That is not what the statement said. When politicians are allowed to launch wars for ill-defined reasons, with vague exit strategies and ever-shifting criteria for success, you have a formula for tragedy. Every American life lost in Iraq is a waste of life. This does not dishonor or disparage the soldiers. He did not say the soldiers were a waste - he said that the death of the fallen soldiers was a waste of life. This means that he considers the lives of these soldiers to be extremely valuable and should not have been wasted on a war that should have never happened.

Did you see the other day when millions of free Iraqies dipped their finger in the ink well? I don't think any of them would consider the lives given for their freedom a waste nor do the loved one's of the people who willingly gave their lives for it.

Did you not see all the many stories about soldiers who even when they could have gone home reenlisted so they could stay and finish what they believed in?

Freedom and liberty is not a word Obama or most liberals fully understand especially when they seek to remove as much of it as possible from us all in the name of change... any change even if it's bad.

But none of it really matters. You all just keep dragging Bush through the mud for the next 20 years while right under your nose Obama is looting the store.

Sadly, the store had already been looted when President Obama took office.

You may be right in some ways but I can't for the life of me figure out why you all keep going back to Bush over and over and over and then you turn around and give Obama a free pass when he's doing the exact same thing times 10.

News flash! Bush is not President any more.

Let me get this straight
 

A simple observation is that the US got into the current problems because people were borrowing above their ability to pay. What does the Government do? They borrow more money..!! Is this nuts or what??
When you borrow money and it is hard to pay back you cut expenses and spending..If you continue to borrow beyond your means it is safe to guess that things will get worse. This is not "rocket science" economics..

Don't be afraid, his plan is working.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090218/...re/wall_street

You are correct REH, but then that would not be good pollitics, would it ?

This President, IN ONE MONTH, had promised OPENNESS, but this stimulus bill was drafted behind CLOSED DOORS, and believe it or not lobbyists got copies before the lawmakers. And I suppose it was NOT politics that all Democrats voted for a bill they DID NOT EVEN READ. Look for the TV ads sponsored by Americans United for Change (a liberal group started for one purpose at the time...to stop Bush from any changes in SS programs) and the American Federation of State, County and Federal Employees to hit your television telling you how wonderful this stimulus bill is...wonder if THEY read it ?

They continue to try and wrest control over the decennial census to the WH....why ? Because if illegal aliens are counted several house seats would shift from Republican to Democrat. When this was brought out by the withdrawl of Mr Gregg, the WH said the resignation was part of the war against this administration, but they are using politics.

The setting of rules for ex lobbyists made headlines, but we forget they made a number of "exceptions" to this rule. Not political.

What happened to the promise of 5 days between passing a bill and signing it so that Americans could read it ? Well, it is not happening at all.

Just read today that after listening to President Obama and his supporters on this board and across the board, lambast the past administration for detaining terror suspects without charges that the nominees of President Obama support that and are for not changing that. What was all the rehtoric and thumping of chests about during the campaign ? Wonder if anyone will apologize for saying what they said if they continue down the same road ?

There is much more and all of it HAPPENED IN ONE MONTH !

People who supported President Obama said he would get away from the old political ways....seems he has perfected the old ways. People who suppported him said he would be more transparent....seems there is more behind closed doors and "ramming" than ever before.

This is TRUELY the most political machine oriented team I have ever seen in the WH in my lifetime, at least thus far. If only those blinded by the oratory would admit to that and allow themselves to see beyond all the symbolism that this President uses to sell.

A quote from Ron Paul...on the stimulus bill....

""We got into our mess by spending too much money, running up too much debt and printing too much money, and that's exactly what we're doing. We're printing money and running up debt,"

Three Big Fears Have Market on Edge

Housing Fix. Obama seems determined to help people who bought houses they can't afford and shaft everyone else--including homeowners who can still make their payments and renters who decided not to buy houses because they were too expensive. It will be interesting to see how effective this plan is and how it sits with the majority of the country--who won't get bailed out.

http://finance.yahoo.com/tech-ticker...%5Edji,%5Egspc


Are you Obama supporters getting any of this? Do you see what's happening here? People aren't afraid of the bad economy, they are afraid of him.

News flash! Bush was the major cause of it! And much, much more. No one is giving President Obama a free pass. They are giving him more than 3 weeks to try to cure a very diseased economy that was laid at his feet.

You are misinformed and not looking at the whole picture.

Some of you seem to like talking about Presidential history and how it relates to the current economic predicament we find ourselves in but you only like going back 8 years and blaming Bush for everything.

So lets go back a little farther shall we? Everyone pretty much knows this whole thing started with the housing crash. Did Bush cause the housing crash? I don’t think so.

While Bill Clinton was having extra marital affairs with White House interns, they were also forcing banks to make extremely risky home loans and loosen credit standards under the presumption that not enough “poor” people could buy homes.

You know the typical liberal line “It’s not fair that only rich people with good credit can get mortgages” which of course sent people on a home buying spree which of course drove home prices into space. Then congress told the banks not to worry about it because all the loans would be insured by Freddie and Fannie and the banks would be safe.

All through the Bush administration when warnings were given and concerns raised during the famous Freddie and Fannie hearings the democrats in control of congress repeatedly said during those hearings “THERE IS NO PROBLEM” and even accused republications of being on a witch hunt. (btw, anyone can watch the hearings on youtube) Read carefully, it was the Democrats not Bush who said there were no problems before all this mess started. It's the truth, go watch it yourself.

Two years later when people started defaulting on the loans (This by the way was when unemployment was still low about the same as under Bill C.) Freddie and Fannie went belly up along with the banks that made the original loans. After that a chain reaction started in the market and here we are.
So don’t blame everything under the sun on Bush. This started long before he was President.

GW inherited a few things himself, just like Obama did.

How about talking about what Obama is doing today and give some substance instead of just I hate Bush one liners?

Right on, DK...

Back???
 

OK, DK, if you want to rewind, let's go back to Reagan's famous "Trickle Down" theory. Not only did it NOT trickley down, it drowned the middle class! You can bet Katrina on that. :ohdear:

Amen, DK. Reagan policies did work. Clinton was the beneficiary. The economy was on the way up when he took office.

I'm game. I'll see your Reagan and raise you a Jimmy Carter. When Reagan took office from Carter we had double digit inflation, gas lines, 10% + unemployment, 18% home mortgages and our military was in shambles not to mention all the bank failures. That's what Reagan inherited. That's what Obama is going to leave us with again...

I can keep going.

I have a spreadsheet with all the economic numbers by year and by President going back 60 years. The numbers don't work to your favor Chels but it's still meaningless. Give us some substantive commentary on Obama's plans and how it will help our economy and pay down the national debt for our grand kids.

Reganomics...
 

Ya, right! George Bush Senior called Reganomics "Voo Doo Economics" and one of Reagan's key ingredients was to reduce government regulation of the
economy. And you really think that didn't start this tangled up ball rolling???

"Reagan's tax policies were accused of pushing both the international transactions current account and the federal budget into deficit and led to a significant increase in public debt. Debt exploded from 900 billion dollars before Reagan's tenure to 2.8 trillion dollars after his tenure; an increase of over 200%."

Read it and weep.

Your leaving something out. The national debt started rising fairly dramatically going all the way back to Johnson. You are also not taking into account our military was in bad shape when Reagan took office.

He embarked on a pretty sizable rebuild of our military which ultimately won the cold war for the USA. Military spending is the one thing government is supposed to spend money on. One which I gladly pay my taxes for.

You seem to dislike national debt but your current leader is going to quadruple it or more on wasteful pork spending, bailing everyone and their mother out except of course the one's that play the rules, bank takeovers, etc. Bush is not much better quite honestly but Obama’s spending scheme makes Bush look a rank amateur.

Did you realize the Wells Fargo CEO and also one from another large bank just went public and turned down the bail out money because he said they were in good shape and didn't need it or want it? Do you also realize that Obama's Treasury Secretary forced them to take the money anyway? With strings attached of course.

Are you really keeping an eye on what’s going on here?

Gotta tell you...a claim like "Bush was the major cause of it! " is so very inaccurate and afar from the facts I would need you to make your case with some validation that Bush was the major cause.

You excuse so very many people over the last years with a statement like that so will look forward to your case to show that ex President Bush was the major cause of our economic situation !!

Nobody is blaming President Obama for the crisis...the criticism is that he is doing things, ramroding would be accurate, spending bills and calling them stimulus without even knowing for sure what is in them...certainly those who voted for it did nt know. You need to be an extremist to blame Bush as the major cause and totally ignore congress the last years along with many many others. You must have a picture of Nancy Pelosi on your wall !!!!

Reagan - Carter - Bush - Clinton - Bush - Obama

In the end, the question is a simple one: Is your standard of living better than your parents, and their parents before them, and their parents before them, and do your kids have more (of everything) than you did at their ages?

If the answer is YES, then all of this political finger-pointing means nothing, because IN SPITE OF all the "help" government has provided, we've done all right.

Will we do better in the future? Most likely YES, again IN SPITE OF the government meddling.

Agree?

I would tend to agree. However the actions we are seeing now from the government is at the very least unprecedented and out of control. And that scares the $#$% out of me.

I guess the bottom line is some see the government as our caretakers and some still wish to take care of themselves. The problem is you can only print money for so long and taking money from producers and giving it to non producers can only last for so long. Once you reach that point we'll turn from a productive society to an entitlement society where government picks the winners and losers. Some argue we are already there.

That house of cards will only hold for so long before the bottom falls out for everyone. How do I opt-out of that program?

Observation
 

I think if you go back to the start of record keeping there are always "recovery" periods followed by a "recession" with the depression being the result of a lack of controls. Recession have historically been 1/2 of the recovery period.
In 2005 and 6 I said (based on history) that we were heading for one heck of a recession and took actions to avoid being hit hard by it.. The reason being that both parties, (Clinton and Bush) embarked on programs to prevent a recession in their time..To do this they did a lot of things to prevent what should have been a natural recession and then back to recovery..At least 2 over the last few years. It was like a baloon being filled with air , sooner or later it will break if some is not allowed to escape and the amount managed properly.
Their actions were so severe that I am not sure how we can get out of it without some serious pain far beyond on what we have been experiencing.
The actions of these administrations have been so compex that simple steps of pumping more moeny into the system will not fix any problem. How will they address the impact of 11M+ people in the system who don't pay taxes but use the infrastructures, NAFTA where the US has become apart of the WW economy and part of the 3rd world systems and its problems (e.g. low labor out of India, etc.), trading with countries that can impact our system with just threats, (e.g. China trade, etc.), a generation that has developed personal habits of spending more than they can afford, (sense of entitlement), a current Government who's response was to borrow more funds, and head towards a socialistic form of government which is easier than addressing the problems by accepting the pain to get through it and save a democracy!
I know a lot of this sounds like doom and gloom which I would like to think and hope is an overstatement?
I hold Clinton or Bush Administrations individually and collectively responsible. I think both adminstrations got us here and unfortunately the current one is taking what is the easy way to look like they are doing something while taking the US to a Socialistic state. (I will not argue this point as each is entitled to their opinion. This is mine.)
At some point citizens will have to act to make the Government get back to being statesmen.

Good reason to fire at least 75% of all congressional incumbents in 2010, no matter what party they belong to. If you vote for the incumbent, you are only asking for more of the same.