In February, Obama presented his 2012 budget to congress and stated that reducing the deficit was his priority. Clearly, Obama didn't remember that in February 2009, he said the same thing--just before signing the Recovery Act which ballooned the federal budget by almost a trillion dollars. Even now, Obama seems unable to understand that his failed, $787 Billion dollar stimulus has loaded the nation with a mind-bogglingly huge burden of additional debt. Instead, each time the Market dips or Americans protest the staggering $1,400,000,000,000.00 of national public debt, Obama promises a new kind of stimulus.I’ll admit that there’s a lot of old ground here in what Doan is saying (and all of it previously debunked), but I believe the following needs to be repeated in response (here)…
According to a recent CNN/Time magazine poll the economy and jobs are by far the number one priority of Americans. In the poll 63% of Americans called the economy "extremely important" with another 32% calling it "very important." Second was unemployment, which 54% called "extremely important" and 34% "very important." The "federal budget deficit" actually came in fourth in the poll behind the economy, unemployment, and health care. Another poll from Gallup ranked unemployment as the number one issue for Americans with the budget deficit coming in fifth.The only people who care about the deficit are the teabaggers and the DC political-media-industrial complex as a whole. Everyone in the real world cares about JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS JOBS!!!!! And as long as I’m talking about Doan, I guess she’ll never face the proverbial music for this.
Update 3/29/11: More on the "do as I say, not as I do" Repugs here, particularly on jobs...
Just had dinner with a young Palestinian activist who told me that his friends were feeling more positive toward the US than they had in years because of the military action in Libya. "It's on Al-Jazeera all the time," he said, "Libyans dancing in the streets and saying, 'Merci Obama, Merci Sarkozy.' Everyone was furious after you vetoed the UN resolution on the Israeli settlements--but this has made people forget all about that...And the Gulf States hate Gaddafi so much, I'm sure they'll pay for all your military expenses."I’m just glad the “young Palestinian” didn’t say that it would be paid for in oil revenues; then, we’d know that something was up for sure.
No wonder (small businesses) create 70% or more of America’s new jobs. Small business owners are a far more powerful economic force than Exxon, Microsoft, GE, or WalMart.Putting aside the fact that what constitutes a “small business” in this country is often nothing but a perversion of the tax code (here), the following should be noted here from Cynthia Tucker of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution…
…a study…conducted for the SBA found that “most, if not all, of the growth in employment comes from the 300,000 high-impact firms in the economy over any four-year period. Depending on the time period studied, this is about evenly split between firms with fewer than 500 employees (the SBA definition of small business) and firms with more than 500 employees. Therefore, it would appear that both small and large firms contribute about equally to employment growth.”(http://bit.ly/8ZaK8L)Continuing with Root…
Worse is the provision (in the health care law) mandating (businesses) report annually to the IRS every vendor from whom we purchase more than $600 of goods and services during the year.As noted here, the House voted to repeal that requirement concerning the 1099 reporting (have to update your wingnut talking points, Root). Once more with Root (concerning “accredited Investors” in the Dodd-Frank financial reform law)…
Last year, Democratic Senator Chris Dodd tried to pass a financial reform bill that included a provision increasing the amount of money one would have to earn to be considered an “accredited investor.” That would reduce the angel investor pool by an estimated 70% and require most private businesses to get permission from the SEC to raise money. Do you know what an SEC lawyer costs? Raising capital for a start-up would suddenly cost an extra $250,000 in legal fees…and take months, or years…Gosh, what thorough sourcing from Root here – not! And as noted here by Matt Bartus, a lawyer representing technology firms seeking financing and contemplating public offerings, “it’s hard to know currently what impact (the accredited investor rule change) will have in practice.” This is all perfectly in character (or lack thereof) for a guy (Root) who once said that the 2010 midterms might save Obama because he can’t be his usual “socialist self” here (looks like Root is as successful at punditry as he is at sports wagering, which apparently was his former occupation).
That class size should be small is revered like an article of faith in this country. Its adherents include parents, education groups, politicians and, of course, the unions whose ranks it swells. In many states it is even required by law, which has lead to millions of dollars in fines against schools in Florida and a lawsuit against New York City by its teachers union. Yet small class size is neither a guarantor nor a prerequisite of educational excellence. The worst public elementary school in Manhattan, 16 percent of whose students read at grade level, has an average class size of 21; PS 130, one of the city’s best, has an average class size of 30. Small class size is one factor in academic success. The question, then, is whether the educational benefits of class-size reduction justify the costs.In response, I give you the following (here)…
Daily News columnist Juan Gonzalez, who has done some seriously good work in the past, this week took his pistol-like investigative skills to the skull of charter school operator and eternal politician Eva Moskowitz — first in a story on the erosion of parent voices in the city schools, and then in a story on Moskowitz’s salary. Gonzalez challenges the salary, which he reports as $371,000 last year (Moskowitz says the real figure is $250,000 plus a $60,000 bonus), suggesting that she should give some of her pay back to her charter schools. This is hardly the first criticism that’s been thrown at Moskowitz, who previously served as the chair of the City Council’s education committee and ran for borough president of Manhattan, losing to Scott Stringer after the teachers union campaigned against her. As Gonzalez reports, her critics include “educators, parents, the teachers’ union and Harlem political leaders.”And as noted here (telling us the results of an NEA study)…
The effect of smaller classes on student achievement extends far beyond the early grades. Follow-up studies of STAR students through grade 7 show higher achievement levels in reading, language, math, science, and social studies. Additionally, students in smaller classes showed more positive behaviors towards engagement and learning than did the students in larger classes.I am definitely not an educator or an expert in that field, so I do not have an expert point of view on this. An explanation that makes send to me about this, though, is that, while there are a number of variables involved in student performance, it would make sense that a class size of 20 or so students is more conducive to learning than a class size of 30 or more. And when it comes to education, who would know better than an educator (or a former one, in this case), who communicated as follows to me on this…
As far as I can tell, Eva Moskowitz is a proponent of the "business model" school with her as a $300,000-a-year CEO. I smell a rat. Plus, her schools have very young kids who still may have respect for adults. She should try teaching 27-30 high school kids in a small room, complete with behavior problems and drugs.Makes sense to me.
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