"Republicans are people, too --- mean, ignorant selfish, and deluded people."

that this election is remotely close is mind-boggling.

they have erased the george w. bu$h* years completely from the dialogue. it's fucking impressive.

have difficulty framing arguments in their favor.

I don't know where the problem lies, maybe republican negative messaging just sticks better, but somehow democrats, at least IMO, do not frame arguments and wins so they stick in the minds of the populace. Well, and for some of the populace it just never will.

It well might be that the majority of radio/tv/religion seems so damn negative IMO. Maybe good things just do not stand a chance of standing up to the 7x24 negativity.

Robert Reich's comments a couple of days ago:

"In Ohio yesterday, Obama reiterated that he had inherited the worst economy since the Great Depression. That's true. But the excuse is wearing thin. It's his economy now, and most voters don't care what he inherited."

As Will Rogers said, "The short memories of Americans are what keeps our politicians in office."

The majority of people seem to respond to what their life is like today - yesterday and tomorrow be damned.

They say their policies WILL work. It's just that they've never EVER had them put in place yet mostly due to Democrats but also because of Rinos in their own party.

So to save America ALL vestiges of Liberal and Progressive policies MUST be purged.

This is why they don't like Romney. He's only PRETENDING to be a Conservative. They want a cross between Rush, Hannity and Glen Beck with a dash of Palin's folksiness but not her gender. Then they want to see that "Great Man" in their mind do what they would do. Stand before a joint session of congress and read off a list of names of traitors to America and those members will be taken out one at a time to be publicly executed by firing squad.

Anything short of that is a disappointment.

They controlled all three branches of government (well, at least the Executive & Legislative Branches, though you could say that conservatives effectively controlled SCOTUS as well), so it's not like they couldn't do what they wanted to do (and they largely did). Even when Democrats came back into power from 2007-2009, they weren't able to really undo anything due to Senate Republicans obstructing via filibuster (a prelude to what's going on now) and/or Bush vetoing anything that Democrats passed, so...............what's their excuse?

Too many damn Liberals in their own party and too many compromises which are considered to be sellouts and traitors to the memory of the Great Ronald Reagan who to many of these idiots was president when they were still nursing or not even born yet.

Here's their version of history:

(Nothing much happened before Carter)

Carter: Worse President in History.

Reagan: The greatest American President in History who was beloved by all except a handful of whiny Liberals upset that he beat the Soviet Union which they considered a model for America.

Bush I: Betrayed America by raising taxes after he said he wouldn't. Tried to cover it up his Treason with Desert Storm but America was wise to him.

Clinton: Eight years of HELL under a liar who cheated on his wife, thank GOD he was Impeached. (They seem to believe the heroic Republicans kicked him out of office)

George W Bush: "Who?"

Obama: Stole the election and is a Goddamn Liberal trying to make America like the Soviet Union and who crashed the economy by increasing welfare and raising taxes.

Proposed - Romney: .......uh,..............................................gotta stop Obama......

Perhaps I am wrong, but it is my opinion that a nation in debt does not have a surplus or extra tax income. Whatever "surplus" there is should always be applied to the national debt, thus reducing interest on the debt. Had that been the path followed, this nation would be a lot better off right now.

Perhaps too simplistic, but that is the way I see it.

What baffles me is that the day before 9/11, the Pentagon "lost" 2.3 trillion (TRILLION) dollars; just can't account for it. Then between 2004 & 2007 the Pentagon can't account for 9.1 billion (BILLION) that was to be used to rebuild Iraq, and nobody batted an eye. Politicians said it wasn't watched closely and was "pilfered" from wherever they were holding the cash - CASH. How long would it take someone to notice that 9.1 BILLION DOLLARS WAS MISSING??????????????????? The attitude was "shit happens", yet they get their panties in a wad when health care is mentioned. Anybody but me have a problem with this? It seems to me that if you add these 2 losses together, it would probably equal the surplus that was left to Bush.

..I don't recall the $2.3 trillion lost by the Pentagon?

In Iraq, they shipped the money there on pallets, in the belly of the c-130's. So they "lost" a few pallets...

And what happened to that ranch Bush bought down in Paraquay??

That's a very good question.

Why was no one held accountable?

He pointed out that there are 1,400 accounting systems being used in the DoD. 1,400 - mostly these are from someone creating software and getting their Congressperson to buy X programs so that then they can sell it as "The Pentagon uses it". Rummie never followed up on it - he had two wars to lose.

The number of missing money in Iraq according to the initial BBC report was $23 Billion- it got watered down to $9.1. The Bush crowd said that Arabs just aren't good at accounting (they are the reason Europeans learned about the number 0 (Crusades) and developed the first inventory systems).....oh and it was kids hired by the Heritage Foundation that were doing most of the accounting IN Iraq, while Iraqis sat unemployed and *SURPRISE* got pissed off about it.

I'll have to do more research on this, but I don't understand why the Dems in Wash DC weren't screaming their heads off about both of these issues. Sounds like everybody knew about it but chose to not say a word. I think a lot of people in Bush's administration made out like bandits.

President Obama did the right thing and put them on the books.

Don

and finally there are efforts to not only try to pay for it in the future, but to close the donut hole that was built into it, where in its original form it was all but useless for today's modern drugs still on patent and/or without a generic.

Republicans are.

If he had touched nothing ( a common Repub refrain when Dems take office) there would have been a surplus in 2006 or 2007.

How did they get to the projected surplus?
Al Gore lead the task force that reduced paperwork requirements (gee that sound familiar) and was able to cut 750,000 Fed Govt jobs (again familiar).

W added over a 1,000,000 Fed Govt jobs back. The goal of course was to drain the Treasury or "starve the beast".

Also (on the HOW) Clinton and Trent Lott agreed to not count interest on T-Bills and the liability of government retirements. This was a huge overstep but they agreed on it so they both could claim that they balanced the budget. To give you an idea of the overstep - about 30% of all government employees will be retireing in the next 5 - 10 years (Boomers).

You have the basics correct. Bush screwed up like he did his entire stinking life.

And it was not taken from the SS fund. Yes, it was projected but if Bush had not fought two wars, given the huge taxcuts, and passed the Medicare Prescription Plan, all without paying for them, then the projections were probably pretty close to target?

W emptied the Treasury as fast as he could.

There was a small surplus the last Clinton budget.

The recession was enough to dispose of the projected surplus. The leading indicators before the election pretty much said "recession", and the Gore campaign kept trying to tell * not to "talk the economy down."

The tax cuts--the first series of them--was also enough to dispose of the projected surplus. The original reason was to eliminate the surplus, or most of it. But when there was a recession going on, the reason shifted: The real surplus was gone and the projected surplus something used entirely for spin, but the tax cuts were the stimulus. The recession was slight and while job growth wasn't great it undid the effects of the recession in a couple of years. The tax cuts should have been undone when the economy was doing fairly well, not set to arbitrarily expire. If cuts to the marginal rates helped (that's the claim--with ad hoc cuts being irrelevant) then this kind of "cut removal" would be an acceptable drag. It's the flip side to Keyesnian arguments, but not one most made.

People also point out that the wars, once they started, were enough to dispose of the projected surplus.

After that, you pick the cause you like the least and say that's the "true" cause of the deficits.

The stock market was in deep, deep trouble before the election even happened. Job creation was slowing down as the recession was about to start, which was a month after * took office. So he started at historic highs for employment.

*That* is one half of the reason for the surplus. Capital gains tax revenue soared. With record high employment income tax revenues were also high. The other half was a Congressional spending freeze of sorts, refusing to increase the federal budget every chance they got. A novel way of balancing the budget: Stop increasing spending until income catches up.

Republicans immediately began changing the definition of a recession recalculating years back to 1929 with their new rules.

Clinton's last month was so good that they could not find a way to use the usual rules of consecutive months with negative calculations, so, they loaded up December and October with good stuff and managed to get November down to a small tiny negative, mostly by making rules to round certain things down rather than rounding the numbers or just using the raw numbers. Then, they convoluted the rule to include non-consecutive months and Republicans had from January 20th to January 31st to make January a downer, and all the months that followed under Republican control were also made downers.

So, they declared that the recession started under Clinton in November, despite October and December showing wildly good GDP growth.

Except, Republicans never included the details of it starting in November, just that it started under Clinton and that Bush inherited it. The M$M just played along and never challenged it, and never will they.

The stock market usually takes a hit around March before a November election. It took another hit and dropped a good bit as the election controversy began.

Aside, it's not funny how that caused people to pull money out of stocks and put money into their houses instead.

thanks

That would have ended December 31st. W would take over January 20th.

The budget deficit turned surplus was on track and did happen in that first quarter to the tune of 100-million IIRC.

The national debt is so large that its normal fluctuations kept the small one-quarter of a fiscal year doing good from being noticeable enough to enjoy watching the updated figures.

but it is not on this issue.

This is just so convenient for them to use. And they act as though this 3-1/2 years should have us "all better now". It took a long time to get into this hole, and it will not be fixed in a short period of time----not by Democrats nor by Republicans, regardless of what they say.