Oh baby, Dean is first.

Dean's the guy who really started inspiring us ordinary people to do exraordinary things. Nebraska's first Democratic Caucus is tomorrow. This was just a dream and a discussion on a local blog 4 years ago. Thanks Howard, for the inspiration.

10:48 AM EST

Steve -

Good luck in Nebraska today !

improving the discourse in America:

http://www.thestar.com/News/World/article/301885

Does Obama talk the talk?

Will senator's smooth delivery spark a renaissance in political oratory? Only if he takes the White House. Lend us your ears

Feb 09, 2008 04:30 AM

David Olive
toronto star Columnist

...

If he becomes the first black head of state of a major industrial nation in November, Obama, 47, will have done it largely on the strength of oratory. He will be credited with reviving a political skill long moribund in the modern era of drive-by rhetoric.

...

What's different is that Obama satisfies a hunger for meaning among a Gen-X insurgency that is wearied by multitasking and joyless materialism. That is alienated by the pointless cultural wars and character assassination that poisoned the era of baby-boomer political leadership. And that is dumbfounded that the obvious need for communal action to cope with global warming and violent neighbourhoods is regarded by the Me Generation that came of age in the 1960s and 1970s, as a quaint relic of its youth, which ultimately fell under the sway of Gordon Gekko ideals.

Americans "are coming to the realization that something is missing," Obama said in a 2006 speech on faith renewal in Washington, D.C. "They are deciding that their work, their possessions, their diversions, their sheer busyness, is not enough. They want a sense of purpose."

...

"Obama is making visible a grassroots organizing phenomenon that has been gaining strength under the radar," Rebick says. "Obama is inspiring people who suffer a profound sense of hopelessness. And he's helping mobilize them into a mass movement, which is the only way real change happens."

Obama may yet be denied the Democratic nomination by "superdelegates," roughly 20 per cent of the total, who are appointed rather than elected delegates

...

The superdelegates, representing the core of their party's boomer establishment, are already leaning to one of their own, Hillary Clinton.

Oratory has its limits. Cicero and Demosthenes each paid with their lives in failed efforts to overturn the political status quo. And it will be Clinton's fate, should she go on to defeat John McCain in November, to have her capacity to inspire judged harshly not only in comparison to her husband, but her principal challenger for her party's nomination.

38. Previous thread 

how will an Obama presidency improve our economy?  This is clearly of highest importance to most Americans.  Tell us, please.

cC,

Here ya go!

Wages are Stagnant as Prices Rise: While wages remain flat, the costs of basic necessities are increasing. The cost of in-state college tuition has grown 35 percent over the past five years. Health care costs have risen four times faster than wages over the past six years. And the personal savings rate is now the lowest it's been since the Great Depression.

Tax Cuts for Wealthy Instead of Middle Class: The Bush tax cuts give those who earn over $1 million dollars a tax cut nearly 160 times greater than that received by middle-income Americans. At the same time, this administration has refused to tackle health care, education and housing in a manner that benefits the middle class.

Provide Middle Class Americans Tax Relief

Obama will cut income taxes by $1,000 for working families to offset the payroll tax they pay.

• Provide a Tax Cut for Working Families: Obama will restore fairness to the tax code and provide 150 million workers the tax relief they need. Obama will create a new "Making Work Pay" tax credit of up to $500 per person, or $1,000 per working family. The "Making Work Pay" tax credit will completely eliminate income taxes for 10 million Americans.
• Simplify Tax Filings for Middle Class Americans: Obama will dramatically simplify tax filings so that millions of Americans will be able to do their taxes in less than five minutes. Obama will ensure that the IRS uses the information it already gets from banks and employers to give taxpayers the option of pre-filled tax forms to verify, sign and return. Experts estimate that the Obama proposal will save Americans up to 200 million total hours of work and aggravation and up to $2 billion in tax preparer fees.

Obama believes that trade with foreign nations should strengthen the American economy and create more American jobs. He will stand firm against agreements that undermine our economic security.

• Fight for Fair Trade: Obama will fight for a trade policy that opens up foreign markets to support good American jobs. He will use trade agreements to spread good labor and environmental standards around the world and stand firm against agreements like the Central American Free Trade Agreement that fail to live up to those important benchmarks. Obama will also pressure the World Trade Organization to enforce trade agreements and stop countries from continuing unfair government subsidies to foreign exporters and nontariff barriers on U.S. exports.
• Amend the North American Free Trade Agreement: Obama believes that NAFTA and its potential were oversold to the American people. Obama will work with the leaders of Canada and Mexico to fix NAFTA so that it works for American workers.
• Improve Transition Assistance: To help all workers adapt to a rapidly changing economy, Obama would update the existing system of Trade Adjustment Assistance by extending it to service industries, creating flexible education accounts to help workers retrain, and providing retraining assistance for workers in sectors of the economy vulnerable to dislocation before they lose their jobs.

Obama will encourage the deployment of the most modern communications infrastructure to reduce the costs of health care, help solve our energy crisis, create new jobs, and fuel our economic growth.

• Support Job Creation: Barack Obama believes we need to double federal funding for basic research and make the research and development tax credit permanent to help create high-paying, secure jobs. Obama will also make long-term investments in education, training, and workforce development so that Americans can leverage our strengths - our ingenuity and entrepreneurialism - to create new high-wage jobs and prosper in a world economy.
• Invest in U.S. Manufacturing: The Obama comprehensive energy independence and climate change plan will invest in America's highly-skilled manufacturing workforce and manufacturing centers to ensure that American workers have the skills and tools they need to pioneer the first wave of green technologies that will be in high demand throughout the world. Obama will also provide assistance to the domestic auto industry to ensure that new fuel-efficient vehicles are built by American workers.
• Create New Job Training Programs for Clean Technologies: The Obama plan will increase funding for federal workforce training programs and direct these programs to incorporate green technologies training, such as advanced manufacturing and weatherization training, into their efforts to help Americans find and retain stable, high-paying jobs. Obama will also create an energy-focused youth jobs program to invest in disconnected and disadvantaged youth.
• Boost the Renewable Energy Sector and Create New Jobs: The Obama plan will create new federal policies, and expand existing ones, that have been proven to create new American jobs. Obama will create a federal Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) that will require 25 percent of American electricity be derived from renewable sources by 2025, which has the potential to create hundreds of thousands of new jobs on its own. Obama will also extend the Production Tax Credit, a credit used successfully by American farmers and investors to increase renewable energy production and create new local jobs.
• Deploy Next-Generation Broadband: Obama believes we can get broadband to every community in America through a combination of reform of the Universal Service Fund, better use of the nation's wireless spectrum, promotion of next-generation facilities, technologies and applications, and new tax and loan incentives.
• Protect the Openness of the Internet: Obama supports the basic principle that network providers should not be allowed to charge fees to privilege the content or applications of some web sites and Internet applications over others. This principle will ensure that the new competitors, especially small or nonprofit speakers, have the same opportunity as big companies to innovate and reach large audiences.
• Invest in Rural Areas: Obama will invest in rural small businesses and fight to expand high-speed Internet access. He will improve rural schools and attract more doctors to rural areas.

Obama will strengthen the ability of workers to organize unions. He will fight for passage of the Employee Free Choice Act. Obama will ensure that his labor appointees support workers' rights and will work to ban the permanent replacement of striking workers. Obama will also increase the minimum wage and index it to inflation to ensure it rises every year.

• Ensure Freedom to Unionize: Obama believes that workers should have the freedom to choose whether to join a union without harassment or intimidation from their employers. Obama cosponsored and is strong advocate for the Employee Free Choice Act, a bipartisan effort to assure that workers can exercise their right to organize. He will continue to fight for EFCA's passage and sign it into law.
• Fight Attacks on Workers' Right to Organize: Obama has fought the Bush National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) efforts to strip workers of their right to organize. He is a cosponsor of legislation to overturn the NLRB's "Kentucky River" decisions classifying hundreds of thousands of nurses, construction, and professional workers as "supervisors" who are not protected by federal labor laws.
• Protect Striking Workers: Obama supports the right of workers to bargain collectively and strike if necessary. He will work to ban the permanent replacement of striking workers, so workers can stand up for themselves without worrying about losing their livelihoods.
• Raise the Minimum Wage: Barack Obama will raise the minimum wage, index it to inflation and increase the Earned Income Tax Credit to make sure that full-time workers earn a living wage that allows them to raise their families and pay for basic needs.

Obama will crack down on fraudulent brokers and lenders. He will also make sure homebuyers have honest and complete information about their mortgage options, and he will give a tax credit to all middle-class homeowners.

• Create a Universal Mortgage Credit: Obama will create a 10 percent universal mortgage credit to provide homeowners who do not itemize tax relief. This credit will provide an average of $500 to 10 million homeowners, the majority of whom earn less than $50,000 per year.
• Ensure More Accountability in the Subprime Mortgage Industry: Obama has been closely monitoring the subprime mortgage situation for years, and introduced comprehensive legislation over a year ago to fight mortgage fraud and protect consumers against abusive lending practices. Obama's STOP FRAUD Act provides the first federal definition of mortgage fraud, increases funding for federal and state law enforcement programs, creates new criminal penalties for mortgage professionals found guilty of fraud, and requires industry insiders to report suspicious activity.
• Mandate Accurate Loan Disclosure: Obama will create a Homeowner Obligation Made Explicit (HOME) score, which will provide potential borrowers with a simplified, standardized borrower metric (similar to APR) for home mortgages. The HOME score will allow individuals to easily compare various mortgage products and understand the full cost of the loan.
• Create Fund to Help Homeowners Avoid Foreclosures: Obama will create a fund to help people refinance their mortgages and provide comprehensive supports to innocent homeowners. The fund will be partially paid for by Obama's increased penalties on lenders who act irresponsibly and commit fraud.
• Close Bankruptcy Loophole for Mortgage Companies: Obama will work to eliminate the provision that prevents bankruptcy courts from modifying an individual's mortgage payments. Obama believes that the subprime mortgage industry, which has engaged in dangerous and sometimes unscrupulous business practices, should not be shielded by outdated federal law.

Obama will establish a five-star rating system so that every consumer knows the risk involved in every credit card. He also will establish a Credit Card Bill of Rights to stop credit card companies from exploiting consumers with unfair practices.

• Create a Credit Card Rating System to Improve Disclosure: Obama will create a credit card rating system, modeled on five-star systems used for other consumer products, to provide consumers an easily identifiable ranking of credit cards, based on the card's features. Credit card companies will be required to display the rating on all application and contract materials, enabling consumers to quickly understand all of the major provisions of a credit card without having to rely exclusively on fine print in lengthy documents.
• Establish a Credit Card Bill of Rights to Protect Consumers: Obama will create a Credit Card Bill of Rights to protect consumers. The Obama plan will:
  • Ban Unilateral Changes
  • Apply Interest Rate Increases Only to Future Debt
  • Prohibit Interest on Fees
  • Prohibit "Universal Defaults"
  • Require Prompt and Fair Crediting of Cardholder Payments

Obama will reform our bankruptcy laws to protect working people, ban executive bonuses for bankrupt companies, and require disclosure of all pension investments.

• Cap Outlandish Interest Rates on Payday Loans and Improve Disclosure: Obama supports extending a 36 percent interest cap to all Americans. Obama will require lenders to provide clear and simplified information about loan fees, payments and penalties, which is why he'll require lenders to provide this information during the application process.
• Encourage Responsible Lending Institutions to Make Small Consumer Loans: Obama will encourage banks, credit unions and Community Development Financial Institutions to provide affordable short-term and small-dollar loans and to drive unscrupulous lenders out of business.
• Reform Bankruptcy Laws to Protect Families Facing a Medical Crisis: Obama will create an exemption in bankruptcy law for individuals who can prove they filed for bankruptcy because of medical expenses. This exemption will create a process that forgives the debt and lets the individuals get back on their feet.

Obama will double funding for after-school programs, expand the Family Medical Leave Act, provide low-income families with a refundable tax credit to help with their child-care expenses, and encourage flexible work schedules.

• Expand the Family and Medical Leave Act: The FMLA covers only certain employees of employers with 50 or more employees. Obama will expand it to cover businesses with 25 or more employees. He will expand the FMLA to cover more purposes as well, including allowing workers to take leave for elder care needs; allowing parents up to 24 hours of leave each year to participate in their children's academic activities; and expanding FMLA to cover leave for employees to address domestic violence.
• Encourage States to Adopt Paid Leave: As president, Obama will initiate a strategy to encourage all 50 states to adopt paid-leave systems. Obama will provide a $1.5 billion fund to assist states with start-up costs and to help states offset the costs for employees and employers.
• Expand High-Quality Afterschool Opportunities: Obama will double funding for the main federal support for afterschool programs, the 21st Century Learning Centers program, to serve a million more children. Obama will include measures to maximize performance and effectiveness across grantees nationwide.
• Expand the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit: The Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit provides too little relief to families that struggle to afford child care expenses. Obama will reform the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit by making it refundable and allowing low-income families to receive up to a 50 percent credit for their child care expenses.
• Protect Against Caregiver Discrimination: Workers with family obligations often are discriminated against in the workplace. Obama will enforce the recently-enacted Equal Employment Opportunity Commission guidelines on caregiver discrimination.
• Expand Flexible Work Arrangements: Obama will create a program to inform businesses about the benefits of flexible work schedules; help businesses create flexible work opportunities; and increase federal incentives for telecommuting. Obama will also make the federal government a model employer in terms of adopting flexible work schedules and permitting employees to request flexible arrangements.

• Housing: In the U.S. Senate, Obama introduced the STOP FRAUD Act to increase penalties for mortgage fraud and provide more protections for low-income homebuyers, well before the current subprime crisis began.
• Predatory Lending: In the Illinois State Senate, Obama called attention to predatory lending issues. Obama sponsored legislation to combat predatory payday loans, and he also was credited with lobbied the state to more closely regulate some of the most egregious predatory lending practices.
• American Jobs: Barack Obama introduced the Patriot Employer Act of 2007 to provide a tax credit to companies that maintain or increase the number of full-time workers in America relative to those outside the US; maintain their corporate headquarters in America; pay decent wages; prepare workers for retirement; provide health insurance; and support employees who serve in the military.

(Or for easier reading of the entire plan)

http://www.barackobama.com/issues/economy/

Joan in Florida, thanks a million times for that summary on the previous thread.

I support all of it and particularly love everything starting at the Universal Mortgage Credit and below that.  I've copied and saved that summary.  Well done!

"That is alienated by the pointless cultural wars and character assassination that poisoned the era of baby-boomer political leadership."<<<<<<<

Yet, you continue to do just that rdorgan. 

5.

If he becomes the first black head of state of a major industrial nation in November, Obama, 47, will have done it largely on the strength of oratory.

rd

I don't agree with Mr. Olive's view about the oratory. I think that view slights Obama a great deal.

While Obama is without a doubt an excellent speaker, that isn't what attracted me and spouse to his campaign. It is about far more than that -- the issues, his plans, his age, his smart wife, his own intelligence, and many other pluses I weighed against the other candidates as the campaigns went along.

The Nation endorses Obama

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/02/08/opinion/main3807653.shtml

Obama Coalition Grows Stronger

The Nation: With His 'Grassroots Politics,' The Democratic Hopeful Gains New Support

Feb. 9, 2008

This column was written by the editors of The Nation

As this year's front-loaded primary calendar took shape, capped off with the February 5 Super-Mega-Duper Tuesday, many voters once again resigned themselves to watching from the sidelines as a few early states got the privilege of choosing the party's nominee. Yet despite a schedule tailor-made to benefit the establishment candidate and confer an early victory, we are, somewhat miraculously, in the midst of the most contested primary race in twenty-four years. We are all Iowans now.

This state of affairs is thanks almost entirely to the campaign of Barack Obama, who, because of his background and his relatively brief time in the national spotlight, is a truly improbable contender for the presidency. This magazine has been critical of the senator from Illinois for his closeness to Wall Street; his unwillingness to lay out an ambitious progressive agenda on healthcare, housing and other domestic policy issues; and for post partisan rhetoric that seems to ignore the manifest failure of conservatism over these past seven years. But as Christopher Hayes argued in our cover story last week, Obama has also exhibited a more humane and wise approach to foreign policy, opposing the Iraq War while Hillary Clinton voted for it, and has been a reliable progressive ally over the course of his career. While his rhetoric about "unity" can be troubling, it also embodies a savvy strategy to redefine the center of American politics and build a coalition by reaching out to independent and Republican voters disgruntled and disgusted with what the Bush era has wrought. Most important, we feel his candidacy, in its demonstrated investment in organizing and grassroots activism as well as his personal appeal, represents the best chance to forge a new progressive majority. For these reasons we support Obama for President.

,,,

Obey endorses Obama:

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/thebeat?bid=1&pid=282335

BLOG | Posted 02/08/2008 @ 1:36pm 

Edwards Primary: A Key Win For Obama

David Obey really did want to vote for John Edwards for president.

In fact, aside from the former candidate himself, there could be few better barometers than the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee for defining where "the Edwards vote" is headed now that his backers must choose between New York Senator Hillary Clinton and Illinois Senator Barack Obama.

And Obey has made that choice.

"For eight long years, in extreme partisanship, George W. Bush has governed this country by dividing it," the senior Democrat from Wisconsin explained in an email sent to this reporter after we spoke about the race Thursday. "(Bush) has pursued disastrous foreign and domestic policies and has stubbornly refused to listen to anyone's views except those who march in lockstep with him. America desperately needs a new president who can reach across old barriers to form new alliances that can produce a new era of optimism and a healthier respect for the needs of others. I had originally supported John Edwards for President, but with his withdrawal I am voting for Barack Obama."

...

Ok, that's enough chicken sh!t from me today I guess.

ciao

7.

You're more than welcome cC.

Sorry it took up so much space here, but who am I to omit items that may be important to someone else.

Obama's website is every bit as extensive (almost) as Dean's was except Obama's doesn't list endorsements, schedules, etc. though I wish it did.

Joan, I really like the "Jobs Creation" component.  I've believed in this solution for 15-20 yrs now. 

One disturbing trend in our economy is that for about the last 25 years it is constructed such that boom times are created by the encouragement of spending...Fed rate cuts=cheaper cost of borrowing.

For how many years have Americans been enticed by 0% financing on new cars...this was the basis of the subprime lending..."hey, buy this house with nothing down".... 

Americans are encouraged to spend vs. save and invest.  We need a public works program.  I'd also like to see mandatory at the high school level, education about investing.  This is something that alludes the middle class.  We are not taught about this unless you are a business or finance major in college.  The wealthy classes "learn" it because they inherit wealth and money management at the investment level, i.e., making money on your money vs. earned (your job).

The $$$ that will flow from Bushie's rebates will likely flow right out of this country and into China's economy as most of it will be spent at the local Wal-Mart....most Wal-Mart goods being produced in China. 

Ok, that's enough chicken sh!t from me today I guess.<<<<<<

Speaking for myself:  I'll enjoy the break. 

The wealthy classes "learn" it because they inherit wealth and money management at the investment level, i.e., making money on your money vs. earned (your job).<<<

s/b 

The wealthy classes "learn" it because they inherit wealth and money management at the investment level, i.e., making money on your money vs. earned (your job) becomes a part of their lives, so to speak.<<<

In the first such program in California, and perhaps the United States, Bay Area air pollution regulators are proposing to charge an annual fee to thousands of businesses based on the amount of greenhouse gases they emit.

The fee - 4.2 cents per metric ton of carbon dioxide - would affect everything from oil refineries to power plants, and landfills, factories and small businesses like restaurants and bakeries.

The largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the Bay Area, the Shell oil refinery in Martinez, would pay $186,475 a year for its 4.4 million annual metric tons of emissions. The largest emitter in Santa Clara County, the Hanson Permanente Cement Plant in Cupertino, would pay $44,507 a year for its 1.05 million tons.
After years of voluntary measures, the fees, proposed this week by the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, set a precedent as the first time that businesses and government agencies would face financial consequences for contributing to global warming. If successful, the fees could be copied all over the state and country, perhaps ultimately at much higher prices.

http://www.mercurynews.com/greenenergy/c...

The last thing we need in the tax code is an increase in the percentage of people that contribute nothing to the system.  That percentage has been increasing for 20 years.  Even the Bush tax cuts eliminated ANY federal tax liability for thousands through the child tax creidt and an increase in the EITC.  You can not base a tax system where there are more tax payors that make no contribution to the pie.  Eventually the payors in such a system will revolt.  Everyone should contribute something.  Even if it is $10.  The current system with EITC is you can get a refund of more than you paid in during the year.  It is a negative tax rate.  And BO plan is to increase those numbers.  That is a poor idea from a societal view.  Everyone should feel a stake in the government and the obligation to make some contribution towards the pie that is then doled back out.

David Reither performed yeoman's work several weeks ago when he posted a relatively concise comparison of the respective policy positions of the three major Democratic candidates.  What became apparent was that the policy differences were so minor as to make a vote based strictly on them more an academic exercise than anything else.

I don't happen to agree but if it is deemed beneficial that posts here be white paper analyses of the candidates' proposals, rather than rational, emotional or strategic arguments for electing them president, fine.  It helps promote David's service to the blog.

Obama's proposals on the Economy

-Elimination of taxes on seniors with income less than $50,000

-Eliminate capital gains taxes on start-up businesses

-Close tax loopholes for offshore tax havens and enforce tax penalties

-Increase federal investments into transitional jobs

-Raise the minimum wage, index it to inflation and increase the Earned Income Tax Credit

-Provide specific tax assistance and loan guarantees to the domestic auto industry to ensure that new fuel-efficient cars and trucks are build in the U.S. with American workers.

-Expand the Small Business Administration's loan and micro-loan programs which provide start-up and long-term financing that small firms cannot receive through normal channels.

-Supports a trade policy that ensures our goods and services are treated fairly in foreign

markets and promote improved labor and environmental practices

-Reach out to China, EU, and other nations to help rebalance the US trade deficit

The Environment

-Proceeds from the cap-and-trade auction program will be invested in job training and transition programs to help workers and industries adapt to clean technology development and production.

-Invest $150 billion over 10 years to advance the next generation of biofuels and fuel infrastructure.

-Double science and research funding for clean energy projects including those that make use of our biomass, solar and wind resources.

-Invest $50Billion to create a Clean Technologies Venture Capital Fund to fill a critical gap in U.S. technology development.

-Establish a 25 percent federal Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) to require that 25 percent of electricity consumed in the U.S. is derived from clean, sustainable energy sources.

-Double fuel economy standards within 18 years.

-Re-Engage with the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change.

-Invest $150 billion over 10 years to advance the next generation of biofuels and fuel infrastructure, accelerate the commercialization of plug-in hybrids, promote development of commercial-scale renewable energy, invest in low-emissions coal plants, and begin the transition to a new digital electricity grid.

Health Care

-Create a new national health plan for all Americans, including the self-employed and small businesses, to buy affordable health coverage that is similar to the plan available to members of Congress

- Participants in the new public plan and the National Health Insurance Exchange (see below) will be able to move from job to job without changing or jeopardizing their health care coverage.

-Participating insurance companies in the new public program will be required to report data to ensure that standards for quality, health information technology and administration are being met.

-Creation of a National Health Insurance Exchange to act as a watchdog group and help reform the private insurance market by creating rules and standards for participating insurance plans to ensure fairness and to make individual coverage more affordable and accessible.

-Employers that do not offer or make a meaningful contribution to the cost of quality health coverage for their employees will be required to contribute a percentage of payroll toward the costs of the national plan.

-Require that all children have health care coverage.

-Health plans will be required to disclose the percentage of premiums that go to patient care as opposed to administrative costs.

-Provide rewards for achieving performance thresholds on outcome measures as opposed to volume of services.

-Repeal the ban that prevents the government from negotiating with drug companies and allow Americans to buy their medicines from other developed countries if the drugs are safe.

National Defense and Foreign Policy

-Launch an aggressive diplomatic effort to reach a new compact on the stability of Iraq and the Middle East.—the aim of the compact will be to secure Iraq's borders; keep neighboring countries from meddling inside Iraq; isolate al Qaeda; support reconciliation among Iraq's sectarian groups; and provide financial support for Iraq's reconstruction.

-Conduct direct presidential diplomacy with Iran without preconditions. If Iran continues its troubling behavior, he will step up economic pressure and political isolation of Iran.

-Make a sustained push – working with Israelis and Palestinians – to achieve the goal of two states, a Jewish state in Israel and a Palestinian state, living side by side in peace and security.

-Obama will negotiate a verifiable global ban on the production of new nuclear weapons material to deny terrorists the ability to steal or buy loose nuclear materials.

-Stop the development of new nuclear weapons; work with Russia to take U.S. and Russian ballistic missiles off hair trigger alert; seek dramatic reductions in U.S. and Russian stockpiles of nuclear weapons and material; and set a goal to expand the U.S.-Russian ban on intermediate- range missiles so that the agreement is global.

-Give our troops new equipment, armor, training, and skills--increase the size of ground forces, adding 65,000 soldiers to the Army and 27,000 Marines.

-Establish guidelines for tracking, controlling, and accounting for spent fuel at nuclear power plants.

-Push legislation to legislation to provide $37.5 million over 5 years for drinking water systems to upgrade their monitoring and security efforts.

Government Accountability

-Create a centralized Internet database of lobbying reports, ethics records, and campaign finance filings in a searchable, sortable and downloadable format.

-Fight for an independent watchdog agency to oversee the investigation of congressional ethics violations.

-Promote public financing of campaigns combined with free television and radio time as a way to reduce the influence of moneyed special interests.

-Create a "contracts and influence" database that will disclose how much federal contractors spend on lobbying, and what contracts they are getting and how well they complete them.

-Ensure that any tax breaks for corporate recipients — or tax earmarks — are also publicly available on the Internet in an easily searchable format.

-Require that nearly all contract orders over $25,000 be competitively awarded.

-Will not sign any non-emergency bill without giving the American public an opportunity to review and comment on the White House website for five days.

-Will amend executive orders to ensure that communications about regulatory policymaking between persons outside government and all White House staff are disclosed to the public.

-Require his appointees who lead the executive branch departments and rulemaking agencies to conduct the significant business of the agency in public, so that any citizen can see in person or watch on the Internet these debates.

Reither is really Reiter.  Sorry David.

Quick comment then off to workshop.

Last night, can't remember if it was Bill Moyers' Journal or NOW, but a couple who was losing their house, the man had lost his job, and there were medical problems remarked that they were voting Republican because of the abortion issue.

We have a high drop out rate, high school education is insufficient, and the trend in education has been testing and process.  People can't make a living digging ditches to quote my father, and no, the old GM on the assembly line decent wage, middle class living isn't going to come back, at least not in the numbers of the 50s.  Obama addresses this.  No other candidate did in the detail he gives in his book.

A high school education isn't enough, sound bytes are not enough, group think will sink us, going shopping (according to the latest article) is a cure for depression, or so-called cure.  Somehow we have to learn to think again as a society, to discuss intelligently, to demand substance and a record of accomplishments from our candidates.  We can't afford stupid, at least not in the numbers we presently have it.

So, while that couple has my sympathy, I want to say, where were you to think that you didn't have to learn anything, that someone was going to take care of you, and you don't even have the base knowledge to know that you are voiting against your own survival interests? The Republicans won't do anything for you. They think that the free market will take care of those who deserve to survive, and if the rest don't well, that's too bad.  

Stupid will sink us, I think.

Growl, obviously I'm on a tear, so will tear myself away.  Again, thanks for posting good information and good discussion, mostly. 

Matt wrote "That is a poor idea from a societal view.  Everyone should feel a stake in the government and the obligation to make some contribution towards the pie that is then doled back out."

I actually agree with you, to the extent that there needs to be a recognition that government services and programs are specifically designed to benefit American citizens as a whole.  However, I would add that the disproportionate and deeply stratified divisions of wealth, exacerbated by the influence of money on politics and the aggrandizement of wealth, are reasons that a tax surcharge, or escalator, should be added to the tax bills of the upper 10% or so of all tax payers.

In a discussion with Mark Lewis at Forbes.com in 2004, David Cay Johnston helped describe why the tax code should address the division in wealth distribution among taxpayers in order, ultimately, to make tax obligations more fair:

"The tax system should be encouraging prosperity and wealth, and making sure those are as widespread as possible. But what the government's data show is that we are taxing away the ability of the middle class to save, and damaging their prosperity. And by radically lowering the effective tax rates of the highest-income Americans, we are concentrating wealth and income very, very, very narrowly.

"In 1970, the top 1/100th of 1% of Americans had about 1% of the income. And the bottom third of Americans had more than 10% of the income. Now, they're equal. Just 27,000 people have as much income as the bottom 96 million Americans, who in real terms have less income today than in 1970. And the number of people it takes today to account for 1% of all income? In 1970 it was more than 20,000 people. Today it's less than 400."

12:21 pm EST 

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