Bet you're sorry you voted for Obama now

[pattygreen 5]

That's the democrat's answer to every crisis! Spend away!!!!

Next time your family has a problem, go to Macy's. That might bring momentary pleasure, but when the credit card bill comes in, it needs to be paid off.

[pattygreen 5]

Obama made fiscal restraint a constant theme of his campaign. "Washington will have to tighten its belt and put off spending." "I will go through the federal budget line by line, ending programs that we don't need." Voters found this fiscal conservatism talk very reassuring. However, since he's been in office he has pushed through a $787 billion stimulus, a$33 billion expansion of the child health program known as S-chip, a $410 billion omnibus appropriations spending bill, and an $80 billion dollar car company bailout. He also pushed through an $821 billion cap and trade bill throught the house and now is urging Congress to pass a nearly $1 TRILLION HC Bill! An honest appraisel of the nation's finances would recommend dropping the last two mentioned! The federal deficit when he was sworn in was stood at $422 billion. At the end of October it stood at $1.4 TRILLION!!!!!!! The total National debt also soared to $7.5 Trillion at the end of last month, up from 6.3 trillion shortly after inauguration day.

What seems to concern the president is not the problem runaway spending poses for the tax payer and the economy, but the political problem it poses for democrats. That's why he He announced this week that he is considering creating a commission to figure out how to fisx this budget mess! Wow! another commisssion to pay and give extravagant benefits to! I can dfigure it out it for free! STOP THE SPENDING!!!!!!!!!!

[tdslf1 0]

Isn't tightening the belt the only answer you come up with? Please post exactly your answer for what could help us beyond that, since you seem to have all the answers. And please don't come back with, I don't know beyond belt adjustment. Apparently, that according to experts would not have worked. Then please, state your expertise in this area,..urg..Geithners ex-assistant, Lawrence's protege, something beyond, drill baby drill and all us hethens need to follow the bible, then the world would magically be wonderful. Past practises apparently would not work as well. I trust people who have the expertise to know what the choice we need to make say and I definitely know MY limitations, otherwise I would be making Gates money using this skills. Since you seem to be the expert, enlighten us all with fact, not religion, but fact since us Democrats know nothing about loving and our country enough to think long term.

[pattygreen 5]

Tort reform. This is money. A low end estimates about a half a trillion per decade. Part is simply bled into the legal system to benefit a few jackpot lawsuit winners and an army of rich extravagant malepractice lawyers like John Edwards. The rest is wasted within the medical system in the millions of unnecessary tests, procedures and referrals undertaken solely to fend of lawsuits. Resources wasted on patients who don't need them and which could be redirected to the uninsured who do. In the 4000 plus page bill there is no tort reform. The house bill actually penalizes states that "DARE" "limit attornys' fees or impose caps on damages. Why? Because as Howard Dean has openly admitted, "Democrats don't want to take on the trial lawyers." He didn't need to say why. (They give millions to the democrats for precisely this kind of protection.)

Also, get rid of the forbidding of buying HI over state lines. Why not allow interstate competition? After all, you can buy oranges across state lines. If you couldn't, oranges would be extremely expensive in Wisconsin, especially in winter. And the answer to the resulting high orange prices in Wisconsin? An established federally run orange growing company to introduce competition? No. It would be to allow Wisconsin to buy Florida oranges!

Neither of those 2 things, (tort reform or interstate allowance of medical insurance sales) is in the bill, because that would obviate the need-the excuse- for the public option, which the left wing of the Democratic party sees (correctly) as the royal road to socialized medicine!

The better choice is targeted measures that attack the inefficiencies of the current system one by one: tort reform, interstae purchasing and taxing employee benefits. It would take 20 pages to write such a bill, not 2000, and provide the funds to cover the uninsured without wrecking U.S. Health Care and the treasury.

[pattygreen 5]

If anyone expected an address By Obama about peace in our time a few days ago as he accepted his Nobel peace prize, they didn't get it. He stated clearly that sometimes war is necessary to defend the peaceable and to serve justice and liberty. He even hit the George W. Bush note that "evil does exist in the world."

[pattygreen 5]

3 things to address in the next year;

1. dismantling the tax code and instituting a flat tax.

2. disassembling the two-party system. open elections of the best men and women for the job without party restrictions in any part of the process along with term limits.

3. strict regulation of the banking industry according to the basic premises of a free market system.

These 3 address what is at the core of America's problems today: our money and the politicians who are handling it.

We want the gov. to do its job which rests primarily in fairly representing U.S. interests on the global stage while state gov. manages its citizen's affairs, with little national government interference except in small, critical measurement. What we have now is federal highjacking of state affairs-H.Care, gun control, immigration and education to name a few, and little progress in international policy for more than 2 decades now. This isn't about taking Washington from the democrats, it's about taking America from from the hands of Washington altogether.

[tdslf1 0]

Some of us realist got just what we expected. Even as I took great joy in electing him, I personally understand that if you promise 10 things and only accomplish 5, your going to lose the 2 or 3 issue voter. "He doesn't get me healthcare, I won't vote for him again". " He keeps adding to the debt." Most are sideline players, of which I put myslelf, who seem to be balking at the heavy lifting that needs to get done. I call this punking out or selling wolf tickets after the fact. "Ohhh, this is not the change I signed up for" I hear a lot of people say. I say, grow up. Not all of your wants for this administration will get through, definitely not in the first year, but somethings will. You want to be a one or 3 issue voter, go ahead and stick to the small picture. Some of us are looking at the more broader picture. So, yes some of us got what we expected and are pleased by our POTUS's tone and humility.

[Drilldoc 0]

Not yet and I will tell you why.

Firstly, he walked into a crisis. A financial crisis that was built to a sunami by the time he got to it and to minimize the damage, he had to spend. Too many things falling as he walks in the door, means you have to grab whatever is falling and will do the most damage if it hits the floor. That just happen to be the banks. Which is what would have took us all down with them. I have no problem with that. Cut a limb off to save the rest of the body. Nobody seems to get that. Half the people on here had no problem thinking about spending money when we went to war, but now that that war has cost us being solid financially, people have their tale in a bunch. Ever promise he has made he has started to get done. Give the guy a break, this is only the first year. Besides, according to experts, we would have had a worst and deeper recession if they would not have taken the steps they have taken. Like all the things that need to get done will be done overnight, amatures, the lot of ya....

I would still like to hear someone tell me what Obama or Congress has done for them. Remember congress passes the laws. Bush didn’t make the policies that caused the collapse. Did anyone remember that bush had a Dem congress and house passing laws. I can’t understand why everyone hated Bush when the congress voted to go to war and help deregulate the finical system that allowed this to happen. As we have seen Obama’s no different than Bush. Everyone’s hate is directed at a focal point (Bush) when the problem is that the people we elect to REPERESENT us don’t give a dam about us. If you keep looking to government to change our lives you will only get the change they want.

[Erin Marie 0]

I am completely still on the Obama train. I'm so proud of how he's healing our image and relations with other countries and is setting an example for everyone with his beautiful wife and girls. If he did nothing else in his administration, and I mean nothing, I would be content. But I know he's not going to stop, he'll keep pushing down walls and I will continue to proudly say I voted for him.

[pattygreen 5]

I would still like to hear someone tell me what Obama or Congress has done for them. Remember congress passes the laws. Bush didn’t make the policies that caused the collapse. Did anyone remember that bush had a Dem congress and house passing laws. I can’t understand why everyone hated Bush when the congress voted to go to war and help deregulate the finical system that allowed this to happen. As we have seen Obama’s no different than Bush. Everyone’s hate is directed at a focal point (Bush) when the problem is that the people we elect to REPERESENT us don’t give a dam about us. If you keep looking to government to change our lives you will only get the change they want.

I agree wholeheartedly!!! Congress does pass the laws, and Congress has been mostly democratic for all these years. They are the ones we need to find new jobs for.

[pattygreen 5]

I am completely still on the Obama train. I'm so proud of how he's healing our image and relations with other countries and is setting an example for everyone with his beautiful wife and girls. If he did nothing else in his administration, and I mean nothing, I would be content. But I know he's not going to stop, he'll keep pushing down walls and I will continue to proudly say I voted for him.

Our image, our relationship with other countries, and his family? You are content with that?

I am just a regular old citizen here and could accomplish that. You should see my family, they're wonderful. But it doesn't do anything for the country he is supposed to be running.

[tdslf1 0]

Drilldoc,

I happen to be one of those people who understand that Congress and we have more blame than Bush or Obama because presidents are puppets. Congress won't let them do anything Congress doesn't want. We won't let them do anything we don't want. I don't blame Bush or Obama for all the economic things that have happened. My tally is this:

Congress-40 %

President-20%

American People-40%

So Obama is better than Bush since he has only been in office a year. Bush, 8 years, makes him more responsible than Obama if you look at length of time in office.

[Cleo's Mom 257]

I would still like to hear someone tell me what Obama or Congress has done for them. Remember congress passes the laws. Bush didn’t make the policies that caused the collapse. Did anyone remember that bush had a Dem congress and house passing laws. I can’t understand why everyone hated Bush when the congress voted to go to war and help deregulate the finical system that allowed this to happen. As we have seen Obama’s no different than Bush. Everyone’s hate is directed at a focal point (Bush) when the problem is that the people we elect to REPERESENT us don’t give a dam about us. If you keep looking to government to change our lives you will only get the change they want.

Congress went to the democrats in 2006, so bush had a republican congress for the first 6 years of his administration.

What bush did was take a surplus and turn it into a deficit in 3 ways:

1) Two wars (the one in Iraq unnecessary)

2) Tax cut to the rich

3) Medicare part D (huge giveaway to pharma - about a trillion over 10 years)

All of the above was done with almost no debate, no demand for what they would cost - nothing, just pushed through.

The de-regulation of wall street during his and the previous congress caused the economic collapse. The unemployment was rising for all 12 months of 2008, bush's last year.

Also it was under BUSH that the bank bailouts started - the most unpopular of government interventions.

But people expected that unemployment would be reduced by half the day after Obama took office.

Here is what Obama and his democratic congress has done;

1) Stopped the economic freefall that would have led to a depression had it not been addressed. The stimulus is responsible for this. NOT ONE REPUBLICAN VOTED FOR THIS IN CONGRESS AND ONLY 3 IN THE SENATE.

2) Slowed the loss of jobs from 700,000 month to 11,000.

The unemployment would probably be near 15-20% if he hadn't. Again, the stimulus - saved or created 1.6 million jobs.

3) The banks are paying back the money we loaned them and the bailout is costing less than originally thought. Now some of that payback will go to a jobs program and some to pay down debt - both good.

4) Is addressing the healthcare problems facing this country that had been completely ignored by bush and congress. Their plan: go to the ER. People without healthcare are dying. That is unacceptable in a rich country like ours. AGAIN, NO REPUBLICAN SUPPORT.

5) Is addressing global warming and promoting renewable, clean energy alternatives which will create jobs. Also good.

6) Signed the Lilly Ledbetter act that allows women (or men) to file a lawsuit should they find that they were paid less than their male counterparts. It gives them 6 months to file after their last paycheck. AGAIN, NO REPUBLICAN SUPPORT.

I find those who protest bush in the streets (eg. teabaggers) to be hypocritical. They claim to be opposed to expanding government, the deficit, and government in their healthcare.

Where were they when bush was running up the debt? Where were they when bush expanded the government (creating new departments)? Where were they when bush expanded the government in healthcare with medicare part D or just the government healthcare programs in general - medicare, medicaid, VA benefits (all popular)? Where were they when the government LITERALLY injected itself in a personal, family end of life decision (that happens all the time, everyday) in the Terry Schiavo case? Congress tried to get between a husband and his decision for his brain dead wife. WOW, now that government interference.

So, I will continue to say what I have said all along. Those who protest are just anti-Obama. Their reasons ring hollow and hypocritical. These are people who didn't and never would vote for him and just want him to fail.

[tdslf1 0]

Yeah, what cleo mom said!!!!

[tdslf1 0]

Drilldoc,

What exactly did Bush do for you?