Thousands Protest Spending and Health Care Reform in DC

[Lord MJ]

Of course the conservatives are trying to say that 2 MILLION people were involved in the protest.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/09/ ... 5732.shtml

Tens of thousands of protesters fed up with government spending marched to the U.S. Capitol on Saturday, showing their disdain for the president's health care plan with slogans such as "Obamacare makes me sick" and "I'm not your ATM."

The line of protesters clogged several blocks near capitol, according to the D.C. Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency. Demonstrators chanted "enough, enough" and "We the People." Others yelled "You lie, you lie!" and "Pelosi has to go," referring to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

Throngs of people waved U.S. flags and held signs reading "Go Green Recycle Congress" and "I'm Not Your ATM." Men wore colonial costumes as they listened to speakers who warned of "judgment day" - Election Day 2010.

It was the largest outpouring of anger yet against the new administration, reports CBS News correspondent Nancy Cordes. At one point, the crowd filled all of Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House to the Capitol.

The rally was the final stop of the 30-city Tea Party Express, an anti-government movement which gained steam over the summer, Cordes reports.

Other signs - reflecting the growing intensity of the health care debate - depicted President Barack Obama with the signature mustache of Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler. Many made reference to Obama as a socialist or communist, and another imposed his face on that of the villainous Joker from "Batman."

Richard Brigle, 57, a Vietnam War veteran and former Teamster, came from Paw Paw, Mich. He said health care needs to be reformed - but not according to Obama's plan.

"My grandkids are going to be paying for this. It's going to cost too much money that we don't have," he said while marching, bracing himself with a wooden cane as he walked.

CBSNews.com Special Report: Health Care

FreedomWorks Foundation, a conservative organization led by former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, organized several groups from across the country for what they billed as a "March on Washington."

Organizers say they built on momentum from the April "tea party" demonstrations held nationwide to protest tax policies, along with growing resentment over the economic stimulus packages and bank bailouts.

Armey and other speakers directed their ire at Pelosi - Armey took a photo, telling the crowd he wanted to be able to prove to her they were there.

"If it's necessary, we'll come back here next year," he said.

Many protesters said they paid their own way to the event - an ethic they believe should be applied to the government. They say unchecked spending on things like a government-run health insurance option could increase inflation and lead to economic ruin.

Terri Hall, 45, of Starke, Fla., said she felt compelled to become political for the first time this year because she was upset by government spending.

"Our government has lost sight of the powers they were granted," she said. She added that the deficit spending was out of control, and said she thought it was putting the country at risk.

Race also became an issue when a black Republican leader denounced African-American politicians that she said had an "affinity" for socialism.

"I'm outraged prominent black politicians use the race card" to cover up their failed policies, said Deneen Borelli.

Lawmakers also supported the rally. Rep. Mike Pence, chairman of the House Republican Conference, said Americans want health care reform but they don't want a government takeover.

"Republicans, Democrats and independents are stepping up and demanding we put our fiscal house in order," Pence, of Indiana, told The Associated Press.

"I think the overriding message after years of borrowing, spending and bailouts is enough is enough."

Rep. Tom Price, R-Ga., and Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., also spoke at the rally. DeMint said he'd had enough of "Alice in Wonderland" politicians promising more programs at the risk of financial disaster.

"The president has warned us if we disagree with him he's going to call us out," DeMint said. "Well, Mr. President, we are out."

Norman Kennedy, 64, of Charleston, S.C., said he wants to send a message to federal lawmakers that America is "deeply in debt." He said though he'd like everyone to have free health care, he said there's no money to pay for it.

"We want change and we're going to get change," Kennedy said. "I want to see fiscal responsibility and if that means changing Congress that will be a means to that end."

Other sponsors of the rally include the Heartland Institute, Americans for Tax Reform and the Ayn Rand Center for Individuals Rights. Other scheduled speakers included actor Stephen Baldwin and C. Boyden Gray, who worked under the administration of George H.W. Bush.

[Surlethe]

Oh, come on - 'tens of thousands'?

A Free Press for a Free People

WASHINGTON – The capital was rocked today by a taxpayer march and rally that could be the biggest protest ever – potentially dwarfing the Million Man March and the Promise Keepers Rally.

Though crowd estimates vary from as low as 60,000 to 70,000 according to ABC News to a high of 2 million by London Daily Mail, photographs and videos of the march and rally demonstrate its enormity.

The taxpayers stormed Washington, D.C., today, taking their fight against excessive spending, bailouts, growth of big government and soaring deficits to the front door of the U.S. Capitol.

All week citizens have been heading to the Hill by the busloads for the showdown today. The Tea Party Patriots' "Tea Party Express" national bus tour has been hosting a series of tea party rallies all across the nation. A caravan of buses, speakers and entertainers arrived in Washington, D.C., just in time for the march. The taxpayers have paid their own way to the event.

The White House
said Friday it was unaware of the rally. President Obama has traveled to Minneapolis, Minn., to promote his health-care plans at a rally there.

But so many taxpayers showed up on Pennsylvania Avenue that the crowd ran out of room and the march was forced to begin early.

WND was at the scene to get crowd reaction and take photos of the protest.

Citizens carried hand-made signs that read:

• 2010: Vote all incumbents out!
• Our Constitution has termites!
• We are under attack by our own government
• Stop the march of socialism
• You can put lipstick on communism, but it's still communism
• My family, my doctor
• Obamacare makes me sick
• Go green: Recycle Congress
• I'm not your ATM
• We had a dream. We got a nightmare
• Is this Russia?
• You Lie!

Some people donned colonial costumes while the crowd was sprinkled with U.S. and yellow "Don't tread on me" flags.

Others, like Laurie Slough of Orlando, Fla., also dressed in costume to demonstrate their message. Slough wore a prison costume and carried a sign that read, "Criminals in Congress, your judgment day is coming."

WND also noticed many anti-ACORN signs, following the recent controversy in which one of the organization's offices was exposed supporting prostitution and human trafficking.

Politico reported among the signs seen were those asking "Where's the Birth Certificate?" – reflections of WND's extensive coverage of the yet-unanswered questions surrounding Barack Obama's constitutional eligibility to serve as president.

Fox News reported lines of citizens completely filled Pennsylvania Avenue for blocks.

"It was wall-to-wall people. I felt like I was in line for Obama health care," said participant Robert Barney of Chesapeake, Va.

Organizers have told the media they expect the event to be the largest group of fiscal conservatives to ever gather in Washington.




WND Exclusive A REVOLUTIONARY IDEA
A million or more rock Washington
Taxpayer march could be biggest rally ever in capital
Posted: September 12, 2009
9:57 pm Eastern

Chelsea Schilling and Alyssa Farah
© 2009 WorldNetDaily


Hundreds of thousands descend on Capitol

WASHINGTON – The capital was rocked today by a taxpayer march and rally that could be the biggest protest ever – potentially dwarfing the Million Man March and the Promise Keepers Rally.

Though crowd estimates vary from as low as 60,000 to 70,000 according to ABC News to a high of 2 million by London Daily Mail, photographs and videos of the march and rally demonstrate its enormity.

The taxpayers stormed Washington, D.C., today, taking their fight against excessive spending, bailouts, growth of big government and soaring deficits to the front door of the U.S. Capitol.

All week citizens have been heading to the Hill by the busloads for the showdown today. The Tea Party Patriots' "Tea Party Express" national bus tour has been hosting a series of tea party rallies all across the nation. A caravan of buses, speakers and entertainers arrived in Washington, D.C., just in time for the march. The taxpayers have paid their own way to the event.

The White House
said Friday it was unaware of the rally. President Obama has traveled to Minneapolis, Minn., to promote his health-care plans at a rally there.

But so many taxpayers showed up on Pennsylvania Avenue that the crowd ran out of room and the march was forced to begin early.

WND was at the scene to get crowd reaction and take photos of the protest.




Live at the scene in Washington, D.C. (WND photo)

Citizens carried hand-made signs that read:

* 2010: Vote all incumbents out!

* Our Constitution has termites!

* We are under attack by our own government

* Stop the march of socialism

* You can put lipstick on communism, but it's still communism

* My family, my doctor

* Obamacare makes me sick

* Go green: Recycle Congress

* I'm not your ATM

* We had a dream. We got a nightmare

* Is this Russia?

* You Lie!


Washington march photo by Barbara Auchter

Some people donned colonial costumes while the crowd was sprinkled with U.S. and yellow "Don't tread on me" flags.

Visit the one and only "tea party store" now.


Laurie Slough (WND photo)

Others, like Laurie Slough of Orlando, Fla., also dressed in costume to demonstrate their message. Slough wore a prison costume and carried a sign that read, "Criminals in Congress, your judgment day is coming."

WND also noticed many anti-ACORN signs, following the recent controversy in which one of the organization's offices was exposed supporting prostitution and human trafficking.

Politico reported among the signs seen were those asking "Where's the Birth Certificate?" – reflections of WND's extensive coverage of the yet-unanswered questions surrounding Barack Obama's constitutional eligibility to serve as president.

Fox News reported lines of citizens completely filled Pennsylvania Avenue for blocks.

"It was wall-to-wall people. I felt like I was in line for Obama health care," said participant Robert Barney of Chesapeake, Va.

Organizers have told the media they expect the event to be the largest group of fiscal conservatives to ever gather in Washington.

Richard Brigle, 57, a Vietnam War veteran and former Teamster, came from Paw Paw, Mich. He told Fox News that he believes the nation needs health-care reform – but not President Obama's plan.

"My grandkids are going to be paying for this. It's going to cost too much money that we don't have," he said while marching with a wooden cane.

According to the Washington Times, the "Tea Party Express" tour was the fourth most popular topic searched on Yahoo last week. Joe Wierzbicki, national coordinator of the Tea Party Express, told the Times he expected a large turnout.

"We were expecting 25,000 a few weeks ago, but now we are hoping for over 50,000," Wierzbicki said.

Several organizations united to help organize the National Taxpayer Protest's descent on the Capitol, including: Freedom Works, Grassfire/ResistNet, Tea Party Patriots, National Taxpayers Union, Club for Growth, Americans for Tax Reform, Young Americans for Liberty, Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights, Our Country Deserves Better, Campaign for Liberty, Leadership
Institute, Free Republic, Young America's Foundation, the National Association of Rural Land Owners and Smart Girl Politics.

Brendan Steinhauser of FreedomWorks, one of the groups that organized the event, told WND, "People want to do this. The people who have been protesting around the country want to come to Washington and do this in D.C. In a lot of ways, they are being ignored and the media is underrepresenting them and their numbers. They want to come together for one big event and send a very clear message."

It's millions! Millions, I tell you!

[gizmojumpjet]

Of course the conservatives are trying to say that 2 MILLION people were involved in the protest.

Can you actually point to any conservative sources claiming that the turnout was two million, because I'm reasonably sure the Daily Mail doesn't represent American conservatives and internal Democratic memos were floating the 2 million attendee figure as early as 9/11, or earlier.

Oh, come on - 'tens of thousands'?

I'm no expert on crowd estimation, but this certainly looks like at least a few tens of thousands to me:

[Darth Mall]

I await the claims that this shows the will of the people, and that is clearly should be followed. But lets forget about the Febuary 15th, 2003 protest, which may have had up to 30 million people world wide, or September 24th, 2005 with up to half a million in DC, or January 26th, 2007 with the same. But I forgot, they are unAmerican, so they don't count.

[Crossroads Inc.]

A Link to CRAZYness

Conservatives march on Washington

WASHINGTON -- "You have redefined gridlock in Washington, D.C.," Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., told the crowd gathered in front of the Capitol on Saturday for a rally that was part Tea Party and part Glenn Beck's 9/12 Project. The reference was to the highways around the nation's capital, which Blackburn said she'd heard had been closed due to the 1.5 million people who'd come out for the demonstration.

Crowd size estimates like the one Blackburn gave were flying around all day on Saturday. Some said they heard 1.2 million, others 1.6 million; conservative blogger Michelle Malkin said in one post that ABC News had estimated the attendance at 2 million.

Malkin was wrong -- ABC had never reported anything like that. In her own way, Blackburn was wrong, too. So were all the others. They weren't even in the ballpark, which most news outlets estimated in the tens of thousands and D.C. Fire and Emergency Medical Services said, unofficially, was somewhere between 60,000 and 75,000 people.

Still, that size crowd is a pretty impressive accomplishment. It's certainly not as large as plenty of the protests Washington has seen over the years, including some of the more recent anti-war rallies, but considering how unfamiliar these kinds of demonstrations are to the right and the distance many of the attendees traveled to be here, it can't be dismissed out of hand.

But the crowd numbers, and the confusion over them, were symptomatic of a larger phenomenon that was taking place on the Mall Saturday. Stepping in to the crowd there felt, at some times, like stepping into an alternate reality. It was a reality in which provisions establishing "death panels" really can be found in healthcare reform legislation, where President Obama is a Marxist and a Fascist, where the majority was represented by these protesters rather than the voters who elected a Democrat president and gave him an overwhelmingly Democratic Congress less than a year ago -- it was a reality where the D.C. Beltway had been shut down due to an influx of 1.5 million people, almost three times more than the entire population of Washington.

It was, also, a reality that would brook no interference from the one outside it. In one incident that's quickly become famous on the Internet, a CNN correspondent doing a live appearance on television was drowned out by the shouts of protesters behind her. The network was a frequent target, especially the bus it had parked on 3rd Street, which formed the border of the primary protest area. The vehicle became a gathering place for those angry about the mainstream media and what they perceive as its liberal bias. (By contrast, when most of the protesters went to a Fox News truck parked nearby, it was to express their appreciation.) One man stood out on the street in front of it, holding a large sign headlined "Today's state-controlled media." Below, he'd added the logos of various networks, and his own takes on their acronyms. There was NBC, or "Nothing But Crap," ABC -- "All Barrack (sic) Channel" -- and CBS, which he'd dubbed "Controlled by State."

At one point in the afternoon, a CNN employee stood on the sidewalk in front of the bus, a bemused look on his face despite the crowd of about 20 people that had gathered to hurl various insults at him and his company. One woman was there dressed as the Grim Reaper; she carried a sign that declared "Journalism died: 2008."

Of course, since I was dressed for work and standing there holding a pad on which I was taking notes, the crowd made me for a reporter too, and there was some ire directed my way as well -- some in good humor, some not so much. Then a young woman who declined to give her name pulled me aside.

"I just wanted to let you know there are some normal people here to protest government spending," she said. Identifying herself as part of a local chapter of the College Republicans, she added, "We're not all nuts. I just wanted to let you know that."

She was right, too. Not everyone at the protest was "nuts," not by a long shot.

There was Linda Raileanu, for instance, who carried a sign reading "Nurses against Obamacare." A registered nurse who told Salon she had more than 20 years of experience working, in part, in Philadelphia hospitals, Raileanu said she was there because she worked with physicians and nurses who were against the Democratic proposals for healthcare reform and were "very upset Obama's giving the perception we're for it." She wanted to represent them, she said. But she did participate in that alternate reality a bit. Though she'd worked to provide end-of-life counseling, she told Salon she was against the provisions in the bills going through Congress that would provide coverage for people who choose to receive such counseling because she believed it should be done by professionals, not bureaucrats. (No bureaucrats would be involved in the actual consultation.)

But there were certainly a lot of people there who seemed like they'd fall under the "nuts" category, at least by the College Republican's standards. There was one with a sign that asked, "Whose spirit is in the White House?" and included photos of Adolf Hitler, Karl Marx, Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez and Obama. Another sign borrowed the Joker Obama poster that's gotten a few minutes of fame recently, adding a Hitler mustache to the president's face; underneath the image were the words "Obamacare is Eugenics." One man held a sign reading, "Transparent? I see through your socialist lies, fool." Each o in "fool" had been formed by the Obama logo.

And there was the other woman who pulled me aside. She had come down from Germantown, Pa., she told me, but she, too, declined to give her name -- for fear of Obama's "snitches," she explained.

"I studied Nazi Germany, I read the story of how they took over," she told me. "From the very beginning I heard it with Obama ... I've studied the camps. That's why people are here, because they're afraid of the death camps that are coming." The woman also said she believed liberals had "voted for a hijacker ... voted for al-Qaida," but said she understood, because they hadn't known, and she was ready to forgive them if they woke up to the situation.

The atmosphere and the slogans were, in places, extreme enough that four liberals who'd come to parody the protesters were having no trouble slipping in unnoticed, even cheered. This despite the four -- Jack Neville, Julian Brunner, Tushara Ekanayake and Marina France -- carrying signs like one that read "A whole lot of white people here today" and another that asked "Where's the proof?" and showed an image of Obama's certification of live birth. Ekanayake's sign warned of gay Muslims -- it should have been a tip-off, except that he was also carrying a photo of Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, a rising star in the Republican Party, and telling people he was Jindal's nephew. That, he said, had allayed suspicion.

"It's such an example of group think," France said of the crowd at the rally. She made a good case, too, pointing out yet another way in which the reality on the Mall Saturday differed from the one beyond it. One of the more popular themes in protesters' signs was a theme Beck has been harping on lately, the alleged proliferation of so-called "czars" like the drug czar in the Obama administration. Many of those signs linked the presence of those czars to Communism -- it was unclear if any of the protesters holding them were aware of the real history of Russia, in which the Communists overthrew and replaced the czars.

However many people showed up, given the above statments, I would bet the only "Will of America" They represent is a Will most of us would like to ignore.

[Themightytom]

We can't ignore them though, if they start winning elections and gaining momentum we'll get some asshole winning the election in four years that will spend us into the worst collapse since the USSR.

[Shinova]

We can't ignore them though, if they start winning elections and gaining momentum we'll get some asshole winning the election in four years that will spend us into the worst collapse since the USSR.

And four years after that, the stupid people will re-elect the douche into presidency.

[Anguirus]

At one point in the afternoon, a CNN employee stood on the sidewalk in front of the bus, a bemused look on his face despite the crowd of about 20 people that had gathered to hurl various insults at him and his company. One woman was there dressed as the Grim Reaper; she carried a sign that declared "Journalism died: 2008."

What a silly thing to say. Journalism died long before that.

[Darksider]

I was just watching countdown, and the guest host (does Kieth Olbermann even do it anymore?) Said something along the lines of "It represents the full spectrum of America if by full spectrum you mean white, whiter, and whitest."

Watching the footage and looking at the pictures, I can't find even one black person in the crowd.

Ironically, most of these idiots would stand to benefit from socialized medicine, they're just too stupid and too afraid of the scary black man to realize it.

[Count Chocula]

We can't ignore them though, if they start winning elections and gaining momentum we'll get some asshole winning the election in four years that will spend us into the worst collapse since the USSR.

Um. The Bush-led (and Demo/Repub passed) 2008 budget was bad enough, but have you looked at our current budget? We're looking at a minimum $1.5 trillion deficit for this year alone. In other words, half our current year budget is borrowed money and the outlook doesn't improve from here. Looks like an asshole already won the election and is spending us into a collapse.

[Duckie]

My, my, suddenly the republican yesmen are deficit hawks. How amazing. Certainly spending is always bad. There's no economist or school of economics that states that the benefits of spending in a recession outweigh the downsides caused by the debts.

And such an economist hasn't won the 2008 nobel prize for economics, for instance. Nor is there a school of such economics in a major rust belt city.

[CmdrWilkens]

We can't ignore them though, if they start winning elections and gaining momentum we'll get some asshole winning the election in four years that will spend us into the worst collapse since the USSR.

Um. The Bush-led (and Demo/Repub passed) 2008 budget was bad enough, but have you looked at our current budget? We're looking at a minimum $1.5 trillion deficit for this year alone. In other words, half our current year budget is borrowed money and the outlook doesn't improve from here. Looks like an asshole already won the election and is spending us into a collapse.

Sure, and we could have spent no money, cut services which would have lowered a host of education and health benchmarks already in danger of collapse and let the economy collapse in to a depression which we have only just barely avoided. The long term debt position of the US isn't good but as with all things sometimes you have to spend to earn and we need to spend somewhere. If one can honestly suppose that in the current climate that fiscal conservatives would support the kind of tax reforms necessary to the upper brackets and the Cap Gains taxes then maybe there is another way out of the hole but otherwise w need to build enough economic growth to outrace the debt. Good versus bad economic forecasts are the difference between a 3-year surplus of 1 trillion and a 3-year deficit of 1 trillion (see '01-'04 forecast versus '05 forecast).


Anyway back to the main point 70K is a decent sized rally and we ignore at risk because for as much as protesters tend to represent the most dedicated elements there are always a much larger populace who are marginally attached and who can be brought to support the protesters position (or not) depending upon the actions of those who seek to mold public view. Republicans are stoking fears using these folks as their stalking horse and unless Democrats can come up with a clear concise sell to the American Public they risk getting lost in the drowning of sound. When only one person is shouting sooner or later people listen.

[ray245]

We can't ignore them though, if they start winning elections and gaining momentum we'll get some asshole winning the election in four years that will spend us into the worst collapse since the USSR.

Um. The Bush-led (and Demo/Repub passed) 2008 budget was bad enough, but have you looked at our current budget? We're looking at a minimum $1.5 trillion deficit for this year alone. In other words, half our current year budget is borrowed money and the outlook doesn't improve from here. Looks like an asshole already won the election and is spending us into a collapse.

Wow, you don't even understand the basic concept of economics do you? You do know that there is something called the return of investment?

[Count Chocula]

Wow, you don't even understand the basic concept of economics do you? You do know that there is something called the return of investment?

Continuing my apparent word of the day, you're a fucking twit. You DO realize that "return of investment" is based on the investment of capital, that is, unencumbered assets? Government spending can not be classified as an investment in any other than a parochial sense, as all funds disbursed by virtue of government spending have their sources in present or future taxation, which reduces the pool of available capital. Note that I'm not bringing up levels of taxation, or non-financial outcome investments like defense, I'm simply setting the principle of investments and returns straight in your pointed little head.

A federal budget of $3 trillion removes a like amount of capital from the overall population; when half that amount is financed via bond sales rather than present taxation, it removes more than $1.5 trillion in future year capital from the overall capital available, due to interest that must be paid (read: taxes). In other words, in a nation of say 300 million, that's an additional $5,000 minimum of debt for every man, woman and child in the US. When you look at the actual number of non-government workers, who actually create the capital that's spent in government functions, the additional debt accrued gets closer to $15,000 per private sector worker. AND THAT'S JUST FOR THE CURRENT YEAR.

[ray245]

Wow, you don't even understand the basic concept of economics do you? You do know that there is something called the return of investment?

Continuing my apparent word of the day, you're a fucking twit. You DO realize that "return of investment" is based on the investment of capital, that is, unencumbered assets? Government spending can not be classified as an investment in any other than a parochial sense, as all funds disbursed by virtue of government spending have their sources in present or future taxation, which reduces the pool of available capital. Note that I'm not bringing up levels of taxation, or non-financial outcome investments like defense, I'm simply setting the principle of investments and returns straight in your pointed little head.

A federal budget of $3 trillion removes a like amount of capital from the overall population; when half that amount is financed via bond sales rather than present taxation, it removes more than $1.5 trillion in future year capital from the overall capital available, due to interest that must be paid (read: taxes). In other words, in a nation of say 300 million, that's an additional $5,000 minimum of debt for every man, woman and child in the US. When you look at the actual number of non-government workers, who actually create the capital that's spent in government functions, the additional debt accrued gets closer to $15,000 per private sector worker. AND THAT'S JUST FOR THE CURRENT YEAR.

So what? Government projects such as the improvement of public transportation, better resources for schools and even healthcare do have a positive impact on society, and is one of the ways to improve the overall productivity of a nation.

[Guardsman Bass]

Wow, you don't even understand the basic concept of economics do you? You do know that there is something called the return of investment?

Continuing my apparent word of the day, you're a fucking twit. You DO realize that "return of investment" is based on the investment of capital, that is, unencumbered assets? Government spending can not be classified as an investment in any other than a parochial sense, as all funds disbursed by virtue of government spending have their sources in present or future taxation, which reduces the pool of available capital. Note that I'm not bringing up levels of taxation, or non-financial outcome investments like defense, I'm simply setting the principle of investments and returns straight in your pointed little head.

You seem to be operating under the rather bizarre assumption that that money doesn't end up back in the economy some how. It's not as if Government collects tax money and then burns it; it goes into programs that do things like health insurance for senior citizens, which all gets circulated back in.

[Patrick Degan]

Wow, you don't even understand the basic concept of economics do you? You do know that there is something called the return of investment?

Continuing my apparent word of the day, you're a fucking twit. You DO realize that "return of investment" is based on the investment of capital, that is, unencumbered assets? Government spending can not be classified as an investment in any other than a parochial sense, as all funds disbursed by virtue of government spending have their sources in present or future taxation, which reduces the pool of available capital. Note that I'm not bringing up levels of taxation, or non-financial outcome investments like defense, I'm simply setting the principle of investments and returns straight in your pointed little head.

You seem to be operating under the rather bizarre assumption that that money doesn't end up back in the economy some how. It's not as if Government collects tax money and then burns it; it goes into programs that do things like health insurance for senior citizens, which all gets circulated back in.

Other tax-funded government investments which have brought substantial return to the general economy over the years: the Interstate highway system, rural electrification, the Panama Canal, Hoover Dam, the Grand Coulee Dam, the space programme, ARPANET, farm subsidies, the Works Progress Administration. Just to name a few examples.

[CJvR]

* Go green: Recycle Congress

LOL! Good one

[ray245]

Just a quick question, has there ever been a protest march against the current healthcare system on such a scale? It would think that if there has been a huge protest march by the people who has been severely screwed over by the healthcare industry, protesting while they are on wheelchairs and etc would easy swing the tide towards healthcare reform.

[Gandalf]

Just a quick question, has there ever been a protest march against the current healthcare system on such a scale? It would think that if there has been a huge protest march by the people who has been severely screwed over by the healthcare industry, protesting while they are on wheelchairs and etc would easy swing the tide towards healthcare reform.

If one cannot afford health care, odds are that they may not be able to make it to Washington (or wherever) to march for a day.

[ray245]

Just a quick question, has there ever been a protest march against the current healthcare system on such a scale? It would think that if there has been a huge protest march by the people who has been severely screwed over by the healthcare industry, protesting while they are on wheelchairs and etc would easy swing the tide towards healthcare reform.

If one cannot afford health care, odds are that they may not be able to make it to Washington (or wherever) to march for a day.

Ah true, just that the image of so many people who are sick and poor marching onto Washington DC on such a scale would can easily shock America to its core.

[Pulp Hero]

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2009/09/ ... -lies.html

Back in April, when there was a round of several hundred "tea party" protests across the country to coincide with Tax Day, I devoted significant attention to figuring out how many people had actually attended the rallies. The best figure I could come up with was at least 300,000 -- "at least" being an important caveat because there were dozens of smaller tea party protests for which no reliable crowd size estimates were available. The real number was probably something between 350,000 and 400,000.

This was, I believed at the time and continue to believe, a relatively impressive figure. It is also one that liberals were silly to be so predictably and universally dismissive of. Indeed, the protests were a harbinger for the tough slog ahead for Democrats on health care and other issues. Yes, the grievances that these protesters had may have been somewhat disconnected, and their rank might have run the gamut from ordinary, red-meat conservatives and to the black helicopter set. But, anger is still anger -- and a lot of people, self-evidently, were angry.

At the same time, in attempting to cobble together literally hundreds of independent, local newspaper reports to come up with this figure, I learned a few things about the gamesmanship involved in the reporting of crowd size estimates. Namely, there is a lot of misleading information out there -- some resulting from deliberate lies from protest organizers who exaggerate about how many people they'd drawn to their events, and some of it arising more innocently -- estimating the size of a crowd actually isn't all that easy, particularly if you're in the midst of one. This misinformation, moreover, tended to be self-perpetuating: an organizer might tell a reporter from a local radio station that they'd drawn 3,000 people to their event (when really they'd drawn 800); the 3,000 figure would be picked up by the local TV station, and then the next day on by the local newspaper, which had heard the number on TV. At each stage of the process, as in a game of "telephone", the fidelity of the information was degraded. Perhaps the appropriate context on the number (that it had not been independently verified) had been dutifully reported by the radio station -- but by the time the the transmission had made its way to the newspaper, that context had been lost. The Atlanta rally, for instance, was reported by the local CBS station to have drawn some 15,000 persons -- a figure which, it was later discovered, would quite literally have been physically impossible.

Usually, though, these exaggerations were contained within some reasonable bounds. The estimate reported by CBS Atlanta, for example, appears to have been about double the actual crowd size in that city. I found other cases in which there might have been a threefold or fourfold discrepancy between the numbers claimed by protesters and those provided by local fire departments or sheriff's offices. But almost never more than that -- at some point, a lie ceases to be credible. And of course, there were many protest organizers that provided perfectly honest estimates of their turnouts. I even came across a couple of cases in which they appeared to have lowballed the numbers relative to the estimates provided by independent observers.

But yesterday, someone told a real whopper. ABC News, citing the DC fire department, reported that between 60,000 and 70,000 people had attended the tea party rally at the Capitol. By the time this figure reached Michelle Malkin, however, it had been blown up to 2,000,000. There is a big difference, obviously, between 70,000 and 2,000,000. That's not a twofold or threefold exaggeration -- it's roughly a thirtyfold exaggeration.

The way this false estimate came into being is relatively simple: Matt Kibbe, the president of FreedomWorks, lied, claiming that ABC News had reported numbers of between 1.0 and 1.5 million when they never did anything of the sort. A few tweets later, the numbers had been exaggerated still further to 2 million. Kibbe wasn't "in error", as Malkin gently puts it. He lied. He did the equivalent of telling people that his penis is 53 inches long.

Malkin, who to her credit later corrected the error, frets that it might be used to by liberals to "discredit the undeniably massive turnout". She's right to be worried -- it absolutely will be used that way. If you don't want to be discredited, then don't, as Kibbe did, tell a ridiculous (and easily disprovable) lie.

Malkin herself did not lie; she merely repeated a lie. It does not particularly call into question her character. It does, however, call into question her judgment. The reason is that if there had in fact been 2 million protesters in Washington yesterday, there would have been no need to lie about it -- the magnitude of the protests would have been self-evident. I was in Washington for the inauguration, an event at which there really were almost 2 million people present -- and let me tell you, it was a Holy Mess. Hotels, charging double or treble their usual rates, were booked weeks in advance. Major stations on the Metro system were shut down for hours at a time. The National Guard was brought in. At least 3,000 people got stuck in a tunnel. Essentially the entirely of the National Mall, from the Capitol to the Washington Monument, was dotted with onlookers. Heaps of trash were left behind. The entire city was basically a warzone for a period of about 20 hours, from midnight through mid-evening.

But there are no accounts of any of those sorts of things happening yesterday. 70 thousand people, rather, is about the number that will attend the Washington Redskins' home opener next week. That's a lot of people. Washington -- actually Landover, Maryland, where FedEx Field is located -- will be inconvenienced. But it won't be shut down. Business will go on more or less as usual.

This was not a small rally. It was also not, in comparison with something like the 2006 pro-immigration protests, a particularly large rally. It was a business-as-usual sort of rally. Mock the protesters at your peril: business as usual suddenly isn't so good for Democrats these days, and the sentiments of the 70,000 people who marched on Washington surely mirror those of millions more sitting at home. They were done a disservice by being represented by a liar like Kibbe.

[Count Chocula]

You seem to be operating under the rather bizarre assumption that that money doesn't end up back in the economy some how. It's not as if Government collects tax money and then burns it; it goes into programs that do things like health insurance for senior citizens, which all gets circulated back in.

I don't deny that. I noted that the benefits of government spending are parochial, i.e. a highway project in Phoenix employs Phoenix workers, a block grant for New York City benefits the city's bureaus, a stem cell research grant benefits a team of scientists, etc. The point I was making was tied to my earlier statement on spending.

Tax money that is spent on worthwhile programs is still capital that was removed from circulation; a prudent legislative body would weigh government program costs with the impact on capital formation of various levels of taxation. What our past and current President and Congress are doing is spending vastly more money than they are taking in as taxes, without regard to impact. The debt load that is currently on American taxpayers' heads will further impede the formation and retention of private capital, making any recovery a longer, slower, more painful process.

Other tax-funded government investments which have brought substantial return to the general economy over the years: the Interstate highway system, rural electrification, the Panama Canal, Hoover Dam, the Grand Coulee Dam, the space programme, ARPANET, farm subsidies, the Works Progress Administration. Just to name a few examples.

I could also argue that rural electrification, the Hoover and Grand Coulee Dam, farm subsidies, the WPS, and possibly the space program provided benefits to select groups. I agree that the interstate system (copied from Germany's autobahn for the same purpose, the speedy movement of troops and equipment), the Panama Canal, and ARPANET (a DoD project) have had widespread benefits and substantial return. These are examples of prudent use of taxpayer funds. IIRC, none of these were funded with, or part of, federal budget deficits (I may be wrong on the WPA). The only noteworthy projects I can think of at the moment, from the past thirty years, are the Shuttle program, GPS (another defense spinoff), and Hubble.

[Lusankya]

Chocula, you seem to think that a government should never go into deficit, and this is stupid.

Let's look at a country with a relatively sensible government. Say Australia. It's also the western country that weathered the GFC the best, so its economic problems are much lower than those of other countries. The Federal Government was regularly about $10bn in surplus for 10 years prior to the last budget, so you can't say that they were recklessly spending or anything like that. Anyway, with these nicely balanced budgets, they were providing a certain level of services to the Australian taxpayer. Ordinary services. Some might say necessary. The things that need to be paid for to keep the country running properly.

Anyway, along comes the GFC. Even Australia, which was buffered from the effects by our strong trade with China, Indonesia and India found the economy shrinking for two consecutive quarters and had unemployment rise. In response, the government launched their stimulus package and the budget went from a $10bn surplus to a $120bn defecit - so a difference of about $130bn.

Where did this defecit come from? Well, $40bn of it came from the stimulus package. Which leaves $90bn, most of which came from decreased revenue from taxation and increased use of certain government programs. So even without any increased spending from economic stimulus packages, Australia would still have had an 80bn dollar deficit in the last budget which, according to you, would be horrible mismanagement of the economy because it involves the country going into debt. So are you saying that the level of services that the government usually offers were perfectly acceptable for the decade leading up to the GFC, but should be slashed (when they're most needed)? Or are you saying that a responsible government should keep a surplus on the magnitude of hundreds of billions of dollars in order to not go into debt automatically during a period of financial hardship?

Keep in mind that this is a problem that would befall any government during a financial crisis, because their revenue is proportional to the strength of the economy. Any government would have to either cut services or go into debt in such a situation because any event which decreases profits also decreases taxation revenue.

[Azazal]

HA HA, follow up to Pulp Hero's posting

Via Politifact

Bloggers claim photo shows millions at "tea party" protest

In the competitive world of Washington protests, crowd size is often a matter of dispute. Organizers usually boast of huge crowds, while police and the news media offer much smaller estimates.

So supporters of Saturday’s “tea party” protests against President Barack Obama were quick to highlight their big turnout. To bolster countless claims on blogs and Facebook, many posted a photograph that showed a gargantuan crowd sprawling from Capitol Hill down the National Mall to the Washington Monument.

But it turns out the photo is more than 10 years old, apparently taken during a 1997 Promise Keepers rally.

On Saturday, estimates about the crowd spread quickly through the conservative blogosphere. Many writers, including author Michelle Malkin, pegged the number of people between 1 million and 2 million. Those reports were largely based on information from people in the crowd.

Malkin, for example, updated her blog at 12:34 p.m. noting that, “Police estimate 1.2 million in attendance. ABC News reporting crowd at 2 million,” and she cited a Twitter post from Tabitha Hale, writer of Pink Elephant Pundit, who was in Washington for the protest.

Many bloggers said the media was unfairly reporting much smaller numbers, and many included the photo.
“I have no doubt that Washington Democrats are well aware of how many people turned out, even as their media outlets try to downplay the event,” said Power Line, a conservative blog that linked to the photograph from Say Anything, another conservative Web site.

“ 'Media’ estimates range from 60,000 to 500,000 to around 2 million (yes, 2,000,000),” wrote John G. Winder for the conservative blog Cypress Times. “Those estimates, the language employed, and the visuals chosen for use in reporting the rally and representing the people gathered, vary greatly based solely on bias.”

In the mainstream media, crowd estimates varied.

The New York Times reported that “thousands” of protesters “filled the west lawn of the Capitol and spilled onto the National Mall,” while Fox News wrote that “tens of thousands” marched on Washington. CNN said “reporters at the scene described the massive crowd as reaching the tens of thousands.”

Pete Piringer, public affairs officer for the D.C. Fire and Emergency Department, said the local government no longer provides official crowd estimates because they can become politicized. But the day of the rally, Piringer unofficially told one reporter that he thought between 60,000 and 75,000 people had shown up.

“It was in no way an official estimate,” he said.

We asked Piringer whether there were enough protesters to fill the National Mall, as depicted in the photograph.

“It was an impressive crowd,” he said. But after marching down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol, the crowd “only filled the Capitol grounds, maybe up to Third Street,” he said.

Yet the photograph so widely posted showed the crowd sprawling all the way to the Washington Monument, which is bordered by 15th and and 17th Streets.

There’s another problem with the photograph: It doesn’t include the National Museum of the American Indian, a building located at the corner of Fourth Street and Independence Avenue that opened on Sept. 14, 2004. (Looking at the photograph, the building should be in the upper right hand corner of the National Mall, next to the Air and Space Museum.) That means the picture was taken before the museum opened exactly five years ago. So clearly the photo doesn’t show the “tea party” crowd from the Sept. 12 protest.

Also worth noting are the cranes in front of the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. According to Randall Kremer, the museum’s director of public affairs, “The last time cranes were in front was in the 1990s when the IMAX theater was being built.”

It appears that the photo was actually taken in 1997 at a rally for Promise Keepers, a group for Christian men. According to the group’s Web site, nearly 1 million people attended the event. Photos of the Oct. 4, 1997, event that were posted on various Web sites in 2003, 2008 and earlier this year show either the same picture or a similar photo that has identical tents and what appear to be TV screens in the same locations.

Conservative bloggers who originally posted the picture have backed down.

Malkin, like some of her conservative cohorts, retracted the number she had attributed to ABC when the network chastised FreedomWorks president Matt Kibbe, whose organization arranged the event, for inaccurately telling the crowd that the news organization had reported the crowd at 1 million to 1.5 million people.

Malkin linked to the ABC story on her site, and changed her blog post headline to “Celebrating the 9/12 rallies; Turnout estimated at 2 million; Update: How many?; FreedomWorks in error.”

Say Anything updated its original post to say that the picture was “of the wrong rally.” An accurate photo “clearly shows that (the rally) didn’t take place on the mall nearly as extensively as the image I mistakenly posted does.” Power Line took the picture down all together.

But because mistakes can still live forever on the Internet and many people who saw the photo on Facebook were unaware it was found to be the wrong picture, we decided to still rate it on the Truth-O-Meter. And Pants on Fire it is.

UPDATED: We updated this item to include new details about the Promise Keepers photos.