Dems in debate urge taxes on wealthiest

[BettorsChat]

By NEDRA PICKLER, Associated Press Writer



JOHNSTON, Iowa - Democratic presidential hopefuls called for higher taxes on the highest-paid Americans and on big corporations Thursday and agreed in an unusually cordial debate that any thought of balancing the federal budget would have to wait.

"We're not going to be able to dig ourselves out" of Bush-era deficits in the next year or two, said Illinois Sen. Barack Obama, one of six Democratic rivals sharing a stage for the final time before Iowa's leadoff Jan. 3 caucuses.

Asked about the importance of eliminating deficits, Democrats responded by criticizing President Bush's economic policies, including some of his tax cuts.

"I want to keep the middle class tax cuts" that Congress passed during President Bush's tenure, said Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York. But she said she favors raising taxes for the wealthiest.

Former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina readily agreed. "The truth of the matter is the tax policy has been established by the big corporations and the wealthiest Americans," he said. "What we ought to be doing instead is getting rid of those tax breaks."

Across 90 minutes, the fierce competition between the two Iowa front-runners shone through only once — when Obama was asked how he could offer a new type of foreign policy since several of his advisers once worked for President Clinton.

Hillary Clinton laughed out loud at that, and said with a smile, "I'm looking forward to hearing that."

Obama, also smiling, waited for the laughter to die down before saying, "Hillary, I'm looking forward to you advising me as well."

The discussion of taxes underscored the gulf between the two parties on economic issues. Republican candidates called repeatedly on Wednesday for elimination of the estate tax — which falls principally on the largest of estates — and reduction in the income tax on corporations.

Those differences will have to wait for the general election campaign, however. For now, all presidential hopefuls in both parties are concentrating with single-minded determination on their nomination races beginning with the Iowa caucuses on Jan 3 and the New Hampshire primary five days later.

Obama, Clinton and Edwards are in a tight race in Iowa, according to numerous pre-caucus polls. Richardson, Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd and Delaware Sen. Joseph Biden trail badly.

After months of campaigning, the six debaters stuck to well-rehearsed lines, passing up opportunities to attack one another and periodically illustrating their points with Iowa-specific examples.

Dodd noted that the cost of attending the University of Iowa had risen 147 percent in the past six or seven years. Obama, addressing energy issues, squeezed in a reference to a new wind turbine manufacturing plant in Keokuk with 400 jobs. Biden said his first trip to Iowa was a generation ago, when former Sen. John Culver ran in 1974. Biden didn't say so, but Culver's son, Chet, is the current governor, neutral in the race for the party's presidential nomination.

Asked how they would have voted on a Senate proposal earlier this week to shift some crop subsidy payments into conservation and other programs, Dodd and Biden said they would have supported it. Obama and Clinton expressed opposition — and the New York senator made a point of saying she had generally been following the lead of Iowa Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin on a big farm bill.

Only Richardson said balancing the budget would be a high priority. He noted that as governor in New Mexico, he is required to do so, and he called for a presidential line-item veto, a constitutional amendment to balance the budget, the elimination of "corporate welfare" and elimination of congressional earmarks to help get rid of federal red ink.

Dodd jabbed at Richardson, saying the federal government is "much more complicated than state budgets. What we need to be doing is growing our economy, giving people a sense of confidence again."

Biden was one of several Democrats who noted that the Iraq War is costing $10 billion a month — money that he said could be spent on education, health care and other programs, or allocated to deficit reduction.

The federal budget ran a surplus of $127 billion the year Bush took office. The deficit hit a record high of $413 billion in 2004 before declining to $162.8 billion for the 2007 budget year, which ended last Sept. 30.

Republicans have long blamed an economic slowdown, the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and a stock market crash for the country's descent into deficit spending and have said tax cuts have promoted economic growth. Democrats contend Bush's tax cuts needlessly drained the treasury of revenue, while disproportionately helping the wealthy and corporations.

The field of debaters was trimmed to six at the direction of the newspaper that hosted it. Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio was excluded because he does not have a campaign office in the state. His supporters protested the decision, but to no avail.

It was not clear why the same rules did not exclude former Ambassador Alan Keyes from the Register's debate of Republican candidates on Wednesday. A spokeswoman for the newspaper did not immediately return a telephone call or e-mail.

[jcindaville]

Monte, no one will argue this shit till tomorrow. Games on now buddy

[BettorsChat]

Monte, no one will argue this shit till tomorrow. Games on now buddy

[BearDown]

The field of debaters was trimmed to six at the direction of the newspaper that hosted it. Rep. Dennis Kucinich of Ohio was excluded because he does not have a campaign office in the state. His supporters protested the decision, but to no avail.

It was not clear why the same rules did not exclude former Ambassador Alan Keyes from the Register's debate of Republican candidates on Wednesday. A spokeswoman for the newspaper did not immediately return a telephone call or e-mail.

That's not true about Dennis and they know it. And as they point out, how in the hell did Allen Keys get invited to the debate? I didn't even know he was a candidate and I still don't know if he is. Here is a E-Mail I got telling Dennis's side of it. To me, America is a big fucking lie!

December 12, 2007

Dennis Kucinich and Thursday's Iowa Debate

By Jean Hay Bright



Wed Dec 12, 2007 at 08:15:52 AM PST
I want to let you know what?s going on in Iowa.

The Des Moines Register put out a press release last week announcing that six of the eight Democratic candidates for President had "accepted invitations" to debate this Thursday. Congressman and Presidential Candidate Dennis Kucinich was not among them.

What the Des Moines Register press release should have said is that they offered invitations to this debate to only six of the eight nationally recognized Democratic presidential candidates and that all six who were invited accepted.

The Des Moines Register is a prominent newspaper. Their editors and writers know how to turn a phrase. And the way they turned that phrase in that news article, the implication is that Dennis Kucinich did not accept the invitation they offered to him. That phrasing by the Des Moines Register implied that Kucinich declined their invitation to debate.

That is not true.

In phrasing its news article the way it did, the Des Moines Register did not tell voters in Iowa -- and voters across the nation, since this debate will be nationally televised -- the whole truth.

Here?s the truth. Here is the arbitrary list of criteria for inclusion in this debate, and in other debates held in Iowa this fall:

Eligible Participants for Des Moines Register Debates will include Presidential Candidates who:

Have filed an FEC Form F-2, "Statement of Candidacy," with the Federal Election Commission; (CHECK)
Have publicly announced an intention to run for the nomination of the Republican or the Democratic Party for President of the United States; (CHECK)
Have employed at least one paid campaign staff representative to perform full-time campaign duties in the State of Iowa on behalf of the candidate since at least October 1, 2007. (CHECK ? Kucinich has had a full-time staffer ? an Iowa resident ? on board since April)
With at least 1% in the Des Moines Register October, 2007, Iowa Poll (CHECK)
And lastly, have a Campaign Office inside the State of Iowa as of October 1, 2007 (to which the Kucinich campaign says CHECK, but the Des Moines Register says CHECK-OUT)
The whole truth, the truth the Des Moines Register is not telling you, is that Dennis Kucinich has a political organization in Iowa. It is small, but it is energetic and energized. His paid state coordinator, Marcos Rubenstein, works out of his home. Dennis and his wife Elizabeth have campaigned in Iowa many times.

The Federal Elections Commission recognizes that the Kucinich campaign has paid staff in Iowa. The IRS recognizes the legitimacy of a home office. Across the country, the Kucinich campaign has at least 15 high-ranking paid campaign staff members who work out of their homes. Their offices are campaign offices.

The Des Moines Register, however, does not recognize a home office as a campaign office.

This is what they sent to the Kucinich campaign when it protested his exclusion from Thursday?s (Dec. 13) debate:

"It was our determination that a person working out of his home did not meet our criteria for a campaign office and full-time paid staff in Iowa."

So is a full-time person on salary and working well more than 40 hours a week not a full-time person because he doesn't waste time and energy lugging his cell phone and laptop from one address to another twice a day?

Yes, the Des Moines Register has determined, arbitrarily, that a campaign must have real estate in Iowa, a storefront, to be a legitimate campaign.

Two things wrong with that. The concept that only landed gentry should be eligible to participate in the political process is an idea that we threw out, not in the last century, but in the century before that.

And if a storefront is necessary before you can do business in Iowa, then Amazon.com is ineligible to do business in Iowa. Ebay is ineligible to do business in Iowa.

You see what I mean?

The Kucinich campaign is a very internet-connected effort, which does not spend money needlessly. It is, in fact, running the kind of energy-efficient campaign most of the American public wants.

The criteria used to keep the Kucinich message from Iowa voters, and from the American people, is arbitrary, capricious, and downright silly. But also dangerous. We cannot as a nation have corporations such as the Des Moines Register determining our political dynamic.

Why would the Des Moines Register do that?

For the same reason that the AARP excluded Kucinich from its Presidential Health Care forum earlier this fall here in Iowa. The AARP did not want people to hear his message of national, not-for-profit health care, already embodied in a bill before Congress (HR 676). Why? Because AARP sells health insurance. The Conyers/Kucinich plan to guarantee health care to everyone in America excludes private health insurance, because that is the only way a national health care plan can work financially. And that makes that plan a direct threat to that part of AARP?s business.

I might add that AARP?s willingness to hear about the health care plans of the other presidential candidates tells you that none of those health care plans would be a threat to AARP. Okay?

And clearly the Des Moines Register newspaper likewise does not want people to hear Dennis? other messages ?

-- on how he is the only Democratic presidential candidate to vote against the Iraq War and against every funding bill for that war;

-- that he has introduced articles of impeachment against Vice President Dick Cheney (now in committee for review) and that he is drawing up similar ones against President Bush;

-- that he has promised that ALL of our troops will be out of Iraq within three months of his becoming President, but also that the United States will be withdrawn from NAFTA and the WTO by the summer of 2009, to name a few.

For some reason the Des Moines Register does not want Iowa voters or voters across America to hear that message.

But that message is getting out.

Kucinich polled second in a California straw poll earlier this fall, behind John Edwards. Edwards received 29% of the total votes cast, Kucinich received just under 24%, and Obama and Clinton came in third and fourth, with 22.5% and 16.8% respectively. The other Democratic candidates were all in the low single digits.

Kucinich polled first in both the ABC and MSNBC "who won the debate" polls a few months ago, to the extreme embarrassment of ABC, who put up a second poll, which he also won, which forced them to drop the internet links to those results. Now, that link is still up, but it opens to a blank white page, the color of whitewash.

Dennis Kucinich is first in the online vote taken by The Nation Magazine a few weeks ago, with 35%, nine points above Barack Obama, and 22% points above John Edwards. (Edwards polled 13% to Hillary Clinton?s 5%.)

In last month?s Democracy for America poll, Kucinich received almost 32% of the 150,000-plus votes cast, more than Edwards and Obama combined. He polled first in 47 states, including both Iowa and New Hampshire.

He polled first in the Progressive Democrats of America online poll of its membership last week, with 41%. Broken down by states, in that poll he came in first in 46 states, including both Iowa and New Hampshire. Edwards was second with 26%, topping out in four states, beating Kucinich by one vote in Utah and two votes and the District of Columbia.

And when people go to various sites, non-partisan internet issue sites -- several of them are out there ? internetstrawpoll.com/ , dehp.net/candidate/ , Minnesota Public Radio --
where you can list your issues and find out which candidate most closely matches your own ideas and ideals, Dennis Kucinich has consistently come out as the leading candidate, as the candidate whose views are most closely aligned with the vast majority of Americans. Not second, third, fourth, or fifth. First.

So why do you only hear that Dennis Kucinich is polling in the single digits in national or statewide polls? I don?t know. You tell me.

I do know the mainstream media does not report it when Kucinich wins these other polls. They want to foster the idea that he is "unelectable" because they don?t want him and his "radical" ideas to be front and center in the White House:
? like protecting Social Security
? like establishing a Department of Peace,
? like his Works Green Administration plan for energy independence, a revitalized manufacturing base and a sound infrastructure,
? like national health care,
? like competency and accountability,
? like protecting the Constitution,
? like rejecting war as an instrument of foreign policy.

One traditional poll last week said that 55 percent of Iowa voters are undecided in this race. Fifty-five percent undecided less than a month before the Iowa caucuses. Perhaps it?s that way because the media has yet to focus on the issues of this campaign.

[BettorsChat]

So he needs to get a Lawyer and File a lawsuit as well as get some media attention, because of this.