• This is a political forum that is non-biased/non-partisan and treats every person's position on topics equally. This debate forum is not aligned to any political party. In today's politics, many ideas are split between and even within all the political parties. Often we find ourselves agreeing on one platform but some topics break our mold. We are here to discuss them in a civil political debate. If this is your first visit to our political forums, be sure to check out the RULES. Registering for debate politics is necessary before posting. Register today to participate - it's free!

Where do we put the blame for the crisis in this country?

Where do we put the blame for the crisis in this country?

  • Total voters
    16
  • Poll closed .
GreenvilleGrows said:
Actually, the debt was paid down and a surplus was passed to Bush by the Republican conservatives who controlled both the House and Senate from 1995 to 2000 under Newt Gingrich's "Contract With America".
Click to expand...

incorrect... no debt was paid down by anyone.

despite claims of a budget surplus ( which is different from surplus of real monies), the debt increased.
 
DaveFagan said:
St. Ronnie shipped jobs overseas. His mantra "greed is good" is stil in vogue with Republicans. GWSoupForBrains inherited a $500 billion dollar surplus to start paying down the debt and it was a real plan. Instead he gave away the surplus to the wealthy and started two wars on the credit card. The lion's share of the blame will always rest on the shoulders of the man responsible for the "GWSoupForBrains Great Depression."
Click to expand...

Reagan shipped jobs overseas?....
got substantiation?


"greed is good" is a human mantra... greed has no political affiliation, period.


back off of the political hackery and employ a bit of thought.. it's good for you, and for the rest of us.
 
Thrilla said:
incorrect... no debt was paid down by anyone.

despite claims of a budget surplus ( which is different from surplus of real monies), the debt increased.
Click to expand...
Public Debt
GreenvilleGrows said:
Republicans controlled the House and Senate from 1995 to 2000.
1996 Debt Increased by 6.71%
1997 Debt Increased by 3.37%
1998 Debt Increased by 2.03%
1999 Debt Increased by 2.88%
2000 Debt Decreased by 1.97% (a product of the "Contract with America" led by Newt Gingrich in preceding years)

in 2001 and 2002 the House and Senate were split and the debt grew by an average of 6.37% (9/11) and to a height of a 9.25% increase by 2003 when Republicans (not particularly conservative Republicans) regained a slight majority. Then the increase decreased (politician speak) gradually each year (9.25%, 8.55%, 7.56%, 6.24%) to 6.24% in 2006. The Democrats gained control of both House and Senate in 2007 (elected end of 2006) and in 2008 the increase in debt jumped from 6.32% in 2007 to 15.93% in 2008 another 15.06% in 2009 and another 13.92% in 2010. About a 52% increase in debt in just 3 years.
Click to expand...

Intergovernmental debt is a separate issue.
 
How pathetic is it that people blame 2 men...presidents...executives of legislation passed by congress for all the nations ills. Even MORE so that people blame a man elected 30 years ago and another that apparently was dumb as a load of bricks, yet smart enough to blow congresses mind for 8 years. A president that was stupid beyond words yet apparently managed to control both houses and elected officials...meanwhile the current president is powerless, even with party control over both houses pof congress for 2 years.

You know what that says about Bush and Reagan? Nothing. But it speaks volumes about the myopic mindless partisan hacks that blame them for the worlds ills. Still.
 
VanceMack said:
How pathetic is it that people blame 2 men...presidents...executives of legislation passed by congress for all the nations ills. Even MORE so that people blame a man elected 30 years ago and another that apparently was dumb as a load of bricks, yet smart enough to blow congresses mind for 8 years. A president that was stupid beyond words yet apparently managed to control both houses and elected officials...meanwhile the current president is powerless, even with party control over both houses pof congress for 2 years.

You know what that says about Bush and Reagan? Nothing. But it speaks volumes about the myopic mindless partisan hacks that blame them for the worlds ills. Still.
Click to expand...

You are absolutely right. All a President can really do about most of these issues is use his podium to engage the public. He should be able to point to a problem, pose a solution, and pursuade the public to put pressure on their congressmen. Rhetoric becomes useless after the election. That's what made Reagan an icon and why, in a more limited way, Bush2 was able to get done what he wanted. Clinton was poplular but Congress was pretty much out of his hands, and he sqandered his popularity defending himself. Obama had all the potential in the world to address real issues, but, apparently, either 1.) spent all his notoriety on the health care debacle; 2.) comes up with poor solutions to pose; or 3.) never had much credibility on his own within his own party.
 
Last edited:
Option E... I blame them all
 
GreenvilleGrows said:
You are absolutely right. All a President can really do about most of these issues is use his podium to engage the public. He should be able to point to a problem, pose a solution, and pursuade the public to put pressure on their congressmen. Rhetoric becomes useless after the election. That's what made Reagan an icon and why, in a more limited way, Bush2 was able to get done what he wanted. Clinton was poplular but Congress was pretty much out of his hands, and he sqandered his popularity defending himself. Obama had all the potential in the world to address real issues, but, apparently, either 1.) spent all his notoriety on the health care debacle; 2.) comes up with poor solutions to pose; or 3.) never had much credibility on his own within his own party.
Click to expand...

Oh, and Bush1 used his podium against himself - "No new taxes!"
 
Last edited:
the crisis is the result of more than three decades of failed economic theory.

if jobs are outsourced to extremely low wage / slave labor, then we will have "cheap" goods. however, that means a lot of people who would otherwise be making those goods are in far less demand in the job market and can command only a much lower wage, or no wage at all. this results in less spending. we initially addressed this problem by extending credit; this worked until the early 2000s. with easy credit, consumers could still spend, and the GDP could still grow. but credit is temporary; we experienced a significant correction in 2008. the underlying failed economic model remains.

secondly, our energy model has also failed. gasoline has been "cheap," as well, when only the retail price is taken into account. however, those energy dollars have also left our economy by the billions, and the model has required us to go to extraordinary lengths the maintain access to the oil.

we need to take our trade deficit a lot more seriously, and we need to address energy as a national security issue. additionally, if we are going to continue to rely on consumer spending, then we are going to have to find a way for those consumers to work. short of that, those workers will be placed on entitlements. that's the reality of the situation, because there simply aren't enough jobs. i have to admit that i do find it a bit ironic that those who disapprove of entitlements the most defend the model that creates the largest amount of displaced workers who will need entitlements.

who is to blame? there's no easy answer. the reality is that both parties, most corporations, and most consumers share in the blame. we wanted cheap retail goods and services at any cost, and that's what we got. the flipside is that there is a human cost when the economic model is a race to the bottom. we need to re-examine our national priorities, and we need to put emphasis on the sustainability of any model that we choose.

to sum, we can't have our cake and eat it too. if we want to sustain a first world standard of living, goods are going to have to cost a little more, and we are going to have to generate more of our own energy, which is the lifeblood of any economy in our particular era.
 
DiAnna said:
The state of America today can be laid at the feet of every single administration and congress over the past 25 years. What began decades ago is bearing fruit today. Deregulation in the late '80's paved the way for public funds to be used for high-risk junk bonds, losing public entities... and taxpayers... billions. It also set the stage for the banking industry to get creative with mortgage-bundling that led to the disastrous forclosure and banking crisis. In the 90's, NAFTA and the Free Trade Agreement gave corporations incentives to send jobs across borders and overseas. That crippled our manufacturing and service based jobs, along with dozens of other industries that once employed millions of Americans. In the past decade, monumental tax cuts combined with the staggering cost of maintaining two ongoing wars has decimated the balanced budget that existed in 2000. Obama's adminstration has done nothing effective to reverse any of these national crisis, but has added to it by reneging on his campaign promise to end the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, raise taxes to bring in needed revenue, and cut out redundant and unnecessary governmental agencies.

So blame them all, peeps, republicans and democrats alike. They've all put us in this mess, and they are too busy looking for ways to blame each other to hunch down and do what is necessary to fix it.

Campaign finance reform... every candidate gets the same warchest. If no one is able to buy our government, or buy a place in it, we might get qualified people who aren't just looking for job perks and worrying about their next re-election campaign. Maybe then the people will truly have a government that serves them, instead of itself.

Edit: And the poll options suck. What happened to "All of the above", or "Don't know"? The "I'm too stupid" was particularly annoying. So I didn't vote. Take that! :lol:
Click to expand...

Actually, the de-regulation movement began in the 1970's during the Carter administration. He deregulated airlines, the railroads, interstate trucking and some of the banking industry.
 
Helix said:
the crisis is the result of more than three decades of failed economic theory.

if jobs are outsourced to extremely low wage / slave labor, then we will have "cheap" goods. however, that means a lot of people who would otherwise be making those goods are in far less demand in the job market and can command only a much lower wage, or no wage at all. this results in less spending. we initially addressed this problem by extending credit; this worked until the early 2000s. with easy credit, consumers could still spend, and the GDP could still grow. but credit is temporary; we experienced a significant correction in 2008. the underlying failed economic model remains.

secondly, our energy model has also failed. gasoline has been "cheap," as well, when only the retail price is taken into account. however, those energy dollars have also left our economy by the billions, and the model has required us to go to extraordinary lengths the maintain access to the oil.

we need to take our trade deficit a lot more seriously, and we need to address energy as a national security issue. additionally, if we are going to continue to rely on consumer spending, then we are going to have to find a way for those consumers to work. short of that, those workers will be placed on entitlements. that's the reality of the situation, because there simply aren't enough jobs. i have to admit that i do find it a bit ironic that those who disapprove of entitlements the most defend the model that creates the largest amount of displaced workers who will need entitlements.

who is to blame? there's no easy answer. the reality is that both parties, most corporations, and most consumers share in the blame. we wanted cheap retail goods and services at any cost, and that's what we got. the flipside is that there is a human cost when the economic model is a race to the bottom. we need to re-examine our national priorities, and we need to put emphasis on the sustainability of any model that we choose.

to sum, we can't have our cake and eat it too. if we want to sustain a first world standard of living, goods are going to have to cost a little more, and we are going to have to generate more of our own energy, which is the lifeblood of any economy in our particular era.
Click to expand...

In my (somewhat worthless) opinion, you pretty much nailed it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom