A billion dollars --$1,000,000,000 -- is a thousand millions of dollars --or a million thousands of dollars.
A trillion dollars --$1,000,000,000,000 -- is a thousand billions of dollars or a million millions of dollars.
Correct me if I have this wrong, Someone --I'm not a math person, but if I'm right about these figures, what Obama is doing is STAGGERING, STUNNING, ASTONISHING!
Here we are, already in national debt --10.8 trillion on Feb. 26, 2009.
So what can we do???
Oddly, hypocritically, we heard about the staggering budget deficits and national debt being all GWBush's fault --yet congress would not let him reform Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security or any other entitlement program. AS YOU CAN'T GET ELECTED BY GORING ANYONE'S OX! RIGHT? They could not cut their earmarks, reduce spending --and some of them like Daschle, couldn't even pay their taxes! Additionally, as a nation, we were generous beyond belief for all the natural disasters, rebuilding Iraq to better than pre-war infrastructure; we borrowed money to help the victims of terrorism, AIDS, war --with no idea of how we were ever going to be able to pay it back. But how do politicians who need votes ever get in power if they don't give to everyone who asks??? Consider also that those who did this disaster relief work and other labor for the gov't. have CHARGED TOP DOLLAR! Everybody wants to be a millionaire and charges a fortune for their services. INFLATION of that sort has much to do with our deficit and debt.
From Mark Knoller's Political hotsheet, CBS NEWS:
Tony Fratto... served President Bush as deputy press secretary and as a spokesman in the Budget Office and Treasury Department.(emphases, mine)
He calls the Obama Administration's budget "the height of audacity."
Speaking for himself, Fratto charges the current White House is trying to "mask huge spending increases under the cloak of 'fiscal responsibility.'” And he rejects the current president’s charge that the previous Administration's budgets were full of hidden numbers and omissions.
"Our budgets were honest, open, and transparent. Every dime spent was presented, debated, voted on, and counted," said Fratto in a statement e-mailed to CBS News.
And he defended the Bush White House practice of putting war spending in “supplemental” appropriations bills.
"(It) was done to avoid permanently baking those appropriations into the Defense Department's baseline budget. That's good budgeting, not a 'gimmick.’”.
Until now, Mr. Bush ran up the biggest deficits and the largest amount of National Debt in U.S. history. The National Debt increased $4.9-trillion on his watch.
The new budget plan shows the title of biggest spender will fall to Mr. Obama.
That's what perplexes me. If Bush's deficit spending and his increase in the national debt were so terrible, why are the Democrats rushing to outspend him???? BY TRILLIONS!!!!! with all the bail-outs (which I understand because we don't want our pensions, insurances, and bank savings to disappear --but they will anyway through taxes and inflation) --but not just bail-outs, but NEW programs, NEW spending by gov't hoping that higher taxes on the few wealthy Americans will pay all these people's salaries in the new make-work programs. The bite in taxes will hurt business even further, causing more lay-offs, bankruptcies.
We really are playing Robin Hood --trying to help all groups --even if they made their own messes --and the people we are penalizing and expecting to come up with these trillions, are the small business folks and above, in income. So, many more will lose their jobs and be in financial trouble.
I wonder how many of our banks' short-falls, came from those who failed to pay credit card and education debt, bought houses and cars they could ill afford. All that credit spending without paying it back is part of the banking problem. The constant building of new malls, restaurants, and homes --puts people to work --but also puts people and places out of business. Investors hoping for a windfall on a sure thing found that we don't have enough consumers who aren't already in debt up to their eyeballs to sustain all the new businesses. After all, we aren't getting married and making babies anymore! A majority of Americans have been living above their means for years --and average per capita debt is several thousand in each household.
What a mess!
"God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance and have eternal life."--the Bible
15 comments:
You can not spend money!
It is against the laws of nature :)
Nothing appears and nothing disappeared all transforms from one form to another.
When they say "we spend 10 billion a month on the war" that means 10 billion are going out of your pocket into somebody else’s pocket.
The money is all out there, probable in Dubai and Zurich banks :)
I do realize that when we spend money on war (your quotation of 10 billion per month is not from me, BTW), it DOES mean that money is going into someone's pockets --including the soldiers'. What jobs will these young folks find when they come home and if the military is downsized? I think we should have them patrol the mexican border. I also think they need to vanquish the Taliban so it can't rise again. They are evil.
It's interesting about democrats --so generous with other people's earnings --and yet, statistically they are the poorest givers --and the least appreciative of our charity in Iraq. They were willing to just uproot ourselves from Iraq and let them fall to al qaeda and their internal strife. Just give up on them and leave.
The trouble is we owe ourselves to China now. They have bought up our T-bills and anything else they could get in order to control the money supply in this country. And we want them to give us more!
Lots of things in the so-called stimulus bill were needed such as money for infrastructure. But we didn't need money for condoms or for STDs or other pet projects. They may be worthy causes but they don't create one job.
The shovel ready jobs are nothing more than temporary make work jobs and when the project is finished the job will be gone.
Obama has taken no leadership role in the legislation he signed or the legislation he now wants passed. All he does is give congress a figure, tells them the goodies he wants and lets them add whatever else they want to add. Then he says it's because that's what the voters wanted in November.
I doubt the voters knew what they wanted from him other than hope and change. He was never specific with what he would do and just talked in generalities. People tried to tell Americans he was going to do exactly what he is doing, but either we are on the wrong side of our own country or they were so mesmerized by that man they voted for him anyway.
Wait until he gets his nationalized health care and an older person needs a heart operation but won't get it because they don't have many years to live anyway, so let's give it to the twenty year old illegal immigrant instead.
If banks, car manufacturers and businesses fail due to poor management and not providing a product the people want let them close or file for chapter 11 bankruptcy and reorganize. That's how business works and the government has no business trying to run businesses when they can't control their own spending.
This goes for republicans as well as democrats. Look at how the states and cities are lining up for their share of the money. Why should I pay for a house that someone got with no ability to pay it off? Why should I bail out the banks because they didn't make good credit decisions? If I ran a business that way I'd be out of business. Why aren't they?
"So what can we do???"
Eliminating the tax exemption on religious organizations would be an excellent start.
"It's interesting about democrats --so generous with other people's earnings --and yet, statistically they are the poorest givers"
Really? Can you back that up or did you make it up on the spot?
I'll be interested to see what you've been able to do with the IP trapping software Barb.
:-)
Actually, Kemibe, it's statistically true by a recent Indiana U. study and one earlier by John Stossel. Google him in reference to "who gives the most charity" or something like that.
It is the conservatives and the religious and the working poor who give the most to charity, proportionate to income. Sorry. And he said it wasn't just to religious charities either --it was ALL charities.
As for tax exemption on religious organizations. They NEED it, because their money comes from the already over-burdened tax payers, the poor, and people of all socio economic levels. They don't make or sell a product or make a profit; their money goes into their buildings and ministries, and a very few employees --in case of churches. more for colleges. They help the needy, the elderly, the prisoners, the homeless, children, the ill, the troubled, the bereaved --and help us all to be better than we might otherwise be.
remember Daschle (creative license here)--"I tell you, it's the rich who deserve to be punished with higher taxes in this country ---spllt spltt! who me? 100,000 in arrears? heh heh -- just a mistake."
Pfft - matching the data to fit a preconceived idea does not make it true.
However, I did find this "In 2000 the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University released the Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey, by far the largest and most extensive study of civic engagement by Americans that has ever been performed. Comprising data from a total of 27,000 respondents in 41 communities throughout 29 different states, the Survey measured a wide range of social participation, including charitable giving … and the data show no significant difference between liberals and conservatives in charitable activity or donations."
Oh and kateb - IP trapping software? The blogger kemibe linked to his profile! Feel free to trap my IP. Giving an opinion is not a crime (oh, unless it's against yours perhaps?).
http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=2682730
By: Dr. Richard Land
From: Casting Stones
Thursday April 10,2008
http://blog.beliefnet.com/castingstones/2008/04/conservatives-give-more-to-cha.html
Do "conservatives" give more to charitable causes than "liberals"? According to Syracuse University professor Arthur C. Brooks, they do. Dr. Brooks, a professor of public administration at Syracuse's Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, was quite astounded with the results of his own research, which was so at variance with the common perception of the generous "liberal" and the Scrooge-like "conservative."
In his book, Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservativism (Basic Books, 2006), Brooks discovered that approximately equal percentages of liberals and conservatives give to private charitable causes. However, conservatives gave about 30 percent more money per year to private charitable causes, even though his study found liberal families earned an average of 6 percent more per year in income than did conservative families. This greater generosity among conservative families proved to be true in Brooks' research for every income group, "from poor to middle class to rich."
This "giving gap" also extended beyond money to time donated to charitable causes, as well. Brooks also discovered that in 2002, conservative Americans were much more likely to donate blood each year than liberals and to do so more often within a year. Brooks found "if liberals and moderates gave blood at the same rate as conservatives, the blood supply in the United States would jump by about 45 percent."
When Brooks compared his findings to IRS data on the percentage of household income given away, he found that "red" states in the 2004 election were more charitable than "blue" states. Brooks found that 24 of the 25 states that were above average in family charitable giving voted for Bush in 2004, and 17 of the 25 states below average in giving voted for Kerry. Brooks concluded, "The electoral map and the charity map are remarkably similar."
Why? A clue may be found in the 1996 General Social Survey, which asked Americans whether they agreed that "the government has a responsibility to reduce income inequality." People who "disagreed strongly" with that statement gave 12 times more money to charity per year than those who "agreed strongly" with the statement.
One's values, beliefs and political philosophies seem to impact how much one shares of one's own income with the less fortunate in society. Facts are often surprising and illuminating."
But the bible says that charity should not be given to people!
Yes it does!
Oh, I'm talking about something I don't know about or understand? Just learning from you Barb.
That's interesting Barb - I read this one last year:
http://philanthropy.com/news/prospecting/index.php?id=6166
November 04, 2008
Conservative Voters Are More Liberal With Charity
Households that describe themselves as conservative tend to give more money to charities than moderate and liberal households, according to a new survey.
In a survey of 3,300 households that donated money to charity in the past 12 months, the company Campbell Rinker, in Valencia, Calif., asked respondents about their political ideology.
Of those surveyed, those who live in conservative households donated an average of $3,255 to charities outside of places of worship during the past year. By comparison, moderate households donated $2,926 and liberal households donated $1,879.
Conservatives also give significantly more money to their place of worship than liberals and moderates.
The survey found conservatives gave, on average, $1,841 to their places of worship during the past year — compared with $1,115 for moderates and $499 for liberals.
But while conservatives give more than their peers, they are less likely to spread the word to others about their giving experiences.....(the rest is at the link)
Anonymous, what's your point? Clear as muck --heh heh.
Thanks Kateb for reinforcement of the truth --that conservatives give more to charity. Liberals want gov't to do it all because they will have offshore accounts or tax evasion like Daschle, perhaps. I wonder where the Clinton money is.
Can you imagine where our pensions will go with higher taxes and inflation under Obama?
During the last recession we had to go door to door asking for a can of food for our local food banks.
I took my son in a little red wagon with a back pack so we could keep the food moving.
If it comes to that again - I still have that wagon :-)
Whatever we have to do to feed the hungry and get people housing and clothing. And the way things are going we need to gear up.
Post a Comment