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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: slacker711 who wrote (105490)	3/5/2009 10:36:08 AM
From: Mary Cluney	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541851

<<<You obviously havent looked at the assumptions.>>> I have glanced at it spending no more than two or three minutes on it. I don't have the intellectual capacity or the necessary background to effectively go through it much more thoroughly. I can only rely on the people I voted for and the people they have appointed to represent them. I see your point, I could go through this document and find items I can disagree with but what would be the point. You would have to digest the whole document and come up with a comprehensive alternative view. That is something that the republican party should be doing. Individuals are not really equipped to do that.

To: slacker711 who wrote (105490)	3/5/2009 2:03:20 PM
From: cnyndwllr	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541851

Slacker, re: "He isnt trying to balance the budget....even with the optimistic numbers, the closest they get is a half trillion dollar deficit in 2013 and the numbers only go back up from there" Yes, and so what? Did you think that the mess we're in can be resolved by resorting to some rigid ideological principle of balanced budgets? Even forgetting our house of cards, imploding, economy built on a grabby, short term wealth transfer by people who knew exactly what they were doing, what about the inherent and powerful economic problems that we were going to have to deal with anyway? Things like, an aging population reliant on unfunded future social security and medicaid benefits; an increasingly powerful and corrupt military/industrial complex so tied into our economy that we can't cut the cancer out without crippling the patient; Prop 13 "tax reform" that's left our school funding system shattered; decreasing oil supplies in the face of increasing demand; environmental erosions that must, someday, be addressed; increasing competition for resources and brains from the rest of the world; and an economic model that relies on some presumption of continuous "growth." The fact is that Obama has multiple objectives. First, he's trying to limit the pain of the Bush and pre Bush economic policy failures by reducing the low in the oscillating wave of retrenchment. Second, he's trying to move us onto a different societal track where, for instance, our governmental policies encourage less Mercedes purchases and more available medical care for more people. Third, he's trying to cut the undue influence, graft and waste out of government spending and government decision making. Will that require that we take a step back before we can take a step forward? Sure it will, so why do you try to judge his budget through a prism that seems to assume that if we simply tighten our belts and continue to march on the same path all will be well? There are too many hidden costs that the market fails to account for, too many free riders that the market doesn't take to task and too many deep pockets with too much influence for us to expect that if we simply adopt a balanced budget and employ a hands off governmental approach all will be well. Capitalism is not a religion, it's a tool. And, like all tools, it must be utilized intelligently. Finally, we have some intelligent people charged with solving our major problems. The may have to feel their way along, they may make mistakes along the way and they may fail, but at least their eyes are open and they're not relying on dogma or faith to get the job done. You should be grateful for that. Ed