I really don't think there is much of a chance of the US going over the "fiscal cliff". As much as I would like to reduce the size of the Federal government, I just don't see politicians being fiscally conservative. Sure, there are a couple dozen actual fiscal conservatives (there are some in both parties), but that's a very small minority.

At the end of day, I expect we will borrow and spend until we are another Greece.

Wow, just throw the widely debunked GOP stump speech out there. Much of that money is being taken from private insurance companies that are wasting to much money on advertising Medicare Advantage plans rather than paying benefits. It has been proven there is no actual reduction in benefits, just profits of these private insurers.

No, Pete, the ACA cuts were a cut on the current payments made to doctors.

those cuts over 10 years are $420 Billion

The Bridge insurance cut is $141 Billion

The rest of the other cuts were changing from approved medical procedures to less expensive ones and eliminating choices for procedures.

Iowa, don't confuse them with facts. It makes their heads hurt. No matter how many times the "robbing $716b from Medicare" is debunked they'll just keep repeating it. Just like Obama removing the work requirement from welfare. It's not true, but I guess if it's repeated enough the uneducated, and ill informed will believe it.

So we hurt the economy in the short term if we cut spending and raise taxes, but we hurt it in the long term if we keep letting the debt skyrocket out of control. In the end, I predict this Congress/administration will do what every other congress/administration has done: Add it to the debt and kick the can down the road. After all, by the time it HAS to be dealt with, they will all be out of office and they can say, "Things were GREAT while we were in there!"

America's economic train needs to gain a speed(jobs, GNP) and momentum(stability) before taking on more cargo(debt).

Either one elected will have to make an somewhat unpopular decision.

Which one will cave to politics?

Hint: Not the incumbent.

Ido making up crap that doesn't even address the topic is way overused already.

Yes, we especially need to continue flushing money down the military toilet. If you are against that - you are not a true patriot! (sarcasm).

If you want to spend federal money to stimulate jobs and economy - do it in a productive sector, like fixing our crumbling infrastructure of roads, bridges, water treatment plants, and so forth. Blowing things up in faraway places is extremely stupid and totally unproductive.

just get it over with It's been years now. A couple of really hard years and we can get back on track It has to happen sooner or later. Just do it.

"Elmendorf said, “They will need to reduce it later. At some point we will need to adopt policies that require people to pay significantly more in taxes, accept substantially less in government benefits and services or both.”

This lets the republican plan out as it is calling for even more tax cuts.

No problem - Just have the Democrats in Congress tell the CBO to 'assume' that there will be no recession - sort of like when they gave the CBO their list of 'assumptions' when they calculated the cost of Obamacare to be $920 Billion over 10 years - when the latest CBO cost estimate has ballooned to $1.76 Trillion.

Problem solved.

oh no oh no we're all doomed we're all doomed...follow me follow me over the cliff hurry.....wait.....or we could just throw out all those noodle backs running this country and fix it ..... tell all the corporations.....we'll take it from here

"The director of the Congressional Budget Office, Douglas Elmendorf, said... sharp cuts in spending and increases in taxes at the end of the year would cause "a dramatic reduction in the federal deficit" and "a significant tightening of fiscal policy"

And the problem with this is what? Whether the spending problem is addressed in one big sweeping move (very painful but short duration) or let it drip drip drip over time (less painful but lasts forever and never ends) the problem must be addressed starting NOW.

Considering that the Republi-Crats (both sides are equally culpable) have shown zero ability to do anything more than defer the problem to the next election cycle and then when the deadline comes defer it again, the only legitimate option is to take the big step. Things may not be as bad for as long as the fear-mongerers would have us think. You could tax everyone 100% of their income and not cover what we spend each year so that isn't the answer; this is a spending issue.

ivan, NC "This lets the republican plan out as it is calling for even more tax cuts."

Tax experts say that if we cut the silly 'tax credits' that corporations and the rich use to avoid taxes, we can actually cut the rates AND increase total federal tax revenues.

That happened in the 1990s when the capital gains tax was cut substantially and 'loopholes' were closed, and tax revenues from capital gains actually increased.

JH - we are at this cliff because of all of the clowns in DC, not just the POTUS. This is result from current and past congress, senate, and POTUS, not just one group or person. Your failure to see that and feed the party line BS only add to the stalemate and dividing force that keeps them in power, while never actually addressing these issue we face in a meaningful way. Nothing but a giant game of kick the can, but the cans are getting bigger, more numerous, and the end of the alley is in sight (as in a brickwall with nowhere else to go), all because we let it happen and people like you cheer on from the sideline.

Bottomline - status quo won't cut it anymore and real changes are going to have to happen and the fringe party line BS has got to go otherwise we are screwed. We are where we are and no amount of finger pointing is going to change that.

It it time

Sorry Ron ... I meant Bobmike81

Newscover: Just so you know an economy, and how consumers and businesses react, is based on expectations of what will happen in the FUTURE and has nothing to do with the past. With good economic policies we should have had gotten out of the recession in a short period of time and by now growing at 4% to 6% GDP. To say an economy is not growing now because of something that occurred 4 years ago is naive.

It is time

JH - we are at this cliff because of all of the clowns in DC, not just the POTUS

We elect Obama because he offer to cut the deficit in half, Obama has more than 1 trillion dollars in deficit every year, he lie. Obamanomic is sinking our economy. To blame the congress is easy for Obama and liberals , is the way to hide his incompetency. Clinton balance the budget working with Republicans, Obama only want food fight with the congress because he don't want to work Republicans, he never did before when he was Senator. He vote 100% party line the few times he vote.

Let the "fiscal cliff" begin.

Tired of all this ridiculous defense spending.

Time to end it. Since the spineless in Congress cannot seem to do it.

.

The OP fails to recognize that reduced revenues due to the Bush tax cuts, and an extended recession, have led to the deficit spending in the last 4 years. The growth of deficit spending under Obama is under 1.4%. By Comparison, G.W. Bush increased deficit spending by 5.8%, and refused to include the costs of the wars under his budget.

The Republicans have been famous for spending deficit dollars, and then preach austerity when a Democrat is in the Oval Office. Facts are facts....

http://zfacts.com/p/318.html

You could tax everyone 100% of their income and not cover what we spend each year so that isn't the answer; this is a spending issue.

Norm, US personal income is $13.7 trillion, and federal spending is $3.6 trillion, so you're way off. The problem with viewing it as "a spending issue" is that even if you get your dream, and use every penny of the $2.5 trillion in federal revenue to reduce the debt, completely shutting down the federal government, it will take more than six years to retire the $16 trillion debt.

Of course, "completely shutting down the federal government" means that in about 8 weeks, the Iranian navy can putt-putt-putt over here and be shelling Manhattan. We need to begin restoring some of the insane tax-cutting as well. But you're right about one thing, both parties are at fault.

If "the job-creators" were the solution, they would already have acted: corporate cash hoards are already at an all-time high. The problem is that there are no consumers left with money to spend--every cent of disposable income has been spent, and every penny consumers could borrow has been spent, so creating more jobs to produce more goods and services that no one can afford to buy just isn't going to happen.

It's time to pay the piper.

Oskar - exactly what I was saying, blaming one person. I blame all of these fools. Its not just his fault. And no I'm not defending him, he has done plenty of stupid things just like politicians on both sides have. And both sides are digging in and not wanting to try to compromise. However, it doesn't matter since both sides continue to kick the can on big issues for fear of not getting re-elected, and like I said not much more kicking will be able to be done. All have put us in this no easy way out situation. I would say I also have to blame myself and fellow American citizens for not doing enough to end this circus and bring some common sense back to the table before it got this far, but we can still change course if we try. The USA would've never came about without common sense and some sensible compromise (as in you do this and we will do this that relates to the issue at hand not back handed ways of getting totally unrelated issues passed).

What's that you say? Austerity and increased taxes on the working classes are bad for economic growth? SHOCKING!

But he added, “We are a little surprised by how weak tax revenues are, and we don’t know exactly what’s going on there."

HURR HURR gee I wonder. Maybe it's because we're not getting the money from the top, where it actually is, and there's getting to be less and less money anywhere else.

oskar-1391552:

We elect Obama because he offer to cut the deficit in half, Obama has more than 1 trillion dollars in deficit every year, he lie. Obamanomic is sinking our economy.

Yes, except for the fact that "Obamanomic" isn't what we've had for the last four years. We've had a continuation of Republican supply-side economics that does nothing but continue to concentrate wealth at the top, and every attempt to change that has been obstructed by Congress.

You mean the Budget Control Act of 2011 that obama signed into law 8/2/2011 is not working??? That it's now expected to drive the economy into recession and is not the great accomplishment that it was claimed to be?

It's bush's fault ... obama was using his pen when he signed it.

Agree Max 108. The wars are killing us financially, not to mention the young people killed and maimed in these da*ned things. I'm all for hiring people to fix roads and bridges, lay pipe, build power towers to get windpower to the cities, etc. Problem is the contractor will show up with an all non-english speaking crew and imported equipment. While 20 and 30 something overweight Americans sit on the couch and file disability claims. Then we have the case in California where the CalTrans Secretary let a $1.4 billion bridge contract to China. Said Americans don't know how to build big bridges. They'll be importing the workers and the equipment and the steel for that one. All Americans will get, is the bill for it. These are not the formulas for revitalizing the American economy.

The problem is not the tax rates it is the rate of growth, many believe raising taxes will slow growth and decrease revenue others believe the government if given more funds can stimulate the economy through their schemes and they just haven't had enough money up till now. One might think that intelligent people could discuss this difference in philosophy without resorting to name calling and rather predictable and sophomoric generalizations, based on what I have read here it wont happen here. If you believe the government has a record of success manipulating the economy you know what to do, if you think the private sector can make better use of their money you know what to do, decide who you trust and vote accordingly.

When Obama wins, a democratic congress will DO something. A republican congress will do the same thing they have been doing. Nothing. Simple math.

you can bet the rich won't be taxed>>>>>>just the few that now have jobs will be paying out the nose.talk about change let's start here.

Don't worry, the Republicans will fix everything. As the RNC has stated, their number one, MOST IMPORTANT GOAL, is obviously........... abortion?

Well, ok. That makes sense. Because if you ban abortion then more unwanted children will be born and placed into foster care or put on welfare. Then we can spend more money on those entitlements, and that will help fix our deficit by.... uhhhhhhh.... you know, making it worse.

But hey, who cares about more government spending when we have the opportunity to increase the population. Remember, if there is one thing this country needs more of, it's people.

So ya... vote Republican. Because fiscal responsibility is not as important as getting overly-emotional about developmental cells which will eventually become "babies".

I find it amusing that there are still some ideologues posting here that still think raising taxes on the rich will solve all of life's problems and their hero Obama can then continue merrily spending, spending, spending.

They usually cackle on about how the republicans want to cut taxes for the rich while raising taxes for the poor when the reality is that the rich are funding this country's operation and all the entitlement givaways, and it is Obama that is screwing the poor and elderly big time.

There is also an irony in that the young people that seemingly support Obama are the ones that would suffer most if he gets re-elected. Lemmings they were, lemmings they are.

BTW, That fiscal cliff is closer than many think.

Wet Willy

I find it amusing that there are still some ideologues posting here that still think raising taxes on the rich will solve all of life's problems and their hero Obama can then continue merrily spending, spending, spending.

Actually that is incorrect. See, your problem is that you are refusing to listen to ANYTHING the other side says. You hear what Fox News tells you, and completely refuse to listen to the other side.

If you did listen, which I know you will not, you would know that the primary concern of liberals is the Republican plan of extreme austerity measures.

Why does austerity concern us? Well, ignoring the obvious problems it has caused in Europe, it will immediately lead to higher unemployment. Your plan is to lay-off millions upon millions of people, and that will somehow "fix" the economy.

One small problem with that plan... when you lay-off millions upon millions of people, they stop spending money because they don't have money. And where would they spend money, if they were not laid off? You guessed it... BUSINESSES.

Now, question number two: If businesses stop getting money from people, because those people were laid off, what happens to their revenue? That's right, it goes down. And do businesses hire more when revenue goes down? No. But what if the business saves on taxes? They still will not hire, because demand for their products and services has decreased.

And question number three: If business are making less money, because of less demand from less customers... what do they do with their current employees? They reduce their wages or lay them off, causing those people to spend less in other businesses. And the cycle repeats itself.

So, what have we learned? Not only will tax increases not solve the problem, but severe austerity that will cause a drastic spike in unemployment that will make things even worse.

THAT is what we have a problem with.

I am constantly amazed as supposed "business minded Republicans" that believe austerity will fix everything. In an effort to save a couple percentage points on their taxes, they are willing to reduce the customers and revenue at their business, and thus reduce their own profits from said business.

Wet Willy,

Raising taxes on the rich is only part of the solution. The more important part is actually getting that money into the hands of people who will spend a greater percentage of it on private-sector goods and services, thereby driving job growth.

See, the problem with the way wealth in our economy works is that there are no diminishing returns; the more money you have, the easier it becomes to make more, and the less you have, the harder it is to make more. Literally the only things that do anything to alleviate this are social programs, like welfare, and our progressive income tax structure.

If you want the middle and lower classes to "pay their fair share," then hey, here's an idea; let them actually make enough money to tax at a meaningful rate without seriously hampering their spending power.

rockymtnroustabout

"When Obama wins, a democratic congress will DO something. A republican congress will do the same thing they have been doing. Nothing. Simple math."

You do know that Obama had a democratic congress during his first 2 years right?

Hmmmmmm,

Revenues in 2007 were $2.568 trillion or 18.5 percent of GDP.

Wait a minute!!!!!

This HAS TO BE A LIE, right Libbies? We don't have a spending problem, we have a revenue problem, right?

Historically revenues, as a percentage of GDP, have been right around 18.4%. So how can we have revenues at the historic average when we had those mean, nasty, unfair Bush tax cuts for 6 and 4 years respectively? This has to be a lie by the CBO, right? He must be a Republican, or a Conservative, or even worse (GASP!!!!) a Tea Partier! Right?

ROTFLMAO!!!!!

Now let’s look at historic spending. Federal spending and debt has skyrocketed over the past decade. Spending has grown from 18% in 2001 to 24% last year. Federal debt held by the public increased from 33% to 67%. The causes of this expansion includes the cost of wars, soaring entitlement costs, increasing spending on discretionary programs and the stimulus bill.

The CBO has shown that without significant reforms spending and debt will continue to rise for decades. The CBO’s own “alternative fiscal scenario” shows spending will grow to about 34% of GDP by 2035. Federal Debt will have grown to 187% of GDP. Obviously the only way these staggering numbers can be achieved is because of uncontrolled spending as revenues are expected to stay at the historic 18.4% level.

You can spin these numbers anyway you want. We have a SPENDING problem NOT A REVENUE problem! Unless we realize we will have to take Draconian austerity measure soon, this fiscal cliff will look like a step going down your porch.

We need leadership honest and brave enough to make the American people realize the cliff is inevitable, today or 20 years down the road. The longer we wait, the more difficult the austerity measures will have to be. We need significant reforms in trade, foreign currency manipulation, our criminal progressive tax system, regulations, union involvement and a more balanced economic model. We will never return our envied economy built on a consumption/service sector model. We must encourage and embrace domestic exportable manufacturing industries back on our soil. We were most prosperous when we had a balance of manufacturing and service, this must be our goal.

We have lived, as a nation, far beyond our means and the message is, for the foreseeable future, that we will be forced to live beneath our means as this debt is paid.

Romney/Ryan 2012 for real Americans

Ray in Jax " The growth of deficit spending under Obama is under 1.4%. By Comparison, G.W. Bush increased deficit spending by 5.8%, and refused to include the costs of the wars under his budget."

Do you REALLY believe that nonsense? Bush's last Deficit (2008) was $458 Billion, and his average Deficit was $251 Billion per year. In contrast, Obama's first year Deficit (2009) was $1,413 Billion, and his average Deficit has been $1,336 Billion per year.

That's a Deficit increase of 308% in Obama's first year, and an average increase of 532% per year.

By the way - trying to 'Blame Bush' for the 2009 Deficit doesn't work because the Democratic Congress never gave Bush a Budget for 2009 to sign or veto, so Bush only approved a Continuing Resolution for spending in fiscal 2009 AT THE SAME RATE AS IN 2008. Here's a link to verify, but there are plenty of other links available if you google 'Bush 2009 Continuing Resolution'. PS - the total cost of the wars were included in Bush's Deficits, despite the 'spin' some people try to put on it.

https://www.aamc.org/advocacy/washhigh/highlights2008/159056/president_signs_spending_bill.html

Wet willy .......that rant pig does not fly. Romney and Ryan plans both give tax breaks to the rich and makes the middle class and poor pay for them. 30 years of VOODOO trickle on economics only made the rich richer.

Romney outsources American jobs and rips the money out of every company he took over. Romney refuses to show his taxes because he isn't paying his fair share. Romney is told by all repub leaders to show his taxes but he knows if he shows them it will be worse than not showing them.

Repubs repeatedly blocked keeping student loans at the low rate because they want the young to pay higher profits to the banks and loan companies. When exposed in the media some of them finally passed the Dems bill to keep rate low.

Repubs target the young with voter suppression bills to keep young from voting. In Mn repubs tried to take away same day voter registration and vote day to stop the new 18 yr olds from voting the same day they register.

Repubs want to remove young up to 26 yrs old from parents insurance plans to get more profits.....

Ryan and Romney plan both kill Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security to privatize and give even more profits to corporations.

Romney and his moneymate for a worse tomorrow today!

REPUBS HATE ELDERLY< THE YOUNG< THE POOR AND MIDDLE CLASS BY TAKING AWAY THEIR RIGHT TO VOTE! Repubs creating voter suppression laws all over the country when even their own studies show it does not exist. Repubs in Minnesota are trying to remove same day voter registration when there is ZERO problems registering. People update their voter info and people who are 18 are registering. Repubs don't want the young protecting their interests like having low intersts rate loans(repubs were blocking) Elderly, disabled trying to vote to keep Social Security , Medicare, Medicaid which repubs are trying to take away. REPUBS ONLY WANT CORPORATIONS ARE PEOPLE TOO VOTING for $$$$$$ for the Romney rich!

Texas voter suppression laws are pretty tough. Repubs removing places where they can vote so people have to drive far distances to vote. Rigging the elections like they do in Iran. WHY DO REPUBS HATE AMERICANS?...Oh yeah....$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ that's why, they love money more!

Oabama/Biden 2012

Wrong the Tea
Baggers and republicants in the House and Senate are the GRAND OBSTRUCTIONIST
PARTY the sole mission to make Obama one term president and never raise taxes
on the rich or ever cut Defense spending but kill Medicare Medicaid and SS
while not passing there own Jobs bills that they keep turning down.

Roy is a liar

Bush's last Deficit (2008) was $458 Billion, and his average Deficit was $251 Billion per year.

Here, Roy does not include the two wars in the Bush deficit. However, he later includes them in the Obama deficit.

I suppose it's easy to make your point when you get to change the numbers to whatever you want.

By the way - trying to 'Blame Bush' for the 2009 Deficit doesn't work because the Democratic Congress never gave Bush a Budget for 2009 to sign or veto

Also notice that here, during the Bush years, Roy places the budget squarely in the hands of Congress. However, Roy will also turn around and state that Obama is responsible for the current budget.

So to recap, when a Republican is in office, the budget is the responsibility of Congress. When a Democrat is in office, the budget is the responsibility of the President.

But at least Roy is successful at demonstrating the typical Fox News spin game. When facts do not work in your favor, change the rules.

I like cliffs. The view is spectacular and the air is really fresh.

Oops. wait, something below my feet seems to be crumbling.

There is not as much stability here as I thought. If only I could just

When a Republican was in office John Boehner and Mitch
McConnell voted without hesitation to pass raising the Debt ceiling even
stating that they hope this passed unanimously.

Years the Republicans voted to raise the Debt Ceiling Bush signed into law

2002 350 Billion in tax cut to big business and 450 Billion increase

2003 450 Billion in tax cuts to Big Business and 900 Billion increase

2004 600 Billion in tax Cuts to Big business and 800 Billion Increase

2006 670 Billion in Tax cuts to Bug Business and 781 Billion Increase

2007 700 Billion tax cuts for Big Business and 850 Billion Increase

2008 450 Billion tax Cuts to Big Business and

Total 3.2 Trillion to Big Business $4 Trillion Debt Ceilng
increases under Bush

Total 7.2 Trillion in the Red…..

Also fought wars off the books for entire 8 years Bush was
in office but still have to pay for it and those cost another 4.1 trillion which averaged out to 200 billion a year
for each war.

4.1Trillon wars plus the 7.2 Trillon Tax cut business tax
cuts loopholes debt = 11.3 trillon for Obama coming into the office.

Republicans voted to raise the Debt Ceiling every time it
was brought up while a republican was in office and I goggle there response
then it was Boehner and McConnell who said “there should not be any politics
come into play when it comes to a increase in our national debt we need to pass
this to continue to operate”. Also Mike
Pence of Indiana in 2002 said it as a necessity to raise the National debt.
Bush a republican was in office then but now the same Mike Pence now says he
will not vote to raise the Debt ceiling without cuts to programs in healthcare
and Medicare and all of which no cuts for defense or ending the Wars. Now
Republicans and Tea Party think it’s a Great idea to play politics while a
Democrat is in office.

Whenever a Republican talks about government spending, remember that they change the rules depending on who is in office. This is how they operate:

Republican in office: All spending is the responsibility of whatever branch the Democrats hold a majority. The President has no responsibility for spending.

Democrat in office: All spending is the sole responsibility of the President, and and other branch the Democrats hold. And Republican held branch is free of spending responsibility.

“The sooner that uncertainty is resolved – especially if it is resolved in the direction of less fiscal tightening next year, then the stronger we think the economy would be” for the rest of this year and next year

Bla bla bla...this is what will happen...They will wait until after the elections, then they will kick the can on down the road and claim they saved us once again. There is no uncertainty here.

@jim-1455434

Obama has done nothing to encourage the growth of small and medium-sized business in this country.

Since when has it become the president's job to create a job for you? Your failure to start a business has everything to do with your motivation. No president is going to just create a business for you out of thin air.

You do know that Obama had a democratic congress during his first 2 years right?

Not true at all. The Democrats held power in both houses for about two months. Even at that, they do not vote in lockstep with each other.

Couple that with a record setting amount of filibusters from the Republicans and you get gridlock.

Not to mention, both parties filled their budget proposals with so many riders, that they had no choice but to reject them all.

What does trying to sneak in repealing the AHA over thirty times have to do with budget proposals? Other than ensuring yet another budget doesn't get passed, absolutely nothing.

Democrats are trying to sneak their own riders in too, but not nearly at the rate the Republicans are.

Obama gave the Republicans a record setting defense budget last year. How about something in return?

@ ldo,

A lot of the cuts have already taken affect. Where have you been? As for Obama and getting anything done where have you been? Getting anything done with this congress isn't something you can blame on a President and you know that. Are you so much in love with the way things are going in Congress that you're blind to what is truly happening? Half the things Obama has done for the last 3 years has been the product of Republican's. How implemented TARP, Republican President Bush? Who did President Obama model the Affordable Health Care Act over, none other than the governor of Massachusetts, Romney? Who asked for money from TARP and then claimed he didn't and that it didn't create jobs when that was his purpose for asking for it, JOBS? None other than Romney's running mate Paul Ryan. What a joke the Republican Party is. The President gave you everything they wanted and they continue to cry foul. To top it all off we have people like you that can't see how far your head is stuck up the Republican Parties Butt. Good luck selling your B.S. of how our President has done nothing to change our circumstances when again we have a congress that will do what ever it takes to keep him from doing anything. Obama only has one fault as far as I'm concerned and that's his immigration policy. If the shoe was on the other foot it would be the Republican Party bending over backwards for the illegals and we both know that, it happens every election year.

Outsourcers like GE CEO Jeffrey Immelt, Who Obama picked to head his "Jobs Council" who gets all those juicy tax breaks yet is Moving jobs to China at a blistering pace... Look in the mirror, DEMOCRATS.

Ensuring that those taxed who actually hold jobs, those proffiting from stocks ect... and are being taxed are the only ones that will qualify for a tax refund will help a bit. Unemployment shouldn't be counted towards a refund, and welfare checks shouldn't count. Also, get rid of the child tax credits.

We're STILL in a recession no matter how the Govco. suits want to spin it otherwise. While I certainly don't want to see more Americans suffer, I think the economy has to finally reset after 5 years of artificial support through deficit spending. If the cuts do it, then more power to them and more power to a genuine, instead of simulated, economic recovery.

I have no problem with unemployment counting toward a refund, although I think a lifetime limit of 3 years on the deduction would be wise. I would feel the same about welfare, except in cases of genuine disability (and people who are disabled and work should get a credit). I also have no problem with a child tax credit for up to 2 children, but that's it (since the left is so fond of protecting the environment, that 2 child limit can be offered as a form of carbon cap).

Newscover: Just so you know an economy, and how consumers and businesses react, is based on expectations of what will happen in the FUTURE and has nothing to do with the past. With good economic policies we should have had gotten out of the recession in a short period of time and by now growing at 4% to 6% GDP. To say an economy is not growing now because of something that occurred 4 years ago is naive.

Lolol what? Consumers and businesses do act according to their future expectations but they also react to past events. Look over to the Eurozone and its effects on the stock market. The market might rise one day because people believe that a new deal might be reached and it might fall the next when they learn that the deal wasn't what they hoped. You can't just say markets work by only looking forward. The past/present factor in.
And the economy is not growing because of the financial crisis which occurred 4 years. Trillions of dollars worth of wealth was literally wiped out. You think that money can be recovered just by wishfully thinking about the future? The country is suffering high rates of unemployment from the recession, high rates of debt, in part due to the recession and underwater mortgages, etc. Businesses are not going to expand until consumers start spending more, which is going to be a long time considering workers wages don't keep up with inflation and the amount of debt that the average American household now has to deal with.

To have something expand fully it needs to contract first. Ever expanding economies always hit a wall. How many refrigerators or cars or houses, etc. are needed? Should every consumer buy a fridge for every room?

Rather than a boom/bust model which is what has been happening since after WWII, there needs to be some serious rethinking. Ever increasing expansions are also what create environmental degredations.

Time to stop, rethink, regroup and reset growth models, and ask the more important questions about quality of life, values, priorities and what is really important. McMansions and massive televisions in every room aren't exactly something to strive for.

The CBO says "Revenues now are lower than they were 5 years ago." It is time to raise taxes on the rich and HIRE more IRS agents. Increase spending on the Coast Guard and Customs to search all those yachts filled with money headed for the Cayman Islands.

You can see the attitude of this privileged elite. They get 3 huge tax cuts in the last 12 years and they still want more. Romney is their guy. Many in the Middle Class pay more in tax than Mitt's meager 13.9% tax and the Ryan budget cuts it even more.

The rich are sucking the lifeblood out of the middle class. They're sucking the lifeblood out of our public sector with their millions spent for spreading lies on the TV telling us its Obama's fault this economy is slogging along.

For the past 30 years, the rich have been taking a bigger piece of our national economic pie, claiming this "trickle down economics" will somehow benefit the lower and middle class. Yet, they take their increased wealth and invest it in machines to reduce American labor and in foreign factories which cost us even more jobs while yielding them even higher profits.

Yet, they want more tax cuts for themselves. How GREEDY. They pay their workers only a small portion of their greater profit resulting in stagnant wage growth while their profits skyrocket.

Stagnant wages lead to stagnant sales growth (70% of our economy is consumer spending), so why pay a fair wage when you can just loan us more money. This mountain of consumer debt fueled the economic expansion over the past decade. When that mountain of debt collapsed because of its fraudulent and unsustainable underpinnings, we had a financial system meltdown in 2008.

The greed and arrogance of many rich people in cahoots with the trickle down economic theories espoused by the Republicans is ruining the Middle class. Estimates of $32 trillion of money hidden from the tax collection arm of governments around the world illustrates just how greedy these rich people are. Many like the Koch Brothers of the Americans for Prosperity ad campaign desire greater tax breaks, the destruction of labor unions, and lowering the minimum wage and they spend millions to convince us to put in their lackey, their richie, rich buddy Mitt Romney.

They cannot see that what you pay your workers correlates to what they spend. This economy is struggling because the middle class is struggling. The rich are sitting on a pile of money waiting for higher sales. They are so egotistical that they cannot even see that they are a big part of the economic problems we have.

It is the psychology of the winner that lets them walk away from the game they are ruining. Their greed is a huge reason our economy is struggling.

Our government may be dedicated to the greater good, but these richies seem to only be in it for themselves and their richie, rich buddies.

Kill those rich bastards and eat their children. That should solve all our problems. Who are those 'rich' you are railing against, BTW? Small business owners? Those making $251,000 a year? Note that the average wage is now $50,000 per annum. You only look at one thing and decide that those rich are the cause of all the ills.

So, do you look at what the government has done to facilitate the uneven distribution of wealth? Do you realize that only massive corporations have the wherewithal to pay for and cover all the governmental requirements? A business, if it hires someone, pays how much to the government on behalf of that employee? The government requires that a business is also an unpaid bookkeeper, tax collector, insurance provider, unemployment fees provider, healthcare insurer and retirements benefits provider.

Apparently you have never owned a business or hired anyone. What are you claims for productivity? The middle class is struggling because of the housing bubble and the Wall Street bubble and guess what? Your government was either directly or indirectly the root cause of those crises and it is your government that continues to promote and allow the very things that destroyed the middle class.

mguy-478 "Roy is a liar"

Why - because you disagree with me? I post FACTS that are easy to verify, and you can look at the Obama White House Historical figures to verify everything I posted?

Bush's Deficits did indeed average only $251 Billion per year for his 8 years in office. And your silly contention that 'Bush didn't include war costs in his deficits' is easy to disprove - you obviously don't understand how the government budgeting process works - Obama uses 'Additional Appropriations' to cover any extra war costs in exactly the same manner as Bush did.

You appear to be one of those people who say "Don't confuse me with facts, my mind's already made up" lol

mygirl1

Bravo!!!!

When I read shaak322's post I was honestly expecting the last line to say,,,

JUST KIDDING!!!

Unfortunately he/she has been totally indoctrinated in the social and economic collective nonsense of Liberal/Progressive La-La-Land. He got most of the childish Liberal talking points in there. I'm surprised he missed their favorite bogeyman, the TEA Party or some pejorative thereof that they think is witty. They're usually at the top of the list.

I'm sure he has always been employed, with his vast skill set, by the poor guy selling flowers on the off-ramp of the expressway. I wonder what kind of benefit package he offers?

You're right. Most Liberals have never ran or started a business, yet they claim to have all the solutions to our economy. Just like our Confabulator-in-Chief who just wants to be reelected for his own legacy.

Nothing else.

Romney/Ryan for real Americans

ROY WILSON-336103

And your silly contention that 'Bush didn't include war costs in his deficits' is easy to disprove.

Roy!!!!

Shhhhhh, your bursting the indoctrinated bubble the Libbies have that Bush didn't include war costs in his budgets. They believe he hid them all those years and then left them on the Resolute desk in the Oval Room for Barrack Hussein to pay. This is the great conspiracy theory they all have been brainwashed with.

But then again, most of them believe Clinton left Bush some mythical "surplus" also.

You're in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent Roy, it's not fair to take advantage of him like that.

Romney/Ryan 2012 for real Americans

I'll just be damned! Ole Douglas is surprised by how weak TAX revenues are huh? Only people paying any taxes are those fortunate enough to be earning wages from $40,000.00 to $250,000.00 a year. These are waaaay too few. Where were the Dow and S$P sitting at close today? 13173 and 1413 respectively. These rich sons-a-bitches, after loopholes, breaks etc. are maybe paying 6%. Any adult earning below $ 40,000.00 can't pay their own way, and in fact are going into the hole each day they continue to work. Waaaaaaaa, haaa,haa,ha,ha, and the gwaddamn republicans claim we need to cut spending and lower taxes for the wealthy? Waaaa, haaa.ha,ha,ha,ha. Talk about a pack of gwaddamn fools!!!!! Cut the gwaddamn minimun wage! Kill the unions! Keep the interest rate up on the College students! Cut out the food stamps! Keep those companies going to China and India! Outsource everything you can! Privatize Social Security and Medicare! Give the old sons-a-bitches a $2000.00 a year health care voucher and let 'em live or die, and get the hell outta the way! Nothing like republicans!

Jim Spence, I have owned and operated my own business for 38 years. You may only wash windows on street corners HA HA. I have an understanding of macroeconomics and microeconomics. Do you? Certainly, it seems like you should operate the government like you would your household budget, but you could not be more wrong.

An austerity plan for our economy is utter foolishness. We are just recovering from the worst recession since the great Depression in which our financial system suffered severe damage, still holding extensive potentially bad debt. A double dip recession would put the recovering housing market back into another foreclosure crisis.

The housing market fueled by excessive exuberance and easy credit led the way in creating our mountain of consumer debt. New home construction is at 30% of its 2007 high right now. Businesses are delaying hiring waiting for better sales. Consumers are hurting. The middle class is hurting.

The miracle of the Clinton economy was that the "largest tax increase in history" (Republican label) was used to expand the earned income tax credit. Along with lower mortgage rates, this help for the working poor helped our economy to expand at a very healthy rate. Prosperity was partly built on this pay raise for the lower working class.

The problem with all the tax cuts for the rich is that they actually remove money from the economy. Raising tax rates on the rich (they are paying the lowest tax rate now since before the Great Depression) and using that money to build infrastructure would help our economy grow faster. Ultimately, we all benefit from higher growth rates, especially when we make good investment decisions.

This is not a liberal philosophy. It is basically Keynesian Economics. Study the causes of the Great Depression and you will likely see the similarities to our present situation. The rich are too rich and the middle class (their consumers) are too poor.

@shaak322 #1.70: Totally agree with you. Actually too, you are factually correct. Remember also, Clinton adapted, and practiced "PAY GO", which was quickly repealed by GW Bush and His republican Cohorts. Best regards to you.

To coin a phrase;

"It's the trade agreements stupid"

NOTHING, repeat NOT A THING will change as long as these asinine so called free trade agreements are in effect.

Everything else is just window dressing.

Why does Obama cling to Bush's tax cut? He is spending Trillions, he should collect it from Americans rather than using China's money and increasing interest payments due. A 2013 recession is better than worldwide collapse and anarchy.

Taxing the rich and wind and solar power generation are akin, at most 20% of tax/energy needs can be met just doing these things. To really meet needs, all people not just rich people need to be taxed big to meet promised Military, Social Security, Medicare, and pension obligations.

The option to increasing taxes on all people is to reduce obligations by $1.1 Trillion per year.

I am so sick and tired of all you partisan fools that actually believe that the dire straights that we are in is always the "other parties" fault.

Well, I have news for you. Both political parties have sold your a$$e$ down the river for literally the last 100 years.

What we need is basic "from the ground up" changes to our dysfunctional government.

Lets start with Taxation.

I am totally against the progressive tax system that we have currently, it is Marxist in design and nature and goes against one of the basic tenets of this country, that "All Men are created equal". Russia a decade ago scraped their progressive tax code in favor of a flat tax where all citizens pay the exact same tax rate and the result was a 30% increase in tax revenue to the government.

My proposal her would be that all citizens get a single $15,000 tax deduction, (minimum wage x 40hr work week x 52 weeks), and then all monies earned after that, (wages, tips, interest income and dividen income), all be tax at a rate of 16-19%. No other deductions, no credits, just pay your taxes. It would simplify everyone to a single page tax form.

The benefits should be obvious. No more class warfare when it comes to taxation, a major decrease in government spending (shrinkage of the IRS), and no more huge tax loophole that people can drive a truck through.

Now lets talk Jobs.

I would raise both the gasoline and diesel fuel taxes immediately to $0.50 per gallon and have a $0.05 per gallon for each of the next 5 years. Our highway system is in desperate need of repairs and those that use the system need to start paying more for that privilege. All monies from this tax increase will be distributed to the bridges and roadways that are in the most desperate need of repair and/or upgrades. We literally have 20yrs of work that needs to be done in 10 if our transportation system is going to survive.

Lets talk about the Military.

We currently have 700+ overseas bases, it is high time that that number was severely reduced and consolidated. Europe needs to start taking care of its own defense. Also we need to return most of the contractor positions within the DoD to military personel the cost savings would be huge. All returning active duty personel would be assigned to patrolling both our northern and souther borders, (that does not go against the Posse Comutatus Act as it is not local law enforcement).

Lets talk Welfare.

Welfare should not be free. You want welfare, fine. You will show up at 8am and be ready for one of three things to happen that will be your choice. You will do work that needs to be done around the community, or you will be given an education for a career, or lastly you will go to vocational training. Any of the options will be paid for for a maximum of 5 years and then you will be on your own.

On foodstamps, they will be returned to be for buying staple foods and not be used to buy food from fast food establishments. You don't know how to cook? Fine, we will teach you.

I have no problem giving a person a hand up when they need it but I am damn tired of just giving handouts that has led to generational welfare.

Lets talk Social Security.

Raise the withholding tax to cover all monies earned, from whatever source and have means testing when it comes time to distribute said monies from the trust fund. These two things would probably save SS and SSI. I would also do more into waste, fraud and abuse when it comes to disability, mostly fraud.

shaak322

OK, I shouldn’t but, I will play.

First I’ll refer you to my post #1.43 above.

As the article states, 2007 revenues were $2.568 trillion or 18.5% of GDP.

Historic revenues as a percentage of GDP average about 18.4%. Remember, these are total tax receipts NOT just Federal income tax receipts which average about 8.6% of GDP.

This was in 2007 when the full effect of those evil, nasty Bush tax cuts were in full force.

Now, I’m not sure where Mr. Elmendorf of the CBO in the article, values are from , so I won’t disagree with them, but my numbers from the OMB are different.

Here they are.

Year-------------------Tax receipts (revenue) in constant FY 2005 (Billions of dollars)

1999-------------------2,136.4

2000-------------------2,310.0

2001-------------------2,215.3

2002-------------------2,028.6

2003-------------------1,901.1

2004-------------------1,949.5

2005-------------------2,153.6

2006-------------------2,324.1

2007-------------------2,414.0

2008-------------------2,288.1

2009-------------------1,899.0

2010-------------------1,927.9

2011-------------------1,998.7

Estimates

2012-------------------2,089.4

Source: Office of Management and Budget, Historical Tables, Table 1.3 whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/historicals/

Now, regardless of the revenue numbers, actually Mr. Elmendorfs are better. You can see that from a low of $1.901 trillion in 2003, revenues increased during the Bush tax cut years through 2007 where they reached $2.414 trillion.

If you also look at the fiscal 2000 revenues, Clintons last and best year, you notice his revenues with the "largest tax increase in history" as you like to call them, were only $2.310 trillion. This during, how did you put it, “the miracle of the Clinton economy”, yet his revenues were less than Bush’s with his tax cuts?

Remember, Clintons economy was based on significant cuts in spending, especially the welfare reforms he agreed to with the Republicans. He also benefitted from the most incredible period of growth, the dot-com bubble, which he had no part in creating. Remember Alan Greenspans explanation of it being “irrational exuberance”? How prophetic was he as we saw that massive bubble finally collapse in 2001 leaving Bush with one of the most significant recessions, followed by 9/11, sending global shock waves through the markets and economies.

Anyway, how were all those tax cuts you claim were removing money from the economy when revenues were greater WITH the Bush tax cuts than they were WITH the Clinton tax increase?

How could more money in the hands of the people be removing money from the economy when revenues were greater?

Once again, your Keynesian nonsense doesn’t work. The causative reasons for the Great Depression are similar to what we had before this recession, artificially low interest rates per the Federal Reserve and irrational spending by our government. However, Keynesian deficit spending did NOT get us out of the Depression. It made it worse. FDR’s own Treasury Secretary, Henry Morgenthau, admitted after 8 years of the Depression:

"No, gentlemen, we have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. And I have just one interest, and if I am wrong, as far as I am concerned, somebody else can have my job. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises… I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started. And an enormous debt to boot!" (emphasis mine)

Sound familiar?

Once again, I refer you to my post above to understand why our deficits, and subsequent debt, are skyrocketing so fast.

It’s called spending, NOT a lack of tax revenue.

Like I said before, you can spin these numbers any way you want. The facts are facts. Whether you use Mr. Elmendorfs and the CBO’s numbers or mine from the OMB, they prove that lower taxes DO create similar revenues as higher rates. This leaves capital in the hands of consumers to create aggregate demand. Considering that we insist on being a consumption based economy, the more money in consumers hands, rather than governments, means more commerce and economic activity.

No?

Wizard61 . . finally someone with a brain! The current tax code is symptomatic that something is gravely wrong with our country but most of us accept it as normal because it is all we have known!!

It becomes very tiresome to read or hear rhetoric bandied about as fact. Many are too damn lazy to do any real research, their ideology rules and because of that they become the useful idiots aka: sheep, that politicians use to gain power.

Liberals are the worst but conservatives can also share in the blame. Until that time when people quit following the party line and start thinking for themselves and do research to understand root cause and effect, the politicans will chuckle happily to the bank, dangling their lobbyist supporters behind them. Democrats are just as responsible for our troubles as are republicans. Neither group can claim any high ground.

Grow some brains and quit blathering party rhetoric that is spoon-fed you. The real sin here is that billions of dollars are spent on elections, money that could just as easily go to rebuild, repair and improve lives. Citizens United is only the tip of the iceberg, the PACs and all the money they acquire and spend on propaganda to influence minds should be outlawed. There should be no option other than public option and if anyone has soooo much money that they seek to influence elections, then they should be examined carefully and questions asked as to what it is they seek to gain. Both sides.

The problem that both parties have with dealing with the economy is that it means that they won't be able to get their pork if they stop spending. The Republicans talk a good game, but they spend and waste just as much as the Democrats on bridges to no where.

Dealing with problems doesn't get you elected or reelected, that's why.

Dealing with this deficit means cost cutting for everything from the military to medicare to social security right down to the tiniest government entities. But no generation is willing to be the sacrificial lamb that is told "hey, I know you paid in...but you're not getting it." So it keeps getting kicked down the road because asking people to make sacrifices doesn't get you reelected.

Increasing revenue doesn't work; government will spend that "extra" money on other pet projects. The only way to cut the deficit is to reduce the size of government.

Personally, I think we ought to draw a line in the sand and say "Hey, if you're born after this date, you're not getting social security (or medicare, or whatever). I know it sucks but rather than fake like you're going to get it only to renig on it later we're giving you the heads up to save."

Your recommendation(s) will NOT BE FORWARDED to Mr. Obama by his fading voter base(s).

All polls show his base increasing. Are you trying to lie to yourself to make you feel better? It's misguided if you are.

The problem that both parties have with dealing with the economy is that it means that they won't be able to get their pork if they stop spending. The Republicans talk a good game, but they spend and waste just as much as the Democrats on bridges to no where.

BINGO.

You won't get me defending Dems on the subject when stated as you have, I just think it's disingenuous when Republicans try to say they don't. Well said.

Washington has too many people dependent on the government to turn back now. There is no one in Washington that can find so much as a dime of waste, fraud, or unnecessary spending. Obama promised to cut the deficit in half when he wanted votes, but that promise was shelved on day one. We are operating without a budget for going on four years now, so that basically everyone in Washington can party like there is no tomorrow.

One slight problem Jeff... members of the GOP have actually put forth and voted on bills that limit Federal Spending to under 20% of GDP. Obama has raised it to 25% of GDP and his budget calls for it to remain at that levels. Historically spending has been at 20%, only one party actually wants to keep it at historic levels... yet liberals claim that is the radical plan for some reason.

One slight problem Jeff... members of the GOP have actually put forth and voted on bills that limit Federal Spending to under 20% of GDP.

Correction, they voted on their own bill without working together with the Dems knowing it was nothing but political grandstanding. Doing something out of pure show is not doing something to help America.

You're a partisan hack so I doubt you get it anyway so I won't bother debating it any longer. Thanks for letting me know though. :)

I don't know why all of you are unhappy with the Obama reaction to the economy - it takes a while to get the poll results so Obama can decide what to do. According to Obama "why lead from the front when it is easier to lead from the back".

Jesse,

You are ignoring the facts. When the GOP had the ability, they spent like druken sailors. Not much has changed when Dems had majority, except the spending actually went on the books so everyone could see how bad it was.

The point is valid: Each side is too concerned with being elected and not doing something about the problems once they get elected. Talk is not cheap.. its very expensive, apparently.

Bye, Bye Obama and your friends !!

The point is valid: Each side is too concerned with being elected and not doing something about the problems once they get elected.

In truth that is exactly why we're in this mess. And nothing will change for the foreseeable future.

Tim-1496116:

Dealing with this deficit means cost cutting for everything from the military to medicare to social security right down to the tiniest government entities.

Actually, dealing with this deficit in the long term means growing the tax base by getting the economy back in full gear first. The more people that have jobs, and the better-paying those jobs are, the more tax revenue they'll generate AND the less they will consume in "social safety net" resources.

But what people don't like to hear is that the only way to drive job growth is by increasing demand, and the most efficient way to do that is with spending. If the rich hoard their wealth instead of spending it, and nobody else has any money to spend, that means no private-sector jobs, and that means more dependence on government resources. The only way to curb that is to get the ball rolling with ENOUGH government spending to actually put some money back into the hands of the working classes.

Trying to reduce the deficit with austerity measures is just laughably short-sighted.

Obama has tried, and was blocked by the republicans. So let's really put the blame were the b;ame belongs, on the REPUBLICAN COMMUNIST PARTY!

of course each party has its pork, su-eeeee! and this is in part of how spending is out of hand. by all rights, we should have the whole pile of papers tore up, and star over, stopping when we hit the 90% paid in full,and keep it there so we have a little room to move.

impossible however. that would mean chopping off every single hand with cash in it to hand out to the needy, mostly those who dont deserve, or need it, sending them into a blithering screaming rampage... a lie you say? hmmmm well, my proof would be the riots in UK during their , (lol) occupy, and the staements made in regaurd to having what every other person who has a job, and worked to obtain, while they broke into shops, cars, and so on taking whatever wasnt nailed down that might be worth more than a lb.

Well, they’ve done it! 235 House Republicans have put
themselves on record wanting to privatize Medicare, in order to give
millionaires and billionaires, and corporations, additional tax cuts.
Democratic-leaning firms lining up to make the 2012 campaign commercials in
those 235 districts? You’re welcome.

In the end, only four Republicans balked at the Ryan
bill, while one GOPer, a Congressman Reichert, didn’t vote. The House website
doesn’t make it simple to figure out who’s who, but the names of the Republican
“no’s” are Paul (probably Ron, who votes no on pretty much everything,) Jones,
McKinley and Rehberg. Everyone else will probably spend the next week furiously
emailing seniors in their districts insisting they really, really do LOVE
Medicare.

Needless to say, every House Democrat voted “no.”

Tick tock…!

ORIGINAL POST:

Having already put themselves on the record opposing
women’s healthcare by voting to end Planned Parenthood subsidies, Republicans now face a second walk off the rubbery
plank: today, they’ll be forced to vote to end Medicare.

You know you’re losing an argument when you have to go
around insisting your plans are “compassionate.” No, really, I swear, they’re
“compassionate!” That’s just what Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan is doing in an op-ed this morning, as the
doomsday vote nears on his draconian, numbers-don’t-add-up
budget proposal, which he calls the “path to
prosperity,” but which pretty much everybody else, including the Wall Street
Journal, calls the “end of Medicare as we know it.” (Other ways of putting it:

Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.),
meanwhile, said Thursday that the GOP budget would mean “throwing many seniors
out of nursing homes,” and Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (Fla.), the incoming
chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee (DNC), suggested the changes to
Medicare in Ryan’s budgetwould put senior citizens’ lives at risk.

Pick any one that suits you.

It now appears that not only did President Obama’s
deficit speech this week, and his approach of forcing the GOP to go first on a
deficit plan, “smoke Republicans out” on their desire to end Medicare, as no
less an Obama critic as Robert Reich said on MSNBC last night, it appears the
tone of his speech has thrown Republicans completely off their game.

Where they first shrank from the Ryan budget, which stamps anyone who touches it with the “cut taxes
for the rich, throw grandma under the train” badge of lack of courage (or as
the president put it, 33 seniors get to pay $6,000 more apiece for their
healthcare for each millionaire who gets a huge tax cut) — now, pissy GOPers
are rushing to embrace the Ryan plan.

Bad idea.

Seniors vote. And scaring them into believing Democrats
were taking away their Medicare is in large part the way the tea party
Republicans won in 2010. Now, Republicans are reduced to whining on the House
floor that it’s the Democrats who are trying to “scare seniors,” as South
Carolina Rep. Tim Scott did on the House floor yesterday.

The Republican Party, already on record as the enemy of
unionized teachers, cops and firemen (which is even making some of them nervous), not to
mention the fastest growing demographic group in the country, Hispanics — who
they’re targeting with anti-immigration/profiling bills in maybe a dozen states
— and having gone after women, is now going after seniors. Not only will
they vote today to end Medicare, which seniors are not going to take lying
down, they’re doing it at the same time they’re also pulling an ACORN on the
organization most closely identified with seniors: they’re trying to sick the
IRS on the AARP. A story I’m sure you’ve missed:

Politico, April 8 – House Republican
tax-writers want the IRS to investigate whether AARP should lose its tax-exempt
status.

In a letter sent to IRS Commissioner Douglas
Shulman Friday, Reps. Wally Herger (R-Calif.), Dave Reichert (R-Wash.) and
Charles Boustany (R-La.) say a recent congressional probe “gave rise to a number of serious concerns regarding
AARP’s organizational structure and activities, and it raised questions about
whether AARP continues to qualify as a tax-exempt organization under Internal
Revenue Service Code (IRC) 501(c)4.”

A 40-page report recently released by the
trio of lawmakers accuses AARP of refusing to provide information about its
practices.

“In addition … the attached report raises
concerns regarding various issues including the organization’s substantial
revenues, limited charity work, and generous executive compensation,” they
write. “The AARP Foundation has enjoyed increased taxpayer funding, including
at least $18 million in ‘stimulus’ funding and a total of $314 million in
federal grants from taxpayers between 2008 and 2010. At the same time, AARP,
Inc.’s charitable contributions have flat-lined or in some cases decreased.”

Of course, some Republicans realize this is madness:

In an op-ed in POLITICO earlier this month,
former House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Bill Tauzin (R-La.)
implored Republicans not to push for an end to AARP’s tax status on both policy
and political grounds.

“[I]f one of the largest non-profits in
existence becomes an expendable political casualty for short-term political
gain coming out of congressional hearings, every non-profit organization would
be left wondering if they’re going to face similar inquiries,” Tauzin wrote.
“This won’t help Republicans long-term and it won’t help seniors in the short
term.”

But these days, madness is what the GOP is all about

Romney and his corporate people$$$$$$$$$

Romney Ryan tax plans...Pretty simple Kill Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and privatize for their rich friends driving up healthcare costs and trying to force you to invest in Wallstreet where Romney and Ryan will deregulate even more to take the rest of your money they didn't get the first time. Ryan Romney want to privatize the Post Office because repubs force P.O. to over fund their pension plan out 75 years just to deliberately defund P.O. This will crash service and many towns will have no service or extreme higher costs via UPS or FED EX.

Ryan Romney plans incease tax breaks for the rich and cut food stamps to starving children and families, cut benefits to Vets, and increase taxes on middle class and poor by up to $2000 to pay for their tax breaks!!!

Ryan voted for every deficit raising plan of Bush. Romney lies about his taxes saying he worked at Bain for years now caught with documents saying HE WAS, he lies saying he wasn't. Both want to end capital gains tax for the rich, many rich don't pay taxes at all due to tax loop holes they create.

Ryan and Romney both push war on women and their healthcare see www.womenarewatching.org site for info.

President Obama and Team America killed Bin Laden together. Romney said he would not go after Bin Laden because it is too expensive. Romney values money more than taking out terrorists! $$$$$$$$$$$$$

Our economy is growing at a 10% faster rate than it was when Obama took office. Bush's last quarter's growth was -8.5%. It is now 1.5%.

In Germany, king of austerity, their growth rate in 2nd quarter was .3%. The rest of Europe is in or near recession. Austerity will not work to solve our problems.

People depend on income to live. Economic growth provides a growing population with what it needs to survive.

Higher growth yields higher revenues and lower costs for governments. Most of our debt is long term. The government can afford to borrow from rich Americans who are just sitting on their money (much of it gained from tax cuts they didn't need and didn't spend). The rich need a safe palace to keep their money (which is why treasury bonds are currently sold at 0% interest, amazing, but true).

Stimulus spending normally done has been blocked by those House Tea Partiers. Let's build highways and improve transportation around those cities suffering from gridlock, Atlanta, Chicago, Philadelphia, etc.. Interest rates are low and construction workers won't be building many houses for a while. Stimulus spending on long term projects is the smart thing to do NOW. Why are these Tea Partiers blocking it? Because they want to hurt the economy for POLITICAL ADVANTAGE.

The benefits of economic growth include increased tax revenues, lower costs associated with lower unemployment, fewer people in aid programs and less financial losses as well as higher home prices, and a resurgent real estate market.

It's impossible to regain a government that's willing to work for what's best for the country until politicians believe they're beholden to the voters and not Lobbyists like Grover Norquist. Government is run by compromise, when compromise isn't possible government doesn't run.

Politicians always blame those before them for their problems, but republicans/CONservatives are especially notorious for this and especially for blaming all democrats for everything. The republican radio propaganda machine has been brainwashing this into whoever will listen for decades--the terrible recession under Reagan was all Carter's fault; the federal budget deficit cuts and financial successes and booming economy under Clinton were all due to Reaganomics from years before and then the republican congress, etc., etc., etc.

Medicare D was a totally republican plan and adds about $100 billion/year and growing to the federal deficit and never was funded. It has added to the deficit tremendously under Obama too and will continue under Romney/Ryan.

Medicare is the social program that is adding the most to the federal budget, and that will not decrease at all under Romney/Ryan. They have vowed not to touch Medicare for 10+ years and then to essentially end it and access to healthcare for future seniors by returning to the failed methods/plans of the pre-1960s when seniors were priced out of access to healthcare due to the high cost of private health insurance; only healthcare costs/private insurance costs are many more times inflated today and inflating more rapidly than anything else. So, the social program that adds the most to the federal deficit will continue to do so under Romney/Ryan, and they propose nothing to curb the inflation of healthcare costs that contribute to Medicare deficits as Obama does with cuts to providers/hospitals.

Much of Obama's deficits were due to 2 extremely expensive wars that had been going on for years when he was elected.

Wars have traditionally been the biggest additions to the US federal deficit, and until "W" Bush, the democrats were mostly responsible for this. However, I do not believe any American would say the democrat's/FDR's World War II and stopping Hitler was not necessary! Now, democrat's/Johnson's war in Vietnam was another story--huge, terrible waste of lives, resources and money, as was Iraq--but that was a republican war (part of the republican/conservative "Project for the New American Century" think tank proposals and planning from the 1990s). Sadly, Romney/Ryan are proposing massive military increases, some sources state up to 5 trillion dollars!!! How is that going to balance a budget???!!!

Social Security is a vital program and has not contributed to the deficit at all.

Medicaid does not contribute to the deficit as much as Medicare, but Romney/Ryan want to cut it drastically immediately. It mostly funds healthcare for the poor and disabled, and current seniors in nursing homes, the nursing homes themselves, or the states and state taxpayers or maybe some combination of all the above will in the end be hit hard or maybe some combination of all the above by this Romney/Ryan Medicaid cut.

Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy have been in place for 10+ years, and millions of additional jobs have went to foreign countries in those past 10+ years and we have this high unemployment, so that is definitely a failed policy!!!

the high grade koolaid runs thick!

to settle your argument as repeated SOOO MAAANY TIMES... only those UNDER 55 yrs of age will be affected by medicare, and SSI. meaning you get what you put in, and if you need health care prior to age 55, pending your individual circumstances (ailment) your care will be limited. so no more paying for welfare kids who have a runny nose, or bump on the knee to run to the doctor. in return jacking our costs for care up. means if you are too fat to work, preventive measures will be offered to get you healthy and back into the work force. saving us billions.

tax increase for those who make $200,000 or more a year will fall back on who gets hired and who doesnt. $200,000 falls on mom and pop buisness that is still in buisness.

HERE is an idea... why drop it down? why not raise it for those who clear $1M yr+? that is your upper percent bracket, so why put mom and pop buisness in it? they dont fall into your 1% leave them out? hahahahaaaa! makes too much sense already i bet.

If the Bush tax cuts are allowed to expire, the tax increase will be for all who pay taxes including lower income, it is just that the biggest tax cuts were for the wealthiest, and they have not allowed any to "trickle down" by hiring more and adding to the tax base with those tax cuts which would have helped the economy greatly, and, in turn, the federal budget deficit. Millions more US jobs have been moved to China, etc. since the Bush tax cut greater than 10 years ago.

When you start 2 major wars that cost trillions of dollars and growing (as with the latest republican wars in Iraq and Afghanistan) taxes simply must be raised to pay for it, or the debt will destroy the country, as it is, and the wealthier can afford the most taxes and still be very wealthy and not starve as the extremely low income workers would with heavy taxes.

No, many (probably most) people born after 1957 will NOT get what they paid into Social Security and Medicare. For one thing, without access to healthcare, lifespans will shorten, and many will only live long enough to get far less than half of what they paid in or none. Many (probably most) people born after 1957 will not even get as much as they paid into Medicare which has always been severely underfunded. Many current seniors paid less than $10,000 into Medicare and are getting way more than $1,000,000 out of Medicare (oftentimes several million on a less than $10,000 investment). This truly is and has been unsustainable.

Medicare is the most expensive social program, and is adding to the federal deficit the greatest and has been for many years, so Medicare should be the first program to start cutting, immediately. While not perfect, Obama's plan is the only one attempting to do this with cuts to providers in our current US environment of world-record healthcare cost inflation. I believe cuts to recipients should start immediately, very gradually, and be very fair and just. Start with just a few small stipulations, rules, regulations similar to private insurance companies and some high caps, and gradually increase. BUT IMMEDIATELY raise the Medicare payroll deduction.

As far as the economy and healthcare. Seniors are the biggest healthcare consumers, and without them in the healthcare market, healthcare PROVIDERS will suffer immensely due to severely decreased business or much care given out of compassion that is unable to be financially reimbursed or which costs must be passed on to younger people. This in turn will hurt the entire economy horribly with higher unemployment, a smaller tax base, and more personal debt, causing more recessions and probably a huge depression. It is just the nature of the beast with all the age-related diseases and conditions that are part of growing old and dying; it will not change. On the other hand, the only component of the healthcare industry that gets hurt by having seniors in the healthcare market, is the insurance industry--the liability of all those age-related diseases and conditions will bankrupt private insurance; that is why seniors had already been priced out of the private insurance market by the early 1960s before Medicare was started, and they will again under the Romney/Ryan plan (which has no price controls at all).

As far as the ACA, congress should fix its problems not repeal it, and it has many problems to fix, but healthcare costs are so intertwined through Medicare and Medicaid and just due to the fact that the healthcare industry is so huge and the US has world-record healthcare costs, that it effects the US economy too greatly to allow the ACA just to be repealed and forgotten. Or at least repeal it but do a new one that addresses the biggest problems of healthcare cost inflation and the large percentage of uninsured in the least harmful way.

Time to head for your bunker now Littlejohn. Just don't forget to take out your family before you do.

#3.0, Try looking up some rational figures on the debt and when they were incurred before you head for your hidey-hole.

The problem with Washington is all the party loyalists that would rather blame someone else then hold their own accountable. As long as Obama feels he can get away with blaming Bush, why would anything change? All the Obama supporters do is blame someone else, instead of saying what have you done to fix the problem. Which the answer is of course, nothing. So it is probably safe to assume none of the party loyalists will see a problem until the repo man shows up, and then it will be to late.

Let cut Miltart spending to 495 billion a year and that will save 350 billion...Let raise taxes on the wealthy to 35 % , that will raise 350 billion, let cut all the fraud in medicare and SS that will save 300 Billion Wow thats 1 trillion dollars I just saved...But I know the Teawackers and RepublicanPukes don't want that, They want to gut SS and Medcare, Cut EPA and FDA, Send more jobs to India and China so the wealthy can make more money and then unemployment goes to 15% and No food Stamps AH! let them babies and kids starve because the parents can't find work.. Hmm then they lose their home and Yup. Your right throw them Bums out into the street. You all call yourself a CHRISTAIN...Your a joke a fake and yes a FRAUD: MITT Show us your TAX RETURN!!!!!!!

It's just my two cents, and I know the politicians aren't listening to me because I'm not lining their pockets, but I'd rather take the hit now and reduce the federal deficit than take an even worse hit a few years down the road. Rip the band aid off now and quickly. And I don't see how lowering the federal deficit "a lot" will cause a recession. It seems it may have the opposite effect. Business may start moving again.

I know the politiicians and bankers via the media like to say the last recession is over, but it isn't. Most of us know that.

are you crazy or does it just seem that way

somebefuddledperson:

I'd rather take the hit now and reduce the federal deficit than take an even worse hit a few years down the road. Rip the band aid off now and quickly. And I don't see how lowering the federal deficit "a lot" will cause a recession.

Then please educate yourself. Raising taxes and cutting government services means less spending money in people's pockets, which means fewer jobs, which means less tax money coming in and MORE people dependent upon government programs, which means you've still got a growing deficit and less chance to reverse it.

Repubs not only have war on women, they have war on American workers!

WHY DO REPUBS HATE AMERICAN WORKERS ? WHY DO THEY TAKE AMERICAN JOBS OFFSHORE? BECAUSE OF $$$$$$$$$$$ REPUBS LOVE MONEY MORE THAN THEIR COUNTRY!

Repubs on 7-19-12 blocked taking away tax breaks from companies that outsource jobs from America. In the same bill repubs blocked giving tax breaks to companies bringing jobs back to AMERICA!WHY DO REPUBS HATE AMERICAN WORKERS? Because the want profits offshore so they can hide their profits without paying any taxes on them$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Repubs blocked bill to remove Big Oil subsidies even when Big Oil execs testified they did not need them!

Ryan and Romney support keeping tax breaks for companies who offshore American jobs!!! Ryan and Romney support subsidies for big oil.

Vote President Obama/Biden , bring American jobs back!!!!

Only have to look
back at there primary to see what a train wreck they are and if they were so In
love with Mitt Why it take so long to get any support over 30 percent LMAO... I
remember them:

Don't worry, according to the Republicans, they will fix all our problems by
electing.... Newt Gingrich? Rick the I don’t care about Unemployed Sanatorium?
Mitt “The I love Firing people and I’m not very concerned about poor” Romney?

Ya, great idea. Let's elect the guy that was in bed with the lobbyists from the
companies that CAUSED THE RECESSION in the first place. What a fantastic
f***ing idea. Elect the man who will most likely cause us to go through the
crash all over again. God, these republicans are smart.

Or... we can elect Mitt Romney. The billionaire who pays less in taxes than
middle class Americans, and STILL thinks we should reduce taxes on the rich.
Yes, awesome idea. Let's elect the guy who wants the rich to pay zero taxes, so
the middle class can carry the burden of the entire country. F***ing brilliant.

Those are your options. If anyone has questioned whether the Republican party
is actively trying to destroy our country, there is your proof.

Dr. M. A. Littlejohn

When a Republican was in office John Boehner and Mitch
McConnell voted without hesitation to pass raising the Debt ceiling even
stating that they hope this passed unanimously.

Years the Republicans voted to raise the Debt Ceiling Bush signed into law

2002 350 Billion in tax cut to big business and 450 Billion increase

2003 450 Billion in tax cuts to Big Business and 900 Billion increase

2004 600 Billion in tax Cuts to Big business and 800 Billion Increase

2006 670 Billion in Tax cuts to Bug Business and 781 Billion Increase

2007 700 Billion tax cuts for Big Business and 850 Billion Increase

2008 450 Billion tax Cuts to Big Business and

Total 3.2 Trillion to Big Business $4 Trillion Debt Ceilng
increases under Bush

Total 7.2 Trillion in the Red…..

Also fought wars off the books for entire 8 years Bush was
in office but still have to pay for it and those cost another 4.1 trillion which averaged out to 200 billion a year
for each war.

4.1Trillon wars plus the 7.2 Trillon Tax cut business tax
cuts loopholes debt = 11.3 trillon for Obama coming into the office.

Republicans voted to raise the Debt Ceiling every time it
was brought up while a republican was in office and I goggle there response
then it was Boehner and McConnell who said “there should not be any politics
come into play when it comes to a increase in our national debt we need to pass
this to continue to operate”. Also Mike
Pence of Indiana in 2002 said it as a necessity to raise the National debt.
Bush a republican was in office then but now the same Mike Pence now says he
will not vote to raise the Debt ceiling without cuts to programs in healthcare
and Medicare and all of which no cuts for defense or ending the Wars. Now
Republicans and Tea Party think it’s a Great idea to play politics while a
Democrat is in office.

@starsailing

Ryan and Romney support keeping tax breaks for companies who offshore American jobs!!! Ryan and Romney support subsidies for big oil.

And who was it that gave all of those tax breaks to his good buddy who sent all those GE jobs to China? Who was it that put in charge of job creation a guy whose own company hires more people overseas than it does here? Oh, and when was it Obama talked about ending the mythical oil "subsidies"? Also, do you have any sources to back the claims you're making?

According to the CBO spending programs initiated by Bush added 5.4 trillion to our debt while Obama's has added 1.4 trillion. The way the CBO calculates is a 300 billion dollar unfunded drug plan will forever charge to him as wil 2 unfunded wars and 400 billion a year in tax cuts that republicans won't allow to expire.

Backcountry: How about this.

Republicans Chose To Keep Big Oil Subsidies, Costing Americans Billions Of Dollars - And Response (4)
Wednesday, March 02, 2011

House Republicans voted yesterday to protect corporate welfare for big oil companies while cutting to the bone programs average Americans depend on. While the U.S. House of Representatives was working on a stopgap funding bill to avert a government shutdown, House Democrats offered a motion that would have taken away tax subsidies from the five largest oil companies, saving tens of billions of taxpayer dollars. The motion was defeated with every Republican voting against it.

Two weeks ago a similar vote that would have saved $53 billion in taxpayer funds, taking it away from the biggest oil companies, was also defeated basically along party lines.
The former CEO of Shell Oil, John Hoffmeister, recently said, "Big Oil doesn't need subsidies in the face of sustained high oil prices." The largest oil companies, between 2005 and 2009, have made a combined 485 billion dollars in profits. That's almost half a Trillion dollars.

We had -8.5% growth rate, an auto industry near collapse, a $1.5 trillion deficit, a war in Iraq, a war in Afghanistan, a Dow Jones industrial average of $6400, unemployment growing by 800,000/ month when Obama was sworn in by Chief Justice Roberts.

We had a banking system that had just received $700 billion in a bailout proposed By GW Bush himself designed to save our banking system. The world economy was in recession. GE's survival was a topic of speculation.

And we had Karl Rove, John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, Newt Gingrich and other Republican leaders holding a strategy session that day to plot how to ruin Obama's Presidency by opposing anything he wanted to do.

America was in the worst shape since the great Depression and here was the Brain trust of the Republican party not figuring out a way to help this country get out of its mess, but instead choosing to play politics with our future at stake.

How disgusting. How unpatriotic. Now, these same republicans want to blame Obama for the mess we're in. Only the truly STUPID can believe their BS.

Here we are, 43 months later. Despite this Republican treachery, our economy is growing at 1.5%, we're gaining jobs at 164,000 per month. The Dow is over 13,000. GM, Chrysler, Ford, and GE are all making profits. The Iraq War is over, and the War in Afghanistan is winding down. An added bonus, Bin Laden is dead.

How much further along would we be in this recovery if Republicans had chosen to HELP FIX THE ECONOMY?

@Larry-367607

Backcountry: How about this.

How about what? I asked when Obama has talked about ending the phantom big oil "subsidies". Where are your quotes for that?

Since you seem to be one whose been falsely riled up over big oil "subsidies" perhaps you could explain something to me. First look at the facts-All of the oil "subsidies" are in the form of tax breaks and credits. The corporate tax rate in the US is 35%. The major oil companies pay between 42-45% tax rate AFTER they get their "subsidies". So here's the question, how exactly are we subsidising big oil when they are actually paying a significantly higher tax rate than anyone else?

Basically the politicians are saying "we could make you pay 11% more than anyone else but instead we're going to give you a break and only charge you 10% more than anyone else and we're going to call that a subsidy. Repubs call it a subsidy so their sheep will think they're getting cheaper energy and dems call it a subsidy so their sheep will get all riled up about big business stealing billions from tax payers. The reality is, for the reason I made clear above, there really aren't any subsidies to big oil, it's just a game played for the red and blue sheep in our country.

About $100 Billion (and it is far less now) for wars does not equal deficits of $1 Trillion + per year in deficits.

And lest you think to use the tax cut line. $150 Billion per year from the tax cuts does not $1 Trillion + dollar deficits.

Actually DB the defense budget is pretty close to 1 trillion. Look it up.

The two wars are mere midgets compared to the interest we're paying to the Shy-knees. No war=unbridled terrorism. You think that the training camps in Afghanistan would just evaporate without intervention? Too bad Lyin' Bill Clinton didn't follow up on the first World Trade Center attack and get Bin Laden. I guess Monica had his "cruise missle" tied up.

The two wars are mere midgets compared to the interest we're paying to the Shy-knees.

The wars were put on the company card so the interest being paid is partially FOR THE WARS.

Defense budget doesn't equal war budget. There is still a defense budget without the wars. That's what DB is getting at.

With regards to the rich...sigh...how many times does this have to be repeated? Raising taxes on them won't have the impact everyone thinks it will. There isn't enough income there to close a 1 TRILLION dollar gap. That debate is about class warfare and finding a place to channel the anger of the population in order to get reelected. It's as old as time. Hitler did it, Lincoln did it, Obama's doing it.

Here's how it works: Step 1) see angry people; Step 2) give angry people something to channel anger at; Step 3) tell people that if they follow you, you'll take care of their "problem". Lincoln said the south was evil because of slavery so we could go to war for economic reasons, then we said the indians were evil and killing our citizens so we could massacre them for their land. Hitler did it with the Jews. Germans were angry...he said "Hey, it's the Jews' fault...stick with me and we'll kill them all and all your problems will go away!" I'm not comparing the end goals, I'm just saying it's a tactic to manipulate crowds, regardless of your goal.

That debate aside, raising government revenue will just raise government spending which does nothing to the deficit. We need to reduce the size of our government and be honest about what we as America can afford. We're not El Dorado; we're not made of gold. There is a limit to what we can afford and we need to budget accordingly or the bank (china) will foreclose.

The two wars and the Bush tax cuts are the scape goat for spending that would still be out of control if those issues did not exist. This country has almost 50% of income earners paying no federal income tax. This country has lost millions of jobs, which began when Bill Clinton signed NAFTA into law. There are fewer people paying taxes, and too many people not working to ever get a handle on the massive deficits. All Washington is doing is hoping for a miracle, because nothing they have done has worked. Washington creates problems, but they have no track record for ever solving any.

Tim-1496116:

With regards to the rich...sigh...how many times does this have to be repeated? Raising taxes on them won't have the impact everyone thinks it will. There isn't enough income there to close a 1 TRILLION dollar gap. That debate is about class warfare

Obama and the left didn't create class warfare. They just brought its existence to the attention of the losing side.

This country's economy is never going to improve as long as the wealth continues to flow up from the poor to the rich. It's just not sustainable.

WHY DO REPUBS BLOCK AND VOTE AGAINST AMERICA AND JOB RECOVERY?

The night President Obama took office, when Ryan and 14 other repubs met to pledge to take the economy down just to make Obama a one term president...Ol Frank Lutz the Fox news Pollster was with them..along with Newtster....Even Fox news Lutz was there while they pledged against the nation...Boehner warned the 15 repubs not to have anything to do with Fox News pollster Frank Lutz so they did not invite him. Fox news..In on the pledge to take the economy down to make President Obama a one term president!

Fox news and republicans pledging to take the economy down . :Ref Richard Draper book.

@starsailing

The night President Obama took office, when Ryan and 14 other repubs met to pledge to take the economy down just to make Obama a one term president...

Really? They said they wanted to crash the economy? I don't suppose you've got any sources to back up that claim?

The military budget consumes 33% of the budget and is over 1 trillion a year. It dwarfs all non self funded social program spending. Romney proposes increasing military spending 260 billion and year and cutting social program spending by 1/3.

Rick, 3416939, how does the NORTH AMERICAN Free Trade Agreement send millions of jobs to China, India, Turkey, and even Pakistan?????

Gary-2545132, I could not agree more. We give BILLIONS away to foreigners while we have American people suffering in our own streets. Cutting the Defense Budget is not an option as there are too many threats (terrorist and military factions) that can instantly impact our freedoms and way of life. We need OUR tax money spent in this country to SOLVE OUR PROBLEMS before we send OUR TAX DOLLARS to places where WE HAVE NO CONTROL over where it goes once the check is cut (i.e. lining the pockets of radicals who have designs on planning our ultimate demise.) It is way past time to curb spending. If it means putting the Congress on the same retirement entitlements as the general public, so be it. Congress should have the same medical insurance options and retirement programs as the rest of the American public as well. Government service is a privilege, not a career, unless you are in the military service. We need career soldiers, sailors, marines and air force. Tax income to the government is directly proportional to those who have jobs and make the contributions and inversely proportional to those who do not. One cannot give away what one does not have. This administration continues to "go to the well" when we all know "the well is dry". We were promised "change" and boy did we get it!! My money "clinks" now instead of folding.

While Washington is trying to cut defense spending the Chinese are building a Fleet of Air Carriers!

Greenspan was the one who allowed the banking industry demise.

The CBO report pointed out that 5.4 trillion of our deficit can be attributed to Bush for spending programs and tax cuts he initiated and 1.4 trillion to Obama. That sounds like they know who to blame. When you create a new drug program and don't fund it you are responsible for the 300 billion it adds every year from now on whoever is president.

So you were never really a democrat.

Yeah, you can't vote for a republican if you're a democrat! That would be nuts!

Well anybody who voted for McCarthy was certainly not a democrat. Just delusional.

I believe you are confusing Eugene McCarthy with Joe McCarthy. Eugene was very much the liberal's liberal Democrat (he was a very smart fella, probably would not have made a good president).

When a Republican was in office John Boehner and Mitch
McConnell voted without hesitation to pass raising the Debt ceiling even
stating that they hope this passed unanimously.

Years the Republicans voted to raise the Debt Ceiling Bush signed into law

2002 350 Billion in tax cut to big business and 450 Billion increase

2003 450 Billion in tax cuts to Big Business and 900 Billion increase

2004 600 Billion in tax Cuts to Big business and 800 Billion Increase

2006 670 Billion in Tax cuts to Bug Business and 781 Billion Increase

2007 700 Billion tax cuts for Big Business and 850 Billion Increase

2008 450 Billion tax Cuts to Big Business and

Total 3.2 Trillion to Big Business $4 Trillion Debt Ceilng
increases under Bush

Total 7.2 Trillion in the Red…..

Also fought wars off the books for entire 8 years Bush was
in office but still have to pay for it and those cost another 4.1 trillion which averaged out to 200 billion a year
for each war.

4.1Trillon wars plus the 7.2 Trillon Tax cut business tax
cuts loopholes debt = 11.3 trillon for Obama coming into the office.

Republicans voted to raise the Debt Ceiling every time it
was brought up while a republican was in office and I goggle there response
then it was Boehner and McConnell who said “there should not be any politics
come into play when it comes to a increase in our national debt we need to pass
this to continue to operate”. Also Mike
Pence of Indiana in 2002 said it as a necessity to raise the National debt.
Bush a republican was in office then but now the same Mike Pence now says he
will not vote to raise the Debt ceiling without cuts to programs in healthcare
and Medicare and all of which no cuts for defense or ending the Wars. Now
Republicans and Tea Party think it’s a Great idea to play politics while a
Democrat is in office.

art-2739038

I bet you voted for Both bush twins and Old Man McCain and the guilt of that given with the fact I provided above make you a very weak person indeed to think going back to Bush 2.0 on steriods Helps at all. Greece is where you want to travel for that type of thinking art Cya...

Raising the Rich tax rates a massive 3 percent from 35 to 38 the Clinton rates when we had a Surplus that Bush and republican killed it. Doing Bush @.0 on steriod won't work aint no surplus this time and cant let Romney from dummyhood cut Rich taxes and put us in the hole so deep that Cutting everything and anything is the only way out with the Tea Tards standing up for Richy Rich and saying FU to The rest of America.

The got it from Exploiting the poor!!! But Correct....

Strongly agree with everything you say except with regards to it doesn't matter who wins.

Contrary to the overblown and truly ridiculous rantings of the Tea Party (which is just a redressed Christian Right wing that took over an initially libertarian movement when Faux News publicized it), Barack Obama is a center left pragmatist, and not anywhere close to a wide eyed socialist. What we need is a center left or center right pragmatist who is no longer worried about re-election. We don't get that with Romney, because even though historically he was a center right or even plain center pragmatist, he is now representing a once proud party that has gone institutionally insane, and he would be a first term president very concerned about holding onto his base. Obama is our best chance to actually get Simpson-Bowles or something like it done. The proposal was too toxic before an election, but afterwards, no longer concerned about re-election, he can play chicken with the House nutcases (both Teapublican and Yellow-Dog) and win.

We need to change how our polititions are nominated and how the primaries are run. What was good a hundred years ago is out dated with the way we communicate to day.

@Ed-403353 #15: I appreciate the insight in your question. So many who post on here, especially the right wingers, would have us believe that money was eaten by something, somewhere. Truth is, it was redistributed upward to the very wealthy. Actually too, the debt is owed to ourselves. Additionally, at least half the debt is in fact, paper loss, or overstated value loss. If we ever really want to relieve ourselves of this somewhat illusional debt and deficit, mostly straw man concoction, then we must get our people back to work under wages appropriate to costs and taxes required to live here, with enough left for savings and some discretionary spending. Most democrats will go with this. Republicans aren't having any of it. Regards

Maybe she is still Laughing at Ryan and Aikin in the legislation they pushed in congress to redine rape under there own made up beliefs that women can will rape not to happen and stop pregnancy with a single thought. The sad truth is the republican politicians backed it up with the vote they had last night and proved how out of touch they are with America. They preach about getting government outta your way but want in every decision that affects women's choice and try to make government reflect there false beliefs.

WOW, LR better go back to school and start all over ??? Good taxpayer money wasted there ....

GO R & R

What About Mittens "RomneyHood" Steal from the Middle class and poor to give to the Rich.. Transparency means nothing as long as Mittens can hid tax returns and overseas account and act as if by showing them he knows people will prove him a crook.

Not necessarily, but if you vote all the Republicans out of Congress then we might still have an actual economy 4 years from now.

If you vote Mitten you mean to have your Head Examined. "Voting Republican is Like a Chicken voting for KFC"......

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/obama-defends-medicare-approach-romney-ryan-assault-141924838.html

Medicaid should not be part of SS or Medicare plus Illegals should not be entitled .

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/obama-defends-medicare-approach-romney-ryan-assault-141924838.html

A recession is defined as two ore more consecutive quarters of NEGATIVE GDP. That ended in in late 2009. It would help to know what a recession is when commenting on it.

I don't give a rats A$$- we never got out of this recession.

The Recession ended June 2009. Not late 2009. I would say that June is the middle 2009. Nit picky but Liberals do that all the time.

Example.

Deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter laid out the issue as the Obama team sees it: "Either Mitt Romney, through his own words and his own signature, was misrepresenting his position at Bain to the SEC, which is a felony."

"Or," she said, "he was misrepresenting his position at Bain to the American people to avoid responsibility for some of the consequences of his investments," including layoffs and the outsourcing of jobs.

http://www.politico.com/politico44/2012/07/obama-team-romney-committed-a-felony-or-lied-to-voters-128757.html

She didn't ACTUALLY say Romney is a felon but the implication is there. Yet Obama stated just yesterday "No one called Romney a felon".

"Well, first of all I am not sure that all of those characterizations that you laid out there were accurate. For example, nobody accused Mr. Romney of being a felon. And, I think that what is absolutely true is if you watch me on the campaign trail, here's what I'm talking about. I'm talking about how to put Americans back to work," he said.

http://www.examiner.com/article/obama-denies-campaign-called-romney-a-felon-surprise-press-appearance

NIT PICKY???

Slodon#24.4:Romney is a Liar, Thief and Corporate raider who is quite likely a FELON. Romney and Ryan are "Mutt and JEFF" on a stealing binge!

Show us your tax returns Mittens! You're afraid to aren't you? You're a liar and a thief, candidate Romney!

If the Obama administration had actually worked on the budget process in 2009,2010 and 2011 gradual spending cuts could have addressed this problem years ago.

This wouldn't have gotten have gotten past the House after the 2009 election because the House wouldn't take any "gradual". Talk to the GOP about uncompromising behavior.

If they'd agreed to the 4:1 deal, we wouldn't have the fiscal cliff. It's literally their fault for not being willing to negotiate at all.

Or as one of them said, compromise is when I get my way and you like it. DISGUSTING

BearDown, I think you mean the 2010 elections which was a referendum on the 2 full years of incredible spending without a budget that Obama owned. He wasn't responsible for the 9 trillion debt when he willing took over the job of president but he definately is responsible for the 7 trillion additional debt that has occured in 3-1/2 years since. Didn't like it when Bush spent wildly, don't like when Obama spends widly. But he owns it.

Bear -

Calm down, your stuttering.

There you go again, blame the GOP, blame Bush. The Commander in Chief bears no responsibility at all...... Disgusting

If Obama wins the election in November and things are even worse in 2015, will he still be blaming Bush? When does the statute of limitations run out on that?

Mr. President: Being a leader requires much more than speaking well and "looking presidential". You actually need to lead. You don't lead by blaming the guy who came before you (or anyone else you can find for that matter). You had two years of complete control and you squandered it by bashing businesses, trashing those that have been successful and focusing on Obamacare.

It's time to take ownership and face up to the hard fact that we need to reduce federal spending. NOW!!

Yes, we should have started "gradual spending cuts" in 2009, while we were still hemorrhaging jobs. Brilliant idea.

WakeUpAmerica-3716462:

It's time to take ownership and face up to the hard fact that we need to reduce federal spending.

Yes, cut federal spending, take away even more jobs, and slow down the economy even more. Another brilliant plan.