Obama Took a Stand This Week

[Geo]

The current President took a stand this week on how he believes we should go about solving budget/deficit/debt issues. I agreed with most of what he said and with his expressed view of our fiscal issues. Here’s what shapes my agreement with him.

Republicans believe the key to sanity and prosperity is to continue to lower taxes for corporations and the wealthy because this stimulates economic activity and creates jobs. They believe the answer is to cut spending without focusing much on raising revenue.

But when I look at the data, the economy performed poorly and we lost jobs during years following the Bush Tax Cuts up to the present day. Only corporations and the wealthy benefited from the tax policy.

Compare this with the economic data during the Clinton years before the Bush tax cuts. The economy performed well and unemployment was at an acceptable level.

I can only logically conclude that the Republicans are wrong about tax cuts being our fix and I must question their motives in insisting on this strategy for fixing what ails us.

Perhaps someone with a right leaning view who disagrees with the President's remarks this week and/or with my conclusion can take the time to dumb it down for me why it's wrong.

 

[BeachSiO2]

I'm not an economist but I bet 30A Shopper will be along soon. Here's the NWF Daily News perspective in the meantime...

Obama's vision is chilling | obama, budget, burden - EDITOR - Northwest Florida Daily News

 

[30ashopper]

A balanced budget in 12 years. You can't make this stuff up. I'd laugh if I wasn't already crying. We've progressed so far down the rabbit hole we can't balance spending with revenue anymore. I've given up hope myself, I just pray I'm retired (and on a much lower income) by the time it blows up in our faces.

 

[scooterbug44]

I am so tired of the negativity.

We will try to hit high standards and we might fall short.

It still makes a difference and is far better than doing nothing.

 

[Matt J]

If only there was some benchmark in history when the US had a balanced budget....

 

[scooterbug44]

Or a surplus............

Also know as pre-Bush tax cuts.

 

[30ashopper]

If only there was some benchmark in history when the US had a balanced budget....

In 1998 we spent a total of 1.7 trillion. This year we'll spend around 3.8 trillion. We've blown so far past that benchmark we'll never ever get back to it. Obama's deficit this year will be around 1.5 trillion dollars. It's just.. basically... hopeless. Don't look to congress to solve it, they just passed last year's budget a couple days ago, which was basically a perpetuation of current levels of spending. Add to all this ObamaCare in a couple years, social security surplus drying up, and the added cost of all the debt were accumulating.. yeah, we're screwed.

 

[BeachSiO2]

The good news is that the GOP plan that just passed the House for 2012 would have us at a surplus.......by 2040....(see page 3).

http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/121xx/doc12128/04-05-Ryan_Letter.pdf

 

[scooterbug44]

If only there was something we could do that would have an immediate effect and produce lots of revenue.

That would be the same as cutting hundreds of programs.

That would still keep tax levels far below what they have been under recent administrations.

Think, think, think................

 

[GoodWitch58]

I am so tired of the negativity.

We will try to hit high standards and we might fall short.

It still makes a difference and is far better than doing nothing.

I, too, am tired of the pessimistic outlook--no one today knows what will happen tomorrow--or if there even will be a tomorrow. But, we all hope there will be and that it will be better than today.

What about all the brilliant minds we have in this country? All the young people who will no doubt come up with countless ways to do things? and do them even better than we have! Maybe they will be working with Chinese or Indian or Indonesian or Afghani or Iranian or Iraqi partners...but, they will be doing wonderful things years from now and America will still be a great country.

In the 40s no one even dreamed we would go to the moon--or few people anyway--it was not even an idea that most people had thought of, and yet we did it!

My grandmother lived to be 99 years old and when she was a girl, she walked or rode a horse whenever she went. As a young married woman it took her and my grandfather two days by wagon to travel from Portland to DeFuniak to buy supplies...

I sat on the porch with her just before the Apollo Moon Launch and showed her pictures of Kennedy Space Center and the Saturn rocket that my husband worked on, and told her about the moon shot that was coming up. She would not believe me--it was outside her realm of possibillity--not because she did not want to believe me, but because it was too much for her to grasp...from horesback riding and walking to launching men into space in the course of her lifetime was too much.

We have done so many things in the last 60 years that few people ever dreamed of...there is absolutely no reason that the same can not be true of the next 60 years unless we listen to the naysayers and the doomsday prophets...what is wrong with the people in this country who listen to the politicians who say it is over?

Enough already.

I want a better world than that for my son and his children and I refuse to believe that no one else in America feels the same way as I do. I want my grandchildren to sit on the porch someday and tell me things I can not comprehend.

and, today, I want politicians who will use the intelligence they have and the people in this country have, to find a way to balance the budget and improve our system of government...I want them to put their minds and their time in office to positive use--to serve the people of the country who elected them in a way that is good for all the people in America...not just the ones who get them re-elected.

If they would spend half as much time truly working on the problems we face, instead of worrying about whether they will continue to occupy their seat in the House or the Senate or the White House, then we could all look forward to our grandchildren's tales of wonder.


Edit: Sorry, Geo, if I'm ranting off topic; but, this is what I thought the President was saying the other day: all is not lost--we can walk back from the brink--if we put our considerable intelligence and hard work to work for us, and stop talking and thinking so negatively.