Dreaming

“So my dad never had the money or time to get a college degree. Without a college degree, became head of a big car company and ultimately a governor. And believed in America, believed in the opportunity in this country, never doubted for a moment that he could achieve his dreams. And Ann's dad, my wife's dad, was born in Wales. His dad was a coal miner. This coal miner got injured in a coal mining accident; realizing that there was no future there for him or his four children, he came to Detroit and worked in the auto factories until he could save enough money to bring his kids over, which he did. And then they got together as a family and said, you know, to be successful in America, you've got to get an education. And they couldn't afford an education. And the kids and the parents said you know, if we all work, and we all save, we could afford to send one of us to college. And they, they sent my wife's dad.”

Mitt Romney said the above statement during a fundraising event in Boca Raton, Florida in May 2012 and which was secretly videotaped.

I find it amusing and repulsive that this man is against immigrants unless they have specialized skills. George W. Romney was born in Mexico and his family moved back to the U.S. during the Mexican revolution. As a child he worked the fields and helped his father in construction. G.W. Romney’s family was on welfare for many years to make ends meet. G.W. Romney was not a good student, went to many universities and never graduated from any of them. In high school, he was not exemplary actually he was far from it. Those humble beginnings is what made G.W. Romney a more compassionate man, much more than his son will ever be. 

Ann (Davies) Romney’s parents were immigrants too. Ann’s father was Edward R. Davies and he came to the United States after his father, David Davis, a coal miner who had acquired black lung disease and who had been injured in a mining accident had migrated to the United States in 1929 and after working at a Ford plant he sent for his wife and son, Ann’s father, shortly after. Edward R. Davies was an avowed atheist until the day he died, he despised religion and never changed his mind about it. However, not even a year had passed after his death (September 8, 1992) when Mitt Romney and his wife, Ann ignored the essence of the man and baptized him post-mortem. In my opinion this is just one more example of how disrespectful and selfish these two individuals are, they can’t even honor the wishes of a dead man.

Both their own families came to this country in search of a better life for themselves and their family. Neither one of these families were wealthy when they got here or possessed any extraordinary skills: one a carpenter the other a sick coal miner. Yet, the desire for a better life drove them here and this country welcomed them, allowed them to work and to prosper. 

They were just the previous generation of Mitt and Ann Romney, not their great-grand fathers, not 3 or 4 generations ago. These people were their own parents. How can they now show so much disdain for the immigrants that come to this country in search of the same thing their parents came here for? Mitt Romney keeps repeating that he wants to bring people from other countries but only if they have special skills, I wonder what skills he is thinking off, will he accept carpenters, injured miners, wheat, potato and sugar beet field workers, or would any of those “skills” not be special enough for him? 

Mitt Romney has promised to veto the “Dream Act” which is allowing those that were brought to these shores as children by their parents and who are undocumented by no fault of their own. He will not think twice about it. He will destroy the dreams of these young men and women who are studying, trying to get ahead in life, serving our country and defending this country as their own – after all, they know of no other country – he will deny them the same opportunity his own father and his father-in-law had to succeed. What’s more, he will follow Arizona’s immigration law deporting more immigrants just because they come from South of the border and came here with no “special skills” but the ardent desire to provide their families a better life, to earn a decent living with the sweat of their brow, the work of their two hands and the strength of their heart… all to provide their children a better future than they had. 

That is what Gaskell Romney and David Davies did and no one kicked them out of this country. 

For Romney all of the above doesn’t matter, the opportunities his family had and he had were well deserved and they “earned” it… Perhaps, they “earned” it because they were white and spoke English, and the undocumented immigrants are brown and speak Spanish, and then he wants the Latino vote, in his dreams!

A Fistful of Dollars

Let me begin by saying that I am no finance expert nor do I consider myself an economist. I am just using common sense and as Bill Clinton said, arithmetic.

The government of the United is funded mostly by taxation.

The Great Depression started by the end of 1929 and ended by the end of 1940. During those tough times, the wealthy responded to the crisis not by taking their money somewhere else or by hiding it, they loved their country and were willing to do whatever was necessary to help America come out of the predicament it found herself in. The tax rate for individuals from 1932 to 1963 making over $200,000 was brutal (to see the rates, click here), yet they paid it and we came out of the Depression and flourished. Corporations were not as willing or perhaps the government was as usual more lenient on them, from 1929 until 1939 the maximum tax rate corporations paid was 19% but in 1940 their rates jumped, literally from one year to the next to 38.3% and by 1952 the corporate tax rate for any income above $25,000 was a whooping 52%! That sacrifice from both the wealthy and corporations is what helped this country to move forward and to cement us as the richest country in the world.

By the end of 1989 or beginning 1990, Grover Norquist introduced the concept that taxes could not be raised to any corporations or the wealthy and that is what has caused the steady economic decline of this country. The government of the United States of America does not produce anything, does not sell anything and it depends solely on taxation to survive. It is precisely during a financial crisis those taxes must be raised or we will never get out of the recession and will only keep increasing our national debt.

Click here to enlarge

The total revenue collected by the United States (in millions) from 2000 to 2012 as taxes (I = Individual Taxes) (C = Corporate Taxes) and (O = Other) were as follows:

2000 – $2,025,191 (I) $1,004,462; (C) $207,289; (O) $813,440
2001 – $1,991,092 (I) $994,339; (C) $151,075; (O) $845,668
2002 – $1,853,136 (I) $858,345; (C) $148,044; (O) $846,747
2003 – $1,782,314 (I) $793,699; (C) $131,778; (O) $856,837
2004 – $1,880,114 (I) $808,959; (C) $189,371; (O) $881,784
2005 – $2,153,661 (I) $927,222; (C) $278,282; (O) $948,107
2006 – $2,406,869 (I) $1,043,908; (C) $353,915; (O) $1,009,046
2007 – $2,567,985 (I) $1,163,472; (C) $370,243; (O) $1,034,270
2008 – $2,523,991 (I) $1,145,747; (C) $304,346; (O) $1,073,898
2009 – $2,104,989 (I) $915,308; (C) $138,229; (O) $1,052,452
2010 – $2,162,724 (I) $898,549; (C) $191,437; (O) $1,051,452
2011 – $2,303,466 (I) $1,091,473; (C) $181,085; (O) $1,030,908

From the taxes collected, about 85% of the total amount came from individual taxes, 12% from corporate taxes and 3% from other taxes.

In average, corporations made from 2002 to 2011 around $5.4 trillion dollars in profits and paid $2.8 billion in taxes while individual taxes for the same period were $19.7 billion. According to the Small Business Administration, there were 27.5 million companies in the United States in 2009, that is the latest data I could find. Considering all the taxes loopholes, foreign banking, etc. corporations are literally getting a “free ride.” Even Social Security and Pensions paid more than corporations.

Click here to enlarge

The days when privileged people and businesses were concerned about the well being of the country are long gone. The very rich just want more and more money and don’t have any shame in admitting it and the country can go down the drain for all they care; the only thing that matters to them is money. The patriots that during the depression contributed at times with more than half of their earnings to help the country is a thing of the past. Back during the Great Depression these companies didn’t think of dismantling their businesses and take them somewhere else. They understood what  needed to be done and everyone benefited from their sacrifice, the economy finally flourished and businesses bloomed.

Click here to enlarge

Republicans keep insisting in extending the Bush tax cuts for the very wealthy, refusing to raise the taxes of those making huge profits during a recession while increasing the taxes on the middle class and the elderly. Not satisfied with this, they are persisting in engaging in more wars and refusing to make cuts to the Defense budget or reducing Defense expenses. Their sense of balance, fairness and simple arithmetic its non-existent.

According to Statista.com, the above statistics show corporate profits after tax in the United States from 2009 to 2011 Corporate profits are defined as the net income of corporations in the National Income and Product Accounts (NIPA). In 2010, corporations made profits of $1.4 trillion AFTER tax.

Click here to enlarge

This trend of less revenue and more weapons has to stop; no country can sustain an economy where the money that comes in is below to what goes out. As usual, Republicans want to make cuts to balance the budget on the things that help the poor and elderly survive, on education, scientific research, police and everything but the kitchen sink in order to keep giving to the rich and stealing from the poor, in order to keep the war machine going and the fat cats purring. I wonder how much money do the weapons manufacturers “donate” to these loyal Republicans, there has to be big money involved for the GOP to be so faithful… they would sell their soul to the devil for a fistful of dollars.

Click here to enlarge

There is absolutely no way that we can ever balance our budget and come out of a recession unless we take drastic measures. Our obsession with war has to come to an end, we can’t continue on this trend where there is no end and no matter how armed we are, it seems it’s never enough. Our desire to be feared (which some call it “respected”) is nothing but cowardice, masquerading as a Good Samaritan and the main reason most of the world hate us and distrust us. Would you trust someone coming to your aid that has a bloody axe on his shoulder? Neither would I!


Sources:

White House Budget
Bureau of Economic Analysis
Statistica.com
Small Business Administration
IRS

USGovernmentspending.com

The Man That Wants To Be King But Will Settle For President

I went to see President Bill Clinton give a speech at FIU, U.S. Century Arena on Tuesday, September 11. Needless to say, I was extremely excited and I was even more excited when I got to sit in the front row. I was so close that I swear could smell him!

Clinton’s speech, beside a brief recount about where he and his family were during the fateful attacks of 9/11, was a short version of his speech during the DNC Convention. No doubt that Clinton is the “Secretary of Explaining Stuff” as President Obama, jokingly but rightfully, has called him. To see the video of Clinton’s speech at FIU, click here.

Then I returned home to find out about what had taken place in Lybia and Egypt. What horrors these representatives of our country in faraway lands must have endured! I felt so sorry for their families here and abroad. I learned that one of the biggest advocates for the people of Libya succumbed to the irate mob – died by the hands of those that he was always defending. Ambassador Chris Steven was the loudest voice Libyans had in the United States, but a movie produced and directed by a Sam Bacile, a real-estate developer from California – according to the Wall Street Journal - aired in YouTube depicting the prophet Mohammad as a homosexual. To make matters even worse, it was uploaded dubbed into Arabic, if that wasn’t a clear and irresponsible provocation then nothing is. According to the article from WSJ, Sam Bacile tried to incriminate the Jewish community by claiming that he was a Jewish-American and that he received over $5 million in donations from the Jewish community to create the clip in question but, after some research by WSJ it seems that “Bacile” is Coptic, has an Egyptian background and is fluent in Arabic, the film was promoted by Morris Sadek, head of the National American Coptic Assembly. It is obvious to me that the film was released to provoke an uproar, to incite Muslim fanatics to do precisely what they did and, by linking the film to the Jewish community create a conflict between the Muslim countries and Israel. There must be an in depth investigation about this but for some strange reason I think, I sense that those with enough power in this country and who are desperately wishing for a war in the Middle East to “defend” Israel might be behind this (Sheldon Adelson comes to mind), all of those involved should be brought to justice because they knew perfectly well what the outcome of their actions would be.

Mitt Romney couldn’t keep his mouth shut and this is one of the reasons why I suspect Sheldon Aldeson to be behind this. Romney has not picked up any points after the RNC Convention; he is trailing behind and in a desperate effort to discredit the President decided to make a public announcement about what took place in Libya and Egypt. Following is his attack on President Obama and his administration about it:

“I’m outraged by the attacks on American diplomatic missions in Libya and Egypt and by the death of an American consulate worker in Benghazi.

It’s disgraceful that the Obama Administration’s first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathize with those who waged the attacks.”

The above message on the subject cannot be found on Romney's website, but I had the clarity of mind to take a picture of the screen, to see it click here. Apparently Romney took it down after being severely criticized by the media and by many influential Republicans that were openly saying that he (Romney) was not fit to lead on foreign policy. As it is customary with Romney, he bluntly lied about the stand of our President and even though it has been proven that President Obama did not do such a thing, that hasn’t stopped Romney from airing ads maintaining and spreading the lie. He is a disgrace, a wannabe president eager to start a war, any war with anyone, take your pick: Russia, China, Iran, Libya, Egypt, Cuba, and Venezuela among others.

President Obama did speak about the uproar in Libya and Egypt. He delivered a presidential speech that not only rejected the actions that had taken place but also was trying to appease a very sensible situation in those countries while reaffirming our beliefs and clearly stating that we will not tolerate attacks against our citizens. Unlike Romney, President Obama was consciously preventing matters from escalating into a possible war. To read the transcript, click here.

Romney tried to pin on the President and his administration a message posted by the U.S. Embassy in Cairo while the protests were taking place, the message has been deleted from the Embassy website but this is what was posted by them on September 11, to see the picture of their website click here:

U.S. Embassy Condemns Religious Incitement

September 11, 2012

The Embassy of the United States in Cairo condemns the continuing efforts by misguided individuals to hurt the religious feelings of Muslims – as we condemn efforts to offend believers of all religions. Today, the 11th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States, Americans are honoring our patriots and those who serve our nation as the fitting response to the enemies of democracy. Respect for religious beliefs is a cornerstone of American democracy. We firmly reject the actions by those who abuse the universal right of free speech to hurt the religious beliefs of others.

The U.S. Embassy in Cairo didn’t follow protocol to clear the messages through the White House first, but we must understand that they were under siege at the time and desperately posting on their official site as well as in Twitter without clearance, we can all identify with their fear.

The embassy also posted several messages in Twitter, which for the most part have been removed; to read them, click here.

Once more, Mitt Romney publicly displayed how incompetent he is and what little, if any, decorum he has. This is not a man that cares for the American people, for strengthening our relationship with the world or for our economy. This is a man too eager to become president to start a war, ignoring diplomacy over aggression and disregarding our already shaken economy. What does he think, that the U.S. Treasury has a Swiss account like he does? Is Romney planning to pay for these wars with a voucher? Giving tax breaks to the wealthy and engaging in more wars equates to the total collapse of the United States, he is so arrogant that he doesn’t give a damn about it, he just wants to be king!

MagicJack Plus... Don't Waste Your Money!

I never use my blog for anything that is not for a political or social cause, but I believe this merits a post to alert those that may be thinking to purchase a MagicJack Plus, don't do it.  Go with the cheaper version, the only plus in the MagicJack Plus is the price tag.

I've been using MagicJack for quite a long time now, great product.  That motivated me to purchase the MagicJack Plus (as seen in the picture) because it offered the advantage of connecting it to a router instead of the computer, freeing the computer from having one more USB in use.  The problem I encountered was that the system didn't recognized it.  No contacts where showing in the menu and no access to 911.

I decided to get in touch with the company to find out what was I doing wrong, if anything, and get help to make the device work as promised.  I got a guy by the name of "Adam" who told me to connect it to the USB drive, that unless connected to the USB drive I was not going to be able to see my contacts or dial 911.  That is not what they promise with this product!

I told them that the price for this device was almost double of the regular MagicJack precisely because it offered the capability of not using an USB drive so I inquired where could I file a complain.  "Adam" refused to say.

At the end, I ended up with a product almost double the price of the regular one that does nothing of what it promises.

I love the product, it's very good and nothing out there offers you what this product does.  Just don't waste your money purchasing the MagicJack Plus it doesn't do what it promises to do.  Go with the cheaper version, at least you will not be robbed like I was.

Tells Me Lies - Part II

Continues from Tell Me Lies - Part I

“Obama Care comes to more than 2,000 pages of rules,
mandates, taxes, fees and fines that have no place in a free
country. That's right.  That's right.
  You know what?  The president has declared that the debate
over government controlled health care is over.  That will come
as news to the millions of American who will elect Mitt Romney
so we can repeal Obama Care.”
   

I wish Romney and Ryan would have the guts to tell this, face to face, to Stacy Lihn. I wish I could see them telling Mrs. Lihn to let Zoe die. The Republican party is always talking about the sanctity of life, pro-life, and all that propaganda, because that is all it is – those are not their true values, but it sure sounds great and they repeat it to no end.  They don't care for the life of a child. Unfortunately, we know that Zoe passed the birth canal already so at this stage in her life they couldn’t care less what happens to her and the thousands of children with pre-existing conditions that have or about to reach their insurance life-cap and for whom their only hope to life is Obamacare... We know Obama does Care and we know they don’t care.

“And the biggest, coldest power play of all in Obama Care
came at the expense of the elderly.  You see, even with all the
hidden taxes to pay for the health care takeover, even with the
new law and new taxes on nearly a million small businesses, the
planners in Washington still didn't have enough money; they
needed more.  They needed hundreds of billions more.  So they
just took it all away from Medicare, $716 billion funneled out
of Medicare by President Obama.”
   

This is another lie that has been debunked by all reputable media, but just like the lie about Janesville GM they simply don’t care about facts and know too well that if they say it, their base will “swallow” it, applaud, and cheer even when the base knows it's false. It doesn’t matter because even when they know it's a lie, that lie sounds good against the object of their hate: the President of the United States.

“An obligation we have to our parents and grandparents is 
being sacrificed, all to pay for a new entitlement we didn't
 even ask for. The greatest threat to Medicare is Obama Care and we're
going to stop it.
   In Congress, when they take out the heavy books and the
 wall charts about Medicare, my thoughts go back to a house on
 Garfield Street in Janesville. My wonderful grandma, Janet, had
 Alzheimer's and she moved in with mom and me. Though she felt
 lost at times, we did all the little things that made her feel
 loved.  We had help from Medicare and it was there, just like
 it's there for my mom today. Medicare is a promise and we will 
honor it.  A Romney-Ryan Administration will protect and
 strengthen Medicare for my mom's generation, for my generation
 and for my kids and yours.
   So our opponents can consider themselves on notice.  In
 this election, on this issue , the usual posturing on the Left
 isn't going to work.  Mitt Romney and I know the difference
 between protecting a program and raiding it.  Ladies and
 gentlemen, our nation needs this debate, we want this debate, we 
will win in this debate.
   Obamacare, as much as anything else, explains why a
 presidency that began with such anticipation now comes to such a 
disappointing close.”

Oh yes, we too want this debate!! Bring it on!  The lies of the Republican Party will have no leg to stand on and we are literally dying to see this.  A true debate and not using the same old tactics of conveniently going off the tangent or changing the subject as it is customary on the Right. 

Obamacare will bring down future costs. It is estimated that the total reductions over a time span of ten years is of $716 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office. These $716 billion that the Republicans love to mention so much but know these are cost reductions, reductions that are aimed towards insurance companies and hospitals, and not to the insured. Obamacare will allow Medicare funds to grow, preventing what it has been up to now abusive charges from Hospitals and Insurance companies. In reality, the $716 billion they talk so much about are savings, savings that will preserve Medicare as it was intended to be. Obamacare will increase benefits for our seniors, by offering them preventive care with no out-of-pocket costs and increasing their prescription coverage. Obamacare increased the age of our children to be part of our insurance to 25, regardless if they are in school or not. Obamacare prohibits insurance companies from dropping you if you become seriously ill, if you have a pre-existent condition or if you reached your life-cap. Obamacare also forces insurance companies to spend at least 80% of the premiums they charge on you, if not then they must send you a refund. Obamacare does enforce new taxes, but these taxes are mainly for the wealthy, hospitals and insurance companies. Instead, Ryan and Romney want to give our seniors a coupon!  Enjoy reading "The Path to Prosperity".  Don't be lazy, read it, then weep and cry!

“It began with a financial crisis.  It ends
 with a job crisis. It began with a housing crisis they alone 
didn't cause.  It ends with a housing crisis they didn't
 correct.”
    

Let’s see… hummm… “It began with a financial crisis. It ends with a job crisis. It began with a housing crisis they alone didn't cause."   They alone didn't cause?  Talk about taking responsibility!  "They," meaning us Liberals and Democrats didn't cause it at all.  The Republican Party leader at the time, George W. Bush and the Republican members of Congress did by deregulating the market and behaving in a completely irresponsible manner.  Paul Ryan is a hypocrite! It began with a total collapse of our financial system that included Wall Street and therefore the banking industry, the housing industry and the job market!

When George W. Bush took office for the first time, the unemployment rate was at 4.2 and began a slow but persistent raise until it reached 7.3 by December 2008. When President Obama took office, the unemployment rate for the month of January 2009 was 7.8, as it happens when you get the mess inherited by President Obama, the unemployment rate continued to raise peaking at 9.9 in December 2010, where it began a slow but consistent decline and according to the latest survey (July 2012) it is now at 8.3. In other words, it is improving.

“It began with a perfect AAA credit rating for the United
 States. It ends with the downgraded America.”

After the Democratic Congress made concessions and cuts in the vicinity of $4 trillion and asking the Republicans to accept increasing taxes on the very wealthy, the Republicans were prepared for a government shutdown because they refused not only increasing taxes on the  wealthy but, they wanted to extend the Bush tax cuts that would increase our debt by $1 trillion. They didn’t care that we would default on our debt. The raising of the debt ceiling, as the name suggests, is current debt not future spending but Republicans refused to budge until the very last second. They wanted cuts in Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid… in other words, no increase in revenue and more sacrifices on the backs of the American middle-class. It is thanks to them, the Republicans in Congress, that we were downgraded. I have no doubt in my mind that it was done on purpose, to blame one more thing on the President.

“He said, ``Well, I haven't
 communicated enough.'' He said his job is to, quote, ``tell a story to the American 
people''. As if that is the whole problem here?  He needs to talk
 more and we need to be better listeners?
   Ladies and gentlemen, these past four years, we have
 suffered no shortage of words in the White House. What is missing is leadership in the White House. And the story that Barack Obama does tell, forever shifting
 blame to the last administration, is getting old.  The man
 assumed office almost four years ago. Isn't it about time he
 assumed responsibility?
 

I think if there's any mistake made (it's) that we haven't communicated clearly enough what the president has done on this oil spill from the beginning," – The person that said “haven’t communicated clearly enough” was Vice President Joe Biden in a speech about the oil spill in the gulf, not president Obama. But the deceitful Right, in particular Paul Ryan doesn’t care about the truth, that’s not important. Ryan wants President Obama to assume responsibility, we are yet to see or hear any Republicans in office, nor President Bush or anyone in his administration to accept any responsibility for crashing our economy with their failed Reaganomics. What’s more, they don’t only praise it they want to return to it. They think that driving our economy off the cliff for 8 years can be solved in 3.5, and with a Congress that obstructs everything. 

They don’t care at all about helping the President save our country, our economy and bring it back to the right track… They don’t care because they know that if President Obama gets to do what’s needed, we will re-elect him. No, for the GOP, politics are far more important than the American people.  The only "people" that matters are the “people” that put them there and they need to respond to, as Paul Ryan said, but is not people with warm blood, flesh and skin, rather it’s the other “people” the ones with a Swiss bank account as blood, concrete as skin and steel as bones.

 

To read my article "The Path To Prosperty... But Whose?" click here

Tell Me Lies - Part I

“President Barack Obama, came to office during an economic crisis, as he has reminded us a time or two. Those are very tough days. And any fair measure of his record has to take that into account. My own state voted for President Obama. When he talked about change, many people liked the sound of it. Especially in Janesville where we were about to lose a major factory. A lot of guys I went to high school with worked at that G.M. plant. Right there at that plant, candidate Obama said, "I believe that if our government is there to support you, this plant will be here for another 100 years."

That's what he said in 2008. Well, as it turned out, that plant didn't last another year. It is locked up and empty to this day. And that's how it is in so many towns where the recovery that was promised is nowhere in sight. Right now, 23 million men and women are struggling to find work. 23 million people unemployed or underemployed. Nearly one in six Americans is in poverty. Millions of young Americans have graduated from college during the Obama presidency, ready to use their gifts and get moving in life.”
 ~ Paul Ryan Acceptance Speech, August 29th, 2012

The above is only one of the many lies pronounced by Vice President Nominee, Paul Ryan, a Catholic and “devout” follower or Ayn Rand, who for years accredit Rand for being the role model he followed, forced all his employees to read her books and now, in order to secure the Vice Presidential nomination and not upset the religious right, he denounces.  Republicans can’t even have solid ideals, regardless of how bad these are, they are willing to throw their mothers under the bus for greed and to secure power.

The GM plant he so blatantly talks about in his speech was closed on December 23, 2008. The president at that time was George W. Bush. We must give credit where credit is due, Bush requested an automobile industry bail out and Ryan voted in favor of this bail out but it was turned down in Congress. But, blaming President Obama for something that happened when he was just a Senator and Presidential nominee but not the President of this great country of ours is just a lie and Ryan knows this. How can anyone believe anything else he says when he is capable of saying such a lie in public television, a lie that is so easy to debunk? He is a liar with no shame; he is a man with no integrity.

“Nearly one in six Americans 
is in poverty. Millions of young Americans have graduated from
 college during the Obama presidency, ready to use their gifts
 and get moving in life.
 Half of them can't find the work they studied for, or any
 work at all. So here's the question, without a change in
 leadership, why would the next four years be any different from the last four years?”


Having the audacity to say something like this after the Republicans have obstructed every effort by the current administration to get the economy moving it’s simply obscene. Senator Mitch McConnell during an interview on December 2008 clearly mentions the stimulus package pushed by then President George W. Bush which was close to a trillion dollars.  This debt was “inherited” by President Obama and is among the “excessive debt” that Republicans blame on president Obama. The Republican Party suffers from what I suspect its a chronic compulsive lying and for blaming anyone but themselves, never accepting responsibility.

“The first troubling sign came with the stimulus. President
 Obama's first and best shot at fixing the economy. At a time
 when he got everything he wanted under one party rule. It cost
 $831 billion. The largest one-time expenditure ever by our 
federal government. It went to companies like Solyndra, with their 
gold-plated connections, subsidized jobs and make believe
 markets.
 The stimulus was a case of political patronage, corporate 
welfare anachronism at their worst.”


The Bush administration requested a Stimulus package in 2008 of 152 billion dollars. Every year George W. Bush, requested a tax cut of $1.35 trillion dollars. During the Bush Administration the GDP went up by 2.5% a year, the median household income dropped by approximately $1,175 and the income tax for the same group increased by 2%. When Bush left office, the National debt had increased by $11.3 trillion dollars and 500,000 jobs have been lost. It is well known that most of the expense for the wars initiated by Bush were not included in the budget, they were always requested as an emergency funding. For seven years that administration didn't take into consideration the wars that were taking place when preparing the budget. For eight years the cost for the wars were not part of the National Defense Budget. Apparently, every year it was a surprise that money was needed to fund a war.  And the Republicans dare to criticize president Obama!

“You -- you the American people of this country were cut out
 of the deal. What did taxpayers get out of the Obama stimulus?
 More debt. That money wasn't just spent and wasted, it was 
borrowed, spent and wasted.”

That is, as usual, a lie. The American people got lower interest rates, thousand of jobs were saved by helping the automobile industry from closing their factories nationwide, forcing credit card companies to make their charges clear and reformed to prohibit excessive interest charges. It created programs to help homeowners save their home by refinancing their home loans through federal agencies. Created federal jobs when the private sector refused to do so in an effort to discredit the president. Thanks to that "Obama stimulus" is that this country was able to stop the path of destruction it was heading into and what made the economy to begin to heal, even when the Republicans did everything in their power to destroy us.

“Maybe the greatest waste of all, was time. Here we were
faced with a massive job crisis so deep that if everyone out of 
work stood in single file, that unemployment line would stretch
 the length of the entire American continent.
 You would think that any president, whatever his party,
 would make job creation and nothing else his first order of
 economic business, but this president didn't do that. Instead,
 we got a long, divisive, all or nothing attempt to put the 
federal government in charge of health care.”


I have to admit that the Republican party has balls. Bills are created in the House of Representatives, and since the beginning the ONLY thing that Republicans have thought of to "create jobs" is extending the Bush tax cuts - which will increase the National Debt by $1.35 trillion dollars per year and will NOT bring the necessary funds to keep the economy afloat. This tickle-down Reaganomics haven't worked for a decade, but they think that is the only way to stimulate the economy. I have no idea how can they lie with a straight face as they do; however, I have noticed that when any of them lie they seem to have a frog in their throats. All of the sudden, when lying, they have to 'clear' their throats. Put attention and you will notice it too. Another way the Republicans think that jobs can be created is by tailoring to the oil industry, disregarding our environment and water supplies to satisfy the greed of these companies. I wish that in the event that we can't end our dependency in fossil fuel, that not one new well can be drilled until an existing one has been shot down. Another thing I would do is that the oil extracted in our land remains in our land instead of being exported, that same oil should not be part of the Stock Market so it's pricing would not be dictated by the world market speculation tactics. But we know that first we will see a gun control bill passed into law than controlling and maintaining the oil in our land. That oil, which is extracted from the depth of our land and seas should NOT belong to private companies, it belongs to the people, the country - our country.   Instead, companies like BP own a big chunk of it... a British company!

To say that "you would think that any president, whatever his party, would make job creation and nothing else his first order of economic business" when the Minority Leader in the Senate, Senator Mitch "Turtle" McConnell without any shame declared on public television that the main goal of the Republican Party was to make of President Obama a one-term president.  That was and still is the only thing that the GOP cares for.  The American people can eat dirt, they don't care... And the brainless people that constitute their base cheer, applaud and follow just like sheep to the slaughter.

To read the continuation, click Tell Me Lies - Part II

Souces:

Track the Money

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009

Changes in CBO's Baseline Projections since January 2001

Congressional Budget Office