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Obamanomics...self serving corporate welfare

Started 10 months ago by kootchman
Latest reply from kootchman

kootchman
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Post Obama ...after bailing out GM...and the unions, .. GM announces it will produce 100,000 VOLTS.... whew...Boy if that doesn't gin up the base!! They sold a whopping 292 units in Feb.. The utter Corporate Welfare Queen is GE. watch the bottom of card deck folks.. To make the newly reformed Obama Motors have a chance... TAX CREDITS... Now GE has lots and lots and lots of windmills to sell...and they want tax incentives. Wind is not cost effective without them.. So GE's CEO Immell, joins the Obama's Economic Advisory Board...chairs it in fact..drinks the Kool Aid and joins the parade. . gotta get those credits for expensive, unreliable wind power... but it gets even better....Immell announces that GE will buy 50,000 .. or half of the total production. Add the $ 7500 tax credit..and talk about corporate loopholes...GE will tax a tax credit for... 375,000,000 ... for a car which no one else will buy. A car which Consumer Report says about 40 mile range..before it goes into gas mode and get about he same mpg as a Ford Taurus..all for a list price of 40K.. Is this the audacity of hope? The union gets paid off, GE gets paid off for supporting Obama Motors, and the heretofore disillusioned base gets a fantasy pay off... isn't this corporate welfare? No.. it's a trifecta.. union, corporate, and political welfare... BUT not to worry.. anyone making 250K will pick up the tab... Government knows best

Posted 10 months ago #
Genesee Hill
Member Profile

Yo, kootch. Simple reply: ... How do you like them apples? ...

Posted 10 months ago #
Jiggers
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Is kootchaman hooper as well..?

Posted 10 months ago #
charlabob
Member Profile

No, I'm sorry to tell you there can be more than one. :-)

Posted 10 months ago #
chrisma
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Kootch, were you asleep or out of the country through Reagan, Bush, Clinton and W., that you somehow believe that corporate welfare started in 2008 when Obama was elected?

Posted 10 months ago #
kootchman
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Ummm Chrisma... Bush did it, Bush did it, Bush did it... is that all you say or see. Is that the campaign theme of 2012...? Sorry, BHO he has the helm and has accomplished little. The current President just went on national TV and excoriated "corporate welfare" "tax loopholes" etc.. Obama is current and topical... now...he just did exactly the same thing Obama blamed the republicans for.. a very very confused or duplicitous man...take your pick. GH.. he just shoveled a load of corporate coca up the nose of GM and GE. same old same old...

Posted 10 months ago #
kootchman
Member Profile

How far back ya wanna go? FDR, Woodrow Wilson, Teddy Roosevelt, Adam or Eve.. Influence peddling is as old as the republic... the public debt burden and debt limits have been raised by congress since Woodrow Wilson. an unbroken chain. Let's not pretend this is a republican issue. It's a national issue and stop pretending Obama is not doing the same.

Posted 10 months ago #
chrisma
Member Profile

@kootch: actually I said Reagan did it, but perhaps you missed that post. And, I'm not campaigning for anyone here. I said corporate welfare existed long before Obama took the oath of office; he didn't invent it by any means. It seems as if conservatives, having been blind to corporate welfare and state sponsored grift for the last decade, suddenly got their sight back in January 2008.

Any insights into where the $12,000,000,000 (yes that's billion) in cash sent to Iraq went?

Posted 10 months ago #
JanS
Member Profile

Kman...why are you so bound and determined to erase what GWB from history. I agree things are not what they should be, but, damn, it didn't start with Obama, and you well know it. I think you're just commenting to stir things up. But...that's just an opinion of mine, and what you stated is an opinion of yours...not quite fact, huh...I would love if every time you post one of these things you included your sources. Thank you very much :)

Posted 10 months ago #
datamuse
Member Profile

I think the point people are trying to make, Kootchman, is that you're highlighting a single tree in a forest of millions (or billions, if you like). The problem is endemic, not specific.

S&L bailout, anyone? Remember that? It's thought by some to have helped cause a recession, rather than averting one...

Posted 10 months ago #
JoB
Member Profile

kootch...

and the republicans walked out of talks on the debt ceiling over more tax cuts for the uber-wealthy and large corporations...

your point?

Posted 10 months ago #
redblack
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and - just to pile on - why no mention of goldman sachs, kootch?

Posted 10 months ago #
DP
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Posted 10 months ago #
TDe
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Again, starting a thread without any solution offered. Just rant, rant, rant. Let's hear some possible answers or at least an idea or two for making it better. A couple of other conservative leaning folks who contribute to this blog have actually had ideas for changing things from time to time. Whether those ideas were agreed with or not, at least they had thoughts about solutions, not just how to keep threads going to show how much they know about what's wrong. If both elected Republican and Democratic administrations have been guilty of this travesty over the course of years and you've watched closely enough to know all about it, then what's a possible solution? C'mon... pony up.

Posted 10 months ago #
waynster
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Lets see could kootch be the zombie of politics? He has been beating on this dead gop topic for a while. Now blames it on the blue collar worker. Why who knows except he must hate union wokers. Also the U.S. auto workers must hate them and how GE got involved is beyond his zombie thinking. He hasn't said anything bad about the gop and their hand in the wall street corruption scandals is this again not in his gop zombie palate...yep no brain matter there .....

Posted 10 months ago #
jamminj
Member Profile

Kootch/Jigger... why r you still here???? where were you when reagan tripled the national debt??? raised taxes 11 times, grew govt, .... its not your argument that is a problem... its the hypocrisy from the right that is so sickening.

You think the tax rate is holding you back... other countries with much lower tax rates will help you make the $$$$ you want Kootch... still awaiting your answer on wether YOU rented that U-haul you want others to rent??

I know you won't answer the real questions. You like to bitc$h... but when real discussion are presented... you disappear or ignore the real facts.

Posted 10 months ago #
jamminj
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"Government knows best"

You mean when we went on a nation building expeditions??? I'm sure you were just as outraged with the trillions spent on other countries.

Posted 10 months ago #
JoB
Member Profile

i met kooch..
just like i met HMC rich..
haven't met jiggers yet...
though we sometimes correspond

(shhh.. don't tell anyone)
i have a reputation to defend

nice guys as long as we don't talk politics
bet they say the same thing about me ;->

anyway..
i think kootch said he was heading out of dodge for some guy thing...
don't know if he is gone yet.

Posted 10 months ago #
Jiggers
Member Profile

Our country is so broke___! It's embarrassing. China has over $1.5 trillion dollars in cash reserves and earns a billion on it everyday alone...:( JoB.. We keep passing each other like ships in the night.

Posted 10 months ago #
JoB
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jiggers...
our country is not broke.
our treasury may be.

it's simple math..
decreasing revenue will do it every time

Posted 10 months ago #
Jiggers
Member Profile

Not broke yet..but the republicans want it to be.

Posted 10 months ago #
JoB
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why do you think they keep insisting on decreasing revenue?

Posted 10 months ago #
Jiggers
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All republicans do is bitch about what's wrong, but don't offer any solutions. They want everyone to fend for themselves. They are pro's at stonewalling. Obama said he would stop subsidizing oil companies, but that's not enough for the retards to compramise on a debt ceiling solution. Sounds good to me on the oil $$$ handouts.

Posted 10 months ago #
JoB
Member Profile

jiggers..

Americans are experts at fending for themselves...
our McGyver spirit is one of the best things about us...

but even McGyver needed resources to create miracles.

Posted 10 months ago #
dawsonct
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I say as long as Corporatist Republicans trot out the name of Jimmy Carter to explain away all of our Nation's ills, occasionally mentioning that some of the Cheney/bush policies have had resonating affects on our economy is fair game.
***
In fact, Corporatist Republicans maybe should look at their own assertion and ask themselves, "why would we keep electing people who's policies are so inneffective they have absolutely zero lasting effect, either positive OR negative?"
----
As long as we are looking at energy policy, and the fact we support EVERY TYPE OF ENERGY PRODUCTION WITH OUR TAX DOLLARS, ask yourself wether you would rather your tax support goes to a few windmills in the neighborhood and a couple of solar pannels on every roof (and the permanent American jobs that would be created by such a program) and plug-in vehicles that act as storage batteries, or a nuclear power plant right down the street (guess who pays the insurance on America's nuke plants? Guess who receives the profits?). What do we do with the spent fuel? Depleted uranium munitions and a constant state of war?
Talk about corporate welfare!

Posted 10 months ago #
waynster
Member Profile

Job is right our country is not broke with some ingenuity we can rebound quickly. Trick is to get the corporations to start hiring again and not the type of jobs that they send offshore. We need our industrial might here not some factory making crap in china for wally world box stores. For with jobs comes income with income we save we spend oh and yes we pay taxes. With taxes we pay off our national debt. What everyone knows is they have to cut the fat just how much. As it pains me to say most of our debt is from military spending programs and then subsidies to big oil, banks and fat cat corporations. Then raise taxes on the rich whom most pay nothing anyway through loop holes that both parties created.....

Posted 10 months ago #
dawsonct
Member Profile

Every union-wage job in America creates another job with similar wages and benefits. That is a fact.
If you are anti-union, you are anti-American.
---
The rich don't need our help staying rich. If they are too stupid to hold on to their wealth (and even the stupid offspring of the hyper-wealthy are smart enough to let others take care of their assets, so they can live the lifestyle they have grown accustomed to. You know, not working, and creating wealth for club owners and fancy rehab facilities) they certainly DON'T need our assistance (most wealth in this Nation is inherited, not created by those who hold it). Funny how "free-market capitalists" suddenly become VERY socialist when it comes to government money. OUR tax dollars become THEIR wealth.
Will the so-called conservatives (haven't seen a real one here YET) on this board please explain to me how corporate welfare (supporting businesses that apparently can't survive without outside support. Doesn't sound very "free-market," or even capitalist, to me!), and giving money, OUR tax dollars, to wealthy people who stash it in tax havens, creates good-paying, middle-class jobs in our Nation?
You can't, because supply-side, trickle-down economics truly IS voodoo economics. You don't create demand simply by having stuff available, and NO manufacturer is going to waste resources creating a product for which there is no demand. It goes against EVERY basic economic principle since the beginning of time.
***
The last President who occasionaly acted like a TRUE conservative, GHW Bush, was drummed out of office because he did something sane; he increased revenues. (Reagan raised taxes to, something like eleven times, but only on the under-classes. What a hero).
If your party tried to run another Nixon (pre-paranoid, crazy. May never actually been completely sane, but DID do some sane stuff while in office. EPA for one example), or Eisenhower, they wouldn't even be invited to the debates.
Gary Johnson would be an example of that.
***
Speaking of Gary Johnson, does anyone else notice how many of these "free-market" "conservative/libertarians" have backgrounds that relied HEAVILY on public money? In former governor Johnson's particular case, his Father was a PUBLIC school teacher, and his Mother worked for the BIA. Probably kind of nice to grow up on the public dole.
As a business owner, he used our court system much more heavily than the average American.
I'll bet he still takes a pension from the primarily destitute citizens of New Mexico.
But he's a Libertarian. Sure.
Still, more of a TRUE conservative than the other clowns the Repubs have been trotting out. Michelle Bachman!?! Please! Talk about someone who has made a pretty good living off of government largesse!

Posted 10 months ago #
Andy
Member Profile

Every union-wage job in America creates another job with similar wages and benefits. That is a fact.

Waitaminnit. Now, I'm not coming from a "disagreement with your ideology or union stance" angle on this, just from a logical stance. If what you say were true, then every union job actually equals 2 union jobs. One occupied, and one presumably perfectly available for occupation. Every time. If I went and joined a union today, another job would exist?

I'm not big on getting into these debates, so let me reiterate that this is not a challenge to any kind of union stance, pro- or anti-. But for all the constant calls on here for documentation, references, and the all-powerful links, I would like to see something that supports this "one union job actually equals 2" claim. If you feel the need to expand with a few paragraphs, that's cool, but rest assured that all I am interested in is the data/study/article/whatever that supports this. It is...interesting.

Posted 10 months ago #
redblack
Member Profile

what dawson said was actually true - when there's a shorter supply of labor - because union jobs raise living standards in whatever field they occupy. in other words, if a market will bear union wages for, say, a plumber, then non-union plumbers can make higher wages because their non-union employers can afford to charge almost as much for labor as their union competitors.

capiche?

dawson didn't say what you thought he was saying.

sorry. no links, and i'm short on time right now. but it's a pretty simple aspect of market supply and demand regarding labor.

Posted 10 months ago #
dawsonct
Member Profile

I haven't tracked down the EXACT stats that prove that point, but this well-reasoned essay I was shocked to find on the Faux-Newslike site makes a number of good points:
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2011/03/10/watching-uproar-wisconsin-protests-time-remember-unions-make-lives-better/

Posted 10 months ago #
Jiggers
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Obamanomics didn't exactly work out did it.

Posted 10 months ago #
jamminj
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"Obamanomics didn't exactly work out did it."

hmmm, didn't know his presidency is/was over???

actually since he took office, we saw an increase in job growth... UNTIL....

the GOP took a hold of the house... then things started to drop.

So which of part of Obamanomics didn't work... the bush tax cuts extended, the TARP initiated by a GOP, the obamacare that hasn't started yet, the lowest tax rates in decades?!?!?!?!

Posted 10 months ago #
kootchman
Member Profile

Which part of Obamnomics has worked? Obamacare ... the "universal single payer plan'? Noooo... it has already given exemptions to over 22% of the employed..and virtually every union has been give a pass.. such a good deal Sebellius REfUSES to give congress the list of special interest groups she has given exemptions to. Not so universal anymore is it? But they DID divert 350 billion from Medicare to make this fat ply fly and oink. Is his presidency over? Not yet. Thank god he has Bush to blame. I am picking Millard Fillmore as being the source of all our ills.... Fillmore did it....Fillmore did it... Fillmore did it...

Posted 10 months ago #
kootchman
Member Profile

We give the answers... shrink government, stop spending more than can afford, stop increasing debt.. Stop making new laws and regulations that can't be enforced or given oversight to prevent fraud and abuse...and rein in the extraordinary intrusions into private lives of all government officials... that about covers the Libertarian position.

Posted 10 months ago #
TammiWS
Member Profile

Ha...thats funny. Give the answers yet its done on the back of the middle class. How about coming up with answers that might make the right have to feel a bit of pain?

Shrink government (really, Homeland Security?)

Stop spending more than can afford (really, how many wars are we still in? Nah, just provide corporations more loopholes and cut SS and Medicare)

Stop increasing debt (again, wars...)

Stop making new laws and regulations that can't be enforced or given oversight to prevent fraud and abuse (yes, let Goldman Sachs keep on doing what its done, let the EPA be shut down - all great ideas)

And, rein in the extraordinary intrusions into private lives of all government officials (but not rein in intrusion into the lives of gays, women who would seek an abortion, my religious views...)

http://policymic.com/articles/the-conservative-message-paradox

Posted 10 months ago #
Jiggers
Member Profile

Obama already raise more than $86 million dollars for his campaign fund. Guess were most of it comes from, that's right, big corporations.

Posted 10 months ago #
waynster
Member Profile

Jiggers you best see where them republicans get their cash from before you point a finger on who gets what. Does the chamber of commerce ring a bell.... now bounce that off the tea bagger mentality..... oh and the conservative side of the supreme court gave that ok remember....

Posted 10 months ago #
JoB
Member Profile

are we better off with someone whose hand is admittedly in the corporate till
or someone who pretends there is no till..

like it or not, we are better off with someone who actually understands the compromises he is making..
than with someone who believes the crap that passes as common wisdom these days..

All hail FAUX news....

Posted 10 months ago #
redblack
Member Profile

kootch: exemptions to ACA are given to employers who already provide quality health care plans to their employees. like union employers do, which allows us overpaid union slobs access to health care through our "cadillac" plans.

remember that accusation?

which side of the argument do you want this time?

the ACA is aimed at companies like wal-mart, who have traditionally told their employees to seek state medicaid benefits when they get sick.

btw, the 40 million uninsured americans? where you think they work?

instead of providing access to health care for their millions of employees, do you think america's biggest employers might have a little cash to throw around to try to overturn the ACA and sway public opinion? maybe just a little?

Posted 10 months ago #
redblack
Member Profile

regarding the libertarian position (why does that sound prurient?):

well, you guys should love obama, then. he's continued bush's policies, anyway. he's certainly more of a fiscal conservative than clinton.

let's see...

low taxes? check.

let wall street and the fed run the show? check.

ignore the employee free choice act? check.

deficit spender? check.

oh, wait a minute...

Posted 10 months ago #
kootchman
Member Profile

Sort of goes right to the core of the issue... it was "universal" care.... that meant everyone was in the same row boat... "single payer".... now we find that no, democrats will shift the costs to small businesses, companies, and anyone else without a committed liberal theology.. and exempt their cronies. Is is universal or not? No wonder they went behind closed doors to negotiate this pig in a poke. It is not universal or single payer or anything close to it. It looks like this so far..22 million workers will be exempt..the unemployed, handicapped, illegals immigrants, will have another entitlement paid for by the last few remaining middle class folks left. Yep Tammi... I meant government out of our personal lives.. including sexual orientation, your religious views, and your reproductive health ..... none of them are my business..or the governments.

Posted 10 months ago #
kootchman
Member Profile

I am not erasing Dubya.... but you notice he isn't sailing the ship anymore? This is the go forth banner for the Democratic Party... we are getting killed in the polls, unemployment is up...again. Blame Bush. The story ine is getting old and tired and no one except the true zealots are responding to it. It's Millard Fillmore's fault... makes as much sense.

Posted 10 months ago #
kootchman
Member Profile

You would think after three years... Obama would have SOMETHING to say other than... George Bush ran my presidency from his Texas ranch...? LOL

Posted 10 months ago #
JoB
Member Profile

kootchman..

universal care was never on the table in the round of discussions about health care reform...
it was considered more than one step too far for our republican brethren...

although universal health care would have made a heck of a lot more sense...

speaking of sense...

Posted 10 months ago #
JoB
Member Profile

Kootch..

LOL.. did you really believe that Obama carried a magic wand he could wave that would erase the financial mess we were in?

other than the one that owned up to the war debt Bush's administration hid?

Posted 10 months ago #
kootchman
Member Profile

Well... we wil see... so far, Obama is neck deep in THREE wars..I wonder how the meter is starting to look..if you thought Iraq was foolish, how does Libya compare? Having had a front row seat when tricky Dick had his love fest with Anwar Sadat and his then VP Hosni Mubarak... I noted that the great statesman and community organizer threw his considerable intellect and diplomatic acumen to unseat Mubarak ... and lo and behold... surprise, surprise.... the Egyptian Army Council just said we will write the constitution .... no parlimentary or representative body need apply. Elections our way... or no way... So much for that Arab spring. Mubarak was just tough enough to keep the Army in check....watch this next act! Obama is sure doing a fine job keeping a lid on the middle east. Syria looking good too. He is as good a diplomat as he is an economist..

Posted 10 months ago #
kootchman
Member Profile

But have no fear...Hilary will fix it

Posted 10 months ago #
redblack
Member Profile

now we find that no, democrats will shift the costs to small businesses, companies, and anyone else without a committed liberal theology

what the hell are you talking about? that is the model - yes, it's a model forged by collective bargaining - that big bidness and insurance have set up as de facto: health insurance is tied directly to employment for most people and their families. and it's what passes for a system in the united states.

almost no one who isn't self-employed goes out on his own to buy health insurance in the marketplace. and thank god for employer-provided group rates. otherwise we'd all be paying through the nose.

what the ACA does is expand access to people whose employers don't currently provide it because that is the de facto model in america, right or wrong. through the employers is the path of least resistance.

wouldn't it be a better system, though, if we paid a tax to cover universal health care access, reduced everyone's premiums by insuring everyone, and got that expense off of the backs of the nation's employers?

let the insurance companies remain in business, selling access to anyone who wants above-and-beyond the limits of a government plan.

but, no. we can't have that in america. it might improve our baseline health numbers and keep people from dying in the streets, but it just doesn't generate enough private profit.

Posted 10 months ago #
kootchman
Member Profile

Here's an interesting observation.. (to me, anyway) I point to an Obama corporate loophole.. in direct contradiction to what he says about closing all the loopholes..he makes a bigger one. I expect no less from either side. But, rather than contradict, agree, evaluate, ... we jump to Bush, Bush wars, corporations other than favored by the lefties. dawson is excused... he is too amusing to critique. What is the biggest subsidy in the federal budget? Not oil, not union dues (yes, those are subsidies), not investment tax credits. numero uno is... home mortgage deductions.... GASP..... so rail away at corporate subsidy...just check out your own little perks too! You have to have some subsidies to justify a tax code that is over 180,000 pages thick.

Posted 10 months ago #
kootchman
Member Profile

Homeland Security should be the first to go... that IS a pig in the poke of the first order. Let's start with TSA?

Posted 10 months ago #

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