did the Dems deliberately throw these elections by running weak candidates?"
Remember, this was the period when the DLC was taking over and eagerly supporting most of what Reagan proposed. This was also the period when Jesse Jackson won the Michigan primary and did well in others, so voters had no intrinsic objections to progressive candidates, just to ones who weren't very exciting.
Egalitarian Thug
(12,448 posts)The tension between the liberals and the establishment party was still a significant factor, and The Party was determined to block any candidate that might not tow the party line.
Mondale came out of the Senate, was a conservative establishment Democrat dedicated to building the "center" of the party, and was known by both parties as not standing any chance at all against reagan, yet this is the guy they nominated.
Dukakis was a good guy that learned not to go up against The Party in the 70s and he never did again. He was a distant second choice and was handed the nomination because nobody wanted to see Jesse Jackson beaten like a rented mule. Had Gary Hart had a brain, I think he would have been the 41st President and we'd have a whole different world today.
hfojvt
(37,573 posts)1980, 1984 and 1988 were more about the voters embracing Reagan and Reaganomics than they were about rejecting progressives.
Clinton, however, won with Perot's help and he did it by embracing Reaganomics himself. Clinton ran promising a "middle class tax cut" and attacked Bush for breaking his promise and raising taxes. To some degree THAT move really poisoned the political atmosphere, because Bush Sr. had compromised with Democrats and raised taxes like THEY wanted him to, and then THEY used that compromise against him.
And Bill Clinton's victory then resulted in Democratic loss of the House - giving him an excuse to lurch further to the right.
d_b
(7,463 posts)for all the reasons you mentioned and a zillion more.
Motown_Johnny
(22,308 posts)The demographics are in our favor. Within another 10 years or so the (R)s will not be able to win national elections. They will still have some regional power, if they don't fall apart, but with an electorate that is ~66% white they have no hope of any real power.
Once they are not a threat the Democrats will split into factions and reshape the party. This is simply the way we are.
We need to hold together for another 8 - 10 years and make sure that once we do reform the party that it is significantly to the left. Doing this prematurely might help the (R)s hold together and that is something that can't be allowed.
I agree that we don't have a liberal/progressive party anymore but I think we need to finish the task at hand before changing objectives.
MotherPetrie
(3,145 posts)And if there is anything that's even more deeply revolting than listening to President Obama's idea of sacrifice-sharing, it's the blessing it gets from the very same people who would excoriate any Republican who proposed the same deal.
But I truly believe the psyche of this country will just continue to sink until it can't sink any farther, and whoever is still alive then will look back on this era as the good ol' days There are just too many powerful forces working together to ensure that the benefits the aristocracy (including Obama) enjoy at the expense of the peasants will continue to keep piling up until they finish burying the rest of us.
Blue4Texas
(437 posts)But the party is not. We have to look at new ways, different ways of getting things done in a broken system that can't get a new one.
judesedit
(4,592 posts)The dems are spineless. Many of them anyway. Owned by lobbyists $$$$$. Very sad. Over 300 millionaires in Congress. Do you really think they give a shit about the rest of us? Think again. The only way to get rid of them is to have them die or vote them out of office. Get voting. Run for office if you think you can do better for the 99% who are suffering.
forestpath
(3,102 posts)gravity
(4,157 posts)lower healthcare spending costs, regulate Wall Street and pass a jobs bill that can jumpstart our economy.
It is the Republicans who are the ones doing all they can to prevent this. We need to first worry about defeating the common enemy before we can afford the luxury of having interparty battles.
Dawgs
(14,755 posts)You know, the one that says they will never vote for any entitlement cuts.
bvar22
(39,909 posts)We simply have to revive the OLD Democratic Party,
the one that stood up for the Working Class & the Poor instead of Wall Street.
Among these are:
*The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;
*The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;
*The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;
*The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;
*The right of the people to free, unimpeded travel.
*The right of every family to a decent home;
*The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;
*The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;
*The right to a good education.
All of these rights spell security. And after this war is won we must be prepared to move forward, in the implementation of these rights, to new goals of human happiness and well-being."--- FDR
Please note that FDR specified the above as Basic Human Rights to be protected ans administered by our Government of the People on an equal basis,
and NOT as Commodities to be SOLD to Americans by For Profit Corporations.
At one tome, no so long ago,
voting FOR "The Democrat"
was voting FOR the above Democratic Party Values.
Sadly, this is no longer true.
The above Traditional Democratic Values built the largest, wealthiest, and most Upwardly Mobile Working Class the World has ever seen.
I say we try THAT again.
[font color=firebrick][center]"There are forces within the Democratic Party who want us to sound like kinder, gentler Republicans.
I want a party that will STAND UP for Working Americans."
---Paul Wellstone [/font][/center]
[center]
[/font]
[font size=1]photo by bvar22
Shortly before Sen Wellstone was killed[/center][/font]
chervilant
(8,267 posts)to see the derisive vitriol leveled at those of us who criticize the political process du jour, wherein the corporate megalomaniacs own and control the vast majority of our politicians.
Johnson said "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel." I would replace 'scoundrel' with "political party sycophants who refuse to remove their partisan blinders." Does not have the same effect, does it?
I alerted on the person who obliquely called Manny a "Ratfucker." Within seconds a jury voted 2-4 to let it stand. When our political discourse among members of the same party devolves into such puerile name-calling, I am dismayed at this waste of time and energy.
gussmith
(280 posts)I just read that the top earners are being taxed higher that in modern history. Who's right?
nadinbrzezinski
(154,021 posts)I sure missed it.
gussmith
(280 posts)Quoting "Tax bills for rich families approach 30 year high"
nadinbrzezinski
(154,021 posts)And they are not that high...15% was what Romney paid, that *is* average. My mind, at the very east 70% and taxing every Wall Street trade would start to correct it.
Oh and ext time...add a link.
hay rick
(9,605 posts)Top marginal income tax rate:
historical capital gains rates (21.05% in 2003) here: http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=161
Information on dividend tax rates here: http://www.dividend.com/taxes/a-brief-history-of-dividend-tax-rates/
From the article:
For the most part, the American Taxpayer Relief Act of 2012 (aka The Fiscal Cliff Deal) did not change dividend and capital gains tax rates. The deal only adjusted dividend tax rates for individuals earnings over $400,000 and households earning over $450,000. Now, qualified dividends for investors with incomes over those figures will be taxed at a 20% rate (same goes for capital gains tax rates).
No, high earners are clearly not being taxed at the highest rate in modern history. Also. high "earners" are annexing a much larger share of total national income than at any time since the 1920's.
Progressive dog
(7,602 posts)president ago. So I guess it's your definition of modern history.
BTW Where did you read that?
limpyhobbler
(8,244 posts)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_tax_in_the_United_States#History_of_top_rates
In 1942 President Roosevelt proposed a top marginal tax rate of 100%. The Republicans cried so they compromised and ended up with a top rate of 94%. That's how presidents negotiate when they are serious. (link)
spanone
(141,609 posts)
xchrom
(108,903 posts)
polynomial
(750 posts)Many could say America never started. For a hundred years America is governed by the “Jekyll Island Club”. Back in 1913 huge wealth conferenced at the luxury resort called Jekyll Island. The clubs membership consisting of many of the world's wealthiest families at the time, most notably the Morgan’s, Rockefeller's, and Vanderbilt’s, and others around the world agreed to what is called the Federal Reserve Bank system in America. From my view this is all sort of a money star gate that connects the secrecy of the American rich with the secrecy of the European Swiss accounts. A huge imbalance in the monetary system catching up to everyone.
My personal view contains no axe to grind towards any of the rich members; however, the time has come where they all know the basic banking system in America is in transition. The Gaussian derivative of the basic loan system is obviously out of step for the next millennium. That notion of “To big to Fail” is about to vanish. Not only the banking but the education, healthcare, pension with the unemployment system also scaling towards a huge change by the Democratic process. It is inevitable that the change will occur though considering there are plenty of people like Romney or any in a list of Forbes the securities business will likely have to go to work someday to really see what it is like to sweat to spend energy.
The basic influence is the media. It is sort of like realizing what the media is saying is not really happening. Even though sometime small morsels of truth appear now and then. Like the Iraq war being a hoax, or water boarding really being torture, and Bin Laden family has been business partners with the Bush and Cheney’s family for decades. But not a peep out of the media to expose this huge war profiteering scheme. This whole nature of counter factual filibustering by the media, deception through no dialog, or lack of talk about fulfilling the Constitutional duties that basic American business is subjected to in the core of the Constitution to land, property, taxes, compensation, obligations, and especially care for its citizens. When a group say they are to big to fail only suggests that they already did fail all America.
nineteen50
(1,187 posts)exactly what the corporations and 1% wanted.
nadinbrzezinski
(154,021 posts)What we need is sit ins, strikes and the rest.
Demo_Chris
(6,234 posts)Dawgs
(14,755 posts)Bernie Sanders would make a great leader.
mathematic
(1,610 posts)It seems like a bit of a rules loophole. See, if you advocate for the destruction and replacement of the Democratic party with a new party also called the Democratic party you're still supporting "Democrats" and you're not advocating for a third party.
MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)The interlopers should leave, not us.
dreamnightwind
(4,775 posts)Herlong
(649 posts)I love my President, and I Love my party.
If you need something else, start thinking outside the box, like a third AND fourth party, because I'm a Democrat, and I'm here to stay.
adieu
(1,009 posts)The current democratic party is the republican party of 30 years ago. The republican party now is nothing more than a bunch of whackos, and that could be an insult to all the whackos in the world.
At the same time, I'm a pragmatist. I feel it's easier to change from within than to start a splinter group trying to hold a new position.
colsohlibgal
(5,276 posts)I saw and heard one of the most impressive people I've seen for awhile, on "Up W/Chris Hayes today. Mattea Kramer, from the National Priorities Project, smartly and succinctly explained that all the politicians who express worry about the deficit are full of you know what. Oh yeah, they want to pinch old people, poor people, children, because we just have to cut they say. But.....they also consistently support a massive blank check to the security state and to defense and wars. They're fine with the wealthy and rich corporations evading paying taxes here by Cayman Island type sheltering....and other things.
When Mr. Orange, Boehner, talks about us having a spending problem it's a joke - but you'll never see a mainstream news type challenge his hypocritical statements.
I went to the National Priorities web site and they lay it all out very well. We've all seen those US debt clocks roll, they have a sister site, Cost Of War, with a running clock about how much that is costing us second by second.
There are a precious few left of center types in congress who get all this but they are pushed aside and marginalized by the Rahm Emmanual wing. The right is in the bag with the rich and the MI complex So here we are. I hope that soon enough the discussion will get real in DC and in statehouses.
octoberlib
(14,971 posts)is when there's a Democratic president. They seem to be just fine with a huge deficit when a member of their own party is in the Oval Office.
GoneFishin
(5,217 posts)scream like hell about deficits when democrats are in power. So they are able to empower their rich friends with tax cuts and pork barrel projects while depriving the Democrats of funds to implement needed programs, thereby weakening the middle class. All with one simple strategy of spend then scream.
TheKentuckian
(26,314 posts)There is no foundation to work from, no place where the battle is not in full frey at the very best.
However, there is a real issue that sanity may not be operative in this environment and when I say "may", I mean almost certainly not. How do you negate to a serious degree the toxic and all pervasive influence of money and the tight circle of connections everything is now controlled by?
Something very powerful has to be in place to provide enough opposite force to break from that gravity. There won't be room for a party to represent the people until there is space created. As is, we'd be pretty much praying for better angels just as we are now. They still have to come from the same circles and be resourced enough to take the field. They still have to get on ballots and play the media in a way to not be turned into a joke. Have to have offices and materials. Sure as hell have to be heard without complete distortion.
The Roosevelt's only had impact because they were there to diffuse a much greater real and present threat of upheaval to the existing ruling order. A "middle way" product of the establishment, in no small part to protect the establishment in response to competition to the paradigm.
Our current spectrum of ideas is too tight to move the direction much, the natural difference splitting never gets you there. That is if there is enough threat in play to force negotiation, which there isn't. No consequences for business as usual and no actual alternative that stands to disrupt power centers.
There is no conduit for chaos, all energy is tied up in a doomed effort to fend off entropy in existing orders to the active exclusion of any others. It ends up an exercise in rearranging the deck chairs and crafting fine solutions to problems one wishes they could put on the front burner but bigger and more devious gremlins have taken over the works and new environments created that solid solutions no longer have the same traction in.
limpyhobbler
(8,244 posts)Something that looks like what MLK would have led if he had lived. Instead of Democrat leaders and MSNBC telling us what to think, we should be telling them what to do. They probably aren't going to listen of course. We would really need a very big and physical movement with the potential to disrupt corporate power.
dreamnightwind
(4,775 posts)How would that movement be different, from Occupy? Or maybe it is Occupy.
The crushing of Occupy was an eye-opening experience for many. The police state we live in is ruthless when it feels threatened. Power will make no concessions it doesn't have to make. Violent revolution would lead to change but not for the better. Occupy was quite peaceful, save for a few anarchists and some provocateurs. Yet it was forcefully put down. So what to do?
I liked the leaderless approach Occupy took, perhaps we need leadership though, I'm a little torn.
But to the point of the OP, if the goal is to take back the Democratic Party (seems like a great goal to me), maybe this movement should take place within the party, rather than from the outside as Occupy attempted to do. I don't know, just musing. I actually really liked Occupy's approach, but without a political and electoral mechanism it was more of an external critique than a participant in democratic change. Occupy the Democratic Party?
limpyhobbler
(8,244 posts)Inside the Democratic Party, outside the Party, politics, civil disobedience, community organizing, labor organizing. People should do whatever they are comfortable with. At this point I think the main thing we need is for more people to be active around the issues they think are important. And in my opinion people should switch off their TVs.
jsr
(7,712 posts)
Loge23
(3,922 posts)We toss the term kleptocracy around, but this is indeed what we have for a government these days.
Are they all bad? Clearly no, but the vast majority are - on both sides.
Harry Reid doesn't speak for me anymore than Boehner does.
We're stuck with this, since the power elite is firmly in control of this country.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)Select the next leader of the "new Democratic Party"
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022454257
President Hillary Clinton? Not looking good thus far.
duffyduff
(3,251 posts)We need to purge the party of fake Democrats who are selling this country down the river because they are bought and paid for by people who are little better than gangsters.
Cleita
(75,480 posts)Democrats of that day. It was known as the party of labor back then. We need to get back to those basics. Right now we are infested with those favorable to business interests, not Main Street, but Wall Street interests.
bvar22
(39,909 posts)"I've seen it happen time after time. When the Democratic candidate allows himself to be put on the defensive and starts apologizing for the New Deal and the Fair Deal, and says he really doesn't believe in them, he is sure to lose. The people don't want a phony Democrat. If it's a choice between a genuine Republican, and a Republican in Democratic clothing, the people will choose the genuine article, every time; that is, they will take a Republican before they will a phony Democrat, and I don't want any phony Democratic candidates in this campaign."
---President Harry Truman
[font size=4]Leadership! "The Buck Stops HERE!" NO Excuses![/font]
southernyankeebelle
(11,304 posts)haven't taken to the streets like they did in the 60s. Republicans are working very hard at taking away anything to do with the new deal. Yet people sit and don't seem to see the forrest for the trees. Wake up take back your country young people. Non violence. Where are the MLK, RFKs, the Johnsons and the different religions that helped the poor. I write emails and call my representatives. They don't do anything we ask. I am old. I am worried about the future for our grandkids. Its going to be bad unless we take back our country for the corporations and corrup politicans.
mike_c
(37,051 posts)The 99%, that is.
Jim Lane
(11,175 posts)One obvious non-tweak, which some in this thread have taken you to mean, is to start a new party (or to work with the Greens or one of the other minor parties now out there). IMO, that's completely hopeless. The Nader debacle of 2000 showed that, in the short term, minor-party politics accomplishes nothing except to pull votes away from the less objectionable of the major parties. It would take decades before the Greens or any other such effort became significant, at which point the surviving Democratic Party would be pulling votes away from them. It would take yet more decades before the new party became fully competitive with the Republicans. Until then, there would be many, many elections in which a Republican won with a mere plurality of the votes.
That leaves us with the Democratic Party. How do we get it to be a genuinely progressive party? The only path is through a succession of victories in primaries and in the races for party positions. We don't need to win every such race. The target is that, over the long run, we win more than we lose, and thus the party infrastructure and the Democratic officeholders move toward the left.
There's just no other way to get there from here. You aren't going to publish a ringing manifesto on DU that gets millions of Democrats around the country to join in rebuilding the party from the ground up.
valiberal26
(41 posts)If we are to reform the United States in our vision, lead the people in our direction, work our will upon this Earth, then we do need to see sweeping reforms to the Party. We need to make the Democratic Party the most powerful force in the United States of America.
It is time to make a clear stand against all forms of wealth, to nationalize certain industries (banking, agriculture, and food distribution above all others), and to find ways to legislate changes in our society to stave off the worst excesses that have led to inequality and climate change.
We should cast out those that have made their fortunes off the labor of others, and those that have any ties to the capitalist system; and raise up leaders from the 99%. We should strive to put a stake through the heart of the other political parties; leaving only the memories of them in our history books. Those are the changes we need to make as a party.
theKed
(1,235 posts)Organized labor funnels hundreds of millions of dollars into a democratic party that is complicit, if not out-right partaking, in the dismantling of everything they should be striving for. Money better spent backing their own people that stand firmly for their causes.
Cleita
(75,480 posts)where they belong. Maybe they could squeeze out the radicals, like the Tea Baggers and neo-cons so we can get back to some sanity in governing this nation.
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)Is the transcontinental viaduct.
It has been a long held dream to move vast quantities of fresh water from flooded areas to transform arid areas, turning the western deserts into gardens.
jazzimov
(1,456 posts)that's willing to actually compromise.
You keep saying that "both parties are cool" with outrageous things. No, they are NOT. This is more "DEMS=Repubs" bullshit. Which is what Ralph Nader kept saying - until he APOLOGIZED to Al Gore at a book signing.
Or have you forgotten that?
Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)We hear it all over the media, the false equation that neither side will compromise when Democrats are willing and Republicans absolutely refuse to do so. This makes it hard on centrists and Third Way types who need to hold ground between the two Parties without actually admitting that they are in fact a Third Party. They keep nattering that Democrats will not compromise, we offer 2 to 1 they say 'they refuse, just like the GOP...'
Hard times for the centrists, rhetorically speaking, as they have to insist both Parties suck in order to obtain more power for their own political group, which like the Tea Party functions as if it was a Party while latching onto the actual Party they need for legitimacy.
Drunken Irishman
(34,857 posts)Stop sitting on your ass and writing long-winded messages that is seen by less than a million people and do something. You know, just bitching about how awful the Democrats are on a message board isn't going to get you anywhere and then you bitch that they're not listening to you. Why aren't they listening to you? Because you're not doing anything. You're no different than the millions of Obama haters who spend every waking moment pounding at their keyboard about how Obama is Muslim and born in Kenya and they just can't comprehend how he won reelection and how he's still in power because, gosh, they've spent the last four years a whinin' away. 
It gets old. It really does. You invest all this time in attacking and throwing Obama and Democrats under the bus - but what have you actually done to improve the Democratic Party? Have you run for office ... have you gone and met your congressperson and spoken with him/her about the direction of the country? Or are you content just bitching on DU because, deep down, that's all you're willing to do?
Let's be honest here - how can you expect more from your politicians when you're not doing anything yourself? You get so angry at Obama and yet, what are you doing? It's easy to rant and rave on a message board - it's a whole other thing to actually go out and change the world.
Here's a bit of advice, Manny: Do something else. Your schtick isn't going to change anything. You might get a bunch of pat on the backs here at DU, but that's the extent of it (and really, I think that's all you're looking for ... not really looking to change anything or you wouldn't spend all your time on DU looking for gratification from others). Either you really want to change ... or you really just want to complain. What is it?
pattiepcomedy
(12 posts)The current Democratic party looks not much different than the Republican party - not enough public service but plenty of lip service.
Harry Reid was only worried about his own pocketbook when he decided not to change the rules of fillibuster so some work could finally be accomplished. I was curious also why President Obama upped the anty to $400,000 to have the tax cuts expire on. I think most of today's politicians are more worried about their future instead of working seriously on the job they were all elected to do for the majority of Americans
The past 10 years have shown that the Democratic party has changed and there is a definite brain drain when it comes to our local, state and federal representatives. To correct today's problems, we need people that are honest, smart and uncorruptible. And if there are none out there right now, we have to search until we find people that fit that bill.
TomCADem
(17,837 posts)Drunken Irishman, I would not even bother responding to Manny. I can understand if he was being critical of the Democrat's position on the issue. Instead, he engages in a gross attack on most Democrats AND gives Republicans a huge free pass, because "We expect Republicans to do this stuff."
Really? Also, what about the corporate media where right wing talking point spewing journalists like Bob Woodard are celebrated for their objectivity.
Manny's posts display a repeated blind spot with respect to the Republican party and the corporate media. Worse, it reinforces a false equlivalence that shields the Republican party from being held accountable, because hey, the Democrats also are totally out of touch with the needs of people. Even worse, "we expect Republicans to do this stuff," thus only Democrats are the ones who are at fault.
Have you ever seen a post from Manny that supports Democrats in a fight with Republicans and the right wing. Ever? Manny and posts that attack the President will always get hundreds of recs.
MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)After all, it was the Confederacy that was in revolt. Why blame his generals for losing?
Number23
(24,544 posts)See rec count above. I have no doubt that's why these guys keep typing this mindless swill over and over and over and over and over and over again.
But hey, as long as the "maybe we can siphon enough Dems to build our own party" contingent have their fingers poised above the rec button, Manny can keep doing what's he's doing. God, this place is so boring.
Lydia Leftcoast
(48,223 posts)but it is infuriating when the Democrats let the Republicans co-opt them.
If I wanted Republican Lite policies, I would join the Republican party and try to reform it.
I was always half-hearted about Obama, and I don't get the reflexive defense of him when he does something that is plainly not in the best interests of anyone but the 1%.
graham4anything
(11,464 posts)I Cant Dance
(42 posts)stopped being the bat shit crazy party. I would prefer a more liberal Democratic Party and a more moderate GOP, but one can one do? I am certainly not going to try to reform either party.
Even if one could manage to reform the Democratic party to have a more liberal agenda, then you still have to figure out how to deal with the American Taliban (i.e. the GOP).
stupidicus
(2,570 posts)from what it once was, to the corporatist-lite, less than reasonable facsimile of the party of old it often is today.
I've long thought that efforts to rebuild the labor movement/unions will go a long way towards reaching the transformation goal, and it's something any "dem" can start or participate in, as opposed to merely "talking about" it.
felix_numinous
(5,198 posts)that transcends political, military and religious affiliations. A human reform that empowers everyone to identify corruption and conflict of interests that pervades these institutions.
The common denominator in this corruption is that they have created a world where money trumps life itself, or quality of life for not only Americans but all life on Earth.
I believe that if Americans unified and petitioned the government with a list of priorities, and refused to work or cooperate until these were implemented--that there be a Green Movement or passive resistance, perhaps changes can come about in time to counter the Earth changes that are upon us all.
Corruption in this day and age is just plain evil--it feels as if people have totally lost their empathy for regular folks and responsibility to care for the Earth we all share.
This form of insanity is a trap and we cannot expect those within this system to fix itself. I will agree on one point--that reform must come in the form of great and unmistakeable pressure from outside.
Peace~~Felix
gulliver
(13,985 posts)It wants its credibility level back.
rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)
iandhr
(6,852 posts)Is only funded through 2041.
AFter 2041 it will only pay for 75% of benefits.
MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)That assume the economy never really recovers. Ever.
I Cant Dance
(42 posts)in their analysis? I don't believe that they are.
If you scroll down to table Table II.C1. on page 8, you can see that they are using an UE rate between 4.5% - 6.5% for their long run projections. Or better yet, look at Table V.B2 on page 108 for their parameters. They do in fact show that the economy recovers.
As for GDP growth, or the intermediate assumptions, the average annual growth in real GDP is 3.0 percent from 2011 to 2021...
The projected average annual growth in real GDP of 3.0 percent for this period is 0.7 percentage point higher than the underlying sustainable trend rate of 2.3 percent. This 0.7 percentage point above-trend component reflects a relatively rapid increase in employment as the economy recovers and the unemployment rate falls from 9 percent in 2011 to its assumed ultimate level of 5.5 percent in 2019. After 2021, the Trustees do not project any economic cycles. (page 102).
http://www.socialsecurity.gov/OACT/TR/2012/tr2012.pdf
MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)Romulox
(25,960 posts)That's an ideological, not a mathematical, position. And one that I would never rally behind. I don't think it has any basis in "progressive" politics whatsoever.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)"That's an ideological, not a mathematical, position. And one that I would never rally behind. I don't think it has any basis in "progressive" politics whatsoever."
...who don't want anymore of their income going to strengthen Social Security. Progressives actually fighting to do so advocate lifting the cap.
By Zaid Jilani
Last week, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) was a featured speaker at the United Steel Workers 2011 conference in Las Vegas.
Sanders focused much of his speech on the Social Security system, blasting suggestions by Democrats and Republicans alike that, for example, we should adjust the cost of living adjustment to cut Social Security payments to working class Americans or raise the retirement age. “When [Social Security] was developed, 50 percent of seniors lived in poverty. Today, poverty among seniors is too high, but that number is ten percent. Social Security has done exactly what it was designed to do!” he thundered, defending the program. Watch it:
<...>
Today, Sanders announced that he will introduce legislation that would strengthen Social Security without cutting benefits to any of its beneficiaries. Sanders’ legislation would eliminate the income cap that currently exists in the payroll tax that does not tax income above $106,800:
To keep Social Security strong for another 75 years, Sanders’ legislation would apply the same payroll tax already paid by more than nine out of 10 Americans to those with incomes over $250,000 a year. <...> Under Sanders’ legislation, Social Security benefits would be untouched. The system would be fully funded by making the wealthiest Americans pay the same payroll tax already assessed on those with incomes up to $106,800 a year.
Sanders points out that President Obama himself endorsed this idea on the campaign trail in 2008. “What we need to do is to raise the cap on the payroll tax so that wealthy individuals are paying a little bit more into the system. Right now, somebody like Warren Buffet pays a fraction of 1 percent of his income in payroll tax, whereas the majority…pays payroll tax on 100 percent of their income. I’ve said that was not fair,” said Obama during the campaign.
- more -
http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/08/25/304387/bernie-sanders-introduces-bill-to-lift-the-payroll-tax-cap-ensuring-full-social-security-funding-for-nearly-75-years/
Romulox
(25,960 posts)limpyhobbler
(8,244 posts)We need a grass roots people's revolt inside the Democratic Party to clean out the corporate cronies and remake it into something that really represents the people.
blkmusclmachine
(16,149 posts)Rotten to the core.
Bipartisanship sucks
SidDithers
(44,333 posts)Sid
JoePhilly
(27,787 posts)Maybe "Manny PAC" just has to finalize the paperwork.
graham4anything
(11,464 posts)+4 being the electoral votes of NH that went to George Bush.
+4 being the number that would have put Al Gore over 270.
BelgianMadCow
(5,379 posts)The advantage of having a huge crisis like we do is that it makes people show their true colours.
Over here, even the socialist SPa has declined a full blown investigation into Dexia, whose debacle hangs over our country for generations to come (literally, via state guarantee for what became essentially a broke hedge fund).
When these socialists then go along with the prevailing logic of Europe, which now succeeded in removing Greece from the list of first world countries, I no longer care for their lip service.
It's time for some real populism. Time for direct democracy, in my opinion. Italy has Beppe Grillo and the 5 star movement now. Start or join something like that Manny, I'd say on a local scale and turn your anger & understanding into a force for good. Of course, I don't know what you already do, I'm just making a suggestion (and reminding myself).
Of course, the route of putting public pressure on the current administration is also a way of changing things. The difference between Europe's reaction to austerity, with an 800.000 people on the streets in Portugal for the "fuck the troika"-day, and the US and the UK is striking to say the least. When is Occupy going to make a big come back? I mean, it has fundamentally influenced the debate and still could (besides all the good they're doing now in filing lawsuits with OccupyTheSec and helping the affected with OccupySandy).
It IS as someone pointed out a system failure. A new system that is supposed to be better, cannot be built along the same lines or within the same structures. A matter of a problem that can't be solved by the thinking that created it. What I think is lacking is the critical mass in the US and UK who see that system failure and that are somehow willing or pushed into doing something about it.
Or like a banker uncle of mine said (whilst agreeing with most of the above) - we are still too well off.
just1voice
(1,362 posts)because it would send a clear message that the era of corruption is over. Until then, the corruption will only get worse as it continues to expand into every industry and everyone's lives.
RILib
(862 posts)I hope DU doesn't boot you out for saying the truth.
Samantha
(9,314 posts)People who are not robust Dems that are willing to protect the classic Democratic principles, especially those founded as a result of the Great Depression, and that period known as America's Shame, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and other important works, should leave the party.
Democrats have a legacy of reform over decades to right wrongs perpetrated upon the citizenship of this Country. Why should those of us who openly embrace those principles, and our heroes who helped get us here, as well as the legacies of those who did not live to see the results of their works yet who are also heroes -- why should WE leave. If we did, we would be leaving all of that behind.
We should claim the Democratic label and openly and publicly ask those who are throwing our principles under the bus to form their own party. And they should take the New Dems (Third Way) with them....
I am a proud liberal and I am not ashamed to broadcast it.
Sam
alcibiades_mystery
(36,437 posts)The simple fact is that you can't do it, and your position can't seem to do it either. You snark and snark and snark, but your people can't put together even a few local election victories. As it stands, you have to win elections to actually do anything. That is, anything other than consistently gathering 150 recommendations on DU, which is admirable, I suppose, or at least nice for the ego. For some people.
The sad thing is that I support your positions most of the time. Your strategy sucks, though. Your rhetoric sucks. It is claptrap in the classic sense, garnering a great deal of clapping from people who already agree with you. That's not going to make any difference. Except the 150 or 200 recommendations. If we actually think about that number, it's kind of embarrassing in many, many ways.
KoKo
(84,711 posts)But..at some point in America...the call for THIRD PARTY might just get some traction.
We cannot go ON with this "RED VS. BLUE" THING...
It's Not Productive and it's caused Angst since the Kennedy Assassinations...if one (like us older DU'ers have lived through) that we keep VOTING for PRESIDENTs...who seem to go "off rail" from the PRINCIPLES we voted for them and THEN they try to send out their Operatives to tell us WHY...they had to CAVE to the OPPOSITE of the People WHO VOTED THEM IN...who felt they were working for REAL CHANGE.
I don't know about Third Party...Unless we find a truly Charismatic Candidate. (and one always needs to worry about those "charismatic Candidates"
because they can be deceivers just like the Regular Candidates...and the message becomes closer to Reagan.
Whatever...we SURELY NEED SOME CHANGE...this crap has gone on for too long and as long as some of us have been born where we've watched it all for DECADES and the result is one becomes "Jaded"...Cuts Out or becomes Apathetic.
SOMETHING NEEDS TO CHANGE! FOR SURE....
w4rma
(31,700 posts)They will use that money to corrupt the government and politicians, fearing that money, often succumb to it. Correcting the wealth gap would fix the political environment, but to correct the wealth gap the political environment needs to be corrected, first. We are in a bit of a Catch 22, right now. Hopefully we can fight back against the money with numbers of voters.
limpyhobbler
(8,244 posts)I don't think voting is going to be enough. We need some deeper type of activism beyond just voting if we want to correct the problem you just described. I don't know if that means street protesting, disrupting, or what.
One thing I do think for sure is that we need to start running primary challenges against some of these corporate Dems. But it's going to be hard to win against all that money.
mtasselin
(668 posts)I was beginning to think I was the only one that felt that way, this could be the start of something big.
Mr_Jefferson_24
(8,559 posts)emsimon33
(3,128 posts)I can not believe that they are selling us out on Social Security and Medicare. The end result will be that the elderly will once again become a burden to their children, further sinking the middle class.
If Obama sells out...he deserves to rot in Hell. He will go down as no better than Hoover: One of our worst presidents.
blkmusclmachine
(16,149 posts)
emsimon33
(3,128 posts)Now days, it would be ramen as pet food has become rather expensive.
The irony is that cuts in SS and Medicare will be another burden on the 98% as senior family members will have to rely on their families for support to survive.
Don't know why more Republican families haven't figured this out.
MrSlayer
(22,143 posts)But that's never going to happen, they've sold us out and they're never coming back. The bad guys won and they did it with wholehearted support of the people that lost the most.
Real progressive candidates are never going to get the money needed to win against machine candidates. The system is not just broken, it's so corrupted that it's nearly impossible to fix.
DCBob
(24,689 posts)congrats!
Zax2me
(2,515 posts)Miss-steps here and there maybe (small ones) but for the most part he is doing a fantastic job.
So say the people!
reACTIONary
(7,162 posts)He's done nothing about the major problem, global warming. If we don't have a planet, nothing else matters. People claim that's because of Congress, but when he has an environmental issue he has 100% control over, he still caves.
I don't personally know anyone, Red or Blue, and I live in probably the bluest state in the Union, who thinks he rates anywhere but poor to mediocre.
Smarmie Doofus
(14,498 posts)blkmusclmachine
(16,149 posts)
KoKo
(84,711 posts)is what can be made of it. We are on new territory..new ground...
Have to see how it goes. But, definitely...Something is very wrong..
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)When Democrats and Republicans take turns enacting a vicious corporate agenda, and when very little coming out of either party bears even the slightest resemblance anymore to what the people want and need, it's time to acknowledge that we need something different.
Important post. Thanks.
Apophis
(1,407 posts)and not special interest big money.
dionysus
(26,467 posts) graham4anything
(11,464 posts)ADDENDUM: No, I have zero interest in starting a third party. This party belongs to us, and we should keep it; it's the trespassers who need to vacate.
I still call myself a Liberal rather than a Progressive, in large part because I'll be damned if I'll let the opposition steal the word "Liberal" from me. They've done all they can to turn that word into a slur, but fuck 'em - they can't have it, and we'll win the word back. We're already making progress on this.
it's an interesting small print addendum, which shifts the entire focus of the thread.
10 hours later.
Just interesting.
MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)Be specific, please.
graham4anything
(11,464 posts)the addendum would have led to some different replies on this thread if it had been there earlier.
Nothing against your OP at all.
But it changes the meaning.
Keep on keeping on as Eddie Kendricks sang.(of the Temptations, who also sang
"Ball of Confusion".
MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)I thought that was pretty clear, sorry.
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)Amen.
copperearth
(117 posts)If the Democrats start splintering off we will be in danger of being diminished the way the Tea Party has ruined the Republican Party. There is a BIG difference between cutting waste from the budget and just gutting it. I saw Bowles and Simpson on MSNBC and they have revised their original plan, by reducing rising medical costs, closing loopholes used mainly by the wealthy and restructuring military expenditures. They have been able to reduce sending with little hurt to the middle class and lower income people. There are many Government programs that are simple pork, like paying well-off corporate farmers for doing well. In the words of Benjamin Franklin-We must all hang together or we will hang separately.
blkmusclmachine
(16,149 posts)We need to start coalescing, group get-togethers, etc. We need CHANGE. 
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)If Obama wants his presidency to be remembered as the one that sold out the American people for good, we can still save the Democratic ideals that were once those of our party.
Every one of us needs to join our local and state Democratic organizations, become active and support liberal Democrats for office. We still have that choice.
A lot of us on DU know more about what is going on in the world and politics than the newscasters on TV. We didn't study journalism -- how to write. We learned other things from computer science to farming to how to work 9-6 at an ordinary job. We know life as it really is. We can take back our party and our country. We just have to work together.
DeSwiss
(27,137 posts)And we are way past parties coming to the rescue. The underlying system will corrupt anything ''new'' we replace the old parties with. The ground is poisoned and no good fruit can be grown in it. No putting new wine in the old skins?, and like that??
I knew things changed for good the moment they decided they could kill anyone of us with impunity under the rubric of terrorism/national security. After that one: ''All bets on the Constitution are off.'' You're playing with yourself if you don't understand this.
We can can deal with these ominous facts anyway we wish. We can believe nothing and no one and go searching for the TRUTH ourselves.
Or we can turn on the teevee or click on any MSM website and have our brains filled with the the filtered/fascist versions of reality, and thus relieving ourselves of any responsibility to think and to act. If that's what floats your boat, keeps you sane and the age-old FEARS of lack and debt and disease and old age in-check. So be it. I'm no one's judge.
Free-will, everybody's got it! Unless you give it away.
It's time for a paradigm shift. An entirely new way of looking at reality. We have to let this system die so that a new one can grow from the debris of our mistakes and the arrogance of those who have brought us all to the brink. Which includes all of us for letting them do it. We gave them the power. After that, they stopped asking permission.
This system's formula has run its course. And as with all things in Nature, there is birth and there is death. To try and keep a dying idea alive via life support sleight-of-hand (fiat money/bailouts/permanent debt/war economy) is no way to live. It is the way of a cancer, which in the end unless stopped, always kills its host.
IMO
[font color=darkblue]~DeSwiss[/font]
[center]
[/center]
GTurck
(826 posts)I remain a Liberal and have always been. We need committed "young" people for this. Our county party in Texas is mostly made up of people over 60 and frankly we are getting tired of the hard work that is needed to motivate and organize.
TBF
(36,667 posts)how does a new party help when all the funds in the country are controlled by the top 400 or so people? Do you think the Walton family (owners of Walmart who control a full 40% of the wealth in the country) are going to suddenly start being "nice" and share?
Fuddnik
(8,846 posts)It sure as hell ain't the one I grew up with, and learned to love.
I think they even have "New Democrats" trademarked.
Nye Bevan
(25,406 posts)
INdemo
(7,024 posts)we will have a Democratic party that will truly work for the interests of the average American. The Democratic party of today is owned by Wall Street,the oil companies and other big corporations. We are the Corporate States of Amerika and its gone on too long for us to change the Republicrats..
Like the price of gas..had the Democrats fought for us when the gas swindle started about 11 years ago we would be paying a reasonable price for gas but the speculation of oil and gas was allowed to continue and now all major corporations and banks are in on the speculation action controlling the market for $$$ extremely high profits and we pay the price..The list goes on and on...
So my question to you is how do we keep our party and change it to the party of FDR..we don't we start a new liberal party..Will that happen ..no because successful campaigns are financed eventually by corporate dollars.
brooklynite
(96,882 posts)Fuddnik
(8,846 posts)Comrade_McKenzie
(2,526 posts)They want utopia and utopia now, goddamn it.
Any excuse means you're a fascist corporatist.
Our version of the teabaggers.
hay rick
(9,605 posts)Votes "from the left" are taken for granted and come with little or no effect on policy. If I was looking for the lesser evil I would be thrilled.
ProSense
(116,464 posts)"A well organized third progressive/liberal party is the only way we will have a Democratic party that will truly work for the interests of the average American. The Democratic party of today is owned by Wall Street,the oil companies and other big corporations. We are the Corporate States of Amerika and its gone on too long for us to change the Republicrats.."
...a third party to destroy the Democratic Party. What could go wrong? I completely disagree with the OP:
I still call myself a Liberal rather than a Progressive, in large part because I'll be damned if I'll let the opposition steal the word "Liberal" from me, just as I'll be damned if they'll steal my party from me. They've done all they can to turn that word into a slur, but fuck 'em - they can't have it, and we'll win the word back. We're already making progress on this.
I'm a Liberal Democrat. And that's that.
Bah, this is weak talk. Almost CYA for hyperbole and snark.
iamthebandfanman
(8,127 posts)split if it keeps it current headings...
so i guess that whole 'youll make the democrats lose and the world will all die from not choosing the best between two!' wont work anymore then eh ?
its coming. for both of the partys. :p
and I , for one... cant wait!
woohooo coalition multi-party governments!
ProSense
(116,464 posts)"so i guess that whole 'youll make the democrats lose and the world will all die from not choosing the best between two!' wont work anymore then eh ?"
...keep believing that. You'll be surprised at the coalition greed builds and I got mine builds.
I suspect a lot of the anti-Obama sentiment, inside and outside the Democratic Party, is rooted in greed.
Hotler
(13,747 posts)abelenkpe
(9,933 posts)Is a why many US jobs are off shored and outsourced. Add tax incentives on our side that reward businesses for opening overseas offices and subsidies offered by other countries and US workers are SOL.
Comrade_McKenzie
(2,526 posts)Would I be against electing someone farther to the left of the President in 2016.
Absolutely not.
But I will not spend the next four years crying over his every decision and posting articles from people who build entire careers of trying to convince people that if they read their books they will understand everything that is wrong with America.
Issues are far too complicated for the likes of Chris Hedges, Noam Chomsky, Cornel West, and a bunch of third-rate bloggers to solve with scathing words against our President.
Give me a fucking break.
JustAnotherGen
(38,054 posts)rhett o rick
(55,981 posts)Does it mean that you will never question his policies or decisions and have no use for those that might? I would hope that our loyalties would first be with democratic principles. Which includes open discussion.
And are you saying that issues are "far to complicated for the likes of" mere mortals and should be left to the President? To bastardize someone's quote, "Trust in Obama but steer clear of the rocks."
Puzzledtraveller
(5,937 posts)" I am an Obama Loyalist" Wow
Lydia Leftcoast
(48,223 posts)when the likes of Chris Hedges, Noam Chomsky, Cornel West, and a bunch of "third-rate bloggers" all agree that the system is rotten and that you can't compromise with rot.
Safetykitten
(5,162 posts)
Wednesdays
(22,600 posts)It'd be great to see you at the next national convention. I think you'd make a helluva difference.
mother earth
(6,002 posts)of America's representative democracy, that "government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."
John2
(2,730 posts)the OP. We don't need to start a new Party. I don't see the Republican Party as a partner in Democracy but they become an enemy because they threaten certain Americans' rights. I think Scalia needs to get that message. This country is divided and it was once said a divided nation cannot stand. Something has to give and the something back then was a Civil War. And I believe we are on the right side just like back then.
President Obama and officials of the Democratic Party need to do what people elected him to do. They did not elect them to follow the dictates of an extremist rightwing Party and their constituents. Rights and the pursuit of happiness are more important than submitting to some extreme Party with a gun at your head! The choice should be theirs and not ours. The Debt or Deficit doesnot concern me as much as the Republican Party and the threat to our rights as they have become. I would even go as far as to prosecute their officials for War Crimes, because they threatened the World too. They underestimate people in the Democratic Party. Our stances can harden too, because we are just as adamant about our causes. The Tea Party is not the only group can primary someone. It is not about someone's legacy, it is about the people. And I'm getting tired of people thinking they have gotten big enough thinking they can just dismiss them and do whatever they like in office. That should be a message for Hillary Clinton.
Raggaemon
(70 posts)You're arguing against things like tax code and the way that Capitalism is continuing to be bastardized, tell me please what president can wave a magic wand to change these things, especially when congress has final say on taxes & spending ?
The simple fact that here in the U.S. we are all reliant on a for-profit health care industry isn't the blame of a particular party, the fault rests with the core philosophy of greed capital which has been embedded into the fabric of America longer than any of us has been alive, what would you do to change that ?
What's at stake is that one side favors handing private industry the reigns, they prefer having corporations manage most government programs, the other side differs greatly, you making the point that it's democrats on the side of corporations ?
Also, what extra powers have been granted to president Obama ? You must know that republicans explored how to expand George W. Bush's powers, they called it "the unitary executive", their hope was to mute congressional oversight, are you saying that Mr. Obama is being enabled by THIS congress ????
darkangel218
(13,985 posts)
Sekhmets Daughter
(7,515 posts)we need to reclaim Liberal and wear it proudly!
DonCoquixote
(13,960 posts)We need to form a party within a party, a mirror to the tea party that has all the benefit of carrying the D, but is organized enough that everybody has to at least listen.
The problem is that until you have a 3rd party that has people at the lower levels, from school boards to congress, it will not be listened to. We need to capture the democratic party back...and since the presidency is the most controlled office, we cannot count on any white house. Does anything think a president Hillary will suddenly shoot left when she gets in?
We need a coffee party, one that sinks into the structure, rather than charges into it, getting washed away like so many waves.
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)Puzzledtraveller
(5,937 posts)or a neo-liberal one, you know, the kind that is way too comfortable with war, drone killings, pot crackdowns, and nanny statism. IMO
cntrfthrs
(252 posts)Puzzledtraveller
(5,937 posts)How many of those would vote for the same thing, again, and again, or the same people for that matter? I'm not convinced most on DU even care when it comes down to it, I think for many it's all bout their team and anything but a republican, which our elected Democrat leaders know very well and that's why they feel like they have cover to do whatever they want or nothing at all. The republicans may run that way, that doesn't mean we have to. Obama was a little known name who prior to 2008 few were talking about and he is now in his 2nd term. So what do most of us do now? We start parroting Hillary 2016, there we go, we are tied to these peoples apron string with some psychosis so deep we can't break free, why? Perhaps we are afraid of losing. So afraid, that we will take the safe bet instead of the right bet.
MannyGoldstein
(34,589 posts)Perhaps you could write it as an original post? Many folks would benefit from thinking about this.