This is Obama's fiscal mis-management, he needs to own it, but he won't.

He and this Congress are absolute disasters at fiscal management. But, perhaps that is Obama's intent to financially cripple America. I can no longer believe it is not intentional.

He had already tripled the debt and quadrupled the deficit before these numbers posted.

They have been spending money like life-long welfare recipients that have just won the lottery. Problem is, it is our money and it is borrowed.

Pretty sad when we have to pray for China to save us and NOT BUY anymore of our debt. I'm afraid that is the only way Obama and this Congress will become fiscally responsible. They lack the ability to self correct, although they have their blame game, never responsible for a damn thing excuses all polished up.

I am waiting for the pie chart..How much is this the 2 wars unfunded off budget--the tax cuts for the rich unfunded and the corporate tax breaks unfunded---none of which were in the budget till Obama put them in ---INSTEAD OF 'OFF BUDGET_UNFUNDED'...from the republicans and Bush!

The jobs started being lost in 2007--the meltdown began in early 2008 to collapse in October 2008...

The pie chart please! The rest of the BS is just that--lies and obfuscation by the republicans !

The spending freeze, expected to be proposed by Obama during the State of the Union address on Wednesday, would apply to a relatively small portion of the federal budget, affecting a $477 billion pot of money available for domestic agencies ... such programs got an almost 10 percent increase this year.

Obama just signed a 10% increase in spending for these government programs, and now all of a sudden he wants to look all "fiscally responsible".

Must be a Congressional election year I guess...

Obama, Pelosi and Reid "FREEZING" SPENDING still need to RAISE OUR DEBT CEILING by $ 2 Trillion?

Does not compute. Does not compute. Does not compute.

The Liar-in-Chief and the his democrat sycophants MORE spin, fraud, payoffs and threats behind closed doors LIES, MORE LIES AND DAMMED LIES.

I am so tired of the pugs here using Nazi and communist and any other negative word when they apparently have no concept of what these systems stood for and how they government.

They are now screaming about the deficit when it never bothered them when bush was financing his wars on credit.

If we pull back from supporting the economy at this time we will see the same results that we saw after the depression when the pugs of that day did the same thing and we only saw the economy rebound when the war started and the government used credit to finance that war

The stimulus was necessary to avoid a depression, the reasoning is very sound. Reagan used similar tactics in pulling out of the recession in the 80's. We know from the great depression that FDR made a mistake by cutting spending too early lengthening the depression.

We need to continue spending, slowly increase interest rates to keep inflation down, and then when the time is right raise taxes. This is exactly what Reagan did and it worked.

I don't see congress cutting spending in an election year, they need to lard up their districts in order to win according to the conventional wisdom. If the do freeze spending they still don't deserve reelection because of their history of spending and partisanship that has divided the country in a time of crisis. This is true of both party's in my view. In my opinion this is grandstanding a death bed conversion, because their natural inclination has been so poorly received. A leopard doesn't change their spots and politicians who abuse the system will never see the light, this is a political slight of hand don't be fooled. Almost every one of these thinkers in Washington has contributed to the deficit, don't forget it.

The cost of the two wars to date is still less than $1 trillion OVER 8 YEARS (less than $125 Billion per year.) After 9/11/2001, if you believe that the U.S. was not going to war in Afghanistan, you are a fool. People also conveniently forget what democrats had to say about the war in Iraq.

With all of that being said, people now need to come up with the reason that over the last year our budget DEFICIT is $1.35 Trillion. If you take the wars OUT COMPLETELY, you still have OVER $1.2 TRILLION. Come up with some other excuse. Blaming Bush is old and tired. MAYBE our current administration SPENDS TOO MUCH WITH ZERO RESULTS! If you don't believe me, then why are they trying to freeze it?

Yes he needs to cut spending on US projects or he will run out of money for his Haiti gift from the American Taxpayer. Obama is an idiot and that says it all.

As can be seen by the posts on this thread it has become virtually impossible to have a sensible discussion with many Americans these days. The mass hysteria that has taken hold of the US since President Obama has tried to reform the US' pathetic health care system has now grown to encompass just about every subject matter.
The irrational behavior these fascists are displaying comes from a confused vision of the word they have. But instead of trying to figure out the world, these folks have decided to get angry and attack every one of their "enemies" be they outside, or inside, the US.
They simply have no patience for opposing views and want nothing but to destory and humiliate anyone they deemed not worthy enough for their "compassion".

RV the cost of the wars is at 1 trillion dollars. The remaining money is stimulus money, and programs for jobs. Some of the money is due to the lack of revenue from the slowing of the economy.

There are results, the growth in the gdp and the slowing of jobless claims.

Yup! Instead of freezing things that Congress has okay - and benefit individual states and Congressman, they are going to hurt the elderly all over the USA.
What is the middles going to do, help out their parents and be in worse shape then they are now.
How are nursing homes going to make ends meet.
But hey the fix is quick, easy and the Congressman are happy. What if the news were to list all the pork barrel added on
to the bill. Let's see who gets the money!

Eric - A TOTAL OVER 8 YEARS - and it is at $954 Billion! I even posted a link! That STILL comes to less than $125 Billion per year, JUST LIKE I STATED IN MY PREVIOUS POST.

Really, are you claiming a slowing of jobless claims as PROGRESS!? As you lose more jobs, jobless claims SHOULD GO DOWN! Plus, those numbers are skewed because there are more people who have RUN OUT OF unemployment benefits! I hope that when there are zero jobs left, you are not saying that the current administration STOPPED JOB LOSS! GDP growth is great, but I think it says something when our production goes UP at the same time unemployment is INCREASING! That isn't necessarily a good sign!

The spending freeze, expected to be proposed by Obama

Hah! A spending freeze? That's like an alcoholic telling us he won't drink no more.

He'd better grab his wife and jump in Air Force One, and go see a play in New York, go frolic in Copenhagen or some other country and think about this one a little.

FUNNY... McCain proposed a federal budget freeze in all areas minus areas such as medicare, national security, and veterans. Obama was totally against this during the campaign. Obama said something along the lines of "We should use a scalpal, not a hatchet." Well now he sees that the people are pissed off at him for increasing the federal deficit at a pace no other president has ever done! He already surpassed Bush in spending in 1yr opposed to his 8.

Why Obama is putting the spending in Iraq-Afghanistan war into our Federal Budget ?

That war should be into blank check ( just like Junior did it ).

Eric,

That $1 Trillion is over 8 years, only $125 Billion should be counted toward any single year. The fact that it was added to the budget this last year does not mean that it wasn't counted in the deficits of prior years. The bottom line is that Obama has managed to spend TEN times the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in his first year in office. What exactly do we have to show for it other than a 10% unemployment rate?

Tax and Spend is not the right medicine for this recession - this recession was caused by excessive leverage in the financial sector. Increasing the amount of leverage will not help resolve the issue. The very term "leverage" is used to describe Obama's actions - making risky investments using borrowed money in the hopes that your investments have higher returns than the interest that you are paying on the debt. It is gambling plain and simple, and he's gambling our country's future away.

Why don't we go through the budget and cut out about $1.4 trillion instead of freezing where we are? If I earn $3000 a month (after taxes) I cannot spend more than that for any length of time and get away with it. Why do we allow our government to pretend they are? I have to do without to make ends meet, why shouldn't our nation?

I am certain there are huge sums being squandered in our never ending pork-fest spending that is rampant in Washington.

This ain't rocket science people.

He spent our (and our childrens')money like a drunken sailor...and now, after Massachusetts, he's a fiscal conservative.

Like the policeman says in the movie "Casablanca"...."I'm shocked...shocked !!!"

MSNBC tries to make the ending of this article sound like John Mc Cain contradicts himself on spending. If you read carefully, he repeats the same position already stated......we must cut spending. Way to spin it MSNBC !

Democratic Party philosophy of tax and spend, redistribute the wealth, then tax and spend some more is crushing our economy. Obama's policies have not lessened the recession, they have prolonged it. B.O. must GO!

WTF are you talking about Roosterboy?! You sound a little bitter. Is that all you think about is TAKE TAKE TAKE? Earn it yourself you lazy slob! Since when was speaking up for your own beliefs and fighting for what you want traitorous? You have no sound argument and the fact that you can bring any amount of substance to your comments proves that you are a completly unintelligent jackass (dumb liberal democrat). I see you are blinded by hate and the fact that you actually have to do work in your life and not just take the money from people who are successful and put their necks on the line to become this way.

the meltdown began with a democratically controlled congress! i believe that the dems allowed this to spiral downhill so that they could set themselves up to win in 2008. this was a conspiracy from the beginning.

there needs to be a tax cut of 50% across the board. we have the highest corporate taxes in the world. if businesses did not have to pay the enormous taxes, they could hire more and spend more. do away with the capital gains tax. hell, china does not have a capital gains tax, yet we do.

the way you create a good economy, is by slashing taxes. plus, i know what to do with my money better than a politician.

and now they want to put a new bank tax on banks? these guys live in fantasy land. sure the banks helped cause this mess, but everything they were doing was legal! thats right, legal! who writes the laws in this country? congress! sure the president puts in his two cents, but congress writes the laws. where were they?

tony-268769 wrote:

He spent our (and our childrens')money like a drunken sailor...."

Wondering who will spend more money

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Reagan

the United States borrowed heavily both domestically and abroad, raising the national debt from $700 billion to $3 trillion.^[110]

Reagan described the new debt as the "greatest disappointment" of his presidency.^[110]

George W.Bush. By October 2008, due to increases in domestic and foreign spending,^[96] the national debt had risen to $11.3 trillion,^[97][98] an increase of over 100% from the start of the year 2000 when the debt was $5.6 trillion.^[99][100]

By the end of Bush's presidency, unemployment climbed to 7.2%.^[101]

^{http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W._Bush}

Do we really have to put up with 3 MORE YEARS OF OBAMA?? He is out of his mind. Every decision he makes goes AGAINST COMMON SENSE.

The chaos he is creating for America is OUTRAGEOUS.

We need to impeach him.

Cold Comfort Mr. Obama.

The horse is already out of the barn. You have huge amounts of unspent money from the ARRA to continue spending so this freeze will be simply symbolic.

This is funny = Talk about double talking, crooked politicians =

The 3rd World Thanks you America, for your jobs and economy, and for being so stupid!

To all the whiners about the war: The war has created far more jobs than the Stimulus ever did. Wars create jobs.

To Reagan post 1.2 The job losses started as soon as NAFTA got a good head of steam on. You only "noticed" it in 2007.

Here is an analogy that might put this freeze in perspective. The local School district was (once again) short on money. The Teachers Union "finally" offered a "pay freeze" for the upcoming year to "help" save the district money. In the meantime, unemployment hits all time highs and most everyone who is not unemployed has taken a pay cut due to the economy. (The people paying for the Teacher's salaries.) Eveyone has taken that pay cut, except the Teachers. If the Teachers would have taken a 2.5% pay cut, the budget would have been in the black and there would have been nearly a 1 million dollar surplus. (I personally lost 15% of my income last year due to the economy and I am doing OK. And these teachers make much more than me.) Additionally, this school district has far more Teachers AND Administrators than Districts nearby with LARGER Student populations! (Sounds a lot like our Govt., doesn't it????) Washington is doing the same thing this Teacher's Union did, only on a NATIONAL scale!!!!! But then again, who has Obama been "rewarding" and now copying????? The Unions!

Fiscal responsibility needs to happen, but not the Union "way."

REALLY!!!! $10 billion saved on a $1.35 TRILLION projected deficit?! So instead of $1.35 Trillion we will only go in debt $1.25 Trillion? And they have the balls to call that SAVINGS? What a joke!!!

The president is an idiot as well as an @!$%#.

Does this ship of fools even know what the meaning of 'CUT SPENDING" even means? I don't think so.

"George W.Bush. By October 2008, due to increases in domestic and foreign spending,^[96] the national debt had risen to $11.3 trillion,^[97][98] an increase of over 100% from the start of the year 2000 when the debt was $5.6 trillion."

At the rate the current administration and Congress is going, it will take a little less than 5 YEARS to spend MORE. Bush never had a year where he increased the deficit even half of what Obama did THIS YEAR!

Does that answer - "Wondering who will spend more money"? I guess we will see.

How about a freeze on the imports roaring into the US. What a disgrace by allowing this to happen leting runaway imports to come in like this, hurting the American economy so freeze this.

There has been bipartisan lack of spending restraint. I don't have much issue with the Bush tax cuts expiring if they're replaced with tax cuts that target the producers,i.e. small businesses and small business owners with larger ones for job creation. Add a modest reduction in the corporate tax rate (10% would be great, but 5% is better than nothing) and the increase in revenues (due to people rejoining the work force) should outweigh any loss due to the cutbacks. There need to protections (i.e. tariffs) to protect against foreign dumping on our already fragile manufacturing sector.

Of course you guys realize that the "cost" of the war at just under 1trillion is on top of the already extremely bloated and wasteful pentagon budget. I think, last time I read, somewhere around 650 billion a year. Oh but looking there for cuts would be "palling around with terrorists."

Notice, we must cut social security and medicare; these programs had large surplus, before the congress borrowed against receipts to pay for everything from medicaid, great society,wars and any other pet project, that could go off budget.

Social Security is not broke, the congress is worried that they will soon have to start to budget money to pay back the ten's of Trillions borrowed from what was once a lock box; LBJ, was the one who opened the box, and ever since politicians have been feeding from it.

National Debt to the penny (per treasurydirect.gov)

01/22/01 $5,727,776,738,304.64

01/16/09 $10,628,881,485,510.20

Bush added $4,901,104,747,205.56 to the debt during his term - that's almost double what he started with.....

Wait a minute!! Yesterday he was going to give back to the middle class, today we freeze. Spend, freeze, which is it? They have no clue what they are doing. Can't make up their minds.

We have got to get these idiots out of DC. They are giving away this country to the non productive part of it.

Obama needs to cut his budget another Trillion. He hasn't figured it out yet! The IRS isn't going to have the money for him to spend. Oh gee, Odumbo, people who are unemployed don't have to pay taxes and may even be due for refunds! The IRS is going to have to start writing IOU's just like Calif did. Not to mention the IRS is going to have to do a lot of returns by hand since that great first-time homebuyers program you instigated make all those people ineligible to efile!

Saxon there is no Social Security Trust Fund! Lyndon Johnson spent it years ago and had legistlation passed to have all money contributed put straight into the General Fund. The politicians have been spending every dime since then and claiming that the SS Trust Fund was going to run out!

Funny how the author points out how the deficit will decrees as soon as "The tax cut installed by President Bush expire"... Once again falling short of the real problem. The problem Big Government Liberal/Progressives just refuse to address. The Tax cuts would be able to REMAIN there, allowing for the faster economic recovery of the people, if we had not witnessed the fastest largest Government Buildup in history occur over the last year.

The tax cuts were places there to allow small and medium business to grow and big business to be able to survive. Remove those cuts and the ability for those companies to compete reduces dramatically, causing them to lay off more people. Thereby extending the economic slump. You will never get Liberal/Progressives to understand this truth based fact. Even though there are examples of it working perfectly in several of our States. Texas being the one doing the best. Liberal/Progressive absolutely refuse to acknowledge that higher taxation leads to a reduced economy. Fact is, these same Liberal/Progressives do not care as long as they have their entitlement programs well in place to continue to buy and garner votes in constituencies that are in complete collapse such as California and Michigan. As long as those Congress men and women are making certain that "Uncle Sammy" never forgets to send the rent payment check, their phony Bologna Jobs are intact.

Here is the problem with the Liberal/Progressives very short minded solution. It has led to where we are right now. It has led California, a State that because of its enormous natural recourse's and tourism and large work force should and has out performed every other State in the Nation. Instead, with having Liberal leadership over the past 25 years, California has been brought to the brink of being Bankrupt. That would have seemed a complete impossibility not 30 years ago. California was the Golden State of opportunity and growth. Then... the Liberals moved in. They and the Progressives who followed suite (only masking Liberalism behind a few educated sounding words.) Instead of growing and putting its LEGAL POPULATION to work, California stopped true effort to contain illegal immigration. To the Liberals and Progressives, that would be immoral and bigoted to have a secure border and to send people who are not documented back to their Country of origin. That is ONE OF THEIR arguments to not stop illegal immigration... Here is another... The people of Mexico and other Southern American and Central American Countries are only doing Jobs that "Americans" will not do. Really? Americans will not work in the construction trades? Funny... I did for 6 or 7 years. Americans will not work for Shipping companies and all manor of production and assembly companies? Really?... Our Nation had hundreds of thousands of people who worked in those jobs, women even started doing assembly line work during WW II and NEVER DID LEAVE... and we are very grateful to all they did and are doing.

Want to see more of the same thing we are seeing today?... I already have... Between 1976 and 1980 I saw the same exact show with different actors. THEY tried to tell us it was because of the Nixon years and because we had to raise taxes to afford our Luxuries in America. Then... once Carters ass was ceremoniously removed... we learned much differently. Now move forward to today, when we need a recovery like we had in the early eighties. And, add to it that our Military does not require the huge build up and modernization it did during the Reagan years. This being a HUGE positive since we do not need to spend the trillions on bringing our military back up to speed as we did then. A decent military budget will suffice just fine. Knowing this things become much more clear and easy to understand. We have seen over and again that creating high taxes and big government are never the answer... they are always the problem. Putting people to work is much easier when employers can afford to pay for an employee to work.Government simply cannot employ at the levels to satisfy the need. The need can only be satisfied through the millions of small and medium size companies and there success. When they are helped to succeed... America is at Her strongest. When they fail... well... you see what we have now... right?

Once again, and always: Government is not the answer to the problem... Government IS the problem...!!!

Obama gives idiots a bad name.

Willowbrook, I don't know where you live at where teachers make so much money that they need to take a pay cut. My wife is a teacher and the surrounding states where I live at, the teachers' wages are considered below poverty level. Everything a teacher wants to get to help educate students that is outside of what the school district will buy comes out of their own pocket. Yeah teachers have a union, but so does the automakers, some large construction places. Also let me ask you this, would you have gotten to where you are at in life if it wasn't for teachers and maybe one certain teacher pushed you to strive to become successful, did that happen?

REALLY!!!! $10 billion saved on a $1.35 TRILLION projected deficit?! So instead of $1.35 Trillion we will only go in debt $1.25 Trillion? And they have the balls to call that SAVINGS? What a joke!!!

The president is an idiot as well as an @!$%#.

Zathrose, its worse than you think. $10 billion from $1.35 trillion would be $1.34 trillion. In long hand it would look like this $1,350,000,000,000. VS $1,340,000,000,000. Kind of like taking a bucket of water out of the St. Lawrance River and calling it a savings.

Of course the arrogant Senate rejects it. They know everything, why would they need help from someone lower than them?

"The proposal was an amendment to a $1.9 trillion hike in the government's ability to borrow to finance its operations."

Um, lets form a task force to tackle debt.....and add it to this nearly $2 TRILLION extension of credit to ourselves. Brilliant.

Want to see where all $4.7 TRILLION(so far) has disappeared?

http://money.cnn.com/news/specials/storysupplement/stimulus-tracker/index.html?hpt=C1

You don't need a task force (Mr. President - moron sir).... you need someone with enough intestinal fortitude to grab the pen and start slashing!!! From "ALL" budgets, agencies, departments, parties and their ties/favors to and for special interest groups!!!

I seem to recall a statements about responsibility, line item veto, etc....? SO "MAN-UP" and get it done!!!

Now its Senate that's told you to "FO".... leaving you and the Administration to dangle with your teleprompter in the warm breezes..... hahahaha..... (Along with Queen Nancy telling you to get the CSPAN camera's out-ta here...... hahahaha.) Again.... who owns the pen??????

Let this be a lesson to all future potential Presidential candidates, the resume needs to have real world experience including: proven leadership skills, a working knowledge of government, and actually running a successful lemon-aide stand.... it definately would be better than say just listing community organizing from now on!!!

Advice: DON'T just be the winner of a popularity contest..... I respect the office of President. Now its time you start to earn that title. It may actually gain you some measure of respect!

"The stimulus was necessary to avoid a depression, the reasoning is very sound."

More Keynesian nonsense. Yet another person that knows nothing about economics.

The depression wasn't avoided - just delayed and made worse. Wake up.

Facts (without disputing your figures),

Debt as of 1/19/09: 10,628,881,485,510.20

Debt now (1/26/2010): 12,325,316,036,730.00 (and still going up faster than I can type) An increase of 1.7 trillion in the past year.

At this rate, by the end of 2011, Obama will raise the debt as much as Bush did, however he will do it in about 1/3rd of the time it took Bush.

I agree that from 2001-2009 our govt did not spend responsibly, and you can sit there all you want and bitch and whine about how much the debt went up under Bush. But to not give the same complaints to Obama, and the fact that he is increasing our debt 3 times faster than Bush did, is nothing more than a double standard. Quit bitching about one political party and put your energies to the actual problem. Otherwise you are part of the problem.

Being a bubbled economy for so long. We are used to artificial growth. The only way to fix it is investing in the Middle Class. They are the primary spenders. Sometimes you have to make it worse in order to make it better. We need substance to be the foundation not money on money.

After said investment, promote American industries. Promote buying American, Promote Small business. Promote the moving of money! Promote an American Economy.

We need to undue outsourcing and importing. They only way to undue stagnation would be to flood the streets with hope of prosperity.

China is sitting back waiting for us to fail!

How slow are you? The freeze is for 'discretionary' spending only. This excludes Defense, veterans, Social Security, Medicare and other where spending levels and growth are defined by statute (Cost of living, inflation indexing etc).

Last year the Prez made clear that while the immediate need was for INVESTMENT the real need was gutting spending growth. It can be difficult to keep two things in mind at once so if you can't do it, please sit quietly while the adults work it out.

As for the notion that keeping taxes in place will increase government revenues: you clearly do not understand how the Laffer curve was supposed to work or that it has been discredited. The biggest part of the problem today is the profligate buildup of the military that happened in the 80's. Once that mostly unused capacity became obsolete, we had to build it again and no one seems to mind that we are constantly buying hardware without a sober analysis of the threats we face.

It's going to be a long before we can bottle up the destructive forces loosed by Reagan, Clinton and Bush Jr. It will be even harder if all you can do is call names and ignore history as well as what's happening around us.

It would appear some of the Democrats have seen the light. Obama's power and influence is OVER. I don't think too many of the Democrats running for re-election this year will want anything to do with his programs from here on out to November 2010. NOBODY WILL REQUEST Obama to come to their states and campaign....

Looks like some dems are taking notice of the shot heard 'round the country from Mass. Everyone knows that the spending freeze of just a small part of the budget is merely a gimmick, and even dems aren't buying it. Same with the proposed task force. It doesn't take brains to know that to get us out of the recession quickly (rather than dragging it on like Obama is doing), one needs to prevent the tax increases we'll all face as a result of the reinstatement of previously reduced taxes under Bush. Then cut taxes even more, including the capital gains tax. All these reductions nned to be made permanent so people know that their investments in their businesses won't be taken away from them. Then Obama and the dems need to stop this ridiculous talk about taxing banks, etc. Only the brainless don't understand that if you take money from banks and give it to the government for doing nothing other than excercise power, that the banks will have less money to spend on making loans to people and businesses. Plus, fees will be raised on the customers, afterall, they are the ones that pay taxes anyway. Finally, they need to freeze the slush funds known as tarp and stimulous so that no more money is wasted. As an extension, they need to cut a whole bunch of wasteful spending that the government has no business spending. Propably could cut spending easily by 15% in an instant (a conservative estimate). Do this and the economy will swing around before you can say Ronald Reagan.

Bush, Bush, Bush, Bush, Bush....

And I may have had a better career if I had better teachers when I was young.

Good God folks...it is time to move forward and deal with matters that pertain to "now" and to the future. You people had 8 years to insult and spit on Mr. Bush and even though the current president and his lemmings will continue to blame all the ills of the universe on his predessor, we taxpayers need to wise up and deal with what is important to our future. And I mean "our" future...not Mr. Obama's.

Communisim happens one tax and one law at a time.

I know it's a drop in the bucket, but how about Congress foregoing their COLA's until they become fiscally responsible with our money ?

Afterall they did kill the COLA's for Social Security recipients this year.

Go to keep right wing Nazi conservatives happy, I suppose.

you guys are such fing morons it makes my head spin...can you even read...Obama just tried to cut spending and republicans in the majority said no...and a couple dumbs ass dino dems went along...seriously all you messed up fearmongering republicas who got us in this mess..go shove your head back up your asses and stfu!

I agree with "Stop-the-stats", but I'll say it outright, Obammer is closet Alqeda...this is part of the trifecta plan to wreck America... finacially, defensively and politically. He infiltrated the liberal-dems knowing they would buy into his BS with their nievety. No way was he ever going to get a foot in the door with the rest of us.

The administration keeps pushing this 10% unemployment figure but the real unemployment figure of everyone not work due to job losses is 17.3% Quite a lot of difference in those figures because they just quite counting anyone who isn't on unemployment anymore.

Who were the 24 Republican Senators that voted against this?

Why did they do such a thing?

I want names.

Indeed. The progressives in this country are doing everything they can to destroy the US.

Here's something:

We know, from reports on MSNBC and the Democratic majority, that there is approximately $80 BILLION in waste, fraud and abuse in Medicare/caid.

Why don't they start there, by passing a small, targetted bill that calls for cleaning up those entitlements?

OH WAIT. They can only do that, if they simultaneously pass a bill to SPEND the money - ala their bribery filled failure of a health scare deform bill.

Got it.

Paul-376659 #1.43,

"Obama gives idiots a bad name."

Are you sure you didn't mean "Obama makes idiots look like geniuses"?

So Obama is only going to cut a couple of billion from the budget, and that's not enough. If he cut the budget IN HALF that would still not be enough for those who oppose everything the president says or does.

Jobless claims are slowing down -- but this means nothing, right? Although, in the view of any sane person, slowing down jobless claims is a sign of economic progress.

And the claim has been made that -- gasp -- unemployment figures don't count those who have given up looking for work, so Obama's unemployment rate is higher than it seems. (Probably a conspiracy.) But the same has been true of unemployment figures under every president, including Obama's predecessor. When did you discover the extraordinary fact that those who've given up aren't counted? In January, 2009?

As for the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan over the last ten years, the total is $1.05 trillion. The amount of money paid by my modest-sized city over that period was $116 million. That alone is enough to pay for one year's worth of health care for 31,000 people.

http://www.nationalpriorities.org/costofwar_home

Critics of the administration are right, though, in claiming that Obama is increasing the size of the national debt. Here's a graph of his record so far, in its recent historical context.

http://zfacts.com/p/318.html

To Krunk - I have been on both sides of this street. I am a former Teacher, when I took my first job, it was a situation similar to the one you describe in your post. I had to work several extra jobs to break even as my pay was very poor. (This was in a different state than where I live now.) The Teachers who are in our District are paid very well, compared to the local standard of living. The pay our Teachers receive put most as upper middle class and the Administrators are creeping into the upper class. This is based on the base salary and does not include benefits. Our local community is in an uproar over this. You can access base pay for Teachers in our State by District. So my information is not second-hand. 35% of the residents in our county (a Rural county) qualify for food from the local non-profit food bank. That is 18000 residents. To have to continue to pay for Teachers' bloated salaries while those who are paying are suffering from hunger and losing their homes is not right. Just like it is not right for the govt. to do the same thing. The Teachers traditionally had been receiving a 3% COL raise each year. So taking back 2.5% really isn't a big deal. People on SSI didn't receive a COL this year and have to pay MORE for their Medicare.

This non-stop spending is going to be the financial death of future generations. We need to make the sacrifice it takes now to ensure our children and their children will have the opportunities we once enjoyed. Who would not be willing to sacrifice anything for the safety and security of their children? You've heard the saying, "No pain, No gain"? Our kids are going to feel the pain for a little gain we think we are getting now.

God Bless America

"The task force was rejected after the powerful seniors lobby, led by AARP, objected to a potential fast-track debate of cuts to Social Security and Medicare. Anti-tax activists and GOP-friendly editorial pages pressed Republicans to oppose it."

Guess that goes to show the public who our Congressional Representatives work for: SPECIAL INTEREST GROUPS. And we wondered why our Emails and questions at Town Hall meetings fell on deaf ears.

People need to quit the Obama bashing, it wouldn't be any different under McCain or anyone else. The issue is that our two "parties" are actually one party. Little to nothing changed in the hand off from Bush to Obama. There are no substantial changes, at all. It's business as usual in Washington, and everyone's party of choice doesn't care about them. They care about their real constituency, big business and their lobbyists. You may vote for one party or the other, but big business is who pays the tab, and that's exactly where Washington gets it's direction. Address that issue, and you're addressing the real problem.

Jim: One correction. Nazi is left wing. Nazis were socialist, statist, fascist, etc.

Nazi's were right wing. They had socialist in their name, but they were fascists, which are right wing. Socialism is not the same as statism, which is not the same as fascism. Socialism and Fascism are about as far apart as you can get, and statism exists in most forms of government. That's the problem with talking about politics in this country, you first have to agree what words mean, because most people don't know, and here in the US, they mean something different than they do in the rest of the world.

You are wrong.

Anarchy is the exteme right. Total state control be it fascism, communism, fuedalism, etc...are all the extreme left.

It is a common mistake though, I believe it comes from miseducation in our school system.

What an idiot, putting fascism and communism in the same category. I suppose that's why Hitler invaded the Soviet Union.

By definition, anarchy is the total lack of government, so therefore cannot be placed in either the "left" or the "right".

And then you throw in feudalism, which existed before the French parliamentary system that gave rise to the "left-right" political spectrum - and you misspelled it to boot.

No better way to showcase "miseducation", dumbass.

Here is a video that might help clear things up for you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqM7v4XrV7o

To the right is limited government -- the extreme right would be anarchy or no government. The extreme left is total government control - regardless of which label is placed on it.

That video is just some person's (paultard?) opinion which takes an old and widely used classification system and completely mangled it into something that helps him make his point that AMERICAN IS BEING TAKEN OVER BY TEH SOCIALSIMS!!!1! I could just as credibly say that since the right can't keep their dicks in their pants, by extrapolation the extreme left wears no pants. Just where does feudalism fit in? Who knows? You ignored that point.

good grief, you quoted Youtube. Really, YouTube?

Also, they can claim a freeze while the BILLIONs being paid back by banks WITH INTEREST is not being put towards paying off debt, but instead lumped into other pet projects, Obama's walking around pocket money or however they want to spend it.

An absolute disgrace.

Obama targets the banks / financial institutions (most of which have paid back any loans with interest) and nothing is said about GM, GMAC, Freddie, Fannie, etc. and charging them fees, add'l taxes, etc. Grossly unfair..... Venezeula like, you might say. All part of Obama's wealth redistribution plan.

In Ohio the other day he said "I want those willing to work hard to be rewarded", yet all he does is target those that work hard and make money, people and businesses alike.

Interesting.......

it`s not what i do that counts it`s what i say that really matters , obama was heard saying this as he turned to his fellow back-stabbers and said , man that didn`t sound as good as it did in my head , someone push the reset.

You are wrong, most of the deficit is the result of the stimulus. If you were president you would have let the banks fail and we would be in a depression.

Money from the banks should go toward job creation. I love the republicans, gripe about jobs and then when Obama does something about say it should go to the deficit. The only thing is, that if you pay down the deficit too early in a recession you stall the recovery. Isn't that what republicans want...Obama to fail...the economy to fail.

TARP saved the banks Eric. The stimulus was a completely different "agenda."Why would anybody want the economy to fail?How many times does the government get to "fix" the job market? How would a stimulus program work without addressing small businesses?

Eric, I believe that 787 BILLION dollars was supposed to go for "job creation".

So far the claim is "thousands and thousands" (Jarret), "1.5 million" (Gibbs), and "2 million"(Axelrod), JUST THIS PAST SUNDAY!!!

The recovery.gov site has NOT been updated in at least 3 months, meaning they aren't even tracking anymore, they are just throwing out numbers.

But let's just say 2 million for arguments sake (of course created/saved in non-existent districts, and zip codes): And so far the claim is that they have spent around 339 billion of the money. That's just around $170,000 per job "created or saved".

Now think about that. ONE HUNDRED SEVENTY THOUSAND DOLLARS for each job claimed to be "created or saved". Don't you think that is a little much? Hell, I could live comfortably for 3 years with that kind of money, easily.

But ignorant people like you think that is a great thing, so spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to "create" a job. And of course, fail to point out that the so called "saved" jobs are nothing more than pay raises in most cases.

So, we get to now "blame the 800 BILLION dollar" stimulus for the deficit. Now, that's last years spending and NOT in this year's, but yet a lib like you STILL blames last years spending on this year's spending?????????

And of course you actually THINK they can "pay down the deficit too early", right? Are you NOT paying attention at all? They have to BORROW 1.3 TRILLION dollars just this year. Could you explain where that is paying down anything, anywhere?

You got that Obamanomics down to a science, don't you?

eric , eric, eric you poor fool . you must have been right behind emanuel in obamas corus. most of the deficit did not come from the stimuless , only about 300 bln has been spent so far and they don`t count the other450 until it is used . increasing govt spending by 50% while revenues are down 25% has created far worse impact on the deficit.

The stimulus is what most of europe used to stave off a depression, there isn't another agenda, essentially you prop up the economy until it recovers and coddle it along. Reagan did it in the 80's.

Off course the Republicans want Obama and the economy to fail, that is their way back into power.

If he doubled the money for those programs, why are the elderly scrapping by?

Eric, why is it that every liberal uses "europe" as an example for any damn thing this country does????? We came here and founded this country to GET AWAY from how they do things. However, if you feel Europe is so wonderful and they are the shining example to the world on how things should be done, why don't get the hell out of here and go there? Oh wait, maybe it isn't all that wonderful, right? Because you'd never be able to cry and whine about how bad the country is like you can here.

VETNU, the money wasn't doubled for SS or MediCare. What was plussed up in these 2 budgets is the domestic garbage. Education, HUD, crap like that.

Why Obama is putting the spending in Iraq-Afghanistan war into our Federal Budget ?

That war should be into blank check ( just like Junior did it ).

Eric-913730, Off course the Republicans want Obama and the economy to fail, that is their way back into power

Of course we want socialism to fail, we are a republic not a communist country!

We want to be free from tyrants, who oppress our children and their children into paying our bills so we can have it easy for a few years.

Hey sillylibs - why would you put down someone just because they went to public school??

Freezing the discresionary spending is a good start (provided they can actually carry it out, which I doubt seriously), but it isnt enough. Just like we all had to do in our households, they have to CUT the budget. The govt's spending is doing nothing now but getting this country further and further into debt.

Does anyone know or really care that the SEC Chairman(Mary Shapiro) engineered phony stock options to her self and now head of FINRA Rick Ketchum ( to the tune of millions of $$$$)...do you care that no news organization is reporting this????

Rumor or Truth ????

Actually, let's blame Bush since his wars and tax cuts and manufacturing job losses, and no regulations of banks got us into this mess!

Why don't they cut the waste, fraud and abuse that they know damn well exists in Medicare/caid, to the tune of an estimated $80 billion a year?

Because ....

It's extortion. They know that waste is there, and they're just going to let it SIT there UNLESS they're allowed to pass a monsterous disaster of a bribe-ridden payoff to the insurance companies, pharma and unions to SPEND the money they save.

Know it for what it is. The waste is there, they won't cut it unless they get their health scare deform.

Blah, blah, blah, This is more partisan B/S.

Most of the deficit is from the recession induced decline in tax revenue. The Obama spending increases are a tiny percentage of the deficit.

The budget busters are Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Defense. These four are out of control, and are heading the country into bankruptcy. Budget cuts alone will not solve this monster because it is politically infeasible. Don't expect the Republicans to stick their necks out to do anything - the prior eight years proved that - in fact they added a senior prescription drug plan, which busted the budget even further.

Those who voted against this task force to be voted out of office.

Meanwhile, back on topic....

Senate Rebublicans fighting a commission designed to cut taxes and reduce spending and they rejected it. That will be a fun one to explain to voters in November.

I guess thae party of NO extends to cutting taxes and reducing the debt too..

There goes GOP credibility for the tea baggers.

Start with deport ever single illegal and the anchor babies they had here. That would reduce the aid to another 20 million people. At 2000 a month that's 40 billion a year to start.

For six years Bush and his cronies had complete control of all chambers of Government and they spent money worse than drunken sailors at a whorehouse being the so-called Conservative Repuklicans they claimed to be. When he took office the national deficit was around 4 trillion dollars and when he left office it was over 10 plus trillion dollars not counting the two god forsaken two endless wars he chose not to add those totals to the deficit. Explain that CONSERVATIVES?????

On top of that stupidity he gave massive tax cuts to the wealthiest people during two wars which has never ever happened in the history of America. EXPLAIN that CONSERVATIVES?? And to sit here and blame Obama for this Pile of $hit this economy is in now is absurd at the least.

Question is how do you fix this nightmare Bush and Cheney left this country in without spending any money doing it??? It won't happen people because big business is not creating jobs in America anymore because they are allowed to do all business with the Communists in China and India where they can hire slave labor and pollute the world without any consequences. Until we stop allowing such immoral business practices and reinstall tariffs like our for fathers did to protect the American businesses and workers this country is doomed. Free and unequal Trade has killed all American manufacturing and we had better wake up soon or learn to speak Communist Chinese.. TERM LIMITS on all POLITICIANS would help stop these career thieves who keep voting for the bad guys!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tim, aka partisan hack.

Did you read WHY they voted it down?

The Republicans didn't want to be put in a position to have to raise taxes, and the Democrats didn't want to be put in a position to pick away at any of their precious teat-sucking programs.

I can agree that they should NOT have voted it down, either party.

But again, blaming the Republicans while the Democrats STILL have a filibuster proof majority is just stupid - especially when 16 Republicans voted FOR it. If the Democrats believed in the goal, they could have "jammed" it through. Oh, wait, they only do that on SPENDING and BIG GOVERNMENT, not saving and small government. Check.

Everett= tax cuts CREATE jobs, do a little homework instead of defending an inexperienced Chicago thug who has surrounded himself by morons. The eight years of war (which by the way has created jobs) has only cost under 900 billion, and your precious Obama has spent that several times over in one year! He appointed Hoofnmouth Biden to be the watchdog, and he doesn't have a clue. This Congress and Senate has came in like common looters, taking everything not nailed down, and have smoked the money printing presses. Bush had balls, Obama doesn't. Even at the climate change conference they said there was no difference between Bush and Obama except Bush told it like it was. I do agree with term limits on career politicians and we could get rid of Pelosi, Frank, Reid, Kerry, and the rest of the elitist morons who love spending other people's money. Step away from the kool aid.

Don't know if anyone has noticed but our lected have been spending like there was no tomorrow on their own,,,,Obama just happened to be the nut that got elected and no matter what , will take all the heat for it.

Our congreess has its own agenda and it has nothing to do with helping out the general public....did they know jobs would leave this country after voting through all the abc programs including NAFTA that wall street wanted..if they claim they did not then surely they have no business in washington.

Did you see on CNN where Nancy Pelosi and her STAFF spend 1 MILLION dollars on their pre-Christmas trip to Copenhagen? Yep, the democrats are spending and spending.

http://caffertyfile.blogs.cnn.com/2010/01/26/should-pelosi-have-to-explain-her-1-million-trip-to-copenhagen/?hpt=T2

That woman needs to be stopped and so does all of this ridiculous spending....I'm sick of it.

"when government expands, liberty contracts"

...hmmm

Everett, why do everyone of you libs think that us on the right are huge Bush fans? He got elected to a second term because he ran against John Kerry, not because he was a great president. Bush did a ton of crap that was incredibly harmful to the country, but that doesn't give Obama a free pass to spend even more money that we don't have. He approved a $787 billion stimulus package that may or may not have created some jobs. I should hope that $787 billion would create a couple of jobs. The big problem with the stimulus is that there was no rhyme or reason to the distribution of the money. It was allowed to be a money grab for congressmen and senators with no consideration of how it could be used for a focused, targeted, job-creating package. I can't wait for the spin Obama puts on all of this tomorrow.

The initial reports are another 5000 pork projects in this budget.

Obama promised none and there were 5000 in another bill he signed, 3000 in a defense spending bill and and another 5000 here....... Over 13k pork projects for a guy that campaigned he'd not allow any.

Ah, a man of integrity... or lack thereof.

before complaining about the five thousand (pork) items be sure to look at how many were from the pugs that you support

bop i think that was the point, he said i won`t and then he did . here comes your stop ,be sure to get off the party train .

Both sides of the aisle approve pork, now is the time for the line item veto, maybe it could pass now.

The line item veto is unconstitutional as it effectively gives the power of the purse to the president. The Constitution is very specific about which branch has that power.

States can do it: This power is held by most state governors in the United States of America. All but seven US states have some form of line-item veto. Those states without the line-item veto are Indiana, Maryland, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Rhode Island, and Vermont.

Yes, I'm aware the Supreme court ruled against it, however, it seemed to work well for Clinton when he had it.

um, eric, the current congress is dem controlled, and the big o didn't bother to use line item for the largest spending bill in history, why start now?

Judd Alan Gregg (born February 14, 1947) member of the Republican Party.He would be up for re-election in 2010, but has stated he will not run again.^[5]

On November 20, 2009, Gregg vowed to block any legislation put forth that would provide transparency at the Federal Reserve by performing a complete audit. Gregg stated, "I would not vote for any bill and I would filibuster any bill that had this language in it."

In the Senate Gregg was the leading Republican negotiator and author of the TARP program, which bailed out financial institutions, while he had a multi-million dollar investment in the Bank of America..^[26][27][28]

Eric, we voted for that liar and cheif because he promised no more pork, no more lobbying and no more secret discussions on bills behind closed doors. He lied to get in office. Period.

and now you tell us he does what Bush did. Then why did we elect him?

The president may not have line item veto power but he does have the ability to not sign a bill with pork in it. My state does have the line item veto power for the governor but if he does veto the bill, it goes back to the house and senate and they can override his veto with a 2/3 (I think) majority vote.

Why doesn't someone step up and list the people, States, and or Districts that are getting the pork? I will give you two in an effort to show you it is not as one sided as some of you believe. Shelby R Alabama and Pelosi D California are two with a huge hand in the pot.

Mitch McConnell from Kentucky was the first to run crying to the Government last year when an ice storm hit about 4 States. The odd part of this is that Kentucky has been hit the last 3 years with an ice storms but never and still haven't taken action as a State to prepare for another.

You people can play Democrat and Republicans like a fool but reality is reality. Both parties are guilty as hell in the handout game and it happened with a Republican White House and control of Congress and a Democrat White House and control of Congress. The only thing that has not changed are the people with their hand out for pork. Both Shelby and Pelosi as well as McConnell were in office during both parties in control.

You want to play politics like a fool go ahead but understand that it will continue until we establish term limits on Congress.

Look up the pork projects over the last 8 years and see who is getting the money. Keep in mind these are presented to the President by Congress not the other way around.

stormerf2,

The reason it was not taken to the Supreme Court is because neither party want it to pass. If you will read this article you will see that neither party wanted a limited on the deficit either.

As hard as the party puppets try to sell the difference between the parties on spending and pork it is just not there. They would not give Bush the authority nor will they Obama line item veto power because each party would be afraid they would give one sided pork and the press would have access to those trying to get it.

Mix Congress up on the Isles and you can't tell the difference. They are all just lobbyist for their State or District. They play the Democrat or Republican card for the masses so that we won't see what they are actually doing.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if politicians came to politics from a business background, regardless of party affiliation, and ohhh...I don't know... made enough money from their business enterprises that they wouldn't need to charge the taxpayers for their inflated living expenses, trips, etc. to have to be in D.C? Oh, some sort of military background would be a plus too, (especially if you are going to be Commander in Chief). We need to amend the Constition NOW to impose term limits and make it so Washington can't make themselves exempt from all the bullsh!t "healthcare reform" they want to shove upon us. Crap like the "Nebraska Compromise", as I like to put it, shouldn't happen either. Oh what a better world it'd be...

I know that is an oversimplification... but it would be a start.

Cheney came from Halliburton...worked out great for that company...at the expense of the Country.

I wouldn't mind seeing some accountants in congress. Maybe then they might realize what REALLY happens when you spend more than you get.

The line item veto is completely beside the point.

The POINT is, Obama promised - repeatedly - to end earmarks.

When a bill comes to his desk loaded with earmarks, he does not sign it until it is revised to be without earmarks. Very simple. He sends it back to the Senate and says these words:

"Get the earmarks out of here. All of them."

Yes, the Republicans are equally guilty of earmarks, and that's one of the many reasons they got thrown out on their arses in '06 and '08. So now the Democrats do the SAME damn thing, and some of you nozzles are here going "but the Republicans do it too!!!!" YEA, that's the point!

It's WRONG. Obama PROMISED to stop it. And he lied. Again.

This would actually be a good committee to put together. If it was composed of 5 from each party it could put a dent in the games currently being played. It is a big IF but IF this committee could reach an agreement like normal people on a course of action it would stop the blame game. Five votes going either way could make it happen.

Just think Congress could no longer just vote yes or no like a 4 year old they would actually have to come up with an alternative.

Pragmatic-my point exactly as I stated in an above comment. Don't sign the bill with all the earmarks/pork in it. I am old enough to remember the "pocket veto" where the president would hold the bill and not sign it til he was satisfied with a bill to his satisfaction.

TERM LIMITS PEOPLE, even on your good old BOY or GIRL Senator or Congressman.......... TERM LIMITS>>>>>>>>>>

We are still paying for the $500 billion Savings and Loan meltdown in 1990 brought to you by the GOP. Those were 30 year bonds that have another 10 years to go, but they were all "off budget". That phony accounting was how Bush said deficits were below $300 billion each year, but ended up with more than $5 trillion more in debt.

Eric, we voted for that liar and cheif because he promised no more pork, no more lobbying and no more secret discussions on bills behind closed doors. He lied to get in office. Period.

and now you tell us he does what Bush did. Then why did we elect him?

ASureBet,

You make a very interesting point that seems to escape many...so I felt obligated to repeat it.

People voted against the Republican party because they were told by then candidate Obama that there would be no more pork, no more lobbying, and no more secret discussions behind closed doors (as well as no more quick signing, etc.) - in short a new Washington of complete transparency.

PEOPLE VOTED AGAINST A PARTY BECAUSE OF THESE REASONS (and others).

And now that President Obama is doing the exact same thing, the justification is, "well Bush did it". If that were the case and the emperor's new clothes are on display, will you then, those that voted "against Bush" now vote "against Obama" because he's doing the exact things that you so animatedly opposed, or will you vote for him again, and use the "Bush did it" justification why it's still ok to do that which you were opposed to just a year ago?

Hardly a gimmick at all, the savings are pretty big over time. More has to be done. The biggest area we could cut is military spending but see if the republicans would support that.

Cut the military while we are at war? That's as smart as Bush cutting taxes while we were at war.

Eric: $250 billion is less than 1/3 of the Stimulus Package. Obama uses the word billion like we use the word hundred. This is not a lot of savings.

Go USA is it savings? Yes....stop griping.

Eric

Its Go USA's right to gripe, but all I read in his comment is facts. Try it sometime. You might like it!!

We will always be at war. It is not your parents or grandparents style of war any longer. No armies or nations, it is now small bands of guerrillas, pirates, and individuals that hid away. And yes, the federal budget will need to reflect that change.

We will also, need to have the budget reflect on nation building (Iraq, Afghanistan, and possibly Somalia, Yemen, and Haiti) because that is, in fact, what we are doing. Another group of words (nation building) that we as a nation do not like to use (war sound so much better for security of the country).

Eric: I usually agree with you, but in this case, I do think this news story is mostly a "gimmick" to pacify the great unwashed.

It's not really the President's fault, but he's forced to be reactive, rather than proactive. The American people see things in very simple terms. A "budget freeze" may not be the wisest course of action during a great recession, but it should help to improve the White House's poll numbers, as it is intended to do.

The fact that Obama has had one of the most successful and productive legislative first years of any President is of no interest to the average American. (Source: http://www.slate.com/id/2236708/ )

He wants to know when jobs are going to start opening up again, and Obama has to pander to that simple audience.

This story kind of reminds me of that amendment that was passed in "Atlas Shrugged", where nobody could change jobs, the budget would stay the same, and basically the government was trying to prevent further disaster. I don't think much will come of this proposal, it's simply intended to make people happy.

Thomas Allen "Tom" Coburn, M.D. (born March 14, 1948),Ordained Southern Baptist deacon. A member of the Republican Party,senator from Oklahoma.

Coburn has used the special hold [ and earning a reputation for his use ] privilege to prevent several bills from coming to the Senate floor.^[56] For example, in November 2009 Coburn drew considerable attention for placing a hold on a veterans' benefits bill known as the "Veterans’ Caregiver and Omnibus Health Benefits Act".^[59][60] The bill included new penalties for child pornography^[63] The bill never made it.

Coburn is affiliated with a religious organization called The Family. Coburn lives in one of the Family's dormitories when in Washington, D.C., with Senator John Ensign

The Senate is where most of the "pork" is cooked up. 1/3 of the country is represented by 8 senators from the most populous states and the other 2/3 are represented by the other 92 senators. It only takes 41 to block everything and just about everyone adds "pork".

wcritiquing--The blathering Obama haters and bloggers for the right, never own up to their problems. Its a waste of time to ever try talking over an issue with them. They only want power to take what you have and tell you what YOUR values should be.

Meanwhile the blathering Obama followers are telling the rest of the country what their values are supposed to be while throwing money at a problem instead of actually fixing it. what's the difference?

Eric, your wife (or significant other) comes home with a 500 dollar pair of shoes (she will probably only wear once) that she bought on credit and claims that she got them for 5% off. Is that a savings or a waste?

Eric: $250 billion is less than 1/3 of the Stimulus Package. Obama uses the word billion like we use the word hundred. This is not a lot of savings.

------------------

This is what I mean. The GOP cant walk the talk.

Any dent in the debt is a good thing. Its not going to be a fail swoop to reign in the deficit, its going to take lots of plans, methods and tactics. Some small, some large.

The only reason that the Conservatives posters here are being cynical is because Obama is proposing it. Nothing more.

Tell me true, Republicans, would you poo poo this idea if it came from your newly elected poster boy Brown? And please explain why cutting 477 Billion out of the debt is a bad or useless thing to do. Waiting.....

Well, I'm not a Republican, but here's the thing:

He JUST included double digit INCREASES in multiple programs in the last budget, including raises for government employees.

Now, I don't begrudge government employees who make on average 50% more than the average American and have nanny care from hire to grave courtesy of the taxpayers a raise for probably being totally incompetent and possibly illiterate based on previous interactions and virtually impossible to fire no matter how useless they are getting a 3% raise while tens of millions of Americans who bust their asses have taken pay cuts just to keep their jobs ....

But in an economy where 17.3% of the workforce is un/underemployed, it just kinda looks bad.

Then on the heels of that, he prances in on his unicorn with a lolly pop stuck in his hair, trilling on about cutting like 1/1000 of 1% from the deficit, and we're supposed to what, wet our pants?

Puhlease.

Apparently the Stimulus will cost $75 billion more than we were told.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jan/26/tab-stimulus-program-jumps-cbo-says/

You do Enuff, and she does, and her kids will, and probably their kids will.

And that's just for this year.

Well since large corporations are considered people now... maybe they should be bearing the brunt of the taxation... afterall if they are going to be paying our politicians to vote their way instead of our way and we are just slaves with no voice why should we have to pay their taxes? Make them pay it.

Let's see, if we had done nothing your daughter would live through a depression. Tell her that. Even Reagan knew that you had to spend during a recession, slowly raise interest rates and at the right time raise taxes. Reagan did it and it worked, it was not popular however.

That's why Bush signed TARP it into law Eric, when is Obama going to due something besides Buy automotive companies?

Used to think o smoked dope. I was wrong, with his off the wall actions, he must be main-lining

Eric,

My mom and dad both lived through a depression and in some ways it made them better people....certainly fiscally responsible and able to plan for the future and their children's future. It certainly made them work hard and they taught me to work hard........things I wanted had to be earned, they were not given to me.

We now live in an age of entitlement where our government is spending beyond its means, while many U.S. citizens think they are entitled to things "simply because they are here".

We are entitled to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness.....and maybe add in a little honesty from our elected officials. On the latter point, Obama and his once supermajority dems have utterly failed the American people.

E'Bull: The answer to your daughter's question lies within the $15Trillion held by the citizens (see 401K's, etc.) of this country.

This $250B savings gimmick is nothing but a ceremonial gesture......it acknowledges the problem, but does nothing to address the problem. To put this figure in perspective, the interest (on the debt) alone in 2009, was north of $383B. [Note: We are at $104B (interest) for the current fiscal year.] We are saving nothing.

Oh trust me, recent college grads like me everywhere are learning all sorts of lessens. Mainly, what was the point? We've also learned what tax breaks to the wealthiest Americans does as well, and by the way, THAT IS NO ONE ON THIS BOARD. This small club of circle jerkers convinced entire banking firms to hedge the entire American economy on risky, made-up investment instruments. Brilliant, they are.

When you guys all shout at your opposition, or simply anyone trying to bring an ounce of rationality to the discussion as lazy do-nothings sucking at the government teet, which, by the way I have not done. I lived on savings when I first lost by job, then found a @!$%#ty part time job. I didn't need to, I have parents who understand the reality of people trying to enter even the skilled job market right now. Well maybe you should just start saying that to all the third-baser CEOS at the top of all their families companies to start creating wealth by actually creating jobs, not by the auctioning off of our entire economy. In case you missed it, Sams club cut 11,000 jobs because profit dropped .1% Wallstreet rallied with a 2.5% jump in the stock price. There's that Wall Street! Creating wealth and jobs for everyone!

Enoughbull-A 12 year old is exactly the level you are at. You might find a discussion worthy of your limited knowledge.

Eric, you continue to point to President Reagan in your examples, but you forget that one of the first things he did was cut taxes. Then he cut spending on useless projects. He increased spending on military and defense, in the face of the cold war threats and had the support of the people.

This president does not of that and as a result has the mistrust of the majority of people who give him a failing grade when it comes to job performance.

Why all the cuts to the domestic side of the budget? Obama needs to concentrate on OUR economy, not stack more on to the deficit. How about a 10% or 15% cut across the board to all foreign aid. That would show no favoritism to any country that we give foreign aid to. These countries would not hesitate to do the same. If they don't like the cut backs then they should not take any of the aid that we're giving them. I THINK NOT. They will take it still.

Obama has NO foresight what so ever. A 5 year freeze on domestic agencies, that will really help stimulate the economy! Cutting money from a program that helps pay heating bills for low-income families and at the same time eliminating tax breaks for oil, gas and coal companies, which will just cause those companies to raise prices for their service. How will these families afford to pay those bills? All this as the U.S. has been hit with some of the coldest weather ever this year and the past few years, and according to meteorologists, this weather pattern isn't going to change dramatically over the future due to global warming.

The cuts to the Community Development Block Grants is just going to help keep construction at a all time low, so how does this help the economy. Construction workers are one of the highest unemployed groups.

Are we believe that these so called tax increases to the wealthiest will pass the House and Congress, it didn't even get of the floor last year, this year will be no different.

Obama needs to pull his Head out, the foregin aid side of the budget needs to be cut back! At the same time all this domestic aid that is going to illegals needs to stop and be redirected to the American Citizens that need it. That alone would save a Billion or two to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security.

The only part I agree with is cuts to the defense portion. Having the largest and strongest armed forces, for now until the economy recovers and America is back to work, I think the defense portion of the budget should just cover the Maintaining of our weapon systems and equipment. We don't need to be building new types of weapon systems right now.

Yeah, and the republicans under Bush did a great job of paying off their debt didn't they. (rolls eyes)

Eric, we've been in debt since before WWII. I guess that's on Bush too, right?

Why don't you take a look around before you go, "Bush, Bush, Bush"???????

1.4 TRILLION deficit in 2009, 1.3 TRILLION deficit in 2010, and if Obama "freezes" it for say 3 year, that's 1.3 TRILLION in 2011, and 1.3 TRILLION in 2012. That's FIVE TRILLION DOLLARS in deficit spending in 4 years!!!!

Hell, Bush only did 3 trillion in EIGHT YEARS!!.

But blame Bush for what Obama and this Congress spend, that's the answer, right? Hell, why not blame Calvin Coolidge, or Zachary Taylor, or US Grant???

You libs always look for someone to blame instead of standing up and taking "credit" where credit is due. This is a liberal president with a liberal congress doing what liberals do:

TAXING, BORROWING AND SPENDING!!!!

And it's about time to stop blaming Bush for it.

I could give a Shi$ if George Washington spent too much, this is a new dawn according to Obama. We hired him to stop what was going on in the past.

He all he does is prove he is worse than all of them before him and accomplishes nothing at the same time while killing our boys over seas.

Eric, We are so glad you let us know you can roll your eyes. How mature of you ! In case you missed some prior points, your omnipotent leader B.O. has already, in one year, outspent what Bush did in 8 years.

Will Rogers once said (forgive me if I misquote a little bit), "Alexander Hamilton started the treasury with nothing. And in 200 years that's as close to even as we have ever been."

What's done is done. Has the president lived up to his campaign promises? No. time to @!$%# or get off the pot. (He'll probably just get off the pot in 3 years)

Roger, Your numbers are wrong. Bush added over six trillion dollars to the national debt not counting the two endless wars he chose not to add that money to.

Eric is right, it's just you Obama haters who want to only focus the blame for all of Bush's debt onto Obama.

Roger M and other Bush bootlickers, if we've been in debt since WWII, then why haven't you people been complaining and pissing and moaning like a bunch of JV cheerleaders for the last 60 odd years?

How is it that all of a sudden, starting in January 2009, you people became aware of this so called deficit, and it's effects upon or economic future? Where was all this wisdom prior to Obama being elected President?

Where was the righteous indignation and rage over your children's futures when that redneck bush was on his 8 year "3 trillion dollar" spending spree?

Everytime you haters try to project bush's mistakes onto Obama, I and others who are mature enough to see what's real will remind you of what you red ass republican Christian Messiah bush did prior to Obama, to give it the proper perspective. The reality is that most of you know that bush screwed this country good before he left, and most of you feel stupid for having voted for that assclown, as you should. So now all you people were waiting for was for Obama to take over, so you could mentally project the world's problems onto his shoulders like a bunch of pathetic, overgrown children.

Us adults will continue to support our great President as he unravels the utter clusterphuck you dumbass right-wingers and your fuhrer bush left behind.

Julian, while you're busy helping your annointed on create an even bigger clusterphuck, just remember a couple things:

Bush had an approval rating around 30% when he left office. Clearly, people were NOT thrilled, because that's barely over the size of the right base. People WERE hollaring about his spending and his war and his assorted other nonsense, and just like Obama ISN'T listening, neither was he.

So independents voted for Obama, and if not for that, he would NOT have won. And he continues to do the same crap.

Now, it looks as though his support has been reduced significantly because the independents that voted for him, believing the BS change mantra hogwash, have seen that the emperor has no clothes, he lied over and over and over again for votes, and WORST OF ALL

Keeps on keeping on doing the things people hated most about Bush - big spending, big government, entitlements and wars.

The party line hacks who just feel better when a Democrat is in office because they figure their government teat is more scure are okay with this, but the independents are NOT okay with it.

Only small minds constantly attribute financial problems with CEO pay when it is such a minute portion of the overall revenue of a corporation.

withoutadoubt, TARP repaid by the banks so far have actually resulted in a profit for the governement.

http://www.treas.gov/press/releases/20091229716198713.htm

tri how dare you come armed with facts . didn`t you here the pres , have you not not gotten the memo ? these bastards are pure evil , all they want is money. they have forgotten that profit is the new 'f' word.

Oh ok Ben, so you condone the behavior- corporate drone.

Are those the same small minds that attribute our manufacturing decline on the unions who NEGOTIATED with these CEO's to establish the pay rate for the workers. I live in NE Ohio close to a GM factory. How many workers maing $25 an hour does it take to equal the outgoing CEO's salary and bonus. I see these union guys buying cars, lawn mowers, shingles for their roof, clothes for the kids. That's what is the engine of our economy. Thousands making a living wage, not dozens raking in ridiculous sums of money and then hiding it in overseas accounts. So far 167,000 people have come forward in the UBS case to pay back taxes and avoid jail. How is hiding money that should be taxed overseas different than someone with a physical or mental handicap getting public assistance. For all the conservatives that want to say that people are just living off of public handouts, can you name one person. And if you can what are you doing to help.

The CEOs and other executives frequently work for a lower wage throughout the year and the bonuses you are referring to make up for that lower wage. Some execs have worked for $1 and this bonus is their pay. This is not in any way comparable to a bonus that ordinary workers would receive which is in addition to their regular wages. Those banking institutions repaid the government money WITH INTEREST. The bonuses should no longer be of concern to the government. Why shouldn't they have incentive to do the best they can do? At my place of employment it is referred to as profit sharing. I look forward to that to supplement my income also.

While I agree, those ceo's are more the exception. I'm referring to the ceo's who took bonuses for absolute non-performance, as in running their firms into the ground requiring bailout. I find it hard to swallow that behavior- even the Prez has been vocal against it. These firms took bailout money, paid their upper echelon's insane bonuses, then banks repaid the money back? This doesn't look a little crooked?

I always thought bonuses were based on the performance of the company. Anymore though, it seems as though most people get"bonuses" written into their contract when they join a company. What the hell is up with that???

What I want to know is why you people are so obsessed with what other people make. Jealous?

Do you want to make more money? Work harder. Novel idea, I know.

Here's the thing about the banks and Wall Street, too, just BTW:

They were playing by the rules that were written BY THE GOVERNMENT. The vast majority of them never broke any rules or laws making the enormous money they made.

THE GOVERNMENT writes lousy regulation (Gramm-Leech-Bliley, for instance) or doesn't enforce regulations (the toothless ones on credit default swaps and derivatives) and that's the BANKS fault.

THE GOVERNMENT, in the persons of Frank and Dodd and the democrats, deny any issues at all with Freddie and Fannie and block multiple attempts from Bush to reign in those to institutions. Whose CEO's, BTW, will earn $12 million between them this year. And that's the BANKS fault.

THE GOVERNMENT creates rules like the CRA, and artificially deflates interest rates for almost a decade, and consumers just follow right along borrowing more than they could ever hope to pay back, and when the whole house of cards collapses, that's all the BANKS fault?

Wake the hell up, would you? You're being suckered into this populist bullcrap Obama is shoveling, meanwhile he has been COMPLICIT in the ongoing Wall Street Welfare as recently as two weeks ago, when he allowed more wheelbarrows full of $3.8 billion be pushed into GMAC, which is a lost cause at this point.

Work harder- now that IS a novel idea when there are no jobs out there. Sure people are jealous because they can't vote themselve payraises and be given money for not doing their jobs. How do you swallow hearing how we taxpayers are going to have to pay down this insane deficit.

Well, why don't you take those issues up with the Obama administration, who recently spent OVER $800 billion it turns out on a stimulus package that was SUPPOSED to stop unemployment from going over 8%.

Or discuss with them how trimming 1/1000th of 1% off of government spendingis going to solve the deficit problem.

They're not listening to anything from anyone that doesn't agree with ideology, and they're most certainly not taking any ideas from Newsvine.

MEH

Pragmatic,

Here's and excerpt from a speech Pres. Bush gave in 2002 to HUD. Tell me again how this is all Frank and Dodd's fault. Do your remember Pres. Bush saying he wanted an ownership society? You can find the speech on hud.gov.

We are here in Washington, D.C. to address problems. So I've set this goal for the country. We want 5.5 million more homeowners by 2010 -- million more minority homeowners by 2010. (Applause.) Five-and-a-half million families by 2010 will own a home. That is our goal. It is a realistic goal. But it's going to mean we're going to have to work hard to achieve the goal, all of us. And by all of us, I mean not only the federal government, but the private sector, as well.

And so I want to, one, encourage you to do everything you can to work in a realistic, smart way to get this done. I repeat, we're here for a reason. And part of the reason is to make this dream extend everywhere.

I'm going to do my part by setting the goal, by reminding people of the goal, by heralding the goal, and by calling people into action, both the federal level, state level, local level, and in the private sector. (Applause.)

And so what are the barriers that we can deal with here in Washington? Well, probably the single barrier to first-time homeownership is high down payments. People take a look at the down payment, they say that's too high, I'm not buying. They may have the desire to buy, but they don't have the wherewithal to handle the down payment. We can deal with that. And so I've asked Congress to fully fund an American Dream down payment fund which will help a low-income family to qualify to buy, to buy. (Applause.)

We believe when this fund is fully funded and properly administered, which it will be under the Bush administration, that over 40,000 families a year -- 40,000 families a year -- will be able to realize the dream we want them to be able to realize, and that's owning their own home. (Applause.)

The second barrier to ownership is the lack of affordable housing. There are neighborhoods in America where you just can't find a house that's affordable to purchase, and we need to deal with that problem. The best way to do so, I think, is to set up a single family affordable housing tax credit to the tune of $2.4 billion over the next five years to encourage affordable single family housing in inner-city America. (Applause.)

The third problem is the fact that the rules are too complex. People get discouraged by the fine print on the contracts. They take a look and say, well, I'm not so sure I want to sign this. There's too many words. (Laughter.) There's too many pitfalls. So one of the things that the Secretary is going to do is he's going to simplify the closing documents and all the documents that have to deal with homeownership.

It is essential that we make it easier for people to buy a home, not harder. And in order to do so, we've got to educate folks. Some of us take homeownership for granted, but there are people -- obviously, the home purchase is a significant, significant decision by our fellow Americans. We've got people who have newly arrived to our country, don't know the customs. We've got people in certain neighborhoods that just aren't really sure what it means to buy a home. And it seems like to us that it makes sense to have a outreach program, an education program that explains the whys and wherefores of buying a house, to make it easier for people to not only understand the legal implications and ramifications, but to make it easier to understand how to get a good loan.

There's some people out there that can fall prey to unscrupulous lenders, and we have an obligation to educate and to use our resource base to help people understand how to purchase a home and what -- where the good opportunities might exist for home purchasing.

Finally, we want to make sure the Section 8 homeownership program is fully implemented. This is a program that provides vouchers for first-time home buyers which they can use for down payments and/or mortgage payments. (Applause.)

It would keep us from a depression, please read how Reagan pulled the country out of the recession in the 80's.

Eric..... It was called BUDGET CUTS!!!!!

Eric, Reagan did it by ending the free ride and making sure everyone would get a job, while providing incentives for the small businesses to supply the jobs. He was a capitalist.

Like it or not, the people with money are the ones that provide the jobs in this country. Ever walk up to a hobo and ask him if he is hiring today?

The people with money are the ones risking their capital (business venture), to either be self-employed, or to start a business hiring employees. Why shouldn't they get a tax break for risking thier home family and future? And Osilly's going to tax the Wall Street weasels? who do you think pays those taxes? Businesses will just pass those increases to the consumer. Nothing new there. Talk about knee-jerk reactions.

Eric - am I to understand that you are in favor of record budget deficits?

Eric apparently does not realize that it's 2010 and Obama is president and in 1980 computers were the size of a queen size bed and people were driving K-cars and you needed a suitcase to carry your cell phone in.

In other words, Reality in 2010 looks nothing like reality in 1980. The supply-side theory behind Reagan's moves may still make sense but the market forces in effect are literally from two different centuries. It's like applying FDR's specific principles: the economic landscape is too different. If we apply FDR's overall principles, as Obama appears to be doing, we're in for about five more years of this - at best.

And that reality says that since Reagan's second term, government has done nothing but get bigger and bigger and bigger with each successive administration.

Obama has blown the lid right off "big government" and gone straight into GINORMOUS land. And unless and until that is curtailed - A LOT - there will be no solution.

prag

they'll never get it.

Amen!

James, agree 100%. SS would have been fine if the money would have been put in a "lock box" but it was raided by Johnson.

Also foreign aid needs to be cut/eliminated as most of the money goes to corrupt politicians in the countries we give it. Americans are the most generous in the world when disasters hit but our tax dollars should not be spent by our government supporting other countries. There are many charities that can do a better job of helping the people in need than any government. I don't want to sound crass/uncaring of other people-just saying charities/private groups will get help to the people who need it better than having it funneled through layers of government.

The purchase of one pickup truck.

So where exactly did they put this "pickup truck" that Obama just bought with our money??

Good point, the man and his party have no clue on what they are doing. Spend money like crazy, then make cuts, makes no sense, wasting our money is what this administration is all about. I don't believe a word the White House puts out, anyone who believes Obama's speech tomorrow night needs to have their head examined, the lies all the time.

i heard on tv (credibillity optional) that this was obamas campaign managers idea. if this is true ,can we beleave in it like all the other campaign promises? remember it was pelosi that said alot of promises are made to be broken from campaigners.

To be fair, the last quarter of 2008 goes to this fiscal years expenditures and that was the beginning of the bail-out.

Sure we can believe in it. Isn't that how Obama got in office to begin with? Enough people "bought it"?

Yeah Ben, just like it's funny how when the devil was in office adding 4.4 trillion of debt, the deficit spending was of no concern to the conservatives. Now suddenly all conservatives have this new found concern for our economic future? THere's no indicaton that Obama will have to spend 1.4 trillion each year to get us back from the brink. If he does however, we'll understand why he had to do it, coming in behind an assclown like bush.

Also Obama would not have to deficit spend if bush hadn't left us in a deficit to begin with. You obviously cannnot ignore that fact, unless of course you're a conservative lost in denial, like many are.

Here's what I'd like to know from any of you on here bytching about Obama.........what's YOUR plan to turn this economy around? Do you think you could do any better? I doubt you or any other Obama hater has the brains, or balls to last two days as President.

BRAVO President Obama, for having the intestinal fortitude to do something other than whine like a bytch and say "No" to everything.

Leadership is not defined by the ability to make easy decisions, it is defined by making hard decisions. Spending money is easy. Figuring out how to pay for it is hard. Obama is not a leader - at least not yet.

this is what we get when we put someone who had no experience in business and had no clue where the jobs come from. he needs to start to learn how to manage a 10 people small business first.

i agree 99% with you virginia . but we should cut the un out completely as they are 100% corrupt .

these companies should have done something to save themselves first before government did anything - cut bonus, salary, layoff. if you have a growup kid and over spent, what would you do? First, he has to cut expenses and tie his belt to show he is on it, right?

Why even bother to listen to it. You know he is a honey tongued politician with no honor, character or substance as a man. Didn't even take a year in office for him to show what he is made of.

Yeah Don, why not just put your fingers in your ears and go "la la la la, I canno t hear you" for the entire State of the Union address? That's what Obama haters do anyway. They're afraid to listen to the President because he might debunk all the ignorant shyt you people have clogging up your brains courtesy of FOX false news and limbaugh.

"so much power, so little accomplished"

I agree with this sentiment entirely but I certainly would not want the republicans back in power. My memory lasts longer than that.

The democrats have never found a way to form a unified front whereas the republicans have always been of one character. In my opinion it is too bad the Democratic ideas could not be supported by the republican unity. the democrats always propose to work for the American working man but their in-fighting always leads to compromise that makes gain impossible. If only the republicans would work for the working man instead of the money changers.

The country looses under republican rule and then looses under democratic rule. The only commonality between the party is that the elected officials are predominately millionaires. I wonder if that might be the reason the working man looses out under both parties rule?

The Democrats need to represent their Constituents instead of trying to represent the Country.

Good point

B.O. also declared TORT REFORM as off limits with his health care bill. His trial lawyer financial supporters would not stand for this. Gosh, if the income of trial lawyers went down, well, then they wouldn't be able to ADVERTISE FOR VICTIMS !

Call Goldberg, eight hundred, six hundred, six oh one.......POOR.

I have been saying for over a decade that this Country needs a good depression. We are a Nation of "want".

Has anyone given up their addictions? Has Frito Lay suffered? What about McDonalds?

Has one person given up their arsenal of weapons to feed their children? Not in this Country.

We need to learn to live on the reality of what we need and can afford instead of what we want.

Thanks to the SEIU, whose president visits the White House on a regular basis. Little conflict of interest there?

Federal employees who make salaries of $100,000 or more are exempt employees, meaning they don't get overtime pay. But, I agree that there are too many people making too much money in the federal government. The main reason is that the federal government is much too large.

When did the recession start? If the solution is to cut taxes, how the hell did we get here? Didn't the previous administration extend unprecedented tax cuts?

no we need him to campaign this year , he`s the best player on the repugs team .

They think we are stupid, and alas, many of us apparently are!

what everyone fails to realize however .......

tax cuts didn't work. ( no moron cut's taxes during a war anyway and taxes now are low .. compared to the past like WWII )

cons always have said cut taxes and spend less but never have . ever. they have always made government bigger. they have cut taxes and put in IOU's for our kids to pay off. Like Bush who stated he wouldn't raid social security then turned around and did.

BUSH PLEDGES NOT TO TOUCH SOCIAL SECURITY SURPLUS... "We're going to keep the promise of Social Security and keep the government from raiding the Social Security surplus." [President Bush, 3/3/01]

...BUSH SPENDS SOCIAL SECURITY SURPLUS The New York Times reported that "the president's new budget uses Social Security surpluses to pay for other programs every year through 2013, ultimately diverting more than $1.4 trillion in Social Security funds to other purposes." [The New York Times, 2/6/02]

Politicians Lie, Numbers Don't

And the numbers show that Democrats are better for the economy than Republicans.

http://www.slate.com/id/2199810/

so ....... do you trust those whining now about Obama , those same people that got us in this mess to begin with to get us out ? If they were than smart we wouldn't be in this mess Obama got from Bush.