I am offering my readers a second forum to post any issues they feel are important to the people of New Britain. If you have an issue with city government that you would like to share with the rest of the readers, feel free to post it here. Whether it be a problem you experienced with a city agency or official, or something positive they may have done and you would like to share it with the rest of New Britain, this is a chance to do so. Public interest stories are also welcome, so if you know about a person, or group of people that is doing something to somehow make the lives of others better, feel free to post it here.
You are welcome to post items anonymously, or may sign your posts if you choose to do so. Consider this an opportunity to speak up about issues you feel may be important to the people of New Britain. Simply click on the comments link below to leave your message. Thanks for checking in to review my postings and please feel free to check back frequently as I have a number of interesting stories in the works.
This second forum is being provided since the first was a great success.
63 comments:
Alderman Salvio does not represent every new Britain Citizen.
It is time to ignor him as well.
Connecting the Dots - Susan Kniep, President of the Federation of Connecticut Taxpayer Organizations, Inc.(FCTO).
The mother ship of the current 75 Taxpayers Groups in Connecticut is the New Britain Citizens Property Owners Association, Inc. of New Britain (CPOA) who got the ball rolling back in 1924 when several property owners and local businessmen established the New Britain CPOA by volunteering their time and services to keep abreast of city government spending.
The numerous Emails that the state wide FCTO receives, reflects the fear of many Connecticut taxpayers about the national and local issues, plus the failure of financial institutions, the economy, the job loss and healthcare.
For this reason FCTO will continue to offer coverage on these important national and local Taxpayer issues.
Please continue to send to The Federation of Connecticut Taxpayer Organizations, Inc.(FCTO) your local town information as you become aware of it to include news and comments which is generated off the main stream like New Britain's Frank Smith Says Comments Emailed to FCTO by the New Britain CPOA Secretary.
Hide your children, shutter your windows, and lock your doors, here in New Britain.
Hope and change could be coming to a bitter and clingy neighborhood near you here in New Britain?
At any moment, Barack Obama could suddenly show up in your Front Yard and put you on the spot where you feel compelled to ask him a simple question? If—God forbid—he offers up an answer that reveals a disturbing aspect of his political agenda, your life is over here in New Britain.
We've now seen this take place in the life of Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher, known to the world as "Joe the Plumber." Joe has become a cautionary tale of what happens when you allow Barack Obama to be himself.
Joe was playing football at home with his son when Barack Obama suddenly appeared, and then effected Joe's life by answering a simple question about taxes with an answer about how those who chase the American Dream should be required to "spread the wealth around."
Just "spread the wealth around".
It was Mccain who uttered Joe the plumbers name 21 times during the debate. To suggest it was Obama who thrust the tax dodging unlicensed plumber into the spot light is hillarious.
Joe the plumber supports Mccain. Big surprise.
It was McCain who used Joe's name, but with Joe's permission and to show he understands Joe's situation. Obama and Biden have been poking fun at Joe and the liberals have been laughing at Joe not wanted to pay more taxes so Obama can spread Joe's wealth around to the world. It was the Obama camp who descended on Joe the plumber's neighborhood to investigate every aspect of his life with the intent of discrediting him for having the nerve to ask Obama an embarrassing question and then not agreeing with the messiah--what nerve! They found out that Joe is not a member of the local union, how dare he do plumbing work without paying dues to Obama's union buddies! Then they found Joe has no plumbing license, but he doesn't need one because he is a journeyman working for a licensed plumber, so how dare he claim to be a plumber. Then they found he owes $1,000 in back taxes, because he is having financial problems, so we will fix his wagon by raising his taxes more, because just like Obama told him, it is about time Joe started helping those who are not as fortunate as he, and Obama will take Joe's money and decide who is more deserving of it than Joe. Get ready, because anyone who dare oppose Obama better be ready to be scrutinized all the way back to the womb, and dare you speak up too loudly, the reeducation camp will be waiting for you! SOCIALISM IS HERE! If you don't believe it, why did Obama say he is going to outlaw 401k plans and replace it with a government program that will control how much you can earn in retirement? Because you should not be allowed to save more for retirement than someone else has for their retirement, so he will outlaw that entire nasty business and he will decide how much money you can have in your retirement. After all, isn't Obama a better judge of how much money you and your family will need. He certainly understands your family's needs better than you do. After all, it was Obama's father who proposed that citizens should not be allowed to own property, that everything should belong to the government and then the government would take care of all your needs. Sounds like a great world. Anyone have a refill on the kool-aid?
Oh no, Joe! The problem isn't Joe the Plumber - the problem is Obama's answer?
Now we have the obsessed leftwing bloggers and the designated media hit men have combed through Joe's the Plumber public records and his neighborhood background, and have done their best to air their dirty laundry and smear Joe’s name, and all because he asked Obama an honest question?
If Obama wins, how long 'til Joe the Plumber gets audited by the IRS? Forget his outstanding back taxes, what if the IRS decides he owes another hundred thousand? He'll be wrecked, and so will his business plans, and then the people he was going to employ will have to look somewhere else for a job.
You think that when you spread the wealth around its good for everybody. That is socialism pure and simple! That means that for everyone who wants to lie around, do nothing they should get a subsidy, hand out or dole from those who are working at their job or successful business.
So, let the story of Joe the Plumber be a warning to – be aware of the bloggers and the media?
No the real story is to beware of a socialist like Obama, and if he wins, get ready to give him your money so he can spread it to others who deserve it more than you! Shame on you for working so hard to earn your money while others sat on their butts and drank beer, now it is time for you to support them with your hard work, isn't that only fair?
Watch out Salvio, Susan Kneip is coming to town. She will fix your wagon for sure!
Currently, Barack Obama is outspending John McCain on the TV airwaves by something like four to one. It seems likely that Obama will succeed in buying the Presidential election - spreading the wealth around.
But wait! Since we heard about Joe the Plumber and that Obama told this guy named Joe that fairness is spreading the wealth around.... so maybe Obama will be willing to share his vast resources with the McCain campaign so the playing field will be level for the last weeks of the campaign spreading the wealth around.
That's only fair, right? What do you say, Barack? And if not, why not- spreading the wealth around.
________________________________________
A GUY NAMED JOE... A P-38 POILOT?
A GUY NAMED JOE is a 1944 World War II romantic fantasy movie about two pilots flying their P-38 Fighter Planes in the islands of South Pacific.
Spencer Tracy stars as devil-may-care P-38 Lighting Fighter pilot who dies in an air crash and comes back to earth as a guardian angel for novice flyer Van Johnson teaching him to fly the Hot Twin Boom P-38 Fighter Plane.
But, things gets a bit complicated when the young pilot Van Johnson falls for Spencer Tracy's old flame a girl named Dorinda played by Irene Dunne.
Barack Obama really does intend to "spread the wealth around". That means he wants to take money from some people and give it to others. The sad thing is that there are so many in this country who will say right-on to this kind of political agenda.
It's unfair and un-American. Obama's whole tax cut to 95% of all Americans has been a problem from the very start - the sole purpose of which was to wrap a gift card around this socialist program that Obama really had in mind all along.
The truth is that 40% of all Americans don't even pay income taxes, so how can that 40% get a tax cut? In Obama-speak, they are getting refundable tax credits, which means that they will get money refunds from the government even though they paid no income taxes.
Again - unfair and un-American- Joe the Plumber knew that, and that's why he asked the question to Qbama in the first place.
The real tragedy here, and it is truly quite telling as to what's going on in this political campaign, is that in two days, we know more about Joe Wurzelbach the plumber and his past life than we know after two years of political exposure to Obama's racial groups.
If only the press would dig as hard into Obama's past associations as they have into Plumber Joe's life history?
anonymous, if you had signed that message, Obama would have dispatched a crew to New Brtain to investigate your background and silence you too!
How dare you criticize the messiah and his plans to take your money and give it to poor people who need it better. So what if you worked for it and they preferred doing drugs or drinking beer over working, you don't deserve to have more money than them anyway.
From: Susan Kniep,President
The Federation of Connecticut Taxpayer Organizations,Inc.(FCTO)
It sounds like a simple, innocuous question....
"Shall there be a constitutional convention to amend or revise the constitution of the state?"
Please vote in the Hartford Courant Poll - http://www.courant.com/news/politics/hc-convention-poll,0,2803463.poll
they want to amend it to give Obama more leeway to take more of your money!
Just the threat of Obama winning is already affecting jobs is America. Talk radio is inundated with business owners who have not filled jobs because they are afraid of Obama's repressive taxes and those who are not calling to talk about not filling jobs now are talking about how many lay-offs they are planning for when he wins. You are about to see the biggest increase in unemployment America has ever known!
I have a business and was planning on hiring someone, but have put that on the back burner out of fear that Obama will win. If he wins, not only will that job will never happen but I may have to let someone else go too. If McCain wins, I will go back to developing that new job after the election.
A GUY NAMED JOE?
At least Joe The Plumber is not looking for a government hand out, like the frauds at ACORN.
Acorn's Hypocritical House of Cards - it matters little if an applicant for affordable housing had a small income, an irregular job pattern or collected welfare or food stamps - Acorn Housing Corporation (AHC) helped create the current subprime credit mess.
The greatest tragedy about "Joe the Plumber" is what has happened to the guy after he dared pose a question to Obama, and we will say this goes for either side of the spectrum.
By using his 1st amendment rights, and because he was at an opportune place to meet Obama, "Joe the Plumber" was able to pose a simple question about what might happen to him if he bought the business he worked at and made over $250k.
The exchange was broadcast all over America, unsurprisingly. However, what happened after this little exchange is appalling. The media whore hounds dug through "Joe the Plumber's" life to find any little dirt they could find on the guy. And find they did. The guy was delinquent on taxes, he didn't have an official plumbing license.
The question is: how does this remain relevant to the question "Joe the Plumber" posed? The answer is simple: none.
What the media's reaction to "Joe the Plumber" and his question demonstrates is a willful ability and audacity to dig through "Joe the Plumber's" life to find anything to besmirch him or to denigrate him, something to take away his voice or his ability to ask a very valid question.
That witch hunt, that dirt digging, the silencing of one's voice all because "Joe the Plumber" had the temerity to raise his voice and pose a question.
The lesson is evident. Raise your voice, raise a question, and you will be torn apart.
What is extremely amazing regarding to responses to the Frank Smith Says NB forum “2” it appears that only the Republicans made their feeling known against the Obama Campaign.
With the absence of dialogue from the Democrats could it mean that they are opposing the socialist stance that Senator Obama’s is proposing for America?
Anonymous may be correct that the democrats are not opposing the republican comments.
Could it be out fear of reprisal?
SCHOOL VOUCHERS BADLY NEEDED:
There are other important issues in this election in addition to the drastic difference in tax policies between Obama and McCain. Obama will tax working people to death in order to "spread the wealth around" to people who choose not to work, but he believes deserve some of your money to punish you for daring to have more money than they do, and McCain will cut taxes to help small businesses hire more employees. That would not only help small businesses, but large ones as well. Fred Smith, the CEO of Federal Express was recently quoted as saying that if business taxes were lower, his company could employ thousands more employees coast to coast.
Another major difference between the two candidates is their position on education. Senator McCain believes in the availability of school vouchers so that everyone has the ability to send their children to private school if they so choose. Senator Obama opposes this plan and believes you should be obligated to send your children to the public school--period. Could this be because he takes millions of dollars in campaign donations from the teacher's unions and he is following through on his promises to the unions instead of looking out for what is best for you and your child's education? Let's not forget his promise to the unions to pass a federal law ending the secret ballot in union elections which will empower the union muscle to coerce every employee to vote to unionize--or else.
The District of Columbia currently has a school voucher system, so why can't this program be expanded to cities like New Britain? Let's leave the decision as to what school children attend where it belongs--with the children and their parents, and not with big union fat cats driving around in Cadillacs and smoking $10 cigars, who are empowered by the millions of dollars in slush funds they bleed from the paychecks of their union members.
I agree with anonymous when he stated that the New Britain democrats are afraid to speak out against the republican comments made against Senator Obama out of fear of reprisals.
Open dialogue is not here to be able to tell it as it is and that is Obama is going to turn our country into socialistic state and you can imagine what may come next.
Obama has shown over and over that if he is elected he will do everything in his power (and he is on the biggest power trip since Adolph Hitler) to silence his opponents and disarm them too!
National ID Card?
There are plenty of reasons not to have a national ID card, but for the first time many Americans now favor a secure, highly encrypted, biometric based National ID card.
With the Acorn situation of voter fraud, illegal immigration, welfare fraud, ID theft and the terrorist threat the time has come to act and even embrace national ID card.
Didn't the nazis require a national ID? (Let me see your papers) Obama is just another version of nazism!
Chris Dodd No Comment?
Still hiding under his bed in his home for months from the 4th Estate Reporters, Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) took a rough beating in the local newspapers as even the print media has grown incredulous over Dodd’s political behavior.
Two articles in The Hartford Courant by Reporters Pazniokas and Rennie and a third in the Waterbury Republican-American newspaper all take Dodd to task over his latest refusal to release the documents related to his still unresolved VIP mortgage scandal.
The newspapers articles make Day- 129 of Dodd's no-comment a particularly bad one for the Senator still hiding under his bed?
No Comment...Z...Z...Z
I liked the 2 letters to the editor that called for Dodd to resign.
Mr. Smith,
Can you update us on the situation to protect the seniors in the garage? Did the mayor get off his lazy butt and do something to address the lack of safety and security in the garage yet, or is it business as usual which means absolutely nothing was done? What about the council, can they do something to prod him even if they need a cattle prod?
A concerned citizen.
In reply to anonymous regarding the status safety cameras to protect the general public that use the sgt. Szczesny garage:
To the best of my knowledge the council is still awaiting for the report that the Mayor ordered to be completed by August of this year by the city’s property Manager.
As I reported, a month or so, that the ducks at the Stanley Park were more important than the protection of the general public. Still Stands.
maybe we need a "JOE THE PLUMBER" here in New Britain to actually get something done.
When will we be starting "age appropriate" sex education classes in the New Britain school system? Isn't it important to start teaching masturbation to kindergartners? According to Obama, this is a priority for America.
maybe the New Britain School system could teach Biden to count "a 3 letter word J-O-B-S"
Biden is too dumb to count all the way to 4
OBAMA CAN'T PROVE HE IS A CITIZEN AND THEREFORE QUALIFIED TO RUN IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONSTITUTION:
A lawsuit has been filed with the Pennsylvania Eastern District Court requiring Mr. Obama to produce documents to prove he is constitutionally qualified to run for President. So far Mr. Obama has refused to produce the documents and is trying to fight the court order to produce the documents. Any American should be able to prove citizenship in less than a day. Why can't Mr. Obama?
Here is a link to the actual court documents - http://news.justia.com/cases/featured/Pennsylvania/paedce/2:2008cv04083/281573/
A constitutional crisis will rip our country apart. If this is not cleared up now we will have a crisis. If you care at all about America you must call for Mr. Obama to produce the documents and prove that he is eligible to be President.
Please call on Mr. Obama to produce the documents to prove his constitutional qualifications.
Thank you
I didn't know Obama won the election. We still have freedom of speech until Obama abolishes that and silences any opposition. You will need to clear all comments through the Obama Propaganda Minestry beginning in January!
I didn't know Obama won the election. We still have freedom of speech until Obama abolishes that and silences any opposition. You will need to clear all comments through the Obama Propaganda Minestry beginning in January!
I always thought that the first thing the socialists would do was disarm us by abolishing the 2nd amendment, I guess eliminating the first amendment and silencing us all is the first agenda item of the SOCIALIST/COMMUNIST/FASCIST/MARXIST/ DEMOCRATS!
check out the brand new Obama campaign logo:
http://news.aol.com/elections/article/mccain-fans-confront-intolerance-at/218693?icid=200100125x1211540487x1200741329
Salvio, the rest of town is laughing at you, not with you!
Michelle Obama Room $ervice Tab?
According to Michelle Obama in order to get things like Universal Health Care and a revamped Education System, someone is going to have to give up a piece of their pie so that someone else can have more. Then who is the someone who gives up a piece of their pie on October 15, 2008?
Well, Michelle Obama $pent $447.39 on room service (for 2) at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel for an afternoon snack of Lobster Hors D’Oeuvres ($50.00), Whole Steamed Lobsters (100.00), Iranian Osetra Caviar ($150.00), and Bollinger Champagne ($44.00).
Where's the tip?
why should Michelle care about the cost, it was probably paid for by the donors to the campaign. Let them keep sending in their checks to pay for her lobster and champagne.
you feeling sorry for the Iranians and other Muslim countries who are sending in their illegal campaign donations so Michelle can enjoy caviar?
OBAMA CENSORSHIP IS ALREADY HERE! We thought we could at least have our say until January. I guess we are all bad guys on here and are going to be sent straight to the reeducation camps for brainwashing on the socialist philosophy of the new Democratic party.
the Democratic politbureau is here!
I am pleased to announce that the Feds are apparently looking for the person or persons for impersonations an announcement that they are investigating racial comments on Frank Smith Says NB blog.
At least until January, this is still in effect:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Recent case history on impersonating a federal agent from an August 11, 2008 FBI Press Release:
FRESNO—United States Attorney McGregor W. Scott and Drug Enforcement Administration (“DEA”) Special Agent in Charge Javier F. Peña announced today that BRETT MICHAEL PETERSEN, 20, of Selma, California, has entered a guilty plea to transmitting threatening communications.
The case is the product of an investigation conducted by the DEA, Selma Police Department, and
Kingsburg Police Department with follow-up assistance provided by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Social Security Administration, Office of Inspector General.
In pleading guilty, PETERSEN, admitted that, while impersonating an agent of the federal Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), he knowingly and intentionally transmitted threatening text messages to another which stated, in part, “I put it on my badge the s--- ur in will all hit u at once with nothing u can do,” and, “If you see a black crown victoria its 2 late don’t bother trying.” In entering his guilty plea, PETERSEN agreed to serve a two year prison term without the possibility of parole. He also agreed to make restitution for money he unlawfully took from another while representing himself to be a DEA agent...
I wish to thank the anonymous persdon who apparently has a legal background regarding illegal impersonation.
I trust the impersonators will take heed.
You better watch out Mr. Smith, they just found out that "Joe the Plumber" never paid a late fee for a library book when he was in 7th grade. They find this an important matter to report, but no one in the media seems to care that their presidential candidate in his own words can't remember an entire period of his life because he was walking around in a drug and beer induced stupor. No one knows how much of a drug habit he had, or whether he was involved in trafficking of drugs because he won't discuss it, but we have exhausted all investigative resources available to the left wing media to find out that "Joe the Plumber" was late returning a library book in 7th grade. No wonder no one in the public knows of some of Obama's own statements:
"White Greed runs a world in need"
"I ceased to advertise my mother's race at the age of 12 or 13, when I began to suspect that by doing so I was ingratiating myself to whites."
"I found a solace in nursing a pervasive sense of grievance and animosity against my mother's race."
regarding his father: "There was something about him that made me wary, a little too sure of himself, maybe. And white"
"'It remained necessary to prove which side you were on, to show your loyalty to the black masses, to strike out and name names."
"I never emulate white men and brown men whose fates didn't speak to my own. It was into my father's image, the black man, son of Africa , that I'd packed all the attributes I sought in myself , the attributes of Martin and Malcolm, DuBois and Mandela."
"I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction."
These are all quotes in Barrack Obama's own words from his own books and any one of them is certainly more worthy of media attention than the fact that the guy who asked a candidate a question was late returning a library book in the 7th grade, however, the media will not report these issues regarding their messiah because they only want you to know good things about him and are afraid that if you knew the truth about him, their messiah would lose the election. It should be very troubling that the media feels a need to hide the truth about Obama.
We should all pay close attention to Vice Presidential candidate Joe Briden, who warns that this country faces an international crisis in the event Obama is elected. Biden said he absolutely guarantees it will happen within 6 months if Obama is elected, so isn't the easiest way to avoid this crisis to not elect Obama?
LOOK AT THE MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN:
I just heard the best comparison of Barrack Obama I have ever heard on the Sean Hannity Show this afternoon. A caller said the latest campaign tactic is that Obama is going to his rallies shouting "PAY NO ATTENTION TO THOSE NEGATIVE ADS" and she was immediately reminded of the Wizard of Oz when Toto pulls back the curtain and the Wizard yells "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain." The caller urged all the listeners to start looking closely at the Obama that is hiding behind the curtain.
read the entire text of the warning Biden issued regarding the international crisis we will be faced with if Obama should be elected president:
http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=37876
watch out, the wicked witch (susan kniep) is here in town!
Today's Wall Street Journal predicts economic catastrophe under a President Obama:
Get Ready for the New New Deal
Obama is much more dangerous to economic freedom than FDR.
By PAUL H. RUBIN
In 1932, Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected president as the nation was heading into a severe recession. The stock market had crashed in 1929, the world's economy was slowing down, and all economic indicators in the U.S. showed signs of trouble.
The new president's response was to restructure the economy with the New Deal -- an expansion of the role of government once unimaginable in America. We now know that FDR's policies likely prolonged the Great Depression because the economy never fully recovered in the 1930s, and actually got worse in the latter half of the decade. And we know that FDR got away with it (winning election four times) by blaming his predecessor, Herbert Hoover, for crashing the economy in the first place.
Today, the U.S. is in better shape than in 1932. But it faces similar circumstances. The stock market has been in a tail spin, credit markets have locked up, and a surging Democratic presidential candidate is running on expanding the role of government, laying the blame for the economic turmoil on the current occupant of the White House and his party's economic policies.
Barack Obama is one of the most liberal members of the Senate. His reaction to the financial crisis is to blame deregulation. He even leverages fear of deregulation onto other issues. For example, Sen. John McCain wants to allow consumers to buy health insurance across state lines. Mr. Obama likens this to the financial deregulation that he alleges got us into the current mess.
But a President Obama would also enjoy large Democratic majorities in Congress. His party might even win a 60-seat, filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, giving him more power than any president has had in decades to push a liberal agenda. And given the opportunity, Mr. Obama will likely radically increase government interference in the economy.
Until now, this election has been fought on the margins, over marginal issues. But it is important to understand how much a presidential candidate wants to move the needle on taxes, trade and other issues. Usually there isn't a chance for wholesale change. Now, however, it appears that this election will make more than a marginal difference. It might fundamentally change America.
Unlike FDR, Mr. Obama will not have to create the mechanisms government uses to interfere with the economy before imposing his policies. FDR had to get the Supreme Court to overturn a century's worth of precedents limiting the power of government before he could use the Constitution's commerce clause, among other things, to increase government control of the economy. Mr. Obama will have no such problem.
FDR also had to create agencies to implement regulations. Today, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the National Labor Relations Board (both created in the 1930s) as well as the Environmental Protection Agency and others created later are in place. Increasing their power will be easier than creating them from scratch.
Even before the current crisis, there was a great demand for increased government regulation to limit global warming. That gives the next president a ready-made box in which to place more regulation, and a legion of supports eager for it.
But if the coming wave of new regulation from an Obama administration is harmful to the economy, Mr. Obama will take a page from FDR's playbook. He'll blame Republicans for having caused the market crash in the first place, and so escape blame for the consequences of his policies. It worked for FDR and, so far in this campaign, blaming Republicans and George W. Bush has worked for Mr. Obama.
Democrats draw their political power from trial lawyers, unions, government bureaucrats, environmentalists, and, perhaps, my liberal colleagues in academia. All of these voting blocs seem to favor a larger, more intrusive government. If things proceed as they now appear likely to, we can expect major changes in policies that benefit these groups.
If those of us who favor free markets for the freedom and prosperity they bring are right, the political system may soon put our economy on track for a catastrophe.
Today's Wall Street Journal also reported that the Obama plan will eliminate jobs in America:
Socking It to Small Business
The Obama plan is an incentive to hire fewer workers.
Barack Obama declared last week that his economic plan begins with "one word that's on everyone's mind and it's spelled J-O-B-S." This raises the stubborn question that Senator Obama has never satisfactorily answered: How do you create more jobs when you want to levy higher tax rates on the small business owners who are the nation's primary employers?
Loyal Democrats have howled over the claim that small businesses will get soaked by the Obama tax plan, so we thought we would seek an authority they might trust on the issue: Democratic Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus of Montana. Here is what Mr. Baucus wrote in a joint press release with Iowa Republican Charles Grassley on August 20, 2001, when they supported the income tax rate cuts that Mr. Obama wants to repeal:
". . . when the new tax relief law is fully phased in, entrepreneurs and small businesses -- owners of sole proprietorships, partnerships, S corporations, and farms -- will receive 80 percent of the tax relief associated with reducing the top income tax rates of 36 percent to 33 percent and 39.6 percent to 35 percent."
Then they continued with a useful economics tutorial:
"Experts agree that lower taxes increase a business' cash flow, which helps with liquidity constraints during an economic slowdown and could increase the demand for investment and labor."
Twelve Senate Democrats voted for those same tax cuts. And just to be clear on one point: An increase in "the demand for investment and labor" translates into an increase in J-O-B-S. So if lowering these tax rates creates jobs, then it stands to reason that raising these taxes will mean fewer jobs. From 2003 to 2007 with the lower tax rates in place, the U.S. economy added eight million jobs, or about 125,000 per month. The Small Business Administration says small business wrote the paychecks for up to 80% of new jobs in 2005, for example.
Mr. Obama's tax increase would hit the bottom line of small businesses in three direct ways. First, because 85% of small business owners are taxed at the personal income tax rate, any moderately successful business with an income above as little as $165,000 a year could face a higher tax liability. That's the income level at which the 33% income tax bracket now phases in for individuals, and Mr. Obama would raise that tax rate for those businesses to 36%.
Second, the Obama plan phases out tax deductions (the so-called PEP and Pease provisions), thus raising tax rates imposed on this group by another 1.5 percentage points. Finally, Mr. Obama would require many small business owners to pay as much as a four-percentage-point payroll tax surcharge on net income above $250,000. All of this would bring the federal marginal small business tax rate up to nearly 45%, while big business would continue to pay the 35% corporate tax rate.
Mr. Obama responds that more than nine of 10 small businesses would not pay these higher taxes. Last Thursday he scoffed in response to the debate over Joe the Plumber, saying that not too many plumbers "make more than $250,000 a year." He's right that most of the 35 million small businesses in America have a net income of less than $250,000, hire only a few workers, and stay in business for less than four years.
However, the point is that it is the most successful small- and medium-sized businesses that create most of the new jobs in our dynamic society. And they are precisely the businesses that will be slammed by Mr. Obama's tax increase. Joe the Plumber would get hit if he expanded his business and hired 10 to 15 other plumbers. An analysis by the Senate Finance Committee found that of the filers in the highest two tax brackets, three out of four are small business owners. A typical firm with a net income of $500,000 would see its tax burden rise to $166,000 a year under the Obama plan from $146,000 today.
According to a Gallup survey conducted for the National Federation of Independent Business last December and January, only 10% of all businesses that hire between one and nine employees would pay the Obama tax. But 19.5% of employers with 10 to 19 employees would be socked by the tax. And 50% of businesses with 20 to 249 workers would pay the tax. The Obama plan is an incentive to hire fewer workers.
For many months Mr. Obama and his band of economists have claimed that taxes don't matter much to growth or job creation. But only last week Mr. Obama effectively admitted that even he doesn't believe this. His latest "stimulus" proposal includes a $3,000 refundable tax credit for businesses that hire new workers in 2009 or 2010.
So what sense does it make to offer targeted and temporary tax relief for some small businesses, while raising taxes by far more and permanently on others? Raising marginal tax rates on farmers, ranchers, sole proprietors and small business owners is no way to stimulate the economy -- and it's certainly no way to create J-O-B-S.
Boasting Weakness
By INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Tuesday, October 21, 2008 4:20 PM PT
Election '08: The latest in the endless series of gaffes from Obama running mate Joseph Biden is his warning that our enemies would test a President Obama early on. We need a president they would fear to test.
Read More: Election 2008
An early sign of the coming greatness of the Reagan presidency was that within an hour of the former actor's taking the oath of office, the Ayatollah Khomeini's Islamofascist regime in Iran released the 52 U.S. hostages it had been holding for 444 days.
Somehow, Ronald Reagan's lack of foreign policy experience didn't give Tehran the impression it would be a good idea to find out what he was made of; the mullahs already knew.
So why does Democratic vice-presidential nominee Sen. Joseph Biden think it's such a good idea to advertise that within months of taking office a President Obama would be faced with "a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy"?
What Biden is saying is that either Iran or al-Qaida or Russia or perhaps North Korea will launch some kind of attack on America or American interests abroad to feel out the new president.
And that this, presumably, would be practice for a more ambitious move against us later.
Speaking at a Seattle fundraising event Sunday night, the unfailingly foot-in-mouth-prone Biden said, "Mark my words," promising that "it will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking."
As if promising a terrorist attack or an invasion of Taiwan or a suicide bombing of a U.S. base wasn't enough of a faux pas, Biden went on to implore his audience of donors that "he's going to need help," that Obama supporters will have "to stand with him, because it's not going to be apparent initially . . . that we're right."
Why is the supposedly seasoned foreign-policy wise man Biden in such a frenzied state?
Clearly, one purpose is to cast a Camelot-esque spell, comparing Obama to the much-beloved President Kennedy.
As attractive as JFK was, however — especially comparing his defense and tax-cutting policies to those of today's Democratic Party — it was his perception of vulnerability that brought America to the edge of the nuclear precipice in the October Missile Crisis.
Sen. Obama has been very fond of quoting Kennedy's inaugural address, in which the young, idealistic president declared that America should "never fear to negotiate."
As talk radio's Larry Elder and the Las Vegas-based "Cutting Through the Fog" blog have both noted, JFK ended up proving that you should sometimes fear to negotiate.
"It was Kennedy's own perceived weakness that caused Russia to move missiles into Cuba," the Cutting Through blog noted.
Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev "saw weakness when Kennedy miserably failed to properly implement the Bay of Pigs invasion" with military backup, the blog said. "The way Kennedy handled the post-Bay of Pigs Invasion negotiation for prisoners was also seen as being weak."
JFK rushed to negotiate with Khrushchev, proposing in March of 1961 what became the Vienna Summit, which took place less than five months after Kennedy took office, and less than two months after the Bay of Pigs fiasco.
As Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Tim Weiner notes in his history of the CIA, "Legacy of Ashes," Kennedy "wanted a quiet coup" against Castro in Cuba and was talked into believing the CIA would deliver him one; meanwhile U.S. bombers charged with destroying Castro's air force were cut in half at the crucial hour.
Russia would have been foolish not to test a president who had demonstrated such incompetence. In Obama's case, it's not just Russia that may want to see how far it can go, but also an Iran well on its way to becoming a nuclear power, Hugo Chavez's Venezuela, the Taliban in Afghanistan, and the Hamas and Hezbollah terrorist groups in the Middle East, not to mention Syria, and China.
President Kennedy's solution to the Cuban missile crisis ended up being a secret deal with Khrushchev to remove our medium-range nuclear missiles in Turkey, which would have been devastating to Kennedy politically had it become known.
What kind of things will Obama swap with our enemies?
This has been offered as the reason you must vote for Obama, or face the violence in the streets for not electing Obama:
COULD AN OBAMA LOSS SPARK RACE RIOTS?
September 30th, 2008 by TexasFred
A political scientist at a Christian college in New York City warns that if Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama loses the election on November 4, race riots could break out in large U.S. cities.
A recent Associated Press-Yahoo News poll suggested Senator Obama’s race could cost him up to six percentage points on election night. David Corbin, a politics professor at The King’s College, contends there is potential for public riots the night of or after the election, if Obama’s lead in the polls does not translate into victory.
“I don’t think that’s something that we’ve looked at very closely, and I think that this could be a powder keg here as we get towards that day, given that Senator Obama is an African-American and given that there might be some backlash if he actually loses,” Corbin explains.
Corbin notes that seemingly small stories involving O.J. Simpson and Rodney King have brought into play terrible riots in major cities across the U.S. “I think a lot of people are looking to an Obama presidency to affirm the notion that somehow Americans aren’t racist and, if for some reason Senator Obama loses, then it’s just, ‘Oh well, it’s said and done. We must be a racist nation,’” Corbin adds.
People who fuel that claim of racism, according to Corbin, do damage to one of Senator Obama’s main themes — moving beyond a red-and-blue, or black-and-white America
Obama Presidency Tested by ‘International Crisis’ Is ‘Realistic,’ Bolton Says
Thursday, October 23, 2008
By Josiah Ryan, Staff Writer
Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden speaks at the podium while Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama looks on (AP Photo)
(CNSNews.com) - Democratic vice presidential candidate Joe Biden’s warning that a President Barack Obama would be tested by an “international crisis” in his first six months in the White House is not unrealistic, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton told CNSNews.com on Wednesday.
However, at a campaign stop in Richmond, Va., that same day, Obama dismissed his running mate’s comments, explaining that Biden sometimes employs “rhetorical flourishes” while speaking.
Bolton told CNSNews.com: “I agree with Senator Biden’s concern. I think there are a variety of things going on internationally that could result in a crisis for the next president within six months or even before.”
At a fundraiser on Oct. 19, Biden had said: "Mark my words. It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. … The world is looking. Watch, we're gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy."
Biden added that when the crisis occurs, Americans will need to stand firmly behind President Obama because it’s "not going to be apparent initially … that we're right."
Bolton said he thinks Biden’s choice of the word “generated” was fitting.
“What I thought was interesting about what Sen. Biden said is that he used the phrase ‘generated crisis,’” Bolton told CNSNews.com.
“In other words, a crisis that would be created by one of our adversaries to, in effect, test Senator Obama. I would not begin to presume what was going through Senator Biden’s thought process when he said that – but I think it a realistic assessment of what might happen,” he said.
Bolton said the risk of an inexperienced president overreacting to prove himself could be even more dangerous than an under-reaction.
“The risk of an untried president is not only that he wouldn’t respond adequately, but I think there is the risk of an excessive reaction,” said Bolton. “The desire to prove, as Sen. Biden said, that Senator Obama has steel in his spine, proving how tough you are, can sometimes lead to an overreaction which would be as, or more dangerous, for the United States than what an under-reaction would be. I am grateful to Senator Biden for bringing it up for us.”
On Tuesday, the McCain campaign started to comment on Biden’s remark.
“I guess we have to say, ‘thanks for the warning, Joe,’” Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin told a crowd in Reno, Nev., on Tuesday.
Biden “told Democrat donors to mark his words - that there were ‘at least four or five scenarios’ that would place our country at risk in an Obama administration,” said Palin. “But I guess the looming crisis that most worries the Obama campaign right now is Joe Biden's next speaking engagement. Let's call that crisis scenario number five.”
At his Richmond campaign stop on Wednesday, Obama also said of Biden’s remarks, “I think his core point was that the next administration is going to be tested. Whoever the next president is going to be is going to have to deal with a whole host of problems.”
The fact that the teacher's unions and DeFronzo are so vehemently against the constitutional convention makes me that much more suspicious about their motives for opposing it. It is about time that the people are able to hold these elected officials accountable. Why are they so worried about the electorate having more of a say in what laws are passed? Are they afraid of losing their power over us? The current system has these legislators beholden to the powerful union bosses who control all those large PAC checks, and they care very little about what the "Joe the Plumbers" think, so long as they can keep the union fat cats happy. The first thing we should do in this convention is pass the ability to recall elected officials by petition, similar to what they do in California. That will keep them accountable to us. In Switzerland, no law can be passed until it is voted on by the people in a referendum. This keeps the government limited and prevents all the out of control spending, and government controls on people. Switzerland's legal system has been touted by legal scholars are the example for the 21st century, so what is wrong with Connecticut moving in that direction? Let's pass this constitutional convention on election day and start holding these people accountable to the people they are supposed to be accountable to. Let us not forget the preamble to the US Constitution: "WE THE PEOPLE..."
A John McCain volunteer says she was robbed at knifepoint Wednesday in Pittsburgh by an attacker who cut a 'B' into her face after noticing a McCain bumper sticker on her car.
The Republican presidential nominee has since called the volunteer, 20-year-old Texas resident Ashley Todd, and spoken with her and her family.
Todd was working at a nearby phone bank before she was apparently attacked near an ATM machine.
Pittsburgh police spokeswoman Diane Richards said the victim was withdrawing money at 9 p.m. Wednesday when a man approached her from behind, put the knife to her neck and demanded money. She says she gave him $60.
She told police the robber then noticed the bumper sticker, punched her in the back of the head, knocked her down and then carved a "B" on the right side of her face.
Don't forget to watch "10 REASONS NOT TO VOTE FOR OBAMA" Sunday 9PM on the Fox News Channel
Check out the latest video exposing Obama's plan to give social security benefits to illegal aliens and to tax you to pay for it:
http://www.nationalrepublicantrust.com/video_ss4illegals2_eg.html
Mayor Stewart:
I was delighted to hear of your plans to veto the council’s recent appointment of Leslie Jacobs to the Board of Education and I commend you for your plan to do the right thing for the children of this city.
The Republican Party worked hard to find a suitable appointee for this vacancy and they found what they believed was the right person in Jamie Giantonio. Mr. Giantonio has a background in teaching and is the parent of two young children, so he has a vested interest in the well being of our educational system.
Filling of this vacancy, being a Republican seat on the Board, should be left up to the leadership of the Republican Party, free from interference of Democratic Aldermen who appear to have other interests besides the welfare of the children in mind.
The public and more specifically, the parents, agree. I have heard from a number of parents who are simply outraged over this entire process. A long line of public members, mostly parents, spoke against this appointment at the council meeting last Wednesday, but the council simply chose to ignore them. I urge you to listen to the people of this city and do what is right for our children.
VETO THE APPOINTMENT OF LESLIE JACOBS!
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