...

I'm beginning to think the people all over the country
don't really understand the sort of trouble our nation is
in right now. Nor do they realize that this president and
his cadre of leftist idiots are destroying us day by day.

Austerity is killing countries in Europe bit by bit, and your
side wants to put it in here.

(How did that happen?≈ Krugman asks. One answer is supplied by University EC>>of Chicago economist Casey Mulligan ╖ one of the top labor market EC>>economists in the country and a regular contributor to The New York Times EC>>economics blog.

Krugman was out there the other day saying that the GOP
don't really understand Obamacare.

On that Krugman is wrong. They know it damn well, it was their
plan. They are afraid it will work, then they will have that
much more egg on their faces.

William Kristol once objected to extending the CHIP program,
because, when it *DOES* work it will lead to further programs.

IOW, programs that work, and save lives, and provide treatment
for children, are considered by the right wing to be bad.

At some point, either yesterday or this morning, Henry
Waxman (who's from California) was asked by a reporter if
he'd read the 10,000-plus pages of the new so-called
affordable care act. Waxman's answer was in the form of a

The first time I looked it was less than 1000 pages.
I just downloaded copies from three different sources. With
smaller text two had 906 pages. One with larger text had 1990. I
could read any of them. It's all how you lay it out.

...

This country is on the road to financial ruin and the
democrats are driving us there at full speed. Something
tells me Obamacare is going to be a real eye- opener very
soon, and people are going to be screaming for its repeal.

...

**************************************************************************

According to the Federal Budget History files, 2013: At the end
of WW2 the debt load was almost 122% of GDP. It went down under
every president, war and peace, recession or prosperity, liberal
or conservative, republican or democrat, until Reagan. When
Reagan took office it was around 33%.

Under Reagan it started back up, under Clinton it started back
down again. Under Bush II it went back into climb mode.

In 1981, 32.6%, in 1989, 53.1%, in 1993, 66.2%, in 2001 57.4%,
in 2009 85.2%.

So, Obama was handed an economy that was at risk of another
depression, and a debt load that is headed for crushing.

If the country went into depression the GDP could drop as much
as 50%. The debt would not drop, so the debt load would become
horrendous. 90% jumps to 180%. Higher than this country has ever
seen. If the GDP dropped 25% that still pushes up the debt load
to around 130%. That is a crushing debt. And that is why we
might well not be able to get out of another depression.

When Obama took office he was facing a national debt of about
$12 trill. That debt had built up in the 232 years before his
inauguration. Yet almost 80% of that debt had built up under 3
presidents, Reagan, Bush I and Bush II.

Of the 10% built up under Clinton almost all of it was in his
first term, when he was fighting to bring the Reagan/Bush
debacle under control. In his second term he gave this country
the first balanced budget it had seen in 29 years, and the
second longest string of balanced budgets of the 20th century.
At which time it appeared he stopped the growth of the debt.
However, the republicans had other plans.
(Note:The longest string was the 1920s)

All other presidents combined produced about 10% of the total
debt.

80% of the national debt Obama inherited produced under the last
three republican presidents. And 100% of the growth in the post
WWII debt load.

**************************************************************************

BOB KLAHN bob.klahn@sev.org http://home.toltbbs.com/bobklahn

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On 10-20-13, BOB KLAHN said to TIM RICHARDSON:

I'm beginning to think the people all over the country
don't really understand the sort of trouble our nation is
in right now. Nor do they realize that this president and
his cadre of leftist idiots are destroying us day by day.

Austerity is killing countries in Europe bit by bit, and your
side wants to put it in here.

I think you're either confusing the word `austerity' with some other concept, or you are being willfully ignorant.


I'm going to make an attempt to show you a bit of reason here, but I don't expect you will take the point.


The politicians in our national government have spent us into the poor house. We are in debt up to our ears and beyond to one of our worst enemies in the entire world (communist China) among others, and the debt we have on our shoulders will probably last for the next two or three generations, given that the United States even lasts that long (and at the rate we're going it won't).


As anyone with half a brain knows (or soon learns by difficult experience),
you cannot *spend* your way out of debt. It doesn't work. The only way to prosperity is to live within your means. If you have *X* income, but every
year you spend *XX*, it isn't many years before your outflow of *XX* exceeds your *X* income. Then you are faced with a situation that is unsustainable; i.e., paying out more than you take in.


We (America) have reach and surpassed that point, thanks to our politicians
who run our country. No matter the party they belong to, they have spent us into a debt you and I will never see paid off in our lifetime, and I suspect far past our grandchildrens' life times.


That should concern you. It doesn't seem to...but it should.


What's the solutiuon? Well, for one thing they can JUST STOP SPENDING!

Krugman was out there the other day saying that the GOP
don't really understand Obamacare.

On that Krugman is wrong. They know it damn well, it was their
plan.

Ah...I see you've gotten `the memo' from the democrat powers-that-be! Now that Obamacare is being revealed as the `bomb' it was from the very beginning.. .which no republicans voted for, by the way... and its about to fall flat on its face, suddenly the democrats are going to try to blame the whole thing on the republicans. But thats gonna be a little hard, because a lot of the democrats are on record as having signed into law a behemoth of a piece of legislation most (if not all) hadn't even read before putting their signatures to it.

They are afraid it will work, then they will have that
much more egg on their faces.

Question:


If its gonna `work' so well...and its gonna be so good for all of us...how
come the entire Congress (plus their staffs) AND the guy who's name heads it, the POTUS, get an `exemption' from the law?

William Kristol once objected to extending the CHIP program,
because, when it *DOES* work it will lead to further programs.

IOW, programs that work, and save lives, and provide treatment
for children, are considered by the right wing to be bad.

At some point, either yesterday or this morning, Henry
Waxman (who's from California) was asked by a reporter if
he'd read the 10,000-plus pages of the new so-called
affordable care act. Waxman's answer was in the form of a

The first time I looked it was less than 1000 pages.
I just downloaded copies from three different sources. With
smaller text two had 906 pages. One with larger text had 1990. I
could read any of them. It's all how you lay it out.

The `10,000' was either a mistake on my part, or something `you're' tossing in there to confuse the issue. I just checked and the bill in its entirety is about 2700 pages or more long.


But...don't take *my* word for it. Here's a few `quotes' on the subject from others....

Republicans asked (almost begged) the democrats who were pushing so strongly for passage of the bill, that they actually `read' it before signing it.


John Conyers is on record (and I myself saw the video footage of him making this statement at the time he said it) `Read it? Why should I read it?'


Conyers at a National Press Club luncheon sometime in July of 2009:


"I love these members, they get up and say, `read the bill'..."

"What good is reading the bill if its 1000 pages and you don't have two days and two lawyers to find out what it means after you read the bill?" ...John Conyers


Now, understand that Conyers is himself an attorney. Attorney's will be the first ones to tell a client not to sign anything they haven't read thoroughly and understand completely. Yet...he comes right out and admits he signed onto
a law that he hadn't even read in its entirety, and had little or no understanding of. That should bother even you.


Oh and...during oral arguments? Here's what Justice Breyer said at one point:


"I haven't read every word of that, I promise. So, what do you propose we do other than spend a year reading all this?" ...Justice Steven Breyer


Or...


"What happened to the Eighth Amendment? You really want us to go through these 2700 pages?" (The Eighth Amendment pertains to `cruel and unusual punishment' by the way) "And do you really expect the court to do that?" ...Justice
Anthony Scalia


And even Pelosi was at a loss to answer a simple question from a reporter back when this first got signed into law. She was asked `where, specifically, in
the Constitution was it granted to Congress the authority to enact an individual health insurance mandate'...she could only look at the reporter
with a sort of confused, dumb-founded expression in her eyes and ask: `... are you serious?....are you serious..." ...Nancy Pelosi


Its interesting that...although no republicans voted for this, the democrats are now trying to make this a `republican' bill all along! Hilarious!


---
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I'm beginning to think the people all over the country
don't really understand the sort of trouble our nation is
in right now. Nor do they realize that this president and
his cadre of leftist idiots are destroying us day by day.

Austerity is killing countries in Europe bit by bit, and your
side wants to put it in here.

I think you're either confusing the word `austerity' with
some other concept, or you are being willfully ignorant.

No, I am not, and you are.

I'm going to make an attempt to show you a bit of reason
here, but I don't expect you will take the point.

If you have one.

The politicians in our national government have spent us
into the poor house. We are in debt up to our ears and
beyond to one of our worst enemies in the entire world
(communist China) among others, and the debt we have on our
shoulders will probably last for the next two or three
generations, given that the United States even lasts that
long (and at the rate we're going it won't).

We are in debt up to our ears because of free trade, wars for
profit, and tax cuts for the rich. Obama has presided over the
fastest fall in deficits in decades, since before Reagan at
least.

The deficit peaked under Bush in Fiscal Year 2009, and went down
every year since.

See www.cbo.gov/publication/44172

As anyone with half a brain knows (or soon learns by
difficult experience), you cannot *spend* your way out of
debt. It doesn't work.

Other than the fact that there is absolutely no proof to back
that up, and we are talking about a government, not a family or
small business. In the real world, debt can become a smaller
burden when the govt spends more money. That is backed up by
proof.

Even in business, it is sometimes necessary to spend your way to
success. Many businesses are in trouble because they have
obsolete equipment, don't train their people, or don't have
enough people to do the job. In any of those cases, they have to
spend money to bring the business up to profitability.

I've been seeing that in management publications for decades,
and I have seen it in person. I've seen managers who cut
spending to meet budget projections by not buying parts or
giving needed training. Short term gain, long term disaster.

The only way to prosperity is to
live within your means. If you have *X* income, but every
year you spend *XX*, it isn't many years before your
outflow of *XX* exceeds your *X* income. Then you are faced

The other way to prosperity is to increase your means. The best
way for that matter.

with a situation that is unsustainable; i.e., paying out
more than you take in.

If you cut your income deliberately you will sink no matter
what. If you give your jobs away to foreign countries you are
rapidly going down the drain. If you stop spending on education
you slowly spiral down the drain.

Even with todays high cost of education, with massive student
debts, it's not the borrowing that is the problem, but the bad
economy which means there are no jobs for the graduates. If they
don't go to school, the only way they come out ahead is if the
economy never recoves. If the economy does recover, then they
miss out on the benefits of the education they didn't get.

Even the student loan crisis is really a crisis of cuts in
government spending. Public colleges exist to educate those who
cannot afford private colleges. Running up the costs to levels
that inflict debt on the students defeats that purpose.

Education has been a government responsibility since the
earliest days, back to colonial times.

Those rules apply to corporations as much as to people.

Hell, you see that all the time with private corporations. Even
the management publications have recognized that for decades.
Companies stop training their employees, then wonder why they
can't keep the machines running. Companies cut costs then wonder
why they can't sell their now shoddy products, or can't even
make them because they haven't maintained the factories.

I have seen that myself.

We (America) have reach and surpassed that point, thanks to
our politicians who run our country. No matter the party
they belong to, they have spent us into a debt you and I
will never see paid off in our lifetime, and I suspect far
past our grandchildrens' life times.

I suspect never, just like no past administration ever paid off
the debt. Many have paid it down, but never paid it off. What
makes you think this will be different, or should be?

Do you actually know anything about the history of the federal
debt? Anything at all? Why has it not been paid off one single
year since 1791, the earlies stats I can find? Why has it gone
down to levels as low as $38,000 in 1835, or 2.5% of GDP in
1916, then shot back up? Don't blame that on liberal policies,
this country wasn't noted for liberal economics back then, they
pretty much didn't even recognize such a thing.

That is reality, not your smoke and mirrors economics.

Unfortunately, out of the last 4 preceeding administrations,
only one tried to bring the deficits under control, Bill
Clinton. All three preceeding republican administrations just
ran up the deficits.

That should concern you. It doesn't seem to...but it should.

Your ignorance concerns me. I have posted, over and over, my
report on the growth of the debt, and I have pointed the finger
at the proven culprits, Reagan/Bush I/Bush II. Yet you still
persist in the old "Everybody's to blame" game, when that's not
true.

What's the solutiuon? Well, for one thing they can JUST
STOP SPENDING!

All that will accomplish is to send this country deeper into
another Great Depression. Your analysis is shallower than a
puddle. You have never once looked at the long term numbers for
yourself, have you? Have you ever looked at any numbers from any
source than the right wing press? Ever once looked at the
official numbers, which you can get from administrations going
back pretty much as far back as you want to go?

Or is this all a vast conspiracy going back to the founding
fathers?

Krugman was out there the other day saying that the GOP
don't really understand Obamacare.

On that Krugman is wrong. They know it damn well, it was their
plan.

Ah...I see you've gotten `the memo' from the democrat
powers-that-be! Now that Obamacare is being revealed as the
`bomb' it was from the very beginning.. .which no

Republican Romneycare enacted under Obama has turned out to work
quite well, as far as it has been implemented. The ACA has not
proven to be a bomb, what has been done so far has worked pretty
well. Remember, the computer problems are not legal problems,
but private sector business problems.

republicans voted for, by the way... and its about to fall
flat on its face, suddenly the democrats are going to try

If it was going to fail the republicans would be cheering. They
are crowing, but not cheering. That's because they know the
problem is mostly on the states that don't start up their
insurance exchanges. The ones that did tend to have working
systems. That plus, it was the private sector that setup the
websites, not the government.

Actually, I should be specific, the Tea Baggers would cheer. Way
more republicans in congress are not Tea Baggers, and really
don't want AFA to fail, or don't really care. They either just
want to smear Obama, or they want to change the law just enough
that they can claim credit for it's success.

The way things are going, democrats voted for the ACA because
they believe in it, republicans voted against it because they
eithers want to hit at Obama, or they are bought and paid for,
or they are afraid of losing elections to Tea Party funded
candidates. The Tea Party has few votes to offer, but one hell
of a lot of money behind them.

to blame the whole thing on the republicans. But thats
gonna be a little hard, because a lot of the democrats are
on record as having signed into law a behemoth of a piece
of legislation most (if not all) hadn't even read before
putting their signatures to it.

Nine hundred and six give or take pages is not that large. And
they debated it for a year.

They are afraid it will work, then they will have that
much more egg on their faces.

Question:

If its gonna `work' so well...and its gonna be so good for
all of us...how come the entire Congress (plus their
staffs) AND the guy who's name heads it, the POTUS, get an
`exemption' from the law?

Your Fox News inspired ignorance is showing. Congress and their
staff not only are not exempted, but they have the strictest
rules under the ACA of anybody in this country.

When you were not on Medicare, did you ever get insurance from
your employer? No other Americans are *REQUIRED* to use the
health exchanges, they can get insurance through their
employers, all they have to do is get a job that provides
insurance. Before the ACA all federal employees got insurance
through the federal government, just like most major companies
provide.

The ACA ended that, and required federal employees to go through
the healh insurance exchanges. No other employer in the country
has that requirement. Further, before the ACA federal employees,
including congressmen and their staffs, paid just under 30% of
the cost of their insurance, which happens to be very close to
what private sector employees pay.

The ACA forced federal employees into the exchanges, and allowed
them to keep paying just under 30% of the cost of the insurance,
*EXCEPT* for congressmen and staffs. For elected officials and
their subordinates the ACA did not say one way or the other. So
the big *EXEMPTION* the right wing spews about constantly is
nothing more than an administrative ruling that congressmen and
the people they hire for their staffs are covered by the same
rules as all other government employees.

My health insurance when I was working was about what congress
and staffers get. Maybe just a bit better.

The POTUS gets govt provided healh care directly, because he has
to have care available on a moment's notice, with no time to run
him to a hospital. That's just a matter of practicality.

William Kristol once objected to extending the CHIP program,
because, when it *DOES* work it will lead to further programs.

IOW, programs that work, and save lives, and provide treatment
for children, are considered by the right wing to be bad.

At some point, either yesterday or this morning, Henry
Waxman (who's from California) was asked by a reporter if
he'd read the 10,000-plus pages of the new so-called
affordable care act. Waxman's answer was in the form of a

The first time I looked it was less than 1000 pages.
I just downloaded copies from three different sources. With
smaller text two had 906 pages. One with larger text had 1990. I
could read any of them. It's all how you lay it out.

The `10,000' was either a mistake on my part, or something
`you're' tossing in there to confuse the issue. I just

You put it there, check your own archives. You probably believed
another lie from a right wing publication. It was a mistake on
your part, probably because some right wing sites are making
such claims.

checked and the bill in its entirety is about 2700 pages or
more long.

It's as long as the size of the type, and the width of the
margins makes it. I have a copy that is 906 pages. Downloaded it
after reading your post. Now I have four copies, including the
one I downloaded before it was passed. Do you have even one
copy?

But...don't take *my* word for it. Here's a few `quotes' on
the subject from others....

Republicans asked (almost begged) the democrats who were
pushing so strongly for passage of the bill, that they
actually `read' it before signing it.

Did you read even any of it?

John Conyers is on record (and I myself saw the video
footage of him making this statement at the time he said
it) `Read it? Why should I read it?'

He was debating it at the time, wasn't he? Give a link to the
whole discussion, not just a few words.

Conyers at a National Press Club luncheon sometime in July
of 2009:

"I love these members, they get up and say, `read the
bill'..."

"What good is reading the bill if its 1000 pages and you
don't have two days and two lawyers to find out what it
means after you read the bill?" ...John Conyers

Lawyer write the bills, but notice your quotes, supposedly from
"others" plural, but you need to go to the same person twice.

Now, understand that Conyers is himself an attorney.

And you still focus only on one member.

...

Oh and...during oral arguments? Here's what Justice Breyer
said at one point:

"I haven't read every word of that, I promise. So, what do
you propose we do other than spend a year reading all
this?" ...Justice Steven Breyer

He isn't in congress, last I heard.

Or...

"What happened to the Eighth Amendment? You really want us
to go through these 2700 pages?" (The Eighth Amendment
pertains to `cruel and unusual punishment' by the way) "And
do you really expect the court to do that?" ...Justice
Anthony Scalia

Not only is he not in congress, he is the most extreme right
wing justice on the supreme court. And it's still 906 pages. Ok,
maybe he got a large print version. Even the larger print
version I downloaded was 1990 pages.

Just to check, I opened the 906 page version. the type was
fairly small, but readable. There were very large margins. So I
increased the display size as far as 175% of the original, the
text filled the screen, all if it was visible, and it was quite
readable. And it was still 906 pages.

...

She was asked `where, specifically, in the Constitution was
it granted to Congress the authority to enact an individual
health insurance mandate'...she could only look at the
reporter with a sort of confused, dumb-founded expression
in her eyes and ask: `... are you serious?....are you
serious..." ...Nancy Pelosi

I have heard that one over and over, but can't find anything but
edited clips that don't tell the context. I can tell you, the
question is stupid. The constitution doesn't say anything about
most products manufactured today, or most services provided, but
most certainly does authorize the federal government to regulate
interstate commerce. Since health insurance is interstate
commerce, it's covered. Other than that, details can be argued,
but you have to have a specific question.

Give a link to the entire interview.

I don't support Pelosi as speaker, mostly because she isn't good
at calling out fools.

Its interesting that...although no republicans voted for
this, the democrats are now trying to make this a
`republican' bill all along! Hilarious!

What is hilarious is that you don't seem to know, it was created
by the Heritage Foundation, and promoted by the republican party
in the '90s. They oppose it because a democrat got it passed.

The basic rule stands, the republicans had 15 years to fix the
problem, they did nothing.


BOB KLAHN bob.klahn@sev.org http://home.toltbbs.com/bobklahn

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