Comments on: Federal Spending, Democrat-Style

By: gloria Obama vaughan

gloria Obama vaughan — Mon, 15 Oct 2012 06:43:00 +0000

Who has busted the budget the republicans now all of a sudden they arw fiscal hawks malarkey the truth is we are still suffering from the bush years as we speak

By: tiponeill

tiponeill — Wed, 03 Oct 2012 18:03:00 +0000

No it wasn’t necessary All that was necessary was , as you suggested, going in, taking out the Al Queda etc leadership, and go home.

I remember the one thing shrub said when he was running (the first time) was that we shouldn’t be “nation building”.

By: BajaDemocrats

BajaDemocrats — Wed, 03 Oct 2012 04:23:00 +0000

That’s it? No explanation for the ‘DNA’ in Republican spending when they were in power?

And when you refer to the ‘Dem base’ – would that be the 47% to which you refer? The 47% who Mr. Romney thinks are victims and refuse to take responsibility for their lives?

By: fortbuckley

fortbuckley — Wed, 03 Oct 2012 02:46:00 +0000

Unfortunately, spending is in Democrats’s DNA. People who vote for Democrats expect stuff in return. They expect to be paid for their vote.

Why. based on the way they’ve performed over the past three years, should we expect Democrats to change? The Dem voter base won’t permit it.

By: BajaDemocrats

BajaDemocrats — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 22:19:00 +0000

You make very good points, and I agree completely. I should have made the distinction that the initial invasion was a justifiable response for the Taliban allowing Al Queda to plot 9/11 within Afghanistan. It was the 10 year occupation and war since the Taliban was ousted that was a war of choice. My one area of disappointment with Obama is the surge in Afghanistan and extending the war. I have no doubt the tribes there will keep fighting and killing each other as soon as we leave, whether that is tomorrow or 2014.

By: BajaDemocrats

BajaDemocrats — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 22:08:00 +0000

The economy was very strong throughout most of Clinton’s term . . . . with tax rates the Republicans would be devastating to so called “job creators”, aka the wealthiest 2%, if we revert back to them. There was a bubble in internet stocks, but if you think daytraders make so much money their capital gains had any significant impact on tax revenues you really need to try to make a living off day trading. Loosened lending standards??? Compared to 2005-2008 when the only requirement to get a mortgage was to have a pulse, and even that wasn’t always a deal killer. The recession in 2001 was minor, which is the real indicator of how much of a bubble economy under Clinton.

By: Mark_B_Evans

Mark_B_Evans — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 17:21:00 +0000

I mostly agree with your assessment about how we got to $16 trillion defecit, but I disagree with you on one significant point, the Afghanistan war was not a choice. Iraq, was to be sure. It’s the first war in American history that resulted from gross incompetence and mendacity.
But Afghanistan was necessary. That failed state ruled by various warlords, theocrats and fanatics harbored a terrorist organization that had just killed 3,000 Americans and caused tens of billions of dollars in damage both to real property and to the economy.
Bin Laden and his acolytes needed to die. Which meant Afghanistan needed to be invaded.
Where we might agree is that we should have gone in there with the Marines, Army and Air Force (and Naval fighters and bombers), found and killed bin Laden and company, killed Mullah Omar and crew and just about anybody with an AK47 or a rocket launcher shouting death to America. Then turned the country over to the Northern Alliance and left, allowing the Afghans to resume their two-decade civil war because that’s none of our business.
That wouldn’t have cost a half trillion dollars, just a few billion. That’s a rounding error in the federal budget.
But the incompetence of Bush/Cheney, and now Obama, have kept us there for 11 years under the canard that we have some sort of obligation to rebuild their country to prevent another “failed state” from harboring terrorists when in fact, a nuclear state next door is the one fostering all the trouble in Afghanistan and is real problem. (Speaking of real problems, it’s Saudia Arabia that fosters around the world the radical fundamentalism that plagues us and the Middle East and it’s Pakistan that gave Iran and North Korea the technology to build nukes, but we invaded Iraq. Go figure).

By: Fix Social Security Now

Fix Social Security Now — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 15:43:00 +0000

” When Bill Clinton left office in January of 2001, this country enjoyed a healthy $236 billion budget SURPLUS, the first budget surplus in decades. In all fairness yes, that was the result of bipartisanship”
Bipartisanship?
How about capital gains from daytraders riding the internet bubble? How about jobs created by Y2K. How about loosened lending standards at banks, particularly in the consumer credit standards.
Your commentary is based on the idea that the economy was sound. It wasn’t. The problem here is that the internet bubble exploded in Mar 00. Y2K jobs were coming off line.
Just silly.