Michael Linden, the Director of Tax and Budget Policy at the Center for American Progress Action Fund, and guest blogger at Think Progress drops this nugget on us:
As of April, there are now more private sector jobs in the United States than there were in January 2009, when President Obama took office. You read that right. We have now replaced all of the private sector jobs lost while Obama has been president. And that was no mean feat, given that over the course of 2009, the private sector shed about 4.2 million jobs.
Wow I wasn't expected to be attacked. I guess that is what the "watchdog" does. Yeah, ok.... so a budget comes from the president as a start to the budget resolution process. What kind of start to the process of reconciliation, with a budget that receives zero votes. Seems like a non starter to the process and I would like the president to at lease get some support from somebody. Where are the Democrats? No congress-person voted for the yellow pages either, would you consider that serious document and a good start to the budget process?
At least some votes would show where any bipartisan support would lay. Zero votes is not a good start and the president should at least make some type of effort towards a serious budget so that the average American like me can have faith in his leadership.
Oh... and keep the hate to yourself "Dog"
ron mariposa
5/7/2012 1:24:56 PM
I agree linda I just posted on the newt thread and said I sent a reply to my wife's brother in law. He had sent an email and it was just like listening to foxie snooze, gas prices, unemployment, and the celeb. talking points, but not one word from him about how 401ks lost their butts, I reminded him under bush/cheney I and my wife lost over 1/3 of the savings we had a saving security plan with the company I retired from, and remended why the gas was cheap in 2009, the unemployment was rising as were the home foreclosures. I know it will fall on deaf ears as he and my sister in law are ones that blame everyone because of race. The joke is that the sister in law had to get married, was on welfare due to the illness of her little girl who passed away, first hubby split, remairred and almost end like the first, and now her grand daughter is about 6 months along, not married and I believe will be on welfare soon. But you and I know that is ok because they are tea baggers=gopers. They moved from calif to alabama and I know the fit in great as all their friends and neighbors are the same. Just want to say this is how these people think
Linda S Houston
5/7/2012 8:05:55 AM
Interesting turn of events in Europe. Looks like slowly the right wingers are being rejected by the countries there. First France, it will be like a domino effect. The voters are angry and want change.
"Austerity" is akin to the Paul Ryan budget here. Wow, Paul Ryan it worked resoundingly well in Europe didn't it? Riots, food shortages, record unemployment, etc. etc.
That whole Eurodollar was a scheme concocted by the big banker new world order shadow governments. And looks like it has been a disaster along with everything else as predicted by many.
Romney take a lesson from Sarkozy. The voters know empty rhetoric when they see it. You cannot hide behind your attractive wife and think that nobody is going to notice you have no solutions.
Linda S Houston
5/7/2012 7:51:48 AM
Ron, I feel your pain. I managed to get on one of the Obama bashing email lists, I asked to be removed from it, but like a cancer, it keeps finding its way back to my inbox.
I guess this is how I would take a stand. When you are in your own home, you get to set the tone. When the ignoramuses start to get annoying tell them to take it outside or take it home.
They are not paying for the space there, so they don't get to call the shots.
Declare your territory a "smart zone" and defy anyone who starts up the Obama hate that they better have some facts and figures to back up their claims or they get voted off the property. They should be able to relate to that since they probably already have a dumbed down reality show sense of life anyway.
Just because someone is "family" doesn't give them the right to pollute the airways with hatespeak. Tell them you could look up every last one of their geneaological bloodlines and find somewhere in history where people just like them were bullied and hated for the way they looked or what they believed in. And almost every one of us has some "darker" ethnic group bloodline, there is no getting away from it.
Also tell them that 26th among industrialized nations is not a pretty spot to be sitting in in math and science education. They want to sit there and tout us "the greatest nation in the world", tell them you want to know based on what and they better have facts and figures to back that up too.
Enough of the flag waving and ain't we great rhetoric, we have too much of a history of just the opposite.
Best of luck. Feel free to rant at will.
Linda S Houston
5/7/2012 7:38:13 AM
Pat, Texas is so huge I can barely keep up with just my own city. I did used to keep up with East Texas because of the legendary Charlie Wilson. West Texas is almost like a foreign country compared with the Houston area. Hope you can make it back to your Rocky Mountain High soon.
ron mariposa
5/6/2012 3:50:10 PM
Like I said before I tell the family to wait and if they get their wish to be rid of this president they better put the heads between their legs and kiss their fannies good bye. They just say it will be the begining of making this country great now that the evil progressives are gone. I wonder how may of these will be crying how hard it is to make ends meet when their taxes goes up, health care goes up, the pollution of air land and water increase, and no public services, and the wealthy, the corporations, and the radical religious right run this country into a dictatorship with phony and control elections. The ryan budget isnt even close to what was given congress to be approve by this president. I cant believe the family as when I tell them that the budget sent to the senate isnt the one the president sent to the house because the gop=tea baggers wont allow the president's budget to go to the sentate without social cuts attached. Alex if you check the all presidents are required by LAW and the CONSITUTION to send a budget PROPOSAL by mid febuary, and then the house changes it as they see fit no matter who party is in power. I give my family facts and no matter how many facts they get they just go alone with the foxies and talking heads on the radio has to say. They cant give me one true fact that they can back up. It is sad that america has been so dumbed down, made lazy in the brain that these so call smart people cant think for themselves or fact check for themselves.
just my humble views
Pat, Grand Lake Co
5/6/2012 1:58:23 PM
Greeting all from deep in the heart of the Permian Basin, where the oil is flowing and the economy is booming! In spite of that, most folks here eat, live and breathe fox noise and President Obama is pretty much the anti-Christ, but that's SW Texas for ya. When times are good, "praise Jesus!" And when times are bad, curse those stinkin' libruls in big bad Washington. Not sure who the Congressman is from this area, but it's probably that famous teabagger, Louie Gohmert. Help me out, Linda.
TAX THE RICH, plenty of super patriots here who would be happy to pay for the wars they love so much! HA!
Rex, Moorhead
5/6/2012 1:49:58 PM
The radical right wingers are really something else. Most liberals will compromise and negotiate in good faith in order to get something passed with the hope more can get done next time around. Right wingers have a total "zero sum-game" when it comes to politics. Politics has never been a "zero sum game" if you want a viable democracy. You do not negotiate away you right to vote or a woman's right for an abortion or birth control period. Civil rights are not a popularity contest. Radical right wingers will not compromise or negotiate with anybody on anything but they are all about "taking away rights" of minorities, women, and laborers. Look at the 2010 election, everyone thought it would be about "jobs, jobs, and more jobs" but all we got from the GOP were antiabortion, anti-union, anti-labor, anti-women's healthcare and anti-family planning initiatives. Mr. Boehner has yet to pass a SINGLE SUBSTANTIVE JOBS BILL. President Obama had several major initiatives like the American Jobs Act that could not make it through the GOP House.
Why has the GOP become the party of the plutocrats instead of the Main Street business owner? The GOP does not give a damn about small businesses. Many of President Obama's initiatives would have helped small businesses get financing and tax breaks. President Obama's Affordable Care Act will help small businesses provide health insurance for their employees. What is "socialist" about helping small businesses provide health insurance for their employees? The Republicans are in denial about how far too the radical right they have swung. The GOP is bent on a suicide run doing away with Medicare, Social Security, while providing plutocrats with tax cuts to the end while our country goes off of a cliff and all of our jobs go to China.
I do not understand people who dislike President Obama. Most of President Obama's policies are centrist with Republican ideas as their origin. The Affordable Care Act, or "Obama Care" as the GOP pejoratively calls it was originally an idea of Richard Nixon. Other prominent Republicans like Senator Bob Dole supported a health insurance mandate. The GOP, from 20 years ago, used to have many moderates in it who would negotiate behind the scenes with Democrats. I am talking about the 1960's and 1970's when LBJ would get Democratic votes for some of his initiatives and Nixon would get some Democrat votes for his initiatives. We can say whatever we want to about these two leaders or President Ford, Carter, or even Reagan they were better people than the current crop of Republicans. Reagan raised taxes many times when he saw that their was no way to reduce the budget deficit.
The current GOP operatives have swung so far to the radical right that they are out to DESTROY TRADITIONAL AMERICAN VALUES. Most people want Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, police, fire, and ambulance services. Most people want decent streets, well run schools, and colleges to send their kids too so they can get ahead. The current GOP does NOT want to pay for ANY OF THESE VITAL THINGS. Does the GOP want to cut the Army, Navy, and Marines so that the rich get more tax cuts? If you want a country you have to have a government that can raise money from taxes so that services can be provided by the government. The government also supports vital infrastructure and research programs that will never be founded by a corporation. Much of the research and development done by large multinational corporations get federal tax credits, federal subsidies, and special government contracts that help new products and ideas get from the drawing board to the market place. Corporations do not exist in a vacuum, they too benefit from government spending, contracts, tax breaks, and a host of other legal protections that give them an advantage over our foreign competitors.
If we do not have an educated work force in the future our entire country is going to go completely to hell almost immediately. Anyone who doubts this needs to read about the children in Seoul, South Korea that study 12 hours per day on a Sunday to pass graduation exams so they can go to college. Conservatives in America need to pull their heads out of their rectums and start seeing the 21st century world as a hyper-competitive world where the U.S. will either lead the way in engineering, science, computer science, and high tech business practices or else ALL OF THE DECENT PAYING JOBS WILL GO TO ASIA. The current bunch of Republicans are living in another alternate universe lost in the "Denial Zone".
watchdog
5/6/2012 12:32:38 PM
I've got 26 right wing in-laws. I've most for more than 30 yrs and never heard a racial remark until Obama was elected. They learned not to talk politics around me when I "politely" ask one to leave my house after he made a racial comment about Obama. I've also challenged them the back up their Fox Lies and none ever have. but it's easy to prove them lies. We don't have many "family" gatherings anymore and that's a sad state.
I met a guy that after talking to him off and on for weeks, learned he was my brother-in-laws best friend from high school. He's a repub but we could talk politics and nobody got upset. He would listen and actually check some thing I had said and came back and said "damn, you're right". He doesnt' even recognize the republican party anymore, won't vote for them and has broken ties with his best friend due to politics. It is sad and dangerous this country is that divided. I don't see it ever healing either. Sad day for this country.
Rob, Oregon
5/6/2012 11:54:21 AM
ron, I feel your pain. I had the righty in-laws with the non stop BS E-mails too. I stress (had). Most of them are still hung up on the Muslim, Nazi, socialist, birther bullshit. I don't speak to the majority of them anymore, that is how divided this country has become. Politics first, relationships second. This divide started a long time ago, but has hit a fever pitch with a half Black man in office. The funny thing is the name Bush never comes up. According to their thinking, we jumped from Clinton to Obama. There's just no reasoning with think like I do or else, racist hate, and blind denial that YOUR party could be responsible for any wrong doing, period .
