President Takes Full Responsibility

[quote]tumbeh wrote:
Endgamer, well said.

What could the feds have done before the hurricane? Let’s see, New Orleans has been identified as one of the U.S.'s most economically important ports. See the oil prices go up. Mmmm, maybe “Homeland Security” could have read the studies that have been done years ago that conclude that the levees would not withstand a category 3 hurricane. Bush appointed a dooshbag with no experience in emergency management, unless you count shoveling Arabian horse shit, because he was a college roomate of some politico of his. As was 9/11/01, this was a ticking timebomb. The feds had the information that showed this disaster was going to happen and, what do you know, it did.
Bush has not taken FULL responsibility. He has only come out and said this because his advisors told him it would make him look more presidential. He is a fucking disaster.[/quote]

The exact same situation was in place for 8 years of Clinton. Try to at least look at the situation objectively. The Corp did a cost benefit analysis and NO lost. Simple as that. The feds and locals came to believe the same thing. This would never happpen.

Reddog,

I think you are taking an overly simplistic view. When using the word “rich” I think it bears knowing the definition in order to have a reasonable discussion.

It just so happens that the “rich” are the ones that are most able to perform plenty of financial tricks, including offshore companies and so on, to minize their taxation and reported income.

Making someone pay more is not a “penalty” unless it is perceived as a hardship by them. The actual percentage values are not a good indication of how much the tax bite hurts.

Perhaps another way to look at it is that maybe a fair way to pay taxes is to make it such that everyone earning money feels the same amount of pain. Doesn’t that sound fair?

Anyway, just trying to point out some of the difficulties in this area. Simple percentages sound impressive and authoritative, but they aren’t always very useful.

[quote]tumbeh wrote:
Endgamer, well said.

What could the feds have done before the hurricane? Let’s see, New Orleans has been identified as one of the U.S.'s most economically important ports. See the oil prices go up. Mmmm, maybe “Homeland Security” could have read the studies that have been done years ago that conclude that the levees would not withstand a category 3 hurricane. Bush appointed a dooshbag with no experience in emergency management, unless you count shoveling Arabian horse shit, because he was a college roomate of some politico of his. As was 9/11/01, this was a ticking timebomb. The feds had the information that showed this disaster was going to happen and, what do you know, it did.
Bush has not taken FULL responsibility. He has only come out and said this because his advisors told him it would make him look more presidential. He is a fucking disaster.[/quote]

Educate yourself a little. The federal gov’t CANNOT come into a state & take control unless the President invokes the insurrectiona act, which completely makes null & void all states rights. How do you think you would have reacted had Bush done this? The federal gov’t basically has to be asked to take control by the governer, which she refused to do.

[quote]hspder wrote:
thunderbolt23 wrote:

Sorry to be blunt, thunder – and take this in the best possible way – but don’t be a smartass. I’m an Economist for a living (I’m actually in DC starting this week, since I was asked to come in as a consultant…) and not only I can’t refute it, I have plenty of arguments for it. My work has only reinforced my political beliefs. Actually, the rich should pay a lot more taxes than they do already, even if the major key to that is actually reducing tax fraud, rather than increasing taxes per se.[/quote]

Do you know what my Economics background is? If not, then I suggest you deflate your conceited attempts at pulling rank.

There was nothing smartass about my remarks. And by the way, I am all for closing tax loopholes and avenues available for fraud or near-fraud to the highest levels of income.

But my point stands - if you are going to say the Bush ‘cut taxes for the rich’ - ie, targeted rich people at the exclusion of others as opposed to making broader cuts across the taxpaying spectrum for all taxpayers - the Democrats have to make the case beyond rhetoric.

[quote]reddog6376 wrote:
Like how much more? The rich should pay 50+% of their income in taxes, while the poor pay -10% of their income? How does punishing the achievers help anything?[/quote]

I’m really tired of that Right-Wing BS.

I won’t waste too much time on this, other than saying:

a) The rich do NOT pay 50+% of their income in taxes – you have no idea how rampant tax evasion is

and

b) Most rich people are not “achievers”. The overwhelming majority either inherited the money, are career criminals, are slave drivers, or amassed their fortune at the expense of society as a whole through pyramid schemes (aka speculators). Not all of them of course, but the overwhelming majority (about 95% according to the latest numbers I have) is part of one of those groups.

Most “achievers” find themselves in the upper middle class, they never really become very rich.

There’s another thing that one of the superb articles above touches that is fundamental: the consumers – the people that make the economy work – and the people that actually add value by performing the actual work – are usually in the middle and lower classes. Rich people usually take a LOT more out of the economy – literally, because a huge part of their money is put outside the US, to escape taxes and other “problems”, and another part is used to fuel speculation – than what they put in. That’s how they become… rich: by taking a lot more than what they put in. The people that make the money machine move, and help it create wealth are usually the ones that end up with little or no money.

Actually, a friend and colleague of mine has once in a conference proved that rich people drive inflation almost all (about 80% of it) by themselves in modern US economy.

Make no mistake: very rich people leech the economy, and the only positive purpose they serve is to give people like you the illusion you can become rich too. Which is a purpose that is fundamental, mind you (I’m no Bolshevik!)-- the trick is to allow them to serve that purpose but, at the same time, curb their leeching of the economy.

[quote]vroom wrote:
Reddog,

I think you are taking an overly simplistic view. When using the word “rich” I think it bears knowing the definition in order to have a reasonable discussion.[/quote]

I disagree. Anytime you segregate anybody you’ve already screwed up. If you want things to be fair, then everybody should pay the same precentage. (Flat tax) [quote]

It just so happens that the “rich” are the ones that are most able to perform plenty of financial tricks, including offshore companies and so on, to minize their taxation and reported income.[/quote] Which they do (legally) because the US tax system is so burdensome. Simplify and level it, and do away with all loopholes. [quote]

Making someone pay more is not a “penalty” unless it is perceived as a hardship by them. The actual percentage values are not a good indication of how much the tax bite hurts.[/quote] I disagree. If one segment has to pay more than another segment, it is a punishment. Perception of the victims is irrelevent. [quote]

Perhaps another way to look at it is that maybe a fair way to pay taxes is to make it such that everyone earning money feels the same amount of pain. Doesn’t that sound fair? [/quote]

Not at all. How do you measure pain financial pain? I’m a cheap bastard, so paying even $1 causes me excruciating pain, so I guess I’m excempt. [quote]

Anyway, just trying to point out some of the difficulties in this area. Simple percentages sound impressive and authoritative, but they aren’t always very useful.[/quote]

Yes they are, and having everyone pay the same percentage is really the only fair solution.

[quote]thunderbolt23 wrote:
But my point stands - if you are going to say the Bush ‘cut taxes for the rich’ - ie, targeted rich people at the exclusion of others as opposed to making broader cuts across the taxpaying spectrum for all taxpayers - the Democrats have to make the case beyond rhetoric.[/quote]

You’re the one using rhetoric. I’m using math and common sense. If you cut a tax “across the board”, it’s ALWAYS the rich people that get the most benefit of it, it’s asinine to point out that “well, the relative cut was the same for all”.

Newsflash: the cost of living is not relative; basic living needs – as I mentioned, a roof, food, health insurance and basic comforts – have a very absolute cost. So saving 1% of taxes for a person that makes $500 a month is essentially irrelevant. It’s not the extra $5 that will make a damn bit of a difference. However, the $5,000,000 that you saved the rich guy next door will – they could have been used for food stamps for literally thousands of poor people.

[quote]hspder wrote:
reddog6376 wrote:
Like how much more? The rich should pay 50+% of their income in taxes, while the poor pay -10% of their income? How does punishing the achievers help anything?

I’m really tired of that Right-Wing BS.

I won’t waste too much time on this, other than saying:

a) The rich do NOT pay 50+% of their income in taxes – you have no idea how rampant tax evasion is

and

b) Most rich people are not “achievers”. The overwhelming majority either inherited the money, are career criminals, are slave drivers, or amassed their fortune at the expense of society as a whole through pyramid schemes (aka speculators). Not all of them of course, but the overwhelming majority (about 95% according to the latest numbers I have) is part of one of those groups.

Most “achievers” find themselves in the upper middle class, they never really become very rich.

There’s another thing that one of the superb articles above touches that is fundamental: the consumers – the people that make the economy work – and the people that actually add value by performing the actual work – are usually in the middle and lower classes. Rich people usually take a LOT more out of the economy – literally, because a huge part of their money is put outside the US, to escape taxes and other “problems”, and another part is used to fuel speculation – than what they put in. That’s how they become… rich: by taking a lot more than what they put in. The people that make the money machine move, and help it create wealth are usually the ones that end up with little or no money.

Actually, a friend and colleague of mine has once in a conference proved that rich people drive inflation almost all (about 80% of it) by themselves in modern US economy.

Make no mistake: very rich people leech the economy, and the only positive purpose they serve is to give people like you the illusion you can become rich too. Which is a purpose that is fundamental, mind you (I’m no Bolshevik!)-- the trick is to allow them to serve that purpose but, at the same time, curb their leeching of the economy.[/quote]

95%---------I call bullshit

Rich kid wouldn’t let you play in his sandbox when you were little???

I, too, am for closing loopholes so everyone pays their fair share. This alone would balance the budget–given appropriate,consistant spending–in 3 years. But, you are reaching with alot of this stuff. Look at what Bill Gates has provided as opposed to possible ‘drainage’

95%…

[quote]hspder wrote:

I’m really tired of that Right-Wing BS.

I won’t waste too much time on this, other than saying:

a) The rich do NOT pay 50+% of their income in taxes – you have no idea how rampant tax evasion is[/quote] Not near as prevelent as you think. Most "loopholes’ are legal, and if the US tax code wasn’t so punative, there would be less of this. Talk about B.S…[quote]

and

b) Most rich people are not “achievers”. The overwhelming majority either inherited the money, are career criminals, are slave drivers, or amassed their fortune at the expense of society as a whole through pyramid schemes (aka speculators). Not all of them of course, but the overwhelming majority (about 95% according to the latest numbers I have) is part of one of those groups

Most “achievers” find themselves in the upper middle class, they never really become very rich…[/quote]

Total crap. A 2000 Economic Policy Institute study showed that almost 60 percent of Americans in the lowest income quintile in 1969 were in a higher quintile in 1996, and over 61 percent in the highest income quintile had moved down into a lower income quintile during the same period. (Lawrence Mishel, Jared Bernstein, and John Schmitt, State of Working America: 2000-01 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2000), p. 77) Most of the rich in America, used to be poor. And you’re an economist?[quote]

[quote]reddog6376 wrote:
Yes they are, and having everyone pay the same percentage is really the only fair solution.
[/quote]

It would be, in a perfect world, where a) Cost of living was also a percentage of your income and b) Most rich people did not cause extensive damage to the economy.

So, unless you’re going to also propose that basic house prices and basic health insurance became capped at a % of your income, and that rich people are a) Forbidden from speculation and b) Forbidden from sending their money offshore and c) Forced to spend at least 80% of their net income like everybody else, I can’t see how a flat tax would be fair.

Anyway, this is going waaaay too off topic. Let’s get back to the subject, shall we?

[quote]sasquatch wrote:
The exact same situation was in place for 8 years of Clinton. Try to at least look at the situation objectively.
[/quote]
Yes, do try, sasquatch, to look at the situation objectively. FEMA performed most effectively during the Clinton administration. Then Mr. Bush remodeled it in addition to the reorganization mandated by Congress. Mr. Brown, the incompetent whom you saw on television, was a decision made by Mr. Bush personally, and for which he is directly responsible.

I am specifically talking about FEMA here, not the rest of the tragic NOLA story, which indeed is a tale with many players - including Katrina - and one much longer than just this administration.

But since you mention it, a major portion of the responsibility for the inadequate condition of the federal/state interface for disaster response is also Mr. Bush’s. Four years since 9/11 to prepare for this kind of emergency, and what we get in disaster management is less than what we would have gotten under Bill Clinton, yes, the hated Bill Clinton. Blue dress, Whitewater, Hillary, and all.

[quote]hspder wrote:
It would be, in a perfect world, where a) Cost of living was also a percentage of your income and b) Most rich people did not cause extensive damage to the economy.

So, unless you’re going to also propose that basic house prices and basic health insurance became capped at a % of your income, and that rich people are a) Forbidden from speculation and b) Forbidden from sending their money offshore and c) Forced to spend at least 80% of their net income like everybody else, I can’t see how a flat tax would be fair.

Anyway, this is going waaaay too off topic. Let’s get back to the subject, shall we?[/quote]
There’s a word for that. Socialism. It’s been tried miltiple times, and has never really worked out that well.

Reddog, I’d like a flat tax, or even better yet, no income tax.

However, fair is not as simple as giving everyone the same tax rate, which I would personally like.

It is certainly simple, but fair is a very complex thing, because it isn’t represented by a percentage. Until you get this point, there is no point arguing back and forth over this.

[quote]endgamer711 wrote:
sasquatch wrote:
The exact same situation was in place for 8 years of Clinton. Try to at least look at the situation objectively.

Yes, do try, sasquatch, to look at the situation objectively. FEMA performed most effectively during the Clinton administration. Then Mr. Bush remodeled it in addition to the reorganization mandated by Congress. Mr. Brown, the incompetent whom you saw on television, was a decision made by Mr. Bush personally, and for which he is directly responsible.

I am specifically talking about FEMA here, not the rest of the tragic NOLA story, which indeed is a tale with many players - including Katrina - and one much longer than just this administration.

But since you mention it, a major portion of the responsibility for the inadequate condition of the federal/state interface for disaster response is also Mr. Bush’s. Four years since 9/11 to prepare for this kind of emergency, and what we get in disaster management is less than what we would have gotten under Bill Clinton, yes, the hated Bill Clinton. Blue dress, Whitewater, Hillary, and all.
[/quote]

My reference to Clinton wasn’t because of any bias–unlike your obvious hatred for our sitting Pres. It was merely to say the situation has existed for 40 years and noone has done anything about it.
I agree, and have stated so, that FEMA was a joke here and that falls on the Pres. and the administration. But the initial local warnings and first response were woefully inadequate. FEMA is not responsible for leaving people to drown.

You can’t project how the situation would have been better or worse given different leadership. It’s nice to speculate, but let’s not talk in absolutes here.

Given the fact that local and state gov’t waited three days to ask for federal help, it’s hard to put an exact amount of blame on the feds. Alot of blame to go around. And yes, it does concern me about how we are prepared for future disasters. But we must also consider the scope and magnitude here. This is 100 times bigger than 9/11 and noone would have been completely prepared for the sheer massiveness of the job to be undertaken

[quote]vroom wrote:
Reddog, I’d like a flat tax, or even better yet, no income tax.

However, fair is not as simple as giving everyone the same tax rate, which I would personally like.

It is certainly simple, but fair is a very complex thing, because it isn’t represented by a percentage. Until you get this point, there is no point arguing back and forth over this.[/quote]

You’re right, I don’t get your point. What is unfair about us both paying 15% of our income, regardless of the dollar amount. If you make more $, you pay more $. How is it so complex?

Reddog, where in my post did I say anything about the feds overriding state or local government?

One of my favorite photo ops of this whole fiasco is Bush blathering away while Trent Lott stands behind him. Ole Trent’s house (probably one of about 20 that he owns) got fucked up in the hurricane. Poor bastard. Bush going on about how he is going to visit Trent’s new house that will be bigger and better than ever. Priceless. Our president allowing himself to be in the same frame with someone who at Strom Thurmond’s little pig-pickin retirement party stated that the U.S. wouldn’t have all these problems if Thurmond had won his bid for president back in 1948 running on a platform of segregation and outright racism. I get a good laugh at the sorry state of our country with this fucking nitwit golf caddie at the helm. Then I have the television on mute and realize I’m not looking at some luckless bastards in Haiti or Somalia or Thailand. It’s god for saken New Orleans. I sure hope I don’t have to depend on the feds to help my sorry ass any time soon. All that money and power and they can’t get a couple hundred school busses to drive through New Orleans and get a couple thousand poor fucks out of harms way. Shame.

[quote]sasquatch wrote:
My reference to Clinton wasn’t because of any bias–unlike your obvious hatred for our sitting Pres.[/quote]

I don’t hate Bush. Even if I did, what would it matter? I stick to the facts: Bush and his people couldn’t plan their way out of a paper bag, much less a war on terror. Pardon me, but it’s our collective skins I’m talking about.

I reserve my hatred for the two party system, well financed by corporate interests and entrenched in its safe districts, which continually serves up such barf-some presidential choices as Kerry vs. Bush.

[quote]tumbeh wrote:
Reddog, where in my post did I say anything about the feds overriding state or local government?

One of my favorite photo ops of this whole fiasco is Bush blathering away while Trent Lott stands behind him. Ole Trent’s house (probably one of about 20 that he owns) got fucked up in the hurricane. Poor bastard. Bush going on about how he is going to visit Trent’s new house that will be bigger and better than ever. Priceless. Our president allowing himself to be in the same frame with someone who at Strom Thurmond’s little pig-pickin retirement party stated that the U.S. wouldn’t have all these problems if Thurmond had won his bid for president back in 1948 running on a platform of segregation and outright racism. I get a good laugh at the sorry state of our country with this fucking nitwit golf caddie at the helm. Then I have the television on mute and realize I’m not looking at some luckless bastards in Haiti or Somalia or Thailand. It’s god for saken New Orleans. I sure hope I don’t have to depend on the feds to help my sorry ass any time soon. All that money and power and they can’t get a couple hundred school busses to drive through New Orleans and get a couple thousand poor fucks out of harms way. Shame. [/quote]

Exactly my point!!! The federal gov’t CANNOT come in & start evacuating people unless asked to by the state gov’t. Getting those buses to evacuate people was the responsibilty of the MAYOR. Did you bother to read the entire thread? Your weak argument was refuted a couple of pages ago.

[quote]endgamer711 wrote:

Yes, do try, sasquatch, to look at the situation objectively. FEMA performed most effectively during the Clinton administration. Then Mr. Bush remodeled it in addition to the reorganization mandated by Congress. Mr. Brown, the incompetent whom you saw on television, was a decision made by Mr. Bush personally, and for which he is directly responsible.

[/quote]
What are you basing that on? How long did it take FEMA to get really rolling after Hurricane Andrew?

When trying to access blame, sometimes it’s best to look back to the past - a year in this case. When this was written it was probably blown off as liberal spin. This is crazy accurate on FEMA and the Bush administration leadership.

The whole article is rather long but I pulled some highlights to post.

A Disaster Waiting to Happen
Sept 28 2004
As FEMA weathers Bush administration policy changes, some insiders fear that concerns over terrorism are trumping protection from hurricanes and other natural hazards.

As storms continue to batter the Panhandle, no one would call Florida lucky. But with national elections just around the corner, the hurricanes could scarcely have hit at a better time or place for obtaining federal disaster assistance. “They’re doing a good job,” one former FEMA executive says of the Bush administration’s response efforts. “And the reason why they’re doing that job is because it’s so close to the election, and they can’t f–k it up, otherwise they lose Florida – and if they lose Florida, they might lose the election.”

Such political considerations may indeed make this round of recoveries go better than most. But long before this hurricane season, some emergency managers inside and outside of government started sounding an alarm that still rings loudly. Bush administration policy changes and budget cuts, they say, are sapping FEMA’s long-term ability to cushion the blow of hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, tornados, wildfires and other natural disasters.

-In Louisiana, requests for flood mitigation funds were rejected by FEMA this summer.

-In June, Pleasant Mann, a 16-year FEMA veteran who heads the agency’s government employee union, wrote members of Congress to warn of the agency’s decay. “Over the past three-and-one-half years, FEMA has gone from being a model agency to being one where funds are being misspent, employee morale has fallen, and our nation’s emergency management capability is being eroded,” he wrote. “Our professional staff are being systematically replaced by politically connected novices and contractors.”

-But the merger into DHS has compounded the agency’s problems, says FEMA employee and union president Pleasant Mann. “Before, we reported straight to the White House, and now we’ve got this elaborate bureaucracy on top of us, and a lot of this bureaucracy doesn’t think what we’re doing is that important, because terrorism isn’t our number one,” he says. “The biggest frustration here is that we at FEMA have responded to disasters like Oklahoma City and 9/11, and here are people who haven’t responded to a kitchen fire telling us how to deal with terrorism. You know, there were a lot of people who fell down on the job on 9/11, but it wasn’t us.”

-And indeed, some in-need areas have been inexplicably left out of the program. “In a sense, Louisiana is the floodplain of the nation,” noted a 2002 FEMA report. “Louisiana waterways drain two thirds of the continental United States. Precipitation in New York, the Dakotas, even Idaho and the Province of Alberta, finds its way to Louisiana’s coastline.” As a result, flooding is a constant threat, and the state has an estimated 18,000 buildings that have been repeatedly been damaged by flood waters – the highest number of any state. And yet, this summer FEMA denied Louisiana communities’ pre-disaster mitigation funding requests.

In Jefferson Parish, part of the New Orleans metropolitan area, flood zone manager Tom Rodrigue is baffled by the development. “You would think we would get maximum consideration” for the funds, he says. “This is what the grant program called for. We were more than qualified for it.”

-In fact, disaster professionals are leaving many parts of FEMA in droves, compromising the agency’s ability to do its job. “Since last year, so many people have left who had developed most of our basic programs,” Mann says. “A lot of the institutional knowledge is gone. Everyone who was able to retire has left, and then a lot of people have moved to other agencies.”

There are at least two reasons for the exodus. On the one hand, FEMA, like the rest of the federal government’s civil service, is hitting a demographic brick wall. Its staff of veteran managers, most of them baby boomers, is reaching retirement age. But another factor is at work: disillusionment at the agency’s new direction under the Bush administration.

-“An Exposed Nerve”

Waugh, the Georgia State University expert, says that the recent hurricanes could serve as a wake-up call to highlight FEMA’s drift in priorities.

“If you talk to FEMA people and emergency management people around the country, people have almost been hoping for a major natural disaster like a hurricane, just to remind DHS and the administration that there are other big things – even bigger things than al Qaeda,” Waugh says. “This is an exposed nerve in the emergency management community, in the sense that resources have been shifted away from hurricanes, tornados and other kinds of disasters – the kind of disasters that are more likely to occur than terrorism.”

In case Congress hasn’t gotten the message, former FEMA director James Lee Witt recently restated it in strong terms. “I am extremely concerned that the ability of our nation to prepare for and respond to disasters has been sharply eroded”, he testified at a March 24, 2004, hearing on Capitol Hill. “I hear from emergency managers, local and state leaders, and first responders nearly every day that the FEMA they knew and worked well with has now disappeared. In fact one state emergency manager told me, 'It is like a stake has been driven into the heart of emergency management.”

http://www.bestofneworleans.com/dispatch/2004-09-28/cover_story.html