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Vote for Obama to protect the future
If you believe that Paul Ryan and his mother worry about Medicare, I have a bridge to sell you. They will never worry over health expenses and if I had just one third of their money, I would not worry either.
Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney are liars in what they say about Medicare and Obama.
The big lie on Medicare is that Obama is spending money to harm the people on Medicare and what he has done is help to protect the people by the programs, such as health care for women and better preventive care for seniors.
They also lied about welfare saying there was no work requirements anymore. I believe that Ryan and Romney are only for themselves and the other rich, such as the Koch brothers. They want to take over the country to benefit them.
Romney still needs to show more tax returns. You and I pay a higher percent than he does and he must have some huge loopholes he is using.
Vote Obama and protect the future for our children and grandchildren.
Barbara Sherman
Cedar Rapids
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Sorry Barbara, don’t let the facts get in the way of “feel good” politics. Remember the statement in his own words about “cutting the deficit in half” or I will be a one term President. We tend to take someone at their word that gets elected on such statements. You are correct, the future of this country is at stake. Keep your eye on that National Debt Clock this week, and remember what you see when you fill up your gas tank.
I thought Ryan said the GOP braintrust were going to do away with “fact checkers” because they just get in the way [of the lies].
“The big lie on Medicare is that Obama is spending money to harm the people on Medicare and what he has done is help to protect the people by the programs, such as health care for women and better preventive care for seniors.”
This all so interesting since the passage of Obamacare most seniors are having a very difficult time finding a doctor who actually accepts medicare. Oh well……..just let em die.
Mr Noble,
You’re right. In the face of continuing recession, lowered revenues, and the Bush tax cuts that were to have expired two years ago, Obama has not been able to cut the $1418 Billion FY 2009 he inherited from the previous administration in half.
The deficit has, however, been dropping and at the end of FY 2012 (mid 2012) stood at about $1100 Billion.
And that’s in spite of the fact that the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afganistan, which had been off budget, were added on budget under Obama.
In other words, anyone who is keeping an eye on the National Debt clock while filling up on gas would be a fool to vote for Romney who has given no indication whatsoever that he intends to veer from the policies of GW Bush
Once more you are correct Roberta. Government spending under President Obama took office has been in decline.
Roberta, the cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars were not included in the Defense Department’s budgets because Congress didn’t want those costs to become part of the baseline budget, but they most definitely were included in the deficit totals. If you can prove otherwise, please provide a link instead of a proclamation.
link to Ezra Klein’s WonkBlog
Washington Post 7/25/11 “Obama”s and Bush’s effects on the deficit in one graph”
From the graph
Total cost of new policies:
Bush $5.07 Trillion
Obama $1.44 Trillion (including $126 Billion in saviungs from defense)
“What’s also important, but not evident, on this chart is that Obama’s major expenses were temporary — the stimulus is over now — while Bush’s were, effectively, recurring. The Bush tax cuts didn’t just lower revenue for 10 years. It’s clear now that they lowered it indefinitely, which means this chart is understating their true cost. Similarly, the Medicare drug benefit is costing money on perpetuity, not just for two or three years. And Boehner, Ryan and others voted for these laws and, in some cases, helped to craft and pass them”.
During Bush’s term in office the wars were funded through on-going supplemental appropriations and never considerd as part of the budget.
“What’s also important, but not evident, on this chart is that Obama’s major expenses were temporary — the stimulus is over now”
So how come we still have deficits exceeding a trillion dollars?
“During Bush’s term in office the wars were funded through on-going supplemental appropriations and never considered as part of the budget.”
I repeat, the supplemental appropriations weren’t considered as part of the budget, but they were included in the deficit totals.
And, Mr Hubler, the observation that Bush was hiding the cost of his two wars via supplementa, thus off budget, appropriations, and thereby understating his deficits has been around for awhile
from Roanoke.com JUne 18, 2005 RoundTable Blog
“Editorial: Off-budget accounting for Iraq
By refusing to estimate the costs for the war in Iraq, Bush makes his budget deficits look much smaller than they actually are”
Roberta, they weren’t off budget because Busgh wanted them off budget, they were off budget because Congress wanted them off budget. The story you say has been around for awhile is a lie just as sure as saying Bush lied is a lie.
Fred,
Congress doesn’t make those kinds of decisions.
As for “just as sure as saying Bush lied is a lie”, that must mean that the story that’s been around for awhile has to be true.
I’ll take that back. Bush didn’t want Iraq war costs in the budget projections, but they definitely were included in the budget totals when calculating the prior deficits.
Mr Hubler,
Like I said, the information regarding the wars being off line has been around for awhile. Funding those wars off line was an abuse of supplemental appropriations and was done that way because the Bush administration wanted to hide the cost. Which would include how much the wars added to the end of year deficit.
Since every source I’ve seen assumes that off budget funding was used to hide cost and hide the real amount Bush went over budget, how about you link to some reliable source that says otherwise
FYI, Mr Hubler,
Budget deficits
Clinton
FY 2000 —–$ 236.2 B surplus
FY 2001 —– $128.2 B surplus
Bush
FY 2002 —– $157.8 B deficit
FY 2008 —– $455 B deficit
FY 2009 —– $1.4 Trillion deficit
Obama
FY 2010 —– $1.3 T deficit
FY 2012 —– $1.1 T deficit
I suppose you could come up with some explanation of how the deficit managed to nearly quadruple between FY 2008 and FY 2009, Bush’s last two years in office
Roberta, the 2009 deficit was mostly due to the TARP program which Obama, Tim Geithner and most Democrats insisted was necessary to prevent an economic collapse. Now they want to take credit for preventing economic collapse while assigning the increase in the deficit to Bush.
Only 1100 Billion? How awsome is that? Avoiding the “T” word are we as in Trillion?
Obama sued banks in 1995 to and “was a pioneering contributor to the national subprime real estate bubble.”
“Roughly half of the 186 African-American clients in his landmark 1995 mortgage discrimination lawsuit against Citibank have since gone bankrupt or received foreclosure notices.”
“As few as 19 of those 186 clients still own homes with clean credit ratings, following a decade in which Obama and other progressives pushed banks to provide mortgages to poor African Americans.”
Obama’s policies and actions don’t help anyone but Obama and the progressive (communist) movement).
http://dailycaller.com/2012/09/03/with-landmark-lawsuit-barack-obama-pushed-banks-to-give-subprime-loans-to-chicagos-african-americans/
Dave,
Gus Hall is dead. You can relax now. Gus Hall is really really dead
With all due respect Mr Fisher, the argument provided by your link has got to be the most ridiculous explanation of what caused this Recession to date.
In case you didn’t know, Chicago has been notorious for red-lining and de-facto segregation. And it’s taken a lot of work and a lot of lawsuits to climb out of that and the job is still not done. To blame a law suit filed on behalf of black Chicagoans against a bank that was red-lining them and filed 13 years before the crash is nauseating.
And to conflate progressives and communists is just stupid
Roberta, the housing collapse caused the current economic situation. The housing collapse was caused by subprime mortgages. The government, and Obama, pushed the banks to make these mortgages. There is a reason it is called a bubble. It builds over a period of years, then suddenly pops.
Both progressives and Communist agree with large central planning governments, are strongly against corporations, and view profit as the root of all evil. Please tell me how they are different.
Mr Fisher,
Since you believe that Progressives and Communists are the same, then you must believe that Theodore Roosevelt was a Communist. You need to let him know. I’m sure he would be quite surprised
As for what caused the Recession, the housing bubble didn’t cause it. The housing bubble was the first thing to go pop. The root cause was deregulation of our banking system, reckless speculation, bundling, derivatives, and a whole host of gambling with other people’s money that would never have been allowed prior to the modifying and eventual repeal of restrictions estblished by the Glass Steagall of 1933 that began during Reagan’s term in office.
“…The housing bubble didn’t cause it…Reckless speculation, bundling, derivatives, and a whole host of gambling…”
What do you think they were bundling? What do you think were in the derivatives? The housing crash was the root cause.
“…Deregulation of our banking system…”
Seems to me suing a bank to force them to make a loan they knew was going to fail is such a better route to go.
“…Whole host of gambling with other people’s money….”
The bank lends borrowers the banks money. Obama sued the bank to force them to gamble with the bank’s money. So, who is gambling with someone else’s money?
The progressive movement of the 1890’s, and the current progressive movement, is not in the same class. Much of what they combated in the 1890’s was accomplished. Modern day progressives are taking things to the next level. See, progressivism and communism is the same road, communism is just further down. We have been on this road for 100 years and one of these days was going to look out the window and wonder how we got here.
Mr Fisher,
Human beings made these bad loans. The government didn’t force them. They made the decision to cheat people and profit from it all on their own. Human beings bundled those loans and sold them and resold them and resold them until no one knew which bank had originated these loans or which venture capital company or what institution those who had borrowed the money owed that money to.That’s where the profit came in. Bad loans sold and resold. And when they went bad, somebody else got stuck with the mess.
The root cause was greed and a lack of regulation. There was no way to stop these lenders from setting up any kind of scam they wanted.
It wasn’t the government forcing innocent bankers to make bad home loans to poor black people.
That 1995 law suit was to stop Citibank from violating federal anti-discrimination laws that had been passed in the mid 1960s.
And the money these people, the ones who profitted, were lending? It wasn’t the bank’s money. That money belonged to the people who deposited money in the bank.
And Obama didn’t sue Citibank. It was a lawyer named Fay Clayton. For you to argue that the Reccession of 2008 was caused by a young black lawyer assisting in a 1995 lawsuit to force a major bank to treat people fairly, as the law requires, is appalling.
And you wonder, you say things like this, and you wonder why some people might think that you say things that are racist
Hello…this is what my post is about. The banks were forced (sued) to make these loans. They knew they were not any good (“Roughly half of the 186…have since gone bankrupt or received foreclosure notices.”). Furthermore, a majority of mortgages are sold to Fannie and Freddie. When a bank makes a loan, they look to what they will buy as a barometer. If Fannie and Freddie will take a subprime loan with no down payment and a credit rating of 580 (which they were), why wouldn’t a bank make that loan. They could always just sell it them. And can you guess who was making those decisions??? That’s right, the good old government. Yep, they do such a good job with everything else, why don’t we just turn everything over to them. Except, it’s not actually their money their gambling with, is it?
And here comes the racist charge.
On another note, what has Obama done to prevent this from happening again? That’s right, a big fat nothing. Every big bank that was involved was bailed out. Were any of those banks that were “too big to fail” broken up? NOPE. If a bank is “too big to fail”, it is too big to exist.
Fisher,
I tried to post a response to your last message but the Gazette’s computer blocked it as spam. I can’t for the life of me figure out what it thought I was trying to sell
But briefly, Mr Fisher,
For your argument to work, you would have to argue that the Recession was caused by Civil Rights legislation passed in the 1960s. The law suit filed by Fay Clayton, not Barack Obama, was filed not to force banks to make subprime loans but to stop a specific bank from discriminating against African Americans applying for home loans.
Follow the line—Civil Rights legislation (mid 1960s) black lawyer assists with a discrimination lawsuit (mid 1990s) foward a decade and a half and this lawsuit is the root cause of a housing bubble caused by the government forcing banks and other lending institutions to make bad loans to high risk poor black people.
That’s not racist?
Second try, Mr Fisher,
Fannie (1938) and Freddie (1970), which were established to help people who had trouble quallifying for standard home loans, were responsible for less than 25% of all sub prime loans issued as of the begining of the Recession.
As of March 2009, 2.3% of Freddie loans and 3.2% of Fannie loans were in serious trouble compared to 24.9% of all sub-prime loans and 36.5% of sub prime adjustable rate loans
As for the bank bailout, that was Bush, not Obama
As for what has Obama done to prevent this from happening again? It’s called Dodd-Frank 2010
Where did I get this information? It’s fact checking Wiki stuff
Roberta: The Gazette has new rules starting today as printed in, I believe, last Sunday’s paper. I suspect a lot of your posts are not going to make online.
Frankly I have little confidence that voting for either one will “protect the future”, but rather a choice for the one that will try to institute policies that will cause the least damage. Strictly on the economic side I find the idea that cutting taxes, especially on the rich (with hope it will stimulate), and increasing the defense budget, just to name two, with no clear way defined on pay for either, hardly sounds like a way to get our fiscal house in order. And drastic government spending cuts (austerity) looks like a serious job killer. On the social side I see nothing attractive from the right. Even at the best, with the party warfare in Washington, I see little reason for optimism.
If we only knew what Obama’s true plans are. American voters can only guess. Vladimir Putin on the other hand is in on the secret.http://slatest.slate.com/posts/2012/03/26/obama_microphone_gaffe_obama_caught_telling_russian_president_of_flexibility_after_election_.html
We also do have a big indication that Obama is selling out Israel. That is pretty much world wide. Supporting the only democracy in the Middle East has been shoved in the White House ash bin. So much for the ‘smart diplomacy
Antony,
When the government of Israel says that Obama is selling out Israel, then I might consider your claim. Thus far I’m still waiting to hear from them
Vote for Obama? Some big time Dems are skipping the convention. Clink on this link and you will see a very scary picture indeed.
http://nbcpolitics.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/09/03/13640619-some-big-name-democrats-will-be-skipping-charlotte?lite
David — Hillary is out of the country working and I’m sure that just as many GOP congressional members skipped last week’s convention. If this was a valid point then what does it say that both Jr and Sr Bush, Chenney, Palin, and other members of the Bush administration were not in attendance? That makes your last argument a moot point.
The reason G.W.Bush, Cheney, and Palin did not speak was because they were not invited to. That tells us something.
Yes Cedic that tells us something. It tells us Bush, Cheney, and Palin are not speaking.
Dems featured speaker is Bill Clinton……the past. Denial for today. Refuse to talk about a budget and debt and unemployment. Let’s keep those “social wars” going to save the King.
Laura, the difference is the Republicans you speak of are no longer in politics. Bush 41 and 43 both respect and honor the office of the Presidency, by not involving themselves in the day to day political circus, a respect not evident in Bill Clinton, and come January I’m betting Obama will follow in Clintons steps.
The 1977 Community Reinvestment Act required mortgage lenders to make at least 30 percent of their loans to people whose income was less than the median income. Under Clinton the percentage was raised to 50 percent, and under Bush it was raised again to 55 percent. In addition, the government had many programs targeted at people in the low income range, defined as 50 – 80 percent of a local area’s median income.
The official government Financial Crisis Inquiry Report claims that Repeal of the Glass-Steagall act was not a factor in the financial crisis. New York Times reporter, and author of Reckless Endangerment, Gretchen Morgenson, claims that regulations were in place that should have prevented the problems. The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, chaired by Sen. Carl Levin, contains this gem about one of the greatest offenders, Washington Mutual:
“WaMu was evaluated 20 times by OTS and the FDIC, achieving the highest possible CRA rating of “Outstanding” in each evaluation. See website of the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council, ratings search for ‘Washington Mutual,” http://www.ffiec.gov/craratings/default.aspx. Regulations state that an “outstanding” institution is one that not only meets the needs of its surrounding community, but utilizes “innovative or flexible lending practices.”’
The only thing wrong with financial derivatives was that they were all backed by subprime mortgages. In fact, as the above quote demonstrates, government regulators only found fault with them after the collapse of the mortgage market in an attempt to shift blame. That’s because both the bankers and the regulators were basing their opinions on computer models that assured them that derivatives were spreading the risk around and that they couldn’t all come crashing down at once. In fact, it was claimed that people would make enormous sacrifices to avoid falling behind on their mortgages, and home ownership would instill pride in low income homeowners that they had never before known.
Moreover, the biggest offenders in the mortgage mess were all big time Democrat donors including James Johnson, Herbert Sandler, Anthony Mozilo, Franklin Raines and many others. This whole mess was a social engineering experiment on a massive scale that went horribly wrong. It has often been said that “to err is human but to really screw things up requires a computer.” It could be added that to create a mess as bad as the subprime mortgage mess requires a government.