G.Bush took us from a 5 trillion dollar positive to a 5 trillion dollar deficit....don't know about your arithmetic....but that by itself is 10 trillion. Behind that was a more secretive and clandestine crime that began with r. reagan and a greenspan. The conspiracy that included the "bush clan" made sure that the rich would inherit the earth. And they have.
The problem in Washington is that it is now owned by "K" street
NO ONE IN WASHINGTON GIVES A F..K ABOUT WHAT YOU ARE OR WHAT YOU THINK !
They sold out to the rich guys long ago
If you vote for a Dem. you vote for someone owned by labor
If you vote for a Rep. you vote for someone far more clever...and dangerous...they are owned by Mortgage Bankers and Brokers and ALL of the people who have stolen our country.
Sorry to contradict Wes but the millionaires are Dem. the Billionaires are Rep.
Neither are our friends

The charges I put on my credit card and enjoyed the items I purchased, are my responsibility to pay off ... not yours or anyone elses on this thread.
Ubama, Pelosi, and Reid ran up this credit debt, and are enjoying the fruits of the items they purchased, namely the ' VOTES ' that kept them in office. ( there is no denying that fact )
Do to the fact that ... Ubama. Pelosi, Reid, and many, many other democrat's in office are ......
Million & Billionaires ( mostly on tax money ) I think it is their responsibility to pay off the debt they ran up, in our name. Now answer me this ... they spent our money using our name ........................

ISN'T THAT FRAUD or at least, using a ... STOLEN I.D.

So in reality, they are no different than an ' illegal immigrant ' using yours or my Social Security #

Wes,
Realizing, of course, that I "have a problem with reality, truth, facts, honest, and again reality !", I find your 'reality' to be, shall we say, somewhat 'unreal.' In short, did you sleep through the past decade? Although credit card is a terrible analogy to use (oh, wait a minute, you know everything so I must be wrong), do you REALLY think it was Obama, Peolosi & Reid who created the debty? My "reality" seems to think that it was George Bush and his/your Republican buddies who commissioned two UN-funded wars, gave away unnecessary tax breaks to already wealthy elites, did not fund Medicare Part D, and oh, did I not mention sit by and watch investment banks and insurance companies rob our country of 10Trillion dollars...and counting.... and did NOTHING? Let me see, how does that translate into 'credit card' debt? (And, yes, by the way it IS fraud). In any case, when you compute that Republican debt (although admittedly the Dems are to blame for some of that too) with so-called Democrats' union debt, there is no comparison...NONE.

If it was all really so simple, "no the dems did it", no your wrong Reps did it...!@#@! they all did it....Its time we focus on people who can fix the problem...Commen sense, not constant "baby talk" is what is going to fix all that past goverments have done to erode this country....

Ransom is amazing. One column he will complain about the Dems taking all the credit for the Reps security and military policies and then, in the next (like this one), he blames the Dems for the debt the Reps handed over.

Walker:

You really do have a problem with reality, truth, facts, honest, and again reality !

Insread of being a parrot and repeating the same old talking points progressive / liberal / demo's
have been using so long the paper they are reading them from is even growing thin.

Use some of your God given brain-matter and look up the issues, study them a little, maybe even discuss them with like-minded individuals, the draw a conclution worth discussing openly.

If you can't do that ... well ... your not only wasting our time ..... but also your own !

AN INDIVIDUAL THAT DOES NOT HAVE AN ORIGINAL THOUGHT OF THEIR OWN ...
IS NO DIFFERENT THAN A ZEROX MACHINE STUCK ON COPY.

; the fed is private contractor with a license to steal ;
meaning a license to print money and instead of turning it over to treasury ,
the fed loans it to treasury by purchasing u s bonds ; this puts us in debt !
said debt is the national debt ! a debt we pay with taxbux ! ! ! endlessly !

Dollar in graver danger than the euro

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/451b5a2e-7bc3-11e0-9298-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1M6EznbOa

Now that the bin-Laden guy of the August 6th, 2001 Presidential Daily Briefing ("bin-Laden Determined to Strike in US) fame has been eliminated, isn't it time to bring the troops home from Afghanistan?

Wasn't the reason the US went into Afghanistan was to capture bin-Laden - "Dead or Alive" as the Decider guy said?

Isn't this "Mission Accomplished"?

Really!? Is Ransom being serious? Big Gov't Republicans are ever bit as, if not more, complicit in the debt problem as are the Big Gov't Democrats. We need a major change, and this won't come from either of the two Political Corporations.

I'm seeing a great many more commenter's that appear to recognize this problem for what it is and this would appear to indicate the beginnings of a rift between the those that support a re-dedication to the ideals of individual freedom vs the Big Gov't NeoCon's. While it could well mean another win for Obama in 2012, it will most surely end well in the long term as Conservatives and Independents become better educated as to what's really happening to their liberty and we purge ourselves of these kind.

who doesn't get this ? the fed is a criminal syndicate ; draining our wealth ; our net worth
we pay the IRS taxbux ; IRS pays the holders of bonds ; such as the "fed" ; china ; boe et al
all congress spends is borrowed bux ; bux obtained by taking out loans ; loans in the form of bonds ! bonds are loans ; you co-sign every loan [ bond ] the government foolishly and criminally sells ! you are on the hook for every u s bond sold !! ! ! !

But will the republicans really have the backbone needed to "clean it up?"

The old guard repubs have no backbone and hate the fact that due to the new blood they are actually expected to do there jobs.

Actions speak louder than words. We will see if they do solve the debt and spending problem.

We need a third party in our goverment that is the only way to stop barry and his snakes. If we elect more GOP's that will switch to a FREEDOM PARTY in 2016 we may be able to take our country back from the MUSLIM barry.

The Tea Party IS the Third Party... If you have noticed where they stand, But More Disgruntled Dems (Who realize their party has been Overwhelmingly Infultrated by Communists and Socialists) as well as the Independants need to join forces. Providing they support revival of the U.S. CONSTITUTION and its Original Intents! In a nutshell... "THAT" Is Why I Supported My Senator in Utah "Mike Lee" and the Tea Party Patriots - Plain and Simple!

No, we don't. That's one way to assure Obama's victory next year.

Let's get rid of the big evil corporations!!! Exxon/Mobil, Con/Ed, GE, Microsoft, Cisco, et,al; - yes, The wall street collage, and even Fannie and Freddie!! There! How's that for change??? No fuel, no banking, no computers, electricity and, get this now!! No jobs. Well, let the government redistribute the money to us!!! Hmmm, I wonder how long that would last with nothing coming into the Federal coffers???

Don't forget; no food or medicine or heated homes

At that time AP will write stories in praise of monoply money.

The Democratic Congress led by Pelosi/Reid prior to 11-2-10 liked the idea of not having a budget and just passing continuing resolutions to keep funding their big spending ways. Now, the landscape has changed and responsible Republicans have passed spending cuts to bring the government under control and the Harry Reid Senate is DOA. I hope the Republicans stick to their guns this time instead of the last budget battle which was a fiasco and yielded minimal results.

I beleive the Speaker of the House will yeild to the Demos. and DC, no change will happen..

After that bogus budget deal, it would be hard to argue with you.

Responsibly LOWER the debt ceiling - that is the only way for the members of the House to effectively compel the Obama regime to significantly trim the budget, thereby reducing both the debt and the deficit.

America doesn't have a revenue problem - it has a mainly obamabo(ugh)t spending problem!

"One side made the mess. The other side will clean it up. The only question that remains is which side you’re on."

No, the only question that remains is whether the Right-wingers (as opposed to RINOs) are powerful enough to force a clean-up before America collapses into permanent bankruptcy and chaos. The repubs sure won't do it. Watch and see.

"One side represents the runaway, reckless spending of Washington and Wall Street; the other side represents a smaller, more responsible government."

Yes, but the side representing smaller, more responsible gov't is the Tea Party-Conservative-Libertarian crowd. I no longer accept the fiction that the repub party is trying to rein in gov't. their actions do not support that myth.

Right, they are trying to, with success, to rein in the Tea Party, concervative, libertarian crowd...DC will never change....all ready down to the bottom of the slippery slope.

So true.

Coming to America next:

http://www.businessinsider.com/irish-bombshell-government-raids-private-pensions-to-pay-for-jobs-program-2011-5

This is Frank from the UK

This President and his Democrat cohorts have been trailing this for the past two years, almost since he came into office. He wants to take control of your 401Ks and IRAs putting them in the control of the Fed, they would invest your savings (given the way the Fed is being run that should be comforting) they would then govern where you got your annuity from to fund your retirement. Their final deed would be too seize whatever assets remain on your death and use it to pay off the deficit and debt, your heirs and estate get nothing.

Now tell me he is not a socialist, sorry O'Reilly you are wrong on this one.

When the people fear the governmen,t you have tyranny. When the government fears the people, you have freedom. If they can get away with that, where would that put us? And are we so timid that we'll accept it?

This is Frank from the UK

This is a problem across the western democracies. You may not consider America a "socialist" nation but you have certain socialistic institutions, namely entitlement programmes. Like it or not once you embark on these programmes they, just like Topsy, just grow. The next thing they do is create an under class of people who exist on benefits, and these people will then vote purely from self interest, that is why, even though it is a lie, the Democrats paint themselves as fighting for the elderly, the poor, the low paid. It is a lie because they increase the tax burden on those who fend for themselves stifling growth and jobs. Recipients do not see this, or do not care, they view any fiscally responsible group as killing the goose that lays the golden egg so vote, in America for Democrats, and in the UK for Labour. This links with Immigration which in both nations the same Parties have conspired to allow unrestricted immigration in the expectation these people will vote for them, and they usually do.

It is time that people recognised the damage which supporting socialistic parties does to their own self interest. If an economy succeeds everyone is lifted up, if it fails everyone suffers. This is not theory it is experience gleaned over 67 years and 4 periods of Labour Government in the UK, trust me the Democrats are no different and just as destructive to America.

You're right, Frank. We have three difficulties, maybe insurmountable now, in dealing with the problem.

First is that the government employs so many voters that they can continue to vote themselves wages and benefits from the paychecks of the remaining true Americans.

Second is the fact that these people only think in terms of next week or next year. They are not willing to think about five or ten years later, because that would require them to grow up and refuse to let Mommy Government feed, clothe, and entertain them. In other words, they are lazy "adult children".

Third is that these "adult children" have cultivated in themselves a sense of entitlement, and are able to produce on cue temper tantrums to frighten the wimp politicians into voting them more goodies. They are joined by genuine socialists, who are grimly determined to spread socialism all around the globe. Sort of like Islam without mosques. In the last two years, these two groups have increasingly demonstrated their willingness to use violence to control those of us who are used to the rule of law.

The implications for the immediate future are chilling.

We know. We know.

I have a knack for making a comment which doesn't covey any information. For example, Obama is, by far, the worst president we have ever had.

Agreed.

The issue is the external debt. Inflation is growing because of the fall in the dollar which is being caused by the US current account deficit. Were it not for the imports we pay for by borrowing other countries' savings, mostly China, we would already be suffering runaway inflation. If we want to solve the problem of the external debt we must save more so that we can invest and grow the economy without exacerbating the current account deficit. Tax increases on corporations or on the higher brackets takes savings from the private sector and turns them in to government consumption. So even if the tax increases Obama wants were successful in reducing the government deficit, it would exacerbate the current account deficit, increase foreign debt and further endanger the economy. The most effective way to save is to cut government spending because that is where the problem resides. After that we must shift the tax burden to consumption and away from savings and investment. The latter must await a new Senate and new President, but the cuts can go forward now.

We are way past the point where taxes can be considered a solution to the debt problem. The debt will be just another crisis which they'll use to increase taxes and redistribute wealth. The only solution is massive spending cuts. But our politicians don't have the guts to cut. I feel bad for the children.

Both parties are to blame. The percentage of GDP spent by the federal government has grown steadily in the US. Before the Great Depression, federal spending was less than 5 percent of GPD. Now it's more than 25 percent of GDP. "Conservatives" like Senator Bob Corker are now calling for spending CAPs of 20.6 percent of GDP. Gee, we got the deficit down to 17.5 percent under Bill Clinton, for goodness sakes.

Aggregate state and local spending has grown, too, during the same period. Before the Great Depression, aggregate state and local spending was just slightly higher than federal spending. Since then state and local spending has tripled as a percentage of the GDP.

Imagine how strong our country would be if Federal spending was just 5 percent of GDP and we rolled back state and local spending as well. That means are taxes could be really low and we've have more money for charities, our religious institutions, education for our children, vacations, houses, cars, and other material items.

And if we weren't taxed so much, we might not have to work so hard and could spend more time with our families, friends, neighbors and things that are really important.

Testing.

Robert

Thats because we dont really care what you have to say

By the way Didnt your Mesiah MAKE A CAMPAIGN PROMISE TO CUT THE DEFECIT IN HALF

YEA RIGHT,,,SOPENT MORE IN TWO YEARS THAN ANY POTUS IN AMERICAN HISTORY

How about showing a LINK to those FACTS,,,GREAEST SPENDER IN AMERICAN HISTORY IN TWO SHORT YEARS,,JUST IMAGINE 8 LONG YEARS,,,HE WOULD SET THE RECORDS THAT NOONE COULD BREAK EVER AGAIN

CUT THE DEFECIT LIKE YOU PROMISED AMERICA MR PRESIDENT

BUT I DIGRESS,,,WONT EVER HAPPEN

There is a lot of finger pointing on both sides of the aisle about who's responsible for debt of the government. Neither party will accept even a modicum of the blame, yet both parties are entirely responsible for the current mess. The federal reserve bank has been used to inflate our money, giving the government a greater share of the nation's wealth every time money is printed to buy phony debt.

The republicans are just as responsible for this non-sense, make no mistake. We can look at the DC theatrics we saw during the battle to resolve the 2011 budget, there was a clear attempt to sell us a bill of goods, calling a budget cut of 352 million real progress and representing it as 38 billion has the taste of insult.

Eventually the tricks will be the end of the republic. Oh, I know, that's just fear mongering. When the debt and our ability to repay it rests soley on our ability to print phony money, don't you think we are in real trouble? Does it not occur to the politicians that our money will become regarded as of dubious value to the rest of the world...let alone here in our own country.

The federal reserve is a shell game...the loser is always the holder of US dollars. The only saving grace is that other countries are doing similar things with their money. It's a house of cards with short term gains, long term consequences and no easy way to stop playing. Forget for a moment that the perpetrators of this theft are the progressive movement and the bankers, each having similar purpose and disparate intentions. The problem is that the bankers and the government are stealing money from you, just as surely as if they were picking your pocket or writing checks on your bank account.

Mr Paul is telling everyone that will listen the federal reserve's primary purpose is to manipulate the money supply in favor of people that do not have the best interests of the people as their goal. The media, including FOX have been dismissing him...which makes them complicit.

Never mind that the liability of the US govt is roughly twice the amount of money that currently exists in the entire world...

, They must extract real cuts in exchange for raising the debt ceiling. It is the only leverage they have. If they blow it then they will have to fix all of it when they take office, or the dollar collapse will fall on them, ending Republicans governance for decades. And if Obama wins, they will have to learn how to play hardball, because it will be up to a Republican congreess to save the republic. They better start now.

DO NOT RAISE THE DEBT CEILING!!!

Otherwise------they will SPEND more........right?

I'd like to see a Republican propose reducing the debt ceiling. We can do that by first paying down the debt by a few hundred billion, and crafting a budget that has a surplus of that few hundred billion.

You're right - increasing the debt ceiling means they will borrow and spend more.

Ransom: "Yes, Republicans may end up with a compromise on raising the debt ceiling. But it’s another liberal mess they are cleaning up".

9 Trillion of the national debt came under republican presidents starting with Ronald Reagan. Double some of that amount in today's dollars since some of the debt came from up to 30 years ago (check out the spending by presidents site below). 6 Trillion is credited to GW Bush's balance sheet alone. Add into the equation the interest on that debt and you can plainly see dems had little to do with our current deficit problem. In fact, every single dem president since WWII lowered spending from their republican predecessor while every single republican (save Eisenhower) skyrocketed spending. If reelected, Obama will continue this trend/phenomenon as I predict he will go out with much lower spending than GW even after having to take drastic measures to keep the country afloat. Obama has already surpassed Bush's jobs growth in just 2 years (during a rotten economy) more than Bush did in 8 years (during a decent economy). That's the true consensus of "responsible economists" John Ransom must really be referring to in his next outrageous claim:

Ransom: "After two years of progressive demagoguery about how evil corporations have caused the financial mess, the consensus of responsible economists is that it was government intervention in the real estate market that caused the great bubble in the first place".

No such consensus. Ransom simply made that crap up. Republicans caused the housing bubble with their "Ownership Society" philosophy. Give the people lots of money via tax cuts and rising home prices by deregulating and looking the other way then watch the economy flourish was the idea behind it. The US Chamber of Commerce (with GOP's blessing) claimed that outsourcing jobs overseas would make American companies globally competitive. Hence 4 million US manufacturing jobs went overseas to the lowest bidder starting in 2002. At the same time, people had a 'false sense of wealth' in their homes. Refinancing boomed while Americans spent 65% more than their actual income. This spending spree propped up the economy while virtually no new jobs were created during the entire 8 years under GW Bush. In fact, we had the worst jobs growth in US history at the same time relatively low unemployment due to the massive consumer spending (see sites listed below).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_debt_by_U.S._presidential_terms
http://www.miseryindex.us/urbymonth.asp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jobs_created_during_U.S._presidential_terms

I have another site on GDP which further shows democrat presidents out performing republicans in GDP growth but this forum won't allow the link (claims it has inappropriate language, go figure).

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/Economics/GDP-Growth.aspx

Got it to partially go through.
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