Head on with a cop!

[circmand]

Reagan started this runaway deficit train and the Bushs continued to push it down the track. Obama has made the deficit worse, out of desperation when the economy nearly went over the edge due to Republican deregulation of Wall Street. IMO he has barely had a chance to do anything but react to existing problems.

That's the way it looks from here anyway. And I am not a Democrat.

Given the shape liberal MN is in. Did all the wrong things in the state that the liberals in DC did. Then the people get all upset at the person trying to fix it because now the piper needs paid for years of bad policy. Are you aware that during BOs tenure unemployment and underemployment is over 16%? And that duringthat same period the Federal Government not only got larger but the number of people making over $100,000 a year increased dramatically? You solve the deficit by spending less not more. The percentage of taxes compared to the GNP is at the highest it's ever been and the solution is to make it higher? Thats what the liberals are saying. Of course more government control and government spending is their solution to everything from skyhigh unemployment to failing schools. A recent study actually shows the rate of turnover in Govt jobs is less than 1%. Anything less than 3% is keeping worthless employees.

[BigSwede]

Given the shape liberal MN is in. Did all the wrong things in the state that the liberals in DC did. Then the people get all upset at the person trying to fix it because now the piper needs paid for years of bad policy.

I may be wrong, but it seems like you are agreeing with me.

Are you aware that during BOs tenure unemployment and underemployment is over 16%? And that duringthat same period the Federal Government not only got larger but the number of people making over $100,000 a year increased dramatically? You solve the deficit by spending less not more. The percentage of taxes compared to the GNP is at the highest it's ever been and the solution is to make it higher? Thats what the liberals are saying.

I am NOT disagreeing with you. But you are missing my point - much of the increased spending recently occurred in an attempt to save the economy from a Great Depression-like event. Clamping down on spending was tried by the Hoover administration last time, and it did not work. People who say stimulus spending and bailouts are failure (Republican political candidates, often) because the economy is stagnant fail to allow for the possibility that things might have been much, much worse without the spending.

But, even if this spending saved us from greater pain in the short term, the question becomes - will this bite us in the *** down the road? Probably. Pick your poison.

A recent study actually shows the rate of turnover in Govt jobs is less than 1%. Anything less than 3% is keeping worthless employees.

I am currently working (as a contractor) in a federal building. About half the people I see walking around strike me as marginally employable in the private sector. A superficial assessment to be sure, but it agrees with your stats.

[vt_maverick]

But, even if this spending saved us from greater pain in the short term, the question becomes - will this bite us in the *** down the road? Probably. Pick your poison.

And this is the problem. Decades of choosing the short-term fix without addressing the long term problem. It's not a matter of "picking your poison" - sometime, somewhere we HAVE to pick the short-term pain. We wait until we're almost out of (other people's) money before we address the issue, and even then all most politicians want to address is how to bridge us to the next crisis. I'm tired of Band-Aids, they need to fix the problem.