akuma587 said: The Ghost of RubangB said: I'm voting for Barack Obama because that man is a tax and spend liberal. It's been a while since we had one of those. I like them. Somebody fight me. Damn you for actually looking at the facts rather than buying into campaign buzzwords!

Ecept for the fact that the graphic doesn't COMPLETELY represent real facts. Please reference the above post that shows Billy never actually had that surplus. He just extrapolated a graph at a good time.

Timmah! said: The Ghost of RubangB said: I'm voting for Barack Obama because that man is a tax and spend liberal. It's been a while since we had one of those. I like them. Somebody fight me. 1. Bill Clinton had a PROJECTED surplus. Fiscal Year Year Ending National Debt Deficit FY1993  09/30/1993  $4.411488 trillion FY1994  09/30/1994  $4.692749 trillion  $281.26 billion FY1995  09/29/1995  $4.973982 trillion  $281.23 billion FY1996  09/30/1996  $5.224810 trillion  $250.83 billion FY1997  09/30/1997  $5.413146 trillion  $188.34 billion FY1998  09/30/1998  $5.526193 trillion  $113.05 billion FY1999  09/30/1999  $5.656270 trillion  $130.08 billion FY2000  09/29/2000  $5.674178 trillion  $17.91 billion FY2001  09/28/2001  $5.807463 trillion  $133.29 billion According to the US Treasury, there was NEVER a real surplus under Clinton, and the national debt increased every year he was in office. It was a manufactured future surplus made by extrapolating a line graph and not taking into account all variables. I'm not saying Bush has a better record by any means, he clearly does not, I'm just saying that the 'Surplus' thing is a bunch of bull. This surplus did not take into account the huge economic downturn & tax revenue decrease resulting directly from the 9/11 attacks and the financial strain of the resulting wars in Afghanistan (Justified, I believe), and Iraq (debatable). 2. The problem with this is, these guys weren't truly 'Fiscally Conservative', because they didn't cut spending to reflect their tax cuts. My biggest problem with Bush has been that he cut taxes, but increased spending, this is just STUPID. A TRUE fiscal conservative would cut spending to balance the budget if he cut taxes, and would only cut taxes AFTER spending had been cut. Calling Bush a "Fiscal Conservative" is another major problem with the cartoon. I have HUGE problems with his lack of fiscal responsibility in his years in the white house.

Did you even look at your own table. Sure, it *technically* never made it to the black, however, it was headed directly that way. Bush reversed it and made and almost made a larger deficit than the two Republicans Presidents before him.

I am voting for McCain because I support McCain's policies more and McCain is dedicated to the United States while Barrack Obama goes to an anti-American church.

Obama is also in support of things such as raising the minimum wage which the only thing that does is keep the poorest people making minimum wage at the same level do to inflation but makes everyone else poorer because we don't get a pay raise and the inflation still hurts us as well, it's pretty much a trick to try and get the U.S. as close to a Socialist country as possible.

John McCain's plan for Iraq is also much better and Obama's is very extreme and could result in chaos in Iraq and another regime even worse than Saddam's taking over do to a quick U.S. pullout, which he probably actually wants because the media would just blame Bush instead of him.

John McCain also supports improving the U.S. energy issue by keeping current technologies at a reasonable price by drilling and other things until better technologies that are both clean and improvements over oil can be fully developed to be affordable by Americans. He also supports Nuclear Power Plants which if Nuclear Power replaced all coal power the United States would have some of the cleanest air in the entire world.

same concerns, different conclusion.

Obama would make it far worse in every issue here.

I'm voting for McCain.

Everyone should be watching Fox News right now. Salacious Crumb is going to be interviewing Obama.

Break that asshole in two, Barack.

I don't have TV.  Is it online yet?  I just saw the preview.

Actually, it was a very good interview. It was about foreign policy and O'reilly nailed Barack on the surge but Obama fired back with very good points on Afghanistan and Pakistan.

There are two more parts on Monday and Tuesday.

I was surprisingly impressed by Salacious Crumb. He showed a fair amount of restraint and generally, came off as much less of a douche than normal.

"Obama is also in support of things such as raising the minimum wage which the only thing that does is keep the poorest people making minimum wage at the same level do to inflation but makes everyone else poorer because we don't get a pay raise and the inflation still hurts us as well, it's pretty much a trick to try and get the U.S. as close to a Socialist country as possible."

Speaking as someone that can't even afford a car and sees other people driving Jaguars, I want that gap closed as soon as possible. Was it my fault that part of the reason I'm now poor was because my father a wealthy defense attorney decided to will all of his money to his third wife while I received nothing after his death yet my mother was married to him for over 30 years? I think not. Totally losing out on at least $500,000.00 that should have been yours by birthright and that you had been promised all your life by other relatives does have quite the effect on your psyche that others in the new social group that you find that circumstance has forced you to become a part of just can not relate to in any way. I gave up on their religion a long time ago after multiple lectures on the subject by college professors and my own father.

To be honest, sometimes Joe Dallesandro's character's comments regarding the wealthier classes in the Andy Warhol produced film Blood of Dracula does run through my head.

im not because Obama will damage this country worse then ever. Higher taxes = more people on the street. Not what we need right now.

Wow, you've got some entitlement issues ...

Raising the minimum wage is not (necessarily) a bad policy in general to avoid exploitation, but it really does nothing to increase equality; in fact, raising the minimum wage too quickly or to too high of a level can often increase the the level of inequality.

For the most part, people who earn the minimum wage are generally young, uneducated and inexperienced people like highschool students; and the best ways for them to change this is for them to work to build experience or to go to school to gain education. By raising the minimum wage small and midsized businesses (which represent the majority of employers in any ecconomy) are far less likely to higher inexperienced employees because the value of their work does not justify the cost of their wages; as a result most countries with the highest minimum wages also have the highest unemployment rates for young people.

One solution to this problem is to start to reconsider what the purpose of secondary school is ... After all, if people are graduating from secondary school without the basic skills to earn a decent living maybe the school system is failing them. There is a lot of controversy surrounding the idea of streaming students in high-school, and allowing students who don't have an accademic future beyond high-school to get training in a trade but that is another discussion.