Senate Majority Leader on Economic Woes: ‘No One Knows What to Do’

“No one knows what to do….”
Isn’t that why we elected these idiots??? To FIGURE OUT what to do!!!!
If Reid doesn’t know what to do, then what makes him think he knows who to blame???? Like yesterday, when it was entirely McCain and the Republicans fault.
If they don’t know what to do to fix it, then how can they know who to blame?
They’ve been in control for the last two years, are we to understand that they’ve been CLUELESS the entire time??

I’m not sure who is dumber – Dingy Harry or Stretch Pelosi. What a waste of oxygen!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Leadership!

After TWO years controlling both houses of Congress.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, “No one knows what to do.”
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, “We’re not to blame.”
The Dems know how to hold pointless witch-hunt hearings, but not how to lead.

OMG First Polosi, House Majority Leader (D) comes up with the Dems new campaign slogan..”Hey Don’t Blame Us,” and now Reid, Senate Majority Leader (D) adds to it “No One Know What To Do.” I, with some reluctance, lean McCain, but even I am feeling for Obama…Can’t you keep your people in line….how do you expect us to have confidence in you as a leader….I am waiting for Obama’s to say “Hey, It’s Not My Job.”

I know what to do. Don’t let McPalin near the White house or we are in for the worse..

and these are the same people who are running around telling everyone Palin has no experiance in how Washington works
at this point i’d say that her biggiest asset

As head of the comerce comitee. McCain took all regulations off.

Ahhhh…..
Now I know why the Congress has a 9% approval rating.
A 5th grader would know better about what to do than Harry Reid.
We need change in the Congress!!!!!

this is entirely the republicans faults,
mccain is for more deregulation no matter what hes saying today he has always been for deregulation (which is what got us in this place)
the bush cheney philosophy has also played a huge roll in how we got here
phil gramm (mccains friend and long time economic advisor) was the one who snuck this deregulation into a bill that allowed thsi sub prime mess.
so yes absolutely this falls ot the administration and what htey have allowed to go on for the last 8 years. We had a surplus and no debt, and now under bush he has bankrupt this country and we are in a free fall.
dont be fooled about that, but no one knows how far this goes… some people said with fannie and freddie that that was the bottom, but as we are seeing, we now have a new bottom
no one can give a definitive answer about what to do, so far it seems like obama has a bigger grasp on the things that we need to do to possibly stop this free fall, and mccain just seems to be going with whatever sounds politically nice but has no real suggestions other then he will clean it up.

Palin has no experience
dont act like she does, she is the most unqualified vp candidate in the history of vp candidates…
we all know that mccain took a gamble and did not vet her, and his political stunt is not looking so good so far.

the republicans constantly talk about smaller government… wonder what happened under bush cheney?
and if obamas a fool for giving an answer then whats mccain for giving no answer?
a moron?

Check out this article at Elsevier ScienceDirect:
“The Moose of the Apocalypse: Andrej Bitov’s ‘Čelovek v Pejzaže’”
By: Priscilla Meyer
Abstract
Andrei Bitov’s ‘Man in Landscape’ uses two motifs from Revelation to trace the narrator’s relationship to his divine origin: reptilian beasts and the interplay of light and dark. The apocalyptic animals, coupled with the hero’s passages from light into darkness and from darkness into light, explicate the narrator’s pilgrim’s progress from spiritual blindness to a life-giving epiphany. The narrator is led through two days of drunken wanderings by a painter who projects his own frailties onto God; he finally recognizes his blasphemy and flees the artist’s apartment, later, like John of Patmos, to provide a record of his revelation….
…And there is a MOOSE involved.
——————–
Yes and Sarah Palin kill Mooses and eats them too. She is the murderer in this story.

“Many of the problems we’re having today, particularly the problems with AIG., the failures on Wall Street, the mortgage industry, actually go back not to greed in the private market but political greed,” Demint said.
Um, that’s not what McCain says. He says not only is greed at fault (and was talking about good ol’ fashioned private sector greed for money), but he’s going to get rid of greed – seriously.
But then why would anyone listen to what McCain has to say anymore.
How do you know when McCain is contradicting himself?
His lips are moving.

Bhrandon – well, the Republicans talk about a lot of stuff, but I sure can’t think of any part of government that actually took concrete steps to make any smaller.
Reagan talked about it for a while, but he never followed through.

Obama got a sweetheart deal from his mortgage company and looked the other way while Rome was burning. Obama to money from all the principles now in trouble or who have failed – again, he looked the other way.
Obama – the selling of America!

Harry, the best thing you can do is get government out of the way.

People need to think about: Do I really want to elect a President who says he really does not understand economics at this time? mccain/palin would be a complete disaster. Obama/Biden 2008!!!

committee on finance/banking and currency chair Max Baucus ( DEMOCRAT) ranking member Chuck Grassley (DEMOCRAT). Committee on financial services Barney Frank (DEMOCRAT)
you do the math.

Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi prove that, if you’re from a ‘safe’ district or state, you can be elected enough to rise through the ranks of DC power — even if you’re completely incompetent!
Washington is broke and the shallow one doesn’t offer a clue about how to fix it!

Let’s talk to Barney Frank and Chris Dodd, since it is he and Dodd who chair the committees that have regulatory oversight for the companies getting the bailouts. Clinton pushed through the legislation that allowed depository institutions to also become brokerage institutions (Glass Spiegel act I think) something that was outlawed since the depression. The republicans don’t get a free pass on this one either, but McCain warned about this exact situation in 2005, he is on the record.

Your hard-earned tax dollars at work, America!!!!
“No one knows what to do…”
But believe they know who to blame….
I simply cannot believe that I have been a member of this party of idiots for 30 years, and actually cheered in relief when they won both houses of Congress two years ago.
Not this time…………………..

Hey Davis,
In response to your screed concerning John McCain and the Keating Five fiasco, let me offer a little info for you. At one time, I too, thought McCain was tied up with that mess. Well, I recently saw an interview with Robert Bennett, Bill Clinton’s lawyer and a Democrat, if you remember. Well, he was the investigator in charge of the Keating investigation that went on for well over a year and he said that he came to the conclusion that John McCain is one of the most HONEST and DECENT politicians he has ever met and, that McCain was innocent of ANY misconduct in the Keating investigation. He presented this evidence to the Senate committee (controlled by the Dems who were in the majority) and they totally ignored him and included him in their sanctions because the other four Senators were Democrats and they just could not have all the people sanctioned only Democrats and they had to have a Republican included in order to not have the Dems take all the heat. So Davis, you have the right to your opinion, but you should use a little less emotion and try a more reasoned approach.

Palin will speak in tongues and will save the day. Thank heavens her briliance has arrived just in time to save us all.
Republicans have controlled Congress through Bill Clinton’s years (1990′s) to 2006 when the Democrats got a slim majority in the House and one vote in the Senate.
John McCain has been in Congress 26 years and served on the Commerce Committee, but cannot remember what it does.
During this period, Republicans have had the deregulated finances they still tout and they have destroyed our economy.
How can any intelligent working person vote for them?

Yep…no one in Congress knows what to do, nor has known what to do…
OOPS, except for the “Kook”…
http://www.house.gov/paul/congrec/congrec2003/cr091003.htm
Keep burying your heads in the sand folks and toe your pathetic party lines…
In the meantime, we’ll keep making money.
Good Luck.

HON. RON PAUL OF TEXAS
IN THE HOUSE FINANCIAL SERVICES COMMITTEE
September 10, 2003
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac Subsidies Distort the Housing Market
Mr. Chairman, thank you for holding this hearing on the Treasury Department’s views regarding government sponsored enterprises (GSEs). I would also like to thank Secretaries Snow and Martinez for taking time out of their busy schedules to appear before the committee.
I hope this committee spends some time examining the special privileges provided to GSEs by the federal government. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the housing-related GSEs received 13.6 billion worth of indirect federal subsidies in fiscal year 2000 alone. Today, I will introduce the Free Housing Market Enhancement Act, which removes government subsidies from the Federal National Mortgage Association (Fannie Mae), the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation (Freddie Mac), and the National Home Loan Bank Board.
One of the major government privileges granted to GSEs is a line of credit with the United States Treasury. According to some estimates, the line of credit may be worth over $2 billion dollars. This explicit promise by the Treasury to bail out GSEs in times of economic difficulty helps the GSEs attract investors who are willing to settle for lower yields than they would demand in the absence of the subsidy. Thus, the line of credit distorts the allocation of capital. More importantly, the line of credit is a promise on behalf of the government to engage in a huge unconstitutional and immoral income transfer from working Americans to holders of GSE debt.
The Free Housing Market Enhancement Act also repeals the explicit grant of legal authority given to the Federal Reserve to purchase GSE debt. GSEs are the only institutions besides the United States Treasury granted explicit statutory authority to monetize their debt through the Federal Reserve. This provision gives the GSEs a source of liquidity unavailable to their competitors.
The connection between the GSEs and the government helps isolate the GSE management from market discipline. This isolation from market discipline is the root cause of the recent reports of mismanagement occurring at Fannie and Freddie. After all, if Fannie and Freddie were not underwritten by the federal government, investors would demand Fannie and Freddie provide assurance that they follow accepted management and accounting practices.
Ironically, by transferring the risk of a widespread mortgage default, the government increases the likelihood of a painful crash in the housing market. This is because the special privileges granted to Fannie and Freddie have distorted the housing market by allowing them to attract capital they could not attract under pure market conditions. As a result, capital is diverted from its most productive use into housing. This reduces the efficacy of the entire market and thus reduces the standard of living of all Americans.
Despite the long-term damage to the economy inflicted by the government’s interference in the housing market, the government’s policy of diverting capital to other uses creates a short-term boom in housing. Like all artificially-created bubbles, the boom in housing prices cannot last forever. When housing prices fall, homeowners will experience difficulty as their equity is wiped out. Furthermore, the holders of the mortgage debt will also have a loss. These losses will be greater than they would have otherwise been had government policy not actively encouraged over-investment in housing.
Perhaps the Federal Reserve can stave off the day of reckoning by purchasing GSE debt and pumping liquidity into the housing market, but this cannot hold off the inevitable drop in the housing market forever. In fact, postponing the necessary, but painful market corrections will only deepen the inevitable fall. The more people invested in the market, the greater the effects across the economy when the bubble bursts.
No less an authority than Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan has expressed concern that government subsidies provided to GSEs make investors underestimate the risk of investing in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Mr. Chairman, I would like to once again thank the Financial Services Committee for holding this hearing. I would also like to thank Secretaries Snow and Martinez for their presence here today. I hope today’s hearing sheds light on how special privileges granted to GSEs distort the housing market and endanger American taxpayers. Congress should act to remove taxpayer support from the housing GSEs before the bubble bursts and taxpayers are once again forced to bail out investors who were misled by foolish government interference in the market. I therefore hope this committee will soon stand up for American taxpayers and investors by acting on my Free Housing Market Enhancement Act.

McCain will fix it!!!!
Obama will fix it!!!!
ROFLMAO.
Good Luck Sheep!

norman thank you for taking the time to post the record that PROVES that mccain warned that this would happen.

McCain will find it almost impossible to live up to his vow of no earmarks, gridlock would result if Congress refused to go along with such an executive branch power grab.
And that’s what members of McCain’s own party are saying.
“I don’t think it’s the right approach,” said Rep. Ralph Regula, an Ohio Republican who has spent three decades on the House Appropriations Committee. “I haven’t done an earmark I wouldn’t be happy to have spread all over the front pages of the paper.”
Rep. C.W. Bill Young (R-Fla.), a former Appropriations Committee chairman, warns that both parties in Congress would protect their power against a no-earmark policy.
“The Constitution is very specific and very clear about who appropriates money,” Young said. “Not all earmarks are pork-barrel spending.”
McCain has billed himself and his running mate as mavericks who will stand up to foolish spending.

The Democratic idiots in Congress can’t figure this out, but we’re supposed to elect Obama so the Democrats can have control of Congress and the White House???
Yeah, right………………….

Hey Norman! Isn’t your candidate the guy who keeps whining about CEOs getting a ton of cash while screwing the little people? Maybe Obambi could start by getting tough with these CEOs, eh? Heres a little information for you. By conservative estimates, Mudd, 49, and Syron, 64, will leave with an additional $7.3 million and $6.3 million, respectively, as part of a severance package, according to an analysis by Paul Hodgson at the Corporate Library. Mudd is another genius from General Electric, the company that owns NBC. Syron claims that he received enormous pressure from an un-named lawmaker pushing Freddie to take on the bad loans. So the Times reports that as Syron and others sat in a conference room reviewing the memo, Syron “refused to consider possibilities for reducing Freddie Mac’s risks. He said we couldn’t afford to say no to anyone.” I wonder who in Congress was pressuring him to take bad loans?

Okay, I read the link.
My thoughts are first, its an exaggeration to say McCain predicted the collapse of Freddie/Fannie, and second, we see another reference to golden parachutes… which takes us down an interesting avenue.
The bill which McCain co-sponsored would have set up yet another governmental organization to oversee Fannie and Freddie, right? I mean, that’s basically all it does.
It doesn’t do anything about predatory lending practices. Basically what McCain was arguing against was cooking the books by Fannie/Freddie executives, in order to qualify for bonuses – which don’t get me wrong, certainly is a valid concern.
And we see how this body would oversee accounting as well as bonuses and pensions – golden parachutes are called out.
Now this week when McCain says he’ll eliminate golden parachutes throughout the financial sector, is he talking about a similar governmental expansion, to oversee fully non-governmental corporations, and that seemingly can over-rule the private corporate boards?

“No one is sure what to do”
Charge! Blindly in to the night……

The general co-chairman of John McCain’s presidential campaign, former Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Texas), led the charge in 1999 to repeal a Depression-era banking regulation law that Democrat Barack Obama claimed on Thursday contributed significantly to today’s economic turmoil.
“A regulatory structure set up for banks in the 1930s needed to change because the nature of business had changed,” the Illinois senator running for president said in a New York economic speech. “But by the time [it] was repealed in 1999, the $300 million lobbying effort that drove deregulation was more about facilitating mergers than creating an efficient regulatory framework.”
Gramm’s role in the swift and dramatic recent restructuring of the nation’s investment houses and practices didn’t stop there.
A year after the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act repealed the old regulations, Swiss Bank UBS gobbled up brokerage house Paine Weber. Two years later, Gramm settled in as a vice chairman of UBS’s new investment banking arm.
Later, he became a major player in its government affairs operation. According to federal lobbying disclosure records, Gramm lobbied Congress, the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department about banking and mortgage issues in 2005 and 2006.
During those years, the mortgage industry pressed Congress to roll back strong state rules that sought to stem the rise of predatory tactics used by lenders and brokers to place homeowners in high-cost mortgages.
For his work, Gramm and two other lobbyists collected $750,000 in fees from UBS’s American subsidiary. In the past year, UBS has written down more than $18 billion in exposure to subprime loans and other risky securities and is considering cutting as many as 8,000 jobs.
Gramm did not respond to an e-mail and was unavailable for comment, according to a UBS spokesman. The bank has no official position on the subprime crisis, the spokesman said, but is a member of the Financial Services Roundtable and other industry groups that are actively lobbying Congress on the issue.
Now, some housing experts and economists see Gramm’s thinking in the recent housing proposal from McCain, the Republican Party’s presumed presidential nominee. Gramm is often a surrogate for the Arizona senator, particularly in meetings focused on the economy. And McCain has hinted he’d consider the former Texas senator for Treasury secretary in a McCain administration.
McCain delivered an economic speech Tuesday that had Gramm’s input, but it was written by domestic policy adviser Douglas Holtz-Eakin.
“Sen. Gramm was one of dozens of folks whom Sen. McCain has consulted on the housing issue, including Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman from eBay,” said McCain campaign spokesman Brian Rogers. “They’ve been friends for years, and he values Sen. Gramm’s advice.”
In the speech, McCain rejected the type of aggressive government intervention in the economic meltdown that has been embraced by his Democratic opponents — and even some Bush advisers.
“I have always been committed to the principle that it is not the duty of government to bail out and reward those who act irresponsibly, whether they are big banks or small borrowers,” McCain said. “Government assistance to the banking system should be based solely on preventing systemic risk that would endanger the entire financial system and the economy.”

Clifton -
How about the Congressional Record as a source of McCain’s take on Fannie-Freddie? Go to Thomas – it’s all there
comments on joining as cosponsor FEDERAL HOUSING ENTERPRISE REGULATORY REFORM ACT OF 2005 — (Senate – May 25, 2006)
Don’t forget to look at NYT for its discussion on how the Dems pushed back on Bush/Republican plan in 2003 to add additional oversight/reform to Fannie/Freddie.

People should listen, Ben….they should listen now and they should have been listening all along rather than dissing.
Unfortunately, people in this country put their pathetic party loyalty above all else. Obama, McCain….BOTH MORE OF THE SAME. People will wake up sooner or later….
Good Luck.
http://www.house.gov/paul/congrec/congrec2003/cr091003.htm

>>Norman – “…two years ago John McCain
>>warned that Freddie and Fannie would
>>fail.”
>Huh, I never saw that before. Can you
>post the quote from McCain?
I’m not Norman, but here’s a link http://tinyurl.com/5t3jts
May 25, 2006: “…For years I have been concerned about the regulatory structure that governs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac–known as Government-sponsored entities or GSEs–and the sheer magnitude of these companies and the role they play in the housing market. OFHEO’s report this week does nothing to ease these concerns. In fact, the report does quite the contrary. OFHEO’s report solidifies my view that the GSEs need to be reformed without delay….”
He nailed it spot on. The Democrats blocked reform.
-RegularJoe

The subprime mortgage loan products were invented and implemented during the Bush Administration. The executive branch and the lobbyists who write the policy for Bush (and now McCain) are responsible. We never had subprime loans until Wall Street, with help from their lobbyists and friends in the White House, dreamed it up.

Ron Paul was right all along. What a kook!

Repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act. This action, in 1999, was one of two major cases when a cornerstone of New Deal regulation was explicitly repealed. (The other was the repeal of the Public Utility Holding Company Act, and if your utility rates are sky-high, you can thank Congress for that, too.) Glass-Steagall provided that if you wanted to speculate as an investment bank, good luck to you. But commercial banks were part of the banking system. They created credit. They were regulated, supervised, usually enjoyed FDIC insurance, and had access to advances from the Fed in emergencies. So commercial banks and investment banks were two different creatures that should stay out of each other’s knitting.
But beginning in the 1980s, regulators who didn’t believe in regulation either allowed explicit waivers of some aspects of Glass-Steagall or looked the other way as commercial banks and investment banks became more alike. By 1999, when Citigroup had jumped the gun and assembled a supermarket that included a commercial bank, investment bank, stock brokerage, and insurance company, Glass Steagall was so hollowed out that it was effectively dead. The coup de grace was its official repeal, in the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. That’s Gramm as in former Sen. Phil Gramm, a deregulation zealot and top adviser to John McCain.

Failing to Police Sub-prime. The core idea of bank regulation is that government inspectors periodically examine the quality of bank assets. If too large a portion of a bank’s loan portfolio is behind in its interest payments, the bank is made to raise more capital as a cushion against losses. Problems are nipped in the bud. But complex securities require more sophisticated regulation than simple loans. Regulators basically waived the rule on adequate capital for the new wave of mortgage lenders who created sub-prime. Many mortgage companies were not banks. They made loans only to sell them off to the Wall Street sinners of Deadly Sin No. 1 (see above). So there was no loan portfolio to examine, and no real capital. The Democratic Congress anticipated this problem in 1994, when it passed the Homeownership Opportunity and Equity Protection Act. This prescient law required the Federal Reserve to regulate the loan-origination standards of mortgage companies that were not otherwise government-regulated. But Alan Greenspan, a free-market zealot, never implemented the law. And when Republicans took over Congress in 1995, they never called him on the carpet.

The war in Iraq, and now the war on the American taxpayers (who will pay for the bail-out and golden parachutes) will go down as the biggest blunders in American History since the Civil War. Thank you George Bush. And NO WAY to John McCain, more of the same old crap.

>Clueless Harry Reid head of the most
>inept Congress EVAR! 9% Approval of the
>Do-Nothing Congress.
The real mystery is where they found 9% that approve!!
-RegularJoe

Steve from Danville, this cr@p started with ober democrat FDR when he invented the new deal. Tax payers will be paying for that mess for ever. Now the Lord Obama wants to now expand this!!!

Imagine how bad its going to be when social security blows up – Thank you FDR!

Did anyone listen to Frau Palin’s speech on Monday? In the same speech she demanded new regulation and oversight of the financial industry and then went on to say that, once elected, she would fight to remove governmental intrusion into the free market. IN THE SAME SPEECH!! Does she even know what she is saying when she flip-flops IN THE SAME SPEECH? At least McCain waited 12 hours before he flip-flopped. and she has the cred to be president !!!!!! These Deregulations are the same ones that John McCain and the Keating 5 got in so much trouble for and the GOP pushed thru in the 90′s and up to 2004 in the Mort,stocks, energy, and banking fields they push for NO oversight and now in the same speech she says she wants and doesn’t want Gov. regulations ?!?

Norman: “Steve from Danville, this cr@p started with ober democrat FDR when he invented the new deal. Tax payers will be paying for that mess for ever. Now the Lord Obama wants to now expand this!!!”
Well, Norman, the New Deal and World War II combined didn’t even equal as much debt as we’ve run up by invading Iraq.
Check out the history of the debt – it didn’t hit its first trillion dollars until sometime in the 1970s.
The debt ballooned first under Reagan, and then more dauntingly under this Bush Administration. Bush took over with roughtly a $5 trillion debt, and it will be over $10 trillion when he leaves office.

Two words: Ron Paul

Anyone on this blog from Nevada that wants to admit they voted for Harry Reid?
How about SF — why do keep sending Pelosi back to Congress.
No matter who becomes President the scariest thought in the world is that Nancy Pelosi is 3rd in line for the Presidency. OMG!!!

Paul, Mr. Bush, who took office with a $236 billion surplus that turned into a deficit we did NOT have a deficit when he took office

Hey Pres. Bush -
Now that you’ve gotten us into a war in Iraq that we did not need to wage…
Now that your willful lack of oversight and deregulation of financial markets has resulted in the bankruptcy or sale of 3 of our nation’s five largest banks.
Now that your willful lack of oversight and deregulation of financial markets has resulted in the sub-prime mortgage crisis, a crisis that is dragging down the entire American economy.
What are you going to do next?
George Bush:
I’m going to “Walt Disney Land”:-)
But seriously, what do I care….
I’m going to stick the nation and the next generation with the bill. Its not mine to pay.:-) You all U.S.A. can pick up the tab.
I’m going home to retirement in Crawford , Texas. I go mine…what do I care about what anybody else might be suffering….”

Regulosi: Come out, come out where ever you are!!

Well, I was around back when a Democrat Congress let the economy tank by inaction at the end of the Bush 41 term. I’ve been watching it happen again for two years (they didn’t even bother to deliver on the #1 promise: end the War in Iraq).
But this time the Democrats may have opened Pandora’s Box on themselves. I wonder if Americans will vote in an untested Democratic Junior Senator to take over in a real time of crisis?
The Russians, Chinese, Iranians, etc. will push Obama to see if he’s as weak as he looks, and a wrong move could escalate big-time, like JFK’s missle crisis and Berlin Wall, or Carter’s hostage crisis.
And I wouldn’t be surprised under Obama to see a return to the Carter economy. If he really does try to redistribute the wealth of the “rich” with taxes he will find out that they didn’t get to be rich by being stupid. They will move their wealth to tax shelters or offshore and ride out his 4 years, killing the U.S. economy while making a return on investment in China or India or whereever else they find a business opportunity to their liking, and I won’t blame them a bit. Who knows? I might end up in India myself the way my company is shifting work its technical work there…

Richard – we did have a debt, though.
And by the way, we did have a deficit even in Clinton’s last year, the way most people would consider the numbers.
The Clinton Administration followed the same accounting procedures as its predecessors, and under those procedures we did have a surplus. But that doesn’t count the money we borrowed from trust funds; most notably Social Security. All balanced out, we still were in deficit spending and the debt continued to grow.
But even if it hadn’t, just balancing the budget does nothing to reduce the debt. The personal finance analogy would be making credit card payments that keep the balance steady – but not actually paying off the balance.

Regulosi: Come out, come out where ever you are!!

Flip-flop, Diddy-Bop McCain. Sixteen years being a part of the system, voting 90% of the time with Bush. Now he wants us to believe he is a “reformer” taking on his own party? How dumb does he think people are?

Anyone see today’s gallup poll (www.gallup.com). Obama is up for the 6th straight day, and now has pulled again of McCain in the Gallup, Zogby, and Reuters polls.
He’s not the white, evangelical, end-of-times, big-brother-spying-on-Americans, dumb-war-starting, trillion-dollar-debt-selling, government expansionist that republicans want in office, but he is gaining the confidence of Americans and pulling ahead despite the efforts of the RNC staffers who pretend to be ordinary people posting here.
A brighter day is ahead…

antenian,
I’ve come to realize that people don’t want to hear the truth.
America…a beautiful country….filled with a bunch of idiots.
Get in line sheep….your party is going to be leaving without you…..your headed to the land of Serfdom.
Good Luck.

Reg joe Mccain has been quoted and there is Video of him saying “no one could have seen this coming” in 2007 so when did he see it coming? after no one could have

RichardCranium1> Paul, Mr. Bush, who took
>office with a $236 billion surplus
>that turned into a deficit we did NOT
>have a deficit when he took office
In addition to Paul’s observations, I also note that he took office with a recession — partly of Clinton’s making, by bursting the dot-com bubble (needed doing, but timing was calculated to cause mess on next president’s watch) and the HUGE technology sales rush leading up to and sales drop following Y2K (every company replaced every piece of high tech gear in 1998-1999, then didn’t need anything for a couple of years after that).
Bush also inherited a global terrorism crisis that was just about to explode — not something I blame on Clinton as much as some do, but I certainly don’t blame Bush.
BTW, I smell an all-day pissing match in the making. Sorry, I haven’t time. Go ahead and savage me with the final word, and let onlookers decide who has the “stuff”.
-RegularJoe

The Dems will promise all things to all people but when the time comes to make important decisions they become paralyzed with indecisiveness. Worst case examples of leadership and yet ABC is still worried sick about Palin’s tanning bed.

Why is the media not calling Obama out about his role in the Fannie Freddie catastrophe? Obama is the number two recipient of campaign contributions from Fannie and Freddie. Obama has never introduced any legislation that would have regulated Fannie and Freddie’s loan practices of making loans to high risk borrowers. Yet Obama is saying now as President he will take the action necessary to regulated Fannie and Freddie. Problem is Obama is not credible on this issue or any other issue for that manner. Obama’s top two economic advisers are former Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac CEO’s who may have pulled strings to give Obama a “heads up”on the recent government bail-out plan. Washington Prowler has the story: Obama’s economic advisers from day one and who have raised him a ton of money: are Franklin Raines and Jim Johnson. Both of them are up to their eyeballs in the mortgage debacle. Both Raines and Johnson have served as CEO of Fannie Mae, with Raines taking over from Johnson. How Obama can say with a straight face that Republicans are responsible for the mess, when it is his key advisers who ran the agencies that that are the primary people behind the mess is beyond belief. The people who are responsible for what may well be the single largest government bailout in history are Obama‘s top economic advisors.. And every single one of them made millions off the collapse that are lining Obama’s campaign coffers. If McCain had Raines and Johnson as his campaign advisers you can bet the farm that the media would be all over it. Why the silence? Beware the Obama/Media complex.

Obama wants to raise taxes on American businesses and hand over the money to the middle class and poor so they can go out and buy “toasters” made in China so all the American jobs go to China and American business goes under.

I’ll tell you what to do Reid – go home and take Nancy and Dean w. you for starters. Then we the people need to put in congress someone who has economical common sense. But we don’t do that! We just sent John Kerry back to congress (he has been there since 1984) and last night on TV, I heard him talking about saving the earth! Sweet Jesus! I want to save the planet as much as the next guy but I want to have food on the table, I want to have a job and a roof above my head to. We need a few things to get the economy on solid footing again and I would list them here but it is just to log and the dim-wits from Washington are to corrupt and to power drunk to do anything for the middle class American. We are in the mess we are in because of the special interests in Washington, because of the lobbyists who convinced the Congress to free the credit markets so all Joe Smow can get loans on top of loans regardless if they could pay back or not. Then Joe Bidden and his son come up with the new anti-bankrupcy laws so now the credit card companies and credit collection companies have more power over Joe Smow. And the politicians pretend ‘they did not know’. AIG was a good company to save but i am not sure it can be saved since AIG insures the rest of the banks against their own stupid decisions to engage in risky loan practices. And so it goes a catch 22. Good luck America!

We have had the most unaccomplished Congress EVER and this is AFTER Democrats took house.
Get these guys out of here and don’t even think about getting Obama in there.
Look at these resources:
http://online.wsj.com/public/article_print/SB122126282034130461.html
http://hotair.com/archives/2008/09/17/mccains-attempt-to-fix-fannie-mae-freddie-mac-in-2005/
http://mccainpalin2008.blogspot.com/2008/09/blame-democrats-for-this-crisis-and-one.html
-Paul
http://mccainpalin2008.blogspot.com

We are paying for the sins of democratizing the American dream. We thought that it was un-American if someone cannot own a house and that it bears no risk to enlarge home ownership. If everyone out there was as lucky as Obama to have a Rezko to subsidize his/her own house, we would not be in this housing mess.
Let’s vote for Obama and hope that he will bring a large supply of Rezko type of people to bail us all out.

Harry Reid On Economic Woes: No One Knows What to Do

No one knows what to do.
Dont look for any legislation in the near future to address the financial crisis.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, asked today what new regulatory actions Congress can take, said, bluntly, N…

I’m sorry Senator Reid. There is someone that knows what to do. I remember just four short years ago we were encourged to let one Republican know they were on the wrong side and should run as a Democrat. Now he’s the boogeyman.
I also remember just three short years ago several articles that one man was trying to fight it. Trying to get in and investigate what was going on because the numbers weren’t adding up. I remember the Democrats fighting it tooth and nail. Doing anything they could to shoot it down.
That man is John McCain in both those scenerios. You know it, and I know it, and anyone that’s read a newspaper knows it. I’d be willing to bet that if ABC looked at their archives they’d know it also. Or perhaps they already did and didn’t want to add that into this article…Why?

Palin told FOX News’ Sean Hannity that it was “unfair” for Barack Obama to criticize McCain earlier in the week for saying “the fundamentals of our economy are strong.” She said McCain was clearly talking about the workforce.
“It was an unfair attack on the verbiage that Senator McCain chose to use, because … he means our workforce, he means the ingenuity of the American people,” Palin said. “And of course that is strong and that is the foundation of our economy. So that was an unfair attack there.”
————————-
Sure McSame was REALLY talking about the glorious hard work ethic and ingenuity of the American people. And Palin was REALLY quoting Licoln when she mentioned “God’s war”.
Seriously, do people really buy this BS. It’s just so absurd it’s insulting.
If they had any sense, they’d of said McCain said that to calm fears and was trying to prevent a market crash.
But apparently, he was talking about the American work force. Uh…right.

I wish someone would sit down and explain the word “socialism” to Republican bloggers. Though they use the term EVERY election, they always look foolish and ignorant because they obviously have no clue as to what “socialism” really means.
And our economy is not a pure capitalist model. It is a mixture of private enterprise, controlled markets, and government interventions.
Quit waving psuedo patriotic flags and get a clue!

When George Bush and the federal government have to take over AIG, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, there isn’t much that Republicans can say about “socialism” without conceding that the GOP “free market” system is broken. It’s not just broken, it’s been carpet-bombed and left for dead. Now we have another buying opportunity for the Chinese who, under Bush-McCain, now have a death grip on America. Just mail your next mortgage payment to China and thank the Republicans who led us all down this path. Fix America: Dump the GOP and their Wall Street Lobbyists.

LMAO! I am having fun looking at the Democrats blaming the Republicans for the mess that we are. Yes, it was the republicans who engineered the deregulation of the financial sector, but they forgot to mention, as usual, that they bought into it. You people who want to blame the Republicans missed a very important point that was made in the article: “[T]they voted for an updated version of the bill in December of 1999 and President Clinton signed it. Reid and all but 7 Democrats in office at the time voted for the version of the bill that ultimately became law.” Now that we are in the mess, they claim that the deregulation isn’t the problem, but the lack of oversight by the Bush administration? I am no economist, but isn’t that what “deregulation” usually entail, fewer and simpler regulations coupled with minimal government oversight?

The American people know what to do, Reid, we can start by kicking all of you Dems right out the door!! Yesterday you idiots concocted a drilling bill knowing full well it was designed to fail….the experts have said that drilling within 50 miles has the most gas and can be gotten within a year…but you thugs decided to say 100miles and NOT share any royalties with the states…you stacked the deck and did not care if the American people are suffering with this gas crisis..no wonder your ratings are in the toilet! I have never, in my 69 years seen a Congress so inept and all of you should be put in jail for acts against the citizens of this country! All of you had better get ready, because you all will be out on the street…unfortunately not soon enough!!

Congress has authority over financial and budgetary matters, For the past 2 years that Democrats
have been leading the Congress. Things have been sour and the financial woes are
getting worse, simply Democrat Nancy Pelosi and Democrat Harry Reid were sleeping at the switch
and taking vacations while the rest of the country is financially going down the drain.
Last spring Nancy Pelosi forced congress in vacation and let the national security bill
expire risking our national security and last summer vacation Nancy Pelosi with out fail took a vacation while americans
where paying $4/gallon of gas. This is your Typical Liberal Democrat way of doing things
in Washington and this is the CHANGE that Obama wants, mind you these are Obama’s friends
who think alike and do things alike.

I am shocked to see Reid not saying we need more regulations like Obama who won’t even think of trying to find out what went wrong.Obama and the Democrats need to stop saying every problem can be fixed by Washington and Reid will most likely deny he did not support more regulations as the only fix for the start.McCain ha the rigt solution to this problem 1)find out what went wrong,2)Find the right solution for the problem,3)Apply the correct and proper action that wil not only fix the problem but prevent it from occuring again.

Clean the house, and the senate from these do nothing hacks. Term limits please!

Posted by: Mark | Sep 17, 2008 9:40:00 PM
Wait a second….Dem’s have controlled the purse string (Congress) and the Senate for the past couple years. I would say the present day failure rests really damned heavy on them too!
========
Let’s give Bonnie & Clyde the keys to the Bank!!!
========
The current crisis is the direct consequence of the deregulation of America’s financial institutions.
This is a McCain policy, this is a Republican ideology.
Remember Reagonomics?
Deregulation + cut taxes + do not cut government programs =
A growing economy, more jobs, trickle down from the rich to the poor.
=======
In fact what we have is
Reagonomics
Deregulation + reduction of taxes + do not cut government programs =
1. The U.S. taxpayer is on the hook for billions in private debt held by banks that have gone bankrupt.
2. The U.S. taxpayer is on the hook for collapsing financial institutions.
3. The U.S. taxpayer is on the hook for paying hundreds of millions in interest payments on loans taken out from foreign countries.
4. The U.S economy is in hoc to foreign governments and sovereign funds.
5. The budget is in deficit, and will remain in deficit for decades to come.
5. 40 million Americans have no health insurance
5. Real wages in sharp decline, more than 600,000 jobs lost in the last year alone, record profits for private defense contractors (Halliburton, Blackwater), record profits for private healthcare and pharma companies, record profits for oil companies
6. Gas at more than $4.00 a gallon.
And BTW: When Bush, McCain, and other Republicans took over the government from Clinton – THE AMERICAN GOVERNMENT WAS IN SURPLUS. A surplus that was to last until 2010!!!
====================
IT is the Republican party, and the Republican party alone that has driven us into this ditch.
Vote McCain/Palin?
That’s like giving Bonnie & Clyde the keys to the bank. LOL!
That’s like making Charlie Manson the prison warden.
That’s like making “Billy the Kid” the Sheriff of Dodge

liberals are just doing what they always do lie now we pay later just like clinton and the cigar bar.why do you think clinton was called the first black PRESIDENT because he gave black people and white people houses they could not afford.my grass has weeds blame BUSH,my kids have to much homework blame BUSH,the moon is out blame BUSH,the cable is out blame BUSH,my dog just sh#@ on the lawn blame BUSH,The football game was great blame BUSH,coffee is over priced blame BUSH,and no i am not a redneck racist from GEORIGA.

KEEP THIS ECONOMY STRONG DRINK BEER.

WELL I GUESS BUSH JUST WANTED EVERYONE TO HAVE A HOME.JUST BLAME HIM FOR EVERYTHING IF THAT MAKES YOU FEEL BETTER.LIBERALS WHINE WHINE ABOUT ANYTHING WHEN THEY ARE NOT IN POWER.I GUESS NONE OF THIS WOULD HAVE HAPPENED IF WE WOULD HAVE VOTED FOR KETCHUP BOY, WHO WOULD WE HAVE BLAMED THEN. I GUESS IT WOULD HAVE BEEN THE EASTER BUNNY.

Here is the problem. We have politicians running the country. Don’t think because a person has a law degree from Harvard (or Yale, Princeton, etc.) that he or she knows about economics or how to run a government entity and deal with budgeting, etc.
The smartest of the smart are making the big bucks and paying big lumps of money to politicians to do their bidding.
Obama has received loads more than McCain in money from these big investment firms (look it up folks) and what makes you think he won’t continue to do their bidding?
I’m for McCain and Palin, because I am confident that they will shake things up and make sure the people know the goings on of government.
Final note: If you don’t like what they’re all doing, then run for office yourself. If you don’t have time, desire, etc., then watch where you throw those rocks.

America we are drowing and where are the true leaders with gut. How can Senator Reid even articulate such a dumb statement. I have a suggestion on what can be done in regard to Fannie and Freddie the Democrats who received the most contributions starting with Senator Dodd, Biden, Obam, Schumer, Clinton and Reid can write a big refund check to the American taxpayers. And all those Republicans who received similar contributions from Fannie and Freddie can do the same.

The Reid Pelosi circus doesn’t know what to do, that’s a revelation. The DO NOTHING democrats of the last two years have been the most ineffective congress I have ever seen. I can only wish I lived in the same state as these two incompetent so called lawmakers so I could vote them out.
Now imagine an Obama presidency leading these two idiots that don’t know what to do. Tell me again why these two are leaders in their party but, don’t know what to do. We are screwed in this nation with so called leaders like this.
And you want me to vote for the same party these idiots are part of!

Hint to Harry:
Trot on over to the House of Reps and have Ron Paul give you a lesson or 12 in Austrian economics and the problem with central banks and our outrageous monetary “policy”.
Hint to the rest of you arguing over whether it’s the fault of the dems or the repubs, they’re ALL at fault for their complete lack of economic knowledge, their lack of intellectual curiosity, and for allowing the Federal Reserve Bank (which is neither federal nor a reserve) to continue to bankrupt this country through inflation, which created all these bubbles and devalued our dollar down to near-nothing.
Until they wake up and do something about the root of the problem, we’re on the fast track to a major depression.
I suggest you educate yourselves so you can at least understand the fraud that has been perpetrated upon We The People. Wake up before it’s too late!

and the dems are the one’s who appointed obama to run for the oval office, the other’s made their choice by themselves, and they don’t know what to do, hhmmmm!!! so i guess we need to elect another moron liberal to the white house so they can go on a bigger stage to tell the american people, WE DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO! don’t forget, obama is still in the u.s. senate voting PRESENT, and their leader is saying their lost! the house speaker is telling the American people don’t blame us, for what? not knowing what to do! aleast the republicans knew that if the liberal’s gained control, that would happen! let’s all remember, that it’s the liberal democrats in control of the legislation PROGRESS to actually get things done, not the real democrats like joe lieberman! and who is joe voting for, McCain, thank you JOE! you see, joe know’s how stupid his colleague’s really are first hand! and the liberal’s want to elect another i don’t know what to do senator! obama is already lost out on his campaign trail. and what is this about reid saying to put a time line on this would be disasterous, you got to be freaking kidding me! what hypocrites! but what can we say about that, it’s in their nature to be judgemental moron’s not knowing what to do!

bob – the democrats have to stop electing liberal’s and start electing true blue democrats. thats the problem, they run as democrats and then legislate as liberal’s!

Lowering energy costs is a partisan issue? If that’s the case, the democrats may as well hang up their heels and run back to their districts behind Pelosi and Reid.
The democrats have already lost.

PS. For that matter, the Clintons probably know what to do. In the 90s they turned a giant deficit into a giant surplus. And who is more likely to listen to them — McCain who listened to Hillary about global warming, or arrogant Obama?

Yes, Reid should step down and give Senate Majority Leader to Hillary! There’s already a movement for that:
hrcforsenatemajorityleader09.com

But the Obama people don’t like facts. They won’t bother to look up these facts.Give us the bills within the past 15 years where Democrats tried to regulate and solve some of these Fannie/Freddie problems. GIVE ME FACTS!
Not hyperboly.I faintly remember Clinton attempting something. But, only remember the 2000′s. Also remember Bush trying to do something about SSI but that was shut down also. Knowone including repulicans wanted to talk about it except a few Republicans like Ron Paul. Give us some facts here folks.

What to do? Phone Hillary.
It’s 3 a.m.
w w w . hrcforsenatemajorityleader09 . c o m

So much for Obama’s blatant attempt to
make political gains out of the
current economic downturn:
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, asked today what new regulatory actions Congress can take, said, bluntly, “No one knows what to do. We are in new territory here. This is a different game. We’re not here playing soccer, basketball or football, this is a new game and we’re going to have to figure out how to do it.”
The “one” doesn’t know what to do either! Obama’s solution is to trash
the President and John McCain
and try to scare people into a panic, possibly causing a depression!
Would Barack Obama be willing to destroy
our economy in order to be elected
president?

So….how is it that we have Obama and Biden touting their experience and ability to deal with THE ECONOMY but Harry Reid thinks ‘we don’t know what to do’. My suggestion would be that these people of change and leadership get back to their Washington jobs and show us how to deal with this. Democrats have the majority – it isn’t like those pesky republicans will stop them from fully demonstrating their leadership……

And we’re supposed to elect Obama who is also clueless and give these guys full reign. No thanks, with McCain at least we’ll have a balance of power.

I know what we can do. Stop paying for public assistance and services for illegal immigrants and deport the illegals that are taking up space in our jails. We can’t afford to support this burden anymore since we have become so indepted in the last week. We could use that jail space for the executives that we, the tax payers, are bailing out. I think the tax burden on Californians is about $100 billion for public assistance/services for illegals. That’s about half of what it cost to bail out Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac…We have to cut expenses.

Brilliant Reid, fist the war was lost and now you’ve fallen and can’t get up. Wake up America do you REALLY want this group of “don’t know what to do” clowns to remain in congress, let alone have a canidate for president who’s resume is more lacking for president than any in my lifetime. Bob

Whoa–this just hit me:
Obama Bi[nla]den
Ugh!

Reid, Pelosi, Dodd, Frank, Kerry are lying traitors of the first order. Get as mad as you like, you know it is true. There are some others, but those will do. I would just as soon see the economy collapse before wanting to see them stay in their abusive power.