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Politics : President Barack Obama -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Road Walker who wrote (121139)	9/18/2012 7:40:56 PM
From: Broken_Clock	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 149317

forbes.com

To: Road Walker who wrote (121139)	9/18/2012 7:47:03 PM
From: Broken_Clock	Respond to of 149317

war costs don't seem to be decreasing at all so on that account O is just another R. +++ U.S. war costs[ edit]Direct costs A Marine Corps M1 Abrams tank patrols a Baghdad street after its fall in 2003 during Operation Iraqi Freedom. The costs of the War on Terror are often contested, as academics and critics of the component wars (including the Iraq War) have unearthed many hidden costs not represented in official estimates. The most recent major report on these costs come from Brown University in the form of the Costs of War project, [1] which said the total for wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan is at least $3.2-4 trillion. [2] The report disavowed previous estimates of the Iraq War's cost as being under $1 trillion, saying the Department of Defense's direct spending on Iraq totaled at least $757.8 billion, but also highlighting the complementary costs at home, such as interest paid on the funds borrowed to finance the wars and a potential nearly $1 trillion in extra spending to care for veterans returning from combat through 2050. [3] Those figures are significantly more than typical estimates published just prior to the start of the Iraq War, many of which were based on a shorter term of involvement. For example, in a March 16, 2003 Meet the Press interview of Vice President Dick Cheney, held less than a week before the Iraq War began, host Tim Russert reported that "every analysis said this war itself would cost about $80 billion, recovery of Baghdad, perhaps of Iraq, about $10 billion per year. We should expect as American citizens that this would cost at least $100 billion for a two-year involvement.". [4] [ edit]Appropriations See also: Iraq Relief and Reconstruction Fund FY2003 Supplemental: Operation Iraqi Freedom: Passed April 2003; Total $78.5 billion, $54.4 billion Iraq WarFY2004 Supplemental: Iraq and Afghanistan Ongoing Operations/Reconstruction: Passed November 2003; Total $87.5 billion, $70.6 billion Iraq WarFY2004 DoD Budget Amendment: $25 billion Emergency Reserve Fund (Iraq Freedom Fund): Passed July 2004, Total $25 billion, $21.5 billion (estimated) Iraq WarFY2005 Emergency Supplemental: Operations in the War on Terror; Activities in Afghanistan; Tsunami Relief: Passed April 2005, Total $82 billion, $58 billion (estimated) Iraq WarFY2006 Department of Defense appropriations: Total $50 billion, $40 billion (estimated) Iraq War.FY2006 Emergency Supplemental: Operations Global War on Terror; Activities in Iraq & Afghanistan: Passed February 2006, Total $72.4 billion, $60 billion (estimated) Iraq WarFY2007 Department of Defense appropriations: $70 billion(estimated) for Iraq War-related costs [5] [6]FY2007 Emergency Supplemental (proposed) $100 billionFY2008 Bush administration has proposed around $190 billion for the Iraq War and Afghanistan [7]FY2009 Obama administration has proposed around $130 billion in additional funding for the Iraq War and Afghanistan. [8]FY2011 Obama administration proposes around $159.3 billion for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. [9]It is unclear why no breakdowns are offered on the basis of each war.

To: Road Walker who wrote (121139)	9/18/2012 8:08:31 PM
From: RetiredNow	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 149317

An alternate view... --------- The republic cannot survive so much dependency Commentary: What the 47% who rely on government must know marketwatch.com By Rep. Allen West WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — Gov. Mitt Romney’s comments about the percentage of Americans who have grown economically dependent on the government for their sustenance, and as a result, see little benefit in changing course, is neither new nor outrageous. More than 170 years ago, the French political thinker and writer, Alexis de Tocqueville saw this coming, and warned of its dangers in his most famous writing, Democracy in America. Here is an excerpt below: Rep. Allen B. West, R-Fla. “A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.” Our public treasury cannot sustain further “largesse.” Our national debt has ballooned to more than $16 trillion. The top 25 percent of wage earners contribute 87 percent of all tax revenue and it is numerically impossible to tax them sufficiently to pay for this expansion of federal government – let alone pay down our debt. For another viewpoint, read Rex Nutting’s column on the 47%. Our entire fiscal and monetary policy is now based on one simple axiom: What we cannot tax, we borrow, and what we cannot borrow, we print. The path we are on in 2012 is perilous and unsustainable. We must change course. This November, Americans will not simply be choosing one man or another as president, they will be choosing the future direction of these United States of America. The question is not whether one candidate is nicer or more likable or even easier to relate to. The fundamental question all Americans must ask themselves is what kind of a nation shall we be? And what does it mean to be an American? Since 2009, our nation has changed dramatically. Work force participation is at a 31-year low, and millions of Americans have simply given up looking for a job. While 43 straight months of unemployment at or above 8% is dismal enough, it is not even the whole awful truth. The true level of unemployment, based on the U6 computation rate (including unemployed, underemployed, and discouraged workers) is now at 14.7%, climbing more than 3 percentage points since President Barack Obama took office. Despite our federal government’s borrowing over a trillion dollars each of the last three years in order to expand “investment” and “stimulate our economy,” we now have a record number of Americans in poverty and a record number on food stamps. The fact is, the Obama administration is fostering a nation of dependency. As a result, the very foundations of our nation, and the principles upon which this Republic prospered and succeeded, have been turned upside down. Instead of unleashing the indomitable American spirit of free enterprise, this administration and their liberal progressive acolytes seek to punish success, by taxing those who create jobs and produce goods and services, and re-distributing it to those who do not. Sadly, those Americans who depend so heavily on government programs seem the most unaware that the programs upon which they rely on are in danger of disappearing altogether. As Margaret Thatcher stated so eloquently, “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money. ” It is not “compassionate” to promise more and more government benefits when it is our children and grandchildren who will be forced to pay for them. It is not “caring” to encourage greater and greater dependence on a system destined for collapse without reform. Many of the 47% to which Gov. Romney referred (actually closer to 48.6%) must understand it is the liberal progressive policies of President Obama that have forced them into dependency. Their path to prosperity lies with economic freedom and an unfettered market, not more government and bureaucracy. In this election, Americans must wake up to the facts, and more importantly, to the reality of what lies ahead if we do not reform our mandatory spending programs, reduce the regulatory red tape strangling our small businesses, institute sound fiscal and tax policies, and slow down the growth of the welfare nanny-state. Allen B. West is a Republican congressman from Florida.

To: Road Walker who wrote (121139)	9/18/2012 9:01:53 PM
From: koan	Respond to of 149317

<<But honest, Romney? The R's? Do you have no self respect? >> To Joe Macarthy: "Have you no decency sir"?

To: Road Walker who wrote (121139)	9/19/2012 11:45:21 AM
From: tejek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 149317

I like this article.......just for fun. Mitt is down; out looms next By ROGER SIMON \| 9/19/12 4:32 AM EDT The wheels are not coming off the Mitt Romney campaign. They came off some time ago. The press is just beginning to notice. The Romney campaign is skidding along on its axles and scraping its muffler. Soon it will be down to the dog on the roof. I hate to say I told you so. No, scratch that. I love to say I told you so. I just don’t get to do it very often.But as I have been saying for a while now, Mitt Romney is a deeply flawed candidate who got the Republican nomination by beating a ludicrously weak field. Don’t believe me? You know who came in second? Rick Santorum. Newt Gingrich was third, and Ron Paul was fourth. That’s not a field; that’s a therapy group. Romney’s defects as a nominee, which I will get to in a moment, were obvious, but considered unimportant because he really did not have to attract voters. Instead, voters would flock to him. They would be driven to him by a bad economy and a lack of jobs, jobs, jobs. The latter was the Romney campaign’s magical incantation that would make up for any of its own faults and deficiencies. Did Team Romney face a well-funded incumbent, an inspirational orator, who had assembled an experienced, battle-hardened campaign staff that understood the electoral map as well as any in history? Well, yes. And did Team Romney understand that as much as the media dismissed conventions as meaningless, the Democrats would use their convention to rebrand the party as one that was strong on defense, big on determination and deeply concerned about our fighting forces? Well, no. Jobs, jobs, jobs, the Romney team chanted. That would solve everything. That would make voters desert Obama in droves. And it did not matter that the evidence suggested otherwise. Unemployment has been above 8 percent for every month of the Obama campaign and he has beaten Romney in the polls in every month of his campaign. With its tunnel vision, the Romney campaign assumed an economic downturn would mean Americans would want to elect a businessman to the presidency. Yet the economic downturn was caused in part by shady business practices, runaway greed and outright dishonesty at the highest reaches of America’s corporate community. Did Americans really want to elect the guy on the cover of the Monopoly box or throw him in jail? So how does a wheeler-dealer financier like Romney gain the public trust? By refusing to release a meaningful number of his back tax returns! Just trust him, he says. Because we know the Masters of the Financial Universe are always trustworthy, don’t we? But wait. Does Romney trust his own vice presidential nominee? No, he does not. Romney demanded 10 years of Paul Ryan’s back tax returns before he selected him. So why should we show Romney the trust he would not show his own running mate? Ronald Reagan had a simple formula: “Trust, but verify.”We are told to trust Romney about his tax records and his Swiss bank accounts and all the rest. But how do we verify? We can’t. And there is another thing that troubles me even though some dismiss it as trivial. I am still bothered by Romney attacking that gay kid and cutting off his hair with a pair of scissors when they were in prep school. A ghetto kid does that and he gets booked for assault with a deadly weapon. But what does the son of a governor get? A law degree from Harvard. Republicans accuse Obama of wanting to wage class warfare, but who is more class conscious than Romney? I can summarize what Romney said to a bunch of wealthy donors at a May fundraiser: America is divided between the deserving rich and bums who want a handout. Vote for me, and I’ll keep you rich. Thank you very much. Enjoy the chicken. And when David Corn of Mother Jones obtained the video of those remarks and Romney was forced to hold a news conference, how did he explain them? “That’s something which fundraising people who are parting with their monies are very interested in,” Romney said. No kidding. But no matter. We still have the debates in October, and the debates can save Romney. Not that he is a masterful debater. At a debate last December, he decided to attack the hapless Rick Perry by betting him that he was wrong. “Rick, I’ll tell you what,” Romney said, sticking out hand, “ten thousand bucks? $10,000 bet?” As I wrote at the time: That’s right, Mitt. Remind the American people that $10,000 is chump change to you. Romney won most of his primary debates, however, by staying above the fray and looking presidential. But that won’t work against Obama, who is, after all, an actual president. Since Romney can salvage his campaign only by a stunning victory in these debates, he is going to have to attack Obama relentlessly. But you can bet on two things: Romney will be intensely uncomfortable in that role, and Obama will be well prepared for it. I do not want to give the impression that Romney and Obama are polar opposites. They are not. Both are politicians. Both want power. But after Nov. 6, only one of them is going to have any. Roger Simon is POLITICO’s chief political columnist. Read more: politico.com