PEBO Talks Trillions for Deficit, Purely Positive Words for Panetta

“”jump-start our economy, save or create three million new jobs, mostly in the private sector, and lay a solid foundation for future growth.”"
now its back to create or save. I guess it depends on the week.

Wow, did he really say that Paneta would be good at the CIA because he has “political saavy”?? So, the best people at running our security apparatus are politicians, not career security/intelligence people? The entire CIA is up in arms about this asonine and completely politically-motivated appointment.

And he trashed Bush for the trillion debt. Now the one who siad we should not do it is doing it.

tsk, tsk. picky, picky, picky. So George Tenet, the tough guy, was a real good CIA Director? Didn’t 9/11 happen on his watch??? Wasn’t he the guy who assured Bush that invading Iraq and winning there was a “slam dunk”? And that is your knowledgeable intelligensia madman? Maybe Pannetta will be a very badly needed breath of fresh air. If the CIA is upset about this pick, that’s got to be a good thing. Maybe they are concerned that they can’t b.s. the American people any longer!! And forget about the deficit. It more than doubled under BUSH and now is not the time to worry about it getting bigger. It’s gonna happen but it’s the only way out of the mess Bush and Company have left us with. At least we won’t be spending $10Billion a month on the Iraq War much longer. There’s a comforting thought. And yes, you can create jobs and spending, but save on other wasteful projects all at the same time. Just ask any person who has ever simply managed a budget for a household. It is possible.

This is the scariest interview I have ever heard from a President-elect. CIA run by a lawyer politician? Borrowing money to try and fix a problem that too much borrowing got us into? We are in so much trouble now.

James – You’re statement is patently false. The Republican Congress and the Republican Administration did not control spending. They led investments in the Iraq War (no bid contracts), increased domestic spending i.e. No Child Left Behind, Medicare, faith based initiatives, and pork projects such as “The Bridge to Nowhere” etc. while providing significant tax cuts for the wealthy. In many cases, Democrats went along for the ride. But spending, these past 8 years, was largely the responsibility of the Rs.

Agnostic Free Thinker No, Bushey boy already bankrupted the country. Don’t blame it on Obama.

“I wonder what the president elect could have said in this instance that would make some of you haters happy? ”
We have to be extra cynical because you are extra gullible.

sybase46, yea at least BO told you he was going to rob you…LOL

Told ya!
Didn’t I? Huh, huh? Damn skippy, I did!

sybase46, I’ve received 3 “stimulus rebates” since Bush has been in office. Those are in addition to the rebates I receive every year. Doesn’t that count as a tax cut? How is BO’s plan “new?”

Hey Jon – think outside the box. We are no longer living under the last 8 years Republican SOP. In 2007 Obama stated that the possibility of a terrorist group obtaining a nuclear weapon was “the No. 1 threat” facing America. A nuclear attack anywhere in the world that could have been prevented through intelligence reform would severely harm America, not to mention the Democrats. Since we are pulling out of Iraq, security will now take more than war, it takes better intelligence.
Clearly the CIA has become dysfunctional. After 9/11 the CIA never suffered the consequences of its failure to perform, and even the Bush Administration admits they received bad pre-Iraq intel. On the other hand, our military is subject to the consequences of its actions, so it is an efficient and accountable organization. Consider someone outside the dysfunctional CIA, someone completely loyal to the President first, not the CIA. Appointing an organizer like Panetta indicates Obama plans to completely reform the CIA – some believe it should be dismantled and its parts assigned to functioning organizations such as the US military, the FBI and the State Department.

Uh. We’re mad because we were promised CHANGE! Just because he inherited it, doesn’t mean he has to continue the trend.

We are living in America’s last century folks.

How is Obama going to cut taxes and at the same time spend more money??
Healthcare for all?? It is history.!!!
Change you can believe in..!!!!lol

THANK YOU ERIC!
you said it, why are they mad?
because many of them were duped by
bush.
they believed in bush so much, and he played them, therefore they cannot possible trust obama.
but you cannot fault them to much,
they are mean spirited anyway,
and if i had supported george w. bush
i would not trust another politician
either.
it is also sour grapes

Of course, how devilishly simple: His comments give him and his cronies license to maintain the status quo of waste and incompetence. Pass the buck!

Obama HAD BETTER START GIVING SMALL BUSINESSES SOME BREAKS INSTEAD OF OVERTAXING THEIR CAPITAL GAINS, SO WE GET “MORE J-O-B-S”. This guy NEEDS to understand economics. It’s NOT TIME TO PLAY GAMES.

PELOSI and her bunch demanded the bailouts. Now they are trying to blame Bush. Give me a break..!!!! Now Obama is bringing back the retired Clinton administration. Those folks, 65 and above, were good 10 years ago. Things like technology have changed a lot. Leon Panetta is 70. CHANGE????lol

Is anybody beginning to comprehend what a mess Obama is going to make? This is really a sad situation.

Hope all of you who voted for Obama are ready for the longest and worst ride of your lives.

All I have to say is DUH! I’m not a professional on an economic team wasting some more tax dollars… but I could have predicted that! This country has been in debt for years! And it’s not any political party’s fault! It’s just the way economics work and how people buy, what they buy, and when. And I agree, Obama was elected because of his looks. The stupidest excuse I heard as to why someone would vote for him was because they said they wanted to be a part of history. Are you kidding me? If you guys want to get more dirt read the White house chief of staff’s new book and his plan for america. Makes me sick!

bb,
we ALL just had the longest and worst ride of our lives this past eight years with george w bush.

Republicans are so full of envy and anger…Instead of being happy of having a wonderful president loved by the majority of Americans as well as the rest of the world, they rather have a corrupted liar like Bush who most people hate in America and around the world.
Republicans sometimes look anti-American.

I still prefer to let him take office before criticizing his presidency. The budget deficits thus far are not of his making.

So goverment spending is the only way to improve the economy? If that’s the case, we should be sitting pretty. I mean we’ve got a $10+ trillion debt!!!!

We just elected a smooth-talking, civil rights lawyer with 0 experience running a business, and 0 executive experience to run the free world.
Thank God he spent all those years organizing those communities in Chicago (which have steadily seen crime rise each year). I feel soooo much better!
ROMNEY/PALIN 2012
PALIN/ROMNEY 2012
ROMNEY/PALIN 2012
PALIN/ROMNEY 2012
ROMNEY/PALIN 2012
PALIN/ROMNEY 2012
ROMNEY/PALIN 2012
PALIN/ROMNEY 2012
ROMNEY/PALIN 2012
PALIN/ROMNEY 2012
ROMNEY/PALIN 2012
PALIN/ROMNEY 2012
ROMNEY/PALIN 2012
PALIN/ROMNEY 2012
ROMNEY/PALIN 2012
PALIN/ROMNEY 2012

Obama will get the blame for the coming depression, It may not be fair but he’ll be in office and will be blamed. He probably has untill March or April before it all comes crashing down. After that you’ll se riots, martial law , and food shortages, it’s going to get very ugly!!

bush the usa…Well I have something nice to say about Obama
Mr Obama, thank you for already planning on adding another trillion dollars to our already growing national debt.
Mr Obama, thank you for getting to lead this country into the ground with your geriatric Clinton staff and your lack of experience.

Where is ” HOPE”,” Yes, We Can”???
Oh…I miss that words from him soooo much!
It made me feel soooo goood,,,flying on the sky…ehmmmm
Once he becomes PEBO, those words are bitter and scare me.

“We just elected a smooth-talking, civil rights lawyer…”
I dont even think the guy was a civil rights lawyer.

Damned if he does and damned if he doesn’t–
Good luck President-elect Obama you are going to need all that you can get!!!

I don’t quite understand all of you people. Give the man a fighting chance. I am sure it will take awhile to get things turned around. And I think he is the man who can do this for the USA. JUST GIVE HIM A CHANCE!!!!!!!!!!! He just needs the chance to set things in motion. I am sure he has a good plan and he has a good team to back him and give him advice. HE WILL DO IT. Quit complaining before you even know anything about how he plans to do this for us. Have you ever heard of patience????

Republicans are so full of envy and anger…Instead of being happy of having a wonderful president loved by the majority of Americans as well as the rest of the world, they rather have a corrupted liar like Bush who most people hate in America and around the world.
Republicans sometimes look anti-American.
Posted by: Andy
____________________________________
Anti-American? Really Andy!
I thought it was Obama’s very good friend and mentor for 20 years, Rev. Wright who said “God D___ America.”
Yes, Obama is definitely loved by the rest of the world. The rest of the world, especially Al Qeada has always salivated like dogs for America to weaken so they can have a shot at us. With Obama as President, now they have their chance.
As to all Americans loving Obama, as I recall, McCain won 21 states. That’s quite a bit of states for a candidate that everybody HATES, right? Obama just barely won this election in a squeaker.

And the sun is bright, night is dark, rain is wet…

dave,
rotting in his grave?
we had no business invading iraq.
saddam is rotting in his grave, but the man who is behind 9/11 is still free
while bush was invading iraq, and putting saddam in his grave,
osama bin laden was running free
and still is.
i suppose that people who lost love one on 9/11 are glad bush put saddam in his grave. “didn’t get the right one, but this one will do”

BertieW
Actually, I am right and you were wrong. One of the few cases he did take in the 90′s, in between writing books titled after rev racist’s speeches, was about minority housing.
He was defending minorities’ rights to obtain mortgages that they could never afford, with ACORN right next to him. What a guy!
Barry was a community agitator that was knee deep in this financial mess.

He has to submit his first budget next month and already he telling us HIS budget will more than double the current deficit, and that doesn’t include over expenditures from a Democrat owned Congress.
Next fiscal year alone will add $1.5+ trillion to the debt.

Is it Bush’s fault that there is a global recession? Those of you who constantly want to blame Bush for everything that goes wrong are sorely mistaken. Sure he hasn’t done a lot of things right, but not everything is his fault. And those of you who think Obama can make everything better are sorely mistaken as well. Hopefully, things will improve, but, unfortunately, they could get worse — like they did with Carter.

Dave said……”
You mean he can’t part the seas?
He can’t end the war in Iraq like he promised?
He can’t give every man, woman and child a gov’t care package?
You mean he can’t rob more from the rich to give to the poor without screwing our economy up further?
You mean he just said all of those things to get elected?
Shocking!!!!!”

At last! A Truthful, upfront president who’s pulling no bull and letting us know the pain before it comes….as compared to that other one that hid the numbers. And was then “surprised” how high the Iraq war would cost.

IN DEBT WE TRUST – spawned with the birth of the baby boom generation. Obama, a boomer himself, is carrying the relay torch. The most selfish generation in history – burdening countless generations that follow.

Thanks Eric, very nicely put. Obama is inheriting a job, most would not want. I would hope he was paying attention the last eight years, a perfect handbook of what not to do as president of the United States of America. I happen to like his cabinet selections, and Bill Clinton was a lawyer to, so is his wife. When your in trouble like this, you usually don’t call a doctor. But I like Obama’s pick of Sanjay Gupta, not to be partisan I liked DR. C. Everett Coop too.

Dave,
After researching this I see that you are more right. Obama’s web site described him as a civil rights lawyer and there are a couple of cases he took that if you stretch the point you could claim were civil rights.
His career seems to have amounted to not much of anything. He always let the other co-consuls do all the talking.
I did find this interesting:
“Obama was also recruited in law school by developer Antoin “Tony” Rezko, who back then had a reputation as “a star” of the urban renewal movement in Chicago. More recently, Rezko was indicted for allegedly using his clout with elected officials to amass taxpayer funds for self-enrichment.
…
The firm was headed by Allison Davis, who eventually left the firm to become a developer of low-income housing himself, sometimes in partnership with Rezko. Obama worked on some of those projects. “

BertieW
Sorry I snapped at you. I was trying to finish up at work and I mistakingly took you for an obamabot!
It’s 5:00 and I am goin home! keep up the good fight. Remember, if you start getting cornered by liberals just start typing
USA! USA! USA!
It’s like garlic to vampires

Obama economic concepts sound like he’s repackaging the past into the future.

BertieW – stop using math. Libs won’t understand anyway. The 1:1 GDP comment was righ ton point. Although it has to be less than 1:1 when factoring in the cost to adminster that money. Yes?
*People of the US – wait until all of this additional money is taken from the private sector in the years to come – corruption will be the rule not the exception at every level of goverment.

Anyone ready to split this union in to the Conservative states of the Republic and the Liberal states of the Confederacy?

Anyone ready for this to split in to a union of Conservative states of the Republic VS the Liberal states of the Confederacy?

Another whole page of Republican critics that complain and predict disaster but don’t have any suggestions at all about how to fix anything. That’s why your guys were kicked out of DC. They had nothing at all to offer this country.

bush destroyed the poor and working class and it will take money and time to repair it..

CHANGE YOU CAN BELIEVE IN!
So I guess PEOB had no earthly idea what he stated in his ecomonic forcast
wasn’t possible until this week.
Look’s like we are getting at least 4 more years of Bush anyway. Saying he didn’t know two months ago is weak at best. So what are we really getting with him? Well Europe is happy, right?

There does not have to be the deficits if the following plan is enacted
IDEA FOR THE ECONOMIC SOLUTION
New idea to create demand in residential real estate and solve the economic crises
1) Have a monthly lottery, where any home bought gets that buyer’s name entered.
2) On the 20Th of the following month on national television draw names per state based on the number of U.S. representatives that state has. The first name drawn in each state gets their purchase price paid back and 1 million dollars. The other names drawn will each get 100k
3) This should be retroactive to the first day that it is announced nationally so that those intending to buy property do not hold off until it begins.
4) Some TARP funds could be used for this and it can begin tomorrow.
5) This would mean that there would be 435 winners per month. Times 12 months equals 5220 winners per year. If 7 million homes are sold a year this gives you a 1/1340 chance of winning. This will help motivate people to buy houses, prices will stabilize and the economy will recover.
6) This is cheaper and wiser then throwing $ at the banks and it has a better chance of achieving results. Giving Banks money does not encourage them to lend. How can anyone blame them? Who would lend someone money against an asset that is falling in value? WE MUST STABILIZE HOME PRICES OR THIS ECONOMY WILL NOT RECOVER.
7) Putting the drawing on TV will give this idea incredible exposure. Companies will eagerly want to sponsor it and also throw in free prizes such as free cars, cruises, airline tickets, vacation packages etc. They have just as much to gain as consumers. This can actually become a national phenomenon and be a great deal of fun for the country.
Try to get Hollywood and Sports athletes involved in some fashion.
8) Also, there should be a zero % capital gains tax on any property purchased during the next year no matter when you sell it. This should only be on new purchases to help absorb some of the high housing inventory. Investors will snap up some properties and make things happen. This is a win win situation because no homes are selling anyway so there is no capital gains tax lost.
9) The situation is not really as complicated as people like Henry Paulson try to make it sound. In fact it is not Harvard economics it is simple 5th grade economics of supply and demand. We could eliminate supply by tearing down the excess inventory or we can stimulate demand with the ideas above, some variation of them or entirely new ones. Or we can wait until it happens on its own causing mass unemployment and foreclosures in the process.
ACTUAL COST OF PRIZE MONEY =1.062 BILLION (may be less with corporate sponsors)
ACTUAL POTENTIAL BENEFIT TO THE U.S. ……..PRICELESS.
We have nothing to lose. The money invested will stay in the economy and we are sure to gain back at least what was invested.
We need to get people involved, Television, Hollywood, Sports athletes. World War II was won by getting people involved, volunteerism, purchasing of war bonds etc. That is why we won.
Obama won the presidency by getting people involved. He is the person that can make this happen. He can make progress in 30 days if he announces this plan. Please pass this on to President Elect Obama.

We need the best intelligence we can get so what does Obama do? appoint somebody who knows nothing about intelligence. We are in serious trouble. Expect the next terrorist attack as soon as Obama finished destroying the intelligence agencies.

dividedwefall: Please do NOT insult us by calling the Liberals the Confederacy and the Conservatives the Union. I would prefer it the other way around. The South shall Rise Again !!!!!

Why can’t we get countries to payback the gazillions that we have given them?
Why is it that we take care of people who hate us and not our OWN American CITIZENS – our own country?
These are things that the government did without our approval – we only get a choice of elected officials but never get to voice our opinion and they make dumb decisions!
$15 BILLION dollars to bail out the banks – you could give each American CITIZEN a couple of million so that we could afford to make purchases to keep things afloat!
Rebuild devastated areas from floods, hurricanes and tornados. Money for NATURAL disasters, not man made ones.
No one is saving American CITIZENS and we are not being asked via a vote as to what we would like or not like to be done, so money is being given away like Monopoly money.

Leon PANETTA? For CIA Director? What’s the matter, wasn’t Caroline Kennedy available?

“This news should come as a surprise to NOBODY. You CANNOT invade and destroy a nation (essentially assuming all responsibility for it) at a cost of 11 billion dollars PER WEEK and NOT expect horrific consequences. We screamed at you warmongers for years about this very prospect and all we got was scorn and ridicule. WELCOME TO BUSHLAND baby.”
Sad but undeniable.

pefros – He’s not talking about past war expenses, or even current ones…He’s talking about future welfare, workfare, whatever you want to call it…causing this tremendous deficit.
And don’t you think for one minute that Barack Obama won’t fight a war. He has mentioned his interest in Afganistan for a long time now.

NPage in case you haven’t noticed, that ‘past war’ is still going on and the costs of that war continue to mount by billions every week.

T says: “bush destroyed the poor and working class and it will take money and time to repair it..”
First of all, when it comes to the poor, there is nothing to destroy. THEY’RE POOR! It is not the government’s responsibility to make them un-poor in any way. Secondly, the working class isn’t destroyed. Like any honest people with integrity and an interest in their future, they’re WORKING. How does working equate with “being destroyed”? Finally, when Bush leaves office in 14 days, who are you going to blame for all of your perceived problems? Besides YOU, of course. No one could EVER blame YOU – you’re perfect!

We expected people to realize Obama was only human, cannot part the seas of debt, or bring peace to the land, sometime after his election. We didn’t think he was going to set the bar so low before his was sworn in. His answer like every Democrats is money. He is taking the path that Bush had down to stimulate the economy. He has found out early that all those taxes he wanted to raise on those rich making over 250,120,70k whatever the number, are probably not the wisest move during a recession. He is even talking tax cuts which is what Bush did to. So where is the change people! You could have elected a Republican and gotten the same solutions. Obama is finding that it will be harder to govern than to win.

jschmitt the bar was already set at its lowest by the Bush administration. Regrettably no one can magically raise the bar under these types of horrific economic circumstances?
I’m sure your economic advice is far better that the accomplished professionals Obama gathered to access the proper approach.
And please don’t forget the Bush republicans were hundreds of billions of dollars overspent EVERY year of their regime. Talk about throwing money at problems – call a Republican.
I like what Obama is doing, you don’t. Big deal.

Obama – “Soaring deficits for years’
In other words, he is setting a very low expectation for his performance. When deficits fall below $1 trillion, say to 900 Billion, he will claim success. And you will buy it. Of course, you will pay for it, first. The expectations game is a great game and Obama knows how to play it.

Unbelievable…..I cannot believe we are going down this road. He knows he cannot live up to the expectation of the “Media led Lemmings”. He is in for one big fall. Ten years from now, good luck on finding someone who admitted to vote for him. This is a great example of “Carful what you wish for”….

Yes, exactly jschmitt . .. the Republicans grossly overspent despite their best attempts. Don’t be too quick to judge the new government – the country has been left in worse shape than at any time during the relatively prosperous early years of this century.

Try not to make too many assumptions jschmitt . .. hypotheticals don’t stand up next to actual accomplishments.
Republican governments under Reagan, Bush one and Bush two vastly outspent Democratic administrations under Carter and Clinton – again, despite their claims they would introduce ‘smaller government’.
It’s too bad the Republicans couldn’t have just been honest with the public. We are going to grossly overspend and then we will make excuses for it …
Them’s the facts, your hypothesizing is just that.

if ever there was an empty suit in the white house, it has been during this past eight years.
cannot wait to see the backside of
george w bush.
the goal was to torture the detainee
“if the detainee dies, you are doing it wrong”
george bushes library will be a
house of horrors

prefos- I do agree with that Republicans did not deliver on smaller govt. But considering all that happenned during the Bush term in economics it might have been difficult to go smaller. He created Homeland Security a brand new department. I think many have been over critical and my point is that a Democratic administration facing the same economic hurdles as Bush would not have done much different. We will never know and historians will be the judge. We can only go forward from hear and let’s hope Obama’s path will make the recession short. But Pelosi really scares me. Thanks for the civil exchange of views- still hard to come by in blogs. We agree to disagree.

if these guys do not need to be convicted for war crimes,
no one will ever be convicted of war crimes again.
the bush govt. has declared to the rest of the world “open season on torture”
and don’t think the chickens will not home to roost

Bush will go down in history as the a president who had the bravery and COURAGE to go after the cowardly terrorist who destroyed our country’s freedom by flying fully loaded passenger airplanes into the world trade center.
Much opposition from scum Democrats and cry baby liberals who also tried to sabotage American freedom by preventing President Bush making America safe again for political gain.

Obama. Democrat Government.
Trillion dollars promised over budget. And Obama has not even been sworn in.
BUT THATS OK HIS HAS A COOL CHISELED CHEST. That’s why I voted for him

We are attacked by terrorists and Democrats respond not with courage but with a way to use this attack for politcial gain by preventing out leaders making America safe again.
I still remember Obama saying the SURGE in Iraq will end in disaster and all the liberals cheered

The minute that Obama defaults on
his promise to “protect the middle
class”, his slavering minions ex-
pecting a life-long handout will
go after him with rusty can-openers.
Actually, that “minute” may take
years, but it will happen. This will
give Chelsea Clinton a few years
to season her political act and await
their adoration and votes.

Representative Samples of U.S. Federal Government Deficits
Deficit under Gerald Ford (Republican)
$77 Billion (1976)
Deficit under Jimmy Carter (Democrat)
$56 Billion (1979)
Deficit under Ronald Reagan(Republican)
$283 Billion (1985)
Deficit under George HW Bush(Republican)
$432 Billion (1991)
Deficit under Bill Clinton (Democrat)
$118 Billion (2000)
Deficit under George W Bush (Republican)
$596 Billion (2002)
In every one of their governments the Republicans grossly increased the Government deficit. In every one of their governments, the Democrats reduced the level of the deficit.
And yet the Republicans repeatedly campaign on ‘smaller government’.
Seems like it would only be fair for it now to be the Democrats turn, and the Republicans oughta hush up about it. You’ve had your turns and we’ve seen what you done.

“In every one of their governments, the Democrats reduced the level of the deficit.”
Which policy you are disagreeing with? Is that what you are saying.

But presumably you disagreed with it when the Republicans did it, so now you must super disagree when Obama is going to run multi-trillion dollar deficits.
That’s what I took away from your table.

And having been so consistently greedy with their overspending of the public’s money, the Republicans can now shut their mouths about Democratic spending in tough times.

Yeah, the Republicans have set the standard for overspending and they have no reason or right to be criticising Obama or the Democrats.
It’s the Democrats turn. At least some of this money might make it into the health care, education of ordinary americans and improve the environmental industrial approach instead of lining the pockets of the friends of the Bush and Cheney crowd – big oil, bankers, military/industrial complex . ..

Okay, let’s start with the lies -
109th Congress (George Bush deficits):
REPUBLICANS held a consistent majority in congress
(Jan 2005 – December 2006)

Start with why its now a good idea to have deficit spending many multiple times what you apparently deplore with a rubber stamp Congress funneling slush funds to their pay for play brethern.
Because you know that what is going to happen. On an unprecedented scale. We see with Blago, Rezko, Richardson, Longstreet etc. that as soon as these politicians has money funneling through their hands they find a way to get remunerated.

Bert I think it’s worthwhile pointing out the during all of the George W. Bush gross overspending I list below . .. Republicans held the majority in the House and the Senate for most of that time, with a split of Senate in first term . ..
Here’s how the Republicans ran the government then . ..
REPUBLICAN GOVERNMENT
$421 Billion OVER BUDGET (2002)
$555 Billion OVER BUDGET (2003)
$596 Billion OVER BUDGET (2004)
$554 Billion OVER BUDGET (2005)
$574 Billion OVER BUDGET (2006)
This of course is RECORD overspending.

See this is where you are blinded.
If you are apportioning credit that way then you would credit 103 with 87.1B in Surplus and the subsequent Republican Congress with 493.4B in deficit reduction.

On the other hand, when George W. Bush took power in 2001 with a Republican majority in the House, the deficits immediately began to skyrocket and did not stop.

Give the new guy a break. ‘Right wing’ Republican types on here try to demonize him – and it’s complete hypocrisy given the Republican record.
America should have more intelligence.

“Wouldnt any administration have had a massive revenue decrease and spending increase after 9/11?”
Well, not if they didn’t declare a war on a country unrelated to 9/11 and start spending BILLIONS of dollars per week on it!

Also, if you’re willing to forgive Bush, Cheney and their regime for that decision and the GROSS hundreds and hundreds of BILLIONS of dollars that cost – then you’re willing to cut Obama a little slack as he tries to pull back the nation from the almost complete economic turmoil currently being experienced.
Money to bomb the living bejesus out of somebody else’s homeland (primarily for neo-con ideological reasons), but no money for your own country? I’d say those values are skewed, arrogant and presumptuous.
Oh . . and wasteful and fiscally irresponsible.

You are slipping off again without picking a course. Maybe no decision in 1993 is without consequences. Are you going to still have the embargo and the Oil for Food deal that Saddam was subverting? Are you still going to have a containment force in the dessert with inspectors being given the run around?
If nothing else its a good thing that Saddam is gone, the Iraqi people can move on, tens of thousands of terrorists have been killed and Iraq is now a moderating force in the region instead of a destabilizing one.
And before we go authorizing a decade long nightmare of financial tinkering like FDR got us into and Japan had, the GDP decrease in the 3rd quarter was 0.5 following a second quarter increase of 2.1%. Lets keep some perspective.
Obviously the huge bubble in gas prices and the liquidity problems cased by mortgage defaults were major economic drags. If Obama wants to build more pipelines and stop lending to non-credit worthy people I am right behind him.

I think that is arrogance of the worst kind Bert. The Bush regime decision on Iraq killed TENS of THOUSANDS of people, many Iraqi civilians. There is a huge debt to be paid for that . . . and oil won’t begin to make up for it.

And we get to go BILLIONS AND BILLIONS of dollars in debt, more and more every day. Smart thinking. Maim and kill hundreds of thousands of people in their homeland and bankrupt the country to China.
Who thinks up this crap?

“… bankrupt the country to China.”
Hard to keep you straight. You are against the spending except when your guy does it.

I still dont get it. If you arent against the bankrupting part why do you keep bring it up?
I am kind of taking you at your word that bringing up these budgetary details meant you cared about them, not that it was just a passing fancy that you adopted to hector President Bush.
If you really believe that, then you cant justify Obama going on a spending spree. Your only justification is that its only fair that he get to put his name on a bunch of stuff???

Bert I presume nothing about your views but have a hard time understanding why some of the simple and clear things presented seem so difficult for your obviously intelligent brain to grasp.
I did not want any the hundreds of billions dollars of debt we have incurred spent on killing or MAIMING hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians who had NOTHING to do with 9/11.
That was one of Bush’s great gifts to this country – the blood of hundreds of thousands of people on our hands and the amassing of BILLIONS and BILLIONS of dollars of DEBT to do it.
The hypocrisy and duplicity of the Republicans proclaiming themselves the guardians of ‘small government’ while repeatedly setting record deficit budgets and overspending disgusts me.
And – now that Obama and the Democrats are in power, it’s absolutely fine with me if they also spend record deficits – at least some of this money might be used to provide health care, education, more sensible energy programs and less environmental degradation.
You’ll soon be burning your Republican membership card.

“It’s the Democrats turn. At least some of this money might make it into the health care, education of ordinary americans”
This is where I cant make sense of your approach. If you find something to be a negative, there is no ‘turn’ at doing it. Would you tell your wife it was your turn to crash the car?
You could imagine a system where ‘goods’ are prioritized against ‘ills’. For instance the Republicans could say “increasing spending is bad, but we need to fight AQ and the conditions of Global Terrorism. Saddam has to go. A primary purpose of the Federal Government is to provide for the common defense, therefor the ‘good’ outweighs the ‘ill’”.
I dont think you have tried to make a similar argument for Obama’s spending spree, other than to argue it his turn to do something bad. We already spend a lot of education- I am skeptical that x amount more will suddenly make a big difference. Likewise, the list of infrastructure project lines up (such as a Duck Park in San Diego) dont have enough apparent ‘good’ in them to offset the ‘ill’ of deficit spending.
Unless we have now completely abandoned the concept that the budget every needs to be balanced.
Supposedly there will be one week to look at the bill before people have to vote. Harry Reid doesnt even know the outlines of how much money is being requested right now. Thats ridiculous. If there is some argument, some spreadsheet somewhere that shows an eventual payback of the trillions through increased revenue I havent seen it. Where are the GDP growth projections? How are they supposed to be obtained through duck parks? There needs to be some justification for this Trillion dollar slush fund or the tax payer should just say no.

The Republicans under the Bush regime have left the country in such pitiful economic shape drastic measures are required – and nothing is guaranteed.
The best and brightest are being gathered under Obama (not show horse promoters) but still nothing is guaranteed.
What a mess the previous administration has left. Hundreds of billions of dollars of debt rung up killing and maiming other people on their own homeland – people who had nothing to do with 9/11. A gross and arrogant miscalculation which we are all paying for now.