Good post really.

Bill Clinton did have us on the road to the recovery, and now it's funny that Republicans complain about the deficit and love to blame Obama.... Clinton fixed the problem, Bush reversed it (AND got us into two expensive wars), then Bush handed down the worst economy in our lifetimes... but the deficit is somehow Obama's fault.

What's even better is that the Republicans say "Stop blaming Bush" while blaming Obama for problems and issues he didn't cause.

Bringing Bill Clinton is interesting really... He helped to fix our deficit. Maybe I should rethink my thoughts about Hillary. Having Hillary in office might be a good thing.

The Tea Party is the Koch Brothers brain child for Big Tobacco anti tax movement. The tea party came from a anti tax movement back in the 80s and was revived in both name and function by the Koch bros as a way to try and stop Obama after he was elected. It was rolled up as one with the Religious Right.

There is nothing grass roots about it. That's like saying the tooth fairy is real..

http://www.ucsf.edu/news/2013/02/135...ing-back-1980s

Ok, if you don't want to give Clinton any credit for balancing the budget and it was all thanks to Gingrich, then why is John Boehner in capable of balancing the budget? If it wasn't Clinton on the good then that means it's not Obama on the bad. See it works both ways. Republicans had control of the House at both times, so why is credit given when it's good news but it's Obamas fault when it's bad?

In fact since Bill Clinton Republicans have had control of the House for 16 years and Dems have only had control for 4. Considering it's the Houses job to make the budget, that kinda puts the blame on Republicans wouldn't you say?

Well, the bottom will believe whatever the liberals tell them to believe.

But just to be clear, smaller government, lower taxes, and less spending is bad because 1 of the over 400 billionaires in America supposedly supports it.

That for sure is the best display of idiot logic I've seen in a while.

Whatever. I don't make these threads. I just reply in them.

You need to understand...the most "powerful man in the world" is Pres. Obama. He is the one setting the agenda and the tone for this country.

The press should be going after HIM. And the leaders in the House and Senate.

But they don't.

My senator Harry Reid pretty much gets a free pass on everything. And he is HUGELY responsible for what's going wrong right now in this country.
And like all lifetime/career politicians, he spends most of his time collecting pork barrel b.s. that doesn't help this country at all and makes his friends here in Las Vegas even richer.

Why the hell aren't the press going after him?

crockett, Pres. Obama and Harry Reid pretty much run the country right now. All the Republican career/lifetime crooks can do at the moment is try to block things as much as possible.

I don't have a problem with THAT. That is what the legislative branch is supposed to do. It's their job to make it difficult to pass new laws. That's the way our Republic was set up.

Congress isn't supposed to rubber stamp what the Pres. wants.

But IF John Boehner ever does actually get to pass ANY legislation past Harry Reid (who ALWAYS shelves it and doesn't allow a vote)...then yeah, I'll question the hell out of it (which is what the press SHOULD be doing).

That you are still playing "sides" like these are sports teams after all our conversations on here is amazing to me.

Simply put: We ALL need to question authority. Pres. Obama is in charge right now. The Republicans have not had any power to pass anything at all. This is all Democrat laws and things the Democrat Administration has done over the last 5 years.

Maybe in 11 years from now after Hillary serves 2 terms as well...a Republican might win the White House.
Then, yes...I will question THEM.

Dude, they are all crooks. They might start off idealistic and sincere. But by the time they get to the national level, they are jaded and looking to fill their pockets.

The sooner you realize that, the better you will be.

By the way... It was announced that unemployment went down to 6.6% this morning.

I think we like to think this, but it's no longer true.

Very slowly over the years we have taken away power from the office of the President, and turned it over to Congress. This sounds like a good idea - don't want too much power in the hands of one person - but in reality Congress is made up of two parties who constantly fight each other, and more often than not are unable to get anything done.

We to blame or praise the President for a good or bad economy, but at the end of the day Congress has a lot more influence in this area than the President does.

If that's the case, how can you blame Bush for the economy failing when the senate and the house at the time of the failure were controlled by democrats?

I know they are all crooks. No one spends 60 million of their own money to get a into a public office job that pays $130k. That's Rick Scott mind you the FL governor. This of course plays out all over the country both Democrats and Republicans. I only notated Rick Scott because he spent so much of his own money and he has proven to be as big of a scumbag as anyone. Now obviously no one in their right mind would spend that kind of money to get a job that pays peanuts and that's just at the state level, not even on the national stage.

Anyone that gets elected into office is going to be someone's bitch due to the money involved. Politicians used to at least have the decency to try and hide this shit and just did some back end deals out of public view. Now days they just flaunt it right in everyone's face and fucking lobbyist write the damn bills.

I side with Democrats more, because they still at least have to do shit for the average joe in between their corporate sponsors. The Republicans have so much big money behind them, they don't even try to pretend anymore.

As for Obama, I've never agreed with everything he!s done, I just get tired of seeing the constant bashing from the same people so I like to dish it back at them, to show that their team has done it just as bad or worse.

Maybe they did at one time. So did the Republicans at one time. Both parties have had their "populist" phase.

But if you look at NOW and what either party is doing NOW...I don't see any results for the "average joe" that are worth the TRILLIONS they spend each year.

Do you?

First off it's both of the Koch Brothers and Rupert Murdoch. Hence the reason the Tea Party became the poster child of Fox News. With these two comes a laundry list of other big money players and corporate sponsorship. You would have to be a fool to think that had no effect on their rise to power. The simple fact is, any person or group that doesn't play well with the Tea Party gets hammered with billionaire sponsored attack ads. They not only attack Democrats but also Republicans whom go against their wishes..

Ask John McCain about that.. As he was just censured by Tea Party members in Arizona because he dared to go against their will when he and Paul Ryan went against their wishes and stopped the govt shutdown.

No I don't think any of them do anything with any real priority of the Average American person, however if you look at it like that, then the President should be the least of your worries. Congress and the Senate have far more affect your your daily life than the President does, so why is your focus always on Obama?

"Still, even if you go with the government's jobs number, we have just had the worst two-month job stretch since January 2011. So why taper now? The fact that bank lending remains weak is another sign of a need for more monetary stimulus. The housing market recovery also appears to have stalled."

http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2014/...per/?iid=lead2

Bush is a ready scapegoat no matter what the truth is, and the Republican party is suffering because of it - no matter what part they played in it.

I don't really believe that Bush or even Congress is responsable. The recession happened for a number of reasons, mostly because we set it up so that the banks made money even when people defaulted on their homes. They handed out loans to everyone, knowing they would make money no matter what. The more we did this, the more money everyone made and the more everyone spent.

At the same time, we give credit to Bush for the economy we had before things turn to shit.

Yet oddly enough unemployment still went down.

At a certain point in time, aren't we over examining them and asking too much? Why are we looking at "two months" and not four or six months? We have unrealistic expectations; We've never seen this in our lifetime and we expect this problem to be fixed quickly and we are wondering why it's not better yet. This is not a four or eight year problem; This is a ten to twenty year problem.

Wait a minute, you blame Bush in this thread for a bad economy

When it turned to shit, it was several months, 17 I think after the democrats took over the house and the senate. They took office in January of 2007, economy took a shit in mid to late 2008.

You just said that congress was to blame, which ultimately they are, they write the budget and do all budgets for the federal government.

So by using that thought, you are blaming the democrats for the bad economy.

I agree with that!

Besides the fact that you can't back up any of that clap trap, I just have to laugh at your logic. But I guess as part of society's non-contributing bottom, smaller government, lower taxes, and less spending is a bad thing

It's already been proven, only people in denial like yourself fail to believe. Kinda like people whom still don't believe in global warming. Educate yourself and quit asking for handouts that you will ignore. If you want to educate yourself as to how the Koch Bros created the Tea Party then is a simple google search away.

It has been said many times why it went down.

In other news, oddly enough, my bills went down... I quit paying on Credit cards... LOL

Yes, I did, which is the perfect example of my point. While it really isn't Bush's fault, society over all blames Bush for what happened because he was in fact in charge when it went down.

Obama took office in 2009, but the damage was done long before that. The economy started to nosedive in 2007 (It's even called that) but it wasn't something that happened in thirty days or ninety days; This was years in the making. And come to think to think of it, not only was the Republicans in the White House, but also the house and the senate. So yeah, we can blame Bush and the entire Republican party for this.

For the sake of accuracy, it was actually the the director of the CBO that said this reduction in jobs will be a good thing for the economy.

This is him during a congressional hearing explaining the number:

"Under questioning today before the House Budget Committee from Dem Rep. Chris Van Hollen, CBO director Douglas Elmendorf confirmed that in reality, his report suggests Obamacare will reduce unemployment:

The CBO report found that Obamacare ? through subsidizing health coverage ? would reduce the amount of hours workers choose to work, to the equivalent of 2.5 million full-time workers over 10 years. This was widely spun by Republicans as a loss of 2.5 million jobs.

To counter this, Van Hollen cited the report?s findings on Obamacare?s impact on labor demand, rather than supply. On page 124, the report estimates that the ACA will ?boost overall demand for goods and services over the next few years because the people who will benefit from the expansion of Medicaid and from access to the exchange subsidies are predominantly in lower-income households and thus are likely to spend a considerable fraction of their additional resources on goods and services.? This, the report says, ?will in turn boost demand for labor over the next few years.?

?When you boost demand for labor in this kind of economy, you actually reduce the unemployment rate, because those people who are looking for work can find more work, right?? Van Hollen asked Elmendorf.

You can read the whole article here.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...-unemployment/

Which is not good.

He is basically saying that 2.5 million people will just stop working. And be on the govt. dole.

And that since those 2.5 million won't be counted in the "new math" way of figuring the unemployment rate...it will make the percentage of unemployed APPEAR better.

If that ain't some Washington D.C. bullshit-speak right there, I don't know what is. :(

How about this: The govt. adopt policies that create an environment for business to THRIVE and then they will need to hire more people full time and at good wages and that 2.5 million people (plus the other 8 million or so that have left the work force in the last 5 years) will WANT to work.

I guess it depends on how you look at it. Many of those 2.5 million likely don't want to work, but they are because they have to for one reason or another. By getting this cheap/free health insurance they no longer need to work. But, like you say, having them now on the government dime isn't the best option.

If the economy were very strong and there were plenty of good paying jobs to be had along with affordable health insurance, I would bet many of those people would still choose not to work especially if their significant other was able to find a better, higher paying job.

Businesses are thriving. They could make no regs, no taxes and it still doesnt beat 75 cents a day in china and thats too expensive. They are all starting to move to Vietnam.

No, not at all. Lots of people work ONLY because they need healthcare. Because of changes in the laws, they will no longer have to work to get healthcare and can retire or just not work.

Again, my wife is a perfect example. My wife has a pre-existing condition, and if we got healthcare on our own it could thousands just for her along. Instead, my wife works and the costs are much more reasonable. The new law changes how people with pre-existing conditions are charged, and it will be much cheaper. The only reason she works is because her healthcare is cheaper through an employer, but now that is not the case.

She won't go on unemployment or food stamps, she'll become a stay at home mom.

Another friend of mine is the same circumstances, although it's both his wife and his son. His wife will no longer have to work. She too will become a stay at home mom.

Young kids too - They can stay on their parents healthcare plans a lot longer, meaning some of them will no longer have to work just to heave healthcare.

This is win win. Two million people will no longer be working for their healthcare benefits without any additional costs to the government, freeing up two million jobs.

I'm sure that none of them WANT to work.

Shame that life doesn't work like that isn't it?

They SHOULD be working. Work not only makes money...it also gives us a sense of self worth, a social life, and completes us as human beings.

And I'm guessing that if the 8 million who have dropped out of the workforce in the last few years had an OPPORTUNITY at a job they enjoyed that made them good money, they would jump at that.

If you are a strong and healthy person and DON'T want to work...we used to have words for people like that. And I'm not gonna use them because it's politically incorrect amongst the ObamaManiacs here.

But you know what I'm saying.

We shouldn't be owed ANYTHING. And people should have to work for every goddamn thing they get. Including the suddenly holy grail of "health care".

That's the real underlying debate going on anyway isn't it? Are we OWED health care? Is it a "right"?
Or is it just another bill that you have to pay and if you don't...then it's welfare.

There should be no connection between working & your job and the healthcare you receive

I don't doubt for a second that there are a lot of people out there who want work.

Let me give you an example of one I know personally that doesn't. A friend of mine is married and has two kids. For most of their marriage his wife has been a stay at home mom. They moved recently and he wasn't able to find a very good job so she is forced to work so they can make ends meet. I can guarantee you as soon as he is making enough to support them she will quit her job and go back to staying at home.

I think it is people like that the CBO is mostly speaking of.

As to whether or not healthcare is a right or something you should work for. . . that is one I go back and forth on. I have earned everything I have. I chose to work for myself and took the good with the bad. Even if I were rich I have a lot of interest that would keep me busy which could be considered work. So there is a part of me that says you should work to earn your healthcare, but there is also another part of me that isn't sure. I don't know if I want to live in a society where people die, get sick and go without healthcare simply because they are poor or have had a run of bad luck.

It is a big question that I don't know if I have a solid answer to.

Please re read what you posted, you just confirmed what I said

The democrats took office in Jan 2007, they took over the house and the senate in 2007
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/110th_U...tates_Congress

So YOU are wrong!

Democrats controlled the house and senate as of Jan 3rd 2007

And the recession was official on Sept 15, 2008

The active phase of the crisis, which manifested as a liquidity crisis, can be dated from August 9, 2007, when BNP Paribas terminated withdrawals from three hedge funds citing "a complete evaporation of liquidity"

So again, you are wrong

Robbie, what makes you think that most people want to be a little worker bee? Most people just want to enjoy their life but get fooled into a get no where routine of a 9 to 5 and trying to keep up with the Jones. People are programmed into this BS reality because it's good for corporate America and great for tax revenue.

The funny thing is, if you go to third world countries were people are poor, they usually have much stronger communities and are generally more friendly than your typical urbanite whom doesn't know his neighbors and probably only sees his relatives two or three times a year while being only a couple of paychecks away from losing it all.

Sorry but today the American dream is a lie and just a piece of cheese put in front of people so they continue to be good little worker bees. Not to mention, most people have so many health related problems by the time they reach retirement, they end up watching those ideas of traveling or enjoying life with out work go up in smoke.

Tell me something Robbie, do you think you would feel fulfilled punching a time clock at a hourly rate each day? I'm sure you wouldn't, so why do you think others would? People don't want to work their lives away, want to enjoy their life if given the choice and that usually doesn't revolve around going to work.

crockett, nobody ever said anything about punching a time clock. No, I would not be satisfied with that.

That is why I own my own business and never worked for anyone since I was a stock boy at TG&Y when I was 16 (you know, those minimum wage jobs you want to eliminate).

Look, life ain't fair.
If a person doesn't want to be an employee, then fucking take a chance and risk it all by owning your own business.

And if you don't have the brains or skills for that...then GET A FUCKING JOB.

I can't believe that you are seriously advocating that people be lazy pieces of shit and just not work at all.

This country is going down the fucking toilet with that kind of attitude.

The "American Dream" is still there if you want to WORK for it. And the Govt. is so busy trying to take it away that it's getting tougher all the time.
Just listen to what you wrote. They have brainwashed you and millions of others into thinking the work is "bad". And to be lazy and do nothing is "good".
I will GUARANTEE you that nobody with that attitude will EVER achieve the "American Dream" (especially since they will be unemployed and have no money)

Holy fuck. I can't believe this is even being thought of as "good" in any way, shape, or form.

I LOVE to work. And anything I have ever gotten involved in, I went to the top.

That's who I am.

I don't give a fuck if other people have no ambition or drive and end up on the lower rungs as employees. Not my problem. It's THEIR problem.

But the federal govt. now has you thinking that they are doing the right thing by "helping" people to NOT work.

I just can't wrap my head around this kind of logic.

The only thing I can figure is that this will be Pres. Obama's new spin on unemployment and the shitty economy:
He's doing us a "favor" by making sure we don't have jobs. :(

I am not wrong at all. I said "this was years in the making". This started with the financial crisis of 2007 / 2008, and was in the making for years. If the Democrats took office in 2007, and if this was "years in the making" that means the policies were in place 2005 / 2006. And this was when the Republicans were in office, including the White House, the house, and the senate.

Please don't quote websites you don't understand.

130 million people that are employed in the US make an average of $45k

http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_nat.htm

That means there is a ton of people making under $40k a year working full time. Are some of these people lazy? Sure but the majority are not. How the fuck are you supposed to get excited about a job that pays that? Now imagine you need it so you can have health insurance so you don't go broke and/or die.

So first you say it started in 2007, then you change your mind and say it started much earlier, make up your mind......

I understand your losing a debate, that's easy

Not sure if you knew this Vendy, but the right wing bobble heads got it all wrong, "reported" it wrong, and once again you sucked it all up. Sucks to be you, I know...

You are trying to put words in my mouth. Here is exactly what I said:

Obama took office in 2009, but the damage was done long before that. The economy started to nosedive in 2007 (It's even called that) but it wasn't something that happened in thirty days or ninety days; This was years in the making. And come to think to think of it, not only was the Republicans in the White House, but also the house and the senate. So yeah, we can blame Bush and the entire Republican party for this.

Again, this started to nose dive in 2007 but it's not something that magically happened over night; It started a year or two before.

Do not tell me I am loosing a debate. I am not the one desperately trying to put words in someone's mouth, and I am also not the one starting threads with silly statements and then posting up links that prove the direct opposite of what you originally said.

You keep trying to blame Obama for this economic problem but the truth is this was happened when the Republicans not only owned the White House, but also the House and the Senate.

It's not like Bush didn't know about this; The Bush Administration discussed this multiple times starting in 2001. Yet they failed to protect the American people.

The reality is that the building blocks for the financial meltdown that eventually occurred in 2007 were laid in place right towards the end of Clinton's term. A lot of deregulation took place and derivative trading gained steam. Billions of dollars worth of various investments were all built on the back of what turned out to be a lot of toxic mortgages. Eventually the house of cards came tumbling down.

Are the republicans to blame? Yes
Are the democrats to blame? Yes
Are greedy bankers to blame? Yes
Are stupid people buying houses they couldn't afford to blame? Yes
Are plenty of shady, complicated investment practices to blame? Yes

Democrats did what exactly to keep it from happening on their watch? They had 15 months to make a difference

I agree with you, I saw the value of my house triple and knew that was going to last

And there are tons of people who are not qualified to make good money, don't have the ambition or skills to move up, and many that are plain out too dumb.

Do you really think that YOU would be stuck on the bottom rung of any thing you undertook? Or would you excell at it and move up the ladder?

That's the part of the equation that is being left out here. Some people simply never will have their shit together no matter what the nanny state govt does.
You could hand those kinds of people a million dollars and they will blow it all in a month and be right back to working minimum wage

I have a friend that in 2005 bought a house for $375K. It was a brand new house in a new development (all McMansions) The yard was not done. He moved in and in the first month he put up a fence and put in a yard. He spent about $3K doing both. A month after that he was offered $460K for the house. He decided not to sell because he figured it would keep going up and up and up.

2 years later it was worth about $290k and due to a divorce he was forced to short sell it.

The housing market went crazy and it was crazy how many people thought it would never end.

Find me a 16 yr old working in a grocery store now its all mostly all people our age or older. Unemployment has been calculated the same now its a spin. Thats funny.

You dont seem to understand wages have been flat for a long time. The middle class is shrinking this is a real problem for lots of reasons and one of them is they are porn buyers. For the person who wants to do their job and go home to their family there is a race to the bottom on their wages and now to get that shitty job you need a four year degree and so if they are smart enough for that now you got a the payment of a small mortgage while they want to start you at $10 an hr.
The american dream was my grandfather, an immigrant for italy with a 5 th grade education. He could work hard pressing women's coats and make enough to buy a home at 40 yrs old and raise 4 children. He didnt want to be king of the world he wanted to be able to take care of his family .He was paid a good wage to do that. All the people who once would do those jobs have no where to go. So they go to fast food, super markets because we really have almost no manufacturing sector anymore. You are very smart and you take that gift granted. Not everyone is blessed with those tools so we let those people be the working poor and we have to support them. Basically subsidizing a companies expenses. You call people leeches but a company making billions of dollars a year paying so little that their people are eligible for types of gov help isnt a leech to you?

NO, they didn't. The damage was already done.

It seems you don't understand that you don't walk into Congress on day one and make changes that will save the world.

You keep trying to shift blame to Democrats when it's obvious that it was the Republicans who was completely in power at the time.

:thumbsup :thumbsup :thumbsup

Also, this...



https://youtube.com/watch?v=Npj2U1PdIhI

and this...

https://fbcdn-sphotos-h-a.akamaihd.n...39700712_n.jpg

The whole point of this argument was claims Obamacare was going to cause a cut in wanted jobs. Instead, it really talked about people choosing to quit working because they didn't have to have a job just to get insurance.

Why should they get a job they don't need just to get insurance? Also where do you come up with me somehow trying to do away with minimum wage jobs? You are just making stuff up.

If you want to read the other side of the coin. The Brookings Institute published some interesting data about the real cost of Obamacare and who really is going to pay for it and who will actually benefit.

I will give you hint.

It's not real close to how it was sold to the public.

look at the last 20-30 years and then tell us all with a straight face that you seriously believe that anyone can accomplish anything in US politics within 15 months...

Sadly Minte nothing the govt does anymore is what it was sold as. Everything is filled with ways for corporate America to leech from the middle class. We live in a country that says it's ok for special interest and big business to buy votes with legal bribes and gifts. We live in a country where a state governor spends 60 million of his own money and $78 million in total for a job that pays $132k/year. His biggest opposition spent $28 million which is also insane,

Does anyone really think these guys are spending this kind of money to work for the people? Of course they aren't.. They are working for their own personal gain and for their sponsors. If the people happen to get some table scraps out of something then yey for them. Most of the time the people just get fucked.

Obamacare at least gives some table scraps for the people, unlike most legislation that comes out of the govt,

So guys...we went from ObamaCare being sold to us as "Affordable Health Care" that would LOWER costs of medical care, into now being told that "Of course the costs are going to keep going up!"

The President also assured us that we could "keep our doctor and insurance". That didn't happen either.

And we were told (by many of you who are now in this thread) that it was all Republican bullshit that jobs were going to be lost. Now the argument is that less jobs is a GOOD thing.

Just saw footage of Nancy Pelosi saying how wonderful it was going to be for those millions of people who could now discover their dreams by being unemployed.
One minute we are told that people can't find jobs. Now we are supposed to do a 180 degree turn and believe in the new talking point of "job lock". Un-fucking-real.

As I said before...I simply can't wrap my head around this kind of logic.

I don't think you guys even believe what you are typing yourselves. I KNOW your parents didn't raise you that way. We were all raised to work HARD and move ahead.

What are you going to tell YOUR kids? "Hey Little Johnny...just take govt. subsidies (that will be paid for by the real badasses of this country) and DON'T get a job. You need to follow your dreams of unicorns and rainbows."

Seriously guys?
Pres. Obama can do no wrong in your eyes can he? And there is no chance in hell that ObamaCare is failing is there?

I can't understand why you guys would blindly go along with all this.

The minute that Bush put in the Patriot Act I condemned that motherfucker for a huge grab of power and taking away our freedoms.
It was one of the things that Obama campaigned against during the 2008 election when he gave speeches about the govt. controlling us with "fear".

When the heck are you guys gonna finally see that the emperor has no clothes and his ideas are outdated and not good for our country and our people?