There is an old political cartoon titled “Running the ‘Machine’” showing Abraham Lincoln sitting at a table with his cabinet next to a guy running a device, called “Chase’s Patent Greenback Mill.” Chase ment Secretary of the Treasury Salmon Chase and of course greenback ment money. This cartoon should be remade to reflect the Democratic party. Obama could still spout the line given to Lincoln, “All this reminds me of a most capital joke.” Pelonsi could be seen getting information from a CIA agent and telling the agent to add some more water next time, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates could be talking to an aid about the war in Afghanistan. The Mill could be updated to a printing press. A UAW rep and banker rep could be seen wanting money from the press.

Watching these greedy, hateful, SOBs self-destruct has been one of life’s great pleasures!

Greg, how quickly you forget that Bush doubled our national debt and wasn’t necessarily good with the checkbook. Now, you want to blame the Democrats.

Where was the outrage last year and the previous 7?

Alzheimer’s, how quickly you forget that Obama QUADRUPLED Bush’s national debt and isn’t necessarily good with the checkbook. Now, you want to blame W. And didn’t he vote for the same spending that you are complaining about, Why YES HE DID. Now he says that the long-term US debt load is unsustainable, THE SAME DEBT LOAD HE EITHER VOTED FOR OR SIGNED.

Where was the outrage the previous 4 months?

Alzheimer, the Obama administration has already spent $9 trillion (about equal to the U.S. national debt) on the bailout alone and it’s just May of year one. He is spending money so fast that the government printed $500 billion in March because it couldn’t find enough bond holders. When Bush left, there was $800 billion in cash in the whole U.S. Bush never had that problem (printing money creates inflation)of needing to print cash, because enough though the budget increased, he got enough bond buyers to keep inflation in check. Obama has trouble getting new bond holders, because other countries don’t want to fall into “the dollar trap” where bonds cashed out in the future will be worth less than if the buyers just held cash in non U.S. currency.

Obama will easily outspend both Bushes and Reagan in the next 4 years while creating inflation last seen in the 1970s.

phuck you (sic)

Greg, you know it’s tough to take those numbers seriously. You’re accounting total spending for the next 4 years, into one year.

And, it’s just YOUR opinion that doomsday is around the corner. If it’s unprecedented spending, which you claim, then there’s also a chance it may work.

You should be more upset at GM and Chrysler for taking money and THEN declaring bankruptcy and closing a total of 1900 dealerships. Good ole private industry making off with a cool billions.

Mayday, you should know that the US Government controls both GM and Chrysler, the Government is shutting those dealerships down. And how much does good ole govt make off with every year?

It is unprecedented spending, which is a fact not a claim. Obama’s budget more than doubles the national debt held by the public, and adds more to the debt than all previous presidents — from George Washington to George W. Bush — COMBINED. (FACT)

That’s your opinion, what…are you in the fifth grade. Economics is not a popularity contest based on opinion.

The biggest problem Obama will face going forward is that the deficit-spending Keynesian approach that he and the Democrats have embraced cannot produce recovery. It never has and it never will.

Octo: If it’s unprecedented, how is it that YOU know the outcome?? Just as you say it’s ‘doomsday’, there are many who say the opposite.

PS Octoass: I’m a fifth grader? Yet, you’re the one being condescending as if everyone else is a jackass for not seeing the world through your extremely fox-skewed glasses.

I’m going to assume that you were one of the many telling us liberals to pipe down during the Iraq invasion, or we’d be considered enemy combatants, or unpatriotic. Well, seems things have switched now, yet you won’t take your own advice.

From 1981 to 1994, $15.08 trillion was budgeted. Under the last Bush, $20.37 trillion was budgeted.

So do I believe Obama will be spending $36 trillion in the next 4 years? It’s very possible. About half of that would come from his planned budget such as the $3.6 trillion budget he has planned for 2010. Add $9 trillion from the bailout money under Obama. That leaves me about $9 trillion short.

His universal health care plan would cost between $1-2 trillion a year so if it’s $2 trillion a year, that puts me short only $1 trillion. His plan would probably continue long after he leaves so that’s at least $1 trillion a year until sombody says no more.

There is also bailout money not yet spent, his increased budget to support the U.N., bailout money he wants to give to poor countries, increased infrastucture expenses, cost of cleaning up any major man made or natural disaster, etc.

So yes, I believe Obama will spend as much as the last 20 years of Republican rule and do it within his 4 year (with the possibility inclusion of ongoing programs after he leaves).

Jed Clampett

didn’t the last guy, a masters in business administration, an elite from Harvard and Yale with a history in the oil industry, reduce his budget by not including the war, the transfer of wealth from the treasury to needy millionaires (tax cuts) or incentives to the oil companies in the budget?

Are you saying Pres. Obama is foolish for being honest or weak for not being deceitful like the last administration?

Tax cuts are not expenses. Did either Bush funnel money from the treasury to his buddies? No, but Obama is (that’s most of the $9 trillion I mention). I included the bailout money under Bush.

Obama didn’t include the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq either. The cost under Bush for those two wars was about $1 trillion (from what I could find), but I don’t know if any of that cost is part of the budget labeled the War on Terror and the defense budget. After all the cost of fuel to do a bomb run for practice or for real is the same. Troops are still fed and paid in peace time and war. Now some of the cost would be a wash between Bush and Obama since Obama is also spending money in both Iraq and Afghanistan at the same burn rate as Bush.

Jed Clampett

You must think deceit and gullibility are virtues. What is worse? when you loose your credibility because it is evident your only intent is smearing a political adversary, or when your gullibility prevents you from noticing the water in the pot getting hotter and the guy you are pointing fingers at is in there with you?

When a tax cut reduces the money available to the treasury, it is equivalent to having spent that money(how can you consider the elimination of a tax abatement as a tax increase?).
When you spend $40 million on a troop transport that gets blown up by a mine, it’s still $40 million that could have been spent on good schools to help our children out of poverty. Or for universal health care. Or for renewable energy.

A conventional 75lb bomb may cost $50 in materials to make, a $10 kit turns it into a JDAM and increases the cost to the taxpayer to $15000 each rather than the $1500 for a conventional bomb. Long live capitalism, here, have another freedom bomb, it’s better than safe produce.

OMG. Obama’s spending money domestically! How dare he! It’s criminal and justification for punishment! How DARE he spend money in America creating jobs and keeping businesses afloat! Didn’t the last administration pave the way to continually ignore domestic problems in order to enrich those with Defense and Oil Services interests?!

How DARE Obama!

If he balances JUST ONE budget during his first four years, I say impeach the man!

Jeb Clampit,

Tax cuts increase the money available to the treasury. High marginal tax rates discourage work effort, saving, and investment, and promote tax avoidance and tax evasion. A reduction in high marginal tax rates would boost long term economic growth, and reduce the attractiveness of tax shelters and other forms of tax avoidance.

The Reagan tax cuts, like similar measures enacted in the 1920s and 1960s, showed that reducing excessive tax rates stimulates growth, reduces tax avoidance, and can increase the amount and share of tax payments generated by the rich. High top tax rates can induce counterproductive behavior and suppress revenues.

PS May, No one said you were an enemy combatant or unpatriotic. You are simply setting up straw man arguments and trying to portray yourself and the rest of your ilk as victims of some right wing attack that never actually occurred. BTW, why do you always mention Fox News when you can’t make a valid point? And you forgot to mention Halliburton, blood for oil, Bush is Hitler, and to say right wingers are RAAAAACIST, homophobic and sexist.

Mr. Boner,

By UhUhbama’s own budget projections, he will NEVER balance a budget. I could keep going on, but your not going to think when you’re drinking the kool aid.

Jed Clampett

Perhaps in the bizarro world that your mind lives in, that counts for logic, but convoluted and contrived theories are either the product of ignorance or deceit. Given the source of the comments, I’ll venture it’s both.

No law or regulation has ever prevented a crime or compelled people to throw away their money or prevent them from spending it/ investing it, only self governance does that, laws only impose liabilities for failing to conform to norms. Good pay and benefits, an enjoyment of the work environment and a sense of progress and prosperity encourage work effort and savings. Being overworked and underpaid leads to despair, distrust, frustration and eventually, tensions that may express themselves in strikes or worse.
It is personal character that promotes tax avoidance and evasion or any other criminality for that matter. It is greed and a desire to exploit the rest of us that gives them the impetus to do it, coupled with a knowledge that resources are scarce and enforcement spotty. Even when caught, they understand that they will only be liable for pennies on the dollar given the current way of doing things. Hell, even when caught all they have to do for restitution of their crime is pay the money owed and take your seat in cabinet, the initial fraud is not even taken into consideration (then again, they made the system so convoluted that it is almost impossible to prove intentional fraud over an accounting mistake, this is by design). Evaders make a calculation and consider the risks acceptable, even if caught they save money, the way the system has been corrupted by businessmen turned politicians promotes tax evasion and selfishness, in fact, those qualities are rewarded.
To increase long term economic growth, reducing tax rates now will only help them make short term gains at the expense of the public and in the long run will have as much effect as the TARP, none but helping the wealthy further monopolize power.
Tax the sh!t out of stagnant wealth and watch the investments multiply; providing bonuses for the early and successful completion of a project would be more effective.
To reduce the attractiveness of tax shelters the solution is simple, prevent them from ever accessing those ill gotten gains when they get busted, either through confiscation of assets or long term imprisonment. Tax evasion is in effect treating the population as slaves in that their labor and suffering goes to support the evader’s lavish lifestyle.
It seems evident you are only looking at the benefits and liabilities of executives, entrepreneurs and investors. Seems you’ve forgotten the cart would be worthless without a horse, and to return to the ‘animal farm’ analogy, seems your leadership is very intent on killing the horse.

Is it selfishness that alows one to ignore the needs and value of others? I venture it is, coupled with ignorance and gullibility… unless you happend to be part of that 1% that think their money and isolation from humanity will help them avoid catastrophe.
It seems insane to pay one almost a third of our productivity in taxation, people have trouble even saving that much, and when you are paying the government rather than saving for your future or a rainy day, then you are in effect a slave of a system that doesn’t have your best interest in mind.

The government should enter into business competition, this would open the books on the various industries and let the people see how they are being exploited and realize huge savings while turning a profit. There’s no reason our government should not have businesses that make money to reduce the public’s tax burden, promote competition and bust up monopolies. I venture the people could make themselves loans on fair terms and still turn a profit. An added bonus is that we wouldn’t be putting hundreds of millions of our dollars in the hands of one individual who will invest it in a political career so he can help his war services company turn huge profits by starting a war.

Jed Clampett

Perhaps in the bizarro world that your mind lives in, that counts for logic, but convoluted and contrived theories are either the product of ignorance or deceit. Given the source of the comments, I’ll venture it’s both.

No law or regulation has ever prevented a crime or compelled people to throw away their money or prevent them from spending it/ investing it, only self governance does that, laws only impose liabilities for failing to conform to norms. Good pay and benefits, an enjoyment of the work environment and a sense of progress and prosperity encourage work effort and savings. Being overworked and underpaid leads to despair, distrust, frustration and eventually, tensions that may express themselves in strikes or worse.
It is personal character that promotes tax avoidance and evasion or any other criminality for that matter. It is greed and a desire to exploit the rest of us that gives them the impetus to do it, coupled with a knowledge that resources are scarce and enforcement spotty. Even when caught, they understand that they will only be liable for pennies on the dollar given the current way of doing things. Hell, even when caught all they have to do for restitution of their crime is pay the money owed and take your seat in cabinet, the initial fraud is not even taken into consideration (then again, they made the system so convoluted that it is almost impossible to prove intentional fraud over an accounting mistake, this is by design). Evaders make a calculation and consider the risks acceptable, even if caught they save money, the way the system has been corrupted by businessmen turned politicians promotes tax evasion and selfishness, in fact, those qualities are rewarded.
To increase long term economic growth, reducing tax rates now will only help them make short term gains at the expense of the public and in the long run will have as much effect as the TARP, none but helping the wealthy further monopolize power.
Tax the sh!t out of stagnant wealth and watch the investments multiply; providing bonuses for the early and successful completion of a project would be more effective.
To reduce the attractiveness of tax shelters the solution is simple, prevent them from ever accessing those ill gotten gains when they get busted, either through confiscation of a$sets or long term imprisonment. Tax evasion is in effect treating the population as slaves in that their labor and suffering goes to support the evader’s lavish lifestyle.
It’s evident you are only looking at the benefits and liabilities of executives, entrepreneurs and investors. Seems you’ve forgotten the cart would be worthless without a hor.se, and to return to the ‘animal farm’ an.alogy, our leaders are intent on killing the hor.se.
Is it selfishness that alows one to ignore the needs and value of others? I venture it is, coupled with ignorance and gullibility… unless you happend to be part of that 1% that think their money and isolation from humanity will help them avoid catastrophe.
It seems insane to pay one almost a third of our productivity in taxation, people have trouble even saving that much, and when you are paying the government rather than saving for your future or a rainy day, then you are in effect a slave of a system that doesn’t have your best interest in mind.

The government should enter into business competition, this would open the books on the various industries and let the people see how they are being exploited and realize huge savings while turning a profit. There’s no reason our government should not have businesses that make money to reduce the public’s tax burden, promote competition and bust up monopolies. We can extend ourselves fair credit and still profit. An added bonus is that we wouldn’t be putting hundreds of millions of our dollars in the hands of one individual or group who will invest it in a political career so he can help his war services company turn huge profits by starting a war.

Jed Clampit

I agree, as you say: To reduce the attractiveness of tax shelters the solution is simple, prevent them from ever accessing those ill gotten gains when they get busted, either through confiscation of a$sets or long term imprisonment. Tax evasion is in effect treating the population as slaves in that their labor and suffering goes to support the evader’s lavish lifestyle.

These people should be the first to go to prison, I am sorry, I meant to get an Obama Cabinet appointment. Now we know why Dems don’t have a problem with high taxes, THEY DON’T PAY THEM. I have another suggestion, why don’t we all just pay 100% of our income in taxes and let the govt distribute it throughout society as they see fit?

—Timothy Geithner, appointed Treasury secretary, hit with major tax evasion problems.

—Nancy Killefer, who was to be appointed Obama’s “performance czar,” withdraws after it’s revealed she didn’t pay taxes on domestic help for over a year.

—Tom Daschle, HHS nominee, withdraws over serious tax evasion problems and not before several questions about his role as a high-paid influence peddler have been raised.

-Charles Rangel, Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, TAX CHEAT

I agree that the govt should enter into business competition, they can coerce through laws and regulations, what could go wrong.

Jed Clampett

I am glad you are so keen on punishing criminals. While I think the punishment should fit the crime, it’s evident some would forgive a few and bury the others in large unmarked pits. I guess it’s just their angry, vengeful, hate filled leaders playing the puppets to the max.

Personally, I was thinking more broadly, individuals evading taxes, unless it’s some who are taking millions in pay and hiding large parts of it (say the executives in AIG with accounts in UBS), seldom make an impact, the amounts are so small as to be of no concern. Corporations led by criminals willing to do anything for profit, including indirectly murdering people; now there are the ones that should be punished according to the effect their crimes have on others.
The more money you take from the treasury, the more money that could be used to educate the population out of poverty, innovate our way back to a sensible health care system and accept past discoveries that would make each and every one of us energy independent.

You suggest some pretty grim outcomes, why do you only foresee such grim outcomes out of those you consider opponents and fail to see the disastrous outcomes of your partners? Howj’s the government cohersion you suggest any different than the cohersion the corporate elites have bought from out politicians, their collegues in crime?
As for giving the government 100% of our money and let them distribute it… in case you hadn’t noticed, you indirectly already give almost all your money to your corporate overlords, and little by little, they keep reducing the amount of your productivity you get to enjoy by raising the price of necessities they control. So, keep supporting them, soon you’ll have the slavery you support become real.
Guess what side of that equation you’ll be on? If you are human, you will be enslaved regardless of how much you a$sisted the enemy in weakening your people and planet. Then again, I’m sure you hate everything here anyway, you’ll be much happier in the cargo hold of some spaceship, providing hatred and fear to feed the engines of the conquerors.

IMPEACH OBAMA FOR DEALING WITH DOMESTIC PROBLEMS. How dare he. How dare he take our tax dollars and spend them on us. How dare he. How dare he raise the emissions and mpg standards for the first time, basically, EVER. How DARE he go after the perpetrators of 9/11. How DARE he.

im not a a hater but am a fighter for my!! freedom and if it was IRAQ, should have been IRAN We had to fight these extreme fanatics. You dont get gay married over there u dont get abortion rights,u dont get true unsensored freedom, and only the most ignorant people think we can reason with them because we now have a black or man of color or negro or ect, ect for president only the they have thought is we have these infidels bending over and kissing my hand !!!! theres and old saying we not at war be preparing for war we cant make every SOB like us .

obama is just to unseasoned but he’s getting on the job training in the most real and unblinded now!! IRAN has said up your’s and he now is going to go over and have that chit they call tea and sing combaya with them and NORTH KOREA the same the RUSSIANS are smileing and thinking wow allready made him back down on the defense system in the ukrans THAT dictator in SOUTH AMERICA has got him indorsing he’s new book i hate AMERICAN’S lmao ,,great 100 day’s training

Wow! You actually think that Obama is the first president implement emission standards? What planet are you from? The emission standards have been put into place, Obama just reduced the wait by 4 years, that is all that he did.

Yep, you’re right Halen. There has been regulations on light-duty trucks FOREVER!!! Wait, check that.
Aaah, that’s exactly what makes this legislation that much of a big deal. It puts regulation on SUV’s,,,,,,,,which is a FIRST!

What planet do YOU live in?