#5 = Jesse Stone will kick some ass.

I think it's really bad for Romney and Pawlenty. Pawlenty put everything into Iowa and he can't outcrazy Bachmann. Romney has given up on Iowa in the hope of building off of a strong NH win. The problem for Romney is the third primary is SC and I don't think he can win there against Bachmann and Perry.

The real loser in Iowa seems to be Cain, who campaigned there and still couldn't finish better than, what, 7th? Even Perry as a write-in beat him. At least Newt can (try to) explain away his poor showing because he didn't campaign at all, Cain on the other hand has no excuse to offer.

Meanwhile I'd think Romney would have a shot of doing okay in SC if Bachmann & Perry were to split close. I could see him finishing 3rd in something like a 30-30-20 deal (or less for the first two). I think it looks worse for him if either of the other two post a big number & there's a bigger gap between 1st and 3rd.

SC primary results from 2008
John McCain 143,224 33.2% 19
Mike Huckabee 128,908 29.9 5
Fred D. Thompson67,897 15.7 0
Mitt Romney 64,970 15.1 0
Ron Paul 15,773 3.7 0

I never thought Cain was a serious candidate.

He hasn't been for at least a couple of weeks, but I was talking more along the lines of it being time to officially end his bid.

I can see it going Bachman (Iowa), Romney (NH), and Perry (SC). Would setup an interesting race moving forward.

Apparently there's a plan to cut military pensions to save 250 billion over twenty years. That's an average of 12.5 billion a year. The reason of course is that we can't afford it. We can afford 700 billion for the DoD, but we need to gut military pensions.

That is truly disgusting.

And at least potentially that's retroactive, i.e. what you've been expecting to get during your 19 years of service could suddenly change dramatically literally months or even weeks before your retirement date arrives.

I've been following this one for a couple of weeks after learning about it from both active & retired military folks.

That's an utter disgrace.

I for one think we should stick to our promises through thick and thin. :)

But the military is going to have massive spending cuts, they are coming, and the govt's best bet is to leave this alone and work on redefining military pensions FOR FUTURE SERVICE MEMBERS...and that's in the works too.

Right now, the military doesn't give you shit if you leave the service after 10 or 12 years, that's way behind what the private sector will do for employees...and on the contrary, the military will pay you a pension of at least 50% upon retiring at 20 years, effective immediately, which is way beyond much of the private sector.

In the end, they need to work out a happy medium that's fair to the service member and to the national coffers...I supsect the days of "Retire at 20" are coming to a close.

I am about as skpetical as they come on military spending and I agree it is a complete crock of shit. I take it this is from that super Congress group of ten that the debt ceiling debate created?

No, this is a Pentagon board of military and civilians.

I can buy reforming military pensions, but claiming we can't pay for them just pisses me off. How about we leave Afghanistan and then we could pay out pensions in platinum.

I agree completely.

"Retire at 20" definitely needs to change as it's no more practical than any other pension plan.

That said, there seems to be more outcry on this than ripping up any other pensioned contract like teachers that we seem to keep doing over and over right now?

SI

I don't know what others think, but it sort of bothers me that we look at cutting pensions now and in the future for people who risk their lives to defend the country. Seems that should be the last thing on the chopping block. Is there really no other way to cut defense spending?

Of course there is (theres no sane reason why America's military spending should amount for 40% of global (ie. entire world) arms spending) - however talking about sensible cuts in armament etc. might encourage something to actually be done ... whereas talking about cutting pensions for loyal service men is an emotive topic which can be used to distract people into doing nothing.

Actually, the sane reason is that we can invade countries like Iraq and Afghanistan on the other side of the world and only suffer 5,000 casualties. If we only had an armed forces similiar to that of say....Iran, it would have cost of so much in lives that we would never have even ventured over there. Unless we had some bat-shit crazy President that insisted upon it. Crazier things have happened!

In any event, yes, I think it's time to really look at our defense spending, it's the big white elephant in the room (at least, the only big white elephant that doesn't have the backing of 100 million people expecting it not to be cut).

I've often joked at work that maybe we should pretend Japan and Germany won the War and have them pay for OUR national defense for a change. :)

LOL.....we need to stop allowing sensible Brits into these conversations about how America spends its money. :D

I bet this will become a trend, further distancing our representatives from the people.

Heh. I've also heard the related joke that the easiest solution to the EU debt crisis is to convince Germany to invade all of Europe again and this time don't do anything to stop them.

I love that technology improves and everyone wants everyone to work more and reap less of the benefits. That's the America I know and love.

Bleh.

This is pretty astounding.



These are the top ten in Gallup's economic confidence rating. Notice DC is the only one with a positive rating. That explains a lo about our current economic policies.

North Dakota: Not Quite As Bad As The Rest!

Isn't there something that says this is illegal? In all my cynicism about politicians this might be the worst thing I've seen yet. You can really get away with charging people to ask you questions and deal with their concerns, as an elected, paid member of the US government?

Nothing illegal about it. Ryan is just refusing to hold public meetings and having paid events instead. It's cynical, but well within the bounds of the law. That's why I expect to see more of this.

Hopefully politicians that try this get tossed out on their asses by their constituents.

It probably *should* be illegal - stupid that there's not some sort of regulation against it.

Too much influence of money in politics already if you ask me.

The US government as their employers should be the ones tossing them out on their asses. If I decide that I'm going to charge my clients extra to answer their questions and do my job, and that extra is going straight into my pocket, you think I'm still going to be employed on Monday morning?

I seem to get outraged a lot by politicians right now, but this is absolutely outrageous.

Yeah, agreed. Its on page 10 of "How to build a better Banana Republic".

While they're at it (whoever the hell "they" are), they need to stop the $10k dinner fundraisers as well as I don't see it being overly different 9though I realize the proceeds are going to 2 different entities in theory).

Exactly. I don't like teachers & others having their benefits cut (and I'm in agreement that promises should be kept but changed to being more sustainable moving forward)...but there is a real big problem when we send people to go fight and risk their lives and then cut their retirement benefits that they were promised should they happen to live.

Ryan's not taking the money. He's hiding behind outside groups like the Rotary Club. If they charge for their events and what's a poor guy like Ryan supposed to do about it? And he'd be happy to have public events, there just isn't any time left on his calendar.

Common sense political thought....

If you're running for office such as President, Senator, or Governor, you have to resign your current office. If these guys seriously want to become President, no more job hedging. The way the situation is now, any zany Rep can run for Pres and raise his/her profile. And benefit from free media coverage that will likely boost any minor office campaign they are in

Like when Kerry lost and just went back to the Senate as if nothing happened.

Wanting to take back the initiative ... but talk is cheap.

Obama to Lay Out Plan to Cut Spending and Boost Jobs - CNBC

Yeah, he should have been putting the construction sector back to work in 2009 so that by 2011 we wouldnt have a scared consumer base & corporate investment mentality. It wasn't a secret that new housing would do a serious pullback for a few years, so he should have been focused on getting that sector to work on things that would keep them in the economy.

On the other hand, which method allows a Rep/Sen/Whatever to speak to more people in the same amount of time, larger organized speaking appearances or (often clusterfucked) "public meetings"?

Moreover, do we really want elected officials telling civic groups "sorry, I don't have time to talk to you, I have to go do my own thing"?

There's more of a catch-22 here than meets the eye, whether it's an (R), a (D), a cabinet official or whatever.

Over a month long recess I think there's time to squeeze in a public, free event if desired.

How much could we save if we stopped paying people to take recess for a month?

Not much really, and probably nothing.

Quick math says 535 members x $174,000 annual = $7,575,500 / month

The problem with claiming that $7.5m in salary as "savings" (plus about $300k more in higher salaries for top 6/leadership) is that they're paid annually on the basis of a schedule that anticipates recess ... meaning that if the recess went away the pay really wouldn't/shouldn't change, unless you completely revamp the pay structure.

Interesting little table on the history of Congressional pay
http://www.thecapitol.net/FAQ/payandperqs.htm

Several things notable in there, including
1) 1955 Congress $22,500 vs 1955 median income men $3,400
That's 561% higher

1990 Congress $97,500 (avg) vs 1990 per capita median income $18,667
That's 422% higher

2010 Congress $174k vs 2009 per capita median income $39,138
That's 344% higher

The gap between "them" and "us" is actually a lot smaller than it used to be.

2) Speaking of recess, federal judges make the same amount as Congressmen
SCOTUS associate justices make $40k a year more

3)Note the last big dollar/percentage jump in Congressional pay came in 1991, when honoraria was forbidden. Until 1975 there was no limit, then about two decades of 40% or 27% limits until it was zeroed out.

4) Another interesting table shows the number of hours in session by chamber/year back to 1996. In 2010, Senators made about $162/hr on that basis.

Well, I think there are a lot of factors to consider by the Congressional pay comparisons from 1955 until today. The first of which is the 50%+ effective tax rate of those $22k Congressmen vs the ~15% rate of the $3400 median men.

I think you're right that the general trend has gone closer to the median overall, but I don't think its quite as dramatic when you consider the vast difference in tax rates.

As for the recess pay, I probably should have put a smiley on that as I really only meant it sarcastically. Wouldn't hurt my feelings to see them voluntarily give it up, though. :)

How? There is a glut of foreclosed homes that can be bought at a fraction of what they were worth before this, on top of the higher credit criteria for anyone to buy them. The only way I can possible think of to spur the construction sector is for the government to have purchased foreclosures, raze them to the ground, and then hire companies to build new homes. You have to be pretty slow right now (or even in the last two years) to buy a newly constructed home versus purchasing a pre-existing home at pennies on the dollar (many of which were new homes that were foreclosed on before they sold).

Housing is not the only sector construction workers build things for. There are infrastructures such as energy grids & facilities, transportation, ancillary utilities, etc. that should have been a much larger portion of the stimulus.

*Yawn*

I'm tired of his fucking speeches. Wake me up when there's actual policies that he actually gets implemented. :rant:

That's gotta be worth at least an Operation Shutdown :D

SI

"And the state of Massachusetts goes to Mitt Romney."

:D

FWIW.....Obama is far from the only politician doing a whole lot of talking without much action. He's also not the only one running around campaigning while saying he's not campaigning.

"As the S&P Turns"

Report: Government probe of Standard and Poor's - Yahoo! Finance

Soap operas aren't this good.

Heh. That's not retaliatory at alllll. If S&P didn't see this one coming, I'd be shocked.

Actually, you could claim just the opposite. The federal investigation has been going on for quite awhile. You could easily argue that S&P was the retaliatory one since they knew they were being investigated long before the downgrade took place.

Interesting that Yahoo's feedback section is having technical errors on this article. Never seen that happen on any of their other articles. Looks like one of the government's mouthpieces wants to avoid a retaliatory investigation of themselves.

Easier said than done. He's supposed to ram this through a Republican House how?

Didn't realize Obama was elected in 2010. I thought he had two years to pass his agenda.