No Taxation without Comprehension

[themanintheseersuckersuit]

Would be a good rallying cry for those upset that Congress would vote for a Trillion $$$ tax and spend bill without reading it first.

[gsabc]

Why should this major spending bill be any different than any of the others for the last, oh, forty years or so?

[themanintheseersuckersuit]

Why should this major spending bill be any different than any of the others for the last, oh, forty years or so?

I was just hoping for a change

[silvercamaro]

Why should this major spending bill be any different than any of the others for the last, oh, forty years or so?

I was just hoping for a change

The audacity!

[peacock2121]

You guys crack me up.

[tubadave]

Change You Can Believe In.

[Flybrick]

I believe the gist was sent as a Blackberry text:

$787B, lots 4 all. K?

K...

K...

K...

K...

Saved all that studying time; much better time management for the Congress.

[BigDrawMan]

Would be a good rallying cry for those upset that Congress would vote for a Trillion $$$ tax and spend bill without reading it first.

a few years ago, i heard that if one took a minute to read each line in the budget it would take you 52 weeks @ 40 per to finish.

i am thinking these days time and a half would be needed


in PA, only the top four legislators get to see the budget before they vote
which is good, as many members aint book lerned

[BigDrawMan]

speaking of not reading stuff, when the Iraq war vote was coming up before the senat, an intelligence estimate was prepared to help the senators with their vote.

they had to read it in the senate chambers, due to security concerns

six of them bothered to read it.

lincoln chafee said it swayed him to vote "no".

[Jeemie]

speaking of not reading stuff, when the Iraq war vote was coming up before the senat, an intelligence estimate was prepared to help the senators with their vote.

they had to read it in the senate chambers, due to security concerns

six of them bothered to read it.

lincoln chafee said it swayed him to vote "no".

Easy to be brave when your seat is relatively safe.

[Flybrick]

speaking of not reading stuff, when the Iraq war vote was coming up before the senat, an intelligence estimate was prepared to help the senators with their vote.

they had to read it in the senate chambers, due to security concerns

six of them bothered to read it.

lincoln chafee said it swayed him to vote "no".

What? How did this acknowledgment of Congressional approval (pity we don't still do that old fashioned Declaration of War thing anymore) for the Iraq War get in here?

And by you? You are admitting GWB wasn't the lone gunman?

This is an interesting day besides the snow in DC.

[Bob78164]

speaking of not reading stuff, when the Iraq war vote was coming up before the senat, an intelligence estimate was prepared to help the senators with their vote.

they had to read it in the senate chambers, due to security concerns

six of them bothered to read it.

lincoln chafee said it swayed him to vote "no".

Easy to be brave when your seat is relatively safe.

You do realize, don't you, that former Senator Chafee lost his next bid for re-election? --Bob

[Jeemie]

speaking of not reading stuff, when the Iraq war vote was coming up before the senat, an intelligence estimate was prepared to help the senators with their vote.

they had to read it in the senate chambers, due to security concerns

six of them bothered to read it.

lincoln chafee said it swayed him to vote "no".

Easy to be brave when your seat is relatively safe.

You do realize, don't you, that former Senator Chafee lost his next bid for re-election? --Bob

He lost to a DEMOCRAT, not a Republican...even though he had a stiff primary challenge.

He didn't lose because of his stance on the Iraq War...it was Rhode Island...he could be what they call a "RINO" without fear.

He also had 4 years to go before he had to run for re-election when he cast that ballot.

It cost him nothing.

[Bob78164]

Easy to be brave when your seat is relatively safe.

You do realize, don't you, that former Senator Chafee lost his next bid for re-election? --Bob

He lost to a DEMOCRAT, not a Republican...even though he had a stiff primary challenge.

He didn't lose because of his stance on the Iraq War...it was Rhode Island...he could be what they call a "RINO" without fear.

He also had 4 years to go before he had to run for re-election when he cast that ballot.

It cost him nothing.

How can you say his seat was "safe" when he faced (a) a serious primary challenge, and (b) defeat in the general election the very next time he ran for re-election? What does it take for you to consider a seat "endangered"?

I think your real point is that it was an easy vote to cast because his consituents would predictably agree with it. But there's a lot to be said for that in a representative democracy. --Bob

[Jeemie]

I think your real point is that it was an easy vote to cast because his consituents would predictably agree with it. But there's a lot to be said for that in a representative democracy. --Bob

Fine. I can agree with that.

However, the way BDM cast it, it could appear that Chaffee was some "maverick" who actually made a decision based on facts and data.

When in actuality, his vote was in line with his ideology to begin with...and therefore easy for him to make.

[themanintheseersuckersuit]

But talk of legislation only leads to more uncomfortable questions for Democrats.

Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, and Ron Wyden, D-Ore., won passage of a provision earlier this year that they said would have prevented the type of payments now at the center of a storm.

It was dropped without explanation in the final compromise on the economic stimulus measure, replaced by a less restrictive set of conditions backed by Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., and accepted by the White House.

"The president goes out and says this is not acceptable and then some backroom deal gets cut to let these things get paid out anyway," said Wyden.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Analysis- ... 77357.html

[Jeemie]

It was dropped without explanation in the final compromise on the economic stimulus measure, replaced by a less restrictive set of conditions backed by Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn, and accepted by the White House.

The highlighted individual just happened to receive a large political donation from AIG.

But I'm certain that's just a coincidence.

[flockofseagulls104]

I prefer "No Representation without Taxation".

We are rapidly approaching the day, I hear, that the majority of the voting population will be paying zero net taxes. When that happens, the majority will be free to vote itself Bread and Circuses, and the political class will follow suit in order to get and stay elected. Meanwhile number of people still productive enough to actually have to pay taxes will gradually decrease through attrition until we have Bill Gates and whatever he has left subsidizing government activities. Unless of course, the government owns everything by then.

Maybe you shouldn't be able to vote unless you are a net tax payer, instead of a net tax recipient.

[TheCalvinator24]

I prefer "No Representation without Taxation".

We are rapidly approaching the day, I hear, that the majority of the voting population will be paying zero net taxes. When that happens, the majority will be free to vote itself Bread and Circuses, and the political class will follow suit in order to get and stay elected. Meanwhile number of people still productive enough to actually have to pay taxes will gradually decrease through attrition until we have Bill Gates and whatever he has left subsidizing government activities. Unless of course, the government owns everything by then.

Maybe you shouldn't be able to vote unless you are a net tax payer, instead of a net tax recipient.

Thank goodness for Social Security taxes, or I wouldn't be eligible to vote under flock's plan.

[Jeemie]

I prefer "No Representation without Taxation".

We are rapidly approaching the day, I hear, that the majority of the voting population will be paying zero net taxes. When that happens, the majority will be free to vote itself Bread and Circuses, and the political class will follow suit in order to get and stay elected. Meanwhile number of people still productive enough to actually have to pay taxes will gradually decrease through attrition until we have Bill Gates and whatever he has left subsidizing government activities. Unless of course, the government owns everything by then.

Maybe you shouldn't be able to vote unless you are a net tax payer, instead of a net tax recipient.

Thank goodness for Social Security taxes, or I wouldn't be eligible to vote under flock's plan.

Even when you count in transfer payment, there are far fewer eligble voters paying zero net taxes than Flock (and, coincidentally or not, the right-wing talk-bots that provided the talking point he used) is insinuating.

Obscured by the talk-bots is that they're always only talking about federal income taxes.

[themanintheseersuckersuit]

That position was being questioned at the Capitol. Congressional Republicans, eager to implicate Democrats, initially blamed Senator Christopher J. Dodd, the Connecticut Democrat who heads the banking committee, for adding to the economic recovery package an amendment that cracked down on bonuses at companies getting bailout money, but that exempted bonuses protected by contracts, like A.I.G.’s.

Mr. Dodd, in turn, responded Tuesday with a statement saying that the exemption actually had been inserted at the insistence of Treasury during Congress’s final legislative negotiations.

While the administration has been mostly on the defensive, the competing expressions of outrage in Congress throughout Tuesday belied the fact that a few less-prominent Democrats had tried to draw attention to the A.I.G. retention bonuses since last November. Except for their condemnations last December, response has been sparse on A.I.G.’s disbursement of an initial $55 million in retention payments.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/19/busin ... ml?_r=2&hp

[silvercamaro]

That position was being questioned at the Capitol. Congressional Republicans, eager to implicate Democrats, initially blamed Senator Christopher J. Dodd, the Connecticut Democrat who heads the banking committee, for adding to the economic recovery package an amendment that cracked down on bonuses at companies getting bailout money, but that exempted bonuses protected by contracts, like A.I.G.’s.

Mr. Dodd, in turn, responded Tuesday with a statement saying that the exemption actually had been inserted at the insistence of Treasury during Congress’s final legislative negotiations.

While the administration has been mostly on the defensive, the competing expressions of outrage in Congress throughout Tuesday belied the fact that a few less-prominent Democrats had tried to draw attention to the A.I.G. retention bonuses since last November. Except for their condemnations last December, response has been sparse on A.I.G.’s disbursement of an initial $55 million in retention payments.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/19/busin ... ml?_r=2&hp

Darn the luck! The New York Times ran out of space before they had a chance to mention that Dodd received $103,000 in campaign contributions from AIG last year (and perhaps something closer to $280,000 over several years.) I'm sure this chain of events was a simple coincidence, however, as I'm sure will be explained soon by the President's teleprompter.

[Estonut]

"Dodd just admitted on CNN that he inserted a loophole in the stimulus legislation that allowed million-dollar bonuses to insurance giant AIG to go forward – after previously denying any involvement in writing the controversial provision."

link

[themanintheseersuckersuit]

Asked to explain what her understanding was of how the looser language came to pass through Congress, Pelosi pointed back at the Senate and the Obama White House.

“This is Senate-White House language,” Pelosi said, referring to the now-radioactive provision. “That is what we are talking about here.

“If you want to talk about what happened in the Senate, go to the Senate and talk to them,” she added.

And Pelosi continuously denied that she or any other House Democrat signed off on the provision, even though the House eventually voted to agree to the conference report on the stimulus bill.

“This was never brought to conference,” she said. “This never came to the House side, and you can talk to any of our conferees. It’s a matter of fact and record.”

http://thehill.com/leading-the-news/pel ... 03-19.html

This leads me to ask "Who the hell is in charge" and "Where WAS Mr. E. Squirrel when this bill was written"

[Rexer25]

"Where WAS Mr. E. Squirrel when this bill was written"

I think he was checking first class airfares to Denver, and a limo service to Podunkville.