Bruce with a Canon: What has the government done t
hey have not bankrupted?

Social security? opps nope

Nagy: It appears the SS funds have been raided to cover some of the revenue lost to the huge cut in the plutocratic tax rate. The Social Security trust fund is legally obligated to accept government IOUs for the cash revenues taken from into the general revenue. right wing tinkering, not the basic premise of SS is to blame for the deficits the program will be running.

Bruce with a Canon: Medicare? Nope broke

Nagy: What do you mean "broke?"

Bruce with a Canon: Postal service? Naa they broke

Nagy: Sure, because Bush and the Republican Congress of 2006 forced it to prefund its retirement benefits. This costs the USPS $5.5 billion a year, a burden no other government agency and no private corporation shares. Postal Service Inspector General David C. Williams admits to having built a $326 billion hedge against future liabilities. In fact, the Postal Service would be just fine using this to cover operations costs, but Republican politicians have artificially made it appear to be financially staggering so that they could have an excuse to subject it to their fix for everything; total privatization.

Bruce with a Canon: Welfare is broke...

Nagy: What do you mean by this? Welfare comes straight out of the general fund, and does not generate any funds of its own. Moreover, since the welfare reform law of 1996, courtesy of Bill Clinton and Republican accomplices, it is much harder to obtain than before, temporary, contingent on proof of trying to obtain a job, and a majority of its recipients work full or part time.

Bruce with a Canon: Fannie Mae? Broke Freddie Mac? Broke.

Nagy: Yes, as were the entire major finance and mortgage industries. That is what happens when both parties united to repeal regulation, such as the Glass Steagall Act. That legalized what were crime before. The entire industry bankrupted itself, as planned, by emptying corporate coffers into the private ones of the criminals who bankrupted it, but were allowed to list their liabilities as assets.

The bailout that followed was already the plan in 1999, but its architects and shill had to pretend that the narrative actually happened along different lines. They hit upon blaming the Community Reinvestment Program, which not only had been in place since 1977, but had been subjected to several Bush II era revisions that allowed financial institutions to comply with it through creative accounting. In other words the program was actually tuned downward to relieve banks of the onerous duty of complying, yet the shills have the nerve to blame for the bankruptcy of the industry.

Bruce with a Canon: Now they want to take the best health care system in the world and screw that up.

Nagy: The American health care industry before Obamacare was the best only for those who could afford it. For 48,000 every year during the depths of the Bush II administration it meant death from treatable conditions that would not have been ignored in any other advanced nation. It also meant being 53d in the world in longevity, despite having the most natural wealth. The real truth is that the American health care industry is the worst in the advanced world and the most expensive anywhere by at least a factor of two.

Bruce with a Canon: Thanks but no thanks. Your precious president COULD get the economy back on its feet SIMPLY by permitting US companies to drill US oil and gas, Authorize the pipeline...

Nagy: Beautifully right wing! just drill for the last drop of oil, because the future of the planet does not matter. Support the profits of the murderous energy industry at the expense of developing green energy sources that would replace fossil fuels in no time if the nation made a thorough commitment to them.

Bruce with a Canon: and secure the borders making Americans SAFER.
Clearly he does not consider security a priority.

Nagy: The truth is that with border security totally militarized, an improving Mexican economy, and record numbers of deportations under Obama, the illegal immigrant population has fallen to negative numbers during his time in office. Your argument against that is the Karl Rove principle of attacking the opponents at their strongest point by pretending it is really a weakness.

Bruce with a Canon: He fails to enforce laws already passed and fails o follow his own health care laws.

Nagy: How can one argue against this? The Executive Department is primarily charged with enforcement of federal laws. Any difference in interpretation can be played by the opponents into non-enforcement. How much of Obama's record is as direct a violation of laws as Bush's order to all executive agencies to obstruct all requests under the Freedom of Information Act?

Bruce with a Canon: Black on black crime more rampant than ever. Does he not want to help his people become self sufficient? He has shown utter indifference to the plight of that democrat utopia DETROIT.

Nagy: Where is the data to show that black on black crime is increasing? There has actually been a steady decline in major crime under Obama. As a matter of fact, the worst crime, murder, dramatically increased under Republican icons Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, yet you are foaming at the mouth about crime under Obama.

Bruce with a Canon: Detroit is what happens when liberal democrats get their way with out opposition. Chicago next? Then DC? Philly? LA? NY?

Nagy: Liberal Democrats? Which Democrat is liberal? All national-level politicians are funded by big corporations. Apparently you obdurately insist on labeling anything liberal that is not ultra-right Republican.

Moreover, as the Republican agenda has insisted that tax cuts for the rich will result in jobs, the American plutocracy now has the lowest tax rates in your lifetime and mine. Suddenly the jobs are the result of Democratic administrations who did not do enough to stop the tax cuts? Please explain.

This from a guy who spent his entire life teaching in a public school with absolutely no experience or knowledge of business. A guy who received his monthly check from the taxpayers each month and now collects a very beefy retirement check from a state which is facing dire problems to continue to pay it but will none the less because there is no end to the depth of the private sectors pocket in the eyes of the state. A guy whose nobel prize business level knowledge is gleaned from the NEA's monthly rag. Nuff said.

Your premise about experience in business being the Rosetta Stone to validate a person's credibility on everything is purely a matter of your own subjective opinion. Your weasel words are calculated to make it appear that the writer was on welfare, "A guy who received his monthly check from the taxpayers each month..." In fact, the payment was for services rendered, and in all likelihood, they were badly underpaid. The average American public school teacher, despite his more frequent vacations, works more hours per year than the average worker or the teachers from other advanced industrialized nations. He is also paid a lower salary as a per capita share of the GDP. (based on data from Fair Teach Pay Association)

More jealousy and distortion appear in the statement "now collects a very beefy retirement check from a state which is facing dire problems to continue to pay it..." What would Croce have the state do, not pay the pension? The pension is a retirement account funded by hefty payments taken from both the teacher and the school. Not paying it is theft, pure and simple. If there is trouble paying, that is because of mismanagement of the funds, or politicians looting the retirement funds either to pay normal expenses of government, or in some cases, outright theft of the funds to enrich themselves and their friends. There will be more on that below. Nevertheless, inability to pay teacher pensions is a piece of fiction. A quick check of several states shows this is not happening. Texas, for example has a huge surplus, despite having been looted by politicians, because it loves to collect, but pays parsimoniously.

A teacher's pension is not welfare, as Croce pretends it is, but a retirement fund into which the teacher is required to pay, and pay heavily. In most states it is currently over $10,000 a year. Properly invested, that should produce a financially sound fund. It is this fund, not tax dollars that pay the pensions. A teacher's pension is not a handout, but a payment resulting from a forced investment. It is also payment for work already done.

"... but will none the less because there is no end to the depth of the private sectors pocket in the eyes of the state." What in the world does this mean?
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Croce is so worried about teachers being paid what they are due, but he does not mention that these funds are often raided by the right wing criminals who cannot keep their hands off any large amount of money, no matter who owns it. A case in point is the assault periodically conducted on the Texas Teacher retirement Fund by politicians.

George W, Bush and his friends looted the Texas State Retirement System of close to $100 million dollars for their own personal profit. Bush nominated his friends to staff TRS. They changed the rules so that the commissioners did not have to make public their deliberations on any action. Now they could discuss it among themselves as if over coffee. They also did not have to justify how TRS disposed of any of its properties, except by factspeaking that it was for the good of the teachers.

With criminal billionaire Richard Rainwater, other members of the Bush Gang formed Crescent Equities, a highly specialized real-estate investment corporation. Crescent specialized in stealing TRS properties. The TRS faction of the gang "sold" various properties to Crescent at way below their actual value. Crescent then immediately resold the properties for their real value. In that way they transferred some $100 million from retired teachers on a fixed income to themselves.

Investigative reporter, H. G. Ratcliff, exposed the scam in the Houston Chronicle, in September, 2000. Bush commented, "I don't know anything about it. My assets are in a blind trust." It was an enigmatic comment. What did any blind trust have to do with this heist committed by Bush insiders? It turned out that not only was Bush a full partner in Crescent, but the manager of his "blind trust" was none other than Richard Rainwater, the mastermind of the scheme.

Governor Bush also looted another $450 million from TRS to pay for shortfalls in the ordinary costs of government caused by his refusal to collect significant portions of the already low corporate taxes in Texas. Rick Perry also looted TRS to pay for other government functions. Thus, TRS claims to lack the funds to pay for a decent retirement for its teachers, but never lacks funds to enrich theiving politicians and businessmen. The reality is opposite of what Croce says; rather than teachers leaching off the state, the state frequently loots the teachers. So does the national government.

In 1998 Clinton and the Republican Congress deprived many teachers of most of their Social Security. They targeted those teachers who were in SS exempt teacher retirement systems, but who had built up SS benefits through other jobs. The right wing propaganda accused teachers of "double dipping." Other talking points were "This alone costs the American tax payer $450 million a year."

It cost the tax payer nothing, as SS is paid from funds paid into it by the workers and their employers. Double dipping, according to the robbers in Washington, was for teachers to expect to be paid two pensions, if they had paid into both. According to their ethics, the teachers had to stripped of most of one of those pensions. Leave it to Croce to cry about what teachers are making. We can be sure that according to him fast food workers are overpaid, too.