You didn build that !

I started when he made that comment he has cut the deficit in half. I honestly think he can not add. That youtube video of him telling people Bush put 4 trillion by his lonesome, that's unpatriotic. Well you put 6.5 trillion in 5 yrs, then what do you call that then Mr. President!

john b wrote: This is a boating site and I'm just not having fun on this thread anymore. Suffice it to say I stand with Joe in NY. As soon as you come up with a BFN OR SN that goes faster than his I will listen to your opinion. That is all!

Sorry John, I would not feel comfortable unnecessarily producing that volume of green house gases.We need to think about mother earth.

So if the credibility scale is horse power on the water based, Joe has 500, and I have 240. What was in that little jet ski you had at green lake?

I get it John, When our guys do it it is a criminal outrage , but when your gut does it just walk away. They say the way to judge a persons dedication to principles is to see if they stand by them even when they go against their own best interests.

John, If I understand the process that occurred correctly steps 4 and 5 were skipped and replaced by reconciliation.

davidg wrote: Laws get changed all the time! FYI! "Clean" CR=Bad CR=Give Obama whatever he wants with no negotion and/or much higher national debt, and more deficeit spending. Tea Party=The group of people that will help overturn bad laws, get our national debt under control, and send RINO's packing. Maybe the IRS shouldn't have poked a hornets next.

You are right, David, Laws are changed all of the time...according to an orderly and well defined process.

For centuries, the US government has done legislation according to the following agenda.

1. A bill is passed by the House (must originate there if it involves spending).
2. The house bill is communicated to the Senate, and the Senate produces its own related bill.
3. If passed by both houses, a conference committee marks it up and sends it back to both chambers.
4. The House and Senate votes on the conference committee version.
5. If the conference committee version gets a majority vote in both houses, it is sent to the President.
6. If the president signs it, it becomes law.
7. If the president vetoes it, the bill goes back to the House and Senate.
8. If each of the House and Senate passes the vetoed bill by a 2/3 margin or greater, the bill becomes law despite the veto.
9. The constitutionality of the bill can be challenged in court. The Supreme Court has the final say here.
In case you missed it, the Supreme Court has ruled on Obamacare.

The Affprdable Care Act (Romney Care, oops, I mean Obama Care) passed steps 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 9. Steps 7 & 8 were not applicable

The Republican controlled House now plans to cause a government default, specifically by not approving a new debt ceiling bill, if the ACA is not stripped from the budget.

If Obama caves on this, it will fundamentally change the way legislation is done in this country.
Any group that has the necessary votes to hold up a bill deemed as vitally important (a budget-related bill in this case, but it wouldn't have to be) can circumvent existing legislation by holding it hostage to another bill.
That is chaos and irresponsible. A law should be passed on it's own merits as it has been since the inception of our form of government.

The fact is your candidate lost. The people have spoken. Obamacare is the law. Get over it. Go out for a boat ride, a walk, anything. Politics is theatre on a small stage. Get out, enjoy life, and seek knowledge. I am tired of re-hashing the Republican failures. John Hardon is the greatest gift the Democrats have ever received, well, maybe the TEA Party has that tie already.
Unless a clean CR is approved the obstructionists holding up the vote are little more than criminals refusing to obey the law of The land and pay our bills. I submit that this action by the Republicans is very close to the decimation of a criminal conspiracy.

davidg wrote: Oh by the way, government is already in healthcare. It's called Medicare. Due to go broke in 2016! Forbes Article....Medicare Going Broke by 2016

You make my point! the government did much better than the private sector insurance and banking institutions. They went broke in 2009 and then sponged off of the government to fix the bad investments they made. Medicare is still paying its bills.

While I enjoy escaping reality once in a while with a Science Fiction movie, I do not base my personal scientific and political beliefs on Science Fiction movies. (Atlas Shrugged: Genre Drama, Mystery, Sci-Fi). The temptation was there with Road Warrior, The Terminator, and The Matrix, but I controlled the urge. I prefer good old investigative journalism and writing to fiction. READ A BOOK! Then get back to us.

For any of you who mistakenly believe the crisis was caused by the government forcing banks to enter into high risk sub prime mortgages I suggest you tuen off the blathering idiots on the tube and read this well written investigative book on the collapse. I believe it is the best book I have read on the subject.
The Monster

Description from Amazon.com

We all saw what happened when the government got into the housing business, and mandated banks loan money to people who couldn't afford houses....the housing market collapsed, and dragged the economy with it in 2008/2009. Many like to blame it on the banking industry. When government was out of the housing industry, banks actually had to worry about making a profit, and not losing their money. Whent the government backed everything up via Freddie and Fannie, all bets were off.

Now the government is getting into the healthcare business. We already see how it is going so far, and it isn't working too well. They knew that the computer system wasn't ready yet, but, they made the decision to go anyway. Maybe it's good they did so everybody gets a good taste of this monstrosity before the elections next year.

If our dear leader's healthcare program is so great, why doesn't Obama, and Congress have to participate it in, or more accurately, why do they get 75% tax payer funded subsidies for theirs? Wouldn't they also like to save $2500 per family to participate in it? They should be forced to eat their rotten cooking.

For you movie buffs, you ought to watch "Atlas Shrugged". There are actually three in the series. I have watched I and II. A lot of parallels as to what is going on with government, and American society/politics/economy/industry over the past five years or so. Well worth watching for the high information voter crowd. It certainly points to where we are headed. You could say it is a "fundamental transformation" of America.    

A few steves above through in the "free" healthcare terminology and the adults in the room could understand it was tongue in cheek and not waste the time to pretend that they were sooo much smarter than the soo called low information voter. I will take low information voters over those who expose themselves willingly to a steady diet of misinforation and simplistic half truths..

The DMV is a state run entitiy - the ones around here run like a swiss watch, but still the more accurate comparison would be the Medicare administration.   Compare that to the way current health insurance companies work and I can't see why anyone in thier right mind wouldn't rather see a single payer system as it is more efficient and competent in every way. Seriously have you ever dealt with a private insurance company? Plans have been going up double digit percentages the last 15 years now, double or triple billing for the same proceedure is the norm, doctors offices have mulitple employees just to deal with different insurance paperwork. Doctors have to taylor thier treatment plans differently for different people on different insurances. Basically every bad thing that people say would happen with a single payer plan, or now because of the ACA already happens daily with current insurance companies. Only you can't vote out the morons in charge, because for the vast majority of the country it is your employer that chooses your insurance provider and plan. Who by the way often also has to have multiple employees to adminsiter such a plan. From a free market economic standpoint tying health insurance to employment is simply freaking crazy...anything- literally anything- that starts to break up that unholy marriage will make america better and more competitive. Not to mention increase the quality of care.

As for debt and deficit reduction - duh it needs to be done - however failing to raise the debt ceiling or fund the government does nothing but cost billions of dollars in additional debt daily.... it doesn't save money to give people paid vacations. And if we default for even a day it will add trillions to the debt in terms of increased interest rates servicing the debt - not to mention the trillions of dollars in private wealth that will be wiped out, or the trillions of dollars in reduced future revenues due to the economic impact.

That is reality - fail to raise the debt limit and america will be on the hook for trillions more in principle and interest payments. All those additional trillions will come from workers pockets (you and me) and go to investors pockets (the koch brothers and china). That is all there is to talk about here - do you want to owe them more money and at a higher rate just so you can pretend for a few days that you are not going to pay them the money you already owe?

The impact of the AHA to my family.

Wife covers us through BCBS (state plan offered through her teaching job).

Premiums went up 10%. Surprisingly the employer is picking up most of the increase (for 2014).

Annual family deductible went from $1500 to $6500 per year.

Just one experience here. I'm sure that there are some that will be positively benefited.

Whether you agree with it or not, this is the new norm and you might as well get used to it. AHA is the law and while I don't agree with most of it, it's here to stay. No amount of political drama is going to take it away at this point.

The most troublesome thing about our political system in my opinion is that it's no longer about what is right and wrong it's about doing the opposite of what the other party wants to do. Much of this fueled by the Limbaugh, Hannity, Madow, Matthews talk shows and of course the Fox and CNN "news" networks.   I fear that the polarization is to the extent that no real progress will be possible in the future.

With regards to the spending, surely it's gotta slow down. I realize you can't compare an individual family income and spending to that of a country, but there can't be indefinite time period of deficit spending whether the spender is a family or a nation, no? How is that possible? Even if it is, why would you want it to be?

__ __ __ __ it, lets go bowling.

Depending on what you get for it you can add a trillion a year for 20 years - of course nobody is planning or projecting that we do that - deficit projections for this year are 640 billionish, then 560, 380, 432.. then they go back towards 600 - 800 in ten year out cycle..

The effect that has on the strength of the dollar is nebulous at best. The effect of the government shutdown and soon to be default on the value of the dollar is a sure thing

The simple fact is if you went back to the tax rates we had under clinton you would be back to paying off the debt run up finacing wars with tax cuts and having to buy our way out of a housing bubble created by loosening of regulations.

Cuts are also required but certainly not the ones being thrown out there that do nothing but transfer costs to the states that we are all feeling in higher property taxes

and none of that has to do with the fact that the nut jobs are going to add trillions to the debt if they cause a default because Rush told them to

How long can we go on adding 1 trillion per year in additional debt? And what happens if the dollar becomes so weak that it is no longer the world's preferred currency?