Cash For Clunkers

[cargirl1990]

im so glad that i live in Canada, becuase ( sorry about this ), your health care sucks.

[Kitdy]

Personally, I prefer Bush to Obama at this point, but I will wait till Obama finishes his term to make a more clear assessment.

I gotta do it. Let's go back to the war. Hundreds of thousands of civilians dead due to the war in Afghanistan and Iraq if not over 1 million people. And what we've got is a "free" Afghanistan and Iraq. Was that really worth the price?

Are you really more comfortable with all those people dead than you would be with Obama's plans?

[Wouter Melissen]

Are you really more comfortable with all those people dead than you would be with Obama's plans?

Yes but Obama intends to kill all our pets!!

[Dino Scuderia]

If Obama can explain how he is going to pay for the plan, i care less what plan he chooses. However, i wonder why we did not ask Bush how he was going to pay for the Iraq war. We gave Bush a blank check and now we are suddenly going to give Obama a headache????

Before the war various members of the Bush Admin. were saying things like 'the war won't cost much' and 'it will be paid for by the sale of Iraqi oil'....blah blah blah. Obviously they were wrong about so much of it including the cost....and flat refused to raise any taxes to help pay for it. A chunk of it was paid for by selling treasury bonds.

Obama is falling into the same trap...his proposed healthcare plan(and other entitlements) is going to cost way more than 'expected' and he's made the promise that he will not raise taxes on the middle class. Since that promise there has been some waffling... indicating the reality of all the massive spending will have to be spread across all taxpayers, not just the wealthy.

After/if the healthcare reform is put to bed he will have to focus on taxes for the next budget....it isn't going to be pretty. Gov't revenues are going down due to the economy, spending has skyrocketed. The 10 year deficit estimate is being pushed up to 9 trillion from the previous 7 trillion estimate. Then comes inflation...

[LTSmash]

I gotta do it. Let's go back to the war. Hundreds of thousands of civilians dead due to the war in Afghanistan and Iraq if not over 1 million people. And what we've got is a "free" Afghanistan and Iraq. Was that really worth the price?

Are you really more comfortable with all those people dead than you would be with Obama's plans?

My main points in support of both conflicts have been brought up in previous related threads so I don't want to go into a huge diatribe about it. But I will bring up this to satisfy your point: how many millions were killed in WWII to achieve the overall goal of independence from oppression? If the Americans, Canadians, and English did nothing on June 6 what do you think the outcome would have been in Europe? I would say even more catastrophic than the millions of collateral damage that already occurred. Negotiating with the Nazi's would have achieved nothing but only pandering to a regime hell-bent on destroying normal civilization. I see the same correlation in terrorism and Saddam's regime (and other similar government).

War is chaos but not doing anything to fight terrorism or fight for** the freedom oppressed is also chaotic.

[G35COUPE]

Before the war various members of the Bush Admin. were saying things like 'the war won't cost much' and 'it will be paid for by the sale of Iraqi oil'....blah blah blah. Obviously they were wrong about so much of it including the cost....and flat refused to raise any taxes to help pay for it. A chunk of it was paid for by selling treasury bonds.

Obama is falling into the same trap...his proposed healthcare plan(and other entitlements) is going to cost way more than 'expected' and he's made the promise that he will not raise taxes on the middle class. Since that promise there has been some waffling... indicating the reality of all the massive spending will have to be spread across all taxpayers, not just the wealthy.

After/if the healthcare reform is put to bed he will have to focus on taxes for the next budget....it isn't going to be pretty. Gov't revenues are going down due to the economy, spending has skyrocketed. The 10 year deficit estimate is being pushed up to 9 trillion from the previous 7 trillion estimate. Then comes inflation...

I worry about the cost to the extent that it could potentially send jitters through the spines of big business and thus, a total or near hysteria in the world of finance. The fact here is that the leadership, whether democrats or republicans, have really caused so much problem.

My earlier comments about republicans isn't to bash them, eventhough it comes across that way. My comments was designed to get the most vocal group so far, which heppen to be republicans at this time, to sit still and start asking questions about the future of the nation. Sometimes, to do so, we need to show them a mirror of their own past handiwork.

Here is the fact.

1. The deficits matter a great deal. It needs to be brought under control.

2. Health reform is a necessity and it needs to be addressed in terms of healthcare costs. If we don't fix helathcare, then we won't be able to deal with the deficits as they keep rising. Healthcare in the US is adding to both public and private debt and deficits.

3. Rising deficits will or may cause rising inflation. We can control this in the short-run. However, at what cost would this be to the long-term growth of the economy? Will the economy grow faster than rate of inflation in order to keep the deficits down? And will we have enough fiscal discipline to reign in expenditures?

4. When are we going to raise taxes to pay for these expenses, and which taxes will be raised to do just that? This is an inevitable reality, if one considers the long-run.

5. When will social benefits begin to be cut in order to save money?? when will our debtors demand that we pay a far higher risk premium for a rise in our annual deficits??

[G35COUPE]

My main points in support of both conflicts have been brought up in previous related threads so I don't want to go into a huge diatribe about it. But I will bring up this to satisfy your point: how many millions were killed in WWII to achieve the overall goal of independence from oppression? If the Americans, Canadians, and English did nothing on June 6 what do you think the outcome would have been in Europe? I would say even more catastrophic than the millions of collateral damage that already occurred. Negotiating with the Nazi's would have achieved nothing but only pandering to a regime hell-bent on destroying normal civilization. I see the same correlation in terrorism and Saddam's regime (and other similar government).

War is chaos but not doing anything to fight terrorism or the freedom oppressed is also chaotic.

But terrorism is first an ideological position than it is a military position. I personally always wonder how we can ever win the battle of ideas with weapons and missiles.

[Kitdy]

My main points in support of both conflicts have been brought up in previous related threads so I don't want to go into a huge diatribe about it. But I will bring up this to satisfy your point: how many millions were killed in WWII to achieve the overall goal of independence from oppression? If the Americans, Canadians, and English did nothing on June 6 what do you think the outcome would have been in Europe? I would say even more catastrophic than the millions of collateral damage that already occurred. Negotiating with the Nazi's would have achieved nothing but only pandering to a regime hell-bent on destroying normal civilization. I see the same correlation in terrorism and Saddam's regime (and other similar government).

War is chaos but not doing anything to fight terrorism or fight for** the freedom oppressed is also chaotic.

But was terrorism or Saddam killing as many civilians as the invasions did? No. Life under the Taliban in Afghanistan and Saddam in Iraq probably wasn't the best, but at least it was a life. Now how many have died in these invasions? What are we left with in these countries anyways? It's pretty much chaos right now isn't it? Afghanistan is massively corrupt as far as I've heard, and Iraq is divided to hell.

We're at an impasse here I guess - I don't know where there is to go.