Good News/Bad News

[X-Terminator]

Can we at least agree that these kinds of deficits are much more harmful than good for this country in the long-term? All of this "he said, she said" BS is getting a bit tiresome. I'm not interested in who ran up what. I'm interested in what is going to be done to fix this problem before the country goes bankrupt.

[tony hipchest]

it depends.... can we agree that current deficit amounts were inherited and destined to continue to grow regardless of who was electd president?

social security
medicare/medicaid
wars
recession

3-4 presidents down the pike will still be dealing with this mess regardless of whether obama or mccain were elected.

that is the reality of the situation we live in. being in debt is never good. but it is the american way. it is the backbone of our financial institution and is the heartbeat of capitalism.

[X-Terminator]

Originally Posted by tony hipchest

it depends.... can we agree that current deficit amounts were inherited and destined to continue to grow regardless of who was electd president?

social security
medicare/medicaid
wars
recession

3-4 presidents down the pike will still be dealing with this mess regardless of whether obama or mccain were elected.

that is the reality of the situation we live in. being in debt is never good. but it is the american way. it is the backbone of our financial institution and is the heartbeat of capitalism.

Well then, it sounds to me like there are going to have to be some very unpopular decisions that will have to be made regarding spending, because the other way - massive tax increases - isn't going to be an acceptable one to the majority of the people. The question is who has the balls to do it? Obama apparently doesn't. Not sure if McCain would have, and if he did, would it have made a dent? Who knows. The bottom line is we need a President who doesn't give a shyt about "opinion polls" and will just do whatever he needs to do to keep the nation's economy robust and deficits to a minimum/eliminated. Unfortunately, that person does not exist, at least not now.

[MasterOfPuppets]

[YOUTUBE]<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/YUQXIm7Xl1s&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/YUQXIm7Xl1s&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>[/YOUTUBE]

[tony hipchest]

Originally Posted by X-Terminator

Well then, it sounds to me like there are going to have to be some very unpopular decisions that will have to be made regarding spending, because the other way - massive tax increases - isn't going to be an acceptable one to the majority of the people. The question is who has the balls to do it? Obama apparently doesn't. Not sure if McCain would have, and if he did, would it have made a dent? Who knows. The bottom line is we need a President who doesn't give a shyt about "opinion polls" and will just do whatever he needs to do to keep the nation's economy robust and deficits to a minimum/eliminated. Unfortunately, that person does not exist, at least not now.

a president who doesnt give a shit about opinion polls will not get elected, because they are about the same as the nov. electorate polls.

here is the situation we are in. america has been driving around in a rolls royce that is the reward of prosperous times. however that royce has been purchased on credit, and now we find ourselves overextended.

america WILL NOT give up the royce (which is a metaphor for our financial system and economy), but we still need to cut costs.

we can ignore spending 50 cents to air up the tires, but then fuel efficiency will decline and cost us more in the long run.

we would forgo the oil change, but it may break down.

we can refuse to put gas in it, and have a beautiful car that sits in the garage.

we can ignore regularly scheduled maintenance, and watch it turn into a broken down piece of crap 10 years before it should.

obama is currently driving the car. in 4-8 years it will be somebody else.

there will be a new face, but the car and the cost of upkeep will remain the same.

[MasterOfPuppets]

only now rolls royce are chinese made.....

[Preacher]

Originally Posted by tony hipchest

it depends.... can we agree that current deficit amounts were inherited and destined to continue to grow regardless of who was electd president?

social security
medicare/medicaid
wars
recession

3-4 presidents down the pike will still be dealing with this mess regardless of whether obama or mccain were elected.

that is the reality of the situation we live in. being in debt is never good. but it is the american way. it is the backbone of our financial institution and is the heartbeat of capitalism.

And that depends, can you agree that the previous president inherited amounts and things which were destined to come to pass because of previous decisions... and thus, most of the actions would have to have been taken at some time?

The 2001 recession, dot.com busts, corporate fraud, 9-11, etc. etc. were all issues that were planned and/or came about for the most part from the Clinton administration.

Yet, 9-11 came about because of the reaction and politics dealing with the first Gulf War under Bush 41. The dot.com bust came about because of a supercharged economy and overly fast computer development and internet explosion that can be somewhat related to Reagan's cut in corporate taxes and the availablity of R&D money, not to mention the defense spending.

However, that defense spending came about to rebuild a depleted military under Nixon, Ford and carter, blah blah blah.

Or are we going to look at a calendar, and say everything that happened during one administration's time period is that administrations fault. Because if we do that, then I lay this WHOLE MESS at Obama's feet.

[tony hipchest]

Originally Posted by Preacher

Or are we going to look at a calendar, and say everything that happened during one administration's time period is that administrations fault. Because if we do that, then I lay this WHOLE MESS at Obama's feet.

join the crowd. who is this "we" you speak of? because its already what the vast majority of SF members who post in this forum already do. and if anyone says otherwise... (kinda like what you correctly surmised above) it is met with a chorus of "bu..bu..bu.. bush".

its not suprising. another trait of modern america is to deflect responsibility rather than to accept it.

[revefsreleets]

Obama passed several spendulus-type bills...he even called one of them "Deeply flowed" then turned around and signed it anyway. I'm not sure how that could be anyone's fault but his own, but...

He's not cutting spending in a time of trouble, he's mortgaging our future by trying to spend his way out of it and damning the consequences. Next up will be a healthcare bill that will make these numbers WORSE, not better. MY number of 12 -19 trillion has not been recognized yet because this idiot in the WH (along with the twits in congress) has not STOPPED SPENDING YET!

All the speeches are nice and they create cute little diversions from the awful truth, but we are heading towards unsustainable debt, and THIS President is responsible for it. Why? Because he promised to undo the mistakes of the past, and he promised to BALANCE THE BUDGET! Showing a chart of projected 2009 deficits is great ammo for this because Obama should have gone in and fixed that right away as promised. Instead that red line got a LOT longer.

So he either lied to get elected or he simply has no understanding of how the country works, got in office and decided that he'd just put the problem on a credit card with a 30% interest rate.

I'm weary of it all, and I'm sick and tired of his supporters blaming anybody and everybody BUT their boy...the last post is remarkable because Tony claims that Americans don't accept responsibility and chides them for it after a long series of posts where he blames everybody BUT Obama for Obama's mistakes.

Oh, and we just HAD a president who didn't give a shit about opinion polls. His name Was George Bush.