Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Didn't we already try stimulus twice without the intended results.

Generally when people talk about the stimulus bill, they mean the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. There was only one of those. I am of the opinion that the bill was too small -- I came to this opinion based on the opinions of respected economists -- and that too much of it was in the form of tax cuts (a third was tax cuts). So, if you take a program that is too small and devote one third of it to the least effective type of stimulus there is, it is not surprising that you don't get the expected results. Even so, it is fairly well established that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act helped add jobs to the economy and prevented things from being even worse than they were.

I understand that is is easy to critique, but do you have any positive suggestions? If you don't like stimulus, what is your suggestion for growing the economy? I would guess that your suggestion is for tax cuts and less government regulation. That gave us the Bush recession and a banking crisis. Do you have any better ideas?

My opinion is that we tried the liberal approach (stimulas w/ bush & obama, government expansion, more regulation) for the last 3-4 years and it hasn't worked so go back to the conservative idea of less taxes and less regulations. I personally was not happy with bailing out the banks or car companies, I would've rather let whatever fail fail. When failure occurs another purchaser can come around and buy the failed company at a properly lower value.

Check out BOA and their valuation they are basically JUNK and if they failed they might have been purchased at rate as low or maybe higher than their current valuation and by now would be growing rather than floundering. This holds true with all the too big too fail.

Anonymous wrote:Free birth control, gay marriage, all the social issues are back burner issues FOR ME. I would never vote for someone based on their issues on these topics. I know others might. What matters to me is the economy, jobs, debt, taxes, foreigN policy. Obama supporters, please tell me why you would vote for him based on non social issues criteria. I am not being snarky.. I lean conservative on these issues but am quite liberal on social issues. I am interested in hearing your thoughts as a group of intelligent peole, not reading posts on speling and grammar issues. Pls share your real thoughts.. I am open and interested and I dont own a gun and am not particularly religious.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
We have been running for a decade under the Bush Stimulus plan, and we STILL are. Have you forgotten that's what his tax cuts were supposed to be? Did THAT work? Nope.http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0523/p01s01-usec.html

actually, yes, it did. or did you miss most of the 2000s decade?

But hey, if you want to pay an extra 5-10% in taxes, I encourage you to:

Make your checks payable to US Treasury.

Mail them to:

IRS
PO Box 970011
St. Louis, MO 63197-0011

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
We have been running for a decade under the Bush Stimulus plan, and we STILL are. Have you forgotten that's what his tax cuts were supposed to be? Did THAT work? Nope.http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0523/p01s01-usec.html

actually, yes, it did. or did you miss most of the 2000s decade?

But hey, if you want to pay an extra 5-10% in taxes, I encourage you to:

Make your checks payable to US Treasury.

Mail them to:

IRS
PO Box 970011
St. Louis, MO 63197-0011

I remember the 2000s, but your memory seems a bit clouded. I remember the decade beginning under the leadership of President Clinton. At that time, tax rates were higher than they are now. The economy was booming and the country had budget surpluses. In fact, when Clinton left office, budget surpluses were at record high levels.

Then, George W. Bush happened. He cut taxes and the surpluses disappeared. Instead of record budget surpluses, we had record budget deficits. The economy crashed. When Bush left office, the auto industry was near collapse, the banking industry was near collapse, and the country faced an economic recession.

That was the 2000s, a time when a Republican president took record budget surpluses, turned them into record budget deficits, and watched as two major industries neared collapse.

I don't think most people understand just how devastating the Bush tax cuts have been. In terms of adding to the national debt, they have added twice as much as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan combined. They have added twice as much as all the stimulus spending during the Obama administration combined. In fact, the Bush tax cuts have contributed more to the debt than the two wars and Obama stimulus combined. The Bush tax cuts are still in effect. Whatever positive benefits those cuts were supposed to have produced have not materialized. Yet, Republicans want even more cuts.

To address the debt, we can increase revenues or cut spending. Cutting spending will increase unemployment and slow economic growth. Revenue can be raised either by increasing taxes or expanding the tax base or both. Higher taxes certainly didn't harm economic growth while Clinton was president, so returning to those rates is probably not a bad idea. But, increased government spending -- particularly the type of spending that puts people to work, rather than tax cuts -- will expand the tax base and is the most sensible policy.

Anonymous wrote:

our family medical insurance doubled under Obamacare

Can you elaborate with some details, please? What are the circumstances that allowed that to happen?

our family medical insurance doubled under Obamacare

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
We have been running for a decade under the Bush Stimulus plan, and we STILL are. Have you forgotten that's what his tax cuts were supposed to be? Did THAT work? Nope.http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0523/p01s01-usec.html

actually, yes, it did. or did you miss most of the 2000s decade?

But hey, if you want to pay an extra 5-10% in taxes, I encourage you to:

Make your checks payable to US Treasury.

Mail them to:

IRS
PO Box 970011
St. Louis, MO 63197-0011

Anonymous wrote:
We have been running for a decade under the Bush Stimulus plan, and we STILL are. Have you forgotten that's what his tax cuts were supposed to be? Did THAT work? Nope.http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0523/p01s01-usec.html

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Didn't we already try stimulus twice without the intended results.

Generally when people talk about the stimulus bill, they mean the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. There was only one of those. I am of the opinion that the bill was too small -- I came to this opinion based on the opinions of respected economists -- and that too much of it was in the form of tax cuts (a third was tax cuts). So, if you take a program that is too small and devote one third of it to the least effective type of stimulus there is, it is not surprising that you don't get the expected results. Even so, it is fairly well established that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act helped add jobs to the economy and prevented things from being even worse than they were.

I understand that is is easy to critique, but do you have any positive suggestions? If you don't like stimulus, what is your suggestion for growing the economy? I would guess that your suggestion is for tax cuts and less government regulation. That gave us the Bush recession and a banking crisis. Do you have any better ideas?

My opinion is that we tried the liberal approach (stimulas w/ bush & obama, government expansion, more regulation) for the last 3-4 years and it hasn't worked so go back to the conservative idea of less taxes and less regulations. I personally was not happy with bailing out the banks or car companies, I would've rather let whatever fail fail. When failure occurs another purchaser can come around and buy the failed company at a properly lower value.

Check out BOA and their valuation they are basically JUNK and if they failed they might have been purchased at rate as low or maybe higher than their current valuation and by now would be growing rather than floundering. This holds true with all the too big too fail.

We have been running for a decade under the Bush Stimulus plan, and we STILL are. Have you forgotten that's what his tax cuts were supposed to be? Did THAT work? Nope.http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0523/p01s01-usec.html

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Didn't we already try stimulus twice without the intended results.

Generally when people talk about the stimulus bill, they mean the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. There was only one of those. I am of the opinion that the bill was too small -- I came to this opinion based on the opinions of respected economists -- and that too much of it was in the form of tax cuts (a third was tax cuts). So, if you take a program that is too small and devote one third of it to the least effective type of stimulus there is, it is not surprising that you don't get the expected results. Even so, it is fairly well established that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act helped add jobs to the economy and prevented things from being even worse than they were.

I understand that is is easy to critique, but do you have any positive suggestions? If you don't like stimulus, what is your suggestion for growing the economy? I would guess that your suggestion is for tax cuts and less government regulation. That gave us the Bush recession and a banking crisis. Do you have any better ideas?

My opinion is that we tried the liberal approach (stimulas w/ bush & obama, government expansion, more regulation) for the last 3-4 years and it hasn't worked so go back to the conservative idea of less taxes and less regulations. I personally was not happy with bailing out the banks or car companies, I would've rather let whatever fail fail. When failure occurs another purchaser can come around and buy the failed company at a properly lower value.

Check out BOA and their valuation they are basically JUNK and if they failed they might have been purchased at rate as low or maybe higher than their current valuation and by now would be growing rather than floundering. This holds true with all the too big too fail.

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Didn't we already try stimulus twice without the intended results.

Generally when people talk about the stimulus bill, they mean the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. There was only one of those. I am of the opinion that the bill was too small -- I came to this opinion based on the opinions of respected economists -- and that too much of it was in the form of tax cuts (a third was tax cuts). So, if you take a program that is too small and devote one third of it to the least effective type of stimulus there is, it is not surprising that you don't get the expected results. Even so, it is fairly well established that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act helped add jobs to the economy and prevented things from being even worse than they were.

I understand that is is easy to critique, but do you have any positive suggestions? If you don't like stimulus, what is your suggestion for growing the economy? I would guess that your suggestion is for tax cuts and less government regulation. That gave us the Bush recession and a banking crisis. Do you have any better ideas?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Trust me, the smart women are not voting for Romney.

Yes, we are all dumb don't you know? Just gripping our bibles and guns. Can't think for ourselves or have opinions, we just let those big, strong, white, men in our lives make all the decisions for us.