OK I gotta rant here about Obama's budget
The most disappointing, maddening things are that , so far as I know, Obama still doesn't want to close the carried interest loophole that allows hedge fund managers to pocked millions at a 15% tax rate. Nor does he want to shut down military boondoggle crap like the F 35. Nor does he want to tax financial transactions, which would both raise money and shut down the ultra high frequency trading scammers. No, he wants to do a few superficial changes, but then hit medicare and Social Security and other government programs for relatively paltry amounts. And he knows that his budget is DOA in congress, yet instead of using it to make points with the voters in the lead up to 2014, he wastes the chance on a quixotic mission to make the republicans look stubborn. Well, folks, everybody already knows that. The Republican base supports total obstruction of Obama's initiatives and will only be happy if their reps do obstruct. The average citizen could care less, except when it hits them in the pocketbook. And they just saw a President willing to hit them in the pocketbook while protecting the worst of the 1% tax loophole boondoggles. The fact that it goes nowhere just makes the repubs look like 'saviors of medicare and Social Security", because they won't be called out on the Ryan budget. But everyone knows the President's stand now, don't they?