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Romney won that debate and is now IMO back in the race. If he continues with that pragmatic message and still gets the extreme elements in The Republican Party to vote in mass he may pull it off. The main message from him was,"We have given him four years and the economy is still headed in the wrong direction." Also he tried to convince us that he will not be giving the rich a tax break. What I hope he does is eliminate all if not most of the tax code, simplify it and do away with right offs. I'd go so far as to say if you make $65 K or less you pay $0 of taxes anything over to $250 K you pay 15% and over that amount 25%, regardless if it is capital gains or through earnings. I'm not sure what those numbers would look like or if it would be enough to support the government but the point everyone would know where they stand. It takes a PhD to do taxes now days.
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"Educate and inform the whole mass of the people...they are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty."
??” Thomas Jefferson
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The VP debate next week should be interesting. -
I expect to see Ryan run circles around Biden. I really believe Biden cannot hurt Obama but Ryan can be a difference maker one way or another. I've been reading the ultra liberal paper here in the bay area and reading the comments and wondering what debate did they watched. I'm a true independent voter and I saw a clear winner. Also ABC needs to sit Donna Brazile down on this election. If Obama sat on her face she would would comment that she just saw the promise land. I want my news to be a bit more partial then down right leaning towards one party or another. Again, PBS represented the most balance view.Originally posted by Da Coach View Post"Educate and inform the whole mass of the people...they are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty."
??” Thomas Jefferson
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If you mean because of the threat of reduced taxpayer funding, I would like to ask why anyone can justify taxpayer, public money going to support any media outlet? If it wasn't because the PBS and NPR are so strongly slanted toward and benefit the political viewpoint of one of the parties, defunding would have happened a long time ago.Originally posted by amckillip View PostThey might not be around to do so next time...
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Oh jeez, let's not get in the slant argument. NPR and PBS aren't perfect but about any objective measurement shows both are as politically neutral as they come.Originally posted by Da Coach View Post
But why should taxpayer money go to media outlets? Because the taxpayers own the airwaves. Because sometimes information dissemination and programming shouldn't be driven by who can attract the upper middle class, white, male, demographic. Because sometimes there is inherent value in promoting debate that isn't driven by ratings. Because despite what many of my generation forget, not everyone has highspeed internet and cable (actually a rather large minority do not have one of the above), and need an avenue for communication. Because, finally, to fund both for a year is about the same cost as 25 cruise missiles (our stockpiles are in the hundreds of thousands). I am generally pretty moderate, particularly in a fiscal sense, but to withdraw funding to our public communications channels (of which Bradley receives money to run WCBU, the local NPR station) is shortsighted and would show that we have very much lost touch with a core set a values, not the least of which is the freedom of information.Comment
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I disagree. There isn't any information available on PBS or NPR that is not available elsewhere, and there hasn't been for many decades. The government has no business favoring any one media corporation over the others. Especially since we have to borrow money from China to do it, and especially in view of recent scandals that show corruption in government-funded corporations like NPR. If you can justify using taxpayers' money to fund corrupt media outlets that produce opinion-laden programming that conflicts with a sizable portion of the American public, then why shouldn't the federal government fund every other areas of our lives where information is involved- newspapers, books, magazines? And why not every other category of goods and services we all use as well?
Using similar logic, since not every American can afford the same quality of food, cars, electronic goods, furniture, housing, childrens toys, diaper, etc., should the federal government fund stores that sell all these items so everyone gets the same quality and quantity of goods at the same price? Where does the mommy state end? There is no money left to pay for this, and the thousands of other programs we waste money on.
Maybe BradleyFans.com should apply for federal funding?Comment
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Let's see... hmmmm... Just what to cut..... PBS' $445 million per year grant or the $4billion in tax breaks to oil and gas companies! $2.4 billion of those tax breaks go to the five largest oil companies that had $137 billion in profits last year and $60 billion in profits for the first half of this year! Yet the GOP is going out of their way for cuts to PBS!
Priorities anyone?!?!?!Bradley 72 - Illini 68 Final
???It??™s awful hard,??™??™ said Illini freshman guard D.J. Richardson, the former Central High School guard who played prep school ball a few miles from here and fought back tears outside the locker room. ???It??™s a hometown thing. It??™s bragging rights.??™Comment
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Please. The Democrats had control of both houses of Congress for 2 years, and even had a filibuster-proof super-majority in the Senate for a long enough time to repeal any of those. And just how many of those corporate tax breaks did they repeal when it would have been easy to do so? The answer is not a single one of them. So why not lay the blame on the cowardly Democrats?Originally posted by Beninator View PostComment
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Nice try but the Republicans were responsible for killing the latest attempt to cut the tax breaks to big oil.Originally posted by Da Coach View Post
Oh btw, the 47 senators (4 Democrats) voting against the bill have received $23,582,500 in career contributions from oil and gas.
Bradley 72 - Illini 68 Final
???It??™s awful hard,??™??™ said Illini freshman guard D.J. Richardson, the former Central High School guard who played prep school ball a few miles from here and fought back tears outside the locker room. ???It??™s a hometown thing. It??™s bragging rights.??™Comment
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Those "big oil companies" pay billions of dollars a year in taxes. In fact the 3 highest taxpaying corporations in the country are 3 oil companies- Exxon, Chevron, and Conoco. Each paid over 40% of their incomes in taxes, way more than the Federal Government's 35% top corporate tax rate, which, by the way, is the highest corporate tax rate in the developed world!
The oil companies pay $3 in taxes for every $1 in profits-
We should be encouraging more companies to become so profitable. We might be able to reduce the unprecedented deficit this administration has racked up.
Even liberals love tax breaks for oil corporations, and this is the real reason they won't repeal them.
By the way, corporations like NPR and PBS pay absolutely NO TAXES!Comment
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As a matter of course, pro-oil sites are not a very good "source' to cite, particularly when a quick google search and the calculator app can disprove their "facts." (Which BTW, the do not cite a source for).Originally posted by Da Coach View PostThose "big oil companies" pay billions of dollars a year in taxes. In fact the 3 highest taxpaying corporations in the country are 3 oil companies- Exxon, Chevron, and Conoco. Each paid over 40% of their incomes in taxes, way more than the Federal Government's 35% top corporate tax rate, which, by the way, is the highest corporate tax rate in the developed world!
The oil companies pay $3 in taxes for every $1 in profits-
We should be encouraging more companies to become so profitable. We might be able to reduce the unprecedented deficit this administration has racked up.
Even liberals love tax breaks for oil corporations, and this is the real reason they won't repeal them.
By the way, corporations like NPR and PBS pay absolutely NO TAXES!
One cannot have their cake and eat it to. We cannot support a non-profit information source, but we can aid a ridiculously profittable enterprise to be more profittable??Comment
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well....I really would disagree with this --Originally posted by amckillip View Post
they don't own the airwaves - but as always, they attempt to control them for taxation purposes mainly .....although there's other issues such as maintaining order in broadcasting and reserving certain channels for air traffic control, military, etc..
but I can broadcast certain things (walkie talkie, microwaves) and don't need govt. permission...so clearly they don't own the airwaves - they just lay claim to controlling certain aspects of the airwaves...
In many countries this power is horrifically abused so that ONLY the government is allowed to say what they want on any "airwave" - so I sure hope we never see that here..
BUT the real issue is that you are saying the government owns and controls the broadcast "airwaves" therefore they should give money to certain outlets...
but that's like saying the government also owns all the roads and waterways and they should give funding to some people of their choosing to drive cars and operate boats.
I just think this kind of arbitrary hand-outs have been constantly abused and used for the benefit of political gains and as Da Coach said - where will it ever end...?
why do we need a mommy state to buy free cell phones for people, give them government funded broadcasting, HUNDRED-MILLION-dollar loans and incentives to get their business started only to have them fail and the $$ completely disappear with nobody in the government even apparently interested whose pocket it went into... and literally give them lots and lots of handouts of every kind - all funded by the ever-decreasing portion of society who actually DOES work and provide for themselves.
Personally I am tired of all levels of government literally taking half of everything people earn and generate only to run an inefficient system where huge hunks of taxpayer money is given to someone else arbitrarily because someone thinks the wealth needs to be re-distributed to those who CAN work but choose not to and instead take a handout.
Here's consider this -- if all the money in the entire USA was taken from it's rightful owner & gathered in the nation's greatest "REDISTRIBUTION" effort...
...then thrown into a giant barrel and divided up so that every US resident got an EQUAL share....how much do you think each would get and what would eventually happen?
Sociologists and experts have studied this precise scenario for eons and here's what they all pretty much agree on...
-first - it is believed the USA contains about $50 trillion in total wealth - not all of which is liquid or divisible - for example - if you attempted to divide up the Statue of Liberty - it would greatly reduce it's value.
BUT -- for argument sake let's divide up what we can...and thus every US resident would get about $150,000....so here's what would happen...
Those with expertise and skills wouldn't just sit on or live off their "$150K nest egg" - they'd stash it or invest it and then go right to work and earn lots more..
In no time, those who were previously successful like Mitt Romney or Bill Gates or even just business owners, profesisonals, and other hard workers - would be doing well again or even vastly wealthy again in just a couple years......
-Meanwhile those who don't work or who expect someone else to provide for them - would likely burn through their $150K in only a few years - we've seen precisely this scenario many times when people win lotteries or luck into big fortunes....
Thus within just 3-4 years after the ULTIMATE REDISTRIBUTION - everything would pretty much be right back the way it was........
winners will win and ....well you get the picture......Comment
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PBS has been a great place for me to get information that is missing from main stream networks. I have a huge issue right now of how our media and news is now being owned and controlled by a few large corporations. Our local newspapers are no longer owned and operated locally. PBS gives us that ability to get an honest perspective albeit a bit to the left at times. I have two questions. Would Bill Moyer be able to say and have a show on any of the 4 major network and would he have the same freedom he has today?
The answer to me is easy, no and no! We need PBS."Educate and inform the whole mass of the people...they are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty."
??” Thomas Jefferson
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SFP you just said that you don't like your media outlets not being local and beholden to giant corporations. Yet in the same paragraph you espouse a need for PBS - a media outlet that has very little local programming (at least on the public tv stations I've watched) that is beholden to legislators that funnel dollars their way...typically, liberal democrats. That doesn't make sense.
I just happened to be listening to a little Limbaugh this afternoon and lo and behold...he was talking about this very situation. Go figure. His example was that the Sesame Street Workshop received over $1 million dollars from the Obama Stimulus...guess how many jobs they reported creating with that cash? 1.47. That's right...less than two jobs for over $1 million smackers.
As the purchaser (and indirect owner) of six different versions of electronic Elmo, four or five Big Birds, two stuffed Cookie Monsters, and a myriad of figurines from Bert to Snuffy...I can tell you that PBS and Sesame Street are doing just fine.Comment
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