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President Obama

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toffeestillidie said:
I definitely agree that earmarks are a huge problem, i just see them as a general problem, not a partisan problem, and I see them as a problem the president has very little ability to stop.

Obama pushed a lot of pork barrel spending, so did mccain, and so does any senator or representative who's constituents are satisfied with their representation. Whether we like it or not, pork is very much a part of our congressional system. Try criticizing your opponent's pork-spending in a senate race, and watch your chances of winning erode, and often times pork spending creates domestic jobs and can be used to fund important projects (though undoubtedly most of them aren't). If you look at the constitutional founder's intent, the Senate was created not to represent factional interests (which they knew would have a strong influence over the house of represenatives), but instead they were elected by state legislatures to serve the state's interest. Essentially, the senate's role is pork.

Now you're right, that getting rid of this system would create a lot of money for spending on important projects, but there really isn't any way that Obama could do this. In resisting pork, he may likely cause a rift between himself and congress, similar to the one that occurred in the Carter years (similar situation really, dems controlled both houses, but because a rift developed between the presidency and congress, nothing really got done, and i'm sure you'd agree it was a pretty terrible presidency). With the current state of world affairs, a president and congress that are unable to work with eachother could turn out terrible.

There may very well be a way to get rid of pork spending, I just really don't see how obama could do it.
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Agreed, and to reiterate, I don't think cutting all of the pork would magically solve all of our budget problems but it would help a bit. But we've got to get a handle on spending.

I'm not putting the onus on any President regarding the pork issues. I think Congress needs to get a handle on things and realize what kind of shape we're in.
 
Agreed. In Washington-speak, a budget reduction is when the growth in a budget has been cut from 10% to 9.5%. Oh the humanity! How will department X ever survive with a mere 9.5% increase over prior year?. A draconian cut to the bone.
 
I have no idea about the amount of jobs that are not necessary in Washington or not, but my best guess is that that can be dealt with via an external investigation either that or god forbid the people in charge of various departments should take it upon themselves to dump the junk and streamline.

In regards to national health service, as someone who has spent a lot of time in hospitals and regular vists to various doctors and professors due to things I was born with I can say with my hand on heart that while it may not be perfect, it DOES work, it works very well.
There is always room for improvement as with all things of course.

My argument is that the military spending of the U.S. is absolutely astronomic, take this picture for an example, its taken from a source on wikipedia.

country-distribution-2006.png


This speaks volumes, if you were to even halve the military spending and focus it instead on healthcare for the people IMO would make a impact 100000x greater than cutting a few jobs.

For all the arguments for and against, let me leave you with this to chew on...

"The US is the ONLY wealthy, industrialized nation that does not provide universal health care, according to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences and others.[1][2] Universal health care is provided in most developed countries, in many developing countries, and is the trend worldwide."

Universal health care - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 
Rob said:
I have no idea about the amount of jobs that are not necessary in Washington or not, but my best guess is that that can be dealt with via an external investigation either that or god forbid the people in charge of various departments should take it upon themselves to dump the junk and streamline.

In regards to national health service, as someone who has spent a lot of time in hospitals and regular vists to various doctors and professors due to things I was born with I can say with my hand on heart that while it may not be perfect, it DOES work, it works very well.
There is always room for improvement as with all things of course.

My argument is that the military spending of the U.S. is absolutely astronomic, take this picture for an example, its taken from a source on wikipedia.

country-distribution-2006.png


This speaks volumes, if you were to even halve the military spending and focus it instead on healthcare for the people IMO would make a impact 100000x greater than cutting a few jobs.

For all the arguments for and against, let me leave you with this to chew on...

"The US is the ONLY wealthy, industrialized nation that does not provide universal health care, according to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences and others.[1][2] Universal health care is provided in most developed countries, in many developing countries, and is the trend worldwide."

Universal health care - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Where's Russia sit in there?
 

id just like to say that imo , russia's putin is every inch the most dangerous man in the world and will turn out to be americas toughest challenge under obama.

that jumped up little psycho has been building up to a big confrontation for years.

but since day one he has pushed and flexed his muscles and takes every opportunity to rub countries up the wrong way . his move to prime minister just ensures he is the puppet master for as long as he sees fit and is slowly isolating russia.

does anyone else get the felling he wants things to kick off ?

no disrepect to russia and its people but that little kgb upstart is nothing more than a bully and needs taking out.

do you think obama will take a tough stance with russia ?
 
uknightbreed said:
id just like to say that imo , russia's putin is every inch the most dangerous man in the world and will turn out to be americas toughest challenge under obama.

that jumped up little psycho has been building up to a big confrontation for years.

but since day one he has pushed and flexed his muscles and takes every opportunity to rub countries up the wrong way . his move to prime minister just ensures he is the puppet master for as long as he sees fit and is slowly isolating russia.

does anyone else get the felling he wants things to kick off ?

no disrepect to russia and its people but that little kgb upstart is nothing more than a bully and needs taking out.

do you think obama will take a tough stance with russia ?
Click to expand...

Not a chance.
 
well, simply they don't figure in it, not yet anyway, its well documented that they are increasing spending every year so maybe in the future they will get their own slice of the pie.
 
uknightbreed said:
id just like to say that imo , russia's putin is every inch the most dangerous man in the world and will turn out to be americas toughest challenge under obama.

that jumped up little psycho has been building up to a big confrontation for years.

but since day one he has pushed and flexed his muscles and takes every opportunity to rub countries up the wrong way . his move to prime minister just ensures he is the puppet master for as long as he sees fit and is slowly isolating russia.

does anyone else get the felling he wants things to kick off ?

no disrepect to russia and its people but that little kgb upstart is nothing more than a bully and needs taking out.

do you think obama will take a tough stance with russia ?
Click to expand...

I hope not, because that would be the start of a new cold war...

I think with Russia its a case of "keep your friends close and your enemies closer"

Never trust a Russian.
 

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