Test for Obama as Deficit Stays Over $1 Trillion

[August]

Originally Posted by eddie

I guess Republican don't walk on water either do they!

They most certainly do not, but then again I never said that they did. However like the article says a President inherits a creation of all his predecessors. He chooses the direction he want's to point it during his term on watch. So far Obama has chosen to continue to grow the government. You can't deny it. How many new federal agencies are going to be created as a part of Obamacare? 150 or so?

I want him to shrink the Federal government not grow it. I don't want him to cut vital services like my states legislature does when they are trying to justify a tax increase. You know, like how they'll announce they had to fire a dozen cops or teachers, instead of the two fatcat directors who don't do anything but go to "planning meetings" in Aruba and Las Vegas. Oh no we need them to manage things. The three multimillion dollar feasibility studies we had W E Fleeceum and Associates do for us last year proved it.

The problem is as I see it we pay our income taxes backwards. We should be paying the highest percentage of income taxes to our state, then maybe 5% of that to the Feds for common things like national security and interstate highways and national parks.

Instead the lions share of tax revenue from the whole country goes way off to Washington only to have a small portion of it, maybe, doled back to us with a ton of strings attached and the rest squandered away in various pork projects and other costly boondoggles. It's a very inefficient and gaffe prone method of managing our affairs.

Now of the two candidates only Romney has shown that he can fix financial messes which I think we can all agree is the number one job that we need the next administration, whoever it is, to do. I just don't see a reelected but now lame duck Obama administration getting that job done.

[soopaman2]

Originally Posted by August

They most certainly do not, but then again I never said that they did. However like the article says a President inherits a creation of all his predecessors. He chooses the direction he want's to point it during his term on watch. So far Obama has chosen to continue to grow the government. You can't deny it. How many new federal agencies are going to be created as a part of Obamacare? 150 or so?

I want him to shrink the Federal government not grow it. I don't want him to cut vital services like my states legislature does when they are trying to justify a tax increase. You know, like how they'll announce they had to fire a dozen cops or teachers, instead of the two fatcat directors who don't do anything but go to "planning meetings" in Aruba and Las Vegas. Oh no we need them to manage things. The three multimillion dollar feasibility studies we had W E Fleeceum and Associates do for us last year proved it.

The problem is as I see it we pay our income taxes backwards. We should be paying the highest percentage of income taxes to our state, then maybe 5% of that to the Feds for common things like national security and interstate highways and national parks.

Instead the lions share of tax revenue from the whole country goes way off to Washington only to have a small portion of it, maybe, doled back to us with a ton of strings attached and the rest squandered away in various pork projects and other costly boondoggles. It's a very inefficient and gaffe prone method of managing our affairs.

Now of the two candidates only Romney has shown that he can fix financial messes which I think we can all agree is the number one job that we need the next administration, whoever it is, to do. I just don't see a reelected but now lame duck Obama administration getting that job done.

I really like paying most my taxes to our state.

As much as we try to hide it, our country was based on states rights.

We are more of a constitutional confederacy, than a constitutional republic.

What is great for NJ, is not good for Mass, and vice versa.

Regardless of the outcome, I will respect the decisions made.

But what is our guarantee that we are not just trading names, for the same ol stuff?

But I will respect Romney, as I do Obama if he wins. I wish whoever wins the best, because we as citizens deserve the best.

I only hope the other side ( not so much you, August) can do the same if Obama wins, which I truly doubt.

You have to admit, there was alot of pre-emptive hostility towards Obama. (even before he did anything/and/or nothing)

[August]

Originally Posted by soopaman2

I really like paying most my taxes to our state.

As much as we try to hide it, our country was based on states rights.

We are more of a constitutional confederacy, than a constitutional republic.

What is great for NJ, is not good for Mass, and vice versa.

Regardless of the outcome, I will respect the decisions made.

But what is our guarantee that we are not just trading names, for the same ol stuff?

But I will respect Romney, as I do Obama if he wins. I wish whoever wins the best, because we as citizens deserve the best.

I only hope the other side ( not so much you, August) can do the same if Obama wins, which I truly doubt.

You have to admit, there was alot of pre-emptive hostility towards Obama. (even before he did anything/and/or nothing)

More than the hostility generated towards George Bush? Seems pretty similar in volume and intensity to me. Like you I have my doubts about the other side too and maybe we are just trading names but it takes them some time to get entrenched so swapping them out every 4 years seems to me like a good practice in general.

I think this one has poisoned the well so much with the opposition during the past 4 years that reelecting him will only perpetuate the stalemate at least until he pain hits for what the health care law is all going to cost then he's going to be more lame duck than Bush was in his second term regardless of who controls congress.

[mookiemookie]

Originally Posted by soopaman2

Rick Perry 2016

(now those 2 are what real moderate Republicans look like)

You have got to be freaking kidding me.

[Oberon]

Perry? Moderate? Errr...

http://politicsontoast.com/2012/01/1...an-candidates/

This has a reasonable list, and I think Chris Christie should be the name on the GOPs lips come 2016. He seems to be more moderate than the current batch, and yet still fiscally conservative, he would appeal to those who have been turned off by the Hawks and the heavy right-wingers.
I can't see Romney winning this year, he just doesn't have the clout behind him that Obama still has, even after four years of doing...well...very little, and the Republican party itself needs a shake-up and a re-evaluation of its image. It has become far too easy to pass most Republican members off as disjointed with the current American populace and stuck in a mentality of the past. War weariness probably hasn't helped this, and neither has the economic crisis. Obama has a good PR machine behind him, and he can spin a crowd up, that's part of being a good president, is being able to have enough charisma that people will buy what you're selling. The other part is actually having something to sell, and in this case Barry hasn't really got that, but he's good at making out that he has. The problem with the GOP at the moment is that they have no real idea what they're selling and how to sell it, and so no-one is buying it. So to speak.
That's this traditionally center-left UKers view anyway...who voted for the Liberal Democrats...so what the hell do I know about politics?

[STEED]

I see you guys are now in debt to $16 Trillion and rising, as for the Fed's QE3 that is not the way forward, the effect on the Dollar is weakening it. Too be honest the whole world is heading for melt down.

[JU_88]

Originally Posted by STEED

I see you guys are now in debt to $16 Trillion and rising, as for the Fed's QE3 that is not the way forward, the effect on the Dollar is weakening it. Too be honest the whole world is heading for melt down.

Yeah I agree, And I think we have already passed the point of no return to fix the damn problem. Debt has the not just America, but the entire world by the balls.

I figure that either

a) Politicians are increadibly stupid because they think they can borrow and print cheap money forever as part of a sustainable model (when 8th grade maths says they cant)

b) they are incompetent because they cant see away to dig them selves out of this hole and they are afraid they will be punished by voters for trying.

c) They are increadibly smart and evil , have no intention of paying it back and are just exploiting a free lunch (or ten) while they can - And when its hits the fan, they will use what military might they have to say "yeah? watcha gonna do about it?".

In truth its probably a combination of all three. But there is no way anyone can justify such outragous debt mountains.

[Oberon]

Congress isn't stupid, well...perhaps some of them are...but the problem lies in the fact that politics are being placed before economic survival. Both sides are using the economic crisis as a punching tool to hit the other with, but neither know how or are willing to bite the bullet to fix it.

[JU_88]

Originally Posted by Oberon

Congress isn't stupid, well...perhaps some of them are...but the problem lies in the fact that politics are being placed before economic survival. Both sides are using the economic crisis as a punching tool to hit the other with, but neither know how or are willing to bite the bullet to fix it.

Sure and I should also point out, its the same over here and in Europe and just about everywhere in fact, the only thing that really makes America stand out is the size of the debt.
History and basic maths says the economy will go down worldwide in the end, it will be the biggest mess mankind has ever faced, but rest assured - providing we havent all killed each other, we will start all over so we can make the same mistake in another 70-100 years or so.
Something tells me that now would be a very good time to train as a finacial lawyer/farmer.

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by JU_88

Sure and I should also point out, its the same over here and in Europe and just about everywhere in fact, the only thing that really makes America stand out is the size of the debt.
The economy will go down worldwide in the end, it will be the biggest mess mankind has ever faced, but rest assured - providing we havent all killed each other, we will start all over so we can make the same mistake in another 70-100 years or so.
Something tells me that now would be a very good time to train as a finacial lawyer/farmer.

I think farmer would be better, as I think that anyone with any connections to finances will get lynched if things do go completely down the pan!
America is a major superpower on the world stage at the moment, so it's natural that the debt would correlate to that, particularly after the Cold War where a lot of money was spent trying to get the Soviet Union to spend itself into oblivion. It's nothing new...take a look at this:


In particular the debt as a fraction of GDP, and then compare it to this:


You can see, that after the Napoleonic wars, and during the hegemony of Britain we had a colossal debt compared to our GDP, which then peaks again post WWI and WWII. With the American graph you can see that it peaks just after WWII, then again after the Cold War, and now we're in the 'War against Terror' it's on the rise again, and will peak at some point in the near future, lower and then start the cycle over again.
The Victorians had a saying about such things and that's "The bigger the drinking binge, the bigger the hangover", of course that's not always true in liquid terms, but in economic terms I think that it does ring true, we have had just over a decade of good times and growth, of 'Cool Britannia' and such forth, starting in the late 1980s and ending in the early 2000s, now we have a decade and a bit of economic slump to get through before things will start to look up. Yes, there's going to be hard times, there's going to be Austerity but even in the darkest parts of Greece things are not as bad as they were at the worst moments of the Great Depression, unemployment rates haven't spiralled out of control, there are not giant 'Hoover-villes' springing up in cities, in comparison to our forefathers, even on Job-seekers we are better off than they were.
So, I find reports of some giant total global collapse of the worlds economy to be, alarmist, and in fact quite damaging to the recovery of the economic markets. Will there be a global collapse? I couldn't say no for certain, but it has not happened before, admittedly our markets were not quite as intertwined before as they are now, but even so, we have weathered worse than this and made it this far. The fact that we are able to write on this board, able to use such commodities as electricity and internet access makes us in a better position than before.
What worries me, more so than the economy, is the rise of extremism as a piggyback to that economic woe. In the wake of the First World War, Communism rose in Russia, and socialist unrest plagued most of Europe, in response to that and to the Great Depression fascism rose in Western Europe and laid the path to the Second World War.
Now, we're not going to see another Hitler, Stalin or Mussolini, no matter how hard the far left and far right try to paint various leaders as such, because the world has already been through this, and it has not been long enough that we have forgotten, certainly not in Western Europe, for example there will NEVER be another fascist leader in Germany, it just won't happen, nor is there likely to be in France, the UK, Holland, Belgium, Luxembourg, Spain or most likely Italy. I'd be surprised if Greece went fascist too, I just can't see it, no matter how much the Golden Dawn grow in popularity, they will never be allowed into mainstream politics because they will always be tainted by the events of the Second World War.
Likewise with the far left, particularly in America where Communism is a filthy word, and in Russia were it has mixed memories. However, there are still extremists out there, willing to do dangerous things, for religion, for money, for politics, and I think as economic times become harder, those extremists are going to become more and more prevalent, some may take office in smaller states, and we may find ourselves in a tangled web of alliances similar to that of 1900s Europe. I honestly couldn't say for certain, but it is something that concerns me.

Certainly though, there are interesting times ahead.

[Gerald]

Interesting post Obi,

[soopaman2]

Fine fine, Christie, and whoever you want.

Not like anyone does anything but laugh at the VP anyways, no matter who it is.


As I see now, Chris Christie has been fair in my state. Just too bad townships come up with laws to bypass property tax raise restrictions that he legislated and signed. He has the balls to attack government unions like NJEA, while leaving private ones who gave back alone. (yeah Wisconsin, I am talking to you)

He wants to stop the blood sucking blob, but he needs help, and cooperation.

Maybe Rubio (?), but he can be a bit off the scale at times too.