what's your opinion about Obama job plan?

I thought it was a good idea, Except that we have to spend over a trillion dollars for it and Obama is not trustworthy anymore. Also tell me what you think about the proposal for no taxes for corporations in America.

 

I just spent 10 minutes looking for the bill. I can find commentary on the bill, but not the bill itself.

Won't comment on the bill till I read it.

Found it - all 200 pages.

 

The plan is horrible. It violates state sovereignty. It should be called the federal power grab bill. The states need to stop accepting federal funds or they will give up their soveriegnty to the leviathan that cares more for political cronyism than ethics and the Constitution.

If anyone recognized by the federal government can sue a state, we are going to see a mass of lawsuits by illegals who shouldn't have any rights here in the first place, other than the right to be returned to their home country on the taxpayers' dime.

 

IMO, the Obama jobs bill is hard to comment on in its entirety and instead has to be looked at in parts. There are parts of the bill that should be very succesful in jump starting our economy and encouraging some comapnies to hire. For example, lowering payroll taxes in a way that particularly helps small to mid-size companies should be popular with both parties.

Other parts of the bill, however, are not as obvious and should be debated individually. For example, giving people a social security tax cut makes sense if and only if those same people will actually invest that saved money in the economy and not merely save it.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, exactly how the expenses of the bill will be paid for should be openly debated, without each side exaggerating - the dems should not exaggerate and say that paying for it will be easy and the repubs should not go too far in saying paying for it will be impossible.

 

http://www.whitehouse.gov/jobsact#overview

This link should take you to the jobs bill.

 

For starters, it's the standard liberal tax and spend plan.

The bill includes a provision to please the trial lawyers by making ilawsuits possible if an unemployed person isn't hired. That should bring in some campaign money.

 

Federal spending is a good thing, tax cuts are not.

 

You want to add $500B to the $1.4T in "stimulus" (deficit spending is stimulus spending).

Why not print $20T, pay off the debt and give everyone a shovel ready job with a livable wage?

 

The stimulus was a drop in the bucket. It needed to be at least twice as large and over a shorter period of time. What's more, a large portion of that went to states that just used it to pay off debt (or offset debt payments), not actual stimuluating activity. So yes, I'd be fine with another $500B in spending, or more.

And no, not all deficit spending is 'stimulus' spending. Every dime spent on military spending is not stimulus spending. Every shell every missile, every tank is a negative drain on the economy. Yes, it creates jobs, but it creates less jobs than spending that on productive activities would. Medicare spending is not stimulus spending. That's paying for nonproductive people at the end of their life to extend it a little further. Maybe it's worthwhile, but that's not stimulus spending. Every dollar sent to states who use that to offset debt payments--that's not stimulus spending.

There is no reason for us to be thinking about the debt and deficit right now. We've got plenty of credit, we need to stimulate the economy, and deficit spending is the most effective way to do that. The time for deficit talks was five years ago. We need to spend now, pay it back once the economy recovers.

Why print money? Just borrow it. We've got more credit than we know what to do with.

 

How much more?

If more is better is there any reason to not spend $20T?

The government doesn't spend money on productive activities, if it was productive, the public sector would be investing in it.

How is building ammunition and tanks a negative? Someone is hired and does a job, that money them bounces around the local economy.

What productive comes from repairing a bridge or school. If it ain't broke, fixing it doesn't change it's productivity.

Which makes me wonder, where all the fuel tax money went, being it didn't maintain highway infrastructure. Where did the state and local tax money go that was raised "for the schools"?

During a war, maybe.

But, all the deficit spending has increased real inflation (not the government published crap minus fuel and food indeed) which has increased the level of poverty in this country.

Have you seen the rest of the world, who are we going to borrow from, Greece?

The gooberment is borrowing 40% of what it is spending. Do you expect the economy to grow enough to drop that to zero? There isn't enough rich to tax it to zero.

We will have to cut spending sometime in the future, due to sanity, or due to no more credit (my prediction is the latter). Then when we finally decide to pay off the debt, we have to cut even more. All this falls on to future generations.

Gee, we are already giving the kids climate catastrophes, why not crushing debt? We don't want them to have any money to fix the climate no do we?

 

It's arguing with generlaities that generally makes both sides right...and both sides wrong.

No, simply having a bigger stimulus package might not have been the answer if the package contained the wrong stuff, so one side of the general argument is right. But yes, having a bigger stimulus package that contained the right kind of stimulus, including more tax cuts for small and mid-sized business might have been, so the other side of the general argument is right too.

I believe that a larger stimulus package was needed, but I don't believe that it should have been a larger version of the one that we got and instead should have been anlarged with more business tax cuts, consumer tax credits, business repatriation credits, substantial hiring credits that included breaks on unemployment expenses if the economy faltered, etc.

 

I really don't think this plan will work because even if we make a lot of jobs, the money is still going oversea. What we need to do is upstart American manufacturing again. The reason we do not have any job any more is because it is shipping oversee or go to Mexico.

 

It contains all the tax increases Dems want and nothing to help the people. The payroll deduction lowers the amount paid to Social Security,and the rest mean nothing, since there is no demand that would spur hiring. No sane businessman is going to hire people he doesn't need simply to get a tax break. As for infrastructure,wasn't the first "stimulus" bill supposed to do that? It's a bill that was never supposed to be passed. It was simply a campaign speech designed to be used as an excuse to run against Congress next year.

 

They want to rob from one account to fund another, "to the extent possible," which seems to be code words for it will be lock boxed "in a pigs eye," and they want this to be seen as a welfare program.

"(e) TRANSFERS OF FUNDS.--

(1) Transfers to federal old-age and survivors insurance trust fund.—There are hereby appropriated to the Federal Old-Age and Survivors Trust Fund and the Federal Disability Insurance Trust Fund established under section 201 of the Social Security Act (42 U.S.C. 401) amounts equal to the reduction in revenues to the Treasury by reason of the application of subsections (a)
and (b) to employers other than those described in (e)(2). Amounts appropriated by the preceding sentence shall be transferred from the general fund at such times and in such manner as to replicate to the extent possible the transfers which would have occurred to such Trust Fund had such amendments not been enacted." (American Jobs Act of 2011)

Still reading it:
"The limitation would affect itemized deductions and certain other tax expenditures that would otherwise reduce taxable income in the 36 or 39.6 percent tax brackets." (American Jobs Act of 2011)

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They could probably accomplish more American jobs by lowering corporate income tax and some capital gains taxes and substituting enough impost taxes to be revenue neutral. It seems Libertarians in the Tea Party no longer like those impost taxes that this country relied upon up to the first Income tax, and prefer taxing our consumption with a so-called "Fair Tax" on everything we drink which favors foreign regimes.

Repeatedly on the Foxy Blonde Legs Channel they have said that people that have the wealth to invest are not investing because they fear higher taxes in the future.

Raising income taxes only makes the investor invest if they must expand and produce to create more income to pay their other taxes and break even; for the most part the rich can just live more frugally and not buy the Biltmore House and Gardens, and wait Obama out.

If their income taxes go up, and stay up, the investor can still just raise their income by transferring more jobs overseas, because there is nothing whatsoever to make it less lucrative for Congressperson Something An Causmiss to use a Indian Call center to tout Obama's Health Care program.

 

Unfortunately, the government can't create jobs in any way that is useful to the economy. The government is a net spender of wealth, not a creator of wealth. So this bill is politics, not economics. Since I view politics as humanity at its worst, I view this bill as terrible. I view most of them the same way. Perhaps the best way to help the economy would be to give Congress a year off.

 

"plans" kill jobs

 

Unfortunately, the government can, and does, create jobs that harm the economy.

We will create far more private sector jobs by reducing public sector employment.

This can't be left up to politicians. Look at the states, do they eliminate regulators, or teachers, police, and library staff.

Case in point. When the tea party tried to cut the deficit by $100B, the Democrats went on like they were taking schooll children out to be shot - and they did show granny being pushed off a cliff. Of course the Republicans would howl if the military or security organizations were downsized.

Those aren't the most harmful departments in government, but neither party will even discuss gutting them - that is where their "campaign contributions' come from.

 

No wonder the Democrats (Some Democrats. The Blue Dogs would have gone along.) screamed. The **********s wanted to make cuts in everything for people but nothing for corporations or the rich.

 

That isn't required.

The government spends money on productive activities all the time. The economy wouldn't function without government money. Literally, our economy would grind to a halt. Businesses would have no idea what to do, and investors would panic. The private sector only exists because the public sector encourages it.

It's only slightly better than paying people to break windows to make jobs for glassmakers. Or paying people to dig ditches so they can hire someone else to fill it back in. Weapons are not productive output, especially if you don't intend to start a war and sell them to other people. Every tank we make that sits in an army base somewhere--or, worse yet, kills a potential customer--represents millions of dollars wasted. We could have spent the money we spent on that tank to, say, build a factory, that would itself contribute to further productive output.

Effective, efficient defense spending is a matter of spending only as much as required to convince other people not to attack you. Anything else is a waste.

A bridge gives the ability to transport material goods or finished products across otherwise impassable obstacles. It is investment that private companies will rarely make without prohibitively high tolls, but which provide huge benefits to the citizens and to business as a whole. Schools work the same way--no business would spend the money to create a school just to train its own employees... but there is huge value that comes from a broadly educated workforce.

It affects risk. Our infrastructure is in critically poor condition as it stands. We're literally staring at trillions of dollars that need to be spent to repair aging infrastructure--to say nothing of actually expanding our infrastructure to accommodate 300 million people, rather than the 150 million who lived here when much of that infrastructure was designed and built.

The private sector will never do it. The individual benefits for a business will never outweigh the cost they would incur to take it upon themselves to build the infrastructure. And they won't cooperate enough to make such a venture work.

Irrelevant.

During a depression. War is inherently nonproductive.

Inflation has very little to do with the poverty in this country. The real cause of poverty in the US is the class warfare waged by the rich against the poor. Virtually all GDP growth over the last 30 years has gone to the top, not the bottom. Wages don't increase with GDP--inflation is the only reason that people earn more dollars today than they did in 1980.

What makes you think our debt is financed primarily by other governments? The economic troubles in Europe have sent people flocking to US treasury bonds, despite the downgrade.

Even at 2% growth that would happen eventually. Rase taxes some, spend on credit, and let the economy grow itself out of the deficits. There is literally no other way out of our debt. We will never get out of debt with tax cuts and spending cuts. It's flat out not possible. If we cut government spending, it will just diminish the private sector by more than we cut. In other words, tax revenue would go down more than the value of the spending cut.

When every dollar spent on a government program generates 1.3 dollars in the private sector, cutting spending for that program will not reduce the deficit. We have very few actual targets for spending cuts that would help the deficit, and Republicans don't talk about cutting any of them. Clearly the problem is the historically low tax rate and chronic under taxation of the American people. We're simply not paying enough in taxes to fund a modern society and economy. The Chinese are going to beat us mainly because they are willing to pay to finance their society.

That's not actually true. The Republican numbers with regard to that claim are very fishy.

Now, however, is not the time to do so. Saying that our debt will eventually be a problem is a bit like a doctor saying that everyone's eventually going to die, so he might as well recommend immediate suicide for his patients. We've got at least 20 years before the debt will be a problem. Let's not make the problem worse by hasty and irrational spending cuts during a recession.

People say that raising taxes during a recession is a bad thing... well, cutting government spending during a recession is an even worse idea. That's basically saying that the buyer of last resort is going to bow out of the game and let the economy stagnate and fester.

The relative impact of cutting government spending during an economic boom is much lower than the relative impact of cutting government spending when it's the only thing keeping us from falling into a deflationary spiral. If the government cuts spending now, we will not get out of this economic crisis within the next decade.

 

I think they are talking about cuts in government spending. People and corporations aren't government spending.

 

My opinion is it's another tax bill that provides govt with more control and more of OUR hard earned money. It's a fraud.

Mr. Obama is one big FAIL.

 

A better argument would be to state what is required and why

This is nonsense and you know it. I think the problem relates to how you define productive. While a lot of government activites are productive, none of them create wealth. Only the private sector creates wealth. The government spends it. I'm not suggesting that's bad. I'm simply helping with definitions.

What is interesting here is that most of the liberals with whom I communicate state that it was government spending on WWII that ended the Great Depression. While I don't interpret the facts that way, most liberals do. For them, at least, tanks would be productive indeed.

I can see you didn't graduate from the War College. Actually, in order to convince people not to attack you, you need to have enough military to finish the job - any job.

In other words, there is a role for government. Seems pretty obvious to me.

I'm not entirely convinced about this mostly because it is the media and the government that claims it. I put little faith in what the government says and none in what the media says whenever it is dealing with a political issue. I don't think the infrastructure is all that bad. But I don't know and I submit you don't either.

The purpose of business is to continue to exist. In order to do that it has to make a profit. In order to make a profit it must control expenses. Infrastructure is one of the roles of government, not business. Nothing new here.

It does for those on a fixed income.

No, the rich have no reason to war against the rich. This sounds like leftist propaganda. I think you might need to be more specific.

Sounds interesting but it isn't true. It isn't even close to true. What is true is that the rich have become richer. So have the middle class.

Because China is the largest holder of Treasury bonds and Japan is second?

Government does not create wealth. It is a net spender of wealth. It is not possible for government spending to help the economy for that reason. Government spending has never helped an economy anywhere - ever. The government is part of the economy. It is government spending that diminishes the private sector because the private sector pays for it. This is common sense. Think it through.

Complete nonsense. Sorry, the economists you read need to be fired. If this were true then economy would grow along with government spending. It has not, does not and never will. It grows despite government spending.

Apparently we need a review of terminology. The defecit is the amount of money the governmen spends above and beyond what it takes in. If the spending on a program is reduced, the deficit is reduced by definition. How can it be otherwise without redefining deficit?

Sounds like you are a recipient of tax dollars rather than a contributor to them. Are you saying that the Chinese government will tax their people more than we do per capita?

I think you need to do less repeating of political propaganda and more thinking. Any head of a family understands the issues relating to spending, cost control and debt. There is no difference at all in how these things impact a business or a government. It is that simple. Think it through. The people who want more government spending are those who either spend it for political power or receive it. Think it through.

 

So am I (talking about cuts in government spending).

Cuts to Medicare while maintaining the high end tax cuts and corporate welfare is taking from the people and giving to corporations.

 

Much of what you said I disagree with.

The rich have become richer. But the middle class? If you define middle class as average income earners, no. They have seen their purchasing power decline since 1974.

Government spending has helped an economy. Here. Those who claim that it was WWII that ended the great depression are those who share the mind set of those fought FDR when he used government spending to finally end the depression.

We built Hoover dam, the Golden Gate Bridge, etc. during the depression. This put men to work and groceries on the table.

Now we are giving tax breaks to the only people and companies who are making any money.

This ain't gonna work.

Unless the aim is to allow the economic elite to suck us dry.

 

The problem in my view is that the government is too big and spends too much. Giving it even more to spend makes zero sense to me. Unlike you, I understand that government spending doesn't fix anything. If you want to redistribute wealth then I recommend finding a way to do it without the government. Giving money to the government is akin to flushing it down a toilet in my view. You're all tied up in class envy. I just want a smaller, cheaper, more streamlined government.