Michelle Obama Visits the EPA

I agree with the Obamacrat. Get this, Peter Orszag, Barack Obama’s little Office of Management and Budget gopher, said, “All told we are showing $2.7 trillion in costs in this budget that were excluded from previous budgets and I think that is a mark of the honesty and responsibility contained in this document.” So Barack Obama signs into law $2,700,000,000,000.00 of extra spending, more spending, excess spending passed by his rubber-stamp toy Congress, so now his budget is showing $2,700,000,000,000.00 more in spending deficits than even his spendaholic predecessor George Bush, same thing no change, and that’s a result of “honesty”? Are you sure the $2,700,000,000,000.00 ballooning of the deficit had nothing to do with the $2,700,000,000,000.00 of extra spending and instead only to do with “honest” reporting? It is time we elected someone who is honest, not someone who is BFFs with tax-cheats (i.e. Geithner, Killefer, Solis, Daschle) and corrputs (i.e. Richardson). Democrats for Sarah 2012!

Why is FLOTUS giving speeches on a listening tour?
I want to know what she’s hearing from governmental departments and agencies.

You jerks are hysterical. Wearing a cocktail dress at the SOTU Address??!! Really? Maybe that was your perception. And she ought to be in Kentucky helping people who are freezing? How about FEMA helping the people who are freezing. They get enough federal money from us taxpayers to do the job, without the help of the First Lady. Stretching a bit to find something to criticize, aren’t you?

joseyj – you cheapen Americans in general.

After all the misdirection by the Bush administration to systematically enable corporations to circumvent and violate US environmental law,it’s good to see this change in direction at EPA. Gosh, corporations may actually have to become law abiders or have real risk of actually getting caught and paying the price for their misdeeds.

As someone who works and volunteers for environmental protection in a lowly state level, I am very heartened by any action of the new administration which elevates this worthwhile effort as a national priority. Michelle is a wonderful first lady, I might add.
The disdain for science in the W years was palpable and sad, doing nothing to help our nation move toward eco-sustainability. There’s a lot of cleaning up to do. We can do this work together!

I beleive the president and first lady are doing there very best. as far as other states go they are responsible for there own if you stoped immigrants from entering than you would not have to worry about poverty. there are not enough jobs to go around now. i am disabled and have not had a check for over a year , i have lost everything and i still look for work because i have to. If you do not take care of yourself no 9one will

I beleive the president and first lady are doing there very best. as far as other states go they are responsible for there own if you stoped immigrants from entering than you would not have to worry about poverty. there are not enough jobs to go around now. i am disabled and have not had a check for over a year , i have lost everything and i still look for work because i have to. If you do not take care of yourself no one will

“Are any of the government agencies laying people off in these tough economic times?”
I don’t know, but this doesn’t make much sense to me.
Apparently, a 10% increase in the budget for Congressional operations was needed because Senate Republicans want to keep in place previous staff levels despite having lost over 20 percent of their ranks in the last election.

from a strictly independent, objective point of view, this discussion has been very eye-opening. People like the Obamacrat for Palin and Sarahcrat 2012 deliver excellent, substantive, supported, incontrovertible arguments, and other people like Christian Seaborn attack their integrity. That’s just like Obama personally attacking Rush, Joe the Plumber, and Santelli. That’s just like Bush attacking Valerie Plame and the DAs. Same thing, no change. As an Independent, I am especially keen to lies, and Joe Biden just told one. He said Bobby Jindal’s Louisiana loses 400 jobs/day, when in fact, it is the only state in the United States to have actually added jobs. It has added so many jobs that people are flocking there to find jobs, and its unemployment rate has increased despite having actually added jobs because its job-seeking population has swelled so much. The GOP governors are right in turning down this tax-and-spend $900,000,000,000.00 giveaway to billionaire bankers and welfare recipients. The GOP governors know how to create jobs despite crippling job-killing regulations from the federal governor. In 2 years, we will know that these GOP governors did the right thing if the economy recovers. If the economy continues to tank, Democrats need to be thrown out of federal office because despite having full control of all 3 branches of government, they have been unable to turn around our economy. This indePalin voter is voting Sarah 2012!

“So now we read headlines that Obama wants to raise money by putting in some form of caps on pollution and give the $$ to the poor.”
So please explain how the cap and trade system will give that money to the poor.

I would like to see some more fist bumping with Michelle. She is realy a cool lady.
And I hope Obama will change the health care the right way.Health care should be all under government control. The insurance componies dont are about our health, they just want to make billions of dollars. Some people pay insurance for many years, and if they get sick, the insurance company cancel they’r insurance. It is just a scam, and they decide what they cover, and treatments. Health insurance could cost ten or fifteen thousand a year. If it is controled by government, it may cost less than one thousand in taxes, and it will cover everything, and everybody. and people will get the right treatment, what they need, not something that some insurance company will allow .

Norma Christoff wrote: “…but if you are feeling sorry for the person who makes $250,000 plus a year and has to pay an additional $300 a year for taxes…” And: “…as far as donations to charities falling as a result of rich people paying higher taxes, from what I understand the charities are not receiving the donations they use to receive anyway.”
First of all, a single individual making $250,000 a year will have to pay approximately $9,800 more in federal income taxes. A single individual making $500,000 a year will have to pay approximately $22,000 more in federal income taxes. And a single individual making $1,000,000 a year will have to pay approximately $45,000 more in federal income taxes. And that doesn’t take into consideration the 28% cap on itemized deductions, the hike in capital gains or the hike in payroll taxes (coming soon).
Now the reason that charity donations are already down is because people saw the writing on the wall in the 3rd quarter of last year and already began cutting back all spending, including contributions in anticipation of the tax hikes.

George, you poor thing, are you serious? Government-controlled health care would be preferable? Is Medicaid a great success? The VA? Or any other major program the government runs? And your estimation of the cost of such a program is dangerously naive. Exchanging government officials determining what care is necessary and appropriate for insurance officials making that determination is no improvement, I fear. Yes, health care is too expensive. Yes, improvements can and should be made to our current system. But handing it all over the government, as you propose, is not the answer. I hope that is not what the President will propose.

OntheGloryRoad, that would be Pontius Pilate, I think. I should point out that I have numerous relatives who work for the government, and none of them suffered from low morale during the Bush administration. Some of them are enthusiastic about the new administration, many are not. They all expect to have secure positions as they feel sure that President Obama will grow the size of government and therefore they have the most secure jobs going. I suspect they are right about that part.

Ryan C, there are a lot of very wealthy Liberals. Do you honestly believe that they voted for McCain? Of course not! Now then, they not only knew that tax hikes were coming, they advocated for these tax hikes. In spite of being wrong idealogically, they aren’t idiots. So of course they prepared for the tax hikes!

Please tell me this national nightmare will be effectively over in two years.

Jane…….Michelle doesn’t have to stay home…….She isssssssss the First Lady. One that is educated, smart, healthy and strong. Now you wouldn’t want to ‘hide” these qualities would you? Oh, did you mean stay “in the kitchen”? That would be sexist, or racist, now wouldn’t it. I doubt if a “woman” from the South Side of Chicago want to emulate anyone, but herself.

Ryan_C, I agree that not all wealthy people reduced their charitable contributions last year in anticipation of the election of the Chosen One. According to the pundits and the government, I am apparently one of the wealthy (I am in that much-discussed “over $250,000″ bracket) and my spouse and I gave more to charity last year than ever before.
However, I have some anecdotal evidence that supports James Daley’s comments, which you derided. At our university, scholarship funds are suffering because the worth of endowments has dropped precipitously because of the stock market drop. I have sat in several meetings about the need to fix that situation– many merit scholarships have dropped below the level where they are allowed to pay out to students or to a level where the amount of the payout to students must be reduced. In the process of studying contributions to the university, we learned that not only were we have a terrible time trying to convince existing donors to add to their endowments so we did not have to tell students they would not get as much scholarship money as anticipated, but that giving to the university plunged in the last four to five months of 2008. Donors who were approached about why they were giving less than previous years or why they were unwilling to give more were saying in OCTOBER and NOVEMBER that they were curtailing charitable donations because they anticipated that their taxes were going up this year and they wanted to be prepared. An administrator who works in this field told me that more than one wealthy donor told her that they might contribute more in the future, once it was clear how the tax policy of the anticipated Obama administration would affect them. Now that we know how it will affect them, I do not expect that future contribution to come to pass.
Do I think people should reduce their charitable contributions to balance out higher taxes? No. I am not doing that myself and would not advocate others doing it. But I am not surprised to learn that some take that approach. Something, after all, has to give– in my case, I will defer buying a new car, take fewer trips to Disney World, reduce my level of savings– any number of things rather than cut charity contributions or reduce the money our company spends on employees. Other people, however, will make other choices. All those choices, however, that relate to people with high income having less to spend in ways that will contribute to the economy are detrimental to the economic health of the whole country. I am not among those who believe that the money will be more wisely spent by the folks in Washington, DC.