pattygreen

I just needed to respond by telling you that I had an out loud chuckle as I read this response to Phil. You're sooooo funny!:thumbup:

As far as they are concerned, when it's something good that's getting done, Obama gets the credit. When it's not good, it's because of the last 8 years of Bush's doings.

Congratulations on your new baby. May God bless her. Patty

What about the graph I posted above? Bush deficits vs. Obama's deficits. That graph clearly shows that Obama is wreckless with his spending. Oh, I know you say he "had" to spend all that, but come on!, ALL that? Really, that is very, very irresponsible. His spending sprees are breaking us!

I didn't write that. I cut and pasted it. Even so, the "LOL" is not about laughing at the procedure, it's laughing at the hypocrisy of liberals. They don't have a problem with the 'way' that babies are murdered, (inhumanely with excrutiating pain), yet they have a problem with the "way" a murderer is executed.(painlessly and humanely) How hypocritical!

Another hypocritical liberal talking again. Quite a few of these political threads intertwine with political talk and don't always stick to the subject. You do it all the time. You also cut and paste articles all the time. WOW! It's okay when you do it, but I can't? Your websites are all liberal,so mine are all conservative, of course. Did you even read the articles? They were very imformative and truthful. They explained that the CBO isn't always factual, and that the reps. have some great ideas, and that the stimulus was a bust.

We tend to think the White House's forays into media criticism are the sincerest form of flattery, so we're glad to join the ranks of Politico and Fox News as a target. In a White House blog post Tuesday, Obama economic adviser Jared Bernstein writes that "somebody over at the Wall St. Journal's editorial page has a whole lot of explaining to do" about our criticisms of the $787 billion economic stimulus. Once more into the breach! Mr. Bernstein claims vindication on the basis of a new Congressional Budget Office report that finds that 600,000 to 1.6 million more people are employed and GDP is 1.2% to 3.2% higher than if Congress had done nothing. After rehearsing some of our greatest hits—"It's hard to imagine a more complete repudiation of Keynesian stimulus than the evidence of the last year's job market"—Mr. Bernstein says that we're "more interested in scoring political points" than acknowledging the stimulus reality. We stand by our economic judgment, but it doesn't have much to do with politics, which we'll leave to the White House experts who today will stage a "jobs summit." We'll go out on a limb and predict nothing of substance will come of this event—except maybe cheerleading for a second stimulus—though it does reveal the deepening political panic over the unemployment rate that rose to 10.2% in October and might stay high long enough to affect the 2010 election. (Sorry, that's political.) The 10.2% rate may be a sore point in particular for Mr. Bernstein, who along with Council of Economic Advisers Chair Christina Romer helped to sell the spending stimulus in January by predicting it would keep the jobless rate below . . . 8%. If the current jobs market counts as stimulus success, we'd hate to see what the White House considers failure. A word about that CBO report: It sets up a nonfalsifiable standard for judging the Administration's policies by using large macroeconomic forecasting models, including a Keynesian "multiplier" that says each dollar government injects into the economy yields more than a dollar in output. "The ranges for multipliers . . . are the same ones that CBO used in its initial analysis of the economic effects" in March, CBO's report admits. This is also, ahem, the same theory and more or less the same model that Mr. Bernstein used in his now-infamous stimulus paper. More relevant to the real world, this modeling is single-entry economic bookkeeping. No one ever doubted that the stimulus spree would create or "save" some jobs, but the problem is that the money comes out of the private sector in the form of higher taxes or borrowing. If $1 is devoted to transfer payments—such as jobless benefits or Medicaid like so much of the stimulus—then a $1 net gain in economic growth will register in the GDP accounts. But that $1 has to come from someone or some business in the private economy that might have put it to more productive, job-creating uses. Economists call this a substitution effect. These new jobs that aren't created don't get picked up in Bernstein-CBO econometric models, but their loss leaves the economy less prosperous overall. What can be measured with greater, if not perfect, accuracy is how many new jobs are being created across the economy, and how many people want to work but can't find a job. On those counts, the stimulus has been a manifest bust, much as the critics who appeared on our pages predicted. As the recovery continues, sooner or later the economy will begin to create new jobs, thank heaven. But the stimulus won't have much do with it, except insofar as the higher taxes to finance the runaway spending further retard private investment and hiring. Meanwhile, the millions of Americans currently looking for work can rejoice in Mr. Bernstein's jobs boom. ()Wall street journal opinion)

Wrong From The Start: Top 10 Outrageous Claims About the Democrats' Trillion-Dollar 'Stimulus' Washington Dems Head Into Tomorrow's "Jobs Summit" With a Serious Credibility Problem Washington, Dec 2, 2009 - Follow @GOPLeader on Twitter for updates. The White House will convene a “jobs summit” tomorrow against a backdrop of rising unemployment, soaring debt, and declining public confidence in the Obama Administration’s economic program. Washington Democrats staked their credibility on a nearly that was supposed to be about putting people back to work, but has instead produced countless examples of wasteful government spending while more than three million more Americans have lost their jobs. Even the accounting methods designed to keep track of the ‘stimulus’ have been widely discredited. Given the last 11 months of outrageous ‘stimulus’ claims, the American people are right to wonder whether Washington Democrats can be trusted to create jobs and cut the deficit: 1. UNEMPLOYMENT "AT EIGHT PERCENT OR BELOW" CLAIM:“Just 10 days before taking office, Obama’s top economic advisers [Christina Romer & Jared Bernstein] released a report predicting unemployment would remain at eight percent or below through this year if an economic stimulus plan won congressional approval.” (Associated Press, 6/14/09) FACT: The nation’s unemployment rate now stands at 10.2%. The President and several members of his economic team explicitly stated that the ‘stimulus’ was needed to avert double-digit unemployment. 2. IMPACT FELT "IMMEDIATELY" CLAIM: “Q: If the president gets his way and gets this package approved, he signs it into law, how soon before -- the American public starts to feel results, the creation of jobs? NATIONAL ECONOMIC COUNCIL DIRECTOR LAWRENCE SUMMERS: You’ll see the effects begin almost immediately.” (CNN, 2/9/09) FACT: The U.S. economy has lost more than three million jobs since the trillion-dollar ‘stimulus’ became law. One House Democrat this week referred to the ‘stimulus’ as the “jobless American Recovery Act.” A recent survey found that fewer than one in ten Americans believe the ‘stimulus’ has helped create jobs. 3. "90 PERCENT ... PRIVATE SECTOR" CLAIM: “More than 90 percent of the jobs created by this plan will be in the private sector.” – President Obama (News conference, 2/9/09) FACT: “Although President Obama initially said that 90 percent of the jobs created by the stimulus program would be in the private sector, the data suggests that well over half of the jobs claimed so far have been in the public sector.” (The New York Times, 11/4/09) 4. "NO EARMARKS OR PET PROJECTS" CLAIM: “There will be no earmarks or pet projects in this bill.” – Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (Floor statement, 2/13/09) FACT: The trillion-dollar ‘stimulus’ has produced countless examples of wasteful government spending, including repairs to a bridge that reportedly carries about 260 cars per day, many to a place called Rusty’s Backwater Saloon in Wisconsin, and in North Carolina, where ‘stimulus’ funds were reportedly used by one town to hire a new worker whose job is to apply for more ‘stimulus’ funds from Washington. 5. "A VERY FISCALLY SOUND PACKAGE" CLAIM: “We must make sure the public understands this is a very fiscally sound package.” – Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Talk Radio News Service, 3/10/09) FACT: With the help of the trillion-dollar ‘stimulus,’ the Obama Administration spent more in its first 100 days than all previous presidents have combined. The national debt has topped $12 trillion for the first time in U.S. history. The federal government is now operating on a budget that doubles the national debt in five years and triples it in ten. 6. "A LOT MORE JOBS CREATED" CLAIM: “The second hundred days you’re going to see a lot more jobs created.” – Vice President Joe Biden (ABC’s This Week, 7/5/09) FACT: The U.S. economy lost roughly 930,000 jobs in June, July, and August. It was during this period that the President proclaimed he could “see a light at the end of the tunnel.” 7. "A LOT MORE AMMUNITION LEFT" CLAIM: “There is a lot more ammunition left in the stimulus package.” – Jared Bernstein, the Vice President's chief economist(CNNMoney.com, 10/30/09) FACT: “The government’s economic stimulus spending has already had its biggest impact and probably won’t contribute to significant growth next year, a top White House adviser said Thursday.” (Associated Press, 10/22/09) “An interesting tidbit from Dr. Christina Romer’s testimony before the Joint Economic Committee. Citing economic analysts she says the fiscal stimulus will have its greatest impact on growth in the second and third quarters of 2009. (Editor’s note – those quarters are now behind us).” (ABC News, 10/22/09) 8. MORE WORK, NOT MORE JOBS CLAIM: “I think we got the Recovery Act right. … It may be desirable to have a given amount of work shared among more people. But that’s not as desirable as expanding the total amount of work.” – National Economic Council Director Lawrence Summers (The Washington Post, 11/8/09) FACT: The Obama Administration’s attempt to suddenly make job creation seem like a lesser goal of the trillion-dollar ‘stimulus’ flies in the face of numerous public statements made in the days before the bill was passed, including the President’s statement that creating jobs was his “bottom-line number one.” 9. RAISES SAVE JOBS CLAIM: “If I give you a raise, it is going to save a portion of your job.” – Department of Health and Human Services spokesman (Associated Press, 11/4/09) FACT: This is one of several attempts by the Obama Administration to define a job “saved or created” by the ‘stimulus.’ In this particular case, the AP found “more than 9,300 existing employees in more than 9,300 existing employees in hundreds of local agencies who received pay raises and benefits and whose jobs weren’t saved.” In a newly released report, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office states that “it is impossible to determine how many of the reported jobs would have existed in the absence of the stimulus package.” 10. "YOU HAVEN'T SEEN WASTEFUL SPENDING" CLAIM: “We’ve been in business seven, eight months. You haven’t seen wasteful spending. No one has said we spent $2 million on things that didn’t exist.” – Vice President Joe Biden (The Daily Show, 11/17/09) FACT: “Stimulus jobs reported in non-existent congressional districts. … Of all the problems found in the latest round of stimulus reporting, add another one: congressional districts that don’t exist. ABC News reported yesterday that White House officials have found 700 mistakenly credited congressional districts out of more than 130,000 stimulus grants.” (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 11/18/09) “The reports on jobs created or saved by the $787 billion economic stimulus package are ‘riddled with inaccuracies and contradictions,’ the federal watchdog overseeing the spending acknowledged Thursday.” (USA TODAY, 11/19/09) BONUS. REPUBLICAN SOLUTIONS CLAIM: “Vice President Biden offered an impassioned defense of the Obama administration’s policies on the economy, health care, and energy this morning… He chastised administration opponents for not offering alternatives to solve the problems of the nation.” (Philadelphia Inquirer, 11/23/09) FACT: “House Republicans Press Obama on Job Creation. House Republicans sent a letter to President Barack Obama today, pushing the administration to seek more business tax breaks as a way to boost the number of new jobs. … Republicans say in their letter that they’re hoping to work with the White House toward a bipartisan jobs plan.” (WSJ Washington Wire, 10/7/09) The proposals contained in House Republicans’ October letter, some of which were presented to President Obama as early as his first week in office, were developed by House Republicans' Economic Recovery and Health Care solutions groups. Republican Whip Eric Cantor (R-VA), who heads up the Economic Recovery Solutions Group, will discuss additional proposals to spur job creation in a speech today at the Heritage Foundation

First . . . we must tear down self-imposed obstacles to economic growth and wealth creation. The prospect of a barrage of tax increases, new government regulation, and costly government mandates have had a paralyzing impact on our job creators. As the CEO of a steelmaker recently told the Wall Street Journal “I am not going to do anything until these things – health care, climate legislation – go away or are resolved. Therefore Congress and the Administration should stop the deluge of detrimental rules and regulations. Since taking office, the administration has put on the table over 100 detrimental regulations each with an impact of $100 million or more on the economy. The President should issue an executive order mitigating the impact of any proposed rule that would adversely affect jobs, the economy and small businesses. Second . . . we should agree to block any federal tax increases until unemployment drops below 5 percent. That includes any new taxes to pay for more spending or any automatic tax increases embedded in federal law. Americans of all political stripes can agree that the government should never raise taxes during periods of high unemployment. The revenues higher taxes will generate are better off in the pockets of families and small businesses. Third . . . we need to restore confidence in America’s economic future. Record deficits and debts – coupled with runaway spending – have shaken confidence in our economic future. Many believe that the only solutions will be higher taxes or inflating the dollar, which promise lasting pain for small businesses and working families. One Simple solution is to freeze domestic discretionary spending at last year’s level without raising taxes. This would save U.S. taxpayers $53 billion immediately, but more importantly it would send a signal that we are committed to lowering the deficit. Fourth . . . we should reform the unemployment system to help people out of work find jobs. Federal unemployment recipients who are likely to exhaust benefits should be required to participate in education, training or enhanced job searches. A similar program in Ohio resulted in the return on investment of 5 to 1 in terms of savings compared to program costs. In Georgia, there’s another example of how states are experimenting and paving the way. An innovative program places unemployment insurance recipients in part time jobs with the UI as their benefit. At the end of a six-week trial period, the employer makes a decision about whether to hire them. The initiative has resulted in quicker returns to work and less unemployment payments. Why not bring this kind of creative, outside-the-box thinking to Washington? Furthermore, declining, negative balances in unemployment trust funds will force states to implement payroll tax increases on employers this year. These will average almost $250 per worker per year through 2012. The federal government could help ease the burden on employers by immediately suspending the Federal unemployment tax. This would save employers $56 per worker per year. And the $7 billion a year “cost” of this tax suspension could be offset through a reduction of improper government payments, which according to the Administration’s own count totaled $98 billion last fiscal year. That’s an increase of $26 billion over the previous year Fifth . . . we need to approve three promising free trade agreements with Colombia, South Korea and Panama that have stalled under the new administration. Recently the President stated that increasing U.S. exports by just 1% would create over 250,000 jobs. Sure enough, the independent International Trade Commission estimates that the three deals would boost U.S. exports by over 1 percent. We urge President Obama and Congress to stand on the side of job creation and quickly approve these agreements. Sixth . . . we must take action to reduce regulatory and tax barriers that inhibit domestic job creation. Federal regulations and tax law often make it easier for large companies to create jobs overseas instead of here at home. Efforts should be taken to ensure the most favorable environment possible for domestic job creation. For example we should act immediately to remove unnecessary obstacles to domestic energy production. Tapping more heavily into oil, natural gas, shale, nuclear and renewable sources will lower costs, create jobs and reduce our reliance on foreign oil. We can also provide an incentive for companies to repatriate earnings back to the United States. Currently any profits a U.S. based company earns abroad are taxed at the 35% corporate tax rate when those earnings are brought back into the U.S. As a result companies often keep their earnings stranded in subsidiaries overseas. In 2004, Congress allowed companies a limited time to repatriate foreign profits and pay a reduced tax rate of 5.25%. The policy resulted in more than $350 billion dollars of profits being returned to the U.S. and a windfall to the Treasury of about $18 billion in tax revenue. Providing another limited window for repatriation of foreign earnings would help U.S. companies retain domestic workers and weather the current economic downturn. Finally, we must deal swiftly and honestly with the looming commercial real estate collapse. Congress should move to give bank regulators incentives to deal responsibly with banks and their borrowers. Forcing liquidation of performing loans makes no sense. If regulators assume a prudent posture towards risk the badly wounded credit markets could then begin the process of repair. In addition, reducing the over-extended depreciation standard – currently a whopping 39 and ½ years to 20 years or less - would provide a lift to property values and bring some common sense to the tax code. These are Seven Simple Solutions that don’t involve massive new government spending, new bureaucracies, or more debt. They are based on time-honored principles proven to create jobs and ultimately economic prosperity in America. Eric Cantor (R-VA)

I like this plan: The president should start by extending the Republicans’ 2001 and 2003 tax cuts and reducing tax rates for individuals, small businesses and corporations. This will have an immediate positive effect on the economy. Threatening to end the Bush tax cuts or raising taxes to pay for new entitlement programs will only prolong the recession and increase unemployment. Small businesses are the workhorse of the American economy — they employ the most people and create the innovative ideas that keep America on top. To help them succeed President Obama should consider eliminating the tax on both personal and corporate capital gains. This simple act would encourage greater investment in small businesses, and it would also end the anti-competitive practice of punitive double taxation of the American public. The president should also let small businesses join together like labor unions and large businesses do to purchase health insurance for their employees. This will free up the capital needed for new investments and new hires, not to mention put us on the right path toward real health care reform. It is no secret that Americans are desperately looking for dependable jobs, and all too often America’s laws and regulations make it more profitable to ship jobs overseas rather than create jobs here in America. President Obama needs to remove the regulatory barriers currently in place on domestic energy production and start providing incentives for companies to bring their earnings back to America by reducing the corporate tax rate. If the United States is lending billions of dollars to produce oil and gas in Brazil, President Obama should make the same type of investment in energy here at home. To demonstrate America’s commitment to fiscal responsibility and lowering our staggering national deficit, President Obama should freeze domestic discretionary spending at last year’s level. America’s deficit is hurting our economic standing in the world, and this step would help put us back on the right track. The bottom line is that President Obama should put his faith in the bottom-up entrepreneurial spirit of the American people to create jobs — not the top-down bureaucratic machinery of Washington, D.C. This country has been through dark times before, and it has always responded with bigger, brighter and better ideas to foster the country’s return to economic dominance. There is no reason this time around should be any different. All it requires is a president who believes in the power of the American people more than he believes in the power of his government. Michael Steele is chairman of the Republican National Committee.

And you ignored this, except to say that "he had to spend all that money to get us out of Bush's mess". Bush Deficit vs. Obama Deficit in Pictures President Barack Obama has repeatedly claimed that his budget would cut the deficit by half by the end of his term. But as Heritage analyst Brian Riedl has pointed out, given that Obama has already helped quadruple the deficit with his stimulus package, pledging to halve it by 2013 is hardly ambitious. The Washington Post has a great graphic which helps put President Obama’s budget deficits in context of President Bush’s. What’s driving Obama’s unprecedented massive deficits? Spending. Riedl details: President Bush expanded the federal budget by a historic $700 billion through 2008. President Obama would add another $1 trillion. President Bush began a string of expensive finan­cial bailouts. President Obama is accelerating that course. President Bush created a Medicare drug entitle­ment that will cost an estimated $800 billion in its first decade. President Obama has proposed a $634 billion down payment on a new govern­ment health care fund. President Bush increased federal education spending 58 percent faster than inflation. Presi­dent Obama would double it. President Bush became the first President to spend 3 percent of GDP on federal antipoverty programs. President Obama has already in­creased this spending by 20 percent. President Bush tilted the income tax burden more toward upper-income taxpayers. President Obama would continue that trend. President Bush presided over a $2.5 trillion increase in the public debt through 2008. Setting aside 2009 (for which Presidents Bush and Obama share responsibility for an additional $2.6 trillion in public debt), President Obama’s budget would add $4.9 trillion in public debt from the beginning of 2010 through 2016. UPDATE: Many Obama defenders in the comments are claiming that the numbers above do not include spending on Iraq and Afghanistan during the Bush years. They most certainly do. While Bush did fund the wars through emergency supplementals (not the regular budget process), that spending did not simply vanish. It is included in the numbers above. Also, some Obama defenders are claiming the graphic above represents biased Heritage Foundation numbers. While we stand behind the numbers we put out 100%, the numbers, and the graphic itself, above are from the Washington Post. We originally left out the link to WaPo. It has now been added. CLARIFICATION: Of course, this Washington Post graphic does not perfectly delineate budget surpluses and deficits by administration. President Bush took office in January 2001, and therefore played a lead role in crafting the FY 2002-2008 budgets. Presidents Bush and Obama share responsibility for the FY 2009 budget deficit that overlaps their administrations, before President Obama assumes full budgetary responsibility beginning in FY 2010. Overall, President Obama’s budget would add twice as much debt as President Bush over the same number of years. ___

I don't agree. I believe that if you left it alone, it would have bounced back on its own. Do you really think that Americans would have kept from spending their money indefinitely? There would have been some discomfort, and some job losses, and some problems, and some sacrificing to do, but no one would have starved. There would have been no debt, that this country can't get out of either.

You always talk to me about ignoring what the economist's say, and you are doing the same thing. Originally Posted by pattygreen By MICHAEL J. BOSKIN President Barack Obama's 2011 budget lays out a stunningly expensive big-government spending agenda, mostly to be paid for years down the road. He proposes to increase capital gains, dividend, payroll, income and energy taxes. But the enormous deficits and endless accumulation of debt will eventually force growth-inhibiting income tax hikes, a national value-added tax similar to those in Europe, or severe inflation. On average, in the first three years of the 10-year budget plan, federal spending rises by 4.4% of GDP. That's more than during President Lyndon Johnson's Great Society and Vietnam War buildup and President Ronald Reagan's defense buildup combined. In those same three years, spending on average hits the highest level in American history (25.1% of GDP), save the peak of World War II. The average deficit of $1.4 trillion (9.6% of GDP) is over three times the previous 2008 record. Remarkably, President Obama will add more red ink in his first two years than President George W. Bush—berated by conservatives for his failure to control domestic spending and by liberals for the explosion of military spending in Iraq and Afghanistan—did in eight. In his first 15 months, Mr. Obama will raise the debt burden—the ratio of the national debt to GDP—by more than Reagan did in eight years. Some specific proposals are laudable: permanently indexing the Alternative Minimum Tax for inflation, part of the increased R&D funding, reform of agriculture subsidies, a future freeze on one-sixth of the budget (only after it balloons for two years). But these are swamped by the huge expansion and centralization of government. True, as he often reminds us, President Obama inherited a recession and fiscal mess. Much of the deficit is the natural and desirable result of the deep recession. As tax revenues fall much more rapidly than income, these so-called automatic stabilizers cushioned the decline in after-tax income and helped natural business-cycle dynamics and monetary policy stabilize the economy. But Mr. Obama and Congress added hundreds of billions of dollars a year of ineffective "stimulus" spending—more accurately characterized as social engineering and pork—when far more effective, less expensive options were available. The Obama 10-year budget—unprecedented in its spending, taxes, deficits and accumulation of debt—is by a large margin the most risky fiscal strategy in American history. In his Feb. 1 budget message, Mr. Obama said, "We cannot continue to borrow against our children's future." But that is exactly what he proposes to do. He projects a cumulative deficit of $11.5 trillion by 2020. That brings the publicly held debt (excluding debt held inside the government, e.g., Social Security) to 77% of GDP, and the gross debt to over 100%. Presidents Reagan and George W. Bush each ended their terms at about 40%. The deficits are so large relative to GDP that the debt/GDP ratio keeps growing and then explodes as entitlement costs accelerate in subsequent decades. So worrisome is this debt outlook that Moody's warns of a downgrade on U.S. Treasury bonds, and major global finance powers talk of ending the dollar's reign as the global reserve currency. Ken Rogoff of Harvard and Carmen Reinhart of Maryland have studied the impact of high levels of national debt on economic growth in the U.S. and around the world in the last two centuries. In a study presented last month at the annual meeting of the American Economic Association in Atlanta, they conclude that, so long as the gross debt-GDP ratio is relatively modest, 30%-90% of GDP, the negative growth impact of higher debt is likely to be modest as well. But as it gets to 90% of GDP, there is a dramatic slowing of economic growth by at least one percentage point a year. The likely causes are expectations of much higher taxes, uncertainty over resolution of the unsustainable deficits, and higher interest rates curtailing capital investment. The Obama budget takes the publicly held debt to 73% and the gross debt to 103% of GDP by 2015, over this precipice. The president's economists peg long-run growth potential at 2.5% per year, implying per capita growth of 1.7%. A decline of one percentage point would cut this annual growth rate by over half. That's eventually the difference between a strong economy that can project global power and a stagnant, ossified society. Such vast debt implies immense future tax increases. Balancing the 2015 budget would require a 43% increase in everyone's income taxes that year. It's hard to imagine a worse detriment to economic growth. Presidents and political parties used to propose paths to a balanced budget. After almost doubling it, Mr. Obama proposes to substitute stabilizing the debt/GDP ratio, a much weaker goal. That goal requires balancing the budget excluding interest payments, the so-called primary budget. But he never achieves this, even after five and a half years of economic growth, withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan, and repaid financial bailouts. The 2015 budget still calls for a primary deficit of $181 billion. For perspective, returning 2015 spending to population growth plus inflation produces a primary surplus of $645 billion (3.3% of GDP). Mr. Obama's spending turns a short-run crisis into a medium-term debacle. Two factors greatly compound the risk from Mr. Obama's budget plan. He is running up this debt and current and future taxes just as the baby boomers are retiring and the entitlement cost problems are growing, which will necessitate major reform. (Mr. Obama didn't get any help from his predecessors: George W. Bush's growing Medicare prescription drug benefit was not funded, and Mr. Clinton's Social Security reform was a casualty of the Monica Lewinsky scandal.) And Mr. Obama's programs increase the fraction of people getting more money back from the government than the taxes they pay almost to 50%, just as the demographics on an aging population will drive it up further. That's an unhealthy political dynamic. Former Senate Majority Leader Howard Baker famously called Reaganomics—with its defense buildup, tax cuts and budget deficits—a "riverboat gamble." (Which, by the way, worked out well.) Mr. Obama's fiscal strategy is more akin to the voyage of the Titanic. Let's hope he changes course soon enough to prevent disaster. Mr. Boskin is a professor of economics at Stanford University and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution. When you post an economist's writing it's fact, when I do, it's a 'conservative's spin'.:thumbdown:

it is their opinion. It is not proof.

Here's a great form of hypocrisy on the liberal democrats part: Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) had scribbled notes on her hand during a speech she was giving, and not one Democrat Liberal said a word about it. They simply laughed it off, as if it were insignificant and nothing wrong with it. But let a conservative do that, and she's talked about incessively. Liberals can't seem to come up with any 'real' reason to hate Palin, so they need to talk about the petty things. The other night, while flicking through the channels, I came across an MSNBS anchor talking about how some FOX anchor man 'rolled his eyes' after an interview with Palin. You had to see the video of it to know what I'm talking about. He certainly didn't roll his eys at all. FOX even had this anchor man on and he said that he wasn't rolling his eyes, and that he thought Palin was wonderful and answered all his questions with confidence. This just goes to show you how liberals will go to such extremes to find petty crap about conservatives to mock them.

NANCY PELOSI'S "SWEATING TO THE SOCIALISTS" WORKOUT VIDEO! - Video - YouTube This is the funniest workout video I ever saw!

Yawn! If you say that one more time, you might really begin to believe it. As a matter of fact, whenever I am in a financial mess at my house, I go shopping. I just spend some more, and max out my cards. It always lifts my depression.:thumbup::thumbdown:

So, you're saying that without that cities order of buses, this particular bus making company would have gone out of business? Who says? Face it! That stimulus money was supposed to stimulate NEW jobs for the over 10% of Americans who are out of work, and it didn't stimulate SQUAT! All it did was buy a few buses for some city. This is happening with most of our money all over the nation, you can bet on it. That is why our unemployment rates are going up along with the debt of this nation. You liberals will not even admit when the government wastes a dime, cause your precious Obama might be criticized for it, and we can't have that, now can we?

Yes, we do care. Everyone, except you of course.The writer of that article is a professor of economics at Stamford. He certainly knows what he is talking about. I wouldn't consider it his 'spin'. The stimulus spending was ineffective, and Obama's plan for the economy is going to ruin us!!!!!!!!!!!

There is no way to prove that things would have been worse off without all that spending. You can yap all you want about it, but there is no way to show whether things would have been better or worse. I don't think they would have been. This country is just deeper into debt now instead!

I know. I know, it's all Bush's fault. :thumbdown: The economic mess maybe some of his fault, but the deficit is definitely Obama's mess. You keep trying to tell me that Obama needs to do all this spending to "fix" Bush's economic mess, yet he's spent plenty already and it's only getting worse. I know, I know, it would have been worse if he didn't spend all he did. right?:thumbup:

As fun as this is, I'm not going to participate any further. Hypocricy is on both sides of every debate. It's simply the sinful nature of mankind. I could pull up link after link of liberal hypocrits and so could you on conservatives. It's simply not productive. So, have fun everyone.

Liberal hypocrites should remember their own rage

The Winner Of The Liberal Hypocrite Award Is…. February 2, 2010 · carl · The nominees are….. Congressman and House Ways and Means Committee chairman and IRS overseer Charlie Rangel, for cheating on his income taxes. President Barack Obama,for spending what had to be tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars taking his wife Michelle on a date night to New York. OK, let’s move things along. Our final nominee is House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The envelope please. And the winner is………… Nancy Pelosi! Speaker Pelosi wins for her use of military aircraft not only to shuttle herself around, but used Air Force planes to give her children and grandchildren a ride, even when she or no other members of Congress were on board. Many will see this as an upset win for Pelosi, who spent more than 2 million taxpayer dollars flying here and there. The oddsmakers also must be annoyed, as most of them were counting on President Obama’s broken campaign promises to give him an edge in winning the trophy. Congratulations Madame Speaker. For you to do all of this wasteful spending in spite of President Obama’s calls for reducing the federal deficit, putting a freeze on discretionary spending, etc., you deserve the award for the top liberal hypocrite. (The freedom medium)

10 liberal hypocrites 10 Al Gore Hypocrisy: Carbon Footprint the Size of…Some Really Big Thing At his suburban Nashville home, Ex-Vice President Al Gore enjoyed the Oscar awarded to “An Inconvenient Truth,” the documentary on global warming in which he starred. But the Tennessee Center for Policy Research gained access to Gore’s utility bills for two years and published the gas and electric bills for his 20-room home and pool house. It turned out the home devoured nearly 221,000 kilowatt-hours in 2006, more than 20 times the national average of 10,656 kilowatt-hours. The Center’s president, Drew Johnson said, “If this were any other person with $30,000-a-year in utility bills, I wouldn’t care. But he tells other people how to live and he’s not following his own rules.” 9 Rosie O’Donnell Hypocrisy: No Guns For You, But My Guy Packs Heat On her television show, April 19, 1999, O’Donnell had this to say about gun owners: “I don’t care if you want to hunt. I don’t care if you think it’s your right. I say, ‘Sorry.’ It is 1999. We have had enough as a nation. You are not allowed to own a gun, and if you do own a gun I think you should go to prison.” Several months later, a bodyguard in her employ applied for a concealed gun permit from the Greenwich (Connecticut) Police Department. When queried about whether her bodyguard should carry a gun on May 24, 2000, she said, “I don’t personally own a gun, but if you are qualified, licensed and registered, I have no problem.” 8 Michael Moore Hypocrisy: War Investments, Non-Union Labor, Calling for the End of the American Dream While Living It Michael Moore is merciless in his criticism of oil and defense contractors; calling them ‘war profiteers.’ He also claims to have no stock portfolio, but at one time he owned shares in Halliburton, Honeywell and Boeing. He also expresses an affinity for Union labor, but does his post production work in Canada – where he doesn’t have to pay union wages. In one of his books he writes “Horatio Alger Must Die”, implying that the rags-to-riches story is a myth, and ultimately harmful to America. This from an unknown Flint, Michigan filmmaker who became a millionaire in Hollywood by making documentaries. 7 Gloria Steinem Hypocrisy: Getting Married After Condemning Marriage As Pointless For years, Gloria Steinem said that “A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle”, and that marriage has “a bad name”. Yet she married David Bale in 2000, preferring to enter into an institution she said made women “a semi-nonperson”. Sadly, Mr. Bale died three years later. 6 Nancy Pelosi Hypocrisy: Accepting Union Awards But Not Using Union Labor Nancy Pelosi bashes everyone who doesn’t use union labor–except herself. Shockingly, she still accepted the Cesar Chavez Award from the United Farmworkers Unions while using non-UFW workers on her Napa Valley Vineyard. She also praised the Hotel Employees and Restaurant Employees Union and took massive sums of money from them while keeping them out of her Hotel and chain of restaurants. Just paying the bills... 5 Barbara Streisand Hypocrisy: Coastline Protection Lawsuit Known for espousing pro-environmental views and criticizing those who don’t, Streisand sued the California Coastal Records Project, a landmark photographic database of over 12,000 frames of the California coast shot since 2002, asserting that the inclusion of a single frame that includes her blufftop Malibu estate invades her privacy, violates the “anti-paparazzi” statute, seeks to profit from her name, and threatens her security. Ms. Streisand, who purports to espouse the First Amendment right of freedom of speech (See “My Thoughts On Freedom of Speech” at barbrastreisand.com) apparently feels differently when the publication of a photograph shows her backyard. 4 Ted Kennedy Hypocrisy: Opposing Wind Power While Proposing Alternative Fuels Elsewhere Senator Kennedy has introduced dozens of pieces of legislation over the years to encourage the development of solar, hydrogen, and wind as alternatives to oil and coal. But he opposed the Cape Wind Project, which would build wind turbines in Nantucket Sound, about six miles off the coast from the Kennedy compound in Hyannis. The problem was not aesthetic; the Kennedys wouldn’t be able to actually see the turbines from their home. Instead Robert Kennedy Jr., who had been beating the drum for alternative sources of energy for more than a decade, complained that the project would be built in one of the family’s favorite sailing and yachting areas. Sen. Kennedy publicly called for further study of the project – but privately, he tried to get the study canceled. 3 Jesse Jackson Hypocrisy: Counseling on Adultery While Committing Adultery Jesse Jackson confessed that in 1998, at the very moment he was providing pastoral counseling to the White House’s Bill Clinton for his adultery with Monica Lewinski, he was carrying on an extramarital affair of his own, with a subordinate who later gave birth to his child. How could the nation’s premier civil rights leader have been so reckless? 2 Mary Beth Sweetland Hypocrisy: Protesting Animal Testing While Benefiting from Animal Testing A type-A diabetic, PETA Senior Vice President Mary Beth Sweetland keeps herself alive by injecting herself with insulin, which was developed from medical testing using dogs. She has been quoted as saying “I don’t see myself as a hypocrite. I need my life to fight for the rights of animals”. Penn Jillette gives her what-for: “ Not a hypocrite? Your group supports people who fire bomb labs where animal testing is conducted, while using the very benefits of animal testing to live your own upside-down, house of cards, !@#$ing privileged life”. In the clip above you can see Penn speaking – around the 5:20 mark. 1 US Labor Unions Hypocrisy: Using Non-Union Labor to Strike for Higher Union Wages Trade Unionism had been an important part of the liberal coalition within the Democratic party. In the late 1990’s, Unions began protesting the loss of jobs through outsourcing. By the 21st century, Unions began outsourcing picket lines to non-union, scab labor. The non-unionized workers were recruited from the most vulnerable of society willing to take on the most undignified type of work. The Unions offered no benefits, no healthcare, no job security, low pay, and intolerable working conditions. The Unions likewise paid in cash and did not collect taxes due to either federal, state, or local governments. Further, the Union’s exploitation of workers on outsourced picket lines contributed absolutely nothing to the workers Social Security retirement fund. Unions did not pay required Workers Compensation premiums for a hazardous job known to be risking life and limb. All this, so the greedy employer, in this case the Union, could enjoy higher living standards for themselves. [source: Outsourcing the Picket Line, By Keith L. Alexander, Washington Post, July 24, 2007.]