Government Spending: Is It Worth $62,000 to You?.....sm

The messages you are viewing are archived/old.
To view latest messages and participate in discussions, select the boards given in left menu

money is the path to destruction. The reason Bush's tax cuts didn't work was because we were still spending WAY too much money in government. More government programs will only cost us more money, raise our taxes, and the American people will be hurting more. Businesses that employ people will cut back knowing taxes are going up and more people will lose jobs. Some businesses will go under and more people will lose jobs. I just do not see this spending spree and government programs helping us at all. I do not want a bigger government. I do not want government to have more control because God knows they can't even do their part without screwing something up. We have too many corrupt people in Washington who are trying to pay off the special interest groups that got them elected in the first place. If Obama signs this omnibus bill, that will be the final nail in his coffin for me. I gave him a chance and all I've seen is lie after lie. I truly feel that he is running this country even more into the ground.

If I am wrong, I will gladly admit that, but I will have to see a major turn around in order for me to admit that. Right now....all I can see more government control and future bankruptcy for our country and it scares the dickens out of me.

Yeah.....an 825 billion dollar stimulus package that won't really work....sounds like spending is under control to me. Holy crow people! Nothing like adding that to our huge deficit now and how many days as he been in office? Is that like a new record of making the deficit shoot up so fast within the first month of a presidency. Impressive....NOT.

in the pocket at what they will actually have to spend to buy us out of this mess. We can't afford to spend our way out of this. They are going to have a spend a lot more money realistically do create the jobs they are talking about. Plus, all this money won't be going into the system right away. To me this package is crap.

At least with major tax cuts businesses could work their way out without government controlling them. I do not like the idea of our government controlling so much.

we don't have is going to save the country? What I want to know is this.....we are all about finding alternative fuel sources and we want to end our dependency on foreign oil right? So if we are going to spend and invest money, why not spent it on drilling for oil now as well as starting alternative fuel sources. Think about how many jobs that would create and they would be longterm jobs because we will constantly need energy. To me that would seem like a smart thing to spend money on instead of the pet projects and crap that congress just voted for...jerks.

People would get jobs and could then afford healthcare. That would mean less people needing government assistance....but wait......Obama and the democrats want the American people dependent on government....my bad.....so that wouldn't work for their personal agenda of having more control and power over us little people.

Meet the Press: GOP Whip Cantor Hides Behind Troops to Explain Runaway Spending

GOP House Whip Eric Cantor (R - Virginia) gave a gem of a performance today on NBC's Meet The Press, this site's parent company which is ultimately owned by General Electric. Cantor's job was to criticize the administration while trying to convince David Gregory, and by extension the American people, that his own personal behavior in Congress as well as the collective behavior of the GOP in Congress prior to the Obama administration was immaterial to the current situation.

First up on Cantor's checklist was to attack the administration on not having a concrete plan yet to remove troubled assets from the balance books of American banks. When confronted with the fact that the Republicans had no current plan and that the previous Republican administration was completely befuddled by the whole issue of the troubled assets and how to value & remove them Cantor insisted that it was important that America look forward, not backward.

Second was to go on the offensive against the administration in the name of wasteful spending. Whilst criticizing the Obama administration's stimulus plan, Cantor loudly lamented (while holding up a sheaf of papers) that the poor Republicans had a plan of their own but it was totally ignored by the press and, thus, ignored by the public. Cantor then went to bat on the 2009 budget bill that Obama signed into law criticizing the earmarks and the dreadful deficit spending. David Gregory then asked Cantor "People are wondering where these fiscal conservative convictions were when Republicans in Congress were complicit in President Bush's spending." Cantor's reply was quick and predictable: Of course they did! But it was for a good cause: the troops! How dare anyone question a massive budget bill in which a fraction of the massive spending goes towards outfitting our troops? Cantor slyly avoided the point that the regular Pentagon money was in the runaway budgets that the Republican Congresses approved but the specific money to operate the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were specifically appropriated as emergency measures so that they would not have to be tabulated all together and give the public a sticker shock and awe campaign over how much our Arabian adventure was actually costing. Nor did he give the Democrats that voted for this last budget the same out that he himself took: they were just doing it for the troops because we should all take care of our troops and that is what a patriotic American would do: okay anything with even a fraction of military spending in it even if the rest is massive and unneeded pork barrel spending. Despite the fact that we are still very much at war in Afghanistan, which apparently slipped Cantor's mind, he left the blame to lay squarely on Congressional Democrats. It got more entertaining when Gregory asked Cantor if it was true, as the Democrats had presented data to show, that Cantor had supported 46,000 earmarks in his time in Congress. It was at this point that Cantor said with heartfelt sincerity that there was more than enough blame to go around but that now was the time to be forward-looking and heed his and Minority Leader John Boehner's call for a moratorium on earmarks. Cantor also generously offered the Republicans in Congress' help in supporting any veto that President Obama wanted to use on a Democratic-written bill and, if need be, the Republicans would even move on Obama's behalf to repeal any legislation that Obama feels was a bad idea. It was a very touching moment of bipartisanship... a member of the other party selflessly offering to help the President undo everything he has done over the past 50 days.

Gregory then brought up the specter of government stabilization of the financial system through buying up the troubled assets. Cantor specifically said that this was priority #1. Gregory asked Cantor if he would be willing to deviate from the current Republican stance of rigid fiscal conservatism to spend the money needed to gather up these troubled assets and remove them from the game board until they had recovered to the point that they were not toxic on the banks' balance sheets anymore. Cantor hemmed and hawed saying it would depend how much it would cost and so on. Gregory then hit him with the Big "T": $2 trillion. Cantor demurred as best he could, avoiding an answer from then until the end of the interview.

Pundits and Republicans both label Cantor as one of the up-and-coming rising stars in the Republican Party. He seems to need more experience on Meet The Press before he takes a serious spokesman role. If David Gregory can roll you, Tim Russert (bless his soul, I miss him) would have eaten you with some fava beans and a nice Chianti.

but they didn't earn that money. That money could be used for education or healthcare instead of making sure poor people circulated it. I'm middle class. I have been a single mom since my son was born, no Welfare, he is 19 now. I have NEVER asked for a handout. Are you telling me that I don't spend money? I have paid for everything I have. I own a house and I haven't even received 1 dime in child support. I barely make it, but I do make it and I work my butt off to do it. It isn't fun, but who are you to tell me that I would spend more money and boost the economy more if I was on Welfare instead. My son didn't grow up with a Welfare mom and I'm sure he won't get mad at me for not helping the ecomony because of it. He doesn't even know I'm broke. For him, there is a sense of pride in earning. He is in college now and excited to be among the working class because he was never taught there was any other way, you WORK. He will get a student loan, which he will have to pay back someday. This isn't free money. He did get a Pell grant, so I guess he got a little bit of a handout, but to qualify for that, you still have to do something, go to school. The Pell grant is less than what most people get for Welfare and they don't have to do anything at all. Seriously? Poor people make this country work, who knew? And here I thought this country was built on the sweat and tears of the middle class and the hard working folks who believed in capitalism and not socialism.

So if my neighbor gives me a $1000 bucks and I go spend it, does that mean I helped my neighbor? Do I have to pay him back? Just curious.

And for those that say you HAVE to work to get welfare,...... NO YOU DON'T! I see that waaaay too much where I live...... mostly just generation after generation living off ME!!!! So, MORE government is just FINE with them!!

You are BORING with your same rants day after day. Especially when they were already discussed on last nights news. I'm not wasting my time. Have fun, I guess?

on federal lobbying. This makes me furious at both the companies and the government. ARGH!

It's pretty obvious. The Democrats plan to get all of their spending bills in while they have the chance. What isn't apparently so obvious to them is that the public is growing more and more fed up with all of this at a time when WE CANNOT AFFORD IT, even if we did want the intrusion into our lives.

Bailouts. Stimulus. Auto takeovers. New emission standards. Universal healthcare. Mandated paid vacation. Afghanistan. Climate. All of these things will raise prices and the increase is the same thing as an increase in taxes. Meanwhile, taxes themselves are being raised at all levels of government.

Meanwhile, the offshore drilling passed by law last year has yet to be implemented, so oil companies are still having to drill miles out in deep ocean at a cost that is many times higher. Can anyone say sky-rocketing gas prices?

Looks like we'll have to teach them another lesson in 2010 like we did in 1992 and 1994 - and the Democrats vastly misunderstand what just happened in the California vote, obviously. That's okay. They'll finally get it about the time that they find themselves looking for work starting in January, 2011.

15 September 2002: A SECRET blueprint for US global domination reveals that President Bush and his cabinet were planning a premeditated attack on Iraq to secure 'regime change' even before he took power in January 2001.

The blueprint, uncovered by the Sunday Herald, for the creation of a 'global Pax Americana' was drawn up for Dick Cheney (now vice- president), Donald Rumsfeld (defence secretary), Paul Wolfowitz (Rumsfeld's deputy), George W Bush's younger brother Jeb and Lewis Libby (Cheney's chief of staff). The document, entitled Rebuilding America's Defences: Strategies, Forces And Resources For A New Century, was written in September 2000 by the neo-conservative think-tank Project for the New American Century (PNAC).

The plan shows Bush's cabinet intended to take military control of the Gulf region whether or not Saddam Hussein was in power. It says: 'The United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein.'

The PNAC document supports a 'blueprint for maintaining global US pre-eminence, precluding the rise of a great power rival, and shaping the international security order in line with American principles and interests'.

This 'American grand strategy' must be advanced for 'as far into the future as possible', the report says. It also calls for the US to 'fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theatre wars' as a 'core mission'.

The report describes American armed forces abroad as 'the cavalry on the new American frontier'. The PNAC blueprint supports an earlier document written by Wolfowitz and Libby that said the US must 'discourage advanced industrial nations from challenging our leadership or even aspiring to a larger regional or global role'.

The PNAC report also:

l refers to key allies such as the UK as 'the most effective and efficient means of exercising American global leadership';

l describes peace-keeping missions as 'demanding American political leadership rather than that of the United Nations';

l reveals worries in the administration that Europe could rival the USA;

l says 'even should Saddam pass from the scene' bases in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait will remain permanently -- despite domestic opposition in the Gulf regimes to the stationing of US troops -- as 'Iran may well prove as large a threat to US interests as Iraq has';

l spotlights China for 'regime change' saying 'it is time to increase the presence of American forces in southeast Asia'. This, it says, may lead to 'American and allied power providing the spur to the process of democratisation in China';

l calls for the creation of 'US Space Forces', to dominate space, and the total control of cyberspace to prevent 'enemies' using the internet against the US;

l hints that, despite threatening war against Iraq for developing weapons of mass destruction, the US may consider developing biological weapons -- which the nation has banned -- in decades to come. It says: 'New methods of attack -- electronic, 'non-lethal', biological -- will be more widely available ... combat likely will take place in new dimensions, in space, cyberspace, and perhaps the world of microbes ... advanced forms of biological warfare that can 'target' specific genotypes may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool';

l and pinpoints North Korea, Libya, Syria and Iran as dangerous regimes and says their existence justifies the creation of a 'world-wide command-and-control system'.

Tam Dalyell, the Labour MP, father of the House of Commons and one of the leading rebel voices against war with Iraq, said: 'This is garbage from right-wing think-tanks stuffed with chicken-hawks -- men who have never seen the horror of war but are in love with the idea of war. Men like Cheney, who were draft-dodgers in the Vietnam war.

'This is a blueprint for US world domination -- a new world order of their making. These are the thought processes of fantasist Americans who want to control the world. I am appalled that a British Labour Prime Minister should have got into bed with a crew which has this moral standing.'

�2002 smg sunday newspapers ltd