Nice of ya to catch up with the rest of us!

It's true that many hopefuls, like me, are becoming more and more concerned about the potential deficit. This is the perfect opportunity for Republicans to improve upon their 26% approval rating (shown here), the lowest in history, and finally come up with an alternative solution to the economic woes instead of announcing position papers that include no numbers.

http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/documents/WSJ-NBC_Poll090617.pdf


More words, Maggie? Do you really not pay attention, or do you believe that no one else does?

Boehner Opening Statement: GOP Working Group Hearing on Economic Solutions | Republican Leader John Boehner


Boehner Opening Statement: GOP Working Group Hearing on Economic Solutions
(Remarks as prepared)



Washington, Jan 15 - "Welcome, Governor Romney, Ms. Whitman, and all who are attending or watching. I want to thank Eric Cantor, our whip, for putting together this hearing and doing a stellar job leading our working group on economic solutions. I also want to thank the thousands of Americans participating in this process by leaving their comments at Eric’s website,
Eric Cantor :: Office of the Republican Whip.



“It’s no secret our economy is in rough shape. Families and small businesses are in trouble, facing real anxiety about the future. Americans are looking to their elected leaders for solutions that will help our economy preserve and create jobs.



“Republicans applaud President-elect Obama for his focus on the economy. He’s called for Congress to act on legislation to help put the economy on the path to recovery, which is what Americans want. And much to his credit, the President-elect has made clear he wants input on this effort not just from members of his own party, but from all Americans.



“Such inclusiveness is essential. The American people need to be bought into this process, and we need to pass legislation that reflects their priorities. Many Americans are skeptical of the notion that a dramatic increase in government spending on programs and projects will spark economic growth. And contrary to some assertions, more than a few economists are skeptical too. They’ve been sharing their views with us through an internet project I launched last month at Republican Leader John Boehner | republicanleader.house.gov, and I want to thank them for getting involved.



“Identifying effective solutions starts with recognizing government has been part of the problem. Congress has taken billions from hardworking families and small businesses and wasted it. The troubles in our economy are NOT the result of a lack of government spending. And there’s a real danger that massive spending increases will lead to massive tax increases on the American people. While the need for action is indisputable, it’s equally critical that we do it in a manner that protects the taxpayer.



“I suggested over the weekend that instead of taxing less and spending MORE, we ought to think about taxing less and spending LESS. The more new spending we include in this legislation, the more likely it is that taxpayer money will be wasted. We also need to consider the cost we’re passing on to future generations. Are the spending increases temporary, or permanent? Is there really any such thing as a temporary spending program?



“As I said last week on the opening day of this Congress: America’s potential is unlimited. Government’s potential is not. The need for action is clear, but we can’t just borrow and spend our way back to prosperity. We need solutions that unleash the job-creating potential of our economy. . .solutions that encourage investment and job creation, and let families and small businesses keep more of what they earn.



“Our witness panel today is uniquely qualified to give us a perspective on these issues. Governor Romney, Ms. Whitman -- thank you for taking the time to come here today and share your views. We look forward to your testimony.”

#####


Now, from Eric Cantor's website (above)

$375 Billion in Taxpayer Savings
Posted by Whip Team :: Thursday June 4, 2009
House Republicans sent a proposal to President Obama outlining $375 billion in taxpayer savings over the next five years.

The proposal follows a meeting at the White House on April 24, during which Republican Whip Cantor brought up the President’s request to Cabinet secretaries to find $100 million in savings, noting that much more could be done on behalf of taxpayers. In response, President Obama asked House Republicans to develop of list of areas where the federal government could save more money.

Click here to read more information on the taxpayer savings.
http://republicanwhip.house.gov/new...billion-in-common-sense-taxpayer-savings.html
 
Are we reading the same chart? When it asks "who is most responsible for the budget deficit" it looks to me like people blame Bush by a 2-1 margin over the next closest group on the list and they blame him nearly 8-1 over Obama. And lol @ trying to put TARP on Obama's shoulders? Really?

Dude ... everything went to hell and this shit storm started under George W. Bush. Remind me again who was in charge (and had been for 7+ years) when the market crashed and nearly collapsed? Obama may not be doing an A+ job trying to fix the mess but make no mistake that we are where we are because of the Bush Administration.

The chart clearly shows the majority of Americans do not hold Bush responsible for the deficit, and if many Americans are still reluctant to hold Obama responsible for his actions until he gains a little more experience, that changes nothing. It was never possible for TARP to do what its supporters claimed it would, buy up the so called toxic assets, and many pointed this out at the time, and as the Dem candidate for president, arguably the leader of the Democratic Party, Obama's support for TARP was critical to its passage through Congress where the Dems held a clear majority in the House. Had Obama opposed TARP, it is highly unlikely it would have passed, so there is no way Obama can escape responsibility for the passage of this ill considered bill and the enormous deficit it has produced.

You might be able to argue that Obama does not bear sole responsibility for TARP but not that he bears no responsibility for TARP. Of course, Obama does bear sole responsibility for the deficit produced by the stimulus bill and taken together these two bills account for about $1.5 trillion of the estimated $1.8 trillion to $2 trillion deficit, so when Obama whines that he has inherited the deficit from Bush, he is clearly lying. It is time for all Americans to stop coddling Obama and to stop making excuses for him and to start holding him responsible for his own actions

Yes, if you want to get technical then according to that chart a majority of Americans do not blame Bush for the deficit BUT it's more than a tad dishonest to just leave it at that without acknowledging that he wins the plurality hands down. It isn't even close.

Sure Obama shares some of the blame for TARP he did have one vote but to somehow insinuate that he owns TARP is ridiculous. TARP came from the Bush administration and I remind you that had the economy not gone tits up then TARP wouldn't have even happened. You are right that Obama has increased the deficit but you are incorrect to say that he's lying about inheriting a deficit. He did. The facts are that he inherited a deficit from Bush and that the Bush administration doubled the national debt.

But yes I agree that it's time that Americans start holding Obama's feet to the fire about the economy. I mean, it went to complete hell under Bush's 8 year watch and right now he is who we got to somehow fix the epic fail that was the Bush economy.

If Obama had not won the nomination, I would agree with you that he had only one vote, but he was the leader of the Democratic Party and the Dems held a clear majority in the House, so when the leader of the party put his credibility as a leader on the line in the middle of a presidential campaign by supporting TARP, the House Dems were not going to oppose him. On the other hand, had Obama opposed it, it unlikely enough Dems in the House would have passed it. At that time Obama's support for TARP held much more weight in Congress and with the public than Bush's support for it did, so to say Obama's responsibility for TARP's passage was only his one vote is just nonsense. The Bush administration's TARP proposal was dramatically rewritten by the Dems in Congress and even that Dem bill would not have passed if Obama had opposed it.

The policies that caused the financial meltdown, the deregulation of derivatives passed in 1999 when the Dems controlled the House and the WH and the Fed and FDIC policy of allowing banks to keep these derivatives as capital reserves were inherited by Bush from the Clinton administration, but I agree Bush can be blamed for not fixing this mess he inherited, but so can the Dems and Republicans in Congress for never addressing these policies everyone knew about.

The reason no one, Dem or Republican, tried to change these policies was that everyone understood that without all the credit these policies created our economy would not have been able to grow out the economic slowdown that followed the tech bubble bust and 9/11. The danger now is that Obama's policies that have not sufficiently recapitalized the banks to finance a recovery from the recession and that his financial regulations aimed at preventing another financial crisis might further prevent the financial system from creating enough capital for future growth. In fact, Obama has inherited the same problems Bush did, and it is not clear that he has any better ideas of what to do about it than Bush or Clinton did.
 
Interesting question. Blaming 0bama for TARP is a not honest. He was a participant, and he even put a spoke in the wheel of the thing, but TARP is 100% Bush.

That said, the stimulus is all 0bama, and it has proven as stimulating as Jabba the Hut in a burqua. It would be better if 0bama just manned up and took control of the situation.

This perpetual "It is all Bush's fault" gets us no where. I do think we should keep on with the "lessons Learned" from the Bush administration. We had six years of good growth & low unemployment. Lower taxes and reasonable spending does keep things going well. Spending out of control and High taxes don't do any good for anybody.

Consider that while the Bush administration originally proposed TARP, the Dems in Congress completely rewrote that proposal and that final bill would not have passed if Obama had opposed it. In fact, if Bush had opposed the final bill and Obama had supported it still would have passed.
 
At least part of the reason Bush continues to be blamed for the economic mess, as shown in this graphic, is because under his watch the public lost $5 trillion in retirement savings, credit card companies were allowed to loaded up traps for the consumer, and no one was paying any attention to the PEOPLE it affected until it was too late.

P1-AQ349A_POLLj_NS_20090617195539.gif

As the chart shows, most Americans don't blame Bush for the current deficit, and clearly they are correct. Huh? The chart clearly shows those polled blame Bush, by 46%. Obama created most of the current deficit by voting for TARP without understanding what it was and by jamming the stimulus through Congress. Without these two blunders, the deficit would be much, much lower.

But even if we try to excuse these two blunders by saying that although he managed to project a calm and assured demeanor, being as inexperienced as he was, he panicked when he created nearly $1.5 trillion in new debt without understanding what he was doing, but the reckless abandon with which he is now proposing to create additional trillions of dollars of new debt for purely political reasons should not be excused by any Americans regardless of party affiliation. Take, for example, the Kennedy-Dodd health insurance bill that for a $1 trillion dollars does not provide universal health care but that does offer subsidies to families of four earning $110,000 while kicking the uninsured poor to the curb. The purpose of this bill is obviously to win middle class votes for the Dems in 2010 and 2012 and not to help the uninsured.

Most of your other points are assumptions. There is NO health bill, yet. There is NO energy bill, yet. There is NO education bill, yet. The next few months will be crucial in deciding where and what and how much to eliminate in order to reduce the size of the deficit. So until that happens, it's fruitless to keep on trying to scare everyone to death with numbers plucked from every wild scenario every naysayer in the business comes up with confident that THEY know what WILL happen. Because they don't.

Nobody knows what will finally pass, but we do know that Obama's health insurance proposal during his campaign was estimated to cost between $1.4 trillion and $1.8 trillion and that the CBO has estimated the Kennedy-Dodd bill to cost $1 trillion and the Senate Finance committee's bill to cost $1.6 trillion. However, I do agree with you that Congress may yet come to its senses and rein in Obama's reckless and irresponsible spending spree.
 
The chart clearly shows the majority of Americans do not hold Bush responsible for the deficit, and if many Americans are still reluctant to hold Obama responsible for his actions until he gains a little more experience, that changes nothing. It was never possible for TARP to do what its supporters claimed it would, buy up the so called toxic assets, and many pointed this out at the time, and as the Dem candidate for president, arguably the leader of the Democratic Party, Obama's support for TARP was critical to its passage through Congress where the Dems held a clear majority in the House. Had Obama opposed TARP, it is highly unlikely it would have passed, so there is no way Obama can escape responsibility for the passage of this ill considered bill and the enormous deficit it has produced.

You might be able to argue that Obama does not bear sole responsibility for TARP but not that he bears no responsibility for TARP. Of course, Obama does bear sole responsibility for the deficit produced by the stimulus bill and taken together these two bills account for about $1.5 trillion of the estimated $1.8 trillion to $2 trillion deficit, so when Obama whines that he has inherited the deficit from Bush, he is clearly lying. It is time for all Americans to stop coddling Obama and to stop making excuses for him and to start holding him responsible for his own actions

Yes, if you want to get technical then according to that chart a majority of Americans do not blame Bush for the deficit BUT it's more than a tad dishonest to just leave it at that without acknowledging that he wins the plurality hands down. It isn't even close.

Sure Obama shares some of the blame for TARP he did have one vote but to somehow insinuate that he owns TARP is ridiculous. TARP came from the Bush administration and I remind you that had the economy not gone tits up then TARP wouldn't have even happened. You are right that Obama has increased the deficit but you are incorrect to say that he's lying about inheriting a deficit. He did. The facts are that he inherited a deficit from Bush and that the Bush administration doubled the national debt.

But yes I agree that it's time that Americans start holding Obama's feet to the fire about the economy. I mean, it went to complete hell under Bush's 8 year watch and right now he is who we got to somehow fix the epic fail that was the Bush economy.

If Obama had not won the nomination, I would agree with you that he had only one vote, but he was the leader of the Democratic Party and the Dems held a clear majority in the House, so when the leader of the party put his credibility as a leader on the line in the middle of a presidential campaign by supporting TARP, the House Dems were not going to oppose him. On the other hand, had Obama opposed it, it unlikely enough Dems in the House would have passed it. At that time Obama's support for TARP held much more weight in Congress and with the public than Bush's support for it did, so to say Obama's responsibility for TARP's passage was only his one vote is just nonsense. The Bush administration's TARP proposal was dramatically rewritten by the Dems in Congress and even that Dem bill would not have passed if Obama had opposed it.

The policies that caused the financial meltdown, the deregulation of derivatives passed in 1999 when the Dems controlled the House and the WH and the Fed and FDIC policy of allowing banks to keep these derivatives as capital reserves were inherited by Bush from the Clinton administration, but I agree Bush can be blamed for not fixing this mess he inherited, but so can the Dems and Republicans in Congress for never addressing these policies everyone knew about.

The reason no one, Dem or Republican, tried to change these policies was that everyone understood that without all the credit these policies created our economy would not have been able to grow out the economic slowdown that followed the tech bubble bust and 9/11. The danger now is that Obama's policies that have not sufficiently recapitalized the banks to finance a recovery from the recession and that his financial regulations aimed at preventing another financial crisis might further prevent the financial system from creating enough capital for future growth. In fact, Obama has inherited the same problems Bush did, and it is not clear that he has any better ideas of what to do about it than Bush or Clinton did.

Good post.

A couple of things though. First, it was McCain who suspended his campaign to work on the TARP legislation but yes, Obama supported TARP but he wasn't driving the car or really giving orders. His support was more pedestrian than anything. Also, had Queen Nan not shot off her mouth TARP was going to be a piece of bipartisan legislation. She just had to talk shit and the republicans in Congress didn't vote for it out of spite towards her.

It sucks that the problem wasn't addressed by anybody until it was too late ... I'm not even sure it's being addressed now. At the time though it seemed like we were in the middle of an economic orgy. We were hearing about record setting closes of the DOW, housing was booming, and everyone's 401k was as sexy as a centerfold. It was too good to be true but all along we were hearing all about how strong the Bush economy was from pundits on the right. Now that it went to hell and times are bad they are desperately trying to sluff it off on Obama. That's just not gonna fly right now.

In your last paragraph you allude to fears that we wont have enough capital to allow for future growth. Are you suggesting that we give banks more money?
 
My sympathies if you have dyslexia or some other reading disability.

As for TARP, once again, the $700 billion were LOANS, $68.3 billion of which (or around one quarter of the IOU) has collectively been repaid by American Express, Bank of New York Mellon, the BB&T Corporation, Capital One Financial, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, the State Street Corporation and US Bancorp. Also, 22 small community banks have returned $1.9 billion in government money.

The stimulus money DID add to the deficit, but again, depending strictly on your POLITICS, that investment also was seen as necessary to jump start the economy.

You seem confused. The subject I was addressing was who was responsible for the enormous deficit, not whether it was worthwhile. Since you did not take issue with my argument that Obama was mostly responsible for it, I assume you agree with it.

You also appear to be misinformed. Most of the money that went to these corporations was for stock purchases, not loans, and as the money is paid back, none of it will go to reduce the debt incurred to fund TARP but will be spent on current projects, so not only will the deficit be much larger this year because of TARP, but our debt will be $700 billion larger for many, many years to come.

Again, since you responded to my argument that Obama is responsible for the enormous deficit by saying you think the deficit is a good thing, I assume you agree that Obama is responsible for it.

Where did I say the deficit is a good thing? That's why I think you have a comprehension problem, my friend.

Bush never included the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq in the annual budget, which exploded his deficit to $1.2 trillion (not including the ongoing care our wounded veterans will need far into the future). Add to this, the interest needed to cover the money for those wars, and the $1.2 trillion is realistically even higher.

Until the economy rights itself, which will not happen until the financial markets are running as properly leveraged institutions, the money repaid into TARP will stay there. For simplicity sake, call it an escrow fund.

What happens to returned TARP money? - By Christopher Beam - Slate Magazine

You defended the spending on TARP and the stimulus, so it makes no sense to say you oppose the deficit that made that spending possible. If you support the spending, you support the deficit that made it possible.

Bush's deficit was not $1.2 trillion dollars unless you assign responsibility for TARP to him, but the TARP bill that passed was written by the Dems in Congress, not by Bush, and that Dem bill would not have passed if not for Obama's support for it. Do you really imagine the Dems in Congress would have undercut Obama's credibility as a leader in the middle of a presidential election by opposing the bill when Obama supported it? Would they have undercut his credibility as a leader by supporting the bill if he had opposed it? It is clear that even if Bush had opposed the final bill, it would have passed through Congress because of Obama's support for it. It was Obama's TARP bill that Bush finally signed, and this is why when Obama whines that he inherited the deficit from Bush, he is clearly lying.
 
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Yes, if you want to get technical then according to that chart a majority of Americans do not blame Bush for the deficit BUT it's more than a tad dishonest to just leave it at that without acknowledging that he wins the plurality hands down. It isn't even close.

Sure Obama shares some of the blame for TARP he did have one vote but to somehow insinuate that he owns TARP is ridiculous. TARP came from the Bush administration and I remind you that had the economy not gone tits up then TARP wouldn't have even happened. You are right that Obama has increased the deficit but you are incorrect to say that he's lying about inheriting a deficit. He did. The facts are that he inherited a deficit from Bush and that the Bush administration doubled the national debt.

But yes I agree that it's time that Americans start holding Obama's feet to the fire about the economy. I mean, it went to complete hell under Bush's 8 year watch and right now he is who we got to somehow fix the epic fail that was the Bush economy.

If Obama had not won the nomination, I would agree with you that he had only one vote, but he was the leader of the Democratic Party and the Dems held a clear majority in the House, so when the leader of the party put his credibility as a leader on the line in the middle of a presidential campaign by supporting TARP, the House Dems were not going to oppose him. On the other hand, had Obama opposed it, it unlikely enough Dems in the House would have passed it. At that time Obama's support for TARP held much more weight in Congress and with the public than Bush's support for it did, so to say Obama's responsibility for TARP's passage was only his one vote is just nonsense. The Bush administration's TARP proposal was dramatically rewritten by the Dems in Congress and even that Dem bill would not have passed if Obama had opposed it.

The policies that caused the financial meltdown, the deregulation of derivatives passed in 1999 when the Dems controlled the House and the WH and the Fed and FDIC policy of allowing banks to keep these derivatives as capital reserves were inherited by Bush from the Clinton administration, but I agree Bush can be blamed for not fixing this mess he inherited, but so can the Dems and Republicans in Congress for never addressing these policies everyone knew about.

The reason no one, Dem or Republican, tried to change these policies was that everyone understood that without all the credit these policies created our economy would not have been able to grow out the economic slowdown that followed the tech bubble bust and 9/11. The danger now is that Obama's policies that have not sufficiently recapitalized the banks to finance a recovery from the recession and that his financial regulations aimed at preventing another financial crisis might further prevent the financial system from creating enough capital for future growth. In fact, Obama has inherited the same problems Bush did, and it is not clear that he has any better ideas of what to do about it than Bush or Clinton did.

Good post.

A couple of things though. First, it was McCain who suspended his campaign to work on the TARP legislation but yes, Obama supported TARP but he wasn't driving the car or really giving orders. His support was more pedestrian than anything. Also, had Queen Nan not shot off her mouth TARP was going to be a piece of bipartisan legislation. She just had to talk shit and the republicans in Congress didn't vote for it out of spite towards her.

It sucks that the problem wasn't addressed by anybody until it was too late ... I'm not even sure it's being addressed now. At the time though it seemed like we were in the middle of an economic orgy. We were hearing about record setting closes of the DOW, housing was booming, and everyone's 401k was as sexy as a centerfold. It was too good to be true but all along we were hearing all about how strong the Bush economy was from pundits on the right. Now that it went to hell and times are bad they are desperately trying to sluff it off on Obama. That's just not gonna fly right now.

In your last paragraph you allude to fears that we wont have enough capital to allow for future growth. Are you suggesting that we give banks more money?

We can give the banks enough money to keep them, most of them, from failing, but we can't give them enough money to allow them to adequately finance a recovery from the recession or finance future growth. I believe Geithner said at one point that about 50% of the credit our economy was functioning on was raised by securitized debt, and now that these derivatives are considered "toxic" by so many, there is no longer much of a market for them. Obama-Geithner's efforts to revive those markets have so far failed to produce and significant results, and if we can't revive these markets or find new ways for our financial system to raise a great deal more capital, we are likely to have a very slow recovery from the recession and very slow future growth.

On the other hand, there is an understandable desire to have regulations to keep things from getting out of hand again, but we don't want these regulations to stifle the creation of new capital in the financial system.

The best idea I've heard for reviving the markets for financial products came from some House Republicans during the TARP debate, but it was shot down by Paulson because he thought it wouldn't work as quickly as his TARP proposal. (Ha!) The proposal was that the government would set up an insurance fund through which holders of these "toxic assets" could insure part or all of what they believed the value at maturity of these derivative would be, and the premiums they would pay would be based on an assessment of risk at that value. In theory, this would allow the banks to sell these insured derivatives to private buyers instead of having to hold them or sell them to the government, never a practical idea, and this mechanism might also serve to help financial institutions to sell new derivatives, thus enabling them to raise new capital.

From what I've read, there seems to be no clear agreement on how much new regulation we need or how much new regulation would be too much regulation.
 
Solving the problems stemming from the REAL estate mess is fairly simple.

Make the banks hold the mortgages in their own portfolios.

Bankers aren't completely nuts.

If they're going to be taking the risks, they'll get real smart about who is a good credit risk real fast.

Problem solved.

Ajnd if you are an investor who wants to gamble on RE estate mortgages, you'll buy bank stocks and not Fannie Mae issue bonds.

Of course that real estate a go go period is over, then isn't it?

And really, is that such a bad thing?

Maybe then our kids will be able to buy a home at a price that makes sense in comparison to what they're making.
 
It's true that many hopefuls, like me, are becoming more and more concerned about the potential deficit. This is the perfect opportunity for Republicans to improve upon their 26% approval rating (shown here), the lowest in history, and finally come up with an alternative solution to the economic woes instead of announcing position papers that include no numbers.

http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/documents/WSJ-NBC_Poll090617.pdf

YEP... The GOP is suffering the lowest poll ratings in their history, as are the democrats AND THE LEGISLATURE on the whole...

This a result of the absence of American leadership and having allowed themselves to depart from common sense and succumb to the irrational feminization of the culture, through the advocacy of left-think.

Of course CONSERVATIVES have always had a solution to the problem... which is CONSERVATISM ON THE WHOLE...

Reduce the size and scope of government
Roll back the massive manipulative government hinderances to the economy
Set high cultural standards and enforce them


Presto... all fixed.
 
At least part of the reason Bush continues to be blamed for the economic mess, as shown in this graphic, is because under his watch the public lost $5 trillion in retirement savings, credit card companies were allowed to loaded up traps for the consumer, and no one was paying any attention to the PEOPLE it affected until it was too late.

P1-AQ349A_POLLj_NS_20090617195539.gif

Yeah those DAMN CONTRACTS! If we could JUST GET AMERICANS TO SET ASIDE THEIR AGREEMENTS... and all that 'high standards' crap... where people agree to do something then fail to perform... which only gets worse when the penalties to which they agreed kick in... everything would be all better...

BRILLIANT!

AGAIN... this is why leftists should be ignored and ostrocized... and never let within 10 miles of a voting booth.
 
Solving the problems stemming from the REAL estate mess is fairly simple.

Make the banks hold the mortgages in their own portfolios.

Bankers aren't completely nuts.

If they're going to be taking the risks, they'll get real smart about who is a good credit risk real fast.

Problem solved.

ROFLMNAO... Of course, all those 'rules' were just standards which THE LEFT determined were in the way of 'fairness'... preventing the 'less fortunate' from aquiring mortgages... to which they ARE ENTITLED! But let's not consider the SOURCE... it's so HATEFUL!

Ajnd if you are an investor who wants to gamble on RE estate mortgages, you'll buy bank stocks and not Fannie Mae issue bonds.

Of course, if there was no Fannie mae, then that wouldn't be a problem would it? Now I wonder what ideology produced fannie mae?

Of course that real estate a go go period is over, then isn't it?

Oh it's over...


Maybe then our kids will be able to buy a home at a price that makes sense in comparison to what they're making.

ROFLMNAO... Man that's just SO SAD!

THE LEFT STARTS, NURTURES AND CREATES A PROBLEM AND THEY TURN TO BLAME THE PEOPLE WHO WERE FORCED TO OPERATE WITHIN THE RULES WHICH THEY CREATED... and in so doing present themselves as 'fiscally responsible.'

Funny stuff...
 
I personally am looking forward to hyper-inflation.

I only wish I was much much more deeply in debt to really get the full benefits of it.

Perhaps I'll go back to college just to crank up a tad more debt so that when the dollar isn't worth a continental I'll actually enjoy paying back those debts.

Word to the wise folks...inflation isn't always a bad thing if you're ready for it.

SAYS THE IGNORANT...

Anyone who wants to get an idea of what hyper-inflation actually is, need go no further than a quick review of the WEIMAR REPUBLIC...

"The constitution became irrelevant, therefore 1933 is usually seen as the end of the Weimar Republic and the beginning of Hitler's "Third Reich".

Weimar Republic - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"In economics, hyperinflation is inflation that is very high or "out of control", a condition in which prices increase rapidly as a currency loses its value.[1] Definitions used by the media vary from a cumulative inflation rate over three years approaching 100% to "inflation exceeding 50% a month." ... The main cause of hyperinflation is a massive and rapid increase in the amount of money, which is not supported by growth in the output of goods and services. This results in an imbalance between the supply and demand for the money . ...

By late 1923, the Weimar Republic of Germany was issuing two-trillon Mark banknotes and postage stamps with a face value of fifty billion Mark. The highest value banknote issued by the Weimar government's Reichsbank had a face value of 100 trillion Mark (100,000,000,000,000; 100 billion on the long scale).[8] [9]. One of the firms printing these notes submitted an invoice for the work to the Reichsbank for 32,776,899,763,734,490,417.05 (3.28×1019, or 33 quintillion) Marks.

Governments will often try to disguise the true rate of inflation through a variety of techniques. These can include the following:

Outright lying in official statistics such as money supply, inflation or reserves.
Suppression of publication of money supply statistics, or inflation indices.
Price and wage controls.
Forced savings schemes, designed to suck up excess liquidity. These savings schemes may be described as pensions schemes, emergency funds, war funds, or something similar.
Adjusting the components of the Consumer price index, to remove those items whose prices are rising the fastest.
None of these actions address the root causes of inflation, and in fact, if discovered, tend to further undermine trust in the currency, causing further increases in inflation. Price controls will generally result in hoarding and extremely high demand for the controlled goods, resulting in shortages and disruptions of the supply chain. Products available to consumers may diminish or disappear as businesses no longer find it sufficiently profitable (or may be operating at a loss) to continue producing and/or distributing such goods, further exacerbating the problem."
 
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It's true that many hopefuls, like me, are becoming more and more concerned about the potential deficit. This is the perfect opportunity for Republicans to improve upon their 26% approval rating (shown here), the lowest in history, and finally come up with an alternative solution to the economic woes instead of announcing position papers that include no numbers.

http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/documents/WSJ-NBC_Poll090617.pdf


More words, Maggie? Do you really not pay attention, or do you believe that no one else does?

Boehner Opening Statement: GOP Working Group Hearing on Economic Solutions | Republican Leader John Boehner
#####

Now, from Eric Cantor's website (above)

$375 Billion in Taxpayer Savings
Posted by Whip Team :: Thursday June 4, 2009
House Republicans sent a proposal to President Obama outlining $375 billion in taxpayer savings over the next five years.

The proposal follows a meeting at the White House on April 24, during which Republican Whip Cantor brought up the President’s request to Cabinet secretaries to find $100 million in savings, noting that much more could be done on behalf of taxpayers. In response, President Obama asked House Republicans to develop of list of areas where the federal government could save more money.

Click here to read more information on the taxpayer savings.
http://republicanwhip.house.gov/new...billion-in-common-sense-taxpayer-savings.html

Nice, but where's the beef? With the exception of insurance pools, their "revised" proposal is a rewrite of every other proposal they've come up with (a total of five between the House and Senate).

Senate committee debates health care reform
Measure includes a government-funded health insurance option opposed by GOP
Mandates for individual and employer-sponsored health coverage also at issue

House Republicans unveil a competing plan they say will cost less

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Congress launched a formal debate on reforming the ailing U.S. health care system Wednesday with a Senate committee considering a comprehensive bill backed by Democrats and the Obama administration.

The measure before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee includes a government-funded health insurance option opposed by Republicans, along with mandates for individual and employer-sponsored health coverage.

Also Wednesday, House Republicans unveiled the outline of a competing plan that offers refundable tax credits to lower-income Americans to help them afford private health insurance.

At issue is how to reduce the costs and increase the reach of the current health care system, which officials say is increasingly draining the federal budget but leaving 46 million Americans without health insurance.

Obama has made the issue a top priority of his young administration, warning that failure to act now will bring far worse economic difficulties in the future than the costs of plans under discussion.

Republican opponents complain that the government and the Democratic leadership are moving too fast, noting that preliminary cost estimates for the bill are incomplete.

The Senate hearing Wednesday started 15 minutes late because of the lack of a quorum, and Republican members immediately questioned the wisdom of debating and amending the bill without having full cost estimates.

Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Connecticut, the acting committee chairman in the absence of ailing Democratic colleague Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, said it was important to start the hearing on what he called "historic" legislation that will affect every American.

The bill submitted in Kennedy's name proposes "building on what works and fixing what's broken in our health care system," a Democratic mantra for the issue.

A summary of the measure guarantees people can keep their current health insurance if they want while offering government-funded coverage for those without insurance or who are unable to afford full coverage.

Dodd noted that efforts to reform health care date back 60 years and called it a moral imperative to provide proper health care for all citizens regardless of circumstances.

"The status quo is unacceptable, and it is unsustainable," Dodd said, adding that former opponents of reform now are taking part in the effort. He cited main elements of the measure, including a government-funded option, an emphasis on preventive care to reduce costs and a halt to pre-existing medical conditions making coverage unavailable.

Republicans complained the bill before them would fail to achieve those goals.

"This bill costs too much, covers too few and will force about 10 million people to have to lose their employer-provided coverage," said Sen. Michael Enzi of Wyoming, the ranking Republican on the committee. He blamed what he called the rushed timetable for considering the bill on a need to address how spiraling health care costs were harming the economy, but said the proposal drafted by Democrats alone would increase costs.

"We need a bill that won't destroy the economy," Enzi said.

Meanwhile, the House Republican plan by ranking Ways and Means member Dave Camp of Michigan calls for refundable tax credits for lower-income Americans. But Camp and Republicans have not yet determined key details, including the amount of those tax credits or who precisely could be eligible.

"We're going to provide a dollar amount to people who want to buy insurance," Camp told CNN Radio on Tuesday. "The numbers are going to depend on how (the ideas) are scored."


Scoring is the process for determining how much a proposal could cost. Camp and Republicans are waiting to see the relative expense of different proposals before committing to specifics.

"That will come later," Camp said, insisting the Republican bill will be "much less costly than the Democratic bills."


Highlights of Camp's measure include letting states, small businesses and other group pool together to offer lower-cost health care plans and allowing Medicaid users to take the value of their Medicaid benefit and transfer or apply that to a private health care plan instead.

It also calls for limiting malpractice lawsuits to drive down the costs of "defensive" health care, in which unnecessary tests and services are prescribed to avoid possible malpractice liability.

Find this article at:
Senate committee debates health care reform - CNN.com
 
Interesting question. Blaming 0bama for TARP is a not honest. He was a participant, and he even put a spoke in the wheel of the thing, but TARP is 100% Bush.

That said, the stimulus is all 0bama, and it has proven as stimulating as Jabba the Hut in a burqua. It would be better if 0bama just manned up and took control of the situation.

This perpetual "It is all Bush's fault" gets us no where. I do think we should keep on with the "lessons Learned" from the Bush administration. We had six years of good growth & low unemployment. Lower taxes and reasonable spending does keep things going well. Spending out of control and High taxes don't do any good for anybody.

Consider that while the Bush administration originally proposed TARP, the Dems in Congress completely rewrote that proposal and that final bill would not have passed if Obama had opposed it. In fact, if Bush had opposed the final bill and Obama had supported it still would have passed.

What? The Dems did NOT rewrite it to favor any political agenda. The bill was introduced on September 29, 2008 following Hank Paulson's hair on fire 8-page memorandum that the entire financial system was in danger of collapsing. It was signed into law on October 3, 2008. Not much time there for politicking over it.

Timeline from Wikipedia:

Legislative history
Main article: Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008
The first version of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 (structured as an amendment to H.R. 3997) was rejected by the House of Representatives on September 29.

After its defeat, Senate leaders decided to amend an existing bill from the House in order to circumvent the revenue origination clause of U.S. Constitution, and chose H.R. 1424 as the vehicle for the the legislation.

On September 30, 2008, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell announced the proposed draft had been formalized for the amendment that would transform H.R. 1424 into the Senate version of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008.

On October 1, 2008, the amendment to H.R. 1424 was approved by a vote of 74 to 25, and the entire amended bill was passed by 74 to 25, (with one not voting, the cancer-stricken Senator Ted Kennedy). The bill was returned to the House for consideration. On October 3, 2008, the bill as passed by the Senate was accepted by a vote of 263 to 171 in the House. Every member of the House voted, though the House has a vacant seat of the recently-deceased Stephanie Tubbs Jones of Ohio. President George W. Bush signed the bill into law a few hours later.
 
As the chart shows, most Americans don't blame Bush for the current deficit, and clearly they are correct. Huh? The chart clearly shows those polled blame Bush, by 46%. Obama created most of the current deficit by voting for TARP without understanding what it was and by jamming the stimulus through Congress. Without these two blunders, the deficit would be much, much lower.

But even if we try to excuse these two blunders by saying that although he managed to project a calm and assured demeanor, being as inexperienced as he was, he panicked when he created nearly $1.5 trillion in new debt without understanding what he was doing, but the reckless abandon with which he is now proposing to create additional trillions of dollars of new debt for purely political reasons should not be excused by any Americans regardless of party affiliation. Take, for example, the Kennedy-Dodd health insurance bill that for a $1 trillion dollars does not provide universal health care but that does offer subsidies to families of four earning $110,000 while kicking the uninsured poor to the curb. The purpose of this bill is obviously to win middle class votes for the Dems in 2010 and 2012 and not to help the uninsured.

Most of your other points are assumptions. There is NO health bill, yet. There is NO energy bill, yet. There is NO education bill, yet. The next few months will be crucial in deciding where and what and how much to eliminate in order to reduce the size of the deficit. So until that happens, it's fruitless to keep on trying to scare everyone to death with numbers plucked from every wild scenario every naysayer in the business comes up with confident that THEY know what WILL happen. Because they don't.

Nobody knows what will finally pass, but we do know that Obama's health insurance proposal during his campaign was estimated to cost between $1.4 trillion and $1.8 trillion and that the CBO has estimated the Kennedy-Dodd bill to cost $1 trillion and the Senate Finance committee's bill to cost $1.6 trillion. However, I do agree with you that Congress may yet come to its senses and rein in Obama's reckless and irresponsible spending spree.

Under normal circumstances (in the absence of a major economic downturn nationwide), a government sponsored health care bill would not be considered irresponsible. Accept that fact because eventually it WILL happen.
 
You seem confused. The subject I was addressing was who was responsible for the enormous deficit, not whether it was worthwhile. Since you did not take issue with my argument that Obama was mostly responsible for it, I assume you agree with it.

You also appear to be misinformed. Most of the money that went to these corporations was for stock purchases, not loans, and as the money is paid back, none of it will go to reduce the debt incurred to fund TARP but will be spent on current projects, so not only will the deficit be much larger this year because of TARP, but our debt will be $700 billion larger for many, many years to come.

Again, since you responded to my argument that Obama is responsible for the enormous deficit by saying you think the deficit is a good thing, I assume you agree that Obama is responsible for it.

Where did I say the deficit is a good thing? That's why I think you have a comprehension problem, my friend.

Bush never included the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq in the annual budget, which exploded his deficit to $1.2 trillion (not including the ongoing care our wounded veterans will need far into the future). Add to this, the interest needed to cover the money for those wars, and the $1.2 trillion is realistically even higher.

Until the economy rights itself, which will not happen until the financial markets are running as properly leveraged institutions, the money repaid into TARP will stay there. For simplicity sake, call it an escrow fund.

What happens to returned TARP money? - By Christopher Beam - Slate Magazine

You defended the spending on TARP and the stimulus, so it makes no sense to say you oppose the deficit that made that spending possible. If you support the spending, you support the deficit that made it possible. Your logic lacks, well, logic. There are millions of government funded items that account for deficit spending. There always has been and there always will be.

Bush's deficit was not $1.2 trillion dollars unless you assign responsibility for TARP to him, but the TARP bill that passed was written by the Dems in Congress, not by Bush, and that Dem bill would not have passed if not for Obama's support for it. Do you really imagine the Dems in Congress would have undercut Obama's credibility as a leader in the middle of a presidential election by opposing the bill when Obama supported it? Would they have undercut his credibility as a leader by supporting the bill if he had opposed it? It is clear that even if Bush had opposed the final bill, it would have passed through Congress because of Obama's support for it. It was Obama's TARP bill that Bush finally signed, and this is why when Obama whines that he inherited the deficit from Bush, he is clearly lying.

Okay, sick of arguing. You believe TARP was a waste, and most economists would say you are dead wrong. So let's hear how YOU would have saved the financial institutions, if at all.

Normal businesses that used bad business practices which allowed them to go under SHOULD have to take their own lickings, but as dirty as the deals were that caused the gigantic banks to fail, they could not be allowed to take the rest of the country down with them.
 

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