Give it Some Time, Obama Says in Defending the Recovery Act

Common sense would hold that no one person , nor even one political party can be blamed for the nation's economic woes. As a matter of fact, we, the individuals of this nation, are to blame. We are in fact a government of the people, by the people, for the people. We have turned from being a nation of hard-working, thrifty, producers, to comfort-seeking, extravagant, consumers. We have sought out political leaders who will promise us "bread and circuses" (brush up on Roman history) - a life of ease, comfort, and no worries instead of leaders who will uphold the values that made our nation great. No amount of money, social programs, or government intervention will cure what ails us. It all comes down to each of us individually. Are we willing to stop living on credit? Are we willing to stop overindulging on things like housing, fuel, food, and luxuries? Are we willing to recognize that we are NOT entitled? Are we willing to realize that life is NOT all about me? It is not until we as individuals return to those values upon which this nation was built that we will see reform in the truest sense of the word. Best of all, we won't need government supplying the reform - it will come from within each of us.

The country is hemmoraging 500,000 jobs a month. We are in "The Great Recession". Companies are scared to death of hiring anyone because of the threat of 'cap and trade' (thanks Obama) and that they will be taxed and forced to pay for all employees health care (again thanks a lot Obama). Having been a consultant for 10 years I know this is supposed to be the 'busy time' when companies hire (before letting everyone go at Christmas laying them off). Well guess what they arent hiring and there will still be a huge Christmas layoff. When no one is buying stuff (real estate, cars, retail products in general) in January February 2010...what do you think will happen to the stock market? Unemployed people will max out the credit card to give junior & sis a decent christmas. Then what? When April 2010 comes and we are at 15% unemployment what do you think Uncle Sam will do to recoup his missing income tax revenue. All I can say is save every dime you have and be very thrifty we are in for a heck of a downturn, massive tax increases and inflation by then.

2Smart4u: How petty can you get? All Presidents have traveled abroad. Even if they didn't, it wouldn't affect the economy one bit. BTW, only the First Family went on the last trip. It didn't include Obama's mother-in-law or the aunt that you mentioned. Typical of the NoBama fanatics. If the facts aren't negative enough, invent something and add it to make your point.

It would show a little regard for all the American population, if the first family would show a little more compassion for everyone who can not afford extras.
Here is the family with granny and auntie in tow travelling around the world, visiting poor Africa, where you could see those unsmiling, malnourished children. How many families would Ghana's government have been able to feed if they had used the money for the motorcade! This whole trip to Africa showed me absolutely nothing, no feeling, just a big " Look at us! Here we come!

Buy stocks. Get rich with the Wall Street and Washington Wizards. TARP will make you rich.

"Even as we make progress on these challenges abroad, my thoughts are on the state of our economy at home." This is a statement you NEVER would have heard from Bush.

Obama needs to stop the shipping of USA jobs to India and halt, revoke and do away with H1-B visas altogether or unemployment is certain to keep rising. What happened to undoing the mistakes of former administrations and creating jobs. There arent any jobs in Africa for us Mr. President.

You've never seen anyone as fiscally irresponsible? Are you kidding? Ummm, the previous eight years ring a bell? So quick to jump on the bashing ban wagon. How about giving the changes a chance to actually work.Do you really think the economy and the mess we are in can be turned around in less than a year? How long did it take Clinton to fix the mess he inherrited?

The Bush administration fell asleep at the wheel in the first 9 months. The Clinton administration didn't take out Osama Bin Laden because he wasn't directly linked to the terrorist attack in 1993.And on the two occasions, the camp where Osama could be hit, there were women and children living on the site. Imagine what would have happened had they bombed the camp? Sometimes things aren't so black and white and one has to think ahead of the consequences of the act itself. Something the Bush administration should have done before invading Iraq on the premise of faulty and fabricated intelligence. To "take him out" would have involved the deaths of innocent children. And the Bush administration knew for sure Bin Laden was responsible for 911. Why didn't Bush "take him out"? You really believe they couldn't find him?

Sate and local governemnts are in trouble because of the current recession we're in as a direct result of the Bush administration horrendous mismanagement,corruption, and unjust war. State governments rely on a good economy and government funding.The states hardest hit are those that rely heavily on manufacturing jobs to sustain their local and state economy. If the national economy was good, say like during the Clinton years, a state in trouble would be a direct result of mismanaged state funds. Both parties may have been privy to the meltdown, but there is no doubt where it began and where it will end. And now we wait for the turn around, that with time, will come again.

>>>6 of the 11 states that are "in the red" have Republican governors: (California, Arizona, Nevada, Alaska, Vermont, and Connecticut)... 6 of 11... that's over 50% with Republican governors.... :-).
Posted by: X-Republican Because of Bush <<<

To X-Republican: To those outside Arizona, it may look like Governor Brewer, a Republican, is at fault for our current financial crisis but she is not. The fault lies with former Democratic governor Janet Napolitano. Napolitano resigned as governor to take her position as Secretary of Homeland Security in the Obama administration. Napolitano campaigned for Obama while neglecting her duties here. DHS was her golden reward and Napolitano bailed without telling AZ residents about the impending disaster.

Jan Brewer, a Republican, was Secretary of State and assumed the position of Governor upon Napolitano’s resignation – and immediately inherited the mess left behind. Brewer is making great changes and has taken a hard stand on the state budget with our legislators. It may end her political career but she is doing what is best for the people of AZ.

Obama's "solutions" for solving the economic crisis always involve the federal government. Want an example of how the federal government works? In 1966 LBJ and the Dems introduced Medicare with a budget of around $3 billion. They projected it to grow to around $12 billion by 1990. In 1990 the Medicare budget was about $109 billion. Now, 20 years later the Medicare budget is over $400 billion. That is like so many poorly run, poorly administered, corrupt federal programs. HUD, Veterans Admin, Indian Affairs, Education Dept. Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, SEC the list of US government disasters is endless. The bloated, corrupt Federal bureaucracy is like a giant mirror image of corrupt, bloated state governments like NY, California and Illinois where the public sector has gone rabidly insane and greedy.

JonF says : "...But what if he's wrong? What if he miscalculates? ..."

Jon, Since you never really know what your getting when you elect someone new to the Presidency, you could say that about every single President in the history of the US, and several of them have been 'wrong'. Some have screwed up this country good in as little as 4 years, but we ALWAYS survive.

Whether GWB is one of those failures is very much up to personal perception and (unfortunately) party affiliation, but one thing was clear: What we were doing wasn't working.

So I am up for giving someone else a stab at it with a new approach, and certainly giving that person more then 6 months to fix a problem that has been years in the making.

"Give it some time".......Well Mister President, the "I want it now generation" that had to have everything now and is partially to blame for some of this economic malaise, now doesn't have the patience to wait for the recovery either.

Danita: Bush ran about $500B a year in the red. But Obama is running about $1.5T in the red - a significant increase. What is not that widely publicized is that he is also "enlarging the cash supply" - basically printing more money to keep the deficit down. While this may not seem harmful at first glance, it can easily lead to rampant inflation. It also makes foreign lenders like China very wary of their investment in the US.

Lets forget which side of politics you are attuned to - it isn't really that important here. What is important is the fact that for 150 years the strength of the United States was backed by its economic strength. We could take the large role in the world that we did because we had the economy to back it up. Even during the great depression of the 30's - we had a fairly good sized GDP.

That isn't the case right now. We are fast becoming less and less of a superpower - more like super-broke. And yes, our standing in the world suffers for it. Obama's biggest shortfall is that he ignores all of this to fund his agenda. He wants his place in history and he will blow every last dime the US can get it's hands on to get there. But what if he's wrong? What if he miscalculates? He's already miscalculated terribly by totally over-estimating the growth of the American economy in his calculations of the future. Yes, he fudges the numbers and he knows very well what he is doing.

I have never seen a leader so fiscally irresponsible as Obama. Never. Less than 8 months into his presidency it is coming back to bite him too. People are getting wise to his agenda and motivations - and most of all his totally rampant overspending that would have made Bush look conservative in comparison. A few trillion more and even the Democrats will disown him. His spending is totally unsustainable. When he talks about saving money by spending more - it becomes a joke - at all of our expense.

Well - to all you 30 and under out there - you will be paying off this presidency's bills until you are 90 years old! Your children too will pay - that is - if we are lucky to be intact in 10 or 20 years. I guess we can all auction off states on eBay when things get really bad.

"You try to take a tragic event 911 and make it out to be the Republicans fault."

Of course 9/11 was a tragic event, we all know that and no need to restate it to attempt to own it for a sympathetic effect.

I did very clearly state this event happened 9 months into the Bush administration, and if a primary duty of the administration was to protect America, this was a failure.

President Bush claimed he would find Bin Laden and 'smoke him out' - again, this MUST be considered a failure since Bin Laden has not been found. The all-out effort in Afghanistan was backed off in favor of an attack on Iraq - and we know Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11.

I'm not saying any of these things are easy - but the tasks a President faces are not expected to be easy.

Could someone else, or a different administration have done any better? We will never know - it is the Bush administration that was in place when these things happened on THEIR watch.

Da Nita,

You try to take a tragic event 911 and make it out to be the Republicans fault. Now as history recalls the world trade center was first bombed under Bill Clinton in 1993. What did Bill Clinton do to prevent this from happening again? Did you know that Bill Clinton had several opportunities to take Bin Laden out? Yet, he failed to give the final go order to do it.

Mr. Bush came to bat when 911 happened, we had intellegence chatter but nothing that hinted at this size event happening here.

Many innocent Americans died that day, do not forget who did attacked us. Like Mr. Bush stated to fight terrorist we must take a hard stand we must the hunt them, and the war will be a long and drawn out war hunting them down. We must not back down.

Mr. Bush led one of the greatest campaigns in history to go after the money, the networks, etc to get at the heart of many terrorist organizations world wide. This battle will be ongoing and never ending, once we loose our will the terrorist have won.

The news never reported the facts never reported would probably make your hair stand on end.

The Republicans basically controlled the Presidency and Congress for 6 straight years. That the Republicans didn't see the economic crisis coming, nor prepare for it, can't be blamed on anyone else - and it can't be denied.

Did anyone else see it coming, who knows but they had not been in the position of power the Republicans held.

It's is very tough when things happen on your watch, but in this case they did.

It was the same with 9/11 - 9/11 happened on the Bush administration watch. Is it the Bush administration's fault? Their primary duty was to keep America safe - after 9 months in office they failed. Historians will perhaps have more to say on this.

Can everything be blamed on the Republicans? Probably not. Were they in positions of power when these events were gathering and perhaps could have been prevented - yes they were.

That is over 500 Billion in last post not half billion.

Da Nita,

Under Mr. Bush it went over half billion one time in 8yrs. Mr. Obama has us on paper for up to 5 Trillion of spending lined up!!!! That is the most in history. If You look at Mr. Bush his numbers were actually very much the norm historically. Get your facts right!