Obama Seeks To Put Alaska Refuge Off-Limits To Drilling

[Jack Davenport]

secession = treason

Sarcasm = Sarcasme

 

[Will E Worm]

secession = treason

No, it's legal, and needed.

 

[Jack Davenport]

Tax Cuts + Borrowing to Spend = Huge Ass National Debt. That's been the republican economic plan since 1980. The only periods of deficit reduction since then have been under Democrats. It's your economic policy, stupid, current tax rates are a failure, they need to go up and unfortunately President Obama hasn't been effective in reversing Republican tax policy, and that is about as critical of Obama as I'm going to be in that regard.

The tax cuts are not responsible for 8 trillion in additional debt. And if raising the rates were so damn important he should have raised them when he had the damn near super majority. Go back and start looking for Sammy, maybe he will buy this crap. I'm not.

 

[Johan]

No, it's legal, and needed.

Unless you have the aknoledgement of the government, secesion is treason. But, have it your way, let's pretend it is not.

Then I have 2 questions for you :
- Which states should secede from the union ?
- Should hese states form a new country or should the keep their independance ?

 

[xfire]

The tax cuts are not responsible for 8 trillion in additional debt. And if raising the rates were so damn important he should have raised them when he had the damn near super majority. Go back and start looking for Sammy, maybe he will buy this crap. I'm not.

I don't care if you buy it or not, it's the fucking truth, take away two unpaid for wars, cut the fucking defense budget by half going back thirty years and you'll find an economy running in the surplus. Fucking fact. Republicans have deliberately been trying to bankrupt the federal government because that's just how they roll and the teabaggers are even more vehement about it.

 

[Jack Davenport]

I don't care if you buy it or not, it's the fucking truth, take away two unpaid for wars, cut the fucking defense budget by half going back thirty years and you'll find an economy running in the surplus. Fucking fact. Republicans have deliberately been trying to bankrupt the federal government because that's just how they roll and the teabaggers are even more vehement about it.

And Obama said he would solve all that ailed us. One of the wars was justified, but Bush is no longer there and the republicans paid dearly politically for that fucker and the country suffered too. There is no amount of number crunching, creative cooking of the books or anything that will lay this 8 trillion at republicans feet. it will be more than 20 when he leaves office. I showed the video where he said the debt was unpatriotic, he knew the situation and he said he had a plan. I kept my mouth shut for 5 years to let him do his thing. He hasn't done jack shit! He had every tool at his disposal when he first took office, unimpeded legislation he could have rammed through. He gambled and thought he could get it done later because he wouldn't lose the congressional majority so he had a missed opportunity. You don't like me saying it? Well wait until the campaign heats up! You are going to hear it 24/7 because it's the truth.

This 8 trillion in debt is caused by 30 previous years of republican policy bullshit, if that weren't so pathetic, I would pass out from laughing.

 

[xfire]

And Obama said he would solve all that ailed us. One of the wars was justified, but Bush is no longer there and the republicans paid dearly politically for that fucker and the country suffered too. There is no amount of number crunching, creative cooking of the books or anything that will lay this 8 trillion at republicans feet. it will be more than 20 when he leaves office. I showed the video where he said the debt was unpatriotic, he knew the situation and he said he had a plan. I kept my mouth shut for 5 years to let him do his thing. He hasn't done jack shit! He had every tool at his disposal when he first took office, unimpeded legislation he could have rammed through. He gambled and thought he could get it done later because he wouldn't lose the congressional majority so he had a missed opportunity. You don't like me saying it? Well wait until the campaign heats up! You are going to hear it 24/7 because it's the truth.

This 8 trillion in debt is caused by 30 previous years of republican policy bullshit, if that weren't so pathetic, I would pass out from laughing.

You're blaming $8 trillion on Obama, so you freely admit the rest is owned by republicans. Nice, way to be conservative. Fact is the economy is a losing issue for the GOP, they fuck it up every chance they get. Reality is that Republicans own 90% of the National Debt, and if they run on economic issues the only ones left laughing will be the same ones that have been laughing in the last two presidential election cycles.

 

[Jack Davenport]

You're blaming $8 trillion on Obama, so you freely admit the rest is owned by republicans. Nice, way to be conservative. Fact is the economy is a losing issue for the GOP, they fuck it up every chance they get. Reality is that Republicans own 90% of the National Debt, and if they run on economic issues the only ones left laughing will be the same ones that have been laughing in the last two presidential election cycles.

5 Trillion is GWB's fault. At least I will tell the truth about it instead of spinning this crap. The rest was a culmination of all the president's before them. It looks like I am going to have to educate you. And all of your liberal brethren are welcome to pull up a chair.

Let's start with Reagan. 1981 (his first full year in office), Federal receipts were over 600 billion and the budget shrank 5 billion from Jimmy Carter's last budget. In Reagan's last budget year, receipts rose to over 900 billion. Moreover and most importantly, receipts from tax cuts rose from 120 billion in 1980 to 393 billion. Corporate income tax revenues went from 64 billion to 106 billion. Any economist worth their salt could not look at those numbers and with any credibility proclaim that tax cuts cause deficits. The deficit and spending did rise under Reagan. Spending jumped from 575 billion under Carter to 1.05 trillion under Reagan in 1989. Dim witted libs try and blame the deficit and spending on the military when in fact military spending rose by only about 5 percent and that was at the end of Reagan's term.

You know what the real reason for the deficits rising? The Democrat congress that Reagan had the dubious distinction of always having to work with. That and their pork barrel spending. He probably should have vetoed every damn one of them but Carter had cut just about every one of the cold war era military projects and if Reagan didn't go along with the dims, the military and those projects would suffer. These are the very projects that helped us win the Cold War. Even liberal economists like Yergin admitted that the Clinton economy that libs like to boast about actually started during the Bush administration. Not to mention Clinton's dotcom bubble economy that a president M.C. Hammer couldn't have fucked up. Fast forward to when Clinton had to start dealing with congress and Newt. Kinda like what Reagan dealt with but in reverse. They held Clinton's feet to the fire he made concessions, they cut pork barrel spending and don't look now! but deficits dropped. Now I will give Clinton some credit for not fucking shit up, and have the political savvy to recognize that it would only help him if he worked with them. Now fast forward a little farther and this is where my hatred for GWB begins.

He took a debt that was far more than it needed to be and because of 9/11 or Dick Cheney bending his fucking ear or running the show who knows what was going on, decided that he had Romper Room time, let's get back at Saddam for trying to kill my daddy...so I will go on record as saying the Iraq war was a bullshit clusterfuck although I believe the Afghanistan war was legitimate. Bush retreated from the Reagan playbook of cut and work with congress to going to cut and spend like a motherfucker. Remember power sharing? Don't give me that shit about congress was controlled by republicans the whole time because it didn't matter. Republicans got their asses thrown out in 2006 for becoming democrats in spending and everything else. Now, we all know how that ended. Let's talk about Barry. When I see him on TV, hear his voice, all I can do is think of the internet meme, "That fucking guy!" He runs in 2008 as some William F. Buckley fiscal conservative, bad mouthing Bush for running up the debt and deficits when actually the deficits were the fault of both parties but hey! it's election time let's call Bush unpatriotic, never mention that democrats were just as complicit and bulldoze ahead. Now he takes it to a completely different level. Money is no object, spend to achieve this liberal utopia lets get millions of more on food stamps, jump out of the gate with huge stimulus packages and when we have spent like drunken sailors our first year we'll back off a little and say we are reducing deficits. Here's a little tidbit that you don't know. Deficits aren't necessarily a deal breaker if you curb spending but debt is. And this 8 trillion soon to be 10 or more is owned totally by Barry Obama . Thanks Obama! Class dismissed!

 

[xfire]

5 Trillion is GWB's fault. At least I will tell the truth about it instead of spinning this crap. The rest was a culmination of all the president's before them. It looks like I am going to have to educate you. And all of your liberal brethren are welcome to pull up a chair.

Let's start with Reagan. 1981 (his first full year in office), Federal receipts were over 600 billion and the budget shrank 5 billion from Jimmy Carter's last budget. In Reagan's last budget year, receipts rose to over 900 billion. Moreover and most importantly, receipts from tax cuts rose from 120 billion in 1980 to 393 billion. Corporate income tax revenues went from 64 billion to 106 billion. Any economist worth their salt could not look at those numbers and with any credibility proclaim that tax cuts cause deficits. The deficit and spending did rise under Reagan. Spending jumped from 575 billion under Carter to 1.05 trillion under Reagan in 1989. Dim witted libs try and blame the deficit and spending on the military when in fact military spending rose by only about 5 percent and that was at the end of Reagan's term.

You know what the real reason for the deficits rising? The Democrat congress that Reagan had the dubious distinction of always having to work with. That and their pork barrel spending. He probably should have vetoed every damn one of them but Carter had cut just about every one of the cold war era military projects and if Reagan didn't go along with the dims, the military and those projects would suffer. These are the very projects that helped us win the Cold War. Even liberal economists like Yergin admitted that the Clinton economy that libs like to boast about actually started during the Bush administration. Not to mention Clinton's dotcom bubble economy that a president M.C. Hammer couldn't have fucked up. Fast forward to when Clinton had to start dealing with congress and Newt. Kinda like what Reagan dealt with but in reverse. They held Clinton's feet to the fire he made concessions, they cut pork barrel spending and don't look now! but deficits dropped. Now I will give Clinton some credit for not fucking shit up, and have the political savvy to recognize that it would only help him if he worked with them. Now fast forward a little farther and this is where my hatred for GWB begins.

He took a debt that was far more than it needed to be and because of 9/11 or Dick Cheney bending his fucking ear or running the show who knows what was going on, decided that he had Romper Room time, let's get back at Saddam for trying to kill my daddy...so I will go on record as saying the Iraq war was a bullshit clusterfuck although I believe the Afghanistan war was legitimate. Bush retreated from the Reagan playbook of cut and work with congress to going to cut and spend like a motherfucker. Remember power sharing? Don't give me that shit about congress was controlled by republicans the whole time because it didn't matter. Republicans got their asses thrown out in 2006 for becoming democrats in spending and everything else. Now, we all know how that ended. Let's talk about Barry. When I see him on TV, hear his voice, all I can do is think of the internet meme, "That fucking guy!" He runs in 2008 as some William F. Buckley fiscal conservative, bad mouthing Bush for running up the debt and deficits when actually the deficits were the fault of both parties but hey! it's election time let's call Bush unpatriotic, never mention that democrats were just as complicit and bulldoze ahead. Now he takes it to a completely different level. Money is no object, spend to achieve this liberal utopia lets get millions of more on food stamps, jump out of the gate with huge stimulus packages and when we have spent like drunken sailors our first year we'll back off a little and say we are reducing deficits. Here's a little tidbit that you don't know. Deficits aren't necessarily a deal breaker if you curb spending but debt is. And this 8 trillion soon to be 10 or more is owned totally by Barry Obama . Thanks Obama! Class dismissed!

Nice post, for the most part, but you go off the rails in the last part of the last paragraph. Let's give you the benefit of the doubt, for a moment. Let's say you're right about how shit got to where they are, here's where you fall on your own sword, Obama had a democratic congress for two years, the rest of this time he's been dealing with a republican majority in the House. Now, you're a fucking lawyer, you should know the constitution, tell me which branch of government controls the power of the purse? That would be congress, of which republicans have been in the majority for the last four years. How again is this huge ass debt Obama's fault? I suppose that's just our "dear leader" being a weak tyrant, business as usual, right?

 

[Jack Davenport]

Nice post, for the most part, but you go off the rails in the last part of the last paragraph. Let's give you the benefit of the doubt, for a moment. Let's say you're right about how shit got to where they are, here's where you fall on your own sword, Obama had a democratic congress for two years, the rest of this time he's been dealing with a republican majority in the House. Now, you're a fucking lawyer, you should know the constitution, tell me which branch of government controls the power of the purse? That would be congress, of which republicans have been in the majority for the last four years. How again is this huge ass debt Obama's fault? I suppose that's just our "dear leader" being a weak tyrant, business as usual, right?

I have been screaming about utilizing the power of the purse! That is why they were given that power by the founders! Exactly! But Boehner will not do it. Oh he will talk about it, threaten it, threaten to sue the president over the use of EO's (not that you really care about that understandably from your POV) but now we are getting somewhere. THAT is why I hate the establishment repubs. Now I know you don't want a tea party enthusiast running the show either, but let's draw some clear lines of distinction here. Let's say that Hillary wins, if we had a real conservative as speaker there would be some real interesting battles going on. Not gridlock but a war of ideas utilizing the powers that the constitution grants. The prez does his or her thing the congress does theirs. Let the chips fall where they may as long as it is within the confines of the constitution I can live with the result. Essentially back in the 90's that was what was going on, Clinton and Gingrich were two bright fellas. Different side of the aisle but the end result was a surplus and that my friend isn't a bad thing. I think we can agree on that.

But as long as Coppertone is speaker it ain't happening.

 

[Johan]

Obama says he has cut national deficit in half


In 2012, PolitiFact twice rated True claims that President Barack Obama failed to keep a promise to cut federal deficits in half by the end of his first term.
At that point, the budget gap topped a trillion bucks and Republican congressmen called out Obama because the deficit had been reduced by just 15 percent.

But there was the president at Laborfest 2014 in Milwaukee proclaiming "we cut our deficits by more than half."

In his Sept. 1, 2014 speech, the president ticked off for union supporters a list of major policy decisions he contends helped boost the economy and improve the government’s bottom line.
We can’t cover all of those here, but the deficit claim grabbed our attention.
Has it really been cut in half?

The White House Office of Management and Budget pointed us to a chart prepared by that office in 2013 as proof of Obama's claim.
It compares the yearly deficits under Obama, expressed -- as they often are -- as a share of the nation’s entire economy, which is measured by the Gross Domestic Product.

At the start of Obama’s term, the chart showed, the figure was 9.2 percent. The latest figure was 4.1 percent.
That appears to back Obama's statement.
But let's examine this in detail.

To do that, we reviewed figures published by the Congressional Budget Office as well as the White House’s Office of Management and Budget. We also consulted with independent fiscal experts.
The baseline year for comparison is fiscal year 2009, which ended Sept. 30 of that year. This was the last budget from President George W. Bush, as Obama took office in January of that year.
The most recent complete fiscal year is 2013.
Those are the same years Obama's chart showed.
Our analysis showed the drop easily topped 50 percent, and was actually somewhat higher than Obama's chart would indicate.
As a share of the economy, we found -- and our experts confirmed -- the drop was from 9.8 percent in 2009 to 4.1 percent in 2013.

Obama’s chart actually reflects a lower deficit figure for 2009, and therefore a lower share of GDP, 9.2%.
That’s because instead of using the actual 2009 deficit of $1.4 trillion, Obama lowers it by the $200 billion in increased deficit spending that he -- not Bush -- pushed through in the stimulus plan to address the crisis that became the Great Recession. That resulting figure is what Obama calls the deficit he "inherited" from Bush.
But no matter which figure is used, the deficit as a share of the economy still fell by more than half.


Show me the money
There's another way to look at this.
That is, in raw dollars -- the way attendees at the union event probably would. Indeed, deficits are often expressed that way as well.

The White House and CBO figures each show that in 2009 the deficit reached $1.4 trillion.
As a share of GDP, it easily topped any year since World War II, said Steve Ellis, vice president of the nonpartisan Taxpayers for Common Sense.

By the end of fiscal year 2013, the deficit figure had fallen to $679.5 billion in dollars unadjusted for inflation.
That’s a 52 percent drop.

Here’s the year-by-year trend in 2009 dollars:

2009 : $1,412,688,000,000 ; 9.8% of GDP
2010 : $1,294,373,000,000 ; 8.8%
2011 : $1,299,593,000,000 ; 8.4%
2012 : $1,086,963,000,000 ; 6.8%
2013 : $679,502,000,000 ; 4.1%


There is one wrinkle. When you use Obama's methodology to compare the deficit Obama inherited -- the 2009 result minus the stimulus package to that in 2013 -- the drop in the deficit is slightly under half, at 48%.
Ellis and Marc Goldwein, senior policy director at the nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, both included an additional year, the 2014 fiscal year, which is just a month from completion.
The Aug. 27, 2014 CBO estimate for this year’s budget, fiscal year 2014, is a continued shrinking of the deficit to $506 billion, or 2.9 percent of GDP.
Those figures would put Obama's claim over the top no matter the number-crunching method.


Looking ahead

Ellis cautioned that talking about deficit amounts in raw dollars doesn’t really give a good sense of the scale: "A $400 billion deficit in a $10 trillion economy is a lot bigger than a $400 billion deficit in $17 trillion economy."
And he and Goldwein emphasized that while the deficit has been halved, it’s been halved from a skyscraping peak.

In the decade before deficits exploded in 2008 and 2009, they averaged just over 1 percent of GDP, including three years of surpluses, we calculated.
As of 2013, that figure was at 4.1 percent.

The growth in the deficit from 2007 to 2009 was due mainly to factors related to the Great Recession, said Goldwein. Tax collections fell as people lost jobs and corporate profits dropped; spending on food stamps and other aid programs rose with increased need; stimulus and tax break legislation passed, as did bailouts of financial firms.

"The economic recovery, wind-down of stimulus, reversal of TARP/Fannie transactions, and lower interest rates are really what has caused our deficit to fall so much," Goldwein told us. He mentioned cuts in discretionary spending as well.

Looking ahead, the CBO warns that later in the next decade deficits as a share of the economy will grow and federal debt will climb without changes in current policies.
But Obama, it’s fair to say, was speaking of the change during his presidency.

And his claim dovetails with one PolitiFact National checked in July 2013, rating True Obama’s claim that the deficit is falling at the fastest rate in 60 years.


Our rating
At a union rally on Labor Day, Obama declared "We cut our deficits by more than half."
The numbers back up Obama’s claim: Thanks to income tax revenues rising and spending on emergency assistance dropping, America’s deficit has fallen by more than 50 percentfrom its highest point since World War II to a level $733 billion lower.

We rate the claim True.

http://www.politifact.com/wisconsin.../obama-says-he-has-cut-national-deficit-half/

 

[xfire]

I have been screaming about utilizing the power of the purse! That is why they were given that power by the founders! Exactly! But Boehner will not do it. Oh he will talk about it, threaten it, threaten to sue the president over the use of EO's (not that you really care about that understandably from your POV) but now we are getting somewhere. THAT is why I hate the establishment repubs. Now I know you don't want a tea party enthusiast running the show either, but let's draw some clear lines of distinction here. Let's say that Hillary wins, if we had a real conservative as speaker there would be some real interesting battles going on. Not gridlock but a war of ideas utilizing the powers that the constitution grants. The prez does his or her thing the congress does theirs. Let the chips fall where they may as long as it is within the confines of the constitution I can live with the result. Essentially back in the 90's that was what was going on, Clinton and Gingrich were two bright fellas. Different side of the aisle but the end result was a surplus and that my friend isn't a bad thing. I think we can agree on that.

But as long as Coppertone is speaker it ain't happening.

Neither party has the will to do what they really want, we've got two parties afraid of their own base. Democrats want to raise taxes but solely raising taxes won't fix the problem. Republicans want to cut programs, but cutting programs alone won't fix the problem either, not to mention that a lot of poor southern republicans would get cut just as deep as the "welfare leeches" they would love to burn. So they play this blame game because they don't have the sac to do what really needs done.

What do you think is the biggest reason we are where we are in our current economy and what can be done to fix it? I am not of the opinion that Social Security and welfare are our biggest challenges. I believe our biggest challenge is to stop buying Chinese goods, bring jobs back to America, make our own shit, employ our own people, so what if it costs more to do it, buy back all of our debt and once again be the largest creditor nation instead of occupying this pathetic place as the world's largest debtor nation.

 

[Jack Davenport]

I never said that it wasn't being reduced Johan. I said that the deficit is not the national debt and deficit is a word that most uneducated Americans associate as the national debt. Both parties do it, but it pisses me off nonetheless. In politics, you look for the buzzwords that resonate with the masses because quite frankly most voters don't know anything except what they are told. And we are also talking starting point here. And Obama got spotted some big bucks right from the start which as I said before is a bit of a smoke and mirrors effect.

 

[Jack Davenport]

Neither party has the will to do what they really want, we've got two parties afraid of their own base. Democrats want to raise taxes but solely raising taxes won't fix the problem. Republicans want to cut programs, but cutting programs alone won't fix the problem either, not to mention that a lot of poor southern republicans would get cut just as deep as the "welfare leeches" they would love to burn. So they play this blame game because they don't have the sac to do what really needs done.

What do you think is the biggest reason we are where we are in our current economy and what can be done to fix it? I am not of the opinion that Social Security and welfare are our biggest challenges. I believe our biggest challenge is to stop buying Chinese goods, bring jobs back to America, make our own shit, employ our own people, so what if it costs more to do it, buy back all of our debt and once again be the largest creditor nation instead of occupying this pathetic place as the world's largest debtor nation.

Man! This current economy is still feeling the effects of the near collapse of 2008. I have my feelings on the reasons for it that you may not necessarily agree with but sub prime lending is the culprit. Just another reason why government shouldn't decide who gets things and why I am a small government guy. Have I mentioned that GWB is a motherfucker? Because he just buried his head in the sand when he should have taken action to head things off at the pass no matter who was initially responsible. There is just not any real consumer confidence anymore. Things like NAFTA certainly contributed to it, but this economy and now global economy is far more complex than it was in the 50' 60's or even 70's. I don't know about you, but if I have the chance to buy something American made it gives me a hard on. I am willing to pay more for it. Entrepreneurship is virtually non existent, when I say that I mean in the areas of research and development of things that are necessarily technical in nature. I think illegals are not helping our economy, yeah they do the agricultural and manual labor type things but they send a lot of money back to Mexico.

But the double edged sword is that even American companies that lead the world in technology still have their shit made overseas. You can't tell me that a iPhone that costs 1200 dollars can't be made for 30 dollars here and employ people in this country but they would rather make it for 15 in China. This isn't going to sound very Republican but corporate greed is playing a part in us not making things here but I also believe if we lower corporate tax rates that will encourage companies to invest more in R&D and introduce more products that people just can't live without. To bring jobs back here we are going to have to realize and more importantly, the American people are going to have to come to terms with "if you want jobs here" it costs more to make it here and it will cost you more but there will be a trade off that wages will be higher. Somebody has to take it to the mountain, prove that it works again and that they can employ people and still turn a profit. And I hate to say this but government sticking their noses in business isn't helping matters any. If I were to back a stimulus package in the hundreds of billions, I would have designated 200 billion to fund start ups that weren't necessarily technology based or green initiatives but in the basic things that Americans need and use all the time. Nothing like a little carrot dangling in front of innovative minds to kick them in the ass. And the condition for the funding would be that it had to be a completely American based company as would be the requirement for their employees. Then we might be able to start paying off the Chinese.

 

[xfire]

Man! This current economy is still feeling the effects of the near collapse of 2008. I have my feelings on the reasons for it that you may not necessarily agree with but sub prime lending is the culprit. Just another reason why government shouldn't decide who gets things and why I am a small government guy. Have I mentioned that GWB is a motherfucker? Because he just buried his head in the sand when he should have taken action to head things off at the pass no matter who was initially responsible. There is just not any real consumer confidence anymore. Things like NAFTA certainly contributed to it, but this economy and now global economy is far more complex than it was in the 50' 60's or even 70's. I don't know about you, but if I have the chance to buy something American made it gives me a hard on. I am willing to pay more for it. Entrepreneurship is virtually non existent, when I say that I mean in the areas of research and development of things that are necessarily technical in nature. I think illegals are not helping our economy, yeah they do the agricultural and manual labor type things but they send a lot of money back to Mexico.

But the double edged sword is that even American companies that lead the world in technology still have their shit made overseas. You can't tell me that a iPhone that costs 1200 dollars can't be made for 30 dollars here and employ people in this country but they would rather make it for 15 in China. This isn't going to sound very Republican but corporate greed is playing a part in us not making things here but I also believe if we lower corporate tax rates that will encourage companies to invest more in R&D and introduce more products that people just can't live without. To bring jobs back here we are going to have to realize and more importantly, the American people are going to have to come to terms with "if you want jobs here" it costs more to make it here and it will cost you more but there will be a trade off that wages will be higher. Somebody has to take it to the mountain, prove that it works again and that they can employ people and still turn a profit. And I hate to say this but government sticking their noses in business isn't helping matters any. If I were to back a stimulus package in the hundreds of billions, I would have designated 200 billion to fund start ups that weren't necessarily technology based or green initiatives but in the basic things that Americans need and use all the time. Nothing like a little carrot dangling in front of innovative minds to kick them in the ass. And the condition for the funding would be that it had to be a completely American based company as would be the requirement for their employees. Then we might be able to start paying off the Chinese.

I haven't been in a Wal*Mart in nine months, and I won't go back until there are more American made goods on their shelves. When I have a big ticket item I need to purchase I make sure to do the research and buy American if it's available. I'm not a fan of anything that comes from overseas, I don't care what it is, we can make it here and we should make it here. You get the GOP to start promoting MADE IN THE USA and I'll join. Enough of us united can make the Democrats bend on regulation, that's not to say that I'm opposed to sensible regulation, but if it's a stupid regulation, it needs to go. Get the GOP to realize that the federal government isn't the problem, but a partner to business, a check, a promoter, and defender and that we as Americans are all in this together and there might be some progress. Yes, government needs to "get out of the way", but they don't need to let corps run over the electorate or worse block for them. No corporation should have more power than the government and maybe that's the term going forward we should concentrate on. I agree with you, government should be small in stature but wield huge power, when the United States government, representatives of the The People speaks there should be no question, and that's where we come in electing decent leaders. Let's face it, China is a state-monopoly capitalist economy. They've got the whole business and manufacturing thing figured out and they're really geared up and kicking some serious manufacturing ass, but if we're smart going forward we can take back a big chunk of their success by reeling jobs back home, putting our own people to work and kick starting our own economy. The only way out of debt is increase our revenues and reduce our spending, once we're back on stable ground reevaluate and adjust accordingly. If we keep going at the pace we're going, both sides refusing to look at the other sides ideas and realize it's going to take a combination of ideas from both sides of the political spectrum to get things moving in the right direction then the worst of the doom and gloom conspiracy theorists very likely could come to pass, and no one wants that.

 

[Jack Davenport]

I haven't been in a Wal*Mart in nine months, and I won't go back until there are more American made goods on their shelves. When I have a big ticket item I need to purchase I make sure to do the research and buy American if it's available. I'm not a fan of anything that comes from overseas, I don't care what it is, we can make it here and we should make it here. You get the GOP to start promoting MADE IN THE USA and I'll join. Enough of us united can make the Democrats bend on regulation, that's not to say that I'm opposed to sensible regulation, but if it's a stupid regulation, it needs to go. Get the GOP to realize that the federal government isn't the problem, but a partner to business, a check, a promoter, and defender and that we as Americans are all in this together and there might be some progress. Yes, government needs to "get out of the way", but they don't need to let corps run over the electorate or worse block for them. No corporation should have more power than the government and maybe that's the term going forward we should concentrate on. I agree with you, government should be small in stature but wield huge power, when the United States government, representatives of the The People speaks there should be no question, and that's where we come in electing decent leaders. Let's face it, China is a state-monopoly capitalist economy. They've got the whole business and manufacturing thing figured out and they're really geared up and kicking some serious manufacturing ass, but if we're smart going forward we can take back a big chunk of their success by reeling jobs back home, putting our own people to work and kick starting our own economy. The only way out of debt is increase our revenues and reduce our spending, once we're back on stable ground reevaluate and adjust accordingly. If we keep going at the pace we're going, both sides refusing to look at the other sides ideas and realize it's going to take a combination of ideas from both sides of the political spectrum to get things moving in the right direction then the worst of the doom and gloom conspiracy theorists very likely could come to pass, and no one wants that.

I agree with every bit of that except we may be in disagreement on how exactly the revenue is enhanced. Here is the thing about Obama, I was NOT one of those that was saying that I hope he fails when he first took office. You gotta realize something, I was able to cast my vote in a Presidential election for the first time in 1984. I'm sorry, but I wasn't casting my vote for Walter Mondale the memories of the Carter administration was just too fresh in our minds even though I was very young. Forward to 2008... I knew Obama would win, McCain is like Hillary to republicans, a lot of us just didn't like him. Did you see the way that he steamrolled to the nomination? It really wasn't even close. I often wonder how it happened actually. He must have received a ton of moderate votes or the pool of candidates didn't excite anyone. Then he chooses Sarah freakin' Palin in a gimmick move. Now I pride myself in following politics closely but when she was introduced my jaw hit the floor. She may be a good conservative by every indication, but her lack of experience and to be honest education, was a deal breaker for me. My gut tells me she isn't ready for anything beyond county commissioner her rise to the governorship was Jesse Ventura -esque and she quit not because she wants to serve but because she wants money and to play to the conservative crowd. I am not even certain she is really a conservative . It may be the greatest political hoodwink in history. I did not vote in the 2008 election, there I admitted it.

Back to Obama, I was at a point in my life that I wanted to see if democrat policies work. But eventually I had to leave the reservation because I think he is more of an agenda driven ideologue in that, I mean he feels that his ideas should come at any cost because the United States is fundamentally flawed and he is going to make the most of his time in power. I just have never seen a president operate like that before. But then again, that is why the left worships him. Don't worry if I ever had the chance to meet him, I am sure would probably like him as a person. I agree with you also on making the US a manufacturing powerhouse again. I just don't know with what we have in Washington right now, that it is ever going to happen again.

Well this thread has been totally hijacked. I am waiting for that old man Mayhem to come in here and tell us to get off his lawn.