My question for the day is:

Do you blame President Obama for not having enough votes to pass his agenda over the just say no policy of the Republicans?

Just The Facts

When President Obama took office on January 20, 2009, the unemployment rate was 8.1 percent up 3.3 points from a low of 4.8 in January of 2008. The unemployment rate continued to climb under the Republican administration until it peaked at 10.2 percent in October of 2009, eight months into Obama administration. Since October of 2009, the unemployment rate has been trending downward from the high of 10.2 percent to 9.6 percent.
It took the Obama administration eight months to correct eight years of Republican bad policy. The job of reversing losses caused by the Republicans bad policy is well under way, but we need you to support your Democratic Congressmen and Senators with your votes to finalize this recovery.

National Unemployment Rates, 2008 - 2010
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics

 
 

My question for the day is:

Do you believe that under the Democratic Administration of President Obama, we will wipe out the deficit and return to the prosperity that was attained under the Clinton Administration?

Just The Facts

The Federal Budget Deficit for 2010—Nearly $1.3 Trillion
Thursday, October 7th, 2010 by Douglas Elmendorf

The federal government’s fiscal year 2010 has come to a close, and CBO estimates, in its latest Monthly Budget Review, that the federal budget deficit for the year was slightly less than $1.3 trillion, $125 billion less than the shortfall recorded in 2009. Relative to the size of the economy, the 2010 deficit was the second-highest shortfall—and 2009 the highest—since 1945. The 2010 deficit was equal to 8.9 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), CBO estimates, down from 10.0 percent in 2009 (based on the most current estimate of GDP). CBO’s deficit estimate is based on data from the Daily Treasury Statements and CBO’s projections; the Treasury Department will report the actual deficit for fiscal year 2010 later this month.

The estimated deficit is about $50 billion less than CBO projected in its August Budget and Economic Outlook. Outlays turned out to be lower and revenues higher than CBO anticipated.

Just The Facts

The [Democrats] / [Republicans] are driving the nation toward insolvency. They both are, and in more or less equal measure. In 2001, when George W. Bush took office and Republicans controlled Congress, the budget was essentially balanced and the total national debt was about $5.8 trillion. Washington has run an annual deficit every year since. Over Bush's first six years, when Republicans controlled the White House and Congress, the debt rose by about $3.2 trillion. Over the last two years of the Bush administration, when Democrats controlled Congress, the debt rose by another $2.9 trillion. So over the eight-year Bush administration, the debt more than doubled, rising by a total of $6.1 trillion.
Obama, in his first two years, has added about $3.2 trillion more to the national debt. There are plenty of caveats. The pace of debt expansion under Obama is obviously faster, but that's due to the stimulus and to a shrinking economy that still hasn't regained all the ground lost since the recession began in late 2007. And both presidents passed programs with costs still to be tallied in the future. Still, any politician charging the other party with excessive spending could--and should!--level the same accusation at his own party. Republicans and Democrats alike are addicted to spending money they don't have.
Rick Newman, On Friday October 22, 2010, 10:11 am EDT

Just The Facts

Rick Newman, On Friday October 22, 2010, 10:11 am EDT
If the goal of the stimulus plan was to reverse the worst recession in 75 years by the time of the next election, then sure, it was a failure. But most mainstream economists believe the stimulus helped end the recession months, and perhaps years, sooner that it would have ended on its own. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says the stimulus plan added significantly to GDP growth and boosted employment by somewhere between 1.4 million and 3.3 million jobs. The problem for Democrats is they made foolish predictions about how the stimulus plan would save the economy, saying, for instance, that unemployment would top out at 8 percent in 2009 and be falling consistently by now. So they set themselves up for failure by creating unrealistic expectations. Economically, however, the stimulus plan was a modest success, and looking back it's not clear that any other ideas at the time would have worked better. The reason the economy still stinks is that we just endured a violent recession plus a financial panic, and a thoroughly trashed economy doesn't heal on a convenient political time-line.

October 25, 2010

When you click on a .com, .net, or .tv site, you should be suspicious of the contents, destination and use of your information. When you click on a .org site you should be cautious of scammers.

MY QUESTION FOR THE DAY IS: Does anyone police the .gov's to insure that the entity is a government organization, and the .org's to insure that the entity is a registered nonprofit organization?

My question for the day is:

October 22, 2010

Why are voters so willing to accept and pass on false claims by Republicans?

Clinton: GOP 'banking on you not thinking'

From NBC's Adam Verdugo BALTIMORE -- Former President Bill Clinton thinks that voters need to pay attention to the facts like they pay attention to their sports. "When we care about something that's really important to us, like football or basketball or the World Series -- some life or death deal like that," he said sarcastically as the crowd laughed, "I mean we know the facts, right?" "You listen to ESPN talking about the last game in the National or American League baseball playoffs, why, you'd think you're listening to Einstein, the way they go through the facts," he said. "It's only when something has absolutely no significance to us -- like the economy, the future of our children, the way the nation is going to turn up -- when we say 'don't bother me with the facts I got my mind made up.'" "You're laughing, but it's true isn't it?" Clinton said. Clinton's contention is that Republicans have been playing loose with the facts in recent ads, and he wants voters to pause. "Suppose we think about it," he said. "This crowd," Clinton added, referring to the Republicans, "they're banking on you not thinking. They're banking on some people being so mad that facts don't matter and other people being so apathetic that facts don't matter." Case in point, Clinton says: "The Republican argument goes something like this," he said. 'Hey, they got the White House and the Congress, and we gave them 21 months to get out of that hole that we left them. And we're not out so throw them out and put us back in. We may not be out of the hole yet but it was a real deep hole. At least we stopped digging." The former two-term president said Democrats were asking for "four years to get out of a hole the American people gave them eight years to dig." It's only fair, he added. His other message to Democrats: they need to turn out on Election Day. He cited statistics from the 2008 campaign in which African-American voters turned out in greater numbers than the general populace. And he geared his message to younger voters, calling them "tomorrow's America." "None of these races would look like they do if tomorrow's America," he said, "the America that showed up in 2008, would just show up in 2010." The 64-year-old former president also took some time in his remarks for self-deprecating humor, recalling a recent speech he gave to a young crowd at a university, calling himself "ancient history." "It's kinda like going to the museum, except the mummy's not wrapped yet," he said. Clinton made these comments in Baltimore, Md., in front of a crowd of hundreds. He was campaigning for Gov. Martin O'Malley, who is in a race against former Maryland governor, Bob Ehrlich. Clinton, a former governor himself, said it was a job he knew something about. Clinton's visit came a day before early voting begins in Maryland.

MY QUESTION FOR THE DAY IS:

Should the Internet Giant “Google” be required to provide equal

advertising space to all political party's?

End tax breaks to stop overseas hiring

WASHINGTON – End tax breaks that reward some U.S. companies with overseas subsidiaries and encourage those businesses to create jobs in other countries, President Barack Obama is telling Congress.

Yet it's an idea that has raised concerns even among some lawmakers in the president's own party.

At issue is a bill, now stalled in the Senate, that would do away with some tax credits and deferrals for U.S. companies for operations abroad.

"There is no reason why our tax code should actively reward them for creating jobs overseas," Obama said in his weekly radio and Internetaddress Saturday. "Instead, we should be using our tax dollars to reward companies that create jobs and businesses within our borders."

Though Obama singled out Republican opposition, the bill also failed to get support from some Democrats, including the chairman of theSenate Finance Committee, Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont. He has expressed concern that the change would put the U.S. at a competitive disadvantage.

The ending of the tax provisions has run into opposition from business groups, including the National Association of Manufacturers.

Obama said that while companies that conduct business internationally do make an important contribution to the U.S. economy, it doesn't make sense to grant them tax breaks when companies at home are struggling to rebound from the economic crisis.

Obama has said he wants revenue collected from ending the tax provisions to go to other business tax breaks, by making permanent research and development tax credits and allowing businesses next year to write off all new equipment costs.

In the GOP address, Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., urged House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., to call Congress back into session to take an immediate vote on whether to extendBush-era tax cuts.

"The prosperity of the American people is more important than the political fortunes of any politician or any political party," Pence said.

Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., have said the tax issue will be taken up after the Nov. 2 election.