Thursday, September 1, 2011

The Trifecta of Gratuitous Stupidity: Palin, Perry, and Bachmann Share the Spotlight and Bush And Cheney Remind Us How We Got Into This Mess




The Trifecta of Gratuitous Stupidity: Palin, Perry, and Bachmann Share the Spotlight and Bush And Cheney Remind Us How We Got Into This Mess




They Are Not Only Stupid; They Are Dangerous Pathological Liars.
By Eugene Robinson, Thank you, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, for emerging from your secure, undisclosed locations to remind us how we got into this mess: It didn't happen by accident. The important thing isn't what Bush says in his interview with ...See all stories on this topic »

Mike Lefgren, a RETIRED Republican Staffer explained it this way”
“My party talks a good game, railing about the immorality of passing debt on to our children. But the same Congressional Budget Office that punctured Obama’s budget also concluded that the major policies that swung the budget from a projected 10-year surplus of $5.6 trillion in 2001 to the present 10-year deficit of $6.2 trillion were Republican in origin.
The Bush tax cuts have added another $3 trillion in red ink. While Republican leaders wail that Americans — particularly their rich contributors — are overtaxed, the facts say otherwise: U.S. taxpayers, particularly the wealthiest, pay far less in taxes than they would in most other developed countries.Today, the 400 wealthiest Americans have as much wealth as the bottom 125 million. The GOP insists that those wealthy people use their money to create jobs, and that taxing them more heavily would ultimately hurt the economy. But, if that’s so, why was the rate of job creation in the decade after the Bush tax cuts the poorest in any decade since before World War II?
Like a drunk swearing off hooch for the hundredth time, Republicans are now trying to show they are serious about controlling the deficit…”
Given the importance of economic issues in the 2012 election, consider these facts:
NET WORTH
Mitt Romney - $85-264 million.
Herman Cain - $18 million
 Sarah Palin – $14 Million
Michele Bachmann - $1.05 million.
Rick Perry - $1 million
SOURCE OF WEALTH
Mitt Romney inherited his wealth.
Herman Cain earned his fortune through various entrepreneurial undertakings, including Godfather’s Pizza.
Sarah Palin earned her wealth as a result of political notoriety and the resulting celebrity status. At the time she became a politician the money she earned was the highest income she had earned in her lifetime.
Michele Bachmann has earned her wealth from working for the IRS, being a US Representative, and from her ownership interest in a farm and clinic. The farm and clinic have each received payments from the government through farm subsidies and Medicaid payments. Thus all of Bachmann’s wealth is the result in whole, or in part, of governmental support.
Rick Perry has been employed by the government of the state of Texas since1984. (any connection to the book is purely coincidental)
Obviously the critical criterion for determining whether someone is a true “fiscal conservative” is not the amount or the source of their wealth. Sam Walton died in 1992 and was at the time the world’second richest man.  At the time of his death Wal-Mart had grown to over 2300 stores with annual revenues of $104.8 Billion per year.  This wealth was created by a man who came from extremely modest beginnings and who did his part during the depression to help the family income by delivering newspapers and helping his mother run a small milk business she started with a few cows. Mr. Walton explained that :
“We learned how much hard work it took to get your hands on a dollar, and that when you did it was worth something.”
Sam Walton was known also for living very frugally, in spite of his wealth. Today, his son, Jim C. Walton, runs the company created by his father, so his wealth is the result of both inheritance and his entrepreneurial spirit. Jim Walton’s net worth has been estimated to be $16.4 Billion. In spite of wealth that most of us could never imagine, Jim drives a 15-year-old Dodge Dakota.

This week Dick Cheney invites us all to join him again in a game he likes to play against the rest of us called Tedious Torture Standoff. He continues to assert—this time in his memoir, In My Time—that he has “no regrets” about developing the ...Balloon Juice

Cheney’s Artificial Heart Made Possible by Taxpayer-Funded R&D



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