I'm sure all that extra income President Obama is making while president will show up on his tax return for all the world to see.

Donald Trump, Mitt Romney, George W Bush all had inherited wealth. Isn't it nice to see somebody make it on their own? Isn't that the American dream?

The Affordable Care Act helps seniors pay for their meds, helps young people by keeping them on their parent's health plans, allows people with pre-existing conditions get healthcare.

The tax cuts I'm talking about are the payroll tax cuts which puts about $1000 annually in people's pockets. Obama is saving medicare and medicaid by not endorsing the Paul Ryan plan which would end these programs as we know them.

The Consumer Protection Act speaks for itself. Should we go back to 2008 and let the banks just run roughshod over the economy?

I'm not implying that Obama is being more transparent or that Romney can't take advantage of legal loopholes as long as he makes them public for all the world to see.

Jeff Imelt is not running for president. Mitt Romney can take advantage of all the laws and opportunities available to him, as long as he releases his tax returns and makes it all transparent.

Bull. How many jobs has Obama prevented from "being shipped overseas"???

Like this deal headed by his pal, G.E. CEO Jeffrey Immelt and Obama's "Jobs Czar"???

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...T2011013003428

Yeah, so Obama can confiscate it and spread it around equally! What is wrong with the mothers and fathers of these people making the money and leaving it to their families so their life will be better. I think THAT is the American dream, not everybody having to start over because someone like Obama thinks it belongs to everybody!
I think small business people want the American dream, the same people that are under attack by Obama.

If you want to control what banks do then pass a law not create an agency and staff it with hundreds of people that we can not afford. If they are breaking the law then arrest them if not then pass a law and then arrest them.

I don't think we needed to pass the Obama care Act to get this. Why not identify these people and help them instead of changing everything and in the end costing us all much more in the long run. If you think it will not cost more then you are not thinking.

Payroll tax cut is a joke. Max $1000 to those that need it least and next to nothing for those that need it most. Oh and for a whole 3 months, wow! what a champion for the poor and middle class!

I am sure that before it is over Romney will release his tax returns and half will love it and half will hate it.

Since no other agency seems to have, as it's charter, protecting the people from business avarice then, yes, we need one.

An example of what we need to be protected from.

You are having trouble making ends meet. You prioritize your bills. You pay the rent/mortgage first because they're most important and you pay as many as you can down the list.

Now, one of the last on your list doesn't get paid. Maybe it's a $20 payment you just plain didn't have.

Someone "higher up on the list" sees this in your credit report and suddenly jacks your interest rate up from somewhere in the teens to 29%. It doesn't matter that you paid THEM on time and followed THEIR rules.

Now, suppose the creditor who did that wasn't a credit card company but was the institution holding your car loan or mortgage.

Do you think that's fair?

If I'm late on a car or mortgage payment, I pay that penalty. Being late on some store credit card because someone ELSE bounced a check to me (this happened to me some years ago) should only affect my relationship with that store and, at worst, be reflected on my credit rating for FUTURE considerations.

I thought I read a post concerning the auto bailout. As you recall Obama not only bailed them out he ignored bondholders rights of claim and turned them over to the unions. Popular yes. Legal very questionable. Anti-capitalist most definitely. Private Equity firms are entitled to residuals and fall in line of payment after supplier, creditors, lenders, Treasury and employees are paid.

The attacks on Romney concerning Bain Capital are very misleading and clearly in the genre of far left. Capitalism lays the foundation for our liberty, and our economic freedoms and without it we will drift into a socialistic state. Be wary of those who make claim that capitalism is immoral look careful to whom they are and why they are making those claims. and then ask yourself what are these critics suggesting in its place?

Also mention was the Consumer Financial Fraud Act again while populist propaganda this very complex act will do more harm to our economic way of life creating in the same manner as ObamaCare the ability of government to control our private lives. Clearly the intent of this Act is to protect consumers but its demands create multiple agencies and red tape that will figurately stangle corporations and send them broke. The Sarbines Oxley Act was an over reaction to Enron, etc. Numerous businesses went bankrput and or move their companies overseas to avoid this costly regulation. Consumer financial Fraud Act is Sarbanes Oxley on steroids.

I am not suggesting that we should demand the abolishment of this Act but clearly it needs revisions because economic growth simply cannot flourish under its demands

Here's a novel idea, heartless as it may sound, LIVE WITH IN YOUR MEANS and then you would not have most of these problems. I know it is radical but so was the hope and change bull of the last 3 years.

If you can't pay, don't buy!

Amen.

Debt is another form of slavery. "Who owns your debt owns you."

Does this also pertain to the two unpaid wars, the tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003, and medicare part D, all unpaid for when enacted?

I think what some of you either forget or conveniently don't remember or don't know!!

The issue is not whether there is money to spend for wars or anything else that is for the good of the USA....the issue is the billions of special interest, lobbyist and congressmen favorites that are, when all get said and done, DISCRETIONARY.

There is in fact out of control spending and ABSOLUTELY NOTHING is being done about it. I don't think the same folks in the categories above understand we are borrowing 40 cents on every dollar spent on programs.

Forget the D and R crap.....go after the politicians that are spending like the is no tomorrow. Obama wants another trillion dollars....$400,000,000,000 will be borrowed. If he were a leader he would draw the line and say enough is enough....that would mean cutting programs and that would translate into potential voting block loss....therefore...business as usual in Washington and we the people continue to sit idly by as the good ship USA follows the same course as the Titantic and we the people are merrily dancing to the fiddling....just outright stupid both R and D.

btk

btk

Yes it does. Why shouldn't our government live with in it's means.
But instead the government that can't pay it's bills is creating a new agency, that needs to be funded, to help people out that have never learned how money works.
They think it comes in a little plastic card or other people earn it so the government can take it and give it to them.
They buy houses they can't afford, phones to talk to people at every hour of the day, instead of working (WSO)
and cars that they think make it look like they got it made.
They then get mad when someone they have entered into a contract with wan them to PAY what they owe! Oh my God! How dare the mean old business for doing that.
Lets get a new agency to stop that right now.

And as far as who in government got us here? All of them, all three kinds. Right, left and middle! And I might add, US. We put the idiots in there and put our heads down and went back to work. When we looked up we has Bush, Obama and the mess we have now.
If you think Obama has anything to do with the solution to this problem then you are part of the problem.
He had control of all three branches and barely got Obama care through, and that was done "shady" at best.
EB
Until we clear all of them out and send people who have a grasp on reality, we are screwed!

This is where you don't know what you're talking about.

Let me educate you about a situation in THE REAL WORLD. And I say this because it happened to ME.

I was unemployed. It was the worst bout of unemployment I'd ever had.

I managed to keep paying my bills. I cut back a LOT - and the fact that I wasn't commuting to work helped. I had unemployment but also cashed in a lot of savings to keep things going. Yes, I had a few credit cards.

I made my payments on EVERY ONE of those cards ON TIME. Sure, I wasn't paying as much as I would have liked, but it was ALWAYS above the minimum.

Lo and behold, someone claims I owe them money. It's a bogus claim but now I have to go out of my way to fight it. For a while, this shows up on my credit report (It was a while before I found out about these thieves).

How did I find out? Because the minimum payment on my credit card with the largest bill DOUBLED and my interest rate was hiked by over A THIRD. Nturally I called to ask them what happened and that's when I found out about the bogus bill.

It took me seemingly forever to get that damn thing off my record. A friend of mine who was laid off form the same firm that laid me off had something similar happen to him BECAUSE HE LOST HIS JOB - he made all his payments on time and they jacked HIM up becuase they were afraid that he would fall behind (which he never did).

It took longer still to get my credit card company to "put things right" and even then they said they only did it because I'd been such a good customer for over 10 years (never so much as a day late on a payment).

When a bank says "It doesn't matter if you do everything we ask you to do, we can change the rules of the game and move the goalposts any time we want" - THAT is WRONG.

When a bank deliberately re-sorts your transactions so that the deposit you made IN CASH IN THE MORNING doesn't take effect until AFTER the check you wrote LATER THAT DAY - THAT is WRONG (and that happened to my wife - they actually put a HOLD on a CASH deposit done IN PERSON at the branch office)

It is also why I deal with credit unions. When there was a mixup with my mortgage payment, it took all of TEN BLEEPING MINUTES with a REAL LIVE PERSON to get it cleared up. ...and guess where my wife moved her accounts after the incident I mentioned above (we were dating at the time).

Of course not everyone who is victimized by banks is as innocent. When you sign up for those "no interest" deals, it's there in the now-not-so-fine print (thanks to new laws) telling you that you still ahve to make payments and that the accrued interest can sock you if you miss one. Me? I've never had to pay the accrued interest.

This is where either I failed to make my point or you don't know what you are talking about.

My point is, and your situation is what I am talking about, that you decided to buy lots of stuff. Maybe you needed it or thought you needed it. You borrowed money, used credit cards or what ever finacial device to get the money and the thing.
You then lost your ability to pay for it. Something many people either don't think about or plan for. It may not be your fault you lost your job but it is something one must think about. That is why I started my own business, I am last to go!
I do know what I am talking about because I came from dirt poor. Not just poor but "no shoes" poor. I have lost jobs and income. I also decided if I needed something I saved for it. I only use my credit cards for things that you have to have one one for like car rental and hotels, not to buy things with.

I bought only what I had money for not what I thought I deserved. Yeah, lots of people are hurting and it is not Obama that got us there. He just has not done anything to get us out.

But back to me not knowing what I am talking about.
So many people think you have to own a home or a new car or the latest smart phone, biggest TV and they go out and get it. It is so easy. Then when the fantacy world they live in crumbles it is the fault of the person who lent them the money or sold them the product on credit that is unfair.
Well I bet most people could not even tell you one thing on the credit card agreement forms or even mortgage papers. They just sign and hope!

I am sure you did all you could do after this happened to you. What I am saying is more could have been done before it happened, like don't buy on credit unless maybe a home and then only if you CAN AFFORD IT!

Drive a used car, use a phone that does not have the capability to fly the space shuttle, maybe buy the 40" tv with cash instead of a 60" on credit or save up for it if that is what you want.

I own my cars because I saved for them, I don't owe anything on credit except my home and that is homestead and I plan to pay it off.

So tell me then, because I am not special, why can't others do that?
Isn't that what we are asking our government to do? But no, not us. Let us charge away and when our plan does not work out, by no fault of our own or may it was, bail us out. Isn't that what we don't want the government to do?

I think I do know what I am talking about, you just don't agree. Or at least my REAL WORLD and yours are different.

Wow! Excellent and right on the money ! No pun intended.

notlongnow" You are spot on. My wife and i also started from humble beginnings. we have been together since age 13. We have always been fiscal conservatives. We avoided paying interest and so were slower than others to get some things. We never owned a new car until we were both working good jobs and then we drove them to the ground. We carried our lunches to work and put away as much money as we could. At age 46 I lost my job and was able to care for my family for a very long time until I gained employment. My goal was not to be forced to collect unemployment.

I have a silling and her husband earned more than my wife and i together yet they spent reckless and hence didn't save for a rainy day. Sad situation indeed.

So while I believe some hardship are not entirely a person's fault many are because of poor financial planning and all of us have a legal, moral social responsbility to accept the responsbility of our acts.

A European style welfare state is simply not acceptable nor is it beneficial to our democratic way of life.