Holder should resign quickly, as should the IRS chief

[BlueCaliDem]

208. You make excellent points. However,

at times people have the tendency to scrutinize {sometimes unfairly} small pieces of legislation they disagree with, with such focus that they lose sight of the greater picture. I've pointed out a few instances complete with links. I'm still amazed that President Obama is being blamed for not having closed Gitmo while Congressional Democrats have gotten an undeserved pass. It just astounds me.

Of course I disagree with plenty that this president has done. But I don't lose sight of the fact that he's just the president and he doesn't even inhabit the most powerful branch of our three branches of government. You'd be surprised to know how few know that not the WH but Congress is the most powerful branch of our government.

I'm all for dissent, but it's got to be measured and informed dissent. That's what separates us from the Republicans - when they criticize Democrats since they never criticize their own, that is. But prematurely calling for the resignation of AG Holder just because one doesn't like him is not measured or informed. It's hysteria.

The chained CPI is a tiny reduction in cost of living raise. It doesn't touch basic benefits. But it fulfills his promise to save social security since the 2012 Trustee's Board analysis has shown that they will have to begin cutting basic benefits by a whopping 25% in 2033 - eight years earlier than the Board's forecast in 2005, which would have been 22%-25% cuts in basic benefits in 2041. This is alarming. But the chained CPI is just a tiny proposal in his much greater and far-reaching one that would stop subsidies to Big Pharma, Big Oil, Big Agri, and Big Corps. The president's proposal would institute universal Pre-K that would allow single mothers to keep their jobs as their children get a great head start in education. It would close tax loopholes for the already obscenely rich. It would shut the Republican up that "the president has never proposed a budget!" when that's a bald-faced lie - he's presented a budget every year since 2010, but it was continuously rejected by the obstructionist idiots in the House and Senate.

As for the chained CPI . . . it is tiny. It proposes not any cuts in basic benefits, but a 0.3% of 1% reduction in our current COLA. It's tiny compared to the cuts President Carter signed into law with both chambers of Congress under Democratic control. It must be noted that many Congressional Democrats who are now wailing against chained CPI were the same ones who had voted to cut benefits under Carter. And the chained CPI is far smaller than the cuts, approved by the some of the same Democrats now vocally against it today, under President Clinton when he signed into law the bill that taxes benefits {an effective benefits cut} for people who still work and make over $34,000.

I'm open to informed and measured debate on any issue involving this administration, but I have zero tolerance for anti-Obama vitriol based on nothing but an innate dislike {or even hatred} for this president and his administration. And if people practice the same blind dislike for this president without bothering themselves to do a little research, they are no different than TeaBaggers and they deserve the label.