Interesting characters on a2k

I'll take a do-nothing President any day over Reagan or the Bushes (pick your Bush).
I'm remembering the Physician's credo is 'do no harm'. Why can't the Presidents get that?

Funny...I read these this a.m.:
You know you're a Republican when:
--You're a pro-lifer, but support the death penalty
--You think "proletariat" is a type of cheese
--You believe Jesus was a capitalist and was opposed to welfare
--You came of age in the 1960's and don't remember Bob Dylan
--You've urged someone to pull themselves up their bootstraps, when
They don't even have shoes.

National Identity'

Pulling Back the Curtain on Sam Brownback's Kansas Financial Meltdown
Posted: 05/12/2014 4:19 pm EDT Updated: 07/12/2014 5:59 am EDT Print
Let's review, shall we? First there was the bad news from Kansas:

TOPEKA -- Tax revenue in April dropped 45 percent from a year ago, the Kansas Department of Revenue announced Wednesday.
The state's revenue for the year is $92.9 million less than projected earlier this month....
Personal income tax revenue has decreased by $508 million compared with this point last fiscal year. That category also accounted for the discrepancy between Wednesday's numbers and estimates released earlier in the month. Income tax revenue was $89.6 million lower than expected.
This huge and escalating shortfall occurred after Kansas's right-wing Republican legislature and governor, Sam Brownback, enacted huge and foolish tax cuts, the result of which was--as Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley (D-Topeka) explained--to transfer the tax burden from the rich to the middle and lower classes. The revenue shortfall also led Moody's to downgrade Kansas's debt, something that will cost its citizens even more money over the coming years as they borrow to make up the lost revenue.

So, are Brownback and his fellow Republicans willing to say, "Oops, my bad!"?

"What we are seeing today is the effect of tax increases implemented by the Obama administration that resulted in lower income tax payments and a depressed business environment," Gov. Sam Brownback said in a statement.
"The failed economic policies of the Obama administration are affecting states throughout the nation. It is more important than ever that we continue our focus on growing jobs and creating a business-friendly environment that benefits Kansans," Brownback said.
Please unstick your palm from your forehead. Hey, maybe Brownback is right. Don't laugh. Maybe Obama's policies are leading to revenue shortfalls for government across the board. Maybe?

The U.S. Treasury Department booked a $114 billion surplus in April, the largest for that month since 2008, according to the latest estimates from the Congressional Budget Office released Wednesday.
That's just April, though. How about overall?

For the fifth consecutive year, the U.S. annual deficit is projected to fall as a share of the economy, and to do so more than previously forecast.
The Congressional Budget Office projected Monday that the 2014 shortfall will decline to 2.8% of GDP -- or $492 billion. That's about $23 billion below what the CBO forecast just a few months ago. And it's well below the 4.1% -- or $680 billion -- recorded last year.
Kansas cuts taxes on the rich, and its revenues fall through the floor. That's Obama's fault, according to the governor. Obama raised taxes on the rich (through income tax hikes and Obamacare-related tax hikes), but federal revenues are through the roof and the deficit is plummeting. Anybody seeing a disconnect here? I know Brownback has worked hard to weaken public education in Kansas. I guess he figures if no one in the state is educated, they won't be able to figure out he's been pulling the wool over their eyes.

Markos has already highlighted a comprehensive study showing that states that embrace a conservative approach to economic policy (as defined by right-wing group ALEC) have weaker economic growth than those that don't.

But we can even get more specific than that. The author of that study, Menzie Chinn, also looked at two states where, in 2011, a Republican governor replaced a Democratic one and ushered in a radical rightward shift in state policy (Wisconsin and the aforementioned Kansas), and compared them to two states that did the opposite in 2011, i.e. elected a Democratic governor to replace a Republican one (California and Minnesota). It's worth noting that, of the latter two, California saw the most significant shift in policy as a Democratic legislature combined with Gov. Jerry Brown to enact an even greater leftward shift starting in 2011 than Minnesota's Mark Dayton was able to accomplish with a legislature that remained Republican after he took office.

What did Chinn find? Well, in terms of job creation since 2011, it's clear: The more liberalism, the more jobs. What's that you say? That's right. "Pro-business" policies stink at creating jobs. Progressive policies, however, do the job far better.

Funny...I read these this a.m.:
You know you're a Republican when:
--You're a pro-lifer, but support the death penalty
--You think "proletariat" is a type of cheese
--You believe Jesus was a capitalist and was opposed to welfare
--You came of age in the 1960's and don't remember Bob Dylan
--You've urged someone to pull themselves up their bootstraps, when they don't even have shoes.

Do you understand the term humorous?

I heard a good definition of a "libertarian" recently:
that's someone who is opposed to governance,
except for a strong police force to protect him from his slave labor.