Obama's Lifeline: For a Change, a Stimulus Plan That Actually Helps the Poor and the Sick

President Bush might have done some good things but these have been overlooked and we know the reason why. For President Obama, he did his job since the day he accepted the responsibility as a president. We'll just hope this lasts longer and truthful.

Imagine what Bush could've done to PREVENT NEW cases of HIV/AIDS if he'd just been passing out condoms or put forth massive research into an effective topical antimicrobial...

Treating victims is a good thing, after the fact. Anti-Retrovirals are good things...

...inflicting your morals on others at the expense of prevention...notsomuch.

What BO and the rest of the consensus crowd are doing is pure socilaism. Let's not mince words here. And, spending billions when the country has none to spend. This man and his ilk are spending your children's future now! It's time to cut up the credit card, not issue more credit.

"To cure the British disease with socialism was like trying to cure leukemia with leeches." - Margaret Thatcher

no income tax for a year and give Congress a set of ba!!s so they can buy out the Federal Reserve for $450 million and get the Treasury to print "we the people" dollars interest FREE.

By Timothy Sexton
Takeaways
The Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act not only cut funding, but also inducements for state funding.
Reagan's pathetic tax cuts for the poor failed to make up the losses experienced by budget cuts.
Any budget gains made from cuts in military spending were ineligible for social program spending. President Ronald Reagan was given the honor of The Greatest American Ever as the result of a poll conducted in cooperation with a Discovery Channel presentation that narrowed down the candidates for that particular honor. According to many of those who defend this choice, Reagan deserves this honor in part because he brought back a sense of respect to Americans following the Vietnam War, Watergate and the Iran hostage crisis. According to Reagan's own campaign slogan for the 1984 election, thanks to the previous four years of his Presidency, it was morning again in American.
Maybe someone just misspelled "mourning." The budget deficit explosion that occurred during the 1980s were a direct result of President Reagan's tax cuts, and the resulting lack of available funds that could have been earmarked toward social programs contributed to the continuing deconstruction of American social programs. Reagan's assault on these programs took as its starting point the conservative ideological foundation that if people rely upon government welfare strategies to provide them with such things as food, housing and help taking care of their children it will serve as a disincentive for them to work; therefore the less the government helps the poor, ultimately the more they will help themselves and the better off they will be.
President Reagan was a firm believer in this methodology and almost from the moment he took his oath of office set to work dismantling government entitlement programs. The first major step toward rolling back opportunities for those not lucky enough to be born into wealth took place when he signed the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (OBRA). OBRA served to cut federal funding programs for the poor as well as inducements for states to provide funding. Unfortunately, cutting funding for programs was not enough to revolutionize the welfare programs in the way that conservative ideologues desired. In order to completely undermine the progressive system of entitlements to the poor, the Reagan administration began to use tax reform as a method of undercutting welfare.
By cutting taxes and instituting such concepts as the Earned Income Credit, Reagan-always the actor-gave the outward appearance of helping poor families. Unfortunately, those measly tax cut gains made barely a dent in the overall loss in benefits the poor were no longer receiving because of cuts and changes to entitlement programs. Throughout the Reagan presidency cuts and rollbacks to welfare programs were systematically enacted even as the income gap between the richest and poorest Americans reached peak proportions. While the wealthy were unquestionably benefiting from their huge tax cuts, the poor were actually losing ground because of them. When Reagan finally left office and his Vice President George Bush ascended to the Presidency in the election of 1988, Bush inherited historic budget deficits of over 3 trillion dollars. Deficits like these left little opportunity to increase spending on social programs even if he had desired to do so. Which, of course, he didn't. After all, there was a war to be waged in Iraq. Remember, I'm talking about George Bush the First. Sometimes, it seems like the country went through a time machine and we're reliving 1989-1992 all over again.
Because the enormous deficit threatened all spending programs, a budget compromise deal was cut in Congress. The compromise contained provisions to increase funding for many social programs that had been assaulted during the Reagan presidency. Despite the best efforts of the social progressives to spin these gains into a success story, the compromise required to ensure these budget increases came at the price of effectively undermining completely the very structure of program funding. For one thing, any budget gains that resulted from a reduction in spending on defense programs-which had skyrocketed during the Reagan era and therefore represented a potential goldmine-would go toward deficit reduction and would therefore not be eligible for spending on domestic programs. And secondly, any increase in spending on domestic programs would have to be offset by a reduction in spending on another domestic program. In other words, the government had to steal from Peter to pay Paul while Caesar sat around spending billions on lances and spears.
Without most people even realizing it was taking place, a profound shift in the paradigm toward government entitlement theory was created by the Reagan policies of tax cuts and deficits. Although no one in the Reagan/Bush administrations came out doing high-fives and boasting that they had undone the New Deal and Great Society efforts put forth by FDR and LBJ, that is essentially what happened. The exploding deficit led to an unavoidable clash of ideologies resulting in a compromise plan to cut the deficit that has left funding for social programs almost irrevocably altered to the detriment of the welfare state. Meanwhile, people like Jack Abramoff are giving our highest-paid federal employees-who were all wealthy to begin with-paid vacations and parties and dinners and gifts to ensure that what money isn't being spent on the military and space programs designed to line the coffers of Bush's big business buddies is going to whatever precious pork plan our leaders desire and not toward taking care of people who aren't lucky enough to have born in the same class of wealth that they were.
So, one of the legacies of President Reagan-the Greatest American of All Time-was the significant deconstruction of the American social policy of taking care of those least able to take care of themselves.

"Ohhh, no, Jimmy!! It's SOCIALISM!! Ahhh, whatever shall WE do?!?" lol.

Have you ever stopped and questioned what exactly that $700 billion bailout was? Have you?

All of these 'solutions' to this 'crisis' appear to be little more than generous handouts to corporate elite.

Why is it that public funds are being given away to large failing corporate entities? So that they in turn can buy up floundering companies and promote further consolidation of the financial and other industries?

In the end it appears and if we're spending trillions of taxpayer dollars to save the very financial industries who's actions contributed to this crisis and have gained most from it.

... what's really kinda funny is that we've seen similar things happen in the past.. . in Nazi Germany. hmmmn. interesting... we even have this same anti-union anti-socialist mindset.

You need to wake up and smell the Fascism.

Quit whining about handouts to the poor and take a look at the handouts to the wealthy corporate players.

:: FASCIST BAILOUT ::

Just wondering all of you pro-entitlement pro-welfare non-taxpaying Social Program lover's are going to think, say and do when there's not enough people working anymore to pay the 'higher taxes' that are supposed to save the day.
Oh ya, we that pay taxes from working should just be happy about future tax increases to pay for non-taxpaying tweekers, drunkards, and gluttons that cannot be sued even if they drive drunk without insurance or a drivers license because nobody but the Federal Government can attach an SSI or SSP check.
Whatyagonnado?
Because I know lots of people that are going to retire early and get onto checks, but those are mostly checks from jobs, and money they saved for years while they worked for this time to come.
Yup, know alot of people that are tired of seeing homeowners that live off SSI & SSP in lovely paid for free and clear homes and never worked a single day in their life for it nor' do they pay any taxes and they get 95% of their property taxes back at the end of the year.
Watch millions of people this next year and the following years quit working and get on the SSI bandwagon cause YUM that Gubment Gravy is Soooo good!
It's time for millions upon millions of people to just tell SSA intake workers that "I'm just so depressed from drinking, doing crank, overeating, I just cannot ever work again". Or the Crazy act one alot of the people in my small town use. That's a good one that works.
"uh, I took too much acid and I'm like crazy now, so I need SSI and SSP checks at $907 a month tax free for the rest of my life".
I really hope every person in America decides to get onto SSI Entitlement or Welfare Entitlement checks, MediCal, MediCAID, and this Socialist system you all think is a funny joke becomes REAL.
Then everyone will be on checks, and there will not be enough money to pay for EVERYBODY sitting all day on their computer.
It won't work.
Everybody on Entitlements will sooner more than later, EMPLODE.
And, people that work and pay are getting sick and tired of looking at disgusting entitlement bums on the 1st of the month, chewin' their gums.
Everyone quit working, EMPLODE the system.

Is Entitlement + Implosion = EMPLODE
And, that's what is going to happen when there's not enough Tax Payers and Foreign Country Lenders to keep paying for the Super Social Entitlement Program Stuffed Economic Stimulus Package Bill.
Now, you can keep on pissin' and moanin' it's all good and great to stuff that Bill full of pork, pork, piggy, piggy, porkey, fat, fatso, morbidly obese, piggy, pork, but There's not going to be even enough money to keep on handing out Tax Free money every month to all these Programs to even last Obingo's 4 year term.
If you believe that, go to the nearest SSA Office, pull a tab, sit on your backside and fill out the Intake form to start collecting SSI for 'Mental Other'.
Porky....Piggy...Stuffed...Pork....Fatty....Economic Stimulus Package Bill, Luva