Reply to "“Pulpit Freedom Sunday”"

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Semi,

I would like to answer you in a somewhat more complicated  answer to your question, and then work to answer it directly - OK ?

First, I would like to take a minute and explain why I said I was better off now than 4 years ago.

I am retired, and have a stable income based upon a retirement annuity and Social Security.

I also work from time to time at a part time job, but for the last couple of years I have not been able to work because of tending to my mother in the last few months of her life. In addition , I have left from work a 401K that so far I have not touched, and some bank stocks left from my banking days.

Four years ago, my 401K was worth roughly half of what it started with. I don't even try to manage it, I put it in various stocks and bonds recommended by Fidelity and have just left it alone.

Now, four years later, that 401K is worth almost 50% more than it was at the start, in other words, y net worth is three times more than it was when Bush left office on this one investment.

I also have bank stocks , which during the go go Clinton years paid enough dividends to be my "fun money" - paid for my Harley, wife's new car , and other toys. By the end of the rein of ruin of Bush, those stocks had plunged in value, and paid no dividends at all.  As of last year, the dividends have started back, although relatively small as compared to before, and the price of the stock has slowly gone up, although not to it's former glory.

There are some other things that have happened that would have happened under the presidency of your cat, but that is beside the point.

Am I financially better off ? Well, not just yes, but hell yes.

We all know the stock market is predicated by profit and fear, so I credit Bush with the near devastation of my stock portfolio, and Obama with the recovery - some of that I will get into in the next topic.

Enough about me.

Now, as to "is the country better off now than 4 years ago" ?

Well, in the last months of the Bush admin, the economy was shedding about 800,000 loss of jobs per month. Two months, 160,000, 3 months 240,000 etc.

After the first month in office that started to change, to less and less job losses and finally turned into jobs created in early 2010.

I know you have seen it before , but here it is again :

NNow , please keep in mind this chart is ONLY job losses or gain in the private sector. One of the things that keeps our unemployment so high is what the Republicans have wanted forever - the layoffs of GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES, which has accelerated exponentially in the last few years because of the lack of tax income at the state level, and the cut to them from the fed government. They have laid off teachers, cops, and a host of other government employees.

Now, there has to be about 125000 jobs created each and every month just to keep up with demand from the next generation coming into the work force from HS and College, so frankly , although 60000 jobs created sounds pretty good, it is only half as many as needed to satisfy the increasing work pool.

Having said all that, we come (I know, finally) to try to place my take on an answer to your question.

Well, first lets get this out of the way. Obama is the smallest spending president since Ike.

Check it out :  http://www.forbes.com/sites/ri...ve-its-barack-obama/

Now, I grant that that is a Forbes from the left  writer, but you check his facts , just more that you will not hear on Fox "News".

Ok, so we have (had) an economy in freefall, hemorrhaging jobs and decimating the tax base, so tax revenue's fell to both fed and state.Solution , add to debt.

Then, to top that off, the effects of the unpaid for Bush tax cuts started to really affect the national budget, solution, add to debt.

Then Bush added billions to the national deficit by signing into law an un-funded entitlement to pay for script meds for Medicare users.  Why pay for it when you can add it to the debt ?

Then, the war in Afghanistan, again un paid for , add to debt.

Then an unnecessary war in Iraq, about a trillion dollars un-funded - add to debt.

Then, the TARP bank bailout in the last few days of the Bush admin - Billions of dollars - hell add it to the debt ! (although to be fair, the current admin has collected it all back with a profit)

Do you remember Everett Durkson (R-Il) ?  "A billion here, and a billion there, and pretty soon you are talking about real money"  he said in his gravely voice. Well, yea

So, what has Obama done to either add to the problem, or try to correct it:

Well, he did spend a lot to save the American auto industry. Remember, all 3 ask for it , even tho Ford did not need or take any money, Ford needed the parts industry to stay in business and without GM and Chrysler, they knew that industry would fold. We have gotten back a lot of that money, in fact all that was a direct loan, but we still are "stockholders" in GM and if it is handled correctly, that stock sould be eleminated as the market does it's thing, and slowly , so as not to crash the market with a huge "sell order" , and quietly, so as not to artificially drive up the stock price.

He increased the ammoount of time that people could collect unemployment insurance (notice the word INSURANCE in that ) and made some investments, both good and bad in other industries, even trying to kick start the solar power industry to get that business back stateside instead of conceding it to China.

All these things added to the debt as well, plus, we are still pizzing away millions a day in Afghanistan

which must be added to the debt.

Now, he has had some failures as well that has hindered the economy, and remember, anything that hinders the economy, by direct means, adds to the debt.

The Congressional Republicans , during Obama's inauguration, had a meeting and pledged to in block, vote against any initiative that Obama put forth, whether it was their own bill, a Democratic bill, or any thing. If Obama was for it , they vowed to be against it. So far, they have managed to stifle every single bill that Obama has introduced that would put people to work. EVERY SINGLE ONE !

No debate, no compromise, no getting to a better solution, just NO ! NO! NO!

Now, just how can any rational person blame Obama for the total economic situation ?

Think on this - You live in some place where water is scarce. There is a drought. (take for example the midwest this year).  Your house catches on fire. The fire department shows up ASAP, and there are two choices.

1> save the water (after all , we are in a drought) and watchit burn

2> use that precious water and put out the fire to save your precious house.

Which option would you choose ?

The same situation in an economic sense was occurring when Obama took office,, try to stop the (fire) economy from going over the cliff and throw money at it - after all , the government is the employer of last resort, or just let it go , save the debt, and if people starve, what the hell, they need to just go get a job flipping burgers.

Back to your question,

I don't like the debt,(I don't like any debt)  although right at this particular point in time, the interest rate is so damm low, it is not a problem - However, when the economy does recover, interest rates are bound to go up and THEN  it will be a problem, a big problem.

I hope I have answered already my view as to how we got there.

How are we to get out of this hole is the next logical thing -

Well, during the 90s we had a tax structure that seemed to work just fine, in fact , once it was instituted (with Al Gore having to cast the deciding vote in the Senate because all the R's said (you guessed it ) NO! ) the US economy just seemed to take off into the largest expansion ever.

So, I would say we should let the Bush Tax Cuts expire (hopefully Obama will have the nads to do just that - should have done it last year), and we need to bring the defense budget down to about where it was during the Clinton years.  It's BS to think he "gutted the military " as Fox would have us believe. Where do you think Bush got all those smart bombs he wasted in Iraq ? the bomb fairy ?

That stockpile was a result of Clinton's forsight that the nature of how to wage war is changing, and we need higher tech weapons and less other stuff.

Get the hell out of Astan, get Blackwater out of Iraq, and quit trying to be the world's police force.

Incorrectly attributed to John Dillinger the quote as to why he robs banks "because that's where the money is".

Well, we should look at the national budget "where the money is" , and the single largest (by far) thing is the defense budget. Larger than most of the rest of the world's military budget combined.

Start there, with cuts, expire the Bush tax cuts, and lets see what happens.

Well, Semi, that's my take, probably more than you ever wanted to know .

Hope you read it.