If they really support higher taxes on the wealthy they could also go ahead and write those checks to the government. I don’t see any of them doing that either.

do you really think you can accurately count 60 million plus votes by hand? Do you think that a few 1000 plus or minus differences between vote counts on a total of 60 million plus votes nationwide is not within the precision of any counting system.

Health costs are going up because the cost part is taking effect before the mandate. Having kids on their parents plan costs insurers something. The same with no preexisting condition exculusion. These may be great ideas but they are not free. Since we dont have single payer the current insurance system has to recover their cost. There may be some relief with the mandate for insurance companies to have to pay out 80% of premiums in claims but really that would not be two hard to do. Just approve a couple of extra liver transplants or other high dollar operations per 1000 covered would put most of the insurance companies, on paper at least, of paying out more than 80%.

How do you explain the same people who voted for labor also voted to turn back the health care mandate? I would not get to hopeful about a “democratic” resergance.

Another scary thing for democrats. The Ohio constitutional ammendment passed with about the same majority as the antiunion repeal bill passed. So the union people who came out to vote did not like the health care mandate any better than the tea party people.

I will know when Liberals have banded togeather when their version of Christine O’donnell beat’s a main line democrat in a primary. If lberals can get the Rent is to Damn high guy to win a primary, liberals will be able to get their policies through congress. Until then the elected democrats have nothing to fear.

So the President is betting his program on Justice Kennedy. I would be supprised if Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, and Alito did not vote against it and if Kagan, Bryer, Sotomayer, and Ginsberg did not vote for it. Thats a heck of a responsibility for one man to make a major decision on 1/6th of the US economy.

One of the big problems today is congress spends to much time at home. They do not develop relationships with other members so it is easy to villify them and not support them and just vote for their district. Many times the needs of a district are not good for the country as a whole. To quote Spock, “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.”

Until the progressives are willing and ableto primary a large numbers of democrats and win they will be rolled by the tea party. Look for the tea party to primary republicans that voted for this deal. If they are successful they will strengthen their position even if they loose the house. Progressives must be willing to vote for the left wing nut cases the way the tea party is willing to vote for right wing nutcases to have a chance of getting a place at the table. I have never seen the left willing to go in and vote in mass for a candidate in a primary that they agree with but they know has almost no chance in the general election to make the other democrats afraid of there power. The tea party people are willing to do this so the have the attention of the congress and the president.

And it was the Greek government that failed to enforce their own laws on their own people. Greece taxes everyone unlike here where only the top half pay the income taxes. At only 30% of the tax revenue, I would say that virtually no one was paying taxes in Greece, rich or poor.

They have to, the failed to collect the taxes from their people. The greeks only paid about 30% of the taxes they owed. Now they are getting what they paid for.

No body here mentions one of the main reasons Greece is in trouble is the only collect about 30% of the taxes owed. That means all of those workers that are protesting have been taking the government benefits of a high social welfare state and not paying their taxes. If you want a high benefit state, you have to have high taxes. Apparantly Greeks are like Americans, they want the benefits without the taxes. The government is being forced to reduce the benefits to the level of taxes people are willing to pay. That is the tough love we need here, then maybe people will be willing to pay more taxes for more benefits.

Unfortunatly, most of the individual businesses were not very profitable to start with. So even if BP had to pay triple damages for the economic loss to individuals, it would not be 20 billion. A shrimp fisherman probably only made 20 or 30k at most after expenses a year. The big money in the gulf is oil and chemicals and those were not hurt.

So we are to just stand by and let dictators slaughter their people? Who stands for what is right. Hell most of these dictators we put in power. Don’t we have an obligation to clean up the mess? As bad as you think the US is do you think there is a public equivilent of FDL in any Arab state?

I fully agree that Israel’s hands are not clean but neither are the Palastinians. Arab states Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Syria,Lybia etc have never accepted Israel and have stated there goal is to destroy Israel. Israel did capture the Golan for water and because Syria and others were lobbing rockets into Israel from there. Would that not make you a bit paranoid if you lived there. The Jewish people have been persecuted at least since Roman times do you not think that would give you a complex. How do you make peace with people that want to kill you. Everybody on here is slamming Israel I do not see anyone slamming the Arabs for what they have done to Israel.

Bankers should go to jail and those few home owners who were snookered into bad loans should be made whole. But the people who bought to much house or took out second and third mortages for granite counter tops and fancy addons or vacations, I have no sympathy for. This home forclosure process is a mess, but the vast majority of the people in it should have known better. The lady on 60 minutes was a lawyer. If she signed a mortage without knowing the terms or being able to pay it back she should be disbarred. Remember this is what started the Tea Party movement.

So what percent of GDP should the federal budget be?

Also what percent of the total federal taxes should each decile of income pay. I would like see some sort of target. Its real easy to say raise taxes on somebody else, but how much are you willing to pay knowing that no matter who is in charge there are going to be many expenditures you do not approve of.

Everybody wants corporate taxes, but on domestic earnings how is that not just a sales tax? The corporation collects the money from its customers, and passes a percentage along to the government, this sounds like a sales tax to me. Now if you want to tax foreign earnings that would be different, but I believe foreign earnings are exempt.

I am not against higher income taxes but I would want to see the money well spent and in to many occasions in my opnion, the government does not spend money well. Corporations spend it even worse. I am not sure what the answer is.

The Bradley law prevents colleges from contacting parents about their childrens medical, behavioral, or grade problems without their childrens consent. So dont put to much blame on the college.

Real cars in 1973? It is the quality of the American cars of the 1970s that allowed the japanese cars a opening into the US. I drove a 1975 camero and a 1979 jeep and both pieces of crap.