President Obama unveiled his 2012 budget proposal today, and everybody who pays attention to these things said, “Eh, too much/not enough.” Even with the tax increases for the wealthy and the humble request that U.S. multinationals occasionally pay a few dollars of tax and the savage cuts to programs that help the very poorest people in America do things like pay their heating bills so they don’t freeze to death in the winter, this proposal would still find our United States with the largest deficit in post-WWII History: 11% of America’s GDP — the highest since World War II. So what, right? “Deficits don’t matter,” that’s what Dick Cheney always said. Anyway, $3.7 trillion dollars. That is a lot! Yet, a trillion dollars will be cut, over the next decade. What does any of this even mean? It means Eric Cantor does not approve, that’s what.
The AP reports:
House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., called Obama’s proposal a missed opportunity to address the nation’s fiscal problems.
“We need a government that finally does what every other American has to do in their households and their businesses, and that’s to live within our means,” Cantor said in a statement. “Instead, President Obama’s budget doubles down on the bad habits of the past four years by calling for more taxes, spending and borrowing of money that we simply do not have.”
We agree, Young Gun! Let’s cut defense by half, and then double taxes on billionaires and the Fortune 500 companies that launder all their profits through the Caymans and Ireland and wherever. Eric Cantor will balance the budget and put an organic chicken in every cast iron pot! Eric Cantor demands Pentagon budget be cut by half! Eric Cantor demands that Google actually pay its share of taxes in America! Yayyyyy! [Los Angeles Times]
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Barry on his way to exchange that fat wad for Ameros.
"Eric Cantor demands that Google actually pay its share of taxes in America!"
About a month and a half early for April Fools.
Wake me up when Cantor wants Halliburton to pay its share.
~
If Obama really wanted a balanced budget, it would be child's play. Simply eliminate federal funding for Planned Parenthood and National Public Radio and, abracadbra: $1 trillion saved. Oh, and I almost forgot, cut taxes for everyone earning over a million dollars a year.
I hate to tell you this but….
that's the best idea ever!
I thought we were just going to cut the payments to the poor so that they can't pay for heat during a blizzard. The subsequent deaths would cut down on medicaid and social security payments, thus saving additional dollars. And the already frozen bodies won't need to be transported to the public morgue, so we can shut that down too. Plus, no more food stamps or education grants. And the med schools will have more than enough cadavers to operate on, so medical education will improve and become cheaper, so Obamacare isn't necessary anymore, and we can just repeal the whole thing.
You LIHEAP!
I'm tired of those NPR fat cats shoving their greed, waste and totes bags around.
Four years? We elected Barry at the end of 2006?
I guess he means the Dem-controlled House/Senate. That's how I read it, anyway, and I am not particularly charitable to Eric Cantor quotes.
Yes. Because G-Dub rolled over for Pelosi & Reid.
I'm still waiting to see the proof of the Republiklans claim that taxes have gone up. Did George Bush sign a tax increase into law, while we were celebrating on the streets of gold that his economy provided us?
Cantor actually managed to contradict himself within just two sentences. Is that a record?
I know. And if your analogy is a family budget, then wouldn't higher taxes be like getting a raise or something? Also, isn't any money you borrow, by definition, "money that we simply do not have?”
Exactly. How can people buy these houses you want them to buy (and to stock with appliances and furniture) without borrowing money?
Easy peasy. Inherited wealth.
People not born into money shouldn't be allowed to own.
Or vote.
That's why God provided you with two kidneys, two lungs, two eyes, etc.
Sell one and use the money to stimulate the economy!
It's just like paying a family budget, assuming the family is a wealthy one that doesn't have to go into debt to buy a house, go to college, etc.
"highest since World War II", so World War III will fix this?
We call that The Bolton Solution.
I don't know if you were simply trying be funny or not, but you pretty much hit the nail on the head. That's what it will take, if the past is any guide.
Why not? It worked once before and the Repubs were taking notes. Starting in the 1920's we had a boom, a depression, a war, and then prosperity. Well, we had the Clinton boom in the 1990's so the Repubs just figured that they could engineer our current depression, then war again, and voila!
Not to veer off topic (okay, to veer off topic), but can someone tell me why two Trig-Palined Breitbart trolls are now following me on Intense Debate? Are they stalking me, or did the pretty picture in my avatar just make them pop a dime stack in their Depends?
they seem to think they are scary anonomous warrior e-mailers by sending us e-mails into our e-mail in-boxes from the intense debate internets.
it is much like being a chicken hawk. only with less dignity.
but you do have a very pretty picture.
I collected one, too, who may not have paid enough attention to the gender of my avatar or first name.
Last week I got a tweet from Anthony Weiner with your avatar as his avatar.
Bastard's getting a call from my lawyer.
One is following me as well. I'm confused. And I have a female avatar as well, although yours is prettier.
Count me in, as well. Apparently, one of them has been bragging on Breitbart's comments that he has us freaked out. Yawn.
I checked that out. Someone needs to pull out his/her/its dictionary. We may be confused, annoyed, disgusted, but in no way are we "freaked out". And as for the thumbs down thing, no one is freaked out about the thumbs down but we are mystified as to the logic of doing so.
They are trying to steal our mana. I, for one, am terrified. In fact, if they keep scaring us so much, I do believe I shall faint dead away.
I like the expression on your face in the picture.
I have a kid on my shoulders trying to steer me by the hair.
I hear ya…I mean, who hasn't been there.
'They' are not they, 'they' are one…sort of like a cloven hoof. Or better yet, imagine your poor basement has two spots of slime mold growing in it. Two separate spots, but they came from the same culture. It's unfortunate that Intense Debate doesn't have one more button next to "Follow this Person" that says "Spray Bleach Here."
Take it as a compliment. It's not just anybody that can attract the basement dwellers.
All it means is that somebody clicked "follow" on your Intense Debate page, the same way you would "like" something on Facebook or "follow" a tumblr page or whatever. The comments you leave here are also listed (a few of them, anyway) on your Intense Debate account page. Nothing different, and don't let some sad old wingnut annoy you by doing nothing of consequence.
I want to be annoyed. I don't get out much.
I want to be sedated.
Oh, I know it doesn't mean anything, I'm just marveling at the impotent weirdness of it all.
I just keep imaging some hairy-backed little goblin sitting in a puddle on the basement floor, the only illumination from the light of his laptop, cackling under his breath about how he'll show those liberals by following them on the internet! Then he stuffs a Pig Anus Flavored Hot Pocket down his gullet and chokes just a little.
A puddle of…?
EEeeeewww… nevermind
Now I'm feared too.
Since he was trolling us, I've picture that "Liberal = Intolerant" (I believe he's name-changer who kept trolling for a while after the Giffords shooting to keep making ridiulous claims that Louchner was a liberal) does just that all day, all the while muttering to himself, "We'll gets those nasty Wonkettses, won't we, precious; yes, we'll gets them soon."
Same here.
DownFister has a name… "Liberal = Intolerant"
"Thanks, intolerant liberals, for sharing your IP addresses! BTW, how is life on the Democrat Plantation?"
Oooh, I'm so threatened.
DownFister has a name…
…so does Oscar Meyer's bologna. Sort of fitting, don't you think?
Their bologna has a first name, it's withered useless junk…
Their bologna has a second name, it's "Welcome to the Minneapolis airport bathroom, it's nice to meet you"
Pop Quiz!
Q: What's shaped like a tube and filled with the ground up lips and assholes of diseased livestock?
A: ___________________
I got the same thing over the weekend. I don't know what it means.
Can't we get Riley to talk to Breitbart and have him politely tell his sausage-fingered fanbois that their brain-rot is stinkin' up the place?
Well, the good news is that after we're all shot in the head at point blank range, the news media can talk about how these posts foreshadowed it all.
Downfister can downfist to his/her heart's content; those downfists are a fart in the F-6 tornado of the overall awesomeness of the comments to be found here.
oh yea, thats my stalker, too!
Do the Dems really even have a plantation?
And where is this plantation? How come I don't get to be on it? I demand to be taken to the plantation….
Does going to the plantation mean I'll have to leave Canada?
I have a barnacle on my boat as well, is there a way to "nuke" a follower?
Yeah you would think the easiest way to harrass wonkettiers is to just come here and see the comments, I mean what is the point of following anyone anyway?
I tried following someone, and all it seemed to do was highlight their comments in the thread, not tell me they commented or anything.
so a heapin helping of fail all around.
Today, we are all in the crosshairs/surveyor's marks of impotent, unemployed Red State morans.
Really.
Me too…maybe it's my cute picture as well.
Same here. I should change it to something less cuddly.
For the longest time, I thought yours was a picture of an afro'd, mustachioed gentleman wearing an eyepatch and obscured in the dark.
Well, mine might be obscure but yours has always been easy to enjoy. And it makes me feel funny down there too.
I've got at least two, "Spanky" and "Liberal-Intolerant"; both have previously trolled here.
I believe they're one and the same. Liberal-Incontinent's profile links to this:
http://intensedebate.com/people/Spanky2b
We've probably spent way too many electrons discussing this already.
I'm offended–I don't appear to have any Breittard followers. How am I going to have a full-on liberal freak-out if the Breittards don't follow me, too?
Your offended? I had one and he left me. Oh tell me what I did Intolerant? I'll make it up to you I swear, this time it'll be different.
I got one of those, too. I figured it was something that is supposed to scare us away from Wonkette: "We're watching you, buddy. You better be out of Wonkette City by nightfall or something really, really, really bad is gonna happen to one of your two resident chipmunks." Chatter. Shake. My only real fear is that Watcher Troll will drool on his/her keyboard and send a short circuit out and about.
Yeah, I've got one or two. What the hell – keeps 'em off the streets and in their mother's basements. I think they like my homicidal girl scout avatar.
Yeah, Liberal = Intolerant started following me over the weekend too. On his (its?) profile page one of the comments he left at Breitbart claims that following us wonktards really freaks us out. Also he brags about his commando downfisting operations. The way I understand IntenseDebate it helps your p score to have followers, but then he comes over here and thumbs down our comments to lower our scores, so…it's a wash? In any case, the mischievous little imp is adorable.
Honey, they're Breitbart trolls. If they had any room for thought their reptile brains would explode.
I'm just glad I'm giving the poor thing some ephemeral moment of joy before he cries into his jizz rag. I'm a humanitarian like that.
"It's" been "following" me for several weeks, and my pee has gone up 2 or 3 points during that timespan, so I don't see the point.
Wait, my pee score is going up because I have trolls? Well, shit. I thought it was because I was really clever and witty and stuff.
Well, I've been crying & shaking uncontrollably ever since I got that same horrifying message in my in-box … oh, wait, come to think of it actually it made me LOL.
But teh troll wins, because it was LIBERAL & INTOLERANT laughter.
I'm impressed. It only made my eyebrows knit together in puzzlement before I decided that someone just hit the wrong button. And I guess in a way, he did.
Do not mock teh power of the Breitards or they will … uh … they will … JUST DO NOT MOCK THEM, OR ELSE!!!!!
OMG! I have one now too! They're contagious! Now my IP is exposed to their dastardly eyeballs (fucked if I know how) & they will haxx0rz me for Freedumb! IEEE!
Did anybody call Obamar's budget "dead on arrival"? Because it just wouldn't be a budget story if they didn't. Whether it will be passed remains to be seen, because only time will tell, according to a source who requested anonymity in order to make himself seem more important.
Triangulatin' like a motherfucker.
Capitulatin' like a motherfucker.
Like pretty Kate has sex ornate.
Is he refudiatin' Bush?
Eric Cantor
Boehner is the one who drives me nuts. His voice sounds just like some high school principal speaking on the PA: "If there are any more incidents of cherry bombs in the commodes, we're going to cancel the pep rally."
Cantor just sounds like an earnest young person confused to be Jew in the South.
His is missing its shut-off clamp.
And guess what? We can't shut him off!
Well, this isn't a terribly funny observation, but there's been a fairly simple response to the demands for slash 'n burn by slavering idiots that I've yet to see voiced. If you are way deep in the whole to your credit card company and unemployed, would anyone with a modicum of sense say to themselves, "Well, now that I have no money and no job, I better start tackling my debt!"
Why aren't Obama and others quite simply, in terms even our nation's median cretins could grasp? Am I missing something?
Because financial planning for them begins and ends with playing nickel slots down at the Indian casino.
Because the U.S. is not unemployed, at least not in terms of income. Lots of money comes in, just not enough to pay for everything they want to pay for. Cut defense and there's money for everything else and a lot we haven't had in decades — modern infrastructure, for example.
Or, maybe make the mega-corporations pay a teeny share of their massive cash reserves in taxes, the way everybody who is *not* a mega-corporation with shell companies in the Cayman Islands has to pay taxes.
We're talking about people that believe life begins at conception, and votes against health care and education for children.
Oh, I agree completely. I guess my metaphor (analogy? rebus?) was meant to suggest that our economy in some sort of broad sense is 'unemployed' or broken, not the state. So in the case of our metaphorical schlub, the state would do well be both him and itself to make sure he doesn't starve or crash an emergency room while working to make him part of the productive sector as soon as possible. Of course, the other end of the bargain is that said schlub needs to drop his 400+ cable subscription, $200/month text and phone fees and trade in his Hummer for a Kia. (Like Medicare, we could not demand cuts to his porn budget). If the support the state provides is not quite offset in the short run, so be it. And of course, we should never lose sight of the fact that come the revolution, the corporate parasites are first against the well.
Aw, shit. If you have to explain yourself this friggin' much, we're talking rebus/onomatopoeia fail.
I peed you anyway, at least you're thinking and not just hurling platitudes.
It's good framing and – with a little polish – could be put to good use. Too bad no one in power actually wants to enrage their Wall Street buddies by actually taking that line.
It is really amazing that the Republicans have been able to make the debt, and even the deficit, seem like immediate existential threats. No one is challenging them on it; so what is the point of the Democratic Party, again?
Cantor won't be satisfied until Obama stabs Social Security in the back.
No snark and no humor – just stone cold truth.
Nevah happen. Raise the retirement age, sure. Make FICA apply to the Highly-Compensateds' entire paycheck instead of just the first $100K, maybe. But "privatize" or kill it? Nah.
Raising the retirement age leads to killing it. How many 75 year olds are in a position to keep working? How much resentment could a cynical Republican campaign ride on if everyone feels they're paying into a system with no hope of ever getting anything out of it?
Actually, I think he wants him to stab it right in the front, and with prejudice like some Greek tragedy, or something. You know, gut it.
Love teh imagery!
And sooooooooo…the "entitlements" dance starts. The wingtards actually think that to be seen as a "leader" , Barry has to undo every Democratic program out there, (ie: OUR FUCKING safety net). Also, the insanely popular ones. With y'know, The American People.™ too.
Yeah, I'm getting tired of hearing Krauthammer, et. al. keep repeating the tired line about we won't have a meaningful deficit reduction until we cut entitlements.
How about cutting the "entitlements" to the Defense Industry in this country?
Amazing how money to help the less fortunate or elderly has become a bad thing, while we continue to shovel billions to corporations to create devices to kill people.
I've been paying in to that shit for 35 years now. I'm a liburl who's worked all her life. I'm only 50, so I won't be grandfathered in. If those fuckers think they are going to hand my money, (entitlement my ass), to Wall Street to gamble with. Fuck to the no, fuckers.
This seems to be an emerging meme – that is, the Repubs challenging Barry to "be a leader" and spell out all the tough choices that need to be made. Which of course absents the Repubs in Congress from having to be leaders and spell out the choices themselves. Something tells me they can't goad Barry into a game of "Mine's Bigger" but it's going to be fun watching them try.
How much do you think we could bring in for Puerto Rico? Just think of the bonanza an enterprising nation could make off of its baseball stars! Show us the petrodollas, Venezuela!
“Instead, President Obama’s budget doubles down on the bad habits of the past four years by calling for more taxes, spending and borrowing of money that we simply do not have.”
Past TEN years, yobbo. And when did you come to Congress? 2001? Hmmm…
I'll help Megan McCardle reach that $1 million mark if needed.
You know, the party of financial responsibility really ought to take care of its $23 million debt before its members go lecturing anyone else about their wayward bank balance.
God, Obama wants to kill poor people. What else does the GOP want?
There's just no pleasing them.
But he sure tries.
"Let’s cut defense by half, and then double taxes on billionaires and the Fortune 500 companies that launder all their profits through the Caymans and Ireland and wherever."
Where do I sign the petition?
Tons of support for this plan. Why isn't it on the table?
Corporations have larger speech accounts than you.
“We need a government that finally does what every other American has to do in their households and their businesses, and that’s to live within our means.”
Stupid fuck. I am sick to death of this overly simplistic and completely untrue analogy. People like Cantor know it's bullshit, everyone who hears it knows it's bullshit, but they keep saying because they think we are retarded. Or so worried about our looming credit card debt we don't pay attention to little pissants like Eric Cantor.
You know who else repeated big lies over and over and over again until people believed they were true?
Bush? Cheney? Rove? Boehner? Fuck, the list is too long to type. The entire GOP? Plus Judith Miller.
Article needs moar Bieber.
http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/uponsun/justin-b...
Or Gaga.
Invading countries saves money in time. The Arab states have newly found vigor and passion for democracy. Call whatever we have with smart bombs and patrolling ground-pounders, and zing, democracy and balanced budgets will break out all over.
Barry looks like his is cold fixin to buy some 40s and hang out with his homies.
Yeah, that is his malt-liquor-buying sport jacket and casual button-down shirt.
Or as the hede on FoxNation calls it:
Obama's $3.7 Trillion Budget Includes Staggering Tax Hikes and Increases the Debt
Of course it fucking increases the debt. Even the most slashy-slash Republican idiots can't make a balanced budget in the midst of an economic slump.
From WaPo: "Obama's plan would trim domestic spending by hundreds of billions of dollars over the next decade, striking hard at programs long favored by
Democratselderly people who don't want to freeze to death in their ghetto shanty, and women who need a safe place to bring their kids when their unemployed and suicidal husband tries to kill them."/fixed.
Also, that is one precarious stack of peanut butter behind our president there.
That could actually be an apt analogy for the Democrats.
Why even bother with numbers?
The Republicans simply don't want to spend anything that will help anyone who has the bad taste to be poor or disabled. They feel that zero percent of the federal budget should be used to help anyone who needs help. Anyone who is poor is poor by choice and so is automatically not worth helping.
Well, I can't say I don't appreciate the effort he puts into his dancing!
You forgot NPR and the NEA. So: FAIL. Mapplethorpe'll still be making ew-inducing photos from the grave, Christ'll still be submerged in urine, and Cokie Roberts will still be making statements of the obvious shit she said on Sunday every Monday morning, for all eternity.
Meh. Fuck NPR. If I wanted to know what my bourgeois friends think about things, I'd head on down to Whole Foods and strike up a conversation about poverty with someone stocking up on $12.99 per pound organic pasta salad.
Seriously, I'd not only trade all the funding for "wait wait, don't tell me" to buy one more week of continued heating assistance, I'd actually sell Carl Kasell, Garrison Keillor, and Mo Rocca into slavery if it would pay for another year of keeping a single battered women's shelter open.
"They don't call it a Chicago roll for nothing, baby."
So – Obama's metamorphosis to full "DLC Schmuck" has at last been completed. Now I can safely ignore anything he has to say.
At least when the media hands U.S. of America another Republican president in 2012 we won't have to hear about "debt" and "deficits" any more.
The federal government still hasn’t passed a budget for fiscal 2011, which began October 1. The country has been paying its bills with continuing resolutions, the latest of which expires on March 4.
Eric Cantor is a dick.
E, I, E, I, O.
Get ready for a new round of geography lessons. This is when I see headlines that assert the Venezuelan (or Belizian, or Costa Rican… who cares?) military tries to stage a coup of the Cayman Islands.
REMEMBER THE SHELTERS!
cutting the bloated military budget 10% would pay for every social expense that was cut. but heaven forfend we touch the military or the Repugs would flip out….
I didn't read this post or the comments, but that picture made me feel the need to point out once again that our president is fiiiiiiine.
3. Laugh as the poor people wither and die.
"Barry, honey, could you grab some coffee while you are out? Oh, and we need butter."
or how about "cut no social program less than $9 billion", which is what Repugs lost in cash on a pallet in Iraq. It just seems absurd this "nickel & dime" mentality when they happily spend thousands of times more on military toys & wars.
When the Republicans are back in power, they will do the right thing and simply outlaw poor people. Once that bit of business is done, we can build concentration camps for them. That will create jobs. We'll also have a cheap source of labor and will no longer need to outsource. Made in the USA by the 'productive class'. See? We won't even have to call them poor anymore! Win, win.
Lolz "Repeal the Job Killing Poor People".
And of course unemployment remains persistently at 9%. But never mind that- Recession Over! Now let's get to work cutting deficits, and by deficits, we mean government programs. After all, its not like government employees are actual people, and it's not like the poor and umemployed, needed that money to live, or educate themselves and their children, or anything.
Here's the funny thing- we're going to get a double-dip recession at this rate, since the Obama administration is basically ceding the argument that the government, which actually is part of the economy, it ends up, needs to shrink, at a time when everything else is already shrinking also. And then, come the 2012 election, Republicans will start remembering about unemployment again, because it's not like the 12% unemployment rate will be attributable to taking their advice on fiscal policy, or anything.
For some reason, when I saw that picture, the phrase "Dolla dolla bill y'all" popped into my head and I couldn't think of anything else. Black President > White President
Unfortunately, it looks like those countries are having trouble meeting their obligations, even with the US picking up most or all of their defense tabs. While I agree in spirit with the universal retirement concept (and universal health insurance, to boot), we need to cut some costs in order to keep living in dignity. Like maybe cutting corn subsidies.
Enghngh, Germany’s doin’ okay, and they’ve got the same deal. Not sure the old we’re-defending-them argument is that powerful ever since St Ronnie singlehandedly dismantled the Soviet Union. It’s just that our defense budget is so insanely bloated – larger than the next 17 nations combined, as shown
here.
"Honey, I think we are spending too much on groceries and electricity and rent, so to change that, I am voluntarily taking a huge pay cut! Now we'll finally have to live within our means!"
This is a better 'home life" analogy for the Bush tax cuts and the modern Republican method of governing than yours, Cantor.
The mistakes of the last four years? Does Cantor mean the Bush budget of 2007, the Bush budget of 2008, the Bush budget of 2009, and then at the height of the depression, the Obama budget of 2010?
Deficits cause recessions, doncha know! And certainly not the other way around (yes, it's the other way around)!
“Deficits don’t matter so long as you're using the money to kill people."
Fixed.
Put that slogan on the side of a blimp and you're in business.
I hope before we're all dead that this administration wisens up to the reality that this (debt/deficit hawk) is a beast that will not be sated.
I almost, almost liked it better when the GOP was just screaming "Al Queda/terrorism!"
Wait, why am I seeing all these Republicans demanding massive cuts
From 2000-2008, I never saw any complaining with record spending.
Did something different occur?
Rush Limpblow?
Todd's dick?
The aspirin-sized meat nugget that passes as Glenn Beck's brain?
Or live, some of 'em.
I got one too! I hope it means all the cool people have their own Troll pets!
Though I have a pretty low-pee volume to really be considered really cool, I have a troll! THEREFORE QED, ergo, et al.
I too now have one – maybe two (my lowly status is enhanced, perhaps) – this means though that I'm going to have to go on the run, change phone numbers, emails. It is just terrifying!
My buddies in Hell's Angels are worried too..
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