The Tea Partiers and the Right Wing likes wrapping themselves in the American Flag. How patriotic is it to discuss secession from this great country for any reason. It is time that these frauds are called out. It is time for the real Republicans to stand up, the Republican of fiscal responsibility and social justice, the Republican Party that assisted the Civil Rights movement. WHERE ARE YOU?

This is the danger one has where there is symbiotic relationship between private companies and media’s news department. Advertisers may dictate coverage. Ever wonder why we cannot pass healthcare reform, financial regulation reform, or any other substantive reforms?

Toyota dealers in five southeast states have pulled their commercials off ABC TV local affiliates, complaining about the coverage of Toyota safety problems by ABC News and its chief investigative correspondent Brian Ross.

The ad agency representing the 173 dealers told ABC affiliates last week that the shift was due to "excessive stories on the Toyota issues." The dealers shifted their commercial time buys to non-ABC stations in the same markets, "as punishment for the reporting," according to an ABC station manager.

ABC News and Ross began reporting on the problem of "runaway Toyotas" last November in a series of stories that preceded the large recalls ordered by the company, and apologies for quality shortcomings as well as misstatements about the extent of the defects. Toyota is now expected to add the 2010 Prius to its list of recalled vehicles.

The shift of commercials away from ABC affiliates was ordered last week, according to Marcia Owens-Reder, senior vice-president at 22Squared, the Atlanta advertising agency that handles the account for the dealers, known as Southeast Toyota.

Reder said she "tried" to talk the dealers out of the move. "We have counseled the client on the pros and cons of this, and ultimately it was their decision to make," read an e-mail sent to the stations from the agency last week.

"Please let me know the earliest that we can get off the air on your station," the message concluded.

Reder referred further question to the president of Southeast Toyota, Ed Sheehy, of Deerfield Beach, Florida. He did not immediately return calls from ABC News.

Toyota Dealers Pull ABC TV Ads; Anger Over 'Excessive Stories' - ABC News

Clinton-Era Aides Watch Health Care Debate In Horror

RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR | 02/ 8/10 03:24 AM

 

WASHINGTON — Shock and awe. That's what survivors of the Clinton-era health care collapse are feeling as President Barack Obama's overhaul legislation wobbles in Congress.

Aides who shaped Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton's 1990s plan to cover all Americans, then labored in vain to pass it into law, are adamant that the Democrats can't afford another health care disaster. But they're divided on whether scaling down Obama's plan would be an acceptable solution.

The Clintonistas – now in think tanks, universities, serving in the Obama administration or lobbying – are a potent voice in the furious debate within the Democratic Party over how to salvage health care. Listened to because they're the veterans of the last health care policy war, they carry the scars of intense striving reduced to utter futility.

"If Bill Clinton couldn't get it done, and Barack Obama can't do it, no Democrat will ever try again," said economist Len Nichols, health policy director at the New America Foundation. A Clinton White House health budget aide, Nichols has been operating as an unofficial adviser to lawmakers and administration officials wrestling with details of the current legislation.

"History is written by the victors, not the vanquished," said Chris Jennings, congressional liaison for then-first lady Hillary Clinton during the 1990s debate. "Failure would serve as the ultimate judgment as to whether this effort was worth doing." Jennings, now a lobbyist, replaced Ira Magaziner, principal architect of the Clinton plan, as White House health policy adviser.

The former first lady, now secretary of state, says "it's really hard" watching the travails of Obama's plan. Hillary Clinton has been giving advice, as requested, to lawmakers in Congress and administration officials, and says she's still hopeful. "I'm not sure that this last chapter has been written," she told CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday.

For most of last year, the health care debate was among Democrats. Republicans were left heckling from the sidelines. That changed when Republican Scott Brown pulled off a Senate upset in Massachusetts, winning the seat held by the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy and depriving Democrats of the 60-vote majority they were counting on in the final push.

"Many of us thought we were really at the 1-inch line, then literally it was like being hit by a freight train with about 10 seconds' warning," said Ken Thorpe, a senior Health and Human Services official during the Clinton-era debate. Now a health policy professor at Emory University in Atlanta, Thorpe has proposed a scaled-back alternative in case Obama's plan can't get unstuck.

The mere mention of settling for less is causing consternation among former Clinton aides. Obama's health care plan – denounced as a government power grab by critics – is already scaled back from the ambition of the Clinton years.

Clinton-Era Aides Watch Health Care Debate In Horror

Sarah Palin Needs Help

by Nate Silver @ 9:19 AM

There's something which, if you've ever been in the business of trying to sell consulting services, you've probably grown accustomed to. It's what I call the "consulting paradox". Namely, it's the idea that the people who are most in need of help are often the least aware of it. Indeed, the range of potential clients who (i) aren't smart enough to solve all their own problems and (ii) are smart enough to know it ... is generally very narrow.

Sarah Palin needs help. So does almost every politician -- but Palin needs it more than most. She is young. She is inexperienced. She's not especially well connected. She's strong-willed and a little implusive. And call me a hater, but the woman just ain't that bright.

Is it a big deal that Palin wrote some notes on her hand? No, not really. Lots of politicians carry notes with them (if not, as in Palin's case, literally on them). If this were Mitt Romney, it wouldn't have been a particularly big story. Nevertheless, politics is inherently contextual, and this was something that was bound to play into every negative caricature of Mrs. Palin. Somebody needed to take Palin aside and tell her: Honey, this is going to make you look ridiculous. Can't you write on a notecard instead?

Somebody needed to tell Palin that, you know what, it's OK to criticize Rush Limbaugh once in a while. Voters like moments that make candidates look big, mature, above the fray -- Palin took what could have been such a moment and instead backtracked and made herself look petty and hypocritical.

Somebody needed to tell Palin that, if she were hellbent on quitting as Alaska's governor, she at least needed to take the time to develop a competent exit strategy and a coherent farewell speech.

Somebody needed to tell Palin that it wasn't going to do any good to get into a he-said, she-said with an attention-starved 19-year-old who was getting ready to pose nude for Playgirl.

Somebody needed to sit down with Palin and consider whether, for a candidate who gets significant leverage out of the sense that she's been persecuted by the mainstream media, becoming a correspondent for one of the mainstream media networks is going to be helpful to her in the long run.

Somebody needed to make sure that Sarah Palin was ready for the Katie Couric interview, or needed to find some excuse to cancel it.

Somebody needed to tell Palin that using the term "death panels" was probably not going to help her personally at a time when she was trying to demonstrate to her critics that she could be credible about policy.

With the exception of the decision to quit as governor and perhaps the Couric interview, all of these were minor mistakes, at most. But they point toward a candidate who needs to surround herself with good people and has conspicuously refused to do so, instead relying on advice from her husband and her bush-league media spokeswoman, Meg Stapelton.

I've made the comparison before between Sarah Palin and George W. Bush. Neither of them are geniuses -- nor do they need to be. But Bush was at least smart enough to surround himself with a team of exceptionally competent strategists, advisors and consultants. He was smart enough to recognize that it takes a village to get oneself elected President, and ideally one a bit less isolated and insular than Wasilla. Palin hasn't figured that out yet; her ability to become the Republican nominee and have a fighting chance in the general election will depend on her ability to do so.

FiveThirtyEight: Politics Done Right: Sarah Palin Needs Help

Bush 1 was right. Voodoo economics is responsible for our deficits. Read Jaffe’s article which includes words from David Stockman, the architect of President Reagan's supply side economic policy.

The Tax Debate

On the PBS News Hour, February 5, 2010, David Stockman, Budget Director for President Ronald Reagan, speaking of the age-old Republican scheme of "Starve the Beast"--cutting taxes to prevent domestic spending increases--declared: "Game over!"

The Congressional Republicans and the Tea Party Movement appear to be more committed than ever to continue efforts to prevent any tax increases. In the face of this, however, Stockman stated on the News Hour:
"I think the lesson of the last 25 years is it [starve the beast] doesn't work. You can keep cutting taxes till you reach the point this year where we spent $3.6 trillion and collected $2.2. So we are now so far out of kilter that it is irrelevant. Taxes are going to have to be raised. And the beast needs to be trimmed back but it can't be starved enough to even begin to cope with our fiscal problem and this is where all politicians are faking it in both parties but the Republicans especially. The Republicans think that their mission in life is to cut taxes. Sorry, game over. We are now in the tax raising business and we are going to be in the tax raising business for the next decade."
This statement, coming from a former leading tax cutting ideologue, may be a minor breech in the solid wall of right wing opposition to tax increases. Perhaps small, but this is a breech through which the Democrats and the country must surge if there is to be any hope that the United States can get its house back in order.

Stockman speaks with intimate knowledge of the history. Since the 1970s in the United States, the Right has systematically and successfully attacked high taxes as the bane of the modern economy, THE barrier to growth and to personal freedom. The election of President Reagan in 1980 marked the triumph of that assault. Stockman, then the new budget director, armed with the spear of Supply Side economic theory, set the country on the course of tax cuts and resulting fiscal insanity.

The consequences of that triumph have been nothing short of catastrophic if hardly surprising. In fact, Reagan's vice president, George H.W. Bush, described the underlying ideology as "Voodoo Economics," (and lost in the primaries in 1980 to Reagan) and he was quite right. Sorry Haitians, but Voodoo does not work.

If one looks at a chart of 80 years of national debt as a percentage of GDP, the conclusion is obvious. While debt soared as a result of World War II, it remained very much under control after the war until 1981. http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/us_national_debt_chart.html
In fact in almost every year (including every year in the late '60s, despite Vietnam and the War on Poverty) the percentage of debt to GDP dropped. It cascaded from the 1945 level of 121% to 32% in 1981. After 1981 the pattern of debt/GDP is clear: Reagan 1981-1989, 32 to 52%; Bush, 1989-1993, 52-67%, Clinton, 1993-2001, 67-56%; Bush, 2001-2009, 56-83%. (Figures rounded) All three Republican presidents substantially increased the debt ratio: Reagan/Bush up 35%; GWB up 27%. Clinton, admittedly with a Republican Congress, down 11%. Bush/Reagan averaged an increase of about 3% a year; GWB, an increase of almost 3.4%; Clinton, an annual decrease of 1.5%

Every post-war president saw a drop of the ratio of debt to GDP during his term or terms, except Reagan, Bush and Bush. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_debt_by_U.S._presidential_terms.

This record of ever increasing debt is the product of the victory of Voodoo economics.

Yes there may be additional factor: loss of manufacturing to Asia, inevitable declines of "advanced" economies, and unfunded, endless, pointless wars. Common to the past 60 years, however, is the ever declining marginal tax rates over the course of years from Eisenhower (90%) to Kennedy (72) to Reagan (50) to GWB (35!). These have resulted, not in "supply side" increases of revenue and increased growth, but in declining revenues, stagnant levels of growth (particularly 2001 to 2008) and huge, unprecedented increases in the national debt. And the grand recession left by Bush has made current fiscal policy utterly unsustainable and that ratio climb dramatically.

The tax debate must be undertaken and won. The Democrats, the White House and Congress, cannot hide from it. The arguments for increased taxes are compelling: (and I plan to advance them) not solely the fiscal history of the past 30 years, but the threats to the dollar and national security needs, but the experience of the states, with high and low tax rates (see California), the experience of other countries, and the need for social well-being and national cohesion. Higher taxes do not kill economies. All of the world's richest economies and America's richest states have high taxes and they remain rich--but more of that to come.

Take shelter if you must behind David Stockman, but it is time to stand up and take the ideological mantel back from the tax phobic. Yes, we have to raise taxes and we have to convince the American people of the need and the value of doing so.

Miles Jaffe: The Tax Debate

Let’s see if Obama can work effectively on Healthcare Reform going forward.

Obama to Hold Bipartisan Summit on Health Care

By JEFF ZELENY

Published: February 7, 2010

WASHINGTON - President Obama said Sunday that he will convene a half-day, bipartisan health care summit at the White House on Feb. 25 to be broadcast on television, so Americans can see Democrats and Republicans try to break the deadlock on health care legislation.

The president made the announcement in an interview on CBS during the Super Bowl pre-game show. The meeting would mark the first time in the long health care debate that leaders from both sides would be allowed to air their ideas publicly and see if they can find agreement.

Mr. Obama did not say what he was willing to give up in the negotiations or chart a specific legislative strategy for moving a bill through Congress.

“If we can go step by step through a series of these issues and arrive at some agreements, there’s no reason we can’t do this faster than it took last year,” Mr. Obama said in an interview on Sunday afternoon from the White House Library.

Mr. Obama made the move after recently conducting a televised brainstorming session with House Republicans that drew praise as a rare, candid exchange between a sitting president and the opposition party.

He added that he would not be supportive of starting the health care debate from the beginning, but rather would try to work from the existing proposals that passed the House and Senate to find agreement. It remained an open question whether this would be possible, given the hardened views of Democrats and Republicans alike.

But the bipartisan health care meeting on Feb. 25 is the latest example of how the White House is attempting to draw in the opposition party and highlight their ideas in the midterm election year, hoping that the Democratic proposals look better when compared to the Republican ideas.

“What I want to do is to look at Republican ideas that are out there,” Mr. Obama said. “How do you guys want to lower costs?”

Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, said he welcomed the bipartisan meeting on health care and called on the president to begin the dialogue “by shelving the current health spending bill.”

“The fact is Senate Republicans held hundreds of town halls and met with their constituents across the country last year on the need for health care reform, outlining ideas for the step-by-step approach that Americans have asked for,” Mr. McConnell said in a statement. “And we know there are a number of issues with bipartisan support that we can start with when the 2,700-page bill is put on the shelf.”

The president said he did not regret pursuing health care during the first year of his presidency, even though he intends to place a higher priority on job creation this year.

“It was the right thing to do then,” Mr. Obama. “It continues to be the right thing.”

The president spoke to CBS News’ Katie Couric in the hours leading up to the Super Bowl. Mr. Obama said he believed the Indianapolis Colts would defeat the New Orleans Saints, but acknowledged that the Saints were an emotional favorite.

“The Colts have to be favored,” Mr. Obama said.

Obama to Hold Bipartisan Summit on Health Care - NYTimes.com

Just received from OFA. Right now the uninformed Tea Party crowd is raising a lot of noise about not wanting healthcare reform. Their media attention is far from consummate to their numbers. One of the reasons this is the case is that many progressives tend to be timid about admitting to their progressiveness. When asked people individually what they want it is clearly closer to progressives than to Conservative yet many are hesitant to call themselves liberals. Let yourselves be heard lest we lose our country to those who do not understand their own positions and ultimately lose a prosperous country.

Egberto --
An alarming new study shows that health care costs increased last year at the fastest rate in more than a half century.
Health care spending rose to an estimated $2.5 trillion in 2009, or $8,047 per person -- and is now projected to nearly double by 2019. If we don't act, this growing burden will mean more lost jobs, more families pushed into bankruptcy, and more crushing debt for our nation.
The conclusion is clear: This isn't a problem we can kick down the road for another decade -- or even another year. We need to pass health reform now.
We're incredibly close. But too many in Washington are now saying that we should delay or give up on reform entirely. So we need to make it crystal clear that Americans understand the stakes for our economy and our lives, and that we want action.
Can you write a letter to the editor of your local paper right now?
In just five minutes of your time, you can tell thousands of readers about this new report on spiraling costs, and why abandoning reform is just not an option.
You can also help by posting this note on Facebook, letting your friends know about the new costs study and asking them to join you in writing a letter to a local paper.
President Obama and many allies in Congress are working hard to finish the job -- but we can't rest until it's done. Your note will help break through the Washington spin and show members of Congress and the media what local voters really believe. Click here to get started:
http://my.barackobama.com/FinishTheJob
It's clear that we're in the fight of our lives to pass real reform. But after a century of trying, the finish line is finally in sight. As President Obama reminded us all in his State of the Union address, we're fighting for our families and our country -- and we don't quit.
Thanks for making it possible,
Mitch
Mitch Stewart
Director
Organizing for America

As a Canadian living in the United States for the past 17 years, I am frequently asked by Americans and Canadians alike to declare one health care system as the better one.

Often I'll avoid answering, regardless of the questioner's nationality. To choose one or the other system usually translates into a heated discussion of each one's merits, pitfalls, and an intense recitation of commonly cited statistical comparisons of the two systems.

Because if the only way we compared the two systems was with statistics, there is a clear victor. It is becoming increasingly more difficult to dispute the fact that Canada spends less money on health care to get better outcomes.

Yet, the debate rages on. Indeed, it has reached a fever pitch since President Barack Obama took office, with Americans either dreading or hoping for the dawn of a single-payer health care system. Opponents of such a system cite Canada as the best example of what not to do, while proponents laud that very same Canadian system as the answer to all of America's health care problems. Frankly, both sides often get things wrong when trotting out Canada to further their respective arguments.

As America comes to grips with the reality that changes are desperately needed within its health care infrastructure, it might prove useful to first debunk some myths about the Canadian system.

Myth: Taxes in Canada are extremely high, mostly because of national health care.

In actuality, taxes are nearly equal on both sides of the border. Overall, Canada's taxes are slightly higher than those in the U.S. However, Canadians are afforded many benefits for their tax dollars, even beyond health care (e.g., tax credits, family allowance, cheaper higher education), so the end result is a wash. At the end of the day, the average after-tax income of Canadian workers is equal to about 82 percent of their gross pay. In the U.S., that average is 81.9 percent.

Myth: Canada's health care system is a cumbersome bureaucracy.

The U.S. has the most bureaucratic health care system in the world. More than 31 percent of every dollar spent on health care in the U.S. goes to paperwork, overhead, CEO salaries, profits, etc. The provincial single-payer system in Canada operates with just a 1 percent overhead. Think about it. It is not necessary to spend a huge amount of money to decide who gets care and who doesn't when everybody is covered.

Myth: The Canadian system is significantly more expensive than that of the U.S.Ten percent of Canada's GDP is spent on health care for 100 percent of the population. The U.S. spends 17 percent of its GDP but 15 percent of its population has no coverage whatsoever and millions of others have inadequate coverage. In essence, the U.S. system is considerably more expensive than Canada's. Part of the reason for this is uninsured and underinsured people in the U.S. still get sick and eventually seek care. People who cannot afford care wait until advanced stages of an illness to see a doctor and then do so through emergency rooms, which cost considerably more than primary care services.

What the American taxpayer may not realize is that such care costs about $45 billion per year, and someone has to pay it. This is why insurance premiums increase every year for insured patients while co-pays and deductibles also rise rapidly.

Myth: Canada's government decides who gets health care and when they get it.While HMOs and other private medical insurers in the U.S. do indeed make such decisions, the only people in Canada to do so are physicians. In Canada, the government has absolutely no say in who gets care or how they get it. Medical decisions are left entirely up to doctors, as they should be.

There are no requirements for pre-authorization whatsoever. If your family doctor says you need an MRI, you get one. In the U.S., if an insurance administrator says you are not getting an MRI, you don't get one no matter what your doctor thinks — unless, of course, you have the money to cover the cost. CONTINUED

Debunking Canadian health care myths - The Denver Post

And she complains about Obama’s teleprompter?

 

Crib Notes? This potential presidential candidate and "movement" leader was using crib notes to answer basic questions?

 

This would mean:

A) That she knew the questions beforehand and the whole thing was a farce. (Likely.)

and

That she still couldn't answer the previously agreed-upon questions without a little extra help.

If true, this is supremely rich coming immediately after a speech in which Palin took a shot at President Obama for using a teleprompter to read his prepared speeches.

You can bet that the President wasn't reading scribbles off his extremities while he sparred with Republicans and Democrats in an unscripted format in his recent Q&As.

Palin, on the other hand, seems to need a cheat-sheet just to get through a contrived lovefest with a smitten interviewer and an adoring audience.

I'm no fan of the Tea Party movement - if it can be called such - but if this is their leader I actually sympathize with them.

Closer inspection of a photo of Sarah Palin, during a speech in which she mocked President Obama for his use of a teleprompter, reveals several notes written on her left hand. The words "Energy", "Tax" and "Lift American Spirits" are clearly visible.

Stefan Sirucek: EXCLUSIVE (Update): Palin's Tea Party Crib Notes

 

The Truth About the Deficit

Published: February 6, 2010

When the White House released its new budget last week, including more spending to create desperately needed jobs, Republican leaders in Congress denounced President Obama for driving up the deficit and demanded that the Democrats halt their “reckless” ways.

The deficit numbers — a projected $1.3 trillion in fiscal 2011 alone — are breathtaking. What is even more breathtaking is the Republicans’ cynical refusal to acknowledge that the country would never have gotten into so deep a hole if President George W. Bush and the Republican-led Congress had not spent years slashing taxes — mainly on the wealthy — and spending with far too little restraint. Unfortunately, the problem does not stop there.

The Republican amnesia and posturing are playing well on the hustings, where Americans are deeply anxious about the economy and fearful of losing their jobs and homes. Far too many Democratic lawmakers are losing their nerve.

Americans should be anxious, for reasons including the huge deficit. But the cold economic truth is this: At a time of high unemployment and fragile growth, the last thing the government should do is to slash spending. That will only drive the economy into deeper trouble.

None of this means that the politicians — from either party — are off the hook. They will soon need to make hard decisions about how to reduce the deficit. But more posturing and sniping is not going to make the economy better or solve the deficit problem. President Obama has called on the Republicans to join a bipartisan commission to help make those tough decisions, but they have been resistant to the proposal.

•

We fear the demagoguing is not going to stop, especially with Congressional elections this November. As the budget debate plays out, here are some basic facts about the deficit that Americans need to consider:

HOW DID WE GET HERE? When President Bush took office in 2001, the federal budget had been in the black for three years, and continued surpluses were projected for a decade to come.

By the time Mr. Bush left office in early 2009, the government had run big deficits for seven straight years, and the economy was on the brink of another Great Depression. On Jan. 7, 2009 — two weeks before Mr. Obama was inaugurated — the Congressional Budget Office issued new budget estimates showing a fiscal year 2009 deficit of well over $1 trillion.

About half of today’s huge deficits can be chalked up to Bush-era profligacy: mainly cutting taxes deeply while borrowing to wage two wars and to enact the Medicare prescription drug benefit — all of which Republicans supported, virtually in lockstep.

The other half of recent deficits is due to the recession and the financial crisis.

To avoid a meltdown, the government — under President Bush and President Obama — rightly decided it had no choice but to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to bail out banks and car companies and to stimulate the economy. That prevented a very bad situation from becoming much worse, but as the recession dragged on, hundreds of billions in tax revenues have also dried up.

As for why the financial system and the economy imploded, President Bush and Congress deserve much of the blame for their devotion to debt-driven growth and blind deregulatory zeal — although on deregulation, President Clinton and his team (some of whom are back in the White House) were also complicit.

Were it not for those multiple calamities, budget deficits today would be negligible. That does not mean we would be off the hook. An aging population and relentlessly rising health care costs will hit the country with even deeper deficits as the baby boomers retire. Politicians need to pass health care reform now and start thinking seriously about Social Security and tax reform.

So what are the immediate fiscal lessons here? The first lesson is that spending without taxing is a recipe for huge deficits, and that running big deficits when the economy is expanding only sets the country up for bigger deficits when the economy contracts. The second lesson is that once a deep recession takes hold, slashing government spending is not going to solve the problem. It will only make it worse. CONTINUED

Editorial - The Truth About the Deficit - NYTimes.com