Bush tries to save some face --

It looks like our wonderful govt is thinking about another stimulus -- remember those tax rebates we got back in the spring of this year? It was $600 an individual and $1200 a couple. The govt doesn't want to do quite the same kind of stimulus as last time because -- get this -- 80% of the Americans who received it used it to either pay down debt or bolster savings. Here's what they want the new stimulus to do:

�The extension of unemployment benefits and possibly food stamps from 39 to 52 weeks.

�A boost in infrastructure spending, despite the problems of getting the money to work quickly.

�Some relief for state and local governments facing tighter budgets because of lower tax receipts and rising Medicaid costs.

God forbid we give something to the middle class -- let's extend the food stamps and boost the "infrastructure spending" -- what is that anyway? I'm guessing it's a way to line the pockets of the suits even more. When is it going to end?

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WASHINGTON � President George W. Bush's "after-life," as Laura Bush calls the post-presidency, is shaping up to be pretty comfortable, with a Dallas office, staffers, Secret Service protection, a travel budget, medical coverage and a $196,700 annual pension, all at taxpayers' expense.

However, Bush will be the first president not to benefit from one former lifetime benefit: Secret Service protection.

"He'll be the first one to receive it for 10 years," said Malcolm Wiley, Secret Service spokesman. Congress changed the law in the 1990s so that any president elected after Jan. 1, 1997, and his or her spouse will receive the federal protection for only 10 years.

The Bushes will move to their new $2 million, 8,500-square-foot Dallas home � not paid for by taxpayers � on Jan. 20, and there Bush will be close to his future presidential library at Southern Methodist University.

"We're working on a conceptual design for the building," said Mark Langdale, president of the George W. Bush Foundation. The president will help develop the $300 million structure, which will include a library, museum and policy institute.

Fundraising is just beginning, Langdale said. Once the project is finished in 2013, the National Archives and Records Administration will take over the operation of the library and museum, at federal expense. Construction will be paid for with private funds, and Bush is expected to be involved in organizing the fundraising drive.

"He is enthusiastic about spending a lot of his time and effort working on the programs of the institute," Langdale said.

Bush will maintain an office nearby in space acquired by the General Services Administration, which, under the Former Presidents Act, will pay for the office suite and staff to assist him for the rest of his life.

Bush's pension, which is tied to the base pay of the most senior government executives and increases with federal cost-of-living adjustments, will be about half the $400,000 annual presidential salary. He and Vice President Dick Cheney will receive transition expenses as well for seven months � one month before the inauguration and six months afterward � "to facilitate their transition to private life," according to the Congressional Research Service.

The GSA also covers travel expenses for any official activities attended by a former president, as well as two staff members. Former President Bill Clinton was allocated $50,000 for travel in fiscal year 2008 and former President George H.W. Bush, $56,000.

Former presidents and their families are entitled to health care in military hospitals, although they have to pay a reimbursement rate set by the Office of Management and Budget.

Bush will receive a state funeral upon his death, with full military honors for the former commander in chief.

We could all talk about our differences as friends. Some we would get along with and others not but we could talk about all of it respectfully with each other. Having the anonymity makes us all probably take things up a notch or two higher than we would in person, but I suspect we would all be making the same points, just in person. That said, with election day being tomorrow, I hope that all of us, no matter who is elected, will make the best of the situation and try to be kind to our fellow human beings regardless of race or religion.. Good night and Amen...lol

http://articles.news.aol.com/news/article.adp?id=20060523153709990005&ncid=NWS00010000000001

ALL who will need it in the next four years. That would be everyone who feels duped for having voted Obama in. Be careful what you ask for, you just might get it.

In the words of Yogi Berra: 'It ain't over till it's over.' There will be another election in four years.

We gave Carter - the 1-term wonder - a chance and he wrecked the economy. Reagan fixed the economy (with tax cuts) and bankrupted the USSR out of the arms race. There could be no more stark example of socialism vs free-market economics.

the trouble, let me be the first to accuse you of being a racist, a paranoid, a nasty, hateful person (did I miss anything?) for bringing up all these facts about the president and the party who only have your best interests in mind. How dare you say these things when our brave president is trying his very best to fill your gas tank and pay your mortgage. You should be ashamed.

See? Now nobody else has to break a sweat typing furiously to put you in your place. I'm sure we all feel much better now.

From time to time in human history, there occur events of seismic significance, when one orthodoxy is overthrown and another takes its place. Today, the scale of the global financial crisis demands that we re-evaluate the economic policy and philosophy that brought us to this point.

George Soros has said that "the salient feature of the current financial crisis is that it was not caused by some external shock. ... The crisis was generated by the system itself." He is right. The current crisis is the culmination of a 30-year domination of economic policy by a free-market ideology that has been variously called neo-liberalism, economic liberalism or economic fundamentalism. The central thrust of this ideology has been that government activity should be constrained, and ultimately replaced, by market forces. In the past year, we have seen how unchecked market forces have brought capitalism to the precipice.

Instead of distributing risk throughout the world, the global financial system has intensified it. Neo-liberal orthodoxy held that global financial markets would ultimately self-correct - the invisible hand of unfettered market forces finding their own equilibrium. But as economist Joseph Stiglitz has caustically observed: "The reason that the invisible hand often seems invisible is that it is not there."

Just as it fell to Franklin Roosevelt to rebuild American capitalism after the Depression, and to the American Democrats, strongly influenced by John Maynard Keynes, to rebuild postwar domestic demand, to engineer the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe and to set in place the Bretton Woods system to govern international economic engagement, so it falls to a new generation to reflect on and rebuild our national and international economic systems.

If centrist governments are to save capitalism, they must face three challenges. First is to use the agency of the state to reconstitute properly regulated markets and to rebuild domestic and global demand. With the demise of neo-liberalism, the role of the state has once more been recognized as fundamental. The state has been the primary actor in responding to three clear areas of the current crisis: in rescuing the private financial system from collapse; in providing direct stimulus to the real economy because of the collapse in private demand; and in the design of a national and global regulatory regime in which government has ultimate responsibility to determine and enforce the rules of the system.

The second challenge for social democrats is not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. As the global financial crisis unfolds and the hard impact on jobs is felt by families across the world, the pressure will be great to retreat to some model of an all-providing state and to abandon altogether the cause of open, competitive markets both at home and abroad. Protectionism has already begun to make itself felt, albeit in softer and more subtle forms than the crudity of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930. Soft or hard, protectionism is a surefire way of turning recession into depression, as it exacerbates the collapse in global demand. Social democracy's continuing philosophical claim to political legitimacy is its capacity to balance the private and the public, profit and wages, the market and the state. That philosophy once again speaks with clarity and cogency to the challenges of our time.

A further challenge for governments in dealing with the current crisis is its almost unprecedented global dimensions. Governments must craft consistent global financial regulations to prevent a race to the bottom, where capital leaks out to the areas of the global economy with the weakest regulation. We must establish stronger global disclosure standards for systemically important financial institutions. We must also build stronger supervisory frameworks to provide incentives for more responsible corporate conduct, including executive remuneration.

The world has turned to co-ordinated governmental action through the Group of 20: to help provide immediate liquidity to the global financial system; to co-ordinate sufficient fiscal stimulus to respond to the growth gap arising from the global recession; to redesign global regulatory rules for the future; to reform the existing global public institutions - especially the International Monetary Fund - to provide them with the powers and resources necessary for the demands of the 21st century.

The IMF's governance arrangements must be reformed. It is only reasonable that, if we expect fast-growing developing economies such as that of China to make a greater contribution to multilateral institutions such as the IMF, they should also gain a stronger decision-making voice in these forums.

The longer-term challenge for governments is to address the imbalances that have helped to destabilize the global economy in the past decade: in particular, the imbalances between large surplus economies such as that of China, Japan and the oil-exporting nations, and large debtor nations such as America.

The magnitude of the crisis and its impact across the world means that minor tweakings of long-established orthodoxies will not do. Two unassailable truths have already been established: that financial markets are not always self-correcting or self-regulating, and that government can never abdicate responsibility for maintaining economic stability.

For governments, it is critical that we get it right - not just to save the system of open markets from self-destruction, but also to rebuild confidence in properly regulated markets, so as to prevent extreme reactions from the far left or the far right taking hold.

Governments must get it right because the stakes are so high: There are the economic and social costs of long-term unemployment; poverty once again expanding its grim reach across the developing world; and the impact on long-term power structures within the existing international political and strategic order. Success is not optional. Too much now rides on our ability to prevail.

He figures he can win on the Dem ticket because PA has turned Dem. Well, I have news for him.....I doubt it. He only won by a couple votes in the last election because of Pat Toomey running against him. He will definitely lose this election.

I always split my ticket and I usually voted for him, but no more. I don't care what party anyone is affiliated with; but, to me, he is a traitor and that's someone else who is not needed in the Senate.

To those who vote straight party, open your eyes. They are only out for themselves (but is that really news to anyone?)

As posters have said before, we have to educate the people who don't watch/investigate/read up on the candidates running to make sure we vote the best candidates for the job...those who value the constitution, listen to their constituents (which is hard), and vote for the good of the country. Get rid of the a-holes who are in there. We really need to clean house this coming election.,

take it however you like, that is my personal opinion. We have a lot of great women leaders and yes a lot of women have fought for our rights as women, but that has nothing to do with a women running this country. Again, my personal opinion and why should I go and be a man because that is how I feel. Different people with different opinions, part of what makes the world go round. I feel the way I feel and I am not ashamed of it.

You really just proved the exact reason I stated women are not ready to lead this country. You reacted with emotions stating I should be ashamed and I am a disgrace, you were GUIDED by your EMOTIONS/FEELINGS. Goodnight!!

you didn't answer mine. Where did you hear that the U.S. doesn't make vaccines? Or is it merely more conservative fiction? Because it's simply not true.

You're talking about all this as if it's a leisurely endeavor that isn't time sensitive. I'm talking about protecting my family and your family from a potential bio terror attack using smallpox.

And you're right. No response is necessary at all because you haven't said anything worthy of one.

Bush tries to save some face --

What government must do to save capitalism

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