The Fiscal Times: Andrew Fieldhouse- 'Forget Spending Cuts, the U.S. Economy Really Needs a $2 Trillion Stimulus'

Source:The Fiscal Times- Money, money, money, that is never free when it comes from government.

"More than five years after the start of the Great Recession in December 2007, the U.S. economy is still mired in a depressed state of output, and economic growth has decelerated below rates needed to bring us out of this slump. But our current macroeconomic policy — driven entirely by a contractionary fiscal approach — is poised to further slow near-term growth and delay recovery. What is needed at the moment is renewed pursuit of an expansionary fiscal policy in order to restore full economic health. The signs calling for additional targeted stimulus and cautioning against austerity are all there, if only policymakers would recognize them." 

Read the rest at The Fiscal Times

The economic situation today is better, but the fiscal situation is much worse with an additional five- trillion-dollars added to the national debt. Even though budget deficit has falling which is good news. But we still have around eight percent unemployment, an economy thats not growing, but plenty of work that could be done around the country right now, we just need someone to prioritize that work because the private sector is not going to do it by themselves. 

We don't need the Federal Government to rebuild the country, but what we need it to do is making the rebuilding a priority and at least help finance this effort and we need not a 1-2T$ stimulus package, but we need a 1-2T$ investment package and put a lot of that money in infrastructure investment and tell our construction and manufacturing industries we have a lot of work for you to do. And bring in the states and locals and private sector even with something like a National Infrastructure Bank.

We need to bring in the states and locals and get their input on what need to be built and repaired, that benefits the economy and puts people back to work and start awarding around 1-2T$ in contracts to do. This work which would also be boom for our manufacturing industry because of the parts that are going to be needed to do the work. And we need to encourage American as well as foreign companies to invest in this country and bring that money here. 

And that means lowering our business taxes and making us more competitive and we need to pay for this package over a 5-10 year period. And we could do this by closing wasteful tax loopholes and raising taxes on gas and oil and so- forth. And not hurt the economy and we could put millions of Americans back to work.

Crooks and Liars: Susie Madrak- 'Bill Maher: Presents His Thoughtful Sequester Solutions'

Source:Real Time With Bill Maher- talking about the sequester.

"Nice to know that in this time of sequester madness, we have intellectuals like Bill Maher working so hard to find workable solutions to the impasse. This made me laugh out loud, especially the Rube Goldberg part."

From Crooks and Liars

I have my own solutions to this problem and they seem funny, but they are actually realistic as well.

Lock House Speaker John Boehner in a room with Senate Leader Harry Reid together in a super max prison in a prison cell and treat them like prison inmates doing their time in solitary confinement. With the difference being that they are together, with just enough water and food to survive. And don't allow them to shave to or take a shower or even leave the cell.

Force Speaker Boehner and Leader Reid to share the same cot until they come up with an agreement to end the sequester. And then Boehner and Reid could actually experience what it's like to be in prison, but what it's like to work for a living. Two experiences that I doubt they ever want to repeat again. (Why else serve in Congress) 

To make it worse for the two leaders of Congress: for each day they don't reach an agreement on how to end the sequester, they have to listen to either Britney Spears or Roseanne Barr sing the national anthem in a glass room.

These conditions might sound harsh and would put President Obama in the same cell with Speaker Boehner and Leader Reid. But the President of the United States actually has to work for a living and produce results, a difference between being an executive and a legislature. 

And if people are dumb enough to to try to deal with a debt and deficit by cutting things that work well and are needed as much as things that don't work well and aren't needed, then they should suffer the consequences.

U.S. News: Ken Walsh- 'A Revival of The Culture Wars'

Source:U.S. News- the gun control debate is just one issue in what at times looks like the never-ending gun control debate.

"The battle over sequestration--automatic cuts in federal spending--is dominating the news media today, but that's not what is inflaming political passions around the country. 

"The Presidency" column by Ken Walsh appears in U.S. News Weekly on Fridays. Follow his blog, "Ken Walsh's Washington," online at:

From U.S. News 

I disagree with Ken Walsh here who is someone I like and respect, but the culture wars are similar to the civil war of the 1860s where one side clearly won (meaning the Unionists) but of course paid a heavy price for it. The other side knowing they've already lost but deciding to fight on to see how much damage they can do. Which is why some historians believe that the Unionists won the civil war, but the Confederates won the peace. Meaning there really wasn't much of a peace after the civil war was over with the rise of the Ku Klux Klan and other Anglo terrorists groups in this country. 

The Cultural War in America is not Liberal vs Conservative (as Ken Walsh said it was) but Left vs Right. And in some cases America vs the Far-Right in America. The country has already spoken on major issues like gun control, climate change, same-sex-marriage, women's place in the world, integration, and immigration, and I'm sure other issues. There's a solid majority of American who are in favor of these issues, with maybe 1/3 of the country fighting to the very last battle to prevent what they see as their traditional America from disappearing. 

NHL History: 'Montreal Canadiens 100 Years & 100 Stars'

Source:The NHL History- presents the Montreal Canadians.

"The Montreal Canadiens (French: Les Canadiens de Montréal) are a professional ice hockey team based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. They are members of the Northeast Division of the Eastern Conference of the National Hockey League (NHL). The club is officially known as le Club de hockey Canadien. French nicknames for the team include Les Canadiens (or Le Canadien), Le Bleu-Blanc-Rouge, La Sainte-Flanelle, Le Tricolore, Les Glorieux (or Nos Glorieux), Les Habitants, Le CH and Le Grand Club. In English, the team's main nickname is the Habs, an abbreviation of "Les Habitants". 

From The NHL History

To say the Montreal Canadians are the New York Yankees or Boston Celtics or Green Bay Packers of the National Hockey League or even Canada, is to a certain extent true, but doesn't go nearly far enough because hockey to Canada is probably more important then baseball or basketball or football to America. Not that those sports aren't critical to America, but America is surrounded by distractions, not just sports, but across the board and America also has nine times as many people as Canada, so one great franchise is a lot more important to them then one franchise in America.

But the level of success that the Canadians have had compared with the Yankees or Celtics as well as Packers is very similar. The Canadians have won twenty four Stanley Cups and a lot of conference championships as well. Plus a lot of divisional championships, but those twenty four Stanley Cups were accomplished by 1993. 

The Yankees have won thirty I believe World Series but they won one in 1996 and two more in the late 1990s. The Celtics have won seventeen NBA Finals, but their last won was in 2008. The Packers have won 11-12 Super Bowls (if you combine what use to be called the NFL Championship with the Super Bowl) and the Packers won their last Super Bowl in 2010. 

The Canadians won what twenty four Stanley Cups in their first eighty years. No other franchise has matched that type of championship success in any North American pro sports league, which is how they standout from every other pro sports franchise in North America.

The Canadians obviously have not been as dominant as they were in the 1980s or seventies. Haven't won a Stanley Cup since 1993, not sure why considering the market they play in with the fan base and arena and so-forth. They haven't even been back to the Stanley Cup since 1993, I don't believe they've even been to the conference finals since. They haven't been a championship contender since, but none of this take away from what they've accomplished and what they mean to Canada.

The Independent Institute: John C. Goodman- 'What is Liberalism?'

Source:Slide Share- nails it when it comes to liberalism.

"President Obama is said to have made the case for a liberal public policy agenda in his State of the Union speech the other night. But what is liberalism?

The conventional view is that liberalism is an ideology. In fact it is a sociology." 

From The Independent Institute

I'm not sure that progressivism is a good thing to compare to liberalism. For one, and I don't agree with this, but there are Progressives and others who view progressivism and liberalism as the same thing. That some Liberals call themselves Progressives, because of the negative stereotypes that come with being a Liberal. 

The fact is the stereotypes that make Liberals look like dovish socialist-statists or something. Which fits well with Socialist today and back in the day, at least Social Democrats.  And then there are Socialists (Social Democrats, if you prefer) like let's use Michael Moore (to use as an example) where these stereotypes that tend to get thrown at Liberals, fit Socialists like him very well. 

And the other reason being that socialism like conservatism or libertarianism, is a very diverse political ideology, where you have Socialists who look are Marxist-Socialists, who are Marxists basically. And then you have Social Democrats/Democratic Socialists like Senator Bernie Sanders, who is a Democratic Socialist, but also believes in a certain level of private enterprise and capitalism mixed in with a very large welfare state. Similar to Henry Wallace or George McGovern.

What's called "modern-Liberalism" or what I prefer to call the New-Left in America emerged in the 1960s, as a reaction to the Great Society and Vietnam War of baby boomers who came to age of that decade. And formed organizations like Students for a Democratic Society and other lets say New-Left groups of people who backed the FDR and LBJ social insurance policies, but had their own policies when it came to national security, foreign policy, and law enforcement. 

To get to actual liberalism which is the political philosophy I believe in: Liberals simply believe in liberal democracy and that liberal democracy should be there for all Americans, not just some of us. Where we all have the constitutional right to live our own lives and chart our own course in life. As long as we aren't hurting innocent people with how we are living. 

And that government's role is to see that there's an environment there where equality of opportunity  (not result, which is different) for all Americans to be successful life. But then it's up to us as individuals to make the best of the opportunities. That we have with no guarantees.  

Liberalism is not libertarianism or even classical liberalism, because neither people who are Liberals (or Classical Liberals, is you prefer) are antigovernment. We just don't like big government. And it's hard anything that so-called Libertarians today believe that government should be doing. 

And Liberals are obviously not Socialists either, because our philosophy is not built around some superstate government that's supposed to be big enough to manage everyone's economic and personal affairs for them. We believe in a limited, responsible, and financially sound government. But not big government or no government.

The Majority Report: Jonathan Alter- 'On His Calls For Democrats To Embrace Entitlement Cuts'

Source:The Majority Report- with Sam Seder and Jonathan Alter.

"Bloomberg View Jonathan Alter, argued that cutting entitlements will guard investment in discretionary spending, guess how Sam felt about that argument? Sam and Jonathan debated whether or not CPI was a cut and agreed that the wealthy should pay more taxes...

This clip from the Majority Report, live M-F at 12 noon EST and via daily podcast at:The Majority Report." 

From The Majority Report

Jonathan Alter makes a very good point about the so-called entitlement programs and that the language about how they are talked about. Or what they are called should be changed and that social insurances would be a better way to describe them. 

Alter arguing that the people would collect these social insurances simply when they need them rather than when they reach a certain age. And that if the wealthy who don't need these programs receive these benefits, that they should be taxed on them. Not at hundred- percent, but based on how they would be taxed if that was their total income without the earned income tax credit. And that these should be done for a couple of reasons.

One, for the good of the programs so the finances of them are sured up.

Two, because the wealthy can afford to pay the tax without hurting the economy. 

Social Democrats (what I call so-called Progressives) don't like talking about reforming the social insurance system, unless it's about taxing more and spending more on them. But what they don't seem to understand that if these programs aren't eventually reformed, they aren't going to be around to support.

Samuel Wilson: Ross Perot- 'Balancing the Budget & Reforming Government (1992)'

Source:Samuel Wilson- Independent presidential candidate Ross Perot, in 1992.

"One of several Ross Perot Infomercials that ran during the 1992 General Election campaign."

From Samuel Wilson

The main contribution that Ross Perot brought to the American political system was that he showed Americans how serious our debt and deficit situation was and how big of a threat it was to our economy. 

Without Ross Perot, President Bill Clinton probably doesn't take the debt and deficit situation as seriously as he did in 1993 and drafting the 1993 Deficit Reduction Act and getting it through that Democratic Congress. And even in 1992 as presidential nominee Bill Clinton and making deficit reduction a big part of his economic plan and message. Not saying he wouldn't of done anything about it in 1993 but the comprehensive approach of budget cuts basically all over the Federal Government and new revenue with tax hikes on the wealthy, reforming the Federal Government so it's more efficient with fewer employees. 

So without Ross Perot the United States Government doesn't get its fiscal house in order as early as it in the mid and late 1990s.