I am soo mad I could scream..

Reagan and Bush Sr spend 12 years creating huge deficits.. Clinton comes into office and says we must raise taxes on the top earners.. Republicans scream.. NOO!! you do that you will destroy the economy.. soo what happens?? The last 3 years of Clinton's administration we see the 1st surplus's since LBJ.. Then Bush jr gets in and at the end of his 8 years the economy is in flames.. deficits over 1 trillion per year.. we are losing nearly 800,000 jobs a month.. Obama gets in and from the word go the republicans fight to the death to defeat every idea he tries to pass to reverse the economy and now we continue to see huge deficits cause the economy is not recovering with unemployment over 9% and who is getting the blame???? Obama!?!?! Now with S & P lowering our credit rating ( and WHY anyone pays any attention that what any of those credit rating firms have to say after they gave the sub-prime loans that nearly destroyed us in 2008 such high ratings blows me away). Who do you think republicans, banks and the media will blame?? Yep Obama!!

Why does no one see the tea party as stooges of the top 2% of tax payers to keep the heat off them??

I think that Congress taking off for five weeks was a really bad idea and I am expecting Boehner to take heat for that. I predict Boehner will start dissing those tea bag Representatives and that the Democrats will end up taking seats back in Congress. I also think the tea bag candidates running for President are finished.

Spending bills originate in the House and and must be passed by both the House and the Senate.

... has nothing to do with the prosperity of the country in general, it is all about wealth transfer from the middle class to the rich.

Don't expect it to make sense any other way because it cannot.

For example, the Republicans continually bleat about tax cuts being good for the economy. What utter bullshit. Taxes are at a post WWII low so where is our glorious economy? Raising taxes on the rich RIGHT NOW would be GOOD for the country but not good for rich people who have bought our congress lock stock and barrel.

Back when when business decided they didn't want employees for a full career we said, then you need to give us floating pensions. they said, If we did that then we would loose too many people who would leave the company. the corps had us by the short hairs because we had too much time invested (20-25 years) and we couldn't afford the hit on our pensions if we left. where do we have any say / control in how we are treated by the business? After a number of years the business went from non-contributory pensions to portable pensions with 401Ks. By switching they reduced the amount of money we would have gotten on the non-contrib. so they gained again. They said we used to pay an added amount toward the health care premium to subsidize the retirees. Great - then I get subsidized when I retire. they said we are now going to eliminate the extra amount that the worker pays because the retirees use the health benefits more. So, where is my money that I put in all those years? And did the employees salaries go up because they weren't paying to subsidize the retirees - NOPE. SO where did the money go? -CORPORATE BONUSES!!!! They combined our cost of living increases with our merit raises. then we find that the combined increase does not even meet the increase in cost of living - where did the extra money go? - CORPORATE BONUSES!!!! At the end of my employment I was earning less and working overtime and weekends in order to support the corporate hierarchy!!! WE'VE BEEN SCREWED!!!

They drive US policy that profits them.

I was watching some MORON from S&P this a.m. and he said they wanted to see the entitlements cut. what an obvious GOP scam job. Who the hell are these people anyway? They - They are hurting the country and for what. Why didn't someone say something - Why didn't they tell congress what they wanted in order to hold the rating up at AAA? Where's the communication? Instead congress plays games and they raise the debt limit and then S&P lowers the rating anyway? This is to hurt Obama - Guess what - He has an 85% support level and I'll vote for him again because it's the GOP that is turning this country into a slum!
I may be wrong but, I've only heard of ratings of AAA, AA and A - SO where did this AA+ come from - Was this just created so that S&P could downgrade us but only a little? If they think the country is going to have a tough time paying it's debts now then, why did they lower the rating and make it more difficult??? why do we suffer because of a JUDGMENT CALL by some organization who is obviously trying to hurt the President???? This is a GOP plot and they need to be voted out next election!!!!

THIS IS UTTER BULLS@@@IT

OUR COUNTRY HAS LOST IT'S MARBLES!!!!!!

Republican (right wing fanatics) economic policies do not work!

What's the difference between a pig like Reagan, or a pig like Bush, and the illiterate baggers?

They all lead to the same evil spot, the redistribution of income to the already-rich, and the impoverishment of the rest.

I really cannot understand it. I feel like most Americans cannot see the truth or they simply do not care. The only people to blame for this entire mess are the Republicans, from Bush to the tea-party and Faux news. that quote by John Stuart MIlls is true, that that psycho Breivik paraphrased, about one person with a belief being more powerful than 99 with interests. That's what the tea party is. It is NOT the majority of the US, it is a minority, and yet these rabid nuts with the full backing of Faux News, propangandizes, and is able to completely paralyze our govt, and is basically making our policy. So these 10-20% are ruling the nation. While the majority of people say, let the tax cuts expire, because of these ideological rabid nuts we cannot make sane policy decisions. The ONLY people to blame for this rating downgrade are the TEA PARTIERS. THEY only want THEIR way. They do not care if the rest of the country is absolutely SCREWED, because they hate anyone who isn't them anyway. Palin said it all when she said "REAL Americans" because if other Americans do not agree with them, they aren't "REAL" Americans, whether they are white, black, Asian, whatever. The tea partiers are getting exactly what they want, they wanted Obama's presidency to "fail", they want to create mayhem, they do not want to see the country improve, not under a democratic president. While I blame them, I blame Americans who did NOT vote to keep these nutjobs out of office. What's happening in Wisconsin, I would hope that would galvanize people and make them realize exactly what the tea partiers are about, and boot their rabid butts out of office in 2012 but unfortunately, some people will not see the truth, they will be misled, confused by the Faux news propaganda and will probably blame the Dems, and that will lead to the tea partiers gaining more power and this country becoming more of a mess as they rule with their ideological craziness and people will become poorer which will lead them to gravitate even more to the extreme tea party. When people prosper, they are less likely to be extreme, when times are tough, people will be more attracted by extreme things and so it's a vicious cycle, and yet it benefits the tea party, it benefits them for the country to suffer. If we want things to get better, Americans need to marginalize the tea party extremists so that govt CAN work, that means voting out the nutjobs and giving Dems a TRUE majority, not the quasi majority they had before. I do not think we, Americans, will do that though so while the public thinks congress is crap, and it is, I wish some people would look in the mirror and realize how by possibly not voting, they have helped create this mess.

How can we encourage others to learn the origins of this world wide crisis?
Governments know how the holders of the world's reserve currency destroyed an economy for politics, but how about the everyday person. Will the pensionless of Greece , Iceland, or the UK understand the origin? Will they demonstrate with anti W and anti repub/teabag signs?

... had almost nothing to do with the current situation in the world's economy.

I'm not sure why, but I won't be surprised if you get some responses that will explain how Obama made the original mess, and how he's making it much much much, worse.

More seriously, I wish the liberal media would point out the truth once in a while, that might help. Or the liberal media can just continue to explain why its Obama's fault. That's working very well.

and there are two flavors of Obama hatred that flow into the same "hate Obama " crock. There's the rightwing hate
and there's the leftwing hate

Both have the same goals. Remove Obama, destroy America.

They always lie and they always will. So Obama can help himself by calling them out by name, repeatedly, and refusing to go along with them. Playing nice and fair is not helping him! They will blame him no matter what, so he may as well do what's right, defy them, stick to his guns, take a page from FDR and welcome their hate. Stop expecting Republicans to play nice and be fair and tell the truth. It ain't never gonna happen! Tell Obama to stick it to them and we will have his back!!! Remember that definition of insanity? They do not care what you think or feel. Republicans will not change, so we have to.

Bush the Idiot once had a +90% approval rating. Which mean they weren't all wingers.

See if you can find someone who will admit to being part of that +90% of Americans who approved of Bush now. Bet you can't find one.

Good luck.

Don