What Debt Ceiling??; Obama calls for Billions in Arab Aid.
 

Obama wants to spend billions in Egypt and Tunisia with high hopes of democratic reform in this time of his much loved "Arab Spring". You want to get into all the convoluted politics of this, be my guest. I think we're being taken on a ride that will end up with radical islamist states and us paying for a huge part of it. They will then shove our diplomacey and concern up our ....

I just don't want to hear about this coming "default" and how we're going into financial meltdown and then we get a story like this. I don't need to be a self righteous economics major to know b.s. when I see it.

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articl...aid-funds.html

I'm with you on this one.

They (the rebels) already want to distance themselves from the US so that they can hold on to this being THEIR revolution with no outside help (unless Facebook and Twitter count).

OK I Will
 

Believe it or not, I agree with you on this one as well, Richie. And I'm assuming it's me that you've referred to as a "self righteous economics major".

So I guess I should make sure you get the facts right. I hold an engineering degree and an MBA. In that sense, I guess somewhere along the line I learned a little arithmetic. That's all the math one needs to see that the the debt crisis is very real and very imminent.

By the way, it's exactly his lack of leadership on fiscal matters that will cost President Obama my vote in 2012. I'll only condition that statement with the thought that the Republicans come up with someone as a candidate who I think has the intelligence and ability to provide leadership better than Obama has provided. Sadly, so far I don't see one. But I know...you keep telling me, "just wait". OK, I'm waiting.

I don't agree with a lot of what you say Richie, but this time I agree with you 100%. This country has to stop gifting OUR money to other countries and concentrate on getting our affairs in order first. My next vote will not be on party lines but on the candidate's philosophy (if only they ever held to what they say!)

Actually I was thinking of everyone I've had conversations with who considers the opinion of this well read retired truck driver to be as lacking as the lack of my college degree. I do admit I was also thinking of you because of our recent conversations. I'm not a numbers cruncher, but I have come to trust the opinions of people who've proved themselves to be correct over and over for years. Yes, I'm talking about Rush Limbaugh, among other's I could name if you were interested.

I do hope I'm correct about the right candidate becoming known. But we cannot hold him or her to standards of perfection because no one can meet those qualifications. There are a number of candidates I want to hear more from and I can't disqualify everyone who has a flaw. (short of murder or treason maybe)

Rick Perry deserves a listen. I want to hear more on his position of limited government and free enterprise and low taxes. His record on these issues in Texas are worth examining. I can't count him out.

John Huntsman is also a man I want to hear more from. The former 2 time governor of Utah, ambassador to Singapore serving George H.W. Bush, and recent ambassador to China (who speaks fluent Mandarin incidentally) serving our current President. I think his credentials are excellent and no one could match him on that alone. Republicans may not appreciate his ability to work so well for President Obama, but I'm not that shallow. I'd like to hear what his vision for the future of this country is and what his platform will be.

I want to hear more for Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minn. who balanced his state's budget deficit of over 4 billion dollars without raising taxes. He favors market driven health care reform and he just seems a really nice guy. I'd like to see what he can do in the coming months to help define himself.

There are others, and I'm watching and listening. It "is" to early to get excited, in my view.

Being from Minnesota, Richie, I can tell you that Pawlenty didn't raise taxes....he just raised all kinds of fees and reduced aid to cities & counties so they had to raise property taxes and bragged that he did not raise taxes. A gross misrepresentatation...he raised "taxes" Paw-lenty.

I'd like to hear the other side of the story. The side where the cities and counties explain why they couldn't cut their costs and instead raised local property taxes and fees to make up for the reduction in state aid. It sounds to me by what you said that the mayors and city councils raised taxes, not Pawlenty.

Semantics, my friend, semantics.

I don't think it's that simple. The mayor's and city council's have to defend why they couldn't live within their means, like any of us.

Here's how it works.

Town gets used to getting $X from the state capitol. They make their budgets based on that. They are 'staying within their means'. When $X suddenly, by fiat, becomes a percentage of what it once was, you can't blame the town for not 'staying within it's means". We sometimes have this problem in NH where our governors have to take "The Pledge" or they don't get elected. "The Pledge" is that they won't institute a sales tax or an income tax.

So the governor here raised fees. That was unpopular and some of them are beign rolled back. So now some of the money coming back to the towns from other state-wide taxes and liquor profits gets reduced and the towns have to hike property taxes.

THat's how a governor gets to keep his pledge while throwing towns under the bus and making the TOWNS look bad when, in fact, it was the state house creating the situation. In effect, the governor's mouth writing a check that they make the towns collect.

Leadership...
 

I think it takes common sense and commitment to values to be a great leader. I am tired of hearing about President Obama's intelligence. It surely did not prevent him from taking a clean handoff from Bush in the race to financial disaster, and sprint to the finish line at the edge of the economic abyss.
JJ

One more example of double standards in this country. We, the People, need to show fiscal responsibility, work hard to make do with what we have, live on a balanced budget, etc,etc,etc...while the government can spend, spend, spend! And when they are out of money, they come back to We, the People, to take our hard earned dollars to fund their recklessness. We are told to tighten our belts in these difficuly economic times, while the Obama family vacations around the world at our expense. Not sure what the total cost of 70 rounds of golf would be, but that is how many rounds our Commander in Chief has played in the year of 2011~again on our dime.

You're missing something in that equation.

WE sent those people to Washington. THEY did what We The People told them to do.

Before you complain about 70 rounds of golf (or cigarette boat trips in Maine, depending on your partisanship), one has to look in the mirror.

Congress didn't force Social Security, Medicare or a $800B military budget on us. WE demanded Social Security in the 30s, Medicare in the 60s and wrote a blank check for the military after 9/11.