President Obama's News Conference on Deficit Reduction (7/11/11 FULL)

[grahamhgreen]

Run time: 41:33 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zO34jERiMfw   Posted on YouTube: July 11, 2011 By YouTube Member: whitehouse Views on YouTube: 1808   Posted on DU: July 12, 2011 By DU Member: grahamhgreen Views on DU: 984

 
Of course, everyone knows that all we need to do to reduce or eliminate the debt is:

Let the Bush tax cuts expire (oops).

Tax the rich at the rates of the greatest generations (91% to 94%), or at least pre-Reagan levels (70+%).

Tax the wealthy and wealthy corporations again, since they are now paying virtually nothing, indeed are even getting rebates.

End the killing, er, wars, er, police actions, er, whatever-you-want-to-call-it-when-you-kill-people-with-our-tax-dollars in the middle east.

We could even bring the jobs back home by eliminating the free-(slave)-trade agreements, that would increase revenues.

And did I mention, we could simply make the rich pay their fair share, like our fathers and grandfathers did, by taxing them?

If we did these things, there would be no need to take benefits away from grandma.


PS - Mr. President, Social Security does not increase the debt by one penny, the only reason I can see for you to keep bringing it up, is in order to bring it down. Leave it alone. No, increase it so that we can all have more guaranteed benefits instead of forcing us to gamble in the rigged casino known as the stock market.

PPS - he is inflexible on a 30, 60 or 90 day extension. Why not be inflexible on messing with our benefits, instead? If he has to be inflexible on something, he should be inflexible on a meaningful issue for the people he is supposed to represent, like increase taxes on the hoarding class or protecting social programs.

[Ed Needham]

1. russforpres.com an alternative?

This speech alludes to why there are so many disenfranchised Dems out there. What we we need (what we, or, shall I say, I was expecting) is a leader who builds public consensus, not one that takes the path of least resistance.

From article two days ago on The Democrat Deal (democratdeal.com):

"Today marked the launch of a new organization and website spelling out what has been whispered about in progressive circles for some time. There may well be a Russ Feingold Presidential Campaign in the preliminary stages.

Recently, a "draft Russ for Senate" campaign in WI has come up short. No one from his inner circle to state political pundits are expecting him to enter the senate race, a race polls show he would take by a landslide. Why? Is it that he has set his political sights higher?

While the former Senator may not enjoy the name recognition of Gov. Dean (neither did Dean til he ran for President) few individuals are held in higher regard by the Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party. A champion of civil liberties, worker's rights, a public health insurance option, peace overseas, a David to the Goliath of corporate influence in Washington, Sen. Feingold has been busy with his PAC, Progressives United since leaving office. A direct response to Citizens United, a corporate funded right-wing PAC repeatedly charged with ugly yet effective disinformation campaigns, Progressives United seeks to separate corporate money from the political process and promote greater transparency and accountability in government."

cont'd here: democratdeal.com

Russ' unofficial campaign site: russforpres.com

[grahamhgreen]

2. I'm in.

[swilton]

6. I'm in

[Kall]

3. He wants to cut Social Security benefits now...

... so that cuts are not required 30 years from now.

[grahamhgreen]

4. At 35:20 he says, "this recession has been hard on everybody". That is simply a lie. And

it's a right wing meme they would have us believe.

The truth is the top 1 percent has seen their incomes increase at the highest rates eve, as have the oil companies and banksters.

Why did he lie about this?

[Newest Reality]

5. I would like to correct his statement that the

"recession" has been hard on everybody.

That is simply not true at all. The top-income, and wealthy/Elite and multi-national corporations have had the recovery that we supposedly were somehow a part of. You know, the recovery for whom?

How tough was it to have a few billion less of your billions or a small dent in profits? There are windfall profits still in progress and the revenue side of the equation is even questionable?

The money the top-percentile possess personally, and by way of the corporate veil they remain safely hidden behind, is being invested in stock buybacks or campaigns to dominate and control our politics, economy, and worst of all, our culture and individual lives. Also, large sums of that "money" sits there like some politico-economic tool that saysL "We have it all here, you know. We're not broke and, in fact, we are reaping the mother load. Now, things go as we decide they should, no questions asked, no bargaining or negotiations, or we continue to hold onto it and enjoy our unprecedented power and wealth that continues to centralize and congeal into a one-sided, oligarchical corporatism that is your future, anyway. Either way, we are winning that non-existent class war."

The reinvestment appears to exist largely in places that benefit the few in a multitude of ways while we can almost feel ourselves leaking out the vital resources we need as living beings, weakened and stressed, in many cases to the point of collapse.

We are watching a dismantling in progress. It is not a question of how this collapses, so much as it is the question of who, (and how many of us) will fall victim as collateral damage.

[grahamhgreen]

7. Well put, thank you!

[grahamhgreen]

8. This statement is also false, "Medicare in particular will run out of money and we will not be able

to sustain that program no matter how much taxes go up."

[grahamhgreen]

9. And this is a deep lie and misdirection, "Social Security is not the primary driver of our long-term

primary driver of our long-term deficits and debt."

SS is not any kind of driver of the deficit or debt.