Serious question, what has changed since Obama has taken office that makes you happy? Or makes you think this country is in a better place then it was?

 

I am not interested in "He isn't Bush" talking points. I really want to know what has changed or been accomlished that you feel like is a success Obama and the Dems can be proud of.

 

A few things.

 

I am an engineer and most of what I do is related to construction. The economy fell off a cliff in the late fall of 2007. By the fall of 2008 the economy was in a free fall. There was no demand for construction and no money to pay for it where there was demand. I am still not happy with where the economy is today, but it is coming back. All of the signs say it will start coming back even faster. The stimulus bill had a lot to do with it. And as distasteful as the bail out bills were, they were an essential part of pulling us back from the cliff. Both the Bush and Obama administrations were responsible for that.

 

Small businesses that provide health insurance have been subjected to huge premium increases. Premiums have doubled in the last ten years. The bill just passed will allow small businesses to get into larger groups. That will help. It won't solve all problems related to health care, but it is a good start. Instead of spending the next couple of weeks working to make sure that the cornhusker kickback remains law, I would like to see the Republicans working to pass new bills that would improve on the bill just passed with some of their ideas.

 

The Obama administration has handled the war in Iraq very well. They have followed the broad outline of the Bush surge policy with the added provision of setting firm dates for withdrawal. In Afganistan they have greatly increased our efforts to go after our enemies. They have also put the Afgans on notice that our help is not open ended. They have done just what Obama said he would do and gone after the sanctuaries in Pakistan. In sum, he has gone after our real enemies much more agressivly than the Bush administration did, while at the same time giving us a way out of the disastrous Bush over reaching.

 

That is just a few reasons why I am pleased, but I think it is a pretty good start for the first year.

By 2020, the CBO estimates debt held by the public would reach $20.3 trillion, or 90% of GDP. That's up from 53% of GDP in 2009.

 

That's 20,000,000,000,000.

 

They're usually way low in their estimates,

A few things.

 

I am an engineer and most of what I do is related to construction. The economy fell off a cliff in the late fall of 2007. By the fall of 2008 the economy was in a free fall. There was no demand for construction and no money to pay for it where there was demand. I am still not happy with where the economy is today, but it is coming back. All of the signs say it will start coming back even faster. The stimulus bill had a lot to do with it. And as distasteful as the bail out bills were, they were an essential part of pulling us back from the cliff. Both the Bush and Obama administrations were responsible for that.

 

Small businesses that provide health insurance have been subjected to huge premium increases. Premiums have doubled in the last ten years. The bill just passed will allow small businesses to get into larger groups. That will help. It won't solve all problems related to health care, but it is a good start. Instead of spending the next couple of weeks working to make sure that the cornhusker kickback remains law, I would like to see the Republicans working to pass new bills that would improve on the bill just passed with some of their ideas.

 

The Obama administration has handled the war in Iraq very well. They have followed the broad outline of the Bush surge policy with the added provision of setting firm dates for withdrawal. In Afganistan they have greatly increased our efforts to go after our enemies. They have also put the Afgans on notice that our help is not open ended. They have done just what Obama said he would do and gone after the sanctuaries in Pakistan. In sum, he has gone after our real enemies much more agressivly than the Bush administration did, while at the same time giving us a way out of the disastrous Bush over reaching.

 

That is just a few reasons why I am pleased, but I think it is a pretty good start for the first year.

 

These are all fair comments, from your perspective. I just don't agree with some of them.

 

His "success" with the Middle East scenarios has been that he has kept his hands off of his generals. They control the battle plan, not him, and it has worked out well. From a political standpoint, the surge efforts were put into effect by President Bush, and Obama campaigned to be different than Bush, so far he has remained the same.

 

I do not believe he will comply with his troop deadline. My evidence would be today's revelation regarding the sending of the DEA to support the Army in counter-opium trade.

 

I simply do not agree with the hopeful economic forecast. The stimulus created no new permanent jobs of any substance. Now, the truth is, TA, and both of us know this, is that all recessions come to an end at some point anyway. Whether the electorate believes that the debt spending hurried ip or actually slowed down recovery remains to be seen, but in my work I see more and more bankruptcies, foreclosures, and credit card lawsuits every day.

 

Simple fact - over 85% of all borrowers saved from foreclosure by the bank legislation are now back in foreclosure.

 

I am not getting any banks to lend my small business any money. Are you? Is anyone on here?

 

President Obama is exactly and precisely what we knew he would be. I give him credit for that. He has not kept campaign promises about bipartisanship, not kept promises about transparency, not kept promises about debt reduction. We knew those to be the case. And that is OK. He won, we elected him. I give him a lot of credit for pulling all of this off, it has in fact, been truly amazing. To the winner goes the spoils.

 

The Republicans, incidentally (and I am speaking to those Republican BGPers on here) have gotten EXACTLY what we deserved. We continue to value image over substance; we continue to put up ridiculous candidates like Sarah Palin (I predicted her nomination several weeks before it happened and condemned it then); we continue to overplay our hand on every minor victory that we achieve; instead of focusing upon our own direct examination of our case, we spend an inordinate amount of time on cross-examination of the other case. It is a strategy for losers.

 

Case in point was the Motion to Recommit by the guy from Michigan last night between the Health Care bill vote and the Reconciliation vote. Who was the crown prince of idiocy that formulated that plan? All that did was give the point of order last hearing to the Democrats for them to take center stage and get the last word on the merits of Obama's Executive Order. Never ask a stinking open-ended question.

 

I applaud Obama. He got it done. I don't agree with the philosophy (right to health insurance coverage) or the mechanism (creation of state governments, taxation of rents, myriad of others), but the old boy got it done with a W(hatever) I(s) N(ecessary) approach full of backdoor deals, bribes, and graft, and he today stands atop the mountain victorious.

You didn't ask me, but I'll answer anyway.

 

I'm happy that healthcare form has been passed.

I'm happy that he's revising the NLCB.

I'm happy that he has been able to pass several bi-partisan pieces of legislation that I've not yet seen appear for discussion on BGP, like the jobs bill he signed last week.

I like the fact that despite the talking heads, he's sticking to his guns on what he wants to accomplish.

I'm happy he has a plan to end our military action in Afghanistan and Iraq

It wasn't limited to only those I quoted. Your response is welcome and appreciated.

These are all fair comments, from your perspective. I just don't agree with some of them.

 

His "success" with the Middle East scenarios has been that he has kept his hands off of his generals. They control the battle plan, not him, and it has worked out well. From a political standpoint, the surge efforts were put into effect by President Bush, and Obama campaigned to be different than Bush, so far he has remained the same.

 

Whether the success is from listening to the generals or not, the success is his. He could have just changed generals until he found one that agreed with him. The success in Pakistan is his. He put in a much more robust policy that is working.

 

I do not believe he will comply with his troop deadline. My evidence would be today's revelation regarding the sending of the DEA to support the Army in counter-opium trade.

 

I simply do not agree with the hopeful economic forecast. The stimulus created no new permanent jobs of any substance. Now, the truth is, TA, and both of us know this, is that all recessions come to an end at some point anyway. Whether the electorate believes that the debt spending hurried ip or actually slowed down recovery remains to be seen, but in my work I see more and more bankruptcies, foreclosures, and credit card lawsuits every day.

 

Every recession ends. The stimulus spending has resulted in construction jobs. Construction jobs are a very effective way to stimulate the economy. Engineering design is one field that has not been sent overseas (yet). Construction jobs are by their nature, local. The materials used for construction, rock, steel are US made. I fear that far too much of the $800.00 per family tax cut was taken down to the local WalMart to buy something made in China. Some stimulus to the US economy, but not enough. The construction dollars spend more time in the US economy before they get shipped top China.

 

Simple fact - over 85% of all borrowers saved from foreclosure by the bank legislation are now back in foreclosure.

 

A seriously upside down mortgage won't be saved by any bailout program. If the debt is manageable and the mortgage is not too seriously upside down it may be salvageable.

 

I am not getting any banks to lend my small business any money. Are you? Is anyone on here?

 

Fortunately, we don't need it right now, even though our little business is growing rapidly. I suspect that if we needed it we wouldn't be able to get it. That is a serious, maybe the most serious, drag on the economy.

 

President Obama is exactly and precisely what we knew he would be. I give him credit for that. He has not kept campaign promises about bipartisanship, not kept promises about transparency, not kept promises about debt reduction. We knew those to be the case. And that is OK. He won, we elected him. I give him a lot of credit for pulling all of this off, it has in fact, been truly amazing. To the winner goes the spoils.

 

The Republicans, incidentally (and I am speaking to those Republican BGPers on here) have gotten EXACTLY what we deserved. We continue to value image over substance; we continue to put up ridiculous candidates like Sarah Palin (I predicted her nomination several weeks before it happened and condemned it then); we continue to overplay our hand on every minor victory that we achieve; instead of focusing upon our own direct examination of our case, we spend an inordinate amount of time on cross-examination of the other case. It is a strategy for losers.

 

Case in point was the Motion to Recommit by the guy from Michigan last night between the Health Care bill vote and the Reconciliation vote. Who was the crown prince of idiocy that formulated that plan? All that did was give the point of order last hearing to the Democrats for them to take center stage and get the last word on the merits of Obama's Executive Order. Never ask a stinking open-ended question.

 

I'll agree with you on this. Watch what happens the next two weeks. The health care bill has been passed. It will be law when signed. Over the next couple of weeks we will be treated to the spectacle of watching the Republican senators do everything in their power to keep the cornhusker kickback. There are only two reasons to do that. Either they think it is a good thing or they think it is okay to keep it to help them get elected. I think I would like to run against the republican that used every parlimentary trick he could find to keep the special deals so that he could accuse the democrats of keeping the special deals. Makes sense to me.

 

I applaud Obama. He got it done. I don't agree with the philosophy (right to health insurance coverage) or the mechanism (creation of state governments, taxation of rents, myriad of others), but the old boy got it done with a W(hatever) I(s) N(ecessary) approach full of backdoor deals, bribes, and graft, and he today stands atop the mountain victorious.

 

The sausage making isn't pretty, but neither are a lot of things. When you set out to take Vienna, take Vienna.

All of the signs say it will start coming back even faster. The stimulus bill had a lot to do with it. And as distasteful as the bail out bills were, they were an essential part of pulling us back from the cliff. Both the Bush and Obama administrations were responsible for that.

 

 

Question. What stimulas driven projects have resulted in large scale hiring?

First hand, real world understanding would be great. It hard to see where any of this money has really gone to material projects.

Question. What stimulas driven projects have resulted in large scale hiring?

First hand, real world understanding would be great. It hard to see where any of this money has really gone to material projects.

 

Drive down the highways. You will see signs for projects where the funding came from stimulus funds. In addition to the direct hiring by the construction company there is also hiring by the materials supliers, engineers, equipment manufacturers etc. I only have one complaint. I don't think enough of the money went to construction.

Drive down the highways. You will see signs for projects where the funding came from stimulus funds. In addition to the direct hiring by the construction company there is also hiring by the materials supliers, engineers, equipment manufacturers etc. I only have one complaint. I don't think enough of the money went to construction.

 

I think I have only seen one sign to that effect. So maybe the 'marketing' function is not doing too well. While I know they are not going to build another Hoover Dam it seems there would be more visible hiring efforts that advertise for workers like when RJ Corman hired for the temporary railroad contruction jobs recently.

 

It does appear that a lot of money is going to education departments - likely to fill the void due to lower tax receipts.

This is what change looks like.....can't deny that!

Drive down the highways. You will see signs for projects where the funding came from stimulus funds. In addition to the direct hiring by the construction company there is also hiring by the materials supliers, engineers, equipment manufacturers etc. I only have one complaint. I don't think enough of the money went to construction.

The problem with the highway projects is they are all temporary. What has the stimulus done for long term jobs?

The problem with the highway projects is they are all temporary. What has the stimulus done for long term jobs?

 

All jobs are temporary. Construction workers move from site to site so it is more noticable, but if people don't buy cars, car jobs are temporary. If they don't buy groceries, Kroger jobs are temporary. I know many people that have spent their entire careers in construction. Every few months they move on to a new project.

All jobs are temporary. Construction workers move from site to site so it is more noticable, but if people don't buy cars, car jobs are temporary. If they don't buy groceries, Kroger jobs are temporary. I know many people that have spent their entire careers in construction. Every few months they move on to a new project.

 

 

Interesting..............

I wish this was passed a couple of years ago. Then my son wouldn't have been kicked off of my insurance plan while he was in college. He had to go without insurance until he got his present job.

I wish this was passed a couple of years ago. Then my son wouldn't have been kicked off of my insurance plan while he was in college. He had to go without insurance until he got his present job.

 

 

Me too. My daughter was without for a while when she left school. Thankfully, it was only a year that she was without, but the couple of times she got sick landed her with almost a thousand dollars in medical expenses.

I wish this was passed a couple of years ago. Then my son wouldn't have been kicked off of my insurance plan while he was in college. He had to go without insurance until he got his present job.

 

 

Other times I wish this had been in place:

 

When I was first divorced with two kids under 5, making $5.00 an hour and not getting child support. Couldn't afford health insurance, day care, rent, utilities AND groceries

 

When my brother was employed as a laborer, had a car wreck and landed in the hospital for a week, having surgery to repair his crushed ankle, unable to return to that line of work, and is still trying to pay off almost $100K in doctor's bills.

 

When my father had to make a choice to take his heart medication only half the time, then the third, because he couldn't afford the prescription and insurance wouldn't cover it.

 

When my sister and brother in law had a very bad year health-wise and exhausted their annual cap, leaving them with thousands of dollars in doctor bills.

 

When my brother-in-law lost his job, and their health care coverage.