The daily Koch Brothers reference limit has been reached.

Lololololololol reality based world. Hahahahahah. How many more trillions in deficit do you need before you enter reality?

Registered Trade Mark Steve: I think in your mockery you missed Bren's point. Repubs SAY they want to decrease the deficit. EXCEPT when it "... protects 99% of Wisconsinites from an income tax increase, limits the death tax, and prevents a dramatic increase in milk prices." Anyone that SAYS one thing and DOES another- there is a word for.

Bren, Skeptical of GOP ideas, really, think you better study the Demos progressive agenda and unrealistic spending which is on a crash course to wreck this nation under this controlling demagogue of an administration. the course being steered to by Obama is totally scary and if not corrected will end America as we know it. He's doing to us internally exactly what we did to the Russians under Reagan, spending us into oblivion! Whos is he doing it for, certainly not for us, I'll let you come up with an answer.

Yeah the nerve of him not doing that. Because ordinarily they always take their share of the blame. Why just the other day, the Prez was doing just that. I'm sure I can find...errr...there must be...something...somewhere?...where he isn't blaming Bush, the Republicans, anyone but himself....gotta be....

Anyways, even if Obama DIDN'T take his share of the blame (can't be..has to be evidence...somewhere) for all the stuff that happened prior to assuming his current position in 2008 (even though he had been a US Senator since 2005 before that) or anything since, that's no excuse for Johnson, who came into office in 2010, not taking his share.

I'm sure our newly elected Senator, Tammy Baldwin, will step-up to the plate and take her share of the blame. She won't point fingers. She will make it clear that she is responsible. We will see it in each and every press release and newsletter to constituents.

During the 14 years she held a seat in the House of Representatives she never point fingers at others;she took responsibility and took her share of the blame. I'm absolutely sure this happened, but for for simple confirmation we can look to her last 14 years of press releases and newsletters.

oh, well, umm, NEVER-MIND...

In Johnson's defense, he really didn't get to Congress until 2010, when the problem of interest on the debt and the deficit problem were well on their way to becoming insurmountable. It's going to take a long time to dig out no matter what we do.

Right, that never, ever happened in the past. Prior to this bunch, the "loyal opposition" has always caved, worked to get legislation it didn't agree with passed in a timely fashion, gotten along famously with its counterparts across the aisle and tossed its party platform aside for the sake of cooperation and the good of the country. Throw this bunch out so we can get more like that in there.

For someone who claims to be older you're either being disingenuous or have a bad memory.

Looks like that's exactly how he broke it out, Randy...

"...plans to save Social Security and Medicare, and to address the remaining 95% of our annual deficit which is projected to exceed $1 trillion for the fifth year in a row. "

He doesn't appear to be rolling those two programs into the general spending deficit, as the 95% reference relates to the 5% he states as having been addressed. Unless you're suggesting he shouldn't be including both topics in the same sentence, paragraph or press release because they're not the same thing, lest we further confuse people who think he should be to taking blame and getting a pink slip.

Noticed you left out those politicians with their hands in the pockets of the public employee unions - not that that really surprises me. Then again, I'm sure you'll address that next time Pasch or Baldwin or some other (D) weighs in...

So call out those with their hands in the one you belonged to and post the same tirade on a D's press release (or show me where you've done so in the past) and I'll take your valiant recitation above seriously. Until then, your non-partisan stance is suspect at best.

You're a master of the obvious, however, you never seem to weigh in with this stuff when there's a Democrat behaving in the time honored tradition you mention and which, believe it or not, most are well aware of. You're crying over spilt milk that your union dues are partially responsible for. Cut the crap, Dave.

Here's what's obvious, Dave. And it should be obvious to you as well. You're willing to put up with it, even if you don't like it, if you think it serves a purpose you believe in.

Talk is cheap. You had a chance back then to attempt to buck the system, if this isn't just some late-found revelation for you. If it is, then you're very late to the game. If it's not, then when it was convenient (read that, to your personal benefit) for you to ignore it, you did.

That's the "wider view", Dave. it includes perceiving your own complicity and owning it, rather than attempting to justify it while pointing the finger everywhere else.

And yet you took it seriously enough to weigh in.

skinny, George W. Bush hired more government employees than any president since Dwight D. Eisenhower. What was Eisenhower's party affiliation, what was Bush's?

The discourse is stronger if one bases one's arguments on facts.

Yes facts. The size of government is not just the payroll head-count adjustment during a Presidential term;the size of government is the percent of GDP(link to pretty graph): http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/spending_chart_1900_2016USp_13s1li0181140_734cs_F0t_US_Total_Government_Spending

One might want to include State and Local spending(another pretty graph link):
http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/spending_chart_1900_2016USp_13s1li0181140_734cs_F0sF0lF0f_Federal_State_And_Local_Spending_In_20th_Century

As I've written before, "we" are the government. "We" should be very careful in interpreting what we want "limited" government to mean. Anything that reduces my access to government I am against. Anything that skews toward special treatment for small groups at the expense of the entire "we" I am against.

Human nature being what it is, there will always be maneuvering and deal-making. But it's gotten out-of-hand. Until the special interest groups are pushed back we are going to continue to have serious problems in this country.

What was the tax 'loophole' that caused GE to pay no federal taxes for that year? Perhaps they really weren't as profitable as you think...

Oil companies really aren't the most profitable.

http://biz.yahoo.com/p/sum_qpmd.html

As I mentioned before, earnings figures expressed as dollars don't tell the whole story. The profitability of a company should reflect their return on the money spent/invested for the year. Larger companies are usually going to earn more profit dollars than a smaller company--it's because they are big, not because they are unusually profitable. A company that makes $1 billion in profits, but spends $100 billion doing it is actually less profitable than a company that spends $100,000 and makes $50,000 in profits.

Excuse me, but I thought 'profits' were gross revenue minus operating expenses.

A company that took in $one billion in gross revenues and spent $100 billion doing it is actually running at a loss.

You forgot the math, Randy. The total revenues in my exmple would be $101 billion. $100 billion in expenses, $1 billion in profits.

The idea was to make the math easy. The billion dollar company had 1% profitability, while the other had 50% profitability ($150k total revenues).

Your post should have made that clearer. However, even if that $1 billion in profits represented a small profit margin, the company damn well owes tax on the $1 billion.

I thought my post stated rather clearly that the $1 billion was 'profits', not 'total revenues' as you read it to be.

If you know the difference between revenues and profits, then I apologize, but this is on a board where many people don't understand the distinction between deficits and debt.

Yes Randy we know, they are called Liberals.

Really, Alfred? Because mostly I see the conservatives making that mistake. Including Social Security benefits in the drive to cut our 'deficit', when SS is not part of the 'deficit'.

That certainly sounds like a lot of money, but it isn't necessarily the most profitable return for the investment.

@FTT.... Please explain how the 'subsidies'** that the oil industry receives are different from the tax treatments of other manufacturing or extractive companies.

**Please give us your definition of 'subsidies'.

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/01/31/415337/exxonmobil-41-billion-but-pays-tax-rate-lower-than-most-taxpayers-but-not-romney/

Do your numbers count the off shore tax haves used in previous years? Looks to be 17% income taxes to me – wish I had that tax rate. And please spare the insults, I am trying to argue rationally and would appreciate the same courtesy.

I love that the average liberal like little boy Troy is so dumb he thinks corporations actually pay taxes. If the govt adds tax to a corporation, do you think they cut the executives pay to compensate? Take it out of profits? Or raise prices? If govt imposes $1 per item tax, how much more do you think you pay? Likely you would pay $1.35 – $2 more!

Young Conservative:

Please refrain from the name calling. It does nothing to strengthen your position and in fact tends to weaken your credibility.

If, “Corporations are people my friends… Yes, they are.” They can pay taxes like everyone else.

I believe we are too dependant on oil & need to find better, more sustainable ways of making products or whatever else your veiled insult (again) to my parents. Of course, long term solutions don’t really make sense to incredibly selfish and small minded people, I guess.

I have no patience for low information people like you.

And it is people like you who give Conservatives a bad reputation.

It's people like me who are paying your way in life, and many like you. The lazy 47% who are having other people carry their water.

Like veterans, active military, senior citizens, students and the working poor, right? That mentality lost big last November and opinion backs that up. Your kind is the minority and will experience increasing isolation in your own little bubble. Glad you are so arrogant, Young. It will be the only armor to keep you warm when you are cold and alone.

47% . . . wasn't that Mitt's final vote tally? How ironic.