Armed Polite Society
Main Forums => Politics => Topic started by: AZRedhawk44 on February 23, 2009, 04:01:23 PM
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...after driving it up through the atmosphere, of course.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090223/ap_on_go_pr_wh/obama_economy
WASHINGTON – Urging future restraint even as current spending soars, President Barack Obama pledged on Monday to dramatically slash the skyrocketing annual budget deficit as he started to dole out the record $787 billion economic stimulus package he signed last week.
"If we confront this crisis without also confronting the deficits that helped cause it we risk sinking into another crisis down the road," the president warned. "We cannot simply spend as we please and defer the consequences to the next budget, the next administration or the next generation."
Obama summoned allies, adversaries and outside experts to a special White House meeting on the nation's future financial health one week after triumphantly putting his signature on the gargantuan spending-and-tax-cut measure designed to stop the country's economic free fall and, ultimately, reverse the recession now months into its second year.
At the same time, federal regulators announced a revamped program to shore up the nation's banks that could give the government increasing ownership. It was the administration's latest attempt to bolster the severely weakened banking system without nationalizing any institutions, which the White House has said it does not intend to do.
Wall Street showed it was unimpressed by all the activity. The Dow Jones industrials were down more than 200 points just before the close of trading.
Obama goes before Congress and the nation Tuesday night to make the case for his budget plans, which the White House is to release in more detail on Thursday.
By the president's account, the administration inherited a $1.3 trillion deficit for the current fiscal year from the Bush administration — that's the figure Obama says he'll cut in half — and the stimulus law, coupled with rescue efforts for ailing automakers, the financial industry and beleaguered homeowners will raise this year's red ink to $1.5 trillion.
The administration hopes to trim the deficit by scaling back Iraq war spending, raising taxes on the wealthiest and streamlining government.
The president also said he would reinstitute a rule that the government pay as it goes, rather than racking up debt, and he sought to prepare people for "tough choices" in years to come. He called the long-term solvency of Social Security "the single most pressing fiscal challenge we face by far" and said reforming health care, including burgeoning entitlement programs, is a huge priority.
"We are paying the price for these deficits right now," Obama said, estimating the country spends $250 billion — one in every ten dollars of taxpayer money — in interest on the national debt. "I refuse to leave our children with a debt that they cannot repay. And that means taking responsibility right now, in this administration, for getting our spending under control," he said.
Earlier, Obama met with Republican and Democratic governors who are poised to benefit from his unprecedented emergency economic package. He told the chief executives, attending a three-day National Governors Association meeting in Washington, that he would begin distributing $15 billion to their states within two days to help them with Medicaid payments to the poor.
The recession has strapped state budgets, in particular in regard to the Medicaid program that is jointly underwritten by states and the federal government.
Obama also responded to criticism from some Republican governors who have called the plan too big and too wasteful. He said such griping sounds political, and "that's what right now we don't have time to do."
One month into office as the economy continues its downward spiral, Obama is seeking to balance twin priorities: turning around dismal conditions with a huge injection of spending while lowering huge budget deficits. With his re-election race just a few years away, he also has an interest in avoiding being labeled as a big-government, big-spending Democrat.
The White House meetings opened a jam-packed White House week that includes a State-of-the-Union-style address to Congress Tuesday night and the president's first budget proposal on Thursday. A common thread: addressing current economic turmoil while controlling the country's long-term costs.
"This will not be easy. It will require us to make difficult decisions, and face challenges that we have long neglected," Obama told his White House audience, which included congressional leaders, 2008 GOP presidential nominee John McCain, and Republican Sen. Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, who recently backed out as Obama's commerce secretary.
Obama launched the summit with addresses from two economists: Mark Zandi of Moody's Economy.com and Robert Greenstein of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.
Zandi, who advised McCain's presidential campaign, said policymakers need to respond promptly and aggressively to the struggling economy and the disarray in the financial system. Greenstein described the nation's long-term fiscal picture as "unsustainable," driven by ever-rising medical costs. He called for health care reforms as well as spending and revenue policy changes.
After Obama spoke, attendees broke into five groups to brainstorm how to address costly areas including military weapons, Social Security, health care and tax reform.
Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., said, "Our deficit really cannot be controlled until we figure out how to deal with health care costs."
House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio proposed raising the Social Security retirement age to 70 over a number of years, while Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., volunteered to stand between critics and the administration to fix the program if officials will work across party lines.
Says the guy who added $800 billion to the deficit in the first place.
Sure, this year he started off with a $1.3 Trillion deficit. Part of that was Bush's $700 Billion wall street bail out. One-time spending, not a future budget commitment.
Pretty easy to trim that from next year's budget. ;/
Obama increased that 1.3 Trillion to 2.1 Trillion, and he isn't done with adding to the bottom line for FY09. I expect about 3 Trillion, when all is said and done.
Cutting that to 1.5 Trillion for the following year? What a hero! He's my savior! An Atlas of banking and financial acumen.
sigh.
When do we put the 'tards back on the short bus, where they belong?
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Multiply by three, then divide by two! Magic!
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I refuse to leave our children with a debt that they cannot repay.
No, if they can't pay it then the serfs will rebel. Just load them up to that point right before they stagger and stumble, and enjoy riding in your podium on their backs.
Asshat. I refuse to leave my children with a debt that I own, at all. What a coward.
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I refuse to leave my children with a debt that I own, at all. What a coward.
Unless your name is Duncan McLeod, I don't think you'll be successful....we've already put two generations under the burden of the current debt....we'll have two more generations paying off Obama's "change".....and just wait until we all get on SS and Medicare.... :rolleyes:
I think euthenasia will become very popular with future generations thanks to us.... =(
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I know I'm preaching to the choir but...
Didn't Obama get elected, in part, because he decried the "deficit spending" and "irresponsibility" of the previous administration?
And didn't this previous administration's irresponsibility lead to the highest deficit ever in the United States history: $482 Billion?
Apparently our previous administration wasn't irresponsible enough.
I'm so glad we got "CHANGE" and "HOPE".
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I think euthenasia will become very popular with future generations thanks to us
I have no doubt that the Left will start their old "useless eaters" rhetoric very shortly.
Suicide, assisted suicide, killing your parents will become the hot topics from NPR to Hollywood soon enough.
Works of fiction will again become federal policy=>http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/0446579815/190-9726122-0211645?SubscriptionId=02ZH6J1W0649DTNS6002
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Fed.gov has made promises for 36 trillion dollars worth of give aways. We don't have 36 trillion dollars so we either kill the promisees or take the freebies away.
As the government only knows violence and cannot damage their political base, they will start killing the beneficiaries.
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Let's see . . .
Bush and the GOP Congress he had for his first six years on Pennsylvania Avenue spent money like drunken sailors. (9/11 was an excuse, but an awful lot of spending went to things that had NOTHING to do with national security.) True.
Bush and the Democrat Congress we had for the last two years spent money even faster, culminating in an immense bailout package for the finance sector. Also true.
With their porkulus package, Barack Hussein Obama and His Democrat Congress are already making the last eight years of insane spending seem like amateur hour . . . and I've got news for you - hang on, folks, he's barely gotten started. :mad:
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Unless your name is Duncan McLeod, I don't think you'll be successful....
=D
Well, there is some scotch in me... maybe if I just pickle myself really good I'll make it to see the day when the US has no outstanding debt.
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1. Spend tons of money.
2. Promise tons of money.
3. Raise Taxes.
4. ?????
5. Low Deficits!!!!
I am sure cutting defense spending will be in there somewhere. They are democrats after all. You can't expect them to cut welfare or SS. Rush said the stimulus bill took away the work requirement for welfare. If true, expect that expenditure to increase.
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I am using a new tool at work called click. I's a click in the ass. The crew members in charge of overseeing this new dispatch tool do not know what they are doing. They always have a response to questions or excuses for why things do not work as expected.
There is a disconnect between making up excuses out of thin air and an honest discussion that may include an "I don't know" or "I did this to move the tickets along no matter the days pace".
The time frame for forcing these things onto the people is exponentially shrinking for this admin. Hopefully they will feel some of this heat. Or they won't and I will be wearing black.
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To those of us who are still rational this administration gets more ludicrous by the day. Study groups to deal with prodigality? Populated by every leftist NGO under the sun?
These are amateurs putting on a school play and calling their travesty "government."
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Nobody wants to watch a passenger train wreck even if it is off the Tagart bridge.
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I believe we are seeing the last days of the Republic. I really thought it would make it until 2040 or so.
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I believe we are seeing the last days of the Republic. I really thought it would make it until 2040 or so.
Riiiight.
No.
America has seen worse, survived worse, and then got worse by its collar and beat the crap out of it. :D
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America has seen worse, survived worse, and then got worse by its collar and beat the crap out of it.
When?
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When?
Production quotas on wheat? Bans on gold possession? A 94% upper tax bracket? The Second World War?
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Out of control.
House Democrats propose $410B spending bill
House bill to keep govt. running totals $410 billion, features thousands of pet projects
WASHINGTON (AP) -- House Democrats unveiled a $410 billion spending bill on Monday to keep the government running through the end of the fiscal year, setting up the second political struggle over federal funds in less than a month with Republicans.
The measure includes thousands of earmarks, the pet projects favored by lawmakers but often criticized by the public in opinion polls. There was no official total of the bill's earmarks, which accounted for at least $3.8 billion.
The legislation, which includes an increase of roughly 8 percent over spending in the last fiscal year, is expected to clear the House later in the week.
Democrats defended the spending increases, saying they were needed to make up for cuts enacted in recent years or proposed a year ago by then-President George W. Bush in health, education, energy and other programs.
Republicans countered that the spending in the bill far outpaced inflation, and amounted to much higher increases when combined with spending in the stimulus legislation that President Barack Obama signed last week. In a letter to top Democratic leaders, the GOP leadership called for a spending freeze, a step they said would point toward a "new standard of fiscal discipline."
Either way, the bill advanced less than one week after Obama signed the $787 billion economic stimulus bill that all Republicans in Congress opposed except for three moderate GOP senators.
Apart from spending, the legislation provides Democrats in Congress and Obama an opportunity to reverse Bush-era policy on selected issues.
It loosens restrictions on travel to Cuba, as well as the sale of food and medicine to the communist island-nation.
In another change, the legislation bans Mexican-licensed trucks from operating outside commercial zones along the border with the United States. The Teamsters Union, which supported Obama's election last year, hailed the move.
The Bush administration backed a pilot program to permit up to 500 trucks from 100 Mexican motor carriers access to U.S. roads.
The legislation covers programs for numerous Cabinet-level and other agencies, and takes the place of regular annual spending bills that did not pass last year as a result of a deadlock between the Bush administration and the Democratic-controlled Congress.
Congressional expenses are included. The bill provides $500,000 for what is described as a Senate "pilot program" that will defray the cost of mass mail postcards to households notifying them of a nearby town meeting to be attended by any senator.
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We all wondered when bull**** would become the currency of the land. That time is here. And Obama is its master.
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We've seen worse?
That may have been true when our enemies were external, but now we are dying from the inside out and many of our fellow citizens are part of the problem. This makes the "surgery" required rather tricky.
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To those of us who are still rational this administration gets more ludicrous by the day. Study groups to deal with prodigality? Populated by every leftist NGO under the sun?
These are amateurs putting on a school play and calling their travesty "government."
Perspicacious. But I'm not sure "prodigality" is a word. If not, it should be.
"School play" fits reality uncannily well.
TC
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prod⋅i⋅gal⋅i⋅ty [prod-i-gal-i-tee] =D
–noun, plural -ties for 2, 3.
1. the quality or fact of being prodigal; wasteful extravagance in spending.
2. an instance of it.
3. lavish abundance.
Origin:
1300–50; ME prodigalite < L prōdigālitās wastefulness, equiv. to prōdig(us) extravagant + -āl(is) -al 1 + -itās -ity
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
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Obama has already doubled the deficit. He can halve it simply by returning things to they way they were when Bush was in charge. That can't be all that hard, can it?
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You're making it too easy. He prefers the East German model.
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We've seen worse?
That may have been true when our enemies were external, but now we are dying from the inside out and many of our fellow citizens are part of the problem. This makes the "surgery" required rather tricky.
Doesn't the Civil War just kind of jump out at you here? Or are some of us wholly unaware of 19th century U.S. history? ???
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WASHINGTON, Feb 28 (Reuters) - A combative President Barack Obama warned on Saturday he was bracing for a fight against powerful lobbyists and special interests who sought to pick apart the $3.55 trillion budget he wants to advance his agenda of reform.
Obama's spending blueprint, with its massive $1.17 trillion deficit and tax hikes on the wealthy, seeks to squeeze billions of dollars in savings out of current spending through competitive bidding among health insurers and ending subsidies and tax breaks for banks, agribusiness and oil companies.
"These steps won't sit well with the special interests and lobbyists who are invested in the old way of doing business," the president said in his weekly radio address.
"I know they're gearing up for a fight as we speak," he said. "My message to them is this: So am I."
Obama, you are now officially my political enemy. You want a fight? You want to act like a cheap Chicago thug like your sponsor King Daley?
BRING IT.
You're going to get a $%^! fight until you leave the White House in disgrace. Enough of this crap. One month, and he's trying to break the entire United States.
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He thinks he's on a mission from God, with high wind at his back. He has dreams and audacity, but the other stuff appears to be in short supply.
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Obama's spending blueprint, with its massive $1.17 trillion deficit and tax hikes on the wealthy, seeks to squeeze billions of dollars in savings out of current spending through competitive bidding among health insurers and ending subsidies and tax breaks for banks, agribusiness and oil companies.
How do you "save" money by creating the obligation of government health care then muttering something about competitive bidding rather than leaving it to the private sector? Further evidence of 'tard status.
I can agree with ending subsidies for agribusiness... but tax breaks are good things and don't hurt me, no matter who has 'em.
I'm with you, Maned. It's me and you against the world. We attack at dawn.
(Okay, I stole the from some guy's sig line at M14 Firing Line forums... but it fits here.)
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How do you "save" money by creating the obligation of government health care then muttering something about competitive bidding rather than leaving it to the private sector? Further evidence of 'tard status
all i can say is that must be some mighty fine coke he's a snortin' :|
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He thinks he's on a mission from God, with high wind at his back. He has dreams and audacity, but the other stuff appears to be in short supply.
Sounds eeirly similar to the last 8 years.
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He thinks he's on a mission from God, with high wind at his back...
I think he is starting to believe those who are busy deifying him. The Obama-worship has not slackened much since the election.
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Obama doesn't know what a fight is. He's won his elections by disqualifying his opponents and, most lately, by outpointing an old RINO. He has come to believe his own ****. His Harvard professors told him his blue books were priceless things of beauties. I suspect he will begin losing it bigtime when he realizes that the thrill is gone and he's not, as he is accustomed, to getting his way. Obama has the makings of the biggest implosion in American electoral history.
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I happen to think Barry O is an usurper. Hopefully some judge somewhere will wise up and allow a case to be herd soon instead of dismissing them. Untill then we are all screwed.