…i will have a civilian force that is as well armed and as powerful as the military.

I must have missed the bit about Obama’s private army.

I do seem to recall something about letting the Bush tax cuts expire, lowering taxes for 95% of all Americans, repairing the nation’s crumbling infrastructure, funding alternative energy development, providing financial assistance to students, restoring the public school system, extending health insurance to disadvantaged children, expanding rail transportation, etc. I remember him saying equal pay for equal work would become law. He also said something about closing Gitmo, setting a short time-table for pulling troops out of Iraq, and focusing anti-terror efforts on Afghanistan, as we should have done in the first place.

But I believe you’ve got it. And I agree with you.

It’s interesting how you did carry out your equation equally. Here’s the reality, the top 1% “owns” 40% of the wealth and they pay 40% of the taxes, the top 25% “owns” 90% of wealth and pays 87% of taxes the top 50% of wage earners “own” 95% of the wealth and pay 97% of all taxes. The lower 50% own 5% and pay 3%.

Not the draconian difference you were hoping to portray.

Second, I am not as apocalyptic about it as you, I think the answer is simple: cut spending about 20% and cut taxes on corporations in exchange for expansion and new hires. every $ spent on a new hire or infrastructure can be subtracted from taxes. if every dollar collected in corporate taxes was spent instead by the company to provide a new $35,000 job we would create instantly 1 million new jobs.

There’s nothing to understand there, other than the fact that some very wealthy people in the financial industries have been getting preferential treatment from the government at the expense of all other taxpayers–including those who operate other types of businesses.

In other words, either the Federal government quits, like you are asking, which is doubtful except once totally bankrupted, or IT TAKES US HOSTAGE and institutes a socialist state right after a prolonged period of nightly curfews and complete hijacking of individual rights. Those to me are the two options that project from what you said.

Bush went on a federal domestic spending spree that is only matched by FDR and look where we are, how is upping the ante going to make things better?

The Obama [Joe Cool] administration predicts 3.2% growth in 2010, but also 10.3% unemployment in 2010?

How does this work, I wonder, since we’ve got 7.6% unemployment as of January 2009 and a negative growth rate of 6.2% for the 4th quarter of 2008.

Good Bloomberg article, h/t to Barry Ritholtz at The Big Picture. Must read.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601039&refer=columnist_reilly&sid=av_BTw3JLGOs#