Comment Archives: stories: News: Pith in the Wind
Re: “Tennessee's Stiff-Arm Is an Outstretched Hand”
@xray - federal aid is federal aid, and when you get more than you pay into the coffers, then you are enjoying socialism. period.
if i had ten dollar bill for every land-owning republican in mid-south area are who the government pays NOT to grow anything, then i could probably retire.
also, before folks run around talking about who pays federal income taxes and who doesn't (looking at you Romney), maybe we should look at the numbers. lots of people *think* they pay taxes, but after a EITC, child tax credits, etc they actually don't: http://keithhennessey.com/2010/04/15/off-t…
a couple of kids and 50k/ year salary? sounds like a lot of red state teabaggers i know.
and you can keep crying about 'welfare', but the fact is only about 4 million Americans are on LITERAL welfare - it's something like 1.4% of the entire population. that's an actual, verifiable fact. now, there are lots of folks who qualify for food stamps (thank Bush for worst recession since the great depression), and teabagging dolts like to pretend that these folks are just lazy. but the fact is that you can work FULL TIME at Wal Mart at their base hourly rate and qualify for food stamps. are we supposed to blame a single parent working full time for this state of affairs? or maybe the massive corporation whose business model counts on desperate low-skilled employees, not to mention all the tax breaks and subsidized infrastructure in order to lure them to your town)?
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2013/06/01/st…
Re: “Tennessee's Stiff-Arm Is an Outstretched Hand”
(@ Adam)
Re: “Tennessee's Stiff-Arm Is an Outstretched Hand”
why in THE HELL would we do that???
socialism is socialism, bub. deal with it.
Re: “I Think I Know How the Republicans Could Use Scott DesJarlais”
Jim Collins - My comments had zero to do with DesJarlais, who is quite the scumbag. You'll notice I didn't even mention his name or make any reference to him. That should have tipped you off that my comments didn't concern him.
So, go back and read my comments again and see if you can get it right this time. You don't have to agree with them, but at least you could simply understand them, as they are quite clear.
Re: “Metro Council, Shrink Thyself”
No way. It's a lot harder to buy 21 officials than it would be to buy 11. Most people like that they can reach their council members and know their names, and if you double the people represented by each one, you shrink the voice of each voter.
If you think it'd be easier to get a bad idea through if less people vote on it, maybe you should come up with better ideas.
Re: “Tennessee's Stiff-Arm Is an Outstretched Hand”
You guys are missing a few things: You're failing to consider that Tennessee has two large cities that comprise one third of the state's population with half those people not paying taxes but receiving benefits, thus skewing the percentages. And some of you are showing your ignorance by forgetting, or not knowing, that Tennessee is rated one of the best ran states when it comes to collecting and spending tax dollars. Also there is a lack of definition - is federal aid total federal spending or just welfare spending because total spending would include BLM land, military, Oak Ridge, highways, etc. But so far as the comments go some of you fired up your keyboards before you thought things through. And with some of you that is always so. I repeat: Tennessee is rated one of the best ran states - you gotta overcome that before negative comments ring true.
Re: “Tennessee's Stiff-Arm Is an Outstretched Hand”
Great. Now extract Social Security and military spending out of it. Texas suddenly takes on a much grayer hue, as does Florida, Tennessee, Arizona, and Georgia. Now extract New Orleans from Louisiana and see what happens. See how it looks without all of that Corps of Engineers and Coast Guard spending.
This same dishonest graphic gets passed around every six months or so, and it's still as dishonest every time that happens.
Re: “Metro Council, Shrink Thyself”
"The answer, and only answer is to allow ONLY public funding of campaigns, outlaw PAC money in government, and reject ANY concept of corporate citizenship and the damage that money as free speech gifts us with!"
Jim, spoken like someone who has absolutely no understanding of how elections work.
Without the money to get out a message, political free speech is a myth. It takes money to get out a message. It takes money to run the daily operation of a campaign.
Public funding only results in greater protection for incumbents. And it does not reduce the power of special interests. Every single issue group in America secretly dreams of government funding because then their volunteers will be dramatically more valuable.
You can write off efforts to campaign in rural areas and other lightly inhabited places.
Re: “Tennessee's Stiff-Arm Is an Outstretched Hand”
It's fun to look at the overlap between states near the bottom in federal tax dollars received per tax dollars paid (as shown at wvfii's link) and the states that moved most enthusiastically to approve the 16th Amendment and implement federal taxation as we know it. (Source: http://www.usconstitution.net/constamrat.h…)
Among the most parasitic states today: SC (35), OK (36), MT (40), KY (41), SD (43), AL (44), MS (49).
The first 20 to ratify the taxing amendment:
1 Alabama Aug 10, 1909
2 Kentucky Feb 8, 1910
3 South Carolina Feb 19, 1910
4 Illinois Mar 1, 1910
5 Mississippi Mar 7, 1910
6 Oklahoma Mar 10, 1910
7 Maryland Apr 8, 1910
8 Georgia Aug 3, 1910
9 Texas Aug 16, 1910
10 Ohio Jan 19, 1911
11 Idaho Jan 20, 1911
12 Oregon Jan 23, 1911
13 Washington Jan 26, 1911
14 Montana Jan 30, 1911
15 Indiana Jan 30, 1911
16 California Jan 31, 1911
17 Nevada Jan 31, 1911
18 South Dakota Feb 3, 1911
19 Nebraska Feb 9, 1911
20 North Carolina Feb 11, 1911
Surely the Teeps must wonder sometime: What would have made anyone vote to impose a federal income tax on the country? What part of "No new taxes!" did folks not understand? The liberal states must have plotted to make it happen, right?
Nope. That list of early tax endorsers is mighty red today. But the Alabamas, Kentuckys and South Carolinas of a century ago clearly somehow intuited that a federal income tax was going to be a good deal for them. And it sure has been.
Re: “Tennessee's Stiff-Arm Is an Outstretched Hand”
This has been true for years. Tennessee couldn't balance its budget without federal dollars.
And the sad part is that the state used to be so well managed that Tennessee got more bang for its state and federal buck than just about any other state in the country, which is why we have had the lowest per capita debt of any state in the nation and one of the best funded public pensions for so many years. But the current governing crowd is all about firing people who used to do the job of making sure the state functioned efficiently, handing out no-bid contracts to cronies, and undermining the pension to the benefit of investors and brokers.
I worry about the future of Tennessee, with the decisions that are being made by the legislature and the executive.
Re: “Tennessee's Stiff-Arm Is an Outstretched Hand”
wvfii, you nailed it. The teanuts simply refuse to accept any fact not in their distorted worldview. That's why it's so frustrating trying to engage them. Reason, logic, facts, truth, decency, have no impact on them whatsoever. They are so damned ignorant.
Re: “Bill O'Reilly and Dennis Miller Coming, Boldly and Freshly, to the Ryman”
Yet, despite my "feeble" (?) attempt, you chose to take up your valuable time and comment, clumsily perhaps, but comment none the less. Hmmm...........
Re: “Metro Council, Shrink Thyself”
Considering the congress (each member) has full research capabilities via their staff and STILL rely upon lobbyist and special interest originated information, your suggestion might sound reasonable, but falls far short. The answer, and only answer is to allow ONLY public funding of campaigns, outlaw PAC money in government, and reject ANY concept of corporate citizenship and the damage that money as free speech gifts us with!
That being said a significant reduction in council districts seems to be a step in the right direction.
Re: “Meet the World's Worst Visitor to Nashville”
Min.-while I appreciate your pointing out correctly the Clampetts were from Ark. My point
was in Europe they thought all folks from the south were part of the Clampetts, which
state didn't matter.
Re: “Tennessee's Stiff-Arm Is an Outstretched Hand”
let me try that link again...
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2009/11/fed-t…
Re: “Tennessee's Stiff-Arm Is an Outstretched Hand”
LOOOOL. i LOVE pointing this out to teapartying nitwits. they never believe it though, since it doesn't fit their idiotic (and easily disproved) narrative.
another along the same lines: http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2009/11/fed-t…
Texas is the only "red" state that pays more than it receives in federal aid.
per usual, when it comes to modern (fake) conservatives: socialism for ME, not for thee.
Re: “Meet the World's Worst Visitor to Nashville”
I think it's generally accepted that the Clampetts are from the Arkansas Ozarks (although it could have been the bootheel of Missouri, which is where Paul Henning, the creator, was from). Granny states several times that she is from Tennessee, but she was Jed's mother in law and therefore not actually a Clampett.
Re: “Metro Council, Shrink Thyself”
Also 20 would be easier for the big business interests to buy or intimidate than 40.
Re: “Meet the World's Worst Visitor to Nashville”
@Min: I always figgered the Clampetts were from West (by god) Virginia. They got rich by stumbling across oil while "digging for some food and up from the ground came bubbling crude" and as far as I know there is no oil wells in the Ozarks. (There are several leaky pipelines.) However, The Clampetts were a script writer's made up family so he might have thought the Ozarks were in Texas or Oklahoma. Come to think of it the Ozarks might barely touch Oklahoma. Anyway, the way scriptwriters butcher facts about things I do know, I would never accept anything from a script writer or, nowadays, an AP reporter, as fact without further research.
Re: “Tennessee's Stiff-Arm Is an Outstretched Hand”
reposting links:
http://keithhennessey.com/2010/04/15/off-t…
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2013/06/01/st…