a necessity for the word Americans? What about the people that don't have physically hard jobs, mentally hard jobs, dangerous jobs? What about the disabled, mentally and physically? Are they all less deserving?

And don't get me started on the use of "homeland" sounding as if we are a bunch of Nazis!

because if they did care SSI would pay more than below poverty level.

Of course a carnival in town is always entertaining, but what if it stops in town and never leaves?

No longer amusing at all.

... no cuts to Social Security. Indeed, the time has come to start talking about increasing the benefits.

Of course, breaking up the banks and letting average Americans participate in our economy would help, too.

Was that part of the message?

That act did not advocate "breaking up the banks." It made some meek reforms in regulation, and provided a BIGGER CUSHION for the big banks. It provided for:

1.The consolidation of regulatory agencies, elimination of the national thrift charter, and new oversight council to evaluate systemic risk;
2.Comprehensive regulation of financial markets, including increased transparency of derivatives (bringing them onto exchanges);
3.Consumer protection reforms including a new consumer protection agency and uniform standards for "plain vanilla" products as well as strengthened investor protection;
4.Tools for financial crises, including a "resolution regime" complementing the existing Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) authority to allow for orderly winding down of bankrupt firms, and including a proposal that the Federal Reserve (the "Fed&quot receive authorization from the Treasury for extensions of credit in "unusual or exigent circumstances";
5.Various measures aimed at increasing international standards and cooperation including proposals related to improved accounting and tightened regulation of credit rating agencies.

"Here’s how I see it. Breaking up big banks wouldn’t really solve our problems, because it’s perfectly possible to have a financial crisis that mainly takes the form of a run on smaller institutions. In fact, that’s precisely what happened in the 1930s, when most of the banks that collapsed were relatively small — small enough that the Federal Reserve believed that it was O.K. to let them fail. As it turned out, the Fed was dead wrong: the wave of small-bank failures was a catastrophe for the wider economy."

---Paul Krugman, April 1, 2010, "Financial Reform 101."

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/02/opinion/02krugman.html?_r=0

There are many other places where he makes the same point.

dollars below what the official federal poverty level is.

"hardworking Americans". The Rs have so tarnished the idea that we take care of the needy that we cannot ever suggest that there are people who need to be cared for even if they did not work.

I am thinking in terms of all the developmentally disabled clients I have had over the years who could not hold a job outside of a sheltered workshop. And before you ask - my daughter needs hands on one-to-one in order to accomplish anything even in the sheltered workshop. She is now "retired".

"Just don't ask me what's in it, you wouldn't understand all the big words, so it's a secret. That's why we have a rich Wall Street banker negotiating it, who Elizabeth Warren voted against, because we need Jamie's and Lloyd's the American People's best and brightest on the job."

I hope that the 29,secret, chapters of TTP that is being fast tracked will share this security and dignity too.

What's got into ya?

aka TPP.

sounds like the language used to describe a more humane way to treat animals sent to slaughter house.

How about we retire with the wealth and income that we earned by being paid good benefits and wages?

Oh wait, TPP.

Damn.