The rush to give the "lower middle class" and the "poor" home ownership and the refusal to regulate the dangerous alternative sub prime mortgage instruments in vogue and the credit default swap Wall Street gambling instruments sunk the economy when the housing bubble burst and the derivative gambling debts went bad, BoxGods. It certainly wasn't the fault of the tax structure passed by President Bush and a Democrat controlled Congress in 2001 in relief of the middle class and working poor after the Clinton era Dot.com financial asset bubble popped in 1999. sending the economy into recession. And that was pre 9/11 shock to our economy. The cut in the tax rates for the "rich" (read anyone in the upper middle class and above) and Capital Gains and Dividend rates for the investing class (which anyone who has a 401K. IRA, or College Savings tax sheltered plan with stock and bond exposure is a part of, along with the private annunities and pension plans are a part of) put as back on a growth path in 2003 just as they did in the immediate years of the Kennedy and Regan Administrations when similar cuts were made.

Examine the waste and curruption in our Federal Governments spending, including in Medicare and Medicaid spending, and then try to convince yourself that taxing more is going to improve matters. The $4.7 billion of tax revenues annually to be gained by taxing under the much vaunted "fairness" Buffet Rule is a sum that generates (barring more use of tax shelters by the "rich", of course) only what the unbudgetted Federal Government(three years now without a budget) SPENDS IN JUST 11 HOURS. Or put another way, you would have to gain that added tax revenue from the investor class for 250 years (longer than we have been a nation) in order to erase just this year's Federal Government spending deficit of 1.6 or 1.7 trillion dollars, which together with its interest is stollen from my childrens and grandchildrens future, alomg with everyone elses descendants. Better to leave that income in the hands of the investor capatalists that reinvest in the stock and bonds of our nation's industries and commercial enterprises, as well as the minicipal and state bonds that finance our public infrastructure projects of the future.

There is your Economics 101 lesson for the day, BoxGods. Maybe that errases the ridiculous Democrat Party talking points you have been sucking up like an infant supping at the pablum spewed forth by MSNBC commentators daily, so many of them like O'Donnel, Mathews, and Sharpton past Democrat Party operatives before they found their true nitch lying to the public nightly on cable TV to further the "progressive" causes.

Do yourself a favor and instead of watching their nonsense, go enroll in an economics course or two at your local Community College and smarten up.

Grandpa Fuzz is hollering that the Democrats have talking points when his first post consisted of nothing but from right wing sources... Those guys definitely put the ho' in ad hominem and the con in conservative...

Sorry to recycle some old stuff, but I was up late tucking some drunks into bed... I particularly enjoyed dropping two lesbians off; they seemed quite happy together... Middle class home; doubtless they pay taxes some of which go to the schools even though they don't have children currently....

Using talking points and platitudes offers Grandpa an excuse not to think, and I love watching him go ballistic when that reality is pointed out to him. It's worse when he gets caught in a lie like this one...

It certainly wasn't the fault of the tax structure passed by President Bush and a Democrat controlled Congress in 2001...

The only justification for this claim is an implied and asinine "Because I said so." Plus I just fact-checked that "Democrat controlled Congress in 2001" bit of smelly shinola, and it's pure manure.

The composition of the 107th Congress had Republicans holding a 221-212 advantage in the House; the Senate was split 50-50 until Jeffords declared himself an independent...

Per the Consitutuion, Fuzzie, spending bills must originate in the House...

Now the casino manager would like to see you about some chits you signed for those chips that wound up in my pile the last time I felted you... I'm still waiting for you to come up with good lies about Plamegate and how there wasn't any evidence for Iraq seeking to acquire the resources to enrich uranium. There was plenty; the chicken hawks simply engaged in willful denial.

The key issue the right wingnuts miss is the role of policy; the real abomination Turd Blossom and company inflicted--behind the scenes--was bringing partisan politics into policy decisions, and now they're howling because Obama shrewdly gave the Teabagged enough rope to hang themselves and then started using the Shrub's tactics himself when they insisted, in particularly immature fashion, that they had the right to drive the car after they wrecked it (Thank you, Mr. President, for that one. No wonder they hate you).

And you can expect the right to be particularly silent on the predatory lending practices that derailed many people's attempts to keep up with their mortgages (not to mention the outright theft we're often seeing in foreclosures). Add to that the jobs that were shipped overseas during the Bush Administration...

Geeze, Cabbie. Did you miss my post on the Senate being the place where good bills passed in the House go to die due to the Progressives blocking actions? Cheney broke tie votes for 5 months only, by the the 4th of July in 2001 the Dems were controlling the Senate under Harry Reid, just as they are now.

Did you miss my post on Valerie Plame being once the undercover Belgium source of the info on the aluminum tubes that he Hussien military was buying in Europe for building the centrifuges? Did you forget about the materials for centrifuges that were buried outside one of Hussien's many palaces and dug up by the UN inspectors?

When I quote statistics gained from reading The Wall Street Journal and The Economist, those are hardly "Right Wing Talking Points and Platitudes!" I don't know why you persist to follow me around on the blogs, and claim you have refuted my points of observations...where are your facts and figures that refute anything? Of course, self delusion is a problem of the alcoholic personality, we do know that, don't we?

My new attitude for 2012 is to stop wasting time debunking Repub "arguments" and "facts"...but I will simply say that none of the information you're using as building blocks in this statement will hold up under scrutiny. What I see is a lot of "motivated reasoning."

Just because all the biased (eccentric?) argumenters have become grouped on the Right in the last few years, is no reason to continue treating that constituency as rational. It definitely is a reason to reconsider the filibuster rules.

Yeah...and hows that election of the Democrat-Socialist Jerry Brown over the Rebuplican-Fiscal Conservative Meg Whitman working out for the Calafornians and their economy with a $16+ Billion dollar deficit and growing daily looking at them now.

Just as Greece is the forerunner of social spending of borrowed funds run amok for the Europeans, the once great state of California is our own impending special hell on earth now...with the Brown, Pelosi, Boxer leftists progressives having their sway, Sweet Equity.

Tax structures that make for less millionaires in our country in order to obtain "fairness" does not elevate the poor into the Middle Classes. It does rob the largest share of the millionaire class of the resources to pour back into the small businesses and professional commercial offices that they head when often they may have one or two good years out of ten that vaults them into the millionaire income status in any one given year. Take the money that could be reinvested in their businesses, bringing new goods and services to market and supplying new jobs, and relegate them back to the middle class, and what do you get? Anyone better off under that scenario?

I guess that's the reason George Stenapholous just wished both Rep. Marth Blackburn and Rep. Barney Frank (who is going to marry his "partner" on July 4th) both a happy Mother's Day, Luigi.

Fuzzie, your own mother is rolling over in her grave over all the fibs you've been telling...

And Auggie, I hope your tongue was in your cheek when you typed that last bit... I think it was, but honest there are lots here in the Intermountain West who think that way...

My mother is an alive and well 94 year old, who worked in the insurance industry from the time she was widowed at age 33 with three children and continued until she was 89 before she retired. I come from a strong middle class background, cab driver, that didn't ask for handouts!

And I grilled her up a lovely porterhouse steak today, with baked potatoes roasted in foil over the charcoal, served with green beens and a tossed salad, and finished with chocolate peanut butter pies. She still has a pretty good appetite for the finer things in life.

Keith, I normally do not include the names on my post, but I must include your name here because you did a very good thing with your mother. It made me change my mind about you for the better. I wrote a nice card to a lady in Bugnara, Italy who is 89 and was in third grade with me when I left Italy. I wish I could have taken her to dinner, but her son Giovanni told me that they had a nice "pranzp" (dinner). This is the only personal post I will ever write. I am glad that you took care of your mother. It probably made you feel good. We all have what is calle "The key of self interest". It can open the gates of heaven or the gates of hell. When we do a good deed for another person we do a good deed for ourseles and when we commit a wrong against another person we committ a wrong against ourselves. If I make someone happy, I am the one who benefits the most.

Well thank you, Agustus. And I can say I have fond memories of my two years living on the economy in Vicenza, Italy in the mid 1960s while I served in the U.S. Army.

My wife joined me there, and our oldest, a daughter was born there and has duel citizenship, and returns often to Italy for vacations.

So you show promise now, and I know I will convert your politics yet! LOL!

I anyone visits Italy, central Italy is a good place to visit. Bugnara is near Sulmona.

If anyone does go to central Italy, there is a Hotel next to the Bugnara train station. It is not seen from the front of the station because it is on the other side of the track. From the Hotel sagittorio pesons can walk to the train station and go almost anywhere in Italy. It is about 75 miles west of Rome, near a very good expressway, and about 25 miles from Pescara. If anyone does go there mention to the Hotel Owner, who is almost always there, the name DiTommaso and they will get a very good discount. The food exellent and not too expensive. There is a great flee market in Sulmona every Saturday. It is huge on the square. It may also help if they mention Giovanni D'Eramo who lives in Sulmona in a home that was bult in 1200. Bugnara (we used to walk from Bugnara to Sulmona) is very near Sulmona - before Sulmona from Rome. Two years ago two college girls were going to Italy and I gave them this information. They did not get off in Bugnara and ended up in Pescara - the end of the line. It was 11:00 at night and no taxi. The conductor took them to Bugnara and the Hotel Sagittario. They told the Hotel that they knew DiTommaso. They were charged about one half the regular price. The mayor of Bugnara, Antonio Lupi (he died since then) took them all over central Italy and in Scana Antonio arranged for them to be dressed in old fashion clothers and parraded them in the Scanna Square while the tourist took pictures.

Antonio also purchased and gave them flowers made out of confetti because the confetti factory of between Bugnara and Sulmona. Confetti are almonds covered with a variety of coating (chocolate, etc.) The mayor's wife is still living and her name is Maria Lupi which can also be netioned to the Hotel Owner. My relatives have some interest in the Hotel Sagitarrio, but I don't know the exact connection except that they tell the Hotel what to do and how much to charge me when I go thee. It is a new beautiful, clean attractive Hotel - about three or four years old.

Thee is a castle in Bugnara that was the king's summer home. It is difficult to get there. The best safran in the world is raised in Abruzzi. You can buy safran for a fraction that it can be purchased in the US.

50 years? Why that would put us into the tax cutting Kennedy years, would it not?

Exactly shy he is an entertainer, Marginalized and not a politician, although Chris Mathews delights in labeling him as the titular head of the Republican Party, although we have plethora of honorable and talented polititicians to fill that role.

So do we as to the much more important issues, but here the liberal media is looking for any and every sensational topic like the race baiting on the Trayvon Martin shooting, the federal effort to force employers to supply free contraceptives, the attempts of states to separatly regulate abortion and marriage licensing as our Supreme Court has decided is well within their powers. (And even President Obama admits to that his being a constitutional scholar, except when it comes to his Unafordable Health Care Act). They seem to have a need to put forth distractions as the market slumps, the economy falls back into a double dip recession, the unemployment picture remains dire for as far as the eye can see, and only loser growth seems to be giving us some brief and slight relief from the sky high gasoline and home heating oils the pi** poor energy posture of the Administration and their outofcontrol EPA have wrought.

Sounds like you have a lot of painful grievances against the present administration... even to the point of IMAGINING that the U.S. is falling back into a double-dip recession. (You wish!)

Not to worry! When Mitt Romney gets elected being the an economic miracle worker with magic underpants, he'll fix everything lickyty-split and all will be double-plus good.