nuckles87 said:
And these days he's also showing a lot of political courage by not just embracing something that was considered taboo just two election cycles ago, he's also becoming the first presidential candidate in a generation to embrace a populist message. As for not cutting the deficit and reducing spending, well, that's a rather difficult thing to do in the middle of an economic down turn, especially given what he was left with. A tax cut that took hundreds of billions out of government revenue every year, two incredibly expensive wars, not to mention the reduced tax income that comes with that economic down turn he, again, inherited, which also spawned TARP, which of course just about everyone supported including McCain, Romney and Obama because it kept our financial sector from crashing in on itself and making the economy even worse then it already was (of course, this brought a variety of other negativies and let the banksters get off scott free, but we are talking about goverment spending and not the too big to fail financial sector, right?).
During an economic recession, the last thing the government should do is raise taxes or cut spending, the only ways to reduce the deficit. The government spending billions less in the economy is the equivolent of the public spending less: less spending means less money being put into the economy, which means less economic growth. That's why the stimulus was needed, and why the CBO estimated it saved at least a million jobs. Raising taxes, particularly on the JOB CREATING middle class, would like wise give them less money out of pocket to put into the economy. Finally, there where things like Cash For Clunkers and the auto bail out, the latter of which saved many vital middle class jobs. So yeah, Obama didn't manage to reduce the deficit by much. But given what he inherited, that isn't much of a surprise. Now, since you love charts so much, I got some for you: First, a breakdown on which president accrued how much debt during their tenure, courtesy of the New York Times:
Now, a breakdown on what individual things factor into our debt's past and future, derived from CBO estimates:
And there you have it. The main concern right now should not be debt. Most of our debt is held by our own citizens or our government. Our country has seen far worse in terms of debt to GDP. After WW2, our national debt had climbed to 127% GDP. When republican President Eisenhowever came into power in the middle of an economic down turn, massive debt, and high taxes, his first instinct was not to cut spending and lower taxes. Instead, in the 1950s, we grew our way out of debt and recession. Eisenhower undertook the building of the interstate high way system, which revolutionized our infrastructure and allowed our businesses to thrive. He started the space race against Russia. He kept our highest effective tax rate at 91%, which encouraged the CEOs of wealthy companies to reinvest their company's profits back into the company, rather then taking a big fat pay check. Our current highest effective tax rate of 35% is nothing compared to what my grandpa paid in the 1940s and 50s when he made his fortune. That is what we need to do now. We need to grow our way out. We need higher government spending to fix our roads and bridges, invest in public servants, and overall simply make America the kind of country it used to be before supply side trickle down economics and deregulation that took place over the last 30 years decimated our middle class. |
Ok, so I'm not a republican so a lot of what you just said I agree with. However, I'm also not a democrat so I don't have some kind of partisan blinders on like you appear to have.
First of all, stem cell research was never banned, just certain types of research wasn't being funded by the federal government. Since most medical research isn't government funded, I would hardly call this a big deal or much of change at all. I also wouldn't say Obama ended that Iraq war as much as Iraq kicked us out and Obama didn't dispute it. Semantics I know, but also note that Obama promised to end the war in 2009 but the iraq war didn't end until end of 2011, just in time for election year... The affordable care act was shoved through congress at a time that the nation should have been focusing on the economy. I think it was a distraction that ultimately harmed the recovery effort. The other things you mentioned are just junk washington bills that will end up having little to no impact on anything.
Look, I aplaud Obama on his gay marriage support. Great job. I would be happier if he actually did something about it. I would be even more happy if he took marriage completely out of the governments hands, there is no reason why the government should have any say in who gets married to who. It is a personal affair and the it should stay that way. I think Obama has done some good things with education.
I definitely don't agree with you on raising the taxes to carter levels, but going back to Clinton levels would be a good idea. You should go back and look what happened to the country when taxes were that high, it didn't go well. spending on infrastructure would be great if that was what we are spending our money on but it isn't.
The fact of the matter, the reason the government is bleeding so much money right now is due to Social Security and Medicare. Both programs have been pilfered by law makers over the year and can no longer support themselves. They need to be reformed, but Obama won't touch it. These programs need to be reformed in order to actually build the infrastracture you are talking about.
I don't like Obama, I don't like Romney. I don't like Obama because he has failed to live up to almost all the promises he made that I cared about it. He is a weak president that even having control of both houses of congress for the first two years of being president he still failed to pass anything meaningful other than the affordable care act and that was an issue that should have been addressed later.
