tschmath Loc: Los Angeles

Not sure what your point is. The Great Recession was over back in June 2009 (go to ask.com). We are still recovering from a serious downturn, but we haven't been in a recession for more than 3 years. So Obama held to his promise of not raising taxes during a recession. Read your history.

DEBJENROB Loc: DELRAY BEACH FL

Not all of the rich are job creators ..... so raising taxes on the rich will not result in economic stagnation ..... I don't create any jobs .... under Reagan , if your AGI was $200m for a single filer and $400m for a joint filer .... you were in the top tax barcket .... so ... if we went back to the Reagan tax policy ..... problem solved ....

Vanderpix Loc: New Jersey

But is that not what Lincoln called the United States in his Gettysburg address? Is that not we are supposed to be?

PrairieSeasons Loc: Red River of the North

How do you perceive that to be a canned answer? Changing rates and deductions will not result in enough new tax revenues to improve our prospects without simultaneous significant cost reductions.

tom kf4wol

Its so simple....even me the "Village Idiot" can understand it..

Don't spend more than you make, can steal or borrow thus America is almost $16 Trillion in Debt, by the time the unknown Camel Rider and his kennel of Congressional Lapdogs retire, it will be $20 Trillion and growing...then whom ever is again appointed Buffoon in Chief....will just keep increasing that until yikes....

Yikes, just like many Companies, State and Municipal Government, all will be broke and unable to meet obligations, China, etc. will not loan any money they will in fact own America and all its Serbs...Me and You's

All of us can rant back and forth Government role, place blame on Demo-asses or Repukes....

Its just a a fact Jack.....too many with our hands out thinking Government is our Savior....not enough contributing to the pot, and taxing the rich is about as idiotic Economic decision, I can think...Just who is it that starts business, invest and hires us serbs??? 99% of the rich got rich because they were intelligent and intelligent people, use their brains, who thinks they will put their brains in neutral and not work around the Camel Jockey's rants and raves about taxing the rich...Tax them all you want the cost get passed on to we the Serbs...next phase is inflation, stagnation, uprising, riots....loaf of bread maybe $30 you think???

Thus History re-cycles, since there is no other Plymouth Rock to breach our boat to seek Freedoms, thus like many other Civilizations as History repeats itself, Slavery, serfdom, revolution and then hopefully Freedom....of course that will be after everyone on this thread have exhaust their pile of dust pushing up roses..

Best thing about these differences of Opin's is that it keeps us out of the local bars and glued to our electronic nannies, computers, iPads, iPhones, etc....

That's my opin, now squat and crap on it if it makes anyone feel better.

God Bless America...because we all know We and our Nation need that Blessing......

Bmac Loc: Long Island, NY

My point is that Obama is unsure whether raising taxes on the wealthy is the correct thing to do. Once he was against it, now he is for it.

His quote, "....the last thing you want to do is to raise taxes in the middle of a recession because that would just suck up — take more demand out of the economy and put businesses in a further hole. Okay, then why in a slow economy (assuming you can accept that), would raising taxes NOT take more demand out of the economy and put business in a further hole? Of course, I would like to ask Obama himself that question.

As to your understanding about whether or not we are in a recession right now, that seems highly debatable. When I went to the site you referenced, ask.com, and posed the question, "are we in a recession now," I was given a list of links, most of which seemed to infer we are in a recession. Perhaps you should read your own supportive links prior to referencing them.

Your "read your history" remark to me is amusing considering the numerous times I have corrected your alleged "facts" stated in this forum. Or have you forgotten already? 8-)

Here are a couple of quotes from the Huffington Post, most likely one of your news sources.

"Some of you may think we never left the last recession, and that's understandable. Others will ask, who cares? The economy is so lousy that there's not much difference between recession and growth. Also understandable."

"Recently, Wall Street has been chattering about the possibility that a new recession has already begun. Last week we saw a report on the big plunge in demand for long-lasting goods made in U.S. factories in August, which raised recession alarms."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/01/recession-signs_n_1929460.html

Another link:
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-07-11/five-reasons-were-in-a-recession-and-five-we-arent

So here is the bottom line. If the financial experts cannot agree on whether we are in a recession now, or about to enter one, that leads me to believe that we are very close one way or the other. So, why wouldn't Obama's opinion be valid now? That is the point, and hey Tshmath it's okay to disagree with Obama. I won't tell him you did. 8-)

Bmac Loc: Long Island, NY

Are you then disagreeing with what Obama said in 2009 then? :shock:

JBTaylor Loc: In hiding again

I am aware of the Mormon's church's history with blacks. I am also aware of the Democratic Party's history with blacks, much of which they hope is forgotten. The fact remains that your post was a slander against Mitt Romney so devoid of facts that it doesn't even pass the ROTFLMAO test.

spinkick Loc: Watseka IL

6000 new regulations proposed this week. Get real!!

tschmath Loc: Los Angeles

This sound like a lot of hooey dreamed up by the right. Sources, please.

spinkick Loc: Watseka IL

source: left leaning liberal biased CNN

JoeV Loc: Wisconsin

I think this is a very helpful contribution to the conversation. Government is intended to "promote the general welfare." I recently heard this idea put in this form: "to promote the common good."

The first thing I note is that it is the "general" or "common" welfare/good. Not the welfare of only some. It is for "all" the people.

Secondly, I find it particularly helpful to think about what the common "good" is. We should try to give each other the benefit of the doubt that most people see themselves as wanting what is good for society. The big problem is that we have deep disagreements about what is good for us, good for society.

It is not very realistic to think that a few comments here and there are going to change anybody's mind. Persuading others of our viewpoints, if that is what we want to do rather than just venting, is going to take conversation over time. So a modest intermediate goal, I think, ought to be just trying to understand each other for now. What exactly do we think is good or not good, and why do we think that it is good or not good for society.

There are people who genuinely think that homosexual relations are not good, and others who think they are. Therefore some believe that promoting homosexual behavior works to the detriment of society, while others have the opposite view.

Here is another hot button topic. Some believe that abortions on demand is actually good for society, and others believe that this is not good for society at all.

We have deeply different ideas about what is good.

Let me toss this out too. It seems to me that the common good and common welfare assumes that two things are not good. One is extreme poverty. And surprise surprise.... being very rich is not good for anyone either.

So we often disagree about what is good, and even when there is some agreement on what is good, we disagree on how we should achieve that good. For instance, I think everyone agrees that we should try to eliminate wasteful spending. Some believe that we should eliminate wasteful spending by cutting down on the provisions that they think unfairly benefit the poor. And others believe we should cut down on wasteful spending by cutting down on the provisions that they think unfairly benefit the rich. Same goal on the surface, but deeply different ideas as to what constitutes wasteful spending.

JoeV Loc: Wisconsin

This at first seems like a flippant remark, but as I think about it, you make a good and serious point.

In a representative democracy we actually agree to surrender some of our power, or freedom, for everyone's good. Liberty is not the same as anarchy, where everyone does what is right in our own eyes. I compare it to marriage. I didn't have to get married. I chose to. When I did, I gave up the right to get romantically involved with another woman, and I gave my wife the right to call me on it if she suspects infidelity. And I did this publicly, and implicitly give others the right to call me on it if they think I might be unfaithful. Public marriage vows acknowledge that we need all the help we can get to avoid temptations. So too, no one is forcing us to live here. But we choose too. And having chosen, we give up some of our liberties for the common good. A case in point, I think, is that we surrender the right to spend all of our money as we please. We give government the right to tax us, to save us from our own greediness.

The other side of the coin, or course, is that government is made up of people who also need to be protected from themselves. Power corrupts, and we need to constantly be on guard against their overstepping their bounds. By analogy, when we get married we surrender the right to get romantically involved outside our marriages, but we do not surrender the right to talk to the opposite sex. So too, liberty has it limits, but tyranny must also be kept in check. And that of course leads to much debate....just where do the boundaries of liberty lie?

Vanderpix Loc: New Jersey

Yes the question becomes what role should the government have in this Republic? If the elected officials indeed answer to the voters, should they not be held responsible for representing the people who voted for them? What is too much government? I suspect that will vary greatly depending on the individual.

JoeV Loc: Wisconsin

Someone asked "how do we pay." I can't find your comment back right now, but I would like to make an observation about what we can and cannot afford.

I am troubled by the assertion I hear often in Wisconsin that we cannot afford higher taxes. I challenge that.

I know. There are a lot of people out of work....I know some of them, and I feel for them. I get that. But if there are, say, 10% unemployed, we have a 90% employment rate. Now those who are employed may indeed be making less than they used to. I get that too.

Nevertheless, every time I look up how people spend their money,
how the gross national product is spent, I see that as a society we still spend about 10% of our money on entertainment and eating out. This is, in other words, discretionary income. We don't need to spend our money on this. We choose to. I see that the sports stadiums are still packed. I saw on the news a while back that some town spent 60 million dollars for a football stadium for its high school. And how much did we just spend for election advertising? And how much did the latest movie take in? And how much did we just spend on the latest iteration of the cell phone? Oh I know, this spending is all good for the economy. But the choice to spend all that money as we did is a choice. We could have chosen, as a society, to spend it differently. We are not nearly as much the victims as we like to think. Maybe not individually, but as a society, we can afford to pay higher taxes. Whether that is what we should do is another question, another debate. But it seems to me that the honest thing is to say, "We don't think paying more taxes is a good thing, even though we could."