Comments on: Disappointed, But Not Surprised.

By: Monty T.

Monty T. — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 14:17:23 +0000

Liz,
I have written this response five times already this morning expressing my disappointment in our congress. Each time I have deleted my writings. I believe the majority of Americans feels as I do. My confidence in America has not been shaken. My confidence in our leaders has been decimated. Your title “Disappointed, but not surprised” pretty much sums up the feelings of most Americans. That is a sad situation. Thanks for your work.

By: freddy the freeloader

freddy the freeloader — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 14:01:13 +0000

Nancy Pelosi looked way too pleased with herself at the passage of the PORK-BARREL-STIMULUS package in the House. When the average unemployed Joe & Jane realize that their jobs were forfeit due largely to the actions of Congress and their Wall Street friends. And, that the “we need this now” assistance from Congress and our new President is mostly symbolic, ineffective, and loaded with pork and political posturing, maybe the electorate will finally kick these selfserving leaches out on their ears. We can only hope and pray that justice will be done. It will get far worse before it gets better. They get it. They know. However, our leaders just don’t care about anything but feathering their own nests and furthering their own adgendas! It’s a new deal, folks. Even Roosevelt, the consumate socialist, is rolling over in his grave!

By: Sean O'Hara

Sean O'Hara — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 13:52:13 +0000

Liz, how does one respond to what’s going on without making it political. Clearly we are in a slowdown. Not yet a crisis, and not even close to some prior slowdowns. If you oppose it looks like you’re taking the R line, and if you are for you must be a D. The bill is 600+ pages. There is no way anyone really knows exactly what’s in there, yet they all line up to cast their vote to spend the people’s money. $850 billion amounts to @$28k per person. Put another way, if it produces 3 million jobs, then each job created would cost the taxpayer $280,000 to create.

By: paul

paul — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 13:51:38 +0000

If the bill passes, can individual bills be written afterward to change things that aren’t really ’stimulus’?

I have a problem with millions spent on things like family planning – that doesn’t put people to work.

I have a problem with “tax cuts” for people that don’t pay taxes anyway – this is just more welfare and demoncrat vote-buying.

There are way too many pork-barrel projects that should have a scaple taken to them, as BHO promised, but will be passed as part of this massive future debt burden.

Just like TARP, this is being pushed through too fast, reason and sense left at the gate.

By: K B

K B — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 12:55:59 +0000

I agree absolutely. As with TARP, Congress, not to mention Treasury, rushed a decision through without “thinking it through.” We will all pay for their panic.

By: 6ftRabbit

6ftRabbit — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 10:46:03 +0000

I think you’re exactly right, Liz. We’ve been fed a lot of smoke and mirrors. Maybe we ought to return the favor with tar and feathers.

By: JR in SoCal

JR in SoCal — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 03:50:47 +0000

I would be curious what Joe Main Street thought he was going to be getting out of this $825B package. I know the numbers were close to 90% for Americans across the board for rejection of the fiasco that was TARP I. I would not be surprised if those numbers will be higher than that when Joe Main Street finds out his share of the $840B pie is only around 5%. Intrestingly enough, I heard a sound bite from the President describing this plan as the “American Rescue Invesment Package” or acronym I immediately thought to myself, “A RIP” as in a rip off!

By: joebhed

joebhed — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 01:16:35 +0000

Without doubt, there are serious problems with the economic bailout bill that is dependent upon unprecedented, and almost unfathomable, borrowing by the taxpayers of America.

I am convinced that the biggest mistake will be not knowing exactly what went wrong in the first place.
And not knowing the exact nature of the problem as we side-step forward with our democratically established patchwork of solutions.

If you read the Volker economists committee report, you will see that the nature of the problem is unpayabe debt service costs.
The debt-money system has reached its achilles heel.
The system cannot create new debt-money fast enough to pay the interest on the old debt-money.
Some people are calling that insolvent.
That would be the whole money system.

If you read this, you can learn “HOW Debt Money Goes Broke”.

http://www.financialsense.com/fsu/editorials/2005/1212b.html

It’s a serious two-pager for sure.
The solution is a new money system.

By: Geoff Ayoub

Geoff Ayoub — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 23:00:09 +0000

Completely agree. Neither party has a long term strategy, so we inevitably get money spread around like peanut butter.

Our problem is a lack of confidence. To boost confidence we need business to hire, not gov’t handouts. Gov’t should take a three pronged approach. First, build a “bridge” to get us through the short term recession, until monetary policy steps already taken start working. Second, build trust by putting put the worst of the criminals in jail. Third, create a focused set of initiatives to drive investment.

Bridge. No tax cuts. Focus on extending unemployment benefits, help with COBRA expenses, etc – anything that keeps people afloat without fear of bankruptcy. Focus on people.

Trust. Put some people in jail for defrauding the country. We need to believe in the integrity of our institutions. Right now, we don’t.

Focused initiatives. A rough history: The depression ended with World War II, establishing our manufacturing base. The 50’s had the Interstate system; the 60’s the space program. The 80’s were driven by the defense buildup; and the 90’s were about the dot com boom (which really started in the 60’s). Our focus now should be on energy independence, health care rationalization, maintenance of bridges and interstates, and a national technical infrastructure. Everything else should be off the table.

By: Gary Driscoll

Gary Driscoll — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 22:17:01 +0000

Huge waste of money that will do little for the economy. Lots of new “entitlements” created to guarantee future huge deficits, though, not to mention the current enormous deficit.