The Obama Presidency - 2008 & 2012

[cartman]

Originally Posted by molson

Why is it so difficult for people to acknowledge that a few irs employees fucked up? Is it zealous loyalty to obama (who didn't do anything wrong here) or zealous hatred of anything conservative? Yes, there's many, many exemptions requests thay are rejected all over the spectrum. There are many organizations, again all over the spectrum, who get added scrutiny for all sorts of reasons. Here, in this instance, some irs employees engaged in an inappropriate practice. Most everyone is on board with that.

Not sure what you are reading here that is giving you that perspective. My initial thought seems to be being proven out, than an office got overwhelmed with applications, and was looking for shortcuts to help with their review time. When the info came out it was initially led to believe it was exclusively targeting Tea Party groups, but that is being shown to not be the case, it was any overtly political sounding application.

What posts here are showing zealous loyalty to Obama, or hatred of anything conservative?

[molson]

Originally Posted by cartman

Not sure what you are reading here that is giving you that perspective. My initial thought seems to be being proven out, than an office got overwhelmed with applications, and was looking for shortcuts to help with their review time. When the info came out it was initially led to believe it was exclusively targeting Tea Party groups, but that is being shown to not be the case, it was any overtly political sounding application.

What posts here are showing zealous loyalty to Obama, or hatred of anything conservative?

Your initial thought was that there was no problem here because tea party groups submitted questionable applications and therefore it was OK for the IRS to check other tea-party-themed-groups with more scrutiny. That was wrong. You also found it "unsettling" that the IRS even could search for tea party-themed groups, since 501(c)(4) groups "can't be political". Which is also wrong. Now the rhetoric has been changed to, "well, the IRS does scrutinizes liberal groups sometimes, so the practices they engaged in here were OK." Apparently, you don't have the same "unsettled" feeling about liberal 505(c)(4) groups (how can the IRS target "liberal" groups that aren't, by your reading of 501(c)(4), supposed to even exist?)

As far as "what is being shown to be the case", are you of the opinion now that Obama screwed up here?

[molson]

Originally Posted by DaddyTorgo

The other IRS scandal : Columbia Journalism Review

So you do think Obama was wrong to speak out against the IRS on this?

[cartman]

If the liberal groups were also submitting incorrect/incomplete applications (which wasn't being reported at the time the news first came out), then yes, of course I'm ok with related applications being flagged for closer scrutiny. That was my assertion all along. It wasn't ok to target solely on politics, but it was ok to flag them for further review based on a pattern of incomplete/incorrect submissions from groups. Not sure how you are reading into that a blind allegiance to Obama or hatred of anything conservative.

[DaddyTorgo]

Originally Posted by molson

So you do think Obama was wrong to speak out against the IRS on this?

No.

But I think that the IRS should be scrutinizing ALL of these types of applications more carefully.

For that matter, let's point out a couple facts:

• Also worth pointing out: None of the organizations that the IRS scrutinized as a result of the ill-considered screening-by-name regime was denied tax exempt status.

Meanwhile, in real terms the IRS budget has been cut 17 percent per capita since 2002, even as Congress has piled on other new duties,

American Crossroads, Priorities USA - they're both 501(c)(4) exempt groups. That's ridiculous. How are they NOT primarily political? All they do is spend money on election advertising. It frigging pisses me off - that's one from the left and one from the right if you're "keeping score." I think it's fucking disgraceful that they're both getting this exemption and it makes me want to go postal.

Consider that in the context of a 1963 federal appeals court, which ruled that to qualify for tax exemption under 501(c)(4), “the organization must be a community movement designed to accomplish community ends.”

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Originally Posted by DaddyTorgo

If they're not scrutinizing them more carefully then aren't they just being lazy government bureaucrats?

Or catering to the people who funnel money to their campaigns.

[molson]

Originally Posted by cartman

If the liberal groups were also submitting incorrect/incomplete applications (which wasn't being reported at the time the news first came out), then yes, of course I'm ok with related applications being flagged for closer scrutiny. That was my assertion all along. It wasn't ok to target solely on politics, but it was ok to flag them for further review based on a pattern of incomplete/incorrect submissions from groups. Not sure how you are reading into that a blind allegiance to Obama or hatred of anything conservative.

This is exactly what the IRS did and what caused the shit storm. What you condone is government abuse. I'm just trying to figure out if you condone it because its being directed towards conservative groups.

You stated it even more clearly earlier

Originally Posted by cartman

But shouldn't they be allowed to say something like "the last 25 of these we've gotten in from these groups have had errors, so watch out for errors when these come in"?

NO. The IRS CANNOT DO THIS. This is exactly what they did here, and this is exactly why Obama and other Dems are pissed off. There was nothing else to it. There was nothing more nefarious than this. All they did is what you insist they can do. But they can't.

[cartman]

Originally Posted by molson

NO. The IRS CANNOT DO THIS. This is exactly what they did here, and this is exactly why Obama and other Dems are pissed off. There was nothing else to it. There was nothing more nefarious than this. All they did is what you insist they can do. But they can't.

Which, as you say, is due to a few IRS employees fucking up. So where again is the blind loyalty to Obama and hatred of all things conservative?

[molson]

Originally Posted by DaddyTorgo

But I think that the IRS should be scrutinizing ALL of these types of applications more carefully.

They are required to scrutinize every one. So either everybody gets the exact same degree of scrutiny, or you develop some kind of criteria to target higher-risk filings more closely. The IRS has always done the latter for every kind of filing, and that's cool. There's all kinds of things on your personal income tax return that would cause more scrutiny. The only problem comes when type of political activity is the thing which the IRS uses to pre-screen people or groups for greater scrutiny. I agree that this happened not because the IRS hates the tea party, or wanted to help Obama win the election or anything like that. They were just lazy and took a shortcut, were getting a ton of new tea party-esque kind of filings, many of which were questionable, so they flagged filings based on that type of political activity. Which they are not allowed to do.

Whether tea party groups or moveon.org should have this exemption is another question, but clearly they do, and have for quite a while. I don't know who they turn down, but obviously, you can be very political on either side and get this exemption. I bet one reason this criteria has become soft is that the IRS doesn't want to be accused of accepting or denying groups because of their politics. So they were afraid of that trap and fell right into this one. It's difficult to apply that line with an entirely neutral political focus but that's their job. We can critique whether they're applying it correctly, but when they flag groups expressly with political terminology that is clearly designed to target one particular political viewpoint, then they've obviously gone too far past that line. The fact that they also give greater scrutiny to liberal groups doesn't make that flagging okay. I'm not comparing the two things any more deeply than this, but racial profiling isn't "cured" by the fact that the same police force also pulls over whites once in a while. It's not the end of the world, and I'm sure the IRS will be more careful about this in the future.

[cartman]

Here's how I see it:

Profiling based SOLELY on a political view: wrong and criminally liable

Profiling based on a pattern of incorrect/incomplete admissions: an administrative call. At worst a violation of administrative law, not criminal

I have made it very plain and direct multiple times that I didn't condone it if it was targeted towards a group SOLELY because of a political view. For whatever reason you can't seem to accept that.

[molson]

Originally Posted by cartman

Here's how I see it:

Profiling based SOLELY on a political view: wrong and criminally liable

Profiling based on a pattern of incorrect/incomplete admissions: an administrative call. At worst a violation of administrative law, not criminal

I have made it very plain and direct multiple times that I didn't condone it if it was targeted towards a group SOLELY because of a political view. For whatever reason you can't seem to accept that.

The profiling that happened was most likely a hybrid of those two things. It isn't the clean distinction that you're trying to make. There's no evidence it was politically motivated, there's no evidence that they were out to get anyone. There is evidence that this WAS all based on a pattern of incorrect/incomplete admissions. Based on those filings, the IRS then utilizing political-themed flags to screen. That's where they erred. That's all they did. It was still wrong. They didn't get to take that administrative shortcut. Even if you get 25 incorrect tea party filings in a row, they are not allowed to screen out tea party filings for greater scrutiny. That's all that happened here, no more. That's the activity you appear to be condoning, but which every Dem in power has spoke out against.

Edit: I think maybe you thought that the IRS was being accused of more than that. I think maybe you thought this "scandal" was about the IRS being political and helping Obama and attacking the tea party. And you're saying, "hey, it wasn't like that, there were non-political reasons for the scrutiny!" And that's true. But that's still improper conduct. This "scandal" has never been about the IRS acting intentionally political. The reports don't indicate that's what happened. Doesn't matter. Your "defense theory" is what actually happened, and it's what they got in trouble for. Maybe the reason I'm kind of tuned into this is because I'm a lawyer, a field where you can be "unethical" on accident, so I'm more sensitive to that kind of thing. In that field, similarly to what the IRS does (and also similar to police officers), you can be unethical, abuse government power, undermine the system, entirely just because you're lazy and incompetent, not because you're intentionally evil. It's no defense to say that you weren't trying to abuse power. The net effect is the same.

[cartman]

So what set you off this morning, claiming a blind allegiance to Obama and a hatred of all things conservative?

[JonInMiddleGA]

Wait a minute. You mean there are people who actually believe this wasn't primarily political opportunism?

O.M.G.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

Wait a minute. You mean there are people who actually believe this wasn't primarily political opportunism?

O.M.G.

[molson]

Originally Posted by cartman

So what set you off this morning, claiming a blind allegiance to Obama and a hatred of all things conservative?

The fact that you were still defending the IRS' actions even where every Dem in power has spoken out against them. Which made you seem extreme-liberal. I wondered if the reason you found this to be OK was the fact that you just didn't like the tea party. It also seemed like you had a problem with conservative groups in particular getting this exemption. But I think maybe now, looking at the context, you were just defending against the more speculative, hypothetical attacks against the IRS. People who might say that the IRS tried to rig the election for Obama, or something. But what we know the IRS to actually have done was plenty enough for heads to roll.

What caught my attention early one was when you said something like, "Oh, this IRS thing was no big deal, it was just based on administrative stuff." Where I, and Obama, and every Dem in power saw the "mere" administrative stuff as a fairly big deal all itself.

[cartman]

I'm still not getting how an IRS office, whose job it is to determine if a group's aims are primarily political in nature, or social welfare in nature, in order to determine tax exempt status, is not supposed to take politics into context when reviewing the applications. It really seems like that is their job. I think what the politicians are against is how the office's actions are being publicly perceived, and that is what they are coming out against: The IRS being potentially misused as a political tool.

[cartman]

Dola,

I can understand any other IRS group not being allowed to consider politics when flagging things, but it really seems part and parcel of what this particular group needed to do their job.

[JPhillips]

What's really frustrating in this week of scandal is that two of the three issues could be fixed quickly with legislation. If congress tightened and clarified the definition of social welfare, that would largely remove the IRS from being able to make these kind of dumb decisions. If congress removed the no-review subpoena power from DoJ that would stop the AP issue from happening again. But instead of solving the problems we'll hold hearings, fire a few people and hope the next admin doesn't do the exact same thing, and we'll all pretend that something meaningful took place.

[cartman]

There was a bill to remove the no-review subpoena power, but then WikiLeaks happened, and the bill was shot down.

[DaddyTorgo]

re: Benghazi, let's just put the whole thing to rest hmm?

Now it seems that the Republican furor over the quotes from those emails was completely manufactured - they made up the quotes in question.

Originally Posted by article

Republicans on Capitol Hill claimed they found proof in White House emails that they leaked to reporters last week. It turns out some of the quotes were wrong.

...

One email was written by deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes.

On Friday, Republicans leaked what they said was a quote from Rhodes: "We must make sure that the talking points reflect all agency equities, including those of the State Department, and we don't want to undermine the FBI investigation."

But it turns out that in the actual email, Rhodes did not mention the State Department.

It read: "We need to resolve this in a way that respects all of the relevant equities, particularly the investigation."

"Wrong" there being a nice way of saying "made up/altered."

WH Benghazi emails have different quotes than earlier reported - CBS News

[molson]

Originally Posted by cartman

I'm still not getting how an IRS office, whose job it is to determine if a group's aims are primarily political in nature, or social welfare in nature, in order to determine tax exempt status, is not supposed to take politics into context when reviewing the applications. It really seems like that is their job. I think what the politicians are against is how the office's actions are being publicly perceived, and that is what they are coming out against: The IRS being potentially misused as a political tool.

It's their job to consider whether the primary purpose of an organization is political, but it's not their job to decide which particular political viewpoints are not trustworthy and then to target those groups with greater scrutiny.

[cartman]

Originally Posted by molson

It's their job to consider whether the primary purpose of an organization is political, but it's not their job to decide which particular political viewpoints are not trustworthy and then to target those groups with greater scrutiny.

Which is a point I have never argued.

[molson]

Originally Posted by JPhillips

If congress tightened and clarified the definition of social welfare, that would largely remove the IRS from being able to make these kind of dumb decisions.

I'm sure either side would be willing to do that, as long as the reform targeted only groups supporting the opposing political ideology. There were a few Dems who proposed reform last year, but it was really just pitched as a "let's get rid of these tea party groups" plan, and "let's look into Karl Rove's role with these groups." Not that Congress could get anything like that done anyway, but where was that going to go?

[molson]

Originally Posted by cartman

Which is a point I have never argued.

You did argue that point a few pages ago. You argued that if there were 25 questionable fillings from groups of a certain ideology, then the IRS should more closely look into groups sharing that ideology. They can't do that. Nobody's saying that the IRS can't consider whether a group's primary purpose is political. They're actually required to make that determination for every group that seeks that exemption. What they're not allowed to do is flag certain political viewpoints for greater scrutiny, regardless of whether the motivation is political, or, as is more likely in this case, they were just lazy and incompetent.

Here's the live updates of the hearings this morning that is getting into the nuts and bolts of this.

Hearing on IRS scandal: Live updates

[cartman]

I didn't say look closer into the groups themselves, but look closer at their applications. That is a huge difference.

That just seems to be common sense. If your workload gets increased due to errors, you try to look for a common thread in the errors to reduce the time spent dealing with errors. No different than if a ton of incorrect/incomplete applications came in from addresses in Texas. It would be natural that you'd screen ones from Texas a little closer than elsewhere.

[molson]

Originally Posted by cartman

That just seems to be common sense. If your workload gets increased due to errors, you try to look for a common thread in the errors to reduce the time spent dealing with errors. No different than if a ton of incorrect/incomplete applications came in from addresses in Texas. It would be natural that you'd screen ones from Texas a little closer than elsewhere.

Sure, it's easier. And there's a logic to it. That's the same trap the IRS fell into. That's why we're having Congressional hearings this morning. The easy thing to do isn't always the right or ethical thing to do.

[panerd]

Me and Bucc always get laughed at as advocates for smaller government with the usual what about the roads, police, and schools response.

There is now a national "outrage" over whether or not polticial groups tried to take advanatage of the 73,000 page tax code and whether or not the 100,000+ employees of the IRS acted under orders or went "rogue". The solution will of course be more hearings, more bureaucracy, and in the end most likely a tax code that expands even more. Maybe this smaller federal government some of us advocate more might eliminate some of these problems.

[cartman]

Originally Posted by panerd

Me and Bucc always get laughed at as advocates for smaller government with the usual what about the roads, police, and schools response.

There is now a national "outrage" over whether or not polticial groups tried to take advanatage of the 73,000 page tax code and whether or not the 100,000+ employees of the IRS acted under orders or went "rogue". The solution will of course be more hearings, more bureaucracy, and in the end most likely a tax code that expands even more. Maybe this smaller federal government some of us advocate more might eliminate some of these problems.

I'm pretty certain that they weren't trying to take advantage of all 73,000 pages of the tax code, and not all 100,000+ employees of the IRS are under the microscope on this one.

I've stated in the past that the tax code is long due for an overhaul. Last one was in 1986.

[panerd]

Originally Posted by cartman

I'm pretty certain that they weren't trying to take advantage of all 73,000 pages of the tax code, and not all 100,000+ employees of the IRS are under the microscope on this one.

I've stated in the past that the tax code is long due for an overhaul. Last one was in 1986.

They were being investgated on whether or not they were interpreting one of the 70,000+ pages of the tax code correctly if I am reading the news stories correctly. I've said all along this is no shock to me and is what happens with a huge federal bureaucracy. As a very conservative minded person this one incident doesn't really upset me in the least.

However it is hilarious that if you divided the members of this board based on political ideology and looked at those who are "outraged" and those who are defending the IRS but not defending the IRS ("it was wrong but...") it amazingly falls exactly along those same lines.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by panerd

However it is hilarious that if you divided the members of this board based on political ideology and looked at those who are "outraged" and those who are defending the IRS but not defending the IRS ("it was wrong but...") it amazingly falls exactly along those same lines.

Feel free to consider me the exception you might need to prove that rule I guess.

[lungs]

Since this is kind of catch-all the political thread, here is an interesting graphic. Scott Walker promised job growth via a balanced budget. He'd be hard pressed to make the argument that austerity has helped job growth at this point.

Of course budget hawks can point to a balanced budget (so long as they use accounting methods he condemned in the past).

[cartman]

And the austerity measures taken in Europe mirror those job numbers as well.

[molson]

States are required to balance their budgets. All that chart shows is that Wisconsin's unemployment rate is flat while most other states (who are all also required to balance their budgets) is declining.

[lungs]

Originally Posted by molson

States are required to balance their budgets. All that chart shows is that Wisconsin's unemployment rate is flat while most other states (who are all also required to balance their budgets) is declining.

Well, Walker's budget and attack on public sector unions was touted as being needed in order to create a business climate in Wisconsin that would lead to major job creation. That clearly hasn't happened. Minnesota has taken a different approach and the results have been much better.

Living in Wisconsin, I'm completely dumbfounded that the GOP would even be mentioning Scott Walker as a presidential candidate. Of course we do have a group of bumbling Democrats here that make him look much better than he actually is. I'm crossing my fingers for a Ron Kind run against Walker in 2014 as it will give the Democrats the crucial swing vote in Western Wisconsin. But knowing the Wisconsin Democrats, they will run another Madison or Milwaukee liberal that will doesn't connect with the rest of the state.

[Warhammer]

My question with this is how much of that is related to government jobs? If much of it is, I have no problem with it. Now if that is all private sector, than that is a different story.

[lungs]

Wisconsin ranked 44th out of 50 states for private sector job growth from September 2011 to September 2012. For context, in 2010, Wisconsin ranked 10th for the year before Walker took office.

[lungs]

dola

And the April jobs report had Wisconsin losing 22,000 jobs. Though that could be adjusted in time.

[Coffee Warlord]

Originally Posted by molson

States are required to balance their budgets.

Um, what?

Technically, I guess that's right. In reality, it doesn't happen in many states. There's quite a few states where it's perfectly okay to issue themselves debt to "balance" their budget.

[lungs]

Under the cash accounting method (which Walker criticized in his first campaign), Wisconsin always has a balanced budget. We do not have a balanced budget under generally accepted accounting principles. Walker campaigned by saying he would balance the budget under GAAP, but once he couldn't do it, all of a sudden cash accounting was OK.

[JPhillips]

And yet another example of contractionary policy turning out to be contractionary.

Put people to work and the deficit will largely fix itself.

[molson]

I guess I'm just not convinced of the correlation either way. Walker's claims that cutting spending would result in more jobs was phony campaign-speech stuff. But plenty of conservative-spending states are seeing their unemployment rates decline right now. I think its so much more about execution at the state level. There are well run conservative states and well run liberal states. And poorly run conservative and liberal states. When Idaho gets a surplus, they save it for a rainy day. Which can be frustrating sometimes, but I think that fits the character of the state and it helped them get through the worst times a little better than some other states. Other states might need to spend surplus money on infrastructure because of a fast-growing city or something. That might make sense for them at that time too. There's no inherently correctly political or spending ideology that you can slap on and immediately fix any issue. The only states that had increased unemployment rate in the last year are Illinois, Delaware, Indiana, Wisconsin, Mississippi and New Hampshire. The five states with the biggest drop-off in unemployment in the last year are Nevada, Rhode Island, California, Florida, and Washington. And overall, the five states with the lowest unemployment right now are North Dakota, Nebraska, Vermont, South Dakota, and Iowa. What common thread can you draw through those states to prove the superiority of your political opinions?

[cartman]

Not political opinions, economic. The governments of Europe are left-center to left, and Walker of Wisconsin is on the right.

[molson]

Originally Posted by cartman

Not political opinions, economic. The governments of Europe are left-center to left, and Walker of Wisconsin is on the right.

OK, then what economic truths can we establish based on U.S. state-by-state unemployment data?

As for Europe, obviously austerity measures suck, the more important question to me is how can you run your state or country in such a way where that's not even on the table. Austerity measures (as least in their extreme form) are the end result of bad governance, not an economic strategy.

[cartman]

It can be on the table, but discussed honestly. Cutting government spending is not a panacea. If too much is cut, it has been shown to have a detrimental effect to a state/nation's economy.

Some people seem to have an idea that government spending exists in its own bubble separate from the rest of the economy, and cutting government spending won't have a down stream effect. Texas is held up as an example of low state government spending leading to growth. But the true picture is that to balance the state budget, Perry and his team had to request more Federal funds. Without the influx of additional cash from Washington, Texas would have been pretty far in the hole.

[molson]

Originally Posted by cartman

Some people seem to have an idea that government spending exists in its own bubble separate from the rest of the economy, and cutting government spending won't have a down stream effect. Texas is held up as an example of low state government spending leading to growth. But the true picture is that to balance the state budget, Perry and his team had to request more Federal funds. Without the influx of additional cash from Washington, Texas would have been pretty far in the hole.

That's where I think politics get in the way of sensible state-running sometimes. As a state, you can be conservative with your own money (not necessarily slashing everything in sight but just trying to be sensible with surplus money and identifying waste to cut in the good times as well as the bad), but also try to get to the front of the line to get as much federal money as possible. Ya, that's inconsistent from a political ideology standpoint, but who gives a shit if your job is to run a state well? States should be concerned first with their own bottom line, not about what kind of political statements they're making through their actions or how they'll be covered on Fox News.

Edit: That's a big point of tension in Idaho sometimes. There's an ultra-conservative segment of the population that doesn't want to take money from the federal government. Which would obviously be a disaster if Idaho ever attempted that. But our governor is quite a bit more moderate when it comes to that kind of thing. At the same time, I don't think taking a shitload of money from the federal government means you have to put forth a reckless state budget just to stay politically consistent. You just don't have as much room for error and waste at the state level.

[lungs]

You bring up some good points, molson. There has been a problem with execution of Walker's economic agenda. The government run Department of Commerce was turned into a quasi-private Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation. This was supposed to be a driver of bringing business to Wisconsin. Unfortunately, it's been an unmitigated disaster. An audit revealed that it broke state law, failed to track money it awarded, and gave money to ineligible recipients. I can vouch firsthand that this has been very poorly run. We were awarded a low interest loan from the WI Department of Commerce several years back and have been steadily paying it down. The instant that the DOC morphed into the WEDC, our loan was lost. That sounds like a good thing (for me), but you know they'd eventually find it, which they did last fall. After the initial lost loan thing caused the original person in charge of the WEDC to resign, they brought in a new guy. Well, he resigned a few weeks ago after it was revealed he owed delinquent taxes.

[JPhillips]

Austerity measures (as least in their extreme form) are the end result of bad governance, not an economic strategy.

I'm all for running a balanced budget except during extreme recessions. When demand plummets the only safety net is government deficit spending. Eventually the economy will correct itself without deficit spending, but a hell of a lot of people are going to needlessly suffer in the meantime. That's where we are now. Nobody seems to give a shit that unemployment is still near 8%. Imagine the outrage if in 2008 Obama had said he would let unemployment at 8% last for five years. Almost everyone in D.C. is bragging over how much their plan cuts the deficit when what we need to do is spend money and put people to work.

As to the question of state unemployment patterns, I don't think we have enough data to make any conclusions. The Dakotas, for example, are undergoing a massive natural resource extraction boom. Under those circumstances state spending doesn't make much difference.

[Warhammer]

Originally Posted by JPhillips

Nobody seems to give a shit that unemployment is still near 8%. Imagine the outrage if in 2008 Obama had said he would let unemployment at 8% last for five years. Almost everyone in D.C. is bragging over how much their plan cuts the deficit when what we need to do is spend money and put people to work.

Quite honestly, this is where the bias of the press shows the most. Under just about any other president I remember, the press would be up in arms. With Obama they either don't cover it, or give the guy a pass.

[JPhillips]

Originally Posted by Warhammer

Quite honestly, this is where the bias of the press shows the most. Under just about any other president I remember, the press would be up in arms. With Obama they either don't cover it, or give the guy a pass.

I don't buy it. We've just got a world where the media and the decision makers are all rich and disconnected from the people who are struggling. The GOP hardly ever talks about unemployment either and when they do it's just to score political points as they have no plan other than fire more government workers.

But if you're rich you've probably done really well in this economy, so why change it?

[Edward64]

I would prefer if the US was the catalyst that solved the ME issue but we've had our chance and, for right or wrong, have not been able to do it. Maybe China will be viewed more as a honest broker.

A China "win" will be a US "loss". Nevertheless, good luck to them, the ME deserves some semblance of peace.

Will China mediate the Israeli-Palestinian peace process? - Behind The Wall

BEIJING – An official visit to Beijing by Israeli and Palestinian leaders last week has prompted speculation that China may finally be ready to claim its place as a world power by trying to negotiate an end to one of world's most caustic conflicts.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas met with Chinese President Xi Jinping within days of each other in Beijing – the two Middle Eastern leaders having arrived in the country within hours of each other.

"China's hosting of the two emphasized its active involvement in Mideast affairs and highlighted its role as a responsible power," declared an editorial by China's state news agency, Xinhua.