Quote Originally Posted by JMS View Post
Hell yeah the Republicans hold some of the responsibility for being to weak to stick to their principles but they were the only ones trying to stop the run away freight train, and now they receive all the blame while the democrats are using the crisis to ram their pet projects down our collective throats.


The presidents words have a psychological effect on us all, especially a steady drum beat doom and gloom.
economics is economics. there was a Samurai who once wrote that if you can fight one man succesfully then you can fight 2 and then 4 and 8 and so on and that is because the priciples remain the same!
we were facing worse times statistically when JFK and Reagan started their terms, they both cut the tax rates and brought about an economic prosperity. when the current bunch in the senate rewrote the stimulus to bring the cost from some 800 billion to the current price of some 700 billion the took cut our tax breaks but none of their pet projects!
You've been getting some bad information. Nearly half the package is tax cuts. This in spite of the fact that irresponsible tax cuts were a large part of what got us here. When you consider that the Bush tax cuts of 2001 amounted to $1.35 trillion, one has to wonder, if tax cuts are the answer, why we are we in this situation in the first place?

Government has only two methods of stimulating a failing economy -- tax cuts and increased government spending. Neither is a panacea. Tax cuts put money into the economy sooner, but don't result in long-term growth. Spending takes longer, but it tends to preserve jobs. That's why a blend is necessary.

I look at the provisions of the package, and I don't see what you mean about "Pet Projects." It all seems like infrastructure to me. If what you're saying is that government should never spend money, I think you're just out of step with reality. We expect government to do certain things, for which money must be spent.

I'm not going to say the the Democrats haven't hurt the economy on occasion, but I'm really sorry to have to say that this one occurred solidly on the Republicans' watch. The smoking gun in this case was the repeal of Glass-Steagal by a solidly Republican Congress. That's what enabled the credit crisis.. There simply is no credible disagreement on that point.

I, too, would like to see some backup on the notion of millions of Canadians storming our borders for our magnificent health care system. Please, no anecdotal evidence. Numbers would be nice. Also, I'd like some of our Canadian members to chime in with how much they'd prefer to live with the American health care system.

j